EIGHT

 

For weeks, all Romein saw of court was the four walls of his chamber. Isaak, a boy his own age, was a frequent visitor, and even if he hadn't brought books with him, Romein could not help but like him. They were cousins, after all, and Isaak was full of stories about the wondrous machines he'd worked on with the Queen's artificer, Master Zimmerman.

Looking at diagrams of these machines, either in the books Isaak brought him or drawn by his own hand, was not enough. Romein longed to see them, to understand their workings. So when the Queen's physician fitted his leg with a sort of walking box and gave him a stick to help support his weight, the first place Romein hobbled to was Master Zimmerman's workshop.

He found Isaak in the middle of a small crowd of people, all staring at an enormous wheel that sloshed water from the river into a narrow canal in the city walls.

"By my calculations, the canals should be full within the week, and we should have running water in every town square," a woman said. "Perhaps if we even channelled the rain from the rooftops directly into the canals, opening them up..."

"Nay, if you open the canals, instead of leaving them closed, they will be filled with refuse within a day. They will be open cesspools, and not fit to drink or wash clothes in. Let the rain run to the river as it always has. Or, if you wished to dig cisterns, perhaps..." The man took a piece of charcoal and began to sketch a system of pipes and pits.

Romein leaned forward, fascinated. If an entire city's rainwater could be trained to flow only into such a system, built big enough to hold all the water that came down, the city would never be flooded. If they could build a system of canals back home, forcing the water to flow only where it was wanted, and not allowing it to flood the fields...

"Hey, Isaak, why don't we have such a system back home, so there isn't any flooding?" Romein asked.

Isaak's eyes widened. "I did not expect to see you up and about so soon! And what is this talk of flooding? There's a flood? We must help!"

"The waters have likely gone down since I left, but it floods almost every year back home. It was especially bad this year, for the sea broke down the banks and surged across the fields." Flooding all of Gelderland except Veluwe. The Bishop had surely done some sort of deal with the devil to ensure that his lands were untouched.

"The Queen will know how to help. Could Romein build such canals back home, to stop the flooding?" Isaak asked the woman.

She frowned. "Only if the water has somewhere to go. It naturally flows to the lowest lying land. If Romein is from the lowlands, then there is nowhere for it to go, and it would take a great amount of work to make it move somewhere else."

"But if we dug deeper in some parts, so they are lower than the rest, surely they could hold some of the water, and drain the surrounding lands," Romein said eagerly. "Not cisterns, but maybe lakes."

The woman pondered for a moment, then said, "Perhaps. You would still need to find a way to make the water move, but as you can see, once you get a waterwheel going, it practically drives itself." She gestured toward the wheel that had occupied everyone's attention only a few moments ago.

A girl perhaps a year or two younger than Romein came running into the square. "Mother, the boys are making Father Tristan tell them all the gory stories in the bible again, and it is time for my lessons. If you do not make them stop, I will miss my lessons again, or I will finish too late to go riding this afternoon. It's not fair!"

The woman frowned. "Your brothers know they only spend the morning with their tutor, and he is yours for the afternoon. You tell them they are to be in Master Zimmerman's workshop the moment they finish their noon meal, and not a second later. I shall be up directly, and if they are still in my bower when I arrive..."

The girl beamed. "Thank you, Mother!" She raced off.

The woman sighed. "Zimmerman, can you examine the new boy while I sort out some domestic matters? If his grasp of water mechanics is as good as it sounds, perhaps he can join Isaak on this project."

Zimmerman bowed. "Of course, Your Majesty."

Romein's jaw dropped, and by the time he'd managed to close his mouth, the Queen had marched off in the direction of the castle. "That was...that was...?"

Isaak grinned. "That was Queen Molina, and her favourite daughter, Princess Rosaline. She means to bring running water to every home in the city, like the legends say the ancients did, but we still have a long way to go yet. The hardest part was bringing the water inside the city. Now that is done... maybe this will actually work."

Water running through every house? The Queen was trying to bring about a miracle. Then again, it would be a miracle if they could stop Gelderland from flooding. Cisterns and pipes and canals and wheels...the cogs began turning in Romein's head, and once they did, they had no intention of stopping.