A problem was no infrastructure—the totality of knowledge, skills, and industry needed to use science from Earth. He knew the processes to make almost any, save the most complex, chemical compounds and molecules, but most required reaction ingredients, each of which might take a set of other ingredients to produce, and they in turn—on and on. Most would take decades or longer to develop, even under the best of circumstances.
Yet there must be simpler reactions and products he could start off with. He needed to speak with the abbey staff and troll the village shops for ideas. Between the two, he should be able to gauge the level of chemical knowledge and what chemicals were already available. There might also be books, even if not formal textbooks, in the abbey library that could at least give clues.
“Why haven’t I thought of this before? Maybe the accident, the Watchers and Harlie, being dumped on Anyar never to see Earth or hear English again, all stunned my brain more than I realized.”
Chapter 13: Great Hall of the Keelans
Two structures dominated the twenty-acre brick-paved plaza of central Caernford, Capitol of Keelan Province—St. Tomo’s Cathedral and the Great Hall of the Keelans. The walls of both buildings were made from two-ton stone blocks quarried from the craggy mountains of the Wycoff and Brums districts of northeast Keelan. The white stone with the yellow veins was unique to Caedellium, and the polished outer surfaces gave the illusion of sparkling gold in the early morning and late afternoon suns.
While the cathedral soared to signify glory to God, the Great Hall was an edifice with a different design, a single-story octagon with high multi-paned windows on its eight sides to let light enter from all directions of the province and serving as a symbol of clan unity and strength. The interior measured 220 feet diagonally from corner to corner, with 2-foot-diameter trimmed tree trunks supporting a ceiling peaking at 40 feet. The flooring consisted of slate slabs from the eastern slope of Mount Orlos in Shamir Province, the slate trimmed and fitted so carefully a finger could stroke the floor without detecting seams. Below that floor, a basement housed clan records and relics of the clan’s history.
Although the Great Hall served the people of Caernford and nearby villages and farms for festivals and events requiring a large indoor space, the true purpose of the structure was for a “Gathering of the Clan.” By tradition, every clan member could attend, and when the hall was built 130 years earlier, it could hold the entire clan. Now, with numbers having risen five-fold since that time, the hall was large enough to squeeze in only a fraction of the clan’s people.
A yearly Gathering of the Clan opened the five-day festival marking the New Year and the transition from winter to spring. Each district sent proportional representatives, with clan members attending at least once every ten years, if possible. On such occasions, the hall held up to seven thousand standing clansmen and clanswomen surrounding the central platform and dais. There, the hetman, supported by the clan’s leaders, would greet the clanspeople, followed by the scholastics’ traditional recitation of the clan’s history, and ended by the hetman’s report on the condition of the clan. The entire ceremony seldom lasted more than two hours, there being only so long so many bodies could stand packed together into a single room.
The only other occasion for a formal Gathering of the Clan was under extraordinary circumstances, when the entire clan needed to be addressed. No such occasion had occurred in Culich Keelan’s nineteen years as hetman or in his father’s or grandfather’s tenures, on back to the time the gathering was held in a natural amphitheater near Caernford.
On this day, three somber men stood at the base of steps leading to a meeting room attached to the south side of the Great Hall.
“Nothing new about the Narthani, Culich?” Pedr Kennrick addressed his hetman.
Culich Keelan shook his head. “Only what I passed on to you and Vortig two days ago. Although they’ve still made no major overt threat to the other clans, every instinct tells me it will happen. For myself, the only two questions are when and where? And that’s what eats at my gut.”
“I beg to disagree, Hetman,” said Vortig Luwis, slamming a fist into his other palm. “I know all three of us think the Narthani are not yet finished expanding, and although I agree with your two questions, there’s a third one that may be even more important—and that’s if the other clans can somehow agree to cooperate when the Narthani do make their next move.”
Culich didn’t disagree. He and his two major advisors had chewed to exhaustion the possible Narthani intentions. Kennrick was Culich’s age, a lifelong friend, and a shrewd mind atop a short, rotund form. With his ruddy complexion and red hair and beard, he always appeared to be escaping from something. The Kennrick family owned tracts of farmland, but Pedr’s sons managed the family estate ten miles north of Caernford while their father advised and assisted Culich with clan affairs.
Vortig Luwis was a few years younger and not a close friend, but his loyalty to the clan and hetman was absolute. His family had timberland and mines in the Nylamir district, but as the Narthani threat increased, so did Luwis’s role in overseeing clan security, organizing the clan’s men of fighting age, and serving as liaison with counterparts in allied Gwillamer and Mittack clans. Luwis’s height and bald head made him easily identified in any crowd, as did his habitual frown, hook nose, short-cropped, prematurely graying beard, and cold, dark blue eyes. His stern countenance and known fearlessness hid a sharp mind. Few knew, Culich being one of those, how much Luwis doted on his wife and three daughters and how, as a youth, Luwis had considered becoming a theophist. He was also blunt, honest, and honorable, sometimes to even Culich’s annoyance.
Culich placed a hand on Luwis’s shoulder. “All we can do is all we can do, Vortig. Along with praying for God’s grace to guide and deliver us, should the worst happen. The three of us have critical tasks in front of us. I must try to convince more of the other clans to come around to my fears.”
The hetman rested his other hand on the shorter man’s shoulder. “You, Pedr, must see to increasing arms production and food stores, while you, Vortig, must see to the clan’s fighting men and patrolling our borders. I’ve said to you two what I’ll not yet say to the rest of our people. I fear the future. A storm is gathering that bodes disaster for all of Caedellium.”
Neither of the other men had anything to add or counter.
Culich removed his hands from their shoulders, and his tone enlivened. “In the meantime, routine clan affairs continue, no matter what else.”
“Speaking of routine affairs, I think the others are gathering,” said Kennrick, looking through the glass-paned door into the meeting room.
A boyerman led each of Keelan Province’s eleven districts. The semi-hereditary position normally passed through the current boyerman’s lineage, unless altered either by lack of the district people’s support or by hetman decree. Today was the quarterly meeting of Culich with his advisors and the eleven boyermen or their representatives.
Culich turned to the door. “Then, by all means, let’s greet our boyermen.”
Luwis climbed the three stairs, held open the back entrance door, and followed Culich and Kennrick inside. The meeting room was a twenty-five-foot square with a fifteen-foot-diameter round table and chairs dominating the room. Additional, less ornate chairs lined the walls, and a double door led into the Grand Hall. Small tapestries depicting events in clan history hung between windows along with objects of renown: a nicked sword, several banners, copies of documents encased in glass, a long lock of fiery red hair intertwined with another of deepest black, and a pair of aged leather shoes purportedly worn by the first ancestor of the clan to set foot on Caedellium. All other participants would enter through the Great Hall’s north side main door and cross the empty hall to the meeting room