The Radiant Warrior

Chapter Thirteen

I spent the morning giving the duke and his party a tour of the facilities at Copper City. He seemed most impressed with the eight steam engines we were installing, two of which were already operational. They were all single expansion units, and not very efficient thermally, but I had a use for the waste heat. All the buildings had steam radiators in every room, which condensed the steam back to water to be pumped into the tubular boilers again. Cogeneration. Come spring, we'd be installing a leather tannery to use that excess heat in the summertime.

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.

The only problem was that for each molecule of hydrogen generated, you also make a molecule of carbon monoxide, which can kill you dead. The carbon monoxide is also a fuel, and is safe enough once it's burned to carbon dioxide, but a leaky pipe or a flame that's gone out is dangerous. The safety problem didn't bother the Victorians who used the system. They simply weren't concerned. If someone was dumb enough to kill himself, that was his problem.

I, however, am not a Victorian. The system I put together was as safe as I could make it. First off, I kept it out of private areas, where kids could get at it. It was restricted to workplaces, large public rooms, and outdoor lighting. Each installation had a full-time safety inspector, who was also responsible for lighting the lights. Ventilation was carefully checked at each location. And each lamp had a valve that anyone could turn off, but required a key to turn on. This last involved designing a lock, which turned out to be one of our most profitable products.

Oh, I knew that somebody would still find a way to kill himself with it, but I tried.

On the appointed day, Sir Vladimir and I rode out in full armor, in our brightest surcoats and with pennons flying. The bandsmen had wanted to play for us as we left, but that seemed to me to be in poor taste. I felt rotten that things should come to this head. We needed to be preparing to be fighting Mongols, not fellow Christians, even if they were a couple of bastards.

We met Sir Miesko at the proper time, and went on to Okoitz.

"Any response from Baron Jaraslav?" I asked.

"None to my letter," Sir Miesko said. "But he has called his own knights to arms, which is response enough. He has thirty-five, you know, and is Count Lambert's greatest vassal. If vassal he be and not oathbreaker."

"Damn."

More than a hundred knights came to Count Lambert's call, even those not required to do so. We filled the hall, and the squires had to make do in the kitchen. Supper was a major feast, but a somber one. Everyone was in full armor, as tradition required on the night before battle, I suppose so that the lord could check his men's equipment. Not that Count Lambert checked anything. A knight was always supposed to be ready, and if he wasn't, it was his own neck that suffered.

Sir Miesko stood and spoke to Count Lambert. "My liege, you know that I have been your willing vassal since first I was knighted. Always have I obeyed you, and always will I continue to do so. But my duty to you is not only to fight at your side. I am also obligated to give you my best counsel."

"It is true that Baron Jaraslav has repeatedly disobeyed you. But it is also true that he is a very old man and the minds of the aged sometimes grow feeble. I counsel you, I beg you to go slowly in this matter. You will not gain in glory or in honor if you shed Christian blood, Polish blood, because of the aberrant wanderings of a senile mind."

Sir Miesko sat down and Count Lambert said, "It is your duty to speak and my duty to listen, but the reverse is also true. I say that without obedience to our superiors, everything that we are falls apart! If I do not obey the duke, and my vassals do not obey me, then why should the peasants obey us? If we let one major crack form in the structure, the whole thing could shatter! Don't you see that we must be together? Because if we're not, it won't be the Tartars who destroy us, we'll do it ourselves! Then the damn Mazovians or some other petty power will come in and pick up the shredded pieces."

I stood. "My lord, Sir Miesko has spoken my mind as well as his own, though he has been more eloquent than I could be. I have heard that some of the problem is caused by Baron Jaraslav's belief that I was deeded lands that are properly his. Rather than see Pole fight Pole, I would willingly give up whatever lands the baron claims."

"Just now tempers have grown too hot. You mentioned the duke. He knows Baron Jaraslav well. Why not ask him to talk to the baron. Surely no man is more persuasive than Duke Henryk."

"Sir Conrad, your lands are your own, and I'll not have you make any sacrifice because of another's malice. As to the duke, it would be proper to go to him if I had a problem with one of my own station. To bring him a problem with one of my vassals would be to admit my own incompetence. If I did so, he might be inclined to remove me, and properly. I'll handle the matter on my own."

