The Powder of Death Read online

  It didn’t comfort Perkyn, who slunk away looking for the bellows boy.

  Shortly after, Kettle stormed in. ‘There’s word the Saracens are making a grand assault if the walls go down. They wants five thousand crossbow bolts now, and won’t stand for less. As if I can magic ’em out of nothing!’

  Hugh looked him directly in the eyes then nodded. It seemed to calm the man.

  ‘Where I’m to get the iron stock I’ve no idea, but for you … Drop everything else and get started. Nobody to take rest before midnight, or …!’

  Perkyn returned. It didn’t seem the right thing to do to tell him what Kettle had said.

  ‘Can’t find the little devil. Looked everywhere and—’

  ‘So you’re back on the bellows, then. Get to it!’ Hugh ordered.

  Even against the clatter and banging in the forge and their distance from the walls they could hear it. A sullen continuous roar that carried from the north-east. Somewhere along their fortifications Acre was under frenzied assault. Its outcome would determine the fate of the city.

  The three worked on, keeping their fears to themselves.

  Later in the morning Kettle came by, assuring them that while a fierce battle was being waged about the Accursed Tower, a key stronghold, it was not in doubt – both Grand Masters were there in an epic encounter and heroes beyond counting had thrown the Saracens from the walls as they battered at the defences.

  The entire perimeter of Acre was now coming under attack and the need for arrowheads and crossbow quarrels was becoming critical. There was no time to rest or eat – only a merciless round of hammering and firing, quenching and heating, muscles burning and fatigue blunting the aim of the blows.

  In the early afternoon the background roar changed its note – now louder, an insistent clamour that pressed in on the senses.

  It grew to a crescendo, individual cries and rumbles, baying trumpets and the massed uproar of thousands locked in combat, until a full-throated screech and howl of victory brought it all to a disordered chaos.

  They paused in their work; what did it all mean?

  Baldovino raced in, panting hard, ‘The bastards have broken through! They’re in the city killing and looting. We been told to fall back on Templar’s Castle – now!

  ‘Leave everything! Go – go for your lives.’

  ‘That’s it – I’m away from here!’ Hugh said, throwing down his hammer. ‘To the boats just as quick as m’ legs’ll take me.’

  ‘Not the castle?’

  ‘No way am I staying in the same place as those murdering heathen. We can’t do any more, I’m off – you coming?’

  Jared hesitated, but only for a moment. The writing was on the wall for Acre.

  ‘I’m coming. Me and Perkyn both. Where is the silly bastard?’

  He looked around but the lad had disappeared.

  ‘Leave him! We’ve got to make that boat.’ Hugh snatched up his bag and left.

  ‘Perkyn! Perkyn you thick-skulled lackwit! We’re going, you hear me?’

  There was no response and in despair Jared turned and hurried after Hugh. As they ran off down the narrow street he felt a twinge of guilt. Hadn’t Perkyn placed himself as bondsman in his care? He cursed and slowed. The simpleton had hidden in terror at word of the Saracens flooding in – and he had a good idea where.

  ‘I’m going back for the stupid wight,’ he wheezed. ‘Don’t wait, we’ll catch you.’

  Against an increasing tide of fleeing humanity Jared fought his way back to the smithy. He went to the fuel bin where the wood and charcoal for the forge was stored and peered in. Crouched whimpering in the furthest corner was Perkyn, the whites of his eyes showing extremity of fear.

  ‘There you are! Get out of it, you idiot! They’ll be here soon and then—’ Jared broke off, for he wasn’t being heard.

  Leave him? To be slaughtered by a blood-crazed Saracen? He couldn’t do it.

  He forced his way through the little flap door of the bin and crawled over to him. ‘We’ve got to get to the boats – now!’ he said as kindly but as urgently as he could.

  Perkyn bit his knuckles and shook his head.

  ‘If we don’t …’

  Jared yanked at a leg. It was instantly pulled back. He tried again, more insistently, but it only brought on broken cries.

