Storiesonline.net ------- Proeliator by John Wales Copyright© 2006 by John Wales ------- Description: Vic was born and raised in an odd commune. His father and 'uncles' were planning on surviving WW III. Vic took to the survivalist mentality and learned to fight. When he grew older he was thrilled with the power of explosives and studied chemistry as a way of following this path. A king facing defeat in the forth century Europe needed help. He gathered a few real mages to find a way out of his problems. It was Vic's attributes that were soon being sought. Codes: mF mm TimeTr slow hist ESP rom cons mag inc gay les bi het ------- ------- Reposting and archiving of this and all of my stories is permitted, except where a fee of any sort is required or earned for access, provided this disclaimer and note remain attached to the story. All other rights, specifically rights of commercial use, are reserved. Commercial use here is defined to include posting on membership web sites, banner-funded web sites, and those protected by fee-based age validation methods. No modifications may be made to this story without express permission from the author. Any questions regarding use of this work can be directed to the author. Failure to contact the author prior to use is presumptive evidence of bad faith and may expose you to significant criminal and civil liability. ------- Prologue Hi I just wanted to say a few words before you read this story: It was a year ago that I posted some of my other stories and picked this same time to give Lazeez a few more. Some are still being edited but may be posted during this time. Lazeez has a system in place that describes what a story is like. Those people that do not want to have 'disgusting stories' or perhaps not have their boat rocked can choose what to read or not read. This particular story is not about weird sexual practices. In fact there is little erotic content. It will be disturbing for some because it talks about the roots of some religions. Those of you with a closed or nearly closed mind are advised to not read this story. It is not a religious diatribe either but a story that has some expresses an alternate way of viewing the human condition. This story is on the long side so I guess you also can't complain about staying up until the wee hours to read it too. I get hooked in a story and do that all the time. The story is complete and you will not have to wait for months to get a new chapter. There are only five more to go over before they too are posted. Some of this story was edited by a gentleman that lives near Washington DC. He did a good job on what he helped me with. My grammar, spelling and the shear amount of work overcame his ability to do more. Finding an editor that will take on a task like this is difficult. The rest of the story was edited by me. The author of a story makes a poor editor. If somebody wants to take on a few chapters to edit them then do so. Put your name and address in the file and do a complete file and not a word or ten here and there that I have to search for to correct. Please add your name to the name of the file so I can keep them segregated until they can be gone over and then reposted. My stories are all written in Canadian English. It's much like what is used in the UK. I am saying that the American readers may find some differences and attribute them to bad spelling. I still get words mixed up so there is still spelling mistakes but Canadian English spelling mistakes. Some words ending in 'ize' can also end in 'ise'. The latter case is what I use. John Wales ------- Jón ------- Chapter 1 Clovis's strong and callused hands caressed the pommel of his bronze sword like an old and trusted friend to sooth his anger. He paced the great hall like an angry cat. His eyes moved from one person to another looking for someone to take his anger out on. He was deeply worried about what was happening to his people and his land. He had paid dearly to get the stalemate that was currently in place and it was slipping away. On the stools before the hearth, sat seven of his most trusted men and three of the foreign priests that had come seeking help. Much to their chagrin, they had been asked to help in turn. "What did you find, priest?" The king was furious at all the delays and the priest's own reticence at finding some of the many solutions that were necessary. Fidelis Marius was thin, but just as tall and much the same age as the king. He knew of his value to the king and was not too worried about the outburst though barbarians were unpredictable. "We are still looking to find more of our cohorts. We are far too few to do what you ask. What you demand may even be impossible." "I merely asked you to do your duty. Your people have forsaken their gods. I hope your god Jupiter handles them the way they deserve. Thor would do the same thing, if he were treated with such disrespect. We will have to be the instrument of that revenge." Clovis paced a few more steps then added, "We haven't got much time to do this. They are pressing us now." "I am well aware of that, Sire. I have sent seven of our numbers out to recruit while four others and myself work on gathering the spells. People with our ability are very rare." The last was said to make sure Clovis remembered their value. Fidelis Marius was of a noble Roman family, but only distantly related to those that currently at the head. He was happy to hear that King Clovis was not lumping him with the Romans that had come so close to killing the king while succeeding in killing two of his sons. They were the heirs to the Frisian kingdom. Life was brutally harsh and even more so recently. Gnaeus Scipio Magnus lead the Legio I Noricorum out of Adiuvense and the Legio V Iovia from Castellum Onagrinum on the Danube. He had come with three talents of gold and an imperial order requiring Clovis to fight King Celyddon of the Gauls for Rome. This arrangement was nothing new. King Clovis had fought for Rome on many occasions and been well paid. This time it had been different. The area lying far east of the Rhine had never been a part of the Roman empire despite old pretensions. Yet, here the Romans were once again trying inexorably to incorporate it. This time in a fit of cleverness they were using more subterfuge in their usually devious plans. Magnus had opened this latest round of conquest by declaring that the Gauls were not living up to the treaty they had made with Rome for land. They had crossed the Weser River and set up cities of their own when they were supposed to remain west of that river. The Gauls had steadfastly refused to move back within their old borders. Depleted farmland and a rising population were the usual reasons for this. King Clovis had liked the idea of forcing the Gauls back, because it would clear them from land that he considered his own. He had a claim superior to that of Rome. His people, the Frisians, had settled this land long ago and still considered it theirs. The area taken hundreds of years ago had only been sparsely settled and hindsight showed that this was a mistake. If the gold had been available in the Frisian treasury, then it would be Clovis that would have paid the Romans to acquire their help. Last year Clovis had formed a loose relationship with two of the clans that lived close. The Franks under King Arnaldr and the Sarmatians under King Gunnarr needed to stop the constant raiding on the Frisians and each other. They set up a treaty providing that they would discuss mutual problems first before resorting to warfare. All three peoples gained as some trade was now possible. The hot heads of each clan would now be reigned in, to keep raids from happening. Raids on other peoples would still be made to gather wealth and test the men. Only harsh procedures would keep this to a minimum. Rome didn't want any dealings among the barbarians without their being a major a part in it if not a beneficiary. The Romans were known to play tricks to get the various Germanic clans to fight each other and avoid the loss of Roman lives, or those of their auxiliary troops. This sort of infighting was in the nature of man. Gnaeus Scipio had devised a plan whereby he approached the easternmost city of Minden with the Pannonian troops of the Legio I Noricorum. The other legion was to act as a reserve force. The town of Minden had been taken over by the Gauls a decade ago and it already had some completed walls. The plan called for Clovis to come from the north. His route lead through some steep hills. This land had belonged to Clovis's people for many years and they knew the area well. They had hunted in this region and even set traps or simply fought those that disputed the ownership of the territory. Guðmundr, at seventeen years, was the second oldest of Clovis's sons. He had not lost the impetuosity of youth when he and his men raced to Minden to be the first to engage the enemy in battle. They had been ambushed instead by a large number of Gauls, thus proving that the Frisians had no monopoly on setting on this type of strategy. It was their training as the Roman Auxiliary that saved them. They held firm till the next morning when Björnólfr had arrived with an even larger force of men. Guðmundr had taken some serious wounds and died the next day as he was being transported by his brother to the main confrontation with the Gauls. Runners had been sent to inform Clovis, and the father raced to scene with some of his own men. Anger had overcome common sense and the lead elements of the main Friesian force had sprang forward to do battle with the Gauls. Gnaeus Scipio launched into battle himself, but he had been waiting nearly a day and only an easy march away. Before the city of Minden were both armies locked in battle. Gnaeus Scipio summoned Clovis and his only remaining grown son, Björnólfr, to come to his tent to discuss strategy. Clovis refused, as he had to deal with the death of his son. This was very fortuitous, because a team of Frisian assassins were later sent to kill Clovis and any high ranking members of the family and clan. Four members of a powerful Frisian clan, botched the job and only wounded Björnólfr. Clovis had participated in his own internecine forms of combat within the clan and managed to capture one of the assassins when the rest died. Before he succumbed quietly, he told of the plot to supplant Clovis as king. The person that was seen talking to an intermediary was one of Gnaeus Scipio's trusted advisors. This could only mean that the Romans wanted to kill the Frisian leadership. Then it would be much easier to destroy the warriors now that they would have little guidance. Clovis was forewarned now and prepared to take the city but didn't expect to have the Romans actually join sides with the Gauls to fight. He was not that unprepared either. Gnaeus Scipio sent word that Clovis was to take a wall that was not only heavily defended but would also put him at a severe disadvantage if the Romans failed to assist. Clovis refused and told the Romans to take his position and he would assist. The true colours of the Romans advisors came out then and a fight broke out that had a lot of words and sword waving. With night approaching, Clovis pulled the majority of his men from the fight and kept only his strongest and best to show that he had not run. A retreat was in order and it had to be prepared adequately. The Romans attacked the Frisians openly as soon as they saw what had happened and the Gauls came to the Roman contingent's assistance. It now appeared that this had never been anything other than a plot to destroy Clovis and his forces. The same procedure had happened recently when the separatist forces in Gaul had been destroyed when they tried to set up a land of their own. Clovis had traps manned by those that had disengaged from the battle first. The Frisians retreated under that cover into a large swamp where they could fight their enemy on a limited front. The heavily encumberd Romans sank easily into the quagmire. It took ten days to leave the swamp. There were substantial Roman casualties during fierce sorties and even some limited fighting with the Gauls who fought more judiciously since they didn't want to die as fast as the Romans were doing. The famous Roman tactics did them little good. When Clovis was finally able to pull free, he found he had lost one out of ten men, and one of those was his son Björnólfr. He had only one remaining son and he was just a boy of eleven. The injury Clovis sustained five years previously had made sure he would have no other children. Months had past since the battle and Clovis worked like a man possessed. He was now fighting for the life of his people. The surviving Pannonian legionaries wanted his blood and so did the Gauls now that they had some Roman gold and possibly some additional Frisian land. Inroads had been made in many areas. It was only a few months before the harvests had to be brought in. This would make the defenders think of other vocations than battle. The king stared at the priest, still trying to assess the inner workings of the man. The priests had fled when Christianity started making major advances on their faith. There were still many priests in Rome, but the Christians were converting more people each day. Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman state. When changes like this occurred, usually people died in large numbers. Now, instead of the Christians dying, it was those that followed the old beliefs. Fleinn usually said nothing at meetings unless asked. He saw one problem not being addressed and interrupted the king's scowl by saying, "Sire, we have not been able to gather as much food as we need. The Gauls take from the peasants and force them to come to us to feed their families." Clovis said, "They have to find their own food. More of our needs will have to be met by hunting and a portion can go to the peasants, if they will help. Mostly we will require guards to protect the hunters. The Gauls will be hunting our animals too and we will have to keep the pressure on them. The Gauls were awkward in their timing since the crops are not quite ready yet and having scared the peasants off, they will have to harvest the crops themselves." "We have been trying to lure them into poor positions as it is, Sire. They are not as well trained as the Romans and fall to our old tricks. They learn slowly. Their latest mistake is to stay in villages and only keep watch from the top of the stockade." "Then hunt around the villages first and take what game that could readily fall to them." "Yes, Sire." Clovis turned back to the priest and said, "What have you found about Jón?" Fidelis said, "We have been looking through all the new scrolls. The Picts have some interesting ideas and we are trying to pursue them. As yet, there is only a glimmer of hope that we will succeed. We are keeping him alive as best we can, but it drains the magic that will be needed to complete the major spell you want." He meant two spells but nobody was to know of the other until it was completed satisfactorily. "Have the priests of your people... found out anything?" "No, thank Thor, but you had best eat more. I want you all as strong as possible when the time comes. You and your fellow priests need all your strength to form the spell. You must give me everything you have in this situation or we will lose. You are getting my protection and assistance while you are supposed to help me as best as you can." "We are very grateful of your help, Sire. We are doing the best we can in the present situation. You have to realise though that what you are asking us to do, has not been done before." "I have heard otherwise, priest." "As you say, Sire, but they are all stories to amuse children." "They may have a grain of truth in them and I want no stone unturned to find a cure for my only surviving son." "We are well aware of that Sire. You have given us a great task. It may not be possible to do it as you mentioned before. I can bring my books and show you the points you want completed and show you the tools I have to work with." "In the morning. My eyes are not as good as they used to be." "As you wish, Sire." The next day was cool and Clovis was awoken just before dawn by his chamberlain, Ketill. "Sire, a patrol of Gauls has been lured into a trap. Naddoddr is harassing them, however there are just too many to destroy." Clovis jumped out of bed and thanked Thor for this gift. It was not often that they made any appreciable victory. "Where are they and how many?" "Naddoddr said there are ten hands still actively fighting. The fight is three hours north east. Naddoddr's massager is here and he can tell you more. His word has quickly spread, Sire. The men are already up and putting on their armour." Astrid, Clovis' second wife, watched with an apparently dispassionate look as her husband started to get dressed. Ketill assisted as best he could, but the king was in a hurry and Clovis didn't like this type of help. Clovis turned to his wife and said, "This should not take long and I should be back just before night has fallen." "Be careful my husband. I do not know what I would do without you." "A complete man would be able to take care of you better my wife. Watch our children." "I will my lord. I will see what I can do to help Jón." A hurried breakfast was on the table. Clovis' personal guard and at least a hundred more were eating quickly so they could get on with the operation. Clovis ate at the upper table and in a moment Astrid came into the room and hurriedly sat beside him. She was only twenty-two. She had given Clovis two children, six and five. They were both girls and would not inherit the throne. There had been no more children by Clovis in the last five years. An arrow had slipped through armour and made Clovis sterile. Clovis' previous wife, bore him eleven children before dying in childbirth. Her second youngest was Jón. She had given him five sons and all but Jón were now dead. When Clovis suddenly got up from the table, the men took the remaining food and gobbled as much as they could. Astrid got up too and wiped the face of her much older husband. "Come back to me," she whispered when she was close. In a quiet voice he said, "I wish I was more of a man." "You are enough for me." The men left the hall, most following their king. Some were plundering the kitchen and putting food in their leather bags to eat on the trip. Wives and family from the castle and town stood in the cool wind and watched their husbands, sons, and brothers leave; perhaps never to return. Life was harsh but death in battle was preferred over a life as an old man. Valhalla was a constant inspiration for them. When the last of them had left, the great doors were closed once more and Astrid returned to her meal. On the way she talked to the women and children that needed a bit more encouragement. "The men will come back. They outnumber King Celyddon's people now and our king is not the type to waste any of their lives. There will be a fight but they will use their bows much more than the enemy and there will be little in return. Our king has been training our men for a long time and they are as good as the Romans. Remember also, we were trained by the Romans even before our king was born. He has learned much since then." Her soothing words seemed to mollify those around her since she got them to sit and eat what had been left of the breakfast so that none of the food would go to waste. Before she was done eating, her two children Elfrieda and Sieglinde came into the room with the rest of their half sisters. Dagmar was the eldest at eighteen and already a widow. She was a pleasant looking girl that stood very tall. She had a temper though that earned her quite a reputation before her young husband tried to beat it out of her. Brigitte was thirteen and would soon be married. She was short with long blonde hair just like all her sisters. She was not that intelligent but compensated by trying hard at everything she did. Gudrun was ten and the last child Clovis' first wife had borne him. This girl was very sweet with a mild disposition that lead towards studying even if it were from the few books or scrolls. All five came over to her and Astrid hugged each of them. Dagmar was only four years younger than Astrid, but did the same thing with a lot more feeling. Dagmar said, "Did father say when he would be getting back? The servant said that it was not dangerous." "He said that he would be back before nightfall. He's too optimistic sometimes. All of you had better get some breakfast. There's a lot of work to do. The hunters brought in four deer yesterday and they will have to be dressed." The children and Dagmar ate quickly and then followed their mother or stepmother to a building where the deer had been hung after being eviscerated. There was a lot of work to do and much too little time within which to do it. Keeping the children mercifully busy doing a well known task, Astrid said, "I am going to see your brother." The girls looked at her as they knew that the boy would not recover. He had been comatose ever since he was kicked by his horse after it threw him. He would be dead except that Fidelis had happened to be close when the accident occurred. Magic was something that was talked about, but never witnessed except when a person got hurt or a child was born deformed. Sometimes the water in wells disappeared and everyone knew it was magic that had done the deed and it was perpetrated by somebody angry enough to want this to happen. Astrid walked into the kitchen and talked to the cooks about what she wanted prepared and when. Astrid cooked with them sometimes and made special dishes that everybody loved. She collected some warm broth with very fine slivers of meat cut up in it. Most was liver and heart and this was what most people preferred if they could get it. Astrid said after sampling the broth, "Mmmm this's good. I know that Jón would love this if he were awake to taste it. They smiled at the compliment as Astrid left the kitchen. She climbed the steps to the floor above. A servant walking down the hall stopped at seeing Astrid and backed up to open a thick door behind her. Astrid smiled and said, "Thanks Angelika, will you come in and help me with Jón?" "Yes ma'am. I would be glad to help." The large bowl of broth was put down on a small table, then the two looked at the boy in the bed. He was good looking except for the concave depression in his forehead. It was completely healed now, thanks to Fidelis. The boy had never regained consciousness in the last five months and he was getting quite thin. Astrid pulled the covers back as Angelika put more wood on the fire and got it to burn much better. There was now some light coming in through the shuttered opening in the wall but instead of allowing the cool air in, Astrid lit a candle for additional light and began to remove more coverings and the large soggy padding of many layers of linen and moss that wrapped his hips. It would be good to put more of the this to absorb the liquid, but already it was too thick. The linen and moss were removed, and Jón was held up under his arms and his feet were on the floor until he was placed in a large chair with arms to keep him from falling. A blanket went over his naked frame to keep the chill away. The lower blankets on the bed were removed to get washed. They had been on the bed two days now. The smell of urine was strong, but it could not be helped. Washing was a difficult task and there were not that many blankets to spare. The old rushes were taken from the bed and new came from a large pile in the corner. The top blankets were put on the rushes and the two women started to get the eleven year old boy back to bed. On the way to the bed the cool air caused the boy to pee and Astrid's hand grabbed the offending member, so that the urine would not spray everywhere. The two had stopped when this happened. When Jón was done, Angelika got the warm water beside the fire and washed the boy. Astrid said, "You better do all of him now. He gets bathed more than the rest of us. Fidelis says it is good for him. My mother said that being clean leads to disease and sickness. Clearly the man does seem to know what he's talking about." "My mom said the same thing," Angelika replied as she washed the boy's face with a lot of love. The boy was handsome in a way regardless of his scar and he would have been king one day if he had not been hurt. She remembered the way he treated others and this was ignored as she tended to his needs. Astrid liked the boy and had tried diligently to curb his poor conduct. He did take after his father in other good ways. Jón was domineering when he didn't need to be and intolerant of mistakes in others. He would rule one day, if he recovered, but if he didn't then he would die when the next king took over. There was a lot of talk about Jón's continued existence. Magic this time had to be of the good kind if the boy was still to live. The local priests of Woden had tried to obstruct Clovis in his efforts to cure the boy and a rift had come up between them. Clovis had made too many changes for the priests not to seize this chance at revenge. Conflict had arisen and men had died until a stalemate had come about. The two women cleaned the boy and laid him on the bed to continue this activity though they had to turn him over twice to do so. Fidelis said that it was good to move a sleeping invalid often and this was done many times a day. The cleaning was prescribed by Marius even to the cleaning of the area around the anus and immature testicles. The boy, despite being asleep, reacted to this and his erection grew to a handsbreadth. Both of the women smiled. The dirty linen, moss and the wet blankets were taken out by Angelika. She closed the door behind her leaving Astrid a chance to be alone with her forth stepson. Astrid put a new diaper on the boy and played a moment with the erection that intrigued her. Clovis had lost one testicle and most of the urge to mate. When he had first recovered from the wound, the two of them had worked hard to see if he could produce seed but it never happened. She had done everything she could think of, but nothing seemed to be enough to make the seed come forth. Clovis had used his hands to please his wife even though Astrid said that this was not necessary. He was a difficult man to reason with and he had his way. Astrid had her small death while loving her husband all the more because of what he had tried to do. She looked down at her hand and saw that it was still playing with the boy. On closer inspection she saw that thicker hairs were now growing, though they were still fairly fine ones at the moment. If the boy ever recovered he would be nearly a man. Putting the erection down she closed the diaper and pulled up the blankets. "Today Ketill came into our chamber and told your father that some of the Gauls had fallen into your father's trap..." This too was the priest's idea and even if the boy could not hear it was good to have someone that he may know that was near to him. Astrid remembered the hot broth and picked up Jón and began to use a large wooden spoon to feed the boy as she talked. Much of the broth ran down his chin, but a piece of cloth was handy to wipe up the excess. It was an hour later that Fidelis entered the room and found the queen holding her stepson to her while still talking. "Greetings, my lady. I see by your actions that Jón is well taken care of. He seems to be more relaxed when you are around." "How can you tell? He is always asleep." "My magic is not all from scrolls. Much of it is what I feel. I get an understanding and then try with a spell and a lot of concentration. What I want to happen sometimes occurs." She said thankfully, "Jón would be dead without your help." "I do what I can and I have a much closer affinity to the boy than most. I would have tried to help your husband, but he waited much too long to support my need for a strong spell. To tell the truth, he doesn't trust magic near him. The only exception is for his son. He has little choice in this matter now." Astrid replied, "That's only because Jón is his only son." "That too." The older man looked at the young woman and said, "We are scouring all of empire to find those that may be able to help us. There are a great many priests and holy men that say they can perform magic. Most are lying. There are very few that can really do this. Those that now search, can detect this ability and will bring, or send back those that will come to our call." He left unsaid that the local priests would not help and were actively hindering this activity. "How long must we wait?" "It is all dependent on the power of those that come. If they are strong, then there is a chance that we may succeed. As it sits, we are too few and our power is too little to do what the king demands. Most of us would have to give up our lives in this endeavour, and it is understandable that we would be reluctant to do this." "You have no idea?" "I have no idea how successful my colleagues have been. Word has come from two that they have found some, but that they are not very strong. Others may have had better luck, but it is difficult to get a message back through the ring of our enemies." Astrid said, "The king will fight much harder to protect all of us, if he knows his son will be able to carry on after he dies. It is our responsibility to make sure Jón lives and awakes." She put Jón back down and covered him with two blankets. Her hand came out and moved some errant dirty blonde strands of hair from his face. "I have some duties to attend to as you must have. Try your best to see that Jón recovers." "I will, my lady." When Astrid had left, the priest concentrated hard on the mind of the boy in front of him. Through some gift of the gods he was able to read minds after a fashion if the person were suitable. The boy in front of him was of that constitution. The boy had not heard the conversation, but on a deeper level could talk to the priest. It took ten minutes before the priest assured the boy that he would help and left the room to go to his own. A young boy of just a year younger than Jón was busy mending some clothes while sitting on his pallet. Forni smiled at the man as he entered. "Greetings, Master. I have repaired one of your cloaks." "That's very good Forni. I think that Jón needs you though. The women were fondling him again." The boy smiled. "Ok, I can make him relax." The boy was like almost all boys and was first interested in his own gender. It would only be later when the need to have a family would this drive them to the other sex. Many times the family could grow quite large if the woman got pregnant all the time. Men have gone back to their childhood pursuits to avoid having more mouths to feed. This had been the way for thousands of years and perhaps always would be. "Let's go then. He's waiting." Forni put his work away so it would be safe and followed the man down the hall to Jón's room. The man held the door open for the boy and both entered. Forni began taking his clothes off right away. He knew how he had an effect on the priest but hid the fact. The boy looked down at the boy on the bed and smiled at his feelings. Forni had only seen Jón once before his accident. Forni had been purchased years ago from his parents. Fidelis Marius was a good master and acted more like a father than an employer or master. The boy ran many errands but this present one was the kind he really liked. Jón was growing and needed somebody to be close to him. One day Jón may take a liking to women but he hoped that there would still be a place for him if his master allowed it. This hinged on the boy recovering from his wounds. Forni pulled back the blankets slowly and looked at the thin boy that used to be very strong. Now there was little left of this strength and he hoped that the boy would recover. The many layered diaper was untied and pulled down exposing an already half inflated penis. Jón must know that he was here and got ready for him. Forni got into the bed with the boy and pulled the blankets over both of them. Starting with a kiss he began his seduction of the boy as his hands stayed away from his waist. Forni could almost read Jón's mind, but waited a bit longer to make the sensations even more pleasant. Fidelis stayed with his back to the door. He felt a stirring in his own clothing at the sight and he remembered his own youth. Forni was like a son though. He had four of his own that had grown to be important men. This boy though, seemed to be different in that he tended to avoid females as much as possible. Forni could be one of those men that exclusively looked to other males for his pleasure. This type of relationship was common, but it was nice to see the boys have children too. Perhaps another slave could be purchased and then bred. Too bad the Germanic tribes did not take this view. They gave too much freedom to the slaves just as Fidelis now gave Forni. Fidelis had to focus, because the present situation was much too perilous. Another slave and even an infant would be in danger when the Gauls and Romans finally succeeded in conquering the Frisians. Sometimes they just took slaves but sometimes everybody was put to the sword. Looking back at the bed he saw that Forni's head was at Jón's waist now and the blankets moving up and down. The placid expression on Jón's face seemed to change and this was good. The breathing quickened and in a moment relaxed as if the boy were sighing. The stirring within Jón's mind showed that the boy liked what was happening to him. Forni seemed to sense the boy's reaction too and slowed to a stop. In a moment he pulled back and looked at his master with a smile. "I felt something there for a moment. It won't be long before he is able to make seed. I hope mine comes soon too. When will this happen for me, master?" "Any day now, child. The same as Jón." "I like Jón a lot. I feel sad that I have never spoken to him and he has never met me." Fidelis had purchased the boy-slave for many reasons. A recent idea, was to test his hypothesis that love would allow two minds to exchange information. When Jón was hurt it became clear that this was a good opportunity. If Jón was to be an effective king one day, he needed the ability to get people to follow him. Many others had this gift down through history. One of the many, was Alexander of Macedon. This effect could be brought on by a minor spell, but took a long time to make it work with the intensity needed. Everybody around the boy would love him and this apparently had worked on his stepmother too. The emotion had nevertheless been warped by the woman's need for sex. The books on magic talked of many spells, but it was apparent that magic was actually the ability of the mind to control forces that could not be detected. The forces were all around a living body but not many could manipulate them. Few of the books, scrolls or parchments had any reference to an actual spell that worked. Too often it was just by accident or coincidence that something happened. It took a very rare mind to manipulate these forces. In a few moments when Forni seemed to have recovered, Fidelis said, "Forni, I have many duties yet to perform. Stay here and tend Jón. There are few better than you to do this. Remember to move him from place to place, so he does not get sores." "I will, Master." "And don't let the women see that you are making Jón feel good either. They are female and wouldn't understand." "Yes master." Clovis rode hard. He had spent a lot of his life in the saddle, but his bones were just getting too old for this. When the period of a fast pace ended, Fleinn pulled his horse close to his king. "The hills here look like a good place to have an ambush. I sent out pickets." "You have a devious mind Fleinn and I like it. The Romans have long years of learning about the craft of war. The Gauls resort to brute strength and numbers to overcome their enemies. Let's stop to have a leak and let the scouts get into position. There may be a Roman guiding the Gauls and I do not want to look like a fool or worse, dead." They galloped after a short rest then walked their mounts only to gallop again. They eventually stopped as three riders approached from the rear. When they got close they were ushered towards the king. Clovis said, "What do you have to report?" The men were out of breath, yet one managed to say, "The Gauls got some reinforcements and I have to guess that we match them man for man now. The man giving orders was dressed as a Gaul, but looked Roman." Clovis paused then said, "Where are they?" The man took out a leather tube and extracted a map of the area. It had been made by Roman surveyors and this was only one of the many copies Clovis had made. Clovis had been a hostage of Rome as a boy. He had learned much as he rose through the Roman ranks in the legions. With a finger pointing to one area the man said, "They are in a valley with high walls on two sides and two narrow entrances. There is a small lake and four streams leading to it. We have been able to keep them from leaving and actually allowed another group to enter. Our archers took out many of both groups." Clovis tried to remember the valley because he had made it a point of studying all the land possible in his domain. With a moment to think, he gave orders to four of his lieutenants to take their units into the area and ensure that they were not led into a trap similar to the one the Gauls had fallen into. The four groups peeled off after a quick word to explain what was to be expected of them. This was not learned from the Romans' army. There it was only officers that were allowed to find out what was happening. This obligated each of the centurions to look to their officers for explanation instead of knowing what had to be done. Many times the Frisians got carried away like Roman tirones with thoughts of valour and got themselves killed needlessly. An experienced soldier would not let this happen. The other side of the coin was that the men knew what exactly was expected of them and could act independently if their officer was killed. The two squads of fifty had not liked their duty as reserve troops, but knew from experience how Clovis reacted if they did not fulfill their duty. The men fought to gain glory, to protect their people and to bring home plunder to prove that they had been better than their enemies. Like all Germans, they fought to outshine their king and their king was a worthy man to follow. Fleinn did not like to be out of the action. With misgivings the middle-aged man gathered his twelve contubernium of roughly eight men each. He had them move even further out where a wily Roman would place his troops. Fleinn had been a servant along with Naddoddr and the current armourer Fálki when they were Roman hostages and all of them got much of the same military training that their present king received. Being a natural skeptic, he didn't trust anything the Romans or the Gauls did and saw traps everywhere. This was good because he could see just where to set those same traps. The contubernium were sent off to scout and to watch that they didn't get ambushed themselves. The Roman army were never very good at fighting while mounted, though there were some individuals that were better than others. The horsemen mainly did scouting and harassing an enemy while the infantry had time to get into formation. The only time they did well was in a rout where the enemy could be struck from the rear, or trampled. Fleinn was very proud of his men. They performed much better than the Romans and knew it. That didn't get them to have swelled heads because he had shown them time and time again that they could be beaten by determined and highly trained adversaries. There were few people here that had not trained with or under Clovis. Beating sense into the men over the years was a very difficult task. They wanted to fight and gather glory. The Romans knew what worked and it was hard to get those ideas accepted by the Frisians. The scouts under Clovis reported back and soon the king was able to get off his horse and look into the valley below. He had been in this area before, but not to this exact location and tried to record all the pertinent details. The two walls on the north and south were perpendicular and very difficult for a man to scale, never mind a mounted Gaul. Naddoddr came up to Clovis and failed to salute. If he had then he would have been struck by Clovis for exposing his status to a watchful enemy. "What do you think of our trap, Sire? There looks to be eighty to ninety still able to fight and perhaps twelve that are too hurt." "I think you did a good job Naddoddr. You see any sign of a Roman?" "Over in that small copse. You can see the hind end of a horse." Clovis looked, but his eyes were not as good as when he was young. "I think so. What are your plans for destroying of the enemy?" "We go in on horseback from both directions and catch the Gauls between us. Our bows are stronger and we practice shooting from horseback. The Gauls will have an advantage of standing on their feet and behind a tree when they shoot. But, we can get close. If we go down the middle of the valley, then perhaps the Gauls will run to the sides where our archers overhead will stick them permanently to the ground." Clovis said, "Give us a few minutes to get into position. Do I get the east or the west entrance?" "Whichever one you want, Sire." The valley was too large to enter undetected so when the time came they just marched in with as good a military order as they could with bows drawn. The Gauls finally saw a visible attacker they could fight. They had been harassed all through the night from archers above. They could suddenly fight on a nearly equal footing. This bred overconfidence. Clovis and Naddoddr saw the men running to their respective groups and just spread out to give all of their archers a clear field of fire and a less concentrated target for the Gauls. More Gauls came surging out of the trees. When the arrows started to fall among the Frisians, it was time to return fire. Here the Roman teaching had paid off, while the Gauls acted like enraged animals. The Frisian mounts had been trained in this sort of battle and stood still as their riders fired two arrows for every one the Gauls managed to shoot at them. Clovis himself used his own bow with great accuracy until no more of the Gauls ventured out to fight. Clovis saw twenty men on the ground trying to remove arrows and a few more that were unable to ever move again. More were in the trees. Clovis said, "Second and third contubernium will stay here. When we go forward there will be a rush on this position. You will have much more action than we will see. There will be only a few archers above to give warning or to assist. Find good defensive positions." These were the men that could take the pressure of an attack better though the first was the one unit that could shoot the best. The two eight-man groups did as they were asked and Clovis lead the remainder of his men forward. The wounded Gauls they came across were quickly tied with leather thongs or given surcease if that was what was warranted. The wounded and dead were brought out and put with the rest, but all were under the watchful eyes of those left to keep the trap intact. The total so far was thirty-one and a similar number should be found at Naddoddr's end of the valley. The men fanned out ahead of their king and looked to find men that would shoot from concealment. It was the way the Gauls worked. It was also the way the Frisians fought. More cries were heard ahead as people were struck by arrows. Usually it was the Gaulish battle cry as they attacked. Clovis was proud that his men made little or no noise. It had been hard to get them to change their old ways. There was little time to think of his men as three Gauls came out of the trees on horses and charged directly toward Clovis. There was time to use a few arrows and he paused to pick the one he thought most dangerous and let fly. Almost before the first one hit home, another arrow was being notched. This flew to the same person because he managed to get his shield up in time. This time the arrow was on the mark and buried itself in the man's thigh. With the others too close, Clovis abandoned his bow and spurred his horse forward. He went to the left of the leftmost opponent and brought his sword down with a flourish that distracted his opponent and felt it strike just above the collar bone. The man further back with the arrow in him charged too and Clovis had to work quickly since the last enemy was coming towards his back. His sword found an opening and stabbed and he twisted to do more damage before pulling out. He spurred his horse forward once again and used the doubly wounded man as a barrier to the one he had not touched yet. The last Gaul was a youth of about eighteen. He had a wild look in his eye where he thought he was going to die. Clovis spurred his horse on before the young man had a chance to think. The boy had strength and speed, but didn't know how to handle a sword like a veteran. Clovis remembered his own sons and how they had died under Gallic blades. Still, at the last moment he use the flat of his sword strike the helmet instead. The youth's eyes bulged and then he fell from his horse. Clovis looked around to assess the danger then jumped from his horse and took some thongs from a loop on his saddle. The other two were dead or dying and he used his sword quickly to relieve their suffering before tying up the boy's hands and feet. As soon as possible, he retrieved his bow and a few arrows before he regained his mount. Clovis met two other Gauls after that, but killed only one. His men had met some stiff opposition apparently because the area was very noisy with the clashing of weapons. He was able to use his great bow seven more times to take out the enemy while he was still looking to see the Roman. The man for whom Clovis searched was dressed much like the rest of his men, but had still been hit by three arrows himself. His better armour showed its mettle because he was not hurt apart from bruising. His men had the same protection. A poorly armed man was a dead man. Naddoddr's battle was close too because he heard the sound of metal striking metal and the yells of men in battle. When the other forces were pushed toward each other, Frisian archers reached over the Gauls in front of them to hit the other Gauls in the back. It took little time to defeat an enemy when they had to fight an opponent on two fronts. The culmination took very little time and Clovis was happy at the conclusion. Surveying some of the bodies, he saw that not all of them were Gauls. Three Frisians had died too and four more were seriously injured. The Roman was found. He had died in the act of killing his opponent. It would have been good to talk to this man to see what was being planned. The enemy was sorted out and those that would not survive were killed humanely. Those that gave a plea of mercy were spared though this was very rare. A man had a right to decide how he was going to die. The rest were just taken as slaves. Frisian horsemen came, leading horses with wounded, but securely tied Gauls on them. Other horses carried armour and weapons taken from those left behind. Naddoddr rode up and said, "That went surprisingly quick. I expected to be here a few more hours." "I thought so too. You and your men did a good job. Even if an old dog cannot learn new tricks, he can teach the pups how to fight." Naddoddr tried to hide his smile. He liked the praise from his king. Clovis told the truth when he could. He stayed away from flattery, even when that was directed at him. In moments the band of men were ready to travel and retraced Clovis' path through the valley. In the process they picked up more of the enemy and their possessions. The Frisian dead were tied to their mounts. It was only fitting that their family see them off to Valhalla. The blocking force was ahead of them and a rough count showed that they were all alive though some were hurt. They had an impressive number of captives, too. On the ridge above, the horn blower for Fleinn gave three sets of notes then repeated them twice. Another of the cornicens did the same thing. All of the Frisians looked at Clovis for directions. The sounds told of a large force of the enemy were approaching and that Fleinn would try to slow them down. With only fifty men and an unknown number of the enemy the outcome was not easily determined. This could have been a trap after all, a relieving force or possibly a very heavy patrol stumbling on this battle. In any case more information was needed. It would be good to use the same trap again to get even more of the enemy. "We keep what we have, but most of us will have to see if we can kill a few more before the day is out." Scouts left to find an ambush on the trail. The main party started to leave the valley only populated by the dead or those that would soon be. One of Fleinn's men came to the king a few minutes later. More notes were heard and they indicated that Fleinn was doing his job. "Sire, it was a trap, but we are slowing them down. It looks to be close to three hundred Gauls, but one in ten seem to be Roman or Pannonian. They must be auxiliaries." "Give me the details." The scout used his finger on the map Clovis held and pointed to where the enemy had been waiting, or approaching from. The beginnings of a plan came to mind. "Find Fleinn and get him to enter the valley this way and head out the way we did," Clovis said as he pointed at the two entrances. The man raced off and Clovis gave orders to those nominally under his direct command and Naddoddr did likewise. Ragnarr, a young man of mid twenties was upset that he had to lead the wounded, the captives and the booty away while the rest stayed to fight. "Don't look so put upon," the king said. "I let you stay to block the valley and you saw quite a bit of action." "You're right, Sire. I will do my duty to the best of my abilities. That means I stay and help you." "That includes abandoning the Gauls and booty if necessary. Our dead too if it becomes necessary. Woden will still greet them even if we do not send them off like heros." "I will do as you wish." When the casualties and captives had gone, Clovis said to Naddoddr, "We had best plan our own part or none of the enemy will be entering the valley. Fleinn will be riding fast as he pretends to flee." Naddoddr said, "Ropes set high to get men and low for their horses will slow them down." Clovis smiled. "That sounds good, just like what we did a few months ago." "Perhaps they have not learned yet." Astrid sat with her family for a late meal. They were all exhausted from their labours. The deer had been dressed then the meat had to be cooked, dried, salted down and or smoked. The hides had to be dressed even if they were not as good quality as other animals. The garden needed tending and so did a myriad of small disputes. People came up to her to ask foolish questions that could be decided by the individuals, but they wanted to talk to their queen. As the day grew longer, more came to hear if there were news of their menfolk. Astrid was at all times positive even if she was beginning to wonder herself. Clovis would get home when he came and nobody could make him come sooner. She just called to Thor in her mind to ask that her husband be kept safe. At the table they ate the internal organs of the deer first, as usual. They would go bad the quickest. The organs were also the most nutritious. The serving women tended the table, but when the king was not present, the protocols suffered. Astrid didn't mind this happening and saw those in the castle as her family though some were quite removed. The distinction was not so sharp now and in a way this was nicer as long as everybody pulled their weight. Beer was the usual drink, but the men would drink much more than the women and children even when size was taken into account. They usually laid about all day telling tales while others did the work. Clovis had been slowly changing this. There were few men in attendance and the room was much quieter than customary. Part of it could be worry that some would not come back. There was also the fact that women were not as boisterous as the men. Being here and not seeing their men engaged in battle was another custom that Clovis had changed. It was not long ago that the whole town or village would go to spur their men on during a battle. The men would know that to lose would mean that the enemy would take their families. Dagmar sat beside Astrid and whispered, "Look in the corner. The two maids I told you about. They look like moonstruck lovers." Astrid looked but tried to not let it show. "You're right. Have you tried any of them out yet?" "Only the shorter one. She's not enthusiastic and acts like a dead fish." "Does she taste the same?" "I hadn't got around to it. The time of month was not good for her." "Maybe that is why she was not passionate." "It could be. Since the king is not back, do you want to have some fun?" "I would like that. I have to check on Jón first though. Why don't you come with me. We are always more passionate after being close to him." "Very well, but he has somehow changed since he was hurt. Perhaps it is my urge to mother the boy, but that is not right either. What about Fidelis' slave? The boy is with him all the time." "We can send him away. Jón needs to be turned and moved so he does not get bed sores, but I think that boy likes to play with Jón too." "Should we stop him?" "I don't know. He does nothing wrong that I can see and he does a good job." Dagmar said, "I heard some noises in that room a few times and I thought it was just Fidelis having some sex with the boy, but then Fidelis came down the hall. Later, I checked and Jón had not been buggered, so it must have been the slave enjoying his hand." "I heard noises too and thought the boy was just playing with his wick and got carried away. You know how boys are. Anyway he's young and I wonder if he will be jumping any of the maids soon." "I don't know. He looks at the other boys or men, but not at the women. He may grow out of it, but some don't." "Like the two in the corner?" Dagmar looked and after a bit of thought said, "Yes, they may prefer women. Men are too rough." "They stink too, that is why you have to bathe them to keep them smelling like a forest glen after a shower." Dagmar brought up her hand to her face at the thought to stifle the laugh. When she gained control she said, "I would say other words than a forest glen, but I know what you mean. Anyway let's see if we can get the rest moving, so we can have our time together." An hour later, Elfrieda and Sieglinde were put to bed and Astrid was able to go with Dagmar to Jón's room. When they got close, they became quiet. They knew how noisy the door was and Dagmar picked up the latch and took part of the weight of the door and hurried into the room. The slave boy woke up quickly. He had been sleeping with his arm around Jón and under the covers. One boy looked beautiful and the other was handsome, though the depression in the skull made him look a bit frightening instead. "I was... ," said the frightened boy. Dagmar said, "We are not too angry, we just want to know what is happening." "What?" She started out easily. "How often do you feed him?" "My master says he should eat at least five times a day." "Do you have night clothes on?" "Ah... no. I forgot them." Dagmar went around the bed and pulled the covers down and saw that the boy was naked and Jón's diaper was laid on the bed so that he was fully exposed. Dagmar looked at Jón's wick. The slave tried to get away, but Dagmar stopped him quickly. She took his thin arm and pulled him over the bed until he was kneeling on it while facing the door and Astrid. "Stay where you are, or I will have you beaten." "Yes... yes milady." Forni felt hands on his butt and his lower cheeks were pulled apart. "Does anybody but you use this opening?" "What... what do you mean?" "Come, come. Does anybody stick anything into your butt?" "Nobody my lady." "Do they use your mouth?" "No, nobody." "Not even Fidelis?" The boy had a shocked look and said, "No, not even him." Dagmar looked at Astrid and said, "Do you believe him?" "It sounds like he is telling the truth, but regrets that it is really true." Dagmar said to the boy, "Did you want somebody to put things in your butt?" "No!" The voice came out explosively, but something was amiss. Astrid asked, "Would you like Jón to do it?" Now there was silence and the women knew. Astrid said, "Have you tried to bugger Jón?" "No, my lady. I would never do that." "Not even your fingers?" "Never." "How many times do you suck on him each day?" The boy said nothing and Astrid continued. "We already know. Just tell us the number." "Sometimes ten, but usually only six. It makes him feel good and he relaxes more." Dagmar said as she rubbed the boy slave's butt and back, "That's ok, we know he needs to relax too. Show us what you do." "You... you want me to do it now?" Astrid said, "Yes do it now. I want to see if you hurt Jón." "But..." "Do it, that is a command, or do I have to have you beaten?" The women were getting excited. They looked to see that Jón had risen to the occasion. This was odd. Astrid now knew that the priest was right because he understood when he was in a coma. Jón was fully erect and Astrid felt a tingle shoot through her. Dagmar was even more horny at seeing her naked brother. The slave was pretty, but he didn't interest her at all. The sight of Jón standing proud didn't register at first. The boy shifted, then looked at the determined women then bent over Jón. The way he took Jón into his mouth showed both women that he either loved what he was doing or loved Jón somehow. In a moment the boy didn't care either and did what he could to make Jón feel the best he could. Dagmar bent over to get a closer look and found the boy groaning in happiness at what he was doing. His own immature member was not even a handbreadth, but it was stiff. Both women were getting flustered. Dagmar was able to stoop down and reach under her own skirt and finger her bare clit. Astrid watched the slave do what she would like to do and had never dared. She had been sexually excited even before coming to this room. She was now leaking copiously down her legs. Seeing what Dagmar was doing was no help. In a few minutes the slave seemed to shiver and at the same time it looked like Jón moved his head just a bit. Seconds later, Dagmar groaned herself. It took a moment until Dagmar was able to get up. She looked hungrily at Astrid and the look was returned. The slave had paused and just stayed where he was with Jón still in his mouth and his rump high in the air. Dagmar looked at the boy's opening again as she passed and could well see how most boys decided to try their own gender before moving on to girls. It was Astrid that came to the bed and urged the slave boy to lay beside the one he loved. She reluctantly pulled the diaper over Jón and then covered both of them with the blanket. The boy sleepily opened his eyes and she said, "We know that you are going to take good care of Jón now. Just remember to do up his diaper when he goes to sleep. I will see if I can get your master to let you sleep here at night." "Thank you my lady. That is what I wished for more than anything else." Astrid closed the door behind them and took Dagmar's hand when nobody was around and they raced to Dagmar's bed. It would not be good to have the king to see his wife in bed with his daughter when he came home. ------- Chapter 2 Vic German sat in his comfortable chair for the first time in a week and exhaled to show his pleasure. Nora his wife, the three grown children and their seven grandchildren kept him up and going almost all the time. In a few months there would be the start of a new crop of Germans when Ian's new wife, Pauline, would give birth to their first. The young children had just left and though it was good to see them, it was even better to get some peace once in a while too. "Come on Vic, we have to get dressed. We were going out to the Feldman's tonight." Vic was not happy with this arrangement. He was not home enough as it was and Nora wanted to go out every other night. It was the price he had to pay to keep the peace, but Isaac Feldman was a religious bigot trying to masquerade as a pious man. "Usually the two of us argue all night and my stomach is not up to it." "That's easy to fix, just agree with everything he says." "He is an educated man, but he is no better than some of the uneducated Islamic zealots I have run into. A Zionist zealot has no inherent moral superiority simply by virtue of superior intellect. Each have their own religious dogmas and will not open their eyes to see anyone else's point of view." "You must have your own dogma, because you are always arguing." "I took a course in comparative religions and after a lot of thought, decided to be a devout naturalist. I believe in what is in front of me and what can be proven. Every religion has evolved as it grew. Some of the changes down the generations were not a pretty sight to behold. All of them preach one form or another of the golden rule, but all of them ignore it when it suits them best." "Vic, people just need a crutch sometimes. I needed a wooden one when I had the operation on my knee and I needed the other kind when I was young and my father died. We all have to believe in something and you are no different because you believe in science and mathematics. If you didn't have all your degrees, you would probably be the same as the rest of humanity." "Ha! The rest of humanity is being led by the nose by people spouting religion. The sanctimonious politicians have been using religion to control people as much as the priests have since we lived in caves. Terrorists or freedom fighters use it. Destitute third world countries or the very richest use it, and so do all the courts." "Vic, they need some way to control people effectively, or there would be anarchy. I don't know why we are even talking like this." "That's because religion is built into all of us. It lurks in the primordial portion of our minds where we are still cave people staring out at the lightning and thinking it's supernatural. At the same time, we are afraid of dying and need someone to tell us that we will go on to some better place after we die. People will believe anything, if it's their last hope. You've got to hand it to priests, they do know how to control people, especially those people that are poorly educated, or those that don't want to think for themselves." "You are not getting out of going to the Feldmans. They made a beautiful meal. I'll try to keep Isaac from talking of religion, if you try to be diplomatic. You just have to circulate with the rest of the guests." "Two hundred failures so far, but I will try once more." "Good darling. Maybe when we get home we can unwind with some wine, music and each other." "Hurry up Nora," I said as I jumped up. "We have a dinner to go to." Later, Nora adjusted my tie as she stood in front of me. "You are one handsome man. You have not gained much weight since I met you." "And you are one beautiful woman. I am glad I managed to get you away from all your other boyfriends." "Boyfriends? I only had one, and that was before I met you." "You are still beautiful. Your hair is white now, but I still see the brown it used to be. We both put on a few pounds, yet we are not overweight. You are almost as nimble as you were when we met at the tournaments." "Nimble! Ha yourself! I was so low in the standings that not even my hometown paper put my picture in the news. You were the world champion though and I am happy that I got you as my trophy. If I remember rightly, and I do remember, there were simply dozens of girls flocking around you." "Nora, Honey, I was waiting for someone like you to come around and when I found you the others didn't exist anymore." "They better not have, or I would have scratched their eyes out." "I was talking about living in caves a while ago and see that you are not far from that. In a way that's nice. You just drag me by the heals into your cave and have your way with poor little old me." The party was larger than usual. There were seven more couples added. Numbered in the new additions were two large twin brothers. Both had diminutive wives. The men were all drinking and some had come to the party already partially in the bag. Jerry, the younger of the two twins, by fifty seconds, said, "Isaac tells us that you were into big time sports. You don't look that big to get into any sport a real man would get into." It was Nora who said before I could respond, "Vic is not that big, but he is fast and very strong. I am confident that he can still beat anybody in this room except me." "Why not you? You are not very big either." "He's my husband. He touches me and he goes hungry and he loses quite a few fringe benefits too. I trained in karate and still do. Vic was a world champion in his class." The wives nearby tittered a bit, then Jerry asked me, "How could you beat anybody?" This time I got in there first and said, "I was good at wrestling and karate before it became popular over here. I was good enough to get a full scholarship when I got my first degree in Chemistry." "Usually chemists are small guys with thick glasses that live in their little labs instead of out in the open." I had to smile at them due to the fact that I had lived in the open for a great many months in all kinds of weather and in many climates. Dad was a Canadian veteran of the American army. He fought in Vietnam and was already a bit around the bend before he joined the war. He believed all the bullshit about the cold war. He and his childhood buddies wanted their families to survive the coming holocaust and trained their children to succeed. If it weren't for learning to fight while still in diapers, I would not have been good in wrestling then in unarmed and armed combat. I said, "Some chemists are like the way you said, but others are bigger than you or your brother. Some of us have learned to do things that most would not be able to do. Not many of you have learned how to eat grubs, snakes, insects or other unsavoury dishes. We slept outside in the winter as kids with little protection except what we could provide for ourselves. I think I qualify as an outdoorsman." Isaac came over now and looked worried. "How are you guys getting along? Vic, here gained his championship in karate and many other awards in using old weapons. Vic, these two guys were into football and a lot of teams had them at their training camps. You have to be good to get that far. They were heroes in college." Isaac was not tall and held my arm and urged me away. "Excuse us," he said to the group, "but Marty was having a problem and Vic will probably know the answer." When we were just a few metres away I asked, "What was that about?" "Those two are the nicest people until they get drunk then they get mean. I just don't want my house trashed." "You were the one to invite them, Isaac." "No I wasn't. They came with some other guests. I wasn't told their names." I said, "There would be no fight if I could help it. I do have some managerial skills. I'll try to get them to talk about their sport instead of their inflated egos at my expense." After talking to Marty a few minutes, Nora and I circulated, then to save Isaac's party, went back to slightly more inebriated Jerry and Jeff. We talked about football for an hour and I tried my best to get them to stay away from the booze. I tried to be subtle and said it was not good during training. When the two couples finally left, Isaac came over. "Thanks Vic. I hear those guys are not that amenable to just talk. You have a gift at being able to stroke their egos without being blatant." "It's important to learn that with my job. A lot of chemists and administrators are up in arms when I come. I have to take a budget and get every person to work together. Most times it is only me holding them together. That's why I get paid the big bucks." Just before we left the party, I went into the washroom and took out a small blue pill to ensure that I was able to keep up my end of the bargain. That night Nora was just as receptive as her promise. Nora had the same glassy eyed look when we were done as she had as a young woman. I was pleased with myself for making my wife feel this way. Energized, I was up earlier than usual the next morning making breakfast. I cooked up some moose sausage I had made after I last went hunting. Usually I used a bow and though I had to use glasses, I had lost little of the skill I had gained as a boy and young man though I did not have the speed. Part of being in a secluded community of survivalists meant that I had to learn to do everything the hard way. Hunting was great with a bow. But, I had to learn to set traps that would catch the game I needed without killing unsuspecting people walking the woods. Colin was one of the twelve men that went off to war to fight with the Americans in Indochina. He had taught us many tricks when he came back and the bow was a good way to silently kill. Not all twelve came back though and dad turned out to be the glue that kept them together afterward. Dad had his lower leg blown off from a landmine. That didn't stop him from planning on the next war that thankfully had not come yet. There were seven men that stayed in Markam, north of Toronto, while it was still just farm land. Their wives and children helped form a commune of sorts. It was socialist in that we shared a lot. But, that was more because we all worked toward the same goals than from any eco-political ideology. Mentioning socialism to my father and his friends would mean a war because they were ardent anticommunists. Colin had taught all of us about traps and the weapons he found when he fought in Nam. I remember his saying ad nauseam, "Traps are harder to make for men, but they can be effective." Another thing he said a lot was, "One day you will run out of dependable ammunition or just have to save what you have until it is really needed. You have to learn how to make primitive weapons and then master how to use them." This was not hard because John German, my grandfather, was still running Northern Sporting Goods Inc. His factory was not that far away over in Orangeville. He made very expensive weapons for the affluent. It was only the wealthy that could afford them. They were all world famous items. He even got some contracts to make sniper's weapons. Northern not only made rifles and pistols, but also bows and their own brand name arrows. They were not cost effective or competitively priced. Regardless, when anything had the name on the box as being made by our family, it sold. Those firearms, incidentally, were made from steel we Germans mixed, cast and forged ourselves. This too was cost prohibitive as to pricing, but the customers paid anyway. Nora was singing to herself when she got up to have a shower. She kissed me quite passionately and invited me into the bath with her. I was not the type of man to let a lady down when I was up. When we got out of the bath, Nora said, "Where are you off to, today?" "I was going to go to the farm and take Gary and Phil with me. You're more than welcome to come too. Sam would like to see you." "Thanks, but those old men will want to talk about war, fighting in general, and of course killing. If your dad were alive he would be there with them and encouraging them to go on a patrol of the farm. That's beyond ridiculous. I think I will gladly do some shopping. If you had given me enough warning I could have packed a good lunch." "Thanks Honey, I think we may stay over but I will ask to find out. Sam probably needs some company and supplies. They like the Vietnamese food and I think it is just to let them remember when they had so much fun being killed and shot at." "Men! I will never understand them, but I think you're right." Gary Piper was born in '31 so it made him seventy-six now that we were half way through 2007. He was living with his second wife and I stopped in to chat a while. A few minutes later, Phil Maxtor came over and he was invited in. Phil was a year older and looked younger. He attributed it to not remarrying twenty years ago, but never said this in front of a woman. He was brave, not stupid. We left soon after but not before leaving a message to Nora that we would not be eating at home that night. Instead of the range where we usually went, our goal was the old farm. The trip would take over an hour to get there. That was OK. It was fun to go back to where I had so many fond memories. The farm was seven hundred and thirty acres. Most of it was rock, bush, lakes and swamp. It was productive enough. All of us had made a living off of it, but it had other purposes. Phil got out his set of keys and unlocked the barriers across the private road we used. The trail had not become overgrown since the men had kept it clear of trees. There were quite a few ruts in it now. We stopped at the old homestead and picked up Sam Watson. He lived here full time. The three old men were all that survived out of the original eight that returned. We stayed in the house and had some coffee and caught up on some family news and talk of how badly the world was currently being run. Eventually the four of us went much further back to where a small tool shed was. It looked as if it were ready to fall down-quite on purpose. It had been constructed that way. I know that to be true because I had built it. This was an alternate entrance or exit to our depot. Around the back of the shaded hill was a rock overhang large enough to hide a truck and, in fact, it hid much more. The front of it had camo netting. Dad and seven others had built a bunker inside that would make anybody in the Third Reich proud. The custom made blast doors were massive and took all three of us to open them though they were well maintained. Sam not only provided security, but he did much of the work even at his age. Gary went in and lit a lantern and used the light to see so he could start the generator. When the lights finally came on, I saw what would be keeping us alive if WW III came to pass. If they caught me with any of it now, I would spend a lot of my remaining years in jail. Military vehicles were pointed at the doorway ready to go. Two had machinery capable of manufacturing biodiesel fuel once the existing stocks were depleted. There was a field gun with thousands of rounds of ammunition of all types and mortars along with what they threw. Six heavy machine guns and again lots of ammunition. Flame throwers were mounted on two of the armoured personnel carriers and smaller machine guns. The explosives were stored away from this bunker and so was the majority of the ammunition luckily. Everything needed to start a new civilisation was inside that bunker, from hundreds of pairs of boots to ploughs and even tack for the horses. Grandpa was well off and Dad got an inheritance from his grandparents. Mom's family immigrated to the United States from Germany in the 1800s. As American citizens, they wanted to see what Canada had to offer. Mom found something when she took up with a wild eyed Canuck. Her parents had moved here in the thirties and bought about half of this farm. When mom married dad they were given the farm and dad added to it as the money allowed. Mom and dad fit well together. He was an idealist dreamer, but one that went out and did what he had to do instead of just thinking about it. Dad had gone to Vietnam with a lot of his buddies and some had come back to work on the farm and have their own families here. In reality, they were preparing for the end of the world as they knew it. They bought equipment, then traded to get other pieces. Equipment and weapons went missing from a great many military depots on both sides of the border and found their way here. I heard many times about the exploits of the eight of them. They had donned American uniforms and brazenly stole ordinance that would land them in jail for the rest of their lives, if caught. They got all the hard to get pieces and the majority of the large caliber shells this way. To get the equipment home, they masqueraded as American troops coming to a joint training exercise with the Canadians. A year later the Canadian army was victimised the same way. Dad laughed when he said, "If we had found the war canoe and paddles, then the Canadians would be without a navy too." That wasn't so far from the truth. It was easy to see that the New York State National Guard had more weapons than all of Canada combined. Moreover, the Guard was only referred to as weekend soldiers and not the real army. Small wonder that American taxes were astronomical--to pay for weaponry far beyond any possible threat at that time. We spent the rest of the morning going over the land we knew so well. Phil said to me, "Remember when you had to build a bridge across this stream with Larry?" Larry was his son that now didn't want anything to do with the weapons. In fact, none of the thirty-seven kids I grew up with wanted to have anything to do with war games and training. They also knew that what we had here was highly illegal. I was the only one of my generation that came here to work or to relax. None of the younger generation wanted this at all. I said, "Yes, I remember that. We had to drive a truck over it when we were done. We had to protect it from blue team because they had the job of blowing it up. My ears still ring with the sound of that explosion." Phil smiled and said, "You never thought that they would swim underwater and plant the charge, then swim further downstream with the rebreathers." "No, but if it happens again, I will have a net out and an alarm if it gets cut." "Good. How are you going to make the net and how is the alarm going to be tripped?" This was just like old times. They gave me questions and I had to answer them. Most of the time they would give me alternate ways of doing the same thing after I answered. Phil was a rock hound of the first rank. He had left this area to prospected for gold. He soon found enough to support his family and our community quite well. Lack of money was never the reason for our Spartan way of life. We lived well but didn't go to any extremes. Making explosives was what originally started me off thinking of the science of chemistry and what to do with the rock. Poison gas, nerve gas, tear gas, pepper spray and other types of weapons including using disease organisms were stressed as good weapons and tactics. Explosives, fuel air bombs, and incendiaries were not only discussed, but made... by all of us. Then we were shown how to use them on an enemy. This was partially why my sisters and all the other kids I grew up with avoided the farm and the idea of war. They were quite capable of dealing with death, but didn't want to. I was the only one who wanted to be a soldier to the very end. All of us kids played very hard and most of us went on to be very accomplished in professional sports or business. I had made knives, swords, bows and even spears since I was just a little boy. Here grandfather's factory helped, but I had to make many items from scratch too. I could do little more because of my size. I still proudly carry the small knife I made from iron ore. I was very competitive in those early days and showed it. All that, I now keep that very much in check. Nora knows about this and she is the one that usually fights for me. It is better that she does it instead. My competitive mode is far over the top. We had gone on field manoeuvres since I was a few years old. I was never big for my age, but I got to be very strong. High school came a year early and I was instantly caught up in the wrestling club. They more or less built the team around me but also included the children living on our farm. The girls were pissed that they could not join because they had their eyes on some sissy boys on the team. Wrestling led to karate and karate lead to the use of all the martial arts weapons. A sword takes many years to master and therefore I spent many years doing just that. My victories led me eventually to Japan. While there, I won the karate world championship in my class. I also placed very high with the sword against older and more capable contestants. I was quite sure that if I were taller and older, I would have come out first in more than the one category. I went to a university on a very good scholarship to learn chemistry. This originally had been my initiative to make better explosives, but I still thought like a survivalists at the time and tried to think of what else would work. LSD was popular in those days and since the information was available to make and nitrify lysergic acid, I made some of my own. I only made the one small batch and subsequently made a wrong decision by selling it for a lot of money. The money went toward the maintenance of the 'farm' and other works we still needed to do. I did find out that I had made the batch as pure as had been possible. My life at that time was very harried. I would speed from one activity to another to make sure I got as much living into each second as possible. When I graduated with honours, I found that I was not going to get paid much as a chemist. This I knew in advance and since I had such good grades I negotiated to get some credit in an engineering degree in this field. Much of the time I spent in chemistry was then used toward this second degree. I had an car accident with a drunk driver before graduation. Both of my legs were broken and I was lucky to be alive. After extensive operations I knew that I would be able to walk and dance again, but not compete in karate. I took the year over again on another scholarship because of my sword work. The Olympics still had this as an event. It was the epee and not a katana. Though I tried very hard the two weapons were not the same and with my damaged legs, I didn't make the cut for the Olympic team. All my training had been aimed to make me a better soldier. I knew I could be very successful and put my two degrees to the best use for my country. The pay would be quite minimal compared to what I could make normally, but that was acceptable. I passed everything on my physical until they found out about my two damaged legs. I had worked harder than required by my doctors to regain all of my former abilities, but the military regretfully declined my application to enlist. I had imagined that this might happen when I woke up from the accident. I thought I was prepared for this disappointment and found that I was not. A week later I was over the worse of the despondency. Nora was my girlfriend at the time and we talked over more of my commitments to earning a living. She wanted to be a teacher. Though it seems cold and heartless, we negotiated between ourselves what we could do and when, if married. When the deal was complete, we told our parents of our coming wedding. The first few years were blissful, then conflicts about the time we could spend together began to hurt our relationship. Nora had always possessed a very level head and that is partially the reason I married her. We just had to make do with stolen moments and lots of long-distance telephone calls. When the children came along, I found industries nearby if possible in which to work. We were in a bust time in the eighties, nevertheless I kept my job continuity and still made very good money. One day, I got such a great offer in Germany that we packed up and moved. Nora found a good job in Germany teaching English. I was part German, as my name attested. Mom's parents sponsored some German relatives over the years. When they visited, I got an earful of their language and of course the cooking. I was encouraged to learn at least some of the language. When I went to high school and considered chemistry I was told that all the best chemists were German. That meant that the seminal journal articles in the field were written in German. This ensured that I took German as a language and I was fair at it. If I were fortunate, I thought, I could get mom's parents to help me a bit more with the language. The corporation that employed me at that time was spread over all of West Germany. I saw extensive operations in the Ruhr Valley that the allies had tried to bomb out of existence. I worked on the last of the hard coal there and found some ways of using the potash and bituminous soft coal. We made insecticide and fertiliser and did it much more efficiently than ever before. Hanover was the centre of another rich geological area and this is what had made it great for the last thousand years. I worked on improving the lead and zinc ore quality south of the city, but had to work again with the coal and potash works also. Five years later, I was at Salzglitter and the iron ore deposits. This was mainly to improve the processes to make hardened, machine grade vanadium steel. I drew from what I had learned from my grandfather's arms business. My superiors were pleasantly surprised at my unsuspected acumen. The company owned a subsidiary that had been acquired by the East German state. They had owned an oil field just east of the Elbe River. I got a hard-to-get pass to see the fields and look at the complex. I was not in love with communism but I knew the Cold War was a fraud. The people beyond the Elbe put on a front themselves, but they were very poor. I was well aware of the failure of the communist system and heard from people in the know that the two halves of Germany would eventually be reunited. I whispered a few things in some engineers' ears and I was treated even nicer than when I had first arrived. Nora and the kids fell in love with the kind people and this showed in the way we communicated. We were taken on all sorts of cruises, visited some out of the way places and saw things that a tourist would never know existed. My employers were happy with me and I was very happy with them. I was seriously considering emigrating when Dad took sick. Grandpa had fought with Dad to make him take over the business. Dad had gone to Vietnam instead. The two eventually patched up their differences and Dad took over the company. I had worked there to learn the trade as Dad called it. We all knew that I would be the one to take it over because my sisters were not at all interested. It turned out that Dad had cancer and I took over the reins of the company years later. It was too late, but I tried to get my two boys to consider taking over when I was ready to retire. My daughter would have done just as well, but she too was not interested. Ian, my oldest child was the one that showed the most interest and I worked with him to show him how things were done the old way. He would have a firm grasp of what had to be done if he were taught everything. The four of us went into the armoury and even signed out three rifles. Extra ammunition was elsewhere and this too had to be signed out. It seemed odd to see bows, arrows, swords along with the knives and guns though this was the safest place to keep them. Sam now cradled one of our latest products and showed the rest of us how well the rifle worked. It was not chemical engineering, but it was still engineering to make a weapon like this. I said, "This beauty will get sold to the US military and then to NATO. I figure we can make enough money to surpass what was made during the sixties when you guys were fighting." Phil said, "If I had this and enough ammo back then, I would have really cut a swath through Charlie." Sam had seen it in operation once before. He said, "You should see it on auto. The barrel doesn't seem to wear as much and this is also a sniper weapon when refitted with a longer barrel. It is beautifully balanced and doesn't climb like those earlier models either." Gary had to get his two cents in and said, "The rounds are too small, and too fast for Nam. A twig would deflect a round like this. The rifle may have been good for Korea, but it needs an open field of fire. The three then went to war, at least a war of words and they started to talk about other weapons or how our rifle could be altered to make it work if they were ever in a country like 'the' Nam again. Why is it that pols, generals, and old noncoms always prepare so well to fight the last war, never the next one? Though it was late in the afternoon, it began to get dark very quickly. A funny feeling went down my back and I interrupted the three old men talking. "It looks like rain. I don't mind getting wet when out on manoeuvres, but not now. Even if you're not, I'm too old for this shit." The house was quite a distance away, so I got the men into my car and drove into the bunker. I had a few premonitions before and could not find a reason for them, but I instinctively knew that they were true. I sat behind the wheel of the car and shut the motor off. This felt very ominous and I was actually afraid to move. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as if I were in an EM field from a static generator. From an otherwise calm afternoon a great flash of light dazzled my eyes and immediately I heard the crash of the loudest thunder I had ever heard... ------- Chapter 3 Clovis sat on his chair with a sour expression on his face. "Tell me again why you cannot do what I want." Fidelis said with a lot of well-hid worry, "It is not just a matter of what you want Sire. What you want may very well not exist. You require a great many details. If all of them have to be true of one man then this man may never have been born, or will not be born. As a warrior, we may be able to get the great Alexander. He defeated most of the world. The scrolls I read suggest that Alexander may have been a transplanted warrior too. His father had a great many Picts in his employ. They were well known for their ability to perform magic." "We cannot have him. From all the information we have heard, he would again try to leave us and continue his string of conquests. I need my people and my land safe now." "You may be right, Sire, but he would have few troops to follow him. He would have to stay here and bring order to our lands before he could venture out. He would know that Rome would be a near and a constant threat. He would try to form an army to defeat them." "What requests am I asking that you think could be changed, so we find who I am looking for?" "You ask for a man that speaks our language. Perhaps someone that is only familiar with it, but can learn." "What else?" "You ask that he be a great hero and this could be reduced to just a hero. The men will follow him just as well because great heros are too unbelievable." "Unbelievable? I want you to perform magic and you say this small request is unbelievable? What we are not discussing deserves the term." "That is very true Sire but the man we seek would truly have an unbelievable amount of knowledge at his disposal. The chances of this happening in just one individual is truly staggering. He has to be a warrior, and an accomplished swordsman who is also able to lead men into well thought out battles. He is a man that knows of sciences beyond our comprehension in order that he can use his arcane knowledge to assist us. You want him to not only understand our tongue but to be sympathetic to our cause." Clovis retorted, "I see nothing staggering. A true warrior looks to test his skills. If he gets to command some of our warriors he will fight our battles. Understanding our tongue could be learned in time. When the spring comes we will have to fight both legions and their Gallic Auxiliaries. It was you that said that future wars would be different and this knowledge may help us." "There is not only the finding necessary. There is the burden of the actual transference. You have provided a host in the bargain who requires a very great healing spell. Again the Picts that came to my call mention that the transference and the healing may be combined in some ways to save power. That is the other problem we have. The power required may still be beyond what we can produce. Neither of us want to sacrifice people though others are not so restrained." "Use animals like you spoke of before. We have the blessing of also eating the flesh. Are you sure of the Picts? The Gauls are part of their nation?" "Animals have little of this power but we will do what we must. The Picts don't see the Gauls as close." "Surely you can find more priests or wizards? I hear Britannia is full of them." "They are mostly hedge wizards with little power or understanding. We have talked amongst ourselves and thought of forming a great call and sending it out to all of those that could hear it. I believe this is what was done for Philip of Macedon. Surely his son was not born as he later acted." "Time is running out, Priest. If we wait too long, then we will be overrun before our hero can do anything." "Give me more time Sire. The winter equinox is coming and it is possible that a thunderstorm may blow in though it is rare. The two may be enough to give us the power we need." "That is too much time. The next storm is all I can do." "Sire, that is not enough." "You asked for my protection for your religion and I freely give it. However, if I am dead, then you have no safe haven." Clovis looked at the man and continued, "Did you add something about his beliefs? I want no lies. True priests are not mice that scurry away. They stand and fight for what they want." It took a moment before the priest said, "I tried to work in that he would not be a religious zealot. An open mind is all I can hope for and perhaps he will see the benefits of the original gods of Rome." "What else have you put in? You ask me to moderate my terms and I have to know what you wish to accomplish." Again, there was a pause then the priest said, "For my religion to be safe, we need a strong people. You already have strong arms. Beyond that, I want our hero to bring our people together. That requires a strong and benevolent ruler. You have many years ahead of you. When you die you leave no male issue except your comatose son..." "I understand. I am in agreement with this, so long as it is not focussed solely on your religion. I am going out on a limb in supporting you. Woden and Thor may not be pleased with what I have done. Our own priests are not happy with your efforts to keep my son alive. They still do not know of this transference or they would raise the people to rebel. They are a thorn in my side that will not go away." "Your people's beliefs are firmly fixed in each of them. All I wish is the freedom for anyone to pick his own gods. Rome was once this way under the republic. Now, even that simple freedom has been swept away." Clovis said, "Roman freedom didn't mean much for the Christians and the Jews. They were persecuted intermittently for a long time." "Only because they chose to put their beliefs above that of the state. If they swore loyalty to the Emperor and didn't preach sedition they would be left alone. They have gained recent strength with the populace because of their new way of teaching. Even now I see the senate bowing to pressure from the common people to follow this strange eastern god with no name and his son on earth." "Religion gives me a sour feeling in my stomach. Men have used religion to meet their own ends for thousands of years. Many times, it is not the kings that rule, it's the priests. Even my own rule is always seconded by the priests. Neither group usually has the well-being of the people in mind and thinks to aggrandise their own position. This was my central belief in the way I rule. Sometimes the people cannot see that they have to suffer to accomplish lasting good. In the end, they will benefit from it. They are like sheep, but there is nothing that can be done about that. I am only angry that the gods made men this way. They should be strong and pick what they want and go after it." "Sire, that is good only if all men have the same basic instinct to work together when the time comes. Men also need structure, while retaining the room to work within that structure. Your kingdom is better than most and it is because you make fair laws and a man knows where he stands. What are you going to do if our hero wants to take your people where you do not want to go?" Clovis had been thinking of this for a long time. Even so, he didn't answer. "Sire, the hero needs freedom to work. He has to prove himself in battle and in the planning of some of those battles, also. He needs to build the weapons of war and will need materials and men to do this. The Romans learned to defeat the Greek phalanx with their own strategies at the cost of many lost legions. Our hero needs to find a way to defeat what the Romans have discovered. You have built a good army, though surely it will have to change in some ways. You may not agree with many of those changes." Clovis said, "Do not put deeds to me that have not happened. Our men fight bravely, but not always as a unit. The Romans taught me how they make war and I have taught our men. That is the only reason we are still alive. We used good Roman tactics against the Gauls and then better Roman tactics against the Romans themselves. Thank Thor the Romans had poor leadership. If new strategies come about, they will have to be evaluated and if they are effective, then they will be adopted." Fidelis was worried now because the king could not control his temper very well. "My question was valid and it is good to hear the answer. Our hero has to be watched and guided, but he must be allowed to grow into his power." ------- Sam was in the back of the car and said, "Shit, I have never been close to a strike like that. I thought for a second that a mortar team had zeroed in on us." I was shaking myself, but it was more than being close to an attack. I felt that the storm was after me personally. Logically, that was ridiculous. My reasoning mind seemed to have fled and I was figuratively back to the cave in which our ancestors lived. It was as if a force of nature were controlled subtly by an arcane intelligence. Gods did not exist and neither did magic. There was nothing else that I could come up with that could do this. There were no more strikes and no rain either. I was ashamed to be the last man out of the car. I knew that the rubber and steel gave me an extra layer of protection. We cowered inside the bunker like frightened primordials, or at least I did. I had all this high technology around me and I was reduced to acting as if I didn't understand the workings of fire. The sky stayed ominously dark, but quiet without even the customary wind or rain. The old men didn't like being cooped up and soon ventured outside once more. I was ridiculed about being frightened. Yet, it was only a little while ago that they were frightened too. My rational mind pushed me out. Even when pushed it took me twenty minutes before I was steady enough to use the rifle I signed out to practice with. It felt safe being in a group. Still, I was apprehensive when I had to go and set up different targets. With a great deal of hidden trepidation, I put my rifle against a rough wall we used to keep off the sun and rain and walked out with a dozen more paper targets. I crossed the field towards the wood barrier backed by four metres of earth that we used to catch our rounds. The targets would be placed on supports that were another ten metres away. I saw the men talking and they were not paying attention to my movements. When the targets were put in place I started to walk back... but never made it. ------- I looked up and saw walls that didn't exist around the range. My head hurt something fierce and so did my body. I thought I heard the word, "Gratulatio," but I was not sure. Instead, the pain forced me into unconsciousness. An indeterminate time later I heard a gruff man's voice say, "Jón, tell me how you feel." The sound was demanding and somehow caring too. I could see nothing. The pain was still present in my head though reduced somewhat. A young person's voice said, "My head hurts greatly and my skin feels as if I'm on fire." This sound came out as a croak and wondered who had spoken this. The words were wrong somehow and it took a few seconds to come to the conclusion that both conversations were in a language much like German but not exactly. What was disturbing was that I could understand the language as easily as I did. My grasp of German had been related to day-to-day activities as well as technical matters. I was only getting used to the grammar before I had to leave Germany. The language I now understood was not the same, though it was similar. The pains the voice talked about were the same afflictions effecting me. It was like listening to a conversation in the darkest room imaginable. My memories told me that I should be on the range, nearby or in a hospital. "I'll send for the priest." "I don't want the priest. You should have never allowed his kind to stay here. I would have flogged him and sent him away." "The priest saved your life in many ways. You should thank him. He went to a great deal of trouble to cure you. Tell me. Do you feel any strange thoughts in your head?" This was just a conversation that could have been on a radio, but now I was very interested in what was said. "What kind of strange thoughts?" I heard. "Strange ideas. People's faces that you see clearly whom you have never met before. Perhaps an odd tongue that you may understand. It may even be a form of combat of which you have not heard. Strange weapons that you have never seen before could be in your dreams." "I have none of that. I just hurt. I'm very weak and I don't know why. The priest talked to me about this too and he asked similar questions. I think he did something to me. He said that my head was damaged and it was just repaired by magic. He also said that my horse hurt me half a year ago." "That's true. You rode your new horse that was not well trained and you were thrown. The guards hastened to help and the horse kicked to get away. It struck you as you started to stand." "Did you kill it? It should die." "Jón, it is only an animal and one that you insisted on riding against the wishes of those at the stable. If you take a responsibility like that, then you have to accept what happens. You cannot kill every horse that throws its rider. Men are smarter, but they fail too. Do you want to kill everyone that fails?" "It would make the rest think harder and do what's right." "Jón, it would make them hate you. One day they would put a knife between your ribs for killing a man's son, or brother. You have to treat them with some measure of respect and they will give some back to you." "I would still kill them, if they were disloyal." "There are many levels of disloyalty. Some deserve killing. Most do not." "When I am king, I will kill them all." This made me think very hard. This boy's becoming a king should mean that the man speaking to him was a king. Where was I, or was I suffering some kind of delusion? The sound of a door opening was heard then as deep voice with a strange accent. "How is your son doing, Sire?" The king, whoever he was, said, "He's in pain. Is there something you can do about it?" "I have a magical draught that will ease the pain. It will also probably put him to sleep. That may be good. He has been awake now for a few straight hours." "He should stay awake a bit longer to see if you were successful." "Father," the boy said. "I'm sleepy and the pain really bothers me. Give me what I need." There was a lengthy pause and the father said, "Give the boy your draught." "As you command, Sire." He must have the equipment handy because I heard some noises that went on for a long time. Then, the boy was moved, and curiously I could feel my own body being moved too but the feelings were vague. I could not smell anything, but I could taste the bitter remedy that went into my throat. I thought now about the word magical and something was saying that this may be possible. I hated the taste just as I could feel someone else hating the taste along with me. My head was put back on a pillow and the father said, "A great deal has passed since you were hurt. The I Noricorum and V Iovia have advanced and closed the circle around your lands. More Gauls have come, seeking Roman gold." Gauls! Romans! What was going on? He was speaking of two Roman legions that, if my memory served me right, were stationed flanking Germany. Was I going crazy? "We had a small battle a few weeks ago and we captured nearly six double hands of the Gauls then killed quite a few more Gauls and Romans when we led them into the same trap. We were able to kill only seven Romans, though they seem to know next to nothing of what is going on." "Kill them, Father. They will never be our allies. Kill the Romans too. You said yourself once that you could never trust them." The last was said with a yawn. "They may make good slaves, but I think they may provide some pleasant entertainment or some money if they are ransomed." "I would like to see you flog them. Flog them to death, father. They... deserve... it..." The boy was going to sleep as I seemed inclined to do, but I fought to stay awake. There was too much to learn to let some sleeping potion take over. I heard, "It looks like your magical potion is working priest." "Yes, it does, Sire. Is there any indication of our hero?" There was no hero, but I was here. I pushed as hard as I could. Whatever I pushed against I was unsure of but I instinctively thought this was the right way to proceed. The result was as if I rose out of a pit. A square of light enlarged until it was very bright. I tried to move my arms, but nothing happened. I regrouped and concentrated on one muscle group at a time and nothing seemed to be happening. I was able to see a small room with similar stone walls that I had seen before. I then saw the faces of two men looking down at me. One had fiery red hair and the other looked darkly Italian. Meanwhile, the drug was trying to drag me back. I tried to scream that I was here. No sound emerged. Instead, everything went black. Much later, I woke up slowly to the sound of female voices. They were talking of inconsequential matters and I wished I could see them. The two men I had caught a brief glimpse of were still well-remembered. I could now feel the sheets and wool blanket on the bed and knew that I was sitting up partially. "We have some fish tonight," came from a young voice. Another said, "I made some bread especially for you." The weak voice of the boy I heard before said, "You make the bread too hard and burn it." Strangely a feeling came to me that this was not completely true. The boy wanted to hurt and there was no apparent reason. I could not interface very well with this person, even as I tried very hard to do so. It was much like a diver trying vainly to get to the surface to get a breath of air. I was, thankfully, not quite as frantic. An older female voice said, "Jón, you are being unkind to your sister. She may have burnt bread a few times, but she makes very good bread now. Before your accident you ate a great deal of it when you could." I could feel some resentment at being caught. The boy, Jón, managed to hold his tongue saying nothing. More feelings soon came through, as I pushed to learn and feel more. After some additional moments, it became evident that the boy was just horny. When I realised this, the sensations became stronger and I could feel not only the cloth on my body, but the effect of an erection under the sheet. I was very horny with adolescent hormones coursing through my body until I realised that I may no longer have a body of my own. The boy had his body and I was left with the conclusion that I was some sort of a disembodied hitch hiker. The king had talked of a 'hero' coming to visit his son's body. I questioned my belief in a superior being and that plus my logical reasoning mind said this was not possible. Magic was the same dead end since there was no proof that it existed though I went to sleep more quickly than any drug I had heard of before. There didn't seem to be an alternative. I was here, wherever 'here' might be, and I would have to investigate further. In the next hour, I learned a few names of the main staff members. Their foibles, challenges and successes were easy to categorise in memory and I could almost see them. The older woman was called 'Mother'. The two female children were Elfrieda and Sieglinde. The females talked of 'Father'. Meanwhile, they also put the name Fidelis to the head priest. Strangely, they didn't talk of a hero or a visitor, they spoke only of a magic spell that cured the boy after a very lengthy time during which he had been comatose. I felt that magic had to be examined more. The woman and her two children left. In a moment, I heard the door open again and close soundly. The boy, Jón, said, "Help me to the pot, slave." "Yes, Master," came from a diminutive voice that could have been either male or female. I felt a chill as the blanket was obviously removed and then hands placed on me as the body was guided to sit on something. It was cold and had to be some sort of ceramic container. I felt the bowels relax and then some exertion on the diaphragm to expel a watery stool. "Point me down, so I do not spray everywhere." "Yes, Master." I felt a small warm hand held onto the penis. This was not done tentatively at all. The stream of urine came next and in a moment another stool was expelled. The hand never left the penis for an instant and I felt the body getting hard again. Jón was stood up and bent over the bed. The young slave used some dried moss, as that was what it felt like on Jón's butt. I had learned to use this same material when on manoeuvres. When suitably clean, I felt the body being moved back into the bed. "Not with my head laying down. I want to go back the way I was." "Yes, Master. I thought you might need to rest." "Let me do the thinking. You're only a slave." I knew he was being needlessly cruel and cringed internally at the person with which I had somehow been fated to take up residence. When the body was put down comfortably, Jón said, "Suck me again slave, and make it quick." The slave said, "Yes, Master," but the voice sounded happy enough to do it. The bed shifted and I felt the erection growing larger and then a warm wet surface over it. I or we, were getting a blow job. This had happened to me a great many times before. Usually they had been the result of Nora doing this to me. The picture of her face flashed into my mind, unfortunately the sensations coming to me blurred it. These strong feelings were oddly much stronger than I had ever felt before. Even as an excited boy, they had not been this strong. I felt hands holding a head to guide not only the timing, but also the depth. It was not very long until I knew the point of no return was at hand. The head was forced down and the hips pushed up at the same time. The orgasm was explosive. I had felt a release. It had not been with the use of the prostate. The voice had been young and so must the body. In a few seconds the head was pushed away and I heard, "Cover me. I want to have some sleep. Go to your bed in case I need you again." "Yes, Master." The sound was not as if he or she was heart broken at the treatment and I wondered if all slaves would be this way. In a moment, I knew that Jón was asleep and I pushed very hard again to get to the surface. This time I had no drugs to hinder me. It must have been five minutes of agonising effort before I even saw the light once more. It was a few more minutes before I could dimly make out the details of the room. The eyelids seemed to be the only body part under my control. When I had broken my legs in the accident I had to learn to walk all over again. This time, I used the same ideas to see if I could control the jaw to open the mouth. There was no telling how long Jón would be sleeping, so I pushed very hard to gain what control I could. Breathing came first as it was a necessity with karate. It must have been ten minutes later that I gained both the jaw and the tongue. I practised a considerable time then said, "Slave." Each time it was progressively louder. It was a young boy that hurried to my side. He had long reddish blonde hair tied in the back and his face was cute. He had, no doubt, been the one to give me, or rather us, a blow job. That was definitely a first in my book. I had not had any real sex with a male before that moment. I didn't think it was proper. Others could do as they wished in my opinion. The body I inhabited certainly thought this boy very desirable. So desirable, that I began to get hard again even though I just wanted to talk with him. I heard some soft words and knew that they were in the old dialect of German again. The sounds before must have been filtered through Jón's brain. Now, I had to work, or better yet, see if I could gain control of the speech and language centres. The boy was smiling at me waiting to get a reply and instead of working to interface with the speech I moved my left arm. It rose slowly and the hand went to the boy but only with a great deal of effort. I was very pleased with this, though I could feel substantial fatigue even with this amount of movement. The slave stayed until the hand came close and I caressed the pretty face. I knew I would not do this normally, but there were a lot of hormones going through the body once more. My adopted body was making me stray into uncharted waters after nearly sixty years. His skin was smooth and without blemishes. He was either very young, or very lucky. The hair was not clean, yet the face was. I traced his ears with my hand and then his eyes and nose to finally end at his lips, which I caressed with the tips of my shared fingers. My hand eventually went to the back of his neck. I pulled him close and he didn't resist. When he got close, I felt compelled to give him a kiss and not a brotherly one. This person had just happily given us a blow job and I was stirred up even thinking about it. The boy didn't understand the kiss, but didn't pull away. In a moment his own arms held me and he returned the embrace wholeheartedly. In another moment I had too much, but the boy simply pulled the covers back and went back to what he had done just a half hour or so before. This time I was able to see the look of love in his eyes and I was able to caress his pretty features. In a moment I was able to use my right hand too, but I didn't force him in any way. The feelings grew and grew again and I wondered momentarily how and why the sensations were so strong and addicting. This didn't last long. I endeavoured to savour this as long as possible. The boy's head didn't go fast like he did before. He moved slowly to draw out my enjoyment the way I wanted. I had little control of the body I was sharing and when it looked as if I were going to be thrust over the precipice, the boy pulled me back by slowing, or stopping altogether. I could feel his hands caressing my legs and then very gently the scrotum and testicles. All I was able to do in return was to caress his head as I would a cat or dog that was content to be with me as I sat in my chair at home. Images went through my head of the women who had pleased me in one way or another. The ones that turned me on the most were more prominent. Every fourth image was of a child, or sometimes a very young woman that I had not seen before. That surprising development had me momentarily worried that I might now focussing on children to have sex. It was another young boy's image that helped me adjust due to his having a sword and helmet on that I somehow knew belonged to his father. These memories were obviously not all mine. They had to be Jón's. Instead of going over my own memories, I realised that I had somehow relinquished this process to Jón's brain. I saw all those memory traces that looked exciting and desirable. There were no images of actual sex, just the urge and the imagination of the boy. Nobody, it seemed, had done anything truly sexual with him. It was only the boy now giving me pleasure that had recently started this. The boy had just been there to take care of Jón's obvious needs. The boy cleaned his body, changed his clothes while generally acting as though he wanted to do what he had been doing. I discovered that when Jón finally awoke, he had been given a sponge bath. This led to an erection and then the act of love to put it back down. All this was hard to think of because the sensations were coming from my, or rather our, groin and I instinctively flexed this new body to get more penetration. The point eventually came, of course, where I wanted desperately to push the boy's head down on the small erection. I resisted that temptation with all my might. The long anticipated orgasm at last began coursing through the body I had begun to inhabit. It was the strongest that I ever had and I could hardly believe that such a pleasurable sensation was not even augmented by an adult discharge. The boy seemed to know exactly how to treat me, slowing down just enough to keep me balanced between the edge of joy and the urge to push him off from too much stimulation. When the orgasm had run its course, I pulled the boy towards my lips and kissed him very tenderly, trying to convey as much affection as he had shown me. He responded to me again and held me as if I were a Ming vase. When I pulled him away a few centimetres I said, "Thank you. That was very nice, but I don't even know your name." "It's Forni, Master." His reply told me that I now understood the language somehow. I had no idea how this had happened. "Forni is a nice name and it is the start of a long word that means to have sex. The name fits you very well. Tell me where we are?" He looked like this question was very odd and said, "We are in the home of your father." "What is the name of the city?" "It is Hildestun, Master." I didn't recognise the name and asked, "What is the official name of my father?" He looked at me for a few seconds and said, "King Clovis, though he has more names that I do not know." Where had I heard that name before? Ah, Clovis was the name of a Frankish king around 500 AD. This was quite impossible, as was this entire situation in which I now found myself. But, I did see stone walls and tapestry. Also, the language was different from the German that I knew. "Do you know what country we are in?" "You are in the land of the Frisians." Frisian? They were not the Franks, though most of the barbarians spoke nearly the same language and shared the same customs. "What year is this." "I don't know." "Who is the Roman Emperor?" "I am not sure, but I heard talk about Constantius. Is he an Emperor?" "He was Sweetie, but there were a few with that name." I don't know why I said that. The boy certainly seemed pleased with the name. Damn it all. I had studied Roman history just sufficiently to learn how to fight and stay alive when World War III came along. Eventually bullets would be hoarded and swords and javelins would come out once more. Whether bullets or bows were used, the tactics of the Romans and their enemies had appeared well worth studying. I didn't know the year. It had to be at least 200 AD because of the reference I had heard to the Christians and it may have been at least 500 AD because of the emperor's name. The Franks inhabited northen Europe, and then took over France and western Europe. The Frisians, I knew, had inhabited an area close to the North Sea but none of the various tribal boundaries were fixed. Those changed from year to year as both internal and external pressures dictated. I remembered hearing about the Gauls and Romans massing around the border. The king wanted a hero and since he was asking particulars from his son, he must know where the hero would come to reside. There must have been something wrong in their methods, because they brought me instead. I'm not now, nor had I ever been, a hero. I immediately wondered about my old body. Was I now dead in the future at the last point that I could remember? How was Nora taking this? I had insurance. Money wasn't my concern. Nora needed me, as much as I needed her. The door opened quietly and I thought of covering myself with something other than a pretty boy, but somehow it didn't seem to matter. This suddenly was not my thinking and wondered if Jón's thoughts and memories were influencing mine. Forni just moved his head, but stayed where he was. An instant later recognition came to me. This was the man that I had seen before, the priest, Fidelis. "Hello, my name is Fidelis. Can you understand me?" There was no sense trying to hide the second identity in this body. He clearly knew the upshot better than I. The body I wore was that of boy, but my mind was not. They would want information from me and I would want knowledge in return. There was no reason to start out in an inferior position. "Hello to you too, Sir..." "Excuse me. Forni, leave us. I have to talk to Jón." Forni didn't want to leave, but he did as he was told. He caressed the body I wore first, then covered me back up. When the door closed, Fidelis said, "Some of what I say has to be kept a secret." "Then you should shout at Forni to leave the other side of the door." I heard running steps as my words had their effect and smiled. It was good to see that Fidelis did the same thing. A sense of humour never hurts. Fidelis said, "Please tell me about yourself. We are all quite interested in what our nets have gathered." "That sounds like a good way to start. I have questions too that have to be answered. Let us trade information, so that I do not get a sore jaw?" "That's fair." "First of all, I am only able to talk because Jón is asleep. When you drugged him before, I was able to come to this room. Soon the drug affected me as well. The time I will be able to talk to you may be limited." "I understand. Will you begin now?" "My name is Victor German. I know that we are probably in northern Europe and the time is between 200 and 500 years after the birth of Christ." I saw the face the man made and figured he must have problems with Christians. If he were a priest, then he was not one of the Christian variety. "My land is far to the west. As yet it has not been discovered and its area is far greater than all of Europe." I said in passing, "Many people now think the planet we live on is flat, but it is close to a sphere that spins around once a day. The axis, is like the axle of a wheel and are called the north and south poles. It is very cold toward the poles and even the seas are frozen. Luckily, there is a passage around my land to the very south, but it would be very dangerous in the ships you would have now. "The time I came from was 2007 AD. Rome had long before lost its leadership to barbarians, and other lands had taken turns at being supreme. "Would you now tell me more accurately when and where I am?" The priest was transfixed with the talk of new lands and took a moment to recover. "You are in the land, the Romans call Germania. Have you heard of this?" "Germania eventually becomes the country Germany and my family name is of the people that live there. I have some German ancestors, but I do not know how far back I could trace them, or even where they came from." "It has been twenty years since Constantius II came to power." "My grasp of Roman history is more pertinent to wars. I did go through St. Peter's Basilica when I vised Rome. I was told on the tour that the construction started in 320." There was another pause and Fidelis said, "That was thirty seven years ago." "That puts this time around 357." A thought dawned. This was indeed shocking and I wondered if my atheistic viewpoint had angered some powerful being. I thought about this time period, but little data came to mind. I said, "Constantius II dies in 361 and the next Emperor is Julian the Apostate. From the expression you made when I mentioned Christ, you are not a Christian. The new emperor outlaws the teaching of Christianity. In 363, he was assassinated at the Battle of Ctesiphon. His army nevertheless defeats Sapor II. Julian will be the last anti-Christian Emperor. Knowing all that, you seem to have a decision to make now. You fight the Roman soldiers here, but you should want to support Julian." While the man was thinking I said, "The Roman Empire is split because it is has grown so large. In the next fifty years the western half will begin to fall. Britannia, Hispania and Gallia among other lands will fall first. The city of Rome and all of Italia will experience one barbarian invasion after another. Various people will try to prop Rome up because it is the best working structure available. There is a thousand years of history to prove this point. Without the stabilising influence of Rome, all will suffer a thousand years lost to apathy called the Dark Ages." "That is amazing. I never thought that the Empire might ever fall." "Nothing lasts forever. Rome lasted much longer than most empires. Do you have maps of Germania and this area in particular?" "I would bring them the next time we talk. I do not want to waste any time now." "That's fine. What do you want to know now?" "Our lands are besieged by both the Romans and the Gauls. How can you assist us in defeating them?" "I do not know exactly. In my time we had some fearsome weapons. One could be carried by one man into Rome itself and activated. It would destroy the entire city, kill everyone for many miles around, and turn the heart of the city into a deep smoking crater." The priest was shocked. "You would not use this weapon?" "It is a weapon that is beyond my abilities to make and far beyond what my conscience would allow. I just mentioned it as the most powerful weapon I knew about. Tactics that I know can help you win your battles. To remain independent of Roman influence, you must make weapons that will throw iron for many Roman miles. When it lands, it will expand instantly in a shower of small metal fragments that will destroy walls or men. This is a job that is truly monumental." "Why is this?" "To make what is necessary requires the help of everyone in this land. If there are not enough to do what must be done, then the neighbouring lands must supply people that can assist us. They need to be trained to read because that is the only means of transferring knowledge that will work in the long run. The people have to give up their old ways and accept new ideas. Your land will be forever changed. Even the simple farming life will only be for the few. Here too, great machines of iron will plough the same amount of land that it would take a hundred teams of oxen to do." The door opened quietly again and now the other man came in. He had to be the king. Behind him I saw Forni looking worriedly into the room. Fidelis stood, but said nothing. I said, "Good day, Sire. Forgive me for not standing, but I cannot control this body very well." I knew that he was worried about his son, so I added, "I seem to be able to come out once your son is asleep." "Who are you?" "My name is Victor German. I come from a very large land across the sea to the west that you have not discovered yet. My time is almost one thousand six hundred and fifty years in the future. We were just describing weapons of the future and I was saying how the people that help have to be changed dramatically in order to be equal to the task of protecting this land." "How will they be changed?" He said this in a confrontational manner and I could see that he either didn't want to change, or possibly didn't want his people hurt. "Your people now are uneducated, though happy. They are fairly free to do what they want. To make the weapons to use against your enemies, I need a great many skilled people. The uneducated have to learn to read. Those that can will learn a skill. From my knowledge of the German people of this time, they fight bravely enough, but take three days to decide to come to a meeting. The men of this land, I am told, sit around talking and drinking until it is time to fight. "There are a great many skills needed. Those having these skills have to teach them to others. When there is enough help, mighty weapons can be built. Flat bottom boats pushed by machines that burn a black rock or wood will propel the boat along the rivers and lakes. Much larger ships powered similarly will ply the oceans. "One very necessary weapon to be manufactured is a long and very heavy metal tube. It will push a metal projectile many Roman miles overhead to crash down and break apart a wall, or kill hundreds of soldiers even if they wear armour. It can be mounted on the ships or on a large cart. "Far in the future there are machines that fly through the air faster than what sound can travel. They can drop destruction on an enemy thousands of miles from where the machine left the ground then return back to the point where they left. Ships of the air will even be made to carry men to the moon and there they will be able to walk in the dust. "One man can hold a smaller weapon that can kill an enemy over a mile away. Hundreds of men like this can kill an entire legion to the last man in just hours while sustaining no losses. "There is a device that uses the same power as in a lightning bolt to carry a human voice over distances of many miles. Your words and observations can go to sub-commanders in a battle to coordinate an attack or a defence. Your men may be hundreds of miles away and see that the Romans are preparing to march and you will know of it as it happens. "To do all this and a great deal more, your people have to become as civilised as the people in a Roman city. There are jobs that require people to work at night and some in the later part of the day. Each person working eight hours a day. I have studied your history. In battle your people are brave, but rush out to fight and die needlessly. It is better to do as the Romans do. They train good men to follow orders, instead of fighting according to individual initiative in a disorganised manner." The king asked, "Why do you think I am opposed to this?" "All men need leaders, even in my time. Once a man is educated, he will think more regarding who should rule him. The kings in my time are figureheads left as relics of simpler times like now. In that future time men and women too, are elected by a popular vote to enact laws and to appoint leaders to govern. Every three, four or five years usually, the population of a land has to either re-elect those in power, or elect new people." The king said, "Even if your ideas come to pass, I will be safely dead by that time." "That may be true, Sire, because this will take centuries to accomplish. If I help you with this, I want your assurance that I will be sent back to where and when I came from." There was no reply and the two men looked at each other. Finally Fidelis said, "You are already back in your time. If you went back, you would have no place to go. Your essence was, shall we say, 'borrowed' when your body had no need of it. You have told me about the next Emperor. It would only help our position if Julian were warned that he will be killed at the Battle of Ctesiphon in a few years, provided that he does nothing to thwart his coming demise. As you said, he was not a supporter of Christians. Once this is mentioned, the events of the future will likely alter their path as you know it. I do not see much chance that everything else will be exactly the same to you." I was truly stuck in this now as a 'me' living long before 'I' had first come to exist. Perhaps that life already mostly lived in the future had not been as exciting as a life here and now could be under these circumstances. It seemed that I had to share a young body to make all this feasible. That wasn't all bad either. The benefit would be that if I were not expelled or killed, I would have many more years of life ahead of me. I had but to subjugate an indwelling unruly child or come to an agreement with him. Moving on to larger implications, Fidelis' words hit home. What I would do would be much more than revolutionising a small, backward society, and warning a Roman Augustus of danger. I would be changing the world far beyond what anyone could imagine in the process. I said after a few moments, "How was I brought here to reside within an injured child who seems rather ill-tempered and indisposed to rule harmoniously over others? Is there a way of me getting a body of my own? This boy's body is fine, but obviously I must share it under less than ideal circumstances." The two looked at each other again and Fidelis said, "We used magic to bring you here. Are you not familiar with this?" "Magic is something that I have not seen and I do not believe in it." "How is it that you know all these miraculous things and know nothing of magic?" "In my time we talk of magic, but it has all been proven to be slight of hand or just clever tricks." "That is not the case here. Everyone believes in magic, though some believe much more. Perhaps it is your people's disbelief that causes you to not see magic." "Possibly so. You didn't answer my question, however. Can I be moved to another body without having to share?" "There is a possibility of that happening, but it requires a person to die just before the spell is cast. Even then, there is a remnant of the old personality left behind. All this takes a great deal of magic and the transference into a body is not ethical in our eyes. You were transferred here to not only save us, but to see what you could do with Jón. You were quite correct in your assessment of him. He has problems in his relations with others and would not make a good king. It was hoped that since he cannot evict you, that you would teach him humility." "How do you know that I am ethical enough to be entrusted with Jón?" "The spell we cast was very selective. We searched the past and the future for someone who could defeat the Romans and make our land safe. We were very specific in our requirements that you be the right person for Jón." "How am I supposed to teach, or control a boy who inhabits the same body as I?" "Show him by example what he must do. You must be an adult to have done everything you say you have done. So, you should have the wisdom to take care of one boy. Possibly you were a parent in your former life?" "Yes, I am... or was... a parent. I will try my skills with Jón. I do not like the way he treats others. Changing the boy's nature from the inside may be difficult. Beyond that, yes, I know of ways that can be used to win a battle, but all of this knowledge is from books. I have practised in small units with some success. My knowledge of the way wars of the immediate future will be fought could be a great asset to you, but I shall need some materials in great quantity." Clovis the king said, "I can get all that you desire." "You are fighting a war that you are slowly losing by your own admission. Making sweeping promises like that is nonsense until you know what it is that I require." The king realised his words had been overly brash, and remained silent. I said, "I need iron. The amount will be staggering to your ears. I need the weight of a hundred full grown men, and that is just to start. Some of this iron can be made up in brass and bronze." "We can get some of this, if you require it." "Thank you, Sire. I need four materials to make something that can hurt your cause if the secret gets out. If four groups suddenly go out searching for odd materials, then everyone with any knowledge will know of what to use to find the secret." "What are the four materials? We will try to not make them seem special." "Find the caves containing bats, I need their dry dung. The best part of the dung for my purpose will be the crystals that may be found around the edge. This is the oldest part and the most pure. Pick from the driest cave sections. Water damages what I want to extract from bat dung." "You mean, gather bat shit?" "Yes, I do and the material has to be kept very dry. It can burn after being ignited from sparks from torches, so be careful or you will destroy this very necessary ingredient." "I will warn the men." "Beyond that, take the human and animal 'shit' from the city and save it too. This you probably put on the fields. Your crops will grow much taller than before. This you must already know. The secondary purpose may be used as the excuse to gather both the dry and the wet." "I will do this. How much do we need?" "To start with, I want the equivalent of the weight of a hundred men in dry bat shit. Maybe double that much of the wet kind. I will need some men to work with this substance who will learn the secret. Rome and your other enemies would give virtually anything to know about this." "How many men do you need for the secret work?" "Four at the start, but as time goes on I will need many more. What I am having them make will be dangerous. To make it in the castle, then to have one make a mistake- the entire castle would be destroyed in the blink of an eye." "That dangerous?" "Yes it is. Due to that fact, I need a place to work far away from people. This will also help keep the secret. Soldiers will be needed to protect us, but they will have to keep their distance. Men speak over wine or beer what should not be said." "I understand that very well." "It is a hardship to go without women. I think that the four men should have their wives with them, if there are no young children. Women could do the work well too, if they understand how serious this is." "Women talk too much." "They do, but men talk as much though you may not see this happening." "What else do you need?" "I have heard that people of this time are familiar with brimstone. I need only the weight of ten men. It is found around volcanic vents, as well as other places." "Ten men? That much is impossible to find." Fidelis said, "I have found this substance as he has mentioned, around strange openings in the earth. It is also found where the earth has been broken, as if in a giant upheaval." "Then you should get that brimstone or what I call sulphur. The shit will be seen as something to grow crops, and the sulphur you gather can be passed off as a new ingredient with which to make magic. " I added, "The next requirement is good dry charcoal. All three elements-extract of bat shit, sulphur, and charcoal- have to be ground extremely fine. The four men and their wives will do the milling and grinding. For a time, I will conduct the final mixing with one most trusted apprentice. One or more of these people should be able to read and write, because they have to make some of this substance then test it. By varying the mixture, they can see what is the most powerful. I know the approximate formula, but it must be adjusted for local conditions and purity." The king said, "How is this tested?" "That is a very long explanation. To give it to you I must explain something first. I need a great deal of a black rock called coal. Germania has this rock in great abundance. There are two kinds. One is black and hard and the poor variety is brown and softer. I need to have my testing take place near this coal." "Why?" "I need so much coal that the number of men necessary to dig and haul it will be very large. I need coal the weight of your entire castle just to start." "What?" "Yes, Sire. I need a great deal. The coal is burnt in ovens much as wood would be to form charcoal, but I will make what is called coke, rather than charcoal. Coke is harder to start burning, but burns exceedingly hot when driven by a bellows. With iron ore, crushed limestone and other added materials, I will make the iron so hot that it will glow like the setting sun and run like water. "I will also need clay that is usually found with coal. It will be used to form a very large jar. I will pour this liquid iron into that special jar called a mould. I will break the fire hardened clay mould to free a solid iron tube after some cooling. Smaller containers of damp sand will be made to form a sphere or a pointed cylinder of iron. These will fit tightly within the opening of the tube. The secret black powder that I will make will go into the tube first. Then, some cloth. Then, lastly the iron spheres, or cylinders all rammed hard towards the bottom closed end of the iron tube. Another hole, but very small bored through the tube, will allow fire to reach the powder. The powder will burn more quickly than the eye can follow. The resulting hot smoke will expand greatly behind of the iron sphere or cylinder. It will be expelled from the end of the tube much faster than an arrow. "The test I was talking about will have the men and women that can read record how much powder and of what kind was used. The distance the iron ball travels will explain how well the powder works." The king asked, "What will this iron ball do?" "The iron ball can go for miles. If it hits the wall around a city or a castle, the stone will give way. If the wall is very thick then more balls will be needed to break down the defences." "It will go through a stone wall?" "It will go through men too and not even be slowed down much." "This could be used by our enemies to kill us." "Yes, that is why it needs to be kept a secret. By the way, when the powder burns quickly it makes the noise of thunder. People for many miles around will know something unusual is happening and come to investigate. A large deep valley would be good for testing as long as it is not filled with water. Sound that goes up because of the hills will not be heard far away. This testing will take some time." "How much time? The Romans and the Gauls are at our doorstep." "It depends on how much assistance I can get. The liquid iron is necessary but bronze can be used first. My iron can be changed to something called steel much as copper is changed to bronze and brass. You can get good swords and armour, if there is surplus iron ore around. This is a lesser secret, but the world will know of it soon enough. "The materials for the powder have to be collected and kept dry. We'll need large clay jars baked into pottery with tight lids fashioned and sealed with wax. When the tubes are brought to the chosen four, then the testing may be done. When we have a good design of the tube and powder, then your soldiers can learn how to use the new weapon, but not how the black powder is made. "With two hundred men, fifty tubes, and all the supplies I need, I can defeat thousands of men, if they stay together in groups. Rome can be bled white within a single year. Don't worry if the potential victims of your army scatter before you. If they scatter then your calvary will ride them down. Romans will not have the training to hold formation when I do my part. The slaughter will be far worse than any defeat dealt them by Pyrrhus, Hannibal, or the Parthians." Clovis said, "So, to work your type of magic, we need to collect animal shit for the crops, find bat shit, brimstone, and charcoal for your black powder and locate a large amount of black rock near an uninhabited dry valley with steep sides. " "I would also like wood ashes kept too, but they need to stay dry until I extract something from them with water. You need a great deal of what you call hard coal. You need more iron and bronze than you have ever seen, or else an entire mountain of iron ore." "Is there anything else you need?" He didn't sound happy now just bewildered. "Blacksmiths to work the metal, but if I have only a few, I can teach apprentices. I need carpenters to build the devices and hides made into flexible leather for the first type of bellows. The people must want to learn. Make them understand that their very lives and those of their children's children depend upon their motivated success in this huge endeavour. One more thing, I need ditches dug in the ground and the people must all piss and shit into them, or disease will kill all of us. This will also go far toward collecting the shit for me to use in the fields. Food has to come and people to prepare it. I will shortly require an entire city where now stands only forest and river." "Is that all?" He sounded very sarcastic now. "After all that, I want the residue left over from soap making. Fat is very important to me and to you." "Soap? We make little of that." "Washing frequently with soap will keep you clean. It helps reduce sickness. It promotes good health. Disease has killed more soldiers than what men have killed. People of this time do not know the benefits of cleanliness. Soap is made with all kinds of grease and fat. The wood ashes and the fat will give you the soap and the residue contains something of value which my enterprises will need. Please try to collect both and I will show you what you can do with the soap. Soon your losses to disease will drop markedly. Later I will show you what I can do with the remnants." He said nothing, so I asked Fidelis, "There is a black stone that reacts strangely to the presence of iron. The two are pulled together as if by magic. Do you know of this material?" "Yes I do, I even have a small piece." "I need a great deal of it. It is mostly iron, but has another element in it called vanadium. This too is very valuable to us to make our iron into very strong steel. A little will go a long way. Your new swords will cut any enemy armour like so much candle tallow." "I have heard of areas where this black stone could be found, but people shy away from them. None of us know the reason why this happens." "I can tell you about what discoveries in science has been made in the next sixteen centuries. That will take much time. You will have to write the information down. Knowledge is power. I am giving you enough power to give you the world on a spear point." Both men looked at me then the king said, "There were quite a few foreign priests and holy men that helped bring you here. Most can read and write, but not all. They would love to find out what you bring, but I'm afraid they would leave with the secrets. We must be very careful to who learns of what you have to tell us." "When the time is right you can introduce me. Those you think that are more trustworthy may be told more. Those that are not can be told little, but they may still be useful. Some could be fed useful lies and turned loose. I want to learn about this magic of yours. We have a great deal of information to trade; perhaps I can see a way of using what I learn from you in battle." "It has been tried before, but usually it is only employed to demoralise an army." "Then I should learn of this, even if it is to find a way of protecting our army against it." We talked for another few minutes about what the present world was like. I was warned in the telling to not inform anyone about this transference of my own. Witchcraft and the transference of a spirit were considered criminal acts by everyone around me right down to the peasants. The local priests had been dead set against Jón's being cured- never mind bringing me here. To preserve harmony, there was some cover readily available. If Jón acted odd, it would be attributed to the aftereffects of the coma and the kick to the head. My presence could not remain a secret though. I had to come out but seem normal in this abnormal situation. The kick in the head may have addled anybody's wits and I could use this as an excuse. Dealing with these... barbarians meant that I had to take a stance similar to what I had just used with the king and the priest. I had to be dominant. To get anything done in this time would mean that I had to continue this way. People of this time were intransigent and I needed a way of getting them to move the way I wanted. I changed the subject, saying simply, "Jón used Forni poorly. I want the boy protected." Fidelis said, "The boy is my slave. He was put here to assist you to recover." "Forni is young, but he will soon come to know that there are two of us 'in here'. I think it best to have a trusted adult in attendance that will not meekly take the abuse that Jón will give." Fidelis said, "You may regret that. Forni stays away from girls and women. He's young and presently goes through a stage where his friends are male. There will be sex as there always had been. I feel that he is destined to stay this way focussing on boys and men though. Is that not the case with some males in your time?" This made me self-conscious because I had already enjoyed Forni's favours. Jón's body influenced me in this, and he didn't seem to find it embarrassing. "I guess you're right, but not every male acts this way." "Perhaps it is because your customs are too restrictive. Here and now most boys will have sex with other boys before they become men. It is true in Rome and it is true here. This is all further complicated by the fact that a spell was placed upon you. It was to heal you as Jón, but it was easy to add into the spell that everyone will be compelled to admire you. The men will follow you when you command, but the problem is that all the women will too. This spell was structured so as to not affect children unless they were able to breed. It was not really intended for you to have sex with all the women and therefore sow discord with your men." "I can see this attraction as a problem, but in my time that is what was preferred. Now what can we do about Forni? He's just a little boy in my eyes." The king said, "Let the lad make love to the body you wear. I too think it is his nature. He will be upset if he is taken away. I have seen how he has become attached to your present body. His love ensures his loyalty." Fidelis said, "I will give him to you. We had best call the youth in and explain the truth to him, so that he knows enough to keep quiet." While I contemplated my owning a real slave, Fidelis called in the boy. When he arrived the man said, "Forni, you have been a good slave to me. There are things that you now need to learn. If you speak of them to others, then I am afraid you will be put to death." The boy was very shocked and backed up a step. This I knew was not an idle threat but the truth. "I will not say anything, Master." "I am sure you won't, but you have to know the penalty if you do. You know that Jón was seriously hurt. His father, the king, is not able to have other sons, so Jón is very important to him. We also need a hero to come to us to save our people. We looked all through the Empire and found nobody that was suitable. We cast a spell and found a suitable hero in the far future where people walk on the moon far above our heads and fly through the air." The boy was certainly amazed at what Fidelis told him. "The hero needed a home, because we were not able to bring his body here too. Jón was hurt and needed help. His father knows that Jón needs a tutor to learn how to be a better person." All three of us stared at the boy and Fidelis continued, "The hero has come, and now lives in the same body with Jón." The boy's mouth opened wide and he stared at me. "He's from Valhalla?" This had not occurred to any of us, so I said, "Asgard is the term I want people to know about but not yet. Will you remain quiet until I tell you to speak of this?" The king stared at me while the priest smiled. The boy didn't answer so Fidelis said, "Answer your new master, Forni." The boy looked at Fidelis then at me and finally said, "I will not tell anyone ever. I swear this on my soul and..." I interrupted and said, "That's fine, Forni. Just keep our secret. I have to share this body with Jón. I think the boy, Jón, needs a good thrashing for the way he acts. You cannot treat people so badly without their resenting it. I can only see the boy in this body getting worse as time goes on. Finally, he will kill everyone here because he simply doesn't care enough to do right by them." "Are you a god?" I had to think this out. Priests and politicians had used religious belief to control people. Perhaps I could do the same but towards a more noble end. I said, "I was not a god in my former life, but I have knowledge far beyond what others in this world know. I have the secrets of the gods. Those secrets could be used to kill every man, woman and child no matter where they lived. My knowledge can also make everyone happier and healthier. I am also very much a man... and your friend and protector... so long as you keep our special secrets." Fidelis said, "I am giving you to the person you just talked to not to Jón. Do you understand the difference?" "One is nice and the other is not." "That is the basis of the difference. Your new master will take care of you for the rest of your days. You will have to tend to him and do as he says." I could see that the priest was upset at losing the boy so I said, "I want more than one boy." All three looked at me. "I need someone that will be like a father to me and I need someone to be an uncle to me. This father and uncle have to take care of me and of course my slave. This will only work if I am part of a family that looks out for each other." The two men looked at each other once more and the king said, "I am the father to one of the spirits in this body and I can be the father to the other too. It may be an odd adoption, but I accept it." Fidelis said, "I will be the uncle you need and also an uncle to Forni, because I see this as what you really want." "Thank you both. I do not want the world to know that Forni is mine. He will be in more danger and will have fewer difficulties if Fidelis is still thought of as his owner." I smiled at both, but especially Fidelis. I then asked, "Will you now tell me more about Gnaeus Scipio Magnus?" We talked for another hour until I felt that Jón was trying to awaken. The two left and promised to meet me in a few days. They had held off on an important mission just to talk to me. Forni took to his pallet beside my bed. I pulled back and Jón came to the forefront once again. I retained a link to the eyes now as well as the senses of feeling, hearing and smell. It was much better than being blind. I knew what Jón felt and he was not refreshed from his sleep. His head turned one way then another and he finally said, "Slave, get me water." "Yes, Master." Forni poured water from a ceramic picture into a dark ceramic mug. I could feel anger building for no apparent reason and Jón slapped the ceramic mug away to be broken on the floor. Forni was shocked at this and had his mouth open. "Go get me fresh cold water. You expected me to accept what has been laying around for days." Forni was almost in tears but he managed to get out, "Yes, Master. Right away." I didn't want to tip my hand to my presence yet. Therefore, I turned my thought process towards Jón and pictured him as an overly pampered baby that would not grow up. I hoped that he would get these images. By the time Forni got back, Jón was uncomfortable and I hoped it was from what I had been attempting to send him. Forni had to clean up the fragments and then go for another mug. When the water was served, he was sent to get a meal of broth. Jón didn't want to be fed this time and I noticed that he was left handed, while I was right. As a test, I slipped into where the muscles were controlled and flicked the small finger on the right hand. Jón didn't notice. I knew that he didn't because I was privy to what he was feeling, but not his thoughts. There was a tenuous control of the right hand already in place and I tried to remove Jón's first strand of growing control. This was a lot of work, but I stayed at it. My aim was to have Jón retain only slight command. If this were to continue, then over enough time, I could compel his entire body if the need arose. Jón wanted more sleep and in preparation for that ordered Forni, "Help me to the chamber pot." Forni pulled the pot out and then took off the wooden lid. It had not been cleaned and Jón went into a rage. "Why didn't you clean this you dirty slave?" Forni cringed back and I tried to send an image of Jón being a poor king since he had ordered Forni to stay in the room. If the slave had left to empty and clean the pot, then Jón would have been angry for doing something without orders. I kept thinking in the direction that I perceived Jón, "Only a poor master yells at his slaves for something he should have ordered in the first place." I repeated myself a dozen times before Jón put his hands to his ears to blot out the voice. So I knew that he must have heard me. Jón did not apologise. He did get Forni to assist once more. When he was cleaned he was helped back into bed. The proximity had the usual result. Jón's cock started to grow once more and he said, "Suck me slave. I need release." Forni was less eager this time to do this, but he did what he was asked. When Jón took the boy's head in his hands, I was able to use one finger to caress the boy's ear. It seemed to help Forni and Jón didn't notice. The orgasm built until it could go no higher and again Jón weakly pushed Forni down onto his cock. The orgasm was just as stimulating, but not as rewarding because I felt sorry for Forni. In ten minutes Jón was asleep and I was easily able to get control of the body once more. I said, "Come here Sweetie. I need you." Forni came over with a big smile for me. I said, "Help me get dressed. I'll try to keep Jón asleep. Meanwhile, I need to exercise the body. I also have to eat much more than thin broth. Look about and find me some suitable clothes." "But I was told you had to rest." "Yes, you were, but I am your master now. I say that my pretty slave has to help me. Now hurry up, or I will take you over my knee and paddle your bum." I got a bigger smile and he said, "You can't do that yet." "Maybe it will be fun to find out. Now hurry up." Some clothes were found nearby. They were all too big. The light boots were tight on my feet. In ten minutes I was standing, but I was also dizzy. I had to get control of those legs, so we walked around and around the room to do so. Every few minutes I needed to rest, but I kept it up. I was throughly exhausted when I stopped a half hour later. Forni asked in a soft voice, "Would you like me to relax you?" "You are a beautiful and very horny boy. My body responds to you and I think it has to be some magic that Fidelis never told me about. I would love for you to do this, but I have to exercise more and can't spare the energy just now." The door opened with no warning. I guess privacy was not valued very much in this time. A good looking young woman with long platinum blonde hair came into the room. She smiled at me, while not seeming to see Forni. She addressed him though, "Leave us." I held Forni and said, "He will stay. He was going to help me to the kitchen. Will you help me too?" The woman smiled just a bit but there was also some hesitation. "I will assist you." We walked down a long hallway then down some steps. There was no railing but the steps were not that wide. People all around stopped to watch us. I smiled and nodded my head provided that they did something other than just stare. The kitchen was large, yet had only a few cooks and assistants. One stout and severe woman had a clean large wooden spoon. I could see her using that as a sceptre and also to raise blisters on nether parts in punishing incorrect behaviour. The young woman got me seated and went to get some food and I quickly asked Forni, "Who is that woman?" "Your sister. Her name is Dagmar." In as moment he added, "The cook's name is Helga." I thought now of how to present myself to these people without endangering Jón. There were some ways. My previous talk with Clovis reminded me that I had to be dominant to get people to follow. Dagmar brought back a large bowl of broth and I said, "Thank you Dagmar, but I have only been eating broth since I was hurt. Are there some soft vegetables, some small pieces of meat, and the bread I pretended to hate before?" "You look like my brother, but you are a lot nicer. I will see what I can find." I called out louder than I had spoken so far, "Find some food for this hungry boy beside me too, please." Turning to Forni I said, "Sit down. You heard me say we are family. Act that way." The boy reluctantly did as I asked and I had to attribute it to being in public. The cook came over with some of the food and I said, "Thank you, Helga. Your food smells delicious. I hear I was only eating your broth since my accident." The woman was a bit tongue-tied and I guess it was because she knew what Jón was really like. "Thank you, my lord. It is nice to see my work appreciated." "Oh, it is. I have to tell both of you ladies a strange tale." They both looked at me and I said, "When I was kicked in the head, I dreamed I was in a strange place. They weighted my accomplishments against the way I acted." I tried to bring a grim look to my face. "I think I was sent back to get another chance at being a better person." Religion had always been used to further men's goals and I guess I was no better. The local priests may object to me but now I was going to use their own weapon against them. "I know that I will act in one of two ways. Now I am acting the new way where I will show respect to those I meet. Sometimes I will wake up and I will not control myself, and then be the way I was before. Tomorrow the other me will yell at you and tell lies. Bear with me. I am working on making that part of me nicer. Please tell the others that I am trying to improve, but it is a hard job to do." Helga said, "There are two of you?" "Like two twin brothers. One has no regard for others, while the other twin sitting now before you does. Over time, we will fight it out and I hope, for all our sakes, to win. There may need to be some compromises in that process. So, I may not be really good, through and through; I will not be really bad tempered and ill-behaved either." The two women and even Forni stared at me. This was the only method available to me to let people know that they could be praised one minute and yelled at the next. Now, they would know that there was the chance that they could be talked to rationally. They had merely to catch the 'good twin' in control. They may think that this disclosure meant that I was insane, but they would have the excuse for it based upon our head injury. Religion would seem to be a better choice in this case. When some of the changes I had to make were seen, they would have a ready made reason for why they had arrived. I pulled the two women close and said, "I want a bath where I sit in a tub of warm water and soap. I need someone to scrub my back and wash my hair." It was Helga that said, "I can put some kettles over the fire if I can get the lazy girls to run for more wood. We have a large wooden tub we can use for your bath." Dagmar said, "Not in the kitchen. We can do it in my chambers." Helga looked at Dagmar and I could read the look from the experience in my other life. Dagmar saw this and quickly added, "You can help too. He's too big for just one woman to handle." The kitchen staff were given their orders with a lot of threatening with the spoon. Some men were found to fetch and carry the tub upstairs. I sat at the table with only Forni, while the two women made sure everything was prepared. Forni asked, "What are you doing? I wash you all the time." "You do a good job Sweetie, but a bath does a much better one. When I am done you are going in after me to get cleaned." "I'm clean." "Boys a thousand years from now will say the same thing. But, the parents know that it is just not true. Now run along and get the chamber pot cleaned out before my bad twin has you beaten. We need more moss, as well. You are smart and resourceful and will get all we need." "But you might need me here." "I do very much like you with me, but I can get by for a while with you gone. Now scoot before I make your bum red." Forni didn't know what to think, so he finally smiled and left at a run. As soon as he had gone the kitchen staff came close. Some offered to get me some bread with a daub of honey on it. It seemed that the priest was right about my effect on women. But, it could also be that I was in line for the throne if I survived. Besides myself, there would be nobody else that could rationally take over. I heard some female voices returning and so did those near me. The staff quickly found something else to do. Dagmar came into the kitchen first looking immediately at the girls that were close. She didn't look pleased at all. Helga must have been similarly convinced of impropriety because she started giving gruff orders. Jealousy, thy name is woman... Eventually an oak pole was found with a hook suspended from the middle. Two of the larger women stooped to attach the hook to the heavy wrought iron pot and picked it up between them. They grunted under the weight, but eagerly carried their prince's bathwater up the stairs to Dagmar's room. Forni came running back when the third pot was being carried upstairs. He just stared at the commotion and moved close to me. As an after thought, he took my hand in his. Males in almost every place except North America could hold hands without somebody thinking evil thoughts, but I knew that Forni also happened to have some special thoughts about me. Helga and Dagmar had to assist me back up the steps. Forni was too small to take much of my weight. Inside Dagmar's room, I found a slightly older woman. I was stuck in place as I regarded her. Forni bumped into me and whispered as he almost fell, "Mother, Astrid." I squeezed his shoulder in thanks. Jón was not young enough to be her son, so she must be a stepmother. She was smiling at me with the same come-hither look in her features. Any stepmother to me would necessarily be married to the king. I couldn't help but wonder if a man so free with sharing the body of his son might also be open to sharing his wife and daughter. Thoughts of incest had cropped up with Dagmar, because my borrowed body and seed would still make her my possibly impregnated sister. Astrid was only related by marriage, but reluctantly I didn't want to end what could be a very exciting life by being killed by the enraged father of my new body. I said, "Greetings my lady. I have been trying to turn over a new leaf." "New leaf, Jón?" "An expression that means that I want to change my ways." "What do you want to change?" "I have a nasty attitude most of the time and perhaps I can keep the one I presently have. However, I am afraid I will slide back to the old way once in a while." "Did you really come here for a bath?" "Yes, I did, but I need someone to wash my hair and back too. Helga and Dagmar were going to assist. When I am done I want Forni to get cleaned too." "I think Dagmar and I can manage." Helga bowed a bit then turned to leave. I turned and said, "Thank you Helga for your help. It was a lot of work you did for me. Please thank those in the kitchen that helped." She managed to give me a smile and said, "You are welcome, my lord. I will do as you ask." She smiled before hurrying back to her post. When the door closed I walked slowly over to a stool without assistance and sat on it. I began to take off my boots. The two women got there quickly and took over this job. In moments, I was naked with the women staring at me as if they had not seen me before. I didn't think there was a nudity taboo here and now, but they acted as if there were. I was ushered into the tub and sat slowly since the water was very warm. Astrid wanted to start first, until I said with more thought from the small brain at my crotch, "My lady, your dress will get wet if you help." The two women looked at each other and quickly removed all of their clothing. As an afterthought they looked up seeing that Forni was still there. It made no difference to them. They ignored him as he was just a slave. Astrid had larger breasts than Dagmar. That may have been due to her children, but I was not sure. They both caught me looking and pushed out their breasts a bit more but tried to not be obvious about it. They were not succeeding in their attempted subtlety. They both started to wash me and got in each others way until I suggested. "One on my right and one on my left would make sure every part was cleaned." Dagmar moved to the other side and I placed myself in the middle of the tub to avoid favouritism. They were much too gentle. That only meant that they had to stay longer to clean me. I was all for that, making no further suggestions. Astrid's hand sensuously stroked, more than washed, the inside of my leg. Every few seconds she chanced to tease the glans of my cock as she worked. I started to get big but said nothing. She knew exactly what she was erecting in her efforts. In a moment she was cleaning this new larger portion of my anatomy much better. I found Dagmar's hand there too assisting. That was hardly a surprise under the circumstances. My only regret was that the pot I was in was too small for me to spread my legs much. My own hands seemed to leap without conscious effort to the women. Fatigue trumped libido unfortunately. As the seconds passed, my weary hands rested on their breasts and my arms fell by default to the side of the tub for support. The two women must have come to a silent arrangement because there was no more squabbling and I got to feel two very beautiful breasts most thoroughly. That old special feeling of piqued lust started to come over me again and I reacted by stiffening my other muscles. Astrid had control at the moment and her hand motion went much faster. When the release started, I just relaxed more and settled deeper into the tub. The feelings grew and grew until I almost blanked out with the intensity. When I recovered I saw two worried women holding me. Astrid said, "Dagmar, you can do his hair while I go get a towel." My hair was well done before Astrid came back. She was flushed and I assumed she had been playing with her clit. When she came close I had regained enough strength to take her wrists and pull her hands to my nose. The right one smelt of cunt. There was no mistaking that scent. Before she could pull it back, I sucked her fingers one at a time into my mouth. Astrid closed her eyes and almost came again. I was rinsed with clean warm water then I climbed out to be dried by the two young and very pretty women. When I was dry I kissed Astrid and said, "Thank you for cleaning me." I turned to Dagmar and said, "You did a very good job too and you helped organise this as well. I think I am the cleanest now that I have ever been." I kissed her with equal fervour and it was not a brotherly kiss, either. I was somewhat worried about the results of my actions, but my body was making me do this. Youthful hormones are not to be denied. "Forni has to get cleaned too." "Master, I can clean myself," we heard. "Get your clothes off now and get into the tub." He started to say, "Master," but began to do as I demanded. The boy was indeed pretty in a girlie sort of way. He hid his genitals, but I saw that he was small and immature. From the general looks of him, I would estimate that his age at ten. Looked at only from down below, he would seem half that age. The girls didn't want to relinquish me. Yet, with a nod to jog them, they began to wash the boy. He was done with care but it was many times faster than I was. He had gone in a scruffy boy, and came out looking more like a drowned rat. From the expression on his face, you would think he believed that they were trying to kill him. The boy was to be dressed first as I had indicated with a gesture, but I asked, "Are there any clean undergarments here that will fit Forni?" In a moment Astrid said, "Some of Sieglinde's might fit. He's bigger than she is, though not much." When the garment was brought over, Forni said, "Must I wear this, Master?" I looked at them and they looked similar but not of a masculine cut. What I had expected in the German woods in the 4th Century, I'm sure I don't know. I had to assume that most people didn't wear underwear. "Put them on." When he stood with them, Dagmar said, "He is pretty." "Yes, he is. Do you have a brush or comb for his hair?" Astrid found her own comb made of bone and very carefully used it to make the boy look better. The comb was hand made and probably very fragile and expensive. When she was done with Forni she turned to me and did my hair too. In a moment she said, "Now you look much better." "Do you have a mirror my lady?" She brought out a polished bronze mirror and I looked into it. It was well made metal and the face in the mirror was not distorted. The craftsmen who made mirrors such as this could be very useful to me. Looking at 'our' shared visage, I could see part of the reason Jón was the way he was. People admired beauty over intelligence or personality. My hair was still damp but much darker than Dagmar's. Dagmar said, "You both look very handsome now." "Thank you, my lady. Especially coming from one as beautiful as you." She was a little flustered with that and looked at Forni. "Your slave is pretty. Are you going to take his bum soon?" By now I was sure that this type of sex was not really looked down upon when the participants were boys. This was very personal, so I thought. This century was not the same as it was in my time. "Let's wait until one day soon when I'm strong. I think I will want the two of you there to direct that it's done right. I may need to practice on others first with experience. It is very traumatic, I hear, the first time. Have you any experience in this?" Now it was Dagmar's turn to blush and she looked frantically at Astrid. Her nipples contracted even more and I had to assume that the two were lovers or at least thought of it. "No... no I haven't. As you know, I was only married a few months before..." I moved closer and took her into my arms. "It's alright. I should not have baited you the way you did me. Would you like to try though. You will not be unduly stretched by a boy such as I. We may learn from each other if you want." "You would do that for me?" "I would and I would gladly do it now, but I have difficulty even standing. This is something that has to be done right or not at all." I turned to Astrid and said, "I owe you a debt too and I hope to pay it back in the same coin. What about father and the servants?" There was another long pause and she said haltingly, "Your father is only able to hold me after his accident. It would not be good to let others know what is happening. A child growing in my belly would greatly anger your father." This may be true, but perhaps not. "My father's blood flows through my body. Perhaps a child would not anger him at all, if he only knew the source." Astrid was shocked at this, but she quickly thought about the possibilities. All she said was, "I don't know yet." We all got dressed and I was more carried than helped back to the bed. Tired beyond words from my exertions, I was kissed goodnight while each one fondled me. As they left I said, "Now is not the time to be lonely. The two of you should rest together and think." They just stared at me, but Astrid moved to hold Dagmar's hand. When the door was closed, Forni asked, "May I relieve your tensions master?" "Remove all of your clothes and come into my bed." There was a flurry of activity in the dark room and the boy was in the bed in seconds. I had to think of the next part carefully. Forni had given me a few blow jobs. So far, he had received nothing in return. As nearly as I could ever tell, I was perfectly straight until I got into this body but I had changed. Perhaps at some future date I could write a paper about the effect of the body on the mind. Perhaps the geneticists and neuroscientists had been right regarding biological determinism all along. Possibly with only slightly more genetic proclivity, I might very easily have been an ardent bisexual. It was cool and I pulled Forni close to give him a slow kiss to show him what I felt like. I saw him as feminine, though it was not all the fact that he was a slave. He acted spontaneously feminine. I had to assume that Fidelis was right about him. Forni responded to my kiss with a groan of his own. I reached under the blankets and found his small member. With some manipulation, it got hard but not much larger. We kissed more passionately and now Forni became the aggressor. He pushed his cock against my leg and stroked the head against my skin. I said, "Put your head toward the foot of the bed. I think we both need some relief." "But master, I'm a slave." "I will make my slave happy then. Move or I will smack your bum." He did turn as ordered and did it very slowly. I had to re-position him, so we both could have some freedom of movement. He sucked onto me quickly and took all of me. I moved close to him and my nose told me that there was nothing wrong in this. He was clean. Moreover, he deserved some compensation because of the love he had shown me. Besides, he was very small. Forni instinctively moved as I touched him with my lips. I had to hold his hips tight then started again. There was no taste other than skin and I could get the same sensation sucking one of my own fingers. Forni thought this to be fantastic, because he could not control himself. His hips moved faster and faster and then I knew he had his orgasm because he went very stiff and then relaxed. There was no ejaculate. I had surmised as much. We both stayed still until he relaxed. When he started to suck on me once again I did the same thing to him. When I pushed his knee up, I was able to suck not only his small cock but also both of his small testicles into my mouth. Forni went wild once again and I just held on for dear life. It was longer for him to start up again. Patiently, I kept with him. I concentrated only on pleasing my improbable lover. What I did had been learned long ago and just needed to be continued. At the moment I happily realised that I could have a great many orgasms without the worry that I could not continue. We were both very sated when we quit. Forni came back into my arms and wanted to sleep. "Sweetie, when I awake I may not be me but Jón. I want to sleep with you very much, but he will suspect that something is odd. You have to go to your own bed." "I will Master, but I like it better where I am." "I do to. I want you to remember something. When Jón uses you, I am there too and feel the love you have for me. His right hand I can control without his noticing. When you see it move or touch you, then you know that it is me doing it." "I thought it was you that time when my ear was rubbed." "Yes it was, now you have to go to your own bed. You'd better pick up my clothes and boots and put them away. Jón will eventually find out about me, but I want to put that time off." "Will you tell me more about Asgard?" "In days to come I will tell you more strange stories, yes, but not tonight." Forni cleaned up then jumped into his bed. I thought of Nora and how I loved to sleep with her. Forni was different but not so much as to break the mood. What our future would be could only be guessed. The customs now were so much different compared to what they were in my, now former, time. ------- Chapter 4 Jón was back in control of the body the next morning. Everything had gone dark when he awoke. It took a long time to push some tendrils of control to the major senses so I could share them. I had not slept during the night and didn't seem to have the need. The last sleep I remembered was when I had the magical draught. Last night I just retreated somewhere inside the brain I was living in to study and think. After relishing some of this semi-freedom, I re-oriented to find that Jón was quite tired. In that we were both using the same body, it was not getting as much rest as it needed. That went double considering that the body and mind had so recently been in a coma. I wondered if my laying awake was the cause. Jón was drinking some broth again. He didn't push himself to have a solid breakfast. Forni was against the wall. I could see that he was upset, but that was nothing new. If I had not arrived, he might still have found Jón's attentions acceptable by now. I worked mentally on willing independent motion to the small finger of the right hand again. It separated from the other fingers and wiggled until it caught Forni's eye. Then, he smiled. I stopped soon enough to escape Jon's notice. Forni was sent away with the empty bowl. He unexpectedly came back with the king. Smiling benevolently, Clovis said, "Good morning Jón. How did you sleep?" "I'm always tired. The priest did something wrong." "You are very weak still. You need to get some exercise." "I need to rest first. I cannot walk yet. Somebody must carry me." "That is not what I want for you in your recovery. I will send two men here to get you dressed. You will walk, or be carried, to the courtyard where you will walk. You need fresh air and some sun." "Father, I'm tired. I don't want to go." I said as my contribution as his tutor to his mind, "Your father has much more experience and has fought enemies. When you get older, you can make your own decisions. You need someone to make you to do what is needed." I felt significant resistance to my thought suggestion, but I kept hammering it to him, regardless. The king said forcefully, "You will do as I say, Jón." "I'm not going," retorted Jon. He was not happy, hating his father for making him do what was necessary. Again, I hammered him. This time I added mental pictures of his being a petulant baby in his mind. Soon, he put his hands to his ears and closed his eyes while mumbling, "No, no, no, no." When he opened his eyes, he found his father staring fixedly at him, but he said nothing. Clovis had apparently changed his mind and said, "Forni, dress my son." I was happy to hear the name instead of the term, 'slave'. Jón couldn't object much and didn't say anything. The clothing was already assembled from our walk yesterday. When the boy was dressed, the father simply picked up his thin son and carried him down the hallway and eventually out of the keep. This short trip was very educational for me. I had been to some of the castles on the Rhine that were open to the public, but the earliest had been built some eight centuries in the future. This one was sturdy, alright. But, I could see many possible improvements. The castle was predominately wood with a facade of stone. When Jón was put on his feet, he held onto his father. Part of the reason was that he was uncertain that he could walk. His father took one hand and Forni took the initiative in taking the other. Jón was in no position to exhibit false pride and accepted the help. For my part, I was able to wiggle my right hand in Forni's grip, but could not see his reaction. My own personal education in Frisian martial architecture continued as we exercised Jón. The walls around us were only ten metres high. Above, I could make out a narrow wooden walkway just inside the walls at the top. That walkway was supported only by long poles going to the ground. There were four sheep feeding from a cartload of fodder, while the owner looked elsewhere. Four horses were tied in two pairings with the ground underneath covered in animal shit. A large-framed dog that appeared to be starving sniffed around one of the piles of refuse, probably looking to find something to eat. When we came to the gate, Jón thankfully looked out. There were more walls and gates that had to be passed before an invader could get to the castle. The city extended perhaps a kilometre beyond us. I saw another wall in the distance protecting the town. It was difficult to judge the height or its condition, but the walls looked to be no higher than those of the castle. Some sentries were visible walking those walls too. There were some meagre homes partially in view. Each had considerable space to itself. It was as though everyone wanted a bit more privacy than circumstances might easily permit. Here and there, people could be seen. Most wore cloaks and some looked to be naked under them, except that the women wore underclothes. It was rather cool. Despite this, many of the children, even the older ones could be seen running around naked. From this, as well as my previous observations in the castle, I had to assume that there was no nudity taboo. We walked past some thick oaken gates and continued around the courtyard that was perhaps only four hundred square metres in extent. I saw some vets, or cripples with crutches, or stumps, where they had lost limbs. They were out basking in the sun. These men were mostly tall and large-boned, but some were much shorter and looked Italian to me. This group had no weapons but I saw the common knife used to eat with that everybody wore. They did seem to have a good deal of freedom to move around. Maybe these were some of the prisoners I had learned about earlier. When we came by the door to the kitchen, the smell of food washed over us. Near the door was a large clay oven that must be for the castle's supply of bread. Excellent! Ovens much like that one could be put to use in my enterprises. No need to perfect that skill in the Frisians. I heard Clovis say, "Would you like something to eat, Jón?" "I already ate." Now, it was my turn. I said to Jón, "You are being like a baby again. You are thin and need to put on some weight. Say that the bread smells good." I got a distinct, "No," flung back, but it was not verbal. "The baby is angry and wants to punish the father for making him walk? It was boring back in the bedchamber. It is so much better out here. So what, if it hurts. You will get over the pain sooner and begin to enjoy yourself." "No." This time it was verbal. "Fraud! You dream of being king and cannot even control your own body. You will kill yourself and all of your people." "I don't care." "Yes you do, but you're lazy. You are not fit to be this man's son. You should have been born to the Roman patricians. You could be pampered all the time much like a slut. Is that what you are? A slut that simply lays back and accepts what happens." "No, no. I am not." "You are a pampered baby that cries when he is hurt and blames all his faults on others." "No, no." "It is yes, yes. You will never be a man, if you continue the way you are. Nobody will respect you. You are no better than a slut." "No, no. I can fight. I can be a king." "You cannot fight. You cannot even walk by yourself. An old woman, using a crutch to walk can beat you to death. You would make so poor a king that none would help you even in a good cause." "No, no, no." Everything I saw was now at an angle. The only way for me to have that perspective would be to have Jón picked up bodily and carried-not that either of us had noticed in the heat of our argument. Moments later we found ourselves back in Jón's bedroom. Jón was still denying my accusations. I kept at him using logic to back up my assertions. The boy just refused to see even the most self-evident facts. I watched as Forni undressed Jón and got him tucked into bed once more. Clovis said to Forni, "If things change, I want you to come to me. There is a lot to still discuss." I wiggled my small right finger and both people looked at it. The king nodded. For the next half hour I continued to harangue Jón. Eventually I saw to it that I worked in the correct way of responding to those around Jon. He at least had begun coming around in this respect. With no escape he more or less had to. "What do you do when Astrid speaks to you?" "I say, 'yes, my lady'." "Good. Now, your sister asks if you want some of her bread." "I say that the bread smells delicious and I would be happy to taste some." "That's good too. You are learning, and may yet make a good king one day. Now, how do you treat Forni?" "I treat him like a younger brother whom I love." "That's right. Of course, I know you don't love him, but he loves you. You need all the friends you can get in life." "But, he's a slave." "Sure he is, but one day he will be a man. He may hold a sword to defend you against an enemy. If he remembers how you have treated him shabbily, then he may just stand aside leaving you to your fate. On the other hand, if you were to mend your ways to treat him as kindly as he deserves, he might die, if necessary, so that you may live. You have to help him make that decision. That is not done in the heat of battle one day in the future. It is done in small amounts every single day beginning today. You cannot order his love and respect, you will have to demonstrate those traits to him. Now you are tired and need a rest. Ask Forni nicely for some water and then use the pot and go to sleep." I heard, "Forni, I need the pot. Will you help me?" Forni looked at me probably wondering who was in command. When Jón was done and put back into bed, Jón said, "Thank you Forni. I would like some water in the jug." "Yes, Master." Jón slowly drifted off to sleep after the drink. When enough time had passed, I came to the forefront and said, "I'm back Sweetie. Help me get dressed please and we will go see the king." Forni hurried, but when he got in front of me he said, "Can I suck you again?" "Forni, you are forever horny. I am too in this body. I have a great many tasks to do. This may mean whether we survive or not. Maybe later we can some have fun." "I loved it last night. Nobody ever did that to me before." "It will happen a lot more now. I hope you see that I like women too. You are going to have to learn to share." He didn't look happy now and said nothing. "Forni, you may only want men when you grow up, but that may change, or possibly you will want both. I want you to be happy as you grow and to do that you have to experiment." "I don't want men, I only want you." "You're young. In time you will grow to be a man one day. We all change as we get older. Sometimes it is for the better, and sometimes not. One new skill will have to be acquired by many. I will see that you learn how to read even if you are a slave. You will then teach others the same skill. One day in the year 2000, a child will pick up a book and read about you and what you did to improve the entire world." "Me?" "Yes, you. I told you that I have the knowledge that could change the world. You will help me and your name will go into the books beside mine." In moments Forni was assisting me down the hallway to the king's chambers. There were no guards, so Forni called, "My king, I have come." I heard, "Come in." Forni picked up the latch and then pushed the door open. The king was in the room talking to a dozen people including Fidelis. The king ignored Forni and said, "Hello Jón. How are you?" "Much better now father. I needed the exercise and a chance to learn what faces our people." "Good." He turned to the men in general and said, "Find him a chair before the boy falls over." One was quickly presented and I was assisted into it. My feet didn't reach the floor. The men were looking at Forni and I said in a whisper, "You will need to help me out. We have to clean up our room, since I cannot do my share yet, I will need you to do my part for now. Before you do that, would you fetch something for me to eat first, please?" "Yes, Master," he said before leaving. Clovis said to the group, "My son is acting more like a man now. It may be because of his wound but it may be that he is simply growing up." Clovis went over what he was talking about previously, but did so in bullet form. Then he said, "Basically the Romans are acting out of character. They usually destroy the land and either kill or enslave all the peasants. In this campaign, that is not what they have done thus far. This likely means that they do not want to antagonise us so much as they may hope to provoke a change of leadership." After a discussion where everyone had a say except for me, Clovis said, "What do you think, Jón?" "I think that the agentes in rebus will soon send some assassins to kill you. We should send out some spies, to find if the legate has the Comes Disposionum as a long-term guest in camp." This shocked those in the room. I added, "You just wear a sword and have no one at your door to screen those who enter. I would think that a Roman official would have bodyguards in the room with him, when he can be easily found by others. The Roman spies could also include the speculatores. Those soldiers will probably come here personally to take you. Looking casually about the room, "I notice an open window behind you. A man could scale the castle wall even if he has to kill a guard or two. He could put an arrow through your heart." Everyone looked at the wall and some moved to see it and hear my words. "Anything else?" "You told me that you have made numerous treaties with other peoples. Rome is more afraid than ever because of all the new tribes and associated clans moving into the empire. They see their armies constantly being diluted with larger numbers of non-Romans. They are desperately trying to hold their present empire together. This very frontier they know to be their least defensible point. I do not know if you were planning any moves against the Gauls, but I think it was the Romans that instigated everything you have been discussing today. "I suggest that you consider making peace with Rome on any terms possible in the short-term. This will give you time so that you can build more weapons and a far larger and better equipped army. Failing gaining that breathing space, you have no choice but to employ unconventional military practices to attack the Romans." "What practices?" The king smiled now because he wanted to hear what I had to say. "As you learned in your youth, a legion stands to fight in a field or in small patrols though they do have many small skirmishes between times. The Romans will eventually see that the calvary is their most valuable troop and begin to rely almost entirely on it. Strengthen your already formidable calvary and train them to operate in close cooperation with mobile infantry that will ride to the site of the battle. Training is just as important to us-maybe more so- as it is to the Romans. "As you gain tactical expertise, begin to use the most highly trained in specialized tactics. One helpful practice is to teach your soldiers to impersonate the enemy. This will allow for operations close by enemy positions with less risk and also give you the ability to discredit your enemy with their own allies. You might attack some of the garrisons and make it look like it was a group of renegade Gauls. The reverse could be staged if you have some men pretend to be Roman Legionnaires who unaccountably attack the Gauls." Clovis was quiet for a moment then said, "You have some interesting ideas. You must have more." "Yes, I do. Among the new unconventional military operations will be more ambushes of your enemies. The problem with an ambush is that the Romans pickets or scouts will likely see you before you can inflict maximum damage. I think I know of a way that they will not see you even if they trip over you." "That is impossible without magic." "Not magic at all. We need only fashion a loose cotton garment for each warrior and sew various lengths of cotton strips to it. Cotton is preferred because it has little weight. Each strip is dyed a combination of brown, green, red and black, but not all one colour. Depending where you wish to stand and the season of the year, different colours may be required. That is another reason for the clothing to be light weight. Each soldier will require several different garments for situations that will arise quickly. You need a cloth hat of the same material and dyed the same way to match each different garment. A mask with holes only for the eyes to see out will blend in so well that the enemy will not distinguish you from the background unless you move. Your greatest relative strength is in your bows. They will be disguised the same way with cloth, dyes and pigments." One older man said, "That hiding is the way of a coward. A man should stand up and fight his enemy face to face." I waited for Clovis to answer for me, but he didn't reply. I said, "Often, the Roman Army will attack a farm. They kill the men, rape the women, and any survivors are sold as slaves. You are saying that the father and his sons should just stand against a hundred professional soldiers?" "Not at a hundred to one, or a hundred to ten." "Then a man who knows nothing but farming and his nine young sons should stand to face ten battle hardened Roman soldiers face-to-face?" "He and his family can run honourably if the odds are too high," the man said. I said, "That is the best thing to do for the family. But, the Romans steal everything useful and destroy what they cannot carry away. That is not so beneficial for the survival of the Frisian people." I continued, "You know that archers have been part of the Frisian army for a long time. A Roman patrol is most often discovered when one of our people gets an arrow through their heart. If we become more active and happen to find a Roman patrol, are we to go to them and challenge their right to be on our land?" The old man said, "You know better than that." "So we hide behind trees along their probable line of march and wait to ambush the Romans." "Yes, in that event, we do that." "Then, what is so unacceptably horrible about wearing a piece of cloth that hides our armour and our bodies, provided that it allows us to kill more Romans while losing fewer warriors?" The man was flustered and finally said, "You have to show the Romans that you stand up to them." "I agree with you completely. Show me a thousand Frisian archers, then I could quickly dispatch all the Roman patrols sent out to harass our people. When the Roman patrols do not return, it will tell the Legatus Legionis that we are destroying his men. He will come out to fight, because he has no other alternative. We have to make him fight us on a battlefield of our choosing, not his. We can fight more efficiently by shooting our arrows into our enemies from behind carefully chosen trees. "We can prepare make traps, so the enemy horses fall into the ground breaking their legs. Rope strung across a trail can trip a horse, or catch one of the eques by the neck as he gallops after our sagittarii or alarii. I want our archers and irregulars to be safe. To do that comes at some risk, we have to remove the Romans. The alternative is to send a delegation to the Romans now and sue for peace on unfavourable terms. Are you ready to do that?" "I do not surrender to the enemy." "You want to let a vastly superior enemy choose the battleground?" "Never." "Then fight the Romans where they are the weakest. I could talk to some of the women and get a dozen of these suits made. Give me a dozen good men and we can test if what I say is true. We will have an Olympic game of sorts with the Romans." Clovis jumped in and said, "I like that. Fleinn, I want you to be one of those wearing the disguise. You are one of our best." "Me!" the man said. "I think this is the wrong idea." "Then test it. You are honest and a good fighter. If it is proven to you in the doing, then it must be good." The meeting broke up soon after and the man that objected, Fleinn, left as well. With only Clovis and Fidelis now in the room I said, "Hello Sire, and Master Fidelis. I came as soon as I could. Jón is now talking to me, but he thinks that I am his conscience. He is acting better toward those around him. I just have to keep after him until he gets some rewards for his good behaviour." "What rewards will he get?" "When he is polite, people will be polite to him. I want to exercise more and he can do his share. I am going to give him the idea of making the ghillies suit." "That is the name of the camouflage garment?" "Yes it is, history well beyond this time has already proven that it is very effective. The name is from the Picts that inhabit the west of Britannia. The Gauls are of the same race. They are very good at hiding and you can be only a few feet away and not notice your enemy." "When can you start on this?" "Somebody else has to do the work, but I or your son can give the instructions." "I will tell someone handy with thread and cloth to go to your bedchamber." "That's fine, but might I suggest that it would be less boring for Jón if this were done in a more public area." "The courtyard?" "That's good. Roman spies may see and hear of this suit, but they will not see it as a threat. It will still be not seen in a forest even when they are looking for it." "It is that good?" "Yes, with the right colour dyes. It also must be worn in the right location and the person has to remain very still. To allow Jón to think he is doing this, it is best to just supply the tailor or seamstress and allow Jón to tell what is required." Forni was outside the door and came to assist me back to the room. I ate some cold food. At least it was solid. After a good drink of water Forni helped remove my clothing. I laid down and allowed Jón to take over. Forni made some noise and the boy woke up. There was pressure on our bladder and Jón sleepily said, "Slave, help me to the chamber pot." I said to Jón, "You are still a foolish little boy. Do you feel superior when you can command a slave? Are you so small that you have to tell others what to do?" "He's a slave." "He's a boy much like you. He likes you, but you cannot see that. He is beginning to see that you are not a good person and will turn to others if he can. Fidelis will not allow him to be here always." "I will buy him from Fidelis." "Foolish boy. Can you not see that Fidelis loves the boy like a son. Are your eyes closed in sleep all the time? If you but look around, you will see many things you seem to have ignored. Now tell Forni that you are sorry for calling him a slave and use the word 'please'." "I will not." "Little boy, did you realise that you cannot shut me out? I can be your best friend or your very worst enemy. I am trying to keep you alive and prepare you to be a king one day." "You are not the voice that talks to me all the time." "I am that voice, but I have given up being coy. You need a great deal of help or you will die." "I will not apologise to the slave." With that provocation, I cut loose with a flurry of dire mental images. I had the benefit of watching some of 'movies' I had spawned from the standpoint of an adult. Pictures were shown of Jón being chased by a Roman soldier. The man caught Jón, then ripped his clothes off and raped him. When the soldier was done, he ran his sword through the boy spilling his bowels at his feet. Next, I had Jón running from a crowd until he fell and was beaten to death. The last was the picture of Clovis' dying and leaving the running of the empire to Astrid. Clovis' words of distain for his son ensured that he would never get the crown. Jón was going catatonic and he was screaming out loud that he would do it. This was repeated over and over until I quit. Jón continued his crying, but he did sob out, "I am sorry Forni for calling you a slave. Will you please help me to use the pot?" "Yes, Master. I will." Forni did his best, then got a cloth and washed Jón's face. When he was done Jón actually said, "Thank you, Forni." "You are welcome, Master." I said, "You did well. Now, I have an idea that will gain you respect from all the fighting men." This was something the boy craved. "What is that?" I showed the mental pictures of the different ghillies suits I had worn and explained the way they were made. I went into a great deal of detail, then did it all again so that Jón would remember. I listed the features that were needed and the method of construction along with the small loops that held branches or leaves to complement the suit's natural function. I knew all this because I had made these types of suits. "Will this really work?" "Of course, it will work. You have only to make sure it gets made." "I cannot do this." "Ask Forni to help you get dressed. You will walk to see your father and ask him. Since it is to save his soldiers, then he may task somebody to assist you." We did get dressed. Clovis, quite the impromptu actor, pretended to be surprised when his son came into the room. "Hello Jón. You did very well to walk here." "Thank you Father. I have an idea that may save some of our men." "Tell me about it." Jón did, though he only repeated my ideas. I didn't think he really expected this to work. In moments, Forni was sent to bring an old woman to them and the king and his son talked on a more level plane and it looked like Jón liked this. When the woman came in she bowed to the king and Clovis said, "My son has come up with an idea to save the lives of our men. He wants to make a suit that blends in with the natural background in the forest and countryside. His idea has merit. I will let him tell you what it is about." Jón was excited now and explained a lot more than what was needed, as he gave the construction details. I suggested that Forni be our manikin and hoped that he would be in on the testing. We found some shirts made for a man that were basically rags now. The woman sewed the rips up quickly with no need for fine work. More rags were sewn at the bottom and more added as she went up. Loops were discussed and added. I commented to Jón and he transferred the information to the woman. It was good that he used his own words. We stayed in the sun on the cool day and Forni brought us solid food and water. Jón exercised all through this time, though he had to stop frequently to rest. By the end of the day, we had the suit sewn and even the hat I wanted. Only dyeing was left to do. This could be expensive, if we didn't use local home made dyes. Fidelis must have sent people by to ask questions and to compliment Jón on his initiative. The boy swelled with pride. Women and girls came around too and Jón got to be able to boast quite eloquently about what his idea would do against our enemies. Jón was asked to tell Forni the names of everyone that passed and what was known about each of them. Jón believed it was to better notice what was around him, but it also gave me a way to learn people's names. Later that afternoon, Jón's sisters, Brigitte and Gudrun happened by returning from their job tending to the harvest. Jón was given a chance to gain some of their esteem, but lost his opportunity as he was impolite to his sisters. After a little talk, he apologised and acted like a gentleman. Both of his sisters were blonde, just like Dagmar. All of them were pretty though Gudrun would probably be the prettiest in time. Gudrun looked at the suit and said, "What is this for?" She didn't seem to be as attracted to Jón as her older sister was. "If you wear this and stay still in the trees, the Romans or the Gauls will never see you." "Is it magic?" "No." "It is easy to see." "That is because we are in the courtyard. Wearing that suit in the forest, you would look like part of the ground, or an old tree trunk." "It's not going to work." "We are having a test. We will see what happens then." Forni worked his way closer to Jon and he looked worried. I had to assume that he saw the two girls as possible competition. We had our supper later with the family and I met the two little pixies, Elfrieda and Sieglinde. Jón had learned his lesson about the two older sisters and was polite. Astrid and Dagmar got the same treatment. The latter two felt it odd to find that Jón was ignoring them when last night I had been much more friendly. They had said nothing though because Clovis was sitting with us. I had thought about them quite a bit. Jón's body wanted them, but to be truthful his yen was for any woman or good looking boy. If the information about the spell were true, then they would respect me. Since they were without men at the moment, they would be interested in me sexually, too. We turned in much earlier than the rest. When Jón was undressed and in bed Forni asked, "Master, would you like me to relieve your tensions?" I had known this question was coming and Jón was prepared. "I would love that Forni. Will you come to bed with me. I have usually slept alone and would like to try sleeping with you." Jón was not sure of this new idea, but did as I asked. The alternative was much worse and he knew it. Forni climbed into the bed and cuddled to Jón before slipping down much further. Forni started slow, but got Jón and me much higher and a strong orgasm went through both of us. When Forni climbed back beside Jón I said, "Kiss Forni." "He's... Why do I have to do this?" "It is a way of showing that you appreciate what he has done. He does not work for free. It is a small thing that will mean a lot to the boy. It is like planting a seed that one day will sprout into a tree that will support you in times of trouble." "Ok, I will do it." Jón tentatively pulled Forni close and then kissed him quickly. I said, "That was not bad, but do it again and do it slowly. You will have to do the same to girls one day and it's good to learn now.". There was no reply, but Jón did it again. I could feel his lips move as he tried to work out the mechanics. He tried a third time without more encouragement and I felt Forni groan in contentment. Jón seemed to be happy with this too and pulled the boy close. When the two went to sleep, I investigated the connections Jón had to his body. This information would be very valuable to a doctor. I didn't think anyone had understood or visualised this before, even in the 21st Century. My own connections through Jón's brain had to be strengthened and I did some mental exercises to test every portion. Forni was snuggled close and felt none of my movements. In a way I felt his contentment and I was happy too. It was early in the morning when I worked on our sense of hearing. I tried to bypass the portion of Jón's brain that interpreted what was heard. The castle was getting up when I suddenly found that the sound was very loud. I could hear Jón and Forni's heartbeats as well as the wind and voices far down the hall. I pulled back from what I had done and just used Jón's facilities and could hear little now. I connected my bypass again and the sound came much clearer. The effect had to be attributed to Jón's mind blocking out the common sounds so he could notice those sounds that were odd. This was good to know and I tried to make a switching arrangement that would allow me to use the higher gain when it was needed. The sense of smell was next but Jón awoke before I had gone far. He saw Forni in the bed and he was not sure what to do. Forni was breathing into his face and the smell was not good. "Good morning, Jón." He was a bit startled but said, "Good morning." "We have another busy day today." "What are we going to do?" "Finish dyeing the suit. You have to exercise the same as yesterday then we practice throwing the knife." "I can already throw a knife." "That may be true, but practice is easy to do and the throwing is within your capabilities. You cannot wield a bow or a sword and you surely cannot wrestle." "Why should I wrestle? A soldier uses his sword." "A soldier often drops his sword, leaves it stuck fast in a tree or a dead adversary, or his sword breaks. His enemy won't wait until he rearms himself. He either wrestles for his life, or he dies. I will show you how to fight with your hands, so that you can beat grown men while still quite young. You have to get a bit bigger though, because strength and size does count." "If you say so." "I do. Now kiss Forni on the forehead. Continue to hold him. It is wonderful to awake with somebody in your arms or in somebody else's." Jón didn't object and Forni awoke and snuggle closer. "Good morning, Master." Before Jón could reply I said, "Tell him to call you Jón when it is just the two of you. Even if others hear it will be understood as just two boys." "But I need a slave." "How about a friend that will do anything for you. Much better than a slave that may not like you much." "Forni," Jón said, "When we are alone I want you to call me... Jón. We are friends now and I will not call you slave if I can help it and you will not call me Master unless it is necessary." Forni squeezed our body tight and said, "Yes... Jón. I will do that for you. That makes me very happy. Can I make you happy now?" "I would like that, but later. I have to pee." Forni hurried out of bed and got the commode and then helped Jón to sit. He had an erection and Forni was happy to point it down. Both boys were smiling at this. The two dressed and Jón was reminded by me to put on his sheath knife. Forni helped Jón down the hall and steps to the dining room. Jón was happy now. He had a real friend, possibly for the first time in his life and was polite to everybody he met. Clovis and the rest of his family were already at the table and Jón was given a seat. Forni backed away and Jón came to a decision. "Father, Forni is my friend now. Can we give him his freedom." Everybody around was shocked, including Fidelis. "This is a very important decision that needs some time to consider. Forni is not ours. I will talk later with Fidelis on this matter. Would you like for him to eat with us?" I could feel Jón's facial characteristics change into a smile and he said, "Yes, Father." When the two boys sat together, Forni impulsively reached over and hugged his friend. I could not see how the rest of those at the table took this development. After Jón began to eat some porridge, Clovis asked, "What are you going to do today?" "The suit has to be dyed. I have to exercise to gain my strength and I think I had better practice with the only weapon I can handle, the knife." "That sounds like you will have a busy day." "I have to be busy. There is so much to do and so little time to do it. I think that when I get strong, I should start to learn the Roman language again." "You make me very proud Jón." The boy swelled visibly and he looked at Forni. The boy was smiling widely as he shared his friend's pride. After breakfast the family all congratulated Jón. He now held Forni's hand openly as a friend. The two left to find the woman who Jón had worked with yesterday. Jón and I talked silently. There were nut husks that would turn hands and cloth brown or even black, if the dye were left on the material long enough. Mustard seed stained and I knew that it would give us the yellow. Sumac would give us red. The old woman was just coming to our position when the boys pulled up. "Good morning, Mother. It is nice to see you again. I want to thank you once more for helping me to do this." The woman gave him a toothless smile and she cackled a bit then said, "You are a very good boy. I wish my own boys were as good as you." I could feel Jón glow again in the praise and I hoped this reinforcement would quickly help him change his ways. We used loose rags to test the colours with me showing Jón what to look for as results. The woman and Forni did most of the work while I got Jón to exercise. He was into squats, but could only manage a few. Then, I went through a great variety of isometrics. We could only do a few of each type at a time, so we could leave some muscle groups to rest. When Jón had to pee, he simply went to the wall under the walkway and pissed on the stone. The knife was used when not exercising, or involved in mentoring. I subtly tried to direct the boy. This had been one of the first combat techniques taught to me when I was younger than Jón. Those learned behaviours had always stuck with me. In time, it helped when playing darts. Hardly anyone could ever beat me. Forni and the old woman had darkly stained hands when the entire suit was done. It was hung on the cross braces to dry. Jón hugged and kissed the woman when she was done. He willingly reached into a pouch he carried and pressed a coin into her hand. "That is for you, Mother, even if my father has given you more." The old woman was happy and couldn't help shedding a tear in one eye as she hugged Jón back and kissed his forehead. Jón was fairly glowing when he returned to the dining room to eat. His father clasped him on the shoulder and pulled him close. The table heard all about the construction and the dyeing today. When Jón mentioned the knife throwing, Clovis said, "Come to my chambers after eating. Bring Forni." Forni looked worried, but Jón didn't feel any foreboding that way. Later, Clovis brought out another knife that was the mate to the one Jón carried. It was in a much simpler sheath and was supported by a simple belt. He sat the two boys down and said, "This knife was made when yours was, Jón. It was intended to be a spare in case one was lost. Both are balanced very well. Since Forni is your friend, I want to give this to him for all the work he has done to support your efforts. If you two stay together as friends, then one day he may use it to save your life." I looked through Jón's eyes to see a shocked Forni. He just stayed there and looked at the king. Clovis said, "Come here, boy." Forni didn't move until Jón pushed him, then he hastened forward. Clovis put the belt around the boy and tried to connect the ends. The belt came off and the king worried a hole in the belt with the knife and then put it back on. It looked to fit very well. "There you go. Now run off and practice. Don't let the knife hit the wall or any of the stones. Be careful of the edge. It's sharp." Forni didn't know what to say and Jón came to his rescue. "Say, 'Thank you, Sire. I will treasure this always and use it to defend my family'." "Ah... Thank you, Sire. I will treasure my family always." "Off with you two then." Forni ran off then back very quickly to be with Jón and the two of them walked back to the courtyard. Forni said, "Did you see that? He gave me this knife." "Yes, I was there, remember?" "Oh, ya. Forni could not have been more pleased with the gift from the King, than had he been made knight of the realm in some future kingdom." Targets were set up and Jón practised with his knife once more. Forni would not think of using the knife for such a crass activity. I went further than I had before when Jón threw the knife. I didn't actually take over, but I made many more small adjustments and the knife usually flew true. The bronze knife was certainly good. I remembered the hours in the dojo and at home improving on this activity. Forni stood stunned most of the time looking at his knife. He tried to look at the belt and sheath. But, it had been put on by the king and he dare not take it off. Jón and I practised all afternoon and the soldiers came by and looked at how proficient he was in his target practice. They offered some advice, but also praised his skill. I was afraid that his ego would explode by supper time. Jón was out of breath and I said silently to him. "Tell Forni to put away the knife, so that the two of you can have your meal. I want to add my own congratulations because you have done very well. After supper I want to have you use your right arm." "I cannot do that. I tried once and I was very bad." "You forget that you have me." "Ok, I will try." Clovis heard all about his son's target practice from some of the men in the hall. This was even better than he had hoped. The King was overjoyed that Jon had decided to cooperate. Jón ate hurriedly now and Forni had to do the same. Apparently there was entertainment most nights, but the boys would miss this activity. Jón was able, after a lot of convincing, to borrow Forni's knife. The two were thrown and after a while I got to throw with more and more control of the right hand. Jón was not sure about this. The arm seemed to move of its own accord. Just before it grew dark, we were throwing both knives at the same time. The ghillies suit was not completely dry and we moved it around so other sections could get a chance. Maybe the time had come to teach Jón how to do some whittling. The first project could be... what else... a wooden coat hanger. Jón was talked into getting Forni to get some warm water for a sponge bath. Jón was able to get undressed this time by himself and got into bed. Forni came in later with the warm water. I said to Jón, "Get out of bed please. I have something to show you." The boy did as I asked. "Tell Forni to lay down as you were. You are going to learn to wash a person that has been injured and may die of infection, if he is not cleaned. This will certainly come in handy in future battles." "But he is... I never cleaned anybody." "I have been right so far. You did as I asked and you were praised for what you have done. You are still a boy with lots of facts to learn, but once you really see what is going on, you will be much further along toward being a man." Jón said aloud, "Lay down on the bed, Forni. I need to pretend that you are a wounded soldier." "Me? On the bed?" "Yes, you. Now get up there." Forni slowly complied and Jón began to do the job and I gave him pointers only. The one about too much water meaning he had to sleep in a wet bed worked best. When Jón got to Forni's waist, he had to clean this area very well and had Forni raise his legs. There were a lot of eager investigations now and Forni became fully hard. Before Jón could say something stupid, I said to him, "A man, or a boy is always worried about his size. It is not always true that size counts. A man that takes his time with his lover will get much more love back than he gives. Tell Forni that you think he looks young still, but you like him this way. Don't forget that you are very big and he needs some reassurance." "Ok," he said simply. Jón held Forni by the head of his dick and said, "I like this. Not too big to be threatening. The size is just right for you and I like you more because of it." Forni just groaned and Jón began to masturbate him. When Forni started to thrust upward Jón got more information about pleasing the boy. "Bend over and look at it. It is just like yours, yet much smaller." I was surprised that Jón actually did this so easily. "See the head. It is so small. It is almost like a girl's clit." "A girl doesn't have anything like that." "Ask your father. Some girls have large clits. Most are usually much smaller." "Really?" "Yes, now smell. Forni is very excited." "But he is a sl... boy." "Yes he is, and he is just like a little boy that loves you more than anything. He looks up to you because you are so much bigger than him. You are the one taking care of him. He is yours and he loves you. He gave you so much pleasure and he did it without thought of gain. Who else would do that for you?" When I stopped talking Jón finally said, "Nobody, I guess." "Love him the way he loves you. It is important to both of you." Jón took this literally and bent over the last little bit and after looking from a very close range licked Forni. The little slave was in heaven and responded even more. This was enough for Jón and he bent more and took his fingers away to suck on the boy. In just seconds Forni had his orgasm and Jón continued on as if nothing happened. "Ease off now and slow down." Jón was now very horny and it took two more tries before he actually did what he was asked. Jón didn't want to do it, but he washed his own genitals and climbed into bed. He was urged into the 69 position and in a moment both boys were hot at it. There was no need to encourage anymore because Jón had made an important step in making someone else happy. I would like to have savoured the excitement in Jón's body, but reluctantly I pulled away. I went back to the sense of smell that I had tried to improve on this morning. Jón was so busy that I could do just about anything I wanted without his noticing. When the sense was conquered, I smelt shit strongly. I was very close to that part that part of Forni that did the excreting. It was hard to continue because the air also contained the smell of Forni and this would make me horny just as Jón was. I blocked out sight, sound and smell to concentrate on feeling through the skin. When I finally did overcome this challenge, I found that the boys had gone to sleep in each other's arms. It felt good to be so close to this love. The boys may more rightly be in lust rather than brotherly love, but this would grow and alter I hoped. Rather than move back to taste, I just worked on what I should do in the coming days. I was asking a great deal of the King, but he was potentially getting a great deal himself. Besides, my being here in this time had been his grand strategic plan, not mine. I ran over my own motives. The Romans were not my enemies but some would have to die to bring peace. I loved the German people of the future but I could get to love the Romans too. To bring my knowledge to the people of this time, I needed allies to support my efforts. Clovis was the best I could hope for. When the castle awoke again I found that I had still not slept at all, nor even felt the need. This may be good for planning, if Jón could take care of the body. One long unremitting time of thinking didn't sound too appealing until I thought of those that were going to die if I did not help. I may be killing Romans and Gauls now, which was morally and karmically to my peril. But, if I succeeded, then there would be many fewer deaths later. Forni woke up first and I pushed my way to the front while trying to stave off Jón's awaking. I opened my eyes to see Forni, so very close. I said, "Well Sweetheart, you now have a friend that will not hurt you as readily." "Did you make him be my friend?" "A bit at the start, but all I had to do was show him the way and he continued. The part about freeing you was entirely his own idea. Let him, if he will. I never planned for you to be a slave for much longer anyway. Love takes a long time to develop, but he certainly does enjoy sex with you. I was thinking on my own last night while you two were having fun. I want to get the suit we made into the field to see how well we did. Jón will be the one to do this. The two of you should become a pair of heros, if this comes off right." "How?" "Just what you have been doing. We take the suit and see if the colours are right. Perhaps we can alter them if they are not. We make a few more suits exactly like them to fit certain other volunteers. One will be for a man called Fleinn. I think he's a good man, who is understandably sceptical, so he needs to see the suit in action." "I heard he's a great warrior." "That's good because he has a lot to add to our battle plans. Now why don't you slide down a bit and I will let Jón wake up? He will be very surprised." Forni smiled very widely and scooted under the blankets until I felt him start to suck on a fast growing appendage. In moments, Jón did awake and with a groan as he held Forni to him. It took only moments until he shook and then relaxed. Forni came up with a smile and kissed Jón. I was happy to see that Jón returned this very easily. "Two horny boys in a bed," I said, "and so much work to do. Get up. We have to get the king to give us some of his men. We are going into the forest today and we better take the old women that helped us. Jón said out loud, "Can't we just stay here for a few hours?" "Forni will think you are talking to him. Now, get up. Get this done. If you need to change the colours or design we can do that on the fly." "Ok," he said but he climbed on top of Forni and kissed him soundly before sliding out of bed on his own. Clovis was overjoyed to hear his son's proposal and got some of the older men to accompany us. The old woman was summoned. She was both put out and excited to be added to the patrol. Women rarely figured in important duties. The suit was dry when we picked it up and Forni put it on. He thought himself odd looking, but I was cock sure this would end in the field. An old man drove a large cart with the woman sitting in the seat with him. Both seemed to like this arrangement. Jón and Forni sat in the back with a supply of food for the day and some clay jars containing dyes to add or alter the colours, if they were needed. With an unfair jab at Jón, I got him to study the castle and the city as we left. He had to find a way to take this city as an attacker, so that he could invent a way to protect against just that happening. Jón was not going to be alone in his work and gave the same job to Forni to do. I did my own assessment of the city. There was shit everywhere. At the moment it was dry as there was little rain in the last while. Pigs and dogs ran loose looking for any choice morsels. The buildings were of wood and most were actually split logs. The roofs were thatched and if there was a fire the whole town could go up. I heard that Romans were well known for using fire arrows. Trenches around the walls were filled with water and mosquitoes. The streets were narrow but usually the chamber pots were emptied only after the woman of the house looked first. Most houses were one story, so it was easy to see if someone would be hit by the contents. I saw four pots being emptied from the view behind. The roads had deep ruts and I didn't know if stone had ever been used here. The Romans prided themselves on their road construction and their cities benefited from this. The wagon moved quite slowly and in an hour we were barely in among some trees. With some suggestions to Jón, we continued on to some rougher area. When we stopped, I had Forni relieve himself. He would shortly have to be still for a while, if the hue proved to be correct. Jón asked the old soldiers questions at my insistence and they puffed out their chests and replied as informatively as they knew. Forni crouched down and from a distance he would be hard to see. The yellows had come out too brightly hued and some of the darkened oak umber colour was wiped over the yellow to darken it. The old woman, Forni and Jón walked up a small hill and started down. When I saw a good place Forni was directed to squat and we cut small branches to fit into the loops sewn into the garment. The old woman cackled and said, "It's hard to see the lad and I am before him." Jón said, "You're right. I wasn't sure the plan would work so well at the first, but now he's actually invisible." Forni said, "What do I have to do?" Jón transmitted my words, "Stay still no matter what. Movement catches the eye. If it's safe, then throw one of the small pebbles at one of the men. If you hit them then he is dead and will not be in the hunt any more." "What if they find me?" "Then they find you. We are making a test. Just pretend it is a game. You have nothing to lose." "Ok." Jón and the old women climbed the hill but from further down and signalled to the old men to find their quarry. The old woman giggled as a man walked right beside Forni without seeing him. A stone hitting his armour made him stop and look but he looked just where Forni was and didn't see him. Others had seen this and raced back. One stopped by a stump to look around while another lump within half of a metre reached out and grabbed the man's leg. The man yelped and jumped away so fast that the rest of them laughed at what the man did. He also reached down and grabbed Forni's cap. Jón yelled out, "That was no fair. Let's try it again." The old men were split up into two groups. One hid Forni then watched their friends try to find him. Most of the time they were unsuccessful and Jón told them what I said. "The person that is hiding has to pick his location with care. Plants change and ones in the wrong place are sometimes noticed. If a hole is dug and the soil hid then the man can just stick his head out and not be seen at all." Everybody got a chance to hide Forni until we took a break to eat. They all talked of improvements in the suit. They would be more happy to accept all this innovation later, if they had a hand in the development. We came back in mid afternoon. Jón was exceedingly proud of himself because I had bypassed his sight and found a rabbit hiding in some wild raspberry canes. It matched its surroundings just like the suit did. His knife had come out quietly and I just used words to guide him. The knife had flown true and the rabbit was killed on the spot while never suspecting any danger. Jón took the rabbit by the ears and gave it to the old woman. "Here, this is yours. You have helped us and now you can have a nice meal when you get home." The woman had another tear in her eye and said, "Thank you, kind lord. I do not know what to say. I didn't know that any but the best hunters could hit the hare like that." "I practice a lot now." "May Woden protect you, my Lord." Clovis was not in the castle when we got back, but the old men praised both Forni and Jón for their abilities in his absence. The two lads were a bit tongue-tied at all the lavished attention and didn't know how to respond. At my urging, Jón said, "When such cunning old warriors give such praise, I feel proud." Astrid and Dagmar ate with us and they too added their congratulations. They couldn't help but stare at the changed Jón almost the entire time. I knew they were looking for me to show myself to explain these changes, but it was fine as it was. Let them marvel. That night the boys once again had a sponge bath and a great deal of sex. It was fun for a while, then I went back to trying to increase my sense of feeling. When the effect was finally found the boys were asleep. It was almost too much for my brain. There was too much data coming in. I could feel the texture of the sheet and the fine hairs on Forni's body. The draughts in the room moved my hair just a small amount and I felt it. I felt the tramping of heavy boots and switched to hearing and knew that Clovis had come home and his men went to their quarters. It was much later when I was trying to fine tune the sense of feeling that I thought something was wrong. Again switching to my ears I heard some very soft footsteps. One word was whispered in Latin and I knew there was a serious problem. I roused Forni by putting my hand over his mouth and shaking him. Somehow I urged Jón to awake. I whispered in Forni's ear, "Romans are in the castle. Slide off the bed and hide beneath it." I was still in control of the body and slid off too. Forni's knife was in the sheath beside the bed and I took it in my right hand and then walked around to get the other knife. There were some wooden practice swords on the wall but nothing else. I got to the door and opened it as quietly as possible then closed it. Jón didn't say anything aloud but asked, "What are we going to do?" "I can hear much better than you. It is something you can do if you practice. There are at least two Romans nearby, but perhaps more. I can only think that they must be assassins." "My father." "Exactly." I had learned long ago to move quietly. I was naked having had no time to dress and the stone was cold and very hard where I touched it. It didn't betray us with any noise. I turned the corner just in time to see a person enter the king's unguarded chamber. I hurried forward now, and when I got to the open doorway I saw a man raise a knife to plunge it down into a sleeping form. Switching to the sense of sight I was able to make them out as if this were in the daylight. The knife in our right hand flashed out and went through the neck of the attacker. It was right over the carotid artery and I was not sure if I struck home or not. The man looked at me and then so did the other. The left knife flew as hard as I could throw it. It went in just above the Adam's apple and the man clutched his neck in panic. I rushed in now and ran at the first attacker. He may have been dying, but he could still think to complete his mission. A stool was in the way. I used it to boost myself up and allow my feet to hit the attacker in the chest. I had to get him away from Clovis. We went down in a heap as I searched for the knife I had thrown. The attacker had his knife still in his hand and tried to stab me. I found my knife and used it to stab him through the eye and into the brain. The man just convulsed for a second and lay still. Clovis was up now and I think he stumbled over us in his haste to get to his sword. There was some light coming in through an open window. Needlessly, he ran from the second man then to us. His hand came down and dragged me away and he stabbed the dead man just to make sure. In a delayed reaction Astrid screamed. I hurt all over because I had used the muscles more than what Jón's body was capable of delivering. Partially armed men came running into the room with candles, or oil lamps. Clovis was kneeling on the floor beside us and looking for wounds. His calloused hand stroked away a lot of blood. Luckily, I didn't feel any wound of my own. I stammered, "Check the gate and the lives of your generals." Clovis did as I asked in a loud voice and I added, "Stay away from the windows." He gave one look and took my advice. When it looked safe, I let Jón have his body back. I had a talk to him and he was really too upset at the attack to feel bad about my usurping control. Forni came running into the room and he was as naked as we were. He ran over, adroitly avoiding the body and hugged Jón. "Are you hurt. I will never forgive myself if I let anything happen to you. I should have taken the knife and been the one who went after them." Jón's arm came around the boy to hug him and he said, "They were professional assassins. If you had come, I would have had to worry about you too. Fidelis' magic only stretches so far. Now go and get the bucket we used tonight. I need to be cleaned up." Forni didn't want to move and Jón didn't push the matter. Clovis said, "Tell me what happened. All of it." "Well, I was asleep with Forni. I must have heard something in my sleep and told Forni to hide under the bed. I took his knife and my own and went looking in case it was an assassin. I may have heard some Latin words. I peeked around the corner in the hall to see someone I didn't know going into your room. When I got close I saw a man make ready to stab you. I threw one knife at the man and hit the side of his neck. I was not sure if he was armoured, or not. The other man looked at me and I threw the other knife at his throat. He was not that far away and the hall is not lit very well. The first one may have had a mortal wound, but he could still kill. I pushed myself very hard and ran to the stool on the floor and used it as a boost to jump even higher. I hit the man in the chest with my feet. He didn't die fast enough, so I found my knife on the floor and stabbed him in the eye before he could stab me." "You threw the knives very quickly then?" "Yes, I had one in each hand." "You threw one from your left and one from your right?" "Yes, I have been practising. I got a hare when I went out to test the suit. Did you hear about that? I only used my knife." The details had to be mentioned again. Astrid used the water to clean our body and then remove some of the blood that had rubbed off onto Forni. She took us by the hands and led us through the filled hallways. It seemed that every man and woman in the castle was here to see what was going on. Astrid left the door open for some light, then got us into bed. She bent over Jón and gave him a kiss that was not entirely motherly. She looked into our eyes and when she got no favourable response, she gave Forni a small kiss as well. "You did a very brave act tonight. You saved us. I think I would have been next. I may not be important, but I may have screamed and brought the guard. I do not know how you killed the two assassins because my mind refuses to see that you are capable of such a thing. I want you to know that there is now a debt between us. I owe you my very life." I said to Jón, "Tell her that there is no debt. Family sticks together to protect each other." Jón said in a whisper, "My mind tells me that there cannot be a debt. We are family and we protect each other." Astrid came close and kissed Jón one more time and I could feel that she wanted this debt so that she could pay it back. I started to retreat into our body to get away from the disturbance in the castle. The boys were too excited to sleep. Forni said, "Did you see all the blood. It was everywhere and must have gushed out." "Ya, I felt it gush on me. The first assassin twitched when I stabbed him in the eye. I didn't know if he was going to be able to stab me before he died." "The other guy was big. Are you going to get his weapons? They may have had horses or gold." "If there are two horses then you will get one." "A real horse; for me?" I was almost completely submerged by now and only felt Forni sliding down the bed as he followed his hands. The assassins explained why the Romans were not despoiling the land. It also inferred that they had a substitute to put on the thrown. This person would be in cahoots with the Romans. It was possible that with enough study the Romans could figure out what would happen and not need to tip their hand to the new king. Hidden plans like this may be too intricate for the frontier of the empire, but common in the cities and especially Rome or Constantinople. There was a good chance that more men were waiting to aid in the escape of the two assassins. Guards would be killed or bought off. I had not heard anything that happened outside of the king's chambers, but some things just had to happen. Gnaeus Scipio Magnus or one of the current Augustus' plotters may now have to change their tactics. They could go by the old standard of blackened earth, fermenting civil unrest or alter the way the Gauls were to attack our forces. I had still not seen a map of this area and had little to add to help the king. I came up to find the time and found Jón and Forni in the 69 position. I didn't know how long they were at it. I just submerged myself again and tried to go over what I could do to make the steel castings I needed. Inoculate could be put into the moulds like grandpa had done when he made his guns. Personal arms may prove very effective but the rate of fire and the accuracy left a lot to be desired. The Roman bow had a range close to what a musket would give. But the rifle at least would be more accurate given rifling of the barrel, accurately honed in sights, and uniformly made ammo. Grenades were for short range unless I had a method to get them to the enemy without our side getting killed. Now, rockets could do that very well and they were easy to make. The U.S. had learned of the devastating antipersonnel capability of the RPG. Small rockets would be no real challenge--Kai-fung-fu would have to give up it's historical distinction to some hole in the German woods. No reason to hold up serious mayhem on that account. The Frisians had need of all the help they could get from me. ------- Chapter 5 When I came up once more, I found the boys in the same position with both now fast asleep. Jón had a small penis in front of his face. At the same time I could feel a warmth down around his own. This pose was potentially embarrassing, if seen by others. So, I took control of Jon's body to move away. Forni began to move also, when he found his soother being taken away. It was time to take stock of the damage-so the first twinge told me. This new body I shared had been abused in the short run and scuffle of the previous night. That had been unavoidable. I got out of bed feeling those new pains. On the plus side, they were less than what the pains had been present when I woke up in this body in the first place. On the minus side, those residual pains still gave me some discomfort. There was no point dwelling on it. I did some isometrics to try to get the kinks out. Afterwards, I got dressed with difficulty, then moved to the other side the bed. I got Forni to swap ends with some pushing and cajoling before covering him up. They must have been up quite a while since Forni didn't even try to awaken. The new body I wore felt poorly rested-with a good deal of justification, but there was much to do. The knives were beside the bed. I assumed that whoever put the knives there must have come in and found the two boys in their previous compromising position. So much for my attempts to maintain proper decorum. I took Jón's knife and put it into his sheath. It had proved useful once and I knew it could again. Getting in to see Clovis was difficult because everyone I met wanted to congratulate me and hear the story of my exploits first-hand. I shortcut as much of the adulation as I could by saying repeatedly, "My father wants to talk to me and I shouldn't be late." There was a guard outside the King's chambers now. So, I figured that he was inside. I asked the guard simply, "Is my father awake?" "I don't think he went to sleep yet. You fought miraculously. You killed not one, but two Roman assassins and with only two short knives. That is something I will have to tell my children. How did you..." "Thank you for your compliment. At breakfast or tonight, I will tell everyone in detail. Everybody wants to hear what happened last night and I would never get to see my father, if I told the story to each one of you separately." The door suddenly opened and Clovis said, "There you are. Come in Jón." I turned to the guard and said, "Bye, for now. I will talk later to anyone who cares to hear me." Clovis said, "Are you... ?" "Father, glad to see that you are well. I wanted to show you something on the castle wall." I held his hand in mine and moved further from the door. Astrid was sleeping in the bed close by us, but she may have just been pretending. At the window I said, "You wanted secrecy and there may be other sets of ears listening. Let's go where we will not be overheard. I would like to see the maps now, if I may." He thought for a moment and whispered, "I know the perfect location to thwart eavesdroppers. Fidelis and four of the other priests are there already. The maps will be with them." "How many of those priests do you trust? The things they learn can come back later to haunt us." "All of them, I suppose. Fidelis said these were his most trusted companions." "That's good. I think Magnus or a person sent by the emperor will change their tactics in dealing with us soon." Clovis dismissed the guard but told him where we were going. It was a short walk then and I found that the rooms on all sides were for storage and thus without ears. When we stepped into the room, I saw it lined with pigeon holes for scrolls and some shelves for a profusion of odd sized books. Clovis said to the assemblage, "The traveller is here now. He has come to learn a few more from us, as do we wish to learn from him." I approached the first man. He wore some nondescript dark wool clothing. I could see that he had tattoos on much of his exposed skin. A glance revealed that two others had the same type of ornamentation on their skin. I put out my hand and waited. The man eventually did the same thing and I moved my hand sideways and grasped his saying, "Greetings, my name is Victor German. I want to thank you for bringing me here." Maybe, I should have been more worried about my future self. But, Vic could not exist for sixteen more centuries and perhaps never would. That made going with the flow of current events seem provident for now. The man's voice was odd. It was a bit like Scottish and Irish mixed, but not that either. The German language, as I now knew it, was butchered by this man, who tried gamely to get his feelings across. "Greeting to you too, Traveller. I have heard that you come to us from many centuries in the future. You will have to tell us of your land, your people, and your customs." "I would like nothing more, if you will tell me about this time and your people, too." The man smiled at this. His name turned out to be Cing. He introduced me to his comrades, Fortrenn and Brude. They were all Picts who had found their calling in religion and magic. None of these men were tall, but then again, neither was my borrowed body. A fourth newcomer to the castle had darker skin than the others. Fidelis introduced him as Marius the Egyptian. "Greetings, Victor. I have been anxiously waiting to meet you." I smiled and said, "I have wanted to thank all of you for your efforts. I would never have planned this unusual journey. But, it is exciting to be here, now that I have arrived. Which reminds me that I shall need to examine the maps I'm told you possess in order to know where you have brought me." Fidelis brought over the maps in question. Some were on parchment, others on leather, while a third was on what I assumed to be papyrus. Fidelis' fingers soon placed our location. I knew then that we were fortunate. Smiling broadly, I said, "The area I have been shown, was known to me in the future. Perhaps that fact is tied in with the magic that brought me here, but I do not know. First, I would like to talk about who and what I am. My father was a warrior. He believed that in that far future time there would be such a war, that in a matter of days our entire world would be destroyed down to rubble. He educated me, my sisters, and the children of like minded friends to survive in such a radically changed land fraught with hostile marauders. "We were trained even as babies to be soldiers. With our numbers so small, we could only hope to survive as irregular troops against potentially more numerous bands. My father foresaw that we would hide most of the time and fight at night, or in inclement conditions. There was no way we could survive a pitched battle against probable larger forces. "I was famous in certain circles for my ability to fight with only my hands and feet. I had also gained some fame in the use of the simple weapons you use now. That is why I was able to deal with the Romans. But, I freely admit that it was surprise that aided me the most." The term 'simple', as applied to his weaponry, seemed to upset Clovis. Seeing the look on his face, I said, "The weapons of my day were fearsome. A device that could be carried by one man could completely destroy a city. There were many other weapons that were very deadly, but killed in much smaller numbers." These are the weapons that I want to talk about with you at length. They will require a great deal of coal and iron ore to start. The enterprise will continue to consume these materials until we have more refined iron than the entire Roman Empire." Fidelis said, "How can we do all this?" "That is the simple part. Show a man how to do some simple jobs and he can do them with little supervision. Another man takes what the first has made and makes something with it. In the end, you get a man that takes the work of many men and makes an object that you would understand as useful. The trick is to make machines to help, as a boat or a cart helps to carry a heavy burden closer to its destination." Cing in his imperfect tongue asked, "What are you going to make?" "To destroy the Romans, I have the knowledge of many men that have studied the Romans all their lives. We need a strong and well trained calvary initially. The iron, brass, bronze, or even hardwood can be used to make tubes. These tubes will be called cannons. Charcoal, brimstone, and an extract from bat droppings when ground extremely fine will produce a rapidly burning black powder. That black powder burns so rapidly that it produces an outward force in the area around where it burns. That force can be channelled within a properly aimed tube to propel a piece of iron through the air for a few Roman miles. The flying iron will destroy a wall, or kill enemy soldiers with hardly any reduction in its speed. "What I described will kill our present enemies, but not all the ones that will follow. Once we have begun, we will have to expand our efforts rapidly. More weapons will have to be made because in a year or so, the Romans will be back with many more legions." Cing said, "We have heard some details of your idea, but cannot see how it works." "Very well, if that is a concern, then give me small amounts of the ingredients for this black powder and I will make a little of it for demonstration. I will put it in a ceramic vessel of my making with many pebbles. The powder will burn very quickly and propel the pebbles a long way. If a man is near where the pebbles hit, then he may die, or have many small holes made in his body. What I will do will make a very loud noise, like thunder, and attract a lot of attention we may not want." Clovis took one of the maps and pointed to the mouth of the Weser River. "There are some islands here that are uninhabited and fairly large. This may be a good area to test your new weapons." After looking where he pointed relative to our current position and estimating the time with present modes of travel, I said, "This will take weeks to travel and then return. That area will not work until the Roman's have been driven off allowing more time for testing. We need something suitable that is closer, but that may not be possible. Perhaps all we can hope for is to test, and then move quickly before others come to investigate. With a strong enough guarding force, we can even test in front of the Romans letting the pebbles fall upon them. We may kill a few Romans that way, but the surprise would not be as great the second time. I would prefer complete surprise in order to make it possible to kill many enemies at once." Brude, the last of the Picts I had met brought out three large leather bags. "We have some of what you have asked for. Will you show us what to do?" I looked at the charcoal and saw that there was no unburnt wood on the inside. The sulphur seemed to have come from near a volcanic vent, it looked to be of good quality. The bat shit was actually the crystals that had formed over the years. Those crystals appeared to be nearly pure nitrate. I said, "Use a mortar and pestle, with which I believe you are familiar in your craft, to grind each of these to extremely fine powders with grains smaller than your eye can see. Do this to each ingredient separately and do it away from any metals, fire, or people. Tomorrow, I will show you how much to use of each and then how to prepare it further." Going back to the maps of this area I said, "This entire area is rich in a mineral called potash. I can help men locate this mineral and teach them how to mine it for us. It can be used in place of the bat shit or the animal shit I wanted collected. It can also be used for a great many other purposes. One of the best is to increase the yields on your farms. We are at war and need to support the army and the people. Though important, unfortunately, this potash mining will occupy a great many workers even after I make them masters of machines that will do most of the work. That can't be helped. We need allies badly to swell our numbers." To the west of the Weser river I indicated four areas with iron ore. "These areas right here contain iron ore. I am not sure exactly where it is, but the deposits are very large and there are four of them. I know of one more, but we cannot get to it until our army is markedly increased. "Another area further south is rich in lead and another vital material. It may already be mined. The other material in my time is called zinc and is used to make brass though I heard that nobody knew why. "In my time, there was a city south of here with the name Sangerhausen. It has some low grade copper deposits, as well as silver. I once visited one of the mines in the Harz Mountains. If we can keep those locations out of the hands of the Romans, the silver can be used to pay for what we need. The copper we have to keep. "I have not seen any glass in this time, though I know such exists. I have to assume that it is too expensive for the Frisians to use. That will change. From special sand I can make glass that is wider than a man is high and as long as we want to make it. Houses will now be able to have windows to let in daylight while at the same time keeping the warm air inside and the rain and cold air out. In the warm months the glass covering the window is pivoted out of the way to let air circulate freely. This glass will be a very valuable commodity that can be sold to the Romans. It will bring gold to our coffers and will not assist them in making war on us. "Large houses made of this glass can be used to grow plants in full sunlight sooner than in the ground because they will be warmer. The glass houses can be used in the winter, as well, to produce an additional crop. The foods we eat effect how healthy we will be. "All around us and deep in the ground is a dark thick liquid. It oozes from the earth by itself in some places. This liquid will burn and will be part of what is needed to make our machines work instead of coal. It will burn with a lot of black smoke, though not so much as coal. When purified it will be used in many other ways to make us safe from anybody that wishes to attack us." Clovis said, "What can you make with this substance?" "I can make powders and elixirs that will help the people of this time fight disease. This is important when an army goes to war. The powerful black powder I am going to make will soon seem to be weak when the newer substances are made. With well trained soldiers and my tools, you could if you wished march on Rome with one tenth their strength and still take it." All six men either stared, or looked contemplatively at me. In a quieter voice I said, "This will change the people from simple farmers to world leaders. This may not be what you want to happen, but it is necessary to your survival. Partial measures will still mean that your world changes, but the pace will be much slower. The choice is yours as to how fast we will go. I will try to make these changes as painless as possible. Whatever happens, it is certainly better than a farmer and his family starving to death while a Roman eats their food. "Life in this new society will not be worse. All your people will be healthier. I do not expect a long series of wars. If we prove to be very strong, then no one will bother us. If we make devices that nobody else can make, then we will all be rich. With our becoming safe and prosperous, we can begin to teach the rest of the world what can be done by cooperation. This partnership will only happen if other people are forced to behave in their own best interest. We can stop wars and make the world a much better place to live. That goes not only for us, but for all other peoples." Two of the Picts were sitting together and whispering while the rest kept their own counsel. It was Fidelis that said, "You have not mentioned religion in your talks. What part are we to play?" "I have heard that in this time there is little freedom when it comes to religion. You and our king call on the names of your gods. Though it may hurt me in many ways, I have to say that I do not believe in any gods." "How can you say that?" The voice was not angry though. "How did you come to be here, if not through the hands of the gods?" I felt that I was treading on thin ice with these priests. "Let me make my point clear. Religion will inevitably decrease in importance as the people of the world become more educated. The educated of my day keep their true feelings hidden, but cynically use religion to control those that have little or no understanding of science. Religion once controlled our daily lives, but that grasp loosens as the years proceed. Some of the educated still feel the need to prolong their lives and wish fervently that they can do so with the aid of the gods. This wish is so strong that they refuse to have this belief altered." "As for myself, I see what is before me and take things on faith only until they can be proved, or disproved. Magic you have mentioned, but I have not learned anything about it. If you can prove to me that gods control magic, then I will believe you regarding both. But, if I can find a way to show you that man himself controls magic, will you believe me? "To answer your original question; so far as I am concerned, anybody can believe anything they want. Children have to be given the facts as I see them. Priests may also give their point of view. As long as an equal time is given to both fact based science and to religion, then the children get a chance to make up their own minds. When those children become adults, they will get to test their beliefs. If they find a god or gods in their lives, then they will certainly cleave to religion. "Because of the pervasiveness of this open attitude, religion in my time is not as detrimental as it is now. The Christian church of this time will tell the rich and the poor that their souls will have to wait in purgatory for a thousand years unless they contribute to the construction of the church buildings. The church will teach people to read, but only those opting for religious orders and only religious texts. Over the centuries religious authority will slowly improve. The church in my time and my future help the poor and those in trouble. Religious organisations assist when there are droughts, floods, and wars. They have changed over time and I admire what they do as they evolve. "People in times of grief need a crutch to assist them in their travels through life. This comes and goes with the need. When times are good the churches are nearly empty. Only a hypocrite will say that this is not true." Fidelis said, "You will not attack our religion?" "The religion you believe has to do with magic. Not only will I not attack it, but I want to study the portion having to do with magic. As I already said, prove to me that magic comes from the gods and I will be one of your followers." He gave me contemplative look, then said nothing else. Clovis broke the silence by changing the subject. "Tell me about the changes to my son." I smiled and said, "I assume you are referring to his attitude. I'm like and old woman badgering her old husband until he does what's right. The suit I talked about was a success. Jón was the one that spoke publicly of it, so he is the one to take the compliments. He reacted favourably and saw that the old woman was not wronged. I got him to exercise and practice with the knife. He found a great deal more praise for doing as I asked. I talked to him about having good friends instead of having slaves. It took a while, but he is entering puberty and his own body helped him make a choice. When we eat, it would be well to encourage Jón to tell everyone in the room what happened. The boy will learn that if he does what he is told, he will gain by it. In this way I am acting like his mother or father and hope that what I encourage him to do will meet your approval." Clovis said, "He is only improving. If I see that he is progressing differently, I will let you know." I almost immediately after leaving the chamber, I ran into Astrid. "Greetings, my lady. How are you today?" "I am well, thank you. We have much to talk about. Follow me." This was an order and I did what I was asked. Once in her chamber she sent her two daughters, Elfrieda and Sieglinde on an errand and then took a chair. "Tell me what happened and leave out no detail." "Before I begin, I would like to add to something I said a few nights ago. When Jón walks the grounds, I am there guiding him as your conscience guides you. Jón's conscience is just much stronger after the accident he had. He is changing slowly and in a direction the rest of you will think beneficial. Over time, he will be more like me and I will be more like him. "It was I that talked to you a few nights ago. Jón does not know that he was even here. Forni knows that Jón is now a friend and I see Forni as a friend too. His bum is interesting as Dagmar mentioned, but I find women very interesting too. Jón is not up to women yet. Astrid said, "Where is Jón now?" "He's asleep at the moment. When he is in slumber, I can borrow his body for a while. She nodded her head in understanding. "Last night I was just thinking as Jón was dozing off. I am cautious in some matters and concentrated on the sounds. I nagged Jón to get up and he followed where I suggested. When we saw the second intruder entering your chamber, we followed with our knives ready to throw. The king was in mortal danger and Jón threw the knife. The other intruder turned enough that Jón could throw the other knife. The first man may be mortally wounded but he could still kill. I was the one that pushed Jón's body to run fast and jump at this man. I pushed beyond what Jón could do and I hurt his muscles. I took the knife and quickened the passing of the assassin. Jón took back his body then." "That is quite a story. Are you going to take over ownership of Jón's body?" "Everyone's mind is constructed similarly. The portion used to guide our waking moments is but a small part of the whole. Jón and I are slowly coming to the same goals. He gets the fame he needs and I get the best for him. We are in one body and as I mentioned before, we will be of one unified mind at some time in the future. To be sure, I am more powerful than he and choose the goals. But in the end, it will be both of us in concert that decide what to do." "That is quite interesting. I have never heard of this happening before. Are you his soul?" "I am only another portion of his brain that thinks when he is asleep. The accident and the magic caused both of us are awake at the same time. I am the part that is his conscience. I think magic is what separated us." "And Jón does not know of your visit." "He does not, unless I tell him." "The possible death of our king made me think more of a future leader. You are next in line for the throne. You will need a considerable amount of protection until you are able to look out for yourself." I said, "And you are the one to provide this protection?" "Of course. I'm the queen." I got back to bed a half hour later. I had not thought that the barbarians, as the Romans called them, were into political intrigue. I didn't think Astrid was going to be active in removing her husband, but she was certainly making arrangements in case of that eventuality. Forni was awake and worried that his favourite body was not to be found. He came to me quickly upon my arrival back in the bedchamber and gave me a kiss. "I missed you when you were gone." "Hello Sweetie." I got a smile because he knew who was at the helm this time. "Do I get a horse... Master?" "You can call me Vic or Victor, Forni. I had more important things to discuss. I didn't hear anything about the assassins." "But, they were Roman. They came right into the castle to kill the king. You killed both of them." "Jón and I killed them. I will let Jón find out about their belongings and the rest can see his face if his fortunes improve or not. Now, I have to get to bed so that Jón can wake up." "Can I go to bed with you?" I held the boy and kissed him. "If you come to be bed, you will not be doing so for a nap. Did you clean out the pot?" "Yes, Mas... Victor." "Well take the pot away and come back in a few minutes." I got another smile and the boy dug out the pot and hurried out. I undressed and put the clothes where they had been and got into bed. I wanted to try sleeping, but that seemed to be something Jón controlled. In a moment he awoke with a groan and looked around for Forni. "Good morning Jón. Forni went to empty the pot and will be back in a moment. Let's get up and have breakfast. We won't be able to eat much though." "Why?" "You will be telling everyone what happened last night." "Oh, ya." "Only talk at the meal. Otherwise, you will be tired out telling everyone individually." "Ok." "Did you know that when a warrior kills another warrior, he sometimes gets the defeated warrior's property?" "Oh, I forgot. The horses and the gold." "There may not be any." "But there might be either, or both." At breakfast, the king made a speech. He had waited for Jón to get up to make his own. Jón felt more than just heroic and I had to temper his enthusiasm with some hard facts. I had never killed anyone before and the killing of the Romans didn't leave me particularly bothered. It helped to not see the bodies, at least until I heard that their heads were adorning the gates. Sadly, two of our own sentries had died in the bungled assassination. We critically needed every man we could muster. Jón was practising his speech. I helped only a little. Better that he be a boy now and enjoy the notoriety. He repeated himself a few times and didn't say things chronologically correct but that was part and parcel in being a boy. What did make me feel most gratified was that he tried to get Forni in on the hero business. Forni had stayed because he could not walk quietly but wanted to go and Forni loaned his own knife given by the king. It had been used to kill the first assassin. When the acclaim came Jón made Forni stand up along side and he hugged the boy to him. In a boy like posture and intonation, Jón asked, "Did the Romans have horses and gold?" Now it was the king's turn to smile. "Yes they did. Each had a pouch of silver and gold and even some weapons tied to their saddles." "Can Forni and I have them?" "I don't see why not, but I do not want you to ride again until you are feeling better. You are a man now. I want your word on that." To his credit, Jón paused to think then said, "On my word I will not ride any horse until that time." "Then you two need to sit down and eat quickly. You may go to the stable to see your new property only after eating." The boys ate in a blur knowing that everybody in the hall was watching them. Jón was all the more anxious because some of the onlookers were young females. I could tell because they were the centre point of his glances when he looked over his bowl. Jón gave both myself and Forni a tour of the stables. One of the hands showed Jón his two new mounts. I had never been a connoisseur of fine horse flesh, but Jón seemed to like them well enough. One aspect of their appearance did strike me--their small size. Of course, they were just as large as the other horses in the stable, but I knew that they were still small compared to horses in my future time. No surprise there. Horses had been bred for size, strength, stamina, and disposition for nearly two thousand years after this period. Some amazing results had occurred in that time. I looked at the floor and saw that there were no metal shoes. In my reading I knew that horseshoes were rawhide bags that were tied on and not nailed. Even so, most horses had remained shoeless because of the cost. This took a toll on mounted cavalries of the ancient world. Horses hooves often wore down in rocky soil and split. They were also susceptible to infection and rot in unsanitary conditions. Shoes could help minimize problems. A nailed on shoe applied to a filed hoof would keep the wear down, strengthen the hoof and elevate the hoof from the moist ground if only a bit. A rider could inspect his mount and clean out any problems before they became major. Our new, improved cavalry would require shod horses, as well as meticulously cleaned stables. I knew that the saddle and the stirrups were not invented for a long time and the method of shoeing may have been only done then too. This would make it very uncommon or completely new now. Jón made his choice and went up to the other horse and said, "This one is yours Forni. It looks like it can run like the wind." Forni looked at the horse in awe and got in front of Jón and kissed him with as much passion as his little body could deliver. The stableman was still around but he didn't seem to mind. When Forni pulled away he reached down and felt to see if there was a reaction. Both boys smiled. I said to Jón, "I want to see the saddles and the weapons. I have something new to show you that will win battles if not wars." "What?" "Saddles, Jón." Jón turned quickly and asked, "Where are the saddles?" He said it without thinking and I said to him, "Apologise and say it right." He didn't argue and said, "I am sorry for my outburst. Will you show me the two saddles, please?" "This way, milord." The saddles were nothing but stuffed leather pads. They had no stirrups and each corner had a leather tube that I guess folded around the rider when he sat. There was no pommel on the front of the saddle nor cantle in the back. I had learned to ride a horse when a boy though I didn't have time to pursue it. There were a lot of tack missing and some of it looked very different from what I knew. When I had finished studying the tack I said, "Let's go bother your father. We need someone that can sew leather this time and some old woman. Now walk by the rest of the horses as we leave, I want to look at their feet." The two boys hurried through the stable, but only after Jón gave his thanks. They ran into the castle to find a guard in front of Clovis' door again. He grinned at the two boy bearing down on him. "Where do you two think you are going?" "I have to see my father. I have another idea that will save people's lives." "I heard about your suit, so I guess you can go in." The two boys rushed inside stopping short when they saw Clovis talking to some of his soldiers. When the king finished his talk he said, "What do two of my newest heroes need?" "Father, I have two ideas and they are even better than the suit." "What are they, Jón?" "A special saddle that has to be made bigger. The back portion has to rise a hand width at least. A part that I was told looks like a big penis is used to balance and to tie a rope onto securely." He had to stop as he realised that everybody was laughing at his description. I could not read his mind, but I could feel his embarrassment. I said to him, "Don't worry. This gives the soldiers a chance to relax before going out to possibly die. Invite your father to the stable to show him what you want." "I don't know what to say." I gave him a better picture of a western saddle. This came from many positions. The stirrups were shown and the buckles that adjusted their length. "Father, if you have a moment I will show you at the stable. You will be able to understand it better." "I am done here now. Let's go and see what you have invented today." The stable master was down there alone, but soon the stable was full of people anxious to hear what was going to be said. An existing saddle was put on a short wall and Jón used his hands to describe the features of the new saddle I had shown him. "I think that men could use long stabbing type spears when they ride. Those spears will not be to throw, but to stab over and over at different enemies. The saddle will need to be made much higher in the back then. When the rider stabs a fully armoured man, he will be pushed back. The high saddle will keep him on his horse while the other man will fall." This rear raised portion of the saddle was called the cantle much later, but there was no word for it yet. "There will be some hanging leather straps with loops for a horseman's feet called stirrups. A man can stand in them to see over the heads of those around him. He could also use a bow more easily. A shallow leather cup near one of the stirrups could support the butt of the long spear the rider carries to prevent fatigue. A pole to hold a pennant could also go there. A man can put one foot into a stirrup to climb up onto a horse without assistance, providing he is not too heavily armoured." Clovis said, "That sounds promising. I heard about your suit. I want to get ten more of them made for some of my men. Now I see I need a bootmaker or a tanner to make a special saddle. I want you to talk to him and he will do what you say within reason." "Thank you, father. You will not regret it." "I don't think I will." "I have another idea to tell you, too." "What is that?" "The hoof of the horse is much like our fingernails. It cannot feel pain and it does not bleed. I do not think iron shoes are common. Is that the case?" "No they are not, Jón. I have seen a few iron shoes on some horses used by a few Roman officers. Why did you want to know?" "I recently learned that a horse has problems with its feet. The hooves split and they start to become diseased. They have to be cleaned and I can almost see a man rubbing the bottom of a hoof with a tool to make them flat. An iron shoe will keep the hoof from splitting. It will also keep the wear down so that disease has less chance to start." "That sounds reasonable." "The Roman shoes come off unpredictably because they are only attached with leather straps. If a smith makes small holes in the iron shoe instead, he can use iron nails to hold the shoe to the outer edges of the hoof much better than the leather straps. This will take time to show you. We can do it to my horse to prove it." Clovis looked at Jón, but I was sure he was looking at me as he spoke. "I will try to get a smith, but they are temperamental. The shoes may be difficult to get made." "If I have to I will make them myself when I get stronger." "You may have to, Jón." In a few minutes an old man who could have been the husband of the old seamstress arrived. Clovis said, "My son has an idea. You can make boots, so I want you to build me a saddle the way my son wants. I will pay when it is done." The man's name was Andsvarr. He was all smiles until the crowd left then he said, "What do you want youngster?" He was not polite and I stopped Jón from an angry retort of his own. Jón went over to the saddle and with his hand described the saddle used by knights. This had a high pommel toward the saddle front, but I didn't think it was that necessary. The knights of bygone eras knew best though, and I left it in. The same thing went for the wide leather band that secured around the horse's chest, so that if the rider's lance bit deep, the saddle would not slide off the mount's back. More innovations of the western saddle were forgotten for now, so as to not confuse the situation more. "The saddle is built on a wood frame. This has to be comfortable to the horse, as well as to the rider. The saddles everybody uses now are just a leather bag with some padding added. I need wood for strength and that needs to be specially made from thin strips of wood glued together." Jón got a stick and drew the parts in the dirt floor, but it was not as good as paper though it was much cheaper. After hearing what Jon had said, the man uttered, "That can't be built. Saddles are never built on wood. It would hurt the horse. Even if what you ask could be built, it will take months. I have to eat and feed my family. My job is to make boots and I would have to abandon that occupation to do what you want. I will have no pay until the saddle was finished." Jón said at my urging, "I will pay for the materials and an advance on what you will make from the sale. You may see me only as a boy, but this saddle will be copied thousands of times. A man able to make these saddles quickly will get very rich." I could not find the term saddler in my new language. This man was like most of the present day Germans in most respects. But, he did choose to live in the city and that meant that silver might be an incentive. His country cousins would berate him for his crassness, but it was greed that made the world go round and greed would get what I wanted done. "A saddle like this will take a month to build and so will the next one." "The first one takes the longest. Make a wood form of a horse's back and coat it with wax. Build the thing I will call a 'tree' on this. It will go much faster and the next can have the glue drying as you put the leather on the first." "This will never work. Why don't you just let me make you one of the usual saddles?" With a new line of reasoning I sent Jón he said, "Oh, you are just too old and can't do this. You should have said that first..." The old man now was fuming and interrupted, "I may be old, but I can do anything." "You can't build my saddle the way I want. Perhaps your son, or grandson, can do this. I will talk to my father to see if there are any good leather workers in the town." "Listen boy, I can build your saddle. Nobody is as good as I am." "You may be good at leatherworking, but what about the wood and the way it has to be glued together. Saddles, as you said are not normally made of this." "I can learn to glue some simple pieces of wood together." Jón spoke my words when he said, "A proud man will work hard, but a smart proud man will talk to a carpenter to see how something is done. When the saddle proves to work, then you will need somebody to make the saddle trees for you. You can both make the parts very fast and get rich that much faster." The man seemed to settle down and think. "Where am I going to get all that leather. It takes a long time to cure." "I will talk to father to see what the tanners have available." "You do that, but I need buckles now and the smith will not be happy to be dragged away from his necessary work." "This is necessary. Our men will be the best equipped of any army. The saddle will help and I think the new spear will too." "What new spear?" "I saw a picture in my mind. The spear was long with a metal head and a wide area in front of the hand. It will be like the basket on a sword and keep the hand from slipping as he stabs a Roman, or a Gaul." I had shown Jón this but I had not mentioned much. He was smart to have picked all this up with only a picture to go by. Andsvarr took out a string and tied knots in it to represent certain dimensions that Jón had mentioned. The old man said, "You better see about the leather. I have a lot to do without all this foolishness about a spear." We wanted to rush, but had to go slowly until we got some names and locations. Jón was learning to be polite and still avoid talking a long time with each and every person that stopped him. I noticed that there were even more young ladies looking at him and some young men too. The latter I had to assume might be a bit of measuring up. They may not have killed an enemy yet. The tanner had some horse hide and said, "This is the best I can do. It is strong but the boot maker should have come here to select the pieces." Jón took my advice and said, "Andsvarr will have to pick this up himself. He will know much more than I do about this." The tanner asked, "What's this for?" "I thought of a new idea for a saddle. A large rise in the back will hold a person in the saddle when they use a lance. A strap across the chest of a horse will keep the saddle from being moved back during the shock of collision with an enemy. Hanging leather loops called stirrups will hold the rider's feet so that a man can stand to see over the head of others. It allows him to use a larger bow and gain the horse's back easier. It will hold him balanced when he swings his sword." "That sounds good, but I will have to see the new saddle to understand it. Why can't you use what we have always used?" Jón had already given the reasons and said, "To be better than the Romans. We need every advantage we can get." We had to go back towards the castle and find the smith. The man had five apprentices working with him in his business. Arrow and spear heads, swords, axes and armour were all over the shop. There were no horseshoes hanging on display. I had to assume that he never made them. The smith seemed to be in no better mood than the saddler. His name was Yngvi, but none dared called him that. He was 'Master Smith' to all, or he would become angry. It took only moments to hear, "You can't do that. It will never work. If iron shoes were important, then important people would want them made." Jón had learned and said, "I guess I will have to find a smith with the spirit of youth still flowing through his veins. You are too old to learn, or even try." "I'm not old!" Jón had turned to leave and then turned back to say, "An apprentice thinks before he talks about matters he knows little about. An intelligent man bides his time. He takes a horse and puts a nail in the hoof to see if it damages the horse. Shoes are expensive and even the few used fall off all the time when leather bindings break. A cheaper horseshoe that would remain on the hoof would improve our cavalry beyond anything the Romans can put into the field. My design will work. It will work with, or without your help." The smith was angry and Jón added, "A simple test with one nail may prove my point. Four shoes with holes in them and the nails needed would prove that you have something to sell that is better than what any other smith has anywhere. You may need thirty or forty more apprentices in the end, but by then you would be so rich that you may not need to work any more." "Show me what you want," came grudgingly from the man. I showed Jón a picture and he drew the shoe very large in the dirt floor. The shoes were completely new to the smith and even the small details were drawn very large in other drawings. As best I could, I showed the features and how they fit on a hoof. Jón said for me, "Shoes have to be made special for each horse, or you make a great many when there is no other work. Then you have a supply to draw upon. For the shoe to fit properly, the hoof of the horse has to be trimmed. Since this is not done now, you will have a great deal of work to do and money to make for doing it. The iron nails I mentioned do not go toward the flesh of the horse, but through the hoof only and come out the side. The nails will be bent after they come out, so that the nail will not work its way back out and the shoe lost." "I am a smith and I know all that." I was quite sure that he had not done this before, but let him have his way. When we finally left the smithy, I said privately to Jón, "We are going to have to build a smithy of our own. You will not believe it, but it will be larger than the entire town we are in. Beside it will be another city sized factory to do one of many other tasks. We are going to be very busy. People far from our borders will know of you and see you as much stronger than any emperor ever has been." "Me? I don't know anything about that." "You will know and then you teach others. They will teach others in turn." "But, I'm still a boy." During our meals, Jón had to give his rendition of the fight four more times as a form of entertainment. This was largely because Clovis wanted everyone to know that his son was worthy. Clovis talked in a code when he said, "There are some travellers going through our lands and I would like to talk to them." With only Fidelis and Cing with us, I knew he meant me. That night I was able to get control and found myself in the study once again. Clovis said, "We have located some of your requirements. The iron is in three nearby hills. To the south is a dark band of coal that shows in a rock outcropping. As you said there is a fine clay layer on top and there appears to be one underneath, too. Brimstone or what you call sulphur is plentiful to the south of us but it will take a great deal of men to bring it here safely through the Gauls and the Romans. "There are many places where bats roost and the white crystals you talk of are being gathered daily. The priests have ground the powders. Will you show us your black powder?" The powders were arrayed in clay jars. With no scales I had to do this by eye. With three separate piles, I took a small spoon and counted out the number of level spoonfuls of each. I could see that the priests were watching intently and memorising everything I did. They, of course, hadn't heard that the hand is often quicker than the eye. What they thought they saw would be of little use to anyone hearing the tale. "In the old days meaning old to me, piss was put into this powder to make a paste out in the field. Alcohol works better, but there was none made yet. Instead I will use water." I put the water in and picked up the pestle. I began to turn the powders into a thick paste. Since the mixture was fine, the time taken was minimal. "The paste should be dried as quickly as possible, but not with a direct fire. One spark and you will find out why this is so." There was a large ceramic plate with a design painted on it. "Sire and priests, I hope none of you become upset if I refer to you as friends." When Clovis said nothing I went on. "Friends, I am reminded of something. The Romans poisoned themselves with the metal lead. The pipes carrying water were of this metal. It was used to sweeten wine and in the glazes for pottery. To eat and drink from these vessels means that you consume a small amount of lead. Over time it builds up and makes the person insane because it effects the reasoning portions of the brain. "Sire, may I borrow your plate? I hope not to damage it, but I am not sure." "Take it if you need it." There were some hot coals in the fireplace and I took some of them and put the plate directly on them. When it got hot it was removed and put on the floor far away from the fire. I put some paste into some homespun cloth I had obtained from the old seamstress in lieu of a screen. I squeezed the paste through the cloth onto the hot plate. It soon dried. This was scraped off into another clay jar and the plate wiped clean. It went back to be reheated. The first batch of dried powder strands were scraped into my mortar and quickly reduces to coarse grains that I took to the fireplace. I casually tossed it onto the exposed coals. It burst into flame but made little noise. The men in the room suddenly had a very worried look on their faces. Cing was actually hiding behind Fidelis now. "When there is little of the powder and it is not contained then it will just burn quickly. When the powder is all gathered, it can be sorted for size. The large pieces burn much slower than the fine powder like the way a log burns slower than the same weight in small branches. If I had an arrow that was hollowed out from the notch end, I could put the large grains into it. With a lit taper I can ignite the powder. Instead of making a lot of smoke very quickly, it will make much less and push the arrow forward. Hundreds of such arrows could be made and put in metal tubes. One man lighting the powder can send them on their way toward an enemy. The enemy has no way of sending them back either." Clovis said, "Why didn't you tell us of this before?" "Simply because there is so much to say. I cannot tell you everything at one time and hope that you will remember. It is better to do one task at a time and learn from it. I also have to think of it. There are so many ideas to use, that there is some confusion at times unless I am working on one particular problem." The hot plate was recovered and more black paste put on it, but slightly thicker this time. "If hot stones are carried in tongs and placed under the plate then the chance of an explosion are very much reduced. The thicker paste will produce more of the larger grains. A piece of cloth woven of metal strands will have holes between the fibres. Small holes will allow only small particles to fall through. Larger holes will then separate still larger grains." The priests and Clovis were hovering over me and I got them to do the work. A person learns much better by doing then by simply shown. The men seemed to have as much fun as a boy with an electric train on Christmas morning. We worked quickly and the men each had a chance to throw a pinch of powder onto the coals. The big boys exclaimed at each puff and I knew they would be making more of their own batch when I was not around. To keep this at least partially scientific I said, "When my grandfather went to school he said that he used a slate. The stone is soft and dark grey in colour and is formed in sheets. A small piece of slate can be used to mark another but not permanently. It is not wasteful of paper and will show much better detail than marking sand. Have any of you see this material? You may find seams of it nearby where you found the coal." The three talked of locations I had not heard of and Clovis said, "This is fairly common stone is found in many places. Do you want some of this?" "I want very large sheets if I can get them back unbroken. This will not be a light load. If they are thin the weight will be less. Haul the sheets on carts partially filled with river sand to cushion the slate from breaking. The slate sheets can be used in many locations. When I went to school the teachers used chalk to mark the boards. It was much easier because the students to see. In this case the teacher could walk around and see what the students write on their slates." Fidelis said, "Why do you mention this now?" "You can write down what you have seen here today. When you have the metal cloth made of fine wires, you can separate the sizes. I will have to get the smith to cast a bronze cannon. You can test the cannon with different amounts of powder and of different grain size. Your next batch will have more of one component and you can test this all over again. When you have found the best mixture and grain size you will have the right mix for the cannons. If we make the arrows then you can test them too. The grain size will be much larger for this." Clovis said, "What good are your arrows?" "If you have a hundred men with a hundred arrows each, how effective would they be if they were all fired at the Romans at the same time?" "I can see the Romans showing a lot of fear." "What if the arrows were as big around as your arm and as tall as you are? It would go through many ranks of soldiers even if they had shields and armour." "That would be a thing to fear." "When you take this powder and put it in a clay jar with pebbles, you will see what it does when it explodes. One jar could possibly kill or cripple ten men even if they are in armour. Picture a much larger one of these at the end of every one of these large arrows." There was nothing said this time, but when I went to leave Clovis said, "How much longer will you hide behind my son?" I could see that this was not a slur and said, "Jón is coming along nicely. In a few days we can begin a story that will allow him to not feel embarrassed, but permit me to start talking directly to the people. I told your son that we have to start a separate city just to make iron." Clovis said, "I have a great deal of respect for how you have handled Jón." "Thank you, Sire. He has some problems still and I have only dealt with some of them. He has never ceased desiring to kill all his enemies." "What is wrong with killing enemies?" "You come across as very gruff, but I know you treat your prisoners with more compassion than any other monarch. To answer your question, I would point out that Rome only knows pure domination. They make no friends and all the subject states would rebel were it not for standing Roman armies. If the Romans were more intelligent, they could shift to having subject states retaining some autonomy on matters of government including taxation. The subject people under that sort of rule would support Rome instead of trying to destroy it." "My prisoners work." "So do your people." I added, "I need to ask something of my other friends." Clovis nodded and I said, "There is a plant called hemp." I did not have the word in my vocabulary and had to just talk about it. "There are many kinds that are bred for different properties. Even before this time it was used to make fine paper. Paper is very important in educating people also in getting our point of view across. It can be used to make good quality cloth. The oil from seeds can be used to lubricate my machines, or to burn in them. It can be made into many kinds of food. The fibres can be used for making cloth or rope. Could you gain some of those seeds from the future?" The two priests thought and talked to each other. The Pict language must have been used because I understood none of it. Fidelis finally said, "Bringing your spirit here was very difficult. Bringing seeds may be many times more difficult. We will think on the matter some more." "Thank you. My concern is for the people. The world of the future was a dirty place. Hemp will help me keep this time clean for all of your descendants." I was not lying. I had worked at a paper plant that used raw and recycled hemp. It was not marijuana at all. You could not get high from it. The United States was the biggest consumer of nonrenewable energy in the world. I had read that if they used six percent of their farms for this crop, they would not have to use petroleum at all. I had also heard that those that harvested trees made sure the competition would die. Over a twenty year period an acre of hemp would produce four times the amount of paper that wood pulp would bring. If hemp and marijuana were grown together the next crop of marijuana would be more like hemp. It would lose the high amounts of the physiologically active chemical tetrahydrocannabinol that the people actively sought. Hemp would dilute marijuana and not the other way around. All this preparation to make paper only had meaning if I made a printing press with all its associated difficulties. Inks would not be too much of a problem. The mechanical complexity would have to be something to deal with as I came to it. The key would be to start simply with handset type and presses that Ben Franklin would recognize. Hemp was used now because Christian and especially Jewish radicals used hashish to get high before they fought. Other groups did much the same thing but some used rye seed that had started to go mouldy. This usually had a drug similar to LSD in it. Besides papermaking, there were weapons to make and this meant a chemical industry. Metals had to be extracted and refined, then formed into shapes I could use. Eventually we would not need stone walls to protect ourselves. People would know that our protection was in the arms of our men that were armed much better than any enemy. This was a daunting task and one I could not undertake on my own. Engineers of every description would be needed and I more or less had dabbled in only one field. Covering the broad spectrum as I did, meant that I could only know a small amount about each of the fields. There were all kinds of engineers dealing with petrochemicals as there were with plastics, coal and explosives. Mechanical and eventually electrical engineers would also need to be cultivated. There were so many kinds of engineers that I had not bothered to tabulate them. Engineers reminded me of tradesmen and I said, "Has there ever been a census done of your people?" Clovis said, "I hear the Romans do that once in a while." "We need carpenters, cooks, smiths, and now a new craft called saddlers. The list goes on and on. The numbers I need are staggering. You should take a census to find out how many people there are and the trades they are practising. Tradesmen are sometimes in guilds. Finding those guilds will be first. I then, have to find out which of those men or women are proficient and who are able to get along with others. They may not want to work with me, however." This reminded me of another old guild. "One guild made my powder. The arrows that fly with this were called rockets but also termed missiles. They jealously guarded the secrets of the powder because they made money for putting on displays. The rockets flew high into the sky and exploded and produced light. The light coming from them was of many colours and quite beautiful. This secret could be also kept within a guild for extra security." Clovis said, "You want me to count everyone?" "You will have to do that task in time, yes. But, I need an idea of how many people I can call on if needed. People need to be paid and I know neither how much money you are going to devote to freeing your people from the Roman..." I had to think of the word yoke but it was not there. Instead I said, "Influence." Clovis said, "The things you are asking for will take far more money than I have or hope to have." "I can make very large sheets of very clear and distortion free glass. The glass should sell well, but mainly to those in the settled part of the Roman Empire. We can start another guild of carpenters that will put up wood frames with the glass in it. The people in castles have the money and they have a lot of openings to close off in the winter." "The glass can also be made into bottles with a large opening. If cooked food is put in a container of glass so that air cannot get in, it will stay fresh for a year or more. The same could be done with liquid wax being put on the top of the food and then boiled. Fruit works well, but so can soups and stew." "Now that is important. We always have problems with food going bad." "When I talked earlier, I wanted to use a word that I do not know or that Jón does not know. You must use a wood frame on an ox or two to pull a plough. Horses can pull just as hard, but the leather strap cuts off their breath. You would not pull hard if a collar stopped your breathing." "I don't think I would." "In my day they took too rings of leather and sewed them together. Straw was placed between the two pieces. Strong leather straps held metal rings. The horse was able to use its shoulders and not its neck." "Make one for me." "I already had to fight to get a saddle made. By the way, I need some of the Roman silver to pay the bootmaker, so he does not starve until the saddle is done. The smith may never have made a horseshoe before. I asked him to rub the hoof of a horse to make it even, but I do not think he has the tools to do so. "All I can do is take some rags and form a collar so everybody will know what it looks like. We need to get another leather worker to see if he can make what I ask." "Do that then. I will give you the silver. How much do you want?" "I do not know how much goods cost, or even a man's wages for a day." "Two pennies is more than enough, if he is a craftsman. One is usually sufficient." "I need to pay for the leather too. With Jón's reputation with a knife I doubt if anyone will try to rob us." Clovis went over to a chest and after unlocking it gave me a pouch of coins. "Here is half. I changed some of the silver into pennies as well as the gold. You will receive the rest when you ask for it. You will also have to be careful. People do steal, but not usually from me or my family." "I will be careful. Will you give the pouch to Jón tomorrow. He will wonder where it came from if I take it." "At breakfast then." "Thank you, Sire. I have to let this body rest soon. I am awake thinking while Jón sleeps. I have not found the need to sleep yet myself. The body must have rest or both Jón and I will be of no use to you. I am not ready yet to have him find somebody besides his conscience in his mind." Clovis said, "This is frustrating. I love my son, but I need what you can only provide. Hurry with informing Jón. He is safe and can take the news." "What if you are wrong? I will be in the head of a boy that may not be sane any longer. The young can bend more. I think I need more time to deal with this. You have many of my ideas and the others I mentioned cannot be done for a long time. If I give you more now, then you will not be able to get them done until later anyway." "I will have to find more craftsmen." "That is a good start." "I have to find a way to feed them, as I can only pay with devices or tools they make." "Then you will need good roads, and a way to ship your goods to other countries. You can sell to the Romans in Britannia, Gaul and Hispania. That means large ships and perhaps long voyages." I went back to bed to allow our shared body to rest. My mind continued with all my memories of horse powered equipment. Before morning, I was working on the final sense of taste and this is what woke Jón up since his mouth tasted like a sewer. He hurried out of bed and drank some water from the pitcher. I had to take partial control, so I could tone the sensation down to what it had been before my experimentation. "What happened?", he said. "I used our sense of hearing to save your father's life. I was just trying to see what I could do with taste. Are you going to wake Forni up? We have lots to do and little time." "What are we doing today?" "We have to see how the saddle tree is being made. The smith we can avoid for a while, but we need to get a leather ring made that goes around a horse's neck." "Why?" "When a horse pulls a wagon, he gets choked if he pulls hard. As a result, he only pulls with a fraction of his strength, or he dies. This ring will allow him to pull much harder." "I didn't know that." "Well, let's get going." Jón sat up and stretched then reached under the blanket until he found something important to Forni. In a moment Forni woke up and grasped Jón's hand to keep it in place and then opened his eyes and smiled. "Get up, Forni. We have lots of jobs to do." "But we can stay here for just a while." "And what would you want to do?" Forni didn't answer. He pulled back the blanket and found an appetising sight right before him. In seconds he had Jón devoured and then Jón moved so he could return the favour. I guess we would have to wait for a while. ------- Chapter 6 Jón and Forni dressed much neater and with less fuss after I explained to Jón how a hero had to act like a hero, and not like a child. He, in turn, told something similar to Forni and now it may be difficult for them to act like children again. On the way to the dining room, Jón was congratulated again and by inference so was Forni. They still acted like children pretending to be adults and I was happy with that. Their knives were now proudly displayed at their waists. The other children that had usually stayed away from Jón somehow found reason to get close. They didn't talk to him however, and I found this odd. Clovis said by way of an announcement, "Jón has shown valour by defeating two armed enemies and, as such, has gained the equivalent of ninety-three pieces of silver, five knives, two swords, and two fine horses with their harnesses. He has taken the horses and given one to his friend Forni. He has also tried his hand at inventing. An odd looking suit made of rags is almost impossible to see when in the forest. We are making some to test them out. If his other inventions are as good, the Romans may as well surrender now." There was pounding of the table and a lot of catcalls. Those dining seemed to approve of what Jón was doing. Jón's eyes went frantically back and forth as he was still not used to this acclaim. Forni was with him through all this embarrassment and held his hand to show support. After our meal we managed to escape with much less fanfare. We made a swing around the kitchen and I asked Jón to get some food. Andsvarr may be a nasty old coot, but perhaps I could find a way around his bad disposition. With a borrowed leather bag we set out to find our bootmaker. He lived close to the wall that surrounded the town, nevertheless his home was still easy to find. He was not there at the time and his neighbours said that he was at the carpenter's shop. Everybody knew everybody else's business and we were soon pointed in the right direction. We found Andsvarr talking to a tall thin man. Andsvarr didn't appreciate our presence, but I got him to make introductions. Jón found it difficult to hold back on his comments, but he did until Andsvarr admitted his ignorance of making something out of laminated wood. I said with Jón's help, "Let's find a horse. I can explain what is needed." Both men didn't like it, but did do as I asked. We went to a different stable and the master there watched us and was invited to listen and comment. "A wool blanket goes onto the horse's back. It keeps the saddle from rubbing the animal raw." I showed the men the contours of the horse's back and said, "Two pieces of wood need to be carefully made to fit this shape. If it is wrong in fit, then the horse will be in pain. There is no wood in the middle over the spine. Rather, there will be some padding. A piece of wood spans the first two pieces at the front. It has to be mounted quite firmly. A stiff portion sticks up and is used by the rider to grip while moving. It will be useful, if he were to be struck by an enemy and not immediately killed." There was some chuckling and I added, "A large piece of wood at the back is designed to hold the rider's butt. It has a very high back because he will use a special spear called a lance to kill his enemies. If the enemy is big, the rider will be pushed back in the saddle. The high back will keep him from being pushed off the horse. "The whole assembly is covered in leather including the part between the blanket and the wood frame. Thick straps are sewn to the saddle and go under the horse. A buckle helps to adjust the tightness. Another strap goes around the front of the horse with a buckle on one side only. This keeps the saddle from being pushed backwards when the rider is stabbing Romans." This got more chuckles. "Two straps like the first ones hang down. Each has a buckle to adjust the height. The rider's feet fit into this and it is made of iron but thick leather can do for a start. It has to be strong enough for a man to stand in the hanging loops, so he can see above the heads of those around him." Andsvarr said, "This is a lot of work to make such a seat on a horse." "Yes it is. Yet, when it is done we will be the masters of the world." The men looked at me and then each other. I asked Andsvarr, "Do you have a son or an apprentice in the leather trade?" "Yes, four sons." "I will pay a son to make me something." "What is that?" Jón talked about the difficulty in getting the full power from a horse. He mentioned the chest strap, but it would not be enough. The horse collar was discussed and how the leather would have to be attached, so that the horse could pull a heavy load. Again Andsvarr said, "What is wrong with what we have? It has been good enough for years." There was a leather strap near a stall and I took it down. "If I put this across your neck, will you be able to pull a wagon very well?" "I am not a horse, or an ox." "You are too old. Send me your son. He will answer my questions with an honesty that his father does not have." The man got angry and his hand went to his knife. Jón's hand went to his knife too, but didn't draw it. Jón repeated my words, "Answer the question." It took a while but I got, "It would choke me." "If I put a strap around each of your shoulders, could you lean forward comfortably and pull a heavy load?" Again there was a pause. "It would not hurt as much." I asked the stable master, "What is your name?" "Eberhard, if it pleases you, my lord." "Work with this man to make a saddle. He needs a horse to fit the saddle upon. Make your own suggestions to what may be a comfortable fit for the horse. Above all, build heavy. We can always cut some away." I turned to the carpenter. "What is your name?" "Rudi, sir." "Work with the stable master and the bootmaker. For the first part you will be in charge. When you have done your job, the bootmaker will take over. Eberhard will get a silver penny, if he works diligently. Rudi will get a similar penny for his work. Andsvarr, though he is hard to work with in his dotage, will get two pennies for making the saddle and the horse collar I want." Andsvarr started to object and I said, "I will pay for the materials in the bargain in advance. What would the cost of the leather for both articles? There cannot be any seams on the seat of the saddle." Andsvarr paused and I think his greed came out. "Five pennies at least, my lord." "How many saddles do you think I will want made, Andsvarr?" "One?" "When the saddle proves its worth, I will make one for every man in our cavalry. That is more than you could count. I will talk to the tanners and other leather workers to make saddles too. Your sons would be included. That number of saddles will make a great many men rich. Now, tell me again how much the leather for both articles will cost." "If I bargained very hard I may get it for a silver penny, or just a bit more." "I will give you three pennies for enough leather for two collars and two saddles. One more penny will be given when the second two are done. The extra money is because you may have to trim and work more to make the first saddle. Be fair with me and I will ensure that you get paid what you deserve." He nodded his head and I showed him the new, old custom of shaking hands. The people here now didn't understand this, but in the future the Germans would shake hands at the start and at the end of a meeting. If it went long, they would shake hands half way through. We sat in a corner on the hay and broke open the leather pouch and Forni divided out the food. We drank water, though everybody else drank beer instead. It was odd to see a child with a tankard of beer, but I had become used to it. In this more relaxed atmosphere we discussed the finer points of the prototype saddle. It would be fashioned to fit a man of Clovis' size and if it worked it would win his approval. If I had been more of a businessman, I would commission all the people that could work with leather to make my saddles. Then, I would sell them to those that just had to have one even at the highest offered price. Cornering the saddle market could make me rich. This was only one of Clovis' cities. Seven others were nearly this size and one more was even larger. Clovis didn't like the other cities as much, so he located his castle here. Many smaller towns paid homage to him and all told I estimated nearly a quarter million people would follow him. This would work out to many less fighting men within that gross total. I had no accurate numbers, but only the answers to a bunch of much simpler questions. The land under his control had originally been nearly twelve thousand square kilometres, but it had been whittled away by other barbarians. The disputed territory was close to thirty percent. More could fall away now that Rome seemed to have become very serious about deposing Clovis. We were moving too slowly. I knew that only too well. Jón's body was still too weak to allow me to do much more. He could sleep more and I could do some organising, but Jón was still Clovis' son. He may want more of me, but he would resent it if his son were not around. This was especially true after the public saw him as something more than a spoiled and perhaps disturbed boy. Before parting, I paid Andsvarr the three pennies for the leather and another penny in advance of his pay. The other two shared a penny for the same reason. The men didn't understand this, but we shook hands again as I said, "This is just a formal way of coming to an agreement. If the terms are not to your liking, you can give back the money and I will find someone else." Nobody gave back any money. The deal was on. Forni and I wandered the town edge until we had made a full circuit at the wall then we went inward some and did this again. There were children everywhere and most were naked. The men wore a cloak with a pin at the throat. Some were dressed underneath with what looked like seal pelts. Everyone was armed except for the youngest children. The girl children were just as naked and after a while it didn't seem so odd. My own cultural preferences had no bearing on the here and now. The streets were filthy still, and a recent rain had made it worse. One man sat under an awning using a chisel and a mallet to cut some limestone. I said to Jón, "I want to make a wheel of stone." I gave him the dimensions and added information about the hole in the centre and the thickness of the wheel. "What is it for?" "The wheel will go into a wooden frame. A man will spin it with a bent piece of metal. Iron tools can be pushed into the spinning stone and they will get sharpened. The smith sharpens with his hammer, but this does a smoother job. Let's get one made and sell it to the smith for the shoes he will make for us?" "Ok. Do you know how to make this thing work?" "I need some bronze tube, or a mixture of soft metals that will support the shaft. It is going to be fun making something by hand so we can make it closer to perfect. This tool in turn makes other tools even better. I have to start someplace and here is as good as any." We stood in front of the stone cutter soon after. Jón did the negotiations himself, now that he knew what I wanted. The man's name we found was Kareltje. He said, "You want a stone wheel?" "Yes. I want a square hole in the middle and I do not want any cracks in the stone." "Stone wheels are expensive, master." "I will give you a half a silver penny, but it has to be done in two days." I had Jon search among his broken stone pieces until I felt the right sort of sedimentary rock. Holding it up, I had Jon say, "One more thing, the stone must be of this type." "A half penny is not enough. I can make much more making stones for the wall." "You can make stones for the wall then. I will look for someone else." Jón and Forni got only a few metres away when the man anxiously called back, "Hold on. I will do it, but I want some money to buy the stone." I was proud of Jón when he said, "You cut the stone yourself and there is no cost but I will give you two coppers for you to start. I will pay two coppers less when I get the stone." The man thought about it and Jón pushed his hand out and explained the custom to the man. When we walked away, Jón said, "Anything else? This is fun." "Let's talk to someone who can melt bronze and form it in a shape we need." "A smith?" "I was not sure who did this. Let's find a smith then, but a different one." We continued our systematic tour of the city and came to a smith. After a few casual questions, we found that he didn't do this. The next did, though. The smith saw from the clothes that we had some money. He probably recognised Jón's face too. "What would you kind masters need?" Jón said, "I want a very special bell cast just the way I describe." Jón used his hands and said, "It will be this long and this wide at the front and this wide at the back." With a gap between his finger and thumb he added, "A hole this big that goes from the front to near the back, but not through the metal. I want two heavy pins cast in it on both sides." Jón moved forward and picked up a hammer and I gave him a weight based on the weight of the hammer. "The weight in metal should be six times the weight of this hammer. If it is more, I will pay for the extra metal." "That will not make a bell. I have made a few and this will not make a sound." "Thank you for your probably accurate words, but I still want the bell cast. I intend to assist in making the mould for both the inside and the outside. It will be a gift to our king." "The King... well, it will be over three talents in weight. That is a considerable amount of metal and it is very expensive, especially with our problems with the Gauls and the Romans." "If I have to do so, I will find old bronze armour. How much for using your charcoal and your hearth?" "Charcoal is very expensive. It takes a long time to cut the trees and then to burn them properly. I am getting older and I need to repair my shop." After a polite pause Jón said, "How much? I have others to ask." "I am the best. You can ask anybody. The rest will cheat you." "How much?" "Because it is for the King, I will only charge seven silver denarii for my labour and my equipment." "A hundred and twelve asses for the use of your shop, and a bit of charcoal. My father would have you whipped for offering such a figure. The metal is worth less than three aureus and your work is worth only a few coppers even if you supply the charcoal. I will have to find a thief that will try to rob me a lot less." Jón walked out, thoroughly disgusted with this conversation. I said, "How did you know the cost of the bronze?" "I heard my father talk to a merchant. If you want the metal all I have to do is ask father. We have nearly two aureus, though it is in silver." I knew that we had more but I said nothing. "Is there a forge in the castle?" "There is a small one and father will be angry at getting enough charcoal to do what you need." "Let's talk to the smith that is making our shoes. He can put a crucible near his flames and it will capture heat that would otherwise be wasted. He can then heat the metal and pour it into a mould." "Do you know how to do this? I don't." "We just play with the clay, sand, straw and some horse shit. Mix it all up with some water and form the shapes we want. The shape forming the hole needs to be hollow and dried. Then it is dipped a few times in fine clay suspended in water, then dried again. If that doesn't work, we will have to make it out of clay and fire it." "You don't know for sure?" "There's a lot I don't know. I sometimes know a little about it and have to guess at the rest. It is like the saddle design. I saw one in my mind, but it was not clear. I had to guess at how it was to be made." I could feel that Jón was not sure of himself now that he had found that I was not omnipotent. I said, "Life is to discover the world around you and what is inside you. It would be a dull world, if you knew everything in advance." Forni was just staring at us since he had not heard any of the conversations. He became worried as he became aware that we had just stopped communicating. "Tell Forni that you were just talking with your conscience. He is worried that you may be ill." "Forni, I was just thinking to myself. Let's go back to the castle and see how much bronze there is." We found that Clovis had left soon after we had talked to him last. Jón said, "We can see the armourer. He takes care of all of the weapons." We had to ask a few people, but eventually found the man we wanted. He sat in a large guard room talking to his friends. Jón was all for barging in and I said, "Wait until the man is done. What he is saying is important to him." "But we are making a gift for father." "That is important to us. Now just stand close and give him a chance to recognise that you are here." Fálki the armourer, took only a few seconds to terminate his conversation. "What would the castle's newest hero want with us?" "Hello Fálki. Forni and I want to make something for Father." I said quickly, "Tell him it is a new invention that has to be worked out. You are uncertain whether it will work, or not." Jón said to Fálki, "We are making a new invention. I am not sure if it will work and I want it to be a surprise for father and everybody." "What is it supposed to do?" He was nonplussed for a moment and came back with, "I can't tell you that. It wouldn't be a surprise, then." The old man screwed up his face and in a moment replied, "What did you want with me? I was the one you were looking at." "I want to know how much damaged bronze armour there is. I want to make something out of it." "What is... how much did you want?" "Three talents should do it. We may get by with less." "Three talents. That is almost half again what you weigh. That metal is valuable even if it is not very useful now as armour." "I know that. A smith wanted an a hundred and twelve asses to use his forge and some of his charcoal. That was outrageous since I was going to do most of the work." "You?" "I am not strong yet, but I will get back to what I was. I was going to make the mould and the smith only had to pour the metal." "We have a forge here." "I thought of that. Father would not like to start it up. It takes a lot charcoal." I said to Jón, "We can use the forge here with dry wood for fuel. It's hot enough to melt bronze." Jón said, "If we use the forge here, we can use wood. It will melt the bronze. We still need clay." "What do you want clay for? You use wax and that's very expensive." I said, "Wax makes a very good finish but clay is cheaper and will do just as well." Jón repeated this to Fálki. Jón continued with his own words. "Can I see the bronze and get an idea of how much there is. I can wait until father gets back before I actually take any of it." "I don't see why not." In a few minutes Fálki was walking down the hall with two of the off duty guards. He pulled out a large key that hung from his neck and opened an equally large lock on a very stout door. After an oil lamp was lit we could see a lot of armour. Some of it was in piles on the floor, but most hung from the walls. There were no weapons here and I had to assume they were stored in another room. Fálki pointed out the pieces that were surplus and Jón picked each of the pieces up. It was hard work for the weak boy, but I got an idea of how much metal was available. There was a great deal of bronze here and I estimated that there was over a thousand kilos of damaged or poor quality armour and perhaps five times that in the useful armour. Bronze could be harder than iron and its edge would be sharper too. The only reason the iron age came about was not the fact that iron was stronger because this was not true but that iron was just more easily obtainable. When steel was eventually made it proved to be the superior metal but bronze was still used in the chemical industry. Solid or sintered bronze made good bushings and vessels made of the metal resisted corrosion much better than steel. Cannon had long been made of bronze, but iron could be produced much more cheaply. Iron also was weak and ruptured guns were common. This is why I would make mine of steel. Steel had not been invented yet though some was made by accident. Fálki locked the door up when we were done and Jón said, "Thank you for showing us your armour. Would you show us the forge and then I have to see the potter." "This way then." The forge was could not used because mice had attacked the leather billows and the leather had to be replaced. The forge itself was not large. It had been installed as an emergency feature for times when the castle was under siege and weapons had to be made or repaired. Fálki stayed with us though the others had left. The potter lived within the castle walls and was basically one of Clovis' employees. He was a young man who made everything by hand and didn't have a wheel to work on. Clay could be coiled to form vessels but a potter's wheel was as old as the cart wheel. Jón said to the potter, "Greetings, my name is Jón and my large friend here is Fálki. My smaller friend is Forni. I would like to make something for my father and part of it needs a clay form." Jón put out his hand and after a bit of misunderstanding the potter's hand was shook. "My name is Sander. What would you ask of me?" I said to Jón, "A potter has a table that spins to make his products. Ask him where it is." "A potter uses a table that spins. Where is yours?" "It broke. It was sent out to be repaired but it keeps being delayed by more urgent matters." I chuckled to myself because now a potter's wheel would now be termed of strategic importance and get all the attention it required so that it was repaired quickly. Jón said, "We will see about getting it fixed if it is important." "It is." "Then, let's go see the repairman." "Thank you, milord. You don't know how happy I will be to get this machine repaired." The carpenter was working on making blanks for the fletcher. The fletcher was working with him to take the rough pieces of wood and make them round and of the correct diameter and length. The two men stopped when we approached. Upon hearing the reason we had come, the carpenter had to get up and stretch. Then, he showed us the still damaged wheel in question. I looked at it and saw immediately that it was poorly designed in the first place. Certain key wooden shafts had just worn out, causing the device to bind then break. I said to Jón, "We can build a better one, but we need some help from the potter and a number of other people. Do you and Forni want to do this? It will take time and you will learn something that is important." "What?" "To use your own hands. You can make wonderful devices, but you will be the only one to know what they look like. Some helpers can work with words and others from pictures, but all will need help to start. We will make simple machines in the beginning. Later, we will make them more and more difficult to understand by people who hear of them. It will take the mind of special person just to understand how the machines work." "So, we make this device for the potter?" "We will make only part of it. The stonecutter is making a heavy wheel that will go to the smith. We will need another stone to be used for the potter's wheel. We can make a tube of bronze that will hold the weight and allow the stone to still spin. This means we need another carpenter and a smith once again." "You want me to work, but I am not familiar with all these crafts." "We can work it out together. Doing almost everything is just a matter of doing some simple jobs one after another." With a little coaching, Jón said, "Sander, we will make a new wheel. I want you to make me two shapes that are round and four fingers long." Jón showed the shape of a hollow cylinder with a large heavy flange at one end. "You will make two of these to start. One will be bigger than the other." Turning to the carpenter, he said, "I want you to make a straight pole that I want to spin around. Part of it is to be square to hold a stone wheel. Under it, the shape will be round. I will make something called a bronze bushing. This will hold the weight of the stone and allow the potter to use his feet to turn the stone. Another of these bushing will go at the top and over that will be a circular table for the potter to work with." "I have got work to do and can't make toys." "This is not a toy. When father comes home, he will order this to be done. Work with me and we will make this machine better than anyone has seen before. There are a lot more machines to make and you will have a hand in making most of them, if you try hard." "You are the son of a king, not a craftsman's son. Your father would not be pleased with this." "Then, let my father decide that. You will be very surprised at his decision. Now, are you going to make me the short post I described, or are you going to block this important construction with words?" "I work for your father, not his son. I do not want to have him come here and say that I neglected my important job to make something foolish that his son wants." I could feel Jón's anger rise, but he held his tongue. He did ask me, "What can we do to get this work started?" "We can find a hardwood log of the right diameter to start. The older and dryer it is the better." "Let's look in the kitchen. They use logs there in the fireplaces." Fálki and now Sander stayed with us. We did find two suitable logs but they were cut with an axe. Jón relayed my question. "We need a place to work that is out of the weather to make our machine so it can work on these logs. It has to be large enough to make a wood frame and there will be a lot of wood chips thrown off." It was Sander that said, "What about the stable? A few extra wood chips are a good thing. What is it you want to make?" "I do not know the name, but it takes a piece of wood and spins it around. A sharp tool is pushed into the wood and it makes the wood round." "Oh, we call those things lathes." The old German word was used. It was one that Jón had not known existed. "Is there someone nearby that can turn these down the way I want?" "I am sorry, I have only heard of this machine. I do not think there is one in the town." It was cumbersome having to have Jón relay all my questions and replies. On the other hand, he was learning as I did this. "We will have to make one. Again, I need both tools and some iron parts." We went to Clovis' stables. The stable master was not pleased, but there was a large shed that was now unused. "You can use this, if you clean up after yourselves. I want no fires either." Jón assured the man then sent Forni to learn about his horse and to walk both animals because they had not been exercised. A stableman that didn't look busy was ordered to assist. "You can ride one or both of the animals so long as Forni gets a chance to learn." Forni was all smiles because he had never been on a horse before. The best he could claim was to be in a wagon. Sander retrieved his broken wheel and Fálki and I went to see the smith. He already had a bar that I could use. I had talked to Fálki and he mentioned what tools to which he had access. Two large and thick nails were made for me. After some money changed hands, he heated the first bar up white hot so it would bend sharply. The smith put the appropriate bends where I wanted them. This would be the crank that would turn a wheel. The nails would be the centres of the lathe. Sander was back when we arrived. Fálki and he disassembled the broken wheel. The bottom portion was just what I wanted, though it was not quite the size I would have liked. Fálki got his bow drill, hammer and saw. We worked the rest of the morning using rough limbs to make a frame. Time passed quickly. We went to have our midday meal, when Forni came back red faced from his ride. He walked funny. I knew that would happen. Forni said, "I love to ride. I am up high and can see everything. The horses ran like the wind for a while and I thought I was going to fall off mine. Klaes, the stableman that rode with me, showed me lots of tricks. He had heard about our saddle, but didn't like it." Jón said, "Do you like him?" I quickly said, "Are you jealous so soon. Cannot Forni have some friends. You are his best friend." Forni looked at the ground and I felt sorry for how Jón had needlessly hurt him. Jón said, "I am sorry, Forni. You are my best friend. I never had as good a friend as you. I don't want to loose you." Forni replied, "You are my best friend too. If you want, I will not leave your side again." "No, I want you to have friends. It is just that there are so few boys my age and most want to stay away from me. I never acted very nice before." Forni put his arm around Jón and pulled him close. "You are my best friend and you always will be." Clovis had not returned and we were quizzed by Astrid about our activities. Jón said, "Forni exercised our horses and I am making a machine to make wood turn around." "What will it do?" "When the wood turns like this, it can be cut. The wood is then made round. We have to make a wheel like the one found on a cart. We make it spin and it makes a log spin too. We then use knives to cut the wood. When this round wood is made, it is used to connect two new wheels but they are on their sides. Clay goes on the upper wheel and we get bowls made. The old wheel the potter had was broken. Forni and I are just making a new and better one." "Jón, you are the only son of Clovis. I don't think you should be doing what a common craftsman would do." "What mere craftsman invents entirely new machines? I simply make one machine and then others who are craftsmen can see what is new and copy my ideas. I want to make a surprise for father and we need some parts made of clay. That is why we are helping the potter. He must have a working wheel in order to make the exact parts we require." "What are you making for your father?" "It is a special bell. I know he will like it." The questions went on and on. Meanwhile, Jón was getting the knack of having a mouth full, so he could delay the answer and feed himself at the same time. When we left the hall, Fálki left with us. He seemed to be quite anxious to see what we were making. It was late in the afternoon when the wheel was fully mounted, so it would rotate without wobbling or seizing. A wood connecting link joined the crank on the wheel to a board that hung loose. By stepping on the free end of the board to keep it from moving, and then on the other end, the crank would turn. The wheel this way would rotate. It was stiff as there were no bearings. The crank was mounted directly in some holes bored in two posts. A short post that came up only half way on the wheel was put close to the wheel and in front of it. Fálki pumped the wheel then had to start over, so it was going in the right direction. Sander put a knife tip into the rotating wood. The wheel was not round and he started to trim the wood so that only newly cut wood was exposed. Forni and Fálki watched what was done intently. Finally, it was Fálki that cut a groove in the perimeter. Both men were covered with wood dust and happy to have accomplished this task so well. One heavy nail was driven through a post just above the wheel and another into a temporary post dug a short distance into the ground. One of our logs was mounted on the fixed nail and then the other end was mounted too onto the other nail in the temporary post. Small holes had already been bored in each end to hold the log in place. It now had saw cut ends which made the log easier to manage when spun. A thin rope went around the wheel and then around the end of the log. With a small knot to indicate the desired length, Sander went to find some old harnesses that would be what was required. He came back with the stable master and two pieces of leather. "Is this your invention?" Jón said, "It's only a quick way to make another tool. We will make much better ones when we have the tools we need. Will you sew the belts together for us? If you do, I will let you play with our toy." "This is a toy?" "Not really, but people seem to like to play with it." The belt was stitched to make one length then it was threaded where it had to go. The tailstock was disengaged a bit and the log lowered into place. When the length of leather was right, it was cut and then stitched together once more. When the log was put back into place we found the belt tight but not overly so. Forni pushed the tailstock, so that it stayed in contact with the log. Another post was cut that came just below half way up the now horizontal log. This would be our tool rest. Fálki spun the log by hand, then started to pump on the treadle with his foot. It was hard work. Sander went in once more and started to take the outer layers of the log off, so we would start with a cylinder. The tool post was a real post and was moved along with the log which was not right. Sander had to change places with Fálki because the man was tired. It was not good to show weakness so I just said it was Fálki's turn. It was not too long after that the stable master had to have a turn, but that meant that he had to pump the treadle too. Of course, Jón had to get his turn and so did Forni. They were young and had to be content with short turns. When the log was perfect other than the ends, I asked Jón, "May I control your hands while I mark the log?" "If you wish." He was not nervous, but actually curious. I took a piece of charcoal with an acute angle edge and marked the end as it turned. Then, I marked various features along the cylinder including where to cut it off. Lastly, I used the hand saw with the rotating log to make some good right angle cuts. We missed dinner in our excitement to get done. More work was needed to fit the bushings and square up a portion to mount the grindstone. Missing supper necessitated a cold, late meal. While eating those leftovers, we learned that Clovis had not returned yet. Jón avoided Astrid skilfully, so he would not be swayed away from his construction jobs. We hurried out after supper to continue with our project. The potter's upper wheel could still serve its function. Jon, with my guidance, made provision to mount it. Finishing the mounting would have to wait until after the upper bushing was made, so we would have the exact size to ensure the fit. Forni and Jón left when it grew too dark to see to work. The other two wanted to continue. There was no sense trying to stop them, so I convinced Jón to say, "We will be up early in the morning. If Father is back by then, we can get a bit of bronze for the bushings." Fálki said, "I have some bronze of my own. I was saving it for a time when I would need it. You many have it, if you give me the same amount back later." Jón immediately stuck out his hand and said, "I will give you that amount back and more." "There is no need for more. I want to see the potter's wheel work after all this work. The stone should help improve it and I want to see how much it wiggles after we make a frame." Jón said, "It shouldn't wiggle at all for quite some time. Later, it will wobble, but that is only because the wood will shrink over time and not fit in the bushing as well." This was absolutely correct! I wondered how Jón knew that. I had talked around this part of it, but I had told him nothing specific. Sander had been apprised of the bushings we wanted. He was asked to make something out of clay that would contain the liquified bronze until it solidified. The mould didn't have to be fused in an oven, only air dried in the sun. Any cracks that developed had to be filled with damp clay and dried again. He claimed this was an easy task and said that he would have it done by the morning. I got the boys to wash up much better than their normal performance. There were a lot of wood particles and dirt flecks in and on their clothing and hair. Clothes were not changed every day, just when they got dirty. I compromised and ordered clothes cleaned when the boys began to smell. Their enhanced cleaning led to other activities, of course. It was much later that they went to sleep. The next morning, Clovis was still away and the family was beginning to worry. Cing and Fidelis, as well as all the other priests, were also gone. They might have been looking for the raw materials we needed, but I didn't think that this was at all the case. Breakfast was another trial. Jón stuck to his guns. The boy was learning to handle difficult interactions very well. We were soon with Fálki and Sander once more. Fálki had a heavy sack of bronze and a smile. Sander had his two moulds. We had to go into the town since our own forge had the damaged bellows. The smith was happy to see us only after he was offered money for his time and charcoal. It took a half hour to melt the metal, because we wanted to take things slowly. Sander's moulds were heated to dry them out and then placed nearby. The smith insisted upon being aided by his own apprentice and not Fálki or Sander. That was ok. After the moulds were filled, the bushings took a while to solidify as all of us breathlessly watched. They were not cumbersome nor heavy, but the smith moved them to the ground close to the door. Jón knew what the man wanted. He quickly produced the agreed upon payment. The suddenly hardened rigid hollow core of the moulds broke, as the fast cooling bronze shrunk. We were able to tip the moulds over with a stick and the castings fell out. It was only a few more minutes until we were able to cool everything with water to carry our booty back to the stable. The wood shaft was fitted to the bushings, as the metal was forced over the wood. The shaft was put back into the makeshift lathe. With Jón's permission, I dressed the flange and then the sides. Then, I forced the bushings further on the shaft, so the machined top of the flange met the wood squarely. Together, we fitted on the potter's casting wheel. Subsequently, it was spun and dressed, as we had done to the shaft. It was seriously out of round, but that was soon corrected. Fálki removed the top and took out the shaft. We were almost done, only having to wait on the stone cutter. We all left to find the stone cutter. In ten minutes we had found him and the man was actually working on our project. The outside of the wheel was rough and the stone cutter was working on the square hole that would be required for the centre. Originally this feature was designed to grip the shaft, so we could get a proper centre. But, now it would be used to drive our wooden shaft. "It is not done yet. Come back when it's finished." Jón said, "We need another wheel made. Will you take the same pay, or do I find someone else?" The man clearly didn't appreciate what we said. We waited and waited some more for an answer. Finally he said, "I will make another for you." Jón said, "At the same pay?" "Yes, at the same pay." Fálki bent over and picked up a small piece of charcoal. He marked out the approximate size of the square we needed and the carver just looked at Jón. The boy nodded his head. Jón asked, "When will this wheel be done?" "Early afternoon." "We will be back then with a wagon." Sander said, "That man is so angry." It was Fálki that said, "That is the man's natural temperament." We went back and used the remainder of the old wheel to guide in the making of a new one. We used some thicker timbers for our frame to make it much more substantial. We had our noon meal under the usual cloud. I hadn't dreamed that supposed barbarians were ever so class conscious. When he had enough, Jón put his foot down. In a low and determined voice, he said through his teeth, "I need to know how to meet the people and grow to understand them. I also have to understand what they do for us. In that effort, I have found that I am also able to make tools that will help all of us in our daily lives. I have no intention of stopping what I'm doing, unless my father commands me to do so." Astrid, and to a lesser extent Dagmar, kept their tongues. I was sure they would talk to Clovis, and I was also very sure of the reply he would give to them. Jón, of course, didn't know what I knew. Jón and Forni marched out after the meal and went back to perform the remainder of the work on the wheel. It was late afternoon when Fálki brought back a wagon. It was loaded with straw for a safer transport. Jón and Fálki rode in the seat, while Forni and Sander rode in the back. I heard Forni talking about the joys of riding a real horse and knew that Jón was amused. The stonecutter had the wheel done and was starting on the next. He would not be doing all this given his reaction to us, unless he considered it a well paying job. Before paying, I used Jón's hands to inspect the wheel. To do this inspection, I had my companions place a stout piece of wood through the centre to support the wheel. Then, I hit the stone solidly with a hammer on the side. It rang true. So, I knew that it was not cracked. Finally, I was virtually forced to explain to everyone why I had done this test and why it worked. When we got back to the stable we found a reception committee had gathered. I asked them to help us with the carrying. Fálki did the final cutting of the wood to make a square. In twenty minutes, we had it all together and even included a few wedges to hold the stone wheel more towards the centre. Sander immediately tried his hand, or rather feet at the wheel and everyone could see his smile. "This is fantastic. I have never heard of a better wheel. What do I have to do to recompense you?" "I need some clay jars as large as you can reasonably make them together with tight fitting lids. I need a great deal of them. We can talk of a price for each and this will be used to pay Fálki for his bronze. You will pay me nothing, but I think Forni should get a copper penny for his help after you have begun to make a living." "Thank you, milord. You have given me a great gift and I will always be in your debt." With all the spectators handy, it was easy to get the completed wheel into the wagon and then into the potter's quarters. While the beaming potter was displaying his newest acquisition, Fálki said, "What are you going to do next?" "The potter has to make the outside of the bell for us. This will go into a special two part box filled with damp sand. The mould will be removed and another small hollow mould will go in the centre where I want the hole to be. The liquid bronze will then be poured into that second mould." Suddenly, I heard alarm bells in my consciousness. I went over the words that Jón had used very carefully. I was amazed at his intelligence once again. He knew roughly what we were going to do, but it seemed that somehow he could see this procedure actually happening. That realisation made my borrowed skin crawl. The next day, I used Jón's hands again and made the external features of the cannon. Everything I did was accomplished with safety in mind. This meant that the cannon was thicker walled than I knew it really had to be. I didn't want Clovis, or anyone else to be hurt, if my weapon exploded. Iron cannons had been made until well after the American Revolution. Many of those cannons had burst, or split for no apparent cause. Usually, it was from defects that could not be found without an x-ray machine. We would use bronze because of its strength, but later it would be steel. If I were going to err, I was going to do it on the side of safety. The pins on the side of the cannon were made thick to take the shock of the explosions. In addition, I made various sized cores to accommodate different calibers. If this cannon proved a great success, those Frisians who inherited my cannon enterprise would want to experiment with a larger bores on future guns. Sander took the clay moulds from us as if they were very precious. He put them beside a fire to dry out before he would bake them. As the moulds dried, I drew up what passed in that time for specs on the large clay jars we needed. I had to tell the other four that the jars were designed to be instrumental in smelting a form of iron that could be hardened better than the best bronze. None of them believed me. By this time, I had spent many hours planning. A few more would not hurt me. Jón took Forni and Fálki to see how the new saddle was coming. As I regained the sense of current time and space, I found the three arguing about what was entirely within the realm of the carpenter. The bootmaker wanted the tree to be easy to stitch leather around. The stable master wanted there to be few to no seams to irritate the back of the horse. The horse collar had been made in our absence and I inspected it. It was not stuffed enough and I mentioned that to the bootmaker. A scowl appeared on his face. I said to placate him, "The leather coming from the collar is as thick as it should be." It was up to me to supply the rings, but we were currently short a wagon and a draft horse to establish exactly where the fittings should go. Andsvarr was probably a product of his time and a hothead. The Germans of this period seemed similar to what they would one day again be; very strong in their beliefs, but not necessarily having the right beliefs. They were hardheaded, but that helped them too, because they were very conservative. It took a long time to get them to accept Christianity, and it would take a long time for them to leave it, once it had been accepted. Here, as in most lands, the population was predominantly farmers, or herders. Their overriding wish was for everyone to just leave them alone. They moved only when the available farm land had been used up. Once on the move, they readily switched from farmers to explorers, ready to find new land to call their own even if it meant displacing others. I had heard that instead of crop rotation, they simply abandoned the land for a season or two while farming other fields. Finally, once the land was used up, the fields were abandoned completely. The Gauls were doing this same in land that the Frisians had taken from others centuries before. The Franks would one day come through to take their turn. Then other peoples would do the same. My grasp of Roman history was mainly focussed on battles, but I had also delved into the reasons for conflict and how they were resolved. The only way to avoid most of this conflict was through education. Farms could be much more productive with fertiliser and hybridised crops that were only available in the future. Machinery could be used to clear more land as the people had a chance to see that a large family was not necessary to amass an economic base with which to live into their old age. A plough that dug deeper into the earth would turn over more minerals. Health care would also have to be improved. A huge part of that would be just using soap to wash frequently and proper sanitation. Andsvarr took the collar from me with anger. Jón and I just looked at him blankly. Jón wanted to comment, but I counselled him to not to say a word. Fálki, of course, was not under any prohibition. He said, "I listened yesterday to the way you spoke. From your actions, I saw what you were like. I heard that you were a competent bootmaker, but you are so full of yourself that you let your pride rule you. I have seen your boots and they are well made. The saddle you are making and the collar are completely new ideas. You have to realise that you are not proficient at making these articles yet, because none of us has seen them the way they have to be to work." "The collar was well made," the man retorted. How can a boy know how to make things that I cannot see?" "I watched a lathe and a potter's wheel made yesterday and actually helped with their construction. They are not new, but they were new to me. Time will tell if they are better than what already existed. You should keep your anger in check and wait until these articles fail, or prove themselves. You will be credited along with the carpenter and the stable master with making a new product. If they are popular, then you will become well known for your craftsmanship." Andsvarr seemed to go to a boil and said, "The boy is too young to know anything worthwhile. I have had intelligent slaves and apprentices that took years to learn even a fraction of my trade. He is both young and knows nothing." Fálki said, "You are nothing but an old fool that is blinded by pride. If Thor came to us with his blazing hammer, you would call him a fraud. If he struck the earth and a fissure opened, you would call him lucky. Only when you lay dying from his blow would you acknowledge him as a god. Jón should have found a younger man with adventure in his heart instead of bile." Andsvarr had a knife and put his hand to it. Fálki did too. Jón said, "I too have a knife and I just killed two Roman assassins. Are knives the way to determine truth? Andsvarr you are too full of pride. Some of it is well deserved, but you let pride cloud your judgment. You are a fool to think that you know everything, especially when you are a bootmaker and not a person who usually makes saddles." "I am not a fool." "Who else but a fool would put his hand on a knife and try to threaten one of my father's trusted veterans? Fálki was not kept around for his pretty face, but for his abilities in taking care of weapons and his knowledge of warfare. Now, use your knife to remove some of the stitching and see how we can fill the collar better." The two men pulled back, but I was now wary of Andsvarr and his anger. To get the conversation onto a different track, I got Jón to say to the carpenter, "We made a lathe yesterday. We can make one much more powerful. If we take a very long and sharp knife, we can peel a wide strip of wood from a log in one continuous sheet. A square of this material could be put down on a flat surface and then covered with glue. Another sheet going at right angles to the first is then laid on top. More glue is added on top of the second piece of wood. This goes back and forth until an odd number of sheets are stacked and glued. A heavy weight is balanced on top of the wood to crush it together and the pile gets placed very near an oven which will be constantly in use providing heat to dry the glue. Within a day or two, we will have a very strong piece of wood that will not split." Rudi had been wide-eyed at the confrontation, but managed to get out with difficulty, "There is no knife that will stay sharp long enough to cut a log. Besides, there is no way you can turn a log to cut even a small amount of wood from it." I had a hurried conversation with Jón and he said for me, "Andsvarr does not believe me about the saddle and the collar. You seem to be the same way, but hold your own counsel. I have money and can hire a group of men who are not master carpenters to build what I want under my supervision. If you had a change of heart, you could do my carpentry. This is similar to what you are doing now, but many more helpers or apprentices will have to be involved." Jón continued, "I need somebody that believes in me to do what I ask. Later he can tell me that it is not done well, if that is what he thinks." "What do you want built?" "I want many devices built. Some will be large buildings near a water falls or a river. The water will turn a large wooden wheel. The water is so heavy that the wheel will have to be built very strong. This wheel will turn a very large grindstone. There will be no need to do small amounts of grain when you can grind a years supply of flour in a short time. Have you seen, or heard of this?" "I have heard stories of this, but have never seen any such device myself. The one I heard of did grind grain." Using grist stones may not have been the best idea. I knew that large metal rollers were much quicker, but relied on a lot of iron parts that I could not produce as yet. "The ones I will make will have the shaft parallel to the earth, while all the ones you may have heard of were standing up straight. Another wheel will turn a log that will be cut into thin sheets of wood that I mentioned before as being glued. There is a lot of power in the water and this will surely cut the wood that is required. A third wheel will move a giant saw blade made of metal that will cut a log into the lumber necessary. Using my machine, one man in a day can do far more work than two men in a week." "A fourth wheel will work a giant bellows and this will help me produce more iron than you think possible. There are even more special tasks that can be done with the power of moving water. You only have to believe long enough to build one of these mills." "How do you know all this?" This had been an important question all along and I had another rapid conversation with Jón before I was able to control his speech. "When I fell and was then kicked by a horse, I was close to death for a long time. Fidelis Marius and many other priests prayed for me and eventually the old gods decided to send me back to my body. While almost dead, I saw many wonders. Some, I understand better than others. Those that I do understand can help us defeat the Romans, or improve the lot of our people, I will try to make here." Everybody around was staring at Jón and I saw that even Forni was included, though he already knew more than most. Fálki asked, "What did you learn of war?" "Enough that we will never be bothered by invaders again, if we have time to finish my weapons. The potter will help me make jars. The jars will be filled by the smith and out will come a special type of iron called steel. This metal is not soft like iron. It is strong and will hold an edge as well as the finest bronze. It will be so strong, that sword blades can be made smaller. This means that you can move the lighter blade faster than any sword you now have." "That's magic." "No, it isn't. A water wheel is not magic. It is just something you have not seen before. Steel is iron with some added impurities that make it strong. Tin does the same thing to copper to make bronze. Our world is changing. The ways we have worked for centuries will change little by little until we are much like the land of Asgard I once visited." The men had no idea how to reply to this and stared at me dumbfounded. To Andsvarr I said, "I saw two saddles. One is the one you are making. Another is used for riding. Do you care to dispute the visions given to me? Fálki mentioned Thor. Do you think my weapons so worthless?" The man tried to respond, but eventually after a few starts said, "No. I am not sure if you saw true, but I am willing to wait and see." "What do you think of my words, Rudi?" "I too will wait. I think that you have been touched by the gods. What they have chosen to show you is beyond my understanding. If only you give me silver to feed my family, I will do what I can to build your wheels." "Fálki, will you assist me within your oath to my father?" "I do not like this talk of gods and those they talk to, but I will stay until I find if this is good or ill." "That is good enough. Let's check on that old stone cutter and see how far along he is with the wheel. We have something more to make and it is for the smith. It might be good to find a tanner, or a boot maker and find out if we can repair the bellows on our own forge." "We can do that." I looked at Andsvarr and he said weakly, "I will inspect your bellows and give you a price, if you still wish me to assist you." "There is little for you to do here watching the carpenter. Let these two men make this wood frame and fit it to a horse. Your job will come later." "As you wish, milord," he said much more humbly. Fálki, Forni, and Jón walked toward the stone worker. Jón said to me with an urgent tone to his words, "I can remember the land you mentioned. The gods walked through a shining tunnel and sat together in a place with luxurious seats. They were in a metal bird that took them to anyplace they wanted. Why have I forgotten this and now remember it?" Now, it was my turn to be worried. This time with reason. I had access to Jón emotions, but not his thoughts. I was only able to use his speech centre to convey my ideas to others. He was now able to gain access to my memories. "Tell me what else you remember. When we have some time, where we don't have others bothering us, I will tell you more." "More? Not all?" "To tell you all would take many years and even then it would not be complete." The stone cutter was as nasty as usual. He said the next wheel would be done the next day unless he had something more important to do. I knew that he was faking it. His words were uttered in the hopes of extorting a more profitable sale. Jón said my words, "We may need a pair of millstones. They need to be large. Each will be six pedes across and two thick. We want a price on a pair that is six, seven and eight pedes in diameter, too. This is just to find what the cost will be." The man was incredulous. A ped was a foot and eight feet was a monstrous stone to him. Two would be even more work. "Six pedes? That is taller than the tallest man." "I am well aware of that. Deep grooves have to be chiselled in from the centre to the edge. They are to feed the grain towards it would be ground." "A gristmill that size would be impossible to turn. Eight pedes would even be more impossible!" "I asked for an idea of the cost. If you do not want the job, then I will find someone else." "I will think on this. You will have your figures, when you pick up the stone tomorrow. The cost will be high because I will need many men to help me work stones of that size. How are you going to turn it?" "A large wooden wheel in a river will give us more power than we need." "A river... I will give my price tomorrow." Fálki said, "How are you going to build a gristmill? The nearest river is not very big and nearly dries up." Jón on his own said, "We will need lots of stone to build the mill. It has to be near the farmers and to those that will eat the bread. Father and I will talk about this. It also should be close, so we do not have to go too far hauling flour. The Romans and the Gauls will have to be conquered soon." "Conquered soon?" "The saddle, the lance and the new metal for the sword will be only the start. I know much more will come." ------- Chapter 7 Jón had to bide his time. After still another meal with more female intervention and no Clovis in sight, he sent Forni off to take care of the horses and perhaps get Klaes to assist him in exercising the animals. Forni hesitated momentarily seeming unsure about leaving Jon by himself. In answer, Jón smiled at him and gestured to him to go on and leave. "Tell me about my memories." Now was a good time to let Jón know the truth or at least a good portion of it. "You were hurt and your father needed some very powerful magic to heal you. Fidelis, by himself, wasn't powerful enough to bring about a cure. A call was sent out among priests, healers, shamans, and the like. Fidelis then had to wait until there were enough of the right people assembled to assist him. The first detail was to look into how this job could best be done." "I know that much." "Your father made a treaty with King Gunnarr and King Arnaldr. The Romans didn't want this type of cooperation. The Romans need to keep all of the Germanic people fighting each other, or the Germans will band together to fight Rome and win." "What else?" "Because of Roman interference, our King couldn't find any allies to drive out the Romans and the Gauls. The King and Fidelis eventually thought of using magic to find somebody that could help them and to heal you. They wanted an individual who could lead the Frisians to victory over Rome and its allies. Your father had a long list of qualifications he wanted this person to be able to do and so did Fidelis. Are you with me so far?" "I understand that they must have been looking for a hero." "I would not use the word hero. A hero has done something noble and risked his life to do it." "Are you the person they found with their magic?" Jón was on edge now awaiting my answer. I replied as casually as possible, "I may be. The other me may be still alive in the future. Or, perhaps I will never get to be born, since I have already changed a portion of my history." The boy had not become more frightened at my revelation and the question he next asked was reassuring. I had to assume it had to do with his age. He asked, "What have you changed?" "I told Fidelis something that he could use to gain favour with the next Roman Augustus." "How could you do that?" "I was always interested in warfare and often studied Rome as a great military power. To me it was an ancient subject. People of my time were interested in warfare and could still learn much from Rome. I followed the historical accounts of their major battles and picked up a bit of their culture. A few facts have stuck in my mind that I may be able to use one day. Some of that information include when important Emperors died, or came to power; also, the times of large wars or battles. This is what I knew in this case that could help us." Jón was thinking on what I had said and I added, "The history that I learned included the Romans of this time seeing the benefits of cavalry more and changing their tactics accordingly. Fidelis' magic has made me a Frisian. As such, I want Clovis' army to be better prepared and better trained than our enemies in order to deal with what I know will come to pass." Jón said, "I understand what you are trying to do. In my... our mind, I saw something a man held to his shoulder and smoke came out. A man far away fell down and died almost instantly." Jón like all boys must love weapons. "That was a rifle. A bit of powder burns more quickly than the eye could follow inside the long tube producing a puff of very hot smoke. That smoke pushes out a small amount of metal-like an arrowpoint without a shaft. The metal goes very far and fast. It will go through an armoured man. "What I wanted to give your father was a very old type of weapon that works much the same way. It has to be made much larger than the rifle because the objects it propels are far larger than arrow points. So, the larger weapon, which is called a cannon. It's mounted on a carriage between two large wheels. A metal ball or another shape can come out of the much enlarged metal tube that will knock down a solid stone wall. Chain or smaller pieces of metal can fly out and each piece may kill a man, or even more, if it goes in one man and out again. "Something else I can make will land among men and burn so quickly, it will make a noise like thunder just before bursting outward violently into many jagged bits of metal. The men close by will be thrown around like toys. Most of those in the vicinity will be killed." "That is a fearsome weapon. Why can't you just use your swords instead?" I assumed he was talking about the present danger and replied, "The idea is to make Rome stop warring with us. After they are beaten this time, they will retreat, but will come back later with many more men. Rome always did that when there were initial battlefield reverses. Only when we have killed those new larger forces sent at us, will the Romans accept that they cannot come onto Frisian land without a severe punishment. To take care of the Romans the next time they come, even better swords will not help enough because the Romans will bring many legions. We will have to make terrible new weapons for war in order to win despite their larger numbers and teach them the lesson required. They will learn to not try to push their empire this way again at our expense." "You talked of the future. Did they do that? "Did they conquer this area?" "Yes." "No, they never did. You see, Rome is not our worst enemy. It was other peoples approaching from the east who conquered this land many times. We need to push Rome away permanently and turn to the east to head off those others who would overwhelm our defences and then go on to conquer both the Frisians and th Romans. "The worst current problem is that there are too many hard-headed Germanic people to make this kind of stand now against any foe. Germans don't understand how to engage in battle as a disciplined unit. The Romans have the same problem to a much lesser extent. Most of their army even now is not Roman at all. The legions are Roman, of course. But, the supporting auxiliaries are much more numerous and mostly like your people. Your own father was one of those auxiliaries in his youth and that is why he and your people are not already dead, or slaves. Clovis took his military training to heart and absorbed all that Rome had to offer. Due to that training he knows how to mount a tremendous defence... if only he could count on his warriors and allies to follow his orders exactly." "Do you know of me from your future?" "There very little information about individuals that survived from this time. Your name was common, but I never heard of you. The name Clovis was famous, but it was not your father. The man I know of was a Frank and would not be born for a hundred more years." "So, we are almost forgotten?" "Jón, that was my history that I learned before I was brought here. The changes have already begun. In the new history that has begun to unfold, Frisia will be at least as famous as Rome. Now, those who follow will see stone statues made of you and your father in your honour. People for many thousands of years will know all about you." "Why?" "I am here to help you bring about even more change. We will make terrible weapons that kill many Romans and Gauls. History as I know it, will change. Rome and Gaul will give way to Frisia. "How will all that come about?" "Let's say that you make something new and pay a man to build more of them. Our other ideas mean that more men build some of our inventions. The men pay the money back to you to get those materials he wants." "I don't understand." "One man makes a lot of beer in our brewery. I pay that man for his labour. He is not my slave, but is my paid worker. I know of ways to make good beer and do it cheaply. Another man bakes bread in our bakery. This bakery is large and has machines to do the hard work of mixing for him. He is paid just to bake bread all day long. A third man cooks for us in a large kitchen with a much better way of doing his work. He is paid to do nothing but cook all day. A fourth man is a soldier. He has such great weapons that he can kill very easily. He is paid to defend all of us. "There is only a need for a few of these men in each job. We don't need hundreds of bakers, or brewers, or even that everyone be a warrior. We pay each man and he needs to drink his beer and eat food to live. Their money they pay for our beer and food comes back to us and we hire more men with that money to do other things we require. All it takes is to make it possible for the men we employ to do more useful work than they do now and to do that they need machines which I will invent." "So your machines make us rich?" "Yes, they do. Much of our wealth will repose in those machines. They also furnish jobs for the people as they make and operate those machines for us." "Tell me about this strange bird that flies." Jón was jumping all over the map in his attempts to understand about our future. I said, "I have very good hearing. Forni is outside and wants in. He knows about me and was told by Fidelis in front of your father that he had to keep the secret. Suppose that we bring him in? I will use your mouth to speak and I get to tell you both at one time so as not to repeat myself." "Ok." I took control of Jón's voice and got Forni settled down. I gave him a synopsis of what Jon had found out and my accompanying explanation before going onto the topic of aircraft. I brushed the topic and went right to small aeroplanes like the Cessna or Beechcraft. Canada had contributed half of the tuition money at one time for its citizens to learn how to fly. I had taken advantage of this and spent the next few hours talking about this flying in general from the Wright brothers until the time I had been pulled to this time. At the end of my lecture, I got the boys ready for bed. They were like my sons in a way, but not quite. Jón's body ensured that I had a large supply of testosterone. I was usually able to submerge myself until it was over, but I knew that I would not always be so lucky, or so inclined. Jón said with a yawn, "Where do you go when I am asleep?" Using his voice, I said, "You do the sleeping for both of us. I get to think all night. In a way I would like to sleep too, even if it would only be to have a change." "Was it because you were awake that we got the two Romans?" "That's true, yes. My hearing is better than yours, as well as all of your other senses. If I work through your brain, it is the same as what you get if you concentrate hard on something. When I connect directly to your ears I can hear what is said far away, but then it is hard to separate all the voices out." Forni was very hesitant, but asked, "What about when... when Jón and I have fun." "When Jón has fun, I will too. It is nice for me to have a change, but usually I hide and make myself not hear or see anything. It is as if I hide in a dark cave. Once in a while, I come out and see if you two are done. Other times, I stay hidden away because it is nice to see you two enjoying yourselves." "Can we still do this?" "Forni, Sweetie, hasn't it occurred to you that I love both of you?" Forni smiled and I felt Jón doing the same thing. "Making love to each other is a good thing. Nobody is getting hurt. Have your fun and be very good friends. There are just the three of us in two bodies and we have to take on the entire world soon. Enjoy yourselves while you can." "Ok," he said in a happy voice. Jón was horny now and I said privately to him. "It is your body now. Kiss Forni for me and make him happy." He was not averse to this at all. I pulled back, but only after the boys began to get very involved with each other. The love was not what I had thought of before, but it didn't seem wrong from my current position as spectator. It was not a mature love. Yet, it was something more than just sex. I went back to my planning as an excuse to tune out of the physical. Concentration was much easier when I was not distracted. This ability made me wonder just how attached I was to Jón's body. I had not had too many problems when my sexual drive was reduced in my original body by advancing age, but now it was hit or miss and I usually chose to miss. It was like a drug I was afraid would be addictive. Drifting away slowly, it was my turn to have wandering thoughts. My immediate focus went to the river nearby. It was not fast moving because it had very little declination in its path at this point. It happened to be wide and not very deep. The land around was flat which was good for farming, but not suitable for making a holding dam to create a reservoir. The river was known to flood on occasion and also get very low in some years. The neighbouring rivers drained into what would one day be the Weser. That large river and the Elbe drained this area. Dams could control the flooding and provide water for the dry seasons. It would give me power to build what I needed built. Others had come to similar conclusions. I had seen dams on the rivers in question in modern times, but I could not remember exactly where. Locks too had been used and these were sometimes in conjunction with the Mittelland Canal system. This east-west system was used a great deal because it was much more efficient than trucks for bulk cargos. Rome lived by trade and the taxes it collected from subject territories. If it weren't for Egyptian grain, then there was a good chance that the common mob in Rome would starve. Attacking Rome through its stomach was one of my plans, but it would only hurt the poor. Nevertheless, we would do what we had to do to bring pressure on the Roman Senate even if indirectly through rioting mobs of hungry plebeians. Iron ore, coal, and limestone were readily available locally in Germany. Yet, poor transportation to move those vital raw materials through the thick woods on muddy tracks would quickly stunt my building effort. Steel mills in the 1800s were situated along fast flowing rivers for this very reason. The waterways provided for transportation of raw materials and finished products. The power of the rivers was also used to drive the massive bellows that forced air into the blast furnaces and turned the very wheels of industry. Coal had to be converted to coke and this took some energy to start, but ultimately became a source of multiplied energy. Only the white hot heat of coke could melt iron and make steel. The requisite equipment required pumps for water to cool vital parts and for many other purposes. Hydraulic power would serve to drive those pumps. Once a coke furnace got hot, it had to be continuously fed fuel to burn, or it would suffer from the resulting temperature changes. Lighting had to be supplied because this was not a job that could be turned off at night. I planned on using natural gas taken from the coal fields supplemented by coke gas emanating from the coke ovens piped into lamps to provide that light. Such were the facts of industrial expansion. All facets were ultimately interdependent. The requirements of the system also meant that a large well-trained workforce was necessary. I had been a chemist and an engineer and not a metallurgist. Unfortunately, I was all that was available and I had to consider Jón's reaction to boot. He might not want to go along with the program and he might fight me all the way if my demands were seen as excessive. Everyone had to undergo some training and most had to put up with partially educated teachers. The German warriors of this time were quite hedonistic. Much of the time, the men sat and talked as they drank. All the tribes spoke nearly the same language. This was written in the runes of Elder Futhark, the little that got written down, that is. This effective lack of written word might have been due to the sheer inconvenience to write runes. That fact begged for alteration to a more convenient format. The Latin script was the best alternate choice. My German vocabulary was not great, though I could spell most words in Latin script. The Germannic language was simple to lay down with a Roman alphabet in that what was said could easily be written or printed. My German was High German and not exactly what was spoken here and now. Books may not be as needed now when so few could read but as time went on, people would have to write down what they had learned. I could point people in the right direction but they would be the ones that had to pursue my goals. They would learn from their own experiments and notes were the way to record their findings. The metric system had to be adopted. The major reason was that all the constants I knew were in the metric system. It was a well layed out structure. And for information to go from one person to another they had to not only speak the same language but to have the same system of weights and measures. The Roman standards were a second best because of their wide spread used. The problem was that not everybody used them. At first light, I awoke both boys. They got up slowly and were very groggy. It was their own fault for not stopping their activities soon enough to get sufficient sleep. They groused a bit and I used Jón's voice to say, "This is Vic. Life, I am told, is not fair. There is little we can do about it. Sleepy or not, we have to see that everything gets made and convince the rest to pay for it. A smith has to make our tools and that means another lathe must be built. Get up and get moving! We have much to do and little time in which to do it." With clean clothing on both boys, we left to eat. This time we ate in the kitchen and chatted with the staff. I only made a few interspersed verbal comments since Jón had to do the eating. Before we left, we had some leather bags packed with food by the staff. I reasoned that eating our mid-day meal wherever we found ourselves would save precious time and needless aggravation on my part by not being here. "Jón, I would like to talk more today with both of you boys. You can look at this as a tutor talking. What I say will have to be learned by you and Forni, too." "Can I talk in between?" "Yes, just as we have before where no one hears us speak. You do a good job of conveying my ideas, but it is faster when I do it directly." "You can talk if you want." "Thanks, Jón." Fálki was up already tending to his own gear. The men in the barracks greeted us with some obvious friendship even though the two boys were young. "What are we up to today?" Fálki said. I said, "We have to build another lathe, so that it can clean out the inside of a metal cylinder. In order to do that, we need more advanced help from both of you. That will make the new model lathe construction move forward smoothly." "What was wrong with the way we did it before?" "That was for wood alone, or wood and bronze. I need strength for my current planned project and that means iron and bronze rather than mere wood. We have to hold onto an iron bar in the lathe and turn it. That is not much different than what we have done already-though a bronze bushing has to just fit on over this smoothed area. Notice that the stone wheel will spin with the iron being horizontal this time." "How is it going to turn?" "I will show you in the dirt outside." We stepped out into the damp air and I took possession of the body and drew the diagram. When I stood up I said, "It is just a modification of what we did before. This same arrangement allows a large piece of wood to be turned from an iron plate, or a wood board. The block of wood can be turned into a large bowl just like what the potter does." "That may be fun to do." "Then let's set it up." We put the other log in. With a bit of whittling and the sawing of the ends, it too was turned down. I knew where bearings had to be and designed these large. This way small mistakes were less serious. Jón was talking and I got him to say for me, "We need to make more bearings and that means we need to see the potter again." We measured the circumference with a string and put knots in the right places. Sander was happy to see us. He was proud that he had a lot of very large green-clay work already done. It was as if he had saved himself until his table came back to him. "This table is the best I have ever seen. I'm very proud to own it. I want to thank you again for what you have done. What may I do for you today?" Fálki said, "It looks like you are already working on it. Are these the clay pots that were requested?" "Yes, they are. Would you like to see them closer?" We had to inspect them and the man was proud of his work. The lids were not made yet, but would be fired just like the jars. Jón allowed me the use of his voice and I said, "These jars are well made for our purpose. They are thick enough to be strong and big enough to hold lots of iron." "You are going to make your special iron with these jars?" "Yes, I see no problem other than finding enough people to tend the fire. It has to be both hot and last a long time. The steel made in these jars will be much harder than iron." "Do you need something else, milord?" "We need two bushings and I need to do two more that will be similar." I showed him the string and said, "This distance is a bit smaller than the wood we have now." Using my fingers I said, "They have to be this long and with a flange just like the other bushings. The material is this thick. Two will go into our new lathe and the other two will be used to let the grindstone turn." "The clay part in the middle will be hollow as it was before?" "Yes, it will." Fálki got the horse and cart again and we went to see the stone cutter Kareltje. He was working on another project and when we arrived he said, "Your work was done long ago. I am a man of my word." Jón said, "You certainly are, Kareltje." He walked closer to the wheel and saw that the internal sides were very square. The outer circumference was not as uniform, but we would soon fix that. Jón continued, "Your work is worthy of your reputation. It is exactly as I asked. Thank you for the fine workmanship. Now, tell me about the cost of a six pedes sized pair of mill stones?" "I have done a lot of thought on this. I will need three men to assist me to cut the stone and a woman to prepare the meals. Another man to hunt local game is better than carrying food over a distance. The cutting of the blocks will take a considerable time and we may have problems getting a good stone without cracks. There will be further trouble in breaking off these large stones. In some cases the stone fractures wrong and we will have to start over again." The mill had to be built so that I could work the bugs out of the other water wheels. That didn't mean that early efforts could be inept. Workmanship standards still had to be good with each mill that I built. I could test other equipment in the mill when it was not grinding grain. This meant that on any given day a mill was also my laboratory. Steel and chemicals had to be made and then both had to be worked on to make the implements that I needed. With a bit more thought, I had to increase the size of the building, so that others could safely gather around to learn. I spoke now, "I am thinking of building the mill enclosure. I need an idea to how much certain required items will cost. You can give me your ideas and this will help me decide to go ahead with this, or not. The first mill I want to construct requires a stone base and a long stretch of wall. This means that you have to cut stone for the wall and floor, too." I pointed to two places on the wall guarding the city and said, "How long to cut all those blocks we see in the wall, but just the ones we can see from here." The man looked at the wall before us and I could see him using his fingers to count. "We can make perhaps six blocks like those each day, but they will not be dressed." We learned a lot about the time to cut stone and the price in those few short minutes. My plans for the mill had initially been modest, but as a school it would have to be much larger. The most efficient water wheel would be supported on both sides and the water would run over the top. This meant a lot of digging and a lot of stonework to guide the water. Rivers flood and the mill had to stand high enough to stay reasonably dry. This meant a stone foundation. One day the wood of the wheel would rot and it would have to be replaced with iron. That day may be up to ten years after the completion if I were lucky. Iron rusted but would still last much longer than wood. "I have another question that concerns cost. Your quarry must be nearby. I would like a large stone chimney made easily accessible from your quarry. It could be made with the flawed stones that crop up as you proceed with the work we already discussed. The inside of that chimney must be lined with clay and then fired. Other people on site at the quarry will then be required to cut wood and throw it into the top of the chimney along with all the small pieces of limestone. If this is built very close to a small hill, it will be easy for them to climb up and then proceed over a walkway to the chimney. A fire will first be set in the base of the chimney. As it burns, more wood and limestone will be thrown in. The fire will never be permitted to burn completely out. Somebody at the bottom will shovel out the warm powdered stone, sift away the wood ash which will be kept dry for other purposes, and put the cooked limestone and the ash into large clay, or wood containers. These containers have to be stored where they will stay dry." "What is all this for?" "I want to make..." I had no current word for lime though there must be one. "Kalk" was a word from a newer form of German. "Kalk". It is used by the Romans to harden their roads." Kareltje said, "I have heard of that. It burns the skin and eyes." "That's right, it does." "Are you going to make roads?" We talked about lime and its uses, but especially what I wanted it for. Kareltje asked, "When can I begin?" "You know roughly what I want for this chimney. I am going to have to visit you after the blocks are put together to supervise how you are to build the chimney the way I want. You will be in overall charge of this under my authority and you are required to feed, protect and shelter everyone with you to include the "kalk" making crew." Kareltje did some thinking and said, "I can do this though it involves many people. We will cut all the stone for your chimney." My requirements were listed again and he said, "Alright." "Is there anything that I must do other than guide you and your people in building this chimney and paying the silver." Before he could answer, I added, "Think carefully now. We are making a contract here today. You get exactly what you say you will need and no more. I cannot be at the construction all the time." "What about silver for food and shelter?" "You will have to utilize hunters and foragers. Hewn caves or tents can provide shelter for you, as well as for the stored ash and kalk. I can pay some silver before you leave for things you need, but I will not pay it all. This has to be part of the amount you ask." "When would you come to show us what you want?" "Five days should be sufficient to give you a start." "Five days is hardly enough. Give me ten." "Ten it is. Now give me a price for your work and the number of people you will need." The man did some thinking and asked for seventeen pieces of silver. He then said, "I think twelve people and a dozen children will be necessary." "What do I get for the silver?" This was said to clarify my requirements. "Just what you asked. You get the chimney and a small bridge for people to throw some things into the fires. Small stones will be collected and wood also for the fire." How much silver do you need to start?" The man now smiled and said, "Three is enough." Jón pulled out three of the larger coins and put them into the man's hand. The man grasped them tightly and Jón put out his hand to shake. Again, it took some time to get this custom understood. As a way of thanking him, we sat there and shared the contents of our leather sacks. Fálki went to a nearby home and came out with some beer. A man stared anxiously at us and I had to assume he was worried about his mugs. The beer was warm, flat and weak, but it was wet. Fálki said, "You are a trusting person to give silver for a job that is not already done." The stonecutter looked angry at his words, but said nothing. "I try to think that most of the people in this town are honourable. A man is measured by what his neighbours think of him. This man would no more rob me than you would do the same thing to our King." Fálki gave me a nasty look. The stonecutter merely sat prouder. Now certainly, he would not sully his name, even if he had to leave for a new town. Fálki drove slowly back to our shop after the meal. "Did you really believe that the stonecutter will prove honest?" "Your words came at the perfect time, Falki. I do not think that he will cheat me, or at least not by leaving with the work undone. He may try later to get more money for new work, but that is done honestly." "Why did you send him on this task?" "I need all sorts of glass. Since you are so helpful, I will let you work some glass for fun. If we made an iron mould we could make bottles, but that takes a lot of skill." Glass was the main reason I wanted to make calcium oxide. The glass was not only something that could be sold for a lot of profit but a necessary part of my apparatus to start my chemical industry. Our long conversation saw us return to the smith's shop. This time we used some thick wood to slide the new stone off the cart. I didn't want it broken now. Fálki left and in a few minutes returned with four clay moulds and a rest of his stash of brass. Yngvi the master smith was not impressed with what Falki had obtained and said, "Why should I want to buy these two castings when I have no need for them?" This was something he had never considered and Jón had to go through a long explanation of precisely why a grinding wheel would be useful to a metal smith. Yngvi said, "What if I do not want your stone?" "Give me a price on the iron I wanted." "Six asses." "Six for that much iron!" "It is my best iron." "Four asses, or you will pay us double the increase when you are offered my machine." The man scowled then said, "Four then. What about the melting of the brass?" "You are getting half of it at cost. Charge for your cost only." The man didn't like this type of bargaining because he was usually in a superior position. He yelled at his apprentices and got the metal heated while he worked on some of his other projects. Fálki hurried us out of the noisy and dirty environment and led us to a hut just down the street. We sat down at a table and looked at four ceramic mugs chained to the table itself. I guess this would prevent theft. Fálki said, as beer was poured into our mugs, "I have been listening to you for a few days now." When the man serving us left, Fálki added, "You sound like two people even though the voice is similar." Jón said, "I have been having some trouble after I woke up. I am not back to the way I was and sometimes I feel differently. You are not acting the same either. You would not bother to talk to me before the horse threw me, but then again I was just a child. I am growing up now and think oddly." "Think oddly? How?" Jón looked at the table and said in a low voice, "I am starting to become a man. Strange things are happening to me that happened to my brothers." "Oh, that happened to me too and it drove my father crazy." Jón hurriedly drank some beer and so did Forni, so they would not be questioned at least while drinking. When we had finished, we walked back to the smith's and found him pouring the four moulds and cursing the apprentice assisting him for not being accurate with the pour. There was enough metal melted that the fabrication error did not end up presenting a problem. That was good. Luck beats skill every time. When the moulds had cooled enough, they were put by the door to cool in the breeze. The master smith took out his iron bar and looked down the length. It was fairly straight but far from round. It was heaver than we needed. Some outer skin would have to get cut down for the bearings to run on. I pointed out the areas that had to be more round and the smith grunted. The bends should be simple as long as he didn't strike the round areas. After the crank was a square area that would be used to drive the stone. The final area would be straight and in line with the first portion of the rod. This was dependent on the two sides of the crank being of the same length. My comments seem to make him anxious and we were kicked out of his shop and told to come back when it was done, but no time frame was given. We splashed water on our metal and on the remaining metal that had been poured out of the crucible. There was very little left of Fálki's hoard. Forni said, "Will he do a good job?" Jón surprisingly said, "He is a smith and will do the best he can. To do less would mean that others could talk against him." Fálki said, "The other smiths will hear and this would hurt the master smith the most. He repairs many of our weapons because he is the best the town has to offer." When we got to our shop, I took Jón's hands and an iron knife then cleaned up the inside of the bushings. Two of the bushings had to be done very well as they were the ones that would be important for the accuracy of our new lathe. Fálki took over with his own knife and worked much quicker and with more accuracy it seemed. They were put on the wood lathe just as the others were done yesterday and the faces and the exterior cleaned up as accurately as possible. The same thing was done for the other two bearings. Forni was quite tired since he had an extended time propelling the process. Next, we disassembled the wood lathe leaving the iron pegs in place because we had to work on the iron crank when the time came. Two uprights that were less than a metre apart were selected and we dug a hole in the ground for both of them to hold our bushings. They were snug and Forni ran to get some butter to help them slip. Our wood shaft went into a bearing and this went into the pole on my left. The shoulder on it and on the wood made sure that the wood would not go further into the pole. The other vertical pole just supported a bearing. Forni came running back with a partial bowl of butter and we pulled the horizontal shaft out to lubricate it. Before the shaft was put back the leather belt was put on then on the wheel. We separated them far enough so that the belt was reasonably tight. Fálki asked, "What now?" "See the shaft sticking out of the pole about a ped?" "Yes." "We dig a hole in a block of wood and stick it onto the shaft. When the block spins around you will cut a beautiful hole in the other end. When it is nice and deep we take the block off and turn it around and put it on." "What will that do?" "We will have a nice hole that will be tight and stay tight for a while." This was the headstock that would hold the parts we wanted to cut internally. All we had to do was put them in the recess and wedge them into place. The lathe would have to be altered because we would not be turning the work between centres this time. "What do we do then?" "You clean up the outside of the block the same way we did before, then make a larger hole in the middle. We fit a bushing into it and then clean out the middle of the bushing much better than we did before." "And?" "When the bushings are done, we move the wheel to the other position and machine the crank when it comes. It was getting late and time to eat, but we stayed at the job. Forni got a chance to work on one of the bushings after Fálki got the right sized hole. It was actually too large and we had to shim it up on three sides to make it tight. Fálki hurried to get the bar, but had instructions that the smith was to use his tools to make a dimple in both ends, so it could spin much like the wood had been. Forni had another chance to work, but Jón's body was not up to the exercise. When I had possession of it, I stretched and did small movements and soon Jón did the same thing when his turn came. Fálki hurried back to us and I inspected the shaft. It was very straight except for the three ninety degree turns close to one end. Fálki used his weight to make a small bend to make it just a bit closer to true. My eye was better than what Jón or Fálki could see. The last bearing was completed and we moved the wheel to the old position. The iron pins didn't need to be adjusted because the tailstock was in a hole in the floor and the other end supported by hand, thus it was infinitely adjustable. There were few tools to work cold iron and I had to resort to stone. We tried a few until one was found that was hard enough to do some work. The shaft was not round so our stone followed the contours. We had to use another pole to keep the tool away from the metal until a high spot came around on each revolution. We worked at one end and pulled the work out to test the fit until I was satisfied then we went to the other end and started again. Before we started the second operation, Fálki was amazed how the bearing fit. Forni had to get more butter and we waited to catch our breaths. When the butter was applied and the shaft spun, Fálki was very impressed how smoothly it rode on the iron. "This is amazing. Why has nobody thought of this before?" Though it was a rhetorical question, Jón said, "This is just the start. Wait until we get to the real work. One day you will be riding in a metal craft that will fly far above the clouds. A trip of many months can be done in an hour. The Alps are no problem for we will fly high above the highest mountain." Forni and Fálki were looking at him strangely. The two were quieter as the second area was brought to size and the area to the end of the bar made smooth and smaller yet. It was getting dark when we finished and Fálki took the iron shaft and even the wood one with the bushings with him to the barracks. Part of this was to keep them safe, but I knew part was to show off his work. Forni brought back a small clay bowl to the kitchen and we met Helga. "So that is where the bowl went. What were you taking?" Forni stuttered a bit and said, "Nothing ma'am. I took some butter to make some things slippery." "Slippery? Like in your bum?" Forni turned red and stuttered again, "No ma'am. We were making something out of iron and bronze for the smith." She looked at Jón and he said, "That is the truth. We are trying to make all of us safe." "What were you doing?" "A much quicker way of sharpening swords to start and in a while we will make much better iron that will not bend in battle." "You're just a boy." "I am a boy with ideas. Judge me after you see what I can do, not before." In a change of subject he asked, "Has my father returned?" "Not yet. We hear he's in a battle, but it is only a rumour." "Let us hope that Thor protects him and all our people." Helga seemed to stand straighter and the cast of her features made me think that she was asking the same thing. Gudrun, Jón's youngest full sister walked by the doorway and saw us, then left quickly. I said quietly to Jón, "We had better eat quickly if we can. Gudrun just ran off to tell her sister, or mother that we were here." Jón put on his nicest smile and said, "We have been working all day and are starving. Is there something that can be used to fill the holes in us?" "There is mutton and bread. If it is not all gone, there may be some cheese." "That would be great, mistress Helga. May we have some?" The woman smiled, but then remembered her place and got two clay plates and fished some warm mutton out of a pot hanging in the fireplace. Jón started to eat right away and attacked the soft meat with his knife. Forni didn't understand, but did the same thing. We just got finished our cheese when Dagmar swayed into the room with her sister Gudrun completely absent. "Jón, I want to talk to you." Jón didn't know how to deal with women. He asked me, "What does she want?" "I think she wants some fun like you and Forni do." "Ew, that's gross. What am I going to do? I don't know how to do that and women are... they're odd." "Do you want me to take over?" "Will you?" "Sure, but I want you to stay and watch so you can learn. Females are nice too, but you have to train them if they are not the way you want already. Often, that job will take your entire life and still not be done by the time you are an old man." "Show me then." I said, "Greetings, Dagmar. It is nice to see you." "Where were you all day? We looked for you." "I was making something to sharpen swords. Fálki was helping us. Father will be pleased that I was working with him." "Come with me. I want to talk." I was now even more sure of her motives and I said to Forni, "Get some warm water. I have grit in my hair and on my skin and so do you. See if you can find some soap." "That is hard to find." I asked Dagmar, "Do you have some soap that I may have?" "A little. Come and get it." I took our plates and put them on the pile of dirty ones and cleaned off the bones and other waste. Forni's container of butter was there and I knew that I could put the fat to another use. I took the small bowl, but there was no way of hiding it. When I had done this quick task I said, "Thank you, mistress Helga, for your good meal. The hole inside me is a bit less big." She actually smiled this time and said, "You are welcome, milord." She didn't look at my hand, or perhaps she chose not to look at what I carried. We walked up the steps to Dagmar's room. Forni was quickly handed a jar and told, "Hurry and do your master's orders." Forni was a little miffed, but left after saying, "Yes, Mistress." I said, "I intend to take another bath. I need the tub again and some hot water. Will you help me get clean again?" I looked at Dagmar and Jón was inside looking too. He asked, "What does she want and what are you going to do?" To Jón I said, "I think she wants your cock. I can show you how it is done, but there are many lessons to teach." There was an uncustomary pause and he said, "Ok, but do everything." "Everything takes days, not minutes." "Ok, but I want to see what she looks like between her legs." "You will get a good view, I think." Dagmar said, "Are you... ah... the one I talked to before?" "Yes I am, and Jón is now here with me. We are coming to an understanding. I have to teach him and he does the physical work." She paused then said, "Are you teaching him... ? Do you know?" "I know how and I think I can do a fair job, but remember that I am small yet and still suffering from the fall and kick." She said, "I was giving your proposal some thought and want to try. You have to keep quiet though. We cannot let the castle know. Will Jón remain quiet?" "Jón wants to learn and the castle already knows, since you ordered me here straight from Helga's kitchen. It may be best to have a bath in a more public place. The tub is used in the kitchen and the water is heated there too." "You want to make the kitchen part of a common bath house? You sound like a Roman." "Romans ideas are not all bad. They coat themselves with olive oil to get clean. This loosens any remaining dirt and it can be scraped off. They then soak in hot water for the enjoyment of it. That's fine as far as it goes. Soap works much better to get clean." "That is besides the point. You want to take a bath in the kitchen." "No, I want to take a bath. The kitchen would make it sound better to those in the castle. If that isn't a concern for you, we can have the bath here again, or in my room." "Have it in your room, then. I will help, and wash your back." That was good to hear, because I intended that she have a bath, too. I was fair at muff diving in my prime. I had not gotten in any extra practice after committing myself to Nora. She liked my efforts along those lines as they were. Also, having the always willing Nora, I had little reason to stray to learn more of the nuances of oral sex from other women. Under the circumstances, I left the arrangements to Dagmar and she had the tub brought up and the water destined for dirty dishes went into the tub. Dagmar had seen that Forni was in our room. She had used him to convey many of her orders. I found more cloth for towels and even had the linens on the bed changed by maids despite the fact that they were not even caked with dirt yet. I knew they would beat the sheets on the river rocks when soap would do a much better job with less wear and tear on the cloth. Dagmar brought in her comb and brush and kicked the maids out. I wondered where Astrid had gone, but decided not to ask. I suspected that it was her time of the month and that she wouldn't want to play. Dagmar said to Forni, "You can go now." I said, "I want him to stay. He will not say anything and perhaps one day soon we will initiate him too." Dagmar thought for a moment then said, "You can stay. If you talk, I will have someone cut out your tongue." "I won't say anything, Mistress." "See that you don't." I began to remove my clothes and saw that I was not as clean as I had thought. Forni took the clothing and put it neatly in a pile. I had control of the body now and the little pointer indicated that I was interested in what was going on. The water was hot enough that it took a while to sit in the tub. Dagmar helped with my hair first and I used as little of the soap as I could. I had little hair on my adult head when I had my old body and always attributed it to the harsh soaps I had used in my early years, though it was probably my DNA. With my hair soon clean, I saw that Dagmar was still dressed. I said to Forni, "Take off your clothing. You are coming in here for a bath too." "Again? It was just a few days ago I had the last one." "Now! Forni" He did as I insisted and then I turned to Dagmar. "You and your clothing are going to get wet. You should remove them." She looked at me, then at Forni, and began to move much faster in disrobing than Forni. A nude Dagmar returned to her duties and completely ignored Forni. My face and chest were done perfunctorily and she began to clean my genitals with much more enthusiasm and care. I did the areas she skipped and then worked on my legs and feet. I worked fast and then was able to reach over the tub and hold onto portions of Dagmar for stability. She responded much more to me and stopped what she was doing. My other hand soon had her other breast and she moved as close as the tub permitted. I was able to kiss her lips and carried on my seduction. She seemed to be more than responsive. She was in a world of her own now. With my lips still on hers, I stood and got out of the tub. She held me close when I stood up and I used my smaller body to push her legs against the sides of the tub, until I used a hand to put her leg in the water. She came up for air and said, "What are you doing? I thought you wanted..." "I do. Now put your other foot into the tub. I want to wash you too." "Me?" "Lovers wash each other on occasion." "What land is it where they do that? I have not heard of it." "Step into the tub, Dagmar. A wash is not a difficult duty to accept. I am clean now and I would just like to return the favour. You did a great job of cleaning my tool." "What? Wash? Down there?" "Yes." "It is unhealthy to do that. Don't you know anything?" "Consider me new at this, which I am in a way. I want to teach Jón right." "Wash?" "Yes." "I am not dirty." "I didn't say you were. I need to wash. It will be better, if we both do this. Remember that we smell strongly and perfume is not what is good. I believe that cleanliness is much more healthy even if you have heard differently. I will try to make some nice soap, if I can, and I will give you some as a gift." Dagmar said, "I will think on this." "Dagmar, this is important to me and to us. Are you afraid of having me touching you?" "No." "Then get into the tub and sit down. I will wash you like the lady you are." It took a moment, but she did reluctantly stood in the tub then sat. I kissed her for her effort and said, "We are going to have to get a larger tub that is as deep as your waist. It will have lots of hot water and I will try to get the water to move as if we were in a river." "Why?" "Ahhh, you will find out when it is built. Trust me that it will be fun. Now let me wash your hair." "My hair. It doesn't need to get washed." "Are you afraid of water? I will not drown you, or let you come to any harm. I will even plait your hair." "You?" "Trust me." I undid her braids and started to lovingly wash her long light blonde hair. In a matter of moments she was relaxed and moaned sometimes to the gentle massage of her scalp. My hands picked up a small cotton cloth and I began to do her face and ears, but did it so gently that she more or less melted against the sides of the tub. There was no rush and I washed her fingers one by one, then her hand, and eventually her arm. I stayed away from the erogenous areas, but found her ticklish when I cleaned under her arms. She moved as far forward as she could and I did her back as I massaged it. Her groans were much louder and this made me feel good. I lifted her leg out of the tub and I washed it as if it were my first born child. Dagmar watched me intently. Before I put the foot back in the tub I kissed each of her toes. This seemed to please her immensely. She brought her other foot out quickly and I repeated everything including my slow pace. She was ready to get up then, but I hurried around and started to clean her left breast and she settled back in the water. With my other hand, I soon started to do the other breast and I had to get on my knees to do this right. I felt some movement close by and found something wet engulfing me. Forni had decided that I needed some incentive, or he needed some relief himself. His hand was playing with his little dick as he suckled on me. I paused only for a second, but then continued to play with Dagmar's breasts and nipples. One hand stole down her front and I washed her abdomen. My arms were not long enough and I had to move once more. One wet hand went down and caressed Forni's face, then I pulled my hips back and out. In a few seconds I was in a new position on Dagmar's right. From there, I was able to suckle her breast as my right hand moved down to the juncture of her legs with my hand. Forni moved too and soon reattached himself. Forni was making me move too quickly in my excitement. Realising that, I made myself go slow cleaning her hair and then fingering her vagina for a moment. I liked my women freshly cleaned, or cleaned at least within the last few hours. I could well imagine what any woman would smell like who didn't take baths at all. That smell might give dead fish a bad name. My hand came out and I picked up some liquid soap on a finger and put it under the water. In a moment I was massaging her nether ring and she was beginning to squirm even more. When I slipped that finger inside, her arms came around me and held me tight. She seemed to like this treatment much better than her initial reticence indicated. With another finger I reentered her vagina and in a few seconds I had to kiss her because she was getting more and more vocal. She pulled me tight to her with maniacal strength, as she seemed to thrash to the limits of the small tub. When she finally relaxed, I found that I had my own orgasm too. Forni was now in a ball holding his dick and I think he must have had one as well. When Dagmar recovered she said, "That was nice. I can see how cleaning is also done by lovers." I simply kissed her then said, "We both have lots to learn and it will be fun to do so. Do you want to continue? We may be here for hours." "Hours?" "A man can be done in minutes, but a woman takes longer. It is not fair for a man to have his pleasure and leave his lady to only her fingers." She looked at me strangely then asked, "How did you know that?" "You ladies talk among yourselves and so do the men. Some men feel guilty and claim that they are real men and do not need to do anything but produce seed. Those I am sure are the ones that are not called upon a second time." She looked at me, but didn't say anything. I said, "Let me help you up, but don't get out. I missed a beautiful part of you." She got on her hands and knees. It was a tight squeeze and her butt was low. I washed her then bent over and kissed both cheeks. Dagmar was looking curiously at me again, but again stayed silent. When she got up she saw Forni looking very intently at me and the portion that was still erect. Dagmar said, "Is he good?" "That sounds like the words of a jealous woman. It hurts the image I have of you. Forni is a boy. He needs love as much as any of us and he is loyal too. Treat him with the same respect you want me to treat you." She said nothing once again in response, but stepped quietly out of the tub. I used the towels to do her hair and body, then took another towel and wrapped it swami style around her hair. In a moment I got her to sit on a low stool and I got her brush and comb. Before I began I said to Forni, "Get in the tub and clean your hair and work your way down. I want you clean as you can get." It must have been my tone of voice. He said, "Yes, Master." Forni kept his eyes down and got into the tub and began. He must feel like he was now being dropped from his place as friend. I took a lot of care and worked the tangles out of Dagmar's hair a bit at a time. By the time I was at her crown Forni was finishing up. I looked at him and used my fingers and he dutifully turned around. "Sweetie, you missed behind your ears and on the back of your arms." He sat down quickly as I continued with Dagmar. Forni got out of the bath. Then when he caught my eye, he turned around for my inspection. His little pecker had shrunk and I knew that he was feeling bad. "You look very good now. Get the other stool and put it in front of Dagmar. She can comb your hair while I brush her's dry." Dagmar moved and then her head came around as if questioning me. I said nothing and Forni got the stool and sat. Dagmar only said, "Move back more." I handed her the comb and I used the brush on her hair. The hormones in the body I was using were making me horny. In that state I found both people in the room made me feel passionate. Instead of acting on immediate impulse, I just concentrated on the hair in front of me and brushed it many more times than just the customary hundred strokes. The hair was now dry and I passed Dagmar the brush while I retrieved the small ribbons she had in her hair before it was washed. Nora had long hair. She liked me to do this for her, but in reality--it was just a way for us to touch. Instead of the usual ponytail she had I tried to think of something besides her usual braids. I liked it long and loose but this hair got in the way and got dirtier much quicker. "Dagmar, I want you to let your hair hang loose for a while. It looks beautiful to me. We can try something later that will keep it from getting in the way. Perhaps we can plait the ends together." "I like the way my hair was." "And I think you would be even more attractive with your hair falling just behind your back. The plaits were just an idea before I saw the beauty of your tresses." "Show me." "Not yet. I want to see your head on a pillow with your hair spread out like a frame. Very few men would be able to get that sight out of their mind." She said nothing, but I think she would like to see this herself. She did say, "What would I look like?" "Beautiful is one way of saying it." "What about my hair?" I had a small mirror, but it was not much use. "Well, get up you two. I will show you what Forni looks like first." "Forni?" "Dagmar, you have no reason to be jealous and it is not a good trait. Forni is beautiful and you can see the effect I want with you." I got Forni on the bed and got him to lay on the clean pillow. His hair was long too and I doubted if he had ever had a haircut in his life. Dagmar had done her job of brushing very well and I moved Forni's hair as if they radiated from the centre of his head. His face was still worried and this hurt the effect. I was not shy and bent over to kiss him and this made his face shine when I pulled back to inspect. "Well, Dagmar. Do you think Forni is beautiful?" It took a while, but she admitted, "Yes, he's like a girl in some ways. Do you see him like this many times?" "No, not really. I like people that are clean. Jón seems to like them this way too, but is not as choosey. We seem to be getting closer every day. I like what he likes and that includes the boy in front of us. He seems to like you and that is the way I feel." "You like me?" "You are a beautiful woman. I know that you like my touch and respond to it when I caress you. Your hips are wide and your breasts very firm with no sag in them. You are still young and can have many children. I can think of very few men that would not want you for a mate." "What about you?" "My body is the same as yours. Most times there is no problem with children formed from such a union, but some disturbing things can happen. We can have some fun together, but you need to find a strong husband who will treat you the way you deserve." "And what do I deserve?" "Fishing for compliments? You should get a man that will make love to you and make you respond. He has to take his time and make your passion flare and then flare again. He has to respect you and cherish you too. When the children come, he has to cherish them just as much. I think you would work hard to hold the family together and you should get a man who goes along with that sentiment." "You could do that." "I could, but in the end, it's not up to us. Our father will find a mate for you one day and one for me too." Now it was Dagmar's turn to be upset. The spell cast that attracted women was not necessarily a good thing. They would protect me, but perhaps smother me too. I decided it best to break the mood, "Sweetie, get up so we can see what a beautiful women looks like." Forni didn't mind moving and Dagmar didn't seem to mind the comment. She took her place and I moved her hair so it was like rays and then stood back. I got the two stools and put them beside the bed and stood on one. From the higher vantage point I could see better and the image of a woman ready to fuck was in front of me. I must have reacted because Dagmar's view moved from my face to my waist. She had a small smile because she knew that she had done this to me. Forni was easily coaxed up onto the other stool. "Look at her hair. She looks like a beautiful woman who is displaying all her finery to attract her man. Her face and hair would attract anyone. If you look lower, you will see some beautiful breasts that suit her body very well. One day they will swell when her belly does. She will look even better then." I continued, "Looking still lower you will see a bush of light coloured hair that will get fuller with time. Within that thatch you would find her treasure." Forni said, "What treasure?" "A lump of flesh similar to the head on your cock. It is very sensitive and gives her as much pleasure as your cock gives you. Actually she has gone through puberty and she will have more pleasure than you can. When you get older, you will be able to produce seed. Your own orgasm will then grow much stronger than now." "Really?" "Yes, and it is time to find out how much. Now, watch quietly how a young woman responds." Dagmar didn't seem to mind my talking about her this way. Few women ever mind becoming the centre of fawning attention. I got off the stool and got on her right side. I moved her hair away and started by giving small kisses to her face, ear and neck. When her hands came up to hold me I said, "Please try to just stay as you were. I know it is difficult." "Ok," she said uncertainly. I took my time and kissed, nibbled and sucked all her upper chest and face. She was breathing hard and her hands came out to grasp me many times, but then went back to her sides. Her breasts were not big, but did suit her exquisite body. I kissed and ran my tongue all around them avoiding the sensitive nipples. "Suck them!" "Woman, you are my captive. I have you chained to the bed and you cannot move. I am the one that fought your people and took you from your father's home. You cannot think that I would follow your orders." This seemed to inspire her, because she started to shake with her eyes now closed. I continued when she recovered and then moved across her body to her other breast which was treated the same. Her hands came to me quickly and pushed me to her nipple, but I stopped sucking and licking until she released me. I began again when her hands retreated. Her hands came up, but didn't touch. Finally, I took pity on her and quickly sucked a nipple into my mouth as my hand captured her other nipple. Her body went rigid and her stomach contracted so much that her legs came up. I worked her nipples harder now and she just continued her rigid posture until a shaking came over her. He mouth came open wide and she inhaled mightily. I knew a scream would come soon from her strained lips. I abandoned a nipple and put my mouth over hers. The scream came, but I allowed it to flow into me. Just as it ended she collapsed as if she had been struck. When she didn't respond further, I pulled back and looked at her. With a look under her eyelid, I knew that the experience was just too much for her. Forni was very worried and asked, "What happened?" "She had her good feeling and it was so strong that she went to sleep." "Why?" "It is like when a person is hit on the head. The pain is so much that the brain blanks out and the person has a chance to recover before having to wake up and deal with the pain." "Did you hurt her?" "No, it just felt so good that she couldn't handle all of the feelings she had." "Oh." What I planned next would cause another scream and I would not be in a position to stop it. "Forni, when the time comes I want you to get in a special position." "What position?" "Dagmar will scream, and the whole castle will come here to see what's happening. I have to muffle the sound." "You want me to kiss her? She is a girl!" "No, something better for both of you. I want you to get above her chest with your lower legs under her arms. Your cock will be right in front of her mouth. She will suck you." "Suck me? She's a girl. She doesn't know what to do." "She will learn. When she is going to scream you will lean forward and fill her mouth with everything you have." "She's a girl," he said with a pleading voice and sad eyes. "You will do as you are told. I love you and would not do anything wrong." He just looked miserable and looked down then asked, "What if your sister doesn't want me there?" "She will want you, trust me." "But..." "You will do this." I demanded. "It's for you and for her. Again, I am asking you to trust me. I have your best interests at heart." Forni was going to say something else but didn't do so. When Dagmar came around I said in a quiet voice only a short distance from her face, "The man to get you will be very lucky." She smiled, but I doubted if she knew why I said this. I kissed her and her hands came around me to hold me to her. She kissed me back passionately and rubbed her nipples against my skinny and nearly hairless chest. My hand came up and caressed her face as the kiss continued, but soon the hand slid down her body and started to manipulate the nipple that I had recently had in my mouth. Her mouth opened in a gasp and my tongue entered. This was unexpected and her gasp stopped half way. With the tip of my tongue I caressed her lips and then traced her teeth. In a moment I pushed in as far as I could and managed to touch her tongue that was hiding further back. Eventually, she touched my tongue and we started to caress each other. This must have been too much for her and she drew back. "Where did you learn to do that?" In a gruff voice I said, "You forget woman. I am your captor. You will do as I say or I will have you flogged. I lost many men gaining you from your father's castle. I mean to have my way with you. If you are not responsive enough, I will give you to my officers." She didn't know what to say and I guess acting was something she was not too familiar with. "It's an act. I'm a man that raided your father's castle to take you." "Me?" "It's an act Dagmar." "Oh." "I am a few years older than you and not only very strong, but I am handsome. You have to say goodbye to your previous life because you know that I will never give you up." I then moved my head and captured her nipple and sucked it into my mouth like it belonged to me. She gasped at this. I pulled back and said, "I want to inspect the woman I took. Pull up your knees to your chest." "What?" I reached out and slapped her face. In reality it was just a tap. "Open your legs to me, or I will have you tied." She looked oddly, then did as I asked. Her ardour seemed to have lessened considerably. I moved down the bed and moved my face only a few centimetres from her opening. "You are well worth the trouble I took to get you. I may yet keep you for myself." "Ah, thank you, my lord. You are so very kind." I felt good because she was now playing the part I wanted. "Hold your legs firmly. The inspection has only begun." "Yes, my lord." I could feel Jón there looking to see every detail that he could. I used my thumbs to part the outer lips and felt Jón look closer. "That little pink button at the top of the minor lips is her clitoris. It is like the head of your cock. It is very sensitive." Jón seemed content with the knowledge. I moved closer and ran my tongue up the inside one of the outer lips. then did the other, but did them very slowly. Dagmar moved around trying to get more stimulation, but I kept my touch light. Her legs quivered and wanted to close on me. To increase her tension I tongued her a few more times before I moved inward just a bit more. At the apex I just barely touched her sprouting clit and Dagmar shook at the contact. For several more minutes I continued to tease Dagmar unmercifully until I took a large lungful of air and moved forward. I sucked in her clit like a robin pouncing on a worm. Dagmar was not expecting this and sat up. A split second later her hands grabbed my hair frantically and pulled me into position where she would get the greatest stimulation. I worked quickly to give her some of the stimulation she needed, then I just stopped. She must have understood, because her hands reluctantly left my head. I pushed out my tongue and worked it into her opening. Again her hands came back, but stayed lightly. I licked as a kitten did its milk and Dagmar's hands caressed my head. Her gentle mewling bore witness to how much she was enjoying our leisurely lovemaking. ------- Chapter 8 Dagmar started to set a rhythm to her movements and I knew that she would orgasm soon. I released the lips I had been holding and grasped her wrists. With a last furious tongue lashing I pulled away and then sat up. In a moment she gasped out, "Why did you stop? I was almost ready." "I know that, Honey, and you are very loud. I need to muffle your scream." "I'm sorry." "You have nothing to be sorry about. A woman like you is a rare find. Your husband will treasure you always." She smiled at this. "You still need something to keep you quiet so the whole castle doesn't come into my room." "What are you going to do?" "Forni is beautiful and I love him. At the moment he is doing nothing. I want him to climb in front of you. He will not only give you something to do but also a way of keeping you quiet. You have many more screams in you tonight." "You want me to suck him?" She did not like this idea at all. "I am doing the same to you and then a lot more. You would not want to be left out if Forni and I were doing things." "He's a slave and a boy too. I can't..." "Do not make comments you will not be able to keep. Forni is clean and you will suck him. Later he may get a chance to return the favour. It not only ensures his cooperation but you get to make another friend." "I don't need friends. I..." "Don't start that. Everybody needs friends. Forni climb up now." "She doesn't want me there." "Get up there or I will paddle your butt then do the same thing to Dagmar." "But..." "Get!" He climbed on the bed and moved toward a stunned Dagmar. He had to move her arms but he finally sat just over her upper chest. "Move forward Forni." "But..." I got off the bed then and walked to the head of the bed. Both people were looking at me. Dagmar was a far away from Forni as possible and Forni was the same. I pushed his butt closer and said to Dagmar, "Suck now. I want to see you do it. I am going to do the same thing to you if you do this." It took a few moments but she did go forward. She held Forni in her lips and I just glared at her. In a moment she was sucking on Forni. He started to grow even if he was not wanting this to happen. I went to the table and picked up the bowl of butter and climbed onto the bed. In a moment I was back licking Dagmar with a vengeance. It took a while until she started to respond but she did. I shifted my gaze and saw her hands hold Forni in place and I knew she was not going to let go now. I had a sore neck but I got back to work. I was glad that Jón was not bothering me with comments or questions. All too soon Dagmar started on the home stretch and instead of pulling out my hair, she held tight to Forni as if her life depended on it. My finger picked up some butter and caressed her anus. His seemed to make her even more excited and when the shaking came I knew the orgasm was rushing through her system. When she was well into it, I pushed a finger into her rectum. It slid easily because my finger was still small. I moved it back and forth vigorously. Dagmar went ridged. Her legs wrapped around my head with bone crushing force. My finger was just able to move and I continued to saw into her anus. In half a minute she suddenly tightened even more then relaxed. I got into a kneeling position and saw that Dagmar's body was lax. Forni's hips were moving back and forth but were also slowing down. His ass had the imprint of two hands that must have squeezed him very tightly and I knew that he would have bruising there. Jón was anxious to get in command, because his body was flushed with hormones and he wanted relief. I said, "Jón, I know it is difficult but what I have to teach now is doubly important." "I... I need Forni." "Some men where I come from can get almost any lady they want. That is because women talk among themselves and a good man is in demand." "I just need Forni for a few minutes." "That is what I was talking about. I am in your body and feel the same way. You must have been told about being a warrior. Is he going to just act brave and attack the enemy alone and get killed? Is he going to attack with his friends and actually get a chance to do what he wants?" "I need Forni. You don't know what it is like." "Jón, I went through the same thing as you are going through. I was weak then but built up strength. Are you going to be a man the women laugh about because you last only a few seconds?" "Let me try this your way tomorrow." "Wait and I will get ready and you can take over." He said nothing and I got off the bed. Though I was weak I managed to pulled Forni off of Dagmar and allow him to stand on the floor while holding the bed. It looked like he had a hickey and he was almost as out of it as she was. I hope he had a good time. Jón wanted to dive on him and add to the hickey but I climbed back on the bed instead. "What are you doing?" "Something you will remember for the rest of your life." "What?" "Watch." I moved forward and lay atop Dagmar and Jón got the idea. He was fighting me for control and I was giving Dagmar time enough to recover. I kissed her face hoping this would speed things up. When her eyes fluttered she looked at me. I said, "You went for another nap Honey." "What did you do to me?" "I made love to you. Would you like to do some more?" "Mmmm yes. What do you want me to do?" "Jón is very excited now and needs his own orgasm. He is going to be too quick for you but he can go a few times. May he have a chance?" "Ok," she said with a smile. "Jón is still young and not up to the size of a man yet. Bring your legs up again and hold them. This way he gets the most penetration. You may get to feel more of him too." She did as I asked and in a moment I moved my body to slowly slid into Dagmar. I wanted to make sure she was ready. An impetuous Jón would hurt her and himself if not watched. When well seated, I said, "You are a beautiful woman. Your hair is again all over the pillow and this is even more a beautiful sight." Out loud I said, "Jón, are you ready? Be nice because she is a woman that loves you." To me he said, "Yes, hurry!" I pulled back quickly and Jón took over. I didn't pull back all the way though. He got a dozen strokes and then missed and had to put himself back in with his left hand. He was like a jack rabbit. Dagmar said, "It is ok Jón. I am not going away. I do love you." Jón slowed down but then sped up again because he was after his orgasm and that was it. Jón started to grunt and Dagmar either enjoyed this a lot or pretended to and added some grunts of her own. In just a few more seconds Jón sped up even more and grunted more forcefully as he pushed even harder into Dagmar. When he finally stopped, Dagmar put her legs down and held Jón tenderly. When he recovered enough she pulled his lips to her and kissed him tenderly. "That was nice." I could feel a bit of shame now from him but he was still horny. He had not gone down though. I said to Jón, "Let me have your voice." I knew he wanted his body for the next while. "Honey, Jón let me use his voice. Now that he has the edge removed I would like to try something else. He is tired and not over the effects of his accident." "What do you want to do?" "Remove the pillow under your head and then tuck your hair in close to your body. I want Jón to kneel with is knees beside your ears and I do not want to pull your beautiful hair and hurt you." She smiled now but I continued for Jón's benefit. "I would like Jón to lay down on top of you and he can try to make you happy with his mouth as you make him happy with your's." "That sounds like fun." She moved quickly and threw the pillow onto the floor and slid down the bed a bit. Jón was more than anxious to get into the suggested position. I could feel where Jón was and suggested how he should move. When he bent over Dagmar he felt her lick his wet cock and this helped. He moved forward and was presented with a lot of hair. I thought this may be a problem but he evidently had been with me before. With an arm over her leg and another supporting him he attacked the clit before him. He didn't like the smell but he loved the attention he was getting so he continued. Soon the smell disappeared and he sucked on Dagmar with the same intensity he sucked on Forni. Jón had his orgasm first and I said to him, "You have to continue. You will get that feeling again and Dagmar has to get hers." He continued but asked, "Why?" "A man and a soldier learns to do what is necessary. Do this for Dagmar and she will want to do this again for you. Leave her wanting more and she will remember this." "I have Forni." "You will have one boy but at some time you will have to take on women. They will all know that you do not measure up. Make Dagmar happy and she will make sure the women know that you are a responsible man and not a selfish one." He continued as if it was a task but soon the feelings came back and he didn't have to force himself. "Give me your left hand Jón." He just did as I asked and I reached out then back to use the butter covered finger to caress the opening of Dagmar's anus. She liked this a lot and I was able to gain entrance. Dagmar moved in appreciation and picked her knees up to give more room. Soon she was twisting to get more in and Jón liked this because she was sucking much more vigorously. Dagmar became adventurous and brought her hand up to caress Jón's opening. Now this he really liked. Jón sucked harder and I worked my finger quicker until Dagmar started her orgasm. Jón understood what was happening because I was coaching him with a monologue. My words and emphasis allowed him to have his own orgasm just as Dagmar pushed her finger into him. This was a bit painful but Jón saw it differently and pushed back for more. Dagmar didn't blank out this time but she did give a scream which vibrated around Jón's member to make him climb even higher. Jón just collapsed but I used my finger to keep Dagmar at her high level for as long as possible. When the time came I slowed down but kept my finger in place. Dagmar had stopped her sucking during her orgasm though it had been frantic just before. She started up slowly but Jón was out of it for a while. "Jón, give me control of your body." He was too tired to resist and I moved the arms so I could sit up. Dagmar released her prey and I sat on my haunches looking down at her inverted image. "Jón did a good job I think." "He sure did. I would be happy to spend the rest of my life with him in bed beside me." I think she was saying this for Jón's ears but part of it must have been true. "Wait until he gets big and shoots baby juice. He will make the women drool when he passes. He is controlling himself now and will last long enough to make his lady happy." "My husband loved me but he wasn't that way. He pushed in and was done quickly." I said, "He may have not waited for you to get excited and hurt you." She didn't say anything, so I figured that this was true. "Jón will not be this way. A woman should always be stimulated to become ready." "What about that butter you used?" "It might be good for your bum but not your vagina." "You can have my bum now. I like your finger in there." "Jón's body is weak. He has had enough for tonight." I looked at Forni staring at us and said, "Forni could try some things but he has to grow a bit first." Dagmar said, "He is a pretty boy and I see why you love him. If he were my slave I would suck on him all the time if he would do the same for me." Forni smiled at this. I said, "One day soon I want to see if Forni would like Jón to take his bum. I know Jón would love it and probably Forni too if Jón will go slow." "I would like to see that. Can I watch?" "Jón and Forni have to agree." Dagmar turned her head and said, "Sweetie, do you mind if I watch Jón and you?" "You can watch but I don't know if Jón wants to do that." Jón said to me, "I really liked it and I hear boys love it even more. I don't know why." This time I spoke out loud, "There is a gland inside the," there was no word that I knew and said, "further inside the anus. When it gets pushed by a cock it does some amazing things to the boy or man. The women do not have this gland and it is rare to find a woman that really likes this. That is another reason why the man to make love to Dagmar will be lucky beyond belief." Dagmar smiled and I said, "You better get up so I can get off the bed." Dagmar got up slowly and then stood. She turned around and hugged me and then gave me a kiss. "That is for you and for Jón. I don't understand this about two Jóns in his head but I love them both." "I am sure that the two of us and Forni love you too. Now will you help me to the floor, Honey." She did as I asked and said, "Why do you call me Honey and Forni Sweetie?" "It is a cultural thing. There are many names that can be used for those you love. I mean to be like everyday language but to also say that I want to be close to you. Honey will be your name and mean that I love you. Sweetie is for Forni and means the same thing." Dagmar turned to Forni and saw that he was aroused again. "I think he is sweet myself. He is also ready. Come here, Sweetie." Forni came close and Dagmar bent over and kissed him. He was still a boy and smaller than her. She hugged him then picked him up. In a second she had him sitting on the edge of the bed. When she pulled back she said, "Lay on your back, Sweetie. I have something for just you." Forni was not sure what this was but did as he was told. Dagmar got on her knees and engulfed Forni tiny member and his hands grasped the sheet under him strongly. It only took a while and Forni started to squirm then thrash around but he never took Dagmar's head in his hands. Dagmar pulled off and looked at her handy work and admired the small missile still ready for action. "You are one special boy. Does it ever go down?" I said, "It takes a lot. A loving woman may wear a belt with a wood cock attached to it. She can then be like a man and take not only a boy if it is small but a woman." Dagmar stared at me and said, "I don't know if I would want that or not." "What if Astrid had one?" Dagmar was shocked and after a lot of thought said, "That may be different." We used the cold bathwater to clean my hands but I knew the finger had been all over the bed in our activities. Before Dagmar left, I used a thong to tie back Dagmar's hair so it would be out of the way but still cascade down her back and chest. She just smiled and I didn't know if she would wear it this way or not. The next morning came too early for both Jón and Forni. I got them up and asked them, "What did you think of last night?" Jón said, "It was a lot more work but it was fun." "Would you do it again?" "Sure. Dagmar is a lot more fun now. She used to be bossy." "That is the way older sisters are. They try to be like their mothers and really have their brothers and sisters best interests at heart." I asked Forni, "What did you think?" "I guess girls are not so bad. She hurt my bum and she sucked so hard. I am all red." "Did you like it?" "Well... yes." "Would you do it again?" "I like boys better." "That is not what I asked. Would you do it again?" "Yes, but she's too rough." "Maybe we can get some rags and tie her up. We pretended to be attackers that carried her off. We can continue this and see how she reacts. She may be even more excited." Forni said, "If she sucked you the way she sucked me, you wouldn't want her more excited." At breakfast I saw that Clovis and the leaders of his army were still missing. Dagmar treated us as before and it was Astrid that looked at us critically. Either Dagmar told her or she knew from other sources what we had done last night. Astrid said, "What are you two going to do today?" Jón said, "We have to check on the saddle and horse collar. I haven't seen any horseshoes yet and want to get the smith started. We are making a stone for the smith and we need to finish it off for him. If we have time we will talk to the potter to see about our jars." "What do you want jars for?" "If you bake iron in charcoal then it changes into something else. It is much harder but can be worked in a forge. Swords and knives will then be better than bronze ones." Jón asked like a young boy, "Have you heard anything of father?" Astrid reached out her hand and touched the boy's shoulder and said, "Nothing yet but he is a good soldier." We picked up Fálki outside the dining room. He already had a leather sack which probably had food in it. "Hurry up you two. It is going to rain and I want to deliver the stone." We hurried to the stable and attached a horse to the cart and Fálki took us around the back. He brought two of the stable hands to assist us. With a bit of grunting the crude wheel was put into the wagon. Fálki slipped the men a small coin and they smiled at his generosity. Under darkening skies we plodded toward the forge. Jón asked Fálki for me, "Did the bootmaker repair the bellows?" I wanted to make some blister steel and needed at least a wood fire to heat the iron. The same thing could be done in the kitchen but they usually cooked over the coals and not the fire. "He did a very good job. It was all double sewn and he must have taken a long time to do this." "Perhaps we can make something extra for him as a gift for doing such nice work." "What does he need, except silver?" I spoke to Jón and he said, "He uses a small pointed rod in a wood handle to push a hole in the leather. He then pushes a thread through the hole. We can make a strong needle with an eye at the end instead. My idea would have the handle hollowed out and a small spool for his cord. When he pushes a hole through he puts a different thread through the loop. Now he just pulls the rod out and tries to push the cord through the hole." "How does this work again. I can't see it." I had supplied pictures of me using an awl. I had pushed through a damaged boot and put a cord through the correct loop. Doing one in front of the awl meant that the awl was trapped and the stitch had to be done over again. This didn't happen too often. By the time we got to the forge, Fálki knew roughly what the awl would look like. Yngvi and two of his apprentices took the wheel out and put it on the ground. He said, "What is this for?" His voice told me he was too stuck up to accept anything. He knew what it was for. We had already told him. Jón said, "Watch and see. It is easier that way." Jón pointed and added, "Put it over there." Yngvi was less pleased but did as he was asked. The framework was put outside the shop. Jón said, "We had no time to make a wood handle. It can be split and put over the crank then wrapped with leather for grip and to hold it together." Yngvi said, "Show me how it works." "We need something you want sharpened." Yngvi gave an apprentice some orders and he came out with three articles and two more apprentices. Fálki got behind the stone and pushed the top of the wheel away from him and it rolled smoothly. He crouched down and took the crank in one hand and tried to keep the pace slow and steady. "Try it, Master Smith. You cannot stay in one position long because it gets too hot. It will not damage iron but it will damage a new metal I am making." "Don't tell me my job, youngling." The smith held the iron and put it into the wheel and we saw it throw long sparks with heavy heads and few branches. I knew this was the characteristic of wrought iron but Yngvi was amazed to see any sparks fly from the juncture. He looked at the metal and saw just how much was ground off. He put it back in and moved it to one side and the sparks continued. In a short time all three articles were done and Fálki was not even out of breath. "The marks are too coarse. How am I going to sell an article with that?" Jón said, "Grind it on this and then smooth it the way you always did. The work will be a lot less." "I saw a blue mark on my iron. That is not good." "A container of water can dribble on the wheel from above or a trough made for the bottom of the wheel to store water. The water cools the metal so it never gets overheated." "Humpp," was all he said. He inspected the handle when Fálki released it. He turned the wheel and it ran smoothly. "You want me to buy this from you. It is nothing but a toy." Fálki now stood and said, "A toy that does an hours work in a minute. A toy that lets you make more tools in a day and more silver because of it." Jón said, "This allows you to work on the kind of iron that will shatter under your hammer. You might not be able to shape it but you can grind away the parts you don't want." "What about the metal I loose?" "Collect the dust. You can turn it back into good metal soon." "How?" "You are a man that has to be shown something then all you have to be told is how it was done." "This thing is not worth the effort I put into it, or the iron I used." "That's fine. I will just get it put back into a wagon and sell it to another smith. You will still get your pay but now we will make more profit. Fálki will you put this back into the wagon. We have to go." "Sure. Perhaps the smith will help or I will hire somebody to assist us getting it loaded." Fálki called into the forge. "Will you men help me load the grinding wheel onto the cart?" The hammers fell quiet and three men came out. Yngvi said, "Go back to work." The men hurried back and the hammers began once more. Fálki asked, "Are you taking this or not?" "This thing is damned by the gods but I will take it." Jón gave me his voice and I said, "We have more to sell you." "You want my life's blood now?" I held up my hands and said, "Give me a dozen pieces of iron this big and this thick. I want a large bag of charcoal too. I will give some of the iron back to you and it will be better than you have ever seen before." "I have to not only give you my iron but my charcoal too?" "You got a wheel that cost you only for the stone and a bit of bronze. Sell me the iron and the charcoal if you want." "Will you trade for what I owe you?" "I need more iron and more charcoal than what I said but I will trade." The smith collected lumps of iron which he had beaten into regular forms. He threw them in a pile and then filled a leather sack with charcoal. "I want the sack back." "I want seven more pieces of iron and another bag of charcoal." "Five." "Seven. We gave you a cheap price but we are not going to do this all the time." The smith was angry but met my demands and we threw more of his iron into the wagon and then the light bags. I said, "We used butter where the clean iron meets the bronze. This makes it slippery and keeps rust from forming. You have to put the butter on once in a while and keep the wheel inside where it is protected." "I know all that. I am not a fool." He was foolish and I said, "Have you made some iron shoes that will fit a horse? My father was the one that will come to see you soon and want to see them." "I have some made and I made some of the nails you say we need." A horses hoof needed to be filed down but there was no steel for a file yet. The smith used a stone file that rubbed away metal and would not work on a hoof very well. A knife may work but it would not be safe or accurate. "I will sell you something that will help you fit the shoe in a few days." "I need none of your tools." "Tell me that after you have see it perform." With another humph we left. Fálki said, "I don't know why you deal with that man. He's insufferable." "He's the best smith in the town. You have even said so. Let's see how the saddle is coming along?" We pulled up at the other stable and found Andsvarr the bootmaker turned saddler standing beside Rudi the carpenter. They were watching Eberhard the public stable master riding a horse in a corral. What was odd about it was that the horse had a saddle on it last seen when medieval knights went to war. Eberhard pulled up as close as he could to the rails and said, "This is good. I love the way my feet are supported. It was easy to get on and off too. I think I can stay here for hours though the pad is harder." Jón said proprietorially, "I am glad you like it. You know that it is like a good boot but this has to fit the horse as well as the man." "It fits me very well." "May we see it?" "Certainly." We all got out of the wagon and climbed through the rails to get a closer look. Andsvarr and Rudi were soon right beside us. I looked at the leather and found seams where there should be none. There was a breast strap and it looked alright but it had to be tested and then alterations made. The belly strap was very wide and strong and this is what I wanted. The stirrups were a shock because they were of iron and not the leather that I thought this model would sport until it was tested. Jón wanted to get up and I reminded him of his oath and he said, "Fálki, will you ride the animal and give us your opinion?" "Yes milord, gladly." When he go close Jón said, "You have to get up from the left side of the horse and use your left foot in the stirrup. It really doesn't matter but if you learn one way the horse will be better for it and you can do it in your sleep. It is even better to find a place to step on first. It keeps the horse's spine from being twisted." "Right, milord." Fálki vaulted up as if he had done this all his life. His leg even swung high enough to clear the cantle. "That was well done but usually they hold the horn to make it even easier. You know far more about horses though and it feels odd to be telling you this." "That is fine milord. It does feel more comfortable up here." Jón said, "The stirrups can be altered for different leg length but you are very similar in size to our good stable master." Jón seemed to be laying it on thick but then again he would be king one day if he survived. I then corrected myself because we both had to survive. Jón must have seen what he was doing and toned his praise down but didn't stop. When Fálki rode around the corral for a while then came to us and got down. He went over the saddle with more care. "I want to keep this beautiful saddle but I guess that the rider can put a fleece on the seat." Andsvarr pushed forward and said, "What is wrong with the saddle?" "The saddle is beautiful. You were not making one for actual use but one to test your theories on. Once you have worked out the problems and made small improvements then you would make saddles for people to ride on." "This saddle is to ride on." "Yes you can but it is the first of its kind. Nobody I know can make something this complicated and make it perfect the first time. I am just saying that because it is the first, I intend to keep it always and perhaps put it in a place of honour in my house." This seemed to mollify Andsvarr and he actually smiled. "Our arrangement was for two saddles and this means two trees. The next saddle may be a bit more costly because I do not want seams where a person is to sit. It is fine for a short trip but a lengthy one will cause needless pain." "I will see what I can do about that." Jón said, "Thank you Master Bootmaker. I heard, but didn't see yet, that you did a wonderful job of repairing the bellows in the castle." "It was not a big job. I could have sent one of my sons over but we are behind schedule already with this extra work you have given me." "I plan on giving you another task but this is just a special pair of boots. To help you, we are going to make some tools that no other bootmaker has ever had before." Andsvarr was not sure of this and asked, "What tools?" "You will see in time. We have to make them first." "You are making things for me now? You are the son of the king." "I am a young man with ideas. Some I can tell others and they can build like this beautiful saddle but others I have to do myself. Besides, it is fun to make things." "What will the king say?" "If I made a bow that will kill a Roman then he will be happy. You and these other fine men have made a tool to kill Romans and Gauls. With it we will take back our land and drive the invaders out. When my father comes back, he will see the saddle and I am sure he will order many made for his men. I want to make better tools and some of those will be used in war. I think that is a great calling and nobody would fault me for doing what so many others were striving for." Rudi, the carpenter, had one more tree to make but someone had to make lances too. Jón drew out the features of a lance in detail then stipulated with his hands the real dimensions. Rudi said, "This looks much too heavy for a horseman." "It is for a Gaul or a Roman but not a Frisian in one of your saddles. When you make the lance, our good bootmaker will attach a leather cup to the stirrup to hold it when not in use. When it is required, it can be picked up and placed in position. Hitting the enemy with your lance will kill him or surely knock him from his horse. If he is a footman then he will die." "I will make what you want." "Make three or more. I will pay for them. Most will have to be blunt so as to cause less injuries." "Why?" "Our own men will have to practice and they will play. They will get hurt and some may even die. If they are blunt then the men may only be knocked from their horse." "Yes, I can see that happening. What about the ones that are not for practice?" "We will make special iron tips that will cut through any armour made." This was news to them all but they didn't say anything. The horse collar was examined next and it was quite firm. I remembered from an old catalogue I had seen that some collars were made of steel. To cut weight it was hollow and only metal was placed where it would touch the horse's body. I never knew if it was better or not but it was said to keep the horse cooler and dryer. Andsvarr was paid for his labours and materials that he had purchased and so were the other two. It was understood that they may have to alter the saddles and this would mean that one or both may have to be ripped apart. The saddle and collar were put in the wagon with our iron to give others a chance to see it and mark it as something useful. I was anxious to get to the castle now to begin the steel making process and this was communicated to Jón. We could not do much because our horse seemed to have one speed. When we got into the courtyard Fálki and Jón were suddenly alert. There were strangers here. I counted twenty three horses and seventeen men. I asked Jón, "Can you tell who they are?" Jón said aloud, "I can't be sure." Fálki said, "The silver shield is from King Arnaldr. I don't know why he would be here unless he has news of your father." "Let's go find out." Jón was worried. Fálki said, "I will take the cart away." "No, come with us. I feel better with you around. You have smoothed the waters a few times." "Thank you milord for saying so." He pulled up and stopped one of the castle servants and told her to lead the horse to the stables then hurried to catch up to Jón and Forni. Jón went up to one of the strange horsemen and asked, "Who comes to this castle?" The man was young and I guess he was thinking of ignoring the boy or swatting him but finally said, "Prince Egill of the house of Finnbjörn." Jón belatedly said, "Thank you for your time." I asked, "Who is it?" "The third son of King Arnaldr." "What do you know of him?" "He is tall and strong and a fair warrior but I do not like his attitude." "What is it that you do not like?" "He speaks to everybody except father as if they were his personal slaves." I rummaged through my recent memories and knew that King Arnaldr ruled the Franks. They would conquer France then been swept away in turn. Their people were very numerous but I had got no readings on what they were like from Clovis or Fidelis. It was still possible that the prince had news though. If Clovis was gone this long he must be on an extended trip or in a battle. The land he controlled made trips from one extreme to the other quite long. Jón was hurrying along as I thought and a maid pointed up the steps without being asked and he smiled but continued. Jón was tiring when he got to the next floor but raced on. In front of King Clovis' bed chambers were two guards but they were not familiar with Jón. The boy ran up to them but they blocked his way from entering. One said, "You cannot go in there." "I am Prince Jón. Let me pass." "You cannot enter." "Since when does a Frank come to our land and order the only son of King Clovis what he can or cannot do? Move aside on peril of your life." We were getting into trouble. Fálki was close by though. He was not a young man any longer but he did have experience. The two at the door were armoured and had more than just a short sword that Fálki had. When I got Jón's attention I said, "Give me control of your body or we will be in big trouble." He resisted but finally faded back and I took control. Jón's right hand had been on his knife ever since I saw the strangers and he had not known it. The man now was sneering and reaching for his sword. I moved very close and grabbed his belt with my left hand. I put the short knife under his sporran and jabbed his testicles. In a coarse voice I said, "You will move as I say or you will only be fit for a harem." There was movement around me but I ignored it because Fálki was still here. The hand tried to draw the sword and I jabbed and I was not gentle. The sword fell from his hand and back into the scabbard. The man's face was now white. "Fálki, do you have everything under control?" "Yes, milord. These two must be fops. There was not much fight in either." "Take their weapons. I don't really want to butcher a young bull before his time." "I understand, milord." I kept my gaze on the man I was holding and in a moment a hairy hand pulled out the sword then two knives. The pressure I was exerting didn't waver and I said, "When men come visiting they leave their weapons outside with the rest of their men. Do you understand me?" "Yes." "Do you want me to push harder and twist?" "No milord." "Fálki, can we go in now or will we have to start butchering?" "The lad went for some guards. He left me his knife." "It came in handy a while ago. Will you hand it to me?" I put my hand up that held the belt but kept my gaze fixed. The hilt came into my hand and I sheathed the weapon. To the man I had at my mercy I said, "You are going to step across the hall and lean forward with your hands keeping you from falling. Do this well and I will take my knife away. Play the fool and you may have a soft meat dish for supper tonight." I didn't give him much chance and pulled him by the belt once more. He came easily. When I stopped he leaned forward and supported himself on the wall. My knife came away but not far. In a moment the other man was in the same pose. My hearing had been acute and I heard Astrid arguing and then pleading with somebody. I paused at the closed door and concentrated very hard. There were many people breathing but only four places that had the sound of armour rubbing. I was ready to give the finger commands to Fálki but remembered that nobody now knew them. I backed up and said, "Four. One on each side of the door one in the centre of the room facing away from us and one further back and to the right. Astrid is almost within arms reach. There may be four more in the room but they are probably my sisters." "What do you want me to do?" "They are arguing about a debt that was owed to King Arnaldr. It sounds like the prince is being rough and he has struck somebody. I want you to burst in and swing the door all the way. I will take the other. Try not to kill." "What about the two out here?" I could hear the sound of running feet and said, "Half a minute and we will have reinforcements." I picked up some nice knives off the floor but only one was balanced enough but I knew it would work in a pinch." Men came running down the hall and I said, "Ready?" "Yes." "Go!" Fálki pushed himself off the wall and crashed into the door. I raised the latch just before he hit. The door swung to my left and I ran in just behind him. A man stood with arms at his sides, watching what was happening in the room. I swung the heavy pommel of the knife just below the man's sternum. He had no plate or scale armour just link. I knew from karate just where a strike like this would do the most good. His solar plexus would not allow him to breathe correctly for quite a while. I didn't wait to see the reaction and sprang toward the one in the centre. This man was just turning around. His sword was out but he was not balanced. The other man though had a long knife in his hand and a hank of recently cut light blonde hair in the other. The borrowed knife was ready to throw and I cast it at this man. I had justification for doing this but I was not trying to kill. The man had time to see me race in and he opened his mouth as the knife I threw went in one side of his left upper arm. Fálki had disengaged and I turned to attack the other man to distract him. I could not get a good grip on the floor but the man did see my other knife now poised to throw. He almost tripped over his own feet as Fálki jumped on him from the side. I turned to look at the man I had hit. He had stunned expression and looked at the knife protruding through his arm. My head long rush brought me to the pile on the floor and I used my foot to stop me by placing it on a body. I didn't think or care if it was Fálki or not. I now rushed to the last man and he looked up at me as I rushed him with panic on his face. Instead of stabbing him, I was able to stop in front of him with the other knife in my hand. I said with a growl, "Give me your knife." He didn't know what to do and I just used my left hand to take it from him. He just looked at me as Dagmar took a stool and hit him in the upper chest and face. He went down in a pile and Dagmar was diving in for blood. Men came racing into the room but I tried to pull Dagmar off and keep her from taking the knife and killing the man. It was Fálki that reached in and pulled her off. He said, "That is all right, milady. You did a wonderful job." Dagmar was not so easily distracted and had to be forcefully pulled away. The man looked to be unconscious but I bent down mindful of the blade in his arm and looked under his eyelid. He was out cold. He face was not a pretty as it was but he deserved everything he got. The officer of the watch came in and I demanded, "Station archers. We have seventeen more within our walls. Try to do this diplomatically but don't let them get away either." "It may be too late milord. They saw us running up here and will follow." "Get into the hall and prepare to fight." He just turned and issued orders and the room cleared right away. I said to Dagmar. "Get some bandages." She started to obey then said, "Why?" "So the king can choose what justice to bestow on these men. Now move!" Fálki and three others were in the room in case we needed help. I began to remove the man's chain mail jerkin when Dagmar came over. "Help me with him. We need to bandage him up. Is this one the prince?" "Yes." "There's fighting in the castle and if I show his men that he's alive they may stop fighting." One of our men had to assist me and I kept pressure on the main blood vessel to reduce the loss of blood. The knife I had thrown was long and thin and broke the bone as it went threw his arm. Since he held the knife in his other hand I assumed this would not restrict him too much. My eyes scouted the room and I was given what I asked for. Needle and thread sewed up the two punctures then I even did a bit on his face. Two pieces of firewood were split and I used them for splints. Clean rags were used to support the arm then I strapped it to his chest after checking for broken ribs. There was a battle going on but I tried to ignore it. It was ten minutes later that Fálki marched one of the men into the room. Apparently he had been disarmed and pulled out of the hall. Fálki directed him to his prince and the man saw that he was still alive. Fálki marched the man out again, and I heard him yell over the heads of our men what had happened. The battle slowed to a halt and the man repeated everything he was supposed to say. I did some cleaning up of wounds on the prince then on two others that needed this. They didn't like it but there was nothing they could do about it. The man I had talked to from the prince's escort came in with Fálki and walked directly over to the prince. "What have you done to him?" "I put a dagger through his arm. It broke the bone. I sewed his wounds shut and put some wood around the arm to keep it stationary. A bandage was put on to hold it together and another to hold it to his body. I am afraid it was my beautiful sister that did most of the damage. She took a stool and almost killed him." "You filthy slut. I..." My knife at his stomach made him stop very quickly. "She is the daughter of King Clovis. If you look at her beautiful hair you will see that your prince is not above hurting women. Perhaps he beats invalids and babies when he doesn't feel up to real women." "He..." "Think before you speak. I can understand arguments but not stupidity." He was very angry now but held his tongue with difficulty. I asked in a more sympathetic voice, "Do many men of your people beat women?" "No, we... We don't." "Then you only have a prince that is sick in his head. Does his father beat women?" "No..." The way he paused as if ready to say more meant that it was a 'yes' sometimes. "So King Arnaldr hits his women or some women. Are they all slaves?" The way the man looked made me think that any female was fair game. In a change of tactic I asked, "How many men did you lose?" "Four are wounded." I turned to Fálki and asked, "How many of ours?" "Only a few scratches." I said to our guest, "These men here are not hurt much. I want to bring those in that are hurt the most and you can help me with them." "You?" "Who patched up your grown boy that hurts women?" He said nothing and I gave orders to Fálki to escort the man out. On the way I said, "What is your name?" "Albrecht." I ordered the girls to get more clean rags and cloth and in a moment the men were carried in. One had a gapping lung wound that my first aid would not help. "Put this one by the wall. Gudrun come here." The girl raced over and I whispered, "That man will die in a while. Go sit with him and talk. Be nice and tell of your dreams. It is all that I can do." She just nodded and did as I asked. The three were stripped and after some washing I began to sew. Astrid saw what I was doing and came in to assist and then so did Dagmar. Sutures were not uncommon in this age and the two women made neater stitches than I did. I had the women wash between victims and they did this without knowing why. They even used soap. Our own men were done next but none were hurt much. They were better trained than what I found out to be berserk Franks. When I was done, Gudrun was crying. Her patient had died. Death was common and it was the best I could do to ease the man's passing. I found Albrecht and Fálki in the room and watching us. Albrecht said, "I see that you are a rare young man. You care even for your enemies and are a great warrior at the same time." "Albrecht, I know how to fight. Who said that you or your people are my enemies? You have a fool for a prince and perhaps a fool for a king. That happens a lot. It is like a game of chance in a way to see who you will be saddled with." "I heard that you were not much different until recently." "That is true. Tell me something Albrecht. Are the Franks generally good when they give their word?" "What do you mean?" "If we diced and you lost six pieces of silver that you didn't have, would you go and get them as soon as possible and bring them to me?" He thought for a moment. "I do not gamble with money I do not have." "How about this? Will you give me your word that you will keep the peace and not leave this castle without permission of the king, me or those we appoint?" Now he did stare at me and he did say, "What are you asking?" "We speak the same language and are of the same people though you may not know this. I would have you be a guest that will stay to hear the king's justice. Some men may run. They will get the opportunity but I will have them chased and hung. They will not get to die a warriors's death. The king will see that you are men of your word and this may go good for you." "I will not leave the castle without your bidding." "And your men?" "We will have to ask them." Before we left I said to one of our men, "Take the man beside the wall to where we take our own dead. Treat him as if he were one of your friends." I was just stared at again as if my words were not understandable. ------- Chapter 9 The prince's unarmed men were all against the wall in a group but not shackled or even tied. They looked dispirited but I knew that this could change in a second. They were brave men and had a code of honour that made them do some stupid things. I walked through our line of defenders with Albrecht. I too had to show no fear but there were also a lot of armed Frisians very close. I said, "The Franks and the Frisians along with all the tribes that speak our language are of the German people. That makes us all brothers in a way of thinking. I know that most of you are honourable men. You are brave, strong, good with weapons and sometimes too stupid to come in out of the rain." A scowl was presented to me because of this last comment. "You are good people but you react first and think second. Your prince is a man that beats and threatens women. I know that this is not true of most Franks, just a few. My own people are the same. "I have come to you with a proposition. You give your word that you will keep the peace and not leave the castle unless the king or I bid you to do so. You can lie but when we catch you, you will be hung like a thief and your body thrown on the refuse heap." These men believed in Thor and they would not get into Valhalla if they didn't do it as warriors. "When your prince awakes, I think he will demand that you attend him then help him escape. You will then be in a conflict with your king or to any oath to me. The prince will not be allowed the choice that you get but he will not be kept in the dungeon. I now want Albrecht to talk to you." Albrecht didn't know what to say but he finally said, "I will give my oath not to leave without permission provided our prince is kept safe and we are not threatened. You can choose for yourselves. Let me tell you that if you give your oath and run I will know you for an oath breaker. When I get back to my king I will tell him and everybody else what I know. It is better to spend your time in the dungeon and keep your word than to give it and run." This was good because it seemed that Albrecht had the strong German sense of what is right. It was Albrecht that asked his men one by one and I took note of who he asked in order because these would be the man that he trusted to answer the way he wanted. With all the men agreeing, Albrecht got on his right knee and gave his oath to me and called both Woden and Thor to witness this. Albrecht needed something extra I thought and I put my hand on his shoulder and said, "Arise brother and welcome to our house. May your stay be enjoyable and informative." This seemed to work with variations for everybody else too and they smiled at what they had done after the ceremony. I said to Fálki, give them back their knives and sheaths. Put them up in the barracks and begin training as if they were new soldiers just in from the field. Make sure that it is Albrecht that you give the orders too and he will get them carried out. Put their horses in with ours. They eat what we eat and get a ration of beer. They will get paid too even if it is only for the time they are here. This will start tomorrow. Talk to Albrecht to get this straightened out before they fall into old and bad habits." "You want me to give them their knives back? They just tried to kill us." "They are babes in the woods compared to you and your men. Teach them what a man should know and better yet how he should act." "They may be attacking us later." I assumed he meant their army. "A few men will not get the rest of their nation to fight like we do. All Germans are much too stubborn to take anybody's word for it. They have to be shown and then shown again. I think that our king must have boxed the ears of a great many of you to get you to do what he said." I got a half smile then it was gone again. "It will be as you order milord." With one more thing to do, I went back to Clovis' chambers. There was no guard and I didn't think one was needed. The door was open and all of my sisters and half sisters were running about tending the wounded. Two of the three were conscious and the prince was still enjoying some much needed beauty sleep. I went to those awake and said, "I talked to the rest of your men. They agreed to keep the peace and not leave the castle. They now have their knives back. I will ask for your oaths after you talk to your friends. I am going to keep the prince away from all of you so he cannot encourage you to break one oath because of a previous one." One said, "I am not going to give my oath to you." "Then don't. You would be put under guard then. I ask you to talk to your commander and the rest of your friends before you make any further decisions." Astrid came to me with Elfrieda and Sieglinde clinging to her. "What have you done about these men?" "They swore to not fight and to stay to hear what our king has to say in this matter. Beyond that they are our guests. They may drink our beer but not so they act stupid. They may chase the serving women but only if the women choose to be chased. They are to stay with our guards. We may learn something from them and I know they will learn something from us." "When are you going to get them removed from my room?" "I will see if I can get them transported to the barracks. The prince will have to stay in the castle someplace and away from everyone of his men." "I heard what you said but I think his men will know what he wants and do it. We are all in danger." "The Franks are German. They have a code of honour. I think most or all of them follow it. The prince seems to be a different matter. They will not be a problem but if you want we can bar your door and post a guard too." Astrid was not happy with this. "I am the queen here and I want them all to go." "The prince has a broken arm and a mangled face. If he goes home to his father now without our king's knowledge there may well be war. We are fighting the Gauls and the Romans. Why do you want to fight the Franks too?" She pursed her lips and stood tall. She had no response and pulled her two girls away. Dagmar was close and I walked over to her. She was still seething. She said, "You should have let me kill him." I smiled and said, "You would make a great warrior. You have bravery and a good swing when it comes to a stool." "Don't forget I am good with a bow and a sword too." The Frisians and the other Germanic tribes took their women and families when they went to war as a nation. The men fought harder because they knew that their families would all be put to the sword or made slaves if they failed. "You are a very passionate women. You do nothing by half measures. You would make a good shield mate if you would control your temper. In a battle it is better to be determined not foolish with your safety." "I am not foolish." I kept up my smile and said, "You are right, you are not foolish. I would be foolish to argue with a woman like you. Were you hurt?" In a quieter voice, she said, "No. He slapped me and twisted my arms. He cut my hair though." A woman and a man had a lot of pride in their hair. Cutting hair was done in the case of a thief or a woman caught in adultery. Dagmar's hair was really butchered and there was little that could be done with it other than trim it all to the same length. Perhaps we could do something with what we had and make a new hairstyle in the process. "I have an idea. Just think about it before replying. Your hair is long and beautiful but now it will not hang properly. Women can cut their hair shorter. It has the benefit of staying out of the way and is easier to take care of. If you draw your hair over a hot piece of iron or copper, it will curl. That can make your hair beautiful in a different way." The women in the room were all ears but pretended to be not interested. "I will have to make this tool for you. It has to go into a fire but only to get hot enough to do this without burning the hair. It will have a wood handle. I would like to curl your hair for you if you want." I got a nice smile now and she said, "I will think about it." "Save the hair that was cut and that which will have to be cut." "Why?" "You can test what I make on it for one. Hair like yours is valuable. Some women with hair that is falling out could have yours made into a wig. They would look much better especially with your hair." I got another smile and added, "Dagmar, I need to ask you something as a warrior." Her smile disappeared. "What?" "The prince has to be watched. He needs to be fed. Guards will be at his door day and night. You should talk to him and find out what he knows. You need to see what makes him what he is. If we understand him we may understand his father. This is not a job I could give a girl and he would not talk to a man as well." "You talk to him then. All I want is to drive a knife between his ribs." "Look at it as if he is your slave. You took him in battle and he is yours. You can inflict a lot of small indignities on him to make him remember you. He was raised to think that women were people he could abuse. You need to teach him that he is wrong." A smile formed again as Dagmar thought on the idea. "He will be my slave?" "He will have to go back to his father someday soon. When you are asked what you have done to a prince of the Franks you will have to reply. Make sure what you say is the truth. Egill will twist it around to make you seem like a tyrant that tortured him. It has to appear that he is our guest and he cannot be chained." The smile got brighter. "Will I be in complete command of him?" "As long as he is not allowed to communicate with his men. He is not to be allowed to hurt himself or to escape. And most importantly, he is not allowed to hurt you or any of us." "I will do it." Now I smiled. "Where are you going to keep your