"Then lay back, relax, and I shall take a look," he replied with long-suffering patience as he held up the speculum.
"Fine," I growled through gritted teeth. "But you better know what you're doing!"
"I know exactly what you taught me, my lady." He replied.
His words didn't reassure me.
"It's a girl," the midwife told me as she gently held out a wrapped bundle toward me. I blearily cracked my eyes open, and just as carefully accepted it. "You have a daughter, milady."
"Oh…" I sighed. The labor had been long and hard, and I was completely exhausted. There had been a minor hiccup, as the baby hadn't wanted to come all the way out. But Luwin was able to use the forceps I'd designed to gently coax her out of me, ensuring a safe birthing process.
Looking down at the tiny, wrinkled, pink-skinned, squalling babe in my arms, she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. A tiny patch of auburn hair, exactly like my own, crowned her tiny head. While her eyes were closed tightly against the unfamiliar light of the world, I was sure that her eyes would be as blue as mine.
"What's her name, milady?" The midwife tentatively asked.
"Sansa," I answered, remembering the late night discussions I'd had with Ned. Her name was an old, but rarely used name in the Stark family history. A rare name for a rare beauty. "Her name is Sansa…"
Ned had turned into a mother hen in the aftermath of Sansa's birth, passing off as many of his responsibilities as he could to Clay so that he could spend more time hovering around Sansa and I, to make sure we were fine and well cared for. It was sweet, but a bit smothering. In the two weeks since her birth, I'd done little except rest in bed and feed both myself and Sansa. However, Ned and I agreed it was time to introduce Sansa to her brothers.
"Robb, Jon," I softly greeted the two boys as they trailed behind Ned. "I have someone I'd like you to meet."
"Who is it?" Robb asked, his high childlike voice ringing through the quiet room. He looked around in confusion, not seeing anyone but Ned and I.
"She's right here," I told him. Carefully, I shifted little Sansa until she was upright in my arms, and I turned her towards the two boys. "This is Sansa, your baby sister."
"Sister?" Jon asked, looking confused and curious.
"Her hair like mine!" Robb squealed. He moved closer and carefully reached out to rub his hand along the tiny tuft of hair on her head.
"And like mine as well," I told him, smiling at the scene.
"This… my sister too?" Jon asked.
"She's as much your sister as Robb is your brother," I told him. It wasn't even a lie.
Jon moved up beside Robb and stared in complete fascination at his baby sister (well, technically his cousin, but we weren't going to tell him that). Though, he seemed too cautious to reach out and touch her like Robb was.
"She's still a baby right now," I told them. "But as her older brothers, it will be your job to look after her, understand?"
"Yes, mama," they chorused.
I looked up and caught Ned's eye. They shone with love and pride as he watched this little moment of family bonding. I gave him a Mona Lisa smile and sent him a subtle wink. He winked back.
'This right here,' I thought to myself, 'is what family is supposed to be like…'
And I would do anything in the world to protect it.
"What do you think, my lady?" Artos asked, a proud, boyish grin on his face, so different from his usual serious demeanor.
Sitting in the cart were several smallish gray blocks. The surface was rough, and I could see several different colored stones mixed in, but for the most part it was quite regular. When I picked one up, it was heavy, but solid. I lifted it high, then let it drop onto the cobblestone courtyard.
A chunk split off from a corner. Bending down, I picked the stone back up and took a look.
"Yes, I think this will do nicely," I replied with a grin. "This is definitely concrete. The blocks are useful, of course, but what I want you and your men to do is to try pouring slabs."
"Slabs?"
"Yes. A bit less than a hand thick, but try pouring them, oh, say, two yards by one yard," I told him. "Once it's set, have your men jump on it and run over it with carts. I want to know how durable it is."
"I will, milady, but… why?" He asked.
"Because concrete would make excellent roads, don't you think?"
Artos looked at me strangely for a moment, then looked at the blocks in the cart. "I suppose so, but it would take a lot of men to make concrete cobbles…"
"That's why I want you to pour the slab," I said with a little smile. "Rather than carting cobbles and laying them out, wouldn't it be easier to mix concrete on site and simply pour it in place? I imagine it would make road building a lot easier, wouldn't it?"
