Under One Banner, page 5
part #4 of Commonweal Series
“An artillery doctrine we can give the Line and insist they update. Lists of equipment, the whole formal field manual, not just the theory.”
Eugenia nods.
“The red shot’s the hard part. I get to worry about identifying wreaking teams in external-mechanism styles, that’s not your problem. What I want are instructions effective enough we can have another external working team try them. First Valley Armoury’s less of a worry than getting the Shot Shop’s knowledge written down.”
“I don’t know what else they might be doing, but couldn’t you ask their teacher?”
Grue smiles like a battle morning. Doucelin raises an eyebrow at Grue before shaking their head no. “They’ve gone and been inventive. Blossom could certainly duplicate the results, but aside from being prudent with our sorcerous windfall, much of the value is the ability to make hot-red shot quickly with modest talents. Those used to take a powerful enchanter and a long wait.”
Eugenia thinks, It would be more unsettling if they weren’t ahead of the other wreaking teams.
“Is this place prudent?” Eugenia honestly can’t see how.
“Parliament approved the idea of a larhaus, and then someone had to decide where to actually put one.” Grue’s not pleased, but not surprised either. “That wasn’t going anywhere.”
“The Fight Below the Edge provided a sense of immediacy,” Doucelin says. “The Galdor-gesith got one for the original reasons and the Line-gesith got one allocated land because the ability to produce a battalion’s supplies isn’t really present in the Creeks. No prior experience; a cutler collective can figure out war-swords but if they haven’t done it before it takes time. Graul standard-captains being emphatic that there may be only a very little time gets to people. So rather than hiring existing skills we’ve got an attempt to shorten the learning time going on.”
“Did that require this edifice?” Eugenia waves up at the roof edge. This roof edge, one side of this one broad hexagonal tower out of fifty-seven. Eugenia thinks it might be aluminium roof tile, which would be a good choice if you had enough of it and can work it without it catching fire.
“You know how Rose was fixing your head?” Grue means the question kindly, Eugenia is nearly sure. Eugenia nods carefully.
“It was a bit like that, only asking the Captain what the hundred-year requirement was expected to be. So we’ve got a facility that could support an army, if we had the population for an army. Because if we make it to the seventh century, we might.” Grue has complex feelings about this.
“Or could supply it with sheets and towels.” Doucelin can sound wry without letting any of it get into their face. A hand goes up. “Not a problem today or tomorrow or next year, not for who is here. It will be difficult in five years and a real problem in ten, but not your problem.”
Eugenia nods again. “Do we know anything about Creek history that explains the external working?”
“Someone made Creeks, just like someone wanted Regular Sixes to last so the skills pool available to them would increase and we were meant to grow lush and leggy on the uncertain diet of the Bad Old Days.” Doucelin’s voice goes entirely neutral, instead of the firm Eugenia half-expected.
“No sorcerers, and not being conquered, I mean.” Eugenia had read what little there was. Since they read it while their memory didn’t work reliably it’s not there now. “It seems like it’s been quiet here for as long as the Creek people have existed.”
“It might have been,” Doucelin says. “Though you could ask Hákarl when you get the chance.”
Chapter 6
Year of the Peace Established Five Hundred Forty-Four, Month of Brumaire, Second Day
Eugenia still has no sense of Creek ages.
That Creeks have a two-stage adulthood helps a little; younger and older adults Eugenia thinks they can distinguish. It’s not obvious enough in their faces to tell without staring, the social version has more to do with moving with a certain gravitas. Captain Blossom is a challenge to Eugenia’s understanding. They must be a younger adult to have their job, but they switch between having no gravitas or enough to keep everyone else in the room from talking.
Everyone always using anyone’s rank to address them would be awkwardly formal in regular circumstances. In the edifice, or perhaps in a context of artillery, Eugenia supposes it’s like being in a school class with three people named Seleðryð; you have to do something so it’s clear who is meant.
