The Invention of Fire. Bruce Holsinger
the larger towers in the complex, looking back at him with a flicker of quiet pride. They stood before a long, narrow portion of the main yard glistening with gunmetal. A team of carpenters was at work fitting the area with an addition to the sloping roof, fixed with notched rafters extending from the lower south wall to the higher tower wall on the north side. Only half the structure had been completed, leaving twenty bare beams jutting like bent masts from beneath the boards.
Snell placed a hand on Stephen’s back. ‘The guns themselves are just metal, of course,’ the armourer said. ‘Without powder and shot they are no more than water pipes. We have laid in enough shot – iron, lead, stone – for the defence of London. Of twenty Londons. Look there, and there.’
Piled in this portion of the yard were projectiles of numerous shapes and sizes. Pyramids of smoothed stones, crates of iron balls, purses of lead shot, as well as several pairs of casting moulds leaning against the stone and answering to the large foundry arrays positioned along the wall. In another temporary room off the yard Snell showed him the strange tools and mechanisms crafted for the charging of the brutal weapons: drills and firing-pans, rods and touches.
A cluster of long and narrow tubes sat against a corner timber. Stephen’s steps slowed. ‘May I handle these, Master Snell?’
‘At your pleasure, Marsh,’ said the armourer, looking pleased.
Stephen hefted one of the peculiar guns, inspected it top to bottom. Hollow for its full length, but capped at one end and flared at the other, with a small hole bored through near the capped end. He fingered the hole, guessing at its purpose.
‘Come,’ the armourer said.
Two sentries stood to either side of a heavy wooden door, crossed by strong widths of dulled metal. Six separate locks were positioned along the sides, two of them fastened through eyeholes at either end of an iron bar. Each sentry held the keys to two of the locks on his respective side, and opened them at the armourer’s order. Snell worked at the two bar locks, struggling to lift the heavy rod crossing the whole. It fell to the floor with a loud clong, bringing another guard hurrying around the corner from the yard. Snell waved him off.
‘And here, the heart of the Tower,’ he said to Stephen. ‘The heart of England, some would say.’
The door groaned open to reveal a modest chamber, no larger than the streetfront room back at the Stone foundry. There the similarities ended, and Stephen could only gape in the half-light cast by the barred window. At least one hundred kegs, each the height of a small child, all banded with iron and tightly sealed. The air was sharp, tinged with the thousand or more pounds of gunpowder sealed in the close chamber. Marsh’s eyes watered, his nostrils burning in the acrid air.
Snell scrutinized him. ‘The most dangerous room in all England.’
‘Aye, Master Snell,’ Marsh rasped, imagining what a single coal could accomplish in this enclosed space.
‘It’s taken a few years to build up an adequate supply,’ said Snell, a touch of fatherly pride in his voice as he surveyed the lethal store. ‘Endless shipments of saltpetre. Carts and carts of sulphur and coals, the piss of a hundred bishops.’ He laughed. Stephen smiled. ‘But well worth the effort, and we have learned of late how to mix a more stable powder, with a purer burn. Let the forces of France and Burgundy only try to take this fortress. Let them assault this city and its walls, and with everything they have. I shall welcome the challenge, Marsh. Welcome it. From any quarter.’
Stephen imagined such a scene. Rivers of blood, brains and offal, limbs blown across the Thames, all from the power of guns.
Snell closed the heavy door, supervised the replacement of the locks, then led Stephen to a quiet corner of the wardrobe complex. They climbed a flight of stone stairs to the upper level of a two-storey structure built against one of the northwest towers. In the chamber were a low table and several chairs, a stack of ledgers, a few candles and lamps. A long sword and a battered shield leaned by the door. Along the western wall hung a map of the Tower, ruled and sketched on two thick widths of calfskin sewn roughly together and nailed to the boards behind. A window looked out on the whole of the yard, giving the armourer an impressive view of his domain. The room smelled of damp timbers and sawdust, a welcome change from the acrid wisps of powder still tickling Stephen’s nostrils.
Snell started to shut the door to his chamber behind them. It caught on the latch. The armourer had to pull for a moment before the door came closed. ‘Must have that repaired,’ he mused as he gestured Stephen toward one of the chairs. ‘Sit,’ he said.
Stephen obeyed as Snell took the other chair.
‘War is all about logistics, Marsh,’ the other man began when he was seated. ‘As the king’s armourer I’ve learned a great deal about the intimacy of war and bureaucracy. A good supply line is every bit as important as a capable company of archers. More important, in many ways, as fighting the Scots taught us last July.’
Stephen recalled the news spreading through the city the previous summer. It was little over a year since King Richard had returned from the disastrous campaign in Scotland, provoked by news of a French admiral landing a sizeable force at Leith and providing arms and munitions to King Robert. Though the English army had destroyed a few towns and held Edinburgh for a short while, the Scots refused to engage Richard’s forces. The result had been a desultory campaign of pillaging and burning that gained the crown little in the way of spoils, and lost it a great deal in prestige.
‘We had twelve thousand men mustered at Newcastle for upwards of three weeks,’ said Snell. ‘Twelve thousand, Marsh, arriving by land and sea, crowding into the streets, camped around the walls, filling the fields, and all of them prattling in their different tongues. Bohemians, Picards, Welshmen, some unhappy Scots. The plain of Babel, spread before the Newcastle keep. It was a contract army, you see, most bought with indentures, and led by a hundred and fifty captains. Half of them had as much business taking men into war as my new daughter.’
Stephen smiled at the thought. ‘War gives you much to consider, Master Snell.’
‘You have no conception.’ He coughed loudly into his palm, then settled his hands on his knee. His legs were crossed, and there was a lustful glint in his eyes as he turned his full attention to Stephen.
‘Efficiency. Doing more with less. Less food. Less coin. Less powder,’ he said. ‘And ultimately, Marsh, less gun.’
Less gun. His own words, now coming from the mouth of King Richard’s armourer. He blinked.
‘You are a talented man, Stephen Marsh.’
‘You are too kind, Master Snell.’
‘Some of the greatest bellfounders in the realm are also some of its greatest gunfounders. Those bombards just there?’
He pointed out the low window, opened to the autumn air. Stephen leaned forward and looked into the yard, where a pair of great cannon stood gaping toward the walls.
‘The calibre is forty inches, Marsh. Forty inches! Shoots quarrels the size of a man. These ones are modelled on the guns Artevelde used at Oudenaarde a few years back. Poured at John Feel’s foundry, though I wouldn’t let Feel stamp the barrels himself. These are the Tower’s guns, with the stamp of the royal wardrobe.’
John Feel headed up a foundry in Tower Ward. A rival to Stone’s, known for good, solid work. ‘If you have Feel’s with you, why do you need Stone’s?’
Snell tilted his head. ‘It is not Stone’s I need, Marsh. It is you. Your mind, your skills. Your magic with the metals.’
Stephen breathed deeply, feeling a nice surge of pride.
‘The Tower has become a teeming bitch of cannon, Marsh. It is a – why, it is a womb of guns.’ The armourer turned and fixed Stephen with iron eyes. ‘And I want you to train up a new litter for us. A secret litter of guns, fashioned outside these walls.’
Stephen looked at the etched calfskins on the wall, the immense sprawl of the royal hold. ‘Such