She said that something was stinky around here and went off to look for it.
I finished off my food and had my gear packed by the time she came back. I saddled her up and we went off to look at what she'd found. They were heavy black stones, all right, and Anna said that they smelled like sulfur, not that I could smell anything. We spent the morning gathering up about six dozen pounds of the stuff, Anna pawing at the snow and me swinging my old camp hatchet to free them from the frozen ground. About noon, I loaded them into my backpack and told Anna to head — for Wroclaw.
She never has to backtrack. Once she's been somewhere, she always knows the direction between here and there.
We got there in time for me to take a bath before supper, and this time I didn't have to dance in armor. The duke was miffed because I'd forgotten to get permission to leave, but he cheered up when I showed him the ore we'd brought back. We signed and sealed both copies of our contract that night.
"One other thing, boy. I said I'd put up two hundred thousand pence, and you've said that you can't start until late spring. That's the thin time of the year for me. Most of my taxes come in right after the harvest, so I'm going to pay you the money now. You can pick it up from the exchequer when you leave."
"May I have permission to leave in the morning, your grace?"
"Granted. I'll come visit you during spring planting. Everyone else is too busy to talk to me then, anyway."
As ordered, the redhead was waiting in my room.
Chapter Six
Even loaded down with the ore and all that money, Anna still got us to Three Walls by dusk, which was good because the last few miles were through a heavy snowstorm.
The snow didn't let up for three days, and by that time we were completely buried. It was six weeks before anyone could get in or out. Work went on as usual, of course, and we had plenty of supplies to last us, so it wasn't too bad. But there was no way that I could get to Okoitz to make my monthly visit to Count Lambert.
One day, after we'd been snowed in a month, I heard a commotion outside. I ran to the rear balcony to see what it was, and everybody was pointing up and back over my head. I had to run to the front balcony to see it.
Count Lambert was flying his balloon! It had red-and-white vertical stripes and a huge white Piast eagle on a red shield sewn on its side. Only judging from the size of the basket, the balloon was much larger than it should have been.
I waved, and I think he waved back. But there was nothing else I could do.
Eventually, a merchant made it to Three Walls and told us that the snow was really deep for only about the last mile. Shamefaced, I went to see my liege lord. I found him in his chambers with a basketwork cast on his leg.
"Sir Conrad, where have you been?"
"I was snowed in, my lord. What happened to your leg?"
"A likely story. I broke my leg coming down out of the sky! Or rather when I was dragged along just after that. I tell you that I flew halfway to Kiev!"
"What happened, my lord? I thought that you were going to tether the balloon."
"I did, but it broke the tether rope as if it was a piece of thread. That was the second balloon, of course."
"The second balloon, my lord?"
"The first one wasn't quite strong enough to lift me with a decent supply of charcoal. With me alone, and the fire burning high, it couldn't quite get me off the ground. Well, you warned that this might happen, so I made a second balloon to your plans but twice as big."
"Twice as big, my lord? You mean twice the volume?"
"I suppose so. We just took every measurement you showed and doubled it. It took a deuced amount of cloth, but I had plenty."
"Yes, my lord. I expect that it took four times the cloth and had eight times the volume. It probably had a dozen times the lift of the first one."
"I think it might have. It just snapped the rope and up I went like a frightened bird! I think I headed south at first, at least I think that was Three Walls I saw. Things certainly look different from up there!"
"We saw you, my lord."
"How wonderful! You saw my proud Piast family device? Some of my ancestors doubtless bore it with more honor, but none of them ever carried it higher! I think a lot of other people must have seen it as well, because I think the winds shifted and I'm sure I saw Wawel Castle. That was another strange thing. I could see the wind blowing the trees, but I couldn't feel the wind myself! I was in a dead calm the whole way! Yet I was moving! Can you explain this strange thing?"
"Of course, my lord. You were traveling with the wind. You feel the wind only when it is moving at a different speed than you are."
"That doesn't make much sense, but if you're not worried about it then I won't be either. I tried to land at Wawel, but I couldn't make the balloon go down! I stopped feeding the fire, but the cathedral towers on Wawel Hill were gone before I started to get low. By then, I was over another forest and had to build my fire quickly. I tell you that I was touching the treetops before I started to go up again. And once started up, it continued to a vast height. And so I went, up and down until my charcoal was exhausted. Then I went down and stayed there. I came down hard as you can see." He gestured to his broken leg.
"Why didn't you throw out your sandbags at the last instant, my lord."
"Because I didn't have any. I know you said to carry them, but it seemed to me that I would be better off taking the same weight in charcoal. After all, I could always throw out the charcoal at the end, just as I could have the sand. And the charcoal could be used to take me higher, if that was necessary. But as it was, I could never find a big field to land in. Most of the world is forest. You don't realize that traveling on the roads, but it's true!"
"At least you're alive, my lord, and you've had an adventure that most men only dream of."
"More adventure than you know, Sir Conrad. Once I was down, and lying there helpless and alone, a crowd of damn peasants wanted to bum me for a witch! They were all jabbering in that half understandable Ruthenian tongue. If a nobleman hadn't seen the Piast crest on my beautiful balloon, I think I might be dead now. As it was, he took me home, and three days later a dozen of my men finally caught up with me. But my lovely balloon is no more. The peasants ripped it to shreds. I'll bet that every peasant in Red Ruthenia has a red-and-white raincoat!"
"Small loss, my lord. Surely you wouldn't have used it again."
"And why not? I'll learn the way of it next time."
"Next time you might come down in the middle of the Baltic Sea!"
"Well, what of it? Why should any sane man want to die or old age? If you want to think of something frightening, think about being wrinkled and crippled and sick all the time! That's old age and I don't want it! The Baltic would be a glorious death, and would give me as much fame as falling in battle."
I tried a different tack. "In eight years, we have one of the biggest wars in history coming up. You don't want to miss out on that, do you?"
"You mean the Mongols? Of course not!"
"Well, you have to be alive, or they won't let you fight in it. It's a rule. What if you could render great service to your lord the duke in that war? What if you could be on high and see exactly where the enemy was, and be able to inform his grace of their every movement? Wouldn't that earn you undying fame?"
"By God it would! I must start on another balloon immediately!"
"Not a balloon, my lord. A balloon would drift away from the battlefield and leave you a laughingstock. Some would even say you ran away."
"We could tether it."
"And what if the battle moved, as they sometimes do? Anyway, you saw what happened to your last tether."