7th May 1574"Remember, do not mention anything that we developed yet. It"s better for them to think that we just found a new recipe for better mortar and we want to use it to earn something from making a cheap road. If they were to learn how much trouble it is to get its production, they might be willing to invest more, but I"m worried about the cost of their potential interest."
After finally docking in the river ports in the capital, we could move from the wobbly deck on the even ground for the first time ever since we left Sandomir. Due to the official nature of our visit, rather than wearing comfortable clothes, I had to borrow a nice kontus directly from governor"s wardrobe, since all my fancy ones were all the way back in Tarnow.
"I get it, I get it. But don"t you think that it would be better to make the most of this situation by showing off? Everyone will sooner or later learn about your development so wouldn"t it be easier to just get official crown recognition for your efforts so that no jealous n.o.ble would raid it for fun?"
As I continued bickering with Governor with Elia surprisingly walking by my side either not daring or simply not willing to join the discussion, I couldn"t help but realise that the area we were moving through right now, was a place that was weirdly familiar to me.
If not for some of the landmarks allowing me to more or less precisely realise where I was, I wouldn"t be able to realise that what was now nothing but a huge market area that grew insanely popular due to both the proximity of this super important river and thanks to the fact that it was the direct extension of one of the main trading routes connecting the eastern world with the west of Europe.
In fact, in just a few centuries, this place would be completely gone, replaced by high-rise housing buildings, inside which, I would spend quite a while! Obviously, with a low-paying job I had back in my university times, I could only afford to rent a small studio, but it was thanks to its location on the eleventh floor that I was capable of recognising said landmarks and triangulating my current position!
"To be frank, if we let them how big this thing became, I"m worried that instead of investing in it in order to sate its relentless hunger for resources and money, they would simply judge its size and amount of workers and tax it accordingly. After all, we can"t expect them to instantly understand the worth behind allowing this kind of projects to grow on themselves."
As we moved through the busy streets, I finally had my time to enjoy the cultural shock brought by the transmigration in time. The last time I was in the capital, I was simply too overwhelmed by the simple fact that I f.u.c.king moved to the past to actually care about the feeling of rediscovering the past of the city I spent quite a long time in with my own eyes and hands.
And there was quite a lot to discover!
From the way that people decorated the fronts of their buildings, making them as compelling to the eye as they could, hoping to either make their own house just a bit better than the one of their neighbour or in order to simply attract the customers to those buildings that while being a house on the second floor, was yet another shop at the ground one.
Due to the fact that we arrived in the city in the late afternoon, there was no point rus.h.i.+ng to the castle anymore. With Jan"s servants rus.h.i.+ng through the city to find comfortable lodging for our night stay, we could spend the rest of the day roaming the city to our heart content!
"What happened to you? From what I heard, you never was so interested in touring various places like you are right now. Heck, this question could be extended to how do you have all those ideas in mind! Like, I remember what you told me about a chance encounter with some man while you were returning from the Inflants(*)…"
"It wasn"t a man."
Cutting the governor mid-sentence, I decided it was a good moment to feed him yet another story of mine. But this time, rather than coming with something on the spot, I had a perfect excuse already prepared.
"You see, my lord, whenever someone asks me about the source of all my inspirations, I tend to explain how I met this strange man, who did it all by himself already but lacked the resources to put it into any real use. But to be honest, while this story touches the truth, its as far from it as it could be without losing this tiny bit of touch with what really happened."
After this introductory bit, I took a few breaths, before looking to the side at Elia.
"Dear, sorry I never brought that up, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn"t really change anything, and I simply forgot about it. As for the crux of the matters…"
Once again, calming myself down with a few breaths, I resolved myself to telling this story. While I knew that the stereotypes crafted in the later ages by the people who couldn"t stand the fact that reaching the level of middle ages culture took humanity over three hundred years of humanism for it to reach the boiling point where people simply forced the return of at least a part of the older traditions, were the only thing that was stopping me from just explaining what I had in mind, but fighting against something that was drilled in one"s mind through the entire flawed education system was not as easy as I expected it to be.
"I never saw any kind of steam horse with my own eyes. I only heard about the concept behind it from the mouth of a witch(!*!)[1]."
[1] Since footnoes have characters limit, the in short words:
This word refers to wiedząca from polish, meaning - a woman who knows.
Not persecuted, common and accepted in the country, mostly referring to herbalists, people capable of reading the nature to predict weather and so on.