Ghosts of Engines Past

by McMullen, Sean

Sir Gerald pressed his lips together and breathed heavily and evenly, as if trying to fight down the urge to sob. He was betrayed by a tear which meandered down his cheek.

  “Master Tordral, tell my sensechal all you need. I shall support you.”

  “So very easily?” replied Tordral, genuinely surprised by the sudden change in the knight.

  “You and my sister... you are of a kind. I think she would have liked you. I know you would have liked her.”

  Gerald gestured to a stone seat half smothered in ivy.

  “Fourteen years ago that was her favoured place for reading. She knew five languages, and read Aristotle as easily as any French roman courtoise. I was lying on the grass, not four yards away, when a great lethargy washed over me and I was scarcely able to move. As I lay helpless, an elf lord came. He tried to entice Mayliene away to Faerie. Do you think that sounds insane? Feel free to laugh.”

  “I believe, pray continue,” said Tordral in a voice held studiously level. This was the moment a charlatan would sound sincerely sympathetic, so this was a very bad moment to offer sympathy.

  “She refused his advances.”

  “Brave girl, elves take badly to rejection.”

  “Indeed. He—he had his revenge. He afflicted her with a cruel but subtle blight. She had to be sent to a convent, to be cared for as an invalid. For seven years she languished there, then one morning her footprints were found leading into a river. I returned from the wars in France and came here, to my family's summer tower. I have kept my fruitless vigil ever since.”

  “Not fruitless, Sir Gerald. Over the years I have gathered many others blighted by Faerie into my company. It was the story of your vigil that drew me here.”

  “Then if you succeed my vigil of seven years will be time well spent.”

  The Blacksmith

  A massive blast echoed among the hills around Keswick. The shouting and bustle in the town market suddenly died away, then slowly picked up again. Shepherds cursed as startled sheep and sheepdogs scattered in panic. Sir Gerald was on the way to see Tordral, and although his palfrey was used to bombard fire, the horse drawing the cart behind him reared and almost bolted. The encampment where Tordral worked was on the shores of Derwent Water, a quarter mile from Keswick. A barn had been turned into an immense blacksmith's shop, and so much smoke was pouring from it that a stranger might have fancied it to be on fire.

  As Jon, the blacksmith, carried his dead apprentice out of the barn, he noticed Gerald approaching, escorting the cart. After leaving the youth's body with the women of Tordral's company, he greeted the knight.

  “A serious accident?” asked Gerald.

  “No, just a stupid boy. He thought to play the fool while the rest of us took cover. A bright and cheery soul, but stupid.”

  “Here is an Italian gold florin, looted in France,” said Gerald, tossing the coin to Jon. “Have it sent it to his family, with my condolences.”

  “Consider it done, lordship,” said Jon, bowing.

  “So, the accident was not serious?”

  “No accident, just trialings.”

  Jon deliberately kept his manner brusque, and measured out his words with care. People had the idea that hard, strong smiths made hard, strong weapons, so he had an image to live up to. Jon was also painfully aware of having a rare and conspicuous accent.

  “You seem unmoved by the death of your apprentice,” said Gerald reproachfully.

  “The dead are gone. The living have work to do.”

  “A good philosophy, if bleak. You should have been a knight.”

  “I was.”

  The concept of a knight abandoning his position and status to become an artisan was too much for Gerald to comprehend. He dismounted in silence and left his palfrey with his carter. Jon led the way into the barn, explaining that some areas were not entirely safe.

  “I cannot see Tordral,” said Gerald anxiously as he looked around.

  “Away on Derwent Water, taking plumbline soundings.”

  “For what reason?”

  “Didn't say.”

  Gerald stumbled over a piece of wreckage, and very nearly fell.

  “Someone seems to have been roasting a steel dragon over a spit when it exploded,” he said, pointing to a tangle of grotesquely twisted metal.

  “Fine result, lordship,” replied Jon. “See here? Progress.”

  The blacksmith pointed to a shard of metal the size of a hand that had embedded itself in a shelter wall of rough-hewn logs. Gerald gasped with surprise, which gratified Jon. The shard had struck a four inch thick log with such force that part of it was protruding from the other side.

  “By the very heavens!” exclaimed the knight. “How did you do this?”

  “Steam burst, done with care.”

