WeTried Translations

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◈ The Medieval Heretic King is Too Good at Developing ◈

Chapter 47: Gutenberg (2)

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A month had passed since I sent János Hunyadi to Germany to bring Gutenberg to me.

At last, the news I had been waiting for arrived.

"My lord, I've returned."

The door to my office opened, and János Hunyadi entered, covered in dust.

Weariness hung heavily about him, but his expression was light, as though a burden he had carried for ten years had finally been lifted.

I pushed aside the stack of documents I had been reviewing.

"You've worked hard. No trouble on the road?"

"Trouble? Oh, good God. Don't get me started."

János Hunyadi shook his head and dropped into a chair. He snatched up the water jug from the table and drank deeply, then let out a sigh as though he could finally breathe again.

"At first, everything went wonderfully. I told him we'd pay off his debts and even grant him a title if he wanted one, and he packed as if he were ready to lick my boots. His hands were so quick, I thought slipping away in the night was his specialty."

"But?"

"The moment I said the destination was Bohemia, he foamed at the mouth and collapsed on the spot."

János Hunyadi gave a disbelieving laugh.

"He started shouting that it was a den of cannibals who ate people, that they worshipped devils and bathed in blood, and asked if I was out of my mind. He refused so fiercely that I nearly had to tie him up and drag him here after he tried to jump from the moving carriage."

"Hahaha!"

I couldn't hold back my laughter.

Cannibals and devil worshippers? It wasn't as though I was Count Dracula.

Still, his reaction gave me a rough idea of how the Papacy was portraying me to the common people.

'Wait, come to think of it, won't Vlad III be born soon?'

If I left the Papacy alone, the inspiration for the Dracula of history might end up being me rather than Vlad III.

"This isn't funny. He kept insisting he'd rather die than come here, and it took everything I had to bring him."

"How did you convince him?"

János Hunyadi grinned and patted his chest.

"That thing you told me to show him at the very end. That scrap of paper."

"Did it work?"

"It did more than work. A moment earlier, he was screaming for his life, but the second he read it, his eyes went wild and he became a completely different person. Honestly, it was a little frightening."

János Hunyadi shrugged.

"After that, he said he didn't care if Bohemia was Hell itself. He kept urging the coachman to go faster, saying he had to find out whether what was written there was really true."

I nodded in satisfaction.

As expected, geniuses had temptations stronger than money or life itself.

The answer to the problem they had devoted their entire lives to solving.

If they could confirm it, an engineer's instincts would drive them to leap into Hellfire.

"You've done well. You have him waiting in the reception room?"

"Yes. He's waiting quietly."

I rose and straightened my clothes.

It was time for a meeting that would change history.

* * *

"His Majesty King Ulrich I of Bohemia enters!"

At the shout of Konrad, my chamberlain, the heavy doors opened.

The man standing beneath the splendid tapestries in the reception room flinched and quickly composed himself.

Johannes Gutenberg.

Not the solemn old man from history books, but a young man who still looked nervous and high-strung.

As I entered, he bowed so deeply that his waist seemed ready to break.

"G-Greetings to Your Majesty, the great King of Bohemia. I am Johannes Gensfleisch of Mainz."

His voice trembled thinly, perhaps because he was terrified by the rumors of The Heretic King, but his manners were impeccable.

It was a mixture of the survival instinct that told him to stay alive at all costs and the social polish of a man born into nobility.

I slowly took my seat of honor and looked at him.

"Raise your head. You must have had a difficult journey."

"N-No, Your Majesty. Thanks to Your Majesty's... consideration, I traveled comfortably."

Johannes cautiously raised his head.

The sound of him swallowing dryly echoed strangely loudly through the quiet reception room.

His lips moved for a moment before he finally spoke, as though he could no longer contain himself.

"Your Majesty, forgive my rudeness, but there is something I wish to ask."

"Speak."

"The reason I left Strasbourg and came all the way to distant Prague was not for the money and title Your Majesty promised. There is only one reason."

With trembling hands, Johannes took a crumpled note from his coat.

"This information I received through Your Majesty's knight... is it really true?"

"What if it is?"

"Then please tell me."

Fear of The Heretic King lay in his eyes, but beneath it burned an unbearable intellectual curiosity and longing.

"What is the final key that will complete my design? Lead is too soft, and iron is too hard. What must be mixed in to make perfect movable type?"

His voice gradually filled with heat. It was as if he had forgotten that he stood before a king.

He was not questioning a monarch now. He was pleading for knowledge from an unknown master who could give him the answer.

Resting my chin on my hand, I answered quietly.

"The reason you've failed so far is simple. Lead shrinks as it cools. When you pour it into a mold, the edges of the letters become blurred and their surfaces warp. Isn't that right?"

"Y-Yes! Exactly! It is as though Your Majesty has been watching my experiments from beside me!"

Johannes nodded fiercely.

It was the problem Johannes had agonized over for years, shut away in his workshop until he might as well have coughed blood over it.

No matter how finely he carved the molds, the finished results always cooled into dull pieces of trash.

Like a prophet, I declared the answer with certainty.

"The answer is antimony."

"...Pardon?"

Johannes blinked at the unfamiliar word. I repeated it in a term he would understand.

