"By the Old Gods, Ned, I'm pregnant, not an invalid!" I snapped at my husband.
"I know that, Cat, but you're pushing yourself so hard-"
"I'm barely even showing," I countered. "I'm not in any danger at this stage!"
"Perhaps, but I can't help but to worry…"
I sighed and let out a little groan.
Ned was half right. While I wasn't in danger of losing the baby, I had been pushing myself rather hard lately. Business had been booming, and I was struggling to keep up with it all. Over the winter, shiploads of linseed oil and flax fiber had started coming in from the Riverlands. The oil was put to use either in my soap factory (a new building on the outskirts of Winter Town) or boiled to make a decent varnish for all of the machines Garalt and Willard and their apprentices were making for me. I'd had to expand the number of machines in my textile workshop so that I could start weaving linen, which was also being sold and transported all over the North.
At least with the mines in Clan Harclay's lands and Vayon's holdfast, those two lords were overseeing their day to day running.
"Look, I've been speaking with Maester Luwin and Clay," Ned continued, his voice soft and mildly worried. "Clay has a friend, Artos Snow, a bastard of House Tallhart. He's a clever lad, and has been learning from Maester Luwin and helping Clay with his steward duties. He knows his sums and letters, and both Clay and Luwin think he could become a sort of steward for your ventures."
"You vouch for him?" I wearily asked.
"I do," he nodded. "And both Clay and Luwin vouch for him too."
"Oh, very well," I huffed. "Invite him to a private dinner tonight. We'll talk with him then, and if I find him appropriate, I'll hire him on."
"Thank you, Catelyn," Ned replied with more than a little relief. "You won't regret this, I promise."
"Well, I'll hold you to it, then."
Artos had been a somewhat solemn, serious lad. He was, apparently, moderately skilled with a sword and, like Clay, he had served under my husband in Robert's Rebellion and the household guard.
After thoroughly testing him in reading, writing, sums, and general business sense, I had deemed him acceptable, and offered him a wage of one gold dragon per week. Roughly speaking, that wage would come out to somewhere around half a million dollars yearly in my old life. It was a very generous sum, and one that I was sure he would be keen to keep.
The first task I'd put him on had been the establishment of a quarry. The hills southeast of Winterfell were mostly made of limestone; I'd instructed him to find a viable spot relatively close to the castle and to start quarrying it. Given my intended use for it, he didn't need to extract blocks; in fact, small chunks or gravel would work better.
This was, of course, on top of him managing the day to day operations of my ventures. After a couple of weeks of showing him the ropes, anything he couldn't deal with, he brought to me.
With the sudden free time I had available, I turned it to spending more time with Robb and Jon, who were nearing three years old now, and with Ned as well, much to his relief. In my spare time, I worked on the one major hurdle in my plans for a blast furnace; the air pump.
"No, this won't do," I muttered as I inspected a disassembled small-scale pump. I'd been trying to make a piston pump, something very much like a bicycle tire pump, with the idea of chaining two or four of them together to get a continuous stream of air into the furnace.
"What is wrong with it, my lady?" Luwin asked with confusion. "It was moving air quite well, wasn't it?"
"Look at this here," I replied, pointing to the leather washer around the piston. "See how the leather is fraying? We'd end up having to replace it a few times each week, perhaps even after every burn. The cost would quickly add up, and if the pump fails…"
"I take your meaning," Luwin replied, nodding along. "And I suppose a double bellows would also be insufficient?"
"It might last a little longer, but they also have the same kind of wear and tear," I replied with a shake of my head. "Plus, the bellows would have to be replaced entirely, I think, which would be even more costly."
"Then what do you propose, my lady?" he asked.
I was silent for a long moment. The big problem was the seals around the piston; leather worked fine, but even with a little bit of linseed oil as a lubricant, it wore out quite quickly. Using a kind of packing material, like flax, didn't provide a tight enough seal to get good pressure.
'If only I had a source of rubber, ' I mentally complained. Even a small amount would work wonders; a few rubber washers around the lip of the piston would make the whole assembly work. Without that though…
"I suppose I better come up with a different idea," I huffed.
