"Monsieur Treville would have loved your brothers," he said.
"Who?" Per asked.
"An old acquaintance of mine, a leader of soldiers."
"I doubt Karl or Lars would make good soldiers," Per said with a rueful shrug. "I've tried it and I don't want any of us to join the army. Soldiers die."
"It happens." Mazalet's answering shrug was pure Gallic. "It happens. However, I might have a proposition for you later, but I can't contain my curiosity. Was your brother pulling my leg about those bells?"
Per smiled. "Not really. But he was just six years old when Grandpa died. As I understand it, they put the bells on a barge and tied them to a rope with a sealed keg at the other end."
"And that notch? It sounds like a nobleman's joke about stupid peasants."
"Nothing stupid about it," Per said. "The village elders held the barge just so and cut several grooves aimed at different landmarks. You could only see those landmarks through the grooves when the barge was in the right spot. Fishermen do it all the time when they find a good spot. This was a little more precise, and with a little rowing and shouting they would have found the bells after the tax collectors went home."
"But the barge burned?" Mazalet asked.
"I don't rightly know." Per shrugged again. "It is nowhere to be found, and by now the rope and keg must have rotted or sunk and so the bells are lost. Looking for them is a tradition in Delsbo."
"I see," Mazalet said, waving for the serving wench. "In fact, I believe that together, we could bring back those bells." He smiled as he watched the young woman pour. "After all, the highest church steeple in the world deserves the best bells."
"He swallowed the bait," Per said.
Ginny grinned. "Hook, line and sinker," she said. "If you understand the expression?"
"Of course." Per smiled faintly. "I see what you mean about him being a good liar and cheat though. He agreed to us each getting an equal share without batting an eyelid. With two shares for himself, and, of course, expenses. He even agreed to write it down and signed it with a fine pen. I made a show of being barely able to read, and struggling with figures, just as you told me."
"He believed that?" asked Ginny.
Per nodded. "Just as he believed we were great swimmers. He didn't guess you had half killed us these last few days teaching us more than just to stay afloat."
"Still, to agree to your starting position…"
Per shrugged. "He intends to cheat us, but he needs divers to persuade people that he really will raise the ship. He would sign anything. He doesn't know that I got the innkeeper and the consul to sign as witnesses. In those old peasant clothes he wore, I wouldn't have recognized Herr Consul myself." Per shook his head admiringly. "He was the perfect fat peasant burgher. Anyway, Mazalet said he didn't care, as it was really the honor of salvaging the ship that he was after."
"He's lying," Ginny said flatly. "Did I tell you what the ship is worth?"
"You did," Per said, "but I didn't understand all of it. That GNP business was a bit beyond me."
"You and most people," Ginny said. "It's been estimated that the Vasa was worth one twentieth of everything that was produced in Sweden that year."
"I still don't understand that," Per complained. "The wharf is big, but even among the locals, not even one man in twenty works there. And most people are farmers in the countryside, anyway.
"All those farmers are taxed," Ginny said, "Are they not?"
"Of course," Per said. "Nobody likes it, but just about everyone outside Delsbo pays."
"Right." Ginny spread her hands. "And much of that money goes into building ships and guns. Believe me, if we succeed, Mazalet will be richer than all but the dukes. My only doubt is whether Mazalet intends us to succeed or just to look like we may. But if it looks like it is working, he will stay."
"And he isn't the sharing kind?" Per asked.
"No," Ginny said. "Definitely not. He'd go back on that deal in an instant."
"Not anymore," said Lothar Boelcke, emerging dressed in his own clothes once more. "That contract is binding."
Per nodded. "We will need you to make over the shares to Fraulein Cochran, Herr Boelcke."
"I see we're going to argue again," said Ginny.
Per shook his head. "No. Without you, lady, we would be worrying about being conscripted, let alone working for a bright future for four penniless farm boys. As it is we can claim to be working on a project sanctioned by the admiral himself. You will pay us fairly," he said with finality.
Lothar Boelcke shook his head. "To save having the argument again. I asked Anna. She said four shares-two for you brothers, two for Ginny here, ja. She has all the knowledge and all the planning, but she needs you for diving, for courage and strength, and one third is fair for Mazalet having to swindle up the money for the barge and equipment." His eyes twinkled. "And Anna is always right. Ask Ginny. Ask me. I have thirty years' experience of it."
Per looked at his brothers. Nodded. "Very well. Now we just need to explain this to Mazalet."
"Let's wait a little," said Ginny.
Lars nodded. "Always make sure that the crayfish is in the trap first, before you haul it out of the water. Now, lady, explain again how this 'diving bell' works?"
"Ja. I want to understand what I drown in," said Olof, in broken German.
A little later, they were sitting in a salle at the consulate, as Ginny demonstrated with Anna's largest preserving bowl and a glass and small piece of thin bent copper pipe. She pushed the glass-mouth down-into the water. "It still holds air. Now watch how the water pressure pushes at it. The air cannot escape, but water now fills the bottom half of the glass." She handed the J-shaped tube to Olof. "Now, put your finger over this end, and the other end into the bottom of the glass."
"I have it!" he said, delightedly. "We sit inside the glass and breathe through the tube!"
Ginny shook her head. "It won't work. Trust me, please. I will show what would happen."
He did as he was told. "Now take your finger off. The air will come out. And if you tried your way, it would even suck the air out of your lungs. Even if you pumped air down… you need a good non-return valve to stop that happening."
"What is a non-return valve?"
Ginny explained. And then explained again. The Lennartson brothers were sharp, but she did have a few centuries to bridge. "But there one simple solution. Air always rises in water. If you can pass me that other tube over there, Per." The tube had a wire framework soldered to its end-a framework that held the end of the pipe below the glass. "Now, Olof. You blow down that pipe. We will have a pump on the surface that does that. Air bubbles up into the glass. Air comes out under the bottom lip. But unless the glass turns over, there is always air trapped inside for the diver to breathe. The diver inside the bell uses oxygen-but new air is constantly pumped down from the surface."
It took some more explaining and repetition, but they had it eventually. They were, in their way, shrewd farm boys, used to contriving when there was no money to buy. "Now all we need is strong enough and big enough glass-with very heavy bottom edges. We do not wish it to turn upside down," said Lars.
"It doesn't have to be glass. Metal or even a barrel with many iron hoops will do. Do better, actually."
Ginny nodded. "Now we will have to persuade Mazalet to do it this way. He had some very strange ideas. Another thing. It will be cold and dark down there. You're going to get wet. You need wetsuits or something that will keep water in to get warm."
"Wool. Wool to the skin," said Olof, whose German was improving as fast as Ginny's Swedish. "Mama always said that."
"Wool, and tight-weave linen over it. With tight cuffs, collars and ankles. Maybe even belts to keep them tight. It will still be cold and miserable."
"It is the job, ja," said Lars. "We Delsbo boys are not afraid of a little cold. Besides they can haul us up quickly to get warm."