Arcanum

by Simon Morden

  “They still are. They just know that when war comes, pleasures are put aside for a season.”

  When she looked down at him, it was with that expression of hers. “Those are Frederik’s words, not yours.”

  “Yes. Well. He’s right, though.” He blushed a little at being so easily caught out. “And they have such…”

  “Promise?” she finished for him. “That’s his word, too. Now is not the time for weapons that we don’t know will work. Spears and bows, cavalry and swords. If he wants to spend his time building machines, why doesn’t he make siege engines we know will work: scorpions and ballistae, mangonels even?”

  “Because we don’t know how to make those things either, and it’s not like we’re besieging anything. We’d have to hire Byzantine or Italian engineers, and … Oh, let Master Thaler be, Sophia. He’s a good man trying to do his best for me.” He leant over the parapet and looked down at the town. Everyone appeared properly busy, with not an idle hand in sight. “Master Thaler reminds everyone who thinks that war is far away and may never happen, that it’s real and it’s here.”

  The smoke had dispersed, and the poles had all been poked upright into the ground, ribbons fluttering. The tiny figures had retreated back to the maze of sacking screens and rough sheds, and appeared to be waiting. The only activity came from around the mound of packed earth.

  Sophia turned her back on the town and looked to the mountains. “And we’re absolutely certain the dwarves don’t …?”

  “So says Master Thaler. He supposes powder weapons are worse than useless underground. For the same reasons they don’t ride, and don’t use bows. We wouldn’t have Master Büber with us if they did either.” There was no point in putting it off any longer. “I want to go to Rosenheim,” he said.

  “That’s a good idea,” she said, after a moment’s reflection.

  “I … yes. I thought so too.”

  “Did you expect an argument?” She wore a smile. “A prince should be with his army.”

  “Yes. He should.” Was he missing something? “I thought I could go with Master Reinhardt’s reinforcements.”

  “And their spades.”

  “I could be there in two days, and nothing will happen to me on the way.”

  “I know,” she said. “Go, with my blessing. Talk to Peter Büber and Wolfgang Reinhardt, inspect the troops, and don’t interfere. Spend a few days with them and then come back.”

  Thunder rolled across the river again, and a fresh cloud of smoke was billowing into the air. Felix squinted at the field, and couldn’t make out anything different.

  “I’ll go and get ready then.” He was discomforted. “Are you sure?”

  “Felix. You’re thirteen now. You’re the Prince of Carinthia, and I have to stop mothering you. At least, that’s what my father says. ‘Don’t mother the boy’, he tells me, ‘or he’ll grow up farmisht.’” She tilted her face to the sun. “We can’t have you growing up farmisht, can we?”

  “No,” said Felix with absolute certainty. “No, we can’t. It’ll take a day to get everyone and everything together. I’ll leave tomorrow.”

  “Then go. Lots to do.” She dragged him in and hugged him tight enough to leave him breathless and not a little dizzy, then released him, almost pushing him away.

  With a last glance at Thaler’s proving ground, he went to ready himself. He’d need his armour and his sword, and a horse, and … what? What had his father taken with him? A tent. Servants. Food and drink. He had no idea how any of this worked. Trommler would have done: he knew everything that a prince had to do. For Felix, having to make it up as he went along was fantastically wearing.

  There were a few people he could ask. The centurions, for a start, who were camped out to the west of the town wall with their men. He strapped on his sword and rode through the streets to find them.

  The townsfolk stopped and stood aside as he passed. They greeted him respectfully, offering up comments like “fine day, my lord”, and “make way for the prince”. Some rulers, like the false earl of Simbach, needed to assemble a guard before they stepped from their keep. The prince of Carinthia didn’t, and that was the difference between them.

  No doubt, Master Ullmann would have raised his eyebrows and insisted that he was protected by his recently formed Black Company: men he’d drawn from the library ushers and elsewhere, and formed into a guard. Instead, the townsfolk were his guard, and they were everywhere.