Eugenia’s never met a standard-captain, but they’ve read several of the scholarly works about why standard-captains are difficult to find. You have to be as responsible as an independent, and you have to do it with the brain you inherited.
Captain Blossom isn’t a Standard-Captain, which is a rank, they’re a captain, which is an appointment. Line people will address those appointed part-captains and captains, those commanders of batteries or companies whose rank is ‘officer’, and those appointed full-captains, commanders of battalions and certain to rank as standard-captains, as ‘Captain’. It doesn’t seem to confuse them but it confuses Eugenia.
Eugenia had just clasped wrists with Captain Blossom when a Creek youth arrived in the modest bustle of the office, said “Aunt Blossom, Grandma would really like an answer about déci by tomorrow,” and handed Captain Blossom a folded sheet of paper.
The office bustle took no notice. Eugenia took the moment to regain their doubtful social equilibrium; their fingers don’t go halfway round Captain Blossom’s forearm, not nearly. Captain Blossom had smiled, taken the note, said “Thank you, Poesy,” and added “There are some meetings that have to come before an answer.”
Poesy had nodded, grinned, and hurtled out.
Eugenia has seen no evidence Creek youths hold still if they can help it. It isn’t especially troubling but it doesn’t fit with the rest of the battery office.
Captain Blossom stops being someone you’d believe anyone applies Aunt to without specific written permission and the already quiet office quiets a bit more. It doesn’t look the least bit fearful, it doesn’t remind Eugenia of Order being vexed, Eugenia is nearly sure it’s plain old striving for a common purpose.
“I understand from the Galdor-gesith’s fylstan your first task is writing a field handbook for a new-style artillery battery.”
“So do I.” Eugenia looks straight back with an effort. It’s not something the Galdor-gesith would regularly have any responsibility to see done.
Captain Blossom rummages in the drawer of their standup desk, and emerges with a flat piece of wood. “Any known issues with urishol?”
Eugenia’s “No,” goes with a head-shake. It’s been years since Eugenia’s seen a fresh mango or had anything with mango in it. Urishol ought not to bother any Regular, but it’s wise to be careful.
“It’s pretty,” Captain Blossom says, handing Eugenia the wooden token “but it’s dye-wood. Carry it anywhere you sweat and you’ll get a stubborn dull red that asks no mordant.”
Eugenia says “Thank you,” and then “Token for?” The pyrographed bind-rune isn’t one Eugenia recognizes.
“Evaluator,” Captain Blossom says. “It’ll let you latch, you can go anywhere and open anything. Don’t stand in front of any live tubes, please.”
Something has to show in Eugenia’s face. They have no idea what, but they can feel the muscles twitching.
“Faster than convincing the Binding of the Standards we need a new type of token,” Captain Blossom says. “About a quarter of the readiness evaluations are done by actuaries.”
The remainder, Eugenia knows, are done by standard-captains. Usually retired standard-captains.
Chapter 7
544-Ventôse-27
Esteemed Archibald,
That is hopeful news. Though, truly, if you are uncertain, it would be entirely proper to seek further instruction. Order is accomplished but not precisely an energy manipulator, which your talent entirely is. It’s not as though metaphysical transitions are like light-bindings, where you can re-use the material substance of the failures.
Tiggy found me a typewriter, somewhere in the broad exchange of favours. I would have expected something aged and cantankerous with wear, but this one is excellent and entirely new. (It arrived in a box with its proof sheet still fed round the platen!) It’s been a considerable help, especially as I need not mess with carbons; the whole of the Shot Team can and will make copies.
This doesn’t bother me as much as I thought it was going to do. More than enough work to do is a help.
I’ve got an initial operational draft of the field manual done. It’s been circulated to the individual tube-teams in the battery for comment. (There will be comment. I could see the Master Gunner if I could latch to the banner, but I can’t convince myself it would be polite even if it was metaphysically possible. Material manifestation is possible, but requires the banner to be active, and this battery is new enough that’s not reliable. They started recruiting after they got the necessary artillery tubes, which was about a month before I got here. I’m still assured that the expression of the requirement for comment was unambiguous.)
