Book 3, Chapter 6: The Path to the Weaponsmith

“Princess Cayce, might I have a word?” The older of the two Yohstone brothers and earl, but his castle had been taken by the Ketzles, was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. Just a bit taller than me, dark hair, mostly combed, almost a man’s body in his last year as a teen.

I was tempted to simply tell him no. “What would you like, Maitlan?”

“Might I first say that you are absolutely stunning in that golden chainmail, a lovely sight to behold.” He brushed his thick, dark hair, smiling at me.

I continued past him, forcing him to hurry and catch up a bit, my guards close behind. “And you as well, my lord. What is on your mind?”

“Me? I’m not wearing armor.”

“Indeed.”

Nodding, he asked, “Would you like to have dinner with me? I’d love to have a moment of your time.”

My steel boots, and my soldiers’, rang out on the stones as we walked, “I’m afraid I’m very busy, perhaps you could discuss this with Tread? He maintains my schedule.”

“I was really hoping for some alone time with you.”

“To discuss what? You can tell me on the way. I’m headed to the weapon smithy.”

“But I . . . alright. I would like my soldiers to train with yours.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Princess Cayce, my soldiers are falling behind in training, especially with the new pikes your infantry are using. And I don’t even have any honor guard!”

I stopped, boots echoing throughout the stone hall, “No, you do not have an honor guard. Only my soldiers are allowed inside the castle proper and inside the outer walls. I am sorry, but it will be this way until spring. If you don’t like it, you are welcome to join your men in the village below.” He tried to speak and I held up my hand for him to wait, “Additionally, if you want your men to train, go lead training exercises with them.”

“But in the spring, we will be marching together! I do not want my troops to be your support skirmishers!”

I put my hand on his shoulder, “Maitlan, among our military endeavors is to free your home, your castle. Please be patient while I work out the kinks, ah, the problems with this new technology. Until then, rest assured, your division- “

“My division?!”

“You have but 3000 troops. They are a division, not an army. As I was saying, rest assured, they will hold an honored place amongst us as heavy and light cavalry. Only a fool would use veteran soldiers who survived the attack on Castle Yohstone as skirmishers.”

“Hearing you say that relieves my heart. Speaking of matters of the heart, it would be my pleasure to arrange a supper for you, for us, to celebrate your fifteenth birthday.”

I set off again, down the cold, stone hall, “Speak to Tread about my schedule. Good day to you, my lord.” That guy just did not know when to give up. I couldn’t think of any other way to dissuade him from courting me except to avoid talking to him, brush him off when I had no choice.

If only he gave me his phone number on a piece of paper. I could tear it up, drop the pieces in front of him, smiling the whole time. That, with a bit of luck, would show how not interested in him I was. It was hard getting through to teenage boys.

***

We’d just exited the massive doors, on the way to the smithy and, of course, Brin was there waiting. Blue dress, white frills, her golden hair spilling down her shoulders. I slowed a bit so she could match my pace but in truth, I was hoping to avoid her until later this evening. The problem, as ever, was Tread. He’d obviously shared details of my schedule with her. But what could I do? I liked them both.

“Hello Lady Brin, what can I do for you?”

“Hi Cayce! Did you sleep well?”

“Yes. Yourself?”

“No. I hate sleeping without my charge, it’s hard for me.”

“You’re no longer lady of the bedroom, Brin. There’s no such position now.”

“And your ladies in waiting are, well, waiting. With far more patience than I could imagine. For you to let them come back to your service.”

I sighed. “Not happening.”

“You know I had nothing to do with it! Uncle Albian- “

“I know, I know. But you’re still your parent’s daughter.”

Her shoulders slumped, just a little. Gaze on the cobblestones. “Cayce . . . it’s not fair, punishing me for my parent’s actions. For my uncle’s actions! What he did was horrible, I hate him for it. I hate them for not telling me he was so heinous!”

“Do you have something to report?” Brin excelled at being the quartermaster, managing the stocks of the castle, food and supplies for the army, and a lot more that I didn’t know about. I pretended indifference, but I was proud of her.

“Wheat, barley, farmed grains are still trickling in. I really think you should send out a taxation police. The farmers don’t respect you. You don’t scare them.”

“I’m not creating a police force to terrorize farmers, Brin.”

“We’re going to starve if you don’t. We are running a wheat deficit, for example. And eggs, don’t get me started on eggs!”

I stopped, which caused everyone else to take a step and, catching themselves, stop as well. Closed my eyes. “Ok, ok, fine. I want you to take out an armed contingent and, I don’t know, someone who’s good at speaking.”

“I’m good at speaking!”

I rolled my eyes. “To commoners, Brin. Good at speaking with the peasantry. Knock at every farm, collect their dues. You have the records or at least the previous quartermaster should have them somewhere.”

“Are you serious?! That’ll take forever!”

“Brin,” I held her shoulders in my hands, “don’t be too hard on the peasants, ok? They need to prosper, too. Remind them that the Ketzillians and Laemacians and Barclay soldiers are going to attack us if we can’t feed the military.”

“You are so naïve, Cayce, it’s a wonder you’re still breathing.”