  He rode out of the gate and across the fields to the camp, and arranged with the centurions to travel with them to Rosenheim. Nothing was, apparently, going to be too much trouble. They would make sure that he’d be provided for: a tent of his own, a groom from amongst the men, his own cook.

  Felix had been grooming his own horse since he’d been first able to ride, and more often than not, he’d eat kosher with Sophia and fill up on a variety of cooked pig products when she wasn’t around. He agreed to the tent, and refused the rest. He’d eat with the men, whatever the men would be eating, and if they’d room for his kit on one of the wagons, then he’d not have to ride all the way in full armour.

  He found himself winning their approval and respect, only recognising that as he rode away. Perhaps it would work out after all, small as he was. His father and the earls had ridden to war with great tents and banners and squires and servants. Felix would do it with as little fuss as he could manage.

  And while he was out and day not yet over, he thought he might see what all that noise from Master Thaler had been about. He rode back along the quayside, past the first of Vulfar’s new barges tied up beside it – smaller, narrower, pointed at both ends – and across the bridge.

  The White Tower glistened in the sunlight above him. The tunnels beneath it had been mostly emptied, but even the most experienced of miners quailed at the prospect of exploring the few that went deeper.

  Why didn’t the stupid thing fall? The magic had gone, and still it remained. Oh, he knew the explanation, that people still believed in it. If only they didn’t, it would be gone rather than looming over the town like some scabrous finger.

  Then there was the bridge itself, from which he’d thrown the torch to light his father’s funeral barge, and over which his ever-loving people had stampeded to see Eckhardt’s brilliant light. They’d killed half his guard, his stepmother, half-brothers and sisters, together with Trommler and those few earls he’d had left.

  That soured him. Perhaps Ullmann was right to be suspicious: while the gold was flowing and fresh marvels were coming out of the library seemingly every day, he was “Good Prince Felix”, but he’d already seen what would happen if times turned difficult. He’d be bundled head-first into a sack and carried away for sacrifice.

  He hoped those weren’t the only two options open to princes.

  By the time he arrived on the practice field, they were setting up again. Men and women were wrestling with the ribboned poles – paired up this time with a screen of sacking between them – taking them up the pasture towards the edge of the forest.

  Sitting at a table, Aaron Morgenstern was engrossed in his calculations, clicking the beads across an abacus with practised agility and occasionally peering at a finely written table in a book. Thaler was at his side, writing down numbers, and Mistress Tuomanen was bringing a charge of powder out from behind one of the screens.

  “Good afternoon, my lord,” she said, loud enough to alert Thaler, but not the deafer Morgenstern. He started to badger Thaler for the next part of the sum.

  Thaler tapped Morgenstern’s arm and raised himself from his stool. “Ah, my lord. Welcome again. We are, as you can see, working for the safety and success of the palatinate as diligently as we know how.”

  Felix leant onto the pommel. “I’ve talked to Sophia, Master Thaler. She may leave you alone now, at least for a while.”

  “Right,” said the librarian, and looked momentarily perplexed. Felix hadn’t been the only one expecting to have an argument. “Is my lord wishing to see an
ything in particular?”

  “No. I’m going with three centuries to Rosenheim tomorrow. I just wanted to tell you to keep up the good work, and that I’ll see how you’re doing when I get back.” Felix glanced over to the earth rampart. There was a long black cylinder embedded in the packed soil. “That’s interesting, Master Thaler. I haven’t seen that design before.”

  For a moment, it looked as if Thaler was going to stand in front of it, spread his gown out and deny all knowledge of its existence. “Yes,” he finally said. “Bastian has gone off on a frolic of his own, it seems.”

  Felix narrowed his eyes, and slipped from the saddle for a closer look. He kicked the iron tube and peered down its muzzle. “What happened to your pots?”

  “They’re all very well, thank you, my lord.” Thaler turned to watch those down-range start setting up the poles, hammering them into the ground with mallets. “I…”

  “What is it, Master Thaler?” Felix followed his gaze. “Those last few markers are a very long way away.”

