Tosra & The Auction, day 22
Taking care of the mess
The first thing we do in the morning, is to send one of the crew to the mansion so they know we'll be visiting later, but we visit my trading empires office first.
We've been here before and shopped, and Iselin bought some of our tableware and utensils here. Its a small two-storey building, where the ground floor facing the street and the harbor is the shop, with two large longhouse warehouses/barns behind for goods and animals. The trading empire is run Ovdhon, and his wife, Björg, who lives upstairs with their four children and a maid, and there is also a small extra room with two double beds. They have three slaves to handle moving goods, loading, unloading, etc, who sleep in one longhouse warehouse. There is lots of goods in stock. Items to be sent away by ship and items that have arrived but not been sold. The contents of the warehouses are 'only' worth around 370 ounces of silver right now, and the are quit a cash buffer, but four ships are currently away trading. Iselin and Kari help me go through the accounting books, as there actually is books and Björg seems to be quite neath in keeping a book. I have terrible knowledge of what things are worth and it is of course written with the rune digit system. I let Iselin and Kari decide what they think, but I guess they will be good considering how proud Björg and Ovdhon is to show them, and that Radgeirrson apparently hardly bothered to really check.
I asks Ovdhon to continue as they have; they have far, far, better understanding of trade than I do, but in the future the trading empire will be able to sell certain goods from the Academy. It would be stupid to not to try to sell it myself with my own trading organization, now that I have one. The merchants should also try to buy specific goods, and for now I ask to get all the salpeter they can and also sulfur, but not if it means paying too high a premium for it. I also want to know if the demand for these goods is increasing, and this applies in general to alchemical substances and copper. I also ask him to get the merchants to notice and write down info about anyone asking for the following goods, and I give him a list of the words for compasses, nitrate, salpeter, sulfur, acid and ricin in English and French. I would have preferred to be able to give him the words in Spanish, German and Italian, but neither I nor Jane know the words. I immediately buy all the salpeter that is here, and half of the sulfur. There is much more sulfur than salpeter, and I won't need that much sulfur even in the forseeable future. I do some quick mental arithmetics on final weight for black powder with all this salpeter, and about 22kg should be enough for about 4500 gun shots. Or about 40-60 shots with a smaller cannon. I should build a small cannon. I'm going to build a small cannon.
I'm not entirely happy when I understand that they are of course are trading in slaves, and there are some slaves in stock right now to buy. I become even less happy that Radgeirrson has a standing order for his merchants to try to get hold of beautiful female slaves, preferably 11-14 years old but a little older is okay if they are exotic enough or virgins, and that it usually passed through one or two a month directly to his mansion here in the city. I do not want to know where he sold everyone on to, because he obviously havn't kept them all himselfs. I really hope he did sell them on, or else it would be even more terrible. But I can imagine that the other participants at the feast are probably partly recipients, and Ovdhon knows that some were sold on to feasthalls. Damn, I sort of expected Radgeirrson to have raped other young girls, but not more than a dozen girls a year. And its been going on for a decade. I stop this trade. However, I have to count on some young girl slaves arriving here because four trading ships are on voyages, and I will not stop the slave trade in general; I want to be smarter as the ships merchants choose goods, and no matter what I want, slaves are a big market in this world, and harming the merchants own interests and economy is stupid. That won't end well. I will instead talk to the merchants in person and individually discus the slave trade with them, and maybe favour some merchants. I do not like that I will make money from slave trade.
The five ships have divided routes between them. One travels north along the Norwegian coast far north to the 'reindeer people'. Another travels south to the Baltic Sea and the eastern parts of the kingdom, then further east to the Ris people and via the southern Baltic Sea back. Another ship sails south and through the Daes kingdom, and what I think of as Germany and maybe Poland. One shipe goes on real long trips east and south via western Daes, to Frigonen and further to the south sea, which I think is the Mediterranean. I can not be sure. Just trying to understand the routes descriptions are hard, and the world might look different. The last ship travels around the sea kingdoms, and he says several places where I only recognize Avalune and Alba. So I guess England, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Orkney, Scotland and back. It all seems to be smart spread, if I now interpreted the routes correctly. Ovdhon have heard of places further away, but they don't travel there. Merchants trade goods with other merchants, that might have traded with other merchants and so on.
A bonus is Radgeirrson hadn't collected his quarterly income, which I get, and there is just something nice about being given bags with silver and gold. I honestly have no idea how rich I am, and I really need to do a review and start keeping an accounting book. I know Kari wants that job. After a quick discussion with my sambos, I raise everyones salaries by 1/20. It is good if they immediately become more positive towards us, and a raise is of course appreciated. It will be good news for the ships and crews that return. Another thing is that I give Ovdhon 6 North Arrows. Each ship captain can borrow one, and the North Arrow belongs to the ship. The sixth he can use to show if people wonder.
