Preserving Hope (18 page)

Will sighed inwardly. People were always trying to win the status wars, rather than simply trying to do the right thing.

Will’s primary skill wasn’t trading. It was problem-solving. As he walked through the community, watching the bakers bake and the smiths forge, and as he walked with the hunters and foragers collecting food from outside the walls, and as he watched the farmers tend the crops they’d planted, he found one thing all of them needed.

Water.

The bakers would spend great amounts of time fetching water used in the baking process, and additional water to clean out their oven-safe dishes and mixing tools. The smiths needed water to cool hot metal, potters needed water to mold clay, foragers to clean the foodstuffs gathered in the forests. The farmers, of course, needed water to ensure their crops were adequately hydrated. Everyone needed water, and yet within the village water could only be gotten from the single, modest-sized well near the gate. Could he use that twenty-first century mindset to solve an age-old problem? Could he bring them an abundance of water, easily obtained for all the various crafts, and help them thrive even further?

He vaguely remembered reading about artesian wells at one point, having considered adding one for decorative purposes at the entry to De Gray Estates. However, the engineers indicated that the nearest aquifer was several hundred yards away, and it would be highly impractical. Artesian wells were created by drilling holes into underground aquifers, releasing pressure restraining the water underground and enabling the water to bubble up above ground through the channel bored into the earth. He had no doubt that the metal workers here could create a metal bit and rod that they could use, but he wasn’t sure how he could convince them to drill a hole in the ground in the hopes of finding water. They’d note that they already had a well, and the effort would be pointless. He shifted, and began to wonder if he could create a system of running water in the village.

In his day, of course, water was transported from various sources to homes, and could be accessed through various taps and faucets inside and outside the home. That would be too much to attempt here, at least at first. The well was the only source of water within the village, but the nearby rivers held essentially a limitless supply. Could he get the water here directly from the rivers?

He thought of the aqueducts built by the Romans, centuries earlier, and his fuzzy historical memory suggested that the Roman empire had spread far enough that it could have touched historic England. Could he work that in as the source of his inspiration for the idea?

When in doubt, of course, he could fall back to his reasonably true back story of being a merchant, and state that he’d seen various portions of the now-extinct empire of Rome, and marvel at the aqueduct system that could bring fresh water from far away mountains. The Romans had the advantage in that the mountain-based water sources were high above their cities, and gravity could help the water flow the entire journey. Both nearby tributaries were below the level of the village, with the fast-moving waters of the Ealdor flowing higher by a few feet than the slow-moving Halwende. He’d still need to raise the river water up into the air, dump it into the aqueduct-type system they’d need, and let it flow into the village. He wanted a separate system to remove waste and debris as well, but that would come later. For now, getting the water here in abundance would serve his purposes.

He saw the Store where they stowed the parts of the wagons he’d used with the other Traders on the recent mission to Richland, and an idea formed. He’d use the power of the river to collect the water. He grabbed one of the wheels, and marched over to the carpenters.

Spotting a man named Joseph, the head carpenter, Will asked if they’d made any water troughs recently. “Sure have,” Joseph replied. “You Traders sold the lot of them on your last trip, and a couple of the troughs here broke down. Just finished up several of them. Got the sap in place to keep the water from soaking in, too. Should have enough to replace the old ones here and maybe sell a few later.”

“May
I
buy one from you?” Will asked.

Joseph looked at him in surprise. “Sure, I guess. I’d probably need to get a silver for it, though, because of the wood—”

He broke off as Will dropped a silver coin in the man’s hand. “A pleasure doing business with you, Will,” Joseph said, smiling. “Anything else I can help you with?”

Will smiled. “As a matter of fact… yes.”

Drawing in the dirt, Will explained his idea. He would bury two long spikes into the river, and suspend a wheel between them. The wheel would have pieces of wood jutting out of it, much like flippers on a fish, and the water would turn the wheel.

Joseph shrugged. “OK, I guess you could do that. But why?”

Will grinned. “The river is going to send water directly to us, without our needing to draw water from the well.” He showed how he’d add a bucket to the wheel, positioned such that as the wheel turned, the bucket would be submerged and scoop up water. As it started to turn upside-down on the way back into the river, the water in the bucket would fall into a trough, which would enable water to flow down to a position they chose.

Joseph gave him a blank stare. “So the ground near the river gets wet. Why bother?”

“What if a second trough caught the water leaving the first? And a third from the second? If you start the water high enough, and connect enough troughs together, then eventually…”

“The water reaches the village,” Joseph said, nodding. He glanced at the wheel. “I don’t think that wheel will get the water high enough in the air to reach this far.”

Will grinned. “No, but it will let us test to see if it will work. If it can work on this small scale, then the community can decide to build larger wheels and larger troughs.”

Joseph smiled back. “Let’s go see if this works.”

The two men left the village a short time later, carrying a strange assortment of wood-based products, including the two long poles carried over Joseph’s shoulder. Will had gotten a bucket from one of the farmers in charge of the livestock, and Joseph had brought along the hand tools of the day along with several pieces of wood and rope they’d use to secure the bucket at just the right angle.

The two men spent several hours placing the poles into the Halwende River, which thankfully was only about three feet deep near the shore. Will expected that the fast-moving Ealdor waters would be best for a full-sized version, but for testing the Halwende suited them. They mounted the wheel after attaching three “paddles” and gradually lowered the it to the point where the water caught the paddles. As Will had predicted, the water turned the wheel. Joseph found himself fascinated.

