A Modern Mind in Medieval Times

Multiple chalked cords twanged as craftsmen transferred my plans to the ground. We were ready to lay the foundations for our new houses and the city of Cradle. Tents and lean-tos wouldn’t be enough to shelter the people during the winter, neither did I want them crammed behind the palisade. We could not risk an outbreak of dysentery or worse.

“Those are some very big houses you are planning, Sire,” Erickson remarked, as we watched the craftsmen at work.

“They are, Lord Steward. Each of these insulae will house sixteen families.”

“Sixteen?” he repeated, incredulous. “In one building?”

“Yes. They won’t be luxurious, just one large room per family.” I turned to my students, “Who remembers why this design is better than separate cottages?”

Runa, the mousy girl with big eyes, bobbed up and down, hand in the air.

“Runa?”

“It uses a lot less material. Many walls are shared instead of being separate. Also, with fewer walls facing the elements, the buildings lose heat at much lower pace.”

“Excellent.” I smiled. “Fewer walls, warmer homes.”

Erickson still looked doubtful. “Still, sixteen families sound a bit cramped.”

“It can’t be helped. We can’t build a house for every family before winter arrives. Also, it’s a temporary solution.”

“You plan to tear them down?”

“No. Once we are on the path of prosperity, the ground floor will be turned into shops and businesses, while the families live upstairs.”

“Ah, so that’s why you’ve left so much space in between,” he said, satisfied. “It’s for a road, isn’t it? Wide enough for two carts riding side by side and still plenty to spare for pedestrians.”

“Yup. Better to plan properly now than to tear down buildings later.”

Lothar, who’d been silent, squinted at the outlines. “It looks like a fortress.”

I smiled at his perceptiveness. “Indeed. Remove the outward windows and doors, thicken the walls, add some battlements on top and it becomes a proper fortress. The expertise our craftsmen develop in constructing the insulae will help us raise fortifications quickly. Two birds, one stone.”

Erickson stared at the giant plan for a long while before muttering quietly, “I’m beginning to think your arrival was a miracle.”

I plastered a smile on my face. It was hard to be happy when my second chance came at the cost of a man’s life. All I could do was fulfill his desire to help these people.

“What are all those trenches being dug everywhere?” he asked.

“Sewerage lines. To take the waste from the loo to the biogas plant.”

“You really plan on putting latrines inside the houses?”

“Elder, I understand your skepticism, but you haven’t seen a P-trap at work. It will block odors from getting back. Also, the latrines will be in the inner courtyard, not in the rooms themselves.”

“That’s a relief.” He said, before schooling his expression.

I just sighed in response. Even my most loyal supporters were skeptical about the biogas plant, though it was going to be essential to our success. It would be our precious source of methane and saltpeter, the foundation of our next generation of weapons.

---

“Wash, wash, wash your hands!”

The air shook with a hundred young children singing a song about hygiene in various keys under a teacher’s guidance. If nails on slate had cousins, this was their choir. As Aprilia watched it from afar, smiling, I surprised her from behind.

“Boo!”

She yelped, spinning, and playfully shoved me away.

“So, how are the children doing, Miss Teacher?” I asked her.

“They’re loud, but learning. Your talk with the troublemakers helped. What are you working on, boss?”

“I helped plan the layout for the grand city of Cradle,” I said proudly. “We’ve planned it to hold a population of fifteen thousand.”

“Fifteen thousand?” She arched an eyebrow. “And where do you plan to find that many people?”

“Ah, looks like I need to give my secretary another lesson about the birds and the bees,” I teased. “Such a forgetful worker.”

She gave me a flat look. “Be serious.”

“I am serious. I can decrease the number of deaths in young children a fair bit. You will see the population at least double within a generation.”

Improved sanitation practices and proper nutrition would help quite a bit, but the biggest factor were vaccines, which were beyond me. Even penicillin would be a challenge.

Noticing my expression, Aprilia asked in an exasperated tone, “Are you again moping about what you cannot do?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

She walked around me and squeezed my shoulders. “Forget about that,” she whispered, her voice turning sultry. “Come teach your secretary about the birds and the bees again.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward our home.

