Actually, I was pretty disgusted with myself. I had reacted emotionally and had almost made a horrible mistake because I hadn't stopped to think. I'd known for years that Anna was a member of a different species than a horse. Just because the adults of her species looked like horses was no reason to think that the juveniles would. And since when do you do mercy killing on people? Because Anna was people, and I had gotten into the bad habit of forgetting it.
I'd had the saddler make a sort of second saddle that attached to the back of Anna's regular saddle. This let a passenger ride sidesaddle behind me and have someplace to brace her feet. I took Cilicia along to show her some more of the country, to give her a chance to show off some of her new western-style outfits, and for sex, of course. There was no point in messing around with strange ladies when I had perfection at home.
It took us two days to get to Copper City. Anna could make it in one during the summer, but winter was closing in and the days were much shorter. The lack of a decent artificial light cut into travel time as much as it did into industrial production.
My experiments in trying to distill a decent lamp fuel from coal tar had met with a pretty dismal failure. The stuff had so much sulfur and ammonia in it that it cleared the room of people when I fit the lamp. It smoked badly, too.
I was toying with the idea of trying to drill for oil so that we could have kerosene lamps, but the only oil fields nearby were at Przemysl, a city that was originally Polish, and would be again, but had been in the hands of the Ukrainian Duchy of Halicz Ruthenia for fifty years. Getting permission to set up an installation there would probably take a major diplomatic effort.
I was stumped.
When I got to Copper City, the duke was just arriving.
He had Lady Francine with him, and two dozen armed men.
"Damn, boy! Do you always run a horse like that? You'll kill her!"
"Not Anna, your grace. She likes a good run."
"People say that whenever they see you on the road, you're always at a dead gallop and never seem to have time to talk."
"It's just that between your projects, Count Lambert's, and my own, there isn't much time, your grace. I hope I haven't been rude."
"No, but it keeps them talking about you."
"I suppose it does keep me in the limelight, your grace," I said as I got out of the saddle and helped Cilicia down. She was short and slender but surprisingly heavy for her build. A dancer's body is all smooth, hidden muscle, and remarkably dense.
She bowed to the duke, who nodded back, but she stayed out of the conversation until invited in, as a good woman should. In the twentieth century, the ladies would have monopolized the conversation for hours, talking about nothing. The thirteenth was less decadent.
"What the hell is a limelight?"
"It's…" Daylight dawned in the swamp. "It's what I've been trying to think of for two years, your grace. It's a very bright artificial light made by burning a gas under lime, and it's what will double the production in our factories."
"Double the production? I don't follow you, boy."
"It might even triple It. As things are, we can only work during the daytime, your grace, and then only during good weather in the wintertime. Our expensive machinery is idle almost two-thirds of the time. With a good artificial light, we can shutter up the windows and run things day and night!"
"How're you going to get that much work out of the peasants? Three days of it and they'd fall over dead!"
"Well, you don't work the same men continuously, your grace. You work them in two shifts, one working days and one working nights. We're already doing that with the smelters and the blast furnaces, where we can't stop at night, but the animal fat lamps we use are expensive to operate and don't give off much light. The accident rate at night is three times that of the day shift, and a lot of that is caused by poor lighting. But limelights are as bright as day!"
"But you'd stiff have to double up on the housing, and that's what most of the buildings around here are, unless you figure to run their beds on two shifts too."
"That would cause more trouble than it would be worth, your grace. Every family needs its own apartment. But the expensive things are not the sleeping rooms. What costs is the bathrooms and the kitchens, and there is no reason why both shifts can't use those same facilities."
"Sounds good, boy. You get it working and I'll want some for Piast Castle."
"I'm not sure that we'd want to put any of them inside a dwelling place, your grace. The gas I'll have to use will contain carbon monoxide, a poison until it's burned. But it should be safe enough in a factory where there's always somebody around to make sure that a lamp doesn't go out."
"Whatever you say, boy. You'll be staying with me at the inn, won't you? I always rent the top floor when I'm here."
"If you wish, your grace, although I have a bed set up in my office."
"No, you come with me. There's plenty of room. I take the whole floor so I don't have to have any strangers around. I have enemies and there's always the chance of a hired assassin. You and your lady join me and Lady Francine for dinner after you've had a chance to clean up."
One didn't argue with the duke. "Thank you, your grace. We are honored."
Cilicia and I got to the dining room before the duke and Lady Francine. I was in a beautifully embroidered outfit that I'd been given last Christmas, and Cilicia wore a lovely woolen gown.
The duke and Lady Francine arrived in a few minutes, She was wearing a sort of miniskirt, mesh stockings and high heels, and that was all. She was topless, as were the waitresses, and she was actually wearing slightly more than they were, but it was unusual and unexpected for a customer to compete with the help.
Introductions were made and the duke noticed me trying not to stare.
"I like it that way," was his only comment.
"A very attractive style, your grace. Count Lambert once told me that when a vassal is on his lord's lands, he should punctiliously conform to his lord's customs. Since you are my lord's lord, it would seem that this obligation is on me doubly. Cilicia, would you please remove your dress to conform with Lady Francine's style?"
Cilicia stared at me for a moment. I suppose that I was being a little rough on her, since she'd grown up among people with a nudity taboo, and while she somehow felt that it was all right to dance naked, she was not used to walking around that way. But having only one of the ladies at the table bare-breasted would have been awkward for all concerned, especially for Lady Francine. Anyway, Cilicia had to learn our customs.
"Yes, master," she said as she stood and unlaced both sides of her dress.
"Master?" the duke said. "After the battle you fought last year to clear Poland of slavery, you own a slave?"
"No, your grace. It's just that she comes from a land east of the Caspian Sea, where slavery is common. Her father 'gave' her to me, mostly to keep her safe. She keeps on calling me 'master,' and I can't seem to break her of it."
"Cilicia, you are not my slave. Please stop calling me,master.'"
"Yes, master." She pulled the dress over her head. folded it and set it on a stool.
"Dammit! Stop calling me that!"
"You say I am free, yes?"
"Yes!"
"Then I may do as I wish, yes?"
"That's what I've been saying, dammit!"
"Then I wish to call you 'master,' yes?"
Frustrating! How the hell do you answer that one? "You see, your grace? What's a man to do?"
"Nothing, boy. When a woman gets an idea into her head, a man just has to live with it. Or he does if he wants to live with her, and this one looks like a keeper."
Cilicia removed her blouse and tucked up her slip so that it was as short as Lady Francine's. Seeing the duke's frankly admiring gaze, she struck a dancer's pose and waited until he'd filled his eyeballs.