The following morning saw Nedric rising with the dawn, not his normal start to the day. The pressure of getting his work done forced him out of his general somnambulant approach. Washing and dressing quickly, Nedric moved quietly around the room in order not to disturb Rialto. When he sat in his chair a loud creak made him wince. It didn’t wake his friend, whose gentle snores continued undisturbed.
As he read through the assignment question he wondered what sort of sadistic mind asks for students to “Discuss the size of population of an area when compared with the ease of travel to that area. Extrapolate what the effect of the Boardways would mean to the new areas in which they were being built.”
He read through the work he had already done, which basically said that the easier it was to get somewhere then the more people were there. He had cited as his case that Elseth, the capital of Setherland, was by far the most populated area of the country because the two rivers that joined nearby made rapid travel from other towns possible. Also the flat plains around Elseth were ideal for horse travel. As the wagons bringing food from long distances inland testified.
As his counter case he had cited the area around the keep, which being in hilly country and with thick woodlands as well, was rarely visited by outsiders and only then because of the Duke’s importance to the country.
Having finished the reading, Nedric began to marshal his arguments for the second and more difficult part of the assignment. As only one boardway had been built and that was between two close and prosperous towns, the information he needed was not really there. He knew that what Master Andern was looking for as an answer, was that the Boardways would cause people to move out into the less populated areas. The new boardway was being built toward the undeveloped, forest country of Esteril for that very reason. The problem was that Andern required his students to justify everything they wrote. It wasn’t good enough just to say that people would go to an area where they had more room if the boardways were directed there.
He quickly made notes on the speed of the boardways, the amount of goods that could be sent along them, and the ease of being able to reach relatives left in the emigrant’s old towns. As he had discovered in previous pressure situations, the time limit imposed by the nearness of his lecture with Master Andern brought out the best in Nedric. His thoughts seemed to move at lightning pace and the pages in front of him seemed to fill before his eyes. That the actual writing was close to being illegible did not bother him, if someone wanted to set him this task then that person could struggle over reading his words of wisdom!
A groan from behind him announced to Nedric that Rialto was awake. The break in his concentration was enough for him to lose the focus under which he had been working. In front of him were four pages of tightly written argument. Nedric knew that he was writing roughly five hundred words to the page and that Andern expected roughly two thousand word essays and this caused him to relax. As Rialto went about the process of making himself ready for the day, Nedric started to count the words.
One of Nedric’s eccentricities was the desire to always write the exact amount of words needed for an essay. His count told him that he had a further fifty-odd words in which to summarise his arguments and he used that number to do it, rewriting the final sentence several times in his head to lose the two words that upset his count. By the time he was finished so was Rialto and Nedric happily set his work aside to head towards the refectory.
Breakfast was a much less disciplined affair than the evening meal had been. For a start, only two masters were present and as they were deep in discussion they weren’t paying much attention to what the students were doing. There was a queue along one wall of the room to a table where various cold meats, breads and a large pot of porridge were laid out. As each student entered, they grabbed a tray, plate and if needed bowl and spoon. Mugs lay on a separate table along with several jugs containing milk or water. As they waited, the students went through the usual ritual of insulting other students, discussing the day’s lectures and keeping the younger students in their place.
The general hubbub was interrupted as the doors were thrown back and several people laughing loudly entered the room. Nedric scowled to see Strawn and his cronies arriving. The group got their trays and pushed their way to the front of the queue. The two masters looked up, saw who it was and then ignored the incident.
“I hate the fact that the masters do absolutely nothing about Strawn!” Nedric whispered to Rialto.
“They won’t take any notice unless someone complains and who’s going to make a formal complaint against him.”
“Not me, I get enough grief from him in weapons practice as it is.”
Nedric looked up to see that Rhianna, a rather attractive redhead, was approaching Strawn. The two had been fairly close for the last few months but the rumour mill was suggesting that the two were close to splitting up, even though they had been spending a lot of time alone together.
“I think it is arrogant and bullying.” Rhianna’s voice rose.
