The High-Tech Knight

Chapter Sixteen

Sir Vladimir and I had just spent another grueling three-hour session of fighting practice, trying to teach me how to put a lance through a quintain, an old plywood shield with a small hole in the center of it. The glues used were inferior to the modem ones, and the thin strips of wood had started to delaminate. It wasn't quite like modem plywood. The plies were at sixty-degree angles rather than ninety.

The shield was fixed to one end of a crossbar that was mounted to a swiveling post. At the other end of the crossbar hung a hefty sandbag. You charged the thing at a full gallop and tried to put your lance through the hole. If you missed the hole, as I usually did, you hit the shield, spun the post around, and the sandbag hit you in the back of the head. This generally knocked you off your horse.

Sir Vladimir considered even that arrangement to be rather effeminate. He wanted to replace the sandbag with a rock.

I simply couldn't master it. After two weeks of steady bruising, I was just as bad at it as when I started.

"I'm beginning to lose faith, Sir Conrad. I fear you'll never be a lanceman. But see here, it isn't all that bad. Death must come to all men eventually, and at least yours will be in the glory of combat, with your friends looking on. We'll give you a beautiful funeral, and I'll light a candle in the church for you every Christmas and Easter." He really meant it.

It didn't help at all that Sir Vladimir never missed with a lance. He was supposed to be instructing me, but in fact he didn't see how it was possible for anybody to miss so easy a target. He could hit the hole sideways! I mean that he could set the quintain at right angles to its normal position, charge it at a full gallop, and while passing three yards from it thrust his lance out to the side and skewer the hole every time.

It was becoming obvious that if I was going to win the coming trial, I was going to need special weapons, or tactics, or help. Preferably all three. "Sir Vladimir, let's go over the rules again. You said the code was 'arm yourself.' What if I brought in a cannon?"

"What is a cannon, Sir Conrad?"

"That's sort of hard to explain. What if I was a bowman like Tadaos?"

"A bow is hardly a knightly weapon. No true belted knight would use one in honorable combat. The bow is for peasants and women."

"Why is that? It seems a strange prejudice."

"Well, if everybody used them in a battle, who would know who killed whom? Where would be the glory in just going out and getting shot? The best men would fall as easily as the worst! What a horrible situation! No. A true knight would never use a bow or fire a trebuchet or anything of the sort."

"So projectile weapons are out?"

"Of course, Sir Conrad."

"I guess that scuttles my cannon idea. I probably couldn't develop gunpowder in the time available, anyway. How about armor? I noticed that you knights never armor your horses."

"There would be no point to it. Striking another knight's mount would be a foul. At your trial, four crossbowmen will be at the ready to kill the man that does a foul deed."

"I didn't realize that. How about weapons? I can use my own sword, can't 1, and not one of the heavy choppers you guys use?"

"Your own sword is legal, as are any daggers, maces, axes, mauls, war hammers, or anything else that is not thrown. A weapon must stay in your hand."

"How about body armor? Do I have to wear chain mail?"

"No, but you'd be a damn fool not to. You ought to have a coat of plates made as well."

"A coat of plates?"

"Yes. I should have mentioned it sooner, but there's still plenty of time. It's sort of a leather vest with iron plates sewn inside. You wear it either over or under your mail."

"You might want to get a great helm as well. They fit over your regular helmet, and you wear them for the first few charges, until the lances are broken. After that, if it comes to swordwork, you can take it off, to see better."

"So anything I come up with in the way of armor is fair?"

"Anything at all. But I hope you don't plan something stupidly heavy. Anything that slows you down will earn you a blade in the eye slit."

"What I'm going to build is going to be as light as chain mail."

The blacksmith I'd hired was good enough to handle general repair work, but I needed a real master. The best man I knew was Count Lambert's blacksmith, Ilya. The man was rude, crude, and obstreperous, but he had the skill.

I left for Okoitz within the hour.

Ilya was willing, indeed eager to come to Three Walls. It seems that he wasn't getting along well with the wife Count Lambert saddled him with.

"You understand that this is only temporary," I said. "I won't be a part of permanently separating a man from his family."

"You don't have four kids screaming in the room when you're trying to relax. Somebody else's kids at that."

"If you didn't want the woman and her children, you shouldn't have married her."

"Count Lambert wanted me to. You go argue with him if you want to."

"It's not my problem."

Count Lambert was willing to lend me Ilya providing I found a replacement. The harvest season was in full swing and it was vital to have someone who could repair broken tools.

I loaded Ilya behind me on Anna's rump, and we made it to Cieszyn before dark. I gave Ilya a sack of money and told him to hire four assistants, plus one more man for Count Lambert.

He was to buy his weight in iron bars and whatever tools he might need, and bring them to Three Walls in two days, along with a ton of charcoal.

