After a week of continuous flow, Reitz, Draffen, Corvin, and Kestel came to visit the site. Reitz had opted for two Knights who were stationed much farther back than protocol would have liked. He wanted to be able to come and go, and besides, the guards of High Nobles were mostly for show anyway.
He did this so that he could stroll around freely and talk to the council as he conveyed his thoughts. Where other lords would have liked to retain an honor guard when they were going out of the castle, Reitz was more pragmatic.
The smithing district was loud, but the yard containing the new furnace made a different kind of noise. It was a constant stream of roars that kept raging loud. A regular forge needed bellows to stream the air, pumping in rhythmic motion.
The blast furnace had been built with an oversized wind-box driven by a heavy water-wheel connected to a flywheel to make sure that the motion was kept uniform. The river current turned the wooden cams, pumping the bellows in a steady rhythm.
The air never stopped, and the fire kept burning ever since the furnace started a week ago.
Reitz stepped into the yard. The heat hit them, but Reitz was accustomed to fire. It didn't affect him as much as it did the other men. It radiated off the stone structure in heavy waves. Worker upon worker kept funneling in toward the upper timber ramps, hauling heavy baskets of crushed ore and charcoal in an endless rotation.
Ezra stood near the sand floor at the base of the furnace. He had been waiting for Reitz and his council for half the morning. Ezra had already been in the yard for quite some time, checking everything from the hauling of the stone to the temperature of the kiln.
Ezra kept shifting his weight before they arrived. There was something in him that wanted the praise of Reitz.
When the Privy Council arrived, Ezra met them along with Arran and Halvork. The master surveyor Albrecht wasn't involved anymore once the furnace had started. The Kilnmaster Halvork and Master Smith Arran wore heavy leather aprons and thick gloves.
Reitz was grinning ear to ear seeing the yield of the furnace. They had never seen the kiln up close, but seeing it with their own eyes, they started to understand how good it was. Reitz, Draffen, and Corvin had never seen so much iron coming out of one kiln.
The laborers were in the middle of a pour.
Reitz stopped at the edge of the casting floor. Liquid iron flowed out from the base of the furnace. It ran down a thick, central trench carved into the sand bed.
Laborers stood by with long, wet clay hoes. When the liquid metal reached the end of the line, they scooped sand to block the flow. The iron was forced sideways into dozens of smaller, rectangular molds dug into the floor.
As the iron filled the sand molds, it began to cool. The liquid settled into solid shapes, shifting from white-hot to a dull red.
"Break them off!" a smith subordinate to Arran shouted over the noise.
The iron was solid, but it had not fully hardened yet. A second crew of laborers stepped into the sand. They carried long pry bars and sledgehammers. They aimed the hammers at the exact points where the smaller rectangular ingots attached to the central line.
They swung the hammers down.
The iron snapped apart easily. Because the iron had so much carbon from the blast furnace, it was brittle. The joints cracked with a single heavy blow.
As soon as an ingot was severed, another laborer stepped in. He used long iron tongs to clamp the glowing metal, dragged the heavy block across the dirt, and hoisted it onto a cooling pile near the edge of the yard.
Hit the joint. Snap the ingot. Drag it to the pile.
The workers repeated the cycle without stopping. The pile of raw iron bars was already stacked waist-high.
"How much iron are we making here, Master Smith?" Reitz asked, facing Arran. Reitz was the only one standing in the blinding light who wasn't even squinting.
"Around three thousand pounds, Milord." Arran bowed, wiping a streak of sweat from his neck.
Ezra eyed Arran's and noting the shift in formality. He was more respectful to Reitz.
"What is the market rate for iron?" Reitz shifted his gaze to Corvin.
"Standard bloomery iron fetches three Vatts a pound," Corvin said, his fingers tapping the edge of his ledger-board.
Reitz looked at the pour with gleaming eyes. He shifted his posture toward Arran again.
"Master Smith," Reitz said, keeping his grin. "After it is poured, what happens next? Are the ingots then sold?"
