‘Alonzo say you have to come,’ Cesarino announced importantly.
Jared emerged from the outbuilding to see his friend, battered cap in hand, respectfully stood before a richly dressed young man. Closer to, he could see that this was Corso Ezzolino. This was the ambitious young noble pointed out to him at the feast.
‘Buongiorno, Messer Jared,’ Ezzolino said with a flourish. ‘I did not wish to disturb your work, but curiosity does so drive me.’
‘Saluti,’ Jared replied, carefully avoiding the question of whether he was in fact being disturbed. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I’d be much obliged if you’d tell me more of your fine invention. You must be very proud!’
Alonzo slipped away.
‘It’s not yet finished, signore.’
‘I understand. I’m much interested in its capabilities. How far away can it strike down a man? Is it—?’
‘The gunne I am working on is not intended to slay men, but castles.’ He hadn’t intended to talk about it but pride drove him on. ‘I’m bringing it up to a size that will shoot a ball as big as that from a mangonel but instead of hurling it high in the sky, it will direct it straight against the wall with a violence nothing can resist.’
‘I see.’ Ezzolino said, stroking his chin. ‘And the force that throws it I’ve heard is naught but farmyard dung. I find this hard to believe, Messer Jared.’
‘It’s more complicated than that. Perhaps one day I can tell you more. When I’m not so busy,’ he added pointedly.
‘Oh, yes. Well, I can see great things for such an engine and you can count me as one of your admirers. If there’s anything that I can do to assist you …?’
‘Thank you, signore, but nothing at the moment.’
Alonzo was subdued. ‘He gave me coin to see you. I couldn’t stop him anyway, but why was he so anxious to say hello? I mislike his interest.’
Jared merely grunted. There was much more to concern him: the testing of the larger gunne. He was only a month or so into his work but Malatesta would want to see results very soon.
The saltpetre was at last being produced at the presidio. Insisting on a triple-boiling condensate the result was promising, white crystals with not a trace of salt in them.
He collected his implements and in his gunne-powder outhouse set to grinding and mixing.
The testing place was in a cleared area with a hill conveniently behind to take the ‘pea’.
The trial was important but straightforward, merely a stepping up of what had been successful before, so Jared didn’t send away the spectators who came to watch: Peppin and the gunners, the saltpetre workers, guards, women from the kitchen.
The first thing was to see if range was effected by the heavier ball.
A scaled-up amount of gunne-powder would probably translate to a much louder sound; better he shooed the spectators back before carefully readying the gunne.
He set the target up at the same distance; if it did maintain range he could always move it further out.
The taper lowered to the small grey pile at the fire-passage—
There was a deafening detonation and a sheet of flame washed over his face. The blast sent him staggering back to fall to all fours.
Stupefied Jared tried to make sense of it through his ringing head and pain of the burns on his face – mercifully he’d had his eyes closed in a flinch when the gunne had let go.
The gunne was in a ruined state, split open, the iron contemptuously peeled apart and thrown clear of its block.
Ignoring the screams of alarm from the spectators Jared crawled nearer. There was no doubt of it: for reasons he couldn’t even guess at, the raging force of the gunne-powder had multiplied much faster than the increase of bore size and even the thickest iron plate couldn’t take it.
Peppin arrived, hanging back fearfully. ‘What’s this, your gunne torn asunder? Why did it—?’
‘I made a mistake,’ Jared replied, trying to make light of the event so as not to panic the gunners. ‘Too much gunne-powder. Pay no mind to it, Master Peppin. The gunne you’ll be using will be well tested, never fear.’
But this was a big setback. He’d carefully worked it out, knowing the weight of the original ‘pea’ and the gunne-powder it required, to a straight increase of powder in proportion to the new weight of ball.
In the next days, with goose-grease on his burns and burnt eyebrows he tried to reason the best way forward and resolved to try again but in smaller steps.
Another gunne was made with still more reinforcing. This time he’d start with the same measure of gunne-powder for this large ball as for the smaller.
The results were as expected, dismal. Then, by small steps, the powder charge was increased and as Jared hoped, the ball flew with increasing venom and range.
But after another increase of powder charge the gunne split again, with smoke issuing ominously from a long fissure.
It hit him like a blow. He was only a little over a third into the stepped increases and the whole idea of scaling up from a pea-shooter to a castle-wrecking monster was now looking increasingly like a dream.
He’d used the hardest and toughest material known to him – wrought iron – and even this had not been enough to contain the ferocity of the gunne-powder as it swelled against the greater-sized ball, even if only a hen’s egg in size. If he was ever to move to a point where he was dealing with, for instance, head-sized balls, he would need a gunne with iron far thicker than any that could be worked at the anvil.
He nearly wept. There was no solution. The thickest forged iron was not enough – it must be a peashooter or nothing.
What would Malatesta say – or more to the point Rosamunde, who had trusted him and laid out her own coin at his word?