Spring was almost over by the time I had come up with a decent idea; a centrifugal pump.
Vacuum cleaners had used variants on a centrifugal pump for decades to create air flow and suction. While I didn't have plastic or rubber available, nor did I have highly precise measuring equipment, I managed to redneck my way into a solution. And, like the seals, I'd turned to leather.
What I'd come up with was a smoothly polished ceramic housing that was shaped like a cylinder that was about as wide as it was tall. The top of the cylinder had a square protrusion sticking out, but angled to the side. Inside the cylinder was a wood and leather 'fan' with a hollow center. The moderately stiff leather 'fan blades' were angled away from the direction of the spin.
With a belt attached to the shaft, the fan would spin inside the housing at a moderate speed. As it spun, air would be pushed out of the opening at the top of the housing. This would create a mild vacuum, which would pull air from the opening in the center of the housing. It relied on the extra momentum (the centrifugal force) the fan added to the air to push it out of the opening. A simple, flexible leather hose reinforced by thick woolen cloth could guide the air stream into the ceramic pipes that would feed the blast furnace.
And best of all? While it could be run by animal power, I'd designed the pump to be run by a waterwheel via the simple expediency of a leather belt drive.
"Well?" I asked Luwin with a shit-eating grin on my face. A household servant was obediently turning a crankshaft to spin the fan for me.
"My lady, I- garblegarblegarble!" Luwin broke off into unintelligible stuttering when I pointed the hose in his face. The blast of air pushed his lips back, completely interrupting what he was trying to say.
When I finally removed the hose, the disgruntled look on his face sent me into bright peals of laughter. If it was a touch hysterical, well, you can't blame me too much; I'd been working on making a viable pump for months!
"If you are quite done…?"
"Haha, y-yes, Luwin… hahaha, I'm sorry, it's just…" I gasped, holding my aching sides. "The look on your face!"
"While I am pleased it seems to be working so well, my lady, I have to ask," he said, a mild frown on his face. "Given your use of leather inside the… pump, wouldn't this device also run into the same issue with wear?"
"It might," I admitted. "But, considering the way the stiff leather blades curve away from the direction of the spin, they won't be pressed tightly against the walls of the housing. And even if they do wear down a little bit, it'll keep working unless one or more of the leather parts completely breaks off."
"Then, in that case, is this design sufficient?"
"Well, no," I replied. "But only because this particular pump is far too small. I'll need a much larger one for the blast furnace."
"I see," Luwin nodded. "And how is the construction coming along?"
"Slowly," I admitted. "I'm building more brick kilns at the moment; the current output isn't sufficient for what we need. I think I can get the first furnace done before the harvest, but not sooner."
The local source of clay was rather limited, but the Neck was inundated with the stuff. Good quality clay, too, and the frogmen knew the best places for it. Artos, at my direction, had reached a profitable deal with Lord Reed, and clay by the wagonfull was traveling up the King's Road to Winterfell.
"I see," he nodded. "And… your other project? The… concrete?"
"Artos says it's coming along well," I answered. "Burning the limestone to make quicklime isn't difficult, but Artos and the masons working with him are having to try different amounts of materials to make it set properly. Hopefully, they'll find an adequate recipe soon."
"Given the masons' familiarity with mortar, with any luck that day will come sooner rather than later," Luwin commented. "Though I had some questions about this… concrete. How does it work?"
"The key is the quicklime," I told him, launching into a detailed explanation. "When mixed with water…"
"Did you- hrng! Ugh, did you wash your hands?!" I demanded of Luwin and the midwife that was assisting him. "What about the tools and bandages; did you boil them like I asked?"
"Of course, my lady," Luwin reassured me. Another contraction tore through me, leaving me breathless for a minute. "Everything has been prepared to your exact specifications."
"And the forceps?" I asked again. "What about the speculum?"
"Those as well, my lady," he replied, "though I doubt we'll need them in your case."
"You can't know that!"