with chain mail. The stuff stretches better than double-knit. But you have to wear a heavily padded garment, a gambeson, under the mail, and they didn't have anything close to my size. I decided to trust my thermal underwear; sweater, blue jeans, and windbreaker to protect myself.
I found a mail shirt, a hauberk, that seemed to be of fair quality. It was of a good grade of wrought iron, and each individual link was riveted, not just bent in a circle. It was made for a man as wide as I was but a good deal shorter. The sleeves were intended to be fulllength but went barely past my elbows, and the knee-length skirt barely covered my crotch.
Some long mailed gauntlets took care of my forearms, and I needed gloves anyway. The clerk scrounged up a sort of skirt that went from waist to knees. Some 'fulllength' leggings served as shin guards, greaves.
I rejected the full barrel-style helmet-you can't see out of the thingsand found an open-faced casque that gave some neck protection without having more chainmail jingling around. Under the casque, one wore a thick rope skullcap.
It was a mismatched set, but I wasn't entering a beauty contest.
When the shopkeeper, a German, totaled up the bill, I felt my testicles tighten, For thirty pounds of wrought iron, this man was asking for two years' pay!
I said to my new boss, 'Mr. Novacek, you are more familiar with shopkeepers than I am. Could I persuade you to see about arriving at a more equitable price?'
'With pleasure, Sir Conrad.' He smiled with delight and then launched into the shopkeeper, who was obviously and hopelessly outclassed. I thought Father Ignacy was a good bargainer, but here I was seeing a genius practice his own special art form. He used an incredible mixture of politeness, bombast, pleading, and outright abuse. He criticized the armor I had selected until I was embarrassed for having picked it out. They started at fifty- five hundred pence. He had gotten the shopkeeper down to fifteen hundred pence when he suddenly screamed in anguish and stomped out of the shop. I had brains enough to follow.
'That was undoubtedly the finest display of commercial persuasion that I have ever encountered.' His floweriness was wearing off on me.
'I thank you, Sir Conrad, and I compliment you on your good judgment in your choice of negotiators. But it's thirsty work, and a drop of beer is in order.'
'An excellent idea, Mr. Novacek.'
Drinking at 9 A.M. was not uncommon in the thirteenth century. I guess if you can't have coffee and a proper breakfast, beer is your next best bet. Some of the customers in the tavern were already in their cups.
The waitress was not pretty, but she was prompt, young, and eager.
'No time for that, Sir Conrad. Now that we have your armor selected, there is still the matter of getting you a horse with saddle and bridle, a sword, a lance, and a shield. You will also need a good, warm cloak.'
'But Mr. Novacek, we don't have the armor. Surely you recall that you left the armor shop shouting at the shopkeeper, criticizing not only his father and mother but his mother's husband as well.'
'I can see that you have much to learn about commercial negotiation. I shall be back in that shop twice more this afternoon, and the final price will be seven hundred and twenty pence.'
He was wrong. I got that armor for seven hundred and eighteen pence.
'Incidentally, Sir Conrad, you have a good eye for steel. You really did pick the best he had, and I quite agree with you on those barrel helmets. They're fine for a massed battle, where junk is flying from every direction and there isn't much you can do about it. But in the sorts of fights we're likely to see, hearing and eyesight are important. '
But of course, we weren't likely to encounter any violence.
I'd been on a horse perhaps two dozen times in my life, always at rental stables, riding calm, tame horses that here would be called palfreys. I liked horses, but I was by no means a horseman. My boss, however, insisted on going to the only stable in Cracow that sold Chargers, exclusively. Chargers are very large, very strong, and very mean. They had eight of the things. As I walked down the line of them, one bit me, two more tried to, and I just missed being kicked. Having to ride one of the brutes for the next few years was not a pleasant prospect.
In the back of the stable was a corral with a single horse, a big red mare as big as any of the stallions. I whistled to her, and damned if she didn't come. I stroked her nose. 'What's the story on this one?'