  “So steam really can be as potent as black powder?”

  “Yes. We have been trialing steam explosions, of late.”

  “They have been upon my mind as well,” said the knight. “Should it come to that, everyone within five miles has been aware of them.”

  “There's many types.”

  “Many? Is not one boom much the same as any other?”

  “Not so. Either a sufflator's barrel bursts, or a connecting pipe gives way. I began making steam pipes weaker than the sufflators, so bursts would do less damage. Then Master says, make the pipe repair itself. Clever one, the Master.”

  “I... please explain?” asked the knight.

  “Master Tordral used ashwood sliverts holding a plugsert within the pipe. When steam pressure gets near to bursting, the plugsert bends the slivert a mite, and steam escapes until the pressure's eased. Master calls it a steam guard.”

  “I understood none of that,” Gerald admitted.

  “It works,” said Jon with a shrug.

  “But your sufflator has terrible damage,” said Gerald, waving at the wreckage again.

  Jon tapped the shard embedded in the log.

  “Intentional,” he explained. “I was trialling how forcefully steel shards can get flung.”

  “I see, even though I don't understand. Jon, I have been thinking.”

  “I leave that to the Master, lordship.”

  “Your steam bombard is a device of air, water, fire and earth, but the metal projectile that it flings is merely earth. Surely it cannot breach the portal between worlds, as did the little boat.”

  “True, lordship,” said Jon, already aware that the knight was leading him to an ambush.

  “Then why is Tordral wasting your time and my gold on steam explosions?”

  “Master Tordral says iron balls, shot from a steam bombard, will destroy portals between this world and Faerie.”

  “Destroy them?”

  “Aye.”

  “Not pass through them?”

  “No.”

  “It's not what he promised.”

  “We discovered same by trial. Trials don't always tell us what we expect.”

  Jon was left in charge when Tordral was away. He was known to speak slowly, and because he spoke slowly and chose words with care, he could be trusted to tell a lie with absolute consistency.

  “Destroy portals to Faerie, I do believe I like that better than crossing them,” Gerald decided. “How much longer?”

  “Can't say. The like's never been done.”

  “I cannot bear the cost forever, Jon. My brothers say I squander the family inheritance, and the king complains that we do not support him enough against the French.”

  “Then use the old ways, lordship: riddles, curses, spellwords, gifts, talismans, tricks and vigils.”

  “Yes, yes, I concede. One cannot fight Faerie with Faerie's weapons, yet my support will not always be mine to give.”

  “We understand, lordship, and we work for nothing.”

  “Ah, I know that, and I appreciate it. Come out to the cart, I brought a token of that appreciation.”

  Several men and women had gathered around the cart, but Jon was not prepared for what was in the tray.
>
  “A spiral briar in a pot?” he exclaimed.

  “A symbol, Jon, a living symbol for us to follow, like a pennant, banner, or coat of arms. A symbol of those people twisted while they were young and soft, then grew older, harder, and very, very thorny.”

  Jon put his hands on his hips and nodded. Images floated before his eyes, and none of them were from the world of humans.

  “Beautiful flowers can grow from twisted stems,” he said to the rose as much to those around him. “This will remind us of it.”

  “So, you too had a dear one taken?” asked Gerald knowingly.

  “I was once a surpassing fair young knight, lordship. Even Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine thought me worthy to be her lover.”

  “Eleanor of—but she died two and a half centuries ago.”

  “True. But an elf queen thought me surpassing fair as well.”

  The Shipwright

  The ship being built on the shores of Derwent Water was not of a conventional design. It had the solidity of a barge, but heavy decking and hinged baffles at the bow. Amidships was a low cabin, and within this was a clay and gravel bed for a large hearth. It was nearly complete when Tordral arrived for the twelfth weekly inspection.

  “As I sees it, Master, ye got purpose conflictin' problems,” said the shipwright, Ivain, as they circled the vessel.

  “Explain,” said the armourer.

  “It's scale, ye know? Derwent Water's a puddle. Why build a ship big enough ter carry horses, when ye could ride around the lake as easy?”

  “The why is my affair, Ivain. You are charged with the building.”

  “I done that. Twenty yards long, five yards beam, ready ter launch, but...”

  “But?”

  “There's bits I don't understand. Ye got hinged wave baffles at the bow, but Derwent Water's only three miles long. Its greatest waves are scarce above ankle height.”