“I know, I really know. I have the scars to prove it.”

“Let me resume as your- “

I hit her on the behind with my gauntleted hand, “Better get a move on, girl! Go collect my taxes!” And then continued walking. I think one of my soldiers guffawed, then quickly held it in, coughed to cover it up. Brin likely scowled, but she left me alone, which is what I wanted, and I continued on to the smithy.

***

A crow cawed loudly as I walked by, which caught my attention. It was standing atop a portable wooden wall that fenced off two stalls. One for apples, one for cabbage. The crow was staring at me and dipped its head, as if in a bow.

“He likes you, miss.”

One of the guards immediately spoke up, “Her Royal Highness, Princess Cayce. Not ‘miss.’”

“Oh my word, I apologize,” said the old man as he stood up from his stool, leaning heavily on a cane.

I grabbed him before he could bow, and gave a quick glare at the guard, “It’s ok, don’t worry about it. The, uh, crow here. What’s his name?”

“It’s a raven. I didn’t name him. He just hangs around sometimes.”

“A raven.” It was a larger bird, now that I looked at it. Larger head, too. It cawed at me again and made a rolling sound, followed by a few clicks, then its strange bowing.

“Guess the bird knows royalty better than this old man,” said the stall keeper.

“Does it usually bow like this?”

“Never seen it bow before. Would Your Highness be interested in an apple?”

That’s when I caught on to the trick. Fancy bird, bows to people, gets them to stop and chat with the old man, buy his apples. Clever. “Sure, we’ll take five. One for each of us.” I didn’t personally carry money, so I turned to a guard sheepishly, “Ah, it’ll be reimbursed at the castle. I’ll talk to Brin. Or you can, uh, submit a reimbursement report. Is that a thing?” I felt a bit dumb, didn’t even know how my kingdom ran.

“My lady,” said the soldier, bowing.

He pulled out a pouch and paid the man. I’d have to arrange for one of them to carry the crown’s purse or however that went. Better than borrowing money from your own soldiers.

“Thank you. Have a nice day. Take care of the bird, hey.” It cocked its head the way birds do, to look at me with one eye, then jumped into the air, heading up.

“Oh, he’s not my bird. Shows up sometimes. Only landed just before you got here.”

“Huh. Well, he helped you sell some apples.” And with that, we continued on our way, to the weaponsmith.

***

“Your Highness, always a pleasure.”

I’d left the four guards outside, munching away on their new apples, probably bugging that one guard who’d paid for them that he’d never see that money again. “I’m glad to be here. I brought you an apple.” Passed it to him. Felt a little dumb for not having wrapped it up or anything. Here’s your dirty apple!

“Thank you kindly.” He turned it over in his hands, setting it aside.

“Alright, let’s get to it. Update on the production of sarissa?”

“Going well. The lumber teams are having an easy time of it, the weather holding as it is. And the special division we created for – excuse me, you created – is putting them out quickly.”

“No, no, you built the sarissa production, not me.” All the normal people, commoners in local parlance, treated royalty like we were the whiniest, most insecure people in the world, constantly needing acknowledgment and praise, even where it wasn’t earned. Although in this case, I did strongly suggest to the smith that separate divisions, like a factory, if you’re from my time, to pump out the long pikes would work the best. He softened up and allowed it and, once it was up and running, realized how powerfully functional that was.

Businesses here were based on the cottage model. A family or small collection of people with expertise and infrastructure produce goods at their own pace. Each person produces their own swords, or in this case, long pikes, from rough wood to polished shaft and honed blade. Well, a tiny bit of introducing concepts from the factory model goes a long way. Now, in the sarissa producing cottage, some people make the long and heavy staves of the pikes, others the iron spear tips and bronze ends, others sharpen and affix those. Bang, speedy process, lots and lots of sarissa.

I wasn’t sure if that made it easier to copy the intellectual property or harder, given that no one individual was doing all the jobs. Not that it mattered, I figured. No one copied Phillip II’s invention but his son, despite how wildly successful it was.

“Excellent, and the lance? How’s development along those lines?”

“Slowly. Not from my end, though! No, my lady, it’s the saddle makers you have to talk to. They still haven’t figured out how to work your . . . what are those called again? Straps? Stir-raps?”

“That’s it, the last one. Stirrups. I’ll head over there shortly.” Not exactly rocket science. I wondered what was making that difficult. “Ok, so no problems on the lance. What about crossbows? Have you worked out those yet?”

“Regarding the lance, I can’t say yet for sure. I think it’s working, but we need your saddle and stirrup designs realized before we can fully test it out. It’s just too unwieldy without them.”

“Ah, that makes sense.” Stirrups were a bit of a game changer in warfare that allowed riders greater stability and control over their horses. Not a huge game changer like the sarissa was, but I figured every little bit counted. Plus, if we could get those working, we’d be the first to invent the full cavalry charge. What I wanted was lances that were slightly longer than the normal military pikes, to ensure our guys would hit first. That would allow our cavalry to crash straight through phalanx. But it meant the lances were heavy and impractical on their own. You just couldn’t brace for impact without riding high and forward in the saddle, and to do so required stirrups. I’d have to go talk to the leather guys, find out what their problems were.