The Independent Grue has been a large help, particularly in reassuring me that I’m not lacking in traditional understanding. The shot-shop really is doing many things lacking in precedent. While the field manual awaits comment, I shall be attending on a working by the newly-passed Independent Hákarl as a sort of attempt to get another angle on the problem.
Never heard of them? I certainly hadn’t. They’re a Cousin, come up from Below-The-Edge. A considerable militant enchanter half-a-millennium old, one of the delegation of sorcerers who arrived to ask admission for the Cousins. Only one of the three to pass the Shape of Peace. It’s helpful if they’ve managed to comprehend something difficult, but this doesn’t necessarily imply anyone else will find their understanding easier to comprehend in their turn.
If I’m being entirely honest it’s unsettling. Hákarl’s housed here in the Creeks Armoury and has been all the time I’ve been here myself. The idea of not being able to notice who might be nearby has become much more emotionally real in a way I find difficult. It’s frightening, which is foolish. No modest student could withstand a considerable talent, it’s not as though I would have been any safer for knowing who was here.
I would still have liked to know. There’s something too much like the founding in having sorcerers from outside the Peace becoming independents, or I suppose the consequences; another Turbulent Century isn’t anything the Commonweal needs. I’m sure Hákarl is a splendid person, but it’s still unsettling as a thing to think about.
Peace,
Eugenia
Chapter 8
Year of the Peace Established Five Hundred Forty-Four, Month of Germinal, Third Day
Eugenia hasn’t entirely given up on reading Grue’s moods. Accepting that it’s going to take more practice than Eugenia has time for, before the Shape of Peace, is not the same thing as giving up. Even with as much command of the Power as Eugenia ever possessed, it would have been difficult. Eugenia certainly wouldn’t care to argue the Independent Grue only ever has one mood at any one time, not even for arbitrarily short spans of time.
Today’s mood looks moderately cheerful, which is a suspect reassurance.
They’re in a lower corner of a large, two-level room; Eugenia remembers how to get there, but has no clear idea of where in the edifice they are. The corner has a basic copper ward circle inlaid in the floor and a pair of three-legged folding stools sitting in the middle of it.
Grue sets the ward with far more ceremony than they require. Eugenia finds it reassuring; it makes being told a ward is up feel more likely to be true.
Eugenia was apologetic about this, and Grue told them not to be. “Trauma has consequences,” is something Grue can say entirely without any least implication of judgement. Eugenia doesn’t know how Grue does that, it’s not something extensive medical qualification reliably produces.
This ward would not so much as furrow Grue’s brow to will into existence directly. It’s meant to preserve its occupants in case of material accident and requires neither a complex structure nor the exercise of great Power. In customary use it is entirely invisible to its occupants’ material senses precisely so it is possible to perform the kind of observations Eugenia is here to make.
First day in this room, but far from the first time Grue has made a ward for Eugenia’s observations. Eugenia has taken to throwing a ball of scrap string — wreakings ought not to reuse string — upwards to confirm the presence of wards. Grue’s elegant gestures and liquid syllables are entirely convincing, however removed from any tradition of sorcery Eugenia knows, but Eugenia cannot stop expecting to be able to sense the resulting ward directly.
Today is one of the days the ball of string makes Grue smile.
Today is a full-scale bronze bull test. The Independent Hákarl believes they comprehend the bronze-bull working of the Independent Blossom, and their latest ‘small test’ worked.
“It costs less and wears better,” Grue had said. “Welding the halves of a hollow casting together’s easier than mechanical joints in the limbs and neck.”
If only anyone else understood the working, Eugenia thinks, hopefully, because perhaps now someone does.
