Nor could I go to a store and buy tools, not in the quantities I required. I had to contract to have them made and if I was going to do that, I might as well see that they were designed properly. I set up my drawing board and went to work.
I started drawing pliers and was astounded to discover that I knew the designs for more than ninety sorts of pliers. I spent two days drawing them and then realized that most of them would be useless in construction work.
I had to stop and think out exactly what we would need, because if we later discovered some lack, we’d be hard-pressed to supply it.
I only had to put up some buildings fourteen miles away, yet my situation was almost like that of a nineteenth-century explorer going into the jungle. If we didn’t bring it, we wouldn’t have it.
The usefulness of many tools often depends on subtle properties. At first glance, you normally wouldn’t notice much or any difference between a crosscut saw and a ripsaw, but in use the difference is huge. One cuts much better against the grain of the wood and the other with it. The difference has to do with the angle of the teeth and it took some experimentation to get it right.
When I was sure of a design and the quantities required, I put it up for bids by nailing a notice to the church door. I know that sounds sacrilegious, but that’s how these people posted a public notice.
Bidding for work was not the usual way of doing things and many blacksmiths objected. It was contrary to guild rules. They were working men, not merchants. It was unheard of.
I listened to their objections and then told them that if they wanted my work they would have to bid on it. In the end, they did it my way and for a reasonable price, but it is sad that a good socialist would have to do such things.
All of this took time, and two whole months went by before we could leave for Three Walls.
One morning, I was having dinner with the Banki brothers, and mentioned that I had run into a German knight on the trail in the High Tatras Mountains who had given me a bash on the head. And a month after that, I’d been attacked on Count Lambert’s trail by another German. And the day after that I was attacked by a whole band of Germans!
“It’s like there was an invasion of damned Germans!” I said.
“You must be careful with that sort of talk,” Sir Gregor said. “Did you know, for example, that Duke Henryk’s paternal grandmother was a German princess? That his mother was a German princess? That his wife was a German princess? And that young Henryk’s wife is a German princess?”
“No I didn’t. Why on Earth did they all marry Germans?”
“I couldn’t say exactly, of course, but I suppose the fact that a German princess often comes with a dowry that is ten times what any Pole could pay for his daughter has a lot to do with it. So many of their young men go wandering off and getting themselves killed that there’s always a surplus of young women. Then, too, in Germany only the oldest son inherits the father’s lands and title. The younger sons, with scant prospects in life, aren’t the most sought after of marriage partners.”
“Then there are, the German skilled workmen,” Wiktor added. “They know many things that our own people don’t. Many of them come to Poland to improve their position and it is the duke’s policy to welcome them.”
“Well, peaceful or not, it still seems like an invasion to me,” I said.
Sir Wojciech said, “Oh, that I should have a hundred skilled workmen and a beautiful German princess and a full sack of gold to go with her! Invade me! Invade me!”
I took a pull of beer from a new pitcher and it was foul. I called Tadeusz over.
“Try that and tell me if it’s the beer or only my mood that’s bad.”
He did and he blanched white. “Forgive me, Sir Conrad. This must be from the new batch. The whole barrel must be bad. We can’t serve this to our customers. A pity, but the barrel must be dumped and sulfur burned in it, then filled with boiling water, and soaked before it can be used again.”
“So you’re saying that you have a bad strain of yeast going. How much beer are we talking about?”
“This was the big barrel, my lord. More than six thousand gallons.”
“Ouch! That’s a lot of beer. Look-don’t dump the barrel. There’s something we can do with that beer. It tastes bad, but it still has alcohol in it. There’s a process called distillation that will let us save the alcohol.”
“This alcohol, my lord. What is it good for?”
“Drinking, mostly, but it has other uses. It’s good on cuts and wounds and helps keep them from festering. It’s useful in making other things like perfumes and medicines. It’s a good preservative and keeps things from rotting. But mostly it’s for drinking.”
“This sounds wondrous, my lord. And we could do this distillation here at the inn?”
“Here or at the brass works. I’ll go over there and see what I can come up with in the way of a still.”
We had two big brass kettles that were made for washing wool at Count Lambert’s cloth factory, but not yet delivered to him. They each had a tight-fitting lid.
For distillation, you need a container to simmer the mash, or in this case the beer. You contain the vapors and cool them down so that they can liquefy. This is traditionally done with a coil of copper tubing, which we didn’t have. But the only important thing is to have enough surface area to provide cooling.
I took one of the kettles and set it up over an outdoor fireplace in the inn’s courtyard. I found a hefty length of cast brass pipe intended for the washline that was as long as I was tall. I set the second kettle in a washtub that distance from the first. Then I got a smith from the brass works to solder the pipe between the two kettles, near the top.
This involved punching holes in my liege lord’s new kettles, but he probably wouldn’t notice. If he did, I could probably think up a good reason why I put the holes there on purpose. Engineers all develop a certain skill at snow jobs.
I also had the smith put a hole in each of the lids so we could check the liquid level in the kettles with a stick. Some thick leather made a good enough gasket for the lids. Sandbags held them down tight and wooden plugs took care of the holes in the lids.
By midafternoon, we had a still that any moonshiner would be proud of.
With the help of one of the cooks, I put forty gallons of bad beer in the boiler kettle and got a fire going under it. We filled the washtub around the condenser kettle with cool water and sat back to watch it work. By dark the level in the boiler had gone down about ten percent and I figured that we’d gotten all that we were going to get.
Sure enough, there were about four gallons of clear liquid in the bottom of the condenser. I took a pitcher of it into the inn and told the cook to put the rest into a barrel someplace. What was left in the boiler could be fed to the pigs.
Tadeusz was eagerly awaiting the results of our efforts. The thought of a new drink fascinated him.
You see, there were very few things to drink in the Middle Ages. There was wine that had to be imported. There was beer that was flat for lack of any container that could hold pressure. There was water that often wasn’t safe to drink. There was milk that was only available in the spring and summer. And that was all. Nothing else existed with which a person could quench his thirst.
He looked with great anticipation at the pitcher in my hand, and broke out his two best (and only) glass goblets. Glass was rare and fabulously expensive. They were the only bits of glass at the inn, reserved for the bride and groom at wedding feasts. The other guests at the head table had to make do with silver.
I poured two fingers worth into each glass and we drank.
It was raw and rough and rugged. Wicked stuff. I once tried the product of an Appalachian moonshiner and while my results weren’t quite as bad as his, I came close.
Tadeusz was literally cross-eyed. I’d heard of people having that reaction, but I’d never seen anyone actually do it before. There were beads of sweat on his forehead and his breathing had stopped. I had to pat him on the back to get it going again.