Conrad Starguard - Lord Conrad's Lady Part 15

So I sent to Komander Wrocek, who was recovering at Wawel Castle, offering him the job at his old rank. He was delighted and promised to come within two weeks, as soon as his doctors let him free.

Another message was sent telling my accountant at the Pink Dragon Inn in Cieszyn to go to the castle and see what he could do about figuring out the finances there.

By then the afternoon was over, and it was time to meet the baron for dinner. More and more, lately, I found myself taking my dinner away from the cafeteria, and many of my breakfasts as well. Mostly it was my new servants' fault. They made eating so d.a.m.n decorative! Yet I made a point of always eating lunch with the other people in the cafeteria just so I wouldn't get out of touch.

I explained the arrangements that I had made, and Baron Zbigniew was agreeable, though he looked disappointed. I decided that he probably wanted the job for himself. When I talked with him a bit, he admitted it.

"I'm sorry, Baron, but the fact is that I barely know you. I hope that you can understand that I need an old and trusted friend in such a critical position. Your services will still be needed, of course. Komander Wrocek will need all the help he can get. He lost a leg at the Battle of Cracow, you know. How did you happen to be injured, incidentally? The Mongols?"

"I only wish it had been an honorable war wound, your grace, but the sad truth is that I had no sooner gotten to Duke Henryk's camp at Legnica than my horse slipped on the ice and I went down on an iron spit that was loaded with a duck that was roasting next to a cooking fire! The d.a.m.ned thing went right through my leg and into my horse. It nailed us together, and after they put the poor beast down, they had to cut it - and the saddle! - in half to get the carca.s.s off me. And all the while I had to lie there half in the snow and half in the burning coals, and me not a Radiant Warrior!"

It occurred to me that on the average he must have been reasonably comfortable, but I didn't say it.

"Horrible!" I said.

"Yet I tell you that the pain of the wound was nothing compared to the mortification I felt while everyone stood around trying to figure out how to get us apart, and the squire who owned the duck screamed at me the whole while. The entire infamous affair took hours to resolve, and I am sure that the foreign knights were taking bets as to how it would work out. Then the d.a.m.ned surgeons thought that my leg would have to come off, but I wouldn't allow that. It seems to be healing well enough now, though."

"Oh, you poor fellow! While you're here, you might want to ask one of our army doctors to have a look at it. They're better than most."

"I'll do that, your grace, but I doubt if there's anything they can do to mend a man's broken pride! The greatest war in history, and I missed it because of a roast duck!"

The girls seemed to like him well enough. At least I noticed one of Cilicia's maids sneaking into his room that night. My household seemed to be developing the morals that Count Lambert's had had. Yet Lambert's dying wish had been that all the ladies would be properly loved, and I had promised him that I would do my best to see it so. It wasn't any of my business, so I pretended that I didn't see her.

The next morning I got a double-sized research crew going on light bulbs: a gla.s.sblower, a machinist, and four apprentices. They didn't have a good source of electricity yet to power it, but there were plenty of problems to be worked out first. How to blow a gla.s.s bulb around a fragile baked thread. Coming up with a metal wire that would be wetted by molten gla.s.s and have a similar coefficient of thermal expansion so that the gla.s.s wouldn't crack as the bulb heated up and cooled down. Developing decent hardware, like a screw base and a light switch. And harder yet, making a good enough vacuum pump.

An electric generator was a separate problem for a separate team. I designed what I thought would be a decent DC generator and had them get to work on building it. I knew full well that we'd go through a dozen models before we got something good enough to go into production with. Generators were one of those things that I studied in school and had seen working but had never had a chance to design. It was another one of those specialized things that a generalist like me never got involved in. It would be years.

Then there was plumbing. We were casting our pipes out of copper. This required making the walls much thicker than was necessary to carry water, but we couldn't dependably cast them any thinner.

