He swatted my hand aside, spraying my money onto the snow. None of the peasants dared touch it.
"It's not for sale, damn you! Anyway, what would you do with a bear? Make another warlock's familiar out of it?"
Actually, discounting the stupidity about familiar creatures, Stefan had posed a good question. What could I do with a bear? I couldn't possibly keep it-it might break loose and kill somebody. I couldn't let it go-as angry as it was, it would surely kill somebody.
By this time, the bear had been fastened to the post, and a large crowd had gathered in a wide circle around the animal. It was on its hind legs, straining at the chains trying desperately for vengeance.
I walked into the circle. "Blood sports are cruel and wicked!" I shouted. I looked to the priest for support, but he just looked away. "If you won't think about the bear, think about the brutality to your dogs!"
"What else are the dogs for?" Stefan smirked. "Sir Conrad, you look as funny as the bear."
The peasants had sense enough to keep quiet, to not get involved. But they didn't want to miss the action, either.
"Laugh if you want to, but I won't let you do this."
"Just how do you plan to stop it?" Stefan had an ugly laugh.
Another good question. Once the bear was chained to the post, he couldn't be unchained without getting past him, and that bear was irate. The only thing I could do for the animal was to give it a clean death.
"Like this," I said. I drew my sword and stepped close to the beast. On his hind legs, he was taller than I and must have weighed three times as much, swatting at me with his massive paws.
I timed his swipes and swung at him when both his paws were down, catching him horizontally at the neck a centimeter above the chain.
The head flew clear in a spray of blood, and the suddenly freed body lunged at me, almost falling on top of me. As I leaped aside, it brushed my leg.
"All right!" I shouted, trying not to show the pity that was welling up in me. "I want that carcass skinned and the hide tanned. And I want the meat served up for tomorrow's supper."
As I turned to leave, sheathing my sword, Stefan shouted, "You bloody bastard! You filthy scum. You blow by of an incestuous-"
"That's enough!" Count Lambert shouted, running up to us. "You two are supposed to be knights, not kitchen dogs fighting over garbage! We will speak of this in private! Come with me, both of you."
"Yes, my lord," I said, following him to the castle, trying to control my emotions.
"It's not over, Conrad!" Stefan shouted, but I didn't turn.
Something heavy hit me square in the back, knocking me flat on my stomach in the dirty snow. I looked up to see the bear's head bouncing down the path toward the castle. Rage enveloped me as I got up.
As I turned toward him, Stefan hit me square in the face, almost knocking me down again.
I was too angry to fight efficiently, but Stefan didn't know anything about unarmed combat in the first place. For a few seconds we swung at each other wildly, and I gave a lot more than I got.
Suddenly, a naked sword divided the space between, us. Lambert's.
"I swear, the next one of you who strikes will get this in his guts," Lambert hissed. "My own sworn knights fighting in the dirt, in front of the peasants no less! Now, to my chambers, and this time both of you walk in front Of me."
In his chambers, Lambert ordered us to sit on opposite sides of the room but was so angry that he couldn't sit down himself.
"Dogs blood! My own knights! Men who are supposed to enforce the peace, fighting each other like squalid beggars! You shame me, the both of you!"
"First you, Sir Conrad! I saw you deliberately destroy the property and sport of a brother knight. I fine you two hundred pence for that and order you to pay Sir Stefan another fifty in damages."
"Yes, my lord."
"Is that all you have to say? Just why did you do such a despicable thing?"
"My lord, he was going to torture that animal, chain it to that post, and turn the dogs on it."
"So? Bears kill our people and our cattle. We have the right to vengeance! You don't like our sports? I know you don't like our holidays. Very well! You can sleep through them, doing night guard duty before every one of them from now till Easter."
I groaned. Lately one day in three had been a holiday of one sort or another. Stefan smiled.
"Wipe that damn smirk off your face, Sir Stefan," Lambert said. "Your sins are worse than his! On slight provocation, you struck a brother knight with a dishonorable weapon-a bloody bear's headwithout proper challenge and in the back! You did it when I had specifically ordered you to follow me immediately! Some lords would have you hung for that, and were it not for your father I'd be sorely tempted. Instead, I'll be lenient. I fine you, three months' additional guard duty, from Easter to midsummer, on the night shift."
"Now I want no more bad blood between you two. Knights of the same lord should be like brothers! Stand up and give each other the kiss of brotherhood, then get out of my sight!"
As I kissed the smelly bastard, he whispered, "It's not over!"
Standing guard duty for fourteen hours in the dark gives you a lot of time to think. My engineering work was seriously hampered for lack of a decent system of weights and measures. In the cities, the guilds used a hodgepodge of gills and pennyweights and yards, mostly unrelated except that a pint of milk was supposed to weigh a pound. Nobody cared if the specific gravity of milk varied by five percent, with richer milk being lighter.
Here in the country, things were even worse. The blacksmith and the baker did things until they felt about right. The saddler just cut and trimmed until it fit. The carpenter did a bit of measuring-in cubits and spans and finger widths-but he used his cubit, from his elbow to his fingertips.
We didn't even have a meter stick.
Of course, I could invent my own system of weights and measures easily enough, and it would at least have the advantage of consistency.
But I would lose a lot doing it. Every person, and certainly every engineer, knows hundreds of numbers. I knew the speed of light and the diameter of the earth and the distance from the earth to the sun. I knew the tensile strength of wrought iron and what could be expected of concrete and, well, all sorts of things.
But I knew all these values in terms of the metric system. Without a meter stick, I was stuck with guesswork. With one, I could derive all of the weights and measures and from there translate the data I remembered into any other system at all.
But none of my equipment contained a single reliable measurement. I had nothing that I knew was a definite length or weight.
At gray dawn, the answer hit me. I had my own body! My weight might not be reliable-I had put on muscle and lost some fat since arriving-but surely my height hadn't changed. I was precisely 190 centimeters tall. I had only to measure myself in stocking feet, divide by nineteen, multiply by ten, and I had my meter stick. With that, a cube of cold water ten centimeters to the side has a volume of a liter and a mass of a kilogram.
From there it was simple arithmetic to translate it into the basetwelve system that these people could use.
Dead tired, I got Krystyana out of bed and had her standing on a chest, marking my height on the wall with a piece of charcoal.
"Sir Conrad," Lambert said as he saw us. "Just what are you doing now?"
I tried to explain how I was developing a standard meter and about engineering constants. Some things I had to repeat three times, perhaps because I hadn't slept in twenty-four hours and Lambert was just out of bed and bleary-eyed.
"So by measuring yourself, you will somehow know the distance from earth to moon? My dear Sir Conrad God may have spanned the universe to his own measure: but it is rank blasphemy and profound hubris for a mere mortal to do so. In all events, the standard of measure here is the Silesian yard, not this foreign meter thing. I won't have you changing it."