Dawn on the banks of the Nera was a business of grey light and biting cold. The lazy water, thick and laden with the city's waste, lapped against the slippery stones where, for generations, the washerwomen of King's Landing had waged their daily war on filth. It was a landscape of toil and resignation, dominated by the rhythmic slap of beaters on wet linen and the stooped silhouettes of women, their arms reddened by the icy water, their faces marked by ancestral fatigue.
That morning, however, an unusual sight disturbed the age-old routine. Twenty or so men and women of the Midges, led by Jem and Theron, busied themselves around a strange contraption, assembled piece by piece in the pre-dawn gloom. It was the "Washer," transported in parts from headquarters and reassembled with a nervous efficiency. It now stood on a hastily built wooden platform to steady it on the uneven ground, its mass of wood and iron both incongruous and menacing in that scene of ordinary misery.
The washerwomen, arriving in small groups to begin their day, stopped — intrigued and wary. They watched the activity, their arms laden with heavy baskets of dirty laundry. What was this infernal machine? A new invention to make their lives even harder? Some kind of press to gouge money out of them? Mistrust was carved on their weathered faces.
At the center of the bustle, but slightly set back, stood Tony. He watched the scene, his impassive face hiding a sour anxiety. This was the moment of truth. His plan, his coerced "loan," the future of his little realm — it all rested on the performance of this machine (he had no doubt about its effectiveness), and on the reception it would receive from the washerwomen. Beside him, Lira scanned the crowd, her hand not far from the light crossbow tucked beneath her cloak — not out of fear of the washerwomen, but out of habit, always anticipating the worst. Elara held a slate and a piece of charcoal, ready to time, to quantify the miracle or the disaster. Kael checked the tension of the leather belt and the alignment of the gears one last time, his movements precise but slightly nervous.
An old woman, more hunched and more wrinkled than the others, approached. It was Maude, the unofficial elder of the washerwomen, a woman whose hands looked like old roots and whose gaze had weathered decades of grime and labor. "So, boy?" she said in a hoarse voice, nodding toward the machine with a contemptuous jerk of her chin. "What's this, the devil's new toy? It's distracting the women who want to work."
Tony stepped forward, respectful but firm. "It's not a toy, Maude — if I'm not mistaken. It's a tool. A tool to help you. To do the same work you do, but faster, more efficiently, and without breaking your backs."
A bitter laugh rippled through the washerwomen.
"Faster?" scoffed another woman. "Nothing's faster than a beater and the river, boy. That's how we've always done it."
"Then let's prove it," Tony replied. He pointed to a huge pile of particularly nasty laundry — sheets stained with wine and grease from Milon's tavern, aprons crusted with dried blood from the butchers. "You take half, your best team. We'll take the other half. Let's see who finishes first, and whose laundry is cleaner. If you win I'll even give you a silver stag."
At the mention of money, the washerwomen's eyes widened and crooked smiles tugged at their lips. This kid was too eager to lose his coin.
The challenge was set. Maude squinted, then shrugged. "Fine, boy. Don't you go backing out when the time comes." Five of the sturdiest washerwomen, led by Maude, attacked their half of the pile with a furious vigor, their beaters falling in the familiar chorus of slaps.
On the other side, Tony's crew took their places. Jem, having stripped off his tunic despite the cold, sat at the pedal seat, his powerful muscles flexed. Kael stood by the mangle. Tony supervised the loading of the drum: hot water, freshly taken from a large pot bubbling nearby, was poured into the machine.
"Go on, Jem!" Tony ordered.
Jem began to pedal. First slowly, then faster and faster. The drum started to turn with a low rumble. Inside, the paddles lifted the heavy sheets and let them fall in the soapy water with mechanical, relentless force. The water quickly turned into a blackish, bubbling soup. The sound was strange, hypnotic: the slosh-slosh of water, the steady creak of wooden gears, Jem's powerful breathing.
