The problem was he knew the answer to that. “Thought was not to be sullied with the base, contemptible concerns of men whose lives were warped away from virtue by cramping labor . . .” Which, in effect, means anyone who isn’t an absentee landlord; not something that would have come to him before Raj and Center took up residence in the rear of his mind, but it was his own thought.
“We’ll lay down two rails of hard wood, spiked to cross-ties,” he said. “Carts will run down it, on flanged wheels. When they’re empty, they can be hauled up easily.”
Enri winced. “Oh, that will cost. Sawyers, carpenters, the metal for spikes, all that cordage . . .”
“No, it’ll turn a profit,” Adrian said. “What we extract will still leave the sludge good for fertilizer, and think of what that fetches in the gardens around the city.”
Enri brightened. “And, of course, the King will pay . . . eventually.”
* * *
“Interesting!” the blacksmith said.
Well, thank the Gray-Eyed Lady for that! Adrian thought to himself. At least I’m not getting “but such a thing was never done in the days of our fathers” so often here.
The smithy occupied the lower story of a house near the docks, with the quarters of the smith’s two wives, his children, the two apprentices and the three slaves to the rear, on the other side of the courtyard. It held a large circular brick hearth built up to about waist height, the bellows behind that, and a variety of anvils. The front entrance could be closed by a grillwork that was now hauled up, a little like a portcullis; the walls held workbenches, racked tools, vises and clamps, and more anvils of different shapes and sizes. It was ferociously hot—the smith wore only a rag-twist loincloth under his leather apron and gloves, and the slave working the bellows less than that. The smells were of hot oil from the quenching bath, burning charcoal, scorched metal, sweat.
“Interesting, the Lame One curse me if it isn’t,” the smith said. “This tube you want, now, it’s to be sixty inches long?”
“Sixty inches long, and an inch and a quarter on the inside. I thought you could twist the bar around an iron mandrel, red-hot, and then hammer-weld it.”
“Hmmm.”
The smith went over to a workbench and brought back a sword. It was nearly complete except for the fitting of the hilt and guard; a curved weapon with a flared tip, more than a yard long, the type of slashing-scimitar that the Royal bodyguards carried. Adrian whistled admiration as he peered more closely at the metal; it had the rippled pattern work of a blade made from rods of iron and steel twisted together, heated, hammered, doubled back, hammered again . . . and repeated time after time until there were thousands of laminations in the metal.
“Look,” the smith said.
He braced the point of the blade against the floor, placed his foot against it, and heaved. Muscle stood out like cable under the wet brown skin of his massive, ropy arms and broad shoulders. The blade bent nearly double . . . and then sprang back with a quivering whine when he released it.
“That’s good steel,” Adrian said sincerely; tough and flexible both.
The smith gave him a quizzical look, out of a face that looked as if it had been pounded from rough iron itself, with one of the sledges that stood all around the big room.
“You’re not the common run of fine Emerald gentlemen,” he said. “Never a one of them I’ve met who thought how a thing was made.”
Adrian smiled. “I have unusual friends,” he said. “Can you do what I ask?”
“Oh, certainly: Lame One be my witness. The thing is, friend, it’ll take time. Three weeks to make a good sword blade—not counting grinding, polishing, and fitting; I contract those out. I’m not one for fine work with brass and ivory, anyway . . . say the same for one of these . . . what was the word?”
“Arquebus barrels,” Adrian said helpfully.
“One of these tubes, then. And it’ll cost what a good sword blade does, too.”