  Roughly, he forced the terrified eyes round to face him. ‘Hear me – hear me well! I’m going now. If you don’t come with me, you’ll be all alone. All alone!’

  Keeping his eyes fixed on him Jared backed out of the bin slowly. Perkyn watched and suddenly scrabbled after him.

  Both of them emerged filthy with charcoal dust.

  ‘Good lad. We’ll be back on the boat—’

  Very close a shriek was cut off with the despairing bubbling of death.

  They froze.

  Then came the sound of running feet and two warriors with pointed helmets and alien lapped armour burst into the smithy forecourt.

  Their cruel eyes took in the scene, bloodstained swords out.

  With a sob Perkyn dropped to a huddle.

  One warrior gave a hoarse cry and rushed forward with his blade raised. Jared snatched up a long hammer and stood over his friend, swinging it wildly.

  The other warrior shouted a command and the first came to a stop, his sword still out and circling menacingly.

  He shouted again – this time unmistakeably at Jared.

  With heart thumping Jared glared back.

  Again – this time accompanied by angry gestures, he made a circular motion about the smithy forecourt and a stabbing back at him.

  At first he didn’t understand. Then he realised they were asking was this where he belonged, was he a blacksmith. And therefore worth sparing?

  He nodded.

  With a grunt of satisfaction there was a barked command and the other drew back.

  Jared and Perkyn were now prisoners of the Saracens.

  CHAPTER 29

  The University of Oxford, AD 1268

  ‘Thomas Aylward of Exeter. I’d take it good in you, were you to direct me to Friar Bacon’s lodging place.’

  The porter looked him up and down. A prosperous gentleman, and in keeping with the visitors the good friar had been receiving since attaining so much renown with the philosophicals.

  ‘That’s Brother Bacon yonder, walking by the river. Likes to do it in the afternoon, he does.’

  Aylward went up to the dreamily pacing slight figure in Franciscan grey wearing a schoolman’s cap and said respectfully, ‘Brother Bacon, I believe? I hope I’m not intruding on your worthy thoughts.’

  Bacon gave a start and stopped. ‘You have business with me? I do not recollect …’

  ‘Thomas Aylward, advocate of Exeter. We haven’t met, but I have long been your disciple at a remove, an ardent admirer of your methods. Tell me, is your study of optics advanced at all on the question of reflection or emission?’

  ‘It is, Master Aylward. In no small part due to the diligence and insight of the well-thinking Alhazen of Arabia, whose observing of rainbows and such shows conclusively that light proceeds inwards to the eye, not away, and in a straight line. My own recent trifling contribution with glass spheres only confirms his hypothesis. Are you, then, an experimenter?’

  ‘Not at all, Brother,’ Aylward said hastily. ‘My interest is solely admiration, and passing by I bethought myself to express this directly.’

  ‘Thank you. These are dark but exciting times and there are many jewels of God’s creation awaiting discovery. For instance, in the study of alchemy you would hardly credit that … but it were better we sit at ease to discuss such marvels. Have you the time?’

  They retired to the eccentric little study perched above the road and Bacon shared with him secrets of nature won from the darkness by men’s minds not afraid to question the authority of the ancients, to wrestle with contradictions and allow their judgements to be dictated by evidence won from experience.

  ‘Then what is your
chief study at this time?’ Alyward asked respectfully.

  ‘A most disturbing conjecture, one that I can scarce believe myself had I not set against it all my powers of reasoning without a deliverance.’

  ‘Pray what can this be?’

  ‘By my study of the motions of the heavenly bodies and much calculation I have proved to my satisfaction that the equinoxes and solstices are incorrect – the length of a year has been in error since the time of the Roman dictator Julius Caesar!’

  ‘This is … hard to credit.’

  ‘You will be therefore much distressed to observe that if I am correct – and you must accept that I am – the entire Christian faith has been celebrating Easter on the wrong day!’

  ‘A most lamentable situation.’

  ‘His Holiness Pope Clement is much disturbed and has mandated that I should discourse to him on the relationship of philosophy and theology, a work in parts in which I am now engaged.’