"What alchemists call stibium."

"Ah...! Y-You mean that brittle gray metal? You want me to... mix that into lead?"

Johannes frowned, his face full of doubt.

It was only natural. To craftsmen of this age, antimony was nothing more than an unwanted impurity found while refining silver, or a useless stone used for medicine and cosmetics.

"But, Your Majesty, stibium shatters like glass when struck. If I mix it in, the movable type will not hold up."

"That is true when it is pure. But the story changes when it is mixed with lead."

I raised a finger and continued.

"Listen carefully, Johannes. Almost every substance in the world expands when heated and contracts when cooled. The lead and tin you have been using are no exception. They shrink as they cool inside the mold, which is why the shape of the letters becomes blurred."

Johannes swallowed and listened to every word.

"But antimony is different. It has a very strange property. As it solidifies from liquid to solid, it expands instead."

"It... expands?"

"Yes. Like water when it becomes ice and swells enough to shatter a jar."

I raised my hand and clenched it into a fist.

"As the lead cools and tries to shrink inward, the antimony mixed into it expands and cancels out that force. No, the expanding force pushes the metal into even the finest corners of the mold."

"......!!"

Johannes's mouth fell open.

He looked as if lightning had struck inside his mind.

"Antimony also hardens soft lead. Lead, tin, and antimony. If you mix those three in the right proportions, you will create an alloy that does not wear down even after thousands of impressions and can leave letters as sharp as razor blades on paper."

"Good God..."

Johannes trembled.

It was a theoretically perfect answer. No, the moment he heard it, he could not help knowing it was right.

"That is the key you have spent your life searching for."

As Johannes stood there in a daze, I deliberately tossed the thick bundle of parchment I had prepared onto the table for him to see.

"And this is the door that key must unlock."

"Pardon?"

Johannes accepted the parchment with trembling hands.

The moment he turned the first page, his eyes widened as if they would burst.

"Th-This is...!"

A sophisticated pressure-control mechanism based on the screw press used for pressing grape juice.

A typesetting structure that held movable type firmly in place.

The position of the feed tray for replacing sheets of paper, and the leather pads that spread ink evenly.

Even the perfect alloy ratio: lead 80, tin 3, antimony 17.

The complete image of a printing press, which he had only vaguely envisioned or chased after through countless failures, was all there in the blueprints.

"Oh, Lord! This is impossible!"

Johannes forgot to breathe as he turned the pages.

Amid the rustling of parchment, exclamations that sounded like groans burst out.

"How... how can such a thing exist? It was only in my mind... No, it is more perfect than anything I imagined...!"

Johannes slowly looked up at me, then dropped to his knees.

The fear he had felt toward The Heretic King only moments earlier had vanished without a trace. In its place was nothing but desperate longing.

"Your Majesty, who designed this?"

"What do you mean?"

"Who was it? Which craftsman designed this? A technician from Venice? Or a sage from the East? Please tell me! If I could meet that person even once and ask for instruction, I would offer my life!"

I gave a short laugh and pointed at myself.

"I'm right in front of you."

"Pardon...?"

"I made it. In my head."

"...!!"

Johannes's mouth hung open. He looked back and forth between me and the blueprints as though he could not believe it.

A king who understood not only administration and war, but metals and mechanical devices as well.

It defied common sense, but the evidence before him was undeniable.

I walked over to him and held out my hand.

"Johannes. I can draw blueprints, but I don't have the time to build it out of iron and wood. Nor am I particularly skilled with my hands. That is why I need someone who can become my hands."

"..."

"I will settle every debt you have in Mainz. I will resolve your lawsuit in Strasbourg as well. If you wish, I will build you a three-story workshop in the heart of Prague and pile the finest lead, tin, and antimony before you like mountains."

It must have sounded like a dream to a man who had been rolling through the gutter while fleeing creditors.

But I did not stop there.

"In return, you will give me results."

"Results... Your Majesty?"

"Yes. One month. You will complete this machine and produce the first printed work within one month at the latest."

I bent down and looked him straight in the eyes.

"This is not some toy that will merely print a few books and end there. I will change the world with it."

My declaration was quiet, but heavy.

I gripped Johannes's shoulders, which had stiffened with shock and fear.

"Until now, truth has been power monopolized by a select few. It has been a treasure locked behind the fence of Latin, passed around only among priests. But that ends now."

I pointed through the window toward the streets of Prague.

"I will print truth like freshly baked bread and share it freely with hungry souls. And I will make the Pope and the Emperor understand clearly. What they should truly fear is not a heretic king, but ordinary people who can read and think for themselves."

Gulp.

Johannes's Adam's apple bobbed heavily.

His invention would turn the world upside down.

What more perfect temptation could there be for a craftsman?

His face twisted strangely. It was the face of a mad engineer, fear and joy tangled together.

Johannes pressed his trembling hand to the floor, rose, and lowered himself onto one knee.

This time, it was not forced. It was reverence born from the heart.

"Your Majesty has solved the problem that has haunted me my entire life... I will repay you with results."

He lowered his head deeply and swore.

"Even if I must grind my soul together with lead, I will print Your Majesty's truth upon the world within one month."

Footnotes:

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