Conrad Starguard - The High-Tech Knight Part 4

"Well, there's a limit on how hard you can suck. Actually, I've said 'suck' because it's easier to visualize. In truth, you can't pull on water. Fluids lack tensile strength. What we're really doing is lowering the pressure in the barrel and letting atmospheric pressure push the water up."

"Atmospheric pressure ...?"

"Yes. Consider that we live at the bottom of an ocean of air..."

"At the bottom of an ocean!" There are times when Conrad pushes too far!

"Of air. Come on now, Vladimir. Can you really doubt that you are surrounded by air? What do you think wind is, but the motion of air? What do you think you're breathing?"

"Well ...yes. But I've never thought of it in those terms."

"Okay. Now air has weight and..."

"There! You are doing it again! If air has weight, why doesn't it fall down?"

"Huh?" Conrad said.

"It's up in the air, isn't it? ...or maybe I can't say that, but it's up there, isn't it? If it weighs something it should fall down!"

"But ...it has fallen down. It's on Earth, isn't it? It hasn't drifted off to the Moon, has it?"

"How the h.e.l.l should I know?"

"Well, it hasn't. If you go to the Moon, you must take your air with you."

"If I go to the b.l.o.o.d.y d.a.m.n Moon! Dammit, Sir Conrad, I am trying to engage in a simple, civil conversation. We are talking about accomplis.h.i.+ng the mundane task of getting water out of a flooded mine. I may not have your education, but I am no idiot child to be fobbed off with tales of fairies and dragons and trips to the Moon!"

The girls had dropped back as our argument heated up. We rode in silence for a bit, letting our tempers cool down. Then Conrad said, "Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't intend to insult you. Now, we were discussing atmospheric pressure. Let's suppose that you were walking at the bottom of a lake- No! Let me take that back.

Suppose that a turtle was walking on the bottom of a lake."

"Very well," I said.

"Now, the turtle can look up and see the water above him, right? But you know that water has weight, always flows downhill, and settles in the lowest spot possible. Right?"

"I see. So if I could stand like an angel above the world, I might see you riding at the bottom of an ocean of air."

"Well put, Sir Vladimir. Now, air weighs very little, but it is many miles deep. The weight of it over a single square yard is something like ten tons. Hey, don't fly off the handle again!"

I said with some resignation, "My back must be half of a square yard. Please explain how it is that I can carry five tons of air on it with ease, when one ton of stone would squash me flat?"

Sir Conrad rubbed his neck with his fingertips, grimaced at the dirt of them and muttered, "Two weeks without a bath," then said, "A fluid pushes equally in all directions. While it is pus.h.i.+ng down on top of you, it is also pus.h.i.+ng up from the bottom. Those two areas must be the same, so they cancel out. The push down equals the push up and you don't feel anything."

"I have tons pus.h.i.+ng down and tons pus.h.i.+ng up and doubtless tons pus.h.i.+ng at all sides! Were that true, I would surely be squashed!"

"Without the air pressure on you, you would quickly die. You might say that you are already squashed, that you are used to being squashed."

"My mother would not be delighted to hear it."

And so it was that we talked out the morning.

Conversation with Conrad can numb the mind more than all the wine of Hungary! My one moment of glory was when Conrad thought that a "walking beam" was a log that somehow had a walking motion, whereas in truth a walking beam is a beam that a man walks on. A small victory, but something to hang the pride on.

The none bells were ringing as we entered the gates of Cieszyn. I started heading for the castle, as was my custom, but Conrad directed us to the Pink Dragon Inn.

"You and I would be welcome at the fort," he whispered. "The girls would not."

I saw the wisdom in this. I had heard that Conrad owned the Pink Dragon Inn, and I suppose that I expected it to be filled with more of his mechanical contrivances. What I found surprised me. The place had a large carved wooden sign, as brightly painted as a statue in church. It had a large and fat pink dragon, beer mug in hand, staring with great lechery at a small and remarkably feminine pink rabbit. This strangely proportioned rodent was grinning back at the dragon.

We were met at the door by Tadeusz, the innkeeper. He was a huge man, as round as a ball, with a full beard and a clean white-ap.r.o.n, yet for all his size he moved with remarkable speed.

"Sir Conrad! Welcome, my lord! It is joyous to see you again!"

"Nice to see you, too, Tadeusz."