"Then may I echo Sir Miesko and beg you to go slowly?" I said.

"You may beg all you damn well please, Sir Conrad, just so you obey when the lances drop to charge! Do the rest of you have counsel for me as well?"

Knight after knight attested to his willingness to obey any lawful order, but begged Count Lambert to refrain from pushing matters too quickly to a head.

Count Lambert's mood got darker and quieter until he abruptly got up and left his hall, his meal unfinished.

We were all silent for a bit.

Baron Jan, Sir Vladimir's father, said, "We can but do our duty and pray that we need not shed the blood of our brothers." Then he led us all in deeply felt prayer.

Count Lambert's new priest held an evening mass. We all went and took Communion since tomorrow some of us could be dead.

It was crowded at Okoitz, and I shared a room with Sir Miesko, Sir Vladimir, and one of his brothers. The girls from the cloth factory were probably as willing as ever, but none of us were in the mood. Judging from the sounds, few of the other knights were either. I don't recall hearing a single feminine squeal all night, a rare thing at Okoitz even when it's half empty.

More than half the knights had squires, almost inevitably a younger relative, since the Polish nobility was very family oriented. Well over a gross of fighting men lined up outside of Okoitz in the gray dawn, as well as two heralds that Count Lambert must have borrowed from someone. The kitchen help hurriedly handed out packages of field rations, a bag containing a loaf of bread, some cheese, and dried meat. There was little chance of the baron inviting us in for a meal.

I thought that Count Lambert would make a speech to encourage his men, but he didn't. He just rode to the head of the column and shouted, "Advance!"

At a walk, we went to Baron Jaraslav's manor.

The roads were mere trails and we had to go in single file, so there was little chance for light conversation, not that there was much inclination toward it.

"Shouldn't we have some point men and flankers out?" I called to Sir Miesko, riding behind me.

"To what purpose, Sir Conrad? No bandit would attack a party as large as ours, and Baron Jaraslav might disobey his liege, but he is not so wholly dishonorable as to attack without warning. Flankers would only slow us down."

Sir Miesko and Count Lambert were probably right, but my own military training made me feel uncomfortable about it.

The baron's castle was a large and venerable building made mostly of brick, with some of the cornices made of limestone. It had a moat and a drawbridge and was not the sort of place that men without siege equipment could easily take.

Count Lambert made no attempt to surround the thing. He simply lined us up in front out of crossbow range and sent the heralds forward. Sir Vladimir was at my left, as a vassal should be, and Sir Miesko was at my right. The heralds rode up to the gate, played a fanfare on their long trumpets, and announced that Count Lambert wished to speak to his vassal, Baron Jaraslav.

They had to have been waiting for us, for within a few minutes, the drawbridge was lowered and thirty-five armed and armored men rode out. Perhaps another twenty men were on the walls with crossbows, the squires, probably, since a full belted knight wouldn't use one. It made me wish that I'd brought Tadaos along, but I hadn't been asked to and I hadn't wanted to risk any more people than necessary.

The knights lined up facing us, a few hundred yards away. We outnumbered them four to one, but they looked prepared to let us know that we'd been in a fight.

One of the heralds stayed with the baron and the other rode back to Count Lambert. With six of his barons, the count rode to the center of the field, to be met by Baron Jaraslav, Sir Stefan, and five other knights.

I relaxed a bit. At least they were going to talk instead of immediately slugging it out.

I couldn't hear what Count Lambert said, but Baron Jaraslav was shouting at the top of his lungs, so what came through was half a conversation, or less, since I couldn't hear Sir Stefan either.

"My ancestors were here for hundreds of years before anybody ever heard of a Piast!"

Count Lambert said something I couldn't hear.

"I don't owe fealty to a man whose wits are not his own! Your mind has been addled by that warlock you took in two years ago! Yours and the duke's, too!"

Baron Jaraslav's face got redder as his blood pressure went up. I could feel my own face flushing as well.

"It's bad enough, your swiving every wench in the county, turning them into a herd of whores! Now you want to ruin the hunting like you've ruined the women!"