Modem copper pipes are drawn, stretched into shape by pulling the copper alternatively between outside dies of the soil used to draw wire in order to make the copper pipe longer, and inside dies in order to stretch the metal to a larger diameter with thinner walls. Simple enough machinery, in theory at least, and it seemed likely to drop the cost of pipes threefold. I got another team on it.

Yet another team was put to work on some better wiredrawing machinery.

Teams were also a.s.signed to develop a clothes washer and a dishwasher. One group got going on a sewing machine, although privately I considered it to be a very longterm project, since it was so complicated.

I wish we could have worked on power hand tools, but that looked impossible to me. For a long time to come all powered installations would have to be permanently mounted. We didn't have any rubber or plastic with which to make an extension cord!

I thought about getting a few teams going on new weapons and developing some of the things that had been invented just before the war but too late to get into production, but I decided against it. For one thing, we had more arms and equipment of the old style than we had men to use them. New weapons would require new tactics and new training, with a lot of man-hours required. We were already so superior to anybody else in the world that making us better was simple overkill. And mostly, in twenty years, there would be as many Big People around as there were Little People. We wouldn't be mostly infantry then; we'd be almost all cavalry. Best to wait a few years and then start working slowly on some good cavalry weapons and tactics.

A relaxing week slid pleasantly by before I got a message from my team of accountants at Okoitz.

Angelo Muskarini was under arrest!

Chapter Twenty-seven.

Sonya wanted to go and visit Okoitz, so I took her along, even though taking a woman to Okoitz was on a par with hauling c.o.ke to Coaltown.

I got there to find Muskarini chained up in a storeroom. He was a ma.s.s of bruises, his teeth were loose, and both eyes were blackened shut. "Resisting arrest?" I asked.

"No, sir," said my senior accountant. "He just made us angry."

Well, my accountants were not the mousy sorts who live on American television. They were warriors first, bookkeepers second. Of course, they shouldn't have beaten the man up. I'd talked to my detectives on the importance of using the minimum possible force, but it had never occurred to me that the accountants needed the lecture as well.

After we stepped into the hall and away from the cell, I said, "You shouldn't have done that. It's not nice to beat up someone who can't hit back."

"Sorry, sir. But this dog t.u.r.d was robbing his own liege lord of a fortune!"

"Can you prove it?"

"Of course, sir. I can show you the figures. Muskarini has been stealing nine parts per gross of the entire factory output ever since the first year he got here. It was no accident. He was very consistent about it, and Count Lambert doubtless thought that it was a normal production loss."

"That must be a lot of money."

"One gross, eleven dozen, and four thousand, a gross, nine dozen, and three pence, sir."

I whistled. They were talking base twelve, and that came to almost a half a million, the way I was brought up. "Has this money been found?"

"Yes, sir, and then some. The figure I mentioned was just on the missing finished cloth. We think he might have been getting kickbacks on the dyes and other supplies that were bought by the count. That was what much of the beating was about. Finding the money. He was keeping it in the dye supply side shed. He had the only key to the place."

"Hmph. You know, he couldn't have stolen that much alone. He would have had to have accomplices.

No one man could possibly have carried out that much cloth and not been noticed. After all, hundreds of people work around here, and many of them were Count Lambert's knights."

"We know, sir, but he won't talk about that."

I went back into Muskarini's cell. He knew I was there, even though he couldn't see me. "Well, Angelo.

What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I didn't steal that money, your grace. It was mine."

"Yours? Almost half a million pence was yours? Look, I was there at the beginning, remember? You were absolutely penniless, starving to death in a garret in Cieszyn! I hired you as a gift for my liege lord.

How could you have gotten such wealth? You'll have to tell a better lie than that before I believe it!"

"Count Lambert gave it to me, your grace. He did, I swear!"

"No, Angelo. The count was very generous about a lot of things, but not money. Lands, yes. Women, yes. Money, no!"