After about ten minutes, the washerwomen had stopped working, mesmerized by the spectacle. Their beaters hung idle. They had never seen anything like it. The labor of five women concentrated into the legs of one man and the ingenuity of a machine.
Five minutes later Tony signaled Jem to stop. The drum slowed, water still sloshing inside. With Flick and another boy's help, they opened a small valve at the bottom of the drum to drain the dirty water, then refilled it with rinse water drawn from the river. Jem pedaled for another five minutes.
Then came the mangle. The first sheet, heavy and dripping, was pulled from the drum. Kael and Flick fed its edge between the two wooden rollers. Jem, having given up his seat to another strong fellow for the next cycle, took the crank on the mangle. He turned it. A cry of surprise rose from the washerwomen. The machine "bit" the sheet and began pulling it — slowly but inexorably. Water sprayed from both sides, expelled by the rollers' formidable pressure. The sheet inched forward, centimeter by centimeter, and emerged on the other side incredibly lighter, flat, and almost dry to the touch.
Maude stepped forward, unbelieving. She took hold of the edge of the wrung sheet. It was clean. Cleaner than she had ever managed with her beater. The grease stains were gone. And it was barely damp. It would dry in an hour in the sun, not in a day. She looked up at the machine, then at Tony, then back to the sheet in her hands. Her lips trembled.
"By the Seven Hells, how did you do that?"
The miracle had happened.
Soon other washerwomen came closer, touching the linens, murmuring among themselves. Hostility had vanished, replaced by febrile excitement.
"How long?" one of them asked Tony.
"Twenty minutes on average to wash and wring ten sheets," he answered.
Twenty minutes. Work that normally took them two hours, or more for the dirtiest pieces.
The men and women of the Midges who had helped build the machine stood a little to the side, watching with fierce pride. They saw the joy on the washerwomen's faces. They saw hope. Flick, helping Kael at the mangle, wore a wide smile. He had found his place. Not in fine cutting, but in running the machine. He was part of something that worked, something that brought real improvement. For the first time in his life, he didn't feel useless.
Lira came up to Tony. She laid a light hand on his arm. "You did it," she murmured, and in her voice there was a new admiration, deeper than the respect she held for the strategist or the warrior. She admired the builder. Tony looked at her, and for the first time in weeks a genuine smile lit his face. A tired smile, but sincere. "We did it."
Jem had returned to the pedal seat for the second round. As he pedaled, his gaze swung from the machine turning under his feet to the transformed faces of the washerwomen. He felt the power in his legs, but it was no longer the brute strength of a fighter. It was productive power, the kind that creates, that lightens others' burdens. It was a new, strange sensation, but deeply satisfying.
He thought of Groleau, of his own ambition to rule by force and fear. What folly. He had believed himself the strongest, the natural leader. Then this kid had arrived — scrawny, odd, talking of traps and numbers. He had scorned him, then feared him, then followed him. How had he let a child take his place so easily? The answer turned under his feet, in the steady rumble of the drum. Because Tony had not taken power by force. He had earned it by intelligence. By vision. He did not offer domination; he offered solutions. The traps brought money. The crossbows brought security. And this machine… this machine brought hope.
Jem understood his role then. He was no longer the boss. He was the engine. The protector. The shield that let the brain work. He was the one who pedaled so the machine could turn, the one who wielded the crossbow so the workshop would be safe. It was a different place, but not an inferior one. It was his place. And he accepted it. He pedaled harder, a simple, honest pride swelling his chest. They were going to make it. Thanks to that mad kid and his impossible machines, they were really going to make it.
Tony, watching Jem pedal with renewed vigor, watching Kael explain the mangle's operation to an entranced washerwoman, watching Lira already discussing rental arrangements with Maude, felt again the familiar rush of commerce and construction he loved. This was only the first machine. Dozens would be needed. Then soap. Then other projects. The construction site of possibilities had barely opened its gates. And he would make sure they never closed, putting this world on the road to development within a decade.