Sometime later, she said, "I love you anyway, Sir Conrad."
The next morning I sent Krystyana out shopping with one of the innkeeper's servants to keep her safe and see that she didn't get gypped. I tipped the woman a penny a day, and she was overjoyed. I gave Krystyana a hundred pence and told her to buy presents for her family and friends. Also a wedding gift from me to Mrs. Malinski and something for the carpenter and the count.
"But what could Count Lambert possibly want?"
"Dye. Dye for cloth. And if you can find a good dyer out of work, the count would like that, too."
I was pleased to discover that the bell casters I had come to Cieszyn to see lived directly across from the inn.
The bell foundry was owned and operated by the three Krakowski brothers-Thom, Mikhail, and Wladyslaw. It had been their father's business and had been a thriving concern until a year before, when the bishop's nephew, a German, had opened up a bell foundry in Cracow. New orders to the Krakowski brothers had stopped, and their melting furnace had been cold for six months. But the information came out slowly, and I got some of it from the innkeeper. The brothers were trying to keep up appearances.
The Krakowski brothers and I spent the morning talking. I talked about the huge bushings I would need-the bore was to be a full yard, and the outside flange diameter of the blade-end bushing was to be two yards. They were each to be a yard long. Modem roller bearings would have been a tenth that size, but I had no illusions about the quality the Krakowskis could give me. In working with inferior materials, you must make things big.
They talked to me about bell casting. They used the lost wax method. This is not an ancient "lost" technology, even though I once met a twentieth-century museum tour guide who seemed to think so; it's still being used when intricate, one-of-a-kind castings are needed. To make a bell, the brothers Krakowski first dug a pit. In the pit, they fashioned by hand, from clay, a male form shaped like the inside of the bell. They then took beeswax and made a wax bell over the form, carving in wax all the exterior decorations and, being somewhat literate, the lettering. Clay was carefully molded over the wax, and the whole was left to dry for a week. Then they built a fire in the pit, small at first but growing.
In a few days the wax melted, ran out of prepared holes, and burned. A few days later, the mold was hot enough for the pour. Having carefully measured the amount of wax used, the casters knew exactly how much brass to melt. After the pour, they broke off the clay and spent a few months "tuning" the bell by chipping brass out of the inside to get it to sound right.
"That's the trick, Sir Conrad," the youngest brother said. "The mold has got to be as hot as the brass or she'll crack, or the bell will crack."
The other brothers looked at him as if he were divulging guild secrets, and maybe he was.
"I'm familiar with the process," I lied. It was now past noon, and they had not offered me dinner. I thought about that-they looked more underfed than Lent alone would account for. "This is interesting," I said. "But I grow hungry. I would like to invite you and your families to dinner. I'm staying at the Battle Axe. Could you send someone to tell the innkeeper how many are coming? Have him let us know when it's ready."
They eagerly accepted my offer, and soon we were at a sitdown dinner for fourteen. There were no babies; all three had died in the winter.
As it was Lent, the meal was meatless: bread and oatmeal, pease porridge, and small beer. Even the children drank beer. Water was unhealthy, and cows would not start producing milk for another month. My guests ate a great deal under the watchful gaze of the innkeeper, who was hovering at the back of the room to make sure everything went right. We were his biggest sale in months.
These men had skills that I needed, and they certainly needed me. They needed socialism, and I was going to socialize themwithin the framework of their own society, of course. I'm not the banner-waving, gun-wielding revolutionary sort.
"Excuse me, sir knight," the oldest Krakowski brother finally said. "But are you the Sir Conrad Stargard? The man who killed Sir Rheinburg?"
That business again? "Yes."
"Then we owe you gratitude. That German murdered our cousin Yashu. Killed him on the road when he was weaponless and penniless."
"I'm sorry about your cousin. The German was a madman, but he's dead now."
"Still, we owe you."
"You don't owe me anything. All I did was to stop myself from joining your cousin."
The innkeeper intruded. "Excuse me, Sir Conrad, you realize that serving fourteen is more than we agreed on."
"Of course. Put the difference on my bill."
"Yes, sir. That would be twelve pence."
Small talk at the table stopped. A penny for each meatless meal!
"Innkeeper, that seems excessive. I do not like to haggle, but if I decide that you are cheating me, you will lose my business.".1 said this quietly and calmly but without smiling.
"Yes, Sir Conrad." Beads of sweat suddenly dotted the man's forehead. When I eventually settled the bill, four pence accounted for that meal.
Later that day, I got their price for my bushings. It came to thirty-one hundred pence. Each.
"That seems excessive," I said. "Let's go over your expenses, and mind you, I intend to check these prices myself in the market."
The copper would cost eight hundred pence, and calamine, a compound of zinc, was three hundred and fifty pence. We had agreed, from samples that they had on hand, on a hard brass of about thirty percent zinc. The clay they dug up themselves, and they chopped their own wood by arrangement with a landowner. With transportation costs, those two items came to a hundred and fifty pence. The eye opener was the wax. It was a rare commodity, like the honey that came with it. The wax would cost eleven hundred pence, almost as much as the metal. The remaining five hundred pence for their labor and equipment did not seem excessive. Still…
Still, there was no reason why the molds themselves could not be cast off wooden forms. Both bushings could be made the same so that only one set of forms would be needed. Also, I would need four bushings for the upcoming "dry mill" that would grind grain.
In addition, I had hoped that more mills would be wanted by other landowners. We might need a lot of bushings. A lot of parts that I had planned to make of wood could be made better-much better-in brass: some of the gearing and the pump cylinders and pulleys. I wanted some fire-heated tubs for a laundry and Parts for a threshing machine, and, well, all sorts of things.
"Gentlemen." They looked up in surprise at my use of the term. "Your prices seem fair for what you propose to do, but it happens that I know some less-expensive techniques. Not for bells, you understand, but for the kind of things I have in mind." As it turned out, in two years they were selling bells again. You had to choose from three standard sizes and had no choice of inscriptions, but they were half the cost of the Cracow bells.
"Now, then," I continued. "It is obvious that you are suffering under a burden of debt. It is also obvious that you have no security at all and that your families are hungry. I propose to purchase your establishment and pay you all a decent salary. I also intend to pay for a number of improvements around here. What do you think?"
"Well, that sounds fine, but there are guild rules…" said Thom, the eldest.
"What? I thought you were the only bell casters in Cieszyn."
"Well, we are."
"Then who is the guild master?"
"I am, actually."
"And these are your guild members?"
"Uh… yes."
"Then to hell with your damned guild! You are three brothers, and I am talking about hiring you."