  “Yes, my lord. Yes they are. I just hope they’re far enough. We, er … we lost the last ball.” He looked about him with mild embarrassment.

  “Lost it, Master Thaler? Where?”

  “Either it disintegrated with the force of the explosion, or it travelled into the forest. We’ve adjusted the elevation down, and erected those screens to help us find it this time.”

  Felix shielded his eyes and tried to judge the distance to the trees. “That’s…”

  “Five stadia. And thirty-two feet.” Thaler pursed his lips and sucked in air. “I don’t quite know what to make of it. We searched, but couldn’t find it.”

  “Five stadia. Gods, Master Thaler!”

  Thaler shrugged. “My lord is welcome to stay and watch us lose another.”

  One of Thaler’s crew had a builder’s level, and was tamping extra earth under the back of the iron tube. “It’s now horizontal,” he said, “as near as I can make it.”

  “Right. Positions, everyone. Powder team advance. My lord, it would be best if your horse went elsewhere. From bitter experience, we’ve found that they don’t like the noise.” Thaler waved at one of his pole team. “Gertrude, please be so good as to take my lord’s horse to the back of hut four.”

  That seen to, the powder team pushed a measured charge of powder, sewn into a cloth bag, into the muzzle, and rammed it to the back of the closed pipe with a wooden tamper. An iron ball was rolled in after it, and then a circle of felt.

  They retreated and Thaler ordered his firing team into position. One man poked a slender wire into the thin hole in the top of the weapon, a second filled the hole with loose powder, and a wooden tube was screwed into place on top of that.

  “Ready.”

  “My lord. This might be slightly undignified, but if you care to join us in the trench, we can commence.”

  “Trench?”

  Thaler indicated the way, behind a set of screens. The trench was four feet deep, and wide enough to crouch in, but with all of them packed into it, it was a tight fit. The final two in removed the front screen, and jumped down, leaving only Mistress Tuomanen by the rampart.

  “Why are we in a trench, Master Thaler?”

  Thaler coughed. “The device might shatter, and send shards of red-hot metal in all directions. Bastian assures me that using bronze will solve that problem, but the castings aren’t yet cool. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for the deaths of any of my warband, nor of my prince: hence the trench. The pots are much thicker, and the shorter barrel confines the hot gases for much less time. No problem there. No problem at all.”

  Felix blinked. “How dangerous is this, Master Thaler?”

  “To us? Hardly at all. What we’re trying to quantify is how dangerous it might be to those on the receiving end.” He raised his hand. “Ready for firing, Mistress?”

  She held up one of the slow matches, smoke idly curling from its end. “Ready for firing.”

  “Firing now.”

  “Firing,” she said, and applied the match to the end of the fuse, making sure it had caught. “Now.”

  She ran, covering the distance in no time at all, and dropped into the space on Thaler’s right, between him and Aaron Morgenstern.

  Everybody ducked, except Felix; Thaler pressed his hand on the prince’s head and pushed it down.

  When it came, the sound was incredible. Felix felt rather than heard it, the ground jerking as though it had been struck. Little motes of dust leapt from the wall of the trench, and hung in the air, frozen.

  Then the smoke roiled back in a thick white cloud. It drifted over them, and it was safe to look up again.

  The first screen had gone. Burning tatters of cloth hung on each of the supporting poles. The second, a hundred feet further on, was still on fire, with thick orange flames busily consuming the sacking, which had been torn in two. The third was leaning drunkenly at an angle, and there was smoke rising from just behind it.

  Felix clambered out, as did Mistress Tuomanen. While he stared, she pulled Thaler and Morgenstern from the trench with practised ease, and a team went over to inspect the still-smoking pipe, douse it with water, and rake out the soot from its insides.

  “That settles that, then,” said Thaler, wiping the soil of the trench off his gown. “The ball didn’t fall apart. Call it three hundred and twenty feet, at no elevation. Aaron, the calculations, if you please?”