'Surely you jest, Sir Conrad! A knight in my employ riding a mare? I'd be a laughingstock!'
'And so would I, Mr. Novacek. I only asked!'
'But an excellent mount, good sirs!' the stablemaster said. 'That horse has been fully battle-trained and is most intelligent.'
'Battle-trained? Who in his right mind would take a mare into battle? Haw! She'd likely go into heat halfway through the fight! Would you want our good Sir Conrad on her back when a real Charger tries to mount her?'
'But no, my lord. That mare is completely indifferent to stallions. She shuns them, sir.'
'Hah! So she's not even good for a brood mare. Still, I have a friend who's a horse breeder, and he knows of the Spanish fly. That might get her tail up! Of course, it kills them more often than not. I might give you fifty pence.'
The stablemaster insisted on twelve hundred and off we went for half an hour's shouting. Actually, twelve hundred didn't seem bad, considering that the worst of the stallions went for four thousand.
This time they did settle on a price, a hundred and sixty-five pence, or at least I thought it was settled.
'Done then, stablemaster, provided that Sir Conrad likes how she handles.'
'Provided? But you said...'
'I said that I'd be taking her to my stock-breeding friend in Wroclaw, didn't I? And how else are we to get her there? We'll be back soon with saddle and bridle. Come, Sir Conrad.'
Novacek seemed to need to follow every bargaining session with a quick beer and a recap of the discussion.
'We really had him there-a hundred and sixty-five pence for a war-horse! I've had to pay more for a mule, and an old one at that! But you see, once a horse has been battle-trained, it can't be used for anything else. Put it to a plow and it'll likely kill you. Not many knights would take a fancy to a mare, and he was faced with feeding her all winter. We'll know about her soon enough, once you ride her. The sword shop is on the way to the saddlery.'
'Oh, if she does go into heat with a stallion around, jump!'
I knew little about horses and nothing about armor. But I knew quite a bit about swords. I took fencing 0 the way through college and was varsity for three years. Furthermore, I was the only man on the team who used both saber and rapier. Despite the fact that 'saber' is a Polish word, I prefer the Spanish rapier.
The sword shop was a comedown. It was a collection of huge hunks of wrought iron that might have been useful for breaking bones, but not much else. They were mostly handand-a-half bastard affairs a meter or more long. I went down the rack, hefting them and not concealing my disgust. I was about to leave and search elsewhere, when something on a back shelf caught my eye. It was a scimitar. It had a loose brass hilt, with cheap glass 'jewels' set into it. The sheath was battered, and when I drew the blade, a light powder of rust puffed out. The blade was fully a meter long, much longer and heavier than a fencing saber. There was only a slight curve in the blade so that the point could be used for thrusting. The balance was poor, blade-heavy.
I took it over to the light and rubbed the blade. It was watered steel! The best sword steel is made of thousands of thin layers of hard high-carbon steel welded between layers of flexible low-carbon steel. The high- carbon steel corrodes less quickly, and the result is a surface that looks like ripples on water, hence the name. This was the first good piece of metal I'd seen in the thirteenth century.
I tried not to show my excitement. It was like finding a Stradivarius violin in a junk shop!
'This is a curious thing,' I said to the shopkeeper. 'Saracen, isn't it?' Very few Polish knights went on crusade, since there were plenty of heathen to kill in the immediate neighborhood.
'Aye, sir. Brought back from the Holy Wars by a great knight, sir. A holy relic, that is.'
'A holy relic made by an infidel! That great knight probably gave it to his girl friend, being embarrassed to have it around the house. It's a piece of junk, and we both know it. It's too light to do any damage, and that's why I want it. I have a young nephew who's ready for his first toy sword. Something cheap that he can bash up and not hurt himself with. Shall we say five silver pennies?'
'Oh, sir, I couldn't sell that fine antique for less than fifty.'
And so I went at it in the manner of my new boss, and in ten minutes we settled on fourteen, which I paid