Artos' eyebrows disappeared into his hair. "I… yes, I imagine it would, my lady!"
The continuous thrumming whir of the blower laid the background for the sounds of shouting men as they gathered around the blast furnace. It had been burning for two days now, being continuously fed with crushed iron ore, coke, and limestone gravel as flux.
The furnace had been built near the river, and closer to Castle Cerwyn than to Winterfell. Lord Cerwyn wasn't complaining, though, since I was paying him a handsome sum as rent for the land. The entire structure was nearly three stories tall, made from baked red bricks to resist the heat. A long ramp led up to the opening of the furnace at the top. Workers would push wheelbarrows to the opening and dump their load of materials into the top. It was hot, dangerous work, but I'd commissioned heavy leather overalls to protect them from the heat and the embers. Though, considering the autumn cold, I doubted they were complaining much.
The air was piped from the blowers through a clay pipe that wound around the outer surface of the furnace from top to bottom, preheating the air before it was pumped in at the bottom. As the material melted, it would drop into the ceramic basin at the bottom of the furnace, kept hot and molten by the hot blast and the burning coke.
All told, it worked adequately well. This furnace, despite being almost three stories tall, was a rather small one, only capable of melting two or three tons of metal at a time. The huge industrial furnaces from my old life could melt dozens of tons in a single melt, and could be operated nearly continuously.
"I think we're ready, milady," Corin, the smelter I'd hired to take charge of this project. He had experience in the Vale smelting the iron ore that was mined there, and had gotten more experience working at the refractory ovens in Clan Harclay's lands. I hoped he would be up to the task.
"Very well," I nodded. "Go ahead and tap the slag."
Corin nodded and turned away, shouting commands at his men as he did. The covered sandy pit at the base of the furnace could be used to cast very basic shapes, such as ingots or maybe even axe heads, if I'd wanted to make cast iron implements. And I probably would at some point, since cast iron cookware and basic tools would be quite useful. However, I was interested in a finer material; steel.
The men held up a long iron rod, about the height of a man, to the clay plug that had been baked in place by the heat of the furnace. A man with a hammer repeatedly hit the end of the rod until, with a crack, the slag tap cracked and broke. The men scrambled back as the hot, glowing slag poured out of the small hole in a rapid stream and fell into the shallow trough in the sand that had been prepared in advance. There, the slag would cool into a brittle stone-like substance that would be broken up and discarded later.
"It seems to be going well," I commented to Maester Luwin, who had asked to be present at the first pour. I suspected he would be writing down everything he saw later on, but I didn't mind; if something happened, at least this process would hopefully not be lost.
"It does, my lady," he agreed. "But what exactly are your men doing with that?"
'That' was a brick and clay crucible suspended from chains that hung from hooks attached to an iron assembly that ran along a thick iron track shaped like an inverted T that hung from the ceiling. The men pushed it into place at the base of the furnace, and prepared to tap the second plug.
"It's a crucible," I explained. "Once the molten iron is poured into it, we'll blow air across it to refine it into steel."
With a crack, molten iron poured into the crucible, which I'd made sure was lined with a two inch thick mixture of clay and limestone. The heat of the molten iron would bake it, but it would be brittle, and could be chipped out later.
Once the metal stopped pouring out of the tap, the men used iron hooks to grab the chains and slowly pull the crucible along the track to another pipe.
"Switch pipes!" Corin yelled once the vat was in position.
The flexible leather tube was detached from the clay pipes leading to the furnace and moved over to a different set. Once connected, the air blasted down onto the surface of the molten iron. The air ignited as it hit the hot metal, and I knew that the oxygen in it was combining with the excess carbon in the iron. Men with long iron rods stirred the mixture, ensuring that the extra heat caused by the carbon burning off was spread through the entire vat, and ensuring that pockets of unburned carbon made it to the surface.
It took some time, perhaps half an hour or so, before the intensity of the flames started to die down. Corin, having been told that this would happen, shouted, "Stop the air! Stop the air!"