guest?" "I haven't decided yet." Forni was in the doorway and I waved at him to enter. I took out his knife and handed it back. "Thanks Forni. It came in handy but I didn't need to put it to use other than a threat." "Did you do all this?" He was referring to the wounded men. "Oh, no. Our guards did this. The one over there has a hole in his arm and a broken bone because of me. His damaged face is courtesy of a warrior maid by the name of Dagmar. She is not a person that you would want to face in a battle." "I know." I guess he did. We walked over to Gudrun and I saw that she was over much of the trauma of the incident here in the room and of the young man dying. The people of this time were strong. Brigitte was talking to her and stopped as we approached. "Were any of you hurt?" Gudrun shook her head and Brigitte said, "No we weren't. How did you learn to do all that? I never saw you act that way. I knew you were good with a knife but you knew exactly what to do." I understood her now and also understood the way her eyes glistened. She looked excited and to a lesser extent so did Gudrun. "I was not the same after the accident. A part of the boy in me left and I seem to have grown up, at least a bit. Giving orders was not hard. Our father's men are well trained and the rest was just common sense." "But you acted like Father." "I am his son don't forget." We had our meal later than usual and I saw some of the Franks sitting down with our men though most of them ate in the barracks. I would have eaten with them but Astrid and Dagmar insisted I stay at the head table as fitting. Jón was anxious now to get his body back and I gave him pointers on what to do. Basically he had to act more like me and I had to act more like him to keep this charade going. ------- The land around the city was tilled and the smaller trees used to provide fuel were at a distance. Woodcutters sold what they cut to those in the city. Some of it went to pay taxes. Barter was much more common than the use of money. When the meal was over, Jón then Forni got up and many people stopped to watch. It was not like the king standing but something remotely like it. Jón was aware of this but took it well. He spotted the officer of the watch and approached. There was room almost across from the man and Jón took a seat. The men respectfully gave him more room. Jón said, "Tell me about the Franks gaining a private talk with my family." The man was leery but not too upset. "Your mother, the queen, dismissed us. She said the prince could have a talk with her. She saw his attendants following and only scowled. If it were me I would have at least an equal number of us to go to the talks." "What would my father have done in similar circumstances?" "Probably told the prince to come alone or leave. The prince would have been safe while he was with us. More could come as long as they left their swords behind." "Who else heard the queen order you to leave?" "Are you doubting my word?" "Father will be asking questions when he gets back. My questions will serve to only help you." "There were six or seven. That is most of the men around this table now." The men were nodding their heads in agreement with their officer. The Germans were simple people but could still intrigue if they were pushed but it was out of character for them. Jón asked each the same words and they gave back their own words of what had happened. "Thank you for your help. I will make sure my father hears of this. On another matter I want the Franks treated as our brothers. They are not Gauls and I do not want them to be seen like our enemies." The officer said, "They are not our brothers though. They act different and speak out language with difficulty." "Treat them like brothers anyway. They only have the misfortune of having a poor prince and perhaps a poorer king." Close to the doors Fálki was talking to some of his men. When we got near he stopped and asked Jón. "What are we doing now, milord?" "We are going to make weapons that will make you want to attack the nearest Roman legion to test them out." "Then I should get a good horse ready now." "The weapons will take a few days but there are other devices to make first." "Something more important than weapons?" "Weapons are what we need to stay alive but tools are how we are going to change. Instead of sitting around all day talking and drinking beer, you will make some of these. Part of it will be for silver but most will be for your children." Jón seemed to have absorbed some of my goals and I still didn't know how he was able to do this. I was locked out of his memories. "What do my children need? I can provide anything they require." "I want roads far better than any Rome ever built. I want bridges of metal and liquid stone that will make you stare breathlessly at them in their beauty." "That is noble but of what use is it?" "The use is like the saddle. It helps in time of war to kill an enemy but also lets a man wander much farther than his legs would allow him. The road and the bridges will allow us to see other places. We can learn from our friends and enemies alike. Perhaps we can even teach them." I said to Jón, "Do not push this. Your people like to do things their way and go to war once in a while to show that the young men are brave. Take away their chance to fight and they will fight you." "But they can fight better." "It doesn't matter. We make the steel and we change what can be changed and to do this we do one small job at a time." Fálki said, "The saddle is good and so is the collar. The other things are interesting but why would a man bother himself with that?" "The same reason you bothered yourself to learn how the fight. It was a challenge that you could not refuse. Wars will never end just the way to fight them. It all takes bravery. A sword no matter how good it is, needs a man to wield it." "Let me see your tools then. I will wait for the sword." "The tools will make the smith do anything to keep them for himself. You will be much like him when you see the sword. That may be fun to watch." We took the cart from the stable and moved it to the small smithy in the castle. Jón did the inspection but I did my own too. It was barely adequate in size and the metal supports for the charcoal bed were gone. Jón said for me, "We need a lot of wood and someone to tend the fire. Do you know of anybody responsible enough to take on this task?" Fálki said, "My men will do it if it will gain them the use of your weapons. That is if they are as good as you say." "We have to find people that will continue with this task for months. The iron we make will be called steel. I cannot make all that is necessary. I need people to learn and carry on." "Like an apprentice?" "Not quite like an apprentice. They will learn a task that a smith does not even know but soon it will be old and they will learn a better method. After that they will learn a better method until they start to work on their own." "Why not teach them the best way first?" "I need more iron than this castle weights. As it is produced, it will be used to make a better way. Now more iron can be produced to make a bigger device. It has to grow and change as it gets big. We will make new tools like the sword and then we will make better tools. We can start here but we will have to move to other places so that we do not have to carry what we need as far. Boats are good but so are roads." "I can find some boys if you want. If you have money to pay them then they will do what you need." "Boys are good but I need boys that are quick with their minds and not afraid of work. I need men to guide the boys and hold them to what is right. This would be something like your officers guiding your soldiers." "There are some men that have not come back from a battle whole. They are without some of the things the rest need." "They may find a place but I need a smith or somebody that has had some training. One of the smiths in town already think they know everything and they will not be much good if they will not listen." "I do not know if there is such a man or boy. If a master releases an apprentice, then there is usually a reason for doing so. I see no other way of finding a smith that is not a smith." "Ask Yngvi and the other smiths. They may know of such a person." "They may not want to mention a name. You will take work from them." "There is so much work that we will have to use every single Frisian and then have to hire those from other peoples." "You need that much iron?" "I need iron but I also need miners to gain many different kinds of metals. I need carpenters but they have to work my way and not through their guild. The guilds have to change too and they will only grow if they do. I need leather for my saddles and collars. I need stone cutters to make strong buildings. I need the smiths too so they will work the metal that I make." Jón was going to say more but he was digging his own grave. "You are talking of change again. Fálki will not want to follow if he knew where it would lead." Fálki said, "I will do what I can. The smiths may not want to talk but I might be able to talk to those that work with the smith." We stacked the iron and the bags of charcoal nearby and Fálki took the cart and horse back. Forni and Jón walked to see the potter because he had an important part to play in this. Sander was pleased to see us and quickly found a seat then after seeing Jón's look found another for Forni. "Greetings milord. How may I be of service to you today?" "I would like to have some of the jars with lids I asked you to make." "Surely my lord. There are many already complete and more are in the kiln as we speak." "Good but I need information too." "What is it?" "Your clay is good for jars and many vessels. The heat you have put to them is hot to you but is not really that high. I need a clay that can take a heat far beyond what you have ever heard of." "My clay can stand the heat of the forge." "The forge is a cool place. I need jars that work in a forge that is so hot that iron will run like water. It will glow so bright that it will be hard to see your container." "I am sorry my lord because I only know a few places where clay can be found." I knew this was the logical outcome and said, "There are many potters in the city. Would you consider learning something new. It has to do with these new jars I just mentioned. Nobody in the world would make their equal." "I would not give up my craft?" "You will be learning much more and then pushing your craft far beyond what any potter has ever done before." We had to wait a few moments and he said, "I will try but many people depend upon me including the king." "My father will agree. This is a fact." "Then tell me what I must do?" Jón and I explained about his jars and lids containing the iron and charcoal in a hot wood fire. The time the jars had to stay in the fire, was not very well known but we could find out with some experiments. "This is what a smith would do. How is this like the clay you require?" "I will make a forge that is lined with thick clay. A special kind of black rock called coal burns hotly if it is prepared correctly. The fire will be hotter than anything you have ever seen before. You will help me line the forge with clay. "We will send people all over to search for the right clay. They will bring back samples for us and they will go into this furnace. One day we will find what we need." "I can see that is the only way. So I have to make a forge for a smith?" "That is true but I need a potter to make containers like we did for bushings. The liquid iron is poured in the same as bronze was done. We can make many wonderful tools." It took only a second for him to state, "I will make your tools." "I need more than that for a while. I have no men to watch a fire that needs to stay hot for days until the iron changes to steel. Fálki may find some but that is not a sure thing. A man can only stay awake so long. A man though can sleep near the fire and get boys to do most of the work. Every few hours he makes sure the boys are doing what they are supposed to do and then he gets some sleep himself. I am basically looking for responsible adults. Boys will not do what is necessary. They will just fall asleep or wander away." "You should get more adults then." "I agree but who can I get. Fálki has his duties and now that we have the Franks here he is even more important. Who would you recommend to have a watch around the clock for at least two to three days?" "I see what you mean. My wife Geiri could be one but she also watches our children." "Both of you can take turns. You work, keep the boys occupied and watch your children. If you want you can still do your pottery making and teach the boys that are not working at the moment." "Then there will be too many potters in the city and most will go hungry." "Those same boys can look for the clay you need. You can teach them what kind of things to look for." "I may be able to do that." "Do you know of any other adults that may do this and remain sober through the night?" "There is a neighbour. He has a sickness but he can still work." "What is his sickness?" "He has pains shoot through his belly nearly every day. He has trouble in the fields. His wife and family work hard to do what is necessary. We all do our part but he does not like to accept our help." "Do you think he will die soon?" "We think that but he may last another year or maybe two." "Does the sickness cloud his mind?" "No. He is very stubborn though." "Everybody I know is stubborn. If he stays awake through the night I will pay him a penny per day and provide food for him." "Thank you milord. I know he will do his best for you." The potter gathered those that he thought might work and I talked to them expressing the need for vigilance even though the work was not strenuous. We began right away by gathering enough pots and lids and taking them to the forge. I showed them how to layer the iron pieces with crushed charcoal. It turned out that three containers were enough to hold all the iron. More iron that would remain untreated was put aside for later. Not all of the tools I made needed to be steel but only the edge. We contacted two different men to supply wood. No fire was started until I knew that there would be enough. In the meantime we gathered a great many rocks. They were a scarce commodity because the castle was built of stone and all those around were used in its construction. Their purpose was to contain the fire so the heat would be concentrated where the clay vessels were. Sander went one better and got his clay and used it for mortar. Fálki came to the forge and assisted us to put the heavy pots in position. Wood taken from the kitchen was put in place and we talked about what we needed to do to keep this as comfortable as possible. Chairs were brought and there were three beds nearby that would get a good work out in the coming days. Wiebe was the new man. He looked thin but that could have been from his sickness. Forni and Jón raided the kitchens and brought enough food for all of us. Jón went over to his employees to tell them what was expected of each person and what we wanted to accomplish. Questions were asked about the priests and they meant the local variety that tried to rule the people in their own way. Clovis had kept them under control but that was a difficult matter when it came to these people. Jón had to say that the priests didn't know of his work but it was all done to save our people from our enemies. The logic that superior weapons were not a bad thing to have should have been enough. The wood started to arrive after an hour of inactivity. There was more than enough to last us until noon tomorrow so we began the process. Forni ran to get some coals. He put them in a clay pot with a long handle and a lid with a few holes in it. Fálki started the fire and I heard him saying a prayer to Woden then one more to Thor to assist us. The rest of us fell silent and we made our own prayers including Jón. I still didn't know about magic but I still could not accept the idea of a Devine being. Forni was the first to use the bellows and he worked the device slow enough to get the fire burning brightly. After talking to Jón for a moment, he ordered Forni to bring blankets and pillows from our room. We were going to camp out and at the same time make sure the first shift at least went without a hitch. Geiri brought her two young children and found a good place for them to sleep. They were wide eyed though at the fire and the new surroundings. We told stories of our lives but there was little that Forni or Jón could talk about other than the assassins and the prince. This was more than enough though and they all wheedled out more information out of him. Jón had to say how he felt and all the emotions that went through him each and every moment of both times. What he didn't know he made up but this was ok because he was still a boy. He sounded much like the men in the dining room when they talked about their battles. The rain had never come but the night got cooler. The children drifted off to sleep and soon Jón and Forni curled up together and did the same. I would be listening all night to listen for what should and shouldn't be there. Everybody took their turn and threw wood on the fire and pumped the bellows to get the new pieces burning the way they should. We would get relief the next day as some boys would arrive to learn to do this and perhaps learn something more important as well. Sander knew what to ask and what to demand because he was given authority over the new hires. When the morning came we found that we had burnt more wood than we planned and had to rob the kitchen again. Sander went to get some other woodcutters to deliver more fuel. An extra supply would not hurt us. Besides we had to pay back the kitchen. Sander, Wiebe Forni and Jón went for breakfast. This was Wiebe's first time in the hall and he seemed to be impressed. Dagmar was not there to eat with us and Astrid was apparently still in a snit about keeping the prince. Jón was polite and talked to each of his sisters and the girls were nice in return. There was still no word of Clovis though. Food was taken back to Geiri and her two young girls Letje and Sytje. They ate very well. It was good that we brought lots. Food at least was fairly plentiful but I didn't know how long that would last with the harvest not in yet and the Romans changing their strategy. A scorched earth policy is what they used most of the time. With the steelmaking well in hand, Jón and Forni went looking for another carpenter. Two very important projects had to get started. Even if the Romans would be approaching, the soil should eventually be tilled in preparation for next years crops. This would take time. I had to remember what a single furrow plough looked like and then how to pull it with one or two horses. Wagons and wheelbarrows would have to be made to help with the harvest and to carry raw and semi-finished articles for me. We did find Rudi later. He was at the same stable but the other two men were not. He was in the process of making the second tree he was contracted to make. Jón talked to him about it. Rudi said, "My brother is a farmer. The plough you talk about is very strange. The one he has, cuts a trench in the soil about this wide and deep." he used his hands as he spoke and the dimensions were not that great. The man's wife and family pulled this plough and the man took his turn too as his wife guided the plough. Farming was a difficult life now and though difficult it was much better in the future. Horses were much too expensive to buy and took a lot of the farmer's time to take care of. Oxen were more common I found but they were still rare. The Romans even used the stamina of a pair of oxen to plough an area of land in a day as a unit of land measure. Family members were much easier to get and there was no reins needed. "Why do you want to make ploughs now? We already have them, and they work well." "You think they work well because you have not seen a better kind. I need some oak bent like this," Jón said as he traced out the shape on the ground. One end will get a horse or two and a man will guide the plough as it digs much deeper in the ground to loosen it up. We are at war now and we may not be able to protect outlying farms. Those people will flee to the cities but the farmers there will need to produce enough food to feed everybody. This plough will turn the soil better and my fertiliser will help the crops grow." "One plough will not do much and there are few families that could pull it." "One or two men with a pair of horses could plough all the fields and do it much better than a family alone. Another tool with many metal disks can cut the lumps up and another machine with hooks can loosen the soil when the time is needed. It takes more than weapons to defeat an army or a people. Hunger will do it and so will despair." "Did you want my help in making your plough?" "I need another carpenter. You will soon be very busy making thousands of saddle trees if not lances too. Ploughs have to be made with care but soon they will be made completely of iron for strength." "All iron? That is difficult to see in my head. Tell me what you want made and I will see if I can make it or get somebody else to make it. I had seen horse drawn equipment since I was a child. I had even tried my own hand on occasion when our community of survivalists wanted everybody to learn what might be necessary one day. This allowed me to learn more than just ploughs, reapers, seeders, manure spreaders, balers and other farm related equipment but also about the horses and their tack. We had our own forge and it was powered by a hand operated blower. A gearbox got the speed up very high and there was a surprising amount of air coming from it in a steady stream. I had welded with the forge and made some tools and weapons but I was far from being proficient. I could survive quite well here if I had a chance to make my weapons and tools then found a group of people that would want the benefits of my knowledge and skills. I didn't know if this group would have the chance to develop before they were enslaved, killed or subjugated. We could also be progressing with a great many different plans if I had the benefit of Clovis' commands behind me. Our funds were larger than what the average individual would have but inadequate to start some of the industries needed. Iron ore was nearby and so were a lot of trees. When iron became popular almost all of Europe was denuded of trees. I could stop this with the use of coal and coke but I may be making a larger ecological mess. Coke production killed the men that worked there. The substances given off were dangerous but could also be used for some very useful chemicals. To do any of this work, I had to go in small steps. Coke production should have a way of collecting the chemicals or at least burning them off so there are no deaths. Usually the gases went into a large heat exchanger that fed a cupola or an open hearth furnace. To make either of these I needed some clay able to take the temperatures of the furnace. I didn't know what to look for or where to even start. Sheffield England was lucky because the clay there was of this variety. This was where the first steel was produced on a continuous basis. Other places that had tried to copy the process had failed because their clay vessels had melted. Extracting raw iron too would require an army of men to dig the ore and coal and to feed the furnaces and coking plants. "I am afraid that I need more than just a plough or two. I want a wagon made that will be drawn by four, six or even eight horses. The collar that you saw made would be on each horse. The wheels though have to be higher than a man is tall so that the many holes on the road will not stop the wagon like small wheels would." Rudi didn't understand this and I had to make drawings with small wheels and large wheels in the same sized hole. The wood pole going between the horses was explained then the size of the wagon itself. "This will be used to steer the wagon by shifting the front wheels." He said, "Wagons of this size would carry a very large load. What do you need them for?" "When the grain is harvested, it can be put in the wagons and brought to the cities. Other farm produce will come the same way. This means that we not only need many barrels but buildings especially suited for this storage. "When all that is done, I will use the wagons for carrying iron ore, the black rock I call coal, limestone and also the finished iron or steel products. I may need hundreds of them built." "There are not enough horses to pull that many wagons." "We will have to take some from the Romans but oxen or donkeys can pull the wagons too." Rudi said, "I have repaired wheels before and our wagons too." "Your wheels are made of boards going all one way and more going at right angles. I want spokes cut to reduce weight. You need to cut long pieces of oak and we will put them in boiling water then bend them into a circle. The centre portion will have a large piece of bronze in it with a large hole in the centre of it." Rudi said, "I know that this wheel will work. The Romans already make a wagon like what you describe. I do not know exactly how the wheel is made though." This was surprising. I had studied Roman battles from books but never got into the details of much except their weapons. The wheels I assumed were like those of the middle ages. "I did not know that Rudi. The wheel is made of white oak. The smith will make a long piece of iron and weld it in the form of a circle. It will be slightly smaller than the wheel. We know the wheel is not very rigid. When the metal ring is heated, it will gain in size as wood does when it is placed in water. This ring will now fit over the wheel. As soon as it is in place it will all go into a large tank of water to cool. The metal will shrink and pull the wheel together very tightly." Rudy seemed to be thinking of this and visualising it in his mind. "That may work providing the wheel is made as tight as possible at the start." With no slate or the wish to use paper or parchment, Jón had to draw in the dirt to make his ideas clearer. I was with him but he seemed to have the basics down already. The wheels would support nearly a tonne each and need bearings. There could be no wood wearing on metal. Pig fat could be used for a lubricant until something better came along. I saw American Civil War cannon that had dished in wheels and this required a special way of cutting the axle so that the spokes went straight toward the ground for the strongest support. This meant that the top of the wheel was aimed far out to throw off mud. The frame of the wagon was drawn with the four wheels and the bar for steering. The inner construction of the wheel and the matching axle was done in detail. The brakes and the wagon body could be added later. Rudi said, "I like this wagon of yours. The other things are nice but this is the best. It may not be new to the Romans but it is new to us." Jón said, "I have only enough money to make some devices or tools. There is enough for this. Will you make the basic frame and the wheels? I will have to assist to make some small details that are not clear yet." "Your wheels with the iron seem to be the most difficult to make. Will it mean that much if we use the wheels we make now?" That was a logical question and Jón started to argue it with me but to Rudi it must look like he was thinking. It was Jón that wanted the new wheels now that I had mentioned them but the first few wagons could prove their worth and later be refitted with the better wheels. They would not be dished though. That would require the axles to be changed. Finally Jón said, "You are right. We will use your wheels. They may have to be used on the first few wagons. When iron and my steel become more common, the new wheels will be installed." The wagons had to be able to transport heavy loads. This was for the commodities mentioned but the design could also be used for the cannon, ammunition or powder but these details had to be kept quiet. A wagon currently in use may not be able to transport more than a bare cannon itself. We had poor bearings and no nuts to draw the wheel onto the axle with the right amount of tension. The Frisians used a tapered pin in a hole. When the wheel got sloppy the pin was driven more and this pushed the wheel on the axle further. The Romans may have handmade bolts but every one was different but I did not know. I wanted mine to be interchangeable. This may be impossible without making the tooling first. One of a kind bolts made by the smith would not be enough even if they could be produced. I saw guncarriages in my mind again. I was trying to recall all the details so they could be made. Ammunition carts would be pulled by four to six horses and the cannon attached to this cart with a common pintle hitch. I had seen pictures of the real thing but making them was a different story. Cannon was used to take out the enemies artillery and in this case Rome had some very effective devices. They just didn't use chemical means to propel a projectile. The cannon was also used to throw a cannister of smaller balls that would spread out after leaving the mouth of the cannon. This was just a heavy shotgun and was used in anti-personnel situations. One had nine larger balls and the other over two hundred of a much smaller variety. The whole idea of cannon was just that I could not make enough smaller arms in time and then instruct everybody in their use. It was much better to just train a few men to handle the guns. It was easier on me when I only had to make a few of these weapons. Rudi could not just order the wood. He and those he hired would have to travel to where some oak grew and cut down the trees he wanted then saw them to size or use his adz to do the same job. Green wood would give other problems besides shrinkage but there was nothing I could do about it now. "Tell me Rudi, who makes good barrels and are there some that will listen to the way I want them made?" I soon found out that barrel makers were just as hard to get along with. They had their guild to protect them. They did agree to make me what I required but continued to inform me that they knew best in all matters. The biggest stumbling block was metal hoops. They simply didn't have any. A long thick vine was wrapped a four or five times around the cask where the hoop would go. This worked fine and I had even seen similar barrels made in my time though they were rare. Standards had not been set yet and I had not found a suitable method of determining a metre, kilogram and a second. They may not be important but I had may formulas in my mind that required the measurements I had been taught as a young man. The carob bean was used by the Romans and were very close to a fifth of a gram each. Therefore five thousand of them would give a kilogram. I never knew why this basic unit was called a kilogram and not a single unit like gram. A milligram now could be what had once been a gram. A kilogram of water when it was at its densest point just a few degrees above freezing represented a litre. A litre was also a cube of water of ten centimetres to a side. A tonne was a thousand new large size grams of such water and would be a cubic metre. If I could lay my hands on enough carob beans then I could make what I needed. Of course now a tonne would be a thousand grams and this might even confuse me. All this predisposes that I could get the metric system adopted. Every large town had their own standard weights and measures and the people didn't like changes. I had learned that some measures were different only in the commodity that was being traded or sold. Something along the lines of ounces of gold or lead. Forni walked along with us in the mud and said, "It would be nice to ride a horse instead of walking in this." Jón said, "One day the streets will be as hard as stone and water will flow off into tunnels under the ground. Beside the streets will be a narrower road but made for people to walk." I was not too shocked and decided to ask, "Jón, how do you see these things? Is it just pictures or can you read deeper meanings with the thoughts behind them?" "I can see pictures that come to mind when I think of something. Some pictures are mine and some must be yours." "I cannot see into your mind but I can feel your emotions." "Then it is more of a trade. You have many ideas and I help you to do what has to be done." "You are becoming more like me because of those images but I am becoming more like you because of your body." "Ahh, I know about... hormones and how they change a boy into a man or a girl into a woman." "That helps you but I need your memories too. There are people around I know little or nothing about. What you know may be very important." "How?" "A person you think is not honourable will not be dealt with or if we had to then we will take measures that will make sure they do what they must." Jón I could tell was thinking about this and said to Forni, "We can get a saddle made for both of us. Just like the other kind, and we can use it for practice." "Yes! I like that idea." Jón changed conversation again and said to me, "I do not know any bad people just some that are not as nice as others. I guess I will have to tell you about people as I see them so you will know." "That may work and it will help you organise your own memories. You will get a better memory that way." One muddy block later Jón became more vigilant then I could feel an anger start to grow in him. I looked where he was concentrating and saw some young man walking in the same direction we were going. Jón said to me, "There is some of the people that are not nice." "Who are they?" "The one in the middle is Leenstra. The one on the right is Jenneke and the other is Douwma." "I can feel some hate. I wish I could access your memories. Tell me about them." "Leenstra is the one that is the leader. He is bigger too. I can see that I was not a good person and it mainly had to do with having those three as my friends." "What did they do?" "They make fun of everybody as if they are so good themselves. I began to follow them and I was this way too. The last I remember is that they had something to do with my accident but I cannot remember what it was." "That is normal. When a person is hurt in the brain then the last of their memories are not put up in storage. In fact some of the memories that are put away are lost. Some people I have heard have lost everything including who they were. Others are so damaged that they are like a baby and have to start all over again." "I don't like those three. I would like to find out what happened to me though." "It is better to talk to your sisters I think. They would hear all the gossip and be able to tell it to you. I can feel that you had some fear and resentment associated with them. They are bigger than you to start, and you are weak. If you want to take away some of your resentment, you better exercise more." "I want to beat them until they are black and blue then throw them out of town." "Isn't that the way they act?" There was no reply but I felt anger swelling up and it took a long time until it subsided. I assumed that I had hit the mark with my comment but Jón would want to find closure somehow from all his troubles. I said, "If you had not been hurt then I would not be here with you. I may be around but visiting another person. You are becoming a man that people are proud to know. That wasn't the case before. Vengeance my happen but if you let it rule you then you will be the same as they are. You, Forni and I are heros now and heros cannot act like children or petty adults." "I am not a child." "I know that you are not but you are not a man yet." "I am a man." "Jón, I am inside you. I know you better than anybody else. In time we will know each other better than two people ever knew each other. I am older than you and have a lot of experience. That does not make me right all the time but I think I am more right than not. You are changing into a man and this man I am happy to know." Jón didn't reply but some of the resentment and anger left but not all. He said, "You promised something to curl Dagmar's hair. I want two more saddles made but I know what to wait to see how the saddles we did make work. We may have to make changes." "Jón, you are learning very fast. This is what an adult would do, not a child. Now let's see what you can come up with for a curling iron." Jón, with the use of my memories built up a system but it was impractical. I treated him like my son and encouraged him and at the same time asked questions that would modify the design. We were back at the castle and the design had been roughly worked out. I said, "We can do what is called a full scale mock-up. We use wood, clay and anything else that is easy to change." There were three men and two young children sitting on the ground. They were basking in the sun and the adults talking. The children were playing with pieces of wood chips and stones. One man was using a knife to whittle something from a piece of wood. Beside them were toys that seemed freshly made from the wood. I saw that the knife was of the Roman design while another was the longer variety favoured by the Frisians. "Jón, stop for a while. I want you to go over to those man and see if you can get them to make something for us." "What?" "Have you seen pictures of a katana?" Jón paused then said, "Is that a sword?" "It is a sword I am very good at using. The metal is made up of different kinds and all forge welded together. In my world I was good at this as well as fighting with other weapons like the knife. I was a champion of the world in my age and weight class when it came to fighting with just my hands and feet." Jón said, "The sword in my mind is long enough but much too thin. It will bend in a fight." "It will indeed bend but only under a lot of force but it will spring back just the way it was on its own. Your swords are thick and heavy. This may be good but it is like a smith using his hammer to beat his way through a man with armour. My sword will cut through his armour. It is much lighter too and a person can use it for a much longer time before getting too tired." "Will you make one?" "I did make one as a young man, in fact I made many weapons. My mentors always were after me to do more and some of it had to do with making old weapons when our modern weapons were of no use any more." "Will you tell me about your mentors? I can see images of men and I know you loved them all." "It will be fun to talk about them. I can do it out loud so that Forni hears this too." "You can take control and I will listen." "Thanks Jón." I slipped into the driver's seat in a manner of speaking and stopped our forward direction of travel. The men were not that old but had some amputations at some time. One man looked to be Roman and I had to assume he was a slave or at least a prisoner. The Frisians didn't treat slaves badly. They were usually ordered to put up a home and farm a plot of land then give a portion of their produce to their owner. They were free otherwise. The Romans had learned better too. A slave was an expensive acquisition and to harm or kill meant money out of pocket. At least from a business point of view a slave was not that much worse off than a freeman. We approached them and first one man then another looked up. They were not worried but did stop their talk. I crouched down and sat on my heals. Forni did the same thing. I said, "Greetings, my name is Jón." Surprisingly it was the Roman looking person that spoke first. "My name is Modius. How may I help you?" His German was bad but his speech could be understood. "I want to build some weapons out of metal and I would like to have them made of wood first. A smith can then just copy in metal what is much easier to make in wood." "That sounds right." "Would one or all of you consent to make a wood sword for me?" "I can do that." "It is not the usual sword I want but one very much different." I used my hands and fingers to describe the blade and long handle. "This blade will be no good. The iron would bend." "My iron will be stronger. This problem will not occur." "I guess I can make it for you then..." "Would you be so kind as to do so. I want another sword very similar but shorter. I have some coins to purchase the wood but I will give you something else that you may be able to sell. It is only a toy but everybody will want it." "What is it?" With fingers I described a propeller. There was a lot of detail and I had to draw a cross section of the prop for different areas. "If you drill a small hole in the middle you can put a round piece of wood into it. You can use your hands to make it spin and it will fly into the air." "Nothing can do that. A bird needs wings and an arrow or stone needs to be thrown." I smiled at him and said, "Do you wish to make a bet of one more wooden sword?" "I will do that." I put out my hand and the man shook it after being told what it meant. I added, "If you make a piece of wood like this," I drew again in the dirt. "You can put the round peg into it and wrap a thin leather strip on it. When the strip is pulled quickly, the propeller will go even faster and climb higher." "Show me this again." I started to show what I meant then found a large enough piece of wood. I sat with my back to the wall and carved like the three men. Forni sat beside me and watched intently. I roughed out both blades and then did one with much more care. My arms were tired and I handed this to Modius. "My arms are weak. Will you try to finish it?" The man said nothing but took the wood and whittled much better than I could even when I was a young man in my own body. He seemed to have the knack of making this look easy. He said, "Are you the one that stopped the two assassins?" "I was very lucky and came upon them when they were not ready." "You cannot startle an assassin. Did you save your mother too?" "Yes, but Fálki and I were very fast and again they was not ready." "I heard the Frank was hurt." "My knife broke the bone in his arm. It was Dagmar that laid him onto the floor with a stool. She is not a lady you would want to get angry at you." He said nothing and neither did the other two and in a moment the propeller was finished. He handed it back to me and said, "Is this what you wanted?" "It is beautiful. You made your half perfect and even cleaned up my mistakes." "Show me how it flies." "We need to drill a hole through the middle, then make the thin wood rod." The other man handed the rod to Modius and he handed it to me. "This is good too. Is someone going to make the 'launcher'?" I used the modern German equivalent and hoped that it would fit. The other man held up the partially completed launcher and said, "Find a drill for us." "I will find a carpenter. I want to make another eleven propellers and launchers. The wood rod will have to wait on the size of the drill I find." Forni helped me to my feet and I dusted myself off. "I will be back as soon as I can." I found that Rudi was not around and tried to find someone else that had a drill. I knew they were easy to make. An iron spike was driven through a wooden spool. String from a flimsy bow was wrapped once around the spool and a rock was used to hold the blunt end of the stick stationary while it turned around. The work was what kept the bit from wandering. I went to see a smith that I had talked to before and bought three drill bits of various sizes. I was even able to use his stone to sharpen the four sides that would wear their way into the wood. The tanner sold me some thongs for the bow and a lot more that would be used to drive the propeller. Forni asked, "What are you making?" He had heard the previous explanation and I said, "It's a toy. If you make a propeller much larger you can attach it to a machine that will turn it very fast. If you put wings on it and room to get in you will fly through the air many times faster than the fastest horse." He didn't say anything. I didn't think he could bring himself to comprehend what I had said. We picked up a snack at the kitchen and put it into a leather sack and returned to the three men and now five children. I had a sapling in my hand that was beside the woodpile and hoped nobody would miss it. Modius greeted us warmly and Forni shared out the food. The five children ate with us. They didn't look too hungry but they didn't look well fed either. It took longer to make the drill than it did the propeller but soon we were drilling holes in the propeller and then into the completed launcher. We needed larger diameter rods to fit the propellers and an even larger hole in the launcher so there would be clearance. With the propeller and rod in my hand, I ran it back and forth. It was not balanced but it did spin on a perpendicular plane. With a quick thrust the propeller spun fast and climbed a metre into the air before it fell to the ground then spun a second in the dirt. I recovered it and tried again and it rose just a bit higher. Forni was handed it next and I said, "Try it out while standing." He quickly stood and everybody watched him do as I did and the propeller spun higher again. I had to wait for the sight to become common place before the larger hole could be finished in the launcher. Forni reluctantly brought back the propeller and it fit fairly well in the wood. I wrapped a thin piece of leather around the shaft and while keeping it taut, wound the propeller backwards. When I was done I handed it to Modius. "You do it." I could see that he was about to say no but changed his mind. He pulled the thong quickly and the propeller soared perhaps four metres into the air before falling. The children raced for the propeller and brought it back. Adults now were ringing us to see what we had made. I said as a representative, "These men are making these for sale. I am getting the first dozen" Modius and his two friends just looked at me then continued to work on the projects. There were many more thongs than I needed so when I was presented with the ones I requested. I handed him my surplus strings and said, "You owe me one extra sword. Please keep the bow. You will put it to good use." "But... this is more than the wooden swords are worth." "You take care of the children and make them happy. This makes me happy." I bent over and placed some small coins in his hand. This is for the wood you will have to buy." The man looked at the coins and smiled, "I will have the swords for you tomorrow." "Make them rough because I have to give the fine detail once they are made." "They will be here." "Thank you." With a handshake to each of the men we left. I handed one toy to Forni and said, "This is for you, Sweetie. The rest are for Jón to give to his sisters." I slowly pulled back and Jón took over once more. He said, "Sisters? Why? Only two are children." "Everybody is a child at heart." "I have five sisters. Where does the rest go?" "One to Astrid, one to your father, one to Fálki, then one to Fidelis." "There is one more." "One is a gift from me to you." "Oh." In a moment he asked, and the rest?" "We save them and give them to important people." Again he didn't speak but he did seem happy. The surplus toys were dropped of in the bedroom and Jón wanted to hurry to deliver his gifts to his sisters. The girls would be working and I had to convince him to wait until the meal and give the gifts out then. Jón asked just before the noon meal, "Who should get the other two toys?" "Who does things for you without asking for reward?" "Nobody." "Come now Jón. Think. There are those that help you and ask for nothing in return." "Forni?" "He received a gift and he asks sometimes. Who else?" There was a long pause and he finally asked, "Who?" "Helga." "Helga is only a cook." "She is a woman that heats your water. She feeds you better than most in the castle and she lets you get away with taking food when you want it. She cleans up after you when you take a bath because I never saw you taking the tub back to where it belongs." "Ok, Helga. Who else? There is only one left." "Probably Cing. He and Fidelis work together and are looking for what we need. The toys are not important. They took very little effort to make once the men were shown how. It is the intent that counts." "Ok, Cing. I know that there is another thing with a wood tail that flies. What is it?" "Ahhh so you see that. The Chinese made a rocket that was powered by gunpowder. It had a long stick on it to keep it pointed in the right direction. The Indians found this somehow and used it against the British. The British thought they were good and made many of them. Later they found a way of doing the same thing without the stick." "Can we make these?" "I don't know. The last kind were cast of molten iron." "Can we use clay?" "We can try. All I heard was that the powder had to be packed very tightly together to work. The part at the very top could explode." "Let's do it." "Hold on. We can make some of the powder but we also have to make the rockets. We do not have the ingredients we need for the powder." "Let's get them." "It is more difficult than that. The priests came up with what we wanted. Some may be close but others may be from far away. If we go to get them then we will have to take an escort. The escort will know about the odd things we want. It is better to keep it as a secret as long as possible. Besides I have no idea where to look and if I ask then we are letting the secret out." "Let's make the rockets then." He was a boy at heart and I hated to burst his bubble. "Ok, we will do that but we need to find the bootmaker and see if he can make our saddles first. Then we have to make the curler for Dagmar. Women of this time are funny about having short hair." Like a boy he said, "If we get saddles then we need lances." "We may not go into battle but they are good for practice. I think Rudy ran off to make our wagon and forgot to do the lances we wanted." I could feel Jón get angry when there was really no need and I knew that I had much more work to do before he became better adjusted to his life and station in it. ------- Chapter 10 Fálki was not in the barracks, but we were told that he was coming back into the city to eat. The man jokingly said that he didn't like to miss a meal. There was a watch tower above the barracks that looked over this area. A taller one stood over the castle itself to check in all directions. Jón took his time and we climbed to the top and looked out. Jón said, "It would be nice to have one of those things for seeing far away." "I think so too. That is why the stonecutter is making a kiln for us. Glass is very valuable to us." "Why, you know how to make it, and it's easy?" "I know how and that is the important part. The craftsmen usually built small." Forni said, "Why are we here?" Jón said, "I forgot that you cannot hear the talk Vic and I have. We were talking about shaping glass so we can see things far away." "You can?" "Yes, and it can be used for those that cannot see very well. Small pieces of glass are used to make everything clearer." "Astrid can't see very well. Did you see how she puts her hand down and has to search for things by feel?" "No, I never realised that until you said it. It is lucky that I have such a good friend that is so observant when I do not." Forni smiled and looked at the stone at his feet. "It's nothing." "Who else cannot see very well?" "Your father. He pushes things far from him when he looks at them when we bring them close to see all the small details." "You're right again, Forni." We were on hand when Fálki returned. He had nearly all of the soldiers out with him. It appeared that all the Franks were with him too. They smiled at seeing Jón. I guess that they took Fálki as my representative and left to do some manoeuvres. When Fálki got down he handed the reins of his horse to a groom and came to see us. "Greetings, milord. Have you come to see me?" Jón said, "I brought you a gift. It is a toy but it shows something important. One day we may use it to fly above the clouds." "Really? What is it?" He was presented the helicopter and Jón put it properly into his large hands. "Pull the thong." The man looked at the device and so did a great many others that started to cluster around. Fálki said, "This is a toy." "A toy that teaches if you have the mind that can learn." "I just pull the string?" "Yes and pull it fast but don't break anything." Jón had to hold the man's hands so the propeller was aimed up and the man pulled it very quickly. The launcher fell and men backed up many steps as the device climbed nearly five metres. When the helicopter came to earth everybody avoided it as if it were magic. To these people many things were magic. Jón said, "When it spins, it catches the air and climbs until it slows down. If we had a machine to turn a big one we could go up with it. We could fly over the fields and look down on both friend and enemy." Jón put the propeller back into position and wound the thong around the shaft. "Try again." Fálki didn't want to touch it. "Look at how this is made. It is only wood and a piece of leather. It is not magic. Make some of your own and they will fly too. Everybody knows that they have to be magicked to make them work and nobody will be able to do that." Albrecht came close and Jón handed him the device. The man studied it from every position then asked, "May I try it?" Jón said, "I have given it to Fálki. You should rightly ask him." Before the question came, Fálki said, "Keep it. I have no use for toys even if they are not magic." I could feel that Jón was disappointed but Albrecht seemed to be very happy. He pulled the thong and it rose just as high as what Fálki had made it do. Jón said, "Make a bigger one and leave more room for more leather. You may need to have somebody else pull it. We can see if it will go higher." Albrecht asked, "Why does it make that odd noise?" Jón asked me and then he said, "It is not balanced. One of the wings wants to climb more than the other. Both wings need to be the same length and weight too. Not easy to do but good enough for a toy so we can learn." We went to eat and Albrecht displayed the toy to all those that were around him. When the girls came in Jón stood and gave them each one of the toys. Dagmar and Astrid wondered at this for they were obviously not children. Dagmar seemed to be happy. I was not sure if it was Jón or me but she did look like she had no worries. Her hair was back in a ponytail and she proudly had the end hanging over her shoulder and onto her chest. It finally occurred to me that it was the prince that was making her happy. For a second I was jealous but then rationalised that she was a sister of my body. I ran possibilities through my mind. The prince could very well be having sex with her even though she vowed to put a knife between his ribs. I wanted Dagmar to know love but I had to overcome what the 1970s had done to me and all my people. Now there was little in the way of methods to keep a woman from getting pregnant. She may do something where Clovis would force her to marry the prince if he were not married already. I cringed at the thoughts of having Prince Egill of the house of Finnbjörn as my brother-in-law. My attention shifted as Astrid said, "Thank you Jón but why have you given me this?" "It is simply a gift. I don't think anybody has made these before." Jón remained quiet and then Astrid said, "Thank you again. I will treasure it because you made it." The others looked at what they had but it seemed that they could not decide what they did. Jón said as he held Elfrieda's toy and said, "Pull the thong as hard as you can." The toy flew into the air and almost instantly the hall was quiet. Forni retrieved the propeller and Jón showed how to rewind it. The five year old was less awestruck and pulled her thong again. She laughed as it flew into the air but it landed close to Dagmar's plate. The woman picked it up with a finger and thumb distastefully and handed it back. Astrid said, "Play with this outside not here." Elfrieda seemed a bit heartbroken but she and her sister Sieglinde now looked anxious to eat. Dagmar said, "How did you discover this idea?" "It occurred that it would catch the air. I cut one but some men cut the rest. They liked them though and may get to sell some." The meal was indeed eaten quickly and not just by the children. There were many spectators to watch and one of them was Helga. I knew Jón was smiling as he ran to the woman and handed her one of the toys. "This is a gift to you." "I am not a child." "I know that but it is still a gift. There is little that I can give to a person that has helped me so much." Helga's face softened and she said in a lower voice, "I will accept your gift. It almost seems magical. Is it?" "Not in the least. Simply copy it. The copy will fly too. If it were magic that was making it fly, then your's would not." The women seemed to weigh his words. Jón said, "Aren't you going to pull the thong?" The woman did and her face lit up as the helicopter took to the sky. Jón ran around showing people how to rewind the thong until they did this on their own. It was Astrid that put a stop to it. "We have work to do girls. We can't be playing here all day." The two youngest would gladly stay but took their toys away. Brigitte and Gudrun came up to Jón and the former said, "It is a fun toy. Thank you Jón." Gudun pushed in on her sister's words and said, "I think it is fun too. I want to see how far I can make mine fly." We went back to work ourselves. The forge was checked and more wood had been delivered. This time there was much more than last time. Sander was not there but Wiebe and six children were. An explanation of the days activities was given. The man liked the idea of being able to support his family even if it was only through silver and not his bow. The children were not afraid to go near the man so I had to assume he had a proper personality. Jón said, "I want the potter to make something for me and he can cure the clay in the fire we have here." "I will tell him when he returns." This could be anytime. Time was a very flexible commodity and people basically came when they felt like it. "Tell me about your helpers." Wiebe called the children over and introduced them one by one. They seemed to be around Jón or Forni's ages. One boy was larger but his expressions and mannerisms made me understand that he was just large for his age. Jón treated them as equals which made me feel good that he was learning. Too many times an adult or another child treated children with distain. The children seemed to be admiring Jón and Forni and one girl even more so. Dina had long red hair. Her chest was as flat as any boy and her clothing was dirty but she had no fear in approaching Jón. Jón didn't retreat but I could feel that he was uncomfortable. In any case Jón left as soon as he could. Forni or I said nothing to him. Even if Jón had not been malicious before, he could explode now with his hormones. Andsvarr seemed to be less angry when asked to make two more saddles. This time he was going to take the effort to make them all himself. He was working more but making more money than he had except during the first part of the war when he could demand any payment for his work. This he let us know because he was also saying he was worth more money. Andsvarr added, "People have been coming around and asking about the saddle. I would like to keep the next one for a while so I can let people know about it." Andsvarr looked sneaky but Jón said, "You may do so. The more people that try it the more that will have one made for them. I would order hundreds now but I need to have them tested so we know about all the little things that can go wrong." "You talked about the saddle also fitting the horse but that is foolish." "Just because a horse cannot talk doesn't mean that he is not in pain. You try doing your best, even with great boots, if there is a stone in one of them." Andsvarr was not pleased with the analogy but abandoned his objection. I didn't want any defects in the saddle attributed to me. This happened much too often in my previous existence. Jón and Forni walked the city and talked to some people that looked predisposed to do so. Most of these were older man and some women. Jón talked of his fights but then asked about their concerns. Jón was going to be a diplomat now if he could control his temper. Those people that he knew, were explained to me including his feelings toward them. Clovis had done much the same thing to his son, and Jón was able to repeat some of the information but not accurately. Jón said to me, "What are we looking for? I know it is something." "It is a combination of objectives. The stonecutter is making a kiln. This will produce one of the ingredients to make glass. We need silica sand and either potash or ashes. We need lots of wood for construction and fuel then a place to make the glass." "For lenses?" "Yes but I need it for our laboratory. We need to produce some chemicals and glass is good for most of them." "I can see images of some odd devices that are clear and hard." "That is the glass." I pictured various pieces of glassware and explained what they were for. Jón finally said, "I did not know you needed all those kinds. The number is just too high to count." "That is just some. We need lots of it too and most have to be built large. We are not experimenting but going into production." "You are looking in this part of the city with few people. Why is that?" "We are going to make dangerous substances. Some will burn while others will kill with just a smell. Many will explode like our powder though that is not what I intend. Your father may get the residents to move to where it will smell better and they would not get hurt." "My people are not afraid to die." "That may be so but why do something foolish that endangers many?" Jón did not say anything and I continued, "We have to build a foundry too. This is best far away from where people live but we are at war now. It is dirty and we need so many tools, buildings and equipment that we would take over this entire city and more. I want to build a smaller scale foundry here but produce the coke elsewhere if possible." I showed him the images of a building with brick lined troughs in the floor. Holes in the floor allowed the high temperature crucibles to be lowered into the stream of hot gases. In a few hours, if there was enough coke and enough air then the iron would melt. It would be skimmed a few times then large tongs would take out the molten metal and it could be then poured into moulds. It was now steel. The moulds would produce swords, knives, cannon, shot and a lot of other products we would need. Various forms of cast iron could be made in a copula far from the city and these castings would be used in the machinery that had to be made. A lathe and a milling machine were on the top of my list but simpler tools would have to be made first. We spotted an area where it looked like three out of seven homes had been abandoned. Those standing were not as good as those in the other part of the city. All the homes though and greenery around them as well as trees. Most of this I had to attribute to their religion. The tree was sacred even if they had to be cut for fuel or lumber. It was near one of the gates into the city which would help somewhat but there were no services. Water would have to be carried and sewage was thrown on the ground. Building right would mean a great expense. This could only be done when my products were sold. This brought on the thoughts of Greece under Alexander or when Spain found the new world. There was so much money or gold coming in that inflation ruined the countries concerned. To counter this, money had to go out and this could be in the form of investment. We would have to check other areas of the city then find out how a person went about gaining property. It just may not be possible to get more than one lot in a community like this where the people were tied to the earth so tightly. Fálki was available though he was currently talking to some of the men and even some of the Franks. We were admitted to the group and Jón asked, "I want to construct a large building in the city. There are some abandoned homes that I may be able to get. How do I go about using them?" "I don't know. If it is abandoned then you can ask the neighbours and if it is truly abandoned, you may take it as yours. Why would you need more than one house?" "It is like running a stable. You need a house and a place to put the horses. You would also want a place to store the food for the animals." "I do not know. The priests would know. Why not ask your father?" "He is not here yet and I am beginning to worry." "You shouldn't. He has been gone for much longer sometimes. He may have to teach the Romans or the Gauls a lesson or two to make them keep their distance. You probably should stay away from the priests if possible. Your father had to work hard to keep them from ruining his work." "What work was that?" "What you said before about beating sense into us. We have a leader but he does not control our movements. The Romans taught your father and a few others that this is wrong and will lead to defeat. We even used it against some of Rome's enemies when we were allied with them." I knew he meant paid by Rome but I said nothing. Jón said, "We will have to wait then for my father's return. Has anybody sent out messengers to Augsburg, Zweibrücken or Braunschweig? He may even be in one of the other cities." "It is much too early for this to happen. Give him another month and if he is not back we will try to find what has happened. If it were important, he would send a messenger here." This was a rational idea but Jón was becoming angry but he said or did nothing overt. Again I hoped this was just his hormones and not any inherent weakness on his part. We walked back into the courtyard and found the three old men joined by two others and all of them were making the wood helicopters. Some were larger and used only the hands. We went over and talked to the men. They were now quite talkative and explained about the toys they were able to sell. Modius seemed to be their spokesman though this seemed odd. The Germans didn't like to have someone speak for them and especially not a Roman. "I will have your sword tomorrow. What do you think of our toys?" Jón handed some of the new toys and said, "They are good. Why not make the propeller of lighter wood like birch or even willow. The shaft will have to be strong though." "We will try that." Dagmar was still happy at supper and I wondered if it was her vengeance that was making her so joyful. Jón asked for me, "How is your guest doing?" "He is eating well. He has a sore jaw and I have to cut his food fine like a baby." In a lower voice she said, "I am even dressing him like one. He does not like it. He would rather walk out into the hall naked than to have his men see him thus. I have removed all his clothes and left only what I would wear." "I was worried that you may want him for other purposes. I want you married to a man we can respect. The prince is not one of those men." This seemed to please Dagmar. She gave us a coy smile and said, "What if I like him?" "Then my judgement about you had been wrong. I thought you were too intelligent to think that way." Jón turned his face away and in a moment he heard, "I was only thinking. I would never have a child by him and I would never want him for a husband." "Then my opinion about you has been restored." Jón and Forni turned in early and I thought it was to catch up on sleep. I was very wrong and they worked on each other like sex starved rabbits. Jón tried to enter Forni but they had no lubrication. There were two tired boys that went to sleep in each other's arms. The night allowed me time to think with very little interruption. I found that the Frisians were ethical people but were too hardheaded to change to the way I needed them to. Clovis may have subdued the priests in this city but they still had power to guide the people to the way they wanted. They had not bothered me yet. They caught a lot of meaning from the way people talked to know that they would not want progress. I had not asked the foreign priests explicitly where they had found the ingredients for the black powder. Even without making an explosion, I could be testing rocket motors. I didn't have enough money to buy the bronze I needed and I could not get into Clovis' supply without angering Fálki. The cannon I wanted to build had now changed. With two or three times the amount of bronze, I could make a full sized mortar. The range would be much less but I could now put a hollow iron sphere filled with black powder into the midst of an enemy line. This full scale working model would not only serve for testing and demonstration. It would also be used as a weapon where the other cannon would not be very practical unless the barrel were lengthened considerably. Lead would be in demand for smaller weapons and there were even deposits close by but this meant months in search even if I knew approximately where they were. Potash was all around us but I had to dig to find a deposit. Clovis could help by just issuing a few words. Getting some of his men to follow me while I prospected was not a serious alternative. Going alone was even more foolish with the Romans and Gauls fighting us. The two boys were woken up at the usual time but they only wanted to sleep more. They did get up especially after I used Jón's right hand to goose Forni. The boy seemed to like this but he was just not prepared. Usurping the voice I said, "Get up Sweetie. Both of you have to wash very well. Then we have to go see the cook." "Why?" came from both boys. "We need children and young men that have not let their thoughts harden. The church and every other organisation has tried to educate children their way before they act like their parents. The food is a way to encourage the children to come even when they want to stay away." Jón asked silently, "What is wrong with parents?" "What is wrong with parents is that they want to do what their parents or grandparents did. If the children learn to count with the new numbers and use new Latin letters for their words then they will be much further along than their parents. When I use mathematics with our weapons the children will know what I am talking about while their parents won't. When I want to do a new way of fighting the parents will not be as easily convinced." Jón asked, "How are you going to do this?" "How?" I repeated for Forni's benefit. "We start a school. Your father asks the parents to send their children. We teach many subjects they would not learn at home. There are many old people that still have a good mind even if their bodies are not up to fighting. They serve a useful purpose once more. I am going to let Jón talk now." I pulled back and the two boys got up. They didn't talk much but both looked to be thinking. Forni said, "Will I learn numbers and letters?" With a little prompting, Jón said, "You will learn the most of all. You have a very important job. You have to learn then teach others." It took a moment for the boy to digest this and said, "I would have to leave you. I don't want to learn." Jón said, "Vic is right. You have to learn. You are intelligent. You are a gentle person and you would be able to teach. You will still be with us but not all the time." "I don't want to learn any more." "Forni, you will learn. I want to be proud of you. We are fighting for our lives and learning to read and do numbers may be a way of staying alive. What would you do if you didn't know how to use one of these devices and killed our own men or maybe didn't do anything and let many die. One of them could be me." "I would do anything for you." Jón hugged then kissed Forni before saying in a low voice, "I know that and I would do the same for you. We are both going to learn and then we are going to teach." Helga was busy with breakfast but smiled at the two boys in front of her. "And what do you two want? Another bath?" "Maybe later thank you, but I came to ask some questions." "Ask away." "I have to teach some children. Children usually get to eat but not always what they need. I want to find out about how we get our food and how plentiful it is." "Those are odd questions. Most of the food comes from the farmers. I think that everybody gives a portion of their crop to us. Your father had a great many slaves." This was news to me. "He gives them land and tells them how much food he wants and they give it to him." "Do we have enough extra food to feed fifty children. Some of the people I hired are already coming here to eat." "I noticed the new faces. Fálki said it was alright to feed them. Food is easy to come by now but in the middle of winter it is harder to find and we all eat less." "If I found students, then there is enough food to feed them until the winter." "Yes, I guess that is true." Jón reached up and hugged the woman and then kissed her cheek. "Thank you Helga. When my father gets home we can see if this had to be changed or not." The flustered woman said nothing as Jón and Forni turned and ran to their seats at the table. Astrid asked, "What were you talking about?" "Teaching and feeding children." "What?" She was given a sanitised version of the reason but still asked, "What do you have to teach?" "I have talked to the foreign priests and father. There is another way of counting than the way we do it now." "What is wrong with the way we do it?" "Ours is fine for small numbers but when they get big they are too difficult to handle. I am going to make paper one way or another. We will write our ideas down on this paper and others may read. It is far better to use the symbols the Romans use than our own. Most people cannot read now so if they learn my way then it will be just as easy or just as hard as what was taught before." "That may be true but why put this in books?" "I want to make the Roman characters in lead. We can put a full page of these together to say what is needed. If you roll ink over the lead and push a sheet of paper onto it the characters will be seen on the paper." "It is easier to use a quill." "It is but I can put more ink on then make another page then another and another. I can make many of them. Then I make what another page has to say and print many of them too. When all this is done the pages will be sorted and bound together and each book will be the same as the others." "Why do you want to make books Jón?" "I know how to make saddles and yokes. If I put these ideas on paper, I can send it to everybody so they will know how to do this too." "The Romans and the Gauls will find out." "That's true but it will take a long time for them to even start. By that time I will have better weapons. The idea is to train our people. They can make tools if they are shown how. I have thought of a better plough. If the farmers see this, they can make it and grow more crops and do it with less work. Making paper and making books can be described and the people may decide to do this for themselves." "Paper is expensive Jón and not to be used for such foolishness." "What if I could make very good paper. I could sell it to the Romans for gold. They would buy it because it is the best. I will do the same with glass." "Glass? You can make glass jewellery?" "More than jewellery. I want to make large flat sheets of it. When it is put in wooden frames it can go into the openings in our walls. It will keep out most of the cold air. In the summer they are folded out of the way to let fresh air in." "I didn't know you could do that." "I need people to help me do this. Some people will gather what is needed and others to mix and melt. Others will make paper and in the end many people will have a way of making more money." "We don't need money. We have Woden." "Our god needs people to praise him but if we make silver by selling tools then we can make more weapons to make ourselves safe. The people now work just hard enough to enjoy their beer and have enough crops to last them through the winter. All I want to do is have them work a bit more. When a bad harvest comes they will be able to eat instead of starve." "They cannot eat glass and books." "That is where you are wrong. You can make a large glass jar and a tight fitting top. Put food into it then put a good top on. This is boiled for half an hour and the food inside will not go bad for years. I can prove this when I have made some glass to make jars with." "I would like to see this." "I am hungry now and I have not even eaten the food before me." Everybody started to eat now because they had been intently listening to my words. Helga supplied the food again and we left to find the carvers. They were at their spot bright and early and Modius presented Jón with not three swords but four. Two of the katana length and two of the slightly shorter wakizashi swords. After a friendly greetings all around, Jón said, "My wishes were for two swords and our wager was for one more." Modius chuckled and said in his broken speech, "Wood is cheap and the other is just to show my surprise for the device working." This time Jón smiled and soon got onto describing how the swords were to be trimmed now that there was a rough blank available. When the instructions were done Jón passed on more information. "Make a new launcher this way." He drew it in the dirt with a piece of wood. "Make a piece of wood like this now with a blunt point and a smooth top." "What does this do?" The second part will spin with a thong the same way as the toy you made yesterday. This one will stand up on its point and even lean over without falling. When I come by tomorrow I will look at what you have done and talk more about it." The men were all smiles and there was not even a request for services for this information. We went out of the castle and back in another gate to get to the forge. Wiebe was there pumping on the bellows slowly. He stopped his work and greeted Jón with a smile and a handshake. Jón was surprised and Wiebe smiled at the shoe being on the other foot this time. "What can I do for you, milord?" "I need the potter's help. I want another bushing made but this time it is longer and thinner. I want to make something for Dagmar's hair. A piece of metal goes on the outside of the bronze. It is all heated in a fire but not so it is too hot. Hair pulled through this will come out curled." "Really?" "Yes. I need the smith to make me the handles and to pour the bronze. Fálki has a little left and I may be able to make two of them." "I can help make this if you wish. My father taught me about pottery too." "Thank you. I also need the services of the rest of you too." "We are yours to command." "Thank you again but it is not work I require. I want to teach all of you about what I have found. Part of it is a new way of counting and using numbers to understand the world around us. I want to use the Roman symbols and a few more to write our language. They will have to do my work when they are not doing yours." "Whatever for?" "My father may send a message. The way it is worded will allow us to know it is really from him. We read it here and know what he demands of us. We can talk of matters here and in detail. My father could then give us instructions. Sending word of what happened with Prince Egill of the house of Finnbjörn requires thought and not the memory of the messenger." Wiebe gave some thought himself and said, "You are the one ultimately paying our wages so you may do as you wish." "Where are the rest now?" "They chatter all the time. They have done their work so I send them off while I tend the forge alone. Some have no home and sleep here now." After a bit of prompting, Wiebe gave his assessment of each of the six children. Jón said, "What ages are your children?" "We have eight. They range from less than a year to twelve. Why do you ask?" "Learning to read and move numbers around will be a great asset. Your children should benefit from this." "All they need to know is how to farm and to hold a sword correctly." "Is that enough to stand up to a Roman legionnaire?" "They will die with honour and sit on the right hand side of our god." "Is it better to kill the Roman instead?" "Yes." "Then you have to teach how to fight with a sword too. That will be taught in our school along with a great many other subjects." "I will think about your offer." Wiebe and I went about making the core for the hair curler and we talked about education in general and I saw that he was against it after a person gained what he considered was enough. Enough for a girl was less than for a boy though. The children came back an hour later and the mould had already cured in the fire still heating the iron. Dolf the large boy came in first with his arm around Epje. Both seemed to be friends though the latter was a lot thinner. Wiebe called them over with a gesture and when they got close Jón said, "I have another task for each of you. I need apprentices and I know that I have to start young to do this right." Epje was all eyes and stuttered, "You want us?" "Yes, providing you work out. You will learn what nobody else in the entire world knows except Forni and me." An apprenticeship was a long time commitment that meant food and shelter as well as a way to make a good living later. To get such an apprenticeship was like winning a lottery. They wanted to talk but were too excited. Jón said, "I am turning simple iron into steel. You will learn many ways of doing this. I am going to make glass in large sheets that keep out the winter wind. You will learn this. I am going to show you how to kill those that try to kill you. Very few Romans would be able to stand up to you. "The pay will not be much but when you are done you will be able to be rich men by making what I show you. In the mean time, I will protect you, feed and clothe you and most importantly I will educate you." The boys didn't know what to say. Gaining an apprenticeship was something they only dreamed of. Dolf managed to say, "What must we do?" "I will teach and you must learn. The work you do will not be hard but you may have to think. I am offering the others the same agreement. You can accept now or wait and see what I require. After seven days you will have to choose. If you do not think this is for you then I will find work for you some place else." The two girls Dina and Aagt came in next with Klaasje and Tiebout just behind. Dina had a wide smile for us and then so did Aagt. When they came over the same proposition was put to them. Klaasje said, "What about my father?" Tiebout jumped in and said, "Mine too?" "They will be asked. Dolf, tell us about your family." He pushed out his chest and said, "The Romans killed my Da. We are staying with my uncle." It turned out that two were outright orphans and only one had both parents alive. The other orphan was Dina and I wondered how she was so upbeat all the time or was she just compensating for her condition. Klaasje was an average looking boy of Jón's age. He was the one lucky enough to have both parents. The father though was seriously wounded in a fight in the city and would take a while to recover. The unofficial social network must have been at work to help all of the families and part of that must be Fálki because he was the one to find these. Since they were from nine to twelve years in age there must be more if the man had looked for them. Families now had many children. Jón said to nobody in particular, "I am looking for some slate. When it is ground flat I can use it to show you what you need to learn. You have to learn the craft of war to stay alive but you need other equipment that is needed by your group and others." Wiebe was quite a distance away but evidently listening said, "There are some pieces of slate behind the forge. I don't know why they were there." "That is good to hear." He stood and walked around the back. In an alcove were a hodgepodge of articles. There certainly was a large enough supply of slates. Broken furniture and even some small bits of iron were present. Everybody dug in and cleaned out the area so we could see what we had. Piles were formed of everything. The slates though were laid gently side by side. We even found a broken piece of bronze armour that went over the back and another damaged helm. Any leather was long gone because of the mice. The pile of wood may have been there to get dry and be used as tinder or fuel. Forni found a broken blade of a iron sword but not the hilt. It was thick and heavy for strength. When I looked at it I saw two places where inclusion of slag had contributed to the break. I got Jón to loan me his body and I used his voice to say, "This is a good example of what you will learn." I pointed out the slag in both places and even passed the blade to Sander as if he were a student. "This is relatively pure iron. It is soft and bends in battle unless it is very thick. This also makes it heavy. This is good when used like a blunt ax. Picking up the sword though is hard work. We will all have swords made of steel. Steel is very strong. Less of it can be used to make a sword of the same length. A warrior can use it much longer before he has to get out of the battle to rest. The steel sword is also light enough that it can be used to thrust with the point. Since it is hard it will stay sharp longer. This means it can pierce armour if it is pushed hard enough." Nobody said a thing so I added, "You may question me about things if it has to do with what we are currently talking about. I cannot prove everything to you until later. The proof of the steel will come in a few days and you will hold some of it in your hands. If we are lucky you will get to wear some steel armour. It may weigh the same as bronze but it will be much stronger. An arrow will not go through it nor an iron sword. You will not be invincible though. There are many places for a sword to get through unless we design some very special armour that locks one piece to the rest." When the blade came back I took the lightest hammer on the floor and beat the iron a few times when cold on the small odd looking anvil. "If you look at the metal now, you will see how the hammer deformed it." This too was passed around. "Steel will deform too but not as much. That is a good test of the metal. It can be struck the same amount with the same hammer and you measure how much of an imprint it makes. Steel has very little. Armour would be of this type." Dolf whispered, "If my Da..." I used a low voice too and said, "Yes, if your Da had this armour then he may now be alive, the same for all the other missing fathers. Work hard with me and we will make sure others here in our land keep their fathers." The slates were uneven and some were quite thick. I used a portion of a sliver of slate to mark a large surface. The characters were thin and hard to see but much better than using a stick and the dirt on the floor. The rough slates were handed out and there were even some left. It took a while until everybody had a slate pencil but by then we decided to eat what was in the sack we had brought. Jón came out now because I was not teaching anything important. Wiebe was invited to eat with us. The six children ate with gusto though all of the Germans needed a lesson in table manners. I guess if they had them then they may not be termed barbarians any more. Forni had learned over time to imitate the rest of us and I wanted the others to do the same. My aim was to make a military academy. The future Germans enjoyed a degree of regimentation. Once a code was set up, each individual would know how to act in almost any give situation. This would be far from the way they were now. In a way I had to rethink that. They thought that the way to succeed was to rush in and hack and thrust until either the enemy or they were dead. They needed the same training as what the Roman army got and many loved the army for its structure even in my day. The bellows had remained idle for long enough but the extra air had done its job and heated the iron hot enough to cut the time necessary to infuse more carbon into the iron. Jón instructed that the fire be put out with some water to conserve fuel and he had to be carful of not hitting the hot clay jars. There was nothing left but to let the iron cool slowly. This should take at least a few hours. After our meal, I regained the use of Jón's body. Numbers were drawn and then copied by my students. There was not going to be any confusion with one and zero because the first character was drawn with the usual German horizontal bar through it. The zero had a slash through it from upper right to lower left. This way they would not be confused with upper case 'O' and lower case 'L'. Zero as a place holder was explained along with positional digits. Wiebe had been given a slate too and told, "Your children may be able to come here and perhaps you should sample what they would learn so you would know." "You want me to learn your numbers?" "When we have a way of measuring I will use numbers. I can draw a picture of a mould I want and put numbers to show how large a portion is. A year from now you may have to make something you will make tomorrow. All you have to do is find the slate or better yet a piece of paper with the drawing on it. You will not have a problem with remembering." "I have a good memory and can remember all I need." "Do you remember when we talked yesterday?" "Yes." "Could you tell me exactly the words we used?" "Not exactly but I can give the ideas you talked about." "Yes but we may need the exact words because something was unclear. That is why we need to record words and numbers. As time goes on the thickness of one strand of hair may be important. One time this means that something is too tight and it will not move and the other time is too loose and other things may happen. One word missing from a group of words, or one extra will change the entire meaning of a conversation and lead to war." He said nothing but I did see him copying the characters I drew on my slate. From there we went onto simple addition. Most caught the idea fairly soon especially as the numbers were drawn across the top of their slates. The simple addition of one just meant that they used the next number in the number line. Even Wiebe saw that this was fun though he had manipulated numbers his way for years. Attention spans were not long and the slates were put away and we as a group inspected the sleeping arrangements. The children all slept in a room off the forge and two others nearby served the adults. Jón and Forni had used the room with the forge just a few days ago. There were many amenities needed because we basically had only shelter and some heat from the forge. Uniforms were best and I had my ideas already. Tables, chairs and real beds were a must. If these children had something special that nobody else had then there would be a demand to join our group. This had to be tempered with a child's penchant for gloating over what they had received. Diplomacy had to be taught as well as being either an officer and a gentleman or a lady as the case may be. I was not opposed to women in battle, especially in this time. There were few ladies. The women were just female and the men male. The women were strong because they did most of the work. The men had muscles derived from their hormones but the women seemed to work more. A woman with a bow made for her may not shoot as far but she could be just as accurate if she had time to practice. A woman was fast with a rapier too and possibly with a heavier sword. Our swords would be the lightest and strongest made. All we needed was time and the materials to make them. The rest of the afternoon was devoted to cleaning up this area and teaching more math verbally. This was usually done by asking simple questions and seeing how fast the individual could answer. This was a game of sorts and they children ribbed each other about being slow or wrong. It eventually became time to remove one of the clay jars. There were few tools available but we were able to use wood poles to slide one of the jars onto a split board. The jar got to the floor unbroken and Sander was given the job of opening it. A small amount of clay had sealed the jars with only enough room for hot air to escape. The iron pieces were hot but none of it was hot enough to ignite the charcoal that was still in the jar. With no oxygen present in this process, the iron had not formed a scale. Because the iron was thin, more of it was converted to steel. When the two other jars were removed, the forge was restarted with the remnants of the wood for fuel. I hammered out a piece then folded it again and again to mix the carbon as evenly as possible. Jón's arm was weak and all of us took a turn at doing this. All the time I kept up a commentary about what we were doing and why. The metal had to go back into the fire and others taken out and processed. Hours later we were all tired and Wiebe now was worried that the guild of smiths or potters would be angry at him. We had thirteen short bars of steel. Some had been welded together from smaller pieces and thus were a lot thicker and longer. They were shaped into chisels and sharpened with the hammer beating the edge. Wiebe and I had to make some clay trays now with tightly fitting lids. The rest of us worked on the other two jars. Jón was put back in charge and I instructed him quietly about making a knife blade. I remembered a k-bar knife I had once owned and guided him into making this type. It was only mild steel now and would not harden but I still had plans for this metal. It was late at night that we finished making a sword much like a saber but more straight. The soft chisels and knife were put in the freshly cured clay trays and covered with the charcoal that had been used earlier then sealed except for a pin hole for escaping gases. Geiri and Sander came later and Forni was sent off for food. The wood was used again for heat. The stones were placed to re-radiate the heat and conserve fuel. The billows were worked hard to get the heat we needed to make this work. This process took four hours and a lot of wood because I needed the fire to be very hot. A tub of water was prepared ahead of time. The trays of iron were pulled aside and when opened were immediately emptied into the water. The water turned quite a bit warmer and Jón put his hand in after testing it. He fished out everything and put the floating charcoal onto a large slate not useful for instruction. It could dry there and be used again. Everybody was excited and Jón took a hammer and a new chisel and cut a portion off the iron blade we had found with very little damage to the chisel. The k-bar knife looked good but would look much better when polished. We slept near the forge even though it was now shut down. Forni cuddled to Jón and they held hard portions of each other during the night but nothing else happened. Everybody was groggy when they got up the next day. Frisians liked to sleep in and this was part and parcel with their hedonistic lifestyle of the stronger males. All of us went to eat as a group but considering how the group was not very clean, they ate standing up in the kitchen. Helga came over and asked, "Are these the children you want to feed on a daily basis?" "Yes, but there will be more as time goes on. We will have to do our part in feeding everybody though. Fish from the rivers and lakes and maybe some hunting. We need to teach woodcraft." "Woodcraft?" "That is being quiet in the woods so you can hunt or to keep from being found by our enemies." "That sounds worthwhile. After our meal we went back to the forge. Some of the metal that had not been casehardened was still in place. After I took over Jón's body I asked the adults, "I need a block of lead." I used my hands to indicate the size I needed. It was Wiebe that knew where one was and ambled off to get what was needed. I talked about a file and what it was good for. The blanks were made last night and I sat by the anvil and cut a line across the file face at an angle. I had never done this before and only knew of the process. Wiebe came back before I was done and it went on the anvil and the file to be on top. This was a coarse file because I didn't have the expertise to make a fine one. There were a dozen blanks but only ten were flat. I wanted to try my hand at rat tail files. Sander and Wiebe were better than me at doing this and the files that were finished on one side were flipped onto the lead so the newly cut teeth would not be damaged. The fire in the forge was started but this time the metal was placed on a bed of charcoal that rested on some damp clay. Charcoal went over the blade too and clay used to seal it up. The tang had no charcoal on it to keep it soft. The steel sword and the k-bar knife were treated the same way but less charcoal was used on the back of the blades. Everything was put into the cooler areas to allow the clay to slowly cool. Sander stood nearby and if the clay cracked he would add some fresh clay to seal the opening. We didn't want the charcoal to burn, then the carbon monoxide would remove what we wanted in the steel as opposed to adding carbon for hardening. School started again and the newcomers were encouraged to learn as well. The children had to stop their ribbing now that more adults were taking part. Eventually the clay was hard and the articles were shoved into the hot coals and I just hoped that the clay would be strong enough to support the steel because it could sag under its own weight over time. Latin script was introduced along with the beta character that could represented a double 'S' in a word. I had worked hard with all the High German I had learned in my previous life and made the rules that would form the words for the words now. Some letters were not used in Latin but had been used later in English. I added these now rather than have to backtrack later and have to explain why they were added late. Another important addition was lower case letters. It may confuse some people but they looked so much better on a page than a solid mass of capitals. Everybody's name was carefully spelled out. Nobody here knew how to read so their way of character formation, in straight line runic script, didn't need to be unlearned. We used full upper case and then did the same thing again with the names capitalised. Everybody took a turn on the bellows because the steel had to get hot to take the additional carbon into it. The clay in close proximity meant that more heat could be transferred. Later I started to make needles for the women of the castle and a larger set for the bootmaker that would have to have handles. Various rocks were used to smooth the needles. The eyes were cut with the one small chisel I had made. A proper tool would have to be made where two chisel blades would cut from each side at the same time. I had to fudge the hole because I had not bothered to make any punches or drifts. I gave the children the chance to make these tools. They were small enough that they would not need much time to get case hardened. These tools were put into charcoal wrapped clay to dry. Later they would go into the fire directly. I had made many tools and weapons the hard way as a way of learning. As I did the various jobs I could remember Sam or Gary talk to me as if yesterday about the proper procedure. Too many procedures were only done with words. Trying to form a new method of doing them now and with no help was a lot more difficult. We went to our supper in two shifts to make sure the fire stayed well fed and hot. An hour after the last group came back, the files were broken open quickly and immersed in the now cold water. With a bit of cleaning I found that the files cleaned the pieces of iron we had, including the old blade. The finish was not good. There were high spots but it did cut aggressively. They should work quite well on metal or a horse's hoof. I felt it about time to quench the knife. With a pair of tongs it was taken out of the forge and a hammer quickly broke all the clay from the blade. The exposed charcoal burst into flames and the blade was quickly immersed in the water and moved around. This could have been oil but I was not sure of the type of steel I had and this was at least an experiment if nothing less. The sword was done the same way but we used two tongs and two hammers. The cold blade was laid on the anvil and I hit it hard with the hammer many times and in many places. If it was going to break it would better be now before all the remainder of the work was put into it. The blade showed little damage and I picked it up and swung it sideways at the anvil. It not only didn't break but it flexed and sprang back up again like a good quality spring. The adults stared at me and at the blade. Wiebe had his mouth open and it was a long time before he said, "You can't do that?" I asked, "Can't do what?" "A blade cannot do that. One that thin will bend." "This is steel not iron." I passed the blade around and everybody had a chance to examine it. It was rough now and the finish was just like iron. It needed to be ground and then polished. I would have to make some drill bits now that were of similar harness for they would be used in the softer shank of the sword. The needles, punches and drifts were removed from the fire and quenched. The punch seemed good but I wanted to grind it better. It was very thin and more like a nail for I wanted it hard most of the way through. When I got my laboratory going I could work with cyaniding and nitrating. This carburising was a stopgap method and not nearly as good as the other processes. Forni pulled Jón back to their room for the night. He had plans for his friend and they didn't want company. It took only seconds for Jón to catch on and make his apologies and leave. It seemed that a rough but promising blade turned certain boys on and they needed relief. ------- Chapter 11 Waking the boys up was harder yet but once they were reminded of the sword under their bed they hurried. They went to get the forging crew and all of them went to eat. If a mirror had been handy I knew that all of us would look dirty. I got Jón and Forni to at least clean their faces and hands and like all boys they wondered why. Breakfast was quick and the boys smelt. The women said nothing but then again they were no bed of roses either. Dagmar had her happy smile and I wondered what she was doing to her guest to keep her this way. The entire crew made a sort of procession down the smith's forge. Yngvi was not happy to see us and let it show. Jón was in command and he asked, "May I use your grindstone. I have some tools for you to examine." "Go ahead. I wonder what tools you could possibly show me?" Sander turned the stone and Jón sharpened all of the chisels and then the other tools. He turned around and the smith was there to see what he had. Jón simply said, "Try these three chisels." "I can see that they are too light now. They will not last as long as mine." "Do you want to make a wager?" "One of my silver coins against what it will buy in your iron." "We have a deal." When the next piece of hot metal came out of the forge the chisel was used for some small cuts. Yngvi looked at the blade and frowned. "What did you do to the blade?" "I made it hard. This blade has to be kept cool. That means that you have to quench it every few cuts or switch to another chisel. Heat can destroy the edge of the blade and turn it soft." "What do I do to repair it?" I assumed, and I guess Jón did to, that he meant the edge. Jón said, "Heat it to red and quench it quickly in cold water. The quicker it cools the better." Yngvi didn't say much but used the other chisels to make cuts in the metal too. Jón said with a smile, "The chisels work on cold metal too. Try it." "What?" "Try it on cold metal." This was a challenge and Yngvi found some scrap and used his biggest hammer to cut a thin layer off the iron. "This cannot be." "Oh, but it is." Jón walked forward with just a file now and put his right hand on the scrap and used the left hand to smooth out some of the rough spots. The smith took the file as soon as it was offered and examined the tool. "How is this done." "I used my chisels to cut those edges then hardened the metal. Surely a smith that knows everything would know how to do that." "This is new." "I said that before but you didn't believe me. The tools you have are not even the best. They could be made much better but there was little time and equipment." "What do you need?" "I will tell you after. I was going to tell you before but you didn't want to hear. Today I will just offer six files and six chisels. I will accept your iron and more charcoal. I even brought back your two sacks." "How much iron do you want for them?" "I want a great deal more than last time." Yngvi started to turn red and Jón said, "I know how to make iron the way you do. If you want I will tell you all the details. I need a lot of iron and I need help to make what I need. You can help me and I will tell you the secrets but they will also have to be told to the other smiths." "Why? My iron is better." "We are at war. We need more iron than you believe. It needs to be changed into steel as I have done then it needs to be hardened. The people of this city and all of the land my father governs needs this information. With good weapons and tools we can defeat our enemies much easier." Jón added, "We need hundreds of new swords not a few. We need this metal used for our arrowheads. It will go through Roman and Gallic armour. Our swords will cut through the same armour with ease." "That is easy to say without proof." "Another silver against another silver's worth of iron?" The smith was unsure but all his apprentices were listening as well as two customers. "It is a wager." Jón said, "Find some suitable armour. I will sharpen my sword." He opened one of the leather sacks and brought out the larger blade. Suiting words to actions the sword was cleaned of scale as good as it could be then rubbed against some granite to put a rough polish on it. This took a half hour then the blade was sharpened on the rotating stone. This was done slowly and with water to keep the blade cool. A piece of wood was split for a temporary handle and wet leather was used to securely hold it to the shaft. The newly sharpened blade was then polished on a softer stone to abrade the harsher marks made by the first rotating stone. The edge was now very sharp but not enough to shave the hair from his arm yet. Jón worked harder at this now to get the final edge to do this task. A crowd had formed over time and the smith was not making any profit from this. When Jón was done, he handed the handle of the sword to the smith. The man examined it and said, "It is rough." "It takes time to make a blade look beautiful. If you will run the blade along your arm you will find that it is sharp enough to cut the hair." The man did this and looked at Jón in surprise. Only his best bronze tools would do this. Jón said, "Will you swing it for our test?" "Me?" "I am a young man and just up from my sickbed. You are like our warriors in strength. Swing with what you think is proper and we will all see how the blade behaves in the hands of man that could adequately use it." The smith didn't say anything but held the sword and swung it to get the feel. Everybody quickly backed up to give him room. A smile came over his face as he swung as if remembering his earlier days. In a moment he stopped and said, "I will do it even if it is too light." He turned and approached the piece of heavy bronze armour. It was supported but a pile of old pieces of leather on a section of tree trunk. He put his sword in position and made a few practice swings as if he were the king's headsman. The swing came swiftly and sure. It cut through the armour and then through the leather to embed itself in the wood. Everybody moved closer to see what had happened and there were even gasps. Apparently the spectators knew a good sword when they saw it. When the sword was wiggled free Jón said, "Put the armour against a beam and stab as if a Roman is wearing it." Yngvi didn't bother to question this but hung it from a nail on a wall and stuffed the leather behind it as if this would represent a man. Yngvi moved the sword in a thrusting fashion and unerringly ran it against the centre of the remaining piece of armour. Yngvi was a fair sized man and the sword went through the armour, leather and the wood wall to the hilt. The gasps now were even louder than before. Yngvi tried to pull the blade free and had to use his foot to hold the armour to the wall as he pulled. Once out the man looked at the point and at the edge that had cut the armour. In a moment Jón got the blade back and walked to the anvil and swung the blade as he did last night. Again it bounced back. There had been a small bend but now it had been corrected by a bend the other way. Jón said, "The blade is strong too." The crowd had been quiet and the blade handed back to the smith. "This is a marvellous blade. It needs a lot of work to make it beautiful." Jón said, "That is true. I can make steel but you make things of beauty. Let's have a talk to discuss this steel?" Jón and Forni were invited into the smith's home and the wife came in to argue but quieted as she saw that the king's only son was here. Yngvi asked, "What do you want for that blade and for the other tools you offered me?" "I will ask some questions first if I may. How much iron could you produce, if you gathered iron for four weeks without having to hunt or prepare food? This would include all your apprentices helping you. Charcoal could be produced by others." "You want that much?" "I simply asked a question. I want to know how much iron could be found and then turned into the metal you produce." "Perhaps as much as ten talents a day but that is if we are lucky at finding the ore." A talent was around twenty five kilos so this was two hundred and fifty of the old kilos a day. Twenty eight days would give seven tonnes. He may be bragging. His men would be very tired as the days progressed. "Is the area you get your ore a secret?" "No, all the smiths get their iron there." "I will offer you six files, six chisels and the sword for twenty talents of your finest iron and four talents of charcoal." Again the man was getting red and Jón continued, "I will work with you in your forge. I will show you how to make the crude steel. One of the secrets is that it has to be hammered out and folded many times. This gets rid of the slag and mixes the ingredients of the iron much better. I will then tell you how to make my steel harder with charcoal and clay. "We will make swords for our men. I will assist as best I can and I will also get to make with your iron six swords for my own use. One will be similar to the one you have. One will have much more iron and this will go to my father. He may or may not use it in battle but it will be good steel. Two more blades will be similar to the one you will get but longer and two will be shorter. You will get to see everything I do and I will not keep secrets from you." "Six swords?" "Six swords do not take that much iron. They do take a lot of charcoal though. I have made a stone roof and walls around my forge to keep the heat in. If we use my steel for saws then we can cut down some of the larger and perhaps dead trees and make charcoal with them." "Six swords?" "Six swords, twenty talents of iron and four talents of charcoal." The deal wasn't settled that well and we had to argue over a lot of matters. I brought up the two silvers worth of iron only after we had reached the deal I wanted. We took the rest of our products back as well as some fine brass wire made by hand and some powdered abrasive. Yngvi had seen the k-bar knife and had to hold it in his hands. At my insistence he tapped the side on his anvil and instead of a dull sound he heard the high pitch of a hard metal. When this was explained he had to smile. After the knife was roughly ground we headed back to the castle. We would have to go back later with a cart to pick up more iron and all the excess charcoal the smith had. Dina, Aagt and Dolf tried to get on the side of Jón not occupied by Forni. Dolf was the one to make it but Jón was polite to the two girls too. They talked of what interested kids and in this case it was the sword. The three adults too were asked their opinions but they wanted to know about the deal Jón had swung for more supplies. He relented and gave the details and the children listened intently. Dina asked, "Are you going to work at the other forge then?" "That will be in a few days. The smith has to get more iron and a lot more charcoal. His apprentices are going to have to work out in the field gathering what he needs. I would like to go for a day just to see what it is like." "Digging rocks?" "Yes then you know what to look for. Anyway all of you are going to be busy. We have more steel to make and I have to produce some different types of tools. We have to make steel hammers and special chisels that will cut through rock. We need better punches made as well as drill bits. I would like to make a tool for making needles. In fact I have to make a great deal of tools." "Why?" Dina asked. "You only need swords and maybe knives." "That is to start but we need many more weapons and they require me to make tools to make them." "Like what?" "How about some girls and boys that learn so much that they can go out and get men to build thousands of swords. Some girls and boys could go out and show farmers how to use a better plough that will make their crops grow better. Other girls or boys may go out with the information from a potter and bring back clay. One day we will find the right one and it will be so strong that we can heat iron so hot that it will run like water but the clay will not melt or fall apart. "Others will look for what we need and then come back with the information. If you are able to read and write then you can send somebody else back and we will know what is happening. When we find what we need, we will be stronger than the Romans and the Gauls. We can protect our families and sit on a comfortable chair with grandchildren on our laps. We would know that the babies would not have to fight a war because we would be so strong that nobody would dare threaten us." The children had their mouths open and they closed them when Jón was finished. Dolf said, "You want us to hunt for what you need?" "Only when you are trained. This will take years but it's a start. You make steel and weapons today and something else later." Jón recited what he had seen in my memory and talked of a far future where things looked good but weren't. If people had no problems then they would invent them. The twenty first century may be a fantastic place if we had not had to go through the Dark and the Middle Ages just rediscovering what Rome already had now. We shifted course on the way back and entered the main gate. Modius got up on his one leg and handed Jón the four swords. "Are these what you wanted?" I relayed the information to Jón and he mentioned about some of the finer details that had not been covered. He did say, "These are as I asked though. I will accept them gladly." Modius said, "Your changes would be easy to do. Please wait. It will only take a few minutes." The man passed the swords around to his friends and he leaned on the wall and cut the smaller details that were not mentioned earlier. The man was as good as his word and the wood swords were done in two minutes. They were passed to Modius and he placed them into Jón's arms. "Is that suitable?" "They were done very well. Would you be interested in putting a special handle on my knife? It has to be done with oak and two bronze rivets." "Do you have the knife?" Jón produced the k-bar and the men all were interested in it. Modius asked, "Who made this?" "We all did. It was my idea but it was done by all of us. The knife has to be ground and polished before any handle can be attached." Modius said, "I would be honoured to put a handle on a weapon like this." "We are making more knives. The knives I have seen have almost been decorative. They were thin and difficult to hold in a fight. I need a heavy handle to fit the hand of a man that is fighting. Sweat and blood may be running down his arm and his hand weak. The knife has to be the best for the man to survive." Jón must have been talking passionately because Modius didn't reply right away. When he did he said, "We are your men. We will do our best." Jón reached out and up to Modius' shoulder and said, "I will accept that. Have you eaten today?" "The king has been generous." "Perhaps he will be more so." When we got back to the forge, we started all over again but we had to hire a stable hand to take a cart to pick up our iron and charcoal. Wood was called for and this time many people were delivering to us until we had a very large pile. None of it was dry so it was difficult to get the heat we needed. After our meal we went back to work. The iron had arrived and it was heated in the forge, but we kept the fire small. We took turns hitting the metal until it was flat and thin. This time it would thinner than what we had received from the smith the first time. There would be more area to pick up carbon and possibly no need for extra case hardening. Three more jars and lids were brought in and all of them were filled and sealed with damp clay. The stones were rearranged to cover a larger area and more were added. The temperature rose slowly to keep the containers from cracking. The pumping of the billows had been too energetic and I knew that in a while everybody would be tired. Sander put his children to sleep and he got ready because he and his wife would take the night shift. The next morning Forni and I had a bath after our breakfast. Again this was done in two shifts to keep the forge hot. The bath was just off the kitchen with Helga keeping this our secret. Bath time was usually quite erotic lately and I just wanted to get clean though the two boys thought differently. I looked around the kitchen again and saw how everything so much easier with some simple tools that I knew about. It was just a bit closer with our steel being made. To move along quicker Modius was given the knife blank and told, "It is probably better for you to polish this knife but I will sharpen it. The way I want is not the way you have seen it done before." I pointed out the features and how they would be continued until they met at the edge. "A guard has to be added yet but it should slip over the handle easily enough." "You are trusting me with this knife?" "Why not? You may be a Roman, and Romans can be honourable too. If your mind works a certain way then you can look to find ways of improving this construction. Making one may be a matter of art and love but making a thousand is work." "I will see what I can do." At the forge, I had the thin brass wire put on a piece of wood shaped like a bow. The needles we made were strung on this thin strand. Olive oil was put on the strand and some of the fine abrasive. It was the job of the children to move this around. It could just as easily been done by the wind but I wanted to get this job done. There was a half kilo of steel left and we tried our hand at making more needles and some turned out to be very short. They were mistakes that could be remedied. My words about feeding the people reminded me about fishing. We made wire and then put an eye at one end and barbed the other before sharpening the end to a blunt point. These were all bent and then put on charcoal covered clay to bake. Fishhooks were not new but they didn't have an eye and they were not barbed. A horse hair was labouriously wrapped around the shank the way some snelled hooks were in my day. I thought of getting into lures but limited it to making some treble hooks. While I was at it I tried bobby pins, diaper pins. Straight pins would have to wait until I got a press strong enough to hold them while their heads were peened over. Before we knew it, it was time for lunch. On impulse Jón decided that he liked clean children. I did too but had not mentioned it at all. He could probably smell the others much more than he could smell Forni or himself. The bath tub that was a real tub was carried to the forge. Heat that would have escaped otherwise was captured by iron pots. Geiri started first and washed her two youngsters and they liked to sit in the shallow water and play. I didn't think their mother had bathed them before. The rest looked on and it was nice to see the children play because they were not rushed. Dina was not shy about getting in next. I took the controls and washed her hair and then her body. I used a cloth and stayed away from any erogenous areas. She had to do those herself. Her breasts were larger than Aagt's and I didn't think she had really started puberty yet. She seemed much more a serious child than a young adult. I tried to think of my own daughters when they were young and this helped me compensate for Jón's hormone charged body. Aagt was next. She was starting to develop breasts. She was easier to deal with because she happened to look like one of my daughters when she was Asgt's age. The boys claimed to not need a bath but had to get one on principle because the girls did. I still washed their hair and looked for vermin. Fleas were the least of our problem and the cause of the Black Death and probably many other plagues too. The children ran around naked while Geiri washed their clothes in the tub with the soap I insisted she use. After a while a rope was strung up and the clothes put on it to dry. This made feeding the fire difficult. The small articles came out of the fire and immediately into some water. Some of the hooks were too hard and broke when I put some pressure on them. Others seemed to be ok and went for final sharpening. The first batch of needles didn't catch or cut the thread so the new batch were put in their place. Aagt took them and gently rubbed them against a smooth stone to hone their edges and get rid of any rough edges around the eyes. The girl came up to Jón and asked, "What about these odd needles? How do I sharpen them?" He said, "They are for the bootmaker. The blunt part goes into a wood handle and the other end gets sharpened. He can push this part way through the leather to make a stitch." "My mother used a needle to go all the way through." "This type can use two needles. This goes through the leather and another just goes through the loop in the thread. He just makes a hole in the leather now and pushes a thread through. It's slow. To do it even better I can put a spool of thread inside a hollow handle to keep it from getting in the way." "That is nice of you. Are you always so nice?" I could feel a lot of embarrassment but he said, "I was not very nice before but after my accident I found that I had to change. It feels better to be helping people than to make fun of them. I don't even mind washing some girl's hair." Now Aagt blushed and a small smile came out. "I like being washed by you. My mother used to do it all the time." Jón said, "We have to help each other more. A man or a woman can only do so much. We are at war now and a little help now and again could mean the difference between winning or either dying or being a slave." The smile had left Aagt's face. She nodded her head and turned back to complete her tasks. Aagt was a nice girl and I hoped there was a way to allow her to grow in our academy without her losing her childlike qualities. Then again all of us had to grow up. I looked at her working and thought of my own past. I had found an old straight razor once and bought it to see how it worked. This meant I had to find a stone to sharpen it and a leather strop to get all the small imperfections pointing in one direction. A good wooden wheel with a piece of leather glued on could work for edges that had to be done with finesse like a needle or a brand new sword. I sent Jón over to see the scrap wood we had dug out and after I explained what I wanted, he picked out a half dozen pieces of wood on his own. "How are these?" "They look good to me. They are all oak or maple. We need to borrow Fálki's saw and use the wood lathe. The men out front could work this device if they try together." "Can we make one that doesn't need beams sticking in the floor?" "Sure but it will be more work. We used a quick and dirty method." I constructed a wood lathe in my mind with a bed and a movable tailstock. The trouble came when I wanted to secure the tailstock from moving. I had no bolt. A thick wooden peg with a hole through it could be used with a tapered wooden pin to wedge it so it would not move. This could be done all with a saw but a plane would be good to finish this off. This got me onto another topic because I had seen planes that were made of maple that had only one metal part. The blade was wedged into position with a similar wood peg. I must have let my images go to Jón for he said, "Now you want to make this sharp metal knife?" "We can use one of the plates now in the forge. If I had thought about it earlier we could have used the hammer to make them smoother or even used our files. The edge will be even then." Jón said, "Hit the metal when it comes out of the forge to make it straight. Heat it again then cool it." He was right. I was not as mechanical as I hoped though I had made many tools in my life. Most but not all had been under the watchful eyes of our tutors. They usually praised my efforts but they did the same thing to the other children or young adults they were working with. I would just love to have them here now with me. I felt both alone and too tightly integrated with Jón and his hormone laced body. I finally said, "That's a good idea. You have the makings of a good engineer if you can understand mathematics. Right now we have to work with mechanical devices but later there will involve chemical too." "Do I have to learn numbers if you are here?" I had to think on this. "You have to come up with your own ideas. To do that you need the understanding of numbers. I use your voice and body but I do not have your memories. If you gain full access to my memories then you will not have to learn more about numbers. So, what I am saying is that you have to try to find a way to get my memories. I would like to do the same with you but so far I have not been able to." "Maybe it just takes time. I think I may becoming much more like you and you like to do what I like to do." "That's true. You're a horny boy and I thought I was over the worse of that years ago. Making love was fun for me but with you it is like it's new and bright and the feelings are very strong. Sometimes I have to hide." "Do you want me to do it less?" "No, Jón. I want you to enjoy being a boy then a young man. I enjoy what you do too but I like to think more. When you and Forni are having fun it's hard to think of how to make certain pieces of equipment so I can make other more complicated articles. You may not understand about drugs but I have to keep my distance or I will want everything you want and more." "I... think I understand. I will try to warn you when we are going to have fun again." I had to laugh and I think Jón knew this and smiled too. We began our teaching again and I took control of, I guess, our body. We had a lot of breaks so the children and the adults would not get fidgety. One of the subjects I taught involved the wood swords. I picked up the katana. It didn't have the feel I wanted but that may have been because of its weight and balance. I remembered my warm ups I had done and started my kata. I brought the blade up quickly and grasped it with both hands. The sword came down at an angle and stopped to instantly change direction. The kata seemed to sweep over me and I was back in my youth. The blade though wrong seemed to have a life of its own as it moved in the intricate pattern I had formulated over forty years ago. I went through the first series of moves then continued to a more advanced kata. I tried to go faster but also keep my moves sure. This felt good. I seemed to be in the groove. This continued to the one I had used to prepare for my bouts in Japan. It was much longer and I worked even faster here as if this was what I was always meant to do. When I was done the last move I stayed for five seconds as I had planned so long ago. I suddenly realised that everybody was staring at me. I felt like retreating in embarrassment but that was not like me either and I stood straight and proud. When nobody spoke I said, "That was a kata. It is a Japanese word for a type of practice with or without weapons, in preparation for a contest of skill." I remembered that they had no idea what Japanese was and added, "It is a country far to the east of us. They have many forms of combat and over the years they have been ritualised." This they didn't understand either. "If you practice a move often enough it can get to be done very quickly and almost like instinct. It is like someone driving a knife at you. You move to deflect it before you know what you are doing." Dolf said, "Will you show us?" "There is so much to learn just about Japanese fighting that you cannot possibly learn it all." Dolf looked disappointed and I said, "Cheer up. You learn some of the ways of fighting. You learn those to the best of your ability. It is something like wrestling. If you do it enough and you are strong enough you could win competitions." "What about your sword?" "That is only part of another subject to learn. You may not know it but a trained man with a staff can defeat a trained man with a sword. One type of practice sword is hollow wood. It has a metal end but you use very thick padding over your entire body and a protective helmet and mask. You are hit so much that you would die without the padding. It does teach you to be quick. "The swords were for me but you can learn with them too. We will be making some out of steel soon. I mentioned that I want to have iron run like water. When that happens you can pour the liquid iron or steel into sand. It will take the shape of the hole you made. One could be of a sword a knife or many other weapons. There is very little to do then because it is in its final shape. It just has to be cleaned up a bit and sharpened." "Will we do that too?" "That and much more. Now stand up. I want you, Forni, and Tiebout to do what I do." The boys all came close and I handed out the three other swords and placed the boys far enough apart that they would not hurt anybody. I went through the kata that I had first done very slowly while explaining every one of my moves. I did the first three moves two more times and then got the boys to continue. They were as bad as other boys I had seen but they looked to be determined. Dina was at the bellows but she watched intently. I said, "We will all get practice swords of steel. We will all do this but to be a master takes a great many years of constant practice. You will not be masters but learn a few tricks in a great many ways of fighting." Sword practice shifted to others and the job at the bellows shifted too. Eventually we left for supper and I helped Geiri by holding her youngest. I claimed it was just for exercise but I liked children. Jón had taken over the carrying of the child and I found that he didn't mind this duty. I said to him, "One day you will have lots of children. They have to be raised by more than the mother though and I think you will be a good father." "What do I have to do?" "Just love them. Guide them through life without doing too little or too much. Give a kind word when you can and let them know that you love them." "That is not hard." "It is when you have the job of the Emperor of the World." "What!" he said verbally. "You talked out loud." Jón looked around and people were staring at him. I said, "You will have much more power than an emperor and less too. You will have to set up governments and they will rule. Laws have to be made that are fair for the most people. The rest of the world is as the Roman's say, barbaric. You will have to civilise them but not dominate them the way Rome does. You will be very busy and have little time for your family. If you are not there to hold them and care for them they will hate you." "I think I see, but the world?" "You have the tools to lead the way and the weapons to keep order. Use them wisely and there will be less problems but there will always be some." When I took my seat the rest of the family didn't stay so far away. Our academy had taken seats too for a change. Conversations went around Jón unnoticed. He must be thinking of what I had said. I was the one that got him to eat and I used the right arm to put the spoon to his lips. Eventually I had to use the knife in the left as well. Dagmar finally got through to him. She said in a whisper, "You had a bath." In low tones he replied, "I stank." "I like you better when you are clean. I even clean my guest. He stinks too." "How is the prince?" "He is not a happy man. I had to do a lot of things to keep him from leaving." This was said with a wide smile. "How did a very resourceful woman like you do that?" "Resourceful? I like that. Anyway, I took away all his clothes. Since he was acting like a baby I treated him like one. I dressed him in my clothes and brought a thick switch to make sure he stays put." "Your clothes?" "And some of Astrid's too. She came in and pretended to catch him that way and threatened to tell everybody what he was doing and how he was dressed." "That seems cruel to me." "Well, maybe. He was cruel to us too. Fálki pretended to catch him too. I thought the prince would jump out a window in shame. Astrid acted as if she were angry at Fálki and threatened him with dire punishments if word got out to anybody." "Does the prince believe all this?" "Sure. He is not that bright and there is nobody around to tell him differently. I also used my scissors to cut off his beard. He looks more like a girl now but the hair is still there." "I can make you a type of knife that will be so sharp it will cut hair from his face without cutting him. You have to be careful and use soap and hot water. He could also use it as a dangerous weapon because it is very sharp." "I would like one." I quickly told Jón something and he said, "You can not only shave his face but all his body. He will look much more like a woman. He would not dare to be seen by any man." "Oh, I like that. He is already like a woman. I am surprised that his father hadn't drowned him when he was young." I was angry at Egill and didn't have any guilty conscience about breaking him if possible. If this were done then the chance of a war opening up on another front would be minimised. I had learned a fair amount about brainwashing and especially the way the Cong had done it. Later I had read a book on other methods. This had been aimed at me if I had been put in the prince's position. I think it is possible to break anybody if given enough time. To start and not finish this process though would be very bad. The man would leave with more hate for us than he had for anybody else. When Clovis would return was anybody's guess. It was possible Clovis would go along with this if I mentioned the consequences and the benefits of an ally. I talked now to Jón and explained what could be done with enough time and effort. He didn't like the man either and after a few questions agreed to give it a try. After the meal we went to the kitchen to see Helga. The woman smiled while holding her long wooden spoon. "You want more food already?" "Thank you, my lady but you have fed me well. I came for something else." "What would you want?" "I would like the small casings you use for sausage." Helga smiled broadly and said, "Are you thinking of using one particular sausage for it?" I explained to Jón and he replied, "I have no wish of making any women pregnant now. I am still too young in any case. It is for another purpose." "Come in the back with me. We have some salted down." Jón picked out enough and the woman got a sharp bronze knife and cut off what he wanted. "There you go." "Thank you, my lady. I have been thinking of making some good knives for you and other tools to make your work here less tiresome." "The knives sounds good. I have heard that you have made not only a wondrous sword but also a fearsome knife." "Word does indeed get around. I will do what I can though. Perhaps the knives will be a more suitable gift than my helicopter." "Your what?" "Just my name for the toy." Jón gave a few words to Geiri and left for the shop behind the stable instead of the forge. Aagt Dolf and Epje were asked to come too as this would least upset the work schedules of those on the bellows. The lathe was as it was left and it had to be reassembled as a wood lathe. This time Jón was the one describing what was to be done and why it happened. It took over twenty minutes to set up and in the meantime Epje was sent to get the cold chisels and files from the forge and also the seasoned wood we had set aside. The chisels would have to substitute for gouges until the proper ones were made. Some pieces of green wood were found and these were turned into sturdy legs for a new wood lathe. This took over two hours because the children had to get a chance to turn some of the wood. There were no safety glasses and this would have to change as soon as possible. Two additional spindles were made to hold the right legs together and the left legs together. The dry wood brought from the forge turned differently because it was much dryer and harder. All the pieces that we could turn into handles were done. Some would go for the files and some for the awls that were made for the bootmaker. Another piece of green wood was put in and it was turned down to the size of a man's thumb and the other end left a bit bigger. Twenty centimetres back a shallow groove around the circumference was made. In all it was half a metre long. The ends were rounded and Jón didn't tell the students what this was for. The lathe was left in place or as best it could. The tailstock had to be held by hand with two legs going into holes in the dirt floor. When we got back to the forge, all the green wood was put close to the heat so it could dry. It would all shrink but may not necessarily warp and split. Those that had not gone to this class studied what we had done and listened to the exciting chatter from those that did. When the children were out of ear shot, Forni said, "What did the mistress of the kitchen mean about the casing?" "A man ties a knot in the end of a casing and then slips the gut over his cock. The lower part is tied on so it will not come off. Now there is no chance that his seed will grow into a child." "Oh, and the last piece of wood looked familiar to me. It is about your size." Jón hugged Forni one handed and said, "That is what it is for but not for you. Dagmar will be using it." Forni looked worried and Jón quickly said, "Not on you. It will be used on Prince Egill but you cannot tell anybody. That is very important." "Ok, but will he like it?" "Not at first but over time he will." We slept at the forge that night but the wood was pulled further away. Jón and Forni curled up together and were asleep sooner than usual. I just went over what we had done today and what we should do the next day. There was just too much to do and so little time. Teaching the children may take time now but it would pay dividends later when they went out to work. The forge was monitored and pumped by Sander and Geiri. They liked the time together and Sander was able to get some of his pottery done at the same time. The work was boring but not strenuous. Somewhere around an hour before midnight, a shape finally got up. She had not been able to sleep. With just a blanket wrapped around her she came over to see Jón. He was deeply asleep with an arm around his lover and friend. I took control of the body and opened my eyes. It was Aagt. She said with a sniffle, "I cannot sleep. You are nice to me and I am not used to sleeping alone." "What about Dina or one of the others?" "I would rather have you." "You can sleep with me but I am never going to marry you." "I never asked that." "I know you didn't. You are too young but you still have the feelings. It is what I call instinct. You cannot help it. You can sleep with me if you want but remember that it is just to sleep. We may get to be very good friends but we will never marry." She didn't answer but bent over and pulled back the blanket I wore. She saw Forni's hand around Jón's cock but this was common. She snuggled up closer and I put my free hand around the child. In a moment I said, "Fold your blanket and use it for a pillow." Aagt did as I asked and soon she was asleep. Sometime during the night Aagt turned over and hugged me in her sleep. I could tell from her breathing that she was not doing this consciously. In half an hour she turned again and her arms and hand left. By then so had Forni. The floor with only a blanket and a thin layer of straw. It was not a comfortable place to sleep. Jón woke up the next morning with the blanket off of his chest. He was quite warm with two people now to keep him warm. Before he was fully awake I got him used to my voice and told him about his new bed partner. When he awoke more he didn't react violently. Jón said, "Why is she here?" "A lot of reasons. She slept with her brothers and sisters and now she doesn't have any with her. We were nice to her and she is thinking of family. Her instincts now want her to find a mate even if she is too young for that. I know you are getting to be an ethical person but hormones cloud the mind of any person your age. I told Aagt that there was no way you would marry her..." "Marry her! I would never do that." "I know that and I told her so. If this was not stopped now she would continue to pursue you until she found out for sure that her goal was unobtainable. She would be hurt and so would you. A small disappointment now is better than a big one later." "Does she really want to marry me?" "Her body wants yours. It is instinct. She would say no to that question but her body would say yes. She is starting to go through a difficult time too. I want to keep all of you safe and perhaps even happy but sometimes there will be times when some have to suffer." "Like who?" "The Gauls and the Romans that we are going to have to kill." "Oh." Aagt took this time to turn and put her hand on Jón's chest and her face close to his ear. Jón started to get excited and I said, "She is a beautiful child. When she grows she will make a good mother I think." "Yes, I think so too." Jón woke Forni first and whispered for him to behave himself. He looked over and saw Aagt and I felt him stiffen then relax. In a whisper, he asked, "What's she doing here?" "I will talk to you later." Aagt smiled at Jón when she awoke and Jón hugged her. The Germans were kind people if you didn't get them angry at you. Jón was nicer than usual and that may have been because he knew he would one day be king if he survived long enough. There was time enough before breakfast to make a crude drill but not enough time to make the spool of wood that would hold the drill bit. Jón said, "Why didn't we make these last night?" "I forgot. I do enough thinking but some things slip my notice. Let's take those that had not seen the lathe to help us cut the spools. We can search through our wood pile now to find some suitable pieces." During breakfast, Jón said to Dagmar, "I want to talk to you about your guest." Instead of asking she just said, "Ok." Astrid looked at Jón and Dagmar but didn't ask anything either. Forni didn't like it but he went back to the forge so Jón could talk in private. It took nearly fifteen minutes to explain psychology relating to a captive to Dagmar. I found that Dagmar already knew some of the basics. Jón and I started slow so that Dagmar would agree with us and it was later that she looked to be uncomfortable with the talk. She asked some questions and I had to answer them because she would be able to detect a hesitation with her brother. This could be interpreted as uncertainty. I said to cap my argument, "You have a slave now because you have guards and he has a broken arm. You have to make him a slave but not use the word just yet. He is not a nice person and he hurts others, especially women. Do what you must to him. It is possible that he may one day be the king of the Franks. What you do now will reflect on that. You have to make him your slave. You may not want to marry him but you may end up being the queen of the Franks one day. You would rule through Egill. You may have children but if he is your slave they may not even have to be his." She did a lot of thinking and then said, "He can just be my slave and want to stay here. I don't have to marry him right away?" The last was said as a question and I said, "You're right. Egill can visit his family and then come back here. The prospects of marriage to the oldest daughter of Clovis would seem a good idea. We may even get the Franks to help us in our current problems." Dagmar did some more thinking then smiled. I said, "I made a cock for you." "What?" "I made a wooden cock. One end is larger than the other. I have some casings to keep splinters from hurting your pet. You just have to use butter or fat to let it slide easily." She smiled and I continued, "A man has a gland in his ass and at the base of his cock. It provides fluid for his seed. When men have sex the one with his asshole stretched, likes it when the gland is caressed. Having you do this to him will be demeaning but when he gets an erection and then shoots his seed over the floor it will be worse. "You are making him a woman then and you are now the man. He now learns what it is to submit. Over enough time he will accept this action and even expect it. Take a small bell and ring it. Then force the wood into him but be gentle. When he shoots his seed you can caress him like a good dog. Over time when he hears the bell he will get on his knees, present his ass to you and sport a hard cock. All this just from the bell." "That sounds interesting. Can I do something else?" "Sure. It is called a conditioned response. When you can trust him, I suggest you get him to please you with his mouth. Perhaps you can get him to do the same thing for Astrid." "That's a good idea. It may take some work to get him to cooperate." "Do not feed him then in a few days only give him a little food. Do not allow him to sleep much but that will be hard to do. The mind gets confused and he will accept his lot in life much easier. Later we can shame him in front of others. You will destroy the image he has of himself. We then have to replace it with the one you create." "How long do you think it will be before father gets home?" "I have no idea. Just act very sure of yourself all the time while belittling him. Two weeks should get him to come around. Slap him for faults but give him treats when he is good. When you rebuild him, the way you want, he will continue to do what you want." "Where is this cock of mine?" "I will get it. You have to wash the casing very well because of the salt and use lots of butter or fat." "I will." A few minutes later I came back. I explained about the knot and the groove further down the piece of wood to hold a cord that would support the other end. Dagmar said, "I would use it without casing and without the fat too. He is an evil man and he threatened me when he cut my hair. He has not really stopped even when threatened." "Don't hurt him physically. Work on his mind. Remember, he is your key to ruling all of the Franks. That is if his two older brothers die. I have found out that it happens a lot." "He has a younger brother that may want to be king and do something about it." "Watch out for him too. Now remember, you are working on his mind not his body." ------- Chapter 12 Those that did not get a chance to see the lathe last night came now. Sander did too even if he was going to go to sleep soon. He had been one of the men to originally build it with me and had a lot of pride in the crude device. His wife Geiri brought her two children but I think it was because she would have to leave them with the other children otherwise. Sander was the one that set everything up. After being told what we wanted, he cut a dozen long blanks but only one complete spool. It took a few minutes to work one of the drill bits into the finished spool and the wood started to split. As long as it held together this would be alright. Spinning the spool by the bit I saw that it wobbled a lot. We used the bow we had constructed previously and drilled holes through the centre of each of the blanks. We were not that accurate but that could be corrected. When the holes were complete, the rest of the drill bits were inserted into them. We had two blanks left over. Two new holes were dug in the floor and the tailstock moved closer to the headstock. The first blank with the bit was put between the two without bits. This triple workpiece was turned and the blank in the middle turned on the drill bit through its centre. When the spool rotated, the metal bit kept the wood roughly where it was supposed to be. The outer circumference was now in line with that of the drillbit. We turned all of the spools then Jón took a thicker piece of wood and cut the toy we had talked about before to the men by the gate. There was enough wood to make four large ones and a small version. They were better than what could be done with the knife but should have had a blunt piece of steel at the point. Everything was carted back to the forge. Talk went back and forth between those that had gone and those that had not about what new things we had made. Jón took a thong and tied it to a short stick to make something like a whip. The other end of the thong was wrapped around the calendrical portion above the top of the toy. With me guiding his hand he threw the top across the floor and pulled back the stick. The top spun quickly and stayed upright. Everybody now was amazed. Jón and Forni were down on the floor too because they didn't believe their eyes either. Jón said to me, "Why does it do that?" "Loan me your voice so everybody can hear." I said aloud, "When something spins quickly it has a special ability to remain where it is. If we spin a small wheel of metal with a pointed rod through it, you will find that it works even better. Put a ring around it with holes for the two points and it can be turned any way you want and the wheel will remain the way it was originally." Jón was given the honour of giving out the tops and the adults were the ones that hogged the time with them. Jón had to get his turn but eventually I dragged him away to do some work. He drilled holes in the handles for our awls and file handles we had made earlier. The bits worked fine though the edges were not honed to the sharpness I wanted. Two pieces of hardwood formed a pair of pliers and the awls were seated in the wood. We had nine of them in three sizes. They looked rough to me but they were still much better than anything I had seen in this century. Sander had not gone to bed yet and was looking at the tops. I used Jón's voice to say. "A potter could make this if they are made strong and glazed. The tip has to be strong and smooth. The sides can be decorated with different colours." He had to give up the toy but said, "Why would I want to make a toy?" "For your children and many people will buy them." "I will think on this." I knew there would be competition with the wooden tops but they could still be sold to other cities or nations. Jón left a little later with Forni at his side. Jón asked me privately, "Why are you making toys and not weapons?" "All the things we make are strange. If we make toys then they are seen as nonthreatening and after a while they will be understood. I want everybody to get used to change but it has to be done in small steps. As time goes on the steps will get bigger and bigger. Eventually the people will not be able to stop us." "Why would they try?" "We are continuing what your father started. The Frisians have to work more and think more than they did before. Their culture will have to change and that will be hard to do. It never comes without pain and suffering but we can try to lessen it as much as we can." Andsvarr was not at the stable but he was at his shop. The door was tied to the frame like all the other doors in the town. The castle though had iron hinges on at least half of the doors. There were three other people in the room and they looked to be sons of the owner. Andsvarr's look was noncommital and he said, "What may I do for you?" Jón bent over, because the man was sitting on the floor, working on the last saddle. "I want you to try these in your trade." He opened a small leather folder and extracted two of the awls. The man took one and looked at it very critically then took the another. They were of different sizes and in fact there were three sizes in this batch. The third type of awl was the same diameter as the sharp pin he had been using to push through the leather. The only difference being the eye and the hardness of the metal. Jón found this kind and handed it to Andsvarr as well. The man didn't ask for help and it took a while for him to understand some of the basics. Jón said, "This usually requires two pieces of cord. Perhaps you can try with two pieces of scrap leather." "This is just a toy." "A while ago you were told where my knowledge comes from. Are you ready to turn your back on this so soon?" The man thought for a minute and handed some scraps to Jón. "Use this and some cord. If you were shown then you could show me." Jón, with some difficulty threaded the eye. With me guiding him he lined up the two pieces of leather and pushed the point through the two pieces. This was difficult because there was little material to hold on to. The awl was pulled back just a bit and this formed a loop on each side of the needle. A second piece of thread was put through one of the loops and the awl retracted. The awl was pushed through a few millimetres away and again the cord was put through. After a dozen stitches Jón handed everything to Andsvarr. I talked to Jón and he said to Andsvarr, "With this tool you may be able to pull the stitches tight then turn the leather inside out. Another set of stitches could be put in. It is more work but makes the joint stronger and more waterproof. It can also be used for decoration. You would only put the extra stitches along the cantle where it doesn't touch the rider or the horse." Andsvarr had been listening but he had been using the awl to continue the stitches. When he looked up he said, "This is a little faster than the way we do it. It might use more cord. Cord cost a lot of silver. My seam looks good without turning the leather backwards." "I know it is not the way you usually do this but it may give you more time to do more boots or saddles." Andsvarr was going to give some type of derogatory retort but must have decided to not do it. "I will see how they work out and tell you tomorrow when your saddle will be done." Jón said, "I would like some boots made. A pair for me and one for Forni. There may be others." "There are some new boots in the corner that we have made. Some others are here to be repaired. See if a pair fit." Jón said, "Everybody including the Romans have a flat bottom to their boots. Some have hobnails for grip. I will pay extra but I want mine made differently." "Again you want to give me grief with your new ideas?" Jón was angry now. "You made money and learned to make both a different saddle and a horse collar. You got better tools as a gift and you call that grief. There are other bootmakers in this city. I am sure I could find one that is at least civil." Jón turned to go because he was getting too angry to stay. Outside the door he spotted a small sign with a boot painted on it, and headed towards it. Andsvarr was heard and must have followed, "I am sorry milord. Please come back and give me another chance. I have been feeling ill recently." Jón stopped and turned around. From the middle of the street he said, "You are always ill. Your bile is so strong that it is making you lose customers. You are good at what you do but your pride blinds you." Andsvarr made more pleas but Jón ignored him and entered the hut down the street. A thin man sitting in the dirt said, "How may I help you, milord?" "I want two pair of boots made for a start. I may want ten more pair. They have to be made my way, not the way they are made now. Can we discuss this or are you going to argue?" "Milord, I will discuss this all you want. Tell me how you want your boot made." Jón and I gave him all the criteria. There was a great deal of it. I had made moccasins of various types when I was in training and I repaired boots. I had never made any from scratch but the repairs allowed me to see how they were made. The boots the Frisians wore were the same as moccasins with high tops to protect the legs. There was no heal and no arch support. The man said when Jón had gone through everything twice, "That is a difficult way to make boots but I will do what you want. The price though will be more because of the added work and design." "Your job will be made easier." Jón reached into the sac and extracted another set of three awls. Give me two pieces of scrap leather and two pieces of cord." "At once milord." Jón made a few stitches and said, "You can use these to make the boots. It will not take you long to see their benefit. Give me a price for a dozen pair of boots and all of them have to be made as I asked." "All of them?" "All." We made a fair deal especially when the three awls were thrown in. Jón's foot was measured with a string and knots used to record the various dimensions. Forni's foot was measured next and the boy seemed to be happy about what he was to get. Again we would have to help. This time it would only be the wood gage seen even in my time to measure feet. The aluminum version was more common but not everywhere. Small jobs took up our day until noon when we found Fálki. He was again talking with some of his men and some of the Franks. I was not sure about letting the Franks see our advanced weaponry but if they were anything like the Frisians then it would take a considerable amount of effort to get their people to accept outlandish ideas. "What would you like milord?" "I want you to use the saddle we made. Another will be ready tomorrow I am told. Test them to find what alterations need to be made. It is easy to alter two and hard to alter hundreds." "Hundreds? Surely there will not be that many? I know that most of the men like what they have." "There will be more than that. The bootmaker will install the cup in the stirrup for the lance. The carpenter has run off to make a wagon and neglected to make the lances I asked for." "What do they look like?" Jón bent over and used his finger to draw the features and even included the extremes in length. Fálki said, "That long?" "You pick what is best for you. A long lance can be shortened though. If you intend to whittle a few then remember to put very blunt ends. You will still kill each other with those." The men laughed. Dying in battle even if it was mock battle was still a joke. It would just mean that they would go to Valhalla sooner. Jón added for me, "Set a heavy pole firmly in the field. It has to be taller than a man's head while riding a horse. Put a bar on top that can swing. Hang a wooden shield from one end of the bar and a bag of sand from the other." The men tried to figure this out and Fálki asked, "Why?" "You charge at the shield as if it is held by an enemy. If you hit it the top bar will spin. If you are not careful the bag of sand will spin around and knock you from the horse." Now this was German humour and they laughed, thinking of this happening to others." Jón added, "In a week we will have to travel to the stone quarry. Something is being built there and I have to help. We will need some sort of protection and perhaps a hunting party. I expect to stay there at least four days." "What is to be made there?" "Lime. It is what the Romans use to make mortar. It has many uses and all of them are important." Fálki said, "I was told to stay here and guard the city." "Then give us an escort and stay or give your job to somebody else." Albrecht said, "I would be honoured to escort you. That is if you will allow us to leave." "I see no reason why you cannot come. You should talk to Fálki and see how many Franks and how many Frisians should come. Be warned though that I will work you as labourers too. The stone cutters have cut the stone and you will help me move them into position. Wood has to be cut for a platform and for fuel." "As many of us as you wish will accompany you." I wondered about this but didn't see it as a ploy to escape, or worse yet, revenge. "Fálki is in command. I am just a passenger and then a cruel taskmaster that will change you into artisans. Remember that the Frisians tend to want to get the job done and party after." "I have seen that over the years too." Forni and I walked back to the stables and checked on our horses. The horse that had thrown Jón originally was not around and had not been since he had awoken. I doubted if Jón would now do anything to it but it was best that it was gone anyway. Klaes the stableman was mucking out the stalls and Jón walked up to him. "Hello." "Hello milord. What may I do for you?" "Have you been exercising our horses." "I have milord. Is there something wrong?" Jón opened his purse and handed the man a small value coin. "Here, this is for your extra work." "That is not necessary milord. It is a job I enjoy." "Then you and Forni take the horses again, and see what your coin may buy." He turned around and gave Forni a similar coin. "You need practice and a chance to see some new faces." "I am happy with you." "I know that. I still want you to ride. On my oath I cannot do so with you. One day we will ride together with the new saddles." "I would still want to stay with you." "Go or I will switch your bottom." Forni looked morose but followed Klaes' lead and saddled the horses. When they had left I said, "That was a nice thing to do. Forni is with you too much. There is a saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder. I think it is true." After time to think, Jón said, "I think so too." Much later Forni came to the forge with a big smile and a funny walk. I could feel that Jón was happy to see his friend back. I had been in control again and was giving a lesson on reading. Common articles were sounded out slowly and the letters found that fit the sound the best. My German had never been good and was not even the language they spoke here and now. I still tried to make the best fit possible. Very few languages, like English, had to have a spell check because they were all easy to spell. Astrid and Dagmar had proud smiles when we ate. I had to assume that the prince was not faring as well. Jón or I didn't ask anything but I knew I wanted to find out what was happening. We taught and had verbal tests during the afternoon with praise given to those that did well. With the right questions, everybody would feel that they had accomplished something. Jón on his own moved his sleeping to the area with the other children. Forni staked out his place right after and I doubted if anybody would try to push him out. Aagt was almost as quick and again nobody objected. The next day, one of the six jars was opened and the steel stacked and then welded to make one long bar. As with the others, it was folded and refolded to make the metal as homogeneous as possible. It theoretically took only a few folds to do what was needed but Jón wanted to do it more. It was his body and his sweat so I didn't object. It was also good exercise. We formed a katana but it didn't have the soft core or the strong steel at the back. It was still better than any sword in existence. It was put aside to cool slowly while the rest got a chance to make knives with the rest of the metal. Everybody got other pieces of steel to make things. They were given permission to make anything they wished with it. Finding a hammer and time on the anvil was difficult. Time was made though because the other jars were opened one at a time and their metal formed into homogeneous bars. Two pieces on the bottom of each jar were saved. They were allowed to cool and then they were cold worked. Being at the hottest part of the jar they may have picked up more carbon. Two were made into rectangles for the blades of planes. Other pieces were destined for other tools but one had to be a straight razor. The shape had to be worked hot and it was hard to get the way it was needed. It was late in the day before it was roughly done and a hole drilled in the tang. It was packed in charcoal and clay and put aside in the flames. It would pick up more carbon and much harder. When it was time all the tools could be hardened just a bit more to get the qualities we needed. Rudi the carpenter came back after two more days. He had cut a number of trees and dragged them back to the town with a pair of oxen and three men. He came to tell me that he had returned and to see the quality of his lumber. The lumber turned out to be squared oak with one face being over a metre in size. "I have six other trees cut and squared. You talked of not having seasoned wood so I decided to get some. You will need lots to complete the box and other wagons." "That's a good idea. If these men know what to do I would send them back to recover what you have done and perhaps harvest a few dozen more." "That is a great deal of work." "Yes it is but when wood is needed it is nearby and dryer, it is better yet." "I will ask if you wish." Jón gave him some silver to pay his men for the work they had already done. Only one wanted to return but other help could be hired. Forni supported a heavy sack and Jón reached in and brought out a bundled set of six wood chisels tied with a cord. They were not even that difficult to make especially when they were worked hot. He handed the bundle to Rudy and said, "These are yours. Try them on the log." Rudi opened the bundle as if it were full of diamonds. It was layed on the horizontal surface of the log and he admired them one at a time. He went to his tools and came back with an adz. He used the back of it as a hammer and was amazed at how much material was removed with just a little effort. "These are the best chisels I have ever seen. Did you make these?" "We all had a hand in their manufacturer." Jón extracted two irons for the planes. They had been wrapped in cloth to protect them. "What are these for milord?" Jón tapped the two pieces of metal together and they tingled instead of the usual thunk. Forni handed Jón a slate and on it was the drawing of the wood plane. "I want you to make this. The chisels you are familiar with but you will find my metal much better. It is not only stronger, it is harder. If you think to bend these you will find they will break. With little effort you can smooth a piece of wood." "I will do as you wish. I do not understand this drawing but I will study it." Another wrapped bundle was taken out of the bag. Jón opened it and laid it out on the beam. The handles were similar to those on the chisels. "Push one of the files against the wood. Pick it up before you pull it back." Rudi didn't know anything about files but did as he was asked. It took off little wood compared to a chisel but it could be controlled. Jón took the file and showed him the proper technique. "These are wonderful milord but what are they for?" "For taking small amounts of wood off. A chisel works well but against the grain it can be difficult. It doesn't matter much with the file." He was looking at the sack because it still was not empty. An axe head and the head of an adz were again wrapped. "You will have to fit your own handles. My metal is hard and will stay sharp longer. Sharpen it on a piece of granite you rub on it. Don't use a hammer like you do on iron. This metal will not shatter but it is still hard." "These are tremendous tools milord. Why have you given them to me?" "They will allow you to work faster and safer. Your work will be more accurate and perhaps a thing of beauty. They are not quite free because I want you to work with them to make more wagons and other devices." "I will do my best milord. With these tools it would be hard to not do such." "Then the tools are yours. I am making a large saw now that will allow you to cut boards. You may have to dig a large pit under a log and have a man in the pit hold one end of the saw and another men above to do what he can." "I have seen that done many times and have done it too." "It is best if you hire men to do this while you work on the construction." "I will do that if you wish. I do not have much silver for the men though." "The wagon is needed and I will pay. You may consider making the front and the back portion of a wagon and putting your squared logs on it to transport them. The logs will act as part of the wagon." "That is an interesting idea. I can see just how it will work." "In a few days, we will be leaving for the stone quarry. I have a project there to make lime. We will need many barrels and the coopers are now making them. I am afraid that I have little money to spare. Their services do not come cheap." "You make beautiful tools. Perhaps they will trade." "That is where I was going tomorrow. I have two more irons for two more planes. If they are complete then I can show the coopers what I offer. I have other tools I think they would be interested in. Those are either complete or will be by that time." "I have some old maple that may work. Come by my home late in the afternoon and I will try to have them done." Fálki and Albrecht had been setting up our itinerary with the care of a campaign. Forni and I had a wagon and we were the ones that would be transporting the supplies. I had my own list of things to bring and needed another wagon. We had checked out the wagons but doing any alterations to improve them was too time consuming. It was better to make good iron than retrofit an existing vehicle. Yngvi had heated the tang of his sword and punched two holes in it for the handle. I had been there to make sure he didn't burn the carbon out of the blade. It had changed a great deal since I had first given it to him. It was honed but not like a warrior's blade but as a showpiece. The handle was not on yet but Yngvi was working on one that would suit the rest of the sword. He didn't like my idea of a metal hilt like the traditional calvary sabre but it was his blade now. Modius had done a good job on most of the knife blade and had to be instructed more on how I wanted it to be sharpened. My way was a lot more work though. A cross guard had to be placed on the blade but provision for this had been made when the blade was constructed. The handle though was carved to resemble a piece of clay that a man's hand had squeezed. It didn't fit Jón's hand quite yet but would one day. A bronze pommel had to be installed then filed down for balance. It could be thrown but it was heavy considering the amount of muscle mass Jón had. Hopefully it would be complete before I left. The reason Modius was slow was because he and his men had too many of my other jobs to do. A set of four carving knives, a cleaver and a half dozen paring knives were made. They looked pretty good considering what century we were in. Another job was to work on my katana. I could put a handle on but there were just too many other things to get ready. He and the men had not suffered for all the work they had performed. They had received two blades each of my best steel. One was short with a long shank so it should be used for some serious whittling. The other of course was for a good knife. Modius was not a slave though he was forbidden to leave. He was treated no different than many Frisian veterans that had been hurt in battle and not fully recovered. The stone cutters were not going to be left out of our tool making largesse. I made some impact drills that required a hammer to drive four edges into the stone. With a little bit of a twist by another man holding the tool, it could be struck again and work its way through the rock. We tested them and found they worked fine. It still took a long time to make a hole. These stone chisels were of various sizes but usually they were long and heavy. All this necessitated good sledge hammers and these sucked up a lot of my steel. We had rock to break to fit into our kiln and the pieces didn't have to have neat square sides. Many other tools had been made too and all of my iron was now exhausted. The smith and I were waiting for his men to return with what we both needed. Forni said, "I'm hungry. Is it time to eat yet?" "Probably. Let's get the rest and see what there is to find." "Are you going to give the knives out?" "Did you get the wooden block?" "It won't be ready until tomorrow. We can give the knives tonight and the wood before we leave." "Do you really want to just give part of a gift?" "Yes." Forni had worked harder than most on this project. He had lavished a lot of love on the largest knife and the cleaver. When everybody else thought it was enough, he continued to polish the blades. "We are going to have to wrap them." "I already did." "Sure of yourself?" "No. It was just ready if you wanted." We all could go because there was nothing being processed on the forge. We were also a bit early for supper. Helga was going to shoo us out when she saw all of our group standing formally. Dina and Aagt moved some things and then put down the bundled rags. The knives were unrolled one at a time and put in order like soldiers on parade. Noise in the kitchen stopped completely as we heard the heavy thunk of the tools as they were put into place. The girls backed up and now everybody could see what was there. Helga came forward and even put her ever-present spoon down. "What are these?" Jón said, "They look like knives for the most part." "I know that. What are they doing here?" "I promised you something to help you work and this is part of it. These knives are special. They are made of steel not iron. They are just like the swords you heard of. They are very sharp and will stay sharp much longer." "But... they're beautiful." "Everyone here had a hand in making them. The veterans outside your door were good enough to put these beautiful handles on the knives." Helga moved in now and picked up one of the small paring knives. She lightly ran her thumb over the blade then pulled it away to look at it. "These are sharp." "They are all sharp. Wash them with care and dry each. A bit of olive oil will keep them from rusting. We have made a contract for a block of wood to hold them. It should be done tomorrow. A boy I know wanted to bring the blades here without it." Helga smiled sweetly at Forni and said, "What are the small ones for?" Forni was encouraged to answer what the woman already knew. She just wanted to hear from Forni. Some of the others were introduced and they talked of the tool that they worked on most. Before we were done some of the cooks had to rush off to stir or do other things before the food burnt. Astrid and Dagmar were still smiling during our meal but this changed later when Forni and Jón started to receive smiles and special attention from the staff. Now it was our turn to give facial hints. During the meal Jón asked Astrid, "How is your guest doing? I see he is still unable to attend us here to have his meal." "He still feels unsure of himself. His face has been damaged. He did go to the window and waved at his men to show them that he is still alive but it was almost too much for him." "Sometimes a bedridden patient has difficulty using the chamber pot. Is that the case?" Astrid gave a much larger smile and said, "Oh, he has no trouble in that. The muscles open quite wide now." Jón conveyed my words now. "If this does present a problem, you can introduce warm soapy water. A tube connected to him may be necessary. This would be messy and he may have to be upside down. A funnel may then work but I am afraid it will be very messy." "We will keep that in mind. He has not been eating though and it should not be a problem for a while." "With no new material going in, then it may be even more important to use the warm water now. You may find that his muscles are in a contracted state and difficult for him to control. A quick slap sometimes releases them. I have heard that sometimes many are needed." "I have heard that too. I will keep it in mind if it becomes necessary." Jón took out a stiff leather pouch and handed it to Dagmar. "This is the razor I promised. I had to make seven of them before one performed as I wanted. Be warned, if it falls to floor it may break. Put only a little pressure on it." Jón opened the pouch before Dagmar could and extracted the razor with a handle of wood. It was the same shape as those used until just before safety razors came out in my time. He stroked it along his skin and a small crop of thin light hairs were harvested. "You have to wash the razor because substances on your skin will pit the metal. A thin coating of oil will keep it from rusting. You will have to treat this as if it is a deadly weapon." He closed the blade and set it on the table. Dagmar picked it up as if it were ready to bite her and opened and closed the blade. In a moment she cut some much thicker and darker hair off her arm. She had been careful but she had still nicked herself. A small drop of blood appeared but she smiled at Jón nevertheless. "This is marvellous. If men had this, we could see their faces." "They could. Your guest has a damaged face and if it were cleanly shaven then it would allow you to monitor for infection. I wonder what the Frank men think of being shaved?" "Shaved? Well he will have to change because of his condition. It might be good for some of our own men to do this too. If we have visitors then they can see that it is not one person being shorn of hair." After our meal, I gathered some of the men including some of the Franks and showed them another of our razors. I had a tanner make a strop and this would be given with the razor. Jón was quite adept at honing the blade and showed the technique to all that came to see. The razor went around the group and now many people had bald spots on their arms. Jón talked of the best methods of shaving though I knew that people would wonder how he knew this. If they reasoned that a boy did not yet have any facial hair of his own then they may be more worried. We still had work to do before the night was over. Four large saws had been made of steel. There were large maple handles rivetted to each end. The teeth were different than what anybody else used at this time. They were the best I could remember. The new teeth were cut with the chisel then shaped with the files. When this was done, a section of teeth were heated while the rest was protected by clay. This small area was hardened and we worked to the next section. Our forge was just too small and we would have to seriously modify it to do saws. It was important that the majority of the blade stayed flexible. There were a great many tools going with us and I was happy that enough men wanted to have a few days in the field so I could use their help. When Fálki mentioned that the quarry was near a river I brought out the hooks I had made and got the academy to make more so they would know how. The next day proved to be a bit more hectic. Astrid and Dagmar didn't want Jón to leave and it took a lot of explanations before he could go. The fact that the city and castle were less protected didn't matter much as we would only be a few hours away. The coopers were still as objectionable as the smith or maybe even up to the class that Andsvarr was in. I had made sure I had seen their tools when I first came to their shop. The new tools were shaped similar to theirs but with better handles and construction. The blades though were my finest steel. The coopers didn't want anything to do with our inventions until Jón subtly hinted at setting up a rival company to make barrels. Guilds were fairly strong but Jón was the only son of the king. Jón argued and finally got to see the coopers use their tools. With that out of the way our tools were tested. It was easy to see that less work was needed to do the same work. The finish was nicer and even the shavings looked good. The two planes we made were an instant hit but the men kept their faces straight and even hammed it up about how hard they had to work to push them. They had smaller ones that did either a tongue or a groove for the barrel head. I promised to get an iron for them but made of steel. Iron they said was still good. There were three partners working in this business. The senior one was an old man and the other two looked to be his sons. It was the younger son that finally admitted that our tools were better. Jón said, "I can make a special tool for you that will cut a hole in the side of the barrel. You use chisels and I can make the job many times faster and the edges will be as smooth as the outside. I can make a tool that will cut the lip at the top and the groove just below it. You will be much more accurate and the barrel will not have as much of a problem with it leaking." The old man said haughtily, "Our barrels don't leak." "All barrels leak until the wood has a chance to swell. I may look like a boy but I am not without knowledge. I have superior tools and I can make ones that you want. All you have to do is show me what you want done. Your help with the design would speed things along." "Our tools work just fine." "Your tools may but they are slow. You can do more barrels with sharper tools. That means there is more profit." "We have enough time to make all the barrels needed." "I want a lot of barrels. You will not be able to meet the demand. Either I will have to wait or your other customers will. I went to a lot of trouble to make these tools. If you do not want them then I will have to make my own barrels." "You have no coopers to do the work." "That is right but with enough time I will learn, with a bit more I will teach. Before long I will have to hire more help even with my tools. I have many items to package and send away. Some may be just to store over the winter. Barrels are a good product and so is my steel. I make very good steel and I make very good tools. If I have to, I will make very good barrels too. Mine at least will have iron hoops which will be much stronger." The arguing still went on but in the end they agreed to take the tools and test them. With the other half of our silver locked up Jón committed this to more barrels made to our specifications. We had enough to get sixty. With this carrot in mind we dickered for the tools. It was well past lunch when we found that we only had to pay with half of our silver. Three barrels were ready now and these came off the price of the tools. They didn't have the metal hoops but they would have to do. They would be picked up later in the afternoon. The reason the price was so high for barrels was because they would now have to use a lot of expensive iron hoops to hold them together. Helga was very solicitous of us when we came late. She kept jabbering about her knives and it was easy to see that she was quite happy. When we came back to the forge, everybody was waiting for us. Two of the children would be coming with us but those two had not been picked yet. Jón cut some straw with two lengths shorter than the rest. The children all picked quickly and then compared. Klaasje and Tiebout won. They were both boys and Tiebout was the other orphan. I liked all the children and would like for everybody to go but the smith was going to have some iron delivered soon. I wanted it processed as soon as possible. I would have liked to take the potter too but he was needed here more. He at least gave me the locations of his clay so we could return with some. We would also be looking for other kinds because we needed it for our furnace linings and crucibles. Jón was upset about the selection and promised on his own to take the others with him when he could. That night Forni wanted some fun time but the children wanted to sleep close. Part way through the night Jón got up and pulled Forni with him. They walked naked out of the forge and into a storage room with nothing but a blanket. They both got their wish while I kept an ear open for people approaching. They had been without for a while and it took time to feel sated. Jón pulled Forni to him when in the sixty nine position with a considerable force. He thrust much harder into his lover's mouth and Forni held tight to keep him there. The strongest orgasm yet washed through me and I felt our testicles and prostrate work. This was too much for us and I had to pull back to lessen the sensations coming through. Eventually Forni disengaged and turned around. "What happened?" This time I took control and said, "Jón is starting to make seed. Did you taste anything different?" "Maybe, I'm not sure." "It will be a small amount at first but later there will be more. Soon you will be making some too." "Is it going to get me to act funny too?" "Yes. The sensations are stronger too. If you think you are horny now you will be very horny later. Jón is going to be this way and he will be taking you for walks with a blanket." "I like that. Can we do that again now?" "I will pull back and you can talk to Jón. I think if you put your hand down his body you will find his answer." Jón burnt hotter and then so did Forni and in a shorter time they were ready to return to the others and sleep. As the two settled in I listened to the breathing and knew that Dina was awake. The next day was dark with a threatening storm. Fálki was going with us and determined that the storm would miss us or be light. We all brought leather tents and equipment much like the Roman legion did. We at least had better tools and everybody was either mounted or riding in a cart. I had my plans for the Frisian calvary. The forest camo suit as well as one dyed black were going with us. Helga had seen us off and provided a lunch too. Again like the Romans there were many loaves of bread. We had cheese, cured sausage and jerky to go with it. Jón was able to pull rank and at least drive one of the wagon with the other three boys in it. What was surprising was our escort. Fálki and Albrecht were sitting in the two saddles I had made. There were two long lances rising into the sky and seated at their right stirrup. There were fourteen more men and it looked to be half Franks. Two of the Frisians though were to drive my wagons. They didn't like this. Fálki had said they could stay home so they grudgingly accepted. Everybody riding a horse apparently had a lance or the weapons were held upright by a group of grooms. The original saddles had all been altered. Wider girth belts were used with a chest band. Stirrups hung where none had been there before. The men were all doing last minute activities. Hurriedly I talked to Jón and he got down from the cart. He said to the boys, "Stay here." He ran over to Fálki and spoke upward to the man, "We need something else that I forgot." "What is it?" "One of my father's pennants to be hung from every lance." The man thought a minute then gave orders. The Roman standard bearer carried their Centurial Signum. This represented the honour of a particular legion. To loose this was the same as losing all honour. The Frisians and the Germans in general were similar and since Clovis had fought in the auxiliaries he would know this. Five triangular pennants came back and in a moment two more. A Frank brought back three of his own sovereign's signals. They were hurriedly tied to the lances. We had everything now except the kitchen sink but there were no sinks, just wash tubs. Astrid and Jón's sisters came out to wish us a good trip. Between them was a very subdued man. He had a clean shaven though damaged face. With a minimum number of words he wished us all a good trip. Astrid carried the wooden phallus without gut as if it were a sceptre. It seemed to work. The priests came out too and performed a ceremony by calling on the gods to assist and protect us. It was the same thing when Clovis would leave but his was much more formal. Each of the escorts went to the grooms and a lance was hoisted into position and it rode comfortably at the right foot. They all worked like experienced calvary and got into proper positions A good sized crowd had gathered by the time we got to the city gates. There was some cheering and some of the spectators blew horns which I was told had to do with making sure the gods knew that we were now under their care. Klaasje and Tiebout and even Forni were waving to everybody as if the crowd had come to see them off. It did make a good sight because the pennants were held high and fluttered in the breeze We turned east outside the gates. The ride was bumpy with no sort of suspension to the wagon. When out of sight of the city we stopped and retied the load. The long saws were difficult to keep from flexing and working their way loose. This took but a few moments. The escort just talked among themselves and they didn't seem to be pissed. The day turned out to be good if cool. Fálki sent out some scouts and they put their lances on one the cart with the three barrels. All told, I had three cars for my needs while the calvary had one plus three pack horses. Jón knew a bit about waggoner's duties and taught it to Forni. The two other boys were curious about everything and were told to listen to the lesson. I did my own part by adding about the tending of the horses and their harnesses. I added about the lubrication of the axles and the other parts that could wear. The part about horses alone was long and included everything from rubbing them down to inspecting their hoofs for stones and disease. We were in no hurry and the trip I estimated to be about two and a half hours. We had seen farms on our way and the boys waved to the people and they waved back. Not once did I hear, "Are we there yet?" from any of the boys. The land began to show the upheavals of a forgotten time and the road twisted around the outcrops. The roadway in some areas had been cleared by farmers but most of the area we travelled through were narrow laneways with mud as the usual road material. I got Jón to stop for a pee break while I investigated the nearest outcropping. We had made fair shovels and Jón used one to dig into the lowest areas of the mound. When the soil was removed I saw a reddish mineral. I got Jón to take a small bit on his tongue and tasted it the way I had been taught. He then spit the saliva out. It had a bitter salty taste. This was carnallite, one of the many forms of the mineral we called potash. The various materials of this group could be separated and each was valuable in one process or another. This particular deposit looked to be hydrous potassium-magnesium chloride. The potassium was water soluble and with little work I could make it into potassium nitrate. Potassium carbonate could be produced too and it would be used for making soap and glass. Another chemical, potassium hydroxide could be used for soap too but also detergents. This was more readily available in wood ashes or Chilean saltpetre but we would not be travelling to Chile any time soon to get some. The best I could do is remember the location and perhaps the smell and taste now that both senses were much stronger. Everybody was looking at Jón when he got back in the wagon and Forni asked, "What were you doing?" "The rock I was looking at can be altered a bit to make a good fertiliser like manure. Plants need this to survive along with some other types of soil." "Oh." An hour later, the winding trail suddenly opened to a more open area. This only meant that the trees were a few more metres apart. We found a greeting party of seven men, five women and it looked like thirty some children. The weapons and children signified that they knew of our arrival. The boys were anxious to get down and that included Jón. I got him to hold the reins. We had to find where we were going to camp then hobble the horse. That would be after we found a suitable place to put the equipment we carried. Kareltje came to us and said, "You are a bit early milord." Jón said, "Then you were wrong with your estimate of the time." "We had to hunt and make huts." "That should have been put into your estimate of the time. We are here now and we may as well get started. I brought some tools for you. Perhaps you could try them out." "I have no place to put you except in the house with the women." "Thank you but we brought tents." I had looked around when we arrived and picked out a good place to pitch our tent. Jón thought my choice adequate. Fálki was still the head of the expedition and he would have final say in where we camped. This rankled on Jón but he saw the necessity. Kareltje came with Jón to the back of the cart and he saw all the saws because they were the longest tools. They were packed on their edges for strength and Jón opened a leather sack and handed Kareltje some of the stone chisels first. Kareltje looked at the two Jón gave him. "What are these for?" "They will cut through rock. Do you want to try?" "If you want. Not many people choose to work with a stone cutter." From another area Jón pulled out a heavy sledge and then another similar one with smaller faces. This is what was used to break up rock directly. He handed the sledge and said, "Let's give it a try after I hobble the horse." The hobble was put on easily and tied. A large broken rock was only ten metres away and Jón crouched down with the chisel in my hands. He had done this before but was still worried. I too was worried and watched through Jón's eyes to make sure the hammer would hit true. Kareltje hit with small taps and started to smile. There was little progress and he may be happy with the hammer. After each strike Jón rotated the chisel forty five degrees and in a short time we were through the rock. There were stone chips and dust. When it had gone through the rock, Kareltje pulled the chisel out. He looked at both ends and said, "This is amazing. I have never seen a chisel cut so fast. It is not worn either and the end I hit has not deformed the way my other chisels have done." Jón now smiled and said, "Look at the hammer face. It isn't marked much either." The man examined it and said, "You're right. I have never seen iron like this before and even the handle is straighter than any I have seen before." "I prepared the iron myself. It is a lot of work to make one but if you made a lot of hammers they would be easier. The handle was put in a simple machine and spun around. When it came out it was cut on two sides with a knife so it would not slip in your hands. We are making a lot of new tools in Hildestun." "What?" "You will see two of our saddles being used by our escort. They are using strong lances that others could not use. You also see some good steel for tools and weapons." "I see an odd knife at your waist. Is that one of them?" "It is." Jón removed the knife and offered the hilt to the man. Kareltje took the knife and rubbed his thumb across the blade and then looked up. "It's sharp." "It will cut the hair off your arm. It should not be sharpened this way but I did to show people the quality of the blade. If you can afford to lose a bit of hair, give it a try." The man did then nodded his head. "You're right. This's a good blade." "You don't know how good. It is strong too." "Where did you learn to make iron like this?" "I was hurt when I fell from the horse. The old Roman priests and the priests of the Picts worked hard to keep me alive, then to cure me. When I awoke I knew more than when I was first hurt." "You knew the secrets of iron?" "I had hints that I had to follow. Have you ever had the gods talk to you?" "Never." "Have you known those that have?" "Yes, a few, and a few more that I really believe." "Then I am one of those that you believe or one you do not. I do have good iron and good idea of what we are doing here." "Lime for mortar?" "More than that and you will be part of it. The gods may have a part for you to play." "I want no part of the gods' plans. They change all the time and people die." "We all die. Work with me and your name may be carried for all time in the sagas." "Me?" "I have need of a great amount of lime. Why would they not talk of Kareltje that went into the wild and built a kiln and made a mountain of lime. In a month you will find some of the uses for it. You will be surprised when you find out. We will be the foremost of all the tribes. Rome will know of us but we will be too strong for them to take and they will have to pay in gold." "Gold? For what?" "You will find out in time. I will not say more now." Jón got the knife back and the two went to find Fálki. He had already set up a camp. He was using his saws to cut some trees for a temporary barrier. He did not have enough people to set up the standard stockade. The men were surprised at the ease with which the trees fell and even more surprised when the axes worked as easily. Albrecht asked Fálki, "How is it that you Frisians have such good saws and axes?" "The same reasons we now have such good saddles and knives. The boy gave me a knife and I cannot believe how sharp it stays. It is so thin I thought it would snap in two but it holds its shape. Ask him about the sword he carries. Nobody could stand up to it." "Is it magic?" "Not any I can see. He is free with his knowledge and says it is just in the way it is heated and formed." "I will have to talk to him about it." Jón put his wagon where he was told to. The rest of the wagons followed suit. Before the trip, Jón had talked to Fálki about the horse collar and now was his chance to test it. He extracted one of the collars and put it on one of the horses from the wagons. The tack was then hooked up the collar and the straps that supported it. Chain and a hook were made by the smith and had to be borrowed for this test. The cost would be four times its weight in crude iron if they were not returned. I guided Jón to make a circle and walk the horse close to the limbed log then go forward. Forni, Klaasje and Tiebout rolled the log with their combined might and the chain was slipped underneath. The hook choked the chain and Jón followed instructions and got the horse to move forward. There was some hesitation at a new task but eventually the horse pulled hard and the log moved. It stopped again though and Jón had to get it going and keep the beast moving. Fálki was twenty metres away and used his hands to tell Jón where the log was to go. The horse was able to pull the log that could not be pulled by a horse without the collar. More trees fell and Fálki got close to Jón and said, "I have to test this too." "Go right ahead. I want to get the boys to cut up the smaller limbs for the kiln when it is built." "How long do you think?" "Perhaps a few days longer than I planned. There is a lot of broken rock that will work. Kareltje has cut some nice pieces already and I think he will be playing with his new toys now." Fálki looked around and said, "You're right. He's over with his men drilling holes." "Wait until he finds about the rest of the tools." The trees piled up very quickly even with so few people. Fálki posted guards but the rest shed their armour and dug in. Some men were directed to dig a latrine. Digging was usually a difficult job. The metal bladed shovels though made the digging almost effortless. It did hurt their feet and a wide lip on the shovel helped a lot. Soon the others had to try this tool out too. Two men were directed to cut a board from a tree with an even longer saw. They didn't seem to mind though. They were only part way through and others wanted to try the new tool. Jón directed the now tired boys to set up the prepared meal they had brought. There were very few trenchers, and they will all large. Many of the other children were around them and the words about food made all of their ears perk up. Jón said, "Put the food back. We will eat after we make some plates." Forni said, "After? I can eat with my hands." "You do that and you will be in trouble. You eat when everybody else eats. Any other way and discipline falls off and people get killed. Now let's see if we can make some plates. You have tools. Use them." The boys hurried off to see what they could find but the large board was only partially cut. It would take a lot longer to make the second cut and get a board with less bark. Jón said to the three, "Cut one of the stumps close to the ground. Use an ax to split some sections off and then use an adz or a plane." The boys had used the tools before and now they had a real incentive to learn more. With only three boys, Jón stepped in to assist. It took one of the men though to use an axe to split the wood. They didn't stop though at one trencher and had to build more. The men by this time were hungry too and they made the work even faster. A fire was started and Kareltje and some of his men brought over a portion of a recently killed deer. The smoke drifted toward the men working and they picked up the pace considerably. We were able to eat off the sawn top of the log. It was long enough to hold all seventy of us. Kareltje's people numbered seventeen adults and thirty four children. Not all of them had been present to greet us. Our men numbered sixteen plus three boys and Jón. There were not enough wooden platters made but all our own people had them. They were better than the top of the log but not by much. With a lathe and a few screws the plates could be beautiful but the lathe was in Hildestun and the screws didn't exist as such. After lunch, I had Jón go to the first piece of wood that was cut off and flipped it over with some help so the bark side was down. I did some mathematics with the boys and measured asses, even those that were very big to those that were very small. The boys got a saw and cut the slab off at six metres. They didn't know why I picked this measurement. With charcoal we marked out the seats and used the plane to clean off the areas that needed it. The chisels came out then and holes were cut to fit the appropriate butt. The older children in Kareltje's group were invited to join in and they did. The holes were rough and the boys took the two planes and began to finish off the rest of the board. The trench for the latrine was between two stumps now. The board was flipped one more time on some grass and the bark side trimmed to fit on the tops of the two stumps. The wood was still ten centimetres thick and well strong enough. When the board was put in place I saw some lights come on with some of the boys. With no nudity taboo, Forni dropped his pants and sat on the board. He had picked one that was too big but he held on. Soon all the children were working to fill the trench. I had to get Jón to get the bag of moss we carried and distribute it to them for nobody had thought of this. When the children finished I had them dig a shallow trench in front of where their feet would go. They didn't work fast but it was comical to see their efforts. The remainder of the first board was put, bark side down, so people would have a clean place for their pants. All I had to do was find a way to put the moss on a roll and hang some near each hole. By the end of the day we had cut three large planks. This was good considering how large they were and the conditions we had to work under. Our saw may have been the best ever made but those in later centuries would be better yet. We set up the tents and started the first of some more permanent structures. The Frisian didn't mind being crowded. I knew that row houses would be much better. If the back door led to another house then they would be easier to heat. Four of the adults were not married and three were female. This gave something for both the Frisian and the Frank men to do. None of them practised polygamy and a marriage was usually a strong bond. Males still strayed but usually the wife was nearby helping in whatever the husband was doing. A clandestine liaison was difficult to manage. After supper, we worked more then sat around a fire to talk and socialise. The men were boisterous but then again so were the women. They were no shrinking violets. The men were still boss but the women made sure that they were not trodden on too much. The Germans in my time encouraged their children to talk and comment on current affairs or whatever topic was being discussed. My family was not all German but we did this too to some extent. Children were not looked on as a different species until they grew up. The children here gave little input to the conversation. I had Jón go out of his way to ask the younger generation what they felt about the war with the Romans. Albrecht changed the current topic and asked me, "Milord, tell us of your wonderful weapons? I hear a great deal about them." Jón said, "They are better than the usual iron because there is something different in the iron." "Tell us what it is?" "That is a very large topic to talk about. It is like me asking you to tell me what your people are really like. You would have to go into all the things you do daily then all the things you do once in a while. You would have to talk about how you react to kindness and how you deal with lies or threats. If you think hard on this, you will know that you would be here for the next four nights and you may not cover everything there is to say." He did take time to think then said, "You may be right but can you talk about the main points?" "I will but I will still have you up the remainder of the night." "I am sure everybody here would love to know about your swords and tools." With a few nodding heads Jón said, "I will do so but I am afraid I will have to talk as a tutor. Those that make the steel have to learn many tasks. I teach them a new way to count and we now use the same symbols the Romans use to write our words. If nobody objects to this way of speaking I will continue." Jón waited for any objections and when none came he said, "The Greeks think that there are four main elements. They are earth, wind, fire and water. They are wrong. There are over a hundred and many you have already seen." One of the Franks said, "How do you know this? I have studied a lot and understand that everything made up of only the four major elements." I had to work in a story now that would change in time. A few details would come out now and a few more when people accepted me. My rendition of the story now would not give the length of time I spent in the land of the gods. Eventually the story would be what my actual life was like. This way I avoided the usual pratfalls of telling a lie. Religion was the best way and I was no different than many other men down through history. Jón and I were at least in agreement to go slow. "I was hurt when I fell from a horse. I would have died, if it was not for the help given me by the priests. They called on the gods to heal me. When there were enough voices raised to do this the gods decided to help." Now the people were staring at Jón. "I was asleep for not hours but for many months. Everybody has dreams but I didn't awake from mine. I walked through a very strange land. People climbed into a metal boat with comfortable seats. When it was full it would move not with rowers but by mighty metal engines. It went so fast that it left the ground and the engines pushed the boat into the sky. A trip of months for us could be done in minutes in this land. "The roads were made of black pitch and small stones. A large iron machine rolled it perfectly flat. Metal carriages with smaller engines carried people a hundred miles in an hour. Mighty rivers were dammed and the water used to turn wheels. The wheels turned a machine that made the same power as lighting. This harnessed power was used to do many tasks. "I saw iron that was in such quantities that it would dwarf the entire city of Hildestun. Great chasms were spanned by this metal and people could walk or use their carriages to cross deep rivers. "There is much more but that is just a small part of what I had dreamed. The making of my kind of iron was shown to me in my dream but I cannot remember it perfectly. All of you must have awoken and then forgot all or part of a dream." The people were really staring now and some had their mouths open. "I was just asked a question. I have to answer it oddly. I was shown wonders that I cannot prove right now. My iron though is hard and strong. That does not prove that there are over a hundred elements, only that I make good steel. "I asked men to make strange saddles. Two were made and both Fálki and Albrecht have ridden on them. If they say they are better then what we had, then that is only proof that my saddles are good. "I made toys that fly into the air out of simple wood. This is something new but still a toy. That same toy is what is turned by those mighty engines that pulled the boat through the sky. "What I have to say about the elements is all true. Later I will have ways of proving this but in small pieces at a time. "Charcoal is actually a pure element. It is called carbon. Iron is an element but so is copper, lead, brimstone, gold, silver, quicksilver, arsenic and tin. These elements are known by some but not by everybody. There are more but you have not seen them in a pure state. "Iron will change when it has other elements mixed in it. Some will make it soft and not very useful. Other things will make it hard, strong, brittle, or tough. I can remember part of this dream and I know how to put some of the charcoal into the iron. If I put too much then the iron cannot be worked with a hammer and a smith has to throw it out or try to mix it with pure iron." Albrecht asked, "Tell us more of your dream." "I will tell some now and more other nights. I am not going to do all the talking. I too like to hear what other people have to say or how they feel about something." "I am sure we will all talk too." "Alright, I will talk of another way of travelling. You have heard me talk of the engines but one is made large and very heavy. It cannot travel down the roads because its great weight would make it sink its wheels into the earth. Even on a Roman road the machine would sink. On rock like in the quarry it will work. "To make the machine useful it has to have a very strong and hard road. This road is made of two thick strips of iron. Under this iron are heavy oak logs. The wheels of this vehicle are of iron too. This machine pulls wagons behind it that contain people, grain, fruit and vegetables or salt that will be used in factories. "You can travel usually fifty miles in an hour but it is hour after hour. A fast machine made for just people could travel three hundred miles an hour. Albrecht asked, "How do you get to ride on this wondrous machine?" "The steel rails go to every city just the same as the roads I talked about. A list is posted of when one of these machines will arrive and where it is going to next. You read the list and come to a central location in each city to get on. You pay a man the fare required and you take a seat. If the trip is far, like here to Hispania, it will take over a day. The seats are comfortable and the person will lay back so he can sleep. If you pay more silver you can rent a small room with beds." "From here to Hispania in a single day?" "The vehicle I talked of is called a train. If it is the type made for carrying cargo and people then it also has to stop at other cities along the way to pick up passengers or drop them off. It can go fast too and do more than a hundred miles in an hour. The train going a full day will go two thousand and four hundred miles. The stops and starts will make it less especially when they have to wait an hour or two each time." "Over two thousand miles in a day?" "Yes but the same trip will take three of four hours in the boat that goes through the sky. It makes fewer stops and goes much faster. It also costs a lot more silver to use." "Those machines, I would like to see." "How old are you Albrecht?" "I am twenty nine summers. Why?" "If people help me make what I have seen then you may see some of what I talked about before you die. Try to picture a giant metal ship that is five times longer than this quarry. It has mighty engines that push it against the current of any river. There are no rowers. A device similar to the toy I made in Hildestun will push the ship through the water." "A metal ship cannot float." "Will you bet me a day's labour against one of my knives on that?" "Certainly." "Your helmet is made of metal. Take some pine sap and rub it on the seams so it does not leak. Hold your helmet by the strap so it does not tip and place it into a tub of water." "That is not a boat." "A smith could make a large boat out of iron but the pieces would have to be thin. It will not only float but be strong. Will you concede the bet or do you have to test what I have said?" "I am not sure. I will test it tomorrow. "When we get back to Hildestun, have the smith make a boat this long." Jón said using his hands. "The metal needs to be thin as possible. We do not have to stop arrows with it. This will be your boat. To find out how much the boat will carry just fill it with water like your cup. If you weigh the boat empty and take away this weight from the weight of water then you know the maximum it will carry. One more drop will sink it though." "I can see that in a way. What about one of your engines?" "I can tell you how to make a very simple engine. Have the smith make a sheet of thin copper. Fold it into the shape of a small box. Melt some lead and tin together." "What will that do?" "The lead and tin will hold the folds of copper together and seal it much like pine gum. When it cools the metal can be made water tight. A smith can do this with little heat and it is reasonably strong." "What will this do?" "You must make a small metal frame in your toy boat to hold this box above to bottom. One small hole is made in the side of the box facing the back of the boat. Water is added to the box but only a bit. A candle is lit and put under the box. In time the water will boil as you may have seen in a metal pot. The water turns to something like the air we breathe and tries to get out. The small hole holds it back and it pushes harder to get out. The steam soon comes out the same as your breath when you blow out a candle. It pushes the boat forward until the water is boiled away or the candle burns out. "You can save the expense by just making the box and frame and using wood to make it float." He asked, "If I make a big box on a big boat will this make me move without rowers?" "Yes, but it is like rowing with your hands in the water instead of using the oars. You need to use a complicated machine to harness more of the power." He was quiet and so were the rest. Most, I guess, were thinking of what was said. ------- Chapter 13 I was not too surprised at the information Jón had been able to glean from my memories. I was surprised though that he had felt safe enough to mention it to others. I thought he may feel out certain individuals and explain some facets of my life a bit at a time. Since I had awoke into this time, I had found that Jón was becoming more level headed in his dealings with others and I had to trust him in some things. I didn't know for a fact, but I was still fairly sure that witch hunts would occur at this time. Burning at the stake or some other form of gristly execution could be our end if we were not careful. The priests in the city were kept in check by Clovis but they could still do something like murdering Clovis' son if the heat of fanaticism hit them. Having to prove the existence of over a hundred elements while being overseen by a group of bias judges at my inquisition was not a good thought. Jón knew these people better than me but he was still a boy. He had given me a lot of trust when he offered me his body. I had to give him something similar or we would start to fight. We slept in the compound with two men standing watch. Apparently Clovis had to beat this into his men and Fálki was not going to take a chance on this happening to him. I think that because Jón was here that this was even more important. Jón and I talked. He wanted his turn at watch but I said that I would be the one that stayed awake and I would do it for us. He didn't want this because he wanted to be seen as pulling his own weight. We were able to compromise because I would wake him if anything odd was heard or sensed. The boys all slept in one tent but it was large enough. Jón's head was near the opening to hear better. The night was not as productive because I was concentrating on sounds instead of thinking. As a child, I had learned that those that goofed off were easy to take. Our group of young survivalists learned this too because of the embarrassment they received and the amount of peer pressure they were exposed to. I had almost been caught just before dawn when blue team attacked our camp. Luckily I was able to give the alarm soon enough that I was not blamed for our defeat. The Frisians and all hedonistic Germans of this time got up late. The stone cutter and his group were not in this group and got up sooner. They like the farmers and the slaves had to work to feed themselves. Jón had been told about the military academies of my time, though I had never stayed in one. I had visited the grounds of West Point and Anapolis but they were for children. When I was young, I had not been suddenly yelled at by sergeants to instill instant obedience. I had spent most of the first part of my life being commanded by my father and his group of soldiers. They had done the yelling gradually and from an early start I had not seen it for the conditioning it was. It wasn't much past diaper stage when I was taught to salute and follow simple orders. Yelling then was not required. I did understand the ideas behind discipline and the chain of command but the three boys had not enlisted. They would have to be helped along as I was without being too harsh. Later or with older recruits I would see what I could do to yell in people's faces. Jón pulled Forni closer to him and with a kiss woke him up. When Forni stirred, Jón whispered, "We have lots of work to do. We all have to get up." "Just a bit longer!" "Get up." Forni knew who the boss was and how much he could get away with. He pulled the blanket back and shivered. Jón was able to see a small erection before the boy curled into a ball. Jón got up as if the damp cool morning was nothing important and began to get dressed. He stared at his moccasins for a moment and I said, "Our boots should be ready when we get back." "Will they really be comfortable? They are going to be heavy." "Yes they are to both questions but you can step on a sharp rock and not get cut. All the soldiers of my time where combat boots and they are even stronger than what we will be wearing. They have a steel shank or sometimes a steel plate in the bottom." "For those land mines you were talking about?" "The steel only helps a bit. There were foot traps with sharp wood and poison put on the tips. A man or horse will be hurt and slow down the column and kill a few too." "I still feel that you are not doing this the right way. A man must confront his enemies and either kill or be killed. The gods like to see bravery." I said, "That is the way it should be too. We are not facing just one opponent but the Gauls and the Romans. It is brave to stand before ten enemies but you will always die without taking any of the enemy with you. That is not good for the women and children. They will die or be taken as slaves." "I know. Your way is best but it goes against the way I have been taught." "It is a cultural thing. Germans and Romans think this way too but they are just too numerous and the Romans are trained. We have to become more trained and then use better weapons or we will suffer." Jón roughly pushed Forni then slapped his bare bum. Turning to the other two boys he said, "Get up. We have work to do." Breakfast was hurried and much like any other meal. The deer we were brought didn't go far and hunters were sent out. If we brought back too many then it would have to be dried. We had some salt but not much. We still had two pickets though everybody knew that they were not needed. Those mobile enough were to look for clay so we could use it inside the kiln and to fill the chinks in the homes we were building. Either I talked to Fálki with Jón's mouth or Jón did the same thing. The camp was better policed that the Frisians had usually done but I had never seen a Roman encampment to see how well they did things. It would all depend on their officers I guess as to how tidy they were. The Romans and thus the Frisians had used a simpler latrine with poles but my idea was liked better. My grandfather would say that all we would need is an old Sears or Eaton's catalogue to use for toilet paper. It would be read for a year in the outhouse. After that time, the paper would be wrinkled to make it less slippery. This was much better from the recycling point of view. I knew that the lingerie section filled many fantasies of his day. Kareltje and his men were shown the other tools we brought but they were demonstrated one at a time to make sure their function was understood. Again I cringed because there was no safety devices at all. That night, we made a map of the area with the help of the Frisian hunters. The Franks were not familiar with maps and had to be shown. I explained about topo maps with lines showing elevation of every five or ten metres. The Frisians were interested in this idea once it was explained but I had no sample to show them. Tonight we discussed how a band of Gauls then how Romans would attack our camp. The Franks were perplexed about this until they saw the point. Fálki split the men into two groups. It was red and white because blue and green had some cultural connotations and could not be used. We would attack each other in a mock battle tomorrow to prove some points. The Franks just wanted to fight but it was not said to them how the Frisians had took them so easily in the fight in the halls of the castle. There would then be more hard feelings and that was why each group was now mixed. The two groups now worked separately so they could talk while working on the homes. I thought this more important than the kiln. When winter came, they could be sheltered while still able to do their duties. Huts could go up quickly but my ideas of houses took a lot longer. Only part of it was because they didn't understand my reasoning and resisted out of spite. I picked a hill nearby that was upwind of the kiln. There was soil here instead of rock. We used shovels to dig a hole into the dirt and put poles to hold back the soil. Instead of a ladder to get into the house, we had a level access made with a trench. This again was buttressed. It never got too cold here but this was still good. Both the Frisian and the Franks were familiar with this form of construction. More rooms were built off the first and each had their own entrance. A room was a home to these people. There were only seven families here as some of the grown children had not married yet. We made ten homes though they all bitched at the cost in labour and time. Some of the sawn lumber was used for furniture and many other manufactured articles. When the lumber dried it could be used for many other projects. Our original four day sojourn would have to be lengthened but it was a learning experience for everybody. The jobs had been rotated with even the civilians getting a chance to hunt, cut wood or drill rock. Our boys fit in well with three of the others and they temporarily joined our academy. The white team defended our camp when it was starting to get dark and they were all tired. Albrecht commanded this team and had to strike his own men to keep them quiet during the attack. The Germans usually yelled and beat their shields to make as much noise as possible to frighten their enemy. Clovis probably had to use a club on his men when he started out. The next night the red attacked but did no better than the white. Those nursing bruises from the night before gave them back again if possible. Wood swords and blunt spears could still hurt even with armour. There was a low cliff of sorts that suited my purpose in regards to the kiln. We cleaned out the rocks below and built the base of our kiln as close as possible. The kiln was four metres inside the two metre thick walls. A hole in the front served to admit air and to shovel out the lime. The entire kiln was elevated with a purpose in mind. The floor of the kiln was highly banked so that it rapidly sloped toward the opening. The lime would drift down the steep sides and collect outside the kiln so it could be gathered up. I had seen old pictures of this sort of operation but I made what I thought were improvements as I want along. One was for an overhang that kept rain off the newly formed lime until it could be cooled and packaged. The kiln walls went higher and higher each day but it took a lot of time to cut the needed blocks and drag them to the construction site. The horses and the two collars made this much easier than it would have been. One of the things I had made before this trip was block and tackle. The lathe and the steel allowed me to build big but I didn't have bronze bushings. I had made a crude vice and an even cruder wrench to twist some steel flatbar into a helix. One end was rolled to allow a piece of carved oak to slip through the tube thus formed. The other end was ground so there was a square point in the centre and two sharp cutting edges around it. This was put into our lathe and the length turned to a single diameter. With only calipers we got some good results but all I knew was that some were larger or smaller than others. We made good holes in hardwood to accept the iron shafts that supported the sheaves. I made the tackle large and went for eight to one ratio with four sheaves in the upper and four in the lower block. The smith had made much of this including the hooks and the iron bands around the blocks. He didn't understand what he made but when I picked up his anvil by myself, he thought I used magic. I had to make small sheaves and blocks to show him that it was just a type of leaver. It has still taken a long time to reduce the fear of magic so I was going to act differently now. After a noon meal I called Fálki to assist me. With a rope over a tree limb he tried to pick Forni off the ground. The difficulty I attributed to the rope rubbing on the bark of the limb. A single sheave was hung from the limb and allowed Forni to be hoisted into the air. "Does anybody here see magic in any of this or just nature?" With no answer I showed a pole and rock used as a leaver and fulcrum, and this was understood too. A rope tied to the limb and then going through a second block before going up again and through the first block was shown. Picking up Forni was now much easier. I taught this physics class in detail and used both a slate and mathematics to teach the boys. This way the adults would understand. Eventually the very heavy tackle was secured to the limb and then little Forni was allowed to pick up Fálki instead. This was a surprise to all of them but not as much as it would be if I had not made my presentation. I was quite sure that the Romans knew of this. It was just not in any of the literature I had ever read. Its most likely presence would be in the navy but multiple blocks might not be used yet. The kiln grew in height and the tackle was used to get the large blocks to the top. In ten days we had finished with the basic construction. Two other stone cutters had come from Hildestun and just stared at what we had done. Against Kareltje's wishes they were allowed to use our tools for cutting stones. I wanted my ideas to spread out and help more people. Clay had been found only a mile away and we used the wagon and a barrel to gather some of it. The women and the children stepped in a depression filled with clay, water and dried grass to kneed it much like what was done to crush grapes for wine. The insides of the kiln were covered thickly in this and we had to make lots of trips. Scaffolding had to be put in place to do the entire height of eight metres. This was two metres above the nearby cliff. Two of our thick oak planks spanned the gap from the cliff to the kiln. A ledge had been built out from the kiln to keep the end of the wood from getting too hot. The wall went up a metre above the wood while the rest of the kiln went up one more metre. This would make a good barrier to keep people from falling in. It would be fatal if a good fire were burning. I had plans of a different way of charging so that nobody would have to eat smoke or fall in. This would be a simple chute on an incline. The scaffolding was not taken down but we salvaged most of the leather and rope bindings. A slow fire was set that would last for a day with little feeding of the blaze to harden the clay. Later that afternoon I went out with Forni and the boys. Forni though was wearing his camo outfit and the men were allowed to see its construction. We went a short distance from camp and hid close to one of the pickets. He would get to laugh at his friends we hoped. When the spot was selected I cut branches and put them through the loops to break the image of a boy dressed in coloured rags. We all viewed it from many angles and the picket was asked to make his opinion. "I know there is a boy in there but he is hard to see." Forni said, "Hurry up. It is hot in this." The boys took up positions with the picket and told not to look at Forni. I worked with Jón to clean up the site and hide where we had disturbed the leaves. White and red teams got a chance and were only told that Forni was within eyesight of the picket. The site was searched by fourteen men and it took half an hour to find the boy. Almost everybody had walked right by him at least once. Albrecht said, "This is amazing. You only added some branches leaves and some mud. I knew all this and I still could not find your friend." "The human brain knows what it wants to find and searches until it finds the shape that fits. It just didn't find that shape." "Is this really a proper way to fight? A man must face his enemy." "You have never hid behind a tree to count the enemy?" "I have done that," he said with a frown. "Forni is doing the same thing as you but from behind a bush that he can carry with him. He can get closer to the enemy than you can so he can see more. He is not fighting at this time but neither were you from behind a tree." "It still seems wrong." "Is it because he is so much better hid?" "That may be it." "We are fighting the Gauls and the Romans. If all the Franks wanted glory, they would attack our enemies for us. They are not cowards so it has to be a decision to save their own people. We are doing the same thing and it requires us to hide better. You Franks have greater numbers than we do. You can fight for valour and perhaps lose but I intend to fight for my people and live. If I have to use an arrow from behind a tree to kill all the Romans I will. Let me be judged by my accomplishments and valour instead of my bravery and foolishness." "You are only a boy of twelve summers. You have not grown enough." "You are right but a while ago I killed two Romans with two little knives. Tell me what that makes me?" "You would be a man in our eyes." "I am a young man then. One who has shown skill and courage. A good hunter knows how to wait for the game to come to him. You Franks are too sure of yourselves because there are so many of you. Your point of view will change later when the Romans come after you with more of the German people as auxiliaries. Don't think that you are stronger than the Gauls? They are more numerous than your people." After our talk, red team took Klaasje to hide him. He was found much quicker and I think it was because red team was looking at him more. Tiebout was hid by white team but he was not put in an area where he matched his surroundings. When he was found I told white team what they had done wrong and that both teams had looked at their player and helped the opposing side. That night, after a warning and demonstration, Jón donned the black outfit worn by ninjas and commandos. Out of sight he put charcoal on his face and hands as well as his moccasins though that was not that necessary. With my sight and hearing we got close enough to a sentry to poke him with a blunt stick. He jumped around with a cry but we had already retreated. He was a Frank but the Frisian sentry was tapped too. He didn't jump and call out but he didn't seemed pleased. When the next watch came, they too were tapped. Jón slept hung from a limb of a tree. If there were real enemies following they would not usually look up. They would not look in a trench either especially if it were in a hard to get at area that could still be seen. Leaves didn't have to be attached to the body to make a man invisible. Just before dawn the third watch proved to be the most difficult but a bit of distraction allowed each to be marked as dead. One was Albrecht and he had been alert the entire time. Breakfast time was not very sociable. Men were arguing. Some figured the sentries were sleeping. Jón was sleepy but he still managed to smile even when people were angry with him. When he said nothing, this seemed to infuriate them even more. The kiln was third filled with fuel and then with fuel and limestone. We tried to use stone the size of a closed fist though I knew that smaller sizes were better. The horses pulled the wagons to the top of the hill and the women threw baskets of fuel and stone over the one metre wall. Smoke billowed out the top and even flames were seen above the rim. This made me want more rock instead so the flames were contained. The men now turned their efforts to building a large storage area for the lime. The three barrels would be used for transport mainly. Smaller ones could be used too and would make handling easier. The storage area was higher to keep water well away but also to make loading into a wagon easier. The three boys and the three new members worked as teams to try to hide one of their members. After each success or failure the reasons were discussed out loud. This way they all learned. Jón was slowly regaining his strength. Partly it was because I had him exercising as much as I could. He was also eating a lot too. He took his turn at hunting and I used my old skills as well as my new ones to ensure that we found something. Lugging the deer back to camp was difficult. Jón worked alone except for me but we still had only one pair of weak arms. The deer was hung with great difficulty and bled. Getting people to come and help carry the meat was not difficult. Jón and I were always successful. We sent the six boys off after a good talk on finding their way in the forest. Jón now wore the camo outfit and got four deer until the wind changed and the deer avoided this area. All the boys were called in and they worked to process the carcasses. Men soon arrived and gave Jón some appreciative looks for his skill. He still had his camo outfit on to ensure that they knew where part of the success came from. Wood racks were made and the meat hung over the kiln and other fires that were made. The idea was to preserve some of it for later use. Kareltje's people had been contracted to build this installation and make a test. With the project done, homes built and even food being stored for the winter, the prospect of staying here should not look so bad. Jón paid Kareltje the sum he was owed and then I said with Jón's voice, "You have worked hard to get this built. Our agreement is over but I need people to run this operation. I was thinking of paying you four pennies for each barrel of lime that you fill for me. The houses and the furniture in them are for you to use. I will leave some saws, files, axes, chisels and a variety of hammers to assist you. I will also leave you with one of the horse collars and you can make more of them. "You will have to make at least a hundred barrels of lime for me but you can sell to others if you want. Just keep two barrels for me for when I come. My need for the lime is not that great now but I do have need of other things." Kareltje said, "I get to use the tools and the buildings and then you pay me four cents for every barrel I fill? That is it?" "That is it. Remember you have to sell me a hundred barrels at least and two have to be kept on hand for my use. I will even pay for the first barrel I take when I go." "Why would you do that? You, and your people did most of the work. You even did what I was supposed to provide." "I need to get all this done and I cannot expect a man to do this for just silver. You get very good homes and a good kiln. I want you to stay here and think of this place as yours. More stone will be needed and if you have spare time, you can provide for what I need and for the stone cutters that come here from the city. "I wanted more though and I am prepared to pay for it. Would you like to hear of them too." "What are they?" "I want you to cut a lot of stone." I showed him the slate I had with the arched roof, doors at both ends and the large chimney. "The stone can be a profitable article to sell. I want you to cut wood into lumber. This goes into this long stone building. With the doors closed, you can make a small fire that will slowly dry out the wood." "That is the job of a carpenter. I know nothing of that." "Can you cut down trees and then cut them up?" "Yes." "The carpenter does not dry his wood. You will be the first. When the wood is done, you have to store it in a large barn so that you can dry more. All the waste goes into the kiln." "Who will buy this wood? Few will want the lime I would make." "Rudi is the man I have making wagons for me. He went out and cut trees down just as you would but he didn't have the tools you now have. I have to make more for him. For him to work faster he need to find a source of already cut and dried wood." "How much will you pay me for this wood?" "Many people would want your wood besides me. Sell it for all that you can get. The people buying will either buy yours or cut their own. If you want to sell then you have to come to some sort of agreement." "I like this idea but I will not have the time to do all this." "You have people here that are helping you. Find more. You now have silver and some very valuable tools. This should set you up very nicely." "Would you help me make the building for drying wood?" "If I had time but you would have to pay me for the labour. I would take it off in lime, wood or ashes though." "Ashes?" "I only require small amounts of lime to start but the need will grow. The same is true for dried lumber. Hardwood ashes are important to me and this will be perhaps your biggest business. You can collect ashes now but eventually you will have to do things with them for me." "What are they good for?" "You make soap with them for one. I need grease or fat set aside too so a great deal of soap can be made." "Why?" "Soap helps saves lives. You may not believe it. Our bodies are being constantly attacked by armies of tiny animals so small you cannot see them. Our bodies fight back with our own armies. If we use soap we wash away some of the enemy forces. With less enemies to fight, our own forces will be victorious more often." "Will you draw more pictures and talk to my people?" "Of course." Kareltje's people now thought of the homes as theirs, though they had only partially assisted in the building. I wanted them to know that they were getting the homes from me and hopefully they would repay in some sort of loyalty. I made the list of tools I would give along with the homes and furniture. They seemed to be a bit miffed at being given things that they had been using for the last few days. They loved the idea of getting paid for the work they had done and even more for future deliveries of lime. The price was high but not overly so. It was just used to convince them to stay. When I talked about even more money from the sale of seasoned wood they perked up considerably. I went over the construction of the wood kiln four times from different points of view. There was a lot of setup in this and the people here had to do all of it unassisted. Markets were not considered but that was because they were not sophisticated to understand much of this. I brought up Rudi's name and also that of the coopers that would be looking for good white oak for me. I thought to mention the economies of scale but decided to not do it. This had to be learned a bit at a time. Some of the men, including Kareltje, agreed to my terms. They could sell my tools and leave but the Germans tended to be ethical at least to their way of thinking. The idea of selling rough stone was easy for them to understand but the gathering of ashes was much more difficult. Soap they could understand but not the amount I wanted. I threw in the fact that they could use the wood to cook foods for sale but they didn't think much of this idea. When the rest made their decision, I saw the beginnings of a capitalist society. Kareltje was talking of hiring others to cut the trees down then saw the logs for him. They would find out that it was not quite as easy as it seemed. With the lime not ready yet we had to wait for it to be produced and then collected. Removable iron bars were across the lower opening to keep the fuel in while allowing the air to enter. When the fire burnt down far enough a shovel could fit under the lower bar to help remove the lime that would naturally flow down the incline and out of the kiln. With nothing to do, I got Fálki to give me a few men and we took all six boys fishing. Hooks had been used before this but they were bone but rarely iron. Never were they steel or barbed. We spent some time collecting worms and stored them in damp moss. The trip to the river was short and the boys were very eager. I used my large k-bar to cut long saplings with one stroke. The three men gave it a try and commented favourably on my knife. Soon I drew my sword to show them how it could be done but didn't do so. That was not the way to treat a weapon like this. We had a large collection of horse hair and tied the lengths together into a longer piece. I even used small pieces of wood with a slit in them for a float. The men stood guard while I assisted six boys to fish for the first time. There were a lot of missed fish as the boys did things wrong but it got serious when the first half kilo fish was pulled ashore. I got no chance to wet a line myself and Jón was a little miffed at it. We went home three hours later with a respectable string of fish, but none larger than a kilo. All six boys ran to show the adults what they had caught and the men that had come with us went back to try their hand at fishing. We had left our equipment there for them. The next day, we rough filtered the lime and threw the rest back into the kiln. One barrel was near being full and a second would be ready about mid afternoon. We decided to wait for this and then head back to Hildestun. Even if we dawdled we would make it back in time for supper. While some of the men fished, hunted or took it easy, I got one of the three wagons loaded. I would have to send the wagons back from the city with more of the barrels that the coopers had promised me. The tools that I was keeping went into a wagon while Kareltje gladly accepted the remainder. He was given the last set of three awls and a few needles. We used some of them to make a sack with the raw deer hides because I wanted to pick up some potash on the way back. Kareltje, like the those in the castle, would save their ashes for me and keep them dry too. I promised to trade for good soap when the time came. When the departure time came, we loaded the second barrel of hot lime onto the wagon. Both of these wagons were at their limit and we would have to go slow. The farewells were a little tearful but we would only be a few hours away. Some of our men said goodbye to the unattached females and it looked like the men may like to come back here if they could. The boys had made friends and their parting was more sorrowful but they each promised to see each other when they could. Our process was slow but it was nice to be under the shelter of the large trees. The tract was narrow and one day would have to be cleared back quite a few metres on each side but the closeness with nature would be lost. When we made it to the outcrop the group split. The two burdened wagons were what was holding us back and they continued while some of the men helped dig what I wanted. The other two wagons were gone only ten minutes and would be just a half kilometre away though they could not be seen because of the winding trail. Our weight had only increased a hundred kilos so we could catch up quickly. Fálki asked what it for and I said, "Fertiliser when it gets purified a bit." "Fertiliser? Like horse shit?" "Yes but a bit different." When we gained the road we settled down to the slow pace. I wondered how far ahead the other half of our group was and concentrated hard on my hearing. I had to filter out the wind in the trees as well as the sound of the groaning wagon, dialogue and the footfalls of the horses. Ahead I heard what could be a scream of a horse and I took control and yelled, "Stop!" It took a few seconds for the sounds to die out and I heard more screaming and the yells of men as they attacked. "We are under attack. Use those lances like you have been told. Forget your swords unless you need them. Go!" There were only seven men with us and they picked up their shields and put their lances in position before thundering off. The three boys were wide eyed and I drove the wagon to the side of the path and under a low branch. I turned around and said to everybody, "Get the water and some food. You have to climb the tree. If you can try to move to another tree off the side of the path. Get as high as possible. Stay close but not all together. Don't talk at all or a man hunting you will hear." I helped Forni onto the seat and then onto a branch. He was given some of the supplies and I moved Klaasje then Tiebout. I searched through the possessions that I had that the boys would need and handed what they could carry. "I am going to move the cart so they will not find you. If we don't come for you, in a day or so come down and follow the trail back to Hildestun." Forni said, "What about you?" "I'll be ok. Now move. I don't want an enemy finding you." The boys moved off and I got the horse to move too. A hundred metres further on, I heard the sounds of battle much clearer and stopped the wagon a second time. I hoisted everything that I wanted kept safe into a tree on the other side of the road. If we won the battle then I could recover the boys and my property. If we lost then I had something to work with. The heavy rope and blocks went here too. I had the saws and tools left and I was not going to give them to an enemy. They were thrown into the shrubbery and the hammers hit a tree with a resounding thud. The saws were just thrown as far as they would go. Again the cart moved forward, but now at a better pace. I could hear a lot of horses coming this way and it was many more than we had brought with us. I turned the cart off the road and climbed a small ridge but the tracks would lead the riders to it. Once in the gully I stopped and got out. I had only a bow, fifteen arrows, my sword, the forest camo outfit, the k-bar and a the small knife that was used to kill the Romans. I pulled the camo outfit over my clothes and adjusted the hat. Some loose material was still in place to hide the bow. I heard the horses rush by but I knew they could be coming back. Jumping out of the wagon I ran back along the trail I had just made and tried to disguise both the horse's tracks and the wagon itself. Tall saplings were cut at the base and thrust into the ground to hide the passage of the wagon. When I got to the road there was nobody around but I still heard the horses running to my right and the fight still going on to my left. The attackers must be very confident to have split their forces so soon. Jón was frightened but that was all I knew. He was not bothering me now which I was thankful for. I hurried down the trail towards the battle. The straight sections allowed the sounds to be a lot clearer. Coming around a bend I heard two horses running my way. I threw the bow and the quiver to one side. The next bend was just too close to use a bow twice. The trail was not wide and one horse was just ahead of the next. It took only seconds to see that the men were not the Franks or the Frisians. Thinking they may be right handed I went to my right which was their left. The first tried to slow down but was pushed from the rear. I ran forward and thrust with my sword into the waist of the first man. He continued on and cut himself more on the blade. I pulled it out in time to slash at a man trying to use a sword in his left hand. Instead of chopping like everybody else, I thrust again and hit his armoured waist. The sword pierced the mail and I moved just as the sword descended towards my head. I just pushed harder for more penetration then yanked it out as I moved to the side. This was all done in seconds. The men were not dead but would be. I could not take the time to worry and chased the last man. He was turning around to have another run at an enemy he hoped to take with him when he died. He gave no yell so I assumed his diaphragm was punctured. Karate taught all that, though very few people would ever get to put that kind of knowledge to use. The man made one more chop with his heavy sword and I moved my sword and cut his arm off at the wrist. He just looked at the stump and started to fall from his horse. The first man snarled at me and charged with a bellow that was more weak than anything. He tried to run me down with his horse and I moved to my right. He didn't have much speed and I made it behind a small tree. He ran past so he could turn around and fight me on his right. By then I was across the path and behind another small tree. He just charged one more time and I stood so he could swing at me. I backed up from his swing and moved in close. My blade swung across his unprotected neck and the man stopped to just stare at me then slowly fall from his horse. I had no use for his weapons but his quiver looked good. I just slashed and parted the strap without doing more damage. The other man was down too and I slashed and took his quiver too. I was hot and out of breath in the double set of clothing. I recovered my own bow and arrows and hurried up to the battle. Soon the carts were in view but there were no living combatants. One man of ours was slumped in the seat with an arrow through his chest. The other cart had the man laying beside the wagon and just as dead. The sounds seemed to be off the road but I ran forward because that was faster. The next turn was to the right and I saw men hacking at each other with swords. I moved closer and then got in front of a tree so my back was protected and I brought up the bow. I was frightened but I tried to think of this as deer hunting. I picked a man that was pressing one of the Frisians in a two against one battle. The point entered his neck and I think it left the other side. Another arrow hit his partner just under the right arm and entered his chest cavity. Three more men were hit before I had to move on. They didn't seem to see me since I moved only when I had to and when they looked to where the arrows had come from their minds detected nobody. The battle had moved into the trees on both sides and I picked the right and took out any targets of opportunity. One thing I did know was that our men were outnumbered and that didn't count the men that had raced past me when I hid the wagon. When there were no more targets I went onto the other side of the road but had to use the arrows I had taken and then those I could find in bodies or in quivers. A horseman ran at me from the rear and I had time to throw the bow to one side and thrust up into the chest of the horse. The horse fell on its right side and slid forward. I brought down my sword and decapitated the man. I found two more targets with my bow but then three of the enemy came at me. One of my arrows found its way into the chest of a horse and I only had time for the sword now. I moved to my right and narrowly missed both a horse and a slash of a sword. I moved my hands on my sword and thrust out and behind me. I met resistance and knew that the horse racing by was hurt. The third man had past me and turned and charged. I deflected his blade in time but instead of thrusting at him stabbed the second attacker in the chest. The first man was now without a horse and charged at me on foot with just his sword. It was held high and I tried to place the remaining attacker. I moved again so I would not be between two enemies. I jumped over a dying horse and the man had to stop and change course. When he was close he brought his heavy sword down but mine pierced his breast first. His eyes went wide. The other man was still mounted and I ignored the one I was dealing with and moved behind the still standing man. The remaining attacker charged and didn't seem to care about his man. I looked at his eyes and saw him look up at something behind me. My body shifted to one side just as an arrow plunged into the man that was in front of me. Another enemy was on a horse and was using a bow. There was a large tree and I was able to put it between me and the archer. The other man gave another bellow and charged again. I needed to take this man out before he forced me out of my protection. My ears told me that the archer had turned his horse around and was circling me from my left. The k-bar was at my waist. It was heavy and hard to throw but it may give me some room. I had two weapons in my hand this time and the man tried to use his horse to crush me against the tree. I could only use the sword to plunge it into the horse's chest but the animal took the sword with it into the tree. Moving to the right I was able to use the knife now and with an upwards motion plunged it into the man's belly. I continued the stroke and cut a large opening. The man was stunned and I just got behind him as an arrow came my way. It had been close and the man was already pulling out a second arrow from his quiver. I somehow held the dying man up and yelled at the archer, "Come and fight a boy. You have a sword and I have a knife." I paused for breath. I was deathly tired but I managed to say, "That is unless you are afraid." The man tried to get a shot in but couldn't. When the man I was holding started to fall I faked a leap to the right and went left instead. The arrow rushed by and I rushed for the large tree. With my only chance to survive in goading the man I yelled, "I used a bow but fought on foot with a sword. Do you want to run home and practice a bit then come back to meet me? I am sure that Thor would recognise your weakness and allow you to train more." The horse was galloping towards me now and this was a difficult position to shoot from. I risked a look from the man's left side and almost met a blade as it hit the bark just where my face was. This man was a leftie. Instead of backing up, I moved towards the man and horse and he spurred the horse forward. The man missed with his sword and turned to came again. The bow at least was in a case and not in his hands. The man came closer but not with great speed. I placed the horse with my sword in its chest to one side and the man had to come at me from the other. He made a circle and came at me from the side he wanted. I had a chance to look at the weapons around me. The swords were all heavy and used more for clubs. A bow was nearby but it was crushed under the hoof of a horse. The last man was wearing a knife though. The mounted man swung again and I was able to deflect without taking the force of the blow. The blade descended again and again. He did get cocky and I moved in and plunged my knife into his horse's side. The horse reared but the man was able to control it long enough to jump off. I was just able to take the dead man's knife as the swordsman swung at me on foot. I had stepped over the body of the man but the horse was behind me. The swordsman advanced and I had to fake a run to one side so I could vault over the horse. I had to use both hands to do it too for I was that weak. The man growled in a heavy accented voice, "Why don't you stand and fight?" "You are a man carrying a sword. I am a boy carrying knives. Are all of you so stupid that you do not know the reason?" The man smiled. He must have heard the fatigue in my voice. The man came charging in and I threw the borrowed knife in my left hand at his right leg. He had not expected this and it sunk in to the hilt. He continued his charge though and wanted to get rid of me as quickly as possible now. I ran then gave another diversionary move. When I got out of his range, I turned and ran for my bow. On the way I found an arrow. In seconds I had the arrow notched and the man staring at me as if I had cheated. He made a futile slash for the arrow but it buried itself in his left eye. I was ready to collapse but I had to at least see what I could do. Getting my sword back would be too much work. I retrieved the last arrow I had used and found three more. Taking them out of bodies didn't seem to matter much to me. On a rise, I was able to look down and used the arrows very slowly. The first had missed its target by a good margin. I moved again through the forest and my camouflage helped if I stood still. The enemy could not find me even though I was right before their eyes. Those with bows in hands frantically searched for someone to shoot at but found nobody. In a hollow when it was quiet I removed all of my clothing and just stood naked to cool off. Horses were coming near and I put just the suit on. The battle was winding down and it looked like we may have lost. There were men I knew that were dead and those that were dying. Nobody looked like they could use my help to survive more than a few hours so I just left them. Some gave me messages for their loved ones and some cursed me for not staying but I took some time with each to say how I thought about the situation. I shot a good many more arrows. Some had damaged fetchings or heads but I tried to use those at short range. The men I did see still fighting were Frisians. They had practice in battle while the Franks only knew how to charge. When I could, I asked of information about the battle but nobody knew much. Some knew of their friends that had died but nothing more. I gave them the information about the troop of men that had galloped past me and heard what the men knew when the battle started. It looked like we were dealing with Gauls. I was proud to hear that our lances had taken out many of the enemy before we had to engage with swords. When I heard horses approaching from a wide front, I warned them. Instead of fleeing I had one man stay in place while I took the rest to flank the approaching men. This one man would make the noise of many. Two others could use a bow and had a few arrows each. I placed them where I wanted and said, "Try for the ones in the back first. I don't want any of them to get away." I got a wide smile at this from everyone but I thought they were thinking I was bragging. There was a good position for me that had no trees but I was dressed for the occasion. I found a body on the way and veered towards it. There was a quiver of arrows and I had to stop and get them.At the spot I picked, I counted eleven of the Gauls coming our way. They looked no different than the Franks but I at least was familiar with the Franks that had been with the prince. They passed my position and I heard our man making noise to attract attention. The Gauls heard but were wary now. They moved past my position and then stopped to look at the dead man before continuing. An arrow came and took the furthest man back and at the far side of me. The surviving Gauls were even more alert. Another arrow took one in the front. There was a wild screaming and the Gauls surged forward. This was the time I waited for and released six arrows as fast as I could. Five men were hit but the group went over the low rise. I raced forward now and could see three fighting with swords against our men. I took out the ones I had just hit so they could not join the fray. Those still fighting were too far away and I raced down the incline. Taking careful aim again I got two of the three but this gave an opening for our men and I found the last Gaul dying of a sword wound. I was so tired I could not even stop to collect arrows. After ten minutes I forced my tired body up and began to do what was necessary. Most of the shafts had already been taken by our men. My hearing led us to other groups. One even had a wounded Frisian that they Gauls were going to roast for fun. We didn't yell or scream but released our arrows at the seven men. Some of our own men attacked with swords but this only left the Gauls open for more arrows. We had come full circle and I used a horse and a leather rope to try to drag the dead horse away so I could get my sword back. With no saddle this could not be done. I had to butcher the animal but this took a long time. I did have help though. One old man said, "This all your work?" "A little of it. I used arrows on close to sixty and I think at least half were fatal. They were not too interested in coming at me though because they couldn't see me. A few more at the start were on the trail. They gave me their arrows." "Why didn't they shoot arrows at you?" "Some did. I stayed still most of the time and shot while crouched. They didn't see me or my bow. I needed to stop for a rest. I am not like you and able to run all the time." "How many do you think you got?" "Too many to count and too many for me to want to think about. I am not used to butchering men or animals." The man at least nodded his head. I was helped up on a horse then the rest mounted. I used my superior hearing and smell to find more of the Gauls. The Frisian that was going to be roasted would possibly recover and he was tended by two men that were little better. They had to be ordered to stay. When it got dark I got the men to gather back with the wounded. There were sixteen men when we started but now only six were alive. Only one was a Frank. I ate as much as I could stomach and drank too. The Gauls had found my wagon but had simply killed the horse. One man had come with me. We found my stash in the tree undamaged and donned the black suit for the night. When dressed we went to where the boys should be. I heard nothing but my eyes could see that the dirt stirred up by many horses. They were in and around the tree I had put the boys into. "The boys were up this tree. I am going to see where they are. Tomorrow ride a horse to Hildestun and bring back some help. It is better if the wounded recover a bit first. It should be just forty minutes from here. If I were the Gauls, I would have more ambushes planned and you may have need of staying off the trails." "What are you going to do. You can't see in the dark." "I will do what I can. I have good hearing and will use it. Now take my horse. He makes too much noise anyway." "You are going on foot?" "I am now dressed in black. It's night. They will not see me. Hours ago the Gauls didn't see me and I was right before them. Have you forgotten so soon about how I took out the sentries in our camp?" "That was our men." "Do you mean they were letting me win?" "Well... no. But the Gauls are not going to wait for you to do that to them." "Neither did our people." I had scavenged a lot of good arrows and put them in two quivers. I still had my own knives and sword but had a few more bow strings. A leather pack had my other camo outfit, an additional pair of boots and some food and water. Looking at the tracks, I found that they didn't go far into the forest. I deduced that they had captured the boys and taken them back down the trail. I jogged for five minutes then stopped to both rest and listen. I kept this up for an hour and found myself close to the quarry. It felt good that the tracks continued on rather than head in that direction where we had camped for the last week. I wanted to warn those at the quarry but the night was my friend and it was slowly petering away. The Gauls would not travel in the dark so their camp would be close. It was the sudden number of tracks that made me stop. Some went forward and then back. It looked like they had backtracked. In a minute I found their route and it was over some bare rock. A horse had taken a dump and this was easy to see and smell. Fifteen minutes later I knew where the camp was but the Gauls too had sentries. These men seemed to be trained by the Romans and may have a Roman advisor with them in the camp. Their camp though was not a wooden palisade with sharpened spikes but it was fortified with some cut logs and a good many branches. Fires were seen but they were all small with rocks around them to restrict the light. It was not late yet so the men were awake. I heard cries of men in pain and what could have been a boy but I had to ignore them until I got things ready. The thoughts of the boys hurt and especially Forni. In a few minutes I used the k-bar on the throat of the first sentry. He looked young and I felt bad about doing this. There was a moon and starlight so the enemy could see a bit. I could see very well though. Some sentries I took with a bow if I knew that they would die without much noise. I was able to get to the barrier and found a few places to get through without making much noise. The camp was dark though the men were still awake. They were talking around the fires about how easy it was today. They evidently hadn't heard from the remainder of their forces. Some of the language was unintelligible but a few spoke a type of German that I could understand. With six sentries dead I could prowl around the camp. It looked to have sixty men. I could not see everybody at once and I could not see in colour. There were some large tents and they would be for the leader of this group and perhaps a Roman. The captives should be near. In a moment I knew where some were because I heard the sound of a young voice in pain. It took a few seconds but I had to think that he was getting raped. The large tents were not in the centre but to one end. The barrier behind them was thicker than the other areas. I continued my circuit of the camp and found three naked men lashed to three nearby trees. They had welts across their bodies as if whipped. One looked like Fálki but there was too much blood and other damage to be sure. One hole in the barrier allowed a small body to slip through with little commotion. I worked slowly in any case. When I was through I looked and saw that nobody was looking my way. They may not have seen me if they were. I ran to the trees with the captives. One was Fálki and another Frisian. The lone Frank appeared to be Albrecht. I got close to Fálki and jerked his rope a bit and he grunted. A guard looked then went back to his conversation. My soot blackened hand went around the tree to cover Fálki's mouth then I took it away. In a whisper I said, "I have a knife for you. There are no sentries left alive outside the camp. Behind the tree and off to the left is a small way through the branches. Are you able to crawl?" "I think so." I cut the rope from around the tree and passed him two of the knives I had taken from the sentries. The other two men had seen this and waited. I got close and said, "I have to cause a disturbance on the other side of the camp or they will see you leave. I am going to find some people to take your place." The men didn't answer but I gave them two knives each. One of the large tents had two guards and light came out from the seams. I was very angry because I could hear a man fucking while a hand muffled the screams. A man walked close to me then went to the brush to take a piss. I sliced his throat like the sentries and held him as he thrashed. In moments I had him stripped and I dragged him towards Fálki. In hushed words I said, "I have a substitute. Help me pull him into your position then put his clothes on." There was nothing to rattle and the corpse took Fálki's place. When Fálki came behind the tree he said, "Leave now." "No, I will not. There are two guards at the commander's tent. I take one out and you the other. I want you to take their place while I visit inside." "Leave the boys in there. All boys get fucked and then fuck others themselves. They like it or they would not do it." ------- Chapter 14 "The boys were not given a choice. I don't want them to be slaves for the rest of their lives. Either you help me or you don't, but I am going to see what I can find." Fálki said with a worried voice, "There's a Roman official here from Scipio. He has three escorts." I tried to think of a way to take this man for intelligence purposes but the timing was wrong. If this were late at night with most of the camp asleep then there was a chance. Doing what I had already done was nearly impossible. "We will have to take care of the Roman another day." I saw two men come to the barrier but thirty metres away and they took a piss. I looked around for a latrine that all Roman camps would have and found none. They may have a simple trench but this would be hard to see. I added, "You better get into the clothes I provided. We may get others soon." Fálki had to be helped to the pile of clothing and I helped to get him dressed. This was difficult because he picked up a short spear and didn't want to release it. When he was dressed, we walked back toward the captives and found a Gaul pissing on them. He didn't know that one was his own men. I was very worried because I figured that either Albrecht or the Frisian would jump up in indignation and try to kill the Gaul with their knives. Albrecht was the one I feared more because he had little training but he was also more hurt. In a moment, the Gaul finished taunting the men and left for his tent mates. Fálki said, "I don't know if I could have stayed there and took it." "You would have been dying or dead now if you had got up. You would have been the cause of all our deaths." "I know that." I looked to one side and saw a man leave the large tents but instead of going into the camp he circled the tents. I said, "I'll be back. I see an officer." Fálki whispered frantically, "Leave him alone." This was not an option and I hurried toward the man but stayed close to the barrier and the slight shadows it provided from the moonlight. When I got close I took out my small knife and got ready to throw it. The man was taking a dump. His uniform I studied and deduced that he was a Roman and not a Gaul. His face was not to me to tell for sure. I slipped the knife back and took out the k-bar and moved closer as noise came from the camp. The man was done and just started to get up. I moved the last few metres quickly. The man must have heard something because he tried to move faster but his foot slipped on the loose dirt beside the trench. I brought the large pommel down instead of the blade. A quick movement of his head made this only a graze and I saw him fill his lungs for a yell. My foot streaked out and the heal hit just below his rib cage. He was thrown backwards and instead of a yell came a belch of expelled air. He fell to the ground and he could not gain his breath. He was still a soldier and fished for his knife. I was already moving and my foot deflected his arm while the pommel came down one more time. He sagged immediately this time. Fálki was coming to help and stepped into the shallow ditch and almost fell. When he got close he said, "His uniform feels like what a Roman would wear." "This uniform has less blood. You know more about our enemy. Do you care to change clothes?" "The man is still breathing," Fálki said incredulously. "I was thinking of asking him some questions later." "Kill him quickly." "Take his clothes, soldier. You can tie a captive so he neither gets away or calls out." Another idea came to me. "If you have the uniform on you can leave the camp with some horses. We will be waiting for you." "Kill him." "You let him live. Do as I say and strip him then bind him. Will you try for the horses or will I have to try to steal them?" He said dejectedly, "I will try it." The Roman had his gladius and I could use it for a club. It had more reach than the k-bar pommel. A hardwood club would be better yet. I was fair with the nunchaku but I could use the tonfa that many police departments used to supply their officers. The Roman was dragged to the opening I had come through and now that I knew that we would not be heard, I opened the area and we dragged the unconscious man through. When we came back a leafy branch was put over the opening to hide it. Fálki asked, "What are you doing now?" "Find more men to take the captives place. Then try to save the children." "Your father will be angry at me if you die." "I will be angry at me if that happens too." Men wandered around all the time and in twenty minutes I had come up behind two of them. The gladius was used but I may have hit too hard the first time. The second doppelganger would probably live. Fálki and I dragged them to the trees and substituted them for Albrecht and a man by the name of Oeke. We bandaged up Oeke and Albrecht as best we could and it would not seem odd to see this especially after a battle. I recovered my bow and the quivers of arrows and put them near our escape tunnel. If we were followed I could slow down the pursuit. We heard a man call a Roman name loudly and I got Fálki to reply. Fálki said, "He wants a man to come to him. It doesn't sound urgent." "Then go," I said as I handed him the gladius. This was the tent with the two guards out front. I turned to Oeke and said, "Go with him. Albrecht follow behind and the three of you try to take the two guards. I will take out the guard on the left with my bow then go in the back of the tent. Kill if you have to but keep it quiet. If there is noise, curse in Latin as if you were drunk and fell." They seemed incredulous that this would happen. Fálki got them to stand upright and gave his own directions. I retrieved the bow and one quiver of arrows. Fálki gave me enough time to get into position and they walked toward the tent from the front. When they were close I loosed the arrow. I had time to see the other Roman gasp at the unexpected death when a gladius went into his abdomen. I hurried to my position and I could only hear one person breathing inside. Fálki talked in Latin so his voice would drowned out some of the noise I would have to make. I used the sharp blade of the k-bar to slit the lacing at the bottom of the wall. The voice hid most of the noise. Peering into the darkened tent before entering I saw a man's feet directed my way. They were evenly spaced so I figured he was ready for me. I whispered to nobody, "This is not the tent with the wine. It's probably the other one." The man then fell to his knees and then his head hit the wall of the tent. I heard another blow and Fálki whispered, "We have him. What do we do?" "You get a promotion and his uniform. Make sure you wear the cape. I want this man taken with us." "It is better to kill them." "Maybe so but they know information we may need desperately. Perhaps he knows about my father." I sliced the rest of the stitches and then the leather itself to make a large opening. The two men were stripping the man then Oeke took some decorative rope from the tent and tied the man very well. Albrecht had dragged the two dead men into the tent and left to take one of their places. Oeke soon followed. We dragged the bound and naked man through the barrier and put him with the other Roman. Fálki ran back for intelligence while I left to get the boys. The largest tent had the sound of laugher and drinking. I also heard the sniffle of somebody young. Fálki hobbled over to me and whispered, "I found some official pouches and a bit of gold too. What is your plan?" "Five men are in the tent. Their voices are slurred so some are at least partially drunk. There are no guards. If three Romans come to the tent they could get in. I will be going through the back again. If you talk loud and say the word 'Roman' I can slice the tent quickly with my sword. We will catch them between us." "We kill them? Right?" "Fine with me but I would like to take the Gaul that is in charge." "You may want to rethink that. He's big and mean." "I will have to be meaner. If we survive we will have to tidy up the bodies. I will get the boys out the back and you three demand your horses. There are no sentries outside the camp so if you can take all the horses do so. At least try to get them to run." "Is that all?" "We take out the leadership of the camp then steal the horses. That sounds like enough to me." "But... but." "I know. It is a long shot but I want to try it. If you get out and we don't make it, give the pouches to my father." "He may give me his sword in my guts if I do." "I don't think he is that cruel." The three men left and approached the other tent from further away. Fálki was talking Latin but there were no replies. Fálki too sounded drunk and the voices in the tent stopped. Fálki must have called to them because they were ready to get up. The word 'Roman' was heard and I brought my Katana down hard on the leather. The leather was not supple and I had to use two more strokes before I could get in. There was a fight already started and I moved in and just attacked from the rear. One went down to my sword and I picked up my k-bar. One man turned to me and I used this weapon to gut him. Fálki and Albrecht were taking on one big Gaul. I moved in and the man knew I was there. He now had to fight three opponents and I could see him preparing to yell. My Katana moved quickly and stabbed him through the chest and the blade came out the other side. The k-bar slashed sideways and blood fountained from the man's neck. Fálki turned quickly and struck the last man on the head with his gladius. The three men and I were breathing hard. I heard a noise and turned quickly to see a young girl. She was going to scream and I quickly threw the k-bar at her. The blade turned over and over but it was the pommel that hit her small belly. I was at her in a flash. She was hyperventilating and I said, "We are not here to hurt you." I rubbed the part where the knife had hit. Her eyes were still wide because she didn't believe me or didn't understand. I laid her on the floor and said sternly, "Stay here." From the side of the tent I saw seven more pairs of eyes. One set got up and ran towards me. Forni was naked. He put out his hands to hold me as he ran. When he came into my arms he hugged me tightly. I heard him say, "Jón," over and over again. The men rushed to the sides and pulled back the blankets. There were no more men. I was surprised for there were no women either. I expected a wife but there were none. Then again a woman in a military camp would be like a woman on a sailing ship. Klaasje and Tiebout ran to me too and they started to cry. I pushed them away and said, "Find some clothes. We're leaving." Forni just wanted to hug me again and I pushed him back. I would have slapped his face but I had a weapon in each hand. "Get dressed or you will be left behind." He looked shocked at me but then turned to find something to wear. I turned to the rest, "I want you to get dressed too. You are coming with me." They didn't move but that was to be expected from slavery and the conditions they had been under. I took some blankets and slit them in the middle like a Mexican serape. I had to sheath the weapons with the sword going into the scabbard hanging over my shoulder. I had to get the blankets over the other four and the one I had hit with the pommel of my knife. The three men pulled the bodies aside then went looking for loot. This was why men fought and I let them continue. They found leather sacks which were soon dumped then they put their booty into the sacks. I found my own because there were the two saddles in the corner and three of our lances. One still had the wood sphere at the end that was used for practice. I had to pull Fálki from his task and said, "Take your loot to the barrier and put it with the Romans. You better take the saddles and lances too. See if you can find the knives I gave you. I don't want the enemy to find much." Forni went back to going through the piles of valuables. There were some bolts of cotton and even some silk. I called the boys over to load them up. They had not found their clothes and were still naked. There was enough material for more serapes and I put them on them then put the things I wanted them to carry on their shoulders or in their arms. The first girl was trying to sneak out and I caught her and was ready to put my hand over her mouth but it was not necessary. She was very frightened of me. She had seen me kill and then I remembered that I was black and dressed in black too. That was why the boys took so long to come to me. "You will not run or if you do, you will be punished. I pulled her over to the pile I wanted and gave her a job. There were lengths of leather rope in a few places and I gathered this up as well as a whip I had seen. It had been used on our men and may give the children something to guide them into doing what they were told. Fálki and the men had what they wanted and we trekked toward the opening. The boys went through first then the one new boy then the four girls. The men came next and the boys dragged the booty out of the short tunnel. The men went back for the saddles and lances. In a few moments I saw that they were making a third trip then a forth. I could not yell at them but as yet our luck was holding. At least the one man that was not killed was pushed into the opening. Fálki turned to me and said, "How will I know how to find you?" "I will find you. See how far you can get this stuff from the camp." "Good. We need that, it's valuable." I was not sure if he just had gold fever but he had to do this because he was still a barbarian. Soldiers in my time were not much better. The men left to get the horses and I crawled through he hole. I found eight children staring at me. "Forni, you are in charge. I want all of the children kept safe. There is a game trail behind you. It takes only a minute to get to it. Take everything here to it but don't put it on the trail. Horses will be coming. We load them up and we leave." "What about these men?" "We are going to take them with us to be questioned." "Why?" "Forni, now is not the time to ask questions. Follow your orders. If anybody doesn't want to do as you command you can bind them and put a leather thong across their mouth to keep them quiet. If you have to you can spank them." "Me?" "Yes you. Now I am going back. I have the bow and I may need it." "But we need you." "Do you want horses to ride away with, or to have the Gauls find you on foot tomorrow morning?" He hung his head and said, "I will do what you want." "You will make a good soldier one day. Now follow your orders. Klaasje and Tiebout will do as you command." "Ok." "If you hear yelling and a fight just continue with what you had to do and wait for Fálki to come. If they have to go the other way to take the Gauls away, then just lead the children down the road toward the quarry. It is not that far from here." "Yes, Jón." Turning to the rest I said, "You will obey Forni or I will be the one to punish you. I have the whip." I wasn't sure if this would work but it was the best I could do. Forni got them going and I had to whisper how to change course because they were not heading quite in the right direction. I said to Forni, "Watch out for them but they may run, especially the girl." I could not worry about the children now. If we didn't have horses then the chances of getting far were slim. I gathered up the bow and the quivers and added to them with what was in the two tents. Fálki would have the most problems getting out because nobody rode at night for fear of breaking a horse's leg. One man was taking a dump but I was in a hurry and put the archery equipment down and used the katana. In a dark area between tents I watched the three men pretend to be Romans and approach the horses. There were three pickets but they didn't seem to be worried. I put the bow and arrows down again and approached the one closest to me. My training had included what strikes to make to keep the kill quiet. I had to use only those that required the least energy. I was not in the prime of my life but in the weak body of a boy. When I got close enough I killed this man. His body twitched and shook but I was ready and lowered him to the ground. Fálki was talking to the picket when a man came to the edge to relieve himself. I just crouched down and waited, hoping my costume would be enough. There was an argument going and the man coming my way turned to listen. I was only four metres away and hurried towards him. He was caught completely unaware as my sword took his life. Fálki took out his sword and ended the argument. The last picket ran towards them but I threw my small knife. The man stumbled and fell and I was there with the katana to make sure he stayed quiet. Albrecht was almost on us and I said, "He's dead." Albrecht was shocked and stopped then glared into the darkness. "I can barely make you out. What about the rest?" "They're all dead. Try to take all the horses. I'll stay in the shadows with a bow. There is a game trail to the left as you leave. The children will be waiting. Bring the captives too." "What about you?" "I will stay for a while and keep them from following. You once questioned my methods. I can kill my enemies and they cannot see me." "It doesn't seem so wrong now." "Good. Now move the horses out. The camp will know something is wrong when all the horses leave. I will try to make an opening in the barrier." "I can stay with you." "And your shiny armour makes a good target. I will be fine." He left and in a moment the men gathered up the horses. The horses had been hobbled and these had to be removed. This took time. The reigns had to be put on then secured. The camp was starting to become aroused. I pulled open a narrow section of branches then ran to help the men gather the horses. I tied the reigns to the bridle of the one ahead. The men didn't have to be informed of this because they were doing the same thing. There was little light to see what to do but I got the small strings tied together as one. There was just too much noise and men were coming this way. "Oeke, take what we have now and leave. I opened the barrier. Fálki, Albrecht send the other horses through. I will hold the Gauls off." The horses started to jerk one after the other like a train starting up but I didn't wait to see what was happening. I was back at my bow with my sword in the scabbard. A group of four men were hurrying this way and I took out the last and worked my way forward. The second man gave a yell that he was hit and then everybody knew that they were under attack. I didn't stay in one place and didn't take all the arrows with me. When I used up some I shot from another position. I heard Fálki yell at the horses, trying to get them to flee. It was dangerous to stay in one position and shifted to the other side of the camp. Shields were up and I could only have a few clear shots before the shields shifted. Some of the men were calling in pain to be helped and I left them alone. It took more than one man to tend an injured soldier. A dead soldier took nobody. I had been shooting for a long time and heard from one side, "You can come out now. The children are safe." "Walk the horses," I said as I moved. "I am going to stay with my men to kill these Gauls or take them captive. There is only a few left. It's almost even odds now." "What?" "I will kill or capture all of those here. If we can't, we will fade away into the forest." It was Albrecht's voice that said, "Do you want my help?" "There are more than enough of us here to take care of this small group." I loosed an arrow and herd a man scream. "Link up with the main army. We can rid this area of Gauls and Romans in a few days." "Are you sure?" "Yes," I said as I hit another Gaul with one of my arrows. It was getting near morning. The Gauls had lit fires but that only gave me more light. They then doused all their fires and I could still see better than they could. Arrows had flown thick and fast a few times and I had been hit but not bad. A crease across my left arm had to be bandaged but it didn't impair my shooting. There was only a dozen unhurt men left and that many more again that were hurt. I said to them as I moved, "Gauls, surrender now and you will be treated well. Clovis is known for his kind treatment of slaves and prisoners." Arrows whizzed by me but I had expected this. There were more than enough shields laying around and they protected me just as well as a Gaul. "We will kill one of you now." I hurried back the way I had come and used one of the few remaining arrows to hit between two shields. A man screamed but I could have got two. "Are you going to surrender?" More arrows came and I said again, "I will have another killed now." It was like shooting fish in a barrel and when it was down to eight men they agreed to surrender and be my slaves. This was said formally and I accepted. Their shields were put down and they stood. Some of them had to support those that had been hurt. "Build a big fire in the centre of the camp. Carry all the weapons and armour away from the fire. I don't want any of you to forget that you belong to me now. Make room for your wounded. I do not want any to die that don't need to." They were hesitant to do this but since they were not hit by arrows out of the night, they worked faster. It was the work of hours to get the area cleaned. We left in a group to bring in the wounded and put them in the illuminated area. We just got finished as the first light came in the east. In moments they could see me vaguely and then more so. They had no armour but I was sure they still had knives on their persons. They tended their own wounded while I circled them. One man was angry when he saw one attacker and got up. The bow was visible and so was the arrow. He thought for a moment then crouched back down. There were no officers to get them to attack. Those that had been in the leader's tent were either dead or captured. Now that they could see me I came closer. The bow and the now full quiver were put at my feet. I brought out the sword and went through a kata. At all times I kept aware of their positions but they didn't move. They wanted to jump me in the worst way and I had to nip this in the bud. When I stopped I said, "My sword is not iron but steel. It is strong, sharp and light. I have killed many enemies with it. Many were in the light of day when they had swords in their hands. Do any of you men wish to test me? It would be just a game where I would not seek to injure you. It is just a way for you to learn that an enemy dies that faces me." The men talked and one said, "I would fight you." I backed up and sheathed the sword and picked up the bow and notched an arrow. "Find a sword that you like. Nothing more or you will die." The man understood this and I kept an eye on him as well as the others. He came back with the sword and said, "I am ready." I backed up and put the bow down then walked forward. When three metres separated us, I bowed to him but kept my eyes on all my enemies. When I stood I said, "You may begin." The man yelled and ran at me with the sword over his head. I waited then slapped him with the side of the sword on the chest. He had run past me and I turned to see him and the men. The man this time walked towards me and tried to club me again. My sword was much faster than his and I touched him a few times. He seemed to get angrier and angrier as he missed me. I said, "You are losing your reason. You want to kill so bad that soon I will have to kill you. Is that what you wish?" The man just charged at me with a flurry of strokes and I hit him time after time when I could have killed him. I backed up now and took out my k-bar and readied it to throw. The man saw this and growled but stopped. "Drop the sword. I will not tell you again." He looked at me and I did the same to him. It took a moment but the sword sagged to the ground and then fell. The man turned to go back to the group but turned quickly to attack me with his hands. His arms were outstretched to keep me from escaping but I went for him instead and used my feet to strike him in the chest. He was stopped dead and I was propelled backwards. I hit the ground mindful of the blades and rolled then stood up. All the men that could were standing ready to see if I was vulnerable. Their faces fell when they saw me on my feet with the weapons still in my hands. The man that I fought was getting up and I moved to him. The sword was at his neck and I said, "If we were really fighting, would you have died?" The man said nothing but still glared at me. "Go back with the rest." The man thought for a few seconds then did as he was told. When I recovered the bow I said, "I want the eight of you to stand. We are going to get some water and food. The injured have to be treated." They did stand but they were still trying to show their independence. As a group they scavenged food, water and more bandages. The wounded were tended but I could see that at least half of those would die. I was tired and the fight had taken more out of me. It was better to let them see that they had no chance against me than to try and die. Fálki could have been back at Hildestun by now if he had not been ambushed by more Gauls. He could bring a good number of men here to take my prisoners but this depended on him making it there alive and to find the city not under siege. The force that had attacked us must have been from a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty. It was small enough to move quickly and large enough to frighten the populous. The Frisians were harvesting their crops now and this would disrupt not only the harvest but the food reaching the city. Around noon, I knew that something was wrong. My eight men moved through the camp now gathering bodies and piling them neatly side by side. The arrows were collected but the bows and spears were left. To take one of those would mean death to the man and they knew it. There were some horses around the camp for they had not run far. We had to even go outside the barrier to get water because there was no stream running through the camp. The injured did not get up though some were not hurt as much. The arrows had been removed and some had died but I was not going to risk my neck to operate even if I didn't know much about this. I used words and allowed the eight to be my hands. The wounds were sewed closed but whether infection would kill them or not was still up in the air. The men bitched about washing their hands all the time and I had to explain about germs and disease. They didn't seem to believe me but it would not hurt their patients. During the course of the day, I got the names of the men. I gave them Jón's and appended son of Clovis. Jón was allowed to come out too but assured me he would retreat if things became serious. Jón interrogated the men in a subtle manner which seemed to work. They wondered about their own future and Jón told them about the large farms that they would work on. They could take wives if they wanted. Their wives and children would not be slaves. This seemed to settle them down. Even the wounded were worried about their future. It was late in the day when my hearing detected approaching horses. On the pretext of hunting, I had the wounded abandoned as I took the eight healthy ones out of the camp and into a tight grouping of trees. This was in a shallow valley and we could retreat but I would have to abandon the captives. The horses had stopped a considerable way from the camp and I then heard men coming forward on foot. In ten minutes a man came riding a horse on an odd saddle. It was Fálki. I marched the men back to the camp and frightened some of the farmer warriors that had come to rescue me. Fálki came charging up with fire in his eyes and I just smiled. "Hello Fálki. I would like to introduce you to some new friends of mine. Won't you come down and shake their hands?" "Shake their hands? They captured and tortured us then tried to kill us." "That was when they didn't understand. They are beginning to now." "Understand? Don't you understand? They tried to kill us." "I understand that very well. Now get off your horse and meet these people. First, tell me what happened after you left us?" After a long pause and a sour face he said, "We took the long route back to Hildestun. There were more patrols out but they were small. The horses made too much noise and we tied them up and took only what we needed. A lot of people had fled to the city and it was hard to find enough men to come with me. They could be used to defend the walls." "Are the children safe?" "They are all in your forge. The cook is making sure they are being taken care of. The Romans and the Gaul are under guard. The things we found are in safe keeping until we get back." "How are you, Oeke and Albrecht doing?" "We will live." "Did others from our group make it back safely?" "What others?" "We kept on fighting when you were captured. The Gauls had thought we were easy pickings and split up their forces. There are a lot of bodies scattered in the woods." "I saw some of them on the way here." "Let's go into the camp. There's lots to clean up and I want to see what I can do for the wounded." "You did all this by yourself?" he said as he looked over the camp. "You and the others helped before leaving." "We only did a little." Our men were already in the camp and I stopped most of them and said, "These are my prisoners. They are to be treated with respect. You hurt them then you will have to see me about it." The camp was straightened out and the six dead sentries brought in. The arms, armour and valuables were all taken but the living got to keep their private property though I had to fight some of our own people about it. I was entitled to most if not all of it and they would have little pickings. A large fire was planned downwind of the camp. When the wood was stacked high, the bodies were put on top of this. All of us stood or layed around the fire to give our last respects to the dead. Jón took his right hand and made it into a fist. He bent his arm to cover his hand with the fist and held it there. There was never a reference to the Roman salute but Hollywood had made the one Jón used. This would be good enough for our army if it got started. When the fire burnt down, we went back to camp helping those that required it. The wounded had been put in the shade and I got help in stripping the damaged areas. The clothing and valuables were put beside them. I knew of a few drugs that came under the banner of chemistry like the sulfa products. Most of the good antibiotics were unfortunately from microbes. I had next to no information about that because it was not in my sphere of things to know. I cleaned the wounds as best I could and even cleaned their faces but having a beard precluded most of this. My eight slaves began to act more like slaves and did as I asked instead of what they wanted to do. This meant that they tended the wounded the same as I did. Some of the men had just minor wounds but I kept them in bed most of the time. A few of our people went out and hunted while Fálki went to see what happened to the people left at the quarry. That night it was our men feeding the wounded and it looked more like men that had fought side by side instead of against each other. My slaves could at least cut their own meat because each of them still had their knives. Word came back that the quarry was abandoned. The fire had slowly burned out and there was no sign of a fight or even a struggle. I just hoped that they would decide to come back. I was whipped from being up so long and Fálki took over the camp and I had the big tent that had been looted. It didn't take long to find a pile of blankets and snuggle into them. In a moment Jón was asleep. I was tired too because Jón's body was. I could get no rest though because I stayed awake as usual. There was a guard posted in front and behind the tent. I figured this was Fálki's doing. Jón got up early had a piss and went back to sleep. The camp had noticeably improved during the interim. Jón got up around ten as best as I could estimate. Jón was in charge once more and wanted nothing but something to eat and drink. Our head hurt and the arm was even worse. We dressed the wound but not very well. A rough kitchen was set up and Jón got something to eat. He asked one of the men, "Do you know where Fálki is?" "He is out on a patrol. They didn't get all the horses yesterday and want to get the rest." "Thanks." Jón asked me, "What are we going to do. Events are moving too fast." "Go around and talk to the wounded even if they are Gauls. Say a few jokes if you know them and think of them that had fought beside you instead of against you. They will respect you more but don't let them push you around. Some of the walking wounded can help the rest. It gives them something to do beside laying down." "How long are we going to be here. I want to go home." "Some of the men will die if they have to travel. If Rudi is done, which I doubt, we can make an ambulance." "A white vehicle?" "We make a hammock and string it between the arms of a long bow. When the wagon hits a bump the bow will spring and the shock will not be as great." "Why not cushions?" "They will work too but springs are better. We can count the men that need to stay. I am afraid that many will just die whether we stay or not." "Then let's just go?" "We can't. If we go then it looks like you do not care for those you will one day rule. Before you start to argue, the Gauls we captured are now your people and perhaps all of the Gauls will be one day." It took a while but he nodded and said to me, "I see what you mean." Jón did walk among the Gauls with his knife and sword sheathed. He got water himself and got help so that each man could relieve their bladders or bowels. The slaves didn't like helping with this but after a good talking to they complied. This was a woman's job they thought and didn't want to be compared to a female after. Everybody present ate the noon meal but some had to do so reclining. Jón at my instigation called the mobile slaves and the walking wounded together. "There are seven men that look to have a serious problems. What are your thoughts on them?" They talked for a while discussing the wounds and the men. Three of the patients were thought to be able to pull through but the rest looked like a lost cause. Jón said, "You have been doing as you were asked to do and I am not faulting any of you. I just want to talk about disease again. Let's go back with the rest so they can at least hear what is going on." Now among all the wounded he said, "Disease as I said is caused by small animals that eat our bodies. Our bodies have little soldiers that fight off these enemies. You have put damp moss over the wounds and this may help. The moss has an acid in it that keeps the enemy from growing. This can be proved because very little grows where moss does. "When it comes to food, meat is good but we have to have other types of food too. Bread, cheese, vegetables, fruit and other foods are necessary to keep healthy." One man said, "We are all healthy. We are all stronger than you. You look like you were sick." "I was and I almost died. For half a year I was in bed. The priests of the Romans old gods and the priests of your people, the Picts worked together to make me healthy. I have been eating like a pig and exercising a lot. I am still very weak and slow." "But you beat us?" "I have better weapons and I have training you do not have. I want to change things for you and for me. The Romans come here and offered King Celyddon gold and your king tells you to fight us. Not long ago the Romans would have given gold and asked us to fight you. I want to build somethings that are much better to fight for." "What?" "I want medicines made that will cure the sick. I want roads that are better than the Romans have that will carry what we make from one place to another. Fertiliser to you is shit. There are other kinds that will make plants grow much bigger and healthier. Instead of abandoning a farm ever few generations, you can continue to use it. "I want to sit down and see my children and grandchildren grow. Almost everybody is what I would call uneducated. Reading, writing and counting with numbers is important. "An example would be to grow a horse that is twice as heavy as the horses we now have. This can be done but you will not see it. You take good horses and breed them to get more good horses. The best get to breed again. Over the years, your children get big horses but your grandchildren get bigger ones. To do this you either remember everything or write the facts down. This keeps inbreeding to a minimum and you get to sell the horses for a lot of gold, not silver." "You want us to breed horses?" "That is part of it. You have to do the same for all your livestock and even the seeds you use. In a place I heard of, grapes were grown. Each grape was as large as the end of your thumb. A few acres could make you rich. Making wine is a good business and you can sell the wine to the Romans if you want. Our vineyards will be famous. "You can breed pigs and keep the best to breed again. Trade pigs with other farmers and over time you will get large pigs. The same may be said for your families but you already know about strong sons." This was a sore spot and Jón quickly added, "What if you found a good job in this land. Would you be able to go home and bring your families here? Would King Celyddon be angry? Would your families want to come here to live?" The men started to talk amongst themselves but they had not settled here yet to really warrant the question being asked. They did though have an idea of their future and it wasn't as bleak as it had been even an hour ago. Jón switched gears and talked to each man about his own life, hopes and desires. Most were like the Germans. They were farmer warriors out to make some gold and some land. With no slate once more Jón drew a plough that would turn over a furrow and be pulled by oxen or horses. "The trick," he said, "is the hard iron at the point." The discussion got into farming practices and herding. Men were split evenly between these two jobs. They got onto wool and Jón talked of a machine with many combs that took the wool and made it into thread many times faster than a person could do it. He used his hands to describe the machine and how it worked. Not long after this he described a weaving machine and even a knitting machine. They had never heard of knitting yet. To set everything in perspective, he talked about mechanising the farm so one man could farm more land. A scythe was discussed and the bent wood handle was easy to see in their minds. Jón went through the actions and showed everybody how much grass or grain could be cut in one sweep to the arms. This was compared to a sickle that required the farmer to bend over and hold the grass as the other hand cut a tuft at a time and then tied into a bundle. "You have this device?" "It could be build in a week. It takes time to make the steel and then shape it. The wood is hard to bend just right but we can try it until it gets done right." One man said, "Could we help?" "I need many men and they cannot all be farmers and herders. Of course you will help. Instead of using a sword you will use a hammer. You will reap wheat not men. Instead of planning to fight men you will plan on what you can grow for the most gold. The enemy out there is nature that wants to give you too much or too little rain. Learn her tricks and talk to others to see what they have learned. "I want to grow a tall plant called hemp. The plant has strong fibres that are very long. You can make wonderful rope or weave it like wool for clothing. The fibres can be used to make something like parchment but it is not skin. You can write words on it or draw pictures. The seeds have a wonderful oil in it that is good to eat. After pressing the oil out the cake, the rest is good to eat too. The bugs don't like the plant and disease is not common." Another man said, "Where can we get some seed?" "It grows thousands of miles from here. We have to go to the sea and build a large boat. Going overland is much more dangerous. We will get it some day and I will share with you." We had to gather up our possessions because we were going to abandon the camp. Instead of making carts we took long poles and ran one on each side of two horses. A man could lay on the stretcher between with less bouncing but it was still rough. Longer poles were used and this at least made it springier. One of the men had died during the night. Those that were sick were also fatalistic and knew what was going to be would just happen. We made the trek homeward with most of us walking. Some of the tents were taken but not all of the material could be brought and a second or third trip would be necessary. The weapons and armour of this many men was difficult to transport. Kareltje and his people were found and then informed of what had happened. There was a lot of lime in the kiln to be harvested and I think this got him onto the idea again of staying. Later we stopped at the ambush site and we searched for the bodies and weapons. The stashed tools and the wagon were recovered. Wild animals had come but that was only natural. Fálki said, "Who killed all these. We only had a few men." "I guess I did. The Gauls attacked the forward section and I could use the bow in the forest camouflage suit. The same as I did in the night with the black suit." "All these?" "Oh, there is a lot more. I rallied the survivors to ambush the Gauls and I used the bow to take out the stragglers. By the time we finished there were very few Gauls left." Fálki just looked at me oddly but said nothing. We spent a long time gathering bodies of both friend and foe. The horses were skinned and the flesh buried. Here too I had to explain to Fálki what I had done and how. In a large cleared area we constructed another pyre. The city had been informed of our stop and why. Now there were many people here looking for their relatives. We counted our living against who had gone on the trip with me. We had found all of our dead. The survivors of the this battle had not made it back yet. People being what they were, searched for loot and came away with some but it was hidden. Arrows were all over the place and those too were gathered. We gave time for the Gauls to say goodbye to their own brethren and I was the one to put a torch to the oil on the wood. The boys were right beside me and so were the children we had just taken. They were prepared and put their right fist over their heart to say goodbye to both peoples in one pyre. ------- Chapter 15 The priests had come out because this was a battle and men had died. The Germans loved battle even if it meant that families went fatherless. The children and wives may have other sentiments but they would not be far from what the male of the household thought. When considering other battles I enquired about our sovereign and found that Clovis had still not arrived and I was worried even more. When all the weeping was done we made the walk back to Hildestun. Astrid and Dagmar rode beside me. They insisted that I ride a horse and a wagon would not be good enough. Their eyes were glassy and I knew what had caused it. I would not be surprised if an epic was not now being composed by a man that wanted to curry favour with the court. I had been asked a great many questions but one of the most popular was the number of men I had slain or wounded. My reply was usually, "Too many to remember and too many to want to remember." They couldn't understand this. To kill an enemy was a great accomplishment to these people. The rescued children were legally my slaves but the Germanic people didn't usually take advantage of the situation. I intended to treat them as children that were loved and cherished. Even if that meant educating them. I didn't know what the new ones thought of Jón or I but we would have to learn this soon. Jón seemed to think the same way I did or at least mostly. His hormones still affected his judgment but he was coping well. There were few crowds in the city since most of the people were out at the battle site. I looked back and I could still see the pall of smoke drifting northward. Once we entered the castle there was another religious service conducted by the priests over the great battles. Helga got a bath ready and during a lull in the festivities Jón got as clean as he could. Astrid and Dagmar fussed over his arm. They both would have done a lot more but they had no time. Jón came down dressed in his finest clothes. His smile was because Forni was upstairs getting his own bath and the maid Angelika was doing the honours. He was a celebrity now and may get lucky himself. The priests seem to try to make up for lost time and dragged the ceremony on and on. Jón had not been completely oblivious to his father's efforts at controlling the priests and when he could he got up and thanked them for what they had done. With the meal ready, he used that as an excuse to conclude this part of the priests' plans. When the meal was over, the tables were cleared away and then it was only foot room for the great hall filled to capacity and with no firemen to say nay to the numbers. Jón had to say in detail what he had done. To promote the quarry operation he started before leaving the city. It was a long talk and it had not even reached the point of the attack yet. Jón stopped his lecture just as he sent off his men to fight at the ambush site. Jón was on his feet and added, "I am tired and need a drink. I also need to take a piss. We will start up again in twenty minutes." With just a smile he left even though hundreds of people were waiting on his words. At the appointed time, he came back and said to the assembled people, "I would like Fálki and Albrecht to tell their parts since they were the first to confront the enemy." The two men were happy to step in. Neither were shrinking violets about discussing their fighting ability. They talked much more animatedly and gave a lot of plugs for the saddle and lance. They acted out every movement they made and gave every nuance to their actions. They at least took turns and had to drink beer to cool off when the other had the floor. Fálki attributed his survival to the Gauls wanting to know about the saddles and lances. If they were dead they could say little. This was borne out when they were beaten by the Gauls to find answers. They continued on until Fálki found out that Jón was behind him. "It is your turn to talk now. The rest is your doing." "Thank you for your help. You speak much better than I do. Your words, voice and actions let me feel exactly what went on. I think that tonight I will like to get some sleep. Tomorrow evening I can continue and then continue again the next evening." There was a lot of groaning and calls for Jón to give a bit more but he was firm. This was the same as when I was a boy. The serial western had the cowboy precariously holding on by his fingertips to the cliff he fell over. The next week we would find out how he survived only to be threatened by another brush with death. Astrid and Dagmar didn't object in the least and hustled Jón up the stairs. Instead of going into his own room he was pulled in to Astrid's. Jón was well aware of this happening. That was why he sent off Forni for the night. The boy was sad but Jón was able to say, "Tomorrow for us." Astrid started to take off her clothes and Jón asked, "What of the prince?" Dagmar said, "He had been sore recently and we are giving him time to heal. We found one of our guards that has not outgrown his childhood. He takes care of Egill when we are unable. The two seem to have grown fond of each other." "That is good, now I have to ask some delicate questions. First, what are we going to say when the king comes back?" Dagmar just stared at Jón and Astrid said, "Nothing I guess." "That may not be enough. Second when was the last time you had your menses." "That is none of your business," she said indignantly. "It is if I could be the father of your next child." She came to a decision and said, "It finished six days ago. Are you happy?" "I am happy. You are not pregnant and will not be getting that way tonight. What about you Dagmar?" "Ah, three weeks ago." Astrid looked at her slyly and I said, "I detect something odd in your response. Now have you both bathed today?" Dagmar said quickly, "We can but it will be just with a cloth." "Get some warm water and I will help you clean. It was fun last time." I got a smile and she hurried out of the room. Astrid started to take off her clothes and I said, "That means you to. I like squeaky clean women or ones that were that way recently." "I am clean." "You may be but not squeaky clean. You are not afraid of water, are you?" "No." "Then I want to see you clean. Now move woman. You will start late then argue that you haven't got your share." Astrid started to put on her the clothing she had taken off. Dagmar came into the room carrying two wooden buckets of warm water. She said to Astrid, "I think you may want one of these too. Jón is a bit particular now." Astrid said, "I am already clean." "If you want Jón to play you better do it." Dagmar hurriedly started to undress and sat on a stool then jumped up and got some towels. Only after Dagmar had begun did Astrid start to remove her clothing again. Jón was not sure how to proceed but wanted to try. I said, "Take your clothes off slowly and fold each piece nicely and place it on the stool in the corner. The idea is to tease the women. They want you but you have to make them want you more." "But I am still a boy?" "You are a young man now. You kill your enemies and that makes you a warrior. You have killed many so that makes you a great warrior. Women see this as an indication that the children you give them will be the same. In their dreams, they want to get pregnant. In the part they use for conscious thought they only want to have fun. Now remember this next part very well." "What?" "They think a powerful warrior has great power in his loins. They expect you to last so you can please both of them. That means that when you get really excited you have to try to pull back and let them have their orgasm. Since you are young your seed will not be plentiful and the chances of a woman getting pregnant is less; not impossible. The second thing is that you recover faster if you do not shoot your seed. You can get back into having fun." Jón did as I asked and even flashed himself as if he didn't know what he was doing. He walked over to Dagmar that was furiously cleaning her body. With me using only words I had him use the cloth and his bare hand to clean the woman's body. She was even encouraged to squat over the bucket and Jón used his hand to clean her very well. Dagmar groaned and had to hold onto her lover to stay in the awkward position she was in. His thumb entered her vagina and he used the heal and top side of his thumb to caress her clit. When the orgasm itself crept up on her Jón used his other hand to pull her face to his so they could kiss. Dagmar was very passionate now and fell to the floor. I helped Jón guide her to a comfortable position and avoid spilling the bucket. All this was done without losing lip content. When she was down safely, Jón just pulled himself forcibly away a few centimetres and then began to kiss her eyes. He had to then move his body because it was painful on his knees on the floor and Dagmar had been holding his wounded arm with a lot of force. His kisses led to her chest and the same as last time ignored her upright nipples. Jón's hands were busy though kneading one breast while the other moved down her abdomen. Dagmar flexed her stomach and spread her legs to allow him even more access. Jón was coached enough to avoid the clit now but to come close. Dagmar groaned in want and I think she didn't even feel the floor beneath her. Jón climbed over her leg with difficulty and slid down her body. He started at the right knee this time and sucked and licked his way to the hairy juncture. This was too much and Dagmar panted, "There oh there! Do it." I could feel Jón being happy to be in control of the woman and ignored her pleas. He spent a considerable time fending off her hands while avoiding the gyrations of her pelvis that brought her clit close so many times. When it looked very close Jón pulled back to the other knee and began her descent on more time. Dagmar cursed and plead but did all this loudly because of her great need. With a suggestion from me, he held Dagmar's knees and looked around at Astrid. She was unabashedly squatting and rubbing her own clit. Her face showed great need. "Come here Astrid, and squat over Dagmar." She must have been close to her orgasm. She didn't move her feet, only her hand moved quickly. Jón got to his feet and pulled and pushed Astrid into position then pushed on her shoulders to squat much closer to the floor. Her eyes grew very wide as Dagmar began to lick where Astrid's hand was. Jón went back to his position he had with Dagmar and now used his hand to caress her opening. In the process it got very wet. He used one finger but then it became two then three. The thumb was turned so that when at full penetration the thumb pushed on her clit. Jón began to read the signs and worked his hand faster and faster and Dagmar flexed her body violently. He was able to watch Astrid as the feelings changed with the sensations she was having on her own clit. When the explosion came, Astrid fell forward to put her hands on the floor on both sides of Dagmar's hips. Jón had some trepidation but I urged him to both continue the action with his hand but to put his other hand around Astrid to kiss her lips. Astrid responded with a groan and moved one of her hands to hold Jón to her. Dagmar was heard to scream and thrust up violently but Jón followed her movements with his hand and Astrid began to shake soon after. Jón slowed his movements down then stopped completely. Again I got him to pull back from Astrid slowly then he took his damp fingers and pushed them gently into her mouth one at a time to get cleaned. When Astrid had done this Jón bent forward again and kissed her. Astrid had a worried look on her face and whispered, "Why did you do that?" "Because I wanted to kiss you." "I mean your fingers." "Dagmar never told me but I knew that the two of you were lonely and helped each other. Forni and I do the same thing. Now let's get up so Dagmar can breathe." The two got up but needed each other's assistance. They used their hands to help Dagmar to her feet. Jón said, "That was the warm up. I guess we can begin on Astrid now." Astrid looked pleased at the aspects of more sex and Jón manoeuvred her to the side of her bed and got her to sit on the edge. Jón bent down and grasped her ankles. The left arm hurt but he tried to bring the feet up. Astrid assisted and ended up laying on her back with her legs spread wide. Astrid was already hot and Jón moved in quickly. Her hands came out quickly to hold his head in place as she groaned her need for him to continue. Jón used his right hand to slide into her channel and soon her lubricants and saliva were flowing. When he attacked her clit his finger gained entrance to her rectum. Astrid either wanted the stimulation of his tongue so much that she ignored the other intrusion or simply put up with it. Later after the finger had gained full access he saw that she was not as responsive to this as Dagmar. Jón took his hand away then used both hands to remove Astrid's grasp of his head. From Jón's emotions I knew he enjoyed this immensely. He pulled back completely to see Dagmar playing with herself the same way Astrid had. "Sit on her, Dagmar. We have to muffle any loud noises." There was some hesitation and she said, "But..." I made an assessment and told Jón. He said, "But you don't like it or but Astrid doesn't like to eat you?" Dagmar said with an embarrassed look, "She only likes it a little." Jón used his thumb on Astrid and stood. When Astrid looked at him he said, "Dagmar and you are important to me. I will try to treat you both fairly but you have to do your part. Will you please Dagmar while I please you?" She enjoyed the thumb moving but she took a while and said, "I guess but you have to continue." "I intend to." He turned to Dagmar and said, "You better climb on now." Dagmar was unsure but did as she was asked. When she wiggled into position with a sigh Jón asked, "Is she a screamer?" It took a few seconds before she said, "I have not heard any." "Let's try." The three worked for hours on each other. Jón's arm throbbed but he didn't quit. The women orgasmed quite often and Jón emptied himself into their mouths and rectums but not their vaginas. He wasn't going to be like Clinton and not count this as sex but more along the lines of avoiding a pregnancy until he had a chance to verify their menses. Jón slept in the next morning but the two women were bright eyed and bushy tailed. They smiled down at the sleeping boy as they let him stay in bed. They even bent down to bestow a kiss on his cheek then Dagmar did one to his still erect organ. Jón went back to his own room and found it empty. He already assumed that Forni would be staying at the forge. At my insistence he changed clothes to work in but still be slightly above the rest. One of his shirts were simple and I wanted to use it as a pattern but there were no buttons. Buttons in fact were very rare. Some even in my time had been made of shells but could also now be brass or wood. The clothes I wanted to make was the camouflage material the American Army used. It was multicoloured and utilitarian. This was one of the reasons I was so happy to take the cotton bolts from the Gallic chieftain's tent. Helga had a smile for Jón and fed him herself to make sure he got enough. "You are just as brave as your father. Once he hears about you, he will be very proud." "Thank you Helga but I did have an advantage." "What was that?" "I was dressed in black and my skin was all coloured black too. There were a lot of Gauls and only one me so I could shot at any noise and not hurt my side. They had only one target and I kept moving. In a way I had them outnumbered." She laughed at his joke and patted him on the shoulder. The barracks were fairly full because the men from the first battle had found their way back. The Gauls were billeted here to keep an eye on them and to nurse the wounded. Jón walked around from friend to foe and talked to everybody as if they had fought for him. Jón found Albrecht recovering from his experiences but had a smile on his face. His words were not as good as his mouth was still swollen. The talking last night didn't improve his features but did inflate his ego. Jón said, "Have the corpsmen been washing their hands before treating you?" "Corpsmen?" "I am afraid I am transferring my slaves to the army for a while. A corpsman is a person that treats the wounded but is not a full doctor. The doctor is valuable and he waits close to the battle for the wounded to be brought to him. One day a flying machine will land close to the wounded men and then it will fly quickly to a medical facility." "Fly? You are dreaming." "I make a lot of silver betting people. If I remember right, you owe me a day's work." "I haven't proved this yet." "I will prove it soon and I am going to start teaching." He assumed I was talking about war and said, "All you need to know is how to use a bow or throw a spear." "Tell me Albrecht, did you sit on a horse and use your lance to kill your opponents?" "You know I did." "Was it easier with the saddle you had and the lance you used?" Albrecht didn't answer and Jón said, "Is your mouth too sore to talk?" "Your weapons were better." "Good. Now you admit that my saddle and lance ideas are good. Now tell me what you think of my woodland camouflage and my black night suit. Did they help me?" "They sure did." Part of this may be just a way of minimising Jón's contribution by raising the value of the clothing. Jón said, "Then I have good clothing that wins battles. Now did my sword and knife work better than the heavy weapons pour opponents used?" "Opponents? They are our enemies." "You are mistaken. They were our opponents. They didn't hate us they only fought because their King Celyddon told them to. The Gauls are just a branch of the Pict peoples and it is the Germans that are the ones that like to fight. Why is it that the Romans like to get our people into their army? Perhaps it is our good cooking." "We do like to fight more but it is good because it strengthens all of us. I do not know what we would do if we had to live like the Romans." "You will have to learn. What will you do when you have conquered the entire world?" He had no answer but Jón waited then asked, "What about my weapons? You forgot to answer." "What about them?" "Are they far superior to what everybody else has?" "Yes," he said but it sounded like it had to be dragged from him. "So there is more to learn that a bow and a spear. Perhaps a dozen boys with the training can destroy a legion. Pretty soon there are no more legions. Maybe we should have only six boys so the battles are a bit fairer." "You made your point. There is more to learn and I guess you could teach it." "Thank you but I need help. We cannot get in a line and stop the enemy. We will die as quick as you if not quicker. We use little or no armour. Our job is to fight in the forest and come on small groups and destroy them. You are a man that has practised with his sword for a long time. Now you are good. We have to practice fighting at night and fighting in the forest. Our clothing and weapons will be different. That will not help us in the open." "I can see that. But you need us to break their men up into groups that you can chew on." "That is a very good way of saying it. I have thought of another weapon and you may want to try it out." "What is it?" "My sword and knife are very strong. What if the smith takes the same metal and makes armour. It will be lighter and thinner but still able to stop not only a sword thrust like a shield but an arrow too." "Now that is good." "That will not conflict with your idea of going out and fighting and enemy that is not as well armed as you?" He had to think for a while and said, "That is something we have to ask the priests." "Ah, priests. Thor had a magical hammer. Was he hesitant to use it even though it was superior to all other weapons?" "No." "Then how is that fact that my armour is better than the usually used a matter for the priests?" "I guess not. How may I get some?" "We need to harvest the ore. We need lots of it. Then we have to make a lot of charcoal. At the same time I want all the ashes saved and I do not want them to get wet." "Why?" "Ashes and fat make soap. Soap keeps you clean and the germs I mentioned will not bother us as much. I think if you were good with numbers, you would find that most men die in a large war from disease not from the enemy. Think of a long siege and how the people actually die inside and outside the castle walls." "You may be right." "Then being clean may be a partial answer, the same as using a latrine like the Romans do. They have been fighting for over a thousand years and in that time they had to learn a few things. Being clean and orderly helps. Discipline and training do a lot more. Having the will to win or overcome odds is sometimes a deciding factor." "You want us to fight like the Romans?" "I want you to win battles. It is the Romans hiring us with their gold while they sit back. They are smart. Is it not right that we become smart too?" "They are weak." "Weak? They could destroy all of us if that is their will. You can destroy some of them but in the end you, your family, your clan and all of the German people will die or become slaves. Our king, Clovis taught us to fight the best way and that is like the enemy but we have to do it just a bit better. Charging at the enemy while waving a sword will get you killed. Better to think of ways to let us win not just die." A lot of people had been listening and some of those were the Gauls. Their part in our struggle was not stressed because we wanted them on our side when the battles came. Jón went to the forge next. People stopped him all the time wanting information. He had learned from the time with the assassins that he had to put this off so everybody could hear. Sander was outside when Jón came near and he thumped Jón on the back for what he had done. "It was just like the sagas. You by yourself defeated a whole camp of Picts." "I did have help Sander. We killed all the officers and nobody knew how to organise the rest to get me to leave." "But you killed hundreds." "I killed or wounded fifty in the camp. It is like being on a high ridge and shooting sheep below. I am not proud of what I had to do. I had to stop the Gauls from attacking our people and this was the only way." "You are not happy to have killed so many?" "Would you brag that you shot fifty sheep when they were penned up?" "No." "Then neither am I. Now tell me about my people." "Before I do that, some of your iron and charcoal was delivered and I did as you asked and started the process. It was harder without the three boys. I convinced the smith to hammer out the metal so it was thin. You said it was alright for him to learn of what we are doing." "You did very well. We need all the steel we can get and now people will see the benefit of it." The man smiled at the compliment and added, "The boys are sore. At least the men used pig fat. The rest are a dull lot. They hide in the corner all the time. They were used too." "Did you learn their names?" "No." "Then they know that you are a man in authority. How do they know that you will not hurt them?" "Because I said I would not." "Is everybody to believe you? They were hurt and they saw many around them killed. Perhaps when they were taken as slaves their family were butchered. Try to see things through their eyes." Sander looked to be a bit ashamed and this was a good sign. He may try in the future. Sander and I soon found our original people and they crowded around Jón as if some of his fame would wear off. Jón spent time talking to them and especially those that had gone out with him to the quarry. It took an hour to get them calmed down but they would not be the same again. Dina and Aagt's eyes glowed at seeing Jón as if they were looking at Thor himself. Jón said, "I need Dina and Aagt to help me for a while." The girls perked up a bit more. "Lets go talk to those that recently joined us." There was a little frown but they followed Jón to the back wall where the four girls and a boy were huddled. Jón sat on the floor and the girls got on each side of him. "Hello, my name is Jón. Last you saw me, I was dressed in black and had black all over my face and arms. I am sorry that I had to fight in front of your eyes but it was necessary to get my people to safety." Jón smiled and looked at the boy and said, "Tell me your name and a bit about you." The boy didn't speak. He may not understand the language or still be too frightened. Jón said in a quiet voice, "I am not a person that will hurt you. This girl here is Dina. She came to help me make good iron to make tools. The girl here is Asgt. She too is helping me make equipment. They have not been with me long and I have not hurt them." The boy still didn't speak. He was also at the far left and not near the girls. The girls though huddled together. Jón asked the girl closest to the boy, "What's your name?" She too didn't answer and Jón said, "You are going to stay with me for a while and I have to have names. I cannot say 'you' to each of you without a lot of confusion. A name now will not hurt you and the sooner you tell me the sooner we can get to be friends. Now please tell my your name." The girl looked down and whispered, "Arienh," but it was very low. I had to tell Jón what the name was because he had not heard it. "It is nice to meet you Arienh. I don't want you to be afraid. Do you know how old you are?" She just shook her head. "Can you cook?" Again there was a head shake but it was more perceptible. "Can you pick up a bull and throw it over a fence?" The girl's eyes got large but didn't even nod. "You didn't shake your head. You must be very strong to throw a bull." Now he got a violent head shake. This type of conversation lasted an hour but he found out all the names. One girl was able to give the names of the boy and one other girl that would not give this information. Guinevere the more talkative one claimed to be Celtic and had come with their chief to this land to fight. Some of her neighbours had spoken a language much like the German I now knew. Her parents had sold her she thought but children didn't always get the right information. She was cute and then again all of the children were comely. It went without saying why the chief didn't have a wife or older women with him. When he could get no more information from them Jón said, "We are going to go to the bathroom then get cleaned up and after that we are going to get something to eat. Helga is the mistress of the kitchen and she cooks for a lot of people. She does a very good job and her cooking is good. Now let's stand up and get started." Jón got up and so did Dina and Aagt but the others remained hidden in their blankets. Jón kept his voice low and kind and said, "When we met I gave orders. I killed your chief and master. That makes me your chief now. I am ordering you to stand. Last time I called people to help. I can do that again if I have to. Now stand so we can get started." Guinevere was the first and she helped up a younger girl beside her and then the rest stood. Jón led the two girls and the newcomers to the kitchen but stayed out of the hustle and bustle of the main room. When Helga came over he said, "Good day, Helga. I have found some children that need help. They are dirty, they wear dirty blankets, they were abused by a man and they are no doubt hungry. Is there some kettles that you are not using that we can fill with water and heat up? We need the washtub and some soap too." "It sounds like you are going to find the people to do the work. Then you know where the wood is. You better get the fire burning hotter. We have the kettles but they will be needed soon for the cleaning. The wooden buckets are in the corner and you know where the well is." "Thank you Helga. Is there some soap?" "There is but we need more. We have been saving the ashes and grease and there is enough." "We will make some later but we need some soap now." "I will give you some." In the side room the washing facility was set up. Jón asked Dina, "Dina, you have to take a bath first so they know what is happening to them." "I just had a bath a week or so ago." "Dina, now," Jón said as he pointed to the tub. The girl stripped and got into the tub. It was cool. There were streaks on her body where some of the soot had worn off. Jón removed his shirt and washed Dina's hair for her. At my suggestion he made horns with her hair as a way of making this less serious. Dina liked her back washed then rubbed but had to be satisfied with only a bit. When she got out she was dried but had to put on her dirty clothes. The boy's name was Hafgan. He was not asked but his blanket was removed with difficulty and he was placed in the tub. He was shaking and Jón put more hot water into the tub while the pot was filled with fresh water. The boy's hair had to be washed twice but when it was done it looked like the boy had some very feminine features. This may explain why, Kirwyn the now dead chief of the war band had selected him. It took time but the boy stopped shaking as he was not hurt. His body was dirty and it took a long time to clean. He was moved without protest from one position to another and I was able to see a scar under his small cock. The boy had been castrated and was now an eunuch. The Romans did this a lot and I had heard it was done to boys to keep their voices from breaking during puberty for puberty would never come for them. One reason was to keep them from breeding but also to allow them to keep their high pitched voice used in singing. It this case it was to keep the boy from developing into a man. Jón pushed the cheeks apart and saw that the anus opened easily. Apparently the boy had been well used. The boy was now docile and he eventually stood unaided and clean water poured over him. Jón dried the boy himself and I could feel his sorrow for the lad. When he was dry the boy was hugged and Jón said, "You have to put the blanket back on Hafgan. We will get something to eat and I will see about getting something better to wear." Hafgan just stared at him but said nothing. The more outgoing girl, Guinevere, was done next and it was eventually seen that her anus too had been abused. Any damage to the vagina would have to be found later. Oriana, was next but she settled quickly to the gentle treatment. Edana was girl that Jón threw a knife at. She was the one that had not given her name. Arienh was the last. She too had started to respond but only a little. Water had been changed as the children were cleaned and finally Aagt had to get cleaned but she didn't object. Jón had the two girls clean up and put the tub away as well as the sodden towels. The noon meal was in progress but Jón ate with the children in the kitchen. It also had the benefit of allowing him to avoid talking about the fight. Jón had picked up some loose coins from the Gaul camp. They were his by right of conquest. The surviving Gauls also had their own money still and he didn't want to seize it. With his immediate financial worries removed, he went back to the forge and saw that Wiebe was tending the newest batch of steel. Wiebe congratulated Jón and Jón thanked him for the work he had done in his absence. The care in which Jón did this was very good because Wiebe almost blushed at the words. The children were all collected and Jón talked to the two men for a minute to find the names of some seamstresses. There were two groups for the boys were in one and the girls in another but they still stayed close. The city was frightening to some but as the time went on with no threats they began to relax. The first hut had two old women repairing old clothing and they stopped at the approach of all the children. Jón said, "Hello, my good ladies. I have been directed here and told that you may be able to make some clothing for me." The women had to squint for their eyesight was not good. "Who sent you?" They evidently didn't know who Jón was. "Wiebe and Sander the potter." "What do you want?" "There are twelve young people here that need suitable clothing. I need two shirts and two pants for each. I want underclothes as well." "Underclothes? Who wears those?" "These young people will have to be dressed well. Boots will be made and I want large wool socks that when shrunk will fit their feet." "Two dozen sets of clothes. That will cost a great deal depending on what you want them made of." Lederhosen were not worn but they were leather. Though they were worn by men they could now be worn by women because there was no customs to circumvent. Longer pants and leather aprons were added. The tents coming back could be used for this. "Before we leave I believe that you sell clean used clothing?" "We do young man." "Try to fit my friends. They will keep these clothes and use them for play or work." Instead of fitting the children, the children were directed to a pile of clothing. The children excitedly dived in after being told to do so. They rummaged through the pile and things that were too big for one were handed to another. They did come up with some clothes but some were without pants and some without shirts. Jón said, "I have cotton cloth that I want to be made into more clothing than I have already mentioned. Are you able to make what I require?" The old women could smell all the money and quickly agreed. Jón was assured that more people could be found to do all that was needed. Jón introduced them to the handshake and left them with payment for the clothes he took and a deposit to get started on the new work. The bootmaker was incredulous of all the customers coming to his small establishments. He hurriedly took out the boots he made for Forni and Jón then got them to try them on. Jón said, "The boots look beautiful but they are too narrow." "That cannot be. I make very good boots." "They are good just narrow." Turning to Hafgan he said, "Come here and sit down. I want to see if these fit. The boy was incredulous but did do as he was asked. The boots were too big. Jón and I had a conversation and he said to the bootmaker, "Check the fit and make a pair of boots like this for Hafgan. They can be a bit larger, because he is a growing boy." "Boots like this for... a boy?" "Is there a reason why not?" "No, milord. It is just that children grow so fast and these boots are very expensive." The bootmaker did his comparisons and took out a new string and tied knots based on Jón's knots and what he estimated Hafgan's would be. Jón's boots did fit Klaasje. The boots still went the rounds to compare them to all the feet. The girls were incredulous when they were told to try the boots on too. A lot of string was knotted before they left and a new string was made for Jón. Forni's surprisingly fit him but also fit Epje and Tiebout. Klaasje almost fell a few times walking down the street. He was staring down at his new boots that were unlike anything worn by anybody. Part of his problem was the firm sole and the elevated heal but he thought them very beautiful. After a few minutes talking to Jón he said to the children, "There are tools we can make that will allow you to make pictures on leather. It is really like drawing a picture and it is fun. Your boots are easily recognised among others too. It is not hard to do you just have to go over an area many times with a small ball." They were not getting it so he said I will show you some day, but you can do saddles too." That was the words he used as he entered Andsvarr's boot shop. This time Andsvarr was sickly sweet. "Good day, my lord. What may this worthless subject do for you?" Jón was still angry at the man but instead said, "Hello, Andsvarr. I came for a few reasons. The first is that I contracted you to make two saddles. How far along are you with them?" "Yours is fully done my lord and the other will be ready tomorrow." "That's good, now I wanted you to make boots for me. Before you argue, I want you to inspect Klaasje's. If you have overcome your objections there are a great many still to be made." The boy took off his boot without being asked and the man inspected all of it. "What are these loops for?" "You put your fingers in them to pull them on. The sides are stiff to keep brush from damaging the legs. The sole is thick so sharp rocks will not be a problem. The heal allows a person to walk more comfortably and the lump in the instep is to support the arch of the foot. One pair of boots will not fit everybody with the same length foot but most will." "These do look sturdy and they would be difficult to make without the tools you graciously gave me." "Thank you, Andsvarr. In years to come, if we survive, I will use the metal I make to produce a machine. You can step on a pedal and it will drive the needle through the leather and another thread will automatically go through the loop." He didn't understand from the expression on his face. Jón said, "It should be enough to know that you, with four sons, make a hundred boots a day." Andsvarr was shocked but didn't have the gall to call Jón on this assertion. Jón added, "You didn't believe in my saddle or my horse collar. Just think of them now and my idea for a metal machine." "That sounds like magic to me." "There is no magic in it only the ingenuity of man. You would call a bow magic or perhaps the arrow for going straight. A simple soldier knows that it is the feathers. The machine will have a lot of small metal parts but if you think on each of them you will see how each reacts when they are pushed or pulled by another moving part." "I will anxiously await you to build it for me. Did you wish for me to make some of these boots for you. I see only two pair." "The bootmaker down the street is making a dozen more pair. I want you to make more saddles. A hundred should do for a start. They will be like the second one you made for me. The Picts liked them so much that they didn't kill the riders because they wanted to find out more." "The Picts wanted them that bad and you want a hundred." "Yes. You cannot scrimp to get that many. All of them have to have as much care to detail as the others. If your saddle falls apart and a man dies then his friends will know who sold inferior equipment." Andsvarr was now visibly upset. All leather will wear out in time my lord." "That is true but not right away. The same is true of the boots. One day they will need repair." "Mine will be the best." "Then we will never have words over it then. We do have other business to discuss." Andsvarr eyes got bright and he said, "Yes, my lord, anything." "Think carefully about this before answering." "Yes, milord." "Those people with me are to learn what I know. One day they will go to other lands and teach. I want them to learn how to make saddles." Andsvarr was getting upset but Jón continued. "You are to take them in and teach them just this portion of your trade." "But saddle making is hard milord. They are just children." "That may be true. You had many years to learn how to make boots. They do not have to be good saddle makers but just competent. The saddles they make will be their own. They will ride with me on them and when they get older they will move into bigger saddles as they will into bigger boots. Since they will not be using a lance, the cantle will be less as will the horn. This was the first type of saddle I had been talking to you about." "But they know nothing now and will be slow." "True, and your price will reflect your teaching. Know this, you will not strike any of them. You will not even yell at them. You may raise your children your way and I will raise mine my way." "You accept them as your children? That is preposterous. You are their age." "They are mine, every single one of them and more will come too. You may teach hundreds of my children before you hang up your apron. To me a good teacher is one that the children love. If you are not lovable then somebody else will have to teach them and perhaps make my saddles too." "Oh, I can do this my lord. It was just the shock of teaching those so young. When can they start?" Forni and Dina will start tomorrow. Dina will make her own saddle and Forni will assist you in finishing his then begin one of the hundred I want. When I have felt that the children can do every portion of making a saddle then two more will come. Perhaps your sons will teach them. You will be busy. They are younger and understand the children more." Jón was giving him a way out but still provide the training. Andsvarr said, "I will do it." "Tell me the price you require to train the twelve? Keep in mind that we still have to talk about one hundred saddles for men." "That will take a lot of thought milord. May I have time?" "I have a lot of leather tents I have just acquired. You may take the leather from them to provide for your needs. Any surplus leather is still mine. Will early tomorrow morning be good enough?" "I can give you the figure then milord." "Then I will see you early. The two children will be with me to start class if we can come to an agreement." Out on the street, Forni said, "I don't want to work for that man. I don't like him." "Forni, you have to learn how to make steel. With that you have to make tools and weapons. You have to learn how to make leather articles including saddles and bridles. You have to learn how to farm. You then have to learn how to fight. Worst of all you have to learn how to read and write along with gaining a good understanding of numbers." "All that?" "You have years and you will learn a lot more. Remember how much knowledge is in my mind? You may not have to learn it all but you have to learn your share. I am handing you a present that is so great that if you knew what you were gaining you would offer me thousands of gold aureus to just listen into my talks." "But that is all hard work." "Very little comes without hard work. Now I am asking, are you going to grow with me or grow apart? You are my friend but I have to think of our people." Forni was very upset now and frantically said, "I will work." "Good. I need you and I need everybody here." We walked towards the coopers and in a moment Dina asked, "Are we really getting one of those saddles?" "Yes, the same as you made knives for yourselves. You will learn to ride and the saddle is part of your education. I will tell you truthfully that in a few years the Roman emperors will envy each and every one of you." Most didn't understand but time would teach them. The cooper was glad to see Jón. The first may be his notoriety but I suspected that he had barrels to dispose of to fulfill his obligations. While Jón and the cooper talked, the children were instructed too look carefully at what was being done. Jón said, "I need more barrels but they have to be smaller." He gave the measurements with is hands. "They have to be made of thick wood to make them very strong." "What is it for milord?" "Your barrels will kill a great many of our enemies. I will not say more but the tops and bottoms have to be thicker and stronger. Wider and thicker bands of metal are needed to hold it together." "But how can I know how to build it if I do not know what it will be called on to do?" "Just build one the way you think is very strong. It is important that the wood be dry. This can be done by putting it into a kiln. The wood shrinks and warps but the final barrel has to be so good that if I put it into the river and pushed down into it, not one drop would enter." "I can do that but they will be expensive." "How much for the first one? We both learn from it and the price you quote for the second one will be more accurate. Now to old business. How many of the other barrels made to my specifications do you have?" "Only two milord but a third will be ready in less than two days." "Two are enough for now. I will see if I can get then filled and brought back here." When they left the coopers, Jón said, "Epje and Klaasje will go with me to see the new barrel and stay for a few days to learn how to make barrels. When you are done, Dolf and Tiebout will have a turn. You all will get a turn and it should not be longer than a week for each of you." Dolf now said, "But I thought we were going to make your steel." "You are but you will know how to make a barrel and a saddle too. You don't have to go if you do not wish but it is the same thing I said to Forni. You either grow with me or apart." "I will learn anything you want." "Good then you will one day be a man that the emperor would gladly invite into his home." "Me?" "Yes you. A thousand or even two thousand years from now a child will read a book and hear of your names. They will know how good you were and what you have done. The sad part is that if you fail then they will know that too. If you do not try you will not be known at all. Life is like that. You have a chance to jump on something and it will take you to places you have never believed possible." We visited Rudi next but it was also a way of showing the children where he lived and also what he did. Rudi was also an easy man to get along with and Jón approached him differently. Jón introduced each of the children by name but he could not do too much more with the latest group because they had not opened up to him yet. The wagon was just started but a lot of things had to be worked out yet. Sadly some were by trial and error which sometimes led to mistakes. Jón said, "My students have to learn carpentry. You are a good man to teach them. When you have a few wagons built our way, will you take a few of the children in so they can use the tools and learn what you do? They will only be with you for a few months. I want them to have a well rounded education." "That will interfere with the number of wagons you want built." "Hire more men to make this go faster. The children are important to me. They are important enough that I pay you for your time and effort. I suggest you make a small scale wagon that is the length of one man. It can be pulled around by one boy or one girl. It can be used for carrying things in the castle but I want thick wheels so it can be used outside." "I can see just the thing. So this is not quite a toy?" "No, it will be useful but the children will learn by building it. The articles in our foundry are heavy and this is a way of moving them around." "This may be fun to make for me too." "Good. I have more news. The stonecutter Kareltje is making lime for me. I already have two barrels of it. More is waiting to be put into barrels. I gave him more opportunities for making silver. He collects clean dry ashes for me. He has some of my saws now and he will cut lumber. He will then have to dry it out and store it. The branches and scrap parts are used for lime or ashes. If you go to him, you can negotiate for a fair price for his lumber. You may even ask him to cut the wood the way you want. He will try to get the best for it though." "That can be expensive." "You will build faster but have to pay out more silver. In the end you will sell the wagons faster. You too will have to work more to cut and dry the wood." "I will think on this. I am not sure I want to see him though. The Gauls are on that road." "Tell me what you want and I will tell one of the soldiers. They are going to have to patrol the road and they can take your message." Rudi smiled since this sounded like a good solution. ------- Chapter 16 Jón saved the next business related destination of the day as his last. The people he had to deal with were not usually easy to get along with and Yngvi the smith was the worse of them. As soon as Jón entered the premises the smith came almost running out and fawned over him for his skill with the weapons. This was a dramatic departure from the way he had acted before. It was easy to see the avarice here because the smith would have a veritable goldmine if he made swords just like what the hero used. Yngvi said, "When will you be able to start converting my iron to steel?" "Right now. You hammered out the metal for Sander. You have to do the same thing for yourself." "I have done that already." "Have you made the clay jars with good fitting tops?" "I have a dozen of them ready for you." "That's very good. I like to see a man eager to learn and not put up any obstructions. You will need fuel but you are lucky because you can get by with wood. It takes a bit longer because it is not as hot. The result though is the same." "I have a great deal of wood on hand along with many bags of charcoal. I even have made the crushed variety you need for the jars." "Then the final requirement is the men that have to tend the forge for two to three days depending on the heat you generate." "They are available but I wanted you to stay with them." "I will stay as long as I am needed but I will not tend the fire nor sleep here just to keep your people company. Once the fire is made and it settles down they will just have to keep it that way for a few days." "I suppose that may be alright but you said you will help." "I will not tend your children nor will I tend your fire. Reasonably intelligent men can make my metal without problems." All of us entered the forge and Jón directed the smith into how to fill the jars. Yngvi didn't take the casual approach and I figured that he was still thinking it was magic and had to have everything perfect. Jón said, "You could just as easily made an kiln and put the jars into it. With many jars all lined up you can make a great deal of steel. This can be done later though after you understand the process better." It occurred to me that the stone cutter could make the blister steel too and not have to use any extra fuel. It would only slow down production of the ashes because the men would have to extract the jars from the oven. It was easier to get this fire going because the smith and his apprentices were both strong and eager to help. Large stones were used to contain the heat and most of the wood had to be cut smaller to fit the volume. The jars were put in place and Jón had to keep telling Yngvi that the placement was simply good enough. The fire started slowly and Jón mentioned that this was good to keep the thermal shock as low as possible. When the fire was going and nothing needed but some occasional air from the bellows Yngvi said, "Are you satisfied with the iron I sent you?" "I trust you to have given me a good product though I have been too busy to check it. Sander had been using the same process as you are doing now to turn it into steel." "He was not hesitant to show me everything I asked about though he didn't know all the reasons for doing something." "Sander is a potter and knows his craft but I am educating him as I am you. It takes time to absorb knowledge and some of ideas are just too complicated to bother telling him." "What do you mean?" "You do not leave a sharp knife around and tell an infant that it is sharp and should not be touched. He is simply too uneducated to understand. What you do here could not be taught to an infant either. The best that can be done is to allow them to watch and in time they will remember what you have done." "That is true. I have had some very difficult apprentices." "One day all this will be different. Your shop will be many times larger. There will be lamps both above your head and on the walls to supply a lot of light. Our steel will be formed into beams with steel wheels on it. Chain will descend from a device something like the block and tackle I made. You will pick up a crucible twenty times the weight of your anvil. You could melt the iron or steel and pour it into forms like you did for my bronze bushings. You could pour swords better than the one you have purchased from me." Yngvi let some anger show on his face and Jón casually added, "You have the very first sword I made. It is steel and if it is protected then people will marvel at what you own for thousands of years." "Thousands? Why would they do that?" "Bronze is very good. Iron is more plentiful but weak. Steel will be plentiful and strong. We are entering a new age and you are part of it. Your sword is the first of its kind." The smith said nothing but stared at the fire and did some thinking. Eventually he asked, "Will my job be turned into a man simply melting metal?" "Not really. Many more people will be doing your job or just part of it. A man is still needed to make horse shoes and to fit them. Another man works at a hammer that weights more than you would believe. Steam is used to make it go up and down. If you place hot steel in a mould made of hard steel and hammer the top of the mould then out will come a very good part that is almost already complete. In fact hammering steel in some cases makes it stronger like wars make our people stronger." "I think of my iron that way. I knock out the dross and I have a good weapon then." "Yes, I can see that. It is like the way I give education to the people the same way you give the atoms from the charcoal to the iron. Both get strong." Fires have always been hypnotic and we stood quietly watching the flames. The smith was probably always busy and would be laying out his daily work while the fire grew hotter. Now he was just thinking. It was one of his apprentices that broke the spell and the smith looked to be angry but didn't let too much of it reach his voice. It didn't take long to get the fire burning as we wanted. The smith didn't even mind us leaving because he had no reason to detain us. The children were quiet as we left the warmth of the forge and after Jón and I talked, he said, "Let's go home. We have to get cleaned up and then go for a meal. We have some more needles to make. You all have to do a bit of mending." Jón didn't even get any complaints. Geiri was pumping the bellows slowly and smiled when we approached. Her husband Sander was turning his potting wheel and making articles to sell. Sander said, "Did you get what you were after?" Jón replied, "Some of the things. There are always important matters to take care of." Sander made his thoughts known and Jón said, "The children are very important to me, Sander. They are always important. They are not like seeds that grow alone on the ground but they need nourishment and guidance along with a lot of love and understanding. They will then grow strong and tall with the right attitude to go out and do what is right." Sander said, "I said nothing." "Your look was enough." Jón turned to Aagt and Edana one of the new girls. "Will you two get a bucket of water? We need to clean our faces and hands then go find something to eat." Edana was not sure about leaving her band but Aagt was the lest frightening of the group she was now in. She was surprised when Aagt held her hand and coaxed her to the bucket. Jón said to me mentally, "I can't wait to have your hot water in an endless supply." "I would love that too but it means a lot of work. First there is steel for a tank then more for the pumps. This can be driven by the wind, a river or a cage with either an animal or a person in it. I suppose a hand pump would do just as well. We would then have to make a sewer and a leaching pit because there would be a lot more dirty water produced. We can't have that get back into the wells." "Why?" "You don't have those memories?" "I guess not." "In my time people have died when bacteria from cattle shit got back into a well people used for drinking water. If you went over the death records you would find that this had happened the same way for hundreds of years. I remember a place called Walkerton that this happened to them for hundreds of years. They didn't see the link between the rain washing the shit into the wells." "That could happen here." "Yes it can. The land is flat and water will not normally flow anywhere. You need to dig a deep pit and line it with rock and concrete. Pipes from all over town have to lead to this tank. When the tank is filled, then pumps are needed to push the water out onto the fields. It is a good fertiliser and keeps the plants watered." "We would need a very large tank and a great deal of pipe." "Very true. You will need a lot of people to work too. Horses can help but it will still be labour intensive." "We can build our steam engine?" "It takes time." The water had come in and was put in an iron pot but it was not very large. Jón and I thought of a way with the right anvil that we could make a much larger pot of steel that would weigh far less than iron. This meant that we needed to make the anvil too. More water was brought and the children were shown how to clean their hands and face. Jón had to use a rag to take care of some spots they had missed on their faces. The new people especially didn't seem to understand this. Since the current batch of steel had come to an end, the adults would come to the meal along with the two other infants. Tonight everybody would get a chance to sleep. We made it slightly early to the dining room and Jón got his people seated. Usually a seat was thought to be reserved but Clovis had people move if only for the sake that they not be complacent. When Helga saw us she started serving right away and the new children got even larger portions for their size. Helga for all her bluster was a motherly type and watched over these children even more than the others that came here to eat. Jón sat with them but knew he had to eat at the head table. He did act as a good host as he talked to the people at the table and tried to encourage the newcomers to participate. I could feel his happiness for all of them had given some indication of adjusting. When the head table started to fill, Jón said, "I have to go with my other family now. They like me to eat with them. My father makes sure of it. He likes to have ceremonies." When he stood to leave he rubbed Hafgan's hair and said, "I am going to have to talk about what we did and you may want to leave." He looked at Sander and said, "If the children look uncomfortable I want you to take them home. I will tell you after what you have missed. This is important. I don't want you thinking that you can just stay here and ignore them." "I will do what I must. You treat them as if they are going to break. How are they going to get strong?" "We will talk later about this," he said with a voice similar to what his father used. The priests came again to make sure they were seen and performed a ceremony that had to be cut short again by Jón. It was easy to see that the priests were not happy with this. I was sure they would not have stood for this treatment except for the fact that Clovis would come back and set things straight. Fálki was now here and came in late but there was no sitting room. Usually he and his men were given seats but many didn't want to move now. He had to eat standing up or at the end of a table. Soon enough the tables had to be moved and then taken completely out of the room. People came in and many more were in the halls. Jón had signalled Sander and got the children all put behind him. It was not for protection but to monitor them. Forni and Aagt were ordered through the back rooms to get the two camo suits and wear them back. Jón thanked everybody for coming then began. "Talking is a way of exchanging ideas. Teaching is a way of exchanging ideas too. One of the things I want to talk about is the new saddle. Fálki, will you and Albrecht come up here and talk about how the saddle and the lance worked and then how it would have if you had tried the lance on the old saddle or even bareback." The two men came up. Fálki pushed out his chest and said, "The saddle was a good idea. You can climb onto the horse easier. The lances were long and most of them were made for practice so they didn't do as much killing as they could. I thrust into the shoulder of an enemy and knocked him off his horse. I was pushed back hard but the back of the saddle kept me in place. The horse was pushed back too and the strap across his chest kept the saddle from sliding back." Albrecht pushed himself forward and said, "I got six in a row. I took out one in the head then lowered the lance and took out the next by swinging the lance behind his shield. He fell off and I got my horse to walk on him. The third was big and the lance slid across his shield but the end of the lance went down. I got him in the guts and pushed him off his mount. The forth was a little guy and he slashed at the lance and the bastard cut off the end. The end was now pointed and I managed to run the lance through him. The bastard stuck to my lance and I had to get my horse to back up so I could get rid of the filth. "The next tried chopping my lance but since it was shorter it was easy to move and he didn't shorten it more. I ran him through too and again I had to back up. The last was another big man but I got him through the neck. By then I was through the bastards and had to turn around and take them. They didn't seem to understand what was happening but they were learning fast. I must have got nearly twenty of them and it was easy. "It was the ones that were afoot that made me finally drop the lance. It was good for them too but it became difficult to move in all the bodies. I had to drop the lance when they ringed me and I had to take to my sword. One bastard stabbed my horse and he reared up. I didn't fall off but when the horse came down I had to jump for it. I got the bastard that killed the horse but there were just too many of them. One of them hit me on the head and that was the last I knew until I woke up laying across the back of a horse." Jón asked him, "How would you rate the saddle and lance against the Gauls? Were you able to kill more than you would normally?" "Yes, I got four or five times as much. I heard from some of my men that were not so good with the sword that they unhorsed almost a dozen men. The saddle is a good idea but an arrow will still strike and so will a spear." "Thank you Albrecht, now what do you think Fálki?" "We didn't practice much with the lance but if we did we would have got a lot more. The tip needs to be like your sword and made of steel. It goes through the armour easy. I had trouble getting the bodies off until I learned to just take off an arm or a head." Jón looked at the children and saw that they were not really bothered by the descriptions of mayhem and death. Fálki went through his kills and gave the technical data that the men in the room needed to feel the excitement as if they were there. When he wound down he talked about how he used his sword to kill his enemies and save his friends in passing. Forni and Aagt had been back and listened to the monologue and it was good that Aagt was the one in black. The new children shied from her but she was already a short thin child and less threatening accept for her costume. Jón said, "Thank you Fálki and Albrecht. We have all benefited from your knowledge and fighting abilities. I am sure if there were more of you then we would have taken all the Picts with little problem. Jón turned to the audience and said, "I want to show the two costumes." He helped Aagt to stand on the wooden chair and Forni into another. Starting with Forni he said, "In the forest this costume blends in. With some branches and leaves, it is difficult for the eye to pick out the shape of a person. We have used this particular costume to hide from our own men and it worked. Some were even shocked when a small hand sneaked out and grabbed their leg." There was some chuckling about this and most of it was from Fálki. Jón started his own monologue about the battle by recapping how the children were hidden in the tree and then the wagon hidden before donning the forest suit. Forni was helped down and Jón went through the way he was able to kill but not be noticed. This was done in a dry way so as to not emphasize the glory and gore that the Germans loved. One of the survivors of the first battle was brought up and he talked of what he had done. When this was finished, including their harrowing return trip Jón said, "We will have to talk tomorrow of the next segment." Astrid, Dagmar and in fact everybody else wanted to hear more but Jón was playing them like a showman where he left them wanting more. He at least gave the excuses he used last night and mentioned his wound and fatigue. When the others left the hall, Astrid and Dagmar got close and Astrid said, "You may need a bath for your health." "I may at that but I promised Forni something." Forni smiled and got close. Now the women seemed put out but they had been informed of this yesterday. Jón took his group back to the forge and got them settled in for the night. The straw that they slept on was crushed and he said, "I want you to go to the stables and bring more straw for bedding. Sweep up what we have and take it to the stables for the animals." The children questioned this with their faces but said nothing. Apparently the straw they had was comfortable enough. Jón just tugged Forni's hand and the two left the large room. Forni stopped them and said in a whisper, "Hafgan would like to come too." I did some quick explaining to Jón and he said to Forni, "Hafgan has his testicles cut off. He is young and has never had the urges we have. He looks like a girl and must have been fucked since he was very young and by men and not boys his age. With no testicles, he cannot feel the joy we have. The only reason he wants to come is to fit in. He is worried he will be cast out. It is his way of getting me to keep him." "We can still fuck him." "Forni, he would be doing it only to buy his position. I will not have you or any of the boys fuck him. He needs hugs and to know that he is loved but not for sex." "But he wants to suck me." "Forni, he knows that you are my friend. He wants to buy your love. If you have sex with him I will have less love for you." "I won't touch him then." "I want you to touch him but not for sex. Think of him as a younger brother." "I'll try. Now let's go." They hurried to Jón's room and both boys removed their clothes quickly. They sucked each other with Jón trying to hold off longer but Forni enjoying many dry orgasms. I was not adverse to this at all but it was distracting. Watching a porno movie was good but this one ran a long time. Forni was cuddled in Jón's arms and he said, "I told you about how the men took me." "Yes you did." "Well the man used grease on his finger to all of us." "Yes, you told me that." "Well after a while it didn't hurt very much." Jón was quiet and then Forni said, "It hurt at first when he fucked me but he went slow. After a while it didn't hurt so much." Jón was again noncommital and Forni finally said, "After a while it felt kinda good. The next guy was smaller and didn't hurt at all. I liked it then." After a long silence Jón said, "That's natural. You have a gland in your butt that likes to get pushed around." Again there was a long silence and Forni asked, "Am I going to be like the prince?" "I don't know. From what I hear, he likes his butt fucked and likes to do that to others. He is happy to fuck or have someone move his gland around. It doesn't matter who it is as long as he has that good feeling. He may not really like men to do that but now that he has felt it he wants to keep it up. Does that answer your question?" "No. I want to do everything with you. If I could, I would have your baby so you would not have to go with a woman." Jón squeezed the boy and said, "That is natural too. You may grow out of it completely or just a bit to allow a woman to help you feel good." "I don't want a woman." "Not now but it may happen. In fact I hope that you will want women some day. I will have to marry a woman to have a family but we can always be friends. Haven't you looked around? Men still have their boyhood friends and I think some still do things." "Really?" "Really." "My hole is big now. Do you think you can try fucking me?" "In a month. I want you to heal." "You are not as big as the men." The erection that was sticking between Forni legs kept him asking but Jón said, "In four weeks. Not before." "Can I suck you again?" "What do you think of the taste?" "I love it and I want more." "Then you better turn around. I seem to be ready again." The next morning came early for the boys but now I had to push. They had a quick breakfast then I had them hurry to begin their duties. A new batch of iron had to be prepared and both Sander and Wiebe were busy at this. The old hands began to fill the clay jars and they told the newcomers what they were doing and why. Forni and Dina had got dressed thinking the worse when I lead them back to the kitchen for a lunch. "It may not be advisable to set our own hours over those of the bootmaker." Andsvarr was already up and working on the last saddle of our old contract. It actually looked very good. Jón and I admired the work and the man didn't object when Jón ran his hands over it. Jón said, "You make a beautiful saddle. Perhaps people from all over the Roman Empire will be asking you to make a saddle for them." Andsvarr puffed up and said, "I am good at leather work." "I think the hundred saddles I want will help you grow in fame. Any surviving Roman or Pict will want to know about your saddle. You should think now about making a larger workshop and hiring more people." "You think they will all come?" "I do. A person that makes saddles is called a saddler. He can either make the trees himself or buy them. If you buy them then you could make your silver quicker. A hundred saddles is just a start." "I will think on this." "Have you thought on the price?" "Yes I have. My boys are interested in making the saddles and in training the children you claim as your own." "That's good. You may then be more of a supervisor that has to ensure that everybody is doing as they should. You could still work but if you hire more men then you don't need to work yourself." "That is true. Anyway I want two full weight denarii for each saddle. The ones the children make will be double that because my sons could spend their time more profitably making their own saddles." "You want two hundred and forty eight Denarii? Did you remember that I am supplying the leather." "I took that into consideration and I need ten more sets of those needles you made me." "The silver, the leather and the awls?" "Yes." "Your price is much too high. You are not the only place that can make my saddles. The bootmaker down the street could do it." "He doesn't know about the trees." "Rudi made the first two trees and he could make a hundred and twelve in a few days. I will have to see if he can do this for me. I have the tanned leather already. Perhaps I can get the veterans to do this for me. They may not be good but after a few days they could do this just fine. I would also get them made in a week." "They cannot teach the children much." "That is true but the bootmaker down the street could do that. You fail to understand something master bootmaker. I have the knowledge, I have the silver and I have or can get the leather and wood. I do not begrudge you a fair profit, but I do not want to get taken for a fool either. Give me a fair price now or I will leave." The man grumbled and walked around the room a few times with his hands behind his back. He usually gestured with them and he would hit things if he walked. When he stopped he was about to talk but then shut his mouth and walked again. When he did stop he looked deflated. He said, "I will do everything for a hundred and sixty Denarii. I still get your leather and the ten awls." "I will give you eighty Denarii when you give me fifty saddles. This will be in thirty days. After that many days I will give you one less coin for each day. I will give you eighty more Denarii at the end of sixty days but again it will be one less coin for each day." "How can I do that. Your ideas are foolish. I will not do it." "I could have talked you down to a hundred and forty Denarii but I chose to pay more. The extra money will have to go to paying for people that will help you. I do not command but suggest you hire the veterans. It does not matter if they are Roman, Pict or Frisian. If ten new men work for you for two months making my saddles I will give you ten Denarii above our deal but ten are the maximum. Do not be quick to turn them loose because I may have more work for you." "You will help pay for my workers?" "Yes and I will provide more awls but you can only use the amount of leather needed for my projects. The rest belongs to me." "I will accept your offer, milord." He had learned something and put out his hand to be shook. "Then here are your first two students. Their saddles do not count toward the fifty. Teach them well and with kindness. One day they will be important people and they will be able to crush you if they remember you with hate." The master bootmaker looked at the young children with a new eye. I was going to ask the children daily and they would be assessing the bootmaker too. Jón walked to the barracks and checked on the wounded again. He had remembered some names and used them where he could. The men usually sat up and smiled no matter if they had been ally or enemy. Fálki was sitting in another room of the barracks. This one was more deserted but not completely. It looked like he was going over some documents at a table. The man looked up and said, "Good morning, milord." "Good morning to you too, Fálki. Are these the documents we got from the camp?" "Yes, all of them. There were more hidden in Kirwyn's tent and didn't find them until we took the tent down. The Roman officer's name is Quintus. The man you took is his assistant and goes by the name Kaeso. The other two Romans that died, were just guards. The only Pict that is still a prisoner is Teirtu. He is an officer and your new people don't like him locked up." "Would they try to free him?" "I don't think so. They are pretty afraid of you." "What did you find in the documents?" "I do not read Latin very well. It is hard to understand." "Who can read these documents that you can trust?" "Your father can read it better but he is not here. We have some captured Romans but few of them can read. Can you read anything?" Jón had taken some lessons but had been a spoiled boy and the lessons had not been continued. I had not taken Latin at all. "Only a word or two. Did you question the Romans?" "Yes I did. They are all kept separate and I told them nothing about the camp. Each thinks that they were just abducted in the night for information." "What about the Pict?" "We spent a lot of time with him but he is starting to talk. We found that there were almost two hundred men in his band that were sent against us. Some of them by now, have come under our lances but they cannot just ambush us and get away with it. We put many to their feet and more into the ground. There will be little trouble from them." "Two hundred is not much but we have eight other large cities and a lot of towns. Was this group supposed to terrorise just our city or go from one to another? If it is the first, then there may be bands all over." "We have already thought of that and men were sent to inform all the settlements they could." "Have you heard anything of father through the Pict or through our people?" "I have heard nothing from your father but men have seen where there has been large battles. The carrion eaters have picked the places clean. Your father is still alive and recruiting. I hear he is even asking older men to join his ranks." This made me worry and I explained myself to Jón. He said to Fálki, "We just came by a lot of armour, weapons and horses. What can we do with it to arm our own people. We may be in for a serious attack and need to repel it." "I am ahead of you now. We are getting every adult male into some form of training. Some resent it and have left but many more are coming here seeking refuge." "How much of the bronze armour is mine to deal with?" Fálki looked at Jón with a calculating look. "I think most of it. What do you want it for? We may need it ourselves." "I needed three talents before but I want more now." "Three talents is a lot of armour. We need all we can get." "I am making a weapon Fálki not a toy. The bronze is important to me too." "What are you making?" "I will let you know when it is complete." "You can tell me." "I could but you would not know." "I have trusted you in many things." "Yes you have but what I say is true. You will not know. It is like an onager. Instead of a heavy stone it will fire a small sphere of iron, brass or bronze. What you will not understand is that the sphere will burst with such force that it will kill people nearby with a great many small pieces of metal." "The Romans have used something like that when they throw a great many smaller stones." "It is not just that. My metal onager can be made larger and a smaller sphere will be flung so fast that it will go six or more miles. When it hits a wall it will break it. If it hits a man it will not even slow down much. And like your small stones it can also cast out nine smaller spheres that will kill anybody in their path. The weapon is small but still heavy compared to the onager." "I understand perfectly what you have said. Why would you think I would not?" "I have not told you all. First there is a powder I have to make. If it is done very carefully. It is made to burn much faster than you can imagine. The smoke is so great that it provides the power to push the metal sphere very far and fast. The same powder, if it is contained in a hollow sphere, will build up so much power that it will shatter the sphere." "I understand that. It is easy. Did you think I am stupid?" "You are far from stupid but you have not seen the power yet. To stand beside my weapon when my fuel burns is the same as to be standing where a great bolt of lightning strikes. To stand beside the hollow sphere when it burns inside is the same thing but metal will be flung out so fast that they will go through your armour and body and continue to fly a great distance away. This is something that you cannot possibly imagine until you have seen, heard and felt it." Fálki thought for a moment then said, "The priests may not like this. It is like the onager the Romans use. They will think it is something only the Romans would think of." "My father wants this but he is not here to get it started. He knew of the possible objections of the priests but there is another matter to think on." "What?" "If I make this device then the secret of the powder has to be kept. Think of what the Romans could do with it." "It is just like an onager. Why worry?" "The onager is a toy for children to play with. With much better steel and a better powder then the sphere can weigh twenty talents and travel twenty five miles. The hollow sphere will have the better powder in it and when it hits it will push out with such force that it will make a hole in the ground deeper than a man is tall and many more men laid end to end all the way around. "Picture a hundred such weapons throwing a sphere every minute of the day. No city can withstand that for even an hour. The Romans could be so far away that we would not be able to see them. It would take the legion half a day at a good march to cover that distance." "I can see now what you mean but we will say nothing." "This is so important that the Romans will send ten legions here. You, your men or I would be captured. Are you so certain they could not find out the secret?" "I guess not." "First of all, do I own a lot of good quality armour?" "Yes you do." "You are the armourer. How much of the armour you hold is scrap or nearly so." "In weight?" "Yes." "Five or six talents." "How much is good quality?" "Seven talents I think. "When my father left he probably took the best armour. Would he have accepted a trade of my good armour for his trash?" "He would, I think." "You have my word that my father supports my weapon. Would you trade me for his trash?" "You need it all?" "What use is trash to you?" "You're right. I will trade. It would hurt me too much to see the good armour melted down." "Thank you Fálki. Now what gold, silver and other valuables do I now own. I am using all the tents but I am turning them into saddles for our calvary." "I have not counted it but it is in the armoury." "Is there scrap bronze I can buy in the city and in other cities." "Everybody has some metal that they horde. How much there is, I have no idea." "How many fighting men do you have?" "Only a hundred and seven without counting the Franks." "How many old men are there that are worth the name warrior that you are not counting?" "Perhaps double that but most have missed a leg or an arm and in some cases both. Most live on their farms and not in the city." "You have a lot of Roman captives and Gauls too. Will some fight for us against their own people?" "If they gain something from this then they will fight. There are perhaps a hundred Gauls that will fight Romans and twenty Romans that will fight Gauls." "Were you left in complete charge of protecting the city?" "No, I share this responsibility with Grímkell. Why do you ask?" "I can make some of the powder and some of the metal tubes that I will call cannons. They are the devices that propel a solid sphere. The sphere is called a solid shot and as I said will travel six or more miles with a large cannon. A mortar is a small short cannon. It shoots up and over a wall. Dropping a heavy object on somebody, even from a great height. Is that not dangerous to a city? Dropping a hollow sphere, which I will call a shell, will cause a lot of damage, fear and death. A howitzer is a larger mortar designed to shoot much further. It, like the cannon, are usually put on a wagon of their own. "My mortar should have a greater range than any Roman weapon. With cannon mounted on the walls that fire the nine spheres, the Romans will not be able to get close." "You can make all this?" "Yes, but with help. The cannon can throw their shell so far and fast that the very heavy cannon is pushed backwards up to twenty feet. To put a good sized weapon on the wall would destroy the wall with only one shell being cast. The areas that support the cannon has to be strengthened with much more stone. I would like to have eight cannon but four will be all I can make. The mortars are smaller and can be fired from the ground inside the wall and the bomb will fly over the walls and into the enemy." "That sounds good but how is the wall going to be made thick?" "That is what I wanted to ask you. Men have to cut stone for the cannons but there is another way." "How?" "The cannon as I said can be put on a heavy cart with only two large wheels. A separate cart is used to carry the shells and powder. This one is pulled by four, six or even eight horses. The cannon will be attached to this cart. You are pulling either two or even three carts with one large team of horses. Calvary is needed for protection. They men have to be mounted. "The carts are pulled outside the walls when the Romans come. They can shoot the shells and the solid shot and the Romans will not be able to get close enough to do anything. A smart Roman will split his men up into small groups where it is not worth burning the powder to kill them. Here we need men with good saddles and lances." "Thor would look favourably on us then." "Fálki, we can also wait for our enemies to make camp within range of our cannon. If we can last until then, you can take the cannons and the mortars out and kill hundreds of them in their own camp the way they wanted to attack us." "I like that idea." "We get a lot more bronze too for more cannon." "If you can do what you did to the Picts then our enemies will all die." "There will be a lot more of them but the shells do not have to be used in a mortar. They can be thrown by hand into the Romans or smaller ones can be put on arrows. Here a Roman onager would do for this though the range would be shorter. A shield may help our enemies when the bombs expand but not much." "Do you have some of this powder?" "I have to make it. It has to be done in secret so the ingredients I use will not be known. Some men will have to know and they will not be able to even tell their friends or family that they make the powder. One man that drinks can answer a Roman spies questions and the next thing you know, he will be tied up and carried to Rome." "I can see that. The Romans have a great many spies and assassins. I am surprised that they have not killed you." "When they learn of what I do then they will come. Now if the Romans or the Gauls come here we will need warriors and food. What can you do to get the food here before they come?" "Grímkell will have to help. I could not do this alone." "To build the cannon I need much more iron, charcoal and good oak. The carts have to be strong. If we wait until after the enemy arrives then we will not be able to make anything." All our talk had been in whispers but the few men were drifting too close. Fálki said, "Let's check the walls?" Fálki learned more about the cannon but it was difficult without seeing one and then seeing it in operation. He though could be a person in charge of a gun crew. Jón let me take over the questioning. Most of this was also linked to descriptions that were better said without translation. I explained the duties to him. He was eager to try but now I asked all the most difficult questions I could so that he would not choose this job blindly. Mostly I concentrated on how doing this job was not the type of conflict his people wanted. Killing at a distance was not manly and no bravery was displayed. This would be the same as being a butcher. Fálki had to answer the questions in detail but it looked like he would accept the duties. That didn't mean that Jón or I would not stop harassing him because he had to break out of his barbaric mentality and look at the new type of warfare as proper too. I was concerned with a possible siege and the demands this would make on the city. Fálki had gone through sieges but he had been in the group outside the wall. He did promise to see what he could do. He would count out my money and give me a total because I had to start building much faster now. Even the construction had to have preparations made. I would purchase food now when it was cheap and plentiful but it would have to be stored where it would not rot or be eaten by vermin. Fálki would send some of the leather tents to the bootmaker for me. "This will be easy because I will tell my men that they will get saddles like I have." "I am starting with a hundred saddles and that should take care of most of the active soldiers. If things go well I will make more." "They would like that." "What about jousting practice? You learned something when you attacked the Gauls. It is best if everybody learns what you mean and then practices it." "The men are eager to try this. I do not have to order it at all. They know how many we killed and they are anxious to best our numbers." I went out into the city again and contacted men that would cut and lay stone. The influx into the city had taken up most of the available housing but there were a few areas still up for grabs. This would be the granary and if it were tall enough it would even be a watchtower. The cost to build this would be very high. I doubted if even my current newfound wealth could build and fill it. Rock from the quarry would be needed but there had to be a source closer. The few stone cutters knew of limestone close to the surface but to get it required draining a small lake. Other areas had salt over the rock and I knew that this was the potash I had found further from the city. Jón and I learned a great deal and I had to think of ways of making a new excavation and keep it drained. Simply discharging the water onto the land would be no good unless it was allowed to flow away from the site. There were four other large smiths in Hildestun and two smaller part time affairs. I simply invited the smiths to a business lunch at the castle to discuss me giving information about my steel and a business opportunity for them. Rudi was busy on the wagon I wanted but he stopped when Jón and I came in. He said, "This is a challenge for me and I think it is beautiful. What do you think?" The wagon axles were roughed out and the mark of the adz was all over them. The finished surfaces may never exist in these units. Jón said, "They look very strong. In fact it looks far stronger than any wagon I have ever seen." "That is one of the reasons I like it." Jón asked, "You sent out men to bring back beams for you. Are they continuing to harvest the trees?" "Yes they are. We have a large pile and I wanted to try this wagon to carry some of the wood here if you do not mind." "That is what it is for. With no tests we will not know its capabilities." "Is that what you came to ask me?" "That was a part. I have some wealth now thanks to the Picts. I want you to cut more trees and square them." "How many are you talking about?" "I want to build a granary within the walls. The foundation will be stone and the walls up to the height of a man will be stone too be after that I want it to be of wood. Green wood shrinks so I want to make the wall two boards thick and the gaps will not matter much when they dry out." "What size is this to be?" When he was told he said, "That is very large. I can think that it will need over a hundred large trees if we only use the larger portions." "I still need carts. This brings me back to the need for you to hire more people." "I have looked but there are few that I would hire." "I will give you ten silver pennies if you will hire veterans. Those with one or more missing legs can work in one place with their hands. Those with a missing hand or arm can still carry things for others. Two one handed men may do the work of one that is whole." "They will not be as useful. I will have to pay them less." "Give them pay based on how much they produce and they will work hard. Try to give them the same pay as a whole man. They will feel better about it and I will pay the difference." "Why would you do this." "The veterans just sit around. My father feeds them whether they are Roman or Picts. I will feed their soul by giving them a useful job. This, I hope, will free up more men to harvest the trees and build the granary. The crop is coming in now and I have heard that half of it rots. I want it in the city where it is safe from vermin and disease." Rudi must have caught something for he said, "Do you expect the Picts to lay siege to the city?" "I am not sure. If they do we will not starve. If you talk of this then people will be worried needlessly. I have heard that my father is fighting a great many large battles and has called up the older men to help him. I am just being cautious. Do not spread what I have said." "I will not and I will seek harder to find men to help. They will want to be paid though and I have little left." Jón paid him money for the trees cut even if they had not been transported into the city yet. After the money was passed over, Jón said, "I made an agreement with the bootmaker for a hundred more saddles for men and a dozen more for the children I am training. He is under a time limit or he will loose money. He will need a great many saddle trees to be made. He will come to you. Think on the men required to make them. My children will have to be part of the making of the twelve so they will learn." "This means I need more room to work. If we are attacked I will no longer have wood and it should now be stored within the walls. This means that I will have to build a much larger shop." "Build bigger than you think you will need. Think of a kiln yourself to dry the wood." "All this costs a lot of silver and what if you change your mind?" "You will not go hungry especially with a new granary. The silver you need to grow will have to come from you selling your carts. Once this cart is seen then others will want them too. Remember that I want lighter wheels that are dished. Others will want this too. The smiths will be able to supply steel tools soon but I will make yours the best I can. I cannot see a reason to stop what I have started. Most of my money will go into the granary and then to fill it." "You could sell it dearly during a siege." "I will sell it for what I purchased it for plus a little for wastage. If people have no silver then I will give it away. I will not have anybody starving." ------- Chapter 17 Jón and I made it back to the castle a bit before lunch and we had a chance to see Helga to iron out some details. Helga smiled and said, "What trouble are you in now? I know you want my help." "You are just too smart. I want to meet the rest of the smiths in the city. If I go to each of them my jaw will be sore. If they come here to taste your cooking then I will only have to tell them once. Usually they would ask questions and then everybody will hear the answers and possibly think of more." "What are you getting them to do for you?" "I make steel and I want them to make some too. Swords are good but I want steel armour. It will be better than iron or bronze. Our men will then be safer." "Just tell them to make it. They will do what you want." "They don't know how to make steel yet. Then I have to show them how to make the steel hard. They have to be convinced to try this. I have an idea for you too." "I am not going to make your iron." "No, not that. You dry and cure meat so we can use it over the winter. If I gave you some silver could you hire some people to do a lot more?" "Why, we usually have enough?" "There are two reasons. The first is that father may need some supplies and we can make them for them. If they have to hunt and cook they may not be able to eat well. Your cured sausage would keep them fed and alive. The second reason is that a lot of refugees have come to our city. The Picts chased them here and that is what the Picts wanted to happen. We feed a lot of people and if we have to feed more I will not want to turn anybody away. This means that we lay aside more food. If more people flood into our city then we will need even more. I am just trying to make sure that we are not only both alive but healthy when spring arrives." "If there are too many then just not let people enter the city in the first place." "Then I want you at the gate to tell a woman that she and her children are not wanted." Helga said nothing and looked to one side. "It doesn't sound like you would want to do that. Better to set aside more food now. Dried meat and cured sausage sound easy but they are hard to make and difficult to make so they keep. Do you know somebody that can take care of this for you?" "Who will hunt?" "Hunting is not a chore. Fálki would send out a hundred hunters but you could not deal with all the meat." "There are some people that make good sausage. I will see if they will help me." "Thank you, Helga. You will not regret this." "There is a lot of work to do and you better make sure you help." The smiths came in but at scattered times. Being prompt was not a thing that any barbarian thought of doing. Some may come by in a week and wonder why I was not here to greet him. Two of the larger smiths and one of the smaller were the only ones that came. I held off my spiel but had to start it eventually. I had one of Sander's clay jars and lids on the table and I explained the secrets of making blister steel. Nobody interrupted me because this was new to them. I stressed the importance of the sealed jar and the way the charcoal had to be crushed fine to make better contact with the metal. I was asked about the time taken and said, "It depends on the heat you use. The hotter it is the more of the charcoal will enter the iron." One smith said, "I have some iron that is too brittle to use. Is this what you are making?" "Not at all. Break this iron up and mix it with hot iron. Fold it over and over again to mix the charcoal in the iron better. Eventually you will get steel. One day I will be making that iron for tools but it has to be made into a liquid then cast into the shape you want. This is the same way as you cast bronze or brass." "Nobody can melt iron. I have tried." "It can be done but it requires a lot of work. You need a very large kiln. Instead of normal air being pushed into it, it has to be heated first. This is done with two large brick tunnels. Charcoal is burnt and a bellows pushes the heat through one set of bricks. The bricks get hot after a while. When they are near the hottest they can get you push the hot smoke through the other set of bricks." "What will this do except make hot bricks?" "You push clean air through the tunnel of hot bricks to get hot air. This goes into the large kiln to make it even hotter than anybody got before. When the bricks cool off too much the other tunnel is used while the one you left is heated again. The trick is getting enough air into the kiln. You could use a lot of people with a lot of bellows or you could use a water wheel to operate the bellows." "I have heard of a water wheel but that just turns around. How can it make the bellows go up and down?" Jón took his plate and put it on its side. "This is attached to the water wheel and it will turn with the wheel. If you put a large peg into the wheel and a wooden bar from that peg to the top portion of the billows, then the billows will go up and down too." It took a great deal of explaining but in the end they saw how a rotating wheel could produce reciprocating motion. When Jón was done he said, "I have shown you how to melt iron but that is still not enough. Charcoal is made from wood that is baked. Water and many things are cast off from the wood as it is heated. The same thing can be done to coal. You will get coke instead. This is even better because it will make the fire hotter still. "I called you all here to tell you how to make steel then after it is formed to make it hard. I want the large kiln built but not in the city. It is too dirty and the air that comes off can make you sick. "If many people go out and collect iron and make it into blister steel then some of us can turn the steel into armour and weapons. Steel is stronger than iron and much harder too. I would like to buy the steel from you. Are any of you interested in making this for me?" One of the owners of a larger smithy said, "I have enough work to do without wasting my time with this. My iron is good enough." "Will you sell me your iron in thin sheets so I can make it into steel?" "I would have to go out more and make more charcoal." "Yes, and you would make more silver." "That is too much work." "You can hire others to harvest the trees and to collect the raw iron. You could even hire a boy to operate the bellows when the one you have is tired. You pay the boy from the extra silver you make." "I am not interested." "Then thank you for your help. You asked questions that the others thought of and helped make my ideas clearer." Turning to the others, Jón asked, "Are you interested in selling me steel or iron?" It was the owner of the smaller operation that asked, "How much are you offering?" "Are we talking about iron or steel?" "Ah... steel; I guess." "I will deal in talents of steel then. For each weight I will give you four silver pennies." "That is not much. I can make much more." "You make a sword but it takes a lot of time to hammer it out. You have less work to do by selling me just raw steel. You are not selling just one sword but hundreds. Surely if I went to you and asked for a hundred swords I would get a cheaper price than just one sword bought a hundred times." "How many talents do you need?" "A hundred at least for a start. If you hire people to help you then the profit is lower but you get your silver quicker." Jón took out his k-bar and put it on the table with the point aimed away from everybody. "This is a steel knife. Tell me if you could make one as good out of iron?" The man admired the knife then looked at Jón. The boy nodded and the man picked it up. He ran his thumb along the blade then hit the table edge with it. It went in deep and when the knife was removed the edge was checked. "Is this what you used?" "My sword mostly but this too. If we go to your forge, we will see what it does to bronze armour? You will find it goes through easily. It will also go through a man. I am not strong but my sword took off two heads. A full grown man could make a steel sword cut through an enemy. The edge stays sharp longer. The blade is thinner and easier to wield. When an iron sword will bend, a steel one will do so much less but it will come back to its original shape. I am telling you that steel will be what you will make in the future. Your work now will last longer. This may not sound good but more people will come here looking for the tools you make out of steel." The man fingered the knife a lot and then put it down. "I think I will make some steel even if it is just to make a knife like this." "Make a sword too. Then test it. With a bit more work you can make some armour. Think of the warriors that will come flocking to you to be fitted." "I could do that but you would make nothing. Why are you suggesting that I do this?" "You are mistaken. I will make something. I will have a warrior that is better armed than anybody in the history of the world. He will go out and kill our enemies in such numbers that they will never come back here again. I want to see my people live free." "This steel is that good?" "My word is not what you should take. Make some steel and see for yourself. My suggestion though is to get lots of iron and charcoal because you will not be able to keep any tools for show. They will be purchased as soon as they are complete." This meeting looked to be a flop. Jón should have let me put out the steel products we made and let them decide what steel was really like. They did have the basics though. The dishes were now being taken away from the table Jón had been using. He carried some of them into the kitchen to help out. Jón was doing a lot of odd things when seen from the perspective of those around him but it seemed natural enough to me. Watching the women wash dishes I suggested to Jón. "Why not have a large tub made by the coopers? "You can have a bath and even stretch out. You need some additional metal pots for heating water and there is still the commitment to make tools for the bootmaker. Rudi will need more too." "I guess we better get started then." Jón went back to the forge. The children were all using the steel to make things and most of those were the needles. Even the new ones were doing a fair job. Instead of making some tools, Jón put a lot of raw iron into the forge. Then he added even more. I didn't ask but there could only be a few things it could be. Dolf was put on the bellows and had to work harder because the metal had to get hot. Jón took the lumps and with Epje holding the tongs welded the lumps together. Soon it got so heavy that the men had to move the large lump into the flames and then out again to add more metal to it. Eventually it was put on the stone floor to be worked. More and more iron went into the fire and eventually the new anvil was worked at the edge of the forge. The men started to question the size but Jón said, "A large anvil works just as good as a small one but can also handle large jobs. I am sure that we will be making some large tools." The men and some of the children had a chance to get tired forming the anvil. Feet were welded into place but they may not keep it from rocking. A horn was in place but not very large. Some of the steel was now built around the horn and this was built up with many layers. The top surface got three layers of steel and it was used to extend around the sides. Jón had obviously seen the images in my memories and was building the best he could. There was simply too much work to do and too little time. Everybody went to bed but Sander had to take first watch over the steel being made. He didn't seem to mind doing a few extra hours at night. The anvil was still hot the next morning but it could be used. After a breakfast they all hurried back and began making more of the small things that would cost so much because of their fine details. The three sizes of awls were made and the children made theirs too. They would be using them when making their own saddle. Forni and Dina hadn't minded the bootmaker but this was probably due to the newness of the situation. They had gone off on their own right after breakfast to start their duties. Epje and Klaasje went to fetch some larger pieces of wood to complete the wood lathe. The legs, wheel and treadle was all they had. When the tree trunk came back it had to be squared off on two opposite sides then chisels used to make a hole down the middle of it. A saw was then used to cut two parallel cuts. When this was done the files and chisels cleaned up the edges. One large chisel worked like a plane to make the top and bottom surfaces parallel and flat. The tailstock would get anchored through the slot in the middle and a wedge would lock it in place where it was needed. The headstock had to be designed but it too could have to be made to move so that it could also turn large bowls off the end. Bushings had to be designed and moulds made but the forge had to stay another day to complete the job of making steel. Jón was very tired when lunch came but he was building up some muscle too. Instead of going back to the forge I convinced him to check on the coopers. When Jón arrived the oldest member hurried to him and said, "I thought you were coming yesterday, milord." "I was very busy and you had to get a smith to make the metal hoops. The smiths are not the fastest at doing a job either." "I have found that out too. They are very unlike our guild." Jón said nothing about this but did say, "I want a large tub made just like the lower half of a barrel. You can make a stave at each side longer to form a handle for carrying." "Will it have to have a metal hoop?" "Yes, one at the top and one at the bottom." He went on to give the dimensions. The cooper was incredulous and said, "We have never made a tub that large before." "In years to come this will be just a small one. We need many large ones and even barrels that are well over the height of a man." "For beer?" "Some and others for wine but I want a very large one to be placed on the top of a building I want to make. It will hold water." Jón gave some measurements and I saw that this was in the range of ten tonnes." I said to Jón, "That is heavy for that structure." "Then we build the granary stronger. We are already putting hoops around it like the barrels. We can brace it inside too." "That should work." The cooper too was astonished and Jón stayed until he got a preliminary quote for the construction. The small barrel was easily disassembled and Jón and I looked at the construction. He said, This is well made but it is still too weak. The staves will have to be thicker and the top and bottom much thicker." "I would build better if I knew what it would contain." "That may be true but I will not tell you yet. Has the barrel you made been taken yet? Fálki was going to make sure it got delivered." "Yes it did. I added one more notch to the tally stick. What am I to do with this barrel?" How much will you sell it to me for?" They came to a quick deal and Jón would have to return later to pick it up and probably make comments on the second version when it was done. Things got more and more hectic as the days rolled by. Fálki was on many of the patrols and Albrecht was given some of the duties. His prince didn't seem to be interested in leaving or even interested in seeing his men. Albrecht now had a chance to make some silver. The job of making the granary caused a big stir in the city simply because of its size. Shovels with steel blades were used and the soil shovelled into wheelbarrows. The wheelbarrows were another new invention that had a lot of tongues wagging. The steel wheel, axle and brass bushings made it easy to move. A few days later a large steel scoop was made that was pulled by a horse with a collar. A man was at the other end holding two long poles. If he picked up just a bit then the leading edge of the scoop bit into the earth and soon filled the bucket. When full the man pushed down and the horse dragged the scoop to where it could be dumped. Thick stone began to arrive and it was put into place. Wood arrived too and was put to one side. At the same time the farmers were contacted and offered silver for their grain. Germany could be very productive but grain still rotted because it was not dried well or rodents got to it first. The drying had to be done and the type of granary would keep the rodents out. Jón avoided the granary as much as possible. It was going up well but they always asked questions of him that could be answered if they bothered to think of it. He spent much of his time talking to everybody and about every conceivable subject. He was trying to find out about what we truly needed to know. Sulphur or what was known as brimstone was asked about but it was used in relation to destroying wild yeast strains in used wine barrels. Other minerals I required were asked about too. All were needed but not all of them for making black powder. One old man knew of some on some land that his family had abandoned as a child. One more farm had passed through their hands and they were now on their third. It could not continue to support all the demands on it. The sulphur though was important. Animals were discussed and their habits but always bats were mentioned. This lead to bat caves. The land in this area was mostly flat and had little chance to find a cave that was not filled with water. Bats though had been seen but none had found where they lived. Further to the south though there were hills and the Harz Mountains were in the south of Germany. The various ores of iron were discussed even one that stuck to iron tools but nobody seemed to remember seeing these ores. The same thing was mentioned about silver, copper and tin but if they had known of these then they would have been mined. Anthracite coal was described and then bituminous. Some of this was seen but the locations were vague and it was usually small pieces not actual deposits. Finally lakes or streams of a thick black liquid were asked about. This seemed to be different and some reference to a wide area were talked about but nobody had actually been to this area only heard about it. The large barrels I had ordered were used to store the grain that was purchased and there were quite a few of them. The lime was used to make a poor type of cement that went between the large stones and the floor itself. A ditch around the granary ensured that any water build up would be noticed and dealt with before the grain became affected. A sewer would be better but there was none. Jón practised with his swords and knives a lot more now and the children were being taught some of what he knew. The newcomers were now integrated but it would take more time before they were normal. Hafgan had to be taken in hand. He still looked for somebody to protect him and many men saw his beauty and wanted him for themselves there was some trouble with the boys in the group too but not much. Hafgan usually slept with the boys and they went out of their way to make sure that he knew his was accepted. The girls did the same thing and called him their brother. Sander made a large mould for the mortar without knowing what it was for. The clay for the mould had been fired then coated with a fine mud and fired again to get the finish the best it could be. Fálki and a dozen of his most trusted men sorted the scrap bronze from the good. This was not important but he wanted them in on the very start of the project. The mortar was cast but it was thicker than needed just for safety. Strength was important and bronze cannons blew up less than iron ones. One day my steel ones would be much safer. The wood lathe helped make another lathe. Over a period of time another one was made but this one worked vertically. The mortar was hung, mouth down and lowered slowly onto a revolving steel bit. After many light passes the barrel looked good. Soft iron spheres were made to fit the mortar but that was just to check the size because they would go into the larger cannon that we were making. The cannon was made in the open but nobody knew what it was for. A lot of questions were asked but the story of it being used to break down city gates with its weight alone and this was accepted. The cannon was fitted to a very sturdy carriage and this was attached to the one that would carry powder and shot. Small lightweight saddles were put on the team that was doing the pulling. The men using them would not be using a lance but a sabre if the need ever arose. The accompanying horsemen had the full sized saddle. When the cannon was complete, it was always on the move. Jón gave some idea of what to do then Fálki took over the training. Usually this was away from the city. They had no powder to uses as yet but the logistics of moving the heavy gun was something you had to learn by doing. The horses had to be disconnected and taken away because they would bolt when the cannon eventually fired. They also had to be close to take the cannon and crew out of danger when they would be attacked. Jón took my advice and sold our weapons to the crown and to those that could afford some fancy work done on their armour. The idea was to get us enough money to stay afloat. Though we sold for cash it was usually barter and we insisted on getting raw or finished iron along with enough charcoal to work it. Foreigners or even traders were able to buy but they had to spend more not less. We wanted our people armed and a little money in the piggy bank too. Fálki paid his men from the treasury and the men spent their money buying steel weapons and armour. Special anvils had to be made but the iron and charcoal was flowing into the city much more freely now. The large wagon made by Rudi was an instant success after it was seen hauling heavy loads. They helped transport iron, wood and large stone blocks much more easily. The city was filling up with raw materials and the disabled vets were now working hard at various trades if they were able to. The saddles were delivered and paid for so that the soldiers could train. The new boots were a success once their advantages were known. Iron lasts were sold to the bootmakers to assist them, and boot production increased. Some things began to be in short supply and people had to be found to produce them. Soap was made and this time it was salted to make it solidify. Scents and colours were added. One kind even had a find grit put in it that was pushed as a soap for hard working men and not women. The glycerol was hoarded in special barrels after being filtering out the solids of the soap making operation. The ashes from many places were placed in a leaching tank and the filtered water that came out was evaporated by boiling. When it started to participate the liquid was poured off. The remainder had to be dried and saved because it contained important chemicals too. The liquid contained what I was after. The liquid that looked like clean water held the potassium carbonate. This chemical would dissolve in water much better than the other chemicals we had just separated it from. This liquid was boiled to produce the fairly pure potassium carbonate. The potassium carbonate was heated in a steel pot to drive off the carbon dioxide and I had potassium oxide now and the flux I needed. The potash that we picked up had been leached by the rains for thousands of years and if we wanted to use this it would have to be excavated fresh. A new and smaller forge was set up near ours. Sander had his own kiln but it was not large enough for our needs. Silica sand was found in many places and this was collected and washed. Fálki made sure his own men did this if necessary. He didn't let on though what it was for. Sander's new forge was different than anything he had seen before. The gases of burning wood rushed by a large crucible. This was similar to the way steel was made in Sheffield. In it were the sand, lime and potash. I had never made glass before but remembered hearing of the ingredients from a visit to the glassworks in Corning, New York. It took a lot of heat to start the process but once it began the materials started to melt quickly. The glass was light green from some impurity and looked like the Coke bottles of my youth. We needed good glass and this needed to find out how to remove the colour. I only knew that by the addition of other elements the glass would change colour or become clear. Bubbles were a problem but most left after an hour of heating. Learning was fun and creative but eventually the secret had to be revealed in an open house. It was hot near the glass but it was just like the forge. Jón used an iron pipe and gathered a glob of glass and blew into it as he rotated it. There were many people present including Fálki's crew that had gathered the some of the ingredients, Astrid and all of the rest of the family and of course all the kitchen staff with Helga presiding. The glass cooled and had to be put into a small hole to get heated up as Jón looked around at his guests. Everybody was staring at him wide eyed. Making glass was the same as making large jewels. Jón finished a bottle and cut the soft glass with a pair of shears then used a poker to open the throat. He had only taken a few weeks to get the basics down. The bottle was oddly shaped, had some bubbles in the glass and had not been tempered in a furnace but it was still beautiful. Jón took more glass on his blow pipe but hung the glass down and the shaft was held vertically. By rolling the pipe back and forth between his palms, a disk was made by centrifugal force. This had to get reheated but only the centre was because it would not go in the small hole. The dish was put beside the bottle and sheared off. Another tool smoothed the centre and compressed the glass there. Since I had been thinking of this for months Jón made a glass goblet and with some difficulty a beer stein with a glass handle. Nobody objected as he made more things like some candlestick holders but a glass globe to protect a lamp was a disaster. Jón was all red from the heat and said, "This glass is too delicate to use. It has to go into a kiln like Sander uses and heated until it almost starts to run then it is cooled. It gains a lot of strength but will still break. "If we make a steel form, the hot glass can be put in it to give it shape so that each one is the same. I want to give the kitchen a few hundred glass plates but we have to find people to make them." Astrid said, "I can try. That looks interesting. It is better than sewing, butchering and tending the garden." "You may do so but on a few conditions." "What are they?" She didn't seem to be happy with her on the defensive. "You get boots like the rest of us wear. Hot glass will roll off of them but not off your slippers. You must always wear a leather apron and gloves even if it is hot. I catch anybody not wearing those and they will be banned from here. In the future spectators have to stay behind a barrier for their safety and if they go beyond it they must be dressed even if it is for a second. "Finally, it takes a lot of fuel to melt the glass. You have to be prepared to use all of the glass you melt. If there are others that will want to try they can add more of the raw materials including the fuel and a person to power the bellows. For all I know, this kiln may never shut down because people will be using it all the time. "Can you abide by these rules?" "I guess I can." "Then get the boots on by the door if they fit and the leather apron. We can see what we can make." Jón, this way started his first glass making class. We made a few vases and used a pair of tongs to make the edge fluted. Astrid continued after by making some things completely her way. Some of Jón's creations cracked because of the poor cooling and the weak nature of the glass. Jón said to everybody, "If we make large jars and then make them strong we can do something wonderful. We take warm stew or soup and put it the jar. The jar has to be sealed with wax or a glass top or both. We heat the jar in a bath of water until it boils, then keep it boiling for half an hour. Almost everything inside the jar that was alive will have died in the heat. The bottle can be put on the shelf and in a year it can be taken down and heated then eaten. This is great for fruit." It was lucky that people had stopped asking how Jón knew about each assertion he made for he would have a difficult time explaining himself. Sander began working with metals to find a way of making dark glass so the brightly glowing glass could more easily be seen. A side benefit would be that it would keep some flying objects out of the wearer's eyes. The canning idea was good but I needed borates instead of potassium oxide. This would make the Pyrex glass I was familiar with. It was stronger and could take the thermal shock much better. It found many uses in the kitchens in my day from measuring cups, pie and cake pans to glass covered serving pots. Of course we had the microwaves ovens to thank for them being used so much. Jón and I worked at the glassworks making the kiln needed to temper the glass. Others were always in the way because they just had to make something of value. Anybody with a scientific bent learned of what was happening and gave their advice. This was a good thing because the priests could not say that this was magic, especially when so many contributed. We had a brick oven made that captured the gases used to heat the glass. Alterations had to be made and a larger bellows installed. It was not a good system because the glass oven had to be heated to get the energy for the annealing process. We made do by making glass even if it had to be poured into moulds for later use. The annealing oven was made large and we made very large jars. Most of them were ugly but they would still work for the reactions that had to take place. Again the Pyrex would have been better but we didn't have any boron though the natural potash around us must contain some. On another project we took an old barrel that would contain only fresh water. An iron pipe was attached to it and then wound through the hot coals of the wood fire to heat the pipe and what it contained. With water constantly flowing inside the pipe, it never got above boiling. Gravity though was enough to push the hot water out. Iron pipe was difficult to make until we made a steel bar that would be used to form the flat bar around. This went down the centre of a red hot metal as it was folded around the form to make pipe. The two sides of the pipe had been closed up and then welded with the hammer to make it into a tube. I remembered Sam telling me that something similar was used to make gun barrels during the American Civil War. The lengths of pipe were hard to join together and harder yet to make in one long length. Eventually with coal or petroleum we would get plastics but that would be far off. The giant tub had come from the cooper and put in the forge. In the inaugural use Jón had the barrel half filled with water that had been heated by the forge. The tub collected the very hot water and cooled it off. When the flow was regulated the water was just coming out the temperature Jón wanted. When the level was high enough in the tub, the pipe was shifted out of the hottest part of the fire and the drip of water now filled a wooden bucket instead. The children were all standing around watching when Jón took off his clothes and put them on a stool. It was necessary now to act like a teacher and not throw them on the floor. It took a while for him to be able to sit but once he did he gave out a sigh of contentment. "Get in Forni. It's great." "It is too hot." "Suit yourself but it takes only a moment to get used to it. Hafgan, you are brave. Come in with me." The boy in question was smaller than the rest but did everything Jón asked of him and would do much more if Jón allowed it. The boy was about to throw his prized boots and camo uniform to the floor but folded and put them to one side besides Jón's. The boy stepped over the tub but did so that his remaining genitals were on display to Jón. Jón just smiled and the boy settled down after adjusting to the temperature. The water rose just a bit for the tub was large. Soon the boys and then the girls got into the tub and there was still five centimetres of freeboard. Thirteen children in the tub meant that they had to scrunch up a bit but already they had formed a family of sorts. Everybody cleaned those they could reach and it turned out to be a party of sorts. It was only when the water was getting cool that they got out. Geiri helped dry some of the smaller children and asked, "Can Letje and Sytje get in now? The water is still clean." Jón said, "Let's warm it up with the hot water first." The bucket was hard to pick up but Jón had been getting much stronger. The water poured in and Jón used his hands to stir it up. "Check the heat. You may want to get in to. It is good for you." "Maybe I will." The woman was not embarrassed. She was like so many German tourists I had seen. They didn't mind going naked at any time. Jón took Sytje who was two and then three year old Letje and put them into the tub. This was the deepest water they had been in. They got used to it after a while. The mother was soon wet with the children playing. The old women had used the cotton taken from the Pict camp to make shirts and pants. They had been dyed in a woodland camo pattern. Each person had sewed their name onto a piece of cloth in a military fashion and this was sewn onto the shirt. Oriana turned out to be the best one with a needle and thread. She made the German eagle similar to what was used on the coat-of-arms of the modern Germany. These were small and the crests were sewn on the shoulders of the uniforms. The rank of private third class was bestowed on all of them and over time this would and should change. Winter solstice was a very important event for the Germans. This year it was a bit sombre because word had come back that Clovis was fighting valiantly to defend us. One of our cities had been attacked by the Romans and everyone in it was put to the sword when it was captured. Our own Romans had to be kept safe when feelings ran this high. The death of an entire city effected all of us. We were all worried. Ours could be next. It did propel those that worked outside the walls to work even faster. Guards went out now but they stayed far from the city to give us a warning of an enemy approaching. All the Franks including Egill had gone home with bags filled with steel weapons and tools. Glass in plate form as well as steins and bowls was carefully packaged for transit. Elegant glass bottles were usually filled with liquid soap and bars of solid soap cast with the likeness of a woman were on the bars. The smell of rose hips was also in every bar. Glass bottles of wine were made and would be transported to Egill's father. Saddles and lances had to be purchased because those given to them were or the defence of the Frisian nation not as gifts yet. News of their existence would surely spread but examples would leave. Knives, swords and armour were bought from the smiths and the men all went home penniless even with their pay we gave them. Those Franks that had died were remembered. Their mounts, armour and gifts from the grateful Frisians would go to their families. The grateful Frisians were actually Jón. With everything new sprouting up, it would be a sure thing that they would return to be where everything was happening. There was no compulsion put on Egill but here he would be safe. Fálki wanted to use the cannon but I had given him no powder. I had none to give. Three more cannon were built until we had a total of six. We had four small bore mortars and six larger ones. I thought them more valuable. Cannon balls had been made and we had nearly one hundred solid but five hundred grapeshot. The grape shot was easier to make because the tolerances were not very strict, as long as they would stay together with the wire we used until they left the gun. Heavy steel chain was made and used to connect two cannon balls. This had been used to take out masts but could work with infantry too. Loose chain would also work. Our cannon were the old three inch variety that had been so successful in my history. Now they were eight centimetres in our new measurements. I had plans for the sixteen but that would be only after a lot of testing. The larger guns were much more powerful but had little more range, or at least that was the case in my time. Bomb casings for both sizes of mortar had been made but again they had no powder or fuses. The time had come to make this substance that would change the world. Fálki had been appraised of the event though nobody knew when this was to happen. A few of the vets had come out of retirement and took to the new saddles very well. They learned to use the lance one handed even if this had not been their primary hand. Frisian training was very rough but the men themselves were Frisian and took to the challenge. The Gauls that we had captured along with those captured by Clovis had been trained more now that the harvest was in. They were technically slaves but not to the extent of what the Romans expected. Teirtu, the only surviving Pict officer was released. He had sworn allegiance to Clovis by kneeling before Jón and all his captured men. I was not sure of the men nor of the Picts either but Jón was and that was enough. The Romans were sent to the farm with the Romans that didn't choose to take up arms with us. This was not many. There would only be six there now. The guards were well aware that these two would try to escape. Grímkell, as head of the guard was in charge of all of the Picts now. Fálki had made sure the Picts knew their place but also the rewards of working with us as opposed to against. The city had catapults that were able to cast a bolt as good as any Roman weapon there were five more made in the last few months and the total now stood at six. Clovis had never counted on staying behind a wall when he fought. Fálki had built some bolts to carry our bombs. They carried a weight of sand during testing. These were used for accuracy and to get the range. It was a poor weapon against someone attacking the walls except those that were clustered together. Rudy had built me nine more wagons and the last six were the ones with two metre dished wheels, the same as those used on the cannon carriages and those used for powder and shot. The wheels themselves were very strong and the steel tire was twenty of our centimetres wide. They had all been tested and could carry an astonishing amount of weight. They also took eight horses to pull and each of them had a horse collar so they would pull the best. Three such wagons were going with us along with two cannon and four mortars. This represented sixty six horses for some extra horses were needed to transport the much lighter mortars. Fálki had talked to his men for a long time to find out who he could trust. The Franks had come back to us with lots of gold and silver. They had not sold their personal weapons and armour but the extras were all gone. I was surprised to see that there were nearly ninety Franks including Egill. The craftsmen and women were waiting for them. Fálki made up his crew of people he could trust and he picked two of the Franks, one was Albrecht. Prince Egill had come out more and more to see the men train after he got back. Astrid or Dagmar were usually right beside him. He was now fully shaved all the time. This promoted some of our men to want to do this too. We made good helmets that had a closed visor. Beards got in the way. Jón had walked in on the prince when he was in his chambers getting his prostrate stroked by one of two former guards. Both of which were in the room and naked. The timing had been critical because the prince was so wrapped up in what was happening to his body that he didn't care who saw him. He was very embarrassed when he saw Jón but by then the other man was in the well lubricated hole and pumping for oil. Jón put his hand on the man's bare shoulder and said, "I came in to ask you about the feelings you are now experiencing. Nobody has done that to me and I am interested. Can we talk after?" "Yes, after." They did talk later and it was as I thought. Egill just needed his prostrate stroked. He may or may not have been this way before but he was this way now. When using his cock he just wanted to stick in any available hole but a female was preferred. This part I did not quite believe because he was the type to want any port in a storm. He would not suck but didn't mind the opportunity for someone to do it to him. The important thing was that there was another witness that could have him killed by his father. It was not that homosexuality was wrong for there was no such word. It was being on the receiving or submissive role that would anger the king. Along with the thirty four men were five cadets from the academy. Forni of course had to be one but the rest were taken on merit alone. Aagt was young but she was very dedicated. Guinevere and Oriana had progressed very well. They had not only overcome their slave mentality but now worked to drive even the thoughts from their minds. They had taken to the bow but were not an adult in size. Their accuracy was not as good as a person with long years of practice but they were trying harder. Dolf, was to come too. He had taken to the freedom Jón offered and tired to do everything that he was asked to do and did it the best possible. The other six wanted to go too but were told straight out that their turn would come later. We went on a trial run to check the equipment and the cadets. It was just to the quarry. Pickets were out but there had been no signs of the Picts for more than four weeks. Two men were at each of the other wagons but they wore full armour and had their weapons and shields near at hand. Some men drove the wagons carrying the mortar and a few rode the left most horses of the teams pulling the ammunition carts. This left twenty four men riding individual horses. Everybody acted as if they were going to be attacked any moment and wanted the chance to prove themselves and their new weapons and armour. This included the cadets because they were far from defenceless themselves. We put on bursts of speed and the wagon rattled quite a bit but this was a shake down cruise of sorts. We left the trail at times and small trees bent under the weight of the axles only to spring up again. The adult driver of the wagons had to get out some times and pull the lead horses where he wanted them to go. It was understandable that we left quite a distance between wagons. Part of this was the training for the gun crews. Getting into position didn't usually have a well paved road nearby. Steel had completely replaced bronze though we carried the metal to make other parts like bearings. Everybody wore full breast plates that stopped the Roman arrowheads. Gauntlets and a much superior helmet were worn even though the Germans thought the former was effeminate. The shield was strong and had holes in it to see through but the holes were all reenforced because some enemy would try to rip a hole wider with his spear or sword. Armour covered tough boots because the leg was an easy target for an opponent on the ground. The enclosed helmet gave further protection. Here we had lots of reinforced openings that looked similar to the face shield worn while playing football, The horses too had armour though their's flexed. They also wore steel shoes. Jón and Forni had worked with the stable master to clean and level the horses' hooves. The shoes though had nasty spikes on them. The shoes themselves were well secured to the hooves. Jón had given his word not to ride but that was a long time ago and now he had to teach. When not exercising or building something, he was working with the horse to turn it into a war-horse. This was apparently not done and now that the horse was armoured and armed it was a good thing to start. A horse was hobbled by the back legs after being backed into a corner and men in Roman armour were used to spook the horse and get it to attack. It was cruel but it was the only way we knew to get the desired effect. The reticent smiths had been turning out all sorts of steel weapons and armour now had to shoe the warriors' horses. They were a lot more eager to help when a man with a surly disposition and a steel sword wanted it done and done right. The lances were now of two lengths. Each one had a very sharp tip formed with a triangular head. A steel ring around the shaft not far back allowed the lance to go only thirty centimetres into a body. This would make it easier to pull out we hoped. The ones with the longer length got to ride at the front and would also get to engage any enemy prepared for them first. The Romans had a spear that was about two and a half metres long. Our lances were much longer and the first contact would go to the men with the longer lance. Those right behind would tear through the second rank with their slightly shorter and more manoeuvrable weapon. The three main wagons had large barrels made purposely just to fit this mode of travel. The supplies along with a great many empty barrels filled only some of the space. A small portable forge was in one wagon while the other two had an iron stove. This had to be made by hand because we still could not cast this sort of device yet. Steel pots were all over as well as frypans and a iron grill that could sit over a fire. Spare lances as well as a great quantity of arrows and other weapons were ready if needed. Two large stones were carried to mill the materials for the black powder. Though it was not needed now it was carried to see about any problems it may have later. Hammocks were strung through the wagon and could even go underneath. Two metre wheels left a lot of room still. Coarse oiled cloth was used to cover the wooden frame from the sun and the rain. It did look like the wagon that crossed the American and Canadian prairies but ours was bigger and thus the need for eight horses. Kareltje was prepared for our coming. He had seen all of this before. The wagons came all the time to deliver supplies of grain and empty barrels. They took back lumber, cut stone, charcoal, the soluble extract of the ashes or his now frequent deliveries of lime that was used on the city walls and a great deal of it on the granary. Jón had not been out here since the attack on the Gaul camp. The homes had grown considerably but they were still buried in the ground. A stockade was now in place but it was large enough to accommodate room for more people to live here. Horses and wagons along with our metal scoop was seen though the latter was not now used. A great many trees had been cut back and the lumber was stored outside to dry slowly and some was in a warehouse he and his people had built. A lot of stone too had been cut and stacked. His weapons now were all steel too and I guess he must have spent his profits on things that would keep him and his people safe. Kareltje asked Fálki, "You going hunting men? I haven't seen anybody." "We are testing out the wagons. We want to load them up and see how these ones work. The cannon are still difficult to move and I want to be the fastest we can." "Those cannon are a waste of time. Why the wagons? The other wagons worked good." "The young lord knows that one wagon's axle broke and wants to make sure that if his breaks it will not be when we go looking for supplies." "What are you looking for besides Romans or Gauls?" "He is looking for salt, brimstone to clean wine barrels, iron, charcoal, a black rock called coal and any good minerals we can find. There is something besides good shit that can make plants grow. The rest of us are looking hard for somebody to fight. We all spent a lot of silver on this and then we train all the time and nobody to test it against." "If I was not so busy, I would want to go too." Forni and Jón's horses were tied to the back of the wagon and once in the quarry they were saddled and the two boys left with the guards to patrol the area. They both were in ghillie suits though the hat and mask had been removed to keep cool. All of the children in the academy had them and they would get a chance to try them out on Fálki and his men. Jón quietly talked to me. "I wish we had a telescope. The land is flat and it would be easy to see an enemy if they rode through a clearing or beside a river." "It isn't worth it here. There has not been a lot of charcoal making or even burning of the wood for the ash content yet. In my time many areas have grown back and I used to think that this was an original stand of wood. I see your lands here and now and know how wrong I was." "You think trees are beautiful. Is that because you had so few?" "That is part of it. When they are all pushed together then the beauty of one is shaded by another. I don't like killing trees but it has to happen for increased food production, making roads and for mining. Your world is much healthier than mine." "There are lots of trees." "Yes there is and soon there will be lots of people. Families are large and there is always pressure to move to an empty area. If I could, I would have families smaller and we find ways of controlling our numbers without war." "You are always looking to have people live longer." "That is part of my upbringing I guess. I do not like killing an enemy. There are few that really need killing. Life here is cheap just like in the poorest areas of my world. I like your zest for life though and you are much freer to do just what you want. The Romans look down at barbarians but they are the freest. Copying the Romans though is a necessity and it would be good to find some way to be both." "You told me that education and example is the way." "I hope we will have the time to try this out. Rome may be too anxious to remove a potential enemy." Forni and Jón watched Fálki move his two guns into position. The cannon was disconnected and the horses pulled the ammunition wagon away to safety. They then pack the barrel with imaginary powder and then a real ball wrapped in a square of cloth. They moved out of the way and pretended to fire. The barrel was swabbed out and a new imaginary charge loaded then aimed and fired. I seriously wondered what they would do when the first real explosion happened. We had come late in the day so that we could get our work done and still have time for exercises. We would operate in the late afternoon in one outfit then in black for the night. This time I had two Franks with me and they were anxious to show up the Frisians. Later they would be the recipients. All six children and the two men came out dressed for the occasion. The Frisians looked us over carefully as if memorising the colours and contours of our suits and bows. This was a different suit more suited with this time of the year. When everybody was satisfied we left for our area to hide in. This had been marked out in advance so that they would not have to search all of Germany for us. The cadets hid first and we helped them to blend into the surroundings by putting branches and real leaves where they should go. Branches were used to hide our tracks but that would be hard to do. I was left with the two men and I helped them get situated so they could cover a trail and each other. I placed leaves in piles and then threw clumps of them in a damp area. When I heard the Frisians approach I called out so our own people would know. Fálki and his men came through but they hit every pile of leaves they found wondering if it held an enemy. Arrows with large flat heads arced out and made contact with Frisian armour. When the Frisians took cover the children moved to a secondary position so their arrows could not be traced back to them. Our people were caught one by one but sometimes they were able to take out an enemy first with a stick that represented a spear. The Franks got a few Frisians but they too were nabbed and then so was Jón. Albrecht said, "Why were we caught so easy? I thought we could do better." Jón said, "The enemy knew what we looked like and where we were going to be. Didn't you see them hitting every pile of leaves? You may notice a few damp and muddy Frisians that went so far as to strike piles of leaves in a low spot. They knew what to look for and the way we operated. They took no chances. If we had a larger area to hide in, then they would have got tired of this and we would have made more kills." "We will win tonight then." "Maybe not. You will know what to look for and you have a full moon. This time it is the night fighters chance to be the aggressor." "I now see why it was so easy to get to hide during the day. One Frisian tricked me." The last was said as Albrecht looked at Fálki. The latter just tried to look innocent. We had supper and then Fálki and one of his men donned the black commando outfit. We watched the preparation for the camp going up much faster. Albrecht was making sure all the brush and even trees were cleared so we would have less to hide behind. When the game began we just curled up in the dark and went to sleep. Albrecht would be anxious all night and be too sleepy in the morning to move quickly enough. That did not mean that we didn't rattle a few bushes to keep them awake during the night. The five children were excited themselves and it took time for them to get to sleep. An hour before dawn I woke up Jón and he woke up the rest with a silent touch. His hands giving the silent message as we move forward. The children were not that woods wise and it was still dark. To keep this fair Fálki was in charge of the actual attack. I could hear people breathing slowly just inside the stockade but a normal person would not have detected this so I said nothing. We didn't manage to even take out one sentry before the alarm was given. Forni was shot and declared a casualty but the defenders never left their protected enclosure. Fálki was not fool enough to try to gain an entrance when the hornets nest was stirred up. When Fálki called a truce, we entered to have breakfast and talk of our poor showing. Fálki asked, "How come you were still alert. Did you switch sentries every hour?" Albrecht nonchalantly showed some light cord. "With large animals blundering around in the forest I just had some of this strung around the camp. When somebody pulled on it then it would tip a spear butt to fall onto a man's head. It happened to be mine. I was awake very quickly and even saw you approaching from the east as I suspected. He thought we were just like the Japanese Zero pilots coming out of the sun. If we were late then the sun would blind our opponents to our approach. Fálki said, "I don't think a real warrior would put out string in the night." Albrecht said calmly, "A real warrior would not be tapping every pile of leaves they passed. Even the small ones." ------- Chapter 18 After breakfast, we finished the loading of the stone and lumber then loaded our supplies. We said goodbye to the much larger group of people and headed back to Hildestun. The men were sleepy but still very alert for an ambush. We went as fast as we could push the horses with the loaded wagons. Most of the time we were on the road but we still cut cross country with our heavy load. I began to think I was wrong in making large wagons. Two smaller wagons would be more manoeuvrable. We climbed a ravine even if we would get stuck to test the horses and our equipment. The bar between the horses could swing up and down only a little bit and a steep ravine would mean that some horses would be pushed upwards with their harnesses. In some places we had to stop and cut trees but this was done silently with the saws. We had some very tired men when we got back to Hildestun in the middle of the afternoon. We unloaded our cargo and then put the horses into the stables. When we got back to the forge to see everybody waiting for us. Jón found the tub full of clean hot water and a smiling Geiri. "Welcome home," she said. "We missed you." Jón kissed the woman then her two little daughters. His clothes came off very quickly and he was in the bath before anybody else. Forni was a close second and he placed himself to the left of Jón so his right hand could wander. The rest of the children got into the tub then too even if they had not been on the trip. Liberal amounts of soap were used and soon the water became cloudy enough for Forni to do what he wanted to do. The congested tub kept anybody else from seeing. Jón did the same in return. Forni pulled his knees up to his chest and Jón was allowed to caress the boys cock, balls and anus. Only when Forni started to groan did Jón take his hand away. Jón began to just clean. He was excited and wanted to not have an erection when he left the tub. When some cadets left, Jón asked Geiri, "You can hand me my two young ladies if you want." The two children were waiting for this and they were hurriedly undressed and came to the tub. Two year old Sytje slid over the edge but went head first into the water. Jón fished her out and she sputtered at her dunking. Forni helped three year old Letje into the water and the two boys cleaned the children as good as their mother. When the children were passed out to dry, Forni did Jón's hair and then the favour was returned. Both boys now stood and Geiri poured clean warm water over them. The boys dried each other and hurried to get dressed. While Geiri dumped the dirty clothes into the bath water to start the cleaning, Jón and Forni hurried to Jón's room ostensibly to change into something cleaner. Once in the room they hurriedly took off their clothes. Forni got on his knees and sucked Jón into his mouth and his hands went around his lover to make sure he stayed in place. Jón grew quickly and in a moment Jón said, "I'm ready." Forni pulled off slowly and hurried to the bed and sat before leaning back. His feet came up exposing his genitals and anus. Jón used his tongue to lubricate Forni's opening then stood to slowly work his way in. Lubricant leaked from his cock and it was used to ease the passage. Forni groaned and wiggled to get Jón to enter and after a small wince he groaned again in contentment. Jón was excited as he always was when having sex but over time he had learned to go slow. Forni wanted things fast and hard but the slow approach gave him more happiness when it was over. Jón allowed Forni to hold his own cock as he moved slowly back and forth. It was only after Forni started to shake did Jón allow himself to release his seed into his lover. Jón lowered his chest onto Forni and kissed the boy. "That was a good one. You got me so horny in the tub that it took me a long time to go down." Forni said, "On the way back to town I wanted to sit in the bottom of the wagon in front of you. We were bouncing around too much and I thought I might bite you if I did." "Then I would be too sore to do what we just did." "That is why I didn't do it. Are you ready for more yet?" Jón was still erect and said, "Anything for you." After a large supper, Jón sent a messenger to Rudi while he checked on the condition of the granary. It was now over twenty metres high but not quite dry enough to use yet. Charcoal fires had been built in the structure to dry the wood out. The process was slow. Lime and sand had been used in every crack where there was a gap in the stone. When the lower part was dry enough then the top of the stone was done similarly where it met the wood. The thoughts of a water tank on the top of the granary had been abandoned because of the weight and the chance of a leak effecting the dried grain. The grain itself was waiting in large barrels because the granary was not dry enough itself yet to accept it. Rudi hurried over when he saw Jón and said casually, "Hello, Jón how are you?" Jón liked Rudi and as long as they were alone they could act as friends as opposed to heir apparent and commoner. Germans at this time were not as class conscious but it did exist. "Hello, Rudi. We had a problem with the wagons." "What happened?" "We tried to climb a steep embankment and the tongue would not follow the contours of the hill. We had to back up and go up at an angle. That was dangerous with the weight we had." "I can change the opening so the tongue will move more up and down. Have you taken off the wheels to inspect the bushings?" "Not yet. I figured you would want to see. Our axles are large and so are the hubs on the wheels. We should have no problems but once we leave, I don't want to find out too late about a worn bearing." The two went toward the stable and put shoring under the two axles of one of the wagons. Men with shovels dug under the wheels and in a few moments all four wheels were off. The axle was straight and flat on the bottom. A taper was cut at the end but it was the top surface of it that sloped. Flat wheels put on would be much closer where they met the ground than at the top. Dished wheels were made to have the spokes directly under the axle to be vertical while the top flared out. All the wheels even those of the cannon were of the same size. A minimum number of spares were needed this way. The taper on the axle was covered with a steel cone that was cut and ground on a lathe as accurately as possible. After it was hardened, it was sanded with sand to make it as smooth as possible. Instead of bronze bushings, babbitt was used. This was used in many areas in the future that needed a tough but soft support. The steel taper had been coated with soot and layed with the small end up. A form was put around it and the molten babbitt poured around it. The babbitt was then placed securely in the hub with steel plates. The fat was wiped off the metal and both parts were inspected for wear. There was some but it could be corrected by just tightening the wheel more so the hub would slide further up the taper. The wheels were very heavy and a bit awkward to get on and off. Rudi inspected the connection as some men raised and lowered tongue and with a few noncommital grunts said, "It's easy to fix." The rest of the wagons were similarly checked and then with Fálki's men present the cannon were checked. This was little changed because the carriages had been over a considerable number of Roman miles since they were built. I was not positive but the Roman mile was only about ninety percent of the English mile. The English went and changed the old Roman system to accommodate eight furlongs which at one time was an important measure. We loaded the wagons back up but this time with more food and equipment needed to make the black powder. This was going to be the real trip. The men and the academy went to bed early. The men were tired from the lose of sleep the previous night. Astrid wanted another last night in her cambers. She had learned to take a bath first and said, "I am clean. Would you like to come to see me later?" Jón had been there last night but this was the actual last night in the city for a while. I could feel his hormones surging but I could feel his weariness. "Ok, but I want to go to sleep earlier. I want to leave early." She looked around and when she saw that nobody would see, she bent over and kissed the young man. "I will be waiting." That night Jón slept with Astrid and was rewarded the next morning by her awakening him with her mouth. When his release came he pulled the woman to him and kissed her lips. "You make it hard for me to leave." "You can stay with me." "I have too much to do. Now lay on your back and spread you legs. I want to fill you again." She hurried to comply. The same people were on the expedition as before. We had studied the maps one more time. Jón made his preferences known. Sulphur was in one area and bats were a common sight in the region too. At this time of year they would be hibernating. Finding where they lived was not going to be easy without the ability to follow the bats to their roost. The area had been extensively farmed at one time and the trees had not grown that large yet, Fálki mentioned. The farmers had moved in a group so there would be few if any to see or hear of the experiments if they were successful in finding the raw ingredients. The area had been scouted but so had other areas to keep the importance of this region hidden. This time there was no agenda other than to get to the area as soon as possible. In the process, roads had to be made, the guards also had to be road builders. They made good time and got to the area of the farm the old man mentioned and they immediately looked for the sulphur. Not much had been asked of the old man so as to not arouse his suspicions. The sulphur was found in less than two hours. The men though had to continue their search for a possible bat cave and any of the other resources that were needed. A large steel pot was brought. It had a pipe at the bottom edge that extended a metre from the vessel. Rocks were found and a small kiln was constructed with the pot on top. The sulphur bearing material was shovelled into the container and a fire started under it. In thirty minutes liquid sulphur started to run out the pipe and fall into a water filled tub. The sulphur immediately solidified. The seam of sulphur looked fairly clean and most of what went into the pot was able to melt and flow out. Everybody hated the smell but nobody complained. The solidified sulphur was taken out of the water and stacked on a clean rock. The fire continued day and night without stopping. The riders before going to sleep took the sulphur and ground it as fine as possible. It was then stored in one of the large barrels. The majority of the troop set up their own camp far from the sulphur site because it just took too long to come back each night and the smell was bad. It was six days later that a rider raced to the camp. "We found two caves. They are not big but there is a lot of white crystals." We stopped production after the batch we had was done. The sulphur not ground was put into another barrel for processing later. It was almost nine hours later that the procession stopped in some low hills. A cave was readily seen because men had used shovels to open the entrance as wide as they needed to walk in and out. It was too dark to see far so a fire was put in front of the entrance and a bronze mirror brought for this purpose reflected the light inside. Jón went in alone because there was not much room. There were nitrate crystals already formed and we picked perhaps a kilogram before leaving. Fálki went in next and gathered some while the sulphur pot was used one more time. Eventually we would take everything here and process it for the nitrate. The crystals went into the pot and water added. Fálki added part of his load until the mixture would dissolve no more. As the liquid cooled scum rose to the surface and had to be skimmed off. Common salt started to precipitate and this too was scraped out. When cool, the water was drained through the pipe and into a tub to cool. More tubs were found and then a flat steel pan. Everything was left to cool for the night. Albrecht asked, "Tell me again what we are waiting for." Jón said, "Some things dissolve in water like salt does. Hot water makes more disappear than cold. When the water cools the salt wants to come out again. We have different chemicals in the crystals we took from the cave. Some dissolve in the water better than another. The one that wants to come out more will make crystals while the other stays in the water. We simply let them come out. The other type of salt will appear when the water is boiled away. Both salts are useful. Blood was added to collect the undissolved particles in the liquid and this was skimmed off." The men thought this magical and Jón had a lot of work to explain what was done. We could have used glue too but that meant more processing. We made charcoal and ground it fine and stored some of it. The extract of wood ashes was added to the mixture to convert the sodium nitrate into the potassium variety but this meant that more salt was produced. It took days for a single batch of saltpetre to be made and then purified. There were a lot of steps and this was one of the reasons I went into chemistry in the first place. When the sample was dried in a pot over hot rocks and no fire it was weighted. Eleven percent was the figure I had been told and this figure everyone was familiar with especially how it was in the Arabic/Indian numerals I had been teaching. The sulphur was weighted out exactly on our scales and then the charcoal was added. We used a mortar and pestle most of the time but would eventually have to move to larger machines. Jón took a pinch and threw it into the fire. The men jumped back at the whoosh that was made. They were back in a fraction of a second to see what more would happen. A clay container that would contain only four millilitres was filled and capped. With everybody warned to get back it was tossed in the fire. The small hole ensured a spark got in and the clay jar blew up sending the sparks and burning fuel everywhere. The mortar was chosen first and now a weighted charge of the powder was put in. Fálki had the honours of doing this. They knew about this from all the times they had done it in practice. Standing well back they watched a giant cloud of black smoke come from the gun but the cannon ball was not seen because it travelled too fast. The mortar was nearly vertical and in a while a thump was heard. Everybody including Jón went to find the iron ball. The ball had to be dug from the earth. Jón said, "The amount of powder made the ball climb a half mile into the air then fall for a half mile." Fálki had been coached on what to say and Jón used simple algebra with the gravitational constant and the ability to say, "two thousand," between each second he counted off. The man had to learn mathematics and now they had even more incentive. The cannon was used next. The men had built a wall of tree trunks a Roman mile away. It was paced off as part of the ranging they all had to learn. Again Fálki loaded the cannon but it was done as if it was just another exercise. The ball was rammed home with a piece of cloth behind it. Some loose powder was poured down the touch hole and a bit more in the pan above. The cannon was as level as we could get it and Fálki used a stick to hold a smouldering rope and touched the hot end to the pan. The men really jumped this time for much more of the powder had burnt in the longer barrel. We actually hit the target but the ball had bounced twice to get to the wall. When it hit it was not spectacular at all. It simply split a forty centimetre tree trunk in two and continued on. There was a mad scramble for the ball. It took a while but it was lodged deep in a large tree four hundred metres behind out target wall. The cannon was cold by now but it was swabbed out as per orders as if it was just seconds after the last shot. The same amount of powder was used and a similar ball but there was now a slight elevation. In fifteen minutes we had no more powder left but we had some men that were even more eager to make more. We kept pickets all the time but now the rest worked as prospectors. We needed iron and lots of it. The only way to speed up the drying was to use larger pans and many more of them. This also meant a building to house all this. The cadets as they were now called, made the saltpetre with me. They were promised a chance to fire the cannons later and this was enough for any boy or even a girl. It was days later that one man came hurrying back with a bag filled with grey black ore that looked like iron to him but different. Jón opened the bag and felt something odd. When he pulled the piece out it wanted to stick to the rest. Another piece proved that the material was magnetite. "Is this iron? I was afraid to touch it for it stuck to my shovel. You said to look for something like this." Jón smiled and said, "You did wonderful. This is magnetite. It is one of the ores I have been looking for. There is an element called vanadium in it that will be very important to us. You did very well in finding it. Why don't you fire the cannon to tell everybody that you were successful?" He didn't have to be asked twice and he fired more than the usual charge but with no ball. In a moment he did it again in a different direction. He cleaned up any mess he made and put the leather bag over the muzzle and drew it tight. His smile was so big I thought he would split his face. He got back on his horse and rode to the location after pointing to its location on a map. Fálki and the men had not come back to the camp but I was not worried. If they found the iron then they were going to extract it. That meant making a forge, a bellows, a roof and walls and then make some charcoal. This time they would use our small stone structure for this. All the cracks were plugged with clay and air entering was well regulated. Fálki and half of the men came back to the camp just after dusk. They looked weary and dirty. He said, "We were trying to get this iron of yours but it is difficult. It refuses to leave our tools. Anyway I came to ask you to tidy up here and just complete what we already have. I can't have a secure camp with half my people away." "It will be a few days yet but we can cover the pans. When we come back with the iron we can start up again." "I am glad. We won't make it tonight though so you may as well continue until we get some light." We pulled up stakes and took the wagons and the artillery to the new site. There was a wide hill though it was only a few metres high. We took shovels and dug holes to find the extent of it and it was very large. Its depth was unknown though. We hunted for food and for leather. The green leather was used for the bellows until it had to be changed. We were at this site for nearly seven weeks. Part of the troop had gone back for more grain and other supplies and carried some of our iron to Sander so he could continue with his steelmaking. We made literally tonnes of iron. Some was forged into anvils and then large anvils. More iron was formed into a large sheet and more sections welded to it. The sides were turned up and we had the first large tray. I convinced Jón that we needed stone to support the trays and to cover everything. A fire then could be much more efficient at evaporating the water. Some of the men were sick of the ironwork and were happy to quarry. It was good that the stone was between the two bat caves. It was spring when we returned to the cave but the production of saltpetre was many times faster. Gunpowder was made again at a much faster rate. The cannon, the two sizes of mortars and the bombs were tested. The men were tested too with mathematics, knowledge and safety. Shells were made from the iron we produced and filled with powder. A wooden wedge filled the hole and a wick was made. This was the hard part because the powder would settle out. Some shells had a metal fuse where a hole was punched in thin metal and the fire of the initial push was enough to start the powder to burn towards the charge. The was similar to the way a wick of black powder was used to carry the flame of a match to a firecracker. Here everybody had a say in the manufacture and men were proud when their ideas were tried. The shells fragmented based on time but we could govern the time with elevation, range and the amount of powder we used. When the shells worked, they were devastating. They didn't always work though. Most of the later shells were cylindrical so that more powder and small metal fragments could be added. On another theme, we used some of the cotton rags to hold the powder so they would not have to be weighted. We had too little of this to really work a system out. In fact we had to resort to dried reeds to cushion the projectile and give a tighter seal. Men being men needed release. Jón was able to find this with Forni but that didn't help the others. The girls were constantly watched and then so was Dolf. Sword practice had been stressed then and the story of the last group of children rescued was repeated. The cadets were probably safe but the men still watched. I got Jón to make a wood lathe and hollow out a piece of wood. A straight rod went down the middle and powder was rammed around it to make it very firm. An iron nozzle was rammed in the end and secured with three pins. Aagt had the honour of lighting a wick and running hard for cover. The rocket didn't even explode but shot into the sky trailing a red flame and black smoke until the back of the rocket got too hot and the metal separated. We had thirty four big little boys building rockets now when they were not perfecting their skill at hitting a target at a mile with no bounce in between. They had knocked down a lot of trees from a distance but they were retrieved with the balls when they could. We always needed fuel or charcoal. We had not had a single cannon breach because they were made strong and the charges kept to a small amount even with the chain. A hole had been cast into the back of the cannon and a crude sight was used. Accuracy was not bad considering how many simple things had not been done yet. We had some bronze and everybody including the men were asked to make a small shallow cup. We had all made iron and then steel so it was easy to make a small steel arrow with a pin sticking out of the middle and at right angles. Jón stroked a piece of lodestone along the arrow only in one direction perhaps two dozen times. The short pin was pushed into a small block of wood and then this was put into the small bronze container. When everybody had copied his movements he got some water and poured it into the cup until the wood floated. In a moment it oriented itself but not north. This was already known from the setting and the rising sun. "The steel is now like the lodestone and has a magnetic field. If you touch it to a small piece of steel it will be attracted. When we are away from this hill of iron it will point north." Aagt said, "How does it do that?" "The planet we are on has a magnetic field. It will line up with that one. Since this one here is so close it will have more influence. The device is called a compass." The men wandered around now while looking at their arrow and they seemed to be amazed that it always returned to one spot. One more invention was made. Flint and steel were old methods of making a fire but the Germans never had steel. Arrowheads and spear points were still made of hard flint when metal was scarce. Small leather bags were made with a drawstring. Dry moss was soaked in a saltpetre solution. When it dried it would burn very well. Only a pinch of moss was needed to start some other tinder but it made our lives a lot easier. It was mid April in my Gregorian calendar when we had finished this phase of the project. We had a lot of mineral byproducts that were not saltpetre but still valuable. We made wood boxes and put them into the bat caves. One had been cleaned up of all the shit and the other had only twenty percent of what it originally had. The pans were hidden inside and we used wood to bring the caves back to the way they were. We even did some transplanting of small trees to hide our stone drying shed because we could be back to recover our property some day. Anthracite had been found but it looked to be only a few tonnes but more had to be close by. We burnt some and I talked about