By Schism Rent Asunder (17 page)

He paused, once more meeting Sharleyan's gaze levelly, then bowed.

“I fully realize, as does His Majesty, that no one in Chisholm has ever contemplated such a … sweeping change in the relationship between your Kingdom and Charis. Clearly, this isn't the sort of decision which can be made by a single person in a single day, even if that person be a king or a queen, and the nature of the threat your Kingdom would be embracing is not one to be lightly shouldered.

“But that threat already looms over both Chisholm and Charis. We can either confront it together, or separately. His Majesty believes our chance of survival and victory is far greater together, and this proposal is the strongest surety he can offer that if, indeed, we face this peril together, we will go
on
together to whatever victory or other end awaits us.”

.III.

Ehdwyrd Howsmyn's Foundry,
Delthak,
Earldom of High Rock,
Kingdom of Charis

“And how has your day been?” Rhaiyan Mychail asked genially as he stepped into Ehdwyrd Howsmyn's office.

“Hectic,” Howsmyn said with a grin, standing to clasp forearms with his longtime business associate. “On the other hand, there could be a lot worse reasons for putting up with all of the headaches.”

“True.” Mychail returned Howsmyn's grin. “The sound of all those gold marks falling into my cash box at night is
such
a cheerful one!”

Both men laughed, and Howsmyn twitched his head at the office window. The two of them walked across to stand looking out it, and Mychail's expression sobered as he shook his head.

“It's hard to believe that all you had here two years ago was a single small furnace and a lot of empty dirt,” he said.

“I feel the same way a lot of the time,” Howsmyn acknowledged. “And, like you, I have no objection at all to how much richer this is making me. But at the same time.…”

He shook his head, and the gesture was far less cheerful than Mychail's had been.

His older friend didn't respond at once. Instead, he simply stood there, looking out over what was without doubt already one of the largest—if not
the
largest—foundries in the entire world.

Howsmyn's new and growing facility sat on the western shore of Ithmyn's Lake, the vast lake formed at the confluence of the Selmyn River and the West Delthak River in the Earldom of High Rock. The West Delthak was a brawling, powerful river flowing out of the South Hanth Mountains, but frequent shallows and cataracts made anything but small, local boat traffic impossible. The
lower
Delthak, however, was navigable, even for galleons, between Ithmyn's Lake and Larek, the small (but growing) port at the river's mouth, sixty-four miles to the south. That had been a major factor in Howsmyn's decision to buy the land from Earl High Rock, since it meant ships could sail all the way up the river to what was literally his front door. The extensive deposits of high-quality iron ore in the mountains to the west had been another factor, of course, although he hadn't actually done very much to develop the site until the sudden need for enormous quantities of artillery had burst upon the Kingdom of Charis.

Now engineers in Howsmyn's employ had already begun construction of a series of locks to improve navigation on the West Delthak and facilitate development of the mountains' iron deposits. Still more engineers had been busy farther down the river, and much of its water had been diverted through dams and channels by a swarming army of workmen to create an entire series of holding pools. Aqueducts from the highest pools and channels from the lower ones led to almost two-dozen overshot waterwheels, all of them churning steadily to power the equipment Howsmyn's mechanics had installed, and fresh mill races were under construction, as well. Smoke fumed from blast furnaces, more smoke rose from the foundries themselves, and as Mychail watched, a team of workers tapped the ore bath of a puddling furnace. The ferociously incandescent molten iron—wrought iron, now, softer and more malleable than cast iron—spilled through the tap into a collecting ladle for further processing.

Elsewhere, a much larger ladle of fiery, molten iron moved steadily towards the waiting molds. The ladle was suspended from an iron framework, which was in turn mounted on a heavy, multi-ton freight wagon. The wagon's wheels had flanged rims, instead of the smooth ones one might have expected, but that was to insure that they followed the iron rails linking the furnaces and the rest of the foundry's facilities. Draft dragons leaned into their collars, moving their burden with brisk efficiency, and Mychail inhaled deeply.