I introduced him to the innkeeper and to the Krakowski brothers, and told them to give him every possible assistance.

Then I was back at Three Walls in the early dawn for more fighting practice. After that I limped back to my hut and started cutting out little pieces of parchment.

It took the girls and me three days to get it right, but we made a full suit of articulated plate armor, the kind you've seen in museums. We made it out of parchment, with buttons sewn on where the rivets had to go.

By the time Ilya had his forge set up, we had a complete set of patterns for him to work from. He thought it Was crazy, but he thought everything I did was crazy. I let him bitch, just so long as my armor got built.

When you think about it, a blade is an energy-concentrating device. A sword takes all the force in your arm and concentrates it on the tiny area of the sharp edge. That's why a sharp blade cuts better. It has a smaller area.

And a sword not only concentrates energy in space, it also concentrates it in time. It might take a few seconds to swing a sword, but the whole energy of the swing is delivered in milliseconds at impact, multiplying the instantaneous force by a factor of hundreds. This is why it's easier to down a tree by swinging the axe, rather than just by pushing it at the tree.

Armor is an energy-distributing device. The padding under the steel compresses, delivering the energy of the blow over a longer period of time. The thicker the padding, the longer the time, the lower the force felt by the wearer.

And armor distributes the energy of a blow in space. If the blade can't cut the steel, it must push it forward. The bigger the plate of armor, the wider the area, the lower the force felt by the wearer. With chain mail, the area under each link is small and while it's a big improvement over bare skin, it can't compare with a solid metal plate.

Of course, there are practical limitations on how thick the padding can be and how big you can make the plates. You have to be able to move in the stuff.

But what I was going to wear would be two hundred years more advanced than what my opponent would have, and that just might make the difference. In combat, high technology means higher than your opponent's.

And while all the practice and armor-making was going on, work continued at Three Walls. In addition to the wall-apartment house, the church, the inn, the barn, the icehouse, the smokehouse (which was to double as a sauna), and the factory, we now needed a coke oven and a blast furnace.

The blast furnace would have to wait a bit, but I had to know if our coal could be turned into coke. Not all types of coal can be made into coke in an old-style beehive oven. Building a modern coke oven was well beyond our capabilities.

The boys' cave had to be enlarged and the iron ore extracted using bronze picks and shovels that I was having made up.

And we still hadn't struck coal yet. The masons finally got sufficiently frustrated that they built a big wood fire and threw on all the limestone rubble that they had been generating in the course of making blocks. They kept adding wood and limestone for a week, and when the fire was out, they had quick lime, calcium oxide. Adding water and sand to it made mortar.

When I asked them why they hadn't told me that you could make lime with a wood fire, they said I hadn't asked. That night at supper, I made a speech about how it was important to keep me informed about that sort of thing, but I don't think that it sank in very deep. One of the men said that they saw me doing so many crazy things that if they told me about every one of them, they wouldn't have any time left to work.

Someday, I'd make believers out of them.

Soon, foundations were being laid and people could see signs of progress. I think they had been starting to worry about being stuck in the woods for the winter with only our temporary shelters, because the laying of the foundations made them all look more confident.

The Pruthenian children had mostly fit right in. Looking at them, you couldn't tell the difference between them and the Polish children we had of the same age. Their accents were thick as a millstone, but even there progress was being made. At least we could understand them. To give them religious instruction, the priest had begun staying over until Monday afternoons, and many of them were already baptized. Most of them were starting to learn the trades of their adopted parents. But sometimes, when they thought you weren't looking at them, you could see written on their faces the horror of all that they had been through. That increased my resolve; those children were not going to go back into slavery.

Then there was Anna. I'd kept my promises to her and made a big sign with all the letters on it so she could spell things out. She was still attending church regularly, and the priest was growing increasingly scandalized. He finally broached the subject.

I'd known that it was coming, and had my response ready. I said that Anna was a full citizen of Three Walls, she was smarter than half my workers, and if she wanted to live a moral, Christian life, I certainly wasn't going to stop her. I said it in a straight, deadpan way. Father Stanislaw just shook his head and walked away. And Anna continued to go to church.

Vladimir was growing increasingly depressed as winter approached. For one thing, his brother visited him and said that their father was still violently angry with him, and his family meant a lot to Vladimir. I think there was even more to his depression than that, but I couldn't find out what it was. He wasn't pleasant company anymore, and I found myself looking forward to my trips alone.

I timed my next visit to Okoitz so that I could see the trial by combat at Bytom before returning to Three Walls.

The harvest was in full swing at Okoitz.

In a medieval farming community, the harvest was the busiest time of the year. They had six or eight weeks to bring in all the food they would eat throughout the year, and everything else done in the year was mere preparation for this event. And despite the cloth factory and other improvements I'd made, Okoitz was still predominately a farming community.

