Reformation

by Henrikson, Mark

  Chapter 57: Not as Things Appear

  If the first sight of Weinsburg castle and its stout defenses gave Prince Fredrick a moment of pause, then seeing Hohensalzburg Castle occupying an entire hillside towering over the city of Salzburg must have caused his bowels to leave a brown puddle in the saddle. The fortress was absolutely massive, and elevated with only one long, narrow switchback road winding up the impossibly steep incline to the castle.

  Archers manning dozens of towers along the walls overlooking the path would inflict devastating casualties before the attackers even reached the gates. Then the attackers would have the insurmountable task of breaking down not one, two or even three, but four separate sets of gate houses in succession as the fortress walls wound their way up the hillside to the castle itself.

  As the peasant army entered the city beneath the fortress, Tomal watched as the castle gates were closed and locked tight before the tidal wave of commoners from the city were able to enter and seek refuge from the assault. If locking them out were not enough, Tomal noticed the rail line running down the steepest cliff face continued hauling supplies into the fortress from the town below. The people of Salzburg were simply left to fend for themselves without any provisions while their ‘protector’ sat on high, safe behind locked doors.

  Tomal could not contain a laugh as he crossed the river over a stone bridge to enter the city’s business district. He leaned over in his saddle to have a word with Prince Fredrick. “I guess word reached the archbishop already about how we managed to overtake the last castle.”

  “Clearly,” the prince responded without amusement. Suddenly the clatter of broken glass along the right side of the street grabbed Fredrick’s attention. He looked mad enough to breathe fire as he spurred his horse to a full gallop toward a store in the process of being robbed by his men.

  “Stop this now,” the prince ordered drawing his sword to emphasize his point. “We are not petty thieves here to vandalize and steal from fellow peasants. We are here to bring down the arrogant aristocracy that holds you under its boot.”

  Either the words or sword put an immediate end to the behavior. As a result, most of the townspeople turned away from the archbishop’s doors and joined their cause. In short order the fortress was completely surrounded, though the besieging forces kept an adequate distance out of respect for the archers manning the castle walls.

  The central square of Salzburg lay two hundred yards away and downhill from the fortress walls. Far enough away so arrows could not reach. Tomal found it to be the ideal spot to set up his command tent. While that was going on, Prince Fredrick received a rider and then walked toward Tomal to relay the message.

  “I just received word the archbishop’s northern army turned south two days ago and will arrive here by midday tomorrow,” the prince reported. “It appears we have until then to break through those walls, conquer the castle, and then rebuild them again to protect ourselves from the pursuing army.”

  “Shall we get to it then?” Tomal deadpanned back, but received a scowl in return.

  “This is serious. When that professional army with twice our numbers arrives we will be slaughtered; every last one of us for what happened at Weinsburg. Either you have a real plan to take that castle without destroying its protective walls in the next twenty-four hours or we need to move on.”

  Tomal signaled for a wagon to be brought into the central square for unloading. He then put an arm around his friend and turned him to look up at the fortress. “Tell me what you see when you look at the main castle? Not the walls and gates, but the inner castle itself,” Tomal asked.

  The flustered prince tossed his head from side to side out of futility. “I see an impressive structure that I will never live to see the inside of, what about it?”

  “Is there anything unique about the roof?” Tomal prodded.

  “It runs the entire length of the structure and has a steep angle to keep the snow off it during winter.”

  “Exactly,” Tomal said with pride. “I have it on good authority that the long roofline is supported by a single ridge beam made of solid oak to give the entire upper level an impressive, yet vulnerable, vaulted ceiling.”

  “How nice for the archbishop,” the prince said dismissively.

  “How nice for us,” Tomal countered. “Strong as that oak beam is, it cannot handle the additional weight of snow or else it will snap. If that single beam breaks the entire roof will collapse onto the lower levels and possibly allow the walls to follow and bring the entire castle down on top of itself. Then we leave and let the archbishop’s army pick up the pieces.”

  The prince turned his head to look at Tomal with wide-eyed wonder. “Great plan. Let me get my saw.” A doubtful tilt of Tomal’s head prompted him further. “Seriously, how do you expect to get up there and sever that beam to accomplish your grand plan?”

  A shudder of the ground and the groan of wooden wheels struggling to move under heavy weight caused Tomal to turn them both around and face the wagon he beckoned earlier. “We let this new weapon do the job for us.”

  Before them stood a ten foot long metal cannon mounted on the four wheeled cart. The gunnery team was busy blocking the wheels into position and turning down a hand crank to raise the aim toward the roof line of the castle.

  “What on earth is that and where did you get it?” the prince managed to ask with his jaw scraping the dirt at his feet.

  “A gun, a big one, that I heard rumors about a while back,” Tomal beamed with pride as he inspected the physical incarnation of his designs. “Weinsburg wasn’t just about murder and retribution. It was about planning ahead.”

  The prince’s look of awe immediately turned skeptical. “I saw a demonstration once of a hand held black powder gun and was not impressed. Only one in twelve shots even hit the target standing fifty feet away. My archers were able to hit it dead center every time.”