what I could do with it. Like a teacher I would ask the men again what I had said. On the way back we recovered more sulphur. A team had come back three times to get more because we had used tonnes of the explosives in experiments. Fálki and Jón used all their persuasive skills and any psychological data I had to keep our secret. It would get out in time but I wanted that to be years off. We had been gone almost five months. Our clothes were a mess and we had resorted to animal skins again. The armour and swords were always in excellent shape. The man had lost weight but had gained muscle mass. The cadets had little fat to loose but had grown considerably. They were all good with a bow and only fair with a sword. The knife had been stressed and all of the cadets could hit a target fairly accurately. In all the time we were out we only heard of a dozen people but none came close. If they heard the cannons they ran quickly the other way. We were all eager to get back and the men more so for they had to find some ladies and quickly to unload what their hands had not taken. Fálki took possession of all of the powder. The majority was actually stored in a hidden spot out of town. We had buried it in a low hill. It was just too dangerous to keep in the city. The ammunition carts were full and so were a few small barrels that totalled no more than a hundred kilos. These were stored in different places. Everything had to be protected from moisture but by now all of the troop was very familiar with this. When we got back to town we immediately headed for the forge. Jón had just slid into the large tub with Aagt, Guinevere, Oriana, Dolf and Forni when Astrid rushed in. "Why didn't you come back sooner? Your father is in trouble and called on all available men. You had thirty four with you." Jón was still filthy but stood and said, "Where is he?" "He is outside Gunlar. The Romans and their auxiliaries want to take the city." "When did you send a massager?" "Three days ago." "He never found us. Has anybody left yet?" "Yes, almost all of the Franks and fifty of our own men. Grímkell won't let anybody else go." I convinced Jón to sit back down and clean himself. Forni worked quickly to clean his friend's long hair and with a rinse he was out of the tub. He turned to the rest and said, "Stay and get clean. I have to do some thinking." After getting dressed he went to the kitchen and gorged on Helga's cooking that he had missed so much. At the table he just ate and thought. I didn't interrupt him because I had my own thinking to do. Fálki came running in followed by Albrecht. They were hard to recognise because they too were cleaner than they had been in months. They hurried to the table and Fálki said, "We want to go to your father as soon as possible." Jón said, "A messenger was sent but we didn't see him. He may have got lost or killed by some Gauls but I think it was done to keep him from warning anybody else including us." "Do you think we should go?" "That is what I was thinking of. Grímkell will not want you to leave once you are here." "We can do more than what a thousand men can do." "I know that. Gunlar is five hundred miles from here with the roads you would have to use. We haven't talked to the messenger yet and there may be more information he would know." "He went back with the men from here." "Did they take supplies?" "Only what they could carry." "Fools. Bring five of the wagons around. The bearings are still good on the ones we used. Load them up with food. You better take more of the steel weapons and the shield and armour made for father. We were ambushed once. I think you better make a few iron spheres. The small ones will fit the small mortar and they can be tossed by hand. Keep them with the fuses up and in a covered box in the wagons. Keep the shields up on the sides too. They like to shoot you just as you pass." Fálki said, "We will need one of the large barrels." He meant of black powder. "Take it but make sure it is kept far back from the rest of the wagons." The men said nothing more but hurried from the room. There was a lot to do and little time to do it. Jón called Helga and he found that a lot more refugees had come. They at least had brought some of their own food and we still had lots, thanks to the granary. The priests had been a thorn in the side of Grímkell because they wanted everybody to leave and attack their enemies. Jón though tired worked through the night getting things ready. The smiths were to make more balls, chain and grape shot but little of this had been made. We only suspected that the effort went into armour and weapons. All we had would go with Fálki but we could make more. The next morning Fálki left with some of his men to retrieve a portion of the powder. There were three large barrels weighting over six tonnes as well as a lot that was stored in smaller containers. He was going to take one large and most of the smaller barrels. People didn't like to see the grain go but could say nothing. It was Jón's and it was going to help fight the war. The planting time had come and at least the farmers could expect more food soon. Some had already been taken out for the new ploughs had worked well at bringing up deeper nutrients. A set of disks broke up the clods and after seeding, a harrow was used. There were not many sets of the last two so a group of men went from farm to farm doing this service. The wagons began to leave and Grímkell was at the gate trying to keep them here. He didn't know about the power of the cannons going or about the four that were still here. He only worried about the strength of one more man's arm. I was worried about the lost messenger and so was Jón. The smiths were gathered and they actually came on time. Some had to eat their words about steel and now had to hear Jón. "We used all the ball, grape and chain shot. We made a lot more and everything went with the men today. I think we need to get back to making grape and chain. I don't want to put too much fear into the city but if we do not do it now it will never get done." "We are going to be attacked?" "There is no proof but I suspect it. I think we should gather more iron, charcoal and of course food while we can." "Is it going to be the Gauls or the Romans?" Jón said, "I have no idea and as I said it is only my feelings. If I am right, we are prepared. If I am wrong you have something to work on as we wait for my father to return." Jón's fears were spread by a smith that could not keep the secret. Now it was Astrid that had to placate many of the people. Grímkell was angry at what had happened because this made his job harder. Jón explained how an early warning would be useful so that people could get to safety. Grímkell had already done this but Jón wanted the net expanded. The man didn't want to do this because he was short of troops as it was. Jón and I did some talking. There was still a lot of preparations he could do in the city but he wanted to get out. Apparently there was a lot of barbaric leanings in the young man. He had been dirty most of the time when making the gunpowder but he had been the cleanest of the group. Jón said to the cadets, "Some of you have just come back after being away almost half of a year. Those that left learned a great deal. I want all of us to leave the city and learn much more woodcraft and to continue with our weapons training. We may be under attack at some time in the future and I want a secure base that we can work from. Apart from training, I want to form scouting groups to warn the city of an attack." Some of the children had a parent but the interaction was not present. They were simply cadets for the most part. Dina had wanted to go on the original excursion but she had seen how long we had been gone. She must feel bad, because she may have to forgo the benefits of the city for an extended period. Klaasje looked the same way while Epje and Tiebout looked eager. The second group had been tried in fire so to speak and were less inclined to go against Jón's decision. The adults tried to talk Jón out of this because the children were their's too. They had seemed to form a family. The two little girls saw their bigger brothers and sisters going. Wiebe seemed to be getting better with his steady diet. His family had come and helped on occasion and I think the man had regretted not allowing some of his children to join the academy. Jón and I figured that we would take care of them if and when he died and take some of the load from his wife. Wiebe said, "You were gone for a long time and we could use more of your teaching. Three of my children would love to learn too." "We will have to see about that in a month or so. If you want, you can bring them here to be with Sander's family. There is a lot they can learn about pottery and steel making." The man smiled widely and said, "I would love to do that. I don't see them too much." He left unsaid that they would be better taken care of here. Wiebe helped us load the packs onto our horses. It was only as we left that I told Grímkell, "We are going to scout to the north and to the west. We have some devices that make a lot of light that will shoot into the sky. If those on watch see this then you will know that an enemy approaches. We may give you up to a whole day's notice." "We can do that. Our men are already patrolling that area." "We will be beyond your lines. Is there any news you want me to give your men when I see them?" "Just ride as fast as they can to get here. But they already know that." We hurried after that to get into position. We had six packhorses and they kept up very well. As we rode Jón pointed out landmarks on the nearly flat terrain. Soon the farmland changed to forest with a few clearings for farms. Jón was nearly always in the forefront but I was the one using his ears and senses to the best of our advantage. At our first break, Jón broke out the maps again and showed where they were now and the probable route of any attacking force. Dolf said, "Gunlar is in the other direction. Won't the Romans come from there?" "One way to get an enemy to pull back is to attack his home. The Romans have done this for a long time. All they have to do is threaten Hildestun and they hope that the king will send some of his men here to protect it. That way the other Romans will have less men to fight." "Are we going to stop them?" His eyes were wide and I had to chuckle. Jón said, "No. We find them and then race back to report. It would be good to warn the people as we go. If we can, I plan on destroying bridges but I also want to set bombs up where they walk." The ones that had been with us to make the powder smiled. Jón had made a curved rectangle out of a piece of iron and a thin folded piece of sheet metal. Black powder was packed against the thick side and molten sulphur poured in to keep it in place. Small stones went on the molten sulphur and all of this was wrapped in the sheet metal. When it was detonated, the stones were cast forward just like small ball bearings had been done like the claymore used in Nam. An even more impressive example was a hollowed out rock that was filled with powder and detonated as the Romans walked over it. It may give out our secret sooner but it would slow down the Romans a lot more. Everybody here was used to riding but some had more experience. We rode on until we camped that night. Like Clovis and the Romans, we set up a watch schedule. It was not needed with me listening but the cadets didn't know that. There was little chance of rain so we didn't set up the tent. We talked around the fire about things that had happened on the trip we had just completed before turning in. Forni cuddled up to Jón as he had done so many times recently and pushed his bare hind end at his lover's crotch. Jón had staying power but it was hard to resist temptation like this. Jón's hand made sure that Forni had his own orgasm. In the last month the boy had started to have a wet discharge. Hafgan was on the other side of Jón and reached out to hold onto the young man as if to share the joy. Jón knew the boy was awake because I had told him. Hafgan had done this many times in the past and received no pleasure except to have pleased his lover. He was now allowed to join but only as a spectator or nearly so. Bridges were passed but not before they were investigated and a discussion started on how to destroy it with the least powder. Rain had come and a lot of it. Most of the rivers were swollen. Usually the cadets would put themselves in the Roman's shoes and look for an alternate route. A lot of time was spent at each location so that the area was well known before we moved on. A road between two low hills was another place to investigate and then ways of planting charges. Bats were found and Jón made it a point to find their roosts. Some places were very rich and one in particular could support a few families for years before the guano was exhausted. It was perhaps a hundred and fifty Roman miles away that I caught the scent that I knew very well. Jón immediately changed course and we went through a ravine and over a small crest. We tried not to do get our hopes up. We also had to be careful. We could be seen far off if we went over some ridges. It was perhaps seven miles further that we found a small lake but nothing lived here. It was dark. Petroleum covered that had oozed from the ground covered any water. We located the site on the map. Jón was curious and he went close. A dead wind blown branch was pulled out and we could see the dark globs falling from it to make hollow sounds as they fell beck into the pool. Hafgan felt more secure now and asked in a little boy's voice, "What is it?" "It is called petroleum. It occurs naturally in the ground. It will burn with a lot of black smoke and the fire is difficult to put out. If we made a very large tank and heated it up then parts of it would separate. All of them burn and some very quickly." "What good is it?" "You can burn it to heat a home but it is no good to heat your food. We use fat to lubricate the axles of the wagons. This liquid can make a better grease. I have talked about chemicals and many can be made from this. "During our last trip we talked of a device made out of iron and steel that will burn some of the chemicals we can make from this lake. The device can be made to turn around. It is like the steam engine I talked about but it can be much smaller. We will take this and make a lot of things move. You also heard about my visions of trains, well this can be burnt instead of wood or coal to make them move. There is more heat available in a tonne of this than in the other two." We could see no immediate use for the pool of oil. It was important to us especially when a new age may be born. If stringent rules and hefty taxes were introduced then oil would not be wasted like it had been in my life. We would be using a lot of it but there would be enough trees to suck up the carbon dioxide. It would still be better to use hemp but both could be done. Once news of what we had done reached other countries, they would do what they wanted and that could be wholesale consumption of the oil. Jón got back on track soon enough when another road branched into the one we had been on. It was still no more than a dirt tract but to the people of this time it was a major road. The Romans had made few roads this far east of the Rhine. Jón said to me, "What do you think of the this road?" He meant the new one and I said, "You are going to have to check both ways. It's not on the map but it doesn't look to be a simple farm road. Perhaps it is newly made. You don't want a route the enemy can follow to get behind your lines. The main road branches too in another few hours. The decision is yours to make. I just don't advise splitting your forces. The cadets are still children." "The map shows a bridge ahead. We can cover this and an hour both ways on the next road. We put the details on our map and then return here. We have to go south still." He meant the next most likely avenue of approach and I said, "We have gone far beyond the area we were to cover. We could do a very minor survey of all of Germany but it will not help us much. One day with enough trained people then a comprehensive group of maps can be undertaken." Accurate maps were a must for us. Roads and track could be laid much cheaper if it avoided obstacles like hills, swamps, rivers and lakes but got to the appointed destination with the least length. When oil was concerned then pipelines and eventual electrification had to be considered. All of northern Germany was fairly flat and major canals were built for sight seeing and cargo. A lot of thinking had to be done to save a great deal more work and expense. During the trek any ambush sites were found and appraised. No camp site was found that would be central enough to cover this section of German. Much more investigations had to be undertaken to the best location or locations. I realised that the cadets were becoming too tired and suggested that we made camp for a day or more. The cadets didn't mind at all and once a site was found. They went about gathering all the dry wood they could find. Smoke would lead an enemy directly to us. A stockade of sorts was constructed but it was basically only a hut that would stop most arrows and spears. The tents were put up and a latrine dug. A toilet seat had been made and this was carried now from site to site. The cadets split up. One group tidied up the camp while the rest went to hunt and see what was to be found in this area. The horses were well fed from the lush grass. It was raining on and off again and the equipment had to be protected. Aagt came back to camp and said to Jón, "There is a stream close by. It falls a few metres over some limestone. We can have a shower. We will be still wet but we will be clean." "We'll look into this later. That was a good thing to find. I feel dirty too." Jón used some grass to rub down his horse and soon those still in the camp did the same. The pack horses were just as important and got the same treatment. Their hooves and shoes were checked and the feet had stood up very well when considering what unshod hooves would be like. Edana was very busy and in a moment started a small fire in the hut. The evergreen boughs kept most of the water off. She liked her flint and steel and especially how the moss burst into life because of the saltpetre. There were a lot of details to look after on a trip like this. The armour had a thin coat of bees wax but needed to have some fat where it wore off or it would rust. Finding bees now was not easy. The armour was not bright and shinny like in the museum but a dull grey as it came from the forge. Shiny metal easily attracted attention. Forni put poles up around the latrine and then lashed horizontal poles to them. Boughs went on and now a person could relieve themselves in comfort. Dolf and Guinevere had been out and now came back with a boar slung on a pole between them. They looked exhausted from the work they had done in carrying it here. They put it down in a cleared spot and Dolf said, "I was out hunting. You said to be careful with boars. I was on a ridge and it walked below me. I was safe all the time." "You did well then. Boars have killed grown men that were experienced hunters." The boar was hung from a branch. It looked to weight seventy kilos and would provide us with meat for a while. By now the cadets knew what to do. The hunters cleaned their equipment and put it away while those in the camp worked on the carcass. It was not long before a lot more damp wood was gathered because the rain had increased and smoke would be difficult to spot. Meat was cooked over the open fire and a pot was readied to collect the fat. It looked like we would be here for at least a day now. An iron frame and frypan were used so Jón could teach this method of cooking. What vegetables we found could get fried or boiled. Everybody was well versed in spotting edible plants. The wind picked up but the trees gave us a lot of protection and very little got to us. It did start to become cooler though. When those that ate were done, they left to do their own exploration and guard duties. Jón had used his knife to shave the boar and now had the bristles for brushes if and when we needed them. The incisors were taken because they were something that was used like jewellery. Dolf got these because he had killed the animal. The hunter traditionally got the internal organs which were higher in vitamins. He was magnanimous and shared them with the rest of us. Later we had a chance to just sit back and rest. The rain had not stopped but had turned into a drizzle. I remember much worse conditions when I was even younger than these children. At that time, there was snow on the ground and it was well below freezing. Those leading our team never let us rest because we had to continue moving or die of hypothermia. We at least had better equipment than the cadets now had. There was lots of meat so we had a snack before going to sleep. Dolf and Guinevere were usually together and they seemed to having a good friendship. Oriana and Klaasje were almost a pair too. They were young so nothing would be considered permanent. Everybody but Hafgan and Arienh were here because they were on watch. Jón said, "When I started the academy it was to teach people how to be responsible. They also had to learn how to survive and to make machines. Some of the things like wagons and hand tools have to be shared but other things have to stay with us a few more years so we can grow strong. "I have noticed that all of you are growing older and changing into young adults. Young adults enjoy the same things as adults and that includes sex." Nobody looked shy because Jón had touched on this subject before. "Forni has been able to shoot his seed." The boy was not embarrassed but took this with a proud smile. "Everybody uses their hands to rub their special places to get that feeling I talked about before. All of you know that a woman has her menses and what that means. You all know about her fertile time. "What I have not told you is that a man's seed is what picks whether the baby is a boy or a girl. Women have thought for years that it is they that pick the gender but that is not true. "This is difficult to prove. A machine that will spin around very fast will separate the heavy from the light portions of a man's seed. The heavier portion will produce boy babies. "The seed can sucked into a small tube and the tube is inserted into a woman's uterus. The seed is blown out and the little cells begin their journey to an egg that may be ready. As I mentioned before only one of the cells are able to find the opening and wiggle in. After that the others will die. Sometimes the egg grows and splits then separates. Each cell will now grow an identical twin. If two or more eggs come down then they may all get fertilised. Then all of them would be just brothers and sisters." Guinevere said, "I was always told it was the mother's body that chose whether it was a boy or girl." The rest just nodded their heads. "The proof is hard to find but I am right. Men have blamed the woman some times for not bringing them a son but it is their fault not the woman." This seemed to sit better with the women because they had all heard stories like this. "The reason I brought this up was that you are all young and want to try sex. Boys play with boys and girls play with girls but when they play together then one will get pregnant and it will always be the girl. "The girls have the responsibility of raising the child if the father does not claim him. The girls of our land have a chance to change the world. A woman is treated as an inferior by everybody. If we have strong women then they will fight for our people and for their gender too. "Think of it. If we survive, the world would have changed. Dina, Aagt, Guinevere, Edana, Oriana or Arienh could come through a village one day and every girl and boy will be out there staring at her as if she were a queen. The same is true of Dolf, Epje, Klaasje, Tiebout, Hafgan and Forni. They will all be famous. I say this to tell you how important each of you are. "A girl can get pregnant and then have to tend a child. This is not the end but it puts added burdens on a girl. Will a woman fight differently if she is thinking of her child? Will a man fight differently if he is thinking of his child? One may have got more training and would be able to survive. "I am not saying that you cannot have fun but do so wisely. When this war is over and perhaps the next you will all have time for families. I am giving you adult responsibilities but you have to act like an adult to do them. "Have fun if you want. It is your right but think of all the other things you can do that are good without causing a child to be born." Guinevere smiled widely and said, "What kind of things?" The smile was enough to let Jón and me know that she thought she had caught him. Jón now smiled and said, "I like a clean woman or boy. I have had sex with both. I don't like the smell if they have been too long without a bath. My tongue and lips are used as I like them used on me too. "You can use your hands on each other. You know how to please a girl and all you have to do is ask the boy what feels nice. "A boy can enter a girl's bum but he has to be very slow and then use butter. This takes up to a half hour to stretch the opening big enough but it is fun to try. Boy's have a gland in their bum that make them very excited when it is stroked. A girl doesn't have this. Some girls like this sex but the boy has to use his hands to keep the girl excited. Most girls don't like this but it keeps their man happy and them safe from having a child." Guinevere had turned red but asked, "Will you show me?" "Guinevere, I am your teacher though I am not that much older. We are living in a dangerous time and it would rip my heart out if you died. Think how much more it would hurt if we had made love first?" Guinevere just thought for a moment then said, "What about you and Forni and even Hafgan?" "Forni is my friend the same way Edana is yours. Hafgan has been put under a knife. He cannot enjoy sex the way we do. We talked about this before and Hafgan will not be hurt by anybody here. He is interested and likes to be part of our group. He is welcome to join Forni and me but he will get nothing more than a hug and a kiss. "He will do great things in life but he will not be able to have his own children. He may adopt some day but none will be of his body. There are many more like him and in a way they can be better. We are all distracted by sex while those others can think on any given subject with less distraction. "I want to add one more thing. Listen carefully because this is important. If I catch any of you having sex while on guard duty I will banish both of you from the academy. You are all out their to keep watch. You can think on your life but your eyes and ears have to be devoted to the rest of us. That is why you are all separated. Even if you come close to talk you will not speak unless it is about our security." Everybody was shocked at this for this was the strongest language Jón had used on them to date. Being banished now was like being thrown out on their own to live or die. All those not on duty went to sleep. Some took longer to get to settle down. Hafgan and Arienh came in and Tiebout and Aagt took their place. In an hour Tiebout hurried into the hut to find Jón putting on his armour. "Somebody is coming this way from down wind." "Thank you Tiebout. Awake the rest and get them to form red and white teams. Red to the east of the wind and white to the west. No fighting unless you are ordered to. Most people are friendly and these people are not Roman or even warriors. There are even some young children. We have ten minutes because they will not come quickly." "How... how?" Jón put his hand on the boy's shoulder and said, "They are noisy and I hope none of you are." Red and white leaders had heard the orders and hurriedly got ready and took up stations. Jón put cloth over his armour but left off his helmet. The katana was strapped to his shoulder and the k-gar at his waist. Jón built up the fire and took the skewers and put more of the boar onto them. They went over the flames while more of the meat went into the frypan. At the last moment he pulled the meat away a bit then turned his back on the fire and faced the coming strangers. Jón's night site returned and in a moment four large figures stood at the edge of the camp. It took a moment but one called out, "Hello, the camp. There are four men here and their families. May we come in and warm ourselves at your fire?" ------- Chapter 19 Jón listened to the accent as well as the intonation, then called, "Come in and be welcome. The fire is warm and I have put food on for you. It is almost cooked now." This made the men stay because it was odd that the figure in the camp was awake and not scrambling for weapons. They talked among themselves and it was much later that one came forward and stood before Jón. "My name is Drudwyn. My brother Calder and our grown children and their families are trying to find a home for ourselves." I could see the other men peering into the darkness. They had only spears but one head was of iron. They were not ready to throw but they were nervous. I heard them muttering about the great number of horses. The horses were still nervous from the wildlife that prowled around the camp and drawn by the smell of blood. Jón said in a loud voice so his words would carry to everybody, "The Picts are welcome in this land provided they obey the laws; including their obligation to protect this land from invaders." From the darkness came, "We are farmers and not as good at fighting as you Frisians but we can hold our own." "The effort is what counts. Your children must be hungry. Have them come into the camp and have some of the pork." "You said you were cooking the food for us?" "Yes, you must have followed the smell of our cooking when the wind blew it to the road. You would only have followed it if you were hungry. You have already said that you are farmers. You have made a lot of noise stumbling toward our camp in the dark. I simply cut more meat and put it on the fire. When you got close I put it to one side so it would not burn as I talked to you." "That's magic," Drudwyn said as his hand went to his waist. "Is it magic to hear your children stumbling through the woods at night?" It took a moment for him to think on this then Drudwyn said, "Perhaps not. I see that you have many horses. Ask your people to come out so we may meet them." "I am the eldest person in the camp until you and your people came. In Hildestun we have a school to teach woodcraft. My students and I are out here to practice this and to look for invading armies To answer your question, our pickets heard you coming and we all got up. They are in a circle around us at the moment. "I will call them in but I do not want you to get upset when they come into camp from behind you." Jón paused and no reply came so he called, "White team. Return to camp. There are friends in the camp." In a moment six cadets entered the camp and spread out behind Jón. He called out, "Red team return to camp." In a moment all twelve had returned. None of the bows were strung and their hands were well away from their swords. The metal of their gauntlets was heard though. "You see all of my people. They are young. Please introduce your people to me and then I will do the same too you. The food has to be tended to and the best way is to eat it." The man walked back and talked to the other three men then the four came into the camp. Calder was older than Drudwyn and favoured his left leg and the spear was more of a crutch. Sualtam was Drudwyn's oldest surviving boy and looked to be around eighteen. Powell was Calder's eldest and looked no older than sixteen. The hand shaking was odd but they did this because they were guests and hungry. Jón brought the cadets over one at a time and introduced them so their features could be seen in the light. Since the man were still frightened Jón turned and picked up two metal skewers of meat and handed them to Drudwyn. "Take this to your family. You are in my camp as a guest and have guest rights. The only additional thing I insist on is that you use the latrine to shit and piss. It keeps our camp clean." "What's a latrine?" "Feed your family and I will show you." When Drudwyn turned to go, Jón picked up more meat and handed it to Calder then the two sons. Powell had to take a bite of the meat on the way to deliver it. Jón said, "White and red team, stand down and get more wood. No picket duty until ordered. Dolf, when you are ready, cut more meat for our guests. As the hunter who brought this to us, then you have this honour." All the metal skewers came back and Dolf put them to use. Some were just used to spear meat from the pan. The rest of our guests came into the camp and I saw twenty three more people. Drudwyn introduced his wife and at Jón's instance also his other eight children. The oldest of the group was Wynne the mother of the two brothers. Jón found a seat for the woman. She was about fifty but looked at least seventy from the hard life women had to endure. She said, "What are you?" "We are a school. I teach. We investigate things and try to find the reasons why they occur. The cadets look young and warlike because I taught them to be this way. We have good weapons that we have made ourselves. None of the cadets has had much chance to use them. They wrestle though and are quite good at it. They are all taught to treat those we meet as they treat us. You will have no problems in this camp though I may get angry if the children piss and shit around the tents." "The babies are good. They won't displease you." Calder introduced his family and then so did the two oldest boys. Jón reintroduced all of the cadets again and gave a few comments that made them appear more like children. The rest of the tents were set up and the equipment in the hut was transferred except for the pads used to cushion the saddles on the horse's backs. These the cadets slept on. Smelling like a horse was not that bad. Jón said, "You are welcome to the hut. Our saddles are on the walls so you will have all the floor space. There are mats there which you can sleep on if you wish. There may not be room for everybody but it is the best we can do in the dark. Drudwyn, will you stay up with me for a while as pickets? We can talk as the remainder get a rest. Later others will take up this duty." "We can talk." The camp settled down but the men didn't sleep right away. Jón and I learned that they had been pushed off their land to the east and had not been able to find a place to settle with their own people. Their ox died so they had been fairly wealthy people. Nobody wanted them in their communities because they were different. Jón said, "We have some of your people and even some Romans living with us. Our borders are also open to the Franks though they are our brothers. Our city is getting rich because we are making glass, iron and then a special type of iron called steel. It is much stronger and harder. The hut has our saddles and you can see them in the morning. They are superior to anything yet made. We have made tools that cut stone and wood much better. I have wanted to make fertiliser for a while but have not got around to it yet." "Fertiliser? What is that?" "Like shit that is spread on the ground to nourish plants. Plants eat this and when it is all gone the farm has to be abandoned. If I can get the fertiliser made then you could use the same land for hundreds of generations not just three." "That would be good. It's hard work to clear the land." "We have cleared land that has gone fallow for a generation. We also have a new plough with an iron tip. It digs deep within the soil and cuts the soil easily to bring up the food for the plants. The farm only has small trees on it that are easily removed." "The land is used up." "The top layer has recovered a little but I said the plough will bring up the deeper food for the plants. It requires horses or a lot of people to pull a plough." "We could still work the land if we are allowed to stay." "I have a proposition for you and your group." "What is it?" "I have the plough and the animals to pull it. I will be making fertiliser soon and need a place to put it. My people accept the old ways and it is difficult to get them to see a different way of doing things. If you will farm my way then I will provide all that you need. You will get a share of what the land brings and if I am wrong then I will feed you myself." Drudwyn was certainly interested and the details had to be hammered out. Jón was not that informed about farming and I had to take over to explain the fine points. The idea of a test farm was hard to comprehend but the thoughts of having a house with a stone foundation was like a dream come true. Having a wood floor was almost too much to grasp. It was dawn by the time we had finished. He was all for Jón's proposition but his brother Calder had an equal vote if not a bit more. The children got up with their mothers' and Jón showed them to the latrine and explained how to use it. The moss was quickly used up and the mothers had to find more. The cadets got up too but Jón had let them sleep in as long as they wanted. The camp was, after all, a place for them to rest. The washing of hands was introduced but the soap was a hard bar and smelled nice. The children didn't seem to mind. Drudwyn and Jón cut up more of the meat. Damp wood was put high over a small fire to just dry out as if it were food. When the water vapour finally left it was used for fuel and the meat was cooked. Drudwyn studied the iron frypan. It was not cast but forged and didn't look as nice but it did do the same job. The cadets took over the cooking details while Drudwyn talked to the adults about Jón's proposition. Forni coaxed the children over and fed them. The cadets followed his lead and fed the guests even before they ate themselves. Everybody was feeling their way because this was an unusual meeting of cultures. Some of the cadets were asked to hunt after they had eaten which they were glad to do. The others started to enlarge the hut. We would be here for a while longer and needed the room. Some of the children were the same age as the cadets and they were employed in helping to build the hut and to gather clay. Rocks were not as good as fired clay for an oven. The women were given the skin of the boar to tan and to keep. The skin had to be scraped and they marvelled at the tools they were loaned to do the job. The oven/stove was fired slowly then much hotter to fuse it. The children and women found edible plants. When Jón did the same thing then the men did too. Some new plants were found to be edible by each group. They had different backgrounds and different sets of knowledge. Klaasje came back with three piglets and said, "This was all I wanted to get. I didn't want to take the sow or any more of her brood." Jón said, "That was a good idea. Do you think the boar Dorf took was the sire?" "It could be but I got these miles from where he took the boar. They move around a lot. I ran across a lot of wolf sign." Jón said, "They were all around the camp last night. The smell of the boar and blood drew them." Calder had heard this and said, "Why didn't you warn us? We could have driven them away." "You were in no danger. They were hungry like you were and came to see if we would help them. The horses were fidgety because they could smell them. They would not come into the camp because I made noise and they knew I was awake." "Wolves are filthy animals. I wish they were all dead." Jón said, "They have the same right to live as we do. Men fight each other and get strong. Without the animals we would all be poorer. A child taken by a wolf is bad but it teaches the surviving children to watch for predators and to protect themselves. The boar you are eating is a fierce predator too yet I didn't hear you wanting them to all die." "We can eat them." "You could eat a wolf too, though it may not taste that good to us. Wolves will die out where man tills the soil. With no forests they will leave. Over time the wolf will be a rare sight. Men have large families and their children have large families. This is what pushes us to find new land to farm. The world around us is dangerous but to make it safe is the same as making us all weak. It is better that a few fall so that the rest of us do not live a dull life." "Dull life! One of my children was taken by a wolf." "If the child was young then the child was not protected by his family. If the child was old then he was not trained in ways to kill the wolf instead. If he was a man then he was too drunk or too weak to warrant survival." Calder was angry and his hand went to his knife under his clothes but it was not pulled. Jón didn't move at all and in a moment Calder pulled his hand away. "My daughter was only three summers when she was taken." "She could not defend herself but she should have been kept closer to those that could." This left unsaid that he or his wife should have had weapons ready to defend themselves. The death of a child was tragic but so was the gentling of an entire race. The future had most men that were more like Hafgan than true men. Calder left because he was still upset. Drudwyn, Sualtam and Powell came over though and wanted more information about the farm. Some of the tools we had made were discussed and they liked the idea of the scythe. The harrow and the disc were mentioned and how they worked but the reaper was not made yet and its construction was only alluded to. When they were told how much land they were to cultivate they almost choked. "We cannot tend all that. We are few in number." "The idea of using the machines is to allow everybody to do more. Even a woman can guide a plough if it is made properly. The disc, harrow and the reaper has a seat where the person sits to guide the horses. There is little work and a boy of twelve could do this. The seed is not cast on the ground, but falls from a container and the harrow will cover it. There is little need to bend over. Much of the difficult work is done because the land has been cleared of the large trees. "Preparing the land and planting will take a lot of the time and if you find this too much work they we can have others work it for you." Sualtam said, "We are to get a quarter of all that is harvested?" "One quarter is a lot when you consider how much that will be harvested. During the times when you are not too busy I will show you how to make even more silver by cutting trees or manufacturing a lot of other tools or devices. One of the reasons I want to give you so much is because you are hungry enough to listen to my way of doing things. The Frisians want to do everything their way. Once they see that you become wealthy then they will change. Their heads are very thick and they have to be shown something a lot of times before they will accept it." "Our own people are that way too." "You are hungry and will listen better. Next year you will be tutors." Jón answered questions almost all the time while the rest tended the camp or went hunting. The questions changed to what the men really wanted when they discussed the weapons. Jón let each of the men handle his weapons then study the construction of the armour. The boots had to be checked next along with the saddles. The axe and saw were studied because they did do the work faster and seemed to stay sharp. The horses represented great wealth and the metal on their feet was checked. Horse shoes had to be discussed and what the portion sticking out in front of the shoe was really for. Powell said, "You are all young and men could come and take what you have." "Men would come and try to take what we have. You will find out when you get to Hildestun. Our academy is designed to teach many subjects. Children can be moulded to be adults that you would be proud to know. They will know what is right and then do it. Honour is not something that can be taught but I think it can be nourished. The cadets have this. I have told them that in two thousand years children will read paper books about them and marvel how they ever did what was in the pages." "What have they done?" "They make steel and forged the raw metal into their weapons and armour. They made the boots and saddles with men to show them how. We have made things that will change the world but as yet we have to keep the secret within our group." "What secret?" "If I told you then it would not be a secret." Jón changed the subject. "We are looking for invaders but also for minerals. Have you seen anything useful that you wish to share with me?" Calder said, "Like what?" "There is a black rock that will burn also a brown one. There is another black earth that sticks to iron. Iron ore itself is all over but I want to know where you have seen reddish brown earth where the iron is not seen very well. There are a lot of other minerals but most of them are too similar to each other that only a trained eye will distinguish them apart." The men mentioned sulphur deposits and another that looked to be iron sulfite. Brown coal was seen and its location mentioned. Jón took out his map. The men marvelled at this because they had not seen one before. The location of the coal was placed on the map. Jón got into the subject of who had displaced the men and their families trying to get some intelligence on the Romans or their Pict brothers. Apparently it was not an army as such but they had seen Roman dispatch riders and small groups of Romans. All of these were far to the west. The cadets saddled the pack animals and led the children around to teach them about a horse and especially a saddle. The parents didn't mind especially after they too had a chance. Jón talked that night about the world to come. Flying for now was abandoned because it was too unbelievable. Railways and iron ships that burnt fuel to move were almost in the same category. The cadets did picket duty while the rest slept. The next morning was different. Jón said, "We are leaving later. You will not be able to keep up with us so we are going hunting. You can stay and rest here and leave for Hildestun if that is your choice. If someone obstructs you then give my name and say that you want to taste Helga's cooking and see Rudi's wagons." "We can keep up with you." "For a mile or two and I do not want to be slowed down. Do you wish us to hunt for you? It means you have to stay here to dry the meat and rest a little more. You will have to set up pickets because of the smell of blood. You know by now that it would be hard to miss Hildestun if that is your wish." There was some frightened looks since the women and children had found a measure of security. The same may have been from the men but they knew this could not last. Most of the cadets donned their armour for hunting then saddled their horses. They left single file and would go our a few miles then spread out before coming back towards the camp while making a lot of noise. In a few hours the forest was alive with movement. Boars and piglets rushed by but they were not funnelled toward the camp. Three deer went through but a buck was struck with Jón's bow while the rest were allowed to escape. Wolves hurried by but they avoided the humans. A bear didn't, but was allowed to go through the camp unmolested. A bear was a strong enemy that could be very dangerous, especially when wounded. Lynx and other animals were seen by Jón but not the rest. They didn't have the trained eye to see. Three of the large wild cattle called aurochs pushed their way through the trees. Their wide horns made it difficult to get by in many places. Their size was so great that most things bowed to their strength. A mother bear and two cubs were last and they too were not hindered. By now the sound of the horses coming were heard by everybody. It was only when the cadets had returned was the stag hung to be blooded. The butchering was quick and the internal organs divvied out to the cadets for cooking. In an hour they had eaten and the horses loaded once more for the remainder of their patrol. Jón and the cadets shook hands with everybody including the infants. There were well wishes from both sides as the cadets went single file toward the road once more. Apart from a steel knife the only thing left behind was the toilet seat that the Picts had grown to love. When the road joined another we found a great deal more tracks. None of the marks showed the hobnails of Roman feet, but many people had come by here in the last two days. I figured that they were just more refugees from the west. Germany in the future and many of the other powerful countries had accepted immigrants with open arms and in return they had got stronger and much more wealthy. Being tolerant of other beliefs had helped, though some countries were not as charitable as others. Jón said to me, "Keep our eyes and ears open. I want to see who used this road." "I will do my best but I am not infallible. I am only somewhat better than you, not perfect." Jón took point and hurried down the road. They bunched up only infrequently to have a short discussion then separated again. Whoever had forced the people to move could still be right behind them. Later that day they came upon damaged wagon and the people took up farm implements to protect themselves. Jón stopped and said, "My name is Jón. Where are you people from?" It was actually two groups that had banded together and it turned out to be from the same general area as Calder and Drudwyn. It was a competing tribe of Picts apparently. Their numbers were estimated but refugees rarely knew anything for sure. Weapons though were what the Picts would usually have with them and not what the Romans would or could supply them with. "Stay on this road and in a day you will come to a fork to the left. This will take you to Hildestun. We have need of good people to farm the land and to stand and protect it. The road to the right leads on for a week and will cross a river which is high at the moment." One large man said, "Who are you to offer us land?" "Jón the only son of Clovis, King of the Frisians. Come if you wish or go. Those that push you forward will not be able to get past us." With nothing more said, Jón left again. In coming hours more people were seen and they immediately went into hiding or stayed to protect their valuables. When dusk came the fork was seen and a few hundred people were camped here. It seemed that they had not made a decision yet or had sent people in both directions to find out what was ahead of them. The group parted when the cadets approached. Jón said in a loud voice, "My name is Jón. I am the son of Clovis, King of the Frisians. One road leads to Hildestun. You may take this road and find farms that have remained dormant long enough. The price is your allegiance to our king and a willingness to fight for your land if the need arises. You will find our active help in getting you started with tools and seed. "The other road leads east. A river is still in crest and you will have to wait for the water to drop before you can cross. Heading more south will bring you into the hill country. You may carve out a land for your people there but you will have to fight for it. The Frisians are extending a hand in friendship. Any enemy following you will not get by all of us." There didn't seem to be a spokesman or he didn't want to speak up. Jón just looked around and headed through the crowd towards home. Others had made a choice already and Jón just called out into the forest to where they were hiding, "You are on the road to Hildestun. Farmland is available as well as seed and tools. Your allegiance is required for you to stay." They made camp well off the road to avoid visitors or thieves. Forni asked, "Why are you telling everybody to come to our city? There are already a lot of people there. You said we may be attacked by the Romans and the Gauls." "The people will be settled on the old farms not in the city. They will be busy building homes and tilling the soil. If enemies approach they will just fade into the forest. "The reason I invited them is to increase our numbers. You heard me talk about a railroad, well I need to make track and the cars that will ride on it. The Frisians love to fight but they are hard to deal with. I know that after a war the people are desperate. They feel so hopeless that they will break out of their old ways and learn new ideas. Perhaps it will be the immigrants that will pull all of us forward." "We can change." "You are changing because you are with me almost all the time. Those that are like the bootmaker and the smith have to be convinced over and over again. What about those that I ask to do something only once? They will not change but may do something for the silver I offer. The word for this is complacent. They are happy in their ways and don't want to change what they do because they do not see a reason to do so." The next day at noon they arrived back in Hildestun. Jón immediately sought out Grímkell. Jón found him in a guard room working on some armour. "Hello Grímkell. I thought I should come and mention what I had seen." "Romans or Gauls?" "None that were fighting but there are a lot of refugees from the west. I am settling them into the old farms." "Why do you want some filthy refugees?" "They will farm for me. I will help them get started and the granary will fill this time. When you recruit, you will find some of the Picts joining our number." "Who wants the Picts? We can't trust them." "The Picts are not as good at fighting as we are but they can kill our enemies with some help. If you treat them as equals they will think they have found a home. They will protect this land because it will be theirs too." "This is our land not theirs. Why should I give anything to them?" "If they have the farm beside yours and help you when the need arises then how are they any different than other Frisians?" "They don't look the same. They don't talk the same and they have odd customs." "The Huns have so many people that you could not count them. They will be coming. They have so many differences that you will think the Picts as being your brothers. The Visigoths will come through this area and fight us even though we are much closer to them than to the Picts. There are so many Visigoths that they will defeat the Roman Empire. We will be defeated because we are so few. The Huns will so numerous that they will not even think that there was a war. We will just be swept aside. Again, we need more people to survive and the Picts will give their allegiance before they can get any land." "You can't trust them. They will rob us." "I invited them here. Treat them with some respect but teach them that we are not to be trifled with. Let them be the first to show disrespect. The Romans call us barbarians because they do not know us. I do not want to call my own people animals." The horses were put in the stable and brushed. This was not left to the grooms. The cadets didn't have servants except when we ate at the castle kitchen. Astrid and Dagmar were happy to see Jón. Astrid asked in a laughing voice, "Did you find any Romans?" "Not yet but a tribe of Picts are pushing some of their brothers this way. I am going to settle them in the old farms." "Those farms are useless. They will grow hardly enough to survive." "There is food for the plants deeper in the soil. A larger plough will bring it up. We need a lot more food and we cannot get it with those that sit around this room drinking beer and swapping stories." "We have enough to eat. More people mean more mouths to feed." "My tools will make each person more productive. In a few years we will be selling our grain." "Why work that hard just to sell it?" "The work is less hard because of the machines. With the power to sell or not sell food we gain power." "How? A king in many lands just lets his people die if they are foolish enough to not work hard enough." "So we sell to those that will eat it. If they do not have silver then we will get them to do things for us. We need more iron, ashes and charcoal. If a king does not look after his people then his subjects are informed of this and perhaps the king is not a king anymore." "You would preach insurrection?" "Would you preach insurrection against the Romans? Would you do it against the Gauls? It had been done for a long time by the Romans. They don't think it is a bad idea." "Someone may do the same to our king and your father." "My father cares for his people. Only a professional agitator would do this and he would have to receive Roman gold to do this. Our own people honour Clovis and someone speaking ill of him would be killed." "I still think what you were saying is wrong." There was more talk about Clovis but none of it was recent. What Fálki was able to do or if he had even arrived was not known. Jón was a whirlwind as he checked on his assets in the city. When he decided to check the old farms. The cadets wanted to go even if they were tired and Jón allowed it. The farms were not that far from the city and all of them were overgrown. There were dilapidated huts and of no use. I estimated that there was about three square kilometres of land making this three hundred hectares. Not all of it had been prime land even when just cleared but it could be very productive. A further area of land only two hundred hectares had remained follow for perhaps sixty years and had many larger trees. There was only a rough estimated of the number of male Picts but it looked like three to five hundred. A man could with a pair of oxen plough one iugerium per day. That was actually the definition. It had nothing to do with the man but what the oxen would do before deciding to quit. A family could take care of double this if they were not disturbed. This made the measurement nearly a Roman heredium. This was roughly half of a hectare. Jón was pushing for a type of communal farming practice where the men used the community property and the land was owned by the group. This would ensure that everybody was taken care of and assets were shared as needed. Five hundred hectares would be too small when they found how easy it was with the new tools. By that time more land would have to be cleared. The cadets helped place markers to where the common road would be and to where the houses might be situated. A man using a plough would just work on all the properties at one time and only have to avoid the homes. There were few stones used for walls like there were in Britain. Here they were used around the huts. The properties were made as evenly as possible and were about a fifty metres of frontage along the small river and three hundred metres in depth. This necessitated two roads but it gave a focus for a small community. The large stream or small river cut a third off the land and a bridge would have to be built when the water had subsided. I had built bridges out of logs and squared timber and now with Jón, I would get a chance to try stone and mortar. A deep pool lined with cut stone would suit the children but it would have to be built by the farmers. I could supply the diving board and maybe one day the swings and the slides. The village would straddle the river but this would cut some farms off from the water. They would also be closer to the village. A village reminded me of its inhabitants. In a way I missed my children but I had so many others now that there was little chance for remembrances. It was hard to imagine that my memories were now false because those children would never be born. Events already had changed too much. We got back to the city but none of the Picts had come yet. They were probably going to camp tonight and then come to the city in the morning. We all had a late meal in the kitchen and talked of what we had seen on our trip to Helga and the girls. Helga was less bias toward the coming Picts but she did have her feelings on the way things should be. She was happy that they would be segregated in another community instead of in the city. Astrid found Jón, and with some well placed pauses and her choice of words Jón said to the cadets, "I will meet you in the morning. There is a lot of concerns I have to think about." Fully half of the cadets looked at Astrid and knew what the study would entail. Jón had a sponge bath courtesy of Astrid. The woman admired Jón's improved body and said, "I hear you invited our enemy here." "You heard wrong." Astrid gave an odd look and stopped her hand from cleaning Jón's back. "Did you invite some Picts?" "I did. They need a home and I need people to help me. They will try a bit harder to do what I ask. That is until they are familiar with the area and know they are safe." "You have lots of people here to help." "If you were to look closer, you would see that even our wounded veterans are working. Saddles and shoes take a lot of work. If I didn't have all those tents the tanners would not be able to keep up with the demand for leather. Everyone of the smiths has hired more people and more people have taken up the trade. People are after Rudi to make more wagons and even the cooper has a difficult time keeping up to demand. Women have taken up jobs that at one time were only done by a man. "There are very few people here that are not working very hard. We need more hunters, more carpenters, more glass makers, more potters and even more stone cutters. This is feeding on itself and on what we sell to other cities." Astrid said, "There has to be more people." "There isn't. That is part of the reason we need more food. With the new farm tools each family can produce even more. I think that we will be at war for a long time. The more productive our people the more people can be sent off to fight. At least with the new armour and weapons, less will die." Astrid had got to the area between Jón's legs and stopped comments altogether. She had to get closer for a better inspection and that led to her sucking the lad into her mouth. Jón groaned and held Astrid's head to keep her from going too fast. He held off as long as he could then filled her mouth with his seed. She smiled up to him with him still erect in her mouth. "You do that so well. Come up here now. I want to try to seduce you." "You don't need to. I am yours." "It is always good to try. I don't want to get out of practice besides I like it when you beg me." "I never beg." After a pause she asked in a meek voice, "Do I?" "You certainly do and that makes me even more excited." Jón kissed her lips then slowly worked his way down her body. She begged many times that night. After breakfast Jón went to the barracks and found the former Picts lounging around just like the Frisians. If it wasn't for their size and colouring they would be the same, at least in temperament now. Teirtu the man that had been captured in Kirwyn's camp got up much sooner than the rest and stood awaiting orders. He had not forgotten how Jón had his fate in his hands and instead of executing an known enemy he had promoted him to a responsible position in the Frisian military and gave him command of the other Gaelic troops. Jón walked around as if doing an unofficial inspection and stopped in front of the man. "Hello, Teirtu. How are your men shaping up?" "They practice much of the time. I thought we were good fighters before but your people are much better." "It is all a matter of practice and a willingness to work hard." "I have seen that. I have used your lance and find it a fearsome weapon." "There are many weapons that are even more dangerous to our enemies. I have come to you with a request." "A request? You have but to order." "It is still a request. A group of Picts are coming here today, I think. Their numbers may range from three to five hundred. They are all refugees. Your people are of the Pict people and I would like you to help them settle in." "Where did they come from?" "They all came from the west. It is not from one city or even land. They are pushed out by other Picts that want their land." "I see. What would you have me do?" "There are two areas that have been farmed at one time but now abandoned. One was recent but the other has been for about thirty years. I want them to clear off the land again. You have seen my farming tools. I want them to use the tools but farm the area as if it was just one large farm. The individual families will live on the land set aside for them and tend their crops. I do not want fences because it will interfere with the ploughing and sowing. The houses have to be near the roads." "Can I see this land?" "Talk to Grímkell and see if he can spare you and your men for this duty. You will be acting as my representative so you will choose your words wisely and not react harshly with men that are trying to get the best for their families." Teirtu did as I asked and Grímkell allowed him to have three days off because of the amount of work ahead of them. The Picts started to arrive around noon. And the Pict sentries greeted them and did a census through the day. Since more were coming they were asked to make a temporary camp. Jón had large kettles brought out and food given to the refugees. It was touch and go for a while for there were almost six hundred and seventy people with the majority of them being children. Teirtu spoke to them in his language and said that they had to elect a head man and twelve deputies that would retain their positions for only two months. Every person sixteen or more would have a vote which pleased many. There was little campaigning and the thirteen men were quickly chosen. Teirtu got them moving to the proposed development and explained about the myriad details Jón had explained to him. Most of the men could speak a bit of German but they were much more comfortable with their own. The men were incredulous and argued with Teirtu until I stepped in. "The farms will be owned by the village and the tenants will rent them. The rent will go to the village not me. A man will gain his farm by lot not by choice and I will find someone that you all can trust. You will not get preferential treatment. I have thought of fifty paces as a frontage on the river but now I see that there are many more people. Forty may be better but then you will have to go four hundred paces back. My idea was to keep all the homes close so you can talk but the farms would not be that far away." "We have had villages forever and you are telling us how to make ours?" "Yes. Accept or leave? Tell me now so my men can escort you from our lands." "I... I didn't mean that." "Yes you did. I am trying to do the best for you people. My plough will till all of the land. That means that you all have to work together. I am going to provide a special food for the land to make the crops grow tall. This is from me not you. Fight me and I will have you banished. Argue once you know what you are talking about. Try to cheat the rest and I will remove your head as a warning for others. Do I make my words clear enough for you?" The man turned white. Apparently he had talked already to the Picts about how I killed so many of them single handedly. We put rocks around the area that would be the village. It would be more of one main street that may occupy two extra wide farms on each side of the river. A cord was produced and we measured off forty paces then used it to put new rocks for property lines. This took the rest of the day to lay out but Jón had numbered the lots as east and west with sequential numbers. That night the hunters were able to find more game and it was brought in to feed the large numbers because they had now grown to seven hundred and ninety. The division of the land was a hot topic. They could not believe what they were getting for free but in the next breath wanted more. The thirteen men were to find the number of families but also to group them into areas where brothers could work side by side or a father and his sons. The men were also to find those that had a family headed by a woman. Lastly they were to tabulate the children that were not going to be looked after and ones that had already moved out on their own with or without getting married first. There were a lot of questions in the city later but Jón was too flustered from working with so called refugees that he avoided all contact. The next morning after breakfast Jón gave his body over to me. This was just too much for him to handle. Teirtu and his men came out dressed for war this time. They rode horses and carried lances. The arguing ceased abruptly. I was not going to act with impartiality. I didn't think they deserved it. The head of the families and adult individuals were called forward. A good ten percent were women. The thirteen gave their report and I listened to the groups. There seemed to be a lot of families that wanted to stay together. I grouped these by separating them into groups and they had to stay in place until this was done. I picked the most surly first and had Teirtu escort them to the first six parcels of land. The next surly group would be their neighbours. The groups that argued less were given land near the town but this also included the single men. There were a few strong women and I said to them, "I will give you farms too but you cannot marry any of the men getting a property without one of you giving up the one they take. It is one family and one farm." The women agreed and I gave them property too. To one side I saved four properties for Drudwyn and Calder along with their two boys. They had not arrived yet but I expected them to arrive within a few days. When I was done the five square kilometres of land were used up. More would have to be cleared and the wood would be in demand for homes and fires. The farmers that had already planted came out with the equipment they purchased from me. The tenants started to clear the brush and young trees on their land just before the ploughs started at one end. They just continued across the land except where the village would be. With four ploughs there was a good chance it would get completed in time to plant something. The picts stared in amazement as the roots were just lifted up and turned over. The tenants walked behind the plough and picked up rocks and roots because they wanted to get started as soon as possible. This would be a long process so the discs were pulled over the rough ground to loosen it up and cut down on brambles. A good pair of horses could do one farm a day so we would get only twenty eight a week. The discs were much faster but did little for the soil. Six other farmers had bought my ploughs and another seven had bought those of other smiths. These men were contacted to see if they would assist for silver. Nine of them agreed. This was good because there were ninety three farms. Teirtu was given the job of magistrate. He seemed to like the name and position. He changed the boundary markers to stakes and drove them into the ground then layed out the roadway beside the river. A farmer now had to take care of his section of road but could take water from the river if he had the pipe and pump to do so. Of course none of them did. Teirtu sent the refugees off with tools to cut the trees off the land and deeper into the area not cultivated for hundreds of years. Some trees were quite large and had to be dug out. Men would pull them over so the roots would not be in the way of the plough. More men were sent off hunting. The granary was getting low and we needed all of the grain for seed. With Teirtu acting well as a lieutenant, I left him to the task of keeping peace in the village. This would go well beyond Grímkell's time allotment but it could not be helped. Food would be a major problem until the harvest came in but not all of the harvest would be grain. Jón was upset with the situation. He had such hopes for the Picts and then they seemed to turn on him. I talked to him about gratitude from my own point of view but he was still shocked at seeing his ideals dashed so soon. He gathered the cadets once more and left on the same route once again. Jón rode hard for a day before he got tired and slowed down. The cadets had said nothing and I doubted if they knew what was bothering him. We did get down to doing our job once more but continued to check for ambushes or where we could ambush others. Jón usually ran point with one of the cadets. Jón and I fed the cadet what I knew of woodcraft and tracking. Though we were not on foot many of the traps used in Nam were mentioned along with all the others that had been found through research and experience. This was only a review anyway because people didn't remember things very well without making the actual trap themselves. We went over the first bridge again and the simplistic answers the first time were improved by what had come out towards the end of the last patrol. Forni said, "Can we explode some of the powder and see how a bridge is destroyed?" "That is the trouble in war. You want your people to use the bridge but to deny it to the enemy. There is no telling when you need the bridge for your own purposes." We had been carrying around the powder and even a few rockets but had no chance to find out how they worked in a combat situation. That night towards dusk the situation changed. The highways were usually winding and overgrown. In this country there was few hills but a few hundred metres ahead of us was a depression and out of it came two riders. I had not heard or smelt them because of the wind and the features of the land. They were large and looked German. Jón didn't know which tribe but they didn't want to chat. They charged at us immediately while pulling their swords from their sheaths. A loud war cry rent the stillness as their horses were spurred our way. Aagt was the one accompanying Jón. He said to me, "They are too close to run. We have to attack." "They are probably riding point. There will be more behind." Jón turned around to the rest and yelled, "Make a fire. Prepare rockets. Point will attack to keep them occupied." He spurred his horse and then pulled first the katana and then the wakizashi. Jón would control the left with me the right. Aagt was riding on the right so she would be able to pass on the enemies left. The four horses galloped toward each other and it was the horses of two men that were not used to this and they shied at the last second. Jón used no shield though he had one. The swords would have to do. Jón's horse hit the one on his right and I was able to deflect the large iron sword and bring my blade back across the neck of my adversary. I could not see much because Jón had control of the body. His own swordsmanship was not as good but it was better than his opponents. He was able to deflect the sword and strike the man just above the left knee. We rushed by and got to the top of the crest just as two more men came rushing up to see what had happened. We tried the same routine again but this time my opponent had his shield up and ready. We stopped our forward rush and I used the wakizashi and stabbed through the shield to where the heart must be. I trust the blade to cut more at the tip and extracted the blade as quickly as I could. Jón's blade had glanced off the shield and cut another leg but the man was bringing a sword around to crush Jón's head. Jón could not get the wedged blade out fast enough and I used the shorter blade to deflect it to one side. A blade from behind went under the man's shield and into his guts. Aagt was not idle. Jón got his mount to back up and then got his sword free. The man just stared at Jón with wide eyes and slowly fell from his horse. The other rider was just hitting the ground himself. I could see over the edge of the road. There were at least thirty men charging up the grade. All of them had their swords out and shields raised. I said, "Look to see if the rockets are ready?" He did quickly but there was no fire yet though three people were each trying to get one started. Looking back at the attackers. It was easy to see a narrow area about five metres down. A large rock face was on the right while some trees were on the left. It was wide enough for a cart or two horses side by side but no more. Jón spurred to this area and stopped just as the next two men arrived. The one on the right was slightly faster and arrived a few metres ahead of his mate. He was tall and large with a big red beard. His yell was deep and reverberating. This time Jón swung his katana first which caused the man to shift his shield. I used the shorter blade to snake around the shield and stab the man in the guts. I had time only for a twist before the next man came. This one had to avoid the horse that was now almost stationary in the road. The warrior came around on Jón's side. He thrust his shield at Jón who lashed out with his foot to push it further to the right thus blocking the man's sword arm. I was able to use Jón's body and now slashed with my blade across his unprotected neck. I relinquished control but kept the right arm. The other men were bunched up now and one forced his horse forward brutally. John got his horse to rear and come down with his wicked steel shoes that pierced the man's face then scored a deep cut on the side of the horse. The other horse now reared trying to get away and got in front of the next rider. A man further back drew back a short spear and threw it. I had enough time to deflect it but I heard it hit something behind me. The nearest rider came in with his sword but as he raised his weapon to the highest point, an arrow suddenly blossomed from his eye socket. Men in the back were now targeted but none in the front knew of this new danger. Jón tried hard to keep his horse still with only his legs. Another man came pushing forward and even jostled another near the front in his eagerness to fight. This man was very large with an equally large sword and shield. Jón used the katana which drew the shield while I used the wakizashi to deflect his sword stroke. The strike was so powerful that I pushed my hand forward to take most of the force close to my wrist but the heavy sword broke through and grazed the front of the armour on our chest. Before the man could make another stroke I again took control for an instant and leaned forward to plunge my sword into one of his unprotected eyes. We looked up for another attacker but saw riderless horses nearby. A man was fleeing and we saw him being hit by three arrows almost simultaneously. He rode another ten metres further and he fell to the side of the road while his horse raced on. Jón looked behind him for more enemies but saw nobody standing or riding. The ridge had the eleven cadets with bows in their hands and arrows notched ready to fly. Their visors were down and they were standing the correct way. I started to feel pain now but it was not that great. Our right wrist hurt and there must be bruising under the armour. The sword had hit the chest then the leg but both had thicker metal in these places. Dorf cried out, "Aagt is hurt." Jón turned around and saw that the girl was not holding her sword defiantly but it hung from her hand towards the ground. Jón's was honour bound to help the cadets but he could not turn his back on an enemy. "Dorf, Dina, Guinevere! Attend to Aagt. The rest of you secure the site. I don't want to be stabbed by a corpse. See if there is anyone that can answer questions." There were three alive but they were in very bad shape. Jón had got down and tied his horse to a branch. One man had an arrow into his right lung and blood frothed from his mouth. He was still conscious. Jón asked, "Who are you people?" "May Woden curse you." Jón called out loudly, "Bring me a rope. I am going to hang this man for a thief." Looking down at the man he added, "You attacked children. None of us are older than twelve summers. We will see how close you sit to Woden." Forni brought a rope and Jón tied a slip knot and put it around the man's neck. Jón gave it a vicious yank and the man called out, "Alamanni, we are Alamanni." "What were you doing here?" The man's eyes got bigger then froze. The bubbles came one more time then stopped. Jón removed the rope and looked at the other two be they were unconscious. He walked over to Aagt and saw her laying on the ground with her breastplate removed. She was bleeding from the right side of the chest. Rather than look at the wound Jón looked at the armour and then at the spear. The tip of the spear was strong and sharp. It looked to have entered only a little over a centimetre at most. The armour was bent inward and it looked like Aagt could have broken a rib. Jón crouched down beside the girl and said, "I knew a little girl once. She was so shy that it was difficult to get her to talk. She is gone now and I only see a warrior maiden that looks like her. How many of the enemy did you take?" "I only followed you. I used the sword as you taught me and I made sure they were dead before I moved on. My horse got one." "Mine did too. Now how do you feel my little warrior?" "I'm fine. Maybe just a rest for an hour or so and we can keep moving." "We can't leave a mess here like this. There is probably a lot of gold and silver as well as weapons, armour and horses." Aagt smiled and Jón added, "Remember how I said that children will run into the streets just to get a glimpse of you. What do you think will happen when the story gets out about what you and the other cadets have done?" Aagt just smiled. She was carefully moved back up the slope and onto a comfortable section of grass. She was on an incline so she could see and I took over Jón's hands. I felt Aagt's small chest and she winced a few times. A rib or two may be cracked but that looked like the sum total apart from the small puncture. Nobody else was hurt and Jón removed his own breast plate and Forni examined the wound. He said, "Just a big bruise." He started to remove the lower armour and even the under clothes. He picked up the cock with a finger and thumb and said, "This is not hurt but your leg will have an even larger bruise. Does it hurt?" "You are playing with me and it is not responding." "Ya, I guess it hurts. You better lay down while we clean the rest of this up." It took a long time to clean up. There were a total of thirty seven Alamanni in this group. They all had horses and another dozen were used for pack animals. Two of the Alamanni horses had died and one ran off riderless. The bodies were stripped of everything and then dragged off the trail so the forest could take care of them. Aagt got her hour of rest and three more before we continued our patrol. Now we had a very long line of horses behind us. Twenty minutes later I directed Jón's gaze to the ground and in another few minutes we had one more horse to add to our train. ------- Chapter 20 Jón got angrier as he rode. Part of this was because the pain of his wounds was increasing. "Why didn't you make the fuses like those on the grenades of your time? We could have been killed. You want to keep all the good things out of the reach of the barbarians but we have to have more. Even if we had a dozen hand grenades we could have taken all of them and Aagt would not have been hurt." "A few good things happened about this that you don't seem to comprehend." "What?" "Your cadets have been bloodied and all of them have survived. They have killed to save themselves and you. They were very unsure before and now they will have to be slapped down or it will be their egos that explode." In a moment he said, "I guess that's good." "You must have noticed that I left you in control of your body almost all the time. You were the one that killed and you did it by yourself. You were the one to charge and to put me into a position to do what I could to assist you." Now Jón's mood shifted and his own ego expanded but then he said, "We need more padding under the armour. The arrowheads were good but we need more work on them." When we camped that night Jón used a small hammer and a dolly block to do a better job of his quick repair. In a moment he passed the tools to Aagt who was now bare chested except for the wide bandage. I figured she was flashing Jón but she was actually wearing a lot. She straightened out the previous work on her breast plate then used a stone to abrade the edges that stuck up. The rest of the cadets made camp then had to tend to not only their own mounts but the forty seven more. There was a lot of armour and weapons tied to the horses and all this had to come off for the night. Everybody hurried in their labours then after a meal they counted out the booty they had amassed. There were ninety six gold coins and a thousand and twenty seven silver. Bronze and coppers totalled nearly six thousand. The Alamanni had not been into much jewellery but they did possess a lot. When it was cleaned up it would be worth a considerable amount of gold. There were bronze mirrors and a lot of things a Roman woman would wear. This made me think of the wives and family of the Alamanni men. They usually rode together unless they were raiding and sometimes even then. We could come upon them on the road that we were now using. There were a lot of ornate knives and a few bronze swords. None of them were from just one style and place and must have been picked up where they could. The pack horses had ornate boxes which contained fine clothing including some that were silk. At the bottom were some ivory combs and brushes along with some very well made sewing needles. It just took too long to categorise, so only some of the articles were examined. It was too dark anyway. The cadets were very excited and few could get to sleep. Dolf tended to Aagt like a mother hen and I know that he made her very happy a few times later that night. Forni was very excited too and that energy had to be siphoned off. Jón and Forni slept in well past dawn. Jón was very sore in the morning and Forni started to play the nurse maid. Aagt was much the same but had not only Dolf but Klaasje tending to her every need. I watched and listened for trouble but there didn't seem to be any. Aagt had a shit eating grin most of the time but her eyes sparkled when she looked at Dolf. We were ready to ride much later than usual. The load was more evenly distributed on the horses. The helmets were worn all the time but the visors were usually up. During the fight, Jón had not lowered his but the rest had. Perhaps it was better that way because there were two people looking out his eyes and a visor would make a lot of blind spots. A visor of Lexan or even a shield of the same material would be much better than what we were using now. I had been taking Jón's comments to heart about the release of information to this age. I could make potassium chlorate or lead oxide. The later was close to lead azide used as primers for heavy ordinance while the former was an explosive too. Antimony was readily known at this time and the sulfide would not be hard to make. Gum, and starch were all that was left that would allow me to make matches. Match heads could be mounted inside a grenade and a simple twist would ignite one or more of the heads. This would get a wick going. In turn, this would lead to the main charge. Making black powder was not hard, but to make it as good as it could be done was another matter. Hundreds of years had been used on refining the process. Ball mills to crush each of the ingredients then heavy steel wheels supported just a small amount over a steel floor. Alcohol was added to make a paste and this mixed even more. The best charges though were those that were very fine grained but then packed so tight that it burned from one end to the other very quickly. If it were packed hard enough it would not separate in transit which happened a lot with the powder I had made. Fálki of course knew of this and was prepared to mix the powder before using it. Fálki's disposition was unknown just like Clovis. He had left with few men and a heavy load of metal in the form of the cannons and the wagons of shot and powder then the ones laden with food. Their slow progress would invite a ambush if any convoy did. Our progress was much slower than usual because of all the riderless horses. They were strung out single file but they had to be constantly pulled to keep them going. It worked better when five cadets in the centre of the column split the horses between them while the rest road guard. It might have been even better to turn around and go back to our home but Jón wanted to continue. I knew that the only way for a boy to learn was by him making decisions and learning from them. We did pass people on the road and those we had to actually capture first, because none were going to stay and be questioned. We found that many people had been killed or molested by unknown invaders. Jón gave everybody the directions to Hildestun and mentioned that they would have a chance to start again. Now he was going to split the Pict community there by adding some of the various German tribes. This I figured was just to spite the Picts for the ungrateful way they had treated him. In some cases he gave some of our captured food supplies to those refugees most in need. This earned him many thanks. In some cases the clothes that had been washed of blood were given too. Many people wore little or nothing like the peasants of mediaeval England. Clothes were expensive but the nights were still cool. Nothing of much importance was found. Three robbers had been killing, raping and of course robbing the poor travellers. We came across one poor group that were even unable to run and hide. The robbers had attacked the small family gathering and killed one of the males and wounded two others. Jón gave them six horses and directions to Hildestun. He said, "Those are my horses. I want them back." The travellers had never owned a horse before but knew roughly how to handle them. Jón's generosity staggered them. The robbers were found a day later. Dolf, Epje, Guinevere, Klaasje, Tiebout and Hafgan went into the robber's encampment to put them under arrest. They of course resisted this. The cadets took the men in pairs while the rest held bows to be sure. The fight didn't last long. The highwaymen were all taken with swords though most of the cadets learned something. Their armour is what saved them not what they thought was their expert swordsmanship. This also meant that we now had seven more horses to add to our string. It was about three days from Hildestun that we found the next threat. We were making a lot of noise in our passage but there were few if any of this groups' sentries posted. It was near dusk in any case and Jón turned our group around and in a few kilometres pulled the horses off the road and into a creek. In another kilometre he made a quick camp while some cadets went back to hide the tracks that didn't make it into the water. It was the sheer number of tracks that had warned us and ours shouldn't be noticed. Epje and Guinevere were the best at stealth. Jón posted the cadets and ordered some to sleep if they could. They all stripped to their underclothing then donned the black suits over their armour. Burnt cork would be used but all the cork was in Spain. Charcoal had to do. A great many arrows had been made even before leaving for the first time. Many of these projectiles came with the three as well as their usual swords and knives. There was an hour to scout the camp though it was getting too dark for the cadets to make out the details. This was an encampment of over seven hundred men and their families. This brought the total to around four to five thousand individuals. Most were of course children. Jón tried to place the accent. The German language was spoken but not the way the Frisians spoke it. The three moved in quite close to listen to what was said. They proved to be eastern Gauls of the Mediomatrici clan. They were following a plan where this tribe linked up with a cohort of the V Iovia legion from Pannonian. A cohort was usually composed of six centuriae with a total of four hundred and eighty fighting men but the total rose with the number of officers. It was an hour later that more information came. The Romans would be coming from the south, an area not covered in our patrols. They would be in place in a few days but the chief by the name of Bran was determined that the Romans loose some men to the Frisians. Portions of his tribe had been decimated a few times by the Frisians while the Romans remained nearly untouched. There was no mention of odd weapons so any battles would be before Fálki arrived on the scene. Jón told Epje, "Go back to camp. Tell the rest what we have found out. There is a small road ten kilometres south west of our camp. The cadets are to leave immediately at a walk with all the horses back out the creek and down the road we just left. When they get near our location here, they are to walk at a slow pace. If there are sentries they will not bother them. When our people are safely passed then we can begin. Leave our packs and horses a hundred metres east along this side of the road." "What are we going to do? There must be close to a thousand men that are going to threaten our home." "We harass this enemy. They seem to be already angry at the Romans. If we give them more cause they just may turn around and go back." "What about the Romans?" "Somebody has to make an effort to warn Hildestun. We will deal with the Romans when we get there. "Arienh is the best rider for this particular task. Tell her she should take four remounts. She is to get the cannons ready and fill the ammunition carts with grapeshot. When we get there we will need it ready. "Two more cadets, Dolf and Aagt, will take the horses and the supplies and drop them off at the ambush sites we picked out before continuing on with the horses. There are only four more between here and Hildestun. They have to make good time because we will be on their heals soon enough with a lot of angry Picts on ours. The rest of the cadets will prepare the first ambush site. "When you come by on the horses, you can stay and help us steal the Mediomatrici mounts. Bring more arrows and a dozen grenades. If we are not right here, then wait." "I will do my best." "Then hurry but if you get hurt then you hurt all of us." "I won't fail you." The boy left with a lot of care because there were still people around to hear of his movements through the brush. Guinevere said, "What do you want me to do?" "We find where we can hurt them the most." Jón could not use his senses the way I could. Though it hurt him, I was given control of the body. We were going to start with the horses because there were few sentries here and if they died quietly then taking the horses would be much easier. Guinevere would not be good at cutting throats or stabbing an unsuspecting guard so this task was left to me. I was turning into a cold blooded killer but Jón's ethics were seeping into me. The Mediomatrici didn't have much structure and probably relied on their shear numbers to keep enemies away. I used the shorter wakizashi for this task. Our arms were much stronger from practice and swinging a hammer in the forge. In ten minutes I had decapitated four sentries. In ten more I had another two. The last took fifteen minutes and I had to avoid three people just out to take a piss. They would be missed much sooner than sentries. Guinevere was busy with the horses but she wasn't acting frantic and exciting the horses. There were ropes tied to trees and the horses tied to these ropes. More were tied to individual branches. Things got testy a few times but Jón used his voice to tell the intruder to leave because he felt sick. Sickness was a bad thing and nobody claimed this unless it was serious. The odd voice could be attributed to the sickness possibly caused by drink. I could hear our own horses slowly moving past the camp in the dark and I hurried to help Guinevere and tell her the good news. She had found more rope and she was busy tying more bridles to it. With the way clear I raced to our old position. Epje was nervously waiting with a pack full of explosives. His hand held four more full quivers complete with our arrows. I took the arrows and we raced to the horses. Epje helped Guinevere add more to our string while I placed the new quivers around the camp where they would do the most good. Guinevere led the string away at my order. She knew where our horses were and could change mounts in a few minutes. I moved more towards the centre of camp with the pack on my back. The horses made a lot of noise when a great many of them were suddenly put into motion in the dead of night. One half drunk Gaul came out to investigate and when he was just about to give the alarm I used the sword on his neck. Epje had a more difficult time moving his string of horses because it was just as long. He had only waited for fifty horses to leave before he started. Five more men came but four of them were in pairs. I had to resort to a slash and a stab but they made little noise. Soon the bodies would be found and then the alarm would be given. The camp was well lit so it would not be good to venture into the middle at this time. When the alarm did come then the people would come toward the horses and I would have less difficulty. This was what I had in mind when I placed the arrows. I only had about a hundred arrows and some were sure to miss while others would only wound. The last of the horses did actually leave with others following behind but this was rare. The two cadets had orders to cut all the bridals of the remaining horses if they could. Two men came to investigate or to take a piss but I was only able to get one. The camp was suddenly alerted by one call after another. Men came running from their tents donning leather or bronze armour. It was only a minute before a large grouping of men came to check out the situation. Few had shields. A small fire kept by the sentries was used to light a piece of rope that had been soaked in saltpetre. It had a glowing end but would not burn more than a metre in an hour. I threw a grenade into the group of men then another and another to different areas. Some had stopped to see what it was that came from the sky with a glowing tail. The grenades blew up one after another. Men were thrown all around but it was some that took the brunt of the explosions and saved the rest. I didn't waste more grenades or arrows because I was just delaying them as long as possible. Thoughts of the horses were not on their minds now because they had never heard of an explosion before. The smell of the burning sulphur or what they called brimstone was something else that was new. I must have gained ten minutes before they turned their attention back to the remaining horses. I used the bow now to take out the few that got too close. They now yelled out about being shot if they were able to. A forth grenade kept a larger mass of men from pushing their way forward. They tried to circle me and I moved and hit them from the side or even got behind them. The fires in the camp burned bright to give their warriors light. Torches were brought and I had to shoot women though I tried to aim for the legs. My strategy was to keep moving so they would not know how many were here. A man giving harsh orders was my next target but he was too far away to get a good shot. The explosions had frightened many of the freed horses into leaving the camp but there was simply too many of them remaining. It also represented a useful bait to draw the men near. When a lot of torches were near I shot every third man all along the line if I could because they were now behind shields. I was given a lot of ammunition because the Mediomatrici were shooting wild hoping to hit somebody in the darkness. I was actually hit many times but the armour stopped all of them easily. They started using fire arrows to get some light near me and this worked because the arrows came by the hundreds. Since I never fell or indicated that I was hurt they were reluctant to use anything but more arrows. I was out of range of their spears. There was a sudden charge and I threw three more grenades in front of the ranks. They had learned fast but the ones behind pushed those in front. When the three exploded the charge failed miserably. I left the warriors alone and moved to a different area and harassed those in the rear with another grenade and more arrows. Men were crying for help or just because they were in pain. I ignored those as best as I could. Some I evaded by just moving faster than they could move with their wounds. A lot of men had died and I called out with the visor up, "Chief Bran of the Mediomatrici. I am Jón, son of Clovis of the Frisians. You are invading our land. The deaths are on your head. I have prayed to our gods and Thor came to me. I was given Thor's very own hammer. I will hold my weapons for a few hours for you to think and pray. Attack me and I will start to kill once again. Come and gather your dead and wounded." The fire arrows stopped but those already fired illuminated me from the rear. Arrows continued to hit me but they slowed to a stop when they saw that I was not hurt. It was the women that raced forward without armour or shields to tend to the wounded. They cried aloud when they found a loved one dead. The men now ran forward and used the shields to protect them when they investigated the figures on the ground. A man came forward in full armour carrying a spear. He called out loudly, "Why do you attack our camp in the night like a thief." "You old fool. You attack my land with the warriors of your tribe and you wonder why I protect my people. You had hundreds of warriors while we were few in number. Thor must have liked the odds. He is probably laughing now at what you said." "Come and fight me if you dare." "I would just kill an old man even without Thor's hammer. Your tribe needs a leader even if he is foolish enough to follow the orders of the Romans. Come further into our lands with weapons raised and I will kill all of your tribe. Come with peace in your heart and we will greet you as friends, even now." "Fight me coward." "Shall I throw Thor's hammer? What defence can you put up? Shall I throw it near you and kill all those around you? If you want to fight with iron then come to me in Hildestun. You will have to climb over the bodies of your men to get there." "I see that you are a coward after all." "A coward that is in your camp and talking to you?" "You are a coward." "Fight me in Hildestun if you make it there alive. I am going to use the hammer on the Romans. Who could stand against me with this mighty weapon?" "Then leave my camp coward." "I will in an hour of so." "Leave now." "Are you going to come and push me out?" "Leave," he yelled but turned around himself. For the next while I moved around. They were still trying to circle me. Barbarians didn't take orders well and each worked on what he or she thought best for the tribe. This was anarchy in a way but it had worked well for them for a long time. I didn't have to use the grenades or arrows because I could stop them with my voice now. The flankers never gave up so I shot through their shields and into their arms or hit them in the legs. They could not return the fire effectively and usually limped back to the camp. Our arrows were meant for piercing armour and had only a steel point with no blades to do further damage. Jón was hardly ever anxious to get his body back when in the dark because I could see and hear much better. He did make comments though when there was a few quiet moments. "What are you going to do about the rest of the horses? They can hold a bridal with two hands or even ride clutching the mane." "We have to flush them out. I can lead them toward the opening but even a grenade will not get them to all go through the opening. Many will just scatter throughout the camp." "Let's just take a few and leave?" "There are some larger horses off to the side. I think they are still hobbled. It might be fun to take them if they are Bran's horses." Jón was happy at this. He was not a coward but he did want to leave. Enough time had left for the first bridge to be mined. I selected the horses but had to find bridals for them. Apparently the owner thought his might be stolen. In a half hour we had another dozen fine horses on a string and I led them out of the camp. I came back to let the Mediomatrici know that I was still around. I left then after encouraging as many of the freed horses as possible to leave with me. I rode bareback and it was not as good as the saddle. It was fifteen minutes later that I found Jón's horse. It was loaded with supplies, our forest camo suit and even some additional grenades. I switched mounts and tied the lead onto the saddle horn and now made much better time. When I came to the first ambush site I called out, "It's me. I hope you don't have any fuse burning." It was Forni's happy voice I heard. "Not yet. Are you followed?" "I don't know yet. They may wait for morning, but they may decide to go home instead." "How many did you kill?" "Too many I think." By this time I had walked the horses to Forni and saw that he had the rest of the troop with him minus those that had orders to get to Hildestun or to pull the strings of horses. I asked, "Did anybody get a chance to count the horses?" Forni said with a laugh, "I can't count that high." "How did you set the ambush?" It turned out to be just a small keg of powder tied under the bridge. The stream itself was not that deep. They had waded in the water to place the charge. I listened along the back trail and there were no sounds of thundering hooves so I said, "Recover the charge. This bridge would not slow them down much. The next site has a high stone wall." I stayed in command of Jón's body because of my sight. We hurried down the trail but it twisted about a lot and had a lot of mud. The larger stones on the path were mentioned and we walked around them. We made the best time we could in the dark. We picked up a few more horses as we went. They had got loose from the strings that were being pulled by the others. Our string grew by eight by the time we got to a cliff face. We made a large fire on the road for light and then dug into the loose rock to place some of the charges. These were kegs and should bring a lot of rock down as well as spray rock fragments at those nearby. "Hafgan, Edana, find a way to the top of the cliff. Lower a rope over the edge. You will be pulling up the fuse and waiting here to use it." The boy and girl were happy to do this though they also looked sad because they would not be with us. I needed Aagt, Dolf, Forni, Guinevere and Oriana to be in the city. They had been with us when we had tested the cannons. If the city was besieged then the cannons would be important if we could get to them with powder. Before we finished there was enough light that Jón could recover his body. We had three fuses of almost equal length leading to one location three metres above the planed explosives. When we were ready to leave Jón called out, "Your mission is to light the fuses when you think the time is best and then leave. If you wait at the edge the rock may collapse under you. Your horses would be harder to handle too if you are near. If the Mediomatrici do not show up then recover the powder two days from now. I want the two of you safely back home and that is an order." I heard the German equivalent of, "Yes, Sir," from both. Two days later Klaasje and Tiebout were left at the next site. We heard no explosion behind us but there were too many trees in the way if there had been. This was a narrow defile where a tall man could look over the top if he was riding a horse. We used all the rest of our bulk powder and fuses. The boys would just have to use the burning rope to light the fuse. This would take some judgment but they had lots of rope to practice with. Ten minutes should be enough but it was hard to judge how fast the Mediomatrici would ride. The rest of us hurried down the trail to Hildestun. We changed mounts all the time. We rode early in the morning to when it got too dark to continue. The cadets were exhausted by this. We discussed possible scenarios when we could. We had no idea if Arienh had made it or not. We caught up to Dolf and Aagt after the first day. It was the sheer number of mounts that was slowing us down. I debated abandoning them or just passing Dolf and Aagt. Both knew about the cannon though. The horses would help our fledgling calvary. I convinced Jón to hand over the horses to Dina and Edana. They were not expendable but they didn't have any working knowledge of the devices. The horses were valuable and all I could do was give them grenades and a smouldering rope. That night Jón gave the news to the girls and the rest of the cadets. They were proud but worried. I was worried too and so was Jón but there was nothing we could do. They had two hundred and seventy six horses to tend to now and that didn't count the ones we brought originally. The armour, weapons and booty was hidden in the trees and we hoped it would be there when we came back for it. We got to Hildestun in three more days. We knew what we would find because there were some refugees on the road fleeing the city. Jón took a minute or so the tell them to hide instead. In a few days the city's fate would be decided one way or another. Jón went to see for himself what was happening while the cadets took a side road before the city. This looped around toward our cache of powder. The farmland around the city was ripped up. The Romans were building some large siege weapons but they were not complete yet. The typical Roman palisade of logs was not constructed and it was easy to see the tents. Patrols were all about and this was supposed to serve in place of stout walls. The city had not fallen and the Romans kept their distance. Almost all our arrows were steel tipped and designed to penetrate armour. They caused less damage though for they cut less and could be pulled out easily. It was near dusk when Jón rejoined the cadets at the bunker. We were surprised to see one of the large barrels were missing. There was only one left and one large keg of about twenty five kilos. Fálki would be the only one that would be here and then hide the rest so we at least knew he was still alive. It was certain that he would take more ammunition for his campaign and I just hoped that there would be enough left for us. Jón wanted to check the readiness himself. When it got dark, I took over the body and walked the two kilometres to the walls. A handful of stones were thrown and this almost got us shot. A steel tipped arrow would go through our armour too. A rope was lowered after Grímkell gave his ok. Jón this time was pulled up because he was the one to do the talking. After getting over the wall he crouched and then said, "If you stand there the Romans will shoot you." Grímkell crouched and said, "What have you been doing? The scouts heard that a large army was coming this way." "There are four or maybe five hundred left. I took a lot of their horses so they will not be coming quick. I set traps for them along the way. I would be surprised if any make it here." "Four or five hundred warriors. That is hard to believe that you took the horses from that many." "Count the horses when they come. There were more but they are now dead or wounded. What did Fálki report?" "How did you know he was here?" "I saw signs. What did he say?" "Our king and your father is still alive though he was wounded. The new weapons you made have worked very well. The Romans and the Gauls run when they are used. What do they really do?" "They throw an iron ball like a onager. It uses a fuel that burns fast and pushes out the ball. Instead of a ball we can send nine smaller balls. They spread out more and are not stopped by men or even a palisade. We have another that uses a hundred and sixty two smaller balls wrapped in cloth with a wood bottom and post. We haven't tried the last idea yet." "Are these for knocking down doors?" "Those are for destroying men." "That is not right. You have to stand up to your enemy and allow him to fight back. That is an coward's way." "Does a coward go into an enemy camp to take the horses the enemy will use to destroy our city? Does a coward stop to talk to the chief of the enemy to get him to leave us alone?" Grímkell didn't answer and Jón said, "You cannot speak? Answer me." "Your weapon is for a coward even if you are not." "Then have six young cowards take on the cohort facing us alone. Get the cannon ready Grímkell. Arienh must have conveyed my words." "That girl never gave us a warning. It was our own pickets that found the Romans." "That can't be. She should have been here days ago." "The Romans came days ago." Jón and I were quiet in our own thoughts. It was possible that the Romans had followed their usual procedure and sent men ahead to block all the roads until it didn't matter any more. If Arienh were alive, she would most likely be in the Roman camp. Jón angrily said, "Are you going to help me or hinder me?" "Your father wants you safe. You will have to stay." Jón got to his feet and then backed up and drew his two swords. "I will not be kept here. I am asking you for the last time. Will you help or hinder. You will have a hard time explaining my dead body especially when it will be our own men that will have had to kill me." "You have to stay. You should never have been allowed to leave. You are the next in line to the throne if your father is killed." "Then you have to either kill me or come with me as I destroy the Romans. To me the choice is simple. I will not stay within the city now." It took a minute and the three other men tried to get behind Jón. Jón put the point of the wakizashi to one's chest but said nothing. Finally Grímkell said, "You win." "Swear to the gods one way or the other. I will not be tricked by words." "I swear." "You swear what and to what gods?" It seemed that Grímkell had been thinking like a slippery lawyer and he got angry but finally said, "You can have your toys." "Are you trying to hoodwink the gods with your twisted words? Use your warrior's oath." "By Thor's mighty hammer I pledge that you may walk freely within the city and to gather your weapons and take them with you unhindered by me or my men." Jón quickly put away his blades. To doubt the man now was a dishonour. "Your words are well spoken. Know you that there will be a lot of noise not unlike the thunder that comes when Thor's hammer smites his enemies. It will come fast and as furious as we can. The Romans will have very little time to recover. That will be their weakest time. Attack if you will or stay safe within the walls. I grow weary of killing. Just a few days ago I slew or wounded at least a hundred of our enemies. This I say is true by Thor's mighty hammer." Now it was Grímkell's turn to be shocked but Jón just walked to the ladder and climbed to the ground. He hurried quickly to the stable and roused the grooms. It was the work of twenty minutes to get the two cannons and ammunition carts hooked up but there was no ammunition. It was usually stored where the carts were. Jón left the grooms and took a horse to Yngvi's forge. Yngvi lived next door and came out when Jón called his name. "What do you want?" "I want shot." "I gave all I had to Fálki." "I need some now. How much have you for me?" "None." "Were you not asked to make a great deal? Just because Fálki took some does not mean that there is no longer a need. Did he not enjoin you to make more?" "I have none my lord." "Get a cart and go to the other smiths. Get them to bring what they have to the stable. It is possible that you have failed our people, our city and our king. Did you not hear how victorious Fálki was with my weapon?" "I though him simply boasting." "He was not. Race now to fulfill part of your obligations or the city will hear of how the smiths failed them." "I was making armour and swords all the time." "There are many swords and how many of my pieces of iron do you have. Run or I will surely curse you to Woden." Yngvi didn't know what to do but then he ran down the street to the nearest smith. Jón was seething mad. "They are still barbarians. It is hard to get them up in the morning and almost impossible to get them to a meeting on time. It takes time to alter customs and it is usually the younger ones that change not the adults that are set in their ways." The entire remaining inventory of twenty three grenades were with the cadets nearby. There were two rockets that had a grenade mounted on them. They were to be used for signalling but could be used offensively too. Scrap metal could be used in a cannon and even round stones if they were not a tight fit. Barrels filled with pebbles and powder could work along with clay jars. Jón rode to the coopers. Again he had a fight of words but he had his swords out and would brook no arguments. "I want the smallest barrels, and I want them now. I am going to use them to destroy the Romans and if you stand safely on the wall you can see it happening." "But it is night." "You will still see it. Now how many barrels can you send to me in one hour?" "Perhaps seven. Some are almost complete." "Bring them to the stable. Jón awoke Sander. He was sleeping soundly beside the cold forge. "Sander, do you have any shot ready?" Sander rubbed his eyes. Jón only carried an oil lamp but the room was otherwise dark. "What?" "Shot?" "Ah... four or five of the large grape and a similar number of the small shot. Why?" "They have Arienh. I am going into their camp and bring her out if she is alive. Then I am going to turn my weapons on them." "You can't do that, they will kill you." "Where is the shot?" "By the forge. Let me get up and I will help you. So the Romans have Arienh? I think she may be dead then." "I hope she is alive. She took five horses and raced here days ago to warn the city of the Roman's approach." Sander put the shot into a pack and tried to pick it up. Each of the canisters weighted seven kilos. "Let me take some. Did you make the thick jars that I wanted?" "Yes. I have nearly fifty of those. I made the wood plugs. You can hammer those in because the jars are very strong. Do you want me to bring them?" They made a few trips to the stable. The horses were tied but the grooms had disappeared, probably to sleep. The shot went into one of the ammunition carts but there was still lots of room for more. The jars were size of child's head. The surface was covered with score marks made when the clay was soft. The jar now was very hard and heavy even without a charge in it. They had not been tested but there was no urgency or time. Yngvi hurried into the stable pulling a donkey that pulled a cart. "I have all that can be found." Jón ran to it and counted. There were thirteen solid shot. But there were seventeen shell casings just waiting for powder. There were six of the larger grape shot and seven of the smaller variety. There was not enough to fill even one cart but it was distributed into the two. Straw was put in and then the clay jars were added. The wood pegs were almost forgotten and Sander had to run back for them. They already had a hole drilled down their centre to carry the burning powder to the main charge. Jón tied one set of horses to the rear of the other and got on the first horse. Sander said, "I am coming so I may as well ride the second team. I saw Fálki doing it enough times." "I am not going to deny you the honour but you better put on your armour first. I will wait." Sander hurried off and he was back in ten minutes with his wife arguing with him. He just ignored her and got onto the horse. Jón said to Geiri, "I will try to keep him safe for you and the children. Watch from the walls later to see how we do." When we got to the gate Grímkell was already mounted and armed. He said, "I was just going out to chase the Romans away." "Will you chase them away to the north? I need to go to the south then return with my powder. I am afraid I will not make it much before dawn." "I was going to chase them that way anyway. You can do as you please." Jón said, "May Woden's grace go with you." Grímkell thought for a second and said, "And with you." The main gate opened quickly and fifty six men with lances raced out and the door was quickly closed. The night was fairly dark so it was difficult to see. The land though was familiar. Jón gave them ten minutes then he went out too but didn't race. He went slow so as to keep the noise down. "You better take over. I can't see very well." "I will do my best." I could see fairly well though it was all in shades of grey. I could not see Grímkell or his troops but I could hear them attacking. The Romans were not seen at all. I picked up the pace considerably and raced the way we had discussed earlier. It took twenty minutes to come to the cache. The cadets were all awake and waiting. With few words the ammunition carts were filled. A brass rod was used to ram the powder into the shells and then into the thick clay jars. This took the longest time. The jars were the only weapons that were new and fuses were pushed through the holes and more powder used to fill in the holes. The operation had been discussed and now Jón went over it. "There is very little that has changed. We have less ammunition than I would hope. We have less people too. I am afraid that Arienh may have been captured by the Romans. I plan on leaving now to find if she is still alive. Forni you will accompany me and take my horse back. Sander knows nothing of how we work but he will do whatever any of you say. Save the smallest shot for when they are attacking. Remember too that one cannon fires while the other waits. The shots then sound continuous. Get the leather buckets full of water. If you loose the water then piss in the buckets. You need to extinguish every ember." Forni said, "I can go with you to get Arienh." "You are not though. I can see and hear much better and I will be constantly looking out for you. Better you use the grenades in the mortar and then use the cannons." There was a lot more arguing but Jón just got on his horse and rode out. In a few seconds Forni was beside him. "I can still help." "Not until you are bigger and stronger. You fight my way or you leave. There can be no other way. This is the military now and you have to fight by the rules and not the way you think. Will you obey?" "I will Jón," he said with is face down even though it was almost pitch dark. When the time was right Jón stopped and then turned around. When Forni was pointing in the right direction Jón got off his horse. From the darkness he said, "There are no Romans ahead of you but some are far off to the right and left. The ones on the left are going to cut you off. Walk the horse by orienting with the stars. In five minutes head more left. We need you desperately to help with the cannons. This is the job of men not cadets. Follow all of your safety procedures. If I am not back by first light start firing. I will stay low so I am not hurt. If you hear my grenade go off then you can start firing in that direction immediately." "I want to go with you." "I understand that but you have to be a soldier. It is actually better if you do not come. Now ride soldier." "Yes, Sir." I hurried to the camp. I had two quivers of arrows and both swords. The grenade hung from my belt. There were frequent stops to listen but most of the soldiers were still asleep. I headed for the tents in the centre. Doctrine had the officers at one end when they were within walls but they had no walls now. There were six larger tents to house the centurions and for the commander of the cohort. The rank was reflected in the status of the cohort itself. To hear the rank you would then know who you were up against. I was able to get behind the largest tent. There were two guards but they were sleeping lightly as they stood. Men from all ages had learned to do this. There was a lot of noise about with men sleeping or turning around and there were four people in this tent. The edge of the knife was quite sharp and I used it to cut the lacing holding the different portions of leather together. After a few I listened but the breathing had not altered. The process took three minutes but felt like thirty. I would love to have side cutters to nip each loop instead of using a knife. Remembering Kirwyn's camp and the Roman Quintus' tent I was very cautious. There was nobody to distract the man this time. When I crept in, I had only the k-bar in my hand. Everybody sounded asleep with deep slow breathing. The officer had his hand on his gladius but that was nothing new. The rest of the tent was a catch all of furniture best suited for an estate not on campaign. There were three children in the tent and I hardened myself because I remembered how Kirwyn used them. Only one was the right size and had the right coloured hair though I could not make it out very well. Only Arienh though smelled like Arienh. I bent over her with my knees on the floor. My hand went over her mouth as my body pushed down to keep her from thrashing. She struggled but I pulled up quickly and she didn't scream. Bending over I whispered in her ear. "You want to go for a walk Arienh?" She turned her head and I put my ear close so she would only whisper. "Did you kill Lucius?" I detected worry and not the need for vengeance. I whispered to her, "No," and she relaxed. He's asleep. Let's go." She pulled my ear to her and she said, "He's a good man. He protected me. Don't kill him." "I will try not to, but let's go." Arienh was just stepping from the tent when we heard a soft voice saying, "Where are you going little one?" It was spoken in German but had what I had come to know as a Roman accent. We froze in place. It was dark and I could probably get her out of the camp but the sound of the voice made me think of concerned old grandfather rather than a Roman leader of a cohort. I made an instant decision and said in a whisper, "I am taking her from your camp. Thank you for protecting her. There is a debt between us now." In another whisper he said, "Who are you? Arienh said she had no living relatives for many miles." "Let me take Arienh to safety then I will come back and talk. Do we have peace between us until then?" "I should inform my men so they will let you through safely." "Your men are good but I can work in the dark better than they can. Will I be free to come and go as I wish?" "You are doing so already." "You can call your guards and make it uncomfortable for me. I would have to kill a great many but perhaps there can be some mid ground that will allow us to discuss matters of politics." "Politics is an interesting topic. Hurt none of my men and I will let you come and go freely on my word as a Roman officer." "Then I will be back soon. Are the other two children German too?" "I have adopted them." "Then it is even more important that I talk to you. Their lives and ours are at stake." "Now you really interest me." "Then I bid you a short good bye." "I don't even know your name." "Jón." I pushed Arienh out of the tent and took her hand in mine. We hurried toward the cannons. A Roman came out of the tent probably to take a piss and Arienh almost ran into him. Again I used the pommel of the knife and lowered the man to the ground. There was no call behind us and I slowed down. Arienh wore night clothes and no boots but her feet had recently been used to walking without any protection. Passing the last tent, we headed toward the gun crew and called out loud enough for only them, "It is Arienh and me." The girl was hugged by her friends and Forni said, "What happened?" "We will talk later. It will be dawn in a half hour. I am risking your lives but I do not want you to fire the cannons unless you are attacked. I have a strange feeling that we can get around the killing. The best thing to do is to retreat. We can do this killing tomorrow if it needs to be done." "You want us to go now?" "I would rather you just got on the horses and rode off. I would like to get the Romans to surrender." "Surrender? Romans? Impossible. They fight to the death." "Nevertheless, follow orders. The cannons make too much noise to move but we still have to hook them back up." I was the only one that could see and I directed the cadets to hitch the heavy cannon to their respective carts. In only a few minutes they were moving slowly away. The noise though was bring notice our way. I ran around the camp to the east and then into the camp itself. At a fire I lit the only grenade I had and threw it out of the camp as hard as I could then ran to the commanders tent. I didn't make it but I was able to get to the front of the tent where the two now wide awake guards held spears pointed outward at any intruder. From the darkness I said, "Please call your commander for me. We have some business to discuss." They turned quickly and one man picked up his spear to hurl it at me. From inside the tent we heard in a commanding voice say something in Latin. The men took a moment but then stood at attention. A light was started in the tent and an oil lamp was lit. I walked in with the guards now staring at may totally black costume. I saw a man in thin linen cloth pouring a drink. He turned and smiled at me then did a double take. I doubt if he was prepared to deal with someone that could be a daemon or worse. "Hello, Sir. As you know, my name is Jón. May I call you Lucius?" He took a sip and said, "If that is your wish. Please come and have a seat. Would you like some breakfast?" "Thank you but no. We have too much to talk about." I walked in and pulled back the dark cowl hiding my helmet then removed the helmet itself before started to put it down. Lucius eyes followed it so I changed course and handed it to him instead. My bow and single quiver were next and I took out an arrow and handed it to the man. He looked up with surprise but took this too. The two swords along with their scabbards were removed and put on the ground one at a time. My black cloak was next after I removed the belt around my waist and the other one across my chest. The k-bar knife went with the belt. Lucius really stared at my armour. It covered all of me apart from my head. I took a step forward and put out my hand. Lucius looked at it then put his left hand out similarly. I said, "A form of greetings is to present the sword hand to get shook. It is a form of trust." The right hand came out and we shook hands then I sat. "Are you the cause of that loud noise that just startled the camp?" "Yes I was. It was used as a distraction so my forces could retreat without any conflict." He let this pass then said, "That is a remarkable set of armour. We have seen it already but we have not been able to get a sample. The metal is almost magical. I think there were a very few deaths on your side." "I am sorry. I have not heard. I just arrived a few hours before dusk. I also suppose you have found samples of our arrows?" "Oh, yes, many of them. Perhaps too many." "The armour and the arrowheads are made of a form of iron that makes it strong, hard and able to hold an edge or in this case a point." "What is it called?" "Steel." "I have heard that name before from my own language." "Your smiths can make it but it is hit or miss. Mostly they miss." "Where do you get it?" "We make it ourselves." Lucius handed me a bowl with water and a towel. "Would you care to clean your face? You would look much more human that way." "Thank you. May I impose by asking for soap? I hear that Romans use other means of getting clean." "We usually use olive oil. It loosens the dirt held in the oil on our skin." "That works but soap breaks down the oil and allows the dirt to be removed. I have always heard that Romans avoided soap for fear of catching a disease while they did use oil." "That is true for some but not all. Now let me call a servant." A man came into the tent at Lucius' call. His eyes were very large at seeing me still in armour beside his master. He was happy to hurry off to get some soap. I cleaned myself as good as I could but still got the towel dirty. In the mean time Lucius was examining the helmet and now had black hands from the soot and oil I put on to hide the metallic gleam. I now moved the bowl over to him and he after a while he cleaned his hands then used the towel to hold the helmet. He said, "This is quite ingenious. A warrior wearing this is almost invincible." "Only close. It is far from perfect." The man looked at my armour and saw hundreds of small dings in it. "What are those marks from, if I may ask?" "Since we have a truce I will have to say that they are mostly from Mediomatrici arrows but some you might like to know are from Alamanni swords. I was on my way here when I found your ally Bran and his group camped just of off the road. With a little listening I found that they were going to come here and help you attack us. I decided to slow him down so I could take you first and then the Mediomatrici if they decided to arrive." "Why wouldn't they come?" "Three of us walked through their camp and stole most of their horses. Some of the Mediomatrici got up to check on the noise and I had to start fighting while the two cadets removed the horses. I had to kill a great deal of them before they would see things my way. You were wondering about that noise that awoke your people, it is a new weapon that kills by a powder burning so fast that the smoke cannot escape quickly enough and the metal container simply bursts. The metal fragments are moving quite fast and will kill anybody within four paces. By the way, the one I just used was thrown outside your camp not in. My people were ready to kill each of you if necessary." "You could kill all of us?" This was said with a smile. ------- Chapter 21 I smiled too and said, "You would make a good grandfather. You have patients and a quiet voice. Some grandfathers may be surprised to what the grandchildren can do. I pulled back my forces because I felt that we many be able to talk this out. By now the majority of your forces would be dead and those in the city would be racing through your camp and kill everyone that put up any resistance." "First you say that you have stolen a few horses from the Mediomatrici..." "There were two hundred and seventy six horses but forty seven were from your old enemies the Alamanni. Those were nothing more than robbers. I was hurt on the chest and thigh while another girl Arienh's age was hit by a spear." The man looked worried and I added, "She may have a few fractured ribs but the spear only penetrated a finger's width." "She no doubt had the same armour as you." "That is true. In fact each of the cadets makes their own steel and then make the armour then the weapons. That reminds me, Arienh had armour on when she ran here to warn of your coming. You said you saw none of our armour before." "It appears she removed her armour before she was captured." "She is a resourceful girl, but then so are all the cadets." "How many cadets do you have?" "Twelve but that is enough to start shaking the world." His eyebrow rose and he said, "The world?" "You look to be a man of forty years or so. There is time yet that you may sit back with your family and talk of capturing Arienh. They may believe many things but capturing that girl will not be believed." "Why is that?" "She is going to be very famous perhaps more than a Roman emperor. You see I plan on taking over the crumbling Roman Empire if I cannot get its cooperation. Your government and people only think of slaves and war. You can become many times richer by making things and selling them to your own people. When I show you how to make real ships then you can sell your produce to the rest of the world." "Our ships are no different than any other maritime nation." "That is true, and that is why I have to show you how to build a real ship." "What is a real ship like?" This again was said with a smile. "A real ship does not have oars or sails. You may already know that steam can make things move. I believe the Greeks made a device that spins when water is placed in it then heated." "I have heard of that. It's a toy." "True. Now make an iron tube and weld one end shut. Fill it half full with water and then crimp over the other end. Throw it in a fire and get far away and see how it is just a toy." "We should try that but twelve cadets cannot possibly fight the armies of Rome." "I am fully capable of taking on Rome but you are mistaken about my methods. Your government is ruled by two bodies. One is your Augustus and the other is the senate. Those in the senate are very rich but the wealth comes from their farms and businesses. Those men are always twisting the laws so that they favour their aims. Taxes are put on these men and they simply lie or move most of their businesses away from the empire. The Augustus himself has businesses and farms so he is not beyond making a few adjustments to suit his needs." "That may be but you were talking of fighting Rome." "Yes. Your empire is directed by men with strong business interests. I cannot see this changing for thousands of years. It has been true as far back as there were men. Now I can attack Rome in two ways. You may not know it but we make glass. This is not new but we will soon be making sheets of perfectly flat glass six or more feet wide and as long as a mile if I wanted it that way. At the moment just consider eight feet in length. I can sell this glass to Rome and gain great wealth. Everyone with two aureii to rub against each other will want it. If it is taxed very high by Rome then the price will be higher but they will still buy it." "That is an odd form of military manoeuvring." "My point is that there are a great many products to sell to Rome that they cannot produce themselves. I will have no competition. Another way to do this is to move to your empire and make this glass there. I get taxed but my prices still stay very high. Now that I am in your empire I can influence your laws. With armour and swords to make, I can get the patrician class to help me if there is something in it for them." "You would give us the secret of your steel?" I smiled. "If we were at peace you could walk into the city now. All of the smiths know the secret and as such is not a secret any more." A man came to the tent and pushed his way in. He looked at me with a worried look until Lucius said, "Yes," in Latin which I understood. The man spoke but I didn't understand any of it. Lucius said, "It appears that an intruder attacked one of our men inside our perimeter." Lucius looked at me and I said, "When I left he came out to take a piss. He is suffering from a headache not a knife wound. I try very hard to keep my word." The man standing said something else and Lucius simply said, "No." Then after a pause he said a bit more. There was a minor conflict but Lucius sounded adamant. When the man left Lucius said, "I have send orders to those on patrol to not engage the enemy unless they are attacked. We are having an important talk now." "Peace talks are conducted better that way though sometimes they go much quicker with some military action." "You are a very astute young man. I have already assumed that you are the only remaining son of Clovis." "I am." "You could be held captive." "You would have to break your word. I think that may be a difficult thing to do. From my study of Rome I have found that it is populated by men in two extremes and a great many in the middle. You are one of those that would die to protect me now even though you know that I could defeat Rome and change its course." "Where do you want Rome to go?" "I once read a book about the third century. You had three factors that each could have destroyed you. There was external invasion, internal civil war and economic collapse. I could precipitate an economic war. Carthage was a competitor of yours. I too will be. My products will be so cheap that the businesses in the Roman Empire will collapse. You might call this a 'Cold War'. "I will sell to your enemies all that they want. Rome will fight back with their armies but they will only die. This would bring on invasions into your land. "I can also back factions in Rome with my gold and equipment. Civil war is bad but I am afraid it is easy to formant with greedy men. Rome too uses this strategy. "I explained three crude methods to get my point across. I want slavery abolished completely. The empire is ruled by Romans. This will change with Romans representing Romans in popular elections. The senate will have representatives of all races. The state will distance itself from religion so those that want to believe in a certain way will have the freedom to do so but not have the support nor the hindrance of the state. The Roman army will now be a police force that follows the laws set down by the senate." "We follow those laws now." "You follow laws made by Romans even if they try to apply to Germans outside of your empire. I would have you follow the laws set down by representatives of all the empire not just a faction." "I understand. Please go on." "Romans have devoted themselves to learning the science of war. Nothing else was very important to them. As a result you had a thousand years to learn and grow. You grew very little. The rich have nice homes. You have made dams then channelled the water to cities. You have made large mines but you kill the land and the water along with a lot of slaves to gain what you want. I can get what is needed with a fraction of the workforce." "What would we do with all the slaves?" "It will be a slow process. Everybody from slaves to the patrician class will gain an education. Those educated children will form the bureaucracy and the senate in later years. Laws will change. You may be surprised to know that you are a slave in may ways." Lucius only smiled knowingly. I said, "The Senate owns you even if you think it is duty. The slaves I mentioned will have to now get jobs and then get paid. Now the free slaves can purchase what they want. This means that more has to be produced to fill the demand. This will mean more former slaves have to work and get paid. What I am saying is that the great majority of the world will be wage slaves. They are free otherwise. The great bulk of your future wealth will be generated within your borders as I mentioned before." Lucius said, "I understand what you are saying but it hinges on new things that the Romans and other races want very much to acquire. Do you have so many things to sell that you could wage this cold war?" "More than you can count. I mentioned my ships. They will be made of steel this thick," I said with my fingers showing two centimetres thick. "A mighty engine using steam will turn a giant screw in the water to push it forward. The ships can be a thousand feet long but they will have to extend far under the water and few ports would be able to allow them to dock. Smaller ships of only five hundred feet will have to do." "Are you sure iron or your steel can float?" "It is the shape it is in. A boat made of wood will hold more than a raft made of the same amount of wood." "I understand that." "Getting back to ships, mine will sail around the world. Trade with China and India will be very profitable. There is also a lot of undiscovered land that awaits our coming. Rome has barely touched Africa and without good ships then the rest will take a long time to be found." "Men will find them if there is silver involved." "That is very true. And man's greed is one thing that can be used to understand us. Rome though is not all about the greed of the few because there are many good things that not only have to be saved but to be improved." "Like what?" "You make good roads but they have to be improved considerably." "What is wrong with our roads?" "There is a hard substance that will flex. It is like very thick skin. I mentioned that ships will have a device that burns fuel and the steam is used to make something turn. A cart five times longer than what we already have can have these soft but firm wheels. The device I mentioned will cause the vehicle to move. It can carry children to a large place of education or fruit to a city. My glass could be carried on these vehicles. Similar vehicles could also take warriors and all their equipment. "To do all this the roads have to be higher and with a smoother surface. There will be so many vehicles that sometimes four roads are needed to carry them in one direction and four more to get back. The speed would be sixty miles in a single hour. They could go faster but problems happen with animals and people crossing the roads. All this means that there has to be many more bridges and culverts have to be made." Lucius said, "The images in your mind are very vivid. I wish some of them were true but alas this cannot be." "Do you mean about the battle we will have to wage, perhaps tomorrow?" "We are going to fight? I thought you may surrender. That way your people will be spared a great hardship." "It is your cohort that will be the ones surrendering I am afraid. I will try to keep the deaths to a minimum if I can but soldiers have to die. Your emperor will not understand your surrender without a fight and I really want you to help me after the battle. Would it be possible if your Immunes and of course the children and any wounded stay to one side and under my protection. I will give my oath on this." "You sound very sure of yourself." "I am as sure of this as I am that the sun will come over the horizon tomorrow morning. I will try to pull back our men. You should make a very sturdy wall. It will not matter because I have an onager like device that will make a hole through a full grown oak not just a small tree. Instead of a stone we throw iron but instead of it being heavy it is small and goes very fast." "If the wall is of no use, why build it?" "You are what I think is an honourable man. You will one day face your Augustus and tell him you did everything you could to protect your men. He will not be able to fault you on any point, that is if you happen to survive." "You sound like we have no chance." "You don't. I will talk to those in the city. The ones that are going to fight you will do so as honourable men. The rest I would hope would tend to the wounded. My people pick up booty and I cannot stop it. If one person collects the coins and keeps a tally then those that survive will get their money back." "They will not be slaves?" "Call them prisoners of war. They have certain rights and privileges. If they are honourable then they will get the freedom of the countryside." "So you think that we will have to fight tomorrow?" "Unless you want more time to prepare." "You would give me more?" "As I said before your effort is only to show your Emperor or Augustus that you fought bravely and did everything that could possibly be done. A little boy got up. He was about two and a half. He was holding his dick in his hand and hurried out of the tent. I chuckled and said, "Boys never change. Tell me about your children." "If you will tell me about your cadets?" We talked for an hour and when I was offered breakfast a second time I accepted. The older boy was admiring my helmet and I looked at Lucius then put it on the boy's head. The boy only spoke Latin and Jón or I knew little of his tongue. It didn't matter much because we knew he liked the armour. Lucius tried to find out about the black powder and the grenade but I avoided telling him much. He would know all he wanted to know when we attacked. He admired my swords and I actually told him how we currently made steel and how the swords were fashioned. When I was finished he said, "Why have you told me this? You said we are going to fight." A light seemed to come on then he said, "I see. You do not think we could carry it far." "Not just that. This is a crude method of making steel. Iron and steel can be made in a large ceramic container that will produce two thousand talents of liquid iron or steel at one time." I drew the cross section of a rail and said, "Two of these about a pace apart can support a giant engine powered by steam. It can pull long coaches that ride on the steel. When I get these put in place in Italy then you can move troops quickly but also travellers, fruit, grain or any commodity you want. They usually go only fifty miles an hour but they will go to three hundred in a few centuries." "That fast. I would love to be able to go that fast." "You can travel almost that fast and sooner too but we need to make a vehicle that flies." "Flies, like a bird?" "The wings are fixed. A different and more powerful engine turns a propeller. This propeller turns very quickly and pulls the vehicle through the air. You will not believe it but we already have a toy propeller. They are made in the city by a fellow Roman and his German troops. I will ask if he wants to come and visit but he may not. He has lost a leg so he cannot fight. He was fed regularly and he is free to do what he wanted as long as he stayed on our land. You or the other soldiers may think him a deserter but he was captured and treated for his injuries." "I would like to talk to him. If he came to me he would have the same oath given to you." "I will ask him then. Getting back to the bad part of war. How long would you like to prepare?" "I believe you will attack and you will use your onager. How effective it will be is to be seen. Rome could use this weapon if it were made available to them." "You may not believe this, but Rome will get this weapon. I want a strong Rome that has changed its ways. You have some rough spots that have to be rubbed away but the rest is good and very much worth saving." At noon I walked from the camp with my helmet on and my weapons and cloak carried in my arms. The Romans left me alone and I got half way to the city before a pair of horses raced to me. Forni pulled up beside me and said, "Did they capture you." "No, we just had a talk. We are going to have a battle in two days. We better get two more cannon ready. The Romans are going to strengthen their camp and then we are going to knock it down." The gate opened for us and Grímkell was livid at my approach. "Do you know what you did? We raced off to kill Romans and you did nothing except get captured. Your father will be angry at you and lock you up until you are an old man." Jón was now in control and said, "No he won't. I was talking with the Roman. In two days at noon I am going to attack and destroy his fortifications. He is going to go into the forest and cut trees." "What!" "I am going to kill some Romans in two days. They have a chance to defend themselves but they will fail. I am fairly sure a messenger was sent telling about this so we better have this wrapped up because a legion or more will be here in a month or so." "A legion? We cannot stand up to them. You have killed us." "Get twenty men and I will show you the weapon. I will show Lucius too while we are at it." "The Roman?" "Yes the Roman. He will see what he faces and perhaps there will be more legionnaires that will surrender. They make good soldiers if we get to train them soon enough." Grímkell told Jón that only Forni had come home early this morning. He sent Forni off again to bring the artillery to an area both close to the city and close to the Romans. The noon meal was very frosty with Astrid and Dagmar. Others too had taken their cue from them and were angry at me too. Jón was able to eat but he cut it short to get away. The food was better here but the company was better in the field. A servant was sent off for shovels and twenty men were assembled to protect the cannons and the cadets. We were half way to our destination at a leisurely walk. The Romans avoided us and we did the same for them. We met up with the cadets and all of them were at the low ridge looking down over a cleared field. Large trees were half a Roman mile away. Most of the cadets looked sleepy but they were excited. Jón said, "Arienh, go to the Romans and invite twenty of them to come to see a demonstration of our weapon. Tell Lucius that I won't hurt his soldiers today if they behave themselves." "Really? Lucius?" "If he sees then he can begin to understand. We are still going to fight unless he decides to run. I want him alive and on our side if at all possible." "Shall I go the way I am? I do not have my armour." "Yes, and you did a very smart thing by denying the enemy a chance to find this out. I am proud of you." She turned red but a big smile blossomed on her features. Before she left I said, "Ask Lucius if he want to bring his boys. They may like what they see and tell him I have three toys for his family." "He only has two boys." "There is a big boy I met too." Arienh smiled and hurried off toward the Roman camp. We ran through a simulated attack on an enemy position but no shots were fired. It took twenty minutes before a column of Roman calvary came our way. Our own men had got back on their horses and formed one row as if ready to charge but the lance butts were on the ground. Lucius stopped next to the guns where we stood at attention. "Are these your onagers?" "These are some. We have different kinds like the short ones over there." Jón pointed with his finger. "They shoot high into the air to drop behind fortified walls." The horses were all taken away and there were a lot of angry men. They felt naked without their mounts but the horses would bolt at the sound of the explosions. The men stayed a respectful distance away and Arienh lit the powder in the pan. It flashed and in a second the cannon roared and rolled back three metres. Before they could recover the other cannon fired and I think that the soldiers would shit themselves. The cadets fired five rounds of solid shot each as quick as they could at the targets in the distance. They then loaded up with small grape shot and stood ready. If somebody was going to come now they would be greeted the way Jón and I wanted. The smoke eventually blew away and the horses were called for. The two boys were crying from fright and Lucius was trying to calm them. When the horses came, they were just as worried as the men. Everybody but the cadets went to see the damage to the mature trees. Even without explosive shells there was awesome damage. Not only were trees shot through but the ball had continued through others some were deflected only to cause damage in a new directions. It was not just the Romans that were in shock, so were the Frisians. The balls were hard to find and most were buried deep in the ground or had bounced and struck higher in a tree. We only found two of the balls anyway. One had to be dug from the ground while an axe had to be used to cut a tree down to get the other ball. They were of iron and had not shattered but they had seriously deformed themselves. We came back to the cannon an hour and a half later. I stood beside one and said, "That was solid shot. We didn't put all the powder we could in the cannon so it was slow. The thunder you heard could be contained in a lighter projectile and when it explodes, thousands of iron pieces move in every direction. A man in armour is the same as a man without. Besides those two projectiles we have others." The cadets brought out the various loads and showed them. The Romans that knew German were busy translating what was said. When the last two were shown I said, "The cannister with nine balls and the one with many smaller balls are designed to strike men. Nobody stands up to them. "The city is defended by six more of these cannon and more of the mortars." The cadets loaded the mortars but the two boys were asked to assist so that they would not be as frightened this time. The cadets fired one round almost vertically after checking the wind and Jón counted the seconds. When we heard the thunk, enough seconds had passed for him to say, "That ball that you saw travelled over a mile straight up. I can prove by mathematics but you will have to take some figures on faith." Nobody said anything about the mile and they were not going to argue. A shell was put in but this time the elevation was at thirty degrees. The fuse this time was just wood with some powder in a small hole that would lead to the charge in the centre. When the mortar or cannon fired, the flames would lick around the projectile and ignite the powder leading to the centre of the projectile. The timing was not good but I didn't have a machine shop or a way of casting steel yet. Lucius said, "After seeing this, I believe everything you have told me." "Are you prepared to face me in two days or are you going to retreat? The legion could be here in a month if it hurries but longer if it is engaged. I can kill five thousand men as easily as five hundred. My advice is to go. Staying to face even the two cannon you see is insanity." Lucius didn't say anything and I hoped in a way he would just leave but I knew that if he was commanded to return, he would. With the show over I handed the three propellers and their launchers to the boys and their foster father. The serious look on the children's faces evaporated to that of wonder. The devices flew into the air and came down and the boys ran for them to do it again and again. To the three I whispered, "If we make big propellers and a device to turn them we can ride through the sky." Lucius translated and the boys' eyes got even bigger. We escorted the Romans most of the way back to camp while the cannons went right to the city gate. When we stopped Jón said, "Will you be leaving or staying? I do not relish killing your people but I will. I am afraid though that you will be coming back under orders. I want Rome to work with me but they are just too big to even listen yet. They need their nose bloodied and I am afraid it is the army that has to take the wounds." Lucius gave a quick translation then said, "I think we will leave if we are allowed to." I turned to Grímkell and said, "Will you and the rest allow the Romans to withdraw? They will be back though and we can deal with all of them at one time." Grímkell said, "I think that a hundred of our soldiers and those devices of yours will take a legion easily. They would be trembling at the iron flying so fast and they would be easy prey to our lances." We still looked at him and he said, "They are free to go. Others may attack but that is their business." Lucius just nodded his head and turned to go. The rest of his troop followed behind. With Lucius far enough away Grímkell said, "I do not like your weapons. They are not for a man." "It is your kind of people that cause wars Grímkell. They want glory and go out to get it at any price. Women and children have to die for it as well as innocent men. You think too little before you fight. There are many ways to show your manhood without killing. None of them would be acceptable to you or your kind. Your kind are still needed though because the legion will be coming soon." The priests had a heyday ever since the first success with the Romans. Now that they had been vanquished, everybody was in very high spirits. I took a table at the side of the hall and had a crest made in bronze with the stylised eagle put on it. This table was now for the academy. There were a few mutters at first but I had the cadets talk in turn about our exploits. In typical German fashion they went into great detail where it was needed. Aagt showed her wound for all to see. They didn't believe the number of horses taken from the Alamanni. They didn't believe the booty either. The six children that took on the three robbers were next and they went through every gesture that they had originally done and probably a few more. The Mediomatrici camp was then described with a lot of detail by the two that had entered it with Jón. When they came to the part where they had to leave then the rest talked of riding past the camp in the dark with all the Alamanni horses. Jón now got up and talked in less detail but I could tell that he wanted to tell his story just like the cadets but he held back with difficulty. He depreciated his own efforts but then talked about the traps that were set. Apparently the Mediomatrici had not wanted to follow after all or at least not yet. The numbers of additional horses was even harder to believe. Arienh had to get up again and talk of her run from the Romans and the thoughts of hiding her armour and weapons. She took her time and said how frightened she was and then how Lucius had treated her. She made the man sound like a German in many ways. When she was running down she smiled and said how she was awakened and then her escape. Jón finished up by saying that he just went back and talked to an enemy that may one day be a valuable friend. He used more words but he was tired. Astrid and Dagmar were now going to console him but Forni got him to the forge and a bed of straw on a stone floor where he could rest instead. The Romans pulled out early the next morning but Jón slept until near four o'clock in the afternoon. He felt like shit. I knew because I felt the same way and I had no sleep at all. That afternoon the smiths were told of a legion coming and how the cannon needed shot or everybody would die. They took this to heart and started making shells. This would give us the best method of killing an enemy. Two wagons left with a lot of small empty barrels. The cadets would try to get as much of the powder stored inside the walls as possible. When the barrel was half empty, it was still the biggest ever made and it took work to get it on a wagon. Fálki had done the same thing and his was full. Grímkell had to go to the quarry for stone for the walls but I think it was to count the horses that were supposed to be there. Some of the booty was hidden back along our trail. A few wagons would go to retrieve it tomorrow but again with an escort and a few cadets to show the way and use any grenades if necessary. The family that received the six horses had come along with a lot of others. Drudwyn and Calder had arrived already. Jón simply gave the refugees into Teirtu's care so he could find farms for them. The ploughing now was only at a reasonable level. Teirtu had heard about Bran but since Bran was not of his tribe, then it was all in good fun. Jón personally found more fun by naming the refugee community Victoria after me. It was not even a German name but it stuck. The village was growing well because Teirtu was demanding that they build the way Jón and I wanted. It looked like a model community, which indeed it was. Stone had been hauled from the quarry and used to make the first house. Jón and I were not around when the first few were built. We helped build one structure the way we wanted. This was going to be a community were everybody helped everybody else. The Mennonites came to mind and they too were of German decent. Everything was built big by the standards of the day. An outhouse was a necessity until plumbing came around but even this was a fabulous luxury. As predicted the cadets were pointed out and all the children looked in awe whenever any came around. The children were more excited at Jón's presence but the cadets didn't mind. Jón gave the cadets pointers now and they began to change once more. They had pride now and had to act responsible. Jón was the one to tell them what responsible was and they followed his words like gospel. The cannon were fired in front of the city with carefully measured amounts of powder. Nobody seemed to mind and went looking for the solid shot that was used once the firing was over. The carroballistae on our walls were now tipped with both live grenades and practice and used to gain a better familiarity with the weapon. As predicted, the priests thought you should get out and fight with swords or teeth if necessary. I would like to put them out first and see just how well they would work. They were not cowards though and did lead in some of the fights. It was just too bad they were so strong in the old order. Doing this in another city may not be possible. Messages had been sent to the other cities talking about what had happened and found in return that Clovis was now advancing with his strange new weapons. No mail had come addressed specifically to us though. We asked for any information on the two legions movements. Jón and I didn't want a confrontation near Hildestun. It was better to snipe at them as they travelled because they would have some sort of strategy to defeat us if they got here. Instead of going on our patrols, we went close to the quarry. We had to fabricate some new chemicals to make a better way to kill or incapacitate. I didn't like the idea of bombing Lucius or sending solid shot through his flimsy walls. Just because he would have five thousand men there didn't mean much. We brought with us all the lead we could find. It was flattened into sheets that we could use like foil. Sulphur and a lot of glassware came too. Sulfuric acid was easy to make. Just burn sulphur then have the sulphur dioxide react with saltpetre. As long as oxygen was getting in, the sulphur dioxide would be converted to sulphur trioxide. The gas of course had to get dissolved in water. The acid would eat through most materials but a box made of strips of thin wood and lined with the sheet lead would resist the acid. I began to work right away with Jón's body. The cadets built a lab for me downwind and at least a kilometre from the quarrying operations. The sulphuric acid was not pure by any means but it was a simple thing to make and there were many tweaks that could be used to increase the purity. The cadets had to take over but there were no good goggles, gloves or protective vests. We used leather for everything. Basically I had a decontamination suit made of leather with a large sheet of glass held in the headpiece with a sewn in strip of leather. Safety was stressed every day and we went over the procedures that had to be done in reviews. The cadets didn't take this with a blasé attitude but showed real fear which I was happy to see. Some of the cadets went back to check for news. There was usually none and they brought back more supplies. One of these trips brought all of the glycerine that I had asked to be stored when soap was made. Twenty more large glass containers came with this load. More were being made all the time. We had no pumps and had to rely on gravity to let the water flow in a mist over the gas to absorb it. This was both dangerous and a difficult job. The sulphuric acid was used to make nitric but this was very impure too. This process was farmed out to some of the cadets. It also meant another lab because I didn't want one process interfering with another. Nitric acid had many problems too but some could be rectified with the addition of urea. I had worked on the problems of starting a chemical industry in this time period. Most of the answers came from my university training and books I had read but some came from my training as a lad to make explosives to kill an enemy. Simple urine could be used for one process. The solids in it was eighty percent urea. A bellows was used to bubble air through the impure nitric acid to purify it and the urea was added too. Sodium hydroxide was produced and the sulphuric acid reacted with it. Two salts were formed and one of them was sodium bisulfate. This had to be fractionated from the mixture. The sodium bisulfate was put in a reaction chamber with the glycerine. I could make nitro, dynamite and form of plastique with it but this way may be better. The mixture was heated slowly under a defused flame and the bubbling was monitored only by me. We had to wait for a favourable wind because I was making acrolein or better known as mace. The material was distilled off and stored. We had a lot of waste and I was not going to just dump this because there was still a lot of the acrolein in solution. I passed each of the mixtures through the still again and then added some lime from the quarry. This would get rid of the last of the water in the solution because it would cause the acrolein to breakdown. This was repetitious work because we made only a half litre at a time. Our waste was carted to the kiln and slowly fed into the hottest part when the wind was right. This freed up our equipment to make more mace. Making acid was dangerous but we had no problems. The cadets hated the smell of the acid but even a partial whiff of the acrolein was much more potent. The mace was made and stored in large containers because we didn't have a delivery system yet. A legion was around five thousand men and I was sure they would take all the precautions necessary at night. This meant the palisade of sharpened logs would be erected. The area of ground the legion took was usually the same no matter what legion did the work. There was a long tradition of making this way because it worked. I would be using that basic structure in my plans. Mace was a liquid, not a gas so it had to be dispersed from above and with due consideration for the air currents. I pictured a glass container shot from a mortar with a charge of powder at its centre. If the two were kept separate then a small explosion would disperse the droplets over a wide area. I wanted four times the required coverage to be safe. What any delivery system could cover was yet to be decided. Puke gas or chloropicrin could be made to mix with mace and would serve to incapacitate the legion more thoroughly but I needed chloroform. This was easy to make if I made a still and had access to a lot of wine for its alcohol content. I made nitroglycerine with the two acids with no ability to keep the temperature low other than flood the area with cool water from a stream. This could be made in a continuous process but we didn't have the equipment. Refrigeration would have to wait, I had to get purified ammonia first and a compressor never mind the engine to make it turn. The nitroglycerine was washed in clear water many times after the last of the acids were neutralised with the lime. More lime was used later to remove more of the water. Some of the liquid was added to a ceramic bowl of fine fire dried sawdust. A wooden mixing spoon was used to stabilise the mixture and turn it into one of the many forms of dynamite. Cotton rags were needed for the cannons but we had extra thanks to the Alamanni. These were washed, dried and shredded. They were then nitrated with nitric acid and stirred. When I thought the process had gone far enough they were washed again with lime and water to remove any residual acid. After five more washes the material was dried in another bowl over some hot rocks. After some tests I would see if our nitrocellulose was weapons grade or not. Some would be mixed with nitroglycerine to make a better grade of dynamite. Those with time off from the labs tested the dynamite in small amounts. They were well aware of black powder and they only had to get a few more pointers in how to use this new material. The cadets formed two research teams and discussed exactly what they were going to do before doing it. This way there would be much fewer mistakes. The explosions were far from the labs but were still heard. The failure to get the grenades lit had bothered me. I had worked out many routes to make matches and chose the shortest of the methods that was consistent with what I had to work with. I used flour and bees wax but they still sputtered brightly but they did burn and were able to light a fuse. All this activity halted when we heard forty three days after Lucius left that the legion was on the move. They were coming from the west along three hundred miles of winding road. They could easily make twenty miles a day but forty was possible. The nature of the road dictated that their speed was somewhere in between. Ten days sounded about right because they would want to rest before a battle if possible. They would possibly come along the two routes we had surveyed. We were back in Hildestun just three hours after hearing the news. The labs were closed down and should be safe if we managed to get back to them. The town was in turmoil again with people coming or going depending on their temperament and inclination. Astrid was very worried and was very happy to see Jón. "There you are. I am happy to see that you are back." "There were lots of things to prepare. Did you make the little bottles I wanted?" "I did as you asked and made a hundred and seven of them for you. How are they going to save us?" "I told you that it was to spread a substance that will cause the eyes to water and to congest the lungs and nose." "I know that but how is that going to stop a warrior. They will fight with a broken arm if necessary." "The substance has to be experienced first. Once you take even a small smell you will know why." "It won't kill, you said. Why use it?" "We can take out individuals with this without killing. There will be too much of that and I am trying to minimise it." "They are our enemies. Kill them if you can." "I will but I needn't kill all of them." Grímkell and a few of his officers were brought into the dining room where Jón had put out his maps and others. Grímkell didn't like being called from his duties though he had a long time to prepare. "What is it you would like, milord?" "I want you to picture the Roman army marching down our narrow roads in a long straight line." "So?" "What if we pulled two or more cannon out quickly and fired directly down the road towards the approaching Romans?" Grímkell said, "If they were like the trees I saw then you will kill a great many with just one of your iron balls." "If we fired more rounds soon after then stopped as you and your men charged in with your lances?" The man smiled now and said, "We would kill a lot of them." "That charge would famous through history. The world would have changed with your coming." The man continued to smile and asked, "How is that?" "Fifty or a hundred men attack a full legion. Your only trouble is to withdraw. I see you staying there and the Romans swamping you with sheer numbers. I can fire again and you can attack again. I can see you all trying so hard to gather more glory that you will allow yourselves to die. I would think two short charges would gain you more glory than one long one that ended with your deaths." Grímkell said with a straight face, "My men will do as they are told." "During the heat of battle?" "Even then." "I wish I could believe this but I think even you would have a difficult time pulling back even temporarily." "Are you calling me a liar?" "I am calling you a man that may not even understand himself. I don't want to see any of you dead. You are all needed to protect the cannons from the Roman calvary and if you are dead then the legion will take our city. Your actions are not just to kill Romans but to protect our weapons. If you fail to act as you say then the city dies and everybody in it. You know how the Romans treat a city that disobeys them." Grímkell nodded his head in understanding. "I will make sure all of my people obey." "All good soldiers know when to obey and when not to. Now let's study the maps and find a good place to kill Romans." We picked some good areas and Jón mentioned features about each location that was discussed. Tactics now were different than what Grímkell knew but he began to understand the reason for them. A lot of opposition from Grímkell's people developed because they were supposed to guard the city not go out and attack the Romans beforehand. The fact that they had family here was understandable too. Jón said, "The cannon work if the Romans are close together. If they spread out they will be harder for the cannons to deal with them. They are coming here now with some ideas of how to defeat us and our new weapon. They will come to us though in their old method because they want to defend themselves against wild barbarians from the forest." They seemed to grin or at least some did. "We have to fight them where and when it is the best for us, not for them. If we fight and pull back then fight again you will gain the glory you seek and I will keep you alive to protect the cadets. Before the Romans get to the city they will learn much more about cannon and there will be less of them to oppose us. "My duty is to the city and our people not to gain glory and die. We are better off to start killing Romans on the road. We have room to manoeuvre but here we will be kept behind walls. We have people here depending on us. If we lose our lives in the field being foolish then Thor would not be happy with our bravery if it meant our families were unprotected and went under Roman swords." Aagt and Dolf were given the news that they were going to stay here. They were very upset until it was explained that they had to protect the city almost by themselves. Jón went through the young men and women and selected a few to assist the two remaining cadets. The assistants may be cadets if they proved worthy and they survived. The two cadets knew about safety but whether they could teach this or not was another matter. This was given them as a test of their command responsibilities. Astrid didn't want Jón to leave and thought the castle would be the place to fight. She correctly stated that most times we went out we became embroiled in a fight. Grímkell was hit by his vow to protect the city but he got around it by saying he was but from a distance. We left as soon as possible and kept it up as long as we could see. The wagons were what slowed us down but they still went quite fast with the spare horses. The cadets rode their own horses and lead the teams by the reigns. The smaller and lighter saddles on the team were not suitable for long trips. The weather didn't cooperate and we had rain for three days now with only a few breaks for the sun. The roads were a quagmire and it was only our large wide wheels that kept us going. At night we slept in the wagon or below them on hammocks. Tents were also used because we had nearly sixty mounted men with us. Our wrought iron stove was used extensively and we even had to carry our own fuel. Jón had small strategy meetings any time we stopped for a break. He and I worked out that the men would do what they must a lot quicker if they had a part to play in the planning. We had our own areas layed out but let the men choose them first. Grímkell may have known what Jón was doing but said nothing. As we passed each of the proposed ambush sites we went over them with the men so they were familiar with what we were trying to do. Some didn't like shooting at the Romans from the top of a small rise and these were left with Grímkell to deal with. It took three days to get to the most forward ambush site. It was a dogleg with two sections of road that were straight for fifty metres and the second for sixty. The idea was to dig in a pair of cannon to shoot down both sections of road at nearly the same time. The Romans I was told marched with a certain amount of room between them. They carried poles with their equipment strung on them as well as the rest of their equipment. Donkeys carried any small artillery and the large tent for every eight man unit. This meant that a hundred and seventy of the enemy could possibly be under our guns at one time. A rock face would present itself to the Romans just before the dog leg. If this were mined then we could inflict more casualties and perhaps stop those from further back from hurrying forward to stop our calvary from taking out any survivors. All this hinged on not being visible to the Roman scouts that were sure to parallel and precede the army. When we got to the site we found it just like the rest of the trail. It was deep in mud and difficult to pull a wagon or a cannon. Unencumbered horses were just as bad. Six metres back into the hills that bounded the trail we dug in. Trees had to be cut far from this site and dragged close to the site to hold back the wall of loose soil. There were trees in front of us but they were not large when solid shot was used they would not slow down the projectiles much. A tunnel was dug into the stone wall to receive the powder but keeping it dry would be a problem. The fuse was coated with bees wax or even some tar but I was not sure of its ability to light when the time came. The matches worked fine but whether the fuse would continue to burn to the charges was a different matter. The Romans had not appeared yet but the weather had cleared. With our own people well hidden the calvary took the equipment and spare horses not needed to the rear. Other ambush sites could use a little preliminary work especially those where the cannon had to be pushed by hand up a rise. We had to make sure the Romans paid for each metre they took in blood. The Romans were finally spotted. The rain had kept them to a crawl as it did us. There was a lot of anxious people now. Roman scouts came by but didn't see our positions. The netting and camouflage suits did a very good job. The bows were strung anyway just in case. Our calvary was up a creek bed to protect one emplacement or in a camouflaged depression depending on the gun. The Romans on horses took their job seriously and looked for any threat. Some were far ahead of the main body. These were taken with bows and their horses pulled into the brush. There was very little straight sections of road in this area so that those further back could see what was happening. When the Roman point had gone by and dismissed the dead and rotted tree that blocked a portion of the trail and a large rock had been placed there days ago. It would not stop the marchers but it would serve to bunch them up in this area. Hopefully without arousing suspicions. Twenty minutes before some suspicious man on point showed himself but he kept going. They had to work around the rock but stopped to move the dead tree. The rest of the column came and others pushed the offending rock out of the way. Just as the rock settled into its new position the cannon fired down the trail. A second later the next one did the same. Jón was at the forward position and we felt the ball whistle through the air as it whizzed by. Many people were killed by bone fragments in a situation like this so we kept low and against some rocks even if we were further back. Our own salvo was next and we cut through the men in front of us. The Romans walked in pairs and our cannons worked the same way. Seeing this bloodshed was hard on me and perhaps harder on Jón but the cannons were reloaded with the large grapeshot and fired at anybody standing. We needed only one salvo. Nobody was standing after it. The explosion was heard in the rock face and this was the loudest yet. Rock was ripped apart and cast towards the army that was too stunned to move. The mortars were next. They had been aimed back along the trail of Romans and they belched their explosive shells. We could not see much and had to guess. Jón climbed the small rise and looked through the brush and then signalled the two mortar batteries to how to aim. The rear cannon now elevated and its own barrage created havoc far down the Roman line. Our lancers came charging out and looked to be disappointed that there were no enemy standing. They ran down the trail disregarding bodies of the living or dead and turned the corner. Moments later the next group thundered by. The forward cannon was of no use and Guinevere brought up horses that were petrified of the sound. They too trampled bodies as they came forward. The horses were hooked up as soon as possible then driven back down the trail to our next ambush site and now the heavy wheels made a real mess of the trail. More teams came by now and took the mortars. The rear battery was now dismantled because there were few Romans left in sight that were alive. Grímkell was able to bring his men back though three horses had two riders. Horses were brought and all of us including Jón rode back along the trail. Jón and I did some additional calculations. Our initial barrage had taken a bit over two hundred soldiers. The explosion in the cliff, and the explosive shells had taken perhaps double that. The calvary was quiet and their total would have to be tallied at our first place to stop for a rest. We pulled up to an area of exposed rock and then turned at right angles. Some of the calvary got on foot and tried to conceal our tail. We came to the wagon we had left but nobody even the calvary were ready to eat. They were splattered by blood. A count was taken then and out of the fifty eight men only three were missing. Two more were slightly wounded but not enough to sideline them. Grímkell like all the men were not talking much. Usually after a battle they would be rejoicing that they were alive. Jón walked over to the cadets. All had witnessed killing and death but were now crying or at least ready to. He said in a quiet voice, "We have done something we should not be proud of. We have butchered men. They could not protect themselves from our weapons. If they had got through to Hildestun, those same men would have butchered our people. It is far better that they had died instead." Oriana sniffled and said, "Did you see the men that burst as the cannons drove over them? I will remember that for the rest of my life." "I will remember it too. That and the effect of a solid shot when it hits a man. It is not good but it is better than dying under a Roman sword. Those that defy Rome, die. Usually slaves are not even taken. I still have to say that it is better them then us." When Guinevere threw up then so did three more and Jón went around to them with water and a cloth to clean them. While the horses ate grass Jón forced himself to bring food out to be eaten. He went around to the men and gave them a bun made in the oven and a meat patty in it. The Earl of Sandwich would not get credit for this now. The men though didn't want to eat but Jón ordered them to in a commanding voice. When they started to eat Jón walked to Grímkell and asked, "Give me a report as to how we lost three men?" "Their horses were attacked and then the men were swarmed. They didn't give up easily. We came in and they fought on foot until the Romans came again and drove their swords through the armour with spears. They had to use two hands to do so." "There were no survivors?" "No. The Romans were angry and frightened and butchered the bodies." "What are your estimates of men killed by lance?" "Two to three hundred I think. It may be more. Most were already wounded by your weapons. Some I think welcomed our caress because they were missing arms or even legs." "That totals about eight to nine hundred. Perhaps a thousand could be counted with the wounded." "That sounds about right." "That leaves four thousand men against our city. They will not be happy with us. We now kill them or they will kill all of us. Let's get to the next campsite. We have to see if we can hit their camp now." Grímkell was a hard man but he didn't look good. He did get his men moving. We had figured that the Romans would make camp near our slaughter. If for nothing more than to tend to their wounded. Three likely locations had been surveyed ahead of time and two could provide another killing ground for our weapons. ------- Chapter 22 The Romans did set up camp as we figured. They had more daylight to do it but there were a lot of wounded people to deal with too, not to mention the dead. Roman patrols had been sent out and they worked diligently to find any enemy but none were discovered. Most of the patrols retreated to their fort when it got dark but not all. There was a small hill that was our objective. It was near the maximum range of our weapons. The hill protected us from direct view of the camp. We made a fire to give us enough light to see to load our guns with but not close enough to detonate our powder. Jón climbed the hill and when our eyes were accustomed to the darkness I took over. I could see two of the five foot patrols. They were currently just resting in the dark but close enough that we could get them with the mortars. I studied the stars and then went down the hill. The two mortars were aimed by guess and the probable flight of any survivors. The weapons were loaded with shells but their formulation had some of the dynamite in them for extra power. The mortars coughed one at a time and I called down the slope to how they were to be adjusted. It took five shells to destroy twenty men. The cannon then fired one at a time and I called out adjustments just before the next fired. The cadets and the men worked the cannon over an area simply by the windage in our barrels and the vagaries of the powder. We stayed at it for an hour. Fully thirty percent of our shells failed to explode but the remainder looked to be more than enough. The mortar teams took care of the other patrols as they arrived. The walls of the Roman fort had been breached and the men fled but we followed them for a while. We used all of the ammunition we had on the carts except for a few dozen small rounds of grapeshot. I stayed on the far slope as I heard the cries of the dying and saw the fires that blazed in the camp. Nobody was coming our way and the Romans just looked to be staggering around in a daze. I didn't feel glad about what we had done and even felt sad in a way that we had to kill in the first place. Roman soldiers were ruthless and killed children and even babies if they were compelled to do so or if they were angry enough. I walked back down the hill to our cadets and those of the men that were here to assist. "We have destroyed the camp. I think tomorrow we will march in and take those that still survive." They could not see my face but I could see theirs and they were a sad lot for having gained such a one sided victory. We should not have set up camp here but I was going to watch through the night. Very few slept and when breakfast came it was a sombre affair. More powder and shot were taken from the wagon and our magazines were restocked. When everything looked as it should, I walked up and down the line of cadets and men. "We are going to take the camp. There may be some opposition but I hope not. We cannot afford to have an army on our lands that want to kill us. We will keep order and try to save as many as possible. Do not think for a moment that we are safe. Men deranged by what we had done to them are even more unhinged. We are a conquering people but need to show some compassion. To show too much will show us as weak though. This may be a difficult act to do but you must try." We wound our way toward the camp. When we were spotted very few came to arms and we just walked our horses slowly forward. At fifty metres the cannon and even the mortars were aimed out at the Romans. It was half an hour later that three men on horses came to us. They had swords but they were in their scabbards. Our own men kept their lances pointing up. One Roman in a commanding voice and in a brutally butchered German demanded, "Who is in charge here?" Jón had control and said, "I am Jón, son of Clovis. Who are you?" "Gnaeus Scipio Magnus." "Greetings, Gnaeus Scipio Magnus. I am sorry that we meet under these conditions. My aim is to take your camp. I would like you to be in charge under my authority. Your men will respond better. My men have some training in medicine as do I. My father and I do not treat slaves the same as what a Roman does. In your case you will not be slaves at all but what I am calling prisoners of war. Do I have your word as a Roman and a follower of Mithra that you will obey my will?" "Is this all the people you have?" "Three have died yesterday at your army's hands. Power now is in our weapons. Firing from here will be the same as we did yesterday on the trail. No Roman would be alive by the time we stop. What is your decision?" "Tell me about what you intend to do with the officers?" He didn't seem to worry much about the men and Jón said, "They will stay in the same positions they now have. I will deal with you and your staff directly. Your officers will give orders to your men. They too will have to give their oath to obey me. "When we get to Hildestun, you will build a fort once more but under the coverage of our weapons. With the word of you and your men, you would be free to grow crops and to hunt. When more legions come we will do the same to them as I have done to you. Eventually the Roman Empire and the German people will come to an understanding." "You say we will be free to hunt and farm?" "Yes, you will not even be deprived of weapons at that future time. Until that time comes I want no mad Roman to take a weapon to my people." "Mad?" "What we have done causes some to go mad. You must have been in battle enough to see how some react." "I understand. How are we to proceed?" "You are to go back to your camp and have your men collect all the weapons and armour. It is to go into a temporary armoury. A knife used for eating is allowed only. Grímkell and four of his men will ride into your camp to see how well the collection is going. "When this has been done, I will bring two cannon into the camp. Those of your men able to see will witness you giving me your sword then your oath. I will hand you a sword in return. You will be the only Roman so armed. "The officers will then give their oaths. This needn't conflict with your other oaths because I will not have you fighting Romans or do anything against your empire. "After the ceremony we will tend to the injured. Killing men is easy but distasteful. Your officers will assist the wounded to the best of their ability." "That is acceptable." Grímkell took some of his men into the camp an hour later. It took him a half hour to come back. He looked very upset and he was a hardened soldier. He came to Jón and said, "There are perhaps three hundred men able to function. Most of those are hurt. I too have seen men go mad but there is a great deal of this in that camp. I think that most of the Romans would welcome death." "Did you see Lucius or his children?" "Thankfully I did not. That did not mean he was not among the dead or wounded." At noon, Jón rode into the Roman camp with half of Grímkell's men. Those Romans that could stand were before what was left of the general's tent. There were a few Roman priests but they were priests of Mithra. The Christians had not got far into converting the military and many of the Emperors or the Augustus didn't want to antagonise the soldiers too much. It was a long ceremony and Gnaeus Scipio gave his ornate sword to Jón on a bended knee. Jón had been a party to many ceremonies before. He gave assurances back that he would take care of the Romans as he would his own people that had been injured. Jón got a tour of the camp and he talked to the wounded through an interpreter. He talked about duty and suffering and how it was the army that always had to suffer. There were a lot of military doctors and Jón gave his orders that they wash between patients and were given finer medical instruments than they had seen before. Bronze was a good material to make lancets but steel was better over all. Once again I took control and operated as I had been taught. This was all theoretical. All I had ever done was some first aid and assisted at the birth of a baby girl at the side of a road once. Shrapnel was not usually in one piece but many times the pieces were large. It was very late before we quit and this was only because of the light. I could still see and my probes could still detect metal but Jón was tired too. Those outside the camp came in and took up a position in a good corner where the poles of two walls were still standing. The wagons had been drawn in too. The cannons were of course aimed at the rest of the camp. We put out sentries but they didn't guard against people escaping into the night. Jón and I were worried, partially because Lucius and his people had not been found. The man had disappeared with the first cannon salvo on the trail. It was a prudent move but he had nearly four hundred men still under his command. We had to not only defend ourselves from those in the camp but those without. In the morning, some of our men went out hunting, but it was for both men and animals. They did so far from camp. The barrage would certainly send all the larger animals fleeing. A large grave was dug and those along the trail and those in and around the camp were put into it with full military courtesy. More large graves had to be dug because it looked like fully three thousand men had or would die soon. Our own dead were recovered and they too went into the graves along with the Romans. Though the Romans didn't know it, the powder that fed the cannons was all put together under the guns. Jón was taking no chance that they or the powder would fall into hostile hands. Grímkell had sent off four men with remounts to inform Hildestun of what had happened. Lucius' disappearance troubled him too. In the course of a week the camp was put back together. Those surviving wounded now stood an even chance of living. I got a good chance to learn more than I wanted about surgery. The immunes including the doctors learned about disease and what could be used to control it. The common soldier did not hate us that much though we had killed a great many of his friends. The officers were real snobs. A good proportion of them were from the aristocracy but more had risen through the ranks and assumed the demeanour of their new associates. Some of the partially mobile were driven from the camp in the wagon. Some of the Romans were worried that we would execute those that had left. The men were put by game trails and the Frisians had gone quite a distance to drive game towards the Romans. Everybody was happy when the wagon that went out, brought back a lot of jubilant hunters and a great deal of meat. We had no messengers from Hildestun and we believed that either Lucius had taken them or there was trouble in or around the city. It could be many other things too but none of them were that likely. Grímkell was put in command of the Romans in my place. He kept a dozen men with him but they would not have the cannon or powder. We now had to rely on the word of the Romans. Our trip back to Hildestun was nerve wracking. At any moment we felt we could be attacked by Romans or Picts. My hearing was good but there was always lots of noise to drowned out some waiting enemy's movements. I had to more far ahead to listen adequately. As we got nearer I became even more suspicious because this was the time to attack, when we would be relieved to be back in friendly territory. The air was constantly sniffed and I looked at the ground to find the tracks of horses that had come this way recently. Not only were the bows always strung but we had both the grenades and the mace nearby. The wind was constantly monitored. Only a mad man would throw this substance up wind. Ten hours from the city we were attacked. I had been in the lead and heard the sound of tack being rustled by nervous mounts. Two cannon were at the front and two in the rear of our column. At my signal one gun stopped then turned around and then when the next gun passed it too turned around. This had even been practised four times a day for the last few days. The guns were then loaded with small grapeshot and we waited. I heard scouts moving around in the forest and the nervousness of the horses ahead was more readily heard but only by me. The guns were taken from their mounts and most of the ammunition moved further away and the horses secured with hobbles as well as their bridals. The horses I heard were now moving and I directed the guns to cover their expected approach. The attackers were good at what they did and came as quietly as they could. They also came from down wind as they would when stalking a particular prey. They were clustering along a long line and I decided to attack first. Instead of the cannon our canisters of mace were thrown so they broke against trees ten metres from the wagons. Arrows carrying mace were shot into the air to break behind those ready to attack. We heard a thunderous yell as the men made their attack. The cannons were ready but the charge stopped suddenly as it started. A few men made it to us but were in no condition to fight. Their horses were no better. Our own calvary now went to work mindful to stay out of the fog we had made. They didn't know what it was but knew enough to fear it. When the air freshened, our calvary were able to move towards the men wreathing on the ground. The enemy horses were the same way and had killed some of the riders. I stayed at the cannons and listened for any changes. Our calvary had to dismount and take the Picts with the pommel of their swords or with makeshift clubs. They held their breath most of the time but had to give up after pulling only a few towards our position. It took a half hour for the Mace to clear but it still stayed in low pockets. Men were now just dragged towards us like lost sheep. It took another two hours to get all of the men that were still here. There was eighty seven of them but I figured that an equal number had fled. We washed out their eyes and gave them water to drink. Mace was liquid and the men had to keep their hands out of their eyes. They vigorously washed their hands with soap and water when they were told this would help. A stream a kilometre from the came served to was them and their clothes. The surviving horses had to be cleaned too. It was another two hours before we could move, but our captives had to be guided. Just before we were going to make camp for the night I detected another possible attack and prepared for it. In this case it never occurred. They knew we had detected them. With the camp made, we set about feeding our uninvited guests. Most were fed their own rations though ours were not much different. Not all of the Picts were men in the prime of their lives. Twenty two could be termed young men starting out learning the trade of war. With this many Picts within this distance from the city it was assumed that a siege was in place. Our walls and four cannons would keep this tribe of Gauls at a respectful distance, at least until the powder ran out. The farmers we had placed outside the walls were mostly Picts too and should not have suffered much. Or at least I hoped that. Our guests though would have set up a satellite camp of their own. I could threaten or use torture to get one of the youngsters to tell me where it was but it would destroy the young man and not release much information. We made a large fire for the Gauls. Their clothing was not yet dry. When guards were posted I left the camp in the commando outfit. I took to the road and headed towards Hildestun. It made sense that the Gallic camp was here to intercept those using the road. It also made sense that the camp would be within their lines. It was crying that I heard that led me to the camp though I found lots of tracks soon leading in that direction. The angry voices of men were also heard. The camp was large but again it had a lot of children and other noncombatants. The Gauls didn't even have pickets out. The horses though were near their owners' huts. I looked for ways to attack the camp but cause the least amount of casualties. Flushing the warriors and taking them would be the best. Since we had taken the many of the warriors already then I knew they would be desperate to get them back and might make some foolish charge trying to defeat us. I checked for ways to get at the camp if necessary and then returned to our own camp. Within the hearing of our captives I mentioned the layout of the camp to those standing watch. I wanted it clear that I could have done something if I had wanted. Forni was one of the two I was talking to and he said, "Why didn't you just go in there and take their horses and kill them the way you did before?" Forni could not see my smile but I said, "Bran's camp was larger. I only killed a few hundred of his men. Many times I was shooting to wound. Now this group is smaller. We can do the same thing to them as we did to those that attacked us but that will still cause deaths. It crossed my mind that the easiest thing to do would be to pull the cannons toward the camp. We can kill everybody there in twenty minutes. The wolves can clean it up for us." Some of the Gauls must have understood me because they moved anxiously. I continued, "We killed three thousand Romans in an hour and wounded all of the rest." I put my hand over Forni's mouth and said, "It is a shame about the children though. They will suffer the same fate as the men that want to kill us." Forni squirmed and I whispered, "Agree with me." The idea must have been hard to formulate but he said, "If that is what you want. I don't like to see the children killed. They can be taught." "That is true. Look at all the Picts we have settled on our land. If we could get this group to surrender then we either let them go or give them land near us." "You want more of them?" "Why not? They are not Frisian but they can learn as you said. We have the weapons to take the entire Roman empire a legion or two at a time. These Gauls are just a nuisance but I don't mind doing a little more work if they will work with us peacefully." "Well, what are you going to do? I don't like killing if it can be avoided." "I will think on it. Tomorrow morning we will either kill a thousand Gauls or try to talk them into surrendering." I whispered into both of the guards' ears, "The Gauls will try to escape to warn their people. I don't intend to kill anybody unless I can't help it. They were listening to me and it was a way of getting them to want to find a solution." During the night as Jón slept I mentioned thirty eight times to various Gauls to leave their bindings alone. This way Jón got most of his sleep. Forni came over when his watch was over and cuddled close. He seemed to be still bothered about my threats. An hour or so before dawn I awoke Jón and then he did the same to the rest of the camp. The Picts were roused but most of them had not slept. With his back to a large fire Jón said, "Gauls, I have to make a serious decision. We used our weapons on the Romans and destroyed a full legion. Your village is much smaller and even easier to destroy. Will your people surrender or will I have to kill? Answer me now." Three men clamoured to answer because they were the only ones that understood my words. The oldest said in heavily accented German, "Our people have done nothing to you. We will depart if we can." "Your king will drive you back and then I will have to kill you. It is easier to kill some of you now and some of you later." This horrified the three as well as our own people but they wisely held their tongues. "There are few warriors left. What will you do to us and our families?" "Settle you on our land. You will not be slaves but will have to stay for five years. After that time you are free to go where you will. The danger then will have passed." "You will not sell us or split us up?" "You are not slaves but you will be split up with my own people in farms beside you. They will learn about the Picts and you will learn about the Frisians or other German tribes. Your friends will only be one farm away." "That is all?" "No. You will get to keep one quarter of your crops. I will get your land ploughed and help you seed it. You are there to remove the weeds and to harvest. In your spare time there is work to do and you get paid in silver at the same rate as a Frisian. You don't have to do this but it is a way of learning." "What kind of work is this?" "Cutting trees into lumber, making things with the wood, building devices or tools out of metal and stone but there are a large number of jobs. You are free to accept this extra work or not. You Gauls are good at some crafts and now you have the chance to live where you will not have to fight." "We will do as you say." "You are only one man. Talk to the others and see what they say." There was a lot of the Pict tongue being spoken and then questions asked and answered. Some voices sounded frantic because they heard the threat in Jón's words and voice. Fifteen minutes later the horses had been hitched and we were off once more. Again I listened for an ambush. Now was a good time to have it. The night was quiet though and we managed to pull the cannons into position near the camp without detection. I helped Jón aim the cannon then we fired at the trees to one side of the village. We kept it up with four salvos. Every person in the village was awake and before their huts with a weapon in their hands if they had any. The three Gauls and three of the guards walked across the area we had cleared with the guns. They looked at the trees or what was left of them. Those in the camp just stared at the six men. The Gauls had seen enough and called to their people to come and see the damage. First one then a few more came and stared at what had once been full sized trees. When it was getting light a delegation came towards us. The same kind of threats were given then the carrot. The cadets helped. They stood proud beside their guns ready to touch the powder in the pan if ordered to do so. It took an hour for all the Gauls to kneel and give their oaths. The Frisians never trusted the Gauls very much but this was enough for now. Jón said, "I accept your oaths." He then went on and continued the formula but we all knew that it was still fragile. The eighty seven were released to see their families and to start a meal of celebration. It was short notice but turned out to be just a better than average breakfast. We learned a lot during the meal. King Celyddon of the Gauls was the one besieging Hildestun. He was waiting for the Romans to arrive but wanted to get what booty he could first. So far he had only collected corpses. The city had used the cannons. An attack had been made at night but the mortars had put an end to that. We tried to get an idea of numbers but this was difficult. Information about Clovis was sketchy and this group had not heard about his use of the cannon yet. They had not believed what they heard about cannon until we had given them irrefutable evidence just an hour before. The messengers we had sent had not been seen but this could have been a lie. Nobody in the camp was wearing our armour but it could have been stored in a hut. We were all itchy to be moving because our city was threatened. The village chief Einion was one of the men we had captured. Jón talked to him in private and the man agreed to the terms. He had no choice in the matter and this was the way things were usually done. His sons Gawain twelve and Arthur eleven would be going with us. They would be hostages at the start the same as what Clovis had been when he was young. If the boys were smart and at least a bit ambitious then they would get into the academy. Their father and the rest of the village would bury the few dead then come to Hildestun in a week. It was hoped that Celyddon could be routed in that much time. The two boys climbed into the wagon and the mother was crying and so was the younger boy. Einion had older sons and these young ones would be surplus but still valuable as family. Children died much too young for parents to put too much love into each of them. The guns were unloaded and hitched up to the carts. Leaving the camp most of the cadets waved to the Gauls as if they were friends. A few waved back. Forni took over the two boys but found out that they didn't understand our language. He started to correct this right away. Using the stove in the wagon to make a meal sounded like a good method and it seemed to work. I took point again even though Einion thought he was the only one to control the road. We took a side road that was for the most part overgrown that led to the quarry. It was longer but we wanted to know how the Gauls were prosecuting the war. When we got to the quarry we found it deserted. A small side trip showed our labs unmolested. The city was close and the farms of the refugees were even closer. It was now near six o'clock and there would be lots of light yet so we could see our objective but also to be seen. The men with us wanted to leave and return to the city and have us go with them but there was too much to learn before entering the walls that could be a trap. When we got close, Jón went in alone. There were people in the fields and forest to make this look natural. Jón frightened some of the people just by them recognising who he was. He found some that could speak German. Apparently King Celyddon didn't like the situation here at all. He resorted to fines on the people to tell them that he didn't want them working with the Frisians. Few of the fines had been paid. Money was scarce among the poor. This made feeling even harder on each side. They would have to leave but could stay until the King Celyddon took the city. Jón and I knew that the king must have spoken too soon because he would not be able to take the city as long as there were people with cannons ready to defend it. Jón said to me, "I don't think King Celyddon is going to leave without some push. I can't see him being convinced with just words." "I don't think so either. He has taken Roman gold and might have to give some of it back. He probably has heard of the weapons we have made and wants them for himself. The secret of steel alone would make him rich. He has probably run up against your father and would want to find the secret of gunpowder before your father comes back." "There looks to be a great many of them and they brought their families with them." "This must be very important to him if the Romans paid for more help. I would estimate that there are three legions of men. Usually the Romans have one or sometimes two auxiliaries tied to a particular legion. Your father must have been very successful to have this much opposition to come here." "I thought that too. Three groups of five thousand men and an average family size of eight counting grandfathers and young men mean we have a hundred and twenty thousand people. They have been here for two days and I do not think they brought a lot of food with them. Our own Picts will be displaced and all their food seized." I said, "That gives them adequate reason to attack the city if only for food." "We do not have enough cannon to stand up to a major charge like that. They will not conveniently stay put in one area so we can put bombs right over their heads." "They may know that already. They are well spread out now. If Celyddon has the largest tent then it is much further from the city. It also with a wide ring of defenders around him." Jón said, "I want to take the cadets to the south and prepare another trap. I can come close enough to fire a few shells so they explode over his tent. If we run for it they will follow." "You may have a kilometre head start but you also have to hitch the wagon to the ammunition cart. Celyddon will have had some experience already, thanks to your father, and know better what to do." "We can go at night. You can see in the dark." "We still don't know what is to the south. We went west and north." "There has to be a place." "We better ask somebody that knows or investigate ourselves." "It would take too long to investigate. Some of the men should know." When we rejoined the rest, Jón gave his synopsis of the situation. The men wanted to get into the city now and prepare for the attack when it came. They also wanted the rest of us to do the same thing and bring our own cannons. Jón said, "Look at how many of the Romans were killed in just an hour. I want to do it again but the Gauls are out of range." One man said, "You can get close to the city and fire. If the Gauls come you can kill them or go into the city." "What you say is true but I want them to leave and the best way is to have them chase us. I do not like shooting into a camp with women and children but I will do some if it is necessary to get their attention. I want the warriors to chase us and then we can deal with them as we did the Romans." "Where do you plan to lead them? Going towards the Romans is not good but there is better areas to ambush them." "I wanted to go South." "There are not many hills and the land is more open. We can't hide there very well." "Tell me about the land. It's important." The land was indeed more open. The maps were brought out and hills were pointed out though there was little on the maps to show this. This had all been farmland recently and a lot of the forest had been cut back. Jón asked a lot of details and I assisted him by mentioning more facts. Lots of the area was covered in swamp or wide and shallow rivers. It was amazing that the sea that once covered this area allowed any hills at all. The cadets followed their leader but it still took a lot of time for Jón to convince the men to continue under his leadership. Jón set out his plan after listening to all the information. When he was done he waited for comment and I said to him, "You are leaving yourself wide open with no option but to run. The cannon and carts are heavy and the Gauls will just have their horses. The way to attract their attention leaves us open to envelopment. We cannot last long in that situation." Jón didn't answer. The men gave their own ideas and some covered my ideas too. Jón didn't like this opposition to his plans and grudgingly changed some of them. This process took a while but Jón repeated the first part of the plan once again with all the changes but I could feel a reluctance to alter more of his ideas. My assessment of his plans was not that bad especially from a boy his age. He had my memories and I believed him to be more intelligent now but that did not make him a good strategist. He failed to see that our successes were mainly because the enemy had no idea what was happening to them and the fact that I was the one that could fight in the dark. Jón was too confident, as if he thought that he could not fail. It was now quite dark and we loaded up all our equipment and started a long slow journey around the city in the dark. I was the one to take point again and it was morning by the time we had circled the Gauls and started on our way south. The horses were not the only ones tired. In a dense thicket we camped for a few hours. Some of the cadets that had slept in the wagon now stood watch while the rest slept. This was a dangerous area being so near the enemy camp. Hunters would be out looking for food and we were in the area it would use for a home. After only four hours we had a meal then took to the road again. The wagon again served to let some sleep more so they could stand watch later. It was only late that night that we came to the first possible ambush site and there was not much illumination for the rest to see. Jón was all set for placing the cannon but it took a lot of coaxing for me to get him to just sleep and then see the area in the light. "Alright, we will make camp and see the area in the morning." Gawain and Arthur helped and it was Forni that was taking them under his wing. Jón showed a bit of anger at this but I didn't quite see it as jealously. I, of course, stood watch while the cadets or men took their short watches. The next morning found Jón in a bad mood but he worked hard to not let it show. At first light, we had climbed the hill and when he looked around I showed him the wet area behind that covered a large area. "When we fire at the Picts, it is a sure bet that they are going to run, seek cover or attack. What do you think they will do considering that they are already familiar with cannon?" The answer was a long time coming and when it did he answered reluctantly. "They will spread out and attack." "That is what I think too. I cannot see any way across the marsh so we would be trapped. If there was a way then this would be a great place to set up our own ambush. We could race along that road and put traps along our path." Jón looked around and said, "There is another hill about an hour's ride from here." Since he was looking at it I said, "It may be better but it might have the same swamp." Again I had problems with Jón because he wanted to travel even before breakfast. I was not going to step in too far and fast because I knew that he had to learn. I had gone through a similar time that had lasted nearly four years but I had the benefit of a military upbringing before my hormones caused me to act differently. My own sons had a hard time too but I was at least understanding enough to give them enough guidance. Here is where I treated them like the men I had to work with. It was a knack I acquired and few others had it. The next hill had the same problems but Jón had the cadets and men try to find a way across as well as around. I asked, "Why do you want this?" "You said if there was a way across we may have a good barrier. If we can make a path or even shoot from the other side we will be as safe from the Gaul as if we had a city wall around us." "That is only true if there is no way around and no way across. No marsh goes on forever and there is sure to be a way to get to us. If we do not find a way out then we too will be trapped." "We will find a way." "If you don't, then we will die." Jón argued with me but I was adamant and I saw him more of a teen now in the grip of his hormones. I let him win on all the other important points but I made sure that safety of the group was the most important. We found a spot that looked almost passable and one of the men tried to get across but after four metres, he and his horse had to be pulled back. It was at the very end of the day that three of the men had found a way across and at the moment they were very dirty. Jón broke apart two cannon balls attached with a chain. One portion was used to carry a rope over the thirty or so metres. We used just a little powder and one of the mortars. We set up two camps that night. The three men now had to make a map of where they were. The next day we cut trees to make a corduroy road across the wet area. The trees were all small but that suited our purpose. The Romans did the same thing but loaded stone and gravel on top but we would only put some gravel to make the crossing a bit easier. The two hills were not investigated again with our crossing now in mind. Jón laid out where he wanted the cannon to be so their field of fire would cover the large open area in front of us. Jón decided to keep the cannons low so that the grapeshot would go straight and through as many of the enemy as possible. He still liked the hill top but it was of little use apart from an observation point. We made it to the other side much later in the day and we tested the road by driving the horses and cannon across. The large wagon worked too but it was lighter because the weight was distributed on four wheels. The men sent to map the area came back and details were added to our map. The leader said, "There is a wet area that leads to a road. We were able to walk through it but it was difficult. The time it rained before we attacked the Romans had as much difficulty." Jón said, "So we can get through?" "Yes, it will be work though and it is just as wide as the area you just crossed." I said to Jón, "You better check this. They say it is only an hour and a half away." He told me, "It is good enough." I could not win all the arguments but some things should be won. The next day early we were on the road back to Hildestun. Scouts were out front with both matches and rockets. The work we had to do required frequent stops. Jón taught the adults what he already knew about traps. We dug holes at the side of the road and covered them with small branches and a pierce of sod. A group of Gauls hell bent on catching us would not get far when their horses suffered broken legs. The areas we dug were marked and everybody knew which side of the road or the portion of the road itself that was safe. The ambush site was studied and the cannons actually put in place so that they could be fine tuned by those that were going to use them. It took two days to get to the road over the portion of the marsh but it took us four days to get back to Hildestun. The city was still under siege but now we saw many more bodies around the walls. We made many more traps on this section of road because we had to slow the Gauls down. The wagon was too slow and it was hidden back along our trail. The cargo of powder and shot were placed strategically and all we had to do was stop and load up. These were also spots to spring an ambush. Summer days were long and we waited until dusk. There were no Gallic patrols out and we got into a good position. The four mortars fired six shells each then they were quickly thrown on their carts and fled south for the next ambush site. There must have been a lot of deaths and some had to be women and children but there was no other way to separate the warriors unless we did this. It took a long time for the Gauls to recover and mount a force to pursue us. Trees had been cut and laid across the land to funnel the forces into one general area. When enough had come through the gap the hidden cannon opened up with the large grape shot. This was the first time we had seen this weapon because the Romans had received solid shot due to the depth. Masses of men and horses died. Some seemed to be pushed back by the mass of the metal alone. Behind us the mortars opened up with shells to take out those further back. The Gauls staggered under our fire but kept on coming. Now we knew for sure that they knew about cannon. We loaded with the small grape now which was like a giant shot gun. This was a weapon for working close and we had to fire very quickly or be overrun. Our own lancers were itching to enter the fray but if they did we would not be able to use the cannon for fear of hitting them. They soon had work to do when the Gauls tried to come at our flanks. It must have been nearly an hour before the Gauls fell back or rather the ones that could. The lancers came out now and took out the wounded Gauls for a variety of reasons. We wanted the Gauls angry at us and this activity would certainly do it. The other was to let the Gauls know that to fight us was to die. The Huns would come this way one day and they used the same technique to instill fear in their enemies. It was now dark and we hooked up the cannon and loaded the mortars on their carts and went to our next ambush site. I was the one leading now to keep our own forces out of the traps we had made. In the early morning we made camp. There was little chance of somebody chasing us in the dark but it was possible. The cannon were loaded just in case. Forni had cuddled close and before we went to sleep he asked, "How many died?" Jón said, "I think around eight hundred and perhaps a hundred more warriors on our attack on their camp." "Do you think we killed may of the children and women?" "I am afraid so. There were more of them then warriors. I don't ever want to know the figure." "Me neither." The next morning we acted more like robots. We ate but didn't look at each other very much. We had a leisurely breakfast and unloaded the cannons. Before they were hooked up Jón put much more powder in one cannon and aimed it toward the slaughter we had done the night before and fired. There was a good chance that the Gauls would hear this and perhaps come after us. Trees had been cut on our way to Hildestun and now they looked like other ambush sites. Most were dummies. They filtered the people that were sure to follow into the traps set for their horses though. The next site was again readied and around six o'clock in the afternoon some scouts came by. The Gauls were now more cautious. There was very little cover but we hid in holes with our camo suits. When the scouts had just passed we came out with our bows and took them. Two were missed and ran but not for long. Our lancers had helped us and now they ran on foot to clean up the bodies and hide the evidence. Those on horses herded the riderless mounts so they could be collected. We were out of the area just as another large contingent of Gauls came into the area. At fifty metres the buried cannon and mortars belched at the enemy. There were some thin trees to one side and the Gauls fled for them in the hope of sanctuary. Up in the branches were clay pots containing powder and pebbles. A rope that had been soaked in saltpetre burned slowly toward the main fuse. We avoided targeting this area and in five minutes the clay jars started to explode. Those that were able to flee were hit by the large grapeshot. This time we just stopped shooting. There were a few hundred Gauls but they were wounded or just dazed by the butchery. We got the horses and pulled out the cannon in full view of our enemy. The lancers stood guard. We took our time and even formed a column before heading further south. Jón wanted the Gauls to see our numbers so that they would continue to chase us. I also knew that he wanted to flaunt his power. He had done most of the planning with me fighting him to smooth our the rough edges. It started to rain an hour later but there was still no sign of pursuit. We made camp in a sheltered area with the next cache of powder and shot. We were all worried now if the powder would be dry when we needed it. The rain didn't stop and even got heavier. Tents were put up around two of the cannons to keep them dry. They were not loaded because the powder absorbed the humidity from the air. We just had to rely on my hearing to give us a warning. Sleeping was difficult. Some of this was from thinking of the number of lives we had taken but also about how helpless we would be without the gunpowder. We could handle a lot of attackers with the lances and swords considering our armour but the numbers that had come at us were much more than we could hope to defeat. The wagon though was our home away from home and we all regretted that it was hidden and not available. There was little talk about the numbers of those we had killed or wounded. There were certainly enough to have significantly reduced the threat to our city. The two new boys had been severely frightened when they heard the cannon and then appalled at the slaughter. They never were asked to help the cadets. Part of it was the language problem but we were also killing their people. The next day there was still no sign of pursuit. We picked up more stores of powder and shot but left the area with the bridge over the portion of the marsh. There was just too much water now to allow us to get out of the enclosed area again. Jón was sure the Gauls had given up on catching us and wanted to return to Hildestun. He may be right and I didn't argue with him. There was no alternate road back. This area was too low and too flat. We did camp the rest of the day and talked of new plans when we returned. The next day the storm had lessened but not quit. There were some times when no rain fell but they never lasted long. Our progress was slowed by the mud and I wished again to have at least Roman quality roads. The lancers had an easier time of it. The rain came down heavier now and Jón was getting angry. This was probably with the weather. About a half hour ahead was the last ambush site with the bridge we had made. I suggested this as a camping site and Jón just grumbled. ------- Chapter 23 It was getting dark. A fog had started to develop as cooler air came in. It was about five o'clock but this was just a guess when I felt that something was wrong. I could not see far into the fog but I got the smell of unwashed bodies from north of us where there should be none. Scouts had been ahead of us but they had not reported anything. A tree we had just passed with a twisted trunk told me that we were very near our old camp site. "Jón we are riding into a trap!" "Where?" "To the north but probably all around." Rather than call out, Jón turned abruptly and raced back along his column. He got Forni that was guiding the first team to stop. Jón said, "Load grapeshot now. Enemy from the north but there may be more." Jón continued down the line and had the others pull up and form a circle facing outward. There should be seventy lancers and four more to the rear and they came instantly alert and lowered their visors. There was only the noise of the cannons being disconnected quickly. Arrows came out of the fog in great numbers and didn't hurt us very much but they did hit unprotected areas of the horses. They also came from all directions except the west where the marsh was. The lancers were going to attack when Jón's voice called out to stop. The men and horses didn't like this at all but they did stay. Some walked forward to give a bit more warning. All of them stayed out of the line of fire of the cannons though. Leather covers went over the back portion of the cannon to keep out rain. Powder from the carts went in and was rammed home then grapeshot loaded. More powder was poured down the small hole and in the pan above. Jón called out, "Number two gun, fire." This was the one pointing to the north. The rope was burning but the powder in the pan just fizzled and went out. Dina cleaned out the hole then poured more powder in from her horn and then tied again but it didn't light. Jón got close and said to Klaasje, "Dump the powder and put fresh in. Keep it as dry as possible. Do exactly what we did in training." With hand signals now Jón directed the other cannons to fire but only the one to the south was able to discharge. Before another gun could fire we heard the yells of the Gauls as they attacked. The lancers wanted to get out there and fight but they knew what would happen if they did. If Jón refused to fire because they were there then everybody would die if they stayed then the cannons could fire freely. Jón said to me, "Do you see anything?" "No but we are surrounded on every side but the west. Our bridge is just ahead." Jón yelled for the cannons to fire but they would have done so if they could. Again the south cannon fired then the north. I could see the two to the east working frantically before one fired. The teams of horses were hobbled but they moved frantically to get away. Our own mounts were wanting to run too and they were hard to control. Jón went to one of the carts and tied the reigns to a wheel. He took out a grenade and lit it when I said then threw it as far as he could. Some of the lancers were called and the ones without horses started to throw grenades with their adult strength. The flash illuminated men running towards us and some of the pebbles came back our way to rattle off our armour. The screams of men were readily heard even before this. More lancers came and tied up their mounts to add to the amount of grenades being thrown. Not all of these blew up Other lancers had to attack now and when they rushed off so did more. Jón called them back but they didn't hear or want to. The rain of arrows never let up and the horses were taking more hits. The mounts were lightly armoured but the draught horses were not. The rain came even more forcefully and Jón took a rope and lit it but it sputtered until it caught. It was coated with wax but this chipped off with use. With the cannon failing more than they shot he moved forward and threw the grenades he carried. He didn't want my help but I didn't know if I could do much better. Men came running out of the mist and Jón used his katana to take them out. They were experienced soldiers and I had to take the small sword again to defend Jón's right side. These men were small and wiry and very Roman. Their footing as well as ours was treacherous but I took out the right which left Jón free to take the left. With two dying men laying at his feet, Jón took a few breaths and hurried to the carts that were not being used. He took more grenades and threw more of them because these would kill more. I noticed that all four cannon were taking from only two ammunition carts and figured that the other two were just too damp. Lancers came in out of the fog and just turned to race back into the melee they had come from. I was sure that they were killing a great many of the enemy but we were suffering casualties too. I could hear the cry of the cadets as they were hurt but didn't say anything to Jón for fear that he would abandon his fight. When he was catching his breath I said, "We have to get over that bridge or die here. We cannot see the enemy but they know where to aim from our muzzle flashes." "We can't leave." "Get one cannon over the other side. It can fire from there. We can use the mortars too." "We can't. We have to stay here and fight." "Do you understand how many there are? The arrows are coming too fast for a few. There must be a thousand and part of them are Roman. They are either the other legion or Lucius. The man knows about cannons or at least enough to think of a way to defeat us." "We are going to stay here and fight." "The children are being hurt. Look and see." Jón threw more of the grenades and made his rounds and found Epje sitting on the ground and leaning on the side of an ammunition cart. An arrow was sticking out of his neck and nobody was treating him. He was crying and Jón ran to him. Epje looked up to Jón and said, "I am sorry. I tried not to get hurt." Jón now wanted to hold the boy but I said, "There are more. Look." Jón said, "Wait here Epje. I will get rid of the Gauls and get back here to help you." Epje didn't answer but there was hope in his eyes. Jón didn't want to move but went to the next wagon and saw Dina on the ground with a long heavy spear used by the Romans to stop the calvary. This one was through her chest. Jón hurried to her and opened her visor but only sightless eyes greeted him. Jón started to cry now but quickly pushed himself up to search for more. Tiebout had a bandage around his bare hand and Jón said, "Where is your gauntlet?" "I cannot use it when loading sir." I said to Jón, "There are many steel surfaces rubbing. They cannot be used or they will cause an explosion. Jón said, "Continue," then hurried off. Edana and Arienh were hurt too but continued to work. They were very worried and Jón smiled and said, "We are doing good. Just keep firing." Edana said, "What about the men?" "They will be all right." Jón continued his rounds and found Gawain and Arthur helping Forni and Oriana loading and firing a gun. Hafgan and Guinevere were frantically working and they had more than just fright in their eyes. I said, "See? Send one group over the bridge now before it is too late. Jón ran back to Forni and said to him and the rest of his crew, "Fire one more round then hook the cannon up to the cart. We will help you. Go over the bridge we made and load the gun. Let the rest stay there and then come back. We have to get over the bridge and then destroy it." "What about the rest?" "We will get them over too. All I want is the horses and two cannon. The rest I am going to spike. The two damp ammunition boxes will get a grenade each." "What about the men?" "Go moving. I will worry about them." The gun had fired when we talked and then once more. Forni ran to get the horses but they were still hobbled and wild eyed. We all pushed the cannon into position through the mud then picked up the heavy tongue. When it engaged with the hitch, Jón got the children on the horses. Jón and Forni undid the hobbles and we lead the horses by their bridals. There was no enemy this way but I knew that we were in a small area bounded on three sides by marsh. I saw the markers we had put out a few days ago and then led the horses across the bridge. The structure flexed much more. The mud underneath was much more fluid. As soon as the cannon was on the other side Jón said, "Hurry back Forni. We need to get the rest across." Jón had control of his body. He ran and I used my voice to guide him to where he had to go. We unhitched dead horses and brought others to take their place. The closer cannon was run by Edana and Arienh. Jón ran to them and said, "Keep firing. We are pulling back and taking this cannon. The rest are going to be spiked and the powder destroyed. The rest will be here in a moment to hitch the cannon up." The girls were very worried and only nodded their heads. Jón collected more grenades and ran our into the open areas to throw them further and heard the men cry when they were hurt. He ran to the other groups and told them to fire their last rounds, spike the mortars and the cannons then throw all the grenades they could except a few for the ammunition carts. Klaasje asked, "What about the horses?" "Pull the hitch pins if you want." Jón and now the rest fired a few more times then threw their grenades. Horses could be heard racing away with the tongue still between them. Epje had open eyes and Jón just stopped long enough to close them before he ran on. Jón ran into Forni and then we ran to the last cannon. There was a lot more help and this went easier. Mounts and the draught horses were lead off and Jón went to the last ammunition cart. This one was one that was damp but it had three of the rockets under a leather cover and a wax seal at the motor. Things had quieted down a bit and this was dangerous. The grenades were few in number now but the rockets could be used for the first time. Jón manhandled one in position but well away from the cart. When lit it took off with a rush of flames that reached three metres behind it. Its path illuminated the men on the field and I saw a great many men mounted and ready to charge. The rocket blew up before them but the line stretched into the areas I could not see. One more rocket went in a different direction and again I saw more men ready to attack. There was no sign of our lancers. I heard a thunk beside me and turned to see Forni. He was supposed to be with the rest. A long heavy Roman spear was in his back and he was thrown forward. Jón ran to him. Blood bubbled from his mouth and his eyes grew fixed. Jón yelled, "No," with all his might. He tried to pick Forni up and I said, "Leave him, he is dead." "No, he is my friend." "Kill the Roman that threw the spear then. Don't let them catch you here crying." "He is my friend." I tried to take over the body but Jón held tenaciously. It was only the rushing feet of the Romans that got him to get up and attack. He acted like a madman now and there was nothing I could do even to help. One Roman went down then another but I could see more coming closer. Jón slashed at them and there was nothing I could do. It was only when three opponents appeared that I got to use the right arm. Jón was not sane but I said, "Destroy the cart and kill the Romans." I had to say this three more times. We cut through the enemy even if some only were wounded. We raced to the cart and opened a covered box of matches. Reaching into the open box of powder he moved three of the grenades over then used one match after the other but none worked. The forth new match worked and this lit all three grenades. He slammed the lid and jumped down but instead of running he took the last rocket and used three more matches and some valuable time to light the rocket. The rocket flared but Jón held it backwards now and walked toward the Romans. They were now close and more were racing forward on horseback. Jón raced towards them holding the rocket before him. Men and horses stayed away and even crashed into each other for the smoke, fire and heat was tremendous. There was a gigantic explosion behind us that threw Jón forward. I could not help him because he was the only one in command. Something hit me in the back and pain lanced through me. ------- Jón of Germania ------- Chapter 1 I woke to excruciating pain and violent movement. I heard a scream of a person in dire agony. I felt burning on my arm but it was my head that hurt the most. I was naked and I felt rough cords binding my body. I was captured but couldn't think of any reasons for this. The stimulation from my nerves was too great and I had to pull back from my senses just to think. The relief was not there like it was before. The pain was muted enough to think but only just. My thinking was clouded and it was not just from the pain. There had to be some additional trauma to the brain. I tried to remember what had happened last. We were in a fight but I could remember hardly any of it. I thought of the voices I heard and knew that it was the language of the Picts. The German tribes spoke nearly the same language and they could be understood. The Gauls were a large tribe and part of the Pict nation. The Gauls had been laying siege to Hildestun but stayed out of cannon range. We had come at them from the rear after working hard to prepare our escape route. We had attacked the Gallic camp and killed warriors but probably many women and children too. We could have done much worse but our objective was to relieve the siege and to get the warriors to follow us. They had done so in great numbers. They fell into our traps and we used the cannon, mortars and bombs. I had no idea how many we had killed then but it had to be well over a thousand. Pursuit had ended and we had gone back to Hildestun to see what we could do. I remember rain and a fight in the heavy fog but only vaguely. I went over these last thoughts but could not wring any more information from them or my memory. I realised that I had been sleeping. This was the first time since the original few days in Jón's body. That time had been caused by magic more than drugs. He had been recovering from his injuries and that was probably what was happening now. There was a sudden flare of pain that had me seeing red and even the images in my mind shrunk in size. I had to see what was going on but tried to suppress the sense of feeling while allowing just sight and sound. It didn't work that way and a lot more pain came in. Through chaotic movements of the head I saw Picts all around and one was holding a sword with a glowing end. I could not understand the language and Jón was howling like an animal. "Jón, Jón. What happened." I got no answer and no recognition that he had heard anything. I tried to move Jón's head but it didn't move. This could be from some sort of binding or because he would not allow me to do this. I tried the fingers and legs but again I could not tell because I didn't dare allow the sense of touch to tell me for I could not handle it. There was little to learn and to tell the truth, I was afraid. I realised that when I was in Jón's body my sense of fear had been well under control. I didn't know if this was the work of the priests or possibly it was me not integrating well enough to the body. Fear had been muted in my youth and that was how I had been able to win at so many endevours. I simply was not afraid of failure. While in Jón's body this trait was even stronger as if I was just watching an exciting movie on television from the comfort of an easy chair in my home The pain was excruciating and I tried to work on it as I did to gain control of Jón's senses. It centred on my arms, legs, face, mouth and groin. Being focussed at least allowed me to ignore part of the discomfort. I was getting the pain to a more manageable level when it occurred to me that Jón may be killed as retribution for some of the deaths we had caused. When he died, I was positive that I would too. There was also nothing I could do about it. Actions that could be changed I would try while those I could not would be left to later. I hid within Jón's mind and worked quickly to take apart the linkages that dealt with the ability to feel. I had tried so hard to build this before. It was only when I had severed of them completely, did I look out Jón's eyes. His eyesight was poor and it was not just from the low light in the tent. I connected fully to the ears and was surprised to hear very little to the left even with my ability. The right was better but not a lot. There were many voices and most of those were in pain. I suddenly worried how many of them were from our troop or the cadets. I strained to hear the voices but they all appeared to be Picts. Again I tried to move Jón's head but this did not happen. I investigated the linkage that I had built over a few days and saw it still in place. After testing each of the strands I saw that they were just not working. I studied what was before me and tested areas of our mind but could not find any place that reacted as it should. If there were a great deal of trauma to the brain then this could be the cause. A new search was instigated and I soon found a great many red and white blood cells working in a very large area. I studied the damage and discovered that it was just not bruising but a foreign body was in the brain. After an indeterminate amount of time I found sixteen more. Jón was wearing a helmet that would deflect some of the blow because I had to assume it was a spear or a sword stroke that had made him the way he was. If this were the case then the foreign bodies may just be bone fragments. There had to be something I could do. It was a long time later that I found I could influence the flow of the blood and directed it to the smallest fragment. I had no way of measuring time but I saw the fragment get smaller but just a little. Rather than go to the other sites I worked on this small area trying to learn all I could. I was getting fatigued and wondered why. I needed no rest and then had to attribute it to Jón's body craving food. I opened the linkage to the eyes and found it dark once more. My vision was only fair. I knew that there must be more damage here to repair too. I listened to the slightly quieter camp and detected some Latin being spoken and had to assume this was why we had been successfully attacked. We were probably ambushed and I wondered why I had not detected them soon enough to use the cannons on them. Some men came near the tent and angry voices were heard but again I could not tell what was being said. Before pulling my senses in I tried to contact Jón and it was as if he didn't hear me. The best I could do would be to heal the body and perhaps make a break for it. The bone fragment was again my quest and it occurred that I could use the minerals I was removing. The area of the skull that was damaged was very large but then again my point of view was microscopic. The scull was pressing on the brain and I knew that there was a liquid all around it for protection. A portion of the skin on the outside of the skull was simply not there. I changed my focus and studied the healing process here. Like the bone fragment, I tried to assist but most of the time I was hindering. Cells just grew and split slowly and all of this was covered by our DNA. I just did what I could and worked around the edge to try to get it to grow to a central location. I had no idea how far I would have to go but just continued my work This area seemed to grow tired of the extra work and I went back to the bone fragment and worked on it until the same thing happened. I shifted to the next fragment and worked on the edges in a slow process similar to water wearing away rock. The blood cells I used were being used up quickly and I looked for fat cells. I knew that muscle went first and I wanted to keep this for our escape. This search took up a lot of time and with little results. Jón simply was in good shape and had little fat reserves. I did start to map out his body a lot better. I went back to the damaged areas and worked on them again then went on the hunt once more. I had been doing a great deal and though not tired I knew that a lot of time had passed. The blood had the right amount of electrolytes so I assumed that Jón was being fed and offered water. I had found fat around what I thought of as Jón's waist and buttocks but this was not significant. On my travels I found a lot of damage from what I thought of as burns. This could have been something to do with the fight but probably more to do with the sword I saw being carried. Jón and I had been castrated. This should have been very traumatic but it was the least of my worries now. My rounds now included a look at our situation. I saw few people that were not angry and pointing at Jón but most of the time there were nobody in the immediate vicinity. I searched for Jón every time I surfaced but found the basic portions covering his heartbeat and breathing. Later I discovered the area covering personality and cognition. Part of this was damaged but Jón was not here. I tried keeping the hearing active while I worked but this slowed me down a great deal and had to just come out once in a while to check myself. As I worked on Jón's body I found a great many more injuries. The burns were serious and in his case very extensive. This would lead to infection which I was now fighting on a limited scale because I was not sure of what I was doing. Jón had a broken leg and since it was fairly straight I had to assume a splint was on it. This also inferred that Jón was getting some kind of care. At one time I caught sight of somebody leaving the tent and two armed men at the tent flap. They were Roman soldiers and I had to assume they were going to torture Jón to find out what he knew. Jón had access to my memories but may not be able to answer them. I had not found his personality. When I activated the sense of taste I could detect that food had passed his lips and some watered wine. I wondered how they had got Jón's body to cooperate unless they used a tube to force the food down but I could not detect damage from this feeding method. When nobody came I went back to work. Jón's face was severely damaged but I only fixed the cuts and abrasions. Many of his front teeth were gone. A healed Jón may bring about more punishment than he would otherwise get or possibly an understated vitality. My rounds now required me to surface more often but I would immediately go back to work if there was nothing interesting. It was this way that I found a girl looking at me. She was feeding me with a wooden spoon but stayed as far back as she could. Two of the Roman soldiers were very close and I didn't know if they were protecting me or the girls. It was a good chance that our facial features were very disfigured. When more light came into the tent I could make out her features better and saw that she only looked like any one of the Pict girls that I had got Jón to settle in Victoria. I hope she was not a taken as slave from that group but could just as easily have been one of the girls from the Gallic camp we had attacked. She was just somebody that had to do an unpleasant task that the Romans didn't want to do. I could not control the body yet but I had not tried very hard. If Jón was nothing more than a hindbrain then he would have to take the pain of the torture for both of us. I knew that if it were me alone I would eventually give everything I knew to the Romans. Only a fool thinks that they can take that kind of abuse. Another time, I surfaced to find an old thin man turning Jón's body around and washing him with a rag. I got sight of Jón's legs and saw that they were quite thin. Either a long time had passed or I was taking a great deal of resources to speed up the healing. Three of my cycles later I found that Jón was being carried in a stretcher of some kind. There was even an awning over my face to keep out the rain that was now falling but I could see nothing but some legs and a portion of the forest off to one side. I heard only Latin now and wondered what they had done to get possession of Jón's body. It may be worth something to Clovis. If he could use magic to heal it once then he may be able to do it again. I was not sure if they would find Jón though. As a test I started to connect the sense of feeling up again. There was still a great deal of pain but it was bearable for a short period of time. I wondered if this was what drove Jón's personality from his body. I was sure it was gone. I felt something like hobbles around Jón's ankles but they were not that tight. The hands were lashed to a piece of wood to make a handcuff of sorts. They felt plenty strong especially if Jón was getting thin and weak. Feeling was muted and I went back to work. When the swaying of the litter changed then I could come out to investigate. Most of the bone fragments were gone now and skin covered the depression in the skull. The skin was now laying new bone in the depression as I removed it from the inside of the skull. I had learned that a lot could be done but only a little bit at a time and at many locations. The litter stopped and I came to the surface. I was just in time for the litter to be roughly put to the ground and then I heard an angry voice through the pain that flowed through the body. Men started to move around purposefully and I heard saws and axes working. I had to assume they were making camp for the night. It was an hour later that an old man gave me water and he looked like the one that had bathed Jón before. This time I stayed on the surface and watched what was happening. Jón was focussed on the food and nothing else. I found that he ate like an animal. He was voracious and ate everything given him. He could not cut the food with his teeth but only chew it with the molars. Water was next and Jón was not that thirsty because his skin had sucked up some of the water during his trip. I knew now that he had not lost all his higher brain functions. Even acting like an animal required some very active thinking. The old man cleaned up Jón and was not afraid to get near. His hands came up and inspected the face then slowly the rest of the body. Jón had shit himself and this had to be cleaned up but Jón just flopped on the ground as if he had little control of his own muscles. Jón was rolled in a dry blanket and carried by two Romans into a tent. The Romans didn't like this but I could only tell by their tone of voice. I heard some mewing sounds and had to assume that they were from Jón himself. Perhaps there was more of him here than I had thought. As Jón's brain healed my own cloudy thinking cleared up. With all the time on my hands I had come to the conclusion that the only reason it was not me that disappeared was that I occupied a different section of Jón's brain. The part he inhabited was the part that was damaged. That night I worked again at finding a way to control Jón's body. I was worried because if Jón could not control it then there may be no way for me to do this. Around morning I had found a way to move my right index finger and this made me exceedingly happy. It meant that more might be controlled later. Jón was fed the next morning but he didn't look at anything but the food around him. Water was brought and he drank thirstily and I could feel him panting for more like a dog. The man came back later and gave him what he wanted along with some pieces ripped from a crust of bread which Jón ate quickly. He never once used his arms or hands to assist himself. Jón apparently could control a small portion of his own body. Jón was carried by two soldiers to a rough vertical log that had been a tree yesterday and put on his feet and in a squatting position. The soldiers left and the man talked kindly and in a moment Jón dutifully took a piss that hurt when it flowed. In a moment Jón took a dump. Jón's head was pointing down and I saw the most of Jón's penis had been taken too. A stitch was seen so someone had connected the urethra. The soldiers came back later with a bucket and the man washed Jón while he was supported by their arms. It wasn't long after that he was wrapped in another light blanket and put back into the litter. For a while I watched the activity but I could see only what interested Jón or perhaps it was just the way his head was laid. I went back to finding more than one finger to control. Though I was busy healing our body, I knew I had to learn Latin. The old man's name was Iulius. I was not sure of most word meanings. The man was probably a doctor of sorts. He was kind and considerate and knew enough to move our body so there was no bed sores. He cleaned us too but used olive oil and rubbed this into the skin. When the man worked the oil around the groin Jón didn't respond mentally. I knew he could not physically. The next day I had progressed to the right hand, the head and the mouth. That night when being fed I said, "Father." I was happy that I had Jón's language skills because it might have to come out in English. It was very weak though and I purposely didn't have Jón's eyes follow the man. The man looked and thought then said in German, "Your father is not here my boy." I closed our eyes now and feigned sleep. The man would be able to see a slow recovery and prepare for it. I hoped to be fed more too and a person regaining their health was more prone to get this when compared to a person that may die at any moment. After the hand, the rest of the body progressed in an orderly fashion. I had found a lot more about the human body and could control the one I now inhabited after a fashion. This was only on a muscle by muscle basis and I was sure I could not walk because a great many things had to be considered to move this way. I was still bound and the soldiers dragged us about but I did not attempt to use the feet so the Romans may not suspect something odd. It was better to take the abuse and the pain instead. Iulius saw that my hands and arms could be used but I could not hold up a clay jug. He took off all of my bindings but I could not get much further than rolling out of my bed. The next day Iulius came in accompanied by Lucius two boys. I had not seen their foster father around and I was surprised to see even the boys. With warfare now employing cannons, I had to assume they were going home. My destination could be anyplace. The boys took one look at me and hid behind the man. The Gauls must have done a good job and I was happy they had left the eyes alone. I counted thirty seven days after the first. I spoke a few Latin words to the boys, Hirtius and Livius, with a guard standing near. My voice was very odd with the loss of the teeth. I had worked on this area and healed the gums. I examined the cells and found some that were different even from each other. I coaxed them to grow and I only hoped that some of them would one day be new teeth. The man guarding the boys and I guess me too, didn't like this duty. I asked him things in Latin and he was forced to answer especially when Iulius was near. My Latin was still poor but it was improving. The boys had overcome my ugliness and poor diction but the guard may not have or he was still angry at how we had killed so many Romans. Iulius sounded out my knowledge of steel and especially gunpowder but I claimed to only remember the steel and a few other things. This never stopped him from trying to trick me or possibly it was to encourage me to remember. To be safe, I dropped all knowledge of Jón's family too. If the boy were to forget then he would not know too much. A person recovering though could remember some unrelated things now and again. He asked about my family and when I claimed to not know, Iulius said that I was now the son of Lucius, just like the other two boys. I put a pleased expression on my face as if this was acceptable to me. In fact it was. I would get protection and access to information I would need later. We came to a river with a sizable Roman fort on it. After some questioning I learned that it was the Luppia River or what the Germans of my time called Lippe. This went through the northern section of the Rhur valley and this was an important area for all of Germany. Iulius questioned me extensively but I was claiming amnesia with occasional flashbacks. The man was familiar with this and knew that sometimes the memory came back. I was shown my armour and weapons but I looked at them with curiosity only. Three guards were nearby with hands on their swords but they didn't draw them. It was Livius that took the helmet and put it on then Hirtius wanted it. It looked like Iulius was sorry that his plan didn't work. We stayed at the fort for three days and I always had an escort but I could not go far. Iulius got me some crutches and I used them for both show and to really help me move. A flotilla of boats controlled traffic on the river and now more came to pick us up. Our group had numbered around a hundred would not all fit in the available craft. Each boat had two banks of rowers totalling twenty six. This left room for ten passengers. Five boats would take us then come back for the other half. The two boys, Iulius and I were in the third boat of the first group. This boat had a lot of power with twenty six rowers. In an hour or so the boys had calmed down and I said to Livius, "I remember something that would be fun." My words were not clear because my lips had healed incorrectly. "What?" "I see a picture in my mind of a metal hook. A loop at one end allows you to tie a horse hair to it. The other end of the hook has a point and a cut in it so the fish cannot escape." Iulius listened to my words then repeated what I said but in proper Latin. I thought about the syntax and repeated this to him. Livius was interested in my idea and said, "What good is that?" "It is only good if you want to catch a fish." Iulius said, "What does your hook look like?" "I think I can draw a picture of it. I remember using a sheet of slate. If you use another piece of slate on this it will make a picture and a damp cloth will take it away." "I can get some slate if you want." "If you can get some for Livius and Hirtius too." I rubbed my temples as if to help push out a thought and added, "If a strip of wood were put around it then it would not break as easily if it falls." "We can try that. Perhaps you could make some at the next fort." "I remember how to make steel somehow but I don't think I can swing the hammer." I talked to the boys an hour later after drawing a picture of the hook in the air. "Do you remember your families?" Hirtius was the younger and just shook his head. Livius said, "My mother had long hair. She was nice to me but my father was hardly ever home." I said wistfully, "I wish I knew my family. What colour hair did your mother have?" That night we stayed at a permanent way station with a stockade already erected. I had to assume that it was still dangerous here for travellers or perhaps just for Romans. My gums were itchy and I was going to go through teething pains once again. Another ship was coming upriver and pulled in with us too. I had repaired my hearing and heard my name bandied about. Most would not believe the amount of people I had killed but I was not proud of this either. Some thought that I was trying to fool Iulius, which I was. To make sure I didn't react when I shouldn't, I turned down my hearing in my left ear to almost nothing and only a little better to my right. The Romans were not stupid and nobody else was either. They were just not as educated as I was. The soldiers would make a loud noise near me while another watched my eyes for my reaction. So far they figured that I was nearly deaf in one ear. Iulius found a heavy nail for me and I pretended to think again but soon I was beating it cold into a long thin wire. With only poor tools I sharpened an end of the wire and welded it to the other end. A chisel cut this off but left a small portion for the barb. Iulius was always watching me and I got him to do most of the work under my supervision. With a rock I took my time and sharpened it carefully. Later I cut it off and made a loop. Since there was going to be a fire kept all night, I took some charcoal from previously burnt pieces of wood and covered everything in clay. This went into the fire. I had told Iulius that it had to stay hot all night and I was sure the guards on watch would be made to do this. The boys and Iulius slept with me and though there were guards I felt close to the boys. In a way I envied Lucius even more. I awoke early the next morning and went out to have a piss. The guard on duty was one that didn't like me but then again if I was the one that had killed almost an entire legion of his friends then this was understandable. "Where do you think you are going?" he said as he drew his sword. "To the wall to piss. I don't know why you hate me so much. I never did anything to you." He had nothing to say but I went to the wall anyway. He could use the sword and say that I was trying to escape but I doubt if anybody would believe him. My stubby member had changed too. It had healed but like my face I left it the way nature would have healed it. I encouraged some skin to grow long after I was crudely castrated. On the way back, I fished the clay out of the fire and used a stone to break it open. Other men came by to watch and I got one to pour some water into a cup for me. The hook was reheated until the right temperature and I had a man use a thin dry stick to pick it up and drop it into the water. I picked it out and tested its strength then smiled and gave it to the soldier. He flexed the wire a bit and said, "This is strong for iron. Is this how you defeated some of us?" "Defeated? How could I fight you? You think I am somebody else." "You lost your wits." "I do not remember fighting anybody. I am hardly able to walk and you think I'm a warrior. I think it is you and the others here that have lost their wits." The man didn't like this. He dropped the hook before standing and leaving. I took the hook and used the stone I had used last night and put back the points the way they should. When I was done I woke up the boys and I said, "Let's wake up Iulius and go fishing?" The old man was already awake and shaming. He got up for his own piss then supplied the horsehair I needed. The gates were opened and we all went looking for bait. I found a crayfish and this went onto the large hook then this was cast into the water to the length of our line, which happened to be only four metres. A two metre supple pole was used. We waited for an hour with the boys taking turns holding the pole but we had to quit when breakfast was ready. With no fish we had to leave soon but the boys could use the pole later. We came to the Rhine after travelling nearly a hundred and sixty Roman miles. The river had a great many twists and turns in it that made the route longer. There was not much to see because the banks looked like any other uninhabited river I had been on in my life. We stopped at a fort at the mouth of the River. As predicted, I was the centre of gossip. I heard many saying that the feeble boy in front of them was unable to do what was credited to me. My looks were greeted with derision but there was nothing I wanted to do because this was great camouflage. The Roman smith was as taciturn as the German variety and I had to get Iulius to do the fighting for me. I was not against Rome learning about steel especially when it had to be made in such small quantities. Rome still had to hold the empire together until it had to get them to share the burden with other races. Clovis still had the secret of gunpowder and cannon so Rome would tread carefully around him. The smallest hammer was much too heavy and a smaller one was made by the smith for me. As payment I had the smith beating iron very thin in preparation for making steel. It would just have to go into clay until jars were made. Hirtius and Livius looked on as I beat some metal into wire form then gave the work over to Iulius again. I made a dozen hooks of two sizes and two small treble hooks as well. With them were a dozen awls. These were necessary too, even if it could be used against us. These were all placed in clay while surrounded by charcoal. I found that our boats had gone back upriver to fetch the remainder of our troop. This meant that we would be here for at least a few days. I played with the boys and cadged some thin horse hide and some small pieces of hardwood. Iulius took a long time before deciding to give me a knife. I used it to make the handles for the awls. As usual I only did enough to show others and this was Iulius. He asked, "What are you making now?" "These handles will hold the needles for sewing leather." Iulius repeated my words in proper Latin and I repeated them. This was a good way of learning. I was not faking because my Latin was still very poor. Again he asked, "How do you know this?" "I do not know." I looked into his eyes while saying this or he would think it was a lie. "I see pictures and just make what I can remember." When he was busy I got a small stick that had been burnt on the tip and I started to put down a pattern on two pieces of leather. There was more leather that could take the pattern in a smaller scale. Iulius looked at me and said, "What is that for?" "This is a strategy for conquering our opponents. Please cut on the lines and I will show you when we are done." "Conquering?" "Just a word. You will understand in a day or so." The boys and I, along with the ever present guards, left the fort for the land nearby. I had my two newest troops collecting dried rushes. We also collected more fishing poles and a ceramic cup full of worms and damp moss. I never asked Iulius about the need for guards but I knew he would just say it was for the boys and my protection. Late that afternoon I broke open the clay on the hooks and awls under the watchful eyes of the smith and many of the Romans. The batch the smith was making had to stay much longer. We walked outside the fort with my ever present guards and I found two saplings. I lashed a thin bough between them then strung a thin brass wire between the saplings and strung the needles on them. Olive oil and the finest sand coated the wire and the wind from the Rhine twisted the saplings back and forth enough for the sand to abrade the eyes. Iulius didn't want to make it look like I was a captive so I pushed my boundaries and tried to get a tent set at the closest point to the fort and still be at the river. "I promise that I will not run away today or tomorrow, on my honour." "That is not necessary. You are too weak to run and there is no need to do so." "The soldiers say I killed many men." "You have forgotten how to do that." "We have talked about how a person can forget when they are hurt in the head. You said the memories come back sometimes." "They do." "Well maybe I will remember one day." "You were not an evil person though you killed many. You will not be an evil person now." "So I did kill many people?" "Yes, a great many." "So Lucius hopes to find out what is hidden even from me?" "Yes, but he has a debt of honour to you." "Why?" "You could have killed all his men but instead you showed the strength of your weapons and allowed him to leave." "Is that more of the talk of cannons and powder you were always asking about?" "Yes it is." He looked at me piercingly and said, "When you were hurt we found not only a lot of your men dead but ours too. Around the cannons we found the bodies of three children. "I do not know how I kept a straight face but I did. This information would tell if I was lying or not." I had to control myself better and said, "I had men fighting for me then how did the children die?" "It was the children that killed the most because they were in charge of the cannons and the powder." "Why would I ever allow children to learn this secret?" "You told Lucius that your cadets made their own armour and weapons. You also said that they helped you in other things. We have to assume you also taught them how to make that powder." "It doesn't seem likely but I am the one that has lost the memories." I looked at him very seriously now and asked, "Why was I fighting Rome? The men I have met seem to be fairly honourable but not necessarily forgiving if I did kill their friends." Iulius said, "I heard that your king was plotting against Rome." "I know nothing of that but you already said that my father's kingdom is not in the Roman Empire. Rome went into a foreign land to fight." "Rome is strong and can do that if they wish." "Well, if it is strength that makes things right or wrong then Rome was wrong because they lost." Iulius had to think for a while then said, "That was only two legions and their auxiliaries." "Well I am just one boy. Our land has many people." Iulius had nothing further to say on this but he stated, "We can camp out tonight and fish." It was Hirtius and Livius that were the most happy and I smiled with them. We walked to the end of the pier but only Iulius came with us. We built a pile of wood to attract the fish and when we were ready Iulius brought a ceramic mug of hot embers to light it. We had four poles in use and just talked of inconsequential things. When it got dark, I said to the boys, "Those stars you see far above us are gigantic balls of flaming gas. They are held together by the same force that pulls us to the land beneath us." I paused and the boys just looked in wonder. Livius asked, how come they twinkle?" "The air around us has a lot of dust in it. The light from some of those stars has been coming here long before Rome was even thought of. Some stars burn very fast and give out blue light while others are tired and give out only the red. The sun we have is a star. It is so heavy that all of the planets circle it." Iulius said in a mild voice, "How do you know this?" "You asked me this before and all I have is a feeling to go by." "What is it that you feel?" "Can you think of a way for me to know all the things I know without the gods having told me?" "The gods?" "That is what I feel." "Do you know which gods?" "I only know that my people believe in Woden and Thor. I do not even suspect one god above another. If it was the gods or one particular god then I have to wonder why this was done. I also wonder why I was chosen and not you." Iulius didn't speak and the quiet lengthened until ten minutes later a faint shooting star was seen. Livius said, "What was that thing? Was it from the gods?" I said, "It could have been but I know that there are many rocks out where the sun and other planets are. Sometimes the pull of our planet brings one in close and it cannot get away. As it goes through the air it heats up as it rubs against the air until it starts to glow. Sometimes there is enough heat to make it break apart and the pieces then burn up faster. Sometimes if the rock is very big it will crash into the planet. A hundred and twenty five million years ago one rock did. It threw up so much dirt and water into the sky that it blocked out the sun for years. The plants died and then so did many of the animals." "Really?" "That is the way I feel. I would not lie to you." "Will more come?" "They are always coming. It is just that they are too small to notice or like the one we saw tonight. Each year our planet collects a lot of rocks and even ice. One year means very little but a great many years means that some of the dust we walk on is from the stars. "The big ones do not come very often. If you look at the moon you will see how the rocks have struck it over the years. There is just no water or even air to smooth over the places where they hit." Everybody dutifully looked at the moon and Iulius asked, "What did the gods tell you about people?" I didn't know what he was talking about and I decided to be very general. "I do not know if the gods told me anything but I feel that we will change very little as the years go by. Religion will be used to control our bad behaviour and laws will do the same. "We need strong leaders but they cannot have all the power Rome now has. Each of us has to have a say in our destiny. We need Rome's armies to protect us but not to be used to conquer us if Rome wants our land. "Thousands of years from now, we will look back at Rome and feel proud of all her accomplishments. We will walk through crumbling buildings that are now new. Roman roads will last that long but will have to be covered with cement or bitumen. I can see places in Hispania still using the aqueducts in the year 2000. Rome has given us a lot but they need to give more and that can only come about when there is no more slavery or wars of conquest." Iulius said, "Rome has the right to gather slaves." "Because they are strong?" "Yes." "Then if what you say about me is correct then I have the right to take all Romans as my slaves." "We would not willingly become slaves." "I did not say you would. If the cannon and the powder make the Frisians strong then by your words they can march into Rome and take as many slaves as they like." "Rome is not easy to take." "It has already been done. I heard the soldiers saying how fearsome the weapon is. If this is the case then if the Frisians use it, they could destroy not only the city of Rome but every one of the legions sent against them." There was no reply so we waited in silence. In a minute Hirtius' pole started to flex and I said as I took hold of the wood above his hands, "Hirtius, a fish likes your food." Before the boy could flex the rod the wrong way I set the hook and let go. The boy jumped up excitedly saying, "I got one, I got one. What do I do?" I took my pole from the water and saw in the faint light of the fire that I had been so busy talking that I had been robbed by the fish. Hirtius dragged the fish through the water toward me and I got down to the edge. The fish looked to be a good size, roughly two kilos. I really wanted to get this fish for the boy and stepped into the water. I hooked my finger in its gills. My feet slipped on the slimy rocks and I fell into the river. I came up sputtering but I did not let go of the fish. I used two feet and a hand to come ashore. Even then I stayed low until I was on more or less a flat surface. Hirtius was there beside me looking at the silver trophy and then so were the rest. Even the guards came to see what was happening and I said to them, "Hirtius, the son of Lucius, had caught a giant of a fish." I had prudently brought a cord to use as a stringer and put it through the gill and after showing the children and Iulius the fish it went back in the water. The other end of the stringer was tied around a rock. The boys watched the fish swim on the line and I rebaited the hooks for them and threw them back in. When I was done I said, "I heard that fish is expensive in Rome. We should catch more." Looking at Livius, I said, "You have to try to catch one too." Iulius threw more wood onto the fire and it was not until Livius caught a four smaller fish and Hirtius one more that we called it a night. I would have carried Hirtius but I had difficulty carrying myself. Jón's body rested more as I worked on it and just made plans for my future. It looked like Jón would not be coming completely back. His personality was gone and only the basic functions remained. If this was the case then it was four children that had died and not the three that Iulius mentioned. I tried to think of who they could be but this must be short term memory loss where there is brain damage. I had a feeling that one of the cadets to die had to be Forni because he was always near me and if I went to fight he would want to come. Iulius had my armour and he probably had the others too. If I got to see it I would know. Being caught looking would be a giveaway that I remembered more. Early the next morning, I found Iulius writing in his journal by the faint light of dawn. I was sure he put all the words I said into it. Because of the deaths, I had to put on the happy face of a person that didn't remember. This was getting harder and harder to do. It was my fault that they had died. I said, "Good morning, Iulius. Why don't you put away your reports and we can wet our hooks?" He only nodded his head and put his writing equipment away carefully. I cast out my baited line and moved it back slowly through the heavy mist over the river. In a few minutes Iulius was on the other side doing something similar. He got the first fish and added it to the stringer before asking, "What do you feel about the human body and not the way a man thinks?" I spoke at length about the blood and lymph system and what they were for. I went on to talk about red blood cells having four atoms of iron to capture oxygen. I went on to talk about the lungs and what they did as well as all the major organs. I left out the appendix. Not too many people even in my time knew of its use. I caught a fish part way through my lecture and the boys chose that time to come our way. They raced to see what I got but the fish jumped into the air and with a twist of its head dislodged the hook. I said to the boys in fake sorrowfulness, "Everybody catches fish but me. You should see the one Iulius caught." The boys ran to see then Hirtius had to run to pee. We put away our equipment and I took Iulius' knife to clean all the smaller fish. It was big enough for breakfast for us and the guards. The other two could be saved for bragging purposes. There were lots of children in the fort so this was readily going to happen. The guards were not averse to accepting some fish especially when I had caught none. I had cooked it though and this didn't seem to count. I encouraged the boys to help strike the tent and put the things away. I said to the boys, "A Roman soldier is brave, has great discipline and very strong. He has to have things just right and this allows him to fight because he knows the man beside him will lay down his life for his friends. Folding a tent and putting things where they should go is part of discipline." Livius said, "I am going to be a soldier too." "I hope you are but you will have to be better trained." "Why?" "You have to learn how to read and write. Then you have to learn how to count. You would make a good officer but you have to understand those under your command. You have to take care of them like children and they will take care of you. Especially at the start when you know nothing. You have to rely on your men to teach you. "Wars though will be fought differently when you get to be a man." There were a lot of ears twitching now and I continued with my monologue. "The cannon will be important to your country and our combined empire. You will need better roads and the trees will have to be cut further back to avoid ambushes. I see images of young men flying through the air in machines. They can spot ambushed some times and carry word if there is fighting." "Flying?" "Yes, I call it the Luftwaffe." There was no Latin word for this, though I could parse air and force. This way Latin would change as new words were added. "What is that?" "The same as the army but the men fly through the air on machines. Most men have to stay on the ground and work on the machines so that others can fly them." "I want to fly them." Hirtius piped up, "I want to fly too." I turned to the guards that had stopped to listen. "Are there any of you here that can carve wood? I need someone with a delicate touch. I will show you what the Romans will one day fly in." Nobody replied and Iulius quickly said, "I will get all the carvers you want." The tent was carried into the fort and the boys at least carried their blankets in one arm and a pole in the other and resting on their shoulder. The fish was hanging down their backs and with the pole through its gills. When the tent was set up it was only ten minutes when three soldiers came to Iulius. The man turned to me and said, "Here are your carvers." I smiled and walked up the them. "Hello my name is Jón. I am sorry for dragging you away from your duties. I know of a way to make a machine fly but I cannot carve well enough to do it. Will you men be my arms and hands?" One said, "Machines cannot fly." "I am sorry but you are wrong. I have seen them. Some can carry hundreds of men. Do as I ask and I will make a small model that can fly for a short while. If I am wrong then you can tell me then." "I am telling you now that you are wrong now." Iulius looked to be getting angry. I walked back to Iulius and whispered, "Will you give me a denarius? I want to bet the man." "That is a lot of silver." "I will tell you a better way to count that will help your empire." The man took out a pouch and handed me a coin. I walked up to the man that had objected so strenuously. "Are you so sure of yourself that you will bet one denarius?" "Machines cannot fly." "You said that already. Will you bet me or not?" "I will bet you." To clarify the criteria I said, "The model plane has to be held by me and I throw it. It has to float on the air for at least five paces. Is that good enough?" The man just nodded. "We need dry pine without knots." I had to ask the words as I went along. I traced out the wing on the ground in very large detail and then made the cross section. The men were worried until they saw how big it really was. I planned on going big and made the wingspan two metres. With three men working on the complete wing then I could show them how to improve it on the second generation. We may even have to do this many more times until it was right. While the men went looking for wood I took a saw that came with our supplies and cut some disks from some branches that would be used for a fire. They were fairly round and I sent Iulius off to find a bow drill. While he was gone I rubbed the fresh cut wooden surfaces against a rock to smooth them. When Iulius came back he was given the job of making two holes in each disk. Thread was expensive but I got two metres of it and threaded it on the button then tied the ends together. I stretched my hands apart and pulled the thread taught with the button in the middle. With a little flick I was able to get the button to spin. By pulling the thread taut at the right time the button started to spin the other way even faster. With another pull the button turned the first way and wound up all the thread. Soon the button was turning so fast that it was humming. Iulius was given this when it stopped but still wound up. I put it around his hands and then held them to pull them apart. It took very little effort until the button was spinning rapidly. The man now had the biggest grin I had ever seen on his face. He stayed at it until the thread broke and the button hit the ground and made a mad dash between his legs as if to escape. The boys gasped and ran for it even if it went many metres away and stopped at a tent. Iulius said, "What was that?" "That was a toy that explains some facts about the world around us." I had to fish for a word for physics and learned that the man had not heard the Latin equivalent. The thread was repaired with the button back in place. Iulius started the device himself and played with it like a child. I had to get more thread so the boys could have a toy each. Our guards were still around and interested in the toys. I pulled one man to a pair of his friends and said as if it were a secret. "Can you cut a small wood sphere? I need a wood cup made at the end of a small stick. With a string I can try to swing the ball so it lands on the cut. It is good for the boys to learn how to use their muscles." One said, "Why don't you make it?" "I am not strong enough to make it and I need two. Maybe even three for my big boy." The men looked at Iulius and actually smiled for the first time. I gave sizes with my fingers and drew the arrangement on the ground again until the men seemed to understand. While all this was going on I got two guards to walk with me to the awls and I took them from the tree and brought them back into the fort. I said to them, "This is an easier way of sewing leather. Before all your armour gets changed to steel you will have to sew leather better." We walked back by the jetty and I found some round rocks or at least they were round on one side and roughly the right size for my next job. I seated the awls in the handles and then touched up the edges and points. The leather that I had Iulius cut yesterday was before me and I fitted the stones to the leather until one fit well enough. I had one of the guards trim the leather just a bit then fitted it again. I sewed up the seams with two pieces of thread and then stuffed the rushes in towards the end. This was all crushed and more rushes forced in. After more stitches were put in a few more stems were added. This time the men pushed harder than I could. When it was the fullest possible I put in the last few stitches. When they were tied off I rolled the ball between my hands and said, "You have the Olympics in Rome. There is wrestling, running the javelin and other events. This is not traditional but we could get this too." One asked, "What is it?" It took a long time to get the word base but not mean fort. The ball part was easy. I explained the basics of the game and one man said, "Hitting the ball is easy." "Even a champion that has played the game many years is only able to hit four out of ten times. The person throwing the ball has many years of practice throwing the ball so the man misses." "Show me." I described the bat and the man said, "That is just a long club." "You're right. Make it out of wood with no knots or the club will break." "You want me to make one of your clubs?" "Make three. Then pick eight men for your side and I will pick nine." When the man looked at me funny I said, "I cannot hit the ball hard but I can show you how to throw the ball." "Why would I want to do that?" "Because I am challenging you. My men will be better than your men." "Challenging me?" "Yes, to a baseball game." Iulius came over an I had to explain what I was up to then I sat with him as I sewed up the large soccer ball. I would like to have a bladder in it but I had to make do with rushes. Hirtius and Livius were playing with me for the rest of the day. Some times it was catch but we also played with the button. Iulius cut a branch and we used that as a bat and the boy ran to a base and back if he could. The rest of us went scrambling for the ball. Iulius missed the ball a lot and I think he did it on purpose and the two boys made catcalls the way I did to them. The boys' pitches were very wild and it would be amazing if any batter could hit them. ------- Chapter 2 Later in the afternoon we went to see the smith. One of the three clay containers had sprung a leak. The contents was still just iron because the charcoal was gone. The other two were good. The pieces were forged welded and folded many times. A portion was cut off and this was shaped into a wood chisel while another was made into an iron for a plane. These were finished as smooth as possible and then sharpened roughly. I explained again about hardening steel and quenched them one at a time. Sharpening was now much harder and the smith grumbled. When the chisel was fitted to a wood handle then used the grumbles stayed but I think the man was impressed. He examined the blade after every few strokes expecting it to be dull but being disappointed. An apprentice was going to get the job of making a wood plane to hold the iron but the smith didn't want to get rid of the chisel yet. We left the smith with the instructions to get the clay jars with good lids and mentioned that he didn't have to use his forge for this but he still needed a hot fire. Just like Yngvi, he said, "I know all about that." I started to put on some weight now though it was hard to see. I ate a great deal but the German countryside produced a lot of food. Iulius had to pay for everything so I assumed that Lucius was the one footing the bill. The men that went to make a bat had come back earlier and I complimented their work but also described how it could be made better in later versions. They didn't have a lathe and they were cut by hand. I took the ball and swung at it and intentionally missed. After five times I had the carver stand the way I wanted then another man behind him and I pitched. He hit it the first time but not far. On the next pitch he hit it far over my head. "That is the way to hit it. You would normally run from one base to another while my team tries to catch the ball and throw it back to touch you with it." "Is that all there is to this game?" "It is more complicated than that. You have to learn to rub your balls and spit too." The men with the wing returned and their work looked very poor. The wing was twisted but one half was done fairly. I explained what was wrong and had the wing cut the way I wanted. We could keep one side. A wing could have a flat section on the lower surface or a hollow curve. I had wanted the former because it was easy to make. The men assumed that their quick work would be enough to make a flying vehicle. While looking at the two wing sections I remembered the boomerang. It was just two wings joined together at a right angle with one leading and one following. Iulius was always nearby and I decided to put on a performance. I had been working on the ideas for a few weeks and now appeared to be a good time. If I was going to get anywhere other than with the Frisians I would have to evoke the gods. I stood still and closed my eyes. I nodded to myself as if listening to a voice only I could hear then I smiled and said, "Yes, I will. Thank you." I opened my eyes and with a big smile I said as I took the wing section in my hands. "Cut a piece of light wood like this." The two pieces of wood were at right angles. "This part here is the right shape but has to be cut smaller now. The other piece has to be cut the other way around. I was just told that this is used by the natives of a land on the other side of the planet. This one will spin, go far from me and then return." The man that gave me trouble with making the wing said, "Who said?" "Why one of Woden's people, I think." There was a very pregnant pause and he said, "I heard nothing." "But I did. I think most of my ideas must have come from his people this way. I just forgot." Iulius got much closer and asked very earnestly, "What did they say?" "I was just looking at the wing. They must have been watching me and showed me the wing in a different form. I saw the man's face. He was tall with wide shoulders and the thing he called a 'boomerang' looked small. He threw it and it came back though it didn't come back to his hand. He had a very handsome face with kind eyes. I was going to ask his name but every time I go to do that I start to think of something else." "What did he look like?" "He was big as I said but he didn't look German or Roman. His clothes were like the silk I had seen. It was cut and sewn with a lot of care. There were a lot of colours in it but they did not hurt the eyes but fit well together. He wore pants that fit him well but were not tight. It was warm but he wore boots." I looked at Iulius with a grin and said, "The boots were like the kind I must have made once." I had already constructed the figure in my mind and worked to save it. I now had to go into greater and greater detail. "Did he say anything else?" "Yes. He held my face and I felt it tingle to his touch. He said," I paused to get my voice adjusted and in a deeper voice said, "I will repair your body. You have suffered much on my behalf." With another smile I said, "Do you think he can repair my body?" Now it was Iulius turn to think and he said, "The gods can do anything they wish. If it is their wish then this will happen." I kept a glad smile like a child and faced the men. "Will you make this for me? If you want you can just make rough piece of wood and I will show you how to shape it later." The man I had bet with had understood everything and had his mouth open. After a long wait he came to his senses and said, "I will make this for you." "Thank you." Iulius pulled me into the tent and had me sit. "Tell me everything again in as much detail as possible." He had to go over this again to explain some of the new words. I repeated his words but he was anxious for the details now and not my grasp of the Latin language. I started with the scene as if in a movie and added a fade in through a wall of fog. I thought this important. The twenty second time I had used for my conversation lasted nearly an hour as all the details possible were milked from it. I would have to remember all this too. I was sure I would have to repeat it later. "You said your ideas came this way." "I think that. How could a boy my age know how to make steel? How could a boy like me know how to make everything I have talked about? I had visions before this one and some are clearer now. I once rode in a giant flying vehicle that I talked about. I saw many strange sights but we were above the clouds so much that everything was hard to see through the glass." I picked times in my past and just talked about one flight I was on. This way it was much easier to remember. Iulius had to get the boys to bed after I reminded him. I spent at least another hour talking about things that I felt I could let him know without damaging my position. We would have talked longer but I claimed fatigue. That night I pulled out the stops on my recovery and worked to get everything working. This also meant improved plumbing for me and even some new testicles if I could get them my body to regenerate them. The next morning Iulius was up early and started to ask more questions. We had not gone far when three men approached. They had the capes and weapons placement of high ranking Roman officers. We had not talked to them before and now the news of my conversation must have reached them. Horatius Postuma was introduced by the lower ranking officer. The titles went on but he was not from the patrician class but had made it up through the ranks on his own initiative. He said, "I hear that a god spoke to this boy." Iulius was the one he spoke to so he answered. "That is what I believe, Sir. We spoke last night of vehicles that could fly through the air. Jón has been doing a great many feats that nobody without a god's help could do." "This is the boy that destroyed Gnaeus Scipio Magnus legion?" "Yes he did. I heard that he used twelve children to do so. Some eighty men were there but they only escorted the children." "I had heard that. How did he do it? I know about his weapons." "We only talked to some of the survivors. They suddenly heard thunder that never stopped. Small spheres of iron came at the legion with such power that they went in one man then through many others. Their bodies simply burst like a ripe fruit. "When there were no more men before the weapons then the metal flew over a hill instead. Different weapons from overhead came apart very quickly and pierced men even with armour. It went on for a long time but we think it only an hour. "Camp was made and at night it was attacked with more of the metal that fell on us. None of those on patrol came back alive and all of them were killed the same way. The next day this young man and his people worked hard to repair some of the damage they had done. Though he killed many, there are many Romans that owe their lives to him including my patron Lucius." "I heard he ran the first time he had a chance." This was said very angrily. "My patron had laid siege to Hildestun. There were very few barbarian warriors in the city and it should have fallen easily. The Frisians wore armour so good that our arrows would not penetrate it. They rode horses with strange saddles and used along lance that our men could not stand up to. We had a whole cohort but we were the only ones to suffer casualties. "When this boy came he slipped undetected into our camp and was in the process of rescuing one of the children from Lucius own tent. Lucius confronted him and this boy said he would be back to talk after completing his mission." "He allowed the prisoner to escape?" "The prisoner was a young girl, Sir. She had not even a woman yet. It was much better to learn from the leader of the children instead of one child. "This young man came back as he said and removed his weapons and offered them to be studied. My patron had given his word and this young man had given his so they were able to talk. "They talked of things that only a god would know. Lucius knew that this boy was the only surviving son of Clovis, the king of the Frisians. Time was given for us to strengthen our camp without harassment. Later that day this young man brought out twenty of his men and his small group of children. The children controlled the cannons and fired into mature trees at a great distance. When we got close to the forest, we found that the trees had been broken like so much straw. Only a few of the iron balls were found, and one was deep in the ground while another had slowed down enough to be found buried deep in a tree after going through many more to slow it down." Horatius said, "That is unbelievable. Nobody could do that." "Then how did over four thousand men of our legion die? The boy killed nearly three and a half thousand Picts and wounded twice that many. Most would die." When no answer came Iulius said, "The show of power had not ended. This lad cast forth a great many smaller spheres of metal that cut through more trees but not as deeply. No man no matter what his armour could stand up to this. "After this happened, instead of asking for surrender of our forces, my master was given the chance to honourably withdraw. "Lucius took this opportunity and went to inform Gnaeus Scipio Magnus Our general did not believe as you do not. At the first sound of the attack we pulled back. Tell me what you would have done? There was no defence possible. "After the picts were slaughtered like sheep, Lucius got their king to provide some men and we watched as more picts were killed. It was only good fortune that allowed us to fight in the rain at night while cloaked in a thick fog. "Six hundred and forty picts were killed outright that night as well as half of our cohort. More died in following days from the wounds. "We managed to kill the Frisian men and they only numbered sixty four. We also killed the three children that did most of the slaughtering of our forces. We captured some of their weapons but the children and some of the weapons escaped. This boy here attacked alone with a flaming lance that could only be used by the gods themselves. "The powder used to feed the cannon was destroyed all at once. We thought it was the gods' wish that we not gain this. This boy was struck by a piece of wood that penetrated his helmet. "He was kept alive for days only to be tortured. His legs and arms were burnt but he said not one word. He was then castrated but again said nothing. It was only when the Picts were done did my master gain custody of the boy. "Tell me that my master is a coward after standing up to the terrible weapons of the gods. We lost half our number and then it was the weather that defeated our enemy not our arms. "Lastly, Sir, tell me how a boy of almost twelve summers is able to do all this and much more by himself? Only the gods can have chosen him for this task. What he is to do I have no idea but my master says it is not to destroy Rome but to abolish slavery and keep us from going to war to gain more land that we cannot hold." Horatius just stared at me and so did the officers. I stood like a boy that had little idea of what was before him. I was also going over Iulius' words but there was no additional memories stirred up from them. Horatius finally said, "I heard that a god may have spoke to him last night. What was said?" Iulius answered. "The gods were watching over the boy. They must have smiled at what he was trying to do. They told Jón of a new device but not of a reason for making it. Jón wanted to make what he calls a wing. This he claims he has seen in his dreams. It was on a giant machine that carried hundreds of people at five hundred miles an hour and did this for hour after hour. All of this was far above the clouds. "Jón wants to give us this information. The men I talked to would cut the wood for coin but the ideas come from the gods and through this boy that is before you now." Horatius looked at me and said, "Is all this true?" I said for the first time, "I have no idea. I guess I was struck on the head. I know that I forgot everything including my name. Iulius has been trying to help me remember but my past life has not returned. The visions I had of the gods though are coming clearer." "What about the powder? Can you remember this or are you trying to keep it hidden?" With a serious voice I said, "That has been lost. I may remember it later but to be truthful the powder is supposed to be weak. The gods know a great deal and give some of the knowledge to me freely. Some weapons I have seen but not understood that can destroy a legion very easily and by only one man. Getting away from war, I also see not only ways of moving through the sky but across the ground very quickly. "The new type of iron I make will be made in such quantities that it can be used for a road. A giant machine will pull many large carts from one place to another. They can carry food or goods to sell or people. The roads you now use, can be improved. Bitumen is mixed with small stones and compressed into a hard surface. Giant vehicles travel on this carrying people and cargo. They move at fifty to a hundred miles an hour. "The gods have shown me a kinder Rome that has no slavery. There is still a need for the legion but now they are to keep order. The soldiers are much more educated and they operate giant machines that make the simple cannon look like a toy. Rome is not ruled just by Romans but by everybody according to their numbers. "I have seen us all becoming fabulously rich. We still have to work but our pay allows us to have so much more. We do not have slaves but machines are able to do much of the work. "The gods use a device that they pick up and talk into. The voice can be carried at the speed of the lightning bolt around the planet. Think what this device alone could do for Rome." The men looked at me in silence then Horatius said, "What can you show me?" "I can show you a small model of the machine that will fly us from one part of our planet to another. It is being built now. I was also promised by the god I spoke to that my burns, face, teeth and my testicles would be repaired." I showed my scar tissue on all four limbs and pushed my face forward. I even dropped my pants to show that I was truly without a scrotum or even much of my penis. "You see me now much as I was. Surely nobody has healed from wounds like this. If I do then it has to be a god that has done this for me." "When with this begin?" "He already has. It may be very difficult to do this all at once. He is working slowly but I feel that it will only be a week before you can see some of the changes." During the day many people came by to see me and my scars. I knew that they wanted to see the before picture so they could judge the after. Good skin was just under the scars and a week would be enough to shed my outer skin like a snake to reveal healthy skin underneath. My aeronautical engineers came with more of their friends with some hastily made products. The wings were too poor to use but there were some blanks for making a boomerangs. I got a few of the men seated and got them to shape the two arms on the boomerang. One man was left handed and I had him cut his differently because it would spin the other way. The other men went to find more wood and cut it before my eyes. This way I could make them right the first time. The ball and cup came back too but the ball was too big for the cup though it was close. The inside of the cup was enlarged instead. I only smiled internally as I saw Roman legionnaires playing with a child's toy. The boomerangs were roughed out and then rubbed down to smooth them out. Rather than go to an area outside the fort to test our devices we stayed to work on the wing. I went into the training I had to learn to fly a small fixed wing craft. There was no sense going far because I was only dealing with the wing itself now. A much smaller wing was done that would be the tail. The horizontal and vertical stabilisers had no control surfaces and as a matter of fact neither did the wings. A thin branch was cut like an arrow shaft and one of the men was able to get some of the glue from the fletcher. This was also used on the vertical stabiliser. The glue had to dry so this glider was put in a jig of stones to hold everything in position and additional hot rocks put close to dry the wood and set the glue sooner. The boys now got a chance to play with the cup and sphere but more had to be made so they would get one. They had one of their propellers and launchers and this soon got copied too. Two dozen men along with the carving crew went out to the field close to the fort. I explained about the boomerang and then threw it. It was like the frisbee in a way. You could do tricks with it if you played with it long enough. The boomerang went out and it took a while until I got it to work right. The man making a left had version got his to work first. He was as excited as a boy and was telling everybody what had to be done to do it right. Those throwing it right handed failed utterly and they could not throw it with their left very well. I was not that bad after ten throws and my casts got better the more I tried. Eventually I was the first to catch it as it came back to me. The two boys were dying to try but the bigger boys had to go first. It was getting dark and that was the only reason we had to go back. Horatius Postuma and his two officers came back that night and he asked questions. Most of them were related to warfare in one way or another. He was told about larger cannon that could shoot over twenty miles but questioned this figure then questioned the accuracy especially when you could not see who you were shooting at. Radio was explained like cell phones I had talked about earlier. They knew nothing about electricity so it was difficult without them knowing at least some of the intermediate steps. They saw the model plane by torchlight and they at least knew about glue drying. I said, "The wings are still much too heavy. If the plane does not fly right we will have to cut large areas out of the wings to make it light then cover the wings with light cloth. Glue will have to be used again to make it stiff enough." I had to get into the lift theory of a wing again but they questioned each and every assertion I made. Horatius brought out his own version of the propeller and then I had to talk about what it did and why. This at least he understood because he had an example in his hands that actually did what I said. It was difficult to get rid of the man that night and said that I would be around tomorrow to answer more questions. It was only when I said that the gods also talked to me in my sleep that he let me rest. During the day I had been stimulating the skin and other organs to grow the way it should instead of the scar tissue I had. This was slow and I could do better with nothing else to distract me. My face though had to most work to be done. It was disfigured with a vengeance. Not only bone had to be sculpted but cartilage and skin. At least the skin grew much quicker. To mark the transition I decided to change my hair colour. I was now going to find out if platinum blondes had more fun than the shade of blonde I now had. The next morning I itched all over but instead of scratching I just cut back on my sensory input. I had used a lot of resources so when breakfast came I ate ravenously. Iulius was looking at me oddly and I said, "What is it that you find interesting?" "You have changed already but I cannot see how just yet." "Perhaps in a few days you will see some changes." I had wanted to say this in other words and asked about the words that may fit my ideas. I found a few more and tried to file them away to when they were needed. I spent the morning making another plane but this time the wing was lightened when large rectangular sections were cut out of it. Horatius reluctantly donated some silk which I glued over the entire wing area. He even helped me when I said I was tired. We had no trouble getting more glue from the fletcher. The mounting of the wood rod was now easier because it was slightly adjustable in relation to the tail section. That afternoon I got Horatius to let me have eleven men while he had eleven of his own. All I had to say was that I had seen this in my dreams with the gods. It was a given that he would try. Outside the fort we made a pitch that was sixty paces by thirty. The goals were set up at each end and they were as tall as what a tall man could reach and five paces wide. I kicked the ball around then kicked it to the men. I told them the rules about no hands except the goalie and then only in his area. Everybody wanted to play skins so one team got a white cloth and the other got any colour they could find. I was the referee too and I had to be impartial even though this was just to get used to the rules. The Romans thought this a sport for sissies because they could not foul anybody. They could not use a knife or even punch anybody. Soccer in my time had the players barf with the amount of running they had to do. The Romans were used to this treatment already and only one had to get rid of his last meal. At half time, Horatius was excited. The sport was to his liking. He looked at my expression and asked, "What is wrong." "I am worried about what will happen in a few years." "Do not worry. Nobody will attack you." "It is not that. You have the Roman soccer team already started. I have to get the Frisians to do the same thing. Then I have to get them to play without killing each other. Your team looks both very rough but also very good. Germany may not be able to compete as well." "Do you think your people will play this game with us?" "Oh yes they will. We are bigger and stronger but your people need less muscle to run all over the field. We cannot use the strength of our arms and have to rely on our legs. Then we both have to worry about the Picts. They are like you and will give you more of a challenge." "You talk as if we will not be at war with anybody." "Empires are always at war even if it is to keep their own people in line. I can go to Rome and challenge your empire to series of games in the Colosseum. I have to think of a suitable prizes for the winners." "What do the gods give?" "Gold, lots of gold. I talked about radio sending your voice for thousands of miles well in a very complicated process your picture could go too. It is almost like being at the game. When the games are played the pictures could go to everybody in the empire." "That is amazing but do you think others will be interested?" "The gods are crazy about soccer." I got close as if telling a secret and said, "They act like some of the people in the Colosseum might act." The man looked at me and tried to fit this new piece of data into his conception of gods. I continued, "Television will make a lot of gold for some people." "How?" He was even more interested now. "If I show you a picture that reminds you of your favourite type of wine, you will want to drink it a little bit more each time it is shown. If I own the vineyards then you will want to buy my wine. If I pay to have my pictures shown to everybody then they will all want my wine. If I make bread or anything else I can have the pictures shown or have people talk about my products and say how good they are. I could be very rich." Horatius said, "You would have to be rich already to have your wine available to everybody." "That is very true but I would be very much richer." "How do you send these pictures." "This is a very complicated subject. No man can know everything. Some men know how to do one task while others do something different. You need to have power again and this means that you have to turn a machine and it makes harnessed lightning. The lightning goes through silver wires but it is too expensive. Very pure copper works just as well. Then there are many parts that have to be made. Some use up the power of the lightning while others change it a little bit." I stopped and looked at him with a put on face. "I just thought of something. There is a type of iron that sticks to another piece of iron. Have you heard of this?" "Yes I have. It is said to be bewitched." "It isn't. It is natural. Do you have any or know where some is?" "No, why?" "I was going to make something for you. It always points north so you know what direction you are going." "I can tell by the sun and the stars." "With the sun almost right overhead you cannot tell. On a cloudy or foggy night the same thing is true." "I don't need it then." "You are a soldier. You may be attacked at any time or have to attack in turn. You have to be ready all the time too." "What would you know about fighting? You..." He seemed to catch himself and was quiet. Eventually he said, "I will see if I can find some." "Thank you and in return I will make you something to point north. I need a small amount of steel and a very small cup made out of bronze, brass or copper. Wood or clay works too if necessary." It was late in the day that we found the second model dry enough to test. Horatius and I went alone for a secret trials. The model flew but not the way I wanted. Horatius and I went over it and I mentioned what might be wrong and he started to make his own suggestions. The tail was brought closer and the dowel was pushed further forward to shift the centre of gravity. After that it flew very well with just a small push. It wasn't quite gossamer light but we could work on it. Horatius said, "We should make a very large one of these. If only I had more silk." "I will tell you a secret that nobody knows." He very eagerly said, "Yes?" "Silk comes from the east but nobody knows how it is made. It is a secret that is jealously hidden from everybody." "Yes?" "You have seen different kinds of long green worms. When it is time they find a place to rest. They attach themselves to a plant then spin a material that goes completely around them. Inside this new home and over a period of time the worm's body changes until it becomes a moth or butterfly." Again the conversation was long. I had to describe around some of the words to get the appropriate word. I was learning the language but not quickly enough. "One worm in the east spins its home and before it can chew its way out after becoming a butterfly it is put into boiling water. The end of the thread is found then and pulled off slowly." He looked at me so oddly I added, "I am not lying. Only you and I know this. Some people have been known to be killed to keep this secret." "Why did you tell me?" "A strand of silk is very strong. Rope made of this will be even stronger. If you get some strong but light wood you can make a frame. This needs to be covered in one large piece of silk. A man can hang below this and jump off a very hill in the morning where wind is blowing. The man will fly for a long time until he lands. All that he needs is an area where the heat from the sun makes the land hot enough to make the air above it rise. A man simply stays in this air going up and he goes up with it. "To go someplace you just have to get high like our model and then go down at an angle. You then have to catch another column of air to go up again." "This is true?" "I swear to you on all that I hold true that I have spoken the truth." "Where can we get enough silk?" "I said one large piece. Smaller pieces will work but they are not as strong. A person's life is at stake here." "I will remember. Will you draw me plans?" "I will but you will have to join the Roman Luftwaffe first." "What?" "You represent Rome's army. You fight on the ground. The men of the Luftwaffe fly far overhead and fight in the sky against other enemies that are flying and against the enemies of Rome on the ground. You will be the first Roman member." "I am still fighting for Rome so this does not go against my other oaths." "That is true. Now, how are we going to get a piece of silk four paces by four paces. We can sew smaller pieces together as I said but one large piece is best." I drew a kite large enough to carry a man and put it on many pieces of parchment. There were a lot of details that I knew about and a great many more that I had not. The trick I knew was in the fixed bar that a man used to shift his own hanging weight. Notes were made and then I decided to number the pages. Since this was important I signed 'Jón' at the bottom and then I was going to put the date but stopped. Referencing my time to Christ gave one religion more validity than the next. Since this was the second year I had been here even if it was not a full year yet I put "Anno 0002" after the name. Horatius had looked through most of the pieces of skin then checked the addition. "What is this for?" "One is my name. To understand the next part I have to teach you a much better way to count." "How?" I made my first mathematics book now and showed by example why the numbers we called Arabic were superior. Horatius had to scrounge up more sheets of parchment. When I was done I said, "You need to do something for me now." He was not too suspicious but said, "Yes." "I want you to get a large sheet of slate. The material will be very heavy. Your men will have to rub the surface with harder stone to make it flat and smooth. If it breaks then they smooth the smaller pieces and start on another large sheet." "What is it for?" "The large sheet goes on your wall. You can draw a map of an area with chalk or a thin piece of slate. Just as if it were a large piece of parchment. You can teach strategy or draw parts for the craft that will fly the sky. I can teach mathematics to those that will listen." "What about the small sheets?" "You write on them and I check the answers. When the next question comes you erase the one before. This is also good for planning an offensive in soccer. I will be doing this when I bring my eleven men to Rome to play yours." That night I had eaten with Horatius and ate a great deal. I truthfully said why I was eating so much and he seemed to agree. The next morning it was Horatius that threw the model plane to win the bet for me. The man to loose was good natured about it and when he went to hand me the coin I said, "I did not throw my plane. You did not loose." I handed him the first plane we had made and said, "You may keep this. The other one is similar but a piece of silk covers the holes we made in it to make it lighter. Why don't you throw it for the first time?" The man smiled with bad teeth and studied the plane then threw it. He was taller and stronger and it went at least far enough to win me the bet. We stayed in the fort even after the remainder of our group joined us. Horatius found one or more reasons to keep us here. Thick sections of scar tissue came off that should have hurt anybody else. Underneath was healthy looking skin. I could of absorbed the old tissue and reused it but this way was more dramatic. My hair now had a centimetre of blonde roots which I was anxious to point out. A dark wrinkled scrotum was developing but as of yet it was empty. My cock though had grown in length and width. At the present it actually looked like it had not been severed just extremely short. Iulius must have had to make new journals because he had a great deal to write most of the time. After ten more days, I cut the hanging scar tissue off and even some from my face. The army physicians and Iulius monitored this and they were encouraged to make notes. Horatius and a few of his officers learned mathematics. I taught the four basic functions as well as fractions and more importantly decimals. All of this went into my math primer. I had even broken tradition as the Romans knew it. Roman text was usually in one large sheet of ink. I broke it up into paragraphs with a space between. This was considered a costly thing to do but I was not the one finding the parchment. Lower case was even more difficult to understand. The men travelling with me now seemed to be less antagonistic. I had been accepted at the fort and they had seen that I had no hard feelings against the Romans. I explained that they had been killing Germans and especially Frisians and I got along with them now. We did leave eventually and travelled for two days up the Rhine. I talked to Iulius about our destination. "Tell me about where we are going." He thought for a moment and said, "We thought that you were either dying or you had completely lost your wits. It is a place where you could be happy and safe." "What is it like?" "This is Lucius' estate. He has a great many slaves but before you get angry you will have to see how they are treated. They are like family in many ways. He pays his slaves silver but also feeds and clothes them. I know of no others that do this." "Me neither. Please go on." "His wife Licinia is the one that rules the estate with an iron hand. She also has a heart of gold no matter what you think of her at first. She has three daughters and there are four children from Lucius first marriage. Licinia I believe would like more children but Lucius is worried that she may die in childbirth like his first wife. "The estate grows some amazing grapes that make a very good wine. He grows all kinds of grain and ships it by boat to the forts as his tax payments." Iulius went on to talk about the family but didn't go too deep because this was family business. The neighbours were listed and I asked for a lot more detail. Iulius shrugged his shoulders and gave me this as he saw it. Two neighbours had been killed when they went against me. They had died when we took out the legion. Another neighbour was from a famous patrician family but there was a lot of bad actions attributed to him. On a bit of deeper questioning I found that the man may be one of the Marquis de Sade's predecessors. Other Roman families were represented here. Grapes were grown by all but only some were good. There was hostility between families because some thought it should be family ties that made a wine good or not. I found that Hirtius and Livius were the sons of a Roman family that had died and Lucius had taken them in. They had not been to the estate either. Iulius was sure that Licinia would take the boys in as her own. We pulled into a camp for the night. This one we soon found had been ripped down and most of the logs gone. I assumed they had been thrown into the river but I had not seen any of the logs on the way here. This destruction could have been done weeks ago. There were a lot of places to camp for the night and it was decided that we should go another hour upriver to a seldom used secondary location. I had to assume that they thought that they would be attacked easier without walls to protect them. It also occurred that an hour up and down the river would be a logical place to stay for the night. It could also be a place to have the real attack. It was an hour closer to darkness and we quickly started to make camp. I had been putting on some muscle in the last two weeks and helped within my capabilities. I took Hirtius and Livius with me to the edge of the forest and started to drag back branches when the guard came running to us. They said nothing but I had to assume they thought I was going to run. I got them to pull out some heaver pieces while we dragged the rest back to camp. This could be a set up though Iulius said there were few attacks in the last few years. I got Iulius to give me a small axe and I cut evergreen boughs for our bed. He was sceptical but I knew they would burn brightly if the need ever arose. The boys and I were very tired. We had dragged back far more wood than we needed. My worry may have been broadcast. Those that had first watch were even more vigilant than usual. We had our supper when it was getting dark. When it came time to go to sleep Iulius was watching me with a lot of thought behind his eyes. "Iulius, do you think I am going to run now?" It took a moment but he said, "It has crossed my mind." "Will I be chained or otherwise confined to the estate?" "No, I don't think so." "Will I be branded." "Lucius does not allow that. Besides, you will not be a slave." "Then do not treat me like a slave. I will not run. We have become friends of sorts and I do not want to be confined nor do I want to see anybody in this camp as my enemy. I plan on seeing how much of an iron lady Lucius' wife is." He exhaled a bit then said, "You seem to be able to read a man's face and tell his thoughts." "That would be nice but I see worry and I just put myself in your shoes." It took him a moment to understand the idiom and he nodded his head. "I will see you in the morning then?" "You will but I may go fishing when it is quiet. Please tell the guards of our arrangement and the fact that I have given my word." Iulius got up and in a few moments came back. "Some of the guards didn't like it. The ones by the shore will be the ones that do not hold that much of a grudge." Livius was not quite asleep yet and asked, "Can I fish with you?" "You are a sleepy boy that will go to sleep before the first fish is caught. Sleep here tonight and perhaps if we stop early enough tomorrow we can do some fishing." The boy smiled and said, "Ok." Livius tossed my k-bar knife and its sheath across the tent to me and said, "It is always good to have a knife." I simply said, "Thank you for your trust." I collected the fishing equipment and walked to the shore. There were two guards nearby and I talked to each so they knew where I would be. Livius was right and these two showed the least hate among the Romans and I wondered who would be on the next watch. The river was not quiet because there was a light wind that brought in the small waves. I saw fish jumping after insects or fry. The river was narrow here and only five hundred metres wide. I sharpened my vision a bit and saw animals coming down to drink on the far side. There was a lot of nibbles but they were all small fish. When I switched to my smallest hook I was able to catch three. One of these went onto a larger hook and I threw it out as far as the line would allow. In five minutes something hit my hook and I set it as quickly as I could. The line took off very quickly and I had to restrain it as best as I could. The line was not that strong or that long. The fish was a good sized and it jumped at least three times one after the other. I heard somebody behind me but ignored him as I fought the fish. In a moment I said, "Could you use that spear when I pull the fish in?" "I didn't think you heard me. I will try but it is hard to see." He used the butt of the spear like a cane to find the obstructions. When he was at the water he lowered the spear and wanted to use his hands. "Go to your right two feet and put your right foot out in the water. There is a dry rock for your foot." He did as I asked then I worked the fish toward the man as I talked to him about where the fish was in relation to him. When I called he put his hands down very quickly and held the fish. I was there in seconds and used my knife pommel to strike the head of the fish. It was stunned and the man dragged it from the water. The fish was probably seven or eight kilo and was a good catch. The two of us took the fish to the land and then layed it down. The guard said, "You have very good eyesight." "The gods repaired my skin, my face, my teeth, my hearing, sight and even my testicles. I am telling you this as a friend. A friend would keep this information to himself. I do not fit in very well and speaking to gods is one way that will set me apart." "I won't tell." "Thank you and I hope Sicinius that is hiding behind the tree about four paces behind us does not tell either." "What?" "You are not the only Roman that can move quietly. Sicinius, will you come over here and see the fish that Plautius and I caught? It's big but we will not let it bite you." The man came close and said, "Can you really see in the dark?" "I can see better in the dark than you can. I can hear better than you can too but I cannot hear what is said far away. Just think that I can hear and see just a bit better and you will understand." "Can you see the tents?" "Only as a dark outline. It is hard to see them as tents. Everything is too dark to see well." I was lying. I could see very well but not nearly as good as a normal person could see in the day. I caught another two fish and the larger one was only three kilos. I didn't want to find out who was going to be on watch later in the night. I put away the equipment and hung the fish then washed my hands before going to bed. I could see Iulius' eyes open in the dark and whispered, "Goodnight Iulius." Again there was a pause and he said, "Goodnight." It was three and four in the morning when I heard stealthy footsteps then the noise of a club and the sound of a man in armour falling. I became instantly alert and rolled from my pad and took the k-bar from its sheath. There were more footsteps when there should only be a few. The hobnails from the Roman sandals made a different sound even on the moss with my hearing. I got to the tent flap and climbed out slowly. I saw four men coming our way and two others in the distance. One of the guards was on the ground with a man searching him. The Roman was still breathing and I had to assume the guard was not meant to die. There were four more behind the brush and two other holding the horses. I could not see the last pair very well but had to assume this was their duty. I said in German, "There are fifty armed men here. There are only twelve of you. If you killed the guard I will come after you and kill you. This I swear by Woden." The men had frozen at my words and now the remaining guards were giving the alarm. "Leave now. These man are not forgiving." Some wanted to run at me but others did not and when one ran for the opening in the brush the rest hurried after. The horses were led away so they were here to carry away booty. With them gone I said loud enough for the guards to hear, "They are gone. One of our guards was hit by a club." I hurried to the man and found him not only still alive but groaning. I could not see any knife wounds. I said to him, "Thank Woden that you Romans have such hard heads." "What happened?" he asked groggily." "A dozen tribesmen tried to see what they could steal from the camp. Apparently not all Romans have guards on duty. If you were not on watch we may have died or at least been robbed. You saved us." Wood was thrown on the small fire including my green boughs. The flames quickly climbed casting light in the camp. Two of the Romans made it to us then roughly pushed me aside so they could check then talk to their compatriot. Iulius was now awake and standing before the tent with a pugio in his hand and him staring out into the night. "Iulius, they have gone. They hit one of the guards to make him sleep. What is the correct word?" "Never mind the word. Are we safe?" "We are safe. They are gone. I think they were here to rob not kill or they would have slit his throat." "We should go after them and kill them." "A vision I just had showed a physician of the gods. He is there to save lives and may not take them unless he is attacked. It sounds foolish to me but nobody wants to be treated by a man that might not be right in the head." "The guards should still go after them." I was kind of curious too. What would drive men to rob a Roman camp when they must have some idea of the amount of armed men in it? I moved around Iulius and his pugio. I had no clothes on but my underwear. I began to dress now and when I stood I put the scabbard on my belt. The camp was all up now except for two small boys that slept through everything. "Iulius, I said when he was finished talking to one of the men. "Are we going to break camp any earlier this time than usual?" "I don't think so. Why?" "I want to see if the robbers have truly gone." "But..." "You still have my word. Have I ever given you a reason to doubt me?" "We have to get onto the river early." "You are a poor liar and I like you that way. I will be back before you leave. Save some breakfast for me. You know how much I like to eat." "But..." I just hurried away which was not too fast but a faster speed than what Iulius could follow me at. The guards didn't hear my words and were not prepared to stop me. Once through the brush I heard some angry voices behind me. I hurried to the best of my ability. The Romans may try to follow until they found that it would be useless to continue. There was a regular path here. I figured that the Germans used the camp the Romans thought of as their own. I knew which direction they went from the noise they made when they left. I jogged after them and avoided stepping on anything that would hurt my foot or make a noise. It didn't take long to catch up to the men. They were arguing in whispers about what went wrong and blame was given to the one that clubbed the guard and made so much noise. This was hotly refuted and I was afraid there would be a fight on the trail. The procession did stop and a small fight broke out but it could have been just to relieve the tension. In a few minutes the mumbling was less and the men continued on their way. It was an hour and a half to get to their village. It was not that far but they could not travel any great distance in the dark. I estimated that it was only five klicks. Dawn was in another half hour or so when we got to the village. I had learned seven of the twelve names and a few more of those in the village itself. My only advantage was my ability to see and hear better than the rest. When the dawn came I would not be strong enough to defeat these men with just one knife. The leader and his son put away one of the horses and then went into their hut to drop off their weapons and equipment. The boy came out next and undid his pants to take a piss when I hit him with the pommel of my knife. He fell and I caught him and dragged him a short distance away. I took the thong used to hold up his pants and bound his hands behind him. The older man came out in a minute and he had to take a shit. I let him finish before I sneaked up behind him and put an arm around his neck and put the knife to his throat. He struggled for just a second before being very still. In a whisper I said, "I could slice your throat here and nobody would know until the morning. Your son has a headache and is tied up. I could kill your entire family in their sleep. Do we talk or do I kill?" The man just nodded his head. I demanded, "Give me your belt. I am going to tie your hands. So you don't decide to change your mind." The man frantically worked at his waist and handed the cord to me. I moved his body and had him lay down on his stomach. One wrist was tied and then the other hand came back and it was tied too. I had a job getting the man to stand now. "We are going ten minutes down the trail so we can talk. If we do this right, you will come back to your family. If you want to play games we will have some serious problems." The man hurried and I had to use one of my hands to hold up his pants for him. I steered him around obstacles and told him when to duck or move his head. In a hollow I got the man to sit while I stood. I walked around him as I talked so he didn't really know exactly where I was. The man's name was Holti and I used it along with the other names I had heard on the trail. I told him about some of the men I had heard about and guessed about a bit more. The man had not said anything yet and when I paused he asked, "Who are you?" "I thought you would ask other questions first. My father is Clovis the king of the Frisians. My name is Jón." "I have heard of your people. Why are you here?" "In the last while I have been killing a great many Romans. Their auxiliary's the Gauls were killed too. I was captured and then taken here. You just happened to come into the camp where I was staying." "You are a slave then." "No. This is my knife that I made and I walked out. You see, the Romans are now aware that the gods favour me. I was tortured by the Gauls and burnt over much of my body but the gods healed me. Now tell me about the runaway slaves that are in your village." The man didn't want to talk and this was a point in his favour. I said, "I am not a Roman puppet. The Frisians will lead all the German people of this land to rise up and demand a share of the empire. I do not want lawlessness and I have to organise all of you." "Why?" "Because you are like my people before my father beat some sense into them. Did any of you think that you were followed?" I had to wait but I eventually heard, "No." "You fought on the trail and made a lot of noise. You did not put out men to look ahead to see if you were walking into an ambush or ones behind to see if a force was chasing you." "This is our home and we know the area." "Then how come I am able to catch you? You are untrained. You are probably brave enough but you do not know how to fight except for one man against another. I have children that could take your village with ease the way we destroyed the V Iovia." "We just heard that it was destroyed. Many of the Roman families around here are mourning." "Men in special armour protected us while twelve children and I did this. There was over four thousand that died in the legion and almost that same number of Picts a week later." "How did you do this. It would take thirteen gods to do that." "The gods have spoken to me and I have not been a fool, so I listened. They showed me how to make weapons that you could not even dream of. The simplest of them were used to kill our enemies. The strongest of these could kill the world." The man looked suitably afraid now and I continued. "All of Germania belongs to the German tribes. You fight like children when it comes to the Romans. They cut you down like grain. I am the only one that can show you how to fight apart from the Romans themselves." "We are too few to fight for you." "You are not fighting for me but for you. You just need good leadership. I will give you this. Have you heard of Lucius of the V Iovia? He has an estate within a days march of here." "I have heard of it. He is one of the few good Romans." "Go to the estate and ask for me. It is best to say Jón the Frisian. I think there may be more hard feelings when your neighbours find out that I am here." "I can understand that." "The woman that runs the estate will take you in if you have something to offer. I will train you so you can do something for her." "I will not be a slave." "Does the women employ freemen too?" In a more subdued voice he said," I have heard that." On another tact I said, "You are going to get killed soon if you do not move. Some in the camp wanted the soldiers to follow you. Other Romans will land at our campsite and come looking for you. Some of you may survive as slaves. The way the empire works is that they make sure everybody follows their laws even if you have no say in how the laws are made." "We will move if you say that we should." "I do say. I have no way of making you come to the estate but if you do I will try to get you a job and a way to make a living without robbery." "They were Romans." "You already said that not all Romans are bad. Now how many of you are there. Count families and include children. How many are runaway slaves that have to remain hidden?" It took a while but I got the figures I demanded. It was starting to get light and I got Holti stand. I undid the thong rather than cut it and stood in front of him as he rubbed his wrists. My arms were folded across my chest instead of over my knife. We looked at each other for a moment and he said, "Will you come to my village? We got a deer a few days ago." "I would like to. It is important to meet your people and have them see me but I am afraid my boat may leave without me. Remember what I said about moving. The rest is up to you and the rest of your village to decide." "I would like to trust you but it is the Romans I cannot trust." "You have the word of the only son of Clovis that I will try my best to get you settled into comfortable way of life without being a slave." "I will try." I put out my hand and there was enough light for Holti to see and he did the same thing. I had to move my hand into his and shook it. "This is just a way of greeting and a way of saying goodbye as well as signifying that we have come to some type of agreement." I pushed myself and was back at the camp soon after. The guards had their spears up and I wisely called out before entering. ------- Chapter 3 It didn't' take too long to get back to camp. To keep myself safe and to hone my skills, I monitored the area to see if I would be attacked. When I came near the camp I called loudly, "Do I have permission to enter the camp?" In a few moments it was one of the Romans that told me to enter but he had his spear raised. He was one of the ones more antagonistic to me. I said, "Are you going to throw the spear at me when I have my knife sheathed?" "Where did you go?" "To make sure you were not attacked again. I do not want your blood shed or those of some German tribe." "You made some type of pact with them." "I was never on the Rhine in my life. I have no control over where we go. I have been with only Romans since I was captured. So I was gone for a few hours and in that time I convinced some robbers to form a mighty army and come here and defeat you. This is something only a god might be able to do. Do you think of me as a god?" The man's superior came by and ordered him to put down his spear. The man did so only reluctantly and suffered another rebuke for this. Iulius hurried over and got between me and the guard. I was urged over to the fire where I assumed breakfast was ready. We were having fresh caught fish and the fillets were very large. "Where did you go?" "I followed the men to their village. They didn't even put out men to protect the group. I captured the head man and got him to come with me out of the village for a talk. He agreed to not attack any Romans again." "How did you do this?" "A sharp knife helped but then I offered him a job where he would get paid and fed. This way he would be turned into a good citizen." "You have no silver. How could you say that?" "Licinia has money." Iulius was very surprised and asked, "Why would she pay these men?" "I will teach the men something useful and Licinia will make a profit from it. Everybody will win. No more robbers and both Licinia and Lucius will make enough silver to carry on their good works." "What good works? Lucius is a businessman and soldier." "Are you trying to be like Licinia? I have been talking to you for a long time now and you cannot fool me." "They make their people work," he said by way of justification. "And?" There was a pause as he thought then said sheepishly, "You are right. They are good people." "Good, now is there a fast moving stream or river on their property?" "Why do you ask?" "Why do you answer my question with one of your own?" "There is a stream it is not fast, except at one of the two waterfalls." "Good, then I will make your patrons rich." "With water? There is lots of water." "Give me your slate and I will show you." While he ran to the tent I spent the time eating quickly. Iulius packed his bags and sent the two boys out of the tent to get ready and the man ran back to me. I wiped my hands after filling a large plate with fish to eat on the way. I thought again and got more for the boys. They were getting as bad as me. Too bad there was no Tupperware yet. I had a chance to draw a falls and show it turning a large wheel. This area had mild winters too and ice would not be a problem. When we boarded the boats I got the boys to look at my drawings and I explained things simply to them. This way Iulius would not be slighted by the way I spoke. Iulius did not realise the power of the water but he took this on faith for now. Plautius and Sicinius were on our boat and because they were not as antagonistic as the rest. I also started to teach both of them though they were in their late twenties. Two of the other guards were interested too and I explained my ideas to them as well. "Our waterwheel could grind grain but I want it to saw trees into lumber. We make things with the lumber or sell it. If you are good carpenters you can make equally good carts, barrels and boats. I think the Rhine is deep enough that we can make some..." I had to fish for a word, then I continued, "fantastic ships." Plautius was the more outgoing legionary and asked, "Why ships. We already have lots." "That is your opinion Plautius, but I can make all of us very rich. This requires trade with other people. They sell to us what they make easily and we sell to them what we make easily but they find difficult to do." He didn't understand so I said, "Lucius and Licinia have good grapes and make good wine. This might be easier to make than other crops. They clear more land for grapes and turn the trees into barrels. We take the wine in our ships to other lands that do not have good grapes but like what we make. They may have lots of fish which we get cheaply." I had to get the words still and people were quick now to fill in the gaps. "We can sell the fish for a lot of money. We can do something else. I can make some nets and some boats to haul the fish into. Then we can sell our own fish. There is a lot of tools we can make and then sell and we can buy products that are cheap in one place and expensive in another. All of this requires us to be able to move ourselves and a lot of cargo cheaply. "A ship is good but needs to be both big and strong. I want our ships to be the biggest and the strongest. All of this hinges on producing some good lumber and training some good men." Everybody but the boys were nodding their heads in agreement. I was right about the fish but I got some to eat too. Early in the afternoon we turned east and headed up a wide stream. It was not that large as rivers go. I was told that it was perhaps thirty miles long but only twelve miles was navigable by the boats like ours. I estimated that this area had to be close to what the future city of Bonn would be. I studied the land as we passed through it and found a lot of oak and tall pine for masts. Not all ships could be made of steel right away because the infrastructure had to be made first. We unloaded at a dock and the sailors were invited to stay the night. This apparently was what usually happened. A cart came and then two more for the luggage. I was very sure that my armour and weapons were in the luggage as well as those of the cadets that had died. It hurt when I thought about Forni and it hurt more to be not sure. With this load on the carts we all had to walk. The boat was moved to one side so the next one could tie up. Iulius got us moving and in a hundred metres of so we left the forest to find cultivated land. I was not tall enough to see that far but there certainly were a lot of grapes. I knew that this was just one field and some contained the various grains and vegetables. Apparently onions were a favourite. A kilometre ahead of us was a large home. I expected it to be built all of stone but most of it was wood. This may be one of the reasons the owners were so nice to the locals. This may be bad of me because Lucius had got me away from the Picts. As we got closer, I could see a great many outbuildings as well as some very large barns. The two boys were nervous now and I picked up Hirtius though he was a heavy weight. Iulius had been holding Livius' hand and this seemed to be enough for the boy. When we got to the house we found a large family waiting for us. One short and slightly overweight woman must be Licinia. To her left were three girls. The oldest was about eleven then there was another at eight and finally one at six. On the woman's right were two women. One looked to be twenty and the other eighteen. A boy hurried from the house and stood away from Licinia but close to the other two. He looked to be sixteen and looked much like his father. There was one more child but I knew he was usually away and in the army. The rest of the porch had men and women who I assumed to be servants. Iulius got us to line up then he walked to the centre of the line and in front of Licinia and said, "Greetings, my lady. Your husband Lucius has bid me bring to you some children he wishes to adopt into his family." Iulius looked down to his right and said, "Quintus Nautius' and his wife and most of his family have been killed. Two of his sons, Livius and Hirtius, were able to survive. Lucius, your husband, asks that you treat them like family." Licinia released the hand of her daughter and came close to Livius. She bent down to talk and I walked closer because I had Hirtius in my arms. The soldiers came close too all of a sudden and this frightened the woman. She looked at the boy and said, "Hello, little one. Lucius wants to be your father and I will be your mother. Welcome to our family." She took the child's hand in hers and turned to me and Hirtius. When she was close she looked piercingly at me and my strange features before looking at the boy in my arms. "Hello, Hirtius. My name is Licinia but I want you to call me, Mother." She put out her two arms for the boy and he shook his head and turned his head to me. I whispered to the boy, "Hirtius, this is an important time in your life. This is your new family. A Roman soldier has to be brave. Remember all the things I said on the boat? I want you to turn around now and hug this woman that will give you as much love as your mother gave you before she left." The boy did turn then I said, "A hug now to cement the deal." He was a bit hesitant but he turned more and opened his arms. The woman moved in and hugged the young boy to her. She kissed his cheek in a moment and said to him, "I have two big boys but now I have two small ones too. That makes me very happy. We made a nice meal for you." She put him down in a moment and said, "Hold your brother's hand." Hirtius reached up and held mine because Iulius had called us brothers so many times. The women looked at me now and said, "You don't look like one of Quintus Nautius' sons." "I am not my lady. I come in peace and in respect but I fear I will bring anger down upon your house and your lands." "Really? You have so many enemies that my husband cannot hold them off?" "That may be true. I offered your husband a way to leave my father's lands without losing honour or more soldiers. I am afraid I was one of Rome's worse enemies. I was captured then tortured. They knocked out or cut portions from my body. They burnt me with hot iron for days. It was only with the intervention of the gods and your husband that I am alive." "You do not look that hurt now." "The gods are healing me as fast as they can without damaging me. If you take a half an hour you could talk to Iulius and the guards to find out that what I am saying is completely true." "Even if it is, why would they torture you?" "I was told that with twelve children and the help of some men and women I was able to fashion weapons designed by the gods. With these weapons I destroyed the V Iovia that had invaded our land. After that, my twelve killed three and a half thousand Picts and I am told an equal number will die or be crippled for life. On our travels here I learned that your neighbours lost men in this battle and if you take me in then they will pressure you to turn me over to their justice." Nobody spoke and it took some minutes before she said, "You are still a boy." "A boy favoured by the gods. I plan on saving the Roman Empire but to also change it from the way it has been for over a thousand years. This I believe is what the gods have put before me as their first task." "The first task is only to change the Roman Empire! What is the next?" "I have to change the rest of the world." We were led into the house soon after. We had not been expected so no rooms were ready. Licinia was soon closeted with Iulius and I was not surprised to see her come out nearly two hours later. She looked very shaken. I had introduced my self to Lucius' children but most didn't know what to make of me. I thought that they had not believed any of what I had said. The staff knew how to proceed without guidance and made a meal. The soldiers and sailors would eat with the servants while a place was set aside for the three of us and Iulius. We ate very well and I assisted my two brothers to get around their food. Nobody spoke to us though there wasn't a moment when I did not have at least half of the eyes on me. I didn't see this household being this quiet but it was possible. When Licinia had a free moment I said, "My lady, I am afraid I may be too odd to fit into your household. My younger brothers will be treated the same way if they stay with me for most of the time. Perhaps there is someone that could guide them with love." She looked at me and said, "I will send Oppia and Salvia to get the boys to help them with their chores. How shall I treat you? You are a prince of a foreign land and a very deadly fighter I am told." "We have not had time to talk. I do not dislike Romans. In fact I admire them in many ways. The gods have been very generous in giving me knowledge. I can be generous too. While travelling here, I talked to Iulius about your family and business. Like you, I believe that people should not be idle. One of the things I have thought of that would make silver is if we produce dried lumber that we use for our own products or for sale to others." "Iulius has told me about some of your plans. I do not understand this type of building. He has told me some but I do not understand evn how you would start." "In the land of the gods they sometimes make a much smaller model of something they wish to make. The gods can view it from many positions and make changes to it before it is built to full size. I have seen in my dreams a tower made of cement that reached almost two thousand feet high. This and the land around it was made in a model form that would fit on our table." "Surely you are joking. Two thousand feet?" "Yes my lady. I have seen great wonders. None of these can be built now but we can make buildings and devices of lesser wonder. Over time as the industries gain in size so can our abilities to fashion unbelievable ventures with our hands." "Do you think we can build this device you see by a waterfalls?" "Yes I can. I need tools that you do not have. Some I can make but others I have to buy. Iron is needed in large amounts. Brass has to be made or found." "Will you be making those things called cannon?" "No, my lady. I am making nothing of that kind of war though I will make swords and armour but this will be sold to the Roman army. I do want the clothing I once wore as a warrior. To make what I wish for you will take time and a lot of help. I will be attacked by those that wish vengeance. I only wish to protect myself." "Do you remember your past life now?" "I do not remember it from within but only what I have been shown by Iulius and the gods." "Perhaps your leaving the house would be a good idea." "Let me survey the land and see if a mill can be constructed. If this is possible then I need help. Most can be made by talented men. Iulius must have told you that some people are coming already to help. I will be responsible for them while here but I need to fulfil my promise to them of employment. Food and clothing could be part of the payment. If the mill that we make is entrusted into their care then they will provide an income to the estate. This will also provide their own payment to stay on." "I understand that but you want to make ships and barrels?" "You need barrels for your wine. Ships are very useful and they can be used to take the wine to market and bring back what you wish. The trees we use will clear the land for more grapes." "Let me reason this out. It may take some time." I was put with Tertius to sleep. The young man was not happy with this arrangement. He had his own room and it was small already. In front of his stepmother I said, "I am sorry to bother you. I come into your hours and even your room without notice. If events work out I will find a place nearby to live and work and not bother you further." The boy was big and brawny for his race and still larger than me now. He said in a surly voice, "You can go there now." "I could but your mother wishes to think on this matter we spoke of. If she decides in favour of this then we have to have time to plan then gather what we need before I leave." "You can sleep with the servants." "I could do that too. Your father sent me here to die or to be protected because I was hurt seriously. With the gods help, I am making a full recovery and this will be done in a month or so. Now that I am here I plan on paying back some of your father's generosity with my help. I am sorry to disrupt your family but this has to be done so I can make the mill." "We don't need your mill." "That is right but if you want to take my help then this area of the world will be more important to the empire. People will come here and you will be able to sell your products for more silver and with less work. You will grow to. We can make ships together then teach others. I made a plough that will turn over the soil much easier than before." "We don't need that either." I was not reaching the boy and tried a different method. "Again, that is right but on the way here we stopped at a fort and I talked to Horatius Postuma. He is now making small vehicles that fly through the air. They are going to be made larger and larger until they carry a man. As time goes on they will get bigger until they carry hundreds of people. Before you say we do not need this I will say it for you but the people that you know need this for many reasons." "Nobody can fly." I smiled now as if I had him and said, "Horatius Postuma is older than both of us combined and he said the same thing. He now sees that some devices fly easily and wants to see if he can make larger models. He saw with his own eyes and made a decision then. You could do the same thing instead of denying even the possibility." "Nothing you say is true." "Do you have a silver denarius that you wish to bet? Your words and mine come cheap." It looked like he was going to take a swing at me and I just stood my ground. Licinia had seen this too and said, "Tertius, you will not fight in this house. Jón has been patient with you and even said that he will leave in a while if we can make his proposition work. You have made lots of statements that you cannot back up. If you truly believe that you are correct then bet the silver. If you are saying this just to be a child then withdraw your words." "I will bet him that nobody can fly." Licinia looked at me and said, "Is that alright?" "No, because it will take many years and a lot of silver before a man flies. I will bet though that I can make a model that will fly five paces with me throwing it. I know this is possible because Horatius and I have made one with silk that has flown twice that distance. I have no silk." Licinia tried to mediate again but to challenge me too. "I have some silk. I will give this to you. Both you and Tertius have to build this thing. If Tertius does not help I will take a denarius of his and give it to you by default. If the model flies ten paces then it will be me that pays the bet." Tertius was angry and I said, "You are a hard woman to deal with my lady but those terms are satisfactory. I only have to add that we have to test the model many times to get it ready for the actual wager." "That is acceptable to me. Now what else do you need besides silk?" "The glue that a fletcher uses, some straight wood that is without knots. It also has to be a light as possible. We need to use or make the tools to shape the wood." "I think Tertius should also make the tools with you." "You have iron on your property?" This surprised her for she must have thought of making the tools from bloom. "We do but it takes a long time to get it." "Then we require the loan of some tools and some supplies." "We will see about what you require in the morning." She dismissed us this way and we left the room. I didn't know much about Tertius but if there was a way to bring him around to my way of thinking I would take the time to try. I said to Tertius, "I hope you are good with a bow. We have to eat and my arms are not strong yet." "We will bring food from the house." "I am sorry Tertius. I thought you knew how to use a bow. Perhaps we can find a person good with the bow to help us." "I can use a bow. I choose not to." "I said I was sorry for bringing up you poor use of a bow." "I am not poor." "I said I am sorry. Forget that I said it. We can find someone that is good." It looked like he was going to swing at me and I said, "Your mother said no fighting in the house. Do you want to go outside? I can show you how to kill a man with your bare hands. I won't kill or even hurt you though." The boy quieted down and we went silently to his room. During the night I monitored the noises in the room to make sure Tertius didn't do something rash. Some Romans I found were as irrational as the Frisians. I kept up the repairs to my body because I now owned it by default. Instead of just building muscle mass I worked on my nerve pathways to get my reaction down to where I could stay alive while still looking weak. The next morning I got up earlier than Tertius and left the house to stretch and then exercise in the cool morning before it got warm. I was able to greet some of the early morning staff that arose to make our breakfast. My kind words and small size got me a snack to carry me over until I was done. I stayed at this for a while as I had no other duties yet. After an hour I was quite damp and went into the house to cadge some soap. They had some and I thanked the cook for giving me this. "I am going to the river to swim and wash. I think I better wash my clothes while I am there." The older woman put on a serious look and said, "Watch out, there are some of the girls going there to wash the clothes too. They may chase you around." Since turn around is fair play I said, "If you were going to wash clothes instead of cooking you might find that some times I am slower than others." She turned red and said, "You better get going then. You can eat in half an hour if you can be back then." I reached up and pulled her face down and kissed her on the cheek. "Thank you." I left the house and ran to the river and had to push myself the last bit since my legs and heart were not up to it. I saw the boats tied up and some of the sailors there guarding the boats. I took off my clothes and ran and dived into the water. It was a shock to my body but it felt good. I swam against the current a while then came back. In moments I was washing my clothes in the water as I sat on a rock half submerged. When they looked done I wrung them out and hung them on some bushes then scrubbed my body and hair. One of the sailors said, "You swim like a fish. Some of the strokes you used looked odd to me." "There are many ways to pull yourself through the water. There are some that strengthen the muscles of the chest while others stress other muscles. When one way makes you tired you can switch to another." I walked back to the house in damp clothes. Some of the soldiers were coming my way and one said, "Where were you?" "Washing in the river. Why are you asking?" "You are not supposed to run off." "I run for exercise the same as you do to stay in shape. I have not chosen yet to leave. It will be quite a few months I think before people here understand those words. Roman heads are just as hard as Frisian." He looked like he was going to back hand me but I stood ready for him. He thought again and put his hand down. "Don't run off again." "Then you better be up with me in the morning. I need to practice and so do you. You are getting fat on the easy life." He did swing at me now and it was a fist. I took it in my hands and twisted it around his back then pushed upward. He tried to stomp on my feet but they were already out of the way. He kept trying to get away and his two friends instead of helping, laughed at him. This made him more angry. His movements got more vigorous until I tripped him and then used my legs to pin him like I did in wrestling. This the Roman would know more about. He made a grab for his dagger and I said to all of them, "Now you want to use a knife. You are a baby that wants to cheat. Do you want me to let you go now?" He struggled more and I broke quickly and backed away. The man got up and growled. The dagger was in his hand and he looked to be ready to use it. I stayed away from my own knife. I said, "Put away your knife little boy and I will show you Romans how to fight." He ran at me instead and I drew my own knife as if to throw. He moved quickly to one side when I faked the throw and I moved myself. I stepped in now and kicked at the side of his body and he fell off balance. He landed on his back with his knife ready while I reached down and picked his closer foot up in the air. "I stab your leg and cut the artery. You die of blood loss. You probably know how to fight barbarians but you cannot fight an educated man. You let your anger rule you. The army of the gods would have this beat out of you as a recruit. You would do as you are told quicker and then you would get a chance to learn." The other Romans had their swords out but had not come too close. I flipped the knife in the air and used the pommel as if it were the blade to cut his artery then quickly backed up. "You are dying now. Now get up and take off your armour and weapons. I am going to put you on your ass again then I am going to do it slowly so you can learn." The man got up and thought. He quickly took off his clothes down to his shorts and shoes. I did the same thing but kept an eye on him. He came at me suddenly and I used some simple oriental techniques to get him on his back. "That was called Hane Goshi or Spring Hip Throw." The man was very angry and came at me again when I backed up. When he went down again I said, "That was Ippon Seoinage or One Arm Shoulder Throw." Come at me again and I will use the same thing again. The man was more than willing and came at me with a scream this time and I was just able to do the same throw because he was not wearing a gi. I used the Morote Seoinage, Two Arm Shoulder Throw and told him as much but when he got up this time he ran for his clothes and his weapons. It was his own friends that stopped him and they had to strike him with their fists. When the man was on the ground bleeding and a bit senseless I walked to the two men and said to them, "Thank you for doing what is right. Many men would have chosen a friend over the law." They were not too happy with me either. I added, "I am going back to the river to wash. When I come back I will have forgotten all of this." I picked up my clothes and knife and went back to the river. It was quicker to wash this time. My seat was a rough stool and Licinia said, "Why are you wet?" "I washed my clothes and I washed me. I was worried about being attacked by the women doing laundry but they didn't show up." She was about to retort then thought of the real type of attack and said nothing. After breakfast, Licinia called me to her for a private chat. I heard that you had a fight with one of the soldiers." "I only remember showing three soldiers how to make throws similar to those used in wrestling." "Don't let it happen again." "Then I will have to leave. I will have to demonstrate how to fight until everybody learns that I know what I am talking about. When they do learn then I will still have to fight but this will be to teach. Romans and Frisians do not think too much before assaulting. Your empire needs good troops and I need men I can depend upon. I can teach this but the learning takes an entire lifetime." "What did you fight about?" "I showed soldiers how to throw an opponent." "My people said one came back bloody." "He got carried away with the spirit of the competition and his friends had to remind him that it was only a demonstration." She gave me the eye and said, "All right." She reached in her pocket and pulled out a square of off white silk and handed it to me. I unfolded it and saw that it was a square of about a metre on a side. There was a short cut in the middle of it that had a brown stain. I assumed this to be blood since silk was almost impossible to rip. "This is very good for our project. Do you have another square without a cut? I can make something with it much sooner but we need a brisk wind to make it fly." "I have others. There is usually a good wind by the Rhine." "Is there an area of land that I can run into the wind?" "I think so." "Then we will build the second type first. This type will stay up for hours or as long as there is a good wind. Horatius Postuma was going to make one of these but he didn't have enough silk. If they are made large enough a man can ride on it." "So this can really work?" "You do not think much of my word, my lady." She was embarrassed now and went for the silk. This one was a bit larger but one side was a bit longer. Tertius was summoned and I said to Licinia once he arrived, "We need a very long cord and some thin wood similar to what would be used for a bow." Tertius was ordered to get the cord and then we walked out to one of the barns. There were some pieces of dry maple hanging in the rafters and I selected some and tested them for strength and suppleness. Tertius cut the pieces of wood for me then we both rubbed the ends to get them to be smooth. They were lashed together in the form of a cross and then the silk was stretched across the wood and the thin wooden strips bent just a bit. The silk was lashed to the wood securely. A piece of cord was tied on one side of the horizontal and then on the other. The long cord was then wound on a thick stick and the end was tied to the centre of the loop I had made. I made a tail of small sections of cotton rags instead of the more expensive silk. When it looked like we were done I said, "We need two horses, some room to run and some wind. Failing the wind we can use fast horses." The grooms provided the horses and soon had to do more because Iulius had to come and then more and more people. We made quite a procession towards the river and it took nearly half an hour to get there. I looked at the tops of the trees and saw the direction of the wind and chose the place to start. I whispered to Tertius, "I need someone to ride like the wind. Will you do this? This is your land and your honour." He did give me a partial smile and said, "I can do it." "Remember, when this device starts to climb into the sky you have to let out some of the cord but not too fast." "I can do that." Before the boy could start I said to everybody, "This is a test. If it does not work it is my fault. It will then have to be worked on and tested again." I held the kite and tail while Tertius got on his horse and brought the string taut. He started off fine but in ten metres I was not able to keep up. The kit went from one side to another but did start to climb. At a hundred metres it was level with the tops of the trees and in another hundred it was far above. He didn't know what to do at the tree line so he stayed on his horse with the spool of string in his hands. The kite though was two hundred metres above the tops of the trees when it had caught the brisk wind that came down the Rhine. There was a mad scramble to get to him and I was last because I had to get on the horse. There was no stirrups to help me. Tertius had a wide grin as he held the cord in both hands. When I got there I held his horse and said, "Get on the ground now." The boy did as ordered but didn't release the string. While everybody was looking up, I was looking at their glowing faces. It was only when the wind failed that the kite came back to earth but by then we had retreated so we could pull it to a safe landing. When it was secured by some of the soldiers I said to the family, "I would like the family coat of arms put on the kite. Is there someone that can do this without adding too much weight to the silk?" I got lots of offers but let Licinia do the choosing. I rode beside Tertius and he was flexing his hands because he wanted to hold the kite and not the soldiers. I said, "A man can fly on a much larger one. It does not have to be tied to the ground. He can fly free. Now he has to look for soil that has been turned over. This catches the heat from our star and makes the soil hot. The hot soil makes the air hot above it. Hot air is lighter and rises. With a kite or a sailplane in this air it will go up many miles." Licinia said, "Star? Don't you mean our sun?" "Our sun is a star. It is not cool like a red dwarf and not hot like a blue giant but one that is more in the middle." Tertius said defiantly, "Our sun is not a star. They are small and white." "They are far away and look small. The light we see is just filtered through all the air circling our globe." Tertius said, "It isn't flat?" "No, it is a sphere but around the middle it bulges just a bit more. We are pulled toward the centre of this globe. If we flew high enough to get above most of the air and we flew fast enough we would be balanced between being pulled to the globe and being thrown outward. We would float and feel that we were always falling." Tertius said, "How are we thrown out by going fast?" "I will show you when we get back to the house." "Tell me now." "I can show you and then you will see. My words are not as strong yet with you." Tertius objected until his mother told him to be quiet. She did say, "I would like to see this too." The kite was important to most of those riding but not to all. I got a wood bucket, the kind with a rope for a handle. "If I pick this bucket up this way the water will fall out will it not?" I said as I held the bucket near sideways but not completely. I got two nods and I then put some water in it then said, "I am going to spin and hold onto the bucket so it spins too. The bucket will tilt up but not all the way. It is too heavy for me. The water will not fall out." The bucket and I spun around and as soon as I could I pulled it just a bit higher then lowered it and stopped. Tertius said, "Let me try that." He did this too but stayed at it longer and got more dizzy. When he slowed down I moved close to him and held him up. In a moment he shrugged me off with a growl. I could see that his mother was exasperated with him. She said, "You're right. When something spins around it wants to go away from the centre. You said we are pulled down then at some place the two will be equal but in different directions." I smiled at her and said, "The land of the gods has a great many women holding responsible positions. Your work here is important but I think you would also make a wonderful teacher." Now she smiled at me. She looked at her son and said, "Do you admit that the kite flew?" "I had to hold the cord." "Did you use the cord to push the kite into the air?" It took a moment but he said weakly, "No." "Then it flew and you held it the first time anything has flown. You should be proud." The boy didn't answer so Licinia said, "You will help make the next device fly. I am raising the bet to a gold aureus if you will accept this Jón?" "That is good to hear because it is a sure thing that I will win. I have a stipulation though to add if that is acceptable?" "What is it?" "The model must go down river to the fort. I want you to see if your model will go further than Horatius'. The loser has to cook a meal for the winner." "Is that it?" "That is it. Competition has kept the Germans strong and it has done so to for the Romans. I want new competitions where the killing is less. I have tried sports too but now I would have to prepare a team of Germans to play the Romans." "Iulius told me about this. I wondered why you did it." "Part of it was to get them away from fighting. Another part is to get them thinking. A threat or a competition keeps people focussed on one particular subject. Hirtius and Livius want to fly in my aeroplane. They may be old men by the time it is built but I would like to see them gain their goal. This can only happen with a lot of people working hard toward a single dream." "Do you truly believe that we could fly?" "The laws of the universe are the same where the gods are. They fly many times. All we have to do is copy what they have shown me. It is up to me to interpret what was shown. They have not made this easy for me. I have forgotten much and now have to be reminded. "On a different topic, have you seen the toys the boys have brought back?" "I have only heard Iulius' words." "Then you should see the other things that fly." It was Tertius this time that said incredulously, "More?" The boys had to be found and they were with Licinia's youngest two girls. All four ran to recover their toys. They displayed their coordination by using the ball and cup time after time. The balls, bats and boomerangs had to be shown outside. During the time in the fort the boys had got fairly good when you consider their age. The boomerang had to be nearly pried from Tertius' grip before the boys got a few more turns to play with it. He would have continued except he saw the propeller that soared metres into the sky. The young boys had a fun time teaching Tertius and then they turned their attention to their two newest friends, Oppia and Salvia. Licinia said, "What about those things?" She was pointing at the two softballs along with the bats then the very heavy soccer ball. "I can show you but I have to ask a question. Are you a complete adult or is there a little bit of the girl still in you?" She had to think on this and said, "I guess there is some girl left." "Good." I yelled, "Boys, outfield." When the boys ran where I told them I went to Licinia and handed her a bat and showed her how to stand and then how to hold it. Tertius was put well back and I said, "I am going to toss this to you. I want you to catch it if you can. It takes practice to do it right. Your mother is going to try to hit the ball so it will not get to you." "Why should I do this?" "Your mother deserves a bit of fun. Your sisters are playing as well as your two newest brothers. This is mostly a family thing to do. Will you do it?" "Tell me again." In a while I had to tell Licinia again and lobbed the ball easily and she swung hard and missed." "I can't hit it." "At one time you could not walk but you can now." I tossed the ball again and it was not until the fifth pitch that she sent the ball to the younger children. She had a big smile on her face. She stayed to hit a few more then she traded places with Tertius. He actually tried so hard that he missed most of the time. "Just relax Tertius. There is no competition. It is family." "You are not family." "I would like to be." It took three more until he belted the ball far over the heads of the fielders and they all had to run for it. They threw the ball back but I had to walk a long way to pick it up. Their range needed to be improved a bit. Soon Hirtius and Livius then Oppia and Salvia had their turn. A bundle of three thin slats had been made at the camp and this was now used so there was no need for a pitcher and the ball was much easier to hit. I added that they had to run a short distance and back before they were touched by the ball. I had invented 'T' ball. Licinia and I were clumsy and none of the fly balls were caught. They laughed excitedly as this was done. There were a lot of spectators now and I got two teams made then set up the bases. There was more than enough room because they could neither hit nor throw far. There was also more than enough young children to pick from. Adults stood at the bases to tell the children when to run but most of them didn't know themselves. It looked like Little League with all the parents and adults that found time to see what was happening. One old man was standing beside Licinia and cheering on the children and laughing all the time. Lunch was late because the cooks were out watching the games. Everybody around the table now was much more animated. Many conversations were going on but we mainly listened to what the four youngest had to say about their victories and their failures. Part way through the meal I saw the oldest child of Lucius hold her jaw for a moment then go back to eating. Her name was Iulla. She was married to the man that sat beside her. Iulius saw this as well but just ignored it. The meal ended with most of the people happy and ready to get back to work. Iulius was chatting to when I came up and sat close to them as the table was cleaned by the staff. Licinia said with a smile, "Hello, Jón. What can I do for you?" "I think Iulla has something wrong with her teeth. I happen to know that there is much we could do if I had the materials." "Like what?" "I am talking generally not just this time." "Ok." "A man or woman who makes it their profession to treat people with bad teeth is called a dentist. Do you know of a man that does this?" Both shook their heads. "The dentist uses a drill to dig through the part of a tooth that is broken down. The portion underneath is rotting and cannot hold the shape of the tooth. When all of this is area is cleaned out then an mixture of quick silver, copper and a metal you do not know about yet called zinc. This goes into the tooth as a liquid but quickly hardens." Licinia said, "Does this cause a lot of pain?" "It can be done with little pain if we had a good drill." I looked at Iulius and said, "There is a substance that can burn if it is used incorrectly but can render a person unconscious. You could have an assistant administer this and then cut off both of the patients legs without pain. That is until he woke up. This is something the gods and I wish to give to the Roman people." The two looked at each other and Iulius said, "What is this called?" "There are a lot of different kinds and they are known as anaesthetics. This one is known as diethyl ether. It is a clear liquid like water. Usually a wire mask is put over a person's mouth and the liquid poured on the mask. In moments the person is asleep. More of the liquid has to be poured on but the patient is still allowed to get air." "Can you make this?" "Yes, I can but I need a great many small devices and tools." "What?" "Do you have any brimstone?" "No." Licinia shook her head no as well. I said, "We have to find some. Licinia, if you burn some brimstone an used and empty wine barrel, you will kill the yeast that is in the air and in the wood of the barrel so that it can be used once more to make wine even if the last batch turned to vinegar." She opened her mouth in wonder because I had to assume that getting new barrels was a major cost to her enterprise. There was now a need for a still. Wine had to be distilled to get ethyl alcohol. This reacted with the sulphuric acid I had to make in a lead lined container. The ether had to be distilled itself then to get it pure enough. Zinc was used to make bronze but nobody had discovered it yet. It boiled at a very low temperature and could then be precipitated. Copper and tin were already in the mix and I wondered if I could just use finely ground bronze and mercury or quick silver as it was known now. The amalgam I could experiment with but I would need glass for the still because I did not see getting that much copper to make the retort. I listed all my needs. Both adults were shocked not just at the articles but the quantities. Apparently copper was available but again it was expensive. "I do not know how much money you have that can be safely spent on copper but I have to tell you that I can make it back by processing your wine that is going bad or wine that is not suitable to be sold." Licinia asked, "What are you going to do with it?" "Wine has a chemical in it called 'ethyl alcohol'." This I said in English. There are many types of 'alcohol' but this is the only one that is not poisonous. This is stored in new oak barrels for years. The older it gets the better it tastes. It is so strong that when it is swallowed in small sips it burns the throat and warms the stomach." "Who would want to drink this?" "It will sell and if you keep it a secret then only the three of us will know." "Why do we need this?" "To sell and make money and I need some so that I can make ether with it." Iulius said, "And the lead? I hope you know that it is poisonous?" Licinia said, "It is not. We put it in some wine." I said, "You are poisoning your customers." She looked at me and I think she was hoping to see that I was joking. I said, "I need to make oil of vitriol. This too has to be kept secret. You write your notes about what I have said but this has to be kept out of them. When Lucius arrives, we will tell him to his face." Iulius asked, "Why, this substance can be found in many places?" "They do not even know what it is. They make it through trial and error and then just repeat what they did to get this substance." "What is wrong with that?" "If you were a blind man and took ten years to find the Rhine from here then you could do it again and again. If I put a rope directly to there, you could make the trip in a few hours." "I will not put that into my book, nor the way of making this strong wine." I said, "We are missing an important point here." Both looked for clarification. "My aim is to educate the Romans and the rest of the world. We can start a school of medicine. The information I have told you has to be told to others. They have to learn more than just what a surgeon does. Repairing teeth is another worthy occupation. Once they know what to do they will reduce the amount of pain without pulling teeth that could be repaired. While we are at it, we can talk about helping animals. Horses can be helped and so can other prized animals." Licinia looked between us then said to Iulius, "Does he teach you medicine?" Iulius didn't look happy but said, "What he says is different than I have been taught. Some things seem correct but others need more study." She looked at me again the said, "This came from your god, Woden?" "It may have because I have not been able to ask." ------- Chapter 4 We talked for quite a while. Licinia wanted privacy and people stayed away. The two didn't have enough silver to swing much in the way of starting a business. I said, "Here is the way I see that we can make money. I mentioned that fish is expensive. Is this true here?" Licinia answered and said, "Yes, hunting is easy but catching enough fish is much more difficult." "You have made nets before but I can show a trick that will allow you to make nets much quicker. The longer it is a secret the longer you will make money." I went on to show them the simple wood tool that was used to store the spool of twine that was used to make the net. The size of the wood determined the holes in the net. With just a metre of loose cord a net could be made much more quickly. Iulius said, "We can make boats for the river patrols. You said your tools will make the job much faster. That is if you want to help the Roman army." "The Roman army keeps the peace and this I want. I just do not like the ways it does things sometimes." Licinia said, "Cannot we make some of this fortified wine you were talking about. We do not need a lot of copper to start. We can offer it for a high price after we give the customers a taste." I said, "That is probably the best idea. It will take weeks to make a large net. Then we have to make long tables to clean the fish. Drying and salting is good with the salt so close. The boats would have to be made after we get the mill running. Now we have to use all the wood to just make the mill. Stone has to be quarried then put in place. Some of this has to be done before the harvest requires all available hands." With a great deal of soul searching I said, "There is something else we can make that will gain us a lot of silver. The Roman army would like steel armour. I have mentioned how it can be made but they are slow to start. We can make a steel cuirass and sell it for ten to twenty aureii." Both people had their mouths open and finally Licinia said, "Who could afford that? Nobody would pay that amount." "The army has officers that value their lives highly. They are paid more than the one aureus that the common soldier gets per month. They will pay very quickly too. I will make sure that the German symbol is put over each heart to let them know how I value their lives." I now had a fight on my hands and had to alter this by putting the letters 'SPQR' for "Senatus Populusque Romanus' near the German eagle. All this required wood, charcoal and of course iron ore. Tertius was called in and he looked at us and I think he shivered. Licinia said, "Tomorrow you are going to look for iron. Iulius will be in charge. Six of the soldiers will go as will Jón. I can afford to send three dozen men to help you look and refine the iron. You will gather the iron in great quantities. You will not come back for at least three weeks. You will hunt for food and we will send food to you. It is about time you learned what it is to be a soldier." "Mother, there is so much work I have to do here." "Your labours will be much more appreciated bringing back iron." "But why?" "The most important is that you learn to make the finest armour possible. The second is that you have to make this armour for our army." "Mother, my horse is ready to foal." "You will not be here to see it or to assist. This is important to our family." "Mother..." "You are going. There is no alternative." Tertius was upset and turned abruptly and left the room. Licinia said by way of explanation, "Lucius has treated Tertius much too easily because the child before him was a boy and he died one year before Tertius was born. Lucius was afraid I would die too." We had a busy afternoon organising the expedition. The guards that were the most sympathetic were the ones going. The labourers didn't like it either but knew when to obey. Tools were available but most of them were made completely of wood and they were not efficient. The women left behind would not be idle because they would be collecting all the wood they could get and making charcoal with it. Lucius had treated his veterans well too and some of them could make pottery. They now were put to use collecting clay for the pots and lids. The next morning I was up early but I found that Iulius was too. He had my two swords, scabbards, bow, quiver, armour and even my saddle. The clothes that were in my saddle bags smelled musty but they had not deteriorated much. They were the two camo suits. Behind the saddle were my boots. Some small things were missing like the knives, gold and other keepsakes I had been collecting. He said, "Your horse was one of the many killed. I was not told to give you these and frankly we never thought you would recover. My patron may consider this as part of his booty because he had lead part of the attack." I said, "This takes a lot of trust on your part. I will let you know again that I have no wish to fight Rome by killing people. I want a strong Rome that can defend itself and even the rest of us if necessary." "I know that. Take your things but I would put them in a pack so that the soldiers do not get upset." "I am afraid they will get upset. I am going to teach them to be real soldiers. They are going through what I will call 'boot camp'." "What is that?" "It is also called hell." Some of us had an early breakfast and I made a pig of myself. After this, food would be harder to get. Tertius was slow though he had been awoken early enough. He was just showing his displeasure. There were a great deal of pack horses and a lot of carts had been added to carry tents, tools and supplies. The labourers were all walking. The soldiers were very apprehensive when I threw a saddle on a horse and cinched it up. They were even more worried when I put the scabbard and Katana in the area reserved for it. The muttering got very loud and I let Iulius deal with this. Iulius' voice got very loud and he started to repeat the words he was told by his patron. Since the soldiers served Lucius too they had to obey. When Iulius called me over I was ready. He said, "I have told the men of our arrangement. They are going to learn of your techniques. You are now formally in charge of these men." "Thank you, Sir. I am sure my men will obey all orders given them. Lucius did not make a habit of keeping foolish or stupid men." Some of the soldiers bristled at this and I calmly put my hand on the end of my sword and said, "Do any of you gentlemen have anything to say?" My voice was low and calm but none of them spoke up. "Then that is good. Manlius and Plautius take point. Atrius and Sicinius take the tail. Helvius and Curtius will take left and right flanks. You will shut up and listen for hostiles. Remember it was only a few days ago that we were attacked. Our job is to protect those of our convoy." All I had to do was look at those riding point and they hurried off. The labourers didn't know what to think but I got them moving quicker than they normally would. Licinia and her family were nearby to see us off. Two little boys waved very hard and I smiled at them. We scoured the land owned by Lucius but also continued further from the rivers because this area had not been sold yet by the Roman government that claimed it. Lucius had an area two Roman miles wide along the Rhine and twenty miles long. The small river was entirely on his land. I found quite a few areas suitable for a mill and some were very good. We stopped often and dug exploratory holes to see what was pushing its way out of the earth. Mostly it was rocks and more dirt but we had to find something once in a while. The first night I had a stockade built but the labourers helped. I hunted and brought back a stag. While this was being butchered I got the surly soldiers lined up and said, "I am going to talk to you now the way I really am. I am not too nasty except when people do things that are very wrong. Those I usually kill." The soldiers stood straighter now. "A man only has to be told once or perhaps twice and he should then know what is right or wrong. You gentlemen are not raw recruits so there is a bit of learning you have to forget before you can start. This may take a bit longer. "Now I want to say that I do not hate Rome or its soldiers though you may hate me worse than any sore ass you have ever had. I am doing this because it is just a good way of learning. I would be surprised if your superiors didn't yell at you when you were in training. "My goal is to train you to fight a better trained enemy. Three weeks is not enough to even start this training but you can learn something. I want to see how good each of you are at woodcraft. We will have armed and unarmed training. I am going to get hurt but I am afraid all of you are too. "We are going to find iron. The iron we get will go to the manufacture of armour. This armour will get sold to the officers of the Roman Army at twenty aurii per cuirass. Each of you will get a set too. That is not bad for three weeks of putting up with me but I am going to teach each of you to make your own armour." The men's faces smiled then frowned at the last point. "You do not know how to make steel and I will show you. You do not know how to make armour but I will show you. There are many facts to learn and I have some too, even with the gods helping me. They do not make it easy and I have to feel my way like a blind man sometimes. "Now all of you, take off your armour and weapons. We are going to wrestle like you have never seen before." We cleaned up the area and those working on the carcass looked at us when they could. We began by me stating why the Romans had to learn how to fight with their hands. I could see that most of them were smiling so I had to assume they already knew something and were ready to spring it on me. I went over some points in karate and judo but didn't go far and overload them. On the way here I had taken a piss break and gathered some reeds then wrapped them into small bundles. These would be my swords and knives. "I want Plautius to come at me. I am an enemy that has just dropped my sword in battle and so has he. You want to subdue me not kill me." Plautius grinned at this and I said, "Are you ready?" "Yes," "That is yes, Sir for a recruit." He looked a bit flustered and I had to ask again. "Are you ready, recruit?" "Yes, Sir." "Then subdue me." Plautius rushed in and I had him on his back in seconds and I brought the edge of my hand down quickly and stopped it just above his throat. He looked a bit flustered again and I got up. As a way of compensating I offered him my hand. He of course used it to pull me off my feet on the pretext of getting up but I accepted this. Plautius was asked to do the same move again but do it very slow. This was hard to understand and I talked him through it. I wasn't able to throw him because I was moving too slow and not able to use his momentum. This was done three times until he knew what to expect. He came at me again and I still managed to throw him to the ground. This time I was not pulled on top of him and he asked, "Why did I fall?" "You are new to this type of fighting. There are many small movements that will help to throw you easier. Sometimes it may mean I hit you with my hip harder. Or I twist your arm just a bit more. What I am teaching takes a lifetime to learn very well and then takes constant practice as you would with a sword to keep your skills sharp. Now take my place and I am going to be you and you will be me. We will go slow and try to do the same things I did." I did this three times in slow motion and on the forth I found that I was on the ground. Plautius had a big smile and extended his hand. I tried to pull him down but it was like trying to move a tree. He smiled even wider. The other five were treated the same but I used different throws. I then had to go into why I chose them. Each of the men were thrown to the ground twice and I stayed with them until they managed to get me there once. With my reed knife I came on Curtius as if I was new to fighting. He was fair at disarming me. When we traded places he thought I was easy meat but found the knife driven into his sternum. It hurt a little but it took the cockiness from him very quickly. "You were too sure of yourself and this lead to your defeat. You also can't think that every opponent is going to be the equal of your most difficult adversary." We did the attack in slow motion again and he saw how I got control of his knife and used it against him. When we broke for our meal, Curtius was the only one to be stabbed because the rest were very wary. While eating I said, "Tomorrow at noon I am going to show you a few moves using a sword. Your short sword is great when you use the turtle to get in close but a longer sword is good from horseback. I am going to change the Roman army. Your fat butts will ride horses now like the rich Romans." They didn't mind the slur and even smiled at this prospect. Tertius had been watching all this intently but I had not called on him yet. We had camped near water so I cleaned myself and demanded that my troops did the same thing. They had used soap before but were used to the olive oil and they were hardly dirty enough to warrant a real cleaning yet in their minds. Over the fire I talked of camp hygiene. They were familiar with this but I explained why it was so with much more detail. This brought me to medicine in general and I talked into the night about what each of our organs did in the detail I knew which wasn't that much. The next morning I thought of introducing reveille. In its place I had the men stand at attention then had to say, "Tertius, you are one of us. Come stand beside the men." He didn't like this but did as I asked. I then went through the duties of each man and put Tertius on point so he could be taught. We stopped many times to dig and four of the men took sentry duties while the rest of us dug into the soil. I did my share while Iulius and I added detail to the charts we were making. A very long running mineralogy course was started but that meant that I had to talk about elements first. As usual most thought everything was made of earth, air, fire or water. I said to Tertius, "I want you to dress up in a suit to show the rest of us how valuable camouflage is." "I don't want to do it." "Well, you are in my army now whether you like it or not. You are a new recruit and I will give you a chance. The penalties for disobedience can be flogging or worse." The boy's face fell. "I am not joking with you. You will remember a flogging for the rest of your life. You will hate me with a passion but you will learn to obey. "Now I want you to take your clothes off and put this odd looking suit on. We will go into the trees and you will hide. The men will come looking for you and then you can have fun with them." With no more words Tertius removed his clothes and I helped him get into his new duds. I showed the troops, Iulius and the labourers what it looked like. They were not impressed. Tertius and I walked through the trees and I said, "You may think this is silly but it is important. Your life and those of your team mates may depend on how well you blend into your surroundings." I got no reply. In a few more minutes I found a good place for him to stand and I left to cut branches from other areas and brought them back. Tertius was dressed in some small branches and leaves then he lay on the ground and I added a few more. "If you move you will be seen. I have some pebbles. If you think it wise you can flick a pebble with your finger to distract the team sent to find you. You may be even able to hit one of them. Your arm moving will be seen if you are not careful." Again there was no reply so I ignored him. In moments the troops were scouring a wide area looking for their prey. Stones were heard falling and the troops shifted. Two of the men found that they were hit by pebbles and it took nearly five more minutes to find Tertius. Tertius on the ground was much harder to see than Tertius standing. I got the boy to talk and he mentioned how they walked right by him. He seemed to think better of this since he came out on top. Tertius was taken by Iulius and two of the men to hide and four were sent to find him. This way they learned from both sides of the coin. The old doctor had to have his turn finding and he was not as good probably with his limited eyesight. The next day, we found the iron Licinia had mentioned. The area was an open pit. We set up camp again with the usual palisade. More trees were cut down for conversion to charcoal. This was the first of six days of hard work. The soldiers worked too and sentry duty was a preferred duty. We stockpiled the iron ore while the charcoal was being produced. The soldiers and a few of the others went out to hunt to bring back meat and hides. We were brought supplies and eventually word came that there were a group of tribesman wanting to see me. I put Atrius in charge of the men but Iulius was still in overall command. I hurried back to the house to see what I could do with the new arrivals. The soldiers and guards were near the group when I arrived. I think the villagers were very happy to see me. When I dismounted I wore a smile and extended my right hand. Holti, the leader, was quick to shake my hand. He said, "I am glad to see you, milord." "I am glad to see you to, Holti. It takes a lot of courage to come here and I want to tell you that will not be for nothing. Will you introduce me to the men and then have them introduce me to everyone down to the infants." He gave me a funny look and I gladhanded everybody that would take my hand. I felt like a politician fishing for votes but in a way I guess I was. When everybody was comfortable, I introduced the soldiers and guards as if they were friends. Licinia and her family had come out and now they were introduced. "This is the lady that will be sheltering you. We are starting something new here. Each of you will learn something very valuable to do. It will make you wealthy." I had to translate that into Latin for those that didn't understand German. The soldiers faded back and we got a small settlement made to temporarily house the newcomers. Over a meal where we all ate with the farmhands, I got the newcomers to talk about themselves. Most of the people present understood German but I still had to translate for Licinia and some of her family. This helped my grasp of Latin. After the meal Licinia took the women and their children to her stockpile of used but serviceable clothes and gave them out as a gift. She had known that they were coming and had them all mended by the time they had arrived. The men were given jobs of clearing the land and harvesting the trees and separating the stone. Usually we dug around a tree and cut the roots. A boy would climb the tree and tie a rope up high. Horses were then used to pull the tree out by the roots. We could cut the tree low then dig around it so we could have a fire that would burn some of the stump but this was not a good idea if we were going to plough. With Licinia happy with the way they were settled in, I talked to Holti. "I am gathering iron to make my steel. Some of your men say that they can fashion iron. If they can then they will be rich. We are making armour for sale. We can charge a lot of money just because it is so strong. Some of your men are good at fashioning wood. I will show them how to become wealthy too." "I think they will like that. They also like the new huts we will be getting." "We are forming a partnership. Your people have to learn some new tasks then they get to make silver for them and your patron. They will take care of you and you will take care of them. This is the same as what was here before but now I am making everybody richer so everybody can have better homes, food and health." I left for the mine with three of the younger men so they could see what was happening. It was only seven Roman miles away but the route was winding. On the way to the mine I chatted with the three young men and told them more about our operation. They were a little rough around the edges and didn't know how to treat me. They had probably been told by Holti but he would have reason to minimise his own embarrassment at being taken captive. When we got close to the mine the three young men were very surprised to be threatened by two Roman soldiers and Tertius. I hid my smile and so did the Romans and I officially introduced the three newcomers. The supplies we brought and the three men were taken away. There was not much work we could do today. The men had built a crude forge and it now had a large bellows with some cured leather. Tomorrow they would be putting a roof on it to keep out the rain but more importantly to keep out the light so that the temperature of the metal could be judged by the colour it produced when heated. It would be years until we made devices to monitor the temperature. Two days later we had enough supplies to start making iron. When I saw how things were going, I could construct a cupola to produce pig iron but I was not sure if the amount of iron here warranted this construction. In the mean time I could do a half measure and make a device that would make a large bloom provided that there was enough air and fuel used to keep it hot enough. We shifted our focus now to making fuel. With the threat of rain I just harvested more trees. Clay had been found and some of this was already in jar form but I also had clay pipes constructed for a test. Two weeks after we started out, a fire was constructed in my mini cupola with wood for fuel. The clay lining had already been fired but I was not sure how well it would stand up to the heat. When the fuel was stacked as high as it would go we waited until it was burning well then threw in charcoal and iron ore. The bellows were worked hard and I had to have more people put on them. It took eight hours of work and I showed everybody the molten iron that had ran out of the bottom of the cupola. A clay mould was put in place to collect some. This was just a gear but it was easier to cast than to machine from steel. We cast hammer heads because they were small enough and if the cupola were bigger I would cast anvils that would get clad in steel eventually. At a guess, I had to cupola opened and everything came pouring out including the slag. Our tools were not good for moving this because they would just burn. We did have a large mass of iron though and this was cut up and work begun on it to knock out the slag. The shovels had been soaked in water and were now used to shovel away the rest of the hot material. As soon as possible a new hatch was put in place and the cupola recharged. We did not stop for darkness and some people had to work through the night. We now had three shifts and I made sure I had the night shift because men tended to ignore their jobs if there was no supervision. The iron was baked in charcoal and then hammered to mix the carbon. As with the apprentices the men made small knives. I made chisels and other tools for the forge and for drilling rock. The anvil we had was small and I used it to make a much larger one. This allowed me to make larger ones in turn. With a lot of men eventually working on iron and steel we would need a lot of them. Tertius made a knife of his own then a larger one for his father. I stayed with him as he made these two projects. I wanted them to be made as good as possible. Tertius also went with me when I went hunting. He did take a deer but he was not a good shot and we had to chase the animal a few miles until it bled to death. I was helping him drag the carcass back on some poles when he said, "Why are you helping me? I did not ask this." "I want your father to be proud of you. In my opinion you were sheltered too much. You are more suited to studying. You just need to get both to make you a well rounded person. A curious mind with nothing to read is a waste. Though you do not need to read to learn, it is necessary to understand other people's work and then add to it. "This is very good for your father. You will preside over the farm or one just like it. What you are learning with me will help you survive when times get rough." "Rough?" "Rome keeps the peace even if it is their peace. Eventually one German, Pict or some other people's tribe will come through this area and destroy everything you have made. You are going to stand up to them with your neighbours and protect your farms." "You are German." "Yes I am. I like law and order but I want it fair. The Romans need to be steered to do what is right. In the process, I hope to give them a new way of looking at the world. They would then be like a new race as they were when Rome was new." We made axes and saws that helped clear land. The good trees were left standing for later harvesting. The chisels were used to make files which in turn were used to make sharper saws. More than seven weeks had gone by since we started. We did not go back and Tertius didn't seem as adamant to go. We made two more large bellows and extended the cupola half again as high. We got a lot more iron to cast which went into plough shears. Everybody had a chance to build candlesticks but wax to burn now was expensive. The soldiers got calvary swords which they were inordinately proud of. When enough steel was made we started on making armour. I was not going for a full set but just the cuirass which would only cover the chest and back. Sicinius trusted me the most and I had him put his new sword point through his old armour. I could see the pain in his face and so could the rest of us. When he tried the same thing in a sample piece of steel the face changed remarkably. Others tried to make a hole in the steel with their old swords and the new but it didn't happen. I was going to repair his bronze armour when he said, "Leave it. They can see my old armour and then my new." Armour was a time consuming thing to make but with some leather templates it was made much quicker. The finish though was much better and this would take a very long time to complete. In the meantime, it could still be worn while on patrol. Tertius made armour too but I knew that soon he would outgrow it. I was satisfied with my own and worked only to repair the damage to the helmet and the backplate from the exploding caisson. There was a lot of very minor damage to the armour and I didn't even attempt to clean this up. The people seeing me wearing this would know I was in a scrap or two and perhaps not want to try me. My boots and saddle were inspected on the first day but nobody attempted to copy them. There was just too many other things to do. The molten iron had allowed me to make various sizes of shoe lasts. When people did decide to make boots then somebody would be far ahead of the competition with these. Those men that thought themselves smiths made hand saws and then two-man saws of various lengths. I had a rough idea what was needed for the mill but it was best to wait and make the correct size. We got some additional help one day when five of Holti's people came. Three were men and two were women. They were escaped slaves and could not be at the house where somebody might notice. The two women though were married but the rest of the men had been without for too long and I had to get them out of the camp. Half of our men went home for five days leave and when they would come back then the other half would get their chance. I found that I was not immune to the effects of women. My equipment was growing and my interest was strictly mental at the moment. I still had dreams of Nora as well as Dagmar and Astrid. I hope all of them were doing well. I knew that with the cannon in Hildestun, the Picts or the Romans would not get too close. The way I was pushing to get my body back to the way it was I figured it would be six weeks for my genitals and perhaps only a week more for my muscles. My teeth didn't grow as fast but they were growing. My hair was cut so that it was now all platinum blonde. It grew at a fantastic rate so it still looked good. Through some mechanism I did not understand, I was able to increase my reflexes to where they were better than when I won in the Olympics. I wanted new bodies and minds at the mine/foundry because there was still much to learn. Some of the men were just as interested in showing off their ploughs and other tools as they were to see their wives. When we were at half strength we found we had visitors one morning. A band of Alemmani was coming through a trail that cut across the property. I counted sixty eight men but more must have been guarding the flanks. They had their families with them and the usual family was of ten members. Our men were all within our walls and ready to fight. They had armour and swords that they wanted to test out. With this many men in armour I did not close the gates but everybody was ready for battle. Five men on horses sauntered to the palisades and walked around slowly to the gate. The leader was a large man. He wore a wide cape and breaches of seal skin. Their swords were still sheathed so I walked out the gate armed with both swords and in full armour. My helmet was in my arm ready to put on if needed. The tall man said, "What is this place?" "It is a place we bring iron from the ground." "Your armour is different. It covers your whole body. Are you afraid of being in a battle?" There was a lot of laughter in the camp and then more when the Romans heard the words. "The marks on my armour were honestly made. My armour is the best in the world and so are my weapons." "Many men claim this and even some boys." "That may be but I can back it up if you wish to trade. A cuirass is sold to the Romans for twenty aurii. Our swords for thirty." "That is a lot of gold. Tell me about your armour." "It is steel not iron though it is mostly that substance. I will have a breast plate brought out and you can see with your own eyes what an iron sword can and cannot do to it." "Bring it out. I would like to see." "What is your name and what are your people?" "My name is Hagen and my people are great warriors called the Alemmani." I think he wanted to see me shake but I did nothing. "Have you heard of us?" "Yes I have. You are strong and brave and bested the Roman Legions. They in turn destroyed most of your people." The man paused to think. I also think he was trying to see if I was mocking him. I turned and called into the camp, "Bring out my last breast plate." Curtius was the one to bring it and he stood beside me itching to fight. Hagen said, "I see there are Romans here. I can see that you are not one of those. Who are you?" "My name is Jón and I am a Frisian. I am the only one of my race here." "How did you come to be with the Romans. I had heard that your people were at war with them." "I came here alone to capture all of Germania Inferior and then take Germania Superior before I march on Rome. I have two adopted brothers three and five that will help me." Hagen smiled and said, "Quite an undertaking. Are you not going to gather an army?" "There is only one empire and one of me. It is an even fight that way." Hagen really smiled now and said, "Perhaps you did gather those marks on your armour honourably. Now how do you want me to test this armour?" "You get off your horse and use two hands to strike the armour. Remember that a man has padding and moves while the earth is hard and moves little." Hagen dismounted and so did the other four. When the man stood in front of me I saw how large he really was. He took out his great big sword and held the hilt in two hands with the point down and over the breast plate. He stabbed down very hard and without warning but the sword slid off the curved piece and the tip buried it self into the ground. Instead of trying again he crouched and felt the shallow groove that his weapon had made in the metal. From a crouching position he asked, "I would like to try again." I used a hand gesture and he nodded. The sword was held more centrally over the armour and he pushed down even harder. The tip slid then caught in a depression but even with more pushing the armour did not buckle or puncture. Hagen looked at me and said, "Has this been magicked?" "No, it was made by the hands of men but the secrets were told to me by the gods." "Gods?" "Have you heard of Jón, son of Clovis, King of the Frisian nation?" Now the man did stand up straight. "I had heard that you were killed by the Gauls." "They used a hot sword to burn my body. Then knocked out my teeth. They not only cut most of my cock but also my testicles. My leg was broken and my face was so damaged that my mother would not recognise me. "My god spoke to me when I was hurt and slept for half of a year. I learned much. When I was healed, I made what the gods commanded to be made. When I used my weapons, thousand of my enemies were slain. "One kind Roman took me in so that I could die in piece or live as a witless child until my end came. On the way to this place my gods healed me to what I have now and in doing so changed the colour of my hair to silver." "Who else knows of this?" "There are three Romans in the camp now that saw me as a mindless animal. One is the personal physician to Lucius. He fed and cleaned me until I was able to talk then he was there to listen to the words that were spoken to me. "The gods have seen favour in me to allow me to make that which will fly through the sky. They said that we have to put an effort in and we can find out more of this secret so that all men can climb into a metal box and fly through the heavens." "What else has the gods told you?" "They gave me the secret of the weapons that kill my enemies many miles away. I do not like killing but I have to say that I have killed many thousands of men in just one day. This weights heavily on me but I have to believe that this task was placed on me." "You were the one to kill all those Picts and Romans?" "A dozen children did this with me. Men stood guard some of the time and then gave up their lives later to save us." "This I had heard. This has to be the work of the gods." "The gods have come forward now because they want change. We are coming to a time when we will fall back for a thousand years before we grow again. Rome has to stay and remain strong but also abandon slavery and wars of conquest. I know that the Alemmani and all other German tribes have to change too." "We are good the way we are." "We may think so but the gods want us to change. We will no longer keep slaves but this has to stop slowly or the slaves will not know what to do. We fight each other to keep strong but we kill too many because there is so many of us. The gods have shown me how we can all live longer. Our farms will be more productive and life can be easier with the use of tools I know how to make. This means that we can be happy in our old age with less children to feed or take care of us." I had to rephrase this again because the Alemmani chieftain didn't understand and I didn't want him to think there would be no fighting because this was deeply ingrained into the German culture. The Frisians were not much different but at least Clovis had made a start. Hagen said, "Do you still sell this good wrought iron?" "I do. Though it is used for war, I know that we will have to take years to see differently and change to other battles that do not need swords." "What battles?" "There are too many to name them all. We fight each other in sports. But we do even more to take what the gods have given us and make them grow. Each one of those battles allows us to learn more. This knowledge is shared by everybody and our children will be like the Greek tutors." "The Greeks are weak." "Like those of Sparta or Alexander of Macedon?" "They were different." "So will our children. Do not say weak when a man may stand up to his enemies and kill even more than I did in a day." It took a while longer before we got down to bargaining for the armour. A full set had to be brought out. The only set that would fit Hagen was not made by me. My customer tried it on and smiled at the fit. There were few places for an arrow or a sword to strike his body where the armour protected. If he believed that I was a messenger of the gods or not didn't restrict him from thinking I would nearly give the armour away. "What is this symbol here?" he asked. "One symbol is of all the German people including your people. The other symbol is of Rome. The two of us will be very strong. One day the Parthians, the Indians and the Orientals will be added." "I have only heard of the Parthians." "They live to the east of us." He nodded the asked, "Do you have a sword worthy of this armour?" "We do but you will think it weak and small until you try it." Thirty seven swords were brought out by some frightened miners and Hagen looked through them until he made a choice. "I will give you ten Aurii for the armour and this sword." "The total is thirty. I will take no less. I will trade for copper, brass and bronze. Silver coins will work too but we go by weight." "Thirty! That is too much." "How much is your life worth?" He thought a moment then said, "I will trade." The men with him were given orders and they hurried away. A great mass of trade items came to me. When it was before me I sorted it into two piles. One that I would accept and one I would not. There was a small pile of armour that had been taken in combat and a few damaged bronze swords. Hagen saw what I didn't want and called for more of what I would like. I said, "I need cured leather, silk, other types of cloth and horses. If you have jewels I will look at them but I do not want glass." More items were brought out and I saw that there was a lot of profit I could make here. I sent one of the men back to get a selection of our steel tools. When the tools came out the person that made them had to show how they were better than any tool before. Hagen had to check each one. Most were related to wood and we walked through his people to get to some of the trees we were ready to cut. The axes worked great and he saw that they kept an edge. He used the two-man saw with some of his people until the tree fell. The ax limbed the tree quickly then the saw was used lengthwise at my suggestion. The saw was used frantically by men wanting to show off. When the first piece came off I got them to cut another while Hagen was shown what our tools did to the freshly cut wood. "These tools are magical." "They do look that way. You sharpen with a hammer now but these tools need you to rub them on a hard flat stone instead. The metal is too hard now to do otherwise." Again he nodded then said, "I want all of these tools too." I looked at the tools and thought of a fair price. "I will take thirty aurii for the armour and sword as I said but here I will give you a better deal. I will take sixteen aurii in value but then we can talk about what you can sell me that is of this value." Hagen said with a smile, "You are in my camp now and my men are all around you." "Yes that is true. Do you happen to know anybody besides me that has killed so many man that they have lost count?" He did some thinking and said, "I meant to invite you to a meal with us." "Then I am sorry for being rude. I will accept. The tools were brought back to the bargaining site and more of our products came out. Hagen wanted these too. The armour and sword was dealt with first. I got seventeen aurii and the rest in various denominations of coins from a wide range of time periods and empires. The new total for the tools was mentioned and then I dickered with him for the value of his copper based products. We came to a figure but it was still short of what was needed and then we worked on leather. There was very little in the way of jewels but I got what I thought was a small emerald. There was still a shortfall of six aurii. There was nothing more except some old iron weapons. I explained that I could make iron easily and offered to show him and a few of his men how much we had. Hagen went into our stockade and saw the raw billets of iron thrown to one side then the hammers and anvils along with all the armour and weapons. "You have more iron here than I could ever imagine." "I can still buy your iron but it is of not much value. It is best for you to find others that will pay you more. I do have another idea though." "What is that?" "Your men did a good job of cutting the tree on the side. If they cut down three trees of my choice and then cut sixteen times down the logs I will take your broken iron and make good iron swords with it. Our iron will be better than what you have because we will work the impurities out of it." He looked at the pile and said, "I will do that." Hagen and I shook on this for the second time and I said, "Now what else do you have to trade?" Before we walked out the iron was being processed to make it into simple iron weapons. Hagen and I pointed out trees and his men started to work on them. Horses were costly to acquire but a denarius was the usual price. I had learned more about horses but I called on people that knew them all their lives. With five aurii to go we both tried to think of something that would work. Hagen suddenly smiled and called one of his men over and gave him instructions. Fifteen people came running to us over the next few minutes and it took a while to understand. Hagen said, "These are all slaves. I have many more but these are the best I own." I looked at each as I had the horses and even had them open their mouths so I could check their teeth. I didn't like dealing in humans especially after I said I would abolish slavery. To get them though would require that I did not see them as very valuable property. Otherwise my bargaining position would be hurt. There were three young men. One was strong and one looked both sickly and weak. "How much will a Roman in this area pay for these?" "At least ten aurii." The next I grouped in my mind. They were seven young women. The oldest looked to be seventeen but the next oldest was perhaps thirteen. The youngest looked to be about ten. I was excited about these but most of it was from my memories of women rather than hormones demanding it of me. "What would a Roman in this area pay for these?" "I would get sixty aurii easily." The next group were five boys. They ranged in ages from fourteen to ten. Two reminded me of Forni. I had loved the boy and not exactly as a friend or a father but it had a mixture of lover thrown in. This could not happen now or at least not until they would be safe. That time sadly may never come in our lifetimes. I simply pointed to these and Hagen said, "Ten." I went back to the women and asked three of them, "Do you have children living in this camp?" Two nodded and told me about them. I turned to Hagen and said, "I do not like to break up families. Are the infants accepted as family or slaves by those that watch them?" Hagen pointed to the oldest girl and said, "Her child is sickly. The family would like to see it go. He pointed to the third oldest and said, "This one just had a girl child." "How much for them?" "One aureus... each." I said, "Some are sick and will die soon. I was a man before the Picts chopped me. The gods are taking their time about repairing me. My teeth and testicles are slow in forming. I do not need any company in bed. I will offer you thirty aurii in my steel products. Some you have not seen yet." "Show them to me." Back in our stockade, I showed Hagen a lot of nails, needles, pins and awls. I then showed him what the nails and awl were for. Now it was Hagen's turn to ask the prices and for how many of each. Another box had the fishing hooks and Hagen inspected the barbs and I explained the reasoning for them. The farm implements were investigated but he was not interested. He did get an account of what they were for and how they were used. He was then showed some of the knives like my k-bar and some daggers. These all had good handles and great blades. I proved it by Hagen stabbing a pole far above my head. I jumped and with one hand was supported by a knife. I then climbed one after the other with my hands. He was impressed. He looked around again then chose articles and put them to one side. I looked through them and they looked to be fifty seven aurii in value. "You want eighty two aurii for your slaves. They are worth a lot less. The prices I asked for my steel is fair. I can buy slaves anywhere but my steel is only available from me." Hagen took some knives out of his pile until it was forty two. I went over and removed more knives from his pile until I was valued at thirty then called for some soft leather. I took these knives and wrapped them in a nice piece of leather. I pointed to the remaining pile and said, "This is what I offer to complete all of our trades." The man looked a bit angry but nodded his head. He said, "It is done." "No it is not." Hagen looked at me and I gave him the leather wrapped knives. "This is a gift from me to you because of friendship." He did more thinking and then smiled and extended his hand. We shook with more force to show that we meant it. When we left the fort, Hagen called his men to take his things away and passed on the bundle. "I think we both have made good deals. What are you going to do with slaves now?" "I will free them. They now have to work to pay me back for the loan." "What of the youngest?" "I do not like mothers to worry. I also want to talk to your people. I want any relatives to know that those that I bought will be treated with kindness." "Then you can do that at our meal." I talked to the slaves next and then told them my deal. They were shocked at this and some started to cry. Some because they were getting into a strange situation but some of it was a relief I hoped. When Hagen left to check his new possessions, I talked to some of my group that were nearby. I said quietly, "The slaves belonged to me. I freed them. They are going to be my children. Some are old enough to make their own decisions in a month or so but most are not. If the women are molested I will be very angry. Do I make myself clear?" I got a lot of head nods so I said, "Good, now please tell the rest. In a while you can go home and see your own families. I do not want to see the new people hurt any more than necessary." The meal was a raucous affair that reminded me of the meals in the castle with Clovis. I made the statements necessary to alleviate some fears but this would cause Hagen problems even if he didn't know it yet. It gave the rest of his slaves a chance to gain their freedom. Iulius was present at my insistence and after the meal I said by way of giving news, "I can talk to you from what I remember and what the gods showed me and what Iulius and others have told me." I gave my early history but made sure I stuck to the script that I had been told by the Romans. The battles were listed and I got Iulius to give his own remarks. Surprisingly the Alemmani did not gloat over the Romans' losses. They were very familiar with Gauls and again Iulius put forward his point of view. With a little urging he told the audience what had been done to me and then what I had looked like when I was taken in by the Romans. He tabulated the changes in me even to the small testicles now growing. He then went on to talk about what the gods have given me. When he talked about flying machines that he had seen with his own eyes they were very impressed. Iulius got more impressed about our current work and this was substantiated by the things that Hagen had purchased. I was out to win converts now even though I felt this was not right. I called on Woden and spoke a prayer that was not much different than what I had heard the priests say in Hildestun. It would be too phony to have the god answer but then let the audience know that I tried and he was busy. For the next half hour I talked about my objectives and I told them exactly what I wanted to do with the Roman Empire. I talked of glass, trains, aircraft, roads, boats, and trade. They seemed to like may speech. I knew they would vote for me if a referendum came up. I mixed a bit more religion with politics but knew that in the future I would have to fight hard to get them separated. Structure and the fine detail were the main reasons that people to flocked to Christianity. This was lacking in other religions. This was probably the result of the other priests not building this structure soon enough to get it accepted. Christianity had this near the start even if it took centuries to get the words put in a book. Now I would comb my memory about the course in comparative religion and make an amalgam of the best points of each. This didn't seem bad because men had done this since man invented religion. The Christians had borrowed from a lot of earlier religions too. When the meal was over, I sent for a pot that I had made and presented it to the wife of our host. This was not usually done bit I got away with it. It was large and made of steel. The woman didn't know what to do so she hugged me like a son and thanked me. Hagen didn't seem to worry that I would take his wife. I was sure that they would come again and have at least more of what I needed. ------- Chapter 5 The camp was quieter than usual when we had a three shift operation. I found the former slaves surrounded by men. When I came in the men slowly left. The ones that stayed only had to see the displeasure on my face to understand. Tertius was one of those. He was also different in that he did not leave. He had come along a lot but he had a lot of testosterone in his blood. I talked to each of the people to get their names and a bit of their history. They were German, Picts and Roman almost equally. When they were done I gave a short and sanitised version of what I was and my objectives. The oldest man among them smiled when I said he was my child but he didn't dispute it. They learned about how I treated rapists and I went into detail. The new people also learned that they could act with impunity either. They had all eaten so I got them settled for the night. They were told about the latrine and the need to use it. Since I was on night shift, they were much safer. The three bellows were now working as a well constructed machine. One synchronised with the other. I tried something I wanted to do for a long time. We threw much of our scrap iron into the top of the cupola and more fuel then more iron. At three in the morning I tapped the furnace and ran off the slag. It was near dawn when it looked like we were full of iron and I directed it into an extra large mould. Instead of a cannon I made some large kettles with legs and eyes at the top to aid carrying it. This was much larger than the ones seen in the movies with cannibals. I did mean to cook people though. The mould was wrapped horizontally with iron bands going around the drag and then higher around the cope. More went around the top and bottom. This was such a large casting that the cope would float and the iron would run out. We let this stay. It must have weighted nearly a half tonne. Smaller mounds were put on top and these were filled and carried away to cool. More ore and fuel went into the top and we began again. Before the next tap of iron we would remove the large casting. I got cleaned after my shift then had breakfast with my family and the rest of the men. The three men and the boys were given jobs and so were the older girls. The babies and youngsters were babysat by Iulius. When they were all off to do what they must, I said to Iulius, "I think you would make a good grandfather." "I am a grandfather." "Yes I know but there is a difference between a grandfather and a good one." He nodded his head with a smile on his face and said, "I will look out for the rest while you rest." I was tired now and in a way wished that someone would do the sleeping for me as Jón had once done. Hagen was back in our camp in mid afternoon. I heard that he came earlier but nobody was allowed to awake me sooner. He asked, "Did you spend all this time talking to the gods?" "I was awake until this morning and then slept. Come and I will show you something we made. You can help me open it too" We put ropes around the large casting and then a lot of us pulled the mass of iron and hard sand away from the furnace. The bands were removed as well as the wedges to keep them in place. We used levers to tip the casting and now the drag parted and I saw the large expanse of metal. The rest had to be struck with hammers and bars to break up the hard sand. There were large risers and vents coming from the six iron feet that kept the sand in place. We tipped it back the way it was and we used sledges to break the basin as well as the risers off. The feet looked good when I looked. They would need much more cleaning but that could wait. The casting was dragged much further away and toward the area we slept in. There it took a lot of us to tip it around to the correct position. I climbed in and felt the sides. We didn't have a lot of graphite to make the mould smooth so we now had to pay for it by abrading the insides with rocks. "What is this for Jón?" "Let it be a secret for a while yet. Now let's rub the inside with stones to smooth it." We worked for an hour and a half. It was not complete but it was not sharp now. The casting was rinsed out with water. Much more had been put on to boil while we worked. I got new clothes and had the slab cut from the tree yesterday brought close. Stone blocks were already in place and even more men now picked the casting up and put it on the blocks. More blocks were put between the feet and clay put in to seal the gaps. A chimney was constructed very close. Large buckets of cold water was put into the container and a fire started underneath the tub. The chimney drew well enough so the fire heated the water without too much smoke coming back at us. A cast frame had been put in place that held an iron door with a latch. This allowed the fire to be controlled as well as fed... More wood was brought and holes dug to support the pillars so we could make platform. Hagen felt the water and said it is warm. What are you going to cook?" "Me." More water was thrown into the tub and then some cold because it was too hot. I got clean clothes, towels and some soap and a homemade comb. When I was naked, I climbed into the tub and relaxed. It was larger than the usual hot tub but not by much. We didn't have seats though. I just relaxed in the water and said to a startled Hagen, "Well, just don't stand there. Send for some clean clothes and get in." He had to decide because he had probably taken a bath this year already, but he did get in. He got in slowly then took a long time to sit. He asked, "Is the fire going to cook me?" "You are too tough to eat. We put in more water but the trick is that metal door. I can let a lot of air in so this gets hot or just a little so it stays hot." It took a while but he started to relax. "This is nice. I would never believed that I would be comfortable over a fire." "The gods have this but it is very smooth. There is a way to sit all around. This sized tub would allow eight adults. They usually sit around and talk while they sip wine. It is even better if there are four couples. You can see the breasts of four women as they move in the water. "On many occasions the women get lonely and sit on their husbands lap. The water makes them light and they float to the top then have to push themselves down. Of course they float again. "A good husband holds his wife to him and guides her so she does not slip." "Do you mean you have seen the gods fuck?" "They do not think it important if I see." "But they fuck in something like this?" "Not all the time but it is fun. In a few months I will not have to just remember because I will get a chance to do it again." "I saw that you had your sack again. It was small but I guess it will grow." "I hope so too." I showed my fingers and said, "I was this long after the sword stroke." Hagen had dealt in death and pain but winced at this. "I wish the gods would favour me that way." "Hagen, think on that. When the women find out that you are so big then they will want to try you out. It is like a young man that thinks he can fight better than the older man. This type of competition can go on for twenty years. Think how hard it will be on your back." He must have been thinking that since he was smiling. He said, "Do you mind if my wife comes over to get cleaned now?" "Call two other couples over too. You will not be the only one." Hagen did send for some of his friends. When they came he gave orders and they went to get their wives. I washed my hair and the rest of my body for in a while the tub would be too crowded. Two older couples came and after a talk they started to get into the tub. Before all of them were in a girl about sixteen came and Hagen ordered her into the tub to sit beside me. I was upset at this but soon found that Elsa was Hagen's daughter. We sat quietly and I started to talk about simple matters. Hagen helped by asking questions. I found Elsa attractive and very healthy. She knew this and made sure her breasts were pushed out just a bit extra. When I looked at them she smiled and pushed out her chest even more. It took ten minutes for the women to start to talk and then they wanted to know about the container they were in. I explained slowly and Hagen poured wine for all of us. It wasn't long before the women had their arms around their husbands. Elsa did this to me and I saw her father smile. This was a social thing now and the woman took the lead. We had not been talking of war, killing or hunting so they could talk. Most of the questions were directed at me. I talked again about my model plane and Horatius Postuma. This brought me into sports. "You may not know it but Horatius and I are going to fight." This got the men interested. "The gods play games and some of them have a ball that is moved one way or another. I am going to get some Frisians and then play his team. The Alemmani can play too. "I would like to have every Roman province and Germania as well provide many players for many teams. We play each other but every once in a while we play the provinces near us too. The winners play other winners and eventually we go to Rome and play in the Colosseum or maybe Constantinople. This way we can defeat Rome in front of fifty thousand Romans and they will cheer us or boo us. If we do this right we can get the Roman Augustus to give us gold. We will smile and be polite but we will accept their gold." "I like that but they do not like us. We killed too many of their men." "Ah, there you are wrong. They would love to see you. They want to see the Roman teams defeat you. But if you win then even more people will come to the next game cheering their team to win. If you made it to the end you would kill many Romans because they would fight each other to get into the Colosseum to see you defeated." "I can almost see that happening." "There is something even better?" "What?" "A rich man has to build a playing field and then put seats around it. They put a wall around this. When two teams come to play he charges silver to everybody that wants to see. He is the only one allowed to sell food there. To make sure the teams come back, he provides the prize for the winning team but pays the losing team too. That person would have a lot of work to do but he would become much richer." Hagen asked, "Why would people come to see this?" "You could set up a rivalry where the blue team says it is better than the green one. They talk in public places and fight each other with words alone. The people will come to see the violence and hope that their favourite team wins." "I cannot see us doing that." "What if one Alemmani team said they liked one king and another Alemmani team said they like another. The kings would pay to see who is the better team and so would the people." This he understood and he smiled. His hand was now around his wife and she jumped after a moment. In another few moments the woman was plastered against her husband. It didn't take long until the other two got the same idea. Elsa waited for me to start and decided to try herself. I pulled her to me and said, "I was a man and will be again for the gods are healing me. Now I am a boy again." "But you are getting big." "You make me that way but it is difficult to make it work. No matter what I do I cannot make children for at least another month." "I do not want children yet anyway. We can have some fun though." "Yes we can. Now get in front of me but let go first. I need what you are holding. I want to wash your beautiful hair." "My hair, not my... ?" "Your hair first." I bathed Elsa like a child. When she was clean I went back over those areas that needed more attention until she held herself tight and shivered a few times. Her mother noticed but not the other two couples. I used my fingers again and played her to a slow but very satisfying climax. She melted against me now and said, "My turn." "Do you want to do what the rest are doing?" She nodded her head vigorously because the women were sliding up and down on their husbands' poles. Elsa got in position and I had to cheat and cause my body to keep me inflated. When I moved my cock around her opening she groaned. I had another idea and said, "Turn around so you are facing me." She didn't bother to think but moved quickly then eased herself down. In just a moment she was seated. She wanted to go fast but I kept her to a slow pace. I held her to me and kissed first her lips but then moved slowly to other interesting areas. She groaned again and had a little shiver. When she recovered I kissed her tenderly and it felt good to be in a woman again. This time it was more for me but Elsa thought it was all for her again. She held me around the neck and I used both hands. My right was on her clit and my left was around her backside massaging her anus. She started to move vigorously and my fingers kept pace and when the time came I pushed a finger into her ass and she groaned the loudest of any of the women that I had ever had. She squeezed me very tightly and I kept up the action but slowed to keep in time with her. When she came to her senses she kissed me hard and said, "I am yours." This was something that was leading up to a marriage and I didn't want this. I said, "I am not free. My father will pick a wife for me. It will not matter who I want." Elsa's eyes went down and she just pulled me to her. I wondered about this and assumed that her mother put her up to this. They were the more conniving of the two genders. After more wine we got up. Some of us looked better even with a lot of white wrinkles. I assisted Elsa getting dressed and kissed her before putting my own clothes on. There was just enough light for the women to see that my sack was like a child's. They would not be able to come to me later and claim I was the father of a pregnant Elsa. When we got out, I had all the children get in. Iulius had to get in to keep them from drowning and to get them washed. I walked the families back toward their camp and stopped just outside it. Elsa gave me another kiss and we shook hands and parted. Elsa's mother put an arm around her daughter and whispered to her. I could hear her and she was getting pointers for what she had done right and then told what she may have done wrong. ------- While I worked that night, the tub saw continuous use. Since the only women were safe then the tub was only to relax. I cast one more large tub but this was only a hundred litres. It was still big and heavy but could be used for bathing children or making something to eat for a large proportion of the Alemmani camp. I planned to give it to them. My gifts were easy to give because I had paid for everything we made. That also meant that I sold my own people steel products which offset most of the cost. The Alemmani swords would be ready tomorrow and I made a deal with them to expand our stockade. They got to keep four shovels with metal blades. They were more than happy with the deal but it kept them there one more day. Elsa came a lot and mostly without an escort. She just walked in and the men had a more difficult time keeping her out of my bedroom. I was told when she was over she asked about my interest in the female slaves. The men told her about one I was interested in and led her on. The girl was a child and had not yet seen her second birthday. Little Sabine was sickly but now seemed much happier than she was before. I didn't know what was wrong with her but worked with Iulius to find out the cause of her illness. He thought it just a matter of not having enough love but I was not sure if this was the only reason. I would like to think that it was me that made her improvement but that was not all, because the men missed their own children and watched our over mine in their place. The Alemmani came into our camp now and those with something to trade were able to purchase our products. Swords, long knives and armour were kept at a high price while the rest were at a more reasonable price. Surprisingly it was metal spoons that seemed to be the hit with many. The hot tub had to be bailed out many times and the bottom cleaned because it was used a lot now. More of the Alemmani came in and they used it much later at night. Elsa came again but the other couples were not into having sex in public so we just fondled each other under the water. When it got too hot we left for my room. I was sure the other couples had seen what was going on and what our agenda now was. As soon as we lay on the bed, Elsa said, "Hurry, get on top." "I want to get you warmed up a bit more first." "I am warm." "I do not mean from the hot water but your feelings. Is there some reasons why I cannot kiss you?" "You can do that while in me." I disregarded her wishes and just went slow again and kissed her tenderly. She didn't want this at all and I shifted gears to be more aggressive. This worked and she settled down to moaning and gasping. She loved her large breasts held and her nipples caressed. I didn't linger on her sensitive and very hard nipples though but wanted her to want more. Kisses very close caused her hands to push my head to where she wanted but I wanted to be boss here this time. I had to tuck her hands under her waist until she got the idea to not use her hands. She had a small orgasm just from this and I moved down her body with my lips. Her excitement climbed to a peak then fell as I went further down her legs. "What are you doing?" "Wait and see. You have little patients." I kissed to her foot and then her toes. My tongue tickled her sole once then I climbed her leg once more. Her breathing got faster and by her knee she wanted to pull me upward faster. I had to fight off her hands until I got to her lower abdomen. I went around my target twice but then went down Elsa's other leg. I was ready for her hands grabbed for me so I would not get away. I only went to her knee before returning. I did another circle of my target and then pushed her knees up to her shoulder. She knew what to do and she displayed everything for me. I wondered if the only people doing what I was doing would have been female. Most of the German males of this time were reluctant to do this. Again I teased her and kissed her outer lips very well before moving onto the inner ones. She was imploring me to continue in a strong voice. I didn't think she knew what she was doing. I was sure the rest of the camp knew. When the time came, I was a robin pouncing on a worm. Elsa's hands held my hair painfully and she pushed me into her. Her legs squeezed my head painfully and she screamed her pleasure. Her words told everybody that if she were dying she was doing it gladly. It took a long time for her to recover and I was glad I had a large lung full of air. I went back to her inner lips and let her come down from her high then climbed up beside her. She pulled me to her and said, "Hmm, that was nice," and kissed me. When she pulled back and licked my lips I figured that she had a few girlfriends in her time. When she lay back basking in the afterglow I said, "You are a demanding woman. I think I will have to get some soft leather and tie you to the bed." "Why, you can have me." "I know that. It is nice to have a woman in my power some times. Other times we can mate like animals. If you are interested in me being in your power we could try that too." "I understand now. I would like to be your slave." "Ok, slave. Hold your knees to your beautiful breasts. I am going to get you excited then take you." I got a smile and she did this quickly. I went back to her clit and she started to warm quite quickly. When she was near another orgasm she tried to pull me up but I pushed her hands away. Like the other day I now used a finger to worry around her anus. Her lubrication was leaking all over to make this pleasant for her. She really started to move around now and her moans got louder and louder. When it looked irreversible, I started to gain entrance now. I had my finger all the way in when her orgasm came again. I was just able to get another lung full of air before the trap closed and she screamed and thrashed violently for a few seconds then collapsed. Elsa had fainted. I got up and cleaned my finger and face on a cloth and lay beside her. It was only a moment until her eyes fluttered and then stayed fixed on me. "What happened?" "You got so excited that you fainted." "I did not." "Ok, then you tell me what happened." "Ah... I don't know." "You fainted. Now do you want to try me on for size?" She didn't answer but helped me move into position. I was large for my size and age now. My mind could completely control my erection which was more than a help for having sex. My feelings now were not as stimulating as it was when I got a double dose of it with Jón. It was still enjoyable and in this way I could at least make some others happy. Elsa's orgasm built slowly and I had to work hard to get her there. When it came, her nails scratched my back as I pounded into her as hard as I could. Her scream this time was not muffled by her thighs. If it were not for her screaming my name so loud I thought her parents may burst in wondering why I was torturing their daughter. We cuddled for a half hour until I got her dressed. She would like to stay the night but I had to do my shift. When she saw the marks on my back by the lamp light, she said, "Did I do that?" "No, it was a beautiful animal I had in my bed. I was trying to tame her." She hugged me and said, "Sometimes you have to work a long time and it can take years to tame some animals." "That is true. Now let me walk you home. They may be surprised that you are alive." "Why." "You were very noisy, and loud enough to tell everybody that you were either being tortured to death or enjoying myself." "I didn't!" "You did and you did it many times." She looked upset now and I pulled her to me and kissed her tenderly. "Do not be upset. This is actually good for you." "How is that? They will all look at me." "I already told you that we cannot marry. That does not mean that we cannot have some fun. Now I want to tell you that a man looks for a woman that will get very excited and scream just like you have done. When he makes you scream, you are telling his neighbours that he is a very virile and loving husband. When your clan moves on there will be a long line of suitors lining up for you." "I don't want any of them. I want you." "I know that but it cannot be. When you next meet another clan, the information about you will get out and hundreds of men will line up to meet you. You are a very desirable woman." "You can keep me. You can marry another and I could keep you warm when she cannot." I kissed her again and whispered, "That is hard to do. You deserve a husband of your own." I had to talk to her a lot more then I walked her home. I only had to tell her to keep her head up once and act proud. She did this and by the time I brought her to her father's hut she looked like a queen. Hagen offered me some wine which I accepted and we sat and talked. He was diplomatic and never mentioned anything but Elsa and her mother left for a private conversation. They were moving on soon. Their clan was large enough that they would soon deplete the local wildlife. Their herds would do the same to the shrubbery. I said, "The Alemmani are also farmers. Perhaps we can find some good land. The new ploughs will make sure it is rich for a long time. The other tools will make farming easier but not easy." "We have thought about this but have not found a home yet. The Romans do not like us now." "Lucius is not like most Romans. Perhaps he will let you settle on his lands. I am not promising this but it may be good for both of you." "Why?" "I want to build a new world. You can be part of this. You may have to give up your travelling and settle down in one area. If you do this, you will get a lot of silver, gold and steel goods. You will become a prosperous farmer because I know how to make the tools and I know of a special food that can be put on the land to make the plants grow large. That is like buying you in a way but all of us have to make decisions." "We had thought about farming again. We were going to go to the east where there are no Roman laws." "That is good too. If you are near then I can help you and you can help me. Farming my way needs a man to learn some new ideas. Some cannot be taught in a single day. The gods have large schools where a young farmer studies for years so his farm will be very prosperous." "Years?" "Yes, there is much to learn. Some of it you know like how to repair a harness but there is a lot of other ideas nobody now knows about that have to be learned." "I do not want to be tutored for years." "A young man may want this. You could be the person that pays so that this boy or girl may learn how to farm in the new ways. When that person comes back they will be like a chief to the others and get the farm working the way it should. If you were able to pay for lots of young men and women then they would be able to pay you back many times more than you have paid for their learning." "That may be a good idea. I must think about it." "There is more we can talk about if you have time." He nodded and I added, "I have need of other trade items. You travel a lot and may have seen this. There is a yellow rock that can burn and when it does it stinks and the smoke hurts the eyes and nose. Have you seen this?" "Yes I have." "Good. At night you have seen bats. Have you found where they live?" "I have seen many caves." "Good again. I am looking for a dark rock that burns. It too stinks." I got another nod and continued. "There is a brown rock that burns too but I want to know where that is for later. I want to find large streams with fast moving water and also waterfalls. Salt is found in many places and I need this. Sometimes it tastes very odd and I need to find these places too. The brimstone is found sometimes where there is vapours that come from the earth. These are important. I once saw a black lake of something that was very thick and slippery. I would like to find more. Iron ore like we have here is good because we will use all this up in a few years." I went on to talk about more minerals that I needed. Silver, gold, quick silver and copper were stressed because we already had the technology to extract this. Hagen was able to help me with some of the other trade items. He now talked in general terms about where some of the minerals were. He was not conversant with the idea of charts but he or his men knew where they were. "I have another deal for you if you want it." "Tell me." "I will give you a deep iron pan. I want you to go to the place that has the brimstone and shovel it into the pan. If you build a fire under it, then the sulphur would melt and flow out a hole in the side of the pan. If you use a small wood tub with water in it, you can collect this brimstone. We can trade for my iron." "Not steel?" "Iron is cheaper to make for me. I can pour it into a mould so it does not have to be hammered by a man. You said that the Romans do not like you. If you buy things that are not weapons then they will be happy with both of us. If you buy lots of what I sell then you can sell them to others for a good profit. Do not think that this will go on for years? I too will be trading. I cannot trade everywhere so they will have to come to me. All the Roman forts could get a place to trade but I will not go far into Germania for years yet. "Your steel would sell very well." "Yes it will. I do not mind selling short knives to you if you are going to sell them to others. The Romans will not be angry because they will be used mainly for food. Swords mean a lot of Roman deaths but a chief can get that." "People that we meet will want my armour and sword." "Tell them that I thought that you were an important person and deserved a set so you could represent your clan." Hagen liked this idea and smiled. I could get what you need and trade you for it." "Yes, and I have new line of products." I had to then explain what 'line' was in this context. "Some are ready to be made tonight. You can see them tomorrow after they cool." "That is for women to do." "In the land of the gods, many cook for fun. It is like being able to sing well or play the flute. You are seen as valuable. The iron grate will hold pots above the fire for you without burning up. My pans and pots will cook food better as you have already found out. A large flat pan allows food to be fried instead. "The last is of two kinds. An iron box can hold in the fire so that much more heat goes into your hut in the cold months. You can put a pot on top to warm food or water. Clay pipes will take the smoke outside. This would be worth much. "The second is large and suited for those that stay in one place. It is a much larger box. You can cook many kinds of food at once. A box inside can hold water that will get hot and be ready whenever you want it. Another box can hold what you want to bake without having to wrap it in clay. This alone will make many people want to have a permanent home." Hagen asked, "Can I trade for these?" "Trade me or trade with others?" "Both. I would like to see how it works." "I have to build them first. I have to make the shape in sand and clay then pour the iron in. If I make it in pieces then it can be carried easier but it is very heavy and you need a wagon." I had an idea. "Hagen, we can make a small one that works. You can use it to show what it does and say that the real one is much bigger." "Let's make some then." "It is time for me to go to work. It is time for you to sleep. You can talk to some of the others about my ideas and tomorrow we can make some of the moulds." Elsa and her mother had come back. Hagen's other children had been listening to us and I said bye to all of them with a handshake. Elsa and her mother got a hug. During the next few days we made models of stoves out of wood, clay or small pieces of stone to get an idea of what sizes to build. The smaller ones were made but we had problem with the castings because they cracked. Even our hot tub had cracked in two places and was now patched with clay. One model was half of a metre square and stood a metre high. I wanted the body cylindrical so we made sheet metal out of wrought iron beaten until it was thin. An upper door had to be cast as well as a frame. It was difficult to make the door fit the frame because they leaked a lot of smoke. The grates in the bottom had to rotate so the ashes would fall through but the pieces were hard to fit together. Thin sections of cast iron were very hard and hard to make smooth. The clay liner would break if it was moved too much. The other half of our crew came back but I had our sentries warn them of the Alemmani presence. The half that were due to leave were reluctant in a way because we were doing a lot of interesting activities. Tertius wasn't sure about leaving but he was bothering the girls too much even with my orders. I was sure his hand was busy but then so were the hands of all the other men. The second half got ready and after taking an hour to compare notes left themselves. There was even more iron and steel going with them. This was their pay for working for me. Frypans of many sizes, a large flat surface suitable for cooking burgers or pancakes went too but I would have to show them what it was for later. Tertius had made many gifts. He had worked for them. I was sure his mother would be proud of him. He even smiled and shook hands when we parted. The new arrivals had to be warned about the women and children but I was polite. The pressure had been relieved somewhat but soon the men would be required back on the farm for the harvest. I had talked to Hagen about this and some of his people could stay for a while if they were paid in steel or iron goods for trade. Hagen had some decisions to make. Usually he talked with a few of his advisors but now he talked to the clan. He was actually hiring out some of his people as migrant labour. Some would stay here and cut wood for fuel and lumber while others would find other tribes to sell the products that they had traded for at a profit. The group of travelling salespeople would not be able to take everything with them but some articles could be sold and orders taken for some of the larger units. Hagen was not sure of this but I was willing to gamble. Some of our men and young men were not married and a few of the Alemmani women stayed and I assumed it was to find a mate other than those from their own clan. The other girls stayed with me to keep an eye on them but also to protect them. Their newfound freedom caused them to act oddly as if compensating from a lifetime of servitude. Bernadette was one of those. She was the oldest girl and a year older than I thought, at eighteen. She was attractive and the men always gave her an extra long look. Sabine was her second child. The second was a boy and stayed with another family and she had to more or less give him up after he was weaned. Bernadette didn't know much of her ancestry because she was taken in a war and her family were killed. They were Alemmani but of a different clan. She had been suggestive to the men but this I was told was not the way she was before. My best recourse was to find her a husband that would warm her butt and then make passionate love to her. The men would be polite to her but stayed away even when Bernadette pushed them. I had talked to her a few times but the words only lasted half of a day at the most. Today she had come into my hut when I was asleep. I woke immediately but didn't open my eyes wide. She simply got out of her clothes and climbed into the bed with me. She was still damp so I knew that she had just bathed. I waited to see what she would do and after a moment she worked down the bed until she found my cock. She sucked this into her mouth slowly so as to not awaken me abruptly. My hands came to her scalp and I caressed her head but kept an erection from forming even though she started to suck much harder. I let her continue so she would know that she could not get me aroused. She was the equal of Elsa but I did not want any complications yet in my life. Elsa was now preparing to leave with her father and I was not going to have a fight. I pulled Bernadette up so I could see her face. I kissed her forehead but would have gladly kissed her full lips. "Bernadette, I cannot give you what you need." "You can take me." "Thank you. You do not know how hard it is to turn you down. I am not a man yet. What I did recently was because I remembered what it was like. It will be months before I will feel what it is like to be a man." "You don't have to keep me. I will go when you tell me to." "Bernadette, you need a husband. You have only known of a master." "I will give myself to you. I will be your slave." I made a decision and said kindly, "Get dressed, we are going for a ride." She smiled at me thinking I was going to make love someplace else. I got dressed and thought of Sabine. The mother did not need the child much and the child was not used to having Bernadette as her only mother. Iulius was with the children teaching them what he could. When I approached he smiled and said, "Hello, Jón. You are up earlier than usual today." Bernadette was right beside me and I said in German, "I was awakened. We are going to see Licinia. Bernadette needs a mother now and a woman's understanding." I heard Bernadette gasp at this but I continued anyway. "Keep my children safe. I will be back before my shift starts. Is there something you wanted me to bring to her?" "You may be right. Licinia has a firm hand but will look out for her best interests. I do not need anything, but if there is some fresh bread I would like some. Licinia's cooks are good." I got my horse saddled and loaded a packhorse with products I wanted to bring. Another horse was made ready for Bernadette. I put on my armour and took all the weapons I would need. Instead of going right away I found Hagen. The man was busy cutting a tree into boards and he stopped and drank some water. "What gets you up so early?" "I have a small problem that I cannot deal with." "You? I thought you could do everything." "Some problems require the strong hand of a kind woman." "I understand. Will you be back before we leave?" "I will be back tonight. We will see each other in the morning." We headed down the trail at a good pace. Bernadette did not speak to me but I made her keep close. She was not that used to riding so I changed our pace regularly. At about the half way mark we were going slow and I heard some approaching horses coming at a quick pace. I stopped and said to Bernadette, "We have some company coming. I do not know who it is so we will get off the trail and see who they are." She said nothing but I turned around and went back a few hundred metres were a stream was and walked the horses upstream for a few minutes. There was some thick trees here and I tied the horses up and got Bernadette to stand beside them. "We have a few more minutes before they get close. I want you to stay with the horses while I see who it is." "I can go with you. I do not make much noise." "You are probably very good but you know that I can fight very well if I must. If I knew you were in danger it would slow me down. You are too precious to lose." I got a smile and then I kissed her. She squeezed me then eventually let me go. I left for the trail and walked on the harder ground to hide my trail. The stream was too deep and overgrown for me to navigate it quickly. I got to the trail and then crossed it on the side of the stream and hid in the brush. My bow and quiver were near and my two swords on my back. People coming this fast meant trouble. The men came by very quickly and one at a time. The path was not very wide. They had some common attributes. They were all Roman and most were dressed in the armour a soldier would wear. They had the short spears for throwing but some had the larger variety, the pilum, for use against calvary. I did not recognise any of the faces though each one of them looked determined. There was no standard so I had no idea who they were working for or with. I counted thirty three men as they passed and knew that they were up to no good. I had to assume that my presence was now known and somebody wanted to come and do what the Picts had failed to do. Getting up, I scrambled back but at the trail I heard more horses or at least one. This was a straggler. There was a curve ahead and I made it in time to cut a few bushes and put them close to one side of the trail leaving a path through where the rider would have to go slow to get through. I put my sword points into the soil and ready to use. The bow was put aside too and I climbed into the branches of a tree that overhung the spot. I had two long thongs from my quiver. One man came. He was old but big and still strong. He was half way through the brush when he must have recognised it as a trap. At the moment I jumped and used my feet to drive him from his mount. He hit the ground hard and I tried my best to land on top of him. He had his breath knocked from him. I used the first thong to bind his hands behind his back then removed all his weapons. A quick look at them showed that they were finely made so the man was obviously rich. His armour said the same. The horses were still galloping away and I called out, "Bernadette, bring the horses. You don't need to use the stream. You better hurry." I heard movement in a few seconds and knew that she had heard. In a moment she came into view and she trapped the lone horse between us. I moved close to it and was able to get the reigns. When Bernadette saw the man she said, "Who is that?" "I have no idea. He is on Lucius' land and I do not think it was by his choice. I want to take him back to the house. Get down and help me get him on his horse. The man was recovering when we got to him and he said in Latin, "Untie me at once." "Why should I?" "I am Vibius Norbanus Cassianus. I demand that you release me." "Why were you and those men racing down the road?" He looked at me and then more at my armour. Finally at my saddle. He didn't answer then. I went to the pack horse and got a leather rope and a much heaver leather thong. I went to the man to add this sturdier strap to his bindings. He pushed and tried to kick me. I let him do so until he fond that it was not hurting me. I pushed him onto the ground and pushed up his arms in a painful position. The heaver thong went on one wrist then another. I tied the end of the rope around his neck but put a knot in that would not allow the loop to get tighter. The other end went to the horn on my saddle. "Bernadette lead the pack horse and the new one too." "But..." "Bernadette, by this time you know what I am really like. Do not disappoint me. Lead the two horses. I am going to be right behind you. I gathered up the weapons and put them onto the pack horse and then Bernadette led it off. The captive had gained his feet and saw the rope. I left at a walk and then went just a bit faster. The old man was in good shape but had some breathing problems in ten minutes. I stopped and said, "Do you want to ride your horse or run?" He just snarled at me so I continued at the fast pace. When the man was near exhaustion I asked again but this time he nodded his head. We led him and his horse to a rock so he could get on. Bernadette held the reigns as I tied the man's feet together under the horse. He tried to kick me as he cursed creatively. When we got near the fields, I stopped and turned to one side so we were away from the trail. Vibius was ordered off after his feet were untied. He argued and I just pulled him off to fall onto the ground. I tied his feet again then threw the rope over a limb. One end went around the man's neck and the other end pulled so it was uncomfortable then tied off. He managed to get out, "What are you going to do with me?" "Why were you going to my camp?" He didn't answer so I didn't either. A small thong was pulled tight around his head so it pulled his cheeks into his mouth. He could breathe but not yell or talk much. He could not chew the thong because his cheeks were in the way. Bernadette and I remounted and got back on the trail. She said, "What are we going to do with him?" "If he has hurt Licinia, her children, or the people that work here I will keep him tied up until Lucius comes to decide his fate. If he has killed I will take my time and find out all that he knows." Bernadette was used to violence and I saw her shiver a bit. When we got close to the house I saw people working in the fields and everything looked normal. I waved to them and they waved back even if they didn't know me. We approached the house carefully and didn't see any extra horses and in the field I stopped a man that would rather have run from me than talked. "Hello, my name is Jón. This is Bernadette. Are there a lot of visitors at the house now?" "Ah... not that I know of." "Were there a lot of riders through her a while ago?" "I didn't see any." "Thank you for your help. I will tell your mistress how helpful you were. What is your name?" "Berit." "Thank you Berit." I came to the stables and then asked them the same questions and got the same answers. I had to assume they were telling the truth because the man was eyeing Bernadette instead of being worried about me. I saw Manlius come out of the house and I waved to him. He saw my armour and grabbed his sword. His hand left it and he hurried to me. "Hello, Sir. What can I do for you?" "Hello, Manlius. I brought Bernadette to meet your mistress. Has there been anybody visiting the house recently?" "Yes there were. A neighbour by the name of Cassianus was visiting with four of his men. Why do you ask?" "Thirty four men were racing on horseback to our camp." He looked worried. "We have to get there at once." "Our men are well trained. Hagen has not left and he will not let the Romans have their way I hope. Will you take me to your mistress?" "You are armed." "So are you. You have been with me for a month. Think about what honour I have to protect." Licinia was working in one of the sheds and she and one of her daughters came out. In a moment Hirtius and Livius came out too and ran for me. I bent down and picked them up and swung them around. "Have you been good brothers?" I got a nod and a, "Yes." "Good. Now let me hug our mother." Licinia smiled and hugged me back. When she pulled back she said, "Now tell me why you are wearing armour and walking with this young lady. Bernadette could not understand Latin and Licinia had not learned much German. I said in Latin and then in German, "Licinia, I would like you to meet my oldest daughter, Bernadette." I turned to the girl and said, "Bernadette, I would like you to meet my foster mother." Licinia came close and hugged the girl and after a moment Bernadette hugged her back. "Mother, you have to spend more time learning another language. Now I have to ask, what was Cassianus doing here?" Licinia looked worried and said, "He came and talked about his dead son and two cousins. He had heard that you were here. I said that you were not and he left." "I would like to know what your husband would do if that man came with two groups of men. I heard he brought some men with him to the house but there were a total of thirty four racing towards our camp." She didn't talk but she was thinking. "He has no right on our land." "What would Lucius do?" "I don't know. Cassianus is very powerful." "So the law does not matter in this case." She nodded her head. "What if I killed them all with my swords or knives?" "They would come after you." "The army?" "Yes." "Does Cassianus have any favoured grandchild that he dotes on?" "He has three of them." "Are they at his home?" "You aren't going to hurt them are you?" "You have heard of me and heard of our camp. How can you say that?" I stared at Licinia until she looked down. "I am sorry. I know you are honourable." ------- Chapter 6 My questions about the grandchildren allowed me to learn that they were not infants at all but grown men and a woman. The four of us went into the house and Bernadette looked around in wonder. This was not the mansions made of marble but much cruder. It was still very good especially for this time period. Bernadette though was used to only a hut or a sky above. I said to her, "You deserve a home like this one day. It will not be me giving it to you but somebody will." It was a sexist statement but the way the situation was now. Manlius brought some maps of this area and pointed out the trails to reach Cassianus' home. He added, "It takes a little over an hour to get there. You are not going to take seizing a woman are you?" "I don't think so. I plan on taking something of hers and show Cassianus what I could do." Manlius asked, "How is he going to learn this?" "Oh, I forgot to tell you but Bernadette and I captured him on the trail. We have him tied to a tree now." "What!" came from both Romans. I repeated this in German for Bernadette. She now just smiled. Licinia said, "What are you going to do with him?" "I would like to hook him up to a plough and let him work like a donkey for a year or so. But I think I will just let him go." Both people relaxed now. We came out to the barn and I gave Licinia her presents. I don't know if any of the others had given her anything like this but she was very appreciative. They saw the weapons I had just taken and didn't say anything about them. "Iulius wanted me to bring back some bread. He is now responsible for all my children. He teaches them mathematics and gets them to work too. I think he is a great grandfather." I added while still in Latin, "The woman I brought has a child of two. The child is another of my little darlings. She is sick still but looks to be getting better. She and her mother have been separated too long to be close. There is a younger son but the father is keeping him. "It is the mother I brought here for you to watch. I gave all of them their freedom. I would like them to work for me so they learn something useful but I said they had to pay me back. "The woman has been exercising her freedom and going too far. I need a mother to look out for her. She can be helped but I cannot do it." Licinia thought on my words and said, "I will watch her like a daughter." "If I am your son then you have to watch her like a granddaughter." "I will do so." I said to Bernadette, "This woman is your mother now. She is kind but firm. Do what she says and try to teach her some of our language." The last was said as a half joke and I smiled but Bernadette did not. "Where are you going?" "I have to see if I can make the old man see reason." I got on the horse and said to Licinia, "There are sixty nine Alemmani and their families with me. You have probably heard of this. Some of them can help with the harvest. I am making some tools to help you do that. Some of the Alemmani will go out and sell my products." I didn't wait for her reply because she was thinking hard now on this development. The Alemmani were looked on a bogeymen by the Romans. Cassianus was where I had left him and I undid his breeches and said, "We are going for a ride. Piss now or piss your pants later." The man pissed and I soon had him on his horse once more. In ten minutes he figured out where we were going and started to mumble through his leather gag. "You want to know where we are going?" He nodded his head. "You going to tell me why you were going to my camp?" There was no nod so I just kept riding. It was three in the afternoon and darkness would take a long time in coming. This estate was not as flat but had a few small hills and even a few depressions that had filled with water. Some were just channels were water had eroded the land over the years. There was a lot of grain here and I could not see anybody around. I led the horse and my captive into a ravine and tied up both horses. "Do you get down or do I knock you down?" He nodded and slid off his horse. I was nearby to make sure he kept his footing. "You have been with me for three hours. Do you need to shit or piss." He shook his head no so I tied him to a tree once more but this time I let him sit. Once I got him down he started to mumble and I said, "You are going to tell me where you were going and why?" He said nothing so I just continued to tie him to the tree. When the mumbles came again I just looked at him until he reluctantly nodded. I got some water and removed the leather thong. He flexed his mouth and I poured some water into him three times. I just waited patiently as I looked at him. He eventually said, "I know who you are?" "Who am I?" "Jón, the son of Clovis, King of the Frisians." I said, "When I heard the horses coming down the trail I assumed it would be one or more of the families that had lost members of their families when the first or the fifth legion suffered casualties." "Casualties! You slaughtered them. You killed thousands of them. They were tending their wounded when you did this." The man went on and on and I let him continue until he ran out of breath. I was still quiet and so was he. "You would not..." "You are a murderer I hate you..." I let him continue until he ran down again. "I let you have your say. Are you going to act like a lunatic all the time or only part of the time?" "Why did you kill my boy. You killed his cousins too. Why did you do it?" "Do you want to hear of do you just want to listen to your own voice?" He was quiet again and I said, "You would not be upset if you had destroyed a legion of Frisians that had come into the empire." The man glared at me. "I killed invaders. Rome gets its own way by being strong. They do what they want and if we object they send their army. You are the instrument of a bully. You froth at the mouth like a mad dog when the boy you were going to torment turns around and beats the bully." I was quiet now. He said in a quieter voice, "Why did you have to kill them?" When he didn't continue I said, "I am a boy that is near twelve years of age. I was nothing special until I was hurt by my horse. For half of a year I slept with a damaged skull. "When I awoke I began to build tools and weapons that had never been seen before. Some were toys for children and some were terrible weapons of war. In between I made glass like you have never seen before. I made potions that made the enemy cry not die and I was able to go in and just collect my enemies like so many children." "Why didn't you do that to my son. He died horribly." "He died as a warrior. Now, did you wonder how I knew how to do this? Were you so wrapped up in grief that your mind refused to work? Is it still so corrupted that you cannot think straight for the space of an hour?" "Say what you wish." "Where did I get the ideas for the toys the weapons and the other things?" "How would I know?" "Nobody had made a cannon before. Nobody had made the powder before. Nobody made the containers with the powder that shattered over an army before. Do you still have no idea where the information came from?" I waited and then waited more. It took a while until I heard, "Somebody told you." "Who would know about all the new devices I have made? To give you a hint I will say that there is nobody ever that was able to understand anything that I have done. Will you try one more time?" "You had a dream of it!" This was said with all the spite he could muster. "Good. I had a dream for half of a year. Have you ever had a dream where you woke up and knew how to make an entirely new tool, and do it perfectly? This leads to another question. What are dreams?" The old man did not answer so I said quietly, "I will tell you. The gods of my people talked to me." The old man looked surprised. "They told me how to make the powder and then what to do with it. What is odd is that this powder is one of the least powerful I could have used." The man now stared at me. "The gods showed me how to make cannons. They showed me how to make the powder to make an iron ball go very fast then they showed me how to make a hallow piece of iron and put the powder in this." I paused and poured some water into my mouth the said, "Would you like some more?" I got a shake of the head. "The gods showed me how to make glass. The gods have nice machines but I had to copy with what I had now. The gods want me to work at what I am commanded to do." Cassianus looked at me and said simply, "Commanded?" "That is the word I used. You see, the gods gave me a lot of information and then showed me what to do with it. Most were educational and meant to amuse at the same time. The gods have families too and they look on us as poor relations that are just not very smart." I liked the pauses so the man could digest what I had said. When enough time had passed I added, "I learned that Rome had prospered for a thousand years but it was soon going to fail. Men from the east and many German tribes would loot Rome one after the other. Even now it is difficult to find good Romans to fill the positions in the army. The Germans fight for you which helps. By now there are at least twice as many Germans in the auxiliaries than there are Romans in the legions. Your race is just tired from constant war." Cassianus now exploded with, "We have never been stronger. Our empire covers almost all lands. We can fight any race and defeat them..." He went on and on and actually lasted much longer this time. I said, "The gods told me this and then showed me what will happen as time goes on. Rome will fall to one wave of invaders after another. The Eastern empire will last longer but it will be just a shadow of what it used to be. The west though will take hundreds of years to finally finish its death rattle but it will happen. It is what happens after that concerns me." I now waited for Cassianus to bite and it took five minutes. "What happens?" "Rome is the centre of learning. Rome has laws that suit the Romans but it is better than no laws at all. Rome had roads that allowed trade to flourish. Rome had coins and a great many tools that only an empire could afford. I saw trade slow to a halt because the army was not there to keep the thieves away. Since there was nobody to say otherwise there was no reason to keep the roads in good shape. Petty tyrants cropped up all over the place. "With no trade there was no communication with the rest of the empire. With no army there were even more wars for control. Romans too saw the weakness and more would-be emperors came forward. Romans killed Romans. How long can a family last when it is ripped apart like this? Anyway eleven hundred years have to pass before what a knowledgeable Roman knows now will be reinvented. "They use the cannons then and wars grow even worse than what you have seen. Both sides have cannon and push their men to attack only to be turned to small pieces of flesh. During the times of peace better weapons are made then used. There will come a war that will involve all of the world. You think the Roman Empire is big; well I will tell you that it is small. There is more land and people than you can imagine. "The war will destroy large areas of the land we are in. Within fifty years the seeds of another war will bloom. Here mighty ships of steel sail forth. The cannons you heard about are like toys. The new ones can throw the weight of ten large men for twenty five Roman miles. What is thrown is so powerful that it blows a giant hole in the ground. The ship is so large that it carries ships like the ones you use for boats to go to shore." I had another pause and said, "A machine that flies through the air drops those devices that I threw at my enemies but those of the future are thousands of times more powerful. The flying machine is so large that it carries hundreds of these devices. "Towards the end of this war, one race makes a new powder. It is very large but in later years it is reduced in size to what a man can carry in one hand but without a reduction in power. One of the machines flies half way around the world and drops this new type of bomb. Before it hits the ground it explodes with such a force that it turns the very ground to glass. A cloud rises because of the great heat and it goes far above the clouds. It carries death with it. Below a city much like Rome now simply disappears." Cassianus stared at me and I hope he believed. "They have usurped the power of the gods themselves. Anybody coming close to that city died a horrible death. The poison was so strong that it would kill for many years after. The poison slowly decays but it takes hundreds of thousands of years for it to go and then it is still present in small amounts." It was a half hour of silence until Cassianus said, "What does this have to do with us?" "If months ago you talked to me like a gentleman, I could have told you about my visions. I then could have showed you what the gods have commanded me to build. You may have been convinced that the gods did send me. "Now if you went back to your Augustus and told him he would simply execute you for being a fool. I have to talk to the Augustus and some important people. Since I cannot do that I have to show them. The Roman army was always a necessary evil and the tool of the Augustus and the senate. They have to know something without a doubt before they will act. "The Romans invaded my country. The gods gave me weapons to cast them out. They are now gone. I want Rome to stay out of my country but I do not want Rome to fall to its knees when the barbarians come. The only way I can see this is to help Rome defend itself. Rome had to be taught a lesson first so that it does not attack the hand that is there to help." Another hour had passed and I waited a bit more. "What happens to the world of the future?" "Some developments are very good. The knowledge of medicine has grown so far that one man cannot know more that a portion of it. The earth is raped and poison is spread around with no regard to what the next generation is going to do with it. Some people realise the mistakes and try to clean up. The secret of the bomb that destroys cities spreads to other countries. "I talked of machines that fly. They carry death in them but also people. Sometimes they are soldiers and their own machines. Another type of machine uses oil that burns very hot. It pushes the machine so it can go two thousand miles in one hour. It carries a bomb that kills cities. These are pointed at all of their enemies. "If this war starts then they will kill everybody. There is more than enough power to kill all of us many times over. Our world will be poisoned for thousands of years and anything alive at that time will have a short life. "That same device that carries a bomb can be built much larger. People sit in a box at the top and fly to the moon. The moon has no air and they find that it is mostly rock and dust." Cassianus said slyly, "You lie. The moon is not that way. Men cannot walk there. Nothing can fly. You mention one lie after another." I was quiet so he had a chance to continue but he didn't. I picked up some stones until I found one about the right weight. "If I take this stone and toss it," I did just that, "it will go so far. The Roman Horatius Postuma has built a device with me. He throws it just as hard as the stone but it goes many times further. Talk to him before you call me a liar." I waited more then said, "Tertius, the son of Lucius helped me make a device made of silk, wood, baser cloth and cord. Many people on the estate watched him fly this twice as high as the tallest tree. It stayed up for over an hour. Talk to him before you call me a liar." "Horatius Postuma is making a similar device that will carry a man. It needs the heat of the sun to rise but it will work. A man can fly for hours. During that time he is far above the ground. He can observe the enemy. I gave this idea to him to help Rome. Talk to him before you call me a liar." "A Roman veteran without a foot builds a toy out of wood. When you turn it quickly with your hands or a cord it claws its way into the sky. You should talk to him too before you call me a liar." "I was told that when I was captured I had caused some large arrows to fly. They had a bomb on each. I did not throw them but the powder burned quickly and they flew far forward trailing flames and smoke. Now the Picts and the Romans with them will tell you if they flew or not. I guess you being so old, you will not see the truth if it came up and bit your ass." He retorted, "I have my wits and can see a lie." "Maybe you can. You may have been a person that never believed anybody or perhaps more so after your loss. In any case you are blind. The devices I made could only come from the gods but you refuse to see this. I do want you to know that I do not enjoy killing. I regret killing your family but Rome will not understand anything but force. I gave them a sample of force. I also gave them a way to strengthen their army. More will come as I am able to build them." "What you give is useless. A man is not meant to fly." "What about my steel armour and steel weapons? Rome has my cannons but not the secret of the powder. Is that not useful?" Cassianus was quiet and I let him calm down. In a while I said, "You may have heard that I slipped into a Pict camp. I rescued some of our fighters and children. I recovered all of our property and took some of theirs. When the others left, I stayed to slow down the enemy. By the next day many of those were dead. Those that survived became my prisoners. "Later some of the Frisians arrived to help. We tended the wounded and assisted them to Hildestun. I gave them a limited freedom and they now practice with our troops and use our weapons. "Later I slipped into another camp but used my bombs and arrows to allow us to steal their horses to slow them down. I had killed enough by myself that they did not come to Hildestun to lay siege to it. "A few days later I found a cohort of Romans laying serge to Hildestun. Lucius was commanding. He had captured one of my people. She was just a girl and even younger than me. I entered under the cover of darkness. When we were leaving he awoke. Because he had protected a child instead of hurting her, I told him I would come back to talk. We left the camp and I returned. "Lucius and I talked for hours. He inspected my armour and weapons and we talked of war, trade and politics. Hours later I invited him and his men to see just what my cannons could do. I offered him more time to prepare for battle or to leave our lands. He left in peace. "What I am saying is that I can work in darkness. The gods have helped me here to. When it gets dark I can take a hostage from your house. I can do this easily and perhaps without killing anybody. Since you do not want to think that the gods know more than you then I will give you more reason to hate and then to fear me." "You would attack my home?" "You and your men went to attack mine." "There are just women and children there." "My camp has women and children." "I was not after them. Only you." "I will take Publia and try not to hurt any other. This is the same as you have planned for my camp but I will not kill her." "You can't. She is just a child." "How old am I?" "You are man." "I am not yet twelve." "I will not attack you again." "You could send others to do it." "I will not send anybody to fight you." "Will you admit that I fought to keep invaders from my land?" This was a lot harder but he eventually said, "Yes," through clenched teeth. "Will you also admit that the Roman army is the arm of Emperor and the senate? Then will you admit that I had no choice in how I acted?" "You could have fought man to man with a sword." "You mean man to boy. You also mean that a much stronger Roman army can take on peasants and a few Frisian warriors. You are a bully that preys on the weak. Now tell me like a rational man how I should have acted?" He didn't say anything so I just untied the reigns of my horse. Cassianus quickly said, "You did protect your lands. We had more soldiers but even your peasants are warriors." "Now the big question. Am I an instrument of the gods?" Again it was through clinched teeth. "You are." "Then I will be back soon with witnesses. You will swear before them what you have said. In return I will release you." I put the gag back in and made sure his bindings were secure. In the process I took a ring from his finger. He might think me a thief but it was still better this way. I took his horse and rode back the way I had come. In a few moments I changed course and went toward the house that Cassianus lived in. My armour went onto the other horse and all but one sword and my knife. Cassianus lived in a much more ostentatious home. It had a wall of stone around it but the gate was open. Old men and a few cripples came to me with spears but they were not used to threaten. I said, "I bring news from Vibius Norbanus Cassianus for his granddaughter Publia." An old man hurried off and a vet asked, "What happened?" "He was hurt but not seriously." "What else?" "I am sorry. My words are for Publia." A woman hurried from the house and then a girl of fifteen or so right behind. It was the girl that my message was for. It was the mother that said worriedly, "What is this about?" I reached over and put the old man's ring into her hand. "This is to let you know that this message is from Vibius Norbanus Cassianus. He bids Publia and his family to attend him as soon as possible." "What has happened? Has he been wounded?" "You must come to see for yourself. I cannot tell more than the ride is but fifteen minutes from here. He is resting in a gully and awaiting your presence." "Why did he send you and not come himself?" "I have done what I must. Come and see or not." I turned quickly and the men jumped back. I did not flee but I moved at a trot. I gained perhaps a kilometre and waited. In five minutes a troop of men numbering eleven and nine more horses carrying the younger generation and even some of the old folks. When they got close I headed off to one side and toward the old man. I allowed the group to catch up just before the gully but out of easy earshot of my captive. Turning to face the people caused all of us to stop. "Before we go further there is something I must tell you." They waited but not patiently. "I am alone. I have no other assistance near by. This I say on an oath to Woden." They said nothing. "I have had a talk with the head of your family. He is safe and unhurt. We had a very long talk and he has agreed to give an oath. I brought you here to witness it." Publia's mother said, "Where is he?" "I will tell you in a moment. I could call others to witness this. Word would spread if Vibius broke his word. A family can hold a dark secret but they also could be used to strengthen the oath. "My name is Jón, son of Clovis the King of the Frisians." There was a sudden grasp of arms but I stayed as I was. "I am a warrior of some skill. I am not proud to say that I have killed many thousands of enemies. I have no wish to harm you. Attack me though and you will die." "Where is my father?" "Wait and listen." After a pause I said, "The gods have given me tasks to do. They involve my own people and yours. I have seen the far future clearly and can prove in a way that my words are true. "I have killed some of your family when they invaded my land. Vibius is crazy with hate. Let us talk for an hour with Vibius and you will hear the story too. At the end of this I will have his word or he will refuse to give it. In any case he and all of you can leave safely. If I am attacked then I will fight back and kill. You have only my word that you will suffer if I am opposed. Now follow me." I turned again and came on the gully from an area that was not too steep. We moved through the trees until we came to Cassianus. Some of the men ran to him and he was soon untied. He was shouting and screaming and I said, "You want to break your word to me so soon?" "I never gave my word." "You are a liar and I say this before Woden. I also say that you are unfit to rule a family. You are insane." "I am not insane. You have killed my family." "I have killed, that is true. I may have killed some of your family but it was not done in hate. I killed invaders. A short time ago you admitted this." "You forced me to." "You promised a lot but now go back on your word." I turned to the rest and said, "The gods spoke to me for half of a year. I saw mighty machines that flew. I have already made some that have flown but they are just toys." Cassianus interrupted and said, "You have no such thing." "Lucius' son Tertius is nearby he..." "He will lie." "Then watch with your own eyes as the device flies. Or are you going to call your own eyes liars?" "It cannot be done." "You mean you do not want to see or hear of this. A friendly visit to your neighbours will prove this one way or another. Words from a crazy man cannot stand up to the truth." "My words are true." "You are insane with grief or just insane. Take a ride down river and talk to Horatius Postuma. He is flying other devices I have shown him. Again all you have to do is look with your own eyes." Cassianus was interrupting me constantly and I said, "I understand old man that you do not want your family to hear me." "You are evil." "I am pursuing the truth while you hide behind a shield of insanity." Cassianus took a sword from a retainer and started toward me. I said, "You go back on your word. Now you raise a sword to me?" I looked at the men while my sword was still at my back. I figured this would happen and stayed purposely further away. I said, "We are having a talk and I am abiding by a truce. Attack me and the truce has ended." Cassianus simply couldn't take it any more and started to run at me as he screamed. I drew my sword and waited his approach. He slashed at me horizontally and I caught his blade and pushed it aside. I jumped up and one foot found his testicles and the other foot his chest. He fell to the ground but I now found his retainers coming at me. I took out my knife for my other hand and then moved so I could take them one at a time. They were good soldiers just old or wounded, so instead of taking a life when I could I clubbed or used the side of the blade. A great many noses were broken one more time and I gave a few shallow wounds when I had to. It was not like playing with children even with my faster reflexes. They at least had armour but it was ineffectual." Eight of the retainers had left the fight to nurse wounds when I heard, "Look out!" I was facing two men and moved to the left. A spear came flying by and went just where I was standing. A quick glance showed it to be Cassianus that threw it. I worked harder on the two facing me and used feet and fist when I could. Two more had been hurt and came at me now but very slowly. I knew that I was not killing and felt braver. I used the edge of my katana against one's armour and it bent inward but didn't puncture his chest. I stopped a gladius with my shorter k-bar and came at him with my sword. He moved to block this and I kicked outward into his solar plexus. I looked around for enemies and saw Cassianus moving toward his daughter who was protecting her daughter. The voice that had warned me was young and had to be Publia's. There were six younger children and all of them were cringing in fear. I hurried close. I had taken wounds but none were serious. I too got between the deranged old man and said, "Crazy bastard. You cannot take me so you fight your own women. I guess you were never much of a man." When he focussed on me, I shifted to my left. The man looked glassie eyed and I was sure he was crazy. But crazy or not I could not kill him outright. I hit him with the side of the sword many times and I was not sure he even felt it. There would be a lot of bruising. He swung his gladius now with no care for his own life and he left himself open to attack. He seemed to only think of killing me. I could hear other moaning of getting up and I led the man to them and found a split second to make sure the retainers stayed out of play. When I move over downed men Cassianus would sometimes stumble and then kick his people for being in the way. Cassianus was simply not feeling my blows. He was powerfully built and if I got within his grasp I would not likely get out. I did have to put him out of commission. When he next kicked a man he shifted his gaze for a split second. I swung down which brought up his gladius. My k-bar went in to pin the sword as my knee hit his crotch as hard as I could. Cassianus' eyes bulged out this time and I used the k-bar to strengthen my fist as I hit him in the solar plexus. He gasped for air that did not come. I withdrew quickly and the man took a step forward but he tripped over the man in front of him. Cassianus moved a little then crawled forward just a bit then fell down once more. He was not breathing but this was alright with me. It took a minute and his heart stopped too and it was not the loss of oxygen. It must be a heart attack. An old man got up and I pointed my sword and he dropped his weapon and ran to his master. In a moment others got up but after looking at me left their weapons alone. One man cried out, "He is dead. You killed him." I was angry and said, "Perhaps I should kill another fool to keep him company in the afterlife." I brought up my sword and he cringed. "Look for my sword stroke that killed him fool." There was some inspection then the same man said, "You magicked him to death." "The crazy bastard died of a heart attack. Perhaps you want to join him? I told you all that the gods guided me and you are as crazy as this old man. I should do the world a good turn by getting rid of a few more fools." It was Publia that said, "Don't hurt them. They were very attached to grandfather and don't know what to do now." She and her mother were holding each other but they didn't seem too overwrought at the old man's death. I got control of my own anger and said, "I will not kill them but I may beat every one of them if they remain fools." I turned to the men and said, "Pick up some swords and cut some boughs. You can carry this old piece of shit to his home. Now hurry up." I had men running all over the place cutting things that could not be used from a large willow to some small saplings. I turned to the women then sheathed my weapons. There was quite a bit of pain so I went within my mind and toned it down and accelerated the healing process." The two women were staring at the body and I kept my distance. I didn't need them to feel more threatened. The children were huddled close but they did not seem as upset by death as I thought they should be. Two of the old men were not working well and I took them aside and had them sit with their heads down to drain the blood from their sinus cavities. One more man was bleeding too much from a cut on an arm so I took some cloth and bandaged it and told him to take a break. When the boughs came back I had them covered in their clothing and Cassianus armour. A smaller bough went across the front and another at the back. The old men pushed the body onto this and now four men were able to pick it up. The weapons went on some of the horses and the three men rode their mounts. The children and the women rode behind the corpse. I could have simply thrown Cassianus across his horse but I wanted time to talk. I talked to the woman and said, "I am sorry you had to witness this. As I said my name is Jón. What is yours?" "Fausta." "As I said Fausta, I am sorry that you and the children witnessed this. If I had not been attacked I would have left at the end of an hour." "You killed him though." "How many men were fighting me?" "They were old or wounded." "How many men?" "Twelve." "And your father made thirteen. I am not yet twelve years old. None of the old or wounded men were peasants. They were soldiers. So I faced thirteen soldiers that were not in the prime of their lives but not ready to die yet." Fausta didn't answer so I added, "How many of the men are dead from my sword?" "You were not trying to kill them." "They all were trying to kill me. I risked my life quite a bit today for your family. Instead of killing your father I fought him twice. I use the side of my sword but he wants to slice me. Even my armour is riding on a horse and not on me. "I will admit that your father died right after fighting me but he was the one that took up a sword and attacked me. Now did you see something different? Am I lying in some way?" She did not answer but it was Publia that said, "My mother is upset. What you have said is true. But we do not know about the flying things and many others have said they are guided by the gods." "That is true enough. I mentioned earlier to day that I made the cannon and the powder that killed. I make a special iron that is very hard. My sword will bend but spring back. It stays sharp much longer. My armour is difficult to puncture. I make glass and iron like water. As I mentioned I make things that fly. One of these things may have been made by a man but not all of them. I say again that the gods guide me. "You may choose not to believe me but a short trip will show you that I am speaking the truth. I just hope that your family is not that kind where many of the members are crazy." Publia quickly said, "No, it was only grandfather." She put her hand to her mouth as if to take the statement back. She admitted that her grandfather was crazy to an outsider. "Do not worry. Every family has a few embarrassments to hide. My father suffered wounds so he cannot father any more children. I am his only male heir and I suffered the same wounds. The Gauls shortened my penis at the same time then broke a leg. Over the days of my captivity they broke most of my teeth out and destroyed my face. They used a red hot sword to burn me over much of my body. Worse of all my memory was destroyed. "The Romans came and took me away. Iulius was one of Lucius' physicians. He and the guards nursed me. The gods came again to me and took my mind to their realm. They talked to me and I knew that I had been there before. They explained again so I would remember about my tasks. To do this they healed me and as a sign the changed my hair to silver." "Why would they do that?" "The healing was so I would continue to do their bidding. The hair was to set me apart." "Why?" "I have to talk about the gods to many people until they understand. The gifts I bring are to give us a new start. The Roman empire will fall in a hundred years. I want to prop it up so the good will endure and the slavery and wars end." Publia said, "Your gods like war. Isn't Thor the god of war?" "Yes he is but there are other gods as there are different Romans." "So some gods want you to fight and some want peace?" "It is not as simple as that. The gods can see the future if they work very hard. They have shown me what they have seen. There will be war where a man can show skill and bravery but too many innocents will die. Not long ago an epidemic went through the empire that killed many. The gods are trying something new. They will deal with people more and try to get around some of the bad times." "What bad times?" "Rome will fall to many different invaders. The armies are called home. This means that the armies here on the Rhine will leave. Trade is how Rome flourishes. With no army to protect the roads then trade will stop and Rome will fail even more. The last century had a lot of people trying to be emperor and then they were assassinated to make room for another. This will happen all over again. The Roman armies will fight each other and not their enemies. "For well over a thousand years, the empire will be broken up by men able to hold a small part for themselves. This will be called the Dark Ages. It get worse as time goes on not better. "At the end of this time it will start to grow again. A plague will kill more people and those in power will have to have simple machines to help instead of telling a slave to do it. They will build one invention on another. This will continue until everything I mentioned will come true. Some events are good and some a bad but eventually we grow once more" Publia said, "The gods told you all that?" "Yes, there are too many people born because they learn much more about curing people of disease and preventing plagues. People throw away garbage when it should be put in places to be taken away later. The water and the air has poisons in them that shorten the lives of the people nearby. Women now die during childbirth because of dirty hands and sheets. Soap and hot water will mean many less mothers die. People in the future usually live to their early seventies. Most people have a good education and there is no slavery. "In some backward countries the leaders keep their people ignorant so they can be controlled. This also happens in the advanced countries but not as much. Women in the poor countries are like slaves and this does not change much through the ages. It is only seventeen centuries from now that women come into their own. They had many freedoms but they were still not the equal of a man." I was quiet then as if exhausted or perhaps thinking on what I had said. Publia said, "The future looks wonderful but dark too." "It does. But I want to change it so less have to die but also so less are born." Fausta was the one to say, "What do you mean?" "A woman had a dozen children now if she does not die first. It is hard to feed and clothe them all. Wars, plagues, sicknesses and starvation kill many. Parents want a lot of children because they need them on the farm and to take care of them when they get old. "I have made tools that will mean that fewer people are needed to grow the grain on this estate. The men working here can start to do other jobs. They can build the boats necessary for trade or make the iron I need for more tools. It will get down to the parents having only two children. There is lots of money to give them a good education and a great chance at life. "The number of wars can be cut if we share more. That means that the poor countries have to get educated and then they have to have less children. All this requires cooperation and to do that. We need one group of rulers for the whole world. They cannot be like the emperors because they think more about themselves that their subjects. It has to be something like the senate or when Rome was a republic. "The Roman senate is corrupt and we need to find ways of ensuring that men stay honest. Usually this is accomplished by men taking different sides to an argument and if they see something wrong it is told to the people. This only works if the senate is elected by the people and the senators can be thrown out if they are dishonest. "This may seem simple in a way but it is complicated. My ideas have to be accepted and then used by people all over the world. To do this I have to show people what the gods give and stay alive long enough to do what they require." We eventually got to the main compound. Cassianus was taken in to be prepared and Fausta said, "Will you refresh yourself? I can look after your wounds." "Thank you. I will accept but I would like you to introduce me to your family." Publia did so and I found various responses to the fact that I had killed the head of they family and others that were in the legion. I acted like a gentleman and the youngest softened to me first. Publia bathed my wounds then said, "Some need my needles." "That is true but the gods will heal me up and in a few days you will see no sign of any wounds." "How do they do this?" "They work within my body to make it heal faster. It is like telling more servants to work on a task." I was given some wine and I just sniffed it then had a sip. It was good wine but I was not taking chances. I learned a lot more about the Cassianus family and who would be taking over as the new head. I asked, "Would it be alright if Licinia and Iulius attended the funeral? They are my friends and I think they should come in my place." "I do not see why not but you should ask my mother." "I will do that. If Tertius comes too, he can show you what we made. It is not much but it is a start." Publia brought me to Fausta, who was crying. I said in a low voice, "I am sorry that you and the children saw what happened. I am not sorry that he died though. I wanted to be truthful to you. Would it be permissible if Licinia, Tertius and Iulius attend the funeral?" Fausta thought seriously and said, "They should even if they are your friends." "Apart from what happened, I hope you will eventually become my friend too. It may take time to get over your loss but some events just had to happen. I hope that I do not have to kill any more people of any family." "Why would you do that? We have done nothing to you." "Thirty three more men had gone to my camp. I have bought slaves and freed them. Most are children. If they are hurt then men will pay." Both women were very upset and I added, "Men of honour would not do this so I would not hurt the men unless they tried to hurt me. I am not going to resort to Roman law; that means that the powerful will escape punishment. I will judge each and ether give a talking to or something much more serious. It all depends on what they have done to warrant a punishment." Both women were still upset. Men did acts that could get them killed and apparently the women knew that their menfolk were not angels. I prepared to leave. Fausta gave me a large lunch that may have been a bribe but it may have been the hand of friendship. I put on my armour then got on my horse. Many people were here to see me off but Publia was not one of them. I gave my goodbyes and left at a trot. It was ten minutes later that I heard horses behind me. I simply waited. One person was racing to catch up and pulling a packhorse. She was out of breath from the ride and I said, "I guess your mother doesn't know where you are now." "She doesn't but I left her a note." "Then let's go. The sooner you get back the less your mother will worry." We rode much harder now and Publia was able to keep up very well. We stopped to pick up my packhorse and tell Licinia what had happened. Bernadette was there too but she was now clean and dressed much differently. Again I made my goodbyes and hurried onto the trail to our camp. During one time when we rested the horses, Publia asked, "Tell me about that Bernadette girl." This made me think of jealousy but I told her the story truthfully including my little cutie in the camp. I described the hot tub and the other necessities we were making. Publia got a bit upset again at the mention of Hagen and his daughter Elsa. She relaxed more when she found out that the girl was leaving tomorrow. It was getting dark as we approached the camp. I took our horses off the trail and hobbled them. Publia and I worked our way forward. She was not used to hiding in the trees but I lead the way that would be the easiest and quietest for her. Hagen's tribe were now in front of the camp and blocking the road. The gates were open though. Off in the distance I saw a large group of horses but there were no pickets or men there. The men had to be in the camp then. There were a few scenarios that would allow this to happen. Some were deadly to me but none to the people in the camps. "We are going to see the Alemmani." Publia only nodded and we left. She reached for my hand but I was not sure it was just to help her get over the uneven ground. She was a pretty girl and Elsa was going tomorrow anyway. It took just a few moments to find out what was happening. The Romans were in the camp. They had come for me but then wanted to check the camp to make sure nobody was lying. Two men entered and didn't get too far. They found the knives, swords and the tools. Some of the men in the large group were soldiers but the first two were farmers. War was forgotten outside the camp too and there was a lot of trading going on with the Alemmani. Hagen was making out like a bandit. He demonstrated the products and I was sure that he could easily bankrupt every one of the men very quickly. Word was sent to Hagen and in a moment he came to us with four of the unsuspecting farmers. The first one saw Publia and called out her name and ran close. "Are you hurt? How did you get here? It is dangerous to be on the trails especially at night." "I am fine father. I have some news." "What is it?" "Grandfather had a heart attack and died." "No! How did it happen?" "It is a long story. We should sit down to listen." The father, Mamercus, expected Publia to start talking but I did. "My name is Jón. I am the one you came here to take out your vengeance on." Since I was sitting and so where they, there was no gasping for weapons. I told the whole story and as much of the dialogue as was necessary. When I came to Publia she substantiated my claims. I went slow so the men would understand why I did everything I did. My claim to being a messenger of the gods was partially substantiated by the many articles they saw in my camp. I listed what I made but they would have to see them later to prove that I was not lying. They had already heard Tertius talk about his kite but they had not seen it yet. The cannon and powder they didn't need to see to know that they existed. My talks of politics and then need for the army to prove certain facts to the senate and emperor was actually understood. Mamercus as given a chance to talk and he talked about his grief and the way the family took it. Hagen found wine and this was used to assuage the grief and he drank with us. It was much later that I said, "You are my guests and it is too late to ride home tonight. We have some leather that an Alemmani thinks I swindled him for. You can use it but I doubt if it will rain tonight. Mamercus and Publia got my room. I didn't need it as I had my shift to complete. The rest of the attacking force had to talk to the four men to see how the wind had changed. I was snarled at and a finger pointed at me but nothing solid came my way. It would take time for them to get over their sorrow and time to adjust their thinking on how to treat me. Elsa came to me later and said, "I see you found an new one." "She chased after me when I left. She did this to help save her family." "I saw her eyes. She is a hungry one. I should stay here and protect you." I put my finger tip in my mouth and with a childish voice said, "Who is going to protect me from you?" ------- Chapter 7 During the night I had the hot tub drained and then filled once more. There had been a lot of dirt usually at the bottom and I needed a way of rinsing most of the dirt off in a shower before entering the tub. I made do with a basin and some soap to get off the worst of it. I wanted this invention shown in a good light to the Romans. I had just got settled in the tub when Publia and Mamercus walked by. They had not seen me but appeared to be looking for me anyway. I waved and said, "Over here." The morning was cool and humid so the water vapour given off by the tub was dense. The father came first only because he pulled his daughter back. They came and stood by the tub. Mamercus said, "What is this thing?" "You Romans have your hot baths and I happen to think it is a great idea. It allows a chance to relax and talk. We Germans are not shy. Men and women are seen naked all the time. Adults relax in the tub and sometimes have to get in to hold the smallest members of our families. I welcome both of you to join me if that is your wish." Mamercus did the thinking and Publia only waited to see what her father would do. The father said, "I will join you," and after a pause, "Publia may too if she wishes." While they were undressing I said, "I thought of a good saying. 