"I was a baron when you were still sucking your mother's tits!"

The baron's face and hands were as dark red as dried blood. I'd never seen such a thing before, but I'd heard about it. Not good in an old man.

"That warlock wants to turn the whole duchy into a stinking, dirty factory! I won't stand for it! Better to die fighting than to fall sickened by his poisons!"

The baron became increasingly incoherent. His hands started shaking, he began gasping and suddenly he toppled from his horse.

I didn't know if this was a heart attack or a stroke, but it looked to me that he was in bad need of CPR.

"I'd better go see what I can do for him," I said as I signaled Anna forward.

"Stay back here you fool!" Sir Miesko shouted, but I ignored him.

Besides basic humanitarian considerations, my thought was that if I could do Baron Jaraslav a real service, like saving his life, maybe he and Sir Stefan might not hate me as much. Okay, so it was a dumb idea.

We sprinted to where the baron had fallen. I pulled my gauntlets off as I leaped to the ground and told Anna to go back to the line. I didn't want her to interpret some movement by the baron as an attack on me.

I tilted the baron's head back, cleared the tongue and checked his breathing. There wasn't any! I started giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as I checked frantically for a pulse. A lot of shouting was going on but I ignored it. I couldn't find a pulse but that didn't mean much, since I couldn't get at most of him what with his armor and all. I started pumping his heart. to be on the safe side, a thing that would have been impossible in my plate armor, but was easy enough with the baron's gold-washed chain mail.

Then I took a blow to the side of the head that might have killed me if it hadn't been for my new helmet. It didn't much hurt me, but the force of it, transmitted through my collar ring to my chest and back plates, was enough to send me sprawling.

"Stay away from my father, you filthy witch!" Sir Stefan shouted, sword in hand.

"You Stupid John!" I swore at him. "He's having a heart attack! Without CPR he's going to die!"

I started to move back to the baron. Sir Stefan swung again, only to have his blade parried by Count Lambert's.

"STOP! Both of you!" Count Lambert shouted. "Dog's blood! You have both dishonored yourselves! Sir Conrad, I told you to stay in the line! Get back there, damn you! Sir Stefan, you have drawn steel during a peace parley, a hanging offense anywhere!"

"My lord," I said, "his heart and breathing have stopped! If I don't-"

"If his heart's stopped, then he's dead! Get back to the line or I'll put this sword in your face!"

I could see that Count Lambert meant it, and the baron was probably really dead by this time anyway. I retrieved my gauntlets.

"Yes, my lord."

As I walked back to the line, Count Lambert gave Sir Stefan a chewing out the likes of which I hadn't heard since boot camp.

Maybe I should have just left things alone, but then Sir Stefan would probably have blamed his father's death on my "witchcraft" in any event. It was worth a try, I suppose. I certainly shouldn't have called him a Stupid John. The swear words in one language often don't translate well into another, but that particular phrase is a deadly insult and fighting words in Polish.

"You're a damn fool," Sir Miesko said as I got back and mounted Anna. "If ever a man's foul words stuck in his throat and killed him, it was Baron Jaraslav's. It looked like a sure Act of God! But when you ran out there, you took everybody's mind off of what had just happened. This sorry mess could have ended right there, but now it's still bobbing afloat. It could still end with fifty good men dead!"

"Yeah, I guess I screwed it up," I said.

But the parley went on for another half hour, and we couldn't hear a thing of what was said. Then something happened. Count Lambert and Sir Stefan turned and faced the sun, raised their right arms to it and Sir Stefan swore fealty to Count Lambert.

Count Lambert and his barons came back to us and he addressed those of us in the line.

"This matter is ended! Baron Jaraslav is dead! Baron Stefan has sworn fealty to me and will obey me as all of you have done this day! I thank you all for coming as was your duty, but now you may disperse and go home! I will see many of you in a week at the Great Hunt' For the rest of you, good hunting!"

And so we left, and soon there was no one left on the field but the dead baron and Baron Stefan, standing over his father's body.

It all worked out as best as could be expected. Having Stefan instead of his father for a neighbor wasn't much of an improvement, but Count Lambert could hardly have interfered with the right of inheritance. His own lofty position was based on that very same right.