  Morgenstern went back to his table and his books as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, but Felix caught Thaler by the arm and wouldn’t let go.

  “What did I just see?”

  “Well, it’s all very simple,” said Thaler. “If we know how fast the ball leaves the barrel, we can work out its range. By placing the device on a mound of earth of a known height, we know how long the ball takes to fall to the ground.”

  “You do?”

  “Most certainly. From there we can derive its maximum theoretical range, and, more importantly, the range at a given angle. The real range won’t be anything like that, of course, because of the resistance of the air and other factors. We shall, however, attempt to work out those equations at a later date. Aaron?”

  “Two and a half miles,” said Morgenstern, still scribbling feverishly. “And for a ten-degree elevation.” He paused, then finished, “Seven and a half stadia. Roughly.”

  “Which would explain why we never found the first ball.” Thaler raised his voice and clapped his hands. “Thank you everyone. Let’s get ready to go again shortly.”

  They dispersed to their own work, leaving Felix with Thaler. “Are you saying you could hit the fortress from here?”

  Thaler judged the distance, then nodded. “Yes. Not accurately, perhaps, but there’s a lot of fortress to hit.”

  “Gods,” said Felix. He let go of Thaler’s arm, and found himself adding, “Carry on, Master Thaler. Carry on.”

  82

  Saying goodbye to Felix gave Sophia an odd feeling. She knew it needed to be done, though. It was important for the people to see their prince and understand that he made his own decisions – and the townsfolk seemed to approve, as reported by Master Ullmann. All well and good. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have plenty to do: her role as princess consort was ill-defined, but she very much doubted that other princesses had to school spearmen or debate tactics with their centurions.

  She realised that her fear was neither right nor reasonable, which then made her feel stupid. Still, the dragging tension in her stomach made a lie of her open smile and warm words.

  “I’ll be back by midweek,” he said, patting his horse’s neck as it stamped at the road.

  “I know. Make sure they look after you. No wild hunts or bragging contests.”

  His shoulder had healed: the ends of the collar-bones had knit together well, leaving only a knot beneath the skin.

  She rubbed her thumb through his shirt along the line of it, silently reminding him of the day he’d broken it.

  She looked ar
ound at the men he’d be marching with. Not quite raw recruits, but untested even with shovels, let alone spears. Battle-ready all the same, and road-ready too. The carts had been loaded up, and the bullocks tied into their yokes. The centurions were waiting with their men, and family members stood in a group by the side of the western gate.

  All they were waiting for was for her to finish flapping at the prince.

  “My lord,” she said, and stepped back.

  Felix put his foot in the stirrup and swung himself into his saddle, making what Sophia still found difficult look so very easy. He smiled down at her, and she forced herself to smile back up.

  He had nearly three hundred men behind him and the Sword of Carinthia at his side. And still she worried.

  Felix walked his horse to the front of the column, raised his hand, and set off down the road. The men’s kin clapped and cheered, shouting for their gods to take care of their fathers, brothers, sons. She couldn’t do the same, of course. Her God was not theirs. There would be earnest prayers tonight from her to Elohey Tzevaot, the Lord of Hosts, but nothing in public, nothing to make the good folk of Juvavum think that Felix had converted.

  The soldiers marched away, three yellow standards bearing the black Carinthian leopard twisting in the wind, a haze of dust kicked up by their feet. The crowd had started to disperse – the Germans were an unsentimental people compared to hers – but some lingered: two children, staring down the road, an old man leaning on his stick and letting the crush clear from the gate, and a woman who she recognised.

  Sophia had dressed in finery, rather than clothes that allowed her to swing her sword, so, when the woman finally turned and stepped under the shadow of the gate, she had to pick up her skirts in order to hurry after her.

  “Mistress,” called Sophia. “Wait.”

  The woman looked around. Yes, it was as Sophia had thought: she’d spotted this woman and Ullmann together while on her way to the mikveh a day or so before.