I took it over to the light and rubbed the blade. It was watered steel! The best sword steel is made of thousands of thin layers of hard high-carbon steel welded between layers of flexible low-carbon steel. The high-carbon steel corrodes less quickly, and the result is a surface that looks like ripples on water, hence the name. This was the first good piece of metal I'd seen in the thirteenth century.
I tried not to show my excitement. It was like finding a Stradivarius violin in a junk shop!
"This is a curious thing," I said to the shopkeeper. "Saracen, isn't it?" Very few Polish knights went on crusade, since there were plenty of heathen to kill in the immediate neighborhood.
"Aye, sir. Brought back from the Holy Wars by a great knight, sir. A holy relic, that is."
"A holy relic made by an infidel! That great knight probably gave it to his girl friend, being embarrassed to have it around the house. It's a piece of junk, and we both know it. It's too light to do any damage, and that's why I want it. I have a young nephew who's ready for his first toy sword. Something cheap that he can bash up and not hurt himself with. Shall we say five silver pennies?"
"Oh, sir, I couldn't sell that fine antique for less than fifty."
And so I went at it in the manner of my new boss, and in ten minutes we settled on fourteen, which I paid out of my own pocket.
As we left, I said, "Well, Mr. Novacek, am I learning my lessons?" Actually, they were damn strange lessons for a good socialist to be taking.
"A fair performance, for a beginner. I could have gotten him down to eleven. But what do you want with that silly thing?"
"You really don't know what I've got here? It's worth not eleven but eleven thousand! Would you lend me your knife even though I might damage it?" Everybody in the thirteenth century carried a knife.
He handed it to me. I drew my new sword and shaved a thin sliver from the edge of his knife. His eyes widened.
"That's test number one, that it can cut a lesser blade!"
"Lesser blade! This knife is first-quality steel!"
"It's good-quality wrought iron, which is about all I've seen around here. Test number two is that it can be bent, blade tip to pommel, without breaking or kinking." I put the tip to the ground and bowed the blade maybe ninety degrees, but after that I lost my nerve.
"There's a third test?"
"That'll have to wait until I sharpen it. It must be able to cut a silk scarf that's floating in the air. For now, though, do you know a smith who can tighten this hilt? And fifty grains of brass at the pommel end will improve the balance remarkably."
Saddles and bridles were sold by two different guilds, so there was no possibility that they would match. The only saddles that could fit a Charger were huge. The saddlebow and cantle came as high as my waist. An opponent could break your back, but he couldn't knock you out of that thing.
Getting into it was strange. I had to put my right foot in the left stirrup, hoist myself up, put my left foot into a special leather loop, go up higher, and then drop in without getting tangled or squashing my genitals. But I get ahead of myself.
I let Mr. Novacek pick out the saddle and bridle.
Aside from what I'd seen in the movies, I knew nothing of lances or shields. I really didn't want either of them- ' but the boss insisted. I picked both to be as light as possible.
"And what device on the shield, sir?" All the shields in the shop were white. Used shields were rarely resold, since they usually were destroyed just before their owners were.
"Is there time?" I looked at Novacek. What with our frequent beer stops, it was now past noon. A lot was left to be done, and he wanted to set out before first light.
"Have it done in an hour, sir, if it isn't too complicated."
Novacek nodded affirmatively.
Maybe it was the beer and no food, or maybe it was something deep inside me that yelled, "Do it!"
I said, "A white eagle on a red field. Put a crown on the eagle." The artist didn't react; I guessed the national insignia wasn't in common use yet.
"Is there a motto?"
"Poland is not yet dead." He didn't react to that, either, because it was the first line of the national anthem and wouldn't be written for five and a half centuries.
The saddle and harness had been delivered to the stable and installed on the horse.
I managed to clamber aboard without doing anything too embarrassing.
She was really an excellent horse: mild-mannered, obedient, not at all skittish. She was neck-trained and stirruptrained; you could guide her with your feet alone. Of course, there was nothing at all of the fierce war-horse about her, but that was fine by me.
We hadn't bought spurs yet-still another guild-and it was obvious that I would not need them.
Eventually, I rode back to the inn by the monastery with my new boss walking beside me. I wore a helmet, a full suit of chain-mail armor, and a huge sheepskin-lined red cloak. I had a horse and a saddle, plus a sword and lance and an audacious shield. I would have made a truly splendid barbaric sight if my blue jeans had not been showing through my wrought-iron overalls.
Also, I was in debt for more than a year's pay.
Chapter Seven
We were on the road an hour before gray dawn.
The last evening had been a frantic matter of wolfing down a meal, taking a last bath-it might be a while before the next-and collecting my gear.
Father Ignacy came to my cell to wish me good-bye and Godspeed. He gave me a letter of introduction and a list of Franciscan monasteries where I could scrounge a meal if I really got hard up. He also gave me a letter to be delivered to a Count Lambert at Okoitz.
"It's right on your way, and it will be worth at least a meal and a night's lodging to you. I carried it up from Hungary, but now you must complete its journey. God be with you, and know, my son, that you are always welcome here." He smiled. "All will be well with you, Sir Conrad. I can smell it."
The kid was waiting in the hallway with the clothes he'd borrowed. They were washed and folded. Some of them looked as if they'd been beaten between two bricks, but I didn't mention it. He also had a carefully counted pouch of silver pennies.
"I thank you for the loan, Sir Conrad, and return your property. "
"Thanks, kid. Look, why don't you keep the tennis shoes. They fit you."
"Again, thank you, but they wouldn't go well with my cassock. Have you heard the news of the prostitute Malenka?"
"No, what happened?"
"She has found a most permanent position with the innkeeper."
"Indeed?"
"Yes. They've posted banns in the church and are to be married within the month."
"I'll be damned!"
"Never that, Sir Conrad. With three pence in the right place, I believe you have saved a soul. Go with God." There was something in the way he looked at me. Envy? Admiration? But that was impossible.
I reported to Boris Novacek at the inn, where he was still drinking.
In the morning he surprised me by showing up in full armor himself. We ate a cold breakfast and left, taking with us two horses and a mule. I was on my red mareI'd named her Anna after my lady of Zakopane-with my backpack serving as one saddlebag and a sack of food as the other. My shield rode on top. My spear fit between a socket at my right toe and a clip on the saddlebow.
Boris-we'd gotten on a first-name basis-when in private, over last night's beer-rode a gray gelding, with a pair of small but very heavy saddlebags behind him. He led a mule loaded with more supplies, a leather bag of beer, and some "luxury" goods, sugar and pepper, each worth about one-fifth of an equivalent weight of silver. Both had been transported up from the Indies.