Strawn’s reply was inaudible but it was clear that he hadn’t placated the girl, who turned dramatically and walked away from him.
“Well that’s something you don’t see very often. I thought those two were close to inseparable. Perhaps I should offer her a word of support.” Rialto made a move to leave his seat but Nedric pulled him back.
“You don’t want to get in the middle of a lovers fight. There is no way that it will reflect anything other than badly on you.”
“Still at least it was good to see someone try and dent his arrogance. Of course when Andern talks to him about his homework he is likely to be taken down a peg or two. You’ve got to say that Strawn isn’t the most academic of people!”
“I think there are snails who’ve got a greater grasp of mathematics than he has,” replied Nedric with a grin.
“On the other hand,” added Rialto, “there aren’t to many people who can beat him with a weapon. He’s sure to be in the murderball team, he’ll probably be the captain.”
“If he’s captain, then I don’t want to be in the team!” said Nedric firmly.
“Who are you trying to kid? You’re as keen to be in the team as I am. With your size you’ll probably be carrying the ball through some of those villagers.”
The queue had dwindled to where the boys could get some food and they made their way across to one of the tables, continuing the murderball discussion.
* * *
“Now that you have all handed in your assignments and while the ideas are still fresh in your memory, can anyone explain to me why the city of Elseth is placed where it is?” asked Master Andern.
Without waiting for any of the students to put their hands up, Andern decided to pick on someone. “Rialto, rather than whispering to Nedric there, tell me what you have to say on the subject.”
“Well sir,” began Rialto, “I would say that the people who founded Elseth were as far-sighted as the people today and could see that the two rivers would be helpful for future trade.”
“A partial answer at best, Nedric have you anything to add?”
“Sir, would the position of the city have anything to do with the defensibility of the area, surrounded as it is on two sides by rivers and also being on a hill?”
“That’s quite a thoughtful answer, however the question I gave you was a trick. The truth is that we can’t say either answer is correct. We can say that our ancestors, fleeing from Nothering were probably extremely exhausted by the time they got to the plains. When they got to the point where the two rivers meet they possibly didn’t have the energy to cross and just decided to stop there. Now did any of you mention the role of the merchants in the population movement? What, none of you? Half of you are from merchant families! It’s hard to believe that you were all at the end of the queue when the brains were being given out. Stop sniggering Strawn! I don’t believe you were in the queue at all!”
The look on Strawn’s face at that last comment was one that Nedric wished he could record somehow.
As Andern went on about the critical link between merchants and population density, Nedric found himself drifting into a semi-conscious state, almost dream-like. Although he was aware enough to make notes as Andern spoke, he knew that he wouldn’t remember the lecture content and that only the notes would let him know what was said. His thoughts turned to the upcoming trip to the end of the boardway. Having never left home before coming to the keep and not having gone far beyond the village in the three years or so he had been here, the idea of travelling such a distance was exciting if somewhat scary. That fifteen other students and two or three masters were coming with him was a comforting thought. The trip was meant to take five weeks and Nedric was making a mental list of the things he would need to take with him.
“Nedric is there anything you can add to what Elsebeth just said?” Andern’s voice broke through his reverie.
“No sir. I think she covered everything.” As soon as Andern turned his attention to someone else Nedric breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t a clue what Andern had been saying.
“What did he want to know?” he whispered to Rialto.
“I don’t know, I wasn’t listening!” came the reply and a grin, which Nedric answered with a sheepish grin of his own.
Nedric tried his best to pay attention for the rest of the lecture. He managed to answer the few questions that came his way and silently prayed for the lecture to finish so he could get some sleep. Finally Andern finished speaking and Nedric relaxed only to be dismayed by the entrance of the Overmaster. He had forgotten that today they were getting a special lecture. He had been hoping for master Ernick and a chance to turn his brain off.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
The Overmaster gave his lecture about his discovery, ‘The process of impressing boards and the development of the discovery into the making of the first experimental boardway’. Most of the content was not new to the students but what made it interesting for Nedric was the firsthand nature of the tale.