'Si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more; si fueris alibi, vivito sicut ibi.'" This was the translation for, 'When in Rome do as the Romans do.' Mamercus thought for a moment and said, "That is a good saying. I have never heard anything like it before." Plagiarism raised its ugly head but in this case I may have been first. Publia was in the tub first and we watched each other. She had put her far foot in first so she could display more of herself to me. I gave her a smile and a wink before turning to her father. Publia said, "This is hot." "You get used to it. Another good invention is a sauna." It took a few minutes of small movements until the two were able to sit in the bottom of the tub. I admired the view when I could but tried not to be too obvious. When she finally settled down, her feet touched my leg and never left. Mamercus said, "What is this sauna?" I guess he had been listening very well to my words. "You make a room three paces by three out of cedar or any wood that resists water. Benches are put around or stacked like an amphitheatre. These too are made of wood. The room is made very hot. You sit on a towel naked and just wait until the sweat just pours out of you. You get quite clean this way. Another way is to have a pile of hot rocks placed in the room with you. A bucket of water is nearby and you ladle some water onto the rocks. The room is very humid now." "So you can have a damp or a dry hot room?" "Yes." "I make glass and this can be used to admit light while keeping the heat in." Mamercus said, "I have heard of rich people doing that." "I have not done so yet but my glass will be so flat that it does not distort the light as it goes through it. The pieces will be eight feet wide and as long as I want." "I have never heard of that before. How is it done?" "The gods told me and I have seen this. The process is simple but hundreds of small adjustments have to be done just right. I plan on using this to conquer Rome so I do not want to give it out just yet." "Conquer Rome; with glass?" "I will make glass and many iron and steel products. The rich Romans will buy them as fast as I can make them. I will get very rich. With money I will gain power. With power I will change the laws of Rome." "To end slavery like you mentioned last night?" "That and more. Rome makes tax money from the provinces. This still has to happen but we can generate much more money internally." "What does this mean? "You see all around you my iron and steel. People work hard to find goods that they can trade with me. They also bring gold and silver to pay. I give employment to many and they share my wealth. Some men like Hagen will go out and sell my wares to those that have not seen them before. "I will buy what I need with my gold and the people that get my gold will buy my products. There are a great many inventions to make yet. One is a very long curved knife. It has a long twisted wooden handle. One man stands and moves his hands in one stoke cuts the stalk supporting the grains of wheat." Mamercus said, "We have a sickle." "Yes but it is very slow. Now you can use less people to harvest your crops or the same number doing it very quickly. This is good if you expect rain. This could put men out of work but a wise employer will find other uses for the labour." I looked over at Publia but she was shorter than her father and only her head and neck were above the water. Her feet though were still caressing my leg. Mamercus said, "So a farmer could get very rich?" "Yes. If the laws are made right the farmer will get less rich and the labourers get more of the profit." Mamercus frowned at this and I added, "If the lowly labourer gets silver then he can afford to buy your products. How many poor people would buy my glass and iron products?" "I can see that in a way." "There are thousands of thousands of way to make a lot of money. You make the most by making a little at a time but selling a lot." It didn't look like he understood so I said, "Think of it this way. A man wants to build something and this time he wants to use nails in its construction. If I make a machine that makes thousands of nails an hour I can sell the nails much cheaper than what a smith could sell them for. They can be sent to other provinces and cities and the poor smiths will not make any money selling their nails." Publia excitedly said, "I see that." Her father looked at her and she lowered her eyes and remained quiet. My story about my dealings with the gods had to take another change and perhaps being closer to the truth would allow me to not be caught in a lie. My story had changed since I was captured then changed agin with the death of an old man. Now might be a better time to knock a few kinks out of the story and make it more believable. "Sir, this is your business but I have to tell you something I have seen many times." "What is it?" "My education is now far more than any other man on this planet. I do not know everything but what I do know goes far beyond everybody else. I have been wrong in my judgement sometimes and had to be reminded by those around me. I do not think of everything. I am intelligent but not a god. It is good to listen to those around us. "Publia may have a valuable idea that could be explored but it could also be the idle chatter that we all hear. If people are encouraged to talk then valuable ideas could be learned. If the person usually says nothing of value then they will be encouraged to keep their ideas until something valuable is thought of." Mamercus looked at his daughter and she looked beseechingly at him. "She may speak but as you say she should wait until she has something valuable to add." Iulius and Sabine walking by and I said to those around me, "Excuse me for a moment." I called out to Iulius, "Over here!" The man came over and after looking at us said, "Do you wish company?" "You are an asset to any gathering. Now hand me my daughter." Iulius removed Sabin's clothing and then handed her to me. She wiggled at the warm water but she became adjusted fairly quickly. I used this excuse to get nearer to Publia. Sabine said, "Who's that?" as she pointed at Publia. "I haven't made introductions yet. This man here is Mamercus. This young and pretty lady is Publia his daughter. They came for a visit." I turned to the two Romans and said, "This is Sabine she is one of my prettiest daughters." Both had heard of how I had taken the slaves in. Mamercus and then Publia gave the child a proper greeting. I had to do the translating. Iulius got into the tub after trying to find a place he would be more welcome in. We had just finished settling when Elsa came over. She just smiled and removed her clothing and got in. She made it a point to get between Publia and me. Mamercus seemed to enjoy the view until it submerged. My concentration became difficult because Elsa's hand started to stimulate a dormant organ. The conversation shifted to what the Alemmani were now doing to make money for themselves and in the process help the rest of us. I used this example as a way of clarifying how we could generate more money in one province. Sabine started to wiggle and I interrupted the talk to say, "Hold it, Honey." I got up quickly and handed the child to Mamercus. I got out of the tub and took the child to me. I was none too soon as the child just spread her legs and peed. She looked up at me and said, "All done, Daddy." I picked her up and held her to me in a hug. "That's good, Honey. Remember though. No peeing in the tub." "I know, Daddy." Her words though were in German and I assumed that the Romans did not understand. I handed the child to Iulius but before I got into the tub I said, "It was not long ago that there was a lot of scar tissue on me. Iulius was my physician and he nursed me back to health. You can see little proof of this except my smaller teeth in the front of my mouth, a small sack and a small pink ring where I was cut short." I moved so they could all see and both of the older girls were very interested in the research. Publia said, "They really cut it there and then cut the rest off underneath?" "They were very angry at me, I guess," I said as I got back in the warm water. Iulius started now on his observations at that time. He had done this many times by now. This was his way of substantiating my claims and helping me with my self appointed task. The newcomers and even Elsa looked at me when the words were spoken. Publia said, "The gods really do favour you." Elsa could not understand Latin but guessed the content of our conversation. "The gods have made Jón a man now and he is going to be a great chief." Publia said, "I think he will too." All of us looked at her because she had spoken in German. I said in Latin then in German for Elsa's benefit, "You are much more educated than I thought." Elsa frowned at this and Publia brightened. I didn't want Sabine in the water too long and told the others this. I got her out and dried her then got her dressed. Elsa got out too and presented herself to me and said after handing me a towel stored nearby, "Do my back and hair please. They are hard to reach." I did the hair as thoroughly as I could then did the back down to the bum but nothing was that erotic. Publia got out too but her father said, "Publia!" and she had to do her own hair and back. Elsa had a small smile of triumph. When the two men got out I said, "Mamercus, we have known each other for a short time. If you trust me a little I will suggest a business deal to you." "What is it?" I want you to clear more of your land. I am going to build a machine that uses the power of falling water to saw logs into lumber. I know how to build very strong carts with four wheels. We have to make good roads to the mill. I will buy the logs from you and you get cleared land. The cleared land is devoted to grapes and hemp. The hemp grows in many places and is used to make rope and cloth." "I have heard of that. They grow some of it in Gaul and here too. I know it is grown in other places too. Why do you want it?" "We need long and strong rope. My first ships will have to rely on sails. The sails will be made of hemp fibre. The male plant provides the fibre and the female plant provides a nutritious seed. If you work hard by investigating a field of hemp you may be able to breed the kind that has both seed and fibre. This is what I am after. I want to make paper." "Like papyrus?" "Yes, I can make it many times stronger and very flat. There is even some very fine white clay that can be added to make the paper very good looking." "What do you want paper for?" "To take over Rome of course." "Again?" "First I put my words on the paper and bind it into a book. I know how to make hundreds of books an hour. The Romans will buy my paper and my books. When they read my ideas they will learn. Some will be in mathematics but others will be ideas that the average person can and should learn." "What ideas are they?" "I can have stories that talk of ethics. I can talk of ancient wars and why they were fought and what was really gained. Over the years the people will learn a great deal and think just a bit more like the way I want them to. If you think about it, an orator talks to the uneducated mob in Rome to get them stirred up. I will do this to the educated that know how to read." "This is interesting. I never thought of it this way before." "There are ideas I can write, like washing hands that will reduce disease. I talked yesterday with your wife about the needless times a women dies in childbirth. Sometimes it is just a matter of keeping as clean as possible." "What did she say?" "She was still worried about the death of her father." "Yes, there is that. I suppose we have to hurry back." I said, "A funeral is a way for the living to grieve and then move on with life. I asked if Licinia, Tertius and Iulius could attend the funeral. I do not think it a good idea that I go with them." Mamercus gave the idea his consideration and said, "It may be good that they come. The Claudii family have lost members in the battles. They would probably come too." "Would you mediate for me? We do what we have to in war, even if it is not want we want." "I will try. With my father-in-law now dead, it will be a little easier." Please stop by to see Licinia. I haven't asked Iulius if he will go in my stead." The man was listening and said, "I would be glad to. I will at least get away from the duties of a nanny." "You are an old fraud. I know you love the children. Will you tell Tertius?" "I will but he likes it here too much." "Tell him that he can show off his kite and the boys can show their models." "It will be easier if I tell him that." The heavily laden former war band left but not before Publia wanted to get me alone. Between her father and Elsa she could only give me a hug and a smile. Iulius rode proudly on his horse and his three packhorses loaded with iron and steel products. Tertius left too but had to bring a cart because he was going to sell many of my goods. He was going to get a commission and this helped me teach the Romans about mathematics. Hagen was there too and he managed to pry a few more coins from the retreating Romans before they left. I said, "I didn't thank you for protecting my camp. I am in your debt." "We Alemmani simply attacked first. I do not think there is any money left among the Romans." "You are a robber, Hagen, but I still like you." "I need more knives and tools now." "Let's go see what's available. Have you thought of designing a knife that... ?" Hagen got his stock back and a lot more. I had a lot more coins going into my chest. Elsa hurried matters along and as soon as possible she pulled me aside. We were in my room soon after. I had to see her off properly. I was sorry to see Hagen and Elsa go but lots of their tribe would be staying. When I woke up it was darker than usual. I had needed to catch up on my sleep. At least now I could remove some of the toxins in my blood to rid myself of that headache and fatigue. With no Iulius, I was a foster father again but this was an enjoyable task too. Some of my older daughters were thinking of incest and so was I. I did not need the complications so I restrained myself. We had found slate and I got it smoothed out fairly well by hand. Chalk had been found because most of norther Germany had been underwater at one time. The boards were not that large but still suitable for my purposes now. Not all classes were indoors. We went to the forge and I made a blade for a scythe. They had seen pictures on the board. Wood was steamed and bent a portion at a time and we made many handles. Some would be useless but they would learn. The finished products though would make me rich. Funerals were conducted soon after death. A body deteriorated quickly without some preservatives. It was five days later that they returned but they did so with a lot of others. The Alemmani were off clearing the area I wanted for a dam and a mill and there were few of us. I had hired some of the Alemmani boys and they sped the warning to us a few minutes before the group arrived. Iulius was riding in the lead and he looked happy but a little strained. I didn't think he was under coercion but he was not normal either. I had a chance to dress for battle but my swords were on my back and not in my hands. A belt at my waist held my helmet. Helvius, Curtius, Atrius and Manlius were beside me just outside the gate. Iulius was not the first. I six men that ranged in age from sixty to mid twenties. They did not look friendly but their weapons were not drawn. Iulius was driving the cart with Tertius sitting beside him. Iulius said, "Hello, Jón. These men are from the family of Claudii. They came to see you. They didn't believe much of what they had heard." I said, "Good day to all of you. As you have heard, my name is Jón son of Clovis the King of the Frisians. Will you dismount and we can sit more comfortably and talk?" The old man said, "Tell me why you killed my son then we may talk." "I killed an invader to my lands. Now tell me how you would feel if a band of Frisians had attacked your land and you killed many of them?" The man didn't answer but said, "Why did you kill so many?" "I killed enough to make a Roman stop. They are brave and it takes a lot of death to make them think. I think if it were Frisians invading that they would all die. I did not do that. I helped the wounded and then made them prisoners of war with rights and not slaves." "You killed my eldest." "Your people killed a whole city of Frisians. I killed warriors ready to die for their Augustus. Your men killed women and children. Tell me why your people did this?" "Flavius had seven children. You killed their father." "I killed an invader. That is all. You asked questions and I answered them truthfully. If you were a soldier you would know that some have to die. Now answer my questions but get down and look me in the eye. I want to see if you lie." The man was angry and got off quickly but then had to hold the horse for stability. He must have been on the horse for hours and he was still shaky when he got to me. "Is this close enough?" "I can see your eyes and you can see mine. Now answer as a Roman father." This shook him but he pulled himself together and said, "I do not have to answer to a barbarian." "Because your race is so strong?" "Yes." "Then I do not have to answer you any longer. The Frisians are fewer in number but now with their new weapons, they could defeat Rome if they chose to." "They cannot. We have men beyond counting." "They are brave, numerous, wise in war craft but now easy to destroy. Don't forget that you are not just fighting the Frisians but the Frisians and their gods. Woden wants to see a change and Roman heads are too hard. The Roman empire has to be punched by a hard fist. It is just too bad that the army has to take the blows. It is still better than putting a city to the sword." The old man said, "Those events happen in war." "Tell me, Roman, is it better to kill a warrior that is prepared to die or a child holding her dead mother's hand?" There was no answer and I waited. Eventually he said in a low voice, "You didn't have to kill him." In an equally soft voice I said, "I did. He was an invader and would have killed my family. They are as important to me as yours is to you. Now come with me and I will tell you what the gods told to me." I turned and waited then he took a step. We walked to the display area for our products. I got the old man to sit. I called one of my girls that was on duty. She brought over ceramic mugs and some wine. Without asking she poured a large container for the man and a similar amount for me. I whispered for a meal to be brought here and the new presentation to be started later. The man took the mug automatically and I took just a sip. I went into my story starting with the time in coma and progressed slowly from there. Everything I made was attributed to the gods. Even my body was explained though I did not display it. The rest of the group had come in and listened to my monologue. More wine came out but not too much. Drunk men had poor intellects. When I finished my reasons for fighting I went on to my diatribe on the faults of Rome. I then went further and said how I would change this if I could. Finally I went through a partial list of my new weapons to sway the way the Romans thought. I pointed out that no Romans would have to die this way. To hammer home a point I said, "Romans have had to guard the empire because they made the laws. I want everybody in the empire to have a say in how laws are made and used. If that happens, all men will fight for those laws when the invaders come. Romans will not have to fight alone or pay for others to fight for them. "The gods looked into the future and they showed me some of what will happen if we do not change. Do you wish to hear this?" Some clamoured for more but I waited on the old man. When he nodded I said, "The Huns are coming our way. They will push the Visigoths into the western empire. They will ask Rome for help and Rome will settle them within their borders. Not long after the Romans and Visigoths will fight. I did not see the cause but it could have been some Roman official wanting too much or the Visigoths wanting too much. "The Visigoths will fight and go from one end of the Italian peninsula to the other. Rome and every city in Italia will be plundered. They will shelter their horses in villas. Land will be divided up with them getting their share. This lasts a short time until another invader comes and splits the lands up with them getting another share. "Now there are no large landholdings and no real leadership left. You have barbarians in Rome and the army dispersed. Petty lords crop up everywhere but especially away from Italia. Robbers have no fear of the army now and they stop the trade that is the lifeblood of Rome. The great houses fall one after the other. We enter a Dark Age now. Every man's hand is turned against another. There is no Rome to hold us together. This lasts close to eleven centuries." I just stopped here, to go on would confuse most of them. The newcomers now asked questions but I acted physically weak as if the telling of the history had drawn the strength from me. The children came in and plates were put before men and food ladled into them. Again their wine cups were filled but the jugs taken away. When I stopped to eat the men had a chance to eat as well. I answered part of the questions then ate more. The men could now eat and listen too. One question gave me a chance to talk about my steel and I drew my blade. I was happy that nobody thought this a threat. I showed how it bent but flexed back again. I shaved a wrought iron sword with no discernable damage to mine. I took out some knives for carving and picked up some wood put on the floor for this purpose and cut long thin strips. The grain was straight and there were no knots. The question was further answered by me giving out similar knives and wood so the men could try for themselves. It was only a few moments more that the conversation completely shifted to what I was making and then what the tools were good for. The venue was changed to the forge and the men could see how the steel was shaped. We had a grindstone and it threw sparks. The anvils were large and the men could see a lot of value just in these. The wood stoves were ready though they were all small in size. They leaked smoke until the chimney started to draw but we didn't have a suitable milling machine to correct this. Though the men had just ate they sampled food cooked in the frypans over the stoves or over the open fire and supported by the grate. The griddle was large and covered a fire by itself and many strips of meat and vegetables were cooking. The men in our camp liked tours. They got to eat like pigs along with the guests. One of the older boys was working on a scythe and I was asked, "What kind of weapon is this." "I will show you how it takes the heads of thousands in one swing." Some of the men backed up but not far. Hands went to swords but none were drawn. I went to a shed and took out one that I had recently tried and then sharpened myself. This I handed to the old man but instructed him in how to carry it. I went back for mine. We walked outside the camp with a lot of our men grinning. The grass and weeds had been cut back and we had to go further than usual. We stopped at an open area with tall native grasses. "This is your field of wheat. It is early in the morning." I grasped the handles and moved it to get the swing. This particular one was made for somebody my size." A smooth swing cut all in its path and I walked forward and swung again and again. I went as quick as I could but only made one long cut before I returned. The men were just looking at the amount of grass I had cut and the time taken. I stopped in front of the old man and said, "Give it a try if you wish. There is no need to push hard but it will tire you out before the day is over." The man cut his own path instead of following mine then stopped. He backed up and started again beside my path. It took him no longer than me to cut to the end. When he stood before me, I said, "A good man can cut a heredium per day with this. The women that used to work in the field will simply let the grain dry if you wish or gather it into large bundles with no need to wrap them with cord. I passed my scythe to a short man and with no words he widened the path already cut. One tall man to get it later had to be told why it didn't work as well for him. He tried the other and smiled. The tall man asked when he was done, "What is the price of this tool?" "First I would like to say that the blade is steel, not iron. It takes more effort and time to make these articles. The weapons used for war have a fixed price that will not change. These articles are new. I will sell them for two aurii each but I need people that will talk of this tool to their neighbours. They can try this and honestly mention what they are like. If they do this I will sell them for one aureus each. All others that come will have to pay two." "I will take ten. Will you take eight aurii?" "If I sold ten at two aurii I may have some room to move on the price but I must feed the men and children. I will consider trading for copper, brass, bronze, silk, or cotton cloth. I will also trade for labour. I want a building constructed. Men have to use my saws and axes to cut trees and then cut them into boards. It is hard work. Stone has to be cut and shaped to complete this structure." "What is it for?" "This building will cut wood with the power of the moving water." They didn't seem to understand this so I said, "The water will turn a wheel. The wheel will turn a large wood log that will make the saw go up and down. The idea is simple but the building will be large." "Would you trade for labour after harvest?" "How long after? "As soon as the crops are in." "Will they be slaves or freemen?" "What is the difference?" "I will feed them. If they run away then I will not be responsible." "You can lock them in or chain them." "I can but I will not. I do not like slavery but I know that it takes time to switch over to paying freemen to do the same work." I got gold from this man. Others from the same family, but from different estates traded for metal. Nobody had silk to trade. I remembered my own bolt back in Hildestun but that was far away. It was a profitable day. Each agreement that required trade was recorded and both of us got a copy. They would deliver to Licinia estate for me. They took the units now and I had to show them how they could come apart for easy transportation. They were also showed how to sharpen them with a small hammer and dolly block. A stone then could be used if necessary but usually wasn't. With harvest only a few weeks away we switched over to scythes almost completely. The copula had to get less air and thus be cooler with a reducing atmosphere to get iron. I could have Licinia sell these tools but that was a distraction and if they came here they would buy a great many other products. The land around the mill was cleared and the land that would be flooded by the dam I was going to make was cleared of everything. This would be good for fishing at one time so I made homes for fry. Licinia sent more men but these could work stone. We got the rock levelled and a channel cut before it was time to help in the harvest. Everything that could, began to move to the estate a bit at a time. There would be only a token staff working on small projects. The cupola was cold and the billows removed. It was not that I was afraid of people working the site but of people forcing the men to make steel for them. None of the nine very large anvils were left or the tools to work the steel. There was only a small anvil that any estate would have. There were thousands of small jobs that also had to be done that required digging, painting or carpentry. The people here were the ones that chose this duty because they didn't like the harvest. The hot tub had to stay but now it would get walls and a roof. Customers came slowly then in a flood. I even had enough product on hand because I paid the workers well then gave them a bonus for piecework. Licinia and her family came to help. We were trying to get everything done ahead of the time when everybody would be used for the harvest. Bernadette came too and then spoke a few words of Latin to me. She seemed very happy. Sabine came to her but there was not the mother child bond. Licinia oldest blood daughter, Felicia was very shy when we first met but recently she had warmed up to such a state that her mother had to keep her off of me. Licinia had plans of her own and kept her daughter near but kept her under leash. I think the leash was more like a fishing line and they were trolling for me. There were a hundred and sixty three swords for sale at thirty aurii each and a hundred and ninety cuirasses at twenty. The swords were much less work but were offensive in nature while the cuirass was defensive. Instead of riding my horse, Licinia had me shuffled into a wagon with my coins and swords. Her daughter just happened to need a ride. "Tell me more about the future Jón. I love to listen to you." "The future is changing now. Events may come a lot faster now and we may be walking on the moon in as little as three hundred years." She moved close and held my arm. "That is so exciting." She had an erect nipple and I thought that this was more of what was exciting to her. I didn't mind this though the girl was not that intellectual. She chatted about family and babies then how she was going to make the best wife any man could wish for. Close to the house I started to talk about some of the bad points of being close to me. I worked up slowly to the same ideas I had told Elsa about my father deciding who I should marry to further our peoples hold on their land. I must have done this very well. She was not crying when we finally stopped but she was on the verge of tears. I turned and kissed her on the lips and whispered, "We are still friends. Nobody can take that from us." She cheered up a bit. "Mother wants me to save myself for my husband." "We can be friends and not do anything or we can be friends that just doesn't do something to damage you." "Can we?" "If you want." I got a torrid kiss and the girl hurried down. I knew that if her mother did not see she would be informed of the kisses within minutes. Licinia and Iulius had a new building constructed. This housed our products. It was not Walmart but it was good for the time. The anvils were placed here as well as our tools. We needed only a few to start again and they could be turned into coin very easily. Licinia's home had become a popular place to come. People wanted to find out from me or the people on the farm. With me here now there were even more people. One of those was Publia. Licinia had her sit far from me and put her own daughter close. I had started a form of religious ceremony at the camp and before the meal started I stood and gave my litany. Other priests did it and if we were going to succeed I had to do it too. At least my talk cut out most of the bullshit and presented the ideas as clearly as possible. My talk of everlasting life with the gods was the real bait. This is what made Christianity and other religions so attractive to others. I ended with, "I thank you Woden for your gifts you have given and those you will soon give." My hands then moved in the symbol of infinity and I looked up and smiled. Most of the people around the table had heard this before, because they had eaten with us at the camp. Some of the people moved there fingers in the same pattern and I had to assume they were hedging their bets. Only a few were leaning toward Christianity because we were too far from Rome. The soldiers and most here believed in Mithra while a few holdouts believed in the old Roman/Greek gods. During the meal, we talked about the problems that effected farmers. This I had been waiting for. There were some ideas I could present and decided to give them away. "The gods have their own supply of grapes. They have many varieties that are very sweet. Their vines are usually very heavily laden. Thor once tried to remove the birds that plagued the crop. This was hard work. Poison was put out that killed thousands of them but this was not looked on as the right way of doing this. Gods and people had to live within nature if possible." Iulius asked, "What did they use?" "They use hawks the same as here and they do hunt the birds on a small scale. You can trick the birds by making imitation hawks and have them supported by a few long thin poles and a cord from them. The dangling bunch of feathers moves in the wind and frightens some of the birds. "They also have something like a small cannon." This was a magic word now. "This one does not throw anything out but smoke and a lot of noise. They were first constructed to put out the noise regularly but the birds are smart enough to understand this. The cannons later were made to make noise at odd times. This worked very well." Iulius asked, "Can you make this?" "It is complicated and may take years to finish. The best I could do is take a group of boys and girls and teach them what I have seen and get them to experiment. They would be the ones that would make this device but now it will take decades because they know so little to start with. "The best though is not available yet and you will have to wait for years." Iulius asked, "Tell us Jón what it is." "People have made nets for a long time. They are usually small. I had mentioned before about making nets that are miles long and have to be tended by a giant boat or many smaller vessels. A very light net with small holes is placed over the grapes from the ground on one side to the ground on the other side of the vines. They are very long. They allow the light in but keep the birds out. This of course brings other problems." It was Felicia that asked this time. "What is it Jón?" "It is a vintner's nightmare." She looked very serious now and I quickly added, "There are so many grapes to harvest that there is no room to put them all." Felicia saw that she was had and used her elbow to hit me but she smiled at the same time." Iulius said, "We could make such a net." "Not in time for this harvest but you could start the process. Over the years more and more of the crop is protected. This gives you time to build more barrels." The last was said with a smile. Publia was visible to me and she asked, "How can we improve our wine?" "It is good that you and Felicia ask these questions. Women see life differently than men and this gives all of us a chance to learn. Your question though is a very difficult one. Grapes do not like to get their toes too wet. The gods dig deep into the soil and lay pipes that carry away the water. That is done before the grapes are planted. Sometimes a mineral could be added to the soil that will change the flavour but here you have to experiment. If you are wrong then the grapes are not worth as much. "Some types of grapes do better in some land than in others. People should plant many kinds and see what is right for the land. The best variety is then planted. "There are two other ideas that the gods want you to know." I had complete quiet now. "The first is called grafting. You can take an apple tree. It has one kind of apple on it. You take a knife and cut a small branch from the tree and put the branch from a different apple there in its place. It is wrapped with cord and covered in wax. Over time the limb strengthens and will produce the fruit of the tree it first grew from. If you collect ten different types of apple branches you will have a tree with that many kinds of fruit. Pears are a type of apple and will grow from an apple tree." The people were quiet now as they thought on this. In a moment I continued, "Apple trees grow very high. Wild apples do not. Plant wild apples and put the stalk of an apple tree on it. It will grow just the same but not be so tall. They will be easy to pick from." Again I waited. "Many fruit trees can be done this way but grapes can be done this way too. The wild roots are more resistant to disease and can take the freezing temperatures that some areas have." My next pause was long until questions were asked about grafting. I told them everything I knew about it many times. I didn't know much so it didn't take long each time. Iulius said, "You mentioned two important ideas that the gods wanted us to know." "Thank you Iulius. I know how to supply the minerals found in shit that will nourish a plant." Shit was not a bad word in this case and quite acceptable. "One is the nitrogen in the air. Oxygen is the living part while the nitrogen is just a type of filler in a way. Another nutrient plants need is a pure substance not discovered yet that is called phosphorus. The third is a metal and it too is not discovered. It is called potassium. Like hungry little children, the plants will grow large." "When will you have some of this available for us?" "That I have to ask all of you to answer. I am making a few weapons of war for the Roman army. I am making more weapons to fight the earth so it will feed us. I can only do so much and others have to help. It does not hurt that they become rich in doing so." "What do you want me to do?" "The list is endless but it can start with cooperation between farms. You already have this but more has to be done. Some of the workers are idle part of the year and very busy at other times. Also some workers are very good at some tasks but not at others. "I want to construct a building to cut lumber. The lumber is used to make better homes for both the workers and the landowners. Better barns have to be built. Lots of the grain harvest rots or is eaten by insects and other vermin. I need to build a device that will heat the grain gently as it turns around. This dries the grain so it will not rot. Cement has to be made and used for the floor and the lower walls. "On top of this barn we need something like the kite. Instead of flying away it will turn. With very large arms it will turn with a great deal of power. This power is like that of the water. It can do many tasks. It too can saw wood but only where it is windy all the time. It can also turn a giant screw that will take wheat from the bottom of the pile and move it to the top. This will air out the grain more and kill mice. "We now need giant boats to ship the wine and grain to market. Very large barrels need to be built and bands of steel used instead of vines or rope. Large ships need sails not rowers. "There is a great need for hemp. I am telling you now that this is a wonder crop that is under your nose but not appreciated. Sails, rope and cloth is made from this as well as edible oil and seeds. "One family can control all the large ships and this could strangle us later. We can form a company. We contribute what we can. That means that each of us owns a small portion of a very large business." Licinia said, "We know nothing of ship building." "I have seen some but I will not make a good boat builder. We can find some men that are though. I can work with them to build boats that the world has never seen before. I may have to knock a few Roman heads together for they would be much like the other crafts and not want to change." There was a few chuckles because most of them had run into this. The rest of the evening was devoted to explaining to people inventions that were many centuries ahead of them. This didn't mean that they were stupid, just that they were lost in all the new ideas. This too I explained and said, "I need children that are not set in there ways. These will go on to be world leaders. I need young thinking adults to learn from me then teach what they gathered to others. I also need understanding from everybody here. Your lives will be changing. You will not be quiet farmers now but businessmen and businesswomen. One more point I want to make. Roman law favours the man. A women that works as hard as a man gets a man's wage. A woman that contributes as much as a man gets the same share of the profits." Not too many men were going to look a gift horse in the mouth and I had a lot of women on my side now. Later I took Publia and Felicia on a walk. I had to assume that the parents would think that one girl would be the chaperone for the other. My nuts were working now and this was effecting my judgment. I hoped it was kept under control though. It was usually safe on the Rhine in this period but I took my sword just in case. Once in the dark I took a girl in each arm and said, "Parents can be so tight thinking some times." I had been one so I knew. Publia said, "Mine are even more in the past. They want me to be such a lady but I cannot have fun. I am surprised that we are allowed out here in the dark." Felicia had not said anything and asked her, "How do you feel about this?" "My mother still has plans. We are never alone to do anything." "We are alone now," I added. "But she is here." "Yes she is but I am sure she is thinking the same thoughts that you are." She gave no reply and neither did Publia. A few moments later I said, "There is nobody around now and we can try a few fun ideas. I am sure that each of you will not talk about the other." Publia said, "What were you going to do?" "The gods have completely restored me to being a man. I want to hold a beautiful women or two in my arms and kiss them. I want each of them to melt against me and moan that she needs me. Is this not how the gods made us?" Felicia said, "I will kiss you." "I would love to taste your lips." I moved Publia close to her competitor and kissed Felicia with only one hand around her. She had not been kissed like this before and it took her a while to respond but when she did she was violent and pulled me hard to her. When we pulled back I said, "That was the way a woman kisses. You are full of fire. One other girl has to be kissed if she wants me to be." Publia just moved in and kissed me but I turned up the heat an soon she was the one moaning in my grasp. I switched girls twice more and directed them a few metres away where I used my hands on their breasts. Now the moaning got very serious. It was easy then to reach under their clothing to feel naked flesh in my hands and soon I was kissing this portion of their anatomy. Felicia had an orgasm during this time and her moans must have told Publia what had happened. When I moved to the other girl I pulled Felicia's face to the untenanted breast and said, "Do this for us." The girl only hesitated a moment and the Publia had both of her breasts suckled. Seconds later my fingers were at her waist and then caressing her lower lips. She did not last long and she bucked both of us. In the process I found that she was not a virgin. When Publia recovered, she went to Felicia while I explored her opening. Felicia had talked about saving something for a husband but I found no hymen. This didn't detract from her appeal in the least. In a moment she too came and I had to hold her up. When she came to her senses she attacked me with her mouth and said, "Take me." "I will but I want Publia too. Now we better be getting back before your parents start to wonder what happened to you." We shifted direction and I went to the stable where I used some water to wash them up and make them presentable. I said, "We talked of the stars but you were each holding onto me and don't remember much of what was said." Both girls were smart and understood. When we got back, two mothers took their daughters aside for a thorough questioning. I had a hard cock that was difficult to get down. The next morning I was awoken by Hirtius and Livius as they jumped on me. We had a mock fight and I took grievous wounds from their fists and perished. The victors dragged me to breakfast. My children and many of the guests from last night were still around. It had been too dark to go home. Two young women were very glassy eyed and watched me like hawks. Mothers watched me and their daughters and wondered what had happened. Some people were going to leave soon and I asked them to stay just a bit longer. After breakfast I took one of seven cast iron devices I had made but not told any of the family what they did. My own people did and this included Iulius and Tertius. With knowing smiles I got the children and one old man to help me move one of the devices to the well. This was an old crank hand pump. A long tube with a shaft down the middle and a few leather flaps would allow water to be drawn up and out. The well had been covered on a previous visit and now had to be removed. This pump would work perfectly because it was made for the height of the water table here. We took out a bucket of water and put the tube down four metres. Boards we had made for this occasion covered the well opening. I didn't want debris or people falling in. Also it gave a base for the pump body. We had to get a lot of help because this was heavy. With this done we took a long wood trough and put one end under the mouth of the pump and the other end lower so it would drain. The bucket of water was poured into the pump to moisten the leathers and Tertius began to pump up and down. He did this a lot and it was easy because it was leaking air. When it started to get hard he smiled. Moments later water gushed out of the end and continued as he pumped. The bucket was moved to the end of the trough and it was soon filled. The trough was just to keep the water from leaking back to the well. Hirtius and Livius used a stick in the dirt to channel the water away as everybody got a chance to try this invention. Licinia said, "This is wonderful. It is even easier than the device you built to bring up the bucket. Thank you Jón." "You are welcome. One day you could have a pump right in your kitchen and a drain to take the water to the fields." "Now that would be more than I can imagine." One man asked about the trough and I had to tell him. I also added about rainwater washing shit into the well and causing people and animals to get sick and die. He didn't believe me or not very much. I said, "If you place a drop of water on top of a smooth piece of wood you will see that the grain of the wood looks much larger through the water. The light is bent so that we can see small things. "I can make glass and the pieces can be ground like a water drop. You can pick a splinter out of your finger better or see things so small that nobody was able to see them before. One device will let you see all the life we have within our bodies that are not part of us. It is like we have fleas that are too small to see or even notice. Most of these are natural and do not bother us. Some can cause disease. This device with glass can see these small insects or animals to prove they are there. This may also give you a reason to use more soap." Iulius and Tertius had made preparations with droplets of water on them to prove my observations. The man to question me said, "Will you build what you just spoke of?" "I will but it is better for others to do this and I just tell them how." "You can tell me." "I have to make glass in very large quantities. Your wine can go into bottles and be sold at a premium price because of this. First, are you prepared to build a factory to make glass? Second are you interested in making glass bottles? I warn you that your farming will suffer. This is a full time occupation." "I am not sure about that. All I know is farming." "We all have to learn more. I mentioned last night that you will have to change and this is just one way." "I would like to learn more about that device that went in the well." "Pumps have been around for a long time but they are not this good. Mine are for sale. The price is ten gold aurii. They are expensive but you can use it to push water up to a metal tank on your roof. It will get warm from the sun and all you need to do is open a valve and the water will flow out." I had to explain this to those that were listening. Eight pumps were sold but all but two were on credit. I was not starting a new idea but now there had to be a lot more trust and the pumps were not easy to make. Tertius rode around the property pulling his kite with a tail that led to an imitation hawk. As long as he stayed away from the trees it was safe. When he stopped there were a lot of men that had to try this too. ------- Chapter 8 The Alemmani did not fit in well with the other farm workers and it was as if the Alemmani looked down their nose at those either held in captivity or working for silver. They justified their own presence by saying that they were getting knives for war as payment. I was not just training the Roman soldiers in unarmed combat. The Alemmani got some of this training. After the first day of harvest I fought my wild brethren in front of the tired workers. The Alemmani displayed what they had learned on each other. It felt right for these large men to stand in a well defined area and then bow respectfully to each other before every bout. At this time they were more Japanese than the people presently in Japan. The Romans were ridiculed by the Alemmani until they came up and showed what they had learned. To the farmers this was a great display of agility. My reasoning for this was to promote less violent ways of dealings with stress. Adopting a Japanese model of restraint and conviction was almost diametrically apposed to the way they were but strangely quite close too. We used the scythes instead of the sickles during the day and did more than what would be possible in five days with the smaller tools. They used a flail to remove the seeds and this reminded me of the nunchaku. This was good against a sword but a staff was even better. Better to let them learn a few moves well than to load them down. I was family, in a way, so I got to sleep in the house. Around midnight I heard a stealthy approach. I had been asleep but my subconscious warned me. The footsteps were light and a small person slipped into the room. I figured who it was and my nose confirmed it. Felicia stood beside my bed but could not see me well. It took her a moment before she slipped off her gown and pulled up the cover to get near me. When she pulled the covering down she remained still. I guess she just didn't know what to do next. She gasped though when my hand found her breast. After she let out her breath she said, "I didn't know you were awake." "I am a warrior. If I did not wake up, I would be dead. Now get on your side and kiss me." She was very eager to do this and she eventually moved above so I could not get away. Her breasts were not full grown but they were enough for me. She felt an obstruction and climbed over it and held it captive between her tightly closed legs. My own hands were gently pinching her nipples as her body undulated on me. One hand left a nipple and caressed her butt to hold her tighter to me. The skin felt very good in my hand. My finger tips caressing the furrow but did not go far. Felicia stopped her kisses and moved down a few centimetres and moved her pelvis up and down. My member was now as tight against her opening and clit as she could make it. I now used both hands on her ass to keep her in sync as I pushed up at the same time. She was very excited and there was enough of her fluid released to lubricate us. It was starting to get exciting for me when she started to leave the sync I had established and she ground herself into me to stimulate her clit. Her hands had been on the bed but I could tell from her muscles that she was squeezing the sheet with all her might. Her pelvis now went into overdrive and it hammered me about ten times and she simply froze. She had pushed her chest up and now she collapsed onto my chest. It took a moment then Felicia moved to get more comfortable then she said, "Do you love me, Jón?" "Felicia, I said that my father will be the one to choose my bride. That means that I cannot marry you. Love is an emotion that takes a long time to nurture and to let it grow. You know me very little. What you have is..." I tried to think of the word for infatuation and had to say, "something that feels like love to you but really isn't. You will know the difference when you get just a bit older." "But I love you. I know it." "You cannot love yet. I already said that. It is possible that what you feel may grow into love. At the moment you are just feeling all the feelings that your body supplies to get you pregnant." "I would gladly have your baby." "I am not even twelve yet. I adopted many children. I do not want any children of my own until I find a safe home for them. I also want to be home for them and not away fighting or doing business to keep the empire together. I want to enjoy my children as they grow." "I could wait." "That is foolish. You should have fun as you grow up. When you meet the man that will love you as much as you love him then you could start your own family." "I can wait a few years." "That is a good idea. Give yourself time to taste a bit of life first." "I hear that boys like girls to taste them." "They do and some boys like to taste girls. Do you want to try? I have seed now." "I want to try." Felicia turned around and I had to get her into position. Just before I would be muffled I whispered, "No teeth." "Ok." Felicia learned quickly. When she did something good I rewarded her by doing something nice to her. She had something happen very nice to her twice more before she got a chance to taste me. When she finished she turned around and said, "I like the taste of you." "You are pretty good yourself. Now you better go to your own room. Two ideas you should remember. The first is that we both smell of having sex. Your mother will smell this. The second is that you will stare at me oddly and your mother will suspect." "I already stare at you." "I know, Honey but you will do it even more." By the time she left, I was ready again. I was not going to call her back though and had a difficult time to get back to sleep. I was alert the next morning but either Licinia didn't suspect or she was a good actress. After breakfast, most of the people continued with the harvest while I went to the family forge. A large mound of copper, lead, tin, brass and bronze was nearby. This was what was owed me for my products. There was a still to make and I now had the materials. Pure copper melted at a thousand and eighty three degrees Celsius. I could reach this temperature with dry hardwood alone. It took two hours until I had some hot copper that was poured out in a long rod on the floor. I beat this flat and worked from one end to the other. Copper got work hardened so I had to heat it up again. The copper was formed around a long steel rod after being trimmed with a chisel. I now had a three metre length of tube. A copper tub was much harder to make. If I had a lathe I could spin it but none of my lathes were strong enough for this. The top was just as difficult but I made it in the form of a cone. The point would get an elbow and this would be what was connected to the tube I had made. The lead and tin were used to make solder and this was used without flux but it did work. The bottom tub had a flange around it and the top had a matching one that fit and overlapped a bit. Tertius was pressed into my service. He now seemed to enjoy working with me though the harvest because the new machinery was still fascinating. The tube was soldered to the top with the use of a large lump of copper with a steel handle in it and a wood handle to support this. It was put in the fire and when hot enough it was used to transfer heat to the copper I wanted to solder. The lead/tin alloy flowed into the gap. After supper, I got the Alemmani and the Romans to practice a bit more but this time with weighted wooden weapons. Their technique was definitely Japanese. I used this to distance them from their own method of acting like a berserker. Some of the men helped me with the still. Licinia came with us as we poured some of her poor wine into the lower tub that was supported by an iron grate. I put the top on and had to put some wooden forks up to support the long pipe span. One of my iron pots was at the end to collect the condensate. I explained again what I was doing. "Wine is water and a chemical called ethyl alcohol. Water boils at one hundred degrees but the alcohol boils at only seventy eight and a half degrees. The liquid will boil at the lower temperature until all the alcohol is gone then the temperature will rise to one hundred." Licinia asked, "What if we put more fire under it?" "It will only boil quicker but the temperatures will stay the same. The vapour coming off the wine will expand almost eight hundred times. It will leak out all over the place but it is easier to just go up and out the large hole in the top and then through the tube. Some of the vapour will cool and fall back but some will go into the tube. The tube is cool and the vapour will turn back into a liquid. This liquid is mostly the alcohol I want and a little bit of water." The fire was started and we waited. The seam between the upper and lower sections leaked a lot. I used a nail that went through two small blocks of wood. The gap was opened and the metal seam was put between. A small hammer and a dolly block pulled the blocks together and closed the seam much better. We put sixteen more on then got the fire started once again. I put damp rags on the copper tube to cool it better and eventually a liquid started to drip from the tube. I guessed that their wine was one tenth alcohol so I should get three litres in the pot. Tertius got a mug and this was used to collect twenty millilitres or so. I had a sip of the warm alcohol. It was not quite moonshine quality but it was still rough. Everybody got a taste but none of us liked it. "This will go into an oak barrel. In a year or two it will gain a softer taste. It will sell very well when we have enough. It might even be good to buy poor wine to get the alcohol from it. You can also use this to add to your own wine to make it stronger. Nobody in the world but us knows how to do this. "Many drugs can be made with alcohol. One is called an anaesthetic. This means that it will put people to sleep while they are being operated on. It will only be after the operation that they will feel the pain. By then it will be a lot less. The physician does not have to contend with a patient screaming or thrashing around." Tertius asked, "Have you operated?" "The gods have said I did and showed me pictures. This was before I lost my memory." "Could I be a physician?" "You should talk to Iulius. He would be the one training you. I will tell you this; I want you to learn as much as you can. Even if you become a soldier and learn how to kill you also have to learn how to heal." When the flow stopped, I knew the temperature was rising. I used a new steel hoe to pull the burning wood out from underneath and we put some water on this to put it out. I had three small barrels that we had made at the camp, complete with steel hoops. They were just forty litres in my estimation but enough for a start. When I went to bed that night I expected Felicia and she did not disappoint me. We were hot at it in minutes and I allowed my own release in her mouth. The second one was slow and much nicer. We cuddled for a while then tried a third time. She was a growing girl and could use the protein and I only had a damp spot around my neck. The next morning Felicia avoided me. I think it was because she was becoming even more infatuate and did not want it known. I got some help from some of the older workers and we cleaned out the tub and recharged it with wine. They were shown how the liquid burned and were suitably impressed to perform the task safely. Iulius had been conspicuous by his absence. This was good for me but I wondered how convenient it was. He had called one of the military boats one day and just left. He had left word for me that he was just going to see Horatius Postuma. I didn't believe this. I had another project in mind, and it was a very good time to begin. I took out some bat shit I collected with Alemmani help. I began the process for making a small batch of saltpetre. I tried to keep this secret from those around me but at the same time not seem to be hiding anything. There was enough flimflam I could use if necessary without destroying the process. It took almost a whole day to make just a half kilogram or half of my new gram. Felicia came by and said worriedly, "My mother asked me what was wrong. I think she suspects." "You are acting odd. You were usually at breakfast and now you hide. You went too far the other way." "Do you think that is it?" "Yes. Try to act like the way you were a few weeks ago." "You hadn't done anything to me then and I was just a girl." "That girl is still inside you. Let her come out." It took a moment for her to understand and she smiled. "Do you want to go into the barn. I'm hungry." My dick did the thinking but we were out in half an hour. The next day I went back to the family forge and formed a large box of lead foil. This is what I had used before to make sulphuric acid. Licinia had a good supply of sulphur after I told her how it could sterilise barrels. Licinia had two larger glass bottles and one small one. All of them were empty and very valuable to her. I used the larger ones to hold the acid I made. The apparatus was dismantled and I began to make a much smaller still. I would like to have used glass but I had not got around to collecting the ingredients. I redistilled some of the alcohol I had collected then poured this into a steel pot with the sulphuric acid. This was done outside for fear of an explosion. The product was then distilled enough times until I had some relatively pure diethyl ether. This went into the now clean and empty bottles. Looking at the liquid I remembered how the US had used this liquid for fuel air bombs that had been somewhat effective against the Cong. Not much literature came out of Nam about this. They had used lots of other liquids too but the stumbling block was the dispersal of the fuel into a mist before it was ignited. That night over the meal, Licinia said, "We seem to be scaring the birds away. There will be more grapes than usual." I said, "Will you have enough old barrels to cover this?" "I am not sure." "Then maybe we should make a few spares. They don't go bad." The grain harvest was in and their ineffectual drying processes was all we used. There was old grain though. It looked like a tonne. Some could be shipped to the Roman forts but I wanted some for me. It would be a while before the grapes came in so I had lots of time to work on projects. The men shifted into making barrels. We had more than enough tools to do it and they had some experience. The Alemmani watched this avidly because they were going to do it next. Progress was faster than normal because we had been cutting lumber by hand for a long time. It was far from dry but it was at least already cut. We shaped the boards then heated them to drive out the moisture. This also made them hard as a rock and hard to machine later. There was no problem with the forging of the hoops because the men were old hands at this sort of work by now. I took one of the old barrels and sterilised it with the sulphur to show everybody how to do it. Barley had been purchased and then allowed to germinate. When it had just started, I dried the grain and then ground it fine. Iulius had come back and he looked sheepish so I knew he was keeping secrets too. He asked, "What are you doing now?" "Barley and other seeds germinate and turn the flour in the seed into sugar so it can grow. I stopped the process before all of this enzyme disappeared." I then had to talk about enzymes and their functions in life's processes. "I am going to take wheat and grind it into flour then add the barley enzyme and water. The flour is a substance called starch. It is really made up of two different sugars. The enzyme will split the sugars. Yeast will ferment this, just like the wine. Instead of drinking this it has to be distilled and then stored in new oak barrels. When it is done, each barrel will be worth a fortune." "I tasted that stuff of yours and I would not pay anything for it." "You have to develop a taste for it even though it is very strong." The grinding of the wheat I left to others but I did not have to have it that fine. Stone fragments didn't matter because they would settle out. Licinia liked my experiment and donated more wheat which meant more barley and barrels. Next time I would try rye instead to see how good I can make it. I made a large barrel two metres high and three long that sat on its side. It was supported by a strong cradle so none of the barrel was sitting on the floor. Wooden valves were put in and I made a water trap for the top so that the carbon dioxide could escape but not admit anything. Licinia was not sure about the size. If it went wrong then there would be a lot of waste. My next project was a crusher. The two metal cylinders had been made at the camp as well as the bronze bushings. We made a large hopper out of wood. At the bottom was our crusher. A man turned a large crank attached to one of the cylinders and it would turn. Both cylinders were nobby and it was hoped that the grapes would be drawn between the two metal drums and be crushed just enough to release the juice without crushing the stems. Most of the stems had already been removed. The crank at least was at a convenient height and baskets of grapes would be passed up to people on the platform. I had seen similar events on tours of wineries in Ontario. I had made my own wine for a few years but I was strictly an amateur. Felicia missed a night and it took a bit of convincing before she admitted that it was her menses. Later that day I gave another talk on sex to all that would listen. This information conflicted with what they had been taught or thought but I think they accepted my version. My track record was pretty good. Accidents happened all the time around a busy farm and I got a good look at Iulius' tools. I had my own from the camp but his were better. We talked of what a physician had to do and we devised tools to do the tasks. We had some small files so I made saws from some steel that I had hammered flat. Little chisels, pliers and cutters were already in use. I made a haemostat but it was clumsy and too large. Iulius liked the locking feature though. He and I worked to perfect the design within the constraints of our tooling and materials. Sutures were now needles and a spool of thread that had to be threaded when needed. I had a lot of premade versions ready for use. We used catgut from sheep and even some silk from a small remnant of cloth. Iulius liked the convenience and the strength of the silk. Bronze lancets were good but I made steel ones just on principle. I saw sterilisation as a problem and could just use a pot to hold boiling water. Lee Valley was a tool distributor in my time. It dealt in good hand tools and some oddities for the more eccentric of their customers. One product was a kettle made in eastern Europe. A fire of twigs was made in the box at the bottom and the chimney went up through the middle of the kettle. Water around the chimney absorbed a lot of the heat that would otherwise be wasted. Tertius was given the drawings and challenged to make some units. I knew that a large one like this was the same as a gas hot water heater I had used in my time. It only had a metal helix in it to slow down the discharge of hot gases. The grapes started to come in and I helped in the picking. All the rest were doing it and I wanted to learn what I could. I had made some pruning shears with a leather strap to hold them in place. Rather than make a lot there was only ten of two different versions. I did not know what the wineries of my time used so I had to do some research of my own. The crusher worked fairly well. It might have been better to tie the two drums together with a pair of gears but there was too many other concerns at the camp than make matching gears. The crushing of the grapes by walking in them was now not necessary but it was also a social event. I tried to substitute others but people liked purple skin for some reason. I knew that my smaller brothers would have been all purple if they had got the chance. I wanted to make a grape press but that was too difficult for the quantities that would have to go through it. I figured that two drums that were placed very close to each other would extract the bitter taste from the stems. What Licinia had was a large vertical wooden screw that was over twenty centimetres in diameter. A large wheel on it pushed wood beams down on the grapes after they had been in the vat for seven to ten days depending on conditions. I made plans for a long horizontal press that required a heavy steel threaded shaft to go through it. We had no bolts though a smith could make some on demand but they were not uniform. We had no feed for a lathe or a milling machine. The men that were with me at the camp worked at designing now. This was usually just mental work and it was difficult here to make anything large. After a lot of thought I remembered a simple coil spring and how it looked like a threaded rod. This immediately led to me thinking of a long uniform shaft with a metallic wire wrapped tightly around it. I would then have a thread or at least one to work with. We then shifted into the actual construction of the lathe. This would take many months to complete. My pseudo threaded shaft would be steel with brass wire that would be wrapped around it then soldered to the shaft. This was not strong but it would hold together long enough to make another shaft out of steel. When the new shaft was hardened it would last for years. We had a good crew that took this new work of designing as a challenge. The four soldiers, Helvius, Curtius, Atrius and Manlius put down their spears and helped with the designing. Some of the Alemmani even had an aptitude for this type of work. We discussed a vertical mill too. There were a lot of similarities and thinking of one may provide a solution to another. This was all done after the day was done. Harvest now was in full swing. We only had a short grace period before the skins, seeds and the few remaining stems had to be squeezed for their juice. A man came riding very quickly into the vineyard one day. He talked to somebody and Licinia was pointed out. She in turn came running to me. "Jón, Mamercus was attacked by a boar. They stopped the bleeding but he needs help. He is the one that usually heals his people." "I'll get Iulius. We both can go. This way I will be seen as a healer myself instead of a killer." Licinia made a face and said, "I know that and so does everybody else. You should still go though. Iulius doesn't know everything." "I don't either." I got the messenger to stay and rest himself and his horse while I raced back to the house. Iulius was busy in the shed working on one of our projects. He looked surprised to see me and I said, "Mamercus was gored by a boar. Let's get our things. We are physicians now." We hurried off to get our things. Mine were already assembled. I saddled the horses with some help and lead a packhorse that would take my armour and weapons. Fighting was not in my plans but I could die by not being prepared. Iulius and I brought a change of clothes. They were cotton scrubs and intended to keep contamination from our patient. We had no masks or hats but that would come in time. The patient was not in a sterile environment and we couldn't give him anything he already didn't have. Iulius hurried out of the house and we were on our horses and galloping toward our neighbour's. When we were at a walk to rest the horses, Iulius asked, "What do you see as the main danger to Mamercus?" "Infection and loss of blood. I have some alcohol to sterilise the instruments and I brought the ether. This will be the first time we use the anaesthetic." "I hope this works or we will be called on as people that killed our patient." "Ether is safe. It is just flammable. I wish I had some Tetracycline and Erythromycin." "I never heard those words before. What do they mean?" "They are a group of sulfa drugs. They are simple molecules that kill the small life forms that are on and in all of us. A pig has some nasty and tiny animals on its teeth and tusks. Those two drugs could help a lot." "Make some then." "A lot of other tools have to be made first then used to make more tools. It is very difficult to describe this and there are so many steps to the process. The antibiotics are the ones that come from some life forms that fight other life forms. The trick is to grow them and then extract the molecules to fight when we want them to." We raced ahead but at the next slow time I had to now talk about penicillin and other similar drugs. Tetracycline had to be added to the list and I said how it was made from a living organism but could be made from chemicals too. We were met by men but they only raced with us as an escort as if this would speed up our way. When we pulled up at the house, we had lots of help to get our tools in but the men eyed my armour and swords. I had enough time to say, "Better to be prepared for everything than to be dead." Mamercus was laying on a bed with his family around him. In fact the room was filled. Iulius and I had planned ahead on what to say in a variety of scenarios. Iulius said, "I want boiling water and clean cloth and bowls with pictures of water. Bring your soap. We need to bathe. Fausta, stay." He glared at the people and they fled now. Iulius and I looked at the patient and he was now sleeping. Iulius said, "When did this happen?" The questions went on and on. I opened my case and saw a bowl nearby. I poured some alcohol into it and then placed the tools we would need into this. When the articles came, I stepped out of my clothes and washed my hands and arms before putting on our scrubs. I didn't dry my hands. Iulius did the same thing. In another bowl I poured more alcohol and rinsed my hands in this. I said, "We need clean cloth to catch the alcohol." "What?" "Get clean cloth." We washed the affected areas and I took out a razor and shaved the hair away from around the wounds. We did not open the wounds but Iulius started to put some silk sutures in. We traded places a lot where I did the finer work. The abdomen was already bandaged and saw that this was the major wound. I shaved again then after washing in alcohol I pulled back the skin with flat instrument. There didn't seem to be any intestinal perforation but there was a lot of other damage. The alcohol was used liberally but soon our patient began to awaken. I said we better use the anaesthetic." Iulius said, "I guess you're right." He paused and looked at Fausta and said, "We better use Publia for this." Fausta called for her daughter. I had a coarse cloth cone over the patient's nose and mouth and was dropping a little bit of the ether onto it slowly. I had learned about this as a boy but this was the first time I had used it. Publia hurried into the room and Iulius said, "Help Jón." When the girl came close I showed her how to hold the mask and how much to drop onto the cloth. I also warned her about using too much. Iulius and I went back to the abdomen. Mamercus was still now and I put catgut where it looked like it was needed. Most of this was just by feel. Iulius commented when he could and we talked about what we saw. Both of us checked on Publia to see how she was doing. It was the haemostats that really helped. They held our needles where we wanted without having to put our hands into the wound. It took over an hour to just sew up this area. When we were done I washed the area down in alcohol and got Publia to stop what she was doing. A clean sheet was put over Mamercus and we asked for chairs. The instruments were cleaned up in soap and water then in alcohol before being put back into place. Fausta asked, "Will he live?" Iulius said, "He has a strong constitution and should survive. He was very lucky that his intestines were not ripped. We will just wait a while to see if there is anything more we can do to help." "Would the two of you like something to eat?" I said, "We missed supper and I for one am hungry." "I will have food brought up. What is special about that water you used? It smelt odd." Iulius answered, "The liquid we used first is called ethyl alcohol. It is one of many varieties of alcohol. It is also the only one that is not poisonous in small doses. This is the alcohol found in wine and beer that makes us happy." Fausta didn't look like she believed him. "The second liquid had the atoms slightly rearranged. It is two of the ethyl alcohol molecules linked together with an atom of oxygen. This substance will keep a person asleep while they are being operated on. It is easier on the patient and the surgeon if there is no discomfort and the patient sleeps." "We were told that atoms are so small we cannot see them. How can you work with them to do this?" "Chemicals work on other chemicals for us. We just have to know what they do and then try to figure out how they do this." "Where did you learn this?" "The gods told Jón and he made what was needed. Did you see the instruments we used? They work so well with the small curved needles. Without all this I am afraid Mamercus may not have survived." Fausta said to me, "The gods wanted my husband saved?" "The gods do not tell me much. They show me a little then make me work a lot. They do not even tell me everything I need to know. It is like they are testing me. They only showed me how to do a little and then it was only with the simplest tools. They have some machines that can see inside a person without cutting them open. They can even see inside the brain. They have drugs for a lot of ailments but they are not perfect. They have deaths too but I think it serves a higher purpose." "The gods die?" "With no death then life is meaningless." "I never thought of that. Would you show me your marvellous tools?" I opened my case and so did Iulius. She looked all through them and then I pulled out more compartments to see the contents below. Publia was right beside her mother and said, "They are perfect." I said, "They are much better than we had but they are far from perfect. They do not fit as good as they should and they are too wide. I need to harness lightning and use it to put a metal you have never heard before called nickel onto the steel. When I have even more of the power of lightning I will melt this nickel with another metal called chrome. This new alloy will not rust." Publia asked, "Why did you put them into the liquid?" "To kill the germs I told you about. Just because you do not see something, there is not reason to believe that they do not exist." "Will you show me how to use them?" "Do you wish to become a physician?" "I am a woman." "Many of the tutors and physicians of the gods are women. Are you saying that you are not intelligent enough to learn?" "No." "Do you have the memory to be a physician?" "My memory is very good." "Does it bother you to cut open a person to save them?" "No. What you did was amazing. I had never seen anything like that before." "Then you should talk to Iulius and see if he will train you." "I could never do that." "Why?" There was a quiet period where she thought and then she said, "Who would want me to tend to them?" "Did you tend to your father?" "Yes. I even tried to stop the bleeding." "Good girl." She brightened at this comment. "You probably saved his life too." Iulius said with a wink that only I could see, "I will go downstairs. You can stay here and teach. I'll try to save something for you to eat." "Yes, Grandpa." He snarled at me good-naturedly and closed up his instruments. Fausta lead him out of the room and Iulius closed the door behind him. With the sound of the door closing, Publia was a hairbreadth in front of me. She said, "I did not thank you for saving my father." I smiled at her and said, "As a physician, you owe me nothing. As a friend you owe me nothing. As a young man the same is true but we can relieve the stress." "Stress?" "At a near death situation, people think of making babies. If we avoid the babies we can still have some fun." "But father is here." "Do you think he would really object if I held and kissed his daughter?" "Probably not. You saved his life and he would like to find a husband for me even if you are unavailable. He doesn't have to know that." "That is very good to hear. It also makes me very uncomfortable." Publia put her hand down and felt my erection that was pushing at her. "I can fix that." "I am afraid that there will be a lot of people in here soon. They might see a great deal or perhaps smell us too." "Perhaps Iulius could watch my father while I show you our property?" "That would be fun but your mother would suspect. Perhaps Iulius and I should stay the night. You might even get lost and wander into my room." Publia could take the talk no longer and she reached around my head and kissed me eagerly. At the same time she pushed her body against me and rubbed her nipples against me to stimulate us both. I was able to remain a gentleman and just pulled her tightly to me and rub my own erection into her body. My hands went lower and I caressed her butt and then pulled her closer to where I needed her. She groaned but we heard footsteps. I pulled back and said, "Company," then pushed her a metre away. "The small needles I will call sutures. This tool holds the small needles securely. By having gut or silk already in place, it allows a..." The door opened and a servant came in with a large tray. There was enough food there for three people. Publia told her where to put the tray and the young woman left. Publia was quiet until I nodded my head. She displayed her nipples through her clothes and said, "See what you have done to me. You are not the only one to suffer." I licked my lips and said, "I see a better food in front of me." Publia was quick and said, "Do men do that?" "The men that want to please their ladies do. A lady that is pleased will more likely welcome the man back into her arms." "What about between her legs?" "That too." "Will you be my first?" "You have had nobody else?" She got a little red then said, "No man has been there before." "That is a wonderful gift. I have no protection with me and I do not like what is available. Would you tell me when you had you last period?" This seemed to cool Publia and she said with a bit of indignity. "Why do you want to know?" "It will help me calculate your fertile period. I do not want children yet." I had to say it this way. She would learn that it was midway between her periods but she may alter the truth. She considered then said, "Last week." "When last week did it start and when did it end?" She gave me the specifics and I said, "Your fertile period is mid way between your menses. If you do not want to be called 'mother', you should wait at least seven days during this time. Even then it is not sure." "I was told it was just after." "I would not lie to you about this." She moved close and I said, "I still have to eat. Get a chair and I will feed you." She liked the idea and so did I. In between bites, I explained about the menstrual cycle and intimate details of conception. "How do you know all this? Nobody knows that." As soon as it was out of her mouth she remembered. "Do you really mean that there will be millions and millions of cells swimming in me searching for an egg that isn't there?" This could not last long so I said, "I will wash up tonight. I smell after I work." She just nodded her head with a smile. She did catch the suggestion. Soon after, family came in and stood vigil. There was still a chance that Mamercus would die of his injuries especially with no access to antibiotics. I monitored his breathing all the time but it would take a while before an infection really took hold. I taught medicine or first aid really to all that came in. Publia was there most of the time so I covered topics I had not mentioned before. Bandages were brought and I used them on Publia to splint broken arms legs and to bandage punctures. I stayed away from her breasts but she did shift at opportune moments. All this was better than worried relatives mooning over a person that would get better or not whether they were there or not. Iulius came in much later. I could smell wine on his breath and he seemed quite happy. He said, "You can go now. They prepared a room for you." "What about you?" "I have a room too I will sleep here tonight." I accepted then told him of everything I had noted about Mamercus' condition. I could not put figures to most of them but some could be mentioned as if his temperature was high from the injury or very high from and infection that was taking hold. Fausta showed me to a small room that was done up very nicely. My armour and weapons were in the corner. A bar was on the door if I chose to use it. Fausta said, "You did a very great thing for my family. I do not know what I would have done..." "You are a strong woman. You would have done what you must. We do not know what will happen to your husband but he is strong and healthy." She started to sniffle and I moved close and we hugged each other as she cried. This got worse before it got better. When she pulled back she said, "See, I got you all wet." "That is perfectly alright. Women, and you in particular, hold families together. You are the glue to any successful society." She said unexpectedly, "Please don't hurt my daughter." I didn't now what she knew but all mothers will suspect. "That is the furthest from my mind. We even had a short talk. She knows where I stand and I know where she is coming from. I would also like you to know that I am a gentleman and I have no intention of adding any new burden to her shoulders." "But she has such hopes?" "I will have to abide by my father's wishes and cannot make all of the choices I would like. I am also very young no matter what I have done." I had a chance to use the latrine. This apparently was a new addition for the house. It was also safely on the other side of the house from the new well they had dug for the hand pump. Back in the house, I climbed the stairs to my room by the light of an oil lamp, and found my bed already occupied. I closed the door and walked toward Publia. I smiled so she could see my face and blew out the lamp before getting into bed. Publia was both frightened and excited and it took only half of a minute before the fear evaporated. It was the exact time my lips started to work on her ear lobe. I teased her by kissing up and down her body until she pulled me to mount her. I pulled her hands away and sucked in earnest on her clit. Her breathing got so ragged that I stopped and put the pillow over her face before going back to what I was doing. Publia had a short time to recover but the orgasm came eventually. Her scream was loud even with the pillow and hands over her mouth. I went slower now to let her come down while I listened for any indication that others had heard. The house only had the regular noises so I moved up to kiss my lover. She kissed me back very eagerly and whispered, "I never had it as good as that before." "That makes me feel proud to have done such a good job. Would you like to lay on top of me and we can do this again but to each other?" "Ok." She was very quick and swallowed me quickly but gagged and pulled back. The girl may have done this before or at least seen it. Her teeth never touched me so I knew that she had gained this information from somebody. This didn't bother me. She was still giving me a gift even if I was giving a similar one back to her. I let her have another orgasm then I had my own after warning her. She was only a little hesitant but sucked me in and kept me there until I was done and she had swallowed. She rested after this and I was sure to kiss her lips. She could taste herself but she had made sure she swallowed all she had of me. She said, "That was good too. Do all boys fill me like that?" "I don't know. I am bigger than most but only by a little. Now, are you too tired or do you want a bit more?" "You hold me like this and ask that kind of question?" "I was just giving you a chance to leave before I fill another of your openings." "You can do more? I was told that men have to rest." "Who told you?" "Just a slave." "You know I do not like the term slave. Who was it?" "If you must know, it was Helmine." "Did she suck you as good as I do?" There was no answer so I assumed it was true. "It is ok, Publia. Girls have their friends and boys have theirs. I just do not want you hurt." There was a long pause and she said, "She is a friend of mine. Sometimes when it gets to me we will go for a ride or go into the barn." "That sounds exciting. She taught you everything, I guess?" "Yes, we do lots of things." "Are you going to tell her about us?" "I don't know. We share all our secrets." "You can tell her if you want but your mother may hear of it. You are the one living here not me." "Yes, I guess, I should think on this a bit more." "Do I have to thank her for opening you up for me? If you still had your maidenhead there would be a lot of pain and blood." Again I got the pause, then she said regretfully, "I guess that was easy to figure out. She did this for me with a smooth piece of wood. Her little brother comes with us some times and we suck on him. He is not old enough to shoot anything yet." "Publia, even if many men had you I would still want to be your friend. Friends should trust but I have difficulties with this until I know you better. Please forgive my questions." "I will but you better put that thing in me soon." "Yes, my lady." Publia was not easy to get into and I went slow. The dildo that was used on her must not have been large. It was ten minutes before she started to get very excited and five more before I muffled her scream with my mouth and a hand on her jaw keeping her jaw partially closed. I kept pumping and only when she was coming down did I pump furiously and release my seed into her. We did this one more time then I threw her over my shoulder to carry her to her bedroom. My fingers of my left hand were keeping her occupied on the short trip. I kissed both sets of lips and whispered. "Goodnight Honey." She whispered, "Good night Jón," but seconds later she said in an even lower voice not for me to hear, "I love you." ------- Chapter 9 Iulius sent back word of what we had done and said we would be a few days yet. Publia was very happy with this news too. I helped in the fields to harvest the grapes which Fausta did not think proper. Publia worked with me but this was not as bad. I suggested a few ways to make the operation more efficient which let us get an extra five percent in. This was a hit with the slaves and freemen since this was in labour. My pruners were mentioned but they could not see the tool in their minds. I went in at noon to wash up and have a meal. Iulius informed us that he was going to help too and this must have got Fausta thinking. The man worked hard to further my aims especially when they improved life for the Romans. Mamercus was running a fever but I didn't think it as hot as it could be. I bathed his body to keep him cool and then got some of his elderly relatives to do this too. I taught more medicine to Publia while the rest listened to my words. To give examples I asked her to get her younger siblings. We both went over them looking for abnormalities. The children liked the attention because I made a game of it. Mamercus woke up during the day and I gave him a sip of water at a time but no more. He wanted wine which I refused. This also told me that he was getting better. He usually dozed off after ten minutes but he heard a simplified version of what we had done. Another time he talked of his foolishness that got him gored. Fausta and Publia changed the linen and I left the room for some privacy. This was only after I showed them how it was done with the least discomfort to the patient. It took a while. They came out later with a large bowl of dirty water and some soiled linen. That night we had a more formal meal and both Iulius and I were there. The other relatives were taking turns watching over Mamercus. Fausta did the placement but Publia got to sit across from me. Fausta asked about Licinia's farm and I gave figures and then what I projected what they would be next year. They were farmers and knew roughly how much land was under cultivation and thus how much it should produce. Tertius' kite with its faux hawk were attributed with some if not all of the increase. I asked, "Do you have any wine that is not suitable for drinking but is still not all vinegar?" I was sure Fausta was going to answer a question with a question so she said, "Five barrels I think. What do you want with it?" "I can extract the alcohol from it. The amount of alcohol may be too small to make it worthwhile." "For the water to clean your tools?" "Yes." "You may have it if you wish. It is of little value to us. The soldiers will buy it but it is almost not worth shipping." "We reused our old barrels because we were able to kill the yeast that was in them." "Yeast?" "It is a plant that is only one cell big. It eats sugar and converts it to alcohol." "That is an interesting idea. Is that your idea or the gods?" "I am young. All my ideas are of what the gods showed or taught me. Sometimes I have to guess what the gods mean though. Yeast and sugar are not guesses." "What is sugar?" "Honey is two kinds of sugar. Things that taste sweet are usually but not always made up of sugar. Grape juice is rated by the amount of sugar in it. The sweeter it is the more alcohol it will make." I added, "Publia and I were talking earlier about a deeper cultivation that would allow more minerals to reach the roots." This surprised those around the table and Publia blushed at being the centre of attraction. I had talked to her a long time until she was encouraged to tell me what I had just mentioned to her family. The questioning went on for a while until it came to fertiliser and I had to reply that I had not started to make any yet. They asked about glass and I replied similarly. When I mentioned the harvest they could readily see the reasons. Iulius took a partial shift now as I was going to have to later sleep in the room with Mamercus and not Publia. Publia knew this too and hurried me outside to a quiet area and instead of kissing me she got on her knees and had me stuffed in her mouth in seconds flat. I came quickly and then took my time. She seemed to enjoy the activity and so did I. Before I could return the favour she said, "Let's go out then come back here." "No, I need you on your back." "The stable?" "What about Helmine? Will she be watching?" "She might if I ask her." "Ask her." We mingled inside the house for a few minutes then I said, "I better check my horses." Publia was already left for the barn. I was summoned to the loft where I met Helmine. There was not even a greeting before Publia was on her back with her dress and legs pulled all the way up. I got on my knees quickly and started to please the girl while I watched Helmine. The girl was about seventeen and very excited. Her own hand was busy and she didn't seem to care who saw this. When Publia was too excited to care I said to Helmine, "Pull up your dress and sit on Publia's face. She is too noisy." I then went back to the clit before of me. The girl moved and I heard a pair of groans. Helmine had a smile come over her face and Publia grasped her friend tightly as if she would leave. The orgasm came quicker than I thought and it was a good thing that Helmine was where she was. In a few moments Helmine started to shake and collapsed on top of Publia. She was close so I moved a bit and kissed the girl on the lips while stroking Publia's clit with my thumb. In a moment she responded and licked the spend from my lips. Helmine finally spoke, "Stand up in front of me. I will take care of Publia and you can give me something I want." Publia continued to suck Helmine while this girl used her fingers to please her lover while she sucking on me. She seemed to have a talent that none of the other girls I had met in this time could match. When Publia came again I filled Helmine's mouth and this set the last of us off. When we all calmed down I wanted to assure Publia that she was safe. I kissed both girls and said. "Two girls making love make me very excited. Thank you for sharing this." I turned to Helmine and said, "Publia, I think needs a bit more. Give her another of those special kisses. I am going to the house. Those others do not know about love or young peoples' needs after they get over a certain age." I never did see my horses but I left the two girls in the barn while I covered for Publia when the need arose. I was able to sleep in the room with Mamercus. I could hear and sense the changes in his breathing and heart rate. He was only fed broth like I had been because of the damage so near his intestines. He voided himself many times and my sense of smell was assaulted until I toned it down. Well after midnight the door creaked open and Publia crept in. The room was dark and she didn't know I was awake until I caressed her lightly covered butt. Her hands found me then my lips. In a few seconds she kissed them. Her hands were not idle. They were also very insistent. In moments she was like a little piglet nursing at her mother. She seemed content now and just settled to the floor. She was not trying to get me off and she was only idly stroking her own clit and one nipple. She looked to have a soother and was content with this. My own hands caressed her jaw and head. I was not demanding in any way because I loved this too. Publia changed her pace or her position occasionally until she went for the home stretch. Her own orgasm was subdued and she had something in her mouth to keep her from making too much noise. Only after she was done did I enjoy my own release. This stirred her up again. When I was soft I slid from her mouth. We both stood and hugged. "Hmmm that was nice Honey. What would you have done if it had been an uncle sitting in the chair?" She stiffened quickly but I held her to me. "That was a cruel thing to say." "You just have to be careful." "Well I knew you were here. You smell different." "That's my girl. You made sure first." I sealed this with a kiss. "I am excited again and my busy mind had an idea. Let me guide you." She didn't argue and soon I was laying on a folded blanket on the floor with an important part of me pointing up. Publia soon found that she needed to rest and sat on me. This took a while for her to get comfortable. She gave small groans of contentment and then removed her clothing and put it under my head for a pillow. She then made some experimental movements until she found something she liked. We both had our release recently and this time it was slow. My hands caressed her nipples as she ground her clit into my pubic bone. It was nearly a half hour later that Publia found the need to go faster and in a few minutes she bit her hand as temblors ran through her body. Just as she was coming down I used my hands on her hips to keep her moving. I filled her as she groaned anew. As soon as she could, her exhausted body rested on top of me. Even though I had my own orgasm I was still hard. My subconscious was able to overcome the failings of my body. Five minutes later Publia was asleep on me and made little snoring sounds. She would be very cramped later though I didn't mind her where she was. I gently flexed my pelvis until Publia woke up. "What? Ohhh." In a few seconds she asked, "You want more?" "I would always want more of you. This time though we have to get you up. You are going to be sore soon. You also have to get back to bed." "I could sleep beside you always." "Do you mean on me?" "Well, both." Publia started to move but didn't want to lose me. She did get on all fours and then walked backwards. She had to bend down then and clean me quickly before standing. This girl was eager to please and quite pretty to. I gained my own feet and listened to hear if anybody was awake. Publia said, "Are you going to carry me again?" I moved her around and instead of her hanging over my back I had her legs on my shoulders. I slid her around and she thought she was going to fall. When her pelvis was in front of me I hugged her waist and started to suck on her snatch. She took this like a trouper then sucked me into her mouth. We walked the few metres to her room this way and put her on her bed. I repositioned her body on the low bed and slid her off. I was sure she didn't understand what was happening but was not worried. I was behind her then and pushed my way in. She just groaned then put her face into the mattress to suppress the noise. I was not slow and hammered into her vigorously. I was a fair cocksman in my day but my new control over my body would make me great. Now it was me that lasted a long time while Publia had two orgasms. Publia was now worn out. I moved her onto her bed and covered her up. I left to get her night gown and put it in the bed with her. She was already asleep when I got back. The next morning Publia looked tired and when her mother questioned this she simply said that she had tossed and turned most of the night. Helmine found us at mid morning and asked, "What did you two do last night?" Publia said, "This brute tired me out. He made me do most of the work then he filled me with his seed a lot of times." "You were lucky. I only get it once or twice." Publia said, "We should go for a ride to check on the harvest. There are lots of nice places nearby." I said, "Did you two girls find them?" They both looked guilty but it was Helmine that said, "We did. A girl gets that feeling sometimes and there are not always some boys around. Besides most of them are rough or done in a second or two. We need love too you know." I said, "You have to start training them. Learn when they start to get too excited and then slow them down. They usually have thick skulls but they will learn that if they do well then they are invited back." "I tried that but they just push me to the ground and stick their cocks into me." "That's rape. I do not like slavery but perhaps I can do something about it. First of all is it a slave that does this?" "No, he is from the house." This could be dangerous now and I said, "Was it Mamercus?" I was happy to hear, "No." "Then I will talk to Mamercus. He owes me something now and I want him to change the way he treats his people." "Don't do that. I will get hurt or sold." "Trust me on this." Helmine now looked worried so I knew I had to be careful how I approached this. She had not heard much about me so Publia told her some and I filled in the gaps. I think the violence excited her or the fact that she had found a protector of sorts. I talked with a lot of the other people while the girls were in the loft. They were always hot and I was able to slip away for a half hour to please one or both of them. By the end of the afternoon they looked like shit and I had to get them cleaned up. They were not just stimulated by each other but by me. When they waited they had nothing better to do than to talk or have fun. Iulius was administering his drugs to his patient to keep the fever from taking over. The baths helped a lot. He said, "We might be able to go home today. Are you having too much fun to go?" I said, "You are a sly old fox. I can control myself if the need arises." "Then I think we should get back after supper. There is more than enough time. I like my other bed better." "Then you better tell our hostess and I will do my consoling." He said with an evil grin, "Don't wear it out. It has to last a lifetime." Publia and Helmine were perhaps not devastated but they were sad that I had to go. While I was watching her father, Publia came to the room but she was so sated that she wanted only to hug. Her father picked this moment to awaken. I had heard his change in breathing but still stayed as I was. He must have been looking at us for a minute when I turned to see him looking at us. I said, "Hello, Sir. How do you feel?" Publia was in a bit of shock. "I am still sore but I think I will survive." "That's good. I was just talking to Publia. She mentioned that her friend Helmine is raped by men within this house. As a favour to me, I would like all rapes stopped. A slave is a person not an animal. You may be able to keep them in servitude but give them at least some basic rights." "I know the girl. I didn't think she was ever raped. She gave it away freely." "That could be the case but it takes only one time to make it rape. The next time could be any woman of your family. Set the precedent now. I have my own code of honour and I would not like to see those I care for hurt." "I will let everybody know. I will also let them know your words. The man may have a death wish if he continues." "He lives within these walls. He is a relative." "There are three men that live here... besides me. I will do what I can but please, no more killing." "Suggest that I need an eunuch." "That is almost as bad but I will mention this too." To change the subject to something more cheerful I said, "We made a tool that cuts the grape stems by just squeezing the metal parts together. It is much quicker than knives and safer too. They work well but there are some improvements needed. Next year they should be available before the harvest." "Do you have any here?" "I am sorry but no. When you get better we can visit again and I will show you." I felt and Mamercus saw, Publia squeeze me, at this announcement. I hope he was not seeing me as potential son-in-law material. Iulius and I were thanked profusely and after the meal we departed. Publia was beside Helmine and both waved to me sadly. Iulius talked on the way back but tried to disguise his curiosity as an investigation of my healing. I said, "You are just a dirty old man that wants to hear all the small little details so you can be excited too." "You hurt me. I nurse you back to health and you treat me so shabbily." "I thank you for that but the fact remains that you are as inquisitive as an old woman that wants all the juicy gossip." "Juicy? That is an odd term." We shifted over to a language lesson and I had to see if there was a Latin word for 'idiom' that he happened to know. Just before we got back he said, "I wonder how Felicia will take the news." "There is no news. I have made my position known. I will not marry. Though I used my father's position to justify it, I am still too young. I also take pains to make sure that I do not burden anyone with a child of mine." "A father might force you into a union." "That might have to be avoided like an angry tribe of Gauls." The grape harvest continued and the new barrels were certainly needed. A better press would allow even more wine to be produced. When the time came the skins, seeds and stems were not thrown out. Water was added and allowed to stand another week. This was a rough wine but still salable. I did not see this processed. We had gone back to the camp instead. The camp had certainly changed. The hot tub was complete and so were the new barracks. We had one for each shift so as to not disturb others that needed to sleep. The cupola was ripped down. It has served its purpose but now we could make it better. I was actually surprised that it could have made the iron hot enough to pour into moulds. This time we moved the cupola further away and on top of a large cut stone foundation. I needed the height to allow gravity to disperse the molten iron far enough. Freemen came to me seeking employment plus those farm labourers I had contracted for. They were split up. Some went to work on the mill and others the foundry. A select few would hunt, farm or transport food that I could easy pay for. The months passed and it took a long time to build on this size with the tools I had to work with. We were always short handed. Some men had to work on the dam that I wanted constructed. Here too I needed stone blocks, and a lot of them. The men rotated more and soon their families came with them as there was little to do on the farm. Those that were there, were ploughing with the new tools. Licinia was not familiar with inter ploughing but was willing to try. It would be done in the spring again then be cultivated. The hand tools she has received were already many more times efficient than they had before. Iulius though was busy. He and the soldiers got Horatius to send some boats. Iulius and I had a similar sense of humour and refused to tell Horatius what we wanted the boats for. He took all the armour, swords, daggers and knives to the Roman. Other boats had our other products. Hagen came back early then did so four more times to buy merchandise. He simply could not keep stocked long enough to get far. His selection was slim and we were not making much steel now. He and his men were now very rich but they traded their gold for steel for themselves or to sell. They too complained of a poor transportation system. Elsa had to stay with her family but during that time she stayed in my quarters even if she had her menses or was fertile. Her father and mother knew my commitment to not wed but they were hoping either Elsa or a child would get me to change my mind. It was into spring by the time we got the copula finished. Clay pipe had to be built that lined the inside of the chimney to capture some of the heat that was escaping. There were now eight billows that forced cool air down through the pipes and then through the walls of the copula and through thick clay pipes called tuyeres and into the furnace. The air coming in would be hot once the fuel started to burn. An extensive network of lifts were made to hoist iron ore and fuel so it could be dumped into the cupola. Before the first firing, we made hundreds of moulds. Some were for many small parts in one cope and drag but others were very large. There was so much iron being produced that we had to find a use for it. The copula took a long time to reline so we had to keep it hot as long as possible or it would deteriorate with the temperature swings. Our furnace though was making cast iron and not steel. We would have to build a smaller furnace for steel. The alternative was to make a Bessemer converter that would force air through perhaps twenty five tonnes of molten iron. The impurities in the iron would burn and this would supply the heat that the air would take away. For this though we needed track, wheels, gearboxes, an iron support structure and a multitude of other tools. Iulius had come back after only going twenty seven days. I saw that he carried none of our armour or weapons so I assumed he was sold out. "You would not believe that Horatius. He saw the steel and coveted it like a man does a beautiful woman. He and his men bought all they could. I think they borrowed on what they would make for months to come." I asked, "Did he accept our deal?" "He certainly did. The short sword was a hit with him and we got the use of three boats. We only got to three more forts before there was only a few knives left. The last fort was happy to get these." "And our net profit?" "Eleven thousand one hundred and sixty seven aurii and some change." Iulius was glassy eyed at the numbers alone. I said, "I remember telling you that we could generate a lot of money within our borders." "I half believed you then but fully believe you now." Licinia was on hand with all her family at the first pouring. All of them stepped far back as the with hot metal flowed down troughs that led to the prepared ground. We were making track now. The iron went into pools that led to various sections along the length. Steam rose until it was hard to see and the glow of hot metal was very bright. This was done after dusk so that the effect was even more startling. The track was light weight. It was only calculated to be twenty kilograms per metre. The furnace had close to four tonnes in it so we should get close to two hundred metres. The iron would not stay hot long enough to reach the end so we had six castings made. When waste was considered, we would be lucky to get six rails that were thirty metres each. When the flow was capped more fuel and iron ore were put in. Licinia came close to Tertius, Iulius and me. She had to even put up her hand to protect her face from the heat. "I never knew it would be like this. I thought I saw hot iron before but now I think it was cold in comparison. What are you going to do with this iron?" Tertius answered his mother, "There is so much iron produced that it is hard to use it all. The metal you see will be like the train Jón described to us. An iron cart will ride on the track. On them will be moulds or sand and clay that will receive the molten iron and then be pulled aside to cool while others are filled." "How much iron are you going to make anyway?" "Jón estimates that we have only a small deposit here. He has used a new way of measuring. He says that there are two thousand, thousand medimnos here or what he calls fifty thousand tonnes." "But you would find it very difficult to pick up two medimnos." "You're right but the amount here he says is like one grain of sand in a large tub of sand." Licinia looked at me and said, "Why do you need so much?" I said, "I want to build and iron is what I need to do this. I need ribbons of iron up and down Germany and across it too. Then they will lead to other countries. They will bring wealth to all of us and perhaps man's greed can be channelled long enough to tame him." While the guests slept we pulled out the cooled track and rebuilt the moulds. The solidified iron puddles were difficult to get into the cupola and we has to be careful to not break the delicate clay tuyeres that fed hot air to the furnace. The next batch gave us over two hundred more metres and again the furnace was filled. Licinia and Felicia went home a bit disappointed but for different reasons. Molten iron was exciting but was dull after a number of times seeing it. Elsa was not around but Felicia could not find time to be alone with me. We were casting at better than six hundred metres per day of track. In a way I was making a model railway. I had seen track and switches many times but had never studied them. I was chemical not mechanical. A building was constructed to make the sand castings. I had an image of a heavy car carry the drag. The bottom half of the mould was made and any forms put in. An iron beam with a strong rope fall would pick up the top half and invert it before placing it on top of the drag. All this would be pushed uphill to a long shed to keep off any rain. When the time came, the cart would go down a slight grade to make it easy. At the end it would be filled with iron and the cart released to travel by gravity to where it will cool. The cope and drag would be separated and the hot sand and hotter casting removed. The iron would cool in the air and not in water. I remember that quick cooling would cause the casting to get hard and brittle. The sand would be reused and the process started all over again. Hand moulds were used when we had enough track. We needed the wide metal plates that rode on the sleepers but ours this time had to be stone if they were near the pouring or where the castings were taken out. Hagen was gathering me a lot so I had to set up a large furnace for steel. This two was big but not like the cupola. Hagen had done his other tasks too and found some of the minerals I needed. The foremost was coal but he did find salt, potash, sulphur and more deposits of iron. One of these was magnetite. I put him to work making small brass cups. With more time we could make a compass with a pivot in the centre and not rely on water. I had to work on the mill and I begrudged the time travelling between them. It was only an hour and a half each way but it was time I could use more constructively. The dam was built but only a small portion of the land was flooded. The gates were kept low on purpose. We built a stone lined channel and started a mill beside this. In time the river would be diverted and most of it would turn a very large iron wheel and shaft. Iron gears here would be superior to wood. Horses were in use everywhere as well. They had used the scrapers to dig channels in the soil then to haul away the soil in the heavy wagons we made. They pulled the mighty oak beams that would hold up the floors and roof. The horse collar had made an appearance over here now and the men liked the way it helped them do more. Lucius finally arrived one morning with ten of his officers. I saw him in the distance as he looked at what was happening to his land. I had my own guard out but none of them brought me warning. This was not right. Lucius came up to me and said, "You look to be very healthy for a boy that is dying." "You must be Lucius then. You look taller than what I was told but then again you are on a horse. It was you and Iulius that saved me. The gods may have got somebody else to do it but I guess you were handy and already sympathetic. Anyways hello, Lucius." Lucius got off his horse and hugged me. "Hello to you to, Jón. I have come home and everywhere I stop I fine mention of you and your works. I see many officers polishing steel armour that they say they simply love. Their swords and knives they take to bed with them like a woman." "You Romans like war too much. How come you are not wearing the set I made for you?" "You have not given it to me and I chose to wait. The armour is beautiful in its strength if not the finish. The swords are the equal of your own if not better. They are even in different lengths and weights." "I have to thank you properly. And I thought this best." "What about all that you have done for my land?" "Your wife and I went into business. I use the land and your servants and she in turn is paid a portion of the profits. Some of this is simply payment for your trust. I could not get very far without them." "You would find a way if there was one to find. Now tell me about what you are building here." "Gladly but first introduce me to your officers." I greeted each to get an idea of how I would be treated. They were not like Lucius but they could also see that I was not a threat here at least not the way they thought. The dam was shown first. I showed where the soil and rock had been scraped from the bottom and deposited on the edge to give us an extra few metres of height. He loved the idea of the places for fish and said, "This will be a lake, not a pond." "I plan on not only Hirtius and Livius but all the children learning to swim and to fish. That is why that one area is blocked off and not very deep." "What is that large pieces of wood there for?" "You run along it and jump hard on the end. The board will allow you to bounce higher into the air to strike the water more vertically. The higher board is so you more time to perform more complicated dives. There are trees with ropes so the children can swing out and land in the water. There is a raft but the water is not that high yet. I want to install the wheel before I raise the water more." "Why have you done this? The children are hours away." "There will be children here to. Their parents will work here. Your children will visit as will others. I have made something I am calling a model village. People will be happy to work here. What I now make was only seen in the land of the gods until we put it on display here. Children will be inspired and want to learn. If we build a school then people will come from all over the empire to see what was done." "That is very ambitious. I was hoping to spend my retirement on this land." "I am sorry but you and Grandpa will have duties far beyond what you have now." "You give me tasks?" "Yes, and no. You are caught up with me now. This is your land. A farmer may own the land but he has obligations to it too. You will have to now work with me to educate the world. Most of this happily is by doing instead of talking about it. "The river downstream is navigable to the Rhine. When the dam is put in place we will deepen the channel and remove the obstacles. Boats will come here to purchase seasoned wood or to deliver trees ready to be sawn. Some of the wood will be used to make our own boats. Those boats will take your wine and farm produce to market." "That is amazing. What about your bloomery?" "Where you there yet?" "Yes, I was and I had never seen anything like it." "We are starting small. The one you saw would be lost in what I have to build." "Is it to build the train and tracks you talked about?" "Yes, but many other projects too. I want armour for the Roman army but I also want some say in how it is used. Germans have hard heads but so do Romans. The key is education. Teach the children that will one day be responsible adults who will have more children. Some governments thrive on their uneducated citizens. Rome is not that way but it does not promote education either. An intelligent and educated man can make a lot of money and enrich the government." "Taxes?" "That but also that the man will give employment to others. If everybody is employed then the common person can afford to purchase what is available. I will offer a lot to buy. This will allow me to hire more men." "Will you get the whole empire to work for you?" "Only a small fraction like a twentieth or so." Lucius started to puff up as if to explode when he saw my smile. "I should have let the Picts keep you. They would be ruing the day the ever met you." "They already think that way, do they not?" "I guess you're right again. Now tell me about the mill." Lucius and the officers were led into a room where I slept. On the table was model of the mill. This had to be built so the people would be able to see what they were building. Some of the parts moved but most didn't. Some of the gears we had made were here and I showed the men how they worked together to make something go faster or slower simply by the different diameters. A shaft was mounted in a block of wood. On the end of it was a large disk with a stub of wood sticking out. From this stub a saw blade was hung. I had Lucius turn the crank that turned the shaft. The saw blade went both back and forth but also up and down. When they saw how this worked, the saw blade was put aside and a shaft was attached to the stub and then to another in a block of wood that could only travel up and down. The blade was attached here and now the blade only went up and down with the turning of the shaft. Devices like this had to be done. Men had little understanding of physics. I was asked questions now and they started to come from the officers. One asked, "How large is that saw?" "We can only cut trees that are six feet thick." "How many cuts can you make in a day?" "My day is twenty four hours. The water runs all day and so will the men. One blade should cut a thousand feet of the largest trees and double or triple that of smaller ones. That is only one blade but we are going to have six of them working. When the wood is dry I can build homes or boats." "I cannot believe that amount of wood could be cut." "You are not the only one to think that way. Did you think I could build a lake even though it is not full yet?" "A lake is just a lot of hard work for a lot of people." "That is true. What about the hot tub? I am sure that you saw it. Everybody is shown that. Do you believe that the iron was so hot that it ran like water into a mould and then hardened in that shape?" "I saw the iron pour with my own eyes. I know this is true." "Were you told about the liquid iron before you saw it? Then did you believe it at that time?" "It was hard to believe." "Do you believe that steel armour and swords are better than bronze and iron?" "Yes." "Then you have seen some of what the gods have shown me. I have made mechanisms that look impossible become a reality. Why is it that you will not take me on trust for one more?" He didn't answer but then again nobody else did either. We ate a meal after and Lucius asked, "Why have you not made any more cannon?" "That's simple. The most important is that the gods do not want the Romans to have it yet. They let me save my land and when that was done they allowed me to be knocked in the head so hard that I would loose my memory of things in my past. They had me saved by you and brought here. They gave me images of my past but not my memory. "I have built many devices that would continue if I died today. Rome will be stronger for it. Something more must happen. I think this must be some way for Rome to see what is offered them and then accept some small changes in their laws." One of the men blew up and said, "What right does a barbarian have to dictate our laws to us. We are the strongest nation. We have ruled for over a thousand years. Anybody that has gotten in our way had been crushed. Rome does not need your help or your witchcraft." Lucius had not said anything or stopped this so I said in a low voice, "Rome did not stop my people. I heard that you captured me and killed three children. How many did Rome loose?" The man jumped to his feet but so did his friends to keep him from me. He spit out the words with saliva, "You killed Romans." "I killed invading Gauls and invading Romans. I assume my father did too. Would you do the same if you were in my place?" The man just clawed at me but his friends kept him away easily. I doubted then that he was really trying to get at me. "You should have died." "I will tell the gods when we next talk. Perhaps they well rethink their plans." "You use witchcraft not the power of gods." "It is good to find such an expert on gods and witchcraft. If you saw me after the Picts were through then it would take much more than witchcraft to repair the damage." When the man started to make a retort, Lucius said, "Enough." He turned to me and said, "Let us talk alone." Twenty metres away he said, "What am I going to do with you?" "I am afraid it is you that has been caught in the net of the gods." "I already believe that. You are making this difficult for me." "That was not my intention. Tell me what problems you have and I will try to find a path that avoids them?" "Many men now are angry that a threat to Rome is allowed to remain free or even to live." "Because of what I have done or what I am doing on your land?" "Both I am afraid." "The past was necessary and even if it was not it cannot be undone. I have talked of educating people so that they would change their thinking of what was right and wrong. When enough think as I do then Rome will have changed. I have put no sword to the throat of Rome. I bring prosperity and peace. I bring education and good health. I bring a kinder world that will one day not need large armies." "That is what I have heard. Some people just do not like change." "There is a saying that a person cannot please everybody." "It is more than that. Many want to see you dead. They think that either you know about the powder or the gods will tell it to you when the time is right. Some want vengeance but others see that you are just starting to make so many new devices that this alone will change the way we live." "Both are probably right but I am caught like a chip of wood in a stream. People hate and fear me but the stream pushes me forward no matter what I personally want. The gods have given me a task, or a great series of tasks, that nobody but one with their help could accomplish. You are just a fellow chip." I was afraid of losing Lucius' support. I was using his men on his land and probably had his hand protecting me even when he was away. The talk of gods had rolled off my tongue easily. It was easily justifiable when I thought of all that man had done in the name of one religion or another. I had to put my lies on a man that had helped me even if it was partially for his own gain. "Lucius when it is all said and done we will sit around a table and drink wine with the gods one day. We can all laugh at the way we had to act for this play." "What play?" I paraphrased Shakespeare. "Life is a play, and all the men and women merely players. The whole world is our stage. When our part is played, we simply go offstage to be with the gods until they find a new part for us." "Death?" "Sure. We are too small to be gods but we are here for their amusement. Some of the gods are like spoiled children that damage their toys while others put us away carefully or in my case give visions to so they can move me more easily." "What happens after death?" "You have simply taken off the costume given you last and await the next part. In the mean time you act much the same way you do with your friends. Food and beverages are available but they are just to please you. They are not needed. Those that have played the parts before but do not have a part to play presently can be met and talked to. Those you have loved will be there but so will the ones you hated. Wearing flesh makes us think and act the way we are required. In Asgard you see clearer than ever before and strong emotions do not seem right somehow." "Is Asgard for your people?" "We are all people. Some have German and some have Roman parts to play." "You have seen this place?" "I was there for half of a year in one way of thinking. It may be better to say that I was partially there half of a year. Some of me was needed to keep my body alive." "You could have got a new body?" "Yes but I would have to be born into one and then start years later. I already was the only son of a king. It was a good position, I guess, and the gods wanted to keep me there." "They could have put you into an older body." "They could have done that too but the gods are ethical. We do have our parts but we can fight this and run or play them. We can also play them our way like a musician or and actor. The gods also expect us to be ethical within our individual parts. Some parts like those of an evil tyrant cannot be played ethically at all." Lucius said, "I was not asked to play." "The front part of your mind is what we have partial control over. The part I call the subconscious takes care of most of the work the body has to do. It influences us during the day but is in charge at night. I would have to say that the subconscious was the part of you that made the deal." "I know nothing of this." "You are married. Your wife made deals with me and did not tell you. I am told I talked to you before. Did you tell everything about me to your wife?" "What deals?" "I bought food, she allowed me to extract the iron and have the use of the trees, she allowed me to make a mill and I told her about the small lake. I took advantage of Iulius and your men to sell my armour and weapons. All those are small trades of one thing for another." "I do not like being caught up in the workings of the gods." "Most people do not. You were given a part. You either play it your way or you try to get away. The gods may get you back or maybe they won't. All I know is that your part may be to run across the stage. I do not see that of a Roman officer." "I am a Roman and I can do my duty if I knew what it was I have to do." "That is the problem. They want us to grow ethically and to do this we have to find our own way. In your case, the question is; do you do what is right for the existing empire or what is right for the new empire that will emerge? The new one is the same as the old but much more powerful. It has to be kinder in its dealings with others." "I have thought of your weapons as I think most soldiers have done. You have said to others that the cannon is a toy when compared to some weapons. Are we to get these new weapons too?" "I am afraid that everybody in the empire will be tested. All commanders will now have more power in their individual hands than what the Augustus can call on now." Lucius said, "I know of some men that cannot be trusted now even with iron swords." "That will be our time of testing. The weapons will not all come at once and only the trusted men will get them. A renegade commander may then think more than twice about challenging the might of the empire." "That eases my mind but only a bit. Emperors have gone to war for their own ends." "The gods do not want emperors but a senate. We will be going back to the old republic. People will still scramble to be an emperor or an Augustus. We all must watch out for this. We need leaders but not ones with the power that the Augustus now has." "Perhaps that will help but I do not know what path to follow." "Is what I am proposing a threat to the Roman people?" "I do not think so." "If I succeed, will the empire be better than it is now?" "When the good is weighted against the bad the good will outweigh it." "The ruling families will still rule and they will get richer. The job of Augustus will have to stay for a while but in fifty years it will not be as powerful any more or the office will be abolished. Does this conflict with your oaths to the emperor?" "I do not like that." "I have a solution in a way." "What?" "The Augustus will die soon. A new one will come to power and die in two years if I do not save him. If I get a chance to talk to the man that will be the new Augustus before he takes the laurel leaves, I may be able to get him to help us change the empire." "Who is this man?" "Ever since I came out of a coma I have thought about who I could tell this too. I know of other emperors and their deaths but the death of Constantius II is auspicious for me and the gods. "My problem is I do not know where you stand on this. The second problem is how to proceed even if you give me a favourable answer." "Why is this?" "Time has bent around me and my part to play. Constantius II died while on campaign. He was fighting the Parthians and had to come back to fight who would be the next Augustus. If I speak too soon then too many events will not come about as they should. Altering the fabric of time is easy for me but to get the favourable events that have to dome to pass to actually happen requires more knowledge than I possess." "When will Constantius II die?" I thought for a while then said, "On November 5 of the year that the Christians call 361." "That is almost two years from now." "Yes it is. Constantius is surrounded by intrigue and so are almost every other important person in the empire. Each and every one of the people lie and scheme to gain power and to defeat their enemies. This never changes but it is hidden much better in later years." "Go on." "There are spies all over. You have not placed too many on me and I am thankful for that. Your superiors and even underlings may have placed spies on you. If you help me then they will use that against you. They also would want to help me instead as I gain more power. They would gain power with me. Intrigue is a dirty word but it comes as part of Rome or now Constantinople. Germans are not immune to this but they will suffer just the same in time." "So what are you suggesting?" "I have to know your position. Will you support me as I try to alter the way Rome treats its citizens and those not of its empire?" "You are not plotting to take over them by arms but by gaining public support. To assist you in this will not effect my oath." I waited and he finally said, "I would support you in trying to change the how the citizens of the empire view their lives." I said, "Thank you. Now, I have to make a lot of gold to gain power. I have to work through others like you. Will you invest your and my gold so that we both may gain power?" "That is easy to answer and I have to reply yes very heartily." "Good. Now how do you feel about me talking to the next Augustus? Your oath is to Constantius II." "What would you talk about?" The same things I have said to you. He too has an oath to consider. He will learn of the future and how he will die. This means that he will get my support. Doing this with spies and possibly assassins will be difficult." "How does he die?" "A Parthian spear. It was not a Persian throwing it." "Your armour may stop it." "It was an assassin then another way will be found." ------- Chapter 10 Lucius said, "If you are not plotting to take over the empire with this man but to just inform him of his future then this does not conflict with my oath." "Then I will tell you that Julian Constantius will be your next Augustus. I am not sure but he may be called Victorinus already." "He is the Caesar of this portion of the empire and the man I take my orders from. He is a scholar turned Caesar but still cousin to the Augustus. He has just been given the honorific Victorinus by his men. " "You hold the life of your future Augustus in your hand." "How is that?" "How many people think that I speak for the gods?" "I understand. If Constantius hears of this, the man will die like his brother; whether he is a cousin or not." I said, "Can you really trust all your men not to mention any of the words I have just spoken to you?" "Only some and then not very far." Lucius asked, "Tell me how Constantius' death is auspicious?" "He is a recent convert to Christianity. He is using the religion to gain more power for himself. The Christian followers in the past faced death because the men will not fight. Later they will fight as their religion is twisted about and corrupted by men. One of my goals is to separate the state from religious matters and keep religion out of the matters of state." "That cannot be done. A man has his religion as well as his commitment to the Augustus." "They can be separated and this has to happen. Laws have to be clear and an official can see if any matter before him is religious or not. If it is the state then those laws apply. Religious matters will be dealt with by their respective officers but no penalty can be applied unless the man abides by the judgment. There will be no deaths or fines for that is the jurisdiction of the state." "The priests will not follow that law." "Then they will be prosecuted just like any common felon. The law of the state is uppermost not the other way around." "The gods want this to happen?" "The gods do not mind a bit of ceremony but they object to how man is using religion for their own ends. Some of what the priests are trying to do is valid because men need some controls. The state though will use religion to control men for their own purposes. Some of this is beneficial but most is not. A good rule is to have the state and the various religions have their own areas, and where they come close rules are made. The secular courts will decide though." Lucius said, "You are not just wanting to change the empire but the basic structure of man. That cannot be done." "It is all a matter of how you look at things. Religious matters are handled by the priests but the great majority of human activity is handled by the state." We stopped again to look over the beginnings of my little lake. Lucius just stood and looked over the land but I was sure he saw nothing. There was a lot of facts and ideas he had to resort in his mind. It was a full twenty minutes later that he breathed out noisily and said, "What would you have me do?" In the coming days Lucius was given a quick course in metallurgy and then the workings of both the bloomery and the copula. The pouring of the liquid metal seemed to thrill him. It represented a power that was beyond anything he had known before. Stone and timber had been cut and laid for the track. A limited number of cars had been made and these were used to carry the castings of more cars to a place where they could be cleaned, roughly machined by hand and then assembled into new cars. Iulius was sent with some of my gold to buy the untenanted land next to Lucius'. The family next to that property happened to be in financial trouble. Lucius offered a fair sum and bought the slaves as well as the obligations of the freemen living on the property. Lucius, not me, offered freedom to the slaves and their families if they would work fairly for him. The freemen were offered a good wage to do the work he requested. The property next to us was three miles by twenty instead of the usual two. The land was unsuitable for much farming and the added area was an encouragement to buy and settle it. It also had an exposed coal seam but I had no idea of its extent. With Iulius on the way to gain the title we would start mining operations. Roman roads were built but now they were wider and stronger. The heavy loads would destroy any road in time. Lucius sent some of his men to the nearest cities to hire additional labourers. I wanted the soldiers to hire by the family unit because they would be separated too long otherwise. They were also on the look out for all the hemp and seed they could find. Rye and silk were needed and they would look for them too. The grain was commonly grown here but just not in this vicinity. Lucius was away from his family a lot and had come here for a vacation. I suggested some large tents and have his family near him. Since the home was relatively close he agreed. Trees were cut or pulled from the ground and the road made directly to the foundry. This also required a lot of small and one fair sized bridges. The river we had to cross could take the coal down the Rhine but it was not navigable without a lot of work. Felicia came with her family but now we had to stay strictly platonic. Lucius was no fool but then again neither was Licinia. The farm we bought was cultivated with our ploughs and then seeded with all the hemp seed we could find and the remainder with the rye. Raw hemp was also talked about in the towns and cities. We could use more if we could get it. The hemp had to be collected though and shipped here for processing. Men and their families trickled in and they were put to work making their own homes to my specifications. They worked harder when they found out that they would live in the buildings they made. The foundry was making cast iron products for sale now. My idea of the wire wrapped steel bar worked well enough to make a long threaded rod out of steel. The cast iron was too hard on the surface to machine well though it was softer underneath. Neither the metal lathe or the mill was a reality yet but there were some promising people working on it. Hagen and his people now made the steel armour and swords. Lucius was worried about an Alemmani doing this. Rome was currently fighting them. The two men met over some fortified wine and were good friends by dawn. This wine was now in demand but I think that the Alemmani drank most of it themselves. Lucius had a bad headache the next day and said, "Tell me again what you poisoned me with." "I supplied the wine. It was your hand that kept pouring more." "Don't quibble. What is it again?" "It is first, some inferior wine I had purchased and then extracted the part of the wine that makes you feel happy. This was added to your own wine to make you very happy." "My head hurts too much but why did you do that?" "Wine makes money but so will vodka and rye whiskey." I had to explain this to him and he now saw the reason for the rye I had planted. Summer came and our crops flourished. Buyers from all over came to the estate to purchase our products and to see how well they worked. Hagen sent people to trade for him while he took over the production of all steel products. Lucius bought the armour, swords, knives and stoves from me at almost full retail price. He could now justify saying that they were worth that price to the buyers. Enough of the profit went back to him but that was another matter. Lucius had found ways of putting off rejoining his unit. The legion was destroyed but the remnants were absorbed by the IX legion stationed further down the Rhine. A suit of armour and a sword was enough to keep the commander happy until the new year. Lucius had sent messages. One had gone down the Rhine then west through the English channel then up the Seine to Paris or Lutetia as it was called now. Along with the message were three suits of armour, swords and knives went with them. Julian Constantius was in Paris and would be for a while yet. He was a studious man and his interests may be piqued by our gift. The armour was now called 'the invincible' while the sword was called 'the devastator'. Nobody else had thought of doing this sort of advertising yet. By mid summer we had a crude milling machine. I remembered the fine machines we had in the gun factory in Ontario and wished that I had looked inside a few before having to come here to this time. I guess I should have looked at the lathes too in that case. With a lot of fudging, we were able to make more accurate parts and these went into a better lathe. Tooling didn't last long and we tried to keep track of what worked and what didn't. Like the story of Eve, the lathe was born from the second mill and then we worked to make even more accurate parts for newer versions of the tools. The first mill was then put to use finishing the insides of the cast iron frypans. The second version machined the top of a large range then cut six holes in the same top. Blanks were cleaned and cut to fit the holes and a large wood burning stove was made. It was very heavy but it worked just fine. Baking became more common though large clay ovens were always used to bake bread. Iulius and I started training people in medicine. Tertius was one of our students. There were a lot of accidents on our property no matter what we tried to do to prevent them. This gave a lot of practical experience for the students. Two medium sized billows powered by two people were enough to supply the air to turn a very small drill bit. It leaked air all over and the men had to work hard but I began to fill teeth. Ether was not usually used but we found a way to make sure the patent breathed in some without the anaesthetic overcoming the dentist. I showed Lucius the still and explained how it worked and then had to show him with a sample of pure water and my alcohol that had already been distilled. He learned about my sulphuric acid or oil of vitriol. The saltpetre didn't get used up but was only a way of giving the sulphur dioxide molecule one more oxygen atom. This had to be kept secret too. He had his own family making this for us. Diethyl ether had to be made in large quantities now. It was awkward to make only small batches. This brought on the need for glass and I showed him how it was made on a large scale. He wanted his own family to do this too but we ran out of family even though Licinia got pregnant. Both were very happy and happier when I told them that I could reduce the mortality rate by a few simple procedures. The glass itself was sold in the form of bottles but we made other products with it like plates, bowls, mugs, and even art. Cork was already used by the Romans and large bung plugs in barrels but also for the soles of shoes. I needed the bark of the cork tree too for a lot of articles besides stoppers for wine bottles. Cork screws would have to be invented and of course sold too. More chemistry was used when the hemp we bought was treated with sulphuric acid and then turned into paper. I wanted to use hydrogen peroxide but had to wait until I could do so economically. I had not located any barium salts yet and this was used in the old method for producing this bleaching agent. The lathe had made the heavy rollers that both flattened the paper and dried it out. The paper came out in long sheets that were cut by knives and not a laser. The production run was short and there simply was not enough hemp. We cut a steel drum and shaft on the lathe and then attached lead to the drum. It was then turned again to get a uniform surface. One young woman that was a fair artist drew a picture of a Roman soldier on paper. The image was then placed on the lead cylinder and marked out the lines through the paper and onto the lead. The rest of the lead was labouriously cut away by hand but it didn't take long. A pool of ink was used to wet just the edges that stuck up from the lead and then this was rolled on a piece of paper. Nine others were done and everybody saw how easy it was to make multiple copies. The shaper was an obsolete tool. One tool on it went back and forth linearly. It did make nice dovetails in a steel drum. Babbitt blocks were cast of all the characters I needed and more besides. These fit into the dovetails in the steel drum. When this was used we could put out multiple pages of print. Again I used indents and lines between paragraphs. Even quotes got a new line. Like Johann Gutenberg, I printed a religious book or a book of the history I wanted people to believe. The bible had been the only common book for quite a while and I wanted mine to be both more inspirational and clearer to understand. I used up a lot of my own paper to get my ideas straight. Confucius had been around for six centuries but I was not sure. His teachings as well as those of every religion I could remember were formed into a creed whereby we could all live. The book's title was "Valhalla Visited". It started out with my previous life and I got the Romans to tell me what the spies had found out about this matter. It would be nice to come across as a saint but I was a boy then a mean boy that deserved a spanking. I listed the reasons for this as a life of indulgence because of my father's position. The actual accident was important for inferences would be drawn to it for a long time. I tried to get across that the boy was good inside and worth saving. The gods though had to find a way to do this and also give me a great task. Like books in the bible, my awakening in the land of the gods was done. I was not a literary writer but I had to put emotion into this and dialogue with the gods to prove each of the points I wanted. Aldúlfr was the character I named as it didn't seem to be in any of the sagas. It meant old wolf and fit the characteristics I attributed to the god. Aldúlfr showed me the glories of his civilization. This started with the gods themselves and how they acted then reacted to each other. I made them human but ethically superior with some occasional failings. Aldúlfr and I talked about transportation then showed me examples of each. We went into many features of Valhalla. My naïve questions were put in for my mentality was still that of an eleven year old boy at the time. The compass we now had was mentioned but I had to mention undiscovered land and the people that inhabited this land. Though I had never been in space, I knew enough to say that Aldúlfr took me there for a visit. This is how I mentioned how much more land their was but I did not give any bearings to it. I did mention going over the north pole to get to Greenland and Canada but it was an impassable barrier and impractical to use. Antarctica was mentioned but the Romans would see no value in a continent of ice. I said that I did not need much sleep in Valhalla but what I got was in Aldúlfr's home with his wife and two children. This was a subtle jab at families with lots of children and not enough time to devote to them. Television, radio, telephones, cell phones and computers on the internet were talked about with enough detail to give someone a small start at understanding them. I gave the image of a library in a large city but it was difficult to get across the sheer number of books. Various levels of schools were discussed which led to a plug for our own school of medicine. My anaesthetic would be another proof that I could use to show how this and dentistry worked. I went to movie theatres to see entertaining and educational works on the very wide screen. I learned of war long ago and of the way gods and weapons changed as they killed each other. This was to show that the gods had their feet of clay but had overcome some of their baser urges. Aldúlfr talked to me about the parables of his people and how they were used for educational purposes but were not actually true. This was another slam at religious books that had parables taken as 'gospel'. The first parables told of sanitary practices that would save lives. The small trichinosis worm was discussed and how the meat of the pig and bear could only be safely eaten when it was well cooked. Family planning too was stressed though Rome wanted more children not less. Various methods of ancient contraception were put in along with the truth about human reproduction. Aldúlfr gave my version of the beginning of the universe with the big bang and then over a billion years gods arriving through evolution. The gods in turn altered our ancestors as an experiment. The only difference was that the gods looked after us. The world of the gods was discussed in parable form and some of the good details explained in greater detail. This was the interesting part and made the travelogue as good as I could. The gods of course lived in an alternate dimension of space but still here on earth. We switched from parables to Aldúlfr teaching me about science. Astronomy was touched on and the basic action in our sun was mentioned. This lead to numbers and allowed me to put in the Indian numbers the Arabs brought us. I added a bit of the four basic mathematical operations. These of course had been slipped into the parables a few times to make sure they were grasped. Three hundred and sixty five and a quarter days were our year but the start was when Jón was first summoned to visit Valhalla or when he got kicked in the head by his horse. History was intermixed with evolution and the extinction of the dinosaurs. This allowed me to talk about chlorophyll and plant life. This in turn let me talk about grafting apples and grapes which I thought very useful. Basic chemistry was taught so the readers could try the experiments to see that they were true. The same was done for simple physics. The periodic table was put in for all to see whether I could prove the existence of the elements or not. Printing and book binding were not mentioned and neither was paper making. The book alone would prove that we had this technology. I wanted to keep control of this media as long as possible. I even made cylinders of each page and stored them to be used when reprints were necessary. Ethics in all matters took up most of the book. It covered all the commandments from the various religions and put the best down as coming to me from talks in Asgard. The way the followers of my religion had to treat not only their own kind but those of other religions was explained. I may not turn the other cheek but an understanding had to be attempted. It also happened to be what the gods themselves would do. I had to make religion easily accessible to the common man or woman and chose the Möbius strip as our symbol or its simplified version as the symbol for infinity. I had heard that Willie Shakespeare had the task of completing the King James version of the bible but I was not that good of a story teller. Licinia and her family would listen to my work and make suggestions. They did not see it as chicanery but as me trying to say the truth in the best possible way. Mamercus and his wife Fausta along with Publia were over when they could make it. There was just too much being done for them to keep away. All the neighbours spare labour worked for us and got paid in our products. The labourers were paid too even if they were slaves. The parables were now given out to selected audiences and again the reaction and wording monitored for improvements. Bernadette married a good man and as head of my religion I performed the ceremony. Again I had been to a lot of weddings and could make a good service out of it. Some of the more off beat ceremonies of my youth helped me here. Deaths too happened and I conducted the funeral. Here everlasting life was stressed. Everybody went away happier but I felt like a hypocrite. I had to have baptism though I did not think that the Christians did this yet but I could be wrong unlike the Popes of later years. Men and women started coming to me for religious training or education in how the gods worked. I gave my interpretation but always said that the gods would make it clearer to me at a later date. Finding ethical people to carry on was difficult. One convert was so close to any other. One fact was for sure; none of the male or female priest would be single. Publia came crying to me one night. I held her but this was in front of Iulius. "What is the matter Publia?" "My parents want me to marry." "Do you not love him?" "He is ok but not the one I want." I figured who she wanted and skirted it by saying, "Is the other one available?" "No." "Is there any other that you would rather marry?" There was a long pause and a small "No," was heard. Two days later Lucius told me that Felicia was getting married too. She had been mooning over me for too long and she needed a man to fill her needs with sex and then with children. I suggested to both sets of parents that the wedding be held together. The girls were neighbours though their homes were not that close. I felt it would be better this way because they were both upset at the weddings and could lean on each other. I asked Lucius, "I want to give a gift to each of the couples. Can you think of something suitable?" "As a brother of one you could give a horse." "That sounds fine but could you tell me what they will be doing with their lives?" Lucius looked at me oddly and said, "I guess start a farm." "With farms soon able to produce more then land prices will fall and so with the prices of crops. Are the husbands capable of managing some small businesses? I am asking this because many Romans are class conscious and cannot work with their hands even if they want to." "Both our families are well able to start them out right but what is your proposal?" "The both of you go to the largest cities nearby and buy some land. Build homes that will have our products. The water will be contaminated in a well so we can use a cistern to catch rain water. You then build a large building with thick walls to deter thieves and stock the business with a few of our cheapest products. This is an incentive for the men and your daughters to get into selling. The profits are used to buy more of our products and they sell them for us. "They will live a very prosperous life and you will hear from them all the time when deliveries are made." Mamercus said, "That is expensive. I have many children." I said, "Then I will help with the cost. They are my friends." Two weeks later I got dressed up in some fancy clothes and married the two couples. I started a double ring ceremony and the rings had the Möbius symbol on each. The mill was taking shape but it had not even cut its first board. The river that lead to the Rhine was cleared of more rocks and debris. This was easy. The lake was now filling and the river was nearly dry. This process had been going on for a long time but now we could get the rocks that could not be brought out before. Boat ramps and docks were made out of stone and put in place and the narrow areas widened. Where we could, the soil and rock was dumped in low spots on the bank because we may have to put in locks at the Rhine to get the water high enough to let in the larger ships that I expected. The lake eventually filled but we were not ready to use the water. With everybody present, the dam was opened and thousands of tonnes of water rushed down the dry river bed to wash away what we could not get before. The dam was then closed and many people went to see just what had happened. This was an environmental sin but I was just starting out and needed all the shortcuts I could use. Scythes and pruning shears were sold by the thousands not the hundreds. Word had spread and people wanted what we had. I heard of competition from cheaper units but they didn't work as well. We had a nursery started and in a few years we could sell grafted grapes and apples. This tied in with my book on the land of the gods. Proof of their viability and productiveness was years away. Last year's crop of wine was put in glass bottles. Labels with a family crest and the name of the particular grape was on the label. The year was there too and it was listed as the year '0002'. Hagen the barbarian, now had to manage the bloomery and another at the coal seam. The coal had to be converted to coke. Large wagons carrying coke to the cupola came back loaded with iron ore to be processed into steel. The lathe and mill allowed me to make a large steam hammer. The machining was the most critical yet and I had to wait for the tools to make this device. A boiler also had to be made and this had to stand the pressure and the heat we subjected it to. A letter came back to Lucius from Julian Constantius. With spies all around the man, we had to talk around some subjects and spies are not stupid people. I was asked to visit Constantius if I chose and I definitely chose to do so. The mill got into operation with two main saws cutting trees into slabs and smaller saws cutting the slabs into boards. We would build our own ships but there were not enough people that knew what to do or a good design considering what material we had available. The best we could do would be to charter Roman ships. They travelled on the Rhine regularly. They were not large in my estimation and our iron and steel products were heavy. We were going to take a full range of salable articles and that included soaps, wine, fortified wine and last year's brandy. Julian would get these cheap if he wanted them and give them as gifts to get cooperation or silence as the need may be. Before I went, three copies of "Valhalla Visited" went in a double sewn leather pouch with six metal seals that were used in my time to show that somebody had entered a container. Nobody had the technology to repair the seals so the books and the letters would be safe if they managed to get to the man. We made a lot of sturdy wood containers with places to affix ropes. These would get packed on the three ships we charted. We paid a premium for well calked vessels because all ships leaked. We just didn't want the salt water to destroy what we had spent so long to make just right. Because I know what was ahead of me, large boxes contained large glass containers of glycerine, sulphuric and nitric acid. Cellulose in the form of hemp went too along with the necessary materials to remove the residual acids later. We now made matches that sold faster than we could make them. They also made handy fuses when contained in a small cast iron sphere that would be filled with something that would go 'boom' at a later time. I had visions of det cord but I was not comfortable making it and besides it would take months to get a production facility made and more months to make the explosive. It was at the end of the year that the ships showed up or at least one did. It was inspected and we found a lot of new caulking. We had a portable crane made that was mostly oak but also used a lot of steel. It had even been used a few times already. There was no wire rope and we had to rely on hemp. The captain and crew liked how this was done. The heavier articles went in the bottom but these were usually larger. There was a lot of fiddling to get the available space used efficiently. There was not that much room to start with because this ship also used rowers but had a small sail. Most of the time this would be used for getting in or out of port but also for moving when becalmed. The captain of the ship was named Rufus, probably because of his red hair. He owned the one here now as well as the other two we chartered. He greeted Lucius with the warmth of a paying customer and ignored me. Lucius and the officers and men he had with him were going to sail with us as far as their post. Men had already gone ahead with the horses so the mounts would be there when they arrived. The mounts had saddles with a high cantle and stirrups. I was not afraid for the safety of the Frisians. The calvary was obsolete with the invention of the cannon. Horses though were still good for transportation and hauling loads. Lucius called me over and said, "Captain, this is Jón. He is the one that owns the cargo and is actually paying for this trip." "He's a boy," he said incredulously. Lucius said, "His gold is all self made. When he came here he didn't even have two asses to rub together." Rufus nodded his head and I extended my hand. It took a moment but he eventually got the idea. "Hello, Captain. I hope there will be no problem with my age. There will only be five others beside myself that will continue to Lutetia." "I was told that but I was told it was important that the cargo get to its destination without getting wet." "That is true Captain. I have the bonus with me for each ship that is dry. I do not intend to pay it if the goods need to be cleaned." "What is our cargo?" "War materiel." "What kind?" "War material is all I will say." Our contract said that all three ships would stay together. This meant that Rufus had to stay idle until his other ships arrived and were loaded. Time was money and Rufus wanted all he could get. The last ship was leaking though it too had been caulked. The repairs only took a half hour and the hold was bailed. I stayed to supervise the loading. The sailors had little to do but Hagen came by with a wagon that he had made and allowed the sailors to see his wears. He did a very brisk business but usually the men had little money to spend. The last article to be stowed was a portable crane to assist in getting our cargo out of the hold when the time came. Rome protected the rivers but the English Channel or what was really the German Sea still had pirates. The chance of them bothering us was minimal but I had spent some time with the new recurve bow. This one had a thin steel band in the front and the ends had tubes that the wood portion fit into. It was heavier than a regular bow even though it was shorter. It almost looked like a toy to a full grown man but it took almost seventy five kilograms to bring it back to full draw. I was obliged to make a trigger that would release the string because it was difficult to hold. My shorter arrows were heavier and had steel points designed to pierce iron or steel armour. Some bolts had thin glass bottles at the end. These were the same that Astrid had made me for the mace. They now carried alcohol and pitch. A burning rag attached to it would change the projectiles to mini Molotov cocktails. The pitch had come from our coking plants and both burned readily and it was difficult to remove. There was a party for our leave-taking. My adopted family were sorry for me to go and their father too. My own family numbers had dwindled as some married but never left. More children came from the slaves we bought and they more than took their place. Some of my babies were actually that because they were newborn with few or no parents. A Roman family had little in the way of preventing a pregnancy. Like Sparta the child was left out. If the father picked it up then it was accepted. If it was shunned then a family member could take it. Failing that it was picked up to serve the life of a slave and never knowing its real parents. We would just have to have an orphanage but until then they were my children no matter what their ages. I hugged and kissed each of my children even if I had to reach up to do this. The same thing happened with Lucius' children. Tertius had a tear in his eye and said, "When are you coming back?" "Very soon I will have to come back this way. One day it will be with an army of over three thousand men. If we are lucky I will get a chance to introduce you to somebody you will not forget." "Who?" "It's a secret. I will then head further upriver then march to the Danube. We will go down that for a long way. We will get to a point where we have to turn around and go to Rome. You are going to have to do your part and have things ready for me." "We will have the swords and armour ready. My kite and plane too if there is wind enough." "Good, then I know I have left everything here in good hands." The converts to Wodenism were always around me now. They hoped to hear a bit more so it could be recorded for posterity. I usually got them to do work as well but rotated the scut work so everybody was even. There were roughly four hundred converts working directly for me but many others working for me were also converts. I guess it was just the time because of all the religious frenzy. People were looking for a crutch or a goal in life. I provided both. Elsa was here to see me off too. She was two months pregnant but it didn't show. I was not the father. Elsa had cut her fertile period a little too close. The young man though looked to be stable if uninspiring and Hagen wanted his daughter safely married. Earlier in the afternoon I had officiated at the ceremony. The bride had looked very beautiful but then most did. We both had wistful looks in our eyes for what could have been. Little Hirtius and Livius had grown but were still little. They cried at our leaving. There brother, their foster father and their Uncle Iulius were all going at the same time. When it was time to leave, we had another religious service but there was little religion in it. I only beseeched the gods to look over both those that stayed and those that rode the waves. There were still people to see us off and hands were waved until they could no longer be seen. Lucius had stood beside me and said sorrowfully, "This is always the hardest part of being a soldier." "I have recovered most of my memory. I miss my family but I think I will miss yours even more." "I thought the gods would give your memory back to you. Could you give us the secret of the powder now?" "Yes." "Then do so when you think it is the right time. I have come to see that we Romans have too much intrigue and we should be much more like you barbarians." "We barbarians do not work hard and would get nowhere. That is why we need the over-civilised Romans." "Now, where do the Greeks fit in?" "They contemplate their navel too much but they should make good teachers if you can get them motivated." "You have a few of them in your group." "That is why I know." The Greeks had accepted my mathematics in one gulp and I showed them trigonometry, algebra, then calculus. Generating the tables was time consuming but served the purpose of doing holy work. Square and cube roots drove them into a frenzy. They thought they could calculate out their lives. They would be in charge to make sure everybody had a minimum amount of mathematical training. Those that could read and write were teaching those that couldn't. German was now taught as a written language and had the Latin alphabet. We made up a lot of books for children and then very similar ones for adults with the same level of training. One had dogs and the other had a flagon of wine. During the night we dropped anchor because it was too dangerous to continue. Helvius, Curtius, Atrius and Manlius were going to stay with me as was Iulius though spread out on the three ships. We usually went fishing at night and usually lucky. Each ship had a metal pan with sand in it and a stove in the centre. We were able to cook our own meals without danger of setting the ship on fire. The crew shared in the meal but I demanded that some of them did the cooking. This was intended so they would learn. We passed one fort and Lucius pointed out a kite flying far in the background and very high. We didn't have to see Horatius to know that's where he was. Four days after starting, Lucius and his men got off the ship. They took their own supplies and of course their saddles, armour and weapons. Some of our cargo left too. Lucius would now sell some of what we made. He also had a dozen copies of "Valhalla Visited". Soldiers were just as superstitious and instead of accepting Christianity in two centuries may get the chance to accept Wodenism now. Lucius hugged me to him and even kissed my cheek which I returned. He said, "I want you to be careful. Lutetia is not a nice place I heard." "I have seen the city in the future. It is called Paris. It has an iron tower almost a thousand Roman feet high. It is beautiful then but still deadly for the uninitiated. I will try not to kill very many." "A thousand feet. What is it for?" "To just be the tallest tower and to look out over the city. Our university could use a tower like that." "The cost Jón, the cost." "That is true. I will make a copy of it a hundred feet high one day at the university. It will have a beacon on the top for the world to see." "That is more like it Jón. You are of no use to the gods if you are hurt of dead." I shook hands with the rest of the men for they had grown to be friends or at least less of an enemy. There were less trees close to the river and there was enough moonlight for the captain to navigate. The next day we had breakfast but I said a small prayer of thanks. It helped the men and especially Atrius feel good for the rest of the day. He was not a rabid fanatic but he was a strong believer now. We made a short stop when the wind failed. We scrounged for dead wood for our stove and another project I thought of doing. With all three ships tied up we could stretch our legs. The Captain also wanted to do a bit of hunting and so did our group. After looking around I pointed east and said to Atrius, "Do you see that oak with the dead top?" He looked and said, "Yes." "There is a doe ten metres to the right and ten metres further in." The distance was four hundred and fifty metres at least and I had just caught a partial glimpse of the animal. Atrius had said nothing but he and the others hurried off to get it. A sailor from our ship had heard and said, "You can see that far?" "The gods have favoured me in may ways. There is a doe there." "You can even tell if it is a doe?" "Yes. Would you like to wager that my companions bring a doe back?" "I have no silver." "Do you carve?" "Yes." "I will bet you that we bring a doe back. If I am wrong, I will give you an ass. If I am right you will carve the head and neck of a horse four times." I showed him my fingers and said, "This high." "Two asses?" "Ok but you have to carve four cylinders that look like a circular stone wall." "Done." I put out my hand and the man took it for he had seen the greeting a few times already. Iulius had been collecting wood and said, "Where are they going?" "There is a doe behind that far oak." "I can't see the oak never mind the doe." "Put on your glasses, grandpa." Iulius took out a pair of wire spectacles and looked at me then in the distance. I see the oak but not the doe." "They are coming upon it from down wind. Five minutes I guess. You want to take a shot if they miss?" "Not from your bow. I can hardly pull it part way back." "You can get yours." "No, you do it if it is necessary." It took longer than I thought but the doe broke from cover and ran perhaps a hundred metres and fell. Curtius was there in a minute and slit the throat quickly. I said, "I guess I win but now we have to hang the carcass. Perhaps the Captain has some rope." The sailor saw the animal flee but not its demise. "Did they get it?" "Yes. Will you ask the Captain if he can find some rope?" The Captain was not around but the sailor took the initiative and ran with the rope himself. I got a lot more wood and Iulius helped. We would now be here a bit longer but that was good too. The cleaned carcass was dragged back and Iulius took a box of matches from his pocket and lit the tinder we had prepared. We had a grate out and all our cookware. The internal organs were cooked first and I was offered the choicest pieces. I just took a sample and thanked the hunters for their skill. Soon everybody on the three boats were over cooking portions of venison over the coals or if they were hungry, over the fire. When the hunger was sated I talked to the four and they talked about what they did to take the deer. This was the same as the Frisians but they spoke Latin. The captain came back with some birds, hares, and a young pig. He nodded to us and was invited to eat with us. When he was done he said, "I have watched you people do a lot of strange acts. I saw a stick suddenly burst into flame. I saw the soldier Lucius take something from his bag and look through it and talk about something far away. I see two of you with something that looks like glass in front of your eyes. Will you tell me about yourselves?" "I will trade knowledge. I too am curious about a man that makes his home on a ship." When Rufus nodded his head in compliance I said, "Two years ago I was kicked in the head by my horse. I was just a lad and not only a spoiled son of a powerful father but had no interests in learning anything new. "My injuries were great and my father found mages to keep my body alive. My mind though was not in my body. You see, I was summoned to Valhalla." Nobody scoffed and I added, "While there I met a god by the name of Aldúlfr. He took me in and introduced me to his family then to his world. I learned a great many interesting facts while there. Some I saw with my own eyes and others I was told. "The matches you saw are one of the simple devices that we now make. I suppose you have heard of the new metal called steel?" Rufus just nodded as did most of the men. "Its secret was given to me. I made swords, knives, armour, ploughs, shovels and many other pieces of equipment for war and for the farm. Even the fishing hooks we used were made of steel." "I have seen them. They are thin, sharp and strong." "That is the way steel is. The metal in front of you is iron. I have seen you all looking at it but no smith made it." They looked at me and I said, "The iron is made hotter than you can imagine. It gets so hot that it is like burning water. It is poured into a shape in sand and the liquid takes that form when it cools." While the men were looking at the frypans I said, "The gods showed me ships that fly through the air carrying hundreds of people. In one hour they can go six hundred miles. Soldiers in smaller craft fly well over two thousand miles in the same hour." The sailors didn't look sceptical at all so I added, "Where you picked us up you will find the children playing with many toys that fly. They are not kept secret and all you have to do is ask to see them. "I have learned so much that I want to teach others. We have set up a school that teaches medicine. Another teaches how to repair bad teeth and a third teaches how to help animals." Rufus said incredulously, "You can repair teeth?" "I do not have those tools with me. One of the dentists has two men pump a pair of billows. The air turns a small hard tool very fast. It grinds away the decayed part of the tooth and a cool liquid metal is put in. It hardens and fills in the hole." "Could I get my teeth fixed there?" "It cost silver or gold depending on the amount of work. If you cannot pay then you are offered a job until you can afford the charges." "How much would you pay me?" "Can you build ships?" "I built the one you ride." "Are you a man so full of pride that you think your ideas are superior to those of the gods?" "Never." "Then you would get perhaps an ten aurii every month to guide others to build ships that make yours look small." "Small?" "I have seen ships of steel that are longer than a thousand feet. This is the truth. I vow this." "A thousand feet!" "How can it be rowed? The sails would have to be very large." "It has neither oars or sails. It uses steam to turn giant shafts of steel that turn giant screws that push the ship through the water." Rufus said, "I do not call you a liar because I have seen some wondrous devices. It is just that I cannot see this ship." "That is understandable. You need to see it with your own eyes. Have you ever seen how a drop of water makes everything under it look larger?" "I have seen that many times." "I have made something like a large drop of water but out of clear glass. The large drops are put in front of your eyes and you can see what you wish better or worse depending on how strong your eyes are. The long tube is the same way. Objects far away look close. We have something very small look big." "My I try?" Iulius was our optometrist and asked questions then took out a sheet of paper that had words printed in different sizes. The man put it at a comfortable distance and called off the letters he could see. Iulius walked away and asked the questions again and again until he went to Helvius and asked for his pair. When they were loaned Rufus put them on very carefully then looked at his hands. He turned them around and looked at them as if he had not seen them before. He said in an awe inspired voice, "This is amazing. Everything is so clear." I said, "Have you seen these devices before?" "Never." "I said the idea for them came from the gods. Do you believe this?" "It has to be." "Then I think you should talk to Atrius for a few hours. It will not only pass the time pleasantly but you will gain a world of understanding." Atrius took his cue and fetched his copy of "Valhalla Visited". The rest of us brought out our practice weapons and began to bruise each other. We could not do this on the small ship. The sailors for the next few days listened intently when we talked. This was not just on our ship but the other two as well. They were not being pushed, tricked or intimidated into accepting the new faith. If anybody objected then we would stop immediately. The teachings did not conflict with theirs but ours was more developed and answered many more questions. A priest of one religion or another gave his interpretations but it was spelled out here as clearly as I could do it so a priest could not say something that was not in the print. We eventually took one of the many channels of the Rhinus to the English Channel or what more properly now 'Oceanus Germanicvs'. In my version of Latin the 'u' had made an appearance. We stuck to the coast. We were told there were more pirates here but they wanted to land close so they could flee to a projective cove if the weather got bad. The weather was fair in the channel and we found a good wind. The boats stayed together all the time for safety and at Rufus' command. We found the Seine easy enough and this time we had to row against the current for the first day. The second day we had a wind that gave us some help but the men had to stay at their oars. Nobody said so but I think each of them wanted me to ask the gods for assistance. They didn't because it clearly stated that the gods wanted us to stand on our own two feet on not make petty requests. The work ethic was in there firmly and if you studied and worked then you would get ahead without the help or hindrance of the gods. ------- We finally docked in Paris. We were attacked by blood sucking tax men and some freelance stevedores that would assist us in removing our cargos. Iulius said, "We are here at the behest of Caesar Julian Constantius." This got us nowhere, especially since our letter did not talk about our cargos. Iulius slipped the official some money and he and Atrius would go to see about getting some official help. Before leaving, he said, "We can unload. I don't think the dock will take too much. Somebody should go and find out what we can do about renting some space." Helvius and Curtius went after this while I stayed with Manlius. We unloaded our own crane and the crew of the ship helped us. The stevedores watched what we did but so did the tax people. When the crane was mounted as good as we could, the heavy boxes were hoisted out of the hold and were easily moved to the dock. After six boxes were there we had little room for more without pushing them. I said to Manlius, "I am going to find out where I can put this for free." "There is nothing in Lutetia that is free." I walked up to an imposing figure in a soldiers's armour but he looked too fat to have fought in the last twenty years. "Hello, Sir. Do you happen to know of a place that I can place our cargo so you can see it all at once and without incurring a charge?" "Where is the Roman I spoke to, barbarian child?" "He went to see the Caesar as he said, Roman." "Watch your mouth, barbarian." "Do you not like being called a Roman?" He went to take a back handed swing at me but I just stared at him as if daring him to try and he thought better of it. "Your cargo stays on your boat now until I am ready to check it." I said, "So be it. You have decided and let the Caesar have a few words with you." Manlius was not working but he was talking to three of the stevedores. I was angry at the asshole but I was not going to let it show. There was no telling how long it would take for Iulius to return. I apologised to Rufus for the delay but he had known about this when the deal was first made. We got out the recently made chess board I had his men make when they had time and set up for a game. I gave Rufus some money and he sent some of his men to bring back wine and not drink it first. The men were back in fifteen minutes with purple moustaches and an amphora of wine. We were deep into a game and I sipped the wine then moved. "This wine tasters like somebody pissed in it." Rufus said, "The locals think they have good wine and pride themselves on it. They have no conceptions of what is good." One sailor was going by and I poured the contents of my cup into his. He gave me a great big smile that was made up of a few brown teeth. I went to my luggage and opened a trunk. I brought out a large dark bottle. It had been shaped in a steel mould and had the image of a man throwing a lightning bolt. In bold relief was the name Thor above his image. The other side had the same man with a hammer in his hand. I looked around more and found the corkscrew with the two arms that levered the cork out. I went on deck and found that Rufus had made his move so I set my burden down and looked to see what I should do next. Rufus picked up the bottle and looked at it critically. "This is beautiful. Did this come from the land of the gods?" "No, they just showed me how to make it." I moved a pawn and said, "Your move." Rufus reluctantly put the bottle down and then studied the board. He or nobody else had heard of this game but I was sure it was already played in China. I put the cork screw in and levered the stopper it out. Rufus was watching me all the time. He had wine in his cup and I contemptuously threw it overboard and gave him a half cup. "Captain, are you a man or a mouse?" "A man of course." I poured the same amount in my cup and re-corked the bottle. I said, "Then I drink to your continued good health. Drink up." I threw a good mouthful back and watched Rufus. He had watched me and did the same thing. It looked like he was going to have a heart attack. He could not breathe and his face got red. I quickly grabbed the neck of the bottle and put it at my feet. He came to his feet and knocked the chess board to the deck. His hands went to his throat but I was in time to capture his cup before it spilt its contents. Rufus finally got a breath through his wide open mouth and then one more. He moved a bit and his hands came down. He swallowed half a dozen times and his wide open eyes closed a bit. His breath came quickly now to get more oxygen into his blood. He was finally able to stand and weakly said, "What is that?" "Brandy, the nectar of the gods. Wasn't it smooth? It's even better when it has been aged ten or so years in a barrel." "I have never heard of that before." "It is only made on the estate where we loaded the cargo." "Let me have a little more." "Mice have to sip." Rufus said, "Squeek," and wiggled his nose before he took a small sip. He only turned a little red and opened his mouth for air. When he had recovered he said, "It wasn't bad that time." "Then let's start the game over again." We picked up the pieces but before I made my move, I took a match and tipped my cup. I ignited the brandy and Rufus saw a pale blue flame. I smothered the flame and took another sip. ------- Chapter 11 It looked like Iulius and Atrius had taken their time but I realised that they would not. Helvius and Curtius had come back and gave me a price they had found but it sounded quite high to me. The tax collector had left but one man stayed behind to make sure nothing entered Gallia untaxed. Rufus and I continued to play chess. Helvius and Curtius moved over to the stevedores and talked to them as Manlius was doing. It would be something to find some converts here. The men were little better than thieves and thugs and a belief, no matter what it was, had to have something to bite onto. A few hours later and a few cups later I said to Rufus through some oddly working lips, "Is the food of Paris as bad as its wine?" "You mean Lutetia again. If anything, it is worse." "Let's see if they deliver." "What is that?" "You call a restaurant and order your meal. They drive over to deliver it and you pay then." "I never heard of that before. Is that from the land of the gods?" "Ya, you just look in the phone book and push the numbers. Have you ever had Indian food? I hated curry but it kinda grows on you. Chinese food is better and I like their hot sauce. Did you ever try that?" "Who are the Indians and the Chinese?" "Forgot, we haven't got there yet." I realised again that I was not helping matters so I concentrated on my liver and tried to get it to process the alcohol a bit faster. Somehow we got a meal and I had to assume it was our own men doing this. Chess was not working for us but Rufus wanted to see how he faired with me with our practice swords. I slipped the rest of my drink into his cup and Manlius took the bottle and said, "Should you be doing this?" "It is just a bit of fun. My liver will work better if I am moving around a bit I hope." "If you say so." When we got the practice swords Rufus said, "These toys are made for children. Let me get my own." Manlius and Helvius blocked him for some reason so Rufus had to use the one he had. He tried to brain me and my sword moved out and slapped him on his large belly. He stopped to look at where it had hit then tried to hit me again. I hit him again but on the thigh. I was not as fast as I should be and my shoulder was hit and a glancing blow across my arm. Rufus called time to drink then came at me again. It was not long before Rufus was fighting like a wild man. I hit him time and again but some of his blows somehow got through. The match must have stopped because Manlius was holding me back and both Curtius and Helvius were in front of Rufus. We were given seats then Manlius washed the blood from me and examined the wounds. I think he said, "You may need stitches." "The gods will heal me. Watch." I concentrated on the damaged area and constricted the vessels to slow down the haemorrhage until I knew that it stopped. Manlius wiped away more blood but then stopped. "You are right. It just stopped." "Told'ya" "What does that mean? It sounds like a foreign tongue." "I told you it would work." I saw the Rufus though was in worse shape. He was on his back and people were around him. I moved to him and had to push some people aside to see. The man must have fallen down. He was bloody all over and had bruises on his face. I got close to the man and bent down. There were some ripped skin too. I said to nobody in general, "I need my medical kit," then had to repeat it in a language they understood. I cleaned the first wound on his cheek but it would not stop bleeding. I put my hands on both sides of the wound and concentrated on Rufus' body and then this particular wound. The blood stopped in a minute but the reaction time was slow. Another area on his thigh was bleeding and thought to stop this before taking on my tailoring duties. I seemed to get the hang of it and the blood stopped much quicker. Curtius directed me to a wound on the scalp and I moved there and stopped that too. When I reached for my sutures, Curtius said, "Let me do it. I have not done this much and need the practice." "Ok," I said then had to say it in Latin. In a moment I was being fed though I was not hungry but it felt better to do this than argue. Manlius led me over to my pallet and I decided that a rest was a good idea. I was dreaming of a cruise Nora and I took when I was awoke by a hand on my shoulder. I turned and opened my eyes. Iulius was there and looked serious. He said, "I leave for a while and you act like a child. You have to get up. We have company." I pushed myself erect. My head pounded and tried to fix this but just deadened the pain instead. The dock was covered in soldiers and on second look all of them were officers. It was dark but there were a lot of torches now. Iulius held me for a moment then I gained my centre and stood unaided. When Iulius moved forward I took my cue from him until one man was in front and above us. "Jón, this is Julian Constantius. Caesar of Gaul, Hispania, Britannia Germania Superior and Germania Inferior." He went on to give a few more titles but I knew he was going to be the Augustus or what was commonly known as the Augustus soon. He was clean shaven but I think the coin I saw had him wearing a beard. He looked to be in fair shape. I knew he lead from the front not the rear when it came to fighting. Iulius did not go into my heritage but said that I was the messenger of Woden. This was better than all the other bullshit anyway. The effects of the alcohol were leaving now but I had to keep my defences up because of my headache. I moved forward when Iulius finished and reached up with my right hand and said, "Glad to meet you Julian Constantius, Caesar of Gaul." Julian had to bend over but took my hand in his and after I squeezed he did too. I hated limp handshakes even from women. "I am glad to meet the messenger of the gods too. What happened here?" "A fat blood sucker kept me from unloading the cargo I was bringing you. The Captain and I had some 'Nectar of the Gods' while we played chess then he wanted a lesson in oriental swordsmanship." "I can see that he taught you something too." "I have not got drunk before and I guess I will have to watch myself in the future. My head hurts and I guess Rufus' must too." "What is this 'Nectar of the Gods'?" "Better to try it." I turned around and Rufus was not in sight so I turned back and said, "You may as well come aboard. I am getting a sore neck talking up to you." The man came aboard but ordered his men to stay on the dock. There was not a lot of room on the ship. Manlius went to fetch the bottle and I presented it to Julian. The man took the large bottle and admired one surface at a time before turning it to the next. Rufus must have been awakened and came forward with a stagger. He stood as close as I was to Julian and said, "That stuff came from the gods. It burns with a blue flame of truth and destroyed my reason." I said, "Caesar, this is Rufus the Captain and owner of this fine ship." Julian just glanced at him but said nothing. Julian finished examining the bottle then went to the paper tag around the neck. He tried to read the inscription but had to move to some better light. "What is this symbol here? You better tell me what all of it means." I stood beside him and said, "That symbol means percent. One half is fifty percent and a fifth is twenty percent. The label tells where the brandy was made, the name of the winery and then the date." "What does the percent mean here?" "Wine has something in it that makes us do stupid things. It is called ethyl alcohol. There are a lot of different kinds but they are all poisonous. My headache tells me that this one is too. Wine is usually five to twelve percent though it can go higher with selected yeasts. That is the plant that eats the sweet part of the grape juice and produces the alcohol." "How come yours says, eighty percent?" "We take good wine and remove the water. This is new brandy and if it stays many more years in oak barrels then it gains the flavour of the wood and is not as rough as what you hold in your hands." "What does it taste like?" Rufus quickly said, "Are you a man or a mouse?" The men on the dock thought this an insult and put their hands to their weapons. Julian said, "I would call myself a man." "Take a mouthful like I did and see if you squeak like a mouse or stand like a man." Julian thought for a few seconds and worried loose the cork and took a good mouthful. He was not as bad as Rufus because he swallowed it quickly. When he recovered he said, "This nectar may well be poison. It warms the stomach and burns the throat. How can a man drink this stuff?" I said, "In a moment take a very small sip." Rufus quickly said with a slur, "Like a mouse." This sounded like a dare and Julian took a small sip and savoured the taste. "It is not bad." Rufus stood tall and banged his chest like a Frisian and he said loudly, "I am..." then in a small voice, "a mouse." Julian smiled and said, "I may be a mouse after all." He handed the bottle to Manlius and asked me, "What have you brought me?" "More armour and weapons like we sent you before." "That is splendid. There is no better swords or armour anywhere in the world." "We brought a wide range of our products. Some have to be seen to be appreciated." "I would like to see them." "I have to be blunt like Rufus and ask if your officers will help. A good portion of this is military equipment but not all. I can teach them about a hoist but then they have to carry the boxes off the dock to make room. We have three ships to unload." "Did you bring... any of those other weapons." I understood what he meant and said, "We have to have a serious talk first. I was given a glimpse of your fate unless we can change it." "What is it?" he asked eagerly. "Do you want me to talk to you on a dock about your future?" "Perhaps not. Tell me what you want done." "The crates on the dock have to be moved to solid ground and room made for the rest of the cargo." Julian gave his orders and his men started to help but they didn't like doing manual work. I called out loudly, "Those crates contain death to our enemies. Drop them and they will take your lives too." This worked. Now they had fear even if it was of the unknown. Julian looked at our crane and the rope falls then had to try himself. He got to try for a while until Rufus wanted to push him away. I got Rufus' men to keep him away before he hurt someone or himself. It was an hour past dawn by the time we were done. I saw that little water had leaked in and none of the crates appeared to be damaged. Rufus' head was now pounding and he just sat with his hands over his ears as if this would confer protection. I vaguely remembered stopping the bleeding and walked over to him. I put a hand on each side of his hairy head and thought at him. In a moment I got his body to hide the pain. He would be cured naturally in a few hours. Rufus looked at me with a stunned look and slid off of his seat and knelt before me. His voice was soon able to say, "You healed me." "You are a friend. I took away the pain only. You will heal naturally." "You healed me." I put my hands down and pulled him up. He saw this and helped far more than I could do. I said, "You do not kneel to me. A man kneels to a god and a god alone. You should be courteous to a man. If the man is of high rank and needs a bow then do so. Only kneel when you have to work within the customs of a land that require it." "But, you healed me." "Rufus, you dolt. I said I removed your pain. Is that so hard to get through your thick Roman head?" "No... I guess not." "Good. I handed him the leather bag and said, "The ships did not leak though it was close for some. You have your bonus." "I do not need a bonus, my lord." "Rufus, I am going to box your ears. I am Jón. That is all. If there are a lot of Jóns around then you can say Jón of Germania." "I will remember, Jón of Germania. I do not feel that I should take the silver." "You will take the silver or I will be angry with you." His hand then came out and took it reluctantly. I said to him, "I am not telling you how to handle your life but I want to build some real ships. If you are going to trade along the Rhine then you could carry back a cargo of copper, brass, bronze, silk and all the hemp and hemp seed you can get your hands on." "I will do that. I do not want to go back with an empty hold." "When you trade, you may want to get some brandy. Trade it in very small amounts and charge a lot of money for it." "I will do so my... Jón." I shook hands with the man and turned around to see everybody staring at us or at me. I shook hands with all of the crew and climbed to the dock. Julian was waiting and we walked to the pile of crates. The crane was already there and waiting. Julian had obviously given orders and a long line of wagons were ready to be loaded. I checked each of them and directed what I wanted on each of them. Some were large but far from being sturdy. The chemicals were fairly light but I didn't want to risk them being damaged if an axle broke. The officers rode their horses and Julian rode beside me as I rode shotgun on a cart. "Jón, what did you do to the Captain?" "It was something new. I never tried healing anybody before. It just never occurred to me. When I was feeling the effects of the alcohol I tried to heal Rufus. He was pretty drunk when we fought and he got hurt. I controlled his bleeding. When he had his headache I cured his like I did my own by just suppressing the pain and letting the body do its work." "I heard that your gods cured you but today you said the gods would heal you again. You had many wounds yourself." I thought of how to say this and said, "The power of the gods flows through me. I can work on my own body too now." "That is amazing. Have you done it before?" "The gods showed me how to heal myself after I was captured by the Gauls. I suppose you have heard of what I was like?" "Oh, I have heard many reports and from many witnesses." I made a face and said, "You still have a lot more spies than I have." "How do you know this?" "I have few people around me. Most are those I gather until the last year when they have come to me to hear my story. You on the other hand have a legion around you. To add to this, I am a prince of a small group of Germans. You have a very famous family." "We can talk of this later. Tell me about your paper, books and what I am told is printing." "That has to wait for later too. How about we talk about a smith with the arms of Thor that can swing a five hundred pound hammer thirty times a minute and do it continuously for day after day." "I would love to hear of this man. He has to be one of the gods." We talked of steam now and how it could do work. We had a few small steam hammers but none were up to five hundred pounds yet but they were in the planning stages. Julian asked, "Do you have any here?" "Too big and heavy but everything I have is heavy. It is the little toy boats I have to work with that are the bottle neck." "What has a bottle's neck have to do with this?" "Sorry. Liquid will not pour out of a bottle well because air has to go the other way and because it is narrow the liquid cannot flow quickly." "I understand, now our boats are small?" "I talked to Rufus about the same thing. Some ships are one thousand five hundred feet long. They weigh..." I had to think. The amphora was eighty pounds of wine. The weight of a quadrantal was the weight of an amphora full of wine. The only larger weight was twenty amphora called a culeus. "Are you familiar with the word million and what it means?" "I have heard of it. I think it means a thousand thousand." "Good. The gods have weights that are large but we play with small things. One large ship empty weights seven and a half million quadrantals. Its cargo is another ten million quadrantals." The driver was listening and now looked at me. So did Julian. Julian said, "I cannot see that size. It is simply too great." "That was a large ship but they sometimes got much larger. Most are smaller though but some that are used for cruises are a thousand feet long and a hundred feet wide." "That is very large too but what does a cruise mean to you?" "When you have some time to relax, you pay for a ride in an aeroplane to fly a major sea port. You get a room on a cruise ship and sail thousands of miles and stop and many places that look very nice. The people riding take a small box out and this records what you are looking at as if an artist drew a picture of it. You come home and look at them and show your friends and family where you have been. The same is done when you have the images taken of your children as they grow up. Relatives don't mind seeing a few once in a while but the neighbours do not care and find excuses to go if they can." "I understand going some place to rest. We do that here. The paintings are hard to understand." "If you had a thousand great artists around you all the time you could stop once in a while and see something that looks beautiful. It may be a girl or a magnificent horse. Mountains look good and so does the seashore. You just tell an artist to draw where you point and he will do it. That is what photographs are like." "So a man can take thousands of paintings?" "If he wants. They are very clear and just like what you see with your eyes now. They are also very cheap to make. Even the poorest can afford some photographs." "The gods have poor?" I had stumbled here and said, "Not all gods are driven to succeed. Some take simple jobs with less rewards but they are happy with this. Did you think the gods are so different than us?" "I just never thought of it like that. I only hear of a few." "It is like the Persians or what you call the Parthians. They know of the Romans but do not know many of them. The ones they do know are the ones that are either important or who have talked to them for business of friendship." "Enemies too I am afraid." "That is true. The result is that the Persians do not know exactly what a Roman is like, only the few they meet." Julian nodded in understanding. I said, "I am afraid you are going to meet Sapor II at the Battle of Ctesiphon." "I am?" "We can talk later. I and my people are going to be there this time." "This time?" "Sorry, that was bad of me. You will be there and so will I. Again this is from what I have seen in the land of the gods." I paused and thought for a while and said, "Can you set up a tent away from everyone? No servants and just you and I will talk. Did you know that people can read lips?" "I have heard of that." "Good then we stay away from people." "What about the man beside you now?" The man was now worried and I said, "I basically watched what I said. He knows of ships and this is good. He knows of the gods and this too is good. He also knows you are going to win a battle with the Persians and I see nothing wrong with this. There is nothing he can say to hurt you." "Alright." On another note, I said casually, "Did you know that I am changing the Roman army?" "You have already done so in many ways." "Ah, in that way yes but I am also teaching them to fly." Julian looked at me seriously. "This is like your strong smith?" "A little. One Roman commanding a fort on the Rhine has a thinner skull than most Romans. He learns fast." "Tell me about him." I discussed Horatius Postuma and his efforts to gain a mastery of the sky. "Can we really fly one day?" "Not one day but within five years on a small scale within twenty where you feel like you are really flying. It will be a long time before you can do anything but look down and see an enemy as you count faces that are looking up." We eventually came to a sprawling villa. There was not enough room for all of us to fit in the court. In the distance I saw a palisade of logs that could only be for a full legion. Julian had large tents brought and pitched close to the walls. Poles were put on the ground inside the tents and our cargo was placed in this area so it could be protected from the elements. When everything was unloaded and the crane dismantled, Julian had a feast served. Our men washed their hands and faces and then some of the officers did too. Julian was surprised by my small prayer of thanks. Our people intoned 'Thank you, Woden' at the end. The meal was good and from what I had heard of what some rich Romans ate, this was simple. Meals like this took quite a while but when we were done Julian said, "Perhaps we can have a talk now." "Let's go for a walk to work off the good food then." Julian kept his bodyguards close but out of hearing range. We also looked away from everybody. I handed the man a leather tube and said, "This is a gift from Lucius' son Tertius. There is more to show you when you meet." Julian opened the case and I took the leather as he examined the brass telescope. I directed him to look through the small end and I could see him start as he understood what this was. He scanned the horizon then the camp and finally looked at his bodyguards. "This is... I would have to say magical." "Just the natural forces of nature being used. I gave you this so you can have your trusted men reading lips of your enemies. Soon they will have this device and they will read your lips too." Julian smiled at this and said, "Ah, but it will take a long time before they get theirs." "Don't count on that. Lucius has them and is selling them to the officers up and down the Rhine. You have yours before any could make their way to Rome but they will arrive." Julian seemed to understand then said, "Please tell me my future." "When I was in the land of the gods, I looked through their books of ancient times. Men wrote letters and these were sometimes saved. Some religions preserved these and even copied them when they were getting old and crumbling. Men a thousand years later read the letters and studied all they could about the Roman empire. They wrote books just as I have done about the land of the gods. "What this all means is that I saw a reference to you. I was studying battles and your name came up. Now before I say more I have to say that time is like a stream. If I walk in it, the water will flow around my feet as if I was not there but some small particles of dirt are stirred up and fall further down the stream. "If I was important and did a lot to the stream I could dam it up or dig a channel and eventually the water could change course and go somewhere completely different." "Are you saying that you can change what will happen?" "Yes. I already have but I want to dig that channel with your help." "Why would I help you?" "I will give you the history as I understand it. This was before I even walked in the water." "I understand." "I do not have to go through your history. I know your family was killed and then your brother. You got this job because of a relative that wanted to help you. Constantius II hoped to just keep you here so he could take care of the Persians at the other end of the empire. Does this sound correct even if it is stated simply?" "Yes, though you have not given names." Constantius II has troubles in the east and his advisors do not like you. They plot just like all the other people that practice intrigue. Constantius II figures he can reduce your popularity. He makes a deal with the Alemmani to fight you. This I think is coming soon. You are decisive and win. You capture the king and he tells you how your cousin tried to hurt you. "This makes you angry but you do nothing much. Don't forget that I do not know much. I have to go by the letters that survived for a thousand years not the ideas in your head." "I understand. Please go on." "Before this, Constantius tries to take all your good men. This is half of your army. Apparently your men have a deal that they have to stay in Gaul. Constantius either doesn't know or care. He sends a delegation to collect the men. You have a dream about an old oak falling to make room for a young oak. I forget if this is before or will happen. Anyway you refuse to allow your men to leave. Your men are impressed and put you on a shield and make you accept the title of Augustus." Julian looked at me sharply. I said, "This could have been a plot by you all along or something that just occurred to you. I do not care, because I want you to accept." "That is treason." "So? You of that time, sent a letter to Constantius explaining what really happened. He falls into a rage and orders you to only do the duties of a Caesar. Constantius makes some quick treaties with the Persians and comes here to deal with you. This is the time he gets the Alemmani to attack. "You hurry up the Rhine and follow the Danube. A small force travels to Italia and three thousand men continue with you. You send letters to the Senate and to important cities. The Senate give you permission to try to become Augustus but warn you that you will probably fail. Constantius dies on the way to battle at the end of the coming year. You go to Constantinople and then to Rome and become the Augustus. "You ask for a barber and find a man that is very wealthy ready to cut your hair. Constantius gave away gold like water and is beggaring the empire. You stop this. Constantius was a Christian or pretended to be. You get angry at them and want the old gods brought back. Christianity is not quite banned but it is suppressed a bit so the old religion can return. Persia now gives you problems. You lead an army there. It get hot and you take off the armour from your back. A Persian spear kills you. I do not think a Persian threw it. I think it was a Roman in the pay of the next Augustus." We were quiet for a long time and he said, "How long was I Augustus?" "Two years." "If you know history, why did you pick me?" "What I know is changing all the time. If I wait ten years then the small things I have done will change events so much that I will not know what will happen then. The same is true about the battle. If you are not killed then all of the history I know will then be useless to me." "I do not kill Constantius then?" "In the old history I do not think that you did. You may have sent an assassin but you appear to be a man that likes to learn and you do not appear to be a very devious person. I do not know you except from what I had read in the books and what I was able to find out from others in the present. "Constantius may have been angry one day at you and slipped and fell then died. Now he may be even angrier and not slip so he does not fall and die. I do not know the reason for his death." "Is their more?" "Small facts like you dismiss most of the old people of Constantius and keep a small staff of your own. You are a just man from a reference to a governor of Gaul. When you defeat the Alemmani you share the wealth with the men not the rich. When taxes come you see that they are unjust and recalculate them with the true numbers of the people here. All this makes you look good and your cousin is very angry at you for this." "You could be lying to me and this could be a trap." "Yes, I guess, it could. When the men come to take the best of your troops then you will learn one statement that is true. When the Alemmani attack you will have to fight. If you capture the king you will find the truth. I think you used trickery to get him before. This time I want to capture him fairly. I want your word to be seen as true even by your enemies." "It is still possibly a trap." "Do you think that I spoke to the gods? You have not seen yet what I have brought. No man alive could have made these devices. Even the telescope in your hand was not seen before." "I believe." "Then let's open some of the boxes. Some are for you and some are not. I am opening a mail order store here and need floor models." "I don't understand that." We went back and opened the boxes of armour and Julian was told some of the differences. Iulius was the one to answer. "Steel gains strength by being quickly cooled. More strength is acquired by being deformed and small crystals made. This was done by a smith and was very tiring work. We now have devices run by the power of steam that hammer so powerfully and so quick as to be both deafening and frightening." "I have heard you mentioning this steam hammer. Please go on." There are only a few sizes of armour needed for almost any man. Patterns are made and one man and a steam hammer can make thousands of parts in a day. Other men put the parts together. Swords when worked with a steam hammer as these new ones have are even stronger. We have started a new science called metallurgy to just study the strengths and other features needed of different kinds of steel." "What other features?" "Some types have to resist wear. Others have to resist salt water and others have to be supple and strong like a bow. There are a great many features and a metal may need to combine more than one for a particular task." The swords were next and Julian dived right in to compare them to what he had been given. They were all longer than the gladius. Knives, daggers and more k-bars were seen in other boxes. There would be bayonets but we didn't have rifles yet. Some smaller and lighter boxes had our saddles. Each had an area to support them while in transit but the area was also used to store personal articles. One box just said 'Julian' on it and I handed the man a steel pry bar and said nothing. The man opened his own box and looked inside. We has all stopped and watched. He just stared down at the western saddle. It was tooled in silver inlay and had designs put into the leather itself. He pulled it out and put it on a box to admire it. It had all the fancy engraving that I had seen in my time and a few more. "This is beautiful," he said. "A lot of dedicated people worked hard on this for you. Perhaps you will get a chance to thank them." "I will do that if I get the chance." We brought out spear points now but they were much like the African assegai. The head was supported by steel and a sword would not be able to cut it. This was not usually a throwing weapon but something used like a sword. Shields were next but these had our openings in them so they could be looked through without even an arrow entering. Julian loved this and put one on his arm and looked through it. "Will someone strike at me." "You better give it to one of your bodyguards and then try a sword on him." "Forgive me. I will do that." A bodyguard got the shield and Julian used his sword to stab through the mesh but the shield itself bent backwards and only bent the metal. He tried three more times and smiled at the guard. The guard though was very nervous and I think quite happy that his employer stopped slashing at him with a steel sword. The next box had an assortment of headpieces. These were lighter but had tubing inside for strength. The faceplate was fixed and could not come off without a smith. It looked like what a pro football player might use apart from the metal mesh. The next bodyguard liked us even less. We had gauntlets and armour for all of the body. Most had none on the ass and Julian said, "A man can get stabbed there too." "If the men ride horses all the time then they do not need armour there. That is also why the swords are longer. In another box you will find armour for horses." "Men fight on the ground. The infantry is our strongest force." "Did you hear what a few Frisian calvary did to your legions and to the Picts?" He did some thinking and said, "This is better?" as he pointed to the partial armour. "Rome learned slowly but soon accepted the best approach to warfare. Calvary will replace most of the infantry but not all as time goes on." The horse armour was exposed but these took up some large boxes. In the bottom of the boxes were stacked horseshoes and some of them were like the ones I got the Frisians to make. These had to be explained and then how they were attached. Another box had six saddles but there were four cases. These were simple ones for the calvary. Saddle bags were provided in another box with the leather saddle used to transport heavy equipment Wood saddle trees, completed and semi completed horse collars plus the individual pieces used to make armour came in other boxes. None of our equipment needed to be ripped apart to see how it worked. Julian was tired by the middle of the afternoon and said, "What am I to do with all this?" "I think that first you have to test the equipment. While this is going on, gather iron. I will show your smiths how to make armour and weapons. Gather carpenters and bootmakers and make saddles. You have what is necessary to show them how." "I do not have the money to pay for all the equipment I need made." "You do not have to pay for all of this. The officers want my new armour and weapons. I will buy their old metal. They can pay the rest. I would be happy if the army guarantees this if necessary." "I can do that. How much does it cost for armour and sword?" "Fifty aurii. You still need the helmet and possibly a shield. The helmet is fifteen and the shield the same." "That is expensive." "That is true but the men have to have money to be officers usually. I can help too." "How?" I am not a citizen of the empire but I am now living near the Rhine. My businesses have to pay taxes. My taxes go towards the upkeep of Germania Inferior. There may be a way you can gain a portion of my taxes to support your legions here. Roman law will last for thousands of years though the empire may not. I think we should talk to some lawyers and try to get a ruling." "On what?" "What if I lived here in Gaul and my main businesses were in Germania Inferior. I do not want to get taxed twice but the total could be split some way between them. That may be acceptable." "I thought you hated tax gatherers." "I do not like some of the people or their methods but tax is necessary. If too many people cheat then the country fails." "You are volunteering to pay taxes?" "Only what is fair. Like I said, I pay the same as if I lived and worked in Germania Inferior." Julian smiled and said, "And you want to pay your taxes directly to the army." "Exactly." Men were called to tabulate the gifts already given and I put a fair price on each piece. Julian's saddle I ordered carried into the house so it was not counted. Julian asked about the high prices and I said, "Is one of my swords the equal of anybody else's? We could go to the market place and offer the steel sword for sale and we would see just what it will bring." "Your swords are worth more it is just that they are so much more." "Value is in how much somebody is willing to pay. I could get many times more for my wares but I chose a price that was fair to the army too." We were asked to enjoy another meal and I stood and said just a few words of thanks to the gods. It was simple and quick the way most people liked it. We were entertained lavishly but it was only more than the family setting I had with Licinia and Lucius. Some ladies came over later and were introduced. Some were rich and just wanted to be near us. Apparently I was famous enough to warrant this. Even Iulius did not argue when a good looking woman played with his sparse hair on his head. The woman's name was Fabia and looked seventeen. The oldest woman of the group was Hortensia at forty. I assumed that the one with the most seniority got what they wanted. I was not displeased but I was not going to bed her. She though had other ideas. I could not comment on politics because I knew little and I saw it as a way of entrapping me. I did not know any charioteers so I was not into sports. Hortensia on the other hand was not interested in ways of disarming an opponent or how to hold a sword correctly. I tried interesting Hortensia in social change but that apparently may knock her down. She liked the status quo. When a woman by the name of Julina asked me about the gods though the woman was all ears. I guess she had only heard of my activities with the Frisians. Hortensia said, "Yes, tell me about the gods. Which gods are they?" "The gods that spoke to me were from Asgard. There are a great number of them spread over their land. They look like us and even act like us but on the whole they are much more ethical." "How do you know this?" "I assume you have not read my book. It deals with my early life and then during my time in Asgard. Another book will deal with my time when I returned to this dimension." "What is a dimension?" "It is a mathematical concept. We can see height, width and depth. The gods can see and manipulate more dimensions. We are like fish that cannot understand what the world is like above the water the fish live in." Hortensia could not understand but Julian was interested. "Is there a way of seeing these other dimensions?" "Not with our eyes and senses. I can show you mathematically but I am afraid that nobody could presently understand me." "I do not understand this idea." I assumed he meant mathematics instead of dimensions. "My mathematics is superior to the Roman method. Very few people can do more than count in my method. Numbers can be manipulated to show the hidden meanings." Again he did not understand so I said, "I have taught this many times in the last few months. It takes time and effort on the part of the student to see how this is done. This may not be the time to start tutoring when we are escorting such beautiful ladies." "As you wish but now I want to learn." "Did you read the book? The basic ideas are there." "I read the passages a few times and get the rough idea. I still have not got the answer to how you make such fine paper." "We can go for a walk tomorrow." Hortensia slept over but not in my bed. I had a feeling that she did not share Julian's bed either. The other males were not as picky and enjoyed the gifts given them. We slept late because we had slept little yesterday. The servants were anxious to please and we had a late breakfast after a short prayer. We unpacked more of our crates and this was only possible because we packed up those already displayed. The large eight burner stove was assembled. This and the six burner units had an inner lining of clay. When the covers were removed then pots could fit in and get heated directly with the flames. This way the rest of the stove would stay a bit cooler. We had got one of each kind of our stoves assembled by the time Julian returned. He looked over the devices and said, "They are very well made. The surfaces are very smooth. What are they for." "I am glad you asked that. We pillaged your pantry and now we are going to make a meal for you." "Me? Here?" "Well, us too and we have to do it outside because the stove is not hooked up to a chimney in the house yet. I want you to watch what we do. If you are not too busy you can help with us." "Why would I do something like that?" He looked angry and I guess I crossed class boundaries. "Cooking is fun. You have lived too soft of a life. You have servants for everything. You are far more austere than most but you still rely on too many servants. It is fun to go into the forest and rely on your own skills to eat or go hungry. You Romans have become too civilised and need a shake up or the fate of the empire will be very bleak." "I am sorry if I offended you. I have never had to cook a meal so I do not know how." "Your apology is accepted and you will have to accept mine. I only wanted to show my own joy at making meals." "Then show me." "These articles are for sale. The rich will buy them from me as fast as I can bring them to the city. You will have to have one to keep up with the rest. To be one above the rest I suggest you call out your cooks. They can see how this is done and then you will be able to outshine those around you." Three cooks came out then the one that sometimes had the job. I explained about cleanliness because nobody wanted to eat what was touched by dirty hands. Julian must have realised that he ate all his food this way. I went through the basic hygiene steps but had to fudge them for cast iron because they were not to be cleaned often. Hot water came out of the side of the stove and more cold water was poured in. The hot water was used to wash a pot to show the procedure. I flipped eggs and got Julian to do the same though he did fine on his fourth try. Onions and garlic was sauteed and I added thin strips of meat. I had made up a recipe book and even had it printed to go with each stove we sold. We went through the simple procedures and there was no absence of comments from the cooks. Julian cooked a small omelet with meat, cheese and some soft vegetables. He got to eat a piece of it and was happy to have done so. He soon had the recipe book and was looking for what he could make. Since I had made sodium bicarbonate and brought some with me, I was able to make biscuits that were done in the oven. Butter was available and the biscuits were welcomed by all that smelt them. I encouraged Julian to lay some cleaned fish into some flour and then fry it in butter. Everybody complimented the chef and I knew that he was proud of what he had done. We were stuffed and had not gone far into the book. Water was boiled quickly in our pots and I showed the cooks how to clean the frypans and the plates. Soap again had to be used. When we sat down later with a cup of wine, Julian said, "You did not prey before the last meal. Will your gods be angry?" "I choose to honour them. They are like us too much. Some like the ceremony and want some token given to them but others either do not care about any recognition or about us." He ignored the gods or was worried about them and changed the subject. "You didn't seem to like Hortensia." "She could be my grandmother. We had nothing in common and she was not even very educated. I know you are married but I did not see a dinner companion with you." "It is dangerous for me or any lady close to me." "I hope that changes later. Would you like to go for a walk?" "I hoped you would ask." During our excursion I explained about making books and said, "Books are powerful tools. I can keep potential or real enemies from gaining access to them and I have a chance to teach a few generations of people before the opposition gets the same weapons." "Who is your enemy? I can guess at many of my own." "The old people that control Rome will not want to change. They have not only power but money and influence. I need those things too and need to exercise them all the time. I want schools and I want all children to go at least until they can read, write and do basic mathematics." "Tell me about what happens when Rome has difficulties." I took an hour to talk about the Dark Ages and all the suffering they entailed. Plagues were listed and the usual cause. Human progress was listed and the time taken and showed how even a decadent Rome was better than the Dark Ages. Before we returned, Julian asked, "What did you mean about 'we' being with me at the last battle?" "As Augustus you could make peace with the Frisians and give them the status of a free country. A treaty could be signed where you help the Frisians if they call and they will help you. You could call them for help against the Persians. They are a threat to the empire and you could tell your people that they are a threat to Germany as well. The Frisians will come to your aid but you will have to pay them for their effort, the same as they would have to pay you." Julian's face lit up and he said, "They bring their cannon." "Exactly. Perhaps a new friend doesn't get a sudden pain in his back." Lawyers came over later and there were seven of them. They were dressed in a uniform and wore an odd hat. My own people were gathered for their insight and to allow them to know just what was happening. I shook hands with everybody in the room and invited Julian to also stay with us. He might have some insight too. "I can for a while but I have many duties to attend to." "Thanks for what help you can give." I knew that Roman law was the basis of all laws in the western world but I did not know how different it really was. With Julian present I talked about confidentiality and the lawyers agreed to this. Each were given a silver coin and I said, "I have paid you even if it is for only tonight's dialogue. I am young, fairly rational and loyal to my friends, employees and everybody under my care. People that are disloyal to me are regarded as enemies. I have killed enemies as any good Frisian would and the law of Rome has no basis. Revenge is in our bones and Germans in general become too irrational to think of man made laws. Now if anybody cannot abide by my terms of confidentiality they may freely leave with the understanding that I will respect you greatly for your honour." I looked around and nobody moved. "Good, now to my identity. My name is Jón. I am the only surviving son of Clovis, King of the Frisians." It looked like they did know of me. "I have two reputations. I can and have killed in very large numbers. I use some very new weapons that have never been seen before. The less well known reputation is that the gods have seen fit to give this kind of information to me. This was not a few whispered words but a period where I was taken to Asgard." My story now was changing again but not much different from the one before. It was like I was just revealing more information. My memory lose and subsequent reinstatement by the gods could cover most of this. "My time there was different and was much longer than the half year my family thought I was in a coma. The gods have put a task upon me and that is the slow transformation of the Roman empire to one more centred on the individual." I paused and the questions began but they dealt only with ways of proving that the gods had sent me and a clarification of my goals. Julian was getting antsy so I said, "We can talk on this later. I want to have my main home in this province but the places I make my god given devices happens to be in Germania Inferior. Taxes are necessary but I want to only pay my share. Tell me how some of the tax revenue could be shifted here and directly to the army?" Julian calmed down and added a few comments himself. During a small lull I said, "I require a building to be erected for religious services and near it a very large building to display the products I wish to sell to those of Gaul. None of you have mentioned the port taxes which have to be considered." We talked more and again Julian had some input and even suggested some locations when he found out the size and scope I wanted. Julian left to attend to his own duties and now Iulius started to ask questions of the lawyers. It seemed that those around me were less constrained when the Caesar was not around. When it was turning dark we adjourned to the courtyard and there we gave a demonstration of our equipment. Lawyers were not necessarily rich but could see a profit in dealing with us. Food was prepared and then we displayed our armour and weapons. It must have been a bit of overload to them. One of the older men asked if he could purchase a small stove and a few pots for his own uses. Iulius said kindly, "We are opening a sales office. I am told that this is one of many that will be constructed throughout the empire. We envision one in every large city within ten years and hundreds more in the smaller cities. A customer comes in and looks at the equipment we have on display and gives us a small payment. Word is sent back and the equipment is delivered along with whatever else can be transported." One lawyer said, "Some people may not trust a situation like this." "We have a way of remedying this. Three sheets of paper are put on top of each other. A secret method of transferring what is written on the top sheet to the two beneath. The customer gets one copy, the 'head office' gets one and the 'branch' making the sale retains the last. If there is problems then the three can be compared if a dispute is found." This was not an easy thing to accomplish. The Romans did not use a nib yet and relied on the quills of birds alone. We had many steel nibs that went over the quills to make writing less of a chore. With copies though we had to work with a pencil and ours would be of the metal lead but later would change to graphite and clay. We at least had our lead between two pieces of wood that was glued together. Graphite was known as black lead I found and it was difficult to find much for sale outside our own business. The seven lawyers were each loaned a copy of my book with the injunction that this was a loan and not a gift. This I guess would be the first library I would set up. Julian talked to me before he retired. "How did it go?" "There is a conflict but it is in good faith. The armour and weapons are yours but I may have to say that it was a loan until this gets straightened out." "Your gods allow you to lie?" "I said before that this was for the army. There is no 'army' to take possession but there are some representatives of the army. You are one. I did ask you to test the armour and weapons. When the testing is done I will have the cost of my donation deducted from the tax I am obliged to pay. This is not a lie but a legal manoeuvre that all businessmen make. Some are not as ethical as I am." "I can see a small distinction but that is enough for a lawyer to slip through." "My objectives are still the support of the army and the gradual change of the empire to include all races and those races have to have a partial say in how the empire runs." "I remember that." "I would like to go into the city tomorrow. We need to find lodging and find a suitable area for our branch office and religious centre. I suppose we will then have to find building materials and then secure some workers." "You are welcome to stay here for as long as you need." "Thank you for the offer." "I would just like the army's property and our own watched until we are able to move it. You may find it nice to have some interesting guests but in time even they will be less welcome. Tents and equipment in your court may look ok but only for a while." "You know your needs best." The next day we borrowed some horses from the stable and put our saddles on the mounts. As usual they took only a short time to get used to the new raiment. A guide accompanied us as we searched out the areas that would work the best for us. Paris or Lutetia was small now and would grow very large in the centuries to come. We rode through the dirty streets but now some of the houses were more than a story high so upper window were dangerous from a chamber pot prospective. We ate our midday meal and continued to look. We found three areas that looked good. One was very large and with a few exceptions was a kilometre on each side. This was not in the centre of the city but would be in coming years. When we returned to Julian's home he asked about our opinions of the land and I told him. There were more to check tomorrow. Julian said, "Do you feel up to going to a party?" "The social life takes up much of my otherwise free time. Is that an invitation for me or for my associates too?" "Your associates are very interesting too." "We do not have much in the way of fancy clothing." "I have a great deal and all of you are free to choose." "Thank you but I would rather have your man help us. I do not want one of your favourite togas soiled." The rich usually came in a sedan chair and sometimes Julian came by carriage. This time though he rode his horse like the men he was accompanying. I felt odd in a toga since it had to be constantly held in place. It was even more difficult while riding a horse. I carried hidden weapons and thought of Brutus as he stabbed Caesar on the steps. With no armour, we made do with a shield and swords. The bows too were left behind. We had to be armed to protect ourselves but not look like a war party. The shields stuck out but the holes in top of them made them look as if they were for decoration. ------- Chapter 12 A servant opened the door and ushered us in. A short rotund man with a florid face greeted us. It was not Julian's place to introduce us but I found that the servant already had our names. Crescentius Popillius was our host. He said, "I have heard a great deal about all of you. Julian has shown us your book and I found your descriptions vivid. If it were not for all the things I have heard that you have actually made then I would had to have dismissed the book as a pleasant story." Atrius was more sensitive to this matter and said, "I have seen things with my own eyes that would have forced any sceptic to see that Jón of Germania has indeed been favoured by the gods." I said in my own defence, "The book was first of many. It was made in a simple format so that even the least educated reader could grasp the precepts. Further books will be produced in the same format. Supplementary literature will explain in more detail but it will be a while before they are understood to any depth." Crescentius said, "Excuse my casual treatment of your work. I read very little. When I found that you had arrived in our city I read the book again in more detail. I could not put your book down until it was read in its entirety. Would you please explain about understanding the supplementary works you will be writing?" "Certainly, the further works will deal in many parts of our physical universe. Chemistry is a new word that supplants alchemy. Gold is a primal element and cannot be made for a thousand years and then only at great cost. This science will push our understanding of the universe much further than most. There will be immediate and substantial returns on our labours." "How does this happen? I have heard of alchemy and some reputed successes." "There were no successes. Chemistry will benefit us by making our land more fertile. Everything about us will be improved from a horse in the courtyard to the clothes you wear." More people came near and I explained how the struggle to learn more chemistry also brought us to a better understanding or biology, physics and our own bodies. I made a case for all of science and physics linked with everything else so an advance in one would provide clues to others. People seemed interested in my talk but would get bored easily so I said, "I am taking up much too much time when a gathering like this is to exchange ideas. Perhaps you could tell me a bit about you and your business interests. I am new to the empire and know very little." Crescentius Popillius was first and went into a lot of detail about his family. He seemed to be very proud of it and went on for a long time. It was only when people started to drift away did he speed up. He was fairly wealthy, had some farms and gained most of his wealth from trading. The person that thought himself the next most important gave a much quicker rendition and then the rest of the group did the same. None of the women had much to say. It was their husband's place to speak. I asked my own questions now but I tried not to be intrusive. I found that the men liked hunting, falconry or horseracing. The guests all knew about my book even if they had not read it and I was asked if the gods had similar sports. Professional sports were listed and how the gods chose teams much like the charioteers now in vogue. More sports were listed that were enjoyed by the young or in the Olympics. The Olympics were still going strong in this time but I knew that some religious asshole would ban it in the next century. I got down to personal competition and listed my favourites first. Wrestling, karate, judo and went on to list many other oriental forms of combat. They did not understand figure skating but I had to talk about the skate itself. They were very excited when I said, "Hunting for sport is still done with a bow. Some use a small cannon that is light and can fire many small pellets or a large metal cylinder. Men and women use another light cannon that shoots one small cylinder a great distance. There is a device on top that allows the hunter to see the target as if it were only thirty feet away." One man asked, "How far can the quarry be and still be taken?" "Nine hundred feet is the usual maximum to do accurately but the military have similar ones the can hit the head of a man at over a mile. They can also shoot in the black of night and through fog." "How can they see in the dark? That is impossible." I said, "Even on the darkest night there is a small amount of light even if it is from the stars or a fire a long way away. It is there but our eyes cannot use it. When light hits a device, it can knock loose a small particles called electrons. The gods can take the power of lightning to make this electron hit more atoms to cause a flood of electrons. These electrons are captured and an image is seen. Some of these devices use heat which is just a less powerful form of light. A man glowing with his own heat is emitting the energy that is used to see him." "Could you make this?" "I will be dead long before this is made." Some of the men exhaled so this technology really frightened them. It also occurred to me that they would simply kill me to keep things the way they were. "The trouble with this sort of thing is that even if I do not make these tools now another country could and would. "The Frisians have the cannon and the secret of the powder and a great many more devices. To not progress means that in a hundred years the Frisians will simply take over the empire by force. I want to take it over too but all of us will be alive to enjoy what the new empire will bring." "Do you mean we will be more wealthy?" "Far more wealthy. Money now is made in trade and tribute. Since the countries that were conquered have little or no say, this had to be seen as tribute not tax. Give them a small voice and it is now a tax. If we pay a man a reasonable amount of money he will use it to purchase what he wishes. That makes the silver move quicker from man to man and it grows. A government now taxes everybody and makes more money but the businessman will make far more money even if he pays more tax." Crescentius asked, "What does Rome or Constantinople need with more money. They simply have another circus." "You are absolutely correct. You need good government. If the Senate is elected by the common man they are accountable for how the money is spent. If the Senator is corrupt or inept then four years later the voters will elect another to take his place." "That was like what it was in the Republic." "The Republic failed because wars brought slaves into the empire. The slaves took the jobs of the common man and then there was no work for a freeman. The economy collapsed and the people then had to except an imperial government controlled by a very few powerful men." Julian reminded people of his presence by saying, "My cousin would not like to hear this talk." The men around us were now worried. I said, "The transition to a republic will take at least a century but probably more. Your cousin had nothing to fear. For the last few hundred years new emperors have come along very quickly. They also came along violently. My way is a gradual change has the majority of the people favouring the changes. "One fact that you may have forgotten is it is not me that is fighting but those that have directed me to do this." Most caught on right away. The Augustus represented immense temporal power while the gods had been seen as working subtly; that was until I came along. Gods were now giving tangible gifts and perhaps men were not as strong as they were a year ago. Gnaeus Trebonius, the man that introduced himself just after Crescentius said, "Politics and change are good topics to talk about but there is also wine, food and women." I said, "The Gods say 'Wine, Women and Song' are what is needed." "That sounds even better. Now we need some song and some women. Have you met my niece?" "I have met very few people." "Come, I will introduce you." It took only a short time for Gnaeus to dig into the largest group of males and pull a young girl out. As she emerged, she smiled back at the young men she had left. I saw as she approached that she was a very pretty girl of around fifteen. Gnaeus stopped before me and the girl smiled radiantly at me. I was not sure if I liked this or not because she looked like a predator. "Jón of Germania, this is my niece Quinta. Quinta, this is the young man I spoke of. He is the hand of his gods and though he has killed thousands he has put his hand out in friendship now." Quinta spoke first and said, "I am very glad to meet you. Many people are talking about your book. Have your really talked to the gods?" "Hello, Quinta. I am glad to meet a girl as pretty as you too. If you do not mind my asking, do you jump from one topic to another all the time?" "I am sorry, I was just so excited to meet you." This sounded nice but a bit fake. "Thank you but I think I must be the one to be pleased. I am sorry for being instrumental in taking you from your friends." "That is fine. We were just telling jokes." "I am still sorry." "Would you like to meet them? They were just telling a story about a stupid slave." The girl seemed sophisticated. She must have been to a lot of parties like this. It was also a sure thing that she had not talked with anybody about my dislikes. "No, thank you, Quinta. I guess I am a bit too liberal for your friends." "Liberal? What do you mean?" "I think you should read the book. It explains a lot." "A book is so long. Tell me what it means." She said the last with a charming smile and a tilt of the head that must have gotten her a lot of things for it looked very nice." "Educated people get that way by striving to gather more information. Reading is the most common method. I personally have read thousands of books." She looked at me oddly and said, "There are not that many books ever written." I should not have said that. "The land of the gods has thousands of thousands of books. Do you think that I would not take advantage of such a treasure? There are books on every available topic. Whole rooms are devoted to just mathematics. This whole house would not even contain them all if they were put against the walls and rose to the ceiling." Gnaeus was squeezing Quinta's hand to get her attention. I think she had seen the error of her approach. Quinta said, "I would like to read your book. It must be very exciting to be called to the land of the gods. Will you tell me a bit about them?" "I could but I am famished. Would you like to see if there is anything to snack on?" "There is always something." Quinta pulled me along leaving Gnaeus behind. I asked Quinta about her choices and filled a plate for her and for me. Apparently this had not been done for her before. We sat in a quieter corner and she started to talk like a girl her age. This was more refreshing in its honesty. A young man of eighteen or nineteen came over to ask if Quinta wanted to look at the stars. Quinta was instantly angry and started to berate him then suddenly quieted and said, "No, thank you. I was just talking about the stars." The young man looked at me and said with a snicker, "With him?" "He... he..." I said quietly, "You should go and see the stars. It is not that long that a person is young enough to really enjoy the night." "But... I..." "It is ok. There are a lot of differences between our ages anyway. You are a beautiful young woman and the young men want you with him." "I want to stay with you." The young man said, "Come on Quinta. You heard what the boy said. We are only young once." He bent over and took her hand and pulled her away. Her plate fell to the floor and broke. When the two had disappeared I bent over to pick up the pieces of ceramic and put them into my plate. A nice thigh attached to a small foot was right beside me. I looked up to see a good looking girl of about the same age as Quinta staring down at me. She said, "I have to do that or I will get in trouble." "Then bend down and help." The girl did quickly and we both started to find shreds of the ceramic. I said, "My name is Jón. What's yours?" "Appia, if it pleases you, my lord." "It pleases me. Now you better run along before you get in trouble. The girl took the plate and with a small quick smile said, "Yes, milord," before hurrying off. It felt good to have met Appia but I still had important people to talk to. I was in a discussion on strategy when Gnaeus Trebonius said, "I thought you were going to be spending the night with Quinta" "She tried to stay but she was taken away by a young man. She is young and has to enjoy life while she can. Adult life lets a person know exactly what burdens they have to bear." "She has to grow up sometime." "That is true but party life may not teach her about responsibility." "What do you suggest?" "I suggest nothing. I just said that responsibility had a way of making us grow up." "I was told you are just twelve." "That is true but I am nearing my next birthday. You have to admit that I am a special case though." We continued our talks on strategy then I shifted the conversation to having educated officers. This directly related to training them in their youth. I did not go for universal education but just for officer material. I had to get them to accept one ideal at a time. The sit down meal was not in the Greek style with couches though there were a dozen sitting in another room I had noticed. The meal was much fancier than Julian had served and a bit hard to take. German tastes were simple and the Romans I ate with did not go into anything exotic but the host had the cousin to the Augustus and had to impress him. Julian had simple tastes and I wondered why the host had not made a simpler meal. A very subdued Quinta sat near me and seemed to think hard on everything she did. She was far from spontaneous now. Dinner guests were supposed to talk to their neighbours and I did not give Quinta more time then the others. One man across from me asked if the gods raced horses. "Yes they have lots of races. A small man or woman sits on a special saddle and they race for up to a mile. There are races where the horse pulls a small cart for a rider. It is made of very strong metal and wood that is light. There is no attacks on each other and as a result there is few deaths. "The gods race in steel vehicles poured by an engine that burns a liquid fuel like the oil in your lamps. They go over two hundred miles an hour in the straight sections and the noise is horrendous. The vehicles move in and out trying to get into a good position. When an accident occurs the vehicle breaks up into small pieces. This can cause other vehicles to be destroyed. These races last a few hours and they will have travelled five hundred miles." During my talk every other conversation at the table had stopped. Quinta was open mouthed and said, "Do they have other races?" "Yes, in the cold parts of the world they gather strong dogs to pull a sled. They go for days over the snow. Another race is with a machine that they sit in that has an engine that pushes it over the snow and ice at a very high speeds." I thought of bicycles and now smiled because here was another invention to make. "Some men ride a device that has only two wheels and an engine. You can stay upright on it easily once it is moving. They have races across the land where mud, water, rock and hills have to be passed. On larger machines they go very fast on a smooth surface of bitumen that has been flattened by a very heavy machine. There is another type that have men push down on pads with their feet. The power from the pads make the back wheel turn. This is a wonderful way of travelling. A man without a horse can travel faster than a man with a horse if the roads are smooth. I would like to make these devices but there are just too many small parts made of steel to make." Julian asked, "Could the army use them?" "Yes they could. Instead of riding they can put all of their packs and supplies on the devices. They require a flat surface to ride on but they can carry three or four times the load and none of it is on their backs." "Would you make this vehicle for us too?" "I have to improve your roads first. I have to change the empire to what it would be in fifteen centuries from now." "Can you do this?" "Yes, a little at a time. I just have to make machines that make better machines until I get a good machine. An example of that is the very flat surfaces that I was able to put on the iron products I made. The same is true for my one armed smith that can swing a five hundred pound hammer." I imagined that everybody but those in the know saw a giant in their minds that could swing a hammer like that. Julian laughed at the other guests and then talked of how he was taken in too. He described the steam hammer to the guests. Quinta had been touching my hand when she talked before but now she was keeping contact. When everybody laughed at being taken similarly, Quinta's hand moved to my arm. In a moment she was rubbing my muscles. When the others started talking again she said, "You are very strong." "The Germans are usually big. I have not grown much in height but I work hard to get my body to develop. There is a balance I have to follow. I can put on lots of muscle but then I am too big to move quickly." She said, "You must be fantastic with the sword." This was done with a smile and probably one of the come-ons she would use. Few men could resist that opening. "I am not a slouch but it was the hammers at the forge that did most of this. Quite a few times I thoughts of Thor but I had never seen him, only his paintings." "What does he look like... in the paintings?" "Thor is usually fighting. I hear he likes that sort of thing. He's riding a war chariot or on horseback but the horse has to be large. He has a sword in his hand and the hammer at his waist. Sometimes it is the other way around. In many of the paintings lightning is seen in the background. I do not think Woden is helping other than to provide light and a suitable way to portray his son. Then again the other gods can throw lightning too." "Have you seen a god throw lightning?" I thought of the Ontario Science Centre, electrodes in giant furnaces and the running of high voltage lines across the world. "Yes, I have seen this in many forms. The power is beyond imagination. It has to be done just right or there is death even to the god throwing it. Men too can throw a kind of lightning and they too have to be wary or they too will be burnt to a cinder in a fraction of a second." "How?" Quinta and the rest of the guests wanted to know this. "There are a great many steps taken to make a lightning bolt. Lightning is electricity. Electricity is made up of the small particles that surround every atom. They are both solid and energy at the same time. Magnets push the electrons. The more electrons you push the more power you use and the more power that can be taken from the electricity. You can also use a lot of magnets and push a few electrons. If this is done enough the electrons will jump great distances." "What is a magnet?" "The planet beneath our feet is a magnet. It is what makes a small piece of iron stick to a larger piece. I am starting schools where this will be taught and I am afraid it is not a simple subject to teach without understanding the steps before it." "You are going to be a tutor now?" "That was my task all along. I have to teach the world like a parent teaches his children. It is sad but some need their bum paddled to get them to stop and listen. After that with patients and understanding there will be no problem. The ones that need the most paddling though will be the German and the Picts. They are not used to people giving them good advice and have to be hurt before they will listen." "Will you fight your own people?" "Everybody is my people. If you had read the book I wrote you would have learned about how we were formed long ago and changed over the years. Those in one area stayed away from the others and grew tall or short, light or dark and dark haired or light. We are all one people at one time and will be again with just some understanding." I paused for effect and said, "As we progress we will gain the power of the gods. Think what the world would be like if we did not get along together. Then think of our elevation to the strata of the gods as we overcome that portion of ourselves that is more like an animal than a god." There was a long silence and I did not break it. Let them think now that there was a lot more to chew on. When it was time to go, Quinta acted like one of the new converts and not the girl I had first met. She kept her eyes down and acted much more like the way a slave acted. In this case it was not advisable to kiss her. This put us on a more equal footing. She needed a goal and working with me on my goal was superior to anything I could think of for her. At the end of the evening I held her face in my hands and I felt her shiver as if she had been kissed. This may be good for her but did nothing for me except inflate my ego a bit. There was a lot of thanks given from both sides when it was time to leave. The company was not bad and I was sure they were entertained by our group and me in particular. My team though looked to have worked their usual charm and got a few to consider changing their choice of gods. It was quite dark when we came out. There was no moon and there definitely were no street lights in Paris of this century. Servants would be provided with torches but we could travel faster and just accepted some of the torches. The bodyguard moved forward to check for danger and to provide light for us. Julian said, "This night went well for you I think. Gnaeus' niece though would bed you in a minute but she has changed since you first met her." "She had no direction. She may change her mind in the next few weeks and go back to her useless existence but I could use her services. It is regrettable that none of them would be in bed. She is a sweet child after all." "Sweet? You should meet her mother. She would sour milk or make an army walk quietly if they were to disturb her slumbers." "I heard a saying that if you want to find out what a girl will look like in twenty years all you have to do is look at her mother. The same could possibly be true for their dispositions though their husbands can make or break a woman." The same is true for a woman. They have a power over us males." "That never changes and to tell the truth I think that is right." "I suppose you would like to relieve your tensions. There are many women that would love to do that for you." "You're right. Being young has its bad points but I think I will try to find some of my own." "Some?" "The gods saw fit to make me able to make more than one woman happy at a time. I guess if I could sell this ability somehow I would make all the money in the world." "I guess you would but then you would have to hear the crying of many more newborns. You said in your book that it is good to limit the numbers of children to the time you could afford to give them as well as the silver you have to feed and clothe them." "That is true but I already have hundreds of children." "I heard that you take in strays." I did not like the term. "That is true but they are people just like you and me. Give them an education and a goal and they will propel civilisation into the future." It started to drizzle but we would get a bit damp before returning to Julian's home. Many conversations were going on and then we talked to the group to make a joke or two. Here I was superior again because I had a wealth of material from the centuries behind me. Romans were mainly ethical people but it was ethics the way they saw it. The jokes I could use should not push their boundaries like I was doing in other fields. There was a lot of laughter and from me too because I thought many of the jokes I was told to be funny. It was during a pause when people were thinking of another joke that I heard horses behind us. Immediately I strengthened my hearing and then my other senses. There was a lot of noise and it took a while to filter out the sounds and put them into the categories of threats or not. Helvius was nearby and I said, "We are being followed. Laugh like you are drunk but liked a joke." He did but the laugh sounded false to everybody around us. I had taught hand signals to my people and they nodded one after another and laughed at jokes and talked as if they had just been spoken to. I moved forward so that all the light was behind me apart from what was leaking from homes. Julian did not come forward but his other bodyguards got closer to him. There were only six of them. The horsemen behind kept pace and had no torches so I deduced that there must be something ahead. There was only one road ahead that would normally take us to Julian's home though we could go left and take a long way around. This corner and the road beyond was the natural place. There were no fields or trees in this urban environment so I could not slip up on any enemy like I had before. At the intersection a hundred metres ahead I saw three heads looking our way. Nobody could normally see them in the dark but I could. I simply stopped and watched and the torchbearers rode by. I waved Curtius over and whispered to Julian and his men. "Three men just past the intersection ahead. I am drunk now and going to go for a piss. You will wait for me. All of you are a little drunk. Let me see what is awaiting us. I think that if we are attacked the twenty three men behind us will attack too." Julian said, "Twenty three?" "Two men are large and they sound different." When it looked right I called out, "Iulius, hold on. I have to piss." "You drank too much wine. You get that way when it is others that provide it." He was being nasty and I said, "I was not ogling all the girls the way you were, now hold on while I look for flowers in need of a drink." I slid off the horse with my sword in my hand. The toga and sandals stayed on the horse because they would trip me. I had a harness with four throwing knives and my k-bar. The rest was bare skin. Underclothes got in the way if a person in a toga needed to take a piss or a dump. I raced forward and stopped every ten metres to listen. Voices behind me said that they were going to piss to now that we were stopped. I could hear excited breathing just around a corner to my left. There was nothing to push against to give me a faster reaction but could peak around the corner from lower to the ground. The light from behind me would give me away. There were three. They had swords but I thought them to be the portion of the trap to close behind us. I put my sword down now and crawled around in the muck and got behind the last of them. I heard one whisper, "What is keeping them?" I stood now and with the k-bar put my hand around the mouth of the last as I stabbed him through the ribs. As this one fell I jumped over the twitching body to slash the throat of number two that had turned around at the noise. I pushed this one aside as the last one brought yup his sword to slash at anybody there. My knife went in under his ribs and he too was pushed to one side. I was out of the alley quickly and picked up my sword. I crossed the road in our direction of travel and at the first alleyway I found bowmen. There looked to be three of them. Any more would fill the alley too much. Across the street were more waiting for us to fall into their trap. I did the same thing again but number three's bow tangled in my legs as he thrashed. It took longer to get out of the entanglement and I heard, "Who's there?" He was answered with my knife and pushed the body toward number one. He swung his sword now and hacked at his friend. I moved in and used the k-bar to deflect the knife but used my heal to hit his nose and push the cartilage into his skull. This man fell dying but there was now enough noise to let everybody know that the situation had changed. I picked up the nearest bow and then gathered the arrows that were ready to fire. I shot across the street as fast as I could and cries of pain or surprise were heard. There was the thunder of hooves now. I had got off more than twenty arrows. With a good many of those as solid hits. Julian stopped near and said, "To your horse." "Wait! Throw the torches back the way we came." Julian said, "Do it." There were more arrows and I used them to feather men racing towards us in the dark. When I ran out I said, "I am going across the street for more arrows. Swing at any that get through." I could only get three more arrows off before I picked up my sword and worked in amongst the horsemen. They could hardly see but that was good for me. It was the work of only a minute before three men fled in the dark and possibly more men with swords from the far side of the street ran with them. Atrius said with strain in his voice, "Are you alright..." He wanted to use a word other than Jón but none came to him. I hurriedly said in a casual voice, "I am covered in gore but the only wound I have is a stubbed toe." "Let's get out of here." In a calmer voice, I said, "Why? They are all gone, wounded or dead. Let me get the torches." Manlius lit one torch with a match then this lit the rest. The men got to their feet and dragged out bodies looking for answers. There were four still alive but they would not live long. Julian then his bodyguard tried to get some answers but they were not successful. One of Julian's men had been hurt and had his leg bandaged. I walked to him and said, "Do you wish my aid?" The man had to think then said, "Yes... yes, my lord." I had to concentrated much longer but we were making progress. The blood had stopped flowing out and then the pain was treated. I took his bandage and used it to hold the wound closed better. "When we get home I will wash it and put some pretty little stitches in your leg. People are going to look at it for a few days and think how good of a tailor I would have made." "Thank you, my lord. The pain has all gone and I see that the blood has stopped." "It's a new trick that I did not know I had. I'm glad to have helped. Just don't think you are healed. Stay in place and call for some help when you have to move. I don't want the incision to open." The guard said, "Woden be praised." "Yes, Woden be praised." The watch came by in just less than a half hour. Since Julian had called them they were nice as pie. There was little to see by torchlight and we needed people to identify the dead. This way we could find their affiliations. I was back in my toga as soon as I could and Julian said, "That was fun. Don't worry about the blood. I gave up the life of a student to become a soldier and I soon found that fighting is much more exciting." "Remember what that quest for excitement will get you?" "I will wear the armour all the time then." "Good but I need a friend that has not forgotten his books either. Some soldiers become addicted to a drug that is far more potent than wine." "What drug is that?" "Our bodies make all kinds of drugs for us. Some make us feel better. Another is adrenaline. This is what gets pushed into our blood when we are frightened to give us strength and quick thinking. Some men love the feeling of strength so much that they seek out the dangerous places so their body will give them what is called as a 'rush'." "Do you think I am like this?" "I have no idea. I have more control over my body and get far less of a 'rush'. It still effects me though and the tiredness later is bad but not as bad as some. Not long ago I had no fear and no rush. I was like a machine that could kill easily. My rational mind though knew that I could wound in many cases and I did. I should have done some of that this time." "You killed over twenty men. We had very little to do." "Killing them brought no joy. I felt like a butcher killing sheep. If your life had not been at stake I may have done this differently." "My life?" "Who else... perhaps we should talk about this on one of our walks." Julian did pull me aside where we had privacy. "Did my cousin send these men?" "In the old time he may have and the information never made it into your letters or the letters never survived. I may have changed events and he now wants you dead. Another good probability is that they were after me. That still leaves who set the men on us." "I will get to the bottom of this." When dawn came there were a lot of people staring out of partially opened doors. I drew a line in the ground with an iron sword around the crime scene, and called out, "You may all come out if that is your wish. Stay outside the line on the ground." An old man came out first and gawked at the bodies all lined up neatly. When he was not accosted more came out. Julian used his authoritarian voice and said, "Does anybody know the identity of any of these men? I will pay for information." Julian had his men draw new lines and the men and even children could come close to see the faces of the dead. We protected our children too much in the future but to be fair, death was mush less common. Parents also didn't usually bring children to a funeral unless it was a relative or a close friend. The valuables were removed from the bodies later and the watch took them away with the injunction that I was to get the weapons and any other valuables. I was going to stop this but thought better. I had a great deal of gold with me but the tasks before me would cost a lot more than I had. Julian left for his duties without any rest and I guess I had to do the same. We hurried this time and saw two more properties. They each had their good points but I liked the largest portion I had viewed yesterday. We had a quick meal then went for our sleep. I set my internal alarms for Julian's return and talked to the very tired man. "Your turn for some sleep but I wanted to ask if you had found out anything about the men this morning?" "Nothing and I have put a great deal of men searching. To make sure I have other men double checking." "You are a thorough man and I love that idea. I also wanted to tell you that I found an area that I want. I still need a home and a large farm to show how my farm implements work." "There is a home close by that may be of use to you. The farm though is easy. Just bring gold and ask a farmer's price." "I want one close so the customers do not have to travel far." "I will make some inquiries." We ate together and Julian went to bed while I put on some armour and went to negotiate with the present owners of the property segment I needed. One was the army so that was a given. There were three farms where the owners may have a willingness to sell. I went to the first and was met by four men with pikes. "Hello, my name is Jón. I was attacked early this morning so I am going armoured and armed now. I was told that this property may be for sale. I would like to talk terms." One old man put up his pike and I got off the horse. My sword at my back and the other at the saddle. "Who sent you?" "Julian Constantius and a few lawyers he sent me." "I have heard of the Caesar. What do you offer for my land?" "Your farm is smaller than what I want. I want the farm north and east of you too. We will have to walk the land with the other owners unless there are some stone boundary markers in place." "I have none of those but the others do." "Do you have the time and a horse to show me where you think your land begins?" "I know where my land begins." "Fine, will you show me?" He turned to the youngest man and said, "Show him our land." "Yes father." The man had no horse but he ran quickly. I was in armour so I rode. I was directed to trees, large rocks, a stream and the edge of a larger stream or small river. Before we returned I asked, "I have made some tools that are good for turning over the soil. I also have some good thoughts on how to farm that most people do not understand yet. Do you know of a family that may stay on to work the farm my way. I worn you though that it is either my way or I will get somebody else to farm for me." "We could do it." We can talk later on this. Could you direct me to the houses of your two neighbours?" The man pointed and gave directions twice and I reached down to shake his hand. He did not understand so I had to tell him. The second farm was much better tended but I was still met with weapons. This time there was somebody to show me the markers and they roughly coincided with what I had already been shown. I promised to return tomorrow morning to make a deal with them. This time stock may be included in the price. It was getting toward dusk when I made it to the third home. This was as large as the last but had not been kept up. "Hello in the house. I have come to see if you have a mind to sell your property." I had been looking at the house all the time and instead of a pike an arrow came at me. I was far enough back and my reflexes were good enough to move ten centimetres so it flew past. "Fire at me again and I will go in the house and teach you a lesson in manners. I am not a thief and I have just come to Gaul from Germania Inferior." The door opened and a woman about thirty five came out though she looked older. Her voice was rich enough at twenty metres when she said, "You have amazing reflexes even for a young man." "They come with people trying to kill me. Why don't you lower the bow. I have no bow ready to shoot at you?" "Did Iunius send you here?" "I know of no Iunius. Julian Constantius and his lawyers knew that this property may be for sale. I was going to put an offer in on the one to the west and the small one to the south west." "You are pretty young to be buying farms." "You are pretty old to be playing with a bow." "I could have shot you." "Yes and it was my reflexes that saved me, not your indulgence." "You should not have been on my land." "How am I going to talk to the owner if I do not make an appearance?" "Why do you want my land?" "Do you usually answer a question with a question?" "If the answer is not worth voicing." "I make tools out of a special kind of iron. I also make weapons and some is the armour you see as well as farming tools. The farming tools can be best shown on a working farm. My inventions make the crops grow larger and healthier. I have to teach farming then. The crops can be accurately weighted and compared to the land they came from. People will then see that my way is better. I want special crops grown. When all is said and done, I am a teacher." "You are young for a teacher." "I think it depends on what I know not how I look." "That is true. What do you know?" "Farming for one." "I doubt if you have ever plucked a weed." "You would be very wrong. My armour was made with my own hands as well as my weapons. Swinging a hammer is much easier than pulling weeds." "What do you want my farm for?" "So I can plough all of it without having to go around other people's farms." "You going to come in?" "Only if you put the bow down." "I won't try it again, unless I have to." "That makes me feel so much safer." "You are the one coming here dressed for war." "If you remember I called out saying I was interested in buying this property not fighting you for it." I tied up the horse and left my helmet tied to the saddle. I listened inside and heard a lot of feet but none of them were ponderous. When I entered I found the room dark and adjusted my eyes. The room was clean but needed work. The air though smelt of death and sickness. The woman pulled out a chair for me and said, "Please be seated. Would you like some wine?" "Water would be better." "Water is... I will be right back." The woman took a good clay mug from the counter and poured water into it. I sniffed the water as it came to my nose and could detect nothing out of the ordinary. It was rainwater though. I took a sip and said, "Thank you. Will you tell me your name? Mine as I said is Jón." "Jón who?" "I have not even got your first name." "Salvia Curtius if you must know." "My name is Jón. My father is Clovis, the King of the Frisians." "A prince?" "That is true." "Why would you come yourself?" "If you mean here then it was to buy land. I have some Roman friends but they are sleeping. Early this morning we were attacked and we stayed up until the details got cleared up." "What details?" "You are very inquisitive. I give information but get none." "You have not asked any." "Fair enough. There were a lot of bodies to clean up. Julian Constantius was with us when it happened so a lot of problems with the watch was avoided." "How many bodies?" "A few." "How many?" "Thirty eight." "How many people did you loose?" "One guard had a cut thigh." "What wounds did you get?" "A stubbed my toe." "Not much of a warrior, are you?" "Maybe not. I am almost thirteen." "You will not be strong enough to keep this land even if I sell it to you." "Why is that Salvia?" "Iunius is a wealthy man. He wants my land." "He has not offer enough silver or you not interested in selling?" "I am not interested in selling it to him." "Family feud?" "You could say that. His family is powerful. They poisoned our well. They have killed our stock and set fire to our fields." "What has your clan done to his?" "I tried to kill him a few times and so did a son. The son died and three others are in the army." "Any other family?" "The children of my dead son and my father." "When I came in I smelt sickness. Is there something I can do?" "I do not think so she has been sick too long and her time is short." She must be a granddaughter. "My I see her?" "What are you going to do?" "I am also a physician." Salvia paused to think and said, "You cannot harm her or not much. See what you can do." I was led into the far end of the house. I heard children run but didn't see more than a foot or a backside. The smell got stronger as I got closer. On a pallet lay an emancipated girl that I could not really guess an age at. She was tall enough for a young teen but thin, very thin. An old man was sleeping while leaning against the wall. Instead of going to the girl I said, "Help me with my armour." The noise had awoken the old man and he just looked at me with fright. I had only what were called my small clothes on for felt had lined the inside of the armour. The armour and weapons were put to the side and I got close to the girl and the man weakly said, "Leave her alone." "I am here to help not hurt." I pulled the clothing off and the girl had sores on her body but mostly on her back and butt. She had been cleaned but not as much as I liked. I asked Salvia, "Do you have soap?" "Some." "Bring me a basin of warm water and the soap. I need a cloth and a towel." I looked at the old man and said, "My name is Jón. What is yours?" It took him a moment to respond, "Kaeso." "Glad to meet you. Will you move over? I need the room." I felt the girl and she was cool. The room stank so I said, "Kaeso, will you open the shutters?" "It is dangerous to do that." "Nobody will do anything tonight." I held the girl's head in my hands and tried to form the link I had with the guard. The girl seemed to be far away though and I had to draw her back. When I got her close I worked on the sores and commanded her body to work on the repair. She could do little because she needed food. I came out and found the water already in place. It was also cool. "Do you have some food?" Salvia left quickly and I started to clean the sores which caused them to bleed but this was good. The woman came back with a partial loaf of bread and said, "This is all we have." "Bring some water to soak it and my water too." I finished cleaning the sores and then put my hands over each of them and they slowed and stopped bleeding. The girl was put in a sitting position and I got behind her. I took portions of soggy bread and put them into her mouth. It was difficult to get her to swallow and had to bring the girl closer to consciousness. When the girl ate all that was available I gave her a bit more water and took some myself. I followed her blood veins until I came to the sores and worked on them from the inside again. I came to the present and found five thin children and the two adults staring at me. "I am working on the sores now. She needs more food." "We have none." "We need to get some. Put a pot of water to boil. There were some hares near the house." "But..." The girl was placed back on her back and I left with the sword only. My horse was still tied with the saddle still on. I ran back down the path I had come and listened and smelt the air while looking for stones that I could throw. I was back in ten minutes with three birds like a grouse and two hares. When they were put on the table I said, "Clean and boil them. Give some to the others too." The room smelt bad again but it was just that I was in the fresh air just a moment ago. I searched for a long time until I found the cause. The girl had something wrong with her pancreas and I assumed this to be a form of diabetes. I was able to get some of the cells working when I pulled out. The food was there and I squeezed the boiled meat so she could swallow. After ten minutes I went back to repair once again. There were millions of cells and could not hope to get them all functioning. I was also worrying about producing too much insulin now. This went back and forth with me feeding her and then going in and using her resources to revive the cells in her pancreas. The second time I pulled out I suggested that the children go to sleep. All I needed was more water and a blanket now to keep the chill off of us. The girl needed to void herself and called for a chamber pot. I think I assisted and then her grandmother cleaned her. The girl ate a great deal of the meat and broth by the morning and by the light I saw that she looked much better in colour. It was difficult to get up because I had stayed in an awkward position for a long time. I watered the daisies then walked back into the house. Everybody looked to be sleeping. I carried my armour out of the house in pieces so they would not make noise. I felt dirty and made do with a cloth and some water. The armour went back on now. The last household that I had visited were already awake and I was invited in to eat. I was hungry and ate a lot while listening to their rendition of all their neighbours including the Iunius family. From the first look it appeared that the rich family was always trying to get more land and were not that picky how they acquired it. I thanked the family for their generosity and said, "Do you have extra food that I could buy for the Curtius family?" They gave me dumb looks and said that they did. I handed them three silver coins and said, "Send the food to them according to what you think the coins are worth." The matron of the family said, "Didn't you know that there is a curse on the family? The girl is dying from it. Everybody knows that the Iunius family hexed it on them." "You are wrong. The girl has a small gland that gives up a liquid that... the girl is cured. She will get healthy now." "How do you know?" "I cured her." "Nobody can do that." "My name is Jón of Germania. The gods have favoured me above all other men. I am telling you now that she is cured by the power of Woden working through me. Now send the food." ------- Chapter 13 When I got back to Julian's home the guards let me through and Julian asked me, "Where were you all night? Relieving the pressure between your legs?" "I had a naked girl there all right but she was dying. I stayed up all night to help her live. The family is poor and I sent over some food. A neighbour by the name of Iunius is pushing hard to get their land. They expect more trouble from this family." "Did you cure her?" "The gods and I did but I have to go back and adjust the cure." "What did you do?" "I will explain tonight if I may. I need my sleep and I need to send some of my men to watch the house." "I can send some of mine too." "One may be enough to show that you are taking an interest. I need to find out about this dispute." "I can look into that too." "Thank you. That is what friends are for but I don't like to be the one receiving all the time." "You gave me a glimpse of my future and then fought with me yesterday." "Not much of a fight. Did you find out anything?" They look to be legionnaires that wanted vengeance on you for killing their friends but that may be the first layer of lies." "Like an onion?" "Exactly." I caught up on twelve hours of lost sleep by having eight of them. I had a bath and packed the saddle bags with clothes suitable for inside a home. I ate again because it seemed that I had used a lot of energy working on the girl. Julian came home and I told him about what had happened yesterday and this morning. I went into the medical terms or at least the ones I knew to show what the pancreas did for the body and what I did. I then had to talk about sugars. He said after digesting the medical facts, "The Iunius are a strong family. They have judges as members and some former senators." "I can fight them in the courts but I do not know Roman laws. I could be there for years and spend all my money on lawyers." "That is very true. We are no better than the Athenians with their civil litigations." "I could shorten the family by a head but I want good laws and I cannot step outside them when it suits me." "There are laws and then there are laws. Power seems to allow a different set to apply." "I can fight them other ways." "How?" "Chose to fight them through public opinion. I make sure that everybody knows how socially inferior they are. I can also start businesses where I hurt them financially." "They could attack you physically." I smiled widely and said, "That would be nice as long as there are witnesses." "All those are legal but they may take you to court for spreading lies." "They have to know it is me. You Romans have been doing this for centuries and have made it an art form." "I am very familiar with that, especially in my family." "Well I have to get moving. I want this area set up because soon you are going to have wars to fight and then a lot of travelling to do." "I remember our talk. I have been making some preparations too." "Well I need to go see about purchasing some property." Helvius was the only man still here and we suited up and went to see the landowners. I brought two extra horses because two farms didn't have any riding animals. There was less problems with pikes this time and I had to explain my missed appointment. The old man at the first farm was ready though. We rode to the next farm and picked up more people but they used their own animals. Salvia didn't try to shoot me this time. Our men had been hunting and were cooking game they had caught. The children were around Iulius and he was teaching them what he thought best. Salvia and Kaeso looked happy and both came outside when we arrived. Salvia ran to my horse and hugged my armour covered leg. "I had no idea master. You cured Laeca. She was able to talk and sit up. Praise Woden and all his works." I reached down and put my hand on her head because she was now rubbing her face against my leg. When she looked up, I said, "Salvia, I like you better as a thick skinned crotchety woman with a tongue on her that will strip the hide from anybody." "But the gods speak through you. The gods cured my granddaughter with your help. You heal people with just your touch." "Salvia, any ethical man would do this if he was able. Now let me get down. I want to see Laeca." "Yes, master." "Salvia, I am Jón. Never call me master." She tried to bow and say this again but remained quiet and backed up. I got down and said to the rest, "I want to check on the girl. I will be just a moment." The old man from the first farm said, "Did you really cure her?" "Woden and Aldúlfr worked through me and she was cured." He gave me the strange looks and so did the other family. I walked to the house and Kaeso bowed low to me and so did the children. I had to stop. "Kaeso, at some time in the future when there is a ceremony being performed you may bow. Do not do this now. I am a simple man that is trying to educate a great many people. Respect is necessary but I do not want it getting out of hand." "You cured a dead girl." "She was not dead. She was very sick. Now let me see my patient." "Yes, master." "Kaeso, Jón. Try to remember, please." Laeca was awake when I came into the room. She tried to get up but couldn't. I saw an empty bowl nearby so she must have been eating. "Hello, Laeca. You won't remember but we met just a while ago." "Are you the hand of Woden that grandmother says cured me?" The men must have been making converts. "Yes, I am. You were very sick." She tried to bow from her position and I got on my knees near her. I put my hands on her face and made her look at me. "Bowing is for formal occasions only. You will call me Jón. Do you understand?" "Yes, m... Jón." "Good then let me work. There is some tinkering the gods and I may have to do." As I expected her pancreas was making too much insulin. I had to search for the method the body used to regulate the insulin and tweaked it a bit. This would cut down on the production. It occurred to me that even doctors in my time had not known this mechanism or at least not in this detail. "Well it looks like you are better. We need to do this again. You have to eat a lot more now to balance what I have done. Even if you feel full I want you to try to eat more." I had to wait then Laeca said, "I will do what you wish." "I wish for you to get better." I got a smile and she said, "Yes, Jón." "Good, now I have to see about buying some land." I got up and left with a girl smiling at me. Outside I said, "Laeca needs to eat a lot. Her body needs to put on weight. Over time I have to change the level of insulin her pancreas makes." This required another statement covering food, sugar and the body's ability to burn the fuel. Kaeso rode the second horse and we now went the rounds. There was little argument for the interior boundaries. The exterior ones were fairly simple. Kaeso said, "The boundaries here are the truth as I know them. The Iunius have pushed their fields into our lands." "I will have to get a surveyor to set the real boundaries then. Let's go back and we can talk about a suitable price." We went to Kaeso's home and sat on some grass while we talked. I changed out of my armour and into my clothes. The children came over and I captured a three year old boy and put him in my lap while we talked. He stayed for only a few minutes then left. The four year old girl was glad to accept the spot. The price was hard to arrive at because the men were afraid to deal with me so we had to work from what similar land was worth. Thinking of lawyers, I said, "Are there any debts put against the land? This includes taxes." I got all nos but I had to check to make sure. I gave each of the men a gold aureus as a deposit so I had a claim on the properties while the lawyers searched out any problems. The people now would have to think of moving but I needed people to work the land so I made a proposition to them if they worked the way I wanted even if they thought it wrong. To be safe, I added, "If any of you do not do things my way I will move people in who will." They understood this. We had a bit of stew to eat. One of my kettles was here and so was a small stove. The last girl was captured but she was easy then the boy wanted back. Iulius had to do the honours. Later the lawyers were contacted and so were the surveyors. I worked at finding a source of building materials and looked at the homes Julian had mentioned. I had a lot of gold but it would not go far with what I had planned so I decided to build a house on my land when the purchase was finalised. During the coming days I found out a lot about Memmius Iunius and his family. They had mob written all over them but that was not an unusual occurrence for families to be like. They felt they were above the law and could not be fought with the law because of their connections. What irked me the most was the casual way they killed slaves. I even heard that they bought some slaves just to kill. Four mornings after the deal had been made, Iulius rushed into Julian's home. "They burnt the house down." Julian said, "What?" "Kaeso's home was put to the torch. They used oil and straw. Once it started we couldn't put it out. We were lucky to get the children out alive." "Who did this?" "We were busy trying to save the house then save the children, to chase them down." I had a very good guess to who had done this and I knew Julian did too. I said, "This land was to provide food. Some of it was destined for the army. Does this make it a military matter." Julian thought then said, "Do you want me involved? The link is tenuous at best. You have not sold us anything." I had to rethink. "Perhaps not. I want to hammer the people that did this." Julian said, "Let's get some trackers and see where they lead us." It took time to gather the men and get them to the farm. Some of the civil watch were asked to join us and they did so eagerly. Salvia and Kaeso were very upset and glad to see us. The children looked forlorn sitting on the grass with Laeca. Kaeso came to me and said, "They burnt our home. We could not put it out." I said in a quiet voice, "It is ok. I will take care of you." He exhaled and a small smile came to him because he was worried. Julian gave orders like the Caesar he was and his men moved out to find the arsonists. The criminals were good. The arsonists had been professional and used streams and rock to hide their tracks. There were some distinctive foot marks and these were shown to be the same ones as around the house. They led to the houses of the field hands of the Iunius family. The watch was split up with the trackers and they went into the fields and corralled all the workers. The workers were ordered to walk on the soil and those with the marks we sought were picked out. Six men in armour hurried toward us and they were evenly matched because there were six of us mounted too. We drew swords because they were waving theirs but they stopped before us. "What are you doing here? This is my land and these are my people." The Caesar now spoke. "That is good that you admit this." The man looked at him now and paled in recognition. "I am sorry Caesar. I did not know it was you." "Do you wish to do battle?" "Oh no, never." Their weapons were quickly put away. "If I may ask, what are you doing here?" "A neighbouring farm was put to the torch. We have some expert witnesses to testify that the tracks led to your farm. We followed the tracks to this group of people. We are arresting all of them for arson. They will be sold into slavery to recover the costs if they are guilty." "But these are my people." "Do you admit to sending them?" "No, they could only do this on their own. They probably didn't do it though." "We have proof that they did. We are taking them into custody." "But there are over a hundred slaves here and many are women and children." "Do you know who the guilty ones are?" "No but it must have only been a few of the men not all of them." "A house was burnt. Animals slaughtered, a well poisoned, crops fired, a man killed and property lines moved. We estimate that at least nine hundred and ninety aurii in damages were caused besides the death. We should get that at least from the sale of the guilty." "But not all are guilty!" "Point out the guilty and tell me how you know this." "I cannot." "Then your slaves are forfeit." Julian turned to his men and said, "Take them away." "The slaves are worth four times that amount." "Make restitution in their place and come to an agreement with the people of the man that was killed." "But... but what about my slaves?" "The watch will stay for an hour. You have that much time. I will go with you as a witness for the meeting." Julian changed the orders and had the men stand down. We all hurried to where the burnt house once stood. Kaeso and Salvia were frightened at twelve men rushing at them. Memmius Iunius didn't try to push the nine hundred and ninety aurii. He had to come to a payment for the life of a freeman and the support of his orphaned children. This turned out to be seventy aurii which he pled that he did not have. I stepped in and offered to buy land to give him the gold he needed. Memmius was incensed at this and said, "I will find the gold in other places." Julian said, "That is fine but you have three days. We will keep the slaves until then." "But my fields have to be prepared." "Then hurry. Their upkeep will be added to your bill." Memmius hurried off with an angry look at me. Julian said, "We have made an enemy." "No, Memmius has made an enemy." The slaves were moved in mass here. With the guards present I said, "Some of you are guilty of arson. You are also slaves that have to do what your master says. I am going to get food for all of you but I want a new well dug. I also want a home built but all you can do is rip down the old one for me. I do not like slavery but it will not go away just yet. The soldiers and the watch have to go. Do not run or I will be angry. I will also do what I can for each of you." Atrius separated the men and got them working. I turned to the men of the watch and said, "Thank you for your assistance in this matter. Iulius has something for each of you for the extra effort you have had to put in for us today." There was a lot of smiles now. I turned sideways and said to Julian, "Is it permissible to give a similar gift to those that searched out the truth?" "You said that this sort of thing was graft?" "It is but like slavery it will not go until the army and civil service is paid enough." "Then you may pay them." Now I got lots more smiles. "I would like to thank you too." "That is my job and I am already adequately paid." This was at least said with a smile. "I heard that you were frugal and that is a good thing to see in a government employee." "I never considered the position of Caesar being a government employee but I guess you are right. I cannot see the Augustus thinking that way though." "I have a feeling that in a year he will think exactly the way you do." "He might." This was said with another grin. "Now that you have the land, the watch as released the animals and the property of the attackers. We cannot prove that the horses or weapons are the property of the army so they can be disposed of. I think you should have all of this." "Thank you. I read about a man that spread his wealth he gained from the Alemmani among his men. I think that fitting too." "Give them a portion then." "Your men should get a portion too." "They may not fight you too hard on that matter." "Then I can use the horses here. There is a farm to run." We left the slaves with the men and we rode to the second farm and I bought food for the slaves and to have it delivered. There would be a lot of it too. The slaves had looked underfed and I pitied them. We parted at the main road and I returned to the slaves. I was in time to arrive with the wagon of food. The women were given the jobs of preparing the food and I walked among them. It took a while for them to find that they had nothing to fear from me or us. One child of three was blind. I checked more of them and found the usual diseases and infirmities. I wanted to help the slaves but not just to raise the value of Memmius' property. I took care of minor ailments which were mainly open sores and other infections. I had no trouble with the rest once they saw that they were being cured. As usual they wanted to kneel and I got them up and back to work or to eating. This was a good way of gaining converts and it was too bad that the laws forced them to remain slaves. Hours later Memmius came back with a dozen more men. We were all armoured now and I think itching for trouble. We had prepared for it too. One of the men was a son of Memmius and a judge. The judge tried to push me around with legal jargon and quoted laws. The extra muscle was to make sure that we saw it their way. I said in a quiet voice, "Pay me the money as the representative of this family or buy the slaves back at the auction block." The judge continued to hammer at me and I just repeated the same words. We were at this for over an hour and I said, "You are wasting my time. This is the last chance. Pay up and leave or just leave." "You cannot make us. There are only six of you." "There are eighteen of you. If you were men you would try. I am almost thirteen years old. One of us is an old physician and the other four just guards. But I know that your kind only like to beat slaves and then only the ones in chains." I looked at Memmius and said, "Your family may once have been great but it now suffers from rot." There were some swords drawn but I didn't reach for mine. Memmius was now livid. Before he could burst out with some expletives I added, "Perhaps if you mated with slaves your line could be improved." That was enough for the man and he drew his sword and attacked. The rest of the men acted the same and we fell back. This had been discussed in detail and we did not fight as hard as we could. The judge judged wrong and used his own sword and he was the first to die. This got the rest angry and the ones that were thought to be members of the Iunius family died. Our men would have died or at least been wounded except that we had the best armour. With only twelve left we really attacked but now not to kill. Some started to run but found slaves blocking their retreat. I had not planned on this and worried about their safety. One man was pulled from his mount but not before the slave was hit by the sword. More died but now I had to save as many as possible. "Hold! I need them alive." One of the opposition was going to use his sword on a slave when my knife found his neck and I had not even realised I had thrown it. Eight of the guards survived and I worked desperately to save the slaves that had been hurt on my behalf. One young man was close but I could not hold him. Two other men and a women died too. I put all of my energy into one older women and I pulled her back from the edge. It was that close. When it looked safe I came out and I was fatigued more than I had been since the Picts had got me. The sky was dark and I looked around to see a ring of people. Torches gave light and I saw Iulius. This was enough and I lay back. I woke up to the smell of food and opened my eyes. It took a while before I remembered what I was doing last. I was in a bed now and feeling much better. Turning over I saw a pretty face that I had not seen before. It took a moment before I could speak and said, "You are a very nice sight to wake up to." The young woman smiled and said, "I heard you were a gentleman. Do you usually say things like that?" "I am not usually caught with someone able to get near me." "Don't worry, I will not harm you?" "That is good to hear because I am not feeling myself. I do need to use the chamber pot though." "I can help you." "I thank you my lady but I am heavy." "We can manage." She pulled back the sheet and I knew that I was naked. I had a sort of diaper on and this opened as I got up. I was dizzy and worked on my inner ears to correct this. The woman wore a dress that showed her features well. She was nineteen or twenty and very attractive. Her hair was curled and she smelt of a perfume. My legs were weak but I did get to sit. "Thank you my lady. I can take care of matters now." "Oh, I am not going to let you out of my sight." "It might be advisable to go upwind." "I have nursed people before. I have cleaned bums and washed faces." I was a little self-conscious but I could deal with this and pissed then after a wait felt the pressure in my bowels reduce. I was able to use some of the moss but the woman had me at a disadvantage and pushed me over the bed and had her way with me. When I was back in the bed she said, "That was good. You are an odd man. Most men would be red faced now." "It has to do with accepting what I am given. Does my pretty nurse have a name?" With a small smile she said, "Patricia." "That is a pretty name too." She ignored the comment and asked, "Are you hungry?" I had to think and then said, "Yes, I am." "Then you stay here and I will bring some food." "I would not leave if you were coming back." "Your words are odd for a barbarian boy of twelve." "I am almost thirteen. We barbarians are just more like cavemen I guess." "What is a caveman?" "When you come back I will tell you." "Making deals already?" "Making a deal for your company is not a hard thing to do." I saw the start of a smile and she turned and left the room. I increased my hearing. This smelt like Julian's home though I had not seen this room before. I wondered at my choice of words. The girl was attractive and looked well bred and possibly well educated. It could be the amount of testosterone in my blood or just meeting a person like Patricia. My body was sore and I worked on some of the areas to repair or remove toxins. I got most of this done when Patricia came back with a tray in her hands. I pushed myself back so I could sit up. "I am supposed to put pillows behind you." "I am not dead yet." "We were worried that you might die." "We?" Now Patricia blushed but just a bit. "The Caesar thinks that you are important." "That is nice to hear." "Open your mouth to eat; not talk." It sounded like I had got the best of her and I decided to comply. After eating and against my nurse's orders I got up. I still needed Patricia's help. A few times around the room and I was ready to brave the rest of the house. I met Julian's servants and smiled at them and they smiled back. In a sitting room I found Curtius and a thirteen men. They all stood at my approach. Curtius pulled his chair over for me to sit and said, "It is good to see you walking, Jón. "I think it is a refection on the quality of nursing I have been getting." I got another blush from Patricia and squeezed her hand to let her know that it was not just idle chatter. When I was comfortably seated I said, "Hello, gentlemen," and turned to Curtius and asked, "What happened after I went for a nap?" "Quite a lot actually. Helvius went to find the Caesar and he got the watch. We all went to the farm but the slaves would not let us near." My incredulity must have shown for he said, "The slaves had armed themselves with the weapons and were not going to let anybody near you. They knew you were healing the woman." "Who told them this?" I got no answer but this was ok. "What happened then?" The Iunius family got the watch from another portion of the city and came with as many of their guards and retainers as they could muster. The Caesar threatened them with the army and they stopped. He asked some questions and found that the watch was paid to come and take you into custody." "It looks like they didn't succeed." "No. The Caesar made some charges against the Iunius and seized all the slaves. Apparently you are at the centre of a litigation against the Iunius for attacking us." "That may be very time consuming and costly. What did the Caesar have to say about it?" "He is angry. Some of the watch were dismissed and his soldiers are patrolling large areas of the city. There is a lot of unrest." "The Iunius stirring them up?" "At first but it seemed the people started to hear about you. We had to go out and read your book to them and tell them what had happened so far. There was some very angry mobs and everything owned by the Iunius was burned or pillaged." "That makes litigation difficult for them." "It does and the courts now know how the public feels." "Were any more hurt? What about the woman I was helping?" Nobody at the farm is in danger though some are healing fine. There were a few deaths in the city but for the most part they were friends or employees of the Iunius. "The woman you healed was as near death as I had ever seen. We all saw her wounds. We tried to get you away but you fought us so we left you. The woman is now walking around and appears years younger than she was as if her body made her young again. She went out in the city even though she was a slave to talk about you. Her friends went as witnesses." "Law by mob rule is not a good practice even if it is in the right cause. Have the riots stopped?" "Yes, you were asleep for two and a half days." "Is the Caesar very angry at me?" "I think he is but he doesn't say much to us." "Do you know when he will be back?" "He is preparing to leave. The Alemmani are starting their attacks like you said. He had many of his outposts strengthened but it takes time to get that far." "We better get ready for moving too." Patricia had squeezed my shoulder at the talk of leaving and I put my hand over hers. "We figured that and prepared." The men here are from the city and represent something like a mayor but there are a lot of them. We had a bit of work to understand the office and I found that they were councillors or alderman. I was introduced to the men and they each mentioned how happy they were that I was recovering. I waded through the bullshit and found they wanted to know if I would recompense those in the city that had suffered in the riots. "I was asleep before any riots started. I did not incite them or even want riots to occur. Why do you not go after the Iunius for making the people angry?" One man said, "There are very few of them left and they are not as wealthy as they were." "Do you see me as being wealthy?" "You own land." "I think you do to. Why don't you pay it?" "I did not cause the riots." "I did not either. Now if you gentlemen have nothing else to discuss I would like to rest." Another man asked, "Is it true about the gods speaking to you?" "I cannot prove this directly. I make articles that nobody has ever seen before and I seem to be able to heal with my touch. You gentlemen have to weigh the evidence and make your own judgements." Curtius saw the men out and when I looked out I found people all around the front gate and they spread across the road. A roar went up from the crowd when they saw me. I urged Patricia to help me to the door and then outside. We walked slow until I was close to the mob. "Thank you for your support. I am feeling better and should make a full recovery in a day. The gods are very generous with their strength." I went into one of my prayers but left out the food and substituted the power given me. I was able to stretch it out a bit then said, "May Woden bless all of you and my Aldúlfr guide us all. Now please go to your homes. Your families need you." I just stared at a few and they began to push back and leave. It took a few moments for them to get the idea and by then I was back in the house. While I sat Patricia and Curtius stood. "Get chairs. It is good to look each other in the eye." They both sat but Patricia tried to slouch. "Patricia, please sit up. I know you are a proud woman and a woman like you should never feel inferior." She did sit up and gave me a weak smile. I said, "The gods must have sent you but I would still like to know something about you." "What would you like?" "How you got to be a nurse for a start?" "The Caesar commanded that I attend you." "Then I owe the Caesar a debt of gratitude now tell me about yourself." She was hesitant but then said, "I am eighteen. My mother owns a farm near here. I have a fifteen year old brother and thirteen year old sister. We have tutors and are fairly well off. We sell most of our produce to the army." She paused then. A girl of eighteen would normally be married to a man in his late twenties. She didn't mention a husband. "There is no other?" "My father comes to us when he can but he is busy most of the time." "Anybody else?" She now blushed and said, "Many young men have come to court me but I have rejected them." "You sound like a well educated young lady and I can see just why many would come to court." I got a blush again and she looked down. She was close enough that I could reach over and raise her eyes. "I am sorry to make you feel uncomfortable. It is a habit I have that I have to break. Now tell me about what you like and dislike about the world." It took a while but she got going and I egged her on then criticised some of her choices and she fought me on them. I poked her unmercifully and the real Patricia came out. She got angry at my shortsightedness and then at my unfeeling attitude. I called on Curtius and he took a third opinion then we both fought him and each other. We had done this on the boat to while away the time and it was still enjoyable now. Julian came home and said, "How are you doing Jón?" "Much better, thank you and I have to also thank you for finding me such a charming nurse." "You mean my daughter." This surprised me then I turned to look at Patricia she did have some of her father's features. "I was not aware you had a daughter nor such a pretty one." "It is an open secret. My wife has her affaires and I have a secret wife and a small family." I was about to say something that would embarrass Patricia and said instead, "I am glad to have met you more each and every day." When supper time came, I was better able to get to the table but I did have two people helping me now. Curtius was the only one here tonight. Patricia turned into a delightful dinner companion. She was witty and was usually able to turn her father's jabs around on him. This pleased Curtius and me. To take the heat off Julian, I sided with him while Curtius brought up points and sided with Patricia. At one time Julian waved a spoon at Patricia and said, "I should have tanned your bottom more." "You never tanned anybody's bottom." "Your husband will have to do it then." "That... may not happen for a while yet." Julian stared at his daughter now as if trying to read something. She turned red again and looked down. After the meal I went for a walk but there were still too many people close to the house. They may have been newcomers or those from before that refused to go. I had to walk behind the house instead but Patricia was there with me. We talked about small things until she said, "How do the gods talk to you?" "The same as you and I are doing." "Can they understand your thoughts?" "The same as us I guess. They can read the expressions on your face or the way you position your body." "Could they understand my thoughts?" "I do not know. The topic never came up." "Good. Now tell me what evolution is?" At the end of an hour I was just holding her hand after that she led me to some trees and as small seat. It felt natural to put my arm around her. The next morning I was up early and had a snack. My body needed fuel and I assumed it was for repair. I challenged an off-duty guard to a fight and we got wooden staves. We were quite equal because I was still slow. We stopped when Patricia came out and glared at us with her fists on her hips. "Don't you to have anything better to do than play fight?" I walked to her and the guard fled. When I was close I said, "Good morning, Patricia. You sound more like a concerned wife than a girlfriend." She opened her mouth twice then just turned and walked off. I didn't need people telling me what to do but I didn't mind suggestions. During breakfast, Patricia talked very little and her father looked at her with concern. I asked Julian, "Would you like some observers to travel with you? We just want to see how well our new armour and weapons perform." He eyed me then said, "You are welcome to come but you should talk to your lawyers first." Julian was right. There were problems with the surveys and we petitioned the court for redress. We had no problem especially since nobody from the Iunius family arrived to contest it. They were not going to get screwed but only the original property lines put in place. I went back to families and formally gave them the gold and got receipts witnessed by the other two families. Laeca was now walking and her colour was much better. I again adjusted her insulin regulation but this was very minor. Kaeso thanked me again for saving Laeca. They had a house again and apparently it was made from the boards that had been ripped from various Iunius businesses. There was a lot of help on the farm because all of the slaves had been kept there. Iulius had brought over ploughs and made more with our blades. The horses from those that attacked us now pulled the ploughs. A large showroom was being built but it had been planned for and drawn up for months. There was a lot more hemp in Gaul and we planted the maximum apart for enough to feed those living on the property. There was enough seed left to get other farmers to plant it for us with the agreement that we would buy the seed and hemp back at a fixed price when it was ripe. The army was leaving and in fact had been doing so for quite a while. We tidied up what we could and left. Patricia was there to see us off and before I got on my horse I brought her into the house. I had to sit her down because she was taller than me and then I tenderly kissed her lips. "I am going to be extra careful. I want to come back and do some more of what I just did." She had to blink some water out of her eyes and said in a whisper, "Don't go." "I have to. I need to keep your father safe." "He has his army." "He is as bad as I am and we are both having to act to protect ourselves more than we have done." "Why do you want to kiss me?" "Fishing for compliments already. First you are intelligent. You are fun to be with. You are witty. You do not act like a fool and I like the way you blush." "Is that all?" "The war is not going to wait for me." I bent over and kissed her once more and her arms went around me to hold me close. I stood and adjusted my pants and she had a smirk on her face. She said, "I may let you kiss me when you get back." "I may turn you over my knee too. Goodbye, my princess." She didn't know what to make of the term and I was out the door and on my horse by the time she got out again. We hurried out the gate and waved to the guards that would stay. We made good time towards the east and the Rhine though the roads were loaded. The men walked on the road and the animals walked on the soil beside the road. The army had mules but we usually got around them and I also usually waved at the soldiers. I still wanted friends not enemies. It didn't take long to catch up to Julian. He had people coming to him all the time so we didn't bother him, but I was sure he knew we were here. I did not think this was the attack, backed by Constantius but one of the usual raids. A fort was already built and I was sure that the soldiers were happy they did not have to build another. There was enough room for three thousand men but Julian did not take his full legion. Again we did not bother Julian other than to get a chance to teach the physicians a bit more of medicine. They were the same as smiths and bootmakers until I asked them questions that they could not answer. They would question me though and I could give ideas if not all the correct names yet. I talked about the blood and how it was pumped and oxygenated then how it gave up the four atoms of oxygen to allow the cells to burn sugars. Before I left I talked again about the need for clean hands and tools to keep disease from spreading. Iulius worked with me when we treated the soldiers. They were hesitant at first until my identity spread. Helvius, Curtius, Atrius and Manlius were physicians too followed my lead in treating the soldiers. Those that could not be treated by other means came to me and I started their body into accelerating their attack on the infections. This was easier on me but took longer. A man that had been deaf in one ear since birth started to hear again but had to come back every day to bet a booster treatment. VD was there in many cases and I had to work on this too. It was good that I didn't have to look at the afflicted areas. I was getting ten to fifteen a day but three thousand would take a long time to process. It was fifteen days until we got in the right neighbourhood. While a good palisades was being built, our group set out with some limited supplies and some camo suits. My hearing guided me to small encampments and long term villages. It all went onto our maps. Trails were only followed on foot at night. The Alemmani were not like the Cong and didn't expect much. Only Iulius and I understood the German well but the other four were learning. There was usually a lot of talk in the camp. We learned some things but nothing useful. We slept during the day and hunted. We cooked at night when the smoke would not be seen. Roman scouts were surprised when we dropped in on them with some food and some information. Usually we had time for a demonstration or two so they would know what to look for in the future. It was five nights later that we learned any important fact. The Alemmani were going to retreat. This definitely didn't sound like the major attack I feared but my memory of this time was not that good. We retreated to the Roman camp and Julian was awoken when we arrived. After he dressed I had to make sure we were away from sensitive ears. I said, "This is not the invasion that your cousin formatted. It is only a minor invasion by perhaps five hundred men." He thought for a minute and whispered back, "It probably would come after his agents come to take half my army from me." "That is what I think too. The Alemmani are now in retreat." I pointed out the map and suggested where they may be headed. "We can take this force easily." "I hate the deaths and I hate the slavery but the Alemmani were killing Romans." "We could capture the men and either crucify them or sell them for slaves." "You have one further option?" "What?" "Turn them into Auxiliaries." "I like that too but we are commanded to collect slaves to pay for our keep." "The Alemmani already have slaves of their own and some are Roman. We can take these. We then go through the camp and send the males that will not work for us to the block. You get a more docile group to work with." We had a rare night march since the area was well scouted we could make good time. Most of our supplies were left with a small force since we wanted to be in position before dawn. Anything that made a noise was muffled if possible and we hurried first down a road then three kilometres into the forest along a game trail. The Romans had some commandos but our men worked better. This time we were trying to kill as few as possible. I was the one that went into the camp and took out individual guards or just those that had got up. None of these were hurt much. We all had clubs cut from heavy branches. The army moved in quietly even if it meant a reduction in speed. There were four Romans for every hut or tent. Fires were started so there was lots of light. Tents and huts were pushed over. Men came charging out while cursing and were knocked unconscious. In ten minutes we had captured the camp though some children and women had escaped. The fires burnt higher and we began to sort those we had caught. There were old men and young but we counted four hundred and seventy eight warriors. The number could be higher with older boys added. Julian kept order. He was also very pleased that none of his men were killed though a few were wounded. Most of those were by women. The Alemmani suffered three casualties. I worked on another two that needed their wounds tended to or die. The Romans were treated like the rest and according to need. Julian spoke German to his captives. He laid the charges against them for what crimes they had done. The leaders of the group were brought forward but the chief had a concussion and would not be ready to hear the charges. When it was full light Julian had a military court. I went among the accused to gather information. I was attacked by large men a few times but they did not get far even if I didn't use weapons. The women and children were given a small amount of freedom as the questioning continued. By mid afternoon there were going to be eighteen men sold into slavery. Booty of the Alemmani and what they had stolen from the Romans was tallied. There was not much when it had to be divided among three thousand men and the empire. Julian forced elections among the remaining males to find a new leader. This was done hurriedly. Julian then told the remaining people that they were still guilty of crimes against the empire but not as bad as the eighteen men. "I am offering you a chance to redeem yourselves. The Roman empire needs soldiers. You are now given a chance to become Auxiliaries for pay. You may now ask questions." Nobody talked so I called out loudly, "How much does a warrior earn?" "Thirty two denarii each and every month." This was half of what a common Roman soldier made before he had to pay for his food and other expenses. Again there was no input from the Alemmani. "What about the women and children in this camp?" "I cannot have lawbreakers running loose. I will have to sell them as slaves or they will remain free as Auxiliaries." "Can the eighteen be saved from slavery?" "No, they broke the law. It is either slavery or death." Questions started to come now and nearby Romans had to repeat the whispered words if they knew the language. In an hour Julian had an Auxiliary. They were now free to gather the remainder of their property and follow us to the fort. The Romans now carried the booty or the slaves did. We had found sixty eight Roman slaves but some had just been freemen until their capture by the Alemmani. A woman that had been clubbed for her attack rode my horse but I held the reigns. One tent and a few old men were left behind. Those that fled could come back and hear of the offer. They were then able to find other tribes or join the Auxiliary. For the next three days I worked on bodies as my men worked on the hearts and minds of the Alemmani and the Romans. The slaves had been segregated and the other men trained by the Romans in the art of war. We marched back now but at a slower pace because there were now children with us. Hunters had to go ahead of us to find food but this is what usually happened. When it looked like the Alemmani were falling into line, Julian rode quickly back towards Lutetia with most of his legion and six others that tagged along. It was not far to the Rhine from here and then to Lucius or Licinia or either of my own families. The first night Julian said, "My daughter finds you interesting." "I think she is very interesting to. I do see a bit of Roman subterfuge in bringing Patricia to nurse me but I can live with that kind very well." "What do you think my intentions were?" "I doubt if she knows anything important about the Empire but I do. Men or young men do some crazy things when a woman is involved. You may also be giving your daughter an education where she learns more about men. I think she knows a little but not all she should know. Another possibility is to give her another protector because I do what I can for my friends. There are more but the last is the possibility of keeping me near as a son-in-law." "You do not seem to be upset by any of them." "None of them upset me. I like your daughter and would like to know her a lot better. I am not unaware of her father's position but that is not that important to me no matter what you think. You are a friend and we can work things out without extra ties." "Perhaps I am the one with dreams. You will be a great force in the empire. You bring change which I see is good. You will also be the richest man by far in a few decades." "I think that as well. I want you to understand though that I like to make things. I do not like to rule beyond what a man can command of his employees. I find that now I have to also be the head of a religion that will fight some wealthy Romans for a position in how the empire is run. Two very large tasks are before me and they have to be done in different manners. A family would suffer if the father and husband is gone for most of the time." "What are you saying now?" "Patricia deserves a husband that will be there for her and the children." "Roman women are strong and know their duty well." Circumstances seemed to have changed in our absence from Lutetia. It appeared that a religious frenzy had gripped the population and I was at its centre. At my entrance to the city the news spread quickly. I gave the gospel according to what Rome would like and mentioned how the Alemmani had mainly been converted. The next day I had to start holding religious services. This was a Tuesday so it would not be seen as Saturday for the Jews or Sunday for the Christians. Nobody liked Monday. The rest of the week the men with me read passages from the book. I stressed cleanliness as a way of fighting disease and plagues. The shit, food scraps and other biodegradables went into compost. In eight months to a year we may have sodium nitrate or possibly not. I still had to gauge the situation in the empire and with Julian. With public opinion, I pushed for compensation for the attack on me and the final settlement from the Iunius family. Some members had to be chased down and brought to court like the criminals they were. I hammered the family and in the end I was given their slaves but not their land. Patricia was happy to see us both. Julian did what he had to do and then gave us time together. She wanted to know everything and this meant that I had to watch myself. I listed the scouting but added hunting and cooking. I had killed nobody or even been in that much danger. The Alemmani were discussed and how we converted what could have been a lot of money in slaves to a force to fight along side the Roman army. Patricia did not see slavery the same way I did but then again the slaves on her parents farm were more family than anything else. I knew that if I failed that in a few centuries the word slave may drop but a feudal serf was exactly the same thing. ------- Chapter 14 Julian had to protect most of Europe but Gaul was the current hot spot. To do this he had to work in the area between Gaul and Germania. This was basically all of Germania Inferior. I had been lucky to catch him in his nominal base and capital city. He now had to leave to show the flag or perhaps let the tribes know that he was there to uphold the law. We escorted Patricia back to her mother and sibs. Julian mentioned that his two other children were visiting some relatives on their mothers side so we would have some peace. "I should explain the situation to my wife before the two of you come in. This may take some time." I gave a small smile and said, "I understand." He looked at me and I guess he knew that I knew. Patricia and I rode around the property while Julian and his unofficial wife Claudia had their 'talk'. We had no guards so I knew that Julian was trusting me with some of his most important people. While Julian unloaded his news, his conscience and for sure his testicles I sat on river bank beside Patricia idly throwing pebbles into the water. "Why did you bring me here, Jón?" "It was to kiss you a bit more but I think we have to talk too." "About what?" "I will soon be thirteen and you will soon be nineteen. I am probably older than you if the time in the land of the gods is taken into account. I like you for a lot of reasons and don't ask me to list them. "I was not." "I do not believe you. Now I wanted to know what you feel about me." "Well, I feel that you are older than me too. You are a barbarian and you are not as polished as a Romans citizen but you are getting better." She waited a while and said, "If you were to court me I would not object." I said, "The terms 'boy' 'friend' and 'girl' 'friend' are relaxed with not a lot of commitments. It means we do not engage in sex with others. My problem is that the gods have altered me to need and even require a great deal of sex. I will admit that my hand has served me well lately but I am afraid that I am more than what one woman can handle." "Some women can handle a lot." This was encouraging because she sounded like she accepted me having another woman or two. The part about me being a long time in the land of the gods seemed to have slipped in very well. What I had told her about my hormones was true but I could also alter my body to what my current requirements were. "My body is young and I am going to be away for extended periods of time. I cannot rely on my hand all the time. My body demands that I find someone to share my passions with. This does not mean love, just passion." "I hear soldiers are like that." "I want to know you better, Patricia. Part of that is through sex but most of it is learned with you working with me." "I like that but I have not been with many men." "We learn more each day of our existence. Having me for a 'boyfriend' or a potential mate will be even more dangerous than having Julian for a father. There are a lot of crazy people around me now and I have to keep them under control. If I am not here to do it then others are needed to fulfil this task." "Are you asking me to do this? I am a woman." "Women gods are strong and fight for their place in society. Women here have to do the same thing. If you take a responsible position then you will show the way for other women and especially the young girls that will grow into expecting more than just motherhood." "What would you have me do?" "This task is great. You have to be the perfect woman. If you and I fit well together I would ask you to marry me. If you excepted my proposal, you would then have to be the perfect wife and the perfect mother. One perfect is too much but three may well be impossible." "You would ask for me?" She said this with a big smile. "Do not get your hopes up. I said that we have to see if we are compatible first. If we are then I would ask." She now had a bigger smile. I looked at her oddly and she said reluctantly, "I thought a proposal would be much different." I said with a stern voice, "Patricia, stand!" She was worried but did as I asked. "I want you to remove all your clothes now and put them in a pile." "But..." "Do it!" She was hesitant but slowly did as I asked. She was bright red when she had finished and the blush covered much of her body. Her hands were demurely over her breasts. Her legs were tightly closed and her bush quite dense. She was also very beautifully proportioned. "Lay across my lap now." She did not understand but did what I asked. I then had to move her into a good position. "I said to you that I had to find if we are compatible first. Is that true?" "Yes." I struck her butt and she screamed and I did it again on the other cheek. "Did I propose to you?" "No but..." I hit her four more times. "Did I propose to you?" "No, Sir." "Good. Climb off me now." She did this very quickly. I got up myself and removed my own clothing. I took Patricia's hands and helped to place her on my clothes. I lay beside her now and we began to kiss but I tried to make it seem that there was no spanking just a moment before. It took a long time but Patricia warmed to my efforts. When she was pulling me so I would get on top of her I forced her to hold her legs as I went down to savour a delicate and well hidden flower. Patricia bucked at the touch and I figured that no man had done this before. I progressed slowly but Patricia became insistent. I had to hold her hands to continue safely. She started to climb swiftly then and I speeded up to match her. She screamed her release and her body jerked almost uncontrollably. Her abdomen contracted and her chest and head came up but there was no recognition on her face. She was not breathing either. When she collapsed it was as if she had died except that her breathing returned and it was rapid. Now was the time that I searched through her body as I had with those wounded. This time I hurried to her ovaries. I studied them carefully but could not tell if she was fertile or not. This research would have to wait. I moved around and lay beside her and then pulled her body onto mine. It was difficult because she was not cooperating or her body was not cooperating with her wishes. Her well hidden flower was attacked again but I moved to her clit enough to get her on the edge. She found my cock soon enough and after investigating it started to suck on me. She was not that good but she was trying. When it looked like she was going to orgasm I again speeded up but she abandoned me to her own feelings. This time her face went down and she screamed between my legs, causing my scrotum to vibrate. I continued for a while until she recovered and started to suck once more. In a moment I pulled my face back and said, "I am almost there, Honey." She hurried but I didn't think she was sure of what was going to happen. I released my seed and I was happy that Patricia only stopped for a second before continuing. We both relaxed and I got Patricia to slide off and I moved to kiss her other lips. She hugged me tightly to her and she pushed her chest into me for more. "Honey, when was your last period?" "Why?" "Do you want another spanking?" "Four days ago." "Do you want me in you." "Yes, but we may have your child." "You listen too much to old wives tales. It is the time right between periods that you are fertile." "Get on top of me then." I did. We were very late when we got back. I had to help Patricia onto her horse. She rode very close to me so we could hold hands. When we put the horses in the stable and took off the saddles, Patricia hugged me too her and kissed me with little urgency but just for pleasure. We walked into the house hand in hand. Julian was there with a good looking woman that Patricia would one day look like. Julian and the woman looked closely at both of us and Patricia blushed and held back. I pulled her hand so she would stay with me. I whispered to her, "Be proud; Roman." This helped a bit. Julian made introductions and I met Claudia. The woman saw me but she was concerned with her daughter. Claudia offered wine which I accepted and happened to allow mother and daughter to leave momentarily. Julian said, "Claudia was worried about her daughter. Is she happy." "As happy as I could make her but she has a one track mind." "What track is that?" "I was honest and stated my intentions." "And what were they Jón?" "We will be friends for as long as we live. I said that this may change to me courting her as well. I mentioned that if we found each other compatible then I would ask you for your daughter." "That was very honest of you. What did she say?" "She already assumed that all the intervening steps had been done and she dwelt on the proposal of marriage as if that had already been asked." "You may have a difficult time retracting your words." "There is no reason to. She has to hear with her ears as well as her heart." "Well let's find something to eat. The women will be talking for hours. Your wine will not come unless a servant brings it." "I am famished." We didn't get our wine until the servants served the meal and it was they that brought the wine as Julian said. The women were now upstairs so they could talk better. Julian said, "What did you think of the farm?" "It is very beautiful. But I saw that some of the plants had a yellow tinge." "I have noticed this too. Is it a disease?" "No, they just need some nitrogen. Fertiliser provides this but so do some plants themselves. Their roots make a home for some bacteria that eat what the plant gives and give back the nitrogen the plant needs." "What is the name of the plant." "The gods call it alfalfa. It is grown then ploughed under again to enrich the soil. The next crop will reap the benefits." Julian talked of many plants and described the details and I had to try to shake loose some details from my memory. We narrowed it down to at least three types of plants he was familiar with. The deciding factors were the small white nodules on the roots and of course the benefits that would accrue to the next crop. We discussed crop rotation and I added about buckwheat being sometimes useful in weed control because it grew fast and shaded all the competition. Julian never heard of this especially since I used the English term because I knew no other. "What language is that?" "One of the main languages spoken by the gods. The Roman language is called a dead language because it is only spoken by scholars. The language does not get any new words in it or change so it is called dead. German, Italian, French, Chinese, Japanese and Russian are also important." "I assume that 'Italian' means Italia and I have heard of a country called China. Tell me about the word, "French'." "The Franks were just subdued in Gaul. Many tribes conquer this area until the Picts chase the others out and settle here themselves. This is France." "Will this still happen?" "Not if you don't want it to. You just put the people where you want and they will form a civilisation." "Tell me about..." The women came now. Patricia looked both pleased and smug. Claudia looked at me differently now too. They had bathed and changed and sat with us. They never mentioned the wine they were going to get. Julian was insistent about the various races and I mentioned them. Again the Huns were mentioned and how strong they really were. Claudia broke in and said, "What are your plans for our daughter, Jón?" I knew this was coming but didn't think she was going to be as blunt about it. "I want us to find out about each other. If we are close enough I will ask to marry her. If we are not one or both of us will say so at the first opportunity. People rarely bend much after a certain age. I do not want a lifetime of pain and suffering for me or for Patricia." "What if you got her pregnant today." "That will not happen." "She is in her fertile period." "You are using information passed down to you that was incorrect." "How do you know that I am wrong?" "The gods tell me otherwise." "The gods are not human like us." "I can heal people. I looked into your daughter's body and did not see an egg in her fallopian tubes nor one ready to leave." "What?" "I have the power to heal. It was given to me by the gods." "I know that! Tell me how you looked into my daughter?" "I hold onto her and find a type of linkage with our minds. The better the linkage the easier it is to work. I can see blood flowing if I concentrate and then look for where a battle is going on." "What battle?" "Our bodies are constantly fighting battles against invaders. Our blood is made up of different kinds of cells. Some fight these invaders. When I see lots of fighting going on, I urge the other soldiers to take up arms and attack the invader. If this happens a person is able to fight off a disease and gain good health." "I have heard of you but I do not believe." "That is fine but Julian has seen this and the evidence." Julian nodded now. Claudia said, "I still don't believe." "If you are like Patricia, you would take a dare." "A what?" "I challenge you to let me work on your body." "Never. Nobody touches me." "Not even Julian?" "He is my husband." "Not your children?" "What are you getting at?" "You said nobody but you did not mean it. I am not going to make love to you, just hold your hands. I can find two chaperones nearby since you are acting like a frightened little girl." "I am a mother of three and you are younger than my youngest." "You are still afraid." Patricia said, "You can hold my hands if you want." "That is good idea but your mother is more like a mule. She will bay that she is hard done by and not bother to look at the truth. I think you will look as beautiful as she does when you get her age but I don't want to see that thick headed Roman attitude." Claudia said angrily, "I am not thick headed. I think things through." "I would call a witness but I do not want Julian chased around the house by an angry and emotional woman that would rather close her eyes and say she cannot see any proof." "I am not emotional." "You sit there barely able to control yourself and say you are not emotional." "I am not." "I should ask Julian to turn you over his knee and put some sense into you." "He would not dare." Julian stood and said, "Woman! Give your hands to this young man or I will do just that." "But... but..." "Now or I will remove all your clothes first and in front of our guest." Claudia knew when she was beat and stuck out her hands. I moved my chair closer and held hers. I waited for effect and not to interface. I said, "You are a very emotional woman. I think that was one of the things that attracted a young man to you twenty years ago. The fire is still burning brightly." Claudia relaxed and I looked at her face. There was a small mole on her right cheek and I said, "You have a small blemish on your cheek. It looks to be something that was there since birth." "It has been." "If it faded away in ten days or less would you think this was normal?" "What do you mean?" "If it disappeared all of a sudden would that mean that something extraordinary happened?" "It could happen if I put some cream on it." "Have you tried to remove it before?" "Why?" "Stop acting like a lawyer and answer the question truthfully. Your husband and child are here to tell me the truth." "I wanted to keep it." Julian was now angry. "Tell him the truth now or I will follow through with my threat." There was a lot of thinking going on and she said, "I tried to remove it but it will not go." "If I could remove it in ten days or less will that prove the gods are helping me." "It could happen by chance." "Woman!" Julian bellowed. "I have had enough. Go upstairs now." "But..." "Now." The woman moves slowly to the stairs and looked around sadly. Julian said, "I am sorry for her behaviour. She will be nicer when she comes down." "May I make an observation. It is of a delicate nature." "Tell me." "Some women I have met need to be spanked from time to time. Many blows are struck but none are that painful. Some women become very inspired by the treatment and react with an animal heat." Patricia put her face down quickly and we both could see that she had turned red. "Does this really work?" "Yes. Some, though not all. Others react to being tied up and made helpless. Only a few are like this and it is very exciting to both the dominant and the submissive." "Have you tried this?" "I have not but I want to try it very soon. The wilder the woman is the more fiercely she bends to her master's wishes." "We should talk more on this. Will you stay the night?" "Like you, I do not want to sleep alone." It took a moment then he said, "It is not up to me to say. The two of you may do as you wish." I put out my hand and in a moment Patricia put her hand into mine. I smiled at her as I caressed the back of her hand with my thumb. Julian said, "I will retire early tonight." I said, "I sometimes sleep very soundly." "That is good," he said as he walked regally to the steps and then up. I tuned to Patricia and said, "I pushed you into a position you may not want to be in. I can sleep in the stable if that is your wish." "You are not getting away from me that easily." "You are sore now and you are going to be sorer tomorrow." "You will have to cure me." "That is a good idea." Patricia and I walked upstairs hand in hand and before we got to her door we heard the smack of a hand on flesh but it was not that loud. The cry of pain though was very loud. There were some harsh words and a few more smacks. Patricia was very excited now but before we went into her room I whispered, "I hear your mother. The sounds she is now making remind me of you." Patricia crept closer and listened to the sounds and I noticed one hand caressing her own breast. When she eventually turned to me she saw that I had my blouse off. This was better and she hurried to me instead. She rubbed against me like a cat as we kissed then she pulled me into her room. I could smell her need and went slow to bring up her passion. From the far room we heard a woman in orgasm. Her call was as loud as Patricia's had been. Patricia tried to get me to hurry to the good parts. I worked quicker though but still not as fast as Patricia wanted. Her own call rattled the walls. We tried many more positions with both of us groaning our joy. In between I urged Patricia's abused vagina to work quicker to repair and to remove most of the pain. This was much easier when I was so close to the person emotionally. We did not get to sleep until late and then I woke Patricia up three times during the night. She didn't mind in the least but her calls were not as loud. We slept very close especially since Patricia would not let me go. The next morning I heard Julian and Claudia get up and I kissed Patricia. Her eyes opened and she smiled. "You want to again?" "I think I will always want to. Your parents are getting up." "Ok but one more time." We came down later after cleaning up with the cool water that was in the jug in the bedroom. Patricia was bright eyed and bouncing around as if she had ten hours sleep and not three or four. When we came into the dining room I had to stop. Claudia had the same look on her face. Julian noticed this too and said, "Good morning. I find that I am not as sound a sleeper as you are Jón. The ladies though look pleased." "They certainly do. Does this mean we will have some domestic tranquillity?" "We may but I cannot now use the old threat." "Perhaps you can use the threat of not using the threat." Both women blushed but Claudia hung her head low in shame. Julian said, "That may well work. I have learned something important about my wife and now I want to explore that more. I regret that I had not learned this a long time ago." "If you had this house would be very full of the sounds of children." "Yes, that would have been good to hear as well. Please sit and have breakfast with us." When I sat I said, "Good morning, Claudia." She was still embarrassed and I added, "Men are often cruel with their words but in this case there is too much love to have an maliciousness. You have nothing to be ashamed of. I like hot blooded and emotional women that can take control when the need arises and do the work of any man." She did look up and my smile was conciliatory and she gave me a small smile too. "Good morning, Jón. I am sorry for the way I acted yesterday. You may do what you wanted." "Thank you for your trust. I will never do anything to hurt you." "You did last night by suggesting that I get spanked." "Then I will have to change my words to that I would not harm you." The two women now looked at each other and smiled. Julian said, "Perhaps we can continue our talk about the farm that we were having last night?" This was good too because I had to sell my products. I talked of horse drawn cultivators to loosen the soil and control weeds. I talked about our line of hand tools. "I think you would make more profit in grapes. I have already explained how to graft but your land needs to be under drained. This is expensive." Claudia said, "What is under drained?" I went into the need in some areas to remove the water from the roots of the grapes. This meant that they had to make miles of terra cotta pipe and put it in piece by piece. We had no plastic and no mesh to keep fine silt out. "Lucius and Licinia are trying to construct long lines of thin netting to keep the birds away from the grapes. If a machine can be constructed then they will make a fortune. You could do the same thing here." Claudia said, "Do you think it will really be profitable?" "How much of a crop is lost to birds? That much is more work to pick and then turn into wine but it is also profit." Farm talk went on for a while and I said, "Farms will make silver but to get rich you need to get into manufacture and merchandising." I had to work with my Latin to get the last term. "Hemp can be grown and used for making rope, cloth and the oil is good to eat. "I am making ships that are very large and they will be made of wood and have cloth sails until steel ships are made. Sailing ships cannot come far down the Seine because the bridges ate too low. This is another method you could use to make silver but now you need a cheap way of cutting wood. This can be done with the power of water or of the air." The next comment caused me to describe the mill on the Rhine and what it was capable of doing. Julian asked, "Could you build one of those things here?" "It takes a long time to build. I have made drawings of the various stages of building. You are welcome to come and to send people that could construct you a similar building." "What did yours cost to build?" "Not counting the land, and access to good stone, nine thousand aurii." "Where did you get all that gold?" "I made steel and sold the products I made. I made a better forge and sold more steel then I built a very large cupola to make liquid iron. One success was used to pay for the next and the next." "I cannot do that." "No, but you can purchase goods that your area has plenty of." "Grapes for wine?" "Yes, and a lot of other food crops but you then need to move them quickly and easily to places where the people will buy them. That means ships." "I can have the ships constructed without your mill." "That is what I would do. You could make a very large ship and carry goods down the Rhine and the Seine. Another way you could try is order a ship built from my small shipyard. The wood is already cut. You are going east and all you have to do is to tell me what you want. You could take the order for the craft and bring back a cargo of iron and steel for me. This will pay for some of the cost of building." "What if I wanted to purchase the iron and steel?" "Then do so. I have people I can trust to set up the shop on my farm. Other areas have no idea of what I make or the value of steel. You could make similar arrangements in other areas and reap the profits." "I will have to think on this. What about the mole on my wife Claudia?" "We can try now." "Ok." I turned to Claudia and said, "May I try now? I will not hurt you." A little uncertainly she said, "You may try." Instead of holding her hands I stood and got behind her. I put my hands on her face and neck for contact and I then relaxed. It took longer to establish contact but it worked well. I found the mole and had Claudia's defences start to dismantle it. While here I checked through her body for other problems. She had a lot of battles going on and I encouraged her troops to work harder to defend her. Some of the sites looked to have been going on for a long time and suspected that they were cancerous. Before I left, I checked her ovaries to get an example so that I could find out more about them. I did see an egg being harassed by millions of sperm cells. This made me feel good but it may not be what Julian and Claudia wished. When I pulled out I found that hours had passed and I said, "I am sorry for being slow but I had to protect you better in some trouble spots." Julian said, "What did you find?" "Some cells in Claudia's body were malignant. That means that they were bad and starting to spread. This was much like your job here, to keep the barbarians from invading." I looked at Claudia and said, "They are being harassed now. You may feel weak and you should eat now. Your body needs the fuel to fight the war." She stared at me and said, "Ok," like a child that did not understand. Julian came out to inspect my saddle that he had seen many times before and said, "What did you want to talk about? Is Claudia safe?" "She is safe. There is a good chance that you will be a father again in nine months." "What!" he roared. He had time to think and started to talk three times before he said, "That is good news." "I am glad to hear that. The egg has to successfully attach itself to the lining of the uterus yet. There are still a lot of actions that has to happen before you are presented with a child." "I imagine there is. Why did you not tell me in the house?" "In nine months you may be very busy and definitely not here in Gaul. If you had not wanted the child I could have done some very minor tinkering to keep it from attaching itself." "You could do that?" "A fertile egg is like an invader." "I want this child." "Then I am glad I didn't have to do this." Claudia and Patricia were very glad to hear the news. I even had to calm Claudia down so the egg would have a better chance. She never even questioned if I was right or not. A few hours later a group of ten came to the house and Julian and Claudia welcomed them. Aulus, her brother of fifteen and Postuma the sister at thirteen were introduced to me. They had heard of me and the net effect was favourable. Postuma was as pretty as her sister and mother and batted her eyes at me and had to hold my hand to do so. I squeezed Patricia's hand and she didn't start to get visibly angry with her sister. I said to them, "Patricia and I are good friends now. We want to see how good the match can be." "You are courting?" "In a way the answer is yes but it may be called pre-courting until it gets serious." Postuma pulled back a bit but did not let go. When I got a hand loose, I shook hands with Aulus. He was taller than me by a bit but he too seemed to be overcome with my presence. It reminded me of a teenager meeting a movie star. "Hello, Aulus. It is nice to meet you." I had my hand out and he finally took it. "Me?" "Yes you. Will you introduce the rest of your party?" I got to meet some guards but most were Claudia's relatives. They shook hands with me too and they looked to see me favourably but the two seemed to be keeping their feelings to themselves for now. We talked of the riots and all the current news and gossip, in a half hour they got on their horses and rode back home. Julian and Claudia left we with their children and since Claudia was walking very close to her husband I knew what was going to happen. Aulus had a lot of questions. The majority had to do with fighting. When he heard how we captured the Alemmani with no casualties he was hopping up and down. "What did you do then?" "Your father took the leaders. They will have to be slaves but they will be alive. These men I see as criminals and slavery now is just a way of controlling their activities. The rest of the Alemmani were offered the choice of slavery or making up a new Auxiliary. They seemed happy with the choice." "How did you get to capture them?" "Some of us formed groups called commandos. We wear black and our faces are blackened. We are very difficult to see at night. We just got close to their camps until we found the ones that we were after. They didn't like the thought of facing three thousand Romans and wanted to go back over the Rhine. We heard where the main camp was and walked in and took out the sentries." "That must have been exciting?" "It was but the Romans now have to learn to not kill but simply capture. They are good soldiers." "Romans cannot be beat." "Aulus, they can too but not usually the war. It is good to have faith in your army but don't let pride blind you to what might happen." I had said this in a quiet way but Aulus seemed chest fallen as if I had yelled at him. Postuma said, "We heard stories that you can raise the dead." "That is foolish. The gods gave me some of their power and I can use it to heal people." "When are you going to do this again?" "On Tuesdays I talk about the land of the gods. I think that is the best time. People will see with their own eyes and in fact I have a little blind boy now that I want to work on. He has never seen in his life." "Tomorrow? May I come and see this?" "Everybody is welcome." I got the three to show me around the farm but this time I got to see it all. There was a stream that could provide water power but the dam would have to extend into the neighbour's property. The stream was part of the boundary line. I stayed out as long as possible and when we got back the two adults were downstairs. Claudia was bubbling up with energy and had to tell her other two children of her pregnancy. Postuma sounded more positive but they knew that this would change their lives. A guard accompanied me to my farm and I gave them a gratuity before they left. I might not need a guard but any nut case could use a bow to kill me from an upper window. The children and the adults came to greet me when I arrived. My horse was taken from me and everyone had to touch me as if I was a magic talisman. I was looking for Calvus and found him safe against the wall of the house. He was the little boy that was blind. I had carried the boy around and was close to the child. I also knew that it was just a bit of nerve that had not been completed from each eye to his brain. His mother was young and pretty but I kept the arrangement on a friendly level now that Patricia was my girlfriend. The showroom was large. It was forty by thirty metres. The stoves occupied a large section and one of each kind was set up with a chimney of terra cotta. They looked like the ones made during the early 1900s but there was no chrome. We tried paint but it didn't last long. Carbon black did better but rubbed off. Four chains hung from the roof with a wood frame attached at the corners. Steel hooks came out of this and our implements hung from the hooks like some restaurants. We had maple chopping blocks and a large board made of solid maple to be our table. This would be nearly impossible to find in my time. One wall was made of brick and this had the traditional fireplace but had many steel tools for cleaning or moving the logs so they burnt better. To the side was an opening with an iron door that also burnt wood. The air could be regulated and the flames heated a large brick oven with another iron door. This way some people could use their own brick and skill and only needed the doors and mounting hardware. We had pots of all sizes and some could be used as bath tubs. Frypans, skillets and grills of all kinds were displayed. Another area had metal working tools with six sizes of anvils and dozens of different styles and weights of steel hammers. Everything the aspiring smith would dream of was here to be seen. The gems though were the vices that could hold metal like nothing yet made. Horseshoes, nails, hinges, door latches, and ornamental candlestick holders and oil lamps were shown. Beside it was my version of 'Lee Valley'. All the hand tools a man drooled over for thousands of years was here. Some were very small like squares, but we had punches, scribers, a long protractor marked in degrees, calipers, dividers and a compass for drawing circles. The other kind was in another area. The prize here though were the long then bars of steel that were up to two metres long. They were divided down to the millimetres from a master that I had devised. If everybody used these then I we would all have a standard way of measuring. Smaller scales that were fifteen centimetres long were to be given out at our open house. Chisels with beautiful handles, mallets, a woodworkers table with holes for pegs and a large wood vice at an end and a side. This I would probably not sell but I knew it would be copied for thousands of years. Nails of all sizes and with different head designs were shown. Ploughs and other farming equipment was to be on the floor and suspended from the ceiling. Every farm implement I made was here. More units were outside and would be used to give demonstrations. The shovels, hoes, rakes of all kinds, along with scythes, sickles for those who wanted to stay in the forth century and devices for thrashing the seeds of grains from their stocks. We had one large wagon with two metre dished wheels and this sat in the middle of the floor. This was made here and the men had to just make copies like I had made on the Rhine. There were more sections from medical and dental instruments to a demonstration telescope that was not for sale at any price. The armour and weapons were on the wall and a barrier in front of them. Customers could request an item to hold but it had to go back. I had hardly anything to sell until Licinia sent me a shipment that should come in within two weeks. Perhaps Rufus would deliver the order or another could do the same thing. The slaves that I acquired through the Iunius family were freed but told they now had to work to pay me but I at least gave them a good wage, the same as a freeman. I was not afraid of anybody running off. I went to find craftsmen, or tradesmen as I called them, to build articles for me. They also used my tools so that they could show others. Some craftsmen would never make it in my opinion and I shifted them to other jobs. It looked like we had another week to finish this building but it would still work if unfinished. It was just that I had to have a lot of employees around to keep the pilferage down. I left tools out now and none of them had ever disappeared unless it went into storage. Food was coming in steady now but it all had to be purchased. I had hundreds of employees and they had to be fed, clothed and paid. Some got half pay until they paid off their commitments but they still got lots to live on. The church meeting the next day was on our property but the thousands of people that came camped out on the Iunius land that was not being used. I wanted this sort of meeting to be more than just religion. One of my ministers gave the news in an unbiased way even thought we got boos from the audience. Military reports were given out and the status of the new Auxiliary the Roman army had. Birth, deaths and marriages were listed along with the custom of posting banns before it became a strictly Christian ceremony. I was surprised when Julian came with his family. They were dressed in their finest and I gave a smile to Patricia when I could. Roman law was quoted by some of our lawyers to let the people know what their rights were. They had few but the rich wanted to encroach in this area too. They were told what they should do while still within the law. Other members of our church went around and collected names and dates as well as crimes that were crimes in my book. I would find ways of bringing justice and still remain within the law. The watch had been brought in and the captain was paid to give his reports and to then ask for assistance in finding the guilty. This week he was paid again but he was much more confident and soon I would not have to pay him. Self defence classes were listed along with the time. Some were specifically for women or children. These were getting more popular though we only had two dozen taking advantage of this free education. Reading classes were doing much better because "Valhalla Visited" was part of what was read. I had large sheets of paper and the words were put out in larger print so people in the back of the class could see. When I came out onto the raised platform I received a loud round of applause as if I was an entertainer and I guess I was. I thanked the people for coming and spreading the word about Woden's power. This was not like the 1960s or 70s where a preacher healed the sick with chicanery or temporarily with suggestion and the hype of the large audience but with real cures. Patients from last week came forth and improvements were shown then the patients from the week before. Parents would give testimonials but they had to be kept short. A cure was not a spontaneous occurrence and some cases required both a long time and a booster treatment. Each of the new patients had to be checked by a sampling drawn from the audience and two of the cities other physicians. I fixed poorly healed broken bones. This was usually done by taking away the pain and breaking the bone again. The audience could then readily see the broken limb if that was the problem. I splinted the arm and gave a first aid course at the same time. Some patients came on stretchers but all of them had been cleared by me in advance. There was only so much effort I could expend or I would need nursing myself. Calvus was treated with little respect as people punched at his face and he never flinched because he was totally blind. This was a major test so poor Calvus was asked questions and subjected to the indignities while being accompanied by his mother. Calvus' mother guided the little boy onto the stage and though she was very frightened she gave a brief history of herself and that of her child. I talked to Calvus quietly and got him to sit on my lap like he had done a few times before. I whispered, "You are safe Calvus. There are a lot of people wanting to see that you get better. Now just relax and maybe you can fall asleep before we start." "Ok." Putting the boy to sleep was not hard and it would reduce the stress he was under. The mother stood beside the boy and used her hand to push back his hair as she gazed down at him. I had cheated somewhat and had less to do but in twenty minutes I had his right eye connected. I handed the small body to the mother and she thanked me before she tearfully left the stage. "I connected the optic nerve at the back of the right eyeball to another set of nerves. Neither the right or the left had connected when the boy was a fetus. Some time this week he will start to see. His first images will be traumatic because he had not seen anything since he was in the land of the gods. "His images will all be turned upside down as all of ours were. It was only weeks later that our brains inverted the images to what we see now." They may not believe this but it was true. Next week Calvus will come back and I will do the left eye. "Now we have an old man with bad teeth. These cannot be fixed and had been pulled a week ago. Now give Numerius a hand as he comes here to get the chance to go through teething pains once more." The old man smiled a toothless smile and showed everybody that he had no teeth at all. It would be weeks before he got to feel them but they were simple and quick to start growing. The man stayed for a half hour and I stopped a few times to get a sip of water. Numerius was smiling all the time and it was good that I did not have to get in front of him and smell his breath like I had to as a dentist. The last of the day was a woman with a large wine mark on her face that would probably be treated with a laser in my day but here she had to do it herself. When she left, she was happy but didn't look much different than when she came on the stage in the first place. When this woman was done I said, "Thank you all for coming. Woden has worked through me to heal the sick and infirm." I went into a prayer of thanks. The audience liked long prayers now and quite unlike the Frisians but it was probably because there were miracles actually performed. Some ministers came on stage now and talked of who we may have for next week. This way the audience would have a good chance to see the before picture even if some representatives would get another chance just before the treatments. The well-to-do had been invited this time as they could see how our products worked as well as our religion. The crowd left by the field and the rich could walk to our showroom. I took off my white silk gown and handed it to a helper. I didn't like thinking of them as servants though they were. They were not slaves though. Julian came to me with his family in tow. "That was a show that reminded me of the circus in Rome. Why were you so theatrical when you were not at the camp?" "At the camp everything would be known in an hour after it was done. Here there are a lot more people and they need something different. If they have to talk after then it would take days for them to leave." Patricia wormed her way close to me and held my hand. "When will Calvus be able to see Jón?" "As good as you and me?" "Yes." "Three weeks for his right eye and a week later when his left eye is finished." "That boy is cute. I hope my children will look that nice." With her family staring at her I said, "Their mother should make them look beautiful. Look at their grandparents." Claudia smiled and clutched her husband. The children smiled too. Julian said, "What are you after now? Soft talk means you are after something." "It could but in this case I am just happy. You cannot honestly call me a liar and I did not even stretch the truth." "Maybe not but I think you are after something." "Maybe it is something I already have." This was said as I pulled Patricia to my side. The exposition had already started though the people didn't like to miss the services. Iulius started the proceedings off by showing the medical instruments as if he were selling these to young interns. Prices were not listed for parts but sets with beautiful boxes were. He didn't get too graphic before he went to the other extreme and talked about our wagon and its load carrying capacity. The large room was packed and demonstrations outside showed the farm tools and the forge being used. Iulius introduced Curtius who carried onto the woodworking tools before introducing some of the people we had hired to demonstrate. The demonstrator had practised this before but was nervous because this was for real. He made a few simple articles including a propellor that was given to a young boy, the son of one of the wealthy few. The food was last but the smell was still in the air. Atrius got most of the customers outside but those outside came in. Goods were displayed and small inexpensive gifts given away. The pump was used continuously and the water went to a long line of places where people could drink. It was only the newcomers that were interested because the rest were used to this by now. Would-be farmers in expensive clothes got a chance to plough a straight line. A small prize offered by some hopefully honest judges was enough of an incentive for the men to get dirty. A lot of people shifted to the food. We offered tastes but the food was to be sold and the money used to feed the poor. Any other way and we would never fill them up. Again men were urged to perform acts including flipping an egg without breaking the yoke. We urged Julian on and he did it first time but then again he had practice a while ago. The modern labour saving conveniences were listed and what they could do for a busy household. We listed much less fuel being burnt and more of the heat where you wanted it. The stoves put out bread that was easy to sell and so were my biscuits. I had even shown the people how to mix them. I wanted men in the kitchen and I did not want it to be only a slaves job. A social environment in the kitchen meant that the kitchen had to decorative and functional. I just happened to be the only one making this sort of products. Manlius took over and showed our recipe books and did some of them to the amusement of the spectators. He was a good showman and he liked this job even if he didn't like to cook before. He gave out free samples and stuck out his chest that a man had done this good. There were few women that would dare to question a man, never mind a stranger. The hot water heater was ohed and awed at when the valve was turned. The pots that fit the burners almost perfectly looked like magic to most. Manlius said, "Think of the time this saves. A busy housewife could wash the children, the dishes or the clothes and do it all with less fuel." The orders had been coming in all along and a large sigh in Latin with arabic numerals talked about deep discounts if the total bill reached certain levels. Everybody wanted to dicker but the staff were very polite and pointed to the sign over their heads. Thirty by forty metres was far too small for opening days and I would have to correct this for the future. The large double doors were open and the wagon dragged outside. Helvius rolled back the cotton top and talked to the crowd from this elevated position. "This wagon is the ultimate in luxury. A family can travel on the roads of the empire or across the fields with safety and comfort." He tied the cotton with some straps and said, "This is our convertible model with lightweight cotton to keep out the insects and the rain but let in the sun to see the countryside. We affectionately call it our 'rag top' model. Another version has lightweight wood to do the same thing but nobody can see you travelling down the road in comfort while sitting back sampling your favourite wine." He moved over to a wheel and held it in one hand. "Have you ever seen wheels as good as these? They are fully twenty centimetres wide in the new and improved way of measuring. They give support in almost any condition. The ultra modern dish shape allows mud and water to be thrown out not just up. The two metre diameter wheel allows you to ride comfortably over the larger holes we may encounter. The hub below is precision made to meet the exacting standards required of the citizens of the Empire." Helvius shifted again and patted a small stove. "This gentlemen and ladies allows you to cook as you travel in comfort. The smoke travels through the genuine steel pipe and out of the living compartment. A clay tube keeps the heat from reaching the wood. This small ring around the top of the cooking surface will keep a frypan from shifting with the occasional bump." Helvius stood and took a loop from the side of the wall and then picked up two more and hooked them to the rib over his head that had two hooks. A board was lowered until it sat in a horizontal position. This was done twice more but the boards were closer to his feet. "Here you have, gentlemen and ladies, a table and benches suitable for having a meal as you travel. At night a pad can go onto it to allow children to sleep on it. Underneath is a cleverly fashioned piece of wood that folds down to give added support to both the table and the benches." Helvius put the table back and unhitched a rope eye and a series of beds hung from a pair of vertical timbers came down into position. "Here we have sleeping arrangements on one side and the beds on the other side come into position to make four wide beds. The covering is over my head and will allow for cool breezes but still provide protection when it rains." The beds too were put back in their previous positions. A small box in the corner was his next goal. He picked up the hinged flap and sat. "Here we have a modern chamber pot. The box is attached to the wall and the pot will not shift or tip. The lid keeps the odours contained." Beside him was a fired clay bowl and a metal handle. Helvius pumped it vigorously for a minute then stopped. He now daintily turned a small valve and water fell into the bowl and continued to fall when he took his hands away. He took a clay mug and sampled some water and smacked his lips. "Mmm good." The cup was put down and then the valve closed. He took some scented soap and smelled the bar with satisfaction and washed his hands then dried them. A wood plug in the bottom of the sink released the water and it fell onto the ground under the wagon. "Only the very finest homes in the empire have running water and here you have this luxury in a movable home. We have a custom made barrel that can carry four full amphoras of water or a hundred and forty of the new litres. That is enough for a family for a long time." The tailgate was very high and now in its horizontal position was very long. Helvius took out a bundle of maple slats and moved them about for a few minutes then slipped the cupped ends of a large piece of leather over some of the ends. The frame was put on the tailgate and he got into it with a contented sigh. His legs were elevated and in a horizontal position. He next wiggled and settled into the chair. "Here we have the ultimate luxury. This chair is so comfortable that you could fall asleep in it. It is not only light but it adjusts to the contours of your body. As an introductory special this chair will be given with each and every wagon in the land-yacht configuration." Helvius got out of the chair with a bit of difficulty and then jumped to the ground. He took the chair and put it on the ground so it could be seen and touched. He hurried to the side of the wagon and undid some doors and pulled out long boxes with no tops. "Here gentlemen and ladies is the answer to your storage problems. The food and clothing needed for a trip is put into these handy boxes." He left one of the boxes pulled out and said, "There are more of these convenient boxes around your land-yacht. Now if you look underneath you will see a very sturdy construction and even a spare wheel. Now tell me gentlemen and ladies where else in the world would you find luxury such as this?" Helvius pushed the sliding box in and latched the doors. He moved to the front and showed everybody the long tongue. "This gentlemen and ladies is a vast improvement over anything made previously. This wagon is powered by eight horses but we have a six horse option to fit a reduced affluence. The price of this wagon as it sits and without horses is three thousand aurii. Some may call it an extravagance but any man thinking of his family will immediately purchase an item like this. He can go to business meetings in a far city and arrive refreshed and carefree. "Remember that this wagon is made by Roman craftsmen and backed by fine German engineering." There was a new rush to see the wagon and Helvius wisely got out of the way. By the end of the first day I had orders for a hundred and six thousand aurii in products. Julian was stunned by the amount. I was sure that some would renege on their commitments though I got five percent down. There was little trust but they found enough for me. I was sure that in the following days more people would be found to take over any product not sold. It didn't matter though because I had no way of contacting the foundry and had to rely on what I had thought was right months ago. ------- Chapter 15 We walked around the grounds and inspected the products when most of the hustle and bustle had died down. The sales staff and the guards had to stay because there was just too many people that simply had to see one thing or another one more time. Claudia looked affectionately at one of the mid range stoves and ran her hand over the cool portion. Julian and I saw this but said nothing. Patricia could cook but I heard that it was not one of her favourite tasks. She looked at the griddles and the frypans. "Jón we talked about me selling some of your things." "I was waiting for you to bring this up." "How can I start this?" "I mentioned before that you are going to move around a lot." Julian seemed to understand. "If you were to say, live in Rome temporarily you could have someone take care of your businesses there. You can handle either "Woden's Own" or "Thor's Hammer" for the Italian peninsula." You will get the richest area of the empire." "Why are the two gods mentioned?" "'Thor's Hammer' deals in the articles of war while 'Woden's Own' is for those things that make our society civilised." "I would get both?" "You are getting what is termed a franchise or actually two of them. I am not lying to you when I say that they are worth many millions of aurii." "Why are you being so generous? I cannot even imagine that amount of gold." "We are already partners in a way. I want the improved empire to succeed. To do this I need to have powerful business partners. I also can point to you and talk to the patricians that you are an example of a far sighted man that has chosen to make some changes. The Italian peninsula will get so rich that it will surpass what it now brings in from the rest of the empire combined. Along the way slavery is abolished and the people educated." "You are being honest with your buying of me." "That is true the other way too. You buy me as a supplier, a friend and a partner. I am going to assist you any way I can." "What rate does a business partner get when he purchases your products?" "That we have to discuss. Shipping thousands of tonnes to Rome can be expensive. Shipping some samples here is cheaper. You are talking about a complete line or just a few of the articles?" "Claudia likes the stove." The women in question hugged her husband's arm. Julian was to leave with his army in a few days. We had hammered out a rough letter of understanding where he would not branch out to other areas and I would continue to sell him products at a wholesale price. He would take letters for me addressed to Lucius, Licinia, Horatius Postuma and others. One of the others that had to be written to was Clovis with a note in it to Fidelis Marius and Fálki. All of these were unsealed so I had to watch what I said. I explained how I knew nothing of what had happened during the day of the last battle with the picts. I mentioned that I hoped that everybody was safe and the Frisian lands safe from invasion. I went on to say what had happened to me and what the gods had done for me. I listed the devices I had and made. The assistance I was giving the Romans was listed in detail and then I said how we were not making cannon or powder because the gods were not letting me remember this. Rome could not take the Frisian lands because of the cannon. I went on to say how Clovis had once fought for Rome and may be called on to do so again under a new understanding. The use of Frisian cannon working for the Roman empire in the east was a very good possibility after a suitable agreement. I suggested that they reform the army and make a force of cannoneers with only a small force of mounted lancers to protect each battery. The Ctesiphon location was mentioned and I hoped that they would reference this to Sapor II and Julian. I told Clovis the numbers and size for cannon I wanted made and the quantities and types of shot and powder. My numbers were very high and gave a time frame for this to be done. I mentioned the Persians and the Huns twice and I hoped that Fidelis remembered my talk of the battle that killed the last emperor that believed in the old gods. The people that ran my foundry received their order forms. Hagen was told about the Alemmani here and what we had to do with this development. I was sure he would understand. Rome was not usually so lenient. I told him about Rufus and the need for larger ships and also the need for improved shipping in the interim. More of my books were needed but paper was still in short supply. I requested additional supplies when they became available. My order for the last three days and the expected orders for the month were given. I added about the governor of Gaul taxing us at a lesser rate because we did not manufacture here. Julian's name was used as the facilitator and the man that would talk to the governor of Germania Inferior for a similar taxation scheme. Our money would go directly to the government though. Rome sold the rights to taxation to tax farmers that reaped all they could and kept the surplus. I handed all the pouches of papers to Julian. "Why have you given me these?" "I talk about you to Fidelis Marius. He knows of my prediction. He also wants to assist you if he can." "What are his reasons?" "He wants the old gods restored. His people persecuted the Christians and now that they are on the receiving end they do not like it. The facts were told him as I knew them before I started to change history. I am quite sure he will accept protection from the state from any unlawful acts. I know he could then work within a framework of the law where all religions are protected as long as the followers obey the law." "I can see how he would enjoy that protection. I have been hurt by many of the Christians and some in high places." I knew of his family being put to death by Christians. This was not the reason for the killings, just the religion of the man that commanded the murders. In a moment I quietly added, "These letters may well be read by our enemies. If you read them you will know what they may be trying to incriminate you with and have a defence ready." "That is almost second nature now." He looked more at the words and said, "This is your paper but I see that your writing is very fine and easily understood." I smiled and said, "As a man I am happy that you see this but as a physician I am a failure." "Why is that?" "The gods have physicians." "They do?" "They are the same as us in many ways. Magic is not used much. A physician usually is hurried and scribbles notes so his words are sometimes illegible. I do not want that to happen this time if I can help it. Misunderstandings can kill people." "That is true, now how did you get your quill to do what it has done?" "I will bring some paper to you. I have a hard steel end that fits on a quill or a piece of wood. It is split down the centre and pressure parts the two portions to write wide. They do not need to be sharpened and only require cleaning and drying after they are used." "I would like to try that." We saw Julian off and I promised to do what I could to assist the guards of his unofficial family. Religion took up more of my life now that the open house was over. All the ceremonies we did whether it was at a birth of a death had to be written down. This was done in Latin and in Latinised German. All the sermons that humans wanted to hear were put in but done as a whole. One ceremony would reinforce the others much better than any religion made piecemeal. Again I sat with Iulius, Helvius, Curtius, Atrius and Manlius to get their slant on how it was best to talk to forth century Romans or any other nationality. I also had to consider time. In two thousand years I wanted a common sense religion that could stand the turmoil of an educated parishioner. He or she would be able to see the benefit of religion but still work with an open mind. I also tried to put in safeguards so that politicians would find it difficult to use religion for their own causes. This is how I started my second book called "Understanding the word of Woden". More parables were added but again Aldúlfr had to say that they were stories and not to be used in later years by those deluded followers that took everything too literally. There were at least three parables about politicians stirring up the voters so he could go to war or use the voters' pumped up anger to get re-elected or pass a budget. I expanded on the afterlife and other features so that a person was comfortable with a religion and lead a moral life. The golden rule was not just a Christian precept but something all religions preached. I would too. Each of the major religions were talked about even if the Romans had never heard of them before. Their strengths and weaknesses were discussed but none were listed or bad or a fraud only that they were a religion with people that believed strongly in them. Aldúlfr was said to say that Wodenism was not perfect either because it had to be applied to humans that were already far from perfect. This was hoped to cover some of the mistakes I made or actions that I had not foreseen. Patricia came by occasionally to get me away from pen and paper but this usually meant we went to bed. When her fertile time came she learned some advanced fellatio. Her orgasms became less earth shattering but still very good for both of us. I was very happy to see that my fingers stimulated her anus but she was not as responsive as what Dagmar was. Given enough time she may give me this virginity but I was not going to push the matter. The showroom was completed and I started another just to handle 'Woden's Own" products. With enough time I would have more of the wooden construction done here and perhaps custom fitted armour too. Men had found slate for me and this was ground flat and brought to me. The larger pieces went to the walls of schools I had constructed while the children got the smaller ones. These were wood framed with a stylus tucked into an edge just like a PDA but not nearly as versatile. Those not working and in my employ had to teach or learn. It was not done by coercion but a way to get a better paying job. I had Tuesday school too that covered ethics much more than religion. When I started to give portions of food to those that attended, I got a dramatic increase in turnout. Patricia had a lot of competition but I stayed true and even went so far as to have chaperones or witnesses so that she would not hear any lies. It was not always young girls either. I got women of all ages and even some men. The young and pretty ones I figure had been put up to this even if they already had a predilection to this lifestyle. Forni was remembered when I saw some and wished that if I was wrong and there was a higher power that the boy would be cherished. I had learned that Epje and Dina had died but only because of the Roman spies and the details of their armour that was not recovered by Lucius. I had cried then cried again because Jón had died too in that battle. The boats sent by the foundry and Licinia arrived a little earlier than expected. The same fat customs inspector came and my letter from the governor got him to leave me alone but he had men counting boxes as they came off the ships. Rufus was not here but I got word of him and his men working on the plans I had left. The old boxes from the first trip went back along with everything I could find that was cheap here and dear there. The harvest was a long time off but I sent back what hemp I had been able to locate. Word went out very quickly that our shipment had arrived and after the boxes were unpacked we started to fulfil our commitments. A team of men went with each stove to connect it to a chimney. Most of the pipes were made here and of clay but each stove got one iron pipe to attach to the stove itself. This one had a butterfly valve in it to control the draught the chimney drew. We could fill almost half of the orders but the rest had to await the next shipment and this one would be larger yet. One stove went into Claudia's kitchen and I was there to help. She was given the standard recipe book and a few others that I thought of recently. When the job was done it was me that made the meal as I taught the servants about this device. I challenged Claudia, Aulus and Postuma to make dishes for each other. Patricia had a head start so she taught her sibs and mother what she knew. I stayed the night because I timed the delivery to be after Patricia's period. Neither of us got much sleep and I was sure everybody in the house knew what was going on. The next day we worked on a pump for the well but pipe was our problem. I had cast iron pipe with machined ends and connectors that had to be soldered but I had to work with the lengths I received because I could not cut and machine much by hand. We got this pipe to connect to a barrel in the ceiling after reinforcing the supports. This took all day to do but I found it enjoyable. By day's end Claudia could turn a valve and running water would fill the iron tub she had in the kitchen. Aulus had helped a lot and he was given the job of connecting the drain to a tile bed under a small garden. It was not much of a job but the boy wanted to try. Julian had ordered a dozen scythes and I gave Aulus one complete unit and directions for bending the wood for the other eleven. "This way you get a scythe that is built for you." "This is a slaves' job." "Aulus, I know that you work hard on the farm. You helped me put in the water. I cut grass too when it is harvest time. I pick grapes and do many tasks. I want you to be a great landowner that is respected by your employees and your peers." "I do some work." "You do a lot and that is one of the reasons I like you. Now do you know the directions on how to bend the wood?" "Tell me again." The goods we had in stock and for immediate sale did not last long. The money that I got went to more schools and food for the students. The students though were children to middle age. I segregated them according to age and their payment was to be food. I got a lot of the unemployed and some of the unemployable but this was fine. Some men and women could use their minds and what limbs they had left. I began a glass blowing plant with the intention of capturing all of eastern Gaul. I was not going to make flat glass here yet because this would be kept a secret as long as possible. If the secret did leak out the Romans would even have a harder time that I would to keep the tin from oxidising. The second night Patricia was very tired and we had slow sex and I let her sleep. I too rested with may arms around her and felt very content. Lutetia was coming along fine now. I could make more money selling different products but let others make a profit too. I contacted Romans and even some Alemmani with an entrepreneurial frame of mind. I gave them a thirty percent discount to sell my products but most could only deal in the few products we had left. Those travelling were encouraged to buy here where it was cheap and sell further into Gaul. This of course would only last until I set up more distribution centres. It was only a month after the last shipment that another came in. I was happy to see Rufus. He smiled at me but I saw that he was wounded. I went immediately to him and said, "Hello Rufus. How badly are you hurt?" "Just a scratch." "Let me check." He didn't argue but leaned against the side of the ship and I began to search out his ills. The scratch was much more and infected. I could even detect wood in his arm and thigh. "I don't have my instruments. Do you have a small sharp knife?" "I did but it's in the neck of a pirate. The ingrate even fell into the sea with it." "Pirates! Were many of you hurt?" "We lost two ships and twenty seven men." "How many wounded do you have?" "Fourteen. One died this morning." I checked the wounded and began to work on the most severely wounded and stayed at it for hours. My tools were fetched but by then our surgeons were at work. Tuesday came and went but we stayed on the job. We didn't loose anybody but it was close. The ships were unloaded as we worked and our return cargo fetched. I had to sleep for a day and found myself looking into Patricia's eyes as I awoke. "Hello, beautiful. You going to lay on the bed with me?" "I am going to stay safely out of your grasp. You are supposed to be healing." "I heal better holding onto you." "You will not just hold." "You do get me to change my mind. All I have to do I see or smell you. Touching you works even faster." "That is why I am staying here." "Then tell me about my patients." "They are all alive and recovering thanks to you and your physicians. Word of this is all through the city." "The people are not angry at me missing Tuesday's service?" "They understand. They had people here watching you and then reporting what was happening so everybody was informed." "Rufus was not that badly hurt. What did he tell about the pirates?" "He was very graphic and told of the fighting, the deaths and then your healing them all." "That does not help me. What does he know about the pirates?" "It is better that he tells you." "I guess you're right. Come here for a kiss Sweetheart." I tried to look innocent but once I got her she couldn't get away for a few hours. Patricia went for Rufus and I found that he was very close. I learned the details of the attack and I was glad that as many ships had managed to get through. Rufus had come with eight ships and managed to keep six of them. It was fire arrows that kept the thirteen pirate ships at bay long enough for his ships to escape. The Romans didn't like pirates and now I was angry at them too. They had taken my cargo and one of Rufus' ships as well as another captain's. They had killed twenty seven sailors that were working for me either directly or indirectly. I wanted vengeance but I called it my civic responsibility to get rid of the pirates. The acid and other supplies I had, was converted in three days to nitroglycerine and guncotton and the mixture made into a type of plastique. Quick silver was converted to fulminate of mercury in another process. Processes that I was going to use to help Julian would have to be used now. There were enough stock to cover our orders and in a few more days my war chest was replenished. Iulius and Atrius were asked if they wanted to go home for a visit to their families and they agreed. Both men knew I had plans from the way I closeted myself for the last week. Rufus and his men had no problem sailing the same route they had used to come here. They figured I had a rabbit to pull out of my hat. Patricia was only one of the people that wanted me to stay but I explained that this had to be done. I waited until Wednesday so I could have a Tuesday service and explain about the pirates and how they hurt all of us one way or another. Those that had been cured completely had come on the stage and then had some of the sailors that we had treated. This was to show that we could not be defeated but also to remind a crowd that had a notoriously short memory. Helvius, Curtius and Manlius stayed behind to mind the store. They were a problem too. They also wanted to come. We sailed back down the Seine but Rufus' ship was the least loaded. I needed speed and we could not get this with a heavy cargo. In three days we had cleared the mouth of the Seine but we had to sail at night. There was enough of a moon to do so and I was at the bow of the lead ship to give directions if needed. I took out my bow and practised with my new long arrows that had a weight near the tip. I had done the same practice in Lutetia but now I was on the deck of a rolling ship. I was not bad because the seas were not rough. I changed arrows and put on the new ones with the actual explosives. A wood rod suck out the front which was held in place with heavy wax. It would strike a target and the small steel tip on the wood would strike the mercury fulminate and detonate the plastique. This was my version of a shaped charge that was ignited just in front of a target. The wood shaft was short because the arrow was not going to be going that fast. It didn't even had a head on it. We dropped back and one of Rufus' ships towed a target on a long rope. We came charging at it and the first arrow hit the water without exploding. The second did the same thing. The third though hit the log and blew it in two with a giant geyser wetting us. Everybody on the ship was quiet now because they had never heard anything like this before. Those that were able to view the destruction had never seen anything like it either. "This idea was given to me by Aldúlfr. He told me that Thor wanted this power to be put into my hands. There is little to fear but think of what it will do to a pirate ship that tries to take us this time." Rufus started to roar his approval though he didn't seem to really feel that enthusiastic. He was doing it to get his crew behind me. The last arrow destroyed the smaller piece and I let Rufus shoot it. He smiled though he was soaked and nearly deaf. I put disks on the heads of the wooden pins now and the next day they would detonate on hitting just the water. It was four more days until we were in the area of the attack but we found nothing. We picked this as a centre and we searched in the land in every direction. There were a lot of villages but none had the craft Rufus described nor did it have our ships. Rewards were offered for information but I only got bullshit from those trying for the gold. We headed to England and we patrolled this area. We started around what would some day be Portsmouth and headed east along the coast. I saw Roman ships and pulled into some ports to explain my search. These men gave me a lot of grief and wanted to be paid. I just left and a ship pursued until an arrow hit the water in front of it. I had no more problems. We stopped to hunt and fish as well as pick up water. We saw a few ships and gave chase. They fled but we caught them because we were lighter. We made our demands for knowledge and one captain claimed that the area around Dubris or modern day Dover may be what we sought. An arrow hit his deck with four gold coins in a small pouch. It was two days to Dubris. The famous white cliffs were at this location. It was nearly night when we came on a harbour. It was very dangerous to enter with the tide and we had neither charts or information about shoals. We used weighted lines and proceeded as slow as we could while the five other ships stayed well offshore with five of my arrows for protection that they had to be forced to take. There was no moon but the night was clear even for England. We anchored within easy reach of the shore and used a small boat to make multiple trips to land all twenty one of us. It took only a few minutes to for Rufus to confirm that one of the ships were his. Ships at anchor or pulled onto the land were also confirmed to be some of the pirate ships. None of the ships in my opinion were very large and pulling them ashore was a practical solution unless they needed to leave at low tide. This did not mean that they were untenanted. Some had men on the large boats as they floated and other men were clustered around fires on land. The boats were expensive and labour was cheap. The two ships were in a cluster with four others and the two we wanted were still floating. There were a lot of plans of what to do when we found the boats. Some were more rational than others but basically I had to think of what I was going to do with the pirates. Thirteen ships that were loaded with fighters instead of cargo could mean up to four hundred men. Some could be slaves but I had no way of knowing. Killing or incarcerating four hundred men would mean having four hundred families without a father and husband. It could also mean many more men killed when other ships were attacked at some future time. Taking these men in the first place would be difficult because the town looked to hold one to two thousand men. One plan could fit this situation and Rufus was eager to try it. Before this began though we had to get some information from the locals. When we took back the ships there would be a lot of noise. Rufus and two of his brawniest men and I went closer to the wall surrounding the city. Two men were sitting alone and talking while drinking from a keg. I was the one to pick up some good driftwood and slip up on one man. I hit him on the head and jumped on the other before he had a chance to call out. My fist hit his throat and he was not able to then. In seconds we had our two captives. They were bound and I worked on their vocal cords to nearly paralyse them. They could not yell above a whisper. It was not the regular type of healing but it would do. We all sat around the fire and Rufus started to sample the wine and offered his men some. I said to the captives, "Hello. I am sorry for attacking you but I need information and you gentlemen will have to supply it." They didn't look ready yet to help me. "My name is Jón of Germania." They didn't flinch so I assumed that they had not heard of me. "The gods have favoured me with their power and their knowledge. I used this to keep you from calling out and you will find that your bodies will not obey you now." Rufus and his men removed the bindings and the men struggled to move but could not. "Most of the time I heal people with my power. In a moment I am going to work on your body to make your hands very sensitive. That means that anything touching them can be felt. This also means that a small pain is made much greater. You would call out but you cannot yell and you cannot get away." I went back to work on the men and the first one started to moan as his hands were touching the rocky land. In a few moments his friend was moving desperately but only in small amounts. Tears were coming to their eyes it was so bad. "A simple question will allow us to start." I gave the information about the thirteen ships and the two that were taken. The men professed ignorance in their odd speech. A town like this could not have secrets even if it was to where the two ships had come from. Rufus took a twig and drew it along one of the men's hands and he thrashed as if it was a burning poker. The next man got the tip of a seabird's feather but then the answers started to come. We learned the names of the thirteen men and then a little about both of them. Three were not here but out fishing or pirating. The make up of the crew were sought and I happily found that many were slaves. That did not mean that they were innocent but I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. There were three locations within the city walls that held the slaves and their slave families. More slaves though were held at individual homes. I got an idea of their numbers and this was enough. Rufus reminded me of his men and I said, "Did any of his men survive?" "Six lived. There were more and we tried to save them but they were hurt too much." Rufus wanted to hurt these men now but he controlled himself. We found their location in the city. "I am going to be nice now. You will go to sleep and wake up with your body back to normal. If you lied we will just pick you up on our way home and have all eternity making you regret any lie you mentioned. Is there anything you want to add?" We found that there were more pirate captains but they had not partaken on the raid. More details came out to clarify points and they even suggested a way to gain access to the slaves we were after. With the men asleep for a few hours we went back to the rest of the men. They were informed of the plan. We gained the wall easily and just avoided the guards at the gate. We split up into threes and worked toward one of the slave quarters. There was only one guard on duty and he was half drunk. The door though would be difficult to open if the man had not had the key. I was the one to find the men I recognised because nobody could see in the large room. The slaves began to awaken and I said in a calm voice, "My name is Jón of Germania. We are taking you away from your masters. If any wish to stay they are free to do so. I have taken hundreds of slaves and made them free. Depending on the situation this should happen to each of you." There were thirty eight men that wished to accompany me. Five of the six were of course Rufus' men. The slaves now were very anxious to leave and we worked our way back to the gates in small groups but sixty men were hard to hide. The watch came onto some of the groups but they were outnumbered quickly and their unconscious forms placed in the alleys. Three of us took the guards at the gate but we had made a lot of noise in doing so. Near the shore Rufus got his men broken up into groups that would take each of the four ships and the two of ours. Men were rowed to the ships and we all attacked at once. There was a lot of noise and fires sprang up all along the shore. We boarded all the ships but each one of them was severely undermanned. The anchors were pulled aboard and we were able to congregate in one area. The boats would be towed by two groups of slaves while most of our original crew were free to use our own ship for offensive matters. Our progress was slow but I didn't want to get away though the slaves thought otherwise. The tide was against us now. We stayed in the rear and nothing but dinghies came after us. I fired a few regular arrows and they kept their distance. It was an hour after dawn that the slaves were augmented by a few from our other ships. Coming at us was sixteen ships from the harbour and we turned to flee. We only got a few more miles before Rufus turned so we could do battle. The wind was brisk and my shooting would not be as accurate. Any arrows coming at us were ineffectual because the crew were behind iron shields. I had on my full armour. When the ships were close enough I fired my explosive tipped arrows at the water in front of three of them. This shocked all of them into stopping their oars and we hurriedly rowed to harass the laggards so that they would bunch up. One mast had to be hit and then another before they found that they were outgunned. We rowed a circle around the ships and ordered them to get closer together. One ship had to be sunk now but some of the men could climb aboard the other ships. There were still bodies in the water. Rufus stated his identity and wanted compensation for the loss of his cargo, the theft of the two ships and gold for the families of the dead men. He tacked on some punitive damages as well as the cost of recovering our property and rescuing some of our men. Rufus called out names and demanded that these people come aboard our ship or all of the ships would be sunk. Another explosive arrow near them got the men coming in a small skiff. I only had three arrows left but I figured we could bluff. When the cowed men came aboard, Rufus introduced me and gave some of the battles I had been in along with the casualty figures for the enemy. I saw that some had already heard this. I spoke for the first time. "I do not like slavery. Though I can make an exception for you. The Romans would love to get you though I figure the ones in Britannia must have been paid to look the other way." One man said, "You can't do this to us. There are laws. We were recovering our property." "Like my iron and steel that was stolen?" There was no answer. "I hate piracy as much as I do slavery. Sinking all of your ships and killing your men seems the best answer." They now professed a change of heart. "Your town has a lot of slaves. I will take them as payment for all of our losses." "But... there are hundreds." "The pirates that attacked me will have to find a way to compensate the rest of you. This is the only substitute I will except in lieu of a hundred and fifty thousand aurii." "We cannot pay that." "Give me all the slaves." "But that would ruin us." "You will have to do the work yourselves now. Have you considered that almost all the fighting men are at my mercy? I can kill all of you and simply go to the town and destroy the walls and take all the slaves and perhaps your families too." I was quiet now and let them think. The brave man to talk said, "You would not do that." "I am a companionate man. I would take every person in the town and put them on my estates. They get fed but they would not be much different from slaves. Destroying pirates is easy and I have no troubles later." "We only have a few slaves." "I can guess at the number of slaves. Do I get them or do I kill all of you and get them?" "I have three." "You have more than that." The slaves that came with us got back in the ships with a lot of fear and Rufus and some of his men went with them. A few lower echelon pirates accompanied them to corroborate the deal that had been struck. An hour later I heard a loud noise and figured the gates were now open to us. It was three hours in the now hot sun that the ships returned but they were overflowing with people. They were redistributed among our ships and the ships went back for another load. I saw that we had mothers, children and even old people but they were still slaves. The slaves were very frightened because they didn't understand their fate. The next load took only two hours and an hour more to get to us. The slaves were spread out better now and the pirates compelled to tow our ships toward the mouth of the Rhine. It was dark by the time we got close and I had to use my bow to make sure some didn't cut the lines and slip away. The honest merchants of Dover were now forced to redistribute themselves. We got one more ship and the rest were told to leave. I would chase them in a few hours and sink any I found. They did as I asked and twelve of the sixteen men on our ship stayed too. They may now get a taste of slavery. It was really going to be incarceration for the crimes they committed but that was not common now. The tax collector came to our heavily laden ships and I simply paid for the share the local governor was to get. The man demanded money for the slaves and I nearly threw him overboard. My last arrow plunged into the water near his boat and the boat flipped over. The man was openmouthed now and I said, "You have received the amount you are entitled to. Are you calling me a liar?" "No, Sir. The amount you gave me is sufficient." "Fill in the forms while your men try to right their boat." He worked very efficiently now. We even had to help those in the water because some could not swim. Late in the afternoon of the next day we came to the fort that was Lucius new base. Lucius though was out on patrol. Rufus accompanied me as I talked to the commander. "Sir I have twelve male slaves. As part of my taxes I want to give them to the army." "They do not look like slaves. Do you have their ownership?" "They are newly acquired felons. You either take them or somebody else will get the chance. The alternative is for them to die." "That is against the law." "I will tie a rope around their necks and get them to tow us home by swimming. They would die before they got there." "I have heard a great deal about you. There was even news that you could heal with your touch." "I can by the grace of the gods." The man sat back and said. "How did you come by these men?" "If I say they are pirate captains then they will be executed. They know this too. I am calling them felons that earn them a punishment. They would accept slavery over death." "We know how to treat felons." "Good. Men usually bring five hundred denarii each. They are sailors though and know how to build ships. I think they are worth eight hundred to a thousand each. Give me a receipt for ten thousand denarii with all taxes paid on them and they are yours." "You just want a receipt?" "It will have to go into your records though. Tax men are a necessary evil." "They keep the empire alive." "Yes but I want to pay what is fair not what a tax collector thinks he can extract from me." The man thought then said, "If these men were not simple felons then how would a man like you have acquired them?" Rufus now spoke as if he was dreaming and mentioned what we had done. It took only ten minutes but then he had to do it two more times. The commander didn't believe this but I think it was because he was afraid to do so. We sailed up the Rhine in a few more days and I went from one boat to another to treat the slaves. I had only got through a portion of them by the time we had to turn up the other river to the farm. The situation had changed a lot since I was here last. The dock was enlarged and the hull of a large ship was seen supported by heavy timbers. As yet only some of the ribs and the heavy but short keel was in place along with some deck timbers. It was a hundred and seventy Roman feet long or a bit over forty metres. I thought it was the largest ship ever made to date. Rufus had come to me personally because he had questions to ask about the construction. I knew that few men could have gotten the majority of his ships away from the pirates. The slaves came ashore as quickly as possible. By the time we were done a lot of people had arrived to greet us. At the head was Licinia. I gave her a hug and said, "Hi 'Mother'." She squeezed me and said, "Don't hi mother me. What are all these people doing here?" "Rufus was attacked while delivering his cargo. He got away with six of the eight ships. They lost twenty seven men but not all had died. I went back with him and we searched for a long time until we found the pirates. We took some of their ships as compensation. I also took all of their slaves and put the leaders under the army's care but they might not be executed." "Is that all?" "I brought back more hemp." She hugged me again and said, "You are going to be hurt or killed because of the chances you take." "Not unless the gods will it." "What is this I hear about you healing people with your touch? Rufus says that he saw this with his own eyes." "I found this ability recently. The gods had not seen fit to even inform me. "There are rumours that all of Lutetia is yours." I have been healing the sick and educating the people. Those that choose to learn are fed and given a job. The common man accepts me and most of the wealthy too. Our products are selling very well." "That I hear too. Now what are we to do with all these people? How many are there?" "There are a hundred and seventeen males, a hundred and fifty six females and five hundred and thirty two children." "We may be able to feed them but not for long." "I can purchase food. I am freeing all of them but need a place to house them." "There are not enough places for them and they do not look strong enough to do much for themselves." "I have had practice making large buildings recently. We will have to give the mill new sizes of lumber to cut." Somehow everyone got fed. Rufus took his men along with some of the other captains to purchase food. It rained for a few days and most of the children and old folks could stay in the barns but there was no room to lay down. Lumber had started to come and I had the adults working in the rain erecting the first part of a large building. Those that were working on the ship had to come over to help. The building was erected on the other side of the river though. That was my land. Lucius had purchased it for me. The building was to be a hundred and fifty metres long and half that wide. We were building it in sections so we could get people settled before they started to get sick. More of the other employees had to come here to help. The former slaves could not keep up. The sailors were used to the water and worked hard but they mainly transported the building materials. Latrines had to be dug as well as wells. I wanted a septic system and because we built on a small hill, this was possible. It was still summer and the weather was not usually bad. In a month we had the outer building complete and now the high roof allowed us to put in a second floor for apartments. With the number of people, we needed this to be public housing and cafeteria style food distribution. Rufus brought the families of the men that had died to me. Or at least those that chose to come. They were all offered a generous compensation package. We got a hundred and eight more mouths to feed. A second building was started a bit over six kilometres away but with less people to help build it, the construction was slower. The excess help went back to working on our ship. Most people could not believe the size of the ship. It was much larger than the decrepit ships used by Columbus and instead of being square rigged would have two very tall masts with booms that could be used to pivot the sails to catch the wind from an angle. The drawing I had made had to be altered because I was far from being an architect let alone a marine architect. There were lots of trees for masts and booms. Shipbuilding had not taken most of them yet. Trees were topped and the logs carefully dried while our kiln dried lumber went onto the hull and deck. The green lumber that had to be bent had to dry in place. The size of the ship was giving all of us problems so I started a half size model which was still larger than anything afloat. I had special plans for this and we would learn the lessons on this ship instead of the larger one. Mistakes of any kind were costly but on a smaller ship, less so. Because the ribs and hull were in place we shifted all our efforts over to the smaller ship. I had to make more chemicals and special arrows. Rufus would be taking Iulius and Atrius back to Lutetia with a new cargo. He would now have the protection he never dreamed of. We had many more ships now to work with. On his return he would bring Helvius, Curtius, and Manlius. The smaller ship was very heavy now at just a skeleton but it had to be shifted so that when it got a lot heavier it could be slid into the river. We had no dry dock and had to work this way. Large ships used a slip in my day but there was untold man hours of knowledge in doing this and I had next to none of it. I still figured a half sized ship was easier to work with than one twice its length and breadth. This ship and the land around it were changed and this took almost two weeks to do. At the end of that time three ships came in and the first one had Julian near the bow. I welcomed him to my land and he gave me a perfunctory greeting while staring at the two ships. "What are these?" "Ships that will allow my people to learn how to sail. As time goes on we will build real ships." "They are monstrous." "It is all in what you compare it to. One day a ship will lower a net and pluck even the larger of these two from the ocean and put it on its deck and then the ship will put it back into the ocean after making its inspection." "I do not see any places for oarsmen." "The larger is strictly sail. When I get the steam engine built it will go into the smaller ship. This one is just a toy." "A toy! It is larger than my home." "It is a toy when viewed from a few decades from now." "They could be warships." "Possibly but they made just for cargo. A man can learn on a smaller ship like this and one day with a trained crew sail completely around the world in the larger one. The first time had taken a year or more but it could be done in half that time. It is also nice to stop and learn as you do this. That man would need years to complete the trip and regret getting home." Julian said, "That man could meet the Chinese and the Japanese you talked of." "He certainly could." Julian looked at me now and said in a different voice, "I heard you got in trouble." "I may have taken some of the laws in my own hands but nothing I think that anybody else could not wiggle away from." "They are accusing you of piracy." "Pirates accusing me of piracy! Let's find a comfortable place to talk and I will explain what happened." I told the story in detail four times but all the witnesses were back in Lutetia or on the sea. I had to go into the tax collector's boat and then my gift to one of the forts. I compared what I had done to what Julian had done with the Alemmani. "What were those arrows you made?" "They were originally designed for use when we went to Constantinople. Some cities were not going to welcome you and I was just going to open the doors." "They are a thing the empire needs." "The empire will get much better toys than that but the agreement has to be made with the Frisians and the empire made aware of the need to change. The arrows are only good against hard targets like a fort. They are next to useless in the forest unless you want to topple a tree. If you get them then your cousin will get even more worried." "That is true. You can make them for me when the time comes?" "I had planned on that all along." Julian stopped to think and said, "I think you have to have a rank in the Roman army to get out of this mess." "Is there a reward for capturing the pirates?" "I believe there is. Why?" "You could have been dismayed at the way Roman shipping was harassed by pirates and simply asked me to see what I could do. I cannot tie my name with the army and an employee of your cousin. A friendly foreign power bent on getting compensation for his stolen property is suitable." "I heard you did not ask for your property back." "My property was damaged with use. My customers demand quality. If I took them back they would have been at a reduced rate. You also might want to see who among the Romans in Dubris are taking graft. You might then find some of my ironwork, armour and swords." "That is not proof." "Perhaps not, they did receive stolen property and the city was full of pirates and the Romans did nothing about it. Some of Rufus men were made slaves and this too was illegal and not