There’re sixteen people setting up for a choir; there’s another sixteen, eight and eight, with cleaned half-castings held upright in wooden frames on wheels. Eugenia’s pleased to see they set one frame to the ritual and chain it tight to the floor before aligning the second frame to the first. You can use up a lot of time un-nudging workpieces, or have a whole wreaking fail for half a degree of angle.
Two Creek lads with three-metre levers ratcheting the chains tight is less pleasing. The chain squeaks and the ratchets whine as the pawls slow into a last strained tick and the steel bars of the levers need a couple quick strokes with a sledgehammer before their tapered tips come ringing out of the sockets. It’s all done with competence and dispatch, but it’s not so far away, perhaps five metres. Follow the wall on Eugenia’s left hand out of their corner and the statuary halves are two metres clear of that wall and facing right five metres or so from where Eugenia is sitting.
Eugenia doesn’t believe the ward is there enough to prevent their middle from tensing at the prospect of a sheared bolt head or a snapped chain link flying. Worse, if the working goes wrong and decides to do something other than sticking the statue halves together.
The statue’s aluminium bronze, another innovation. It takes more care to weld, anything with aluminium takes more care to weld, but aluminium bronze wears better. Eugenia says “Bother,” and Grue sticks an illusory mirror on the ceiling, twelve metres up.
“Good angle?”
Eugenia says “Yes, thank you,” and is glad Grue asks. Grue never gets the angle wrong, and always asks.
The expanse of mirror gives Eugenia a clear view down into the whole working. Everyone who was placing the castings is moving around marking the floor either with pressed chalk, three colours of it, or with red and silver sand from buckets. Both pairs with sand are being careful with placement and more careful that the silver ladles touch nothing but sand. Eugenia makes a sketch of the structure; there will be a detailed diagram on file, and there are certainly some being consulted out there.
That step depends on an external event. It’s going to weld the statue halves together, but not until something else happens.
The something else is presumptively provided by the small swathed figure with a limp. Eugenia isn’t sure if you call it a limp when it’s both legs. They’re shining a light into the statue halves in turn; there should be significant inscriptions in there, engraved into the bronze after the cast halves were fettled. The light goes from a single strong white light to a lacework of Power across corresponding points.
Eugenia shouldn’t be able to see that, and glances at Grue, who smirks.
Some sensible part of Eugenia’s mind notes, again, that Grue is more accurately described as terrifying than terrifyingly skilled. The skilled just contributes, it doesn’t create Grue’s obviously conscious benevolence.
Eugenia finds themself hoping, again, that they never meet the Independent Blossom. Their version of making a bronze bull does the whole thing in a continuous process. It starts with piles of copper and sand and a nervous drover holding an old ox. It passes through the statue halves only long enough to apply the internal engraving and does the transfer of vitality with an apparently bare hand on the dull red glow of the freshly welded seam. The second time, one of the witnesses got a chronograph and a graduated hourglass. The total elapsed time was eighteen minutes exactly, and the process had kept on at three per hour until there weren’t any old oxen left. Eugenia read that report with a steadily increasing feeling of being the wrong size for their skin.
Grue’s conscious benevolence and mercurial mood doesn’t exist on that scale of terrifying.
Eugenia read the followup reports, too, and all those bronze bulls have gone right on working impeccably. Just trying to list all the things a sorcerer performing that working would have to enact together makes Eugenia feel a little dizzy. It’s not even sheer casual Power; you can do that much work with a sixty-four person focus, and quite possibly a thirty-two if it’s a strong team and the working’s been optimized. It’s the combination of trip-hammer consistency and speed, speed with or despite high complexity, that makes Eugenia flinch to consider.
Between the casting and the engraving and the setup, this working has taken forty people a solid décade already, and it’s still better. There is only one of the Independent Blossom.
With reasonable care, a bronze bull lasts two or three centuries of use. You don’t want many specialized wreaking teams making them, not for replacement rates; you want those capable wreaking teams working to meet more immediate needs. If you don’t presently have enough you need more teams, but then you’re giving up something else, and it’s not like a live ox can’t do the work.