"But he did, your grace. That wasn't nine parts per gross I got. It was six percent! The count, he gave me that much as a bonus. See, I was only being paid one hundred pence a year, plus room and board.

Once the factory was working well and making fabulous profits because of my knowledge and labor, I asked the count for a substantial raise, and he wouldn't give it to me. I kept on asking him, and he kept on turning me down. But he was giving cloth out easily enough. You certainly got enough of it! So I asked if I could have a share of the cloth we made, and he said that would be possible. He asked how much I wanted, and I told him six percent, figuring we would settle for some much lower figure, since he'd been so stingy with me so far. But the count said that six percent would be fine, and he went in to his latest lady. I could hardly believe my ears, but he agreed to it! I swear that this is true on the grave of my own mother! "

"Hmph. Then how did you turn that cloth into money?"

"Why, I sold it to merchants, your grace, the same way that everybody else does."

"The same way that everybody else does?"

"Yes, your grace. Many of the girls here sell cloth to the merchants. That's how they are paid, in cloth.

Oh, some of the workers come here for just a season and go home with a full hope chest, but some of the ladies have been working here every year since we started. They are our skilled workers, and we couldn't possibly manage without them. Now, you can't expect a lady to save cloth for nine years and never need a penny in real money! Of course we all sold to merchants, and Count Lambert never said a thing about it. We have a regular exchange set up, with fixed prices, and a girl draws her back wages in cloth according to what a merchant wants to buy. It was our cloth, after all. We'd earned it! "

"You know, Angelo, that story is almost believable. But tell me, why did you keep your money hidden?"

"Your grace, if you had such a fabulous sum, wouldn't you worry about thieves?"

"It would have been safe enough in the count's strong room, especially what with the new locks I installed there for him."

"Yes, your grace, but then he would have seen how much I had earned working for him. You see, -1 had the feeling that he didn't know how much six percent of gross was. I didn't want to remind him."

"Hmph. And that's why you spent hardly any of the money, so the count wouldn't know that you were rich?"

"Of course, your grace. In a few more years I was going back to Florence, a wealthy man, a merchant of substance!"

"Hmph. Knowing the count as I did, I almost believe your story. Almost. The real problem is that even if every word you've told me is true, you were still robbing Count Lambert. You say that you had a verbal contract with him, and I admit that verbal contracts were the only sort that Lambert would make. But for a contract to be binding, there must be a meeting of the minds. If Lambert didn't know how much you were getting, there was no contract. You were stealing, nonetheless!"

"Your grace, you can't believe that! You wouldn't have me killed!"

"No, I probably wouldn't, but my contract with Duke Henryk has him worrying about all legal matters.

Your life is in his hands, not mine."

I went out and told the accountants to call in Baron Pulaski and have him hear the case. Then they would send the results to Duke Henryk for his determination.

My immediate problem was to find a replacement for Muskarini. Something that he had said gave me hope, though. There were women here who had more than six years' experience in cloth making. I went through the factory looking for them, since of course there were no personel records. Soon I had five possible candidates for the job, and I was told of three more on the night shift, whom I sent for. Then I took them into one of the guest rooms one at a time and spent about a quarter hour talking to each them.

And you know, there wasn't the slightest doubt in my mind as to who was best qualified for the job of running the whole factory.

One young lady was twenty-two. She seemed to know everything I did about cloth making and quite a bit more that .1 didn't. She was currently in charge of the linenweaving operation, but she also knew what was happening everywhere else. She had taken full advantage of the educational opportunities at Okoitz and could read and write adequately as well as keep accurate books. And when I hinted about getting together for the night, she very politely turned me down. That impressed me considerably! So once I had seen all of the other candidates, I promoted her. But not at six percent of the gross.

Needless to say, the workers were happy about drawing their money in cash and not having to bother with the clumsy subterfuge of barter. The merchants were also happy, and we never had any serious problems with workers abusing their right to buy at below wholesale prices. At least none that we found out about.