"This n.o.ble lord and these fine ladies, they are your guests, my lord?"

"Oh, yes. They lodge at the inn's expense."

I was relieved to hear this. You see, while my father is hardly a pauper, his expenses in recent years have been high. Not only had he provided three sons with horse, arms, and armor, but he had provided a total of seven large dowries in the course of getting my six sisters married. (It happened that one prospective brother-in-law had the effrontery to drop his dowry into the Odra River while on a ferryboat. To his credit, he did try to retrieve the sack, but was unfortunately wearing full armor at the time. Or perhaps fortunately, for had he not drowned, my father would surely have dealt the fellow a less honorable death. I suppose every family has a skeleton or two about.) Be that as it may, my father does not see fit to provide lavishly for a son who has remained a bachelor. My services to Lambert had been in discharge of feudal duty, so of course I had not been paid. The duke had not mentioned money, so I could hardly broach so mundane a subject to so high a personage.

The result was that I had in my possession a total of nine pence, enough perhaps for a meal and lodging for a night. After that, well, I would always be welcome at Cieszyn Castle, Count Herman's wife being my mother's second cousin. Also, since my father is one of eleven living children and my mother one of seventeen, there was always a relative nearby who would be happy of company. In fact, I once computed that it would be possible to spend four and a half years visiting them all without spending a pence, without overstaying a welcome, and without imposing on the same relative twice. My family may not be wealthy, nor high in the n.o.bility, but we are prolific.

The duke, however, had charged me to stay with Conrad and this would have proved difficult had not Conrad himself paid my way.

Conrad and I dismounted and helped the girls down. A half dozen stable boys scurried out and took away our horses.

"Curry them down and feed them of the best!" Tadeusz shouted. "The very best, mind you!"

Conrad stopped the boy who was leading off his horse, removed his small, heavy saddlebags and draped them over the innkeeper's shoulder, which visibly sagged under the weight.

"See that these are put in a safe place, Tadeusz, and have something sensible done with our baggage."

Conrad introduced his party, but the innkeeper became increasingly fretful.

"But you did not let me know that you were coming, my lord."

"Well, it's not like I could phone ahead."

The innkeeper paused to let that strange statement pa.s.s, being perhaps more used to Conrad than I was.

"Business has been extremely good, my lord. The inn is full."

"That's wonderful!"

"It is wonderful that I cannot provide my liege lord and each of his n.o.ble guests with rooms?"

"It's wonderful that our inn is doing well." At the time, I was shocked by Conrad's use of the royal plural, but on getting to know him better I found that he thought of the inn as belonging to both himself and the innkeeper. Conrad owned it legally and Tadeusz managed it, so it was "theirs." He actually thought that way.

"We don't all need separate rooms," Conrad said, rubbing at the dirt on his neck.

"What about the room that you were supposed to keep reserved for me?"

"Why, your accountant, Piotr, uses that, my lord. I know! Those merchants from Prague! I shall evict them. I never liked Bohemians anyway!"

"Hey, none of that! If we've rented them rooms, the rooms are theirs. Look, for tonight, put Piotr up with the stable boys, find a second bed and put it up in the room for Sir Vladimir and Annastas.h.i.+a. Three of our ladies can sleep with the waitresses."

"Ah, my lord. Some of these maidens wish to be waitresses?"

"I'm afraid that they don't qualify. For now I want a tall beer and a warm bath before supper."

I later found that to be a waitress at the Pink Dragon Inn, a maiden must needs be a true intact virgin; a thing my Annastas.h.i.+a had ceased at months ago.

Although the sun was still high, the common room of the inn was full of customers. At a whispered word from our host, a party of young men quickly smiled, bowed and vacated a table for us. It seems that they worked at the bra.s.s foundry, which Conrad also owned.

A pair of fast-moving waitresses quickly cleaned the table and brought us pitchers of cool beer from the cellars. They were maids of exceptional beauty and most immodestly clad.

To start from the bottom, they wore shoes with extremely high heels; two or three fingers high. They wore no dress, but a tight fitting cloth that barely covered their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and privy members. The back of this skimpy garment had an absurd puff of fur, like a rabbit's tail. Their legs were covered with tight hose of a material suitable for netting small fish. There were bands of cloth at their necks and wrists -suggestive of shackles-and a, strange sort of hat, reminiscent of a rabbit's ears.