  ‘You have a solution?’

  ‘I have, but I find I’m forgetting my manners. Do tell me, there are fine and excellent scholars at Exeter. Have you had fellowship with them recently? What news?’

  ‘Brother, I confess I spend little time in Exeter. I am a jurist and latterly I’ve been intercessionary between the Venetians and Byzantium regarding trade in the Aegean.’

  ‘A worthy calling, and in a fascinating part of the world. I’m a martyr to travel and envy those who reach far parts.’

  ‘Then I may tell you that the court of Michael VIII Palaeologus is much diminished in splendour since the Crusader conquering and in subsequent times the Latin empire has been expelled; traditions are oriental and schismatic. Such trade as they can maintain is under grave threat – squeezed between the Hungarians and Mongols in the north and the Seljuq Turks in the south. There will be a reckoning before very long, is my conviction.’

  ‘Yet it is a region fecund of ideas and philosophies.’

  ‘Undoubtedly – which reminds me. In the bazaars where any bauble might be had for a pittance, I chanced upon a curious trifle that put me in mind of your good self. I thought to bring it to show you, a trivial thing indeed to set before your learning but it has its portion of curiosities.’

  He reached into his jerkin and brought out a small, well-thumbed book.

  ‘Of only a slight number of pages and on a peculiar subject that I confess I could not readily grasp its meaning. Here – it is the Liber Ignium – the Book of Fires by one Marcus Graecus.’

  Bacon took it with interest. ‘Ah – here we have a compiling of recipes of earth and fire for various purposes. Umm, this one for instance: “Take the juice of a double mallow, the white of an egg and fleawort seed together with lime, powder them and prepare with radish juice.’ And what is achieved? Nothing less than to empower a man to walk in fire or carry a hot iron in his hand with impunity!’

  He chuckled. ‘Another – pigeon’s dung, tartar and so on buried for fifteen days will provide you with a species of fire that can never be extinguished. Your gift is well taken, Master Aylward, in affording me a measure of amusement, but I fear holds little of value for a natural philosopher.’

  Turning over more pages he picked another and said, ‘Take this for example. Here it is saying—’

  He stopped and to Aylward’s dismay, turned pale and rigid.

  His eyes followed the text, his lips moving silently and he looked up with an expression of horror and shock.

  ‘Brother Bacon, what is it? Have I—?’

  ‘Take it! It’s the work of the Devil! It’s what I feared all these years – and now to see …’

  ‘Reverend Brother, if I’ve—’

  ‘Take it and burn it! On your soul, do not seek to know what it contains – it is a profane and evil work that in the hands of the wicked will bring down upon this world such dire calamities as will darken the years for ever.’

  ‘I’m truly sorry if I’ve distressed you, Brother Bacon. I had no idea—’

  ‘Go! Leave me – I must this very minute acquaint His Holiness in Rome of this, with my most earnest and sincere warnings for the future.’

  At Aylward’s hesitation he added, ‘I thank you for showing me, it is polite of you – but it contains dreadful things you cannot be expected to know of. Go now, if you please.’

  He turned to depart, but Bacon took his arm and fixed him with a gaze of peculiar intensity. ‘Do not fail to destroy it, or Christendom itself will rue it!’

  CHAPTER 30

  Tabriz, the Mongol Empire, AD 1299

  The sun beat down. It was always hot in summer and Jared Bey, chief silâhtar to Sultan Ghazan of the Ilkhanate Mongols knew better than to be working at this hour in the afternoon. He sprawled in a hammock on the shady balcony of his whitewashed stone house, clear of the stench and noise of the street below, letting his eyes rest on the hazy immediacy of the mountains across the plain.

  Softly his concubine Kadrİye laid a sherbet down on the little table and backed away, her hands respectfully together.

  ‘Teşekkür ederim,’ he murmured, grateful for its cool refreshment. She had always placed his own comforts before her own and he wondered what she really thought of her foreign master.

