Reaching Londinium in eight days, they passed through Aldersgate and pushed through the throngs in the narrow streets to the river. The air was a little better there and they followed the river downstream to the Walbrook. They followed this upstream, around the old Governor’s palace to the bridge that led past the old Temple of Mithras, now a Christian church. The houses pressed in close on them again as they passed the road leading from the forum to the bridge. Finally they reached the outskirts of town and followed the Philpot creek back to the banks of the river Thames. There they found their tower.
The tower was erected on top of an arch that spanned the creek allowing boats to access the wharves inside the walls of the city. The arch was connected to the walls but was clearly built before them. The stones were older, more crooked and the tower in the center of the arch was leaning to the east. The arch itself was impressive and looked solid. It spanned fully forty feet across and rose to a height of thirty feet above the water. Judging by the marks on the walls, Gwilym figured that there was still five feet of tides left to go.
He knew that he couldn’t take his boys up into that dangerous structure so he found himself a nearby inn that would accommodate his family and Fred for the next year. There was a young girl who could look after the twins during the days so he set up a schedule with her. After dinner, he put the boys in her care and Fred and Gwilym went to the building site to meet the team. As they approached the tower they were stopped by a watchman who told them to go upstream to cross the creek, it was too dangerous here.
“My name is Gwilym and this is Fred. We’ve been sent by Sir Kay to rebuild this tower. Can you tell me where to find my team?”
“Roight, sirrah. They’re all assembled and waitin’ fer ye. They’ll be drinkin’ at the Eastcheap tavern. Roight there, sirrah.” He pointed back the way they’d come.
Gwilym and Fred made their way back past their inn to a dingy old tavern. The fireplace was leaking smoke into the place and a dozen men stood around the bar or sat on the few benches. They all looked with curiosity at the newcomers as they entered. “A round of drinks for all the workers on the Byllynsgate tower! Courtesy of King Arthur and Sir Kay! Paid for by your new Project Manager and foreman, Gwilym and Fred!”
A loud cheer greeted this announcement and the men came around to meet the two. The barman poured the drinks and Gwilym raised his in a toast. “Here’s to the safe and successful completion of this tower!” Another cheer erupted and the men drank deeply.
Lots of questions were asked of the two men, most of which they were able to answer from the charter they’d memorized. Some questions did not have ready answers but Gwilym promised that they would find all the answers tomorrow.
As the evening drew on and some men were making motions to retire for the evening Gwilym called for attention again. “Tomorrow morning we meet here two hours after dawn.” Another cheer. “We will do a little drinking and a lot of planning. We are going to understand this project before we even move one stone. And we’re going to waste no time, moving stones all over the place.” Yet another cheer from the men, which seemed to confirm to Gwilym that they were experienced in the kind of messed up projects that he was trying to avoid. “See you all then.”
At dawn the next morning, Gwilym and Fred inspected the tower and surrounding land to make broad plans, such as what they needed to move first, where they would store the materials and where they would place the arch supports. Then they went to the tavern, paid the man in advance for the food and drink that he would provide, and set up some wood planks on the benches to make a broad table. Then Gwilym placed a bag full of smooth wood shingles, each about 3-inches square, in the center of this table. Next to this, he placed a quill in a bottle of ink.
The men started drifting in and Gwilym invited them to break their fast. He asked that they drink more water than ale, because he wanted their minds sharp for this planning session. He asked each man to introduce himself and name his skill. Gwilym wrote this information on a scroll, checking off skills present with the skills he needed based on his previous estimates. When the team was all assembled he asked if there were any more sawyers. One carpenter said he could bring a friend the next day to add to the team. Gwilym smiled and asked him to please do so.
“Gentlemen,” began Gwilym, eliciting a laugh from these rough working men. “Allow me to read to you the royal charter for this project, written by Sir Kay and signed by the High King himself, King Arthur.” This quieted the men and brought some murmurs of approval from the men as he unrolled the impressive scroll. Gwilym read the charter out loud to the men repeating certain areas twice to emphasize points.
“So now that we know what we’re doing and where and why and who will do it, we are going to determine how we are going to do it.”
Gwilym reached for the bag of small shingles, drew a rough sketch of a finished tower on the first using the ink, and placed this in the middle of the top of the bench. “This is the goal of the project. A finished tower.” He looked at the men for evidence of their understanding and received nodding heads in response.
“Now to get to a finished tower, we need to do six things. First we need to support the old bridge.” He drew a supported arch and placed this on the left of the table, slightly below the level of the previous shingle. “Then we must remove the old tower.” He drew a bridge missing a tower and placed this about a foot to the right of the previous shingle. “Then we need to remove the bridge.” He drew an empty creek channel still containing arch supports and placed this shingle a foot to the right of the last one.
“Next we build a new supported arch, a completed tower and finally remove these supports.” He drew pictures on three more shingles and distributed these to the right of the previous three, revealing the structure shown below.
“So this is the structure of how we are going to rebuild this tower.” The men surrounding Gwilym nodded in agreement and looked at each other with impressed looks on their faces. A few of the older men rolled their eyes as if to say, ‘Wow, he’s really spelling it out for us like we’re idiots.’
“If we are in agreement with the basic structure, let’s get into more detail.” Gwilym started making quick drawings or using simple, easily understood pictures to lay out the steps below the drawing of the arch missing the tower.
“While some of us clear out some space east of the tower, I will be numbering each of the stones on the existing tower so that we can put them back the way they were. Then we take the tower down in layers and place these layers next to each other in the order they came off, with the stones in the same position they held in the tower. We throw away any wood inside, it’s all rotten now.” He had laid out five shingles, all clearly understood, below the second shingle. “This is called Decomposition,” he said to his team.
“Meanwhile, one of us can be