Months later Duke Henryk decided that Muskarini was defrauding Lambert even though it was likely that Lambert had agreed to the six percent bonus. Muskarini had been paid at a hundred pence a year, an absurdly low figure for a skilled worker being employed in a managerial position. Henryk decided that four thousand pence a year would have been a more honest wage and awarded Muskarini 35,000 pence in back wages. The balance of the money was rightfully Lambert's and therefore mine as Lambert's heir.

Then he banished Muskarini, saying that he wasn't the sort that was wanted in Poland. A knight was a.s.signed to escort him over the German border, Hungary still being at war.

I'm glad that I didn't have to make that decision.

The summer pa.s.sed pleasantly. Cilicia and Francine both had healthy boys, although Francine still would not come home. She spent her time visiting Cracow, Sandomierz, and Plock, playing the grand d.u.c.h.ess and not bothering the Banki brothers too much. She was drawing money for her expenses from the Pink Dragon Inns, but not in absurd amounts. I let her be.

Baron Vladimir was getting the active reserves going and complaining that he had even less time at home than before. His biggest headache was that virtually all our men at or above the level of knight were working in the factories or in the regular battalions, and almost all the men in the active reserves were those who had come to us last fall and who had had only four months of training. He had almost no senior officers. He had a huge army of nothing but warrior basics and was forced to hand out temporary promotions to inexperienced and often illiterate men.

Baron Vladimir demanded and got back his old Big Person, Betty, so that he could cover the country properly. I suggested that he delegate most of the work to regional "barons," but he had to do things in his own fashion.

Over a thousand of my factory workers swore fealty to Vladimir, deciding to be peasants again, which was far more than I had expected. But I had given my word and gave Vladimir land enough for all of them. Anyway, very few of them were highly skilled workers. It takes all kinds. My father told me that.

As new Vistula riverboats were put into commission, officered largely by men from the Odra boats, they had plenty of business. Not cargo so much, since trade was still recovering, but pa.s.senger travel.

Everybody wanted to visit the battle sites, and Baron Novacek, my sales manager, hired tour guides to tell people the stories for a price. He made an absolute killing, selling to the tourists "absolutely genuine Mongol war relics," the junk arms and armor that I thought would be melted down for sc.r.a.p.

Duke Henryk made the tour five more times, impressing foreign dignitaries. I was glad that I didn't have to do more than smile and have a meal with them when he brought them around. Usually Henryk let me get away with serving them in my apartment, with my household, or even letting them serve themselves informally in the cafeteria, since he knew how I hated formal banquets. On rare occasions he felt that formality was necessary, and then we did it his way. Fair is fair. Anyway, the girls liked banquets when they didn't happen too often.

The Pruthenian children Vladimir and I had rescued from the Crossmen were all adults now, and they all spoke Polish well, but some of them still remembered their native tongue. Henryk borrowed a dozen of those who were bilingual for a diplomatic mission to the Pruthenian tribes. He also asked for and got my Mongol prisoner, why I don't know or care. I was glad enough to be rid of the smelly b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

Baron Piotr came up with a decent trophy-distribution program for our own troops. The stuff was sorted according to quality and put into separate warehouses according to army rank. There was a big warehouse filled with lower quality stuff for the warriors, a smaller one with nicer things for the knights, a much smaller one for the captains, and so on. Then each man was issued a chit that let him go to Three Walls any time in the next year and take his pick. New rooms were opened up over the months so that those who came late didn't get things that were too picked over. The system a.s.sured that the higher-ranking men who had been working in the army for many years got the better gimcracks and that there were some things left for the lowest-ranking men.

Coming up with 150,000 sets of eighteen-carat military decorations was no small feat, and production lines were set up to stamp and cast it all during the summer. Many workers were shocked at the thought of working in gold instead of their usual iron or copper, and all sorts of proposals were tossed around to make sure that none of it was stolen. Aside from carefully sweeping up after each shift and making everybody dust off thoroughly before leaving the area, none of these plans were put into effect. And you know? As close as we could weigh it, not one pound of gold was stolen!