checked." "That area regretfully is not managed well." Julian tried to find some ways to show what I did in a good light. I hinted that the gods wanted me to do this. This particular excuse had been used for thousands of years and would continue to be used for thousands more. It should work well for me too. Julian was introduced to Lucius' family. Licinia was fidgeting because she was not dressed and flustered again because I called her 'Mom' in the English language. Oppia and Salvia were working and they came in and so did Hirtius and Livius. All were introduced as brothers and sisters. Tertius was busy at the mill but I put a call out for him. Julian thanked Licinia for the gifts she had made for him and she blushed. This was unusual. She showed the pump in the kitchen and then the drain. Julian used a lot of water and then some of his officers that followed did the same thing. I whispered, "This is already in your home." "It is? I did not order that." "We are friends but I am friends with your family too. I can give gifts to them but your son did most of the work when we put them into place. Men will respect him and his superiors will see that he is worthy of advancement." More of the large kitchen was toured and all the ultra modern conveniences were admired. The plates though were all glass and this really shocked the Romans. Glass was still very expensive and here we were using it for common dinnerware. Wine was poured out of a beautifully detailed decanter. The men were almost afraid to hold the small stems of the goblets that the wine was poured into. Articles around the room were shown that were made of glass. Julian saw a large coffee table in the next room, even before the Roman Empire learned of coffee or tea. It was made of beautifully carved wood with a glass insert of many pieces over a metre square. On it were a set of glass chessmen, made with a lot of detail. Julian had been introduced to chess by me when I gave him as set. He knew only the rudiments. He was a busy man and even more so with me. He marvelled at the work but in truth the chess pieces were simply cast and small portions ground by hand to make the base flat and to give some fire to the glass. I moved a chair over to one side to allow Julian room to sit on an easy chair. "I have the Romans and I will show that we are superior to your Persians." Julian quickly sat and moved a piece. I played conservatively. My bishops were cannon but the rooks were still forts. The knights were little different but the term had not been used yet. We played a few more games which Julian lost until I found that another of his men had learned to play while they crossed Germania Inferior. More wine was brought out but now Licinia used the leaded glass that was cut. The windows had small glass portions in them and she pulled back the drapes to let more light in. This brought more exclamations from the visitors. The cut glass spun off rainbows and the men believed them to be magical. Licinia had to explain about the glass and the bending of light. I was sure that she had done this many times after I left and enjoyed showing her knowledge. She smiled and delighted in the hard men acting like boys. There were some small spheres of cut glass displayed but eventually she took a rope from the wall and lowered what she was waiting for. A glass chandler descended so the oil could be lit but instead it came partially into the sunbeams and the glory of the rainbows shown on men's bodies, the walls, floors and ceilings. "Jón made this for me and even the clever way the ropes go around little wheels instead of across the room." Julian said, "I have never seen anything as beautiful as this." "My husband thinks the same way. The only thing he likes better is upstairs." "Another one of these?" Julian asked. Licinia blushed and looked down. "Just a room with a chamber pot." "A chamber pot in glass!" "It is nothing like that. It is beautifully shaped clay and the surface has a thin coating of coloured glass on it. Would you gentlemen like to see?" They certainly did. Licinia went into a bathroom that had been a room for a servant not long ago. It was completely redone. There were double sinks of cast iron covered with porcelain. Licinia put a plug into the sink then turned on a valve and water poured out. She rinsed her hands and pulled the plug that was on a cord. As the men watched the water automatically disappear. She then dried her hands on a towel the men stared at the solid glass rod that supported the cloth. "The floor is made of tile but it had to be strengthened a great deal." She moved around the men and gracefully put her fingers on a large hot tub. "This is filled with water and a place underneath is a fireplace. The fire warms the water and the smoke is taken outside to a chimney. We can relax here in the warm water. The cares of the day simply flow away. I simply don't know what we would now do without it." Julian pointed to the toilet and asked, "What is this thing for?" "You sit on that like a chamber pot. When you are done you use the moss like before. The magic of this is when you pull that small cord. Everything in the pot is flushed away with the water from above. There is no smell and the pot only has to be cleaned once in a while and it is never very dirty." She picked up the wood seat and said, "The men folk put their water in this way and when the seat is down we can all sit to do the rest. I am told that men for a long time will not put the seat back or put their water on it but our men do not do that." "May we see?" "Certainly. I like showing this." "You do what you need to do and you throw the moss in like this." She threw some moss in and then she said, "Pull the cord down until it stops and let go." Julian pulled the weighted cord and discovered the weight was made of cut glass. When it was finally pulled he had trouble taking his eyes away from the glass to see the moss disappearing around the trap in the bowl. "What happens to it?" "We have iron pipes in the house and they go to a large clay tank in the ground. The tank is like two tanks with a wall in between. The second tank takes the liquid and dispenses that into the flower beds and the garden so I do not have to water them as much." "How does the water get into the tank here?" "When it is needed, somebody, usually me, has to use another pump on the main floor. The water is pushed up into a much larger tank that is just under the roof. I stop when it is full. I have a small pipe that starts to drip water when the level is just right." Licinia continued, "The other hole in the top of the sink with a plug in it is for hot water when we get to it. I am afraid we will have to build a new house. There are so many new devices that they will not fit well into the way we already have this house built." ------- Chapter 16 The men marvelled at the toilet and Licinia said a bit smugly, "We can leave this room now and you can test it out. All our guests do. Jón said this will keep us healthy because the germs will be carried away." The men didn't understand but we left the room and I closed the door on Julian. It took a while but we heard the water flow into the toilet again. My toilet tank was high up like the way the English had it at one time. The distance the water fell caused it to go fast and clean the bowl better. I entertained the officers as Licinia filled the tank from the pump on the main floor. It would see a lot of use today. Tertius had hurried home. He was even larger now that he was exercising. He had a smile on his face because he always liked a chance to fly his kite. "Hello, Tertius." "Hello, Jón. Who is here today?" "Julian Constantius." "Oh, I get to use his kite finally." "Yes you do," I said with a grin. Tertius was introduced to Julian and the rest of the officers and Tertius shook hands just as I did. Julian thanked Tertius for his telescope and mentioned how he kept it with him all the time now. Tertius was very pleased at the compliment and I think proud that a Caesar had said such a thing to him. I talked of how hard Tertius worked to learn all he could. I then said to the young man, "Julian has a son by the name of Aulus. He is coming along quickly now and both of you will make fine engineers some day." Tertius brought out the large kite we had made. The silk had the symbol of the Constantius family on it. After checking the direction of the wind, Tertius raced his horse and I did the same just behind him. When enough speed was reached I released the kite and it went into the air. Only when it was above the trees did it start to climb faster and by that time Tertius had to come to a stop. We caught up to him and Julian used the telescope to see the kite though it moved quickly one way and another. When he got close, he was then handed the spool of silk cord and he now flew the kite for half an hour before giving control to one of his officers. "That was amazing. I read about it and you talked about it but I did not really believe that this was possible. You told me of the forces acting on the kite but now I begin to understand them more." "There are two little boys that have more to teach you. The trouble may be in getting them to stop talking." "What do they have?" "Models that show you more principles of flight. They want to fly soon and I heard that they wanted to be tied to a kite to get into the sky." "Could this happen?" "I mentioned this to you before. The kite has to be much larger and stronger. I need young men to test the devices and the men I have control of. If this is not done then there will be many needless deaths. Older men are better only because they will listen." "My soldiers could do this." "That is true but I first want to build a ship that the world has not seen before. It has to carry goods that the world has not seen before and then to go where no Roman has gone before. Then I have to build mighty engines that are more powerful than a legion of men. "There already is a man working on flight as I mentioned before. I send him plans and supplies and he tries what he can. He is the start of your air force but I like the German term Luftwaffe better." "I have met the man. He has corrupted many of his men to this new study. He does do his patrols and his duty but I think the Augustus would be angry at him for not staying strictly to his duties." "Many years from now the Augustus will be very pleased with this man. He enjoys learning and as I said what he finds will be used for war one day." Julian stayed with us to learn what he could. He had to see everything we had built from the apartment buildings to the mill and finally the forge and foundry. I timed the visit so he could see the pouring to be at night. I got Julian to make one particular mould with me. The mould had been used before to check but none of the cast articles were kept. Four hours later Julian had a fifty centimetre and a full metre disk with his family coat of arms embossed into them. The back of each said that Julian had personally cast these in the year 0002. "What am I going to do with these now?" "Clean them up and put them above your fireplace. They could go into the wall at the gates to your home. They rust though and will stain the stone. Another possibility is to make a wall of iron spears with bars running between. The tops are very sharp. Two of these will be your gate and they will still move like the ones you have that are made of wood. If you keep it painted then it and the disks will not rust." He didn't see this, I guess and used a piece of paper to draw a fancy wrought iron gate with impressive coats of arms on both halves. From his smile I knew that we would be making them for him one day. The machine shop fascinated him in the accuracy we were able to work too and the intricacy of the machines themselves. He got to see the glassworks and was invited to blow some glass freehand and another where the bottle he made was put into a mould. The steam hammers made him smile in delight. It may have been the power or the noise but they did hammer out steel very quickly. Julian asked me later, "You have not taken a companion while here?" This was a question and I said, "I explained to Patricia that the gods had remade me with strong hungers. She understands this. She knows that I am going to be away for long periods of time. She will just have to share. The fact that my body is only thirteen makes it difficult to control and this too makes any relationship difficult." "Why is it that you have not found a companion here?" "I can control myself with difficulty but much of the reason is that I am simply too busy." "Many men could not do this and young men would find it very difficult." "I will be forced to find a young lady soon. It would be nice if Patricia were here but that gives critics something to talk about." Seven days had passed since Julian's arrival and I wondered why he was waiting around. He was welcome to but he took up much of my time though I took him to the locations I had to work at. He talked of a yacht for himself but the best I could do was to train some of his people while working on this ship and provide plans later for them to work on the yacht. One afternoon a dozen ships pulled in full of soldiers pulling hard at the oars. I had some warning but Julian had me not get into my armour. We waited with his men at the house but he only wore his plain white tunic. This he usually got dirty and the one he wore as Caesar was kept in reserve. Two hundred and sixty three men marched toward the house pushing everybody they could find before them. They wanted control and were out for bear. From the colour of the robes of one man I knew that he was a Tribunus Laticlavius. He was probably of senatorial rank but still young. They came directly for me and I guess my blonde hair gave me away. Four burly legionnaires came for me with two of them with swords in hands. It was Julian that said, "Halt!" The tone of voice actually got the men to stop. "What are you doing here?" he said. They looked at his tunic and may have thought him a slave if it were not the quality of the material. One man said, "Stand aside. This man is a thief and a murderer." "By who's authority do you come?" The Tribunus Laticlavius came forward with seven of his officers. "You were warned to stand aside. You will get no other warning." Julian said, "You are an arrogant pup. Do you challenge me?" The man started to sputter as he reached for his sword. Julian stepped back and donned his toga with the wide purple bands signifying that he was the Caesar of this area. Julian's men had their own swords out to stop anybody from hurting Julian as he put on his official robes of office. Julian now moved forward with his own sword in hand. He said, "Treachery deserves death. Perhaps I will just kill a few before Jón of Germania calls down the power of the gods on your cohort." The Tribunus Laticlavius got on one knee immediately though he would not be called to do this. He was in hot water now and had to find a way to get out of this with his life. The officers with him did the same thing and so did the four men that wanted to arrest me. "I am sorry Caesar. I had no idea it was you here." "You came to arrest a man that has cleansed your nest of pirates. Did the pirates buy you? I cannot see how you let the pirates continue with their raids." "Caesar, I did not know there were pirates there. My information is that the pirates were barbarians." "Barbarians that looked like Romans? Few of them had red hair or even blonde. Are your spies colour blind or does the colour of gold give them problems in seeing correctly?" "Caesar, I have such a large area to police. I can only go by what I have been told. There are many kinds of pirates. We have not been able to trace any of them until now." "Jón of Germania was recovering his goods with some merchantmen. They found the pirates quickly enough. I do not know how long you were stationed here but you had ships and men to cover all of the surrounding coastline. You did not find them. That smacks of corruption or ineptness on your part." "Caesar, I try very hard to do my duty." "You think you do. I think you are too pampered to know what real hardship is. You are lucky that I was here. Jón could kill a simple cohort like yours in an hour if he chose to. He could have destroyed your ships with twelve of his mighty arrows and let the current clean up the mess." Julian was laying it on thick and I appreciated the help. I may get out of this without having to run. The Tribunus said, "I had heard that he was very powerful. That is why I brought this many men." "Thousands would not be enough. Did you not know that the gods protect him? He has the power of the gods running through his hands. He can heal or kill with a touch." "I had not heard that Caesar." I knew why Julian had stayed now and I said to him. "You may not be believed but I can prove some of your words while not killing anybody." "That is a good idea. Start with the Tribunus Laticlavius." The man said, "Please Caesar. I did not know." "Remain still. Jón said he will not kill you though I should." I moved forward and the men got out of my way. I put my hands onto the man's head and after two minutes reduced the control of his arms. The sword had long since fallen and the man was whimpering though I gave him no pain. When I backed up I said, "Stand!" The man did with difficulty and found that his arms would not obey him. He may have been brave but now he was faced with what had to be supernatural powers. People believed strongly in deities but nobody really had any experience. Either it was from a charlatan, a nut or hearsay. The man in front of me had it first hand and with witnesses. Julian said, "What did you do Jón?" "His arms are like dead things. He can feel them but not get them to do his bidding." "That is not death but it presents you with a problem." "What is that Caesar?" "You have removed some known pirates. There is a standing reward for them. You have only taken compensation for what they have done to you. There is the matter of the reward for their capture and for the names of the other pirates." "What figure do you think is just?" "With the names of the others then the figure has to be thirty thousand aurii." "Is that a fair figure?" "Yes when you consider that you captured most of them already." "That much gold would come in handy. There are always more schools to build." Julian looked at the Tribunus Laticlavius and said, "Is that a fair figure?" "I cannot move my arms Caesar. The senate will be angry at the way you have treated me." "I saved your life." Julian turned to me and said, "Could you kill him with a touch?" "It would take just seconds now. It was difficult to not kill him before and limit the effect." "Is the effect permanent?" "It is unless I work to put him back to normal. My healing could be used to get horns to grow from his skull. This takes time but in a year he would look like a bull if he didn't take his own life first." "A bull! Really!" "Yes." "I would like to see that but I will not be around here then." The Tribunus Laticlavius was crying now and Julian simply told him to act a man. Julian then asked me, "What do you think to do with him? Try to excuse the rest of the cohort. They are only following orders." "It has been known that the gods could turn somebody into a heifer. It would be a matter of moments until he forgot all his past as his body slowly changed. He could be placed among the bulls and like it, but again this will take a year or so." "Are you that angry at him?" "Not really. I do want more schools and some can be constructed in Britannica." The Tribunus Laticlavius said, "The reward is just. We can assist you with the schools." Julian said, "When would the reward be forwarded to Jón of Germania?" "I could have it here in a month." Julian looked at me and I said, "I can live with that but I think discipline in this cohort has been destroyed. The men need to feel the power of the gods to know that their leader is not acting irrationally." "Turn the entire cohort into heifers?" "No, just heal a few." The officers were very quick to run back among the men to bring out those that needed medical attention. I cured one man of stomach cancer but he only thought it was a cramp that never left. Hearing was usually a quick malady to repair and after the first few left the rest were eager to get treated. Bruises, cuts and blisters healed fairly quickly. I worked on the cohort alone while Julian had a talk to the Tribunus Laticlavius. Though it was far away I heard him explain the fact of life. Two men were partially blind and they got to their knees when their sight came back. One eye from each was damaged either in the retina or the optic nerve. More had cataracts but I had not found a way to work on them yet. I stayed on the first cataract patient for an hour until I saw how to do this. I knew that either the lense was removed and a prosthesis put in its place or the cataract was broken up by sound and then sucked out. I had none of the necessary equipment to do this surgically. I was able to do four more eyes now but I was too tired to continue. We ate with the cohort and shared their food. Julian did this often and it was good to see him getting along so well with the men. One senator got the use of his arms back and he got on two knees to give thanks to the gods for their forgiveness. The next day I gave the visiting cohort a tour of my lands and those of Lucius. I wanted them to have a fear of me but also see that I was a builder. This only meant that I would get cooperation when I needed it. The men of course would tell the rest of their legion and the word would spread into Britannia. If and when the ship was completed, western Gaul and Hispania could get tackled. The day after, the Caesar figured that the troops should return home. Those with money bought steel if they could but I already saw a steel sword at the hip of the senator. He may have bought it knowing it was stolen or not. I had been paid for it now so I did not really care. When they were ready to take to the ships I showed them how they could have been destroyed with my explosive arrows. I had cheated and placed much more explosive in a bank that I wanted removed. My own arrow just set it off. Only Julian knew this and he had suggested the ploy in the first place. I was safely behind a tree when the explosion occurred and the soldiers a hundred metres more away. Many were pelted with small rocks, dirt and mud. An hour later Julian used six arrows to take out trees but there was not much power in an explosive arrow when compared to a light antitank weapon. He too looked to be a true believer and as such took a special case with six carefully wrapped arrows and a sheet of paper with instructions on safety. If Julian failed I would have to start all over again with a new figure that may take the position of Augustus. This was not even mentioning the loss of a friend. Rufus returned with a good cargo and a smile. He had no problems with pirates and wanted an excuse to use the arrows he was given. The ships were unloaded and then more iron and steel products loaded. Many of the entrepreneurs had come back and bought products wholesale. They where the ones that had to deliver the products. The families of the men that helped me were going too and that eased my mind. Setting down new roots gave me trained personnel where I needed them. They were apt to stay as well. They were well paid but the amount of gold I was dealing with would tempt almost anyone. Rufus stayed this time and sent his next in command in overall charge of the little fleet. He wanted to work on the ship we were building and I knew for a fact that he wanted to be her first captain. He did not have to tell me in words. Just the way he looked at the framework was enough. With the ship progressing fine I went to the foundry with a lot more bronze because I wanted to start the steam engine. I knew next to nothing about them. I had seen the early steam engines used in trains but I only got a feel for them and the sizes of the major parts. The idea of a steam locomotive or engine for a ship was not new. I had this sort of idea in mind ever since I came back to this time. A cylinder was easy to make as was the piston and the double shafts, one going forwards and one back. It was the movement of the shafts that forced open and closed the valves that admitted the steam in one side and allowed the air to vent into the other direction. The valves were on the bottom so any condensate could be expelled. The boiler should have been easier but it wasn't. It was the installation of a rivet that allowed me to think that the tubes could be attached to a thick steel plate by mushrooming the edge into a hole with a hammer and a hard bar. We had to use thick steel too. I was not sure of its strength and steam was very powerful. There were a lot of dedicated people working on this project and like ants or bees seemed to take two steps forward then one back. Our first boiler was small and I had to make a smaller cylinder to match it. It was three months later that the little one finally worked. It had a massive flywheel. I had the cylinder crank a shaft for rotary power. The gold from Britannia came with a heavy escort but only a low ranking officer in charge. I thanked him for his effort and made out a receipt and a letter of thanks. They had lots of money of their own and bought all they could. I suggested that the officer set up an office so he or a partner could make some money. Romans are not stupid about warfare nor about business. Finding proper female accompaniment was difficult. I did not want somebody influenced by my religious affiliations but my description was now very well known. Licinia found girls for me but she was trying to get me married off. Lucius came twice to visit his family when he got a chance to come this far and tried the same thing. Even Tertius was used to get near me so other girls could be introduced. A portion of the girls I could sample but none of them were ones I wanted to keep around very long. They never went home unsatisfied though. The grape press was made with its long and heavy steel shaft. The sides were thick steel too and the idea was to reduce the weight on future models. We at least had a gearbox that could turn the massive press. The small steam engine was suitable for driving the gearbox but we had no grapes yet to try them on. Some of the men working as machinist built a small engine that could power a small locomotive at our foundry. I encouraged this and had them make soft iron wheels until they understood what had to be made. They didn't need too much direction after they got a look at a working model. I made other models too of equipment I had to make some day. Power shovels that used cables were very common before hydraulics took over in my day. Farm tractors as I remembered them from history books and all the other tools including the heavy rollers used to level asphalt were shown. A pump was also made for water and a much larger blower for the bellows. This one was done much quicker. Nobody liked the duty on the bellows. When we were done the blower put out more air than all six billows but I would not allow it to be used until a replacement unit was built. A cupola full of molten metal would have to be ripped apart and rebuilt if the metal froze. The grape harvest was very good and the press worked very well. This meant that even more juice from the first squeezing was available for fermenting. The watered skins and seeds used to make a sour wine was still there but less of the sugar was available now. Just after harvest I started on a trip back to Gaul with a small steam engine driven ship of only twenty metres. It was ketch rigged with two sails but I wanted the use of the approximately sixty five horsepower motor. I had hard coal in reserve, but dry wood was my present fuel because it was cheap and readily available. I travelled like a true dignitary. Rufus was the captain and four of his men were the crew. We had a deep keel because of the sails and just hoped that we did not run aground in low water. Behind us was a barge thirty metres long and twenty wide. As yet it was poorly covered but I did not want to wait much longer because bad weather would soon be coming. It had a great deal of cargo ready for it. The steam could also power a whistle that would deafen anybody close. I had this muffled with reeds and muffled in a box with the only open face being forward. It was still too loud. It also used so much steam that the boat slowed if we were using the engine. We stopped at garrisons down the river and sold from the contents of the barge. Every stop was long. They all had to see the ship, the motor and the largest barge on the river. Lucius was in his camp when we arrived and I took him and a few of the officers down the river with some of their horses on the barge. There was not much room available but I wanted to show them the capabilities. In a half hour we turned around and came back. We were only making about five miles an hour against the current but it was very fast in some respects. "I will sell ships like the one we are on with no keel and no masts. You would have to rely on the engine alone for power. The soldiers could then watch the shore instead of rowing." Lucius said, "How much?" "Fifteen thousand aurii for a complete unit. If I get some Roman soldiers rotated through my yards I can train them. They can then make the complete hull and I will sell the engine, shaft and propeller for thirteen thousand aurii. If the governor will order fifty engines they will cost ten thousand each." "We have men to row and they are much cheaper." "They cannot pull the barges. The barges can carry the calvary. With walls around the sides of the barges then you will be protected from spears and arrows from shore. With a wide gangplank two horses at once can leave the barge. With two or more ships pulling, you can get to many trouble spots much quicker. Now you have a way of reinforcing another legion if it is in trouble." Lucius said, "That is a great idea. How fast can we go upstream and down with three ships?" Upstream about two hundred and forty miles a day. I will supply a method of casting illumination so the ships can go safely at night." "Two hundred and forty miles in a day!" "Ten miles an hour and twenty four hours in a day." "That means that we can travel most of the Rhine in just four days." "Yes it does. Downstream you should go three hundred and sixty miles. Now if I can get some officers to think about money for a moment, they can build much larger boats with two or more motors. They can carry freight up and down the river. They are going to compete against me but there is a lot of traffic and we can both make money." Lucius was the only one with lots of gold. He was the one that helped me and he got a fraction of the wealth I made from his people and property. He also sold for me. He had his own sales staff and bought many of the articles I brought to him. The vast majority of what I had dropped off was to go to his warehouses. Lucius said, "I can do this but I am not a sailor." "Hire sailors to help you build. You pay me and I will teach them and pay them too. They need silver to survive. You get a large barge built and put three or four engines on it. Put rooms on it and people can go in comfort. You sell the travellers food that the crew prepares. You carry cargo below decks." "How much for me?" "We will have to talk. The barge will be six times larger..." "Six? It is large now." "Size counts. I can have one large boiler then that is cheaper than many smaller units. We have three large motors and two tillers. They will be like mine with the captain sitting inside a room out of the sun and rain while still steering the ship." "Six times will carry more than that massive ship you are building now." "Not by much more but yes you are right. You cannot go onto the ocean or not far. You need to stay safely in the lea and worry about being flung on the rocks. The river is much safer but you can be hit by an arrow or a spear from the shore." "What possible cargo could I carry that would justify a ship that large?" I said, "There are many cities on the Rhine. I talked once about finding goods that are cheap in one city and selling in another. This is like my iron and steel. It is always far more expensive far from the foundry. If you bring rare merchandise then you can have a business selling them to those that wish to have something unique. We make glass and this alone requires transportation. I will be making fertiliser in a few years and this will be a valuable cargo to carry." "That sounds like it will work." I suggested, "Find men in every fort and city on the Rhine. You teach them to sell for you. You have a listing of what our products cost and you can pick them up from the forge. You just deliver them. When you get tired of this then you can hire a good captain but I already have the best." Rufus was too far away to hear but Lucius chuckled. We left later and a day after that, we reached the English Channel. We would have been faster but we had a lot of people that had to have their curiosity satisfied. We stayed close to the shore and here we had to rely on Rufus' knowledge of shallow water and the tides. The Seine was much the same as the Rhine but I wanted everybody to see us. We could not get farther than Lutetia Parisiorum because of low bridges. We had to unstep our masts though to get through but I wanted to give the ketch a chance to fly. Being a tug was not what I wanted. The river into my property was surveyed but it was the keel that could not get us far. I got the ship turned around and with the help of some men and took the barge out to the Seine once more. I now pushed the barge close to the same area and had the men pull it the last few miles to our showroom. I would like to see if I could dredge the river or find a way to float the ship on the shallow draughted barge itself. Runners had been sent for Julian's family and especially Patricia. The owner's cabin had a large comfortable bed that just needed to be broken in. Rufus anchored and I went ashore while still thinking of how to get the little ship home. I had a barge already but now I needed a way of removing the sediment from the bottom of the river. This should be a special purpose barge though and could spend all its time working on the Seine and its tributaries. I was welcomed home like the prodigal son. I went around saying hi to friends and of course my family. This could take a long time but it was very enjoyable. Three hours after arriving Julian's family arrived. They were treated like family too and even the guards had their hands shook. "I have something to show you all." We all rode to the river and they saw the large barge and a great many men and my crane being used to unload the cargo. Aulus simply said, "Wow. That is big. How did you get that here. I don't see a place for oars?" Postuma added, "It really is big." I said, "It is the biggest that will fit in this river until I widen and deepen it. Now let's go see what pulled it here." It was not long before we found the ketch. The stern was to us and the name was easily seen. Patricia said, "Why is my name on it?" "Ships need names. I happen to think that your name is very nice. The ship is very pleasurable too." Patricia blushed and her family smiled. There was a long gangplank with one railing made of rope. I said, "I need some additional crew. There is enough room for everybody but there is nobody to tend the horses." I talked to the man that was the head of the detail and said, "Would you detail some of your men to take the horses to the dock and we will sail there?" He looked at Claudia and she smiled and nodded her head. We got off the horses and four men accompanied the family onto the Patricia. Rufus nodded at his guests and called for the anchor to be hauled in. He then blew in a long tube that lead to the engine room. "Slow astern." In seconds the Patricia started to move backward in the water and I had many people looking at the shore moving past them as if by magic. The smoke from the stack was not even noticed. Rufus controlled the wheel and stayed in the middle of the channel until we got to the Seine. We went further up river instead of down because we had time to kill before we met those at the docks. Aulus and Postuma were in the wheelhouse asking questions and Rufus was answering them with a smug look on his face. Claudia said, "How can this be? It has to be magic." Patricia was holding me very tightly. She was worried too. "Nothing but my healing is magic. I would not put you in danger. In a few minutes we are going to turn around and go to the docks." Patricia said, "What makes this move?" "You mean, 'what makes the Patricia move?'" she understood and I said, "Wood is used to heat water. The water expands into steam. The steam is strong and pushes a piece of metal. The metal makes something like the propeller I showed you before. This turns around in the water and pushes the boat." I got closer to Claudia and she held me but not as tightly as her daughter had. I said, "It is safe. We are on the first steam powered ship in the world. It pulled the barge you saw down the Rhine, through the ocean and up the Seine. We can go even when the wind is in the wrong direction." Everybody along the bank was pointing at us and I waved to them. A pennant flew with the Möbius strip and people knew who I was. We came to the dock and Rufus turned around and backed into the place he chose. I had no trouble with excise men now but I did have trouble with the crowds. When we were tied up I whispered to Claudia, "Let the children stay on board and we will pick them up." "Are they really safe?" "Yes they are but Rufus may not be. I want them to go upstream for a few hours then back. This is a learning experience for them." She replied, "They can stay if it is safe." I turned to Rufus and said, "Captain, head upstream for a few hours and try to compare the map to the what you see. You have two new crew members." "I understand, Sir." The children did not so I said, "You two better help Rufus. We will have the horses here when you return." I got two smiles and then they looked at their mother. She nodded her head. I added, "The three men that rode here should go with them for security." I got more smiles. I took out a denarius and then said, "Somebody has to stay here with the horses. The coin was not well seen but the men knew it was there. One man volunteered and the coin left my hand as we shook. We didn't have as much protection now but Lutetia was much safer for me these days. I still wore the partial armour and the two swords. As we travelled through the streets I waved to the people and they enthusiastically waved back. On the way to Claudia's home I told them more about the engine and how it worked. The guards were also told because I wanted them to be family too in a way. Twenty metres of ship was a lot to these people and I talked about the other ship being built on the Rhine. I had to get them to stop and I rode ahead so they could appreciate the full hundred and seventy Roman feet of its length excluding the bowsprit. When we got home, Claudia started a meal. She loved her kitchen and usually the slaves had to fight to get their time. There was only the three of us eating and Claudia said after she sat down. "I got word that you invaded Britannia. You were called a pirate by some." "Everybody has their opinion. I took some of the pirate captains, some of their ships they used for piracy and most of their slaves. This should stop the piracy for a while and it gave me a form of compensation for the deaths and my lost goods." "Julian says you offered gold or a home to the families of the dead sailors." "It was just the right thing to do." "You also freed all the slaves." "I am tight with an ass. The cost to me is now borne by them. They get a fair pay so I can be compensated. After that they get full pay and can go anyplace they want." "Tell me Jón, how many have actually fled?" "Seven at last count." "You are not worried about the loss of that wealth?" "It is a small portion of my gold. They must have had a very good reason to leave or they were just foolish. If they were foolish then I do not want them anyway." We discussed events that had happened in Lutetia and on the farm. The harvest was much better than usual and brought in faster than ever before because of the shears and the wheeled carts that fit between the rows of grapes. An hour later Claudia said, "The servants will clean up here. You two can get reacquainted. I will see you in the morning." Patricia and I smiled and so did Claudia. It was only mid afternoon and it took a long time to do as Claudia said. Patricia and I did not emerge until noon the next day and she acted much like a new bride and I felt like the groom. I liked Patricia very much but I was still not going to get married until I was older and both the Frisians and the Roman empire safe. Claudia came into the house just a bit past noon and said, "Only a little less than one day to freshen your relationship?" Patricia said, "Mother!" I had to smile and said, "We were running out of fuel and getting tired." "So you are going to eat and continue?" Again Patricia said, "Mother! That is our business." I said, "You're right but I want the river dredged to get the Patricia closer to my home. Your daughter has been wondering if the ship will rock." Claudia smiled and Patricia looked indignant. Patricia stayed with me and we looked after business. It was later that I made drawings of a drag line and got the smiths busy making the parts. It was basically a large steel bucket that was dragged across the river and it scooped the sediment from the bottom. It was pulled onto the shore by a large team of horses and dumped. A smaller team pulled the empty bucket back into position for a second stroke. I had no steel cable and the organic material was weak. It also got weaker when it was wet. I had some chain and ordered more made. With no large scale building going on and the harvest in I had the labour to get the river deepened. The Patricia was tied up near us to keep an eye on her when Rufus was getting his rest. The remainder of the time he was taking those sympathetic to my cause on excursions. He also had to put up with my employees getting a ride. After a few weeks of this he simply used the barge and towed portions of the population of Lutetia up and down the river. The governor of Gaul came by and he too had to get a ride. He wanted a ship like mine but he winced at the price. Even the stripped down model was too rich for his blood. I made sure the governor was familiar with my feelings on graft and corruption before paying him the taxes. This was a lot of gold but I was getting a lot more by doing business in this Roman province. He saw the work we were doing on the river and the docks. The latter was made to handle more ships like the Patricia and even a place for three barges. He had been at the show room many times before as a customer but now saw some of the new articles I had for sale. The toilets were very expensive because I included installation of the unit as well as the construction of a septic tank and tile bed. This kept my people employed and me financially afloat because Lutetia was costing a lot of money even if I was making a lot more. The glass we made here was bottles or windows made of smaller portions of glass. I took out a large piece of paper with a drawing in colour on it. We had coloured glass now but the varieties were not very wide. I now knew that iron was what made my glass green. I had been doing my healing in the open air since coming to this city and felt it was about time I started construction of a building large enough for any religious services. The large churches had taken a hundred years to build because of the stone work but wood was good enough if there was a way of keeping it dry. I put more money back into the economy by ordering logs from farmers and estate owners. They were floated downriver and pulled into our river and onto dry land. I needed a sawmill but a steam engine seemed to be the best option. The engines, gears, flywheels, shafts and blades were on the Rhine. There were many more projects to start but I didn't have enough skilled or even partially skilled people to do what was needed. Iulius was doing a great job. He had remarried and I worked on him to repay him for what he had done for me. It worked well. The man of fifty five was now expecting a new addition to his family. I checked Claudia too and found what I thought was a baby boy. Everything looked fine. The family was all around me for the announcement and I knew that the next letter to Julian would contain this exciting piece of news. Patricia looked at her mother's abdomen and I could only say it was done wistfully. Winter storms were bad but I wanted to risk them to get back to the Rhine. I made preparations to leave and Patricia said, "I want to go with you." It was fairly safe but I had reservations about taking Julian's daughter with me. I needed her on the Rhine for many duties unrelated to my affection for her. We had a good relationship with what I needed but I was afraid of Julian forcing me to marry his daughter. This would strain our friendship. He already knew this because he was forced into a marriage when he became Caesar. "Patricia, when you father returns we will talk. I like your beautiful body near me but I love your beautiful mind too. You brighten my life but I see complications ahead if you go now. We just have to wait." "Mother does not mind if I go. She trusts you." "Your father is the head of the family." Patricia hung her head because she knew that this was true. The men were very dominant and the females subservient. This was their culture and not much different from the way the rest of this world worked. People were divided into fucker and fuckee. Dominance was what the Roman empire hinged on but if I destroyed this then the empire may collapse from this cause instead of invasions and apathy. The top of the barge had been covered over so that rain or waves would wash off. It was also strengthened. Large waves meant many tonnes of water crashing down. On the humped centre I had a building constructed that would keep out even more water and provide shelter for man or beast. This was my little moving motel. Our cargo was light though. It was mostly the remainder of the hemp harvest. The seed stayed for planting but in a few years I could use this for its oil content. I bought a lot of cheap wine for the alcohol content and only a few of the trusted people worked on this. Most of this product would stay in Gaul but some was going back to the Rhine so it could be exported for a good profit. I was not unduly concerned about selling hard liquor. Prohibition had shown that people were going to get drunk no matter what. Rufus was anxious to go because he had been nothing more than a bus driver for months. Patricia and I got to try out the bed again before leaving and she claimed to love the idea of living on the water. I had heard stories like this in my time and knew that it was either not true or it was just the way she felt now. Brides usually wanted a boat sold after the wedding. We had advertised about this trip and people booked passage down the Seine. They liked the house on the barge especially when it had good hot food and some fortified wine that the people here had grown to love. When the last of our passengers were let off we entered the English Channel. Here it was much more windy and the superstructure on the barge pushed the barge to one side. The drift to one side made us head deeper into the channel because we didn't want to be driven into shallow water. We were not making any headway because the wind and current kept us nearly stationary. It was only when the waves and wind got much stronger that we gave up and tried to head back to shelter in the Seine delta. The wind was gaining strength and we were not able to stay ahead of the barge. We were in its lea but the wind was too strong to step the mast and hoist a sail. This was my fault because I wanted to make the trip only under steam. An hour later we had to separate. We could make headway now but we stayed with the barge until it ran aground. We could not get close enough to land to tie it off and had to weather the storm for a further day and a half. When it was safe to land, I knew that we could not get the barge loose by ourselves even if it was empty. We offloaded what we could but had to leave all of the hemp. Two men were left because the cabin on the barge was still in good shape. The mast was belatedly stepped and the sails helped us make much better speed. Rufus was not used to the ship tilting so much but he knew that the keel was very heavy. In three days we were home. The cargo on the ship was quickly removed and men found. Provisions and tools filled the hold and we were off once more. This time I had Tertius. This was more so he could learn but he was a hard worker too. We could tack against the wind. Rufus knew of this but had never tried because it was almost impossible with the Roman ships. It took much longer to get to the barge but we did get there. Some trees were already cut and trimmed when we arrived. We dug channels under the barge and forced the logs in to the excavations. This was hard to do because much of the time we were underwater and the water was cold. The free end of the logs were elevated but the barge did not slide down the incline and out into the channel. We were able to get some other logs to go further back though. When these were elevated the other set could go further back. It was six days before we pushed and pulled the barge free. Some of the help had to be the wind that was now pushing it offshore. We lashed the logs together and attached them to the barge and headed off for the Rhine at our best speed. We looked quite a sight coming up the Rhine but soldiers and everybody waved at us and we waved back. Rufus had to use the whistle and I was going to rip it out and put a much smaller one in. The barge was unloaded and checked for more damage. It looked fine even when we looked very close. Rufus towed the logs out of the common river between Lucius' property and mine and went up what had been the winding and treacherous river that was on my land. It was now beautifully landscaped and the mill scooped up the logs. Letters came all the time but one from Clovis got me excited. His letter was odd for a lot of reasons and I had to attribute it to the previous letters not making it to me. It was not like the postal service because men had to be found to deliver a letter or hand it to somebody they trusted that would take it further along. I gathered a lot of information from between the lines but figured I had to get more and the best way was to meet him. There were a lot of articles the Frisians could use and I also wanted to set up trade. A barge load would do fine for a start. Instead of going west I could go east to the Weser River to deliver my goods. The steam driven sawmill went on as well as a lot of swords and armour. The old lathes and milling machines were loaded along with our new varieties. Paper in the form of my books and blank paper was loaded. Raw hemp and a lot of seeds came with me because I needed as secure base to work from. Basically I brought samples of everything I made that was improved over what I had done with the Frisians. When spring rolled around we could start the planting. The toilets and sinks would not come as they were more suited to a more civilised environment. The castle needed a lot of work and I would be there months getting the septic system in and the toilets installed. Cannon had not yet been manufactured from cast steel or cast iron and I planned this very carefully. Cannon blew up a lot in my time because of poor material and flaws in manufacturing. I was going to avoid some of this by only using steel. We made the ten centimetre variety as well as the twenty and a long version of the five. They were machined quickly and loaded into the barge. The only other weapons were the cast steel rockets with an explosive warheads. These were just metal now and I would make the high explosives myself because I did not want this information to get out. The cadets knew some of this but I had hid parts that only I knew of. More trade goods were loaded on top along with passengers. I stopped in fewer places and these were stops that I had contracted to make. Horatius was one of the necessary stops and he showed me what he had made. He now was making planes with a four metre wingspan and used a bent piece of wood to fling them into the air. I dropped off some silk that he bought and some of my own as a gift. We both seemed to have corrupted many of his men and not all of them were officers. Lucius was not available which made me happy because I didn't want to lie or not tell him important information. His warehouse got the shipment and I got a receipt. The last of the passengers were dropped off and we headed out into the English Channel or what was called the German Ocean. It was when we were out of sight of shore that we headed north east. The day was brisk but not bad for travelling. We were heavily laden and the barge was not made for the open ocean so we headed gradually towards the shore. Rufus kept the wheel and I took all but his fireman to the barge. We threw out the net we had made while all the men got in a skiff to take the end of the net out while Rufus steered a course to intercept them. I was given the other end of the net and tied it off. We did a lot of work pulling in the net but got little. We were not fishermen and a net the size of ours had not existed before. We had more practice with the nets until we came to the Weser. The last haul got us the best catch yet and I had to assume it was the mouth of the river that attracted them. There were a great many islands in this area and some were very large. These were the ones I assumed that Clovis had suggested that I use the powder on for testing the cannon. In a way I felt that I was almost home. We pulled in the nets and strung them on poles around the barge to dry. The Weser though was no Rhine. It was wide but not what I had been currently used to. Rufus and even I used the steam whistle every ten minutes. It was smaller but just as irksome. Our masts were still up though our sails had been taken in. Our speed was slow enough that we could be seen from the banks. We flew a pennant with the Möbius and the one below it but larger of the stylised German eagle I had used with the academy. We took turns cleaning fish. I was not going to throw the offal overboard. Rufus usually helped if he was not at the wheel. He was a bit dejected because I had told him of the types of catches he could get sometimes. It was good that we had not got a large haul because we had no way of getting it onto the deck of the barge. We went slow and threw out the lead line to chart the depth in the centre of the channel and we recorded the data on our charts. Roman maps were not good for this area and we had to add as much detail as we could. There were a lot of faces we saw after the first few hours and we took turns waving to them. None of them waved back and most even fled. It was relaxing when the fish were done and we could watch the shore go by. It felt more untamed here. There was no Roman law. The area was hilly where the river cut a path between them. I knew that later on we would cut between two mountain chains. Many tributaries branched off the river. I had to go by the maps and what I could remember when I was with the Frisians to take the correct path. The first night we stopped and anchored. I could still pilot the ship during the night but we were in no particular hurry and I wanted to chart the river better. The second day I saw a mounted patrol but not very well because there was a lot of trees in the way. Our telescope was not of that much use. It was now Rufus' turn to get nervous and he put on his cuirass and carried a bow. The steam whistle continued intermittently so there was no excuse for anybody to attack because we were sneaking in. We had gone over three hundred kilometres when a roar I had heard many times before came to our ears. No ball or shot came our way and the engine was throttled back so we were just making headway in the river. Rufus pulled the cord two times in succession to show that we had heard. ------- Chapter 17 A boat surged from the shore as if it were a predator. I saw that there where two cannons aimed our way from the trees. The seven men in the boat didn't know where to go because we mostly stayed on the large barge but the sides were difficult to climb. This had been done intentionally. Rufus used his hands and some German to call the boat to him on the ship. He caught the line thrown to him and he tied it to the side. The men has swords in their hands and Rufus was heard to say, "Put your swords away. I was helping you to board. If I was an enemy you would be dead now." Someone in a Frisian dialect said, "That may not be as easy as it sounds Roman." I walked to the plank supported wholly by the barge and crossed to the Patricia. I jumped a metre to the deck and went over to the Frisians and assisted them onto the ship. As I was doing so I looked for familiar faces but I had not seen any of these men before. The biggest here had red hair and a new steel helmet but not one that enclosed the face. It would mean shaving his beard and I knew that many would not do this. He stood proud on the deck with his hand on the pommel of his sheathed sword. "Who are you people?" he almost bellowed at us. I was the one to talk and said, "My name is Jón of Germania and I am the son of Clovis." The man was stunned then said, "You lie. I should kill you for saying that." "My hair is different because the gods chose to change it. I am older too and my body is stronger and larger. Did you not see the pennants? Who else would fly the eagle?" "Prove your words." "I have cadets though I lost three to the Gauls. The eagle is our standard and that of Germany as a whole. Fálki is not as large as you. I took him with me the first time to make the powder for the cannons. He left to fight for our king with a few cannon. He came back and took more powder from our stores but I never had a chance to find out how the war was going. "Clovis sent me some letters but only one made it to me. I have this one in my room. I still have my armour and my swords and I am sure you have heard tales of them." The man was not sure and said, "You could have taken the armour and the letter." "That is true but I have been making tools that no man has seen before. Is that true?" "I have heard that." "You stand on the largest ship you have ever seen. It is propelled through the water without oars or sail. A whistle was used to attract you to me. Would anybody but me be able to do this?" "You still do not look like the son of Clovis." "You are again right. The way to find out the truth is for me to meet somebody I am familiar with. If I know them well enough I can tell them information that only they would know." The man considered this and finally said, "Minden is a short distance upriver. We can go there." I smiled, "Father took it back?" "Yes he did. They did not fight at all this time but Clovis did not throw the Gauls from the city for some reason." "He did not throw them out because we need all the people we can get. The Picts are not as strong as the Frisians or usually like to fight as much but they are just as smart. The trick is tap them hard enough on their thick skulls to make them listen without killing them." The man said, "That we all know." "Clovis had to do the same thing to the Frisians because their heads are even thicker." The man was angry at this but he did not draw his sword. In a moment he said, "Move the ship forward to Minden." The man gave me another glare and called to the shore, "We are going to Minden. Follow us." We continued now as before and charted the river. The Frisians stayed with their hands on their weapons and did not look below but I would do the same thing in their place. Dividing their forces was not a good idea. We kept the whistle going and even got the Frisian commander to do this for us. He face almost broke into a smile but he had to keep it straight. Soon we came around a bend and saw Minden in the distance. The walls were all that I really saw of the place though I looked through the telescope. The Frisians were encouraged to look and a few did. They thought it was magic and there was no use telling them the physics of the device now. The people on the bank were much easier to see and they were much closer. In most areas there were no trees so we could see across the fields and the people could see us. I waved on occasion and only the young uncertainly waved back. At the city, there were no docks to speak of and nothing that could accommodate us. Rufus said to the Frisian in command, "We need to use your boat to check the depth." "Just go close and see." "I am the captain of this ship and you are not. We have a keel that goes deep into the water. We have to find the depth so we can get our cargo close to the shore." "What is a keel?" "A keel is a heavy blade that runs along the bottom of this ship to keep us from tipping over." The man did not like it but he loaned us his boat and Rufus went up and down the shore and called out depths as he went. I recorded them as the ship matched the speed of the slow river. Some places Rufus stayed at for a while and called out problems or ones that could be. Rufus came back and took a heavy cast iron barrel forty centimetres long and thirty in diameter. He asked, "Is this going to work. It looks to be five metres long and six wide. It is only a metre down." "Use this one to check. If it is soil it will go and if it is rock we can move it." "We better get everybody away from the shore." "We better move ourselves too." I turned to our escort and said, "There is an obstruction in the river that we have to move. We are going to lose headway gradually so we go back downriver." "Just hurry. I have lots of duties to do." The way he said it sounded false and he looked interested. Rufus drove a pole into the obstruction. This was not easy from the boat but he got it firmly attached. He turned to the shore which was only five metres away and said, "The power of the gods is with us. Get away from the river. Thor's hammer is about to descend." Only a few moved and he waited just long enough then yelled, "Get your god forsaken bodies away from here or you will die. If I have to come ashore I will carve every one of you up into small pieces." Most moved but not far. I went below and took out my bow and brought it on deck. I had no arrows so the Frisians were not worried. The commander of the troop even held the bow as I went below again and brought out one of my special projectiles. Apparently one arrow was not seen as very dangerous. I pulled a small pin that kept the rod from moving and put the arrow to the bow. The shore extended into the river fifty metres ahead. It too should go. Nobody was around it and I called out to Rufus, "The small point." He nodded his head and he and his men moved closer to us. Some of the population started to come back and I drew the bow the full amount and the arrow shot forward. It hit just above the water. A roar much different from the cannon or the black powder charges rented the air. Dirt flew into the air and some came as far as we were. Mud, stone and water were scattered everywhere and a few of the Gauls and Frisians on the shore were pelted with small portions of debris. They had stopped immediately and in seconds they were scampering away very quickly. Rufus yelled after them, "I told you." From beside me I heard with awe in his voice, "What was that?" "The same things I used before but these are more powerful. They are good in open country or against ships. They will open the gates to a town or a make a hole through their walls." "You must be Jón." I let us drift much further back now. Rufus surged forward to his old position and made a loop with a short length of rope and attached that to the barrel and the wooden pole in the river. I closed the shutters that protected the fragile glass. Nobody but me knew of the power Rufus was controlling. Rufus turned the timer then struck the plunger. The barrel was immediately thrown overboard and the boat backed away very quickly. "What did he do?" "There is a rock or maybe just soil in the river. We have to get rid of it." "How?" "Watch." The metal barrel was too heavy to float and water did not effect it. I did not want a depth charge but I wanted something that would not be effected by water. A few metres of water should not effect this. Rufus was back beside us when fifteen of my large grams of high explosive detonated. A giant hole formed in the river showing the bottom for metres around. Mud was flung far and wide but more importantly a giant wave spread out form the centre. It raced toward us. The Patricia rocked violently and poor Rufus and his men rode a giant wave when their boat rose and fell in the water. When the crap finished coming down, I saw that Rufus was stunned. He had no idea just what would happen. He was coated with mud and some of it was washed off with the water that had washed into his boat. It took a few moments for Rufus to get underway again and he went back to checking the depth. He called out to me, "We moved it." He did a bit more checking and then got out of the boat and onto the muddy shore. The boat went upriver now and Rufus guided me forward. He caught the lines and pulled heavier lines to him and put them on trees that now looked to be both dirty and partly denuded of leaves. More of the crew came ashore and drove iron bars into the ground with sledge hammers and more lines were attached to the bars. The lines were cast off and the Patricia was now free. I manoeuvred her into the river and tied up on the other side of the barge. The fireman was informed that we didn't need steam but to be on the safe side and keep the boilers warm for a few hours. The Frisians and I climbed on the barge and then down the gangway to the wet shore. I was busy now thinking of how to improve this dock for later. With people still frightened we had lots of room to work. Soon we had soldiers from the city charging toward us. Our own escort was not worried so neither was I. When they got close I looked at each trying to find a familiar face. They all had the new saddles and lances. The steel looked good but not the same design I had made. One older man with a cleanly shaved face was vaguely familiar but last I had seen him he had a full beard. This man yelled out, "What is going on here?" "Hello Naddoddr. Last I saw you in my father's library we were listening to Fleinn argue with me about my camouflage clothing." Naddoddr looked close then said after some consideration, "Is that you Jón?" "It sure is. I thought the noise of my arrival would get you to think of something like that." "It did for a second. You have changed." "The enemy captured me and I almost died. The gods chose to save me. I grew larger and my hair colour changed. I think this was to show that I was going into a new phase in my life. I hardly do anything exciting anymore." "I do not believe that. Tell me what you have been doing." "Well get off that horse and I will show you." Whispers went around now and people took me for Clovis' son. I introduced Rufus and each of his crew by name and made sure all here heard that they were my friends. I was introduced to some of the officers. Hands were shaken easier now and this too was a confirmation of who I was. We went aboard the barge and I showed them the stove. It was still warm and it took little time to start a meal. The men marvelled at the frypans and the surface of the stove. Naddoddr asked, "How did you make this?" "I have to make iron so hot that it is like water. We pour this into a hollow shape made out of sand. When it cools we break away the sand and have the things we want. We made machines that turn around and hard pieces of metal cut away small amounts of metal from where we do not want. We get a smooth surface or a hole if that is what we want." "This is amazing." "This is only some. Have you sent word to my father?" "Not yet." "Will you do so. Tell him that I could come faster than it was to get the letter delivered. Also tell him that I have some heavy gifts that he will really like." "What are they." I smiled and used my hands and said, "Cannon this big." Naddoddr's eyes bugged out a bit and he too smiled. He turned to one of his officers and sent them off with the message for Clovis. The hold was dark and I left it alone even if Naddoddr wanted to see the large guns. They all did see the sleeping arrangements for the passengers. They were just as good as what the king enjoyed. I added, "I charge a lot of silver for a chance to ride in comfort this way and people pay it. Think how fast I can transport men and horses. I may not be as fast as when they gallop but I can stay at the same speed hour after hour and day after day." "We could strike deep into Roman territory." Rufus heard this, I was sure, so I said, "That is true but why? They are not attacking us now. They will not come if you have cannon. They have lots of men and you will not attack unless forced and they will not want to face us. We are not a minor military power now but we are not a mature country either. We had to train our people to fight and only do so when the need arises. We should not go looking for a fight that could drag in all of our people into a war." "We need to fight to prove ourselves." "You can do this without war. If you got into a machine that would propel you and it down a road very quickly and then into the air, would this make you a man." "Would this be dangerous?" "At first the answer is yes, very dangerous. Here experience and fast reflexes may be the only thing that keeps you alive. Sadly many times even if you are the best you are doomed to die or be crippled." "I have heard of your talk about this. Do you have such a machine?" "I am working on it. Would you like to see my ship that can pull this barge day after day and require no oars or sails?" "That I would like to see." We crossed over to the ship and I had the head of the patrol that found us show the telescope first. They scanned far and wide and then moved the scope toward the city. Naddoddr said incredulously, "I can see the men on the walls." I said, "One day you will need a similar device to look straight down so you can count an enemy. I need brave men that think first before doing something. This is what my father has been trying to do for years." Rufus was called forward and I said, "This man has helped build this ship and helped again to build the engine. He is a Roman and an honourable man. Let him tell you about how this machine works." Rufus was unsure but after he got talking he was in his field and confident. "Steam has power." He went on to talk about it and his own opinions. He talked for ten minutes and saw the stunned look and said, "I will show you the power of steam." I only said, "Make it deep." He handed the shovel to an officer and said, "We made a bomb and you are familiar with explosions. Dig a hole," he used his hands, "this wide and this deep. Put the soil around the hole. I am going to build a fire in it." The man looked at Naddoddr and he nodded his head and said, "Put it where it will not hurt anybody." Rufus went to our stock of wrought iron pipe. They had been made for this. The walls were thick and we had screw fittings for the end. The men were very interested in the pipe and the fittings. They spent a lot of time just putting on and taking off the heavy cap. The hole was dug with our shovels but this was nothing really new though few had a chance to use them. Dry wood from our bunker was used and the fire was fairly hot. Rufus used two one metre pipe wrenches to tighten the fitting on the pipe that was just a half filled with water. He poked the burning wood to where he wanted it and threw the pipe into the fire. The poker now was used to get it into position with a few coals on top of it. We all walked away and where the soldiers wanted to stop, Rufus continued. "I was told that water expands over eight hundred times when it is heated to a gas. The gas too expands proportionally to the amount of heat applied to it." Naddoddr said, "How is water or steam going to explode? Water puts fires out and I was told that explosions are just something burning very fast." "You are right but in this case the steam grows and grows as it gets hotter. It pushes harder on the sides of the pipe and cannot get out. At some time the push of the steam will match the strength of the pipe. You saw how thick our pipe was. The amount of push had to be very great to make it burst. Just some of that push is used in our engine." Rufus used only a little mathematics that dealt with Bernoulli's Theorem which was now called the third formula of thermodynamics. As I ran into applications I would make more formulae. In the middle of one sentence the day was shattered with an explosion. Embers, dirt and burning wood were scattered from the hole as if it were the mouth of a cannon. Debris came down for a long time and people huddled under their helmets as dirt rained on us from this distance. Rufus had a big smile. "Do any of you still believe that steam is not powerful?" Nobody answered so he said, "Good." We ate on the barge and Naddoddr called for his wife to come and so did some of the other officers. There was lots of room and I offered some of the fortified wine and a bit of talk. I also insisted that I learn about what had happened in my absence. The cadets had stayed together but were not very effective in training new people. They fought for the Gauls that I wanted settled though they thought I was dead. Later they heard more and wished I had died. The transition from a young prince with some great ideas to a messenger of the gods was easy after the Picts got Jón and me. I described in detail what had happened to the body that I now owned to what I was now. I talked of the books I had made after supposedly going to Asgard. Again I used the excuse that the gods had just allowed me to remember what they had hidden before. I brought some books from my cabin but they were in Latin or the Latinised German that I had developed. "It was after I got to the city of Lutetia in Gaul that I found that the healing of my body could be carried on to others." Naddoddr said, "What does that mean?" "The power of the gods flows through me just as the words and ideas of the gods do. I have held persons almost dead and made them whole. The blind were able to see and the lame were able to walk." "Nobody can do that." "Tell me Naddoddr. How many men could have done what I did?" There was a long pause and I had to ask again. I finally got, "None that I know of." "It is dark now but I still want to prove my point. Find me four children with something obviously wrong with their bodies. Healing sometimes takes over a month but minor problems can be seen in a week and cured in two or three." "Are you serious?" "Never more so. If the children are strong then the healing will be quicker because I need their strength to heal them. Those very near death may be too far gone for me to save. One woman said, "My daughter cannot speak right. A piece of skin is missing from her mouth." "That is easy to repair. It does take time to build the skin but it can be done." "Oh, thank you. You don't know how happy you have made me." "I do actually because I have healed many children and you would be as happy as I am to do this." Rufus was with us and he was now asked questions but he was bias and they knew it. He did give a lot of detail that I would not have given. He did not stop with my weekly sermons and healings but this led to the pirates in Britain. It was a lot later that Naddoddr said, "I knew that Jón was not sitting idle someplace doing the gods work." He looked at me now and said, "You had thousands of slaves and just freed them all?" "Slaves are just like you and me. I didn't just release them. They had no way of making a living. They got jobs at reduced wages until I was paid off. After that they get the same wages as free men. The get fed, clothed, educated and entertained but this cost silver too. This comes out of their wages." Naddoddr asked Rufus how much I pay and when he heard he just smiled at me for trying to appear hard and heartless. I got off the subject by trying to find out about King Celyddon. I learned how I had killed his two sons and wounded him severely. This had to be with the cannon or the explosion at the end. Three days after my capture, Clovis and Fálki had returned and the Gauls had to run for their lives. The cadets were working with Fálki and out for blood. The Romans had fled and left a few bodies but the Gauls had lost a lot more. Clovis had thought me dead and sought vengeance but then had to turn around and chase the Romans when he heard that they had me. "Lucius the Roman that I had spared was the one that saved me. I was taken to his home because he thought that I was beyond healing. My mind had gone because of the pain. On the way I was fed and cared for by Iulius. With the gods help I was able to heal myself. This took months because there was a lot of damage and I did not know as much about healing as I do now." Naddoddr said, "Your father was going to chase you even if he had to go to Rome but the priests talked him out of it." "What did they say?" "I do not know." "How has father been treating the Gauls he captured?" "That is surprising. He killed a lot then just started to settle them on land as you had done. The city of Minden was almost all Gauls but now have some Frisians and others. Your father treats them like they were born Frisian." "He boxes their ears?" "Yes but he does it to the Frisians at the same time. They see themselves as citizens now." "Then it looks like he and I did the right thing." There was no reply to this and I assumed that the Frisians were not as willing to let bygones be bygones. One of Naddoddr's officers said, "We heard how you and twelve children destroyed a legion by your selves and with no wounds of deaths. We did not believe this until Grímkell comes marching in with the survivors. Clovis was not here then but Grímkell made sure they were treated with respect. We were all even more surprised to see Gnaeus Scipio Magnus as one of the prisoners. How come you said nothing of this when you returned to Hildestun?" "I am not proud of slaughter. They were killed like sheep. I would do it again to protect us but I do not have to like it." The man looked at me oddly because he could not see my point. The next morning I had an anxious mother and father at my door bright and early with their ten-year-old daughter. It was hard to get them to sit but they did. I made my own breakfast and a little for them too. The girl's name was Celia and it was hard to get her to talk. I did get her to sit on the table and I was able to look into her mouth and saw the cleft palate. This was not even very bad. A surgeon could have sewed up this or I could. I said to the parents and the patient, "Celia is lucky. Most of the skin is already there. I am also a physician now and teach medicine at one of my schools. You have the option of me working hard on Celia and the skin will become unbroken in fifteen days. I can also do this so it is less mental work for me and the skin will be whole in four or five days." The child looked imploringly at her parents and I waited. The father said, "Quicker is better for us and if it is easier for you then that is the way I would like it. What do we have to do?" "I am demonstrating many ideas here to the people of Minden. I want them so see that I am a surgeon. If your city is lucky you could send some children to the school on the Rhine and come back physicians and dentists." I then had to explain dentistry. "You can repair teeth too?" "Yes but I do not have all the tools with me. This is better if somebody else does this." They didn't understand and I had to talk about the demands on my time. "I also have to have witnesses see what Celia's mouth is like now and later to prove my point." "Any and all can look in her mouth." "I do not want this to be a circus." I had to explain the Roman circus and how it related here. "Ten men and women will do the examining. Half will be drawn at random. Those same people will look when she is healed and tell everybody that asks about the healing." Celia was put off and I sent her with her mother to tour the ship. I said to the father, "There is a payment I demand for my work." The man must have expected this and said, "What is it that you want?" "Celia will learn to read one of the books written in German. She will then teach twelve more children or adults." "Is that all?" "That is it, but she must learn to read within half of a year and teach others within two more years." "Why my daughter? She is just a girl." "I want all the children and all the adults to read. I have to start somewhere. I usually feed the children and treat them as my own. They have to try. Very few are expelled but most of them are boys that are acting like boys." "Where will she learn this?" "I will hire women to learn to read and get them to teach the children. I have to open schools, and besides learning to read, the children learn to count in the new way. You will get an educated daughter when she graduates." "Why not just teach boys? Girls are only fit to be mothers." "Think of my cadets. Will you fight them? Will you fight the girls?" "They are different." "How?" "Well, because you trained them." He saw the flaw then and said, "I will be glad that my daughter is educated. Will she learn the art of the cannon?" "Only a little. She will learn new ideas. You must know that she will not be your sweet little daughter in a few years but a young woman that will fight you for what she thinks is right." "What about my other children?" "I want everybody to learn." In a few hours I had hundreds of children here and most came with one or both of their parents. From the roof of the building on the barge I spoke to them. They all knew my name by now and explained in ten minutes what I had done since I was captured. The portion about the gods though took half of an hour and nobody seemed to even fidget. I came down then walked to the land. I took ten white stones and threw them over my shoulders. The adults found them or were given them came forward. "We need witnesses that will see the child before and after they are treated. They have to tell everybody that asks what the results were. If I fail you must say so. All I want is the truth. Is there anybody here that does not want to do this?" This was a circus anyway and nobody turned me down. Celia was brought forward and they all looked into her mouth. Ten people were not as frightening as the whole crowd. A table from the barge was brought out and Rufus brought my tools. I sat on the table with Celia and I found the way to defeat the pain that would soon be in her mouth. The girl now lay on the table holding her mother's hand as I used the haemostat to put six sutures into her palate. Rufus was my scrub nurse and took the instruments away and I now worked on Celia's body to close the much smaller gap in the roof of her mouth. Celia was happy to show her sutures and I told everybody how long it would take to heal. She left with the injunction that she only eat the softest foods for the next few days. The adults with the stones passed them to somebody else and those people viewed the next case. Soon I would have all of the adults here as witnesses. In many cases I had to use what I knew of the Pict tongue because most knew little of the German. Three cripples needed their legs rebroken and reset. Six arms were the same way. I cured many of the usual boils, or sores. Rashes were usually cured in an hour. After each healing I gave thanks to Woden and Aldúlfr. This way I would avoid the term 'magic'. One girl was brought up and she complained of a rash and an itch between her legs. There were no witnesses now but the girl had VD. There was no sense asking either because men dominated anyone they could and sometimes for revenge like a husband fucking the ass of a man caught fucking his wife. One deaf girl was brought forward and before a half hour was up she was able to hear again. When noon came I had the crew cook up the fish we had caught. It was just a fish stew but there was a lot of it. I had lots of bowls and spoons and actually got all of them back even if three bowls were broken. Everybody got something to eat even if they had to use the same bowl that somebody else ate from. After the lunch I went back to healing and did a few mothers too. I was getting quite tired now and got the people to just leave so I could rest. It was Sunday and I said, "On Tuesday I will do this again." The visitors of yesterday came to me then. I was stared at because they now had to assume that I was the instrument of the gods. They were all very polite. I got them into the role I wanted and acted the same way I did in Paris. It was not much different from my regular demeanor it was just that I acted much calmer and sure of myself and my knowledge. I asked who could read Latin in the city and I was given thirteen people's names that came to mind. "Is there a way that these people could see me tonight or tomorrow morning? I have a business proposition for them." Of course I was asked what it was and mentioned my plans for starting a school. The fact that so many children didn't speak German was a problem. I liked multiculturalism but I also figured that everyone should learn German if not Latin too. I claimed fatigue without lying and got the men and their wives to leave. I also got Rufus and four of his men to go into the city. They had money but I informed them that if they talked in the wine shops that they would not have to buy any drink. They already knew this and the remainder of the crew could go tomorrow. Nobody came that night and neither did Rufus or his men. Around noon they showed up and looked much the worse for wear. I refused to heal them. They would never then have a reason to stop drinking. In the later afternoon some carts and horses pulled up. There were seven men and two women. Most were older but not over the hill in my opinion. I was able to speak in Latin now and explained my need for tutors. I went further and mentioned the need for a school and a kitchen. Beds had to be added for some children I knew were orphaned or lived too far from the school to commute. One old man said, "Do you know how much this will cost?" "I already run many schools. I actually pay very little because I sell my goods to pay the expenses and the children work a portion of the day learning a craft." "So the children will be your workers?" "Not really. They learn to work with wood and it would be years before they could make money for me. They will learn to be smiths, potters, tanners, stone masons and every other craft. Again it will take many years before they are ready." "Why are you doing this? You have to have a reason that suits just you." "I want the Frisians, the Romans and all the various races educated. When that is done there will be less wars because they will be able to read and see that a king, and emperor or just a man with a fire in him is just looking for someone to use to gain his own ends." We discussed ethics for a long time and I insinuated my goals as much as I could. This was all unnecessary but I wanted these people solidly behind me, and not just for pay. Rufus and his men were able to bring up some of the heavy slates even with their self induced pain. I had them put in prearranged places on the walls. With chalk I showed them more details about my school system. The subjects I wanted covered stretched into at least twelve years of a child's life and this the adults could not understand. I went on to how much more training had to be done to learn the subjects I needed and again they did not understand the scope and the depth I needed. I did not understand their ability to teach or their commitment but I had to start somewhere. There were a lot of others that could read Latin to various degrees and also knew German or the Pict tongue. I loaned each of the people my books in Latin and German with a small lesson on how to treat some of the groupings of letters. I offered them money to learn to read the German texts and then more money to try out as tutors. It was worded that they had to be good teachers and encourage the children to learn without threats and they could keep working for me. That night I had a delegation of the city's wealthy. I wined and dined them much differently than usual because we ate in the kitchen. They tried my wine, the fortified wine and the cognac. They liked everything I had from the glassware to the frypans. A map was brought out and I found where all the abandoned farms were. Even if I was not Clovis' son, they could not really stop me from claiming this land. They were very surprised though when I claimed it all. I extended the area to go kilometres into the forest. They must have thought me greedy but I had my plans. They already knew about my schools from the people I interviewed. I mentioned the benefits to them of selling to me what I needed. They really liked the idea that I could pay for everything I wanted. Late arrivals were coming all the times but since I had not invited them I guess they were not late. There were some very nice looking women in the group but two sisters that came in with their family of nine looked exceptional. I stopped often so I could meet the new arrivals and I learned that the two girls were Lynet at about seventeen and Fianna a year younger. Both had dark hair well proportioned faces wide hips and good sized breasts. There were a lot of other young women here too and I guess their parents brought them here to interest a prince. I was interested and all of the girls smiled. Lynet and Fianna were special though. They were not very shy and answered questions when asked and then later when I talked about my goals and how I was to reach them. The group dispersed and the two girls were the last to leave. They too shook my hand because I wanted it to be between genders too but they held on much longer than most. When the parents had moved a few metres away to get in their carriage Lynet asked, "I want to learn more. Is it alright if I come here?" Fianna whispered, "Me too?" "I would welcome both of you here. No man in his right mind would do otherwise." They both smiled at me then at each other and hurried to get onto their carriage. This might take care of my self imposed celibacy. Tuesday morning was the same as usual but I had Rufus use the nets to see what he could get from the river. If events worked out well we could have a good old fashion fish fry. The crowd of people came again. When they got settled, I told them about my version of our utopia but called it Asgard. Rufus and his men took over the jobs of acolytes to give the people a hint of two about what to do. Every once in a while I called a person up and the witnesses for that person. They mentioned the old and present condition of the patient. Most loved the sense of being important enough to stand up here like this and talk. Children were brought to me and I chose ten adults at random to assess the problem and remember it. Those with a disease were more difficult and I usually mentioned what it was unless it was contagious and then the person had to stay to one side so I could talk to their parents or guardians. A few of the times I simply checked the parents and had to get their own bodies to fight the disease even if they had little or no symptoms yet. The ones with bruising and rashes were almost instant cures and these were brought up again before the end of the services. The audience had much more proof now and would heed my words that much more. "This concludes my healing for today. It is tiring for me and in the past I was unable to work for days. I want to talk to everybody here on another matter. "The gods have filled my mind with knowledge. They gave me some ideas just how this knowledge is to be spread but usually I have to fumble around trying what I can to succeed. I do know that the best way to spread my knowledge is to have a tutor teach twenty people something. It is better with only one student but we do not have that many tutors yet. "I want everyone here to be able to read. This is not even that hard with books in Latin and in German and all with Latin characters. You might be wondering what the need to do this is and I have to say that our land has changed. The Romans threatened our land but now they dare not come unless they want to suffer hundreds of thousands of deaths. "We are now safe from the Romans because of what the gods have shown me. The gods showed me how to make good steel but steel is useful for things besides swords and armour. We have good ploughs now that we never had before. We will get more food from the land and few will go hungry. "Glass for bottles will keep our food safe and the heat inside our homes in winter. Glass is used in spectacles now and people that could not see well can now do so. Books can teach but also be just interesting to read. My ship uses steam to push it through the water. That same power can be used for any large job. "The gods have given us a gift that is beyond my imagination to tell you. I cannot tell everyone this knowledge for I would die of old age before I got through a small portion of the people. The only way to reach everyone is through books and that means people have to be able to read. "This gift will lift the heavy burdens from you but place smaller ones in their place. Reading and counting are not difficult. Certain combination of Roman characters make a certain sound in our language. Saying the sounds will give you a word you all understand. Counting is much easier now and the Romans will have to learn our way of doing this. It balances out because we have to use their characters. "All of us will be richer, safer, and better fed than we are now. All you have to do is to learn to read about the ideas and pick one for you." I paused to let this sink in and added, "I am opening a school soon. I need people to bring me trees. There is a machine on the barge behind me that will cut the trees to boards with the use of steam. Stone cutters will make a foundation and carpenters will build a large building. Students will learn part of the day and work the other part. Food will be provided as well as clothing. "Will you help the gods and me build a better world?" My speech was not very inspiring but many people came forward. Rufus and his men were conscripted into service and gathered the men and women that had some skill that I could use. Some of these could not be employed until later in the project but could still do unskilled work. I went into detail now listing what I wanted them to do and what I was going to provide. I had a lot of experience with this now and listed what I was not going to provide so they would not try to get me to provide wine or a lot of clothes until I had a mill set up to make cloth. I had not noticed, but Fianna and Lynet had been in the audience, dressed much more plainly than they had the night before. They stayed at the back and only when I was free did they come forward. Lynet said, "Do you have a place for us? We can do some things very well but they were not what you talked about." "I would love to find out about just what you two know but I have to warn you that I also like intelligence, loyalty, charm and dedication. There has to be some jobs like accounting and taking notes that you could do as I enjoy your company. Can you read?" Lynet said, "I can read some Latin and so can Fianna." I spoke in Latin now and asked questions which they answered fairly well but they had not spoken much in this language before. The next question I said in German because it had to be answered both accurately and truthfully. "What are your parents and friends going to say if you are close to me much of the time?" Lynet said, "Both of us?" "I could hardly have one sister angry at the other." "Well I suppose that is alright. Father would like the idea of us being close to you." She didn't have to explain. "I am thirteen now in my body but my mind is a lot older. My life will be tied up with the gods' work for a long time. Family has to be secondary to this task. If you are with me you may meet some young man that could be husbands one day but I will not be as lucky. "I can promise that you will have an interesting time with me but nothing further." Lynet said, "I understand and probably my sister does too. I can be your scribe too but I do not know numbers very well." "Then there is a lot to learn but I think it may be fun to do." Both girls smiled. I said, "I have to sail up the river to where I want to start building. It is not far and a person should be able to walk it in a few hours. Do you wish to come with me? You will have to get some clothes." "How long will we be gone?" "I will be there for at least a month but not all the time. My father will be coming soon and he will require much of my time. You can stay the night to see if this is what you want or come and go as you wish as long as I have guards to protect you to and from Minden." "Let's stay the night. I am sure we will just be getting some clothes tomorrow." "I am afraid you will have to work first." Fianna said, "What would you like us to do?" "I have paper on the ship. I want you to write the names of everybody I hire here. You will have to get the names of their dependants and wives. I need their age and birthday if it is available. This is going to show them what I paid them and how many days they have worked for me." The current date was November the third and I had this date put down. Fianna said, "That is not the date." "There are two calendars. You are using the Julian. The Frisian has three hundred and sixty five and a quarter days in a year. It is more accurate. When the rest of the world learns this then you will be some of the first to understand the new system." The girls just smiled and didn't ask why I wanted this. That made them even better in my eyes. A table was brought out and two benches. The girls sat on one side of the table and two people sat on the others side and I showed them how I wanted this done. They liked the steel nibs and I saw that they were very artistic in their Latin. Soon all of this would have to be transposed into German but they didn't have to know that yet. There turned out to be a lot of people and I took the applications forms from of all of them even if I was not ready to hire. Much later in the day, Lynet and Fianna's father arrived on a horse. He looked surprised to see his daughters out of bed I guess. "I see you have found work for my daughters." "There is lots of work to do and never enough people to do it. Usually the people had very little to offer but your daughters can read and write Latin or at least good enough for now." "That is good to hear." I took the man's arm and led him away from the rest of the crowd. I whispered, "I am going up river soon to start building my school. I will be back three Tuesdays from now for my sermon and for my healings. I need a great many people at the site including your daughters." "They are old enough to be married and you will protect them." I remembered the man's name from last night and said, "Noland, I am not going to marry anyone for many years. I have the work of the gods to do and that would hurt my family if I had one." "I understand," he finally said. "What if they should get pregnant?" "That will not happen by me. I am not going to hold them to me either. If they find a good man I will act in your stead and make sure he is adequate." "You would do that? You hardly know me." "I try to be ethical in most things and I fail, but I do try. I will protect your daughters with my life and also look for good husbands but I hope I just don't find them too soon." "I have been doing that for years now." "Let us both look but I get many more young men burning with an internal fire coming to me." There was time to seek food supplies, now that I had some employees. Some of them walked to nearby farms asking if they wanted to sell to me. I already knew the basic prices for the quantities I wanted and demanded this price plus a fixed rate for delivery tomorrow afternoon at the latest. Lynet and Fianna joined me onboard the Patricia. I had a shower with warm water heated by the exhaust of the boilers that usually went to dry green wood that would be used as fuel later. Lynet and Fianna came into the shower timidly but then started to enjoy the warmth. We washed each other and some areas got very clean. We hurried across the deck and into my room with two smiling Romans looking on. This was nothing new to them, it was just that so many different ladies did the same thing. We discussed the birds and the bees and the girls as usual thought I was wrong. I heard about the timing of their periods and learned that Fianna was just too close. I imagine I could stop the egg from attaching but I did not want to learn that I was wrong. To compensate I got the girls to lay on the bed and I began to make Fianna as happy as she could be. After her first orgasm I did the same thing to Lynet. When I went back to Fianna, I got Lynet to suck her sister's breast and from the way she did this I knew that she had done this before. When the orgasm came I had them change places. I wanted to see how adventurous the girls were and lay on my back while Lynet sat on my cock. I was bigger than her usual man and she took her time to finally get seated. "Hmm that is nice," she said. "What do I do now?" "Move up and down slowly as you move back and forth. Rub your clit as much as you can." She did this and I watched her shiver as the sensations ran through her body. I pulled Fianna into position over me and I began to suck her clit. I heard her groan but not very well. Every position I could think of was tried. My prostrate and testicles were up to the challenge though the flow was not much after a while. The girls were not averse to pleasing each other but I tried to lead them into this gradually. Many girls felt too much embarrassment if I was present. I let one girl sleep early in the morning while I had the other one to myself. Later she had her rest and I took her sister. With a lot of lubricant and my newfound ability to relax their muscles I was able to plumb their back passages. Near dawn I took pity on them and did what I could to heal any abrasion or pain and let them sleep. I got three hours myself before I had to get up. Rufus said casually, "I see you had a busy night." "I don't want them saying that they were not pleased when they go home." "Can they walk?" "Possibly but not right away." "Maybe they have more sisters. They can get some sleep that way." "Rufus, I think you are jealous." "Perhaps a little but I was never one that the gods looked on. I will stay the way I am. I just hope there are some ladies around to relieve my pressure." "Go with half of your men. If you leave the wine alone you will find some of the ladies." Rufus liked the idea and the men drew lots and left even if it was hours before noon yet. The food started to come and I had the farmers put it on the barge after it was inspected. I made lunch and went down to wake the girls up. They didn't have enough sleep but did get up at my urging. I even got them to have a shower but I knew that they didn't play. They must have had close to thirty orgasms each and didn't feel the need yet for more. When Lynet was dressed she got close and said, "Did you bewitch us?" "I did nothing that a man could not do except I could do it many more times. A man usually likes to see two beautiful girls having fun and that makes him ready for more much and sooner too. Now to make you feel better I will tell you that I will say nothing about what happened to anybody except you two. You are free to talk about me if that is your wish." "Nobody would believe us." "I think you are wrong. Every girl you talk to will believe. Now let's go and eat." Thirty nine horses came later in seven groups. I now knew more about the animals and found seventeen that I was going to keep. Much more could be found if I worked on them the way I healed people. The two sisters had gone home. They had a bit of talking to do and then had to gather their clothes. A lot more food came but unless it was going to perish I bought it. I started a large pot of stew then put another on too. It was an hour and a half after the proposed departure time, more of the people were arriving. People were just not punctual now and I could not fault them much since they had no clocks to go by. The girls though were on time and had a gleam in their eyes. I didn't want conflicts with the men, so their wives came too if at all possible. Usually they outworked the man anyway. The horses were now brought aboard and we cast off. As before, we recorded depth as we went and found some shallow areas that had to be watched. None of this river was dredged yet so it was restricted to what it could handle. The width in places left ten metres on each side of our twenty metre wide barge. It was dark when we got to the area I claimed. The horses were lead off and hobbled while the people were glad to sleep on the deck or in the rooms on the barge. Lynet and Fianna knew where they were sleeping and had their clothes there already. This night was a mini version of last night and when I told Fianna that she would get pregnant tonight if I used her vagina she seemed to regret this most of all. Watch was kept but there were enough men that it was not a hardship. All of them were told they would be fired if they were caught sleeping. Rufus told them about my nighttime activities during our war with the Romans and the Gauls and I didn't think any of them would be slackers. ------- Chapter 18 I got up once during the night and made my own rounds. I frightened two men badly but they had been close together and talking. I was polite and told them how an enemy would have killed them easily and then the rest of us. They were not soldiers and I told them so but they had to have at least some discipline. We had stew for breakfast and I broke out the tools to start cutting some trees down. Some near the water had to stay for erosion protection and to tie the ships up to. With most of the people busy, I got on a horse and surveyed the land to find the best areas for the school, the homes and the workshops. The latter would be near the water for transportation. The trees in the old farms were small, meaning that the farms had not been abandoned for more than ten years for the most part though. Later we found the trees much larger in older farms. Some areas had to be made ready for planting in the spring. There would be a lot of people to feed. High ground turned out to be in the old growth forest. Here the trees were very large and perhaps nobody had turned this land before. Our small group continued to survey and made camp for the night. Rufus was the leader in my absence and he would protect the people, my property and especially his ship. There were four men with me and we stopped every once in a while to dig to see what minerals were hidden beneath the soil. We found salt but this area was famous for that. Later we found some soft coal. It was three days later that we found potash and I felt happy because it was only a kilometre to the river. We hunted but I usually stayed in camp. My senses and my bow usually found something and now I wanted to give others a chance. I smiled a lot and asked how the hunters had taken their prey as if I was an inexperienced boy. We came across the tracks of man and horse but they were not fresh. They looked to be nearly a month old and then it was only me that could see them. We found an even better place for the school and I decided that this was good enough. We hurried back by a different route and found some nice streams that could be dammed for mills. Steam engines once overcame waterpower and inturn were overcome by diesel engines. It was nice to have all of them if I could. We came back near nightfall and found everybody happy to see us. There was a good pile of logs cut and stacked. Somebody had been hunting so we had stew once again but this time it was venison. The girls were happy to wash my back and I had to do theirs. They had missed me a lot but we only made love for four hours that night. It was not just the level of testosterone that was doing this but because the girls inspired me to do my best. We pulled up stakes and abandoned the wood until we could gather it later. We followed the river once more until I spotted the marker I put there. We tied up securely and began to remove some of the trees where our dock would be. Other trees were used to get some of the equipment out of the barge. The sawmill was what I wanted now. I had planed on this but it was still a hard and awkward job to remove this large piece of machinery. It did come out successfully. We cut trees on a hill side and used the trunks to form an incline. This allowed logs to be fed to the mill by gravity. The roots had been left to hold the soil together and as handy tie points. There was very little open area and we simply topped some of the trees and knocked them down. Usually all the horses and the tackle were required to get the logs out of the way. A stump was hard to get rid of when in the ground with no stumper available so again we used axes and shovels instead of saws and pulled the trees down intact with their roots. Once the area where the school would one day stand was large enough we burnt the branches and roots day and night and then leached them for the minerals. The sawmill was set up and put to use. It cut logs all day long or as long as there was light. The boards were much lighter than logs and were dragged off. A road was made that would one day be long and graceful. The trees were simply put to one side now until they could be cut. Some thick and thin sections of oak were put on the barge because I knew they would be used soon. I had standard plans for schools and they had long since been shown to the rest for their input. I wanted a basement and foundations on bedrock. We had to have a large septic system and a good, clean and plentiful water supply. We may not have microwave ovens but we would have central heat. Stone was the preferred building material but I had to use wood now and plan for the next renovation and the one after that. Rufus was left in charge here because two of his crew, the sisters and I turned the Patricia around and then the barge. We were sailing back to Minden for my next sermon. We had been gone over three weeks and there were probably a lot of people to see me. Lynet and Fianna stoked the fire part of the way but this was more for experience. They were smart hardworking girls and I did not want them to think they could get through life by being on their backs. Everybody could read now even if it was only a handful of words in Latin and German. I tried to make school fun and we passed notes and had charades and did some of the fun parts that was usually done in the lower primary grades. Everybody with me had been hurt in the three weeks and everyone of them had been healed by me. There were no unbelievers here but they were not acting that oddly to me. I worked beside them but paid their wages. I ate what they ate but healed them. I was tired sometimes and showed it. My temper got away from me on occasion but I apologised after. They didn't seem to mind much. The sawmill was planned as an educational toy to show people how it worked and by in large it was successful in this. Safety was much more important to me than to the workers. By the end of three weeks the rest were beginning to think for themselves or I would be on their back as the safety officer. The girls had to throw the lead weight to record the depth as well as recording the contours of the river even though this had already been done. I intended to change the way the girls looked on life and gave them jobs normally given a man. Then again I showed the men how to cook and had them compete against the women. I just hoped that my two tomboys would be able to find suitable husbands. People were always odd. We waved from the ship and many more waved back from the shore. Our steam whistle was put back into use and now the girls liked to use this along with their other duties. When we came to where we docked before, we found the shore covered in people. Some were in full armour while mounted on horses. I looked closer and found the cadets and many more of the people I... loved I guess was the best word, from Hildestun. My pseudo sisters and Astrid stood with Fálki, Egill, Albrecht and Grímkell. There must have been a few left in Hildestun to mind the store. We had difficulty turning the barge around and had to go down river a few kilometres and come back. I called out our intentions and Clovis nodded his head. I could see that he too was anxious to see what I had on the barge and investigate the barge and ship too. People talked to us from horseback as we pulled the barge and they had to go fast and soon gave up this activity. Turning around was not easy and we had tie the barge to shore, slip the lines, turn the ship around and finally connect the lines once more. We came upstream slower than down and I had to talk to all of my crew. They would know who was who because I was going to introduce them. We tied up much quicker this time and without any theatrics or mud. I was the first off the ship and ran to Clovis. Part of me wanted to act like I was a boy and Clovis was my father and I let that portion rule and hugged the man. He hugged me back but I saw a questioning look in his eyes. I went around and hugged and kissed those that needed it and hugged and shook hands for the rest. The cadets I hugged all together for they were in a way my first family. I introduced the crew to Clovis and the family. Dagmar and Astrid gave the eye to Fianna and Lynet. Instead of quenching my own desire I was compelled to talk about what had happened to me. Fidelis, Cing and Fib were here and part of the inner circle so I started from where Clovis left Hildestun instead. Everybody had to get off their horses or at least get comfortable. They had to sit on the grass and my voice used to oratory had to be used so everybody heard. I used names as much as possible and added the difficulty of dealing with them but also the good points. I did not know if Albrecht and Fálki had spilled the beans about powder so I pretended to do this with them standing guard and not knowing what I did. Cannon practice though was truthful and I talked about how bad some were but later mentioned some of their good shots. The cadets were brought in and I mentioned how they made armour and weapons the proper way. The quarry was mentioned and I put in what I had made there in complete secrecy though the cadets knew differently. The settlement of the dispossessed was covered next and the reasons for doing so. Humanitarianism was only part of this because I told my audience how different cultures, like what we had here today, would benefit all of us. I described the destruction and capture of the legion and gave praise to the cadets again as well as the lancers. This lead to the Gauls I had captured and then their camp. I used the two methods to show that the Romans needed to be shown by death and destruction while the Picts could be peacefully converted. This pleased Gawain and Arthur because they were with the cadets and dressed the same as they were. The reasons for my plan to lift the siege of Hildestun were given and then the way it was handled. Jón had been in charge here and I had to take the blame for the mistakes. The ambushes were listed and what we had done. I gave no casualty figures because I was not proud of this. 'Great many' was a term I used a lot. The final battle was the most difficult to do and I gave what little of it I knew which was almost nothing. The damage to my head would destroy any short term memories I would have. Later I gave a description of a wild human that was not very human, being nursed back to health by the Roman, Iulius. I talked now of the gods coming to me once more and curing me and clearing my mind. Much later they gave me memories that I had not known before. This was to explain about my new revelation about living sixty years in that other time. The convalescence was long to me but I listed all of my wounds including the removal of my scrotum and most of my cock. The repairs that I had done to my body were attributed to the gods including the change in colour of my hair to represent a new beginning. The next part would be difficult for Clovis and the other warriors so I prefaced this with a description of a world community based on trade. Rome had almost collapsed in the last century when cheap imports killed their businesses. This led to globalization in the fourth century. I minimised what I had done in Germania Inferior but got the point across that I was casting iron and to a limited extent steel too. The houseware segment of my business was stressed and made sure everybody here knew that the Romans got no cannons made by me or any powder either. My trip to Lutetia Parisiorum was said to be just expanding my markets and trying to get the Romans to see reality beside slaves and conquest. The slaves, schools, the people and the work had to be mentioned. The surprising revelation that I could cure was told much more explicitly and I looked at the foreign priests most of the time. I listed my successes and how I was getting the people to believe in the old Norse gods. The god Aldúlfr was my mentor which put an entirely new wrinkle in the Norse religion. My Tuesday healings and services were mentioned in a bit more detail and I said what I wanted to accomplish for those that listened and what the gods wanted done. The brush with the pirates and the trip back up the Rhine were listed. The conquering of steam was recorded as the point when I could come back and bring with me the things we needed here. The school here was just a way of bringing the knowledge of the gods to those that lived here. I took three hours to talk and now people had to leave to piss. Clovis came to me and said, "We have to talk." "Let's go for a walk and bring the priests that know the truth." He weighted my words and said, "We can do that." It was difficult to get away and Clovis had to raise his voice. In a moment he said, "Tell me what you did not want told before." "The last battle was truthfully not recorded by my mind, so all I know is what I am told. Most of the lifting of the siege was done by Jón not me. I was able to help some but the boy had to learn the same as any warrior does. He was over his head but still functioning. He had many good ideas and killed a lot of Gauls. I could have taken over but I loved Jón and wanted him to grow. He could not grow if he was too protected. "At the end, we were hurt. I went into a coma because the damage to the head and brain. Long after the battle I came out to see what was happening and felt nothing but found pain like I had never experienced before. When I first woke up in Hildestun I worked on Jón's body to improve the sense of smell, sight and hearing. I used the same ideas to control the pain. This led to me actively repairing the body better than what the body would normally do. "During this time, I searched for Jón but I could not find him. He may be in our head still but I do not think so." "Jón is dead?" "I think so. He has not shown himself in any way. The portion of the brain where he lived was damaged a great deal. I lived close and escaped most of the damage." "You wanted a body and now you have one," he said angrily. "I could have taken this body at any time but I did not. Fidelis talked about moving to another body but I think I could have done that if it was my wish. I am a friend of the next Augustus of the Roman Empire. I could take over his body and be powerful but I did not for many reasons. If I left this body it would die. There is nobody but me living here. Julian is a friend and I am trying to be an ethical person. I did not kill Jón but he almost killed us. He did kill himself and three cadets but most of the problems were with the rain not his skills." Clovis was still angry and the priests now had to talk to him. I just hoped that they could talk some sense into him. We walked back and while the priests and Clovis went off again I talked to the cadets. They had shining eyes and smiles but I still saw gaps in the line and tears came to my eyes. Their smiles faded and I asked about the final battle. "Tell me all the details even if they are not kind. I need to know everything that happened." Each of them gave their own rendition and I dug into some inconsistencies to find more. The battle I found was long and bloody and we suffered our first casualties. The lancers were killed to a man and Jón seemed to have gone crazy but then again I might have done the same thing. This talk lasted another hour then they asked me about the gods and my healing. Edana had a scar on her face and I said, "I can show you how it works if you want. Edana had a scar and I can remove it." Edana hung her head and said, "I would rather keep the scar so I will always remember." "It also shows that one scared little girl has turned into a battle-scarred veteran." She did not look up so I figured this was a more likely plausibility. Each of the cadets were held by me and I searched out any problems. There were some diseases that I worked on but they would probably be defeated without my help. One though was special. Now was not the time to bring this up and I would see what I could do later. We went aboard the ship and I showed them the engine and started a class just like in the old days. I reminisced about the old forge and then told them about the new one with the steam hammer, the train and the small locomotive that pulled the moulds around the track. I took them to the barge and showed them what was in the hold. They liked the cannon and told me how the weapons were all taken from them by the men to use against the Gauls. Klaasje said, "They don't even allow us to make the powder. We know a lot but they think they know everything." I said, "Adults are like that. I was able to get away with it because I was letting them see new things. You are all warriors. They must respect you but they cannot help see you as too young to fight the way they did. For what it is worth, that will change as you get older." We had a long overdue meal above in the rooms and the cadets had a chance to use the stove and the frypans. The family apart from Clovis was already here and I cooked for everyone. Prince Egill stayed near Dagmar so I figured that she was going to pursue a course that may lead to her being a a possible queen some day. Astrid said, "Helga would love a device like this." "There is a much bigger one below you for your home." She had a big smile and said, "You always liked Helga a lot." "She fed me, and boys are always hungry." I offered to put up the family here and on the ship and Astrid diplomatically said, "We better check with your father first. He is acting strangely. Do you know why?" "Yes, but I cannot tell you." Dagmar and Prince Egill went to find out and came back with a sad look and said that they could stay here. Clovis must still be upset at losing his last son. He probably didn't understand that his son's body could still produce any needed heirs. I insisted in having a watch and I paired myself off with Aagt though Dolf wanted this. Just before our turn came I whispered, "We have to talk even if that is against the rules." She looked at me seriously and nodded her head. Later and in the dark is whispered to her. "Do you remember my talk about girls getting pregnant?" She pulled back quickly and in a moment said, "Am I?" "Yes." She now moved forward and hugged me and started to cry. They were not tears of joy but people and especially women are odd. She finally pulled herself together and said, "Thanks for holding me. I was so afraid of this happening." "Is Dolf the father?" "Yes, I think but it could have been Klaasje or Tiebout. They are all important to me but Dolf would be the most likely." "Aagt, I have the power to heal. The zygote is just started and looks to be just a month old. I can get your body to reject it. Nobody will know." Her eyes were big but only I could see them. "Can you! Would you do this for me?" "You are part of my family and I would do nearly anything for you. Do you want to have some more time to think about this?" "No. Please do it now. A baby will be hard to deal with especially as I have to begin my education again." "If that is your wish. Let me hold your hands." This was something new to me and I did what I must. In a moment I said, "Use some moss now as if it is your time." "Oh, thank you... I want to call you something more than Jón now." "Jón is best, Aagt." We did the rest of the watch apart so we could both think but she really needed somebody to hold her. The next day Dolf looked at me oddly. I did not know if he was angry at me for the way Aagt was acting differently. Aagt smiled one minute and nearly cried the next. In situations like this the girls protected their own. The crew were given leave in the city and I had the cadets help me hoist the armour and weapons out of the hold with our portable crane. I brought out some of each size of cannon and laid them on the ground. The articles for the castle kitchen came out too but they were like the weapons and securely bound in wood cases. The men were quick to come and investigate the cannons while the tools not relating to war were perused by the women. The cadets opened the boxes with care and checked out all the equipment. Clovis did not come over but Fidelis did. He looked at everything quickly and then came to me. "Is it possible to have a short talk in private?" "Uncles get a special treatment." He smiled at this but then his smile left. I guess we were both thinking of Forni. We went on the same walk as yesterday and Fidelis asked, "Tell me more about your ability." "I can see my body from the inside. With enough practice, I can see the small details. Where there are battles going on I am able to send more of my body's troops to that area to fight. I can martial other troops to do what is needed including changing the roots of my hair to produce a different colour. You never told me much about this when you were in Hildestun and I had to work out my own methods." "I cannot do as you have done." "I cannot call people from the future." We both thought for a while and he said, "Can we learn from each other?" "I don't see why not. You are much more secure now because there is a new religion out now and it teaches how its followers are to treat those of other faiths. Julian was told of his future but proof will only come from his cousin when he does what history said he did." "Will this still happen since you are changing events?" "I hope so but I am not sure." "Will you look within me?" "This is an abrupt change. I have to assume that there is something wrong." Fidelis said nothing and we sat on the grass with me holding both of his hands. He had some type of shield that I had not seen before. I investigated it and found a way around. I was very carful to not miss anything and soon found a major battle going on. This had to be what Fidelis was worried about. This was in the liver and I closed off the blood going to and from that small area. There was more fighting going on in other places and in most places I could do the same thing. Some cancers were mobile and these had to be attacked differently. I was surprised that when I pulled out the sun had moved quite a bit. Fidelis said, "What did you do?" "You had some form of protection but it was easy to get around. This was because I could see it fairly well and deduce its purpose and the way it was constructed." "Really!" "You had cancer of the liver and I cut off the flow of blood to just that area. The cancer cells are of no use to you so they are dying now. Your body will move in later and take them away. The cancer had spread to other areas and these too were treated. The cancers drifting around in your blood are being attacked. I think you may have a fever soon. You may spew up blood for a few days. I want to check again to make sure I got it all." "Thank you... Do you want to be called Victor or Jón?" "Jón is best." "Then thank you, Jón. I was worried and thought I had less than a year to live." "You are welcome Fidelis. What is the chance of getting Clovis cured so he can start on making more children?" "That is a great idea. For some reason I had not thought of that. Possibly it was your father's age." He thought a bit and said, "Clovis is still angry but I think he is going to get over it. Doing so in the arms of a loving woman is the best." Fidelis added, "Your body is that of his only son. A new son may inherit Clovis' crown." "I personally have no right to the crown. Jón's body might but not Victor's. I would like to improve this world of ours and I need some standing in it but that can be as a religious leader. Managing a country or a group of people is not an easy task either. I am an engineer that makes chemicals not a political leader. I may lead some engineers in some projects but encouraging uneducated people to learn to count and read is not as easy or as appealing." "I can understand that. I too have to work with the uneducated. They may be very good people but we usually have very little to talk about. I see that the two sisters that were with you were there for more than work." "That is true in a way. They learned a great deal and have much more to learn. When the work is over though we have a chance to enjoy our bodies. There is nothing wrong with that. I talked to their father. They know I will not marry them. They will get the chance to meet interesting people and eligible men." "I will go back and talk to your father or the father of your body if you will. When could we talk again?" "We have lots of information to trade. I am going to be building a school though. How good are you at cutting wood?" "Your father needs us less now." "There is something else I have to say." "What is that?" "Julian was going to die in a few years while fighting the Persians. I want him safe and sound. He would have suppressed the Christians but I am only going to try to get laws passed that will separate the state from religion. The old gods will have equal footing with all other religions including Wodenism. Your religion may die out but it will not be from being inhibited by laws or threats." "I can live with those kind of laws." "Germans and the greater Germany I see in my mind will have to fight the Persians and others that threaten the new empire of Rome and Germany. Rome has gold and men while Germany has a very small army with cannons. We have to have a partnership. I want Rome to court Germany and Germany to want to be courted." "I see what you mean and I think this is a wonderful idea. I do not think the secret of your powder will last very long. It is too valuable of a commodity." "That may be true but there are many more powders. The one I made is the weakest of them all. Countries always spy on each others as men do. No matter what the outcome, the Germans are better fighters and the Romans better leaders. That is until the Germans learn to think like Clovis." "So you are not going to take over the empire?" "No. I am going to change it. The senate will be elected and do real work. All races will send representatives. Now the senate is just a club for rich Roman men." "I think that too. I do not see how you will accomplish this without a war." "This is easy. I educate everybody in the empire. They stand up one day and say they want a say in how things are run. All that oppose them will be a few very rich men." "Those rich men can have you killed. They are not stupid." "That is why I am going to have an army of old men and women with children and cripples to defend me. I am using religion the same way it has been used for thousands of years. I, at least, can tell you the truth. I just hope I have enough strength to keep the power I gain from corrupting me." "I hope that too." When we got back, we found the long barrel five centimetre cannon was taken to Clovis' tent. It took half of an hour until he came out of his tent. He had been drinking and looked like shit. I didn't think he got much rest. The death of his only remaining son was a heavy blow to take. Clovis came to the pile of swords and beat some against a rock. He did so again from the side of the blade. He took another sword and stabbed and slashed at the armour as it the armour had killed his son. When it did not split he got angrier and beat it many more times until Fidelis pointed to the rows of cannon. Clovis threw down the sword and compared the cannon to the ten centimetre bronze cannons I had made before. The ones I had now were not as flashy but they looked much more deadly for it. I heard Clovis ask questions and soon Fidelis came to me and said, "Your father wishes to know how far they will throw a shell." "I have no idea. I have not made powder and these cannons have never been fired. I have made shells though with my new explosives. Do you wish to test them?" "I will find out." Fidelis came back and said, "Clovis demanded that one of his patrols come. They have powder." "There are farms all over this area. We do not have carriages for any of them. We might be able to change the barrels on the ten centimetre but it is better to make new ones. Perhaps there are some carpenters in Minden." Fidelis whispered, "Why didn't you make them before?" In my own whisper I said, "The barge was full with the things I brought." A series of orders were given and men rode quickly to the city. In a half hour they brought some very frightened men back. I assumed they were carpenters but none of them had any tools with them. Fidelis got to them first and gave orders that they come to see me and do whatever I said. There were five men that where herded over to me. "I am sorry for the way you have been treated. My father wants the three types of cannon mounted on gun carriages. I already have the wood sawn and laying on the deck of the barge." One man said, "We never made a 'gun carriage'. Are they the things the warriors pull around?" "They are. Only the largest has to have wheels. The others can be carried in a wagon." "We still never made any and don't know how." "I designed the carriages and worked on every one of them. You five and I will do a good job." There was the design in my head that only had to be altered a bit to fit the largest cannon. This was not the one we did first though. The five centimetre gun mount was easy to make. I had to go into the ship though there were some tools deeper in the cargo of the barge. I got the men working and then used the hoist and a dozen soldiers to get an anvil out of the hold. Once this was safe we went back and brought shot and shells for the various sized cannon. A small forge was made and I heated wrought iron plates. Some metal would be used to reinforce the corners of the mount and two others to hold the trunnions down in their cradles. I had machine made bolts and nuts to do this and they were interesting to most of those that looked on. My drill was operated by a crank and the bit was a spiral just like what was used in the twenty first century even if my steel was inferior. Wrenches to fit the heads of the bolts and the nuts were produced and the small cannon mounted to the wood frame. With the warriors going over this, we started on the ten centimetre cannon. This one took much longer but we were still done before the powder arrived. Clovis wanted to shoot right away and I at least had found out where the least populated area was. Fidelis had sent men into this area to clear out the families for me. I worked on the twenty centimetre version while round shot was used in both cannons. Fidelis got the people far away and this way if there was a failure only the gun crew would die. The axle of the cannon had to be massive and so did the tongue. Lots of iron was needed here and some portions, like the eye, had already been made. The wheels were made in many layers and I welded flat bar for the tires. The bronze and steel fittings on the axle had also been made and only had to be fitted and secured. While the boys played we continued to work. Food was provided by the cadets or we would have gone hungry. We slept by our work that night and were at work again by the time dawn came. It was near dusk that we were finished. I had to guestimate on the powder and upped it by fifty percent. There was even a mechanical way to ignite it though the Frisians thought I was not being manly. I on the other hand wanted to stay alive and not cause deaths. The cannon was put into a trench to be fired and when it did I think people for kilometres around heard the sound. We had observers and it looked like we went over four Roman miles and kept on going. I put in a shell using their powder but with my better timers. The impact area was easy to find this time because it was a good sized hole in a farmer's field. Four more shots were fired before I turned the cannon over to Clovis. He at least had a smile on his face this time. He eventually turned to me and said, "You did very well... Jón." "Thank you, Father. If you remember I once asked for an uncle too." "I remember that." There was little powder left but Clovis used all of it. He seemed to like the big cannon much better but it did not shoot much further than the ten centimetre cannon. It just had a larger shell and more powder. It was getting very dark now and I took out the wine, fortified wine and the cognac. I was invited to the king's tent with the rest of the officers. They each had a cup of Clovis wine then mine from Lucius' vineyard. They liked mine better and even Clovis said so. "That wine was from the land of the Roman that saved my life. Now try this. It is stronger and has a different flavour." The men did sit up at the taste of this. Again I was given appreciative comments. They had to down their wine to get the cognac and looked at me oddly when I poured so little in their mugs. "This is very strong. It is not made for weak men. It is made though to be sipped but it has not been aged yet to give it that special flavour. I will tell you a story about a mouse when you are done." I threw back my own drink and it burnt going down and exploded as warmth in my stomach. The rest did the same thing and a few spit it out involuntarily. One had the misfortune of doing it by a flame and I had to run to him to get him extinguished. I didn't get to see their faces at the taste but I did at the flames. I poured more in everybody's cup even those that could not get the first bit down. I told the story of Rufus and then about the Caesar of Gaul. I had a few laughs then the rest joined in. They all took small sips and smiled at the explosion and burning. More cognac was brought and I only sipped. Much later in the night I sat beside Clovis' sleeping form and concentrated on getting his body to repair and regrow some missing or damaged parts. After a while I just turned over and slept myself. It was either the drink or the need for sleep because I had slept until nearly noon. I was not the last man up either. Clovis was up earlier and the way I saw him walking around made me think he felt alright. I had only started his body to heal and he would need three to four weeks. He had arthritis and this too was being treated. I ate with the men in Clovis' camp. The king came over and sat across from me. "What was that stuff you gave me. I felt like a new man apart from the headache." "Cognac. I make it. You and I can make a fortune selling that or some other drinks called whisky. There is no need to drink a keg of wine to get drunk when a bottle will do the same job." "We saw it burn. Wine doesn't do that. I tried." "Wine is mostly water. The part that makes you drunk is called alcohol. I remove the water from the wine and the cognac is supposed to stay in new oak barrels for ten or more years to taste good. We didn't have the good stuff." "But it burnt." "Alcohol burns." "Did you see his face?" "Everybody's face was that way but one in particular was very memorable. I was surprised he drank more." Clovis chest puffed out then he must have changed his mind. "Me too." "I have a barrel of the cognac for you." Clovis' eyes lit up. "I also have more cannon. What would you like me to do with them?" "How many do you have?" "Seven more twenties, twenty three more tens and forty nine more fives." "That many?" "I want this land safe. The fives can be used for training. The ball goes far but they spin and they go off course. I made lots of ammunition for them but they are like the shells and are long. They may spin too but this type will be a good kind." The difference then had to be explained but then he had to still take my word for it. "I brought rockets too but some big boys used all of the powder up yesterday playing with toys." "I heard of rockets. Fálki tried to make a few but they didn't work." "He was always too quick. The powder has to be fine and then packed very tightly into the hole. You can use a long lever but there is a way of using oil or water to do it easier." "I don't want to learn how now. My head is still pounding." I put my hand out on top of his and concentrated. In a few minutes I took it away again. Clovis was very surprised. "You took the pain away." "It is still there. You just don't feel it. It will go for real when it would have gone normally." "That is good. I cannot fight well with this." "There is no need to fight for a while." "You are wrong. Celyddon is still around and giving me problems." I had no idea of this. "Tell me about it. I thought you sent him running." "He did run but only to gather more men. I don't think the Romans are paying him now. You killed too may of his family for him to let us go." "Tell me what you know." "When you attacked his camp you killed his wife and one of his girls. When you ambushed his troops you killed cousins, nephews and two of his sons. You almost got him too. I was actually very surprised... that you lived. I heard he was knocked senseless for more than a week and it was your Roman that spirited you out of the camp." "I did not know that Lucius did that. He must have risked his life then and that of his men." "He was sneaky. He sent some of his men away but they didn't go far. Some came back and got you then ran. I hear that Lucius took part in the search." "He may be sneaky but I think he is ethical." "I have come to that opinion too. Anyway Celyddon recovered and could not find you and killed his own guards for letting you get up and run away. Apparently you had killed three of his guards when you escaped. "I caught up to Celyddon and my cannon killed a great many more of his people. He split up his forces then and had men running to give orders. It was harder to kill them. They ran though and were hard to catch. Celyddon got away and a few months later he was back. By then we had some cannon at each of the cities but he then attacked the small towns. He killed a great many of our people." "He sounds crazy." "He was before and he is even more so now. There is very little of his blood left and I for one am glad of that." "I came up the Weser blowing the whistle but it could have been Celyddon that answered it with a thousand men. I had some defences but not against a crazy enemy like that." "He could not use most of what you carried but the armour and swords are even better than you made before." "I use steam to move a very heavy hammer many times a minute. One man can do a great deal of work before the steel cools. When steel is treated this way it can get even stronger." "Forget Celyddon for a moment and tell me more about your steel." I learned later that Dagmar was thinking of having Prince Egill ask her to marry him. Clovis had seen who the boss was here but didn't mind. The match was good but now it might be King Arnaldr that came to ask the Frisians for help. Apparently the cadets were teaching some of what I had taught them. I had assumed that they were just holding on. I owned a mountain of bronze armour and other booty from the Gauls. All I had to do was go and collect it. The various people, including the Gauls and Romans, were doing well on the farms they were given. There was lots of horsepower around to keep the land cultivated. Kareltje had made a killing selling lumber, lime and cut stone. The walls of Hildestun had risen more at Clovis' command. Rudi too was rich by selling the wagons and wheels. Clovis smiled when he said, "Astrid is very wealthy too. She is selling glass to the Franks as fast as she can make it." "You have a very good wife." Clovis' expression changed and said sorrowfully, "Yes I know. She is more than I deserve." "I think Astrid is not going to make as much money soon." "A prediction?" "In a way. Last... early this morning when we had drank a lot I started the healing on you. Your joints will give less pain and you can move quicker. You may find that in a month you can start working on another heir or two." "You... you mean... I can have children again?" "Yes, and pester Astrid too. A bloated stomach is hard to work around." "Are you sure of this?" "As sure as I usually am of healing. It will take three weeks before you are completely healed." "It was not the cognac?" "No. You just got drunk. The same as if it was wine. It was the healing that made you feel better." "I have to find Astrid." "It only started. You are excited and feel free from some pain. Would it not be better to wait a week or more?" "I guess you are right but this makes me feel like a young man again." "If you tell her then you may not have a chance. She may throw you over her shoulder and take you to bed." Clovis now had a large smile. "That may be fun too." Lynet and Fianna showed up after the noon meal and Clovis kidded me, "You bedding them both?" "The gods put a great load on my shoulders and I thought I should have a better weapon to fight with." "They do look to be predatory." "A gentleman does not talk about his ladies." "Well I guess I was never a gentleman. You better go on then. They look like they need you." "If the boat rocks too much don't get worried." It took a few seconds until Clovis got it and laughed hard and slapped me on the shoulder. The girls and I took care of each other's needs until suppertime. After supper I handed out more copies of my books. Clovis could read Latin and after a while he was able to get the idea of the German version. He now had a perpetual smile because he could see as good as he could as a young man. "This is not hard at all. Most of the time it is just one letter for a sound but sometimes it is two or three together." He had others doing this too now and some were working in tandem if they knew how to read in the first place. I stayed for two more days then said, "I have people expecting me to bring food to them. I have to bring the other workers too. Some to plough the land and others to cut trees and stone to build our school." Clovis asked where the school was and I drew a map on a piece of paper. I showed how some of it was former farm land and the rest virgin forest. "I will come and take a look at what you are building." "You may be disappointed. There has been very little done besides clearing a portion of the land and cutting up some trees." "I will come anyways. My bones do not hurt as much these days." "Then you are welcome to come. Are you able to transport all the things I brought?" "I will have to make a few trips and get more of your carpenter's wagons." I said goodbye to the family but the cadets were going to stay with me. They had to go to the quarry and pick up some of my property and especially the horses. The wagons would be loaded both ways. The food was loaded onto the barge and a great many more people got on for a three hour trip. There was a lot of tearful partings and I had my own tears to shed for Clovis' family was mine too. Lynet was a little pissed when children had to get our room. Finding adults without dependents was a difficult thing to do. She was given the job of surrogate mother and liked this a bit better when I used the right term. We had lots of help tying up and we were greeted warmly. For some, they found that the ship or barge had their family. I gave them an hour to talk and have a meal before they had to get everything stowed away. Crude buildings had been made and a lot more trees had been cleared. The strong smell of smoke was in the air so they must have been getting rid of the limbs. We lost ground for the first few days until the newcomers learned what to do and how to do it. The road had been started and now I tackled this and let the trees fall between the others that were left standing. Rock that stood in the way was cut up for later use. We found a ravine that also had good limestone. The road branched off to this location while the rest of us continued on. A little over four weeks after my second arrival I had some guests. Clovis had come up the road we had made and found our shanty town. We all stopped work to visit. He said, "Your cadets brought wagons but can't get them through the trees." "There is a place about a mile downriver that they can reach and the wagons can be loaded onto the barge." "I knew you would have an answer. Now show me your school." "Still not much to show yet." I think Clovis was being polite until he saw the steam driven saw. When he saw it work he was in love once more. He looked and moved like he was twenty years younger. He too had to control the saw and cut some of the boards for us. Rufus had to ride back up the road to get the cadets headed toward the river. I got Clovis off the saw by getting him on the Patricia. I let Rufus do the navigating but Clovis had to control the ship as he tried to stay in the middle of the channel. "Can you make one of these for me." "They are expensive to make. You also need a crew trained in how to repair both the ship and the engine. I will make a deal with you. First you have to find boys and young men that could work for you in a few years. You have to pay for their keep as they are educated in words and in tools. When they are trained I will sell you a ship at cost." "How much will that be?" "I have to ask questions first. Do you want to be a businessman? You purchase larger ships with larger motors. You take goods and people up and down the rivers here in Germany." "Germany not Germania?" "Germany is larger than Germania. The price is very high to start and you need many young men. Here I am talking about a hundred." "A hundred?" "Some men run the ships but you need a place to bring a ship for repair or a place to repair and engine and take it to a ship running on one or just two engines." "More than one engine each?" "Better that way and you can make the engines work like the reigns of a horse." "I can see that. How much money can I make?" "We make good glass but now others do the same thing. We can make good steel though. I want to use the steel, bronze and brass to make machines. These can be done here in Germany." "What kind of machines do you think we could make?" "I once told you about steel track. I have iron track now and a machine that rides on it. I want to make steel rails now. I need good roads and good ships to move the materials to the place where they are made and then away to the places they need to go. I then need steel carts that ride on the rails and giant engines that will pull the carts." "This will take silver from me." "Actually it gives you silver. The more money Germany makes the more people will want to buy and sell things. One day we will dig rivers east and west that will let ships like I had talked about before cross Germany." "I would like one of those too." "The rivers need to be dug out to let the big ships in. You need giant locks to let ships climb a mountain though there are little here in the north." "So how much for one of the ships you mentioned and a crew?" "Fourteen thousand aurii." "That much?" "The ships are bigger than what I use. They have three engines. They can pull more barges behind them but they are slower then. You can buy one of the steam saws and cut your own wood and make your own barges. You can do the same for the ships but the first one you should buy. Think what you would have had to pay to ship all the things I gave you to Hildestun." "Yes it is costing a lot to do this and a ship does not have all the bumps to break open boxes." "I can loan you the money and you can pay me back in products." Clovis was very interested now. "What products." "You use tools to clear land and plant hemp for me. If you process the hemp then I will pay you more." "For paper?" "And cloth, an oil and seed good to eat and even something that is good to put in a wall to keep out the heat of summer or the cold of winter." "I have lots of slaves." "You may have to free the Roman ones soon." "Why would I do that?" I pulled his arm so he had to leave the navigation to Rufus. When at the back of the ship is said, "The Augustus will make a deal with you. You get all of Germania. When you prove you can hold it you will get Germania Inferior and Germania Superior. If that is not enough you can move east as much as you want. All you have to do is show people that you are a good leader and ready to protect them and you will not need a war." "I will be dead a thousand years by the time that happens." "You have cannon. You will have ships to carry goods, people and troops. You have good roads and our troops can moves as fast as the Romans. The rail lines mean we move five hundred miles in six hours. You do not have to be king of Germania Inferior to control it. They want security and Rome wants Gaul and Hispania. You can control the world with money and you do not have to be a king." "Why will the Augustus grant me what I can take?" "Peace, a stable border and a buffer between the east and the north of Italia and to protect Gaul and Hispania. Germans like to fight and now that they have the cannon they can fight some of the wars like you did before. Rome will pay a lot more for a lot less men. They get soldiers like Fálki. It is like the calvary in the legion. It is not quite part of the legion but does an important job. The people in the calvary are all rich and can afford their own horses. We are rich and can afford our own cannons." "They will steal the secret of the powder." "They will eventually anyway. If it takes a year of a hundred. The secret cannot be kept that long." "I will think on this." Just then Rufus sounded the whistle and started to slow down to what the current was. He was on the right side of the channel and surged to the left and then upstream again. The prop churned the water and with a lot of jerking the barge came around. When we stopped I did not see nine cadets but wagon loads of people. I made out Kareltje the stonecutter, Albrecht, Sander and his wife Geiri, and a lot of the other citizens of Hildestun. Behind them were a lot of the Gauls I had befriended. ------- Chapter 19 I was shocked and must have had my mouth open when Clovis said, "It is about time that I get the upper hand on you." "But all these people?" "Great isn't it." I had to pause and then said, "Yes but how am I going to feed and shelter them?" "You did it before." "But that was when I had only a few at a time." "We are hearty people and will survive. If they get sick you can heal them." I just stared at the people seeing new faces all the time intermixed with the old. Just when we were being tied off I asked, "Did all the people from Hildestun come to live here?" "Only some. I was glad to get rid of a few. We had thousands of people coming to our lands and the city is full and so is Victoria. All the old farms are being worked again but I do not know for how long. We have none of this fertiliser you talked so much about." "There is no room for all these people." "Then settle them here and get them to walk to where you are building." That sounded reasonable but I still had no way of feeding and providing shelter. Healing would physically kill me if a large number got sick. The Germans of this time were hearty and didn't expect too much from the social system. Then I remembered the conflict in Victoria and knew humans would act as animals no matter where and when they were. I was going to be mobbed but Clovis presence kept them back. I put on a happy face even if it was false. I hugged so many people I thought I was going through a repetitious nightmare. I liked or loved the people, I just couldn't take this many people this quickly. I was surprised to see a lot of old enemies too. Some were from the Pict camps I had attacked but some were from the Roman legion we had decimated. These I acted much more formal with but I still acted friendly. I could get a knife in the back from any of these. The presence of the Romans had to be because I had told Fidelis about the courting of the Romans. Either he or Clovis had seen the writing on the wall even though Clovis had not let on when I told him myself just a few minutes ago. Everybody asked questions of me that would take years to answer. If I did it all at once it would take hours. I wanted the people settled first. My smiling cadets were in front of me now but even with their training they were still children. I gave them an extra hug and said, "We have to get them settled first. There is no room at the school." Dolf asked, "What should we do?" "We have to make a tent city like the Romans do. There are enough Romans here to show them how to do it." I sent the cadets among the people to find the warriors among them. I had to get some work done and I did not want them to feel like they were being abused or neglected. Thinking diplomatically for a change I got Clovis to come with me to a rock so we both could stand on it to be seen and heard. The people gathered around and I walked to Gnaeus Scipio Magnus and shook his hand again and said in a low voice, "We have to talk soon. Are you here of your own choice?" "We are prisoners of war and your prisoners." "Will you assist me in getting all these people settled?" "I will." "Will you accept orders from others placed above you and give orders to those below you regardless of race?" "I am a prisoner and have to do that." "Then thank you for your help." Clovis got on the rock and then I got up by accepting his hand. My smile went back on and I said in a loud German voice, "I thank all of you for coming here to help me. I am making a school. I will be teaching Latin, German and mathematics. When that has been mastered we will progress to how the world works. This will lead to how to manipulate our world." I then said the same thing again in Latin. "I am going to drag this world into the fifth century with my bare hands if I must. Most of you have heard of my dreams of things to come and my visions from the land of the gods. I want everybody well fed and active. I want everybody to be able to read and understand the politics of our own people and that of our neighbours." The Romans were told in their language the same as I had just said in German. "You may have heard that the power of the gods flow through my hands. This is true and you will be able to see this in the days to come. I do not want to have to do this too much because it is very tiring. You all need homes and food. My father has taught us how to make camps. He has learned from the greatest army in the world. I want that kind of camp set up now and everybody to use the latrines. Disease is hard to control even for me if it takes too many people." I thought for a moment as I looked at the faces of those in front of me. Many I knew but only a few I knew well enough. "Gnaeus Scipio Magnus will you set up a camp for all the people here. It may not be a traditional camp but I want it safe, orderly and clean." "I will do so." "Do you have the tools to do this?" "Some." "You will be issued what is available." He just nodded to me. "Albrecht, I want you to choose among the Romans and all other races and find the best hunters. We need meat to feed our people." "I would be happy to do that." "Dolf, I want you to make drying racks for the meat." "Yes, Sir." "Kareltje, gather some of your men and when the meeting is over we will board the barge and take out some very large and heavy pots." There was a slight pause and he said, "Yes, Sir." "Cadets, I need an accounting of everybody that is here. People will come to you with their problems and the ones that you cannot handle will come to me." To the entire assemblage I said, "We are going to be going through a busy time. Please try to handle the problems you have on your own. I will try to help with the ones you cannot. Making camp will take time and I will talk to some of you individually and some as a group when all of this is done." I was finished for now and Clovis now spoke. "My son," he said loudly as he put his hand on my shoulder. "He is building a new world that I can almost see sometimes. It is a kinder world that what we have now. People are educated and are free to make choices that suit them best. The power of kings will diminish as the power of the people grow. This will take a long time and I will be safely dead before this world arrives. I want this world to come about. You have all talked to me so I would take you here and I have. Now that you are here, I want you to treat my son the same way as you do me." He just peered at the audience to see if anybody was going to object to his wishes. I had to say, "Thank you Father for your support. I do not know how you are going to manage in Hildestun because you have brought me the best people." "I brought you a lot of my troublemakers but those are the ones that just need a goal or a good leader and they can do wonders." "I would not contradict you because I believe you are right." We went to the barge and I broke out more tools. The leaders either passed them out or delegated this duty. A few Romans had to exchange axes for bows but the weapons had to come from the people arriving. I was able to get Clovis to one side and asked, "Why did you bring the Romans?" "Grímkell talked of your prisoners of war. I treated the my slaves well but apparently this was not good enough. Grímkell had a difficult time with them until they settled into a cohort lead by a general. The Romans had the same freedoms of the land as the free people. They found work and fed themselves. If I had trouble then Gnaeus took care of it. There were travellers or spies and the Romans learned a lot more of you when you went west. I think they knew more than I did. When they heard about you being here they started to say that they were your prisoners and not mine. I do not have them in chains. They stayed because of their word and could leave just as easily as it was given. This way you have them where they want to be." "What about the Franks and the craftsmen?" "They simply wanted to come. Most were rich now and could go where they pleased. I think that they see you as the source of many new ideas and a lot more gold." "There is gold to be made. Most of mine has to go back to the people in the form of education." "I am a king and I do the same thing. The gold may not be for a school but it goes back to the people." "I guess that is the way it had to be." Messengers went back and forth to the camp because Clovis and I were late. Food, large planks and curious people came from the school site as the camp went up. A lot of the goods destined for the school, like the kitchen equipment, came off now so that it could be used. We walked through the wagons now and Clovis had more of his guards. I didn't think he needed them but then again I had been just been startled by people that I had fought not long ago. One woman I knew was getting out of the back of a wagon. I stopped to say hello and said, "Hello Mareike." "Hello Jón. It is so nice to see you again. The children miss you and your tales." "How are they and your husband Wiebe?" "The children had the sniffles but Wiebe is not doing well." "Where is he?" "Resting in our wagon." I just climbed up and went in the right one. Wiebe had put on some weight but now lost it all. It was easy to see that he did not have long to live. "Hello, Wiebe. It has been a while since we have talked." He tried to sit up and gave me a smile but there was pain there too. "I heard you got yourself captured by that King Celyddon. Your father has been trying to kill him." "That was a while ago. Some friends rescued me. I have been learning ever since. The gods gave me the ability to heal. Would you like me to see what I can do?" "My time has come. I can face it like a man." "Some of your children are young and need a father." He paused to think and I said, "It is unfair for Mareike to take all of the burden of raising the children." The pause lengthened and I was familiar with his hard headedness and said, "We have to get some food into you. Your body does the repairing and I do the telling just like in the army. The army needs to be fed though and you are thin." "I haven't felt like eating for a long time." "You have to eat whether you feel like it or not." I turned to Wiebe's wife and she just hurried away. The wagon smelt of sickness so I pulled back the cloth covering to get some fresh air to circulate. I talked to Wiebe and even Clovis talked to him some to find out how he really felt. Mareike came back and Clovis helped her into the wagon and she began to feed her husband. When he objected to the food I gave my own orders and he ate for me. When the bowl of food was done she got out of the wagon and I took a blanket to sit on and put it near Wiebe. I soon found out that I had my work cut out for me. Wiebe was afflicted with kidney damage, diabetes and a heart problem. I had to do a form of triage and treat the diabetes first. When he appeared to be stabilised I worked on the kidneys. I then had to go back to the pancreas. I was only partially done and pulled out to find it full night. I was very thirsty myself and had difficulty standing. Clovis hurried into the wagon and assisted me to stand. He asked, "Are you alright?" "Tired, thirsty and I need to piss." He chuckled a bit and helped me to get to the ground. Wiebe's family looked expectantly at me and I had to say, "He has a lot of things wrong with him but they are getting fixed a bit at a time. I'll come back in a while and do some more." Mareike said, "My the gods bless you." I had quite a walk to the latrine and a wide aisle opened before us. The people looked worried but I could not see a reason for this. When I came back I found some food and drink for me and it looked like Wiebe had been changed in my absence. At the back of the wagon, Clovis asked, "Do you have to do this now?" "He was dying slowly until I upset the balance and now I have to monitor him so his heart or his kidneys don't get out of hand." He helped me into the wagon and I went back to work. This time I was going to do the bare minium because I was too tired. I pulled back once more. Wiebe had been stable for a while and I knew that I needed rest. When I looked around I saw that the people were still there. I said, "I am going for a sleep now. You people should too." My voice was odd and I knew it was just from fatigue. I wiggled until I was on my back and went immediately to sleep. I had to take a piss so bad I got up. It was dark still but everybody had gone as I asked. Wiebe looked to be doing better but I was not ready to take the time to check. It was easier to crawl to the back of the wagon and I held onto an upright as my legs went to the ground. It was good that I held on or I would have fallen. One of the Gauls was awake and he came over and helped me to the latrine. He even waited and assisted me back. Mareike was awake and handed me some food. "The king commanded me to feed you. He had to bring more of your gifts home." "Thanks Mareike. Do you have some water too?" "Yes, Jón." I felt better in ten minutes and then checked on Wiebe. I got Mareike to bring him some food and adjusted his pancreas to produce a bit more insulin. One kidney was much better than the other because I had only worked on one of them. The heart had scar tissue and some of it was now healthy tissue. After Wiebe was cleaned once more we both went back to sleep. The camp was making a lot of noise and I woke up to the sun almost directly overhead. Wiebe not only looked better but he was awake and staring at me. "It is about time you woke up." "How are you feeling?" "Better than I have in months thanks to you." "You are welcome but there is a lot more to do." "Do we have to do it now?" "No, we can wait a bit." Mareike brought over Lynet and Fianna who proceeded to feed me while Mareike did the same for her protesting husband. Wiebe chuckled when I was fed by first one sister then the other until is wife put a lot of food in his mouth. When I finished the girls helped me down from the wagon. I took a look around and saw that everything had progressed very quickly. Not only was there a palisade but there were now cookshacks serving hot food. There was another latrine and this one was a lot closer. "Gnaeus was pretty busy to get all this done in less than a day." The girls stopped and I had to as well. Fianna said, "I had been two days not one. You made us sleep in a tent instead of our bed. We want you in there now." "Two days! I must have been more tired than I thought. No wonder father left." "He smiled at us and said to tell you that he is having only half the trouble you were having. What did he mean?" "It looks like his wife may be making up for lost time. I may get a little brother of sister in nine months." Both sisters were surprised and I was surprised that they didn't catch this innuendo. I was being directed to the ship and got the girls to stop. "Where is Gnaeus?" The girls didn't know but we did turn to where the Romans congregated. I was happy to see no sharp dividing line along racial types. A Roman stood as I approached and saluted and then directed me to his superior. I saluted in reply but had a smile because my salute was right out of Hollywood. It was also what the cadets used. His salute was genuine and I guess mine was too now. Gnaeus was busy but came as soon as he could. He offered me a seat which I was happy to accept. I said, "Lynet and Fianna are good at reading Latin but need a bit more practice. As you and I talk, are there two educated men that can talk of politics or any other topic? I do not want my girls being treated as children. They are intelligent and deserve the respect they get." Gnaeus had a small smile and said, "Some of my officers are very well educated. They would not find it a chore to show these ladies the camp and answer all their questions." "Thank you." I turned to the girls and said, "Learn what you can. Romans are men and have to be treated delicately. In a few weeks you will be teaching them mathematics. Don't let them treat you like stupid creatures. We all have to learn from each other." Lynet said, "But you need us." "I do but I need you to knock heads in this group of men." Gnaeus waved a man over and told him to take the girls to two officers and how the officers were to act. When the girls were away but looking back, Gnaeus said, "Are you trying to get those two married off?" "Well... not right away." "I understand. What would you command me to do?" "I have to talk about politics." "An unsavoury topic." "I agree but still necessary. I want to tell you of my goals for the world and the people in it." "A very large topic then." "True. Rome goes to war to gain wealth and slaves. I do not like slaves to be kept. Prisoners of a crime are different. Wars for wealth enrich one country at the expense of another but there is an overall loss. My intention is to educate everybody. People can come to rational conclusions if they are given enough facts. Those facts can only be carried by word of mouth and by reading." "I can see the education and reasoning but not how it applies to slaves and war." "If we consider the Roman Empire for a moment, the citizens carry the natural human traits of dominance and submission a bit too far. This I would like muted some. War is driven by dominance as well as greed and need. Slaves can be given some rights making them still submissive but not quite as much as before. "In place of war and slaves I can show your empire how to be rich beyond their wildest dreams but when everybody is that rich then it does not mean as much. Machines will replace slaves. Free men will be given all sorts of jobs for silver but the empire will produce so many valuable devices that the man will want to work very hard to gain more silver for more products." "What kind of products are you talking of?" "The list is very long but I can give a few examples. Glass is very expensive but not in Hildestun. A Roman would love to go there with gold and an empty wagon and go home to become a rich man. I have talked to others of many ways of travel. One uses giant ships of steel with engines like what I have. Another is through the air and Romans are now working on this for me. A third way is two steel ribbons. Carts roll on the smooth track and are pulled by an machine with an engine that is the same as what is in the ship. This might surprise you but this has already been built and working. It is just too small and the track is in a loop at one of my factories." "What does the factory make?" "Iron is made so hot it is like water. It is poured into a space between layers of sand. It hardens there and then the sand is removed. The sand is on iron carts that stop in front of the furnace so the iron can be poured into them. They are pulled away by the engine so the iron can cool while more carts are put in position." "I would like to see that." "I may give you the chance soon." Gnaeus looked at me a bit skeptically. "Why do you say that?" "I need the Frisians to learn from the Romans but the Romans have to learn from the gods. The only thing that holds you here is your word. The Caesar, Julian, has dealings with me. I am trying to improve the Roman army. You may not believe it but I went on a mission against the Alemmani with them. Instead of bringing back a lot of slaves, we captured almost five hundred men with only a few Alemmani casualties. None of the Romans were killed. You now have the makings of another Auxiliary." "Tell me about this. It is very interesting." Instead I talked about how Jón and I had lifted the siege of Hildestun. I went into our capture, torture, memory loss and rescue. This took a few moments. I continued with Lucius and how he thought I would die or be vegetable for the rest of my life. I explained what I had done on the Rhine including corrupting a good Roman officer with the thoughts of flight. What I had done on Lucius' estate took much longer. The trip to Lutetia was next. I explained my discovery of healing then my run in with an old and rich family. Gnaeus smiled at the outcome here. Now I went into the mission and said in detail what both the Roman army and I had done because of cooperation with Julian. To finish off I talked of the pirates hitting Roman shipping and then my own. Gnaeus was very intrigued with my new arrows. I continued with the small locomotive, the small completed ship that he saw and told of the next that was twice as long. "Your story is what I would not even expect to hear in the tales of the gods but there is far too much evidence for me to think that any of this is untrue. You did not mention your reason for coming back now to this area." "Clovis wrote a letter and it was far faster for me to sail here than to send it. We had not met since before all the battles I was in. I wanted to talk to him as he wanted to talk to me. I gave him the iron products similar to what you saw in this camp. I also provided swords, armour and a cannon with a bore twice as wide as the one you must have seen and a long cannon of half the size." "Are you going to war?" "In a way. I am preparing Germania to be settled just like a Roman province. Rome will sign a pact with Clovis one day to watch each other's back. Rome has lots of troops and the Frisians are few. The Frisians have cannon but the Romans can just stay in small groups. What I am getting at is that Rome should not fear Germania too much. Rome was burnt but the army felt the pain." I was quiet for a while and Gnaeus thought on my words. His legion was the one that had been almost completely destroyed. Finally Gnaeus said, "Who are you going to war against?" "Rome needs people familiar with cannons. The Frisians are the only group that can do this. Rome and Germania go to Persia. After Persia the Huns have to be held back. The list goes on and on. We will be somewhat like an Auxiliary but also like a partner." "What does Germania get out of this?" "Roman gold for services rendered. Rome will have a small but strong ally when the need arrises. I on the other hand I am going to change the Roman Empire." "This does not sound like war." "It isn't. Everything or almost everything the gods have told me will be made in each of the Roman Provinces. I make a lot of gold but I use it to educate the people. Slavery can be made not as profitable and will fade away. People, goods and the army can move a thousand miles in a day. You need less of an expensive army. The army has to learn about cannons from the back not the front." "You would give us this information?" "After Germania is accepted as an ally. You Romans will steal the secret anyway." The last was said with a smile. "Why should Rome trust the Frisians?" "They don't have to. You would not anyway. We make contracts that benefits both of us. With business and mutual protection we will eventually be married though separate. Rome will grow to need us and we will grow to need Rome. It may turn out to be a marriage of convenience but it is still a marriage." "Constantius sent us here. Why would he agree to this." "Do you believe that the gods have spoken to me?" "Yes, there is no other explanation." "I have had a glimpse of the future. Events change by even whispering of them but the Augustus will make a contract with us and we will help you defeat your enemies." In the coming days Albrecht was given command of some Frisian and Frank warriors. One week he would learn Roman ways from Gnaeus but the next he would show him how to make the saddles and lances. Albrecht didn't like this but did it because I said it was the right thing to do. Our shanty town was built more snugly and then we hacked a roadway to the school. The other roadway had to go five more kilometres through the forest then two more to meet a dirt path that was called a road. Kareltje and a few of his men that came with him, cut stone and taught others to do the same job. I made more of the scoops that dug out dirt when pulled by a horse or sometimes two. With fire, and manpower we had the basement dug to a depth of nine metres. I wanted to get to bedrock and there were a lot of holes that needed to be filled with the loose soil. The school was going to be a university too and as such had to be large to cover the population in this portion of Germany. It at first was two hundred metres by one hundred but I expanded it four times in size with provision for further expansion. Kareltje built a kiln for lime and another for drying lumber. He had lots of practice at this and I called him one of my first teachers. He dropped a bit of his gruff exterior now and tried to get the message across in a nicer way. Sander made thick and large diameter clay pipe to circle the building and take away rainwater. He was also in charge of glass making. Most of us were used to this form of plate and cup and now could not live without it. Wiebe worked harder than the rest. He had made a complete recovery and looked much younger. He begged me this time to enrol his children into the cadets. I took two because there were many others to consider. Cadets were everywhere and doing everything. They worked the hardest and actually were the happiest. Vegetables were always in need and we used the wagons to gather them from those farmers that were close. Rufus, took Gnaeus under his wing and taught him how to sail. The Franks under Albrecht learned too and Rufus enjoyed the opportunity to teach. The girls did a wonderful job of keeping books and making all sorts of aids so that people could follow detailed instructions. This was done to encourage everyone to learn how to read. We had a nursery up to grade four being taught in rotation by a series of teachers. The upper grades were a half day where the student worked. I had them out prospecting, camping and hunting with some of the older men so they were not hard done by. The men objected to teaching females but only for a while. Some of the older women were quite capable and took their boys and girls and tried to show up the old men. Minden became a stop every two weeks where groceries were bought and a portion of the men could let off steam and seminal fluid. Most of these were Gnaeus' men. They always came back though some had to walk after the ship left. Gnaeus usually had a punishment for this. The large bolt of silk I took as booty from Kirwyn's camp was used to make a kite. I had at least one more Roman captivated by flight. Gnaeus made kites and aeroplanes and this was a favourite topic around the campfires when I talked of WWI and WWII. I told them all I knew about flight but it was very little. They loved the ideas of dirigibles but I had no ready source of hydrogen or helium. Hafgan was still a very beautiful child. I thought of him much like Forni at times. I took him aside one night and did to him what I did to Clovis. I may not be doing him any favours but he would have the chance now to have children of his own. I was at the school three and a half months and it was mid February. The foundation was complete including the sewer. This led to a settling pond that was covered over to keep the rain out. The pond was on the side of the hill away from the river. There was nothing mechanical there to stir the liquid but I hoped to get methane from it or at least fertiliser. Teams had to be sent into the areas of the old farms and clear this land too. Lumber was taken to build homes because the farmers would not be able to make it back to the school everyday. The floor of the school was put in with squared trees as beams. More beams stretched up for six stories in height. This was possible only because of the availability of such large trees. Horizontal beams were on all the floors and including the roof. The roof would be hot and this would be for storage and a water tank or two. The roof was in place and overhung the beams by a good margin. The wood would shrink in time and I wanted to bolt it into place only when it had stopped shrinking. Lynet and Fianna were doing a lot more research in the Roman portion of the camp and I gave them their freedom to do what they wanted. The girls were very strict about their fertile time and I got my chance to make love to them too. I made ready to leave. There was a very large boiler to make and almost a hundred cast iron radiators along with kilometres of pipe and valves. I doubted if there was an adult in the camp that was not a Wodenist. We were a community now. There was a large box of letters from Roman husbands to their wives or just to family. They could read now and writing was not that difficult. Lynet and Fianna were offered a ride back to Minden but decided to stay. This was their home now. I would have to stop and talk to Noland about this development. The girls had stopped searching and now seemed to settle down with one man each. I figured that when I came back I would be officiating at their wedding or at a baptism. I was celibate again and this might have been the underlying reason to leave. The barge was emptied and checked by Rufus and his men. Some ropes were replaced because we had processed the hemp but had not made paper with it. My share of the bronze armour and weapons had been brought by the cadets and Clovis. The Cadets had even gone back under escort to get all of it. I could use this for making the components for my steam engines. A large load of salt was brought aboard for sale and some for our own use. Large empty boxes were constructed too in hopes of filling them. We were going to try fishing once more. Two wagons and their teams were put on the barge. Gnaeus, two of his officers and some of the men were going as far as Minden. I thought it best to have the girls present their boyfriends to their parents rather than me explaining. They could make the trip count because they were going to bring back some food. There was some crying but I didn't enter the bedroom when they were aboard. They had made their choice and I was not going to act like a fool. A crowd formed even before we arrived and it was difficult getting room to let down the ramp. We got on the wagons and rode into the town. This was the first time here and saw the mud and shit on the streets. It was a far cry from what we had even in our shanty town. People waved at us from the windows and I got all of us to wave back and not just me. It was not too long until we arrived at a nice home and we all got out. I was sure Noland and his wife might think they were being invaded. We all shook hands and I said, "Lynet and Fianna have found some men that they think will make them happy for the rest of their lives." It was easy to see who they were because the girls were holding on tightly to them. The parents and other children didn't know what to make of this. I did the things that a marriage broker would do though I had only heard of this before. I mentioned how all four would have a job that would earn gold while they got to know each other. If they felt the same way when I got back I could marry them. Noland said, "Do you think they will make good husbands?" "I do. Both men are from good families. Their commanding officer thinks they will do very well. The only dark cloud that may mar this is that when relations warm with Rome they may be required to return. If they do so then their wives and family will go too." The men were cross-examined. They spoke poor German but a while ago they had spoke none. The mother started to cry and the daughters went to her and they cried too but they also had smiles. I smiled and winked at the grooms and they relaxed a bit. We had a toast. Gnaeus and most of his men escorted me to the ship. At the dock I shook the man's hand then hugged him. He was a friend now and friends had to be closer. We pulled away from the dock and Rufus pulled the cord hard and the whistle could be heard all through the town. I guess it was his way of saying goodbye. Rufus asked, "How did they take it?" "Not bad. Rome is still a respected enemy or a respected opponent." "Not a friend?" "Not yet." "You miss Patricia?" "Yes but not like a wife yet. She does not have to wait for me and I would understand if she didn't. I am just too young yet and though I claim it is because I am doing the task the gods sent me, it is actually true and I would make a poor husband." "I have a good Roman wife that waits for me." "Most wives are good. Husbands can be good too." The trip down the Weser was much quicker with an lighter barge and nothing to slow us down. When we got to the channel we again put out the nets and caught tonnes of fish. They had to go into the boxes whole. The net was brought in and we spent the next day cleaning and salting them down. We were not lucky like that again until we hit the Rhine and then it was another bumper catch. We stopped to see Lucius but he was out on patrol. We sold most of the fish right here and talked with Lucius' commander about what was happening in the last few months. We stopped again to see Horatius Postuma. He bought the rest of the fish and he asked for more. I found out what he had been doing so far and said, "There is another Roman that is as corrupted by flight as you are. In a year I hope to bring him here and we can have a competition." "Who is he?" "When I was fighting Rome I captured Gnaeus Scipio Magnus and some of his men. He has given his word to not leave our land without me releasing him. He is now helping me build a school on the Weser River. You are free to see him and correspond. I have many of his letters and those of his men to deliver to the hands of the Roman Courier Service." "I can take them for you." "Will they remain unopen? I did not read them and neither did I allow others to do so." "They will not be read at this camp. I cannot say what will happen before they reach their destination." "That is fair enough. This is military mail but to family. Is there some charge that must be paid." "Some men may say yes so they can pocket the money but the answer is no." "I am going to Lutetia in a month or two. I will return the favour and take the mail and deliver it to that base or to one along the way. I too will not allow anything to be read while it is in my possession." "The Augustus may not like that but if you took the courier too then that would be all right." "He rides for free and so does the mail but he has to clean fish with us." Horatius smiled and said, "I will offer that deal to them." Rufus said when we were back on the river, "We can make a fortune. We hire fifty men to clean the fish and we just have to use the nets at the mouths of the rivers." "You can for a while but the number of fish will diminish with time. If you are the only one doing it you may never notice but when others see how much money there is to be made, they will do the same thing. They may not have our ship or barge but they can make a long net." "We can still do everything better and faster." "That is true. We can make a large steel factory ship with even larger nets. We can use a steam engine to squeeze a gas, instead of letting a gas push our piston. When the gas is allowed to expand again it will make everything it touches colder." For the next few hours I described an ammonia refrigeration system. It was still used in my time and Freon was banned because of what it did to the atmosphere. The river that was wholly on my property had a multitude of names. Since I now owned it I chose to call it the Don River after the one flowing through Toronto. It also made me think of the Black Sea because there was a Don River there too. We pulled into the Don instead of going to see Lucius family. I had my own to see first. Besides, I wanted the engine checked and repaired if necessary. It was starting to make a noise and I figured it was a loose bearing. I remembered the lake of petroleum but we did not have any of this to make a decent grease or oil. We had to work with vegetable oils. We were not the only ship here but we were the largest. People were coming here to buy wholesale and it looked like the business was growing exponentially. We caught up on news or rumour but nothing was different than what we heard at the two camps. We listened to gossip and added a bit of our own. Clovis' recovery was mentioned with the added information that he would be home a lot more now. The men loved this piece of juicy information and I knew that Clovis would not mind. He would probably tell everybody how well he was doing himself. My family were spread all over and I got to see some but not all. The youngest ones though were all safe at Licinia's home. She was a pseudo mother to me and to my charges. There was a few physicians trained by me to treat the people. I now took some of those with persistent maladies or just treated illnesses that were just too difficult for the doctors. I got a horse to ride and one for my belongings and rode to the coal mine. The hole in the ground was getting large and I saw pumps driven by steam removing water. The coal was converted to coke and the coke used to fire the iron ore that was delivered. The coke gases were used to heat the bricks that would heat the air that went into the cupolas. I stayed for a few days to check on some problems but the present management was doing well considering how much education they had. I spent a few more days at the other foundry but here events were moving faster with a more dynamic leadership. An open hearth furnace was nearing construction. It would make a lot of steel for me and negate the effects of the phosphorous in the iron. We had half of one rolling mill and it would make steel rails. If everything worked right we could produce a kilometre of heavy steel track per day. When the bugs got worked out I hoped to double that. When I factored downtime for repairs I figured that I could get three hundred kilometres of paired track in a year from this furnace alone. When we found ways around any bottlenecks we would incorporate these ideas in a new and larger furnace to double production again. My estimates of the time the iron ore would last were greatly reduced. Our brass works had been doing a lot of experiments because we had lots of scrap and I had brought more. Rufus had already brought my share of the Gallic booty around and most of it was soon cast into ingots. We were working on an agricultural tractor with a steam engine. I had seen the old ones with steel wheels and angle iron cleats on the surface for grip. It had a large drum on the side that spun so it could drive a long leather belt that worked a thrashing machine. My machine had two metre wheels but they were a metre wide. I hoped this way would negate some of the problems with soil compaction. Tertius was the one pushing to get this built and he told me all his problems only to tell me how he worked around them. I was sure that he was not the only one to find the solutions. The tractor in any case would not be ready for three to five weeks yet so I figured on seven. Tertius had seen my drawings of a locomotive and knew that the tractor was gigantic but still small when he finally worked on my railway. Canada and the United States gave the railways ten square miles of land for each mile of track laid. This was in addition to a four hundred foot wide section that was used just for track and facilities. Loans had been offered but in the first cases the government had offered fantastic sums of cash for payment for each mile layed. I would have to negotiate something similar with Rome and the provinces when I started. Tertius was not in charge of the money but he had a good budget. He wanted more gold now and I had to go into overall engineer mode and find the reasons for it and how the sum could be reduced or negated. I had to turn him down and then told him why. He was not happy but he would get over it. I then offered Tertius another project for the school boiler. I justified it a bit, "You can take what you learn from this project and carry it over to the one for the locomotive. It is just that you are then going to have to reduce the size and weight in years to come." "We can do this but we need more people." "Use the ones you have. Borrow a few for this project if you run into problems. I don't want to see them on the books when the job is done." "What if you have another job?" "Then they stay on until that is over." "You were talking to Rufus about a machine to squeeze the gas that is made when we make coke." "The process is called refrigeration." I had to use the English word but then again it had roots in Latin. Tertius' eyes were gleaming when I finished the same conversation I had with Rufus. I expected to see some creative bookkeeping to hide his foray into this new field of physics. When I did look at the books, I found I had a great deal more money that I had when I left. The gifts I took with me hardly put a dent in the budget. There were a lot more budding engineers filling senior management duties. They all kept extensive logs which would be used to make books someday and I did not worry about the cost of paper. I got a chance to meet a lot more through my healing. I was concerned now because I was seeing evidence of problems associated with the production of coke. I just had to do repair work on men until we could make a good enough furnace where all the gases were captured. I next took a trip to the sawmill and found a mountain of cut lumber under structures with roofs but no walls. I also saw large wagons being loaded with green wood which I sold cheaper. The manager was very happy to see me. He was so bubbling that he could not talk very well. He had made fantastically large sales of lumber. So I guess the mountain I saw was only a portion of what was cut. "Croist nearly burnt to the ground. The city has four copper mines and a silver one too. It is very rich. We supply the wood to their mines now and at a fair profit but when the city burnt they needed a lot and they needed it right away. We had a lot of logs floated in and stacked. I am almost through all of them now." "You did a very good job of taking advantage of the situation and I imagine the people are very happy to get the ready made lumber." The man smiled at the comment and said, "Oh, they were very happy they only wished we had a barge to carry it part way there. They would still need wagons but they have not been keeping the roads as good as they should." A road after it was built had to be kept up by the locals and many times this was not done very well. I said, "I could have used your mill where I was. I have another job for you if there is room." "Yes, Sir, anything." "When a board dries it shrinks. After it shrinks it is still rough. I will talk to the steel works and see if you can get two rollers with a knife edge on one of them. You push a long piece of lumber in and a steam engine turns the roller very fast and cuts just a bit off the lumber. It comes out smooth on that one side. Another man takes the piece of wood and turns it over before he pushes it through a similar machine. This one takes off just a bit more but on the rough side. With two more times you have a dry board that is smooth on all four sides." "I will do as you wish but I cannot see anybody needing smooth lumber." "Carpenters will get less wood in their skin. In the last few months I have pulled out enough splinters out to make a tree. Finished wood also means that the carpenter has to do less work. So he will pay a bit more to be done sooner." "I will do that as soon as possible." I was just an hour from Licinia, and had to smile because they too were my family. People waved to me as I passed and I waved back. Some came running to me if they were close and tried to get me to heal them. Like a doctor of my time it was more for the touch and a kind word than any real problem. I did get some of my children and had to get off the horse to hold them. They usually got to ride now and I did not disappoint them. By the time I got to the house I had a crowd around me and I had to watch that the smaller ones didn't get trampled by horse or man. Licinia was there to greet me and I gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. "I missed you and the family." I got hugged back and she said, "You run off to wild Germania where you could have been killed when you could have stayed here and managed your businesses. They could have made even more gold if you had stayed. Tertius is always complaining that he has to do all the work." There was a smile her face so we both knew the young man just liked to moan to get some attention. "If I was here all the time he would complain that he was not given enough authority." "That is my son. He has a woman now that checks in on him a lot. She is older than he is." Roman society had males in their mid twenties marrying teen girls. The men were better able then to provide for their family then. "Is he fighting her off with both hands." "Not in the least. The only thing that is good is that he loves his work so much that he doesn't have too much time to see her." "He will make a good catch to some woman some day. He's smart and will be extremely wealthy." "Everybody sees that and so must that woman." "Don't push too hard because he will rebel and do just what you do not wish him to do." "He is so much like his father." "How is Lucius?" "That man makes me angry. We have so little time together and now he is selling what you make." "He is making a lot of money too." "We have enough money now and I like him around more." "He wants to get a large ship and sail up and down the Rhine. It will have a house on it like the barge. He carries anything that he can make money at and maybe there will be room in his cabin for his favourite girl." Licinia caught on right away and smiled. Her face then changed. "Who would take care of the farm. I did a lot of work to get it in the shape it is in." It took a while for Licinia to get me into the house and then sit down to a glass of wine. I had babies all over me now and this I liked too until they started to smell or drip. Every one of them was as healthy as I could get them and I was happy to do this. Later I was able to go to see the ship. A lot more wood had been put on the ribs. It looked good but I knew that a lot more time was needed to finish her. It was not just a matter of having more people work on her though that helped. The best ship builders were right here and they had got much better by working with me. It was not Tuesday but I had a small service and healed those that needed the effort. One man had lost a foot shortly after I had left and was now stable. I looked at the problem and tried to grow one back but I was not sure yet exactly how to do it. The man was happy that I was trying. The school had grown in population in my absence. People were coming every day. Some had the sick with them and wanted me to cure them. When I was not here they were given work and the sick had to just wait. There were lots of people around and not enough work. I had been providing food for humanitarian reasons but this just attracted too many people that were hungry. I gave some orders and had another ship building facility started but this one was on the Rhine itself because of the size. Barges were a good idea and I could put steam engines on them if not bow thrusters to help them get around some of the sharp bends. The construction of the facility would provide jobs and so would the construction of the barges. I thought of my factory ship and could see a self powered barge with shrouded props and a very low freeboard in the aft section to pull in the nets. I would need a hoist to help if the net were large and I would need powered capstans. My hands still felt the remembered pain of pulling in the heavy wet nets. It was not long until I saw the ship as being too small and had to increase every dimension. A longer ship had to be stronger too because the waves could support both ends and the centre would break of its own weight. This all came about when I remembered about the early explorers mentioning how many cod were available on the east coast of North America. This would lead to colonisation of the continent and I was not ready for that yet. The design of the ship could wait for a while but the dry dock could be built now. We needed some strong gates and even stronger walls. The Rhine flooded and we would have a lot of damage if the river overflowed the walls. The Romans had built bridges with supports in the centre of a river. They drove poles into the riverbed like a palisade but then built another one around that. The portion in between was filled with clay to form an impervious wall. The water was bailed out inside the inner inclosure and work begun on setting large stones for the foundations. To remove the amount of earth could be done with horses and my scoops but I had used a drag line in Paris. There were lots of problems relating to the rope and steel rope would have done much better. I would just have to draw steel wire and then make a machine for producing cable. The work done on the larger buckets for the dragline and the cable would be used in the mining industry. I had a great many mechanisms to make from the raw materials I could get but fertiliser was up there near the top. ------- Chapter 20 I went back to having casual sex with those ladies that came to me. There were a lot but I picked the best and not the ones that were just pretty or wrapped up in Wodenism. The best did not mean beautiful all the time. Wodenism apparently was flourishing. Converts were taking my books and reading them to the uneducated masses of Germania Inferior. I knew it was happening in Gaul and Germania too. I was not acting like the Gideons where I gave away the books but they were sold at cost. This was a bit mercenary on my part but it kept some of the abuse down. Men and women going out to spread the word were offered my assistance but most refused this. They were usually very well treated by those they talked to. A large temple had been erected here on the Rhine. There were stained glass windows of scenes from the future. One was of an astronaut on the moon planting a flag with the lander and the earth in the background. Another had a picture from space of earth with Europe in the centre. I could copy the art of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Donatello. The names were also easy to remember because of the Ninja Turtles. Nobody could complain about me stealing this art because the artists would not be born for a thousand years. I wanted the Renaissance now not then. Of course it would not be a re-birth but a continuation. This art in the form of paintings and statuary would help focus peoples' thoughts better. All religions had shrines in one form or another and a lot of holy relics. To compete I had to get the same things made. The temple made me think of the majestic organs and church bells. In my conversations to date, I found that the organ had already been invented and used in Rome. Whether a Christian church used it or not was unknown. I wanted this now too as well as a choir. There were no shortage of artists of one ilk or another but I had not set out to find them yet or they had not come to see me. Tertius was already loaded down with work but Manlius and Iulius were due back in a few days. The old physician liked music and he liked mathematics. He may be a good one to carry on this work with the organ. I knew that A above middle C was four hundred and forty Hertz and that multiplying by the twelfth root of two would get the note above or dividing to get the note below. Getting the right initial frequency would be difficult but I could guess. In the times to come, we could do some calculations with some sensitive instruments but I would probably be dead by that time. I needed a machine shop now because I wanted to make tuning forks. Again it was a matter of ear but I had never pursued music very much. I sang and I had played the piano but was never good. Maybe even competent was too strong of a word for my abilities. There were always jobs all over to do but I wanted to get the organ started. I got the horse ready and brought extra clothes and my armour when a carriage pulled up. I switched over to the 'hand of the gods' mode. The visitors looked to be quite influential. Licinia was introduced to them and I found that she already knew the people. I said, "I wanted to be off to improve on our temple. Music is pleasing to both the gods and man." This got into a discussion about what was pleasing to any particular god. This same type of argument had to have gone on since man invented gods. I limited this to ten minutes and they tried to make my departure again. There was no point in being nasty but I had to be adamant on occasion and this was such a time. The group wanted to accompany me but Licinia got them to stay so I would get a head start. I hurried to the mill. Most of the machinery had been moved to other sites because we now had a steam engine in other buildings turning some steel shafts in the ceiling with large wood pulleys on them. These had been very common at the start of the twentieth century. The same arrangement was here but they were driven by water. I made ten forks in the pattern I remembered but they were in five lengths. Two forks could be compared and if there was a difference then the beat could be distinguished. Almost all of this was from my grade twelve and thirteen physics and a bit more I had at university. I got some young men to help me clean them up with files and grindstones and they were good with their hands. The pieces of metal were wrapped in clay to keep the oxidation down and put into a small forge to heat. I then talked about what a tuning fork was and how the wavelength was a function of the length above the 'U' at the bottom. I knew that the material used and the hardness had a distinct factor in the natural frequency. They came out of the forge and were immediately quenched in water. I also got my wagon load of guests arriving at the same time. While they were shown in we cleaned up the metal. No sparks were flying but everybody wore a pair of safety glasses. The safety part was just that they were worn where something could enter the eye. They were the same as regular glasses otherwise. Some were ground to read or for distance while most were simply flat. The newcomers were happy to wear the glasses but were still warned that if they took them off they would be expelled even if I could possibly heal them. I tapped the different forks but was disappointed. One leg did not vibrate the same as the other. They were roughly the same length but the metal was not homogeneous as it would be in later years. I experimented with weights on one side then on the other until one worked the way I wanted. The young men had heard the difference and they took the other nine to get them to work. When I put the fork on a thin piece of wood supported about fifty centimetres apart, they heard an amplified sound and this made them smile. I was asked by one of my uninvited guest, "What is all this for besides music?" "An instrument can be played and most people will enjoy the music. A person familiar with some sounds will cringe at the sounds of others if they are not the same as he usually hears. The answer is to have a standard. There are twelve basic notes in the chromatic scale. More notes are added but always in the same pattern. One note is called middle C because of its location on an instrument. One of the notes above it is A. That note I want to standardise at the frequency of forty hundred and forty Hertz." They all looked stunned. I had to explain Hertz but now he had to be a god. The relationship between the speed of sound at room temperature, the frequency and the wavelength was mentioned. They were still stunned. I knew we had wine goblets around for guests and I sent some of the boys for them and for some water. When they came I cleared off the bench in front of me and had the goblets put here. I ran my finger tips around all of them to make sure they were no chips or imperfections. When I was satisfied I wet a finger and ran it around one of the glass containers. Soon a sound came out and everybody looked very surprised. Everybody had a chance now to do the same thing until they got a pure sound. Not all the glasses were the same so not all the sounds were exactly the same. I put different levels of water in the glasses and then made the same motion but now the sound was different. I had a class of children with wonder in their eyes at seeing something so new to the world. "A woman has a higher pitched voice than a man. If she can sing loud enough and at the right pitch she can break the goblets that matches the note she sings." I got the stunned looks again but I knew that they believed me but my word was taken on faith alone. I directed the group to where they could buy similar glassware. I guess I would have to make singing goblets now as a way of performing music like the buskers in old Québec City. With the guests now out of the way I said, "I thought of something while I was talking to those people. I want you to trim one or both legs of the forks so we do not need the weights to get them to sound pure." The boys understood this. "Make some wood boxes," I used my hands to give the dimensions. "I want some pairs of forks with the same sound. It doesn't matter with the pitch is but they have to be the same." The all nodded at me but I like questions not just blind obedience. "You are all free to ask questions. You may be intelligent but the best minds are very curious too. When you get a matching pair of forks I want you to put a pen nib on one leg of one fork. The pitch will change. You have to trim this leg and put the nib back on until it matches again." There was blind obedience or understanding but still no spontaneity. "The tuning fork with the pen is put very close to a sheet of paper until the nib just touches the paper. With ink and the paper being pulled we will see a wave drawn on the paper. Do you understand me?" They didn't. I took a wood rod and moved it back and forth a little as one end. I then touched the floor with the end. "This is like the vibrating pen." I backed up slowly and the young men could see the lines in the dirt. The lights came on and I said, "Do you understand?" Now I got some verbal responses. "One second is hard to calculate with any accuracy yet. When we do we can pull the paper for one second and we can count how many waves are on the paper. When we get four hundred and forty we have A over middle C." One boy got up the nerve to say, "Why do you need this sound?" "When we sing we have to match the instruments that are playing. We change our voices a bit to match. There may be many instruments and all of them have to match each other. The musicians will tune their instruments to the note A then tune the rest of their notes to match that." I did not and could not calculate the twelfth root of two in my head but I told them how this number could be used to get all of the other notes if they had one true one to start with. This could mean making more tuning forks for different notes. "There is a large musical instrument. It is made of a lot of flutes. Each flute only plays one sound. A smaller version of this has two pedals that pump air into the device. Large ones that I want for our temples will have a boy or two pumping a billows in the back. "A man or woman sits in front of the device and pushes down some wood blocks called keys. The keys are connected to small valves. The valves let in air from the billows and this goes to one of the flutes. With all your fingers and thumbs along with your feet, you can play a lot of sounds at the same time." The boy asked, "Why not just play the flute?" "Some of the flutes are taller than two of you together. You need a lot of air to make them work. The billows makes the sound loud and it can fill a temple even if the temple is very large. Both the gods and men like music and I want to make this instrument so we can show the gods that we are worth their time and effort." It was the last sentence that did the trick and they all smiled and nodded their heads. I remembered seeing brass pipe organs so I knew that they were made of brass. Wood was used too but it changed with the temperature and the humidity and this changed the sound that a wood tube would generate. This could open up a new sideline by making instruments or even wind chimes. The wind chimes sounded calming too and I should get them installed in the gardens around a temple. The boys were sent out to find people that made wood flutes. A dozen came back with the boys and I gave each of them the job of making a flute that made only one note. I had to go through a lot to explain but I didn't want to use the order that I wanted it this way. It was less than an hour before we had working models though some men were not as good with their hands as others. When the billows was worked, I put the tube over the end then took it away and put it back. "I can make some valves to allow the air to go to one pipe or a group of pipes. I will get different sounds with each pipe played. Now does anybody here know the best musician we have?" The boys were sent out to find three men and two women. In the mean time I drew the picture of the key layout I wanted. The first would be simple but I would get many rows of keys to operate other pipes. Peddles had to be made too and knobs that stopped the air going to multiple pipes and restricted to just one. One woman came here first and I briefly told her what was going on. In a few moments the rest started to show up. "I want to make a musical instrument to please the gods and please ourselves. Air can be pushed from a bellows and go to metal pipes that make the sounds. A finger pressing a small wood block controls the air and to which pipe it will go. I want you to help me make this device. In a few days Iulius will come here and he will help too." Nobody knew what was expected of them so we talked about our experiences in music. The boys showed the tuning forks then one told them about the nib and chart. The men talked about their pipes and they used them with the bellows. We had to go to another room and I used a blackboard to show the cavity where the air came in. It had a name like all the other things but I didn't know them. They were not comfortable with technical drawings so I had to draw some common objects by hand to show them until they were able to understand an orthographic representation. With men holding a hastily constructed box I was able to give the first four notes to Beethoven's fifth symphony. I would know the rest if I heard it but there was no chance of that happening. I had the meal here at the mill and again we had a very short service before starting. I told the rest of the people what we were doing and why. Dancing had been done in Hildestun but it was very crude. When I asked for an example later some smiled. Almost everybody liked music. I eventually learned that the stomping around was very similar to what was done further east. The length of a second bothered me. We needed a clock for many reasons other than getting up in the morning. The clock was complicated but the very heart of it was the escapement. This device held and then released a gear driven by a spring. All we had to do was make a clock and wait for one of the two equinoxes. If we got twenty four hours we would have everything perfect. The days before the equinox would almost the same and we could use a sundial to start and end the day. Getting a clock made was harder than making a cannon and powder for me. Perhaps all I had to do was find some mechanically minded people and get them to work on it. We could start with some spring steel and I think it and transformer steel had a lot of silicon in it but I could be wrong. I had to just try it and see how it worked. I hated to do it but we made wood pipes and I kept telling the people that they were fine but they went out of tune easily. I showed everybody working on the project how a closed end tube had a quarter of a wavelength while and open ended tube had a half. They suggested that we use the closed end but I knew that the open ended ones were used because there were more harmonics produced. We went by sound and made two lengths of pipe that had the note we wanted but at a hirer octave. They all agreed that the notes were similar but not the same. We didn't even know what notes they were. I did know that the next higher A was double the frequency of the lower A and the one lower half of the original. The next day we could play ten notes one was the higher one and was not fitting into the rest yet. I tried playing some music I knew but it didn't sound anything like it had ever played on a piano. Manlius and Iulius came much later in the day and both listened to my serenade. They thought it good. Then again the quality of music was abysmal at this time. I professed my need for people that were mechanical but most were just smiths with large hammers. Both men agreed to take over for me while I went off and tried to develop some spring steel. I could use this in many areas and also could be used for holding the valves of the organ down. Gravity could work but I was familiar with what springs would do and not how to do this with heavy valves. At the forge I began the spring project but combined it with my other projects. I handed out some drawings of a large gear that was used to turn a pair of heavy steel rollers. The framework would be cast iron, the shafts and gears would be steel. I could put in a hot bar of steel and get out a much longer rod of steel. Putting this rod through a furnace and another set of rollers would get it small enough to put through dies. I would get my wire then. We talked a lot about this and had to make sure we had a powered roller to pull the drawn wire through the dies and wind it up again. The dies would have to be very hard but I just knew that they would not last long. I did not have that many competent people that I could load projects like this on. For two weeks I made steel in small batches for the springs. Some were better than others but usually metal fatigue got all of them. There were other elements in spring steel to give it the correct properties. I had made a listing of all alloys for any steel. Very few were available. I then remembered the magnetite and I knew that it usually had vanadium in it. This may help make a better spring but I knew it would help me with making nitric acid. Natural gas or ammonia would provide the raw materials for ammonium nitrate. There was just too much to do and not enough help to get it done. I left the spring making to the budding metallurgists. They recorded everything they did so far even if it ate a mountain of paper. If something turned out good or bad we would have a record of what may have caused it. The wire making equipment was only partially done. I gave a few pointers and left the men to their work. Iulius though was further along. They had made a larger organ of wood pipes with a larger chamber to contain the air. The difficulty of starting out right still bothered me until I thought of the equation for the wavelength. It was just the speed of sound divided by the frequency. I knew the speed and I knew the frequency. I also knew that a tube of a quarter of the wavelength I wanted would work as I had mentioned before. We even had a glass tube long enough. I measured the sides with my standard metre measuring bar and filled the tube with enough water to bring it up to the height I wanted. I could not get the glass to resonate and hands had to hold the base for me. It took a while but I got a clear note. As my finger continued to go around I said, "This is A above middle C. Make a column twice as tall and you will get the A that is lower. Make this half the size and you have the upper A. Do the same but don't put a bottom on the tubes. A pair of holes near the top will be used to support the glass column. Tap this with a piece of wood and you will still get the notes we want." Iulius said, "What about the rest?" I had worked out the value I wanted to 1.05946 which was as accurate as they needed. I gave them the number and showed them how to multiply by this number to get the next note and then take that figure and multiply again to get the next note. The end result after twelve notes did not get to exactly eight hundred and eighty because of rounding off errors. I got Iulius to do some long division. He liked showing off that he could do it while pretending not to notice the others consternation. We got the length of a quarter wavelength and thus the notes. This was done again to get the half wavelength. I now taught them about line graphs and adjusted what 'A' would be. We tinkered with the numbers just a bit and we could see the way the line progressed. With the A notes of other octaves or rather the other chromatic, we could plot out the size of the column of air needed for the note. This would be of use in making the tubes, whether they were brass or wood. The Greeks were called in with their love of mathematics and we were nearly pushed out in their eagerness to see how mathematics and the real world interacted. They loved the ideas of graphs. They had not been mentioned except where I had touched on integral calculus but they saw their value here. More people were called in and long glass tubes of both kinds were made. Some were rubbed at the top but others were tapped with a soft hammer to get the sound. We worked for two more days on this until a rider came to tell me that Lucius had arrived. I was not needed here anyways and Iulius liked doing things his way. So did the Greeks. When I came to the house I knew that something was wrong because everybody was pussyfooting around. They had smiles but they looked false. Lucius wanted to see me in his study and I went in and closed the door behind me. It would not muffle much of the sound. There was no preliminary. "What were you planning when you gave your father all those cannon? Is he going to kill more Romans? Do you know how many Romans already died because of your devices? I am surprised the Augustus had not sent for you to crucify you. He has not done it yet but he may now." He started to go into more of his rant when I said, "I gave the cannon to protect Rome and the Frisians. If Rome got them then they would go after the Frisians and kill them. The Frisians are too few to fight Rome but they can fight beside Rome if they are asked to do so." "Why would they do that? Your father is not stupid. He would let Rome bleed a lot first." "He would do it to show the Roman people that he sides with them and he would fight because it is still in the Frisian nature. Finally he would do it for the gold and the glory." "What gold and glory?" "Frisians take cannons and a few lancers to Persia. Rome supplies the protection of the cannon crews and the cannon crews kill the Persians. It would be only an hour later that the legions sweep in and take the field." "Rome could take the cannons then." "Yes but not much powder. I think that all the crews would know how to use the cannons but not make the powder. Torture would not get Rome much but a very angry enemy." "Clovis could not do that much then." "I was talking about me." After both of us cooled down we talked about the other aspects of the trip to Germania. I talked about the tall trees and the size I could make the school. Lucius learned of the small sawmill and loved the idea. I talked of its strengths and weaknesses and how I wanted to change the design. "Rufus and I went fishing. Did you like our catch?" "Fish is always appreciated. Rufus said you had a lot of difficulty." This was said with a grin. "You had to stop fishing to clean the fish and salt them. Can't you make a machine for that?" "Perhaps a long time from now a machine could do this for us but now we can only have a table that goes by slowly carrying the fish to the men and women cleaning them." "He said you saved the portions everybody would throw away." "It went into the soil. It stinks but it's good." "Rufus wants to build a mighty ship to harvest the sea. He says one trip would make him rich." "Rufus does not think how much. He has to pay for the ship and how much he has to pay to keep it working. There is very good money in this though. Don't you remember me talking about a ship that would go up and down the Rhine?" "I did not think it would be good for fishing too." "It may not but you can make another one that is. Did you notice any work on the river?" "People are driving poles into the water. It must be you but why?" "You are familiar with locks." Lucius nodded. "I take all the land I can from the river and then build a very high wall. Stone and clay are used to hold the water out when I remove the water that trapped inside. I dig into the river bottom and into the shore and make a large area that is flat and deep. I build what you would call large ships there. When they are done I let the water in and float the ships out. With the gates closed I can pump the water out again and start another ship." "How big is the ship you are going to build?" "I have not decided yet. I was thinking of four times the length of our newest ship and the same sort of width. This one has no sails and only has steam. The props are protected inside the hull and the stern is very low so nets that are miles long can be hauled in. This ship will have a machine that will freeze the fish in ice. Food does not go bad very fast when it is in ice. We can sail around Gaul, Hispania, and into the Mare Internum. You fish and sell as you go. You can even sell to Rome then do the same thing in reverse." "Why would I want to sell to Rome?" "You get an idea of how long it takes to sail there. My estimate with a good steel ship that it would take three weeks." "Three weeks! I would be flying not sailing." "You can fish. A good ship, only much larger, could be used to take your wine directly to Rome. At the same time you could take passengers, mail and lots of cargo for you and others." "You are talking about ships that are so large that I cannot see them in my mind. How could I afford them?" "You and I are making cognac and whiskey. My father likes it and so does an old friend of yours." "Who is that? You always make me ask." "That way it is you, that has asked for the information. The friend is Gnaeus Scipio Magnus." "He was not my friend. He was our commander." This was said stiffly. "He asked my father to be transferred to my care since he gave his word to me. He is now in charge of security at the school. He and the Franks along with a few Gauls hunt and fish. They pitch in with building the school too." "That is hard to see. He was always very Roman in his outlook. He was strict. All commanders are that way but he was more so." "He has accepted Woden into his life. Rome still has a tight hold of him but his word is stronger. You may visit but I do not want any pressure put on his word." "Will you tell..." he looked around and whispered in my ear, "the Augustus?" I whispered back, "When I see him next." "Does he know that Magnus is your prisoner?" "I told him. There was a war going on at the time and I had no chance to find out what happened. The camp was a shambles and we went in there to save those we could. It would take a long time before they could travel and it was only the Frisians that could find enough food to feed them." "You told me this before but it is still hard to imagine." "What are your plans now?" "The school needs a boiler a hollow iron frames called radiators that take the heat from the fire and send it to the rooms. I need a lot more steel bolts to hold the large beams together. Then I have twenty books to write and then have thousands of copies of each. There is a ship to complete and a new one to build. I need the refrigeration and most of all I have to begin on making the fertiliser. I am building a large musical instrument that the Greeks had but mine will be much grander. It will go into the temple here and others will go into more temples including those in Rome." "The Christians hold power and may not like it." "I will treat them with respect as I treat all other faiths. They have a saying about turning the other cheek. I do not do that." "Men show respect to power. Men respect Rome." "Wise men do, but fanatics are not sane. There are fanatics to Woden too and I do my best to control them but once they leave I do not know what they are doing. The Frisians are a good example. They do not care too much for life and know that if they die in battle they will go to Valhalla. A man without this belief would not do the same actions so in a way this too is insanity." Lucius said, "That is why men want to control religion." "That is true and this gives a politician much more power. This is also why I have to separate religion from the state. It is going to be a hard fight." Lucius whispered, "This would reduce the power of the Augustus." I just nodded my head. This was my intention all along and I had to also find a way of keeping the head of the Wodenist movement from being an emperor. Lucius came out without any bleeding and the family was happy that we were still friends. I stayed for a meal and went over the finances. Lucius and his family were rich. I made a graph of the projected prices of distilled spirits in the years to come. "At some time the governments are going to step in try to take some of the enormous profits away from you." "We already pay taxes." "They see the gold and want more of it." "What about your steel?" "That could happen but steel prices will fall. We need millions of tonnes of it made each year and both Gaul and Germania will be making it too. Rome will get into this activity and so will Hispania, Britannia, and most other countries. The price will come down for the raw material but the products made with it will not fall as far. Basically what I am trying to get at is that steel is necessary for a country or province to grow. It cannot be taxed too much. Alcohol is not necessary and can carry a very heavy tax. The same will happen to wine and ale." "How much time do we have?" "Until they wake up and see what is in front of their faces. You can hide your profits by purchasing properties or businesses that make more money. If you do not flaunt your wealth like the patricians then they will not come after you for even more gold." "What do you advise?" "A great many of your neighbours are getting rich selling their produce to me. Mostly this is in food, trees or hemp. I think you should build a distillery that is very large and only use the grain you buy here. You have a lot of money and now you have to expand. You have a few thousand litres of alcohol but when the product comes out it will be in great demand." "You told me this before and I made more. How much did you want me to make? I have only one family and I have to keep the secret." "I am afraid that you have to start making vast quantities of this and it has to go into storage. The longer it is stored the more water will leave and the stronger and more flavourful it will get. The older it is the more it will cost. The oldest will be in the most demand and you will not have much." "You want me to buy your ships and make this alcohol?" "Do what you are comfortable with. From my time in the land of the gods many religious groups made wine or spirits. They sold far and wide at a high price if they were good. They are also spread out. My people can do this too on a small scale. One angry man or a greedy one could attack, steal or destroy all of your assets unless you have them separated. That will not help you keep the secrets. Your children can do this but they have to have more people helping them. My own people could also let the secret out. The end is the same as the cannon powder and everybody will know how to do this." Lucius said, "The longer we keep the secret the longer we will make the high profits." "It would not matter too much because there are many other processes that have to be known to make good spirits. Age, good new oak barrels, quality grain and a lot more small almost unimportant facts will keep your product in great demand. It is like your wine. Yours is good and people that want the best buy yours. If they do not have the silver then they buy somebody else's." "One moment you are telling me to keep the secret and next you are saying it doesn't matter much. Which is it?" "I am saying both. The secret will leak out no matter what. You will be hounded by the governments for money and by thieves or jealous people. We have already let the people around here know of our products but you can still sell the products under new names in other places and claim the product comes from China. You may divert people long enough that you will make money for a great many years before they know enough to come after you." "Are you counselling me to lie?" "I am counselling you to hide behind a screen that is of no importance other than to conceal the source of your product. This hurts nobody but your enemies." "You still want me to risk most of my money in this alcohol?" "This has the most profit for you and your family. To succeed you have to have enough to meet the demand and still have enough to store for twenty or more years old." "I will probably be dead by then." "How much longer until you retire from the army?" "I may do so in three and a half years." "You will pass down the farm and the distillery to your heirs but baring being killed in battle you should live for a long time." "How do you know?" "I will be making sure you are healthy." This seemed to be a good enough answer. We had another talk later over a glass or two of watered wine. I had to tell Licinia and Lucius more about music and the organ. Lucius said, "I know you want it for your temple but why are you willing to spend so much to make these devices?" "They are awe inspiring instruments. You can hear and feel the gods with their power. They will bring in even more converts and keep the ones we have. In the centuries to come I will not be here and we need something to remind the people of their link to the gods. This instrument, the beautiful windows and the large buildings will help do that. The schools will too and the books but I do not want religion to be too involved with education. It has to have some portion but in future centuries some misguided person will want to turn the schools into a tool for putting out men and women that only think of religion." "I thought that is what you are after." "There has to be a balance. Religion deals with a portion of our lives but we have to live the rest. Too much of any one thing can be dangerous." I tucked a lot of children in and one was Lucius' newest daughter. She was a sweet child but then most babies were if they were not crying. That night I thought about music. Written music used to have eleven lines and was known as the grand staff. The bass and treble were together with middle C understood as to being on the hidden middle line. I think it was split up just to give people a chance to see the halves and try to digest only one at a time. I remembered the 'face' for the spaces and the 'every good boy deserves fudge' saying for the lines to augment memory so the treble staff could be populated. I never liked the fact that if I wanted F sharp, I had to push it in on the line or space where F was and add the symbol. I wanted to give equal representation to the sharps. Perhaps my thinking is why I never was that good at music in the first place. The grand staff had eleven lines so it had ten spaces without going above and below. This meant twenty one white keys on a piano. With a little bit of computation and a lot of dredging up old data from my music lessons I saw that this was actually thirty nine notes in this area. This took me a long time to figure out because I had only taken piano as a child. Anyway, thirty nine notes in the space where there should be twenty one was not good. I figured I could now make a new grand staff with four groups of five lines each with three understood notes between the groups worked out to twenty three lines and twenty two spaces. This would give me forty five notes in this arrangement without going above and below. There was a good chance I would run into trouble later but others could figure it out. I also had to tack my own name to this invention because the gods could not be that wrong. I drew up a sample and it looked cumbersome but I put two treble staffs above the lower bass staffs and figured I could let the musicians worry about it. I knew if part of the criteria for bringing me back to this time was the ability to play music or to write it, I would still be in the future if that even existed now. It now looked odd to see the notes going from A to L but this might work. The A above middle C was not the same note now. I said my goodbyes in the morning and a snack was pushed onto me to make sure I didn't get hungry on the way. There was a lot of activity at the mill but the logs were still being cut. The organ was being used because I heard notes played again and again as if they were trying to get it right. The people looked haggard when I came in. I assumed that many didn't leave to sleep much. Most got up when I came in but one person fell. Everybody wanted to show me what they had done. Not all of it was directly related to the organ but in music in general. Iulius was asked to give me the story logically and he went into what he had done with the organ while the Greeks moved around angrily. I heard all about the organ then he played it a note at a time and it sounded better than when I was here last. New tuning forks were made and I also saw a lot of scrap instruments. The Greeks got their turn and showed me on the blackboard and with paper how they had calculated out the frequency and wavelength of the notes. They also liked how the Greek character lambda was used to represent the wavelength. I said to the Greeks, "People could hear sometimes down to twenty two Hertz. I do not know if this is a note or not but work from my A and go mathematically as low as you can until you come to around twenty. Finish the chromatic and put a subscript of zero on the notes from A to L. The next chromatic gets the subscript one." I took out my sheets and showed them my grand staff. "Here is going to be middle C. Make the rest fit. List the frequencies and wavelengths and get some tuning forks made for a sampling of each of the notes on this scale. They will have to be used to tune the organ." There were lots of questions and the Greeks were happy to get dirty in this endeavour as long as it would push mathematics along. They also liked the little tails on the notes to indicate how long they were to be played. Iulius asked, "You used the word chromatic Why is that?" "That is the name for the group of twelve notes. I do not know the reason. The music is my interpretation. If it is faulty it is my fault. I did not study this enough in the land of the gods to give good answers or to explain more to you." He seemed to understand. I said, "We need people to sing. They need to have the notes and the words printed on paper. We need a choirmaster to lead them. It is too late for the spring equinox but I would like it for the one in September." "What will they sing?" "Some nice songs relating to the gods, learning and hope. They are supposed to be sounding like what we think the gods would like to hear if they stopped by to listen." "Would they come?" "I have no idea. They do not talk much anymore to me. They must think that I have enough information to carry on." "Is there a god or goddess that takes care of music and musicians. Maybe we can get some help." The term goddess reminded me that I was working from a male dominated society and needed some representation from the women. I could have kicked myself for not putting much of this in the two books I wrote but the next could have things said to me from a goddesses viewpoint. The women would accept this better but I also did not want a rift in this new religion. I picked a Norse name and said, "One goddess by the name of Bera was a great musician." I tried to make a female personality and it had to be able to fight for what she thought was right. She had to represent motherhood. She had to be a teacher, a healer, a farmer and a great many other professions. There was just too much here that had to be done and it had to be thought out. "Carry on as best you can. I have to think." I had a room at all the installations and I went there now with a lot of paper. I was there until suppertime and I had not fully encompassed the character of a goddess in the Norse religion. What I had heard could not refute much of what was known about Woden or about the way I was portraying Asgard. I made notes and then had to make more. The scraps of paper had to be burnt because these sheets could not be passed around to show that this was all fabricated. Bera had to be all the kind, loving and aggressive women in my life. As an afterthought she had to be able to play an instrument and sing. While I was at it she was plain looking but had an inner beauty that most could not hope to match. My love life suffered but I did go and meet a great many more women and kept a pouch of papers handy to make notes. Many of the attributes I found were contradictory but then again, so were women. When I simply ran out of ideas, I went to check on other jobs. I hoped to be inspired of find another woman that would make a good role model for women for the next few thousand years. Wire making was not ready yet but I designed a planer for the mill. Like the music I was not sure about much but I made a double unit. The first cut the top surface of the board and the second portion cut the bottom. The wood fibres sticking up would give problems with measurements and hoped that I didn't have to use two units to do the job or squeeze the hell out of the board and push everything down. Planks were now sometimes two metres wide but I worked on a unit to take only half of a metre at one time. If it didn't work then we would not have lost much. In a few days I was able to pawn off the job to others and I checked on the wire making rolls. It was nearing completion but it would still be at least another week. The Patricia drew me back now and I found the cylinder and crank pulled out of the engine. When I talked to the people I found that the babbitt bearings were giving problems. The material was not at fault but I think the lubrication was. We had no grease and had to use oil. This also meant that we had to keep the temperature low and the bearing surfaces large because the oil did not work well under high pressure. Again I remembered the lake of oil but still fertiliser was more important. We made a new counterweight for the crank and the pin was much larger. The portion of the shaft that turned the wheel had to be altered but not by much. We fired up the boiler with distilled water once more and went out into the river and stopped a lot like before to look for problems. The mechanics and machinists liked this and since they worked so hard we went upriver and down to give everybody a chance to try out their dream boat. In a way it was my dream boat too. In my old life I had never owned anything as large as this. My bass boat though could certainly outrun the Patricia. We stopped at the dry dock and found that the poles were far from being all put into the river bed. They were all done by hand and they had to put up with the natural buoyancy of the log and then drive it as deep as possible into the river bottom. All this was to get enough depth to float a larger ship out but now I considered using a dragline but the river was just too wide here. The ship looked good but I did not need it now. Inspiration struck and I thought of the two best mechanics and picked one mentally. When we docked I let the men get back to work on Tertius' project while I raced to see Lucius. Lucius was in the field helping the men and horses pull out a tree by the roots. This was a job I was very familiar with. When the tree came down he came to me wiping sweat from his brow in the cool spring air. "Hello Jón. What brings you here so fast?" "The Patricia is done." "Yes?" "I do not need it right away." "So?" "Get a crew. Get your wife and I will supply an engineer. I want you to take a trip up the Rhine." "Why would I do this? There's lots of work to do here." "Because you like the Patricia. You love your wife and you could use a vacation." "But... what about the farm?" "Put a son in charge and see how well he handles the job." "I need a captain." "I appoint you." "Who is going to feed the boiler?" "Talk to your men. They have to do it for a few hours a day and the rest of the time, they relax. The mechanic does not fire the boilers because he has to watch them." There was a long pause as he considered and said, "When can I go?" "Tomorrow morning if you have your provisions and your men ready." "I have to be back in my camp in ten days." "Then you better hurry." The next morning the happy couple and some equally happy men loaded up their property. The engineer/mechanic piloted down the river but I knew that he would not have the helm long. I at least got a good kiss and a hug before they left. For the next week I was a butterfly going from one project to another. All were enjoyable and more in line with what I though my life would be like except there was little chemistry. I found that there were music tryouts with some silver as an incentive to join a choir. School now had singing along with everything else but they were still learning some of the subjects I wanted. The mill was the place to be for this but I stayed away except when I installed our the new planer. The unit was massive and needed to be disassembled to transport while modern units at my time could be easily carried in two hands, or at least the one foot units could. The unit worked but I got some pained faces and they had to take their auditions outside then they had to move further away. I talked to the men that helped to build the unit and we discussed problems that could be looked into in newer versions. The unit did work but the cutters that were supposed to spin very fast needed more speed. The sharp edges didn't stay sharp long and the chips went everywhere. The unit did work so we left it but a new one was now being formulated in our heads. Lucius and came back very happy and it was Licinia blowing the whistle to tell us that she was happy I think. I was invited to dinner but said I would come tomorrow when they had a chance to recover. When I did sit at the table, the euphoria of the trip had not left. Licinia was still bubbling over and talking about what they had seen. Lucius groused good-naturedly about having to show the ship to the commanders of the forts upriver where we had not gone far yet. "I should have pulled the barge and been a common peddler." Licinia had changed since I met her and she said, "You would never be a common peddler. You are a businessman that does his best to free the women of this world of their labours in the kitchen." "You are a bias woman but I will keep you anyway." "Only because you do not like diapers. I doubt if I could give you any more children. I am getting to old for that." "I am getting too old for that too." Lucius turned to me and said, "You didn't do anything to make sure I had this child, did you?" "I would not do that. Children have to be cherished and it is better if they were never born if they were not going to be loved. The gods at least have ways of preventing a child from forming but I know little of the drugs that do this." This was a white lie because I did know enough but now was not the time to say this. "There are few young families that would want it but I know they would be more warmly received after a large family was formed." We had a discussion after the meal with a lot of questions being asked. I had turned the tables all the time and asked my own questions and usually this was of the children. Many were mine but I treated them all equally. In a way this was a school or a way of shaping their minds for when the went to the higher grades. The many nannies were also the teachers so they had to be well trained to perform their duties. Lucius did not mind my children being in his home. It had been enlarged twice at my expense but he and his family always came out better for it. I could have built my own home but I would not have Licinia's guiding hand. The list had to be made about what was needed in Paris but usually it was easy too fill from existing stock. Our warehouses here and in Paris had been enlarged many times and I wished we had a fork lift instead of a cart with large steel wheels. It was not time to fill the barge yet because departure time would be put off until I saw the tractor work and perhaps the open hearth furnace. The rolling mill was coming along but we didn't have much steel to put through it because it had to be carried from one furnace to another while still red hot. We got some steel through and it was carried along the rollers we made. The finished products were quenched in a tank of water that was twenty metres long because I wanted rails at least eighteen metres in length. The other furnace also provided all the steel for making the rolling mill in the first place. We relied on gears for almost everything. There were overhead rods with wood drums and leather belts would go down but this was only for moving rollers. Everything here was heavy and steam cylinders provided motive force where hydraulics did in my time. The men that designed this Rube Goldberg device knew about hydraulics with oil but they didn't know where I would get the elusive oil from. I intended to try vegetable oils soon but on a different machine. I knew from my youth about small drilling rigs that would extract a core of the material from beneath our feet. My own explorations had been with a shovel, a magnifying glass and a limited supply of chemicals. I now used the same things of my youth but a shovel meant a long time to get down just a few metres. A drilling rig pulled by horses would do the trick even if a second wagon had to supply the boiler. The lack of people trained even in rudimentary geology were limited but not to just me. The Greeks and the Romans found lots of mines as well as the people that may have found the deposits before the conquers arrived. I guess I could use religion to keep amateur geologist in line but this would be no more than an oath but it all rankled my own code of ethics when it came to the abuse of religion. The schools taught the young and the old about minerals among all the other subjects that needed to be learned. It would be years before the young men that graduated, were ready to do some exploring for me. The teachers themselves were hardly any better and I took what was available to me and gave them a crash course in what minerals really were. Being believers, they took this as gospel but my tenets were reinforced when they did experiments and the true nature of the universe was revealed. Religion was taught but just enough to provide a support structure for ethics and this was the most important reason in my mind. The wire making machine was finished. Its mass was difficult to move but we got it near the first furnace. We cast a long steel rod and with tongs put it through the first set of rollers and it came out much smaller and much longer but there was some flashing on it now as if it were cast. The hot wire was brought back where it could be heated again by some of the hot gases from the coke ovens. The rod was now put through the second set of groves in the same roller and again it came out much longer. It was difficult to handle now because we had to use a steam driven winding machine to put it on a spool. Lucius would have loved to see this but he had gone back to his fort a few days ago. I let him sail the Patricia there with the barge to save time and to stock up his warehouses. It also saved him a few days on horseback. I knew he would buy a ship as soon as he could. Now he would justify it by saying it was to deliver his merchandise. The wire making bugs were worked on and I think they could only be eliminated by making a furnace to heat the wire just before it entered the rollers. Dies were made too for making the much smaller diameters but could work with the smaller sizes on the rolls but this was just a guess. I conceived a way of weaving the rope with six guides that were fixed on a rotating wheel. The centre of the wheel had an additional guide. Wire from seven sources was fed in twisted. There would be lots of kinks so the wire was heated again so they would stay in the shape they were put. This cable could be used or it could be used again to form thicker cables. Zinc had to be used here or rust would destroy the steel. I had collected some in preparation for making butyl rubber but could be used now. Tertius put me off many times but I didn't push him much. A little was ok but he was having difficulties even with the revised seven weeks. The dry dock had the poles put in and men used rope to lash the poles together and more poles were used to lash the inner and outer sets together too. Clay went between the two sets of poles and wooden posts were used to tamp it into place. Only after this was done was a steam driven pump used to remove the water. A solid shaft of water was seen leaving the pump because the device was not meant for volume but for pressure. Scraping the muck began and the river sediment was put in a pile to drain. It would get quite high in time. Stone had been purchased and stockpiled. The heaviest iron and steel constructs to date were made. These were the large gates that would hold out the river while we worked within the low area. I wanted a forty metre width to allow a large barge or ship to leave. The gates had to form a 'V' because they would never be able to take the pressure of the water if they were in line. The posts to support the gates had to be very massive. We dug down until we got to bedrock and then went further so the wall and posts would not move. We took tips from the Egyptians and rolled the massive blocks into position on logs. Tertius got the tractor working three weeks after the original seven. He brought it to the dry dock and we put it to use pulling a large scraper that had taken six horses to pull. It was a lot of work but I heard talk of six horses being a lot simpler. Everybody marvelled at the giant tractor though. People stopped by all the time to see our construction and now to just see our newest mechanical marvel. My children or their nannies sold food and refreshments cooked on the spot. It was my way of offsetting their upkeep and teaching them some valuable lessons. Spaghetti was one of the foods we made but there were no tomatoes. We fried onions and garlic in olive oil and then fried the just coked spaghetti with a few vegetables thrown in. We made stir-fry too and this sold even better. The open hearth furnace was ready and I moved there to see about its inaugural firing. It took a while to get it warmed slowly and it seemed to work well. I was concerned with the brick overhead falling into the mix. It was a day later that the furnace could be tapped. We cast billets of steel and left them in a soaking pit to cool enough to solidify. I had no idea what kind of steel we were making but Hagen was happy with what we were producing. The first billet went into the rolling mill and was squeezed only a little bit then returned to be squeezed again until we found how much we could subject both the billet and the mill to when it came to stress. The billet became stuck a few times and water was sprayed on the parts to keep them from melting the bronze bushings The first rail came out twisted and was put back into the furnace while we tried again. It took a few days and a lot of fuel to get the process to be only moderately successful. Many of the partial failures were dragged to the dry dock to help reinforce the wall when it was put in. The good track was immediately put to use. We started a rail line in what I wanted as our standard gauge to the coal mine and the coking plant. People were now shifted to come here and play railroad. It was not just a matter of laying the rails because we needed to dig down and put stone in the hole for support. A crusher was designed for this with one moving jaw, one very large flywheel and a medium sized steam engine. We did not go on the existing roadbed but used the road for the wagons that carried supplies and the raw materials. The distance was only seven kilometres and we had lots of help because everybody wanted to see the train that I had talked so much about. When the bed was done we put in the sleepers. They were preserved with the sludge from the coke plants. It was not good for the environment or for the workers so we used gloves and tools as much as possible. We only had two carts with wheels that fit the rails and they carried the rails together because of their weight. The carts rode on the first rails laid and they didn't move up and down much because of the care we had done in laying the sleepers. ------- Chapter 21 The news of the railway had spread very quickly and we had even more visitors. Many came by ship and marvelled at our docking facilities then at just about everything else. They were not kept away from the open hearth furnace because there was just too much technology here for them to duplicate our work. The track was laid quickly and the tractor recalled. The wheels were removed and rail trucks put on. Tertius spent the day transporting his family then all the other people to the coking plant and back. There was no way to turn around so he pushed one way and pulled another. The track was not ground like the usual track and I would just have to get some people working on it and on machining the matching face of the wheels. Everybody wanted a second set of tracks and I let them build it. This could only happen after they put more track to our other facilities in the area. This was acceptable too because they could go to more places. The small car with the double handle used to move along the track by hand was drawn up but I had to let others think of how to make it work. The railway reminded me of models I had seen and got some of the men and women to make interlocking wooden cars, track, and engines used by the preschoolers of my time. They would get sold to the adults here. I could put the price high and they would still buy them and I was also sure that their children would never be allowed to touch them. What amazed me the most was the joy everybody had in making something new. This was so strong that they studied to learn more and then did experiments to expand on that knowledge. The Greeks were not used to doing this but once they learned of the scientific method they made sure everything was done right. All of this was reinforced by those that had expanded on our knowledge and then were able to voice their discoveries. It was far short of as scientific paper but it was still very rewarding. Iulius talked of his organ, not mine. The Greeks added their own input about the frequency, amplitude and wavelength of the sounds. A tuning fork with a pen nib was shown to corroborate their findings when the pattern of the waves were shown and counted on paper. One enterprising individual took a table and used glass containers with water to form an instrument. This was the same thing as what I had seen in the old portion of Québec City. We all clapped our approval and I was sure there would be more of this sort of entertainment produced later. We had started something new here by selling toys, food, and excursions. It looked to be lucrative so I asked for suggestions. I got a lot and two secretaries wrote them down. "A Capitalist society is one where people work hard to get rich. That is the system the world follows now. We are something different in that we also are given food, education, clothing and all the other things we enjoy. This would normally be called a Socialist society except we are between the two types. "You all work hard and some work harder still because you are doing something you enjoy. I think we can become even more prosperous by doing more tasks. Toys are a good example of this. Men and women in their spare time use our wood and machines to produce these articles. The articles are sold by me and I give a portion of the profits back to the people that worked harder. I can sell these toys in Gaul." One of the Greeks said, "What about the organ?" "You were paid to make this thing. You get no extra profit for doing so." The man looked a bit glum and I added, "If you learn to play the organ as an extra duty I would pay you for this. I suppose that if you put extra hours in working on the organ, I would feel obliged to pay you for them." The man looked much better now. "Iulius, we are going back to Gaul in a few weeks. Will you find some people that will listen to suggestions for making money? We will have to do this in Gaul too." He said, "This is to separate the good ideas from the bad?" "I think the decisions will be based on the ones that show that they can make the most money the easiest way. It is not the same thing." The few proposals we did get that sounded practical were sent back to the people that suggested them so they could improve on their ideas. We prepared for our departure and word was sent to Horatius Postuma. The other forts were told too but Horatius might provide a chance to bring the mail. Helvius was working on the boiler for the school but I knew that four men were designing a compressor without the basic physics. They would not get far without the ammonia so I ignored it. I knew a form of butane would work too but we could do one job at a time. Helvius was also working on another steam engine to pull rail cars and since it was on steel track it was simpler. Just before I left we were treated to a musical recital. There was a forty three key organ that played notes that sounded good to me. Three women sang and one was good. Six men sang and none were very good, though I clapped for all of them. Children sang as a choir and this was excellent. We got two songs because they had not been practising long. A mixed choir of adults sounded good and I suggested that the men sing to one side and the women to the others as opposed to the men in front. They sang one song again and it sounded even better. On the day we were to sail I found a Roman in the garb of the Imperial Courier Service near the Patricia with four burly men behind him. He came up to me and said, "Are you Jón of Germania?" "I am. Who are you?" "Publius Cornelius Castus." I put out my hand and said, "Hello Publius." He didn't look pleased but he did shake my hand. I asked, "What can I do for the Imperial Courier Service?" "We require transportation to Lutetia as soon as possible." I looked at the four men and said, "I can take the mail without charge to the empire. I do require help with the nets and the cleaning of the fish we may catch on the way. For this service I will pay a share of the profits. This is not negotiable though." "I am not a fisherman," he said haughtily. "I am not either but I want to find out about fishing and to do so I must fish this new way. I will carry the mail for free and you too but you must become a fisherman for at least a few days but you should also be well compensated. It is to be both or none." The man thought and said, "One of my men may do this work." "All of you work and all of you share in the profits. When I have some of the other ships finished we will take passengers and pamper them. We cannot do that now." "I can demand that you take me." "Sure you can but when I leave, you will be left standing on the dock." "I am a representative of the Augustus." "I am the prince of a foreign power." "I can have you arrested." I relaxed though Rufus and Iulius were prepared to fight. "You can only try to arrest me. There are only five of you and one of me. You are outnumbered." The man didn't understand this because it must be the new math. The man reached forward for me and grabbed my shoulder. I had one sword over my back and no armour. I also had a large duffel bag of clothing and possessions in each hand. The bags were dropped and I had his arm rotated as I held his wrist at arm's length. The bully boys started to reach for their swords and I said, "You come closer and you will regret it. I have used no weapon yet." I flexed the wrist and the Publius Cornelius Castus cried out in pain. "Were you trying to arrest me?" "Your tricks are no good. I will report this." I worked on the man's speech centre for just a minute then let him go. He stood up with a snarl on his face and started to talk but no words came out, only croaks. His hands went to his throat and his eyes got big. His head was pushed forward and the veins in his neck stood out. Nothing intelligent came from his throat. The bags were left on the ground and I walked around the stricken man and to the four men. "Hello. My name is Jón of Germania. Have any of you heard of me?" I got four nods and this was the reason the men had kept their distance. "The man has problems with his voice but he is not hurt otherwise. Now if you would be so kind tell me your names and where you are usually stationed." It took a while and I need to do a bit more prompting. The men were from a fort much further up the Rhine and had been down this way on official business. When Publius needed guards these men had been detached into his service. Publius came running at me now and I listened to his steps and moved at the last minute. He had no weapon in his hand and I only pushed him off balance. He fell to the ground. "Well Publius Cornelius Castus, what am I going to do with you? Working for the Augustus means you deserve some respect but you squander it on a patrician attitude that is not suited to Germania Inferior." The man got up with a knife in his hand but I kicked his wrist first and the knife flew away. I also heard the distinct break of the bone. Publius looked from me to his oddly hanging wrist and didn't know what to do. I turned back to the men and said, "Are you to accompany this man to Lutetia?" One said yes while two nodded. Taking pity on the man on the ground I put my hand on his head and in a few seconds he fell over unconscious with his damaged wrist on top of him. "Will you carry him onboard please? Where can we drop off the horses? I don't want to carry them all the way to Lutetia." The youngest man said, "The courier drops them off at any fort and takes new mounts." "Thanks. Put him on the barge. Iulius will show you which room." Licinia arrived a bit later but had not seen the encounter. Her family and mine wished us a safe trip. Iulius said when we were underway, "What are we going to do with that man?" "I guess we have to heal his wrist but I may leave his voice until later." "What you did is a crime." "It may be but there is time for the man to come around." Iulius splinted the wrist as Rufus piloted the Patricia out of the Don and into the Rhine. The soldiers were very nervous and I had to calm them down and told them why I did what I had done. "I am polite to those that are polite to me. Iulius has splinted the wrist and I am going to heal the break now." The men had heard of this but I guess they had not believed all of what they had heard. It took three minutes and I held the break as close to the original position as possible. "Publius will be healed enough to help us when we get to the Seine but he will miss the fun when we leave the Rhine." I talked about the paying passengers I would be picking up on the way down the Rhine then I gave them a tour of the upper portion of the barge. When I found that one man could read I directed him to my rule book on chess and I said, "I will challenge you gentlemen later if you want. I am sure my Romans will defeat your Persians. They didn't understand and were still worried. "I will be back around noon to cook a meal. This chore moves to all of us so you have to learn how to cook if you don't already." We picked up a six officers a few hours later. There was a crowd on the shore. When I went on deck most of them gave the sign of the Möbius. I thanked the people for coming and talked about the gods. I stayed away from prayers as much as possible. The officers though were not followers and remained aloof. They were given one common room. They may have been used to better quarters with slaves but the cost was too high to bring slaves. The cost of separate room would have been much higher. At noon I made a meal for all of us. I started with basic hygiene and then went on with the way to cook the meal. I tried to act like a TV chef as is sipped some watered wine and made a few jokes. Decimus was the most outgoing of the four men and I got him to help me. Some wine facilitated this greatly. Decimus got to eat first and then I served the guests. Decimus assisted again by feeding his friends. The officers didn't want to have anything to do with the lower ranks so they didn't find out about Publius. The officers were introduced to the library and one of the chess sets then a copy of the book for the game itself. I said, "This is a game of skill and strategy. It is of war too. Some people pick up the game quickly but even the very best take many years to hone their skills." The men looked at the book's thickness and didn't seem interested. "There is another game called checkers that is simpler but again there is strategy and skill involved. There are pictures so you can see how to play." I went to see Publius and took one of the men because I was going into their room. The man woke up at my touch and this startled the guard. Publius started to rant at me but found that his voice had not returned. I said, "We will talk later. At the moment we are sailing down the Rhine. There is food in the kitchen for you. There are four paying passengers onboard. They have paid for their meals with their passage. Crew eat free but crew help with the fishing." The man was nervous now but his patrician blood didn't allow him to show much of his fear. "I will make a wager with you. There are some books on chess. If you beat me in any game I will return your voice to you." He didn't seem to like this so I added, "The gods assisted me in removing your voice. You will never get it back without me. There are many copies of two books that I have written. Read either of the books and I will return your voice to you." He didn't like this either but I just got up and left. I left the poor soldier with the insufferable man. I walked the plank from the barge to the ship and jumped the final distance. This was dangerous but there was also a rope stretching across the distance too. After checking with the rest of the crew I went to my room to work on the book about females in the land of the gods. After an hour I found I was writing a story about a girl of fourteen in the twentieth century. The technology was secondary to the story but it had to be explained. This gave me a chance to talk about all the small details of my time that were not in any of the other two books. Newspapers with coloured pictures and words in columns were explained and then so were the ads. School and the relationships she had with her friends and with the young males were explained. Conflict was the fact that she wanted a boy named Chad but her parents didn't want her to go with him. Contraceptives were explained but most of all the culture was shown as male lead but not as strongly as it was here and now. Bus rides and car rides were talked about as well as the highway system. Sporting events were popular with the boys so the girls had to go to. More conflict with studies when social events and television competed. The radio and the portable MP3 players were talked about. It was dark when I looked up and I was only part way through the story. I had to show some girls that failed and ones that surpassed many men. In between were the majority and how they would be just mediocre. One university was where Woden worked. I planned on showing how he and his trusted companions worked to help mankind while juggling responsibility to their own world. The papers were locked up in a box and I only took my k-bar with me as I checked on the crew. Iulius was busy with some sheet music and I avoided going in to help by saying I was looking for something to eat. The engines had stopped and so had the supply of hot water but I could live with this until tomorrow morning. Back on the barge I found some fish stew so Rufus must have been cooking. He was even quite good at it. When I was done I watched the officers trying to play checkers from the rule book. They rearranged the board and I was asked to show them how to play. The part they didn't like was that they had to hop my piece if the opportunity arose. To make the men feel better we started over again many times with nobody losing. It was not long until one of the officers said, "What happened to Publius Cornelius Castus?" "He attacked me. Why do you ask?" "He is an officer and a Courier. You cannot interfere with him or his duties." "I am a prince of a foreign land. Nobody fools around with me. Have you forgotten how Woden and Aldúlfr helped me with invaders?" They were not fools and didn't react with anger. One said, "We have heard." I replied, "I may not be important but Woden, I think, is superior to any human that ever lived." The man or his friends had nothing to say about this. I went on with, "I was attacked by a man that thought he was superior to a young man. He moved unhurriedly, his reflexes were slow and he had a very poor method of subduing me. Any of you could have done better I think." The man changed the subject and said, "When are you going to return his voice to him?" "When he reads the book on chess and beats me in a game. Failing that he has to read one of the two books I wrote. Woden may also direct me to repair his voice but he may also want to come here and turn him into a frog." The men moved back from me and I said, "I would not do that unless ordered. Woden may also turn Publius into a woman with large breasts. The intention was to teach a lesson or to educate the man. Woden is not vindictive." The men were worried now and to get off the subject said, "We had heard that Thor has given you his hammer." "He has in a way but I am unable to throw it. It takes the arms of a god to do that. He has allowed Aldúlfr to give me a small part of the power of his hammer in the form of arrows." "May we see them?" "They are not something to be brought out to show guests. The gods showed me checkers and chess. They showed me how to kill with my hands but they have recently shown me how to heal the sick. My duty to the gods is serious and not to be taken lightly." They didn't dare push the matter now and were at a loss of what to say. I got the men seated and got one man to move and then his opponent. The four guards had quietly left and I found them in their room with Publius. I knocked on the door and was admitted. One man had a book in his hand and I had heard him speaking the words out loud. It was the book on chess. It just occurred to me that Publius might not be able to read and I felt bad about this. "I see that three of you cannot read. Would you like to come to another room and I can teach you. We may not get far on the trip but it will pass the time." I looked at Publius and said, "You are welcome to come and observe." The man did some thinking then nodded his head. I copied out the alphabet onto the blackboard. Latin used K, Y and Z for Greek words and J, U and W for some other languages but not their own. They also did not use lower case letters like I did. All the punctuation and the arabic/indian numbers had to be put in and this was seen as unnecessary by most. Under this I put the names of a soldier's equipment. I parsed one word at a time and explained how certain characters produced certain sounds. All of the men had to repeat the sounds except Publius. I used their names next and they then had to go into their families. The lesson was stopped as I asked them about their families and where they came from. This got to be fairly friendly and I said to Publius, "I am going to teach your men how to read. The chess book will be what I am going to teach now. Will you actively take part even if you can read like Decimus?" He nodded his head much more quickly. I added, "This means that you say the words and the sounds the same as the rest. This is on your word as a Roman." It was not said as a question but Publius nodded. I went over to him and he pulled his head back then after thinking put it forward. I held his head in my hands and said out loud, "Woden, please aid me to repair this man's voice." I was also triggering the release of the endorphins into the man's blood stream. I corrected what I had done to the muscles controlling his larynx. When I stepped back the man looked radically changed. I may have caused too much of the hormones to be released. We all waited and in a moment Publius said, "Thank you and thanks to Woden as well." I went back to the board and restarted the lesson. The next day Publius seemed to be a new man. This may last but it might not too. He, at least, was amendable to some ideas that he would not have encompassed before. The four officers soon pulled him to one side and had a lot of questions for him. The four guards were given a tour of the boat now and I showed them the engine. It was noisy here so when we went on deck I asked, "Do any of you want to learn how the engine works?" There were a lot of eager smiles so we went back to the blackboard. We had not got far when Publius hurried in and took a seat. "Hello Publius. We were going to talk about how the engine works for a while first." "Please go right ahead." I talked about how Rufus explained about the power of steam to the Frisians. None of them knew about an explosion but I did the best I could. I got five smiles now. The engine was drawn at its simplest form and then the double linkage to the wheel that turned the propeller shaft. The next part was to teach them about a propellor but that was easy with a knife and a piece of wood. This one flew through the air though and that was easy enough to understand. When I was done, Publius said, "Will you read us one of your books instead?" "I can do a bit of both I guess. Men have to read to learn of new ideas. The gods want us to understand more but not to the exclusion of the what is necessary to stay alive." This was said because fanatics would memorise the books and fail to do anything else. More officers boarded the ship and were given lodging. I again went on deck and talked to the followers that were in every camp now. Some of the new group gravitated to the school room. I taught mathematics and mentioned that the arabic/indian numbers when compared to what the Romans used was the same as comparing my swords to theirs. This they understood. The men using the slates, slowly saw that I had spoken the truth. Taking some inspiration from the Greeks I talked of music and the relation of wavelength and frequency. Reading was more difficult even for those that already could read because I used paragraphs and lowercase letters. It didn't take long for most men to grasp the improved ideas. We stopped to see Horatius but he had kept the people away from me. We had another talk and a chance to catch up on our friendship and our activities. He said, "I wish I could do as much as you can. You can do the impossible and I am still working on models." "I have the help of the gods while you only have a bit of mine." "I see that a courier found his way to you." "He brought some guards to make sure the mail was safe. We got off to a rocky start but we are getting along well now." "Are you going to bring any fish back for me?" "The Romans further downstream want more too. Tell me how much you want and I will save that much for you, that is providing we catch enough." Publius got some additional mail but he didn't mind because he didn't have to carry any of it. Lucius must have know our schedule and been at the fort when we arrived. He was happy because he had sold a lot of his merchandise and wanted to see me when I came back. Free delivery was nothing to be sneezed at. He was also very serious when I told him about Publis. He felt relieved to hear the outcome but he was still worried because a courier had a great deal of power because of his position. He said, "Word of this will get out even if the courier says nothing. You do not have the Caesar here to save you this time." "I don't see it as that much of a problem. It was not long ago that a senator gave us a problem but as you say Julian straightened it out." "The Augustus may use this as a further excuse to have you assassinated. An arrow does not heed the law." When the last of the officers were dropped off, I felt relieved. Most were now swaying toward Wodenism and the rest were confirmed believers in Mithra. So far I had not run into many Christians though some of the more educated had some Jewish leanings. There was a storm coming but Rufus figured we had a chance to get some of the liquid gold from the ocean before we returned to the river for shelter. Rufus seemed to know just where to take the nets because we had so many fish that we could not get them all onto the barge. We had a large dip net with a three metre handle but this was not enough. Everybody including Publius was excited and worked as hard as they could. We had three large boxes filled with fish and probably six more in the nets when Iulius was almost thrown to the deck by a wave. I realised that the storm was all about us. "Rufus we are not going to be able to get the fish in." I had to say it twice and then he argued. "Rufus the fish are no good if we are dead. Release one side of the net." "We can pull it in." "We can't and there is no time. Release one side of the net." It took quite a while until he came to his senses and then he ordered the men to do what was needed. He gave orders to the helmsman and we began pulling the now empty net in. By now the winds were brisk and the waves quite high. We just got the net on the deck when a wave washed the long dip net off the deck. Publius had not been able to do much with his partially healed wrist and went after it. He slipped and fell off the barge and into the ocean. Rufus and I saw this and we ran to the edge. Publius was floundering in the water and being left behind as the wind and our motor took us away. There were no flotation devices and cursed myself. There was a partially filled box though and I yelled at Rufus and together we pushed this off the deck and into the ocean. The k-bar was at my waist and I handed it to Rufus then kicked off my boots. I ran and dove into the ocean. The noise lessened underwater and I swam upward. I could not see Publius but Rufus was pointing for me. I must have taken a few hundred strokes until I found the spot. Publius was now sinking beneath the waves and his struggles were weak. I swam to where he was and I dove. He was just a few metres down and I grabbed him around the neck to pull him up. He started to struggle as if to push me down so he could gain the surface. It was difficult to fight him and swim. When we broke the surface both of us drew deep draughts of air. We were immediately hit by a wave and Publius started to struggle again. It was difficult but I got partial control and put him to sleep. With an arm around his neck I pulled him in the direction I thought the box would be. I could see the top of the barge and a man there looking our way. The ship had turned around but the wind and current still took it away. I had no energy to wave even if he could see me but it gave me a direction to go to get the box. It was an agonising fifteen minutes until I came to the box. It was still loaded with salt. Publius was awakened and he grabbed for the box. He pulled hard and the lip went underwater. I helped him pull to get the box to flip. It did and Publius was almost trapped in it. We got it righted but Publius was going to tip it once more in his panic. "Publius, Publius, listen to me." It took a slap to get him to see me. "Just hold on. I will go around the box and hold the other side. You can try to get in then." He was very frightened but I was able to get around with a few strokes. I was just in time because my end of the box started to go up. The box shook a lot then came back but my side was still high. I could not get in without Publius' cooperation or the box would tip once more. I just held on and tried to conserve energy because the water was cold. About ten minutes I heard, "Jón, Jón are you alright?" "Just cold." The box started to come down because Publius came close then he went back to his end of the box again. "Publius lean out of the box on your side. I will try to get in there with you." The box didn't shift and I had to say it two more times. The box finally moved and I pulled myself out of the water to match. A wave came and Publius retreated and I had to slip back into the ocean to keep the box upright. It was difficult getting Publius to do this again and this time I got up even faster and fell into the box as Publius retreated with me. I was still cold but I used my hands to bail out some of the box. It had been calked but the wood had not been wet so I knew that it may already have sprung a leak. Publius helped me after a moment and we got the box half empty. We at least didn't have to tread water. It was a half hour later that Publius said, "You jumped into the ocean to save me." "It was my fault you fell in." "It was not. I went after the net." "I made the boat and the barge. I didn't have any safety devices." "What devices?" "A large ring that floats. You would get into it and your arms would hold you afloat." "What good will that do. We are going to die now." "I don't think so or at least not yet. "It is so cold. I know I'm going to die." I reached out for Publius' hand and he held mine in two of his. I went inside his body again and closed the veins in his skin as much as I dared and tried to get his body to burn fat and sugar much faster to keep his core temperature up. In a few moments I had to do the same to myself. Publius felt better now but he was sure he was going to die. He talked about his family. His sisters he spoke fondly of and said he would introduce me to them then went quiet because he remembered he was going to die soon. In a moment he started to talk of his boyhood friends and their families. The progression went on until the present and I found that he had far fewer friends now than he had when a boy. "Tell me about when you were a boy Jón?" I stuck to Jón's life but only the part I knew because the portion of his memories before he was kicked was locked away from me. I went slow. There were no time restraints on me now. I talked about Forni and I was not ashamed about the few times I had been with him as opposed to Jón. Publius nodded his head. He too must have a friend like that too. He liked when I told him about the two women I got to come into my bed but let him think they were maids or slaves. He got much of our combined past up until we lifted the siege before we were jarred by something. I looked up and then behind me. Land was only a few metres away. It was all rocks but it was still solid. "Well Publius, you are going to have to die another day. We are close to land." Publius got on his knees and looked and then turned to me with a smile. We tipped the box but Publius was not as worried this time. He sputtered water but was actually standing on the bottom now. Waves were still crashing in. The box was towed to shore and then dumped of water before being pulled higher. I got Publius to even help me get it above the high water mark so it would not drift out into the ocean at high tide. We rested then and smiled at each other but there was lots to do. It was still raining though the wind had died down considerably. Publius said, "I am cold and hungry. I think I can eat the rocks." "Stand in the rain to get the salt water off and wash your hair in the rainwater. I will look for shelter and something to eat." "How can you find something to eat? It's getting dark." "Are you going to talk about dying again?" There was some soul searching and he said in a low voice, "No." "Well let's get higher so I can see what is going to be on the menu." We found an area that was easy to climb and we got to the grass. I looked around and saw some large trees and some low areas that were more water than land. Publius followed behind and I straightened up the box that had saved our lives so it could be seen but not blow away. To be on the safe side I took a dozen large stones and made an arrow pointing in the direction we were going to travel. Publius didn't ask what I was doing but he was looking around to find something to eat. He was still too cold and I would not undue what I had done until we found shelter. Crawling under the box was not a solution especially with no food yet. I too was very hungry and kept a few of the better stones to use as missiles. We walked along a bank and I saw movement far ahead. A small fat animal was running for some reason in the rain. I hurried forward with my rocks ready. I was eager to throw but paused to concentrate on the stone on my hand and the animal about seventeen metres away. My arm went back slowly then went forward quickly. The stone arced up and descended just right and hit the animal on the head. When I got to the animal it was in its death throws and to be sure I kicked it away from its burrow in the ground. It was a large fat marmot. When it was dead I started to laugh. Publius came running up ane eyed the animal and said, "What's funny?" I said, "Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?" "It is an odd saying but what is funny about it?" "The saying is in another language and this animal is called a woodchuck in it. You wouldn't understand the tongue twister anyway." I looked for more game while I carried the chuck toward the trees. My lucky stone was in my hand and ready for any of the chuck's relatives. When we got within the trees I looked for a place out of the wind and possibly with something dry to burn. I had been trained to eat raw meat when I was young and at least the chuck was fresh. We got deeper into the trees and I found a wide area with nothing growing there. I looked at some saplings when I got close and found them charred. It was dark but I could see that some of the trees around this area were damaged by fire. I caught a whiff of rotting vegetation and I now looked on the ground. Near the centre of the cleared area I found a hole in the ground with water in it. A large rock overhung the hole. It was black from incomplete combustion and I had to run my fingers on it. It was lamp black. Bubbles were coming up from the cleft all the time and it looked to be boiling but I felt no heat. "We better have a fire someplace else." "Why? It is dry here." "We stay and we will die." I walked upwind until I found more rocks and a living tree leaning against it. Methane was odourless but the other constituents of marsh gas were not. This looked to be safe. I struck two of the rocks together until I got a sharp edge. I handed the sharp rock to Publius and said, "You butcher and I will try to get a fire started." "I am not good at this. Why do you want me to use a rock when I have a good knife." "I thought you would have got rid of your posessions that were heavy when you got in the water so you would stay afloat longer." "That might happen next time but I was too worried to think straight." "Use your knife then." In a cleft that had to be made by man, I found a short stick with a blackened end and some small tufts of dry and old grass. Beside it was some dust that looked that came from a rotting log. Lastly was a split log with some black indentations in three places. There was a few dried branches but not many. They would not last long. I went out into the rain and brought in more dead wood even if it was wet from the rain. I used my sharp rock to remove the soggy bark then broke up the pieces to short lengths. The peg was put into one of the dark holes and some of the dry grass was put close. Nearby was some more grass and small twigs. I leaned over the split log to put pressure on the peg and moved it quickly back and forth with my hands. It was tiring work but I smelt smoke after ten minutes. It was ten more before the punk from the rotting log started to glow. I continued to turn the peg while I blew on the punk until I glowed brighter and brighter. Dry grass was put on this and I kept blowing until a small flame appeared then disappeared. More grass was added and I blew harder now and in a minute a flame appeared again. It was fed very carefully until I put the small twigs on it and it grew quicker now. The fire grew and grew until I dared rest. I leaned back and put the fuel on the fire. This was tended like I was a mother hen until the larger branches started to burn. Publius had two small slivers of meat in the flames even with all the smoke. I took some slivers of wood he had cut and started to cook a few on the side and upwind of the small fire. Publius popped one half cooked piece of meat in his mouth and groaned in contentment. We ate half cooked portions of meat until we had little fire left. The wind had freshened though the rain had dwindled. It began to get cold and I had to make a decision. The cold was no good though we may survive the night with the clothing we had. We could of course have a stronger fire that would not go out as easily. I was worried about the contained gas forming an explosive mixture but the strong gusts of wind should stir it up enough. "Publius, I want more heat but it may be dangerous to get it." "What are you planning." "It is better to show you. There is not much of a fire left." I used Publius' knife to scrape the split log that I didn't want to burn. A small strip of damp bark bundled them together and I lashed them to a long damp branch. When I had my mini torch I stood and looked into the night planning my steps. It was just over a hundred metres to the rock and there were some obstacles in the way. "Publius, loan me your shoes." The man quickly remove his and I laced the leather to my feet. With one more look at the way I had to go I lit the torch and ran as fast as I could. Rain was hitting the flames and I used one hand as best I could to shield it. I made it to the rock with some flame left and I stuck the lit portion around the edge of the rock. There was a giant whoosh that sucked the air from the surrounding area and flames climbed into the sky. I had my eyes closed and didn't open them until the flame was steady. It was not getting hot with a cold wind at my back. In a moment I heard a tramping in the trees and Publius came into view. He tried to get close then had to duck to do so. "Woden be praised. He has provided warmth and light." He closed his eyes and mumbled a semi quiet prayer that went on for at least five minutes. I had heard similar ones to Mitra but he had substituted names. I backed away from the fire and then walked around it so any wind hitting us had a chance to get warmed. This was not the clean blue flame of natural gas because it was not getting enough oxygen to burn cleanly. The flames went up three metres and out one more so the flow was substantial for a small chemical operation and if the gas pocket could be tapped properly then it may provide the power for a large operation. It was two hours later that I heard the whistle over the wind but Publius could not hear yet. The chuck had been cooked on long green branches in the flames. I had undone my tinkering with the food in us. "Our rescuers are near. Stay here and I will be back soon." He put his hand on me as if to convey his worry. He may not be sure I was going to come back for him. "Go then. I will wait by your god's fire." I got to the shore in a few minutes and called out into the sea, "Rufus!" It took another twenty minutes for the Patricia to come close. I was fairly easy to see because the light from the fire illuminated the wall of trees behind us. The seas were not that rough and a small boat came to me and I helped it stop to keep it from being damaged on the rocks. Rufus said, "Thank Woden that you are alive. Get in the boat and I can get you to a warm place." "Hello. We can't leave yet. Publius is in the trees waiting." "He's alive?" "There is no point saving a corpse. Do you want to come and see my fire?" "That has to be a fire of the gods to be so large." Iulius was in the boat and I said, "Your feet are my size. Let me borrow your shoes for a moment." I took off Publius' boots and put Iulius' on. I held Rufus hand and got him to the fissure in the earth only to see Publius on his knees praying toward the fire. Rufus said, "Woden's torch!" "No but close." Publius got his boots back and we left for the boat. I had to re-borrow Publius' shoes so I could show the rest of the crew what we had found. We set the anchors on the barge and on the Patricia and stayed the night. The next day was overcast but we all stayed to look at the flames in the daylight. I gave an estimate now of the quantity of gas expelled and then the surrounding territory. The location was on our map now and it was just off the branch of the Rhine we had just left yesterday. This whole area had hundreds of oil and gas wells in the future and I was lucky to get one that was near the surface. The rest of the trip was not anticlimactic. We stayed and cleaned fish then salted them. The box that saved our lives was retrieved. When the fish were cleaned we made another pass and got another load that could just be pulled onboard. With the box full we made one more pass and now we had to use a new dip net to bring all the fish aboard. As soon as this was done we left for the Seine to do this again. We had a bumper harvest and sold our catch to three forts. The four guards, Publius and the crew were happy to accept the gold. Fish was more expensive than beef or mutton. All of us appreciated pan fried fresh fish that had been battered in flour and a bit of salt. We stayed together until we got to Paris and we all shook hands before we parted. Publius was given a copy of each of my books to learn to read. All the books were made simple for people like him. I was thanked at least a hundred times for saving his life. I could not make light of it but I tried to say that it was the way I was taught and it helped a bit. We could pull all the way up to the dock now with the dredged channel. Manlius and Iulius were sent off to find their families. There was lots of help but Rufus and his crew were not going to just let anybody on their ship and barge. Two large containers of salted fish were difficult to get off the barge but now it went to the kitchens here. I had to feed my own family too. It just happened that this was a Tuesday and even though I was tired we had to have a sermon. I had an hour to rest and have another shower. During the sermon I saw Patricia then her family and I felt at peace for the first time in months. ------- Chapter 22 The crowd was much larger than usual and numbered perhaps seven thousand people. My acolytes did what they could and I found new faces helping them at the same time. It would not be long before I had to build a PA system to reach everybody. When the current news was mentioned only the fact that a Courier had been transported with some mail and not the way we foolishly acted. The flame was mentioned and Rufus' term of Woden's Torch was used. It was described with a lot more mysticism than fact but there was a lot of fact too. I was worried that I would have problems now using the gas before the location was converted to a holy relic. People were picked out from all segments of society for healing but I favoured the children more. Some of the diseases were unknown and I had no time to go through those available to see who could make a more dramatic recovery. I had found that there were no defences in some cases and my patients were not helped much. In these cases I had to try to weaken the disease itself so the body could form antibodies before the patient died. The cures needn't all be spectacular but it was good that some would happen each Tuesday. The service was over and I just went among the people to shake hands and say a few words to those that were close. Patricia and her family stayed away, knowing that I would get to them when I could. When I did get close I hugged and gave a small kiss to Patricia then greeted the rest of her family including their escort. This separated me from those that simply would not leave otherwise. Patricia knew the routine and said, "We came to bring you home so you can tell us of your travels like you said you would." I had already been asked to go to other houses and claimed a prior commitment. "Yes I did. I have to talk to some of my family first. Won't you come with me while I do this? How is your father doing?" "Sure, we'll come and father is here in the city. He has some guests as usual that he has to deal with." Curtius and Atrius joined the guards to get us out of the group of people and I smiled at everybody and touched a few people that seemed to gather comfort from this. We walked the short distance and stopped in front of a two metre tall shape formed from cast iron. Licinia said, "What is this?" "An iron bell for our temple." "But it is so huge. I have seen bells and they are all bronze." "Bronze is good but I am the only one that can cast iron." "How much does it weigh?" "In the new form of measurement, it is nine and a half tonnes." "Your barge carried this?" "The barge can carry a very heavy load it is just that it cannot deal with heavy seas." They took a closer look at the bell and Thor was shown with a hammer in one hand while riding a horse. The rest of the bell was decorated with people learning and doing what were now high tech jobs. On the far side from Thor was a rocket leaving the launchpad on a large flame and much more smoke. Aulus and Postuma got close and checked out the detail. I waited but the two did not find the area I wanted and I walked to the bell. I explained to Licinia who the characters were and skipped a boy that was doing plumbing work. The detail was not that good but it was what I remembered seeing Aulus doing at one time. With a squeeze to Patricia she checked the area more then stood up and then looked again. "Who is this boy handling pipe at a house that looks like ours?" Aulus came close and looked but he was not sure. I said, "I remember seeing somebody doing this once. I can't remember who it was." Aulus quickly said, "That was me that did that. I was connecting the pipes for the pump. It was the day we put the pump in. Don't you remember?" I kept a straight face and said, "It could be." Licinia and Patricia had to laugh at the young man's expression and then so did I. I grinned and said, "It is you as good as we could make it. Our casting ability is not that good yet." "Me?" "Yes, you." Aulus got very close and then used his fingertips to trace the image. I knew he liked the idea of being immortalised. Our temple was much like the apartment complexes I had built. It was originally one hundred by two hundred metres but had grown with the number of people coming. The second floor only existed as a balcony ten metres wide that ran around the inside of the building. I usually stood or sat on a simple seat at the front. This was a stage with room underneath for an orchestra when we had time to develop it. The organ though would have to go on the stage. When we had plays then there would have to be a curtain in place to hide it. The bell could go nowhere except in a new structure. I had not given up on the Eiffel Tower yet but it would not be as high. I had no idea how high I could really go but it would not be the three hundred metres that the real one was. Usually, like today, we held services in the open air. If we had tried the temple we just would not have enough room. Getting that much of the unwashed and flea ridden humanity in one large room may be too difficult to take without a lot of air being brought into the temple. Something large like the 'Sky Dome' would be necessary but without the famous sliding roof. My own house was complete now but it was a simple rectangular shape. It had a lot of amenities that were common in my time along with a laundry chute that was not. Provision though was made for other features that would come along with time. We all settled into a comfortable surroundings and the servants began their work of preparing a meal. Because of Patricia, none of them were young and attractive females. Licinia was surprised at all that I had found out about the Frisians. She was very concerned about the cannons but I think trusted me enough when I told her that it was nothing dangerous to Rome. Patricia loved the school cut out of the virgin forest and loved even more the thought of using the steam operated saw to do what would have been the majority of the work. I talked about the personalities of the cadets in detail so they would be familiar to them if they met. Some of the more colourful characters were mentioned and I tried to come across as just having a large and extended family. The open hearth furnace making multi tonnes of steel per day was described then the track we made. They didn't quite see the tractor or its reincarnation as a locomotive. "We are making a musical instrument. Manlius and Iulius are in charge of it though to hear the Greeks you would hear a different answer. So far we have a forty three key organ. It will grow with time and I hope to provide one for every temple." I looked at the three ladies and said, "Anyone here interested in learning to play? I think the organ made for this city will be very powerful. The person playing it will be famous in their own right." Patricia seemed interested and I said that she had to talk to Iulius because he had to build one or get one built on the Rhine and shipped here. Publius was glossed over except where I mentioned about the fish we had caught and then the gold we had made selling even this small amount. When Licinia asked about Woden's Torch I had to do some fancy footwork to get around lying to talk of its discovery. I did mention that the gas would be useful to me and they were wondering how I could use something holy as a resource. "Woden did not alter the universe or make it. The gods are a product of the natural forces that shaped all of us. The gas is there to use and in the land of the gods it is used too. We just have to use it responsibly." "If that is the case, then it is burning away now and being wasted." "It is better to be burnt. Lighting or a person have ignited it in the past and then it had been extinguished by wind, rain or an earth quake. The unburnt gas harms our air and over a long time does a lot of damage." I changed the subject and turned to Aulus and said, "I have another of the steam driven sawmills. There are some trees on your father's property and elsewhere that can be turned into silver. I want to start selling lumber here too." "What can I do?" "You first have to ask your father if you can help." He didn't look happy at this. "There is work to do around the estate. A person grows with the responsibility they discharge. Loading you down with too much and too soon is not good either. The trees will have to be purchased from people that cut the trees and float them down the Seine to us. The trees get cut into lumber and then dried in kilns and some done naturally. We made a new tool that scrapes the rough boards after they are dried. These boards are easier to work with and will command a higher price." "What could I do?" "Anything you want. You are not able to handle management of this sort yet but you may work into it. If your father gives permission then you can try negotiating for timber then move to cutting, curing and finally sales." "I am sure father will let me try." We had a nice meal but I felt the need for a pastry but the only thing sweet was honey. It was also quite expensive. Sugarcane and sugar beets would do if I could find them. So far I had been unable to do so. Sugar cane was the better product but I had to find this and it would only grow in warm climates and I think it needed a lot of water. Purifying the raw sugar was easy. The family departed an hour after the meal but Patricia stayed with me. She was anxious to get upstairs and so was I. Our lovemaking was torrid to say the least but after a few hours the edge was removed and we just made love. It felt good to hold Patricia to me when we finally decided to rest. I enjoyed the other women too but Patricia was something special and made sure I had told her so. The next morning Patricia had regained her urges and we had to stay in bed a while longer before getting up for breakfast. We eventually got up and were having a breakfast of crêpes when we got an unexpected visitor. Julian was ushered in. Patricia was upset but there was no reason to be. "Have a seat and try the crêpes." "I have already eaten a few hours ago. I came to tell you that my cousin sent some men to take half of my men." "When was this?" "Almost four weeks ago. They left just a week ago empty handed." "Did the rest of the information hold true?" "No, it was different and possibly worse." He was looking at Patricia so I didn't ask questions. "Our new furnace will enable us to make four kilometres of rail per day or half that in track. It would be nice to have that built sooner." "I would like that too. Do your trains go through the mountains?" "They can climb a mountain only slowly but one kind has a gear attached to the drive wheels that makes sure there is no slip. The gods usually make a tunnel through the mountains. The snow in the passes is too thick to get through in the winter and too dangerous because of avalanches." I added, "A better solution would be a very large ship powered by steam. Three thousand men can easily fit but not with a lot of horses." "You don't have one of those do you?" "Not for at least a few decades. The government at that time would look around to find who could build such a ship the ask for quotes. The bids are studied and the best one chosen. It should be the one that is the least but some people cannot handle a large contract like that." "Why are you saying this? You are the only one capable of producing a ship like this." "Just reminding you to think of ways to get something cheaper. Tax money does not belong to the government but the people that pay it. They need to see value for what they pay. Corruption will always exist but it needs to be constantly hunted out and exposed." "You would not want to make more gold?" "Sure I would but I have to gain it ethically. Businessmen have various views on ethics and it is not the same with each." Julian said, as if Patricia were my wife, "Would you allow me a few minutes with Jón?" Patricia was happy to comply and left but I pointed outside and we left too. When it was safe, Julian said, "They did not proclaim me Augustus but wanted me to take Gaul from the empire. We just went to war to get Gaul back." "What did you tell your men?" "I had to say that I would talk to the Augustus about this matter but everybody knows what he will say." "The results will be the same I think. The Alemmani are still his best bet." "He could send assassins." "You have good protection." "He can recall me and then kill me." "Your men would not like that and they would rebel." "But I would be dead." "There has to be other reasons he does not kill you. You perhaps wrote letters to explain what you are doing to other important men. Then the Augustus could not kill you openly." "I would normally send correspondence. Many people are afraid of the Augustus and fight him in almost all matters. Of course the Augustus does that to the rest of us too." "I do not think that changes. It is a basic quirk of humanity." "What about the gods?" "I was there a long time in one sense but I do not know if they are the same as us. They are very similar." "The Alemmani will start their war if we have not disturbed time too much." "What is your estimate until they begin?" Julian quickly said, "Eight to ten weeks. It will be small attacks at first or even to draw my troops elsewhere when the real attacks come." "I wish I could give you something that would allow you to communicate faster." "We get along well enough the way we are. I used the arrows you gave me. It helped convince some enemies to surrender rather than fight. Many Romans owe their lives to your weapons." "I took more though and it will be a long time before I am at least even." "That is good to hear because I would like more of your arrows." "We have only two on the barge and those are just a warning to pirates. "Would you make a lot more for me. I can pay for them." I had known this would come and said, "I will make more but it is easer and safer to make them on the Rhine. You may need a lot to frighten enough Alemmani to not fight in the coming months." "Since you insist on accompanying me on this war, I think you could handle the arrows." "The arrows do not matter much. I just want to keep track of how many are used. I do not want to find one flying at us." Julian though then said, "I had not considered that either. What can you do Jón to build this rail system you want?" Julian I guess wanted to get over that morbid thought. I said, "I can build railways all over the empire. They will promote growth and get the army to where they are needed in the quickest time but the cost is very high." "What would it take to get you started?" "When the gods built a railway in their youth, those that built it got from ten to twenty square miles of land along the roadway for every mile of track they put down. Money was also given to assist in the construction of some sections and some lines were not taxed for many years. The government also loaned some companies money. It all depended on the time and the need of the government to get the railway built." "The land is easy to grant but how much gold is needed?" "I have no idea. My one furnace cannot make enough steel. The furnace needs coal and iron ore. If they are close together then the cost of transportation is not that costly. I built a machine for crushing rock. The rock has to be transported to the place the rails are put down. "The real heavy costs are in the bridges, pathways across swamps and in the areas where rock must be removed. A train cannot climb very well and it can be done only on a low grade. This is why the hills have to be removed or cut into. We need workers but I do not like slaves." "So it is the same as building a road but it has to be stronger?" "Yes, that is very true. Bridges though have to be very wide. Two sets of track need to be laid on some and then we need a road for the empire to use." "Why? You build it and forbid anybody else from using it." "They will still use it and a train may hit them." "So you kill a few fools." "The train may be knocked from the tracks." "I see. Perhaps wide bridges are what we have to build." "The bridges have to be very strong so they need to be built of iron and concrete." "Iron? Who would build a bridge of that. Its... I guess you would. Iron then must get to be cheaper?" "Yes, but the concrete will be difficult to make because I want a special kind that need lots of fuel to prepare. It is also superior to anything you have seen so far." "All for bridges?" "Concrete is almost as important as steel and iron." "Oh." We started to walk now while Julian thought. He said in a few minutes, "A courier said that you jumped into the ocean during a storm to save his life." "Rufus and I pushed a wood box in first so we would have something to hold onto." "That was a foolish thing to do. You both would have died instead of just one." "He was helping me fish. He was to get a share. This is like your army. You fight for your teammates." "I would have let him die." "He trusted me. He fell while helping me. The death of a courier is not good and the Augustus would be even more concerned with this area and me." "Did you want to carry the mail?" "I did it as a favour to Rome. It cost little to me. When the railway is in operation it can carry mail in a locked cart or with a courier. If there are enough trains and ships then mail can be delivered for profit and still done cheaply." "To make gold?" "No to link the Empire. The reason that the empire is in two parts is that it takes so long for orders to get from one place to another. Mail helps and I told you about the use of lightning to send messages." "When can you do this?" He was very excited as he had been when it was first mentioned. "It is still years off. I need some silver wire to carry the lightning. I can use the lightning to make very pure copper or silver to carry lightning better. I did not study this too much but we may make a radio in twenty years with enough educated people to help me." "What about the wires that can be used to carry a man's voice?" "If we put them on poles, then somebody will take them down for the copper. They could be buried but then they will be dug up." "Do you have a solution?" "A partial one will be to bury the copper under the rail bed when we build. Concrete over it will keep out most of the thieves." Julian began to go into deep thought again then said, "I heard your father was given many more cannon." "He was given more. If you remember he would come to Persia to fight for you, but does that mean he has to leave his country unprotected?" "I did not think of it that way. I am sorry for thinking ill of you. When will we get the cannon?" "You already have the cannon that I lost during the battle. The secret of the powder is only a secret until a Roman finds it out. Please remember that the more secrets Rome knows the more chance that our enemies will find this out. I was thinking of the Roman empire purchasing all its powder from the Frisians. Some good people in time will find out how this is made. Another idea is to train the Roman artillery officers in this new weapon. You have good people and they can get a good start by getting an education in mathematics first and then some of the techniques I know of to kill an enemy." "What is there to know? You put powder in and make it burn. I can see the amount of powder being reduced for some reasons." "You are right but there are strategies that can be used when there are enough cannons and communications between batteries. The infantry can be called in to and the mixture if very effective." "What would Rome have to pay for this help?" "It is not up to me but I would compel a great many Frisians to go through training in the Roman legions. They need discipline and that is difficult to teach some very proud men." "We have the same problem with our own men. It is difficult to get them to enter the military." "I just had an idea. During the history of the gods some countries found themselves in wars all the time just like Rome is. They forced every man to enter the military for three to five years. You get a soldier that is not very well trained but is better than the farmers that many countries have fighting the legions. During this three or more years they learn all the important facts they have to know to become good citizens." "That would cost a lot of gold and we would loose more gold when these men are not working the land." "Again, you are right but think on this. Rome has more or less accepted the borders as they now stand. Men that retire and their families are out on the edge for hundreds of years. The Romans there are much more barbaric than the Romans in the centre of the empire. Those Romans like to fight but they have no real tie to Rome. They may want to keep the empire alive but not show much loyalty to Rome itself. You need to reacquaint these people to what it is like to be Roman." "I begin to see. You're right. The Romans at the frontier are different. So you are saying that this three year period will make them more loyal?" "You have three years to make it that way." "Where am I going to get that much gold?" "You own two very valuable franchises that cover all of Italia. Another factor is government owned businesses. Tax money is used to get them going then the profits go to the government. You need businessmen to invest a lot of their own money into this venture too. They will make the business flourish." "Not my iron?" "You could do that. Use tax money to set up sales outlets all over Italia and a portion goes back to the government coffers. You can expand much faster that way. The government would be like a partner." "The government, as you call it, would get most of the profits." "I think you are being greedy. First consider your wealth and how many outlets you could open. Eventually you could grow just as big as with a partner but not as fast. The money you make can go into railroads and ships." "You would give me railroads?" "You will buy track or make it yourself. I have said before that Italia can generate more gold than the entire empire. Trade is important but most of the trade is within the country. Everybody will gain wealth. Some of that wealth is taxed and the government prospers. That wealth will support the army. Oaths will be to the empire and not as much to the Augustus. The people on the frontier will support this idea because it is in their own best interests." "Armies have fought to place a new Augustus on the thrown many times. An oath is important." "Yes it is but an educated soldier would see that this kind of action would fail simply because the army as a whole will not allow it. What could happen is that the men that spend three years in training have to do so in Italia. The legions are mixed and the men make friends and learn new ideas. The decision to install a new Augustus will be less likely if the man does not have his own people around him." "What about when he goes home?" "It is three years and he is out of the army. He is there to get educated, see that he is part of a large empire and better prepared to defend that empire." "It is going to cost a lot of gold to do this." "The empire will be richer and able to afford this." "Where will I start?" "By making a pact with the Frisians." Then Julian said, "And helping you change the empire that took a thousand years to form." We talked for another hour about the empire so we could understand each other a bit more. Julian then said, "What about my daughter?" "I admire her the most. If you push though I will have to find somebody else." "She loves you." "I love her. I am becoming a religious leader. I do not want to push Patricia either. She may find that she does not want to be with a man as committed as I am. I may change in ways I cannot imagine and find that Patricia is not for me." "Patricia will be older by then. Why must she wait?" "She will grow older whether she is married or not. We would decide only after we know ourselves much better. Marriage is important and not to be jumped into." "What about children?" "Patricia does not have to be a baby making machine. Her mid twenties are soon enough." "That is old." "Old only in the life expectancy of the average person but she will have the best care available. I want Patricia to enjoy her youth before settling down. It may happen that she will not settle down with me. I may lose her but if we form a strong enough bond then a marriage contract will not mean much to us." Patricia was worried still when we came back in and I tried to reassure her without being obvious. Before Julian left he said to his daughter, "I won't keep Jón from you any longer today. I hope the two of you will find happiness like I did with your mother." Patricia almost ran to her father and hugged him. "Thank you, Father. I am always happy with Jón." There were few raw materials near Paris. The upper Rhine shared coal and iron ore but that was also part of Germania Superior. The deposits on the land I owned or on Lucius' land would soon peter out unless we found more. The test holes were dug by hand and we didn't find any deeper minerals. The need for a survey done with drilling rigs was important. I spent my time and money sending people out with maps to find the resources I needed. Julian had not found much iron ore in the region so he could not really ask for assistance in putting up a large furnace. We both planned for the time when he would be Augustus and then I could just move to those areas to get what I needed. I was eyeing the Ruhr valley and a strip of land three hundred kilometres long and close to a hundred wide. It was in a predominantly east west strip and included what would one day Hanover. Other lands were richer in natural resources but it would take a sophisticated infrastructure to extract, process and sell what we produced. I needed people the same way Rome did but I was preaching for smaller families. None of this was going to happen overnight especially when I had to train the teachers that would then teach other teachers. Patricia was one of those that had been put in charge of education. She had a large budget but was very practical in spending to get the most distance for an ass. Paris was siphoning off some of the people that would have come to the Rhine. This had been done purposely by teaching glassmaking here and not on the Rhine. Small woodworking machines and hand tools allowed furniture to be made quicker. The sawmill was set up and was already cutting trees. It was a popular activity to come and watch and I supplemented the feeding of the poor by selling snacks to the tourists. Manlius and Iulius had continued with the organ and music and we found a lot more talented people that could sing or play. I left Paris with a full load of hemp and some additional bronze armour I traded for. I wanted to hurry now because Julian would soon find the war inspired by his cousin occurring without me. The arrows would be payment for my admission. If I did everything right then few would be used to kill people. Julian now sent men with me and I was able to leave my old friends in Gaul with their families. Some students that showed promise in metals came too so we had nearly fifty men on the barge and Patricia for our return. We also had a lot more boxes and salt. The fishing was good and we made two passes at the mouth of the Seine then two more at the Rhine. There was nearly twenty tonnes of fish and offal because I still didn't want to pollute. Life was good unless the wind was in the wrong direction. Fish was sold along the way but I saved lots for my own people. There was some room for passengers but they now had to put up with the smell of the fish. The majority of the soldiers got off at the last fort before I got home. The dry dock was coming along fine but still months away from completion. I started to hear news even before I docked because I picked up a messenger. Conditions had improved slowly. Accidents were down just a bit but too many people were still getting hurt or killed. I heard some impressive figures for the amount of rail produced. The messenger didn't know much of the more interesting gossip so I would have to talk to Tertius or his mother Licinia. The cargo was unloaded and both Patricia and the barge checked while I found out about the new sawmill, boiler and other tools I needed for my other school. The boiler was almost done and would take another week. Pipe, fittings, valves and radiators had been made. Steam and some check valves would be used to move the hot water and I had to bring a small still to provide distilled water. The Patricia could make some from waste heat and sea water but it would be better to just do it on land with fresh water. In the mean time, I talked to family, held a service and went off alone to work in my lab. I made the nitroglycerine in small batches but I had clean, dry and acid free nitrocellulose already on hand. The mercury fulminate was quick to make and with some recent purchases made much more than I needed. The parts were made and I was the only one to assemble them. A Roman could find the procedure by simply disassembling one I gave them but I did it for safety. Large wooden cases were made like what the original stingers came in but I had a dozen of my own stingers in them. Like the military that I knew the word 'aculeus' was put on the top of the box along with the date and the amount of plastique in each grenade. With a war at hand and a chance to frighten the enemy in to submission I made twelve boxes and one more for the Patricia just in case. With time getting short I decided to make the trip to the Weser and then go directly to Lutetia. All the provisions I would need went with me. I may go with an empty hold but I would make it to the festivities before they began. The trip down the Rhine was quicker because we did not have a full load. We did have a lot more passengers. This put us behind schedule a bit and I took to travelling a few extra hours in the dark. Everybody got off before we turned east. This was no area for Rome. We hauled in a respectable catch then hurried on while we cleaned. We tried the same thing in the channel with better results some time. It didn't slow us down much because we never went very fast with our small engine. Both Rufus and his men love the extra money and I didn't mind. The Weser was easily travelled now that we had mapped some of it. The whistle never sounded until near mid afternoon one day near Minden. We didn't stop though and just waved at the people we saw. An hour later we came on the palisade and stopped here. The whistle had brought out everybody. It was only after we started to tie up that I knew something was wrong. There were happy faces, some too happy and some that were not happy at all. Flavius Eugenius, one of Gnaeus' officers stepped forward. He was one with the serious face and saluted me in the way I brought back from Hollywood. "Jón of Germania, I bring bad tidings." He was talking in a more complicated form of speech and I had to adjust to this. "Greetings Flavius. What is wrong?" "King Celyddon of the Gauls has attacked this base..." My mind jumped to all sorts of conclusions. I looked around for those closest to me but found some missing. Flavius continued, "We were able to repel them with difficulty and suffered many casualties." I desperately wanted to know who I had lost but instead I said, "Take me to the wounded." ------- Chapter 23 I was escorted into the camp and I looked around for more faces and still could not see some that I desperately wanted to see. The infirmary was set up along the lines I wanted and not Roman. It was just ahead and I asked, "When did this happen?" "Eleven days ago. We did not have much warning." I went into the infirmary first. I felt relief to see Klaasje, Tiebout and Hafgan tending the wounded. I asked Hafgan, "Show me the ones in the most danger." There were four and then the next that was not quite so bad in his opinion. I put my hand on the head of one after another. All but two were awake. It was almost second nature to remove some of the pain but not too much. My own assessment took about ten minutes and then I went to Gnaeus Scipio Magnus. The man was asleep and missing a right arm and had numerous battle wounds. Infection had set in and now I worked hard to get this under control. I found a cancer too and cut off the blood to it. Arienh was next even though I wanted to go to her first. She said in a weak voice, "I knew you would come." She meant in time and I just gave her a fake smile and I said, "I didn't know you were going to have a battle or I would have come to share in the fun." She gave me her own fake smile and said, "They wanted you mostly I think. They would have given you all the fun you could handle." This hurt. They had been attacked because of me. I just interfaced with her body and began the battle against the infection in her body then accelerated her healing. The remaining four were treated for infection first but two had internal bleeding that had not completely stopped. One of them had a festering wound that needed to be lanced and Klaasje brought the instruments for me. There were seventeen more and I could do little more than relieve their pain then guide their bodies to fighting the invaders inside of them. When I was done I knew that I was too tired to do any more and went back to Arienh. I asked, "How are you feeling now?" "Better than I was. Am I cured already?" "No, I was just able to take away some of the pain and start your body to fight the infections a little better. "They came at us from two directions. We managed to get the children and the women into the sewer. They burnt the school thinking they were killing everybody inside but only a few died of the smoke. We tried to fight..." Arienh started to cry then and I just held her hand in mine and stroked her short singed hair. Arienh was tired and I assisted her in getting to sleep then went around and talked to those that were awake. They seemed happy at my return and I heard more about the battles. I also learned more about who had died and how. I winced every time I heard a name even if it was for the third or forth time. Woden and Thor were mentioned a lot. The defenders had done a very good job of fighting off King Celyddon and his men. Those in armour had done better because they were able to stand on the wall and use their arrows to take out the Gauls and not usually get hurt. Our own arrows came back though and they were the ones that went through Gallic armour as well as our own. Many died defending the rest at the school and as Arienh said, it was the large sewer that went to our settling pond that saved most. Once the school had caught fire even the green wood had burnt. Some had made it to the fort before it was attacked. Kareltje and his stonecutters were in this group. He had actually slowed down the advance so more could gain the limited safety of the palisade. Gnaeus and Albrecht had led in the defence but Albrecht had been too confident of his armour and abilities. He died along with many of the men that went out to fight the Gauls. Dolf had died but Oriana and Edana bodies had not been found. They were assumed to be captured but could be dead considering their aversion to becoming slaves once more. When Gnaeus awoke he had a true smile for me. "I see you made it back and I am not even dead yet." "Romans are hard to kill." "Some perhaps. I took enough Gauls though." "I heard that you did very well. Everybody here owes you their life for the way you kept them fighting." "You wanted them trained the best and I guess I did a fair job." "Tell me what you think the Gauls will do now?" "There were close to a cohort attacking. I think your father was successful in killing a lot of them for us or Celyddon may have split his forces. He will know by now that you were not here. He may have left some people to wait for you to come but usually the Gauls have no patients." "As to your question; I think they will attack as soon as they find out that you are back. We have not been to Minden but they must know of Celyddon's presence." I said, "When we went by, they didn't seem worried. That can be from ignorance of knowing that the city gates are close." Gnaeus said, "You should know that he took captives and I would be surprised if any were still alive. Maybe the children. He likes them young. And another thing; he took the steam engine and the boiler. He broke the tubes and the water was released. I think he liked the bronze and the steel." I left the camp in a very foul and worried mood. Celyddon was going to pay now but not before I got my friends back. I took Rufus and his men back to the Patricia. "I want you to stay onboard. Celyddon may come for me. I will leave you some of my arrows but you have to go further downstream to where Celyddon and his men cannot swim or float to you." "We cannot see in the dark like you." "Keep watches. Keep the boiler hot too." Rufus didn't want to leave me either but hid behind his supposed inadequacies. I got my way and took out my personal weapons, ten cases of stingers and then some of the arrows with pitch and alcohol used to fire a ship. There was no shortage of help but I had the soldiers carry the stingers after telling them that a box would kill them and everybody around for thirty metres. The boxes were then carried like a first born son. The word aculeus seemed to have a portent that they readily understood. Only a few hours had passed since our arrival and it would not be dark for many more hours. A dozen Romans, Franks, Gauls and Frisians left with me to see the remains of the school. We were dressed for war and packhorses carried the supplies. A lot more trees had been toppled but it was not until I got to the school that I saw the destruction. A third of the upright beams were still in place but all of them were charred. All the planks and horizontal beams we had labouriously placed were gone and many of the trees that were left were now burnt with the heat. At least there were no bodies around. I simply could not stay and stare at the destroyed framework. I found where the steam engine and boiler had been and it was easy to follow it to where a broken wagon was. They had found that even apart, the portions were too heavy to carry around. It looked like two wagons were used to carry off the engine and one more for the boiler. As soon as we got a rough direction, scouts went out too look for an ambush. The tracks were not hard to follow. We got only about ten klicks away and found the boiler and engine in a ravine. There were no signs of the wagons or the horses. There were tracks though. We headed west and found an old camp site. We did see a large mound of ashes and this must have been for the dead attackers that had been disposed of. When we came to open fields of farms that had been abandoned in recent years, I was the one that went alone. I looked as carefully as I could but men could be difficult to see. I hoped that any of Celyddon's men would either run to inform their king or attack me. I neither saw nor heard anyone but the tracks led on. Once safely among the trees I waited and the rest of the patrol caught up. It was getting close to dusk when an errant gust of wind blew the smell of men to me. It was very faint. I took a bearing and said to the few near me. "There are a lot of unwashed bodies in this direction. I caught a smell of them." The scouts were recalled and told of our change in direction then we continued once more. It was an hour and a half later that we came on their camp. I counted forty three men and no family or captives. The lack of family disturbed me though. I pulled back and gave the dozen men an accurate assessment of the camp. There were no signs of sentries but I was going to check first before we did anything. The thirteen of us split up into three man teams but I stayed by myself. There were many accesses to the camp and these would be where the sentries would patrol. It was almost an hour later that I found a pair hiding in a thicket while ready to give the alarm if they heard something odd. I was angry enough to use the bow but I wanted intelligence. It took another half hour to get close to them. I had heard scuffles further away but it was not loud enough to warn the two in front of me. With a wooden club in hand I came in and hit one just below the helmet and was able to strike the other before he was fully able to gain his feet. He started to yell but was too busy trying to stay alive. He was bigger than me but most of my opponents were that way. I heard noise behind me and moved my opponent in that direction until I was able to use the club one more time on the first man. The man could not see me but swung his sword every which way to keep me away. I used the k-bar and the club to keep him busy. It was a fallen tree that finally tripped the man and I was on him in a flash. My knife held his sword out of the way while I beat him into unconsciousness with the club. Both men were checked and I interfaced with them as if they were my patients. The two were made to have very little control of their bodies. They were awakened with some water but they still could not see me. My grasp of the language was not that great but I said, "My name is Jón. I want to meet your king. Tell me where he is." One then the other tried to move and fell over on his front. He was not even strong enough to stop his face from striking the ground. I put the man back in position but he only glared at me. "I think I will just have to leave you if you will not help. Perhaps a wolf will come up and decide to sample some man flesh. The gods and I took away the control you had of your body. I need no ropes." I remained quiet but I got no reply. I got up and left the camp and there was not even the murmur of a plea to stay. A few hours after midnight we regrouped. The men had a lot of captives that were tied and gagged. Horses could have been used but they made too much noise. The men did too in the dark. I asked, "Did any of you find anything about Celyddon?" I got a lot of negative replies because they had not had enough time to question their captives adequately. There was a stir in the camp and eight men gathered their weapons and left in a group. "That must be the relief. We better get them before they start to give a warning." One of our men stayed with the captives while the rest of us retraced our steps to await the replacements. This time I had some Roman help. I was able to move quickly and get into position as the eight men came to the first position. We were called and I grunted and stretched because I didn't know any names. When the two of us got close, we attacked. This was enough of a distraction for the other ten to attack the Gauls from the rear. Strangely there were few screams and the Gauls were struck down very quickly. Swords and spears rang off our armour but none of us were hurt. I was in the thick of it and used two clubs, feet and fists so we would have more to question later. The last man tried to give a call but a foot to his sternum made it come out as a gasp instead. None of our people were hurt but they were out of breath. There were two dead among the Gauls and two more that were seriously hurt. I kept the latter two quiet by putting them to sleep and quickly used some bandages to staunch the flow of blood. Around the camp, there were some awake and ready for trouble. Two of our men spoke the language of the Gauls and pretended to be drunk. As they wandered to camp as if having completed their duty. The rest of us circled around. I had my bow out at this time to make sure we were not discovered until it was too late. The two drunks took out one guard and I had to use an arrow on the other. The camp remained quiet as one man thrashed on the ground and our own men hurried into position. Armour was a hindrance now but we tried to walk through the camp taking out individuals as quietly as possible. We had almost twenty left when the alarm was given and the fighting began in earnest. It was twenty minutes later that the camp was ours. Two of our men were wounded and I treated them first. I had not taken much part in the fight because I had the bow. I took out five men that thought to flee. There were fifty one Gauls in all but only thirty eight were alive. Of those nearly half were wounded by us or in the attack on our fort twelve days ago. The enemy sentries were brought in and our own took their place. Though it was distasteful I relied on the Romans to find out what was known about Celyddon's camp and other valuable data. By morning we found out that Celyddon had designs on taking Minden. All the cities around had been warned though and he was taking isolated settlements. Clovis was in the area and doing his best to destroy Celyddon. The good news was there were a lot of captives though many had died later in the campaign. I debated what to do with the Gauls. Some wanted them butchered so we could continue unencumbered. We had so few to watch them and still provide security. I was still angry at them but not quite enough to have them killed like this. There was no sign of the wagons so this group had not been pulling the sawmill. Two of our men would have to take them back to the fort. We had moved stealthy but the camp was only seven hours away. I knew that not all the wounded would make it but I had no other choice. The prisoners were tied to their mounts or to some hastily constructed travois. There was a good chance the group would make it to the camp just before night fell. Just over three hours later we found the tracks of many horses. Around four, we found the tail end of Celyddon's column we were looking for. The land was fairly open so we could not get close without being seen. We did spread out and try to get ahead of the column after consulting our maps. The column was long with thousands of people but most were women and children. I had no argument with them and didn't want to see the noncombatants die. If Clovis came he should use the cannons and those weapons were not selective. I had my 'aculei' and they were little better. When the explosive on the arrow released its energy then everybody for metres around would die. Celyddon's camp was set up hours later but he didn't use the precautions that a worried Roman would take. I could not see any captives from my position and I tried to think of ways to get into the camp to find and release them. Getting more than a handful out would be miraculous. There was as waning moon and the sky had cleared considerably. The ten men with me were not anxious to take on an encampment with me even if they thought that the gods were with them. They had little sleep the last night. "I think the only way to weaken the Gauls is to attack the sentries then threaten the camp. The men will come forward and we can use the stingers on them." One of the Gauls helping us said, "You may kill a hundred but there are many more than that to fight us when we have no more of your arrows." "They are continuing to fight because Celyddon is pushing them. They may still think they can leave with a lot of booty and slaves still. We just have to teach them differently." "Celyddon will never stop and he rules the Gauls with an iron hand." "That is why I am going in and kill him just before the battle." Now there were lots of input to my plans. Celyddon had his tent in the middle of the camp for safety and I was able to get a view of the general layout before it got too dark. We slept after eating because we would be busy during the night. Cadell, the shorter of the two Gauls was both the most willing and the best choice for getting into the camp. At what I guessed was two in the morning I got the men up and then fed once more. Before we left I said, "Celyddon is the cause of a lot of death. If I can kill him then there is less chance of the Gauls staying here. Use the stingers and then race for Minden as we planned. It is only a few hours away." There was a lot more talk but this had already been decided. I added, "Your attack will be the dangerous part. I just have to sneak away during the confusion. If I have to, I will just come after you with the Gauls as if I am one of them." Cadell started to sing in a low voice twenty minutes later. He again acted drunk and even had the contents of a wine skin poured on him. His voice carried to the ring of fires and we were called to come in but Cadell just drunkenly cursed them. We came into the light about five minutes later as I held up an apparently drunken man. Cadell said to me loud enough for some to hear, "You are a good boy Gwawl and I know your uncle would be proud of you if he were alive." "He will be more proud of me when we kill enough Frisians." Cadell stumbled a bit and said, "They are not easy to kill." "You got three." "I hit three with my bow but one just laughed at me as he pulled the arrow out." "We will get more chances and my bow is stronger." By then three men came to us and Cadell fell to the ground as he attempted to go for the spear strapped to his back. One of the Gauls just came in and kicked Cadell in the stomach and Cadell proceeded to puke up his meal and a lot of the wine he had drank. One man asked me, "Who are you?" I was dressed as a Gaul and my hair was hidden as well as the front portion darkened. I just snarled at him, "Gwawl. Why did you kick Cadell? He was doing nothing to you." Cadell got up and then started to drag out his spear but I went to him and said, "They are not Frisians, Uncle." "They kicked me. I will kill them." "Let's kill some Frisians first. It is not good to fight our own people." "I will kill them tomorrow when the wine has left me." I just urged Cadell through the three men and walked toward the camp as Cadell cursed their god, the sentries and the Frisians. His bag of wine was left behind and I was sure the sentries would find a good home for it. Once past the first ring of fires, I felt much better. I still assisted Cadell so it would look better. Eventually his oaths quieted and we looked for survivors. There were guards protecting Celyddon's tent as well as his horses. Apparently he didn't mind the odour if he had a quick way of escaping. Cadell and I crouched in a small campsite where everyone was asleep. People should think we belonged here. I pulled the katana out and removed the decorative adornment on the hilt to disguise it. The case for my spear held my unstrung bow and a two dozen normal arrows. Cadell took two dozen arrows from his own spear case but he had no bow. I put the k-bar at my waist and also some small knives used by a ninja to do his work. Most were intended for cutting throats but many times they were used for stabbing through the skull to make a quicker kill with less contortions of the body. Cadell said, "What do you want me to do?" "There are only two guards. Take one and I will take the other." "They will make noise." "Do it the way I said and I will take the other from here." "You are that accurate?" "I am the best there is. Remember, the gods want me to succeed and gave me some gifts." I pointed the direction I wanted Cadell to approach from and he drunkenly walked away only armed with a long thin dagger. I took three arrows out and then put a forth to the bow after it was strung. The bow was covered in sinew but had a facing of steel underneath. Very few men could even string the bow never mind use it to its full potential. Even I had to use a trigger or the string would damage my finger tips. This cut back on the draw so the bow itself was short and good to be used from horseback. Cadell came close and the guards woke up. I drew the arrow back and concentrated on this shot with all my mind and when I did this I seldom missed. I was good before coming back to this time but in the last few months I was much better. I tried to think of magic or a form of ESP that account for this but I thought it was just being more in tune with the body I how wore. Cadell tripped over his own feet then had to get up and staggered toward one of the guards. I released the arrow and reached for another as I watched the first arrow go through the temporal bone and disappear. The other guard was not even aware of the death right beside him and I released a second arrow just before Cadell got to him. He was able to catch the man and Cadell just seemed to look at me in shock. The body was dragged to one side then he returned for the other. With one arrow notched I put the last one in one of the quivers and walked toward the tent. Cadell was standing before the tent now as if he were the guard. When I got close I took the arrow from the bow and gave all of this to Cadell. The trigger was attached to my wrist and folded back out of the way so I could use my hands now. Cadell whispered, "The arrows kept on going and pierced the tent. I don't know what they landed." I just smiled and walked toward the tent with a very sharp knife. My intention was to cut the leather but it could also remove opposition. I paused to listen for any rapid breathing of a person ready to fight. I heard may different people but all of them seemed to be sleeping. I cut only the lower two knots and wiggled inside. It was dark but there was some light getting in through the stitching. One man looked to be the age of Celyddon and he was sleeping with a young girl. I could not see the face but her scent was familiar. Anything that could rattle was secured as I stepped over and around young people on the tent floor. Off to the side were older women and some boys that I assumed to be Celyddon's sons and family. The knife in my hand went into a sheath as I got close. Crouching down I put my hand on the king's leg and started to interface with his body. The man had a great many maladies but I wanted to only add to them. Something must have awoken the man. He suddenly sat up, displacing the girls around him. I quickly worked to shut him down but he has already started to stir the tent. As a boy got up, Celyddon fell back to where he had been sleeping. The alarm was not that important and in ten minutes everybody was back asleep once more except one girl that had my hand on her ankle. I had caused her body to get some endorphins and she must know by now who was holding her. Edana was beaten but was now used as the man's play toy. I figured the other girls were the same way. My hand left her and I touched all the rest nearby. It took nearly thirty minutes to get everybody in the tent to stay asleep no matter what. I lit a lamp and when the oil started to burn, Edana ran to me. She was loud and I put a finger to her lips and she just hugged me as hard as she could then started to cry. I held her for a few more minutes as I tried to heal her more and take away some of the physical pain. The mental pain I knew would take a long time. "Edana, try to pull yourself together. It is time to go." Her crying lessened and she only nodded her head. "Jón, what about the rest?" "Show me those that should leave." All of the girls on the floor and one more against the wall. Then there were four babies and a three year old boy. It took a while but I awoke the girls one at a time but kept them quiet and unable to run or even fight me. After the first seven, I knew that some would be unable to do what was needed. They were much too frightened. I put those back to sleep while two that had been building the school with me would go. The remainder of the knots were untied at the entrance and I walked out to a very nervous Cadell. "Relax Cadell. We are going now." "Did you kill him?" "Perhaps something even better. Now let's get some horses and leave." "What about your stingers?" "We will get part way first then I will make a fire burn brightly." I put Edana on a horse and had to caution her to follow orders. She said, "I will do as I am ordered, Sir." "You are a good soldier." The other two were put on horses but I had to calm them down even more now. They were unstable and capable of getting us all killed. Cadell took the bridle of a horse and led it and the one that seated the two girls. I handed another bridle to Edana and said, "Hold this one for me." "Yes, Sir." The horses made a lot of noise and their movement at this time was very unusual. We got half way to the perimeter when men started to get up and put weapons on. We stayed at this safe speed and I used the bow now to shoot at the noises. Near the edge of the camp I moved to one side and threw a handful of sodium nitrate with finely ground copper into a fire. It flared into life with a green flame. I was back to using the bow as fast as I could. Most times now I was aiming at people that actually got out of their tents. Explosions went off now and even more people boiled from the tents. I had to say, "Go now. I will cover your withdrawal." Edana and Cadell stayed at the same speed and would not allow even the two girls to flee. I used all of my arrows very quickly and then jumped on the back of a horse and we were off as fast as we could. There was no pursuit this time. Explosions rocked the camp where the defenders would be standing. I called off the barrage when we had gained enough distance and retreated through the abandoned farmland to a large woodlot nearly two kilometres away. While I kept a lookout, I talked to Edana then the girls about what had happened to them. There was a lot of killing of the captives by the Gauls as a way of taking out their anger on somebody. Apparently Celyddon had been the worst. I healed all three as much as I could and had them lay down and sleep. They didn't want to and neither did the men but I got them to rest and then with a touch got them to finally fall asleep. The group was awoken a few hours after dawn. I had hot food ready and I had been thinking a lot about this next step in my plans. The men were now angry with themselves for sleeping in a dangerous situation. "I put you to sleep. You were all tired. If the Gauls were going to chase us then I would have got you up." The girls wanted to go back to the fort but the men waited further orders. "I think I have a way of keeping the rest of the Gauls alive." The Frisian lad said, "Why? We came here to kill them." "Do you like killing children?" "Never!" "Neither do I. Now I am going back to the camp and see what I can do to get them to stop killing." "But they were killing our people." "If I can stop the killing then I save our own people and the Gauls too." "Ok, we can attack the camp in the daylight but I think most of us will be killed." "It will not be that way at all." In an hour we were on the way back to the camp. At least fifty men came out at us until three stingers arched into the air and exploded before them. Nobody was hurt but the charge stopped abruptly. I shook hands with the men and kissed the three crying girls as I urged my horse to go forward at a slow walk. I had no weapons at all even my eating knife was not with me. I now wore the robes I used when I healed or when I gave a sermon. There were a lot of spears and arrows pointed at me but none flew. When I go close I said, "Take me to Celyddon. The war has now ended. There will be no more killing unless it is him." Nobody spoke and I just pushed my way between two men and continued in my plodding way to the camp. It looked like all of the able bodied men were before me and I just looked from one side to another as I moved forward in a straight line. I had to keep very good control of my horse to go the way I wanted. I was within the boundaries of the camp when I found a woman cradling a child that had some recent injuries. I stopped and got down slowly. A man with a sword tried to bar my way. "Is the child yours?" He understood enough of my language to say, "Yes, why do you care?" "I kill my enemies but children are not my enemies. The gods have given me the power to heal." Others knew the Frisian language better and a translation was quickly made. Another man stepped forward that spoke Frisian better and said, "Why do you care?" "The gods do not mind war so a man can show bravery but other gods like to see something besides killing. Your people have attacked and captured people building a school to educate all children. Did they not tell you that I heal with just my touch?" There was no reply but there was a lot of talk around me. This information was general knowledge but it was not necessarily believed. I just waited and the father refused me. "Do not touch my family." I said, "I will not," and just turned away and pushed my way toward the large tent in the centre of the encampment. A young boy came running to me and I picked him up. He was one of those taken away. I had treated him for a few problems but he was basically a healthy child before I met him. A man came to take the boy away and I put out my hand and said, "Touch the boy and you will die!" The man stopped in his tracks even though he had a sword in his hands. My stare and calm demeanor seemed to unnerve him and he lowered the sword. The boy was put down and I put my hand on his head. "By the power of Woden and the grace of Aldúlfr I heal you." The boy received some of his own endorphins and the people around could see his bliss. I was not going to abandon him now and took his hand in mine as we moved slowly through the crowd. The people now gave us more room to move. A woman did come forward and said in very poor Frisian, "Please," as she held out her hand. I smiled and held her hand and she took me through the crowd in a new direction. About four tents over she stopped to show me a girl of seven of so on the ground with a lot of bloody bandage. There was a fur close by and I pulled it close and knelt down. I did not check under the bandages but just touched the skin. The girl was in a bad way. After turning to the crowd I said, "Who here speaks Frisian or Roman." I repeated myself in Latin. The people looked at each other but three people finally came forward. It took a few minutes to get their names and qualifications then said, "Will you help translate?" I got three nods and to the man that spoke Latin I said, "I will speak Frisian for the most part but when they are tired I will speak to you and you can carry on." I got a nod then I said to the two interpreters, "The child is very near death." There was a gasp from all those around but in reality they were very used to death. "The girl may be saved and it will take a great deal of my strength." This too was translated. "The healing of this child requires that I be here for many hours. We both need to be fed. I also require honourable men to see the wounds before I begin. They are to tell others what they saw. As the child heals, the wounds will disappear but I do not want anybody to forget what they look like now." I turned to the boy I had with me and the man that spoke the Roman language and said, "Take the boy to the edge of the camp and let him run to those that came with me. Some speak Roman and they will listen to you. Tell them to pull back and relax. The gods are going to protect me. You should come back but the boy will stay to carry any messages to us." The man said with a worried voice, "They will not kill me?" "Would you kill one man escorting a child?" "They are Frisian." "They are also Romans and Gauls. We came here to talk. We had the power last night to kill every one of the people in the camp but we did not. With great power comes great responsibilities. Will you do this for me and your people?" It took a moment and he said, "I will go." To the boy I said, "Go with this man. He will take you to others. You will carry messages for me." The boy had just found safety and didn't want to go. He clung to me and I touched him gently and he slowly settled into a sleep. I kissed his dirty forehead and said to the man, "Carry the child in your arms. He will wake up in a few minutes." This was even better because a man with a child in his arms was looked at even less of a danger. When the two had left, I asked for water and clean rags as well as furs. The bandages were removed but I had to staunch the flow of blood as the bandages took off the scabs that had formed. Hot food and water came and I ate and drank as much as I could. The girl had two pieces of wood driven into her and I was happy to see that they were not may arrows. It was an hour later that I came back to where I was and asked for small sharp knives. It was another hour until I was able to remove the wood and set them aside. I ate and drank more and went back to healing. Around mid morning I came back again and started to feed the child and told the interpreters what I had done so far and how the prognosis had changed. The mother was happy now. The man that spoke Roman was back and gave me and update. "Your people have pulled back. The boy does not seem able to return if there is a message." "Will you take this duty?" "I will if you ask." "I do ask. Take some older children of your people with you. They will not be hurt and my people will not be likely to see them as a threat." "What about our king? He and his family have not awoken." "The gods have done this for me. When I am done I can talk to all of you then your king. Any talking is hard to do if one of the men is crazy." The girl was fed more and then given water. More rags went under her because she would soon soil herself. It was around one o'clock when the girl awoke. She called for her mother and stared at the others ringing her. The woman came slowly because she had already been warned about being too rough. I had difficulty getting up and was not ashamed to ask for help. I ate and drank some more then walked to the edge of the camp closest to ours and had a piss. This time when I walked back, I was able to start healing more people. Everyone got some pleasure out of this as if the gods had done this for them. This was all very tiring. Doing this many was difficult but I also had to have quantity so that the Gauls had some benefit from my touch. I had more to eat and drink while talking about the gods through the two interpreters. There were a lot of ready made parables that fit this situation and I mentioned them in detail. When I was rested, I went into sermon mode then brought some of the ones up that could be cured quicker. I figured that by four o'clock that most of the people knew that the gods were behind me. Celyddon's family was brought to me one at a time until I healed what was needed and then awoke them. I took a few minutes with them while calling on the gods because I needed a few minutes with Celyddon when I got to him. The adults were last. They would just grab their children to keep them away from me. Now it would be a fait accompli and with less stress on everybody. The only thing I did other than healing was to monitor the girls because two of them were just recently pregnant. Celyddon presumably was the father. Celyddon was the last and he was left in the tent as I relaxed and gathered my strength. "My father lost two sons to the Romans and to Celyddon. The only one left was me. I was in a coma and my father thought I was going to die. "I did recover. Clovis and I found many people that had to flee other people that wanted to steal their land. We took them in but not as slaves. They are citizens now with the same rights as the Frisians. This you know as true because you were at Hildestun." The translators did their job but only one was doing a good job of this. The other was worried because his words could be seen as taking my side in this. "I had to remove invaders to my land just as any Gaul would do for his. Many were killed and some of which were the sons of Celyddon. Celyddon went crazy then and is still crazy. Men took me at the last battle and tortured me." I took off my robes and let everybody see my body. "My teeth were knocked out and I was burnt over most of my body. Some of my bones were broken and my manhood and scrotum cut off. If you look now you will see that the gods took pity on me and caused me to be healed." I put my clothes back on and said, "A person may be able to doubt my words but they cannot doubt what they have just seen. The gods favour me. The reason I have come to this camp without any weapon was to see if I could save you." There was no sound at all. "It takes a slap to make a lot of people stop and take notice. That is done to a child and it works. To a strong and proud people like the Gauls it takes a battle." They didn't seem to understand my analogy yet. "You are now listening to my words. With your own eyes you have seen something that only the gods could have done. You are in a land with only a few hundred warriors to protect you. This cannot go on for long. Soon you would be dead. I want to let you live a happy life where you can work the land and drink wine not swing a sword. None of this can happen if a crazy man like Celyddon pushes you to do insane acts. You need a king but you need a good king. One that will look out for you; not have you look out for him." When the translators finished I said, "I will awake Celyddon now. Watch him closely and ask yourselves if it is true that he is crazy or not. Remember that I came here without weapons to save you." There was a long pause and I asked to have Celyddon brought out. I spent a considerable time over the man. I made him weak and his reactions slow but not overly slow. What I planned, required me to be able to interface with the man's body very quickly and I did this as best as I could. Celyddon woke up on the ground and got to his feet as quickly as possible. I was ten metres away when he started to demand answers. It took only a few seconds for the man to turn to where the fingers were pointing and to see me. He ran at me as he drew his knife. I was unarmed but could move much faster than he could. I dodged the knife many times but allowed it to strike some glancing blows. My white garment got red but I never struck back. Celyddon ordered his guards to hold me and they took their time to do this. I didn't put up a struggle at all. In as loud voice I said, "Only the poorest king will come after an unarmed man with a knife and then have to use his men because he is so poor of a fighter." Celyddon stopped then and seemed to come partially to his senses. He spoke in Gallic and I could not understand much of it. He put away his knife and came in and punched me with all his might. This was a shock to me but my pain was compartmentalised. When the blow had been struck I had just enough time to push pain into him and direct it to his face. Celyddon stepped back quickly and flung his head away for it must have felt like somebody had struck him. After shaking his head he moved in again and did the same thing once more. I was pushed back from the blow and it was good that I was held up. Pain was not clouding my thinking but the blows had made me think oddly. My instincts were coming out and it was hard to not fight back or to at least flee. The pain to Celyddon this time was even greater and he retreated many metres to get away from it. Celyddon pulled out his knife again and started to rant at me, probably trying to justify what he was going to do. I interfaced with the two men holding me and made them weak, but just enough that I had some freedom of movement. This was very difficult to do and I regretted not doing it earlier. Celyddon brought his hand to my hair while the other hand drove his knife toward my abdomen. I sent out the command to Celyddon to freeze. Either my thinking was wrong or Celyddon was overly determined. The knife continued to come and I felt it pierce my abdomen and drive in. ------- Hand of Woden ------- Chapter 1 The pain was almost too much to hold off. My urge to close up the wound and hold in the blood was too strong and my subconscious won. I was still standing but in a moment the two holding me let go and I fell to the ground. I was busy stopping the flow of blood. The larger vessels had to be constricted until the severed ends got a chance to close up enough. I had done this many times but it was usually on others. This was a killing blow but I was here to stop it if possible. Work went on and on. Some of the seals suddenly opened again and it had to be somebody moving my body. I could not surface now and just continued to do what was necessary. The blood loss was minimised then I had to find the thousands of portions of partially digested food and move them to the intestinal wall and try to get them through. There was not enough time when I worked this way. Some indeterminate time later I started to surface. The woman, who's child I had worked on, was bathing my face with a damp cloth. I let some of the pain return then turned most of this off for I had to know how well I was healing. It felt bad but I had been worse, but only once. I managed to say in a voice not much stronger than a whisper, "What is happening?" The woman was shocked but a man came close and I had to repeat myself. It was one of the interpreters. He said, "Celyddon is dead." "What of my people?" "They do not know of your wound." "Send someone there and ask Edana to come here." I went back to work but now doing only some of the smaller tasks so that I could gain my strength. Some time later I opened my eyes to see Edana sitting at may side and crying. I croaked, "I am not dead you know." She opened her eyes quickly and went to embrace me then stopped. "What can I do to help?" "Tell me what is happening?" "Celyddon is dead. There were no marks on him. The people know that the gods did this. They are doing their best for you. I told them that you cannot be moved." "Good girl. If they did I would leak a lot more." Edana gave me a weak smile and went on. "Your men know what has happened and wanted to attack. I had to go and stop them before they were killed. I know that is what you would have wanted." "I see that the training stuck. You did a very good job." I got a better smile this time. "They are waiting but I do not know how long they will stay." "How long was it since I entered this camp?" "Three days and it will soon be four." "That long? Get one of the interpreters for me please." The man came in within a few minutes and I said to him, "Send someone to my camp." I thought for a moment then amended this. "You and Edana better go." Edana interjected, "I need to stay here." "Cadet Edana, you need to follow orders. I do not want those men starting a war now that this one is over." Edana hung her head and said nothing. I drank some water and then went to sleep. The next day I was brought outside in a stretcher and I had them put it so I was on an incline and not just horizontal. I talked with the Gauls and to my own men that came into the camp. They had formed a ring to protect me but I got them to let a few Gauls through so I could talk. My own body was healing fairly well and I did not need to monitor it all the time. The wounded and sick came to me and I took some of my time to heal those that I could until my strength got low. The next day I was in a chair and the day after I was walking with difficulty. It was good that I was because word got to me that Clovis was coming this way. Four of our men and four of the Gauls rode out to intercept them. The Gauls were worried now and were preparing for battle. It was a day later that twenty three men came to the camp but none of them had lances or cannon for that matter. I was there to greet Clovis. He got off his horse to hug me and it was good that my wounds had mostly been healed. He demanded, "What did you do? You could have been killed." "I had to get rid of Celyddon. I didn't want the Gauls killed." "That was a stupid thing to do. We could have surrounded them and they would surrender." "Have any surrendered when you have done that?" He didn't answer and said, "You have such great plans and you would throw them away for a few Gauls." "I am not meant to be a king and I cannot do what you could." It took a few more days to get most of the wounded healed enough to travel and then we headed back to the school. The Gauls were sent out to hunt and perhaps find their own people and bring them in. They would resort to raiding and that meant that there would be more needless deaths. We made slow progress and I had a lot of time to talk to the survivors. A lot of those taken from the school had been killed. I could punish the guilty now but they had embraced Wodenism and were not the same. Under their own laws they had done nothing wrong. I too was overcoming some of my losses. Oriana had died when she took a knife and tried to take the life of her attacker. This was done after she had been raped. The man though was now dead and I doubted if I could have stopped from killing him. There were a lot of orphans, in fact there were three hundred and fourteen of them. The Gauls took care of their own but I took all the slaves but especially the children. They needed protection but it was going to be difficult for the Gauls, because the slaves did much of the work. There was time to talk to Clovis too. He was angry at the Gauls too and would like to put all the men to death but he did hold off. I had to promise to make them work at the school to make up for what they had done but in fact I was going to do that for other reasons than punishment. I got him off the subject by talking of what was happening with Julian. He had been casting his own bronze cannon and making powder at the old location with very few men. Fálki was in sole charge of this operation. The thoughts of helping the Romans defeat the Persians didn't bother him much. The gold he was going to charge rose by the hour. We discussed those men going and what they knew about the manufacture of the powder. Clovis was ahead of me and was already picking out the right men to send. We didn't recover any of the wagons so we just left the broken sawmill in the gully and finished the rest of our journey. Gnaeus and Flavius came out to meet us. They had already been appraised of the situation. The Romans didn't like the Gauls here and they too wanted them killed. I had many of the children near and I knew both men had a soft spot for them no matter what their parents had done. Gnaeus was favouring his arm and I looked at it. A growth was forming at the end and I concentrated on it a bit more to keep it working. He asked, "Is everything alright?" "It should be itchy but don't scratch it." I just smiled at him and he said, "What is wrong?" "You are growing a new arm." Gnaeus pulled his arm around and looked at the end and then at me. Rufus was back already and I could hear the sawmill working in the distance. I didn't know who was operating it because it looked like everyone was here to see what was happening. There was a lot of crying for the people that had returned and for those that never would. It took a few hours to get people settled in then I had services for those that had died. I covered the tenets the same as what other religions had with everlasting life. This was how religion helped people deal with their losses. I wished that those children that had died, did find a better place but I had to castigate myself for just wishful thinking. Again I had to rely on translators but I went slow enough that they had a chance to get the words across. When the sermon was over I continued with how this greater community was going to function. The school had to be rebuilt and this had to be done before winter set in. The next two weeks were hectic. Work groups of Gauls had to be formed with Gauls leading but translators on hand to convey orders. The new group did not readily fit in. Those same people had come not long ago and killed men and families. The damaged sawmill was recovered and put into the barge so it could be repaired or at least used for scrap. It was probably the latter because the new one worked so much better. Clovis left a company of cannoneers here with the fort and worked with the Romans at my insistence so they would know what to expect. There was no parapet but we made heavily fortified openings where the cannon could stick out and fire. I left the school with Gnaeus in over all charge. The Frisians didn't like taking orders from Romans, especially one they had just been to war with. Clovis had stayed until this time and he made sure his men knew the rules. There was not that much powder in any case but I hoped it would be enough to dissuade any attacker. The seven original cadets saluted me along with five more. They alone got the two dozen remaining stingers. I had so much riding on them and I knew that they suspected some of my thoughts. They were in charge of distilling the water for the boilers and for setting up the heating system if they could. We sailed off with a lot of reluctance because I knew how hard it was going to be in my absence. I also knew that Julian had to prosecute his war with the Alemmani and without trickery to sully his name. The Romans may not mind this but I wanted his word to be taken as gospel. We stopped at Minden and picked up more salt and I had a chance to talk to the city to tell them what had happened. The sermon was conducted with a lot more somberness. Some of the citizens had suffered in the attacks. My white tunic now had a red section over my abdomen to let people know that I was stabbed there. We skipped the search for fish because we were late. Our speed was so slow that we got some in passing. On the trip down the Rhine I gave the news as I saw it and had only a few sermons. Normally I would have passed by but it was now important to keep in the minds of the people. Circumstances had not changed much when I returned. I got the barge cleaned out and then loaded as soon as possible. Sermons here were very important and so was the news. Celyddon's death and my stabbing were important events too and I showed that the death was at the hands of the gods themselves. I rationalised my being in that position as trying to save the Gauls. I secluded myself in my lab and made more explosives. I had the feeling that I was already too late but knew that what I was doing was necessary. So many tasks had to be done and there was always so little time. It was a quick turn around and I was back on the Rhine once more. Rufus and his crew only had a short time with their families. My own family and that of Lucius came to see us off. Licinia was a lot more apprehensive but so were the rest. We got another courier but there was no problem this time. Fishing was not as good but it was enough to keep the men happy. Again I sailed at night and Rufus was feeling better about this if we stayed away from land. There was a lot more military traffic on the Seine and some of it was carried on the Patricia. There was enough gossip to find out that the Alemmani were fighting again. This was nothing new because all the German tribes fought each other and the Romans at the least provocation. It may be true that King Vadomar was behind this and abetted by Constantius. The family was there to greet me and so was Julian's. I had eyes for Patricia but had to talk to others first. She got even more of my attention because she had many of the children standing around her. When I finally got to Patricia I kissed her like a wife should be kissed and she smiled like Mona Lisa. "Did you have an interesting trip Jón?" "It had its good points and its bad. Did your father leave me a message?" "Yes he did. How did you know?" "I didn't know for sure but he would know that I would see you as soon as possible." She smiled at this and I went to talk to her mother Claudia. "How have you been keeping Claudia? I think of you often." "You think of Patricia's mother perhaps." "That is true too but I care for you too." She hugged me to her and gave me a kiss on the cheek. With a smile she said, "I know you do." Postuma was holding her mother's hand and I got close and kissed her like a sister. "Have you broken any more hearts since I was here last?" I got a shy look and then she looked at me boldly. "Perhaps only a few." "I have to introduce you to Hirtius. If you remember, he is the son of Lucius. He has been asking a few questions about you." "What does he ask?" "Hirtius is not the usual young man. He is not going to be a soldier like his father but he will be a competent engineer one day. He takes the ideas I have. I put some images in his mind and he is able to make things for me. He will help hold the empire together with a great many others when he gets older. As for questions he asks how smart you are as well as your beauty. I made sure he knows that a woman and a man work together as a unit and are much stronger than just one." "Will he come here one day?" "He just may but it may be you that goes to meet him." "But I am just a wa..." I interrupted and said, "You are an intelligent woman just like your mother and sister. That is what counts. Now I have to talk to your brother before he starts jumping up and down." Aulus smiled at me too and said, "We have sold a lot of wood. People even bring their own logs to us so that we can cut them." "This sounds like you are going to be a fine businessman." The boy liked this. I talked to a few more before taking their family and mine to my house to see what was to eat. When we got to my home I talked about what had happened on the Weser. They would hear this in time and I wanted them to get an idea first so when the gristly details came out they would not feel as bad. I had to show my abdomen and everybody had to come over and see the fine scar that I had left there for this purpose. Their faith was further reinforced when they were told how the gods struck down Celyddon for stabbing me. I managed to get Patricia alone for a few minutes because she was crying again. She considered me her husband and was worried about me dying especially without leaving any sons for her. I said, "What about daughters? They are just as smart and usually think first before doing something." "Alright, I do not have any of your daughters either to carry on." "The gods are not going to let me die yet. I am still too young and there are some important events coming up that will shake the empire. I need to be involved with them." She did act like a good wife and didn't ask. "Now, will you tell me the message from your father?" She gave me a long report about the various German tribes that called themselves Alemmani. Julian had been gone for eleven days and his course was mentioned but I knew this could change with any new intelligence he received. There were some reports of what towns that were sacked as well as where crops were burnt and cities attacked. At least Julian had some time to reinforce some of the towns but he was always fighting. Gaul was not a civilised province because the Alemmani and other barbarians went through it with impunity most of the time. I didn't want to kill the natives but just let them find out what civilisation can bring both them and the Romans. We had an early lunch and then all of Julian's family but Patricia left for other duties. We didn't just go to bed but talked about her duties in educating the people of Lutetia that were under our care. She talked about the crude organ that was made here and of wood too. Brass would be used later after the bugs were worked out. I had to go through the books to see if I were getting into trouble but everything looked fine. A large pile of maps that I had commission, were on a table. Some were of Roman military origin but the vast majority were new. I could not take chances when the railway was eventually put in. We went out after our talk and went to see those that needed me while encouraging them to continue working on their education or their projects. We saw the glassworks and found they were making demijohns. Wicker baskets would be made to protect them in the spring. The cork used for the bottles and the barrels had also gone into more life preservers that would add to the few now on the Patricia and the barge. I was going to be chasing after Julian tomorrow so I started to get people to get ready for the expedition. Not only armour, weapons, food, horses and a lot of other supplies an expeditionary force needed had to be acquired. I knew this was going to happen but not the exact date. Aulus met us when we inspected the sawmill. We watched as the engine controlled a long reciprocating saw blade to cut a large tree. A large rotary blade may be better but we were having more problems with them. They had too many parts that wore out when we tried to get the high speeds and torque. The retail outlet had grown very large and it actually required many more shipments like I had on the barge each year. That meant more ships like the Patricia or some powered barges. They all required far larger engines too because we were much too slow. I could not see all the farms I owned or even visit more than two. I didn't have to own the land though to get the crops I wanted planted. I had to feed a great many hungry mouths as well as supply the great amounts of hemp I required. Paper and books were made in great quantities on the Rhine but the books went out just as quickly as they were made. The hemp was also made into rope, bags and even fine cloth here. Looms were very inefficient and what little help I had given didn't amount to much. I had to find others to try to find better ways of doing this job. We got home for lunch and we ate with a lot of children even if some were older than me. I spared some time to talk to each to find out how they were doing but the sheer numbers told me that I was not being a very good parent. This was my quality time too and I encouraged the children to sing. Patricia too did her part. Her voice was good in my opinion. Later I talked about my story I was fabricating. Bera the goddess was put out for the first time and I listened to the comments after the story so they could be answered in the book I had to make. It was getting late and I sent the children off to their beds. They didn't sleep in this house but the one just beside it. I figured if I were ever targeted, I didn't want the children in the same building with me. When Patricia and I were finally alone, she came into my arms and we were soon upstairs and our bed. Patricia acted unusual. She was very demanding and acted the aggressor. She was not fertile but she acted this way. I had to attribute her actions to her fear that I would die. I stayed with her until nearly three in the morning and then subtly made her sleep. I was able to get some rest too but it was not going to be enough. I had to leave early. When dawn came, I awoke Patricia with a kiss and her arms immediately went around me to hold me in place. "Don't go yet, Jón. You have barely had a chance to say hello." "Sweetheart, in a year of so you will be able to come with me. I have to go now and help your father. I don't want him killing a lot of Alemmani and I don't want the Romans killed either. I have to see if we can find a sort of peace." "They will always fight. There is nothing you can do." "They will fight but I do not want wholesale slaughter. Rome will try to hold back the barbarians and then fail after a while. I have to help them now when they are strong enough to make use of this assistance. I am doing this for all of us and this includes our children if they get a chance to be born." "Our children?" "I am not going to commit myself but I have to say that you are the one I think of almost all the time. We still have to grow and learn. I do not want the mother of my children to find out she has made a mistake. I too may change as I grow older. At the moment I cannot see how I could change but it could happen. We both need time." Patricia started to cry and I was not sure if this was just her using her feminine persuasion or not but it was working. I had my breakfast and Patricia was there with me. Rufus came in to give his report and said, "I can leave in two days. Is there anything extra you want to have me bring back?" "Yes, there is. Tell Tertius to start the larger engine I wanted. It is time to get more ships in production. If you want you can bring your family the next trip and those of the crew too. Don't take all of them at one time but space them out over three trips." "Thank you sir. I never thought to ask you that." I put my hand on Patricia's and said, "I see the need for family more and more. It is possible that with enough ships I could have a single family operating them for me. You are going to have to train more people and you should start with your families." "Thank you sir. I know that they would love to come." When he left, Patricia squeezed my hand. "So I can come some times?" "I want you with me all the time. It is just that you have an important job to do. You are too intelligent to waste your time as a bed warmer. This means that we can have time to be together. Some will be long but others will be short. This just happens to be one of the short ones." Patricia was starting to get upset again when a half a dozen men came into my courtyard. I stood and then bent over Patricia. I held her face still and gave her a kiss that I hoped would show her how much I loved her. "It is time to go, Sweetheart." She walked with me to the door and I welcomed Marsallas Sallustius and his men into the house. Marsallas was short for a Roman but very wide. I had helped two of his children when they were dying. The father wanted to repay me in any way he could. In fact most of the men in the detail had been helped directly or indirectly by my efforts. Most had been with medical assistance but some with just giving gainful employment to some that would not otherwise have it. Marsallas said, "Do you require any help sir?" "Thanks Marsallas but all I need to do is saddle my horse and load the packhorses. Does everyone have their armour?" "Yes sir. I said that they have to wear it as a condition of employment. I thought it prudent to not have everybody wear theirs until we are outside the walls." "Good then we better be going." I turned to Patricia and gave her one more kiss and said, "I will be back as soon as I can." The grooms helped me get the horses ready. My old armour was a little too tight and I decided to keep this set the way it was and make a larger one that had less damage and more size. It was much stronger and I still mad it slightly thicker where I needed it. The horses I used were the largest I could find that had the urge to fight. They wore their own armour too. Where we were going we had to show that we could take care of ourselves. The shields were of the new kind with small openings to see through. The swords, except for mine, were the type used by calvary up to the 1800s. Lances were an important weapon but I would take a carbine any day if I had one. We had no regular wagons because we wanted to go quickly. I tried three long lightweight wagons with the best suspension I could design. I wanted them to carry the lances and some of the heavier articles. A lance was a very awkward weapon to carry. For that matter so was armour. The new armour was not as safe as the old type but it was much easer to get on. The helmets too were as safe as I could make them as long as they went on quickly. The men had been in the Roman army or the Auxiliary. A little over three quarters of them were only half Roman. There was a lot of red haired soldiers that took a lot of steel to clothe them. We left the city behind but I could still hear Patricia crying. To get over it I started classes. We had a hundred and seven men counting me, which was more than what a centurion had. We had no immunes though. We all had duties other than fighting and the more arduous of them were rotated. I gave orders and soon we had a force riding point and tail with another force watching those at the more dangerous positions. This left sixty five men in the centre and half of these were armoured. I had talked to everybody before but this was the first time we had all gathered on a mission. The first question was, "How would you attack us if you were a well trained Roman army?" They didn't bat an eye about this. Roman armies mutinied all through history. I separated the men into groups to think out a strategy which kept them thinking as we hurried down the road. We passed a lot of civilians and even some military types that were delivering messages. They looked at our standard and didn't understand it. The device was not Roman but pennants with the Möbius strip. We all wore the same symbols on our armour and the blankets that hung from our horses. We had a chance to talk during the times we had to walk the mounts. At noon we stopped and ate from the wagon carrying a wood stove and a large pot designed to cook stew as we raced down the road. The rough road did not stir the stew enough but it was all eaten. More raw ingredients were put in as well as more wood for the stove. My mind was on designing a counterweight that would swing around and agitate the ingredients in the pot as we moved. In the afternoon, we rotated the positions so the men would not start to abandon their jobs when they were constantly on the lookout for threats. We stopped at around four to get more food but we would continue. We were making good time but the weather looked to be threatening. We had supplies of grain to last two weeks but I wanted meat too. We were in an area with scattered farms but there was still game available. The Roman army ran on bread but I wanted my people to have a healthier diet. Some of our people were walking funny and I gathered them and said, "Who has blisters or chaffing?" Nobody said anything. "You are not any less of men if you are in pain or damaged. I want to know now so that when you are needed, you will be as good as you can possibly be." Three men camp forward and I checked their bodies out. These few had not been treated by me before. I had to do just seven before we were off again. That night after we made camp, I treated more of the men. We were in an abandoned Roman camp that would be used by the legions when they came this way. It saved them a lot of work if the palisades were already erected. There were already some people in the fort and I had to talk my way in. They had heard of me so it was not difficult. I treated some of my men and a few of those already here. Watches were posted and a few of the people in the fort had early watch along with us. We were up early and I had sick call one more time. We were off after a good breakfast. I estimated that we would catch up to Julian in eight or nine days. We could do it sooner but there was no need to abandon all of the equipment that slowed us down. Couriers could go quicker because they could get fresh animals when they came to a fort. We passed a lot of small forts along the road. Most were about four metres square and two stories high. The upper portion had a balcony and a roof to keep off the rain and the sun. Usually they closed the doors when we came by until they saw our banner. There was no fort that night and I took my turn at watch. Officers usually stayed awake during this time to make sure that those on watch stayed at their posts and conscious. There were less blisters as the days passed. I ended up having to treat the animals too which was something new. I called a rest after four days but we went hunting instead. I didn't have to hunt because we had more than enough meat now. That night we got to stay in an active fort and we had to pay for our stay by talking to the officers. I got them to allow me to talk to everybody instead and I went into a chance to heal some of the men. After this I gave a short sermon. Mithra was losing followers all the time now and I tried to draw parallels between this religion and Wodenism. This way nobody would be afraid to come out and say that they had jumped ship. The officers though had to be talked to a second time and this too was a sermon in a way. One officer was very antagonistic toward our religion after I said that he had a cancer in his thigh. "I have no such thing. I feel as healthy as a young man." "That is how you feel now. In three or four years you will be dead of this." "I will not. Do your gods now tell you when people will die?" "If you see somebody with an arrow through their abdomen you know that they have little time to live. You need no god for that." The commander of the fort said, "Do you have a way of proving your words?" "Your surgeons may know what a malignant tumour looks like but I am afraid they look very similar to one that is nonmalignant. The fact that there is a tumour there would prove most of my point." "I have seen tumours before." "Well if I can prove that a tumour is there then you would know that the gods have given me this ability?" The man I think already believed at least some. "I think that would be true and then all of the officers would have to agree." "You have to provide me with the chance to prove my point." "Jovinus, I want you to let this man see your tumour." "Sir, the tumour, if there is one, is inside me." "I am well aware of that. This man is a surgeon. If what he says is true then you will be healed. If he is not then we will know." "Sir, I do not want to do this even if he is a surgeon." "That is an order Jovinus." "Sir, that is not within my obligations." The commander was getting angry and this was not good for the officer's career. I moved in front of the man and said, "Jovinus, I am the best there is. I want you alive in four years to protect the empire. Your family needs you. I could go out into the camp and find others that are in worse shape than you. This means that you miss the chance to live a longer life." I put my hand out and began to make him relax. I added, "There will be very little pain and in three days you will not feel any different to now. I say this on my honour." It took a while before Jovinus said, "What do you want me to do?" "Sit in the chair for me." Jovinus was soon seated then with a theatrical touch was put asleep. I put him on the commander's table with some of his uniform removed. I had a razor though I didn't use it for my beard that had not grown much yet. I shaved the back of the man's leg then used the lancet to cut into the muscle. There was hardly any bleeding. When I got to the tumour, I cut around it with some quick strokes and then brought out for display. I was not worried about infection because I prepped his body to fight off any that occurred. I closed the wound with my hands and said, "Woden, please heal this Roman. I think he will be an asset to our cause and be very respected by Rome. Please ask Bera to look after this man even if she does not like battle very much." The wound was not bleeding now and I washed the area of blood. I put in a dozen sutures to make sure the wound stayed closed then had the man dressed before he was awoken. The man came to in the same chair he went to sleep in. He looked around and then after a moment. "What would you like me to do?" "Don't do any strenuous work in the next four days. Stay in the camp and off a horse. Get a good meal and rest as much as you can." "I thought you were going to cut me." Those around him started to laugh. I said, "Look on the table. That was inside you." The man looked at the piece of cloth and the tumour the size of a thumb nail. I moved it closer and he picked it up to see then his hand went to his leg and he felt the stitches. He looked worried. "There is no problem. I took away the pain. Tomorrow I will put just a bit back so you remember not to do what you shouldn't. I asked Woden to have Bera look out for you. She is young but still a dedicated young goddess." The man's eyes bugged out. "A goddess looking out for me?" "Yes, she will but she is busy too. She probably will not talk to you. There is a lot of obligations that have to be done before she can get permission from Woden." "A goddess!" "She is young as I said. She doesn't like war but she wants to be a healer among the gods." "A goddess!" "Don't worry about it." I got close to his ear and whispered, "If you want to please her just treat children and women kindly." He nodded his head but soon everyone would know what was said. I turned to the rest of the officers and said, "Jovinus has to remain stationary for a few days. Somebody will have to take over some of his duties and he can pay them back in a few weeks." We got to sleep that night with nobody on watch from our group. The next morning we had a lot of bread from the camp ovens. I went to Jovinus and found he had a bit of a fever and gave him the pain I promised and made sure he was not only fighting the infection but healing as I promised. A great many men took the benediction just before I left and they bowed their heads. All the officers did this too. Near noon we passed a family on the road and they looked not only sick but starving. I had the men leave me alone as I approached. The man had a stave and held it like he was going to protect his family. "I am a freeman. Why are you here?" I looked at the family a bit better. The wife was thin and anaemic. The seven small children and the two older ones looked much the same. "Hello. My name is Jón of Germania. I am not here to hurt any of you. I just noticed that you look to be hungry." "Why would you stop to give us food? We cannot pay." "I did not ask for pay. Do you have bowls and spoons?" They had one and I guess it was for all of them. I filled the bowl with hot stew and served it before getting ten more bowls and matching spoons. The family liked the food and ate quickly even if it was too hot. When they were done I filled the bowls again. Not all the family members could finish the food but the larger members did this for them and even licked out the bowls. "You may keep the bowls and spoons as a gift from Woden." The man was happy at this and so were the older two children but the woman looked to be in a daze. "Woden has given me the healing touch. Would you allow me to see what is bothering you?" "Nothing is bothering us." "Any man with eyes can see that you have problems. Have you not heard of me?" The oldest boy whispered to his father and in a moment the man said, "We heard that you heal." "Would you allow me to check your youngest? He will not be hurt." The man thought for a moment and told the boy to go to me but the man had to pick him up. The boy cried in fright but soon quieted down as I talked to him and calmed him with the chemicals in his own body. There was an infection in the boy and he was not fighting it off very well. It was a lot worse than the flu or a cold and I wondered if it was something contagious. The plague had gone through the empire very recently and killed a great number of people. The people needed rest and food but I was not going to stay here and assist that long. I turned to the patrol on both sides. Go into the forest and build a hut for the family. Hunt for some game. Butcher the animals and put the meat on a rack to dry. The men dispersed when Marsallas gave orders of who was going to do what. The boy needed more help and I fought for him the best I could. The rest did not hinder as I went from one to another to see what I could do. The mother though was the worst off and she would probably die without a lot of help. It was two hours later that Marsallas' gave his report. The family now felt better and I lead them to their new temporary home. I kept my men away from us. This seemed odd but they eventually got the idea. I told the man when I got him away from the hut. "I do have the ability to heal. You have the plague I think but most will survive it now." "We do not. We are just..." My hand was on his shoulder and he calmed down. "You have the plague or something just like it. Stay in the hut until you get better. Stay away from others for at least a week. The sickest one is your wife. I will see if I can do a bit more for her but then I have to go." "We don't have the plague." I was not going to argue and went back to the women. I noticed on her arm the brand of a slave and the man was very worried now. I kept an eye on the man and tried to see what resources the woman had that could be used to remove the mark. Long term treatments did not work. "The woman was burnt when she was young. I asked Woden to help me remove the scar. It may not completely disappear unless I get to put more power into her later. All you can do is eat all you can and shit away from the hut. If your wife survives, have her talk to the people in Lutetia. They will direct you to my people. I am not in Lutetia that often but I do not like that kind of burn." "Thank you, Sir. I will do what you say." "There is one more thing to do." "What is that?" "You have fleas. Many people have them. When I am gone, build a fire away from the hut and smoke your clothes. Fleas have eggs. Smoke the clothes in three days and then just before you leave this place. Do not go back to the same place where the last fire was or the fleas will just re-infest you. If you can make soap then it is good to wash with it." The man just stared at me but said nothing. With one more check on the woman I left. I walked while everyone else rode. This was again very odd especially when I told them to keep their distance. At a stream I removed my clothes and hung them on bushes while I built a fire. The smoke went to the clothing and it was good that I did not have my armour on. I washed my hair in the smoke while trying not to get burnt. I then used soap to wash myself and then walked to my packhorse to get a change of clothing. The smoke covered clothing went in a pack and I mounted my horse. Marsallas said, "What did you do, Sir? I have never seen you do something like that before." I called everybody in including those on point and tail. "I think the family had the plague." The men reacted to this and involuntarily backed up. "Usually the plagues are carried by fleas. The family certainly had enough of them. I was getting rid of any that wanted some new meat to eat. Now I have no fleas. I will be monitoring myself and all of you too." The men were not sure of me now. The plague was like a daemon that came to take their family and others. The men left to their duties and now I had a lot more room around me. I called some of the men over and began a talk into how a disease spread. I talked of the contagious stage which I would not have reached yet even if I was infected. This helped a bit but I saw them looking for fleas on themselves now. I know that DDT was a great boon to mankind until its applications got so widespread that it started to effect wildlife. That night we avoided a small fort and went were I could wash my clothing. I sharpened my eyes as much as I could and found no fleas whether dead or not. That was amazing because they were everywhere. That night I had to give another sermon and say that Woden was going to protect them from the plague. I could only really do so by infecting them and get their bodies to build antibodies. While trying to get to sleep that night I scratched a lot at any small discomfort. There was probably a plague virus or two always on the loose and it was our own immunities that fought them off. It rained that night which dampened my spirits with no pun intended. Breakfast was warm though because we kept some wood dry. I donned my armour which was going to get wet anyway and took point. The men knew my hearing and sight was better than theirs and it was a good way for me to get away from them. When we came on people I looked for more plague symptoms and always asked about Julian's whereabouts. I usually got answers. He had too many men to hide as he travelled the roads. It rained all day but I still tried to hear and see what others could not. There were people hiding off the road many times when a lot of men were seen. In many cases I would be too. I had to find out if it was a family gathering or a lot of armed men ready to ambush us or not. ------- Chapter 2 We came upon a Roman tail guard. I hurried alone from the centre of our group to meet them. They were prepared for an attack until I called out my name. With my helmet off, they relaxed. I guess that most of them had seen me at one time or another. We stayed back to be less threatening, and I found that we had caught up to the legion. An officer hurried to see me and then he said, "The Caesar said that he would like to see you as soon as you arrived." "Thank you." I turned to Marsallas and got him to put our own guard out until I saw what was happening. It took a long time to pass a thousand men and I knew that Julian would not be riding point. I let the officer bring me near. I knew that Julian was busy as usual. Being on horseback was not that much a hindrance at getting orders passed. Julian saw me and said, "Hello, Jón. You were a little late to be at the opening ceremonies but you are here before all the fun starts." "Hello, Caesar. I was delayed." As I got close I was able to extend my hand and we shook. "Was there any word about King Vadomar?" "Only some spies that came here to say he was attacked first and then state that he was only defending himself." "I suppose that they are also saying he is home in bed instead of where he really is." "That is about it. I have my own people out searching for him and his armies." Julian went on to tell me what cities had been taken as well as what farms and small communities that had been destroyed. "Do you see any pattern when these places are shown on the map?" "I think there are three groups at work here. I sent out two forces to deal with the others while I take on what I think is the main force." I said, "I brought a little over a hundred men with me. They are not trained as well as your men but they are armed the best I can do." "The best! They must be a force to be reckoned with." "I do not think so. They do not have the experience. Armour and weapons will only go so far. There are fifty two more stingers in our supplies. I used some in open conditions like artillery. They were poor unless used in congested conditions. They do have a shock value though that will help break up an enemy formation bent on repelling your men." Julian looked at me and said, "You went to war again?" "Celyddon was still active. They attacked my school. I couldn't let him continue. I admit that much of my reasoning was based on vengeance. Some of my cadets were captured and two were killed. My father came by after we captured Celyddon forces. He provided a troop of cannoneers to protect the school. I had them put under the command of my prisoner, Gnaeus Scipio Magnus." "So your prisoner is actually in command of some Frisians?" "He is in overall command too. I would hope that you will send him some sort of orders that will not conflict with his word to me. I think you will get the first of your artillery officers. At the same time, Clovis will get some better trained men, though he does a good job on his own." "Can I send more prisoners to you?" "They needn't be prisoners. Just have them placed under Gnaeus' command. I do not mind allowing the Roman prisoners to go home for a while as long as they come back. The Augustus would not allow that though." "I guess I will have to make sure his men get paid then." "There is no need. I pay them just as well." "The Augustus will not like that either." "How can he object? He has Roman spies in Frisian territory that he doesn't even have to pay. They are free to send and receive mail. I do not censor any of the messages. Best of all they have the authority to do whatever they think is right." "Is that because they are all Wodenists?" "Most were at least half way there but since Gnaeus started growing a new arm, they are all firm believers now." Julian didn't say anything for a while and all the nearby officers riding with us were quiet too. "I heard that somebody in Lutetia is growing a foot." "Yes they are. It is a slow process and should take years until the appendage is back to its original size. Teeth are easier but adults do not mind the pain of teething if they know what is happening." "Tell me how Gnaeus lost his arm." I told the story as I knew it and made sure I received my share of the blame. I was in charge even though I was not there. As soon as I was done I had to talk about our attacks on the Gauls. The first portion Julian would be more familiar with as he now favoured commando tactics if at all possible. That night we made camp within an existing Roman fort. My own people set up our camp within the camp and the legionnaires began to drift over to see what we had. They liked our stove but it was not good for taking into rough conditions. The wagon was narrow and long and intended to get into many places a conventional wagon could not. It was still too bulky and really only useful on the roads. Julian talked to me privately in his tent but we still had to watch what we said. Roman ears were just as acute as other nationalities. He got a more detailed description of what had happened. He told me how angry his cousin was. Constantius II apparently went into a fit of rage at hearing how is envoys were treated. He expected the lowly soldiers to obey without argument. He took his anger out on Julian though. Letters had already been dispatched right after the incident to show how Constantius was not acting in good faith when the legion had been promised that they would not go beyond Gaul or Germania. I got my own detailed information on how the Alemmani had been operating. King Vadomar was a survivor though and not stupid or he would never have been able to hold his position. I handed over some mail from his family which he was happy to get even though he had only left a few weeks ago. When our own personal matters were finished, Julian asked, "Will you show our officers more about the tactics you would use with your 'aculeus'?" "I would be glad to but I found that Roman officers tend to think that they know everything. It is more than just using a stinger but the mathematics behind artillery. I tried teaching it when we chased the other Alemmani. Your men did not want to listen." Julian thought for a moment and then said, "Perhaps I have to start a new division. The Cohort IV is a weak unit. They are not my best troops but they are young enough to learn." "You have four weak cohorts I think. I cannot train five hundred men but I can take fifty and train a dozen. Let me choose among the four groups. You are going to have to pay for this." "What do you want?" "My men go into your legion to get some training. When I leave, they leave with me." "A hundred men is little more than a Centuria. I imagine you will want some of your own men to attend to you?" "Only a few." That night the officers were told the story of my recent battles. Some did not believe that we took Celyddon's people from him but most did. Julian had already used the stingers and I just had to explain how they could be used to break up an enemy formation bent on repelling the legion. Some of the previous supply of stingers had been used against men and their power was known to a few. The next day I gave the news to my men and Marsallas Sallustius gave out the orders. This was not a full training but a chance to work with each of the various cohorts to see how they functioned. Some of the men were in the military before but only for a few years. I spent the rest of the day interviewing men, trying to find those that were both intelligent and had an open mind. Usually I was able to help some of those in need but found very few with enough education to even begin. If I had to teach them to read then it would take much longer. Part of my days were spent being a physician while the rest as a teacher. Some of my own men though were better trained and could handle some of the load. As the days rolled by, small groups of Alemmani were attacked or did some attacking of their own. King Vadomar's main army was eluding us. Some of the Alemmani spies came to me and I healed those that needed it and they stayed to see what I was teaching. There was a bit of conflict until I explained that I was trying to convert some of the Alemmani to our side. They would have to embrace Wodenism first but Wodenism promoted peaceful settlements of arguments as well as education. The Alemmani learned of how ten men and I took Celyddon's camp by killing hundreds of his men. At first they did not believe but then I had the Romans tell them about how many I had killed with the aid of a dozen children and our cannon. Purposely I taught how I would use cannon, if I had some, to defeat King Vadomar's army. My strategies were simplistic to say the least and I put far more casualties with less cannon. All this was supposedly used to teach the young Romans about a new facet of warfare. In two days three of the Alemmani just disappeared. I had to smile because Julian's best trackers were behind them. The first attack against our main body came nine days later. Julian and I figured it would have come even earlier. We did not take part but we both assumed it was a feint so we would follow. Sure enough, the Alemmani pretended to fall back and the Romans moved in to kill the retreating enemy. This is when most of the causalities were suffered. The Alemmani though retreated in good order which was not something they would usually do. The forest in this area was quite dense and it could hide thousands of King Vadomar's army. Julian called out his orders and soon the Signifer blew the horn that was echoed by many others. The Roman army stopped their advance and spent their time taking prisoners and booty. Julian moved up his own troops to protect the men gathering their plunder. We were prepared for an attack but the ferociousness of it staggered both of us. There must be many times our three thousand men. Julian pulled his men back to regroup while I went to one of the wagons. Marsallas Sallustius was there ahead of me with twenty of his best men to protect this valuable asset. "You going to show us how they work now, Sir?" "Soon. I want Julian to be ready to take advantage of this. His men know from words what will happen but not from experience. It may well be that the legion will run." "Let's hope not." The people I had brought with me were soon on their horses with their lances ready. The draught horses pulled the wagon toward Julian's position. Julian was already planning on this manoeuvre and excitedly pointed out where he wanted me to strike. "What about the room I need to let my lancers out?" "My men will move aside." I was not sure of this but I knew that even innocents were killed in a battle like this. Three of the boxes were moved towards the area Julian wanted covered. Arrows immediately came our way because they must know what I had and wanted to kill me first. The arrows had little power at this distance and our armour was good. I stepped into my bow to string it even as arrows hit my own armour. One aculeus was handed me when I asked for it. At the right angle I drew back and released with the trigger. It flew as far as the other arrows and it was much heavier. One more arrow was put to the string with a man in front of me to shield the explosive. The explosive blew up in the midst of the packed Alemmani. Bodies and body parts were thrown into the air. I saw that the range was adequate. I fired off eleven more arrows in quick succession then took from the new boxes arriving. I went back and forth over the enemy but now they were fighting to get away. The arrows had stopped falling our way and I hurried forward. The men with the boxes of stingers followed me. I was only able to use three more stingers because the Alemmani had dispersed and were running for their lives. I looked at Marsallas Sallustius and said, "Attack." I was far from happy with the order. The Roman calvary was leaving as the horns sounded orders. The infantry scrambled out of the way. My own men charged into the fray and our long lances worked well in Roman hands. It was the aftermath of the battle that killed so many. I was appalled at what I saw. The Alemmani were German, as much as my adopted race of Frisians were. Men that looked like Frisians were being cut down by Romans. This hurt because I had butchered from the opposing side. I felt like going out there and stopping the carnage but I could not do that even if I wanted. Repairing the damaged bodies would take much more of my time and I could do only a few. We were still afraid of more Alemmani springing a trap from the forest. I ordered the stingers put back on their cart and then guarded. I kept the bow and a quiver of arrows and walked to Julian's position. Julian was watching the battle with a smile on his face and a hand on his sword. He was a warrior that was usually in there swinging a gladius himself to show his men that he was fit to lead. I was the one to use my sermons to make sure his men saw him favourably even if he was not killing the enemy with his own sword. Many emperors and those in power were listed that died in battle and thus caused the legion to loose heart and then fail. Failure here meant death. Roman soldiers would follow some orders and were better than Frisians but they were not that controllable once the battle began. We had talked to the men about my stingers and their effect and I guess the Romans were anxious to see just how they worked. Having the legion take pity on their enemies and only club them was impractical but I tried everything I knew that would reduce the number of casualties on both sides. Even my lancers would try to wound instead of kill but in a battle that particular care could not always be justified. The battle would go on for hours because the number of Alemmani was at least triple ours. I gave my bow to the guard detail and moved toward the battle but only to see what I could do to save lives. The guard detail and the wagon came with me. The battle did go on for hours. I used the bow twice more to break up some last ditch counterattacks. I was very tired and worked through the night trying to save lives. I had to do the bare minimum for each or I would have even more deaths on my hands. Even removing pain was difficult to do though it was easier than getting a body to heal itself. I didn't restrict myself to the Romans because there were Alemmani that needed my help. They were very frightened of me until I took some captured Alemmani with me as I tended to their wounded. I slept when I had to, then got up to work once more. Julian had his men cut trees and build a palisade of logs. This was many times larger than the usual fort and the extra space was mainly devoted to a hospital and a compound for the captured prisoners. Julian pursued the Alemmani with many of his men and most of the remaining stingers. My sleep periods got longer and longer as I used up more of my internal resources. The new camp seemed to flow around me and I had a form of tunnel vision. Julian came back and it was only the next day that I found this out because I was asleep most of this time. When I got up there was food ready and I ate ravenously. My head pounded and I felt much older than I was supposed to be. I had to take some time myself to start the repairs. When I felt good enough to face the world, I left my tent and walked through the most seriously hurt that had not died yet. I was greeted by both Romans and Alemmani with respect. I had tried to strike a balance between the remote head of a religious order and a friend to those I treated. Roman physicians and my own men went among the wounded of both nationalities and did what they could. I only wished that this cooperation could be carried over to other aspects of living. When I was too fatigued again to do much good, I went to see Julian. I had to wait a while to see him and just rested. When I got to see the man I saw that he had a sling on his arm but he appeared happy. "Welcome, Jón." He had a big smile. "Hello, Julian. By your smile, I see that the battle went well?" "Yes it did. We were even able to catch Vadomar." Now I was excited. He had done this with no subterfuge or I hoped not. "What did you find?" "My cousin put him up to this." "You realise, that we may be premature?" I was referring to ending this war much sooner than what had happened on the old time line. "Yes, I remember our talks. Fruit should not be picked until it is ripe." We had talked a great deal about the malleability of time and how events would not happen the way they had the first time. Or rather how the gods ability of showing destiny as being changed with their tinkering with me. Constantius II had either been assassinated by Julian or another, or died of natural causes. I didn't know which. It was Constantius II death that prevented the civil war and sped Julian's elevation to Augustus. Major events could have changed so much that Constantius II would not die as he should and there could be a lot more death. I said, "I guess we can talk later about this. How did you get scratched?" "It was a large thorn." "Can I treat it?" I had not treated Julian yet and I imagine he had his reservations. He knew I could heal but this inferred that I could kill too. He quickly said, "If it is not too tiring for you." "I have some strength left for a friend." I interfaced with the man's body and checked through it. There were some growths, infection had set in and of course there was the damage to his arm. I cut off the blood to the growths and then did what was necessary. When I came out, Julian said, "You took a long time." "You had other problems. I want you around for a great many years. There was two small growths that are now dying and your body is both repairing itself better and fighting off a slight infection. You are also weak and should get some rest and eat more." Julian didn't mind me saying weak in this sense and smiled. "Then we should sit and eat." "I just ate but I am always hungry now." In the coming days I began my regular sermons and they were not just on Tuesdays. The Romans and the Alemmani were free to come or not but they usually did. They were mixed meetings too because I did not want to show favouritism. Everybody knew of my healing but in a way they had no concrete proof. They just healed quicker and this could be attributed to other factors. I went back to removing cataracts, moles and removing scar tissue. This was different because witnesses could see the before and after effects while knowing that the healing would not normally happen. King Vadomar and some of his family were hurt or killed during their capture and I healed those I could. This group had to be converted to Wodenism for my plan to work. The Alemmani were just too numerous and I had to either contain them or convert them to a global point of view. King Vadomar was given some limited freedoms and we talked about his people. He said, "Why are you helping the Romans? I do not think it is for gold." "It is for something far more valuable." The man looked intently at me and I added, "I want peace and prosperity for all." "Peace? You have fearsome weapons." "The Alemmani are like the Romans. They need to be struck so that they will stop and think. The gods offer a new way of living. There will always be war but it will not be as often. A man's aggression can go into business, politics or even sports. A man's mind can be turned toward learning more and again the gods are providing." "How is this? I see only the weapons of the gods." "I make paper. I have a way that within seconds can fill a sheet with words. These sheets of paper are bound together as a book. The books are now much cheaper to make and a great many could be made by just a few people. The words on the paper can talk of Woden, Aldúlfr and Bera. They can also talk of numbers or the legends of the Alemmani. In fact a great many books have to be written so men thousands of years from now will understand us and the way we think." Vadomar looked at me oddly and I said, "The Alemmani are part of the German people. Germany has a new destiny. The war will let men take up books instead of spears. They will go out into the world and show others the glory of Woden and his plans. Like the Alemmani, they may fight. The Alemmani will have to do what I and the Romans just did to your people." Vadomar said, "Did Woden want so many to die?" "Would you and your people have listened with fewer deaths?" He didn't answer but we both knew the answer. Julian and I looked into a solution for what to do with the Alemmani. I wanted a strong leader that was not going to fight Rome but at the same time embrace what I was trying to teach. Julian said in private, "I agree that we need the frontier protected. Setting Vadomar free may do it but it is going to sow dissension within the empire. It is the Augustus that has to rule on this." "Not always. A governor has made peace accords. We are coming on turbulent times because the various German races are expanding. Rome will ask for more Auxiliaries but there is the need to pay them. The Augustus has paid for a legion's loyalty the same as he does for the Auxiliaries. This will have to change but it cannot at the moment. "It takes time to educate people into a new way of thinking. It also takes time to build rail lines and roads. Shifting the burden of the army to the taxpayers is going to be difficult unless there is more money being made. "If I make enough iron products then you can sell them for a good profit. This goes to pay the troops until the burden can be shifted. If we are lucky, the troops will buy more iron products with the money they get." Julian said, "We have gone over this before. I have a need of gold now and before I help you sell your products." "I can help by pre-paying my taxes. I can also loan you some but I do not have that much gold. I will only get it by selling in Italia or Greece. Transportation will be a problem because of the size and weight of what I sell." Julian asked, "When will your giant ship be complete?" "Four months if I rush it and seven as it now stands. It is the small details that are taking the time. Even when the ship first sets sail, we may not be able to use it the way it is. There are too many new features that are unknown." "What about my cousin? He will surely attack me now that I have been asked to separate Gaul once more." "You may be right but he is still fighting the Persians. You are far down his list. When he finds that you know of his deals with King Vadomar, he will not move you up the list much. He may be afraid of how easy it was done though." "You said he was going to die. Did you remember any more or have the gods told you anything?" "I am sorry. All I know is that he died on the way to fight you. I am not privy to your innermost thoughts and I do not know if you helped your cousin along or not. He could have died of some other intrigue as I mentioned before, or of natural causes." Julian said, "I do not like my cousin. He killed almost all of my family but I cannot see myself trying to assassinate him." "Then somebody else did him in or he died from an accident. The timing now may not be good and we would be fighting Romans." For the next two weeks I talked to King Vadomar and his people both privately and from the front of the crowd. Wodenism was being readily accepted by both the low and the highborn. Those of my men that could read went amongst the Romans and the Alemmani to preach. Most of the time they spoke commonsense about a wide range of subjects. This was the start of our drive to educate these people. Julian signed an accord with King Vadomar and the Alemmani about what they could and could not do. Taxes were placed on them but they were lighter than what a Roman had to pay. The money would help pay the troops that Julian hired from within the Alemmani people to police this area. Towns that had been destroyed had to be rebuilt but this was directly under King Vadomar. He had to use three hundred men for this and pay their wages. The confiscated weapons and armour were now the property of the Romans. I was the one to buy it when it got back to Lutetia. We hurried back to Paris. I missed Patricia and I told Julian so. I also asked, "I want to get back to my foundry on the Rhine and see what I can do to get my ship built. I think I want to take a trip to Persia and see if I can save some Roman lives." Julian put his hand on my arm and said earnestly, "You can't do that." "Julian, I am the prince of one of the strongest German kings now. You must know by now exactly where my sympathies lie. If I want to talk to King Sapor then I may. We can make some sort of deal but I mean for him to leave the Eastern borders alone. That will be stressed but later." "Later? After what?" "After I help him remove one of his enemies. If we wait for the 'Enterprise' to be built and tested then we will have an idea of how long it will take me to get too and then talk to King Sapor. It would be helpful if you wrote some letters to your friends in the east and ask them to keep you appraised of where the king is." "I can do that I guess, but I am not sure of the rest. It makes me feel unclean." "Politics is that way many times. It is the way we are." "I know that and I despair of what we will become one day." "There is hope if everybody understands what is happening. That is only done through education." It took hours to get Julian over this particular mental hurdle and when he did he actually smiled when he approached me and said, "Is the word 'Enterprise' the name of your ship. What language is that?" "It is from the Latin through the future language of Gaul then of English. It meant 'to take' but it means to try gain something that is difficult to attain. One ship of the gods rose into the heavens and had that same name. It could sail around the world in just a few hours." Julian thought the name to be more than adequate. At a later meeting I said, "Is there some message I can take to Gnaeus Scipio Magnus from you?" "There is a lot to ask him. I would love to see your school." "I would love to take you there. Rufus could do that along with some of the supplies. The trip takes only a short time. I want to get back to shipbuilding now that conditions have altered." "So you can go to Persia?" "Yes." "Then it is more important that I go on this trip of yours." "You want to go?" "Yes. I think I should also talk to the legions along the Rhine to get as feel to see how they will act if I have to move to Rome or Constantinople." "That sounds like a more important reason than visiting a school." Julian smiled and said, "How many men may I take?" "Rufus has four more men with him. We can probably accommodate fifty to seventy if we hot bunk." "What is 'hot bunk'?" "One person sleeps in a bunk and one or two are awake. They take turns. There is room in the hold but not much. I warn you though that you are going to go fishing. Rufus will share the money he makes when he sells the fish but you are going to be fishermen at least for a while." "I can do this. I like the idea of using the net you talked so much about." "I want to bring a lady with me to Germania Inferior." Julian looked at me and I guess he was wondering what I was getting at. His face then broke out in a smile. "Does she take care of your schools in Lutetia?" I smiled too. "She does. How did you ever guess?" "I see no reason why she cannot go. She will certainly be safe. Her reputation may suffer but she doesn't seem to worry about it." We arrived in Lutetia in a thunderstorm but conditions like that could not be helped. Julian invited me to the home he kept with Claudia. I liked this because it was where Patricia lived. Julian's personal guard and a dozen of my own stayed. Claudia, her children and especially Patricia came out to greet us even though it was pouring. The servants took the horses away and the guards took up positions so they could see the house. Claudia's own guards were inside. We were asked all sorts of questions. Aulus didn't know whether to ask me or his father. Julian was given the honour of talking about the small and the one large battle. He didn't talk about his wound at all and said that I worked at saving a lot of Romans and even some Alemmani. The talk went on for a half hour and ended with King Vadomar signing another agreement. Nothing was mentioned about Constantius II and his intrigues. Patricia was sitting beside me and holding my arm in two of hers. It made me feel good and both of her parents smiled at us. I heard all the news of the city and some of it disturbed me greatly. The next morning I asked a tired Patricia, in front of her parents, "I am going to my property on the Rhine when Rufus gets back. I would like you to go with me." Patricia looked at me then at her father then back at me. She said nothing so Julian had to say, "You may go if you wish." "But my schools?" I said to her, "You are training others. You also handle my books. I will have to find others to do this while you are gone." "How long will I be with you?" "As long as you want. Rufus will be going back and forth now regularly. You can come and go as you please. I will not be with you all the time. I want to get the Enterprise broken in." I had to go through the same discussion once more about the name and said that I had to get a great many other ships built. "I would love to go but my mother needs me too." "The harvests are in and there is little to do. Your father would like to have a ride and I think that perhaps you should all go on a vacation." I looked at Julian and said, "I am inviting your family to stay at my home. If you come with us you will get to see our train and then go and visit the school if you wish. I think your family may like to go there too. The trips are usually pleasant though the air is damp and cold in the German Ocean." Julian considered then said, "Your reasoning is good but I wish you had asked me before." "I am far from perfect. Some things occur spontaneously." In this case it only came to me last night. "I see no reason why not then." Claudia now jumped up and hugged her husband and then so did Aulus and Postuma. It took an hour to get Julian alone and I said, "I think there is plague in the city. I can cure this but it is difficult. I want you all safe. If it was up to me I would move the legion away from the city now and stay away from the natives. Rats have fleas and it is the fleas that carry the disease to humans. Lutetia is not a clean city and perhaps never will be." "The Plague! What more can I do?" "Kill rats, I guess, or deprive them of food. If I had the right chemicals, I could kill both the rats and the fleas but I don't." "Can you kill men?" I was reluctant but then said quietly, "Yes. It is not something I would do without very strong provocation. This conversation does not get those we love out of the city." "I will see what I can do." My own home drew me but I got Patricia to stay with her family. I did not know what I would find. There was sickness in my family and I immediately began to scan and segregate the people. Fleas became our number one enemy. We burnt sulphur in the large homes that the people lived in until the place stunk of it. Clean and naked people went through the house trying to find living fleas but found none. This was done to all seven more buildings in turn. Sulphur was being sold at a premium now but I had enough for us. While this was being done to the remainder of the homes, I was treating those that were sick. One old woman and a small boy died that morning and there was nothing I could do. Those that were the sickest were put in a barn and kept comfortable because there was nothing I could do about them apart from keeping them comfortable. I knew that vaccine and sulpha drugs would help but I did not have the equipment and supplies for the latter. I may have the former though. Those in the early stages of the infection were encouraged to fight the disease. These would be my test subjects. I fought all I could to control the disease. People knew that I was in town now and I had thousands coming to me for a cure. My people went among the crowd with a lot of trepidation because they too were worried. Those with the worst symptoms again got segregated while I worked on those I could save. A day later I was ready to collapse. I did check my control group and saw that some were fighting the disease very well. Those that had very little infection were disease free but I didn't know if they had made enough antibodies yet to fight off a new infection. I fell into my bed after a quick bath and woke up to somebody shaking my shoulder. I felt that I had not slept at all. Aulus was there. "You have to come. Mom and Patricia are sick." I was groggy and knew of the distance. "Bring them to me. I cannot do much because I am so tired." It was very difficult to get back to sleep but I had to or I could do nothing. As a last resort I put myself to sleep. I was awoken later and I felt that I was at least partially rested. Aulus had his family with him and I went to Patricia first. She was in the first stages and I gave a smile and did what I could. "I got you early enough that you will be good in a day." Claudia was a more severe case but not really that bad yet. I worked hard on her and said to Patricia, "Take your mother to my bed and both of you rest." I looked at her mother and said, "You were a bit further along but you should do very well. Now go and rest." Claudia started to cry and I gave her a hug and got her to move. I called Postuma over and she came reluctantly. She too had the disease but it was hardly noticeable yet. "You have it too but it was easy to fight now. You can rest or read. Just don't push yourself." Postuma started to cry too and said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you." She got her kiss and a hug and I sent her to the library. You better come here Aulus so you can be checked." "I am not sick." "I am the physician, not you." In a moment the boy came and he was right. He didn't have the disease. "Aulus listen to me carefully." The young man nodded his head. "One of the ways to protect yourself is to catch the disease and then fight it off. Your family is lucky that they are being cured now. I want you to catch the disease if you can. I will cure you and you will not catch it again." The boy's eyes were big. "You want me to catch the plague?" "I do not have time to make a vaccine. A vaccine can take many forms. One type comes from a person that fought off the disease. The disease is gone but the army that is in his body is ready to fight it off again and the disease will never get a chance again. You simply get some of that army into your body." "Blood?" "It can be but there is something in the blood that does this. Another way is to gather the virus and kill it. This is put into your body. Your own army will fight it as if it is alive and protect you from being reinfected. "I do not have any of that yet. I want you to help with those that are dying. I will check you every day. Once you have it I will kill the virus and you can continue working." "I could die." "Aulus, I want you to trust me. Do this. It is much easier to cure a person that is only a little bit sick. Postuma was very easy and she is reading now." "Where do you want me to go?" I checked the guards and found three with just the start of the disease. The rest were told to report to me every day until the plague had past. Aulus was shown where to go and I sent two of the guards to find Julian. "Tell Julian that you are both clean. You heard what I told Aulus. I want Julian told the same thing. I do not want him coming to me when he is too sick. He is much easier to cure when he is already healthy." Later in the day I found that I just had to touch a person and command his or her body to heal itself instead of checking if they had the disease or not. I was able to do many more with less fatigue. Even this was not enough and I had to rest and those in need had to come to me. Julian sent his men through too and I did what I could. I made sure he was one of those I touched. Patricia and Claudia helped Aulus and Postuma with those in need. I was getting more and more help because those too sick had died and the rest were recovering. Julian's men were not afraid to enter the city now and helped police it once more. It looked like fewer than four hundred people had died and I was thankful because usually it was seventy or more percent. It was my time for a rest and seventeen days after entering Paris, I was able to stop. I woke up a few times for something to eat or drink and I usually found a beautiful woman waiting to just hold me while I slept. I ate my breakfast one afternoon with some help from Patricia though I did not need it. I was thinner than before and felt weaker but this too would pass. What I did not expect was Patricia's attitude towards me. I said, "Patricia, I am still just a man that was given a gift." Her eyes glowed now as if I were a god instead. I gave her a moment and she finally said, "You saved all of us. If it wasn't for you, we would all have died." "Sweetie, I have healed you before. The only thing that is different is that there were more of you. I don't want you treating me any different." "I won't... Jón." I hugged the woman to me and wondered about our future. Patricia got it in her head that I was much more than I was. I had an ability that nobody else had but she saw it as something akin to godhood. I only hoped that if I presented myself as a human with all my foibles exposed that she would rethink her position. Others had acted that way from the very start but I hoped that Patricia would be immune. If I could get her away from the ones acting this way then she could eventually see the error of her ways. I worked around my house with Patricia helping me. I tried to do all the menial jobs and even get dirty so she could see that I was ordinary. She didn't seem to like seeing me this way and I think she would have said something about it before but not now. Julian acted a bit different too but not as much. "Julian, what am I going to do with Patricia? I don't want somebody to share my life with that sees me as more than a man." "You are more that a man but I understand what you are saying. Is this what you were talking about before?" "Yes, I want a wife that will argue with me and have a disagreement if she thinks that she is right. I do not want a slave." "I will talk to her." Julian did that and I stayed away from Patricia for a few days to see if the words had sunk in. When I met her next she was better but it could be that she was just putting on an act. Rufus came in and I met him at our dock. He looked thin and haggard. Men had to go onboard to help. "What is wrong Rufus?" "We were sick. Two of my men have died and the rest may do so too." I reached out and saw that he too had the plague. His case was bad but some had survived that had even worse. I went through the crew and did what I could for the crew but one more man looked to have gone too far. I went back to Rufus and said, "What is it like at home?" He didn't seem to understand. "Was there plague on the Rhine?" "I didn't see any." "Rest Rufus and we will get you home safe." The men with me were hesitant to touch plague victims. "I cured you all of this disease. You will not get it again." I had the cargo removed as quickly as possible and fuel put onboard. Julian planned on coming but would need a day to gather all the officers he wanted to bring. People were left with Rufus to care for them. I wanted to get back to my other home as quickly as possible. Rufus may have brought the plague with him. The sooner I got there the more I could do. I debated leaving the barge and going in the Patricia but it would not be that much faster. Julian needed to talk to those Romans that manned the forts along the Rhine. If he was going to actively oppose Constantius II, he needed all the support I could give him. About ten hours after the Patricia pulled in, Julian arrived with his family but only a few officers. I greeted all of them but Patricia had not improved much more. Julian said, "The officers will be here by dawn. I came to see how they would be billeted." I was sure this was not the case but I imagined he would tell me the truth when he could. "Rufus and his crew had the plague. Two died and maybe one more. I would like to move as soon as possible." "=Do you think that it has spread to the Rhine?" "Rufus was not that lucid but he said that he had seen no sign of it when he had left." "Perhaps it will not reach there." "I think that is wishful thinking. We both have a need to get there." "I agree." More people were brought aboard to stock the pantry with food and water for the trip and fuel for the stove. There was a lot of hemp ready to go and it was light enough that it would not slow us down any more than an empty barge. Julian got his family settled and then their luggage brought onboard. He made a point of having Patricia's things moved to my room. He even said, "That is your place." Patricia smiled but not the way she once would have. Julian left to tend to his other duties and I made a meal on the barge even though my home was near. Claudia, Aulus and Postuma were acting strange too but I was afraid that it would get worse as time went on. When we finished eating I brought the family to the edge of the barge and threw one of the cork filled life preservers into the water. I tied the rope attached to it to the stanchion. The four people looked at me then I took off my boots and quickly picked Patricia up in my arms and jumped into the cold water. Patricia clung to me and screamed when we fell. When we came up she screamed again and clung even more. "Help, help," she cried but I just kicked with my legs to keep us afloat. I found that Patricia could not swim. She pushed me deeper into the water as she tried to get away from the substance that she felt was killing her. I was able to get to the life preserver and she clung to this even more because it kept her above water more. I pulled the rope and we came closer to the ship. She used the rope to pull herself onto the deck and I was just behind her. My hand pushed her up as I used one hand to hold the rope myself. When I got to the deck she was angry at what had happened. "What did you do that for?" "I wanted to wash away your foolishness. I want a woman to act like a woman and not like a slave. Now do I throw you back in or do you start acting like the woman I love?" "I do not love you." "Then I will have to change your mind." I grabbed her arm and tried to force her to my cabin but I used little effort and she fought me all the way. When I got her inside I tried to get her clothes off and she still fought me. When I finally stripped her, I simply held her in my arms and kissed her. She continued to fight but her struggles got weaker and weaker until she clung to me. I was now able to get my own clothes off. It was not long that I entered her and began moving back and forth while she urged me on. I bit her nipple and she held my head as her hips moved faster. Her scream came a moment later and it was not from any pain. While still erect, I said, "Is the woman I love back with me or do I have to wash away the slave a little more?" "You throw me in the water again and I will bite you." "Then I am happy that my woman is back." ------- Chapter 3 In an hour I was able to get out and tell Claudia that I was not killing her daughter. She had come by the same idea. She said, "How is she acting now?" "I hope she is acting better but I do not want her to fall back to what she was like recently. I saw the same symptoms in you. I want friends and family, not servants or slaves." "Was I... ?" "Yes you were. I will keep the life preservers handy just in case there is a relapse." She smiled at me this time and said, "I think I have learned my lesson. I hope Patricia has too." The officers started arriving soon after. I had a rough idea of the number of passengers and basically filled a room to capacity then told the men to fill the rest as best they could. The hemp was carried on by hand and was stacked into the hold. A leak was reported but nothing the bilge pumps could not take care of. A little while later the armour taken from the Alemmani was loaded. Much of it was blood splattered but I could do nothing about that. Patricia welcomed me back the old way and said, "Who were you talking to?" "I explained to your mother that I was not actually killing you." She smiled at me and said, "You tried to." "You are very important to me. I would do all that it takes to keep you with me as a strong mate." "Not a wife?" "Patricia, I want a woman for a wife when the time comes. It was you that was changing. Please don't do that to me again." The hug and smile showed that she understood. By dawn everybody had arrived. Some of the officers wanted to bring slaves or their horse. They didn't seem too angry when I told them what had to be. Only six men were Julian's bodyguards and the rest were staff officers. After Julian counted heads we left. As we left Lutetia, we spotted bloated bodies in the Seine. This was the way some people disposed of their dead. I had preached against this on a variety of reasons but people were not that rational. Aulus had experience with the sawmill and he stoked the engine for us. Julian pumped the bilges then took the wheel while I looked after Rufus and the remainder of the crew. The barge was packed with people and many just moved to the hold and made their beds on the hemp. I let Julian give orders so that everybody had a chance to learn to be sailors even if they started with the bilge pumps. They could not complain because Julian and I had our turns too. Two days after leaving it looked like the worst of the crew members would make it. Rufus was able to take the wheel part of the time. When he could not stand I had him teach in one of the rooms with a blackboard. The officers didn't mind attending when Julian said that they should. I had to assume that the Roman navy would soon have steam engines. Then again Julian may want some captains for his own shipping. We never stopped this time. I took the wheel when it got dark while others stoked the fire. Patricia stayed with me and I was happy even though she found it difficult. She thought her place was beside me and I thought so too. We didn't stop to fish but we did put out the net. I was not awake at the time but I heard that the men worked like a group of boys happy to be fishing. This carried into the night and torches had to be lit so we could continue to fish and clean as we travelled. Rufus sold fish to the forts as we passed and there was no news of the plague yet. I gave what precautions I thought best to the officers onboard. The officers were put ashore to talk to the commanders about my worries and Julian's. Julian didn't want to do all the talking or he would be days at each installation. After two days, we just dropped men off and continued on our way. I knew that time meant lives if the plague had got to my home. Julian was with me as I started up the river that split my property from that of Lucius'. Julian had lots of questions about the dry dock. I was concerned because there was nobody working in this area. More ships of the Patricia class were slated to be built. So was a larger barge with an engine of its own. I didn't want the whistle to be used now just in case. A few minutes later we came upon the shipyard with the Enterprise. The masts had not been stepped but again I was worried because there were less than a dozen men working on the hull. Julian commented on how much the 'Enterprise' had changed. I said, "There's a problem. There are few workers here and none in the dry dock. I think I am going to get my armour." Julian now gave orders and his men made ready for war. I wanted to check on Lucius' home as well as Licinia and my children. We tied the barge up and I ordered Rufus to stay on the ship and go back to the Rhine with the women on it. He didn't need to be told twice. The women were nervous and I explained my feelings and Julian said that he could fight much better without worrying about his family. I had only four stingers but that was usually enough. It was about four in the afternoon and there should have been a few people around even if the harvest was in. I approached the men working on the ship. New canvas tarps were over different portions of the ships. This same material would be our sails. It now kept the weather at bay. One man stood more erect and I walked to him. I had not seen this man before but there were always people coming to work or me or to learn. "Hello, will you tell me where everyone is?" "What do you mean, Sir?" "The dry docs were abandoned and I left orders that this ship be worked on by more than a dozen men." The man acted guilty instead of ignorant of the answer. "I have no idea, Sir. I was just working here." "What portion were you working on?" "I was just cleaning up the chips." "Well your orders are being changed. I need something put on the hull and it needs to get done before I leave again. Call the other man and follow me." The man did as I asked and stopped suddenly at seeing Julian's robe with its purple trim. The man then continued after me. In a moment I was on the other side of the ship looking purposefully at a thick plank. Julian and his men came with us to see what was happening. I looked at the men and none of them had wood particles on them except where they had been sitting or laying down. They had not been working and I had to assume that they had been told to stay here and watch. Each had a long knife that could be used as a sword if the need arose. Five of the men kept their hands close to their weapons. They had to be nervous. When everyone was close I said, "My name is Jón of Germania. I own the ship you were on. I want to know who each of you are and why you were told to stay here on the ship." Three of the men put their hands on their weapons but didn't draw them. Very few would bring a sword out in the presence of the Caesar. The man I talked to said, "My name is Niraemius sir. We were told to work here." "Who told you?" The man paused and then said, "Tertius the son of Lucius." "Tertius does not oversee the shipbuilding. I say that you are sent here to spy. There are seven of us, armed with swords and wearing armour. There are a dozen of you. Are you going to fight and die, or tell us what you know?" "I know nothing, Sir." "Take your knife out and drop it. Then the rest will do the same one at a time." The man didn't do so. "Sir, I am just a new employee. I just do as I am told." "I told you to drop the knife. Do it now, or die." The man did then fell to his knees in front of me but still close to his knife. Julian had his sword out and said, "You seem to know who I am. I am not as merciful as Jón. I want to hear the story and I want it to be the truth." "But Caesar, we are telling the truth." The rest of the men were dropping their knives and they too fell to their knees. One of the guards put away his sword and held his knife as he got close and removed all the knives from the ground. I noticed that all of them were steel and made in my forge. In a quiet voice I said, "Lie down now." Niraemius reluctantly did so. I reached out and touched him while I took most the man's ability to use his muscles. I did this eleven more times then started to separate the men. Julian said, "What did you do?" "Aldúlfr showed me how to remove a man's strength. Without me giving it back, these men will be cripples for the rest of their lives." "That sounds humane but not too threatening." "When I went to Britannica, I did the same thing, then made some of the nerves a man has very sensitive. They screamed in pain by just the touch of their clothing. The barest breeze is excruciating." "I would like to see this." I went to Niraemius and gave him the ability to speak just a bit louder and said, "You heard what I said, if I left you this way you would beg for death but you would not have the strength to carry it out." "I am but one of your workers." Niraemius face changed abruptly as he now felt everything on the surface of his body. The scream was short lived until I woke him up and then removed this ability to escape from him. His screams were like loud whispers and they went on and on. I walked over to the next man and said, "The gods gave me this power. Will you talk or be like Niraemius?" "I am a worker too, Lord." The man screamed and screamed. It was the forth man that said, "I will talk, Sir. Just don't touch me." I went back to the other three and removed their pain and they fell into unconsciousness. "Talk or I will not remove your pain if I think you are lying." "My... my name is Sulinus. I... I was sent here to watch for you." "Who sent you?" Julian came over and said, "I too would like to hear this." The man spoke names that I had not heard before and Julian took over the questioning. He turned to me and said, "My cousin is interested in you." "Will you find out what these men have been doing and who we will be facing?" "I would like to know that too." Sulinus answered quickly. When he slowed down on one question, I moved my finger close and he hurried to answer then. We were facing nearly a hundred Christian acolytes and a legion pulled off the Danube for this operation. Those legions were not under Julian's orders. We soon found that six men had raced off to warn of our approach and we would have company soon. I was not anxious to kill Romans now. When I asked about Licinia and her family I heard, "They were taken away along with Lucius and Tertius. The Augustus wanted to talk to them personally." I asked a great many more questions about this but already I was considering some possibilities. Julian said to me, "You are very important to get an entire legion to come after you." "They may be after me because of you." He thought and answered with a nod of his head. "What do you want to do?" I pointed in the direction of the coal mine and then stopped as if to reconsider. I then went around and touched each of the twelve men to put them to sleep for at least a few days. I said, "I want to go after Lucius and his family. Would your cousin have them killed for knowing me?" Julian paused then said, "He is not stupid but he may threaten them unless you surrender yourself to him." "Which way would they go?" "They may go through the mountains but I do not think they are heading for Rome. If the legion makes its home on the Danube then they may go that way. That leads to Constantinople or Persia. There are two ways to get to the Danube and the Main River is the usual choice." "They have four days head start but I think I can catch them. I assume that they would still travel up the Rhine. I will just have to find which route they took." "You can ask at the forts." "We can catch them with the Patricia." "They may be in one of the forts but that would only be during the nights if they chose to wait." "I could catch them but I know a few of the officers on the upper Rhine." Julian asked, "What are you going to do when you catch up to them? You cannot use your stingers on the ship." I was in a quandary now because he was right. "There are many places to stop along the way but I think they would favour the forts. I would have difficulty getting them back. This may further be complicated by the fact that Lucius would oppose me because his movements were the orders of his Augustus." Julian said, "We can get them back but I am afraid all of the men escorting the family would have to die." "Maybe not. I have mace. If I use this I can take the family by force but kill nobody. Lucius may still want to follow orders but at the least, I can put him to sleep. The other option is to put the rest of the detail to sleep too." Julian did some thinking and said, "I do not want to start a new dispute with my cousin that will effect what will happen but one of my men can go with you to hunt down those you search for." "Thank you but Rufus may do the same thing and not involve you. I also want to clean up my land. I need to keep things running and I am afraid that if the furnaces were allowed to cool then I will have to build new ones. If my people were killed then I will demand Roman law be enforced even if it was at the command of your cousin." Julian said, "He probably used the legion he did just because they didn't know me or in the area I rule. It may also be one of his favourites that is in command." We took the man that spoke to us with three more. One of those was Niraemius. We purposely dragged them so the marks led to the river and we took possession of a Roman patrol boat. I did not leave though and waited for only five minutes until a calvary detachment came our way and I slipped onto the ship and we left. The horses could outrun us but it took a while for them to even think of following. When they did they just followed and gave neither threats or arrows because they tried to hide their presence. They would be ineffective if they tried to attack and I had something in case they did. We had witnesses as we climbed onto the Patricia. In a moment we were heading downstream but only for a while. Patricia and Claudia were upset at what was happening but wisely said nothing. I awoke the talkative man and again he was asked to clarify the situation for us. When he was done, he took a nap and I worked on Niraemius. It only took a minute more and he was going to tell us anything we wanted to know. He was actually in charge of this detail and had more information. I packed for my campaign and now went upriver. We went slowly and on the other side of the river so that the calvary detachment would not see us. Patricia didn't know what was actually happening so I said to her, "I was attacked by the Augustus. I have a plan to get the intruders on my land to leave but I have to do it alone. When I come back here, I immediately have to leave to rescue Lucius and his family. You and your family are going to be dropped off at a nearby fort so that you can say that you know of nothing I am going to do." "What are you going to do? I know it is dangerous. I can help." I sat up and kissed her and said, "You cannot help yet and not in the way I require." We stopped at the dock of Lucius' neighbour. Cassianus, the previous owner, was dead but Mamercus and his wife Fausta now looked after the estate. Rufus and his men helped me remove my property and put it on the dock as some of Mamercus' men looked on. I shook hands with Julian and said, "You can return to my property without any problems in a day or so. I will put up the marker and you will know that it is from me." "How are you going to make the legion leave? You have still not told me." "They are here to catch me and probably take me to see Constantius. I will simply have a private talk to those in charge. If they have done something wrong then they will pay. In any case I will put them to work while Rufus and I go after Lucius. When I come back, the leader of the Christian unit will say that this is what he wanted all along and I will go to Persia. If you remember a while ago I said I will have to go and now I can go with an official escort." Julian said, "I cannot see how you can do any of that but then again I cannot see how you do anything. Do you have any suggestions?" I got close and whispered, "You will soon have the Patricia and you can see if Clovis will want to accompany you on a trip. Constantius II will die soon. If you are nearby you can take over the war. You are then seen as the man that removed the threat of the Persians." I backed up and it took Julian a moment to say, "I can see how that might work. I may not need all of my men either as long as I have your father's Auxiliary." "That is true." "I will do it then." I smiled and put out my hand. Julian knew that this was our contract. I kissed Patricia and gave some last minute instructions to Rufus before untying the boat and pushing it off. Patricia and Claudia were holding Julian as Aulus and Postuma held their mother. I turned to the men and said, "Hi, Duronius. Is there a cart nearby? I need to talk to Mamercus?" "Who was that man Sir. He had a lot of purple on his robe." "The Caesar in charge of Germania, Gallia, Iberia and Britannica." It took a while but Duronius snapped out of it and ordered a man to run to the house for a cart. I had healed most of the men and they were all favourably disposed towards me. I was also Mamercus' biggest customer. I asked, "What have you heard about Lucius' and my land in recent weeks?" "Some soldiers came, Sir. They didn't talk to us just the master." "Anything else?" "There are only rumours but none of them are stronger than another. What is happening?" "That is what I am trying to find out, Duronius." A cart came in a few minutes and so did Mamercus. We shook hand but he looked worried. With so many ears around we had to wait until we could talk. The only way to do this was for us to dismiss the retainers. Mamercus said, "What is going on Jón?" "First tell me what the legion asked you?" "They wanted to know where you were and basically everything I knew about you. Fausta was asked the same questions and they were very direct about it and threatened us." When Mamercus said no more, I said, "Some important people sent a legion to take me to Constantinople. They may have hurt my people and damaged my property. It is necessary that they pay if they have done so. Now before we continue, have you noticed any sickness in your people or others?" "I have not noticed much but this time of year we are not busy. What is the problem?" "I was in Lutetia recently and learned how to cure the plague." Mamercus stopped his horse abruptly and I just continued our leisurely pace. He did catch up and whispered, "The plague?" "I said that I learned to cure it. It is not a danger now." "But... what if it is on my land?" "Bring all your people together and I will cure them if they have the disease. It is quick. Aldúlfr was responsible for the help." Mentioning a god was good in this situation. Mamercus rode back the way he had come and ordered his men to come to the house with all their families. He caught up to me before I reached his home. Mamercus had his family and household servants immediately come to meet me and I went through a small religious service and touched each of them with my much quicker healing command. It was only after that I explained about the plague and how I had cured it. My smile and unhurried mannerisms I hoped would relax them. It took a few more minutes to talk about what was happening on my property and that of our common neighbour Lucius. They were all Roman but they were also loyal to me. Rome protected them with her armies but my help was a lot more personal. I think they still had a lot of conflict. It was a half hour later that I went out and touched all of the rest of the people on the farm. I only told them that there was a sickness and I was trying to keep it from affecting them. I called Mamercus out to ensure that I had found everybody. Two men and a woman were sick and those were the only ones that I checked more intensely. They had other problems and not the plague. Mamercus loaned me two horses. One was for my belongings and I gave my goodbyes to all of them. I knew where the legion had set up its main camp as well as six much smaller forts to patrol this area. There were a lot of game trails in this area but the Romans would also be out hunting the animals that used them. The Romans or I were lucky. I saw a lot of tracks made by men and horses. I spotted the fort near eight o'clock. A drizzle had begun but I welcomed the cloud cover even though I would get wet. I spent the time avoiding the patrols and checking to see if they were following the standard procedures. They looked to be just as competent as Julian's men. The patrols came and went and I got a feeling for their regularity then hurried to the wall of logs. The torn earth had been turned to mud but I was prepared for this and pole-vaulted the obstacle. There were patrols out here too so the pole was set among the much larger ones protecting the camp. An end of rope was thrown over one of the upright logs while the other end went through a space between the logs. I peered through the cracks and saw only the back of the officer's tents and four guards patrolling this area. I had my black ninja suit on and my very strong arms had me easily to the top of the wall. There was no internal platform so I held on with one hand and tossed the rope back to the ground. I climbed over quickly when it looked clear and let myself fall to the ground inside the camp. I pulled the end of the rope through the wall so that it would not be found by any of the Romans. There was no place to hide me or the rope but it was also fairly dark. It must have been ten minutes before all of the guards were looking away from me before I sprinted across the open area. I waited breathlessly among the tents while listening for an alarm but heard none. There was too much traffic around and I slipped into a smaller tent. There were no officers but there were three slaves. I worked quickly and struck each of them to stun them. In a moment I had each unable to move because I removed their control of their bodies. One was an older man who I moved to a comfortable position. The next was a young man of sixteen and a girl of about the same age. When I had them together I whispered, "I am sorry for attacking you. I will not hurt you. The gods have given me the power to take away your strength. I have also taken your voice. You will recover by the morning. My name is Jón of Germania. I want to have a talk with the officers and the leader of this legion." Their eyes were wide open and I smiled and then said, "It is better that you all go to sleep until then." I touched one after another while commanding their brain to go unconscious. I just wished that I could do this quicker but it took time to interface with their bodies. It looked like the officer used the younger two for sex but it was unusual to have a female. The Romans found girls had a knack of getting pregnant. I assumed that the man of thirty to thirty five was the cook and the one in charge of ths two slaves. I found something to eat and just sat until the camp would quieten for the night. Two hours later a man came into the tent and called for one of his slaves. I came to him but being dark he thought I was somebody else. I went for his throat and then knocked him to the ground. In ten seconds I removed his ability to move. The man was dragged toward his bed but I left him on the floor. I bent over and whispered, "I am Jón of Germania." The man's eyes grew wide but nothing else. I continued, "I resent your legion coming to my property. But I know that you have to do your duty. Your slaves are all asleep and cannot hear or help you. We are going to have a private talk. I know that Constantius and some Christians want to find out more about me." The man just looked at me because there was nothing else he could do. I said, "Aldúlfr is one of our gods. He taught me a great deal about the land of the gods and about our bodies." I reached out and just touched the man and gave him the smallest ability to talk. It took a moment but he said, "What do you want?" "I can take your life as easily as I gave you back some of your voice. The Roman army instills discipline many ways but one of the most frequent is pain. I am afraid that you are going to get some too. I have nothing against you personally apart from you keeping slaves, but I need you to remember me later and do what is necessary." I reached forward and removed his voice again and then gave him the same pain I had given those that watched the Enterprise. I kept the man conscious while he stayed as if frozen to the ground. In a minute I removed the pain but it took much longer for the man to come to his senses. In a moment I asked, "Who is more important to you, the gods and me or Constantius?" I got a weak, "You." "Good, then we will talk. If you are truthful then I will not have to repeat my lesson." "First, tell me your name." "Sergius." "Hello, Sergius. I would like to find out about what you, your legion and the Christians were up to since you arrived." I found out more details and put the information against what I had already learned. I only had to threaten once and the truth came out on a minor detail. We talked for an hour and a half. I returned partial control to his body along with a theatrical flourish then sent endorphins through his bloodstream. This was a bit of a repayment but also a way of showing him that he was dealing with the gods. When the man came to his senses this time I said, "You are going to help me have a talk with Justus Baebius Armiger. You are going to go out and stand in front of his two guards. I will get behind them and touch them." He whispered, "You should kill them." "I suppose you mean that they will not be able to say how I got past them?" It took a moment but the man nodded and looked down. "I do not like killing if I can help it. You now are a man that will listen to reason. In a few minutes the two guards will be