Everyone got up with the first, false dawn and worked almost nonstop until it was too dark to see, often falling asleep still in their work clothes. Working eighteen hours a day, these people consumed a huge amount of food, more than six loaves of broad per capita per diem, plus other food.

I think that much of the Slavic temperament must be the result of a long-term adaptation to the weather and farming conditions of the north European plain. When the need arises, we are capable of working for months on end with only a little sleep, doing incredible amounts of work, three or four times what people from gentler climates could do. Incredible, that is, to any outsider. To us, it seems only normal.

But when the need is not there, as happens during the long northern winter, we become lethargic, food consumption drops, and spending twenty hours a day in bed seems like a pleasant thing. Having someone to help you keep warm is nice, too, and that also is a part of the Slavic temperament.

In a desert country, the cutting edge of nature is that there is sometimes not enough water. When it is in short supply, and there is not enough for everyone, every man becomes the competitor, the natural enemy of every other man. That is reflected in the temperament of the desert peoples, and by Polish standards they become harsh, ruthless, and cruel.

But when the great killer is not the lack of food or water, but the cold of a five-month winter, every person about you is one more source of heat! The more your friends, the larger your family, the greater your chances of surviving the winter. Good interpersonal skills, concern for others, and love have high survival value. So does a strong sense of group loyalty.

During the long winter, there is little to do much of the time but talk, and any subject of conversation is welcome. Things are debated at length, and there is time for everyone to have his say. Decisions are made by eventual consensus.

But when it's time to work, there is no more time for talk. Things must be done, and soon, or winter will close in again without enough food stored up. At such times, we Slavs work well as a group, without argument, and with a solidarity that an Arab couldn't conceive of.

A hundred wheelbarrows had been made to my specifications, and they stayed in steady use. Split logs had been laid along the paths to make pushing them easier.

Everyone was friendly, but busy, so I was left to look things over myself. The seeds I had brought in were doing fairly well. There were small patches of corn, beans, winter squash, and pumpkins that could be left until the more critical crops-the grains-were in. The tiny patches of hybrid grains had been harvested and carefully been kept separate from the standard crops. In fact, Count Lambert had them stored in his own bedroom, to make sure that they wouldn't be eaten by mistake. He showed them to me that night.

"Look at this, Sir Conrad!" He held open a sack with a few pounds of rye in it. "All that grew from the one tiny handful of seed you brought!"

It looked normal enough. "What of it, my lord?"

"What of it? Why, that must be a return of fifty to one! Don't you realize that five to one is considered excellent, and three to one is normal?"

"No, my lord, I guess I didn't. You mean that each year, you people have to take one-third of your grain and replant it, just to get next year's harvest?"

"That's exactly what I mean. Do you mean to tell me that returns of fifty to one are considered normal among your people?"

"I'm not sure, my lord. I wasn't a farmer. But my impression was that the amount of seed required was small. Usually, a farmer didn't replant his own grain. He bought seed from someone who specialized in producing it."

"Those specialists did damn well! I only hope we can do as good. Be assured that every seed of these grains will be carefully hoarded and planted next spring. Now, with most of your crops, the seeds are obvious, but what do we do about the root crops?"

"The important ones are the potatoes and the sugar beets, my lord. The potatoes, I know how to grow. It's unusual to grow them from seeds, as we did this year. Normally, you cut the potato so that each piece has one of the eyes on it and plant the pieces. The sugar beets worry me. I don't know how to make them go to seed."

"Well, if they're like any other beet, they seed in the second year. Some kinds you just leave in the ground. Some you bury in a deep hole, then replant in the spring. Some you store in a basement."

"I think it might be best to try all three, my lord. One way might work."

"We'll do that. Think! A beet that's as big as a man's head!".

"It's not just the size, my lord. Those beets are about one-sixth sugar. Once we have enough of them, I'll work on the manufacturing processes to extract that sugar, and you will have a very valuable cash crop."

"Well, we can but try. But it is late, and I'm minded to retire. Good night, Sir Conrad."

I'd taken the precaution of renewing my friendship with one of the girls from the cloth factory, so it was indeed a good night.

The next day I had a talk with Krystyana's father. This might have been an awkward confrontation, since I was sleeping with his daughter but didn't intend to marry her. It wasn't. He treated the relationship as one only to be expected. He was more concerned about the rose bushes.

Last Christmas, I'd given Krystyana a package of seeds for Japanese roses, and she had planted them in front of her parents' home. They were doing entirely too well, and already they were inconveniently large. He wanted me to ask her if he could uproot them. Of course, as her father, he didn't need her permission to do anything, but the wise man keeps peace in his household. I asked that instead of tearing the bushes out, he simply prune them, and plant the cuttings to see if they wouldn't grow roots. Japanese roses might be too big for his front yard, but they would make a very good fence in the fields. He liked the idea and agreed to try it right after the harvest was in. If they didn't take, he'd try again in the spring, and if the bushes wouldn't grow from cuttings, they'd certainly grow from seed.

