By this time the miners and masons enlarging the old mine were down to the water level. The pumps were working around the clock, but the rock around the shaft was porous and completely soaked. We not only had to pump out the mine, we had to pump out the mountain as well. We were gaining on it, but the miners alone could not keep up with our progress.
I put six of the masons to cutting grindstones from a nearby sandstone outcropping. We’d been sending our supply mules back empty, so transportation out was essentially free. There wasn’t much profit in grindstones, but there was some.
The rest of the masons went to work cutting limestone blocks for the foundations, basements, and firewalls of our main building. Limestone isn’t the best material to use for a firewall. Fire will eventually ruin it. But it will hold for a while and that was all we needed. Anyway, we had a lot of limestone and we were short on sandstone, which would be needed for the blast furnaces.
Things were settling down and starting to run smoothly. Even the brewery was doing well. With little else to drink, people in the Middle Ages drank an awesome amount of beer. Per capita consumption at Three Walls was over a gallon a day, and that’s counting women and small children as well as the men. We went through three huge thousand-gallon barrels a week. Oh, it was weak and flat, but the volumes involved were still frightening.
Nothing I could do about it, though. These people wouldn’t mind if I whipped them, and giving me free use of their daughters was just the expected thing. But if I had reduced their beer supply, I would have had a revolution on my hands. I’m just glad that I didn’t have to pay a liquor tax on what we made.
Next Sunday evening, I announced that we would be throwing a dance on the following Saturday night. We’d be inviting the yeomen, and anyone who could play a musical instrument could take an hour off each evening for practice.
I soon had to retract that last offer. Over half of the people there could play some sort of instrument. After a lot of haggling and argument, we eventually settled on a band master. He was to choose twelve people and they could have the hour off, but I couldn’t have half the workforce gone every afternoon.
They mostly had to make their own instruments, and I noticed some of my old parchment drawings turn up as drumheads. At first the band was pretty heavy on percussion and woodwinds, but in time they became a fairly professional outfit.
I held my first formal court just before the dance, since the yeomen were there and Sir Vladimir had been after me to do it for some time. He wasn’t happy with my usual informal ways of doing things, and I suppose that there is something in the human animal that wants formality since we act that way so often.
We moved a few tables together under the dining pavilion and put a chair on top of them. My throne.
I got into one of my best outfits, asked Natalia to bring her records and take notes, and asked Sir Vladimir to run the show, since he knew the procedure.
He showed up in full armor, and carried a lance in lieu of a halberd, as though he was a royal guard. He shouted in fine theatrical style.
“Oyez! Oyez! The honorable court of your liege lord, Sir Conrad Stargard, Lord of Three Walls, is now in session. Any who have need of his advice or consent should now come forward!”
Two of the yeomen had an argument over a pig, which they brought along as evidence. They both had a pig run away on the same day, and only one pig had been caught, which they both claimed as theirs. I let them both go on for quite a while, since much of the reason for a court of law is to provide a place where social tensions can be drained off.
As they droned on, I noticed that Natalia was sitting at the table below me, which gave me a pleasant shot down the front of her dress. I didn’t know why that should be interesting when I’d seen her naked a thousand times, but somehow it was.
It was soon obvious to me and to everyone else that both men thought they were fight, and that one pig looks much like another.
I said that the facts were now clear and that I had reached my decision. I told the first man that the pig was his, and that he could take it home. Then I told the other guy that the pig was his, and he could take it home. Then I charged them each a half a pig as court costs, and said that they should do the butchering away from camp. This way they could each take home half a pig.
One of the men asked how would I get my court costs. I said that both of my halves were running around in the woods some place, and should he see them, he should return them to me. I thought I was telling a joke.
He nodded very seriously and said, “Of course, my lord.”
Two weeks later, the yeomen showed up again, each carrying half a pig, which they had found wandering about in the woods, still stuck together. They returned my property to me and both thought that my justice was excellent.
It takes all kinds. My father told me that.
The only other item on the agenda was the formal request of two of my subjects to be married.
As lord, I had the fight to demand that the bride spend a night with me before she went to her husband, or to accept a bribe from the groom to not touch her. I didn’t like the custom. Either the girl was in love with her prospective husband, in which case she wouldn’t want me, or she was pregnant, in which case I’d worry about harming the child, or both.
I always waived my fights to the bride. Heck, I had trouble enough satisfying the volunteers.
Naturally, I always gave my permission to marry, but they liked me to go through a certain amount of rigmarole. I asked the father of the bride if he gave his blessings on the proposed marriage. He did. Did the father of the groom bless this marriage? He did. Did anyone present see any reason why these two should not be married?
Nobody said anything. I nodded to Sir Vladimir. , “Know you that the proposed wedding between Maria Sklodowska, daughter of Tomas Sklodowski, and Mikolaj Kopernik, son of. . – ”
I nearly fell off my chair on the table. Maria Sklodowska was the maiden name of a woman scientist known as Madam Curie, after she married a Frenchman. And Mikolaj Kopernik was better known by his Latinized name, Copernicus. He was responsible for starting the entire modem scientific revolution!
And they were getting married?
It was a moment before my historical sense caught up with me. Copernicus was born in the fifteenth century, Madam Curie was born in the nineteenth century, and I was stuck in the thirteenth century. The names were obviously just a coincidence.
Obviously.
But I had Natalia make a note in the file that I should get yearly progress reports on any kids they had. There might be a genius coming along.
The dance went off pretty well. Krystyana. and I showed them the polka and the mazurka, which instantly became popular. Perhaps it was the fact that here was a way that you could hold a woman who ‘Wasn’t your wife, and do it in public in a socially acceptable way.
The yeomen did a vigorous, all-male number that involved huge leaps and clashing their axes together. It was something between a dance, a contest, and a military training exercise. It was vaguely reminiscent of a group of karate students running through a kata. Not as polished as the National Ballet, but impressive for all of that.
During a break in the dancing, I had a wooden framework I’d had made brought out. This had two small upright logs about two yards long set up so that we could adjust the distance between them.
I announced a contest. I would give six silver pennies to the man who could squirm through the smallest crack.
This was an unusual contest, but six pence was a whole week’s pay. The competition was spirited. Little Piotr Kulczynski won, but Krystyana wasn’t impressed.
“Good,” I announced, “I was worried about a thief being able to crawl into our new building. Now I know how wide to make the windows!”
It was a successful event, and we agreed to throw a dance every two weeks from then on. Eventually, we even got a wooden dance floor.