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only one available, which was a mistake.
It was dark before we got the silly animal back to camp and we had to stop and
squirt the milk on the ground because we didn't have a bucket with us and I
refused to lend my helmet for the purpose. At that, we were lucky, since Yawalda
knew how to milk a cow and neither of us men did. I didn't even know why it was
bawling and refusing to move. The joys of the pastoral
By the end of the next day, they had built a complete, If rustic village. The
blacksmith was set up and making barrel hoops for the brewery and the masons
were cutting a huge millstone that would be turned by two mules. Carpenters
were at work making a gross of beehives. There was a hut for every family and all
the outbuildings we needed for storage, cooking, and eating. We even had tables
and benches, made from split logs, under the dining pavilion and enough new
bowls, trenchers (a sort of board you ate off of), and spoons to go around. It is
amazing how much six hundred people can accomplish when they're motivated.
There were splinters in everything, of course, and enough wood chips to pave the
place, which was exactly what we used them for.
The next day was Sunday, and that afternoon Sir
Miesko's village priest showed up and said mass under the dining pavilion.
Anna watched the mass intently and came closer to listen to the sermon.
Thereafter, each week she became more interested and was soon kneeling,
sitting, and standing with the faithful.
The priest was obviously disconcerted, but didn't know how to bring up the
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subject of a church-going horse.
Just as well, because I didn't have any answers.
Interlude One
I hit the STOP button.
"Tom, that horse is one of your critters, isn't it?"
"She's an intelligent bioengineered creation of my labs, if that's what you mean."
"Then what's an old atheist like you doing designing religious animals?"
"In the first place, Anna's not an animal in the sense you're using the word. She's
intelligent. In the second, I didn't design her. That sort of thing takes a big staff a
long time to do. And in the third place, it was as big a surprise to me as it was to
you."
"It was?"
"Those horses are very literal-minded. They will always take every word that an
authority figure says as the absolute truth. Nobody ever thought that one of them
would be told deliberate lies."
"Tom, you're an old heathen!"
"I'm also your boss and your father. Now shut up."
He hit the START button.
Chapter Six
FROM THE DIARY OF CONRAD SCHWARTZ
I hadn't thought to pay anybody, so none of the people had any money. The
collection basket came back empty. To cover the embarrassment, I paid the
priest. This set another precedent. Conrad pays the priest.
Now we could get down to real work, building permanent housing and getting the
valley productive. I put the masons and the miners to enlarging the old mine
shaft. Medieval miners cut shafts that were barely crawlspaces. I wanted the shaft
big enough for a man to work in and there had to be room for a steam suction
pump.
Thus far, I'd let the carpenters build whatever they liked, since it was all only
temporary. But I had some definite ideas about what I wanted for the permanent
buildings.
The valley had about a square kilometer of flat land and was surrounded by a
sloping wall that eventually became quite steep. The only entrance was between
two cliffs about two hundred yards apart. The obvious structure to build was a
combination apartment house and defensive wall between them, about six stories
tall. It would have to be of wood, of course, good enough against animals and
thieves but worthless against Mongols. But the cliffs were more than two hundred
meters long and the land sloped down considerably as the cliffs fanned out. We
could build now at the narrowest point and later build another wall, or several
walls, that were taller and made of masonry.
I knew we had coal and limestone and that meant that we could make mortar
with existing technology. I was confident that with clay and sand and much
higher temperatures, we could make cement and with that we had concrete!
Enough concrete will stop anybody.
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