“So I was experimenting with the process that gives us transparent planks. This seemed like a useless process as the training costs involved in getting somebody able to do this was greater than any potential foreseeable profit. I mean who is going to want wooden windows when glass is just as good. I only learnt because I grew up with the monks of Nire. I wondered why it only seemed to work with common grey oak.
I couldn’t see why it should only work with the one type of wood, so I kept plugging away in my spare time with any different scrap of wood I could lay my hands on. I must have tried about eighty or ninety types when I happened to come across this cabinetmaker who had just ordered a load of timber from Esteril. He had obtained some narwood mainly because he liked the colour in his marquetry. I hadn’t seen it before so I persuaded him to give me a couple of scraps. Since they were scarred they were no use to him and he agreed. Obviously you know that it takes about twelve hours to prepare the wood so what with having to do my proper work as well it wasn’t until late into the next night that I finished impressing.
You can imagine my disappointment when I thought that yet again nothing had happened. The scraps were just sitting there looking exactly the same as before. I went to throw them in my bin and got the shock of my life. I couldn’t close my hand. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t get those pieces of wood to go together. Not only that but the closer I brought two pieces together the cooler they both got. I knew I had something but I wasn’t at all sure what I could do with it!”
The little man in front of the students was by now quite animated. It was easy to imagine being him on the day he made his discovery. Nedric could almost picture the scraps of wood as they tried to push away from each other.
“Anyway, my first idea was to make use of the cooling effect for food storage. I didn’t have a lot of money so I really needed a sponsor and that’s where the problems started. I contacted one of the local merchants, who was wealthy enough to support the enterprise and showed him my prototype. He saw the potential and had me making my coolers and training another three people to help. I thought I was getting along fine until he decided he didn’t need me any more. He stopped paying me whilst still selling my idea. I was left with a few bits of narwood and a lot of time to think about the ways of the world.”
It might have been Nedric’s imagination, but as the Overmaster was telling this part of his tale, he seemed to be looking at Rhianna and not with any great kindness either. Nedric thought he’d ask Rialto about it at the end of the lecture. His friend might have only been from a small merchant family but they seemed to have information on everything and everybody.
“Eventually I went back to my bits of narwood and started to think about other uses of the process. It took me a while before I was inspired, the idea of the boardway took a lot of thought and planning as well as a little bit of luck. When I finally conceived the notion in full I then had to try and purchase enough narwood to test it.
It didn’t help that my erstwhile merchant ‘friend’ had bought all of the narwood in Elseth. After a long time I was able to get a wood merchant to import some from Esteril and I was able to construct a model. Here it is!”
Lucern rather dramatically pulled the large cloth off of the lecture room desk. The heavy black drape almost took the model with it and the Overmaster had a short struggle to keep it on the desk. There was a small chuckle from the group of students but it died quickly as they were all keen to see the model.
It didn’t look like much. There was a large plank supported slightly above the table, on this sat a rectangular box with a small wheel on one side. The box was supported by four sets of wheels. Each set consisted of two wheels arranged vertically, one above the other, with the plank between them. It took a moment to notice that it was the lower wheels that were actually touching the plank because the box was trying to float away.
Lucern continued, “If I twist this small wheel in the middle here, it adjusts the angle of the small piece of narwood inside and …”
As soon as the Overmaster removed his hand from the box it started to move and only because he moved with it was Lucern able to stop it from rolling right off the desk.
“I had learnt from my previous mistake so this time I took my idea to the Duke. I knew his reputation for fairness and honesty but more importantly I knew he was wealthy enough that he could support my experiments and not try to rob me for profit. It worked out quite well, which is why we are all here today.”
Lucern looked up and was gratified by the absorbed look on the student’s faces. He wasn’t really a lecturer and he had been more than a little worried about the reception he would be getting from the students. He had relaxed when speaking and just enjoyed reliving the tale. Now he only had to finish the lecture and get back to his experiments.