---

Tired of working hard for so long, I decided to take a vacation. I had my five ducklings, as people called them, tag along for the first part. They would be the first scientists of Chadom, so inspiring them was essential.

We began with a tour of our burgeoning industrial district.

As we approached it, the roar of crashing water intermingled with the hiss of bellowing furnaces and the clang of falling hammers. The dark hot exhaust of the furnaces looked ominous as it rose next to the cool white spray of the Powerfall.

“Welcome to the future,” I said bowing, with a proper, exaggerated flourish all my hard work deserved.

My girlfriend and guards sniggered. Assholes. Hopefully one day I would meet someone who could appreciate my flair. The ducklings at least had the decency to not laugh openly.

“What is that loud noise?” Aprilia asked. “Is that a hammer?”

We approached the Bearfall site, where Kovar’s apprentices were using a waterwheel powered trip hammer to shape steel ingots into something that looked like a crossbow prod, only much bigger. Not too far away, some shirtless men were using a sawmill, also powered by a waterwheel, to cut a tree trunk into planks.

“Behold!” I announced, “The power of nature harvested in the service of mankind. Each of those machines is doing the work of ten men, without ever tiring.”

“It’s amazing! But do we really need all these contraptions?” Aprilia asked. “Building them alone would have been a lot of work.”

“We have an entire city to build and a whole army to arm, and I want it done within one year. That’s not a small challenge. Three thousand people are going to need at least fifty insulae and an army of at least three hundred well-armed soldiers and reservists to protect them.”

“What about the castle? I hope you’re not neglecting that; it will not survive a determined assault by an organized military.” Lothar interjected. I had convinced him I didn’t take every question as an affront to my authority, as long as it was asked in good faith.

“I’m not. You’ve seen the men quarrying and carrying the limestone to build the second set of walls yourself. Once that is finished, then we will have a proper castle, and three hundred rooms.”

“Yes, but it’s very slow going. We have no draft animals.”

“We are building something for that. Let me show you.”

I took them to Aramid’s workshop, where he and Kovar were examining their new product.

“A wagon?” Aprilia asked in confusion.

“Yes, but a special one.”

My companions tried to figure out the puzzle.

“The axles are attached to crossbow prods!” Aldren exclaimed.

“Close. Those are called leaf springs.”

“They sure look like massive prods.” Lothar commented.

“That’s because they essentially are. Just like a bow, they store energy put into them and then release it.”

“That is a lot of steel! What do they do?” Aprilia asked.

“They make carrying heavy weights like limestone blocks easy, even without animals. Is it ready?”

“It is, m’lord.” Kovar replied, grinning.

“Let’s go test it. M’lady,” I pointed Aprilia to the wagon.

She looked at it apprehensively and shook her head.

“We’ll go!” Fennar, the boldest of the ducklings announced.

The five children clambered on the wagon as I and Lothar pulled it by the handle.

“So, where to next?” Aprilia asked.

“Your father’s new kiln. Hold on tight!” I told the children as I pulled the wagon.

“Slow down, you ox!” Lothar wheezed as the children screamed atop the hurtling wagon. We stopped a bit away from Powerfall, where a small waterwheel sat next to our new two storey tall pottery kiln, powering it’s bellows and mill.

“That’s my father’s kiln? It’s massive!” Aprilia exclaimed, as she caught up.

“Indeed. We’re going to need a lot of lime and bricks to make those insulae.”

“Apri!” her father called out as he saw us approach, with a wide child like grin on his face.

“If you were just going to use a simple waterwheel, why is the kiln in the industrial district?” Lothar asked, annoyed. The bigger the district, the more guards were necessary to keep civilians away.

“Because it’s of a special design I would rather not share with everyone.” I said, pointing to the inside.

My companions peeked inside the kiln, brows knitted.

“It’s a downdraft kiln,” I explained. “Instead of just putting the firings in the way of an upward moving flame, we redirect the flame to go around the firing chamber and then through it, evenly heating the firings from all directions. It’s also much more fuel efficient, so saves on wood.”

“How do you come up with all this?” Aprilia asked, amazed.

“I don’t. I’m blessed with the knowledge that others discovered. I’m just coasting on their hard work. My superpower is plagiarism.”

“They say one has to be smart to copy well.”