  Tomal walked over to a second wagon and pulled back the tan tarp to reveal three large kegs of black powder and two sizeable stacks of metal balls, each the size of a man’s head. “We have enough powder and ammunition for thirty shots to hit our mark,” Tomal declared. “I say we roll the dice and take our chances at scoring a direct hit. What do we have to lose?”

  The doubtful frown turned up slightly as the prince looked back at the castle again. “Nothing, I suppose.” He turned his focus back to Tomal, but only saw his back walking away toward the city streets. “Where are you going?”

  “You have the primary plan well in hand, now I go to see about the backup arrangements,” Tomal answered back without turning around.

  “Backup plan?” the prince repeated which caused Tomal to stop and turn around for a moment.

  “Yes, my mentor once told me he doesn’t even go to the bathroom without a backup plan,” Tomal responded and continued on into the city streets. “Over the years I have found it to be sound advice,” he concluded over his shoulder.

  Chapter 58: An Offer He Can’t Refuse

  As Valnor navigated the desolate streets of Constantinople, he was relieved to hear the roar of Mehmed’s rampaging men grow more and more distant. The most advantageous sections of the city to pillage for valuables lay to the south. The opulent apartments and villas adorned with all manner of gold, jewels and artwork were difficult to miss.

  Other hotspots for looting and entertainment were the market and brothel districts in the eastern quarter of the city, which left the northwestern quadrant relatively free from devastation so far. The seemingly endless string of run-down apartment buildings that reached six to ten stories skyward would be the last to see looting, vandalism and rape from the occupying army, but it would eventually come.

  Thousands of residents attempted to flee the chaos by jumping into the sea and swimming for safety. It was a nearly impossible swim that only a few hundred might survive, but drowning was preferable to being raped endlessly or getting sold into slavery by the occupying army.

  Those who knew their aqu
atic abilities were not up to the task worked feverishly to hide everything they had, including themselves. Walking through the desolate streets Valnor heard a chorus of saws cutting and nails being hammered into place in an effort to blockade doors or make hiding places. Some would succeed, most would not, but it was all they had therefore the helpless civilians worked diligently to finish before the inevitable trouble arrived.

  Valnor found his way to the university campus nestled among the six story tall apartment complexes of the Phanar district. His progress was impeded by a blockade made of anything and everything the students and faculty could find. Overturned wagons, crates, desks, and bookshelves were all strewn about making a ten foot high pile of rubble that might keep a few dozen soldiers out, but not the thousands who would eventually come once the wealthier districts were thoroughly sacked.

  Valnor took a moment to evaluate the barricade and spotted a book shelf he could use as a ladder leaning against the pile of rubble. When he reached the top, he saw a hundred yard square courtyard defended by a few dozen students wielding swords while looking scared out of their wits.

  “Halt,” one of them shouted in Latin. He continued in the same language to see if Valnor understood the words. It was a clever test considering most in the invading army would not comprehend the language. “Identify yourself or we will cut you down.”

  “Relax, I am a friend,” Valnor said while scaling his way down from the barricade to the courtyard. “I am looking for one of your visiting professors, Nicolaus Copernicus. Is he still here?”

  The armed student hesitated for a moment while his companions drew near to present a united front. “Who is asking for him?”

  “Tell Nicolaus his friend Orban is here to present an opportunity to him and his friends.”

  One of the students ran to the right side of the courtyard and through a door in the center of that wing. Ten minutes later Nicolaus, and no fewer than fifty men all brandishing daggers and swords, stormed out of the building with anger venting from every fiber of their being.

  Valnor knew his initial reception would not be friendly, but he hoped to get at least a few words in before the mob’s vigilante justice could be enforced. Valnor decided to get his offer out in the open before the group arrived to do god knows what to him. “You have the look of a man with murder in your eyes.”

  Nicolaus pointed an accusing finger in Valnor’s direction. “You ought to know. You brought an entire army of men with that very same look in their eyes to the walls of our great city. Then you gave them a weapon to blast a hole in those walls so they could carry out their murders. Now it’s your turn.”

  Nicolaus quickened his marching cadence which forced Valnor to get right to the point. “You can’t kill your only friend on the other side, the man with a plan to get all of you out of this besieged city alive.”

  “How, as your slaves?” Nicolaus demanded. “Didn’t you make enough money selling your weapon of destruction to the highest bidder?”

  “Actually, it is I who intends to pay you,” Valnor got out just before Nicolaus swung and landed an angry fist to his jaw. The blow sent Valnor to the cobblestone covered ground, and he remained on all fours looking up at his attacker. “That is what this was all about.”

  Nicolaus looked ready to put the sword he carried to use, but those last seven words gave him pause. “Explain yourself.”

  “I am already rich beyond my capacity to spend in a lifetime,” Valnor began as he struggled back to his feet to look Nicolaus dead in the eyes. “I came here to unleash the bottled up knowledge hiding behind these walls to the rest of the world. The collective enlightenment of these great minds must leave this place to bring light back into the darkened world.”