“Well this model is all very well but can anyone tell me where we found problems when we constructed a larger model? The problem should be apparent from the properties of the narwood. Anyone? Yes, what have you got to tell us?”
He pointed at Nedric who had raised his hand to speak.
“Sir, is the problem with having large lengths of track? I mean you can only have a plank that’s as long as a tree and you said that all pieces repulse so presumably so do two pieces of track.”
“Well done lad!” Lucern positively beamed at Nedric. “We have found a way of getting a length of track longer than a single tree. The repulsion effect of narwood diminishes fairly quickly so the separation of the planks is only about three yards. We use normal unimpressed wood to join the impressed ones. This however causes other problems, can anyone guess what they are?”
He pointed this time to Elsebeth who replied, “when you run over normal wood there isn’t any repulsion so the wagon drops.”
“Well done! This is why we have the two sets of wheels, one above and one below our boardway. When the wagon is above normal wood it rolls on the upper set of wheels and so momentum is maintained. We also had technical difficulties with expansion and contraction of the wood caused by temperature changes, which we overcame by leaving small gaps in the normal wood. We then solved the problem of braking fairly quickly, how?”
One of the other students answered this although Nedric thought that it was a much easier question. Anyone could see that tilting the smaller plank in the opposite direction would reverse the force. He was more interested in why the wagon (as the larger versions of the square were known) didn’t get repulsed from the next section of narwood track after the standard wood track.
The lecture went on, looking at various problems and their solutions. The subject was so interesting that Nedric quite forgot how tired he was until after the lecture had finished. When Lucern finally left, the lack of sleep the previous night hit him like a bag of sand to the back of the head. He yawned as he turned to Rialto to suggest that they tried to scrounge some food out of the cooks. Rialto in turn suggested that Nedric keep out of the way as it always made it harder for him to get food when Nedric was around. “I’ll make sure you get something but if you’re there I won’t be able to turn on the charm!”
“What charm? The cooks like you because you’re small, not because you’re charming!”
“I still get fed better when you’re not around which is my point.”
“All right, I’ll meet you by the butts. It will be quiet there until we have practice later.”
“See you later” Rialto dashed off.
Nedric made his way to the secluded area within the keep where the guards and students practised archery. As he had predicted the area was quiet. He lay on the grass bank, which had been placed to catch stray arrows and promptly fell asleep.
He was woken when Rialto dropped half of a small loaf of bread on his face. It didn’t hurt but it did give him a start. He sat up quickly and the bread went rolling down the slope. He retrieved it, accompanied by the sound of Rialto’s laughter. Rialto had also managed to acquire a slab of cheese, which he cut in half and gave to Nedric and a jug of fruit juice.
“Those cooks must really want to see you grow if they feed you this much!”
“Your just jealous, anyway this is only the stuff I managed to sneak away, you didn’t see the pastries they insisted I try before I left!”
“Now I am jealous, I don’t get to have pastries all that often.”
“Everybody say aaaah!”
Nedric playfully threw a punch at Rialto’s arm, which he easily avoided.
“Whilst it’s quiet you can tell me why Lucern was giving Rhianna evil looks during that lecture,” said Nedric.
“Didn’t you know that it was her uncle who did the dirty on him? Of course the whole family got wealthy on distributing that invention to those nobles that could afford it. Then again you’ve probably never seen a cooler so perhaps you wouldn’t know much about them.”
“We can’t all be from wealthy merchant families,” said Nedric a little sulkily.
“Who’s wealthy?” replied Rialto. “My family just about survives on the leftovers of the big boys.”
“They’re doing well enough to send you here!”
“Actually I’m here, like you, on a free berth. I can’t believe you didn’t know that!”
“I’m sorry mate!” Nedric quickly apologised. “I guess all this time I just assumed you were here because of your parents because they’re merchants and no-one told me any different.”
“Apology accepted. Now look up, the others are heading in this direction.”
Nedric looked up to see that the rest of his group were slowly making their way over to the shooting range. They weren’t moving as one group but rather like two different groups, one dominated by Rhianna, which were mainly girls and the other by Strawn, which were mainly boys. Making his way briskly toward the group of students was the guard Bronn.
