Jared gave a grim smile at the irony. He had managed to save his life, acquired lodgings even more splendid than before and all he had to do was achieve what he’d been placed on this earth to do – fulfil his vision.
And yet he now knew it was impossible. His gunnes would split and burst well before they could throw stones even as big as an orange. He could never do it. Even the best wrought iron was not enough. So it had to be faced: he was on a futile quest and would inevitably be found out.
His quarters were very comfortable and he was waited upon like a lord – but he was a prisoner. He ate and slept alone. Guards marched behind and ahead of him as he crossed the quadrangle to the stables converted to a workshop.
And everyone waited upon his word on how to begin on the Great Gunne.
There was no escaping it. Braccio insisted on weekly reports taken down by a confidential clerk. At first Jared got by with the plea that this was the theoretical design stage and nothing could be physically shown but that began to pall and he resorted to spouting technical nonsense. After that he had the bright idea of letting off blasts of gunne-powder at irregular intervals, a satisfying noise that would be sure to reach the ears of the signore.
But it couldn’t go on. He lay awake at night trying to work around the problem to no avail.
He was trapped.
One morning he was sent for.
‘Messer Jared. I was simply wondering how your work is progressing?’ purred Braccio.
Instantly wary, Jared mumbled a reassuring reply.
‘That is good. Now I want you to do something for me. Are you able to leave your work at this time? I desire you will accompany me down to meet somebody.’
Out in the quadrangle a short and undistinguished individual whose brown tunic was too large and whose hose hung limply from skimpy legs stood beside a large cloth-covered object. When he saw Braccio he bowed low and fell to his knee.
‘Ah. You’re ready. My friend, this is Bartolomeo Farnese, who has ventured all the way from Padua to show me his pride and joy.’
Farnese tried to smile but was clearly overcome.
Braccio turned to Jared, ‘You will be interested in what he has for me, and I’d be most grateful for your judgement upon it.’
‘Um, of course.’
‘What he has here is … a gunne. Although he does not call it that. And this gunne he assures me can assail castles and city walls by means of a secret powder. Would you like to see it?’
For Jared it was a shock of appalling force – like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. It couldn’t be!
Farnese clumsily removed the cloth – and there, neatly placed in a scooped-out baulk of wood was a gleaming object. Bronze, polished to perfection, a gunne certainly, but in the shape of a flower vase on its side, bulbous at one end and flared at the other. And at about five feet long, bigger by far than any he’d made himself.
‘Ah, yes,’ Jared heard himself saying faintly.
Conscious of Braccio’s keen gaze, he made inspection.
One thing hammered in on him. It was not wrought, it was cast! And with a beautifully clean bore the size of a hen’s egg with walls many times thicker than his own. At the other end, where his gunne was painfully crimped, the casting allowed a fat termination complete with a neat fire-passage, even furnished with a dish-shaped recess for the gunne-powder.
‘A bronze gunne,’ he muttered flatly.
‘You like it?’ Farnese burbled in relief. ‘It took me more than five months to—’
‘Are we to see it fire?’ Jared directed the question to Braccio, in a wash of chagrin unable to speak to Farnese.
‘Well?’
‘Yes, Excellency, certainly.’
Farnese busied himself with his apparatus, which Jared couldn’t tear his eyes from. Much of it was similar to his own but one thing was so bizarre that it took his breath away. At this point where Jared would be placing a lead ball into his gunne Farnese had opened a long chest, within which lay a dozen arrows. They were much bigger than those any archer would recognise, bulky and with leather padding at two places. Farnese selected one and eased it into the bore until it met the powder, a foot or so of the barbed end protruding.
‘You’re going to … that?’ Jared gasped.
‘The fire-arrow, I call it,’ Farnese said proudly, patting the shaft. ‘With this I can send the flames of hell into an enemy city and none can withstand it. And—’
‘Where’s your target?’ Jared bit off.
‘Target? Oh, no. You’ve no need to aim! Simply fill the air with my fire-arrows and—’
‘Shall we see it, then?’
The device was levered around to face a wall.
‘Carry on, Highness?’ the man fawned.
‘Do.’
Drawing Braccio well clear Jared watched as Farnese readied the gunne – but there was no brazier, he had some kind of cord that glowed at the end. He blew on it then held it in a stick to the fire-passage and the gunne fired.
There was a gouting of yellow flame and through vast quantities of light-brown smoke Jared watched the arrow trailing fire as it sailed down and shattered on the wall in flaming fragments. But Jared had noted something vital: the sound was weak, pitiful even against his own.
‘Thank you, Messer Farnese,’ he said. ‘We’ll call upon you when we need to.’
Turning to Braccio, Jared gave a confident smile. ‘I don’t think we need go further with this, Signore. The man is demented if he thinks that a true wall-smasher. Arrows – ha! And so heavy a gunne to carry on the battlefield, it’s really not worth trifling with.’
‘You think so? The gunne is very handsome compared to yours.’
‘Ah, yes. That’s the point – everyone knows that bronze is softer than steel, but prettier. Which would you rather it be – in a military sense, that is?’
‘I see. Very well, you may carry on with your own work.’
While the crestfallen Farnese packed away his things Jared asked innocently, ‘Er, who is the man – a local fellow?’
‘No, a bell-founder of Padua. How goes your gunne?’ Braccio added meaningfully.
‘Ah, yes, Highness. I must get back to work, some difficult testing to do.’
In his quarters Jared flopped on the bed, staring sightlessly at the ceiling, his thoughts running wild.
The most burning was the realisation that he was no longer alone in the quest. But then wasn’t it to be expected that somewhere out there, one with a similar experience to his own, would return to Europe with the secret? It had been chance and accident that had made him witness to the Cathayan huo yao, how could he have thought that no one else might not have followed the same path? It had been years now and …
He tried to order his thoughts.
So there were others who knew the secret, could produce gunnes. That meant he could no longer trade on the fact that he was the only one who possessed the knowledge. Even as he laboured on in a fruitless mission to produce a wall-smashing gunne there were now others who were his rivals, and probably some with better ideas.
A cast gunne was a stroke of genius. Where his iron gunne was limited by what a blacksmith could physically achieve at the anvil, casting meant that thickness was no longer a limitation – if the gunne needed stouter walls to take a bigger charge, then you simply increased the thickness until it could. Never mind that bronze was softer, just make it thicker to compensate.
A gunne the size of a horse could reasonably be expected to fire a ball the size of a man’s head. Larger still … and for a surety he had his boulder-throwing monster!
Frantic with impatience and frustration Jared realised that here was a leap forward that made everything and anything possible – it was all within reach!
Farnese must have got the idea from somewhere and as a bell-founder had naturally thought of casting a gunne, as he himself had naturally turned to blacksmithing. Farnese, however, had been let down by his poor gunne-powder, which had not shown the weapon to advantage.
But his gunne with Jared’s powder …
And there must be others at work along different paths …
There were now two very good reasons why he had to make his escape.
The first was that he was not going to be able to give Braccio what he wanted and he would be quickly discarded or worse. The other was that he had to put himself in the middle of whatever was happening – or die in the attempt.