"Your Lordship," Arran said, his tone humble. "The yield is indeed great, but we have struck the cooled iron and it breaks easily. It is enough for a smith to be able to work it into a proper ingot, but it requires heat and time."
Reitz frowned slightly. "What does that mean for us, Master Smith?"
"It means our smiths cannot forge a sword or an armor plate from what you see here, Milord," Arran said, pointing a thick finger at the cooling metal. "If a soldier takes a hit wearing a breastplate made of that, the iron shatters. The furnace fire is just too hungry. It bakes the ash and the rot straight into the pour."
Reitz looked to his upper left curiously as if to calculate something. "Then what does it cost us?"
"A few more hammers down the line, sire," Arran's tone was still respectful. "These blocks we send to a forge, we fire a kiln again and wait for the iron to glow. Then we beat the rot out. It needs more hands and hours, sire."
Reitz's grin faded. "How many workers and how much time, Master Smith? If the iron needs more work, does what we have here cost us more coin than our regular kilns?"
"Milord, our bloomeries are much more wasteful. If we were to make the same amount of iron with this... it would take us more hammers and more hours. Maybe fifty pounds for good iron. For the same work we can make four thousand pounds of rot-iron for the same amount of hands."
Reitz's grin bloomed to its maximum again.
"Let's call it cast iron," Ezra interrupted.
"Pardon, my lord," Arran said, facing Ezra directly.
With Reitz around he seems to be more respectful not just to him but to me, Ezra thought.
"Let's call the new furnace a blast furnace, and the new iron that it makes cast iron," Ezra said.
"I like that," Reitz immediately seconded. "Blast furnace sounds like a spell. Cast iron sounds like a spell too. Hahaha. You have a good naming sense. You take after me... Well, after all, you are my heir."
Ezra started to roll his eyes again.
Reitz was always like this when he was excited.
Reitz then turned back to Arran. "In essence, for every fifty pounds of iron we could make from before, we can make four thousand pounds now?"
"Roughly, sire, yes."
"Corvin, I want the exact report of how much this thing cost to build. How much the expected coin we make from a single one alone," Reitz said, now turning to the Master of Coin.
"Kestel, I want the plans on how to build this furnace recorded and kept in our archives. And can you help me think of what writs I can make to protect what we have here."
"Master Draffen, I want to know places we can put more of these blast furnaces."
Corvin spoke first. "My lord, the ledgers are split. We have the fixed coin spent to build the structure, which Maester Draffen is privy to." Corvin faced Draffen and nodded once. "And we also have the coin set aside for the wages, the ore, and the charcoal. Right now we can't give you the exact coin we need to maintain the operation. We know the yield, but we need more time to understand the true cost of the ore and charcoal we will need to keep it running."
"When can I have the exact figures?"
"Perhaps by the end of the month, if everything has stabilized. We are definitely making more than what it costs, but the furnace is too new to get the proper numbers," Corvin said, bowing his head.
Kestel went next after Corvin's statement. "My lord, all the plans for the new furnace are currently already in our secret archives. Lord Ezra had given our office a copy even before the construction began. He also gave the exact proportions for the new refractory bricks the kiln is using."
Kestel paused, adjusting the wax seal case on his belt. "About the writ, the most pressing concern we have right now is that the local Smithing Guild might call jurisdiction over the new furnace and demand that the plans be turned over for the improvement of the guild, especially if they know that Master Smith Arran is involved. Though Master Smith Arran has considerable standing in the guild, he is by no means the chapter's guild master. I suggest we form a writ around this."
"What do you mean?" Reitz asked.
"The guilds of the empire have a particular proclivity to hoard knowledge about their own techniques. Since this was developed, in their eyes, with the Master Smith's help, they might demand that Arran be compelled to disclose it."
"What would be your solution?"
"Previously, Lord Ezra has come to me with an idea that would protect the designs of craftsmen or any other person who comes up with new creations. We can create a writ for this and then put Maester Draffen, Master Smith Arran, Master Surveyor Albrecht, and Kilnmaster Halvork as co-creators."
Draffen interrupted Kestel. "If you must, then include Master Faraday as well. These designs are made by him."
