Chapter 120: Wagonways Outside the Mines
Margarita de Austria settled into the chair across from the desk. She did not slouch, nor did she sit rigidly; she possessed a fluid posture that made the simple wooden furniture look like an imperial throne.
Even so, Konrad kept his broad shoulders square, his hands resting on the messy stacks of ledgers and blueprints scattered across his desk.
"I am a highly practical woman, Viscount," Margarita began. "I did not travel through a week of freezing mud and rain just to play games with you."
"Then let’s talk about the iron," Konrad replied bluntly. "You brought a hundred thousand silver florins to my courtyard. You said you wanted a new invention. Speak."
Margarita smiled. She looked around the study, her piercing blue eyes taking in the chaotic mix of charcoal sketches, hardened steel gears acting as paperweights, and the smell of burnt pine and gun oil.
Though the young Archduchess was surrounded by the grime of Swabian industry, she looked in her element.
"I will not ask you how you produce your wheellocks with such staggering numbers," Margarita stated, raising a hand "I have no interest in stealing your blacksmiths or your assembly methods. I know how difficult it is to standardize moving parts. Nor will I ask you how you managed to achieve all of this in a mere year and a half."
Katarina, sitting poised beside Konrad, narrowed her eyes.
The Bavarian princess crossed her arms over her gown.
"You certainly know a great deal about my husband’s timeline, Lady Margarita."
"I know that eighteen months ago, the old Viscount von Frundsberg passed away," Margarita answered smoothly, her gaze locked on Konrad.
"I know that Swabia was nothing but a muddy valley of farmers and broken mercenary bands.
Yet, in less than two years, you took the rule and turned this keep into the most lethal fortress in the Holy Roman Empire.
You shattered a Savoyard vanguard before they could even draw their swords. Obviously, you are a genius, Konrad. And a genius is exactly what I require."
"Flattery doesn’t forge steel, Margarita," Konrad growled, his voice low. "Get to the point. What do you want me to build?"
Margarita leaned forward, resting her elbows on the edge of the desk.
"Are you familiar with the wagonways in the deep mines?" she asked quietly.
"....."
Konrad frowned. "The wooden rails. The miners lay down wooden planks with grooved tracks to guide the heavy ore carts out of the shafts. The Fuggers use them in Tyrol to move silver faster without the carts sinking into the mud."
Margarita nodded. "The wagonways keep the wheels out of the mud. They make the heavy loads completely frictionless. A single miner can push a cart that would normally take three mules to drag through the dirt."
"I govern the Netherlands," Margarita explained.
"Flanders, Antwerp, Brussels. We produce the finest cloth, the best goods, and the richest merchants. But every single spring, the rains come.
The main trade routes turn into completely impassable rivers of mud.
My merchants are stranded. The ledgers freeze. The wealth of a nation simply stops moving because a horse cannot pull a heavy wooden wagon through three feet of wet dirt."
She reached out and tapped a finger against one of Konrad’s blueprints.
"I want you to take the wagonways out of the dark mines," Margarita demanded. "I want you to lay those tracks across the open land. I want a permanent trade route connecting my major cities."
Konrad let out a harsh laugh. He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms.
"Do you have any idea how much timber that would take? The wood rots in the rain, Margarita. The heavy transport wagons would completely splinter the wooden rails in a week.
And even if you miraculously paved a hundred miles of track, horses are terrified of walking on grooved wood. They break their ankles."
Katarina nodded in agreement. "You cannot drag a fifty-ton merchant caravan across wooden rails with simple beasts of burden. The friction is too high for open roads."
Margarita simply stared at Konrad.
"...who said anything about using horses?"
Konrad eyes widened a fraction of an inch.
However, Margarita wasn’t finished dropping bombs on his secrets.
"My spies are highly competent, Viscount," she whispered, leaning even closer. "I know that you have sealed off the deepest cellars of your keep. I know you are hoarding amounts of raw iron and importing high-quality black coal from the east. I know you are building a heavily riveted iron boiler that has nothing to do with making rifles."
Konrad’s jaw locked. Beside him, Katarina went still, realizing how deeply this imperial operative had penetrated their home.
"...I don’t just want a wagonway, Konrad. I want it faster. I want you to build me an iron beast that can drag a hundred wagons of cloth from Antwerp to Burgundy without ever getting tired." Margarita stated.
He stared at her.
The sheer madness of her request was overshadowed by the blinding brilliance of her ambition.
"Do you have any idea what you are actually asking for?" Konrad asked. "The track cannot be wood. It has to be pure forged iron. Miles and miles of it. The boiler alone would require metallurgy that doesn’t even exist outside of my own head. If the pressure valves fail, the machine will detonate like a bomb and kill everyone within a hundred yards."
"I am aware of the risks." Margarita replied smoothly. "That is exactly why I brought the silver. You can hire every blacksmith in the Empire. You can build larger forges. You can test it until the valves hold. I will give you absolute funding."
Konrad closed his eyes for a brief second.
To build a steam locomotive would instantly elevate his revolution from simple warfare to a complete global paradigm shift.
But he couldn’t just take her money and start hammering iron.
He opened his eyes, locking them onto the woman sitting across from him.
"If I do this..." Konrad began. "If I take your silver and build you that trade route... I am going to need something massive in return. Something that costs significantly more than a hundred thousand florins."
Margarita tilted her head, highly intrigued. "I told you, Viscount. Lands. Castles. Titles. Name your price."
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