Jared set up his workshop quickly. The charcoal was easy and the sulphur could be readily refined as he’d done before. The saltpetre, however, would need much more purifying before it could be used and for the amount he needed was ruinously expensive. Rosamunde had made no comment, letting him get on with it.
This was his last and only chance and he was not going to take shortcuts. The alchemist’s sulphur looked pure but he was going to make sure, and soon the throat-catching reek of sulphur fumes filled the air and eddied up into the opening to the outside. He wasn’t concerned, for here in the city there were far worse stinks, such as those from tanning.
He did the pulverising with the utmost care, twice the time the Cathayans took. And he would complete it just like them – clay pots and cloth fuses.
He found three empty herb pots in the kitchen and prepared for the big trial in rising excitement.
Saddling up a palfrey from the stable, he followed Rosamunde’s directions and arrived at the spot where the road diverged from the river. There, he found a barely noticeable path, which he rode along until continuing on horseback became impractical. Tying his mount to a tree he walked on and soon met the edge of the river – not a large one but issuing out from a dark ravine over a tumble of smoothed boulders.
The only way ahead was to jump from rock to rock but it enabled him to enter the dank coolness, past the steep face of the scarp and into the ravine. It was more a narrowing cleft, but of surprising length and took a good ten minutes to reach the dull roar of the waterfall.
He looked about and saw nothing but sheer heights to the edge of the woodland above.
As Rosamunde had said, it was perfect.
There was no reason to delay – he had to know if he had the secret in his grasp at last.
‘I’m ready to give trial to the devil’s dust. Would you like to come?’ he asked Rosamunde the next morning.
It seemed, however, that she was not available so Jared readied for the trial on his own.
Each of the ingredients carefully packed in separate bags.
Flint and steel, the mortar and pestle and the three pots.
He rode slowly toward the diverging path, stopped and dismounted as if adjusting the beast’s girth. With nobody in sight he continued along the path to the same place as before and he left his mount, the bridle looped over a branch.
He made his way into the ravine. On one side near the waterfall he found what he was looking for – a flat rock untouched by mist from the cascade.
Taking a last look around, Jared addressed himself to the task. Using a spoon as a standard measure he carefully added the ingredients to the mortar in the proportions given. After industriously grinding the mixture to a suitable fineness the result looked exactly the same as before: a grey, anonymous powder.
He half-filled one of the pots and wound in the cloth. For a moment he held it in his hands; very soon he would know.
Collecting his things he took them to a safe distance and putting the flint and steel to work he quickly had a taper candle alight.
Heart hammering, he took it across the rocks to the waiting pot and extended the flame. The cloth caught.
He wheeled away, scrambling over the boulders as fast as he could.
Behind him a colossal thunderclap erupted, its sound magnified by the funnelling ravine; a frightful, glorious blast!
He felt its hot wind and turned to see grey-white smoke towering up in a triumphant plume, the pitter-patter of fragments falling all about him – and then an echoing silence.
In that moment he knew his life was going to change beyond recognition.