Read Online A Dangerous Climate by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - Free Book Online
Authors: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
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should be in your hands in good time.
Five of us have been set the task of making a plan for dredging a proper harbor, for at present ships must anchor off-shore for fear of raking their underbellies on the shoals of sand and silt nearer the islandswhere the first buildings have been erected. We have been given a crew of three hundred men, some Swedes, but most of them from the southern reaches of Russia. This is a daunting task, for there is little equipment in place for such a project, no matter how many men we're allotted, although we have been assured that the Czar will have such �gines sent from Amsterdam in the next few weeks. It appears he ordered them at the end of last summer and expects delivery by the middle of June. Barges are already under construction for our use.
This city is filled with industry. Everywhere one sees men working in their hundreds at draining the marshes, sinking piles into the earth, building up embankments and securing them with logs against the day when the logs will be replaced with quarried stone. On the land, carts arrive frequently with loads of logs, to be met by sawyers, who cut the lengths before the wood is ferried across. The sound of hammers and the clunk and groan of the treadmills create a din that is worse than a brawl on market-day. When you think that just over a year ago, there was nothing here but marshes and a few fishermen's huts, the buildings already here are remarkable in their number. The Swedish fortress is a small place, yet the Czar's village has expanded beyond its limits, and this island, called the Island of Hares, where the construction is centered, is supposed to be filled with houses and official palaces in a matter of four or five years.
I have not yet seen the Czar, although there is constant talk about him. If the reports are to be believed, the man is a giant: they say he is more than six and a half feet tall! One of the English shipwrights, a good-natured fellow named Tarquin Humphries, saw him when he was in England a few years since, and says that the man was taller than that.
Our housing is in the Foreign Quarter, which is to be expected. It is where all the foreigners who are not in work-gangs are housed, from servants to titled masters. There are strict rules for the houses in the city, but in the Foreign Quarter, there is some leeway in how the houses are built. We have a two-room house that fourteen of us share, the others being assigned similar quarters, and there is a Russian bath-house but a short walk from the door. This house is composed of a room filled with bunks and a room in which we eat and amuseourselves. We have been allowed two extra windows. The houses are all of wood, but we're told that one day they will all be of masonry. The Czar has ordered that there be palaces in stone by the end of this decade, and a viable port as well. One cannot say this Peter lacks ambitions, but how he can prosecute this Swedish war and complete his city, I can't fathom.
Forgive me, my mouselet, for not writing longer, but Captain Montgomery has sent his ensign for any letters we may have, so I must close, but I promise I will write again soon, and as often as I may. Even such things as paper are in short supply here, so if you have the opportunity to acquire a supply, please dispatch it with my fur-lined cloak and my elk-hide boots: we're told the winters here are fierce.
Until I see you again, do not doubt that my love is with you from sunrise to sunrise every day of my life.
Your husband,
Mungo Laurie
on the 6th day of June, 1704
3
Heer Lodewick Kerstan van Hoek stood in the window of the care-house using a magnifying lens to study the state of Saint-Germain's knuckles, shaking his head, ruminating on the damage he saw; when he spoke, it was in Dutch, so that their discussion would be private. "I don't know that I'd recommend removing the splint from your hand quite yet, Hercegek.
Five of us have been set the task of making a plan for dredging a proper harbor, for at present ships must anchor off-shore for fear of raking their underbellies on the shoals of sand and silt nearer the islandswhere the first buildings have been erected. We have been given a crew of three hundred men, some Swedes, but most of them from the southern reaches of Russia. This is a daunting task, for there is little equipment in place for such a project, no matter how many men we're allotted, although we have been assured that the Czar will have such �gines sent from Amsterdam in the next few weeks. It appears he ordered them at the end of last summer and expects delivery by the middle of June. Barges are already under construction for our use.
This city is filled with industry. Everywhere one sees men working in their hundreds at draining the marshes, sinking piles into the earth, building up embankments and securing them with logs against the day when the logs will be replaced with quarried stone. On the land, carts arrive frequently with loads of logs, to be met by sawyers, who cut the lengths before the wood is ferried across. The sound of hammers and the clunk and groan of the treadmills create a din that is worse than a brawl on market-day. When you think that just over a year ago, there was nothing here but marshes and a few fishermen's huts, the buildings already here are remarkable in their number. The Swedish fortress is a small place, yet the Czar's village has expanded beyond its limits, and this island, called the Island of Hares, where the construction is centered, is supposed to be filled with houses and official palaces in a matter of four or five years.
I have not yet seen the Czar, although there is constant talk about him. If the reports are to be believed, the man is a giant: they say he is more than six and a half feet tall! One of the English shipwrights, a good-natured fellow named Tarquin Humphries, saw him when he was in England a few years since, and says that the man was taller than that.
Our housing is in the Foreign Quarter, which is to be expected. It is where all the foreigners who are not in work-gangs are housed, from servants to titled masters. There are strict rules for the houses in the city, but in the Foreign Quarter, there is some leeway in how the houses are built. We have a two-room house that fourteen of us share, the others being assigned similar quarters, and there is a Russian bath-house but a short walk from the door. This house is composed of a room filled with bunks and a room in which we eat and amuseourselves. We have been allowed two extra windows. The houses are all of wood, but we're told that one day they will all be of masonry. The Czar has ordered that there be palaces in stone by the end of this decade, and a viable port as well. One cannot say this Peter lacks ambitions, but how he can prosecute this Swedish war and complete his city, I can't fathom.
Forgive me, my mouselet, for not writing longer, but Captain Montgomery has sent his ensign for any letters we may have, so I must close, but I promise I will write again soon, and as often as I may. Even such things as paper are in short supply here, so if you have the opportunity to acquire a supply, please dispatch it with my fur-lined cloak and my elk-hide boots: we're told the winters here are fierce.
Until I see you again, do not doubt that my love is with you from sunrise to sunrise every day of my life.
Your husband,
Mungo Laurie
on the 6th day of June, 1704
3
Heer Lodewick Kerstan van Hoek stood in the window of the care-house using a magnifying lens to study the state of Saint-Germain's knuckles, shaking his head, ruminating on the damage he saw; when he spoke, it was in Dutch, so that their discussion would be private. "I don't know that I'd recommend removing the splint from your hand quite yet, Hercegek.
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