I just smiled in response.

“What are those things?” Runa pointed at the baked cylinders.

“Pipe sections for the toilet.”

Aprilia wrinkled her nose in response. The Cha could whine all they want, but I was going to have a toilet within the palisade for my own use. No way was I going to crap in the open any longer than I had to, even though everyone else thought an indoor toilet was disgusting. They could do as they please, but I would rather be tortured than die while doing my business in the woods.

“You have some odd obsessions, my love, but nobody can say you are lazy. You work like an ox.” Aprilia said, her voice soft with sympathy.

My heart clenched at those words; well just the “L” word.

“Such is the burden of great leaders!” I said in admiration of myself, to deflect for the moment.

“You are indeed a good leader,” she said with a faltering smile.

“Let me show you the new tank we’re building.”

“Not the biogas one, I hope?” she asked, with a hint of warning in her voice.

“Nay, my lady. It’s the opposite one. It will clean the water that will be piped into our houses.”

Not too far away, I showed them the large tanks under construction. “When it is finished, this tank will be filled with layers of gravel, sand, charcoal, sand, gravel and cloth. River water will go into the settling tank first, then into this one, and water that is almost clean enough to drink will come out at the other end.”

Aprilia’s brows knitted in confusion. “Almost? It sounds like clean water to me.”

“Not quite. Some tiny nasties still lurk around in that clean looking water. It’s fine for everything else other than drinking and cooking. To make it clean enough to drink, it would have to be boiled.”

“What nasties?”

“I’ll show you when I have built a microscope.”

“Are these the same kind of creatures that turn waste into gas and fertilizer, my lord?” Aldren asked, excited.

“Yes. Those ones.”

Aprilia made a horrified face. “We have been drinking this water forever!”

“Us adults’ bodies can fight off those creatures most of the time,” I explained. “Children’s bodies? Not so much. Many die of diseases that dirty water carries.”

Her eyes went wide in comprehension. “That’s how you plan on increasing our numbers! So many children will be saved.” Her voice trailed off. Her lip quivered with emotion, but the look she gave me said she would have jumped me if we weren’t out in public.

Suddenly, she stepped back and bowed low. “Thank you so much for thinking about the children, Sire.”

“Stop that! What are you doing?” I asked, flustered.

“Thanking you properly, well… not properly,” she said, with a sly smile on her face.

“There are children around, you lusty wench.” I said, embarrassed.

“Boiling water for thousands of people will eat up a lot of wood,” Aldren mentioned, thankfully breaking the awkward atmosphere.

“Not necessarily,” I said. “The biogas plant is almost done and will become functional in a few months. I told you before that the gas it produces, methane, is an excellent fuel.”

Aprilia narrowed her eyes at me. “You think people will drink water boiled with that gas?”

I let out a sigh. We don’t wanna crap inside. We don’t wanna use the gas made from it.How do I reach these keeds?

“The gas burns up as fuel, baby,” I explained patiently. “There’s nothing left behind to mix with the water. I will demonstrate it myself.”

“If you say so,” she muttered, still skeptical.

Aprilia and I had a picnic on our way to the beach. The fresh air and warm sunlight made for a very relaxing environment to doze off in. After a nap and a proper thanking session, I took Aprilia to the apiary we were developing.

“What are those boxes?” she asked curiously.

“Modular beehives.”

“Beehives? But they are boxes.”

“It’s a very effective design.” I said, calling over the beekeeper. He slid out a frame, showing her the honeycomb inside, heavy with the golden liquid.

“He can check on the bees’ health anytime and harvest honey without destroying their home.”

“Impressive. Shouldn’t you be showing all this to the Elders.”

“Already did. They were so impressed that even Hyde could not find anything to complain about.”

She snorted. “He’ll invent one.”

Our last stop was the sea. More than a dozen small crude boats dotted the horizon, seine nets stretched between them. Men shouted as they hauled the day’s catch. On shore, women worked by the salt flats, spreading seawater thin to dry into the crystals that would keep our food through winter.

We walked the beach hand in hand, the sea breeze on our faces and the soothing sound of waves in our ears. For the first time in months, I let myself breathe.

Our future looked bright.

But I had learned enough to know, brightness doesn’t last forever.