They returned to the community at midday to eat, and returned to work the rest of the day on the contraption. Though they were soaked through, the daily bathing in the cool waters had acclimated them to the chill, and it failed to slow them down. Shortly before they were to return for the evening closing of the gate, they identified the correct angle for the bucket, and when they held the trough in place they were able to get an irregular, pulsing stream of water flowing through the trough. Elated at the possibilities, the two men returned to the village.

In the morning, the two men walked together as the community proceeded to the river for the daily bath. Arthur, walking in front, spotted the wooden wheel spinning merrily in the waters, and held up his hand. “What is
that
?” he roared. “How did one of our wagon wheels end up in the river, and why does it not float away?”

Will stepped forward. “Let me demonstrate.” With Joseph’s help, they showed that the water in the bucket could be directed into a trough and flow through it to a distant location. “If we can build this,” Will explained, “then the river can feed consistent supplies of water to our crops, even when it does not rain, and if we extend it far enough, it can reach into our village as well.”

“And why would we want to do that?” Arthur asked. “Do we not have a well centrally located?”

“We do,” Will said. “However, that water requires that one of the workers at each craft move in that direction, carrying a bucket each time. It takes time to draw the water forth in that way, and is limited to the size of the bucket. If we were to extend the troughs to each working area, we could fashion doors in the troughs that could be opened as needed to fill buckets, pots, or pitchers as needed. A secondary system of troughs would carry unneeded water back to the river, along with anything else we might wish to wash away.”

There were murmurs in the crowd, murmurs of people contemplating the possibilities of having water running directly to their places of work, water immediately accessible in whatever quantity needed. The questions came quickly. How long would it take to build? Will didn’t know; it depended on how quickly the team of carpenters could build the wheels and troughs, but he knew they could work quickly if needed. How high would the wheel need to get? Will said that they should only need to have the troughs drop slightly from unit to unit, so that the water could flow downhill, but probably would need to start twenty feet in the air or more.

The community bathed, excited about this new innovation, a project that would have water running to their shops. They’d no longer have to fetch small amounts of water one slow, laborious bucket at a time. Will overhead several of his new neighbors imagining the possibility of extending the troughs — smaller than those from the river — directly to their rooms, and at least one wondered if they might direct excess water back to the river with their waste, as “that would improve the smell inside the walls.”

Will smiled. The spark of innovation had been lit; his neighbors were considering the impossible, thinking in terms of technology rather than magic. Perhaps, just perhaps, this might ease them off the relentless pursuit of those supernatural abilities at the expense of the physical health and mental well-being of their youngest member.

XIV

Wheel

The community rallied around the Wheel of Water. It was the first group project of such enormous potential and scope since they’d endeavored to build the walls and single rooms over a decade earlier, before most current residents had even joined the village.

After thinking through the project, a number of the villagers suggest starting at the neighborhood walls and working back toward the river, raising the level of the troughs as each was added, and testing each section along the way by dumping a bucket of water into the end of the trough to ensure the water flowed correctly. “The most difficult piece to build will be the Wheel,” Joseph, the carpenter, noted. “It’s critical that we know exactly how large the Wheel must be, and the only way to be sure is to build it last.”

Will recommended that they mount the Wheel in the fast-flowing Ealdor river to the west. “The Ealdor is the better choice for several reasons. First, the Ealdor’s waters move more quickly than those of the Halwende. That means that the Ealdor can deliver more water at a faster rate than we’d get from the Halwende. The Halwende moves so slowly that it might not be able to turn a larger Wheel at all.”

“That makes sense,” Gerald the Trader noted. “If this Wheel doesn’t move, we won’t get water. We don’t bathe in the Ealdor because there’s too much risk that the water might pull us away, but that same feature makes it ideal for this project.”

Will nodded. “Secondly, the Ealdor is closer. This is a significant building project, and the Halwende is perhaps three times farther away than the Ealdor. We must continue to build goods for trade, and if we spend too much time building our aqueduct and Wheel we may hurt our work in other areas.”

Arthur nodded at this, though his perpetual glower at others’ ideas remained. “We do not want to cut off the flow of profits to this village to create a flow of water; we’ve done without this contraption before. Let’s not lose sight of our primary purposes.”

Will couldn’t argue with that, much as he wanted to do so. “Finally, the Ealdor is actually a bit
higher
above the ground than the Village. That means the Wheel won’t need to be as tall. The natural elevation of the river is such that you walk downhill from the water to the village, and so it will be easier to get the water here.”

The villagers agreed with the plan, and construction began.

Progress was steady. The carpenters, in addition to their normal workload, spent hours as a team building the poles necessary to hold the troughs. Those normally working other crafts took time out of their evenings to help find more wood, gather the sap necessary to waterproof the troughs that would form the aqueduct, and otherwise help the carpenters. It took several months to reach the river, and the weather cooled as summer gave way to autumn. The Traders conducted several additional Trading missions to other towns and cities to the south, making solid profits on each trip, and rushed back with the supplies needed to shape the support beams. The village celebrated in late September, when the final trough was secured, and the test bucket of water from the river successfully traversed the aqueduct back to the village.

The extra work continued. The more senior carpenters, including Joseph, worked on shaping the massive Wheel and paddles now that they knew the actual size required. Others in the village, including Will and the Traders, worked on fashioning a large, wide dock along the shore of the river, extending out nearly ten feet. They built outward, one plank a time, using each additional foothold to drive beams into the water farther and farther from the shore. Once the dock extended out the full ten feet, they tore out the middle four feet, forming the causeway that would contain the Wheel. They then began driving the vertical support beams into the riverbed, beams that would be used to elevate the Wheel and hold it in place as it turned with the current. Once the vertical beams were in place, they added diagonal beams to ensure that the weight of the wheel and speed of the current wouldn’t topple the entire structure.