I ask Ovdhon to put up a small hanging flag with the Academy's logo on the outside, and also my logo, so that people know where to turn and who the owner is. The ships cannot mark their flags or sails with the Academy logo, but they can use my logo. It feels like a good idea for the logo to be known and spread. Inquiries about Sundials should be sent to Digraldi, but sundials can be a good commodity to try to sell on the voyages, because it is possible to install and get where south is on a sunny day if you get some fix points that are joined by lines etc, and the angle can be set on the spring and autumn equinox. He can collect any inquiries in a book and give me an update on when we come by or every quarter. If there is something important, send a message to the island.
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Digraldi's business is in the direction of the mansion, I don't complain about delaying that visit a bit more. I ask him to deliver what he has for my ship, and among other things, I place orders for door locks. Its two different models, and the simpler one can be locked with a knob, and can be unlocked from the other side by pushing a bevelled long stick into the hole for it, and turning. That lock is for doors that don't need to be lockable from the outside, such as toilets and bathrooms.
The second door lock is more advanced and requires a key. The basic mechanism is the same, with a lever that has a weight that moves a locking piston with doorhandles. The lock is the same knob on the inside but a simple lock cylinder on the outside, for a flat key with grooves in it that prevents rotation if you use the wrong key. The design is more reminiscent of a classic key than a modern one, and easy to make or make a universal key, but works well enough and stops others than those who are motivated. It is also a very simple and reliable design with a minimal amount of parts, which is important, as there will be lots of locks and keys. There are seven 4mm segments, and if one segment is used on all the mansion locks and another for all other doors on the islands, there will still be 125 different combinations, 250 if I make half deep segments as well, and I can easily design the lock combination and do the finishing work myself on each lock. I order 30 door locks to begin with, and 8 simpler, and a 100 shiny brass keys.
I also ask Digraldi to try to make two gas cylinders. I would have preferred them in iron, but gas cylinders are a stupid thing for a blacksmith to shape by hand and get a proper seal. It will also simply be easier to solder on the brass than the iron, because I doubt that the joint will be gas-tight. The disadvantage of brass is that the cylinders become even heavier, because cast goods are thicker and brass weighs more than iron. The gas bottle I designed consists of two parts, a longer cylinder and a top part. A simple but stronger bayonet locking means that they lock into each other, but to make it gastight and help hold the joint together, there are lips on the edges that a heated ring will be shrunk over and edges hammered down. I don't know how well this will go or how tight it will be. There are so many problems. Partly with the production and partly with the seal. Should I heat it up after to be able to solder, it will hardly help keeping the shrinking fit good.
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Its not hard to find a blacksmith willing to try to make two iron gas cylinders, which is a different construction. He will make sheet metal that then has folded edges that are heated and hammered together, with a couple of iron rings round to take the pressure. Then slightly rounded endplates hammered in and shrunk iron rings locking it in place. I hope he actually understands what I am describing and doesn't just nod along, and can do the work. The gas bottle may have to withstand a some negative pressure, but above all many many overpressures. I'm not looking forward to pressure testing them.
I also let him try to make an iron cannon barrel, the old way it was made, much like a wooden barrel. A piece of iron is hammered out into a long flat piece, given a rounded shape in the longitudinal direction via a template, and then a leading edge that is rounded outwards. Many segments are combined to form a tube, and in my case six to eight segments. To keep the segments together, thick iron rings are made that are slightly too small to fit over, which are then heated until the ring is redhot and quickly hammered down over the segments. The ring shrinks a little when it cools and holds the segments together. Continue to put ring after ring at short intervals until the whole part is assembled, and the last 1/3-1/4 of the back end has rings that are completely against each other because that is where the highest pressure is. Before the last rings are heated and shrunk in place, an end plug is hammered into the barrel if it is muzzle loaded. And a cannon barrel has been completed. The method is similar to how wooden barrels are built and is the reason why they say 'barrel of a gun' or 'gun barrel'. As far as I know, the term 'cannon' comes from the most popular format and size, and eventually everyone was just calling it a cannon. It was more convenient to refer to the object as a cannon, and then say the weight of the projectile, instead of using many different names. Like a '6 pound cannon' or '12 pound cannon'.
The cannon will certainly not be accurate and require a lot of padding behind the bullet, but this method requires no drilling to make the barrel, and is something an ordinary blacksmith can understand and put together. He seems to at least. However, I make it a little more complicated, because this cannon will only be 60mm in diameter and I want to try to make a back-loaded cannon. So the rear end is not plugged but has a strong U-bow in iron, where a strong thick-walled 'iron mug' with a conical lip has the powder charge and the conical part is inserted into the cannon behind the bullet. An iron wedge is tapped in from the side between the 'iron mug' and the U-frame to lock the 'mug' in place, and firing can take place. Is that 'iron mug' still called a breech or not? Anyway, with two 'iron mugs', one can clean and prepare to powder while the other is loaded and fired.
The reason I want to test this cannon making method is that it is relatively uncomplicated compared to some models, and doesn't require any advanced machines to manufacture. Just blacksmith tools. I simply want to test how well it works and performs, and should it turn out to be a problem with the back loading - which I assume it will be - then I can cut off the U frame and plug the end to make the cannon into a muzzle loader. Although I prefer to make cast bronze cannons with drilled rifled barrels, it will be a lot more work and cost, and I suspect that if someone else has a cannon in Europe, they will have built it with the 'iron barrel' principle, and I would like information about what I can expect.
