That evening, we again dined with the duke, and Cilicia told the story of how her native city was destroyed by the Mongols. Everyone in the inn's dining room was listening. She told the same story that her father had told to me, but the way she told it got everyone in the room in the gut. I don't think that there was a dry eye in the place, and even the crusty old duke was in tears.
He promised me his continued support, as did every man in the room. Cilicia became my best propaganda device to generate support for the upcoming war, and she was to tell that story a hundred times over the next few years.
I spent three more days at Copper City after the duke left, mostly handling technical problems since the Krakowski Brothers were good managers and didn't need much help in that direction.
We made the run to Eagle Nest in one day, leaving before dawn and arriving after dusk. The instructors were in uniform, but only about half of the boys' outfits were completed so they were all still in civilian clothing.
It was getting beyond kite-flying weather and the hangar was big enough to fly model airplanes in. When we were building the installation we had so much manpower and timber available that I figured that we might as well build it big enough in the first place. The hangar was six dozen yards wide and twelve dozen long, big enough to accommodate any aircraft I could imagine building out of wood and canvas. It was rather like the church we had built at Three Walls, only two of them set side by side, though not as tall and with a dirt floor. Two huge counter-weighted doors faced the eventual runway.
But now we used it for model airplanes.
I spent three days, including Sunday afternoon, talking about aircraft, about lift and drag and the other forces on a plane. The type I got them going on was a high-winged glider, halfway between a sailplane and a piper cub. Sort of an observation plane without an engine.
The steam saw was put to work cutting very thin strips of wood, and I headed for Okoitz.
Count Lambert was enthusiastic about my idea for limelights in his cloth factory, mostly because it would permit his massive harem to stay there all winter. He was less enthusiastic about putting in a second shift. As it was, the girls not currently being used slept on cots in the factory itself. Putting in a second shift involved building housing for all of them, and if I was going to do that, I insisted that we put in plumbing and kitchens of the sort we had at Three Walls.
What finally sold him was the thought that he could sort the workers according to sexual desirability and keep the best ones on the day shift, thus improving the quality of his already beautiful ladies.
If that's what it took to get better sanitation at Okoitz, then so be it. Our infant mortality rate at Three Walls was one-eighth of what it was at Okoitz. If saving thirty-five children a year meant hurting the feelings of a hundred girls, then let their feelings be hurt!
And yes, I would accept cloth instead of cash for all the plumbing fixtures, and yes, I would design and supervise the construction of the new buildings as part of my feudal duty to him.
That settled, Count Lambert wanted to talk about the Great Hunt. Sir Miesko had done a competent job organizing the thing. Everything was ready. The local hunt masters all knew their duties, invitations to all the knights in the duchy had been sent, and the enclosures for the killing grounds had been sent and enclosures for the killing grounds had been built. The only problem was Baron Jaraslav and his son, Sir Stefan. They were adamantly refusing to have anything to do with anything that I was involved with. I was hoping that Count Lambert would talk to them.
"What!" Count Lambert said. "They refuse? Do they know that I want this thing done?"
"They do, my lord. Sir Miesko has been very adamant on that point, and they still won't have anything to do with it. If we bypass them, we've left behind a breeding ground for wolves, bears, and wild boar. They know it but don't care."
"Well, I'll settle with Baron Jaraslav! I've had enough out of those two! I'll visit them within the week with fifty knights at my back, and they'll obey their liege lord or pay for it!"
"Yes, my lord. Was there anything else you wanted of me?"
"Dog's blood! There is! You and Sir Vladimir will attend me here in one week. Sir Miesko is on your way, so tell him and any others you meet to come here as well."
"Yes, my lord. You are expecting battle?"
"I'm expecting my vassals to obey me. All of them!"
"Yes, my lord." When he was in this mood, it wasn't smart to argue.
Count Lambert had five knights in attendance, and he gave four of them exacting verbal instructions to ride out in the morning, contact certain specific barons and knights, and have them report to Okoitz. Verbal, because Count Lambert still couldn't read or write.
It was an hour before he calmed down. Then he started hinting strongly that he'd rather like to try out the wench I'd brought along.
I wasn't happy about lending out Cilicia, but Count Lambert's current mood still wasn't anything that I wanted to trifle with. Anyway, he had always been so generous with me in this regard that it would have been niggardly of me to refuse him.
"Of course, my lord. But remember that she is a foreigner, and the customs of her people are different from ours. I'd best talk to her first."
"Do so." And I was dismissed.
Cilicia was not at all pleased at being lent out "like horse for rent," as she put it. I said that this was a custom of Okoitz, and one must conform to local customs, but she wasn't convinced. I finally had to say that she could obey me or she could go back to her father. She obeyed, and I picked up one of Count Lambert's ladies for the night.
Neither Cilicia nor Count Lambert ever mentioned what went on that night, but he never asked for her services again.
Sir Miesko was appalled that Count Lambert was considering war against Baron Jaraslav. He sent a letter, carried by his oldest son, to the baron urging him to make immediate apology to their liege and so forestall any violence, but he had scant hope that the irascible baron would do so. "I wish I could understand their hatred for you, Sir Conrad, but it's there. Now it seems that blood must flow because of it. A sad thing, and a waste. Nonetheless, our lord calls and we must go. Wear your brightest surcoat to this, Sir Conrad. We'll want to make the best and most intimidating show possible. There's scant hope, but we may yet forestall a senseless war."
I went back to Three Walls in a glum mood.
Sir Vladimir was also amazed at being called up. "Count Lambert is going to fight a battle over so trifling a matter as a hunt?"
"No, Sir Vladimir. He's going to threaten battle because one of his vassals has repeatedly disobeyed him. Remember that the baron failed to come when Count Lambert called him to beat the bounds between his lands and mine."
"I know, and since then he has been claiming that you stole lands belonging to him, and he just might be right. Count Lambert was in a foul mood that day, and it would have been like him to move the boundary in revenge for the baron's slight. And of course, Sir Stefan has been making an ass of himself for years, even before you arrived. But none of that is reason enough for war between knights of the same lord!"
"I agree," I said, "but we have been called and we will go."
I spent the week designing the limelight system.
The limelights in the old theaters used a hydrogen flame under a ball of lime, calcium oxide. The hydrogen was generated by pouring acid on a metal, okay for a theater but way too expensive for a factory. A far cheaper way of making hydrogen was the water/gas method that was used for generating cooking gas before natural gas, methane, became commercially available.
This involves getting a deep bed of coal burning in a closed furnace. Once it's all glowing, the air supply is shut off and water is forced under the coal. The chimney is then closed off and the fumes are directed to a holding tank for eventual distribution. The chemical reaction involves the oxygen in the water combining with the glowing carbon, and the hydrogen leaving as a gas.