  He’d done well and should be content with the chance of fortune that had seen him to this place. It was now eight years after the humiliation at Acre. The captives of value had been paraded in chains before the triumphant Khalil, made to bear the banners of the defeated Crusaders upside down in derision – and the heads of the less valued dangling from poles.

  Later, away in the distance he saw the last knights and their treasure embark by treaty on Templar ships to sail away for ever. He would never forgive their betrayal, for it would have been only Christian charity to bargain for the freedom of the Saracens’ prisoners.

  His own fate was efficiently determined: sold into slavery to the Mongols in the north for a goodly sum as a skilled foreign craftsman.

  The early years had been hard, but his natural ability had brought respect and advancement – and preservation for Perkyn, who he’d claimed as his indispensable assistant. Together they’d fought for standing in an alien and merciless land. The small competences he had learnt in Acre had since progressed to valuable skills as an armourer, capable of producing weapons, armour and the peculiar battlefield devices favoured by the Mongols.

  He was put in charge of the field armourers, a high position that brought with it a residence here in the capital and a crew of smiths and artificers. They were a motley band, men from all parts of the empire in outlandish dress and habit and were troublesome to rule.

  Nevertheless it was a far more agreeable life than he’d ever experienced, much more than in England – but he was a slave and would never now know any other life. Occasionally his thoughts had turned to his son but he knew it was becoming increasingly unlikely he would see him again.

  However, shortly he must leave these comforts for a time to join another campaign. Later in the evening cool, ox-trains would set out to the border bearing their equipment: tools, forges, charcoal, iron scrap, specialist anvils, heat treating oils, all the impedimenta of fire and iron made transportable.

  It was trouble with the Seljuq Turks, a border disturbance normally settled with massed horsemen. It seemed that this was a more than usually stubborn display by the Seljuqs, probably a siege, given that he and other long-stay units had been sent for. He hoped not, for this would be his third, and the customary conclusion to a Mongol siege was mass slaughter with bodies piled outside the gates to rot while he tried to get on with his repairing.

  It turned out to be as he’d feared: a small walled city whose name escaped him, in the foothills of the borderlands that had thought it could outlast the patience of a Mongol horde.

  The outcome was inevitable but in the meantime it was life in an encampment on a dusty plain – tents, meagre rations, stinking field latrines and boredom.

  His workplace was in the rear, well protected among the baggag
e train and stores, and he had little to fear except pilfering and their lack of care in the use of fires. His tent set up, he was free to rest from the long ride, leaving Perkyn to get the long, leather forge tent stocked and laid out. His ustabaşı could be relied on to get the men’s quarters erected and ready for occupation.

  As the days passed there was no movement in the situation that he could see. Mining was proving near impossible as there was bedrock just under the surface and open ground was making it hard to close in on the walls. The Mongol commander would need to think again if he was going to end the siege in weeks instead of months.

  ‘What’s this, then?’ Perkyn asked, pausing counting nails. He nodded to a column of soldiers approaching in the distance, hauling a structure shrouded in cloth.

  ‘Only one?’ Jared retorted with contempt. It wasn’t hard to make out that this was a mangonel, quite big – and there were no others.

  The column passed through the camp. These men were different to any he’d seen before, slighter in build, more oriental but escorted by mounted Mongols with their characteristic short, recurved bows.

  They moved on and he saw them take position squarely before the massive main gates of the city. He shook his head in disbelief – this had been the object of so many bloody attacks that had been beaten off – surely they didn’t think that with this one engine they could do better? Dozens of even bigger ones had not made any difference at Acre.

  He watched them set up camp around it but then lost interest.

  CHAPTER 31

  In the morning before he’d even finished his mutton dumplings there was a deputation led by the burly Köse Hilmi, quartermaster of the Mongol technicals.

  ‘This here is Wang something or other,’ he said, thumbing behind him to a blank-faced oriental in a peculiar tunic and pointed shoes. ‘He’s got a problem with his engine. Needs you to look at it.’