“I’m the lucky guard that gets to help you lot with your archery,” began Bronn. “Now I know that you all were shown how to do it last month and by now you think you’re experts. So I’m going to watch you for a while and if you look good enough I’ll let you move away from the baby bows and onto some with some real weight behind them.”
Nedric grimaced. He knew that if there were one person who would show up badly today, it would be him. It wasn’t as though he didn’t try, in fact the various instructors said that he generally tried too hard and that if he relaxed a little he would do much better. That didn’t stop him from trying though and things had been rather embarrassing on occasion. He still remembered when he had first been let lose with a metal sword rather than the wooden wands they generally used. It was only the fact that the sword was extremely blunt that had stopped him from chopping his foot off. He still bore a scar under his ankle.
The archery practise started off fairly well. Although he wasn’t having the success of some of the others, especially Strawn who seemed to hit the bull as often as not, Nedric was at least closer to the centre than the outer edge of the target. In fact he was doing better than Rialto who had missed the target completely on one occasion and had earned a few choice remarks from Bronn. After half an hour or so Bronn told them to lay down their bows and gather around him.
As they gathered, Bronn drew his bow from its canvas case. It must have been about as tall as the guard with carved horn nocks on either end to hold the string. Bronn wiped the wood with a cloth and turned to the group. “Right this is a proper bow, a longbow. If you can use it, you can send an arrow two hundred yards accurately and some more if you don’t care what your aiming at. It is a self-bow, which means that it is made from a single stave of wood and it has been carved to make use of the centre and the sapwood. This means that one side compresses well and the other side stretches without breaking. There isn’t another bow in the world to equal it; a crossbow doesn’t even come close. You can fire ten arrows a minute if you know what you’re doing. Now who wants to try it?
Rhianna was the first to move forward and Bronn made everyone else move a long distance back. “Remember that unlike the smaller bows you’ve been using, this bow uses longer arrows and has a much more powerful draw.”
Bronn watched as Rhianna nocked the arrow and made to shoot. He stood to her left side to avoid the possibility of being hit and nodded for Rhianna to have a go. The redhead struggled but could not pull the string back to her chin in the way she had been taught. In the end she pulled it as far as she could and let fly, the arrow didn’t even reach the target but to general laughter and her annoyance landed a good ten-foot short.
“I should perhaps mention that one of these bows has about a hundred pound draw on it. There aren’t many people who master them in under six months, for a start most people have to develop the muscle. Now does anyone else want to try?”
Strawn swaggered up. Nedric hated to admit it but if there were one person who probably could use this bow then it would be Strawn. The blond boy was already topping six foot in height and was broad to match. What was more; he was naturally athletic and managed all the different weapons well. Nedric who was closest in the group to his height generally had to spar with him and was resentful of the drubbing he usually received.
Strawn nocked the arrow and pulled the string back to his chin in one flowing motion. He let fly and the arrow thudded into the outer ring of the target. Strawn handed the bow back to Bronn who congratulated him on doing so well. It seemed to Nedric however, that Strawn looked a trifle disappointed. Surely he couldn’t have expected to hit the bull on his first attempt?
When Nedric’s turn came, he was determined not to make a fool of himself. He carefully set the arrow in place and pulled the string back. The tension on his arm was incredible and his arm shook violently as he tried to control the strength of the bow. Nedric knew that if he left it too long the arrow was liable to go anywhere so he hurried to take aim. His arm must have shook when he let go because instead of going near the target the arrow flew over the keep wall. The other students watched its flight and then broke into peals of laughter when a loud bleating sound came from the other side of the wall.
Bronn turned to the lad and there was a grin on his face as he said, “Well don’t just stand there lad, go fetch that arrow! I’ll make sure that no-one mistakes you for a sheep in the meantime and tries to shoot you.”
The rest of his group cracked up again at the remark. Nedric headed off, knowing that once again he had ended up looking less than good.