the same way. They are not going to fault you and neither is your leader. Before the night is out all the officers will be thinking like you. I am a man with superior strength. Common sense says that you will react the way you should but I can also deal with those that will not see reason." I gave some last minute directions and then slipped out of the tent. The tent I wanted was three away and I took a moment to get into position. Sergius had his cape on and walked toward the tent. I watched Sergius' eyes through the rain and waiting to be betrayed but it didn't happen. He looked at one man and began to speak. My fist came out and struck the other guard with a kidney punch then my foot came out and connected with the other guard. Sergius moved in and used a wooden truncheon to make sure the guard was unconscious while I did the same thing with the edge of my hand. There was little noise but there was some. I listened but heard nothing out of the ordinary in the tent. Sergius stood as one of the guards and I slipped into the tent. I could detect seven people breathing normally as if in sleep. I went from one to another and touched them for enough time to keep them unconscious. In less than a minute I was outside the tent and dragged the first sentry inside then did the same to the next. The two guards were healed and then went through the same treatment as what Sergius had just had. It took even less time to get their compliance. While they were doing their allotted suffering, I was lighting a lamp to allow them to see by. When they came to their senses they were able to see me. Being all black with even a black face was frightening to them. We had a short talk where I showed them how they could survive. In a moment I had them outside and standing in their old positions. They could not talk and could hardly stand without their spears but now Sergius could come into the tent with me. Sergius stayed in the back while I awoke his commander. I was not going to be as nice as I was to the other three because Justus Baebius Armiger was not a nice man to deal with. He was a fair commander when it came to an enemy but resorted to robbing his own men. This apparently was not that uncommon in the Roman army. Baebius suffered the same amount then after I talked to him it happened two more times to make sure the lesson was well learned. I had to heal the man then or his mind. I think it would have left him completely. When Baebius finally was allowed to speak he said in a whisper, "What is it you want, Master?" "I do not like the term master but in your case you should continue using it." "Yes, Master." "You are a bad person. Usually I kill those kind of people." The man was already shaking so much I didn't know if the words made him feel more threatened or not. I said, "You have forty two officers. Thirty seven are in the camp now. We are going to bring them here one at a time and I am going to put them to sleep. In the morning we will find out all that has happened." The two guards were brought inside and Baebius was able to tell them what was going to happen. When the men left, they were able to walk much better. They knew that we were dealing with events way over their heads and all they had to do to stay out of trouble was to do what they were told. Baebius got dressed I removed my black clothing and then washed my face. When I was done the slaves were awoken and told to go to Sergius' tent to sleep for the night. Sergius brought me the officers he felt that were more corrupt. When they were commanded to sit on the floor, it was easy to overpower each of them. When I had the worst twelve done I just had them sit at the edge of the tent and keep quiet and they remained conscious. Twenty five more came but I just had them remain quiet and immobile while I talked to Baebius. I asked Baebius, "What were your orders. Give them to me as accurately as possible." "I... I was to escort Didius to Germania Inferior and attempt to capture you. I was given orders to bring you back alive if possible. The orders were written and I have them in my belongings. Allow me to get them, Master." "Was it Didius that brought the orders?" "Yes, Master." "The document can wait until the morning. Did you have orders to harass my people or steal my property?" "They resisted us, Master. The soldiers only did what they had to do. Soldiers always pick up things to increase their wealth." This was bullshit because those on my property had a right to protect themselves under Roman law. I would just have to find out the truth later. "What is Didius like as a man and as a follower of Christ?" "He is a very firm believer. He... he seems to keep to himself and avoids us as if we are not good enough to join him." "Would you call him a fanatic?" I moved my hand forward menacingly. Baebius swallowed and said, "I would call him that." "How does he treat those that do not believe as he does?" "He is not tolerant." "Go on." "Those that believe in Wodenism are difficult to bring into what he calls the 'light'." "Tell me his methods." I paused just a bit and added, "All of them." I had not read much about the Spanish Inquisition but it seamed that Didius knew a great deal about torture. By Baebius' reckoning at least eleven people had died here already and four more in areas before they arrived. I had no idea who had died but I was very angry now. There was a chance that some had been of my family but all would be my friends. The guard at the front was changed and I decided to prepare for the morning. "I am going to give you back the control of your bodies. I am also giving each of you something to control you. You may run later today but in three days you will wish that you had not. In four days you will not be able to move. You will suffer an entire day of the punishment that the others had for less than a minute." I tried to look as menacingly as possible but this was all a hoax. "I can give you more time or take this control from you altogether. It will be your choice. I do not liker killing or torture but I will use both if it is necessary." With a final pause, I went from one man to the other and removed their immobility and any restrictions on their voices. They shifted about a bit but stayed seated on the floor while I use the chair. Each of the men were commanded to tell me their names and rank though most could be deduced from their robes. When I had gathered more information than I could retain, I said, "I have been to Asgard. If you have read my books, you will know that this land is in another dimension. The value of time is not the same as it is here. In a way I am older than any man here. Aldúlfr personally took me into his home and taught me knowledge that nobody in this land has heard of before." This was the last part of what I wanted to reveal because a long time. From now on I could stick pretty much to the truth. I pointed to one officer and said, "Come here. I will give you a gift." The man was hesitant but came and then knelt before me. I worked on a scar and a blemish that was on his face then decided to get his hair to grow in once more. When I was done, I gave him some of his own endorphins and he sat back stunned by the feeling. We all waited a few moments and when the man recovered, I said, "Your scar and blemish will disappear in a few days. I have caused you an expense." Nobody including the man knew what I was speaking of so I added, "Your hair will now grow back. The barbers may get rich from you." This last part was said with a smile. The man immediately felt his head to see if it had already occurred. I treated everybody but the ones that Sergius indicated as less corrupt were given more. It was very near the time for the camp to awake. "I do not like the way this legion is run. Romans are supposed to be ethical men though this is hard to do. It is further hampered by those around each of you acting like the animals of the field." I gave the rules as I had learned them as a child about military discipline. Most of the laws were what my father and my 'uncles' knew but some rules were altered to fit our small family when it had to survive in a very tumultuous world. I did give what I thought best in this time and in this situation. I was far from finished when the cornicen blew his horn to get the legion up for the day. I said, "Leave me now. Baebius and I have much to discuss." The men got up and didn't quite flee but they did leave quickly. I said to the man, "You have a lot of work to do to change your ways. You may be a fair commander but you are a thief. Your men see the way you commit crimes and do the same as you. The gods are, for the most part, ethical. You have been brought to their attention now. They may have a much greater way of making you change your ways but I am afraid that your mind could not withstand the experience." "I can change, Master." "A man very rarely changes. You are too old and too greedy. I am afraid that you have eternity to learn the error of your ways." "I will change. Woden and Aldúlfr will be my witnesses." The slaves came back on their own accord and I got Baebius to go to Sergius' tent so that his slaves could go about their day. I had a short talk to them before I left and the fact that I had the camp commander with me lent more force to my suggestions. I ate my breakfast with Baebius and his slaves looked at me strangely because he continued to call me, Master. When I was done I thanked the cook, and said to Baebius, "I want you to find Duronius and all his men. They are to be disarmed and brought here. When that is done, I want you to issue orders that your men are to treat the people on my property as if they are in a Roman city. Failure to do so after this warning, will require all of eternity to expiate." "Yes, Master." "You will have to refrain from calling me Master now. I need the legion to retain discipline even though you have taught them that thievery is not to be condemned." "I will do this too..." "Call me, Sir." "Yes, Sir." We left the tent and Baebius sent off the orders that I wanted. We walked around together so his men could see us together. I went to the physician's area and I spoke to one of the doctors, "Hello, I have come to see what I can do to help. Have you encountered any increase in sickness?" The man stood at attention for Baebius was there and it took a few seconds before he replied, "What kind of sickness?" "Diarrhea, vomiting and leg cramps. One in twenty people become dehydrated and die very quickly." "Are you talking about the plague?" "It is called cholera. I can cure it." "Nobody can do that." "You have never heard of Aldúlfr then?" "I have heard of this new god." "He taught me how to heal. I was in Lutetia recently and most of the city was saved." "You are Jón of Germania?" "Yes." The man didn't know what to say. I guess it had to do with the entire legion coming to find me and I was suddenly here in front of this man. In a moment the man had still not spoken so I asked, "Who is sick?" Baebius followed me because he had not been told to leave. When I saw the first patient I called for the surgical instruments. I called for soap and water then explained about disease and how it travelled. A flame was used to disinfect the instruments and I did some dentistry on the first man. When this man was done I said, "The tooth has to come out. The infection will leave but not for long. I have a school here that teaches dentistry and they can help you. Return to your contubernium and talk to the physicians tomorrow about the treatment." The man was not worried but did show some respect by saying, "Yes, Sir." The second man had a tumour. Since everybody else was standing, I didn't think anybody was too sick. "You have a growth on your stomach. If you leave it alone you will live for a year or possibly two. I need my instruments and especially my sutures. You will be in a little pain but in three weeks you will be cured. I will see you later today for the operation if you wish my help." "Are you really, Jón?" "I am the man you are thinking about. You will live quite a few more years if you undergo this operation." "I have no gold, Sir." "I do not charge the legionnaire but the legion as a whole will pay. It is not that much." "Thank you, Sir." The next man had the plague and I told him so but smiled when he showed abject fear. "Do not be afraid. It is good in a way that you have this." He was too frightened to ask so I said, "If you have the plague now and you are cured then your body will be able to fight off the disease next time. You actually are lucky." Before I left, I said to the physicians that were now clustered around me, "Give this man water with both salt and honey in it. This will allow him to control the amount of salt in his blood and give him energy to continue. Usually you would not have to segregate him but I am leaving soon and cannot heal people here if I am away." I cured a boil but I did this the old way the same as I did with the man with the abscessed tooth and what I would do with the stomach cancer. My aim was to educate these people and that could not be done unless they had something to see for themselves. Not all could be this way. The line grew longer as I worked and I treated six more cholera patients as well as those suffering from athletes foot to haemorrhoids. In each case I told the man and the physicians. These men though had to be healed with my help alone. I had no drugs yet because I was so busy. I taught the physicians some of the signs to look for and they gave me more. I began to treat them a bit more like colleagues and they responded to this. Before I left them I did my own diagnostics on them and treated one for cholera. The officers that I missed last night had returned and I had a chance to meet them. They were not as impressed by me because they were armed and not held immobile. They didn't want to give me information about themselves until Baebius got very angry at them and ordered them to. Baebius gave his orders about how his men were supposed to now act and the officers didn't seem to like this. I noticed that all their weapons were ones that I made in my shops. Some of Duronius' men were brought into the camp but not the leader yet. I walked over to the nine man that could not get up and awoke them. This seemed to startle the rest that had not been able to do so. None of them though tried to hold me and I do not think it was just because I had two swords on my back. I asked Baebius and he relayed the order and a few men went out on horses to retrieve my own. Baebius and I continued to walk the camp until the men came back with my mounts. I collected my property and put the cloth and rope into the packs on one of the horses. I said to Baebius, "I am going out and bringing my people here so they and the legion can see justice. I want a platform built that is the height of a tall man and twelve feet on a side. I am warning you now that I will have to get my property back. If the legion wants to keep my possessions then they will have to purchase whatever they took. I am sure that the property of my own people has gone missing. This will have to be returned." "I understand... Sir. Everything that can be returned will be done so." "Then there is hope for you yet." I hurried out of the fort with an escort. I was not too worried about Duronius but more about how I may have to deal with a Roman patrol. I went to the mill first and we had to get by a Roman guard detail. When I arrived women and children cried at seeing me. I got off the horse and tried to comfort them as best I could. Before it got too late, some of the men took to their horses and left with some of the Romans to my other locations. They were on the lookout to find Duronius but would stay away from him if possible. I listened to the rest to find out what had happened here. Some of the women had been raped and everything that was not nailed down was stolen. There were two Romans left with me and they hung their heads in shame. Here at least there were no deaths but the population here were few. I healed those that needed it while trying to get them to come to terms with what had happened. One woman looked to have cholera and I had to find out who she had come in contact with. Two hours later I heard horses coming and I moved toward my supplies. The other groups were to come this way so we could go to the fort. In a few minutes I found that it was not my people or the Romans. There were a group of nineteen men who could be buyers but about half of them wore the emblem of a cross on them. Invincibility was not one of my tricks so I quickly strung my bow and took out one of the stingers. I called the two Roman guards over and said to them, "You both heard that Duronius is to be taken into custody. Is one of those Duronius?" It took a moment but the younger of the two Romans said, "The short guy in the centre with the gold cross on his chest is Duronius." "It heard he made the cross with my gold." The men said nothing about this. The men were a hundred or so metres away when they finally deduced who I was and charged forward while drawing their swords. I had only the chest and back portion of my armour along with my swords and k-bar. I drew and released one arrow then another but saved the third. I looked away now because there were two large explosions on both flanks. I dropped the bow and raced forward with a sword in each hand as dirt and flesh fell all around me. Most of the men were stunned by the two explosions and I was able to use my booted feet to strike most of them and only two were even able to bring up a sword in defence. None of the enemy was standing but neither were many of the horses. Some were on the ground kicking as the life drained from them. I worked quickly now and gave release to the horses while causing the men to remain immobile. Six of the men didn't need this. The two Romans came over, only when I demanded that they do so. They were just as shocked of what had happened as my enemy. ------- Chapter 4 I called my own people to help us after the one sided fighting stopped. They came out with some of their own improvised weapons but there was no need to use them. I lifted and pulled the horses so the unconscious men could be slid out. Two more died while this was happening because I could not be in more than one place at once. The injured were stabilised but I did not do a lot to heal them further. Duronius was one of those that were not only still alive but fairly healthy too. It was touch and go for a while with some of the men. I had the two Romans hold some wounds closed as I had the patient's body start the repair. Now I would have witnesses to what was happening. A long line of people soon came from the coal mine and the foundry. Those in the lead galloped to me in greeting until they saw the wounded men. They were very glad to see me and also happy to see this group of men in the condition they were now in. The wagons dedicated for the mill usage were hitched to the horses and the wounded placed on them. During the trip to the fort, I asked for reports concerning the invasion. Many people clamoured to be heard. Apparently there was a lot that the legion had to make retribution for. The deaths were mainly men protecting my property from theft but the rest were caused by Duronius' inquisition. It was near five when the large procession came to the fort. I had only one stinger left but I was prepared to use it if the legion recovered from their fear of me. When I got close to the fort, the main doors stayed open. On the other side of the fort was the platform that I asked to be constructed. Baebius and a dozen of his officers came out to greet me and I greeted them civilly. I asked, "Will you place your men like spokes from the platform so my people have an equal view to see that justice is done?" "At once, Sir." It was the officers that gave out the commands to lesser officers until the legionnaires double timed it to where I wanted. It took a full fifteen minutes to get the three thousand men in position. In a way the officers had done a good job with the unfamiliar order. The Christians were all brought forward and then my own people filled in the gaps. There were twice as many but most were just children. Baebius and I got on the platform and I gave another sermon relating to how to deal with those of other beliefs. I then went onto Roman law on how to deal with theft, murder, robbery and rape. "Roman law is usually very good except when some powerful person is allowed to influence the magistrates. I want all of you here to listen carefully to what is said, and then I want you to decide." I did not want to be here days so I listed all of the crimes I had heard and truthfully said that I had only heard a fraction of them. Duronius was brought up and he was healthy enough to stand alone. He even showed a great deal of his natural arrogance. Before I could make verbal charges against him he called on the legionnaires to rise up and save him. He pled for three minutes until I said loudly, "I charge you Duronius with murder and common theft. How do you plead?" "You have no right to try me. The Augustus, Constantius II, personally sent me here to find out about you." "Did he tell you to rob the people as you past them or kill them if they do not believe the same thing you do?" "They are heathens and so are you. You do not believe in the sacred blood of Christ..." he went on and on trying to intrench his own ideas into what he considered sacred text. When he wound down I said, "I was in Asgard..." Duronius interrupted me and I let him again continue for a moment until I simply put my hand on him and he froze in position and he could not speak. I said, "I let you speak then you interrupt me. As I said, I was in Asgard and learned a great deal. I know that many men cloak themselves in religion and do despicable acts in the name of one deity or another. I claim, that you, Duronius, are one of those men." I felt a bit hypocritical but not much. All religions did this to promote their own point of view and suppress others. I did feel a lot better about sticking to the law and having this trial out in the open so all could see. Mobs and juries could be swayed by a leaders with strong charisma but I would try to stick to the facts and cut down on excess verbiage. Another touch allowed the man to talk but not move. "What have you done to me?" "Aldúlfr, one of our gods, has taught me how to heal. This time, instead of gathering your energy to fight a disease of injury, the energy is used to keep you immobile and quiet so I have my turn to talk." "Your gods cannot do that." "Then you are also a fool, for nearly nine thousand people here, saw it happen." Duronius didn't know just want to say then said, "My god is the only god." "That is quite pompous of you. Our religion allows all faiths and beliefs to coexist. All they have to do is follow the laws of man." "My laws come from my Lord." "So he told you to torture and kill men and then rob their families?" "They are heathens and need to be brought into the light." "By killing them?" "They would get a second chance after they died." "You preach that the heaven can only be entered by believers. Why would a man that believes in Woden want to be converted under torture to Christianity? They die usually with only a curse on their lips against you and your religion." "It is better that they die." "I say that your religion is based on a man with a vision that believed in peace. He had no power other than his ability to talk to men persuasively. I do believe though that he was a good man much like what others have been." Duronius started spouting his religion loudly as he retorted my accusation. When he wound down I said, "Call on your god to smite me. Your religion claimed recently, when they tortured my people, that your god was supreme. Now is the time to refute that claim or stand by it." "You have bewitched me. You are an agent of Satan..." Again he went on and on until I had to touch him to shut him up. "Is your god stronger than Satan? Your teachings say that this is not so. I claim that my god is Woden. My mentor is the wise Aldúlfr. Refute your claim in front of these people. I at least am not causing pain or threatening a man's family while I ask." I gave him a touch and he started right off once more as if I had not stopped him. I let the charade go on for a few minutes then shut him up once more. Because I was able to deal so easily with the man, everybody, including Duronius, knew which pantheon of gods was stronger. "Call on your god for protection to protect you so you may continue to spew your lies to the people you have hurt." I gave another touch and the man was released and almost fell down. He staggered and collided with Baebius. In a surprising amount of speed, Duronius grabbed Baebius' dagger and charged at me. My katana came out and with an upward cut severed the man's arm from his body and the reverse stroke decapitated him. The body fell to the platform and I just stood with the point of the katana on the rough log. I turned to Baebius and said, "My people will now come to you with the news of the crimes committed against them. You will record the names, the crimes and the guilty parties. Those men that come forward and admit their guilt will be given a lesser punishment if possible. Those that run will be chased and suffer more than they ever believed possible. Those that lie will suffer the same way." I called up the man with the cancerous stomach. I had my doctor's supplies from the mill. The body was removed and in a few minutes we would begin. The man was very nervous, especially since I just killed a man but I whispered, "The entire legion is watching you. Be brave. I will not let you come to harm; on my honour." The man stood straighter and nodded his head. In a moment he had his uniform off. The man laid down in a clean area and went to sleep. The physicians were called up. I quickly shaved the man's abdomen then washed my tools and my hands. It was only a matter of two minutes until I had the cancer exposed and the physicians attested to its presence. I started another call to heal the man while I cut off the flow of blood to the cancer. I simply closed up the simple but deep wound I had made and said to the physicians, "The cancer will completely die within hours. The wound itself will heal in a few weeks. Part of what I say can be proved by how quickly the man heals from the wound I caused." The patient was stood up and awoken. There was no pain. I said to him, "Your cancer is dying and the wound will heal in a few weeks. Your stomach will heal in a month. Do not drink wine and eat only soft food." "Thank you my lord. I don't feel any pain." "There is pain but your mind does not receive it. If you die, I look bad so do as I said." The man smiled and was helped down to the ground. I called on more men with different ailments that could be quickly cured. I called my own people and some of those came up. A few were wounded by the same Romans that watched us. Wounds were cleaned and then closed by hand and they stayed closed as their bodies began to work harder to do what was necessary. By the time eight o'clock came, I was very tired. I had not slept last night and I wanted to start after Lucius as soon as possible. I called Baebius, and said in a low voice, "You will stay on my land and complete what I asked of you. I am going after Lucius and his family. You will protect my family here with your lives or you will have all of eternity to regret it." I didn't mind the threats. Other religions had done the same thing for thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years. A calvary detail rode with me to the dry docks. I built a large fire and put up a flag from a pole nearby to be illuminated by its light. In less than ten minutes the Patricia came by. Julian called out, "Are you all right Jón?" "I'm tired. It's your turn now. It took less than five minutes to bring Julian up to speed on current events. All the while, I held onto Patricia. This was not a good situation for Julian because he would be directly thwarting his cousin. I had to remove Constantius or there would be a civil war. A war would pull troops from the frontier and then thousands of people would die when invaders took advantage of this situation. The calvary were very interested in helping the Caesar now. I gave some last minute thoughts and shook hands or hugged those that would be staying. I gave Patricia one final kiss. It hurt when she cried as she left. I said to Rufus, "We better get going." The night was dark again but Rufus knew the river well enough to keep going. I went to sleep and didn't wake up until noon the next day. I noticed that we had a wind off our stern quarter and the mast and sails had been set. I admired the rigging and said, "I see that you have been busy." Rufus smiled and said, "And there are less of us too." I felt bad again because more had died and I had done nothing to ensure that their families were cared for. In a moment he asked me, "What did you do when you left us?" "I used my power of healing to cause pain. I am not proud of this but it was the only way to get the officers to do what I said until they could be convinced that I was right." "You took on the whole legion?" "Only the senior officers, Rufus. When a man finds that he is helpless he tends to open his mind to new ideas. There were only a few that had to be convinced the hard way. The rest were just held immobile and watched without interfering with the dialogue." After three days we stopped at some of the forts and asked about the group that was taking Lucius and his family. We were very worried for a while because the people we were following could have taken the River Main instead of going north instead. The northern route was less well travelled but they could gain the Danube quicker but after a long portage. We were running low on fuel and resorted to cutting dead wood near the shore and cutting up the tree as we travelled upstream. The navigable portion of this section of the Rhine ended at a large falls not far ahead. On a whim I took the Patricia into the large bay formed by the rushing water and stared at the falls. It was nothing like Niagara but it was still beautiful. It looked to be about twenty five metres high and a hundred and fifty metres wide. We found that we were quite an attraction too with our ship being propelled by unseen oars because the sails were now furled. Near dusk, we pulled into the town near the base of the falls. Rufus and I got into the city dressed as wealthy merchants while the crew dickered with some traders for a load of dry wood. The town must have held twenty thousand people and was quite large. Some silver changed hands until we found out about Gennadius Memmius and where his men were sleeping. There were thirty three soldiers and six of Duronius men escorting fourteen members of Lucius' family. That number would stay in the forts but it was possible that Lucius was not exactly held prisoner and would stay in an inn. We soon found that this was not the case. The trail to and then along the Danube was very well fortified and the procession would have a secure place to stay each night of their travels. Rescuing the family further along the trail was just as difficult and then we would be further from the Patricia. Rufus had been here many times and actually in the fort a few times too. He told me what he knew. "There is probably a cohort stationed here before this group arrived. There may be more visitors too that we know nothing about. Even if you can get in, you are going to have difficulty getting the women and children out without them being detected." "That may be true but the soldiers have been dry for a few weeks now and will want to take advantage of the whores and the wineshops. I studied the fort. This was not a crude wooden palisade but made of cut stone like the walls around the town. There were no windows that I could see but there was an inner walkway for patrols and four large gates. After walking around the fort once, I said to Rufus, "Let's go visit the whoever is in charge of this place?" Rufus looked worried and said, "You really want to do that?" I smiled and said, "No, just see the inside and try to find Lucius if we can." We had no trouble walking past the guards and into the camp. We were dressed like the well-to-do and therefore could not be here for anything but business. My hair colour attracted them but they didn't seem to be agitated by it. The plan of the fort had the some interior buildings sharing a wall with the fort perimeter while other buildings were standing alone. I urged Rufus to investigate the former first as it was easier to get away from this area. Ten minutes later we spotted a woman holding her infant and three more little ones standing beside her as she starred over the battlements. I said to Rufus, "We found one of Lucius' daughter-in-laws." "You can see that far? I forgot, you have the eyes of an eagle." We climbed the stone steps but I was much quicker than Rufus because I didn't want to show us as together just yet. When I was a few metres away from the woman, I called gaily, "Porcia, how are you?" She turned quickly and then looked both ways. She showed a lot of fear in her face and posture. "You have to get away from here quickly. They are looking for you." I got closer and squatted down to greet the children and I got a hug from all of them. I said a few words to each then stood. "I came here to take you back home." "We can't go. They won't let us and besides there is a legion there." I smiled and said, "I took care of the legion. The Caesar is now with them. There were some bad men with the soldiers and the leader of that group is now dead. We won't have any problems." "They say the Augustus wants to talk to us." Rufus joined us and I said to Porcia, "That will all be taken care of. Where are you housed?" "Almost directly below us." "All of you?" "Yes, but there are guards around us and especially Lucius. I can get out only because they know I can do nothing by myself and with the children." "Tell me how to get to your apartments?" Porcia gave me a rough layout of the building and I asked more questions. Rufus thought a moment and he too asked about some features. It was getting dark now and it was better to proceed before everybody left the streets. Rufus left to find a rope or two and make sure the boilers were hot and the fuel loaded. Porcia and I waited until Rufus returned in fifteen minutes with one of the crew members carrying the rope. It would seem odd to have Rufus do this type of work while wearing the clothes he had on. He gave me the sign that all was ready and we went below to see Lucius. I was not that tall but I was wide and looked very strong. Porcia walked ahead of me and I held one of the children in my arms. Two legionnaires stood in front of a door. Porcia started to talk to them but they watched me instead. I put the child down and then threw out my foot and connected with the sternum of the closest man. The other went for his sword but Porcia was hindering him enough that I was able to get in and strike him twice and his fighting stopped. The first man had difficulty breathing and I touched him and his friend until they both quieted. The door opened quickly and I found a strange man in front of me. I immediately attacked, striking him in the abdomen then the throat as I moved into the room. There were three more men that were drawing weapons. I was able to get to the first and took the weapon from him and pulped the man's nose with the heal of my hand. My new weapon came up to deflect an overhand blow and I used my foot again to kick the man. I connected solidly with his scrotum and he looked stunned. One more blow to his throat with my hand and I was ready for the last. Lucius was already there and was wrestling with the man. I just moved in and held the man's sword hand for a few seconds until he froze in place. I said, "Hold him now. He's frozen." Lucius was shocked at me and at what I did. He said, "Why are you here Jón? These men came from the Augustus himself." "I talked to you before about this. Julian is now at my home straightening out the legion. I want to leave here now before we are caught." Lucius paused to do a lot of thinking. His wife and children were close to him. He said, "We are in a lot of danger if we leave now." I said, "You will be in more when you are in Constantius' clutches." He nodded his head and said, "How do we get out?" "Rufus and one of the crewmen are outside this wall waiting for us. I think your family can mainly walk out but you and the male members better take to the rope. The Patricia is at the dock with a full head of steam." I went to the men and froze all of them including the two guards that I brought in from the hall. Licinia was nervous and I said, "Gennadius Memmius is now talking to your husband and he wants some privacy so Lucius asked you to go look at the falls. You are taking the children. If the guards ask more, just ask the way to the falls and where it is best to see it from." "Are we really defying Constantius?" "Don't worry about it now. You are much safer with me." The women and children were escorted to the courtyard and Lucius hugged his wife and sent her off as if nothing was the matter. Back in the room I asked Lucius, "Which one is Gennadius Memmius?" Lucius used his toe to indicate the man he had been fighting. "He is an objectionable man. He is almost as bad as Duronius." "Maybe he should have the pleasure of our company on the trip back?" "You want this man with us? Why?" "I will tell you on the ship." We gathered up all the belongings and Lucius went to each of the men except the guards and kicked them and took their purses. He looked stern to me when he said, "They robbed us when they came and then took more when we were on the trip here." Lucius and Tertius stripped the guards at my suggestion and put on the uniforms. The two of us walked up one level and then to the wall. When it looked good, Rufus threw us the rope. Beside him were the women and children. We tied the ropes off then casually walked back to the apartments and took out the luggage and when it was clear we threw it over the edge. The women took the luggage and hurried to the ship. Tertius was very excited and I had to put my hand on him to get him calmed down. He and his brother climbed down the rope and waited at the bottom with Rufus. Lucius and I were now the last. We sauntered back to the apartments and we made it there without any problems. I crouched down to talk to all of the people there and healed their ills and then said, "Woden has seen fit to not take your lives this time. The way your bodies went rigid could also happen to your hearts." I let them digest this and added, "Gennadius Memmius is going to come with us so we can have a talk. You are free to do anything you want including following me. If you do come back you will be prosecuted for any crimes you have done. In a few hours, you will be able to move much better and to talk too. In half of a day you will feel very good because I have begun the healing process for all of you. It is a gift." Gennadius was hoisted up and we walked with him to the battlement. We were not so lucky this time and we were stopped. Romans always drank wine so I pretended to be helping a drunk friend. We were still inside the rooms and luckily there were only two men from the detail that had come here from my land. They both wore armour and I didn't want to kill them. I stumbled and clutched to one man long enough to freeze him into place then I kicked the other in the scrotum enough to get close enough to freeze him too. We heard voices now with the clash of armour that had fallen to the stone floor. Lucius hurried on and then I was beside him to speed things up. At the battlement I had Lucius lower the man. Sentries now took notice of us and came running. Lucius got Gennadius to the ground and came beside me. I said, "You go. I will hold them off for a minute and catch up to you. "You need more than yourself." "Hurry, Lucius." The man reluctantly lowered himself and I raced to the closer of the guards. The Roman sword I used was poor but I was stronger than anybody else's I knew. Again I tried to not kill or to not wound if I could. One man fell and I kicked him to keep him down as I took on one more. This one had a short spear and he made the mistake of throwing it. I was able to both move my body and the sword so the spear missed. I was on the man before he could draw his sword. I grasped the man's arm and threw him over my body. He fell heavily to the stone and I kicked his face but not as hard as I could. There were sentries coming from all over and I ran the other way to head them off. Two came together to fight me. I ran for the spear that had been thrown and the two men slowed down their approach. It was my turn to run and I did this toward them. When I got close, I threw the gladius and the man shifted towards his friend to avoid it. It was the handle that hit him instead of the blade. The spear was used like a stave now and I drove the butt end at one man while using my foot at the man that was off balance from avoiding the sword. The spear shifted sideways toward the throat. At the last second, it shifted and hit the man's wrist that came to protect this vulnerable area. The sword fell from the man's hands. My foot came up and struck the other man in the face and he fell backwards. I moved in quickly to the man without a sword and rained down blows with the wood instead of the metal of the spear. He stumbled and I was able to stab him in the abdomen with the butt and I saw his eyes get very large. More men were coming so I used the spear to propel the sword away and then do the same manoeuvre to the other man. I ran back to the parapet and used the rope to get to the ground. I was half way to the protection to the surrounding buildings when I felt my left shoulder pushed forward. I did more evasive movements as more arrows came by. Once around the corner I stopped only long enough to feel that the arrow had cut a groove and glanced off the joint. I stopped the bleeding and ran on because I could not be caught now. The alarm had gone out and I heard horns being sounded like they were in battle. The watch saw me running and three men gave chase. I made it to the ship just a few steps ahead of one of the men but he stopped when he saw two men with drawn bows facing him. Lucius pushed us off and jumped aboard. The propeller churned the water until we were out of range of a bow. There was a lot of activity along the shore and a patrol vessel was ready to give chase. We were just passing the town when I caught sight of a chain being pulled tight further down the river. It spanned the river and would cut us off because we could not go upriver due to the falls. Rufus could not see this but Tertius ran to relay the information and my orders. I got to my cabin and I felt the Patricia changing direction and the engines pausing then the bronze propeller turning in reverse. Lucius came after me and said, "What are you going to do? We're trapped." "Help me with my armour and find out." It took a while to get dressed and Lucius commented on my wound. I was fully protected from arrows but there were a lot of weapons that could still kill me easily. I strung the bow and took the remaining stinger and went on deck. Arrows started to fall on us but I was the only person on deck. I aimed at the hole that the chain came out of the stone. When I released I thought it was a good shot. A thundering explosion was heard but I was already falling to the deck as a preventative measure. The arrows had stopped and when the smoke and dust cleared I saw that the chain had not completely severed. Visibility was not good and I was the one to see the best in any case. I went back to my cabin and took out another wooden box. I went on deck and after checking the direction of the wind shot six of the arrows upwind so that the vapours would cover most of the area where a bowman could hide. Lucius came on deck this time and I said, "Shoot these upwind of the garrison. This is my mace." "Is it safe? You said it is a horrible thing." "It does not kill. That is all I am saying." I got my hammer and a large chisel before Rufus reversed more so he could protect my back. It took ten minutes to cut the chain and I heard running soldiers and then screams and the sound of vomiting as they came in contact with the liquid vapour. I got back on board and found three patrol craft drifting past us. Rufus backed us into the channel and then went full speed forward. Men were in the water and it was actually a good way to wash the mace off. One man could not swim apparently and I threw him a life preserver as we passed. When I got back to my cabin I found nearly everybody there to greet me. Lucius said, "Jón they will hunt you down now. You have no place to go that is safe." He and Tertius helped me off with my armour before I said, "Events are changing rapidly. Julian is taking care of the legion that attacked our land. The forts along the river are commanded by Julian if you remember. When word comes to the forts they will try to arrest me until they are told to leave by Julian." "What about us? Julian will not be safe for long either when news of this gets back to Constantius." "That is true too. I am going on a trip to see the Augustus in a few days and iron out any difficulties." Lucius just looked at me but said nothing more about this. It would indicate to his family that he was plotting against his Augustus. I asked, "Did you stop the patrol craft?" Lucius had a bit of a smile now and said, "Yes but I soon learned not to shoot directly upwind of my position." I went into doctor mode and checked everyone including Gennadius. There were no signs of plague anywhere but that did not mean much. I healed myself too but the wound would not be quite healed until I got back to my property. Gennadius had a wealth of information and was eager to share it after I convinced him to do so. I learned a lot more than I wanted to about Duronius. The orders concerning me were quite explicit and Constantius didn't seem to mind who was killed or even the actual death toll. Constantius also didn't seem to think much of individual rights but then again neither did anyone else. I had recognised this when I first came back to this time and I was not going to handicap myself by being a nice guy. The questioning though allowed Lucius to see just how far his Augustus would go to get the information he needed. We made much better time going down river. This time though, I stopped at Mamercus' home first to find out what was happening. Fausta was the first to greet me and she was happy to see me back. Apparently circumstances had returned to normal or as normal as it could be when living next to my land and now next to a legion far from home. Within a few hours we were tying up at the dock and a group of horsemen galloped up with Julian in the lead. He looked at all of us and after greeting me he asked, "What happened, Jón?" "You are going to get some trouble from this. I had to sneak Lucius and his family out of the fort. We were discovered and I fought the soldiers. None were killed. They had a chain to stop ships and I had to destroy it. I caused some damage but not much. I got to test out the mace on the Romans. This is a good thing to learn. It breaks up an enemy line so it can be attacked better." Julian had been staying in Lucius home and Lucius was not going to say much about it. Matters began to settle down but would not happen as long as the legion was here, or Julian for that matter. I went to my lab and made a lot more toys for my trip to Persia. Julian had done a lot to restore order. The open hearth furnace had been destroyed when the Romans stopped the work on it and the iron froze. Almost all of my property had come back to me and a few soldiers died when their crimes came to light. At least it would be a Roman executioner that caused their death and not me. Tertius was given new orders and he started a much larger furnace nearby that would give four times the output but also include the production of steel plate. The legion now was going to make atonement for their sins by building me a new furnace. It was not slave labour though. The men were slowly being converted to Wodenism. Julian left documents with me, absolving me of any crime while he took the Patricia up the river to spread the word for himself and for me too. Patricia the woman though was run ragged but she seemed to like it. She was with me a lot more and I think that others looked on her as my wife no matter what was said to the contrary. Justus Baebius Armiger had been severely chastised for the way he treated us and also for how he stole from his own men. This had come out when some of his men made the complaint. He had not tried to lie or to hide the truth so I had to assume he changing his religion. He was kept on though and the feeling in the legion was much more positive. Another that firmly believed in Wodenism was Gennadius Memmius. He was a fervent believer in Christianity and now he was a fervent believer in Wodenism. Some men were just made that way with no half measures. Gennadius brought most of his former compatriots with him. They had seen miracles with their own eyes when the other miracles were only heard from in a book or word of mouth that was garbled with age. I made up my own expedition to Persia now. Twelve of the former strong arm of the church were going with me. They had their orders in writing from Constantius II which would ease our way considerably. The legion was clamouring to go too. Their home fort was on the Danube and they would get a chance to stop for a while and then continue with me but I didn't want or require this. Julian came back one afternoon. He looked worn from all the talking he had to do for both of us. He did have a smile though. He said that he felt that he had the support of many of the men. I had given him some problems but overall my name had helped him a lot more than it hurt. On New Year's day, I kissed Patricia goodbye after taking hours to do the same thing to everybody that came to see me off. This numbered into the thousands. Rufus had to find some good replacement crew members. When they came aboard, I greeted them. We did not need the help to fill the ship though. We had no barge to tow but we did have the twelve men of the detail that supposedly had come to take me back to Constantius. Sergius was in command because I knew a legionnaire was superior in training to any of the fervent former Christians. Everybody was outfitted in the best armour and weapons I could supply. The legion gained some of the knives, shovels and tools as gifts when they started to become good citizens. Smaller personal items were given to the men for their own use. The swords and armour still had to be purchased by everybody else. We headed upriver once more and took the tributary called the Main. It wove back and forth like a snake but one of its own tributaries would take us very close to the Danube. In my other life I had gone through this area on a cruise sponsored by the company I worked because. At that time my wife and I had flown into Bamberg at the mouth of the canal. Nora was even more into history and took me willingly to all the historical markers. Charlemagne had apparently tried his hand at making the 172 kilometre canal but it was always raining too much and the water kept pouring into the excavation. Ludwig I, King of Bavaria hired a man to survey the area and plan the canal system. The man had already been working on the project himself since 1818. It was in 1846 though that the canal was finally completed at Kelheim. There were a hundred scenic locks that rose the level of the water a total of 187 metres then descended 79 metres to the Danube. It was only made for the small ships of the day. It soon failed when trains came as competition. WWII had destroyed much of the waterway then roads and another more modern canal system cut through the existing waterway to make the old system unusable. I wanted the canal to handle the "Euro" class ships that were around 1,250 tons. That meant that large ships could use the locks and trains then could not compete as easily. The fact that I would own the trains had no factor in this. We made charts as we went and stopped at the forts along the way. This was a main thoroughfare. The stops were to show that I was going to see Constantius II willingly and to also promote both Julian and my own point of view. The time finally came when the water was too shallow to go on. There was a nearby fort and Rufus and I tried parted. "You watch out for those Persians. They will stab you in the back as soon as look at you." I smiled at him and said, "I will wear my armour to bed for you." "That reminds me. Stay away from the women unless you keep your eyes open. They will stab you where your armour isn't." "I will keep that in mind too. My skin is important to me." "Not as important as it should be because you risk it too much." This may be true but I said instead, "One day though there will be locks here. You will be able to sail to the Danube and then down it. You just see about making some more ships like the Patricia. When I get back we can take the Enterprise out and perhaps sail to Persia." "I am already thinking of where to put the cannons. The canal you talked about was thought about for a long time but it was just too hard to dig. Maybe one day it will come about." I patted him on the back and said, "You will find it will come quicker than you think and I also think you will make one bloodthirsty captain with that cannon." It took a while to unload the ship. I think everybody in the fort was here to see a ship that actually moved without its sail or any oars. We had a lot of cargo. We even had a disassembled wagon to carry it and make our progress much faster. We stayed at the fort that night and Rufus said he would leave in the morning. I had another sermon and then more miracles as I cured some people of their afflictions. Everybody with me was in the crowd to get them stirred up. I think Rufus would tell a lot of tales over some free wine tonight. I had a chance to talk privately with the person in charge of the fort and we were able to copy some of the charts of the area. The future canals were in this area and I wanted to get some of the planning started now. I knew that soon more roads then a railway would compete for traffic. We rented some horses the next day after seeing Rufus off. The Nab river was close but it was not that navigable and I wanted to be ready for an attack. We were at a decided disadvantage in the shallow and narrow waterway. We had about a hundred and eighty kilometres to go on the road. It would take a few days. The owner of the horses came with us to take the animals back or hopefully rent them to people going the other way. On the way I worked on the man and his four helpers. All of which were his sons. One man had a club foot. He was treated first and rode in the wagon until the end of the trip. When we parted the man wanted to give his payment back. I said, "You earned your pay. You also have many mouths to feed." The man bowed his head but I allowed him to do this. I preached my way down the Danube. It was actually blue in colour because there was not all the industrial or agricultural affluent in it now. There was still shit because people still didn't see cause and effect when catching a disease. We came upon the home of the legion and we left our ship. We stayed there a week to rest and meet the families of the men Julian and I had straightened out on the Rhine. Those that stayed here learned what had happened on the Rhine and why it did. The fact that I had captured all the officers was attributed to the help of the gods because one young man could not do this alone. The executions hurt some but there was little I could do. The trip down the Danube took forty eight days. I estimated that the distance was around twenty five hundred kilometres but I stopped a lot along the way to spread the word and give out a book here and there. There was a shortcut that took us to the Black Sea a bit quicker by way of a shallow canal. We never had problems with the army unless it was to leave. They wanted me to stay as long as possible. I had cured many people of quite a few afflictions along the way. Word even got ahead of us and there were crowds waiting to see me everywhere I stopped. Now was the time to gather new information. Constantinople was only a little ways away and had recently been renamed from Byzantium by Julian's uncle when he was emperor or rather Augustus. The town of Constanta at the end of the short canal had been renamed too at about the same time. We paused at the mouth of the canal in the latter town The commander of the fort was very quick to invite me to stay with him until I found new transportation. He was a little surprised when he saw the orders from Constantius II and even more so when I was the one carrying them. Over a meal with all of his officers, I found that Constantius was most likely only three hundred kilometres away and in Constantinople. Communications in this day and age was slow to nonexistent. The officers marvelled at our armour and weapons but didn't seem to see that the pile of boxes with the stingers, mace and other weapons were even more destructive. The next day I had another meeting but this time it was with the population in general. My two dozen acolytes were now quite proficient in getting my words across to the crowd. I was not loud enough to get to all of them. It appeared the entire town was here to see and hear me. I would be here at least a few weeks. The idea was to learn and find out more of my options before proceeding. King Sapor II would have spies every place he could, or at least people that would report to him for a reward. The same thing was true of Constantius II. My problem was that I did not want the latter to find out anything until I was safely on my way to the former. In my reading of history I knew that there were a lot of spies or people hoping to turn a quick aureus. The army would not hesitate to drag me to the Augustus if he sent the orders for this to happen. Nearly fifty people were healed of their ailments but as usual, this only brought on calls for me to do even more. When I left the impromptu stage the acolytes read from the books to get the idea across to those that couldn't read or didn't have the chance to yet. After a few hours rest I began on the garrison. Like almost all legionnaires there was a lot of joint problems from all the walking and carrying heavy loads. I did what I could then had to rest once more. During my meetings with the population and with the Romans, I talked about making peace with the Persians. It was not phrased so that anybody would loose face. Constantius would want this too because he wanted to go west and take care of Julian. Sapor though was fighting the tribes around him at the moment and some of them were the Huns. Sapor II was the leader that allowed Persia to grow to its greatest extent and after him it was all downhill. I was sure he was not going to back off from a fight with Rome or Constantinople. I looked for ships that I could hire. Our numbers and cargo would fill most of them. I was also in need of someone going where I wanted and not where they wanted to trade. I was surprised about a good many things when I began to ask questions. There were apparently some very large ships that carried Egyptian grain to Rome. Though there were none here. From the dimensions given, I had to assume that they were able to carry 1,500 tonnes of grain at a time. A happier misconception was my idea that Rome didn't know of China. This was a mistake on my part as was the existence of a canal and lock system that would take ships down the Nile and to the Red Sea after a short trip overland. It was through some salty lakes but it was great when there was no Suez Canal yet. The existing canal had been built by the Persians I was told and then improved on by more Persians until recently Rome had taken this in hand. I had assumed that Arab traders had brought the silk that I used from China with no direct Roman contact. I even learned that the term Arab, was a misnomer because they were not to that stage yet to bear the name. They were of many different peoples with similar traits and customs. What made them known was their preoccupation with trade. They dealt in slaves, ivory and minerals from Africa and sailed their ships to India and beyond or went overland. I was happy that they had not found Japan. Nobody I talked to had heard of the country. My talk of the future Japan and people would show that there was something wrong. What customs I spoke of may never occur now. ------- Chapter 5 I went out to meet the people and this took me to the market. I saw a profusion of food that was not seen in Germany. There were strange vegetables and fruits but most I knew from my previous life but not all. I asked a great many questions. Most were about plants I was familiar with. There were most of the products I would find in a modern supermarket except potatoes, tomatoes, corn, peppers, squash, peanuts and some varieties of beans. These I think came from what would be called the new world when it was eventually discovered. I was there quite a while and found that there was even alfalfa and buckwheat. The latter I was not sure of but it seamed the best choice. There were watermelons, quince, plums, cherries, apples and peaches grown in the area but none were in season now. What I did see and purchase was some of was black pepper and cinnamon bark. When I asked about these products I found that it was kept a secret by the traders that brought it. Sugar cane was sold by the piece and I saw this as the answer to one of my goals. Sugar was termed 'white gold' when it came to Europe from the east. It was worth a great deal and was correspondingly taxed heavily. Slaves were purchased and moved to islands just to grow and process this crop. Rum was made from the sugar but I guess wine could be made from the crushed stems themselves. It wasn't long until I saw this product and tried it. It was not distilled so it was not strong and without the taste of the fruit. I hid my excitement and got the merchants to describe what they knew about odd plants that could be eaten. Some was grown in Turkey. I found that a lot more was grown in Iran, Iraq and Egypt. Many plants grew very well here but I assumed they had been brought here a long time ago by travellers. I found a small selection of carpets. The ones I saw were small and I remembered how expensive the large and high quality ones were. I even had one in my home. Silk was more readily available but not much cheaper. While looking over one of the stalls I heard and vaguely felt the scrape of a blade on my thin armour. The push was not much but enough to let me know that someone was trying to kill me. I fell away from the small push then a second as something went around my armour. This time there was a sharp pain. I turned my head and saw a man with worried look and a dagger in his hand. I didn't think he expected to find steel next to my skin. Usually a man operated with accomplices and I tried to think of those around me that I had noticed when I came to the stall. This happened in only a fraction of a second. I rolled between two people and got up with my k-bar in my hand. Blood was leaking and I took a second to close off all the supply while looking for more threats. The pain was similarly treated. The man came in now that it looked like the wound was not fatal. I had none of the guards with me because I didn't think that I needed them yet. My katana was still on my back but the crowd was still too close. I was not worried about one man if I was armoured but there may be more. I also wanted to find out why I was attacked. The crowd parted some and I moved toward my assailant. He didn't watch my knife but instead watched my eyes. It was easy to see that this man was a professional. He tried some fancy movements of the knife and I decided to play a fool and watch his knife. When the knife went to his left hand I knew that it would probably come back quickly while I was focussed elsewhere and he would lunge forward. He would also go for my abdomen or my exposed body because he knew now that I wore armour. The man smiled and the knife made one more circuit before the man lunged forward. I had both hands close together and when he lunged I moved the knife to my left hand which I could use as well as my right. I deflected the blade from my neck and kicked the man in the crotch because he was not prepared for this. He closed his eyes in pain and my own right hand came out and I hit the man's throat with my fist. The man started to fall and I saw that he was bringing his knife back for either another strike or possibly to keep his own lips sealed. Ninja were supposed to do this as well as any dedicated assassin. My left hand dropped with the knife and I risked holding the wrist back with my own as I tried to make contact with the man's body. I had to fall onto him to keep the knife away long enough to keep the man rigid. As soon as I could I regained my feet and drew my sword to look for additional enemies. Three men looked at me differently than the rest of the crowd then one after another they faded back. To chase any of them may mean that one more would take my captive or his life from me. I checked the windows and rooftops looking for a man with a bow. Many people were looking out but none with a weapon. The watch came by in five minutes. I would not let anybody near, and spoke to the four Romans as I continued to scan those around me. Two of the watch carried the man while the other two and I looked for more threats. When we came to the fort, the man went to my room. I paid the guards a gratuity for their help. Some of my own men were present and quickly got up to see what had happened. In moments they were putting on some armour and kept their swords close. The man was certainly reluctant to talk. I had a visit from the commander later but he could shed nothing on the matter. He did stay to see me work on the man and he was surprised to see me beating the man with a tiny feather. I was sure this would get around very quickly. It took close to three hours to get the man to talk. I got some subtle hints when I mentioned religion and found the man to be a Christian. He was part of a radical group designed to get rid of those that they saw as harmful to their cause. This did not surprise me because the Jews were the same way and the men were called 'assassins' as a corruption of the word hashish. On further questioning the man admitted to using the ergot. I knew that it was mostly from the ergot on rye that made them high. The fungus produced some very active alkaloids and were much like LSD. This I had once put forward as the reason that the religion started. I had been ostracised for a long time about that. The truth was that many religions used drugs to induce visions. It seemed that the main headquarters was in Antioch. This was also where Julian in the other time would start out. The Senate in Antioch was very much influenced by the Christians as this was one of the only places at one time that they could operate openly from. The man was taken away but not before I said, "The man will die soon. It will either be from one of your men being paid to do so or from some poisoned water or food." "He has already told you what you want to know." "The others do not know that." The commander looked at my bloodied clothing and the mark on my armour but was very amazed at how my wound was already healing. He said, "You are lucky they did not use poison on their blades." "I think so too." The next day I went back to the market but now I had six men in armour walking with me. The men I talked to yesterday were more hesitant to talk to me today. It may be that they feared that they may get hit in the crossfire or they did not like my new company. I was now more anxious to get out of the city. It was not so much militant Christians but the same could be said for all other religions. Even believers in the old gods would be upset with me. The Frisian priests of Woden were that way. Later, they could see that I was not quite taking away their believers but just altering their viewpoint. This also meant that the priests had to learn the new facts and they did in a round about way. Constantius II would send a summons soon and I would not be in a good position to defy it. Now was not the time to show that I was working on my own. A ship came into the harbour and a man at the port was quick to find me. "My lord, a Persian ship has come into the harbour with cotton." I asked, "From Persia?" "No my lord. They would be seized. It is from Mesopotamia but the crew are all Persians." I handed the man a handful of asses and he happily left me to think. Gennadius was with me and said, "Do you want me to find out about the captain and crew my lord?" "You better get changed first. You look too much like you belong with me." I got a smile and he hurried off after telling the rest of the men to be even more vigilant. I continued being a tourist but I usually had a man at my back and both sides. I did not like this but I wanted to be alive to continue my plan. It was hours later and back in our apartment that Gennadius returned. He had a big smile so I produced one myself. "My lord, the man is Persian and comes from Cappadocia. I know that there are many powerful men there. He is not a Christian though." This was northern Turkey and just south east of us across the Black Sea. This was disputed land and was more under the sway of King Sapor II than Constantius. Gennadius spent nearly five minutes talking about all he found and what he felt at the meeting. I said, "I think I will have to meet the man." Later that afternoon I had another sermon on what Woden expected of us and how to treat those with different beliefs and religions. Captain Mithridates was one of the men specifically invited to come so he could witness the healings. Men came forward to talk about what they had witnessed in previous sermons and how the patients were improving. Men with cataracts and children with deformities were all shown as being healed. There were still many children that were in need of some help but again most of this could not be seen until the child fully recovered. Lesions, boils and open sores were cured before an hour was up but they were still not fully healed. Mithridates was brought forward with a scar on his face. I said, "Do you wish to have this scar removed?" "You can do that too?" "The scar will go but that side of your face will still not be like the other. It will be much closer though. The healthy skin will be pink and burn easy in the sun." He gave me a gap-toothed smile and I called out, "Woden, lend me your strength. A man with a scar is beseeching you to remove his disfigurement. Let your power flow through me and into this man that may one day look up to you in love." The captain got a shot of endorphins as if Woden had touched him. Mithridates sagged under the jolt but was held erect by the acolytes that knew what to expect. I began to tell his body what to do but the result would take a few weeks to complete or much quicker with a more treatments. I treated one more man with three missing fingers. It looked like he was one of Mithridates' crew members. "Woden, will you help this man feed his family by giving him three new fingers? He needs them to work on his ship and to protect his family and friends. This took a while longer but he too felt a surge of pleasure flow through his body before I actually began to work. In another hour I was too tired to continue. The acolytes read from the two books, the passages I wanted mentioned. They usually dealt with forgiveness of past wrongs, if a man had really reformed. We had our supper at the fort, eating what the soldiers would eat. I was invited to many homes but I wanted to be with the soldiers to show some solidarity. Later I slipped out with Gennadius and two more men to find Mithridates. The captain was inside a wine shop when Gennadius found him. No words were mentioned but the captain soon followed Gennadius outside. The two went down an alley to another street and behind a house the two men came to me. Mithridates didn't seem to be too worried. I would have been in his place. He asked me, "My lord, what may I do for you?" "I want to meet your king. This requires me to know where he is. I need transportation for my men, myself and all my belongings." The captain thought for a moment and asked, "What do you want with my king?" There was no reason for him to know but I had to give him some information or I would get nowhere. "King Sapor II is fighting both Rome and many other enemies. I want to talk to him about peace with the Roman Empire and the destruction of his enemies." "Are you a representative of Constantius?" "That is for your king to hear. I have told you my wishes. Are you able to provide transportation to where your king may be?" The man seemed to think then said, "I can do this for you." We talked about money now and the use of his entire ship. I didn't want him stopping at ports along the way where Constantius' men may find me. All I found out is that he may be near Syria at the moment. The next morning my entourage purchased provisions and sent them to the ship while I thanked the commander of the fort for his hospitality. The man tried to keep me for a few more days but I think this was just his way of being polite. The Black Sea had very little tide and we made a hurried exit. The commander came to see me off and happily said that the captive was still alive. "What will happen to him now?" "He tried to murder you. I do not think the magistrate will let him live." "Ask for clemency in my name. If he is sold as a slave, it will be his people that either kill or purchase him." The man smiled and said, "Then I should have people bid high to see how far they will go." "They will think it cheaper to just kill him." "I do too but I will keep him very safe." There were a lot more people coming to see me off. This is what I wanted to avoid but it didn't look possible. I had a small sermon and did what I could for the few that came to see me. I did hurry to the ship though because we would be here forever if I did not get moving. Mithridates gave me his destination only after we were on our way. He said Syria but it was not Antioch. The trip I estimated to be about 2,500 to 3,000 kilometres and should take three to four weeks to complete. I got the men to relax and remove their armour because there were few people around. I was proved wrong. Two hours later a ship mainly powered by rowers surged forward. I had a box of stingers nearby but the ship continued right past. This could be an innocent or not so innocent courier. It could also be one of the groups opposed to me and what I was trying to do. I just hoped that they would think I was going to see Constantius instead of going right by. It took three days to get to the Bosporus. I had never been here before and found the land, homes and view enchanting. I knew there were bridges in the future but there were none here now. Ferries served this purpose now as well as in the future. We came to a Roman checkpoint but we were now in dirty clothing to hide our identities. Our weapons and armour hidden below. Mithridates slipped the leader a few silver coins and we continued on our way. Constantinople was the largest city I had seen so far. It was also bright and open apart from the large wall surrounding it. This had saved the city many times but not always. I was able to see inside, because the city was built on a hill and I could see above the wall. It was only an hour after that we were on the Sea of Marmara and headed for the Dardanelles. We reached this area nearly a day later only because Mithridates took advantage of the favourable wind and the light of the stars. Again we got through with just a bribe instead of a search. The land here though was even more beautiful in its way. Towns were seen from the deck because the buildings were all built on the sides of the hills facing the channel. Our time was spent learning to speak the language of our hosts. I got a chance to do some additional writing on my next book. I treated more of the crew to my healing and the crew could see that their captain's face was slowly changing. The flesh had not been put back in the position it should be but it was now rearranging only because I was here to make it so. Sailors being sailors had a lot of diseases but thankfully there was no plague. Fifteen days after setting out, we pulled into Crete to get more food and water. Mithridates was happy with our time but I knew that I could have made much better with Patricia even with only her sails. Mithridates did not have the ability to tack far off the wind and his hull was not shaped for efficiency. We went out for the night even though it looked like rain. I had time for one sermon, some readings from the books and a few healings. Some of the men came back at dawn or stayed on the ship through the storm that lashed the island. This was a vacation for my men as much as for me. The only venue they had a chance to adequately see were the wineshops and the brothels. I talked to Mithridates during the storm about how his ship should have been constructed and he nodded his head in agreement. He learned that my ship was larger than his and what it could carry with and without a full barge towed behind it. He was unbelieving at first but I explained away all of the finer details. He liked the idea of being in the shelter of the wheelhouse instead of being in the weather at the tiller. Some ships had a protection for the man on the steering oars from the elements but was open in the front and the rear. I worked with him to find ways of improving his own ship with as little disruption as possible. Mithridates talked to me about the giant grain carrying ships that could only sail in the calm waters of the Mediterranean. They were slow and unstable and we talked about how to improve them. Mithridates liked the idea of the much larger keel when I mentioned that it was like a giant fin. Early the next morning we set off once again. The weather was still overcast but looked like it would improve later. We were now heading almost due east toward Cyprus. Mithridates didn't like staying far from shore if he could help it. The next day we passed a large island. We stayed well away but we were told this would be the last we saw of land for seven or eight more days. It was less than an hour later that one of the sailors called our attention to a large ships with oarsmen pulling hard to intercept us. Mithridates turned white and called for every man to arm themselves. I asked, "Who are they?" "Pirates. You better put your armour on but I think we will die anyway." The lookout called again and this time I stood on the rail. I saw another ship like the first and then perhaps two more but smaller. On a hunch I looked to our starboard side and saw two more of the smaller craft approaching. My own men hurried to put on their armour and so did I. I ordered six boxes of stingers brought out of storage and one of mace. All the time I was wondering how to defeat this many pirates. I turned to Mithridates when armed and said, "I do not like pirates. Send your men below. They are not protected like we are. There is no sense them dying for nothing. All I want you to do is get me close to the first ship so I can board her. The rest of the ships we will have to take on one at a time." Mithridates gave me a dumb look and had to say, "You want to attack that ship then the rest? There must be a hundred rowers and maybe up to sixty marines on the ship." "Did you not hear of how I treated the Roman Legions that attacked our land? The Gauls suffered even more losses. An attack is actually better for us. I do not want to frighten you but one more ship like this is approaching along with four smaller ships." Mithridates started to shake and I held his shoulder and let some endorphins flow through his body. I said, "The gods are with us. You will see that I have the power of Thor's hammer very soon." Mithridates slowly recovered and then nodded his head. I gave him his orders while his men hid below decks. There was protection here because there was a deck over the rowers to stack deck cargo. I spent the last few minutes telling my own men what to do and added, "You are wearing armour. If you slip into the ocean you will not have time to remove it before drowning. I want you with me later, so be careful." The first ship cut ahead of us and stopped in our path. Mithridates cut his speed like so many other ships would have done before. We had enough time to aim towards the stern of the ship. The ship was truly long. It must have been nearly thirty five metres in length. This was a major warship not something that a pirate would use. At fifteen metres, arrows rained down on us but we too had drawn bows. We used regular arrows now and took out those that opposed us. A great many arrows came our way until the survivors decided to stay behind the rail or their shields. The second ship came close and then turned to the side to give us a broadside. I had stingers ready because I didn't want their underwater prow to sink us. Apparently they wanted us alive or just our cargo. It was becoming difficult to walk the deck because of the number of arrows. The smaller ships got close and they too started to fire on us. We took out about a hundred men but it was only when they started to fire our own arrows back at us and puncture our armour that I started to use the stingers. The first explosion stopped everybody that was shooting because the noise was something they had never heard before. My own men were the same way even though they had been told. I started to fire above the rowers at the ship in front of us. I put a stinger every four metres then quickly worked on the smaller ships because they would be the ones that could more easily get away. My best archers had one stinger each and they started to do as I had ordered before the battle broke out. The ship beside us now was stung six times and I resorted to using the regular arrows once more. Two ships tried to limp away and I went back to stingers for a moment. We used up all of our arrows and some of those that had been fired at us. Return fire had diminished to almost none but we continued to fire. They asked for no quarter and I was not prepared to give any if they asked. Much later I found that nobody showed their faces and I got Mithridates to move us forward quickly. I was at the bow and the abrupt stop almost knocked me into the ocean. It took only a few seconds but I was able to climb through the wreckage and gain the deck. I had not only my sword and knife but a wooden bat which I hoped would be less fatal if the need arose. I didn't plan on using it much. The deck had blood all over it and parts of men scattered with it. I moved quickly to take out the few that were getting up. I didn't want my own people hampered by men with swords as they tried to gain the deck. When two reinforcements gained the deck, I left to take care of the few living pirates. I was able to use the club for three or four minutes before I had to resort to the sword. It took only a few minutes before the men started to throw down their swords and beg for mercy. It took only another moment before all of them were doing the same thing. Three men were left here and I got back on our ship and headed to the other warship. Here there were less survivors and those interested in dying were given the chance. Again three men were left and we went to the remaining four ships. These had less protection and many more dead and dying. We were in control of the small damaged fleet. I went into the lower decks and found some very frightened slaves chained to their oars. We also found about fourteen more men hiding below and these were dragged to the decks and bound. Mithridates breathlessly came up beside me and said, "I do not believe it. None of you are badly hurt and you have captured six ships with probably five hundred men." I turned to see that all of Mithridates crew were all here with us so I said, "They were afraid of facing you too and there looks to be about only two hundred and thirty to two hundred and sixty pirates." He just gaped at me and I smiled and said, "Do you want to go looking for more?" He turned white so I guess he didn't. The surviving pirates were all stripped to get rid of hidden weapons. They were bound and put at the stern of the ship the first ship because that one was damaged less than the rest. I went down the stinking decks and did what I could to reassure those I found. There were still some dead here too and I could do nothing about it. The bodies were put on decks and so were the injured slaves. The last group were very worried because this usually meant that they were thrown into the sea to drown. I spoke in my Latin and limited Persian to reassure them a bit more. Two more men died but the rest were healing and should survive. Mindful of death and disease I gave a quick service for the dead and they went into the sea with a stone from the ballast at the bottom of the ships. This had to be done six times and then water had to be used to sluice the decks. My body and mind were fatigued but I forced myself to go below once more. I said to the slaves, "My name is Jón of Germania. I do not like slavery and most if not all of you are going to be freed." I had to leave myself some room to move in this but the men were all dumfounded. Mithridates said the same thing in Persian and then I spoke in German. This was done on both decks and I got the men to say their names, nationalities and where they came from. Three quarters were native to this area. Others went to the remaining ships and they carried my message. Mithridates had his own men start to bring the uninjured pirates to the ship I was now on. They were assessed and sent below to man the oars that were now vacant. The penalty now for attack on these men was death even if the pirates deserved it. Our crew was split up among the ships to keep order and to direct my commands. Our ship was tied astern and the slave rowers began to do their jobs as the ship slowly went forward then made a slow turn to come to land. The captain of this ship and the two highest officers were dead but I was able to question some of the others. Apparently somebody had paid to have us attacked, our property seized and all of us put to death and our bodies cast into the sea. Even the ship was to be set afire and destroyed. The ship worked out of an island a half day from here and they had been waiting here for us. Once the answers started coming then all the rest were eager to tell me all that they knew. What I did find interesting was that the ship had left recently and it was supposedly going to Constantinople. The mark of the cross was on the ship in two places. I got names and descriptions but I could not do much about it at the moment. It struck me as odd that the people with the gold did not stay to claim the goods I had. The number of ships and men sent against me showed that they were very leery of attacking me. The course was now set for the home base of the pirates. We took our time because we were not in that much of a need to hurry. I went through the captain's quarters and found maps, documents, hidden places with jewels and gold as well as a strong box. I even had the key that had been around the captain's neck. I went back to questioning the pirates as they worked on the oars to clear up some of the points. The pirates were financed by somebody rich and important. There was no mention of names but I worked on the pirates all the time to get their boss's identity. All I got was an apparent underling. It looked like some of the dead could have provided better answers. The slaves were brought in one at a time and questioned more readily with my men and Mithridates trying to catch them in lies. Quite a few men claimed to be innocent of their original crimes but usually recanted in a moment to tell the truth about their past. Some were deserters from one army or another but others were men that had been captured when a city was sacked. It was a long process and I only got through part of the three hundred and seventy two surviving slaves. By the time we got to the base, I had a layout of the town and even a method of taking the municipality. We anchored off the island and I went to each of the ships and told the slaves what I was going to do. This would allow them a chance to escape with our numbers low but I also promised to bring them home. They had not heard of me but they had seen firsthand how I had saved some of them. Mithridates and his men watched my little fleet as my own armoured men went across the island on a path that was only fit for goats. It was near dawn when we gained the wall of the town with a grappling hook and some rope. Once a small door was opened we all got in. We split up into four groups and took a barracks that was nearly empty, while the other three went to find the watch and any of the guards that should have been watching for us. Some of our own men stayed to do this duty in case some managed to get by us. "I want some living people to answer questions." The men were quiet but nodded. Four major homes were attacked at nearly the same time. There were a lot of guards but I didn't see them as pirates so cut them some slack. Mace was used a few times and this cut down on some deaths and damage to property. The town must have known what was happening because there were nobody on the streets even at noon. We were all weary and many of us were wounded one way or another but thankfully there was nothing major. Mithridates brought the ships around and docked them just before noon. A hundred slaves were released to do some of the work for us. They helped find those hiding but they were usually the families of the pirates. We slept in rotation and we worked through the next night organising the town. The barracks held the well-to-do families while the men were shackled with the pirates on one of the ships. There were a lot of wounds to treat and they had being processed as I found time to do so. It was on the third day that I was able to put on my robes and have a service. As usual, the weak were treated first and the rest could usually see some of the improvements already. I had a long talk to the crowd about their futures. Some would be very bleak indeed. Most were slaves and their future may even be worse in a way. The rest of the slaves from the ships were freed and sent into the city. These men were stunned though they usually had the freedom of the city to run errands for their masters. When an opponent died the victor got the spoils of war. I found that I now not only had a fleet of warships but a town full of people. I did not want this at all. We started to have trials for the pirates. Information came out about how bad or kind they were and this was recorded. Clovis had to do this many times but I was not even a king in this country. Death was the only answer in most cases though I looked hard for a substitute. Some of the pirates talked about hidden riches as a way of saving their necks. We actually found some. The executions were put off for a while though. I still didn't have enough information yet. If all this was not enough I had to have a police force because the slaves wanted wine, women and revenge. It took only three quick executions before the town were peaceful again. People came to me now with their problems. This was good that they did not see me as a tyrant but it was also wearing for me personally because I had no wish to be a mayor or a king. I figured that the place for me was influencing kings and emperors into what was right. Any other way would also eat up the time I had to develop what this world needed even if they did not know it yet. Those that could read went from house to house to question people and to find documents. They usually found a lot of wealth. It was listed and brought to a safe location. In a way it was mine but in another it was not. In any case I knew where everything came from. A very large treasure trove was found. There were gold coins from everywhere in the known world and some were very old. The weight in coins was greater than what two men would weigh. There was fantastic art from all over the empire and beyond. There was so much here that I felt humbled. This house was owned by Aulus Labienus. He was the head pirate and the treasure was behind a hidden wall in what would be a basement. I should have realised this because few Romans had a basement. The male slaves and a woman that showed us were rewarded with some endorphins and a lot of my work to make them as healthy as possible. The men took this like a benediction but the old lady had to hold my hand with two of hers and said, "My lord you do not have to give me much. I am old. There is one I would rather have this given to." This was odd. The woman was showing some compassion for others and I could not discount this. "Tell me about this other." She got unsteadily to her feet and took me by the hand. She lead me to a small room. Along the way she told me of a Persian girl that was thinking of killing herself and had to be restrained by Labienus, the previous master of this home. "She is such a nice girl. She does not speak our language well but I do not want to see her come to harm. I will be happy that she gets help." An old man stood outside the door and bowed to me to enter. Two of my own men came with me everywhere I went. I opened the door and found a women curled up on a pad on the floor. She did not even look up. The room smelt of shit and urine so I had to guess that the woman was very despondent. My hand touched the arm but the woman did not react much. She had some problems that had to do with not only her mind but her body. She had a mild case of diabetes and I worked on this much quicker than I had the first time. The woman's blood was in bad shape since she must have been refusing to eat. I fed the woman some of her endorphins and asked the old woman to get food and water. "She will not eat of drink my lord. We have tried." "I will have to show her my charm. Please get what I need." To the old man I said, "Please bring a picture of warm water, soap and a large bowl." The man didn't question me but left. I worked more on the girl until the food came. The girl had to be held up and I got her to drink some then she began to eat. It think it was because she felt better with the endorphins running through her system. As I fed the girl I asked the old women, "Tell me about Aulus Labienus." I had learned a lot but now I got the lowdown from the slaves the man kept. The man had no wife but there were a lot of his children foisted on slave women. The woman had not finished by the time the food was and I said, "I want you to bathe the woman. She smells. Find her some clean clothes and then have somebody else clean out this room." "Yes, my lord but the girl will look for a knife or anything that will take her life." "I will ask the gods to take her strength for a short time. She will be too weak to even stand. I will come back later and see what I can do for her." "Thank you my lord. Woden is such a powerful god." There was much more work to do so I left the room but now had the property checked even more for hidden places that would have correspondence with who was behind this. The days passed and the town got back to what a normal town would be like. Farmers came to sell their wares and they were not robbed. The police were very efficient. People didn't want crime in the first place and now had a way of getting rid of it. I had gone back to Labienus' home a few times. The old woman still got what I had given the men. She got even more for doing such a good job on the young woman. The young women was about sixteen and actually fairly pretty. She was much too thin though and needed to fill out a bit more. When I came into the room she brightened a bit but hid it well. I still liked her but I knew that she was very fragile. In a large room with other people present, I said in my poor Pahlavi, the language of the Persians, "How are you feeling today?" "I am better now thank you..." "That is good to hear. By the way, I do not even know your name. Will you tell me?" She did some thinking then said, "KhAvar." The way she waited it was as if she was going to be attacked. "KhAvar is a good name. Will you tell me what it means?" She tried to tell me and I had to call an old man over that could speak both languages. He waited a bit and talked to the girl and he said, "It means the place where the sun rises, brightness or light." "Thank you. I need a lot of help in your language." The man smiled and left. KhAvar though looked at me expectantly now and I wondered why until I understood. "KhAvar, will you help me learn your language? I have been trying now for a few weeks but I am not learning fast enough." She smiled sweetly and looked at the floor because this was not proper for her to look me in the eye. I put my hand out and lifted her chin. "KhAvar, I need to see you when you speak to me. We are from different lands and we have different customs. Women in my land are stronger in a way and that I think is good. You too have to get stronger because I have to walk around a lot and you have to come with me." She looked worried and I added softly, "You will not get hurt." She seemed to find a bit of strength and gave me a smile. We did walk around and I kept the pace slow. I talked to people about their problems and got KhAvar to supply a translation for me. In a way I was teaching her Latin too. We went out to the docks and saw that the ships were being altered for a larger mast and the rails repaired. I had to find employment for the former slaves or they would get into trouble. Mithridates was working on his own ship. There were lots of men and he was putting into use what I had told him about mine. He gave me a smile then one to KhAvar. He talked in simple Pahlavi to me and I tried to get KhAvar to do the translation of certain words though Mithridates could do it much easier. I had been putting off a lot of decisions. There were some executions to complete and then the resumption of my trip to see Sapor. The town needed some help and I still needed some answers. My commitment to repatriating the slaves was not that hard because they were mostly Persians. When I left, I would have to take all of the ships with me to accommodate those that wanted to go. The slaves in the city thought the same thing and they too wanted passage to their homeland. There would be few people that would want to stay I figured when I left. I tried my best to work on everybody so they would be as healthy as possible. It also gave me a chance to chat with them and see just what they were like. The same in reverse was also true. The Persians mostly believed in Zoroastrianism. This religion was very old and predated Christianity by a thousand years. Christianity borrowed a great many features from this belief. My classes in comparative religions had not mentioned much and I had never had much of a hope of meeting these people. I also never thought I would meet a real Roman or a Frisian either. I was interested and asked questions and they asked questions of me. The converts had been reading my books to the masses and now they wanted clearer answers. There were usually some children around and I had one or more in my lap as I talked. This was pleasant for me and the children but also showed that I was not violent. At talks like this, there were usually a lot of people and I knew that most would or did change their religion. Wodenism was much more structured with answers for most problems. The latest book would have even more clarifications. Zoroaster was a man much like me I thought and had some very nice ideas. He professed that we were in a war of good and evil that would only be fully won when the earth ended. I made friends with the men that professed this religion and we debated all that was really important. They saw that I felt the same way as they did but didn't have the flashy ceremonies and icons that an old religion would pick up over the years. The men learned that I got upset if they objected to women and children answering my questions. Women were chattels to the Persians and the Romans though they had a strong position within the home. Here was one of the places where Wodenism differed from other religions. The ships would not be ready for another three weeks so I relaxed in my new lifestyle. I took over Aulus Labienus' home. One night while reading a book with KhAvar sitting on the floor doing the same thing. While she was leaning against me I said, "KhAvar." "Yes... Jón." "I have talked to a lot of women recently. Some of them needed to be healed in the body and the mind. Some of those were with child. If the child is very small I can ask the woman's body to reject it. In a day or so the woman has started to heal. I always ask them if they want to keep the child or not. It is not up to me to end the life." KhAvar closed the book and looked at me worriedly. "Why do you tell me this?" I put my hand out to her and tried to get her to feel a bit more relaxed and said, "I am sorry, but I have to ask you too." KhAvar cried on my leg for ten minutes then looked up at me with tear filled eyes. "I do not want that man's child." "Are you sure?" "Yes." I concentrated on KhAvar's womb and in a few seconds said, "You are not pregnant any longer." KhAvar just went back to crying but many of the other women had done the same. It was a few minutes later that she started to tell me her tale of how she was taken off a ship by pirates and then raped by the man that once owned this house. It took an hour to get it all out because it came in fits and starts. My hand stayed on her head and I whispered soothing sounds. When she could take it no more I just put her to sleep and carried her into her room. She had to share the room with others and this really was to keep an eye on her. KhAvar was reassured the next day with a hug and a kiss and from then on she hardly left my side. Later that day she whispered that she was losing some blood. I touched her and saw no trace of the fetus and she was healing quite adequately. "Everything is as it should be. In a few days you will be completely healed." She started to cry now and I held her in the street. During the rest of the week I got the children of the town to play sports. Those that didn't know how to swim were taught. I had lifeguards at this event but many of the Persians didn't know how to swim either. The situation getting really back to normal when we started having drunken brawls. As long as there was no weapons used and the men were evenly matched the police only stayed to watch. Human nature was such that they would never learn and at least this way they could see the damage the next day. The girls were getting back to normal too because some of the slave women were being courted by the menfolk. Some of the ladies hinted that they were available but I had control of my body for the most part. The men of the town were inducted into the Roman Army in a way and they were trained in how to fight when they were not working. This cut down on the fights a bit but they had to have some personal time too. It was two and a half weeks after I arrived that I conducted the first marriage though I had one baptism already with a very healthy boy. KhAvar told me quietly, "I cannot marry now because I lost my dowery." I put my book down and said, "I will find your dowery if it is here and give it back to you." This shocked the girl and she began to cry. This was not a cry of happiness though. It took a moment to figure it out. If she had the dowery then she could get married to the man she was supposed to marry. It went unsaid if the man would except her. In some cultures, she was sullied goods. I picked up her face once more and said in a whisper, "I think you are very desirable, KhAvar." She stopped crying immediately and I saw her smile through her tears. There was a lot of thinking going on in my own mind and I asked, "Would you like to sleep with me tonight?" She seemed shocked then she looked pleased. "I do not know how to do anything." "Then we will both have fun as you learn." In the coming hours, KhAvar was shocked and pleased no end. She was quiet when her orgasm came and I worked to make them more intense. It was after one that she was screaming her joy for the whole household to hear. Nobody came running with weapons and I knew that everybody had heard. KhAvar clung to me even more tenaciously the next morning. I moved her limbs and slipped into her again and we didn't get out of bed until noon. KhAvar was very embarrassed when she got up and I just kissed her and helped her get dressed. This too was not in her culture. The servants were all smiles and KhAvar kept her red face pointing at the ground. The old women that had introduced me to KhAvar was smiling the most and I knew that she was actively being courted by a man of her age. I stage whispered to KhAvar, "Do you think she got anything last night?" KhAvar was a bit shocked then smiled and said nothing. The redness left a bit. Later that day, one of my personal guards came running to me, "My lord, a Roman warship is approaching." "Hide the men in the ships as if they are chained still. I want the town to look like what it was like before." KhAvar was very worried but said nothing. I turned to her and said with a smile, "I am trying to learn information that is new to me." "They could take me away." "Not from me they will not." This made her feel better and in a way it made me feel the same way. I ran out to talk to the people to act normal but I thought it was a lost cause. A ship pulled in that was almost as long as the two longer ones of mine. The crew were very professional and the oars were pulled in all at the same time while the man at the sweeps brought the ship in perfectly. Men were nearby and they took the cast ropes and tied them to the posts. Some marines got out and then some sailors made the ship secure. Two dozen armed men came ashore and marched directly to the gates. In a few minutes they were at the house I lived at. The servants were told what to do and they opened the door and invited the men in. I came down the steps with only my k-bar at my waist. My men were in the house waiting to be called and my katana was hidden but still close. The leader looked to have some purple in his clothing and I could detect that this man was very well placed. Without preliminaries he said, "Where is Aulus Labienus?" I just looked at him for a few seconds and said in a quiet voice, "He is no longer with us." "Where did he go?" "Into the sea." Now the man started to think and in a quieter voice he said, "Aulus Labienus was storing some things for us." "Do you have some records of this?" The man got angry now but controlled himself. "I do not need records. Aulus Labienus owes me." "I took over from the man." "You are only a boy..." He then opened his eyes wide because he must recognise me now. I said, "You know me now. Will you give me your name?" The man was hesitant now but then said as if biting his tongue, "Sextus Domitius Bellator." "Will you have some wine with me Sextus?" "I must be getting back to my ship." "You race here and demand the presence of a dead man then have to leave? That is not very courteous. The day is hot and the wine is cool." The man now wanted something and he said, "I would enjoy some wine." "Please have a seat." I called out for some wine and it was brought in by KhAvar instead of the usual servant. I just ignored her and she placed goblets down and then went back to get jug of wine. When she left, my visitor said, "How did you come by ownership of this property?" "Oh, by right of conquest I guess. He tried to kill me and I killed him first. The gods look unfavourably on somebody trying to kill me." Some of the others in the room must recognise me but didn't even try for their weapons. I had to assume that they did not see me as an enemy. I was not sure how much they saw me as a threat though. Sextus in a quieter voice said, "There is some property stored here for me." "Again I ask, do you have some documents? There is a great deal here." "Where?" "I guess I can show you." The man got up and so did the rest. "Please show me." "This is sensitive. I will show just you." "My men have to accompany me." "Then I guess you do not want to see it." I took a sip of wine and waited. Sextus started to get angry again and then said, "Is it nearby. My guards will have to stay within calling distance." "That is fine by me. Will you come now? It is in the basement." The man got up but two guards went down first with candles and then came up after making a search. Sextus went down the steps and I said to the guards, "Do not come down unless you are called. If you come otherwise I will simply kill you." They looked at their master and he nodded his head. Sextus and I now had the candles and I soon lit two oil lamps. I opened the hidden door but listened for the Romans and for Sextus. I put the lamp down on the floor so the light from it shone on the gold. When Sextus tried to get by to see what was there I held his two hands and said, "You may not take anything out of this vault." Sextus was trying to form a reply when I was able to interface with him. The man went wild touching everything that caught his eye which was everything that was shiny. He then opened sacks and poured gold out into his hands then put it back. I was sure he was taking inventory. It was a few minutes later that one of the guards asked from the top of the steps, "Is everything alright?" Sextus was very blunt, "Yes, everything is fine. Do not bother me." I moved close now as if to touch a sack and touched Sextus long enough to make him freeze. In a low voice I said, "The gods gave me the ability to heal with my touch or to kill the same way. I can also give you pain that nobody has ever felt before. I want to know about your deal with Aulus Labienus. As an incentive you will feel the pain for a few seconds without the ability to sleep." Sextus was laid on the floor facing the gold and then I went and tweaked his nervous system. The silent scream was obvious and I busied myself with making the noise or moving objects. In fifteen seconds I stopped the pain. When Sextus came around I said, "That was fifteen seconds. I can make it look like you have fallen and been hurt. For the rest of you life you will feel that pain. The only part about it is that you will not live more than a few days but it will feel like eternity." Sextus started to babble and I gave him another fifteen seconds. It was only ten minutes later that I got some names. Sextus was very willing to add, "They are not the head of this organisation. I do not know who it is but he is powerful. He will kill you." "He may try. Now I am going to give you back the control of your body. I am afraid you are going to be very weak for a few days." I helped Sextus to his feet and then to a chair. I closed the vault door and again helped Sextus walk. "If you yell out I will not be around to keep the pain away. Do you think the men above or your masters will want to know that you told me about them?" He just shook his head. When we got to the foot of the steps the men wanted to come down until I whispered, "Come down here and you will die." It was Sextus that whispered, "Stay there." ------- Chapter 6 The soldiers were anxious but waited until we got to the top of the steps. One man took part of my burden and said, "What happened?" He was overcome with what he saw. His breathing rate increased. I think it was just excitement." Two men wanted to leave and took a few steps when I said, "Do you really want to die that much. They stopped and put their hands on their swords and so did some of the others. I just looked calmly at each of them and they took their hands away from their weapons. I moved closer to Sextus and said, "Give him a seat and his wine." The soldiers were reluctant to follow my orders until Sextus yelled at them with a weak voice, "Do it fools." When Sextus was seated, I touched him. He flinched but I continued, "Woden, please allow your servant to heal this man of Rome. His heart is weak and he needs your help to survive." Sextus got a jolt of pleasure that lasted a full minute until he came down with a smile on his face. "Your gods are certainly powerful. I had heard that you could heal but I was not sure. We hear so much about new gods and about how old our old ones are." "You hear a lot and from many reputable sources but you have seen and felt a miracle while the others talk about what was supposedly done long ago. Blind men have been made to see. The deaf now hear like they did as children. The scarred are now whole. The wounded have their wounds closed. The cripples now walk. The plague is even bested if the people get to me in time." "I have heard this too but I did not believe." "Ask those that saw this with their own eyes. Do not let hearsay lead your thoughts. Woden is a benevolent god that wants to see all of us prosper." One of the officers had a scar on his face and I walked in front of him. "Would you like Woden to remove that scar? It is painless. I only ask in return that you speak truthfully about me and our god." The man was unsure but in a moment agreed. "You may do this if you will." I held the man's hand to interface then said, "You had best sit. When Woden enters your body you feel a bliss that nobody can imagine." The man sat on a chair and I interfaced once more and gave him the joy and his features went slack. I started his body into repairing itself and directed it to work harder on the scar. When I pulled back the man was still slack jawed. Everybody including Sextus was watching the man. It took a few moments until he recovered enough to shut his mouth and look around in wonder. "Woden touched me. I felt it." His hand came up to touch his scar but found it still there. I said, "Woden told your body to remove the scar. This will take about six days or so. He also had your body clean itself. Baring fights you should live to be a vigorous old man." The man now smiled wildly but said nothing. One more man complained of a recurring pain. I found it to be a tumour and cut the blood off to it. When the man recovered, I said, "You are lucky. It was a tumour. Woden cut off the blood to it and it will now die. You may bleed a bit but it will be minor as your body rids itself of the growth. In a week you will be fine and in two there will be no sign of it." They did not know of my wish for a week to be made up of ten days, so I spoke to them in the terms they would be familiar with. The men left after they accepted Woden's blessing. From the rest of the house came my guards. KhAvar even had a knife in her hand but I was sure it was to protect me. I hugged KhAvar and said to all of them, "We have to get going soon. Sextus will tell of the gold and he or others will be forced to come here and take it." KhAvar acted unlike a Persian woman and said, "Why did you let him see it then?" "I had to get him alone for a few minutes." The rest nodded their heads but KhAvar could not understand. More people were put on the ships and I even helped putting a new mast into the place a shorter one had been. The insides of the ships were cleaned out and made as comfortable as possible. The decks now had structures on them that would house more people because it was going to be impossible to carry everyone at one time. Mithridates was sent out as soon as his ship was finished with a very full crew and a lot of gold to purchase more ships if he could find them. When he would return was anybody's guess. KhAvar shared my bed every night now and I think she was waiting to catch if she could. I said to her before going upstairs on night, "We have to talk." She could sense that this was important and hung her head like a dutiful wife. "Yes, Master." I kissed her and said, "Do not be too worried." I got a small smile and then I started to talk about Patricia and how I felt about her. KhAvar was worried and I tried to get her to understand my position. "KhAvar, I love Patricia and I think I love you. I am too young yet to marry. A woman has the right to say no to a suitor. We can stay together until you want to leave me..." She hugged me tightly. "I will never do that." "You have the choice and so does Patricia. When I am older, and if we still feel this way, we may make a family if we can. Men of your country may have more than one woman." She smiled now then frowned. "Woden wants one women to each man." "That is true. If I am able to keep you then we will not be able to be married." She hung her head now and remained quiet. I was sure she was going to weigh the shame she would get against staying with me. I added, "I do not think I will marry Patricia either. It would not be fair to you." I got a larger smile this time and she squeezed me tighter. "I am lucky that my god has given me the power to please more than one woman." "Will you please this one now?" The ships were all finished and they went out for trial runs. When they came back they went out again loaded with people. They spent a day on the water and returned. There were a few adjustments to make when carrying this many persons. With everything in order I had the pirates with no redeeming qualities executed. The rest were going to be slaves until I could sell them. I didn't like slavery but again I could use this to take the place of jail. The whole town was in the dumps now because they knew the men and they forgot most of the harsh treatment the men had done to them. Again, it was human nature. A storm lashed the town for the next few days but the ships had made it back safely ahead of the gusts. I was worried about Mithridates and the ships he went to purchase. He was an experienced sailor though and figured he could handle a storm. I didn't always stay inside but there was enough time spent to keep KhAvar happy. She was even learning to make me happy. She had turned out to be a passionate woman. One morning I cuddled in bed with her and talked about Clovis and our/his family. She laughed about the way Frisian women acted. I told her about Forni and she seemed to understand. The cadets were listed next and when she gave me a worried look I told her how they were not lovers. The story went on until I was captured and taken to the Rhine, then I said, "Tell me about your family. You avoid the subject when it comes up." She collected her thoughts and said, "My father had two wives. He was kind but he did not have that much time for his children. He died in a battle when I was young. My mother's brother now watches over our family." She turned to look at my smile and said, "I have seven older sisters but only one living brother. He is fighting the Romans like my father did. Two others had been born but they got sick and died. We get along fairly well and our mothers are very quick with some harsh words if we are naughty. "We have a very nice home with servants. We have tutors and learn what my uncle wants us to learn but my brother ShahrvarAz is given more training." I interrupted by saying, "Do you want more education too?" "Do you want me to?" "I think it is very important that you learn. The world is changing very quickly now and the more you know the better it is." "I will learn what you want me to know." I gave her a kiss and in a moment she continued, "I learned to sew. Do you want me to make you a beautiful suit of clothes?" "If you have time then I would be happy to wear it. Now go on with your story." She talked about her childhood and I saw that she enjoyed hers. She got more serious after a while and said, "Four months ago my uncle arranged a marriage for me." She paused then said, "The man lives in the east but was at the moment near... Tyre. I was put on a ship with some guards and my dowery." She had another long pause then said, "We were attacked by pirates." KhAvar started to cry now and I just held her until she calmed down. She was not better in ten minutes so I said, "Get up, sweetheart. We are going for a ride." "It is raining." "Are you coming?" She hung her head in shame but she still smiled. "Yes, Master." We dressed lightly and went to the stables. The guards wanted to come but I dressed with my weapons and told them to stay. In twenty minutes we were soaked and in the hills. In ten more minutes we found a grass filled meadow and stopped. After helping KhAvar down I tied the horses where they could eat. "Master, why are we here?" Her dark hair was plastered to her head but she still looked beautiful. I undid some of her fastenings and she got the idea and smiled. She was soon helping me then assisted me in getting my own clothing off. We spent hours walking naked in the rain and making love on the grass. We did not get much walking done but I wanted to make this more memorable because both of us. KhAvar had a sore mons by the time we were done and we still had to go back to the town. I found I could heal her and at the same time put an extra tingle into her. I continued and she found the energy for one more orgasm. We rode back toward town naked and only put the clothing on when people would see us. KhAvar was scandalised but excited. The excitement though had to be relieved. When we got into the stable I helped her down then stood on a wooden platform and kissed the saddle where her mons had been. KhAvar turned red and smiled her widest and I was sure she would like to try out the hay in the barn next for a bed. The next day Mithridates came into the harbour. He had his ship and five more that were at least his size. All of them were old. The rain continued and we worked on making the ships as comfortable and as safe as possible. This continued through the night because I wanted to be off as soon as we could. Mithridates complained of the deals he got but I saw that he did fairly well. He also told me of his problems during the storm with not enough crew considering the number of ships he had. The ships were prepared for storing people but I hoped they would be better than the slave ships of later years. The smaller ships were slower and we filled these first with people and sent them off to wait a kilometre off the island. It took two more hours until all of the ships were filled. The booty taken from the pirates was on my ship. Not everybody wanted to go to Persia but all of the slaves that stayed had their brand removed. They could pass for freemen. They were going to stay here and trade while spreading the word of Woden. I gave them all a nest egg to make sure they had a good chance. All of them were warned about a warship coming later and trying to find out what happened to the booty. I mentioned the Roman methods of gaining knowledge. The families knew enough to flee until the storm had past. The ships were cramped mainly with children so I told stories of my Frisian past for entertainment value. Anybody that could play an instrument was encouraged to do so. The other ships were close and we would play music to each other and there was clapping after I did this. Not all the ships were close enough to hear this though. The available seamen were spread thinly between ships and I had to do my duty too. I talked of the future of transportation in detail and everybody that could hear me was enthralled. When I said that we had the railway and were working on experimental gliders they nodded their heads as if this was the way it should be. We were making a hundred and twenty to a hundred and eighty kilometres per day. We did not stop and anchor at night though the winds died considerably. We made Cyprus in five days. We put in for shore and the tax collector wanted money. This I knew hindered the tourist trade. "We are leaving in a few hours. We want to stretch our legs and buy food and water." It was when he learned of my identity that he relented and let us pass. As usual I had a sermon and the men read from the scriptures after I healed a few of the locals. Mithridates went looking for a larger ship and heard of one on the other side of the island. We filed back on the ships with only a few stragglers. None of the ships we found were suitable and we made do with food and water. The pirates had few duties to do but all the scut work was theirs. I kept them on the ship with me for safety. I did not want them to do anything that could possibly damage the ship. We were close to Syria here and Lebanon but at the moment, Lebanon did not exist as a political unit though it did before and after this period. It took a day and a half to get to Syria. We headed south then and came to a large promontory with a large harbour. Mithridates headed into the bay and we followed. Soldiers came when they saw the warships but the rails filled with children and women said we were not out to fight. I again had to talk to the tax man and only had to pay docking fees. We were in the city of Latakia. The city was nice but the beaches were beautiful. I would have loved to come here in my previous life. Mithridates looked for another ship and this time we found one. It took hours to inspect the craft and we managed to trade in a ship that was of the least value to us. We set up camp on the beach while Mithridates went looking for information about King Sapor II. We kept our quest quiet for the most part. I did not want our own people to know exactly what we sought for fear of getting their hopes up. KhAvar was encouraged to stay with the group and I went to see the local Roman authority. Once my identity was known, I was invited into the man's office. I sat in a comfortable chair with some wine in my hand. "I am looking to find King Sapor II." The commander was now worried. "We are at war with the Persians." "I am well aware of that. I want to stop the war and come to a peaceful agreement. That cannot be done without finding the man." "If I knew where he was I would get the information to Constantius as soon as I could." "Then, will you tell me what you know of his armies? Perhaps I can find him." The commander brought out some maps and with a finger he told me where trouble spots were and when they first happened. Fighting looked to be intensifying at the moment. There seemed to be more disturbances to the south and I could only go so far with a ship. We stayed three days with me giving a sermon in the morning and the afternoon. KhAvar was very happy and very sated too. I was beginning to love her as much as Patricia. The former slaves spent most of their time getting drunk and giving my money to the whores. I at least got quantity discounts before I turned the men loose. The women were given an allowance and so were the children. Being a father figure to so many was very expensive. KhAvar and I searched through the markets. She bought an odd looking hat and some plain clothing. She wanted to wear this as opposed to the brighter cloth I found for her. She bought cloth for me though and mentioned her promise of making me good clothing. Mithridates used his own contacts and came back usually empty handed. I went to the fort a few times and helped the soldiers and tried to pick up more information. Very little was new to me. We boarded ship again and this time I had another send off party. We travelled down the coast and put in at various places along the way. I usually went alone to the Roman forts to ask about Sapor. They were courteous but not too helpful. The next good port was at Berytus. I assumed this was Beirut but I was not sure. It was supposed to be the 'Paris of the East' but it didn't quite look that way now. It did look like Lutetia but that city was not much different than any other. The Mediterranean was just as nice though but with less of a beach. Mithridates went out again to search for any leads to finding Sapor. I had been slowly shifting the management of the people to other hands as I tried to carry on my own agenda. Again I went to the Roman authorities to learn what I could about the Persian military movements. I learned nothing new. The commander had heard a lot about me and I asked him to get those men under his control that could be spared to come to a sermon tomorrow morning. It was Spring now and the noon time was quite warm. I found that Berytus had a law school that was famous and I figured I should take a look to see what it was like before I had to leave. This law was a good structure to keep but it had some poor laws designed to let the rich escape justice. In reality this happened in my time too but there was little I could do about it. KhAvar and I, along with a few guards walked through the city and checked out the market. It was interesting but nothing new was found, though some I had only talked about before. I talked to beggars in more or less private and asked if they were really hurt. Some had obvious missing limbs and scars and I just did some preliminary healing. Most needed a good diet to support regenerated flesh and bone. A man that had a torn retina in one eye and a cataract in the other screamed in joy to the crowd that he could now see. The crowds got thick but they moved further back usually so we did not have to push. I was running into leprosy now and had to work on them with more skill and time because the bacteria was hard to control. A leper colony was near and I went to see what I could do for them. Some people were very far gone but I still did what I could. There was a monk helping the people of the colony and he walked around with me but he could not see any difference right away. It took a bit of persuasion but the man sat and I looked through his body. He was a good man it seemed and no matter what the religion, they were needed. He had many problems with his body. I spent less time on him than on the lepers. The surge of endorphins made his eyes almost blaze. I said, "You are a good man. The gods like to see people like you helped." I handed him a handful of gold coins taken from the pirates and said, "The lepers will now start to heal. They need more food as their bodies fight the bacillus. I know that more lepers will come once they hear that they will be healed here." The man finally looked from my face to what was in his hand and said with a breaking voice, "Bless you my... bless you." KhAvar hugged me closer but said nothing. Her religion preached much the same tenets that I was trying to do. It was a gentle faith that encouraged men to do good. Zarathushtra had tried to do much the same a thousand years earlier. This was the closest we could come to the military action and still have our ships. The ship was full of gold and I did not like idle hands. They usually found their way around a jug of wine and then a weapon. With the base commander's help, I bought a large piece of land outside the town proper. It was on the northern edge and had a slow moving river flowing through it. I had to buy an existing farm and then decided to buy a few more. The owners were anxious because of the war. A few of us dug a place to hide most of our booty and hid it well. In a way I was not concerned too much for the gold. I was also quite sure that none of the men that knew of this location would ever tell. They were the closest I had to fanatics. A rocky section that was not good for the fruit trees was picked for a warehouse. Finding lumber was not as easy. This was part of the famous fertile crescent and there were trees to be had. Stone was even more readily available and I started to dig a deep basement in the rocky soil. Since there was a hill this too could be entered directly from this level. KhAvar wanted this to be our home instead of a business but was not pushy. With the help of the local smiths I made a bucket that was used to dredge the bottom of the river. The soil I took out was put in low areas and the stones were stored in a large pile. I wanted docks here and I wanted to accommodate large ships. The ground shook one day then a few more aftershocks occurred. I had to tell everybody what had really happened. This also influenced how I was going to build my buildings now. Mithridates was finding no luck locating current information about Sapor and I didn't either. Since there was nothing to do but wait, Mithridates took the larger ships to find lumber and stone for me. He would also ask questions in his travels. I heard that the famous Cedars of Lebanon were nearby but were now protected by the Augustus. They had gone into a Jewish structure but I could not recall the name from memory. Mithridates was going to go shopping elsewhere. The Jews were still out of favour with the Romans at the moment. They were just too obstinate to work with the Romans. Jerusalem was denied them. They could go for a visit and that was all. All the area was now called Palastine. I conducted services in the city and I was happy to see that nobody was begging that didn't want to. Men that had been crippled all their lives were getting around but needed a lot of physiotherapy yet. Others has to wait for limbs to grow. Many people came by to help even if it was for no pay. I sent some off to the leper colony to put up some additional shelters though they had less need now. Lepers would find a home there until I cured them. Like Lutetia, I sponsored sporting events and made sure that teams were made to play soccer. Making the balls were still difficult even though we knew how to now. The fort and the Romans in general were asked to participate. They not only had to sponsor a team of men but had to do the same thing to three teams of children. I did similar and gave names that gave some comradery to the population by blending Roman and Persian terms. The priest was given more money and the job of making a team with a Christian motif on their clothing. The Jews were hesitant about joining but this would change in time. KhAvar was quite shocked when she was given money and orders to form some girls teams. "I don't know the rules and the girls will not play. It is not right." "You will make the teams and they will be called the Frisian Tigers, the Persian Elephants and the Roman Lions. If there are more then you will have to make suitable names." More notices went up in the city and I did not think that there were too many children not competing. Even the cripples were not as crippled anymore and some had a chance to be on a team. Mithridates had come back three times already with wood and no encouraging news. I had heard more news of Sapor but only told Mithridates. The information about a battle was not good. A small nondescript man came up to me but not close enough to stir my guards into action. He said, "My lord, I have been sent here by my master to see if you would wish to meet with him." Many rich people came to me this way and I asked, "Who is your master?" In a much lower voice he said, "The King of all Persia. The..." I interrupted by getting closer and whispered, "Sapor? How far away is he?" "One or two days." Now that the summons had come it was almost anticlimactic. "I will come. There will be twelve men accompanying me. I will be bringing a wagon so the route requires a road of some sort. How long will it take with the wagon?" I did not ask where the king was on purpose so that I would not be denied the information. The length of time was important though. The man said, "Three days if you hurry and four if you do not." "Will you provide security?" "Security?" "A portion of your king's army to keep bandits away." "Nobody will attack us." "Then let us leave in the morning. There are many arrangements to get ready." "It is important that we leave now." "I am not going now. Even your king knows that some marshalling has to be done before men can travel." "My king commands this." "I am going at dawn. You may come with me now or see me in the morning. I offer you and your men food and drink and a place to rest before our journey." The man was angry and said, "I will meet you in the morning." I turned to the men with me and said, "You will accompany me if you want. I need a strong force left here to protect my people." We had been using the wagon for a lot of tasks and now greased the wheels and made it ready for a journey of three days. There was a lot of water available and three days travel would not put us in the desert. My weapons and armour were brought out and the armour polished until it was bright. A similar suit made for a man was in a box and would be a gift along with some swords and knives. A second suit had been dipped in copper sulphate. The action of the acid on the iron caused a thin coating of copper to form on it. It would burnish up very well. The cast iron stove that weighted so much was finally going to be unloaded but so would a half dozen smaller units suitable for use on a campaign. Steel utensils with pots and pans accompanied this. I worked hard to give a lot of nonlethal hardware but I could not just have this. When I finished I sat with KhAvar and said, "I am going to see some people. I will be gone at least a seven days but probably up to four of my weeks." "I will translate for you. Who are they?" I smiled and kissed her. "No, you will stay here and take care of the family. They respect you. The man I hope will be a businessman." "You need me," she said worriedly. "I do need you but I need you here. Now are you going to bed with me?" "But Master," she hung her head, "it is that time." "Then we will wash after, unless you want to frustrate me?" She smiled but still hung her head. She needed to be reassured and this was good for both of us. KhAvar turned into a tiger when we got into bed. She was usually docile until she got worked up. I think people on the other side of the Mediterranean heard how good she felt. After kissing a crying KhAvar goodbye the next morning, we finished loading the remainder of our burden and the fourteen of us left. Mithridates had demanded a place and came too. He had done so much for me that I could not deny him. We were met by five men and the one that I talked to frowned at the additional man. I said, "You know who I am but you have not told me your name." He had to think on this for a while. I guess the man was a good soldier but took things too literally. "BamshAd," was all he said. We began our trip and the man seemed to know the area well and routed us the best way. I was sure that we could get where we were going much quicker with just horses. At our first stop I used one of the stoves and cooked some of the food. Our own people were used to this but the Persians were just very interested in out tools. They did not eat our food though even though I tried to be friendly. We made camp that night and all of us were happy to get out of the saddle. Mithridates was not used to this form of transportation and I had to work on the blisters he had then do the same thing for the small discomforts our men had. BamshAd only watched but said nothing. I went to the horses and looked to their needs. They had worms again and I had to interface through the horse and then kill the worms almost individually. The Persians were watching me and finally BamshAd said, "What did you do?" "The horses eat grass that has the eggs of small worms in it. The worms hatch in the horse and eat its food. I killed the worms in them and will have to do this again as soon as the eggs that are in them hatch." "You can kill with your hands?" "I heal with my hands but, yes, I can kill too when I must. My men are not used to riding much and needed to be healed." "We have heard that you may be able to do this." "Watch the horses tomorrow. You will find dead worms in the morning and through the day." I did not set guards but I kept my subconscious on the job during the night. There were lots of noises but none were threatening. I thought of my recent nights with KhAvar and had to suppress an uncomfortable erection. It took time but I brought my body back into balance when I had no women near me. The morning came early to those accompanying me. I was the one that woke them up. We had a good breakfast. The Persians ate separately. Before we left, the Persians looked through the horse shit and saw a lot of dead worms in some piles. The soldiers seemed to be very dedicated and I wondered if this was just because they were sent by their king or they were all naturally this way. I tried to factor in their religion the two seemed incompatible. Wodenism would fit them better in a way because it said to be kind and generous but to beat the fuck out of an enemy if he attacked you. This was layed out in books this way. Zarathushtra only had one book of poems and other books that gave other people's interpretations of those ideas. This apparently was not clear enough and another book shed more light on the interpretations. I saw BamshAd look behind all the time. I did too because somebody could be following us. It was only when he detached one man that rode back that I figured that we had a rear guard. From BamshAd point of view I could have informed the Romans about this meeting and they may want the intelligence. An hour and a half later the man came back and went dutifully to his commander to give his information. I knew enough Pahlavi to get the idea that my guess had been right. We were moving through a more rugged country now. We were headed for the mountains. There were still cultivated crop lands and a lot of areas that had remained follow for a long time. All this land needed was a good plough, fertiliser and water. The land also supported deer, hare, and other wild animals. I took my bow out and this immediately alerted the Persians. It was difficult to string this weapon and more difficult while on a horse. When I was done I put the bow back in its case and moved closer to BamshAd. The man just looked at me but I only had a bit of armour and two swords at my back. I said, "I heard that Persians are good with a bow. I want to see with my own eyes. I would also like some fresh meat." "We have no time for this." "We are going at the best speed of the wagon. We can hunt at the same time. Your people have done this many times. I am going hunting and need a Persian soldier that is not afraid to mix with one that is not of his religion at least on a hunt." "Get back into position." I turned back to my men and said, "Stay with the wagon. Do nothing more." I moved my horse faster but not a lot as I scanned the area for game. It was ten minutes later and a kilometre ahead that a Persian started to catch up to me. The man caught up but stayed a few metres behind me. I stopped and he too stopped. I had to turn my horse around and said the best I could with his language, "My name is Jón and I am not your enemy. Please tell me your name." It was a while before the man said, "KavAd." "Thank you KavAd. Will you hunt with me and share the meat? Friends will do this." He said a word in Pahlavi and I assumed it to mean hunt. We continued on for almost an hour and got further from the group. I caught a movement far ahead in a thicket. It looked like a herd of deer moving away from us and we were already down wind. I planned out how we could take one of the animals and then put up my hand to warn KavAd that I was going to do something. I moved my hand and he looked behind him quickly then moved his horse closer. In my imperfect speech I pointed to the animals and gave their type and number. The man peered into the distance but could not see anything I guess. I saw better than anybody but the man may not be able to see the distance well. He said, "What are you going to do?" "I want one animal for us. Two more for your men that follow far behind." The man seemed to be shocked at this but said nothing. I pointed the direction then used my finger in the air to show our approach. We left the road now and we worked our way quickly through the brush. It took almost an hour to get near the animals. We abandoned our horses as too noisy and went ahead on foot. The deer must sense something and remained vigilant and I had KavAd wait as I pantomimed a worried man. The deer moved on for a few minutes and then relaxed when nothing happened. We were actually close enough for me but I wanted KavAd to have first shot. With gestures I got my meaning across and KavAd now took us forward until he crouched and put an arrow to his bow. We both put arrows point down into the soft earth and I waited for the man to draw back and release. When I saw the shaft strike an animal, I released one of my own then another as quick as I could. The noise of ths strings and the sudden pain in the animals spooked the herd and we gathered our arrows and ran forward. KavAd had done a good job and his arrow had punctured a heart. My first arrow had done the same thing. The second had passed through the ribs and travelled through the animal to strike a younger animal on the other side. This one was still alive but wounded and trying to get away. I ran after this animal now. Its leg was hurt and it could not run fast. It took five minutes but I ran it down. Instead of using the bow I was able to touch the animal as it went into shock on the ground. Rather than killing I decided to heal. The animal was sedated and I spent another five minutes on repairing the damage I had done to it. The animal was not that young and could find her way back to her herd or to another easily enough. KavAd had followed me and was looking on from a few metres away. He said, "What did you do?" "I wanted three deer. Woden and I like hunting but only what we need. This one was wounded and it will now recover and join her herd in a few hours." The man came forward now and saw the wound but said nothing. Before I got up I caressed the beautiful animal as if it were a pet and backed away. KavAd said in a moment, "You ran very fast." "My god made me strong. He also made me fast with my hands and with the ability to see and hear well. That is what allowed me to find the animals." "Tell me about your god." "Your religion has one good god locked in battle with an evil god. My gods are like a country of gods. Woden is the leader but he does not lead in everything. Much like a king does not do everything. He..." I went on about Wodenism and compared it to the teachings of Zarathushtra. It was a good sign when I was asked questions. Some I answered as they were in the books and others were concerns that I had to address in future publications. The animals were as we left them. We both went for the horses so we could continue to talk. The horses were brought upwind to keep the smell of blood from them. I asked my own questions but they were mainly geared to show how close our two beliefs really were. The animals were loaded on our horses. The internal organs were coveted and if we butchered here then we would have to carry them separately. KavAd led the way back and we went through a ravine because it was an easier route. Just as we were emerging, a large cat sprang from a ledge and pounced on KavAd. They both fell to the ground and the horses went wild. I sprang forward with only the thought of keeping the cat from killing KavAd. I landed on the cat and now the cat went wild. An errant thought reminded me about holding a tiger by the tail. We rolled around on the ground and my head hit a rock but I could not let go or allow the cat to turn around. My arms were being gouged because I had no armour there. I squeezed the cat's neck as tightly as I could and the struggles got worse before they started to subside. It was only much later that I remembered that I could kill the cat in other ways. I interfaced with the animal and for a split second thought of the animal. This one had attacked man and that was the only reason I decided to kill it. The animal stopped moving. I knew it was dead but I was tired. I had to control my own bleeding. I watched KavAd get to his feet unsteadily and draw his sword. I pushed the animal from me and got shakily to my feet. KavAd was bleeding from gashes to his forehead. His face was covered in blood. I approached him from the side so that he could see me. I was worried about his mind now as well as his body. He could attack me now that he was just in a flight or fight situation. He didn't react that much to my touch because he was still staring at the cat. In a moment he fell unconscious to the ground and I had to move quickly so he was not hurt. I stopped his bleeding, one spot at a time, then began the repair work. KavAd was not a young man and had arthritis and some less painful problems. As an afterthought I did what I could for his eyes and hearing. I worked on him for ten minutes until I heard the wagon coming down the road. I stood and walked a few metres away and called, "Mithridates." When the wagon stopped I called again, "KavAd was hurt by a cat. Find our horses." In moments there was a rush to find us and I yelled once in a while to allow them to locate us. BamshAd came first and had a sword in his hand. He was angry at me and I thought that he believed that I had done this to his man. The snarl did not leave even when he saw the dead cat. The sword quivered in his hand. I finished doing what I could for KavAd and stood without any weapons in my hands. "Do you want to kill me, BamshAd? I am hurt and have no weapons ready." It took a moment for him to get control of himself then snarled, "What happened?" "We took three deer. We were carrying them back to the road when the animal jumped on KavAd. I jumped on the animal and it wounded me." I did not know the word for cat or some of the other terms. A deer carcass was close where it was thrown from a horse and I saw another further away. It took a half hour to find the horses. One was easier because the carcass was still tied to it. KavAd's horse had been hurt when the cat jumped or perhaps in is flight. I calmed the animal and did what I could for it. KavAd was awake by then and was busily talking about what he remembered. My own men carried the deer to the road and I asked them to do the butchering. The cat was brought too and I found that it was actually a young male and not toothless. I knew that KhAvar would like the hide and I worked quickly on it. The Frisians had done a lot of this and so had the American Indians. I found boughs and made a frame for the hide and stretched it out after quickly scraping it. Mithridates had lots of questions for me and I answered in Latin so that my own people would understand. They at least understood that in the battle with the cat that I had simply forgot to kill the animal the simple way. An early camp was made. The organs of the deer were cooked and two cleaned carcasses were hung beside the road. BamshAd said with only a bit less anger, "What of these two?" "For your men that are following." He snarled and started on KhAvar with rapid fire questions that I could not quite make out. I brought some cooked meat on a stick and some water to KhAvar. He looked at it a while until he took it from my hands and said his thanks. A rider left the group and raced back the way we had come. BamshAd was not worried by the sound of horses and I told our own men what was happening so they would not draw weapons. Twenty three men came into the camp and I waited for BamshAd to make some kind of introduction but he did not. The two other deer were cut up quickly and cooked over the fire. The skin of the cat was admired and a few even touched the fur. We started later and KhAvar seemed to be better now though far from fully healed. BamshAd gave orders now and pickets were set out and we started our trip once more. I took a seat in the wagon and worked on the hide as we travelled. I had to tell how I wrestled with the cat and show my partially healed scars that were in my arms. I doubt if anybody would have been able to even use their limbs after the treatment they had received. When we camped that night, we were all one group. The meat was cooked or smoked. I walked over to KhAvar and I was able to see his wounds though he had looked at his commander first. "You are healing quite well. The cat probably hurt his teeth trying to bite a hard Persian skull." It took a moment then the man said, "Thank you for healing me." "You are welcome. That is what friends do for each other." I put my closed hand in front of him and he put his hand palm up. I gave him a handful of the teeth from the animal. They were long and sharp from an animal in the prime of its life. "You can let people see that the teeth were not dull." This time a got a smile and a nod of the head. I washed my clothing to get the blood out and did a little repair work on them. This was not an easy task at all. Much of it was in shreds. Some time in the night I suddenly awoke. I was not sure why but I listened with my conscious mind. I heard some faint directions in Latin as if to place troops. I got up and had to control the pain once more in my arms. I called out, "BamshAd?" until the man responded to me. "What do you want?" Instead of answering I walked over to him and squatted. Those men around him were now awake and some had their hands on their weapons. "Will you listen to my words for a moment and not jump around like frightened children?" He growled at me, "I am not a child." "If you are a soldier then you will listen to my words then think instead of yelling like girls." The man growled and I cut him off. "Tell your men to arm themselves but not to make a noise." "Why should I do this?" "Because you are a good leader that values the lives of his men." A light came on inside him and he quickly gave orders and the man prepared for battle but made little noise. I walked over to our own men and they were doing the same thing because they saw the Persians getting ready to fight. Six of my men were legionnaires and they would not want to see their countrymen die. I said, "Some Romans are out there. It may only be a scouting party but it may be an attack. I do not want you hurt. Mithridates asked, "What are we to do?" "Just protect yourselves if I am not successful. I am going out and telling them that I do now want to play tonight." "What?" "Find the leader and tell him I am on a mission to find a peaceful solution to this war. If they attack they I will have to fight them but I do not want to." The men quietly took out their shields and got into more of their armour. BamshAd had already placed his men when I said in a casual voice, "Let's go out and talk to the Romans. I came to talk peace with your king. The Romans may just leave us alone." "What if I do not want to leave them alone?" "In that case, you would be defying your king. He asked you to bring me to him. If I am dead or you are dead then this shame will rest on you." BamshAd was even more angry now. I said, "I hear and see very well, even in the dark. We go in the dark and have fun with the Romans. We do not kill or hurt them badly. You can play with the Romans later when I am not here." I think BamshAd would like to kill me now but he held onto his anger. I just left him as I put on some of my armour but not all. I also took two clubs that may not break over Roman heads. I simply left the camp and in a moment BamshAd was right behind me. I whispered, "Here is a piece of wood. It makes a Roman stop and listen to your words." He took the club and tested it then put his sword into his scabbard. "You had better be right about this or I will spend all the remaining days of my life making you regret this." I saw six men and I took BamshAd's hand and used it to point. I mentioned where each was and how far away. We threaded our way between them but continued on to where more noise was heard. In another depression with a stream flowing through it were perhaps twenty horses. There were pickets all around and clumps of men discussing what to do. There was infantry here as well as calvary. Again I told BamshAd what I saw and heard. He must have been able to hear the soldiers from here. We backtracked and went farther into a rocky area then descended the ravine to get onto the other side. I listened for a few minutes then whispered to BamshAd, "This is half of a cohort. The other half is about three hours away and men have been sent to bring them here to fight us. I figure they will be here about dawn." Twenty minutes later the officers broke up for a rest. "We have to go talk to some children. Remember, do not kill or maim." There were two men sitting on their hunches and one more laying down. I told BamshAd my plan and put him into position. I didn't think he believed me. I went around in a spiral, taking out individuals one at a time with a strike to the neck or some other vulnerable area. When there were two men I walked up to them as if I belonged and then just attacked quickly. Sometimes I had to hide some of the noise with a fit of coughing or cursing. An hour later I returned to BamshAd and whispered, "There are fifty men sleeping now. Lets walk over and pay our respects." "You are crazy." "You are even more crazy for going with me. Now let's do this." I spoke louder in Latin to BamshAd as we approached the three men. All the men had been laying down but they were not sleeping just before a battle. the men stood up and started to order us away when BamshAd drove the end of the club into one stomach while I did the other. My foot came around and caught the chest of the third and he fell with little more than a gasp. In ten seconds I had each of them frozen. BamshAd and I dragged the two higher ranking men away and then put them on our backs. We humped for a kilometre and settled into another portion of the ravine. The two men were put down and I began. "Hello, gentlemen. My name is Jón of Germania. It is possible that you have heard of me." I could see their reactions but BamshAd could not. I said to BamshAd, "They know of me." "My friend with me is BamshAd. King Sapor II has sent for me. This is the group that you were thinking of attacking. The reason for the meeting with the king is to negotiate a peace." I reached forward so each of the men could whisper at best. One said, "You cannot do this. Our Augustus has ordered us to fight." I said, "Your Augustus does not know that I am working toward a peaceful settlement. This is my idea alone. I need a strong Roman army as I do a strong Persian army. It is my hope that the two armies could work together to take on other threats. If necessary I will fight you myself." I said to BamshAd, "I told them that I would fight them to get a chance to talk of peace." "Just kill them." "I want a chance to talk without deaths of two friends." "Are Romans your friends?" "They are and I hope the Persians will be too. Does not your religion talk about extending your hand in friendship? That hand cannot be dismissed quickly. A lot of thought has to be made." Turning back to the Romans I said, "I want you to leave this group of men alone. Make a report of what happened. Your duty is also to the people in the legion and to the people that live here. To attack us means you will die and possibly keep this meeting from happening. It means more death and destruction." "You have no right to do this to us. Rome is strong and will destroy all of the Frisians." "You Romans have a saying about the strong making the rules. You are in a weak position not me. You have nearly fifty men left for I put the rest to sleep while we had out talk." I asked, "Will you let us leave peacefully?" "I will kill every last one in your group and especially you." ------- Chapter 7 I spoke to BamshAd, "He does not want to listen to me. Let's go get the rest of the Romans. Maybe the cat that attacked us has a mate nearby." "The cat would get sick." I felt good because he had made a joke in a way. BamshAd and I walked around, with me speaking Latin and we took out the remainder of the Romans. The pickets were more difficult because we were not supposed to go near them. They warned the rest of an attack but nobody was awake to hear about it. There were no deaths but three were very close. I had to heal those or they would surely die. The rest of the Persians came when called and they laid the Romans out as if they had all gone to bed. In a few minutes the wagon rolled by and we pulled a long line of Roman horses attached to it. There was no way to hide our tracks so we went as quickly as possible. The wagon and most of the men took a detour and the tracks were obscured. The Roman horses went another way being pulled by men on horses. It was about one in the afternoon that the small group of Persian horsemen returned to us. They were in a very jocular mood and greeted us as if we were part of their army. KavAd said to us, "They left the horses tied in a swamp. The other Romans were riding or running very quickly to catch up to us." We ate from the saddle but the stove was used in the back of the wagon to feed us hot food as we rode. The Romans never caught up to us and on the evening of the third day we ran across a sizable Persian calvary unit. Our own men were nervous. I told them, "The Persians think very highly of their king. They would not think of disobeying him. You are now under their protection and they will die to make sure the king sees us." At noon the next day we had climbed out of the lowlands and were in the mountains. We went through a lot of pickets that had to see our papers before being allowed to continue. We waited in a compound near the camp and cleaned up. BamshAd had left us at the second set of pickets but he said he would find a reason to stay for as long as possible. We were both sure that the king would ask him and his men questions. We made camp that night when it looked like we were not going to be called. I set an internal alarm clock to get up early because a king could use the early hour to get a confused and sleepy man to answer differently than he would normally. This proved unnecessary because we were called around nine o'clock. I was the one that was called but I brought Mithridates with me. He did not like this idea but came nonetheless. The guards tried to tell Mithridates to leave but I simply stayed still until the orders were changed. Many different men met me and I talked for a while but none of them were the king. I still remembered the golden mask and bust of him in New York and none matched yet. We were offered refreshments and they soon learned that Mithridates was here as my interpreter. I knew that he would phrase the words the way I wanted and perhaps let me know about more of the subtle ideas mentioned. I saw women about the camp but they were unveiled. They didn't act like Arab women. They didn't mind looking at us though that was not something that was usually seen in an Arab state. I was basically feeling my way through their customs by comparing them to some I had read of. Women were treated shabbily by all races and only sometimes had power within a home. This left half of the human race out of the picture when discussions on some important event was being discussed. I could also see a male's point of view and it was hard for me to understand a woman. Mithridates and I cooled our heals for a while then we were offered a meal with some functionaries. One young man spoke in poor Latin then turned to his own language and asked bluntly, "Why are you here?" "Your king sent for me." The man got a bit upset and said, "I heard that you wanted to come here. What did you wish to discuss?" I talked with Mithridates' help and said, "The gods do not like slaughter. There are ways that can be used to stop this war and allow your people to deal with the Huns and the Romans to deal with my countrymen." "Are you a traitor to your people?" "Far from that. Rome is great and the Frisians are going to find a place to sit at the table of world affairs with them. I know that a place is waiting there for the Persians, the Indians and the Chinese. More people will be invited to speak so that injustices could be remedied. I am calling this the United Nations. No single government will lead. A group will do what is best for them and the greater group will do what is best for the world. I do not think that wars will be completely avoided in the future but they can be reduced in number and severity." "Who would lead this group?" "That is to be decided by the group itself. The gods have shown that the head can be elected by the group and the position rotates from region to region every five to ten years." "This sounds like a foolish idea. Why would any country want to place itself under the leadership of somebody elected by peoples of other lands?" "The countries are still the way we have them now. It is like a group of diplomats that speak for their kings. The kings are told of what is being voted on and he either gives the diplomat the choice of voting as he sees fit or to vote exactly the way the king thinks." "That too is foolish. Nothing could be accomplished." "We have been talking over a nice meal for a few moments and I do not even know who I am addressing. Who are you? "My father is king of all these lands." When he spoke no more I said, "Forgive me for there are many kings in the lands around us." "My father is Sapor." "Then I am glad to meet you. My father too is a king. Our country is not very strong though the men are very big and brave. They are also foolish and naive." "People have said that you speak to the gods." "I was hurt in a foolish accident. I went into a coma where I slept for half of a year. My spirit went to the land of the gods and resided there for over fifty years. I learned a great deal and when I came back to my body here, my spirit had aged but my body did not." If this young man had been reading the books I wrote then this explanation would be a bit different. I knew that later they would get back to this point and try to make something of it. I continued, "The gods have given me many tasks to perform and even some tools to do what they ask." The young man said, "I have heard that you are a magician." "I am simply an old man in a young body. I have learned a great deal and wish to share it with all of you. The gods though work through my hands. I think that is far different from a magician." "Is it true, that you use your hands to kill?" "That is true. Have you not used a weapon in your hand to kill a man?" The young man didn't answer and said, "Why do you kill some and not others?" I ate some of the food before me and chewed a while then said, "Why do you kill some and spare others?" "You did not allow our men to kill the Romans they found." "I have killed a great many Romans. Some I spare and some I do not." "You had no right to tell my men to not take the Romans' lives." "I came here to talk of peace. You do not sign the parchment with blood." "I would have killed all of them." "A wise ruler knows that he has to deal with other rulers without side issues. If the Romans and Persians meet today to do battle then that is fine but not when it has anything to do with the peace talks." "Why should my father talk to you?" "A wise ruler listens to his advisors and makes up his mind. If he has time, he may find something of value." "What could you have of value for my father?" "Did I not tell you that I was in the land of the gods for over fifty years? I went to school there and learned a great deal. I saw much more that I do not understand quite as well. "I have written books that talk about travel on the land, on the water, under the water, through the air and even above all of the air." The young man made a face so I figured that I was full of shit. "You look like you do not believe me. I have a small ship that burns wood to make steam. This gas moves us forward. It pulls a barge behind it. I have gone from half way down the Rhine to half way down the Seine and then half way down the Weser. There is no ship like it. "I have made steel so hot that it pours like water. I made steel tracks and then a steam powered device to ride on it. It can pull or push carriages. "In the land of the gods this device will go sixty Roman miles in an hour for freight. It can go up to five hundred miles in an hour in special places when people are carried. "My ship and train are slow now but they will get better in a few years." "Who has seen these things? I have not." "How many times have you been to Gaul and Germania?" The young man was angry now and I could see that he too would like to have me killed. I simply went back to eating and ignored him. The man left soon after and I could see that Mithridates was visibly shaken. He said nothing because we were not alone. We were sent back to the wagon later to wait some more. Instead of looking defeated I got out one of our soccer balls and started a game. I would have asked some of the Persians to fill out our numbers but this might get them into trouble. Besides I thought that they were too dour to play with us. After an hour we had a crowd of boys though. I was able to get a few of them to play and the game altered so that we were now teaching. In another hour we had only boys playing and we were coaching or cheering them on. Our noise attracted even more people. This only lasted so long until the guard detail sent the children scurrying home. I was sure they wanted to just stay away from the view of the upper echelon of their society. Six men a bit later came into our compound. They bowed their heads like the Japanese and I did the same thing to them. The oldest was in the middle and asked, "We are the followers of Zarathushtra. May we speak with you?" "I am the Hand of Woden. I would be very honoured to speak with all of you." The term had been hung on me a few times and I figured it was a good appellation to use with my name. We sat on mats around an unlit fire and I brought out a package of matches. I had known of a visit similar to this and had made the necessary preparations. On the way here I had seen the Persians doing their mornings ritual with a thin string that went around them three times. They had another observance during the night. Fire was very important to them but it was not their god. Rather it was a symbol much like what would be seen inside a church or synagogue. I make my praise to Woden and thanked him for giving me the knowledge of how to make matches. I then presented the box to the old man. The man took them reverently but didn't know what to do with them. "Woden has given me fire. It is used to destroy my enemies and to heat my food. It can now be used to start this fire. May I show you? If I do not I am afraid your fingers will get burnt." The old man handed back the box and I extracted one match and closed the box. There were many stones around but asked instead, "Will one of you hand me a stone of the earth." I was presented with many but took the first. Tinder had been put in place and I waited for the wind to die because it would be embarrassing if this failed. I had made some sodium nitrate from ashes recently and this had been sprinkled on the tinder and the container given to the priests. The men were amazed when the match burst into flame but astonished as the tinder almost exploded into flame. I had known what was going to happen and was well back. The fire settled down to burn regularly and I just stared into the flames the way I had seen countless others do. We traded information for hours. Sometimes what we searched for made us laugh but that was good too. Zoroastrians were very tolerant of others but it was not common to find converts. You had to be born into the religion. Much later I showed the men the iron stove and I cooked a meal for them that was not anywhere as nice as they would have eaten in the tents. They liked mine very much even when I got them to help me cook. I had a sudden idea. We could not have french fires because we had no potatoes on this continent but we did have onions. "Friends, I remembered something from the land of the gods. I do not believe this has been prepared before but I may be mistaken." They all looked at me and I said, "I would like some large onions. I have flour and salt. I need some oil but olive oil will burn at too low of a heat. Fish oil has too strong of a taste. Is there another oil that can be used?" I found that they had sesame oil and I asked for some and used my hands to give an idea of the quantity. "Please bring some honey and some fresh birds eggs too if they are not too difficult to obtain." Our supply of flour was plundered. I took the ingredients and mixed them with clean hands. The oil went on the stove and I mixed up a batch of donut dough. There was enough for an army but I had an army around me. We restricted the air to the stove and the temperature dropped. The donuts took a while to come out and the handy hole in the middle allowed them to be manipulated. I tried the first and it was ok but not great. The priests thought they were great and then so did my own people. It was getting dark now but we stayed at the job. The donuts disappeared as quick as they were done. "The onion rings leave a taste in the oil that flavours the donuts so you should not make more donuts unless you want to try them with onions. We can make something else called bagels that you may like." The onion rings went down even faster and the men were getting full. I talked about fish done this way but again the flavour changing with what had been cooked previously. The fire on the ground had been allowed to go out and a new pile of fuel added. The head priest put a pinch of sodium nitrate laced tinder to start the fire even though I told him why I had done this. The match though was very important to them and the man didn't even burn his fingers. We sat around a bit more and sipped wine and talked of families, wives and children. This lead to their instruction and to the foibles all of us got into. I was asked, "Do you have children?" I smiled as I thought of them all. "I have so many that I cannot count them all." The men smiled and I continued, "Some are older than me. I feel for them all the time. They are scattered all over the world. I love to hold them and I do not mind too much even if they pee on me. I want them to all grow up to be responsible citizens. They have to care for each other and for those that they are not brother and sister to. If we are all brother and sister we would make a family that will have everybody alive in it. Perhaps a family can deal with some of the troubles that beset the rest of the members." The old man said, "Do you have that many wives for all your children?" "If I run into an orphan that needs help then he or she comes into my family. Age is not the way I judge but I admit to favouring the young and weak." "Do you really have that many children?" "I have not told you of my recent troubles." The men shook their heads as if to assure me." I brought over the men that were with me when we first sailed into the Mediterranean. Mithridates was much more interesting to listen too as he explained things from his perspective. His Latin quit as he went into Pahlavi only. The speech got faster and faster. His hands gestured like an Italian of my time. It was interesting looking at him even if I did not understand what he was saying. I was not the only one, because the priests and the Romans with me were the same way. The next morning was too early but I got up anyway. I had to do some stretches and calisthenics and I felt much better. We had eaten a lot last night and I was not hungry yet. The guards got up later and after their morning rituals they had some water and porridge for breakfast. They liked it even more when I put some honey in their plates. We had another mid day meal but it was only for Mithridates and me. This time I asked about purchasing supplies. A few of the men nodded their heads as if in saying they would get back to me. Mid afternoon, a well dressed man came to us and said in fair Latin, "Our king wishes to see you." "May I bring Mithridates. Your king will get a clearer idea of what is being said and so will I." "He only wishes to see you." I turned to Mithridates and said, "I will see if I can get you in next time." "If you ask me I will go but I prefer not to get noticed." "You are being too modest." I cleaned up a bit more and put the better jacket on that KhAvar had made for me. I took no weapons or armour but I was not worried. We came to a very large tent. The guards looked at me for visible weapons and the man that escorted me subtly shook his head. I let him see that I had no weapons when I had dressed. Once inside, the man got to his knees. I had to come across as strong but not stupid. I bowed my head as respectfully as the priests had done to me recently. There were some strong mutters from the guards and a few came towards me thinking of committing mayhem. A finger wave from a man on a large cushion stopped them from doing anything. There was no speech until the man said in fair Latin, "You are a strange person, Jón of Germania." "I think you are perfectly correct, King of all of Persia." This was not the accepted way to speak and the man had to think. I tried not to offend but not to try to curry favour. "Will you take a seat so that I do not have to raise my voice?" "I would love to. Do you have a particular cushion in mind for me?" The king lazily moved his hand and a finger pointed to one cushion more than the rest. I admired the material and ran my hand over it in appreciation before I took my seat. I finally wiggled to get comfortable. "This is very nice, King of all Persia. I may have to have some of these made for my own home." "Tell me about your home. The one you were born into." "I will do this but the story may be lengthy and I know that you have many duties." "I will make time." I told the story of my life as Jón or as much as I could deduce. Jón's attitude was stressed so that I could compare it to my own. The accident with the horse took a few moments to set up to explain the coma. I explained how I was judged and found wanting. The gods did see some potential in me and would send me back after arming me with knowledge. The standard travelogue with the gods was done then my shift from there into the future of man. This I explained was mutable and I had already shifted it greatly from what I had seen. I went through my future, with a wife and family. I gave my education and discussed a few points in physics that those around me could comprehend. Finally as an old man I was sent back into my original body and that was of a young man. Conflicts with my mind and body being of different ages were mentioned. My ability to heal was explained just a bit more as if I was just a new tenant in my body and I could make a few alterations before finally settling in. Healing was just an offshoot of this where I altered others instead of myself. This helped because I used it on myself to gain strength and speed. I stopped then for a breather. As I rested the king called for refreshments. I was sure he wanted me to continue until the present. I gave very personal information about myself but I was vague about those around me. While we waited I just chatted about the current situation. The need to gather supplies for my people was mentioned. Mithridates was also mentioned and how he gave a very dramatic if bias account of our passage here. The king piped up and said, "Perhaps I will have him give me his rendition." "He is a nervous man. You may need to get him to drink a bit of wine first then stay away from his waving arms as he tells the story." The king smiled now. A silver tray came in with a silver urn. The smell came to me and my mouth watered. This was coffee. I watched the king and put honey into my small cup of coffee and sipped it. It was strong Turkish coffee but it said 'gold' to me. I put half of the cup back as this had the particles of the beans in it. "That was very good, King of all Persia. I see a mountain of gold for you in the future because of this." "Gold? Tell me more." "This is a matter of business. An idea alone may be worth a fantastic amount of gold. An idea spread by gossip is diluted for you." The king now ordered everybody from the tent except his guards. "Tell me more." "I did not exaggerate about the gold. Coffee beans can stay fresh for up to three years if they are green. They are good for two weeks after roasting. You can roast them differently than what you may know now. Your beans are almost burnt. You grind them to flour which gets all of the flavour and the chemicals from the beans. "You can also grind them less fine and filter out the particles. The money will come when people all over the world get a chance to try coffee. When enough have tried, they will want more. "Tea is from China and must have been used in India by now. There is another mountain of gold in selling this product too. The trick though is to alter the economy of the world so that everybody has money. When they have more than enough for a home and food they will spend what is left on what they like. Some will buy wine but far more will be spent on coffee and tea. The ones with money now are the Romans. They will love what you offer and try to go to the source themselves so they get this product cheaper." "The Romans are always greedy." "It is a human condition I am afraid. All races are driven by greed. It is not necessarily a bad thing. Greed can be used to change empires and improve the lives of all of us." The king didn't like being called greedy even by inference. "Tell me more." "Tea grows well in India and China. It is best to just trade to get it. Coffee can be grown in many warm areas. The best I am told is in the mountains. The cool air does not allow the plant to grow fast. The beans hold more of the flavour when this happens. "When I was in the future I enjoyed coffee every morning and at each meal. There was even a time in the morning and afternoon that was called a coffee break. Coffee has a drug in it that stimulates our bodies. Black tea is fermented and has a lot of this drug too. Oolong tea is partially fermented and has a little of this drug. Green tea is not fermented at all and has none. It is actually this drug that people will crave. "Many people that are in a city doing shopping will stop in a small wineshop but it will sell coffee and food instead of wine. It even has the name coffee shop in one or more languages on it. "You can make the most money by making a 'franchise'. This is a special way of doing business. If I were in you position, I would go to a city and open a business. It has tables and chairs so a person can eat a meal. Only simple and quick foods and drinks are sold. Various types of coffee and tea are sold though. This will be a place for people to come in and drink and talk. "In cities far from here, I would make a deal with wealthy men to make the same kind of buildings and make them work all the same way. They have to pay you a lot of money to start and then buy the coffee and tea from you. "I would also have to sell coffee by the shipload to cities. A person can prepare coffee at home but will go to the coffee shop for companionship. People with money have to be exposed to coffee and tea and then they will buy." The king said, "I do not see a mountain of gold in either of these things. Men will only spend so much on them." "That is true but I did say that we have to make everyone in the world prosperous. It will take a rich man now to buy coffee but everybody will be rich and you will get the gold from all of them." "How does everybody get rich? I do not want them to get my money." "Rich is when a man and his family are well fed. Rich is also when they are healthy and have a good home to live in. I can make a type of shit that nourishes the land so plants to grow faster. The farms I see that are not used any more can be put back into use and do better than land turned for the first time. "Being healthy means getting enough exercise and eating well. It also means that instead of throwing human waste into the streets, it is kept away from people so it will not spread disease. I can do that too by making people dump their waste into a hole in the ground or better yet, process it so it can be used to nourish a crop. "I am a physician before I was the healer I am now. As a physician, I leaned how to cut and sew people. I also learned how to repair teeth if they were not too unhealthy. I know how to make drugs that fight disease. "I have seen the cities of the future and understand some of the ways to keep people safe and healthy." The king said, "How does all this bring gold into my chests?" "I am making machines that allow a man to do more work. This is like using a large ship to carry food to market instead of carrying it many times on a person's back. A farmer will soon have a small family and have a farm that is five miles long by five miles wide and be able to bring all his crops to market. "This means that most people live in cities and towns. They work at jobs and gain gold. They need to pay for their home and food so they give up some of the gold to the man that owns the city. They need fresh water. I can give it to them by turning a handle. They will want the power of a lightning bolt to do work for them. This too I can provide. I will even supply a tube to each home that will take away their waste." "I still cannot see how I make all this gold." I gave an example by describing my foundry and manufacturing concerns. Again I went into detail. I added shipping by water and rail. The farms were then factored in and the infrastructure that supported all of the units. "The people make a very good wage working for me. They turn around and give me back most of the money to get that which other people make for me. I also get a surplus which I can sell to other people." "How much do you make?" "I will tell you that if you tell me how much you personally make. If we become partners then I will give you more information." "Partners? I could have you killed." "You certainly could. Your own ethics hold you back as would mine if our roles were reversed. You also need a lot of details that would take years to come out and years more to understand." "You seem to know a great deal about me." "I know some facts from 1,700 years in the future about you." I paused then said, "King of all Persia, do you believe me to be an honourable man?" It took a moment but he said, "Yes, I do." "I give my word that I will not attack you if you do not attack me or my extended family. This I swear on all that I believe." "I will not attack you either." "Then let's talk where nobody will hear or understand out speech. I know that a lot of servants have their bodies far away but their ears working hard to hear us." The king started to get angry and I said quickly, "They are human and cannot help themselves. If I were working in your kitchen I would be trying to listen too. I think the same is for you." He gave some orders and the servants were moved further away. When this was done he said, "Begin." "In that other time and place I visited a place for people to come and view beautiful things. Some were paintings, some were stone carvings. Others were the bones of animals that had died hundreds of millions of years ago. "One of the beautiful objects I saw was a gold mask of you. It had a large crown and showed you with a full beard. You looked younger than you do now. A bronze plate had words about you. It said that you were the one that made the Persia the strongest it ever got. Not as big but the strongest. From then on your empire dwindled. "A group of people of many races were bound together and were called Arabs. They took over in a few hundred years and your empire mainly died or was changed into something else. Not long after that a race called Turks took over this land and formed a vast empire. "Gaul and Britannia became very strong countries and formed empires. They too controlled this land. "I wanted to learn how to fight when I was young. I learned how to fight the way they did in the future but I also wanted to see how it was done in the past. Rome had many wars and I studied them. I did not study the people very much, just the wars and a bit about what the people of the future thought were the causes. Here too I learned about you. "What I learned was that you were an ethical man. You treated your people better than most. Your land prospered. I also want to tell you that Rome loses battles but not wars. You were different. You took some lands back and Rome was too far away to fight to get them back. "The next fact is not about you or Persia directly. The Western Roman Empire is attacked by what are called Visigoths. They were pushed into the empire by the Huns. The Huns will take over a lot of this empire and despoil it. Rome will now be weak and more and more invaders with break apart Roman law and authority. "Roman authority is what held everything together for a great many people in the west. Law reverted to those that were the most powerful. Trade is what helped all men but now there were too many robbers. We went into what were called the 'Dark Ages'. This lasted for five hundred years. Devices that are common or at least understood now, were forgotten. "My people and other barbarians looted towns and cities. They did great harm. They were people of the forest and did not see the benefits of a city. "The Middle Ages had a lot of small kingdoms. Slavery was still in place. Wars were fought but it was the common people that did the dying. "It was only in the last five hundred years that the situation started to improve once more. Wars got larger and bloodier. We did learn a lot though. We learned to travel and then trade flourished. For a while it was just like what we have here and now. Coffee and tea made some empires very rich. You have sugar cane. I can change this into refined sugar. This was called white gold. Black pepper is expensive. The people that will be Arabs brought this from the east. I know where it is grown. There are all types of spices here and in the east. When men are rich enough, they will give their gold back to those that bring the spices to them. "I came here to see if I could get you and Rome to stop this war and become allies. The Huns are a danger and so are all of the Germanic peoples. I need law and order to help people. Rome is in trouble and soon it will only be the Germanic peoples that protect the empire. "I do not want Rome to fall. To do this I have to build a new empire much like a mother does a child from within her. I would like that child to have the attributes of a Persian as well as a Roman and a German. "Your own empire will last for a few hundred years then whither away. I know very little of you in the future but perhaps the new future will have references to you and your people all over." The king and I were quiet and I just moved a bit to get comfortable. I stayed with the king now but he was usually quiet as he thought about what I had said. We had another nice meal and I was introduced to some of his family. He had three wives that I saw but I did not ask exactly how many he had. A lot of daughters were introduced, and I got the impression that the king was more than just a little interested in me. All of them were in their early teens so I guess either he had no older ones or he had married them off. In a quiet moment I said, "I brought some gifts for you. Part of it is the usual bribe a king gets but I want to show you some of the things I make." The king didn't like the term bribe but decided to smile at the truth. "Then show them to me." "They are in the wagon. It is better that they be brought here and assembled. Some are for your family. Your wives and children should see how they are used so they can learn some new ideas." The men and goods were summoned and the wagon came near the large tent. Instead of putting the stove in the back, it went in the front for all to see. It had to be taken from the heavy crate and bolted together. I made sure the king and others saw the tools and the bolts themselves. They were well made and accurate. I had to take off my jacket and helped to assemble the stove and the parts that attached to it. Help was given me and water and wood were summoned. When I finished the stove, the water was put in the heating unit. I had the priests come and start the first fire and this caused quite a stir. The frypans, pots and lids were given to the women after asking the king discretely. Oven mitts were a very necessary article now. There was a lot of food ordered and I spent an hour making various dishes. The wives and daughters got a chance to stir dishes. They had done this before but it was just that my pots and pans were accurately machined. The priests even got a chance to make donuts on one of the smaller camp units. It was late in the day that I dragged out the armour that was copper plated. There was no difficulty in getting the king to try it on. There was a lot of adjustments but it did fit. The sun shone on the armour and made it look like gold. There were more than enough people to see it and say how good he looked in it. He liked the shield and helmet but would not wear them. I said, "If you do not wear the helmet and get killed, I will be very angry at you." It took a moment before he said, "I will wear it then." "Good." I brought out the swords now and all were the best I could make. They were of different designs but most were variations of the calvary sabre. There were no scabbards but usually they were made fancy and I didn't want to spend the time on this. The knives were a hit too. The next set of armour was taken out and the king had to get out of the one he had to get into the next. He didn't have good boots but I got him to call a bootmaker so that I could give my directions. There was one saddle and the king had his horse brought over. A beautiful Persian rug was used as the horse blanket. The saddle was put on and I tightened all the straps the way it should be done. I gave an impromptu lesson in proper mounting etiquette. The man was a good horseman and mounted very well. I adjusted the saddle a bit more to make it fit him better. He looked an impressive sight in the shiny armour and on the magnificent horse. It took ten minutes before he got off the horse and had to stop and get off the way I wanted. We went through the remaining boxes after our personal property was removed. There were copies of some of my books, loose paper, pen nibs and ink, and a lot more small gifts. The last box held a kite. I presented this to the king with both hands and said, "This is for the boy in you. It is the gift of flight. Nourish this and one day before you die you may get a chance to fly through the air." The man was very solemn now and I helped him assemble the kite. I whispered when he was close. "If you remove the armour and get me a horse, we can get the kit to fly. We need a strong wind and some young legs otherwise." The armour was lost and a horse found. The king was informed of a good place where there was wind and we rode in that direction. The now partially empty wagon was used to ferry some of the king's family and they sat on the boxes. Once on the crest of the valley I mentioned what to do and in moments we were racing along the edge. I released the kite and it rose into the air and the king stopped only because he came to a drop off. The silk string was played out slowly and the kite went higher and higher. It also flew side to side because the wind was far from constant. The king though was a boy again. The wind died down later as the sun set and he wound the string on the spool until the kite was caught. I smiled at the king when he brought the kite in and caught it. "If I had given you this at noon you would have been here until now with it." It took a moment because him to understand. I was not acting like one of his subjects again. "Yes, I think you are right." When we got back to the wagon he saw his family smiling at him and he smiled back. He didn't mind being a boy in front of them. I said, "I want you to have the wagon too. If I were you, I would make a lot of them. They are great for trade and great for going to war." "What more do you have in the boxes?" "We should go back to your home and look then." The king carried the kite and spool in one hand and his other carrying the reigns of the horse. When we got back to where we were supposed to go, the women got out and admired the hide of the leopard. When the king got down, he looked at the skin too and said, "Is that the cat you killed with your bare hands?" "It happened only because I was foolish. I should have used my sword or knife but I was only concerned with saving a man's life. It was only after I grabbed the cat that I wondered what to do with it. It took me a long time to remember to take the life from the cat the way the gods taught me." The king said seriously, "Do you think the gods placed the cat there to do what it did?" "They could have. They know how foolish I am too." The rest of the gifts were presented and I explained some of them especially the paper, ink and nibs. The final gift was a case of stingers. It was presented in my two hands. It had stayed with our personal effects because I did not want it bouncing around needlessly. "What is this? I am not familiar with this word." I present you with 'Thor's mighty Hammer'. I only ask you to not use it against the Romans. He opened the case and took out one of the arrows and looked at it. "Is this what destroyed the sides of the ships?" "They did." "I could defeat an army with these." "You could. The power is great but so is the responsibility. They have to be treated like a leopard. You cannot let go of these or one may come back to bite you." The king looked at me now as he thought. "The weapons are good for a year or more but become unstable after that. They then have to be destroyed or the power could be accidentally released by a sudden movement. You or your men would be destroyed." "Show me this." "I will but in the morning you will see it much better." He nodded. I said, "Let's listen to Mithridates tell his tale." "I would like that." The Romans were invited to stay and I introduced them to the king. Mithridates was not happy but he did start when we got comfortable. Now there were hundreds of people around to listen. A strong cup of wine seemed to help and Mithridates forgot where and who he was with as he went into his monologue. The explanation should have taken five minutes but went on for half an hour. I could not grasp much of the conversation because it went quickly and with a lot of theatrics. When Mithridates finished he realised where he was and immediately shut up. The king said, "You tell a very interesting tale. You are not just the captain of a ship I see but a mighty warrior like the rest of the men with you." Mithridates didn't say anything and was even too afraid to smile. The king was courteous by repeating himself in Latin to the Romans. They did not have difficulty smiling. We were up early in the morning to catch the freshening wind. This time we did not need a horse though the king could not run very fast. When the rest of the camp got up he reluctantly brought in the kite. "Show me the stingers now." "Are we far enough away from the Romans that they will not hear the sound?" "It is that loud?" "It is loud and the mountains will guide the sound for many miles. If we do it in a valley it helps but the Romans may still hear when the sound reflects off the mountains." We went back to the valley we had been in and I got my bow and some arrows. The king inspected both with the care of a warrior. I strung the bow then showed the king the trigger that was strapped to my wrist. He gave a pull on the string but did not try to bring the string all the way back. "You are certainly strong to be able to draw this bow." "The gods allowed me to gain strength by controlling my body." "Would the gods give me such strength?" "I do not think so. They allow me to heal the sick and to even grow new limbs. You lived for quite a while. I would like to see if there is anything I can do to help you." The king said nothing. He would be putting himself under my control. I had some target practice while a wooden wall was erected to study the effects of the stinger. The king and I along with many of his people examined the wall. I drew the king's bow and handed it back to him. "From this distance I would aim at the top edge of the wall. You should hit the centre." "Me?" "They were given to you as a gift." I explained everything I could to the Persians. The safety pin was explained and then extracted. The king drew the bow and released. Fifty metres away the wall disintegrated. This was not what I had planned because he hit between two logs. The crowd though said nothing. They just stared at the cloud of dust and the destruction. In two minutes the king recovered and picked up the box of stingers. I was sure he was going to sleep with them to make sure they stayed safe. We went back to the tent. The people kept a greater distance from the king and his cargo now. As we walked he said, "I want more of these." "They are made in Germania. I like your company and I think you are a good man. I am not going to send you any of the stingers unless we have an agreement that will cover the world for the next thousand years." "I am a king." "I am the son of a king." "You are in my country." "My father has cannons. They are much more destructive than the stingers. They can throw the power of a stinger for six miles. They can do so three times a minute. With a dozen children I killed a legion. What could an army of angry Frisians do? What could they do with the help of Rome?" I waited a few seconds and said in a calmer voice, "I want to form what I called the United Nations. You, the Augustus, Clovis, a worthy king of India and one from China will rule the world." "What will you rule?" "My businesses. I will be very wealthy and I can afford to educate the world to act ethically. For you, there will be much more work than running a country. The rewards will be much greater too." The king claimed to need time to run his empire but it may be more time to think. I handed him a large sheet of paper with the drawing of a very large wooden ship powered by steam engines. Rough dimensions were given and the capacity for fuel, cargo and distance it could travel without refuelling. At least now he would have more to think about. We were not captives so we left to go hunting. We also took another group of Persians with us to make sure we did not get lost. The mountains had lots of game. I found the tracks of other large cats but I didn't want to take the animals unless I had to. Humans tried to kill everything that was a danger to them and then bemoan the loss of the animal when they were extinct. I did point out game that most did not see and helped the Romans and the Persians bring back a respectable amount of meat to the camp. I just looked for minerals which was exciting in its own way to me. We had more soccer games and this time the children were not chased away. I treated scrapes and cuts with a small prayer to Woden and the boy ran off to play once more. Some old men came to me later and I cured them of some of their ailments. There were no sermons though because their own religion was strong within them. They were strongly conservative and it would be hard to make inroads when they were close together. The king wanted me to eat with him and his family. Usually one or more of his daughters would talk to me. I saw the king smile a few times but he tried to be reserved. At the conclusion of the meal the king asked me to wait while he attended to some business. His daughters stayed to keep me entertained. They were beautiful but I had no wish to add to my harem of two. Anoushak, the oldest young girl, asked me to remove a mole on her cheek. I looked at it and said, "I have removed many like this but you are your father's daughter. He still has problems when it comes to dealing with me. If and when he says that I may heal you, I will." "What if I hurt myself?" "I would give you first aid as a physician. Only if it were life threatening would I be a healer. If you had just come to me in a crowd I would probably have healed you. Being a princess has its good points and its bad. An angry father I may be able to deal with and angry father that is a king is different." "Are you afraid of my father?" "I want to be a friend. That means that we have to understand and trust each other. I gave him weapons that could turn a battle or open the gates to a city. That is trust. I did not give him many, so my own trust is limited." The girl took a new direction and said, "Tell me about Woden." I heard a small gasp further away. "Some religions make it plain that they do not want foreigners to try to convert them. The leaders are afraid of losing their hold on the people. I would usually give a few sermons a day. I am not going to impose my views on those of my host. It is a matter of being polite too. If he asked me, then I would certainly do so." "We heard that you healed a deer. Why did you do this?" "We needed food. I took what we needed but I did not want to take more. Perhaps that deer will furnish food for a starving family one day and if I killed it now then they would die." "How do you heal?" "My mind and body adjust to another body as if it were mine. I can see things that no man has ever seen before. If there is an infection I send the soldiers in all of our bodies to fight in the battle. If there is a tumour, it needs blood to survive and I get the body to cut off the blood. The tumour then dies and is absorbed by the body. Growing a tooth or a new limb is much more difficult to describe in a few words. I need to encourage the body to repair just a bit then repair more on top of what it has just done. This continues until the hand or tooth start. The body then is able to continue this process even if I am not there to guide it." Anoushak then bluntly asked, "Do you have a wife?" I heard more gasps this time from the women in the back that were not listening. "There are two women that I love. My religion says that I can have but one wife." To turn the tables on the girl I asked, "What should I do?" "Ahhh... Do you love them equally?" "In time they will be equal. One is a Roman girl. The other is a Persian girl just a bit older than you." "What is her name?" "KhAvar." "Is she pretty?" "She is beautiful but only a fool only looks at the outward beauty." "Where is she?" "Berytus." "Alone?" "She is watching over my family. There are hundreds of them in the city. I gave her the job recently of gathering young girls to play the game I play with the boys here." "She does all that? Girls can't play like that." "So girls are weak? Girls are too slow to play games? Perhaps you meant that girls are too slow-witted to play?" The girl got to her feet and stomped away but turned before leaving and said hotly, "We are not slow-witted." "Then girls could play that game?" "Yes we could." "You cannot?" "Yes we can." "Tomorrow at noon come to the field and play my boys. Bring all the foolish girls that are too slow-witted to know that they cannot play." The other girls ran after their sister in a form of solidarity. Two of the mothers came in and I waved them over. I got up and whispered, "Girls who are confident of themselves are better than girls that are meek. If you wish to help, tell Anoushak that girls are very intelligent and need a chance to prove it." One whispered back, "Why should we do this?" "Your men fight for your people. I need educated people to teach the children. A meek teacher is no good. I want your people to learn how to count my way and how to do other things my way. If I am right and they work then you continue. If I am wrong then you learn and then do not do it my way." "You want teachers?" "I have to teach the teachers and they teach other teachers." They both whispered to each other and then I added, "The girls need to be able to run. Have them dress like the boys." The two women gasped at the though of this. ------- Chapter 8 That night I looked for one of the king's advisors. There were a lot and I was happy that none of them were actively against me at least not to my hearing. I asked, "Who is the woman here that is most like a man in the way she acts?" I had to go through three until I found somebody that might know and he had to go and ask others. It was getting late and I was directed to a large tent near Sapor's. apparently his sister AsA was too outgoing for most men. She had not been invited to the meals with me either, so perhaps she was abrasive A man was not supposed to call on a single woman without a chaperone. I made do by waiting outside the tent and in full view of anybody that chose to look my way. A woman about forty five came to the tent and asked sweetly, "I am AsA. My brother is not here at the moment." "Hello, AsA. My name is Jón. I came to talk to you." "Me?" "I am disrupting the camp with my ideas. I think women and girls are as intelligent as men and boys. I need a way of showing this." The woman said nothing to me and it was as if I had not spoken. "I asked people if there was a woman that was intelligent enough to voice her opinion of this. I was given your name." "Why are you doing this?" "Half of the people in the world are women. They should have at least half of the good ideas. They should have half the voice in what should be done. They should also have half the say in how a child is to be educated. I thought you would help me help the women of your race." She thought for a moment and said, "Come with me," as she opened the tent wider. "I will if that is your wish but I was told that a man does not do this." This time she smiled and said, "Come." I walked in and found four more women sitting around a circle with two oil lamps burning. I stopped and bowed the way the priests did and said, "Good day, ladies." The term ladies in this case meant marriageable women and these women were all as old as AsA. They laughed or smiled at my comment. AsA said, "Please sit and tell me what you said again." Instead of telling her this I repeated my talk with Sapor's family relating to the area where each gender was usually working from. I then explained about Frisian women and what they did. Women all worked hard but Frisian women were more outgoing and this was part of why Rome called them barbaric. Finally I mentioned my talk with Anoushak and how I got her to reply angrily. The women tittered at what I had done then talked among themselves very quickly and I could not understand much of what was said. None of the women treated me much different than they treated each other. I was asked a great many questions but most dealt with what I was trying to accomplish. It was a lot later that I had to talk about the game of soccer and how it involved a lot of kicking of the ball and a great deal of running. I talked about substitutes and how the boys did not use them while the girls might do this to their advantage. My own children had played soccer and then so had my other children in Germaia, Gaul and now Lebanon. AsA finally said, "We will help." Again I was up bright and early. I stretched and did a few exercises and started breakfast. When the men got up I told them about the grudge match that may or may not happen. The men may favour the boys but would help me with the girls because I asked it. As soon as possible we worked with the boys that came early to our campsite. I worked with the boys too but there were soldiers now coming to me for help. I did what I could for them and wished for the hundredth time that I had my team of dentists here to help me. Wounds were very common and some of them were ghastly. I had seen the same on the Romans and did as good of a job. Before I knew it though I was called out and met with AsA and her team of women that now numbered eight. "Tell us again the rules of this game." I went over them and again on some that could favour the ones that were smart over the ones that just had brawn. "You talked of a uniform. This sounds like they have to be similar." "To make the match fair then the boys and girls should wear similar clothing. This happens in the future and in the land of the gods." "Do you have another ball? We would like to practice for a few days first. Is that fair?" "I do have more balls. I think the idea is more than fair." I gave my two spare balls to the women and ran through the major rules with Mithridates so the women would not have any misunderstandings. When the women left, Mithridates said, "They are going to teach the girls?" "I hope so. We have a few days until the first game now." After the noon meal I went back to our camp and found two older women in the line for help. They kept their place in line and the men did not begrudge them coming. When they finally got to me I said, "Hello, ladies. How may I help you?" The women tittered at the term I used and one said, "My sister is feeling weak recently. Will you cure her?" "I will see what is wrong and see if I can." I sat both women down on a bench and interfaced with the woman. For some reason the woman was more difficult than usual to connect to. The two women were holding hands and I attributed it to this. The woman did have rheumatism in her hands and her hips were in bad shape. I worked a long time on her and even more because there seemed to be a resistance to me doing this. There were some small tumours and I cut off the flow of blood to them. Because the sister was already holding hands, I worked through this boundary to help the other sister. She too had rheumatism but it was not as bad. Here the woman had a weak heart and I did what I could to get the heart to replace some of the dead cells. Both had bone loss and I guess this is what was called osteoporosis. The condition was apparently triggered by menopause. I did not know how to treat this very well but tried my best. When I was done, I let both women feel the surge of endorphins and I had to move quickly to keep the second sister from falling. When they recovered they had bright eyes and I think they may jump me. It would not be in anger either. I said, "I did what I could for both of you." I turned to the sister that had done the talking and I said, "Come back in three or four days. Your heart was weak and I want to make sure it is healing properly." "My heart? There was nothing wrong with my heart." I smiled and said, "You must be one of Asa's friends because you like to argue." Her eyes got very big so I must have been right. I added in a quieter voice, "You did have a weak heart. I would not lie to you." She reached up and touched my cheek and I felt a tingle myself. The woman smiled and said, "I know you would not." The next patient was in a hurry and I saw blood in his hand so I had him sit and interfaced quickly. I stopped the blood and removed most of the pain. I got the man to lay down on the bench and I examined what the trouble was with my eyes as well as my mind. I was surprised the man was even alive, never mind waiting in line for me. When I finished with the man I found the line even longer than it was before. I went down the line now interfacing and telling the body to heal as I had done in Lutetia. None of the men were as serious as the man I had just treated so I went back to first come, first serve. I had a meal that night with Sapor once more. Anoushak was very polite but seemed to have a superiority complex now. This may not be good but it was better than it was before. Sapor asked me, "I heard some disturbing words about you." I hazarded a guess and said, "Am I accused of treating woman harshly?" "That is true." "Some times it is good for a confidence to be shaken. If you are right then it makes you stronger. If you are wrong then you have a chance to re-evaluate." Sapor's son came into the tent now. He was the one that had questioned me before. He stopped once inside and performed a small Zoroastrian ceremony and then greeted his family happily but didn't seem pleased to see me. The father greeted his son and introduce me. Ardeshir was his name. He had been out on patrol and gave his report to his father but I could see he was hiding facts because I was here. Sapor just asked the man to sit and eat. Ardeshir left soon after the meal. Sapor said, "Jón, tell me about what you are doing to the women and tell me why?" "I have a different viewpoint than what you do. I am a barbarian from Germanica. I deal with the Gauls and other races that have different customs than we Germans. I have tried to understand the Romans as best as I can and now I have a chance to see your people. "If this were not enough, I have many years in the land of the gods and in a possible future for all people. There are a great many improvements could be made in everybody's lives. "One has to do with women of every race. Men like to go to war but want their families safe at home. That is good but it leads to the women not treated as if they have a mind of their own. Women are confusing to us but that does not mean that they do not have good ideas. I want women to do more than they do now. "I have cadets in Germania. Most of them are girls now. They know how to use a sword and in a few years I would match them against most of your men. Those same girls helped me kill thousands of Romans and many more thousand Gauls. I do not say that your women should fight but I would like them to know how. If the men go off to war then a few of the enemy can have their way with your families. "If I do what I wish then you will hate me when the women talk at you to get you to change your mind about something they think you are doing wrong. You will thank me with all of your heart when you find out that the women are right some of the time and you could not see it because you see things only as a man." Sapor said, "Our culture has been set for a thousand years and now you are disrupting it. It has worked fine all this time." I replied, "Are you claiming that your culture is so good that it can never be improved?" "I do not want the women to disturb what we have built." "This is your country and your people. I know you try the best you can for them. I have to ask another question. You have followed the teachings of Zarathushtra for at least a thousand years. Do you honestly believe that I am the Hand of the god Woden?" I could see that he did not want to answer and said, "It looks like you are." "Is there some proof lacking? I can heal with my hands. My mind has many of the images from the land of the gods and the future. Could an educated man do as I have done without being the Hand of Woden?" "I already said it looks that way." "I want an answer, either yes or no." "I am not a child to be treated this way." "You are a man that has to make decisions that will effect all of your people. You have to make decisions all the time. You avoid answering me." "All right, you are the Hand of Woden." "Thank you for this admission. By my own words in the last few weeks I mentioned that I am not always right. One fact I know, is that Woden is real. Other religions may have real gods or their gods may be sleeping. The possibility is that they are also weak when compared to Woden and the rest of Asgard. "I would like to preach about the word of Woden to your people..." "The people do not believe in Woden. Woden is a god for barbarians." "Woden treated your people. He allowed me to give goods that would not be invented for thousands of years. Did you not notice that what Woden teaches is very similar to what Zarathushtra taught? It is as if Zarathushtra was taught by Woden or one of the other gods and Zarathushtra did not have the means of carrying the word to the people exactly as it was intended. He used what he thought best but he did not have paper. Wodenism is just the next logical step for your people to take to come to know their god better." Sapor was now very quiet as he thought and I just leaned back and waited him out. Finally Sapor said, "Your religion is very much like ours. You care for the weak and those that cannot fight for themselves. Zarathushtra did much the same thing. I believe that Zarathushtra was a prophet sent to us but I also know that you are one too. "I am worried about change. A small amount I can take but you are changing the world in so many ways. You take on a century of Romans for fun and kill none of them. You kill a leopard in your bare hands and then you save the life of a deer. You are attacked by hundreds of pirates and you almost take all of them by yourself. If that were not enough you give me things of such high quality that nobody can do as you have done. Then you give me plans for a mighty ship as if all I have to do is snap my fingers to get it built." I was quiet now but in a moment I said, "I bring change to the world. For good or ill, you have to follow. Rome and the barbarians will gain so much power that you will be like a simple village to deal with. I do not want your people hurt. I want you to join with those others that are taking what I have to offer. Soon India and then China will join us. They too have to change as does Rome and my people." Sapor said, "This I understood long before you showed up on our shores. I have read your books many times. You do not force these changes. You treat those that do not know of you, with kindness but they are the people that are going to be left behind." "I said that I do not want the Persian people to be left behind. You will have to hold onto the tiger's tail much the same as I did. When the Tiger is finished running you will have no reason to fear him then." The next day I gave my first sermon. It was in many ways much like what Zarathushtra would have done. I healed people after and men that had been healed before came up and told how they had changed since meeting me. Mithridates could not read very well or at least not Latin. He became another of my acolytes and spoke for me on many occasions. After the sermon I talked publicly with the priests and discussed more of our similarities. I found a reason to heal one of the old men. His admission that he had felt Woden cemented my position much more. That fact that his joints would ache less in coming days would help even more. The next day we had our soccer match. I blessed each of the participants and showed them two kites I had made. Silk was plentiful here though still expensive. The wining team would get the large kite and the losers would get the smaller one. There was very little difference between the two. The boys had to play in the same clothes they would normally walk around the camp in. It was hot and the girls had to do the same thing. Sapor came out to watch his three daughters play and cheered with us. The girls changed on the fly and were fresher usually. The boys did win five to three but it was a well fought match. This time Sapor was the one that presented the kites to the captains of the two teams. He was good about the girls playing and gave a speech about how girls had to do more than just tend to the family. AsA and the other women were behind him and the girls didn't seem to be very disappointed in losing this match. Both teams were invited over to our area and we had a donut break. HidA and Mehrnoosh were the two women I had treated. I got to check their hands and they appeared a lot better but not perfect yet. Now while holding a woman by both hands I worked again to make her as healthy as I could. The other woman was done next. This time I did not have any difficulty interfacing. Mehrnoosh was the woman I had spoke to last and this time she asked, "I heard that you wish to teach the children. Besides how to play a game, what do you intend to do?" "I want all children to learn to read and write their own language. I want them to learn to read in the new Latin that is in the books I wrote. They all have to learn the language of science. This is the numbers that I speak of in my books." Now with a wink to the women I added, "It was proved today that girls are as good as boys. Perhaps they can learn mathematics. There are only ten numbers and a few symbols to work with them. Women make good teachers. Would some of you like to help me?" HidA now spoke for the first time. Her eyes still sparkled and I felt that she would still like to jump my bones. "All we have to do is learn the way you count?" "I will tell you honestly that in the far future, men and women that are very good at numbers work all their lives to learn more. Only the very best can do this. At the beginning, the numbers are simple but they get harder and harder. Your king will need to have people record how much crops are planted and the amount that comes from each farm. He may build great ships and numbers help there too. The empire will grow tremendously and the people that understand numbers will help as well as a warrior." HidA said, "How can this be?" "An army goes across the desert. One man needs so much water every day. More is needed for the elephants and the horses. A 'mathematician' will count how much water is needed and compare it to the amount that was to be carried. If it is not enough then this has to be brought to the king's attention. Weak men dying of thirst cannot fight that well. A war can be won or lost on information like this." "Show me your numbers." I started a school now. Again I talked about blackboards and chalk along with slates for the students. The Persian numbers and the Indian/Arab numbers were shown side by side. I performed dozens of calculations in each set of characters and it was easy to see that my system was faster. All of the women and most of the girls came to watch what was being said. I went through the four basic operations. The women were educated and could make some connection to what I was saying. Mithridates and I were invited to eat the noon meal with AsA and her friends. We discussed education in a broader sense. The meal took a long time because we then had to take each of the major points and expand on them. Mithridates helped with the dialogue but I did not think he was comfortable here. It had been raining during our talk and later AsA joined us at her brother's meal and we talked more about education. Sapor said, "What is this going to do for me?" "You slowly start to get an educated population and an educated army. Fighting in the future is very complicated. Men send machines three to five hundred miles above the earth. From that point, men are sent an image of what is below them. It is easy to see a patrol or an army. With the power of the lighting bolt, those looking at the images could talk to their men thousands of miles away in the blink of an eye. "Machines that travel a hundred miles an hour can destroy a whole army. The bad thing is that the machines take a long time to make and cost a great deal. They also need to be repaired constantly because they wear out quickly. Only an educated man can make the parts and only and educated man can make the machine do what is necessary." Eventually he said, "That is in the far future. What about now?" "I have not done so yet but I can make a device that allows your voice to be carried on the power of a lightning bolt. You can listen to reports of men in the field and direct them from here. You could also talk to your people if they have the machine that will receive your voice. I have to have educated people to bring this about. I do not know exactly how to build this, only that I have used this device many times. "In the future music is played and people listen to it as they work. The information about the war or about flooding someplace can be mentioned. Even the rain today could be told to a central location. This is like how you plan a war. They know the direction of the wind and tell people in that location to prepare for rain. They could also tell about an enemy crossing your land." "What is this thing called?" "The part that carries your voice is a radio transmitter. There should not be too many of them. Everybody should have a radio receiver so they can learn what is said." "That would be good in a battle." "Yes it would and small machines are made that both receive and transmit. One man in ten or twenty could have this device. He talks of what he sees and his commanders tell him what to do. They are much better than horns and the power goes for many miles." "Will you make one for me?" "I will have to make thousands of them. I do not know everything that has to be done because I studied chemistry. My knowledge of radio is limited. It will take many years to build this and I will need many men and women that are educated to help me. It is like the ship I drew for you. I could make one but I would be an old man by the time one was built." "What do I need to start?" "People to hunt for minerals. I need some of the machines that are on the Rhine. We need to make glass. We need some running water or one of my steam engines for power. I need a lot of silver to make into wire. I use the wire to make a device that will produce the lightning. The lightning is first used to purify copper. Only the purest copper will work." "I can provide those things." I smiled at the man and said, "I see a giant mountain of gold for us." "How is this?" "I will make a large very powerful transmitter that can send your voice all the way around the earth." Sapor was amazed at this and then very pleased. I added, "We need to make radio receivers at the same time. Those receivers can be made so that they only hear what is said to them. We sell these receivers to everybody. They are like magic and they will sell. "We need an important man to speak on the radio once every week or perhaps even every day at one time. He talks of his country and what it has to go through. The people listening to this will take his word to heart. "Another man or women talks about the weather or how to clean a dirty child. I want to use the radio to talk about Woden. AsA can talk to millions of people on how to add and subtract numbers." "Me?" Asa said. Then after a second, "Millions?" "If every village has a radio and maybe every farm then everybody that could, would listen to your words. You could talk to important people and they answer you. People all over the world will want to hear what is said." "I cannot do that." "You have enough backbone to take on anybody in an argument. What is good for your people is that Romans will pay for these radios and then listen to them. Your own people could listen to the Romans though. One of those men could talk about how to allow a man to fly through the air or how to keep a disease from spreading." Sapor was not too interested in this I could see. He must like a captive audience. "Why do the Romans need to speak?" "It will not be just the Romans but the Indian and the Chinese too. You can listen to what is said by all the leaders. A United Nations needs a lot of discussion. I like Chinese food and Indian too. They can talk about the best way to cook something and we all benefit from it. The more things that are talked about the more valuable a radio receiver is. The more valuable it is the more they will pay." Sapor understood this very well and smiled. I got off the subject of radios and went onto railways. I used my hands to describe the rails and the weight of a locomotive. This was in the multiples of a full grown horse. This was hard to believe. "The train can take warriors close to battle at a hundred miles an hour. You need less of an army now because they can go quickly to where they are needed. Your goods get shipped to anyplace the rails go and it is cheap no matter what they weigh. "In the future, the people that live outside a giant city can go to work in the morning even though they may be a hundred miles away. The best part about trains is that they carry what is needed for business and then take away what is produced. One day I could talk on the radio to somebody on the Rhine. He will put what I want on the train and in a few days it will be here for me." Sapor said, "Soldiers could come too." "You will have a way of blocking the trains and also warn a country that it is being attacked." I had to continue with ways of blocking a train until Sapor was satisfied. Anoushak seemed ready to talk so I asked her, "Yes Anoushak?" "Can men really fly?" "Yes, and even a mouse can fly." "A mouse cannot fly." I looked at Sapor and Asa and said, "It can and you are going to prove it. You will be the first Persian to make an aeroplane." "A what?" "I will show you tomorrow. You need some silk, thread and a needle. You need some sharp knives and some light but strong wood. You then need some glue that the fletchers use for attaching the feathers to the arrows. You test what you make then the most important thing." "What?" I whispered loudly enough for all them hear, "You make a small cage of wood and catch a mouse to go into it. This goes into your aeroplane when you show it to the world." "Me?" she whispered back." "Who else but a princess could do this." The next day Sapor talked to me when we were alone. "We have not talked much about the peace with the Romans." "No, we have not. I showed you that I am the Hand of Woden. I talked about what your country can do to make a lot of gold. The next step is for you to make peace with the new Augustus." "I assume that you mean Julian?" "I do." "How is he to take the crown?" "That is what we have to discuss." Sapor and I talked about all the ways that I had devised in the last year or so. I did not tell him that this may have been with Sapor's successor and not him at all. Sapor wanted Armenia returned to his control. I encouraged him to add more. Rome had to connect to his railway and charge him only at cost to use it. "We do not have a railway." "You and I will build a steel mill. We will make many miles of steel each and every day. The locomotives will come from the Rhine in pieces by ship. We will make the wheels here and the machines to make more machines." "How much will this cost me?" "I need a few hundred families to start. I have talked to those in the camp and know that there is a lot of iron in some areas. Other places have the black rock that burns. We call it coal. The coal is partially burnt like the way wood is partially burnt to form charcoal. Limestone, the partially burnt coal and iron ore are combined in a very large oven made of fired clay." "This makes steel the way you have done?" "This can make hard iron that you cannot work. If the forge gets hot enough then the iron turns to liquid. I have to mix some things with the liquid iron to make it for my tools or take something away to make it steel. The trick is to get people that are familiar with this or to make machines that I do not know how to make yet." "Just a hundred families?" "I need to feed and cloth the hundred families. When I am ready I need a thousand families and the food for them. The tracks will be laid on large pieces of hard wood. We need men to cut trees. Bridges have to be made and they have to be very strong and wide. A train is heavy and people will use the bridge for their carts. The men that now fight for you can then start to work at making tools for us if there is no threat of war. "While we lay the track for the trains we need to make a good road beside it. I heard that there is a lake of bitumen nearby in Judea." "I have heard of it. What can it do?" "I make a strong machine that bites large pieces of rock and puts out smaller pieces. This is used with large wagons to make a very good road. Larger rocks are used to make the tunnels under the road for water when it rains. The bitumen is heated and mixed with small stones. This is laid on the road you have prepared. Another machine that weights as much as a large elephant will roll over this hot black material and make it flat. When it cools it will be water resistant and very durable. The trick is to pack the loose stones underneath so they do not shift later." "Rome could use this road." "If you allow Rome to get into your country." "I guess I can keep them out." I smiled now and said, "My steam engine can be made to move a cart. The cart can go fifty miles in one hour. In ten hours you could go five hundred miles." "You can make this?" "It is only a small locomotive. I need to make 'rubber first though." "What is 'rubber'?" "Something that is like leather but I can pour it like water. I can make a wheel for a cart and put the rubber on top of the steel tire. Later I can make a steel centre and an all rubber tire with a large bubble of air in it. It will grip the bitumen very well and be comfortable for you when you sit in the cart." "Then make this rubber." "Close to the mouth of the Rhine there is a gas that escapes from the ground. If a spark is near it will roar into a fire that is many feet high." I paused and Sapor said, "I have heard of this fire. It is said to be sacred to your religion." "It is not held sacred by the gods. It is just a gas that is escaping from the earth. It is better to be burnt though. I need a lot of this to make the rubber. I have also heard of lakes of a black substance that is like bitumen but more like water. This is called petroleum. I can make rubber from this too." "There is lots of this around. Use all you want." "I may need a great deal." "You can have all of it." An hour later Anoushak and I worked on a lightweight wooden structure. AsA was asked to witness what was happening for a variety of reasons. She didn't need any of them because she was interested. I had made lots of these planes in the last year and knew enough to makes the wings in one piece. It could be moved fore or aft on the fuselage to keep it balanced. Asa built one as well but it would fly after her niece's was recognised. They took only a few hours to make. Anoushak's plane crashed many times until we got it balanced correctly then it flew for quite a distance. AsA learned from our mistakes and hers flew sooner. The next morning Sapor witnessed his daughter's efforts and hugged her in public. A lot of other children saw this and were interested. Many were still playing with the kites and copies were made as we worked. A cage was made of small branches and a mouse was easy to come by. The cage fit into the fuselage and Anoushak threw her plane from the ridge her father had used for his kite. The mouse was knocked about three times until the balance was found then the plane flew perhaps fifty metres down the hill. There was a mad dash for the plane but the pilot was able to make it to safety before the people arrived. "Anoushak, I am now asking you in public. Can a mouse fly?" She smiled widely at me and said, "Sure they can. Why did you ever doubt it?" Sapor hugged my shoulder and laughed at this and told me, "You will not win that often here." Sapor and I discussed more details about getting rid of Constantius in private. He quizzed me on how this act fell within my religion. "Constantius is either a Christian or a man pretending to be one. He and Julian are in conflict and one will die soon. I have talked with Julian quite a bit and we understand each other. He knew about you over a year ago. He has been thinking on this peace plan for a long time. He, like you, are looking into the benefits of this partnership. "Did you give him stingers too?" "He was given many and used many. He will also get the benefit of the Frisian cannoneers." "That sounds like he could destroy my army." "He is at war with the Germans and the Gauls. If Constantius does not die he will be in a civil war with his own people. The weapons he received are simple. Do not forget I lived most of my life in the future. The cannon was very destructive but it was like a child's toy when compared to modern weapons." "What are those weapons like?" "Let us talk about that later. Julian may well need all the assistance he can get to even meet you in friendship. You have a common enemy and a common bond now. I want to let people follow Woden's Word and be happy and comfortable. All of the races of man have to bend just a bit but Persians have to bend the least I think. In return for accepting Woden's Word, everybody will lead happy lives with little war or strife. Disease will be reduced and plentiful food made available." Sapor thought more on this. I had mentioned the same things many times before. Large families and multiple wives would not be socially accepted. He knew that some customs would take time to change. The two of us could have more than one wife for a while as customs were in flux. He knew about my two women and how they would be wives even if we did not follow the customs of the time and make it official. Advisors came in later and we talked about the benefits I could bring to this land. Sapor was mainly focussed on agriculture. I told all of the men what could be done with fertiliser. They already had irrigation and I used this to show them how the same water could be used for shipping if the canals were lined with cut stone. The canals lead to the ships plans I had drawn up. I said, "All of us need trade with the Orient. A large canal is needed because you will have large ships. It has to be dug through Egypt and will cost more than we can afford to pay. I have a solution of sorts." Sapor said, "What is that?" "You have to build ships on the Red Sea or build them elsewhere and bring them to the Red Sea. Your people and the Romans have expanded the Red Sea Canal from the Nile. I can bring my ships to the Nile and the cargo goes into smaller ships or wagons to the Red Sea. From there we travel to the east. This means that two ports have to be built at each end of the canal." Sapor said, "That will work but the cost of this building will be high too." "I do not think that we should reduce trade or even obstruct it. This could be a good project for the Romans and you. Two cities that are in the land of both empires and work happily together. I can help pay by putting in a road of the type I mentioned before. A rail line would be necessary too. In time and when money comes available the canal can be widened and dug much deeper. It is possible that I can design some machines that will do the work of hundreds of men. I cannot make them all by myself. If partners help in this then they learn how these machines are made and can make others for themselves. "I am required to bring Woden's Word to the Orient. India and China will be more favoured to help the United Nations develop and prosper if they too are part of it. They too have massive canals to build. Trains in their case will link to ours. Ships will grow very large but there will be enough trade for all these methods of transportation." Sapor said, "You mentioned the east having spices that we may want. What else do they have to offer?" "Ships will soon be driven by steam and move very quickly. We can get fresh fruit, tea, coffee, rice and minerals. The main commodity of trade will be understanding. War breaks out from greed that was allowed to grow and from misunderstandings. Those of us that like to fight can join a force of peace keepers that will sail or eventually fly to areas to protect member countries. Expensive armies can be reduced but not eliminated." One old man said, "Fly? I saw the toys but how can this work for an army. They and their weapons are much larger than mice." There was a chuckle by all including me. "Aeroplanes get very large. They can carry seven hundred men and some of their supplies on one ship. A similar ship of the air can carry a cargo of war materials. "My armour is good but a good arrow can pierce it. I can make a cart with a small cannon on it with thick armour that no arrow can puncture. I can even make it so strong that not even a cannon ball can enter it. Instead of the usual weapons there is a small cannon that fires a small ball. The enemy at a mile can be killed by this. Smaller cannons can kill at a shorter distance. One man can throw thousands of cannon balls. Even a few hundred men can take on any army in the world and win. We will get those weapons too and the men that will fly to fight will be our men." I talked about automatic weapons now because they would not allow me to talk about anything else. War carts were shown as unarmoured to lightly armoured then to light tanks. Artillery could fire shells up to twenty miles with different varieties of shells. Hand held rockets to rifle propelled grenades came next then I touched on flame throwers that were popular during WWII. The last weapon they seemed to fear the most. Battleships were mentioned along with their large guns but I kept the focus on lightly armoured ships with much smaller guns. "It is not the powerful weapons that win a battle usually. It is the knowledge of what is happening and exactly where, that is more important. Soldiers with radios can monitor an enemy. Fifteen miles away a few cannon fire and the soldiers correct the aim until the enemy is destroyed. None of our force is harmed and the enemy is eliminated." To give a more accurate image of future navies, I described troop transports, colliers, supply ships, destroyers, patrol craft and then aircraft carriers. Their speed and range were listed and the men, including Sapor, remained quiet and thought on this. Sapor said, "You are giving us these weapons too?" "I will give the ideas and help. You have to give me the men and women. These weapons cannot be built by farmers. We need very educated people. We have to educate the young and the old to do this work. It will still take many generations for these weapons to appear but they will. Nobody will dare attack Persia. Your country will grow strong and be one of the world leaders." It was now my turn to ask what I could get to further my aims. If I built weapons for the Persians I wanted to make sure the Persians did not ignore me and go to war with Rome or any other major power. I was given Saudi Arabian peninsula and some of the countries north of this to gather all the oil and natural gas I wanted. The desert was next to useless for me and for Sapor. There was lots of oil but my needs were modest and it would be thousands of years before the Saudi reserves would need to be tapped. Men were sent out to investigate mineral deposits. They would have to use shovels though. Samples would be kept for me but the truth of any deposit would just be a guess at best. Apparently there was a lot of coal but it was in smaller deposits. This would last me long enough to possibly get a railway put in when the iron ore was added. I said to Sapor, "You have a lot of Roman slaves..." "Did you want them?" "Yes, I need Persians that speak Latin. There has to be one common language so ideas can be passed from one person to another. I want these Persians to go to the Rhine and learn what I have to teach. I would like some of your advisors go to. They can be your eyes and ears but they will learn too. "How many do you want?" "A few hundred to start but I want those that come want to learn what I have to teach not make trouble or find reasons for not working." "There are already many people that speak Latin that would be happy to go to the Rhine with you." There was a disturbance and Sapor left then the rest of us did too. Some women were wailing as they talked to returning soldiers. An officer reported to Sapor but watched me most of the time. They had a battle with a Roman unit and many had been wounded or killed. Without being asked, I went to the men and ordered them to lay down even if it was in the dirt. I was not getting anywhere and the officer came over that had reported and distastefully told his men to do as I commanded. I healed the worse hurt first but two could not be saved. Eleven more had died before I even got to them. I must have gone through a hundred men when I saw some Romans under guard down the hill. Rather than fight a new battle I got some of the men here to relay their orders to the men below and I continued with Roman soldiers being healed. Some looked to have been tortured after capture but the same thing had happened to the Persians captured by the Romans. I was angry at the way prisoners were treated but this was the way the human animal acted. The Persians that looked at me didn't seem to like me treating the Romans even if I had already treated their own people. The Romans asked me questions and I gave what answers I could give without the Persians getting excessively angry. They may not attack me but they could the new slaves. The term 'Prisoner of War' was not understood now. I was very weary when I made it to the top of the hill. I was going to go back to my campsite when AsA called me over. She fussed over me and in a few minutes I was asleep. When I woke up I heard AsA humming a tune as she worked on a piece of clothing. She smiled at me and said, "It has been a long time since a man slept in my tent." "I am sorry my lady for being so rude." "You were saving lives and giving your power to others. You have nothing to be worried about." I said, "I know you have friends but do you not have your own children or grandchildren to fill your day?" My children have long since moved on to the families of their husbands. Two girls have died. My son is one of Sapor's most trusted men. He will make a general some day." "Grandchildren?" "They do not live near me and my son has recently married so he has no children." "Do you have children, Jón of Germania?" "I have thousands of them." AsA did not appear shocked so I guess she knew. "I have not married. I am young yet. My position in the world is rising and I am afraid that the two ladies that I love will begin to act strangely with me. One had already started to do so. I cured her by jumping into the Seine with her. The shock brought her around. The other girl is a Persian. I have not known her long but I believe that I will love her just as much." "You told us that there is only one wife to each husband." "That is true. I can only think to cheat and marry neither. They will be with me all the time. Whether they are a wives, by me telling the world so, or wives by not telling the world, does not matter." "They will be concubines?" "Yes, and no. They will have the same rights as wives. The children will be mine and inherit what I may have to give. I can be fair to every one of them. My women do a lot of work for my cause. They act for me when I am away. They have a fortune at their disposal and they use it wisely. Many men would not do as I have done." "You are right. Many men think that only they know what to do." "That is part of what I am trying to change. In the future, children are fed from the breast and from cows milk. The husband gets up some times at night and feeds the child. This does not happen enough though. The women of the future hold down responsible jobs then have to come home and feed and take care of the family." "What kind of jobs do they do?" "The same as the men but the more strenuous or dirty jobs do not attract the women." "You said that since you have changed what will happen, the future you know will not come about." "That is true. Perhaps the one that will happen will be better for everybody." I stayed two more weeks in the camp. Many discussions were settled but some were not. They needed Julian here to talk. A school was started in mathematics as well as written and spoken Latin. Some of the Roman soldiers had been converted and were happy to help. The bootmaker now made my saddles as well as my boots and the horse collar. The smith made blister steel and at least this time I did not have to put up with egos. Many of the smiths had arthritis from the constant use of the hammer and I worked on them to correct the damage to their joints. Sapor's mother was Hebrew. Jews were more than just tolerated in his land but the Christians were not. I wanted to make much more paper but I was afraid of this secret getting out to the other religions until I was good and ready to release it. I could get the hemp crop planted on more acreage and purchase the seeds for oil and the meal while the plant would be used for making cloth. This was nothing new to most people in the Middle East and Europe. Some time in the future I could buy more of the crop and turn it into paper. Much more sugar cane needed to be grown. Setting up a manufacturing plant to process the raw sugar would be expensive. The market for this product had not even started yet. An important agreement was that Sapor was going to get my two books translated into Pahlavi. The actual printing though would be on the Rhine. If possible the paper would not be processed without acid and last a few hundred years instead of a few decades. We shook hands in parting then Sapor hugged me to him like a son. "Watch when you leave. I think the Romans will still be angry at you." "I will keep both eyes and my ears open for threats my friend." ------- Chapter 9 BamshAd and KavAd were part of our escort back to Berytus. They were much more like friends now that we had been accepted by Sapor. We had sixty additional men riding with us because of the Roman presence in the area. We had no high tech weapons and I even gave our stove and cooking implements to AsA because we were riding horses. The wagon was staying with Sapor. I felt reluctant to leave the Persians because I had made friends with them and I guess they with me. Sapor even gave me a hug and I guess he could justify this with my apparent age and the fact that I had the body of a Frisian prince. Being a business partner had more to do with it. We were making considerably better time on the return trip. We were going downhill and only had to put up with pack horses carrying our armour and weapons. That night and after our meal I treated all the horses to a deworming treatment. I had done enough of this to the humans because they were just as bad. I had not yet found a way to treat fleas and lice but I was working on it. The horses were all much healthier anyway because I had done this before and now I was getting rid of the second generation worms. Hopefully before they could lay more eggs. The next day was overcast but it was still nice. We were travelling more or less westward toward the coast. We were taking a shortcut that had many ravines that would not allow a wagon to pass easily. BamshAd and KavAd talked about the caves in the area when I asked about bats. Some caves were large enough to contain a patrol and had done so many times. One was just off our path and while the group paused for lunch a half dozen of us took a side trail to one of the caves. I was happy to see a lot of guano high and dry. If it didn't get converted to black powder then it could be used for fertiliser. "BamshAd, I want to see this area from higher up. Is there a place nearby?" "There is one about ten minutes away. Are you sure you want to see this?" This was beautiful country and twenty minutes would not hurt us. "Sure, information is always good." We found a narrow path and gained the top of the ravine then had to go further to gain the top of a nearby hill. There was a flat area that was good for the horses half way up and we proceeded the rest of the way on foot. We stood among the large trees and I looked across the breathtaking valley and plain before me. BamshAd pointed out our proposed route and said, "There's a good river we will follow for a short period. We will then be into farmland and you can see where it starts about twelve miles away. I looked at a sparkle I saw in the distance and expected it to be water and focussed my eyes better on that position but the sparkle was gone. I looked around the area thinking again of water when I saw what could be a man on a horse. He was too far away to see well. BamshAd said, "Have you seen enough my lord?" "Just a moment more, BamshAd." I stayed there nearly five minutes and asked BamshAd, "Is this the best route back to Berytus in this area?" "Yes it is. The other is nearly twenty three or so miles further north then you have to go south to gain the city." I pointed my finger then had to bring my eyesight back to what a regular person would see and used the contours of the land to ask questions. BamshAd said, "Why are you mentioning this?" "The Romans have set up an ambush four miles away and there seems to be four times the number of men than we have." "What?" "They are waiting to ambush some Persians or perhaps us." BamshAd was incredulous. We left the hill top and went north another mile and looked down at the land in that area. I could see many more Romans but we had not entered the trap yet. I gave my report while continuing to survey the land. There were now even two Romans within a few hundred metres of our camp. I said to BamshAd, "I am not going to be able to do the same thing we did last time. I do not want a battle either. I think the best idea is to go back to the camp and pretend that we do not know of the Romans but return the way we came at a leisurely pace. If the Romans want us they will have to chase us." "Are we really outnumbered as much as you said?" "More, I am afraid. There are a lot of foot soldiers and they cannot run as fast or as far as a man on a horse. After an hour we will still be outnumbered by the calvary." "You want us to run?" "It is the only logical solution." "We would lead them back to our king." "Your king is breaking camp and leaving. He was only there to meet me. I do not like to see death but your king will have to fight the Romans for us." BamshAd said, "You wanted to get to Berytus. A few can lead them back while the rest of us continue to the city." "We are about six hours from the city now. I have a bad feeling that they have already been to my property. The Romans are not stupid either. We can be seen from a distance in a few positions and they can count horses and men." "What do you want to do then?" I put my hand on Mithridates' shoulder and said, "The two of us leave with you because the spies can see me. We passed some other ravines which we can hide in until the Romans pass." "We will not be able to protect you then and what about the rest of your men?" "They are on detached service and under Julian's command. They cannot be captured. I think the best that can be done is for them to stay with your king." Two of the men were with us now and they reacted but said nothing. They were good men and do what they must. We hurried back to the camp and we discussed the best places the leave so that we had the best chance to keep a few hundred Romans from following me. We came back to camp as if nothing was wrong. The men that were with us had been cautioned to be quiet but not everybody would be a good actor. Mithridates and I shifted cargo on some of the pack horses. These would be the ones going with us. I scanned the area while we had our meal. I was sure that I was recognised easily, especially with my hair. When we were about to continue our journey, BamshAd spoke to KavAd then started yelling at the man's incompetence. KavAd did a fair job and was even punched by BamshAd a few times to make it look realistic. I got into the conversation and it was soon decided that we had to go back to the camp to retrieve a necessary article. KavAd was nursing his face when we got back on the horses and there were a lot of harsh words being slung around. We went back to the mountains and after a mile I healed KavAd. "You did a very good job." "It was in a worthy cause." "I think so too." "Some of us can still come with you." "I need all of you to lead the Romans away KavAd." Most of the men still did not understand what was happening. The Romans could see if the men were very worried and looked back constantly. They would act more natural in ignorance. Then minutes before our departure I called the twelve men to me one at a time and told them what was happening and what they had to do. Not one of them liked their orders but they did them anyway. The ravine we were in narrowed but there were a lot of trees here. Saplings were cut and then dragged behind the packhorses Mithridates and I had. There was only a few moments to spare and I thanked the Persians for all their help. I think they would die to protect me even without their king's orders. Mithridates and I went over the hard rocky area and a lot of dust was stirred up but it followed us instead of drifting back towards the Romans that were sure to follow. We tried to make as much distance as possible in the time we had. As we climbed out of our own ravine, I could hear the sound of a great many horses galloping after the Persians. Mithridates said, "What do we do now?" We can ride for an hour and come back down through another ravine. We may have to wait nearby to make sure all the Romans have taken the bait and left." "You should never trust Romans anyway." "The more sophisticated a race is the more you are right." By midafternoon I saw no sign of any Roman activity and we hurried down to the original trail and then toward Berytus. It was late by the time we got there but we were not headed to the city but my land and people. There was no sign of life at all but I was wary. Mithridates stayed with the horses as I slipped through the orchards. I could smell smoke but it was not fresh. There was nothing but the night sounds of the wind, animals and insects. It took a full hour to circle the property to find that there was no guards of mine or of the Romans. Getting closer I could smell blood and flies were still feasting on this when it was not allowed to sink into the soil. I came to a large mound of fresh earth with my heart in my throat. I didn't have to dig into it to find what it contained. I could smell the corruption with my altered sense of smell. The visage of KhAvar and the rest of the people were vivid in my mind and I had to hope that not all of them were killed. The soil over the cache of gold had not been touched nor had the land around my ammo dump. Those that helped me build these secret areas had not apparently entered or allowed others to find my horde. It was after midnight when I got back to Mithridates. He was worried and had his sword out and ready to fight. I was much the same because I wanted to kill whoever had done this. I said, "They are all gone. Some of our people were killed and buried. Some of their homes were put to the torch." "It had to be the Romans, but why? I do not think they would do this because you bested them when we were going to see my king." "They could but I think the one to ask is the commander of the garrison. They would know or at least have an idea." We headed back to our horses but I stopped a few hundred metres away and put my hand on Mithridates to stop him too. Mithridates stayed in position while I moved to the left and listened again. There was only one person there and I figured it was a spy. There was a lot of ambient light so I deduced the person's probable location and came at him from directly away from the horses. I was sure he would be watching them. There was grass and weeds between the trees. I went slow until I was very close. At the base of an apple tree was a small person that I had to assume was a boy or young man. When I was just a few metres away I said loudly, "What are you doing here?" The boy jumped, rolled, twisted and basically didn't know what to do. He ended up with his back against the bole of the tree and tried to see who his antagonist was. I did not go close because the boy had a small knife in his left hand. "I asked a question. What are you doing here?" Mithridates was racing in and I guess the noise of his arrival frightened the boy even more. Mithridates said loudly with a sword in his hand, "What did you find?" "A spy." From the boy I heard in an accented Pahlavi, "I came to watch this property." I said, "Who told you to watch this place?" "Nobody. I was fed and given a bed by the nice lady. When the Romans came, I managed to get away before they took me too." "What were you watching for?" "For you to come back." "Me?" "Nobody looks like you. I learned a great deal talking to all of your people. I saw you many times in the city but I was never able to get close." "Tell me what happened here." "Six days ago, Romans came into the area from the sea and from the land. There were hundreds of them. They did not ask anything, they just attacked. Many of your people were killed. The Romans you left here were the bravest but I do not think any of them survived. "The soldiers searched the land for a long time and tortured people to find gold. They thought you had a lot of it. They loaded up the people in your ships and they left two days ago." I asked, "Do you know where they went?" "When the Romans were asking questions there were a lot of people from the city that came here. There was fighting. They did not like what the Romans had done. I heard one Roman say they had to go to Ampelos before they do something else. I do not know Latin very well." "Did you see KhAvar?" "She is the lady that helped me. She was hurt but she was still able to walk." "Which way did they go when they left?" The boy was now on his feet and his knife put away. He pointed to the north. I turned to Mithridates and asked, "Do you know of any place called Ampelos that is to the north?" "Ampelos is on the southern shore and the east end of Crete." "Is there a Roman military base nearby or a rich man's personal army?" "Some of each I am afraid. We should talk to the commander of the base here to find out what he knows. We don't know how sympathetic he is now. If his superiors tell him to jump up and down he will do so until he is told to stop." Mithridates and I questioned the young man a bit more. There were none of the Romans left in the area but he was not sure. I knew if I found one of them, they would soon tell me everything I wanted to know. The young man's name was Lazeez. He was small for his age and not really a boy. He did very well in bringing me this information. After finding out as much as I could about the Romans and the attack I continued with the young man's past. Lazeez was an orphan of about sixteen. He was not too sure of his age. He had been on his own since ten. His parents were traders that had been overcome with the plague. His features were subtly different and I would term him an Arab rather than a Persian. The boy had made it to this area a few months after his parents' deaths. He had been living hand to mouth ever since. He had dark hair and his features were just a little different from the local Persians. He was not a follower of Mohammad because the man and the religion of Islam would not be born for a few hundred years. Lazeez had been a follower of Mithra, the same as the majority of the Roman soldiers and merchants. I did seem to trust him for some reason. I gave the young man a coin and said, "We need somebody to watch our horses and property. Are you interested in helping us?" "Yes, my lord. I will do this even without pay." "It looks like you need some pay to get fed. You're very thin." The young man just smiled and nodded his head in acceptance. Mithridates and I took just our horses into town. Mithridates said, "Why did you trust that boy with our horses? He is probably a thief." "You do what you have to, to survive." The gates to the fort were closed which was not the usual but the attacking Romans and the threats of the Persians may make this happen more often now. I was prepared for this and by bringing rope and a hook wrapped in more rope to keep the sound of iron on stone to a minimum. I was also prepared by bringing a dark camouflage suit. The fort shared a wall with the city and it was this area that I attacked first. It took three casts until the hook caught the stonework. Mithridates and I waited five minutes for a sentry to arrive but none came. I climbed the rope quickly and listened near the top but heard no breathing from anybody waiting for me. Once I gained the battlements, Mithridates left to wait between some nearby buildings. There were three sentries. They were asleep in moments and I went to the guardhouse. Only one man was on duty and this was the man in charge of the detail at night. I had not been into this room before. I did rush in with my blade drawn. The man jumped up from a table. An oil lamp went flying and so did a jug of wine. He could not see me and nervously demanded, "Who are you and what do you want?" "I am Jón. I want to know what happened to my people." The man relaxed a bit and this was encouraging. "Ah... Lucius Quinctius Flaminius sent his men to recover some property of his that was stolen by pirates and then you took possession of it. He said some of the people were his slaves. "He was after you too. I heard that our Augustus wants to talk to you. We had nothing to do with the attack on your lands. In fact, we were ordered to stay within the city. Ah... some of your people were not taken. The citizens hid them in their homes. We even hid some here in the fort until the soldiers left." I asked in a less forceful voice, "Where did they go?" "They took most of our horses and headed east. The rest sailed away in their ships and yours. I don't know where they went. We talked among ourselves and figure it is someplace in Crete. Did you kill all the soldiers that went after you?" I thought for a few minutes then said, "I was contacted by Sapor. We had a talk and I think he is ready to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the war. The soldiers you spoke of, set a trap for us. They are now chasing our escort and some of my men. Sapor will be the one to greet them though." "Did you kill any Persians?" "None." "We heard you and Woden put a patrol to sleep." "They were going to keep me from talking to Sapor. Now before you ask any more questions, what more can you do to help me?" The man thought for a moment and said, "I guess there is little I can help, wait... Lucius Quinctius is well known for setting traps. This sounds like bait to me." "You may be right. They may not like it if they get hold of me." I woke up the sentries. I was then allowed to exit through the door of the fort like a gentleman which I decidedly didn't figure I was now. I was out for blood. Quinctius was the highest ranking man behind the pirates that I had found so far. I was not sure if he was top dog or not though. We had a busy morning. With no immediate threat, I called those of my people that escaped and gave them the job of repairing my property. The Romans people had a lot of good and bad ideas. One was for a patron to look over his people and they would support him. Whether I was acting like a Roman or not, I had to look out for those that depended on me. If some soldiers made it back here they would harm or enslave those they found that were affiliated with me. I had to pay the people so they could eat in my absence. The work they were going to do was a way of living without resorting to welfare. Welfare did not exist in the Roman state and I did not like the idea either. In some rare instances I knew that it was unavoidable. Lazeez was being fed very well and he now bulged. He seemed very pleased to have met us. Mithridates was at the harbour looking for any of his men that may have escaped. His ship, like mine, was missing. His ship was his life and he needed it back. We had a trip to make and perhaps a war to fight. It seemed that I now had a city behind me. The attack had galvanised most to do something about it. This resulted in many deaths of innocent people. This too had to be paid one way or another. The commander of the fort appeared to be an honourable fellow and I gave him gold to continue the work on my land. This would employ the people of the city in general and not my own people. The invaders would then be termed pirates themselves if any were able to return. It would be very unlikely though. I could not necessarily call on the military because I had no patron to promote my cause. I could not call on the police because there were none. A city or town would hire men to watch for crime but they were actually a private police force. These or small armies were the closest substitute. They did not show allegiance to a country or empire but to their patron again. Roman law was famous but it only came into play when someone corrupting the law could be caught in the act. Romans gathered strength in the cities. They sought the acclaim from fellow Romans. Rumours here could tear apart a family as easily as weapons. Men trying to climb higher in social status and try for a seat in the senate had to pull down the enemies of their patron. This was in fact always happening. A governor or legate had enormous power as did a general. When away from Rome they could do much of what they wanted but to be caught at it and ridiculed in Rome was what they sought to avoid at all costs. All I had to do to get revenge was to show that a wealthy and respected man or group of men were doing piratical acts. If I could prove this then they and their families would fall to a much lower standing. The Roman system was much different to when and where I came from but it was not bad. The Romans, seeking justification for their acts of bravery or unselfishness, had to put forth a code of ethics. If they had to pretend long enough then their actions would be a benefit to the empire. I was now being moulded by Roman society. Those that I tried to help found themselves in the usual role of client and accepted this easily. It brought a certain amount of loyalty to me but also a commitment to help in turn. Helping the city prosper now was the least I could do for the people. Mithridates came to me later with some information, "I found a ship that is suitable enough. They did not come cheap though. They will have nothing to trade." "How likely is the ship to sink?" "It is not bad actually. It is not the fastest but it is not the slowest either." "Did you find any sign of your old crew?" Mithridates hung his head and said, "Some are in the hands of Woden now. Those that came back to bury the dead had seen them. I think a few of your own men may have survived because they were not with the dead. I figure they were held for questioning. What was surprising was the slaves you own, fought very hard to protect your people." This surprised me. They were former pirates that I figured that were nearly incorrigible. I said, "Then we better hurry. We have some weapons to recover." Mithridates and I used a wagon to load the boxes of stingers, mace, incendiaries and a quite a few kilos of plastic explosives onto. There was not much left when we departed. Most of the town was there to see us off. I met the captain for the first time and he seemed like one of the pirates I had dealt with already. I was not in any mood for any lawbreakers now but kept my tongue. I wished the city well in my absence. "I should be back in a few months." I then went onto a final sermon and blessed all of them for their help. Lazeez was with us and seemed ready to travel. I was debating sending him back when Mithridates said to me, "We need somebody to guard our property or to tend the horses." All I could do was nod my head and Lazeez smiled at both of us. The start of the trip was not auspicious because the wind was in the wrong direction and the crew of twenty seven men had to use their oars. I talked to KAmbin, the captain and owner of the ship. "Hello, Captain. It is a nice day for a voyage and it is too bad the wind is not helping." "Hello, Master. I had thought that your god would help us." "Woden or even most of the gods have much more important things to do than watch me." The man nodded his head in understanding and he said, "The stories told to our children would be less colourful if everything went just right." "What do you think this story is about?" "I am sorry if I offended you, Master. I will not speak any more of it." "KAmbin, tell me what you meant." There was a lot of hesitation but I was not acting incorrectly. I was only demanding. This was the way most of the Romans were. "Master, you were attacked recently. Your property was stolen from you and your people carried off. It seems to me that you are going to recover them." "That is true, KAmbin. The stories our children will hear may have the name of a fearless captain. How much danger are you willing to face to get your name mentioned down through the ages?" "I am a simple man. I have to take care of my family, my ship and my crew. I would rather listen to the stories with my name not mentioned." "That's fine with me then. I will place your ship in the least danger though I have to do more work myself." "Thank you, Master." I had paid for a speedy trip but that meant that I had to help the crew. I still could not get the vision of a pirate out of my mind when I saw KAmbin. I held sermons regularly and healed the crew of what I could. They were fairly healthy when it came to diseases but their bodies were wearing out with the constant toil. It still took a ten day week to make it to Crete. Ampelos was a fair sized city. KAmbin was asked to stay with us as we searched out any information we could find about Lucius Quinctius. I did not want the ship and my property to disappear. I went incognito because I did not want to warn the opposition. Lucius Quinctius was an important man around here and we picked up a lot of details from those with other patrons that were trying to pull the man down. These were few in number though. Most men stuck up for him even if he was cruel. There was nothing definitely pointing to the raid on Berytus but I did find that a large nearby island had a navy base that the man used on occasion. The city on the island was called Koufonisi. We got back to the ship and KAmbin started to get ready to leave but then had to send some of his men to retrieve those that had to run off to drink. The island was four hours away. At least the wind was not hampering us. It was dark when we arrived but the customs man was still there. A chain was pulled across the harbour mouth but we could still land on a point. The customs man found that we had weapons for the Roman fort and did not charge us much. There were only our light weight boxes anyway. Only some had the usual arrows. The explosives and stingers were questioned and I just said they were weapons. KAmbin was paid for his labours and we parted. I had even given him a contract of sorts to supply lumber for my building in Berytus but it was not exclusive. He would have to compete with may others doing the same job. Mithridates went into the town and came back with a large cart and a driver. We loaded the boxes and strapped them down securely before going to the city to find out what was happening. We found a room after turning down five other establishments. I wanted security and cleanliness and I had to pay for it. Our cargo was transported to our room for safe keeping. Here Lazeez stayed to do this duty and I made sure he was well fed. The young man seemed to have a hollow leg. Mithridates and I went around again trying to pick up news. We drank a bit of wine and found that a few strange ships had pulled in recently with some Persian slaves but it was only the number that made this seem odd. These were most likely my people but I would not be sure yet. Mithridates went down to the harbour used by the fort personnel to check on the ships and I think to find his. I switched gears and asked about the fort and the Romans that protected the city. I was discouraged here because there was nearly a thousand men though not all were fighters. This area of the empire was very important and it had to be kept as secure as possible. Though it was dark, I went out to look at the fort itself and what I could do to get my people back if they were indeed here. This was not a crude frontier fort but one made of stone and brick. In a remote section, I was able to climb the wall with some difficulty and see within the walls. The fort was large and there were many buildings. There were also a lot of soldiers not only on the walls but walking the grounds within the camp. This was not the time to enter even though I wanted to. I had got away with being brash when I had surprise and good weapons on my side. Now I had to think of ways of evacuating all of my people too. After visualising as much of the fort as possible, I moved to another point to search for a second view. The camp would be hard to take with just Mithridates and me even with our weapons and armour. I would have to be subtle instead. Mithridates and Lazeez was waiting for me and the former anxiously said, "Our ships are in the harbour but not all of them." "Did you find out what happened to the rest?" "I didn't want to ask too many questions. I could get taken in and questioned myself." "It is good that you didn't. I had a look at the fort and it is large and well defended." "What are we going to do?" "We cannot kill all the soldiers even if I wanted to. The only way to attack them is by controlling the officers. Killing those will not be a good idea either. I will just get more enemies later on and they will fight all of my improvements. The best I can do is to capture a few officers like I did Sergius. If the man will listen to reason, I can take the rest of the officers." "Sergius is a good man. I wish he were here now instead of with my people." "The Romans are your people too. I resent having to fight them even though they are controlled by some evil men." We slept until mid morning and had a meal before venturing out to find an officer to waylay. It was well into the afternoon that we found ourselves close to the fort. The fort though was in turmoil. It looked like it was being made ready to leave on a war. Four groups of men that numbered about forty men each left for the city and I had a bad feeling. I grabbed Mithridates' arm and said, "They may be looking for us." "How?" "I don't know how. Find some horses. We need to get our property and get away." I hurried back to the inn. They were not excited so I assumed that the soldiers had not got here yet or didn't know where we were. Our bill was settled quickly and I hired some of the men to move the ordinance and our other property out of the hotel and to the stable nearby. Lazeez saw that I was worried and started to worry himself. The job took ten minutes and I was nervous all the time. My own armour was still hidden and I did not want to draw attention to myself by wearing it. I did string my bow, strap the trigger to my arm and get a box of stingers ready. Mithridates was the one to come first. I tried to remain calm because he had a man with him to make sure we brought the rented animals back. There were ten horses. Mithridates and I put our own saddles on two of the animals. The boxes were lashed securely to the other animals. They were not heavy but bulky. I had not considered if Lazeez could ride or not but he got on his horse fairly well. As soon as possible we headed away from the fort and to the city walls. I felt relieved when we were not detained by the guards. We purposely kept our travel to a realistic rate and I talked to the man with us. Glaucia was just a young man of eighteen to twenty and the son of the owner. His father had been in the military and was able to retire here in Crete. I talked to Glaucia to find out more about the base, the people in it and of course Quinctius. He gave confirmation of the news of a shipment of slaves coming in recently. The island was not that large but a thousand men would find us in a few days if we allowed ourselves to be caught. It was only a hour after we left Koufonisi that Glaucia finally asked, "Where are we going exactly? You said you wanted to see the countryside but I cannot see you carrying all these boxes to do that." "Well Glaucia, I have good and bad news for you." The man gripped his sword but said nothing. "My name is Jón of Germania. Have you heard of me?" The young man's eyes went wide and a smile broke out on his face as his hand left his sword. "I sure have. More is said about you than the last four emperors." I smiled too and went on casually, "Much of what was said about me is true. My god has sent me to do his bidding. Many times people are hurt that try to oppose me. This time people were hurt that were under my care and protection. I have to get them back to where they belong." "This is like hearing about Jason and his Argonauts." A smile crept onto my own face at this. "My quest, I hope will not be as long. I think I know where some of my people are and I want to recover them." "Where are they?" "First, I have to tell you some history." I explained how the other man with us, his crew and my twelve men beset a great many pirates. It took five minutes until I finished it all. "You are saying that your people were captured by our soldiers and taken here?" "Glaucia, soldiers do what they are told. If it were otherwise then the empire would not have lasted as long as it has. They swear allegiance to the Augustus and not usually the senate or to even the governors. They were told to obey somebody and that somebody told the soldiers to attack my people." "Who would do that?" "The name I have is Lucius Quinctius Flaminius but he may have been told what to do." Glaucia was visibly shaken now. "That man is very powerful. He could kill you at the snap of his fingers." I had to smile and said in a low voice, "The Romans have not been very successful in doing that. Quite a few of them die if they try." "You are not going to kill them, are you? Some of those men are my friends." "Have you heard how I treat my friends? Some of them have been the legions sent after me and some have not." Glaucia was still not sure so I added, "I cured many legionnaires on the Rhine, on the Danube and in this area of the world too. If they do not fight me I do not fight them. If they chase me I may not hurt them because they are following orders. I do not like to kill but I have killed many thousands of people. The people that survive, I bring into my family and they prosper." Glaucia did some thinking in quiet then asked, "Are we being chased now?" "Probably by now there are some men chasing us." "We have to go east or we will be caught against the shore. The mountain cuts of off there." "Tell me about the land, Glaucia. There are too many legionnaires to fight at one time and I want to take them on in smaller groups." "The legionnaires will kill us." "Tell me about the land." "But..." Mithridates added, "Have you heard nothing about this man. Tell him what he wants. Woden takes care of him more than he did his own sons. He can heal those that are almost dead, make the blind see and the deaf hear. I was healthy before but after Jón treated me I feel better than when I was your age." With nobody currently visible chasing us, I stopped and adjusted the packs better. I went over all of the horses to see how good of a deal we had received. One horse was going lame but I started them all to becoming healthy. Glaucia said, "Master, what is in these boxes?" Mithridates looked at me and I nodded. Mithridates said, "The power of Thor's hammer. Just one of the arrows would scatter you into so many pieces, nobody would know if it was you that died or a bull or a horse. Nobody ever, except the gods has ever had such power. I think..." "That is enough friend. You are frightening the young man." Mithridates asked me now, "Why didn't you just destroy the fort? You could do it easily." "Mithridates, these are only toys we carry. Real weapons are much larger and much more powerful. I do not want to use these if possible. Last I heard we were trying to make peace. I do not like building this on a hill of bodies." I didn't tell him about the plastique yet and I didn't want to draw too much attention to it. "What are you going to do then?" "I am going hunting tonight if the storm comes that I think it will." Mithridates looked around and said, "It will rain this afternoon. What are we going to do to stay alive until then?" "Why that is simple. We store our stingers and other weapons then harass the Romans so they know we are in the countryside." Glaucia thought I was crazy but Mithridates smiled. He said, "So anybody with a horse will be out here chasing us and hopefully a good portion of the fort." "Exactly. We are only outnumbered a thousand to three so it is almost fair." Now both men figured I was far around the bend. Glaucia showed us a good place to store the weapons in a cave. The bats did not object too much. Another area about a mile away had a good place to keep the horses. All of the horses acted frisky so they must be responding to the healing I had given them earlier. Every time a horse shit, Glaucia would look for dead worms. When it started, he was amazed at each occurrence. Lazeez was the same way and the two young men chatted about what they knew and hoped I was out of earshot. We had a meal placed into one young man and I healed Glaucia. He didn't have much wrong with him but he loved the endorphins that flowed through his blood stream. We found trackers following us. We kept out of sight for a while. The island had a lot of trees and not much in the way of farms. This was an ideal place to use a camo outfit. Later in the day it looked like one group of forty was going to go back when I let them see me. They turned around and chased after but by then I was up a tree and they could not see me. I played this game while Mithridates, Glaucia and Lazeez watched from a ridge. Runners were sent to gather more troops and more teams gathered to search the area. I was glad to see Mithridates wave to me and then depart himself. By nightfall there must have been three to four hundred men here but that still left too much in the fort. The Romans did not build a stockade and I figured that their officer thought I was an easy catch or just not much of a threat. Rain had started to fall as Mithridates predicted and the weather suited me just fine. Around ten at night I slipped into the camp and went from tent to tent. It was dark and there was little that could be done in the dark. Some tents were active where some of the men liked the company of other men. I just had to wait these out. I counted fifty two tents but some were for officers. A standard tent ful was eight. When I was with Sapor's people, and especially Mehrnoosh and HidA, I found that I could influence a person's body without actually touching skin. I had touched one woman while she was touching another. This led me to touching over clothes or even armour. After a while I needed to be only close. Now instead of curing rheumatism, I took over one legionnaire in a tent and used his body to transfer my control to the other seven. This way took much more of my energy and also the time grew longer as the night wore on. There was a lot of turmoil around one when the next shift to stand watch could not be awoken. Those that were awake now were frightened of going to sleep but none apparently thought of me doing this to them. The officers had been my primary targets and it was now the centurions that held the men together. I had to work on conscious men that were on the other side of the tent wall. This was not as easy but it could still be done. I still used one man to convey my effect to the others. These all felt lethargic but not quite enough to go to sleep just yet. The guards on watch were the last that I took and these were done as they walked close. I didn't have to get that close to effect one at a time like this. When dawn came the camp was mine. I called out "Mithridates," many times until he and our two companions came galloping in with my horse, ready for a quick escape. Glaucia saw no sentries and asked in a panic, "Did you kill them?" "Relax Glaucia. I killed nobody. Woden put three hundred and sixty seven men to sleep. Get down and check them. They snore and fart and all of them are breathing." Glaucia just sat on his horse and I had to command, "Get down and look Glaucia." The man was reluctant but after three tents hurried to the rest. When he came running back he said breathlessly, "They are all asleep. Some are my friends and I could not wake them up." "We will wake them up later. I'm exhausted. You two stand watch while I get some sleep. If some Romans come just wake me." Glaucia said, "But they will catch us." Mithridates was near the young man and shook his shoulder vigorously. "Did these bother us or you?" "But they are asleep." "They were not asleep yesterday afternoon." I slept in an officer's tent until around one Mithridates had come running in. "We have company. It looks like almost as much as we have here now." "How long do I have?" "Fifteen minutes I guess." I was stiff from the way I slept and sore from the mental activity of last night. I worked to heal myself once more and felt better after just a few minutes. I ordered Glaucia, Lazeez and Mithridates to leave and I began to partially awake most of the men but only to a level where they could barely look after themselves. I had only got about a hundred done when I had to leave myself. The scouts of the arriving group stayed out of the camp and just watched. One galloped back to tell of what he had found. The man in charge must have been brave because he rushed into the camp even if he figured that there must be some serious illness. He rushed to one tent in particular and I did not see him leave. The occupant could be a relative and friend or a lover. I felt sorry for the man but even more sorry for my extended family. I caught up to the rest and got more sleep. I had my senses out as I had in the camp. Glaucia had to be assisted to sleep because he was still too wound up. Lazeez though fell asleep quickly as if he felt very safe. That night I slipped back into the camp. In a change of plan, I made everybody lethargic and those that were compelled to sleep were awoken to their weakened existence. I only got a hundred and eighty three more this way because the rest had left. It was my intention that if the men came again, they would see the men recovering after a sickness that made them sleep. My dad's words and my uncles came to me about a dead man needing nobody to help him while a wounded man needs two to three men. I figured that this way a lot of men would be needed here and not in the fort. Around four o'clock in the morning, I got back to my own camp and told Mithridates, "It looks good." ------- Chapter 10 Mithridates, Glaucia, Lazeez and I went through the countryside looking for more Romans the next day. Glaucia saw that no harm was coming to the Romans and helped us to the best of his abilities. Lazeez had the instincts of a hunter and suggested where to go. He said he was working on the premise that the Romans would go where they thought we could hide easier. Mithridates took the Persian attitude that the young man was just sneaky. We found isolated groups and we actually gathered them together to be handled more efficiently. One group was led by a dozen horsemen and a century of infantry. We could not lure the horsemen away very far away from their unit and we now looked for a large valley that would hold them all. Glaucia pointed one out and in an hour we were entering this depression. There were some farms here and Mithridates and Glaucia rode through yelling to the inhabitants to flee. A battle was going to break out soon. I used one of my stingers and this seemed to help a lot. Thirty minutes later the horsemen galloped into view and a few minutes later the infantry did too. Lazeez was at the other side of the valley and pretended to be me. It was too far away to be sure anyway. The horsemen lead the way and the tired infantry double timed it into our trap. Mithridates and I had checked the wind carefully and at my signal shot his arrows with mace so the fine liquid would drift over the infantry. My first shot was more difficult because I had to hit the armour on the back of the lead horseman. When the first arrow flew, the soldiers stopped and brought up their shields. Mithridates kept them busy while I raced after the horsemen. I had to watch the wind because I didn't want the mace affecting me either. Everybody was suffering from the effects of the chemical but three horsemen were able to attack me. I brought out my katana and a short wooden staff to use as a club. I raced in on foot and struck the horses when I could but my sword was used mainly for deflecting theirs. The men had the advantage of numbers and of being mounted. The mace was giving them a bit of a problem but not much. One man fell from his horse and I greeted him with the club. The other two got in each others way and I was able to drop the club long enough to push the man's foot high enough for him to fall on the other side of his horse. Stirrups would have made this much more difficult. Before I could use the club again, I was pushed back by the last man attacking. As I traded blows with the sword, I tried to interface with the man. In half of a minute it was the horse that fell. This was just in time because I had to now fight the second man on foot. Again I used my ability and the man fell asleep. The fight was far from over but most of the men could not fight at all. Mithridates used clubs on those that made it to him while I used my ability. Neither of us dared to go close because there would be a lot of mace stirred up. The Romans were healed if necessary and made too weak to fight. I had them strip and then use water from a well to flush the mace from their skin and eyes. The lungs would just have to wait. The horses were even in worse shape. They just went to sleep to be washed. In an hour and a half I had ninety six naked men sitting in a field. They were not able to run never mind fight. With the soldiers attentive even if they could not do much else I said, "My name is Jón. If you count, you will see two of us. From my point of view I see ninety six Romans soldiers that were fully armed and ready to fight." Some of the men had to hang their heads in shame. "You should not be worried about the odds though because I had not only Mithridates fighting with me but Woden and Thor." Mithridates simply smiled and stayed with his bow in his hand and an arrow notched. "Could two men alone do what we had done to nearly a hundred men?" While the men were thinking on this I added, "You are soldiers that are told what to do. Your officers are told what to do by those above them. At the top is your Augustus." The men didn't know what I was getting at. "Who do you think is more powerful, a man or a god?" This was a rhetorical question and more men looked at the ground. "A man was able to command some of your shield mates to come to my property. They killed my people, took many away as slaves and destroyed what we had worked so hard to build. He was not the Augustus but his orders were followed. I will tell you now that Woden is not pleased with him." One man that could have been an officer, said, "We had to do what we are commanded. You should not stop us from doing our duty." "The man that originally gave you those orders was a man that was financing the group of pirates I fought. Lucius Quinctius Flaminius may not even be the one at the top." "That is a lie. That man is from a very respected family. He would never do such a thing." "It would be nice if what you say were true but sadly men and families fall on hard times. Some men are born insane and some are made that way later. Do you think I would just kill the man for his crimes? He may deserve it but I think the best course to follows is to expose him to those he wishes to impress." "That man's family is very strong and not facing any hard times. He would not do that." "Are you a client of that man?" The man said nothing so I guess that answered the question. I changed course in my talk and asked about the slaves that had come to the fort and those that had not. There was very little cooperation. I walked toward the men and used my ability to release the chemicals into their blood. This was the best way of proving that they were dealing with a god or at least his 'Hand'. When they recovered, most got on their knees as if I was the god. "Get up please. You may kneel to Woden if you wish but he does not require this. I am just his Hand. I am weak but perhaps still strong enough to do what he commands me to do." The answers came easier now, especially when I asked one individual or another. The officer tried to stop the men from talking. I gave him pain from a distance of a metre and said, "Woden is a forgiving god. You have to learn that your parton is not the good man that you think he is." The man did not hear but the words were meant for his men anyway. The officer fell over but could not move or even scream out. After fifteen seconds I stopped this and continued my questioning of the other men. When I got as much as I could get, I began to heal the men of their ills and gave them back more of their strength as well as the complimentary jolt of joy. "Get water and wash your armour and clothing. There is a substance on it that you know a lot about now. Woden was merciful and this does not kill." I went to the horses and got them up and had the men wash them once more. The officer was next and he had still not recovered from his few seconds of excruciating pain. When I got close he flinched noticeable. I said in a calm voice, "I will not hurt you more unless you do something to deserve it. I think loyalty is a very good attribute. You protected your patron's name and everybody heard that. I have loyalty as well to my clients and came here to rescue them. Loyalty is like faith. This is a good but it has to be tempered with rational thought." It was difficult but the man got out, "He is not bad. He helped me." "This kind of discussion I can tolerate. All men are a mixture of bad and good. You have seen me angry and you have suffered from it. I love my family and want to protect them. In fact, I want to help everybody that is alive today and will be born in centuries to come. Your patron may have some good qualities but the fact is that he sent men to attack me and they killed and enslaved my people." "You must have threatened him somehow." "I think that is the case too. Pirates attacked me and I protected myself. There were hundreds of pirates and many ships for just our small vessel. The pirates were not after any ship that passed but they were after me. "I am offering the world a kinder religion and many new ideas. One or more of these concepts must have upset Lucius Quinctius. "Quinctius shows his darker side when he works with pirates. We all know how pirates rob and kill. That makes the person that controls them as guilty as the men that do the acts. "Quinctius may possibly be forced into this position. His commander may have ordered him to do this. Quinctius may himself be a client much like you, and forced this way into dealing with the pirates. Another possibility is that he may be blackmailed into doing this. The fact still remains that he has done as I said." "He can't do that. He's a good man." "Then you have to seek out the evidence and weigh it yourself. If he is guilty then you have to consider if you want him to be your patron or not." When the clothing was done the men put it on to dry. They now had possession of their weapons but none of them even drew a knife. "Six miles north east of here you will find more of your legion. They are weaker than you are now. Link up with them first then all of you can go back to the fort tomorrow. As of now I have killed none of you that came to capture me. That may change if you disobey." I looked at the officer and he eventually nodded his head in acceptance. Mithridates and I rendezvoused with Glaucia and Lazeez. Both young men were excited. Glaucia said solemnly, "Thank you for not killing them. They are good men." "They probably are. They just need to be commanded by another man that is good. One powerful man to take control of an army of good men can do a great deal of harm." We searched the countryside again. There were a lot of men still out hunting us but they were in smaller groups. I had to smile because this left the fort nearly bare of defenders. "I think we should pick up our weapons and go back to Koufonisi now." The trip back to the city took much longer than it should because we had to avoid the patrols. I wanted them to continue searching us out in the countryside and not back in the city. The city gates were shut when we got near. "Glaucia, do you know of an easier way in?" "There is one gate that is hidden by a large building. If you can attack the men or put them to sleep then nobody will notice. You still have to get into the fort though." "Lead us there please." It took nearly twenty minutes. We had to go the long way around the walled town. There was nobody on the battlements at any place we looked. I got off my horse and shed some of the weapons I would not need. Here the wall was in poor shape. This made for more handgrips but it crumbled under my fingers. The wall was only ten metres high but it took a long time to gain the top. I heard two people inside the wall and below exhale loudly. After listening more I knew that there was nobody near and I climbed over the parapet and crouched against the wall to hide my silhouette. The stairs were not close. I found men together and talking or sleeping when they should be on watch. I didn't disturb them. A small guard house had three men that were talking and drinking. I did not want to alert the men on the wall of trouble so I could not burst in and fight the men. The door was open and so was an opening to let in more cooling air. The only solution would be to shed more of my weapons and go in as quick as I could. My swords were laid gently on the stones and then all the rest except my k-bar and a short staff. I even removed my boots and put them to one side. I got back a few more metres and listened for any danger. I ran very quickly and almost flew through the open doorway. All of the men were facing the doorway to feel the cool breeze coming in. I was among them even before they could react. The staff hit one man on the neck and my foot hit another in the chest. My shoulder took the third man in the chest too and all of them fell to the floor. My feet and staff struck at the points I had studied for many years when training to fight. I was not even breathing hard. The men were not even soldiers but civilians. I guess the commander of the fort was saving his own men. We had made little noise. The men wore no armour and only had the usual short knife at their waist. While healing the injuries I just inflicted, I listened for men that may have been alerted by the sound of our passage. After a few minutes I put the three in a comfortable position as if they had decided to sleep instead of stand watch. After donning both boots and weapons I went to a small door in one of the main doors and used a key that was hanging on the wall of the guard house. The door squeaked at being opened and I got close and took some of the weight off the hinges and continued to open the door. It was difficult to get a horse through the opening and we had to unpack the ones we wished to accompany us. Glaucia took the remainder of the horses away because I did not want him to be seen with us. It may all turn out alright but the young man could also be persecuted if not prosecuted for what he had done. The two packhorses were loaded once more and the door shut. We had made noise, horses and packs had come in and still nobody had given the alarm. Lazeez whispered, "People always used to sneak certain things into the city at night. If you hear or see this you just look the other way." I had to appraise Lazeez' education now in light of this new information. His people or traders in general had to be very conscious of how to get in and especially out of tight places. There were few people out on the streets. The horses were unshod but still made a lot of noise. I expected the watch to find us but nobody did except a few drunks. The fort was not so calm though. There were fires outside the walls and men on the battlements. They did not seem to be too worried and I had to guess that they were doing this only on orders of a worried officer. I said in a whisper from an alley, "We need to get rid of the horses, hide our weapons and then I need a diversion." Lazeez quickly said, "There are always many stables in a city this size. We can pay for the horses and store your things there." "That sounds like a good idea." Mithridates smiled and he added, "And I know where a stable is." The two left with all the horses. My own weapons were nearby along with some mace and stingers. It was nearly an hour later that the two returned and I had started to worry that they had been caught after ten minutes. Mithridates whispered, "We had to talk to the watch. I paid them to guide us to the stables so that we would not be robbed." "Are the weapons safe?" "As safe as anything I guess. I paid a stable hand to watch them but I didn't give much money or say how valuable they were. You have that wire lock on each of the cases and I just said I would castrate him if the boxes were opened." "Coming from you, I think that would be enough." Lazeez said, "We thought about two drunks fighting. When the watch comes they leave. You will have your diversion." "That could work but find where you are going to run to before you actually have to run." Lazeez smiled and said, "I have known that since I was very small." "Was your father really just a trader?" "He was a very good trader. His son has just learned a lot." I found a fair place to scale the walls. There was even a small personnel door nearby which could be very useful. I just waited for a commotion. It took a while for the curious to venture near and I think it was the scream of fire in the distance that did it. The brick here was not good either. It didn't crumble as much when I gripped it. Part way up the wall a brick crumbled and I had to hold on with one hand as the debris fall to the ground. The noise was loud and I was sure somebody would come and investigate. My foot found purchase and then my other hand. I heard footsteps and hurried recklessly upward. Instead of pausing to look, I was over the edge and waited in the castellations. I heard the footsteps pause below and waited for the alarm that somebody had seen me. At the same time footsteps were coming along the parapet. The man below moved and I threw myself over the edge and hung on. I was able to work my way down a few centimetres when the sentry above passed. When I gained the top of the wall once more, I looked for the ladder or steps. I had a split second to make a decision and sprang from my perch toward the steps. I made it to a bend in the stairway that was in deeper shadow and listened as the sentries continued their rounds. With my hearing at maximum, I peeked around the corner. One man came to a wall and turned around the way soldiers had done and will do for thousands of years. I hurried down the next flight of stairs then one more until I was in the shadows on the ground. There was a solid door here and I listened. Inside were many men breathing slowly. Some were snoring. The door I found was unlocked and I entered and closed it behind me. The place stank of poor hygiene. I was going to just pass through when I thought better. I reached out and succeeded in getting the nearest soldier to stay asleep. In five minutes I got half of the men in the room. Slipping across the aisle I did the same thing again. Some of the noncoms had rooms nearby and I managed to get them too without an alarm being sounded. With this area clear, I went back outside and found the door that lead out of the fort. There was a large lock in the door and two oak beams for insurance. Lockpicking was one of the courses I was taught as a child but this one would be a challenge. It was not in the lock's ingenuity but because it took so much force to turn the key even if it was the right one for the lock. From the edge of my boot, I took out some tools. I had to use two of the tools after bending them a bit. They were hard steel too. I had to force the cylinders around the inside of the lock three full revolutions before the lock opened. The beams were massive but I could pick them up with my improved body. I just didn't want to do this now when the beams displacement would be noted. I put away the tools and kept in the shadows as much as I could until I got to officer country. There were two guards at one door but I could not take them because there were always people from the courtyard or the parapet that would hear or see the altercation. High above and in the dark was a barred opening. With no better choice, I climbed the stone. This was better in that it did not crumble but the stones were large and I had to pull myself up with one hand then reach far overhead for the next grip. I listened from the edge of the opening. There were men on the grounds still talking and footsteps but the room had only a few people breathing quietly. Glass was exceedingly rare and shutters were usually used to keep out the rain. I reached up and grasped one of the vertical bars and then another. I gained the narrow ledge while standing on my knees. The iron was old but thick. I pulled apart and felt the rust break away from the metal and fall. There was a tinkling noise but it was not loud. Finally I could get it no more with the leverage I had. It was also not wide enough yet. My foot came up and pushed gently on one bar while I adjusted my grip. In a moment my other foot joined my first and I was resting horizontally. I pulled and pushed as hard as I could and I heard the metal being pulled from the stonework. I eased off quickly when the effort I needed got less. When I got back to my knees I saw a bar almost ready to pull free. There was also room enough now for me to get in. My swords and other weapons rested on the sill as I slipped through the bars. As I was getting through I figured that Lazeez would have done a better job than me no matter what he said. When I stood on the floor, I listened once more for the sound of breathing but found one that was much more rapid. The heart rate was quicker too. I left the weapons and ran for the bed. I saw a frightened woman looking my way and a sleeping man. I landed on top of the man and used my elbow to strike his sternum. My other hand pulled the neck of the woman close to the man and her mouth to his chest. Both were struggling now but I held on until I could get both to loose complete control of their bodies. It was my nose that made me look a second time. I pulled the woman around so I could get a good look at her. She was one of my people taken from Berytus. I whispered, "I'm Jón. I am going to let you speak now but you cannot yell or run around." She could not even nod so I gave back her control. The first thing she did was wrap her arms around me and start to cry. I let her do this for a minute then said, "You have to let me go so I can rescue all of you." This still took a minute before the message sank in. The woman had not stopped blubbering but I guess this was permissible in her case. I wanted answers and I needed them now. The woman would help but she would not know what I wanted to know. I said, "Stay still now. I have to summon some of Woden's strength." The woman stopped crying and I let the man feel pain like he had not felt before. After fifteen seconds I stopped and got the woman out of the bed and onto a small stool. "Sit here while the man recovers." "What... what did you do?" "He felt pain worse than any mortal man has ever felt before. I do not like doing this but it is better than killing outright." "Kill him, kill all of them." "That is for Woden to decide, not you." The woman was suitably chastised and I went to the man. It took a long time until the man came back to his senses. I gave him control of his voice to a limited extent and I said, "If you did not hear me before, I am Jón of Germania. The pain you felt was for a quarter of a minute. Either you tell the truth when I ask or the pain doubles each time. Do you understand?" The man just nodded. I asked, "Who is in charge of this fort?" I got a weak and hesitant, "I am." "That is fortunate. What is your name and rank?" "Manius Dexius Aquilinus Teretina; I am the Legatus Legionis." "Hello, Manius. I am currently trying to keep from killing a lot of Romans. You are one of those men. Lucius Quinctius, I hear, gives you orders. Tell me exactly what they were." There was some hesitation but this was not sensitive information, at least not from his viewpoint. "I was to arrest you. He charged you with stealing his gold, slaves, ships and other property." "Is Lucius Quinctius your patron?" "No," came out quickly. I got the woman to start talking about what her life was like before, during and after the pirates. The words were in Pahlavi and I translated as good as I could. She went on to talk about our new life in Berytus. When she finished I said, "I was attacked by hundreds of pirates in many ships. They were out to kill me not for a ship that may wander into their clutches. Many of the pirate leaders died in the attack on me. I used similar persuasive tactics, that I used on you, on the pirates. Lucius Quinctius is a leader of the pirates if not the one at the top." I allowed Manius a chance to digest this then I said, "Quinctius could not get his share of the gold booty back so he said that I was a pirate and sent you after me. If I killed one more legion then it looks like he will just get the Augustus to go to war against me. If you had succeeded then I would be gone, and everything would be back to normal." Manius managed to ask, "Do you have proof?" "Just the word of men that felt pain unlike any ever felt by a man before and lived. I will talk to the man myself and find out the truth. My aim now is to get my people back to Berytus and the life they were trying to build." "I am not your enemy, Jón of Germania." "You may not be but you have given your word to obey Quinctius. What can you do for me that will change you from the agent of an enemy." The man quickly said, "My oath was to Constantius. I had orders from the Augustus to help Quinctius. My family and his have a long history of discord. We have fought wars against each other for the last thousand years." "I know very little of the struggle between families. I know you are given command by Constantius. What else can you show as proof that you will not be actively opposing me?" "Constantius has said that he wants to talk to you. This did not necessarily mean that you were to be arrested but Quinctius wanted your arrest. I could give my word but it will not supercede my oath to my Augustus. The best I can do is free your people but they cannot go until a legate or the governor hears the case you have against Quinctius." "That is not good enough. Tell me where Quinctius may be?" "He has a home in Seleucia Piera." "The port of Seleucia, near Antioch?" "Yes." I paused for a moment then said, "I want your word as a Roman that you will not call out for help or otherwise hinder me?" The man nodded slowly after he understood. I got close and said, "Woden, the greatest of gods, will you help me with your power to restore the voice and body to this man?" I smiled as if silently conversing with Woden then I dramatically touched Manius on the forehead. The man could now move but he was weak. He could also talk normally if he pushed himself to do so. Manius said, "Your god is certainly powerful. I have heard of this happening in stories but never before with my own eyes." "My god has also rendered most of your men too weak to fight. This too should be seen as proof that Woden is by far the supreme god." "I am inclined to believe. I thought my men had a spell put on them or poisoned. The physicians suggested a disease." "It was all under Woden's command. Thor had loaned me a fraction of the power of his hammer and the other gods had advised me." "Thor too?" "You have not heard of the power I wield?" "I have heard much about it. I have just not seen it being used." "The Alemmani and some pirates have seen it. I used it to assist the Romans of Gaul. The Alemmani are closer to my people but I want order. Rome can give the world this as long as they are willing to share and not conquer." I added, "Getting back to Quinctius, what more can you tell me about him?" "He wants a seat in the senate. He will do anything to gain power." I said truthfully, "He is no different that most of the men in the cities of the empire." "Yes, I think you are right. May I get some water?" "You gave your word. You are free otherwise." "Slave..." Manius looked down in embarrassment and then got up and got himself some water. Manius said when he started to put on his clothes, "I assume you were not discovered in getting here but this may not remain true for long." He continued, "Quinctius has a large army of his own. His men are very good. He gives them the best weapons and the best armour he can. I heard that recently he has been purchasing all he can from the Rhine. This I assume is from your own forge." "It is." "You will have a difficult time to beat him especially if he purchases more of your iron. This may have been one of the reasons he wanted you arrested. He could gain the secret of your iron and get you to work for him." I said, "My armour is good against a sword or a knife but not against a cannon or a stinger. There are weapons that would go in the front of one armoured man and kill an armoured man behind." "I had heard of your canon. I had also hoped that we could use it against the Persians." "I was talking to Sapor as you must know by now. I am arranging some peace talks so that there will no longer be a war. The secret of the canon and the powder is not that important if we can mount a war on ignorance." "Ignorance?" "I mean to educate the world. There are many truths that have to be told. This is what I was commanded to do. You Romans learn, as do the barbarians. The Persians come next then the Indians and the Chinese. The rest of the world will follow." To get the talk back on what I wanted to hear, I asked, "So Quinctius is well protected by a large well trained army. What else?" "I have thought of this many times but if I were you, I would attack him at sea. You have the weapons to sink his ships." "That may be true but I want to talk to the man. He may be forced to do what he has done. He may not be the one in charge just close to him. I need names. If I get the proof and a living man to prosecute, then your family could do your best to see that he is held accountable for what he has done." "A trial is nice too. In that case I suggest you sneak into his estate as you have done here. I have men here that know of his properties and can draw maps." "I met one of Quinctius' clients today. The officer could and would not believe that his patron was guilty of anything." "Is he dead now?" "I have killed no Romans in the last few weeks. That reminds me, who was it that warned you of my presence here on the island?" "Who said I was warned?" "Don't quibble with me. I saw your men race through the city." "A sailor." "A captain?" "No, just a sailor." "I healed all of those men so they would have long fruitful lives. Their joints were damaged and I made them as young men. Gratitude, I guess, is too high of a morality for some men." "I think the same." We talked more about Quinctius and Manius walked over to the window. My weapons were still there and he looked at the bent iron bars. "Did you do this?" "I did not want to kill to get in so I had to do it." "I would not believe that anybody could do this. That iron is very thick." I went over to the opening and put my shoulder against the stonework and pushed. With a smile I said, "I was in a hurry and used too much of my strength. I guess you can wrap rope around the two bars and put another bar in between and tighten the ropes. The bars will be pulled together again." "Maybe I will keep the bars as a souvenir of your visit." I smiled again and pulled the loose bar out of the socket and then wrestled with it to get the bar completely free. I then handed the man the bar. "Thank you. I was wondering how I was going to get it out." Manius looked at the weapons and said, "May I inspect your weapons?" "You may." The man drew the katana and inspected it. His eyes and hands caressed the weapon as he told me about Quinctius. When he was done, he handed me my sword with two hands and then looked at the next weapon. When he finished the last he said, "They are certainly the weapons of a warrior. I have heard that they are magic." "The magic is just knowledge in how to form the blades. Men of every race come to my property to learn. Most knowledge is given freely. If you went to the Rhine, you could learn to make these blades. There are many other devices that you may want to learn about instead." "I have heard some of them and I did not believe, at least until now." When the talk about Quinctius fizzled out he asked, "What am I going to do about... your people?" "Quinctius has too many supporters among your army. I guess the best that could be done is to free the people until their status can be determined by a legate or possibly the Augustus." "Will they agree to this?" "I think they will. Now tell me about the other ships that took some of my people away." "They went to Antioch or the port. I heard that the woman you favour most and some of the prettier females and children went with her. This to me could be a way for Quinctius to take the best for himself but it may be a way of drawing you to him." "That is what I too had thought." I said after a small pause, "Quinctius has spies here in your army. Do you have any in his?" The man looked at me for a while then said, "A few." "How do they report?" "They usually are contacted by one of our men and they speak of what they see." "What if I wanted to know about where my people were kept or more importantly about the movements of Quinctius?" "Those people are valuable to me." "You have seen what I will do if people hurt family. I will treat those that help me the same way." The woman with us was very tired and I got her to lay in the bed she had been forced to accept. In a second or two she was asleep. I looked through her body and made a few adjustments. I said to Manius, "You did not make her a mother." "I am sorry. As a slave it would not matter but as you said, she is a free woman brought her unjustly." "You better call in a few of your officers. I want to have a chat with them before they get upset and try to kill me." "I can see that happening. I have a larger meeting room down the hall if you would like?" "That is good for me. The seven men in the hallway are very anxious for your safety though." "Seven? There was supposed to be two." "Well talk to them then. I like to heal and make tools. I am not suited to killing." "I thought you were the greatest warrior ever and you do now want this glory?" "What is this glory compared to being the Hand of Woden?" "I guess you are right then." Manius called out loudly to the door and said, "I am coming out. If there is a bared blade I will be angry. There is no danger here." I heard a shuffle and Manius opened the door to see seven men. We didn't have to call for the officers because they were all nearby and ready to fight. Manius ordered them into the room he mentioned and he began a briefing as to what had happened. When I was introduced, I gave my own comments on what I had done recently to their men. This was hard to believe by some and I simply got close and they fell asleep. Others got a shot of joy and this would put them much more in favour of Wodenism than just talk. After more talk we had an early breakfast and the fort got back to what it had been before I got here. Manius and I walked over to where my people were housed and I had to gather them up so they could be told what was happening. Some still bore the scars of the fight and I healed them as best I could. It was around noon that Manius said, "What about my men that cannot awake." "Let's go wake them. We then have to go into the countryside to rescue the rest of your men." It took less than a minute to awake the men in the barracks and we were quickly out the door before they fully awoke. We walked by the front gate and I waved to Mithridates and Lazeez who ran to me with a hand on a weapon and ready to fight if needed. I made introductions and Manius even shook hands with both. It was comforting to see a bit of this custom rubbing of on the man. We had another large meal. It was not only me but Manius that was amazed at how much Lazeez could put away. Lazeez always held a pouch with him that I assumed may be food and personal belongings but I never saw him take food from it. "Lazeez, I am sorry for being so curious but I have to ask. What is it that you find so precious that you will not leave it behind?" "Nothing, just some papyrus." "Papyrus? There has to be a lot of it in that pouch." "There is. I collect it." "What is on the papyrus?" "I draw pictures and write short stories." Lazeez was nervous now and I said, "One day I would like to see some pictures if it is alright with you. I will not invade your privacy more." "That is ok. I just draw beauty and make stories about it." "Then I understand. I will see if I can get you some paper, ink and some much better pens. I liked those when I was your age." Lazeez' dark complexion got a bit darker and he looked at his plate. It took a moment then he concentrated on just what was in front of him. We rode out of the city and found the lethargic men trudging home. Even the sight of Manius was not enough to inspire them much. An officer called a halt and I whispered to the officer so that all the men would gather close and make a skin to skin contact with the rest of the soldiers. This was unusual but Roman soldiers did what they were told. I went to two of the men and touched them and concentrated on all of the men throwing off their lethargy. Before they separated I added the shot of endorphins and the men seemed to fall in one large group. Manius was concerned but had seen this a few times already to be that worried. It took a few minutes until the men were able to gain their feet and they were given orders to form ranks. They were still overcome with the feelings that went through them but they did obey. Manius and I watched them march away now at a much faster pace. During the next few days Manius gathered a lot more data about Quinctius. Those that he felt were spies were kept cloistered so they could not give a warning. The port was watched but smugglers could still go as they pleased without a port. They could also carry messages. I made much more comfortable arrangements for my people and then held sermons in the fort and in the city proper. I had no books to give but apparently there were three here already. Manius provided a bireme for me. Antioch and its port of Seleucia were not that far away. Mithridates loved to walk the deck as if he were the captain. I busied myself with the slaves and the criminals to make their lives less arduous but it was a lost cause. The only escape was in death for most. Now they may be able to use Wodenism as a crutch and I hope it would help. The captain of the ship and his men were treated too and got a good dose of religion. If the slaves would be more tractable then the Romans should treat them better. I did not know how long this would last on one ship because a religion had to be like juicy gossip that changed from one mouth to the next. The city of Koufonisi could reinforce this but the slaves would not be able to be part of this greater interchange. Manius and then the captain of the ship gave me the general information about this area. This was the Riviera or the lake district to those of Europe but to me it was like going to the Caribbean or possibly Las Vegas without all the gambling. The rich came here for the climate and brought their intrigue with them. There were enough people here to make the city the forth most important after Rome, Constantinople and Alexandria. I learned that the harbour was so important that Vespasianus and then his son Titus built a long and wide tunnel. It was to redirect the stone and silt filled waters washing down from the Musa Mountains from filling the harbour. When we got closer, I saw that the port at least was very beautiful. Learning history this way was the best but now it was not history but current events. We docked at the military dock and for once there was no tax collector. We unloaded our cargo while the captain ignored us as if we were insignificant. The story would be told, if asked, that we were just somebody that Manius wanted transported. My hair was now dyed but I was still not sure how long my disguise would hold. I had thought to leave Lazeez with the rest but he gave convincing arguments that he was needed. He also said that he needed more information for the stories he was writing. I was positive that they were erotic in nature but I didn't snoop. Lazeez was the type of young man that every pretty girl turned his head. If he could be inspired this way and to this extent, he would be a good writer and artist. Playboy magazine was not around so the pictures could serve as a way of making a good income from hormone charged men. For that matter his stories could be the same. Mithridates had commented many times about Lazeez having to leave for some privacy of a few minutes then come back much more focussed. I said, "When I was that way in my future, my palm was my best friend until I found that it was better with the ladies." "That many times a day?" "Well maybe not that much but close. Now tell me if you were not the same." It took a minute but he finally said, "I was a good boy and only did it five times a day. I was saving myself." This was delivered sanctimoniously. We found an inn and stored all of our property. There was a lot of it to move up the steps and to the room. Lazeez now could wait here and draw while protecting our goods. We had to pay much more to get a room large enough to have three beds. They were still only pallets on the floor. I left with my k-bar under my clothes and only the sorter wakizashi on my back. This was still an unusual way of carrying a sword according to the Romans or even the Persians but it was comfortable for me. We stayed together for a half hour to get a feel for the people then separated. I was sure that Mithridates would check the harbours to see about his ship and those of mine. I posed as a person interested in buying good looking Persian slaves. Most people didn't take me seriously because I would be walking around with a lot of guards. One man wanted to take me through an alley to show me his slaves but I just wanted information. I said, "Do you really want to show me slaves? If you are mistaken about your purpose it will be the last mistake you ever make." "Do you think I would rob you?" "Yes," I said simply. "Then we have no business to do because you will not trust me." I found more prostitutes coming after me now. I felt that the slavers were sending them after me because I was looking for female flesh. I appraised the women as Lazeez would and sent them off which I was sure he would never do. In the course of the day, I circled Lucius Quinctius home a few times. I had to go back and forth because the estate shared the wall with the city and I could not get all around it. There were steps from the grounds to the parapet and each side of the property was guarded by armed men. It would be difficult to get above to see inside the property but I had an idea already about what I would find. I returned to the inn and hurried upstairs. The door was barred and Lazeez was not very quick about letting me in. I knew from the smell and the sounds inside that he was not alone. I saw a young lady now properly dressed and standing while Lazeez had rumpled clothing from being hastily donned. "Were you enjoying yourself, Lazeez?" "Very much my lord. I even got some drawings completed." "Are they private?" It took a moment and Lazeez said, "You may see them if you wish." I stood by the door to forestall the escape of the girl and looked at two of the pictures. They were very explicit in nature. "Do you ever make drawings with clothes on your subjects?" "Why? It hides their beauty." I looked at the girl and remembered all the magazines I had seen as a young man. Here was a chance to improve a boy's education. Looking at the girl I said, "I want Lazeez to draw another picture of you. Is that alright?" "Ahhh... if you wish master." I moved a stool into the light and said, "Please disrobe and sit on the stool." She was hesitant but did as I asked. She was a pretty girl but not beautiful. She had worn a diaphanous scarf which was now on the floor. I picked it up and turned her to face the window opening. I placed the scarf around her neck so it hid her breasts. The ends were held in one hand casually. It took a few more tweaks to position her body so it was seductive and erotic without being blatant. Lazeez was drooling as usual and I had to place him too so he was at the correct perspective. "Draw her now, Lazeez." Lazeez was fair but I saw talent there that had not been allowed to grow. He stayed at the drawing a long time and more detail was put in than in the two other drawings. Lazeez had a problem or I should say a few. When he looked at the women he started to shake. It took a moment to calm himself after looking at the papyrus before he could actually draw. The trouble started again as soon as he had to refresh his memory. I knew that if Lazeez lived long enough he would father a great many children. The drawing was much better than the other two and when he was done the girl got up with no modesty and admired the work. "I look beautiful." Lazeez said with a low voice, "You are beautiful and I had not seen how beautiful you were until you posed for me." The two wanted to be together and I said, "I am going downstairs to order a meal. I want you both down there in twenty minutes and with your clothes on." Both smiled at me and I left. I ordered a meal for three but didn't see Mithridates yet. It took a bit longer than twenty minutes but the two came downstairs and sat with me. The two looked happy and soon the food came. As usual Lazeez ate a great deal to restore his strength and replace body fluids. I made idle talk during the meal but when we were done I asked Lazeez, "Have you heard about Mithridates yet?" "I have not seen him since this morning." ------- Chapter 11 Mithridates did not come home by midnight and I was worried. I was debating with myself to go out and look for him. I had wanted to climb the wall around the home of Quinctius and have a firsthand look. The city was much too large to search and going out now to search would leave me a target for every cutpurse I passed. The same was true if I climbed the wall but the number would be a lot less. I slept for another hour and was awoken by somebody coming up the steps. The weight and gait told me it was Mithridates. I opened the door just before he was going to rap with the butt of his knife. Mithridates was not surprised and came in. The candle he held was the only light in the room. He smelt of stale wine, sweat and blood. I could not see any wounds and asked, "Are you hurt?" "No. I was just letting off a bit of steam and forgot the time." "Anybody seriously hurt?" "No, it was in fun." "Good. I have to go out for a few hours too." Mithridates smiled and said, "You going to be back before dawn?" "I hope to be." I carried a bag with my ninja clothing and a few tools of the trade. The walls here were very good because of the earthquakes that frequented this area. The stone blocks were large and had a tongue and groove arrangement to keep them in position better. Some I was told had iron pins to lock them together. I had two tools that could grip the gaps in the stone much better than my fingertips. If I had to, I could fashion some pitons but this required me to hammer them home which would cause noise. The city gates were guarded but open. I did not climb the steps to high town but went out the harbour gate and walked around. I was in luck because the moon was over the wall and I could climb in the dark. The wall though started on the top of the plateau and I had to climb this first. It took a few hours to get to the base of the wall for the rock was loose and difficult to climb. The wall here was still twenty metres higher. The tools allowed me to climb this last portion much quicker and I was now able to look down into the city. Quinctius' property was about a third of a hectare in size and large for even this part of town. I was not in the best position to view the property though and climbed to the top of the battlements. I ran quickly for nearly a hundred metres and crouched in the merlons. There was a lot of activity for this time of the day. The walls had a dozen troops with the colours of my opponent. Below I could see perhaps a dozen more. They looked to be waiting for something and I had to guess that it was me. I had to hang over the wall when a patrol went by but I was then able to get closer again. There was the main house with an atrium. There were other buildings. One looked like a large stable while the rest looked to be for storage or for slaves. A large structure that was near a gate could only be the barracks. The slave quarters did not look to be able to handle the forty seven women and children that were still missing. The wall beneath me was bathed in moonlight and would be for another hour. I intended to descend when this wall was in the shadow of the other wall. I hung by a rope strung from the two tools and occupied my time trying to figure out the timing of the guards. My position was shifted twice and it was more to do with allowing blood to flow better in my feet because the rope loop cut off circulation. The guard detail finally passed and I counted one minute then climbed to the top once more and looked for an enemy. I climbed down to the walkway and then I was over in seconds. I had to hurry because the top few metres were still in the light of the moon and I could possibly be seen. I slowed my descent once I was in the shadow and I was soon on the ground. There were patrols here too but thankfully no dogs. I had pepper just in case but it was not needed. Instead of going for the slave quarters, I went for the house. Holding the women and children would not help me but holding a knife to Quinctius' throat would. The shutters were in place and locked but I was able to use the steel again from my boots to slip the lock and gain entry. This particular room was empty and was the reason I chose it. The room was just a bedroom and I went into the hallway and searched untenanted rooms which happened to be all but one. The breathing told me that it was a woman or a child because it was shallow but faster than what a man would have. The study drew me and I searched through the records trying to find any reference to the pirates. It was difficult to see the text because the entire courtyard was in darkness. With nothing else to do I slipped out of the house once more and searched the stables and then listened to the sounds coming from the slave quarters. There was at most seven people here and two were men. I went around the building and sniffed the air but none of the scents were of people that I remembered. The barracks was last. If there were slave women here there was a good chance they could be found in the beds of some of the men. I actually had to enter the barracks and I was surprised at the number of guards and the absence of all women. Quinctius would not station all these men here without a reason. The wall was easy to climb and I had to wait while two guards had a short chat but I learned nothing new. The descent on the outside of the wall was quick until I hit the native stone of the plateau and I had to be very careful now. It took an hour to get to the bottom and I had caused a few rock falls. During the night I heard more fall so it must be a natural occurrence. I reentered the city just at dawn with three rabbits. It may be unusual to hunt at night but I at least had a reason for being out. Mithridates was quick to answer the door and he immediately asked, "Well?" "I stopped by to visit Quinctius. He was not home and neither were our people. There were a lot of guards there. I counted almost seventy and guessed at another fifty on the property. Many of them were awake as if ready for me." "They see you?" "They did not react if they did. I think we are just going to get packed again and go to Antioch." "Quinctius' other home?" "Yes." Quinctius owned other properties including some farms but I doubted if my people would be held there. It was still a possibility though. Mithridates and I slept until noon while Lazeez arranged for some horses and a cart for the trip to Antioch tomorrow. We could take a boat but we would then have to still find a cart to carry our belongings. We got up and ate but kept a low profile. There were many people that could use my help but if I healed even one, the word would surely get to Quinctius. Later in the afternoon, I climbed the wide steps to the upper city and just listened without tipping my hand that I was interested in Quinctius. The man had a lot of clients here and the city was well disposed toward the man even if he happened to be a villain. After a meal I went to a play. Here is where the people met and talked. My wakizashi stood out even if it was shorter but many men of some status came here with guards who wore swords but not themselves. I learned nothing new except that I was propositioned many times by both men and women. I may even have accepted if I thought it would get me somewhere. When the play was over, I listened more intently as liaisons were made. I heard the name Quinctius a few times but the conversations were all in passing. What I did not expect to find was a man outside the theatre preaching about Wodenism the same way I had heard Christians doing this. I went the other way rather than be recognised. I did not know the man but he may very well know me. I tried one more wineshop and used my coin to get some information from few men that were pretty far gone. One man had tried out for the private army but was not accepted. He was still happy at the way he was treated though. I learned that the army was over six hundred men now and all of them were supposed to be super soldiers the way the failed man spoke. When I got back on the streets I found it already dark. I quickened my pace to lessen the chance of a conflict but this was not to be. I turned a corner that led to the steps when I heard some steps from an alley there was an echo that told me that somebody was at least a few metres back. I hurried past and saw two men in the dark. I was sure that they didn't suspect that I saw them. Three businesses down the street was another alley and I heard voices whispering to get ready. Trying to avoid trouble, I immediately crossed the street only to find a man with a bow that was probably covering the alley that I may have passed. The man fired his arrow quickly while I was only four metres away. I wore no armour but I already had my hand on the shorter wakizashi. The arrow sped toward me and I both slashed out and moved to one side. I was so keyed up that I had hit the arrow and it was deflected to one side. The men I avoided were coming out of the alley and I did not wait for another arrow to come my way. I moved in quickly and used an upward stroke to cut the man's arm from his body then a downward stroke to remove his head and shoulder. I had put a considerable amount of effort into the strokes. I made a quick check for more bowmen then turned to my attackers. They made no noise and neither did I. They had swords, knives and a short spear. I counted seven men and I moved in now instead of waiting. I could face them only a few at a time this way. My blade made quick powerful strokes. I went for necks and abdomens so that my sword would not be slowed down. I had to strike a leg of one when two came onto me at once. I took the man's partner with my foot then my blade through his ribs. In a matter of seconds all of the men were down. The one with the severed leg cursed me but I did not think he knew who I was. This was much better than the alternative. The rest were dead and I swung the wakizashi one more time and the man's head rolled free. I cleaned my blade quickly on the man's clothing and hurried away even faster. In lower town, I was almost robbed again but the man was inept and all I had to do was pretend to fight him and he ran. When I got back to the inn, Mithridates asked, "Did you find anything?" "Just thieves. Did you?" "Nothing new." We left early the next morning but not before Mithridates heard the gossip of the deaths in the upper town. We were safely on the road with a cart driver when he rode up to me and asked, "Did you use your blade last night?" "A bit." "No armour?" "No." "You are going to get yourself killed going out at night. How did you beat the bowman? They found a severed arrow nearby." "I think it was more luck. I am fast but not that fast." "You better try to get faster I think." We were a day on the road and arrived around ten in the morning. If we had horses we would have been much faster but our cargo was bulky. I did not want to wear my armour because of the attention it would generate. The wooden boxes could be carried in a better constructed cart much quicker. The road at least was up to spec for a Roman roadway. Antioch was not only a haven for the Christians until they got the upper hand but a place to be and be seen by the Roman elite. Again we took an inn but Mithridates now was in charge with his son Lazeez and me as a barbaric slave. If Quinctius had kept all those guards ready for me in an empty house then he would be even more careful if he was in his home here. It took until noon to find out that the man was in residence or at his estate out of the city. Antioch had a lot of rich visitors and so they had a large and efficient city watch that patrolled the walls and the streets. This did not stop a mob of Christians from stoning a man and his wife that were preaching the benefits of Wodenism. Christians got the dirty end of the stick but usually for rebelling against the empire. Now that they were on the ascension, they did what was done to them many times. This did not make it right. I could not right the wrongs of the world all the time. Antioch was a large city that covered more than a square mile. It started on a small level strip near the river but then as it expanded it climbed the gentle slopes of the mountain. This had been the capital of an empire and at some times had been given the status of free city but usually a rebellion revoked this. The senate here was large and imposing. Julian in the old time had come here and been laughed at. He was also in the mood to placate the gods at that time and sacrificed many bulls. He was just overcompensating I felt but I had never told him about this even though the memory had been recalled after I met him. He was a slightly different man now and did not need to be goaded by pride. Mithridates paid the driver the balance of his pay and then added a tip which I said he should give. Mithridates did not understand but did as I asked. Lazeez went out and looked for places to rent houses and another cart if we had to go to an estate. After a noon meal, Mithridates and I went out again but I left even my wakizashi in the room with Lazeez. I wanted to still come across as a slave even if I was a pampered one that ate very well. Quinctius had been seen in the city as late as three days ago. This meant to me that he could still be here. There was a long coffle of slaves that matched those that I was looking for. The women were all naked as well as the children. This was sure to inspire the populous to remember if and when somebody came to ask. One of the female slaves had been lashed to a public post and whipped to death. There was no crimes listed and a man as powerful as Quinctius could do as he chose. The man telling Mithridates seemed to get off on the torture. This was common in this age. I still wanted to kill. I did not know if KhAvar was still alive or not and had to control myself from finding out now and getting killed for it. The death of the woman was an added incentive for me to fight first and think later. This was what Quinctius wanted. Quinctius' home was not close to the city walls. I had climbed those same walls after locating his home but I could see little. Tonight I planned on getting closer. Mithridates and I acted much more circumspect now. There were important facts to learn but the important one was whether Quinctius was still in residence or not. I figured that he had the remainder of his men nearby and that totalled to around five hundred. I was also sure that everything known about me had been shared so that my tricks would be less effective. To do otherwise would have to brand Quinctius as a fool and he certainly was not. Getting five hundred crack troops to surrender would be quite an achievement. I had heard that Quinctius gave them hashish when he sent them into battle. The same thing I heard was done by some militant Jews and Christians. It had been done in my day too for that matter. Our recent use of mace was a success but we used up a lot of our supply. If it were to be used successfully a lot more had to be made. I had to rethink some of my plans now. I may have to kill when I could not intimidate or incapacitate. The latter two were preferable though and there were a lot of methods from tear gas to puke gas or a mixture with mace. The trouble was that the weather had to cooperate or I had to use a lot of the weapons. Doing this in the city could kill a lot of civilians as they ran for safety. I had made claymores and used them but the projectiles had been pebbles and not steel. I had everything I needed except the stones. The amount of plastique I carried would ensure that I could make a lot. I had a few dozen incendiaries but they were of little use except as a shock weapon. They would set fire to one or possibly two men or a target. Regular arrows of mine with a small steel head were almost as destructive because they penetrated armour, even our own if the targets were near. My stingers may do a good job but a person analysing my tactics and the capabilities of the weapon would know that all they had to do was to disperse. I would have to use a regular arrow then. Automatic weapons or even a single shot rifle was not in the works with current technology though a musket could be. Doing this now would take months if not years and I wanted the captives back as soon as possible. The only way I saw was to capture Quinctius, find out what he knew and force him to return those that were still alive. This had worked in the past but I didn't see this happening this time. Quinctius would know of this and find a way to stymy me. When we got back to the inn, Lazeez was not in the room but waiting by the steps. He looked worried and I got close and asked, "What's wrong?" "Four men not just one but four men came here and asked about you. They mentioned a disguise but the inn keeper didn't seem to recall you. What are we going to do?" "Stay here and watch. Try not to act so nervous and I will pack our things. We are going to be camping I think instead of living in an inn." "That is fine with me." If Quinctius was actively searching for me in the city then there was a good chance that a lot of innocents would be killed. Mace could discourage a few soldiers but lots of enemies would require the explosives. The best thing to do would be to leave and hope that Quinctius did not think we were close. I was down in a few minutes and sent Lazeez to talk to the people that had horses for rent. If necessary I would just purchase them. From the rates Lazeez had brought back then this was more likely. I anxiously waited for Mithridates while trying to stay out of sight. My swords were wrapped in a blanket and were nearby. Lazeez came running back. He said breathlessly, "One man did not have enough for sale. You have to inspect the horses and pick the ones you want." This was a possibility all along and I just hoped that Mithridates was here but he was not. "Lazeez, I cannot go because that many horses will raise a few eyebrows. They will remember me. You are going to have to purchase them for us." "Me! I never owned a horse in my life." "Lazeez you come from a long line of traders. It is in your blood to succeed. The traders your people come from are some of the sharpest known." I handed Lazeez more than enough for prime stock and said, "Take the gold and see what you can do. Woden will be watching and possibly helping. Be fearless because the gods are on your side." Lazeez looked at the sack in his hand and didn't seem to understand what it was or what he was to do. I reached out and touched him as I sent a small amount of joy through him. Her brightened immeasurably and smiled with confidence. He was back out the door in seconds but now he was marching. Mithridates did not come back. In a few minutes a tired man came in the door and settled in a booth. The man called his order in and a woman came over to the table. Coins were scooped up before the wine jug in her hand moved. In this case it went into one of the four mugs chained to the table. The man was not unusual but I knew him from the training centre on the Rhine. He had taken the new religion into his life the way a man takes to a life preserver in a stormy sea. He was not only very persuasive but he came across as a good man. He also was fairly well educated and spoke Greek very well. I pulled back into the booth I was in to hide until he left. The man did not leave though. The people came for their mid day meal and their wine. When the seating became acute the owner came to me and said, "Move slave. I need the seat." I said nothing but tried to use a meek attitude to hide my face from the man spreading the word of Wodenism. The bundle of weapons was near and I picked them up and used the bundle to partially obscure my face as I moved to the steps and our room upstairs. Behind me I heard a quickly indrawn breath and knew that I had been discovered. I continued up the steps but just stopped when I was out of sight. Instead of a mad rush, the man took a minute and a half before he came to the bottom of the steps and looked up. His eyes got big and his mouth opened. I didn't know if he was going to call out or not so I beckoned him to follow before I turned around and walked up the remaining steps. The man followed me into our room and I turned and said, "You are prudent, a good thing to be in a land like this." "Master... what are you doing here?" he said in a quiet voice. I lead him to our room and said, "I have picked up some strays that needed a new start. A powerful man attacked them when I was away and carried some to this city. I mean to get them back." "I will do whatever I can to assist you, Master." "I remember how persuasive you were and how well you took to your studies but I do not remember your name." "Demetrius, Master." "Demetrius, I am here with only two other men. We face some very high odds. I am pretending to be a slave so that I am not noticed. At the moment, a man by the name of Lucius Quinctius Flaminius is searching for me. He hopes to lure me into a trap and my people are the bait." "I know of this man. I was born in Seleucia Pieria." "Then you know how powerful he is. At the moment we are trying to get out of the city. The man has sent people around asking questions about me and giving my description. It is only a matter of time until somebody thinks of me." "We can fight him, Master. You have many followers in this city." "The man has a large well trained army. Some of our number were stoned here recently. The city is Christian, Hebrew and the followers of Zarathushtra. You would all die for nothing. I have to defeat him with cunning, stealth or weapons that only Woden can help me with." Demetrius made the sign of the Möbius strip. "We will all die eventually and this is a very good cause." "Did you not learn that I dislike fanatics? We will all die but pursuing death to gain a place in Valhalla is abhorrent to me." Demetrius bowed his head at being chastised and said, "I do remember, Master. It is just that it is so hard in this dimension sometimes." "It makes us all stronger. Now tell me what you know about Quinctius so that I may defeat him." We talked for an hour until Lazeez came back. He was all smiles until he saw Demetrius. When he finally looked at me he said, "I have done as you asked." I introduced the two and they shook hands in the new tradition. I asked Lazeez, "Where are the animals?" "The man that I bought some of the horses from is outside with them. I figured that we could load up the animals now and wait for..." "It is ok to speak in front of Demetrius." "Mithridates can come later or with us." "We cannot leave now. There are too many people below. We will go down and eat and wait more. You will have to be the leader here, Lazeez. I am still a slave." Lazeez was very solemn and just bowed his head. I turned to Demetrius and said, "I am a slave here. If you act out of character you will endanger all of us." "I will... try to act as I should." Lazeez ordered us a large meal and then left to talk to the man that had sold the horses. He came back and talked to the proprietor then sat down. "I sent a meal out to the man to keep him at the stables while we wait." "You are acting like a sharp-witted trader now, and I like this in you." I got a smile and he sat down. I quietly encouraged both men to eat more. We may be on the run now and a meal was a good to have. In half an hour the dining room started to empty and we went out to inspect the animals. The horses were good but the man did not seem too happy. From his speech to Lazeez I figured that the man did not make the type of profit he had hoped to get on such a sale. We had our own ropes and harnesses but needed more. Demetrius and I got the boxes and Lazeez criticised our speed. He did get the man to assist us in loading the animals for a consideration. The Persian looked at the New Roman script on the cases and tried to decipher what they said. The last of our property was lashed to the packhorses and the Persian was interested in the sound of metal in some of the leather sacks. He asked questions and the new Lazeez put him in his place. We had not stalled but we did not race. The packs were loaded as good as possible but now only the bottoms showed to the casual viewer. Lazeez went inside and gave a message to the innkeeper for Mithridates and we left. I was the only one walking because I was not given a horse due to my slave status. The previous owner of the horses was encouraged with some asses to assist us in getting past the gate and into the countryside. The guards looked closely at the men on the horses and much less at a tired and dirty slave running at their heals. Outside the gates the man returned on his own animal after being paid. He still looked at me closely as he left and he was probably wondering how a well built slave was not riding because I looked to be well taken care of. Demetrius pointed in the distance and spoke of a village. This was a red herring for the watch's benefit. He then professed to forget something and returned to the inn to wait for Mithridates. The horses he had with him were to transport a tent that he had to buy and some dried food. Lazeez cursed me and said, "You better get on a horse or you will slow me down." "Yes, Master," I said in a meek voice. We headed in the direction Demetrius mentioned but this only happened while in sight of the city. We found our way past a great many farms to a winding road that led into the hills. We only stopped long enough for me to don my weapons. Lazeez said, "Will Mithridates be able to find us?" "I do not see why not. Demetrius will be with him." "Where do you know Demetrius from?" "I have a home on the Rhine. That is where we make most of the iron and steel products. We have a school that teaches medicine and also about Woden. Demetrius was a man that came and applied himself diligently to the study of the world of the gods and to what Woden wants to accomplish. He left to carry the word of Woden to those he grew up with as a boy." "Can we trust him?" "I do not have the ability to see what a man thinks. I can only do as you do. Now tell me how you got these animals. The man who you bought some from seemed to be displeased." "He was the third man that had horses. The horse you are riding now was the single one I bought from him. Because I knew that Woden was watching me, I dealt fearlessly. The man thought I had changed a lot and he asked me about it. I said that my god was watching me today. I think he could almost see Woden looking over my shoulder. All of the times I heard my father trade with people came back to me. I could not lose." "And the second man?" "Ah, he was easier than the first. I bought five horses from him. They were his best. We argued for a long time but I was positive that Woden whispered the final price into my ears. That man was worried about his horses when I put the gold into his hands. They were like his children to him. I told him that my god would look after the animals with more care than any person has ever done before. Did I do wrong?" "As long as he does not link the god that helped you with my ability to heal horses." "I do not think so. I heard your name in the market a few times. There was no problem when a Jew overheard but the Christians do not like you. Why is that? You say in your book that all those that follow Woden need to be tolerant of others." "Religion is used among other things, to gain power. This is true no matter what the beliefs are. If a person feels safe in his convictions then he has no reason to fight. If he sees his ideals threatened by something that may be superior, he will lash out. It is not just the Christians because men have fought over religion for as long as we have been men." "So the Jews feel more secure?" "Yes, for now but they have some crazy people in their midst that will assassinate or kill for their religion. This is true for people in every walk of life and only gets less as time goes on. Education is the answer. When a man or a woman knows the truth or at least what a great many people think then they too can make some rational decisions. Now tell me about the last man." "He was the worst and that was why I saved him for last. He tried to sell me the poor horses and I seemed to know what was wrong with each and told him. He had to take me to another corral and I saw some of the horses we have now. When I complained about the quality and the numbers, I saw in his stables. He did not want to show me his good horses." "Why was he upset?" "I picked out six horses and argued with him for a long time. I put two good horses back and picked two of equal quality. The money I offered was fair and the man thought he did well. After that we shook hands and I complimented him on being a good breeder. That is when he became more upset." "Do you think he was the stallion?" I said with a smile. "Will that work?" Lazeez said with a worried face. I smiled at him and said, "No and you do not have to worry about all those sheep either." "Ah, I was worried there for a minute. Do you think I can make a story about that?" "Sure you can but don't exaggerate on your size all the time." Lazeez hung his head in embarrassment. I figured that was in his stories too. We travelled south east and then pulled off on a rocky section and waited for one of the horses to leave something for a tracker to follow. We then changed direction and went back toward Antioch and then crossed the road we had been on but not all together. There was a prosperous looking farm house with stone road leading to it that would not show our tracks. We were greeted by three spears and somebody with a bow in the house. Lazeez did the talking and I found that he was now smoother in his approach and I could see him selling used cars on a lot and being quite successful. The spears were put down and then so was the bow as he discussed feeding the animals and us. We were fed outside and I watched the road for Mithridates and Demetrius. I was sure he would follow. It was dusk when I saw four figures pushing their horses. One looked like Mithridates from the distance and I leapt upon my own horse and gave chase. It took fifteen minutes to catch up. I waved to them to continue and I caught up the last few metres. I saw Mithridates and Demetrius but there was a young girl of fifteen and a young man of perhaps a year younger. When I was with them I saw that Mithridates seemed a bit perturbed by the situation. I said, "Demetrius, why do we have two more people?" "Master, I know that you can use my help. These are my two children. They are not quite old enough to be on their own and my wife has died a few months ago. If she had come with me then she would still be alive." "Demetrius, your children will be in a lot more danger with me than back in Antioch. My enemy has a small but very well trained army working for him. I am willing to bet that they know most of my tricks and they would have found ways to negate them. This means that I will have to kill and there is a good chance that anybody with me will be killed too." "I am willing to put my life and those of my children into the hands of Woden." "I do not know if I am willing to keep you with me. I do not want to see your children killed." Mithridates said, "That may be too late. I was being questioned at the inn about you. Demetrius was the one that allowed me to fight free of them. They are now looking for him as well as us." "The children?" "Demetrius is known for spreading the word about our god. His children too for that matter. If they had not been marked before they will be now." I asked Demetrius, "You come from this area. Are there no relatives or friends that will take in your children?" "They are all followers of Woden now. I will send my children away if that is your wish but I am afraid that what I did at the inn will condemn me. I am sure my children will suffer for it too." I had to do some thinking and said, "I guess this is the way it has to be. You better introduce me." The boy was called Panos. He was actually twelve. Demetrius mentioned that he had not been focussed on anything else in his life until he 'met Woden'. The girl's name was Calliope. She was as I guessed at fifteen. She was pretty for her age but was basically an average looking girl. She was enthralled with me and I now had to watch my step. Her eyes seemed to glow at seeing me. I hoped her father could see what was plain to me. As quick as possible I got on the subject of pursuit. Demetrius would lead this group forward and have his people peal off one at a time and regroup then head to a large cave he knew of that was just a half hour away. He gave a detailed description of how to get there. I left in five minutes where the rock was available. On the way back to the farm I thought of my added responsibilities. I wanted my people safe and now I had more people and no army to protect them. Mithridates had no time to purchase a tent or now two or even the food. I heard that the cave mentioned was dry but a tent was still useful when we were away. One of the men watched me as I returned to the farm. I tried to not act anxious. I said to Lazeez, "There are two more people with us. At twelve year-old boy and a fifteen year-old girl. They are under my care as you are. Do not let your lusts to overcome you." "I would not do that, my lord." "It is better to say so now in friendship than for me to have to correct something later." "I understand, my lord." "One more thing. The girl has a lot of lusts too and they are aimed at me. I do not want this. I may not get her to understand either." "Then perhaps I can be a gentleman with my lusts under control and then try to turn her face from you." "I will talk to Demetrius first." Lazeez negotiated for food and we then had to buy some sacks and baskets to pack what we had bought. We left quickly because there was no telling when pursuit would catch up to us instead of Mithridates. An hour after leaving the farm we met up with Mithridates. He gave us unladen horses and took those that carried our property. Mithridates was going to take care of disguising the tracks. Our own tracks would hide the ones made by Mithridates and his group. We hurried on and didn't stop for another hour before we found a good spot to loose our tracks. We were lucky in that it was a dry cleft. Again I dragged some branches behind to obscure what we did leave. It was well after dark when we found the cave. It looked like a good spot but it was filled with bats and their shit. Inside, it was exceptionally large and completely dry. I could see lots of use for the many tonnes of nitrate that I could extract. Normal humidity had caused over the years, large crystals of sodium nitrate to form. The crystals were different from the rest and could be harvested by hand quite easily. The centuries of accumulation meant that I had perhaps thirty or more tonnes of crystals ready for use. The crystals would produce an alternative source of oxygen and when mixed with a liquid fuel would make a suitable explosive. A waxy fuel was preferable but any would still work. All it needed was a strong detonator. I had more than enough plastique to do this job. That night we slept outside the cave. The floor was perhaps up to three metres deep in guano and it was actually necessary to limb up to reach the cave floor. I did not want to sleep on this. I checked each of the humans for health problems then did the horses before turning in. We did not keep watch but I kept an ear out for any intruders. None of the two footed variety came by. The next morning I had a private chat with Demetrius. "Your daughter seems to have her eye on me and it is not because I am the Hand of Woden." "I have seen that too. What do you want me to do?" "Nothing for the moment. I have two women now and one is being held by Quinctius. I can control my own body enough to not have an interest in another woman." Demetrius seemed to be considering this when I added, "If you tell a boy or a girl to not do something that is built into them then they will either resent it for the rest of their lives or they will do it anyway. You were probably the same way." "I guess I was." "If your daughter cannot have me then she may turn to one other boy in this camp besides your son. He is intelligent enough to know when and where to stop." "He is not of our people." "I am not of your people either. Nature is difficult to thwart. If worst comes to worst, I can also keep your daughter from conceiving." "What?" "Your daughter is a normal girl. She cannot be denied sex. When you were a boy you had your hand. Girls are the same. The reason parents try to restrain sex is because of pregnancies. This will not happen. Your daughter may not want Lazeez anyway. I am just trying to think of the future and prepare for it." "I have to think on this." Many people seemed to say that phrase in one form or another. Back with the rest, I saw Demetrius eyeing Lazeez as if he were a predator. The real predator, I felt was Calliope. Lazeez was no saint either but he had a head on his shoulders or until the girl's father knocked it off. The first objective we discussed was an alternate way back to the city we had fled. I had some maps made in Crete and some covered the two cities. There were a lot of ways back that were only serviceable by foot or on horseback. They changed with earthquakes, rains, floods and dislodged rocks of all sizes. I was pointed out all the areas with rock that would be difficult for an enemy to follow but it was not that common. This was a fertile area and only the worst areas were not cultivated. When I used my finger to trace a possible route to or away from Antioch, Demetrius said, "You cannot go there. It is a swamp and most of it is covered with the black substance I learned about in one of my classes. It will burn if it gets hot enough and smells evil." This was interesting. I remembered the lake of crude in Germania. "You will have to show me this. It can be used to fight our enemies." "I will if that is your wish." "Is there someplace close that we could camp and not be found? This cave is good but I do not want to stay here." "I do not know of a cave but there are many hills and it cannot be farmed easy. The wealthy come from Antioch or Seleucia and hunt in this area. They stay away from the swamps usually." "There were classes at the school in identification of minerals. Did you take enough to find iron and coal?" "There are many minerals here I will have to show you them. I am afraid that your appetite for iron and coal will not be satisfied with what I can show you." "Not all the iron or the coal is above the ground." "True." We spent most of the day doing a partial survey of the area. We had to be careful because there were may farms around and the farmers would talk. We found quarries, and areas where iron ore was converted to bloom. Currently there was nobody here but I saw signs of recent activity. A heavy forest on some rugged land led the way to the swamp. I could see the signs of a road that was here at one time but it was mostly unusable. It was an hour later that we came to the petroleum. I had no idea how much there was. Some would float on the water and some would sink to the bottom. In any case there was nothing growing here and it looked like it never had. "Is this what you were looking for?" "Yes. I can separate some of the thousands of different parts. Some will burn very quickly and some will not. It all has a use though." "For fuel? You cannot use it. It stinks and if you cook over it then it will destroy your food." "There are ways of making it clean or of separating the smoke and keeping the heat. It can also be used as a weapon if need be." "A weapon? How?" "There are many steps to making a weapon and I need metal tools to make the part that will hold the weapon." "My family have many smiths." "I don't think it wise of them to come here. The more that are here the easier it is to be seen." "Can you not go to them and they make what you wish? There is little danger then." "That is possible. I will have to see what I am up against tonight. Quinctius seems to be well prepared and maybe more so now that he thinks that I was in Antioch." "You are still going?" "He took my people and I mean to get them back. The easiest way is to take Quinctius and then there is no problem. He must know this and has hundreds of soldiers guarding him. He killed one of my people as a way of telling me that he is ruthless. He doesn't know it but I think I can be more ruthless than he ever imagined. Perhaps we better call on your family of smiths just in case." We made camp away from the swamp. I looked for a place to put a small refinery that would be safe and still near the Orontes River for transport. There was an area with good bedrock that would serve my purpose. There was an extension of the swamp leading to it. Demetrius had talked about attempts to drain the swamp to gain farmland but it seemed that the men behind the project gave up at the rock I stood on. Behind me was a ravine that led downhill and towards Antioch. The water had a sheen of oil on it. Another possibility was that the oil had cropped up after the project had started. The land would be useless even if it were drained. After a meal, Lazeez and I went back to Antioch so I could reconnoitre. We stayed outside the walls for half an hour. People coming into the town were scanned by some men at the gate. I assumed the other gates were similarly manned. I looked for an alternate entrance but also looked to find a quick way into the city even if it was through the walls. The fertilizer bomb would make this feasible. All it would take is a little excavating so the charge could do its job efficiently. The prospects of hurting the innocents precluded its use. I said to Lazeez, "There is nobody on the battlements with the gates open." "You going to climb that wall? It's too high." "How did you think I got in the other house?" "Well I could never do that." "You just need the training and then have a reason for doing it. I have both." Lazeez got further from the city and promised to watch for a small fire later in the night. I would strike a match outside the walls. It was not dark quite yet and I figured Lazeez could see me scale the wall. This one had loose and poorly fired bricks but it was in better shape and further away from salt air. My clothing matched that of those within the city along with a bag with my ninja clothing. It was not late enough to wear the dark coloured clothing and face paint. I was at the battlements in about the same time a normal person would have taken while walking up the steps. Once I was able look over the teeming city, I was able to pick out the larger walled homes. Quinctius' was not the biggest but it certainly was big then again the city itself was large and spread out. Few of the buildings were over a story high. The property was too far from the walls for me to see it well. I could see the tops of the buildings but none of the rest. When I saw as much as I could, I hurried over the wall and crouched on the walkway. The steps came down in intervals of a hundred metres or so. I raced to the closest set then walked down casually as if a native. I could not see anybody looking at me but I could almost feel eyes on me. I purposely tripped and caught myself as if drunk or just clumsy in the hope of them not recognising me as who I really was. Nobody came running when I finally got to the ground and I did not see anybody spying on me but there were a lot of people still in the area. My wakizashi was in my bag and this was thrown over one shoulder the way I saw many of the younger men of this area carry such things. A large man grabbed my shoulder and I froze. It was a split second decision. "What were you doing up on the wall?" "Ah... I was looking to see if my da was coming along the road. He's late and mom asked me to look." "Get out of here. You are not supposed to be up there." "I went up there lots of time and nobody complained." "You can't now, so get!" I just hurried off like a frightened boy trying to not seem too frightened. I heard laughter behind so I must have succeeded. On the streets I heard a lot of talk about Woden and his adherents. As I went further into the city I heard more and more. People were preaching about Christianity though I heard some quiet speech about other religions. The talk was aimed at how much a fraud Wodenism was when 'everybody knew' that their beliefs were the only ones that were correct. It seemed that the Christians had a very strong hold on the population. Paul had preached here as well as others in the Bible. I found nobody standing up for the other religions or especially Wodenism. I then remembered about the couple that were stoned. Instead of giving a lot of rational thought to a problem, most people let others think for them. It was a basic human weakness. Another large man in a crowd was talking forcefully to some younger people. I had meant to bypass them but the crowd pushed me into their midst. When I tried to get away the man grabbed my pack and pulled me back. "Do you believe in Jesus?" Instead of going with the flow, I reacted. My fist struck his throat and as he straightened up in shock I kicked him in the nuts but tried to do it with less style than usual. It may be too late but I tried to be less than my usual self. The man had not fallen yet and I pushed around him and continued on my way. I got perhaps twenty metres away when the roar went up and I had to slip into a bakery. I bent over to examine the cheaper bread in a basket on the floor. In the process I took off my pack and left it on the floor. I dickered with the baker for a stale loaf of bread until I remembered that I had left my money outside the city. To hide my gaff, I searched for my supposed money pouch and tried to act like I had been robbed. The street was in turmoil and there was actually fighting going on. I said to the baker, "I am going to look for my money." The baker angrily replied, "Don't waste my time again if you have no coppers." I tried to act like a typical person my apparent age and left crestfallen. There was too much going on and I ducked into the first alley I came across. I should have looked first for there were some boys my age already there. They had a slave's head in a sack and were having sex. I knew it was a slave by the garments and the fact that there were no shoes. I was committed now and moved in quickly and moved at my best speed. I used no weapons but my feet and hands. It was less than fifteen seconds and five young men and one more young man in the middle fell to the floor. They had been raping another male. The bag was only to keep the slave from sayinjg who had done this to him. This was not really a crime except that the owner could seek redress. This was typical of the mentality of this time. A man showed he was superior to another by raping. The same was even true of many males because Romans had no word for homosexuality but only that a man prefers men more than women. I backed out of the alley before I was noticed. Another young man was looking at the carnage but I was not sure if he saw that I did it. I kept my own head down and passed by. I went to the next alley and there was no conflict so I just cut through to another street. The religious favour had not stopped. I was not accosted. I got a chance to see the walls around Quinctius' home once more in the daylight though the shadows were getting long. The property only had a pair of guards at the gate and the men were old at around forty to forty five. Life now was harsh and people wore out much quicker. There was a good chance that these men had been picked to show that the property would be more inviting to me. ------- Chapter 12 Finding a place to remain stationary was difficult. Staying close I felt would be normal for most people trying to get into the property. The homes on both sides were just as ostentatious as Quinctius'. They also had guards. I was going to have to go across one property to gain access to what I sought unless I went up the wall facing the street. I broke into a stable a half klick away. It was the only safe place. The hours passed and the noise in the streets diminished. People came to the stable to put away horses for the night and I had to wait for some of the horses to be curried. My street clothes were hidden in the straw and I wore my night outfit. My face had been blackened and so were my hands and blade. The pack had the equipment in it that I may need. Getting out of the stable was delayed as men were nearby and talking. Timing was not that important so I waited twenty minutes until they moved on. I learned that Quinctius was going to put on another execution in two days because a slave displeased him. I would see if I could displease him more in the coming hours. There was an alleyway that a thief would take but I went around the block to a home with a wall only three metres high. I picked this one because the houses on both sides had dogs. There were also no guards in evidence. I jumped and caught the edge of the capping and I was on top in seconds. With a quick look around I rolled off into a garden. I cast my senses out and found two young lovers on a stone bench. The woman had her legs parted and the man was using his fingers. There was a little groaning. The words and sounds associated with the activity were subdued. I managed to slip by the couple as I hurried along to the next wall. An angry man was inside the house was talking about a worthless young man taking advantage of his daughter. The woman and I suppose the mother was trying to placate him. When I got to the wall I wanted to climb I found it higher and plastered. I could jump quite high and could make a very good living as a basketball star but I could still not reach the top. I got out my hook and rope from the sack but heard a commotion as the man in the house wanted to confront the young couple. I picked up a pebble and threw it in the direction of the couple so it would land in the trees and possibly warn them. The father was quietly getting near the couple as my hook bit and I was up the wall in seconds then lay on the top to see what had happened. The father caught the couple sitting comfortably but I could smell the woman's scent from here. The next property had a dog but only one. The house was built close to one wall. The top of the wall was in good shape considering and I decided to walk it instead of climbing down then up again. I walked thirty metres then turned toward the house after getting around a decorative turret at the corner. I was very near the house and it was quite dark but I felt something odd on my left leg and I froze. I concentrated in the direction of my feet and saw a thin thread strung across the wall and going in a nearby window. I listened intently now and heard the breathing of two men. I had to guess that there was about twelve nearby. My left foot moved back very slowly and I looked ahead. There were more threads going across and some were as high as my waist. Those threads went into other windows. This was like evading laser beams in a movie. I moved cautiously forward and stepped over or under all of them. Once past the house I saw a fire on a platform tended by an old man in the adjoining property. In the courtyard of the house there were some men hidden in a copse of trees probably looking at the top of the wall I had to cross. Instead of backtracking, I slipped down into the yard with the fire and when the man was not looking. I got by him and then up the other wall but only so I could lay on top to see what other efforts were there to thwart me. Dogs were there and I saw that they were muzzled. A ninja usually brought poison or something to make a dog sleep. I had some but the dogs were on leashes and not allowed near any food. Besides there were three of them. After dropping back into the property with the fire, I moved down the wall I had been on until it passed a corner with another property. Here I climbed again but saw more guards with dogs. I spent the rest of the night making a mental map of all of the properties. It was a given that I was not going to be able to get into the property the way it was guarded. The streets were nearly deserted when I left. I had not been able to get close to the property except at the street in front. It was near dawn when I climbed down the outside of the town walls. Lazeez had been there to meet me after he got the signal. "Did you get him? I didn't hear any fighting." "He has his guards around him in circles that get smaller." I did not have to word for concentric. "I am going to have to find another way in. Maybe we can go through the sewers." "The sewers?" Back at our temporary camp I mentioned what I had seen to the others. Many plans had come to me on the ride back. Movies had shown people parasailing, using a cable strung between two buildings and over the target to digging a tunnel underneath the property. There was still no assurance that Quinctius or all of my people were on the property. "Demetrius, I want you to take some gold and purchase five strong barrels. They all have to be strong. This means that I need four or five carts to carry them. I am going to place them near the walls in the city and I am going to destroy them." "With barrels?" "With what is in the barrels. I also need two large copper pot with a tight fitting lid. If you cannot find them then have them made. There is going to be an execution in two days. We will not be ready in time but maybe I can give Quinctius something to think about besides capturing me. I know that after this he would have called for more executions and there will be nothing I can do about it." "Who is going to be executed?" "Somebody that Quinctius will think I will try to save." Nobody spoke for a while then Mithridates said, "The Romans have used this method many times and they usually taunt the person into doing what they want." "I love those people but to give in now means everything I have done will be lost. I have been taught to reason not react and that has been difficult when the people are so close to me. I fear that more will die until I can save them. Even if I could get somebody in authority here, I fear they would still die." Demetrius said, "What can one man do or even the Hand of Woden?" "We will both find out but I am going to do my best and if I fail, I am going to make them pay like they are doing to me now." Demetrius and Mithridates went to those of Demetrius' relatives with more detailed requests. They would be able to go into the city to purchase what I needed. They would meet us at the bat cave just like batman. I wanted Calliope and Panos to start harvesting the sodium nitrate crystals. The two would get things ready as Lazeez and I had a little sleep. After four hours I awoke and ate a quick meal. Lazeez had been awake all night and wanted nothing more than to sleep now. We broke camp and headed back to the cave. Again we avoided sight and got to the cave in mid afternoon. We all went in and I saw the needed for illumination without making a fire or an explosion. The material on the floor would burn and I had heard of one such cave doing so during the American Civil War. The best we could do is have a fire outside and reflect some of the light inward. This would not happen until we got some of the copper back. I had asked for ten amphoras of lamp oil but I was not sure this much could be found. We gathered what we could. We had neither the right tools, illumination or containers to put our collection into. I was also fearful of the dust that we now worked in, exploding like it did in flour mills and coal mines by just things like hot bearings or even a static spark. The work was made easier by me healing all of us. Calliope started to talk a lot more with her father away but didn't get overly talkative. I started lots of conversations and tried to get others to speak but this did not work well yet. We had collected about four hundred kilograms by the time Demetrius and Mithridates returned. They had only an old copper pot and three old men and five old women. I had asked for help and requested older people. I did not expect them to be this old though. I guess the younger people would still be needed on the farms and able to do most of their duties. I was covered in ancient bat shit and a bit of the fresh when I shook their hands. They didn't seem to mind. For twenty minutes we talked about Wodenism and during the talks I started their bodies to heal. Calliope, Panos and Lazeez were treated again but now I tried to get their bodies to remove the dust from their lungs. This didn't work and I would have to see how to do it on myself first. There was so much to learn about the human body. I had so much else to do that it hurt to ignore medicine, especially when I had such a great method of monitoring and influencing the body. We made a meal and ate after four of us washed. Three of us did not think the dirt was that objectionable. I had to set them straight on this. I had another sermon that night to blot out of my mind the condition of my people. Reminiscing about those in Germania, on the Rhine, the Weser or Lutetia could occupy me for hours but I had company now. I talked about what our future could be. There was so much that was interesting in the twenty first century or even centuries before. I explained in detail the workings of a steam locomotive and they were all in awe. When I said we had built this already then they were speechless. The next morning the eight newcomers commented how they felt better than in years. Those that had problems with hearing and sight were improving. We all went to work in the cave to the distress of the bats. We now at least had wooden shovels to scoop off the crystals at the top of the layer of shit but this also had fresh droppings. We were bombed too but we had to stay and do the job. Demetrius and one of the old men went back to see what had been collected for me. I needed to wash the crystals of impurities then dry them out before they were crushed. At this time I had to put the lamp oil on them to keep them from absorbing water like ammonium nitrate would but only worse. I had made these types of explosives and many others when I was trained by my uncles and my dad. This had lead to my taking chemistry but I guess it really stemmed for my wish to destroy creatively. There was a power to be gained from working with chemicals and I guess I had never really grown up in this matter. Demetrius came back with a cart and some used kegs. What I really liked was a sheet of hand wrought copper that was more brass than I wanted. I stopped my labours at gathering crystals and then began to wash what we had. The scum on top was thrown out and the washed crystals were placed on the sheet of metal after the edges were turned up. Another fire dried out the kegs. I didn't mind the charing, I was after dry wood. When the fire had burnt down, the pan of crystals were put on top to dry. These had to be constantly stirred with a paddle to keep them from decomposing but still enough to dry out. I had primers for grenades and I used a bit of plastique to make up the device that would set off the nitrate. Most of the kegs were small and would hold fifteen to twenty five kilos of crystals. I had to guess at the amount of oil I needed. Too little or too much would make this very inefficient. Everything was packaged except for the necessary oil and the sealed containers were put on the cart. Two of the old men now started to take the cart to Antioch. Their speed would be far less than mine. They could safely carry some of the stingers, and a lot of arrows but now they were wrapped in straw. The boxes would surely be noticed. A dozen grenades were added and some of the ingredients I needed to make more claymores. The most important may be my armour which would be difficult for me to wear into town. I washed up while the rest worked. I exercised and worked with the sword and knife doing a kata. The bow this time was going to be important. I practised in half hour segments while thinking of all the oriental lore surrounding the casting of arrows. Being one with the bow and the arrow was actually a good way of phrasing it and I consistently had good results. With a person going to die soon I worked even harder. I knew that I would probably not be able to save the person. I rested that night instead of going to Antioch. I would not be able to do anything at this time and I had to resign myself to that fact. When I was a boy this procedure was drilled into me. I could see the logic but it did not mean the pain was going to be less. In the end I had to make myself sleep the way I did to others. Lazeez, Mithridates and Demetrius rode with me to Antioch in the morning. They had all changed into a disguise that I hoped would work. One of Demetrius' relatives lived close to the city and we could leave our horses there. We found the old men there ahead of us. To stay in character I had a sermon with the new family and those that were usually with me. It was good that I did. The father of the family was dying and I had to do a lot to him to keep him alive for the next few years. Lazeez and I would enter the town with three other young men with a wagon of produce to sell. We plastered horse shit over the wagon to make it seem as odious as possible and I even applied some to myself and Lazeez. "Why do I have to get this on me too?" "A while ago you complained of getting clean now you complain about getting dirty." "The dirt I came by naturally. You are putting it on." "Better horse shit than a sword." "Ya, I guess." Mithridates and Demetrius came into town on the wagon with the crystals, weapons, armour and with some additional produce. There was no hassle at the gates because either they had relaxed or Quinctius wanted me here. We did not enter together. When Mithridates met me, we went immediately to a shop selling the oil for lamps. I poured the crystals into the copper pot and mixed in the oil as best as I could then packed it firmly into the kegs once more. This was done for all five barrels before the detonators were installed. I had a half keg of explosives left over. The mixture remaining in the pot would be fashioned into my traps. I had a total of about a hundred and sixty kilos of a weak explosive. If I had ammonium nitrate it would be far stronger. Mithridates went into a smith's forge and asked about making the backing for the claymores. It was difficult because he could not say what it was for. He didn't know that much anyways. The articles were easy to make and in an hour or so he would be done. The execution was to take place in the circus that was near the centre of town. I walked in well before the event and after checking those already here, I inspected the post that had been erected for this task. I thought of how I would kill with this new information. I could kill Quinctius from the seats with a bow or a stinger. I could also use one of my bombs. I had not been to any circuses except those in Lutetia. I figured that Quinctius would use the seats that were reserved for him. He would be surrounded by his army and any damage would be reserved for them. The seats and floor were of wood not stone though stone was used in other places. I put a cloth through the slats by the seat then went looking for a way underneath. There was no opening to this location so I had to pry some boards away. The spot was easy enough to find now. I went back to the cart and took the largest container and carried it to the location. Mithridates and Demetrius came with me and helped me secure it right under the seats so it would be as close as possible. When it was firmly in place I placed a cord onto the pin on the grenade and ran it through the boards we had to move to get into this area. At ground level I put a stone on the cord to hide the end. The last thing I did then was to remove the safety pin and then close up the boards I had removed to get in. "When I give the word, I want the cord pulled. You have a half of a minute at most to get clear." Demetrius asked, "What will happen?" "Something like a large stinger. Mithridates knows what they are like and you can ask him. The effect is hard to describe without actually seeing and hearing it." Mithridates asked, "This is just more than the usual amount of power of Thor's hammer?" "It is more but still just a small fraction." When we scouted out everything possible we left on the most direct route to Quinctius' home. If I had failed to kill him or if his soldiers came this way I would have to find ways of slowing them down. Permanently was the best way in my mind. Mithridates went for the iron. I used the metal with cloth and pebbles collected at the bat cave. The plastique was put on the metal but then I added the fertilizer and stones. This had to be kept in a cloth sack because I could not bind it to the mine or encase it in sheet metal yet. One of my detonators went onto each. I showed all of them how to place the claymore, the sack of stones and fertilizer, the detonator and finally how to start the fuse burning. My mines were large and very powerful but I could not miniaturise them very well. Along the route I picked out some good points for an ambush and let them pick more so that I knew that they understood. We had a meal but none of us were really hungry. I gave orders after the meal. "Lazeez, you are to stay with the wagon at all times. Mithridates is going with me to the circus in case I need to set off the explosives. Demetrius will be on the route the soldiers will take. He will slow them down and Mithridates will help him when he comes." Lazeez said, "What are you going to do?" "I am going to try to kill Quinctius and rescue the person slated for execution. If necessary I will kill the person as painlessly as possible but if I have to do that then a lot more people will die." "What about me? I have nothing to do." "If I am successful, you will help who I rescue get to a safe place until I can get all of you out of town. If I am not successful then you will accompany me as I destroy the wall in front of Quinctius' home. You can set some claymores to keep reinforcements away." "I can help you fight even if I have somebody to hide later." "Lazeez, you grew up on the streets and you can find places to hide that I miss. You need to do this." "Ok, I will do as you ask." When the time for the execution came close we headed back to the circus. In some cases we were able to hide the claymores but they were not in the alleys where they were going to be deployed. There was just too many nosy people around that would take what we hid even if they did not know what it was. Demetrius was let off with the last of the heavy load of claymores in a large leather sack. The man was very nervous and I helped him as best I could. He said, "If I die, will you look out for my family?" "They are my family now and you already know how I feel about that." He made the symbol of the Möbius and muttered a prayer as we left. Lazeez rented a cheap place to stay the night. It was in the stable. We were not going to stay but I wanted a place to hide in until Mithridates gave me the signal to come. Lazeez and I stayed within three hundred metres of the circus while Mithridates left. Lazeez said, "I am more nervous now than I was before." "Waiting is always hard. We were always on the move before and we had little time to worry." "It is hard to imagine that we fought a legion and won and now we fight less men and it is more dangerous." "Facts and the intelligence of the officers win wars too. If you know when to attack and where you can win. It is just that Quinctius has most of that on his side now." "Were you a soldier in the future?" "I learned to be a soldier all in the first thirty years of my life. I had a problem with my legs and could not fight for my country. So I was a soldier but one trained for small groups and tactics." "Like now?" "Yes, like now." I wanted to keep his spirits up but the difficulties I had to face in this time were not what I trained for. I had an established tech base to help me and I never thought that I would lead more than twelve people but here I was leading everyone that believed in our religion. People came and put their horses into the stable with us and went to the circus. The Romans like the Germanic people were usually slow to get started. I had to piss twice even before I started to put on my armour. The only way to hide myself on the route would be a long cape and hood. I checked out the weapons and made sure they were sharp, especially the two swords. My quiver was extra large and the arrows came in two lengths so that more could be put in the quiver without the fetching being damaged. A strap across my chest and another around my waist held grenades. One special quiver held only nine stingers. The last thing was the k-bar that hung from my waist. Lazeez stayed by the open door to warn me or keep others away. He finally ran in and shouted, "Mithridates is running this way." I put the cape on and then strapped the two swords to my back before I hurried out of the stable with the bow in one hand. Lazeez was already leaving to do his part though I knew he didn't want to do it. Mithridates stayed away from me but gave me the signal for what this situation was. Quinctius was in his box and the execution was near. I gave my signal and he ran back in to pull a simple cord. I got close to one of the gates when the ground shook. Air rushed out the gate and nearly knocked me back. The sound of the explosion was everywhere. Tortured wood was flung in every direction and I wondered if I had used too much of the explosives. There was a period of quiet then the roof over this portion of the stadium gave way and fell. There was far more confusion than I thought and removed my cape and threw it to one side then put my swords back on. The katana stayed on my back but I wanted the shorter blade now. Nobody had seen a man in armour like me before but they were not concerned. They were trying to get out of the arena. I knew this would happen and I was able to get further in before the rush began. I could not see Quinctius' box but I could see the post with a boy on it. There were fifty soldiers at least and they were stunned at what had happened. From the last bit of shadow I pushed the tip of the sword into the ground and heard Mithridates coming up behind me. He said nothing. I took out the arrows. The distance was too far for the stingers. I concentrated on the officer near the boy and released. Mithridates handed me arrow after arrow and I was happy to see that most of them had struck where I aimed. It was as if I was in tune with the wood. The soldiers were not idle for long and had taken cover but none were able to escape to the stands. I handed Mithridates my bow and the stingers. If I needed them then they would be with me but I didn't need them now. I ran for the post and Mithridates came with me until I yelled at him, "Get out of here. You have finished this task. I need you elsewhere." "But..." "Go!" When I ran close to the post the men that were not wounded came out to fight. I had both swords out now. I wanted to use a blade though a grenade would have been better. None of their blades touched my armour but I was able to go after the final seventeen. When the last one fell I looked at the post and found a wounded soldier with a knife to the throat of the twelve year-old boy I knew. The soldier sneered at me with an arrow in his chest and drew the knife across the bound boys throat. "Noooo," I yelled and raced to the boy. The soldier stood with his sword and I just stabbed him in the guts and kicked him away. The boy I held and tried to stop the bleeding with my hands and my ability. I tried harder and harder but I could not hold the life in my hands. The boy's body sagged and his hand that had been holding mine relaxed. I saw the boy in my mind. I had talked to him a few times and I knew that he was both bright and caring. In a moment I saw an arrow sprout from his breast. It was too late to hurt him though but now I could kill men. I laid the boy down and removed the arrow before picking up my swords. I walked over bodies and off the platform and advanced at a determined pace toward a solid wall of men. Some bit of sanity came to me and I put my swords into the ground and took the grenades and pulled the pins and threw them to where they would do the most good. The soldiers saw the grenades coming but did nothing about them except get out to the way as if they were just rocks. They started to explode one after another just as the men decided to charge me. Some bodies were blown over the men in the front but I did not wait either. I took up the swords and ran to meet the men. I fought for my life now and not just for revenge. The soldiers learned to not get close. My armour had now been touched a great many times but only a few thrusts had done any damage. The swords I faced were not iron but steel. The fighting never stopped. Strangely I did not grow very tired. My wounds were treated as I fought. It was only after the men refused to fight me that I thought of connecting with their bodies. I thought of sending death but pain, pain of a boy dying, was much better. They were too far away now and they just floated around me as I moved toward them. It was an explosion outside the ring of men that allowed me to get close and destroy more. Another explosion brought more and my rational mind was trying to find where they were coming from. The third explosion was too much for them and they ran. I could only get a few and none of them would survive. Mithridates was in the stands using my bow and the stingers. I waved and he turned and ran. I looked around for more enemies and found none. The high roof that partially protected the wealthy patrons was no more. I could not see the damage to the stands because the collapsed roof covered this area. I had to give myself a shake because I had much more to do. The gate used by the wealthy was near but I had to go to another one because the first was impassable. The next gate got me to the street. There was a solid wall of people but they stayed far away. I was angry at these people and opened my visor to let the cool air in. "Look into the arena and see the power of Woden. Count the dead. If another innocent is allowed to die the city will die and everyone in it." I turned and walked toward where the horses were and chose one that looked good. There was a good chance that the owner was dead anyway. The crowd parted quickly and gave me lots of room. Lazeez was far ahead. I raced up the street and passed more destruction. Soldiers were in the road and some were even alive. The mouths of alleyways were damaged and the storefronts were pitted as if they took small arms fire. This was repeated until I counted two hundred wounded or dead. More explosions were heard and I guessed that Mithridates and Demetrius were still busy. I saw men and horses racing my way and then a double explosion that ripped them all apart. When the smoke cleared Mithridates and Demetrius raced from the alley. I figured these men had been surrounding Quinctius' home and now came to see what they could do to help their master. Dying was what I figured they could do best. Lazeez was where he was supposed to be and we hurried to the walled home. There were four men at the gate but they retreated inside when we approached. I took out the smallest keg and ran to the recessed gateway. Lazeez continued with the horse because it would gallop away from the noise. I twisted the detonator and got further away than I would have before and counted to thirty seven before the gate and much of the wall disappeared in a cloud of dust. A few dozen men had been behind the door. They were now a red smear on the ground and the other wall. I ran to the house first but it was locked and barred. I had no grenades or stingers. Just in time, Mithridates came behind me with the bow and some of the stingers. I got out of the way and yelled, "Open the door, Mithridates." Mithridates launched the stinger at the door and the entire entranceway disappeared. Soldiers behind the door did the same thing. I raced through the house but found only slaves or Quinctius' family. They cringed from me but I touched each of them and put them to sleep. I didn't want them to leave without questioning. Mithridates and Demetrius were guarding my back while the former was yelling into the slave barracks. I heard some replies but they were weak and not rational. The door to the slave barracks was barred from the outside and I threw the heavy oak beams off and pulled open the door. Four soldiers raced out at me with spears. Two hit my armour but I got those men with my swords then took on the other two. I cut one man's head off and the other dropped his sword and fell to his knees and started to beg. I got close and in a few seconds the man fell over, asleep. I turned to the two men and said, "Stay here." The area was dark and stank but I could see well enough. There were beds or stalls and even cages with not only my people in them but strangers too. They could not see me well but when I yelled, "KhAvar," they knew. They all called to me and I had to yell again, "Quiet." They were all shackled to the floor with a long chain that ran through the loops on their personal chain. I called out, "Where is KhAvar?" Nobody answered. Turning back to the men outside, I said, "Take the coverings off the windows. Those that I saw did not move or not much. I went to these first and put my hand on them. The first was a woman and she was sick. I did what I could for her and then did the same as I had done in Lutetia. The strangers shied from me but could not go far. It was in a far corner that I found KhAvar. She was still alive but sick and hurt. The chain on her ankle kept me from taking her into the fresh air. Her body was my first concern and I worked hard on all of the places but she was weak and needed more than just food. When I felt that she was stabilised, I took my picks out and worked on the lock on this side of the room. It was well used but worn so I still had to work to get it to open. When it was free I pulled the chain from the ring on her chain then had to pull the entire length out. I picked seven more locks then pulled the chain to free each of the people. The room was a lot brighter now that the sun was coming in. In all this I forgot about the fighting and said to all those that could understand. "Leave this building but stay close. There is water and food outside." I hurried out and both Demetrius and Mithridates were at the large hole in the wall. Beyond them was a large crowd and when I got closer I saw how large it really was. A man in robes was urging the people to attack us. Looking closer I saw that he had a large cross around his neck. My helmet was off but I still had my two swords. I raced to the man and he did not know that I was close until it was too late. Instead of using my sword I stopped at the last second and held the man still. In a few seconds he was screaming in pain. He fell to the ground and twisted every which way to get away from his torment. Over the sound of the screams I said, "I am very close to asking Woden to curse your city forever and all its inhabitants. A boy is executed and you come to watch as if it is something good. Leave now or I will call down the power of Woden and destroy all of you like the stadium and the wall behind you." They did not move so I raised one of my swords and the men fled back and pushed those behind. In seconds the priest was the only one around. I reached down and again I did not kill but lowered the amount of pain. The man could not go unconscious but he could not move either. When he came to some sort of reason I said, "Follow me now or spend the rest of your days with the pain you just had." I went back to the property and those that needed me. I noticed that Lazeez was not with us and I asked Mithridates, "Where is the boy?" "I told him to stay away so he could find out if we are going to be attacked." "Good idea. Where is the wagon and the kegs?" "The kegs and everything that was in the wagon is over by the wall." "Good, you better go in the house and bring out those that are sleeping. Don't hurt them even if they are Quinctius' family." "Yes, my lord." I got the priest and picked him up by his garment. He was larger than me but I was strong. After shaking him a bit I said, "I am going to take your pain away. You will do as I say." It took only a few seconds before he said, "Yes, my lord. I will not fail you." "Get water and give everybody a drink. Tend to their needs. You are being given this one chance at redemption. Fail me or Woden and you will spend eternity in pain worse than you suffered a few minutes ago." I felt justified in saying this since other religions had used the same argument. The man's head went up and down quickly. I put my hand out and he flinched. When I had my hand on top of his greasy head I took away the pain then gave him the greatest surge of endorphins I could muster. The man just fell over and went catatonic. I didn't care if he died or not. Mithridates brought out one of the slaves from the house and I went to awaken him. He was shocked and tried to get away but could not get far. "You belong to me now. I have bested your master. Everybody on this property is under my care. Make food and help those in distress." I had to wait but he finally said, "Yes, Master. I will do the best I can." I used my hand to beckon the man and he walked close on his knees. Like the priest, I sent a surge through him but it was much smaller. Before he recovered I treated two women. There was seven slaves in the house and nineteen family members from a woman around forty to an infant. The infant was given to one of my people and she immediately went into maternal mode. Fifteen of the people were under the age of sixteen and I awoke them one at a time. I was polite and some of my armour was off. I explained in simple terms that I was not going to hurt any of them or the other adults in the house. I was not believed. The children were put under the care of some of my own people that had been able to keep their sanity. The children would now be the feet and hands of others. In all this confusion I went back into the slave barracks and took out those that could not move themselves. I went over everybody once more whether they were my people or not. The sleeping guard and the adults got the same treatment but they did not know it. Food came and I took a bowl and fed KhAvar myself. I think she knew that I was here but her condition was so severe that I was not sure. She had cuts that were festering and it looked like she had been raped in both orifices. Sleep would be the best for her and she already had that. I was just sitting on the ground and holding her when I heard footsteps coming down the street from both directions. KhAvar was put on her back and I went to get my armour back on. Mithridates saw me do this and got ready himself. I took my bow back and a few of the stingers. When we got to the street I saw members of the watch coming from both directions and they looked very frightened. When I was in full view of them. I waved an arm with the bow and pointed to the ground in front of me then turned in the other direction and did the same thing with my arm. The watch got the idea finally and came forward. I waited patiently until they stood before me then I growled low and menacingly at them, "You were sent here to evict me. Is that correct?" There were only two head nods. In the same voice I said, "Has any of you counted the number of people I have killed today?" When no answer came I growled louder, "I want to know." One man that was probably the one in charge said, "We are still counting. Some of the pieces are so small we do not know who they belong to." "I could claim this city as mine now but I will not. The men that sent you will have to come here in two hours to discuss terms or I will destroy this city so that nobody will ever live here again." The man that answered before said, "I will carry your words." "Good. Now I want you to report to me if anybody else has some foolish ideas. The power of the Hammer of Thor is in my possession and I will not fail to use it." "Thor!" "Look at the wall behind me. Look at the stadium. What but Thor's Hammer could do that?" "Nothing." I pointed at six men at random plus the one man I spoke to. "Come with me. There is more to show." I just turned and walked back the way I had come. The men saw the damage to the house and the smear of gore on the walls. They also saw the priest working diligently and the dead stacked to one side neatly. Those asleep attracted the man I had spoken to and he said, "What is wrong with them?" "Woden himself has chosen me as his Hand. I commanded that they sleep. They will stay that way until they die unless I awaken them." "What are your plans for them?" "I invited you here to see that they are alive. This could very well be my city now and Quinctius was my enemy. What was his is now mine." "Thank you for telling me, my lord." "What is your name?" The man stood straight and said, "Spurius Cornelius Castus my lord." "Spurius, I am angry at the people in your city. If I can find it worth saving, I will. A great many customs and attitudes have to change but they are both difficult and easy. No buildings have to be erected but the way you think has to be altered. I abhor slavery but it is not something that can leave us overnight. I want every man, woman and child educated so they can read. They can then learn from others. I want to heal not kill. "Your town has a lot to gain and little to loose. Those that are rich will not loose their positions but the poor will gain a bit of status. The Christians, for a lot of years were persecuted like the Jews. I profess tolerance. But I will not do like the portion in the bible and say that I will turn the other cheek." Spurius pointed at the priest and said, "What about him?" "He was trying to get shopkeepers to fight me. He is a fool. When he has served some time as a servant of others I will free him." "That is good to hear, my lord." "Your people should be picking up bodies. I do not want disease. Send a cart over here to collect what is beside the wall. Somebody better be digging a large hole now or collecting a lot of wood." "We are digging my lord." "I do not want individual graves. One large one will do. A stone will mark those that are interred and how foolish they had been." "What about the nobles that had died? They had no part in Quinctius' actions." "They did. They came to watch a boy being executed. The only reason for the murder was to bring me here. You see the result when I was called this way." Spurius did not answer. I woke up the guard that sought mercy. He was on his back and stayed that way because my foot was on his chest. "I spared your life and by the grace of Woden our god, you were healed of your ills. Remove your clothing and run into the house and find suitable clothing. My family has come to hate your uniform." I took my foot away and the man hurried to do what I commanded. He was out in minutes in slaves clothing and he got to his knees in front of me. "You are not to leave the property unless ordered to." "Yes, my lord." "You have a lot to pay for. Make yourself useful by helping those you hurt. Talk to the priest first and ask him what he felt because you would feel the same if you fail in your duties." "Yes, my lord." There were two women and a man left and I woke the woman that was probably the wife of Quinctius. I learned that her name was Agrippina. She was very frightened and I gave her the facts and the suppositions. She heard about the pirates and the attacks and what I had done. What I got in return was, "That is all a lie. My husband is not like that." "Then hold your tongue until I show you and the world the truth." She said nothing but she had a vested interest in keeping the family out of a scandal. The next woman woke up but she did not protest as hard. I learned that her name was Flavia. She wanted her baby though and I took her over to the child. Instead of returning the child I said, "Sit and talk about the child before you get him back." "He is my child." "I hold this city in the palm of my hand. It will live and die by my command. I own you too. Sit and be nice and others will be nice to you. You have to come to a new understanding of how the world works." The woman didn't know what to say but her child was the most important. She sat and wanted her child so much that the woman holding him gave him back. After a quick inspection the two woman began to talk. The man of twenty to twenty five was awoken. He had fought me in the house but I was just faster. Now he was made weak and less liable to cause problems before he awoke. This man was Quinctius' son. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and told the same as his mother. He too denied the charge until I said I would gather proof. He recognised the men of the watch but they were unable to help him. I dismissed the watch now that they saw that I was not abusing people or at least not much. There was lots to do and not enough hands to do it. There was a small anvil and I now took the job of a smith and cut the shackles from each person. Some like KhAvar had to stay asleep even during this time. I found the male slave and said, "What is your name?" "Rogelius, my lord." "I need some help Rogelius." "Anything my lord." "Tell me where Quinctius did most of his business?" "Do you mean in the house?" "Whatever you know." "I can show you his library. He wrote letters from there. I am sure he did business elsewhere but I do not know any of it." "What about his records that show how much he spends." "I have seen them but do not know where they are stored." "Let's look." It took an hour to find the loose boards in the floor and then ten minutes to find how to gain access. Rogelius was ordered to look for more hiding spots as I went over the books. Agrippina, Quinctius' wife or widow came in and said, "What are you doing in here?" "This is my house in a city that waits upon my judgement. What are you doing in here?" "I live here." "You may not if I choose." Agrippina's hackles got up and she was going to make an angry retort and I only pointed a finger an her and she quieted and left. The first book seemed to be one for a farm and I remembered that I had not gone there yet. I would have to soon. The next book was of some dealings with some names that I did not know. The rest were similar but dealt with different men at different times. I didn't see the pirates' names but these too could be disguised. I searched the hidden section and pulled out the seal used with the wax and some personal items but the man had to have money for the day to day running of the home. He also had to have a lot to pay his army and other business interests. The gold had to be somewhere. I needed somebody that was devious to find this. Where was Lazeez when he was needed? Those of my own people that were healthy enough were asked to clean up the portions of the destroyed wall. It gave them something to do and they could see that they were free. I held KhAvar but she was not ready to be awakened yet. It was just good to hold her in my hands. Food was served but it came around in wooden bowls. I fed KhAvar a bit of broth then ate the portion she could not. The younger children were running around now with some of Quinctius'. This made me feel better. I did not know how long it would last though. Children grew to be unthinking adults in such a short time. Rogelius came by with a picture of water and a big smile on his face so I nodded and continued with universal education. He must have found something important. ------- Chapter 13 The leaders of the city arrived later than I had said. I expected this. I still remembered the way the senate of the city had treated Julian. Personal guards came too and crowded the streets but only Mithridates looked at them with a smile and some stingers. Some of the common people came too because we did not look to be that threatening. I saw that some had the Möbius strip on a thong hanging from their neck. There were nineteen surviving senators in front of me and I found that eighteen others were conveniently out of the city. I assumed that some of them had fled instead of coming to this meeting. I began the conference in good faith and told them who I was and who I represented. The men were predominately Christian and Jewish though there were some followers of Zarathushtra. They believed most of what they had heard about me and especially about the way I killed. It was the way I healed that I wanted to emphasise. The clean up of the city was first thing on the agenda then the repair of the stadium. The city was going to pay for this out of the public purse which meant that all the senators would pay. Property taxes did not exist here. They were mainly worried about what financial demands I would put on them. I was angry at all of them but they may not have been able to thwart Quinctius' actions or even voice their dissent. Schools and the costs of running them was mentioned next. I would pay for most of this. They didn't mind that prospect at all though they did not see the reason for education at all or at least not for the masses. I slipped into business now as a way of paying my portion with the men present getting some of the contracts. This area had petroleum quite close though I did not know how accessible it could be or the quantity. I needed lubricants for my machines and possibly fuel for my boilers but I would rather use renewable resources instead. That way petroleum could be used for a great many more years and our planet could absorb the abuse done to it a little at a time. I needed some chemical plants but I would rather have them on the Arabian Peninsula that Sapor gave me control of. There were not as much that I could damage and at the present none of it was of much use. There was a lot of wood here but in later years it had been harvested and not replaced with seedlings. "A good industry is shipbuilding but the ships will have to be very large. I expect them to be able to transport one thousand five hundred tonnes each." When I explained how much a tonne was they were speechless. I said, "The Romans now have grain ships that large but I want them to be able to voyage on the oceans and not the just the Mediterranean. To make the ships you need wood. I make the best saws and tools. You cut the trees and I will sell the steam powered saws to cut it up. You can do this work with people providing the power but my way is cheaper in the long run. Trees grow quickly here but they still take many years. New trees have to be planted to replace those that are cut." The talks went on for an hour. I never threatened anyone except monetarily in how I would fight them with competition. The men left, and I think with a sigh because I had made few demands on them. KhAvar looked better but not ready to gain consciousness. She was much the same way I was, or rather Jón was when I came to him. Rogelius was not around so I went to the library and I found him hiding in there. "Why are you hiding, Rogelius?" He whispered, "I found gold but I do not want it taken by somebody else." "Show me please." Rogelius moved a small table to one side and then a brazier. Under the carpet the floor looked no different than the rest of the wood flooring except that it was worn less. Rogelius put his fingernails to pull up on a short length of board. With this moved, he was able to pull up a larger board. This opened a hidden area about a metre long and wide but only thirty centimetres deep. There were sacks of what I thought to be coins and some solid gold and silver bars. I got down like a kid and hefted the bags out and looked inside each to find what goodies each contained. The majority was silver but there was still a lot of bronze coins. There was a sheet of papyrus in the hidden area with an update as to what the horde contained. It looked impressive but I knew that it was not that large when compared to what Quinctius had to pay out. I whispered myself, "You did very well Rogelius. There is a lot here but not the amount needed to run Quinctius' empire. I would think the value would have to be ten times more and that is at a minimum." "Ten times!" "He had a private army to pay and a lot of other people. He was also paid his share from the pirates. There is a lot more someplace." "I will look for it but I do not want somebody to come in here and take this from you." "I will forbid everyone in Quinctius' family from entering. Now what do you want for a reward?" "My freedom if I may have it?" "Rogelius, I do not believe in slavery. You had your freedom as soon as I took you as a prize of war. Would you still work for me? You can be my treasure hunter and I will see what other duties you are capable of. If you are an organized person, I will give you a job that will make you rich. Is that a good enough reward?" "Yes, my lord." I patted him on the shoulder and said, "Then you have a treasure to find. Cover this back up and put some heavy furniture over it." The barracks that the soldiers had used now housed most of the people. Quinctius' family still slept in the house but now so did KhAvar and I. Some of the people with the Möbius strip now were paid to warn me of anything that could harm us. I bathed KhAvar and myself and I wondered how anybody could hurt such a loving and giving girl like KhAvar. We were not bothered during the night and I paid the guards in cash and blessings. This was one of the jobs that a woman could do just as well as a man and I used many of them. When everybody was up and fed I took KhAvar outside and tried to wake her up. I did it slowly and let her know that somebody that loved her was holding her. When she finally recognised me her arms came out and she pulled me to her with a cry. It was long minutes later that she stopped crying and just held me. The rest of my people gathered around as I talked of what I had done since I saw them last in Berytus. KhAvar went back to sleep soon after I started but I continued with my story though I took only ten more minutes. I settled KhAvar so she was comfortable and then went around to everybody to make sure their healing was on track. This did not really have to be done but we both liked it. Some of the people were still upset. They had seen many die in Berytus, and then more die by whipping. The boy that died has a sister here and she was very distraught when she heard he died even if it was done quickly. Quinctius' children were included though Agrippina was opposed to this. She did not try to fight me on how I was going to take care of her family. Her son Crescentius was still weak but was still able to do many personal tasks for himself. I found the soldier that I had spared. He surprisingly had not run off though he was able to if he wished. He was doing a good job of tending to those that had been hurt though they were much better now. I walked up to him and he immediately got on his knees and bowed his head. I said, "I have a task for you." "Anything, Master." "Go into the city and see how many of your comrades are still alive. Tell them to come here if they wish employment. If they are the type that is cruel, foolish or a poor soldier then do not send them. They either find employment soon or I will chase them out of the city." "You want to hire them, Master?" "I do not want them getting into trouble. If they are criminals and have hurt my people needlessly then they should not come here. I do not want my people upset." "From what I have heard, there may not be many alive." "Bring me the wounded if they are good men. Woden may heal them." "I will do this immediately, Master." "Change into other clothes. I detest slavery." "Yes, Master." Mithridates and Demetrius were in charge of security and I told them, "I am having a sermon in a few hours. This one will be in the street in front of the house. After that we are going to go to the arena I think." Demetrius said, "They are far from finished. They have not even pulled all the bodies out yet." "That is a good backdrop for a sermon." Both men grinned. Some of the Wodenists before the house were told of the upcoming sermon as well as the time and location. They hurried to spread the word. The crowd started to gather immediately but I had other matters to attend to first. The sermon was only attended by perhaps a hundred people and the streets easily held that number. On a hastily built platform I talked of my aims and then quoted some of my own words in "Valhalla Visited" and "Understanding the word of Woden". Some of the children with problems came up. They had to be forcefully urged by their parents sometimes but they quieted soon enough and they were set on the road to healing. Those that professed to be Wodenists were given a few extra kind words but got the same treatment as any other that came. Demetrius had copies of my books and he took over for a while and seemed to get very enthused by the topic. Mithridates did the same thing but he spoke in the Persian language. When this ended, he talked about the news of a possible peace accord if the heads of the two armies could get a chance to talk. I saw Lazeez in the background but did not acknowledge him because he must have a reason for what he was doing. When Mithridates was done, I went back on the platform and mentioned forgiveness one more time. Then I said, "I will forgive a man or woman if their sins are not that bad but if that person attacks me a second time there they will be the same as my bitterest enemy. I will do everything within my power to see them punished then our god will have eternity to make sure the lesson was well learned." I hope this helped Lazeez but it may just polarize the people more. Thirty nine men came to me that had been employed by Quinctius. They were all that was left of a four hundred and forty eight man contingent. A further group of nearly two hundred were guarding the farm about seven hours from town. Three hundred more were in the port of Seleucia guarding the house I entered. The person sleeping there was a young and very beautiful slave that the men said I would really like to meet. All but seven of the men present were wounded one way or another. I now had to go into surgeon mode and remove rock fragments and other shrapnel. I even coined the word though originally it was a surname. Two men died before I got to them but I put them last on purpose because I could not really overcome all of that damage. The rest were given a place to stay in the old slave barracks until they healed themselves. When I questioned the men, I found that fifty three more men were alive but not suited for working with me. Most were wounded. I got a much better idea of how Quinctius ran his army but I gave my own rules instead. If these men worked for me, they would be well paid but have to forego loot, rape and the other activities that most soldiers did when not watched well enough. Quinctius had indeed been at the centre of the explosion as well as the majority of the officers. The explosive charge had ensured that only fragments would ever be found. KhAvar was awakened later in the day to be fed and urged to use the chamber pot. There were some women hovering around her but I still helped. She stayed awake more this time so she heard all of the story I told this morning. KhAvar was still severely traumatised by being taken by Quinctius' men but she also seemed to be recovering. How much and how long it would take until she was able to function were not known. The others were not hurt as much for the most part and they were recovering from their ordeal as well. I came to a decision on Quinctius' farm and his other property. It seemed I owned a great many more horses and land and buildings within the city. One of the stables actually housed the men I did not want. The seven men that were fit to travel along with the man that surrendered first were given some horses and weapons and sent out. Four men went to the farm to talk about what had happened. There was a good chance that out of 200 or so men, some would just take whatever they could carry and flee. I said in no uncertain language that the farm and all it contained belonged to me by right of conquest. Four other men went to Seleucia because everything there could and would be stolen. Very little was known about who kept the books but I could just ask around to see who was the best in the area. We had searched for some of my other possessions. I had not heard where my larger ships had gone though Mithridates had found his and the smaller ones of mine in the harbour at Seleucia. The reason I sent the men was because I could not go myself and I felt that this was the best alternative. Mithridates and Demetrius argued against this as the former soldiers would just rob and run. Quinctius' family were given jobs to do. This was not a difficult task for the youngsters but I had problems from Crescentius and Agrippina his wife or should I say widow. The woman was now going to try out as a cook but I was not sure if I should eat what she prepared. She would find that her son would share my meal though. The wall I had destroyed so easily was rebuilt and a new gate built. The city was getting back to normal in a way but Lazeez had not come back yet. I hired accountants and did an inventory of what I claimed. At present, nobody had contested me at all. When the shock was over they may. That was why I wanted to gather all I could while I could. Much of the property I owned had two legs and I had to take care of them too. Many had been away and were afraid to return. To start some employment, I had the ingredients made for glass manufacturing. It would be a while until I saw some finished products but it gave many people a purpose. Shipbuilding started again as I contracted for trees to be found and cut for timbers and boards. Four days after sending the men to Seleucia, a delegation of twenty men were here to see me. It was luck that they came when I was practising with my swords. I had found eight men that were the best the city had they faced me singly and in groups but they could not beat me. I was the one giving lessons to them. I put the points of my swords into the ground and waited. The soldiers paused only for a moment then got off their horses and got to one knee. None of them had armour or weapons on them but their horses carried this burden. What I got was very close to an oath of fealty. The Romans did not usually have quite the same oaths. They wanted to not just be employees but as something closer if I would accept them. I thought of the Praetorian guard and how it protected the leader of the empire but they sometimes killed him and appointed another of their choosing. "I will accept your oath for now but it is temporarily in nature because I have to assess each of you." I talked for two hours trying to get an idea of what they knew. A lot of the gaps were filled in but there was far more that was a mystery still. When we stopped for a meal one of the men gave a command and another hurried out of the building. Fifty more men came with wagons and slaves. I found a lot of valuable art but most of this was in precious metals. There were twenty seven talents in silver and fourteen in gold. A talent weighted just about twenty five kilograms. I was not sure because my grams were not quite the same as the old kilogram because I had nothing to weight it against. I found I had a hundred and eighty seven more slaves and one was the one I had almost met in Seleucia. MehrAk bowed as low as a human could. She was what the men had mentioned and she was very beautiful. I did not have an erection while looking at her but most of the men did. My excuse was that I was not making any surplus hormones. When the woman got up she looked at may crotch first then my eyes. I guess she was trying to find out how attractive I found her. There were a lot more beautiful women but I did not want a harem or even a zenana which was the Persian word for the place to hold wives and concubines and sometimes used for the females in general. The religion I was professing allowed me to have one wife. I could not justify all these women. Some of the women I found in the slave barracks were of similar beauty but I had stayed away from all of them as bedmates. With difficulty I sent the slaves away to get something to eat and find a place to sleep. Some had already been looking to keep me warm at night and I could see that the competition would heat up. Telling them that I was not available was not going to work even if I was a slave master now, or at least for a while. I was given an accounting of what remained in Seleucia by the leader. His name was Galerius Caprenius Allobrogicus. He acted like the example of a very ethical Roman. He was tall, thin, athletic, intelligent, well educated and had an air about him on top of this. I was told I had something of this but this man I could take lessons from. We ate in the house and the slaves were excluded. KhAvar was still weak and I left her in the care of the other women. Galerius seemed to warm to me as I did to him. He asked for facts as to how I killed so many soldiers and I factually told him the details but not the composition of the explosives. They were just infused with the power of Thor. I asked him, "Why did you not take the gold and silver for yourself and run?" He bristled at this and said, "I do not run unless it suits my tactics and the lives of my men. Honesty is a thing I was taught as a lad and I had not forgotten this. The gold would have been known as stolen and I would loose face. I did want to meet you. This was a good way without coming under your sword." I said, "I think that we may have a lot in common. A man like you is rare. I would like to spend hours with you talking about ethics and a wide range of topics. Sadly I have little time to do such." "The exchange of ideas is what we are here to do." "I agree with you but most of humanity has spent little time finding enough to debate. I am afraid that it is education that is needed most and then only a selected few would have enough understanding to state their point of view adequately." "I have heard that you are starting a school to do this." "I have started many schools. The one here will be a little different but not much. I want to teach reading and mathematics then go into teaching a person how to be a craftsman. There is going to be a great need for these people and they will find good employment and I hope satisfaction in what they do." "What would you have them learn?" "That question is far greater than you might imagine. There are so many goals that I cannot list them all. Some of the jobs they will have to do are going to be incomprehensible unless you see what they can accomplish. As an example, men now cut metal parts for me that are so uniform that you could not tell them apart. If you had a very accurate measuring tool you may find that some parts are only the thickness of one hair different from what they are supposed to be." "I have used your armour, swords and even some pots. The armour and swords are almost all the same but they have very small differences but the pots cannot be told apart." "A craftsman makes armour and another makes one type of sword. It is almost as if the man puts something of himself into them as a painter and a sculpture does. The pots, pans, skillets, tools and stoves are all made the same." He said, "I have talked to men that have seen where these are made and they do not understand no matter how long they look. Some say that this is magic but I do not think so." I gave a smile and said, "The men did not start at the bottom and learn to make the tools that makes the tools that make the products I needed. It is a long process but machines can be made much better and then the better machines are used to make pots or even cannon." "I have heard a great deal about your cannon. I was told that one could throw an iron sphere so hard that it would break the wall the way you did a few days ago." "Cannons will get very big. Some will propel a shell that will be the weight of two full grown horses for twenty miles. When it lands it will explode and make a hole that you could hide fifty men in with lots of room to spare." "Do you have such a weapon?" "Not yet, and there is no need. My cannons are simple and small. They are more like toys compared to the large artillery pieces. One day a man like you can look at a wall in a city much like this and see an image of what is happening in Britannica that very second. You can then talk into a device and your voice will be carried there in a second. War will change and so will what a soldier has to learn but there will always be a need for them." "How would my job be different?" "There will be somebody like a king that will command each country. Somebody like an Augustus will command groups of countries. One could be your Augustus. He would cooperate with the person that controls the Persian Empire. When I talk to the rulers of India and China they will send a representative to talk for them. These four men and some others will command all of the planet. "Talk will not take more than a second to reach each of the men and the kings below them. There will be trouble because that is the way humans are. As an example say the Huns want to go beyond their boundaries and try to capture a city. The message will be sent and you and four hundred men will get into a large metal device that will fly to where the Huns are going to attack. More flying machines will bring machines for you. You could kill or capture millions of Huns without a single casualty." "I cannot see that happening. It is just too unbelievable." "Galerius, did I destroy a legion with twelve children?" There was a long pause then he said, "I had heard that." "How many men took this city and destroyed so many of Quinctius' men?" "But you are the Hand of Woden." "I also know how to use the weapons I made. You could learn this information too and destroy millions with the right weapons." "Why would I want to do something horrible like that?" "I said you could do this. Woden has given me weapons that kill far more than a few million. He would not allow me to use them and I would not want to use them either. The fact is that they exist." "Your giant cannon?" "I could carry something in my hand that would destroy all of Rome and leave a giant hole in it that would have glass for the sides and bottom. I would not use this as you would not use it. Men can take the smallest life and alter it. A handful of liquid could bring disease so powerful that nobody will survive. The world I was in was very complicated and very dangerous but there were good men ready to fight for what is right. Perhaps you could do that." "Nobody but a god has that much power." "I am the Hand of Woden. What I offer is like what Prometheus offered man to make his life better. I have the favour of my god. I will not have my liver eaten daily by an eagle." I had a small sermon later and I healed the slaves. MehrAk swooned more than the rest because I felt compelled to give her more for some reason. KhAvar was with me though she was sitting in a chair. She could see that she had some major league competition but this may be a good. It would get her mind off of her other troubles. Many of the women were pregnant but only some were showing. Almost all of the children were Quinctius'. I would have to talk later to find out what the women wanted to do about it. While I was at it, I had a ceremony for the induction of the new soldiery. Galerius was no different than the rest and accepted Woden much more readily because of the effect. I still felt like a hypocrite in many ways but it was far easier than trying to talk reason to a human when most of them would not listen anyway. After a rest and a meal I went down to the arena again and did this all over again to the public in general. The priest that I had been angry at had given up his cross and habit and accepted a simple wooden Möbius strip on a thong. With Lazeez not making contact, I brought guards all the time but usually my own weapons were close. The seating had not been repaired yet and everybody had a chance to see how much damage I had done. It was dark when we got back and Galerius and I talked late into the night. The more I talked to the man the more I respected him. I had given him a room in the house and evicted some of the children. In this case they stayed with the other children and I think had fun. Their mother or grandmother were not pleased. KhAvar tossed and turned all night and there was nothing I could do apart from freezing her body. I just held her gently but this did not work well. I was very sleepy the next morning and I let KhAvar sleep in. Later I found her walking with assistance from some of her friends. I was sitting at a table sipping some coffee I had managed to buy, roast and then crush. KhAvar sipped my cup and said, "We make it better than that." "Your people make only a little and it is strong. I make more of a weaker type of coffee. I got used to it this way and many others. One day I will teach you about cappuccino." "I would like..." KhAvar stopped as MehrAk floated into the room. Both women stared at each other. Men fought for their mates but so did women and it looked like a confrontation was going to happen. This may not make my life enjoyable but KhAvar needed something that she could focus on while she healed. This was something that had to be controlled very carefully, like nitroglycerin. KhAvar said, "Who is she?" "KhAvar, I would like you to meet MehrAk. MehrAk, this is one of the two most important women in my life." They did not come close and it looked like two large cats facing each other. I got up and pulled out a chair for MehrAk to sit as KhAvar was already at her chair. "Sit," I commanded and MehrAk sat. When I regained my seat I said, "MehrAk, tell us about yourself. Many people at this point try to tell me stories. To understand a person, there has to be truth." I was supposed to be the master to her position as slave but it took a long time for her to obey. With a saccharine smile to me she said in a low sultry voice, "Yes, Master. My family was rich. Both of my parents were Persian though we lived in the Roman controlled city Amida until a few years ago. We were attacked by King Sapor and our city taken. Many people were killed. I was taken as a slave and sold to Quinctius soon after. "I have not seen my parents, brothers or sisters since. Quinctius treated me nicely. He had no reason to not doing so. I took care of his house in Seleucia and his slaves too. They work hard for me. I can help you gain anything you want." I was sure I knew what she was referring to. KhAvar stepped in and said, "There are some stains on the floor that need to be scrubbed." MehrAk smiled at KhAvar and said, "I can get that cleaned if my master wishes it. I will do anything for him." I said, "Can you cook?" "I have had servants all my life but my mother made sure that I had this ability. I can sew and make you some beautiful clothes." "KhAvar has already made me some very beautiful clothing." "I am sure that with more time I can make something that you could meet kings with." KhAvar was now fuming and her hands were pushing down on the table and ready to do more so she could stand. I interrupted and said, "KhAvar's gifts were worn when I saw King Sapor." Instead of MehrAk interrupting, KhAvar asked, "What did he say?" "He didn't say much but he looked at the quality and I think he was impressed." KhAvar smiled with a canary eating smile and relaxed. At this time Galerius came into the room and KhAvar froze in her place. I figured it was the man's uniform. Galerius said, "Please excuse me. I will be back in a moment." MehrAk was all smiles to the man. I put my hand out and held KhAvar's. "It's ok. Galerius is actually a good man. He swore an oath to me to protect all those I hold dear." Galerius came back into the room dressed in a toga and in all that time KhAvar had not spoken a word. I got Galerius to sit with us and I got up to offer him some of my coffee. He took a sip to be sociable but did not drink any more. Nobody was talking so I said, "KhAvar was harmed by men wearing your uniform. It will take a while until she overcomes her fear." "I understand fully. Man is very cruel when there is no need to be." To get off the subject I said, "Would you accompany me to see the assets I have in this city. I want to start making large ships and a factory to make large quantities of glass." "I am very interested in glass. It is expensive but beautiful." KhAvar interrupted and said, "Please take me with you." "You would make me happy if you came. You will have to take the carriage though." KhAvar smiled now and hung her head. MehrAk interrupted my thoughts and said, "Someone needs to come to tend to your woman master. I can do that." KhAvar was preparing for a suitable retort when I said, "You may come but you better take care of all of KhAvar's needs." "I have nursed my mother before and I can do this." I ordered that the carriage be made ready and changed into some armour and gathered a few weapons in case I needed them. Stingers were in short supply and I would have to have some privacy before I make more. KhAvar was dressed nicely and she was put into the small carriage by her two lovely assistants. Another carried supplies that KhAvar may need but it was MehrAk that was giving all the directions. MehrAk had also changed and she looked far more dressed up that KhAvar did. To set MehrAk in her place, I said, "There is no need for a driver. I will ride my horse and you can drive." "But... I am dressed..." "Are you questioning me?" I said in a quiet voice. "No, Master. I will be the best driver you ever saw." "Then make me proud of you." We toured the city with ten of Galerius' men and Demetrius riding close to me. Mithridates had to be told to guard the house while I was gone. He did not like the duty but I would rotate the obligation. I showed the buildings that used to be owned by Quinctius and how men or families were living in them and paying rent. Other buildings had businesses that men leased. The shipyards was not much but a lot of people were working. They were building a dry dock. "Men are now cutting trees and they will float them here to be used to make ships." After explaining how long a metre was I said, "One ship that is on the Rhine should be nearing completion or may be already done. It is almost fifty metres long. It has some innovations to it. There is a very heavy keel made out of iron. The ship is wide so it will not draw much water even when fully loaded. It should be able to travel up most rivers where they are still deep and still safely travel on the open ocean." "How much cargo will it carry?" "I think it should carry 1,500 tonnes." "How much is a tonne?" "There are very few weights for things that are large. If you remember, a metre is this long." I showed him the length. A container that is that wide, high and deep will hold one tonne of water. It would also hold over twenty seven amphorae." "It would hold one thousand five hundred of these containers?" "The containers are cubes and hard to fit in a ship but the weight could still be carried. I figure that with a good wind from the stern, the Enterprise should make at least fifteen miles in an hour." "I have only heard of some war galleys going that fast and they carried little cargo. What is the secret of its speed?" "The bow is shaped to cut the water gracefully and the iron keel allows for a great deal of sails to be held aloft. She will still settle deep enough in the water and the width of the craft was my way of compensating a bit. This would also make her much more stable." "I would love to see that ship. Are all ships termed 'her'?" "That is the case now in most places and it continues far into the future. I like the idea anyway. A man depends on a ship for everything and it is only fitting to be likened to a woman. The Enterprise will not be the biggest though because I see ships made of wood and powered by the wind carrying five thousand tonnes. Ships of steel and powered by machines carry a hundred times this amount though most will be smaller." "This ship I cannot even see in my mind. I have heard of many reports of officers riding on your small ship and the giant barge that it effortlessly pulls." "It is not so effortlessly. The steam engine has to work at full power most of the time and the speed is still much too slow. In coming years, slow cargo ships that ply the oceans will go twenty miles an hour but for twenty four hours a day. This is day after day." "You could go anyplace in the world very quickly." "That is not quick but it is cheap." We left the dock and MehrAk did not seem to be thrilled with her position as carriage driver when she had got much better results when leading Quinctius by his dick. She jerked the carriage with an abrupt surge and KhAvar looked to have an angry look on her face. This was an improvement I figured. I showed the area I chose for the proposed glass factory but there was little to see. It was near enough to the river for transportation to carry the glass away and to bring in the raw materials including coal. The coal was not found yet but I had to send some teams out to find it. We had been out for a while and KhAvar called to me. "I need to pee," she whispered." There were no service stations and I called MehrAk to help. The woman showed a smug look and went to the back of the carriage and took out a pot that was usually used in the bedrooms. KhAvar was helped as the men looked away but I heard a lot of cursing and some painful cries from KhAvar. I was angry at MehrAk for this but before I could say something KhAvar let MehrAk have it with both barrels for being a poor slave and a poor nurse. The abuse did not end and I found that not only Arabs could curse up a storm but Persians were just as inventive. Galerius and I smiled at each other and he whispered to me. "Your home will not be happy with more than one woman." I whispered back, "KhAvar needs an enemy or a way of focussing away from her injuries. This is the best I can come up with." "I hope you do not suffer much. Your weapons will not help you here and neither will your armour." "I walk a fine line with disaster on both sides. It is much easier to just fight wars with some sane enemies." MehrAk jerked the carriage once more and later KhAvar needed more help. This time MehrAk had to wipe a bum and she did not like this job. She did it though because I was watching. The two women were sniping at each other at any chance and I found it better to be with Galerius at the front of the column. The rest of the trip was something to avoid if possible except when I stopped a few times to heal those that sought my help. Galerius looked closely at the people being healed. I was sure that this was being assessed and I asked Galerius to look in on the people in the coming weeks to see how they were progressing. I knew that he would do this anyway but now he would not do it behind my back. The delegation had not come from the farm nor had the four men returned. Galerius and I discussed this and he said, "I can go take a look for you if you wish." I did my own thinking on this matter and tried to see some plot here but I could not. "You have given me your word to follow my orders and to protect me and my lands. I have not given more than a simple oath in return. My oaths though encompass more because it includes your families if you wish it. It may not be polite but remuneration has to be mentioned as well." We talked about money and basically worked out a contract for him and his men. We did this on papyrus and then we worked together to fill in some of the gaps in a pay scale for other employees. My health benefits figured prominently for the family of the employees. When this was done we shook hands on a deal made. Rogelius was summoned and he brought me some of the gold that was in the house previously. Galerius was paid for his men and himself for a month until events got worked out. I handed Galerius one of my stingers after I shook his hand one more time. He looked at the simple device and said, "You are giving me the power of Thor?" "It is a token of my trust. You may have to use it. A sad fact is that this has to be used in a year's time or the power leaks out and it will destroy whoever is carrying it. If it is not used it would be turned in before the year is up and you would be given a fresh stinger." "All I have to do is remove the pin and fire this at a wall?" "This is strong but walls can be stronger. Pick a weak wall or a gate with one beam behind it. The beam may be shattered too. If there are two beams holding the gates closed then you cannot get through." Galerius treated the arrow like a holy relic and organised the trip to the farm for tomorrow morning. Demetrius would be given an escort part of the way to the bat cave because he had to inform his relatives of what had happened. A lot of people knew a bit about the fertiliser bomb and I tried to limit the spread of this information by claiming it was what Woden wanted. Who knows, it may work. That night I cuddled up to KhAvar and she pushed her back to me almost like she did in the old days. She did not feel the erection though and she said, "I have not been a good woman to you. I should be taking care of you." "You were hurt and sick. A man does not hurt a woman he loves." "You do love me?" "Sure I do. How could you think I could not?" "I guess I know that. You fought thousands of men to rescue us." I squeezed her and said, "I think you are worth it." She snuggled even tighter and said, "I love you too. I feel like giving you a child and starting a family but I know that you have another love in Germania." "Is that giving you problems again?" "Not much, I have just been thinking more about it. Would you give me something that I could use?" This was an abrupt change in the direction we were talking. "What do you wish?" "I need a servant devoted to just me. She can tend my wounds and clean up after me." "MehrAk?" "How did you know... yes, I guess you would know. Yes, I want her." "Is this so she will not be my woman?" "No! I mean... I mean not all of it but maybe some. I want to be able to discipline her when she needs it." "I do not like slavery my love." "You have not released the slaves yet so she is still a slave. Let me have her for a few weeks. She will be a lady in that much time." "KhAvar, you were abused and hurt. I do not want to see this happen to MehrAk either. I do not love her but I do not want to see her hurt either." "I will not hurt her much. I may paddle her bum or take a switch to her but all of that will heal." "Then you can have her for a month. By that time I can release all of the slaves. I could do it in a few days because they see that I do not hurt them." "They know that you are the Hand of Woden too." "I hope that they would stay because I am a good employer." "You are good." KhAvar moved out of my grip then turned on her side and guided me onto my back. In a moment she had shifted her way down the bed and began to play with my plumbing using her hand. I was worried about her and worked hard to stay flaccid. It took a few minutes and she seemed to be crying. "Why aren't you getting big? Is it because I was taken?" She cried now and between the sobs she said, "I am worth..." I yelled, "KhAvar!" When she looked at me through tear filled eyes I said in a low voice. "I did not want to threaten you. This type of man flesh has hurt a lot of people recently and especially you." I pulled her up to me and hugged and kissed her. When her sobs diminished I added, "I had to shut down that part of my anatomy for a few months. I have had nobody since you and I last made love. It takes a while to get everything working again." She now had a big smile and more tears and she kissed me frantically as if she were trying to keep me from leaving her. Her kisses shifted from my mouth and went over my neck chest and back to where she began. Again I kept myself soft with a lot of difficulty but KhAvar was able to overcome this soon enough. In minutes I released into her mouth but I did not hold her in place. She had to be free to do as she wanted. She did not want to release me so I swung around and sampled her. In moments she was on top and KhAvar started to recover much of her old passion. That night I lost more sleep. KhAvar did not try too hard to get me to mount her so I used just my lips or my fingers. When she wanted to sleep she faced me this time and held me as if I were the one that needed comforting. Galerius had already left. KhAvar had been loud enough to let the entire household know that she was feeling better. I went back to removing the blocks on my own hormones. During the morning services I talked about freeing all of the slaves in a month. I gave various excuses why it could not be done now. They were all true but tenuous. "MehrAk, I want you to serve out the last month working for KhAvar." "What!" "I said you would be freed in a month. You are still on probation. Do you wish more time as a slave to consider your possible new status?" "I am sorry, Master. I will do as you command." "You will do exactly as KhAvar commands now as if she is your master. Do not fail me, MehrAk. A month can grow to two or six or perhaps never." "But I deserve to be freed." From off to one side KhAvar yelled, "MehrAk, come here immediately." MehrAk strutted over but along the way her walk changed. When she got close she started to bluster but at the last second said, "Yes... my lady?" "Take off your clothes now." When there was no movement KhAvar said, "Fifteen. Do you want more?" MehrAk was very shocked but then said meekly, "I will be good my lady. Just give me another chance." "Twenty. Take them off or I will have the men do it." MehrAk saw that she was not going to win and hurriedly took off her clothing. It took only a few seconds before she posed her body for KhAvar as if offering her what she had to give. KhAvar walked over to a stone bench and sat down. "Come here and lay across my lap." "But..." she said but she moved as she said it. She was soon laying her naked body along KhAvar and I could see that MehrAk was moving her body to rub KhAvar's nipples. KhAvar brought her hand down on MehrAk's butt and the woman screamed a bit as it was still unexpected. The second swat was not. After five strokes, KhAvar asked one of her girls to take over the spanking. They coincidentally were the ones that MehrAk had ordered around yesterday. I noticed that after a dozen swats, MehrAk moved so that KhAvar's knee was at her lower abdomen and when the blow landed she would stroke herself at the kneecap. When twenty strokes were over KhAvar ordered other girls to continue the punishment. At thirty MehrAk was shaking and I did not think it was from pain. At thirty five KhAvar took over the punishment and her fingers always struck MehrAk's mons as if by accident. Both women were breathing hard and I think that every man in the group was that way too along with a portion of their anatomy. ------- Chapter 14 At forty two MehrAk went rigid. KhAvar said, "I hoped you learned your lesson MehrAk. I cannot have you disobeying me and your master all the time. I am going to have to watch you all the time to make sure you do as you are told. Do you understand what I am saying?" KhAvar's fingers were subtly rubbing MehrAk's open and very wet mons. It sounded like KhAvar was actually giving her more time to enjoy her orgasm as she went into her act. MehrAk's eyes seemed to glow now as she looked on KhAvar. KhAvar was not that much different but tried to act like a mistress. "Pick up your clothes and get inside. We have more talking to do." "Yes, my lady, at once, my lady." KhAvar came over to me and said, "That tired me out. I better have my talk to her and rest a bit." I kissed her and she shivered at the touch. I said, "You may have overdone it. Take a few hours to rest. See that MehrAk is taught a lesson. I think she maybe worth saving. Keep a very firm hand on her." I think it was then that she knew that I knew. My smile though brought her own out and she hurried into the house. When I turned around, all the men and most of the women had disappeared. My discomfort only lasted a few minutes as I got back into bookkeeping. When this was barely started I heard some noises coming from my bedroom and they were far from pain. I had to tone down my own response again. After hearing seven orgasms I was finished this work. I had to push my mind to work on other thoughts. I considered all the silver I owned. With a little more I could start making a generator. Copper was good but it had to be almost a 100% before it lost most of its resistance. Silver was much better at a far less purity. I had worked on this problem off and on and it should be done on the Rhine with the machine shop but I did not have one here and this is where I would be stuck for a while. I was not an electrical engineer but I had been taught to repair military equipment by the men that did know. At the time a generator on a car or truck produced DC directly. Modern versions used a three phase alternator and a bridge rectifier to produce the same DC but at a lower rpm. I, at least, remembered what a truck generator looked like. The best solution would be to make a dam with all the associated parts and leave room for a generator when one could be shipped here. This meant that it would be made on the Rhine but I could do some of the designing here and hope that somebody could do something with it there. I had to deal with Constantius soon and I wanted him to come to me. Quinctius had a lot of dealings with Constantius but I did not think that piracy linked them. It was more like a way of gaining gold, and power and perhaps at the end Quinctius would 'discover' where the pirates lived and kill all of them. There was some evidence that Quinctius was not top dog and it was still possible some other force may come here to recover the gold, and slaves or just to remove me from the equation. A third possibility existed that they may want to find a way to command me to do what they wished. My thinking was interrupted when the house shook. The quake was fairly strong. The bottle of ink I was able to rescue before it destroyed my records. All through the house I heard articles falling and people crying out in fear. Quakes were common but this was strong. Before the aftershocks came I heard my name being called in fear. I raced to my bedroom and found two naked and beautiful women standing on the floor and holding each other tightly. The smell in the room was very strong with their combined musk. KhAvar put out her hands and I came to her. I saw MehrAk and she looked so piteous that I reached out with one hand and pulled her into out group hug. The first of the aftershocks came and the women squeezed me tighter. We rode out a lot more shocks but they were all of diminishing intensity. KhAvar and MehrAk became aware of their lack of dress and tried to pull away but with little force. KhAvar looked up to me and said with a fake smile, "MehrAk has started to learn her lesson. I beat her so much that I was sweaty." I kissed her and said, "Stay!" I turned around and closed the door and returned to holding both women. I said, "I see nothing wrong in the way you treated MehrAk as long as she did this willingly. Girls learn about love from other girls and boys do too in many cases." Both women looked down in embarrassment. KhAvar finally said, "I won't do this again." I picked up her chin and said, "Men have hurt you a great deal. It takes time to come to terms with that. You were only a little ready for me last night and I know that you were still very worried. You have to heal in stages even if you have to go back to the type of friend that never hurt you as a child. You were a very healthy woman and you need sex. I love you enough to wait so you can heal more before we resume what we had before." "But women are not supposed to do this." "That is a double standard that was started by men. They go out and have sex with other men or boys while the women cannot. This is not right." "But..." "But what? Kiss MehrAk and then me and I will go back to what I was doing and I want you to continue with what you were doing. If you do not want that then just hold each other. That is the best medicine." KhAvar had to think on this then pulled MehrAk close and kissed her the way she did me. MehrAk seemed to sag with the intensity. I was smiling and then KhAvar did too when she kissed me. "You don't really mind?" "I would not say it if I did not believe it." I kissed the woman I loved and then kissed MehrAk the same way but this time I tweaked her brain to make her very horny. I got both women back on the bed and I blew a kiss to both and closed the door behind me. The girls had bothered me quite a bit but it was not from morals but from hormones. I took out my aggression on the swordsmen that arrived to keep me in shape. With Mithridates and a few men to guard the house, I left alone to walk the city. I had armour under my clothes where possible but my head, arms and legs were not covered. Somebody good with a bow could kill me but I wanted to find out why Lazeez was not coming to talk to us. There was also the need for me to be seen as not afraid. I talked to one of Demetrius' relatives though he was distant. He happened to be another smith. I had his attention as well as his three apprentices and four helpers. I talked about the steps to make steel and not iron. The saying about Rome not being built in a day was true now as when it was first coined twelve hundred years in the future. They were going to get at it right away. It took only a short time until I had a crowd around me. I walked to other businesses and talked to the proprietors about good products to make and then to sell. This I had done in other cities and it had worked well for the populous and for me. I could actually go out then and purchase what I wanted instead of having to make it myself. I checked the produce market again to see what was grown in this area but there was nothing much new. A few of the crops were in though and I hired a man to deliver all he had to my new home. There were many mouths to feed and this would keep the rest healthy. I thought I saw Lazeez once but the person went down an alley before I could get a good look. He had to be blind though to not see me or the crowd around me. There were a lot of men with the figure I saw and most looked to be Roman. My supply of stingers was low as I said before so I looked around a purchased a lot of lead and raw sulphur. There was lots of this in the neighbourhood but it did not sell very well or at least not until I came. More was commissioned to be harvested and I would pay for it when it arrived at my home. I used the ploy about soap again and I wanted to make soap my way which meant that I got to keep the glycerine. The nitrate was readily available and all I needed was some glass carboys to store my acids. Cotton was readily available and I bought rags when I could but only if they were clean. I realised that I felt cramped in the house and here in the city because I could not do what I wanted to do and that was make things. I wanted to go to the bat cave and I missed my Robin in this instance but he was looking for my enemies and trying to keep all of us safe. That night KhAvar only had one orgasm and I had no idea how many she had today. She made sure I had a few and we tapered off to sleep. She was still not ready to accept me anyplace but her mouth. The next day I was interrupted by a young man I had seen in the group of Wodenists. We went through a greeting and he said, "My lord, you asked about finding minerals, a black liquid or a gas that escapes the ground. I have found this." He was very excited and I asked, "Where is it?" It is close but in the hills above town. It will take at least an hour to ride there and ten minutes to come back." It was rocky and steep. I informed a happy KhAvar that I was going for a few hours and she asked if she could come. "There is a gas that is not good for you. I have to watch for metal that will make sparks. It is best that I go with just this young man." "It could be a trap." "You are right but I will careful." "It took a bit longer to get to the area and we were very lucky that the gas was blowing south east or we would have died from asphyxiation. There was a great deal of gas escaping and I guessed it to be ten to twenty times what we had found at the mouth of the Rhine. This gas was not as dry either because volatile liquids were spurting out like water and eroding the soil. The area was even cold from the liquids taking the heat from the air before evaporating. I spent an hour putting rocks into the fissure and then some large rocks on top. Rocks as large as a kilo were being expelled with the intensity of the discharge. There was not much time to think when we worked but when we were done, I knew that I needed some large diameter pipe, a lot of what the Romans called cement and a giant valve that would match the pipe. This was too dangerous to let flow and I did not want to promote global warming even though it was a natural process. The gas would not only be good for making glass, steel but fertiliser. I just had to strip the hydrogen from the methane and combine it in a thick steel column and I would generate ammonia. The ammonia would get converted to ammonium nitrate and I would have not only a much better explosive but a great fertiliser. When we left, very little of the gas was leaking out. It could still work loose and like eroding water it would make a new opening. I surveyed the land and I could almost see the refineries and chemical plants sprouting up on the rocky plain. I was excited but the man was again right and it took very little time to get back down the mountain. Back in the house I said to the man, "That was a good thing to tell me. What do you think it is worth?" "I know you are pleased but I have no idea." I called Rogelius into the room and asked him to bring me twelve gold aurii. The man that called me was dancing from one foot to another. "I am giving you a year's pay for a Roman soldier for your discovery." I handed it to the man and it took a while before he saw my hand and then shake it. "Thank you my lord. I never thought I would ever have this much money." "You may loose it or somebody will steal it but it is yours. I will give you something else if you wish it." "What is it my lord?" "The job is simple but dangerous. You are to live by the stones for the next few months. During that time you are to fill in any holes that appear with wet clay. I do not want the gas to escape. One spark will mean that you will die in a ball of fire. You have to stay upwind all the time. If I were you, I would go there now with some friends and prepare a lot of clay and try to plug all the leaks. Even better may be a way of putting a lot of damp clay over the pit we filled. "This job should last for an indefinite length of time. I will pay you two more aurii each month to keep others away and for keeping what is in the ground safely there until it can be used." "I will do it my lord. I feel happier than I have ever felt before." I blessed the man and this bound him to me a bit more. With him as an employee he was checked for problems before he was sent on his way. A family meeting was called and I said to them, "I need to build a road up the mountain. Is there anybody that any of you know about that can do this?" Quinctius' family were here too but nobody could give an answer. I sent some of the older boys with notes to the senators that lived nearby. The notes were only a bit polite and I simply asked if they knew of a man or men that had experience building roads. Others had to assist me in doing this but there were only a few that could write. None of the educated few were home at the moment. While I waited, I worked on the design of the valve I would need. I could not help myself and constructed pipe in my mind and ran it out onto the plain above the city and thought of all the equipment I needed to purify the gas and separate the condensates. This design got bigger and bigger as I thought and I had no idea how much gas was available. I knew it may last only a few years. I rationalised this by saying I could drill for more when the need arose. I had been working two hours when I had my next visitor. He was an old man that looked very unsure of himself. Coming to the home of a man that just killed a lot of soldiers could be unnerving. We talked of pleasantries and I tried to get him to relax. Finally I had to resort to a blessing and then I worked on him to make him able to work with me if the need arose. "Thank you for the blessing my lord. I have never felt that way before and I am sure I will remember it for the rest of my days." "You are welcome. I needed a way of helping you calm down and this was the best that I could do." "What is it you require?" "I want a man to construct a road that will lead to the plain just behind the mountain. This will be like the standard Roman road and covered in large flat stones. To do this job, that man will also have to make steps. This is a job that will take many men, months to complete. I added, "At a guess, I think it should take four hundred men four weeks to complete this job. The extra men have to make a way to keep the water from the rains from washing out the road and the steps. The road cannot be the way a horseman would gain the mountain top but weave back and forth so that a wagon with a horse can climb the mountain. There is a lot of work because rock must be dug out of the mountain to make the road. One other complication is that I need a trench dug that will be very straight but on an incline. I will add a metal pipe that will take a liquid from the top of the mountain and bring it to the city." The man said, "Do you have any drawings? Do you know what I mean by drawings?" I had to smile and I said, "My mind is even older than yours. The gods allowed me to live in a time that will never be. I am changing time itself. In that other time I was an engineer that had to make chemicals. I know a great many secrets but I do not know how to make roads. I do not want to make this road either but to hire somebody else to make it for me. While this is being done, I can be doing other tasks." The man and I walked to the top floor of the house and I showed him the ravine that I had just climbed. The engineer said, "You want to build a road up there?" "Why do you question this?" "I have not made a road like that before. I am worried that I may fail." "There is another way to get this built. If there are more engineers in the city then I pay them to get their ideas and assistance. We all work together to see what idea is best. When the talk is done then diagrams are made and the job started. One engineer can be in overall charge while other engineers work in certain areas. The question now is, do you know of any more people that can help me?" "There are many in a city this large. We have come here to enjoy our remaining years in a beautiful land." I said, "An engineer is an odd type of man. He is always curious and never stops being an engineer even if he is not working. He looks at a building and admires the good points and criticises the bad. He is not paid for this but he does it to gain more knowledge." "You must have been the engineer you mentioned because I am the way you mentioned." In the next three hours sixteen more men had arrived plus a few of the senators. Each had been given a piece of what I wanted done. "I am claiming the plain at the top of the mountain and the rocky land on the other side. I do not need the land used for farming. Does anybody dispute this claim?" One of the senators said, "It may have to be purchased from the government. Nobody has wanted it until now so you should get it." "Who do I talk to, to buy it?" With a smile he said, "Me." "How much?" "Will the road you make be open to the public?" "Yes but it may be closed for repairs or construction at times." "Then I think the property or even two is yours then. We have wanted a road up there for a long time." "Thank you. Now to the road, the steps and something like an aqueduct that will support the metal pipes that I will build to bring the gas down the mountain. I want the road wide and safe so wagons can go both ways without a danger to them falling over the edge. I am concerned about heavy rains washing out all three of the constructs." We talked for an hour then went closer to the mountain to see the problems first hand. Sketches were made and we went back to the house to talk. The best road would also be the hardest to construct. I estimated that a good hunk of the mountain had to come down to build it. There was a lot of conversations going on and I interrupted, "Gentlemen, I have a partial solution." They listened attentively. "You all know that my god favours me in many ways. I can make something that contains the power of Thor's hammer. This you may have already seen. I can make much more power. If a mine is dug into the rock at the top of the mountain, then the power can be released and a large portion of the mountain is dislodged and it will fall. When that part is complete then another mine can be dug further down the mountain and this done again. Since we all know that rocks fall down we have to start at the top first." The men were digesting this but soon the questions came but some were secrets that I could not divulge. I did give the basics that the power had to be contained to do the work. I realised that I needed a lot of everything I could make. It has to be then transported to this location. The high tech materials would be the lathes, milling machines, steam engines, steel plate, various cast iron parts, steel rope, track, engines, railcars and the list went on and on. What it boiled down to was that I needed everything delivered and then used not for the fertiliser but to make another steel company here in the Middle East. Only after the steel was rolled off the end of the line would it be used to make fertiliser. That night I wrote another letter home and like a student talking to his parents, I asked for a handout. If the Enterprise was built soon enough it could transport the machinery I wanted built but the machinery had to be made first. Patricia had her own letter. I said how I still loved her. I had mentioned KhAvar in a previous letter but no more were sent when I was looking for her. I gave a simple explanation of what I had done so far and wished that she could come with the equipment with or without the Enterprise. KhAvar added her own letter to mine and she mentioned how Patricia had first dibs but she hoped that Patricia would let her have a portion of my time too. I wrote a letter to Rufus too but my thoughts also applied to Julian and I was sure the two were close. They were both in love with the same lady if Rufus didn't work her to death first or sink her on a reef. My third book had been done for a while but it needed editing. This was going back and I would get an edited version to check before it went into print. A lot of letters had to be sent and I needed to find somebody going that way. There was also a chance that the person may be attacked just to let spies know what information I was sending. In coming days the list of articles I wanted got so large that it would take twenty Enterprises to bring it all to me even if it was available. Galerius can home with a sling on his arm and a smile. The four men I had sent were back but only three of the original detail. When Galerius got off his horse, I just moved close and checked his wounds. He was healing quite well but I wanted to make sure. "Hello, Galerius. What has happened?" "Those at the estate were not ready to call you their new employer. I am afraid I used your stinger and now there is no disputing your authority." "How many of your men were killed?" "None. We were allowed in the gate since we were outnumbered eight to one. When I threatened to destroy every building they began to see reason." "That is good to hear too. Tell me about the men that you brought back under your command." "My command?" "I cannot have anybody else." Galerius did some thinking and said, "There are two hundred and sixteen more mouths to feed. Ten of them need your touch but I am afraid that three more will die." "Perhaps I should go there soon. I have some information to tell you and then I need some advice." "You want my advice? You are the Hand of Woden." "Woden makes sure I have a hard road to follow. I have to work for any gains I make. Anyway let's go inside and we can have a drink and talk better." Galerius learned of the gas and what it was good for then the need for a road. My assistance in removing a few hundred thousand tonnes of rock was mentioned but not as an easy or cheap solution. "I need some equipment that can only be manufactured in Germania Inferior. This means that I need some men to deliver the messages. The people delivering this mail will be in danger from many sides." "I know some men that would like to make this trip." "Then we can get this project going." That day I met three young men that looked dedicated and quite willing to do this job for me. I made sure they were healthy and gave them a requisition for a suit of armour and weapons to be filled out on the Rhine. This was their payment for doing this task for me. A further sum of gold had to be paid to feed and transport the men there and back. I said with a chuckle, "In the future, an employer will not pay first. A man collects receipts of what he had to pay and his employer pays him on his return. Another way is to have a special document. All the merchants that provide lodging, food or travel expenses, send their bills to the employer and the employer sends the funds back. Galerius said, "That sounds complicated and a merchant would have to wait a long time to get his gold." "There are people here who lend money. A company could do this. If the company has a person in each city and the communication I talked about before then the head of a company can simply tell his subordinate in a far country to pay his bills for him. The bills that originate in that far country can be paid in another. In the end, very little gold has to be sent from one place to another. The men looked perplexed and I added, "A lot of small changes have to happen with each one fairly understandable before our future comes clear to you." The men left with as much help as I could give but I knew that anonymity was the best way for getting there and back without incident. I wanted to go to the farm but my reason was not just to heal those that were hurt but to find out more about the property. It was preferable that I went myself or with just Mithridates. I told KhAvar and Galerius about my intentions just before I left. Both were upset with my decision. Galerius wanted to send an escort and I vetoed this as soon as it left his lips. Mithridates didn't mind this at all. Galerius had been appraised of Lazeez but had never met the boy. With the bases touched, we loaded up some horses and quickly left the city. The watch at the gate was very courteous at our exit and I knew that news of it would spread quickly. The bat cave was not far off our route and we entered the region to find Demetrius still there. There was a large pile of crystals just inside the cave but we would need far more to reshape the mountain. There were just the four of us that knew about the addition of the fuel and I was the only one that knew that a very heavy charge was needed to set a bomb of this type off. We set off on our trip once more but on regaining the road we found that a dozen horses had passed recently. This may be innocent but it may also mean that we had been followed. The intent could be sinister though. Six kilometres further along we decided to take an alternate route that was longer. The fresh tracks we were following did not go this way. I had most of my arrows back. Everybody that was in the burial party knew that I was the one that had cast them. Some needed a bit of work but most were serviceable for hunting still. This area was mostly farms but woodlots were common. We camped in one when it was getting dark and I was able to get a few hares for our supper. The next day we moved quickly and I had to help an old salt that was still not comfortable on a horse. We passed farmers and a few travellers like us. I wondered if any of them were here to spy on the Romans for Sapor. If so, I could use their services to carry some messages for me to their king. It was nice to keep in touch. We came on the farm around noon. Instead of rushing in we looked at the property from a variety of aspects. I had never been a farmer but I found the land interesting now. I had rough maps but now water was very important to me. I knew little about plants themselves but I had seen some of the before and after pictures of fertiliser usage. I assessed the farm's defensibility with my other hat on and looked at how an enemy could come upon us. The map I had was not that accurate but I estimated that the farm was roughly a hundred square miles in area but they were Roman miles. A kilometre was a bit longer than this type of mile. This made the farm nearly ten thousand hectares in area. The pillars at the start of the road into the property were well marked as to who had owned the land. This would have to be changed. I soon realised that a farm this size needed quite a few slaves to keep it running. I saw many of them in the fields where they were needed and this was just what I could see. It was an hour's travel at a good clip before I came to the main house. Many other buildings I saw but they were for managers and slaves I felt. The manor proper had high walls like a city. I saw no sentries but we were greeted by four men that were well armed. We were too and that was probably the reason we were met thus. My hair was coming in blonde again and the stain had not left the remainder but I think it was the stinger in my hand that allowed them to find my identity. One man then the rest got to one knee and waited. I did not know if this was Quinctius' requirement or something these men felt they had to do to a new employer. We got down and Mithridates held the reins while I stretched and walked up to the men. "Get up. I do not mind respect if it is warranted. Now tell me your names and duties." Only two men were able to finish before more men came charging at us but slowed quickly when they saw us. The men in charge were the men Galerius had left here to watch over the farm. I greeted the newcomers and asked the same questions I already asked of the others. It went much quicker this time as the ones learned what to do from those that spoke sooner. The farm was now secure so I went to the house and removed some of my armour but not all. The swords and bow stayed with me but by now they felt like old friends. I shook hands with the freemen as I got a tour of this compound. I wanted to go to the barracks first to treat the wounded. One of the thirteen men had died but I worked very hard to save those that Galerius felt would die as well. There were a lot of stone fragments in the wounds and I used my kit to remove all that I could. At the same time I explained about sterile tools and washed hands. This did not quite apply to me because I could direct a body to fight the infection. Some of the men were able to talk about themselves as I worked because they could not feel any discomfort from their wounds or my actions. One man had been close and his wounds were not all healed because I had to be much more intrusive and this could only happen after he gained more strength. I put some pain back into those men that needed it so they would be reminded not to overwork themselves. I had a dozen converts especially when three could get up now and walk around. A meal was prepared for us and we entered the house with those in upper management. This was simply another meeting to talk about the troubles of a company or a process. I asked questions but tried to get everybody to respond in some way. I stuck to what they should know. Knowing everything, even about a farm this size, was difficult. The food was good and I had the cooks come out and hear the praise. This went over very well with the staff. The tour began again but soon had to go to some of the satellite farms and their own small manors. This was necessary because it took a long time to transport workers to the fields from their barracks. Children were everywhere and they all belonged to me as slaves. I had a chance to talk to their caregivers and then checked the children. News of me had not travelled to all of these people yet and I had to overcome a lot of doubt. The children did not mind though and all of them left happy. The adults were treated next and finally I went to those that were sick. Quinctius got rid of the slaves that were of no use to him. A ship powered by slaves was much the same. The captain usually threw the slave into the ocean to get rid of somebody that could not do his duty. Quinctius sold his if he could but worn out old men and women were of little value. I had some relatively old people to deal with and worked on all their ills. It was almost as much effort to heal one of the wounded soldiers because the workers were almost completely worn out. I did try to find out about their level of education. Here is where they could work for me with less manual effort. Sadly I found none that had something to give. There were eight of the smaller manors and I had little chance of seeing all of them in one day never mind treating even those people that were in the manor at the time. I resolved to having them come to see me tomorrow even if the farm suffered a bit from the loss of the labour. When I got back to the main house, I asked for the books and there was a scramble to find what I wanted. A full-time bookkeeper was needed and I asked about who did this. The person that controlled this farm for Quinctius had done this task and also been one of the dead. Since Quinctius was fond of hiding his money like most Romans, Mithridates and I began to look for hidden areas. I then searched the room of the man that had taken over the farm but I found nothing in either location. An inquiry into Quinctius' habits gave me some clues but nothing solid. We did search the stable and a barn used for storing feed. Before I turned in that night I went through all of the soldiers, managers and then the slaves associated with this complex. I was not offered a woman or a boy for the night so I guess they were starting to understand me. Sleep came easily. The next day had a drizzle. I put all the cooks to work making good meals for those that were coming. There were records of the slaves and I wanted to cross them off the list as I met them. Mithridates was busy too reading from the books before I went into my feelings on slavery to the first group that arrived. As usual I said, "Slavery cannot be abolished in days. It is done a bit at a time with men and women gaining pay for what they do. This gives a small amount of freedom that grows until there are few obligations left. "Your country or empire will have to tax each of you. In a time of war you will be asked to defend your country and you have an obligation to your fellow man to be a good citizen. Along the way your freedom means that you will not be taken care of the way you were. An employer not a master will take some of this responsibility but some of it has to be shouldered by each of you. "Some reforms will start today. This does not mean that you are only free inside the walls of the estate. When you are used to the freedom I offer then we will go to status of a freeman. I will fill out the legal papers stating you and are free. "None of you will be obliged as a slave to perform sexually. If I hear of this I will treat the person severely. As you get your rights you also have to take the obligations as good citizens. Your word will be the equal of any of the managers or soldiers. You will be able to own property. There will also be a lot of problems coming from this change. Some high ranking slaves own slaves. I will be the one that judges this situation. Some slaves are the equivalent of wives and I will judge this too. Punishments will be first adjudicated by a panel of three men before any sentence is handed out." I did not go too much further because they had a lot to think about as it was. I tried to find men or possibly women that were educated enough to assist me. More groups came in as others were fed and sent back to their homes. In the course of the day I did find a few that knew how to read and had other skills that they were not currently employed. These people were kept back so I could talk to them as a group when everybody had been given the standard introductory speech that I gave when working at a new plant with new personnel. The managers looked very worried now. I didn't think it was about just their loss of privileges but it was that their labour could suddenly leave the farm at some future date. I feared this too and had find a reason for the people to want to stay. The farm supported 647 slaves. Many were children that could do little in the fields. The managers and the slaves that were held back were informed about my plans for education. Profit sharing was talked about as a way of increasing our bottom line. The condos that I made on the Rhine were mentioned and how these would replace the barracks one at a time. The kitchen was socialist in nature to keep fires to a minimum and reduce costs. This the slaves could see as beneficial but not too much different than what they already had. The managers were encouraged to make their objections known and I explained some of the mechanisms that would come into play that would keep the work being done with the least amount of interference. The soldiers bitched even more because they were the ones that were paid to keep the slaves from running. This had mainly been beaten out of the slaves long ago. New work had to be found for the soldiers and this would be to train some of the men they guarded as policemen. Fashioning the world of 2007 now was difficult and it was not always a linear step from one goal to the next. My hold on people was simply that I could produce so many new articles that my other groups could use that it was a win-win situation. The slaves went home with a lot to think about within their groups. The soldiers and managers were perhaps just as perplexed in what was happening. The next day I trained some junior bookkeepers to do the accounting. There was money here but not enough to warrant its removal to a safer place. Goods had to be purchased to run the farm and cash was the only way. This required trust on my part but the money had not been stolen up until now so it was likely that the men were honest enough. Mithridates and I left the one morning after being on the farm for four days. I needed a school of accounting but made do with some sample sheets of papyrus with simple explanations. One of the managers caught onto the Arabic/Indian numbers of mine and would teach the men that had stayed the second night as well as the managers themselves. The extra pay for him and the rest if they passed some tests would ensure that this was done. Mithridates and I had no trouble getting home. We went by the site of the natural gas and surveyed the property better. We found the man that had found the resource near the site and happy to see us. I was happy to see that he was on the job. We were told of a lot of men coming by to check on the well which hardly expelled any gas now. That many men could only be the engineers or the senators smelling some profit. Mithridates and I took the shortcut back to the city where I explained more about the road and where I had to blast then about the bed that would have to be laid for my pipe. Mithridates said, "If that stuff burns like you say, why not just put the place that makes glass on the mountain. You need rock to burn and there is lots of it there." "I thought of that too but I wanted to use clean gas. I guess I can burn what is coming from the well just as well. Do you want to be in charge of building this?" "I don't know what to do. You show me and I will build another for you." "Well you can get some stonecutters up here now and start cutting rough blocks. There is still lots of unemployment in the city." "I am the captain of a ship not a builder." "You said you would build a place to make glass after I showed you how." "I guess I can do this if I must." KhAvar was happy to see me and ran into my arms. "I missed you," she said. I gave her a kiss and smelt pussy but it was faint. "I have missed you to. How are you feeling?" She whispered, "If you mean about men, I feel a bit better." I whispered back, "That makes me feel good. Has your girl been behaving herself?" "She does exactly what she is told." "Then one more person is happy." When I pulled back, I said in a normal voice, "You make me happy most of all." I got a big smile and a fierce hug for this. I gathered the family and talked about the farm and the limited freedom I had granted the slaves. I think it gave encouragement to the ones here. MehrAk held KhAvar's hand tight when I said this. "The education of the slaves is going to make a change in how they see themselves. This process will continue until there are no more slaves. We will be able to show the world what can improved when slavery is abandoned. Agrippina said nothing but she 'huffed'. I guess it was her way of showing derision to my plans. I said to everybody, "We are going to have more classes here and everyone is going to take part. Mathematics will be one subject and reading another. If we can find somebody that is musically talented we can try to learn to sing or play an instrument." Agrippina could not hold this in and said, "Now you want us to be common minstrels. How much indignity will you subject us to?" The women hated me but she was a product of her society. It must have been something very strongly felt or the straw that broke the camel's back that brought on an outburst. I said, "The gods find music pleasing. It is true not only of our religion but all others too. Are you now claiming to know more than the gods or perhaps you are saying that your status in Roman society is above the wishes of gods like Woden?" There was no answer so I asked in a calm voice, "Please answer if it bothers you. I have not beaten you and I will not do so. You have a right to your opinion and you may voice it." Her son Crescentius defended her by saying, "Leave her alone." I just ignored him. She still did not answer so I said, "I have not known you to be a frightened girl. Tell me what you think and I will consider your words." We all waited until she said, "I cannot sing or play and instrument." "Well I will tell you a secret. I cannot sing either. I tried to learn how to play an instrument and did poorly for the amount of effort I put into it. I am not going to force you to sing or play but I never saw you as a stupid woman." "I am not stupid." "We all know that. You do not speak up enough and I want to hear what you say. Can you read?" "Yes I can." "Good, can you do mathematics?" "That is easy." "Then I was right. You still have to go through the new way to read but it should take you only a few hours to learn it all. Mathematics though is perhaps too much for a woman of your age. It takes a quick mind." "I said that I am very good at mathematics." "Then you may have to be in the advanced class after you learn the new way of moving numbers around." "Why should I do any of this?" "By your own admission you claim to not be a stupid woman. You ran a household before and now you do not. You did a lot of work and made decisions and now you sit around all day. I made war on a man that killed some of my family and threatened more of them. I did not make war on his family." "Then why are you keeping us here?" "You will cause trouble for me. You will have to accept charity from somebody and you will talk day in and out about how cruel I am. You too need a bit of education and you could be free too." "You have taken my children's inheritance." "Your husband took lives. If he had killed me then he would have taken whatever he could get hold of. I just did the same. I accept your children as my own. This means that I want the same dreams for them that I want for all my other children. To gain prosperity they all have to learn and then to use what this knowledge to make a living. "I think that every one of my children will be very wealthy. I know secrets that nobody ever knew before. I share this knowledge with those that will use it responsibly. Some of my children are making tools and devices that nobody has ever made before. To gain this knowledge, an understanding of our language and mathematics is important. "You may not see this, but I want the best for you. That does not mean the life of a pampered woman but the life of a dynamic woman that will shape the world with me. "I want you to think of one more fact. What I am doing now will effect humans for all time. Thousands of years from now people will study what I have accomplished. No other religion has done what I have done. Everything that I do now will be judged. People will say that I did something wrong, that I did something poorly or that I was right. You will also be in those books. They will weight your contribution for thousands of years. "The history of Rome is now linked to me, and through me to you. You talked of an inheritance for your children. I am talking of an inheritance for the human race." The woman must not have understood this then it hit her hard. I whispered to KhAvar, "Take her to the library." When the woman was urged to leave I said, "Who here can add." Mithridates was forced into teaching. He knew numbers well enough because I had taught him the basics as we sailed. I went into the library and brought Crescentius and his wife Flavia with me. When I got them all seated I saw that MehrAk had stayed with KhAvar. "I have a proposal for you Agrippina." In a surprisingly weak voice she said, "What is it?" "I am building the world to the way I want it. To do this I gather people and train them and give them jobs that challenge them. I want you to start a school. You will hire tutors and you will teach them my way of reading and mathematics. They will then teach both the young and the old." "I cannot teach." "Is it because you are a weak woman? Remember my words. People will be thinking about you for thousands of years so pick the right decision." It took a moment before she said, "I am an old woman and I do not learn as fast as I did when I was young. You should ask Flavia. She is intelligent." "I know she is but so are you. Flavia may be one of your tutors. I want the children taught and she has a gift with the young." Crescentius burst out with, "That is my wife you are talking about." "Yes she is and she has less rights as do you because of your status. When I free her then I will talk differently. At the moment she is little better than a slave. My slaves are at least treated well. She will learn to teach my children. I might add that some of those children will be the ones Flavia bore you." He said nothing so I continued. "You are going to be given a job too. I took your father's farm from him. I want the farm run much differently than any farm was ever run before. I will give you and Flavia a total of 10% of the profit of the farm if you manage it the way I want..." "It is already mine. All of it." "It would have been yours but it is mine. There is nobody that will stand beside you and contest this matter. Now are you prepared to listen or do I offer the 10% to somebody else?" "Go ahead." "I will give you ten percent of the profits. For each year you run the farm as I wish I will give you one more percent. When you die I will continue my deal with your children. Your children will get eventually 100% of the profit but not necessarily the ownership. You and your descendants must follow my ideas and try to improve on them. If this is done, I will give the farm to your descendants. Up until that time I can hold the amount of the profit fixed when there are problems." "You will give the farm to me?" "No, your family will get it. We will make up a contract. You can have the farm taken from you if you abuse it. You gain more of the profit by working with me. I have the world but I need to have people see a profitable farm. You and I are going to make it that way." "I do not know much about the farm." "I do not know much either. I do know about people and about some facts that you may not. Together we learn." "What about my wife. You said we share." "Roman law is not fair to a woman. I am going to change that too. The tutor I am hiring, that gets 5% I might add, will teach all the children and even the adults on the farm. There will be no slaves but there will be a lot of freemen." "That will cost a lot." "It will cost even more because they have to have better housing and everything a freeman has to have to encourage him to stay on the farm. You are going to get fertiliser and you will grow larger plants. You will get giant machines that work much more than a dozen oxen. You will eventually have a farm many times bigger than what you have now and it will be run by only a few people. Machines will do much of the hard work." "Can machines pick grapes," Crescentius said with a sneer. "Yes they can. The grapes are damaged and are immediately crushed and made into wine. Another machine can crush out far more juice from the grapes. Another machine will squeeze the oil from the seeds. The rest will be worked into the soil." "What about apples?" This time he was not as nasty. "I will show you a message in one of my books. If you take a wild apple tree and attach a branch from a domesticated variety then the tree will not grow tall. It is easy to pick with a ladder. Pears and other trees are the same way. You do not need or want the tall trees that are hard to pick from. There are even some apple trees that will grow like grapes. You do not need much of a ladder then." "Really?" "I would not lie to you." "I will like this." "Good." I turned to Flavia and said, "You and your descendants are going to have to work hard. Half of the farm's eventual ownership rests in your hands. Fail me and your family will get only half of a percent." "What can I do? I'm only a woman." "If you say that in public then all of the women that will ever read about history will curse you. A woman is capable of greatness and the only stumbling block is you. Let the future women know that you said, 'I can do anything' not that you are a woman." I began there and then to teach them mathematics. It was soon slanted toward bookkeeping but that was where it was needed. Much of the work was mental because there was little paper. People at this time had good memories because they had few other way of recording events. It was a tool that got better with use. KhAvar and MehrAk had to do the same tasks. MehrAk was not as good because I think that she never applied herself to learning. It was late in the day that I handed Agrippina and Flavia a sack of coins. Agrippina said, "What is this for?" "I am the one that pays for education until I can shift this burden onto a government. The money will pay for large sheets of slate. This is similar to what is used on roofs or floors. The pieces have to be very large and both sides ground flat. One side has to be very good. Chalk will make marks on it that can be read by your students. Smaller sheets and thinner sheets will allow your students to write on. A wooden border is needed to keep them from breaking. A small piece of slate will mark the sheet but not permanently." "Why do I have to do this?" "I want you to deal with men on an equal footing. Order twenty of the large sheets and hundreds of the smaller. The more money you save the more you can purchase. The more you purchase the more schools that can be started. Spend the money foolishly and children will suffer." "I cannot take care of all children." "I am aware of that. Will women and children think that two thousand years from now?" Agrippina didn't answer. The next day Agrippina and Flavia left the house with some of the men as guards. Crescentius was not too happy to see them go when he was unable to. "Crescentius, I am building a road to the top of the mountain. There is a gas that is escaping from the soil. I want to capture it and use it." "What good is it?" "It is just a fuel but I can rip the atoms from the molecules and make new things with it." "I have heard the Greeks talk about atoms." "There are over a hundred basic kinds and then a lot more that are just a bit different. They are like brothers in a way." "Can you make gold?" he asked eagerly. "Gold is one of the types of atoms. In centuries to come, we will work on the inner portions of the atoms themselves and change them. We could then make gold but the cost is thousands of times more than the gold we already have." He looked a bit dispirited. "Some engineers are coming soon. We are going up to the mountain to look at where the road must go. I have offered to use the power of Thor to remove large portions of the mountain." "How much rock is that?" Perhaps the first time it will be the equivalent of half of all the wall that surrounds the city. The second time should be a little more." "You can do that?" "The gods have shown me how to destroy the entire mountain. I am only going to do it a piece at a time." "I would like to see that." "Then you will help. When the time is right, I will let you cast the thunderbolt that will rip the mountain apart." "Me!" "Would you turn down this honour?" "I cannot cast a thunderbolt." "I am here to teach you." I reached out and held the young man and called on Woden to release his hold on him. A surge of natural drugs surged through him that knocked him down and I released the restriction on his body. I had to trust somebody and Crescentius could at least be the enemy I knew. Crescentius took a long time to recover. I put out my hand and he accepted it to gain his feet. "My god has found favour in you too." ------- Chapter 15 While I showed Crescentius the preliminary plans, Mithridates sourly went out to find some stonecutters. KhAvar and MehrAk were actually studying mathematics and not anatomy. I told them that they were behind and needed to catch up and they took this to heart. When Demetrius returned, he could teach them more. Greeks loved to show off their knowledge or at least the ones I met now and in my time. The engineers came and so did some of the senators. I introduced Crescentius and said, "This young man will assist me to change the world." Nothing more was said but they could see that Crescentius was a lot more alert now. We discussed the plans and I brought in Galerius for his input. It seems that I had missed out because the man knew a great deal about roads. I kissed KhAvar goodbye before going out. She was a bit more confident now and was not worried about my leaving. MehrAk looked for a kiss too and I asked KhAvar, "May I?" This seemed to please her and she said, "You better but she will get excited and then our study will suffer." I kissed MehrAk and added the stimulosus that almost made her orgasm. I had to put her down in a chair then did the same thing to KhAvar. I could always give some incentive to them later to succeed. Galerius came with us accompanied by some of his men but not for security but to learn and perhaps teach. We stopped a lot of times and there was a lot more discussion. I again had to tell how I was going to remove the rock and from what areas. The time taken for men to dig the tunnel through rock was a lot longer than I had expected. I should have suspected this. My tools though could reduce the time because I would have much better steel and I would also have the ability to use explosives to assist. We did not travel up the ravine but tried to follow where the road would eventually go. It was late in the afternoon when we got back and I insisted that the men stay for a meal. KhAvar and MehrAk were up and around and very vivacious. The men watched them intently and I knew that the women knew this. We drank a bit of wine until the meal was ready and drew up some additional detailed plans. We could now figure exactly where to dig the mine and had a small staging area to start with. The other areas that had to be sculpted were similarly layed out. The upper one had to be done first because the falling rock may destroy the other mines and they would have to be redone. One of the tributaries of the Orontes River was three kilometres away. I could dam this up for my generator and also use the water to supply Antioch. This would mean a great deal of pipe. I liked aqueducts but they were even more expensive to make. I didn't mention this possibility because there was too much on my plate now. Some of the fallen rock would be used to construct part of the road so that it had a constant and gentle incline. The steps though would be much more direct. They would have long and wide treads. I added frequent rest stops along the way so that people could rest or just enjoy the view. One of the senators said that he had talked to others and many tourists would be coming here to see what we planned. I immediately figured that Constantius would be one of them. I had not gone to see him and I was sure he was at least miffed at this. I had chewed up a few of his legions and hurt a friend of his. I was surprised that he did not send a top notch legion out to invite me to visit him at my earliest convenience. He was still having trouble with Sapor so his attention would be off me at least for a while. Constantius' whereabouts was not usually known even to Sapor who had a way of finding out such things. Two nights later I went to bed late and found that there were already two people in the bed. The room had a strong smell of aroused woman. I started to leave and close the door when KhAvar called out, "Don't go." Her voice was plaintive so I came back in and closed the door. KhAvar said, "MehrAk and I have done some talking. I am not quite ready for you but I am ready to see you and MehrAk make love." She added quickly, "I mean, that I may get that way quicker if I see that she is not being hurt." I said in a low voice, "MehrAk, what do you think of this?" "Oh, I want it a lot, maybe more than anything else I ever wanted. You do things to me that nobody has done before." "KhAvar, how is this going to effect us?" "I will still share with Patricia but you can share me with MehrAk can't you?" "I can do that." There was a pregnant pause and she said, "We can begin now if you want." "Ok, but let's get some lamps. I want you to see this as well as MehrAk. The two girls got up quickly to light the oil lamps. They even used one of my matches to start the first. When six lamps were alight they looked at me and I had not moved. They looked a bit nonplussed until I said to KhAvar, "Perhaps you want to undress me the way I did this to you." The two girls came to me and went from quick to a slow process of removing my clothing. I could not resist influencing their bodies to make them very responsive. This worked very well but the girls didn't have too much control over their own bodies and the progress slowed to a halt. KhAvar was the first to use one hand on her pussy and one hand on me. MehrAk caught on quickly and I had to hold both women to me to keep them from falling. I eased off on the stimulation and the girls still took a long time to recover. MehrAk was first and she hurried to get what she could off quickly. She found me erect and knelt quickly and engulfed me like a pro. KhAvar was soon beside her and she could only use her tongue. I increased the stimulation to both women once again and they had a difficult time concentrating on me. I had to cut back on both. MehrAk must have been using her hands again because she went faster and faster. I could possibly hold off a bit more but figured that this was the time. I wanted to hold her head to me but I made my hands hold my hips as I shot time after time into her throat. This time it was KhAvar that held MehrAk up until she recovered. I pulled back and picked up MehrAk and put her on the bed then got KhAvar and put here beside her other lover. There was no sense using my fingers and lips this time. When KhAvar was aware of what was happening I had her help me get into her lover. Both women and I groaned as I slipped home. The night was long. I did everything to MehrAk and she only wanted more. Most of the time KhAvar was riding MehrAk's tongue to keep the noise down. After the seventh orgasm by MehrAk, KhAvar wanted her turn and I did not ask if she was sure. One girl would alternately muffle the screams of the other while I stimulate one more than the other. In just a few hours, the girls were nothing more than unresponsive jelly on the bed. By morning I could not get another orgasm from them and I tired. I slept in a very wet area because the girls could not control their bodies. Some was urine but most was just the natural lubricants that both made. The muscle contractions were so severe that this shot out instead of dribbled like it should. I got up later than usual and I knew that I looked like shit. I did what I could and went out to get something to eat. Galerius came into the house and looked at me and just had a small knowing smile and said, "You should eat a large breakfast." "I am still not full grown." Agrippina brought me a simple slate that I looked at and wrote on it that the slate was good, not too big or too small and thin enough to be light but thick enough to be strong. There was only enough room on it to write, 'You did a good job'. Agrippina was very pleased at this. "You made me do a lot of work for this." Do you know how many people I had to talk to. I was not introduced to them and I had to go to them." "That means you are growing inside. Finding a new challenge was good for you. Did you look in your mirror lately?" "Why?" "Look and see. You are going to do it anyway and this way you will not think that I am telling you polite lies." Agrippina abruptly hurried off to find out the truth but she did look younger. Part of it may have been that she was getting over the death of her husband. Her fear of me was leaving and possibly it was my healing. I worked hard on her to do what had happed because I wanted her married off if possible. Being a good looking and lively women helped. Being associated with me did not. The planning for the road took the next few days. Demetrius came back and told me in private that a very large mound of crystals had been collected. "Are you going to use all of that?" "You have hardly begun to gather crystals. I need perhaps fifty tonnes." He did a bit of thinking and said, "We will be months gathering all that." "It will be months to dig the holes in the rock." "I saw how much damage a little did. That much is going to shatter the entire mountain." "Rock is strong. We need a lot of power." "I will believe if you say I must. What about the cleaning, drying and then the crushing?" "That will be your job too. Mithridates is buying the oil now and saying it is to provide light in the mine. We may have enough." "We need light too. Your mirror works but it is still not enough." "You cannot have a flame in the cave because of the dust." "Dust does not burn." "Do you want to bet?" "You? Never." "It will not only burn but explode. Grind flour very fine and throw a little in the air above a fire. If you contain the flour and fire it will explode. The gas above the town is even worse. If it mixes with the air in a home, a little bit will destroy the home as if it were a large bomb." "Why do you want to use it then if it is so dangerous?" "It is a very good fuel. It is much better when I take all the other gases and liquids out of it. That liquid I talked of was not water but many substances that we can use. All of that will leak into the air if we do not burn it. It is much better to not let it escape. Even that much is not too bad but over the years it will all add up and effect our weather." "Again, I will believe you if you say it is true. It is still dangerous." "So is a sharp sword. You have to protect it to make sure that it is kept safe. That means only trained people will be allowed to work with it. None of this can happen until a lot of tools are sent here from Germania. Even then we cannot make too much because we have to make more machines. Something like not using some horses until they make more horses," I said the last with a smile. "I have seen your machines. They are wondrous but I do not believe they are man and women. Would they really make children?" I looked at Demetrius closely and I could not tell if he was pulling my leg or not. "They mate the same way you Greeks do with your sheep." In a serious voice he said, "Will any look like me?" When the smile came out I knew it was a joke all along. Mithridates hired some stone workers and they went up on the mountain and plied their trade. Mithridates was miffed for a day then got into what he was making. I worked with the city smiths to make good steel and then shaped it into the tools that we would need. Mithridates got his first but then I worked on sledge hammers, drills, wedges and a lot more for chipping away the rock to make the road. The city fathers were anxious to see the power of Thor used for peaceful uses and helped clear a narrow path to where I could use a bit of the explosives. I was curious too and watched a long steel bar being driven horizontally into the rock by men with large hammers. Once the bar was seated I made a pipe with a large heavy piece of steel at one end. There were two long handles on each side. Two to six men could swing this back and forth like a battering ram while containing the captured hammer drill. It was impossible to miss and more men drove the long rod easily into the rock. Demetrius had made the explosive with Mithridates's help but no others. This was stuffed into the holes very carefully then I showed these two plus Galerius and Crescentius. I wanted this to be kept as a secret but I also knew that Romans were far from stupid and would eventually learn. These men were important to me and I wanted them to know it. We used fuse that I had made myself from sodium nitrate and charcoal. It may not blow up but it would burn at a predictable rate. The city looked on from below and the walls were packed. As I promised, Crescentius lit the fuse that split and led to the primers. One of the engineers had a sand glass and was watching it as the mountain gave a little shake and a loud noise was heard. People raced to see what had happened and we saw rock falling far out. This was cause enough for a party the people of the city could be heard cheering. Nobody ran out to see the effects of the blast because of my strict safety precautions. I didn't know if all of the explosives had been detonated. Five minutes later Crescentius and Galerius were allowed to look and came back with smiles. We had our own party by drilling more holes. After six more explosions we were low in plastique. The sulphur had come in as well as all the rest but I did not have the large glass containers yet. Days later Mithridates and Demetrius lead some pack horses off and I followed a few hours later. We rendezvoused in an area we found when we first fled the city. I worked alone to make the equipment and alone to make the acids. I made small batches of nitrocellulose but did it many times. I washed and neutralised it all at one time and had perhaps fifty kilos. The glycerine was brought in secret later and I converted this to nitroglycerine. This was washed and neutralised the same way. The two products were combined to form two hundred kilos of plastique. This went in some barrels and all but one of them were hid in the earth. When the work site was cleaned up and the temporary structures taken down, it would be hard to know that I had worked here for nearly three weeks. Everybody knew what I was doing but not the particulars. Galerius took possession of another holy relic and hurried to the construction site. He had been waiting for this for a long time. After a good bath with the help of two pretty ladies I was assisted into bed and they climbed in with me. They turned to jelly again but it took a bit longer. The next day I had a lot of guests but the ones at the head of the line were representatives of Constantius II, the Augustus of the entire Roman Empire. It was a relief that they were arrogant. Many people in their position were and I used it against them. "You come to me with words from your Augustus. You command me to leave what I am doing and go with you. Constantius is not my Augustus. I am a prince of the free Frisian people. I have no assurances of my safety and for all I know I could get a knife in the ribs like so many other have over the years." The leader of the delegation said, "We will ensure your safety." "Why should I take your word? I do not know you or your family. I think, the Roman Quinctius, was trying to lure me into a trap. Why should I blindly walk into yours?" "You have the word of our Augustus." "I have words on a piece of sheep's skin. Where in the document is there words to say that I am safe from you or him?" "He wishes to talk to you and that cannot happen if you are dead." "And what about when he has finished talking to me? You go back and tell your Augustus that he is more than welcome to come and see me. I would appreciate some warning too so I can set a room aside and prepare for my own defence. He can bring a legion or two for his own safety. Tell him that if he wishes to talk we will talk. If he wishes to take me captive then we will fight." The delegation got off their high horse and tried to convince me of Constantius' sincerity. I was polite to a point but I wanted to show some arrogance myself. If I provoked Constantius enough he would come and fight me. I would then be justified in killing him. There was only a short break before I had the Legate for all of Syria here to see me. He was the governor in power and had five legions under him but he brought only a dozen men. I had the stinger in my hand now and used it like a pen at a desk while I casually ran it through my fingers. We were much more polite to each other. He didn't want a war with me and I did not want to fight him. There was a lot of polite posturing but it broke down to somebody using Roman law to make me give back what I had 'unlawfully acquired'. First it was the pirate ships, slaves and especially the booty. They went on and mentioned the assets of Quinctius and some I had not even known of but didn't let on. I said, "I am a free Frisian. Roman laws may effect me while in the empire. When a Roman power goes to war, they take slaves and property. A thief went to war with me and had the misfortune to loose. I took what I could under Frisian law and did the same thing you Romans would do." "Citizens and foreigners cannot do that." "I am claiming to be a representative of a sovereign state. If it was Rome that attacked me then we are at war. If it was a thief then we fight and Rome is not involved. The Frisian people can protect themselves and they can probably come to my assistance. Is the Roman Empire declaring war on Frisia or Germania?" "This has nothing to do with war but innocent people getting their property back." "You may have some truth in that argument but I think that most of the innocents are far from being virtuous. I am still looking for the men behind the pirates." I moved closer and looked piercingly at the Legate. He flinched and I went for the weakness. "Tell me the names of the innocents you were referring to." "I do not have the list." "Who asked you to attempt this legal manouevre?" "I saw and injustice and pursued it." "Were you and Quinctius partners in this?" The man jumped up and so did his men. "I resent that accusation. We came here to get to the bottom of this and you accuse me of the foolish idea of a Roman citizen financing the pirates." I stayed where I was and just moved the stinger around and even looked at it instead of the men around me. "I talked to some of the pirates before they died. You would be surprised at the names I heard and what they had been up to. It is you that is foolish if you think that I will believe that Romans are all virtuous and kind." "What names?" "Like you, I do not have the list handy." "You have to tell me." "I will tell you again, I am the representative of a sovereign state. Do you wish to have a small war or a large one?" "We can remove you from our lands." "You are free to try. I have not finished my investigation of the crimes committed against me. I do not have a list but when I first started, twelve children and I decimated a legion. We went on and killed, what I have been told was eleven thousand of your auxiliaries. I am without the children here so I may not fare quite as well." I punctuated every few words by waving the stinger at the man. We talked more politely after and the mention of litigation was dropped. KhAvar and MehrAk helped Agrippina with a nice meal and all of us relaxed a bit more. The stinger was put away and when we sipped some wine, I was asked by the Legate, "Was that one of the weapons you used to destroy the arena?" "It had a little help but basically that is true." "Why were you waving it around?" "For the same reason you brought twelve men into the room with you. The law of any nation is flexible. A lawyer can present his case and it will be accepted while another lawyer doing the same thing will fail. It is in how the message is delivered." "There have been some reports of a weapon that does not kill. Why did you use it?" "I am not a heartless man. When children come at me with sticks I can either catch a few and spank them or stay out of their reach. I chose to let the children learn a lesson instead of hurting them." "What more weapons do you have?" "I am afraid the list is quite long. In a few years I want to make a very small cannon that will propel a small sphere for a few miles. One man can hold it and put it to his shoulder. With a lot of skill and a bit of luck a man over a mile away will suddenly die." "You can really make that?" "With a lot of effort the answer is yes. Before you get worried needlessly I plan on gathering men of all races and training them to fight. I do not see the need for more than a thousand. When Rome is harassed then these men will fight for Rome. When Persia is threatened by the Huns then these men well fight for Persia. They will not be my army but an army ruled by the heads of many countries. India and China will join too at some future date. Wars will never end but small misunderstandings can be talked about before any blows are struck. This army I mentioned will follow the majority and do what is needed." "Rome could fight the Persians with it?" "If Rome can get the votes of the rest of the nations. I think it will be much like the old Republic." More people came as the hours went on and Galerius defended me with words. The Legate picked up a lot of information but I think he had most of it before he ever arrived. Most people were more interested in the day to day things done in the future that would never come now. An average family flying to a vacation thousands of miles away was beyond their comprehension of wealth. I downgraded the effect of the automobile and stressed public transit. Trains were listed for short distances as well as long. If cargo carriers, they would be slow and efficient and if passengers they would be fast and luxurious. Ships were done the same way. I also had to compare cramped charter flights with those going first class. I had to add executive jets and military vehicles designed for troops. Parachuting was not believed and then I had to spend ten minutes explaining how the military used it then how it was used for sport. Galerius said, "Why would somebody jump from miles in the air?" I said, "Galerius, why would a sane man want to be a military officer?" There was a short pause and he said, "I can see what you mean." The people wishing to see me increased and I put KhAvar in charge. Even if she did a poor job, it would be better than nothing. She surprised me though and did a good job. People wanted to sell me things and even one fool thought I would buy a way of turning lead into gold. The Legate stayed as did the rest of the officials. The local senate had given an approximate time for the removal of the major portion of rock from the mountain. I guess we could have sold tickets but it was good publicity. I surprised Agrippina by asking her to ride to the site and light the fuse. She was very worried for a moment then smiled and said, "I will do it. I want my teachers there with me though." "You drive a hard bargain but you win." I was not sure the walls of the city were a safe place considering all the bags of fertilizer we packed into the mine. I gave my warning but nobody cared to listen. There were thousands of people on the mountain with us and Galerius had to get them to safety. I made a short speech and called on Woden to thank him for the knowledge he gave me that allowed us to work constructively with his power. Agrippina lit the fuse with a match and we all fled. The fuse was long but there was a lot of explosives. It was a long two minutes that we waited for the fuse to burn down. The man with the sand glass saw the last grains run out and he looked at me worriedly until a deafening explosion rocked the very rock we stood on. The shake was almost as bad as a quake and I saw more clay being thrown in the distance over the fissure with the gas. I knew it had to have opened wider. I had my ears covered when the blast came and I was able to hear rocks fall long after the blast. Men ran like boys to see what had happened. I held Agrippina's hand because she was shaking. We got to the edge and looked down to find thousands of tonnes of freshly cleaved rock below us. Agrippina began to shake more and I whispered, "I told you that a woman is powerful. The name Agrippina will be well respected for more than just education." "I did that?" "We helped you do it." "I did. Didn't I?" "You sure did." Mithridates had switched over from cutting stone to using the rock we excavated and made the trough to the city. Only a few areas had to be filled in and some rock cut from others to make the construct seamless. I guess it could hold water because it was made to that sort of qualifications. A large pipe or three could nestle in the trough and not be too disturbed by any earth quake. When it was inspected after the blast we only saw damage from falling rock instead of the shifting of the mountain. The sermon after the blast was much better attended than the one before. I had to treat people that had been hurt by rock and one man had lost an eye. This time it was only temporary. I figured my warnings would be heeded much better in future blasts. The tourists talked to those hurt and those that had been healed before. There was very little disease in Antioch now and no cripples. A lot of men were growing new arms and legs and had to hobble or grope around until the limbs grew in. The Roman officials were quite a bit more humble but I did not back down when it came to me leaving. Constantius had to come here and also be seen as the aggressor. I was offered gold, land and slaves to give the secret up about the explosives and I was very happy to find that Mithridates and Demetrius didn't either. Lazeez was now seen more often. I was fairly sure that he had not divulged the secret, even if it would make him a very wealthy man. Lazeez had found a boy of eight that happened to be an ardent Wodenist. The boy carried word back and forth for him. Apparently there were a lot of factions out for my head but the number of people dropped daily. Some were the soldiers I had not hired. I also found out that two of the friendly senators were not really that friendly. The Jews and the Zoroastrians were not happy with me but it was the die-hard Christians that formed the main opposition. All of the groups were fanatics in my book but that was the way human nature was. Lazeez had found a home with the ex-militia and had a very hard time fitting in. They knew that he was seen with me so he claimed that I had cast him out. Theft was alluded to but Lazeez had not said explicitly that this was his crime. Mithridates had helped by pointing out Lazeez as a thief one day while in a public market. The Romans learned about my schools and were allowed to stay for one day with the adults if they remained the entire day. Only a few took up Agrippina's offer. We had extra help at the mine because many of the men came to view what was happening and I would only allow it if they worked with the men. This was not appreciated at all but those that did take me up on the offer seemed to enjoy the work. I had no problem with people wanting to handle the explosives but I had only a select few and they were usually only Galerius and Crescentius. Crescentius went to the farm with me and I introduced him as a manager below me that would one day own the farm. The slaves were worried so I told them the time frame. Trees and then lumber had been cut as well as stone. One of the eight smaller farms had worked harder than the rest and they were going to get the condo. I left Crescentius with some otherwise unneeded slaves to build a good septic system. I planned big as I did strong and I did not want to be disappointed. The glassworks was started and a small kiln made for teaching purposes. Astrid had loved the one I made in Hildestun. I dressed up KhAvar and MehrAk and made some artwork for them. They loved my gift but then again they loved me too. Within a week both girls were incorporated into Agrippina's school system and would teach what they knew to those that knew nothing. This was a good thing for me because the girls were after me all the time and I only had so many hours in a day to work, sleep or make love. Constantius' representatives had stayed eleven days and tried a few times to get me to change my mind. I was not angry at them but I tried to appear just a bit that way so their feelings would get conveyed to their boss. The Legate had stayed just five days and just enough to take home some of the glass art I made. He had even tried himself and was very pleased with what he had done. They were hoping for complementary stingers or even one at a thousand aurii. KhAvar sold them glass copies at two aurii each but I justified it by saying that they were of religious significance. Twenty eight days after the last major blast we had one more. The person to light the fuse was a girl of thirteen that was a whizz in math. The blast occurred but was not as forceful as it should be. The rock looked no stronger and I had to attribute it to the explosives. The next batch would be drier if possible and I would boil the oil first to make sure it had not been contaminated with water. Rock for building was very plentiful and masons and stonecutters were busy people. We were burning lots of it to make one of the ingredients for glass. One of the 'friendly' senators commented that the city had not been so busy since the last time it was attacked. He had a laugh after his comment that I should have thought about more. That afternoon we had another quake and most people had not even felt it. I issued some new orders that additional stone and damp clay were to be kept close to the crevice so that it could be used in an emergency. In the last week it had been tamped down and more stone put on it and there was no smell anymore. The crevice I knew had to be a lot bigger and I was very worried about a possible leak. It was much easier to get up to the capped well because the road was roughly completed and only an alternate route was needed near the summit. The harvest from the farm came in and some was taken to Seleucia for transport. I started a granary but it would take many months to finish and none of this harvest would make it in. The pseudo free slaves were paid on an increasing scale as they gained more freedom. I also charged them a small amount for food to let them know that nothing in life was free. Their education though was still paid for by me. Crescentius was asked to take the slaves into the city in groups but he was not to use my name. As a result the slaves thought the man one of the best. The people were changing from slave to wage slave at a gradual pace and they seemed to accept the slow pace with patients. Things were starting to look very good so I looked harder for threats. I wanted to go and find Sapor so he could be appraised of my status. I was also hoping to find out what the man knew about Constantius. Something was brewing and I did not know what. After some debating with myself, Mithridates went to find Sapor and ask for some help. I sent men to watch the port of Seleucia and all of the other forts in the region. Constantius could bring in a new force but would probably use the ones he had here. I found excuses to send parts of my families to other cities with some of the guards. They could be missionaries of a sort or just keep their heads low. The idea was to get them away from me. Some of the people were sent by ship to Koufonisi and put in the care of the base commander Manius. I used a different name in my correspondence so that he could truthfully say that he did not know that the people he was protecting were part of my family. Word was sent to Berytus too but it simply said that they should expect trouble in the next few months. Galerius and I made contingency plans. He did not want to fight Rome but he would for me. He would also die if it became necessary. I would rather he did not put himself in the care of an executioner. He had two dozen standard stingers as well as some incendiaries and mace to fit different scenarios but none of them were aimed at the legion. The farm was sure to be captured so I did not send anybody there except Crescentius and Flavia. Their father had owned the farm so they may be able to ride any trouble out. The Wodenists in the city were warned of possible bad times coming that would last a month or two even though the city was viewed as very prosperous now. I had used a lot of gold to build and the money had been used to buy local goods which further helped the economy. I knew of the trickle down economy but this time it worked. Getting people out of town was and would be difficult even with increased affluence. I resorted to building a new farm a days walk from Antioch. I hastily drew up plans for a temple but slipped in a place to store food in times of drought. The women not working for me were to dry food in preparation for it going into the storehouse. The city had a lot of orphans or children that had no parents that wanted them. These I had gathered from the start. They had all been paid to go to school and this kept them in the system. When the time came these too would have to go. Agrippina would be in charge of this. "Why do you want the children to leave the city Jón? They are safe here. They are fed and protected." "It is a combination of events. I still have a great many enemies that want me dead." She tried to interrupt but I kept on going. "I have been going over in my mind how to fight them and it has to be what is called an 'urban environment'." "Why the city? It will destroy some of the buildings with your explosives and kill the people too." "The people will not be here for one. The city in my opinion is mostly slums and I will try to contain myself in fighting in this area. It is also a way that I know how to fight my enemy that the enemy is not prepared to deal with." "What do you mean?" "My enemies have studied how I fight and are prepared to deal with what I can do. I have to do the unexpected." Agrippina thought for a while then said, "I can see that but you will still destroy the homes of the poor." "My enemies may well win. Homes will be looted I want you to be safe too so I want you to start moving what you want kept safe to your son's farm." "I thought it was your farm Jón?" "I try to do what is right and sometimes I have spank people to get them to try to do things my way. The people on the farm have been warned and they are building a large home for themselves. This will leave their old home vacant for the children." "What about feeding them?" "You will find that much of the harvest is stored and not sold." Agrippina started the next day and tried to find labourers that would transport the valuables in the house to the farm. This was hard to do because most men and carts were already employed in the work on the road. The guards had to do this work too and did not like it. Pack horses were the best that I could provide and by late afternoon Agrippina tearfully said goodbye even though she was going to be coming back in a few days. She had changed from the way she had first greeted me but at that time I had killed her husband and attacked her home. KhAvar and MehrAk had seen that something strange was going on and listed the other orders I had recently given. KhAvar said, "What are you doing Jón? You are sending everyone away." "I think there will be some fighting. I am going to fight outside the city but I will be pushed back to here. I am just going to have to make some devices that will help me win. They are not prepared for me then." "If it is dangerous then let's go away. You can live with my people and be safe." MehrAk nodded her head in agreement. "I have fought a lot of people and won. I can do it again. If I am prepared then I am sure that I will do very well." "One time you did not do very well." "That was different. I had to protect others so I could not do what I had to do. You are going to go too." "I am not going to leave you again." "You are getting very possessive for a woman." "This woman is going to do what she has to, to keep you safe." MehrAk spoke up and said, "I want to be your wife but I will be your concubine if you wish it. I will fight for you. I will not leave even if you order it." "Two possessive women. Has it occurred to either of you that if I am by myself I do very well and it is only when I have to protect others that I am restricted. Even if you were fully trained commandos I would still worry about both of you. You are not even partially trained to fight and it would take many years of effort do so. You are slated to manage my affaires and use your minds not your bodies." KhAvar said, "We will not leave you." "You will do as I say or I will just have you tied to horses and taken away well before any danger comes my way." I had raised my voice and the girls looked at the floor. I just hoped that they would understand just how much trouble they would cause me because I loved them. Agrippina came back in a few days and seemed more cheerful. Her son and Flavia had welcomed her with open arms and prepared for the addition of a hundred and seventy nine children in the near future. A week later we had our last large blast. This was to the north and would be where the road had to make a gentle turn to come south and toward the city. This time I was even more careful of the mixture. The blast went very well with one more person that scored well doing the honours. The explosives themselves were an enticing target and four men were killed trying to take some samples. None of them had the tattoos or the brands of soldiers so it was not the group Lazeez was with. I was worried and so was Galerius about his weapons because he had to guard his own equipment. Fantastic sums were offered for their possession. This had always been the problem of the military but never at this early date. With the majority of the work done on the road, I shifted more people to my temple project. Barracks had to be built first which is what I wanted. My family was now down to eleven and all but KhAvar and MehrAk would be going tomorrow to Koufonisi. They had to be slipped out clandestinely because I did not want them traced. KhAvar and MehrAk cried at their friends going and were frantic with me that night as if they needed to get pregnant. It was instinctual and to tell the truth I felt a bit that way too but the upper head ruled. I was worried about the two girls in other ways. Everybody knew what I would do to protect them and could exploit this. If I kept the girls too long then it would be difficult to get them to safety when the time came. My plan was to clean up the bat cave and shift them and the girls to Seleucia. Demetrius and his people came from this area. He was well aware of my worry and prepared for this exodus so there would be the least amount of problems. The city would be in enemy hands but they may not be expecting that. Galerius had to do the same thing. I gave him back much of the gold he brought me. He would have to guard this too and find a safe place for his men and himself when the time came. Events would be much simpler if Sapor could lend a hand by taking more of my people in. Mithridates was not back yet so I assumed he had difficulty finding an army. One morning I was on the way to a sermon in the city and a few hundred metres from the arena we were attacked. There must have been fifty bowmen and they were all aiming for me. Galerius was with me along with a dozen men. Footmen soon came running at us too. I stayed where I was because the men raised their shields and I just kept my vulnerable head down as arrows hit armour all around me. Some got through but hit my own armour instead of me. My guards would be fighting at a disadvantage if they had to protect me while doing the same for themselves as well as fighting off an enemy. I got Galerius' attention and we shifted to one side of the street so that some bowmen had to come out of the windows to hit us. My own bow needed to be strung and I did this with difficulty while holding my shield. I soon had to get to my feet for stability. I took the archers while the guards defended us against the footmen. The battle went on for a few minutes with a lot of shouting until people stormed the attackers by hand. Most only had the small knife people usually carried. The slaves did not even have this but they still struck at the footmen. The archers too were attacked but I worked as quick as I could now. Men now ran as the streets filled with people trying to protect me. Spearmen and swordsmen died but only after killing and making horrible wounds on the people coming to my aid. The battle did not last long after the crowd was aroused. There were no enemies to question but I had a lot of people to try to heal. I worked for hours and I cried for all the people I could not save. When the tally came in there were seventy three men that could have been attackers but could also have been people trying to save me that were killed by the attackers or mistakenly killed as my enemies. A later investigation showed that six men were Wodenites and this cut the original number. The deaths of those defending me rose to eighty nine with a similar number of wounded. Three of my guards also died and Galerius was furious. KhAvar and MehrAk were at wits end when I got home because they were not allowed near me. I ended up having to sedate them. I had not got through the battle unscathed. An arrow had pierced my leg and cut an artery which would have killed anyone else. I had to deal with this as I administered to others. My horse had been hit by three arrows and it had to be put down. The next day there were armed Wodenists in a thick ring around our house. I could not walk very well but I still went out to thank them. One man with a piece of paper whispered, "There will be more soon." I took the paper and continued to thank the people. When I got in the house I saw it was a small drawing of a naked girl looking out a window with a sheer scarf around her shoulders. Lazeez could only have sent this. I continued my sermons and talked about the attacks. I didn't single out any group but all of the attackers were known to be ardent Christians. Galerius and Demetrius slipped KhAvar and MehrAk out of the city after dark. They had to be forced to go and I put them to sleep to help the guards. Anybody else that was not capable of protecting themselves was sent too but not necessarily to the same location. Agrippina took all of the children on the long trek with as many guards and supplies as I could spare. I knew that this too was a way to hurt me but the move could not be done secretly. Agrippina even told the youngsters that this was just a school excursion though it was probably the first one in this version of reality. The soldiers leaving had a box labelled as stingers to keep attackers away and there were too many guards to even go after the stingers. The house felt empty because it was. I could still smell the girls, and especially when I went to bed. I knew that they missed me as much as I missed them. They would be safer though where they were going. I buried myself in work. Weapons were made too that would use the fertiliser. They had to have some timers that were up to a few hours because I may have to be in another location when they went off. Clay jars were filled with stones and explosives and I used a map too pick their best point of use. Some had cords that could be attached to them for manual detonation. I knew that if these were placed at intersections, the Romans would soon learn that they were deadly. Ordinary jars could then be used to slow down the troops while other means were used to kill the enemy that was waiting to advance. All the tricks I had been taught went through my mind and I tried to find a way of using traps that were used in Nam, here in the Middle East. Most, sadly, could not be used and especially in an urban environment. The docks could be mined because the Romans would use this method of entering the city too. There was no shortage of fertiliser but there was very little lamp oil left in the city. Galerius guarded my nest of explosive eggs but I was the only one that produced them. It was not just a matter of keeping a secret but I knew much more about safety and the ways that could go wrong in this activity. Another attack happened as I left the city to check on the roadwork. Men were hiding in the rocks and used Roman artillery on me. The large spear had missed me but not two of the guards. Almost before the two men fell to the ground, stingers were in the air. A charge of forty seven men faltered as they were blown to hamburger. As search of the area found three more men that would rather die than be captured. These men had brands. They were former soldiers. The two guards were dead though I tried to save them. There would have been nothing I could do with the attackers or those that chose to just watch. Three days after this last attack I received word that there were eighty to a hundred soldiers that were not in uniform that were arriving in Seleucia. They went to the fort and soldiers were called in and it looked like they were being given marching orders. When confirmation of this movement came I had Galerius send men into the town to tell the people to leave. The Romans could march here in one day if necessary but would usually stop and rest away from town to be ready the next day. Scouts would then be sent out to keep anybody from taking word to the population. ------- Chapter 16 When the word spread of the upcoming attack, some of my detractors spent more men to rid their religion or city of me. With my guards out warning the populous, I would be easier meat. If the roles were reversed I too would think so. I had actually left with those giving the warning and waited three quarters of an hour for the attack. It was lucky for Lazeez because he was in the group. I soon found that Lazeez was also a good dancer. When the men started to die silently around him he used his own weapon to take out those near him. I helped him with my bow only once and he got five men on his own. Soon the stingers were used against them. This damaged nearby property but tended to assist the population to get a move on. We had no casualties in this engagement. By dawn we cleaned up seventy bodies and I wondered where all the fanatics came from. Later I learned that they had been recruited from other cities or were mercenaries. During first light I was hurrying people on but some refused to go. These were men, for the women were usually much less governed by foolish pride or stupidity. They usually had a means of transport but just refused to go. The men were gathered and I talked to them. "Woden does not want to see you or your families die just now." My plea did not seem to work but the sudden pain that did not leave did the trick. The poor had been warned and the same thing was done to the rich. They had the means and some had moved out weeks ago at the behest of Agrippina. My soldiers broke into homes and forced the slaves that were told to remain to go instead. It was this last group that was the worse in a way because they were so used to doing what their master or mistress said. The senators that plotted against me were just warned. They could make up their own mind or try to be a fifth column. If they stayed like some of the fanatics they would die when the Romans looted their homes. You could not turn off soldiers very well and they were in this for rape and booty. More reports came in of the legion on its way to the city. From more of my people I learned that more troops were destined for the plains above the city to cut me off. Hours later I learned of a third force coming south to do the same thing. We made two more sweeps through the city but we could find none. There were more people but they were too hard to find and evict. If they wanted to die then they would get their wish. Six hundred and eighty four clay jars were put through the city. A third were dummies but the enemy would not know which. The only way to do this was to have stored hidden material in strategic locations in advance. This was even more important if I was the one that was going to be held accountable for so many deaths. Galerius was a good soldier but he did not want to do what I commanded next. He and his men were to stay here until just before the city was circled. I wanted my traps protected but the men safe. The group that would get here first was from Seleucia. They may try for glory and attack first or wait for everybody to attack together. When I was about to leave Lazeez was dressed and ready to go with me. "Good morning, Lazeez." "Good morning, my lord. Are we ready to go now?" "I am going. You are staying with the guards." "I can help you." "You probably could, then I would be worrying about your safety. I have a great many traps to set and I do not want you to bump into them." "I am not that clumsy." "I know that but I want to do this alone. You had your fun and now I will have mine." "I deserve a place with you." "I will admit to that but I will not allow it. You will put yourself under the orders of Galerius or you will go to sleep now. I need what time I have." Lazeez looked at Galerius and knew that he was stymied. "I can watch your weapons and your back." "Yes, you could and you could die." I said the last as I got on my horse. Lazeez took a step and Galerius took two. I said to both, "I am going to try to do something that may land me in a lot of trouble. It is best for you two be far away from me as you can get. If necessary go to Sapor and ask for sanctuary in my name. Bring him a large square of silk and say that I said he is to soar with the eagles. He will understand." I did hurry now and raced down the road toward Seleucia. People were on the road and in front of Antioch and I warned them of the coming battle and to avoid Antioch. Mines were hidden along the way and I put them in place but did not install the trip mechanisms. When the column was in site and no other people running before the troops I turned back and completed the mines. A light cord tripped the timer on the mine, and a slow burning fuse would set off the explosive ten minutes after the cord was snapped. I climbed the hills near the river without even seeing how well my devices worked. I went north east for six hours and did the same thing with supplies from the pack horses. I had figured that only the road from Seleucia would be used so I hid nothing in this area. It was mostly farmland and it would be difficult anyway. The first mines should be going off now but I could not hear them. I turned west and headed for a bridge that crossed the Orontes River. It was night by the time I got there. I crossed the river and set a few more explosives then went to the bridge and set the remainder. On the way I returned to Antioch, I heard some horsemen and got off the road. I waited with stingers ready and a lot of arrows but I saw Lazeez and Galerius. I yelled to them and they immediately stopped and prepared to fight. They stood down as I got close. They were all smiling. Before I could say more Lazeez said, "How many did you get?" "I just set the traps and ran like a frightened hare." Galerius laughed loudly and Lazeez scowled for a second. I added, "I have no idea. I want them mad at me and busy hunting while I do what needs to be done." Galerius said solemnly, "I think that is a very dangerous task." Lazeez said, "What?" "Do not ask, Lazeez. Innocence may be enough to save your life." We talked for a few more minutes about how the city was surrounded but very few of the soldiers wanted to enter the open city gates. This was said with a laugh. Apparently some of the explosives slipped from where I left them and they found their way outside the walls. "I planted all the explosives. I want all of you to remember that." Galerius went solemn again and nodded his head. Galerius took my spare horses and I got a bit more food in their stead. I explained about the bridge and how they were supposed to avoid it. Just then I heard a loud blast perhaps nine kilometres away and Lazeez quipped, "We don't have to worry about it now." Two kilometres from Antioch I looked at the men that circled the town. Soon more would be coming. In an upthrust of rock I hid my supplies and saddle. This was another of my caches that I had built by my people. In a moment I stripped the reins from the horse and sent a pain to its rump. It would now run for kilometres before it stopped. I just hoped it ran in a straight line. A legion with the symbol of a boar followed me. They were the one that had to have crossed the bridge. I was safely hidden and a visible jug of sand was nearby. Perhaps they would leave this outcrop alone. The city was truly besieged. Every once in a while an explosion was heard that would keep the Romans on their toes. There was no enemy for the Romans to fight. I had little trouble getting into the city. I used three arrows but I had many more hidden caches in the city itself. Soon, more stingers were used on groups of soldiers. When I allowed myself to be seen they gave chase which was interrupted by a hidden explosive. I must have killed two hundred men by dawn. I stopped then to rest in one of the places prepared. This particular one was where I had originally planted the explosives that killed Quinctius. My people had altered it just a bit and I had water, dried food and even a hole in the ground with a lid. I was awoken around three in the afternoon by more than the usual number of Romans in the area. The arena was used for an internment camp for those that had not run. There were nearly three hundred people there and some of them were women, children and slaves. The soldiers were demanding to know where I was. One that appeared in command seemed to be the most insistent. I do not know how he expected them to know. The officer had more than a bit of purple on his robe. He backhanded an old man and when the man whimpered the Roman used his sword. He called out again for my location and killed two people. Everybody was trying to talk to him but they had no real information. He was angry at my type of attack and his inability to defend himself. It was after fifteen people died that one of the senators came out and complained about the Roman killing his slaves. The Roman general was still angry and ran the gladius through the man's stomach. The general was not appeased. I could possibly use my bow but I too would die to no gain. Within ten minutes orders were given and all of the civilians were butchered before my eyes. I spent the next seven hours thinking of ways to get revenge for this act. It was only after I used the latrine that I knew what might work. I spent the night as I had the night before. There were few, if any, explosive devices left. The Romans had found them in daylight and disarmed them by trial and error. I had a few more hidden away and sought them out. These were in the lowest part of the town and near the river. I worked for half an hour to make a device that would explode perhaps eight hours from now. There were lots of things that could go wrong so I set one more as backup in case the first failed. I had gold still hidden in the city but not on my property. I took one talent of the precious metal and carried the burden to where I had been harassing the Roman officers. I climbed a tall pole and pulled up a rope with the gold tied to the end. Below the gold was a note signed by me saying I would pay a thousand more similar bars of gold in twelve hours if they would leave the city. When the whip end of the rope was cut I slid down the pole and went to the city walls. It would take an effort to get the gold down and too many would see the precious metal for it to remain a secret. The promise of a thousand more meant that I have a mountain of gold here in the city. There would be a new kind of gold rush. Outside the walls of the city and close to the mountain I set off my remaining explosives. The wall was breached for almost twenty metres but somehow the upper portion of the wall stayed in place. I had time to move a few rocks by hand but the opening looked good enough for what I intended to do. I hurried up the ravine leading to the gas well. It was much easier now as I could use some of the sections of completed steps. There were Romans here too and I used my sword or bow and tried to be a quiet as possible. When I reached the summit, I began digging with my bare hands in the clay and stone. The well was very well capped and it took an hour to get the flow to start. I held my breath and worked in the stream until it got larger then I went for some air then returned. I did not have to do this very much as the natural gas and condensates eroded the soil and they gushed high into the air in a gigantic stream. The air was gently moving in the general direction of the city but it did not matter. The liquid condensate flowed out of the well and to the trough designed to support the large pipes. It moved quickly then very quickly because the incline was steep. I could not see the end of the trough in the dark well enough. I would be in the flow of the gases given off by the volatile compounds and not be able to go down the steps again. The area around the well got cold as the propane, butane and their isomers spewed from the well and flowed down the trough until they picked up enough heat to turn into a gas and flow over and through the hole in the wall and then into the city. It occurred to me that a torch could set this all off and I hastily got away from the well and watched from much higher on the mountain. Men were moving around in the daylight now. Some were holding rags over their faces. I could not see where I placed the gold but now there were many more men within the walls. They were even getting in each other's way. A lot of excavating seemed to be more important than finding me. The well had spewed for hours and it came close to the time when the explosion was to occur. There was a large hole in the ground now. I tipped over the rock and then the clay to fill the crevice that had been placed here in case of an emergency. I risked fifteen more minutes throwing in more rock to pack the clay then left at a run for the open areas of the land I was supposed to own. In three kilometres I started to descend to a lower level when I felt an earthquake. I held onto a nearby tree that grew fifty metres below the plain above. The top of the tree suddenly moved to one side and I could feel the strain on the trunk. Pressure built up and I had to open my mouth wide to equalise the pressure within me. The noise came next but the earthquake had not ended. Rocks rolled down the incline and hit me or my armour. The pressure built to a maximum then slowly diminished. I moved to the lower side of the tree very quickly and held once more. Seconds later the wind returned but from the other direction. It tried to lift the tree up the slope and onto the plain. The pressure increased and so did the wind until it too subsided. Rock, pebbles, dirt and everything imaginable started to fall for a long time. The tree had lost branches but none had fallen on me. Some had hit the slope and gone over or slid down when the wind dropped. I waited five minutes after the debris stopped falling before turning around and going back toward Antioch. In the distance I saw mature trees that had been uprooted. A thick pall of smoke went far into the sky and spread out. It looked like the mushroom cloud I was always afraid to see. Fires were on the slopes of the mountain and it was hard to get close to even view the city. A kilometre away, there had been no trees so there was no fire. I picked this area to look down. The city was no longer there. The thick masonry walls were blown outward. I could not see a single house that had more than one partial wall standing. There were fires below but they were small as if most of the fuel had already been burnt. In the distance I saw a ring of fire that extended to perhaps eight kilometres. I could not see further because of the smoke. Some time later I came to the conclusion that I had to move. I picked up my bow and quivers and started to walk to Seleucia. It rained that night and it fit my mood. The fire behind me had not gone out but perhaps the rain would help. It was not until the next day that I came upon a farm that I saw the first human. They saw that I was well armed but alone. They also must have seen that I was not going to hurt them because they let me into their home. Even before they asked my name one man said, "What happened yesterday?" This was one of the few answers I was prepared for. "Woden saw a Roman general butchering innocent people in an effort to find me. When he had killed all three hundred people, Woden called Thor to him and said, 'Destroy the Romans in Antioch.' "Thor bowed to his father and said, 'Yes father.' Thor drew forth his hammer and held it up to the sun. The gleaming hammer absorbed all of the power that the sun had to give for many minutes. Thor then walked through the dimensions to come to our land. He looked far down at Antioch with distaste. He brought back his hand and threw his hammer at the city. As the hammer sped on its way it got larger and larger. "The hammer had spread out to be miles wide when it hit the city. The Romans even miles away were hit by a wall of flame and cast for more miles in every direction. Fire spread everywhere and shook the mountain to its very root." The man and his family had wide eyes and he could only whisper, "Who are you?" "Jón, the Hand of Woden." I was given food, lodging and a chance to rest. My words had gone on before me. I paid for my meals by healing the ill. The next day I continued my trek. When I passed people they did not run but did something worse. They got on their knees and just stared at me. I was in a daze most of the time though. I had done something that I felt beyond dirty. I told myself I had justification but my basic nature rebelled at this. When I came to a town I found people had made garlands of late blooming flowers. They made arbours of vines and cleaned up the usual mess I would see. The people had their best clothing on and it was all clean. The children were in the front with crowns of vines on their heads. I stopped for a bit to eat and drink then called the people to me. I repeated what I had said about the fate of Antioch. I slept then somehow and when I woke up the people were still there. I healed those that needed it and bestowed a blessing on everybody. I came out of the mountains and found the roads lined with people. It was kilometres long and I could not see the end because of the twists and turns. There were people of every race and social position. There were legionnaires too but they were spread out among the civilians. My hand or head moved once in a while as if greeting the next hundred metres of humanity. I was on the road for well over an hour and I still saw no end of people. I came near Seleucia later that afternoon. If anything the crowds were thicker before the walls. I stopped abruptly and repeated my version of what had happened in Antioch. When I finished the short monologue I said in a louder voice, "I am Jón, the Hand of Woden." Five minutes later I walked to the gates and repeated my monologue once more. Four more times I stopped and gave my rendition until I was at the home of the Legate that had visited me. He was alive and knelt on one knee before his house. His head was down as I approached. In a quiet voice I said, "Arise. It is not fitting to bow to me. Bow to Woden or the gods if those gods require it." The Legate arose but would not meet my eye. I said, "Tell me of the Roman losses." "My lord, we can only guess. We are finding men far from the city. Some were burnt to a cinder while others were simply naked. There were a few that actually lived. They were twenty miles away when a ball of fire that reached into the heavens engulfed the town. In the blink of an eye the pillar grew in breadth and ate everyone it came in contact with. People were thrown from their mounts even at that distance. We think that three full strength legions perished that day. This will be nearly eighteen thousand soldiers and five thousand immunes, slaves and visitors." I simply said, "Woden is powerful." The man repeated the phrase and then so did the rest of the crowd took this as a chant. The three words followed me for hours as I walked through town and toward where KhAvar and MehrAk were supposed to be housed. Along the way I found some of my men and had them walk their mounts behind me. As I went further on, more and more of those I had sent from Antioch followed behind. Later I saw the two girls but they did not run to me like I wanted. When I got close I simply stopped and said to KhAvar, "Do you wish to come with me again?" She was very frightened and looked up at me and said, "You are a god." "KhAvar, never say that again. I am just a man that happens to be the Hand of Woden. There is nothing different than a few weeks ago. I have killed many more when I was in Germania. Why is this different?" "You destroyed a city in a second. No man could do that." "I did not do this," I lied. "Woden commanded this to happen and it happened. Will you walk by my side?" "If you want me I will do this." "I only want you if you wish this on your own. I am a man that needs a woman. If I am so different in your eyes, then it is best that you say so now." It took a while then she said, "You are more than a man but I can love the man within you." "Then join me." KhAvar smiled then the grin grew wide and she jumped at me then stopped as if I was sacred. I moved quickly and held her to me as if she had done this. I gave her a good kiss with a surge of endorphins. She had to be held until she came to her senses and I set her onto her feet. MehrAk was right behind KhAvar and I said, "Will you join our family?" She too gave me a big smile and jumped into my arms. She too got the same type of kiss and had to be held by KhAvar and me. I slept in the room that had been given to my two girls. The girls still thought I was Devine for a while, that was until I got control of their bodies. They didn't think too much then and just reacted. The family that housed us wanted to give us the use of the entire home and they would live in the stable. I had to correct them too. The next day I had emissaries from all over coming to see me. One was even from Sapor. There was nowhere to talk in private so we talked as if there were thousands of ears around us. There were that many at least and word went up the line like a telegraph of what was seen and heard. I found that the emissary came in a ship and I enquired, "Would you take me onto the sea for a few hours. I like the feel of the waves." "I would love to. When would you like to go?" The man did not seem to be that intense so I said, "Let me talk to a few more people and we can go tomorrow at an hour after dawn." "That is to my liking too. I enjoy the dawn especially from the sea." The next to be admitted were the Zoroastrian priests. I told them what had happened but coached my reasoning as Woden's way of fighting an evil thing. The priests wholeheartedly sided with me when considering the slaughter of innocents. The use of fire though was seen as sacred because it had been used to clean even if it destroyed. There was a large group of Christians and I met them in full view of the public. Instead of being nasty I went pious on them first. I learned that some of their superiors had disappeared and were presumed dead in the fuel air explosion. I went by my own book and treated the members of another religion like brothers. The only time I slipped a bit was when I said, "There was a lot of unpleasantness in Antioch by those of some religions that would rather fight than think rationally. It is a shame that they had to die." "They did not die when Thor's hammer fell?" "They were dead long before that. Perhaps we can talk about those men at later talks when we have more time to relax." The leader said, "I would like that." There were over a hundred eyewitnesses to the FAE being employed. All of them were close enough that it could not be hushed up or altered too much. The now dead visitors were in many groups but they were all within the ring that would kill instantly. I hopped that one of the men would be Constantius but he had some great luck on his side. He had left camp earlier than usual. Three quarters of the men with him had died but he survived because he had been swimming and was actually underwater when the fireball came. He had almost died of asphyxiation and then drowning. He was the healthiest survivor of his group. He had wandered around and found only death until he walked out past the lethal limits and found the remnants of his legions. The next day he was on a ship and headed for Constantinople. I could not get the man directly but I asked many of the people why Roman legions had come after me. Everybody was eager to dump any blame on a scapegoat and Constantius got the short end of the stick. The Legate too played my game because there were few people to protect him. If I wished his death then he would die even if it took a thousand people to do it. This was just a crazy era and men were jumping at any religion that was showing some signs of explaining what the world was all about. The next morning, I wanted to take KhAvar and MehrAk with me to the docks. KhAvar was reluctant to go until I said I wanted her there with me. She looked very depressed and got ready as if going to her death. I did not know what was wrong. I found the emissary, Afrasiab ready for us. The man looked on the women with distaste then took a second look at KhAvar. In rapid fire Pahlavi, Afrasiab asked KhAvar for her name. She was quite upset now and held onto my arm and said, "KhAvar," "Your whole name girl?" The name came out very long and I started to worry because the names were familiar to me. Afrasiab stated in a calm voice, "Why did you not call your uncle or your mother?" KhAvar looked at me with tears in her eyes and I said calmly, "Sweetheart, you are not going to change in my mind. I love you now and I will love you later." She did not look at Afrasiab, but said to me, "When our ship was attacked by the pirates I knew that we would lose. I was being sent away to be married and I did not want this. I also did not want to bring dishonour on my uncle's house. I decided to be just a maid. I would then be a slave and one day die. Everybody would think I had died in the attack. Our ship was sinking and I managed to get into the clothes of my maid. "I was the only survivor. The captain... the captain raped me many times and then beat me because the ship had sunk and he could not get much of my dowery. I pretended to be my maid but I could not take her name. I used one of mine, but a minor one." I said incredulously, "You are one of AsA's daughters?" "Yes." "I met your mother and your uncle. They are my friends. Why didn't you tell me the truth?" "You loved me, for being me, and I loved you. One day we would go to Germania, and you would forget about Persia. My mother would live with the knowledge that one of her daughters was dead even though it was not true. I would give you sons and daughters and there was no need of me being dragged off." "Who would drag you off?" "They had promised me to another." "Do you think I would let anybody take you away from me?" It took a moment for this to sink in and then I received a small smile from her. I turned to Afrasiab and said, "KhAvar will stay with me unless she chooses to leave. She may visit her relatives and they may visit us at any time. When she has my children they will be mine." Afrasiab seemed to be a little frightened and said hastily, "I am disputing nothing. My king will be overjoyed to hear that his favourite niece is alive. His sister, AsA, will weep with tears of joy for days. Does this mean though that you accept her as your wife without a dowery." "Your king is well aware that I can have only one wife. I also love a Roman woman. KhAvar and Patricia will bear my children. I will not favour one child over another and I will not favour one woman over another. No woman will be my wife in name but my god will know that I love both." MehrAk got close to me and touched my forearm. I looked down at her pleading eyes and added, "I guess I have one concubine too." This was not as good as a wife but MehrAk smiled anyway. I did love her but not the same as Patricia or KhAvar. We never left the mooring but there were few people around. Persian bows were known to keep many people away. We spent hours talking on the ship. I got to learn a lot about KhAvar's youth. She was good at stitchery and that was perhaps why her uncle liked the coat I had worn. MehrAk huddled close to KhAvar now because she saw how she was once a lowly merchant's daughter to a slave but now she was only a friend and lover to somebody in the royal family. It was later that I heard that Sapor had located some of the minerals I wanted. I was given a beautiful map with the symbols painted on with a delicate brush. I asked, "What happened to the men that lead the Romans back to your king?" "The men still live. They have joined the other Romans in teaching our people the Roman language. We have learned to like your numbers too. They can do such wonderful tricks that I have not seen with our numbers or with the Roman." "What of the Romans that were chasing them?" "My king had a considerable army nearby. You may not have known that but he did not know you at the time and you did not know him. The Romans were led into a trap and my king allowed them to live. They were wise and only a few wished for death." "That is good to hear." Seleucia apparently became a very popular place to be. I took over Quinctius' home in the city, and held court from there. The property was larger than the one in Antioch by perhaps ten percent. The house too was a bit larger. Galerius had left men here when he left to see me and everything was safe. My spies had worked out of this location when they watched the port. MehrAk knew all about the beds as was eager to show us what she knew. The girls shifted slowly to what they were but never did completely. They saw that death was always near me but also at my beck and call. Afrasiab visited us many times. The first time we discussed Constantius and his future actions. He was now on shaky ground because the Roman senate was not as fully behind him as they once were. I got a clearer indication of where the Roman forces were. Sapor had made gains against the Romans with my stingers but they had been used to take out a city gate with no loss of lives. The city then found it much safer to surrender. I also found that Sapor was using my name with the stinger as a way of further justifying his conquests. I was not happy about that. We worked to find a way so we could depose Constantius and many plans were put into effect and most were nonlethal to everybody but our target. During some of the meetings I was able to bring KhAvar out of her funk. I pushed her into the role of a hostess and not a subservient female that had to stay out of the way when she was not needed. Afrasiab was informed of what I was doing. He didn't like this but he could not very well object. My reasoning that women could provide an insight that escaped men was not seen. It was usually hours later that I pointed out to the man how KhAvar or MehrAk had added to our understanding of a subject. Some of the meetings had the Legate with us and I talked of ways that Romans and Persians could make a profit instead of a war. KhAvar brought out her glassware and showed the men. "I made these and also taught men and women how to make more. Jón tells me that these are beautiful and could fetch a good price if sold to the Empire of Rome or to my own people." This was discussed for a few minutes and I nodded my head as a signal. KhAvar said, "Jón has thought that he might make up a company. It should get quite large. Usually a man has a few sons working with him but the business we see will be too large for this. Men of good intentions will be hired. A portion of this company will excavate mountains and use the power of Thor, in small amounts, to do the work of many men." The men knew the power of the FAE but also knew of how I blasted the road out of the mountain. Each was thinking of ways to use this power for themselves. Afrasiab said, "What sort of uses could this power be applied to besides making roads through a mountain?" "A very large tunnel can go through a mountain from one side to another. A trip of a month can be done in a day. This is very good for trade." Afrasiab and the Legate said, "Soldiers..." at the same time. "Yes, it will be used by soldiers. A barrier at one end will contain a great many soldiers in one place and they could be killed by the thousands with cannon. Think of your two empires helping each other instead of fighting." The Legate said, "What else can your power accomplish?" "Explosives can be used to excavate rock to dig canals. It can be used to cut through a hill for a road or a railroad. Nobody will have to climb a hill. A mine that has valuable ore can be dug with my tools and my explosives. Explosives can be used in a quarry to break away large stones for construction. Explosives can be used for pushing one metal very quickly into another and causing them to join." The girls had been primed for this conversation and helped me make points as if they were the ones that could drill the holes and plant the charges. When the explanations of the uses of explosives were done MehrAk said, "Our company plans to do other activities beside excavations. The canals we mentioned are going to be large. This is necessary because we will build ships that will completely fill the locks. Some of the ships will carry our cargos or those of others. More ships will be sold and they can do as we do. There will be a lot of trade and competition is necessary to handle all of it." The Legate looked at me and said, "How much will a ship cost?" KhAvar answered for me, "Jón is building a wooden ship that should handle 1,500 tonnes of cargo. It relies only on wind for power. This ship can be studied and then copied by anyone that wishes to see the designs. The design is not a simple image on his new paper but covers hundreds of sheets that go into great detail. These sheets will be sold as a set for only a hundred aurii. This is not a large sum for a man that will need a much larger sum to build the ship himself. The keel is made of solid iron. It will be sold by another of our companies. The weight of this is well over a thousand tonnes. We will sell the casting at fifteen aurii per tonne. A nearby dry dock could be rented to build your ship and our lumber is cheap and better than any you will find elsewhere." MehrAk smiled at the distraught men and she add to the conversation, "The heavy casting is not necessary. A ship that has it will move even against the wind by weaving back and forth. This will allow this ship to get to its destination quicker or even in the seasons when the wind is in the wrong direction. Purchasing an expensive keel will allow you to regain your gold within six years compared with a ship without." The legate was a bit peeved and asked, "How many ships have you made?" "None so far but Jón has given KhAvar and I the contract to build a ship here. We feel it will be the first of many. The first ships will not have the iron keel. Jón has mentioned that we could use some partners in this venture." Both men sat straighter and now Afrasiab asked, "I have some gold that could be used to help you." The Legate said much the same thing. KhAvar entered the conversation now and said, "We need a dry dock. The port in this city would do. We need a considerable amount of labour to build first the dock then later, more skilled labour to build our ships. This means we need trees towed to us and cut here. We feel that this port can become a major shipbuilding centre. The businesses could provide employment and a strong tax base." The legate said, "You do not object to a tax?" I said, "Taxes are necessary but they have to be fair. There are many reforms I wish to suggest. They will be beneficial to the people and to business. It also means that we need a better educational system so we can develop many more accountants. I can pay for some of this but soon taxes will have to cover this expense." This topic could not be covered in one meeting and just the main points were discussed. The two men were not all that I should talk to because I needed the Roman bureaucracy, businessmen and of course the senate to initiate the ideas behind the laws. Some of the people visiting me were at first representatives of the senators then the senators themselves came when they know that I was not going to destroy them. I learned a great deal about the way Rome worked. It would take years to get a good education though. Many people were ready to pull down Constantius if the opportunity arose. I did not have to promote Julian because he was the natural person to take the job. We worked on the Augustus' inability to control the Persians and his new losses as the Persians advanced. The loss of three legions were laid at his door and this was the most telling. He had known about my link to Woden and had still fought me. The Christians in Rome were worried. Wodenists had come to the city and died mysteriously. Former Christians were now listening to an alternative that had just as many answers as what the Christians answered. Mine at least were based on fact, science, many centuries of discovery and a great deal of hindsight on my part. Excursions were made to Antioch to see the destruction. I was even frightened of what had happened. I had no idea of how much of the gases and vaporised liquids had found their way to the city but it had to have been many thousands of tonnes. I had to see the volume in terms of railway cars and there were a lot of them. A FAE was very efficient explosive. Most of the available power went into the blast. In the open it had less of an effect but it was still considerable. It was in the homes and other confined areas that it had its strongest power. I could not calculate the equivalent blast if it was composed of simple TNT. The only thing was a small nuclear weapon. This blast was something like Hiroshima but I thankfully did not have the radiation to contend with. Even in my time there had not been a blast of this strength even when a munition ship exploded in a harbour. The area had rotting flesh everywhere. We dug up the remainder of the hidden gold and found the brick I had left near where the officers had been staying. I was happy that my note was not there as evidence. Scavengers had to come a great distance to feed. I think everything down to cockroaches were killed in the overpressure wave and the heat of the explosion. With no photography, I commissioned people to paint the city as it now was. The images would go to a great many cities to promote our religion in a less than subtle way. Perhaps it would make people see a bit of reason but that was just a pipe dream. Lazeez was given the chance to try his luck with this new media. He didn't complain in the least that there was no naked women in his images. The hand of a rotting corpse held a gladius. This may limit, at least for a while, the urge to go to war. We did not stay in the area for long. Disease would hang around the rotting flesh. Citizens came back to Antioch to rebuild but I tried to convince them to wait a few months first. By then we would have plans for a new city that would have the plans for the infrastructure that a city needed to grow and prosper. Looters had gone through the homes of the senators and I had not allowed the slaves to return. There was a danger to them if they fought off the looters or later from disease. Agrippina had come to view the destruction and shivered at what had happened. She didn't have much of the old animosity at me killing her husband. I guess she saw me more as the Hand now and I just hoped I could live up to the expectations. She did look better from working with the orphans on the farm. A temporary city was constructed on my property above the city. Much more work was done to prepare the site for the gasworks. This way I got one of my projects worked on and provided employment and food for the workers. As more people came I started the dam I wanted built but for now it would be built so I could expand on it later. News of the rift between Constantius and Julian was not new, but the dispute was growing. I had not removed the Augustus for Julian and now it looked like a civil war was imminent. I had to weigh my duties to the people that depended upon me against the numbers that would be killed in a civil conflict. I could only go and assist Julian now and perhaps my notoriety would allow me to help Julian without killing. I talked to Afrasiab and said, "I am going to have to go and see if I can unseat Constantius before a there are too many deaths." "I understand that but Constantius is not going to fade away without a fight." "Maybe all he has to do is fight me." "You would win normally but you said yourself that you are mortal. An arrow or a knife will kill you as easily as me." "I can usually protect myself. I do not think that Constantius will face me directly again. I am worried about the extended family I have acquired." "I can protect a few by bringing them aboard my ship." "The people of the city would protect them on my behalf but not if a legion arrives. There are more than two to protect. All of them are a chink in my armour. It may be your king's recent successes that will threaten my family more." "How is that?" "Constantius will see this area slipping through his fingers because of the stingers that I supplied. To stop the supply of stingers and save this portion of the empire he has to get me to stop helping your people." "I see. To bring you under control he simply has to control the fate of those you love." "Exactly." "What can I do?" I said, "The easiest is to ask Sapor to bring troops near. The governor may not like it but he has no troops at his disposal so he cannot fight. Constantius may send troops to protect this area but I will have a chance to dispose of the man first." "I do not know my king's thoughts on this. He may have all of his troops committed." "Will you send word to him?" "I will if you ask. I have already sent a report to him about Antioch and another one about his niece. The only solution I can see is to gather your people and hide them or send them to my king." "Most of my ships have disappeared. What place is close enough that can protect my people?" "My advice is to go east until you come to the Tigris and then find a ship to take you south to Ctesiphon." Ctesiphon, I figured was Baghdad or close to it. "Do you have people that you can trust that will assist my people to make this journey? I do not want them attacked by Romans, Persians or bandits." "I can supply some and there are more within a few days. I could sail to other cities and find more and be back in but a few days." "I think that is best. I will see what I can do about organising the trip." I knew getting the girls to leave me again was going to be difficult. Galerius was told first so he could prepare adequately. Lazeez would come with me. He did say he was useful and he was. Mithridates was a friend and a captain. He also had his old ship, though he could choose one of my smaller ones that were still in the harbour. Demetrius and his family would be different. He was closely associated with me and would be one of the main targets. The trouble was that he had a lot of his own family in the area and would want to protect them. KhAvar was now free to show her royal upbringing and got angry at me for sending her away again. She was still a woman of this age so she did not protest as much as she could. When her anger was well hid she hit me with all of her logic then when that did not work she did everything else she could to keep us together. MehrAk was easier to get along with. I think she saw me as a very important figure and now KhAvar was the same. If she was part of the family then she was very minor. I tried to get her to shake this idea but the truth was that I did not love her as much. The trip took a lot of preparations. I wanted the house protected so men had to stay here. The dam and the gasworks needed a police force and more had to stay. Agrippina and her family needed protection too and I had to protect the farm. Mithridates and Lazeez were the only ones that seemed pleased. Mithridates chose his old ship and pulled it out of the water and worked on her hull then flipped it to do the other side. I told him he would have enough time to do this. Lazeez was showing steady progression in his art. He made three large canvases of Antioch as it now stood. A forth showed the scene of the destruction from a distance with the fire and mushroom cloud. You could faintly see in the image a giant hammer. The last was so inspiring that the other artists tired to outdo him or make something even more stimulating for the senses. The guards were as well armed as I could make them. They had food but usually they would pick up more as they travelled. Afrasiab had made two trips and one was to Berytus. He let the people know something of what was happening. He brought back a few articles for me and one was the leopard skin. KhAvar loved it until she heard how it was acquired. The girls tried one more time to get me to keep them and used the oldest method known. We did every position possible and I think a few that were not. To make the night last, I cut back on the added mental stimulation the girls were getting. They had to work harder to turn into the usual bowl of jelly by the morning. I had foreseen this too and instead of putting the girls to bed I dressed them and got them onto a cart. With a final kiss I put them to sleep and they would wake up as far from here as possible. I shook Galerius' hand and said, "They are very precious to me. Protect them to the best of your ability." "I will do that Jón." It was hard for him to use this name but he was learning. I stayed in the city for one more day to tidy up on some business with the port. A dry dock was going to be constructed but it had to be outside the port proper. The Orontes River carried a surprising amount of soil and pebbles in it. The river stopped at the Mediterranean and then dropped its load. The harbour was shallow and my ships would have keels that went deep into the water. To build the ships and repair them we needed a fairly deep facility. It would take months to build and eventually I would get back here with pumps and valves to drain the work area. That night I had a final sermon and healed those that had recently come to the city. Mecca would one day be a place to go for Muslims but now Seleucia would serve the same purpose. We had a new crew and Mithridates had to take time to teach them the way he wanted procedures done. I was able to relax now and get to writing a fourth book. We bypassed Crete because I did not want to draw attention to it or my people there. My plan of attack was a bit more subtle this time. We sailed to Greece and Mithridates, Lazeez and I took our property to shore with the help of the crew. The first mate would sail the ship to Seleucia in a round about manner. The ship was just too well known now even though it was small. Mithridates and Lazeez went looking for a ship to carry us. Eventually we would go through the Bosporus, but not right away. We had no intentions of stopping in Constantinople. Constantius was just too strong there and I did not want to start using explosives in a civilian population. I didn't have much but it was all plastique. Our aim was to subvert the legions that Constantius could call on for his defence. He used two of his favourites but they were now dead at Antioch with the one from Seleucia. Greece had quite a few but I heard they were more like a place of retirement because there was little or no fighting. We bought a ship eventually and then crewed it. I did my best to not let anyone know of my identity and had to hide Mithridates and Lazeez's too because they were well known. Lazeez this time went as a wealthy playboy living on an inheritance. We were just his flunkies. He seemed to revel in this act until Mithridates cuffed his ear once. We had a list of those legions most closely tied to Constantius. These we did first. I came in as a simple Wodenist and preached as Demetrius had done. I was better received and it was less dangerous. Woden now was seen as a powerful god and my sermons were at least entertaining I hoped. Healings were rare and reserved for the important officers. The idea was to keep my presence hidden from the masses and from Constantius' spies too. The officers had to be not only converted but encouraged to not report me to their Augustus. After eleven legions and almost three months, Constantius had not moved out of Constantinople. It seemed that a legion even defected to the Persians but nobody knew why. ------- Chapter 17 We circled the Mediterranean to get to these military bases and get them to see matters the way I wanted. Our time ashore was usually only a few days in each location. The bases a lot further inland were avoided because of the time taken to get to them, unless they were only a days ride away. We made a great ring around the Med. We came back and hit the main base on Crete but didn't go to see my people on the island. Largely we were successful but in one case I had to resort to primitive solutions to get a high ranking officer from turning us in. I was able to get to his commander and talk to him. After some healing and the usual shot of endorphins his subordinate would be held in check for a while. I did not know how long this would last. We had new converts when the crew finally learned of our identity. Eventually I had them go in and get the feeling for my presence before I showed myself. There was still resistance but it was getting less with time. The base at Perinthus was through the Dardanelles and on the shores of the Sea of Marmora. It was also close to Constantinople. It was the last base before I would enter the Black Sea once more. It happened to be the home of one of the more loyal legions. Constantius made a point of coming here often to talk to the legionnaires so they would know on what side of their bread the butter was on. My usual method would be to sail to the city and wait for a chance to talk to an officer. I tried to vary my approach and this time we landed on the shores of the Med and then went on horseback to the base. Our new ship must have gained some notoriety and I did not want to go through the inspection we would get by traversing the narrow channel. They were to wait though for a few weeks and if we did not return then they were to sail to Antioch. Mithridates and Lazeez hired some women to accompany them and thus seem less odd. The women did not know who we were but would soon enough. I had been without for a while but didn't find the need as strong when my body was toned down. We went to the wineshops and sampled a bit of wine and waited for the soldiers to arrive. The shop we were in was a bit upscale so we would get wealthy merchants and officers. We knew the place was good because the clay mugs were not chained to the table. We sat at a large table that was suited for a dozen people. We ordered a jug of wine instead of buying it by the mug and just sat down to talk. When the establishment began to fill, Mithridates said aloud, "I heard that this Hand of Woden cured hundreds more people on Crete, and just a week ago." Lazeez said in the style of a playboy, "There may be peace with the Persians soon. I heard that the Hand had talked to Sapor and asked him to stop killing unless he had to. Sapor has not been harsh on the cities he took and they are free to continue as they had before." Lazeez' girl stayed close to him and said, "I hear he carries a giant hammer with him." Lazeez said, "I heard that too but I think it is actually the power of Thor's hammer and not the hammer itself. I have heard from a man that met the Hand that no man can weald the real hammer." "You knew a man that met him?" "Many have. He goes among the people and cures every disease known. The blind will see within a week and with two weeks they were when young. Men without arms and legs are growing new limbs. There are very few lepers left. The old that are healed will dance around as if they are fifteen again. I heard that many of the old women that were healed are now with child." Mithridates added, "I heard that the plague can be cured when the Hand touches a man. Other religions talk of miracles but the Hand does many each day. You do not have to believe someone's word. All you have to do is watch how the man heals and you will see with your own eyes." Mithridates' woman said, "Where is he? I would like to see him do this." "Last I heard, he was in Crete. I talked to some traders that just came from the island. One day he will come to Constantinople and you may not have to go far." "Why won't he come here now?" "It is not that big. Maybe after he goes to all the large cities he will come here." "I wish he would come soon. My sister's child is weak and we think he will die soon if he doesn't get some help." "I do not think he has the time to cure everybody. He gets weaker every day and needs to rest almost constantly. Maybe we should ask some of the others around to see if they know about the Hand." The women were not following a script at all. They had no idea of our identities or real reasons because being here. Mithridates turned around and said to two men sitting at a table behind him. "Hello, gentlemen. Will you join us for some wine so I can find out about the latest news?" The girls were good looking and the wine now free, so the two got up and brought their mugs over to our table. We introduced ourselves with assumed names. We talked about Lazeez and his money was taking us to a lot of interesting places. Before we finished our story the soldiers were asked about what they knew about the Hand of Woden. "A lot of the men started to follow Woden but our Augustus said that the man was false." The officer didn't comment after that but the Augustus was also trying to convert the military to Christianity from the worship of Mithra with little luck. Lazeez said, "I heard that the Hand not only tolerates all religions but says in his books how this should be done. As long as he is not attacked he leaves all others alone. There were reports that he has assisted other religious orders with their sick and donated gold and assistance to those that were doing this good work." The other officer finished pouring his mug full of wine and said, "I heard that too. If I were him I wouldn't, but I am not him. We were angry at him for all of the men he has killed. His people are all over now and explaining his side of the massacre." Lazeez said, "I heard he fought men trying to attach his people in Germania. He fought more men recently. They attacked his people. They killed many and took the rest as slaves. The Hand got them back, all by himself and Woden. The legions then attacked Antioch. I could easily believe that the commander of the legions would get angry if one man was killing his men and he could not catch the man responsible. This makes the story about killing those in the city sound not just possible, but probable." The officer thought for a moment and said, "I think that was probably true too. We have done things like that all the time. You have to show the natives who is boss. Usually they understand quick enough and you do not have to kill many." Lazeez admitted, "I journeyed to Antioch a few months ago. I saw the city both before and after Thor threw his hammer. There were few walls that were higher than my eyes. The city was spread out because of the quakes but all of it was destroyed. The land for miles out was black. I have seen some paintings by a truly gifted painter that shows this very well. I wish I was close enough to see this miracle when it happened but many miles away. I heard that the Augustus was protected by the gods but most of his escort were killed and all of them were at least hurt." "I have heard that too. We have not seen him in a while. The fire almost killed him we were told but his god protected him." "Do you think he is still after the Hand?" "I do not know. When he feels the need to do something it usually happens. Sometimes it takes a while." "What have you heard about the possible peace settlement?" "Only rumours like you have heard, I guess. Constantius says they are lies because none of the Persian envoys have come forward." "You cannot believe every rumour but I did hear that Sapor is not killing any of the Romans he captures. Another rumour says that he is putting them to work as tutors." "I have heard that too. I wonder why he's doing that?" More people came in and one of the officers invited three more people to our table for the free wine. Mithridates started to answer the question before the people sat, "People have read from the books to the people at the sermons. One language is necessary for everybody to understand what is happening. Latin is what had been chosen but there are more letters. Roman numbers though not good enough. I learned about the new numbers and everything is much easier." More introductions were made and we gave a recap of who we were supposed to be and the new officers did the same thing. Lazeez called over a waitress and fondled her ass as he ordered another jug of wine. He got a smile from the waitress and the girl with him squeezed his arm to remind him that he still had an escort. One of the newly arrived officer's eyes kept coming back to me. I was young, strong and good looking but I did not think he was interested in a date. He began to ask Lazeez' guard about his opinion and I answered that I believed wholeheartedly in Woden. "The Hand hates no group of people. No matter what we look like on the outside, we are all of one race inside. Soon we will be one great empire with the Augustus controlling this area and having a say in how the rest of the world is handled. This means that those that control other areas will have a say in what happens here." I was asked, "You want this to happen?" "The Roman empire has had two or more leaders at different times. What is so hard to see that a few men could sit down and govern the world? One of them will be the Augustus. Wars kill a lot of people. The leaders will be able to talk out a problem before an army moves. There are a great many barbarians outside the borders and a lot inside too. I think that if they are educated correctly then they will be more fully Roman. Romans though have to change a bit too. Woden does not like slavery and now men have to be paid to work." "What if I want to keep my slaves?" "Things like slavery take a long time to change. Men will start to get paid, more like they did in the Republic. Slaves will be just a bit more unprofitable. In years to come a man will hire men to work for him at a cheaper rate than it costs to keep a slave." "What if I do not want that to happen?" "Then you oppose it. You are free to talk to others. Slavery is still legal but when it is uneconomical the senate will have it outlawed. That will be many years from now and you will be long dead." Before the man could snarl a retort I asked, "Do you oppose good health care for your wife and children? Do you oppose everybody getting enough to eat? Soldiers are not going to disappear but change into super warriors that can kill the enemies of the United Nations. Soldiers will be very well paid, because it will only take a thousand trained men to do the job of twenty legions today. There is a lot of change coming and all you have to do is try to learn new ways of fighting." "What do you know of fighting?" "I have knowledge you do not. My family taught me to fight since I was an infant. Some if the training was in how to fight without weapons. I have travelled a lot and talked to men of other lands. They have shown me some of their tricks and I have found them useful." "Show me some." "Sure. Give me an aureus for the lesson. I paid for mine." The man grinned and said, "I do not have to pay. All I have to do is start to beat you." "You would attack a man for no reason? Roman officers for the most part have been men of honour. You came to this table as a guest and now want to fight." "Are you calling me dishonourable?" I reached out to the best of my ability and tried to weaken the man. It seemed to be working because his mug fell to the table and wine spilt over his friends. In a few more seconds the man fell onto the table and his men scrambled to protect their wine and then get their friend back into his chair. The man said to his friends, "He put a spell on me." I said, "Woden does not always like fights. This time I think you are just drunk or maybe you have a sickness that steals your strength like the plague." The friends moved away from their friend quickly but not far. He tried to yell at me, "I do not have the plague." "One of the symptoms of the plague is a weakness. As I said, you may be just drunk. Now let's go outside and I will give you a lesson." The man tried to get up and had to do this a few times before he gained his feet. The man's friends pleaded for him and I said, "I can put off this for a few weeks if you need the time to recover." "I don't need to recover. I can take you now." "Rome has fallen on hard times if you are the one that is supposed to keep the peace." I had not got up or made any hostile gestures and the man tried to strike me with his hands but fell onto the table one more time. The disturbance caused even more looks and men coming into the wineshop suddenly stopped, or rather the first one did and the ones behind ran onto the heals of the one in front. The first man had his mouth open in surprise. In seconds he was close and his two friends had followed. The newcomers looked to be merchants or perhaps traders that had a higher standard of living than most of the people that were Wodenists. Apparently they all knew me by the way they were acting. I was hoping to remain anonymous a bit longer but my identity came out sooner or later. "Hello, my lord. Do you have any need of our services? Anything." The belligerent officer snarled and asked me, "Who are you?" It was even turned into a small smile. I gave my own smile and said humbly, "One of the great many servants of our god, Woden." "You are more than that." "Nobody can be more than that." "You are the Hand. Admit it. I knew it when we first sat down." "I admit to being the Hand. Why is it that you are so angry at me? It is as if you hold some personal grudge against me." "You killed a lot of soldiers. I think I will kill you." I did not move and neither did Mithridates or Lazeez. This had happened before and it was better if I handled it. The man fumbled for his knife and he could barely make it too me and had to be supported. "What did you do to me?" "Did I not say that my god does not want fighting some times? My god reached down and touched you with his love. You are not dead now and nobody will be cursing your family until the end of time for killing me." "They would thank me." "I am but the Hand of Woden. The world is changing around us. Do you not think that we are coming into a time when we may make peace with our neighbours and flourish? There have been too many acts done recently. Woden will be the supreme god and the world will breathe a sigh of relief from all the war. Do you not think that your name will be cursed for all time for stopping my work?" "That is what you say and I say you will die." He tried to stand straighter and I said, "Do you think my god will allow you to do this? Miracles happen all the time around me." The man could not come closer but I did not stop his life. His fellow officers restrained him and one asked me, "Release him." "Order my god not me. I think it may be better to ask him humbly instead." The man came at me with his own knife and fell to the floor with screams that few men had ever heard before. After a quarter minute I stood and backed up a few metres and the pain decreased and I allowed the man to go unconscious. There were more officers in the shop but none interfered. The first of the three Wodenists said, "I am sorry my lord for bringing down this trouble on you. I did not think that anyone would try to kill you especially after..." "You did not know and you are forgiven." "If you do not mind me asking, why are you here?" "I like to see what a city is like before I introduce myself. I have been attacked many times when it might have been avoided with some talk." Five of the other patrons came over and one officer said, "If you are the man called Jón of Germania then we have to take you into custody." Mithridates and Lazeez had not jumped up during the previous confrontation but now did. I said, "I do not wish to be placed in your custody. Some people from Constantius invited me to talk to your Augustus but there was no assurance that I would not be killed or held in the dungeon. You are not offering any better and I refuse to go." "We have to take you in." The man did not seem very sure of himself and I said, "The last group that tried that numbered over twenty thousand men. The majority of them died in seconds and a city was obliterated from the face of the earth. Do you think a man like Constantius supersedes a god?" "That is beside the fact. We have to do our duty." "You have a family here. You have friends here. What will you have when your city dies and I am still free." "You will be with us." "If my god is angry and powerful enough to kill a city he may allow me to die or save me. It is his choice. My choice is not to go. I will talk to your commander though. This will be on my terms and where I choose. We will have a sermon later this afternoon and I think we can talk at that time." I turned to the three men that had brought this situation to a head and said, "We need a place for a sermon. What is the best choice?" With the word out, the public square was very crowded. The majority of those present were the legion I came to try to sway towards Julian. Lazeez was very worried and so was Mithridates but this was the reason I had come in the first place. Now I would talk to more people and hope to sway the officers from a distance. Mithridates and Lazeez had the help of many local Wodenists that came out to assist. They read selected passages that had been used at all the other forts. It was geared to the strengths of Rome being used to nurture as well as protect. It was plainly stated that Rome would get some fearsome weapons to use if they made some small changes. The changes were social in nature and would benefit those I spoke to in many ways. I gave the speakers a break and I spoke of what I was trying to do and why I was here now. Julian was not mentioned though. I gave the long drawn out story about what had happened when I came to this area. The pirates, Berytus, Seleucia, Antioch and then back to Seleucia were told in detail that lasted nearly an hour. My trips to the forts were listed under spreading the word instead of drumming up support for Julian. The patients came up to me and the first was a boy that was the nephew of one of the girls that had accompanied us. I had to sedate him a bit then we talked. This was the same no matter where we went. The boy was weak with a variety of ailments and this one looked to be a genetic disorder. I talked to the boy but actually I was talking to the crowd about DNA and heredity. I had not found out how to cure this sort of problem but I did encourage the levels of the proteins to come into balance. This boy took longer than most and when I let him stand on his own feet he did so straighter. "You are not cured yet but you are much better. You are going to have to come back and we can work on you a bit more." The boy said, "Ok," and I called on Woden to look over the child for me, his loyal servant. The boy got a small surge of endorphins and left the platform with a bit of a stagger. Before the next patient came I said to everybody, "I would like to give the blessing of Woden to all of you as I just did to one sick little boy. You are probably touching each other now but I want to make sure that this is so. You soldiers in the back, I want you to lay a hand on each other. You are comrades in arms and this should be no problem unless you are afraid of your neighbour." It took a minute and I had to cajole the soldiers again until a higher ranking officer ordered them to do as I asked. I got close to the people and felt a few and through them the rest of the crowd. I casually wondered at the number of people and for some reason, I knew that there were 13,651 people in this group. I did not know where the number came from. I worked to bring the bond tighter and fed in a feeling of well being and all the good thoughts I had been able to convey to others. The surge of endorphins was now a gradual process taking much longer but I think doing a better job. If I did this right then few would fall when their emotions overcame them. The effect was tapered off slowly and I withdrew from the group. I heard a collective sigh. The energy to do all this was less as if I had passed a barrier and the effect was self-sustaining. It was a good five minutes later that I talked of how I wanted the crowd to behave with each other and hopefully with a responsible religion to guide them. I healed people and called forth some of the officials in the community including the base commander that happened to be Legatus Legionis and not the local governor because there were many legions. Introductions were made and the men worked with me to assess those that needed healing. Not all of the patients looked better after the healing but some did. The blind and cripples would need time to complete their healing and my cures had to be taken on faith. I had a good track record and I think they were prepared to do this. When I felt too tired to continue healing I said as much and started to talk about the world I saw for all of us. They liked my ideas of railroads and giant ships and most of my audiences felt the same way. Planes were too difficult for them to visualise. Medicine, apart from my healing, was explained and how many people were saving lives, repairing teeth or helping animals. Farming they knew about and I explained about how slavery was going to dwindle and die and men would make a good wage to support their families. We had stayed as long as I thought advisable and after one more gift of Woden's touch the sermon ended. The legate came forward and said, "My lord, I had heard of what you have done and believed but it was not until now that I have really believed in you and Woden." "Most men with a lot of responsibility are like that. There is too much at risk to allow your emotions to rule your lives." "You do understand then." "Miracles are not a common occurrence until Woden brought me to him. A lame man that can now walk means very little in the broader scheme but to Woden they have some value." "Could we talk more about this? Will you sup with me?" I smiled and said, "I am not alone and there are a few more people here that I should listen to. I learn something new each day and it is this I actively seek." There was no jail and the meal was excellent. I complimented the cooking staff and they were called out to hear my words. I was sure that the legate would reap the rewards from that. The men around me spoke and I listened. This pleased them. I learned that they knew a lot about Julian and were wondering if this manoeuvring was going to lead to war. I was wondering too. I did not sit on the fence and said, "Constantius came to power and used his connections with the Christians to dispose of a lot of people. I just object that a person in his position used such tactics. The state has no business dealing in religion. I do not believe he is capable of letting go of such power now. "I have shifted over into politics to start the peace process but I have done my part. When I was attacked I replied in a military fashion. This could be construed as political but it was for survival in my case." The legate said, "How do you see that as political?" When that many men die they cause a power vacuum that will attract people that wish to take over. I want stability so we can grow. With the current loss of legions, the Huns may take it upon themselves to claim part of the empire. We need the men and the weapons we have to stop them. I have upset a political balance but I am afraid that the Huns would have done this without my help or hindrance. They are a serious threat and will be one of the reasons the empire would fail in the near future." The legate said, "I have heard about this theory but our scholars discount it." "I have lived in an alternate future. That is one without me tinkering in its past. For a fact the Huns were part of the collapse of the western portion of the empire. My own people, meaning the Germanic people do most of the protecting. They cannot handle all of the barbarians that want to have what you gentlemen enjoy. This is not speculation but facts as I read them. Remember that my time is sixteen centuries from now." "You have said this a great many times but that is hard to understand." "The gods do things in mysterious ways and I do not know how this was done either. I have flown many times and gone around the planet on business trips and for fun. None of that is dreaming. The facts I mentioned are not the products of just dreams." I added, "I may not understand everything because the time we are in now is the dim past to me. Your strategists know more about what is happening now but I know what happened in broad terms." Mithridates talked to the crowd to give me a break and so did Lazeez when he was not following the women with his eyes. The guard was changed as time went on but I noticed that there were more of them now. I said to the legate, "Do you personally believe in the power of Woden?" He tried to think of what I was getting at then said, "Yes, and you are his servant, his Hand." "You gave your word to Constantius to follow his dictates. He is but a man. Do you have a plan to arrest me now?" The legate was not quite prepared for this and said, "The Augustus commands that you be brought to him." "Do you think my god will allow this to happen? Think a moment of Antioch and what happened there. It was me with my weapons and my god's command to Thor that killed over twenty thousand men. I do not want to count your men in the total of men I have caused to die. Tell your Augustus, that if he wants to meet me, then he will ask politely and give assurances that we can part without blood being shed." "Would my men and the city truly die?" "I may intercede and only allow your men to die. I will still be free and nothing has changed except the number of widows and fatherless children." "Then you are free to go as you wish." I put my hand out and touched him and then let him know that he had made a good decision even though it may mean his life. We stayed in the legate's home that night and so did the two ladies. The next day Lazeez rode back to our ship and presented them with a pass to get through any inspection and to not let the soldiers hinder their movements. With the ship only carrying the crew it would happen much easier. Constantius probably knew of our location by now so we had one more quick sermon. Our ship came through the Dardanelles then stayed in the military port. We rode horseback or in carriages toward Constantinople. We had left the city two hours ago when a long line of calvary thundered by on horses. We moved to the side of the road. After another short ride, the infantry came by at a fast pace. As soon as they went by, we again raced to get to the city. We were in the city of Constantinople by at least an hour before any courier could have arrived. Our description would have been brought along too and I worked harder to disguise us. Lazeez was again the best at this. The boy certainly had talent and not all of it came from his artistic pursuits. Our safety could be increased by separating. A barbarian lad with long hair, a Persian captain and a young nomad man would still be easy to find. I cut my hair and dyed it again. I tried to come across as a nobleman's son on vacation. Mithridates was going to be an emissary sent here to promote the different pursuits his employer dealt in. Lazeez was going to hide in a brothel. It was the only place I knew that he would stay. He had his stories, his pictures and now he had a canvas and paints. With a women or six to keep him focussed, we would never see him on the streets. I suggested that he write the stories from the woman's perspective he disregarded it then thought better of the idea. I did not hide but after finding a rich looking man with a Möbius strip hanging from his neck I had a room to stay in. The man had a family but he did not tell them who I was. My description had been given to the watch and the city was disrupted for three days as it was turned upside down. Very few people it seemed knew who the search was actually for. The senators were my targets now. Many were ready to pull Constantius down if given the chance. Those with a reputation of reacting to Constantius' moves were sought first. Sextus Curius Aquilinus was going to be the first. There was a drizzle going on for the last ten hours. Thunder was heard in the distance but never close. I was dressed in my ninja outfit and climbing the wall of the main house. Below me two men talked in the shelter of the doorway. I had to stay there fifteen minutes before I could move higher on the wall. The only good point was that the eaves on the house was keeping the rain off of me. I got to the window but the shutters were locked. It took a bit of ingenuity to get in while holding to the wall. There were two people in the room and both were sleeping. Tied to my neck was a small cylinder with a note inside stating who I was and the reason for this visit. The floor squeaked a bit and I froze. Instead of putting the note close to the bed I reached to one side and put it on a stool and slipped out the way I had come. I could kick myself but I liked the protection of my boots and they way they assisted me in climbing. Getting out of the property was just as difficult as getting in. This time I got soaked. I could have just sent a messenger to do this task but it was better this way. The next morning Sextus Curius Aquilinus left his home with just his driver and no guards. After ten minutes I intercepted the carriage by waving a shirt which was the signal. The man got me quickly into the closed carriage and he relayed my orders as to where to go. The senator said fairly calmly, "Why did you come to me?" "Constantius is not the best Augustus. Julian should rule. This was going to happen from my history. I want it to happen now because Julian is sympathetic to my cause. He and some others will run the government of the world and I get to build which is more of want I want to do." "I heard that you were not supposed to delve into politics." "They have to be kept separate but situations like what we have now means that I am just as much a hypocrite as others." "You are honest then." "Mostly. I am a simple man that does not like to lie. I am the head of a religious order. I wish I could leave the running of it to others." "You do not want to follow Woden's dictates?" "I do what I have to do but I do not like to spend all the time on it. I love helping people heal themselves but I like to build too. It is like a family man having to spend far too much time away from home so that he can make gold to feed them." "I can understand that very well. What do you wish of me?" "I would like you to back Julian and assist me in finding others that will do the same thing. I do not want a civil war." "Was there a civil war in your time?" "It started but before the first battle Constantius died of natural causes. He named his cousin as Augustus. There was no battle." The history books told me this but I knew that Julian or others could have written this in to alleviate the suffering and stop the war. "That was very convenient." "It may have been or he may have been poisoned. Julian is ambitious and angry at how Constantius killed his family but I do not see him as a person that would send an assassin." "Will the death happen this time?" "I have changed too many important events to be sure. The best answer is probably not." "You could be that assassin you mentioned." "I would if I could but I would not murder. Being the head of a religious order means that I not only have to act legally I have to be legal." "If you were justified then you would kill Constantius?" "To stop a civil war and be justified then the answer is yes." We drove around for hours and talked of what could be done and what could not happen. Sextus did not want a civil war either. He was like a true businessman though and asked what he could get out of this. "I could offer you much then cheat you but I am not that kind of man. Tell me what you do now to increase your wealth and then tell me how much money you can gather." "That is a very personal question." "Yes, but I will not offer you something you know nothing of. I have many ideas that will make the whole world rich. Some methods need a lot of gold. If I know how much you have then I can advise you." "My family has large estates and we grow animals. We keep many slaves and breed them." He looked piercingly at me when he said this. "We have ships and trade with the Persians and others for spices, silk and other luxury goods. I have perhaps a hundred thousand aurii beside all that but most is in investments." I said, "What if I sold you a ship that is driven by steam. You can fight the current of nearly every river that is deep enough. You can drag or push six barges that will carry a total of three hundred and sixty thousand tonnes of cargo." "I heard about your ship. It is not very large but it carries a load I could not believe." "That is because of the barge." "I have heard of your tonne too. It is very large. You would sell me such a craft?" "To sell means you learn little. You send your men to build the barges and the ship. I sell you the lumber at cost for the first ship. Your men get help with the building but you pay by the day for each man. That will be just a bit more than what a legionnaire currently gets. I will build the engine, the propellor and all the metal parts. You will get this at cost plus fifteen percent. You will keep six of my men on the competed ship for six months to train your people at your cost." "You are saying that I will build a ship with the help of your people and I will get the supplies at cost. I will pay all the wages while it is built and then pay for the rest plus fifteen percent. What is the extra amount for?" "If my people stay on in command and do what is necessary for the engines and other mechanical parts then I will guarantee that the engine will continue to work. The machines will not last without care and then they will still need replacements eventually. You may have to bring it to me if there is something wrong. "I have secrets that will make me money but to make the world rich I have to give some of them out. You learn everything there is to know about building this kind of ship and you can build more ships and use my engines or you make your own engines." "You would allow that?" "I would more than allow it. I will assist you." "Why would you do this?" he asked with a serious look. "The world needs thousands of ships. I cannot build them all. The more ships made the more trade will develop and the more ships we will need. I see that you will not have enough gold to do this the way it needs. I suggest that you offer shares to your fellow senators. They can make a large dry dock for many ships and then we can train craftsmen to build them the way I want. The ships will cost more at the start because the men need training and there is a lot to build before a ship is even started." The Senator said, "Then I will not have an advantage over others if everybody has a ship powered by steam." "How long does it take to build a large ship? Then another crew has to build the barges. There are ports from Germania, and Britannica all the way to Syria. Fifty ships are much too few. They would not even do half of the Mediterranean shore of Africa. The ships we make in the next ten years will all rot away before competition pushes down the price of goods." We talked more of the cost of running a steam powered ship. It was much higher than sail but cheaper than oarsmen. To cement the arrangement in a way I said, "I know that the economy of the world is going to change drastically. The common man will live very well and be able to spend the money they make on goods we make or carry. There will be those that think that they are rich now and do not want to change. I have already made far too many useful articles for this process to stop. Those men may fight me and win temporarily but fail in the end. Choose well who you talk to. Your bright future hinges on too many conflicting possibilities." "I already see the benefit of working with you." "Remember, this all hinges on you supporting Julian to the best of your ability. That is not just so he comes to power but after when the empire changes. It is an all or nothing deal and the rewards to you are enormous and not just in gold." For the next few weeks I was introduced to individual senators then with a bit of backing, I met larger groups. I had refined my process and offered them some rewards for backing Julian. Constantinople, until recently, was called Byzantium. The term Byzantine politics related to the deviousness or underhanded things that were done. I already expected this and was on the lookout for traps. Spies must have got word to Constantius because the search for me intensified. I always assumed I was being followed now and worked to throw them off. More men were given my description and a new crop of zealots were on my tail. This time they were not all Christians because Constantius was using the Jews too. A substantial reward was offered that seemed to climb daily. I moved around and stayed at some of the senator's homes but never for long. I was almost captured at a small home with no servants so I tried to find places to hide on my own. News came that Julian was coming this way. His route was down the Danube as before. He had stingers but I did not know how many of the cities would try to hinder him. Information was sketchy because it was flavoured by the faction that brought the information. Constantius was having problems with his legions. The commanders of many had to be replaced but still the men were not as eager to fight a civil war. Many of the men were Wodenists now or leaning that way. They knew I favoured Julian and they may go along with Constantius until the actual battle. At least that is what I hoped. Men were still being sent up the Danube in great numbers. Ships were in demand and most men had to march instead. The legions on the Danube had been given a similar talk when I originally came to this area but I had not emphasised Julian as much as my choice of Augustus. The way rumour spread, it would not take long. Sapor was on the move too and overcame many cities without much bloodshed. If a legion needed help then there were none available because Constantius wanted them to face Julian. The senators were very worried about Sapor and I tried to explain how this had been discussed previously with the man. In reality I was not so sure. He was a king and they were known to do what they wanted even if they may have had a change of heart when it came to religion. The city was going onto a war footing. All available men were rushed into training to defend the walls. Food was brought in even quicker as well as all the needed supplies. A form of identity check was in place now to find me. This slowed the city to a standstill and I just stayed put and let the unrest grow. I tried to occupy my time with planning on a variety of matters but I was going stir-crazy. I resisted exposing myself and now wished that I was with Lazeez instead. Mithridates was in the same boat as me but was handling it better. He had a young woman teach him some Greek and to improve his Latin. I was sure that he was teaching her a few things too. I had chosen to stay in Constantinople to keep the senators behind Julian. They had a lot of influence with the army and I relied on this to help Julian directly. A sort of propaganda war started. Constantius mistakes were emphasised. Some were the objectives he failed to attain. Sapor's advance was the main one. I was not used to this sort of infighting and left it to the pros that had developed this for a thousand years. There were fights on the street with the two factions trying to suppress each other. This was far from uncommon and Romans did this sort of thing all the time. This was usually between clients of Constantius and all others but I knew that it was also between Christians and Jews on one side and Wodenists on the other. This was not the time to turn the other cheek because it had already been slapped. Constantius had his circus to keep the crowds happy but it was not working now. There was more fighting in the city. Nobody was aware of what was happening on the Danube. A lot of messengers were going both ways to head off the war. A meeting one night with five senators was working better than usual because we were progressing rapidly. My hearing picked up the feet of marching men and I looked at the five men piercingly then fled the house. Instead of going out the front, I ran to the back of the property. I pulled a cord and a rope fell that had been coiled on the top. The wall was stucco and I would have difficulty climbing it and this was why I had placed the rope where I did. Three men ran to me with swords but it took only one look to get them to lay down their weapons. They were the retainers of one of the senators but I did not know which one. I was up the wall very quickly then used the rope to lowered to the ground and the hook reset. A good flick of the rope and a hook dislodged itself from the wall. I was down an alley across the street in seconds and then climbing a wall into another compound. I kept this up until I was able to hide in one of the places I had scouted previously. Nighttime was the safest for me and again I thought of Batman but I was the one being pursued. Having Robin around now would be a hindrance and a lot more chance of one or the other of us dying. All the time I heard marching feet coming closer and closer. From the roof of a taller building I saw perhaps a thousand men in the area I had just been. I was not sure how many of the senators were behind the trap but I know that at least one was. Two days later I heard that one of the senators died from the knife of an assassin. I was not sure if this was the guilty party because the men here were very devious and slippery. I could see them kill a man that was innocent of this so they could say that they removed the one trying to trap me. News came of a battle and the city was in an uproar. The civil war had turned bloody but it looked to be favouring Julian. He too used his stingers and he ripped gaping holes in Constantius' forces. This was quickly taken advantage of. When turtles were formed they blew apart with a stinger in their midst and many died. Constantius said that I was there helping a traitor killing Romans. I did not show myself to disprove the lie and some people believed this. ------- Chapter 18 Constantius' spies or traitors seemed to be getting their act together. I accepted no place to stay and chose my own. They were usually only where the destitute would stay. No matter where I went, I was pursued with uncanny accuracy. I covered my tracks with all the tricks I knew but still the soldiers flushed me out. The city was just getting too hot to hold me. At the same time, Constantius began to really round up all the Wodenists. The numbers in custody grew all the time. I would like to think it was conviction but it was more like McCarthyism all over again were somebody denounces an enemy as a Communist. The arena was the only place to hold the thousands of people and the conditions they were held under was abysmal. There was no law and soldiers went into the arena to have sport with the captives and this was not just rape and murder. Every crime known was perpetuated on the people. The arena was well guarded and I think it was mainly aimed at me. The persecution only became less when I started using my stingers on the soldiers. This was done in the barracks that was set up in the city. Normally a legion was not allowed too near for fear of it being used against the rulers. Again I was almost caught and had to keep moving. It was almost like I had a microchip implanted on me and they were just triangulating my position. Some of the Wodenists I trusted were sent to find Mithridates and Lazeez and ask them to leave the city. There was nothing they could do to help. I was a scientist and tried to analyse what was happening. One time I went into the sewer that was under the city with a small boat. When I came up close to the river, I was again pursued. It crossed my mind that somebody else may have come back in time and produced a way to track a person. Eventually it came to me to find who was giving the soldiers their directions. I did not want to use one of the few stingers I had left and used the regular arrows. I pierced one man's breast and for a day I had a chance to rest. When the chase started again I found a man dressed as a legionnaire but obviously was not. Another arrow pierced his armour and I had more chance to rest. A few days later I tried the same thing but as the arrow came close it veered off and I used two more with the same result. It was then that the truth finally seeped into my mind. Constantius was using people that could actually use magic against me. I asked my own questions of the senators but this time it was done by messenger. A senator would send somebody to meet me at a time and place of my choosing with the answer if he had one. Apparently Constantius had combed the empire looking for people to fight me. It was a well known fact that mages assisted in battles or wars but I figured it was just the bullshit that men of this age wanted to believe. I did remember Fidelis Marius having short talks about the subject. I had to believe the existence of magic because I was in this age and not the one I was born into. I had met no other mages and had no proof that they actually could do as they said they could. People bought snake oil even easier now then they did in my time. The abilities of the magical practitioners were unknown and Constantius probably had the best he could get. The talks with the senators dropped to nill as I went hunting. This was not that dissimilar to what I had been taught as a lad. I had to quickly search out a target and then eliminate it before the soldiers got me. I had little intelligence to go on and tried using my mind to find my enemy as they did me. It didn't work. Those that sought me did not detect some of the few Wodenites that remained free and this was the only way I knew to find the enemy. I was not sure of their purpose but I used many arrows on people that did some directing but the supply of targets seemed to be much higher than my supply of projectiles. Another time I was almost caught when I killed a supposed mage to find out that he was just bait. I left with an arrow in my back and another in my leg. It was only a stinger that I had that dissuaded close pursuit by the mage. Those in the arena were now being put to death a few at a time to lure me out of hiding. An attack on the imperial box was useless, because I could not get near the arena even when the spectacle was not going on. I found three men that would plant the explosives as I wished and they would trigger it at the right time and I would not be near. Constantius was not in the city and I was not able to find out who was leading the fight against me. Each of the senators gave different opinions and I could not be sure if any of them were right. I resorted to just buying information. It felt good when the explosive destroyed the man but the next day I was pursued once more. Two days after the explosion my name was broadcast but by then everybody in the city knew that I was here. Constantius came back in a form of procession and I got close just to spoil his day even if his mages would tell him of my presence. Somebody was a good tactician because I could not get close enough to put an arrow into Constantius even though I had no immediate wish to do so. Sextus Aquilinus brought me the current news and he seemed very worried when giving it. "Constantius has managed to capture one of Julians's children. It is the young woman named Patricia. Tertius, the son of an officer by the name of Lucius was taken too. I heard that many others were killed." This shook me. I loved Patricia. She was the nearest woman to a wife I had unless it was KhAvar. I immediately knew that this was a trap. One I would not be able to avoid. Before I could reply Sextus said, "That is not all the bad news. He sent one of his legions to a small town in Persia and found two of your women. I do not know how this was done because there were hundreds if not thousands of towns to search. He must have very good spies." This really shocked me for again. Magic had to have been used. The girls best chance to safety was to live anonymously with a small guard detachment. Patricia and Tertius meant that there were quite a few deaths because Julian would not leave her unprotected and Tertius was at the Rhine site with her. Events had been going too good for too long and now I had a ruthless man that had control of my immediate family. "Where does he keep them?" It was hard to tell but I thought I saw the faintest smile creep onto the man's face before it disappeared. "I can find out for you." With my suspicions aroused I said, "I would not put it past Constantius to have actors take the place of my women and the boy. How can I verify that it is really them?" "They were in the procession." "I was not able to get close. I cannot just walk into Constantius' trap without some knowledge of who is really there." "Constantius has a party where he shows off his captives. Perhaps I can have somebody ask them a question or two and the answers should prove to you who they are." "That sounds like my only hope." I thought for a few moments and then gave him the questions that only one person in the world besides me could answer. Sextus listened avidly and now that I watched him closely, I saw that he was not behind me or not much. I could see that he may have been influenced by Constantius or any number of other groups. A lot of wealth could have been shifted to get this particular senator to shift his allegiances. I was currently living in an attic so I had no need to go home. I did want to follow Sextus to see just where he would lead me. If the smile was an indication of his loyalties then he would have to report to Constantius as soon as possible. Before we parted, Sextus asked, "Is there anything I can get you? I could put you up at my home for the night." "Thanks, I have a place to stay near the main gate. I have to keep moving in any case." "Do you have silver?" "I have enough gold to last me for a while. Thank you for offering." We parted cordially with each of us going in opposite directions. Once out of sight I went slower and veered toward the imperial palace. At the same time I was listening for the distinctive sound made by Sextus' carriage. Sextus did go to his home though but in a half hour when I was about to leave my roving perimeter, I saw the carriage again. I came close once and saw the blinds pulled but I could smell Sextus when I went downwind. The carriage pulled into the imperial grounds and the gate closed. Wary of magical bloodhounds I kept moving. One position I had never used was the top of a synagogue that was near the palace. The top level was ten metres higher than the palace walls but it was not directly across from the front gates. Tonight I used this and hurried to the top by climbing one floor on the outside of the building and the rest inside. I had just enough time to see Sextus being admitted to the palace before I had to leave. A mage would tell Constantius that I was near but only suspect that I knew Sextus for a traitor. Constantius could now use this information to lay another trap for me with Sextus as the bait. I had scouted this area many times from different locations and had acquired a lot of information in the process. The castle and grounds were difficult to enter but even if there were no walls then a mage would find me before too long. With no better target in mind, I went to the nearest watch station but there was no alarm given out. I had to wonder if this was planned or the mages were just not everywhere as they may like me to believe. It was four hours later that a century of men came my way and I led them on a few turns until I could see just who was directing them. I hurried to the north but heard men coming to cut me off and I headed east. I stayed long enough to see who was leading the pursuit. I put on a burst of speed that the well muscled legion could keep up. I turned south then west. Again I ran as fast as I could down the streets instead of over rooftops and through walled enclosures. I heard some excited yelling ahead and burst on four men. One was an officer and two runners; and a mage. The men drew their swords but I was moving very fast and used my feet or my two swords but mostly I used my mind. It took longer than expected because the mage was fighting me too with his mind but he was not strong. The two runners fell first with stab wounds but they were not dangerous to their health. The mage ran then and in seconds the officer fell to the ground. I raced after the mage and he turned on me with a knife. I beat it down quickly and kicked him in the nuts. I left the man in the alley we were fighting in and went back to heal the three men. After returning to the mage, I threw him over my shoulder and ran down the alley and then climbed a wall with a lot of difficulty. On the other side was some trees in a simple garden that looked to be going to seed. The mage was left senseless until I returned. If I didn't then he would die. I left to find the other mage if I could. I made a similar play for the other mage but he was better defended. He could also defend himself better with weapons and with his mind. In the end I had to kill instead. Three of his men had died but I was able to heal six others before I fled. Soldiers were coming and there were too many to fight. With the hope of a respite in people chasing me I returned to the first mage near dawn. I kept the man from using his muscles and woke him up normally. I did not think he could see me but that did not matter. "My name is Jón of Germania or the Hand of Woden. You have been chasing me for a while now. We are going to have to have a talk." I could feel something tickling my mind and instead of kicking the man I tried to analyse it. It took a moment but I saw that it was actually a way of gaining control of my body and sending pain to me. It had almost no strength and I just deadened my own nerves to the discomfort he could cause. He could probably hurt anybody else with this sort of attack. The man gave up suddenly as if the effort had used all of his strength. I said, "You did not do that very well. I will show you how it is done but you are not going to like it. The pain I cause is the most severe pain you have ever felt. In your case it will last a quarter of a minute but feel like all of eternity. The pain will happen again and again until I get what I want." I took hold of the man's body and caused the pain I had mentioned and stopped when I said I would. It took quite a while until the man could even be forcibly roused. "That was the first sample. I think we have time for one more then we have to get moving." I was sure if the man could shake his head he would. The pain came back and I had to monitor his heart because he looked like this would kill him. Getting the man to focus back on me the second time took longer. I also had to heal the man but without the endorphin rush. When I got the man's attention I gave him back a shadow of his former control of his body and a bit more for him to speak. "Do you wish another demonstration or is that enough." "Please, no more. I will do what you wish." "Then tell me how many more people with your abilities are in the city looking for me?" "Six." I was going to correct him but I let it lie. "Tell me where they stay." "In the Imperial Palace mostly." "Did Constantius bring some of my family to this city?" "I do not know for sure but that is what I was told." "Fair enough. Now tell me what you know about their capture." "It was my time to leave and try to find you so I was not able to hear much. Those that took your people suffered a lot of casualties. Constantius demanded that those he sought be brought here undamaged." "How did you find KhAvar and MehrAk?" "I do not know. We worked as a large group and the information became clearer as we sought them out. It took days to narrow the area down and then Constantius just sent some of his special men after them. I do not know about any deaths or how they were captured." "How is it that you can track me?" "We have gone to your sermons and were able to get close enough to make a kind of contact with you. I do not understand this and nobody really does. It is just something we can do." "Show me how it is done." "I cannot. I just get close and try to fit myself into your body. That is how I can cause pain. Somehow or other I get to feel your presence when we are close." "How close for you and then for the others?" "If the night is quiet I can find you in a third of a mile. Others can do it up to a mile." "Is there some way of hiding so that you or the others cannot detect me?" "I do not know. Whatever you have is very strong and we can see you from far away. If I searched for somebody else I would have to be, at best, ten paces away." I did not necessarily believe the man but I did not necessarily disbelieve him either. There were many questions I wanted to ask but I did not have time and with another mage dead and one captured or dead they would be looking for me much harder. "I cannot stay here much longer. There are a lot of questions I have to ask. Before I let you come after me again I would kill you..." "I will leave the city and never come back. I will not hurt you." "I am going to leave you the way you are now. I will come back later and we can talk more. If they find you I suggest that you say that I burnt you out and you cannot find me any more. If I catch you chasing me again I will let the pain you felt before stay with you until you die of it." "No, Master. I will do anything you wish just don't do that to me." "Think of what I need to do to stay alive and rescue my family. I know a bit of what you do. You can do things that I cannot even imagine. A shield is what I want and you could use your time until I come back by working on this." "I will do what I can but I told you Master, I do not understand this myself. It is all done by trial and error and has always been so." The man was pulled to one side and I found a better place to hide him then I went back and hid the tracks as best as I could. I had to think and I had to sleep. Places to stay were common but safe ones were nonexistent. I went from one to another and thought about what I had been told. I was somehow a beacon that allowed others to find me. It was difficult for my twenty first century mind to encompass the idea of magic. I had made an effort but I think my prejudices were part of the problem. How could magic exist in my structured scientific world, but it did. I was in this time to prove it? Applying the scientific method to something as intangible as magic was difficult. It was one of the few tools I had at my disposal. The mage had talked as if all this was done by feel so I imagined myself glowing brightly. This turned into a figure of fire but the flames were not hot. I honed this image for a while then added a flaming sword and armour that could not be breached. When this was done I put a shield over the figure that would hide all of the light that was emanating. I did not know if it worked but I kept up the series of thoughts and then changed course to one of my hiding spots. This was tiring but I settled in to sleep and tried to force my subconscious to carry on. When I awoke I found that I was still tired but this was nothing new. I perceived no immediate threats. The image remained in my mind though. From the position of the sun I had slept three hours which was more than usual. I cleaned myself up and quietly left my hiding place to find something to eat and perhaps a chance to get a bit cleaner. When I ordered some food at an inn, I got extra. Some was for a later meal for me and some was for my captive. The man was where I had hid him but I checked the area very well because he could be the bait in a more subtle trap. Paranoia was a survival trait now. The man was roused and allowed to eat and void himself while I watched him carefully. I never wanted to know the man's name but now I had to ask because he had to be my tutor in a way. "What is your name?" "Klement, my lord." "Well Klement, what have you to tell me that I may be interested in knowing?" "I have thought of nothing else, my lord. I am not a man of great wit but I do plod along as best that I can. I have found no answers for you but I may be of assistance by telling you how I was trained. You may then find your own answers. The Hand of Woden must surely see what I cannot." Klement told me of his early life and I hurried him through this until I found how it related to his learning magic. A rich man had come through his city and found the boy much the same way the mages were homing in on me. The boy was taken in as an apprentice and given work to do. Most of this was menial but some involved learning magic. Over time Klement was able to expand his knowledge and his abilities to eventually become a mage. It sounded to me that there were mages and then there were real mages because some were very good. I had to look at this like Renaissance painters of great fame and those that we hardly heard of. This was not all politics though because some painters were much better than others. I quizzed the man on the shield I had made but did not give him what I was actually doing because the information may be useful in finding me if my shield actually worked. "Imaging a shield all around you may work. I have not heard of anybody doing this successfully. I can see that you appear less bright now but too much still leaks out. You could try to put more shields in place and I will see how well you have done this." I had nothing to lose in this and Klement could very well be lying but I tried to change my image of a dark figure in the darkest of night to one that now had another layer of the darkest cloth over top of him. Klement said, "What you have done has worked a bit but not much. Try to do some more." I spent an hour covering myself with more layers of dark cloth but there was diminishing returns for my efforts. "I will try something else now." I removed all of the layers of cloth until I was the flaming figure again. I turned down the flames until my body was black as night. "What do you see now?" "You were very bright for a few seconds and then it was like what you were a like before you tried this new idea." The black figure now sucked in all light and energy as if it were a magnet or a charged electrostatic conductor. I let the figure and everything around it disappear." "Now?" "That is the best you have done yet." I now put layer after layer of cloth on the figure but the mental effort brought little improvement. The first figure though was modified as if I had the power of a black hole to cloak me in a vast volume of space. This was the best I could do now and it looked like I would not be as conspicuous as I was. "That is even better but I could still find you if you were close. The best could find you if you are within fifty paces but that is still better than the way you were." This was encouraging but still not good enough. I needed more help but I did not like keeping the man a captive if he was going to help me. Letting him go could cost me my life though. I learned how Klement detected a person able to perform magic but I could not do it myself. Apparently it took time to develop. "Klement, do you believe that I have healed people?" "Yes I do." "Why did you try to capture me? I was working on behalf of my god." "I owe many favours to others as some do to me. I have to pay them when I am asked." "I hold you life in my hands. Would you, as an ethical man, leave the city and go to Perinthus? I risk my own life so that you may live." "If you allowed this, I would go. Why do you want me to go to that city?" "It is close and I know where you are. I may have use for your knowledge yet. There is too little time to learn." "You may never be able to come to meet me." "That may very well be true. I have many obligations when the acute danger to me has gone, then we may talk once more." "I will go if you allow this." I reached out and let the surge flow through his body. The healing had already been done and this was about the best I could do for him. When the man recovered I handed him some gold coins and said, "Do not go back for your property. If you are forced to resume your old duty I would be forced to kill you." The man fell to his knees and held my hand in both of his. "Master, I would never hurt you now. I would be a poor tutor but I will try. My advice is to ask your god to give you what you need." I left quickly by the wall. Klement was on his own but then again so was I. A bed was my next goal and I slept with a new image of the fiery man shrunk to a mote and then the mote sucking in light as if it was a black hole. Another shield was put over this with another black hole. I didn't know how well it worked but it could be no worse than what I had used before. I prepared for another trip to the Imperial Palace after eating a good meal and purchasing a bath at an inn. This was done quickly and my weapons were always close. The services of a slave even if she was pretty was not wanted. By the time I was dressed and armed, it was time to go. I had been thinking of the four people and had a vague idea of where they were. This must be more magic or perhaps it was due to how they were so familiar to me. Klement seemed to be telling the truth because at least one of them felt to be inside the palace grounds. Getting into the grounds would be very difficult. The gates were well manned and the perimeter of the wall was well guarded. This was from both the ground and the top of the wall. I could not get to the top in enough time to go unnoticed. One guardhouse on the wall itself seemed to be the best choice. It was darker than the rest and the patrol on the wall could not get to the edge to look directly down because of the structure. I was thankful that the wall was simple and had no areas that stuck out so that the wall surface could be easily viewed. This mode of entry had been planned for a while and I had an iron hook and lots of rope. When the sentries at the base of the wall moved on I threw the hook to the small wall around the top of the guardhouse. I doubted if anybody else could do it because it took all of my strength. The hook came crashing back and I had just enough time for one more cast. The thin layer of twine rapped around the hook was the only way I had to cut the noise of iron on stone. This time the hook bit and I took the end of the rope and dragged it as far from the wall as possible because the sentries were returning. The men walked under the rope and could not see it in the darkness even if they looked up. Long minutes later, the pattern of steps allowed me to run to the wall with the whip end of the rope tied around my shoulder. I climbed as quickly as I could and the end of the rope came with me. About twelve metres up, I had to freeze. There was activity in the guardhouse. Men got off shift and talked for twenty minutes before going back to their barracks. I made it to the roof with very stiff muscles but nothing more serious. The rest of the rope was quickly pulled up. I looked down on the courtyard and did not see anything that looked like they were aware that I was near. Men were still beneath me in the small room. Lowering the rope would be a giveaway that I was here. Hiding the rope if I could flick it loose was nearly impossible. My best recourse was to climb down three metres to the parapet then go a hundred metres to some wide steps. That would mean that I was exposed to view as I used the steps. The whip end of the rope was tied around one of the merlons with a few extra metres hanging on the parapet. I listened to the men and when another left his watch I was ready. When he passed through the doorway I was right behind him. I struck his throat before he could call out and in a few seconds I had him unconscious. I dragged the man back to the hanging rope and tied it around him. I climbed the short distance to pull the man up to the roof with me. I did not do anything but monitor the grounds for ten minutes except to try to get a feeling for the direction to the girls or Tertius. The area that seemed right was quite large and I would have to try triangulating later. The sentry was stripped. This also necessitated me leaving my weapons on the small roof. A guard had a uniform and it did not vary often. I could only use his weapons and none other. The man was larger than I was and the equipment fit poorly. There was a belt and I had to work on this to make it tight enough to fit me. When I was done I made sure the man was healed and would sleep for at least a day. The rope was no longer on the merlon but I was still able to get to the parapet without much noise. I walked like a man that was only thinking of his bed when I walked to the steps then down them. Most of the sentries had already changed watches and I had to be careful that nobody got too close. As I walked down the steps I thought of the women and my friend but could not get a better reading of where they were held. I observed that a large area of courtyard was not crossed and I acted as I should and walked the long way around. Twice I changed course so I would not come near any of the few men still awake and walking around. The centre of the area I was heading for had some descending steps that were guarded by two men. This was inside the walls so I had to assume this was important. I pushed out to interface with the men and I had to get close before it worked well enough to stiffen each. I shot pain into them but they were unable to fall because of the way their muscles were held rigid. "Is my family down these steps?" I asked. It took a bit more pain until I got a reply, "The women and the boy are there." There was no need to reply so I went down the steps to a thick oak door and just listened to those inside the room. With two guards outside, it was a sure bet that the door was barred. I banged once on the door as I readied my ability. A man came to the door and I felt for him the strongest I had done yet. When I had him I used his body to mesh with the seven other conscious and unconscious men in the room. They got the same treatment as the two sentries. I called out for the door to be opened then had to send more pain two more times until I could enter. I looked around and saw that I was in a dungeon. The overweight man that opened the door for me was asked questions and I got an idea of what I would find. All the men now preceded me down a labyrinth of cells with torches in their hands. Keys came out and the first door was opened. Three women slept on dirty straw in the dark room. Even in this environment they wore shackles and this required a hammer and chisel which we all had to go back and get. I had a small saw blade in my boot but it was on the roof with the unconscious sentry. The girls were in rough shape and I sent what comfort I could to them but didn't want them to really awaken until it was time to go. Tertius was in the next room with three men and I saw that he was covered in a lot of fresh blood. There was enough chain so that two of the men could get to him. We all went for the tools and then we all came back. I did Tertius first and healed him as the chisel did the work. The girls were next and I roused them to their partial freedom. They cried my name and stumbled to me and I held them as best I could. They started to cry and I let them continue for only a minute before saying, "We have to get out of here and you have to stop crying to do it." It took a while to get themselves under control. Knowing what Roman jails were like, I asked, "Were any of you beaten or attacked?" The story came out slowly and I had to reduce the parameters until I meant since they came to this city. Tertius had to be asked a few times and then pointed out the three men in his cell and two of the guards that were with us. The girls pointed out five but two of the guards were the same as those that attacked Tertius. The guards quickly stripped at my command and I tried to get my people dressed. We left for the front but this time I silently pinched off the lives of the guilty parties. The three survivors had seen their compatriots fall senseless and not move. I would let them draw their own conclusions. Back in the guardroom the torches were put into brackets and I worked over the four until they looked as presentable as possible. I was very glad it was still night. The three survivors were going to accompany us and try to intercept any people asking questions. When the main door was opened I looked up into the darkness and could only see men at least three deep and perhaps sixty wide. ------- Chapter 19 I stepped back into the room quickly and Patricia said, "What's wrong?" "I was not as smart as I hoped." I turned to the three men and said, is there another way out of here?" I got a quick nod from one but I figured that it would be guarded too. It would be also another way for the opposition to gaining access to this area. I could not be in two places at once and I doubted if I could protect even one doorway for long. I didn't get much thinking in before we all heard a loud authoritarian voice saying, "Jón of Germania, surrender now." The girls started to cry once more and I did some talking. I had a plan that may work and put it into play within minutes. The three men were sent out one at a time and climbed the steps. My hope was to use them as a living conductor to gain control of the men above. The three men did as I asked but for some reason I could not complete my own task. It was as if I was cut off by a high wall. I had to conclude that the mages were behind this. In the end, I talked to the girls and Tertius then surrendered. I could not get away and they could burn or starve us out. Fetters were brought and put my wrists after I had to remove the Roman uniform. Instead of rivets I went first class with padlocks. The girls and Tertius received similar jewellery with a three metre length of chain so we could be attached to some immovable object. None of us went back into the dungeon though and my attempts to reach out and control people was very weak. One man that was overly brutal to Tertius screamed in pain and clawed at his skin and I left him to his fate. The only reason I could do what I did was because I could touch him and put my full effort behind it. This was my only method to show these men that I was going to protect my family from attack. This was a mistake though for the mages erected an even stronger wall to keep me from gaining control of people's bodies. I counted seven men that kept separate from the rest. They studied me very intently and I had to do the same to them. They did not look like soldiers so I guess that more had come than what Klement thought. We were marched off to some destination as I continued to try to gain control of those around me. One of the mages that seemed to be dressed much better than the rest slapped Tertius and said, "Stop what you are doing or the boy will suffer greatly for it. I looked at Tertius' piteous look and cut back the force of my probing while trying to learn all I could about the wall the mages erected. Tertius was too valuable to kill. He was one of four leavers to use against me. I had a feeling that his life had to be risked or we would all die. It became apparent that we were going to the palace itself. We missed the ornate front door but went in a side door after the women and Tertius were searched again. The people doing this did their job with no undue pain and no erotic delight that I could detect. I was nude except for my purloined Roman boots and my undershorts. The latter was a holdover from my time. The mage that had threatened Tertius talked to the officer in charge and most of the men that had been at the jail stayed outside. A servant came from inside and he whispered his instructions. Constantius did not like too many armed men near him but apparently was still very afraid of me. Orders were given and twenty men were detailed with keeping me from doing anything. The girls and Tertius got two men each. One man in each pair took out their pugio and held it in one hand while the other held the loose chain. The commanding officer came to me but stayed metres away. "You are a dangerous man. Do something that threatens our Augustus and your family will suffer for it." Now it was my turn. I said, "I want you to remember that I am also protected by my god. Think well before you try to use your weapons. Your city is held hostage the way you hold my family. I have something far more dangerous than a dagger. Antioch was an example." The man was worried and did not have the usual Roman bluster. In any case this was the best I could do. The girls were nervous and so was I for that matter though I tried hard to hide this. I spoke to my family about the status of other family members. I was sure the guard detail wanted us to be quiet but none of those orders were given. We walked down some narrow halls that were unsuited for the number of people. In a few moments through a convoluted path we came to some wide doors. Guards were at the doors and in a moment we were allowed to enter. I tried to see what this place was like but I was not tall enough yet. My body had grown like an athlete and not vertically. I did see that some of the walls were adorned with beautiful tapestries but it was hard stone behind. We entered a large audience hall that was now lined with bowmen. I guess they figured that they could kill from a distance and not come under my power. We were stopped in the middle of the room and just waited. I talked to my fellow captives as if we were alone. A man in the room barked and order, "You will be quiet until the Augustus arrives." "Take that order and stuff it up your ass." The man got very angry but thought better of doing something about it. Trying to lock horns with me now would leave me dead or my antagonists. Since he could not exercise his power he shut up. I continued to talk to my family and even pointed out some of the nice features of the room. I added, "There were some train stations that were much larger though. thousands of people would enter the room and wait for the time for their train to pull in. It was usually quite busy. The floors were done better but they had machines that worked much more accurately than a man's hand. We also had many more types of material at our disposal." Looking in Tertius' direction I asked, "How are your engines coming Tertius?" "Ah... we have seven started but only three more finished. We made them big like you wanted. We were making more track than you thought we could. We only laid track on our property though. You said that you would get paid in a lot of land for each mile of track we laid." "Did you get any practice building bridges for the trains?" "Only small ones," he said simply. "What about the Enterprise?" "That was completed months ago. She sailed up and down the river for a while. We had a hard time to keep tourists off the ship. It ran aground a few times but it was only mud. The ship handled well in the sea too and Rufus uses it for fishing just like your barge." "Does it work?" "Not too well. It is too high at the stern. The ship is very stable and even more so when it had a full load of cargo." "What cargo?" "Kitchenware mostly and the shipment went to Lutetia." "Did you put all the equipment on the deck that I wanted?" "Yes we did and then added more." I had to smile at this because the only person that would be dealing in cannon would be Clovis or some of his officers. "Did a list get to you about what I need here?" Before he could reply some ornate doors opened and another detail of armed men came out and a few seconds later a man in a toga. He looked a lot like the visage I had seen on the coins. The relationship to Julian was obvious. He had some nasty burns that had not yet healed properly and his hair was much shorter than the usual Roman style. The soldiers around us shifted as well so the Augustus could see us. Everybody in the room then got to one knee and the man holding my chain tried to get me to do the same thing. He couldn't do it. We were quiet now and watched the man as he climbed the dias to an ornate throne. The Praetorian Guard that came with him surrounded the chair. When this happened, the bowmen behind shifted to keep us in their sights. In a voice much like Julian's, the man said, "The Hand of Woden does not seem so powerful now." I just looked at the man as if judging him. The mages were working harder now because I could not get very far outside of my own body. In a moment Constantius said, "You have nothing to say?" "You didn't ask a question until now. The term powerful is relative. If you mean you and me personally then I am much more powerful. If you mean the might of the Roman Empire then you are stronger than me personally but when I call upon the power of the gods, I am afraid you will not measure up." "I could kill you now." "You very well may be able to do that. You risk turning Constantinople into another Antioch though. I doubt if Woden would command Thor to destroy all of the empire for what one man does." "I am told that you are powerless now. We also think that you are nothing but a magician." "Ask your lackeys if there is a cruel soldier screaming in pain still. This happened after I said I would surrender and the mages took over. As for being a magician, ask if any mage could do what has been done." Constantius looked at one man and he hurried over and whispered in the Augustus' ear. "That may be so but you cannot do anything now." "One of your fools told me to be quiet. He was bright enough to not push the matter. He risked the city and all the lives within the walls. The gamble was not worth the risk. We can find out the truth but none of us may be alive to say who was right." "Are you saying my people are mistaken?" "They are holding me back from the way I can manipulate the bodies of those that require healing or death. I have not tried very hard to overcome their resistance yet. I did want to talk to you first." "You could have talked before." "Romans usually have honour. You asked for me to come to talk to you but you gave no assurances that I could leave. This shows that you are honourable because you did not give your word. It also means that you would not allow me to leave again. You would not have accepted an invitation like that if our roles were reversed. Why should I have done so?" "You presume a lot. I am the Augustus." "I am the only son of Clovis, King of the Frisians. People speak their minds to me without threat. Why is it that you rely on an office to justify yourself? You are a good man or a poor one by being a man not a leader." "Nobody speaks to me that way." "Then you are a fool..." My chain was yanked and it was not metaphorically. I pulled against it and continued, "a fool if you will not listen to everything that has to be said. Sophists will smile and tell you what you want to hear even as you go down a dangerous path where the truth is needed." "You are the one on a dangerous path. You push hard for me to do what you claim you want to avoid." "I claim to want peace and a gradual change to a gentler society." "Your ideas would destroy us. We have too many enemies and our people are already too soft." "You need a strong army and a thoughtful population. This is not something I read about but I lived in that kind of society for over fifty years. It is not perfect but it is better than what we have now." "By your own words, you are a Frisian. What right do you have to meddle in Roman affairs?" "There are many rights but the strongest is the command of my god." "Your god is not the god of Rome." "Not yet but in two or three years Wodenists will outnumber Christians and in a few more we will count the barbarians and the Persians among our number." "I should kill you now then." "Not a Christian thing to do, is it?" "It may not be but it may be what is right." The control on me slipped just a bit as the better dressed mage said, "You should kill him now. He is a threat to all we stand for and what we are trying to do." Constantius addressed the man. "You are right but there is the prospect of him becoming a martyr to his cause." The man was now angry and said, "Our Lord, Jesus of Nazareth was a martyr and so were his apostles. This man is a heretic and leads the people away from the true path." I had to laugh and the men glared at me as my chain was yanked again. "Your Christ was a man that was born after man knew of Woden. Christ fought Judaism and was called a heretic by the people he preached to." The mage was angry and said, "The Jews will learn to regret this." "You have tried that for hundreds of years but you have not suppressed the Jew's religion. I see it the same way Christianity was suppressed and how it grew stronger because of the conflict." The mage turned to Constantius for assistance and Constantius said, "He may well get what he seeks but it is the peoples' perceptions that have to be prepared." It looked like Constantius was a spin doctor too but then again he was the top ranking politician in the world. He could only mean that he planned on having me killed when I could be shown in a bad light. I doubted if he could do this considering the number of miracles that many thousands had seen with their own eyes and not just told about. Even now there were sermons given by those that were spreading the word. This would not stop, and like other religions the priests will keep up the talk so he could be fed and pampered. Constantius looked at me and I just smiled. He said, "You do not seem afraid." "Christianity has had three and a half centuries to develop. Wodenism is already at that point. You cannot suppress the religion by discrediting me. You may kill me if Woden allows it but in a few years the effect will be the same." "We will see if this is true or not." He turned to the man guarding us and said, "Take them away to the rooms I have prepared for them." I managed to turn and smile at the women and at Tertius, but I was not happy at this. I knew we would not be going to the suites set aside for visiting dignitaries. We were hustled to the basement. Constantius had some special rooms here for guests too. My chain was pulled upward on a winch and my feet hung off the floor. Fetters were put on my ankles and these too were secured to the stonework. I heard my fellow captives put in cells but they were not put on the wall. I knew because I would have heard the screams. I did not get any privacy in any case because three of the mages stayed in the cell with me and just watched me. There was a lot of pain in my wrists and I controlled it a bit and tried to reroute blood. With nothing better to do, I continued on my quest to find a way around what the mages were preventing. I worked slowly but I think they were aware of what I was doing and actively countered my moves. The mages were not just acting defensively either and I found I had to fend them off too. In the other cells I could hear the girls crying but there was nothing I could do about it. I was happy that they were not screaming as they were being molested. A pair of sentries came by every ten minutes and they were told by one of the mages, "He is still trying to gain control." Hours later the mages were relieved by three other mages but the one well dressed man didn't show up. I did not feel pain because I chose to keep it under control. I thought about dropping my cloak that hid my position but somehow I felt that this was a bad idea. I kept this in place and continued to work on the minds of those around me. I was not learning much except what would not work but that was still useful. It must be well past dawn when the watch was changed again. I was tired from all the mental activity but it was preferable to sleep in this case. It was about time for the sentries but this time there were many more footsteps. Four soldiers came in then the well dressed mage and finally some large men I figured were used to torture people. It was not that they were in a Hollywood outfit that tipped me off but in the tools that they brought with them. The mage asked the others, "How hard had his efforts been to overcome our block?" One of the men said, "He used little of his power. He was trying to find a chink in our block but we also worked to overcome his block. It looked like neither of us got very far." The man looked at me and said, "Who taught you to put up a shield?" "Who are you anyways?" "Tell me or I will have your wives tortured." "You would do that anyway when I did not do the next thing that you said. Are you prepared to die?" "I can torture you instead." "My god can protect me if that is his wish or not. People still die when Woden is suitably angered." "You use magic just like us. You are just much better at this. Tell us what you know and we may find a place with us." "Is that what you want?" "Our Augustus wants the secret of your healing and of your weapons." "Was it magic that caused the total destruction of Antioch? Was it a healing?" "I do not know how you did that but there had to be a way. I heard that you have weapons from your future that could destroy a city like that." "The weapon you are talking about would leave a poison that would linger for many years and kill long after the blast. Thor's hammer was very clean." "Clean?" "No lingering poison." "Ahhh..." The man looked at me with a smile now and said, "Constantius wishes you to witness some executions. He will not let me kill you but I am allowed to make sure you do not use your hands. You are a very dangerous man even without magic. It may also help us overcome your block." I did not know what he meant but he directed one of the men to come near me. He put some of his tools down but not before he allowed me to see them. They were the crude but effective implements of his trade. I was worried now and took away all of the feeling so that I was numb all over. I said to the man, "Your tools look effective but do not have the fine detail that quality parts would have. You could have purchased much better equipment from my factories." The man smiled and me and said, "These work very well. I will have to show you." The mage yelled out, "Enough. Do it." The torturer smiled and pulled out a short handled hammer of about two kilos. He said casually as he caressed the hammer. "I am going to break your arm. I am told that the god of the Christians will protect me from your god. I am curious enough to try this." I did not see a way out of this and just studied the arm that was closer to the man. The mage yelled at the other reluctant man to take his place and this man was much less sure of himself but he too brought out his hammer. The first torturer played with me as if he were a major league baseball player. Both men though worked as a team. When the time came for the strike they both swung on cue. I knew there would be no pain but it was still going to cause a lot of damage that I may not be able to repair before it was needed. The metal struck. The pain came through and I felt my toes hit the floor. The mages had a good grip on me and I reached out instinctively for power to heal myself. I found the power from somewhere. I directed it to the damaged tissues and to control the pain. Last time I could hide in my own little world while what was left of Jón's mind dealt with the pain. I could not do that this time. I pushed down as if I were pushing myself further from the floor and it took a moment for the caveman in me to realise that this was of no use. I still stood on my toes to hold my weight. When I looked around I saw the mages studying me. The leader said, "You handled that very well. I have seen many people receive much less and scream, plea and finally go unconscious." "From your smile I think that you enjoy that." "Among just us, I think you are right. I would do more, much more but Constantius wants you able to walk." He turned to the guards and yelled, "Get him down. We have to go." Three men pulled on the chain holding me up while two men rushed in to support my weight. This seemed to displease the mage but it was done quickly and he didn't have time to stop it. It was hard to stand on my own feet once more and pain seeped through as my arms were able to come down in front of me. I had a chance to see the blood splattered skin but very little of it had flowed down my arms. Both forearms were broken and both bones in each arm. I relaxed the muscles that normally contracted at this time and tried to juggle the vectors to get the bones realigned. In moments I was being marched out of the room with the mage pulling on the length of chain. I was forced to keep up and it was a wonder that I could after being held off the floor all night and then my arms broken. The corridor was lined with guards and the girls were dragged out of one cell and Tertius another. The girls pulled to get to me and Patricia was able to see my arms. She said, "What did they do to you?" "Constantius, I was told, was still afraid of me while chained." The mage said, "Quiet!" I stared at him and gathered my energy from all around. People were very close and the mages would have a harder time keeping me separated. They frantically worked to keep me away and I had just enough time to interface partially with the mage and send all the pain I had to him. He screamed and fled backwards bumping into people until he was out of sight. I asked when everybody was quiet, "Were any of you hurt?" Patricia said, "Nobody hurt us." She looked at Tertius and he just shook his head. KhAvar and MehrAk looked too stunned yet to respond. Turning to the men around me I ordered, "Pick up the chain and put it on my shoulders. I don't want you tripping on it." I could do nothing about the fetters and the chain on my legs. Surprisingly the soldiers did as I wished and we continued on our way. The harassment from the mages had decreased when their leader fled and I worked harder to find a way past their defences. Their defences went up as high as they could put it. We boarded two wagons. Tertius and I shared one while the three girls had another. Soldiers marched before, after and beside us. People came out to stare and I said to Tertius, "Wave and smile to them." "But we are going to be executed." "You do not know that and neither do I. Smile and wave and if it is an execution then you will go to it like a man." "Will you wave too?" In a whisper I said, "Both of my arms are broken." Tertius looked at them but said nothing. It took a minute or more before he waved and then so did the girls behind us. It took only a few blocks until I knew we were going to the arena. Constantius' father had taken over the city and named much of this end of the Mediterranean after his family. The arena had been used a lot but it was far from being completed. I worked on my wounds and gave some encouragement to Tertius by getting his body to release some of the chemicals. He felt much better and I fought the mages to gather more power and direct it toward my women. They too responded favourably and smiled at me much more. It felt good to have such women want me and felt humbled that this seemed to be still true. I felt even more humbled because we may still be going to our executions. We spent three quarters of an hour getting to the arena. Along the way I had gathered more and more power until the mages could not hold me in any more. I could have killed them then but instead spread out and grasped as many people as I could and sent the benevolence of Woden through them. With a smile I made sure the mages got the same treatment. This brought the procession to a halt for over ten minutes while everybody recovered. This showed that the head mage had more control of magic than three of his men. When we stopped the head mage came to me with four of his men and suddenly jerked my chain. Pain surged through me and all seven mages jumped on this and cut me off from the people. The mage said, "You are not as smart as you think." I looked up with anger and tried hard to gather my strength back but it was blocked by seven men. The mage laughed at me now. He pulled my chain and I almost stumbled. Tertius rushed in and yanked my chain out of the man's hands and then the young man fell to his knees in pain. I had been controlling my own shield and moved it out and it seemed to help. Tertius got to his feet but he now had my chain. The mage gave me a look of sheer hate but did not reach for my chain again. We went through a narrow corridor but now the guards stayed away with only two pushing all of us through. They used typical Roman efficiency because they were not with the detail that had felt Woden's touch. The corridor was long because of the arena's size. I estimated the time to be around nine o'clock and it seemed that the party was just beginning. There were perhaps thirty thousand people here. They were packed much tighter than even a football game. As I climbed the remaining steps I saw Constantius with more of the Praetorian guards. The mages preceded me and the head mage was whispering to Constantius about what had happened and what the conditions now were. Constantius was indeed worried about his continued good health. There was a wild cheer as the crowd saw me. Tertius dutifully waved for me. The girls came into view and they too waved when I could not. I tried to reach for the crowd but the mages were far too strong now. Constantius sneered and said, "I heard you tried to escape." "I could have killed all the guards and three of your mages but I found this impolite when you invited me here so nicely." "We will see how well you feel about joking." Constantius gave an order to a man and he called out in a great voice that the followers of Woden were heretics and were to die. He listed the reasons based on the current state religion. The last thing he said was that those that chose to, could be blessed by the clergy before they died. It didn't look like there were any takers though there was a lot of crying to be heard. When the speaker left to one side I could see better into the arena. There was no wall before me though there was in other areas. In fact there was a ramp from the Imperial Box to the sand of the arena. It looked like there was perhaps a thousand people there and I saw hundreds of crosses standing upright. The mage was now arguing with Constantius but Constantius was having nothing of this. He gripped his chair and said, "Be quiet or join them. We can always use more martyrs." "But why? Our blessed saviour died on the cross and it has not been used in years." "If I have to used it on a few then they will not stand out. They will only be five of many." "The Wodenists will make him a martyr too." "They will not if he let's his people die. If he is really just a magician, like you, then we can deal with his power. We have to show him for what he really is. Woden will not help him save his people and the people will suffer for days before dying." "I do not mind that he dies. I just do not like the symbol of the cross being used again." "I made you pope and I can unmake you in a second. You control the people for me or I will get somebody else to do this." They did not know that I could hear all this. The made-up pope meant that the mage had to be Felix II who was also called the antipope by most. I only knew from current events who this man was and the fact that in my time he was given the term 'antipope' because of the way he treated people. The previous pope had been deposed. He come back with Constantius permission to share the seat of power but the people would not have any of this. Felix had to run for his life. Constantius had me brought to him. He smiled when he looked at my wrists. "I see you had a little accident." "I heard it was because you were afraid of a man in fetters that was in your dungeon and surrounded by hundreds of your best men." Constantius' face clouded and I figured he would order me executed immediately but he wanted something first. "You are dangerous." "You have seven mages to protect you too." "They protect me from the likes of people like you. Now we came here to witness some executions and I think you should get a good look." He ordered his men to take me to the top of the ramp and then descend a few metres so we would not be in the way of the spectacle that Constantius intended for his people. The doomed people below surged around to see me but there were more than enough soldiers to keep them away. I whispered to Tertius, "Keep the guards away from me for a moment." He just nodded. With my arms tight to me I used my shoulder to knock the man holding my chain down the ramp. Tertius got between us and I called out, "My people, Woden is watching this from Asgard. When he can take no more he will destroy our enemies. He..." I was knocked in turn by the soldiers as they pulled on the chain that sent more pain through me. When I was on the ground the soldiers put the boots to me and to Tertius. The three girls attacked too but there was little they could do against the men. It was Constantius that ordered this to stop but he let it continue for a few minutes first. The soldiers took a particular interest in kicking my head and I could not see out of my left eye when I was pulled up. My other eye saw that many of those in the arena were fighting the armed soldiers to get to me but they died by the hundreds. I wanted this to stop but dying by crucification was a hideous death. Again Constantius gave orders and the side of the gladius was used and people were less likely to get killed though I saw a few bodies with a legion's uniform on. It was a long time before the situation quieted and I had to have two brawny men support me. The mages were close because they knew this would give me more power. My left eye was toast again and I could feel the liquid on my face and chest. Tertius was knocked unconscious but he too was being held as if he could see. The soldiers took some of the unconscious Wodenists and supported them while long nails were driven through their hands and feet. Four people were nailed to some crosses and even children that looked to be infants were nailed too. I reached out as hard as I could to stop this but I could not gather enough strength to fight the mages. It was a gruesome sight but I found that the people viewing this were not cheering actually many were crying at what they saw. I was dragged back up the incline and held in front of Constantius. He said, "You can stop all of this." With a very damaged mouth I mumbled, "So can you." "Give me what I want and I will stop this." "You would turn this world into the Christian hell with that power. I have something else for you but it is not what you wish." "Perhaps I have another way." His hands flashed as he looked at certain people and they ran off at his unspoken commands. Five minutes later some sweating men brought over a large block of wood supported by two stout poles. It was covered in dried blood and had the marks of an ax in the top. Constantius said to me, "I know you are just a magician. I am going to take the life of one of your women to let you know that I am serious." "I know you are serious but I will give you death if I possibly can. You were lucky at Antioch and I wished that you had suffered like your men did." Constantius started to turn red and came off his seat and close to me but I noticed it was not until after he looked at Felix. My chain had been released and Constantius reached to grasp it. I pretended to cower which made the man smile until I used the support the guards gave me. I raised both of my feet and struck Constantius in the face with all my might. The man was lucky because I hit is shoulder and his face. I did not break his neck like I tried. Nobody said a word but the men holding me started to beat me even harder than they had on the ramp. I was not allowed to fall this time and they beat my ribs and I felt them break even though my bones were stronger than anybody else's. I heard the people in the arena start to fight once more and I just stayed as I was kicked and kicked some more. Now was the time to retreat as I did before and I worked to repair the damage that was still ongoing. It was only when new damage stopped occurring that I came back to the surface. Pain was held back as best that I could but much of it leaked through. I had not been this hurt since the Gauls did their number on me. I was still alive though. My hearing was poor in one ear and almost nonexistent in another. My right eye only allowed a red tinged and blurry image. I saw a pail of water coming at me and just let it hit. I was pulled up but I could not stand. I could vaguely see KhAvar being dragged to the block and held in place by two strong men. Somebody was screaming and I saw MehrAk break free of her captor and attack Constantius with her bare hands. Constantius went berserk now and beat the girl with his fists and feet. I tried to move but nothing worked. Men were called and the now unconscious woman was taken to the block. KhAvar had not been executed yet but MehrAk was put in her place. Constantius was screaming orders and the headsman prepared to do his job. At the time I was not rational but I tired much harder to get at the man or at least yell but I could not because my jaw was broken and most of my teeth were gone. The ax came up and suddenly all of the noise in the arena ceased. Perhaps it was just me. I needed all of my faculties and released my hold on my shield so I could use all of my concentration on saving MehrAk. I grasped the bodies of the men holding me and clawed at the wall the mages had put up. The ax came down but it looked to go so slow. I saw the small cracks in the mental wall and now drove all of my power into an area where two blocks joined. Felix yelled I think and I was attacked physically once more but I continued to push my way through the barrier. I think it was MehrAk's head falling to the platform that gave me the strength to finally push through the block. I felt those around me and I gathered their strength like the desperate man I was. The more power I took the more I gathered. First it was those in the Imperial Box but I reached out to get all the surviving Wodenists. This brought a measure of calmness. There were many more people and I expanded quickly to absorb the bodies of all those in the stands. I had never held this much power before and now I had to use it. MehrAk was near but I could not interface with her well but she was still alive or her brain was. I grasped me with her mind and seemed to say, "I love you," before she slowly faded away as if in sleep. Anger, vengeance, and many more emotions fuelled my unstable mind. My flaming ego came out. It didn't matter now because it was not needed. I saw the two swords on its back. I do not know how I did it but I pushed the power I had gathered from thirty thousand people and pushed it into this creation. I could see now because I demanded this. I was perhaps four metres off the ground. When I brought my arm up I saw that it was flaming but I felt no heat. If I was in my avatar, I would have my swords on my back. I reached up effortlessly and brought both of them out. For a moment I looked at MehrAk's body and then at her head that had rolled metre away. Thankfully the face was away from me. I looked at the man with the ax and surprisingly he was looking up at me with fright. With a snarl I moved forward with my katana removed his own head. Blood fountained upward just like it must have for MehrAk. The men that held MehrAk were next and I yelled all my anger as my swords cleaved them into small bits. I turned to see my girls and found them free. I ran at the men that threatened them. I slew them as if I was harvesting wheat. The mages started to flee as did Constantius. Arrows came at me and went through with no damage. I snarled at the archers and took off after the fleeing mages. My sword caught one after another. Felix, I did not kill but sent pain to him and chased the last two. One ran down a corridor and I could not follow so I turned to look for Constantius. He was gone too but I knew he was down a corridor and around two bends now and temporarily out of my reach. There was nobody in the Imperial box that was alive apart from KhAvar, Patricia, Tertius and a screaming Felix. The archers had fled. They were safe at least for now and I ran down the ramp in two strides and used my swords on the soldiers that had been crucifying my people. Few chose to fight but I spared none of them. When I finished, I looked around for other enemies and saw very few people. I held my swords aloft and bellowed my rage at the death of MehrAk and my mind seemed to go further around a bend. I had little reasoning power but I didn't go out into the city to kill but dropped my swords and looked at my women. Only KhAvar was conscious and I felt inside her body and fed her all the power she could take to heal. Patricia and then Tertius were next. When I knew they were safe I looked at my own body. It was still alive but just. I fed power into the body and accelerated the healing. I do not know how I did it but the bones realigned and fused if only partially. All this was done in just a few seconds. The knitting would not be strong though. More reasoning returned in a small portions as I remembered the crucified people and the ones that were not yet nailed to a cross but still wounded. I moved through the wounded and sent the healing to them but it was done massively in some cases because they were very near death. At the crosses, I pulled out the nails that were driven through the people and healed them before putting them on the ground. As I progressed I found I was getting weaker and when I looked into the stands I saw that most of the people had left. I could continue with those that stayed. Each person took only a few seconds but I was hours working on the people. When all those that were still alive and could be helped were done, I walked back to the box. Patricia and KhAvar were cradling my body. Tertius had a sword in his hand but it was pointed down. I needed a safe place for them and could think of only one. I could not remain in my present guise. I retrieved my swords and started to hack a passage through the stone to the street. The sword cut everything without effort and I regretted not hacking my way to Constantius. When the last wall was breached I returned and slashed a few beams that stuck out. In a few seconds I looked down at myself and three people that looked like infants. I had to concentrate for a moment the said in what I hoped was a reasoning voice. "We are going to a place to recover. I will pick up Jón and you will come into my arms. Do you understand?" I got no verbal reply but the three nodded dumbly to me. I picked my body up and the three climbed into my arms. I said, "Tertius, climb on my shoulder." He scrambled to comply and I stood like a father of four thin two-year-olds. I took a final look at MehrAk and wished that I had been just a minute sooner at gaining what I now had. I had no trouble holding them and I hurried to the Palace. The forty five minute trip now took three. At the main gate I put everybody down and then took the swords. Instead of using brute force, I used my katana to cut through the stone around the gate so that I could get in with a burden without stooping. All I had to do was then push and the cut portion fell loudly to the ground inside. I also wanted to show my power though it was starting to fade. Guards were all around. Most fled but not all. They didn't antagonise me by fighting. I roared so that all may hear, "The people with me are under my protection. If they come to harm your empire will suffer the same way they do." Stepping out once more I picked up my body and walked slowly with it toward where Constantius would stay. Just outside the palace, I put the body on the ground and then stood. "Constantius is not the Augustus anymore. I say that Julian will make a much better ruler." I backed away and sent more healing to the four then after a moment I did so to the rest of the city though it was hard to do. At the end, I slowly raised their endorphin levels then lowered them again. I released my hold on those that gave me the power a little at a time and I noticed that my viewpoint got lower and lower. When it was almost gone I was looking up into the worried face of Patricia. ------- Mages ------- Chapter 1 I went back to hide in my old existence. I worked to repair the damage to my body as the rest of my mind dealt with the automatic functions. I thought of MehrAk most of all. She was part of my family even if it was because KhAvar brought her in. I ventured out when I completed each stage of the healing. My hearing was still poor. I could not see out of one healing eye and the other was not much better. Thankfully I was now able to mumble to the girls that I was healing. The girls and Tertius talked to me during my healing. They understood that I could not answer very well. There had been a lot of death. Many of Tertius' family had died as well as the servants. There had been a lot of guards but not enough for the number of attackers. There was a limited supply of stingers and they had been all used to keep them from falling into enemy hands. Julian and Lucius had not been near when the attack came. Licinia had been hurt and may now be dead. Not much was known because the attackers made a hasty retreat with their captives. Patricia was the most damaged mentally and I hoped that she could recover. She had reverted again to her seeing me as her master once more. KhAvar was little better. She cried much of the time and I guessed that this was because of the death of MehrAk. Tertius eagerly told me that Constantius had died. Apparently there were enough Wodenists in the city to take him down along with the remnants of the Praetorian guard. Bodies could not stay around for long and MehrAk was cremated along with the dead Wodenists. Sermons were going on around the clock now and I could do little to stop this. The city in a way demanded this. There was a religious frenzy now and very few people were not ardent Wodenists. I heard that those that were not, were not persecuted. People were being scrupulous in how the words in the books were treated. I had tried to close all the loopholes but I knew that in time some would be found and abused. In four days I was up or at least sitting up in bed. My body was healing much quicker than it ever had before. Patricia and KhAvar let people come to see me but they didn't like it. I treated a few people that needed further treatment. These were the people that were in the arena and had suffered too extensive injuries to heal completely on their own. The visitors wanted to bow or kneel and I again had to correct them on the proper protocol. I was polite and even sounded meek as I said this so as to not hurt feelings. The Augustus demanded some of this and he was just a man while I was the Hand. I was very well guarded now but none of them wore Praetorian armour. I had to go to a balcony window to wave to them much like the popes did in Rome. The courtyard was always crowded now and the noise was loud even if they tried to be quiet. I performed another sermon and gathered the people to me but I could not call forth the avatar. I could handle more people now and my range was greater but that was it. Mithridates and Lazeez returned and were admitted by KhAvar. With them was the mage Klement but I did not see him as a threat even though he was near me. Mithridates said, "Jón tell me the name of the god that came down to rescue you?" I had found a way to explain this even though I did not understand it myself. "Aldúlfr helped me. Thor is too strong and would have killed too many. I think Woden must have sent Aldúlfr because he is companionate. " "Companionate? I heard he was very angry." "I think he was too. Anger gives strength too." "I believe that this is the first time the people have seen a god. It is talked about before but it is always one person that is supposed to have seen him. It could be almost thought of as the dreams of a fanatic. This time it was different." "Is the city frightened?" "They were at the time but not now. Those that left feared for their lives but now regret leaving." To get off this subject I asked, "What have you been doing while all this was going on?" "We went to Perinthus. We worked with the true believers there and found a mage you sent." I looked at Klement and he took this for a request for information. "I had been given the descriptions of your two friends. When I found them, I told them everything I knew. They accepted me into their group. You told me to stay in Perinthus but I heard that you were victorious. I was asked by Mithridates to accompany them here." "That is ok. Felix had one more mage with him that escaped Aldúlfr. Will you see if you can find him? I need some questions answered. I am not going to have him punished." "I heard of the man but he's dead. The people did not like him for who he worked for." "Are you safe?" "Now I am. Your wife, KhAvar, has introduced me to the people of the city." I tried to keep the surprise out of my voice but I saw KhAvar turn red and look at the floor. Patricia was beside her and she did the same thing. At least one woman was not trying to exclude the other. Lazeez had to get in, "We did our best for our god but why did you leave me in that house here in the city for so long?" "What was the problem? I thought it was the best place for you." "It was good. When my money ran out I..." "I gave you lots of gold. What happened to it?" "Well... I bought things for the girls and they got me to buy more. When I had no more they told me I had to leave... unless I did things for them." "What things, Lazeez?" "I... I had... to use my tongue on them." "What's wrong with that?" "A man does not do that sort of thing. They worked to teach me how I was wrong. The lessons almost killed me. There were a great many women. I had to please all of them." "Ah... so you were pleased by a lot of women and then to pay them back, you pleased them in return?" "They were pleased some of the time before. They wanted it all the time later." He got closer and whispered, "When my jaw and tongue got too sore they had me lay on my back and they did things to me. When that part got too sore they turned me over and used one of their toys on me. They treated me like a piece of meat at the market." Mithridates and even Klement smiled but didn't break down and laugh. I said, "Lazeez, I think they were just training you like a soldier does. A few more months of that and you would be in demand by most of the ladies in the city. Soon the entire empire would want to try you out." "I would die long before that. I want to chase women. I don't want them chasing me." This time I laughed and my jaw hurt. It took a while before I got control of myself and said, "I am sorry Lazeez. You got what you always wanted and found that it was too much for you." Lazeez looked so pitiful I almost laughed again. My own love affaires were not going so well. Patricia was acting funny but the fact was that I had to heal again. My own testicles had to be rebuilt. Like my bones, muscles and reflexes, I worked here for a few improvements. I wanted to space out my own joy so I would stay excited longer. This also meant that I had to work at producing more. When the time came I could fill both KhAvar and Patricia many more times to our enjoyment. Messages were sent all over and I usurped the courier service now for my own uses. The letters just gave the current news and the fact that I would not be more than a month in Constantinople. Some of the messages went to Sapor. I wanted to meet with him. Battles were still fought between Persians and Romans which meant that men were dying for nothing. I knew that Sapor was not always the aggressor nor was he the leader of the fighting. The Persian empire was just too large to be adequately governed which was the same as the Roman empire. Nine days after the fight I was able to walk on my own two feet. The people in the courtyard came and went but the numbers stayed almost constant. The portal I had made was roped off now and the people saw it as a holy relic because the sword cleaved the stone to a polished sheen. There were some people under the wall but nobody wanted to move it to get the bodies out. I ordered the broken portion broken into smaller portions and given to everybody in the city. This still left a bit which I saved for those that would like a piece. Lazeez was ready to sell the pieces for an aureus each. He was the son of a trader and could not help himself sometimes. I still had my own gold and recovered what I had. There was some good land that I could build a temple on. This area suffered from earthquakes all the time so any building had to be built strong. I did not have the technology necessary to put a building up on giant springs like what was done in Japan. Tertius was kicked out and told to build something. He took Lazeez with him. The two had become friends especially after Tertius made some favourable comments about the art that Lazeez showed him. I just hoped that Tertius would not come home complaining of a sore dick the way Lazeez did. Tertius was not that old but he should know enough to not get led astray with Lazeez's art, stories or actions. When I felt strong enough I gave my own sermons. They were held to capacity crowds in the arena. The damage I had done to the wall had not been repaired but the crosses were now gone. I heard that all the nails that I had removed were now holy relics and stashed away by souvenir hunters. The ends were all squashed by the force used to grasp them. The service was long because it was the first after Aldúlfr was shown to the people. I stressed about how we had to treat the other religions with respect. A lot of people had taken up the new belief without understanding even a fraction of it. The excesses were mentioned and what I felt about them. I was sure that there were some worried people in the audience. Because Aldúlfr was taking most of the blame I had to talk about him and mentioned in more detail that was not in my books. He was my patron in a way to the land of the gods. I talked about him with love and respect. I tried to make him out as an average god that just got pissed off at a very fallible human population. Healings did not tire me out as much because I seemed to be able to gather strength from the audience. A long line of the sick or hurt came by. They were carried in someone's arms or on a litter. In a Pavlovian experiment, I bestowed the blessing of Woden but kept it away from those that were near the platform. I hoped that those that came here for this joy would learn to stay further back and thus give me room to work. That night I wanted to check out my own equipment. I figured I was healed enough for the test. Patricia seemed happy but I got the feeling that she thought it was her duty. I got her to change into simple clothing and took her and KhAvar down to the courtyard after whispering a request to a servant. I held the hand of each of the women I loved and said, "We have something to do first." They didn't even ask questions. As we walked through the halls people stopped and bowed their heads and I had to tell them it was ok to just nod and continue with what they were doing. For some it was hard to change since they had to do much more when the Augustus lived here. It had occurred to me that the girls may also be reluctant to push themselves on me because they had been raped by the people that captured them. I had to show them that this did not matter to me and there was only one good method. We left through the kitchen which I do not think any Augustus had ever visited. When we were just inside an outside door I said to Patricia, "Patricia, do you remember how you acted when we were in Lutetia?" Patricia was quick to answer but still answered sombrely, "I remember..." She would have said my lord or some other term. "It is good that you recall that." I pulled them both out onto the paving stones and looked around. I found two wooden buckets filled with water where I had asked them to be put. I tried not to draw attention to them but I positioned both girls where I wanted and said, "Both of you, close your eyes." The were like lambs coming to the slaughter and I picked up a bucket and held both the rim and the bottom and threw the cool water at both women. When the cool water hit, they opened their eyes quickly. I put down the bucket and hurried to the other bucket. By the time I came back the girls had moved and I started to chase them. Somehow they reacted like I wanted and ran. I chased them until they started to split up and tried to hit both with at least some of the remaining water. With me unarmed so to speak, they stopped and returned with a serious look on their damp features. KhAvar said, "Why did you do that?" I turned to Patricia and asked, "Will you tell her the whole story, starting with the way you acted before and after?" "I was... acting in a way that Jón did not approve of. He..." "Tell her the way you acted." "I... I acted... like a servant, I guess." "Tell her more," I said. "I... guess I pulled away from Jón. I was worried that such an important man would not want the bastard daughter..." "Patricia! Never mention that again. It hurts you and it hurt me when you feel pain. Tell me how many people that are married with Woden's blessing?" "Many people... Jón." "In the world not just those we know." "I think very few then." "Then almost every child could be seen as a bastard then." "But the parents were married." "They were not married according to Woden therefore almost every person alive is a bastard." Patricia hung her head. "I said before, that you were pulling yourself away from me. You are doing the same thing again. Do you want to slowly pull away until you think you could leave me without hurting me too much?" "No! Never." "You may not mean to but you are doing the same thing again. I am a man. The only difference is that Woden has chosen me to help him. I do not want people bowing to me and I do not want the women I love to be servants." Patricia looked at the ground and I turned on KhAvar and said, "You were taking your cues from Patricia. She was wrong. I want both of you to love me like women not whores that are obligated because they are paid." "I would never do that." "Would you go to bed with me so we can have some fun and make love or for an obligation to a man that serves your god?" "Well... it may be a bit of both." "I do not want both. I want you to love me for being me." "I do love you. You know that." "I do but you have to treat me like a man." I looked at both women and said, "I avoided the commitment of marriage for a few reasons. My body was young but my mind was old enough to make commitments. I did not think I would change, and in a way I have not. I wanted to leave enough time for both of you to see what you were getting into. It looks like my love for two women may not allow me to marry just one of you. We can still have something like a marriage but I have to avoid the words wife and husband. Our religion only allows one woman to each man. I cannot flout that law." Patricia said, "You could still have me any way you want." "I want you as a hot blooded woman. You have been through a lot but will you love me as a man?" Patricia put on a sorrowful face and ran to me. She pulled me too her and I looked at KhAvar and held out an arm for her. She ran to me and we hugged. We walked tightly together back through the kitchen. People from all over were watching us but I did not care. I stopped momentarily to sit the girls down while I went looking for a snack. I figured I needed all the energy I could get tonight. Later in our rooms I took off the wet clothes a piece at a time from one woman then from another. To help out my cause, I stirred them up with my mind. Soon they were more than eager to jump me. It took only a finger to slide through each of their creases to set them off. They held me and each other as they shook. I got them to lay on the bed and I licked one then the other and the orgasms came close together. In a way to bind the two I put KhAvar on top or Patricia and I licked them one after the other and used my hands on both at the same time. They shook and held each other. I stood awkwardly and slipped into Patricia for a few strokes then into KhAvar for a few more. I went back and forth until I emptied into KhAvar. They had so many orgasms that they did not know about me. I was still hard and began again and again until the needle on the gauge read close to empty. The girls were turned around and then placed in a sixty nine position. KhAvar was used to girl/girl sex so I worked on Patricia to make sure she did her share. She had done this before but it was something she had to get used to once more. I allowed the girls to sleep but after a few hours I woke them up for more love. The stimulation never ended even in sleep and the girls clung to each other all the time if they were not holding me. I sawed slowly into KhAvar's anus as she ate Patricia. Later it was the other way around. They didn't have many rational thoughts but I would rather they now see me as a man than the Hand. We woke up around noon. I had to heal myself a few times and the girls too. The bed was sticky but none of us cared. It just took a touch to Patricia's thigh and she parted her legs. I rolled over and slipped in once more. After a few strokes I said, "Have you decided whether to be a hot blooded woman or a servant of the Hand?" I bent over and sucked on one of her nipples and nibbled it just a bit. "Ohhhhh yes. Do that." After a few more thrusts I pulled away from her breast and said, "Woman or servant?" "Oh, I will be your woman." "What about my other mate? Will you love her like I do?" "Anything!" I pushed a few more times and said, "Patricia." When she opened her eyes she breathed out a deep, "Yes?" because she was close to her orgasm. "Will you lick her pussy as she licks your's?" Before she could answer I added, "You will have her as a mate too. You have to keep her happy." She unexpectedly smiled and said, "We will keep each other very happy." "Then I will make you happy now." I pushed faster and she just pulled me to her and said, "Oh, yes!" Patricia had been stimulated by more than my body and her orgasm was very intense. My own orgasm was protracted and I pushed forcefully into her as I filled her womb. KhAvar was waiting for her good morning fuck and I did not disappoint her. I asked her the same questions and she was less reluctant to commit herself to Patricia. "I will make your other woman wail and thrash till the guards think she is being murdered." "Now I want to hear what you sound like when you are being murdered." Her screams were more than satisfactory and I unloaded myself into this woman too. My equipment passed the test. I had two sated women and I was feeling good with myself and what was happening. I washed up with a basin of water and left to find breakfast. I again ate in the kitchen and talked to the staff. They were getting over this and answered my simple questions easily and even asked me a few. I returned with a large tray of food for the girls. I hoped that this would be enough to keep them occupied until tonight. Later that afternoon a messenger came to me. I could see he wanted to bow or kneel but did neither. I said, "Hello, what have you brought for me?" "My lord, the Persians have sent an emissary to see you." "Afrasiab?" "Yes, my lord." "Tell him to come right in." "You are not going to have him wait?" "That is a game that I do not want to play now." Afrasiab and four of his men came in. They were guards but I did not care and invited all of them to sit. Afrasiab had to order them to sit with us. I poured some wine and took a sip then raised my goblet. "To peace and prosperity for all." Afrasiab was not used to this but caught on quickly. I said, "You came very quickly, Afrasiab. Were you able to talk to Sapor recently?" "I have indeed spoken to my king. We have heard of the god that walked among men and slew them with his mighty swords." "Aldúlfr was angry at what was happening." "I heard that the entire city saw him. He was taller that two tall men. His body was of fire but not hot." "Yes, all the people that were crowded into the arena did. There was too much death on both sides." I hung my head and said, "We lost MehrAk and it will be years before we get over most of it." "It is always hard when someone you love dies." I went over the story and started with the girls getting kidnapped. I said how magic was used to find them. I regretted not sending them to be with Sapor in the first place but he was a busy man. They were my family though and I should be the one to protect them. AsA had wrote to her daughter but stayed away so as not to attract attention to the village. The story was long and I poured more wine for my visitors. Afrasiab said, "I heard that you lost an eye and you were very near death." "I think I was too. Aldúlfr started the healing process and then carried me here. Having a god come out on the side of Julian and me is pretty good protection, I think." "I think so to. When do you expect Julian to arrive?" "Tertius says that he should be on the Enterprise and sailing here now if he is not coming down the Danube. I do not know for sure but the attack would draw him. He could also come with his legion and that means he goes overland. I wish I knew when he was coming too." "One ship for the Augustus? Is it safe? He should stay with his legion I think." "I hope it's safe. I think Tertius' father, Lucius, will come too along with Clovis. They mounted a few cannons on the deck I hear. It's possible that the ship will just come to support Julian." "Did Julian come to fight Constantius? I heard of the conflicts on the Danube." "He probably did but he is too late to deal with his cousin. The people of the city actually did him in. I would if they had not." "That saves you an embarrassment." "Killing people that need it is not that difficult anymore. It is the innocents that die that hurt." "We heard that KhAvar was injured." "She was and so was Patricia and Tertius." "I have heard that you killed some of those men that had hurt them simply by using your mind." "That is true but I was given the power by Woden." I could hide behind technicalities just like any other religion could. "KhAvar's mother would like to see her." I smiled and said, "Did AsA come here with you?" "Yes, she did." "You should have brought her in with you." "I am not used to talking with the women around. They interfere and gossip. It is hard to keep a secret." "Afrasiab, men gossip as much as women. Where is AsA now?" "On our ship." "Let's go for a walk." "A walk?" "I do not get enough exercise. If I walk I also get to see the people close up and they see me. They feel good about this and I do too. If you walk with me then you are seen as a friend that I am showing the city to. You present yourself as a man that likes the common people." "The common people are dirty, ignorant and dangerous." "They are dirty and ignorant but I am changing that. All men are dangerous and being near them helps them feel less threatened and less likely to fight." I sent a servant to ask the girls to come here dressed with good shoes. The girls were introduced to Afrasiab and Patricia for the first time. Patricia whispered to me, "Where are we going?" "To the dock. My friend Afrasiab has brought me something." "You want us to walk there and back?" "There is no danger. I need the exercise. You need the exercise and I will enjoy the company." I wore my two swords and my k-bar but no other weapon. Our progress to the docks was slow because I stopped many times to have a chat for a minute or so and introduce Afrasiab to the people. The girls stayed together but I got them separated enough to tell Patricia, "KhAvar's mother is on the ship." She looked at me seriously and I smiled widely. Patricia then had a small smile herself but I figured she was not prepared for this type of meeting. We found a market where the people sold everything imaginable. I purchased some flowers and had the girls carry four bunches after I offered them one each. I was sure KhAvar's mind was working, wondering what the other two bouquets were for. To compensate, I got her involved with speaking to the people we met. It took much longer to get to the ship. Afrasiab did not look pissed at this and in fact looked a bit complacent. It was when we got close to the ship that KhAvar spotted AsA and left us at a run. We all slowed down to let the girl have some time with her mother before we got there. Patricia got close and held my hand. We started again only when KhAvar stopped to look for us. We came on board and I saw that AsA had some women with her. Mehrnoosh and HidA, the two women with rheumatism accompanied her. I got close to AsA and kissed her like a son-in-law and said in Pahlavi, "Hello, Mother." The term I used could mean mother-in-law. "I am happy that you have come to visit us. You even brought two charming teachers with you to educate the heathens." AsA looked at me then at her daughter. KhAvar blushed and hung her head but only a little. "Are you going to keep my daughter?" "Only if she will stay with me." I turned to Patricia and said in Latin, "This is my other mate, Patricia." I turned to Patricia and said, "This is AsA, KhAvar's mother." Patricia did the right thing and moved close and hugged the woman like she was her mother-in-law too. Patricia said, "I am glad to meet you. I only learned of your arrival a few minutes ago. A cruel man did not tell one of the women he loves that her mother had arrived." AsA hugged Patricia this time and then pulled her daughter into the hug. She said in poor Latin, "Men are cruel that way. It is part of the burden all women must pay." She spoke in Latin and it was fairly good now. "We will get back at him by giving him some of the smellier children, the boys." "Are you?" "No, he is waiting yet." AsA looked at her daughter and again KhAvar put her eyes down but shook her head no. AsA said, "He has done a lot of harm to us women already." I said, "How did I do that, Mother?" AsA looked at me and said, "You healed some women that thought themselves safe in their old age. They now have a big belly." I avoided the jab by saying, "I took no woman when I was with you, though some looked interesting." I said the last as I looked at the two other women. Mehrnoosh and HidA were tough women but they both blushed and hung their heads and I guess part of that was their guilty conscience. The girls carried their flowers and I took KhAvar's other bouquet and gave it to AsA and said, "This I brought for you." I got a nice smile and she smelt the flowers and then thanked me. I took Patricia's other bouquet and split it in two and handed half to Mehrnoosh and half to HidA. "I am sorry that I did not get you a full bouquet but I did not know that you had come." Mehrnoosh was the one that was more outgoing and said, "Men are like that but some are nice." I was then thanked by both woman and they pulled me to them for a kiss like I was their son. After a short chat I said, "I took over Julian's home. Will you all come with me? We can visit for a while and we can talk about wars and babies." This seemed to interest everybody and I added after seeing Mehrnoosh and HidA. "I can get a carriage." Mehrnoosh said with a haute look. "We are quite capable of walking like you have done. You can send a carriage for our property if you wish." "How is your rheumatism?" Mehrnoosh showed me her hands and they were not distorted any more. The skin had even lost most of its wrinkles though the women were only in their early fifties. I reached out and held both hands to me and looked closer. They were both fair for their age and I got their bodies to work harder. I sent a small surge through them and pulled back. When they recovered I said, "Mehrnoosh, how did you get pregnant?" The woman was very surprised. Her eyes opened wide and the other women looked at her. When I laughed out loud she understood and said, "You are the father, so you should know." I stopped very abruptly. I wondered how this could happen. It was my turn to worry until I saw the woman laugh at me. The others caught on eventually and they joined in laughing with Mehrnoosh. Afrasiab picked up a few things and we walked back to the palace. We went by a different route so we would meet new people. AsA was not familiar with mixing with the lower classes but she had her daughter on one hand and Patricia on the other. I held hands with Mehrnoosh and HidA. I healed people on the return trip and managed to add another half bouquet to each of their flowers. The two women knew some Latin and I got them to use it. Some of the Persian natives got Pahlavi as the medium we conversed in. When we got to the palace, I did not let the servants find rooms but let the girls do it. This allowed them to show off the palace as if they owned it. Afrasiab whispered to me, "Will you tell me more of the reasons we walked and not rode?" I looked at him and said, "I am a simple man. The leaders should be accessible to the people. Julian is a simple man too and I am trying to start a precedent. If I had my way, your king would talk to the people and hear their problems and their joys. Sapor is well loved and this would not be difficult though there are crazy people everywhere." "My king already talks to the people." "Can they talk to him without kneeling?" "That is our custom." "The act of kneeling separates man from king. A bow may be enough and then the man may speak plainly to his king." "That is not our way." "I am just trying to remove barriers so that people can communicate." "How can a king communicate with all his subjects. He can only speak to a few and then proclamations sent out." "I talked to Sapor about that. I can harness the power of lightning. This is called electricity. This power can be used to send the voice of your king to everybody in his empire or to the entire world. All a man needs is some wire and a crystal to hear the words. I would think that he would then talk to the people as if they are friends that are sitting on a cushion in his home." "I can talk to him about this." "I have already. This sort of talk is friendly and the people see Sapor as a father. A father worries about his children and nurtures them. This is where the kneeling gets in the way. The people need to treat him as a just and kind father that deserves a lot of respect." "My people are not like that. We have a long tradition and our ways work well." "I agree with you but traditions change. They do not have to be like night and day but just some small alterations that over time will grow. The common man will gain wealth and the rich will gain even more. This change is in the interest of everybody." For the next few days I showed off the Persians but then put them to work. Afrasiab had to explain to the Romans why Sapor was doing what he had and then the Romans had to explain away what they had done. I was just an interested party or perhaps a referee. All the atrocities were explained away as the soldiers just doing what soldiers did. Afrasiab was quick to explain that his people were now capturing more Romans to teach instead of being slaves. He also pointed out that a country had to know another country to be friends. He said, "The Romans we nursed back to health were not sold as slaves but taught our children how to speak your language. Our people are trying to understand Romans but the Romans feel that they are too superior to learn our customs or our language." Sextus Aquilinus was one of the senators that came to this meeting. He kept smiling at me but I ignored him. He fought Afrasiab's assertions in what I felt was a greasy way. He sat on the fence on some and brushed off the other comments that made Rome look bad. He said, "Perhaps the Hand of Woden will back me up on what I have said?" "Do not drag me into your arguments. Rome and Persia are guilty of many crimes. There is much that they have to atone for. Both sides have to say how they are improving matters not how the facts do not apply. Rome and Parthian empire have common enemies and common interests." The arguing went on but Afrasiab was up to standing up for his people though he was alone. AsA, Mehrnoosh, HidA, KhAvar and Patricia went out with some guards to teach some of the children about Persian society. The arena was almost considered our property the way we used it. The idea was to produce some plays that showed some of the better points of Persian society. This would take weeks but it gave the women something constructive to do that would dovetail with what I was trying to do with the leaders of the city. Tertius took me seriously when I asked him to build. The wind was good along the Bosporus which meant it was good for flying kites. Lazeez and Tertius built a large kite. Silk was more readily available here and they built the biggest kite they could. Lazeez painted a picture of a flaming man on the silk but only after asking me if he could. They had to take their kites outside the walls and then they had to have Mithridates come with them because they were picked up off their feet by the gusts of wind. It was lucky that they had gloves and a stout wood spool to wind the silk line on. The kite showed a fair image of what I had envisioned in my mind and I complimented Lazeez on its likeness. He had not seen the figure but must have talked to those that did. I had been on hand when Tertius was lifted off the ground for almost five seconds. There were thousands of people viewing this and when the day was done I told everybody that Tertius was actually the first man to fly. The young man was incredulous and so was Lazeez because he was the second though his flight was twice as long. Tertius paid me back all the money I had given him for the silk. "You don't have to give this back. It was a gift." "You said that each operation has to show a profit. I am just showing you that I am doing this the way it should be." "How did you make the money?" "Lazeez and I sold the first kite and we made enough money to make a lot more smaller units. Lazeez sells them for six times their cost, but eight times if he paints a picture of Aldúlfr on them." I could see another reason for Lazeez wanting permission. It was not just so that he would not offend Aldúlfr, but to pave the way for his business. "Who can afford them? The cost of materials may be cheaper here but it is still high." "There are more than enough wealthy people. We have orders for more and we are running out of silk. Lazeez paints Antioch and even pictures of girls but they are not like his other pictures." "You mean they have clothes on?" "Yes, have you seen them all?" "At one time I did but he had a lot of chances to paint more." "He sells them too. He makes lots of money. We are thinking of hiring people to paint the same pictures for us. Antioch sells very well and so does the image of Aldúlfr. You don't think he minds, do you?" "It would be nice to keep the images special but your way will allow more people to see." "That makes me feel better. We are going to make gliders now." I quickly said, "How big?" "Don't worry. They may hold a small dog. You told us about the Sputnik and this is what we are going to call the class after it proves itself in tests." "I am not happy with animals being hurt. Do no tests with animals until I see the craft. Some rich fool will put his child in such a craft so the family name can become more famous." "But you said I was the first?" "The first to get held aloft but you went nowhere. The first person to fly a hundred metres will be famous. The first person to fly across the Bosporus will be famous and the first person to do greater distances will be famous too. It will not end, even when somebody is the first into space, then the first to go around the world and then the first to step upon the moon." "You said the Wright brothers just flew a short distance and did not go very high. We could do that too and stay just a metre off the ground." "Do this if you want. I want a flight school but flight is dangerous. You can build but there will be no manned flights until I get to inspect the craft first. You better keep records too. Anything not true in them and you will go back to safer pursuits." Afrasiab was a scrapper but most of the senators protected their position. The talks were public so they had to appear to want peace but in reality they only wanted gold and power. One night Sextus Aquilinus came to me and asked for an audience. I had the request altered to a meeting. The man came in and he looked slipperier than usual. There was a lot of flattery and then he asked, "When can we conclude our deal that we talked about before Constantius died?" I had not let on that I knew of the man's underhandedness. We still needed people to do shipping for me and for themselves. This time I tried hard to submerge the feelings of hate. I would give him what I promised but there were a lot of ways to ensure that he made less money than he hoped. "We are not on the Rhine. The design of the ship is not made yet." "We can make a contract now so that details are not forgotten." "I am the one with the good memory. Tell me about the company you formed with the other senators?" "A contract is important. People will only invest if they know what they are getting." "You write out a list of what I was going to do. Put in what you were going to do. I will look at it for errors." "That is not good enough. We need your word on certain arrangements." "I gave my word. Now give me the list." Sextus gave the list verbally and I had to correct his wording on many occasions. When he had the points clear enough I said, "I have some other business to discuss with other men. Send your list over when it's done. I do not want the document to sound like a lawyer made it. Make it simple and describe each point that was promised." ------- Chapter 2 Sextus Aquilinus had the document ready the next day and it was full of errors. All of the errors seemed to favour Sextus though. On new papyrus I wrote out, in detail, what I would do. Some were done for no charge and some were at cost. I was very explicit in that I was the one that was to determine what the cost really was. This too was written down. The ships I drew up were large to the Romans but had a limited tonnage. I could use barges when working in inland waters and turn a better profit. I also wanted to improve ports, shipyards, and rivers. Canals and locks had to be made as did hydro electric projects. If Sextus wanted to use the canals I built then he would have to pay the going rate. There were so many ways to get back at him and all of them were not only legal but ethical. When I handed the eight page document I said, "This is in my writing. I would be angry if any of it was altered. I would like to talk to your investors when it is convenient for all of you." Sextus went over the document and I could see that he was angry but held it in. I asked, "Is there something that I said that was not written in the document? Was there something that was not as I originally said it?" "I do not remember all the things that I have to pay for." "I remember them well. I am not a Roman. I say my words simply and clearly. You were to support Julian. The gods, as you know, want Julian as your Augustus. What you can offer me is very limited but I want all of it. You may try to get favours for your support when you speak to Julian but remember that you have nothing to offer. You have already sold your support to me. A ship takes a long time to build. If you cannot complete your side of the agreement then I am not under any compulsion to do what I have stated I would." "Julian is the Augustus already." "And he will need your continued support. That is the same way you need my continued support." "Why do you speak like this? Are we not friends?" "We are businessmen. If you want to say we are friends then we are friends the same way you are friends with the other senators." "They are my friends, Jón." "Your definition of a friend is different from mine. Think of me as a person you have business with. In the long run we will both be happier that way." It was difficult to get Sextus out but he did go. I made it abundantly clear that I did not like the man but he did not know what I knew about him yet. Later that day AsA and I had a private chat. She said, "What is it that you do to my daughter? No woman could be made that happy." "I have healed myself. I am stronger and quicker than any other man. Men are not usually concerned if their lover is pleased or not. I do care. My body has changed in this regard too so that I can last longer than any other man. Lastly, your daughter and Patricia know that I love them. Having sex is fun for us but usually we make love which is not the same." "KhAvar says that she gets so excited when you are around that... that she responds very quickly." "That can be learned. If your daughter or Patricia see me then we make love they will soon feel the urge by just seeing me. This is a well understood fact from my time." "No woman could get that excited." "I love your daughter and she loves me. I would not hurt her and I do not think she would harm me." "She says that you may want other women." "Mother, my body is young. Even when I am old I know that I can keep my mates happy. I am on a quest to bring the entire world together. To do that I have to travel and meet people. Taking a woman that will be a wife in all but the name is a way of cementing relations." Asa said, "You have two women that are closely related to two powerful empires. Is that how you will bring the people together?" "Patricia I loved because of the woman she is. She is the illegitimate daughter of Julian. She would not be in line to inherit other than a gift of gold. I would want her if she were a poor man's daughter. I found KhAvar in the home of a pirate. I was asked to see what I could do to help her when asked by a caring older woman. I fell in love with the girl that was sent off with a dowery and had the misfortune to loose the gift and be taken captive. She just happens to be a young Persian woman." I looked at her and she finally said, "I do not believe that you knew of her family. You seem honest enough, though you still hide things." I replied, "We all have something we can hide. You are no different." "What do you know?" she said quickly. "I now know that you have a deep dark secret. I do not know what it is and frankly it is your business, not mine. I was just saying that we all have actions and feelings we want to keep hidden." "So you are going off to find a wife in India and one in China?" "No, I am not. I will go to both places. I may find a woman that will be interested in me. If she is good enough, I will bring her home so she can enter my family. I will learn from her and she will teach Patricia and KhAvar about her race. They will teach her about the Persians and the Romans. It is also true that I may find nobody that will be good enough." "You make it sound like this is disagreeable." "It is far from disagreeable. I have the capacity to love more than one woman and I have the body that can make love to them all too. The women will come to me one way or another. Whether they stay with us or not will have to be decided yet." "I figured that the gods would be involved. They may have had a hand in KhAvar finding you." "They might. Look at the great prizes I found. I had to do a great deal to gain their love and keep them safe." AsA left the room a short time after. I had to attribute her talk to trying to find the best for her daughter. Sharing with Patricia was bad enough but now she understood the reasons for more. She may also think that I was holding her daughter through the use of magic but the only magic I really used was love. The conditioning with sex may be something I would have to reduce but it did make our lovemaking much more stimulating. Later that afternoon, Klement came to me and whispered, "Did you know that KhAvar's mother and the other two women can work magic?" This surprised me but then a few pieces of information fell into place. It was quite possible. Those that could really do magic were rare. Klement had said that he thought that only one in ten thousand had the ability and only some of those could develop to be a mage. The person had to then realise that he or she had a small ability then they had to have a mind that would allow it to grow. AsA or Sapor may have gathered those he found to be with him or they may have come to Sapor of their own volition. The fact that they were here now could mean a lot. AsA would be my mother-in-law but that did not mean that she would love me. I liked and admired all of the women but they could still have their own agendas. I heard from Klement that there were occasions where people were swayed by magic or they died quite abruptly. This led me back to Sapor. The man may make a play for a large portion of the Roman empire since so many legions were dead and an new Augustus was taking the reins soon. Sapor was known to have used magic himself but all the mages were weak and male. "I did not know, Klement. Your words sound very true to me now that you pointed this out." "Are you safe?" I smiled and said, "I think so. Don't mention what you told me to anybody else for the moment. I get the feeling that this is not a good thing for a Persian woman to be delving into. You and I are going to have to talk more about magic. People of my time did not believe in magic and that may have been the reason it didn't work very well." "The mages may just have kept their abilities hidden." "That could be the case. Magic can be a great tool but it has to be understood and controlled. I do not want a person running around like I have done and making large waves in people's lives." "I guess you have been doing that. Most of the things you have done are good. I don't think I could... kill as many people as you have." "It is not easy either. When a man is pushed, he does what he has to do. By the way Klement, do you have a job to do?" "I have been helping Mithridates sometimes." "I need to understand magic. Will you help me find out about the subject and write the information down?" "I will if you ask but I am not good at writing. There is not much to write because they are done by feel." "Then list what you have heard that mages could do. List what you can do too so we can study this. The information you write will be very valuable." "I will do that if you wish." An hour later I found HidA when she was by herself and I walked up to her with a smile. "Hello, HidA. May we talk for a moment?" "I don't see why not. You are being formal all of a sudden. Is there something wrong?" "Something may be very right. Klement was one of the mages that tried to capture me. I captured him instead and got him to leave the city so I would not have to kill him." "That was a good but mages are dangerous." "They may be but he says that you are a mage too." "Me?" "Yes, you. AsA and Mehrnoosh are too. I think you were trying to hide this for some reason. I want to learn about magic. The quickest way I think is to have a tutor. Will you teach me what you know?" "I cannot teach you this." "Why not?" "It... it is not done. It is not good to be known that you can perform magic." "Klement and I know. I am trying to learn magic. I want to do it my way where we do experiments and measure the results. Will you help me?" "I cannot. People will know." "You, Mehrnoosh, AsA, Klement and I will do this. Nobody will know but us. It is easy to just talk and do some experiments." "You are very strong in your power. Why do you need us?" "When I came back from the land of the gods, I had the ability to heal myself. I was not told about this and I had to learn on my own. I still do not know much. That is why I want to learn." "You would get too much power. You..." "Yes, I could go crazy with the power. That is why we need an organisation that will police those that use magic. You could be one of those." "But... I am a woman." "You know my views on women. They are just as capable as men though not always in the same way. Your talent may make you stronger." I paused and it took HidA a few minutes to say, "I will have to discuss this with the others." "I hope you do. I gave Klement the job of listing what a magician could do and then another list of what he can do. He is going to investigate for me and I would like all of you to help." HidA was a little more contemplative now and said with less worry, "I will mention that." That night I was resting between my ladies when I heard a knock at the door. The girls were quite sated and didn't even know that I was getting up. I went to a small reception room. The man that usually relayed messages for the Augustus and now me stood at attention. He still wanted to bow and then spew paragraphs of flowery phrases but was learning to do without. "My lord, a messenger from the Augustus is here." "Send him in." "Do you wish to dress?" "It is a soldier and if it isn't then he has to take me the way I am." "Yes... my lord." The messenger came in with four other men. He was tired and dirty but had taken some time to get himself cleaned. "My lord, Julian..." When the titles were over I knew that Julian was in the port of Constanta because he had just left the Danube. He had three legions with him this time but there was little to fight. I asked questions and they were answered quickly as if the man knew the questions ahead of time. I also read the letter Julian sent me. He seemed quite pleased that he had to fight so little and could not wait to catch up on all the interesting events he missed while fighting a civil war. I got the men a place to wash up then a bed. My girls and I were going to be evicted from the suite and we would have to find another room for ourselves. More sleep was out of the question though I had little so far. There was a lot to get in order and little time to do it. I picked out a good guest room for us but it was nowhere as large or flashy. The cooks and the cleaners could sleep until five but they too would have to get up early and start to prepare. When I went to wake up my ladies, I was pulled into bed but it took a moment until they found out that I had clothes on. Patricia said, "You going to take those off? We need you." "I would love to but your father will be here today." "When!" "Around noon give or take a few hours. He still has an army to quarter." "I have so much to do." "Let's start by moving our things down the hall. This bed does not belong to us." We looked at KhAvar and she looked a bit apprehensive. Patricia said, "You do not have to worry. It's my father." It was something she knew very well but still did not feel complacent with. "But he is the Augustus." "This is not the affairs of state. This is family. We have to get this place cleaned out. We have to clean the new room and they we have to clean ourselves. I want to fix my hair and yours too. Maybe we can get our nails done if there is time." "You said he was family." "He is but we still have to look good. Let's go." The city and the palace were in an uproar. Everybody wanted to make a good impression on the new Augustus. Meals had to be prepared but this time I made sure the more exotic dishes were not made. Julian did not like this sort of food. Laundry, sweeping, cleaning and the gathering of flowers became major operations. I did what I could for the girls and even worked on painting their toenails. The two talked over my head about this being a proper job for me. I simpered like a slave and they kept up the act. The girls were excited and watched from the walls. The boats were not seen by eleven. I pulled them from AsA and Afrasiab long enough to quiet them down without spoiling their hair, nails or clothing. We came back in forty-five minutes and AsA looked closely at each of the girls. They were more serine now and I too felt better. "You did a good job Jón. I wish you were around when I was a girl." "There are still some good men out there. You just have to find them and then train them." "Did you really paint their toes?" "Yes I did. Everybody was busy but I like doing nice things for my family." "Yes, yes I think you do." I was the first to see the masts in the distance. There were a lot of them and they were all coming from the north. The curvature of the earth said that for every hundred metres the masts would raise on centimetre. I made a guess at the mast size and told them my estimate. I had time to take the girls back for the second stage in relaxation. The population was out in force and lined the cleaned roads that led to the palace. I had to fight the senators to get to the front of the line even after I said that Patricia belonged there as his daughter. I pulled KhAvar with us along with her mother and friends. A boat load of guards got off first then came Julian and his higher echelon officers. The guard passed our position and then stopped. Julian came to us and Patricia had to break ranks and cry as she hugged her father. She recovered fairly quickly because Roman women were supposed to be stronger than that and a public display like that was unseemly. Julian kissed his daughter though and helped her get back beside me. I looked for one steam driven vessel but I did not see it. There were some important people on that ship too. I said, "Welcome to Constantinople Flavius Claudius Julianus, Augustus of the Roman people." "Welcome to you too, Jón." He turned to smile at his daughter then at KhAvar and said, "Is this your other woman, KhAvar?" "Yes she is. She wants to show you her painted toes that I spent all morning colouring." Julian backed up and looked at the ground and said, "You did a good job Jón." "Thank you. The girls thought I could make a living doing this for the ladies." "Maybe you could. Who are these other lovely ladies beside you? You are not taking more women are you?" "No, I have no time for that. I want you to meet AsA. She is KhAvar's mother." I then introduced the two older women then Afrasiab as the Persian emissary. This took but a moment and Julian pulled us with him as he walked down the line of senators and their families. It took a long time to get to the palace even with some chariots readied for him. I saw him look far above the walls and see a lot of kites. Most of them had a flaming figure painted on them. He had seen kites before but never this large. The procession did not end at the gates. Julian now had to greet those that were within the walls. He came in the opening in the wall that I made with the sword. He looked up at the perfectly cut stone for minutes but neither said nor asked anything. After a long time, Julian and his officers were free of the crowds. He looked tired and I just led him to his suite and pointed to a hot bath. It was ready and he smiled at me in appreciation. We gave him some time to recover and relax because the next few days would be hectic. Some of the more comely female slaves that had bathed Constantius, now bathed the new Augustus. His own guards still had to be in attendance because high ranking figures still died when they let their guard down. Tertius had pulled in his kites and anxiously said, "Where is my father? I thought he would be with... the Augustus." "I did not have time to ask but your father is not a high ranking officer. We will just have to wait." "Do you think he was hurt?" I put my hand on the young man that was actually a bit taller than me. "He is all right. I asked about him last night." He smiled for a second then his face clouded and a tear came to his eye. He said, "They may have killed my mother." "Your mother was very healthy. If there was a chance then she would recover." Patricia was nearby and put her arm around the boy not much younger than she was and said, "Trust in Woden. He may have needed her in Asgard but he may have wanted her here too." I didn't like this sort of platitude. Promising something that could not be given and no way for somebody to know the truth. This was also part and parcel of the way a religion operated. It did give solace to those that needed it and a way for a grieving person to think that there was some plan in the leaving of a loved one. The meal was still lavish. I had to be the one that set out the seating. The senators could not be snubbed even though some of them were traitors to their country. My family, Asa and Afrasiab would sit near Julian but at different table. This would show that I was not as important but I had a plan. We would converse loud enough for everybody to hear and this would be our way of letting the senators know how weak their position really was. Julian emerged from his room looking good and I told him of my plan. He did not like it. "You should eat beside me to show people that I think the most of you." "We can do that at later times but my father and Lucius should be honoured too." During the meal some people came into the room and I excused myself and went over to greet them. Tertius came with me because he had seen one of the guests. I welcomed Clovis first and some of his men. With them were Lucius, and some of his men. Tertius greeted them too and did so in German for Clovis' benefit. I counted heads and said, "I saved room so you could eat with us." When we were sated, Julian started to tell some of the stories of his campaign. At various points he would stop and get somebody else to speak about this particular facet. The men also talked about how well Julian fought but this was the Roman way of doing things. Clovis was introduced and he had to talk about his part in the fighting. I found that a great many men had picked the Patricia up and dragged her across the land and put her into the waters that fed the Danube. A narrow barge was constructed though some of it was prefabbed. This was the actual fighting portion because it carried many barrels of powder, shot and shells along with a multitude of cannon. The barge sat low in the water because we had two ballast tanks that allowed it to be extra stable when fighting. There were only a few times it was used because news of its ability spread quickly and it was hard to fight against it. Attack craft sent against it were cut to shreds. Land based attack could only be large rocks, flaming oil or large heavy spears thrown by siege machines. Clovis spoke from his feet so all could hear which is the way most Germans spoke when talking of fighting. "After the first battle we had nothing to do. The Augustus sent calvary ahead of us and any time there was a trap we got word of it first and used mortars on them. If we have another campaign like this I am going to ride a horse so I can get in on the fighting. I never got scratched and I don't think my armour got touched." Lucius was the captain of the Patricia. He had to speak too. "I at least did not have to wear armour. I was in a room with glass walls. In the narrow sections of the river we used the telescopes and got our share and more of Constantius' men but all at a distance. I too would like to ride a horse in battle but I think we did more harm to the enemy than a thousand calvary. No city opposed us though one town was held by Constantius' supporters. My good friend Clovis spoke to them with his cannon and they opened the doors to us." One of Clovis men said, "Yes, because we put a hole in their wall fifty paces wide." The mutual admiration society was in full swing but usually Julian was the target and he enjoyed this. I was brought into the discussion many times but I tried to get the talk put off until tomorrow. One war was enough for one meal. The meal never really ended though most of the food was taken away. The provocations for the war were then given sadly. Lucius spoke of the deaths of his sons and even daughters. I was relieved to hear that Licinia was still alive though scarred. Her left hand had to be amputated. Many of my extended family had died or been wounded because they had risen up to fight the Romans. Some of my property was destroyed because the Romans were after booty. Anything that was iron that was not nailed down was taken. Usually it was dropped later as they were pursued. I had thought that the Romans had only come to raid but the numbers showed that they were planning on staying. It was the fact that our people were so well armed that tipped the balance. Julian usually liked his wine but today he drank in moderation. We left to find a smaller venue. When he could get rid of more of his guests he called for me. I brought my people and family with me because they had lots to say too. Julian asked me, "What happened in Antioch, Jón?" "I was preparing to fight the legion and made some new explosives." I turned to Clovis and said, "The type I used was more powerful than your powder. I made tonnes of it and spread it around the city so that the attackers would set it off without me being there. Because of this battle, I had tried my hardest to evacuate the city. Some people are just too hard headed to leave and hid when I sent people out to remove them. "When the legion came, the soldiers tried hard to find me and found all of the families that didn't want to leave along with the slaves and servants of the rich. They were held in that arena for questioning. The general asked them about my whereabouts and they could not answer. I was actually hiding under the seats at the time. The general got angry because he could not catch me. I had inflicted a lot of casualties on his men. He took out his anger on the innocents." I had paused and Julian asked, "What happened then?" "Woden spoke to me and demanded that I leave the city. He too was not pleased with the slaughter of innocents. I climbed the mountain and started to descend the other side of the plateau when Thor's hammer fell. Even at that distance I had to hold onto a tree or be flung about. Rock fell from the sky a long time and it was good that I had my armour on. "I staggered back to Antioch and saw a ring of flames extending far from the city. The city itself was flattened. I heard that Constantius was caught in this but he was saved by being under water when the shockwave and then the flames came his way. As it was, almost all of his guards died." Julian asked questions for a few minutes but I could see that he already had reports. "Tell me about Aldúlfr?" "Constantius used mages to find KhAvar, MehrAk. He then tried to find me with them. Constantius had made the head mage, Felix, the pope for political reasons. He was the strongest mage I have met. My people were being crucified, MehrAk was murdered and KhAvar was next. I had been severely beaten and lost an eye and had many broken bones. I had found a way to fight and it involved my ability to heal. The mages kept me from using this weapon. "Aldúlfr came to me then when he was needed most. He destroyed my enemies. Aldúlfr took us to the palace and told everybody that you were his choice for Augustus." Julian thought for a moment and asked, "My cousin?" "Your cousin escaped when Aldúlfr appeared. It was the crowd that found him and his guards." Julian said, "You will have to tell me the details later." "The details will take weeks to tell you. I was thinking of writing a book on what has been done here." "You can make books very quickly. Your fame should spread." "It is not my fame that I want," I lied. "The story of Woden and his help for mankind is what I am trying to write." Notoriety was beneficial to promote my causes. Clovis was quiet seeing that he was but a king. He said to me, "We brought some copies of your third book with us. There are not too many because you said you want to check them first with some others." "Thank you, Father." I was cross-examined by almost all of the newcomers until all of the details came out about my trip down the Danube and my efforts to drum up support for Julian. The run-in with the pirates was known but the details were sketchy. Mithridates was not here so I had to talk about the attack myself. I tried to keep the specifics to myself because I had not finished with some of the pirates yet or their Roman masters. The discussion about Sapor was brought in next and I talked about my time with him. I was not ashamed to say that I gave some stingers to the king but they were not many. As soon as I could I introduced AsA once more and let her talk. It did not take long for her to get used to her audience. She talked at length about how I appeared from the Persian perspective. She mentioned that I was a disturbing influence but that over a period of time I showed them that I was not there to harm their people but to help them. Afrasiab was then asked to say what he knew. He said what he believed his king felt and what he was commanded to say and do. He put a good coating on it when he talked about how Sapor was not disposing of the Roman slaves, but getting them to tutor the Persian youth. Julian asked him, "What are the peace terms you were mentioning earlier?" "Armenia will be a test of friendship for the Roman and the Parthian Empires. Taxes and public works will be administered by a group composed of people elected by the Roman and the Parthian people. Rome may not demand military levies from this land but neither may my king. If this works out then we will look at a closer cooperation with the Roman Empire." "What about trade and commerce?" "They are free to trade but there will be port taxes the same as Rome now has but the gold will be used to improve the ports." "Jón," Julian said, "what do you think of this?" "I am one of those that helped draught this plan. It gets Rome out of the war without losing face. The same is true of the Persians. The mountains to the north and east will be a natural barrier to the Huns. I have mentioned before that the Huns will carve out an empire larger than the Persians and some of this will come from those lands now controlled by the Romans and the Persians. Much of what is now called Germania will fall to the Huns too. When the time comes, I think that the three of you should band together against a common enemy and restrict them to lands in the east." "Armenia is a rich province and we will lose a lot of taxes." "So will the Persian Empire. The gold will still be collected but it will now go to the people of that region. In time the province will be very rich. At the same time trade will flourish. King Sapor will build some ships to travel east. They will bring back the spices that Romans enjoy. The quantity will be so much that the price will fall. Persia will be the middlemen now but do so in a way to get much of the trade that goes in that direction." "What about all the silk? That is worth a great deal by itself." "That is true but the gold is going to come back as they purchase what the Roman Empire will produce. This is our iron products that you have the right to sell in all of Italy. Ships, trains and track are going to be in great demand. Everybody will need fertiliser and machinery. Persia will get a portion of this but it will be many years until they will be able to make their own. I added, "I have figures to support my ideas. If they are in error then a calculation can come into play that will even it out again. There will be pain as we change from an agrarian economy to one of manufacturing as well as one based on the efforts of freemen over slaves. We may even be alive to see this happen before our eyes. All it takes is some men of good will and a lot of education for the masses." Julian and I had talked about this before and so had Lucius. It had even been a prominent topic of my talks before I came down the Danube. Clovis had heard this too but not to any great detail. The same was true of the Persians. It was the Roman officers that did not understand and I had to go step by step to show them what had to happen. They were hesitant to talk until Julian gave them permission to argue with me. The tentative treaty was forgotten as I explained how the future would change for the better. We broke for sleep but the next day I had to explain economics to a larger group of officers. It was only after the noon meal that I had a chance to sit down and talk to Clovis and Lucius. Clovis said, "You are not my only son anymore." I had to smile. "You just had a daughter. How does Astrid feel about you poking her all the time?" "She is there when she is fertile and waiting. I could not ask for a better wife unless it was your mother." "What about Dagmar?" "It seems that Egill's two older brothers suddenly died. People suspected Dagmar's hand in this until Egill was almost killed. His younger brother wanted the thrown badly." "So Dagmar is to marry Egill and be queen?" "That is what it looks like. No dates are set. Arnaldr and I are a little nervous. He wants a strong ruler for his people but he may find it in your sister instead of his son." "A good man usually has a good woman behind him to push him along." Clovis said, "Your school has been built. Men from your other home came to teach. They fumble around a lot but the children learn. Some of your sisters are there too." "What about security?" "The Gauls have not left. They now farm the land around the school and sell their produce to the school. Gnaeus Scipio Magnus is managing the area very well. Julian gave him a letter telling him that he has to stay with us and do his duty in protecting the school and in following your orders." I asked, "Nobody bothering your borders?" "They are coming all the time and from every land you could name. They want to have me as their leader and gather some of the great wealth we have started to accumulate. They pledge their allegiance to me and there is little I can do. Some may chase them away but you promised jobs for them and farms that had bountiful crops. They also want to be with me because of you." "What do the priests say?" "The old ways are changing. They are not as your Wodenists but they are close. Fidelis and the Picts have changed too. One minute they were talking about Jupiter and the next Woden and Thor. When they hear of Antioch and now Aldúlfr coming to this city... well they will forget Jupiter I think." I said, "I guess I will have to go home and begin making fertiliser." I turned to Julian and said, "We need trains. We can begin laying track across the empire. What kind of deal can I get?" "You said that in your time the builders got ten square miles of land for each mile of track laid." "That is enough for the flat sections but we need roads across swamps, bridges across rivers and valleys. Finally we need to climb the mountains or go through them. The cost of doing the last will be far more than I would make shipping whatever I had." "What is fair?" "Ten for flat, fifteen to twenty to do difficult areas and thirty to navigate the mountains or when we make bridges. I will be the judge of the rate but you get to question me. You also get to see my books. They will show the true cost of laying track. One of the things I have to have is a valley on the lower Rhine. It has a lot of farms but there is coal and iron there. I need all of the valley but it will take hundreds of years before I mine it all." "What of the farmers?" "They stay and work while I work beside them. I purchase their animals and produce and their sons will work in the mines." "They will not want to work in the mines." "My mines will be safe and fairly healthy. I will pay a fair wage and people will be begging to work in this area." "If you say so but I will save my opinion until I see your mines. A god comes to your bidding but men freely working in a mine, that I have to see." Later that day I took those that had not seen the Patricia down to the dock. The ship was well guarded by a mixed crew of Romans and Germans. The Germans were far more prominent though. Lucius took us out of the harbour with a great many people onboard. Mithridates, Lazeez and Tertius were with us. An old ship was towed out as a target. Clovis went through the orders to sink the enemy ship. The three German crews worked faultlessly as did the one Roman crew. When the guns fired one after another I thought I would have no problem with fertiliser because there was that smell in the air. The ship was blown apart and sunk within seconds. Small islands were attacked and any tree was soon knocked down. The muzzles were elevated and it was easy to see that the shot went more than three miles. Some new long guns that I had not made were mounted and they shot much further at about four and a half miles but were not as accurate. The old six English mile limit was the range of the larger costal guns. When we pulled into the shore we found that most of the city was there to greet us. I had just finished talking about the guns on a battleship and what they were capable of. Tertius and Lazeez had erections and I knew it was because of a new toy they desperately wanted. Messages were sent out to Sapor to talk. I suggested my unfinished home at Berytus. I put an addendum to the document so that Sapor would know that I had been part of the draughting of this document. In the meantime, I had a second kick at the can to make refined sugar. Lime was readily available and so was the crop of sugar cane. The process was simple but the tools I had to work with were poor to nonexistent. Without too much metal I thought of making stone rollers. This would take a week because I would have to make a lathe to turn them. A framework had to be constructed to hold the three tonne rollers and yet be adjustable. This would take the time of at least five carpenters. The drum would support a mule that would be used to turn the rolls. I used a labour intensive method of beating the stocks with wooden mallets and then putting all this in large iron tubs that I had to nearly make by myself. Sapor was not to be found yet so I continued with my experiment. The lime attached itself to the portion of the sugar that I did not want. Carbon dioxide had to be peculate through this solution to precipitate the impurities and form calcium carbonate similar to the original limestone. I put a lot of useless steps in because everything I did was going to be copied and I wanted them thoroughly confused. Mithridates helped by bringing gold. We used it as if we were going to electroplate it. We worked hard as if this was something important that was difficult for us to do. It was another four weeks that I had my sugar. My sugar was not white but sticky and light brown. This was stored in barrels to keep the moisture away but some was processed further. This refined produced some white granulated sugar that I had used in my previous life. The grains were larger but the taste was the same. This secondary processing, made a lot of molasses and this was all stored in barrels too. The cane still had a lot of sugar in it so I set this to fermenting in water to await my still if and when I was able to make it. A type of wine was already made from the cane so it was easy to find others to take care of this chore for me. There was surplus cane that I bought but could not process right away. This had to be treated later. Others had to do this job and I let Mithridates take over the task. He liked the term white gold. "How much of this sugar do you plan on producing?" "I want all I can get. We will make a lot of money on this but the farmers have to cultivate more cane and then we have to take it all or they will not have anybody to sell to." "They have always sold cane." "There is nobody else that will take what we can process. The land here is warm and I could produce sugar almost all year long if there was some cooperation between the farmers and the only processor. This way the plant would not remain idle very long if I did not find a way of preserving the crop. This would allow a good time to have maintenance on the equipment." "Do you want me to stay here all the time?" I put my hand on his shoulder. "This is a very important job. I want you to learn how to do this as well as you can. It may take three or four years. I want you to train others too. Some will take over when you are on vacation. They will eventually take over full time and I will have something better for you." "One of those ships we took?" "Something much better I think." I got a big smile. Cooking became a hobby again especially since I had sodium bicarbonate or baking soda. Pancakes with a topping of molasses was a favourite of everybody too. Cinnamon was very expensive but I used it lavishly because I loved the spice. A great many other people did too. The raw sugar was used here as a test and it tasted almost as good as the refined variety. Julian put down his third cinnamon bun carefully and sipped the coffee that I had prepared. He said, "How can anybody afford to make these delicious treats?" "They are expensive now but when I bring back a hundred tonnes of the bark then the price will drop." "If it did then more people would purchase it." "Exactly. And then I would be able to sell five hundred tonnes at a cheaper price. You have the franchise to handle "Woden's Own" and the "Thor's Hammer" product lines. I will give you another business but it will soon be copied." "What is it?" "A bakery that serves some of the foods I have made. It has to be large. I will sell you the machines at cost that will produce flour. You can then mix in the other ingredients and bake whatever you want. This gets shipped all through a large city and if another city is close then it is shipped there too. You will have to find a cheep source of coffee beans and tea leaves. Those beverages will be very popular. In the front of the bakery is a place that groups of people will sit. They will both eat their favourite treats and drink their favourite beverage." "I can see this working but the profit will not be great." "You will be the only one that has this franchise in Italy. It is like the sugar. If the price is low enough then more people will purchase from you. You will be able to sell to more then and the small amount of profit will be multiplied by the number of customers." "That may work. You mentioned something like this before. It had to do with your iron products." "It was called the economies of scale. If you make enough of something then the cost will diminish. This could mean more profits but competition will make a company reduce their prices so they sell their products." "Who would compete against me? You said I had the franchise." "A trader may go to Gaul and purchase a dozen stoves and take them to Italy to sell. If he buys a dozen from me he gets a cheaper price. You will still sell so many that it will not matter. Your trouble will be in getting the heavy iron shipped to your outlets at a reasonable cost." "Your ships and trains?" "Ships first. Trains work well but they will take a long time to lay enough track." "Then you should start building now." "We need a contract that spells everything out." "I trust you Jón." "I trust you too. Your people have to have the benefits that taxes bring. You have to have recruits to fill your army. Land ownership involves both of those ideas. I cannot find the people to fill your army and I need all my money to build. When I am established I can pay more taxes and support your army much more but it may be with weapons." "I had thought about that." "There are other concerns too. What happens if I have to lay track across lands already owned by another person? What if that man is a senator? The senator may get rich by setting up a station on his property where a train could pick up his produce and take it to market far faster than he could before. He may also fight me and say that it is his land and that I may not cross it. This may be a ploy to get more money or just a way to obstruct me." "I have the right to expropriate." "That is just one of the articles that has to be written into the contract." There was a lot of commotion just at this time. One of the guards admitted a messenger and the man got to one knee with a bowed head. Julian asked, "What is it?" "There is a very large ship coming into port. We think it is the one you asked us to report." Julian turned to me and said, "We better check. The ship was to be here long before this." We were down in the harbour twenty minutes before the Enterprise pulled into the dock. Rufus threw the rope and I caught it and tied it to the bollard as did two others. The ropes grew very taught then slackened off. I took up the slack and in a moment I was able to tie the ship securely in place. The gangplank had to be lowered a considerable distance because the ship was probably the largest that ever docked here. I saw openings for cannon just above the deck and some smaller cannon mounts in the fore and aft sections. Rufus came down first with a smile for me but he knelt before Julian. He just bowed his head and said nothing. Julian said, "What kept you Rufus? Stand up so we can talk." Rufus stood and I guess the tone of voice assured him. "I ran aground. The sea is not charted very well. I am sorry that I am late." "Tell us what happened?" Rufus went into detail and then brought us to the bow to show us the patch. The locals may have known about underwater hazards but not the rest. I would have to rig up some sonar and find all the shoals and have them placed on a map. Julian said, "What about the cargo?" "It is fairly safe now but the salt water damaged it some." I said, "You must have been going pretty fast to hole the ship." "Oh, I was. I lost three men. Two others need your care. We were not going as fast as we could. The wind was not right and it was not strong. If we were then I think we would have destroyed the rock and sunk right there." The rigging I had designed was brought out and the hatches over the holds were lifted off. Julian waited impatiently to see the crates lifted out then set on the dock. Rufus had a manifest and I looked through it. It was mostly armour, steel weapons and saddles. There were heavy duty wheels and parts to make many more. The majority of the wooden parts were to be made on location. These were to mount the cannon and the supply wagons devoted to the artillery. There was tonnes of black powder but it was kept safe and was sealed adequately even on a sea voyage. Somehow I had a few of the items I needed along with the war materiel. There was a lathe, a mill and three small steam engines. There was also the makings of an electric generator. There were a lot of tooling here and actually enough to start making what I needed. Rufus directed the removal of the cargo but the powder he was very carful of. Julian put this on the nearby barge for safe keeping. Lazeez and Tertius were here and watched what was being taken out. Tertius asked, "What did you get?" "Here is the manifest. We got enough to start here to make what we need. You interested in starting another cupola? We start small and make the parts we need then we go very big as we make the rest of the parts. I want to make a lot of sheet steel." "Is that where you use those giant rolls?" "Yes, so we have to make some steel posts to support the rolls and the bearings, just like what we have to do when we make the rails. The only way that will be different is that the rollers to make the rails are going to seem like toys that infants would play with." "How big are the rolls going to be?" I used my outstretched arms to show him that they would be a metre and a half in diameter and then I showed him how they were going to be almost three metres long though the ends were only a metre in diameter. "I estimated that this would weigh forty tonnes each and there had to be two. The babbitt bearings at each end would each weigh ten tonnes. Smaller rollers that would actually touch the hot metal would only weight about eight to ten tonnes but they would wear out quickly and need to be replaced constantly. This meant a large machine shop to make new rolls and also refurbish the old. "The rolls I wanted had to be picked up and carried to where they could be worked on. At the same time the steel had to go through not one set of rolls but many. The steel had to be drawn and stretched or it would go sideways and past the rollers. A pair of thick wheels on each side of the sheet of hot metal would shear the edge but I was positive that they may have to be replaced hourly because I did not have the metallurgy necessary to produce the best steel." I said seriously, "This was not a job that I could set up and let a boy work on it. This mill would take years to build and decades more to grow. I would have to train a lot of people to do these jobs and I have no idea how to do it. The best way is to make a mill to produce ingots. They work years to make a mountain of iron." "Do you want me to do that?" "We can set this up but you are one of my better engineers. You are going to have to go back home and make the machines we need. They will be shipped here. We will then use the raw iron and make the parts we need. The mill will not be here but in Persia where the iron is." "But..." "We will not be at war with them. The two economies will be married in so many ways that one cannot live without the other." "Will I have to stay here then?" "Tertius, you are free to do as you wish. I offer you a job and a way to learn that nobody else since the world began has been offered. It would be impossible to replace you but there are many more young men that are very thirsty to gather knowledge." Tertius hurriedly said, "I did not mean that I would quit. I just wanted to see more of the world." "You have all of your life before you. There will be many more factories to build and machines to fill them with. I can move you around every few years until you tire of it and want to settle in one place." The Enterprise was emptied so we could check on the repairs. We had no dry dock so we pulled her ashore and then slid her up the beach on logs. People came from all around to see the keel that was made of so much iron. There was some beams that we salvaged from a wreck but they went into the Enterprise as part of her hull. Instead of flipping the ship a trench was dug beneath her and two more portions of the hull were replaced. As soon as the Enterprise was done we had all kinds of help pushing her back into the water. A pit had been dug in the sand out in the water so that the keel could fit in it or the ship would have flooded with water when it was brought in to be repaired. When more of the iron ballast was put back in Rufus inspected the ship as if it were his child. When Rufus gave his ok, I took my family and friends onto the ship. Julian had already rode the ship before it originally set off and begged off on account of commitments that he had to do. There was no conflict with Mithridates because he had never been on a ship like this before. He did have good knowledge of where dangerous waters may be. Afrasiab wanted to stay with Julian but the Augustus said to him, "You should go. No ship was ever faster or carried so much cargo. If I were not the Augustus, I would make one just like it and sail around the world and visit all of the lands I heard about." We sailed east in the Black Sea and stopped at a few ports and bought all the cane they had to spare. That night Patricia and KhAvar slept with me in the owner's cabin but we tried to be quiet. The next day it drizzled but not badly. This reminded me of plastics and rubber once more. I heard Mithridates talking to Rufus about our time with the pirates and I think they were looking to find some action, especially since we had our cannon back. Many ships came near but I think it was just to see us. The women and the boys waved to the people and I think that KhAvar felt very safe from pirates when on this ship. We conducted more business but left the port of one city in mid afternoon. The wind was favourable from our port quarter. No ship could tack as good as the Enterprise. The deck sloped but not much. It was especially nice when the sun went down and I held my two women close to me. We sailed through the night because Mithridates said the bottom was quite deep here and in the direction we were travelling. The girls just put on jackets and wrapped themselves in blankets though the night was not really cool. The joy was in being together. ------- Chapter 3 Mithridates conducted business after he learned what I was doing. We traded molasses and got cane. We also got very favourable terms. We bought other products too if they were cheap because our holds were empty and would stay nearly that way because of their volume. Lazeez and Tertius would take a stab at being middlemen because they would get a chance to do some trading. I was after old brass or bronze armour. This area was still worried about the Persians so there was little to be had. There was rough bronze and copper to be had though and I traded molasses to get this if there was enough. The takers were sceptical about the black substance but Lazeez had a large sweet tooth so he would gladly show them that it was not poisonous even if he got sick at the frequency of the tests. Like the Patricia, we had a large galley and a very good stove. It even had the metal rail around it to keep the pots from sliding off. Tertius had not seen the need when I told him of this when they were made but now did. We had been stopped in every port by the Romans but our papers from Julian got us all the help I could ask for. They could do no more when they found out who I was. Our holds were far from full when we returned. Rufus had asked about pirates but there were few here and none would take on a ship of our size even without cannons. Everybody got lessons in ship handling. AsA and her two friends were no exceptions. They got some of the harder jobs but they also got to take the wheel and give orders to the rest of us. Usually they were clustered together with Klement and I hope they were not antagonising the man. He looked worn out after dealing with them. When we returned to Constantinople, we found a messenger waiting with a note from Julian. It said simply that Sapor was ready to talk. The cargo was hurriedly unloaded. The Enterprise could carry eighty people in a pinch and double that below decks. There was nobody on the ship now that I really wanted to not come on the diplomatic mission. This would mean that there was not much room to take the soldiers. We hurried to the palace and Julian was anxious to begin the negotiations. He had plans for the Enterprise but there was little room to spare. He was also going to take the Patricia with even more of his personal guards on it. I said, "Clovis has to be in charge of the cannons. Lucius is a good captain. There is a garrison in Berytus. If you stay under the protection of the guns and take a small group then Sapor will do the same. I know that both you and Sapor are honourable men. If he gives his word then it is as good as yours. He will also be giving it to me. He has no doubt heard of what has happened." "I still need my guard. Even if they are not just for protection. I have to show that my office is important." "Take your best men. I will get word to Sapor to do the same. He will also have priests, diplomats and others that will not fight. I hope that he brings his family because you are doing the same thing." "She is more of your wife than my daughter." "Julian, she will always be your daughter. She is just starting a family of her own. In a few years you will see some grandchildren." "So she has chosen?" "We will talk of this after our first talk to Sapor. He may have something to say about KhAvar." Julian cut back on his numbers but not much. He wanted to bring horses too but I convinced him to use the horses he would find in Berytus. My machinery though did go with us. I wanted to be far out of Constantinople when it was used. We had only unloaded the majority of the food because we would need it ourselves. Many more of the barrels of refined sugar and molasses would go with us too. The Patricia left the harbour pulling the barge and with more than a full compliment of people and crew. A hawser was now being constructed from smaller diameter ropes. We were far faster than the Patricia but Julian wanted us together on our arrival. Slaves were brought aboard but these too had to be brought for appearance and to do the work. A Roman would not do the menial tasks. It still took much longer to get Julian and his retinue to gather. He had his own advisers now and they took up much of the room we had made by removing his soldiers. We left near noon and Julian waved to his cheering people as he sailed through the Bosporus. We made very quick passage through the Dardanelles too. Rufus was the captain of the Enterprise but Mithridates was there to guide because he knew the area. When it got dark we sailed by dead reckoning. It was close to three in the morning that I spotted the Patricia. It was an hour later that we threw them the line and they attached the hawser to their ship. The wind had died down but was still favourable. The action of the ship was different when under load but not bad. I had a bed that was large enough and I was happy. In the morning, I showed the slaves how to use the stove to make breakfast. Most importantly I showed them how to make coffee the way I liked it. I was even able to put sugar in it if I chose. The Patricia was under full sail and had her engines working but the Enterprise was still much faster. The Patricia may have come a lot closer to our speed if she had not been pulling the barge. Right after breakfast Rufus threw a line to the Patricia and a net was pulled over. I could see both Lucius and Clovis grin. We would have to wait before we could use it. The trip that took weeks now took five days. The weather was good and the winds favourable. Mithridates was amazed at our speed even with towing the Patricia and her barge. We pulled into the harbour at Berytus and were greeted by the tax man. Julian's crest was flying from the top of our mast and there was nothing they would not do to assist us. The harbour was too shallow to handle the Enterprise so we had to anchor offshore. The Patricia would take us the final distance. In almost nothing flat the local commander was in position and his officers lined up for inspection. I was near the end of the line and I shook the man's hand. He remembered me very well. I thanked him in front of Julian because of all he and his men had done to protect the innocent people that were caught up in the conflicts around me. Julian said to the man, "The empire needs more compassion and it is good to see it coming from a man who's job it is to make war." We thanked the officers too even if they had not helped my people but I was sure they did or they would have faced ridicule. We found shelter but I took my own people to my property just out of town. To do this we borrowed horses but some were already mine. I missed my saddle that was still hidden outside Antioch. I found the warehouse completed and hundreds of my people and others living in it. I could not kick them out because they had no other place to go. I was also their patron and I had to look out for them even if I was not here to do so. Mithridates had reluctantly left the Enterprise to join me and I got him to work organising the people to prepare to make the sugar extraction equipment. I sent people off with more money to buy supplies. This group had lived fairly well off what the farm was producing. They still needed some new clothing and protein. I hoped I could use the Patricia long enough to go fishing. I had a short sermon and then healed those that needed it. Again it was much easier to do this when I was able to use the power of the people themselves. I stopped and listened to their troubles and nodded my head. This opened old wounds and they cried at the loss of those that had been carried off or died. KhAvar told them what had happened on Crete and went through the story of Antioch. Mithridates was itching to get into this and he took over with wide gestures and he explained what had happened. Lazeez even brought out a painting that had been rolled up in his pack. He went into the destruction and then how he had painted this at my command. HidA and Mehrnoosh had stayed with me though AsA and Afrasiab had remained with Julian. They more or less had to stay to show that Julian was not planning something underhanded. The people that I sent off, returned and I gave the clothing to the girls to give to those that needed it. I butchered some sheep and helped to cook the flesh over a fire. It was that night that I heard people and horses coming near and I got up to investigate. A dozen men stood by their horses but did nothing else. There didn't seem to be anybody else around. When I was close enough I sniffed the air and knew who they were. From the darkness I said casually, "Hello, BamshAd, hello, KavAd. I see you have brought some friends." They did not jump at my voice and BamshAd said with equal coolness, "We are happy to know that you are back with us." By this time I was in front of them and shook their hands. I said, "You are looking healthy." "I feel like a young man again. My two wives are both with child." "Congratulations, BamshAd. I hope you are not blaming me." "Of course not." "HidA and Mehrnoosh are with me. They seem to be upset that so many of the older women found themselves young enough to bear children again." "It was simply a miracle. The children will be treated better because of the gift that they are." I asked, "I know you must have a message to give me, but I would like all of you to talk with two old women that are not too old now." "We will go with you." The twelve men followed me on foot and I had them tie their horses with ours. Instead of waking the women early, I started breakfast. I had some tea that BamshAd and most Persians liked. I got the names of the rest of the troop and shook hands with them. When I was done I said, "There are a few problems with some of your men. Do any of you have an objection to being touched by our god through me?" The men simply stood as if they were being inspected by their king. I healed each of them and then gave them the reward simply because they were nice people. It took quite a while until they were able to regain their composure. When they took their seats again, I had to tell them of what I had done since leaving them as they lured the Romans into the trap. I tried to give just a superficial story but they kept drawing more out until I asked about what had happened to them. My own men were still alive though two were hurt in the battle. I had to assume that they were fighting harder than the rest to prove that they were not siding with the enemy. They would be here now with me except that Sapor wanted only BamshAd's group to talk to me first. I got the word that Sapor wanted the meeting where we had camped before. I said to BamshAd, "Julian has brought only a few fighting men with him. You already know the strength of the garrison here. Julian commands the two ships in the harbour and they are powerful. Here is where he is safe but the mountains is where your king is safe. I will try to get Julian to send the legion down the coast. Your king can come here with two hundred fighting men plus his advisors and slaves. He will have more swords but Julian will have the cannon. My father is here and he is in charge of the cannon." When that was digested I added, "I will give my word that your king will be safe. I will bring all twelve of you to Julian and there you will get his word too. Because my father is in charge of the cannon you will get his word not to fire onto your people unless the Romans are attacked first and are in danger of being killed." "We cannot decide but we will listen to their words." "That is fair enough." Part of this had already been worked on. The matter of a person's word would be backed up by a document. Julian and I had already draughted one and so had Clovis. All it took would be the signatures of the principles and then the witnesses. This is where KhAvar, AsA and Afrasiab would come in handy. We talked about personal matters now and I learned that Wodenism had risen from a few hundred people among the Persian population to nearly a third, or that was what BamshAd thought. Among those that were close to the king, the percentage was much higher. I had to thank the men that had originally been with me. They were converting people that had not heard of me. I learned that kites and model planes were very popular now and I smiled thinking about Lazeez and Tertius. I knew that their kites would be a hit. Eventually people came out of the warehouse and found me sitting with some Persians. Instead of causing a lot of confusion and less sleep I had them come here to meet the visitors. More than half of the people were Persian or of Persian ancestry but that was no sure sign that there would not be fighting. My word though calmed any anxiety. When enough time had passed I filled two cups with tea and walked into the building to give to my women. KhAvar said, "Are you coming back to bed?" "It is getting late and we have guests." "Who!" "The same men that took me to see your uncle the last time." The girls left their tea and made themselves presentable before leaving the building with me. I introduced the girls. "This is Patricia. She is the daughter of Julian, the Augustus of the Roman empire." The Persians bowed as if a very important Persian dignitary. Patricia in turn acted very much like a queen meeting important people. "This is KhAvar. You may know her or of her. These two women are the most significant people in my life." I got a smile from KhAvar and the men bowed as if their king were present. Powerful queens were not that common in Persian customs but I guess that she gained more status by being associated with me. In a sweet voice she said, "Please stand. My... Jón does not like bowing. My uncle has to have it to rule." When the men stood, she too emulated Patricia and shook their hands." She encouraged the men to sit and Patricia went in to retrieve their tea. We sat in a circle around the fire and the girls began to ask questions. This started all over again as Mehrnoosh and HidA came out. The women were also in high regard. The questions they asked were well thought out and dealt with what had happened since they had left the side of Sapor. The questions were not of a personal or general scope but showed that the ladies were very well informed. The men could not answer many of the questions because they were not in a high enough circle. It was not long until everybody was awake and we moved off to another area so that the people could get their breakfast. Mehrnoosh told BamshAd, "I have talked to Julian a number of times. He is ethical and if he gives his word then it will not be broken." HidA corroborated her friends words. When the ladies had cleaned up a bit more we all rode into the city. Everybody knew where the Augustus was and we rode there peacefully. There was no trouble getting into the fort and even the Persians didn't seem to fear where they were. Julian received BamshAd and KavAd in the commander's room and soon AsA and Afrasiab were there too. The two Persians treated Julian like their king which I felt was very diplomatic. They were soon standing and then stated their king's wishes. Julian gave the one we had worked out and agreed to sign agreements for the safety of Sapor and his family if they chose to come. It was a while later that Clovis came in and he was introduced to my two friends. Clovis heard Julian's word to not attack. Clovis brought out his own parchment and signed it. My own was also ready and I signed this too. All those that were present that Sapor knew, signed as witnessers. When this was done, I wrote a note to Sapor asking him to bring his best kite makers because he would be challenged by two young men. BamshAd and KavAd were also given other personal letters to get him to accept the terms of the meeting. One was a letter from Julian that spoke of trust and a possibility of a growing friendship. Friendship here I figured was like the friendship between senators but at least it had a chance of growing. We saw the Persians off with some food and a letter of safe conduct if they ran into any Roman patrols. The Romans would have to be good to catch these men. I escorted them out of the city and said farewell a few miles further away. They shook my hand and it looked like BamshAd might hug me the way brothers did. Back in the fort, the speculation had not stopped yet and I was asked about my opinion. "Sapor is a reasonable man. I am fairly sure that he will accept. He may want his people to search the town first and to surround it so that a large force of Romans is not allowed to join us." Clovis added, "I still think he may want the population or possibly just the men to leave the city when the talks are going on." Julian said, "That is what I think too but that would show that he does not trust us or Jón. The latter I think he will believe." I said, "There are some cannon stationed out of town to give a warning. They may give us some problems. It may be better if a lot of people went fishing." Julian said, "I could do that." I said, "Ah, but would you clean fish or just watch? One of your couriers objected to this." "I suppose I could clean fish and pull in the net if I must." "Not only that but Lucius will be the Captain. When it comes to safety he is the leader on the ship." Julian looked at me as if trying to find out what I meant. I said, "There can be but one leader when it gets dangerous. In a storm, or anything relating to the ship he is supreme. When it comes to a battle you will lead. That means you deal in fish guts when you have to." "I will need a bath when I come back." "So will all of us. It is nice to have a simple task that will draw us together." Julian got the number of guards or crew he could take with him after I asked the rest if they were going to come with us. AsA was intrigued. She knew of netting but our net was large. The net we had used between Lutetia and the Rhine was many times larger. It was a good day to go fishing though we had to ask the locals about the best places to go. It was four hours before we got our first catch, and it was small. Rufus and Mithridates insisted that they come too and they did their best to get under Lucius skin. He was an army officer and not much of a navy man, at least not yet. It was late in the day when we pulled in a large haul. As we cleaned the net went back out and we soon brought in many more. The next haul was the equal of the last and I could see that Julian was tiring of cleaning fish. Rufus wanted the net to go out once more and I said, "That may be enough. Not everybody here wants to clean fish from day until night." "But they are worth a fortune. They come so easy. If we had our other net we would not be able to drag it onboard." We cleaned quickly as we could. The women worked with us so the men had to do the same. Afrasiab did not think this was proper but did his share. I called it quits an hour before dusk. We cleaned up what was already started but we had a large pile of fish left to do. I went to the side of the barge, took off my boots and dived in. Soon I had my women with me though they used the life preservers for assistance. Nobody else came in so in a minute we climbed aboard to have the trip back to port. My girls looked a sight but they were mine. I cleaned them up so they looked presentable and kissed them. They deserved it for being so loyal as to join me. When we pulled into the dock, Rufus was the first ashore. He was looking to get help in cleaning the fish. Julian came ashore just like a hardworking deck hand. I respected him then for what he had done. Before we left the area I asked Lucius, "What did you think of your crew?" "I think they were pretty good. Two though I would keep below decks stoking the boiler. You said to them that I was the captain but they didn't believe it." "You need to rant and rave like Rufus." "I might have to carry a club when I yell at them." "Make it a thick one. One has a thick Roman skull and the other a Persian one." Our meal that night was fresh fish. Some of the fish was sent to my people but we ate with Julian. We regaled each other about the things we had to do. The men fought each other until AsA said that all the men besides Rufus were too slow. The men formed an alliance and attacked the women. In this one sided battle I got Rufus to join with the women and I did too. I talked about the dexterity AsA used to remove heads, then the way Patricia was able to remove guts. Mithridates got the idea and said KhAvar gutted as good as Patricia but neither could compare to the way HidA did it. He went into detail and conjured up enough detail that the women started to turn a bit green. In the end Julian admitted defeat. "In my long years in the battlefield, I was not able to spill intestines the way the ladies have done today." The next day we began to make a large barge. I had three steam engines and perhaps I could cast a large enough prop to drive it through the water. The engine would have to power the capstans that would pull rope and haul in the net. I had seen factory ships before and I knew from our own failings some of what was needed, at least in the first version. The work was contracted out to the people of the city. Now I needed trees that I would eventually cut into beams and assorted pieces of lumber. I worked with some people to make a prop out of clay. This was the way I made the pattern for the prop now used on the Patricia. I had no CNC machine nor the expertise to make the best possible. I had barely started any of this when BamshAd and his eleven men marched boldly into Berytus. I met up with them when they were in the fort. They must have changed clothes just before entering the city. Julian was already reading the document in his chambers when I arrived. I had said hello to the men that had to stay outside though they didn't look like the same people. There were three more horses though. I was introduced to three of Sapor's negotiators. I knew one man already and shook hands with him and the two others. There was a little give and take but I stayed out of it. Sapor wanted the legion out of the city and an equal force of Persians to watch them. Julian handed me the document and I saw that it was written in Latin which helped matters a lot. There were some other details but they were minor. Julian agreed to some but not others. They really didn't matter but Julian I guess didn't want to lose face. The cannon outside of town were questioned so Julian said he would pull them back. The reason they were there was to provide a warning. We could hear just as well if a small keg of powder was set off. In any case it would just be in case there was an attack. With the preliminaries out of the way the three negotiators wanted to talk to Afrasiab and the women. Julian called for a servant, and the man took the Persians away to have their meeting. It was just after breakfast but a meal was planned even if they had to leave. I figured, and so did Julian, that the men would have a lot of questions to ask. Julian asked me, "What are you building now?" "I am working on another sugar refinery. It will be similar to the other one until I get a furnace made. The profits will be good. Men are out harvesting trees so that I can start on another barge but this time it will be larger than the one on the Rhine." "For fishing?" "Yes." "Why?" "I want to build a ship that is large enough to stay away from the port for weeks. To do this I need to make a compressor to squeeze a gas so that I can freeze the fish. There is no way I can preserve all the fish that are caught by drying them." "You told me about that. I do not see how it works but I believe you. What can I do to help?" "I need to make some steel rods and I need a lot of bronze for the compressor." "How much bronze do you need?" "A few tonnes to start. There will be waste which I can recover but I need spare parts too." "I have lots of armour you could have." "I would take you up on that but you are still technically at war. I would rather find scrap bronze or make my own from copper." "Do the Persians have a good source of copper?" "I talked to Sapor about all kinds of metals. I can get the copper but he has to have steel for armour and weapons. He is still fighting other people besides the Romans." "I would not want him to be well armed while my own armies still use bronze." "When the cannon and then rifles come out there will be little need to have swords or armour. I mentioned before that the armies of the future do not use steel armour. There is a different armour used but it does not work well with a sword. The killing will be done from a distance." Julian said, "You said that but you also said that during the transition spears, swords and rifles were used together." "That is very true. It was the rifle that shoots a new piece of lead every second that makes the sword obsolete." "Well ask for Persian scrap bronze. After the treaty is signed then you could get more and at a cheaper price." The negotiators stayed to have lunch. I gave the blessing at the meal then gave the customary surge in hormones but by now it was just a small lift. I did not want people to get addicted to what I did. The three negotiators were a bit surprised by this but pleasantly so. I broached the need to gather scrap bronze and offered fish, sugar and molasses to get this commodity. I was asked what the latter two commodities were and they had to wait for desert. The cooks had been practising on the recipes I made and put their wares before Julian. He was the one that cut pies, cakes and sweet rolls for his guests. I had even caramelised some sugar and made toffee and other confections. The men were full before desert and very full after. Julian kept pushing seconds onto them and they were just too polite to say no. When the men left in the mid afternoon they carried a lot of my concoctions with them along with a good supply of the raw ingredients. This way Sapor would see the usefulness of the sugar before the meeting. Tertius and Lazeez were making kites and model aircraft but I took them away from those pursuits and got Tertius to find a smith to make some blister steel to make a shaft. Two smiths were already making some of the steel tanks I needed to produce sugar. Somehow or other I was going to have to make a four cylinder compressor. The best I could do would be something like an old Volkswagen engine. This would cause less strain on the block. Tertius was not too upset to get into this sort of assignment because he had done lots of this before but he also had help. He still wanted the large kite to be made because he heard my boast at the last meal about a competition between the Persians and the Romans. "I will do this but can Lazeez work on the kite?" "Sure he can. Do you remember what I said at one time about what the steam engine would one day be like?" "You said it would be a turbine." "True, but I also said that it could be like the compressor. Do you remember with the compressor would lead to." "Yes, a gasoline, volatile gas or a diesel engine." Tertius did not see any connection yet so I said, "After we get the compressor, and I did say after, you can make a diesel engine." "That is a lot of work." "Your aeroplane needs an engine," I said mildly. The lights went on then and Tertius had to explain what all this meant. Soon I had two young men working on the compressor that would be a two cycle engine one day then a four when we got some valves and some other complicated parts made. I presented my drawing and explained some of the points that needed to be covered first. I was going to have hard steel sleeves in the cylinders and a lot of fins so I would not have to work with water, pump or a radiator. The design was very simple. The only complicated feature would be the pump that would squirt the fuel into the cylinder at the right time. This work was not something that was just started now because I thought of this even from the second day I came to this time. The diesel engine was very important to me. The diesel may be heavy but the British had turbo diesels driving their Spitfires and other aircraft. They were very powerful and light too when you considered the ratio of weight to horsepower. Mithridates worked with the sugar refining equipment while I helped the boys by setting up the steam engines. More housing had to be built and the logs that came in first, went towards this project instead. Steel shafts had to be hammered as true as possible then turned in the lathe. We had to take off the tailstock to do the long lengths and work from the floor with a steady rest but this had been done many times before. Sapor came before we had our first shaft turned. There was an army behind the king and they split up. One group went twenty miles north to meet the Roman legion while a thousand men stayed four miles out of town. Our cannon could not go that far so this was safe for both parties. I went out to meet the king before the split occurred. I greeted the man warmly and he did the same to me. I had my army with me at the time. KhAvar and Patricia came together and I saw tears in the man's eyes as he hugged and kissed his niece. He had talked to me enough about Patricia and he hugged her too. She didn't even have to make the curtsy I asked her to do. The army waited as Sapor talked to the girls. I stayed politely a few metres away but I heard everything. It was only after that, that I introduced Tertius and Lazeez. The boys acted like good Persians and got to their knees until Sapor told them to get up. "So these are the two that are going to try to best me?" The two boys didn't know what to say. After a long pause Tertius said, "We are just doing our best like we were taught, my lord." The king smiled and said, "Then do your best. I will be disappointed if you do not." AsA watched this with a smile then she and her two friends came forward and did their genuflection. It was different because they were not commoners but family. There was a lot more talk. Afrasiab was asked verbally of his views of threats when this would usually be whispered. "Julian has done everything you asked of him. I have either seen the troop movements or my agents have. The men of the town are more of our people that Roman but they have been told to obey the law of feel Julian's whip." I reintroduced Mithridates then introduced Rufus and Lucius. I said, "These are the captains of my ships." Sapor said, "Which one commanded the Augustus to clean fish?" I put my hand on Lucius and said, "This is the man." Lucius was staggered by this claim and Sapor just waited to get an explanation. Lucius said, "But you said this would be a working vacation for everybody." I had to smile and said to Sapor, "That is true. Julian left his laurel leaves on the shore and joined our crew. I found it fun for a short time. When we go fishing everybody works. There are no passengers." "I will remember that. I don't think I want to clean fish." "I would not if I were you too." Sapor looked at me with a question in his looks. I said, "The women showed up the men. You would look bad if the women could clean faster and better than you." AsA was the one that said, "That is because we were for the most part, Parthian women, though there was one Roman woman that worked as good as we did." I looked at Sapor and said, "I told you." The army split up and we marched into town. Sapor only had two hundred guards but he had an equal number of advisors that could fight too. Behind them came hundreds of slaves with tents. This we already knew because there was no place to house them otherwise. The men I had asked to flee back to Sapor months ago were not seen. The people were smiling when we passed. They had been told in my sermons that there was no danger. When we got to the fort, Julian, Clovis and then Julian's guards and advisors were present. I was the one that introduced the two and they shook hands my way to start. They greeted each other and each said something relating to Woden. This I was happy to hear because there would not be religious attitudes to separate them. Clovis was introduced next as my father and I think Clovis was shocked when Sapor treated him like a close relative. It was very diplomatic to do so and probably true if Sapor recognised my quasi-marriage to his niece. There was a large meal planned but Sapor wanted to see the ships first. I think he was more interested in the cannon. The majority of the slaves were sent off to start their tent city on land that was already prepared. A deluxe latrine was made and it was not even used yet. More latrines were made for the remainder of the guests. Julian and Sapor rode side by side as they talked about the town. Sapor's Latin had improved a lot. When they got to the dock it was the cannons that Sapor looked at first. He studied them and even felt the bore for smoothness. Sapor asked, "Will you fire one of the cannons for me?" Julian said, "Certainly. Would you send word to your men so that they do not run back here thinking that you were attacked?" "I have already done that. They know that the cannons will sound today." Clovis did the honours as he showed what he was doing. He explained about the powder and how much had to be used. The cannon was finally loaded with solid shot. The cannon was then pushed forward and aimed out to sea. Clovis used a match to light a length of rope on the end of a long stick. He said, "Are you ready? This will be as loud as Thor's thunderbolts." Sapor just smiled and used a hand gesture to continue. Clovis touched the ember to the pan of powder. The powder burst into flame and black smoke was hurled into the air. Immediately after we heard a loud roar and the cannon was flung backwards to the length of the thick ropes. Most of the people were paralysed to see the shot but it was hard to see because there was a lot of smoke that was immediately blown back into our faces by the onshore wind. We fired the larger guns and even the small two centimetre one. It was easy to get Sapor to do the work with his own hands as long as Clovis was helping. A ship pulled a dingy our into the ocean so that it was a half mile away and then anchored. Three big boys had three shots each trying to sink the boat before they had to let the next person try. It was after three turns each that Julian commanded that the largest gun be loaded with grapeshot. He took this and aimed it himself before firing it. A second shot was necessary because he had shot too low and the shot bounded across the water to do little damage to the boat. The next shot sank the boat quite nicely. Julian called out for another boat to be put out as a target. In the mean time Clovis loaded an explosive shell. This time the boat sunk even faster. Julian was going to order more targets and I suggested, "The three of you remind me of boys that found a new toy." They looked a bit chagrined and I added, "Why don't you go for a ride in the Enterprise? The same cannon are on that ship." Sapor looked questioningly at me and I said, "Send some men over to see how many of the crew are there. Rufus will tell you how many people he will allow to board his ship and you can split up the total between the two of you. I suggest that you take advisors and leave all the guards but do this any way you want." Julian quickly said, "We were going to talk of a treaty." Sapor had not spoken but as he looked at me he said, "We can talk about that on the ship if that is your wish." Julian was angry and came to me and whispered, "What are you trying to do? I need my guards." "You need friends too. You are a warrior the same as Sapor. Both groups are evenly matched and each of you have the other's word that you will not fight. Show Sapor how you will now rule the oceans because of the type of ship that you will be riding on." "The ocean is not important." "It is very important. Land travel is still too slow. If you rule the oceans then you will have a stronger hold on the land." Julian still did not like this but I think Sapor smiled more because Julian was upset. It took nearly an hour until instructions were given. I made sure that AsA and her friends went on the ship. They at least knew how to sense a possible confrontation and head it off. When the Enterprise sailed away I saw a lot of guards on shore that didn't know what to do. I walked up to some of the Romans and said, "Our new visitors have not toured the town. Will you show them the better wine shops?" "We have to stay here." "You were not told that. Leave a few men and the rest of you can be proper hosts. I think they are going for longer than a day. You know what it is like on the Enterprise." The man eventually nodded his head. I had to find the names of the Persians and then tell them roughly the same. When introductions were made the first small group went off. There was still a lot of distrust and it had to be reduced a bit at a time. I went back to my property to keep busy. The locks on the river that came from my property were not completed and I knew that it would be chancy if the Enterprise were to ever enter them with a full load. It was more difficult than just digging the bottom a bit deeper. The sides of the canal would then slowly erode and fill the bottom. I had not gone far when I heard the roar of cannon from across the water. No fool would attack the Enterprise so it looked like some big little boys were having fun again. The Persian camp drew me and I rode there with Patricia and KhAvar. Anoushak, Sapor's oldest remaining daughter was here and so where the rest of Sapor's wives. It was good that Sapor's son ShahrvarAz was with the other group watching the Roman soldiers and not here. KhAvar cried as she met her relatives and then she pulled Patricia into the group and they started to talk about what had befallen them since they last saw each other. This hen party would last a long time so I was polite to the ladies but left to have a sermon. It was an hour later that all the other women showed up and it looked like KhAvar had a good cry then felt better for it. I worked on one project after another to keep me occupied. The new buildings were needed most though the weather was still good. The Enterprise had not returned but I didn't think it would be too long. Tertius was closeted with Lazeez and they were machining parts to make the compressor. They were making a small compressor first and it reminded me of something. I had flown a nice model aircraft with a wood alcohol powered engine. Like the compressor it had a metal reed that served as valves. This would last because the engine did not get too hot. I took a few sheets of paper and drew a sketch of a one lung engine with a flywheel. They usually had glow plugs to help start them and I had not begun yet to work on the generator. I was hoping to just get the cylinder hot enough to help ignite the alcohol by pressure and all I needed was a way of spinning the shaft fast enough and then pull away if and when the engine started. Tertius looked over one shoulder and Lazeez the other. "That crankshaft you are making as a test will work in this engine. It is a lot larger that what I had used before but you may get..." I was going to say five horsepower but that was a poor indication especially since a horse had many more times than one horsepower. "This would be able to produce about three thousand kg.-calories." Lazeez looked a bit stunned and Tertius had not remembered. "Think of it like a horse pulling on a rope. The rope goes over a sheave and is attached to a heavy stone in a mine or perhaps over a cliff." This did not seem to work so I said, "We are going to have to teach you some additional physics. We have enough power for a small plane but one still too small to carry a person." This they understood. "If the engine burns alcohol then the temperature will not get too high. The thin sheets of metal that were going to work as valves will still work at least for a while. Usually there is a piece of metal on the connecting rod that splashes oil around. Sometimes a plane is upside down and this will not work. For now we will try to keep the engine fairly level and we can forget about the extra parts." The crank was measured and guessed at a good sized connecting rod. The piston would have to be iron but I wished it were aluminum instead. It also had to be about fifteen centimetres in diameter because the crank did not allow that much of a stroke. Since it was a two cycle then the rest was fairly easy to design. When we were done we went over it a few more times with the boys asking questions the first few times then making comments after that. The lathe was not set up yet nor any of the other equipment and I did not like the design of the engine. The crank that was forged into the shape it now was, would just have to be made with more of a stroke and we could then work on what I hoped would be a more efficient engine. Tertius just got the steam engine working and hooked it up with a belt to the lathe. It was now almost a week since the Enterprise left. The girls were happy with their more comfortable home and my visits were less of a conjugal nature but they were still fun. Patricia had missed being with other women and ones that were old enough to be her mother. The boys and I slapped together an engine and I now had to find a suitable fuel. I had not finished this task when the Enterprise was sighted. The ship set anchor and the men climbed down the ladder from the Enterprise and boarded the barge that was in turn pulled by the Patricia. The most important people went first but the rest didn't follow any particular order. There was a lot of talk between small groups and most crossed race barriers. Animosity seemed to be at a minimum. The men had darker skin from being on the water. It looked like Julian and Sapor were in a great mood. Clovis was nearby and he too looked to be happy. Sapor was the one to talk first and he said, "Hello, Jón. I want you to build a ship like the Enterprise for me." "I will train your men to make many ships like this instead. You all look to be happy. Was the voyage good for all of you?" Julian said, "You were right to get us on the ship. We did nothing but talk. I think we all learned a lot." Clovis agreed and they left to go their separate ways. I guess they had to get clean and possibly have some rest. Supper time found the hall very crowded and there were no guards which was very trusting of Sapor. Any servant could stick a knife into him at any time. He did have his own people serving him though. Instead of talking about their sojourn, Sapor asked about what I had done to Antioch and Constantinople. I went through this as quickly as possible. I paused to cover the fireball and the flaming figure. This I figured they wanted to hear about the most. Before they could start to question me I said, "You have now heard my story. I would like to hear how peace is going to be restored to this region." Julian was the one to talk now and the deal they had hammered out in the last week was explained roughly. Persia got back most but not all of Armenia like they wanted. Julian retained a portion to save face. He gave away the right to travel through a corridor to the Black Sea from Armenia and through the Roman province of Pontus. A similar corridor lead through the mountains to the east of us and led to the city we were now in. The city of Berytus would have some of the attributes of a free city to encourage development. Sapor agreed to build a good road to the Euphrates so Roman traffic could use the river. This river lead through what would one day be Baghdad. The present capital was either Baghdad or near it. I did not know exactly. More rights were signed over for a future railroad right-of-way. These last two stipulations were sought by Sapor and within Julian's power to grant. I hoped that this would usher in a wave of cooperation between the two mighty empires. This would also allow entrepreneurs to flourish with less government intervention. I wanted the economies of this region to grow and the growth would bring a miliary presence to keep the Huns at bay in this region. One day I would have the Suez Canal built through the swamps and the salt lakes. Now I wanted a good railway that would take goods from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. This was a fragile construction because it took only a few people to disrupt this link and war was very common now. The English had grown rich in trade with India and China. I was going to see if I could get this trade first and try my best to keep the opium from reaching China and all the human misery it would entail. It was usually only the men that would speak. I got AsA to talk about the trip. I had to keep at her until she started to speak freely. We learned a lot about the trip through her eyes. She was treated nice while on the ship so she was polite about the way she talked about all the men hovering around her. It was good that the trip was only a week in length I figured or Asa, HidA and Mehrnoosh may have had to fight off the men. Sapor did not leave even when the treaty had been signed. I had agreements that had to be signed too and it involved all three leaders. Clovis was the weakest and had to have an edge on the other two. I also had to have a way of draining off the surplus energy of the barbarians that now lived in northern Europe. I thought the best place for them would be in the military, the same way as Rome now thought. My warehouse/factory was visited almost nonstop. They admired the steam engine and the way the lathe and mill cut. With glasses on, I got the men to make some simple tools like a small hammer. They were as happy as grade nines because of what they had done. Sapor didn't look like he wanted to ever leave and I felt good about that. One night I asked Julian and Sapor to join Clovis and I in a meeting room. Wine and mugs were already present and I got the men to sit with me. "I called you here to ask something of two of you. My father is here as a witness." I got some strange looks. I turned to Julian and said, "I met your daughter and fell in love with her. We have had problems since but it only had to do with her getting a feeling that she was inferior. We overcame that obstacle and I hope that it does not come up again." I turned to Sapor and said, "Your niece has gone through some very stressful experiences but she seems very strong. You have all heard why I cannot marry more than one woman because of our religion. I want to sidestep this problem by just not giving them my name. In all other ways I want them as wives." Sapor said, "What do you need us for?" Patricia and KhAvar are adjusting well to the way we live but I know that they would feel much better if the two of you would give your blessing for our union." Sapor thought a few seconds and said, "I can do that. The girl you call KhAvar is very precious to me but I know that where she is now is where she wants to be." "Thank you, Sapor. This means a lot to both of us." I looked at Julian and he said, "Patricia is old enough to pick her own man. Most children are guided by their parents in who to marry especially in our class. I see that this union is actually good for me politically as it is good romantically for both of you, or should I say the three of you." I said, "I guess I will have to start calling you both father-in-laws when we are together like this." Clovis said, "You can still have a ceremony. I think this is right for both girls." "I think so too but I do not know exactly what to do. Since I have your blessing I think I am going to have to talk to AsA, HidA and Mehrnoosh. They will want a spectacle but in this case I think it should just be family. The idea of the ceremony is just to have us pledge the bond that is already between us." I called the three ladies and they hurried into the room with big smiles on their faces. They were either astute or intuitive but I did not rule out good ears or magic either. AsA could not contain herself and said, "Tell us." It was Sapor that said, "Tell you what?" "The... what you wanted us to talk to you about." Sapor replied, "You were always like that. You push like a man." AsA looked down in embarrassment but she did not turn red. I figured she was just playing the part for her brother. I did not want to prolong her agony so I said, "I have asked Sapor and Julian to have their daughters or nieces. We thought it prudent to have a small family ceremony. The words wife and husband cannot be used. The meanings will be just the same. I wanted to ask the three of you about this but I am afraid you will want to make this too much of a display." "It is about time. We have been working on the ceremony for a long time." "Tell us about it but first tell me the number of guests you had plans for." "I have no idea who many will show up." "You are trying to be evasive. Tell me the number of people." AsA said, "This is a tying together of three races. It is only befitting that all three families see this union. I talked with your father and he said that your family will number in the hundreds. I know that our family is very large and KhAvar has many relatives. I can only guess that the Constantius family will have just as much." "What are your estimates for the number of guests?" "It depends on where the ceremony will take place. If it is held in this area there will be fifteen to seventeen thousand when children, slaves and guards are brought in." My face must have sunk because she quickly said, "If the ceremony is in Germania then the number will drop to only ten thousand." "I have no way of housing or feeding that many people." "They will put up tents if they must." This important conversation went on for a long time. I gradually saw that this could be used to my advantage if they came to see what I made. Getting and keeping the people firmly behind Julian and Sapor was necessary because they were the ones that were supporting me. The talk had not finished before the two girls in question arrived. When they heard the purpose of the meeting they acted like dutiful wives and very excited brides. The timing of this event was put off three or more years. I had to give a great many reasons because this delay. In a way I wanted it now because I was infected with the way the girls felt. Realistically I needed the time to get ready. The best place to have the ceremony would be on the Rhine. I could throw up many more condos because I had a lot of people, tools and expertise in this area. I did not want small apartments that looked like slums in my time but I knew that I could not build in stone either. Farms had to be started and my fertiliser had still not made an appearance. Roads, railroads, iron bridges, and a multitude of other amenities had to not only be devised but already in place. ------- Chapter 4 The people present were all aware of the politics behind this though three of us were also influenced but love. I laid down what I wanted to happen. The wedding would be in the latter portion of the summer when the crops were in. The location would be my property on the Rhine but by then I may have some steam powered ships that could take the guests to Lutetia or down the Weser to my school. I was not going to be caught with my pants down when it came to guests because I had to bring some barbarians into the fold and this meant a lot of Germans from other tribes. The next day and with the level of hostility low enough I was able to meet the Persian army. Part of this was political but I wanted to see what my former bodyguards were doing. They had turned fanatics like a portion of them had been already but for the Christian cause. It didn't matter what I said through my books, they still acted the way they did before. When I met up with them I hugged them to me. Some saw this as sacrilege and I had to take a few minutes to straighten them out. Even then they were not ready to put down the cause of the Möbius strip. I now kept the men with me but the ones that acted more sane were allowed a lot more freedom. I would have to find a way to alter the way the rest acted. Some people were predisposed to go off the deep end no matter what the religion was. I had talked about how their brothers had died in Berytus when it was attacked but they did not seem bothered. The souls would have gone to Valhalla they figured. Kings and others would like this because it gained them strong followers but I wanted sane individuals not fanatics. They were told they had to learn more than how to guard me and a portion sat with Mehrnoosh or HidA to learn mathematics. Engineering would come next and perhaps their fervour could be used to learn. I continued to work on other projects too. The alcohol burning engine was difficult to get working. I had to make a still to obtain some higher fractions that would burn better. The engine finally did work though. When it did the noise was deafening but the engine spun very quickly and the needle valve had to throttle the engine back. The noise inside the room was too much so the motor was shut off and arrangements were made to move it outside with a hastily fabricated muffler of sorts. There was a lot of shaking because the motor was seriously out of balance. We had made a prop to fit the motor. Everything was mounted as firmly as possible or people would get hurt if the engine fell apart. The engine was much more difficult to start with the prop in place and I had to do some fiddling. A hot block of copper had to be placed over the head so that the cylinder would have more heat to start the dieseling process. Another thin portion in the cylinder was there so it would get hot and keep the process going. We were trying to start the engine for over an hour and we were getting tired when it finally started then stopped. Ten minutes later it was running again and everybody was out of the way in case the prop had a fault in it. The noise was reduced some but it was still very loud. There was a lot of wind coming from the machine and it blew toward those that were watching. It was Clovis that said, "I am very happy to see this. You made the toys in Hildestun but I now see it working. When will you have an aeroplane ready for us?" Over the noise I said, "This is a poorly made toy. There is a lot of work to do before a reliable engine will be available and perhaps even more work before we have an airframe." The last term had to be explained. There were a lot of words I was bringing into the new Roman language and I had to make sure they were done correctly. It would not be long before I had to commission a dictionary to be put together that would also have all the terms I could remember from the future. Few people tried to talk louder than the motor and I gave Lazeez the signal and he cut off the flow of the fuel. My ears were still ringing when the noise slowly abated. Sapor said, "I will need some of your flying craft too. Could you make them quieter?" "It will be years before we have a plane. It will be more years to test them. Aeroplanes are not safe until they have been perfected and to do that we need a lot of time. People have to be trained to make changes in an airframe and see what effect the changes do to the plane's stability. I do not know much about this type of construction and we will all have to learn." Now was a good time to ask Sapor to give me some help. "I need some people like Lazeez and Tertius to work at making better engines. I want a portion of them to be Persian and some to be girls. The future is upon us and I do not want to exclude half of the population. We also need a lot of brass, bronze and copper. To build the engines." "I can supply both if you wish to have them. I do not know about females. Few parents would allow their girls to come to this place without a chaperone." "I will accept both with much thanks but I am not going to have chaperones here. There will be no pregnancies. Perhaps you have heard of my cadets. Nobody fools with them." "I have heard of them. They are all famous because what they have done. Will they be coming here too?" "Some will come but they also have to do a lot of travelling. Those you send will be assessed. If they pass then they will join the academy. From then on they are in my army. The girls or boys will be sent to the Rhine, Gaul, Britannia, Hispania and here. Those you send will have the same glory attached to their name that the others have. Roman young people will make another portion as will the Germans. As time goes on we will have Indian and Chinese." "I had thought you were going to do that. Will they learn about the powder that is used in your cannon?" I had to pause here a few seconds. "They will learn everything. They may take years though. You may not know it but an aeroplane is much more important than a cannon." "But the cannon is so powerful." "An aeroplane flying over three miles in the sky can still see those on the ground. Explosives could be dropped from the sky to destroy those on the ground and nobody can strike those that fly. Even without explosives, a man or a woman in a plane can report to their commander where the enemy is and how numerous they are. This leaves the infantry to do the fighting." "Is this the Luftwaffe you were mentioning before?" "Yes it is. The people you send will one day fly if they survive but some people are not good at handling a machine like this and they cannot all be pilots." "All men could do this with practice." "One mistake means that the plane crashes. Many crashes are fatal. Look at it this way. Some men are naturally good on a horse. Would you like to have a man that is only a mediocre horsemen to be in control of your life?" "I see your point. But if I were to learn to fly then I would be in charge of my life. Are there not some vehicles that do not fall to the earth?" "There are some vehicles that are very large. They have a covering like that used on sausage. It is filled with a light gas and it naturally floats in the air. Some engines like we saw today are used to push it from one place to another." "Build me one of those too." "The building will take years. You are going to have to help too. Your men will have to build it and help you fly it too. How else can you repair it?" "I see that. How much gold do you want?" "I have no idea of the cost. The first one will cost a lot because I have many tests. The covering will be expensive. I have to extract the gas that is lighter than air and store it. Giant engines will have to be designed and many failures thrown away until we get something that is good. In the far future this took a long time and there was still a lot of room to make improvements." "That is alright. I don't care how much it costs. I want to fly." "You may think that the 'air ship' will be made of gold before you are done. I am warning you again that it costs a lot to do everything that is needed. Some of that gold will have to be used on your roads and railroads. Not too long ago you wanted a ship like the Enterprise. You could beggar your country as you try to pull your people into the future." "It would cost that much!" "Railways cost a lot but I could build them. The problem is in building a large steel plant to make the rails and the things needed to build the train cars and locomotives." "You said if we lay the track then the country will prosper." "It sure will." "I could get more tax then." "If you do that then the people that want to start a business will suffer. You need a new way of getting tax that allows a person that is running or starting a business to see a way that he will still prosper. When he makes more gold, then so do you." "That will be hard to do." "What if you were the one that was starting the new businesses?" I got a big smile. "That is different. Before we continue I want to know about that sugar and molasses that you gave me." "What about it?" "I liked it. I want to make it too." "I can make you a partner in this. In fact I think Julian and Clovis should do this too." "Why can I not make it myself?" "You could. This is a very valuable piece of knowledge but we could all use the gold it brings to expand. You have to grow the cane but you still have to have enough land to feed your people. The cane goes by train or road to a place where it is changed into sugar. You sell the sugar to the people on this side of the Bosporus but not to India and eastward. Julian has the rest of the Mediterranean plus Hispania. Clovis has Germania, Gaul and all he can reach as he goes east." "Why can't I get India?" "The Indians will have India." At mid day we had our kite contest. Lazeez and Tertius showed off with their large varieties that went quite high. The fiery god was prominent on both. Anoushak, Sapor's oldest remaining unmarried daughter was to take Sapor's place. I guess the father did not want to loose to young men so he had his daughter do the honours. The kite though was even larger than the two the boys used. Anoushak wore a harness much like those used to support a mountaineer. From time to time this was necessary because the silk would cut her hands even with the heavy gloves. She too joined the pilot's club by being carried upward and down wind on occasion. When she had finished showing off all three tried to outdo each other. I knew that as soon as I talked about box kites that they would be made too. It was much later that the kites were pulled in and I heard Sapor whisper, "Where did that kite come from. It was not mine." Anoushak whispered back that the women folk had conspired to make sure she won or placed very high. Sapor was not averse to this at all. The game of one-upmanship had not died because the boys brought out a glider that had a wing spread of two metres. It flew a long distance and looked very graceful. I was surprised that Anoushak had a smaller glider. It was much better than the one we had used with the mouse. It flew just as well but not as far. A few minutes later a gust of wind caught it and it was dashed against the ground and broke. The boys looked genuinely concerned and tried to not only congratulate Anoushak, but to volunteer to assist her in repairing the plane. I walked near Sapor as his daughter came with a tear streaked cheeks and a broken plane. "Look what happened Father. It broke and it was so beautiful." I suggested quickly, "Will you allow the young men to escort your daughter to the shop? They have the skill and the tools to make a good repair?" He just nodded his head and Anoushak turned around with tears still in her eyes. The boys and her guards left for the short trip. I said to Sapor, "The competition was not Romans against Persians but boys against girls. The girls did very well I think." "I do to." With the event over I met with Julian and Clovis to discuss sugar production. Julian could see gold in this but not as strongly as Sapor. It was Clovis that saw it only like a spice that was nice, expensive but unnecessary. I said to all three, "I will build the first mill in this city. My part will be the ideas. The total cost including the land will be split three ways. Each of you will have a portion. The profits will be split four ways. Clovis asked, "How much will this cost me?" I gave him the cost and said, "This will be multiplied by the number of factories I have to build to meet the demand. The next factory or the ones after, will probably be built with the funds from the first ones." Clovis put out his hand and we shook. In seconds the other two did the same then with each other. The cost of this was not that great and any of the men could afford it. With this out of the way I started on the railway. Maps were brought out and I showed where a short railway would come in handy to tranship goods to the Red Sea or to the Nile. Sapor asked, "How much will that cost?" "At a guess I would say that this will be ninety miles long. I would say that I should get a thousand square miles of land for my expenses. I spoke earlier to Julian here about the scale of compensation varying to reflect the cost of building portions of the railway. On top of that land I need a mile on each side of the tracks. More track will have to go in and I will need a place to build some of my industry. I am going to pay to build roads that cross this property but they are not going to be close together." Sapor asked, "Where will this thousand square miles of land be?" "We have not discussed this yet. I do not want desert land or swamp but I may take that. One day a major canal is dug twenty metres deep and a hundred metres wide that will link the Mediterranean to the Red sea through the salt lakes. It will be many years until the land will be needed." "What about the land you would need from me for the cost of the railway?" "You gave me the Arabian Peninsula. There is a lot of arable land there. All I have to do is claim it. If not I have to purchase it from those that use it now." "It is yours, you do not have to pay anything." "You gave me ownership over the land. It may still be owned by others. I do not want sovereignty." Clovis asked, "What is this about sovereignty?" "I need the black liquid and the gas that burns when it escapes the ground. Sapor has given me this area." I pointed to the peninsula. "This is mostly sand but there are some areas that can grow crops." "That is bigger than all of Germania even with the Inferior and Superior portions." "It is a hard life to live in the desert. An animal needs large areas to graze and to survive never mind flourish. The only arable land is near the coast." "You can have it if it were up to me." Sapor said a bit snappishly, "I did give it to him. He said I will get some of the fertiliser from this area." It was Julian that said, "Why do you want this land? It looks useless." "The land is worth very little without water. The value is in the black liquid and the gas." Nobody commented then so I figured they would let it ride. This transaction had to get put on paper soon. We wrote sugar contracts in Latin and used the simplest terms I could. I wanted no misunderstandings with those in the room or their successors. To make the business stable, my partnership was to the two empires and to Germania. That way the rights could not be sold or stolen. I remember how Egypt had built the Suez canal and when it ran into trouble it was snapped up by the English and then troops came in to 'protect' their asset. The contract with Sapor that gave me the rights to the Arabian Peninsula were witnessed by the other two men. The contract with three men and me concerning the amount of land I would get when I built the railway was spelled out. I would still get the Ruhr Valley and a goodly amount of land around it. We had not finished when we heard a disturbance in the hallway. The guards had been told to keep people away but three young people wanted us now. We adjourned the meeting and went outside. It was a shock to see that it was now night. Lazeez excitedly said we repaired the plane. Anoushak held out her glider and I saw that it was not a glider any more. A small engine was mounted in the nose. The engine was too large for the size of the plane because it was one that I had been working on to explain how the motor worked when we were not working with the larger engine. "We will have to try this in the morning. It will make too much noise tonight. I turned to Tertius and said, "Find a strong piece of wood about fifteen centimetres long. I need two silk cords like what you use on the smaller kites. They have to be at least fifteen metres long. We can finish this after everybody gets up in the morning. Tertius said, "But we worked hard to..." "Tomorrow Tertius." I pointed to two spots on the plane and said, "You can put something here, and here to tie the silk to." "Yes sir came from him but he sounded very sad." When the three left, Sapor said, "Will that thing fly?" "We are going to have to wait and see." The room we left, drew us back. The men got construction contracts to build steamers even if they were made of wood. The size I wanted was twice the length of the Enterprise but this would make them difficult to get far up a river. Ships of the Patricia class had already been made. They even had more powerful engines but I doubted if they were any better than the old engine. I wanted a tug and this had to have a few thousand horsepower to push the larger barges up and down the rivers with any speed. Engine development was linked to the ships but whatever ideas we found would go into the aircraft and other vehicles. The senators would be footing part of this bill so this would reduce the exposure the rest of us received. Canal traffic was mentioned and I had to use maps of Germania now to show where they would go. Their cost though would be high but this would be something we would only undertake after we had large ships. This lead to roads. I mentioned my bitumen that would be heated in a large drum with a lot of small pieces of crushed stone then rolled with a heavy machine. They liked the idea but could not see the product in their minds yet. Sapor said, "There is a lake of bitumen in Palestine. You do not have to even dig for it." "I had already heard of that. It is under the authority of the Romans. My problem will be in gathering it. It is already quite thick but I think it can still be pumped." Julian said, "What are your plans?" "It is too heavy to put in carts and carry so the best way is to make a large pipe and force it into a large tank near the shore of the Mediterranean. A metal ship could pick it up and transport it to where it can be stored. Smaller cities could come and purchase some of the bitumen for their own uses. The main highways I want to build will need a lot." We had not finished by the time Clovis yawned. I said, "Let's discuss this further after we have rested." The girls were asleep when I got to bed but woke up enough to give me a little bit of lovemaking and then went back to sleep. From the smell in the room, they had been pleasing each other as they waited my arrival. I nestled between them and thought how lucky I was. The girls got up before I did then they came back to get me. The three anxious people of the night before wanted to try their plane. I had my breakfast as five expectant people watched me chew. Only when I was finished did they describe what they had done to the glider. I picked the plane up and saw that it was nose heavy and balanced the plane on the wings and told the three where to put some weight in the tail to bring it into balance. I then tried to balance it along the fuselage and saw that one side was heavier. This might have no bearing on the flight characteristics because it was going to be controlled by the silk cords. One day we would have to even compensate the engine torque. The three ran out and left me in peace so I could have another cup of coffee. Patricia asked, "Is that going to fly?" "I do not know if we can start the engine. It worked only some times when we had it on the bench. It has enough power but there are a lot of other considerations that have to make before it can fly." In ten minutes they were back and I went out with them. I tried to start the engine with no success. As a final resort I went to the larger engine we used before and worked on getting this going. This was almost as bad. Once it coughed then started and I had lots of people around me now. I put the plane backwards to the large spinning prop. The wind was very strong and it turned the smaller prop on the plane until it finally caught. I adjusted the fuel so the engine would not self-destruct. This was done away from the wind but not the noise. Sapor, Julian and Clovis came out to see what was happening after hearing all the noise. I tied the silk to the two points though it was difficulty because the cord was being blown but the strong little motor. When it looked like we would make it, the large motor was shut off and the people cleared out of the way as I played out the string as Tertius held he plane. I tied the cords to the end of the piece of wood and looked around before yelling to Tertius, "Let it go." The plane bounced over the uneven ground but took to the air before we went half of a circle. I got the plane to two metres altitude and kept it there as I turned around to face the plane all the time. Most of the crowd had their mouth open. I yelled out, "Anoushak, when it goes by next time, run to me quickly." I had to go around five more times before the girl ran to me. I had difficulty getting her to take control of the plane but she did even as I held her hands on the wood. I finally let go and stayed behind her as she turned slowly. The plane lost altitude and Anoushak brought it up just like a pro without oversteering. When the fuel ran out the plane finally started to descend and Anoushak brought it to a good landing. It was only the rough ground that made the plane go nose down in the dirt. Nobody moved but all eyes were on the plane. I put my hand on the girl's shoulder and whispered, "You did a great job." In a few seconds the spell was broken and both Lazeez and Tertius ran to get the plane. Sapor hurried to me even without his guards and said excitedly, "I would like to try that." The ground was levelled by a lot of feet and done so very quickly. Lazeez had the plane fuelled as Tertius did the inspections. Anoushak was giving pointers to her father as if she were an old pro which in a way she was. The motor started quicker this time because it was hot. Sapor got the plane to lift off in a shorter distance. After only ten laps he tried to gain altitude then bring it down again. Again everybody had their mouths open in wonder. When the fuel ran out the plane landed gently on the ground and Sapor smiled more as if he had done it perfectly. Sapor had two more turns until he let the Augustus of the Roman Empire have his turn. This man had two turns himself until the king of the Frisians complained and he had to have his turn. It went on until all the fuel was used up and it was well into the afternoon. I had two emperors and a king that wanted engines and I had to get three young people to get to work making them. Sapor didn't complain when one of them was his daughter Anoushak. During a late meal we discussed aircraft and I explained most of what I knew. I had a pilot's licence so I had to know more than most people of my day. I had talked to some pilots that had fought in Nam. They were mainly helicopter pilots though I talked to fixed wing pilots too. They talked over my head as if I was one of their cronies but some of the information stuck. It would not do me much good even if I lived to be a hundred. Most of our mutual business was wrapped up in contracts. I was committed to doing an awful lot but I was going to get the support of hundreds of thousands of people if I needed them. Julian promised the same assistance even if he had to twist a lot of arms. Mithridates had to start a sugar refinery here and keep it going for ten months of the year. He did not like parting with me but I explained again that this was temporary. Our own refinery was near completion. Steel or iron for the pans was difficult to come by but Sapor sent his people out into the field with some Romans to extract what we needed. This turned out to be a good idea because the two armies saw that they were no longer at war but cooperating. This necessitated another and larger building that could take the quakes. Again I got cooperation and even some of the Frisians came to help. Sturdy tables had to be made to crush the cane but Lazeez, Tertius and even Anoushak worked to make rough rollers that would crush the stalks as they passed through. They still had to be turned by hand because I had done nothing with the DC motor/generator. I figured that the best way to get everything going was to go back to the Rhine and start making equipment that could be shipped here and then be assembled here. This would be everything but I hoped that it would not be the massive rolls. Making hot rolled steel of this size would be very difficult to ship even with the Enterprise. I had run out of stingers and I saw little use for them. The three leaders, which now looked like the three musketeers, wanted more of this weapon to go into their own arsenals. I left to set up a lab and in the course of eight days made the ingredients. In an act of good faith I gave each of the leaders ten kilos of plastique and twenty of my milligrams of fulminate of mercury. With some drawings they could make the stingers themselves. I needed glassware and lime was also very necessary for the refining of sugar. In my hunt to get these extra ingredients, I found some compounds containing boron. This quickly necessitated more people to help me. They had to collect this material and transport it. There were hundreds of uses but now I could make borate glass that could take the heat of an oven or a lab. There were a lot of people to feed and we talked Sapor into going out into the Mediterranean as a common fisherman. Julian and Clovis took it as a good joke and some women I knew quite well changed into disagreeable fisherwomen when they berated the men when they were not doing their share of the work. The second time we went out, I had two long silk cords tied to a length of chain and then this was attached to a large steel hooks. We talked and drank wine while the women this time relaxed. Fishing this way was common but the fishermen never had the comfort we had. Clovis had a strike and he fought with the fish. He thought that he was going to be pulled off the barge because off its incredible strength. When it flew out of the water trying to dislodge the hook he saw what he had caught. It looked like a marlin but there were lots of billed fish and I could not tell them apart. This one was a giant but I did not know how big they got. It was all of three metres long not counting the bill. It had a deep chest. The pointed bill was luckily shorter than the chain coming from its head. We did not have good rods, reels or even chairs. Julian and Sapor asked if he wanted relief but Clovis steadfastly refused. All I did was give encouragement and tell him what I knew about fishing this way. It was good that Clovis was both strong and healthy because it took three hours to get the fish close to the barge. We had gaffs ready and it took all of us to drag the struggling fish onboard. We had been out later than we planned and headed for shore. A tripod was hurriedly set up and the fish pulled up so that the tail just touched the ground. With no cameras I hurried Lazeez over to rough out a picture. Clovis did not mind in the least posing beside the monster that he had caught. Couriers came all the time to bring the word of what was happening in both empires. We knew this was just going to be a working holiday and the rest of the year would have to be much more stressful. We prepared to separate and return to our respective work. Sapor had summoned some young men and women that he hoped would be potential cadets. It was surprising to see that Anoushak was very adamant that she too should join this group. Sapor was the boss but now there were a lot of women hammering at him to give his daughter a chance to learn. Some of them were Sapor's wives and the girl's mother. KhAvar and her mother had the strongest influence and after a few days Sapor allowed Anoushak to come with us as long as KhAvar was going to look after her. I think Sapor thought that his daughter was going to get too corrupted by our ideas and no respecting Persian would want to take her as a wife. Some of the cannon were taken from their positions and put on carriages. Sapor was going to get six ten centimetre cannons. He was not going to fool with the powder though. Six Frisians would be staying with him on detached service. None of them knew anything about making the powder and were single. My hope was that they would settle into the Persian army but this I did not think would happen. The Persians would follow orders to walk into the sea and come out the other side. Frisians were German and all you could do was point them. This was even after they had been trained by Clovis. More cannon would be staying with Julian and these would go where he ordered. The Frisians would be the trainers that taught the artillery course to the Romans. They would run out of powder I knew and Clovis was going to have to send more from his stock. Not only Mithridates would be staying but Lazeez too. The young man had a better understanding of the lathe and mill. Sapor wanted a lot more engines and some he thought would work quite well on a boat as his private launch. This did not fool me because I knew that he was going to build planes too. It was still a tight squeeze to get everybody aboard. It was also difficult to say goodbye to the friends that would be hard to meet again. The wind was not as favourable on the return trip. We towed the Patricia and the barge. This time the Patricia could not use her sails. We did use the net though and caught enough fish to feed us. Fish by now was going to get boring so I breaded it and deep-fried it. Everybody loved the taste and I had no problem disposing of what I made. We tied up at the docks beside the walls of Constantinople, and began to unload people, cargo and the six guns. A small boy ran through the guards and directly to me. I smiled down and him and recognised his face. He was the boy that had the genetic defect that I had not repaired yet. Trying to find how to do this would take a lot of my time even if I knew that it ultimately would be useful. I picked the boy up and he came readily into my arms. "How are you today, young man?" "My mommy says to tell you that there is a trap in the city." I was now cautious and still tried to sound jocular. "Do you know where?" The boy just pointed to a woman I recognised in the crowd. He was not very old to understand much. He was probably the only one that could get through our lines. I had to put out the guards to keep the people away or I would get mobbed all the time. With the boy still in my arm I waved to the woman and eventually she waved back. I signalled her to come to me and she was then able to get by our guards. As she came over I whispered to Patricia, "Tell your father to act natural but I heard from this child that there may be a trap for him or us." Patricia was worried but put on a phony smile that most people could see was a fake. Patricia went off and the mother of the child came close. When her face was away from the crowd she whispered to me. "They are going to try to kill the Augustus." In a louder voice I said, "I will certainly try to heal your child again. I am busy now. Why don't the two of you go onboard the Enterprise and wait for me?" It took the woman a moment to understand and she said, "Thank you for trying to cure my son again." Patricia and Julian wandered over and I said, "The boy's mother said that you are in danger. Why don't you go onboard and Patricia will try to bring the mother to you. I am sure that we are being watched now." "Me too. I will do as you ask." I moved over to Clovis and said, "We may have some action soon. It may be sword work but it could be cannon too. Try to keep those watching from knowing that we are aware of this." I got a better phony smile and a pat on the back as Clovis started to prepare for a fight. He walked over to the leader of the Roman guard detail and the two men laughed loudly and separated. The leader hurried onto the Enterprise though. These men were far from being good actors. Clovis had his men wrestling out the limbers next. They carried the powder and the various kinds of shot. The crowd was too close and I yelled out to the people and the perimeter guards to move them back because we had a lot of dangerous equipment to bring out yet. I used the excuse that the powder will kill a great many people if it exploded. The crowd cooperated a bit but the soldiers pushed those that did not want to move. Some of the unsuspecting guards were sent off to bring horses to pull the cannons and it would be a sure bet that they would be questioned to see if we suspected anything. One of the Frisians came to me and put his back to the city and said, "It looks like a real trap my lord. The woman said there are a lot of mercenaries in the city. She was told by a drunk man of a new Augustus soon." This was a danger to the rest of us too. If they were going to raise a new Augustus then they would be going against what Aldúlfr was supposed to have said. This meant that it was a faction that did not believe in Woden or did not want to because of their position of power. I thanked the man and gave useless orders and walked back onto the ship to see what Julian was going to do. Julian soon told me, "Can you get confirmation of this trap?" "I sent men into the town to get horses to pull the guns. They knew nothing about a trap. We can question them if they come back." "I think the only thing to do is have a small procession to celebrate the peace treaty. I will call some people here to arrange for flowers and to clear the streets so we can march to the palace with the cannon. We can do this in our armour." I said, "Then you would need chariots and some perhaps some men with trumpets. It is odd though that no high ranking officials have come yet to welcome you home. There are only the crowds here. The walls could have spectators but the majority of them are soldiers." "I have noticed that too." Julian gave his orders and the men scurried to do what he said. Once on the dock he pointed to the city angrily and sent one of the unsuspecting negotiators off to fetch people that would help with the procession. The rest of the negotiators had not been dismissed so they were nearby or underfoot. The armour was broken out and polished in preparation to have a supposed procession. I brought out my own armour and did the same thing. Patricia and KhAvar were busy polishing it for me as I stood before them. More soldiers came out and Julian gave orders to his own men to use them to hold the crowds even further back than where I had placed them. The leaders of the guards from the city were summoned. They were told of the procession and then some were sent off to get the horses that had already been ordered. This way we would not lose more men. We were all looking for treason in the faces of the officers. They were excited to be before the Augustus but only a few looked to be acting oddly. They seemed to be counting men and assessing their ability. They all looked at the cannon that were now mobile but some showed much more fear of them. Our men that went into the city did not return but horses came with the soldiers. A lot more soldiers came out than would normally. They were moving to surround us but Julian sent orders that they form a long column. They had to do what he said or they would risk exposing their plan prematurely. Some of the officers in this group were torn by what they had to do. Powder and shot was brought out on the deck. The mortars were heavy but still able to be carried. Some of these were placed on the deck and the dock. We tried to hide all this from the walls. One of the suspicious men came to one of the Frisians that was handling one of the mortars. "What are you doing here? You are supposed to be in the city now." "We are going to load the cannon with powder. When the time comes we are just going to make noise. Clovis likes this part. I have never been in a procession before and this may be my only chance." "Will the powder kill?" "Only if you are right in front of it. It makes smoke and noise without something to shoot out the barrel." The man hurried off and I watched who he talked to next. The horses were saddled and not hooked to the limbers yet. A few had come with chariots. In any case they were lead to one side and secured firmly. Julian sent out some of the negotiators to get the army into formation and give them the line of bullshit that Julian wanted them to believe. It was easy to see that the soldiers did not like this at all and were giving a lot of problems to their officers. I went over to the crowd and got them even further away than before. The cannons on the Enterprise had to cover the soldiers too and I did not want any civilian casualties. I started a sermon that was unlike the rest because I grasped to get the power that each human possesses. I tried to use it to capture the soldiers. They were either too far away or we had another mage keeping this other group from me. My own guards did not seek to help the people but stood near me for protection. When Julian began to speak to the soldiers I said to the crowd, "Woden wants all of you to stay here for a moment. It is dangerous to leave. Please understand that this is for your own benefit." I froze the people but it was done so they would recover in as little as ten minutes. Julian was just finishing, "The legions are under my command. I see things that I do not like and I plan to get to the bottom of this. The cannons before you and those on the two ships are loaded with heavy shot. If you run you will all die." Some of the men before us tried to get away but it was some of their own officers that held them back. The giant gates of the town quickly swung shut which further confirmed that something was happening. It also cut the enemy off from the city proper and retreat. Julian continued, "I want all of you to get to your knees and put your hands on top of your heads. Do this now or the cannons will turn all of you into a wet smear on the wall behind you." I ran back to the ship to get my bow. The guns from the ships covered the front of the enemy formation and the mobile cannon covered the flanks. This could turn into a bloodbath very easily. We were outnumbered perhaps twenty to one in fighting men but we had the cannon and the armour. The men were not complying with Julian's order and I was able to get to one side and close to Julian. I asked him, "Let me try?" "Go ahead. I do not mind too much if they die or not." I stayed out of the way of the cannon and called loudly, "I am the Hand of Woden. A great many Romans have died around me. I do not want to add to that number unless I must. The cannon are able to strike those in the front ranks and keep going until they strike the wall behind you. Soldiers do what they are told. Those that spoke of treason are not your rightful leaders. Now get on your knees and watch what could have been your bodies." They started to go to their knees. I was trying to draw power from them but it was difficult. When half had knelt I called out, "Kneel to Julian your Augustus or die. If he as to start killing then there will be no survivors." Arrows started to come down from the parapet above and struck all around me. They had a lot of force because the archers were shooting down. I took my own bow and pulled back and fired upward. I did not hit all of my antagonists but I did hit some of them. The arrows stopped falling when the saw how ineffective they were. The men had regained their feet in the interim and I had to get them back. The officers in the back still rode their mounts and I said to them, "Get off your horses and kneel." It took four arrows and used them on four men before the rest did as I asked. The infantry saw the remaining officers kneeling and then they did too. With all the hands on their heads I said, "Now watch the gate." I turned to Julian and asked, "Would you be so kind as to open the gate for us? I want to have a chat with those inside." "I can do that." He turned to Clovis and pointed to the gate. He yelled, "Open it." The cannons did not all fire at once but one after another. When the last had fired the first had already reloaded. The gate had holes in it where the solid shot had simply gone through. There would be a lot of death behind because the balls would not stop for a long time. The gates finally did fall but they still blocked the path. The soldiers in front of me were stunned. Some had bent over and were now with their faces to the ground. I called out once more, "Patricia, KhAvar, bring me the two packs of explosives in my cabin." The girls did not have to be told twice. I retreated from the wall but kept looking to the top of the wall so we would not be attacked. The worried girls brought the plastique. Patricia also had one of my grenades in her hand. I kissed her and said, "Smart girl." KhAvar got a kiss and I said, "I love you two, now you better get far away now." I put the two packs where they would do the most good but close enough to set each other off. The plastique was normally difficult to initiate but not with the fulminate of mercury so close. I waved our people to go further back and I started the fuse and ran. It had only got a hundred metres when I was picked up by a giant hand and thrown thirty more metres. It was difficult to gain my feet. I was hurt but not seriously even if I could not repair myself. The two girls though were all of a sudden beside me as if to fight for my life. They did not even have any armour on. When I turned around I saw that the heavy oak gates were not there anymore. A large portion of the stone that supported the gates was missing too. People were in worse shape then me and some were not able to get up. The front rank of the soldiers were down and I figured that a few had to be have been killed. Instead of going to the soldiers I went to the people that had come to hear me. They were in the shadow of the wall and had not been hit though they had been pelted with small stones and dust. It was easier to gain control of them now and I sent a command to heal. Quickly I added the surge of hormones and freed them so they could leave. The soldiers were next. With nobody coming through the gates I raced across in front of our cannon. This time I had no problem interfacing with their bodies. They were told to stay put. They were weak but still started to heal if they were alive. I turned to find KhAvar and Patricia with me. "What are you doing here with no armour on?" I looked to the wall again but saw no archers. Julian was advancing now with the guns and he came up to me as I retreated with my mates. "Are the soldiers secure?" "They won't bother us." He was serious but I got a small smile and he said, "You better get your wives out of here." "I think so too." The girls went onto the Patricia as she had engines and could pull away at any time if there were any problems. I caught up to the men as they attached the cannons to the frightened horses. The Frisians went through the portal first. After a signal the cannons advanced. The buildings facing the gate were severely damaged by cannon fire. The gates weighted a few tonnes each and they were just thrown down the street. There were a lot of soldiers around the gate but most were dead or dying. The gates had a red smear under them and we all knew the cause. The negotiators had armed themselves and followed us but I knew that they would not be of much good in a battle. My hearing was damaged but it was still better than anybody else's. All that I heard were frightened civilians. Julian said after we were well within the walls, "You better get an officer to tell us what has happened." I said, "Good idea. That's why you are the Augustus." He just looked at me with an odd look and I went back out. There were a few surviving officers and some that had my arrows in or through them. I worked on those that were serious shape. Two looked good to me because of their colours which told me that they were in the patrician class. I said to them, "The Augustus of the Roman empire, the one that is your leader wishes to have a few words with you. You are in serious trouble but there may be a way of getting you out of this without bringing shame upon your families." One of the men said, "You have bewitched the Augustus. He is your puppet." "He would be happy to hear that. Now do you get up and walk or do I have to get angry." "Do your worst..." I sent pain through both of the men but restricted their ability to scream or move. After the second time I said, "Do you wish more or are you going to cooperate?" The man that spoke nodded his head and I had to help both men to their feet. I walked with them through the gates. Some of those watching our rear assisted me in getting the men to Julian. When I got close I said to Julian, "They think that you are my puppet." "Puppet? Well we will see what else they have to say." I said to the men, "Your Augustus is his own man but you two are not. Speak truthfully and quickly and there may be hope to avoid disgrace." Julian gave me another look and started his questioning. In a moment the two men were separated and they were forced to answer without hearing the replies of the other. In a few more minutes we knew that two senators were behind this but they could also be the ones that others let us find. This city was still called Byzantium and the politics were as convoluted as the roads. Julian knew of the lies and deceit so he and I went out to find the officers again and see if we could find one of higher rank. One was injured badly but Julian did not care. Julian said, "Give this man the pain you gave the others." "Sure, but this one may not survive it." "So?" "Ok." I monitored the man and gave him the limit he could take then stopped as his heart started to get erratic. When he recovered, Julian said to him, "You can get more. Answer my questions." The man could not talk but he did nod his head. We got much the same answers as the first two men but we found that there was a group of senators that were coaching the younger two. We got some names and one of them was Sextus Curius Aquilinus. ------- Chapter 5 Julian was pissed now and ordered his men to get on their horses. We pulled the cannon to the home of Sextus. I knew the place well and I felt good to be going there this way. The streets were empty though we had everybody looking at us from their windows or rooftops. Sextus' home was walled and the stout gate was closed. Armed guards were above the wall. Julian called out, "Call your master." It took a while but a very frightened Sextus came to the wall and said, "Oh, you are safe. I was so worried that you may have come to harm. What can your faithful servant do for you, my Augustus?" "Come out here now." "The streets are dangerous. I have cool wine here in my home and it is safe too." "Come out now or you will not have a home." The man came out with seventeen of his men but Julian used his fingers and the men retreated to the closed door. Sextus came forward hesitantly and said, "I just heard about the conspiracy." Sextus gave the names of the two that we had learned first. Julian said, "There are more than that." He turned to me and said, "See if you can get him to talk." Sextus said quickly, "I will tell you everything I know." Julian said, "I know you will but it will be the truth my way." Sextus froze and I got close to support him. In a second all he did was quiver. I let him recover but at his age it was a while. When he could speak again it was Julian that said, "Do it again, Jón. I never did like this man." Sextus blurted out, "No, I will tell you everything..." He was fifteen minutes until he was able to move and ten more before he could talk. Julian said, "Who are in your group? Each lie gains you one more time of pain." The names came out quickly. After a while Julian said, "What traps do you have in your home?" "None, I only have a lot of men waiting to protect me." "I want your cool wine now." We entered the compound and all of the hired help was against the back wall where they were told to go. I was able to interface with them easily and left them to rest until we were ready for them. The servants and family came out next but nothing was done to them. The older male members did join the mercenaries on the grass. We struck only one more home that day. The rest saw that Sextus had broken and they fled the city. Julian called out the legion to give chase and we went to see what had happened in the palace. All we found here were a lot of frightened servants. I questioned Sextus about a possible mage and he admitted that some had come at Constantius' bidding and had been put to use by some of the senators. The mages' current whereabouts were not known. The girls came to the palace with me along with the cadets and a frightened woman with her child. The rats that fled the city had to be pursued. Lucius took the Patricia and gave chase to one ship that had left a port further up the coast. It fled north into the Black Sea. From there it could go anywhere including the Danube. Rufus was ordered to give chase to another senator with the Enterprise but he had the Mediterranean to search. My trip home was put on the back burner as I stayed for the trials of the senators that opposed Julian. Since almost everybody now was a Wodenist there was no way the culprits were going to get off. The senators were too high to just execute and they were fined heavily and banished instead. Their families were not penalised though but I knew that the next generation was not going to be as highly regarded as the last. While waiting to find any new problems, I worked on the generator. I did not have the machines necessary but I did have some good smiths that helped me wind the armature and the fields then make the commutator. The generator weighted eight hundred of our new grams but there was no easy way of driving it. Rufus came back nearly a month after he left. In his holds were the family of one of the senators that fled. The slaves, servants and guards were free to serve their masters but they could not leave their confinement. The trial was quick and the results were the same. Julian settled down to running the empire while I got the population firmly behind him and his efforts to modernise. I had to start this process and sailed back to Berytus. Full diplomatic relations were extended to Persia and Sapor knew what was happening. I needed machinery to help me make everything happen. Mithridates and Lazeez were very glad to see us. The channel into my property had been dredged deep enough to take the fully loaded Enterprise. Within a day the generator was hooked up to one of the steam engines and we had lots of power but I did not know how much. I used all of my electrical knowledge to deduce that the generator put out 90 volts at a low RPM and around 200 when it was turned as fast as it could be with our engine. The current was variable too but I figured we were getting 250 amps at the lower speed. The voltage was too high for my present needs, so instead of altering the generator I made a smaller unit with more silver wire. Julian was very generous since I helped him remove the traitors from his nest. The smaller unit took eleven days to fabricate and it put out 90 or better volts at full RPM but something much more reasonable at a low speed. Mithridates had processed many tonnes of sugar and now we used similar tanks to electroplate copper. One electrode gathered the pure copper until we cut up the electrode itself. The original portion was not pure. When this started to work we just made more baths and hooked them in series. The steam engine worked a little faster to take care of the voltage drop across each tank. The copper was very soft and we made it into wire by drawing it through dies. The cadets were with me in this all the way. Anoushak was the one that was most taken with this process. Her father came for a visit and his copper covered suit was electroplated with a much thicker layer of the metal. Sapor said, "What are you going to do with that other generator?" "We can make steel pipe with it. The hot metal is closed up tight and the electricity is fed through the joint to make it fuse. The pipe is slowly pulled through the device and it is welded as it travels." "Is that all?" "All? I could make a tower and put a large tank on the top. I can fill it with water and during the day anybody that is hooked up to the tower with pipes can have as much water as they need." "That is convenient; not necessarily good." "What if I took the water from a river and pushed it inside a large pipe that lead to the lands you owned that were dry most of the year?" "Now that is useful." "Do not get your hopes up because it is also expensive. Steel or iron will rust through in time. There are many places that have large wood pipes that are held together with steel bands. These may last even longer." "Show me." I drew some pictures of a wooden pipe I had seen in Petty Harbour, Newfoundland. It ran beside the road and was elevated so leaks could be seen and the metal bands tightened. "That is like a long barrel with iron to hold it." "You are right. All you need is some trees and I can make a saw that will make them the right shape." "I know just where you could do this." Later in the conversation I slipped in, "Anoushak is doing very well. She is a lot like AsA in many ways." "Those women will be the death of me yet. It is hard to get a moment's piece." "I agree and the reason I brought this up is that Anoushak can again go with us to Germania. Now you know that she fits in well with the rest of us." "I hate to see her go but I think it is for the best. I see that she has caught the eye of some of the young men." "One young man in particular thinks your daughter is very special." "His father is not even a general." He was talking about Tertius. I said, "Lucius may be an admiral. That is a general that fights on the oceans. The navy is going to be more important than ever. Lucius and Julian are friends now and Julian favours Tertius. The boy will be famous and already is for that matter." "Would he make a good husband and father?" "I think he would." "What would he accept for a dowery?" "I think he would take what I was given and be very happy to get it." "I gave you nothing." "I got the girl, that is what was important." For the next month I tried to make welding rod. Smoked glass was as easy to make as was a helmet to hold it. We now had lots of pure copper wire and it was only experimentation that allowed us to learn. I had no idea what was in the flux used in electrical welding. I did know that a carbon arc could be used too. Here two carbon rods arced to both sides of a seam that needed to be welded. The problem arose that carbon entered the metal and made the joint hard and brittle. Julian was sending dispatches the same as Sapor and I were. We were friends and business partners now. There was a lot of sugarcane but we had to go a long way to get it sometimes. I was kept very busy as were the cadets. They had to be taught many different subjects so school took up much of our time. Lazeez gravitated to this group though he and Tertius were a bit older. The cadets did everything I wanted then they built equipment that interested them. We made spark plugs but there was nothing better than leather for insulation of the wire. The insulation in the electrical motor was nothing better than varnish that did not conduct very well. This is what modern motors had but they had years to develop a good product. It was time to leave a second time. The hold was filled with copper wire, many sizes of motors and generators and as much sugar as we could carry. I cut back on some trade goods and substituted books of all kinds. Knowledge was a great thing to have and mine was far from complete. I remembered from my previous life that many things were unclear about this time. Books were burnt like those in Alexandria or in house fires. I wanted this knowledge to be handed down to the people that would live thousands of years from now. Writers had to be paid to write books for me so different facets of Roman and Parthian civilisation would be clear. So far there were more things to write about than there were competent writers. Lucius had returned empty handed because the particular senator he sought, had fled overland. The nearest legion was informed and they took up the pursuit. Sapor got the Patricia but most of the guns went to Julian until we made more. Sapor was still happy with the share he got. Sapor made a point of sailing to Constantinople but left days ahead of us. We tied up at the docks at nearly the same time. He had a lot of sugar to sell here before he started to cover the rest of Asia Minor. We said our goodbyes and took some couriers with us. Mail was important and we were about the fastest thing going. We stopped in Rome. Part of this was to bolster Julian but it was good for me too. The few days turned out to be a month but it was time well spent. The sugar sold exceptionally well. The rum that I had made from the first successful batch of sugar went even better. I picked up more books and even started a memorabilia collection. This started out as coins but got to be everything that would be lost of this time or previous times. It would not go to my children but to everybody to view. Rufus was our captain and he bitched all the time about not having enough to trade. He was right because I was rich from this one trip alone. We travelled through the Pillars of Hercules. I pointed out where the British had a base that could fire across the straight and still withstand a nuclear attack. This time the UN would own both sides of the straight. We dropped off couriers all the time and picked up others. When we got to the Seine, we dropped off some men because I was not sure how deep the river was. Our previous survey only showed the depth that was safe for the Patricia. More of the Patricia class ships had been made and I could come back in a few weeks with one that would not run aground. Just before the mouth of the Rhine, we pulled shoreward and we all saw the flame that was still coming from the ground. There were people there because I could see tents. I took a small boat to shore and Rufus came too telling everybody how we had come to this place not too long ago. I had not stopped before to plug this leak up but now I wanted to. Soon I would need the gas to make ammonia to produce explosives and fertiliser. The flame was now sacred as I knew would happen. I gave a sermon and then talked about this place when I first arrived. I was lucky since the escaping gas was through a small crevice in the rock. This material could take the forces of erosion much better than the well above Antioch. "Woden wants us to prosper and to do that, we need good food. The good food will be more abundant if we have fertiliser. The gas and liquid that escape is not magical but it can make all of your farms more productive. I need the this to further Woden's word. The flame must be extinguished so it will light up your lives a different way." I took a rock that was the size of a skull and ceremoniously threw it into the hole in the ground but the gas and liquids just went around it. "Everybody take a stone and throw it into the pit. You will be doing Woden's will." It did not take long to fill the pit. Shovels were fetched and clay was dug and thrown on the much smaller flames. It took hours though to fully extinguish the fire and then plug up the leaks. We had another sermon and the participants felt the Hand of Woden caress them. The Rhine had a lot of forts that needed mail. I did pause at the mouth of the Ruhr River where Duisburg would one day be. "Our new home is to the east of here. There is a lot of coal and iron and I mean to use it." I had been slowly leading up to this for a long time and my mates didn't seem to care as long as I was near. The valley was very large and was worth billions of dollars but iron was still easy to find today. We visited Horatius Postuma and he greeted me as if I was the Augustus himself. I gave him the mail personally because one was from Julian. The man shook with the letter and had to open it quickly even with us here. Tertius was near and had a giant kite with the flaming figure on it. It was not long until it was in the air and the man almost forgot his letter. All it said was that Julian thanked him for his support during the last crisis. Horatius had to wear the harness and he too was pulled a bit into the air but only once. The kite was very reluctantly pulled in and Tertius gave it to the man and said, "I am giving this to you." "But... but... thank you for the gift. I do not think I could ever give you something that comes even close to the value of this kite." "Then you should watch what my very good friend Anoushak has." We cleared a wide circle around the girl. Tertius adjusted the engine and showed Horatius the propeller he had seen when I first came here. Tertius then pulled a long thin silk cord at least a dozen times before the engine started to roar. He put it to the ground and waited for his girlfriend to nod her head. The plane took off and in seconds Anoushak had it airborne. She went around a dozen times until she started to do acrobatics with it. If Horatius was stunned before, he was catatonic now. When the plane came into a soft landing nobody spoke and nobody moved. Anoushak went to the man and brought him to the place she had just been, while the plane was readied by Tertius. Once it started, Anoushak got Horatius to hold the controls. The man was simply enthralled at what he saw. It was the third circuit that the man finally figured out what he was doing and smiled. When the plane landed the same thing happened. Nobody moved. Tertius and Anoushak got to see what Horatius had been working on for all this time. The two made appreciative comments because the gliders were much better than theirs but they had no engines. Tertius left and brought back three engines and a large jug of fuel. He handed the engines to the man and told him about the balance and where to put the fuel tanks. Horatius was allowed to see the documents that Julian gave me concerning the railways and especially the one that allowed me the clear title to all of the Ruhr Valley. The river was near but so were more forts. I figured it might be good to have him know who the property belonged to. We left a very befuddled man that could not stop smiling. We heard a sharp whistle after leaving the dock. A larger version of the Patricia was coming towards us. The barge she towed was much larger and the cabins were three stories high. Her smokestack was even higher to let the smoke clear the barge. We could see that she was much more powerful. The waves coming from her bow were much larger even with the impediment of her load. Rufus waved but didn't need to. The Enterprise was just too noticeable. We did not stop her or allow us to stop but we did stare at each other. On the deck of the boat was an old Roman physician and one of my first Roman friends. With Iulius were Atrius and Manlius. They waved madly and the stoic Manlius called out, "Will you be here in a week?" "No, but I will in six. I need to check on the school on the Weser." "We will meet you then." They looked excited enough to just stop and talk for days. The hundreds of people on the barge though would do the same if allowed. Most were military people but some looked to be the people I had taken in. Instead of pulling in the river going to my property, we went to the one that separated Lucius' from mine. The dry dock was here and it had been enlarged. More land had been taken from the shore to fit the business. Inside were four large barges and an equal number of hulls like the ship we had seen just pass. On the far side of the dock was a ship that was even larger than the Enterprise. She was 112 metres with a corresponding increase in the beam but proportioned much like the Enterprise. What surprised me was the amount of construction that was done. The large keel had been cast and the hull looked almost ready to set sail. I knew from experience that there was lots of detail within a hull to complete. I would have to see the ship to find out when she would be ready. This was the one I intended to place engines in. All work stopped as we got near and I waved to all those that were working. The number that lined the walls was staggering. It took a bit to get used to the surroundings. I held my girls as we watched the trees go by. Soon we stopped and the sails furled. Men got out in one of the boats and proceeded to pull the ship up the slow moving river. More people had to do the same task. With ropes from the stern to keep the ship centred in the river and more from the bow we were pulled forward. There were tracks beside the river that went to the dry dock but as yet there was no engine coming our way. The dock where I first stopped had been expanded but not as much as what I heard mine was. There was little need too, because large shipments were sent from the other river. By this time people has lined the river and did whatever they could to help. Some of the people wept and I had to think of all the things they had gone through because of me. The people were a lot more respectful in a way because they kept their distance. I carried the boy that had brought the warning to me about the attack in Constantinople. His mother was further back with the rest of the people leaving the ship. From the location the Enterprise had first begun, I started a long sermon. They must have heard of what had happened since I left this land but now heard it from my own lips. I had not finished much of the news when Tertius and Lucius had brought Licinia. I continued with the news but had a smile at the woman that looked to have difficulty walking. I had another smile because Anoushak was there too and being solicitous. The high points were of the most interest so I included Lucius help in securing Julian's rightful place but also helping him in the short lived insurrection. It was easy to hold the essence of the people around me. They seemed to want to give me everything they had. I gave the power back so they would live better and concentrated much harder on Licinia. The boy Liburnius was brought up. He was happy to come because I had been working on him when I was free. I used the power here to do research because I could not heal this problem away without knowing what I was doing. When it got late I stopped the sermon and just went out among my family. The guards that I had met here before my voyage tried to stay reasonably close without hampering me. When I got to Licinia I knew that I had to break some old fractures to reset them correctly but this could be done later. I was sure that tonight the man and woman would want to show their love for each other. Everybody found a bed and I found two warm ladies that wanted to keep me warm. The next morning there were a lot more people around. The guards now were the ones that gave the news so I could save my voice. The slant on the information was what I wanted to give. It was still the truth but I wanted them to get a clearer picture of what I wanted them to do in the future. It was the next day that I was able to get to my own home. Here the crowds were much larger. It seemed like all of Germany was here and working for me. Most of the land was stripped of trees. Large multi floored buildings stood in their place. They didn't look like slums though. Roman style roads were everywhere and the road level was higher than the surrounding land. The railway was everywhere and it too was elevated. The water powered mill had been obsolete when I left but still useful. It had bred and now there were six more. There was no shortage of lumber or cut trees. The coal mine was now covering an area seven kilometres by three. I could see the seam of coal still. It went progressively deeper into the ground. At the far end the overburden was taken out by buckets using the steel rope I had tried to make before I had left. What I did like was the large vehicles with steel wheels that were pulled by tractors to a place where the overburden was dumped. In the pit were steam driven shovels with cable used to manipulate the bucket and put the soil in the trailers. They looked very much like the small models I had shown long ago with thread to show how everything worked. The coking equipment was what disturbed me. There were a lot of substances expelled that would cause cancer. I had not done enough to contain this. The tar, gases and liquids were also useful but it was the pollution that I hated the most. I burned what I could and stored the tar to preserve the ties the rails rested on. Some products like the ammonia I could do little with at the present. We took the railway to the mill and I showed my family and guests what we were doing. Everything had changed greatly from when I had left. Furnaces had been destroyed when the iron froze in them. The last time was in the raid where Patricia and Tertius were captured. The furnace had been ripped down and a new and even larger furnace put in its place. Tertius took Anoushak and the new cadets with him because this is where he worked. KhAvar said, "It is so big and dirty here." "It is bigger than when I left too. The dirt though is just here and not spread over the countryside. I reuse water over and over again to wash the gases that leave." KhAvar pointed to the flames that roared from the large stacks. "What is that?" "I have not made engines that will use all the gas to power them. At the moment, the gas is fed back into the furnace to reduce the iron and heat the furnace but some always comes out. In the mean time it is better to burn what we cannot use to make steam." "But... but this place does not look like people should be here." "You are right, Honey. We learn as we go along and make small improvements. Over time it will be safer and cleaner. It is like the flames above. I want to stop them but I have to make a large device to do so. This takes time to make it right because I know only a little bit about it. Once it is built though they can be used in other places too. This construction took a great many centuries to perfect and it was still not that good. We are like a baby that is taking his first steps. As he learns and gathers strength, he will learn to run or dance." KhAvar loved my home. The Romans had tried to loot it and did a lot of damage but it had been repaired in my absence. The two girls got the job of taking over most of my domestic responsibilities. There was more than enough for two women. The cadets would stay with us temporarily but they would usually stay where they were studying. The Greek scholars tried to find out more of what I learned. There was a great deal but I was not ready to take weeks on each facet. I would have to write books on this. I had mountains of paper now to do anything I wanted. The Greeks though treated the books I brought with the reverence they deserved and placed them in the library then took my memorabilia too. They understood my reason on collecting this but thought that the material would always be around. I had enough surplus track to complete the Baghdad line. There was enough track for our own needs and I meant to use it. The maps were taken out now and the routes were gone over once more. The land had been surveyed and plans made but we did not have the permission of the Augustus and Sapor until now. I had sufficient people to make three full crews. There were Roman engineers, surveyors, stone masons, guards and labourers. I explained to them that their numbers would swell to thousands. They believed but I did not think it went too deep. "I need one group to put a railway to the north. The valley that the Ruhr River runs through is now mine. Once you get there the rails will have to cover the entire region. We can work on the valley after we get there." I went over what I wanted and explained why. Usually this was to do with bridges, roads and the double or triple sections I needed. I also left more room for expansion. This was costly but cheaper than ripping a good bridge down just to build a better and larger one in later. Another group was given the job of going south then east. It would then parallel the Danube. Bridges would have to be built to carry trains to all the countries along the way. Again I knew the track was there from my time in the future but the bridges were very high to let ships clear them. Those bridges alone would be major undertakings. Ferries designed to handle trains would have to do until the bridges were done. The third group would go east. I wanted to link up to the lands that Clovis governed. When enough experience was gathered we would then head west to Gaul and Hispania. All the equipment had not been made. The land could be cleared and some of the simpler bridges could be fabricated out of stone and wood. We had earth moving equipment and I was sure that the next versions would be made better. One of the major materials we needed was crushed rock to get this we needed crushers. Transporting all this stone was going to be expensive in time and money but I could do little to avoid it. Security would be a problem later. Some landowners had to have their property severed by the track. They would be compensated but they would still be angry. There were still millions of barbarians that had not been educated enough and could see the crews as wealthy people they could rob. I called in Tertius and the cadets. "Cadets," I said, "I want you to build a new motor. This will have four pistons. Make it strong and we can make improvements in it later. The valves we have been using will not work now. We are going to have to make the diesel I have been telling you about." Anoushak spoke out, which she would not have before. "What about the springs we need? That motor is a lot more complicated." "We have been working on the alloys used in making spring steel. You are just going to have to continue this work. I know much more about chemistry than metallurgy. You are going to have to learn to be smiths and find what steels will take repeated bending." "But..." "But you are a girl or but you are going to have a difficult time?" It took a moment and she said, "It will be difficult." "Yes, I know. I also know that good spring materials exist. You just have to find them. And before you do all this I still need a compressor." I got some pained looks but I still felt that they would find something for me." When they left, I rode out to the foreman that had helped me start the wire rope project. It took a long time to get back to the relationship we had before. "I want you to draw some very fine wire so that it is finer than the hair of a baby. This is woven into a cable that is a millimetre or a millimetre and a half in diameter. It has to be able to bend." "I can make that if that is your wish." My next destination was the carpenter's or rather the best of them that made fine furniture. I went through the same talk again until I could get back to the old relationship. I showed him a drawing of one of his metal planes turned upside down. It was fixed in a frame and had a high vertical board set beside it. I had seen something similar in Persia but I could do much better. When a board was pushed along a long piece of wood, it would then go over the blade of the plane. The edge would be cut neatly and at right angles. The wood would continue to be supported by another piece of wood after the plane. The cabinetmaker saw the benefits right away and said, "I will make this for you." "This is your tool. I want you to make me a flat surface made up of smaller boards that are dry and will not warp. It will also have to be held both vertically and horizontally." He got my prints on this too and he said, "I will make this as soon as possible my lord." With this out of the way, I had to go to the steel mill. We were making twenty kilometres of rail a day. Granted I would need two rails for track. It was still a very substantial amount. Rail was stored in giant piles. New rail was stacked across the layer underneath. There were more products needed and other than machinery, I wanted steel plate. Some of the plate could be rolled into pipe and this too I needed a lot of. The engineers that had helped me make the rail were now given drawings of the giant rollers I needed. This meant that they had to get the drawings of the giant machines to make the rollers. What I was proposing was a new rolling mill and there would have to be hundreds if not thousands of machines that would need to be made. Thankfully not that may different types. We scouted the area around the cupola where we could put this equipment. I went to the mine first and worked our way back. The pit into the iron ore deposit was getting very deep and somebody had made pumps to take the water out. This was going to be more costly all the time to extract the ore. I had still not drilled to find the extent of the body yet. So many details had to be done and there was only one of me to do most of this. The best spot to build the mill would mean red hot ingots would have to go through where an apartment building now was. Tracks would have to be laid and very heavy columns put up to support at least a hundred tonnes. I figured on two hundred though because I did not have the quality to build smaller. The hoists would be better if they were electric but diesel power would work too, though much noisier. Gearboxes with brakes were necessary. The steam shovel had to have this and I wondered how far into my stash of drawings the construction had slid. There was enough lumber to build many buildings and be in a safer place too. I had some people looking at moving the building if possible or just building another and ripping this one down. Holes were now started where we could put footings to support the mill and the heavy crane that would ride in it. Again, I built big just in case. Tourists came from all over. This was nothing new but they all wanted a few minutes of my time. Some young people became tour guides and took the tourists where I allowed them to go. Some locations were kept off-limits for safety or just because others could use this info before I got it to work. I was not opposed to anybody making money but I wanted the progress to be coordinated. Three days after I brought the plans for the rolls, the first two were cast. They were over sixty tonnes each without the mould. Because it was easier to continue, we made eight more sets. Smaller rolls would touch the hot metal and these would get worn out. The large rolls were just to support the inner ones. Two wide machined rings were made that fit over the shafts at the ends of the rolls. Babbitt poured into the gaps. We made the largest bearings yet out of babbitt and spun the giant roller with a leather strap around the shaft. A carriage went over the roller and calipers were used to see how we were doing. Adjustments were made until the centre line of the rolls was parallel with the rails of our tool carriage. This had to be redone each time we dressed the next roll. The shafts were turned at the same time but the portion in the bearing had to be saved for later. While this and the excavating were being done, steel columns were cast. They each had a large base that would be supported by a large stone block that would go into the holes being dug. It was a month until we had eight columns up. They extended eight metres above the ground and three below. Beneath that was a two metre thick block of stone and a lot of lime and sand. I was not there to see much of this. My mates and I loaded up one of the Patricia II type ships and pulled a load of equipment and supplies down the Rhine. With us were the cadets because they had to learn. I was the largest private employer in the two empires. To pay for all the products I needed required a steady influx of gold. The Roman army was still anxious to get more armour and swords even if they were obsolete. Kitchen products sold very well but they were still difficult to transport. Traders came to us and took the merchandise away at a discounted price and this is what mainly kept us afloat. We did not fish this time and our progress was at least twice as fast as before. The barge we pulled was much larger too and I figured we could go about twenty Roman miles an hour that way. The Weser looked to be narrower but it could just be that we were much wider. We still used the whistle but now we had a smaller one that made less noise. There were few obstructions. Our people went regularly down this river now. There was other river traffic but they were always very small craft. We still had cannon but it was below deck until it was needed. When I was first spotted, people must have galloped ahead to give the news and the banks were always crowded. I was still stopped at the larger cities and gave a sermon and healed those that I could. I could dispense with this if I just continued to give them their little jolt of happiness. This felt like cheating though and so many people could use my help. The school knew I was coming and everyone was clean and kept orderly. The students all had uniforms that I liked. Gnaeus Scipio was there at the front. He was not in armour but all of his men were. At a rough guess there looked to be half of a legion here at least. I knew that few were actually Roman. We clasped arms like very old friends. I pulled back and looked at one arm that looked a bit newer than the other. Gnaeus said, "Hello, Jón. The arm is better than the one I used to have." "Hello, Gnaeus. I am glad to see that you are doing well. I have a letter here from your Augustus." "I will look at it in a moment. It is good to just see you. From what I heard, I thought you would be dead at any moment. When I heard how the gods helped you then I knew that nothing could stop you." "Oh there were times when I worried and worried a lot. Take me for a tour of the school later and I will talk about what I had done later tonight." The cadets were next and they looked inordinately proud as they should be. I introduced the two groups of cadets to each other and asked the ones before me to walk with us. There were students everywhere and seemed to outnumber the soldiers. A high stone wall surrounded the property that was much like what would be around a large city. Cannon were emplaced where they would do the most good and Frisians stationed at each battery. The building was complete and looked strong enough to withstand an attack. The windows all had bars over them and the doors were very solid. After what had happened I could not blame them for doing this. I viewed some of the lower rooms and saw the radiators for the hot water heating. On all the walls were large chalkboards. Some rooms were just lecture halls but most were tech shops with a lot of machinery and other educational equipment. The windows all had glass panes that could be raised or removed. There were individual desks in some rooms or benches where two or more could sit while doing experiments. One room had the new steam engine that was similar to what was used in the Patricia II. There was another that was already in parts. Books and paper were everywhere and I was happy to see it used. Not all the books were written here or even mine but the school drew on knowledge from everywhere and then spread what they had learned to the world. This reminded me of the damage that was going to happen to Alexandria and the burning of the library. The tidal wave had not come yet but would soon. This would also put my property in Berytus in jeopardy except that I had built the home further inland and built walls to reduce the tidal wave that could damage my home. Another room seemed to be dedicated to bookkeeping because there was an abacus at each seat. I walked over to a table and looked at a ledger that was the same as what was kept on any of the other places I operated from. The dean of our school was wringing his hands unconsciously as if I was going to find fault. I said, "The rooms look as good as they could be. They are neat but not to the exclusion of learning. The students are well dressed and look happy. I would like to talk to the teachers and to the students. There may be something I can do to make this even better." "This... this... this is the best school there is or ever was." "That may be but I know I could make it better when I have more tools." "If you say so, my lord." "I think we may have to put up some buildings sooner than I thought." "Are there more students coming?" "That too but I have a direct current generator on the ship and a lot of motors. You are going to have to teach electricity." "We only know what you have written." "Then you will experiment with the students. This subject alone will need a building ten times this size." "Ten... ten times!" "At least. You can take two carbon electrodes and use them to weld. The area between he electrodes gets very hot and melts the metal." "I would love to see this." "It also has another benefit. If the electrodes are brought close together, the electricity will jump across and ionise the air. If you put a reflector behind it you will find that you have a very powerful light. This would be good during an attack at night. Carbon arc lighting is not good to have inside a small room but could be used in a large room if the light is directed to a reflecting surface. It is also good when we have sporting events that happen during the night." The man did not understand all this and he would have to be shown. "On the ship you will find a lot of very pure copper wire. This and most of the supplies are for the school." He said, "Yes, my lord," but he seemed to be out of his depth. I talked to the students at random and found them well educated when you consider the amount of schooling they had got in their life. They were well fed, well exercised and well taught in my opinion. There were more teachers than classrooms because I did not want any to leave once I found them. They talked among themselves and I knew that they were all learning more than they ever thought possible. Some looked like they belong in Hogwort's and I didn't think that magic would be on the course schedule until I was ready for it. There was a raised platform that I could speak from and I introduced all those that had come with me. Patricia and KhAvar were the mates that would bare my children some day. The word wife was not used though and I even made a point of mentioning this to everybody. My travels were gone over very quickly then I went back and filled in the details. I was only half done when it was getting dark. We stayed up later than the children's usual bed time so I could finish. The cadets took the other cadets to their residence and the rest of us went back to the boat or the barge to sleep. The ship was unloaded in the morning and I had six large draughting boards sent to the school. Each had a drawing on them along with the parallel bar that was held by the thin cable I had wanted. Triangles, french curves, dividers, compasses, and lots of large size paper went with them. Anoushak showed the cadets how to use the boards and showed them one of her complicated drawings. This was only bigger than other draughting boards I made. These were adjustable and had a parallel bar. My T square would now be obsolete except when the large board would be unavailable. The only new invention here was a better class of pencil with graphite and clay. Tertius was dancing from foot to foot because he had been told to not give out any of the secrets until I told him. The kite was released and all the cadets left to see how this monstrous kite fared in the wind. Patricia and KhAvar smiled at them as if they were children but KhAvar was not that much older. The hold had a lot of my iron products and people could come to the school to take delivery. The price was fixed and the gold would stay here to pay wages and purchase what we could not grow. The original motor wound with silver had been cannibalised and now it had pure copper. The number of fields had been cut down and the current shot up while the voltage dropped. The size of the wire though had increased substantially. The rotor had to be turned down and re-slotted to get the number of turns in. All this was hooked up to a gearbox that would be driven from a mid sized steam engine. All sizes of copper wire came out of the bottom of the hold. Most of it was heavy because I wanted the lights turned on as I mentioned to the dean and the teachers. Gnaeus erected a heavy platform from the top of some poles he had placed in the ground near a soccer field. Some of the carbon arc lights were hoisted up and secured. The cables went up too but had to be kept in their leather insulators. Tertius knew the most about this equipment because he was one of the cadets that helped build it. Small adjustments to the carbon electrodes were possible without shutting the instrument down to do so. The kitchens on the ship, barge and in the school made pastries to my specifications even if they did not know what they were doing. Deep fried food was not healthy but it could be used a few times a month. Baking soda was very common now because of the chemical processes I had going. Sugar though would not be common fare for a while yet. Gnaeus and I rode the area with some of his guards and mine. His also included some of the Gauls I hade fought last time and now they did what they could to make the community work. The farms were doing very well but I saw the yellow on some plants that indicated that they were not getting enough nitrogen. A new city had sprung up that provided what the school did not. The walls around it were wood but I hoped that the walls in all cities would come down as being useless. Gnaeus was shown the map of the proposed route of the railway and he saw that it came close to the school. Beside the tracks I always had a road and a good portion of the road was already made. If it were completed first, it would help in the construction of the railway. I said, "I would like you to take a vacation Gnaeus. The empire is stable now and we can afford you to rotate to see your family." The man smiled at me and said, "My family moved here. Three of my sons are students at the school." "That is good to hear but not every man is as lucky as you. You are still entitled to a vacation though. You could sail to the Rhine or go to some city like Lutetia if you wish. You could take your wife." "I could go now with my Augustus' permission but I feel that this is the place that everything is happening at." "Then you better go to my home on the Rhine. There is where you will see things happening." "I have heard about that but all the noise and dirt would bother me. I do not even like Rome though I had to go there to get my posting." "I know what you mean. I thought of Toronto the same way, and it was much cleaner." "I have not heard of that city." "The city will not exist now but did when I was in the future." The survey of the nearby land took quite a while even if we kept up a fast pace. The roads were all of the Roman type but elevated the way I wanted. Woodlots were checkerboarded all over to stop the wind and give the animals a place to live. Livestock was on our own farms as a technical subject that had to be taught. Breeding now for specific traits was practised. There were two tractors that were used when heavy pulling was needed. They were kept up by the students and the teachers as a course to study. There were a lot of weird implements but this was the way to learn. On the way back we went by the quarry and I found Kareltje hard at work. I saw his house and it looked much more like a mansion than most. It was made of stone naturally. The size of the quarry though had grown substantially. Rather than repeating myself, we slipped away. Kareltje would be at the meeting later and he could hear me just find there. I had seen the docks when we landed and then when we unloaded. Gnaeus told me about the dredging that had been done and the stone that had been put in to keep the banks from collapsing. "The bottom is now four metres down and we had to dig deeper to put the stone in." "I see that there was a lot of work done here. Too bad the Enterprise or the next ship will not be able to make it here until the entire river is dredged." "I have heard about that ship, I mean the first one. If I went to the Rhine, that is what I would like to see." "Julian, Sapor and Clovis like it too. I talked them into going on the ship and testing the cannon. They left without guards to test the weapons and all came back friends." "The cannons?" "It was not as a threat. Sapor loaded and fired the cannons. He was later given some of his own and a lot of powder, it is just not enough to start a full scale war. It was the ship they liked and the time to get to know each other." We got back late but it was still enough light for Tertius and Anoushak to get out their plane. Apparently the kite had gone over very well and I wanted to see what I could inspire in the students with the latest device. The two ran to the ship to get the plane and they were met by the entire school when they returned. I had not primed the audience so this would be a surprise. The noise startled the people and then Anoushak took the plane through its paces. When the plane ran out of fuel the same response happened. There was complete silence. The dean then Gnaeus got a turn. Lots were drawn and some lucky people had a chance to try. It was only darkness that cause the plane to be put away. The steam engine was hot and turning the generator under no load. Tertius climbed the ladder and checked the equipment one more time before moving the disconnect. The generator slowed then picked up a bit more speed. The entire area was bathed in bright light. Being close made me feel exposed. I could feel the heat given off and this was not just me. Tertius called down for an adjustment and the generator spun just a bit faster. We had some adjustment ourselves because the field windings were fed from the armature and if we used a resistor we could cut the voltage and thus the current too without having to slow the engine down. This was the same as what all cars had until the alternator came out. I said to Gnaeus, "What do you think of some of these lights mounted on your walls?" "I will not need to fight. Attackers will just run in fright." The sermon again lasted a long time. I healed people and talked about Wodenism but not much. I went over the talk I did last night for the benefit of those that were not there. It was a lot shorter. The next day Tertius and Anoushak had to teach what they knew while I taught some of the teachers and the remaining cadets about the lights. This necessitated the teaching of how a generator worked or at least the one I made. During the noon meal I mentioned about the school expansion that would go to the university level. There were now enough deserts that the students really had to concentrate on their food and what I was saying. Instead of being autocratic I called for ideas that were to be spoken after the afternoon meal. I knew that the classes would suffer. Gnaeus and I looked at the best way to protect his widening responsibilities. He figured that a taller building with lights and cannon on the top would be good. I didn't mind the lights but I thought the cannon should stay on the walls. What we did need were some good rifles. The suggestions came in with all the chaos I thought it would bring. I had my own ideas but wanted the students to have some input. Stone was the preferred building material but it would be supported by solid steel beams, the same as what the school already had. A mathematics, chemical and electrical buildings seemed right. I knew that the school had an organ though I had not heard it played but this meant that there had to be buildings for the arts and also another for sports. All this also meant that we should have many more dormitories and even a student union where they could hang out, study or chat. This was my original idea but building it one building at a time was slow. Finding qualified workers would make sure it was slow. The Romans made baths everywhere they went and the school was no different. Their's was more utilitarian but still nice. Two of my hot tubs were here too but hidden away because they did not look as nice. It was a sure bet that we had to factor in a much larger bath for a larger community. I talked about major universities in my time. The large library building with millions of books was too large for them to comprehend. At some later date all the books would be digitised and available world wide but that was so far in the future that I did not know when it may even come about. When the school buildings were listed, I began on the dormitories and other auxiliary structures. Some even had underground but well lit walkways to get from one building to another in inclement weather. I had to stray into artificial lighting again so that they understood a bit more. We worked it down to one building though and it would be three times as large as the current building. A portion of it would be to house students until the latter could be built and the students shifted. The school was showing a decided profit with the amount of goods it sold and this would alleviate some of the construction costs as well as keeping the local economy going. ------- Chapter 6 Patricia and KhAvar were kept quite busy. They taught health as a subject and talked frankly about sex. This was in mixed classes too. Sex was common especially when most of the people were raised in a one room home. I just wanted to get around the problems of turning the school into a baby farm. Children now had to get a lot more education before they went out and started a family. Already there were a lot of babies in the school and a few girls with large abdomens. I could not legislate sex out and figured I would have to use my abilities to keep conception from happening. This could also be used in conjunction with healing to just make conception just a bit harder to occur. The girls had seen the medical university on the Rhine. I had encouraged them before we left to talk to the teachers so they could give this talk here. The most important discussion they talked about was transmitting diseases. I was not going to be around all the time and I may be too busy to perform healing when there were wars to fight. I felt that they depended on me far too much when it came to their health. We travelled to the school on the Weser with my mates. I met Gnaeus' family and told them what I thought of their husband or father. I also told them that Gnaeus had agreed to train both the boys and the girls to fight as part of their curriculum. This put graduation off much longer but some of the sports time could be now devoted to being in the militia. The school and the surrounding communities were there to see us off. I felt warm inside to do so much good for the people. I wanted them to expect more but not just of me but of themselves. One day I would have to try to get them to pull their expectations back or they would be like the gluttonous consumers of my time. Our ship and barge had been cleaned out. We took on tonnes of salt but it was only a small portion of our capacity. Many more tonnes of semi processed hemp came on board. The school collected this for me along with minerals and curios that the people brought in. All of this was documented with the person's name and the location on the map that the mineral was found. Nothing was new to us but there was still lots more to find. All of the cadets were with me. They had taught and learned themselves and could only learn more by being with me or in an environment where they could experiment. Critical mass figured prominently in the decision to gather them all together. The trip back to the Rhine took as long as the trip to the school because I stopped at the cities and gave my sermons. The cadets talked among themselves about what they were now doing. I kept pushing the idea to find the alloys for good springs by putting them all on the same project. The large compressor was coming along fine but it was not complete yet. On our passage down the Rhine, I left the barge at one of the Roman forts and took the ship up the Ruhr. There were settlements here but they were all small except one. There were two forts too. I used the time to get acquainted and showed them the documents signed by Julian. I prepped them by saying that I did not want anything to change. There was lots of room and I would only bring prosperity to them. My rights were to mining but I now owned all the land that was not yet sold. I also had the right, through the courts, to gain any property as long as the owners were adequately compensated. We could not get too far up the river because of obstructions but I did have ideas about dredging and making lakes and locks. The Ruhr in my time was known for the amount of pollution it contributed to the Rhine. I was going to do my best to make sure this was kept to the smallest possible amount. The two forts gave me their maps to copy and I paid the commander some gold to make much more detailed maps. This I knew would be good for them too. As usual I had sermons and the people were told that Woden had plans to better this area and everybody would prosper. I was told of outcrops of iron and coal which we investigated. This took a week but it was still fun. I found more deposits myself but I still needed drilling rigs to tell me how good the deposits were an even how extensive they were. When we got back to our main base on the Rhine, we immediately got cleaned and soaked in a hot tub to relax. The cadets were sent to their own because I wanted to be with my wives. The next day I went back to work. The rolling mill was partially done. We were now building the gantry that would hoist two hundred tonnes now when I considered everything. More beams had been put into the ground to support this load and the crane itself had to be built to take even more as a safety factor. I was going to go with a diesel engine to power both the travel and the hoisting but the engine and gearbox had yet to be made. There was no roof on the building yet and I had to make do with tarps treated with animal fat to keep water off the machined surfaces. More fat went on the metal. I wanted to make the roof out of galvanised mild steel and this required me to make thin metal first. It would have to be rolled up because of its length. An acid bath would be needed to clean the material then it had to go into a molten bath of zinc. It was also possible to do all of this in one step but I wanted plate for tanks not roofs. Zinc was not a metal that people knew of at this time and I had to extract it from other metals. It was usually found with lead and I could use the lead too. Copper had zinc in it and it was in the sludge when the metal was purified. Gold and platinum was in there too but I did not need the latter metal yet. Tin had zinc in it but here I wanted the tin to make good glass. I needed a lot of it and then a way of keeping the tin from oxidising on me. I concentrated on the mill mostly. The sides of the hot metal had to be sheared and a pair of wheels did this when the sheet was pinched between them. I also needed a vertical shear to cut the sheets to length. Hydraulics would be the best but I had to use a large flywheel instead. The steel plate would be for storage tanks to hold petroleum or natural gas. The petroleum though would give me the diesel fuel, the lubricants and the oil needed for the hydraulics pumps. At the moment we were using water for hydraulics but it was not kind to the valves or the pumps. Old and new friends came to me now that they knew I was home. I was treated with what they had learned. One was the organ. This had been worked on here and in Lutetia by Iulius. It was in Gaul though that the organ flourished. Choirs were common and we were able to attract the best singers. With the organ as accompaniment they all sang in key too. Iulius said, "We built a temporary temple and it is full whenever we said we would use the organ. We do not give long sermons but we give the people all the news we hear. The temple was full after rumour came of what happened in Antioch and it stayed that way. When they heard of Aldúlfr actually coming to our aid in Constantinople the crowds filled the grounds too." I asked, "Are you getting any problems from the other religious groups?" "None at all. Their numbers are dwindling and they have no way of stopping this." Patricia learned more about her family and received letters from them. They were treated even better than before because of Julian's new duties. I got letters too and a great number of them. I got the cadets and the rest to help me wade through them. We had a form letter that could go out in return and had a space where more information could be added. The ships now carried letters for a small charge which is what I wanted long ago. The cadets were very happy to show Iulius what they had learned. The original cadets had made a book with the Frisians and the Romans on the trajectory of certain types of shells. Possible tactics were included but we knew that this had to be tried first. The work looked good because I had read many similar books when I was growing up. There was a lot of data about the land around the Weser. I had already gone over this and found it good except that we didn't have a way of checking core samples. There was work done on black powder but none of this was written down. This was my standing orders until the secret of its construction got out. The alcohol engine was a hit and so was our compressor though it gave us problems with the valves and the springs in them. We could go slow and use large machines but this was not efficient or a good path toward the building of the diesel engine. I talked out my problems with the rolling mill. The physics involved drawing the sheets as they were squeezed between the rollers. The sheets had to be trimmed and eventually rolled for storage. Welding was possible with the forge process or the carbon arc but cutting could only be done with a mechanical process. I had gases that could burn but no oxygen. I had an epiphany then. A plasma cutter was used in my time to cut sheet metal. It used ordinary air that had been excited by an electrical discharge. An arc was carried through the stream of air to the metal to make the oxygen react with the sheet metal and burn the iron. The heat was localised so much that the thin metal did not warp. It was used to cut up to a half inch in some units smaller units. It could cut thicker sections but it had a problem with the cut having a slight bevel on it. I did not care about a bevel and I now had a compressor and I had electricity. I excitedly gave out the data. The only problem was that I might need AC or even high frequency AC but I was not sure. I had seen plasma arc machines but never looked deeply into them. There were a lot of copper parts and an electrode that was buried in the head. The first problem was that I had no high temperature insulator but we did have lots of asbestos, mica and ceramics. These were already used in the furnace. The mica just might do in this case. We made one two centimetre pipe by rolling flatbar into larger tube and drawing it while red hot to the size we wanted. In the process the seam was welded shut but it was not strong. This method had been altered with the carbon arc doing a better job of welding. This pipe was necessary to guide the air from the compressor. The compressor worked slowly because I knew that we did not need that much pressure or flow for that matter. I went to bed that night tired but there were a lot of cadets that would not let the matter go. It was actually two more days before we had something that would cut thin metal. The steam hammers worked overtime making thin sections and then the cadets cut the material up. There were a lot of problems with this but it did work. I now wanted a machine that would cut two centimetre plate but aimed for three instead. I didn't get even any grumbles from those working on the project. I went back to chemistry and tried to find a suitable process to purify more of the zinc compounds I had collected. We were running into supply problems. We made babbitt bearings for almost everything. This meant that we needed a lot of antimony and tin to go with the copper. We were running out of everything and I had to send people out to see what they could find for me. This brought me back to mechanical work and I made the slightly smaller rolls that were supported by the giant rolls that I had made. It was the major bearings at each end that required the tonnes of bearing material. I cheated and made the housing out of steel and lined it with a small amount of babbitt. Hydraulic power had to be used to make the fine adjustments and I used the hemp oil instead of water. I didn't know if it would work or not but I had to try something that allowed the valves to last longer. The sermons went on when they should but they did not last long. I saw now that the people came to be not only comforted but to take part in the services. This is what I had missed before. I satisfied this by getting Iulius to play an organ. People usually sang but now their voices were raised to their god and they did it with all their hearts. It was not the dispassionate way I had seen people in my time act in church. The work I did, made me want to pull my hair out but it was fun too. The girls did not see that much of me but I still had to see some visiting dignitary when I could not get out of it. The girls took over some of this work when they could and I loved them more for it. Those that had to see a male figure also got my opinion of a society where the male was everything and the woman nothing. The rolling mill grew and grew from my earlier estimates. A two hundred tonne crane was going to weigh much more than that by itself. With no good method of welding, I cast the steel and rivetted it to other portions and build heaver than I needed even though two hundred tonnes was already more than I needed. There was the difficulty of lifting the crane into position once the bridge was done. We used portable hydraulic jacks to pick one end up and slipped some of our rails under it then went to the other side and did the same thing. We went back and forth and formed a mountain of steel that was thirty metres long by thirty wide and it had to go up to thirty metres high. The last set of track was put into place and the crane was labouriously shifted over to the beams that would support it. The diesel engine was not ready so we had to use a heavy steam engine to drive a heavy drum through a gearbox. A multipart sheave was used to add to our lifting power. The hook it lowered was larger than I was tall because I could not afford for it to break. There was not just one operator on this. You had one man in command and another to feed the boiler and control the brake. He also switched between putting power to the gearbox that lifted, to the one that moved the bridge or the trolley. We could not do even two at once. There was no roof yet so the smoke was no problem. The giant bearings to support the rollers were put into position then the large lower roller. A small, by comparison, roller of only twenty tonnes went next. A similar one went on next then the final large roller. This was done two more times. The small six centimetre rollers would carry the hot steel from one set of rollers to the next. When it got to the other end the rollers would be adjusted and it would make the trip back. There was a lot of people there on the third day. We had used the first two to get some of the major kinks out of the system. We all knew that there were lots more. A hot billet was brought over by a train car and a smaller hoist put it on the conveyor. It was pushed into the first set of rollers and it noticeably shrunk in height from fifteen centimetres to ten. We had made provision to have powered conveyors but we had push the hot billet with tools now. The metal got thinner and thinner with each pass. When it started to extend past the end of the conveyor the wheels there cut it off like a large pizza cutter with two wheels or a rotary pair of scissors that sheared where they touched together. It was only when the metal was under two or more sets of rollers at once that it was stretched longitudinally. When I saw the thickness I had the metal pass through another trimmer and then rolled onto a power roller. I now had metal that was two centimetres thick and it looked very good. In a week we had a roof on our building. It was only temporary and may last a few years because there was no zinc on it. The chemicals in the air might well reduce that time. The peak of the roof was open. There was an airspace and another roof above this. I hoped this would allow the smoke to leave without letting rain in. The plasma cutter I ordered came about. It had to be high frequency as I had feared but we got it to work. The unit got hot and had to be water cooled. It was large even without counting the alternator or the steam engine. The tool was fixed and we had to move the plate to cut it. This meant that I had to make a conveyor with single ball bearings to support the plate. This took the time of more people to make the machine and then get it working right. We made seven millimetre plate and sent it to the dry dock. A team there used rivets to attach the plate to a strong frame made of steel beams. This was going to be our 'Endeavour Class' ship. This particular one was called 'Germanic Endeavour'. All of them would basically have a flat bottom. It was the same width as our largest barge but was three times longer. A removable floor of five millimetre steel plate went down on the ribs. This was going to be double hulled to keep it safe and to make sure whatever we carried would not be lost to the sea. The intervening area could also be flooded for stability or the water removed to get through shallow areas. There was still a double keel that would help on our forays into the ocean when it was needed. The ship would draw three metres but the multiple keel made it a total of four. The bow opened like a WWII landing craft and the cargo could leave from either the upper or the lower of the two holds. A crane at the bow would allow heavy articles to be lifted out if necessary. Both hand and steam powered pumps were installed to drain the area between the two hulls or inside the hold. Steam could also be blown in to purge the volume. Two of our largest steam engines drove the monster. It was twenty-three metres wide and eighty nine metres long. I figured we could carry five thousand tonnes. The area above was made like the ships of my time and was all metal. We had portholes with thick glass in them. All told there were two hundred forty six rooms on three levels with an observation deck on the top. Most rooms were small but some were really suites. The sides of the ship extended a metre and a half with grating. This was so that the passengers could see but still not be harmed by spears or arrows from shore. We had all the amenities. There were flush toilets, sinks with hot and cold running water. Private showers for the suites and public ones for the rest. The beds though were fixed in place as were all the furniture pieces. I used lead based paint all over the ship to keep it from rusting. I had zinc by this time and as much of the ship that could be covered was. The ship was nothing more than a powered barge that reminded me of a paddle-wheeler with no paddlewheel. I kept my true feelings hid. The new wooden hulled ship was called 'The Princess of Persia'. It was much more aesthetically pleasing to me. Patricia was not too upset because she knew that more ships would be made. The effort to get the barge going meant that we had little time to work on the Princess. It was almost ready though but the engines had gone into the Endeavour ship instead. For the last few months a team of men had been working just off the Rhine delta to make a dock where the flame had once been. It had to be deep enough to accept heavy barge traffic and strong enough to protect the ship from the strong gales that were known to come along the English Channel or the Germanic Sea. This meant that there was a lot of stone that had to be cut and placed. This was further complicated by the tides that hardly effected the Mediterranean at all. Everybody knew about both ships. Even without Sapor or KhAvar's relatives I still think the Persians would have known. We made a magazine that was just for our people a few months ago but it proved to be more than just popular. I didn't think the paper was used to wipe asses like the old catalogues of my day. People that made inventions or made significant improvements made it onto the pages. The girls each had a column to write. KhAvar handed out Ann Landers type advice and Patricia had some social commentary. I was not going to allow them to go for just recipes and sewing tips. Courses in mathematics and reading were put in a series of articles aimed at those that would have to have the articles read to them. This was the most I could do until universal education was instituted. Rufus was taking cargo around Hispania and to Berytus. Actually it was more than that and he tried to make the most profit for me. He wanted to move up to captain the Princess but I think he would take the barge too for a year or so. Since Rufus was not back yet I made a request of Lucius' commander to release him for something of importance to the Empire. Lucius was with us the next day courtesy of one of our Patricia class ships. Lucius came rushing to me and said with a worried voice, "What's wrong? My commander said it was important." "It is. I need to go to the Rhine delta and unload our supplies. While I am getting this stowed I want you to come back and load up with more pipe and plate and come back. I want to start on my chemical plant now." "I was told it is important for the empire." "I write to Julian all the time. He thinks it is important. I think it is important. What do you think?" I got a bit of a smile and he said, "I have to agree with you then. Do you really mean for me to pilot that monster?" "Rufus is not here, Mithridates is busy making sugar, you are the only captain I have left." "I cannot pilot that ship. I know nothing about it." "Nobody does so we will find out together. It is already loaded and all you have to do is leave." "I would like to go home and greet my wife and family if I may." "Why? They are already on the ship." "You mean they are going with me?" "There are going to be 816 people on that ship when we leave." I just got a blank look. In an hour I had the man in the captain's cabin. He was getting a shower with his wife. His bed had a white cotton uniform I wanted him to wear that would make any sailor proud. It was two hours more before everyone was onboard and we left the dock beside the dry dock. Lucius tried various power settings as we listened for trouble but everything seemed fine. We had a full load of steel in the hold and the ballast tank was emptied. We rode low in the water and still felt the surge of the twin propellers. Looking at the shore I knew that we were still going at twenty miles an hour but part of that speed was caused by the river flow. I figured Lucius could come upstream empty even faster. The ship was famous and everybody waved to us and everybody on the ship was glad to wave back. Only the Patricia II class ships could keep up with us but they did not try. There was a lot of steam whistles blown whenever we came in hailing distance. There were people on the banks and on islands waving madly. We were in the wheelhouse but Lucius was not at the wheel. He was the Captain and he would have somebody else do this duty while he took care of more important matters. Lucius' wife and children watched the shore go by with Patricia, KhAvar and me. The cadets were in their stateroom or someplace on the ship. Toward dusk Lucius ordered the lights on and two large carbon arc lights shown forth. The light was as bright as I had seen at Niagra Falls when the falls was illuminated. A few minutes later Lucius came by his fort and he pulled the cord that sounded the loud whistle. There was already a crowd there and Lucius walked out the hatch and waved to his fellow soldiers while he was dressed in his new uniform. The waving on the shore stopped. I figured they did not know what to make of this. Lucius knew about keeping logs but I gave notes on what should be written in a separate piece of paper. Another piece of paper told him what I expected of him. This would be that he was on call all the time but he would not have to stand watch more than eight hours. I had other able seamen that could pilot the ship through the night. That night my girls and I curled up in the Emperor Suite and relaxed. Patricia said, "Jón, when are we going to start to have children? My father and KhAvar's uncle said it was ok to start." "We still have a wedding to plan. Buildings still have to be put up for guests." "But you have not started to put up those buildings yet." "That is because I want to make good cement. I have all that I need except the fuel. The fuel we are going to get now. Some of this effort will be to make fertiliser. I mentioned this long ago and there are a lot of other products and tools we have to make." KhAvar said, "You told us that too but we can still start on the children." "We will start after our new home in the Ruhr Valley is finished." I got a hug from each but they knew that this would still be a year or two away. We slowed during the night and we had a great breakfast in the morning. Lucius looked tired but happy. I said, "Sleeping on a ship seems to agree with you." "It was hard to get to sleep in a strange bed. It was hard to sleep knowing all of my new responsibilities. Licinia tossed and turned all night too." Patricia and KhAvar smiled and looked down. I said, "Yes, I heard the both of you working hard to get into a comfortable position." Licinia blushed and so did Lucius. Their children just smiled. Around nine o'clock we headed out into the channel and went full speed to the west. It was less than an hour later that we spotted a flag on a buoy and turned south. Lucius used the telegraph to tell those in the engine room to slow down. We found the opening into the manmade bay and Lucius called for people to check the depth. We got to within a hundred metres of the opening when we heard some ominous groaning as we slid over a rock. Our props were not deep in the water and the lower portion of the blades was level with the bottom of the hull. The twin keels were deeper. We had no idea if the rock had grazed our keel or the hull. One would mean that the props may be in danger. I suggested, "Lucius, if we stop the props we can use a winch to pull us in. If there are no rocks any higher then we are safe. When we unload, you will be three and a half metres higher in the water." "You are the owner. If that is your wish, we will do that. I would send people out in a boat with lines to see if there are other dangerous rocks." "Then let's do that way then." We had four boats which were not enough to handle everybody on the ship but we did have life jackets and floatation rings. A boat was launched and at the same time a ship of the Patricia class came from the harbour. There was a lot of talk and both groups used a lead lines to find the depth. A half hour later both vessels tied up and the people came aboard. The man sent to find the depth said, "The bottom is quite regular. We are at low tide now and in a few hours we should have no trouble being able to dock." There was nothing I could do from here and pulled rank. Both Patricia and KhAvar came with me as we went ashore in one of the boats. I had not seen the improvements until now and it looked just like my drawings. I would have to come with less cargo next time or come when we could get into this harbour with the tide. A storm could come up at any time and the ship may have to gain shelter quickly. A flat bottomed boat did not fair well in a ocean storm. This meant that the mouth and perhaps the whole bay would need to be deepened. Waves coming in could cause the heavily laden ship to go up and down and cause a lot of damage to the bottom of the ship. When we left the harbour, we checked where I wanted the plant to be. There were no tanks up yet because they were in the hold of the ship. There were buildings to house the workers. They had steel roofs like what we had in the twenty first century but the steel was not as good. The roads were not good but they would have to be made to withstand the heavy traffic they would one day have. We had toilets, sinks and showers in the barracks but they were not hooked up to a septic system because of the time it would take to build. We had a latrine that would have to do until the tiles and tank were put in. The girls checked our house. It was small but adequate for now. It too had a small outhouse in the back. The Germanic Endeavour came in later and was tied to the sturdy bollards. Square timbers protected the hull from scraping the stone wall. People got out on the port side and the ramp at the bow was lowered to connect with the dock. It was now a very labourious job of digging out the cargo. A hundred klicks of double rail was on the top and they were dragged out first. This was not our first railway off of our original property. Rail cars were pulled out as soon as the first two tracks were laid. Almost three hundred kilometres had been laid in total. These tracks here would carry the heavy parts from the ship to where they were needed. Only a few people could help with the unloading or the laying of track. The rest got to work digging the septic system while another crew cleaned off an area that would hold the tank for the natural gas that I was after. None of this could proceed quickly because the gas, like that above Antioch, was wet. There were a lot of volatile liquids in the gas that would be very useful. They had to be separated and stored instead of being burnt. Ammonia could be recovered from making coke but it was not significant. It also had to be done to protect my employees if not the environment. The ammonia was necessary if I was going to make ammonium nitrate fertiliser. The gas could be manufactured if I had nitrogen and hydrogen. The hydrogen was easy if I had the right equipment. I now had enough to do this. Coal was the fuel in the 1800s. It was converted to city gas or what was called syngas in my time. It was mostly carbon monoxide and hydrogen. This was the precursor of natural gas when used in a city or a factory. To get hydrogen we needed to do something similar. We would purify natural gas and force it into a strong chamber or reactor where it was heated with steam. The right amount of air is added to provide the nitrogen for the process. The carbon oxides are removed and the remaining gas mixture would get compressed to a high degree and heated. The hydrogen and nitrogen would be heated again and compressed and heated again. This would produce ammonia. The ammonia is liquified. This is easily done because ammonia was used as a refrigerant for a long time. This last process tends to remove any of the other gases present. Pure ammonia came out and any unspent gases were returned to the reactor. A catalyst made this process simpler and less expensive. I needed to make nitric acid. Dry ammonia, oxygen and a different catalyst would make nitrous oxide. This gas was absorbed by water to form the acid. Dry ammonia was then bubbled through the nitric acid to form ammonium nitrate liquor. This was evaporated to form a solid white crystal. Usually the crystals were squeezed into small spheres and then coated to keep water vapour away from them. Ammonium nitrate was not the only fertiliser to provide nitrogen. Ammonium sulfate was made by combining dry ammonia with sulphuric acid. This had the benefit of making sulphur available because this was needed for plant growth too. Urea is used too. Here the ammonia is compressed and heated only a bit with the carbon dioxide that was produced when the natural gas was originally cracked. The urea is usually mixed with water and ammonium nitrate and dried. The urea was also used to make the glue used to make plywood. In fact it made a wide range of high strength glues. The epoxies are part of this group. The resins are nonconductive which make them good for electrical components. The polyesters resins also form the building blocks for a wide range of plastics. All this we had to make and I was staring at vacant land. The precut plate came off the ship in order. The numbers and location were painted in large format on every sheet at least twice. Our plasma arc could weld in theory but we had not got it to do so yet. We had to rely on rivets as we had with the Germanic Endeavour. 