I prodded the weaponsmith, “and crossbows?” Rather than go to each smithy individually, I made this guy in charge of all. Bowyer, fletcher, sarissa, saddles. Easier to coordinate this way than me talking to each individually, though I had to do that from time to time, regardless.

“Crossbows we’re having troubles with. Either the wood isn’t strong enough and breaks, or the rope breaks, or we just aren’t getting enough power.” He looked at me skeptically, “It might be better if we just stick to bows.”

“We will use bows, but I also want crossbows. If the wood you’re using isn’t working, give me some options.”

“Well, we can try a variety of wood, to be sure, but it’s not just that.” He opened his hands, “The reloading mechanism. The more taught the strings we use, the more difficult it is for a man to ready the weapon to fire again. And the tension often breaks the holding mechanism.”

“Hmm. I think, Master Smith, you might have to use metal. And perhaps a device to aid in drawing the string back?”

“Our best right now is a lever. A metal lever attached near the base of the device that allows the rope to be pulled back. But that limits the tension we can put into the device, which limits its stopping power.”

“I see. And option two?”

“We’re testing out a pully system. The archer uses it to wind the rope back into position. The drawback is that it’s slow and heavy. I fear that such archers would only be able to carry the one crossbow if we use this method.”

“I’m glad to see you’re making progress. The pully system sounds best for what I’m thinking.” I was imagining several rows of troops firing crossbows at the enemy much like how the British Redcoats fired muskets. Front line fires, drops to their knees to reload, other lines fire above their heads, drop to reload, etc. And I wanted stopping power, so the larger crossbow would work best.

What he’d mentioned was not too dissimilar to crossbow development where I’d come from. Except that somehow the Chinese had invented a crossbow that held ten bolts in a clip above the device. No idea how that worked, but it would be nice to have the blueprints! When I’d explained my ideas to the smiths, they were at once skeptical and interested. Actually finalizing a working model was taking longer than I’d imagined, but at least it was coming along. My ideas. I stole all these from my previous life. Not really my ideas at all.

After the weaponsmith, I headed over to the armorer, then the leatherworkers. After all the honorifics and bowing, we finally got to it.

“Well, Your Highness,” he led me to the horse, “the problem is that these straps of yours cause a lot of distress to the animals.”

“Distress?”

“If you look here,” he directed my attention to the animal’s sides. Fur was worn down and there was dried blood, “It’s too much weight concentrated on these straps.”

This guy was either obtuse or he really didn’t like the concept of stirrups. I was thinking that I might have to replace him. “Forgive me for being young and naïve, but perhaps the problem isn’t the stirrups, but the lack of padding?”

“We’ve tried adding padding, Your Highness. It’s just that the weight of a full-grown man, in armor, is too much for these.”

“You’re not doing it right then.”

“Excuse me?” He looked incredulous that a girl would explain saddle making to him. And he wasn’t wrong, what did I know of saddle making? Except that it could be done.

“It’s clear we have to do away with the, shall we say, traditional idea of a saddle.” Their saddles were leather seats, with four leather posts sticking up. When you sat into it, the posts hugged you and provided some stability. But not as much as a wooden-base saddle with stirrups would. “Look, your saddles are based solely on leather- “

“My saddles?”

“All saddles. That’s a fundamental limitation to how much weight you can distribute across the saddle. You see what I mean? Leather is more like a cushion than a weight redistributor.”

“Your Highness,” I just knew what he was going to say, “I’ve been making saddles since before you were born. All saddles are made out of leather and leather alone. They perform very well and keep the rider stable.”

“Right. I’m imagining a saddle made out of wood. Shaped like the horse’s back on the bottom and a seat on the top.”

“Wood? That would cause too much suffering to the animal. I think it best if- “

“Not wood alone. Leather will enclose the wood. And a blanket under the saddle.”

“That just isn’t possible. It’ll be bad for the horse and therefore bad for the army.”

That’s when it dawned on me. These guys were saddle makers who’ve only ever used leather their entire lives. Never conceived of saddles made of anything else because their saddles worked. They just couldn’t do what I wanted them to do. I snapped my fingers as the realization hit, “I should be talking to carpenters. Maybe artisans.”

“Excuse me, my lady?”

“It’s nothing. Look, I’ll get back to you. Forget the experiments with the, uh, straps. It’s clear that you aren’t going to make any more progress here.”

He looked relieved. “That’s right, too hard on the horses.”

I gave him a smile, despite my disappointment, “We won’t be harming anymore horses, will we?” Now I had to go see Tread to get him to round me up some carpenters and artisans. Maybe one of them could figure out how to craft a saddle from wood, then enclose it with leather, complete with stirrups. If only I had the Internet, I could find explanations, commentary, videos about it, sigh.

When I exited the store, I paused, staring at a nearby horse. It was dark brown, clean coat and well taken care of. I just couldn’t believe stirrups were causing me the most problems. Stirrups! Imagine if I’d tried something more complex, like a flint lock pistol. It’d probably take years of development.