And that was all.

I found myself staring at these lovely apparitions until Annastas.h.i.+a kicked me, quite painfully, in the s.h.i.+n.

Conrad didn't bother to sit as cool beer was placed before us. He simply downed his mug with a single pull, said, "To the showers!" and went out the inn's backdoor.

"Can he do something to make it rain?" Natalia asked between gulps of beer.

"No," Krystyana said. "He just means that we should follow him to the bathhouse."

"Oh, good! I've always wanted to take a bath!"

Count Lambert's castle town had a sauna for use in the winter and there was a nearby stream with a swimming hole for use in the summer. But there was no bathhouse. The girls had heard Krystyana's descriptions of the glories of soaking in a hot tub and they scurried eagerly after Conrad.

I, perforce, mounted rear guard and showed admirable foresight in securing a pitcher of beer from the table to take with us. The bathhouse was an establishment separate from the inn, but adjoining it. Conrad did not own the place, but had made special arrangements with it for the convenience of the inn's servants and guests. A bra.s.s token from the inn paid our fare.

The baths were of the traditional sort, with men and maids bathing together.

There is a fad, prevalent in some of the larger cities, that separates the s.e.xes. An annoying modernism, it spoils the scenery; and how is a man to get his back clean?

As I entered the changing room, Sir Conrad was already walking out, having left his clothes and armor scattered on the floor.

"A wise thought, that," he said, noticing my pitcher. "Boy! Run to the inn and bring back a few more pitchers of beer! And mugs!" He stumbled into the darkened bathroom.

The girls, having seen Conrad scatter his clothing and equipment about the room, naturally a.s.sumed that this was the proper way to do things. Soon stockings and embroidered petticoats were scattered atop chain mail and leather.

Now, my arms and armor were worth three hundred times the money in my purse. To treat them in this careless manner was painful to me but I did it, to keep up appearances. As I finished stripping, an old female attendant came in, shook her gray head at the mess, and started folding things. I wanted to tell her to take special care with my armor, but didn't, fearing that she would expect a gratuity.

The bathroom proper had no windows; it was lit by but two oil lamps and one must needs feel one's way in until the eyes became accustomed.

"Well now," said a voice that I almost recognized. "They seem to let anyone come in here."

"You'd think the place was a common stews," said another almost familiar voice.

"But then, again, it is a common stews," said a third voice. "That is to say, it is common and we are all here up to our necks stewing."

"True," said the first. "And he doesn't seem a truly bad sort."

"Indeed, he comes in the company of five of the truly good sort."

"Unclad ladies must always be considered socially acceptable," agreed the first.

"In fact, I move that we make a guild ordinance to that effect."

"Moved, seconded, and pa.s.sed by general acclaim."

It was still too dark to see who was talking. Straining to see them, I b.u.mped my s.h.i.+n on the rim of one of the two huge half-sunken tubs.

"Tsk. Such a clumsy sort. And his mother was so proud of him. Twenty years of careful upbringing gone to waste. "

"Mothers all feel that way. It comes with the fief. But see. He has had the foresight to bring potables. If this wisdom is matched by generosity, he might prove a valued member of our company."

The girls were giggling at the exchange, but I have found that it is not wise to act belligerent when naked. Had I been in armor, my response might have been different, but I attempted humor.

"I brought the pitcher from the table lest it be abandoned. This very night, little Moslem children will be going to bed thirsty, so it's a sin to be wasteful."

"You know," Conrad spoke for the first time. "My mother used to use a similar argument to try to get me to eat my vegetables."

"Mine as well, though she never used it on beer," said a voice. "I always told her to send them to the poor infidels, but she took no heed."

"I did precisely the same," said Conrad. "Do all mothers read the same books?"

"My mother can't read at all. Nonetheless, it was wise of Vladimir to bring the beer. Why, it might have fallen into the hands of some intemperate inebriate and thus contributed to all manner of venial sins."

"As well as a few carnal ones."

"Just who are you men?" I shouted.

"He doesn't recognize us. I'm crushed. It must be eyestrain."

"Doubtless brought on by staring at these lovely ladies."

"Dammit!" I said.

"We're the Upper Selesian Drinking and Fighting Men's Guild."

"Dragons slain, treasures liberated, maidens put in distress, and promptly rescued."

"All services performed by true belted knights."