“Believe me, I understand,” he said quietly. “When I look at this”—he jutted his chin at the swarming, incredibly noisy activity beyond Howsmyn's window—“I feel this enormous surge of optimism. Then I think about the fact that the Group of Four has the combined resources of every mainland realm to draw upon. That's a
lot
of foundries, Ehdwyrd, even if none of them can hold a candle to what you're doing here.”

The truth was that all the techniques being employed out there had been known to ironmasters virtually since the Creation. But most of the iron which had ever before been required had been produced in much smaller operations, and without the consistent application of power from the perpetually rotating waterwheels Howsmyn and his mechanics had integrated into
this
foundry.

Well
, Mychail corrected himself,
there
are
a few changes in “technique,” if I'm going to be honest. So I suppose it's fortunate that none of them had to be tested under the Proscriptions
.

Howsmyn had gone further than anyone else in finding ways to use the power of his waterwheels. As one result, his furnaces burned hotter, and he'd been forced to find more refractory materials for the firebrick those furnaces required. Which, in turn, had inspired him to try to drive temperatures still higher. Mychail was one of the very few people who knew about Howsmyn's latest project—a further development of the puddling hearth but one which used hot furnace gases to preheat the ductwork by which the furnace was fired. Unless Mychail was sorely mistaken, production rates would be going up once more. And if Howsmyn's more optimistic predictions proved justified, he might actually find himself producing true steel, not simple wrought iron, in quantities such as no other ironmaster had ever even contemplated.

Fortunately, the Church had never set any sort of standard for the materials from which firebrick had to be made, or the temperatures to which furnaces might be heated, which meant Howsmyn's increased efficiency had slipped past almost unnoticed by Safehold at large … and by the Inquisition, in particular. The same broader and more innovative use of the power of his waterwheels had allowed him to achieve still other efficiencies as well, such as the grooved, geared rollers which let him produce iron bars far more quickly and economically than the traditional methods of hammering or of cutting strips from a rolled plate.

“I know your output is a lot higher on a manpower basis,” Mychail continued. “But they don't have to match your output if they can bury you under sheer numbers of foundries.”

“I know. Believe me, I know. On the other hand”—Howsmyn raised one hand and pointed out beyond the current outer ring of furnaces, to where still more walls and foundations marked additional expansion which was already well underway—“within four months, we're going to have increased our present capacity by another fifty percent. I'm expanding both my Tellesberg foundry and the one in Tirian, as well, too.”

Mychail nodded, turning his head to watch yet another cargo vessel moving steadily up the Delthak from Larek. He wondered what this one carried as it steered towards the cluster of ships already moored at Howsmyn's lakeside docks. More coke for the furnaces? Copper and tin for Howsmyn's bronze works? Or more timbers, brick, and cement for the ongoing construction tasks?

Housing for Howsmyn's employees was also going up. Like Mychail himself, Howsmyn held strong opinions on the quality of housing his workers required. From a purely selfish viewpoint, the better the housing, the more strictly Pasquale's injunctions on sanitation were followed, the healthier the workforce he could expect, and the healthier his workforce, the more productive it would be. But there was more to it for Ehdwyrd Howsmyn, just as there was for Mychail, himself.

Rhaiyan Mychail was perfectly well aware that even here in Charis, altogether too many wealthy merchants and manufactory owners had absolutely no regard for their employees as fellow human beings. He and Howsmyn both detested that view. Indeed, Mychail had been an outspoken critic of that sort of thinking literally for decades, and he felt reasonably confident that that was one of the reasons King Haarahld had approached him and Howsmyn when he needed to create the manufacturing basis for his new navy.

And those idiots who try to screw every single hundredth-mark out of their workers deserve the loyalty they get in return, since it's absolutely nonexistent,
he thought caustically.
Funny how starvation and loyalty don't seem to go hand in hand, isn't it? But see to it that they have affordable housing and healers, that there are schools available for their children, that they have the wages in their pockets to buy food and clothing, and that they all know you're constantly looking for foremen and supervisors from among anyone with the wit and ambition to better themselves in your employ, and it will repay you a hundred times over just from a purely selfish viewpoint
.

