Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 205: Microscopes

After Timothy’s force was repulsed, Border Town went quiet in the way that followed victories — not celebration exactly, more like a settling, the town returning to its own concerns with the slightly faster pulse of people who had just been reminded what was at stake.

Roland sent a team from City Hall’s Ministry of Education to Longsong Stronghold — three administrators and two teachers, with copies of Soraya’s textbooks and enough preparation to begin training Petrov’s local scholars in pedagogy before the Border Town staff left. Whatever the results over the first year, the first step had been taken.

Petrov sent workers in return. Two thousand road laborers arrived at Border Town within a week, escorted by cavalry, in organized groups that suggested the Acting Duke had posted the recruitment notices within hours of receiving the order. Roland noted this. The man was underutilized as a stronghold manager.

The Kingdom Main Street construction began at both ends simultaneously, working toward the middle. Karl took the job with his characteristic thoroughness, planning the drainage, the grade, the width at every section. Four steam-driven aggregate mills replaced hundreds of hand laborers. The production capacity was fine; it was the transport that bottlenecked — dozens of carts and teams moving gravel and cement powder from the mills to the construction faces in continuous chains, generating, in the process, a yellow cloud that hung over the town’s eastern quarter until mid-afternoon.

Leaves solved most of the dust problem in three days by growing parasol trees along both sides of every delivery route — symmetrical, mature, the canopies already full, the kind of arboreal fait accompli that normal growth would have required twenty years to achieve. The shade cut the ground-level dust significantly, and an appeal to residents to wet down their street sections did the rest.

By Roland’s rough estimates: the road would take approximately a year to complete. One hundred kilometers, cement-stabilized gravel, adequate for everything this era would run on it, and upgradeable to concrete or asphalt when demand warranted. When it was finished, the travel time between Border Town and Longsong would drop by a factor of ten. Merchant traffic would increase, the population corridor would densify, and the two cities would begin to grow together rather than sitting at opposite ends of a difficult journey.

For that integration to mean anything militarily, the road also needed to become a rapid deployment route. He was still thinking through the logistics — garrison placement, messenger relay stations, the fuel and maintenance infrastructure a steam-powered vehicle would eventually require.

He was thinking about a hundred thousand residents. Graycastle’s largest city had thirty thousand.

The civil wars would create refugees. He wrote to Margaret that same evening, asking for intelligence on the population situations in Endless Winter and Wolfsheart.

Then he folded the development plan and put it in the drawer and went to find Anna.

The basement laboratory had taken on the smell all working chemistry installations develop: sharp and metallic underneath, with organic notes from the various plant-derived acids currently being processed. Kyle Sichi was visible through the door, examining something with Chavez at the far bench, surrounded by equipment that had not existed six months ago. Roland passed without interrupting.

Anna’s room was on the second floor.

She was at the table, and on the table were three completed microscopes.

Not sketches. Not prototypes that demonstrated the principle while leaving the mechanics rough. Three instruments with adjustable focusing stages, properly fitted objectives and eyepieces, iron frames that held everything rigid at the precise separations the focal lengths required. All three different in minor details — the first generation’s lessons visible in the second’s corrections, the third’s corrections refining the second’s.

He had given her a sketch and a few pieces of crystal glass and three days.

“How did you manage this?” He picked up the nearest instrument. The focusing knob moved smoothly, without slop. The objective collar was clean.

“The sketch was enough to understand the function,” she said. “The rest is measurement and adjustment.” She glanced up briefly, then returned to the lens she was holding. The bangs fell across her face. “I tested each lens pair for focal length, then built the tube to hold them at the right separation. The frame needed to allow fine movement without introducing vibration.” A pause. “What is the curved piece at the base of your original drawing?”

A mirror. For directing available light upward through the specimen. He explained the purpose, the geometry, and then the material problem — mercury backing was the standard solution, but mercury vapor was a serious hazard, and clear flat glass of the quality needed was not currently available.

“Soraya,” Anna said immediately.

“That was my thought.”

“I’ll speak with her. She can coat glass with something reflective and non-toxic.” Anna was already past the problem, moving to the next one. She picked up a crystal blank and held it to the afternoon light coming through the window.

Roland watched her.

He was aware of the quality of the attention she brought to these problems — the completeness of it, the way it occupied her entirely without appearing to cost her anything. Some people thought very hard. Anna thought very clearly, which was different. The result was the same: presence. He was standing in the room and she was somewhere else, working something out, and when she returned she would have an answer that was almost always correct.

He stepped closer.

She placed her palm on his face without looking up and pushed him gently back.

“Later,” she said. “I’m working.”

“Ah.” He stepped back. “Fine.”

She was already back in the problem, turning the lens in the light.

He stood there for another moment, then found the chair across the table and sat down, because later was still the same room.

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