The art of casting large objects in bronze seems to be quite limited with few craftsmen, and mostly for church bells, statues and the like. The art is more common here in Borgarsandr precisely because copper is so available here, and 80-90% of bronze and brass is copper. But bronze and brass work don't have the market and respect that iron has. And good iron is clearly the better metal in most cases. Stronger and a little lighter. Well, if its good iron.
I will probably try to drill the barrel sometime in the future to make it rounder, and to be able to see through the barrel when doing it, will be practical. The cannon will be set into a strong wooden frame with iron reinforcements that will have handles. The idea is that 2-4 men be able to lift the cannon, and assemble it in place. Although it will have a lightweight carriage and upgrades, if the cannon is useful enough.
The blacksmith looks very funny at my construction drawings, especially the cannon as I sketch it on paper for him, and I point out important parts and explain as he asks questions. It's a hell of a lot of iron, but it shouldn't be that much work compared to making rivited chain mail or some other construction.
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We take another quick detour to the basket maker whose home I now own, just to introduce ourselves and say he can continue to lease for the time being as he have been. But the man is old and his hands ache and he doesn't have the strength to make baskets as before. His son has been nagging him to move to him outside Borgarsandr, which he will do before winter, instead of waiting for the lease to expire. He will continue to make some baskets and sell from there. I choose to pay back some of what he already paid in rent to Radgeirrson. He tries to refuse, but it feels right to do and its a small sum. Iselin and Jane look at his fine craftsmanship and give him high praise, which makes him give us two fine baskets with lids. He tries to give us more, but I thank him and stop. It just feels so wrong, and I wish him luck and hope his hands won't hurt too much.
The property is just a small house in rather poor condition except out towards the road, with a small courtyard behind where there is some chickens and three pigs. The whole property is only about 20x50m, but it is relatively central. Apparently Radgeirrson won the property from the previous owner in some game a couple of years ago, so we are the third owner he leased from. I have no idea what to do with this house, and considering what the basket maker says about the roof and what my company thinks, at least a new roof is necessary.
Might as well just tear everything down and build new? I can make a small luxurious townhouse for us when we are here in Borgarsandr, but it feels like an unnecessary cost, and it will take some important craftsmen from the islands.
No matter what, that will not be built this winter, and come spring, life may have changed.
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I've feared to visit the mansion, but thats what we are here to do. So might just get it over with. The mansion is in the outskirts of Borgarsandr, a couple of kilometers from the center, so I havn't really passed by or noticed the mansion when we were here before. That there is a small deciduous forest in between hasn't directly helped, and the forest belongs to the land. It is a fortified mansion built with stone on a rocky outcrop of a larger hill, and the rest of the hill also belongs to the mansion. From a distance the mansion looks quite impressive. We see a couple of larger pastures and some fields slightly below and closer to the mansion. The rest seems to be mostly meadows and slightly open forest, with a pretty little stream running down along the road and forming a pond. Slightly overgrown former meadows more than anything else, and it feels like Radgeirrson didn't really bother with cultivating the land where possible, but mostly let it be grazing for animals. There are some horses and cows, and there is a small enclosure for pigs in the forest, which roams around and looks quite satisfied. I own more horses than I thought.
As we walk up along the road, the mansion looks more impressive, and so do the surroundings. It is a fortified mansion where parts of the house are part of the wall, surrounded by a crenellated wall. About 3-5m high on the outside to get the top level, and the mansion partly take advantage of the hill's steep cliff face on one side with just a very low wall at the top. Probably easier to lean a ladder against that wall, than climb that cliff.
I can see a courtyard on the other side of the open gate, and a couple of the low corner towers have lookouts with wooden roofs. Also a wooden roof above the gate. The mansion feels more like a simpler castle instead of a mansion, and is seems to be almost entirely built of stone, including slate roofs and seems to be a paved courtyard. This was not cheap or quick to build. It honestly feels a bit like bragging and showing off, and it would not surprise me if that what it is, given that the mansion is on the outskirts of the capital and was owned by a rich man in the King's vicinity. But the mansion has, of course not, far less windows, and smaller size windows, that my mansion has. My other mansion. Yeah, that isn't something I ever expected to have to clarify. Though this mansion has more windows with glass than the average longhouse and the upper floor has quite many narrow and high windows towards the courtyard. Some are stained glass. As we walk through the gate we I see a couple of men and a woman waiting for us. The mansion is L shaped much like mine, but both wings have the same height and size, and with a stable and barn against the wall on the other side, the yard gets a wide square U shape around the courtyard and the front gate.
We are very well received, they bow and curtsey, and I guess I have a distinct apperance with my beard and hairy arms. Through an open gate under a tower I see a bit of the back of the main building which seems to be a piece of walled of nature as garden, where the wall is low enough to see the view down to Borgarsandr and the river. Seems to be a nice view, to bad the garden isn't south facing, although then it would have to be north of the river to have a view of the town.
We are led in to greet the staff.