Besides an average of five and a quarter pounds of gold military jewelry, the lowest man in the army got 6,200 pence in cash. Barons got thirty-two times that amount, but then, people in the Middle Ages were well convinced that rank had its privileges. All of this was paid in our zinc coinage, of course. I kept the actual gold and silver.

Even these large amounts were arrived at only after a certain amount of mathematical chicanery. Piotr and the accountants decided that I deserved to be reimbursed for my expenses incurred because of the war. They arrived at the figure they did by taking the gross income of all my lands and factories for the last nine years, plus the value of the lands I had been granted or had inherited, and subtracting from that the value of my current nonmilitary properties. The difference between these two must be what I had spent on the war, they claimed. It came to two-thirds of the gold and silver we took!

Then they awarded shares of the booty to the conventional hors.e.m.e.n who had served under Duke Boleslaw at Sandomierz, in accordance with their rank. Since over half of them were knights and one in seven of these were barons, the shares were large. Since many of them had died without heirs, much of this money escheated back to me as their duke.

A generous fund was set up to take care of the dependents of the army personnel who had died in the fighting or in training. And of course these dependents also inherited their share of the booty besides.

The value of the money and jewels taken from the Christian dead at East Gate was spent on aid to refugees and war orphans, and when this proved to not be quite enough, the balance was paid by the booty fund.

All of this dubious accounting was published in the first monthly issue of The Christian Army Magazine, along with an invitation to object to any feature of it that was felt to be unfair. Only four letters of complaint were received, and those complaints all concerned the war trophies, not the money. I felt a little guilty about it. I mean, it looked to me like I was being paid for the Pink Dragon Inns that had been burned down, but everybody seemed to think it was fair. Maybe by medieval standards it was.

Anyway, by the time all this settled out, I had these two huge stacks of metal bricks, one of gold and one of silver. Worrying about the difficulty of guarding it and the wasted man-hours that would involve, I had each stack cast into a single ma.s.sive cube, except for 150 tons of the silver, which was earmarked for silverware.

Up until now we had been using bra.s.s forks and spoons, and bra.s.s sometimes has a funny taste. I let it be known that I would be happy to hear about any good use for our precious metals, and quite a bit of it was used for things such as church vessels and medical equipment.

But most of it went to these huge solid cubes, which were put on public display at Three Walls. I felt safe, since they were too big to move without heavy machinery, and pa.s.sersby would act as guards against that. People got quite a kick out of just walking up and touching them. From then on, no one ever doubted the army's credit!

And the jewels? Well, no one knew how to value them, let alone divide them fairly, so they just gave them all to me. I separated out the diamonds, which were useful industrially, and put the rest into a big, st.u.r.dy chest. Then, one day, I snuck out to the woods and buried them, very deep, with Silver as my only witness. She promised to show them to my successor after I was gone. d.a.m.ned if I was going to waste good men guarding the stupid baubles!

In late summer, word came from Hungary. We had won the war! The Christian and Mongol forces had been fairly evenly matched, and they had slugged it out all summer long. Veterans returning from the south all seemed to make the trip around the battlefields in Poland, which was now running as a regular guided tour, and they were generally astounded at the number of Mongols we had encountered.

Apparently, the main enemy force had been sent to Poland, and only a small one to Hungary. Bulgaria hadn't been invaded at all despite the fact that the Mongols had promised to do so. In my timeline the Bulgarians had paid tribute to the Mongols for a century.

Most of Lambert's knights came back from Hungary alive and well, including Sir Miesko and both of Sir Vladimir's brothers. They had plenty of stories to tell and occasionally even a bit of booty to back it up.

Yet be that as it may, knights returning from Hungary bought an awful lot of Baron Novacek's absolutely genuine Mongol war relics!

Chapter Twenty-eight.