That was a lesson Ehdwyrd Howsmyn wasn't going to forget, even here, even in the face of the crisis the entire kingdom faced. It was, in fact, one he had learned from Mychail, and he'd taken it even further in at least one respect. Howsmyn had established an investment pool for his employees—one which actually allowed them to buy a share in the ownership of the foundries and manufactories in which they worked—and the employees at each of his enterprises were allowed to elect a single steward who represented their interests at the managerial level, as well. Any steward actually had the right to meet directly with Howsmyn, if the situation was serious enough for the workers who'd elected him to demand it.

That entire concept had been an unheard-of concession, even in Charis, until Howsmyn initiated it. Now it was actually spreading beyond his own enterprises, and the older man felt a glow of almost paternal pride as he gazed out at the growing sprawl of manufacturing capacity which was going to cement Ehdwyrd Howsmyn's claim to be the wealthiest man in Charis in the very near future.

“What's your cannon production up to now?” he asked after a moment.

“Not where we need it to be—yet,” Howsmyn replied. “That is what you were asking, isn't it?”

“More or less,” Mychail admitted.

“Actually, between the operation here and my other foundries, we're producing just over two hundred pieces a month,” Howsmyn said. Mychail's eyebrows rose, and he pursed his lips in a silent whistle, but the younger man shook his head. “That's
all
of them, Mychail—long guns, carronades, field pieces, wolves, the lot. At the moment, we're better than half of the Kingdom's total production, too. And to be honest, we can't increase production of bronze guns much beyond where we are right now. There's simply not enough copper and tin available. Of course, the mines' production is going up rapidly now that the new gunpowder is available for blasting, as well as artillery, but we're still going to bottleneck on the lack of metal at any moment.”

“What about the iron guns?” Mychail asked.

“That's a considerably brighter picture, actually.” Howsmyn smiled. “Those iron deposits Earl High Rock wanted developed are starting to come in very handy, although I hadn't really anticipated operating them myself. I'd planned on leasing the rights, but it's turned out to be a lot simpler to just hire experienced mining operators and put them to work for me.” He shook his head. “We won't really hit our stride with them until the canals are completed, of course, but when they're opened, production is really going to climb. Of course, I couldn't have done any of this without the new artillery contracts from the Crown.”

“Of course,” Mychail agreed. After all, he'd experienced exactly the same thing. His ropewalks had increased production by almost three hundred percent, and his textile manufactories were growing even more rapidly.

The new cotton gins made raw fiber available in enormous quantities, and the productivity of the powered looms and spinning machines Merlin Athrawes' “suggestions” had made possible was mind-boggling to someone who'd grown up with traditional methods. The new methods were also considerably more dangerous for workers, though. He was doing everything he could think of to limit those dangers, but the sheer number and extent of the drive shafts and belts required to transmit power from waterwheels to the new machinery had to be seen to be believed. Every foot of the power train was a broken or amputated limb just waiting to happen, and the powered looms themselves could inflict permanently crippling damage on someone who got careless even for a moment.

Well, Ehdwyrd and his people have been dealing with that for years now. The rest of us are just going to have to learn to cope, as well
, he thought.

Even though he knew the argument was true, it didn't make him feel much better about the men and women who'd already been injured working with the new equipment. At least he and Howsmyn both had long-standing pension programs to support workers who were injured in their employ. And, unlike some of their fellows, they hadn't even considered using
children
in the new manufactories.

Which means we're not going to get hurt as badly as some of the others when the Crown's new laws against child labor go into effect next year
, he thought, with a certain undeniable satisfaction. He and Howsmyn had fought hard to get them applied immediately, and he knew Cayleb had wanted to do just that, but his council had talked him into allowing for the adjustment period.