Kestel eyed Draffen and addressed him first. "We don't even know if Master Faraday resides in Fulmen. For that matter, we can only subordinate Fulmen's subjects to the writ. We can discuss this separately."
Draffen nodded grimly.
"Them being co-creators would ease the burden of pressure on Master Arran and everyone else," Kestel finished.
"Then if it means that we make a new writ for this, so be it," Reitz said. "Make sure the heralds announce this along with posting it on the notice boards."
Ever since a few weeks ago, Kestel had the idea of posting notice boards for the new writs since the press could do multiple copies anyway.
"Yes, Milord," Kestel bowed.
Seeing his turn was up, Draffen finally spoke. "Milord, according to the original designs that Master Faraday had, there needs to be a source on which the flywheel would need to be mounted so that we can have consistent wind flow. While, to my knowledge, we can make use of manual labor instead of the running river water, the current design is the most optimal."
"We need river water power for more of these then?"
"Currently yes, Milord," Draffen said. "But there may be some way to power the kiln without river water."
"It sounds like there is a catch," Reitz said.
"It involves the Artificers Guild."
Ezra's ears perked up. The Artificers Guild meant technology that involved magic cores and crystals. Things that were out of his reach for now. Draffen somehow had an idea to use whatever the guild had currently in order to power it. This technology was the biggest knowledge gap that Ezra had, and he would love to pry the guild's secrets open.
Reitz's eyes narrowed. "We don't want Imperial involvement in this just yet."
"I was merely suggesting something, my lord," Draffen bowed. "We have a form that powers the sinks in the castle. From what I understand, we can use the push of the water from a magic crystal and core pair to propel the flywheel. That is just one of the possibilities, my lord."
Ezra already had a vague idea of what Draffen was talking about, but he had never seen such a contraption out in the open. The only thing that he had seen that used this were the gemlamps that were more common. It looked like Draffen had more ideas about what the Artificers Guild could do than he initially thought.
"Regardless, we shouldn't put too many of these in Bren, My Lord," Draffen said, looking up at the thick pillar of smoke rising into the sky. "It would certainly put more smoke in the city, the commoners catch ailments easily." Then Draffen looked back at the water wheel.
"Also, if we put more of these upstream, we might affect the push of the river. We also might disturb the river fish that we catch. This has happened in a barony in Pharae where they gated the river for some reason and it dried up."
Reitz contemplated, absorbing the constraints. "Alright, but I need to know how many more of these we can make here in Bren. Also, you should talk to the surveyor's guild. We might be able to make more in other parts of Fulmen."
"As you wish, my lord."
The council continued the whole inspection for half the day. They concluded fully satisfied. Reitz commended Arran and Halvork for their work.
"Is there anything of note we need to know?" Reitz asked before departing.
"Milord, the handling of this beast of a kiln is arduous and taxing. The constant shift of hands feels like we are standing watch over some foe. Smiths are not soldiers, Milord. If there can be some form of reprieve for them, or restitution for the people who stand watch for the night... then it would be a lighter load."
Arran bowed deep, leaning slightly. Ezra noticed that he used more ornate words than he usually did when he was talking to the smiths and regular worker. It seems that Arran had himself formed a different persona, with a much more formal vocabulary when talking to nobles.
I don't think he even sees me as a Noble, Ezra mused recalling their first meeting.
Reitz watched him and contemplated. "I cannot give you a definite answer now, Master Smith, but I will try to allocate a budget for you based on the coin we make on this, the workers here will be compensated more than what is possible in an average smithy."
Arran bowed again. "Thank you, milord. The slag must flow."
"Make sure it does," Reitz nodded as he bid goodbye.
As soon as Reitz's back was turned it seemed that his posture went back to normal.
I guess he is one of those people who changes personality when they meet the CEO, Ezra thought shaking his head.
Ezra saw how Reitz and the privy council had reacted to the kiln. It was now a definite success. He just needed time for Bren to make a profit off of it.
With this under his belt, he could focus on the infrastructure of the new building next.