This was the second good year in a row, and last year he hadn't been able to get the last of his barley in before the fall rains ruined it. This year, he had a wheelbarrow, and that had made all the difference. With it, he could carry three times as much in a day, and he was actually ahead of schedule. Now he was worried that he might not be able to store it all. I guess a farmer has to worry about something.

The next morning, I was with Anna, making the run north to Bytom. We arrived hours before noon, and I was soon talking to a junior herald who didn't seem to have much else to do.

"Less than a hundred people," he said. "Usually the crowd is much larger."

"I suppose having it during the middle of the harvest keeps most people away," I said.

"True, my lord, but it had to be fought now since it will determine the ownership of the harvest of these fields. Also keeping down the crowd is the fact that the trial is not to the death. Only an inheritance is at issue. There is no truly injured party, so it need be fought only to first blood."

"What's the fight about?"

"It's simple enough. A man died without male issue. His wife and daughter would have inherited, but a male cousin of the deceased claimed that they would not be able to do the military duty due on the land, and so claimed that he was honor-bound to challenge the ownership of it. Many women would have compromised with him, yielding a portion of the property in return for the cousin's doing the military duty."

"But Lady Maria is made of tougher stuff. She's hired a champion to defend her, and now the cousin is doubtless regretting his earlier greed. He has no choice but to go through with it, and he hasn't a chance of winning. Rumor has it that he has bribed the champion, Sir Boleslaw, to go easy on him, though the truth of that isn't for me to say."

"So the outcome is preordained and probably fixed. No wonder it hasn't drawn much of a crowd," I said. "I've heard that it's possible to get a fighting lesson or two from a champion. How do I go about doing that?"

"You talk to one of his squires, my lord. They're the ones over there in the gray-and-brown livery, good heraldic colors in Poland, though they aren't used in western Europe. You'll have to pay six or twelve pence for the privilege of a lesson, of course. By definition, a professional is one who does it for money."

I took his advice, talked to the squire, and found that the price was twelve pence the lesson. Twelve pence was two weeks pay for a workingman, but a bargain if I could learn something that might save my life. The lesson was to be held right after the combat. Certainly the squire had no doubts about whether his master would be in shape to teach after fighting.

At high noon or thereabouts, a trumpeter played something to get everyone's attention, a priest said a prayer, and the challenger and champion waited with their helmets off before the crowd. The champion was a quiet man in his thirties. The challenger was much younger, with a smile and flashing eyes. He had very smooth and regular features, was handsome almost to the point of being effeminate, and someone told me that his nickname was Pretty Johnnie.

A herald read two proclamations, one from each party in the dispute, which said what they were fighting about. Some peasants had set up benches, and I paid for a seat right on the fifty-yard line, with Anna watching over my shoulder.

Two armored men charged each other from opposite ends of the field, the champion somberly dressed in gray and brown. The challenger was more gaily clad in yellow and blue, his family colors.

As they met, the champion raised his heavy lance, and at first I thought he meant to give the first round to his opponent. Pretty Johnnie's lance slid off the champion's shield, and Sir Boleslaw brought his lance straight down, like a club, on the helmet of the challenger passing by.

I could hear the bonk from the sidelines.

The crowd gave a polite round of applause as the challenger slumped in his saddle and then fell from his horse. The champion waved to the crowd to acknowledge the cheer, then dismounted to see if the challenger would get up.

He did, so the champion unsheathed his sword and walked over to him. He politely waited a few minutes until the challenger stopped staggering, then said, "Defend yourself!"

The challenger tried to do that, but made a poor showing. After a few swipes that the champion contemptuously brushed aside, the champion gave him a backhanded blow that caved in the front of his barrel-style helmet. He fell in a heap.

The champion took off his own helmet, raised his sword, and proclaimed that God had upheld the right, and that henceforth Lady Maria's right and title of her lands would go unquestioned. He then bowed and returned to his tent.

Several people came out to tend the unfortunate challenger and found that they could not remove his helmet. It was bashed in so badly that they had to pick the man up and carry him over to the blacksmith's anvil. Getting that helmet off attracted more interest than the fight itself had, and a crowd gathered to watch the smith go at it with crowbars and hammers. Somebody shouted that they should heat the helmet in the forge to make it easier to bend, and everybody but the challenger laughed.

When they finally got his headgear off, the challenger's face was a red ruin. His nose was smashed flat and all of his front teeth were knocked out. Medieval dentistry being nonexistent, he was maimed for life. Pretty Johnnie wasn't pretty anymore.