'Rosie the Riveter' was here and working hard alongside the men to put the red hot rivets into the pre-drilled holes and peen them over. The first tank was going to be large like everything I made now. The diameter was fifty metres and would stand thirty high. This would turn out to be a small tank when the chemical complex matured. It all sat on a bed of stone and sand. In a few years new tanks would be made with a good grade of concrete to support them. The concrete would be made soon because the rotary kiln was already being assembled from pieces we had brought. The walls of the storage tank and the top would be supported by a circular steel frame that would accept rivets from two sides. Valves had been manufactured but I was more happy with the pipe. Long lengths of thick plate were cut to size and heated at the mill. They were rolled into a tube much like we had done before. The squeezing process tended to weld the edges but now we used electricity too. A large generator fed a lot of current to two water cooled electrodes that rode on each side of the seam as it closed. The metal between the electrodes got much hotter and the joint would fuse. A similar process was used to weld flanges to the ends of the pipe so they could be joined or attached to valves with bolts. The ship left two days later and had no difficulty getting out of the harbour. Lucius would be back in a week with the next load but this time it would be reduced in size. This would cause a lot of confusion at the dock because the loads had been worked out ahead of time. The girls liked their old home better because of its size. It was cleaner here but the rivetting was going on at all hours. Three shifts was not something new when hot iron had to be tended every minute of the day. To get around the personnel problems, night shift got more perks. Afternoon shift got more perks than those on days. Music, plays, sports and all human activities continued around the clock. Competition between the shifts helped too. Lucius came back each time with more workers and more construction materials. The people had to build additional quarters for themselves then move on to what I wanted built. The scope of our building was going to be extensive. I was going to process natural gas now but this entire area was rich in petroleum as well. I desperately needed my lubricants and I knew it would not be long before I got them. Some of the workers produced our ever popular magazine. A few were artistic and drew pictures that had to be carved into a hard alloy of lead so the image could go onto paper. The picture of KhAvar standing on the hook of the two hundred tonne crane went over very well. I did not think people could visualise that much weight. The girls were still busy with the magazine articles. Messages of good luck from Julian and Sapor were printed and it portrayed the men as much more friendly than any rulers before them. The cadets had a column to do among themselves. It mentioned the viewpoint of some young adults in regards to learning. My wives added a running total to what the cadets had done so that other young people would look up to them. The Persian cadets took longer to get going because they had to start from scratch but there was still areas where they could experiment and learn. The compressor was one. The whole idea of the magazine had altered. The new intent was to educate readers. Mathematical concepts were discussed at different levels. The same was done for physics, biology and mechanics. The Greeks didn't want this job until one chose it. The rest then critiqued the column so much that I gave each of them a month where they had to contribute. After that they wanted to control the magazine. Machinery got better and better as we made more accurate tools. I ordered large compressors of various sizes. The ammonia from the coke was used as a refrigerant. The shortcomings of the system were found and remedied. This was not to mean that it was bug free but just that all the big ones were lessened or removed. Ice was now available year round and perishables were now kept in large walk in refrigerators and freezers. A major expense was in the manufacture of ice-cream. It went over very well. The flavours were limited but even one was more than they had before. Another invention we made was a blower that forced air through steel tubes that hung in the exhaust of our fireboxes. The hot air was forced back into the firebox and directed at the burning coal or wood. The carbon, soot and creosote were now burnt. This was a lot more efficient and the black smoke that had been there before was now gone. Fly ash was still present and I may try to recover that later. Usually there were water pipes in the stack to catch any residual heat so it could be used to distill water for the engine or used for washing. This did cause a condensate problem that produce carbonic acid. With no stainless steel and there was little we could do except replace parts when it was needed. A secondary reason for doing this was the photos I saw of WWI naval vessels belching black smoke when they were active. This was one of the reason they were seen when below the horizon. Water vapour would be the only thing visible and that usually dissipated quickly. This too would take years to accomplish. Other cities were now targeted for expansion. Seventeen ships of the Patricia class went out with barges full of our products. They also had brochures of the products not sold usually. The gas site now stocked everything as a major distribution centre. Lucius could make one trip that could fill many of the smaller barges. This would save valuable time because the trip would not have to be made down the Rhine. The Princess was finally commissioned and had even larger engines. After her trials, her first trip was to Italy so Julian could begin to make some money too. She was not a China Clipper but she was certainly very fast. She had no sails and because of her lights, she too could cruise twenty four hours a day. As soon as Rufus got back from a record setting trip, he filled his holds again and took a cargo to Berytus for Sapor to sell. The dry docks built more ships of the Endeavour class. It seemed that two world leaders had to have one each. Off to the side was another ship being built. This one was a cargo ship. The engines would dwarf even those of the Princess. She was two hundred and fifty metres long and built to take the storms of the Atlantic. The construction was teaching us a lot but the problems we saw with the operations would help newer versions. Of necessity the ship had its own unloading facilities. She could handle bulk cargo like grain or coal but she was watertight enough with the dual hull to haul bulk sugar. Her deck was flat and could handle containerised boxes even though they did not exist yet. The expected completion time was after the ceremony Patricia, KhAvar and I would have in place of a wedding. I put more resources behind it and hoped that it would be finished sooner. The dry dock was far too shallow to build the ship so it was dug much deeper. When it came time to flood the area, we would have to dig our way to the deeper water in the centre of the river. This rosy picture also had a lot of flaws. We were rapidly running out of iron ore. We had to dig excessively deep to get at it. More iron was found in other locations and rail lines were laid there. This necessitated crossing a major body of water. The life expectancy of our ore was less than a year and it was far better to move the mill to the ore. This all broke down to the Ruhr Valley being needed much sooner than expected. The engineers that worked for me were harried all the time and I added a drilling rig to their burden. A tractor or teams of horses could pull the heavy rig from spot to spot. Howard Hughes made a lot of money with his patent of a drilling head. I had an idea what it looked like and I was trying to make something that worked as good. The first one looked like a tool used in the garden to remove weeds. Wodenism was getting away from me. This hurt the most. People had the books that said in black and white what I wanted while preachers gave their own rendition. This happened to all of the religions and those on the fringe had to be reigned in. The problem was that I had no method of doing so. When enough reports came in I boarded one of the Patricia class ships with my women and set sail to Lutetia. This was a common trip these days and we had paying passengers for the whole route. Most were military men but not all. They were happy to see us board and happier still to participate in a sermon. The girls did not mind the attention especially when they were able to talk their minds to the men as equals. The men were shocked and the girls did not go overboard to antagonise the male gender. The trip was over much sooner than when I had made the trip before. Our fellow travellers were let off first and we continued to my docks. It took only seconds until the word started to spread and we were inundated with people wanting to see me. Most were my extended family but that was still a lot. People were crying they were so happy and I hugged those that I could. I was fair with names and remembered enough to make them feel better. After twenty minutes I pushed my way to see the business and find out how it was presented to the community. The business had not changed one iota and this bothered me too. New ideas had to come up and be tried even if it was a new coat of paint. Stock was piled high ready to be sold but also dangerous to walk by. The building was just too small. Nobody mentioned that there was more stock on hand and I should have checked. I made it to my home and found guards in front of it. They wore my livery so I was not worried. The servants had other jobs and would only serve me when I was here or about to arrive. Patricia felt at home and took KhAvar around to see the way we used to live. We rested only a short time until people came to see us. It was the Roman governor so I could not very well ignore him. The governor got a half hour of my time then I said, "I am going to have a sermon now. Won't you come with me?" He didn't like this but said, "That would be wonderful but it is nice to have a quiet talk without the entire city clamouring for more." "Please think of it from my point of view. If I tell my story one time then I have much more time for healing and other important activities." I usually had a service soon after I arrived and the crowd had already started to arrive. The family that owned the nearby land had let it stay fallow and the crowds swarmed over it like locusts. I walked among the people with a few of my guards and my wives. Patricia took her old persona on and KhAvar followed suit in greeting the people. When it was time, I took the platform and welcomed the people that came to see me. The crowd was even larger than I remembered and I knew that I needed some amplification to reach all of them. They had been given the news but I began again from when I left last time. This took an hour to even gloss over the way it needed to be done. I added about the rolling mill, the ships and the chemical factory that would provide the long awaited fertiliser. Atrius and Manlius along with some of the other acolytes had shown up. They went about their old duties as if I had not gone. They worked further into the crowd and relayed my words to those further back. The governor was close but at least my message was going out to everybody. When the news was over I went into the word of Woden as it was written in the books. I quoted the specific sections that talked about individuals trying to alter Wodenism to their own idea of how it should be done. "The reason all of you have been lead astray is because you are not able to read the written word. You rely on others to do this. A few of the children are able to read but not understand the complex ideas. Adults have to learn to read." Later I changed to another idea. "Wodenism is not stagnant. It can alter within the guidelines in the books. Talk of the changes and bring them to me. Some changes could be concerning the larger temple that I have still not built. Others could be about certain passages in the words of Woden that are not understood. Change is inevitable and good. It just has to be thought out carefully." I did not have a question period or I would never leave. I went right into the healing. The first healing though was for the whole crowd. I could extend my reach to everyone including those that has still not quite made it here to hear me. I studied what I had. It was the same as all other gatherings but there were subtle differences. The healing went out and it seemed to be a soothing balm to those most in need. This was a living entity composed of each of us. I had felt their joy so many times when their brains were triggered to do so but there was hunger there too but it was not for food. I could not get a clear understanding of this need but it felt like a need to reach out and touch their god. I gave them their joy now and studied the hunger more. I saw that the more I gave, the more they wanted until they could take no more. They got their wish and I slowly let them recover. When I looked out across the people I saw that it was just like it was before. The people had fallen over in their ecstasy and had to come back to their problems in the here and now. It took a while for the people to start to come up and I performed a more concentrated form of healing on the individual before me. The first was a child and this is what made me feel good. I healed for a long time and did not get tired because I drew my power from without. Curiously, I found that the more I took the more they wanted to give. Humanity did have some characteristics about it that were not bad. Claudia was seen later. Aulus had grown and so had Postuma. The girl now had a young man beside her that looked to be about six years older. It was good to see that they were holding hands so tightly. I gave one final touch to the crowd but it was not as strong as the previous one. With that I ended the service. People still wanted to talk to me or touch me but the acolytes kept most of them away. Claudia had already retreated and I just had to catch up at my home. I had not shook the governor though but now I had others to talk to as well. I introduced KhAvar, and Claudia introduced her daughter's future husband. The man was from a minor branch of a well known patrician family. This was still the game of houses but it looked like the couple were happy. Aulus mentioned his friends and insinuated that many of them were female. I knew from reports and now from Aulus' lips about the attack on the Rhine. He had been away at the time and raced back but he had been unable to get into the fighting. He had stayed on until just a month before I had returned. Claudia was very concerned about her daughter and was afraid of losing her son too. Claudia said, "The people and events have changed for us. Julian has sent more guards. Our farm is now almost like what the patricians have." "He just wants you safe." The conversation shifted to the girls and KhAvar's picture in the hook. The talk got animated which was nice to see. They avoided mentioning anything about Patricia's capture or the bad times KhAvar had. The governor wanted to know how an iron ship floated and especially how it carried so much of a load. Rather than answer, I got Aulus to do this for me. I wanted to know about what was happening here and asked Aulus, "How is our lumber business going?" "It is fantastic. People could cut their own boards but want ours. They think they are magic and their house will be built with good luck." Foolish people and their superstitions. Then again I would not be here the way I was without their irrational beliefs. "Do we have enough lumber to build a new warehouse?" "We bought more land and then put a building up to store the lumber. We have lots and we have a mountain of sawdust." "I thought you were burning the sawdust in the boilers?" "The small branches and the bark are more than enough. We even give away lots of the scrap lumber you do not want to sell. The poor take this and use it for fuel or build with it. It is usually better than what they have now." "We can use the sawdust I guess. I just don't want any spontaneous combustion." From the looks I had to tell them what this is and compared it to a large pile of horse shit and how it got hot. "The best I can do is send over a dryer and you will have to find a way of keeping the small chips and the sawdust dry. We will be having some glue soon that can be mixed with the small particles of wood. You squeeze them under a lot of pressure and then apply heat. You get a large board that is very smooth. It is not as strong as a board but it can be used to make cheap furniture or to cover the frame of a house." I had an idea and turned to the governor, "Here is a business opportunity for you." "What is that?" "You could make homes. They will not be sold to the rich or the poor but those that are between. The homes would be 90 to 100 square metres. All you need are some common sense rules the people that are actually doing the work." "What kind of rules?" "Wood rots if it is left wet. You have to build on stone so it will stay dry. A house needs a septic system until it can use one made for the city. This has to be a minimum size so that the land is not always saturated with water. A roof has to be built so that it does not fall down. That means that you have to build it strong enough. Building it stronger is ok but it may cost more in the extra effort and materials." "Who would pay me? There are not that many people that want a home like that. It is too small to sell to a wealthy family and too expensive for the rest." "I suggest you talk to people to get an idea. Rome prospers by trade and agriculture. There is a growing middle class. There are a lot of people working for me. They get their money regularly. They get paid more than most but they give me more than most. They need homes." "There are not enough people that are rich enough to make it worth my while." "Ok, I will do this myself to see how it works." "You are far richer than me. You could afford to do this." The governor stayed for a meal and was boorish enough to want the fortified wine. Most Romans watered their wine. Claudia was astute enough to encourage him to escort her home though I would have liked her to stay. She did say she would be back tomorrow to talk. I asked Aulus if he would stay the night to talk business and he smiled and nodded. "Aulus," I said after the others left. "We need to start building." "What do you want me to build besides the place to store the sawdust and the warehouse?" "The people that work here, live in squalor when they could afford good homes. I want more land. We will put houses on it for our people but large buildings with apartments is better I guess. It will also give the people a way to make money." "I guess I can make buildings like you said." "Lets get some paper and draw some pictures. The ones we have now are not bad but I want to make some improvements." We drew pictures and had the girls put in their two asses. The English version of the term was even nicer. It was not much later that KhAvar said, "Your schools are not as nice as what you have in other locations. Why not build new ones and put something else in the buildings?" Paris was known for their universities in my time and to tell the truth it was better to have more learning centres where the student did not have to travel quite so far. This brought up the situation we had on the Weser where we would outgrow the buildings very soon. The profit from this city could go into the school's coffers instead of mine since I had so many more cities clamouring to get more of my products. The next morning Atrius and Manlius were over early. They looked sheepish because they had been the ones that had been trying to improve the way people perceived Wodenism. They and their fellows were fanatics but did not need to be committed yet. I said, "The people truly believe in Woden. You do not have to do anything that will get them to believe more." Manlius said in his own defence, "You needed schools to teach people. I just asked the tutors to see if we could do it better." "Friends, I have been drawing a line that tries to balance between people following Woden and living their lives in this world. You two are examples of that. You have shifted so much of your energies into helping Woden that you have excluded your families." They didn't seem to like this but I went on. "We live in the world we were born in. Woden wants us to develop not pray all day to him. Think of it from his point of view. He listens to everybody when he can but it is always the same thing. He wants to help when it is needed and we do the rest. You have been going beyond what is in the books. The books say that if you do what you have done that it will be wrong but you did it anyway." "The people wanted this." "Haven't you learned yet that people in a group are crazier than individuals? They want things the way a baby does. They have no grasp of what other problems come with what they want." They hung their heads. These were soldiers and they were self reliant. I did not know if they figured when I left, they would do what they thought best. "I am going to leave in two days. A lot of other cities have people trying to twist Wodenism into something it is not. I need your help. Will you come with me?" Atrius was quick to agree and Manlius did a bit later. He was the one that had to be watched I figured. I told the men of my building plans and set them to thinking on how best to do this. They were quick to think of ways for me to get the land I needed but they pushed my ethics to the limits. Instead of just wanting to ask the current owners, they wanted to scheme to get the owners to part with their land. They needed supervision badly and I had not been here to give it. I was happy to see Claudia and Postuma arrive. The girls had left while I talked to the two men but came out of hiding to greet my new visitors. They had been in the kitchen making some pastries and Aulus had been dragged with them. Anything sweet meant that it had to come from honey. Honey was an expensive commodity but so was sugar until it was mass produced. The two men were brought into the group and had to try what the girls made. I had coffee too and I was not going to go anywhere without it again. Patricia claimed to like tea better and these two beverages were sampled. The tea went down better with sugar but they did the same with the coffee. The two men liked the sugar and Atrius said, "You should sell this thing you call sugar here." I had the urge to send them over to Mithridates and have him train them in the production but that may not be a good for Mithridates or the men. "We are starting to sell this but we cannot get enough ourselves. Patricia's father and KhAvar's uncle are selling all we make." "How do you make it?" "This type of sugar comes from a cane that only grows in warm climates. There is a sweet beet that can be slowly altered until it produces enough sugar so that it could grow here too. We are going to import a lot more spices but we need to go and get them in quantity. Would you and your wives like to go on a cruise to India?" Atrius said, "In a ship like the Germanic Endeavour?" "I am building a much bigger ship that will sail the oceans with safety. I want your old commander, Lucius, to be the captain. The rooms will be just as good." This was a better arrangement because Lucius was used to command. We talked again about construction of the apartment buildings and brought out the drawings. A steel frame would be the best. We could put an external stairway for safety and make it out of steel. School buildings had to be large and built to last a long time. I also had to think of the future of this city because it would grow constantly. Building twenty kilometres away may be a good idea to consider. The plague struck large cities at regular intervals and I may not be here to get it under control. Cities were dirty and had a lot of crime. We would not have a walled community and this might encourage others to do the same. This would take a long time though. It was only a year ago a German tribe attacked some cities in Gaul and plundered them. I took out a T square and started to draw up some plans. There were no building codes except those I chose to follow. I did the warehouse first and added a lot of iron to the exterior. The weight of our products demanded that the floors be strong. Once I had a size picked out I tripled it. We had new products and I had to have a place to show them. The future meant that we needed even more room. Claudia had been invited to come and visit us on the Ruhr. All she had to do was say so to the captain of the ships that made deliveries. They knew this from before but we said it again so she knew we meant it. We left a few days later with two more men in out entourage. I didn't like to take them from their families but I hated what they could do to the rest of the people. Those that stayed were given a similar talk to in private. When I promised to make changes if they did not do as I said, I think they understood. They had not been as close to me as the other two. Atrius and Manlius were given jobs at the chemical plant. Ostensibly this was to learn about building metal ships and their repair. When I could I separated the too. When Lucius came with another delivery I broached the subject of him taking the "Discovery" around Africa and then go to the east. He was to gather spice and anything else that would be profitable. "You have to take Atrius and Manlius and probably their wives with you." "You want me to be the captain and not Mithridates or Rufus?" "Rufus has been the first captain on a few ships. He now has the Princess. Mithridates will get his turn on the next ship. I want a man that can keep Atrius and Manlius in line. They would have Wodenism fixated on money and compliance. The books themselves give all the compliance people need." "You said that men in other cities are doing the same thing." "They are, and I need to take men there and put them in charge." "The Greeks are good at that?" "Yes, they are but you cannot get a straight answer out of them. It may be better to rotate them back to a school before the parishioners pull their hair out." ------- Chapter 7 The rest of the rotary kiln had come in pieces and then the pieces were set up five kilometres from the plant. We made lime the old way because we did not have the fuel yet. The pipe and valves to carry fuel were ready but the final connection was not made. I needed some pressure vessels and they had to be big. I built a sphere out of segments that had to use a steam hammer that was larger than any we had used so far. The individual segments were heavy in themselves because they had to take over two hundred atmospheres in pressure. The steam boilers got higher in pressure and became a bit more efficient. There was a steady traffic now to the chemical plant as more and more equipment arrived and was set up. Some of he smaller pieces were still huge. Compressors of all sizes were needed but without adequate electrical power, I had to keep relying on steam. More and more people were needed and more equipment too. Roads had to be made and this meant a heavy crusher had to be brought. This was the single most heavy object we had moved. The area we used actually began to look like a chem plant when viewed from a distance. A hundred metres from where the gas had erupted from the earth, we made our well to tap the riches. When we got to bedrock we drilled four metres deeper and stopped. A long steel tube with a flange on the top was put into the hole and then cemented into the bedrock with lime. After this was dried, a slightly smaller drilling head went down the inside of the pipe and drilled into the bedrock. This took a long time to do because we had to keep the boiler upwind all the time. When gas came out we did not want it to erupt in flames. It helped sometimes when we used a sheet metal barrier to deflect the errant gusts of wind around the drill site. Water was forced down the smaller drill head and the mud was expelled out the sides. This kept the head cool so that it would last. When the mud suddenly shot into the air, we extinguished the fire in the boiler. Now we used grunt work and pulled out the eighty metres of pipe with chainfalls. Gas spewed out and we struggled to get the valve on. We almost froze because lots of the gases were liquified under a lot of pressure. There was a lot of cheering but I had to treat some frostbite on the drilling crew and myself. The air stunk of hydrogen sulfide. A fifteen centimetre pipe was connected to the valve head. The pipe led through a course filter and then to a tank where the gas and everything in it would be stored. Another valve on the tank allowed the air in the tank to be purged. The tank got very cold but I had to make it even colder. The pipe leading to the tank had frost on it and I knew that the water we were collecting was now quite solid. Usually this pipe was heated with steam but that would come later. People spent quite a while with their noses trying to detect the hydrogen sulfide that would come out a leak if there was one in the tank. We were fortunate and found none. The valve at the well was closed and another valve at the top of the tank was opened. The liquids including water, petroleum and various kinds of liquified natural gases were in the lower section of the tank. There was propane, butane, ethane and all their isomers in there too but their density now made them stay in the bottom with the oil. These would be very valuable. In many applications only the heavier gases could be easily and cheaply removed. I wanted them all eventually but I had to crawl before I could walk. The liquids in the tank were naturally heaver and these were sent through a filter to remove sand and grit then through a pipeline to the cement plant. The pipe was purged of air in front of it. The valve at the far end was closed when the liquids rushed out. Again we went over the entire distance with our noses. Some joints at the flanges had to be tightened a bit. The valves to the kiln were opened and a torch ignited the liquids as they spurted out. The flow was kept low and the heavy chain driven by a steam engine started to turn the large kiln. When it was warm, dump boxes were hoisted and their contents dropped into the kiln. Lots of it was the slag from our production of iron. The flow of liquids was increased a bit and the process begun. What I was doing was very wasteful but I could do nothing else. Hot cement eventually came out the discharge chute. The material was put into rail cars with good fitting tops while I made tests. If the tests proved a bad product, it didn't matter too much because it would still be better than strait lime. People had been watching me intently and those that had to run this project knew what was going to happen for months now. There was so many jobs to do and there was only one of me. The cement looked to be good but not as good as what we had in my time. It was certainly better than anything else available. This process was worked on and a lot of people listened to every word I said. Notes were made and would be transcribed later because managers and operators had to handle individual parts of the plant for me. When the people were competent to continue with the cement I had to start in other areas. I bled off some of the gas at the top of our primary storage tank. This had to be cleaned normally but the process of making free hydrogen would still work with the other hydrocarbons. The compounds would still react the same even if they were not the simple methane molecule. The carbon dioxide in the gas would be inert but it would get used in another project. Steam and the natural gas mixture were heated in a long heavy chamber. The heat was now almost completely generated by gas that came from the well. I showed the new group of people nearby what I was doing though they had been told long ago too. The temperature here had to be around 800 degrees Celsius. The steam and the natural gas combined to make carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and hydrogen until only the last two products remained. The products were directed through a heat exchanger to cool them and then to a tank for storage. The exhaust from the boiler was cooled similarly and directed to another large tank that had previously been filled with the combustion products. There was a diaphragm on the tanks so that we could tell how filled they were. There was very little soot here and we mainly collected carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Two high pressure compressors took a small amounts of each of the cooled gases and forcing them into a large and very heavy reaction chamber. A catalyst was just iron for the moment. This crude method had to use two hundred atmospheres and the tank was built much stronger because of the inadequacies of my materials. There were better catalysts available that would require far less power and pressure but I did not have them yet. The other end of the reaction chamber was directed into another storage tank. A valve allowed just a bit of the gasses to come out of the chamber so as to keep the pressure up where I needed it. Though the gases coming out were hot, they expanded and got cool. This receiver was purged and I could easily smell the pungent aroma of ammonia. Another compressor took the contents of the tank and compressed it again. The heat was taken from the compressed gas and then the gas was allowed to expand back into the tank it was drawn from. The tank was well insulated but it still got coated with ice. Ammonia was a good refrigerant and the liquid had a boiling point of -33 degrees. We had built very big because I needed literally millions of tonnes of the product and I would have to rely on a lot more wells and a lot more fields to fill the need. Some of the product had to go into making nitric acid. To do this I needed another catalyst but there were a few substances that would work. Vanadium that could be found in magnetite was good but I had only a little of this from the iron ore. The processing of the copper had a lot of heavy metals in the sludge. One of the metals was platinum and other metals from its group. The impure platinum and all of the similar metals were formed into a sponge and put into another tank. Ammonia and air were introduced. When this was heated we produced nitrous oxide. This reacted with oxygen to make nitrogen dioxide. This gas was cooled and a pump circulated a spray of water through the gas to absorb it. The liquid was nitric acid and it got stronger as it was recirculated through more of the gas. Ammonia reacted with the nitric acid to neutralise it. The ammonium nitrate now was in solution and the water had to be boiled away. The concentrated solution was then sprayed in a tower with air coming up from the bottom. Small droplets of ammonium nitrate froze out of the solution and were collected. They had a tendency to attract moisture so they went into storage for now. Later I would be able to treat them as they came out of the tower. We had a lot of valuable carbon dioxide to get rid of. Ammonia again was forced to react with this gas at high temperatures and pressures. The solution was urea and water with anything that had not been consumed was sent back to try again. In fact all the processes required that the unconsumed products were sent back so a portion of them could be converted. Sulphuric acid could be made similarly and then react with ammonia to form a sulphate fertiliser. I was going to have to wait on this and try to get the processes I had running to do so smoothly. The sulphuric acid could also be used to dry out the nitric acid to make it close to a hundred percent nitric acid. The dilute sulphuric acid could be used to capture more sulphur trioxide and become stronger again. This meant my supply of sulphuric acid would grow all the time but I had lots of uses for it. All this did not run smoothly by any means. People were run ragged and I was the one with the most rough edges. We drilled more wells and piped the gas to the refinery but some pipe went much deeper and went into the pool of oil. Here the pressure of the gas above the oil helped push the oil out. Another large tank collected the petroleum. It did not gush out of the well and a pump had to work for days to fill the container. I worked on this material with a fractionation column to get lubricants and a light oil that would work for my hydraulics. The column had lots of tiers where different fractions settled but it was the little shelves that gave me the problem because the gas bubbled through a sample of the particular material and it was difficult to get the levels right. The lighter constituents were needed so that I could use them to clean the natural gas and extract ethane and propane. I was still mindful of the helium because of its use in lighter than air ships but I was not quite ready to work on this yet. The three years and more had passed very quickly and my pseudo marriage was just six more months off. The rogue preachers were brought in and told the error of their ways. They were given new duties and because I command this, it happened. The construction of the Discovery was slow because I needed tanks, valves, reaction chambers, burners and pipe much more than I needed the ship. The old open pit iron ore mine on the Rhine was getting to be much more expensive to operate. We were very deep in the earth and now had to get the ore through tunnels. The coal deposit was similar but not as bad. Most of our cement went a short distance to the Ruhr River and then up it to where our new mine was. Dredging was a major undertaking on this river. I wanted to allow the larger ships to get in. We were just off of a tributary and not a very large one at that. Docks had to be built and the new steel mill constructed. Our old mill was large but not overly so from the viewpoint of the twenty first century. The new mill was much larger again. The rolling mill was made larger but we figured we could make the new crane smaller without sacrificing strength. Improvements were made so that smaller and much quicker acting hoists would pick up tooling and steel products without having so much overkill. Sheet steel was now used to package food but it took almost two years to get the canning machinery to work correctly. Can openers would soon be something new on the market. The new mill would soon start to make rail. When we had been stuck for iron, we picked out some of the less desirable of our rails and used them to make tanks and pipe. Track now extended from the Rhur to our mill. Another section extended east toward Clovis' land. A section was started at the school and worked this way. Clovis did not have the time to fill in the gap though the road was now complete. He was too busy with his canals. A third section of track was built across the ridge that separated the Main tributary from that of the Danube. I took some of our ammonium nitrate fertiliser and some light oil and used it to remove a lot of rock that would otherwise be difficult to move. There were almost a hundred thousand people around to view the event. I took advantage of this and set up a large warehouse. I still had plans for a canal in this district and did my best to improve the lakes that would be needed to fill the locks. People and goods rode the train at a cheap price just so the train would be understood. The people with wagons may bitch but they would still have a job because we were quick and would charge for this service. Some people would just use the old method. They had a good new road to work with to make their life easier. Electricity would help immensely in my projects and construction. A dam had to be built. I figured we could get fifty to a hundred megawatts from one site if it were used it effectively but I had to look at much smaller figures in reality. Our boat traffic allowed employees and students to come and learn or to go to other sites to round out their education. I was still making a lot of money and could afford this but I did not have enough trained people to train the swarms of people that came seeking employment. The new hires were usually sent to work on farms. There they were educated as they worked. Some were then transferred to manufacturing jobs. The farms were now very productive. Julian, Sapor and Clovis were clamouring for more fertiliser all the time. We could only make a hundred tonnes of fertiliser a year but I could sell millions of tonnes if I had it. Our new home was nearing completion. It was situated on a plateau about twenty kilometres upwind of the steel works. This construction was held off because I did not want it finished before I had to fulfill my promise and I wanted that after the ceremony. To keep my sanity and my wives, I budgeted my time between all the projects I had to do and all the work I wanted to do. Quality time was usually a time to travel. A long overdue trip to see Clovis' and I guess, my family too, was undertaken. Instead of going across the land we took three of the Patricia class ships and went east in the German Sea until we came upon the Ems River. Clovis had already shifted from a war footing and bought some of my machinery and tried to tame the river. This was difficult for most of the northern portion was in a swamp. Locks were put in where they were needed and a lot of dredging was done. The scope of this undertaking meant that it would cost a great deal to get this waterway operational. Clovis could have helped me with the rail system but it was hard enough getting help in making a canal. Germans were very obstinate and Clovis was a good example. He wanted the river for ships and that was that. At the moment the locks would not handle the Endeavour class ship. One day the Euro class would need the canals too. I had a way of getting this done in an underhanded way. The cadets had made many trips home to visit. The original two Pict boys were now numbered in the dozens and were no different than the other Frisian cadets. I still tried to keep the numbers of each gender balanced and it worked well. There were just shy of four hundred official cadets at the moment. Persia and Rome were well represented. At the first lock we stopped because there were a lot of people there on horses watching us. Clovis looked much younger because all the healing he had received. His wife, Astrid, was pregnant again with her forth since I came to this time nearly six years ago. I had seen Astrid only twice since Jón and I were first injured. The first time is when I set up the school and the second time was when she was having pains with one of her pregnancies. Word got to me in time for me to help. Obstetrics were not my forte but some problems I could fix. When the water filled the lock, I climbed the stone wall and stood before the father of my body. I looked into the sun and said, "Hello, young man, would you direct me to Clovis?" Clovis got down and hugged me as if I was his son and when he pulled back he said, "I do look young. I need all my strength though. My wife puts me through my paces." I hugged and kissed Astrid then helped my own girls up to this level. They had actually seen my family more than me because they could travel while I was tied to what I was trying to do. I was reacquainted with all my sisters and half sisters. Dagmar was producing an heir for the Franks and especially for Egill. Egill's father was quite frail now. He was hesitant to see me and I thought that was a good idea because when Egill gained his crown, Dagmar would bring some enlightenment to the people. Brigitte and Gudrun were my sisters and both were now married. Their father and Dagmar made sure they married well but had some influence with their husbands. Elfrieda and Sieglinde were now eleven and twelve but mates were already lining up. Being a Frisian now meant that they were the most influential of the German races. Clovis and his cannon made sure that there was peace. Borders were well defined now but trade between tribes was growing rapidly. Clovis' children after Brigitte were still infants but I got in there and hugged each of them. It took a bit longer on them to make sure they were healthy and they were. I kept the oldest and my girls kidnapped the others. They liked children and were more than ready to show me what they could do with my own. German glass was famous throughout Europe and the Middle East. Part of the success was because of Astrid's efforts to produce both beauty and usefulness. They did make custom fitting windows in many colours but they still did not have large single panels. Our journey was stopped because of our talk. I kicked some of the cadets off the boat and barge and put them on the horses that Clovis and his group had rode here with. Those unhorsed came onto the barge and the Patricia. We were soon on our way and the horses would just stay close or leave. Very few people would dare attack us. Clovis said, "Why didn't you come overland? It would have been quicker." "Roughing it is nice but I was bringing things to trade with." "Hmmm trade. What is it you want?" "I need to dig for the potash on your land and then refine it. The refining means a large chemical complex. It also means that you have to protect the area and the area you recovered from the Gauls." "I would give you that land if you asked. I want the fertiliser." "I figured you would. I want your protection too. One day the Huns will come here and their territory will only stop at the Rhine." "My cannon can do that." "They are very numerous and you will need a large standing army and not an unorganised group of farmers and herders." "You said that the Romans would pay for this." "They will but you're going to have to get all of the Gauls and other races to keep the peace. Joining the Frisian army would be better." "That would make me their king. Would Julian allow this?" "We talked about this long ago. I want you to have everything to the Rhine and then to the east. This may mean you get a bit of Gaul too. Julian needs the help but I do not want you to be a Roman appointed Caesar. You will be large enough to compete with Rome and Persia then later with India and China. You have the smallest territory and the fewest people so you have to be the strongest in other ways. If you cannot control the Germans then you may find it advisable to turn your cannons east and take over the territory of the Huns." "I like that idea but even if I lived another fifty years then this could all fall apart again." "That is true but I have fifty years maybe to educate everybody. Educated people can see the future easier." "Tell me more about the potash." "The process I will be using will make far more salt than you can use. I also promised something a long time ago that I have not delivered on." "What was that?" "Perfectly flat window glass in large sheets." "Now that we can use though it may cut into our sales of coloured glass windows." "It may at the start but my glass will be simple while the coloured glass is artistic. After a drop in demand, coloured glass will increase again." "How does it work? We tried everything to make larger pieces." "You are the sole manufacturer of black powder. I even buy from you when I want to test weapons. You have to treat this similarly but you will need a thousand workers." Clovis said, "The secret of the powder is not as safe as it once was but the main ingredient is what keeps people from making it. Is there a way of having only a few do some facet that cannot be copied?" "You could make glass any place in Germania and then crush the pieces. This anybody could do. One select group could melt the glass and make it flat. Others come and take the glass away. That is the best I can do other than move the entire process to an island." "I like the island idea." "I figured you would." Later I told him in private, "Molten tin is close to the temperature of some kinds of liquid glass. A pool of the metal can have liquid glass float on it. The metal will cool the glass a bit until it gets firm. The flow of more molten glass will push the hardened glass off of the metal and onto a place to cool more. The glass continues on and goes into an oven to anneal, then it is cut to size." "That sounds easy even for me to do." "The tin needs to stay molten but cannot have any oxygen from the air touch it. It will oxidise quickly and be useless to you." "What is your solution?" "The fire that heats the tin has to be clean burning. That means no soot." "Your engines do that now." "Yes, they do. The gases have to then go over a bed of hot charcoal. The charcoal will catch the last of the oxygen. The nitrogen and the carbon compounds will flow over the tin to protect it. When the metal is hot enough you pour molten glass will be poured on it and this covers the tin even better." "That sounds simple after you mention it." "Getting that much tin is expensive. "Is that why you told me to collect this metal?" "Exactly. We have to make a contract though. You get to sell sheet glass to all of your land and to the east. The Huns to the east will not want your product but you can still go that way. I build my own plant and sell to the rest of the world." "So I only get Germania and what land I can take in the east?" "You can have Britannia but you know that there are only barbarians living there." "That is still a lot but why must we have a contract?" "Our deal will have to last after you and I are dead." "You... ok I see now. You still do not want to lead my people after I die." "I have a lot more people to lead. You have another son and may get a few more before Astrid stops allowing you into her bed. You are a young man again and you will have time to guide your children as they mature." Our speed was only ten kilometres an hour. Late that night we were as far as we could go with the barges. The ships could proceed alone but there was no use in doing this. The river was just not dredged or widened enough. The cadets and those on horseback set up camp and we stayed the night. We sat around and just relaxed. I told everybody what had been happening recently though much of it was in our magazines. This required a sermon though and then I checked everybody in our group. The next day we assembled large carts. Clovis sent out for more help the day before. He knew that what was on the barges was for him even if the heaviest part was track. We had not got everything unloaded when help arrived. There was little they could do except drive the carts they brought. We loaded the vehicles to make sure they were safe. All of the carts were of the type that I had made before I had left. I was sure that Rudi was now very rich and a well respected man. The track was dragged out and laid on the grass. There was a lot of it and Clovis said, "What is this for?" "If you want to sell to the east, you would probably want to use the railway. There are lots of people there, especially the Greeks to the north of the Black Sea." "You know the trouble I have with Frisians. They do not want to work and would rather fight." "You still have slaves?" "They may be slaves but they called their families to join them. They live here like freemen or at least mine do. I changed their status to prisoner of war like you asked." "I wish you could make a law that would end slavery but it will take years. All that I can suggest is that you hire freemen to work for you. Pay them well. There are a lot of Picts that will do the work." "They are some of my best workers. I am glad you got them to stay. They are very industrious." "They were not that way before. They were put in a new environment and had to work to stay alive. They will get lazy in time. They just have to have something they want very much and have to work to afford to buy it." "What would they want?" "A city like Toronto." This was the name I chose for my new city in the Ruhr valley. I did not see the similarities too well but this may change as it grew. It was more like Hamilton Ontario because of all the dust and smoke in the air from the steel mill. "That is not easy. You have work for them. You built those tall buildings. I can't do that." "Connect up to the Ruhr Valley. We ship out some steel girders and some concrete. You tell the Picts to cut stone for their homes and they will do it." The barges left. They had to be pulled by horses and men downstream until there was room for the ship to get at the other side of the barge and pull it downstream. It took a day to get to Hildestun and it looked dirtier than it did before. The shit was still on the streets though I knew that latrines were used. The streets had not been cleaned up or paving stones added. The place stunk and I had to cut back on the feed of information from my nose. The streets were lined with people though. They were dressed better than they had been. The war was over and there was lots of work. It would be hard to go back to the way I was when Jón was in our head so I acted myself. Even though the city was a dump, it still felt like home. Fálki and a lot of the others that had not come to the school to live now stood before us. Most were men that were very loyal to Clovis and would never leave. Some of the better dressed men were the Picts from nearby city of Victoria. Another loyal person was Helga the cook and she stood her ground besides the armoured men. She had the awed look in her eyes and I remembered her cooking fondly. Before greeting the men I hugged Helga in my arms and twirled her around. She squealed like a girl and held on tight. When I set her down it was Patricia that said, "I thought you loved us all the time." "My stomach loves Helga an awful lot." "I see that we are going to have to win you back." Helga was aghast at this until she saw the smiles. We went through the group but the courtyard was too cramped to move much. They were like family in a way but they acted differently than when I was here last. I had been a boy prince then a bright lad, later I was a young warrior then one that was full fledged. Now I was a lot more and they reflected this in their looks. I looked for Fidelis Marius but I did not see him. The Picts, Cing, Fortrenn and Brude were not here either. In fact none of the mages were present. This disappointed me because I had a lot to talk to them about. Rudi was dressed in rich clothes and he looked good in them. He was even putting on a bit of weight. We shook hands and I said, "Wagon building seems to agree with you." "It certainly does and now I am making fine furniture too. The tools you make now are even better than the ones you made with me." "I have a new home on the Ruhr. I will have to talk to you later about making some furniture." "I would love to." Naddoddr was the next man. He was one of Clovis' generals. He looked a lot older than the king because I had not treated him yet. He had an ugly rash on his face that should be treated. I tried to gather strength of those around me but it was like they were far away. I got some of the power but not the usual amount I should before I reached for the man's hand. I touched the hand and found it firm but it was difficult to interface. That is when I felt the pain in my abdomen. It was sharp and intense. It took a second to recognise that it must have been a knife. The pain was stronger in the front and I tried to freeze everybody there to stop the attack. Naddoddr, I could not reach and tried as hard as I could until I overcame something insubstantial. I had the strength to push the hand away and I was able to take a step back. Naddoddr held a bloody knife in his left hand. The look on his face was peaceful as if nothing had happened. I was going to fall now and held onto Clovis for support. My other hand went to my wound and I found my slashed intestines coming out of my body. I tried to hold them in. I heard screams but I was trying to keep myself from bleeding to death. I grasped for more power and used it on myself to cut off the blood that I was losing. My body was full grown but I felt myself being picked up. The sky was before me now. My perception started to focus internally. The pain was not as intense as it should be and I had not blocked it. Looking deeper I saw myself still bleeding when the blood should have stopped. Something was seriously wrong even apart from the attack. There was something that was spreading through my blood that felt bad somehow. I ignoring the bleeding as I looked at the substance. It was not the contents of my intestines. It was almost too late when I figured it was poison. Large areas of my body had to be shut down. The bleeding now was a controlled flow. I needed to flush out the poison and some of it was already in my blood. Poison was not something I had come across yet, or at least not intentionally. I checked my surroundings and saw that I was on a bed. My hand went into the wound and I now tried to cup the loose material out and with it some of the poison. Just a bit was done before hands restrained me. I spoke and I was surprised how weak I sounded. "Bring clean water, cloth, scissors and a needle and thread. The knife was poisoned." The hands left me but my head was still supported. I could smell KhAvar and then Patricia so I knew they were near. I was getting tired and reached out for my wives and through them to everybody that was near. This may still not be enough and I reached further until I had much more. I use the power to sustain me as I worked on finding a way of neutralising the poison. I scooped out more blood and shit. I had to cut off the bleeding or I would die of blood loss. I sped my own production of blood up but it could only go so high. The poison was attacking my nerves and the blood cells mostly. I worked by pushing the blood cells that were attacked to one of the open blood vessels. I worked like a doorman and allowed only the infected cells to leave. It was a bit of a shock when a damp cloth was put on my forehead. I opened my eyes to see Patricia tending me but the hands holding me to her were KhAvar's. "Jón," she said in a low voice. "The bandages you wanted are here." "Wash outward from the wound but you need to use a new cloth each time. You would put poison into the wound otherwise." "I'm afraid I will hurt you." "The poison takes the pain away and I took the rest. Do your best and don't be too dainty. I need to get the poison out quickly." Patricia was too careful and I got her to change places with KhAvar. KhAvar worked more forcefully. More cloth was brought and KhAvar put a cloth into the wound to suck up the blood and then went back for more with another cloth. When they did the best they could, I had Patricia hold my head up while I searched through my ability to see inside my body and then through my eyes. I wanted to avoid taking out bowel if I could but I was prepared anyway. KhAvar held the severed bowels together as I used cotton thread to sew up the incisions. If I had my med kit, I would use the gut instead. The knife had gone in deep and I had to work on those first. Naddoddr had stabbed then drew the sharp knife upward doing a lot of damage. It was odd. I was weary, so very weary but I was also strong. One sensation had to be my own body and the other the strength I drew from those near me. People came in and words were spoken but I concentrated on my sutures and my ability to get my blood vessels reattached. The time finally came when I stitched up the abdominal wall and put my hands down on the bed. I had used an awful lot of the peoples' strength. I was unbelievably thirsty but only risked a few sips of water. Looking into KhAvar's eyes I said, "I am going for a nap. I did all that I could do. I think I may survive." This was not good enough and she started to cry then I heard Patricia doing the same. I said even weaker, "I will sleep for at least a day. Go get something to eat and drink. I am not going anywhere." I did sleep but I never let go of the strength. I did not hold it so tight but it was there when I needed it. I fed small portions to my body. I wished I was just a co-tenant with Jón like I had been before. I could work tirelessly while Jón did the sleeping. Sleep was needed but I woke up to get sips of water. Soon this was sweetened with sugar and intermittently with salt. My wives were always there but I did not have the energy to chase one or the other out of the room. When I woke up one time Patricia was not in sight but Clovis was. I started to talk and Clovis jumped as if stung. He came close to me. "What happened?" "Naddoddr died after the attack." "I wanted to talk to him." "That is it, he just died. We did not kill him. He could not move and we got the knife and sword from him. It was as if he was not aware of what had happened. I don't know why he would do that. Naddoddr was a good man." I thought of the difficulty in gathering strength and said, "It was related to magic. A mage was involved. It is possible that Naddoddr was forced to do what he did." "Mages I can understand a bit better than Naddoddr doing this. I still do not see their reason for attacking. You are no threat to them." "Where are your mages?" "Fidelis died three weeks ago. It hurt when he passed. He was one of your supporters. He was trying his best to help me too and I did not understand it at first but I do now. He was following your dream." "How did he die?" He got sick around noon one day and he tried what he could to rid himself of the illness but by morning, Cing found him dead." "Poison?" "I did not think so at the time but that is what it must have been." "The others?" "They found reasons to leave. I guess they were worried now that I look back on it." "Then there is at least one mage that came and killed Fidelis then threatened the rest so they would leave. They will be coming after me soon when they learn that their first attempt may not have succeeded." "You are not healing?" "I am but the poison has made my body weak. My mind is not a focussed but this may be from losing so much blood. There was so much damage to my intestines that I still may not live." Patricia had heard all of this but said nothing until there was a pause in the conversation. "We can put you on one of the wagons and take you to the closest section of track. You would be safer at home." "I will be fairly safe here. There will be more poison for me and then somebody coming to me with a knife." I looked at Clovis and said, "They will try to control your body too. You would come here but under the control of a mage or two." "Your wives too." "Yes, you are right." I went back to sleep soon but still held onto the source of my strength. I felt this link being attacked. It was already established and difficult to sever. I tried to push my own mind out and find who was doing this but I did not have to be blocked to fail. Food came to me. With the damage to my intestines I had to be very careful what I ate and how much. I had to use my nose on everything including the implements. Some foods I would not eat because they had an odour that was wrong even if it was not poisonous. The girls ate with me and in fact wanted to be my taste testers. Their food had to pass my inspection too. Guards were outside my door all the time and they kept some very determined people from coming to see me. The wives never left and Clovis was the only one to see me. The people knew of the mage or mages now and understood some of the steps that Clovis took. Strangers that had come in the last few months were rounded up and Clovis saw them one at a time with lots of guards. None were thought of as mages but they were banished from the city until or if I recovered. My condition was precarious. One day I would feel better and the next I felt like I was going to die soon. My link to the people never stopped though there were many attacks on it. I did not know what was actually happening but I tried to remember the effect. I had to deduce that there were more than one mage. Sometime during the night I woke up but I did not know why. I sniffed the air then listened for stealthy steps. I did hear a hissing though and I immediately knew what it was; fuse. Patricia and KhAvar were sleeping in a nearby bed and I called out, "There is a bomb." The girls woke up and I listened more and it was outside the room and down in the courtyard. "Guards," I called out as best that I could. The guards were allowed to peek in now. "There is fuse burning get me out of here." It was Patricia and KhAvar that picked me up and carried me down the hall just as an explosion rent the night. The castle seemed to shift then settle again. Me ears were ringing from the noise. Two short stocky men must have been waiting for this. They ran to us and the guards were at least ready in time. It was difficult to fight in the hallways. The guards wore armour but the men were quick. The fighting lasted a minute until Clovis and more guards came too. The men were then caught between two forces and swords were used but not to kill. The two men were held by some brawny men but in a few seconds they sagged. Clovis came close to one then the other and felt for a pulse. "Bind these two. They may be dead but I am not going to take chances." Clovis came over to me and knelt. "Are you ok?" "As good as I was an hour ago." Clovis got up and walked down the hall toward where I was kept and opened the door. He was there for a few minutes then came back to me. "The room was not destroyed but you cannot live there now." I was tucked into my old room now with my wives and guards. In moments I was asleep. I woke up to a mug of sweet saline solution. Light was coming in through the cracks in the shutters. KhAvar was cradling my head while encouraging me to drink. When I had my self imposed limit I said, "Thanks KhAvar. What did you hear about what happened last night?" "Your father has not come yet." I held KhAvar's hand and used my ability to check her out. She has suffered from the attack and I worked to heal her. Her hearing was damaged but her composure was even in worse shape. Patricia was still asleep and I worked on her the same way. Later I was awoken again. Clovis came in and sat in a chair. "Do you want to hear about last night?" "Sure." "Your wall was severely damaged. Somehow they got some of the powder and just put it close to the wall. They did not know that they should put something around it to contain the blast. They could have brought the floor to your room down if they did." "They have enough advantages already without the knowledge of explosives." "They may try with some of your stingers one day. One takes out the shutters and another falls into the room." "Stingers are not that common and there is high security on them but then again there must have been on the powder. Was there any more stolen?" "Just the one barrel. We now have large rocks in front of the door as well as the guards." "You also have powder with your cannoneers." "I know and none of them may come near with their equipment. There is an order out to kill my own men if they do." "What did you find out about the two men?" "Nothing! They were not recognised by anyone." "I think that the mages are here among us but our minds are just told to not see them or maybe just to think them lowly servants." "I had thought that too and warned the guards. The guards you have are segregated from the rest too so they could not come under a spell." I said, "It sounds like you are doing a good job." "What about you? Have you found a way to beat the poison?" "Not yet. The poison kills everything I use to push it out. I am trying to find out how the poison works and make a molecule that is a mirror image. I was hoping that they would lock onto each other and I could get rid of it that way." "How is it working?" "It is very difficult. I tell the soldiers in my body to attack. I can control the arteries and the veins and to a lesser extent the organs themselves. Making a molecule is not something I was able to do before. I got some experience because of some sick people that are dying. Unless I heal them constantly they will die. My body somehow came up with what I wanted but it is just as destructive as the poison itself." "What are you going to do about it?" "I am trying to make the anti-poison near where the molecules of the poison are. There will be less damage. When the two molecules meet I can then rid myself of the new molecule." "Cannot you just call upon Woden to heal you?" Clovis knew my true feelings on religion but now saw me as the instrument of Woden. Somehow he had justified all that I could do in his mind and he was not different than any of the rest of the population. "Some things I have to do myself." Clovis just nodded his head in understanding. Germans were supposed to be self-reliant too. It was days later that I found the knack of combining the poison with the new molecule. It was a few days later that I was just a person with damaged intestine. Healing my body now was easier. Flushing my body of what was in my intestines took ten more days. By then I was able to stand and take a few steps. I was surprised to find that I had been nearly a month had passed since I was attacked. Against Clovis' wishes, I was helped downstairs and ate in the great hall with the rest. I now used my own ability to search out any threat but I saw nothing odd. In another few days I was making the trip myself but the wives were very near in case I fell. I made a pig of myself but claimed that it was Helga's food that I wanted. I had lost a lot of body weight and had to rebuild my muscle mass. The girls made me wear armour again and I did exercises with it on and went back to using my swords and bow. I had hoped to keep these weapons only to stay in shape but now I may have to use them as tools to kill. The personal effects of the two men were investigated. The knives were poisoned and we were lucky that out guards had not even been nicked. I could not see or feel anything different about the clothes and I didn't know if magic could be carried over to an object or not. All the books in Clovis' library were checked to find information on magic. There were a lot more than I hoped to find. I had to assume that in later years the Christians would have either destroyed the books or just failed to copy them and let them rot. In any case there was nothing I could use. Everything was vague. The author talked around the topic and I had to assume it was because he did not know it. Cing and the other mages were sought so that they could help me but they could not be found or perhaps did not want to be found. Mages were now sought elsewhere and I knew that the only ones that could be half ways trusted were the two friends of AsA and KhAvar's mother herself. I eventually learned from a gloating Clovis that he had taken the track I gave him and joined the crews working from the school and from the Ruhr valley to get this section complete. A lot of stone was needed for bridges, culverts and for supporting the sleepers. Kareltje was spearheading the stonework. People from all over were working extra hard to get this section done so that I could be carried away from danger if the need arose. Letters came from all over and I had to have the girls help me make replies. Business had to continue and orders were sent from here but it was slow. Many decisions a manager could do himself but not everything. I was pleased at this and not just for the way the people felt about me but what they were going to do for themselves. We could soon get to the Weser River and then after crossing the river gain the potash, lead, coal, zinc and more iron ore we needed. This whole section was rich because the entire way held oil and natural gas beneath the ground. Naddoddr's family was met and they tried to say how sorry they were for what had happened. I said, "Naddoddr did not do this of his own volition. Magic was used to make him do whatever he did. I mean to find the person that did this and punish them." We talked a while then I acted as if this were a sermon. They felt better when I finished and I think it was as if Woden had blessed them so he understood what had happened was beyond their control. More sermons were planned but they were all out in the fields. There was no elevated spot for an archer to get me and the people had to stay a distance away. There were not too many armed guards near me either and I felt the way a Roman emperor must have felt. The crowds grew each time a sermon was called. Because I was somewhat stationary the people came from a few days journey away. I healed individuals and I healed the crowds in-toto. My grasp on the power of the people increased and soon I did not feel any attempt to cut me off. My scanning for a mage continued even if I did not understand much of what I was doing. I was told that if someone had a spell on them, they sometimes had a magical aura too but if it were hypnotism then this would not be true. My eyes were just as successful as my mind. With no threats apparent I worked to assemble what we had brought with us. Clovis glass was made wherever he could and it was brought to us. We left the city though and worked in a large building he had made to support this particular task. The equipment was put in place. The conveyors would eventually take the glass outside the building to another as yet unbuilt structure to anneal it. Clovis brought his own tin and I added to it. A large tray would hold the metal as the molten glass came in at one end. I welded up the hood and got Clovis and Astrid to do some. Astrid was only allowed a little because of the life she carried within her. Like any process, we had problems to overcome. The tank containing the liquid metal had to be larger to stabilise the heat. I overcame this by adding a large piece of iron that would do the same thing. Carbon monoxide was produced but this was lead to a fire in the exhaust line so it could be burnt before it escaped. The long awaited event had to be postponed a lot of times. The shield over the molten metal was not good enough and the tin had to be skimmed to take the oxidized surface off. We beat this by placing finely powdered glass on the solidified metal before it was heated. This kept the oxygen away until we could find something better. The sheets came out thin and we tinkered to find a way of making the glass thicker. We did get large distortion free sheets of glass. Clovis and Astrid were overjoyed and rushed the completion of the annealing furnace. I showed them how to sandwich the coloured glass artwork between two sheets of the new glass. This would be a better barrier to heat and much easier to keep clean. I was nearly back to my old strength when a locomotive pulling a five passenger cars came nearby. This was the first time we had visitors and meant that the last bridge to the west had been completed. There was a long celebration and I stayed away from people for security reasons and felt bad because I had to do this. The engine and cars had people in them from the Ruhr. These people knew how to party too. In a few days Clovis and his family went with us to the school. We went slow to check the track and I made observations as we went. Clovis said, "I love travelling this way. We are going so fast that it takes my breath away. Your machine never seems to tire either." I gave a smile and said, "We are going slow to spot hazzards and record details. Wait until all of that is worked out. We are going almost thirty miles an hour now and I want to get up to eighty miles an hour soon." "Eighty! You talked about this before but I never thought I would see this. With your ships I could go anywhere but with your train I could get to the exact spot." "Only if the tracks go there." The rest of the family didn't hear us because they were amazed themselves at the land rushing by. The young ones loved the train just as much as the old ones. Clovis finally gave me an opening I was waiting for since coming here. "Would you sell me one of these trains?" "There is only one track now and I cannot have trains running into each other. One group has to control all the trains and that will be my group. There will be no accidents and no problems with scheduling. I have an alternative idea though." "What is that?" "We use the train to bring in the larger pieces of dredging equipment that you will need." "Why do I need them? I can get the canal working just fine the way it is." "I have another of the Endeavour class ships done. It could bring travellers and cargo down the Ems and to the train lines. It is just too bad that the ship will not fit in your puny locks." "My locks are far larger than any ship I own." "Not the Endeavour class." He looked perturbed and said gruffly, "How much is it going to cost me?" I talked in terms of mutual help. This seemed to work much better. The canal would get dug with my machinery and his labour. He would have to supply the stone and he would also use smaller barges to bring it to where it was needed. My pumps would be necessary to keep a given area dry enough to be worked. A crane would be used to place the limestone. One of the problems was the depth. Clovis was happy with the ten metre depth but I wanted the canal system to use the 'Euro Class' ship that had not been built yet. The locks would have to be twenty two metres deep and fifty metres wide. The length of each lock had to be two hundred and seventy metres. This was a great expense but smaller locks that used less water could be used until the larger ships came along. Clovis' suggestion to bypass where the larger lock would be and continue with the smaller ones was acceptable. The fact that the entire canal system had to be even wider than the locks hurt him. The waves of a passing ship had to have some place to go and this could mean that it just washed out the bank and flushed the dislodged material to the bottom. I wanted glass too but I would not have to make it if Clovis did. Once the demand got very high, I would start my own glassworks. Clovis made some nice windows and put them in frames and sent them off to Julian and Sapor. The rich saw this and they would be clamouring to get some. As an experiment we made three centimetre thick glass for doors. These were like what a store would have in my time. These would go on each side of the entrance to the main dining room. If they did not break then the two emperors would get the same thing. The thick glass would keep out an arrow but not a stinger. Clovis and I talked about the potash. The potassium in it was needed for another type of fertiliser and I had to just find a good supply of phosphorus. To make all this easier for Clovis to swallow I said, "I will give you one percent of all the potassium fertiliser that gets shipped out of your land, except what I use on my own property." "One percent. That is very small." "One percent of a million tonnes is a ten thousand tonnes. This is just in fertiliser because I will have other uses to put the potash to." "What?" "So you can make glass." "Oh." We made it to the school and everybody was out to see the train. Seeing me walking around seemed to help too. Security told the people what had to be until the threat was removed and they acted much more subdued with the news. After greeting the school staff I pointed to the river and said, "We need a bridge here and it has to be high so the ships can go under it." "That is impossible." I picked out a drawing of a steel bridge that would cover the gap. There was enough steel here to build another ship but there was nothing else we could do. We stayed the night and went back just after breakfast. This time we went faster. The way the train shook I was not sure it was good to go any faster. There were simply too many refinements that had to be done yet. We had petroleum based grease. Ball and roller bearings had just come out and it would be a while before they found their way into some of the places babbitt was now used. ------- Chapter 8 I rode back to the Ruhr in the train. The ride was rough because our springs were not good yet. I would try air shocks but I was just now working on making synthetic rubber. I had made some but it was difficult. Much of the difficulties were in the application. It was now used in soccer balls but it would go into tubes and one day tubeless tires. It was now used as seals around moving shafts. Hoses were next on the agenda and eventually those for hydraulic purposes. When we got to the station, security went out again while I searched again for any threats. The people here knew much more of what was going on but still cheered to see me. The cargo was taken off the train and the vehicle would return with supplies to the school and people to start working on the bridge that had to span the Weser River. Getting to the house meant people lining much of the road until we left the area. The girls were still looking for enemies in all the dark areas but I could not blame them because I was doing it too. We used a portion of the house that was nearing completion. The girls had the guards check out all the rooms and even the basement and attic. Since the house was very large, this took a long time. I had to explain to the workmen and the servants what was happening and why. They seemed to be mollified at our disruption. I made a personal check of the refrigerator and then the freezer. I came out with a litre sized bottle of beer and then had to go back to get one for my ladies. I tried to get them to settle down and the best way, other than sex, was to get them to discuss the upcoming ceremony. It didn't work this time so I resorted to the other method. Events did not settle down for me either. I went over why someone might attack me and use mages to do this. I also looked at why mages might want me dead. Money and business sounded like good motives. Revenge sounded good because I had killed a lot of people. Somebody wanting to take over my place was possible but three very powerful people would oppose this unless it was one of them. The list grew in my mind but nothing clear emerged. The girls got more security and I now considered putting up a wall around the property. I wanted to avoid this at all cost. I was trying to have an open society and a wall was not open. An invisible wall that used proximity detectors may be possible now that I had electricity. An electric fence with a very heavy jolt may work well too. Making the components for the detectors were impossible if I used solid state devices but tubes were simpler. I knew that the cathode of a tube emitted electrons better if it was coated with rare-earth and I had a supply of this already. Personal protection became more than a sword or a knife. I would need something that I could use from a distance. A gun would work very well especially with the shock value of the muzzle retort. My grandfathers gun factory was good training and though the tools now were very inferior, they would still work. A pistol was the best for immediate use but for various reasons, I had to make rifles too. The M16 or an AK47 with a decent caliber would do as well. The sniper rifle I had used just before I was hit by lightning and sent back to this time was still in my head. Making one as good as that may not be possible yet but I could make something that was close. I shifted residences. My wives and I lived in the lab or the machine shop. There was a house attached to the lab to make this convenient. I could do the work I wanted. The first task to farm out would be to make steel wire, specifically barbed wire. Razor wire would be next after the first variety was produced. These just required a mechanical device to twist the wire and add the barbs and razors. My time was spent making a heavy die to form the brass cartridge cases. I figured a ten millimetre calibre would be good for a start. I needed case trimmers and another punch to make primer tubes. Trimmers, scales, bullets and I had to fiddle with some powders but they changed depending on what kind of hunting I was going to do. It this case it was man. Much of this work had to be farmed out but I tried to hide the construction in some of the many other tools I needed built. A scope was good to have and I too would use the finest spider silk for the crosshairs because I did not have the precision tooling to do anything better. Other weapons had to be made too and I plucked away at them as I found time or the inclination. The war coming up would be with the Huns and I needed something that would deal with thousands of them running at us on their little ponies. Their recurve bows were very strong and had a good range. I had to find how to kill them from a distance and from close up too. The girls worked on a lot of jobs but mostly the magazine. They put their perspective on the attack. They asked me to read it and I found it long, factual and a real tear jerker. I loved them more for this and it went out to be published. They made a lot of educational articles that pushed the Greeks to do a very good job of their own. I farmed out the printing press to the girls. It was time to improve on the quality of my books and our schooling at the same time. I had accumulated a large supply of barium salts. This material was burnt to produce barium peroxide and this led to hydrogen peroxide. Not only was hydrogen peroxide a good oxidiser and bleach but it was now used on the hemp to make acid free paper. All our publications up to this time were on acid processed paper that would cause the paper to breakdown in fifty years or less. The new process would allow the paper to last centuries if it were taken care of. A much better printing press could be made and only needed the final touches that I could supply. One of the rarest commodities were skilled craftsmen and the machines they worked on. The Germans and the Romans of this time did very good work. The patricians of Rome kept their system of government working well for a thousand years by peer pressure. Now I had awards for excellent work. This seemed to be a good substitute and everybody liked a light slap on the back especially if it was well deserved. There was a long list of textbooks and more books were based on Wodenism. All these had to get printed by the millions. The girls were put in charge of this. It kept them occupied and they seemed to worry less but I worried for and about them myself. The schooling system was still hit and miss. We had thousands of children and the majority of them were unable to read. I had grades set up but the subjects and the amount of education was still unknown. Schools were now what they should be especially with the number of students. Paper was made available but a large slate was used too. Having two shifts allowed the children to learn a trade or at least find out how to cook. Boys and girls took all the trades and women were being encouraged to take up teaching. The male teachers didn't like this but there was little they could do. There were jobs for women too and many mothers worked. This meant daycare but the parents had to support this with me. I was a capitalist with a very strong social conscious but I did not want to get trapped into starting a socialist society. Besides education, the employees and especially the children were well fed and clothed. This meant uniforms for different types of jobs but as yet this had not gone very far. Land was valuable and services to that land was much more costly if a city took up quite a few square kilometres. I figured high density residential buildings were the best. The ones that would get the top floors would think I hated them until the elevators were put in. Isobutylene and isoprene were more abundant now. Both materials were polymerised in many different ways and combinations. I had different types of rubber this way. Machinists made the moulds but the men were all newcomers. Very few had enough of a chance to learn the skills necessary before tackling this job. When I could, I brought husband and wife teams in so that the job would be seen as unisexual. Nylon had only been made in the lab but would come out eventually. Wire was available though and we made bias ply and radial tires. Because of the cost we built small to start. It was not that the tire had a small diameter but that we used little rubber and wire. We made bicycle tires instead. I explained about the bicycle and drew pictures with some rough dimensions. When the machinists were not working on moulds for the tires, they would be making a bike. I had no hope of it being done quickly. My wish was to have some good roads for the bikes. The sludge from the catalytic cracking unit produced some bitumen which was used to make some tests of road material. We needed rollers, compactors, trucks, spreaders, crushers for the stone and a kiln to heat everything up in. I had stone, a crusher and a wheelbarrow. The result was strong but it looked like shit without a heavy roller to lay it flat. Steel was coming more freely now and I could make castings easily. Finding machines and machinists to turn some of the large castings was difficult. A machine took a long time to build and a machinist, a long time to train. There were some workarounds where we made a lathe with two bearings and turned the part directly with a leather belt. Rubber was soon a known quantity and I let the young people work on this, and other projects to find out about it themselves. While they would carry on, I got some additional young men and two women to work on making electronic tubes with me. A vacuum was fairly easy to produce now and I had some caesium that could scavenge any free oxygen that remained in a tube. Chokes, transformers, capacitors, resistors, insulated wire and a whole raft of Bakelite products including the base for the tubes were made. We started off with a meter movement of a fixed coil and two pieces of soft iron that repel each other to deflect the needle. This took over a week to build and this was still quick because of its small size. A lead/acid battery provided power and carbon rods acted as resistors. I had a large number of young people and more were taught by the ones that I taught. The students made lots of batteries then made lots of meter movements. We had to have a standard volt, ohm and amp. Much of these could be deduced. The ohm I remembered being referenced to a column of mercury that was a one square centimetre in cross sectional area. I had only remembered the specifics because of the mercury. Some units could be cross-references from some of the chemical formulas or constants that I knew. There were a lot of electrical units that had to be remembered and I used their original names. This was more to keep me from being confused than the students. I had a good memory but I had to resort to writing everything down so noting would slip through the cracks. It was getting very close to our pseudo wedding. People came a month early and I had to put them up. Apartment buildings had been constructed but they were far better than the ones in Rome. There was no shortage of fuel so we made brick and mortar. A steel frame went into each of the buildings. It thankfully took little time to learn to rivet. These buildings took most of my concrete. Conduit was buried in it but it was presently empty. Those people that came early were given the second highest floor of the newest twelve floor building. I wanted them to be inconvenienced for coming so early. They had to walk up all the steps though there were elevator shafts there if I ever made the elevators. They had to put up with the smell of the paint and the moisture in the concrete. They could not complain too much because the painters were working their way downward. The other nine buildings were done and would hopefully house most of the guests. At current estimates, we figured we would get seventeen to twenty thousand people coming. Those that came, wanted me to entertain them and I left the job to the girls. They did not thank me for this. A final spurt was put on the house. It was now finished apart from the painting and some of the mosaic floors I wanted. In true Roman fashion I heated the floors but mine had pipe that circulated hot water. A house this size had to have a few boilers and they were all situated far from the house along with the compressors for the large refrigerator and the freezer. Hydrogen was piped in to illuminate with lime lights. A special key was used to turn the gas on but anybody could turn it off. Mercaptan was added just like natural gas so it could be smelt if the flame went out. I had lots of propane and this was used in a counter a top stove with the exposed flame and a porcelain enamelled iron grid. I planned on how to educate my own children when they came. The girls liked the idea of making a nursery and then rooms for their children. Though I was not good at music, I did build a music room. I had an organ put in but it was not much bigger than an old piano. The piano too was being worked on but it did not sound very good yet. The girls liked my playing and this was the major reason I got a chance to practice. The house was set up as five wings. Clovis, Julian and Sapor would have one each that would also hold their security. The other apartments in the city could house fifty people per floor but could be squeezed tighter if they must. The ten buildings would only take care of six thousand people. The ships could handle another two thousand. There was no way I could handle all the people. Those that came uninvited would just have to pitch their own tent. I would supply latrines. My employees had known this was going to happen for years and I told them how they could capitalise on it. 'Bed and Breakfasts' had been made just for this purpose. Select entrepreneurs had come to me and I suggested all the services a city needed. Good clean restaurants with refrigerators, freezers, sewers and hot running water made money even with only our own people. The neighbourhood pub was common and they too had good rooms. Brothels were necessary too and they were run by an old Persian eunuch after I explained how he was to run this. The alternative was to leave but it would be under banishment from all of my properties. The city had police in good uniforms. They were not needed much but would for the next few months. Firemen with pumpers were available. They relied on steam and there were very few hydrants. As the city grew so would the services. What I was most proud of was the pollution control plant that used human waste for methane and then for fertiliser. The ceremony was now going to be held in the temple even if it was not a legal wedding. The girls got Astrid to make large stained glass panels that were sheathed on both sides with single sheets of glass that were two metres wide and five metres long. Only the train could get it here but I didn't know how it happened with the rough ride. Three windows were sheathed inside and out but there were three others that would have to be done later. I noticed that the large and very beautiful oak doors of the temple were replaced with ones of thick glass. It looked nice but was not as strong. Again I did not know how this happened. The wedding arrangements were handled by the girls and their friends but I had to ok the major parts first. Nobody asked me about the temple. An organ had been installed with this in mind when the building was constructed. The instrument was used every day and usually was never quiet. People liked music and there was so much to learn. Iulius spent time here and in his home in Lutetia. There were some talented people there and he made sure that the skills were shared with those that lived here. The reception was in a large tent near the soccer field. At least here we could accommodate all of the people. The girls had to have a great deal of help. Claudia came early along with her children. She was put up with us. She had a great house with lots of the modern conveniences. When she saw ours, she was stunned. It was as large as a palace. The outside was stone but the frame was steel and a lot of concrete was used to make it strong. Patricia took her mother and sibs through the house and showed them the gas lights. This was amazing except there was still lots of daylight. The walk in refrigerator was very large and was four hundred square metres in size. The girls put on jackets to go in and showed them how the food was kept fresh for a long time. The freezer was the same size though normally this size would be too large except at this event. Meat was cut and wrapped in paper with dates and contents. They were all put on shelves and ready to use after thawing. The girls cooked a stir-fry over the gas stove. The same could be done over the wood but soot would be on the bottom of the pot. The toilets, sinks, hot tub and showers were nothing new but they liked ours better because of the glass doors and the size. We had a large laundry with detergent. A large load meant a tonne of clothes because I could not make it small without sacrificing too many features. We had a dryer but it was not used except with it was raining. The elevator shafts were explained, but like the apartment buildings, the cars and lifting equipment would be constructed when time allowed. The grounds looked good but the shrubs were few and far between. The house was too new to have all the fine detail finished. The driveway was constructed of interlocking stones that looked better than the standard cobbles. Further back of the house was the areas I reserved for a swimming pool and another for fish that was reminiscent of what the Japanese had. Behind all this was the area set aside for children and other wild animals. Swings, teeter totters, carousels, slides, sandboxes, climbers and an obstacle course. Around this was a lot of places for indulgent parents to watch. Most of the windows were fitted with removable double paned glass. The edges all had stained glass that would work well to make Astrid's company more profitable. Our home had a lot of mirrors now that we had good glass. In fact the guests would get mirrors as gifts from us. Metal mirrors were good too but only those with a lot of money could afford the ones with no distortion. Astrid had to have the process so that she could make mirrors and I traded her the silver compounds for lots of her glass. This reminded me of early photography too but there were too many other things to do first. More guests were arriving daily. Mithridates came with one of the loads of sugar. Lazeez was with him. The land and climate was a lot different than they were used to. They wanted to know about the attack on my life and I told them. This would be a good time to try again and I was worried about this to such an extent that I wore armour under my clothes. Tertius was called and he took the two off to show them what he had made recently. A lot more people had come on the same boat. People were checked off the list and put where they were assigned if invited. Those that were not, were directed to the friendly Bed and Breakfasts. Clovis came first and I welcomed them to my house with the usual hesitance I had to get close to somebody. Astrid was very gravid and there was a good chance I was going to help with a delivery as well as gaining one more relative. The girls took my family through the house and Clovis braved the cold of the refrigerator to get two brews. Astrid was put on an alcohol restricted diet but still liked her beer. Clovis loved mine and loved it cold too. "How much to put one of those in my home?" "You have to start from the ground and build everything new. You need a new city with wide and straight roads. A septic system has to be put in for the city then water and storm sewers. Electricity will come in time and so will other electrical wires that I talked about before. Plastic pipe has to be laid so that this resource can be used. It is only then that your home can have all the new toys." "That could take years." "If you wait years, we will have a smaller refrigerator that is small enough for a family. Larger units can be installed in castles. My unit is very expensive to operate because I have no time to perfect it. Everything I do is roughly done. The cadets are trained so they understand want I am doing and then they have to work on improvements." "Why do I need a sewer to get that cold room?" "The cold room needs a building out the back with all the noisy equipment in it. Men have to be stationed there to make sure everything works. When you put your cold room into the castle, the castle will have less room. You have glass in your windows now but the streets are still covered in shit that has been there for years. You will want other improvements as time goes on and your castle will look like a pretty flower growing out of a pile of shit left by an animal." Clovis paused and said, "We could clean up the city?" "That would be a good start but then you would have to encourage the people to build new homes. A new start on new ground is best. The whole city is planned out first. You then can sell or give some land near your home to those you want. Your own home can be larger." "I will have to give some thought to this. If I wait a few years you will have an aeroplane for me and I can fly it from my home." I had to smile at this and said, "Many homes have their own airstrips but they have lots of land and the neighbours are far away." The children were getting bored. I took the youngest and lead the rest to the area reserved for children. I put Astrid on the swing and pushed her gently and she whooped in joy until Clovis had to push her more. The rest jumped on the swings and I had to shift the younger ones over to the slide. All too soon diapers had to be changed. This could be done on the grass but there were change tables in the latrines along with water and a sewer. KhAvar did the honours and Patricia smiled and hurried to the house. When the baby was changed, Patricia was back with a hemp bag with a sturdy shoulder strap. I had coated it with butyl rubber after dying it yellow. The same material was used in the tent that was soon to be set up. Patricia transferred the contents of the hamper into the bag and handed it to Astrid. Astrid said, "This is beautiful. It feels odd though." "It has a 'rubber' coating. Jón has been wanting to make this for a long time. Water will not go through it so it will not leak. It will keep the clothes dry if it rains but the flap does not cover the opening well." Astrid said, "Jón will make this work." Astrid and her girls got into preparation for the wedding with those of Patricia's family. A lot of other women wanted their input but excuses were made to keep them out. A bunch of old or young hens could drive a bride or two bonkers. I was anxiously awaiting for some old hens to come so I could talk to them. AsA, HidA, Mehrnoosh and of course Klement though he did not fit that well with the gender. Sapor was a busy man and so was Julian. They both had Endeavour class ships but they did not handle well in the ocean. Governors, senators and other important officials came. Invitations went out with the room they would get so the number of slaves they could bring would be cut down. This did not effect some people and they did what they wanted. I did the same and shoved them in a room that was large enough for the guests that said they were coming. There were a lot of people that came that were not important but were still friends. Some had even been slaves before their brands disappeared. These people did not have such expanded egos and they stuck to their original plans. Four days before the day of the wedding, one of the Endeavour class ships approached. This one though had the flag of the Constantius family. The ship was directed into a place reserved for it and the ship was tied up. The large doors at the bow opened and the new praetorian guard came out then Julian marched out. I was there to greet him. I quickly noticed that he wore no weapons and not even a small personal knife. The man held up his arms and we hugged each other like friends. He whispered, "You have hard skin Jón." "Mages, or somebody that pays mages, want me dead. They have methods that the average assassin do not have." I was introduced or reintroduced to those people that came with Julian. I had a lot of introductions to do myself but not everybody was here. Julian looked at the tall apartment buildings in the distance and said, "Will I stay in one of those?" "I have a place in my home for you. There is room for sixty three of your people to stay with you. The rest will have to stay in the apartment building." "Those buildings look so interesting." "The are but they are still new and the concrete has not dried out yet. They will be better in a year or less." "You will have to tell me how you built them." Clovis was late in coming to greet Julian and I let the two men act as brothers too. Clovis took the honours of introducing his family. I also knew that he would introduce Julian to my cold beer soon enough. My home was the first destination. Clovis here took the lead in showing how 'his son' had done such a wonderful job of building. The tour brought a lot of compliments and comments and then of course, the wish to have something similar. Clovis used the bottle opener and gave the open bottle to Julian then one to me before he took one for himself. Julian watched how Clovis drank and tried to emulate him. "This is amazing. I am here freezing in this room while the weather is so warm. This beer though tastes very good this way." I said, "Let's let the rest have a few and we can go out the back and watch the children play." I took a few bottles by the neck and Clovis did too in case he ran out. We found some good seats and watched the children play. There were a lot of them but they did play nice. With the guards near but out of ear shot we talked about our mutual business and what was happening personally with each of us. Julian said, "Have you learned any more about the attack on you?" "Nothing yet but I expect another attack in the next few weeks." "Have you deduced a reason for the attack yet?" "Nothing that I am sure of. It is either revenge for the deaths I have caused or somebody that is afraid of the changes that are coming to the world." "Not some religious fanatic?" "That would be a third choice but it is not as likely." "But possible?" "Yes, it is possible." Clovis said, "I do not think that there are many mages that would risk trying to attack you now." "I think it is a good time. Everybody will be shaking my hand or even giving me a hug. It does not even have to be a person. A group of mages could use a lightning bolt to strike me." Clovis looked at me closely. He knew that a lightning bolt is what got me to this time and continent in the first place. There were various kinds of wine, some were fortified for our guests. Lucius brought a wide range of his products and had them bottled and I made labels for them. They showed the vineyard and of course the year as of the new reckoning. Brandy was becoming popular throughout the empire and as yet the secret was still kept. I made rum, and although a bit rough, it was still good. It went well straight up or with water as long as it had ice cubes in it. Beer and ale were good cold too and two of the pubs in town had a refrigeration system for their customers' enjoyment. The freezer had literally tonnes of ice cream. This was saved for the desert at the reception after the weeding. Two grown men could not wait and I was fearful of them freezing their mouths. Two days after Julian arrived, our last partner showed up. Sapor himself was piloting the ship and he got it into position beside Julian's ship. He didn't do a bad job and I saw him smile widely when he gave the order to shut the boiler down. The four of us were like old friends. I got nothing but superlatives about everything I was doing. The ships were loved. I knew that Sapor would probably leave his empire for a year to be a captain if he knew it would be safe. He had a large barge built of wood and this was being used to harvest the fish from the Mediterranean. Sugar was a hit and more refineries were built. Mithridates was in charge of all of them and didn't seem to mind leaving his ship as much as he had before. Just after dusk, I said to my guests, "I have something interesting to show you in the mill. Would any of you like to accompany me there?" KhAvar jumped up and said, "Yes, you have to see this mother. It is like seeing the power of the gods." "The gods?" "You have to see this to believe it." Julian and Sapor were all for it and Clovis would come because of his curiosity. I had my own private train to get to work. The boiler was already kept warm and ready for this trip. Just before we boarded the train, I said, "Which one of you are going to be the engineer?" Julian quickly said, "I will," and his words were stepped on by the others. The cab was not that large and I had to send the fireman into the passenger section. The three men fired the boilers and I then explained the gauges and the leavers. Julian was the one to blow the whistle while I looked out to see that everybody was onboard. Julian wanted to go fast and the twenty-one kilometres trip took almost twenty minutes. We could get near ninety kilometres an hour but this was downhill. Our engine did not have the best gearing and it took quite a while to get up to speed. When we stopped, Sapor said, "I get to drive back." There was a gleam in my guests eyes. Julian said, "I have never travelled so fast before. I did not believe it was possible when you told me this before but I do now. A few minutes ago, you said we were not going fast. I do not think a person can go faster." There were some guides that took the group through the wide and high doorway that led into the plant. Everybody was handed some safety glasses and they put them on. They knew my penchant for safety even if it was far less than what was allowed in my time. One of the guides went off to give orders and seventy three of us climbed two flights of steel steps and entered a glass walled room. The men wanted to worm out the secret ahead of time but I just smiled. Molten metal was tapped from the furnace. It ran down the trough and into a large steel bottle that was laying on its side. When about twenty tonnes had been put in the large blowers forced air through what would be the bottom in a moment. The bottle was elevated to a vertical position but the force of the air kept the molten metal from entering the openings the air was entering from. The molten metal burst into life with smoke, flame and white light. Everybody witnessing this stepped back unconsciously. Julian said after a few seconds, "What is that? I can feel the heat through the glass. It feels like I am standing on the precipice over a volcano." Sapor added, "Does your god walk here?" I quickly added because Sapor was worried, "It is only steel being purified." "But the power! No smith could ever work that metal." "It can be worked after it is cooled." We did not talk for ten minutes and then the bottle was tilted back to the horizontal as the entire bottle was elevated on the crane. A large ladle lined with firebrick had been heated with a large natural gas flame for hours was readied to accept the molten metal. The liquid poured from the bottle into the ladle. When it was done, the bottle went back for another charge while the ladle was taken away. The ladle poured its contents into the first mould. Innoculant rested above a ceramic filter on the mould. The metal melted the innoculant as it rushed into the mould. When it was full, the liquid metal rushed up the vent holes. Moments later the next of four moulds was poured. Sapor said, "What was that?" "We use the basic open hearth furnace for most of our work. The type used by the people of my time was called the Bessemer method. It is still good for small batches of specialty steels or iron. One of the converters were loaded with twenty tonnes of molten iron. Air was forced through the bottom as it was stood upright. All the impurities burned in the metal and this kept the molten bath hot. The process could be stopped at the point when enough carbon was burnt out of the iron to make steel or we could continue until we got pure iron and then we would start from scratch by adding the alloys we wanted." Sapor said, "If you say that the gods had nothing to do with this I will believe you but it is hard to understand how it could not be." "The Greeks talk of Prometheus bring fire from the gods and giving it to men. We have just used fire to rival what the ancient Greeks' concept of power." "A fire was never that hot." "When you used the plasma cutter or the carbon arcs, you had something much hotter but it was small. Hot is something that you have to compare to something else." Because it was too dark to see the rest of the operation, I hustled the guests back in the train. Sapor pushed the train uphill and stopped it when I pointed out the landmarks. The guests were brought into the house as the engineer and fireman took the train away for more work. Sapor said, "I will need one of these trains too." "I can arrange that but you want to be the captain of your ship and an engineer too. That does not leave much room for running your empire." Sapor replied angrily, "I run my empire very well before you came." "Everybody knows that you did." Sapor put on a smile now because he knew he was getting angry for no reason. The house was constructed so that each wing could be defended independently. Sapor had his men stationed as did Julian and to a lesser extent so did Clovis and I. The girls slept well but Sapor's anger still bothered me. The next day I had a chance to talk to AsA, Mehrnoosh, HidA and their constant companion Klement. There was just too many people walking through the house and I got them to go outside to watch the children play or to just sit in the fresh air. AsA said, "What is wrong, Jón?" "I want to discuss magic but not in the house." "Ok, we are not in the house now." "I am worried about tomorrow." "All grooms have that worry." "Tomorrow is a better time to kill me." Their faces got very serious and AsA nodded her head in understanding. "What would you like us to do?" "I do not know very much about magic. I cannot detect magic though I get a feeling now but nothing that is exact." "What can we do to help?" "During the ceremony the girls made up, you, Sapor, Julian and Clovis will ask me in front of witnesses my intentions. I want Mehrnoosh, HidA and Klement to stay near to spot trouble." AsA said, "We can do that but perhaps we could put a protective spell on you just in case." "If you think it will work then try it. I am worried about tomorrow and not about the wedding." The women stayed with the brides to see what they could do to help. There were so many women though that I knew they were hurting more than helping. The men folk wanted to get me drunk but I was too worried about any assassin that I only sipped. Klement stayed near me all the time and he was constantly on the lookout for somebody that was magic. Some of those around us did have a small degree of talent but it was not known if they were hiding their talent or just not aware that they had any talent at all. By the end of the day I was beginning to get a better feeling for somebody else's magic aura. It helped considerably if I had my eyes closed and I was able to use my mind and other senses. This was like some of the training I got when I was taught some of my ninja techniques. We did not get to sleep that night until very late. The girls were very excited and I was too. The usual method didn't seem to work so I had to stay another two hours before they collapsed into sleep. I was tired too but I stayed awake looking at the ceiling and thinking of our future. I must have slept. The noise about the house woke me up. Both girls got a kiss but wanted to sleep until I reminded them of what day it was. It turned out that I was the last out of bed. The ceremony was slated for mid afternoon but there was a lot of last minute scrambling which is when we would be most vulnerable. My mind was on the threat and I knew that if they did not do something today, then they would do so at other predetermined events where they may think that I was not prepared. Living my life this way was not what I wanted. Getting to the bottom of this was my highest priority other than keeping alive. There was no work today for me but many others had to continue. I stayed with the three leaders and their bodyguards were the ones that protected all of us. We did have a chance to tour one of the schools and the men saw how the classes functioned. There was only one building so far but it was bursting with children. The men loved the idea of their pictures being on the walls. The flags on regalia of Rome, Persia and the Frisian people were in each class. Patriotism was a good idea but I wanted the children to be loyal to the United Nations and not one country. I felt safer in the nursery school with fifty three children that were three years old. Other classes had more children but this group was just learning how to be sociable. The kings and emperors were just men here and I liked that too. I was just a nice man that made them feel good and took away their pain. We had a chance to see one of the apartment buildings and the men were not out of breath climbing twelve floors. They saw examples of the various apartments and then they were led to the roof. Julian said, "I am amazed at all this. Your apartments are good enough for the rich. You have hot water at any time and the sewers necessary to take away their wastes. The roof itself is beautiful. Plants, grass and even trees in pots is very beautiful but you even have a pool with fish in it." Sapor added, "This too is beautiful and reminds me of my garden. Your people are the envy of everybody but the very rich. I do not know how you can afford to do all this." "KhAvar helped design the gardens. None of them are alike either. As for gold, it is simple. I told all of you that I wanted the common man to be rich. All of my people are getting that way. They also are able to purchase what we make. The apartments are actually what I call condos. Condos are owned by those that live in them. The costs are shared by everybody. I get paid back for what I have provided." "That is amazing. I see now what you meant before. It was hard to see a reason for a man to not hoard all his gold." I said, "We do not usually use gold. Paper currency is what we use. A person could go to our bank and trade for real gold at any time that it is open. My bank is open all the time because people work three shifts." "Paper money? Why would people accept that?" "Your money and that of Rome is founded on trust. A gold coin does not have the value in weight of one gold aureus. The same is true for silver, copper and bronze. They trust that the coin will purchase the value that is on the face of it." "That is still amazing but you always amaze me. There is something new all the time." I looked over the wall at two adjacent apartment buildings and said, "We have plans of joining the twelve towers with two bridges each that will be enclosed in glass. We may even have a road high above the city. The bridges will come in a few years but the roads may take thirty." "Even at thirty years it will be amazing. Would you build something like this in my land?" "I could but not as high. Earthquakes shake the land too much and a tall building needs giant springs that I am unable to make yet. When I get this accomplished I may put up a building that had a hundred floors and not just twelve. That is like nine of these buildings stacked on top of each other." "I cannot see something that big. It would tip over in a wind." "It goes far into the ground. The centre of the building holds the structure up and the walls just stiffen it." "I would want to see that." "I have been in a building that has a hundred and ten floors and then a metal tower extends almost three hundred metres further." "From the land of the gods?" "No from the land of man, in the future that I came from." Sapor looked around and pointed at the tent and soon the rest of the people were looking at it too. Julian said, "What is that?" "A light waterproof material. I am going to offer it to your armies. Our friend Sapor may not need it but it sheds water and keeps a soldier and his supplies dry and warm." "Men do not need that." "We have a difference of opinion here. The way I see it, you want hard men able to take care of themselves without too much help from you. That has some very good points. I want the men healthy. Sometimes that is just a matter of keeping them warm and dry. Soon I will have good boots. They will be heavier but will protect the feet more." "I do not think that will work." "To prove it one way or another by splitting up one of your legions. Half get the new poncho and half do not. After a year you will look to see if the ones with a poncho were able to fight better because they were not sick or dead. We can do the same with another legion but these get my boots. Another legion gets my tents that are a lot lighter than the leather ones you now use." "I can see that kind of test but your tents will be so easy to see." "Do you mean the yellow colour?" "Yes." "They will be coloured so that they blend into environment like my ghillie suits did." "Those I know work well. But what is a poncho?" Clovis said, "You have a busy day today and you have lots of things to do besides show three old man around." Sapor looked angry and Clovis said, "Jón is twenty three now and all of us are old to him. The same as what you thought of men when you were twenty three." We went home in a train, the same way we got to Toronto. I took the time to make a meal. Julian, I think, remembered my cooking from his home when we first met and he told Clovis and Sapor about it. The three men were happy to go get their own beer from the fridge. Today I went Chinese and made a stir fry. It was not kosher but I made spaghetti and then fried the noodles. The flour to make the noodles was from wheat and not rice. Julian was very happy to help with the salad. At the table later I told him about a dressing called 'caesar' even if everybody in my time said it wrong because in Latin it was like the German word kaiser. This brought up different dressings but some were related to places in the new world. All too soon I had to get ready. I had a haircut a few days ago and I could suppress the growth of my beard so I did not have to shave. After a good shower I dressed in loose fitting clothing. The light jacket was made by KhAvar and the pants by Patricia so both were very well made. There was no real precedent for the ceremony. I did not have to follow Roman, Persian or German customs. I wore especially made armour under my clothes. It was thin and light and the edges overlapped with a canvas pad to reduce the sound of metal on metal. I kept the two swords on my back. It looked a barbaric in the large mirrors even without the armour being seen but I could get away with a lot too. Clovis, Julian and Sapor would officiate at the wedding as would AsA and Claudia. Astrid would too as my foster mother but I did not mind even if we were not related. When I stepped out of the room, the house was still in turmoil. Even with the large size, there were still people running around to get everything just right. Most of the activity centred around AsA's suite. One of the servants going into the room carried a message stating that I was ready and would be downstairs. The organ was being played in the music room and I entered to see who it was. Sapor was touching the keys one at a time and listening to the results. He seemed to be pleased with the instrument. When he saw me he said, "This is a beautiful instrument. How long does it take to learn how to play it?" "An easy tune can take just a few minutes but this takes a lifetime of dedication to play it right. I tried on a piano when I was young but didn't have the time, the inclination or the talent to be a master of the instrument." "You seemed to be the master of one instrument." "Which one is that?" "I heard two very happy women singing your praises last night." I must have turned a bit red because Sapor chuckled at my expense. I said, "They make me very happy to be a man and I guess I just do my best to make sure they enjoy being women." "I heard that they enjoy that very much and plan on holding you to your bargain tonight." "Children?" "Yes." "I guess they will both have to have a child right away but I am not going to have them bear me many children each. I have very little time to devote to my wives and future children as it is." "The wives can handle the children, especially in the first few years. After that a father had to do his work in raising the youngsters." "I will have less time than most men. You sent me some of your most intelligent people and so had Julian and Clovis. The fact is, I still have to teach them everything. I took many years to gather my knowledge and I had books, teachers and computers to help me. All they have is a teacher that does not know a lot about everything. My knowledge is in small well defined areas and I have to learn myself." "You sound angry that Woden has put this burden upon your shoulders." "I enjoy the work but it never ends. Chemistry is an example. It is divided into many separate fields. Here I know the most but I am still sorely lacking in a great many areas. I know little about electricity and I have to learn a great deal more just to teach it. Mechanical things are more common sense but this still takes a great many different engineers to understand all that could be known. On top of this I want to be a social reformer, a peace maker, a builder, an explorer then a father and a husband." "Stay home with your family and write books. The rest of us will read the books and learn what has to be done. We can build for you." "That would be nice but I have to build so that I can learn too. I know small fragments that I cannot remember to put into books but I could if I had to make something then used the data." "Well play me some music then. That will sooth a tortured soul." "I guess I can do that. Let's find Clovis though. He will provide the percussion." "To strike?" "In this case he will play the drums. We have been practising this song." The two of us found Clovis and dragged him back to the music room. Julian was with him at the time and he came as well. I said, "This song is from a group of musicians called 'The Animals'. The words are in English and land is a thousand miles and close to two thousand years away. It is about the life of a young man who has a father that is a professional gambler. The young man goes to a brothel and this is said to guide the rest of his life." I played 'The House of the Rising Sun' while Clovis tapped with his hands on the organ top. Both men liked the performance and showed their appreciation. Sapor said, "How did you make all of those sounds?" "It is something you learn to do as you practice on the instrument. The one in the temple is much more majestic." "I heard that too but I never had a chance to go in and see and hear it better." "You will today." Eventually the ladies came down the steps. My own looked the most beautiful even if I were not bias. They descended like great ladies and kept their eyes on me all the time. They came to me and I could only kiss them gently because of their hair and clothing. After I learned that they had eaten something, we walked a few hundred metres to our private station and boarded the train. This time three boys didn't try to be the engineer. The train was full and had seven cars. The servants wanted to come too and so did all of the security detail. When we got to Toronto, I saw that the streets were cleaned even better. A switch in the track allowed the train to go through the middle of the town like the old streetcars had done in this city's namesake. In preparation, I gathered in all the people on the train and then all those in the city. I did not feel any resistance. I hoped that there were no threats to me or my family today. The streets were lined with people along the entire route. The temple could not possibly contain this number. A lottery was set up long before and seats were given to my people. The rest were reserved for guests. The temple had a steel frame under a concrete wall. There was lots of steel in the walls so very large windows were put in to save the expense of the concrete and to admit light. The ceiling was vaulted for strength and simplicity. The floor was concrete over stone but would all be formed into a mosaic over time. The seating was only 2800 but we still had to have room for the ushers, the orchestra and the attendants. The ushers came out to get us while the larger ushers were used to ensure that uninvited guests did not take the seats from others. There were not too many seats anyway because most of the area was standing room only. The two levels of the balcony were the same way. Lucius and Fálki were in charge of keeping order. Both men had lots of miliary experience but it was tempered with some diplomacy. When most of the people were assembled, the orchestra started to play. The organ had to be severely muted or it would overpower everything. The people settled down a bit at the music. When the time came the music stopped and the relatives of the brides asked me well rehearsed questions. This had to do with my taking responsibility for the raising of all the children my mates had and the protection of all of my family. Clovis started to go beyond his script but then corrected himself and asked the girls if they were ready to have me as their only mate. The exchange of rings was common in this time and I slipped one onto Patricia's hand then one onto KhAvar's. Patricia very solemnly put a ring onto my finger then KhAvar did the same thing. Both of them were grinning widely Julian said, "Take..." but I was looking at the shocked expression on AsA's face. Something was seriously wrong. At that moment I heard a small metallic sound. My nervous system was keyed up enough to even feel something gently push my armour. I turned quickly but saw nothing wrong. Mehrnoosh and HidA to my left but not exactly together. I saw where they were looking but nothing was unusual there. Klement was to my right and I saw that his sight intersected that of the women. I closed my eyes and stretched my abilities to the utmost and I detected two magical sources very near. Without opening my eyes I took the katana out with one hand and the wakizashi in the other. I quickly stepped toward the closer source of magic and I saw in my mind how they both flared brighter. I was a metre away from the crowd and they backed up but could not do much of this because they were packed tightly. I slashed with the katana and felt it bite. Instead of opening my eyes I turned to my right and took two strides. The figure moved and I could now hear the steps. I ran and my wakizashi hit low so as not to kill. It was only then that I opened my eyes. Two men were holding wounds. They were dressed in oriental garb and one man looked to be from that area of the world. I drew more of the power of the people and sent it out to search for more threats then reluctantly used it to freeze the two men. Knowing that they may die, I did my best to stun them so good that this could not happen. Magic though could still kill them. Both men were near death and I had to abandon the first to try to save the second. I had to draw more and more power and it was only the experience dealing with my own poison that I was able to stabilise the man. All the men in the bridal party had swords out and the women had long daggers. They were looking for threats. I called out to Klement, "Are there any more?" "I think there was one more but I am not sure now. He can cloak himself very well." I stood and wiped the swords on the man that was now dead. With one more look around for threats I put the swords back on my back and thought what to do next. "Ladies and gentlemen," I said. "These two men tried to kill me. One more man may be near. He may be able to work on your mind and tell you not to see him. It is necessary that this man be caught." Nobody moved so I added, "Patricia and KhAvar are my mates now. Go try to find the man and we can have a better party later. I am afraid it will have to be tomorrow instead of tonight." The temple only half emptied. It was my own people that left while the guests stayed. I worked a bit more on the survivor as my wives came close. I stopped them and said, "Look on my back for something odd but do not touch it or me." The girls went over me quickly and Patricia said, "There is something small stuck in your jacket, very near your neck." KhAvar added, "There is another near your butt and one more in your right leg. What do you want me to do?" "Look for some more. I felt more than three hit me." Julian came close and said, "What are they?" "Poison is put on a small dart. It goes into a small tube and the assassin blows and the dart is fired out." "The poison has to be very strong if only a little bit will kill you." I got a cup used in the ceremony that we had shared. It was wiped out and a dagger was used to scrape the darts into this container for storage. I had to take off the coat with a lot of care then my shirt. Each one had a slight stain from the poison used. The girls made one swipe each with a cloth to remove any poison from the armour. Another dart had been found in my arm pit but here it was just the folds of the cloth that saved my life. I called for thick leather gloves and I searched the dead man. The blowpipe was made of bamboo and lay severed on the floor. There was a small case and in it were three more darts. Another case had larger darts. The poison though was not on these and this material was found in a small glass bottle. When the man was naked I shifted over to the man that was alive and removed his garments and the contents of his pockets. Both were oriental and I could smell the characteristic spices that they had eaten recently. I reluctantly looked up at the gallery. The third man or others could be up there now with another blowpipe or even a bow. My senses were all out and I remembered the comic book character 'Spider-Man' with a chuckle of my own. We made a procession to the train. Klement went in first after all the doors and windows were guarded. Klement was important to me and if he was attacked then we would get our man anyway. When the train was cleared, the body of the mage and the living one came on with us. AsA, Mehrnoosh, HidA and Klement searched the train with their own senses while we travelled. They found nothing but our one living captive. The girls were huddled around me but I think it was also to protect me. I tried my best to reassure them but it was not working. The rest were nervous too because they could have been the targets too and would have failed. The house was searched when we got back but there was no way the same man could have made it here before us. I knew a considerable amount about the ninja technique but I was not about to think that I knew more. There was a good chance that somebody would now come because I had a source of information on them. I examined the body first so it could be disposed of. There were some tattoos that I saw on the captive but others were there too. The glyphs were in Chinese and I had no way of finding out what they meant. I did copy them and even added the location where they were found on the body. Before I sent the body out for burial, I saw marks on the soles of the feet. It looked like the man had been whipped there by someone that was very accurate with their cane. ------- Chapter 9 Security was tightened and I was given the services of some of the other security forces in the house. If a door opened by accident, the accident may find themselves bleeding. Articles were put nearby so that a door or window opening would make a noise. Though I did not like it, I had three witnesses as I questioned our captive accordingly. As usual severe pain was used and I had to do so more times than anybody I had been forced to compel before. In the end the man screamed his surrender but the only thing wrong was that he screamed in a language none of us understood. There was a lot of pantomime until we got his name. It was something like Zhu Park. The first name I knew was his family name. He was close to thirty at a guess and looked to be more of a student than a soldier. Maps were used to get his country and we discovered that it was China. He came from an area on the coast but that I assumed was where he was born. We got the name of the dead man but only after a bit more persuasion. The third man took two more times but we got his name too. The tattoos were shown on the man himself and he spoke but we had no idea what was said. Our hand gestures and his told us nothing. The man was put under a heavy guard in a basement room without windows. To be safe about it, I put the man to sleep. In the mean time we were going to have to find some people that could speak to the man. There were so many dialects that this would prove difficult. The girls and I were not happy with the way the day turned out. They were also waiting to have buns put in the oven. They were in sync and would not be fertile for a few days anyway. After I awoke, I was a bit surprised to find that our captive was still alive. I guess magic had its limitations or the man that got away did. Park was bathed and dressed. He was basically treated like Klement in the hope of gaining his voluntary cooperation. The servants hated him for what he had tried to do to me and I had to intercede for him. He basically stayed close to us and remained very weak so he could not do anything physical. The reception that should have been last night, now had to be done again. A lot of food had been prepared and for this time and most of it could be used today. The ladies organised this but I still got a lot of complaints about some things not being the same if they were not eaten fresh. We boarded the train once more. It was around noon and people would be anxious to eat. The trip was much more subdued this time and Park was watched by the guards and most of the rest of us too. The party was at the stadium because of its size. It was where we had our soccer games and other sporting events. The ground was grass covered and the bleachers provided most of the seating. There was a very large circus style tent erected near a slightly smaller version. Inside were more seats but not many. Tables though were all over the place. Food was loaded onto them and a great many women had to keep little hands from making off with the tastier tidbits. The tents were made of canvas with a rubber coating on it to keep out rain. It served a few purposes. It provided shade and protection if the rain came up but it was also a way to show that we had a new product that could serve the rest of the world too. When it looked like it was time to start, I told the crowd about yesterday and showed them Zhu Park. I explained openly what I was attempting to do with the man and hoped to get a lead into who would want me dead. This lead to another sermon where I introduced both my new and old relatives along with any other news. The power of the crowd came quickly to me because I never really let it slip. The benediction was what the crowd was after and I did this as good as I could. As soon as possible we tried to get into a party mood. The beer was opened and it was both cold and good. There were no waiters here accept at our table. A buffet served everybody else. Some of the higher ranking guests were a little perturbed about this. There was a lot of work just keeping these tables full. Our own food came from my home this morning so that I did not have to worry about poison in the food or drink. Park did not seem to understand what was going on but he did eat. AsA, Mehrnoosh, HidA, Klement, and I kept constant watch for anything magical but still tried to enjoy ourselves. There was juggling, wrestling and a lot of the entertainment people of this time enjoyed. Since this was going to be something like a carnival I had booths set up. Children fished for small prizes. Games with darts and ring toss had to have a small fee so that there was some excitement at the prospect of winning. Bingo had been around for six months but now there were a lot more people exposed to it. Sudoku had been introduced in the schools and in my magazine. Like in my time, it was now a craze. My wives and I danced and some times it was the three of us. There was never a time when we were not moving around. I danced with many women. I tried to look pleased but mostly I was trying to see if they were ready to pull a knife on me. We had an exposition of all the things that were new to this time. The tables were monitored very well and some of the young people gave a talk about one or more products. Usually this was by the one who made the article or helped develop it. One table was isolated because it was fed with six hundred volts which in turn fed a transformer that put out ten thousand volts. This project was actually a simple device to make. The only thing really new was that the steel in the core of the transformer had a lot of silicon in it. Two iron wires were attached to two insulators and an arc started at the bottom where the pair of wires were the closest. The arc climbed further up as the wires separated. This was just a simple Jacob's ladder. It was made to teach the students but to also draw a parallel between the gods that threw thunderbolts and what we were now doing. My guests were spellbound by the display but eventually I was asked by Sapor, "What is that?" "I think you should ask the student? Her features lead me to believe that she may be able to speak Pahlavi." She was one of the girls Sapor had sent me and now Sapor could get some of the payback." The two spoke for a long time. At first the girl was very hesitant to speak to her king but Sapor had a way of making her feel at ease. Clovis and Julian smiled at the situation. They liked the device too. It was actually useful in finding small cracks in glass tubing and other products I had hoped were insulators. Park had to stay with us too. An attempt on his life or mine would lead to the possible elimination or capture of another mage. Our guest marvelled at the arc that grew from the base and went upward only to be renewed from the base one more time. Another stall had balloons filled with hydrogen. Helium was more expensive to acquire. The collection was something relatively new. It was also energy intensive because of all the compressors I had to use. The pressure was very great and I did not even have any good insulators yet. The gas had to be chilled to very low temperatures but at least I could extract liquid oxygen when I would eventually needed it. My hope was to make condoms eventually and the balloons were a natural way of working towards this goal. I was not using latex from natural rubber but polyurethane. The material worked just as well I hoped and I believed that polyurethane was stronger. I would prove that one day when we sent an expedition to South America to gather natural rubber. Nearly every child from six months to seventy was holding a cord and marvelling at how the balloon wanted to float into the sky. "Jón," Sapor said, as he held the cord tethered to a balloon. "Has this device anything to do with the device that will carry a man into the sky?" "It could. It has to be very large to start with. These balloons have a flammable gas. It lifts much more because its size but there is a risk of fire. The other gas does not burn but it is difficult to extract." "How long before you have one of these craft?" "I am not planning on making any soon. You want a steel mill and I have to make the parts for it. Julian needs one as well and all of that takes time. In a few years some of the cadets can go and develop your iron deposits. They will not know everything but they will know enough to get started." The next table showed our carbon arc lighting. These devices sucked up a lot of power so we made smaller units but they almost drew as much. The plasma arc cutting was shown with a portable unit now that we had rubber hose. Another unit nearby was almost the same but this unit welded instead. This is what we now used to fuse our pipe. Little progress was made in mig welding or stick for that matter. We would need one or both of these to construct the steel frame for larger buildings. Rivetting was great but welding was stronger or at least kept the structure from flexing too much and the rivets losing their grip. There were a lot of cans on display with pictured painted on them showing what the contents of the can was. Fish was a commodity that commanded a high price and this could be processed on a factory ship instead of using refrigeration. Vegetables and fruit were on display here too. I used no lead or even solder at all. They were welded so the cans could be used to cook in if that was what the customer wanted. Cans were valuable and would be recycled but at the moment all of them were kept to be used as pots and pans even if they were small. I showed the men these products. They had already seen them but I pushed another fact. "A soldier needs to eat or he cannot fight. This food is light and will last for at least a year. He can march to where he has to go the old way but those on patrol would benefit from canned food." Clovis said, "How much does this cost?" "You buy the cans and lids from me. To start. You gather the food and fill the cans. A small machine seals the lid to the can. You have to buy a large pot that the cans go into to be cooked. It is expensive to start out but after you paid for the machinery all you have to pay for is the cans, the food and the fuel to cook the food. In the future there are very large buildings that will display all the canned goods. You walk down the aisle and pick out what you want to take home with you. The point I am making is that you can sell the food for a profit. When there is a poor harvest then you can use what was made in previous years. Your people are employed and your army is fed. You come out ahead because you make a lot of gold even after providing for your army." We talked for ten minutes until Julian started to stare at something behind my back. I was immediately worried about another attack and moved quickly to one side and crouched. Five hundred metres away was a yellow sphere not far above the ground. Beneath it was a basket with a young man in it. I adjusted my eyes and I saw that it was probably Tertius. A rope was tied to the two extremes and the balloon was pulled by people on the ground. My guest left and so did most of the people in the park. I did not have to fight my way through the people to get to the balloon because the crowd gave way to Julian and Sapor. When I got closer, I saw that a large net was draped over a sphere of about six metres in diameter. The balloon was of the same material as the tent. The material was quite strong but also heavy. Lazeez was one of those holding a rope and he had a big grin. I was not as happy as the young men were by any means. The bottom of the wicker gondola was only two metres in the air so I could not really lay into Tertius for not being safe. There were sand bags around the edge but Lazeez and the other young man were not pulling down on their ropes very hard. I called to Tertius, "Why did you make this now of all times?" "Ah... I thought you would like it. We were very careful. We stayed away from flames and heat. We made..." "You used hydrogen?" "Yes. It is stronger. You said so yourself. It was used in your time for many years and it could be done safely as long as a long list of procedures are done right." "Hydrogen is still dangerous. You did not clear this project..." Sapor interrupted and said, "I want to go into the basket." "The basket has not been checked. The seams of the bag have not been checked. If they rupture then you and the basket come down very quickly." "I want to be suspended above the ground." "You can if you want but I want to check it first." "The device looks safe. I want to do this now." "You are the next best thing to a father-in-law to me. I want to make the world safe for all of us and I need you alive to do that. You can only go up when this device checked properly." "I am the leader of the Persian people and I do not need your permission." "You are not going up unless it is safe. Fight me on this and you will not see your nieces and nephews. I am not going to look into KhAvar's face and say how her favourite uncle died because he was too bullheaded to wait and see if it was wise to do something or not." Sapor did not like to be thwarted and especially not in public. This was his fault for being so impatient. The gondola was pulled down and I inspected it carefully. It was not strong enough in my opinion. I checked the cord holding the basket to the net over the balloon and this looked sturdy. "Tertius, tell me how you made the seams." The young man was nervous now but he spoke in detail what he had done to the seams. In this case he had done very well. The edges had been folded back and then rubber compound was put between the joints in the adjacent panels. Finally this seam was double sewn with strong line, the same material that held the tent together was used. "Why did you build the basket so weak?" "We made this quickly but not without some consideration. We suspended the basket from a wooden beam and jumped up and down in it. We could not break the bottom out. That was with Lazeez and me doing it at the same time." "I am still angry at you for bringing this out now." "You wanted to show how good we were and I think we did that." "I should have seen the stitching and then the testing of the basket. This is not that safe of a device." Sapor pushed his way into the conversation and demanded, "Is it safe enough?" I was angry at Sapor too but said, "It is safe enough for you if you do not go very high. I want a stronger railing around the basket and some stronger ribs to support the bottom of the basket." "Then let me in." Sapor had to remove a lot of his weapons but I made him keep a dagger in case he had to slash the bag to descend. He got in first then Tertius was allowed to leave. The sandbags were removed one at a time until there was just two left. The basket was now buoyant. The rope was played out until the balloon was as high as it was before. Sapor said, "Play out more rope." Lazeez looked at me and I said, "Two metres more and tie the rope around your waist." The balloon rose the two metres but did so slowly. The two young men and all of Sapor's guards walked through the field. It was well over an hour before the balloon came back. The guards with me were trying to see what was going on and also do their jobs. When the balloon came back I wanted it to leave but two other big boys had to play with it too. Sapor was still angry at me but it was better that it was just anger and not the prospect of dealing with his death. Sapor called his guards to him and left the reception. AsA and KhAvar tried to talk to him but he would not listen. I had to stay with the other two boys to make sure they did not do something foolish. When Clovis came back with the same glistening eyes that Julian had. I knew that my plans were in trouble. The balloon was quickly taken away and I tried to bring the party back to any topic besides flying. Suppertime came and went but Sapor had retreated to his ship. When I could, I took my wives and went to see the man but his guards said he was tired and resting. I was angry at this too but had to let it ride. The party lasted well into the night. I tried to be a good host but the combination of the attempt on my life and an intransigent guest was too much. Knowing Sapor, I had the balloon deflated and transported to my home. We were given some gifts but this was something I did not want to start. Julian gave me a property in Constantinople that he had purchased from the family of one of the fleeing senators. It could have been given to Patricia too but Roman woman could not own property until they had at least a dozen children for the empire. Julian and Clovis tried to talk to Sapor but the man was getting his ship ready to travel. Julian had to do the same thing. There was just too much work for a leader to do. The duration of this vacation would take a long time to be caught up. AsA assisted me in getting some gifts delivered. They were bombonieras in a way but now they would command a lot of money. The shipment was fifty plate glass mirrors. They ranged in size from small to the largest being two metres by three. At the same time I got Klement to gather his property because I wanted at least one person that knew magic to be with me. The rest of my guests got mirrors too. A good deal of shopping was done by those same people, so I came out ahead when everything was considered. We had some time to talk to Park about his magic but the language barrier was too much. He was able to disappear for us and I tried all I could to detect him more than the vague feeling I was getting. When this did not work I used my ability on him to see if there was anything that had changed in his body. I concentrated on his brain mainly and I did find some small differences. The ladies and Klement did magic too and I studied their minds and found their changes to be less evident. Later in the day Sapor came out and told me that he had too many commitments to stay longer. For him, he was being polite. I sent him a load of coal but it was directed to the captain and not to Sapor. There was a lot of tears at the parting of KhAvar and her family but Sapor was above showing that. When the ship pulled out, I was not sure of my status. I had documents signed by Sapor to build plants for both of us but I may not get the cooperation I needed now. Mithridates went with Sapor as did some of the cadets in rotation but some that he brought stayed with me. Julian said, "He will come around. He wants to fly badly. He will try to make a balloon by himself now and it will fail and this will make him angry. In the end he will see that you were right about his safety." "He has a hardhead. I do not think he will ever completely forgive me. He will see, over time, that I have to help him or his empire will suffer." "You can work on producing steel in the east and my ship will reduce the amount of transportation you need. I can then share with Sapor the way he does with the sugar." "If he does not get a steel mill then he will hold that against me. If I go there to set one up then I may or may not get his help. I need canals dug, mines opened and then the railway built. He can make it very difficult for me if I try to help him then blame me for not getting something done." "I can only suggest that you get Aldúlfr to whisper a few words in his ear." I had to smile at that and so did Julian. Julian got ready to leave too. He got his load of coal and some nice mirrors too. More tears were shed and Julian's family left with him because he was going to visit Lutetia on the way back. The rest of the guests wanted to stay and also be both entertained and pampered. I put up with it for a week and hinted strongly that I was too busy and I needed their rooms in the apartment buildings for my workers. This was not the way this were done at this time but usually a host did not have to carry the thousands of guests that I did. The best I could do was provide transportation to the Danube or any place I was going in the vicinity. The Princess was sent off with a full cargo of ironware. During this time I worked with Klement to see what information we could gain from Park. I found more anomalies in the bodies of Park and Klement. I worked on Klement to see if I could bring him up to what Park was like but as yet I had very little success. It was like the riddle of manipulating DNA. It was difficult to understand and I had to work on it through knowledge and not intuition. Klement took it upon himself to try to learn Park's language. If Park chose to not cooperate then all this effort would be wasted. The man could pretend to assist us but feed Klement garbage. Klement helped me with the mental exercises he had to do to so that he could become a mage. I did these whenever I had a spare moment and simply hoped that it would do me some good. Lazeez and Tertius were given the job of turning out more machine shop equipment and the people to run them. I hoped to keep them out of trouble this way but I had to promise them that we would work on a dirigible when time permitted. During this week Patricia and KhAvar became pregnant. This act was deeply satisfying for us especially when I was able to tell them the progress of my little swimmers toward each of their eggs. When the fertile eggs attached themselves to their uterine walls we had a celebration but much different from the one we had been having. We didn't want anything getting knocked loose. Clovis as the last to leave. He congratulated us on forming a family. There was the usual hugging but in reality they could return very easily with the railway. The rail system brought some of his army to Toronto and he put them under my command. I did not know what to do with them in a way because they could not see mages any better than the other guards I had. Park's appearance brought more interest in the Far East. I would have to go there soon and the best ship to use may well be the Discovery. The Princess could make the journey almost as quickly but would be hindered with the problems of obtaining fuel. More priority was given to completing the Discovery now. We had working diesel engines but they were in the experimental stages. We planned on steam power but kept the option open for the diesel if they became available. On a trip from our home to Toronto on the train, both Park and Klement stiffened and I too could feel a presence. This was three kilometres from out destination at the time. Our mage had to be close. Klement said, "Did you feel that?" "Yes." "He has to be close or very powerful. I think it is the latter." "Me too." That day I layed out a trap with Park and me as bait. The time to build the trap would be at least six months if not more. Our research park was protected by a chain link fence that was three metres high and then topped with concertina wire. The process to make this should be simple but we had problems with production. This was not out of the ordinary because we had problems everywhere. Some of the new unskilled recruits were sent out to put a fence up in the vicinity of my home. It would include the area reserved for children. This would be viewed as a prudent thing to do with the animals we had in this area. Heavy equipment was brought in to excavate for a pool and other sporting projects. The fence though would make a barrier that could be circumvented but did not look particularly like a portion of a trap. A new river bed was dug with our steam shovels. A temporary railway was set up to take the soil away. A shovel load of soil was usually two tonnes for each scoop. The railcars we made had to be long enough to make this sort of work feasible. This was shown in our magazine and tooted as the way to dig canals in the future. There would be lots of pools but the long course of the stream would only have two bridges. This lead to a reservoir I wanted dug and then to a small hydro project. Dogs I was told could detect people even if they used magic so a large kennel was built. Again it was chain link. Even if a mage could keep people from recognising him, a dog could smell him. The smell of the eastern spices had given me a good start into finding a weakness in an attacker's defences. Romans and Persians used dogs when they travelled and their armies did too. There was very little said in any literature that had managed to survive into the time I was born. History was important to me and all sorts of data was stored for future historians. Patricia, KhAvar and I had a puppy each that could be thought of as a house pet but was not. The dogs would stay near each of us to warn of some eastern spice or we hoped a person using magic. Ponds were dug so that ornamental fish could be stocked in them. This would reflect an eastern form of art but also produce another type of barrier. It would soon be the season to plant and another large area was cultivated for hemp. Thin copper wire would be strung between the rows and a small current put through it. When the current failed as when a man pushed through the plants then we would know approximately where the person was. Grapes were planted and long heavy gauge steel wire was used to string between the posts. This would not be a good barrier but an intruder would probably choose to pick another route into my property. All this work would take years if it were not for the amount of help I had. The park, ponds, small river with its pools and bridges was seen as something ornamental but close to what Asgard would be like. Because of this, I had a lot of dedicated people helping when they did not have to. Patricia and KhAvar were showing their pregnant state very prominently. They always had children around them as they went about their duties. They saw the parks and other construction as for their children and I did not set them straight. They worked tirelessly to make sure all the work was done intelligently and also the way they wanted it. During the last eight months the Discovery was taking much more of its final shape. The carbon arc welding had been completely dropped in favour of our own plasma method of welding. Compressors had been made much larger and we could now fractionate air. Steel cylinders were made for all the compressed gases but oxygen and nitrogen were the most used. The majority of the units were cryogenic in nature so that they did not have to be so heavy. Propane torches now cut steel or used for welding with steel rods for filler. We had some flux for this process but stick welding was still too crude to use. The Discovery had six massive engines fed from three separate boilers. All of this power was needed to drive the ship of two hundred and fifty metres in length at the speed I wanted. Diesel engines had been installed but they were only for manoeuvring, pumps or for generating electrical power. I had continued my correspondence to Julian, Clovis and Sapor. A team was sent out to prepare a site for extracting iron ore in Sapor's land. Coal was available but the deposits were not that large. We would deplete all of them over a few years. As a responsible citizen I planned on turning all of them into lakes even if they would eventually get too salty. So far he had not obstructed me but I had not asked for help yet. We were started to become a major exporter of salt. The world water levels were rising. I remember some of this from my study of history but not much. Salt beds were flooded and even the Dead Sea rose seventy metres. It had to do with the rains that came more constant but I did not understand how the water levels dropped in later years. My only guess was that the sea beds opened more to allow water to settle to a lower level. Little of the salt came from salt beds but from our extraction of potassium based fertiliser. The potash on Frisian land could now be sold without leaving millions of tonnes of salt to pollute the rivers like what had happened when I first went to Germany as a chemical engineer. A rail system in Persia was started to reach the ore and coal. They were far from the coast and I wanted land for this effort even if I was going to be the primary beneficiary for a the next few years. The short railway that lead from the Nile to the Red Sea was finished and making good money. Sapor was paying the most but he was using it the most too. He did complain about this even if he was making great profits in trade with the Romans and now the Frisians. He had made business contacts in the east so they would have the kind of production we would need to provide for his empire and that of the Romans. This would also take years to develop and the profit ploughed back into the farms. Most of the spices came from trees and trees took a while to grow. It was a lot of work but I got all four of us agree to see about finding out just what the Huns were up to. In the old time they had been seriously pressing the Romans and the Persians as they expanded their empire westward and southward. Frisian cannon along with better weapons and armour had actually pushed them back. The Visigoths that had plundered Rome were still in their native land and serving in the Roman army in protecting all of us. The combined armies of Rome, Persia and Germania were fighting in the north but we needed scouts in the south. They would be going into the area north of what Sapor claimed. I was very anxious to get a good survey of the Azov Sea and the Don River. The Volga River poured into the Caspian Sea and actually came very close to the Don. A canal here would allow merchant ships to open up Eastern Russia. Like the Suez, it would be very expensive to make but would be worth it in time. I did not want any isolated groups of barbarians to barge into a civilised empire and begin killing. Men had been sent to me that spoke many languages and three months after we captured Park, we found some men that could speak a dialect that was close. It was two more months before we found a woman that could speak the right tongue. She happened to be a slave but I bought her and then freed her. Park had been holding back on his information but I did not have to resort to more pain. He just found that he could not hide behind his supposed ignorance anymore. It had taken more months to break down Park's resistance but by then we had many interpreters that could help in this. I was surprised that it was the Huns that were partially behind this attack. Rome and Persia were expanding eastward since I told them of the threat. It was not to gain land but to put pressure on the Huns. I received reports of the nomads they encountered but as yet there was no organised opposition. Clovis felt the barbaric people of Germania were many steps above the various tribes of the Huns. The Huns though were not just one ethnic group but just the peoples that lived on the steppes and comprised of many different races. The male infants faces were usually scarred so that hair would not grow. In my estimation they were not far above the animals they hunted. Their food consisted of roots they dug up or meat that was eaten raw or only partially cooked. For the most part they never left their horses. They had few tents and chose to live off what others had built. This did not mean homes but just the property which could be carried away. The Huns had Oriental features but I had not seen one yet. I could only go by what I was told. They were short and dark but the skin colour could be because they were constantly out in the sun. Their body was like ours but it was the legs that were said to be short. The Romans called them ugly but that could have been because they were not used to seeing people from the Far East. They stank abdominally. They made their clothing of fur and put a new garment over what they already wore. The inner layers rotted off as time went on. In warfare they routinely killed everybody. I knew that they had been chased out of China a few centuries ago but not much else about their history. As far as I knew, they had no written language but relied on others to do this work for them when they thought it was needed. Mainly, it was not. They were superb horsemen though. They had a compound bow that was very powerful and the men were very good with it. They had no real strategy except charging which the Germans thought only proper. They died so in great numbers against the cannons but they were starting to understand the weapon and now avoided our expansion. Slaves were taken but the males for the most part were killed. They were far too brutish to surrender. Julian and Sapor tried to educate them but this could only work with the children and some of the females. Most could not accept anything but the open steppes. The name Attila was common though it was not pronounced just the same way as I remembered it. There was a king by the name of Balimir but the groups of people were mainly ruled by chiefs. The tribe fought as a unit which meant that children were killed by our cannon. There was little else we could do against their deadly bows. There were three expeditionary forces heading east and for the most part the warriors had my armour and weapons. It proved effective except at close quarters but the horses of the enemy calvary were easy to hit where they had no armour. Cannon had been made in increasing numbers and sent eastward. Fálki now had a large plant for the manufacture of black powder. It had blown up four times and had to be rebuilt it in a dispersed fashion. Only Frisians worked at making powder. The production of potassium nitrate was done elsewhere and as yet this location had not caught fire. I could supply the need but it was better for Clovis to have this monopoly. Like WWII, there could be both an eastern and a western front. Rome and the Frisians made sure that the other Germanic tribes did not take it into their heads to attack while Rome was busy in the east. I helped here with my sermons but a great many Germanic warriors were encouraged to test their skills in the east and at a good rate of pay. This drained off the excess population and it was usually the young shit-disturbers that wanted war in the first place. It was not only Rome that admired the Germans, so did the Persians. They had different ideas though. The Persians were very well organised and did exactly what they were told to do. Rome was like this too but were not quite as adamant to follow orders. The Germans excelled in brute strength and determination. They also made a very good artillery unit. The German recruits were sent to all three leaders so that they could be trained in three ways. This was hard on the young warriors because they wanted to act the berserker so often. I knew that in a few years they would be very well trained men if they survived. To get the young men, I ran ads in the magazine. I borrowed from the Americans and had 'Thor Wants You' graphics done. Like all governments, I knew the power of propaganda. Recruitment was up apparently and the men did not have to be drafted. Rome usually had each family contribute a son but now more than one Roman son was going because they wanted to. Armour, weapons, and a very strong calvary were good inducements. Education was pushed but as yet it was only a shadow of what I wanted it to be. Learning to read and write meant that mail going home would allow a family to communicate. The families though were paid out of the treasury but this cut into what the soldier got. The various Germanic tribes or Roman cities that gave up the warriors got special treatment from me. The individual families got credit to use when buying my products. Park knew very little about the Huns or about those that hired him. It was done through intermediaries that hunted for people that had the mage spark. The recruitment had netted over a hundred people of all ages and both genders. The training was harsh and some died. The surprising thing I found was that his description of some of the recruits told me that they were people that looked Indian. There were also some that were Roman and Persian but he had only seen one black woman in the group. The group he arrived with numbered twenty three but they had split up to gather information, he assumed. Park's group had come up the Danube by ship and then came directly here. The remaining man was able to speak a bit of Latin but by now must know more. I had sent word to the people in Toronto to look for missing food or people that disappeared in an effort to find the last mage. As yet there was nothing that I could use to find the man. The one good fact was that the man was from the Far East and would be easy to distinguish if he became visible. The trap I had spent so long fashioning was set. Not everything was done by any means but it was enough. Patricia carried a girl and KhAvar was going to give me a son. I had known this for months and so did everybody else. A party was readied for one particular day because I could induce their delivery at this time unless they decided to come earlier. The hemp though had to be harvested so a long line of saplings were planted across the back border. Here is where the thin copper wire would be run. The river we rerouted, filled its banks and the reservoir too so this area looked good. The river also fed the Oriental style ponds but as yet no fish were stocked. The vineyard would be years before it produced a drop of wine but the wire and posts were still in place. The building used for crushing grapes and then fermenting was constructed though. The dogs were said to be going to the east to support the army but as of yet none had gone because we were supposed to be breeding them. This also meant that the dogs and their handlers had to be trained as I wanted them. Patrols were done lackadaisically but always done very well. When I wanted the coverage I had to have it done right even if it looked poorly done. Patricia and KhAvar seemed to have even more energy as the appointed day got near. Patricia's water broke first and she nervously said, "I think your daughter is coming, Jón." We were in the house at the time and I picked her up in my arms. KhAvar had got anxiously to her feet and put her hand on my shoulder and we walked to where the birthing would occur. I set Patricia on the floor and then helped her remove her clothes and don a gown. She slid herself onto a comfortable hospital style bed that had been made for her. KhAvar knew the rules and she removed her clothing with my help and then put on a white gown. Both women should have been worried but they seemed to have a lot of faith in me. Four nurses came when they heard what was happening. I grasped the power of those around me and used it to gain those in the rest of the house. I looked within Patricia and saw that everything is as it should be. I helped Patricia dilate her muscles without pain. There were some spasms but little of the discomfort made it through. Patricia said, "What do you see?" Her vagina was distended but I said, "A very important part of my wife. Eleanoor is not ready to come out just yet." "Tell her to hurry up. I have been waiting years to meet her." "She's a girl and she'll take her time." KhAvar reached over and held Patricia's hand and said, "Does it hurt?" "No, Jón took care of the pain. When I contract some of the pain gets through like he said it would. How do you feel?" "Jurgen is taking his time too. You know what boys are like." The girls spoke to each other for about ten minutes while I accelerated all that had to be done to bring my daughter into this world. The contractions were timed carefully and with Patricia's conscious help the crown of a little head appeared. In the last few years I had delivered perhaps a thousand of babies just for this event. When Eleanoor made her stage debut I placed her where she would be safe and cut the umbilical cord. With a small slap to her bum she told the world that she was a girl. The child was blue with a misshapen head but she was still beautiful. I knew she was ok because I monitored her every day and even more in recent weeks. One of the nurses took the child and bathed her in warm water then bundled her up. Eleanoor was given to me and I raised my hands with her in them and thanked Woden as any good Wodenite would do. Patricia was very anxious to get her hands on her daughter and acted like any mother with her first child. KhAvar looked wistfully at Patricia and Eleanoor but her turn was coming soon. KhAvar and Jurgen were not quite ready yet and I helped KhAvar to the toilet. She had to wait nearly an hour until I had to do everything over one more time. Jurgen cried just as loud as his sister and Patricia made sure I recognised this fact. The child was put with his mother after I gave thanks one more time to Woden. News travelled at the speed of light to Toronto. We had electronic amplifiers, a condenser microphone and a speaker. The telephone system was crude but it did work. I could hear explosions over the city as rockets raced into the sky and exploded far overhead. Pink fireballs had come first them blue but I did not care and saw none of it. I was happy to just be with my family. The next day Patricia and KhAvar were walking around with the children in their arms. Nurses were nearby but my wives were strong. They had no need of stitches because I had started to dilate them the day before the delivery date. Since I had not done this before they also wore some very substantial panties with suspenders. There were two beautiful prams made for the babies and the mothers could use them to walk better. I thought them just as good as what I had seen in the twenty first century. The pneumatic tires were fifty centimetres in diameter and a leaver controlled a brake mechanism that worked on each wheel. The mothers pushed the prams out onto the concrete walk then we travelled to the opening where the crowd could come in. This was going to be the official opening of the park but everybody had already been here to do some work on this mammoth project. Our dogs were almost a year old now. They sniffed the new members of the pack and walked beside us without a leash. They were well trained. The dog handlers just happened to be close to the gate and all the dogs sniffed everybody that came near without being obvious. The crowd was quiet because the children were sleeping and there was nothing to see because they were covered in soft blankets. The opening of the park required a sermon and I did one of my best I thought. There were always people that needed healing but almost always they were new workers. The dogs again sniffed everyone even though the handlers were usually talking to each other and ignoring the dogs. The cadets had not been idle, nor had I during the construction of the park. I now had a PA system and I had used it for the last seven weeks. The speakers though were far enough away that the babies would not be deafened. Patricia and KhAvar took turns making a speech so that the park could be opened properly. There were a lot of children around so the speeches were not too long. With a final word to the adults to watch the children, the ribbon across the entrance was cut. There was seating for a hundred and forty six people to swing but there was also the slides, jungle gyms, mazes, teeter-totters, pool, exercise gym, sandboxes and boat rides. There were more amusements too but I just had to have a justification for making the children's area so large. There was no sign of danger and none of the people came too near me. They all knew about the attempt on my life and knew that more threats were sure to follow. I enjoyed myself by hugging my wives to me and looking at the blankets covering my children. I knew they were healthy and safe in their new world or at least as safe as I could make it. High above a field and about a kilometre away, a dirigible that carried three men floated in place. I knew that two of them would be Lazeez and Tertius. They were ostensibly here to promote the device but they would also be on the lookout for any threat. A mage had to be telling those around him that he is not there. A man at a distance can see quite fine. The airship was not large. It contained six hundred cubic metres of hydrogen. This was enough to pick up about close to eight hundred kilograms but the ship itself was bulky. There were no motors on it and I was very hesitant about doing this until I found a way of keeping heat away from the gas. I could see Tertius looking through a telescope at me and I mentioned this to KhAvar and Patricia. They smiled and waved to the young man then did so again when Lazeez looked at us. The park was left open now but closed at night. I said it was because of the older boys wanting to play there when they were not supposed to. This was a lie though because if I told them not to they would not do it. Around midday, one of the security force came to me but stayed a few metres away until he could be noticed. When I looked at him, he said, "There are two fires in Toronto. One of the large piles of coal is burning and so is the building that all your lumber is stored in." "Are they able to control it?" "Both fires seemed to grow very quickly. The firemen are worried that you may loose all the lumber and the coal." I hurried to our phone and talked with one of the managers. There was little chance of the fire spreading but men were nearby with hoses just in case. Patricia said, "This looks suspicious." "I think so to." KhAvar said, "Usually when there is a large problem you go to see what you can do about it." "You're right. Perhaps I should go and see what our mage wants." Patricia turned to leave and I stopped her. "You two are staying here. Security will be stepped up. If I was stabbed by a friend of my father, it means that the mage could be here and somebody else was compelled to do his work." Patricia said, "I can help." "Both of you could but I would be worried more about you too." I got dressed and put on my swords. This was nothing new because I always carried my swords. It was not fear really but just to show that I was acting normally when I was really preparing for a fight. A dozen men boarded the train with me. Two were Julian's men that always appeared foppish and ineffectual. This was not the case though. Some servants got on the train too but they were men I tried to hide in plain sight. Stingers, grenades of all kinds and a lot of other tools of war came aboard in boxes. The car I usually rode in, always had weapons in it. We all acted the same as we had every other time and I hoped that any hidden person did not see how determined looking the men were. Remembering how the last mage had died, we all had cudgels of one form or another. They could kill too but it was the best I could handle. The engine huffed and puffed until we got moving. The train was searched by the dogs and men so I gave the men any last minute instructions. We had been underway for almost fifteen minutes when we were thrown forward. The brakes were being fully engaged and we all heard the screech. This had to be part of an attack. I had worked scenarios out about this and I knew that there was little advantage I could do. The enemy would cause a train wreck and attack when we were the most vulnerable. The men had been briefed on this but few remembered what to do. Some remembered and hunched behind a seat as they pulled their dog in for protection. I did the same thing with Bullet, my dog. Seconds later the ride got rough and the car tipped to one side. We were thrown up violently and then fell down. On the next bump the car tipped even more and seemed to go past the point of no return. I held onto the restraints and prepared for the fall. When it came it was not as bad as I feared because we slid along the remaining trackbed then went over the embankment. There was the screech of torn metal then we slowed to a stop. Now would be the attack. I reached out and gathered all the energy I could and tried to heal all those that needed it. Adding the dogs was not much of a problem. I called out unnecessarily, "Get ready to fight. Remember your helmets and the flash bangs." I wore light armour under my clothes and there was no locking mechanism for the helmet. The grenades were something that was less lethal than our other weapons. Bullet followed me to the end of the car and I picked him up and put him on what was now the top. I was not the first man though and others had done the same thing. I noticed that I was bumped by my men as they tried to push past me to get out. This must be there way of making sure I was safe. There was the sound of steam escaping the boilers and some of the metal was still hot. I listened for approaching steps. I reached down to touch Bullet and give him some reassurances. I looked at the wreckage. The train had bent one way then another but the couplings still held. The rails splayed out but they rested on wide beds. This was expensive to put in but the next best thing to travelling on flat land. With no immediate threat, I started my healing once more. My need was so great that I was able to reach Toronto through some people working between them and us. I grasped more and more power until I had all I figured I could use. My own aura was always hidden even if it was done subconsciously. This did not make it perfect because I could still be found if somebody was close. Bullet looked toward the engine and started to growl. The wind did not bring the scent to him because it went sideways. I patted Bullet's head and said, "Good dog." I felt his tail wag twice then stop. Other dogs growled and then stopped. They had done what they were supposed to do. We spread out. I took the lead even if I had to demand it. Near the engine we stopped because I saw an invisible shape in the cloud of steam coming from the ruptured boiler. Bullet looked directly at the person but I looked to one side. Bullet growled and I patted him until he stopped. The shape and size of the person coming my way said that he was small and much smaller than Park's description. I could imagine a spear or a knife in the person's hand and I knew that it would be covered in poison. If I were the person approaching, I would not throw a spear because there were more of the opposition around and the spear would be gone. I carried a staff and used it as if it were a cane. I still tried to be nonchalant about everything. Keeping Bullet quiet was impossible so I said, "It is ok. We came through this ok." The men around me saw the hollow space in the fog and I said to them, "I know about it. Let me handle this particular situation. I think there are more." The men now looked around but most still looked at where my attacker was approaching from. The crushed rock made noise as the person approaching made them touch each other with his weight. I was loathe to use even the staff unless necessary and tried to interface with the person. He got very near before I was able to complete this and I heard a crashing as he fell to the rock and became visible. It was only a boy. With some hand signals, we left the boy and hoped he would survive the compulsion to die when he knew that he failed. We continued our rounds and I tried to forget him. Almost immediately I heard fighting. There were no war calls but just the slap of weapons against each other. I felt a great pressure on me now. It was like the way the mages had tried to cut me off from my power but I already had a firm grip and even made it stronger. This time I attacked. I tried to interface with them but could not do so as a group. I tried to attack one at a time. It took only a few seconds to find out that this did not work either. I had five flash bangs on my belt and tossed them in a wide circle. When the first one left my hand, I called out, "Flash bangs out." The grenades were set for five seconds and I at least was ready when they started to go off. My individual attacks worked now and I felt one then another succumb. More grenades went off and I reached on the other side of the train and put those to sleep too. The fighting continued but now I saw some of the smoke grenades going off upwind of us. The smoke drifted back and I could make out those that I could not overcome. Bullet took off after one when I released his leash. I came in right behind with my staff at the closest one. I heard a snap and a cry and knew that a bone had broken. This was enough for me to get in and cause them to sleep. I had to pull Bullet off but he was ready to kill, not retreat. Many more smoke grenades went off and now the attackers must know that they had failed. They did fight on trying to take out opponents. Bullet took me to the next opponent but I did not let him loose. The man was fighting two of ours and I went in with my staff from the rear. The man was good and he kept three of us off for a few seconds but I was already starting to control his body. Fighting the man was difficult because I had to hold Bullet too. I struck with the end of my staff a few times but never too hard. I must have hit something delicate because I saw that it was a women we were fighting. This was enough for me to push much harder in my attack now that I could see her and I allowed Bullet to go. Bullet knocked her over and as she fell I put her to sleep. I had to pull Bullet off and command the men around me to do the same thing to their dogs. It was only a few more minutes until the fighting stopped. I called out, "Prepare for an attack." At the same time I went around to our men that had been wounded and tended to those I could. Some only had scratches but had poison running through them. These were the most serious and I tried to flush out the poison with blood. I was very familiar with this type of poison now and worked diligently at neutralising it. Two men were just too far gone. They had a spear or knife point full of poison in their guts. There was nothing I could do with them but I still tried as hard as I could. When the others became more difficult, I had to abandon these two so I could save the rest. A half hour later I had the wounded stabilised then I went looking at what I could do for the attackers. My men had spread out and stood near each of the sleeping people as they scanned the area for more threats. There were eight people and only six were alive. It looked like swords had taken their lives and not a compulsion to suicide. One of the survivors was woman that looked to be in her late forties. She looked to be Indian. The boy I first contacted was Oriental and looked to be about nine. A young man of fifteen was Indian. Another young man of twenty was Persian. The next was an Oriental man in his mid fifties if not more. The young woman looked Oriental but different. She was not beautiful but she was attractive. She looked to be in her early twenties and I wondered if she was one of the Huns. The last survivor was a man of thirty. He looked similar to the girl but his face was not scarred the way I was told the Huns did this. There were all different types of Oriental races and they may just be something that was or was not one of the Huns. The first of the dead was a woman of thirty, she had a lot of scars on her face and if it wasn't for her breasts I would think her a man. She was oriental as was the man of forty. The second was a man of forty. He too looked to have a have a lot of scars. We had lost three men and they had lost two people. The engineer had died when in his arm was dragged across the torn ground when we crashed. The fireman had a broken arm and was more upset than the men that had fought. We also lost five dogs and I could see that this affected the owners a great deal. I said to two men, "You better go look for their horses. There may be somebody there. One person likes to hang back and watch how the fighting goes. I don't know if it is the dead guy or not." Going to the dead man, I donned the leather gloves worn by the fireman and searched the body. Everything was put to one side. I found talismans. Some were innocuous but one was the withered hands of an infant. I was disgusted at this because I knew the hands were not taken from a corpse. When this was done, I started to remove the clothing. The tattoos became evident though they were not quite the same. It was fifteen minutes later when I had just started on the dead woman that one of the men I sent for the horses came back. "We think there are one or two more. We didn't show ourselves." I got up and in a few minutes I was shown the hollow with fourteen horses. There were ten horses that either had pads on them or could be ridden bareback. My grasp of the power had been loosened but I brought this level up like I had before. My mental fingers went out to find an adversary or two but my grip slipped off. Two horses though started to react and I sent out a command to them to go to sleep. As the horses staggered, we raced forward and the dogs were set loose. It hurt to see them die but it was harder to see a man die. One horse fell over and I got the glimpse of a young girl. I sent two flash bangs over the horses and we got to the animals just as the grenades went off. An old man appeared too and I struck as soon as they became visible. I should not have tried for both because I could not handle them but by then they were being struck with the cudgels or staves. This was enough and they fell over asleep. The dogs were pulled off and I checked the two. The girl was very young and I estimated her age to be around seven or eight. She looked to be Caucasian but her skin had darkened in the sun. The man was at least sixty and in these times that was very old. I could not tell from the man's features where he came from. He looked weak but weak in body did not mean weak in his powers. ------- Chapter 10 We gathered the attackers into one area but I was fearful of poison. I used gloves to search for more of their weapons they thought were magic. The more obscene it was the more power they put to it. I prepared all the articles I found and made sure they would reference who had owned them. The horses were searched but here I would have to wait until I could question my guests to see which horse they were riding. I continued to do my search while two men were sent to Toronto to gather some people to clean up the mess. Some of the guards had looked at what I had discovered. They were not pleased with what I had found either. A clean death was one thing but the paraphernalia on the ground were another. Men armed with whatever they could find met us soon after. They had come to see what had kept me. My new guests were put into a couple of wagons and the dead were put into another. The disgusting cargo was labelled as to where it was found and possibly who's property it was then put into canvas sacks. It was four hours after the train wreck that I was able to get to a phone half way along the route and told my wives what had happened. They wanted to come immediately but I was not sure even now if it was safe of not. My mind was going through all that had happened and what I had found up until now. Mages and perhaps the Huns were using children to fight with. I could not condemn them because I had used cadets to kill thousands of men. What did disturb me was the way the youngest had been treated. I had worked with their body's efforts to heal them and in the course had found that they were sexually active. This was very common in this day and time and it was something intrinsic to the human animal. This did not make it right though. The books I wrote always condemned this practice. A small part of the problem was that rape of either gender was also seen as a way of control. The children were beaten but so were the rest so I had to assume the master or masters were not in the group I found. Klement called Park over to view the two bodies but he said, "I have seen these before. There was usually two more men and a woman with them." Lazeez had arrived and I gave him the task of drawing a portrait of each of the corpses. They had to be buried soon and I had not worked too hard to make a photographic plate yet. Patricia said, "What are you going to do with the children?" "The boy tried to run a spear through me but I would have tried the same thing at his age if I had to. I guess they will have to stay with us for at least a while. I want them kept safe but I do not want them hurting any of us either. I want them kept very weak but awake enough to see that they are not being harmed." "What about that woman?" I assumed she meant the younger one. I could see a bit of jealousy here and said, "You are my wife. I have no need of this woman." Patricia was a bit stunned at being caught and said, "You are a man and we have not been with you for a while." "It has been two weeks and I know that you are healed by now. I just want you to heal naturally too. It has something to do with the mind as well as the body." "I am healed more than enough and so is KhAvar." "Then we will have to practice making our next batch of children." Here eyes were sparkling and she said, "Really?" "I want you to have a break between pregnancies. We talked about this before. The children should be spaced out a few years apart." "Well... practising is ok in that case." The new guests were put in the basement. One of the larger rooms would serve the women of 20, 40 something, the young girl of 7 and the boy of 9. Another room held the 15 year-old male and his 20 year-old friend. Another room held the two old men that were both near or over 60. Each of the rooms were in different wings so sound could not travel from one area to another. If I could, I would put everybody in their own rooms but the children would live upstairs with us. At the moment it was better to have them stay where they were. Park had a room upstairs by himself and both Klement and I asked him what he knew about each of the people. Some names he knew or guessed at and gave us a bit of background data but those that trained them usually kept social interchanges to a minimum. The fact that there were three more mages out there bothered me and I tried to put myself in their shoes. They were very careful so that they did not get caught but I did not necessarily think that they were cowards. I would attack tonight while most people would be celebrating and thinking that the troubles had passed. To give this impression I set up a party even though the men that died had families that should mourn for their loss. If they knew what I was really like then the party would seem a sham. The wives of the security detail lived here while that of the engineer lived in Toronto. I made a phone call and after twenty minutes the grieving woman went to one of the few phones and called me. I did what I could over the phone and promised to see her in a few days. I also assured her that she had nothing to worry about when it came to her status within our community. As a capitalist, my heart was much too soft. Those that had fought for me and died deserved even more. We ate a large supper and those that fought talked of what they had seen their friends do. This obligated the friends to return the favour. In this way none of the soldiers were any different. If this had been a Frisian home then the talk would be much more boisterous and the men drunk by this time. The three men that lead the guard detail had been told to tell their men to act drunk but to be prepared for another attack tonight. I could see that the levity was just a thin veneer. At the same time a rumour was going around that it was time for me to get back in the saddle. I just hoped that the girls did not hear this because it was a ploy too in a way. Soon after our meal I excused myself. Patricia and KhAvar had been finished even sooner and were anxious for me to start. We cleaned up then had a shower where the girls really got stirred up. At times I wished I had a few more arms to hold and caress my girls. We were not completely dry by the time we got to bed. I had more or less turned off my responses in the last seven weeks. The girls had responded by using their mouths so I had to turn them back on again. Now they were ready for the real thing and I was even more so. When AsA had questioned me about my powers in the bedroom I saw this as an omen and cut back on how I manipulated my wives' bodies. Now I tried to get a feeling for what they liked and just did this. I felt myself like an ordinary man in this respect but one that could last a long time and was empathetic to their needs. I pleased Patricia while she pleased KhAvar then we shifted around. The girls climbed over me and tried to get me to come and did after a lot of work. I then took KhAvar and she used her mouth to make Patricia happy. This was very stimulating to me too but I knew that I was still the bait in a trap. I got my subconscious to allow a bit more of my aura to show. If the mages were close they would see my control slipping. The girls were worn out around midnight and I was running on empty. It took a while before my body could catch up to all the demands I put on it. As usual I slept on one side of the bed and after cleaning ourselves up we all went to bed to sleep. I lay in bed not ready to sleep. My aura was still fluctuating as if I were having fun and in a way I was. It must have been a few hours latter that there was a very quick knock at the door and I got up to see who it was. The captain of my guard said, "Young Lazeez says he sees some shadows moving across the hemp field." "Is he in the balloon?" "Yes." There was some copper wire that was in one of the ropes so that we could have a telephone conversation in times like this. "Are the drunks playing their part?" "Perhaps too much, but yes they are." I stepped out into the hall and went to a small room and got dressed but this time I put on my heavier armour and clamped the headpiece to the ring. It was an alternate set and I used it because I did not want to wake up the girls. It was also as black as I could get it. I talked with Lazeez and he said, "They... they are going south east now. I... I think they want to keep the row of trees between them and the house." "How many are there?" "There are five horses but three of them have larger shadows on them." This sounded like a rescue effort for two people but why not the rest? Then I wondered who the two most important were. I wanted to intercept these people but I could not if I still flung out may aura. I started to strengthen my shield but did it clumsily as if I did not really care how it was done. At the same time I slowly started to build up power. This had to be done quick enough so I was not cut off but slow enough so that those that came would not be frightened off. There was only one unlocked door leading into the house. The supposed drunks were using this to raid the external cellar for wine. All the windows had a decorative steel trellis over the windows that would make it difficult to gain entry. This trap had been set up just after Park had tried to kill me. I could not hear Lazeez but I could hear the horses and the footsteps. A small amount of grit was on the stone floor just inside the doorway. One person entered the doorway then walked down to a second door but did not go through. That person went back and then I heard two more people enter. This section was used for the pantry and kitchen. There was a lot of equipment here but no people. The three never got that close together but they were now in the trap. When the last person was four metres inside the doorway a rope pulled the doors shut with a slam and two spring loaded locks made sure each door would not open easily. The three ran back to this door and at the same time my security pulled cords that lead into the room where the three intruders were. Fulminate of mercury was struck by a firing pin and mace was expelled into the room leading to the kitchen. There was a lot of running and then some screaming but this seemed to be the woman. She sounded more like she was in rage than in pain. I had learned my lesson once more so I chose to attack one of the intruders at a time. The first was very strong but so was the mace and its effects. It took much longer to get all three to sleep then the ventilation was turned on to remove the mace. Six men in environmental suits and using compressed air came into the hallway. They dragged the intruders outside one at a time. The carbon arcs were turned on and I began again to strip each of the people. Once they were bathed, they were taken through another door and put into a room to be separated later. The horses were searched and then they too were lead away. There was a need for me to make one more round and I checked all of those that would try to kill me. They all had to stay asleep until I wanted to question them but that would be in the morning. The girls woke up at the usual time and tried to get me to play. I had only two hours sleep but a husband has to make sacrifices. We had breakfast and then the girls and I went to see the captives. They were shocked to find out that we had three additional guests. Park was summoned and he gave the names of the three because they were more important than the rest. The woman was Oriental and in her mid twenties. She was also pretty, or at least to me. She had the same kind of tattoos as the rest but also some that looked more recent. They looked more impressive. The two men were odd. One was thirty at a guess and from a different place in the east because his features were slightly different. I thought of him as Japanese but that race may not have been on the island yet. He was short and stocky. He was also strong. I examined his body and found callouses where a person that was used to unarmed combat would have them. This was also the man that had commanded Park and his now dead partner. The other man was more Caucasian. He looked similar to the Russians I knew from my time. I figured he was around fifty but he was a very strong and virile looking man at this age. He too had callouses on his hands and I saw both of them as bodyguards instead of mages. I was not going to make a mistake and think of them as anything less than a mage though. I went back to the woman and saw that her hands too had a build up of thick skin. Her nails intrigued me though. They were long and lacquered but I was thinking of poison. I took her hand and touched her fingers to my tongue one at a time. The pinkie on each hand had the poison on it and I looked to see why the woman was not dead. For the moment I assumed that she had built up an immunity. This was a ninja trick and I happened to know a lot more. I put my hand on her abdomen and pushed down. This was not conclusive so I interfaced with her body and searched through it. She did have an immunity to the drug and it looked different to the way my own immunity worked. This required a bit of study before my mind went into her colon and vagina. I found a stool in one but something solid in the other. Patricia and KhAvar watched me. "Patricia hold one of her legs. KhAvar hold the other. She is hiding something from us." They were not sure but did as I asked. My fingers worked in the woman's vagina and I had to use the woman's own muscles to expel the device. An ivory tube came out but I did not bother opening it. There would be poison and ways of administering it. A guard was sent out to get a comb and we waited until it came back. I used this on her long black hair and I found some thin wire and some poison pins hidden here too. The thatch over her pubis had only one dangerous weapon. Lazeez was called and he was very anxious when he saw his next subject. I said, "Lazeez, I want you to draw her tattoos. Draw them large." "Ah, can I draw her face too?" I gave a smile and said, "Sure but the woman is a trained killer. She would pretend to be a weak woman and then run her fingernail across your sweating brow and in a moment you would be dead." "I will have to write a story about her too I guess. By the way, I thought of something. You could make a lot of money selling your magazines. What if I started my own? I could put my drawings in so the readers could see and then I make a story that goes with the picture." "Lazeez, that would make you fabulously rich but somebody would kill you later when their daughter ran off with a man or was caught in something that the father did not like." "I would not do that." "I know that but fathers would just use you because a way of venting their vengeance." "I don't have to use my own name, do I?" "Make the stories less erotic and the pictures should have the women not showing everything. The women and the men may like what you write. You can call them romance books." "Could I really do that?" "I guess but you have a lot of tasks to do for me first. By the way, I want to thank you for finding these people last night." "I was only doing my duty." "Nevertheless, you did a good job. Now draw some pictures." On a whim, I checked the two men. Both of these had something in their rectums and it was not shit. A chamber pot was brought over and with my control of the body, the packages were expelled. The woman was treated too though but hers was only natural. Before I left, I said, "Draw the tattoos on the men too. Keep them separate." I was going to check the old men next but KhAvar said, "Would you check the children next?" There were guards everywhere in the basement so I knew that Lazeez was safe. When I got to the door with the two guards in front of it I heard a small sound on the other side. There should be nobody able to gain their consciousness. The two guards had been talking to each other and I wondered what I had done wrong. Patricia and KhAvar were sent away while I went to get my armour and arm some of the guards similarly. We came back fifteen minutes later and entered the room. Everything looked just like I had left it. Lanterns were brought in and I started checking the older woman. She had trauma from various causes and she did not have a secret stored within her. The woman of 20 was checked next. She not only had no surprise but she was pregnant. The fetus was only a few weeks old so it might be a surprise to her too. The young girl looked cute but I had been tricked many times in my youth when we had war games. I was not going to take chances. She did not have any devices in her but she smelt of shit. I turned her over and looked at her anus. She could have farted but she could also have extracted something. The bottom of her feet had been whipped clean but there was still some dirt that should not be there. I looked at the floor and I was able to see one footprint that should matches hers beside the bed. I said aloud, "You poor child." I turned her back over and put her comfortably as if she was my child. The boy was next. He too smelt of shit. I turned him over and kept my hand on his back as I used my nose and my other hand to try to find the package that was so recently hidden. I took this and had one of the guards put his hands on the back of the boy while I went back to the girl's bed. There was a short search but I found as similar package there too. In a loud voice I said to the guards, "I need some shackles made for the children." The guard was incredulous and said, "Wa... Yes, my lord." "They are not asleep. They are very good at controlling their breath. Tell one of the others to bring me some sheets I can use to tie them up in the meantime." "Yes, my lord." The girl beneath my hand started to move but I only allowed so much and then pushed her down. I said, "I don't want you moving." The look I got back was not anything I had ever seen on a young girl's face before. "I... I have to go pee." "You can go in a few minutes." "I need to go now." I just ignored her and used some rags to bind her hands while I stayed away from her nails. I set her on a chamber pot and she did what she said she had to do. In a moment she had to do something more. I cleaned her up and then put her back on the bed. I checked her nails and her pinkies had the poison on them. The nails were scrubbed and then alcohol used to clean them properly. I went over to the boy and tied him up as well. Both children had longer nails that children of this age would have. Both had the poison. The comb was used again but the boy had nothing. The girl though had two long thin pins with a tinge of green at the ends. I took the girl and threw her over my shoulder and told the guard holding the boy to do the same but treat them as if they were poisonous snakes. The guard was better trained than I thought because he did exactly what I wanted. The girl went into a special room at one end of the house and we waited for the manacles to come. The girl was chained to a ring in the floor and the manacle went around one of her ankles. She had been crying like a baby all the time but I ignored her. When the door was shut it was also barred. The guard looked at me reproachfully and I said, "Think of her as a poisonous snake. She will cry and pretend that she is sick or hurt. If you open that door without permission, you will never work for me again." "I will only do as you order, my lord." We walked further and put the boy down in a similar room then manacled his foot to the floor the same way. He was breathing rapidly so I knew he was awake. "You can stop fooling now. You are no more asleep than I am." He continued with his act so I left but said the same thing to the other guard. I checked the two young men and the two old men but they had no hidden packets of death. Each one was helped to fill the chamber pots then I went back to the room with the two women and did the same thing. All of them had been eating the same spice I was happy to know. Each of my guests were questioned even if they professed to not know anything. Zan, the twenty year-old woman was shown a pantomime of me holding a baby and feeding the child at my breast. I then pointed at her. She violently shook her head no but I smiled and said, "Yes." I got across the idea of a day then with my fingers I told her how far along she was. She shook her head no but I could see that she was saying this more to herself. We communicated better in the next few days and part of it was because I indicated that I could terminate the pregnancy. When a week went by and I saw that she was trying harder or faking less I put my hand on her belly and sent a burst of endorphins through her as the fetus was dislodged. She seemed cooperative and even more so when she found that she had a small loss of blood later. The next few months were troubling. I had a wide range of ages and genders and I wanted information. I did not feel bad about inflicting pain on the Russian and the Jap but I did not want to do the same thing to the women or the children. All eleven were given separate places to live and in most cases this was kilometres apart. Each person was exercised, fed, clothed, cleaned and questioned. I was given a lot of static about the children even after I told people how they had put poison up their ass to kill people later. The men pretended to not know Latin but the one with Japanese features broke down as soon as Park had done. The Russian took a bit longer but he did not know much Latin. I brought a surly old Roman officer over and gave him the job of teaching the Russian how to speak. The Russian's name was Eslan and he had a great incentive to learn because I was the one giving the tests every week. The young men were nothing more than boys. The older one, Nasim, did know Persian though it was a dialect. I treated him like a boy while I was a grown man and he seemed to come around with little coercion. The Indian boy's name was Bali and he was actually 14 but nobody knew his dialect. The whole world was filled with major languages but the dialects spoken within a country was like a completely different language. The two boys were put with the guards and they were trained as if they had joined us but they were always watched. The two old men were at first a problem until I found an interpreter. The man had been born near Park but spoke a different tongue. The older man was Chinese too but from a different area. None of them could read so that method of communication was out. Most of the Chinese people read and wrote the same characters but they said the words differently. The old Indian woman eventually gave her name as Abirami. She did not want to cooperate but I put her with the kitchen staff and she seemed to fit right in. Women could communicate well enough even if they did not understand the language. Zan, the twenty year-old woman was very headstrong just like the one that came that night. I did not want to use pain but I reasoned that ultra kindness may do the same thing. Park said that the older woman's name was Tai. She was the first one I found with the poison nails. The woman was kept in a hut with her own personal guard. At the moment they were out of sight but not out of range of a whisper. I sat at a small table and tried to appear less threatening. I was fairly sure the woman spoke at least some Latin but she refused to look at me. She had even tried to attack me when she figured she was able to fashion a weapon. She never got very far. She was good but weak. She usually didn't speak to me at all but tried some times to let me think she was cooperating. At the moment she was sitting on her bed and glaring at me when I started to do what I did to my wives at one time. I spoke kindly to her and at the same time her clit began to make its demands on her. The woman screamed at me but I just tried to play innocent the way she did. In a few minutes she was pawing at her own clit but I was not allowing her to come. She was trying to fuck her hand when I finally let her have what she sought. Then minutes later I did it again and again. When I left the hut I told the guards, "The woman is very horny and she will slowly come down in a few hours. This will happen again and again. If anybody but me sets foot in that hut I will expel them from my property. Our Augustus will hear of this too. This is a serious matter and she has to be trained." Twenty minutes later Zan succumbed the same way. She was even more difficult so I made sure she went through four earth shattering comes before I left. The children were a difficult problem. They stayed in different wings of my home. The girl had tried to seduce me a few times. Her style was not like that of a girl that was imitating what she had seen. She acted like a woman that had done this many times. I could at least talk to her and both her speech, diction, knowledge and intelligence said she was much older. I suddenly remembered Fidelis Marius words about a mage migrating into a young body. Everything clicked and I wondered how many of those around me were far older than they seamed. That night I thought long and hard about the next step. The next day little Oppia got the same treatment as the other two girls. She stared me in the eye all the time as she pawed her small opening and clit. Her orgasms were not as great but she had just as many as the others. Huang, the boy was next. He too tried to seduce me and talked in his high pitched voice in some Chinese dialect. Giving pain was not ethical because I was not sure yet as to how old the person really was. He did respond to my mental efforts and he began to masturbate as quick as he could. I kept up for four complete times and had to administer a healing because of the abuse he put himself through. This went on twice a day and for five weeks. Huang came around first and spoke of love to me in Latin. He had to have his orgasms but I could question him in between. He was just as knowledgeable as Oppia but the person inside was not somebody I was happy to meet. Zan was next. She claimed to want to do anything for me as long as I gave her what she wanted. Her knowledge did not suggest that she was a traveller but just a very hardheaded woman of this time. Word was all over about me but at no time was I hiding behind doors. Patricia or KhAvar was invited to watch. They saw what I was doing but somehow wanted the pain instead of what I had done. By the time all four had broke I was angry at everyone. Tutors were found so that some could help those learn Latin that needed it. I had to keep the women from climbing over the table to rape whoever came to teach them. It was only after I rewarded them for their efforts did they really start to learn. Adults at this time had sex with children but very little was done about it. Usually the adult was ostracised in polite company. I had not touched any of the children and I was looked down on. Oppia was brought to the house and placed in a large room where men and women questioned her. She replied once, "I am a mage but something went wrong with an incantation and I was ripped from my body and placed into that of a child that lived a great distance away. It took me months to get back to my home and all I found was my old body rotting on the floor. It was an accident." This I knew was a lie and I suspected that she had been around long enough to be one of Alexander of Macedonia's contemporaries. One man asked, "How old are you when you add up all your years?" "Fifty two. I was in the prime of my life when the accident happened." Huang was questioned the next day and he answered more truthfully and said that he had migrated four times and was over two hundred years old. He knew what this meant but he knew that I would protect him. I had given my word. Zan admitted to killing many people. Some were just to perfect her training but others were targets she had been aimed at by her masters. Tai was much the same but claimed some Hunnish blood. This gave her a hereditary position as leader but it was her ruthlessness that kept her there. This of course meant that she killed many times and felt no remorse for doing so. The questions and the responses had gone out over the phone lines. Amplifiers in Toronto spoke of the depravity of the four that the crowd was previously so concerned about. On the next two sermons I made sure the crowds felt bad about the foolishness they had foisted onto me in the last two months. The questioning continued but this was done in camera. I wanted a report on the Huns, the mages and how the mages were trained. All I had to do was point to a line of questioning and later reward some young women and some very old people living in young bodies. Tai lay in the large room recovering from her last orgasm and stared at her spectators. I do not think she saw them, just me. I said, "Tell me again why you came here? Do not push the blame on the Huns. I have talked to the rest and so have these men and women. I want to hear not only what you were told but what you surmise." "Will you..." "Yes." "The mages knew of you when your spirit came back to your body. There was a great disturbance that they could not understand. They only knew that it was in the west and it was very powerful. People were sent to find out what had happened. By the time they found out about you, you were already building. "You moved very quickly and it was difficult to follow. You gathered allies of great power. This upset those that had come but they decided to wait and see what happened." I said, "Why were they upset?" "You had great power. You can do what only the great mages could do but some spells a novice does are beyond you. They fear that you will become so great that you will crush those beneath you." "Why would they think that?" "Your morality is different than... theirs. They will use a few people to gain power but you do not agree with this. If you cut them off then they will be nothing more than the sheep around them. They would dearly want to find out how they too could gather the power you say comes from Woden." I said, "I am one man. How am I supposed to find all these people and stop them? This is impossible." "They live a very long time and even if it is in a thousand years, they will be found. They do not wish this to happen." "They all live that long?" "If they move from body to body they would be immortal. I have heard of mages that are already thousands of years old. To stop them in a thousand years is still far too early for them. They also think that your power will grow and it may be as early as a hundred years before you confront them." I could see this too. Human predators would have to be stopped. I had inherited a body but I did not want to take another's body to continue my own existence. "Tell me about how the mages hope to succeed?" "The mages do not wish to govern. It requires too much of their time. Instead they work behind the thrones to get what they want." This reminded me of what I was doing too but I at least paid for what help I got. Tai went on, "You were hard to find and the mages needed assistance. They made some deals with Balimir, the king of some of the Huns. Your books and words warn their people of the west about what will one day happen. This was useful in gathering Balimir's support. The Romans and the Persians fear you and they readily gave us gold, transportation and whatever else we required." She uncharacteristically hung her head in shame so I asked, "Was this the lives of some people?" "A few." "Tia, we are doing very well now. Tell me how many had to die." "We had to gather great power and I imagine that it was only a few hundred." "Where did these people come from?" "The Romans pointed out villages to us and simply took them. The Persians did this too. Before we came this way, it happened in China, India and many small lands. Usually soldiers helped us." I said, "So it was villages that died at each time you had to gather power. Tell me how many villages?" "Perhaps seven or eight. Some were very small." Everybody in the room was upset by this revelation but I wanted to continue. "Tell me how Balimir was used?" "Balimir was encouraged to gather more of the chiefs to him. Most of the Huns are nomads and they are not even all of one race. He talks of gold and slaves gained by conquest. The chiefs follow him only because they see gain in this. The threat you pose to him spurs him on. In the future you come from, you talked about all the death. Balimir and the mages know that the Huns must conquer a great deal of land. The mages talk of your growing power and Balimir is encouraged to take the land now before you grow too strong." I said, "You talked yesterday of other armies forming. Tell us about them." "The mages have been working very hard to get the Indian people and those of China and other lands to raise up against you. On one hand they say that you will come and conquer them and on the other hand they show the weapons you make of iron. This is to show those in the east how rich you are here." "How successful are the mages in getting armies formed and then armed?" "I hear of great armies but we are always told that. I cannot answer that question with other than rumour." The questioning went on and we got a clearer picture. Tia had to have her reward twice more before she was allowed to go. There were a great many unanswered questions but Tia knew very few of the answers. My think tank talked for a few more hours and then I sent off reports to my three partners. They had heard this before but now there was just a few more details. My suspicion that Balimir would attack in force was very prominent in my report. Among the belongings were two books on magic. I had to laugh at them if it were not so tragic. It was like a book of recipes. Rituals that involved the killing of innocents so that something could be accomplished. This was almost like religion in a way. In the end the mage used the power gained in the deaths to do what he or she required. The book had to be read to me but I saw a lot of similarities to me. I had a lot of power within me for some reason. I took some of this from others but gave something back. I had never looked into the power given off when a person died. I usually saw it trickling away much like blood. A person in great pain from torture may expend a lot of energy when they finally died. This I would watch. There was always a lot of pain and death and some of it could not be avoided. There was never a need to go out of my way to find something like this. Klement gathered the notes we made and continued his investigation into magic. I became a sort of student to all those that were captured. Over time I was able to see the magic emanating from some people. This ability grew but I despaired of ever being proficient. My own scientific outlook may be partially to blame for my problems but I think that in the end I will understand the powers of the mind much better. Invisibility was beyond me and this may have been the roots of what a ninja did. Conjuring a flame was not easy but it was a test that I passed. One thing that I was very happy to do was to call birds to perch on my fingers. I would feed them seeds to both my wives and my children's enjoyment. The mages were not liked but a few were tolerated. Abirami, Park, Bali, Huo, Wu and Nasim were less of killers and more of students that had been forced into magic the way child soldiers had been forced into joining African armies in my time. They now stayed close to me but so did the rest. The old saying about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer was true. Zan and Tai were weaned off of me but others had to shoulder the load. Tertius was a good choice and so was Lazeez. I had to not only build up the young men but I had to tone down the demands of the women while at the same time increasing their responses. There were a lot of screams in the house but they were usually of joy. The boys jumped at the idea when I first proposed it but now they had a haunted look on their faces. In the end Zhou and Eslan had to help too. I did not want the boys to fall in love with heartless killers but I did see that each could help the other out in the short term. My own studies had taken me away from teaching. With some minor successes I decided to pace myself. Our population was growing very quickly for me to abandon teaching for long. Telephone required long wires. I would need amplifiers and this meant there was lots of exposed copper wire just waiting to get stolen. Microwave towers were much better but lower frequencies I could transmit further but without the high density I would need in later years. Radio was something I had to learn about myself. I had to work on radio projects when I was young but I at least had tubes of known quality then. Now each and every tube was different and the circuit had to be altered so it would work at its best. As the tube aged then the circuit degraded. I made what I thought were transmitters and then we had to find receivers to find how well they worked. Making one with amplification was not necessary yet. After a few weeks we had an early success with an AM transmitter. The receiver was just a simple crystal radio. I talked about the heterodyne principal with sound. This was easy to do with tuning forks and even more glass tubes. This was fun. Nearly everybody loved music. My father had made a crystal radio when he was a boy. It involved putting sulphur in a pipe then sealing it. The unit was baked for a long time in a fire. A fine wire called a cat's whisker was used to find a spot on the crystal that would act as a diode. This diode would strip the radio frequency from the audio portion so that the latter could be fed to a small earphone. A coil of copper wire was the antenna, two sheets of thin metal made a capacitor if you wanted and a way of hooking the antenna to ground was all you needed. Sudoku was forgotten as thousands of old and young children made crystal radios. We only had clicks so far but soon we had a voice being transmitted. It was not long after that another group worked hard to provide music, commentary, or news so that the others could listen. It was like an avalanche of information and everybody was interested in finding out the secrets. It was always good to stay ahead of the kids if possible and I did this by putting silver solutions on a glass sheet. This was not to easy as I had to make a gelatine to hold it in place. When I was young, I had made an old camera with a shoe box. I did the same now. My finger covered the hole that admitted the light. The chemicals that washed away the unused silver compounds and then fixed the image were easy to make. After a few hours developing my slides, I took my 'camera' and went to take pictures of the two new loves of my lives. I kept notes of each slide as to subject which was always one of my children but also included my guess to exposure time and the amount of light. This was very much 'seat of my pants' photography. My ladies were busy with many details and I was lucky enough that when feeding time came, I was in the dark room. The next morning though was very rewarding. The mothers got to see the children and their inversed images on a fifteen by fifteen centimetre sheet of glass. Our family album had been started. The 'Radio Club' showed no signs of slowing down. Lazeez though, had heard of the photos from my wives. In two days I had to get him to start a 'Photo Club' but I was sure that his first 'babe' would be much older than my two. Lazeez Hefner was born, and from then on I found it difficult to get him to do anything besides photography. It was not just him though. Almost every girl in Toronto wanted to pose for him. He showed me some of the classy photos but I was very sure that there were some that were very explicit. Tertius told me that he was getting some 'action shots' of the Arabian stallion working on some of the Roman mares. I also knew that he was buying a lot of glass from Astrid and a lot of processing chemicals from me. Research into shutters was going ahead full speed but I tried to make it after regular hours. I had found the problem with the green glass a few years ago and told Astrid and Clovis about how to overcome it. The glass lenses for telescopes and microscopes now went into cameras. A fair camera was years away but we could still take pictures. Bali and Nasim were young enough to be swept up in this craze. They were a danger to me because they could still cause us to not see them. These two were allowed to go to Toronto unescorted. I tried to show trust but I had to do this or I would have to keep them monitored all the time. Abirami and Park had the same privileges, as did the two old men Huo and Wu. The two travellers and the two determined female killers and the two male killers stayed with me. The killers knew how to fight or they thought they did. They sparred with me. Zhou was the best technically and Eslan was more determined to win at any cost. It was actually me teaching them because my knowledge was seventeen centuries more advanced than theirs. My own guards and cadets had to be taught too. I taught something to one group and they taught it to the rest. I could then critique the rest because both their teaching and their ability to learn. When I was not working on new ideas that had to be made, I was working at understanding the bodies and minds of Huang and Oppia. This was always done in front of witnesses because they still required me to 'pay' them. Huang and Oppia eventually told me the truth about themselves. They had understated their real age by a few centuries. They went into the life and times they were born into. They were not at the top of the heap at that time and it took them a few centuries to get powerful enough with their minds and their gold. The method they used to take over a child was told to me and I was revolted. It was not about one death but many. They had tried adults but by then the mind had ossified somewhat and the results were not as good. I learned some of their spells but I did not want to tell them that their mind could process this without all the incantations. The killings though was their only way of harnessing power that they did not generate themselves. These two young looking people were the strongest two in the group. I had learned the most magic by examining them as they cast spells. I learned even more by gathering my own power and feeding them what they needed. Over time I was able to do many tasks but all very poorly. The remainder of the group sent here kept me watching over my shoulder. They had other tasks to do and were also a back up for this group. Primarily they were industrial spies but I knew that they did not have much information to build any description on. Astrid and Clovis got what information I could give and I sent Klement and Park to try to do what they could. The manufacture of black powder was an important secret that would cost thousands of lives if two waring nations were able to use it. Plate glass was only important in making money. Huang and Oppia were given the task of writing out all the history they knew from their point of view. This I hoped would give them something valuable to do while I attended to other projects. Zan and Tai were not as proficient in magic but I studied with them too. I learned things here even if it was things not to do. In their spare time they were to write their memoirs and everything they knew about their training. In return I gave them a rubber cock with two ends. The women wore out the men quickly and this way they could give the male population some relief. Tertius came to me with Bali and Nasim. He had taken both under his wing after Lazeez went whole hog into photography. They had many ideas for airships and were showing them to me. The majority of them were large and intended for hauling freight. They showed me a great many engine designs for the air ships. There were improvements in them so the chance of a stray spark was minimised. Some of the engines had been made already but their endurance was very low. They needed to be completely overhauled every two to four hundred hours. Even with these low figures, it was still the way to go. Over time small improvements would be made in one or another facet until the engine could last a few years depending on use. Nasim showed me a picture of kite with an engine in the back of a seat. I had seen this many times. It was just one of the many ultralight designs. The kite was the wrong type though but this was easy to change. "This will work too. It has the benefit of gliding to earth much better than some of the heavier aircraft and it can fly quite low to the ground." "Can we make one. We can do it quickly and keep the costs down." "They are too dangerous. It takes many years to make small modifications that will make the craft safe. The kind with wings that we were working on is even better and has a higher glide ratio." "Can we make one of each even if nobody flies in it?" I asked, "How is it going to fly?" "We build the device you call an 'ultralight'. Iron is substituted for the engine and propeller. We pull our airship to the ground and then release the ultralight when it gets high enough." They seemed to really want this and they had done the tasks I sent them. "If you drop the ultralight then the airship will want to float away. Do this so that there are no people in the air. You will have to use a cord from the ground to release the kite." "I thought it was an ultralight." "An ultralight can be a kite with a motor or the kind with wings. I have seen your plans before and I can give some help." All of them were interested in this. Nasim said, "Please tell us." "If you want to use the kite design, then make a triangular kite with a point going forward. From that point to the back will be at least eight metres. The other two points will be eight metres apart too. Make a frame of bamboo. You are going to have to get Mithridates to send you this. Cover the kite with Egyptian cotton. A bamboo pole runs from the point at the front to the centre point at the back and this is what you mount your gimbal too." I paused because I knew what was going to happen. "What is a gimbal?" I drew three pictures instead until they got the idea. "Make a smaller kite but it has to be the same proportion. The place where you tie the cord is the same place you would put the gimbal. You can test this on the small kite by putting a weight on the kite and throwing it off one of the apartment buildings. If it crashes you are wrong and you have to try again. Now get out of here and make your designs. I want to see them before you start building." Bali and Nasim smiled then bowed. Tertius just smiled and they hurried out. Mithridates had been training people to run the sugar extraction plants. Another duty was to make maps of the Mediterranean Sea floor. I helped him by putting lead weights on measured lines with a steam operated capstan to raise and lower them quickly. He had to stay on shore to compile all the data but ships could cover a wide area quickly especially if they stayed close together. The double check I felt would keep navigational errors to a minimum. The job was far from complete but he was also training a replacement for this task. I was calling him back for another job. The Discovery was just about done. It was not only the largest ship ever made up to this time but the strongest. There were two hulls so that the chances of sinking were reduced. This feature also gave it added rigidity and strength. We had gained more information while building her but we had yet to see how she functioned. This was only the second type of steel ship built and we would need centuries to gather all the data we would need. I waited for her captain and guests to arrive before the launching. The ship was not built in the Ruhr Valley because of the size of the river. The first set of dry docks had to suffice. The steel though came from the Ruhr. We were still extracting iron ore and coal but the mill only made ingots. In a year I was going to have to close the mill down. It was now obsolete in a great many ways. Land reclamation would take years to complete too. Tertius ran the tours and his parents, Licinia and Lucius acted as temporary hosts. Their home was commandeered by Julian but he graciously allowed the owners to stay. There was not enough room again but I also did not invite that many people. There were a lot of people present but not Sapor. He could have been busy because I knew he was prosecuting the war against the Huns. Photographs had gone out to Julian, Sapor and Clovis days after they had been first made. We were photographing a lot more but now we were using Mylar film instead of glass. Positives were not as good as my time but they were great for now. The people had thought the negatives were evil magic. Photo enlarging allowed us to use smaller cameras and smaller rolls of film but some jobs required a large format to get the detail. All two hundred and fifty metres of the Discovery's hull was leaning on its supports so there was no tours of the vessel. There were a lot of projections made but I insisted that they were kept conservative. The day of the launch brought a drizzle but I had umbrellas made just in case. The Discovery was launched by two beautiful women. A great many men knocked out chocks and the ship slid down the ways and sent up a wave that had to be sixty metres high. The ship swayed back and forth a bit them remained stable. Thousands of voices were raised at this because the men had worked years on this ship. Lines that were already on the ship allowed a winch to pull the ship to the dock that had been prepared for it. Julian and Clovis were the first two up the steps and onto the deck. Mithridates was here for only a few days and he was next. Julian looked down the giant ship and I could see the awe he felt. "This is magnificent. It is so much greater when it is floating." It was the workers now dressed in their best clothing that showed the dignitaries the ship. Mithridates had to accept this because he did not know the specifics either. The guests had been told that the ship had more work to do on it before she could get underway. They stayed the two weeks until this was done. Julian though transferred his home to the Emperor Suite on the Discovery but had to put up with the smell of paint and the noise of workmen. The giant anchors and chains had to be hauled aboard as well as the capstans and other deck machinery. Lifeboats and a thousand other details just had to be finished before we could sail. As soon as I could, I loaded the tanks with oil. We would use this in the boilers to see how it worked. We had used oil already in smaller engines and to test the ones now in the ship. Supplies were loaded too because I wanted to go to the English Channel and back. Julian wanted to take control but I wanted the captain to get a feel for the ship first. Julian was pissed off. He usually got what he wanted. The steering was tested and then we steered by running only one of the props. In the channel we would try to see how tight a turn we could make because one of the props could go in reverse. This may be a useless thing to do but it had to be tried. We had loud whistles and a fog horn. Julian had to use these for a few hours until he got his turn at the wheel. In this section Julian had to just test the speed of the engine. He could keep a straight course while doing this. We sailed past forts but since Julian had the wheel he could not wave to his people. Clovis did this instead but he had Astrid on one side of him and Claudia on the other. The children were everywhere. We could not do too many tests on the river but we did what we could. Dining worked very well. I had been on a few cruise ships and I knew what to do but I did not want my table to be too good. This was a freighter not a liner. Most of the river required us to go slow because of our draught. Some of the holds had been filled with water to serve as cargo. We dropped anchor at one fort just to test the equipment and it worked fairly well. Julian had time to send some dispatches but would have to take a lighter to shore if he chose. He didn't want to leave the ship. It was in the channel that we went all out. We manoeuvred with one or both props then the same with the rudder. All the anchors were tested and we then went full power in both directions. The ship shook but it shook with power not distress. The sea water was pumped into all the empty holds to simulate a full load. Later it was all evacuated from the tanks and put between the double hull. This water was eventually flushed out and we did the tests again. There were lots of problems but they were all recorded and fixed if we could. One major problem was found in one of the boilers and we had to shut it down and run on the other two. The props bothered me though because the ship shook a lot more when the starboard one ran at a particular speed. This could set the sailing date back a month or more because it had to be addressed. I went into a room that had the words 'Radio Room' over the entrance. It had a covering over the sign it to hide the name until now. As yet none of the guests had made note of the area. The generator was running to power the carbon arc lighting and four beams shot out into the darkness. One was fixed and the helmsman used this to see by. When the radio was warmed up I called to one of the operators that were supposed to be on duty. "Ruhr Valley, this is the Discovery. Do you hear me?" I had to repeat myself a dozen times until the voice came in. The operator then spoke for a while as I tuned her voice in the best possible. I said, "Who is on duty now?" The quality of sound was not good enough to pick out individuals very well. "Guinevere, my lord." "It is good to hear your voice." "Thank you for saying so. Where are you now?" I gave her the longitude and latitude based on my home in the valley then said, "Just off the delta to the Seine." "Are you looking for fish?" "Not this time. Now hold on while I get a guest to talk to you." "Yes, my lord." Julian and Clovis were amendable to come and see what I had kept secret. They gave me the usual questions but I smiled and led them to the radio. I picked up the microphone, keyed the mike and said, "Hello Ruhr Valley. Please tell me about the weather." Guinevere's voice came through and she said, "We are having a heavy rain at the moment. The wind is out of the north at nine kilometres an hour. It is basically a regular day or rather night." Julian was bothering me by saying, "Where is she?" I handed him the mike and said, "Push the button when you want to talk. You do not have to take it off to listen." He was too interested to be peeved and said, "Who am I talking to?" "Cadet Guinevere, my lord." "Where are you?" "In Toronto, my lord." "How is this possible?" "That would take months to explain. Our lord explained about shortwave radio then explained each of the details. He helped us with each of the parts then we had to continue to make them work together much better. Our lord asked if one of your security staff would come here to talk to you. Some did for this test." Julian talked to the man in charge of the detail and he substantiated the location he was in. It was only when Julian ran out of words that Clovis had a chance to talk to Guinevere then to some of his own men. When the conversation was over and the men on the ship were trying to digest the implications of this, music started to come over the speakers. An orchestra was there to provide live music. After only a minute of listening or silence, Julian asked me, "How far can you voice go?" "With shortwave we can talk to Sapor." "Do you know what this means?" "I told you years ago what this means. If an outpost is attacked then help can be sent within minutes. Your orders go out to all of your legions and they can tell you what is happening. You can get new reports each day or in times of trouble, each hour." ------- Chapter 11 The radio abruptly went dead. Julian quickly said, "What happened?" I was not too concerned and said, "The device broke. Our radio is very simple. The sound quality is about at its lower limits. The quality of our parts is poor beyond belief. We probably have a failed triode. We cannot hear even static so the problem is at our end." "What does this mean?" "Our radios need time to mature. The quality of the sound will get much better as time goes on. The dependability of the units will increase. What it means for you is that there will have to be a full time staff ready to repair the radio every time it stops working." "I do not understand why it stops." "My knowledge of the future did not cover electricity to any great degree. I have to learn, the same as the cadets. We build tools then we try to improve on them. We learn from our mistakes and try to build better units. In my time, it took years to make improvements and there were thousands of trained people trying to make radios work better. We have, at best, a few hundred poorly trained students trying to do the same thing." "So these cannot help me now?" "You have fast ships now. Your commands and information from your governors comes to you a little quicker than it did before. You just have to hold your empire together for a few years and radios will improve enough to make them reliable." "What about your telephone?" "It will work better than the radio but an enemy can destroy portions of it. The cost of putting the wires all over the empire is enormous. It has to be done a bit at a time." Julian stopped and I could see that he was thinking and then he said, "Let's go talk in my room." I talked to a few of the cadets to see if they could get the radio working again. I then put my hand on Clovis' shoulder and urged him to come with us. He was a junior partner but I wanted him in this discussion. Julian was not too peeved. After I made my presentation he said, "Why can't you do this with less wire?" "I can reduce the wire between cities but the level of technology has to go up. A beam of light can carry all the information we need. This will take centuries to come about. In centuries a small radio in your hand will do the same thing as the telephones and there will be little copper used. That is far in the future but we are living today." "How can we get all that copper?" "There are ore deposits in Germania that are large enough to supply our needs. I need other metals too. The Ural Mountains far to the east have a very large deposit of chrome and nickel. Cyprus has chrome too." "I heard you talk about those metals. What are they for?" "The chrome is used in steel to make good springs. I am having trouble getting even a little from the minerals I had collected. The nickel has many uses. It is not attacked by chemicals to any great extent so I need lots of this metal. It also can be used to make coins. In the time I came from we had paper money, just like I use on my lands. I can make coins of nickel that say on them that I will trade them for gold. The metal is hard and they will last for a great many years. Gold is not so good for this. People scrape a small amount off each of the coins they get. The coin grows smaller and worth less. My coin will be worth the same even if it is damaged." Julian said, "Where in Cyprus is this metal found?" "I know only the approximate area. Drilling crews have to go there and look." "Is this something that you require a partner in?" I had to smile and said, "The cost of getting this mine running will be very high and I will be the only one that wants the metal. There are much better places to put your gold." "Your railway?" "That is one." "I have become even more wealthy selling your iron products. My ships make me rich too." "Buy more of the Endeavour class ships but you can help me with the railway that runs beside the Danube." "Equal partners?" "Will you pay for half of the rails, half of the cost for cars and engines and half of the labour? There are giant bridges to be built and they have to be built of steel and concrete." "How much will this cost?" "My estimate is from thirty seven to fifty million aurii." "There is not that much gold in the world." "You are right. Some of the track is built and the workers spend their money buying what we have to sell. The money I make is used to construct more of the rail line. The track will take perhaps fifty years to complete and only then will it start to pay you back." "This is something the state should pay for and reap the benefits. We talked of high pay before and I cannot see what the... workers would want to spend their money on unless it is wine." "This ship will go around Africa and then to the east. I will buy spices, tee, coffee, and more varieties of rice and other grains. All of this will be in great demand. When I come back here, the people will buy them from me. I mentioned before that the ordinary man will become rich and he will be able to afford the luxuries I can provide." Maps were brought out and I showed Julian and Clovis where rail lines could go in Italia. "You will make money here a lot quicker. You need the rail to transport the steel you want to buy and I need it too. Sapor pays for the use of the track leading to the Red Sea and I will pay for what I use in Italia." With more talk Clovis said, "I have some gold that can be spent putting down track in Italia too." Clovis was using my track in Germania but I was using his canals and waterways. He had enough profit to invest from selling glass, hiring out mercenaries, and providing both cannon and powder. I knew that he would have to be a junior partner here because the cost of building a railway in Italia was going to be high as well. There was not a lot of government owned land that could be used to pay for the rails either. My own rail system was already in central Germania. It went near the Harz Mountains and continued toward what was the Czech Republic in my time. I was having my own troubles with barbarians. To combat the problem. I sent in missionaries of Woden. They went in there first to soften the opposition up. Education was better than conflict and usually worked better too. After a while some barbarians were given train rides to Toronto. This showed the men our wealth and our strength. Their young men were recruited to fight in the east if they wished to test their strength against others. Clovis' artillery crews showed the barbarians that we would not be a pushover if we were attacked. There was still a lot of theft but we didn't usually have raids. Clovis knew how to handle these men and he did an admirable job with the least amount of bloodshed. Jobs were offered the barbarians and this was usually cutting sleepers, clearing the right-of-way, building bridges or laying the track. Stores were set up for trading and for a way of recovering some of the gold I spent. This was beneficial to all of us. The track would not stop here but go through what was Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and continue on to Russia and especially Siberia. The Ural Mountains were far to the east. Further south of them was Kazakhstan and its riches. India and China were very close to this point but the Himalayas were in the way. This construction and the meeting of different peoples would help me neutralise the barbarians on the steppes but also give me access to the wealth of that area of the world. This may look like greed on my part but the riches I gained would be used for education. After the meeting, I met Huang in the hallway. It was better to have them where they could be seen anyway. They still suffered from an overactive libido and this was a good way to control them. "My lord... could you help us again?" He looked so much like a little boy that it hurt me to restrict them. I always had to look beneath the surface to find a man much older that anyone had a right to be. We cruised up and down the channel and then approached the refinery. The ship was not able to dock in the basin. It was being dredged once more for larger draught ships but this task was not complete. We would have to make an off-shore pumping station like they had in the Persian Gulf. Now we had to use an Endeavour class tanker to supply us. Clovis, Julian and I had talked about the threat of the mages and both men admitted that they too kept mages near to protect them. I tried to think if magic was used in my former time line. There was enough control of the news that anybody talking about magic would be ridiculed. This I figured would also suppress people that could possibly practice this talent. I for one knew that if you did not believe in magic, you were hamstrung from using it. I had to find out how I was able to access the power of the crowds that came to see me and in turn assist them in feeling good. The main difference I felt was that I came into a body but not to take it over. I coexisted with Jón for a long time and tried to get Jón to mature correctly. I was free to do some tasks while Jón did the rest. The mages moved into a body and evicted the previous tenant. This meant the personality died. I had a chance to keep myself separated from the body long enough to learn from it as if I was an impartial observer. This separation allowed me to not only make minute changes but to see the effect of those changes. Both men had heard about mages becoming invisible but I was hesitant to show them. Julian I knew would rather kill all the mages so that he would be safe. I did not think any king would allow mages to live unless it was for defence. I had introduced him to the mages but he tried to avoid them on the ship. We talked about the remaining mages sent to this area but there was little we could do except be on the lookout for them. They were the back up team and not nearly as strong as those that came after me. That did not mean that they would not try for me but they would have less to fight with. I reluctantly knew that they would learn from the mistakes of those that went before. My pistols worked very well now and I would have more leeway in a confrontation. The trials were cut short because Julian had lots of duties to attend to. He wanted a ship like the Discovery and I traded him some of the price for some land near the mouth of the Ruhr. The dock would be built here and he would have to do most of the construction but with my plans. The other dry dock could still produce the two other classes of ship. Over the next few months, I worked hard to develop more of an understanding for magic. This was a difficult subject at best. I had to teach myself with only some suggestions from the mages. At the same time I worked harder on my weapons. Many were simple. To be more effective I had to refine them dramatically. The Discovery had to have another prop cast. The one it replaced needed extensive machining and we did not have the equipment to do this. Mithridates worked hard himself to get the best from his men and his ship. All he had to know is what was needed and he got it done. There were thousands of people to help. The city was growing again and many of the old hands were busy making apartment buildings. There were just too many places that we could not reach with the Discovery. Dredges would have to be built and then used to deepen the channels of major rivers. The Rhine was not bad but it too had problems especially in the spring. A sand sucker was being constructed. This was a ship with a vacuum system that would sucked the sand and water from the bottom of the river. This came aboard the ship and the sand was filtered out and the water sent overboard. This provided a good source of clean sand for us but also meant a lot of work designing an auger and elevator system to get the sand from the ship to a storage pile on shore. That same auger and elevator could be used for bulk cargo on other ships. Another project was a large bucket wheel. It was in the planning stages only. One day this would work like the nose of a giant chain saw that would scoop the soil from a trench and dump it on a large belt that would in turn take the soil away. I did not have a good enough reason yet or the mechanical knowhow to construct this awe inspiring machine. A large tractor with cleated steel wheels was a common tool. They were now used with a front end loader employing hydraulics. The tractors got very big and we put blades on those so they could serve as bulldozers. I talked about track but we had not employed this system yet. Thick rubber tires and tubes had been made. Some went on large hoppers for transporting soil. Other units just had the steel wheels. A steam shovel or a front end loader could fill the hopper and another tractor could tow it away to be dumped. This was the best compromise for building a dump truck. These units were in constant use. There was only a few of each. They broke down often and the complaints were logged so that newer versions would work better. Most units were delivered to the rail head to help with clearing the right-of-way. This meant they cut through hills and filled in depressions. A road ran besides the rail lines and this area had to be cleared too. The trains broke down too and the roads were even more necessary then. Tertius was loaded down with work but he found time to work with Bali and Nasim. I okayed the construction of two types of ultralights. One was a kite and the other had the regular wings. The latter was long overdue in my opinion. Model planes had flown for years and most now had small motors to make them work even better. With a simulated weight of an engine and a brave pilot, the planes were pulled behind a speeding train. A long pole prevented the plane from going too low and crashing and a rope kept the aircraft from going too high. If Sapor were here now he would have both of them and want the boys too. The kite was also altered for parasailing. Here a flat car kept it from going too low and striking the earth. Everybody and their mother literally flew on the glider. There was some skill involved and soon kites were used for sport as long as they did not go over thirty metres high. This was still high enough to kill people but it was the only method I could use to control this. The hills around the steel mill had people flying all the time. The parasailers soon learned of the updrafts from the mill and soared far into the sky against orders. This was something I could not stop but I could regulate this until the pilot learned more. On a cold morning, Tertius took to the air in a fixed wing craft. This was not the kite. Photos were taken for posterity and Tertius smiled widely on this historic event. This was not like the town of Kitty Hawk because Tertius flew for an hour and reached a height of three kilometres after he showed that he was stable at low altitudes. This was not much better than some of those that used the parasails but this time it was under power. He took advantage of all the thermals he could but the best was still over the mill. When Tertius came down he was welcomed by his family and then the rest of us. Photos were taken again and the plane refuelled. Bali then Nasim flew next and then so did others in their flying club. This was hardly exclusive because nearly everybody was in it. Deaths occurred in both parasailing and powered flight as people learned of what a stall really meant. I did my best to reduce it by putting more limits on people until they had enough hours under their belts but some people refused to listen or were just unlucky. One big boy could not get airborne and whined so much that a larger plane with two motors was built for him. Clovis was not like Sapor and went through all the regulations that the rest of the students had to do. He was also the test pilot when it flew behind the train. His plane could cruise at 90 kilometres an hour which was a bit faster than the rest. It could also carry more. He promised to not take anybody up with him until he had two hundred more hours of experience. I invited Sapor to come before all this became public knowledge. Photos and letters from Persian cadets were sent. A special plane was made that was the equal of the one Clovis received. It took a long time for a reply and people started coming from all over the empire for flight training. They had to have this before they were allowed to fly a plane. Licences were issued but I had no way of enforcing anything I did after a plane left my hands. Parasails sold at a premium and as usual a picture of a fiery god on the cloth sold the best. Powered aircraft sold for ten of my grams of gold. This was a lot of money but some people were willing to learn how to fly, then purchase one or more planes. Our failure rate was still high so replacement engines as well as tanks of fuel raised the bill considerably. The largest plane yet held three people and I treated my wives to a trip. I should not have done this. The wives were bitten by the flying bug. The survey crews wanted planes and I had to let them have them because it made sense. Clovis wanted more for the men that protected the crews building the track. Julian wanted some for him and for his legions. Almost every project I had, suffered because of those that wanted to fly. One of the ways I used to restrict flight was to make sure people paid for flight time and the use of my planes and materials. I did not charge much but it was in line with the effort to build them in the first place. Regulations were made to ensure that workers put in their full shift. This helped a lot. I let it be known that I would donate land and materials for an airport if people would donate their time to construct the runways and buildings. Tractors were being built much quicker now and so were other tools. The airport had short strips because it took very little distance to take off and land. I did make lots of strips though so the aircraft would stay out of each other's way. One large area was levelled and made to land some future planes that would need a longer runway. The asphalt also sucked up heat and let the parafliers have a place of their own. Hangers had to be built and they had to be built very large. One day we would need them this big. A large hotel was started that would go up twenty six floors. The top was for launching the kites and high speed hoists had to be constructed on the outside of the building. The people though would have to use the steps. Three landing strips had to be built near the house so the girls could land without too much crosswind. In the end this was good because it allowed me to fly too. The Discovery made two more trial runs and we found less problems each time. The second time she sailed up the Seine but sandbars stopped her. The river had been recently charted too but it also changed regularly. The last time she had a dredger with her and she made it all the way to Lutetia. One of the exciting features about this trip was that a wooden platform had been erected over the hatches and planes were easily able to land and take off. Lutetia was all abuzz about what was in the river and in the air. A flight school was started in this city too and an outlet set up to sell aircraft and parts. The legion in this city had been an experiment and ten pilots had recently graduated from our old flight school. They would now do patrols and cover a much greater area. There had not been much trouble since the last auxiliary was formed. The Alemmani had almost been civilised but I thought it much more likely that it was the education I provided that did the trick. To be honest it could also be that they saw us as too powerful to take on. While the Discovery was away, I received disturbing news. Sapor was fighting all the time but the battles were usually small. He sent word that Balimir had finally assembled enough men to possibly push us back. Sapor had some advanced warning and was able to flee down river and take refuge in a major city and use its walls to protect his men. In subsequent reports, I heard that Friesian artillery killed untold thousands but there was always more. Sapor now asked for help. The latest dispatch had gone through Julian and he had sent more men and cannon to the scene. I sent my own dispatches saying I would come with the Discovery as soon as possible. We went onto a war footing. This day, I knew, would happen at some time and many weapons had been worked on but most were not complete. I had my own ideas about what would be needed. At meetings, others added their thoughts. The Discovery would not be back for seventeen days and we had a chance to prepare. I could call her back sooner but we would not be ready. The materiel that I wanted to sell to Sapor, but he would not take, were set aside. We could make cannons quickly, and we did. Shells were something we made for Clovis and now we took all that we had and tried to make more. These shells though would not be charged with black powder. They were basically antipersonnel in nature. There were eighty seven planes either ready for sale or used by my people. A second load of bamboo had arrived and had been used to make more aircraft. We could not make any more planes, but we could make the engines. A few planes were under construction and these were completed. One had four engines and capable of carrying six people. I rushed this unit to completion. Crews worked on it around the clock. If we were fortunate we could produce enough parts to make another two if we could get the bamboo and cotton. We would need food and my supply of canned goods was readied. Water in a city under siege may not be available so I brought drilling units that could also be used for prospecting. I knew of the city Sapor was in and heard that it was near a river, the water from wells was salty. I hoped to either find a different aquafier or take the water from the river. Desert and woodland camo suits had not sold but I brought them too. This might not help when we were on the steppes. The hills and the woodlands was a different story. I had stingers, grenades, claymores, and lots of ammonium nitrate. I may have time to add to this and to possibly make some plastique too. All the ordnance I had was basically going with me. I had experimented with a few rifles. I liked hunting with a bow much better. Hunting Huns would require very good weapons. The sniper rifle was done as was the M16. The alloys needed to keep the weight down had not been found yet. Three of the sniper rifles had been made but all had some problems. The newer models had tried to overcome the weight distribution or a tendency to climb when in a three shot burst even with the interchangeable shorter barrel. They were intended for single shot mode when sniping and they would be fine. I had fired each only a few dozen times to see how it functioned. They were as good as a sporting rifle of my day but not as good as what a military sniper would demand. The M16 had ten millimetre shells as did my pistols. It was difficult to make a variety of calibers and I tried not do so unless I was forced. The sniper rifle was one of these situations because I needed a larger cartridge to get the trajectory I wanted. It also took the ball ammunition. There were only five of the latter rifles but they could go full auto if I wanted to risk burning out the barrels. I only had twenty shells so the tooling to make the cartridges was used once more. This time I got my wives to help because I didn't want this technology to get out. The powder and the ball had to be special too and these I had to make myself. All this was put together four days later and again my wives helped me prepare the shells. I hoped to have six thousand shells ready by the time we sailed but I could reload the cases at least once. A request had gone out to Clovis for his powder. What he had on hand I knew would be here before we finished loading. I had lots of benzene and gasoline. Very little of it was used in the aeroplane engines. I made tonnes of soap, and sold it cheaply so it would be used. The gasoline could be put into a tank which was heated by steam and the bars of soap added. The product had the consistency of jam. The materiel was put into some large containers for use against the Huns. This was one of the surprises I wanted to use on the Huns even since I came to this time. I knew of their cruelty and wanted them to have something to remember. Another large tank was used to store gasoline mixed with bitumen until it too was thick. This would have to be pumped out quickly but go through an orifice to pick up some velocity. I had no really safe motor to drive a pump but I could use two hydraulic cylinders powered by steam. I now needed a vehicle to mount all this in. The best solution was one of the dump bodies that would be pulled by a tractor. There were a set of steel wheels and a pair of axles. Men were given rough drawings when I knew that I needed good weapons. They had worked diligently on it. The cadets had worked with the steam lines and the hydraulic cylinders to push out my liquid. Water was used at first but when the unit was done we used the pitch and gasoline mixture. The cylinders took ten atmospheres of steam and spit out four times that pressure in flammable liquid. The orifice shot the heavy liquid out over thirty metres. The effect was devastating and the cadets were worried about such a powerful weapon being employed. The dump body had just a thin shell. The Huns would have nothing that could pierce it anyway. There were doors and windows all over and they would be very secure. Tractors were already going but I took two and had them sheeted in with thin metal too. An embellishment was the addition of two sheet metal heads that resembled dragons. The mouths were where we had the additional barrels of the flamethrowers. If the fire did not kill the Huns then they may run from the sight of the machine. Even I was impressed about what we made and I knew that the Huns would be too. There were gun ports around the trailer and in the tractor too. The trailer also had two mortars using modern propellants and shells. They could move without exposing the personnel but not to the degree I wanted. The picture of our bunker in Ontario came back to me. I saw in my mind everything it had and then made sure I got what I could to go with us. I was going back and forth between the chemical plant and Toronto by plane now and saw the Discovery on the horizon. Instead of flying there, I landed at the refinery and began more of my preparations. An hour later Mithridates was near and I sent him a message by radio. The message had not only the reason for this trip but the way I wanted the cargo loaded. He was to proceeded at full speed up the Rhine. He asked a few questions before he approached the Ruhr. I finished my own task and got the incendiaries ready to be picked up when the Discovery returned for fuelling. The fuelling I figured would take at least a day to load. I flew back though I could take the train once I crossed to the other side of the Rhine. I constantly thought about all the materiel I needed. I had only worried about my group when I was young and then about the cadets and a few soldiers but never anything this size. The trip was only ninety minutes because I had a good tailwind. I landed in Toronto instead of home and within minutes I was talking to Mithridates by the more powerful radio in the city. He had more of his own input and I listened to him. I was very busy and when this happened I was more likely to be killed so I always was more cautious at this time to compensate. Bali was in the city and I got him to stay with me to look for threats. I worked until midnight and found the wives and kids here to see me. Patricia said, "You are not leaving us now." I was debating this all along. They were safe enough on the ship but on land in a war zone was a different matter. "I know we talked about this a lot and I will make a deal with you. We all go. You cannot leave the ship unless I say it is safe to do so and then only with guards. The only alternative is to be dropped off in Constantinople." "Our place is beside you." "You are not German. Your place is beside our children. These are the only solutions I am offering." It was much more than what they could reasonably expect to get and KhAvar said, "We will accept that, Husband." The ship finally pulled into its berth. The present cargo was unloaded and construction began in the holds. Steel pillars would be welded to the deck and the walls then the heaviest cargo put in. When this was done steel beams would form a new floor so that more equipment could be put on top. The heavy crane was too slow and many articles were hoisted with ropes or chainfalls. The crane on the ship was adequate for the job but it too was much too slow. It looked like ants crawling all over the ship because we were not set up to handle this much activity. We stayed in Toronto under a lot of security and worked to make more equipment. I practised with the pistols and took the wives away so they too could get a chance to see how they worked. They would not make good marksmen but they would be used to protect the children. The M16 was used too but here it was just to familiarise them with the weapon. The wives could see how effective the pistols were. We had at least three days for intermittent practice because it would take that long to load everything into the ship. The carbon arc lighting came on and we worked through the night. Toronto had a population of a quarter million and I could afford to let those that were tired go home. People were starting to get hurt more and I had to get them to work only half shifts because of the pace we were setting. At least nobody died. Tertius removed the wings from all the aircraft. We had made them this way for shipping to customers. Their fuel tanks were emptied and the planes marked and packed carefully onboard. The matching wings were similarly marked but could go in other areas because they were so thin. The tanks that would contain the incendiaries went into the bottom of a hold and the decking put on top. Empty tanks were put on the deck above. When we removed the incendiaries, it would be by hose to empty tanks on the shore. When the pile on the dock got smaller, I looked in the holds and found a lot more than what we had agreed on. Now was not the time to bitch about this. We did have the room but we might not next time. Two hundred and fifty metres is a lot but the boilers, engines and equipment took a lot of room too. There were many last minute requests to go but I had all I wanted. There were over eight thousand cadets now and I took only some of the better ones. Most had to stay and work here. The ones going would be my pilots, ground crew, tank crew, machinists, and everything else I needed them to be. They were all dedicated. Aagt, Klaasje, Tiebout, Hafgan, Guinevere, Edana, and Arienh were all that remained of my original cadets and they deserved a place with me. They were not necessarily the best at some jobs but I had obligations to them. The mages came with me as did Park and Klement. I was still not sure about the mages but I did not want them to get a chance to do something to Toronto now that they knew it so well. We steamed down the Rhine as quick as we dared. Small ships were very quick to get out of our way and some were almost swamped. I decided to slow down a bit when passing smaller vessels. We passed one fort and saw a plane flying over it and one happy commander waving to us. He buzzed the ship and I went out on the deck and waved to Horatius when he passed the next time. If he did not know where we were going then he would soon. We enjoyed the Emperor Suite and rested for the first time in three weeks. KhAvar said, "Do you think we will make it in time to help my Uncle?" "He is a good leader and a good war leader too. If anybody can survive it will be him. Sieges can last up to a year and he is both familiar with them and had enough warning to prepare." "I heard how you talk about the Huns. They have no fear." "They are like the German people. They live a very hard existence and they believe that when they die they will go to a much nicer place. Many of them may wish to die in battle just to leave their pains behind." "I will pray to Woden that he be kept safe." Being a hypocrite was something I had never been completely able to swallow but I said, "Do that. The gods sometimes need a bit of encouragement." That night we pulled into the dock at the refinery and started immediately to fill the fuel tanks and those for the incendiaries. Fuel, and lubricants had to be brought on too along with the many tonnes of explosives. I stayed up long enough to see that everything was working the way it should and then went to sleep. The wives were asleep and Jurgen was a bit upset. He had gas and I rubbed his back until the pressure was reduced then he could sleep. In an hour Eleanoor was hungry and I brought her to Patricia. I just sat in the chair in the dark and looked at them. These were the type of people I was fighting to protect. In the process of what I intended, I would make a lot of corpses and a lot of orphans. We finished loading sooner than expected. An additional pump had been brought to speed up the transfer. The next day was only fair. We travelled across the Bay of Biscay during the storm that hit us but the Discovery was made to take this. I had to go around and work on peoples' middle ear so that they were not motion sick. The storm only lasted a few hours anyway. When the seas calmed down the stars came out and I stood on deck with my wives and children and looked about us. The deck throbbed with the power of the engines. It was hard to imagine a war going on now. Two days later we rounded Hispania and passed between the Pillars of Hercules. The passage through the strait was quick and I pointed out some of the features where the British had made a base. It was dark and I used a light to shine on the mountain. I was sure that any locals that heard us or saw the light would think we were magical. The radio was used extensively but the purpose was just to test it's range and clarity. There were a lot of people listening to us that could not come. We travelled without stop for four days then slowed down when we entered the Aegean Sea. There was a lot of islands and shoals too and it was good that Mithridates was familiar with this area. He never had to deal with a ship that had a draught like ours though. We went through the Dardanelles with no problem. No customs man came out to greet us either. Ships pulled up to the bank and some sailors even ran from the sight of us. The trip through the Sea of Marmara was very quick then we entered the Bosporus. We pulled up outside the harbour of Constantinople and dropped anchor for the first time. Our fog horn told everybody in the city we were here. Julian was on the dock by the time our lighter reached the shore. I got a heartfelt hug then Julian hugged his daughter then KhAvar. "It is good to see you." "It is good to see you too. I do not want to be rude but how is Sapor holding out?" "I get reports every day. He has had to stand off four major attacks since he took refuge in the city. Your hungry guns need to be fed. One of my legions fought its way to the city but many men were lost." "Will he last a few more days?" "A few I am fairly sure of but not too much more. Our spies tell me that more of the Huns are approaching from the direction of the Hyrcanian Ocean and more coming from the north." The Hyrcanian Ocean was the Caspian Sea. "Any ideas of numbers?" "They always say great numbers but usually less come. Balimir has promised some gold and the sack of the city. They want your guns but I do not think that they know that they need the powder." "I would like to go and see what I can do for Sapor. Would you like to come and see what we are planning?" "Of all the times I would like to go with you, this would be the time. I have some serious problems of my own and I have to stay." He got close and whispered, "The mages or Balimir have got the backing of some of the senators. They want me to make peace with the man." "If we do our job then there will be peace." "I dearly hope so." We steamed north west with some Roman advisors. We were heading for the narrow opening into the Palus Maeotis or the Sea of Azov. We would attempt to cross this sea and head up the Tanais River or what was called the Don in my time. Our destination was very near the mouth. The city Sapor had found refuge in was in this delta. There were two major problems facing us. The Sea of Azov was very shallow. There were some areas that were deeper than others but we may not be able to make it to the Don because of our draught. The Don was the other problem. There were some rough sections of river to be passed. The team sent here mentioned this difficulty and didn't think we would be able to get through in places. Constantly changing sandbars in the delta and a meandering course of the river might be too much for us. I was laying our hopes on the bow thrusters. The advisors were amazed at our ship and everything that the hull enclosed. I learned more about the history of the Greek/Roman population of the area. There was extensive farming going on in this area with rich farmland but the nomads of the area figured it was ok to loot to get their share. Recently the Ostrogoth had attacked and plundered many of the smaller settlements and would continue until they were stopped. The Huns were just the newest and by far the largest group to do this. Patricia and KhAvar sat with the cadets as we listened to the advisors. There was just too many unanswered questions. We looked at their maps and those that my people had made and tried to find better ways of relieving the city. We had a long way to go once we left the Black Sea. Palus Maeotis filled with rich silt washed down from the rivers that drained the country in my time called Ukraine. We would have to use the launch to test the depth but this meant days longer in our journey. The other possibility was to have the planes fly over the sea and try to guide us through the darker sections of water. When we did arrive at the strait, we went through at a very slow speed. Mithridates assured me that there was enough depth here for 'his' ship. There was some ominous sounds after we left the channel and Mithridates went even slower. We hit a sandbar while barely moving. We dropped anchor and decided to wait until the morning. I had a fitful rest because my subconscious was feeding me the image of Sapor and the rest of his army being killed. During the night, some of the planes were brought up on deck and readied for flight. Even at this time I heard that the advisors were there to watch what was going on. The weather was cold but I had not seen ice yet. I knew that this sea, lake or swamp would freeze too. Old Russia was right next to the Ukraine. Tertius wanted to fly first but I made him sleep because he worked much of the night getting the aircraft ready. Edana and Arienh were bundled up warmly and given a life preserver but I was not sure they would survive for long in the cold water. The launch was already out looking for a channel too and if one of the planes went down then it was possible there could be a rescue. The Romans had heard a lot about the aircraft but now they saw them take off and fly. The girls circled the ship a few times in case they had to ditch. They would be close. They then flew a pattern as a pair. With some hand signals we started to move in the direction they thought best. In an hour two cold girls came back and they told us what they had found. Those in the launch were able to put some accurate figures to the colour changes of the water. Radio would be best I figured in hindsight. My own four place plane was brought up. It took a while to get it assembled then tested but I was worried about the amount of deck I had to take off in. There was no steam powered cable to help the plane get into the air or a cable to help stop the plane when it landed. The plane was the only one with a radio transmitter but others had enclosed cockpits too. Lazeez had some hours in this plane and he took Nasim as a spotter and radio man. As an added precaution we marked our position the water then reversed. We then moved forward and when we were at full speed the plane travelled down the short runaway. It sank momentarily as it left the deck but then ascended while we slowed down. In a few minutes Nasim came on the air and took up where the girls had left off. I hastily had some rope strung across the runway where it would catch the strut supporting the front wheels. All four engines had pusher props so that there was a good view of what was happening. We were three and a half days travelling what would normally be done in one. We tried flying at night but the search lights did not work well. The launch though had to continue with the lead lines and we only made a few kilometres during the darkness. The bow thrusters were designed to get us into a port without a tug but we used them now for propulsion. They were much slower but this is what we wanted. When a wind came up one night we just dropped anchor and waited. We had to wait the next day to let the wind speed drop again before we could fly. I got as many cadets as possible to fly but there were more than enough people and not enough seats. The advisors volunteered but I was not going to fly with them when we were in such a hurry. When we got to the general area there was another storm brewing. The launch left to see what was happening because it looked like the Don had worn a channel that we could navigate. From the radio on the ship we heard some excited voices saying, "The Huns are attacking the city again. They have siege equipment against the walls. It looks like bugs climbing the walls from here." I ordered Mithridates to increase speed and in a moment we hit a sandbar but continued on our way. We had to slow down again and I called the launch back. It took twenty minutes and by that time I had a load readied for the boat. The crane lowered my heavy cargo and then I went down the ladder with some of the cadets. KhAvar and Patricia were very concerned but I told them that I was not going ashore. This helped a bit but they were still worried. We cast off and then started to mount a steel plate to the foredeck of the launch. It took a half hour to get near the city and I disregarded what I had said to my wives and went ashore with the cadets and some of our munitions. The Huns had not seen us yet but they would. We set up three mortar teams and just like in practice we drove mortars to the base of the wall where the attackers were the thickest. We used rounds with high explosives and ball bearings as well as incendiaries. White phosphorous worked better than I had expected but it was as if I were just an annoyance. I had no idea why I was getting this response. I used the sights on the M16 to pick off some men on the climbing poles. I aimed for half way along the length and once, I was able to snap one of the poles. Soon I had to stop because the Huns were running toward us. The mortars aimed further back now and we blew men to pieces. I expected them to run at the noise and destruction but the opposite happened. We pulled back in stages then had to board the ship as I switched my rifle to full auto. We hastily reversed because we had little armour and the Huns were very good with their bows. We stayed near the limits of their bows and fired the mortars when we found a suitable target. We shifted position a few times but we could not get as many as we had the first time. Boats were rowed toward us and a few mortar rounds was usually enough to sink them. It was too cold for them to swim to the ship even if they could swim. The storm looked ominous and I suddenly remembered the lightning that took me to this time. I abandoned our attack and retreated to the ship as quick as I could. We raced up the ladder almost in a panic as the hoist brought the launch aboard. I hoped our steel hulled ship would be protection enough for us. The air was full of static that seemed to effect the radio but I got the message across quick enough I hooped. Lighting struck the ship only moments after we were under cover. The ship was hit seven times in the next hour which would be amazing if it were natural. We did steam ahead at our slow pace because I had more treats for the Huns. The mages with me were cringing and I got out of them that it was not that it was lightning but magical lightning from a group of very powerful mages. They had no advice to give me and no way to thwart what was happening. The storm looked to be continuing but the lightning had subsided. All I knew was that the power to do this was phenomenal and a great many people had to die to do this. We pulled up as close as we could to the city and felt the sand running under our bow. One anchor was dropped and I brought some larger mortars and hammered the area around the city again. This time the rounds were much more destructive. I had two deck guns but they were not permanently mounted to the ship. The one at the stern was readied but the one at the bow could not with the runway still in place. The stern gun was only ten centimetre but it was breach loading and used shells just like any modern cannon. There was little I could hit but at least the defenders could all congregate at the other side of the city. The advisors told me how big the city was and risked shooting over the far walls. In less than ten minutes I knew the lightning was going to come back. The last few rounds were delivered and I entered one of the hatches a few minutes ahead of a strike. I played cat and mouse with the mages. When the static electricity diminished I would start firing once more. I spaced my rounds so I didn't hit one spot repeatedly but I had no idea if I was doing any damage to the Huns. When it got dark we used the lights to illuminate the walls we could see. When the lights first came on we caught a group of Huns trying to gain the near walls in the dark. The cadets fired through the night and we were running out of ammunition. This was not a battleship and even those ships needed supplies brought to them. I tried to get some sleep and all of us had difficulty in doing this. I had to resort to putting much of the crew to rest my way so we could function tomorrow. During the night I got up once when the Huns tried to board our ship. There were two hastily built rafts with some men with a grappling hook. The cadets took care of the problem with few grenades before I got there. Early in the morning the storm seemed to blow away but we kept a sharp look out. Romans and Persians were waving from the wall so I guess the Huns didn't take the city. The wooden planking that made up most of the runway was damaged from the lightning and we had to work to get this repaired. I had steel brought up and welded to the bow to extend the flight deck a bit more. The planes had been taken in before the first storm or I was sure that they would have been destroyed. An hour after dawn the Huns appeared again they showed up when some Romans looked to be trying to be lowered down the wall by rope. They were picked up quickly and we lobed a few of the more slightly more plentiful mortar shells their way. We were running very low on this type of ordinance. The advisors were all military men and saw the damage our shells did and could not understand why the Huns attacked so mindlessly. The only reason we could come up with was a magical compulsion or perhaps one based on drugs. Hashish was commonly used by some going into battle. The Frisian cannon opened up again from the other side of the city so our respite was over. We had other weapons but we could not use them from our position. The launch was lowered and we patrolled the shore looking for a sharp drop off where the Discovery could possibly dock. The Huns were waiting for this but everybody on the launch had armour and had both stingers and rifles. Again I marvelled at how much the Huns wanted to die. Around noon the deck had been repaired and then extended three metres. My plane was pulled out and we went over it carefully. We had tested the plane with more and more cadets until I got an idea of the length of runway I needed. From the hold I brought out a large cannister of napalm. A bomb rack was in place since the plane was built. The napalm weighted the equivalent of three cadets and the total weight was just a bit more than the four that had ridden before. I just hoped that the extra few metres would be enough. Nobody but a few cadets knew this particular bomb contained napalm. Everybody understood what the substance was though. KhAvar and Patricia held me as if this was the last time I was going to see them. "I will be coming back here in just a few minutes." Patricia said, "You are going to die." "The mages stopped throwing lightning. If they do this again then I will just stop until they stop too. Haven't you noticed that it takes a bit of time before they can do this?" "But they are so powerful." I hit below the belt by saying, "Have you forgotten who is helping me?" "But..." "No buts. Get a few more loads ready. I will be back soon." There was very little room at the sides of the deck and I saw just how short the deck was. A long rope was looped around the landing gear. The engines were warm and I made sure the brakes were fully engaged then accelerated the engines to take off. Six people held one end of the rope until I signalled. The rope was dropped just as I released the brakes. I moved quickly down the runway and dropped off the end. My heart was in my throat as I fell but I managed to clear the water. I was also sure that my landing gear had hit the surface. I circled the ship a few times in wider circles just as I had the cadets do. I then flew around the city to see the Huns. There was a large encampment just out of cannon range. Beyond that was a camp that had to contain a good portion of a million people. There was also a good portion of those Huns trying to gain the top of the wall. With the radio I gave a verbal picture of what was happening but I was not sure that our guns could hit them. A good sized mortar could though. I acted as a spotter and the few remaining rounds of our heaviest mortar were fired. The angle was raised a bit each time until the rounds fell among the Huns. From the radio I heard, "That is the last of them my lord." "Thanks Hafgan." The pretty boy had turned out to be quite a man. In fact all of the cadets had grown in body and mind. I flew away from the city to gain height and look at both Hun camps. If there were mages then they is where the king was. There seemed to be few people in this camp. I knew this for a fact because every one of them was looking up at me. The other camp was swarming with people. After I gained an altitude of three kilometres I swung around to come at the other wall from the side. I put the nose over and dove to gain the maximum speed. I pulled the cord that removed the safety pin. At three hundred metres I released the bomb. I continued on as fast as I could but even from five hundred metres I could feel the added push of the fireball. I stayed on course until the danger had passed then I circled around to see how effective I was. A large portion of the area below the walls was now an inferno reminiscent of Dante. People were running while being consumed by hot burning pitch. I picked up the microphone and said, "I'm returning. We are going to have to use the smaller incendiary instead." Landing was a bit more difficult as I had a crosswind but it was not much. Another rope restrained me and the plane was turned around by hand and another bomb placed in the rack and secured. The next takeoff was not as harrowing. After the third bomb the Huns began to get the idea. Their casualties must have been horrendous. When I came back the fifth time the cadets took over for me and would pursue the Huns with what munitions we had. Now was the time to reduce their numbers while they were clustered so close. As soon as the plane took off I got in the smallest plane that would carry me. It had no landing gear other than my feet and legs. I circled the city and came down with just enough speed to clear a wall then land running on a fairly roof. The men in the city were in rough shape. Very few were without wounds gained in protecting the walls. I could almost feel the diseases running rampant now. A sea of faces looked up to me and I called for a rope. While one was being fetched, I began to grasp the power of the people around me. I had to draw from the whole city because everybody was weak or wounded. The commands to heal went out time and again then I built up for the benediction most people knew about. The rope was eventually thrown up and I caught it. The ultralight was not difficult to lower to the ground. Few people wanted to touch it and I had to assume it was because they believed it to be something fabricated by the gods. It not only flew but carried me. Men got to their knees and I got them to stand and guide me to Sapor instead. I was quite sure the plane would be safe. The city was not that large but the streets were crowded with the original population and those that fought to protect this area. Sapor was standing when I came to him. He was dressed in clean clothing but when I hugged him I knew that he was hurt. Instead of letting him go I worked harder on healing just him. He said when I pulled back, "Thank you, Jón. I was not feeling well." "It does not look like many people in the city are feeling any better. Let's sit down and talk." Sapor had difficulty sitting but when he did he immediately said, "Did Aldúlfr come to our aid?" "The fire?" He just nodded his head. "He did but not in person. The weapon was just something I made." "It saved us." "You were doing quite well especially when you count how much you were outnumbered." "There were a lot of them." "I flew over their camps. The land is covered with them." "You wrote to me telling me that you could now fly. I was not able to come." "I guess you had the best of reasons for not coming." "I saw your ship too and heard it through the night. Somehow the noise you made was comforting to me." "How are you supplied with food and water?" "We have water but it is brackish. It only makes us more thirsty. Most of the horses I am afraid were slaughtered for food. Such fine animals should not die that way." "Our cadets are killing the Huns around the city first and we will soon be able to leave the protection of its walls." "I like this city. If it were not here, we would all be dead." "It looks far from clean to me. I would put up apartment buildings." I had mini sermons every hour to encourage people to get better. Some jobs had to be done by hand though and I went back into surgeon mode. Sapor had some of my kits and I worked on an assembly line basis to remove arrowheads, darts or bone fragments. Hours later I found some of the cadets working beside me so I knew that there was little danger of the Huns at the present time. ------- Chapter 12 It sounded like all the planes were out in force, pursuing the Huns. They were to try to keep the males from joining their families if possible. I did not want to kill women and children while I reduced the threat to Europe. Later that day, Mithridates took the Discovery four kilometres upstream and found a place to dock. A long steel gangplank was used to unload the ship. Our dragon may not be useful at the moment but the blade on the tractor would be valuable in making some mass graves. It took much longer than three days to unload what we brought. It was a day alone to prepare the dock. The empty tanks were taken off and then filled from the full ones in the bottom of one of the holds. This allowed the heavy equipment that was below the formerly empty tanks to be removed. Disturbing photos were taken of the piles of the dead. The Huns were searched and thrown into pits while officials made an official tally. Some of the dead were just boys but there was nothing I could do about this. They fought that way and had to die the same way too. Two dump boxes had been brought and they ran all the time carrying Huns. The dead numbered just shy of 83,000. Our own dead were numerous too. The Romans and the Persians in the city came out and helped strip the bodies. For some reason the only surviving Huns were a few children. The main body of the Huns were the noncombatants. They fled and we tried to keep them together and guide them. There was a good valley close to sixty kilometres away. Bombs were used to force them to this location without killing any. I was going to try to pen them up there until I could deal with them. The city and the army was happy to get fed. We used the camo outfits for additional warmth and soon everybody else was doing the same. Many men had to agree that the uniform helped them stay undetected. The Persians and Romans were macho and wanted to be seen and feared. We radioed Julian to ask for aid. We needed a lot more food and none would be grown until spring. Julian's ships brought food and I had to get buildings constructed to store what was brought. While I was at it I decided on building another outlet here. Julian came for a short visit. The news of our victory had shut up those wanting peace on the terms the Huns wanted. The two men received pistols and a web belt with a holster. They did not see the sniper rifle and I wanted it existence kept a secret. I had to talk about how the deck gun and both the M16 and the pistols worked. The materials I used were already known to them apart from the improved propellant and explosive charges. Sapor shared our Emperor Suite with us but then again he was family. Jurgen was the apple of his eye but Sapor tried to give some time to Eleanoor too. He thoroughly enjoyed talking to those in the Ruhr valley from where we were. He did not have to ask to get the radio of his own because I had promised him some years ago. Julian stayed in his own ship which had some very nice quarters too. I commandeered part of it and with a large table layed out the latest aerial photos of the land in this area and the fleeing Huns. This was a new development and the men loved this feature. "One day in the future, we could put a camera so far above the earth that it will not come down. A camera there will send pictures by radio to you. After you have made an assessment of the data, you can move your armies. When you have enough skilled help, the generals with you can order individual soldiers to do what you want. A device the soldier carries will allow you to see exactly what the soldier sees." Julian said, "Where is there a chance for a man to show his bravery? A Ro... a soldier needs to do this." I had been expecting this and said, "Those working with a fighting man will know and tell. I have sixty people in the air now either guarding or killing Huns. The soldiers of the future will fight on the ground too. A dozen men may attack an army. They either kill the leaders or put fear into the common soldiers. I think the men show bravery in doing this. Eventually every army will grow to fear the United Nations army." Sapor said, "Not the Persian Army?" "The UN army is made up of Persians, Romans and Germans. The two of you plus Clovis decide what the army will do. Is that not enough?" The facilities on the ship were used all the time. The galley never stopped preparing food. The showers cleaned people and there was soap enough to clean clothing too. Ten days after we arrived, the wounded men were doing quite well. Others were growing new limbs and were not as dispirited as they would normally be in this situation. Julian took flying lessons with me and Sapor had to do the same. I tried to be diplomatic but I also had lots of other duties to do. They flew with me so there was no problem with them wanting to take over. Cadets helped me and knew how to treat the men better. There were still Huns in the area. They were easy to spot from the air. Most of these were with their families so instead of bombing them we lead Sapor's men to them. There were less deaths and now we had interpreters telling them that we were just trying to capture and teach. A very large refugee camp was started. They were nomads and had to move to find food to feed themselves. I had to provide food now. The Huns I now walked among were just frightened people and worried about their future. They were stunned by their defeat but it was not the same to them. They were in a state of denial. It was another tribe that was defeated and not theirs. If it was just widows and orphans I saw then it was justified as just a war. The Huns did have some traits that I liked, they were honest among themselves and had a sense of honour. This only applied within their group though. Huns of other groups would still attack if provoked or if they saw a way of increasing their wealth. I had a latrine built but they only used to see how it worked then they went back to using the old way. The old saw about leading a horse to water was true here too. Usually it worked better if I did not need an interpreter when I was dealing with barbarians and I tried to find people that would do the leading for me. I wanted them to come from the Huns themselves. Julian then Sapor soloed on the same day and I had to release cadets to go with the planes to keep them serviced. The cadets thought it an honour but I also saw that they would not get their full education with me. The large valley full of refugees had to be fed and cared for too. They were just as much refugees as the others. In a way this was their natural state. I gave some orders to the cadets and they carried them out even if they had a great deal of misgivings. The dragon made its ponderous way to the valley. The dump wagons were clean, and now carried food. Patricia, KhAvar and I flew to meet the column when it reached its destination. Klement and an interpreter came with us so I could find out about the mages and to help the Huns. I was trying to draw a fine line here. I risked my family to show that I was not going to attack and try to save these people. There was at least half of a million people here with a relatively few men to protect or feed them. We were well armed but there was only three that way. The interpreter was an old Roman man and Klement was just a middle ranking mage. I wanted it this way because if there were more then we would have to be repelled with force. This meant needless deaths. There were some men on short horses aligned against our dragon but by then it had stopped moving forward. I circled the valley and then the warriors below before landing. There may have been a thousand or more of them. Most looked to be older men or ones that were wounded previously. Some of the Huns looked to be very wealthy and I figured that perhaps their king had survived. I tried to spot the mages near this man. We were too far away and Klement was not much help. After landing, two cadets came running with Bali and Nasim in the lead. They were happy to use my plane to fly. I wanted them above the Huns as a back up but also a way of spotting the mages. Other planes were in the air to help me in this task. The ladies and I were in gold washed armour that would glow if it were not overcast. All five of us walked towards the centre of the Hun forces. There was a silent fight as I gathered more and more power and even when I stopped walking at six metres, the struggle continued. I had been gathering the power of the Huns as soon as I could. There was some opposition so I knew that one or more mages were doing this. "I am the Hand of Woden." The interpreter was prepared and spoke in Hunnish. "You have displeased our god but he will forgive because you did not know better." The person I thought was the king brought back his spear arm and I froze him in place. Those beside him started to attack too. I had to immobilise the entire line of men. Huns felt less powerful when they were on foot. I made the animals sleepy then very sleepy. The line started to break up as the horses wanted to lay down instead of the way they usually slept. To avoid crushing, I gave the men some freedom to avoid being pinned to the ground. The men were granted enough power to stand and I had the interpreter call them to me. We turned around as if with no care and walked away from the horses. Only a fraction of the men had come. I did not feel too threatened by those that were close. I did want to see what was happening to the rest of the contingent. I picked my way through the men and both Patricia and KhAvar followed. Balimir or whoever was trying to move but his arms would not obey. I released his jaw muscles. "What have you done?" This was in Hunnish and the interpreter had to give me the Latin equivalent. "I control your body. If you had not threatened me then we could have talked." "I have heard all about you. You came to destroy my people." "I came to change your people from nomads to a people that will farm or construct cities. Nomads, like your people, want to gain nice things by robbing others. This is what has to change." "You want to kill us. We are only going to be used to feed your power." "I killed to save the city. The mages that you talked to, lie to you. They want to use you for their own gains. Tell me how many people were sacrificed so that the mages could fight?" Beside me I heard an explosion then one more half a second later. I pulled my own gun and crouched down looking for threats. Patricia and KhAvar were standing with their guns out and searching. I reluctantly stood and looked around myself. The interpreter and Klement had knives out. "What happened?" KhAvar said, "One of the men was moving his hand. He had a knife in it." "Which one?" I moved to the side and saw a man on the ground. He was fairly well dressed but a poorly dressed man behind him had fallen too. There was no room so I dragged the first man out. He had two holes in his chest. One of the holes had gone right through. That explained this man behind being shot. We looked around for more men that could move and I guessed that only mages would be able to circumvent what I had done. The other man was dead and there was nothing I could do. I asked Klement, "Can you find them?" He was very nervous and he tried while I waited to protect him from physical harm. After a few minutes he said, "There are some but they may be just people with no training." In Latin I called out so all could hear, "Come forward so you are separated from your friends." From high above I heard the large speaker on the plane say, "Two men are running away." I froze the men in front of me and then I had to run around the Huns. I had armour but I was still fast. In a few minutes I caught the first and used the old method of making him stop. He was too afraid to remain invisible. The next took much longer and those in the plane had a difficult time finding him. I heard single gunshots behind me and I had to assume that my wives were safe. The cadets had the M16s and I would hear those if there were real problems. A flash bang dropped from the plane and soon the chase was on once more. This time the man stayed invisible. I could feel him running before me and I called out. "Stop or I use a weapon that will kill." It was only a threat though it could do just that. We continued running and I used one of my own flash bangs. I at least had the benefit of armour and the man was almost on the grenade when it went off. He went flying through the air and I was on him as soon as he fell. He had a broken neck and there was nothing I could do for him. I hurried back and found the cadets and my wives guarding the Huns or rather the hidden mages in this group. They looked like very determined women with the guns in their hands. One man was on the ground away from the rest but he was still alive. He had a serious gunshot wound in his thigh. I did what I could to treat the man. Patricia said, "There are more in this group that I cannot see. They cannot seem to hide from the pilots at the same time they are hiding from us." If mages could avoid my grasp then I had a way of finding them. The well dressed men were targeted with pain. The forth one flinched and I used my sword to get him to come out and lay on the ground with his hands behind his head. A cadet came up and watched that the man did not move. I used my meagre power with Klement's to try to find people with the magic ability. We were able to pull two people out. Both of these seemed to be frozen and I had to release them. The women of the camp came charging at us with weapons. Bombs were dropped and then some napalm. None were hit but it did not stop them for long. Our friendly dragon drove toward the group and shot fire out of all the nozzles. This stopped the women cold. The dragon started toward the women and they turned and fled. The dragon now patrolled a few kilometres away to keep the women from coming near. The pain process was repeated. During the next three hours we found seven more people. Most were really frozen in place and were not that trained or powerful. I had to get the Huns to line up so that the selection could be done quickly. The mages looked similar to the Huns in facial characteristics but not the same. I guess the Huns were even less tolerant of people that did not look like them. I knew that there should be many more so a stronger pain was now used on more people at a time until one more person was found. He seemed to have a better tolerance to pain. He had been able to hide his aura but the pain reduced this ability until he was found. Our total haul was fourteen including the two dead men. Two looked to be Huns that could be trained. Starting all over again, I talked to the first man and found he really was Balimir. He had to be encouraged to talk and then he did quite willingly. Balimir talked to the interpreter about his dealings with the mages with Klement writing down the responses. At the same time the Huns were released in small groups. They used their horses to take away the food and of course the news of what was happening. Not all the Huns were uneducated and a few could speak broken Latin. These I talked to because I helped give out the food. Those that left made a very wide detour around our dragon. Some of the mages could speak Latin. They were now dressed in camo uniforms after they were photographed in the buff. The two Huns were overwhelmed even more than the Mages and I talked through the interpreter about why they had been selected. I could have said that Woden had made them this way but that was a way of bringing a supernatural being too deeply into their culture. When at some future date the man needed help in a tragedy he would not expect it from a god that knew everything all the time. A culture where a man relied on himself was much saner in my estimation. The two dead men were buried with no religious fanfare. The majority of the Huns had been set free but some were the body guards of their king. They stayed but they had to get into fatigues because they stank so much. They did not see the problems themselves. The king did not think the two men I had singled out were mages but said that I had most of them. There were seven more but they had not come because they were all children. They just may be or very old adults living in the body of a child. We set off for the Huns' main camp now and although we brought the horses, everybody walked except the wounded man. The dragon preceded us until we got close then stayed behind. A few snorts now and again made sure everybody knew that the dragon was awake. Balimir gave his orders, and his people diligently tried to apprehend the 'children'. Not all were found but I figured this would happen. I heard flash bangs going off and knew that some fleeing people were spotted. Some Huns left on horses to pick up the mages if that were possible. I got five of the seven but the Huns were now after the rest to get the reward I offered. I gave a sermon to all of the camp and I had to use the PA system that was on my plane. It did not work as well through the interpreter but it did work. I had lots of people to heal and the Huns enjoyed the benediction as well as any people did. Balimir learned that he and his people had to build a city to learn how to become more civilised. The best way to do this was to produce some salable commodity. I would help them to do this. There was a lot of iron here but I wanted to avoid this industry. Nickle was available in the far north but I needed a large infrastructure in place before I even looked to extract that metal there. Farming was the only thing I could think of. The Ukraine grew a lot of wheat and sugar beets but sugar beets had not been developed yet. A city would not be practical for farming and I could only think of making a city devoted to furthering the rail system. This location may not be good though. In hindsight I had shot my own foot. By killing off a portion of the Hunnish nation, I had left a power vacuum that would draw in other aggressors. Most of those would be other Huns but others would come too. What I did want was a canal linking one of the Don's tributaries to one of the Volga's. I did not want slave labour to do this as had been done for most other construction projects in history. Again, I could not proceed without the needed infrastructure. The infrastructure was a long way away. One of the rail lines was now near modern Poland and I needed two thousand kilometres of track to get here by a straight line. In reality I needed closer to three. We could lay a lot of track in a day on flat land but it was the bridges that took the most time. Even cutting through a hill was much shorter. To speed this up I made ferries to carry the trains over the major rivers a few cars at a time. It was not economical but I could build bridges later. The Huns had captured a lot of slaves and these were brought to me. At a rough guess I had to figure that every family had two or three. Many of them were children. The huns were better than the Romans because a child of a slave was not a slave in their eyes. That night we slept in the Hun encampment. I slept very little but tried to appear sure of myself. The next morning I found that most of my people had not slept either. Balimir was invited to come to us tomorrow with a hundred of his men so we could talk. Those men I wanted to learn a bit of Latin and the man agreed. It was a thinly veiled threat to him if he did not come. He, like most men, knew about pain. We left the camp around mid morning and after another sermon. The dragon was the last to go. It snorted a few times into the blackened earth as a reminder. The reward for the escaped mages had not been collected yet. If they had been captured then there would be some very happy Huns. It took eight hours to ride back on horseback. During that time I talked to the mages and the two Huns. I tried to be patient with them but it was difficult. The young looking ones tried to hide behind their apparent youth but it did not last too long. I was not going to have more old mages lusting after me. This time I was alone apart from my wives and Klement. There were some young people but they happened to be the Huns and one of the other mages. When we returned, I sent all of my visitors through a shower with Huang and Oppia showing them the ropes. We would all have a chat tomorrow morning. In the mean time there were some locked doors they could not pass. The two Huns and the young mage were sent with the cadets. I would try to be less severe with the young ones. The next day around noon, Balimir arrived with exactly one hundred men. Julian had left to attend to his empire and even Sapor had left to continue his work. I was polite to the king. Oddly he was responding to this and he was polite back. He saw the ship from very close and had a chance to look at our small deck gun. He knew how well this worked already. He had seen the bombs dropping from the planes but I did not show him any. Balimir was presented with photos of Toronto. There were some close ups so the man could grasp the size of the buildings. I said, "I want cities like this for you too. Some of those images showed planes flying. You too could get these. Your people would be happy to live this way and gain the freedom of the sky." "What would I have to do?" He did not sound happy. "I have ploughs that can be pulled from behind a horse or great ones that are pulled behind a machine. Farming becomes very profitable for you." He didn't seem happy at this. I said, "Do you think your people should suffer all the time? Hunting is good but is it the only thing to do besides digging in the ground with a stick to get roots?" "A man is not meant to live indoors. He becomes soft like the Romans." "I live indoors most of the time and nobody would call me soft." "I did not mean you." "I know you didn't. You are right though. Your people will become soft but soft people can kill yours very easily. They use their minds first and think then they plan. They also train how to fight but your people will be too busy digging with a stick to survive to do this." "They are still not men." "What to you is a man?" "A man fights for his family. If he is a man, his sons will grow strong. A man respects his father and his chief. A man will give to those that cannot hunt for themselves." "Those facts I agree with. Does a man and his family have to suffer? What if he finds a good land where crops grow very easily? If he stays here he will grow many sons." "They will all be soft." I asked seriously, "Did you bring some strong men with you today?" "All of them are strong." "Let us have a test. Your strong men against my soft children." "What will this prove?" "That my sons and daughters live indoors but are not weak. They make devices with their hands and trade this for food. They learn many facts and their minds are quick. If my sons and daughters can beat your men in a contest then you will have to say that my way does not make weak adults. If your men win then I will say that your men are stronger." "We have games like this once or twice a year when we gather." "Then you agree to some tests?" We sat down and made up a list of tests and how they were going to be run. I directly asked some of Balimir's men and they gave their own interpretation on how the tests should proceed. We broke to have a meal. If you thought you ever had barbarians over to eat then you would reconsider after seeing the Huns. If they had more containers then they would take more food for later. They did not like getting up and helping themselves until they saw how much they could each get. They only got one bottle of beer each and there was fights over this when they found out what it was. More tests were devised but the games of the Huns all revolved around horses and I said, "Are your men like women if they have to walk on their feet?" "We can fight on our feet too." I started to get more tests that the cadets could win at. Later in the day the cadets showed the Huns how to hang-glide. This was not a test yet just a way of showing how this was done. At the same time some of the Huns were teaching how to play a game similar to polo. The rules the huns used meant that they could foul the opposing players. I had to find some large cadets to play them and ones that were not dainty either. I did insist on helmets for everybody and I had to supply them for the Huns. We won this event by a small margin but mainly it was because of the stirrups I think. I saw the Huns looking at our saddles very carefully. The huns used their bows in the first event. Men would shoot an arrow up into the air then shoot another at a target. Both arrows would arrive at the same time. We could not do this very well and the Huns laughed. The weakest looking cadet loaded a twenty centimetre cannon with solid shot and hit a target two kilometres away. It had to be a very large target though but the Huns were impressed. They had a game like soccer and I made sure the rules were written down. The game lasted hours. The Huns were good at first and pulled ahead. They had short legs and no stamina running and the cadets surpassed them later. All the cadets were good with a bow but they could also use the rifle. Edana out shot the Huns champion even though he was given fifty rounds to practice with. We rested that night with a good meal. There were some orphaned Hun children and some stayed with us. They played with the dogs as did those that had come from the city. I fed all of them but I wanted Balimir to see that I fed others. He already knew that I fed his people yesterday but this was more direct. The Huns liked rum and whiskey but they got only a bit each. I wanted no drunken brawls. Balimir and I drank fortified wine and the man was able to not make too much of a fool of himself. The next day the Huns wanted to walk a rope. I strung one for over twenty metres and then I had to show the cadets how to do this. Some were familiar with this but only Guinevere was any good. We lost this event but I promised to win in a rematch in a year's time. We won in hang-gliding but the Huns appeared fearless. They all were very afraid but did their best to not show it. Stepping off a high wall into air is a frightening experience. My cadets could swim but the water was too cold and most of the Huns could not do this. The Huns were very good at tracking but our people were good too. The Huns won but not by much. We had a meal and I used the radio. Ships had been dispatched from the Ruhr even before we arrived at the Black Sea. Most of it was cargo that I had no time to make never mind load. As time went by, more and more supplies were added to my shopping list. This also meant that more ships had to be rerouted to supply us. Balimir was familiar with maps but the scale we were talking about was beyond him. The Ruhr to him was just too far. He showed me on my maps where his people had come from and basically it was China. Long ago there had been a war and they were forced to flee. The Chinese kept good records and I wanted to find out more when I got there. To help me do this I was learning what I hoped was Mandarin but I was not sure. Julian and Sapor sold me lumber that they had cut with the steam saws. It was a way to have money go the other way this time. They even delivered it and the boats had a much easier time crossing the Sea of Azov. We went as far as we could up the Don. There was supposed to be a large lake in this area from my old memories but the locals knew nothing of this. We just went far enough to not be a threat to Tanais but also near an exposed seam of anthracite. This was good enough. My people started to put up some simple housing. The boats went back and brought Balimir, some men and a lot of the orphans. The Mediterranean moderated the weather here but it was still very cold. Some local Huns came to us as did some other tribes but they were impressed about my ability to lock their muscles and then make them feel good. I sold iron goods in lieu of using gold, they hunted for me and brought the game to feed us. We had a few Roman and Greek neighbours too and they were happy to see us. There was lots of land and you could have all you wanted as long as you could hold onto it. Balimir was asked to watch how a building went up and then he was asked if his men were skilled enough to do the job as good. We helped them all we could without letting it seem that we were doing the building. The Huns were given the opportunity to name the city and they came up with Tai-tang. It certainly reflected their past. Ice was forming on the Don, and we tried to break it but it was a losing position. A large radio had come in and we set up a very tall antenna and secured it very carefully. There was a lot of wind here. I was able to keep track of my own business empire while I was tied up here securing this portion of Russia and the Ukraine. The girls talked to their father or uncle in Constantinople, or Ctesiphon. A large Radio had even been installed in Rome by Julian so he could lay down the law when he was not there in person. The girls did their own work too on the magazine and the work was transcribed at the other end. A transmitter was expensive and only for the governments and me. They broke down a lot and this meant that they needed constant attention from skilled help. I always worried about the cadets stagnating and I rotated them back to me so they could learn more. The Discovery had gone long ago after dropping off everything. We had been roughing it for a few months with the Huns with only a few problems. More and more of the aeroplanes had to go back to Tanais so we could do repairs and get the parts. Shipping the machines to the wilderness at this time was not a good idea. I knew we needed a good Skidoo but I only mentioned it to the cadets. I also told them not to make it until we were settled. We talked to men that traded in this section and I asked about furs. In a month I was presented with thirty six dark brown furs. They were simply beautiful but I could not understand the name of the animal. The closest I felt would be sable. I got some people to work the hides and tried to find someone that could makes suitable coats. My wives taught the Huns how to cook with our equipment. They had been used to burning peat and we had to do the same thing. Trees were a scarce commodity and the coal was hard to gather. Our stoves meant that all the smoke left through the chimney and the cooks did not have to freeze while preparing a meal. The Huns that came with us hunted too. We used spotter planes to find the animals. We fished the river we were on mostly. This was through the ice. I made large fishing huts and one cadet would teach a hut full of children something as they fished. This was not good but it was better than simply wasting all the valuable time. Near the middle of winter the coats were done and I presented them to my wives. They loved the feel of the furs and they did not stink like the rotting furs the Huns used. There was more than enough to make clothing for Eleanoor and Jurgen. They were up and walking now but still not too stable yet. The mages I had captured seemed to settle down when they knew that they would not be hurt if they spoke candidly. They also did their fair share of work. I learned more during these cold days than when it was warm. The two Hun lads did too and they were more or less accepted into the ranks of the cadets. They soloed a long time before their king did. Balimir was rewarded when he worked hard to change the way his people and society functioned. They used the latrine all the time now but it was also heated. In May of 374 my family and most of the cadets left Tai-tang, the city had a fair start. We rode on the third ship that was able to make it to us that spring. We had new engines, tractors, and a lot of farming equipment. We also had a lot of track. It was three hundred kilometres back to the mouth of the Don and I wanted the freedom to use a train even in the winter. Tanais had changed a lot in our absence. It had grown far beyond its walls. The storehouses now sold our wares at a good profit. Hang-gliders sold very well and were not that expensive. There was competition now but I was not worried about it. We sailed to Constantinople first and stayed a few weeks. An airport had been built and there were over two hundred and sixty planes using it. Most were military versions that I sold cheaply to Julian. There were a lot of civilian versions too and some were new to me. Four engine models were a lot more common and I wondered how much gold I actually made in profit. Metal boats the size of the Patricia II were new to me too. If the managers released these, there must have been a lot of monetary incentive to do so. Julian had more radios too and I was able to use one of these to find out the particulars. The ships were only half the cost of the old type of planes so this meant I only got five of my large grams of gold for each of them. Gold was not that expensive in this day and time but I had to spend the gold too or the supply would dry up. Teaching was now a well paid job and the professionals were being trained in only three years. One year was teacher's college, one was grammar school and the last was high school. Schools were built in all major cities and all along our rail lines. These schools were no different than the first ones other than a few minor improvements. The student worked to gain a trade half of a day and learned reading and math the other half. Some very rich people wanted their little darlings to be cut a lot of slack while they went to our schools. This did not happen as far as I knew. Sapor had his own air force too. There were a lot of rich Persians helping me out financially. Hang-gliding was now an international sport and I tried to regulate it but still a lot of people died. There were no calls for more safety though or lawsuits for that matter. The Discovery came in to make a delivery here. When all that was destined for here was unloaded, it picked up our cargo and we went to Berytus. KhAvar was glad to be home again. While the ship dropped off the cargo, we enjoyed the city. It was so much better than on the steppes but even there it was beautiful in its way. Sapor had constructed a rail line from this city to the steel plant that was currently being constructed. We made a large procession now. I kept the mages close but a few I began to trust more. They could go off to do what had to be done and they returned. At least the books on magic were being done much quicker. They were not for public dispersions but for me alone. I was still not happy with the mages because a lot of slaves had died so the mages would gain power. By their ethic, they had done nothing wrong. I had to trust them or control them and as yet many had to be just controlled. We stayed long enough to straighten a few problems. We had growing pains again and I wanted my business here to take advantage of the rail line to the interior. When the train pulled in we found our friends on it but Sapor was busy. This time I believed him. We stayed in Berytus only a few days then left on the train. The basic cars were the same but Sapor liked his creature comforts and it showed in what was around us. There were still lots of topics to talk about. KhAvar had talked to her mother over the radio then in Berytus but they didn't shut up even on the long train ride. I didn't mind and I just lay back and relaxed with my family around me. When the train stopped, it was only to refuel and take on water. I stretched my legs and looked at the lush green foliage that many people never knew existed. We slept through the night as the train continued on. The next morning, we stopped at the steel mill. It was bigger than any I had made on the Rhur and we were growing in stages. The next one may be larger again. A good deal of the steel we made on the Rhur came here. The last portion of the trip could only come by train or boat but the boats had to be small. Our parts were very large so the train got the vast majority. A house was prepared for us and the girls got people a place to call their own when they were here. We met the servants that Sapor had provided and I too felt at home. I went off to work while the girls worked on their own projects including setting up a school and continuing with the magazine. It took only a week to get the small wrinkles I found ironed out. There were some very talented people here that had worked on the Rhine and the Ruhr with me. They had moved up the corporate ladder and wanted to stay on top. This meant hard work. Some very massive parts had been delivered and I found that they had been on the Discovery when we had come here. Some were very large rail cars. These were used to carry the heavy rolls that we needed to produce sheet metal and plate. An additional engine had been delivered too and now two of them worked to go faster and to pull more. They still had a long way to go to match what I knew existed even in the 1800s. The track was doubled to the open pit coal mine. Trains here could go both ways without slowing down much. I wanted the coking ovens to be near the steel mill to take advantage of the flammable gases given off. The colliery was large and getting larger. Overburden was removed with steam shovels and more trains. When we wanted the coal we did not want to have to be slowed down. Coal went to all of our schools but not necessarily to heat. There were a lot of fossils in it that taught just how old our planet really was, or at least older than what was believed previously. Science and engineering had to be stressed a lot for the next few centuries. There was a lot of limestone removed from other locations. This had fossils in it too. They were common on the railway lines of my time and now too. I saw an additional use to put it to. There would be room on the trains to carry rock now and I wanted it shipped to the steel mill for a building project. At both sites there were people looking to get some work. I hired some at the mine site and got them cutting the rock into rectangular shapes. More would be hired at the mill to do the same job with the rough rock that arrived. This area had been given to me by Sapor and I really had no problems with neighbours. A large city had to be built and this had been started as the mill was constructed. It was upwind of the mill and tracks were already in place. Here streetcars would bring the workers to their jobs. The rail system was far from complete though. After studying the map I picked an area. The tractor-cum-bulldozer, had work to do but it was not that important so I changed the tasks. I had a pit dug three metres deep in places and well over a hectare in area. The removed soil would be placed around the pit to make the depth up to four metres. It was going to serve as a reservoir. Water would be pumped uphill to it and then other pumps could take the water and use it to cool and for other purposes in the mill. This could be done by making a large water tank as I had done on the Ruhr but I wanted something the city could use. They were going to get a swimming pool. Cut stone blocks would make the bottom and sides. When the cement plant was completed, the bottom would be covered with this material. Now we would use clay. It was going to be a simple if large affair when I started but I saw islands in the pool then diving boards at various levels and then a long water slide. Wading pools had to be added and then change rooms and a lot else had to be done. I had to go back to the map and set aside land to build a sports complex. This was a good job for the cadets. I contented myself with drawing the details I wanted. AsA, Mehrnoosh and HidA stayed with us and I enjoyed this arrangement. The mages were here too and I gave my in-laws, whether real or not the job of milking the mages for all the information they had. The whole group though was given the job of designing the entire sports complex around the pool. When I could, I worked with the mages to hone my skill. My hope was that AsA, Mehrnoosh or HidA would provide some insight into why I was not learning so fast. I got the usual about fate but I did not accept that. AsA tried some spells of her own on me but all I got was a headache. HidA had a more delicate touch and spent her time trying to understand what she obviously saw. She could not describe this to me because it was subjective to her alone. There had to be a lot more information about magic. The library at Alexandra was the most famous. The city vied with Constatinople and Antioch, before it was destroyed, in importance. Not only was the tidal wave going to hit the city still but the library or libraries were going to be destroyed. I contacted Julian and Sapor on this and prepared another expedition to see what I could learn and save. My hope was to photograph each and every page or portion of a scroll for posterity. Many more cameras had to be made and some irate librarians taken in hand so I could see the books. Librarians in my time were usually meek but each book were very important now and had to be protected. The cement plant was going to be built very near the copula but there was little I could do now. The petrochemical plant had to go somewhere but I wanted it near some oil and gas. Drilling rigs were brought here but as yet we had not found enough fuels. The rigs were small and more suitable to making water wells or taking core samples. The drilling rigs from my time were drawn up but as yet not built. I only knew the rough idea how they worked and the details would only come clear as we used one of the units. Most of my work now was designing a better chemical plant. Some of the fine details had not been put into the plant on the Rhine delta. I made drawings of what I wanted and made sure there was adequate room so they could be serviced. Once the plans were made, the plant could be built in pieces and assembled anywhere. Fertiliser and explosives were the main products but I had to add plastics too. We made some plastic parts but not what I really needed. Fuel would be produced but I wanted to use the oil from hemp to serve this need. Petroleum this way would be available for a thousand years if we did this right. The price of hemp had started to drop. I was by far the greatest producer and buyer too. I guess it was time to start a paper plant. I had visited one when I was young but had to work with what I had learned by making my own paper. I would start bigger than the last plant and make improvements that would be built into the next. The cadets had worked with different glass formulations and found one that expanded at the same rate as the metal electrodes in electronic tubes. There would be no leaks this way. Tubes would last longer. Another group found a better way of handling the audio component of the wave we transmitted. The information was transmitted by words and in a week the radio worked better than before. Our steam shovel used cables and powered capstan to make it work. This was good and still existed in my day because the largest pieces of equipment. I wanted a totally hydraulic system would have less moving parts because the smaller units. A back hoe was made but I did not think it would work on any of the existing units. Improvements were made all the time. In some cases they could be retrofitted. A wide chain belt with bogies and two toothed capstans would keep the wheels from sinking into the ground. The belt would work great but I did not have the right alloys yet to made the links and pins last. This would mean a lot of maintenance but it was unavoidable. A similar arrangements but with a rubber belt would propel a truck or car across the snow or ice. My recent winter in Russia reminded me of how restricted we were in travel. Again, I just drew pictures of the completed unit then the small details as I remembered them. It was all sent off so that somebody could make the two kinds of track and then see how to improve it when it was used. Most of my ideas had already been written down but not necessarily released. Taking a giant sized step may be good in some things but poor practice in others. We learned better in small increments. The first pool had been dug and the stones were just starting to be place into position. I left the task of construction to AsA while we went to Alexandria. The mages would stay here as a test of their intentions. They were treated well, had money, some power and a lot of responsibilities. I knew what I would have to do if they failed. We made the return trip to Berytus in less time with just the new engine. It not only was much larger, but it had more drive wheels to support the weight. I knew that there were a great many more improvements to be made. Diesel engines could replace these engines when they became more dependable. I didn't want them to. There was a lot of biomass to burn instead of fossil fuels. When we were set up right there would be no problem with burning wood or compressed leaves and the small stems from the hemp plant. Mithridates had even been saving the remnants from the sugarcane. I leached out the final sweetness and made alcohol with it but the plant material would burn very well after it was dried in the sun. Only a few of the cadets I met in Berytus were familiar to me. There were simply too many of them and they all appeared eager to learn. Peer pressure ensured that they did not act like some of the lackadaisical students of my day. One of the Endeavour ships was here to transport us. We picked up a lot of sugar too so the trip would be profitable. The trip was only three hundred kilometres but we made two stops to drop off supplies of sugar and pick up some of the raw sugarcane to be processed later. One of my new grams of white gold still cost a lot. It had come down in price considerably and I hoped to make my profit by selling more of this product to the numerically greater but less affluent people. Rum sold very well but as yet, nobody was able to make a similar product. The harbour in Alexandria had one of the seven wonders of the ancient world even though it was not ancient to me now. It was the giant lighthouse that burned wood at night to guide mariners and used a mirror that reflected the light of the sun during the day to lead sailors to a safe harbour. Like all tourists we took many pictures of it from various perspectives. The negatives would probably be processed tonight and the photo enlarged positives saved until they arrived in the Ruhr site. It was not as good as the corner drugstore but that is where I wanted them stored. We could process some here but that was just to test quality control. Coming into the harbour meant more pictures and I managed to get a few more of my wives and children into the shots. I heard but did not see two aeroplanes in the distance and I was sure that a city as rich as this one would also have the new ships too. They were used as yachts and not to trade. Alexandria was a great city. Emperors had chosen to live here and so there were many beautiful statues and buildings. Though I really liked Constantinople, I liked Alexandria more. In the last few years I had found out that the great library was in fact many libraries. The governor of this province was in residence here and greeted me at the dock. We shook hands the way I liked and the man seemed a nice enough person. He said, "I was told that you want to look at every book we have and then take a picture of each and every page. I have heard about your 'cameras'. Why do you call them rooms?" "They are a hollow box, much like a room. Actually somebody a long time in the future called them rooms and I am just using the terms he used." "Will he invent them still?" "No. The man will know about 'photographs' by that time. He may invent something else but by then he will have to work with others to do that." "We must talk later about this. I have taken the liberty of setting aside some rooms for you in my home. Will that be all right with you?" "I keep irregular hours and in the past, I have found that if I stay in one man's home then I am obligated to spend a considerable amount of time with him. I am being frank about this so there is no misunderstandings. You would not want to have a rich merchant come to your home and monopolise your time in entertaining him." "I see your position and I will not make any demands upon you." "Then I would be honoured to live in your home for a period of time." We were shown into a very luxurious home. There was room for all but they would be cramped. If possible I would get the groups to live and work out of the libraries themselves or on the ship. The governor casually asked, "My lord, I heard that you are coming out with a new model aircraft." "I have heard that too. The truth of the matter is that I drew up a great many plans and gave them to the cadets. They work through them a bit at a time until they understand more about the machines they are building. I talk to the various installations but I do not have the time to find out exactly what is being done." "The reason I asked is because I heard that you are moving to a wood and metal body instead of cloth." "Are you worried about a decline in the amount of cotton sold?" "Only a bit." "The cotton will be glued to wood to give it added strength. This will not last too long though. The hang-gliders though will remain cotton for quite a while." "What I was actually wondering about was the cost of purchasing some of your larger aircraft. I have heard that a man could go over three hundred miles or a lot more of your kilometres without touching the ground." "Three hundred miles is not much in the future. One small aeroplane in the future will go completely around the world." "How does it do this?" "A very small and efficient engine, a very light airframe and the fact that the plane is more of a glider. The pilot uses the thermals to gain altitude. He can glide forward thirty times more than he falls." "That is amazing." "You were wondering about the cost of the plane we are making. First of all not all planes are safe. They have to be adjusted in many ways before they can be sold." "I would take one anyway." "Julian may then have to find a new governor." The man looked very worried. I continued, "New planes kill their pilots. If you got one you may die only because the wings were too far forward or too far back. It is better to have them to be tested. Even then pilots die much too often." "I have heard that our Augustus flies whenever he can." "I do too but it is still too dangerous." "All men have to die someday." "Putting that day off as long as possible means that you get to enjoy more of your life." There was a state dinner that night. I was the only one with a sword but they all knew I had my reasons. The city's most affluent came to dine with us but seven last minute additions of librarians may assist me in getting the best help possible. The meal was a thinly disguised business affair. The wealthy wanted to get more affluent. I shifted the conversation over to universal education and then got Patricia and KhAvar to speak on how the wealthy in this room could help. This topic had been in our magazine a few times and the women explained how an educated employee was more productive. They gave some figures to show how long it took to pay the patron back in profits. The crowd did not like this topic and it was shifted to the old standby; chariot racing. When this subject was flogged to death I started to ask the librarians about their duties. The subject was boring to the other guests but not me. I went into my version of the Dewey System. I did not have ten categories but instead used letters from the alphabet. For good measure I discussed bar codes that a machine would read some day. This got into computers and how books could be kept electronically along with colour pictures. This carried on to the internet and telephones. Again the wealthy tried to find how they could use this information to make a measly aureus or two. ------- Chapter 13 The next day we had a tour of Alexandria. Photos were taken of the buildings and the people. Some cadets were given permission to climb the famous lighthouse and take pictures from the tallest building on earth at this time. The libraries themselves were photographed and I had the librarians standing in front with their employees or slaves. Tomorrow they would get some of the prints to treasure. I hoped this would also get us help when we needed it. I slipped a gratuity to each of the librarians and they helped us list the titles of all the books they had. There were already a lists of such documents and we found where various copies of book were. The copies were compared and the best preserved ones were photographed. The cadets worked in teams. A given book was photographed by two different cameras. Photography at this time was poor and we needed lots of light. We brought out own arc lights and used mirrors to put the illumination where we wanted it and to extend the time we could use to photograph. Some books were quite lengthy. One on Zarathushtra was over a million lines in length. When the project was well along, my family and I went around photographing the interior of buildings and some lesser known statuary. We went to the famous schools in the city and listened to a few of the lecturers. Women were not usually here but the lecturers were happy to make an exception in our case. I was asked to talk about education. I spoke a few words and introduced KhAvar who then carried the ball for me. The students had to learn that women are very capable too. Education to the students meant a classical education. I did not study the Greek or Roman philosophers but physics, chemistry, electronics, mechanics and much more mathematics than these boys now knew. KhAvar talked to a few of the students about their level of training in math and then she began to talk about statistics used in predicting trends. This was foretelling the future in a way and the students listened avidly. Patricia talked later and gave a lesson in algebra. Our number system had been adopted by only a few lecturers but not all. She bluntly said that the old system was good to count sheep but not anything complicated. She got a chuckle from the class and a glower from the lecturer. She went on to describe how aeronautics needed mathematics. This example was used to show that Roman numerals simply would not work. When I regained the podium, I said, "My mind was sent to the far future. Roman numerals are used to number pages in the index of a book or on the face of some clocks but little else. You came here to be educated but by now you must know that a full education is going to be difficult to get. Philosophy is good but you need physics too. There is so much to learn that in the future it takes thousands of men to understand the parts of just one subject. They learn to such a depth that it is impossible to have one man know everything about any given subject. Those men had to specialise." The students didn't ask questions so KhAvar said, "Tell them about what it takes to make your planes." I smiled at her and silently thanked her. "One facet of engineering is to construct aeroplanes. This is just the frame of the plane we are talking about. Another man may work his entire lifetime studying and making the engines. Another man will try to make metal that is very strong but light. Still another will make the instruments that will one day go in a plane. "The first instrument is the radio. The radio will become more and more complicated as it does its job better and better. All this was just an example because many more engineers are needed to build other parts. "The world is changing rapidly now. Your attitude on work will certainly change. If you are to feed your family, you will have to know something valuable in addition to philosophy. "The education you are now getting is good too but I am just saying that you need more subjects to get a well rounded education." Now the questions came and I answered them honestly. I could tell that some of the young men were very intelligent and very articulate too. Each of the basic subjects I had mentioned earlier was expanded and then I went into the small parts of each. All of the audience was lost so I did not pursue this very far, just enough to show that they had much more to learn. One young man said, "How can we learn what you are talking about?" "You have started to learn in this school. When you have completed this you could apply to become a cadet. Not all of you are very young. You are taught half a day and work the other half. Your education here will be of benefit. Then you could teach what you know to others. Your education will never end. You will start to bring inventions into the world that have never been seen before." That night I got seventeen long letters from some of the earnest students telling me how they could assist me in whatever I wanted done. I simply arranged interview times where the cadets could tell them how it was to work with me on my projects. We were going through a prodigious amount of film. There were 650,000 different books. Some were plays, art, religion, philosophy, medical thesis, and every other topic imaginable. Most books were short but the average was estimated to be around twenty seven pages. Our film was fifty millimetres in size because of our poor quality and came on a roll of fifty possible images. The first image had to be an image of a sheet of paper telling what was on the rest of the roll. There was other overhead especially when there was artwork. With pictures of each page on two different cameras, the total number of exposures were over thirty five million. One man would take well over ten years to complete this task. Seven teams even with help to gather the books would cut the job down to about a year and a half. I was not shocked at the time but I had only estimated this to last a year. I got on the radio to the office in Constantinople and ordered more cameras and a sooner date for delivery of the film. Patricia and KhAvar went up the Nile with me and we took the railway over to the Red Sea. The line was underutilised because Sapor wanted the price kept high. He had the majority of the trade with the east now and wanted to keep it that way. He also knew that I planned on trading too. The road beside the tracks was used much more. We stayed in Alexandria only another two weeks. There already was a sales outlet here. I knew about the tidal wave that would come and constructed a strong walls around the property. It was in the far south and I hoped that the wave would diminish by the time it got there. I had told the inhabitants about what was going to happen. My inability to remember just when made the job of warning the people difficult. They either planned on fleeing or were indifferent to their fate. A higher break wall was planned but money was hard to find in the city budget. The number of cadets doing the photography doubled. They were left with the job of getting the images. A lot of students served as part time cadets while some of the cadets took part in a classical education. This way the educators would not be as angry at me and I would give them an opportunity to adapt. The Discovery picked us up in Constantinople later. Julian had started the dry dock we needed at the mouth of the Ruhr. We talked about the ship he would need though we had gone over this ground untold numbers of times before. He wanted one like the Discovery but with a longer flight deck. I showed him what a modern carrier looked like and he wanted something like this. He was not going to use this military ship for trade. Sapor could easily get worried about the Romans having a ship like this so the dry dock was enlarged and a similar one started. They were war ships even without large guns. There was nobody to fight except pirates and they were few and far between now. A UN navy was a good idea but men like to test themselves and there was no worthy enemy except each other. I got the two men to agree that Julian would protect the Mediterranean while Sapor protected us from the Indian Ocean. A further stipulation was that neither of the ships were to have just one nationality in the command structure. Patricia and KhAvar had daughters that year and I planned to have only one more set of children. The mothers were happy to go on having children until old age if it pleased me. Nothing major was invented but everything worked a bit better as cadets experimented on everything imaginable. Aeroplanes got larger and the engines grew in power. We had a plane that would land on water and had eight engines. A wheeled version needed some long runways to land and take off. It did not fly well but they would get better as we experimented more. Balimir was doing well as a farmer. He radioed me that his scouts reported a very large band of people moving his way. He feared that he was going to be attacked Julian had a thousand men there in five days. The nomads attacked a supposedly innocent Roman fort on the Russian steppe and they were suddenly bombarded by cannon fire and then bombs from the air. We saved enough people to set up another city north east of the one Balimir had. They could farm, help with the railway or go into manufacturing. Balimir was now more than a king. He was a regional manager for the Hand of Woden and he was reasonably happy in this position. He had his own plane now which made all the difference. A magazine came out with photographs of partially clothed women. Lazeez had found a way of transferring the image on a negative to a sheet of paper that was not photo paper. I had to get him to tell us how it was done so we could do the same thing. The stories Lazeez wrote were put in amongst the pictures as well as those of other writers. He knew that I was going to bitch, so he put in the same kind of information that I had in a magazine. His slant was to health and pleasing the ladies. Conception was covered in depth as well as how to take care of babies not babes. The work a mother had to do was put in print so that the consequences of mating were understood. I caught a lot of shit over the magazine but I denied owning it or even approving it. The magazines sold very well I hear and there were seven reprints before he went onto the second volume. In another year, Lazeez started a mansion the equal of mine along with a large pool, yacht and three large aircraft. He eventually had twelve children that he adored. Cadets were rotated constantly but I always kept my eyes out for mages among them. I had found a few people with the ability that did not know it themselves. The academy split into eleven schools so far. They still went to every academy to gain more training. The schools competed like universities at my time and the students went all out in sports or into seeing which school could perfect something and gain fame. Universal education was still not complete but a good portion of the population of the children were enrolled. I paid most of this but Sapor and Julian were now contributing too. In 380, the calenders all over the three empires changed to the year 23. I had been in this time that many years plus a little bit. I still looked very young and kept myself that way. With a little bit of tweaking my wives were the same way. The steel mill in Syria was very productive. We found oil and gas only a few hundred kilometres away and built a chemical plant near the site. We made nitrates but the phosphates only came from Germania so far. A new rage was going through the combined empires. Greenhouses were built where the temperature and the humidity regulated. We had lots of food now but it was just a fad that I hoped would never peter-out. Sapor and Julian made another deal. A shipyard was started in Berytus and two destroyers were started. One for each boy. The guns though used black powder. I encouraged Clovis to go much further east and take over what was Russia in my time. He liked this better because he could still fight and test both himself and his men. He took over the work of building the rail line going in that direction. Train loads of equipment, track and partially constructed bridges went east. They came back with whatever was plentiful. Sometimes it was timber, minerals or his men on leave. The Germanic warriors were in great demand. They were paid well and were shown respect. Clovis had turned them into model soldiers from my time. When they were back in their homeland, their training and esprit de corps continued. Clovis was the father of the Germania soon and this changed Clovis until he had to fit the image. The day of the berserker barbarian from Germania may be coming to an end. We made a newspaper but it was more like a magazine to protect the paper. Local presses added sheets of paper that were of local interest while important events were transmitted by the radio to go into print everywhere. Sapor talked to the world at large from a comfortable pillow and his voice was carried all over Europe, the Middle East and a portion of western Wodensland. This was the name Clovis used for this portion of Asia. Julian broadcast the same way when his turn came. Clovis was so far away that his voice had to be transcribed and a local man would speak his words. He was just too far away for the words to be clear. Patricia and KhAvar had a radio show each. There were interviews as well as commentary and live music, the only kind we had. Crystal radios were sold at cost and millions of units were made each year. Plays were put on that had some moral aspect. They wanted me to talk of Woden on the radio and I refused. The temples and the sermons had to be enough. Religious radio or television shows still bothered me. I remembered the few hours I had free in my youth. This was usually Sunday morning. All that was available on television was religious programming. Patricia finally gave me a son but so did KhAvar and I promised myself that this was enough. My passion now was magic. My strength in magic grew each year but I was not that strong yet. I could find somebody that had the gift of magic much easier. Those influenced by magic were more difficult to find. Security saved me three times from one kind of attack or another. Once it was actually another bomb but a trained dog found it first. They tried to kill Sapor twice and Julian three times. Both leaders had mages at this time and kept them near. Clovis was at the head of the rail line now just south of the Ural Mountains in what was Kazakhstan. He was warned but he was just too far out in the boondocks to be a suitable target. Clovis had a very large army and air force now. He did not kill all his enemies but absorbed them like the Chinese did. Who could argue with a man that flew the skies and paid people for their labour. His plans were to push the rail line through Siberia and towards the straight that separated this continent from North America. He said, "I may not make it but my sons will carry on." He had lots of them now. I only pointed the way and he was happy to put down track. Astrid was still giving him children though her body would cause her to stop soon. Trains now ran over a hundred and eighty kilometres an hour. That was because the track was well laid and not only straight but level for the most part. We had made a lot of bridges and learned a lot from building them. We had an ambitious project in bridging east and west. We were building a suspension bridge that would span the Bosporus. The area had many earthquakes and many were severe. Concrete had to be used but only in sections. The rest had to be made of steel rods and steel cable. These were able to flex. New roads were constructed near all the tracks. The natural pitch in Palestine was heated and pumped to the coast to go into storage. It was processed to make a good asphalt binder while awaiting pickup. A tanker took this all over the empire. Slaves did not dig the roads but freemen that wanted to feel the power of the machines they controlled. I put up cities like Toronto in three other locations. They all featured high-rises with elevators. The buildings were all linked with bridges to adjacent buildings. Shopping, recreation and schools were all close. Work was far enough away to keep the noise and dirt to a minimum. Streetcars took the people where they had to go. The pollution control plant sold fertiliser and natural gas but could not do it at a profit. Hydro to power the cities was usually supplied by nearby rivers. This meant we had to build locks to go with the dams. We built large because electrical consumption would only grow. We were planning on a working vacation well in advance of actually going. Our ship was the Discovery and it was filled with trading goods. Sapor and my people had made acquittances in India and China. We were now going to make deliveries and get paid in commodities other than gold. We were not going alone either. The UN loaned me a Destroyer and Sapor told me not to scratch it. He had pretty much stayed close to home and had only taken the ship to the Indian continent a few times. He helped some of the people there with pirates. Julian loaned me his new carrier for a shakedown cruise. It was an extended version of the Discovery with a much longer flight deck. Guns were in pods outside the hull and an electric launching system and a restraining cable were put in. An elevator brought planes with folded wings from the hold. It was a hundred metres longer than the Discovery and aprons extended both fore and aft to increase the length of the flight deck even more. In the spring of 24, we were ready to go. The children were happy to go too. School was going to go with them in this case but I knew they would get bored on the long cruise. More of the mages were given freedom but not all of them. I still had to learn and the ones I kept were ones I considered amoral no matter what act they tried to put on. There were a lot of photographs of our departure and they would find their way into our magazine and the local news magazine too. It was uneventful but nice sailing around Hispania, we bypassed the Pillars of Hercules and then viewed the African coast. I had been this way before. Clovis had heard of the Azores and the Canary islands. He was in the fishing stage at the time and claimed the islands so they could be used to process the fish in the area. I told him about the military bases and airports that would come in handy in later years. The UN was given the right for a naval and an air base when they chose to exercise the options. We made stops along the way but always we had to do so with a small ship going in first. Coming close with even the small destroyer was too frightening even if they did not understand what a cannon was. We traded as we went. Local spices and fresh food was all we could expect. There was local gold and that usually went toward my iron goods. Swords and armour were not for sale at any price. Europe in my time sold weapons to the Africans and the Africans were so busy killing each other that the Europeans had no problem taking any land they wanted from them. We transmitted information about our trip every day. KhAvar and Patricia could continue with their radio shows but the reception was not as good as they wanted. Protegees now carried my wives words to the world. In the area near what had been South Africa, I pointed out where I wanted to expand myself. The area was rich enough to support trading and this way I could start another academy and school system. After rounding the southern tip of Africa we went northeast. Madagascar had not been found by Europeans yet. I had told Sapor about the large island but it was not rich so he was not interested. We took our time and explored the coast. There were some extensive deposits of guano. I analysed them and found them very high in phosphorus. We stayed long enough to let the locals get up the nerve to come and trade with us. Minerals were always welcome as a trade commodity. One of them was high in chrome. We went to check out the area where it was found but it was too rough to get the drilling equipment into this remote location. Chrome was also found in Kazakhstan and the deposit was quite large. A few weeks later we visited the Arabian Peninsula. This was my property now but ruled over by Sapor. I had been given it to help him but as yet I had only visited the northern portion. Sapor had a base at the southern end and we stopped there to get refuelled and a chance to use the much taller antenna in our broadcasts. Julian and Sapor came to see us. It was a short trip for both of them. The trip down the Red sea was done in the other aircraft carrier. The children attacked their grandfather or granduncle when they came aboard. We had some new fruit for them to taste and the girls showed them the pictures we had taken. Sapor said after he was released by his captureres, "Samudragupta's son Ramagupta was just killed by the Scythians. Those people are called the Saka over there but they are still the Scythians." "Who do you think will be the next ruler?" "Probably Samudragupta's other son Chandragupta. He is named after his grandfather." This put a big damper on my plans. I wanted to start some friendly relations with India and this was the aim of our trip. We needed a ruler that controlled some of the sub continent. I knew some information about India from my previous life but it was not much. India had some wonderful ideas about getting along with each other but also had a very rigid caste system and more foolish beliefs in religion. Buddhism had started there a long time ago and so was an early form of Hinduism. Some times the two religions clashed but mostly they coexisted fairly peacefully. I asked, "Tell me what you know about him?" Sapor brought out a map of India and pointed to the area on the North of the country and on its west coast. I knew that at one time this was called Bombay by the English but I had no idea what it was called now. "Ramagupta was killed here. A new ruler would have to deal with those that killed his brother. I'm sure you'll find him near or preparing to get revenge. "Chandragupta, from my reports is like his grandfather. He's a good leader and likes to push his neighbours." I said, "Like a Persian I know?" I was given that look and he continued, "Yes. They had part of this coast until recently. I sent an ultimatum then destroyed the walls of one city. The Indians capitulated. I wanted the spices and I did not want to antagonise Samudragupta so I let the Indians stay but under my rule." "What did Samudragupta do?" "I went to India and gave him a demonstration of the guns on some old buildings then some pirates. Since then we were not friends but we were not enemies. He wanted me to sell him the guns so he could take on the Scythians. I thought this might come under the idea of your UN. He wanted to push the Scythians back. Your father is dealing with the Scythians now and I worry if he can do this all alone. "The Scythians look like they have a lot of Germanic blood. From what I hear, they are as bad as the Huns." "They are. You said that in a hundred or more years, the Huns will push all these people out of the way, invade India and take over the northern section. I sent word to Samudragupta about this but I heard that he thinks me a fool to even think that. He figures his army can beat anybody that attacks him on his home ground." I said, "We may have changed those events by what we have already done. I am sure that there are a lot more nomads in Wodensland ready to take whatever they can get." "I am sure of this too." "What if I get asked to help fight the Scythians? I may set policy through my businesses but this will be war. The warships with me are not my property but the UN's." "The destroyer is mine but I guess you're right." Julian said, "We need a strong partner to deal with. I do not know how long the Guptas will stay in power but they appear to be honourable. They are also in power now. If they fail then we have to wait until the next ruler comes along to consolidate before he can talk to us." I said, "You are saying that I should prop the Guptas up if they need it?" "I think so." Sapor nodded too. The two captains were informed of this development and they were given written orders to fight as I directed them. This was my way of documenting orders because that would have to be the way it had to be done. The captains were already going to fight to protect me but now we may go on the offensive. An emperor's word was usually enough but this time a document was made up and signed by both men. It would give the Gupta king a form of assurance. We were going into a possible war zone but I felt better about it this time. A lot of small improvements had been made that would keep the ship safe during an enemy encounter. We followed the Persian coast that until recently had been part of the Gupta empire. Sapor was very diplomatic in this. The Indians had been left pretty much alone. I was quite sure that by now many of these people owned equipment that I had made. I was also very sure that some of those pieces of equipment or weapons found their way back to India. We passed the western edge of the Himalayas and then saw the edge of a great plain. Man had lived here for a very long time. It was the birth place of Jainism, Buddhism and Brahmanism and religions that may not come now. I had studied all three and others in university. Jainism was still practised along side Buddhism in my time. Brahmanism was an early form of Hinduism and that is what was practised at this time. The plain though was very wide and stretched across the northern portion of India. The land was very fertile because of the silt that was washed down from the Himalayas. I also knew that it was rich in copper, iron and chrome. There were substantial coal deposits. These were also the people that made the Damascus blade that was so hard and strong. It was not the best now because some of my swords were superior. The first major river we passed was the Indus. Even children in Canada learned about this important river and the people that lived near it. It was a true cradle of civilisation. We pulled into the ports along the way. Until recently they were part of the Kushan Empire that had the same roots as Sapor and his ruling family. Thirty seven governors were appointed from among the Scythians to rule some areas. They were called satraps. When the Kushan Empire fell apart, the governors considered themselves kings but kept the old names. The Guptas were in the process of evicting these people from the area and taking over. I would think that Sapor would support the satraps because they were Zoroastrian as he was at one time. Then again I would support the Scythians because of their common ancestry to Clovis. Clovis was fighting the Scythians or their near-brothers. Sapor had described the Guptas and they too may have been a branch of the Scythians. I wanted a strong and just ruler but I did not think the caste system was just. Jainism came about as a way of fighting the Brahmanism conception of castes. The Romans, Persians and the Germans had castes too but they were not the same. At the moment the boundaries were starting to dissolve as people accepted the tenets of Wodenism. People everywhere had strong beliefs at this time. Religions grew as priests or holy men pushed one idea over another. Religions evolved. A Christian of the future could not understand what Christianity was like now. The leaders had shaped the religion to knock off the hard edges. Brahmanism or Hinduism did not have all the hard edges knocked off. It was not founded on dogma that an authority said was true, but a philosophy or a way of life. There were a great many contradictions and many factions. Most though believed in polytheism in one form or another. A small boat, much like the original Patricia, was lowered over the side. My wives and children stayed on the Discovery while three members from each of the three major powers came with me as guards. The wind was in the wrong direction so the sail stayed furled. The engine was a small diesel and not the usual steam engine. It had much more power than the old one and a greater speed. The fuel was from the hemp seed though. We entered the large bay where the Indus emptied into the Arabian Sea. There was a city on the northern shore. We had learned this from our people that had come here previously. The sail was put up before people could see us and we tacked into port. We tied up as six soldiers arrived. A customs official was leading them. The man called out, "Who are you?" I did not understand the language very well. It was in his language but one of our men spoke it better than I did and answered, "Someone to see the satrap as soon as possible." "Nobody sees the satrap." I figured he was looking to get a bribe in addition to his usual pay. I spoke now in Latin, then Pahlavi and finally German, "He will be happy to see me." The man did not seem to understand any of these languages. I tried Mandarin and I got the same result. My interpreter had to talk now. He said that I was an ambassador. "An ambassador from what land?" "Rome, Persia and Germania." "Nobody is from that many lands." "Let your satrap decide that. Go tell him that you kept an ambassador here instead of taking him to see your king as soon as we arrived." The man was now unsure and I took advantage of this by climbing onto the dock. I wore a partial set of armour under my shirt, my two swords, a k-bar and two thirteen millimetre automatic pistols that looked like a hybrid between a Glock and one of the Czech machine pistols. It appeared to be a sub machine gun but the size of the bullets made it a true machine gun. It was the same caliber as my sniper rifle but the cases were shorter. This did not mean that the shells were small. I was very strong if not the strongest person alive and it pushed me back when the pistol fired. Sometimes I felt like Arnold firing the mini into the cop cars below when I was shooting. I walked forward with a determined look on my face and the hardened soldiers gave way then quickly followed. I heard my men leaving the boat and there would only be six accompanying me. Three would stay and protect the craft. The customs inspector hurried up and got in front of me. He rattled off his words and the interpreter said, "He says you cannot do this." "Tell him who I am." "At once, my lord." The customs man's mouth fell open. He did not speak for a half minute then he bowed low and chattered again before hurrying off to the gates of the city. We had no problem with the guards at the gate and two of the guards even left to run ahead and warn the satrap. We walked down the middle of the street. Shit was everywhere but this was common. The people may be similar in attitude to the Huns but they had started a civilisation that was the equal of the Frisians. I reached out and gathered the power of the people but did nothing with it. It was just good to have when I needed it. Eventually we came to a large stone building that was built in the Greek style. Three guards were out front and two more came running to join them. A well dressed man came next and when we got near he bowed low and then stood up. "Good day, my lord. We have heard word that you are the Hand of Woden. Is this true?" "Good day to you too. You are correct. I came to see the satrap." "My lord, Vesha, will be back shortly. Would you be so kind as to accept his hospitality until he arrives?" "How long until your lord arrives?" "Perhaps a few hours but no longer." "That will be alright. Send a messenger to tell your lord that my ships are coming into the harbour soon. They are here as a way of telling people that I represent Julian, Sapor and Clovis." "The ship with the aeroplanes." "Two are like that." The man was even more polite and ushered us into a large room with Greek style couches. My men stood around the room. They wore light but very good steel armour, an exceptional sword and knife but also a M16 on their shoulder. Almost immediately some young and scantily clad women came in with trays of delicacies and some jugs of wine. Some of the wine was poured into a gold cup and the woman bowed low and stayed in place to await my commands. The three other girls soon came over and did the same thing. "Girls, get up. I do not like this kind of bowing." The girls looked at me and the interpreter had to tell them. I sniffed the wine and could not find much wrong with it other than a trace of lead to make the taste sweeter. I put the cup to my lips but drank none of the wine. I did sample the fruit and sent the girls around to the men. The guards and I talked like friends which we were in a way. I did what I could to help people and they did what they could to assist me. I was still the employer but not the 'lord' that everyone called me. We still had to keep up appearances. Ten minutes later I heard a plane then two more. Their sound grew louder and in a few more minutes, they flew over our head. They were taking pictures and in an hour of so they would have the city and harbour mapped out. The chamberlain came in five minutes later and said, "My lord Vesha has just returned. Will you be so kind as to follow me?" Lord Vesha was a typical Scythian. He had red hair and could almost fit in among the German people but he had another heritage too. There was a throne in the room as well as twenty three soldiers but the man was not sitting. The chamberlain introduced me to his king and Vesha was quick to ask, "What may I do for you... my lord?" He spoke in a dialect of Pahlavi that I could understand. "I came to save your life." The man was shocked but managed to say, "How is it in danger?" "Ramagupta was killed trying to take over your land. We think that Chandragupta will be coming here to get rid of all of you." "We have a very strong army." "He will win in time. I came here to form the mighty alliance I have talked about in my books." "But..." When he did not continue I said, "I have a partial solution for you and your people. I will mediate a treaty where you are allowed to stay. You may be able to keep your job as a satrap but I make no promises. I have not talked to Chandragupta yet but I would like to have the treaty already worked out." The man thought over what I said and I added, "Chandragupta, I hear, is very angry at losing his brother." Lord Vesha said, "He probably is but he also gained his crown." "I am not a man that wants to see innocent people hurt. You are presently in a position of power and you have something that Chandragupta wants." The man thought for a moment then said, "Are you really the Hand of Woden?" I let a small sample of the benediction flow through him. Surprisingly he said, "Others have been able to do that recently. Your picture is the same as that in your books though." "You have mages here?" "We have in the past. They helped..." "Helped how?" He paused and then said, "To defeat our enemy." "Tell me about it. This may be important to both of us." We were only partially done when I heard the loud fog horn from the bay. They could not come closer because the bay was too shallow. When the tide went out then they would be in trouble. The aeroplanes would have no trouble. When the explanation was over, it was my turn to think. Apparently Ramagupta and a lot more mages but the defenders got lucky with their magic and their large army. Vesha was worried and now was the time to talk about changes. "The peace treaty will be three ways. I keep you alive and possibly with a good job. Chandragupta is a Brahmanist. Their religion does not allow teachers that are not of their faith. My people will gain that right. We will have to have it with your people too. Many Zoroastrians have started to believe in Woden. You have the right to any belief system you want but everybody has to have the opportunity to come to our temples. Is this satisfactory to you?" "You only want to teach the young?" "I want to teach everybody. I make rivers of steel and I need men to help me. The men and their families are treated very well." "I have heard this." "Have your heard this from people you can trust?" "Yes I have. I was once in one of your cities. You treat all the children as if they are your own. Everybody is healthy and well fed." "I want the whole world to be this way. I want all of this land from the Pillars of Hercules to the far shore of China to enjoy peace and prosperity. Your people get much more freedom than they now enjoy. The laws are just and they apply to everybody." "I have heard this too." Vesha suddenly got to his knees and said, "I will be your vassal if you will take me in." I knew this was also a way of making me his protector. In a quieter voice I said, "I do not have vassals but I do have people that help me and I will then help them." "What must I do, my lord?" "First stand. A handshake or a polite bow like the Chinese do is fine when we meet but nothing more." The man slowly got back to his feet. When he stood straight, I said, "I need to talk to the other thirty six satraps. With an army and thirty seven leaders, Chandragupta may have to make some concessions himself." Seven very worried men had been briefed and then transported to Julian's carrier. Soon, seven planes left the carrier to take the messengers to the satraps. By the end of the day all of the rulers will have heard if not understand what was happening. I had a sermon and my M16 toting acolytes were not needed to carry my word. The PA system and some lead/acid batteries let everybody hear both my words and that of the interpreter. I healed the sick and those that were injured in the last war. A few were able to give their thanks in a language that I was familiar with. With my presence known, I returned to the ship. We pulled anchor and went further out into deeper water and dropped anchor once more. KhAvar said sweetly, "Did he offer you any of those lovelies of his?" "No. He has read a lot about me and knows what offends me. You on the other hand seem to be showing some jealousy. Why is this happening?" "I do not know. I just get into a bad mood some times. The children are at a new stage that is bothering me." "Maybe you need some attention from me?" "That usually cheers me up." Then a half hour later Patricia and KhAvar were happy once more. The next two days were spent visiting the city by my family and some of the crew. Everybody was taking pictures. We found that the food was poor, the drink bad for the most part. The crewman found some ladies and they found their way into a bed, the bed usually had a lot of tiny occupants already. I did not offer much for sale. If the people had to leave then they would have to abandon what they bought or carry it away with them. Rum and whisky were easy to carry but their enjoyment had to do with an acquired taste. A census was taken so we had an idea of what the city had to offer or how much work it would be to help them leave. Historians now were people that had the job of recording what was currently happening and document everything that they could. These people came in and asked all kinds of questions about every conceivable topic. The world was rapidly changing and we had to have an idea of what we were leaving behind. The recording of the books in the Alexandria libraries made me feel very proud. I found old coins and bought then if they were good or just rare. My coin collection was for the future when people looked back to this time with a bit of wistfulness. Small tours were promoted that would show our ships. This was important because I wanted the coming meeting to be held on the carrier, our symbol of power. To get the satraps to come aboard meant that they had to have at least a certain level of trust. Tours could give this effect. We purchased fresh food and my wives or some of the crew would teach different ways of preparing it. Interpreters were necessary here but a nose or a taste were good enough to find the identity of the ingredients. Our Luftwaffe flew reconnaissance missions and we produced some information to help our map makers. The minerals in the area were talked about and we got samples. Their was nothing of interest that we found but it could be under our noses all the time until a drilling crew came here. Vesha was happy to do anything to help me but there was little for him to do. Most of the satraps should arrive tomorrow. Some had quite a distance to come. Vesha did talk to me about the war he had just fought. It was not long until we started talking about economics, transportation and farming. He had a fair selection of seeds of various plants. We would get samples of everything. They would be numbered and either drawings or pictures taken of the plants. Our catalogue system was the best we could make it. I was sure we were making a lot of mistakes. It was still better than what was in place before. We talked of irrigation and how canals could be dug to transport water or pipe layed and little of the water lost to evaporation or seepage. Constant irrigation meant that small amounts of salt accumulated in the soil. Over time few plants could grow in the soil. I remember that there was a tomato plant that had been manipulated to absorb this salt. It was moved to the leaves for storage. The tomatoes were good to eat and the leaves were taken away to be disposed of with the salt still in them. After four or five years the soil could be used like it had before. Tomatoes were in South America and I did not know how they were altered to absorb salt. Something like this had to be found. Modern India of my time was plagued by too many people but also by pollution from many sources. Like Europe, it was best to make good habits now so that future generations were not saddled with our mistakes or shortsightedness. Human and animal shit was valuable especially when wood became scarce. Methane could cook the food and fertiliser could then be spread on the fields. Mining, farming and industrial pollution had to be controlled too. Vesha heard my concerns but he did not look worried. He and his immediate decedents would be safely dead by the time there were serious problems. I tried to get him to change his attitude but it was no different than most of the leaders of this time. The satraps started to arrive and I was introduced to them as they came. Each had a retinue of people and I tried to get a discussion going on land management when all of them were worried about their job or their lives. I had said I wanted a strong India to deal with and that meant one leader. I was compelled to give a short synopsis of my position and let Vesha talk to his fellow satraps while I left so they could talk in private. I worked with the natives for a while then went back to the Discovery. There was always too much to do and never enough time. I was given some seeds of a type of bean and three ceramic pots with the living plant. I had interfaced with people and animals but now it was time for plants. If I could alter them, even a little then this would be of great benefit to mankind. Salt absorption, resistence to drought and wet roots as well as a resistance to disease and insect predation would help any crop do well. The best thing though would be the ability to fix nitrogen from the air and not require nitrogen based fertilisers that polluted rivers. Phosphate and phosphorous based fertilisers would still be needed. After a few hours I was able to sense the plant but as yet I could do nothing. I didn't know much about botany but this would have to change. I talked to the mages that were aboard about this study and they admitted that they had done little to investigate this. We talked about possible avenues to attack this problem then we discussed experiments to try. As usual we documented what we had done. Oppia took notes this time. Her body had grown very nicely. I had weaned her off me years ago and Huang had taken over the old method. They seemed to like each other but there was no love there. It was a way of just helping each other. We soon split up into groups. Not everyone was suited to do research. Some of the mages only wanted domination or power. They had found out that I was the boss very early. They now worked at various tasks even if they didn't want to. In a way they were no different from some of the wage slaves of my day. There was a storm brewing but that was common. To be safe we pulled up anchor and went further out into the bay. The two stern anchors were dropped and then the two bow anchors. If the storm looked like it was going to get bad, we would have to head out to sea. Being blown ashore was not a good thing to happen. There were not many good harbours around if we needed to seek shelter. The time for the meeting had arrived and I went ashore. Almost everyone had arrived and I was introduced to those I had not met yet. There were a lot people when you counted the advisors and retainers. A short talk described what I wanted to talk about on the carrier. In the meantime we talked of other matters to let them see that I was not as dangerous as they may have thought. In an hour we walked down to the port. A light rain was starting to fall. There were two larger fishing boats and Vesha allowed us to use them to get to the ship. We pulled both out to the carrier and we got wetter as the rain started to fall heavier. We found refreshments onboard and we tried to dry out. Instead of getting into the talk right away the sailors took the visitors on a tour. Many would not understand much because they only spoke a version of Sanskrit. We met back in the mess a few hours later. It didn't look like anybody was bored. They were talking animatedly in their groups and between groups. The hatches were open and I saw that the rain had stopped even if it was still overcast. We went on the flight deck and watched some of the planes come in for a landing. Usually during a storm the planes landed if they could and took off again after the wind had died down. They were still very flimsy. The PA system was a permanent fixture here and I started a sermon and then healed some of the men that were with us. While I was talking about the future of India the wind started to pick up and the ship rocked just a bit harder. I knew that by the time I finished, we may not be able to make it to shore until the wind died down. Patricia and KhAvar were near me. KhAvar talked about her uncle and his plans for the world and this area. She did not mention Darius' plans to conquer India nearly seven centuries earlier. She talked of the objectives we had met and what we had done to help people. She had talked many times on the radio and this was almost like a well rehearsed script by this time. When KhAvar finished, she stepped back and I went forward to introduce Patricia. Just then I was paralysed as pain shot through my body. Everything had got exceedingly bright then as black as night. Then nothing. ------- Chapter 14 I awoke just a bit as I was shook violently. Pain, pain was everywhere. I took control of this only gradually because it was hard to concentrate. I could still not see. My hearing was bad but I could feel, if not hear, KhAvar crying. "Jón oh Jón," then "Patricia." I reached out with my senses and found people. I used their power to reach the other ships. I pulled as much power as I dared and sent out the command to heal. This did not help me, or at least not yet. It then occurred to me that Patricia was right beside me. It must have been lightning. Nothing else I could think of could do this. I reached out to find Patricia. She was alive but not breathing. I took command of her body as if it were my own. Her lungs started to work and then I got her heart to pump after three attempts. She was burnt badly. KhAvar had been close too and I reached out for her. She too was hurt but not as much. KhAvar's pain was reduced and I gave her a small benediction to let her know that I was working. There were more injured and at least three dead. The dead I could not help and I was glad that my children were not on this ship. I reduced the pain on the rest and actively sent their bodies resources where they had to be. There was no way of telling time but I worked as long as I could on the others while only working on myself a bit. When my eyes were open, I could see nothing. I called out in a hoarse voice, "What is happening now?" I had to repeat myself before a frightened voice said, "You were struck by a bolt of lightening. Three people are dead and your wives are hurt. More are hurt too but they are recovering. Your face, feet and legs are badly burnt. We think your swords and your armour are what saved you." "How long?" "Nearly thirty eight hours, my lord." "Thanks," I croaked and went back to rebuilding the bodies of those that needed it as well as my own. The power was still with me but not as strong as it was. I did not need that much now anyway. I worked until I knew I needed something to rebuild my body. I awoke and my nose told me KhAvar was near. "How..." I croaked then started again. "How are you?" "I am much better. What about you?" "I feel no pain. How does Patricia look?" "She is doing much better. We thought she was dead." "She had stopped breathing and her heart had stopped. I got them working and her mind was able to take over the job then." "Two the satraps and one of our men died." "I could feel the three but I did not know who they were. It was like an empty home." "Is that like what a mage does to take over another person's body?" "Not like that but it could work, I guess." "Your mages are very worried." "Worried about what?" "They do not say. I thought they were worried about you but that is only part of it." "What more?" "I do not know. It may be that they fear someone will come for you and take them too." "What did they say about the attack?" "They had no idea it was coming. The usual signs were not there. They think that it must be a very powerful mage or a great many mages working very closely together." "Let me think about this. Is there some food and something to drink nearby?" KhAvar fed me small bites and I relaxed in her care. Later I checked on the others and then went to sleep naturally. I woke up with the children in my bed. They too were asleep and I just checked to see if they were ok. KhAvar was near and so was Patricia. It felt good to be with family and a small bit of my anger left but not much. My family was important and I spent more time on them than I did on myself. Even those that were hurt got better treatment until eventually I only had to work on my own problems. I was blind and I had to rebuild my eyes once more. I tried a little tinkering to see if I could improve on what I had. My ears had healed but internally they had been seriously damaged. I could not think of a way of improving them other than make the nerves at the base of the hairlike structures a bit more sensitive. The rest of my body was as good as I could make it. My bones were dense and my muscles too. The ligaments and where they attached were as strong as I could make them. My nerves were already very close to each other to get quick reflexes. The only thing to remedy besides the burns and scars was some small tinkering with my joints. I was up and around in thirteen days but it was not until twenty three that I could see again. The first thing I saw in the morning was my family. I simply smiled and kissed all of them. Their own response made me feel good. During my convalescence, I talked on the radio and just about everybody with a crystal radio heard what had happened. My wives though were very irate and wanted heads, literally. A few heads adorning my mantel sounded good to me too but I had to see what I could do to recover from the setback we had suffered. The surviving satraps and the dead had been put ashore when the storm passed. Last they saw me I was a piece of partially cooked meat. I had exercised while my eyes grew back and I now worked with my katana once more. Plucking craniums was so much nicer with a sword. We pulled into the same harbour as before and I quickly left the ship. Vesha was there to meet me. "You have healed." "Yes, it is a thing that I do to others and sometimes myself. Did you find out anything about the attack?" "Whoever did it was not found. I am told that magic works best when the magician sees what he is doing." "That is usually true. What do the other satraps think?" "They saw how powerful Chandragupta is. Most I fear are gathering more men to them to prepare for battle." "Will they let me still negotiate for them. They have the right to say no to whatever I am able to do." "I do not know." "Will you let me try to help you?" "Yes, my lord." "Your lands are not central. I want to meet everybody to meet two hundred kilometres from here at the home of Soyata." "I will get ready now my lord." "Aeroplanes have already left." I handed Vesha an earphone attached to a crystal radio. The ship was so close that I only had to step on the pad that produced an earth ground. He listened to the repeated message at least twice and said, "I am sure they will come. Will the mages be able to hear this message?" "With a good crystal they might but I am going to be ready this time." "What are you going to do?" "Try again to get the satraps to let me negotiate for them. I will then talk to Chandragupta. If I find the mages that did this, I will kill them." "They are very powerful." "Did you hear about Antioch and Constantinople?" Vesha hung his head. Vesha got ready to leave by giving orders to be followed in his absence. When he was asked how long he was going to be away at the city run by Soyata, he said, "I may be home in three or four days." He handed the man a similar crystal radio and the instructions on how to use it. "Listen on this. You may get a message as to when we will return. We will be flying." The plane sat six but there were only four large men and one small cadet. We had our equipment too. Vesha waved to his people when we took off then I circled the city at a low altitude before leaving. The trip was uneventful. I did look for storm clouds but they were all in the distance. We landed at the city and presented ourselves to Soyata. He was worried about lightning strikes but didn't mind seeing us. "What may I do for you, my lord?" "Did you listen to the message?" "Oh yes my lord. It is like magic." "That radio is set so only the satraps can hear. If it is adjusted then you may hear what is said on the radio all the time." "That is truly marvellous, my lord." I turned to the cadet in the plane and waved my arm. He waved back and the plane began to move down the road until it took to the air. We had a small but heavy transmitter to call for help if we needed it or for a ride back. We were shown some nice rooms but we carried everything with us. Our luggage was heavy but none of us were weak. We could also not afford for anything to fall into the hands of others. The city was out to see us and I had another impromptu gathering. I was on the lookout for mages but as yet I found nobody that had much of this ability. I had to go back to the old way that did not use a PA. At the end of the sermon Soyata came up to me and bowed his head. His posture was different than the rest and he said in a low voice, "Master, you have cured many people. My son has a great need of being cured." "Is he here?" "I tried to find him but he disappears with his friends." "What is wrong with him?" There was a pause then he reluctantly said, "He uses the milk of the poppy far more than is needed for pain." This was opium. It was used for pain quite regularly and nothing now fell into the 'controlled substance' category. In the future the British and other Europeans grew tea here and in China. India grew a lot of poppies and the opium was sold in China. The Chinese emperor saw the damage the opium did to his people and tried to stop the trade in this substance. The Europeans did not see it that way and a war broke out. Many Chinese lives were destroyed all for money. "Find him and his friends. His friends will pull him back if they are not cured too." Soyata walked with us as we toured the city. I wanted the mages to show themselves but I found nothing to indicate that they were here. More people came to me with their problems and I asked them to come to the next sermon to be helped. This was the only way I could control this sort of interaction. Shit was everywhere and nothing new to me. Otherwise the city was not too bad. I pointed out to the man, "You have heard of the homes of my people. You could do much the same but I am afraid you would have to start a completely new city. The shit on the streets as well as the mud will not be there anymore. The people will be healthier. You have the benefit of laying out the streets the way you want. If the homes have a space between them then fire has more difficulty spreading from one building to another." "The cost would be too high. A portion could be done each year but I am afraid that I will be long dead by the time the city is complete." "If you are building for your people then that is satisfactory. If you are building so you can see a beautiful city then you may not see much for many years." "Any decision will have to wait on Chandragupta. If I am allowed to live, then he may not want this city improved." That was the truth but there was little I could do about this. My demands on people had to be reasonable and I could only encourage them to make this right. The rulers did not all see the definition of right being the same and they differed from me even more. I liked wide boulevards and parks. I wanted people to work with nature even though my industrialisation looked to be going the opposite way. We had covered most of the city when a messenger came to Soyata. "We have found Cossa my lord." He was then told where. Soyata showed a controlled anger but said nothing. He turned to me and said, "If you would still help my son then he is only a few minutes away from here." We walked through some of the slums then we went near the west wall where the expensive homes were. These were walled homes and we entered one. Three guards in a different livery were nearby but said nothing. I was led to a large room and found seven young men drugged into insensibility around the room. It was easy to smell the smoke from the opium and had the young men dragged out of the home. I would not breath the stuff if I did not have to. In the last twenty years I had learned a lot about the body and people in general. I had tried keeping some people alive with genetic defects. Actually I could only cure the symptoms but never the cause until recently. My study of magic actually helped me manipulate the genetic code. It was a difficult and tiring experience. It was definitely not me telling the bodies immune system how to handle a disease. Addicts were very common now and I had ample chance to learn. My mind reached out and strengthened the web that brought in the power from the people in the city. I started with Cossa. Turning off ever receptor that used the opium compounds was a long and arduous task. Instead I used an aversion therapy that caused acute pain instead of the joy that the person desperately wanted. It was much quicker but not a good fix. It took ten minutes for each person. I tried to neutralise the compounds in their bodies and then put them into a long sleep where they had no pain. When they woke up they would feel the big daddy of all hangovers. The next time they went near opium the effect would be much worse. When I finished I said, "Your son and the others will sleep for at least a day. This will allow their bodies to purge the opium. They will wake up in great pain and it will fade away in two days. The next time they smoke opium they will suffer much more pain but they will still crave the drug. This is the best I can do now. One day when I know more I may be able to remove the craving completely." "Thank you, oh thank you, my lord. What may I do for you in payment?" "I want your people governed with both pity and justice. The rich and the poor have the same rights and privileges. Your laws are similar to the Greeks. I am suggesting but not compelling that the idle rich could be given jobs to keep them busy but also get recognition for their service to the people. A person's attitude made Greece then Rome very powerful. Persia is the same way. Apathy is something that should be fought." "I can do this. It would be easier if I could use your name when I pass laws." "Justice may require some changes in the law but getting the rich to help their fellow man should not be a law. It can be encouraged by public acclaim or some prize." "What kind of prize?" "In the far future there are banquets where awards are handed out for community service. Those that do the most are held up as an example. What they have done to receive the award is told to everybody in the hall. If you had news magazines or the radio you could tell everybody within this region." We ran an antenna that night and I had a quick chat with my wives. They knew I was safe and near shelter if the mages came back. They also know that I was much more vigilant. Soyata prepared for the meeting by having the hall cleaned and food prepared. The men started to arrive and many had ridden through the night even if this was dangerous. Most of them had the earpiece still in their ear even if it would not work without an earth ground. They seemed to like this piece of technology. The coil used in their sets was not used in other models. For them to receive standard broadcasts, they would have to substitute the coil for one of a different value. The actual meeting did not start until late in the day so that most of the people could listen. During breaks Vesha talked about his flying and like most people you would think that it was he that was controlling the plane. The speed near the ground excited him greatly. When he was told that a train pulling many tonnes of material could go just as fast, he was astonished. Before the votes were cast I talked about what I wanted to happen to this land. Trains, ships and cities along with farms, mines and factories were listed and what they would mean for those in the room and their subjects. The voting was done in secret but I could hear some arguing but not much. When the final vote was cast, they all signed a series of documents. The first two written in Sanskrit but others were in Greek, Latin and Pahlavi. All of them were the same. The men in the room would keep a copy for their own records but it would mean little if Chandragupta wanted a different treaty. That night I radioed our success and asked for some replacement radios for the men that had grown to like them so much. The next day the plane arrived once more. Lots of photographs were taken and I promised the men that they would get copies. After a lot of handshakes, Vesha and the rest of us got in the plane. I let the cadet fly us back after we flew around the city and then over the heads of those that were waving to us. When we returned to the ship we immediately started a trip around the Indian continent. Sapor had a man in Patna, the capital of the Gupta empire and on the Ganges River. Our informant said that the new king was not in residence and had not been for the last few months. We were not in that much of a hurry then so we transmitted our travelogue to the world. This time there were nearly three dozen names listed as men that had asked me to help them negotiate with. It was a sure thing that at least some of the men had been listening to their names and would tell the rest. The magazines we sent out last month had a supplement in them. There was a large map of India. It was as accurate as we knew but it was still very poor. The readers could plot out course as they listened to the broadcasts. This was like people watching television when the first men were landing on the moon. We were actually very near the Ganges delta when word came that Chandragupta was coming. We sailed up the deepest channel. It was still very wide. All the small boats gave us a very wide berth. They were far enough to flee on foot if we got close. Some of our planes went ahead to look for trouble and to keep us safe as we moved slowly up the river. I held some of my children in my arms as I waved to the people on the shore. They did not wave back. Patna was on a very wide section of the river and we just moored in the centre. We stayed there for an hour to give those in the city a chance to understand what they saw and come to terms with it. I prepared to go to shore when a boat propelled by twenty rowers surged out from the docks. Some men in the back were archers. They chose to go to the carrier until people pointed to our ship and the boat changed course. They rowed the same speed as the current as they looked at the platform and the ladder that had been lowered. A man in colourful robes called out in Latin, "Why are you here?" One of the cadets answered, "Who wants to know?" The messenger went into a long spiel about all the claims to fame that Chandragupta had, then stopped. The reply was simply, "The Hand of Woden wishes to talk to King Chandragupta on a matter of state." The messenger wanted more info but Mithridates came over and said, "Tell your king that the Hand will come over in a while and they can talk about a further meeting." The messenger was going to ask more but Mithridates and the cadet disappeared from the rail and there was nobody to talk to. The man soon left. The planes reported that a lot of guards or soldiers were being gathered but I was not worried about this. I was worried about mages because I could feel them even if I could not see their auras. There was a APC in our hold. The rubber tires and the steel would protect me from nearly everything Chandragupta or the mages could throw at me but I was hesitant to use it. It was heavy and there would be a lot of trouble getting it from a small ship to the dock. The wharf was wood or stone and not suited for this. The planes said that there were some stone steps where the women could wash their clothes further up the river but we would still need a crane or a good ramp. The open topped APC was hoisted out of the hold and Mithridates got the Discovery as close to one of the docks as possible. Some sailors in uniform went over and assisted in getting the vehicle oriented the correct way. When the vehicle was in place, the diesel engine was restarted and the driver drove forward to get off of the steel decking that it had been resting on. I kissed the girls bye and promised to stay safe then got on a boat to the dock. There were just four heavily armed guards with me and then there was Huang and Oppia. They were still much better magicians than me and I could use their assistance. They wore only short swords. They had learned to shoot but I did not want them armed like this at this time. We got into our seats and the driver proceeded down the wharf. At the end was a guard detail and we stopped. The driver waved to the officer and said in Sanskrit, "Please get in and direct us to your king." The man was torn but in a minute, he gave orders to his men and the driver had to show him how to open the door. The man sat gingerly and soon pointed the way we had to go. He was shocked at the acceleration though the vehicle was heavy and the motor weak. We did not go fast and the soldiers did a quick step but were able to keep up with us. A few pictures were taken for posterity but this was not the time for a photo expedition. There were a lot of people on the street but they all got out of the way. The engine was well muffed and the people were very silent. There was a lot of them too and I had held onto them since coming to the city. I felt a few nibbles around the edge and so did Huang and Oppia. Patna was a large city and it took quite a while until we got to the palace. The soldiers following us were strong but we slowed down a bit anyway. I was feeling for the build up of a lightning bolt but as yet I felt nothing. We pulled up at the front of the palace then we had to go through the wide gates. The town walls and these were very tall and thick. There was a lot of carvings and writing in Sanskrit on the wall. I wished I had visited India in my previous life because it was very beautiful. The driver reached forward and picked up a microphone in his hand and keyed a connection. This was an FM transmitter. This particular radio did not need an earth ground. A crystal radio to use this type of transmission could be made but it would be different from what we now produced. He said, "We are at the palace now." The words were in Sanskrit and our passenger was astonished when a voice came back stating, "I see you below. Those behind you are not even breathing hard." The driver replied, "Good soldiers, I guess." The guard had to be shown how to open the door from the inside and then we all got out. He was still upset and even more so when the driver pointed to the sky and the man in the plane he was talking to. There were a lot of guards at the door but they lined it as opposed to blocking our way. Three men in uniforms were on the top landing and came down after we stopped. At the bottom, the three men bowed to us and we did the same back but I was careful to not bow too much. This was a Chinese custom but that is what was being followed here too at this time. One of the three men said in slightly accented Latin, "My lord Chandragupta wishes to welcome you to his city. He bids you to enter and make yourself comfortable." "I thank King Chandragupta for his graciousness and I would be glad to accept his hospitality. Where may we place our vehicle where it will not be in the way?" "Horses and wagons are usually taken around to the stables but you may leave it where it is. I am sure my king would love to view this carriage without horses." I directed the driver to move the APC to the shade so carriages could pull up. The officer that rode with us did not leave so I figured that there was going to be a lot of talk in our absence. The inside of the palace was much cooler than the outside. The floors were stone and not only beautifully cut but tightly fitting. Other palaces were the same way and this was my way of equating Rome and the Persian empire to that of India. We were led into a large room. The three men had not left us and we began to be asked questions but it was done politely. Young people of both genders came in to serve us. These same people would serve us later in bed if that was our wish. This was nothing different than the rest of the civilised world. I answered some of the questions but usually I asked those with me to do the explanations because I could tell that some mages were near. The questions dealt with the motive power or our vehicles to how we were able to make something fly. The one that asked the questions sounded educated and I was sure that he had not only read my books but learned all he could about what I had done since I came to this time. We sipped the wine and nibbled a bit of fruit. Most travellers may have come a long distance but we came from a very comfortable ship down at the dock. It was only ten minutes later that a messenger came and we were invited to see the king. The room was a distance away because it took a while to get to the gold doors. The doors must weigh tonnes and the gold on them looked quite thick. I admired the art as I passed because it was heavily embossed. The audience hall was very large and there must have been a hundred people. I gathered more power because one or more were mages. I got a nod from one man and knew that we were now transmitting to our ship. Chandragupta was a young man of twenty five or so. He sat on a throne which was on an elevated platform. Those beside us stopped and got on their knees. We stopped too and all of us bowed as the Chinese did but then stood. Those men with us still remained on their knees because they were not told to get up. A man beside the throne said, "It is proper to kneel before our king." I said, "That would put me in an inferior position when we have so many things to talk about. I do not have people kneeling to me even though Woden uses me as his Hand." "You are a mortal though." "As every man that ever walked the earth is. Any who claim otherwise are deluded or a sycophant has gained the ears of a gullible man." There was an immediate reaction from some and this carried on to the rest. "Who do you think you are?" In a calm voice I said, "The Hand of the god Woden. Who are you little man?" The man bristled and reached for his sword but the man on the throne put out his hand and he immediately stopped. The king now spoke. "He is my advisor and one of my better generals," he said in accented Pahlavi. I switched languages and said, "Like any good general you let others try an opponent first to get his mettle. Are you going to test it a bit more?" "I may. Why have you come here?" "Most people know that I sent many years in the future. I came back to this time and changed many events but some events will not change. China and India will become very populous and very powerful countries. They both have a long history that I want to see continued. India will be conquered by the Huns a few times and then by countries that were not barbarians. I am offering you some help to keep your country strong. I am offering the assistance of the Roman, Persian and the Germanic empires. When you feel comfortable, you will be invited to join these empires in educating the people of the world." "Why would I want to waste my time doing that? The rabble are worthless." "Those worthless people helped me build the ship I came here in. They built the aeroplanes and made many improvements. Woden has given me most of the knowledge I needed but not all. I have to fumble and reach in the dark. It is those people that you call worthless that will push our civilisation to heights that nobody has seen before." "You still guide them." "I gave them the basic ideas and then the help they needed to learn and build." "They could not have done this without you." "I could not do it without them." "My people do not have the need of your help." "Fine then. I know that in a century, one of your descendants will think the same way up until the time a Hun puts a spear through him. Your neighbours to the east may like some help. I know that they too will be in trouble around that time." When Chandragupta had nothing more to say, I turned to my people and said, "Let's go. I wanted some Chinese food anyway." We got just a few steps and I felt magic all around me. I quickly grabbed all I could but I was blocked. At the same time I picked up the flap of the holster and drew my gun. I turned part of the way around and froze just as I had done to many others. I saw men bring back their spears and I now cast out the command to freeze. The spears did not fly but guards fell over from being unbalanced. With a lot of difficulty I was able to complete my turn and got my foot down. Chandragupta had a frozen smile on his face and I looked for the mage as I worked with a lot of difficulty to raise my gun. I found three instead. They were all very powerful and there was no way to access the people. The two men and one old woman were able to shake off my command and walked out of the crowd. It was the woman that said, "Your spells will not work on us. I just wanted you to know this before you die." I tried to move my lips and suddenly they were free. My hand though was still frozen. "Why do you see me as a threat?" "King Chandragupta was right, you let the lower castes gain too much power. Many mages had not seen this threat until you came here. Since then we have banded together to fight you. You are very strong but we are stronger." I said, "The elite do not lose. They get richer and more powerful when the ordinary person is educated. There is always a need for leaders." "You are going too fast but not for long." The woman took out a stiletto that had the green poison on the blade and stepped closer. "We are not going to make the same mistake as last time. I am going to gut you then sever your head from your body." I tried desperately to even pull the trigger but nothing happened. I had armour on but a knife like she had could pierce it if it was thrust hard enough. She could also aim for bare skin. This was her intention and the knife came close to my left eyeball. There was nothing I could do but I tried to stall. "You will die too in a few minutes. The destroyer in the river has cannons trained on the palace." "They will not know you are dead for hours." "They know you are threatening me with a poisoned knife right now." "That is a feeble lie. You cannot send your thoughts and even if you could, we have you blocked." "There is more to this world that magic. Our radio is on and transmitting our voices to those on the ship." For a split second I could see her uncertainty and then she smiled. "Then let's find out if you are telling the truth." Her knife traced a path on my skin without drawing blood then she turned the knife and I felt it cut. I was able to cut off the flow of blood to this area and the woman smiled and said, "That is good." I could see her muscles tense as I heard an explosion from the river. The woman must have heard it too because she paused. The building shook as a shell pierced the walls and exploded on the other side of the castle. I quickly said, "They are too far to the east and need to move forward nearly 500 metres." More rounds fell and then a large explosion was heard very close. The mages attention faltered just a bit and the gun came up with difficulty and I pulled the trigger. The woman looked at me with a stunned look and then shifted her gaze to the other two men as if to ask for help. My gun had already moved and I shot through the woman again and hit the man behind her. I turned just enough to do this again and I fired at the other man. The power holding me suddenly lessened until I could grasp the power of the people but there were more mages. I held the gun as the three fell to the ground and so did others behind them. I called out, "Cease fire." I worked frantically on the poison in me and had to call four more times to get the bombing and shelling to stop. My body started to go numb and I turned to my own people, "I am poisoned. I need time to neutralise it." It started to get dark then and I worked faster. I was within myself for an unknown amount of time. The poison was not the same as the other time. This one seemed to defy every method I tried to neutralise it. Most of it was flushed out but even the small bit that was in me was going to kill me if I did not find a way soon. It multiplied like a virus but it had to be a protein. The path of the poison increased like a foreign army and I had to pull back time after time. It attacked the nerves first as well as the blood. Finally I thought of how DNA produced proteins. I modified some white blood cells and sent them against the enemy. The poison attacked but it did not replicate quite as fast. I made further modifications and then more again. Finally one was attacked and did not die or allow replication. It also held the protein locked to it. More of the cells were made but now they held much more of the protein. This was just a stalemate and now I had to make my own proteins that would attach themselves to the others without killing me. With a template already made, I just tried to move the amino acids so that a protein could be cast and then released. The new protein were dangerous too and I had to lengthen them so my body would not let them attach to other receptors. The invading proteins were pushed back further and further. I had to get started doing some repairs away from the front. I went looking for resources and I was shocked to see how much muscle tissue and fat I had used. There was lots of power still but little to work on. I needed food and pushed my consciousness to the surface. I was back on the ship. I allowed some feeling to come back and I felt pain. My face was distorted and I could hardly talk. I tried to say, "Water," but an odd sound came out. A nurse was right there and I repeated myself a few times until she repeated me. I nodded. In a minute KhAvar and Patricia with in the room with me. I tried to smile but my features were still distorted. I finally got them to understand the need for food. Some liquid food was poured down my throat until I had them stop. I was able to squeeze KhAvar's hand once then I went back to my repair work. At some time I rounded up all of the attacking protein then removed the material that had done the work for me. Now the long job began to rebuild. My stomach and intestines were regularly supplied with food and I used this to repair the damage to the critical organs then to the rest of me. Only when my face was reduced in size so I could talk, did I emerge once more. Patricia was nearby and asleep. I had to clear my throat and then called out her name. I was very weak and had to put much more effort into it before she roused. She ran to me when she saw me looking at her. "Oh Jón, Jón are you better?" Somehow I got out, "I am getting better. The poison is gone and I am rebuilding now. What has happened?" "The city is under martial law." "Martial law?" "Yes, Chandragupta and his family were arrested. He now works through us to restore order." "What happened?" "Your men held off some soldiers coming to protect Chandragupta. I'm afraid they killed quite a few. We came in within an hour and had to fight the city to get to the palace. We stayed in the palace for a few days. A corridor had to be made so we could get out. There were people fighting us with bows and spears and some of us were hurt. Once the buildings on each side of the main road were destroyed, we were able to get you safely back here." "How many were killed?" "We have twenty seven wounded and seven dead." "The civilians?" "I do not know. We took out the city wall then proceeded in order so the civilians had a chance to leave. Chandragupta is trying to repair his city and look for the rest of the mages. He has a very large reward for them." All this was hard to understand and finally I said, "How long was I asleep?" "Twenty six days today." "I better eat something and go back to making some repairs." I woke up the next day feeling much better. That night I was walking around with help. I saw in the mirror that my skin was pockmarked and looked unhealthy. I worked on this and other areas where it was only cosmetic. In two more days I was exercising to check out how my body was responding to the restoration I had done. I rode to the palace in the APC but the metal roof was on. The buildings had been destroyed for a hundred metres from each side of the road. The shelling must have been very persistent and heavy to have done all this. Some areas of the ruins were blackened by what looked like napalm. There were few surviving structures around the palace. I saw a ring of native soldiers and a few of our own people. I began to wonder how much of the fighting had been to expel us or to form a coup. Mithridates said that Chandragupta's hold on the throne was tenuous until he proved himself. Some of the palace showed repairs and the servants hid their eyes as we passed. When I got to the audience hall I waited and in a moment I was allowed to enter. It was much as I remembered it except there were far fewer people and the king looked much more subdued. Everybody including the personal guards were dismissed and Chandragupta came down the steps and stood in front of me. "I am sorry for what has happened. I see now that some of what you said about sycophants was true. I was also threatened by the mages. If I had agreed with you, I too would have died." "I accept your explanation. Tell me about the coup." "Apparently my cousin worked with the mages. The first battle was the people of the city trying to defend me but later my cousin brought many more people to the city and said that I was captured and he would need to gain the power of king to fight you. Most thought him a fool but the mages did what he asked. They tried to fight their way into here. Some of his men were captured and they admitted that they were here to kill me." "What happened to the mages?" "We are hunting them. That is all I know." "Where does that leave us? I came here to help you not arrest you." "I was told that. I was also told how you gained the word of the Saka to accept me as king." "Did you read the document?" "Yes." "Is it acceptable?" "I do not want the satraps to stay in power. They were not loyal to their king." "Can they be demoted but still have some power. They will work better with your people if they carry your words." "That may work but they will have to be more of a leader with no access to the army." I said, "I have radios and telephones. You can appoint a governor who controls the army. The satraps will be something like a mayor. They run a city but have much less power. I am suggesting that a portion of the men join a local militia and you will train them. The people of the cities should spread out to other cities and your people move in and take their place. Those that promote treason can be tried in a court. I want justice most of all. I want a strong leader next." "I can do that." "You probably will but one injustice I see is your caste system. It has to be reduced until it disappears." "That is our religion." "Your caste system is evil. In the future I came from, it brought untold misery and death. Jainism and two more religions came into being to fight the caste system. Those religions kill many in wars and your country gets smaller because land has to be given away to others. If they stay then there is more killing. In that future, bombs are made that would level this city and the land around it very easily." "Like Antioch?" "Antioch's destruction was like the smallest bomb." Chandragupta was visibly amazed. I said, "India and the Indians that had the new religion each build many of these bombs. When I had come back to this time there had not been a war between the two of you. If it had there would be a thousand million deaths easily. All of this is because people like you wanted to keep your position of power." "Even if I wanted to change, I am only the king. People will listen only so much." "I do not like slavery either. I also understand that it has to be removed slowly. The caste system can change slowly too but not drag on for centuries. You could start by giving some better jobs to the lowest classes. Laws have to be made to protect them against those with a higher caste and power." "I can only try." "There is one more thing that has to be changed." "What is that?" "I am in charge of educating your people. I will not teach them religion in school. If I speak about Woden there is no rules that say anybody has to listen." "Our religion does not allow that." "They do not allow it because they fear other ideas. I cannot give my ideas on how to build aeroplanes, how to build trains, how to make steel or how to make your crops grow better without teaching." "I cannot just make laws about that. The people will not follow them." "Rome, Persia, and Germanica have ships and planes like I have. Soon China will have the same weapons. India had some very rich lands. If they do not have weapons then the Huns will take you. If that happens then in a hundred years China may come in here with ships and planes and finish the job as if they are getting rid of the Huns. They will never leave. They fight the future India for land and you cannot make them leave." "We would fight them." "You would but you would then die. I have had aeroplanes for only ten years. Think what they will be like in a century. My ships are weak now. In a century a few small ships could turn this city into rubble." Chandragupta was quiet and I added quietly, "Tell everybody that I am teaching your people how to defend yourselves. Religion is something that your people will deal with. It may take many years but the caste system will go." "But..." Our stay in India lasted over a year. We sponsored contests where the brightest would go to the schools in the Mid East or Europe to learn. I knew that when they came back in five to seven years that their attitude would be much different. The usual route when attacking India was through Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The passage from China was through a formidable desert and few people came this way. The important passes were now watched. Not only telephone was available but radio too. Small scale movements were only checked to see who was going where. As yet there was no armies. Iron mines were opened and cadets came here to start the furnace and the mill. For the next few years we were going to make rail almost exclusively. Chandragupta found his cousin but the mages deserted him when we came too. Three mages were captured and joined the ones near me two more had died during the fighting. Apparently we still had to go to China one day. I looked back to the year 60. The world had settled down then for the better. Europe and Persia had been linked many ways by rail. The bridge over the Bosporus was a reality. The tallest ship could sail under it and the bridge itself carried two rail lines as well as two lanes each way for trucks. Sapor was still alive at that time. I had worked hard on him to keep him healthy and cognitive. His grandson was the new president but in ten years there would be a general election instead of an appointment. Sapor was the chairman of the UN and liked it that way. There was much more power here. Julian had died a few years ago in a plane crash. He had been mourned by everybody. The empire had been split up a bit but the UN took over all of the military. The German people were still encouraged to enter the military but it was a much smaller force. Clovis was still alive but Astrid had died when I was away. Clovis ruled an economic empire that encompassed all of the former Russia as well as what had been Eastern Europe. His grandsons and great-grandsons and daughters kept the empire running smoothly. Male issue was not as important now. India was slow at catching up. Religion held them back but in a century they would all be at the same level. China joined our club only twenty years ago. Their population was small and like India, were going to avoid the pratfalls of overpopulation. I had managed to do a bit of tinkering with my sermons and it was a little less likely that a conception would occur. It took a lot more sex or love to make a child. Australia, North and South America were explored but the UN wanted them kept in reserve. If we screwed up with what we had we would screw up even more with more land. We found peanuts, tomatoes, potatoes, corn, citrous fruit, cocoa and some other plants that were useful. The Africans were as bad as the Germans and the Huns. They always wanted to fight. We went in as a colonial power and made cities. The Africans were offered good jobs but they had to leave their villages. Over time the new cities would take the places of the old tribes. I was much better at manipulating genes. The grain yields increased when the roots of every crop held nodules for nitrogen fixation bacteria. The plants were made disease and drought resistant at the same time. Other plants were slated for different improvements. Petroleum usage actually decreased. We cleaned up tar pits and other surface contaminations of oil or bitumen. Hemp was modified and we could live very well off of its products. The oil from the larger seed pods powered three quarters of our vehicles. Wood and wood products supplied the rest. Natural gas was sought and surface deposits were tapped. I extracted the liquids, purified the methane and then caused it to form larger molecules. This was then put back into the same well but now the pressure had been reduced somewhat. I was keeping the Helium for my own purposes. My wives and I 'discovered' Hawaii before any natives did. It was now ours by a UN charter. Cadets from all over populated the islands and we worked on research mostly though we did grow some great pineapples. Patricia and KhAvar looked to be in their early thirties and I made myself that age too. I knew that in time I would have to let them go because I could not keep them going forever. I was working on doing better though. Magic was still something that I wanted to learn more about. At the year 150 all of the people I had known were dead apart from my wives. They looked a vigorous fifty and we worked hard to keep what we had started, going smoothly. My insight into medicine brought medical science ahead by leaps and bounds. I would make observations which nobody else could see and researchers would try to find out what was happening. Magic was studied too but in the light of day. Most people could not perform magic but those that could had to be controlled. Mankind in its dim past had been able to regenerate body parts. This long dormant ability was found after a lot of work. People were a lot more healthy now and those I helped, bred true. Cancer was attacked on many fronts and it was a virus that worked best. It attacked weak cells and these just happened to be those that were sick. We had launched some small satellites for communication as a way of celebrating. Magic and nontoxic fuels did the work of putting them into orbit. Everybody could use the system because everybody spoke the New Latin along with their native language. There was basically only one religion too though there were still holdouts. The army got smaller and smaller. There just seemed to be no need for it. Patricia died in 242 and KhAvar six months later. I was devastated. I had tried so hard to keep them and I was not strong enough. Fifteen years earlier I worked with some bright young people and found a way to fuse the Helium 3 with deuterium. A hundred and seven years later our supplies of Helium 3 were gone and we had to find alternates sources. The moon was now being eyed with this in mind. Nearly twenty years later the UN sent an expedition there. In just a few more years we mined like the United States wanted to do in my day. We could have not done this without magic but we could not have done this without technology either. I found that I was, for all intents and purposes, immortal. Radiation damage could be repaired. Now I was going to boldly go where no man had gone before. Again a lot of cadets would be going with me. ------- The End ------- Posted: 2006-12-19 Last Modified: 2006-12-28 / 01:11:49 pm ------- http://storiesonline.net/ -------