I was sure that on modem looms there is a friction device that holds the long threads tight, yet lets them advance as cloth was made. However, I couldn't think up a simple way of doing it. It would have to be very simple, since we needed a thousand of them.
I solved the problem by bypassing it. The carpenter drilled an array of holes, thirty-six wide by forty-eight high, directly into the wooden wall of the count's hall. Into these he pounded 1,728 pegs to hold the long spools of thread. This was a convenient number, since it was twelve cubed-a thousand in our new base-twelve arithmetic.
From there, the threads were to loop up over a pole near the ceiling, down under a suspended pole that could be raised as the threads were consumed, and then up to the four-meter ceiling again and down through the spreaders, the beater, and the cloth bolt.
This arrangement let you make eight meters of cloth before you had to loosen each of the thousand spools and lower the suspended pole again.
A working solution if not a perfect one.
The finished loom took up about four square meters of floor space, eight if you counted the area for the two operators. It produced a band of cloth two meters wide.
Sir Stefan waddled in one sunset as I was talking to Vitold about the spreaders. Sir Stefan was in full armor and heavily bundled and cloaked against the cold. "Another piece of witchcraft, Sir Conrad?" His voice was weary.
Vitold crossed himself but remained silent.
"A loom for making cloth," I said. "I wish you would knock off this nonsense about witchcraft."
"Nonsense, is it? Then how do you explain that witch's familiar of a mare you own?"
"I bought Anna in Cracow not two months ago. She's nothing but a good, well-trained horse."
"Indeed? Do you know what I saw last night? I saw your familiar leave the stables, go to the latrines, and relieve herself there! I followed her back to her stall and saw her putting the bar back in place. That's no natural horse!" He was glaring at me.
"Yeah, the stable boy told me she didn't soil her stall, but so what? If a dog can be housebroken, why not a horse? I told you she was well trained."
"Well trained? She's some manner of demon! Conrad, know that my father is Baron Jaroslav, the greatest of Lambert's vassals and well known to Duke Henryk. I swear that they will hear of your warlock's tricks!" he shouted as he stomped out into the snow.
Vitold crossed himself again.
"Damn it, Vitold, don't you start believing that horseshit! You've been building this thing. You know there is nothing magic in it!"
"I can only do as my betters bid me." He returned to work, but you could tell that his heart wasn't in it.
We were a month getting the loom built, and then I asked for 1,728 spools of thread, each perhaps 500 meters long, to string it with.
I was looked on with horror. That amount of thread simply did not exist.
I said that I had to have it or I couldn't thread the loom. At least that much more would be needed for the short threads.
So the girls dug out their distaffs and went to work.
It was my turn to be horrified. The distaff was nothing more than a small wooden cross. You stretched some wool between the cross and your left hand, and then your right hand gave the cross a spin. This twisted the thread. Then you wrapped the half meter of thread around the cross, stretched some more wool, etc.
The truly labor-intensive part of clothmaking wasn't in the weaving at all. It was in the spinning. I had taken off on a project without first knowing what a the parameters were. You might expect this of a beginner but not of a seasoned engineer.
I told the girls to put away their distaffs and went to work on a spinning wheel.
We were five weeks getting a spinning wheel working, partially because I had to come up with a wood lathe first. Also, we lost a week because I didn't realize that you have to have two loops of string from the wheel to the spindle, one to turn the spool and one to turn the twister a little faster.
Our first spinning wheel looked a lot like what you would see in a modem museum, because that's what I modeled it on. There were a lot of design flaws that were cleared up on subsequent models. The bench seat was uncomfortable, and one couldn't wear a long dress while using it. Our ladies wore a floor-length dress or nothing. Calf-length dresses were for field workers. The foot pedal gave the operator leg cramps, and it was discovered that if one tied a string from one's big toe to the crank of the wheel, it worked a lot easier.
I had learned a long time ago that if the operators don't approve of your engineering, your machines don't work. If they wanted a string on their big toe, they got a string on their big toe.
It was a lot easier to work if the spindle faced the operator at about an arm's length rather than being placed horizontally under her breasts.
Our third model had places for six operators, who sat facing each other in a circle. The job was boring, and they liked to talk.
It took six spinsters to keep up with the loom. Lambert solved this problem by putting on a few more ladies-in-waiting.
Also, it took two men-one holding the chisel, one turning the crank-six weeks on our new wood lathe to make enough spools to put the thread on.
I subsequently found out that spinning and weaving are two of the seven production steps necessary in making the crudest of homespun cloth. To produce the best commercial cloth required some thirty production steps. It was going to take a while.
"Look, Sir Conrad, you'll be able to get this going by Easter, won't you?" the count asked.
"Well, the spinning and weaving at least, my lord. I don't think that we have enough washed and carded wool to keep us going for long."
"I'm ahead of you there. I've already sent word to my knights to send me all of their wool, and all of it washed and carded. Also, they are to send me two-thirds of the wool from this spring's shearing, and the acreage in flax is to be doubled."
"Excellent, my lord. You realize that weaving linen takes a slightly different loom, don't you? It takes more threads, closer together, and only two spreaders."
"What of it? Vitold can build more now that you've shown him the way. We'll have a dozen looms going by next year! You just put your mind to the problems of washing and carding."
"The washing is simple enough, but I'm still not sure of the carding."
"You will solve it." I wasn't sure if he was expressing confidence in my abilities or giving me an order. Sheep's wool is much finer than human hair and a sheep goes all year without combing it. As a result, it is incredibly tangled, and untangling it is what carding is all about.
"Sir Conrad, thus far you have seen us only as a small agrarian community. You must realize that Okoitz is the capital of a fairsized province. After Easter, all sorts of people will be coming through, my uncle and liege lord, Duke Henryk the Bearded, among them. It is essential that we make a good impression."
"Yes, my lord. You say that Henryk is your uncle?"
"Well, of sorts. Henryk's father was Boleslaw the Tall; my grandfather, Miesko the Stumbling, was Boleslaw's brother, both sired by Wladyslaw the Exile."
Western countries give their rulers numbers. We Poles prefer nicknames. It's friendlier.
"In addition, after our father's untimely death, Henryk raised my brother Herman and me until we came of age. Being the eldest, he got the established city of Cieszyn and its environs. I got the Vistula-Odra Road and perforce have had to build my own town."
Another difference between eastern and western Europe was that in the west, inheritance was by primogeniture. The oldest son inherited everything, and the rest were out of luck. They might get a good job with the Church or in the army, but they were commoners.
In Poland, the rule was to divide things fairly evenly between the sons, with a very substantial dowry for the daughters. This was a nicer system, but it had the disadvantage of shattering the country and weakening-often destroying-central authority. A hundred years before, Boleslaw the Wrymouth, the last king of Poland, had divided the country up among his five sons, giving only nominal authority to the eldest. That is all very well unless you are about to get invaded.
"Certainly an ambitious project, my lord."
"So it is. But we are midway on the road, and Okoitz has to grow. Now that you've had time to look it over, what do you think of it, Sir Conrad?"
The place to build cities is at the end of a road, where pack mules change cargoes with riverboats, but I thought it wise not to mention this. And as a military defense, wooden walls only four meters high were a sick joke. The Mongols could take it in hours. But for now, there was nothing I could do about it, and I saw no reason to irritate my liege lord. "In many ways excellent, my lord. This business of building cottages side by side, sharing a wall and built against the outer wall, saves materials and heat. But I worry about fire. A single fire could bum down all of Okoitz. I have seen places where they build every other dividing wall out of brick to serve as a fire-stop."