Herald of Steel

Alexander listened to Claude explain how the bathwater was heated with great fascination.

When he first saw the huge furnaces and heard of the huge quantities of water stored in the reservoirs, he had assumed the fire was used to directly heat up the bathwater stored underneath.

That was the most logical conclusion.

But his eyes soon felt open upon hearing how it was actually done- by using pumped hot air to heat up the bathhouse's floor which then transferred their heat to the water above.

And the reason why this was such a genius move was said by Claude himself, Find your next read at empire

"If we directly heated the bathwater… then we would lose the heat as soon as we drained the dirty water. It would be impossible for us to reach even half of the temperatures we can reach now. Not to mention we would have long gone bankrupt from just the firewood bills."

Indeed, unlike the dirty water, the hot air kept in the pipes could be constantly recycled many times, letting them stay in contact with the floor for a long time and thus achieve quite good efficiency.

It was also because of this mechanism that the chimneys these furnaces had did not actually produce that much smoke!

Alexander guessed that the way the heating worked was that first, cold air was sucked through the shoots to ignite the firewood, after which the combusted gases were allowed to escape downward through vents or perforated floors, filling the pipes below.

These flu gases would then flow around the complicated system of pipes for god knows how long, constantly letting off heat to their surroundings while at the same time absorbing more from the newly injected gases, until they were able to slowly complete their trip and make their way out through a few outlet vents as noticed by the thick plumps of smoke coming out from a few odd places by Alexander.

These vents were there to ensure that the air did not become totally trapped and turn underground of the bathhouse into a giant pressure cooker ready to burst anytime.

'Hmmm, you could have used hot water instead of hot air and I think that would have been better. Water has a better heat capacity so it retains heat better and its flow is much easier to control than hot air… but still, the core principle is really quite marvelous.'

At the end of seeing it all, this was Alexander's comment, mostly filled with genuine praise.

Although he felt that there might be a few places the Cairan engineers could have improved on, which would have let them cut down on cost or made maintenance easier, overall, the skills on display were quite sophisticated.

Alexander would even go as far as to say that in some way they were far more advanced than their Adhanian counterparts.

...…..

With the secret of how the water was heated revealed, Alexander was finally ready to be led to the main part of the facility- the actual bathhouse.

Thus the group once again made their way to the front of the building, where pointing to a large, nearby foggy door, Claude suddenly turned a bit awkward, stammering a bit awkwardly-

"My lord through there is the sauna. Ummm… it is generally considered… bad luck to enter there with clothes on. The people believe it spreads disease. So…."

Claude did not dare finish the sentence and only darted his eyes around, giving Alexander an ugly, forced smile.

Alexander could not tell if the man was really asking him to just follow protocol after being peer pressured by the rest of the crowd, or if he had other ulterior motives- such as wanting to see the two voluptuous queens in their full glory.

But given he had been quite a competent host, Alexander decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and not make things too hard for him.

So rather than becoming angry and domineeringly insisting or even bringing up the matter of shame and inconvenience, he instead only cooly posed with pointing to his bodyguards-

"Do you expect my soldiers to leave all their weapons here? What if something untoward happens? I think it will be better if you make an exception for me."

Surprisingly, Claude did not object after hearing this.

Rather,

"..... Right! Right! My lord is right! The city is full of many scoundrels. We cannot let them have even the slightest chance. Please! Please! Enter as you are! The people will understand."

Recovering from his stunned state after a quick pause, Claude cleverly gave away without resistance and allowed Alexander to enter as he was.

The only thing he asked was for Alexander and the group to change into a special pair of very thick leather sandals before they went inside so as not to bring any outside dirt.

Alexander entered through the misty door into the front section of the bathhouse and found it to be a giant sauna.

Steam was bubbling out of the huge central pool in front of him, around which sat rows and rows of fully naked men and women on long, huge benches, sweating profusely like a pig.

They at best had small towels to wipe down some of the sweat from time to time, but most of the time, they appeared content to just let it all hang out as their skins turned red and tanned, casually chatting with each other about anything and everything- from politics to business to what they had last night.

The people really took the whole sweating as being therapeutic to a whole new level and found the act of suddenly cooling off later really fun.

Alexander would have certainly enjoyed the 'natural' scenery in front of him if not for the thick, steamy mist obscuring much of his view and much more importantly the overwhelming heat that suddenly pressed down on him like a boot to his chest.

In fact, it was the latter that had hit him the hardest.

'Ahhhh! No wonder Claude asked me to take off my clothes. I am starting to feel dizzy just from standing here!' Alexander gritted uncomfortably, feeling his body turn itchy and be filled with the desire to simply take everything off.

And the same desire was magnitude times stronger in the two ladies following him since they wore much thicker clothes.

The outside weather was still a bit cold given it was spring but inside here- the heat and humidity made them want to almost take their skins off, it was that hot.

Thus as soon as they entered the sauna their faces turned ruddy and they could be seen quickly fanning their exposed necks and napes to try and cool down as much as possible.

But the ones who had it the hardest were undoubtedly Alexander's bodyguards, who in their full fledged armor felt like they were in a literal metal can, boiling away.

Their faces hence soon became almost like a tomato and a few of them even began to take the clasps of their outer bronze cuirass instinctively without even waiting for any permission from Hemicus.

Such a breach of discipline usually would have gotten them a huge scolding from the man himself, but this time, he himself was having a very hard time keeping his composure, the stoic facade threatening to shatter under the heat.

The rest of the people in the sauna quickly noticed this unnatural reaction and turned to look at these strangely dressed foolish madmen with a mixture of surprise, amusement, and awkwardness.

'Who are they and what are they doing here?' They wondered with a clear gaze of caution and suspicion.

It was thus good that Claude quickly ushered the group to the next room, he himself suffering from the extreme heat.

If he stayed there any longer, the fat man felt he might start to melt like wax.

Thus he breathed a great sigh of relief upon entering the much cooler next section of the bathhouse.

Entering through a large, double door, this part, located in the center of the building could be said to be the actual bathhouse, where the people actually washed themselves.

The place was huge, Alexander guessed it was almost twice as the garden or gymnasium, and was filled with tens of pools of a variety of shapes and sizes- able to accommodate anywhere from a small group of four to perhaps fifty.

They were all made of stone like marble, granite, and onyx, and shapes like huge bathtubs, with large carved walls separating each other, although if one looked closer, they would find that all of the pools were really connected to each other via small, intricate channels, the waters spilling over to them from the huge central 'reservoir' in the middle.

The entire place was filled to the brim with men, women, and children, all bathing in the open mixed bath together naked without any sculpts, being too focused on using various tools like scrubs, brushes, and weird looking metal tools to bring out any and all hidden dirt and grime, and then washing it away using large scopes of water taken from the bath using large wooden ladle like jugs.

Thus the splashing of the hot water over one's head and body would be heard repeatedly echoing throughout the room.

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