Road to the Crown

Chapter 118: Difrence between a story and a reality

21st April 1574

Despite my initial intention to have a serious talk with Dantan, even though I had the opportunity to do so right at the evening of the day when all the resources would be loaded on top of the barges while the workers would be temporarily housed in a big barn near the city docks, yet after thinking this through, I refrained from doing so.

According to the Governor's words, in about two weeks time, he would bring him along in order to check the progress on building the steam horse, giving me the chance to start the talks based on an existing machine rather than something that for now remained as nothing but a simple concept.

After a good night of sleep preceded by a sumptuous supper at the Jan's palace, I woke up with the first ringing of the city bell, and after dressing as soon as possible, I almost ran to the docks. With how the road to our destination would still take us around five hours, most of which we would spend by being pulled upstream the Stone River which would drastically reduce our speed, there wasn't any time left for me to waste.

Instead of visiting the palace's kitchen on the go in order to grab something to eat, I used the fact that most of the shop vendors on the streets woke up way before just for the sake of catching the same kind of people like me, rushing towards their tasks without any time to waste on such a stupid matter like food.

After a fast exchange of a single Grosh (*Check A/N) for a dish that I honestly would never believe if someone would tell me it wasn't a modern invention. With a long, crunchy baguette serving as the base for the meal, filled with all sorts of ingredients from meat, through onion all the way to the cheese, and then baked again in a portable oven that the shop owner had on the side of his stall, I could fill my belly with a juicy mix of various flavours that otherwise would only be available all the way in Italy, in form of the dish that does not need an introduction.

Destroying this meal that came close to the level of a piece of art with huge bites that didn't even allow me to fully enjoy the complicated taste I ran towards the docks area, only to see the crowd of people already boarding the barges. Contrary to the previous travel we caught in a small village on the coast of Vistula, Sandomir could offer all sorts of high-end ships, even ones that outside of the pulling factor for the barges could serve as a proper housing for the higher ranked nobles who rented them.

Instead of cramming in line with everyone else, I simply boarded the ship at the front, spending the loading time on watching the events in the dock. While almost all of the materials were already loaded yesterday or through the night, there was still quite a lot of wares that some of the craftsmen worked overnight to prepare, as there would be no specialistic tools required to make them already in the mining area.

From the two sets of metal bearing for the log that would serve as the arm of the leaver that would balance the counterweight and the steam horse cylinder, through all sorts of smaller and bigger pipes and connectors at the resilient, heat-resistant valves ending. Those kinds of pieces were simply too complicated to be made on the spot, even though amongst the hundred or so people that would accompany me on this trip, at least three smiths and several other skilled workers were ordered by the Governor to help me out.

Finally, after about an hour spent by the workers of the dock mostly on moving the heavy metal parts from the land on board the barges, the entire naval group finally started to move.

At first, all that the sailors did was to drop the securing lines that bound the ships to the pylons ashore, yet instead of just allowing the ships to drift along with the current of the river, the people that remained on land used long, wooden poles to push the ships away from the danger of crashing them against landed infrastructure and other docked ship.

Moment by moment, the port area of the town was moving further and further away, indicating that my journey towards the mines gifted to me by the governor was finally fully starting. While there was still quite a lot of time before I would get to see the lands that would soon become a focal point for the development in the entire country, and the basis for the development directly in the Tarnowian region, I could already feel the hype growing in my mind.

Yet this was also the moment what I once again painfully realised the difference between dreams, novels and reality. While in some kind of book, just by using the words "and so a day passed" the story would move on to the next important or interesting point, keeping the reader's attention to the stuff that would actually keep him entertained, yet living those events with my own most likely mortal body, I had to sit down and endure the long hours of the journey.

At first, I managed to keep myself occupied with the novelty of travelling on the ship, yet contrary to moving around by horse, I didn't even get this trusty mount of mine to talk to in the moments of loneliness. Even though the ship was full of people taking their time to rest before the long hours of paddling would start, with the difference between their common and my noble status, even attempting to start an empty talk would be seen as a gross slap to the social expectations placed on my shoulders.

God, how I wished to just be able to snap my fingers and say "and so the mundane journey came to an end" only to appear in my destination already! Watching the changing landscape wasn't as interesting as poets liked to put it, not even the playful moves of the ships easily traceable from the deck of my ship could kill my boredom at this point!

And so, this boring journey came to an end.