  “Come with me to Florence. Art, architecture, literature, mathematics, law, linguistics are all poised for resurgence if great men arrive to steer it along to share with the world rather than hide it away in a walled city.”

  Valnor raised his voice to address everyone in the courtyard. “I offer to sponsor all of you. I will fund any of your artistic and scholastic endeavors if you will join me in Florence.”

  The look of murder was no longer in the eyes of Nicolaus, but feelings of hurt and betrayal still clearly lingered.

  “I know you would sooner run me through and suffer the fate it brings upon you than follow my lead, but this is bigger than you and I,” Valnor said looking back at Nicolaus once more. “Look around you. You hold the lives of every man in this university at the tip of that sword you wield. Do with them as you see fit.”

  Nicolaus held the look of a man torn between two primal instincts: survival and revenge. Gradually the hard lines of anger relaxed around his eyes to deliver a reasoned response.

  “Get us all out of this city with our books and notes intact and those who wish to take your offer will follow you to Florence. Those, like me, who find your very existence emphatically vile will go wherever they see fit. Do we have an accord?”

  Valnor drew a deep breath through his nostrils and finally extended an open palm to seal the deal. “We do. Now get your things, we don’t have much time.”

  Valnor’s misfit gaggle of bookworms following him out of the city drew only a passing interest from the Sultan’s rampaging army. When troubled, all he needed to do was show the royal insignia of Sultan Mehmed II. Per their arrangement, Valnor turned over his excessive wages for overseeing the construction of the bombard cannon in exchange for the right to remove as many as a hundred civilians from the city without question.

  The Sultan was a man of his word as was Nicolaus. He and a few of his colleagues went back to his native Poland while the vast majority of the rescued scholars and artists accompanied Valnor back to Florence to share their light under his patronage.

  Chapter 59: No Big Surprise

  Professor Russell stood over the shoulder of Alex as she ran through the last in a series of tests. They wanted to make sure the four ground receptors were well positioned to bounce signals received from the emitter hovering overhead in between each other to map out the interior of the Chinese pyramid.

  While waiting, Brian took the time to consider just how much had changed for him and Alex over the last week and also how much was still the same. Just like it was in Egypt, he and Alex sat in a field tent ready to map a pyramid while a government observer looked on.

  This time it was a short Chinese man rather than the aging Dr. Andre, who turned out to be an alien intent on their capture to keep the chambers discovered in the Great Pyramid and Sphinx hidden. Brian trusted Chin no farther than he could throw the man, but he did think it quite unlikely that he was also an alien trying to keep a secret. In fact, Chin was the one intent on making new discoveries, but it remained to be seen if Chin would also incarcerate Alex and him if anything important was discovered.

  Another prominent difference was the elevated sophistication of the equipment at their disposal. Overhead a state of the art helicopter hovered perfectly steady to give accurate readings rather than an aging aircraft that wobbled about while struggling to stay airborne.

  What remained unchanged from before was the laptop computer and C++ program Alex used to display the findings. The tiny monochrome dots were nothing pretty to look at, but it was enough to give a well defined layout of the structure’s interior.

  “Everything checks out. The emitter is holding steady in position; I think we’re ready to give this a shot,” Alex reported.

  “Let’s see what we get then,” Professor Russell ordered, which prompted Alex to press the side of her headset with a boom microphone extending from the earpiece to her mouth; another welcome upgrade from before.

  “Begin,” she said, keeping the message short for the pilot who only knew a few key words of English.

  “How long will it take to see the results,” Chin asked as he relocated himself to stand over Alex’s other shoulder to view her screen.

  “With a steady helicopter holding the emitter, not long,” Alex responded w
ithout turning around.

  No sooner had she uttered those words when dots began appearing on the mapping display. First the outer shape of the shrunken pyramid took form. Next, a tunnel leading from the Terracotta Army pits due east was filled in culminating in a large chamber located inside the base of the pyramid.

  A twenty foot high ceiling was filled in for the chamber as the dots continued to be laid higher and higher into the body of the burial mound. When it was all done, a one hundred foot tall structure perfectly pyramidal in shape sat directly on top of the Emperor’s burial chamber.

  Despite the jarring magnitude of this discovery, these readings did not get Professor Russell’s juices flowing like they did back in Egypt. Perhaps it was because he had already experienced the wonder and excitement before and now it was old hat. More likely though was the feeling that this was not truly his discovery. The risks and effort the Chinese went to in order to have this test performed made him almost certain something would be found. The result being that there really was no element of surprise this time around.

  When Alex spoke up, Brian could tell from her vocal inflections that she was equally unimpressed. “Well would you look at that, another chamber, a big one. Hard to believe no one even had a clue something that large was there.”

  “Yes,” Professor Russell added with a sideways glance toward Chin. “It is very odd that nothing is showing up inside that gigantic chamber. It’s as if something is interfering with the emitter readings from inside that chamber.”

  Chin ignored the conversation between the Americans. Instead, he spent several minutes talking into the headset hooked onto his ear. His words were spoken in Chinese, therefore the specific meaning was lost, but Brian got the distinct feeling that the sanctity of Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s burial chamber was very much in jeopardy.