  “Wave baffles can stop arrows, Ivain, and this ship will fight. What else?”

  “A bombard on the bow. It brings no advantage.”

  “Why not?”

  “Sailors talk, ye know? Buy 'em a few ales an' their sense flies south like the swallows in autumn, then—”

  “Come to the point.”

  “Put bombards along the sides of a ship and ye got lots o' bombard power. There's no advantage wi' one in the bow.”

  “Advantage or not, my ship must have a bombard in the bow so that steering the ship aims the bombard. What else?”

  “It's the two holes in the bow, and the other two in the stern.”

  “Fine holes they are, too.”

  “Those at the bow are a fingerspan below the waterline.”

  “As they should be.”

  “Those at the stern are half a yard below.”

  “And placed precisely as I asked.”

  “Holes in a ship make it inclined ter sink.”

  “Ah, but the holes are to take two brass pipes that will run the length of the ship. They are for the water to flow along.”

  “Yer want water to flow inside the ship?”

  “Indeed I do.”

  The shipwright muttered something in an obscure dialect and scratched his head.

  “This is a ship of dreams,” explained Tordral. “Your place is to build, mine is to dream.”

  Ivain folded his arms, stared at the ship and shook his head. He had no idea what he was building, but if Tordral was happy, that was enough for him.

  “May yer dreams be the nightmares o' Faerie, Master. Oh, an' see? I built a frame for our spiral briar's pot.”

  “Splendid. She is one of us, she must not be left behind.”

  “Master?”

  “Ask.”

  “I was wonderin'. We of yer company, we're all twisted by Faerie. Took me daughter, they did. Me poor wife fair pined away fer sorrow. But, like I always wondered what they did to yerself.”

  “As they took your daughter, they took my vision, Ivain. I can but focus a handspan from my nose, and must use concave spectacles like Emperor Nero's emerald glass to see at distance.”

  “They're in yer visor?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hah, that's clever! Elves got magic, but none's so clever in scholarship as yerself, an' scholarship beats magic any day. Last question?”

  “Last answer.”

  “What's the ship's name?”

  “I have dreamed her name to be La Hachette.”

  “La Hachette? Aht, like that. Pretty name, but strong. I'll paint a battleaxe on the bow.”

  “The image suits her, Ivain. She will like that.”

  The Sergeant

  Sergeant Renard had decreed that the bombard was to be trial-fired on the flatlands south of Derwent Water. Against the advice of his English crew, he also ordered that the weapon be left on the waggon that had brought it there. A target tower of logs had been erected on the shore of the lake, and the bombard deployed a quarter mile inland. Renard had been expecting Tordral and Sir Gerald to attend the first firing, but not the ox cart that came with them. It was being driven by a priest, and in the tray were four nuns.

  Introductions were made. The abbess and three nuns were from a convent north of Bassen Water, and the priest was from Keswick.

  “We heard of your bombard,” said the abbess, batting her eyelashes at Renard. “We are very curious about it.”

  Renard noted that she was young, pretty and vivacious, and suspected that she did not rule her little domain with a rod of iron. An excess daughter of a great and rich family, disposed of into the service of the church, he decided.

  “The bombard is a fearsome engine,” the French sergeant warned. “Are you sure that your heart is equal to it?”

  “I have encountered my share of fearsome engines, Sergeant Renard. Yours will not affright me.”

  Neither this nor the other, thought Renard as he gestured to three yards of massive brass pipe bound with iron bands and clamped to a timber beam between two woodblock wheels.

  “It is ugly to behold, but its performance should thrill you to the very core,” he said with an eyebrow raised.

  “Many worthy engines are ugly to behold yet give fair service,” she replied, riposting with a sidelong smirk.

  Two nuns giggled, the third looked puzzled for a moment, then frowned suspiciously. The priest developed an intense interest in the bombard's breechblock release lever as the two giggling nuns shared some joke about the weapon's shape.

  “Why is it wound about with briar roses?” asked the abbess.

  “To remind us that even the ugly and powerful may fight for the pretty and frail,” said Gerald, who now began a short introduction to black powder weapons for his visitors.

  “Why have them here?” hissed Renard to Tordral.

  “There's talk of magic hereabouts. People hear explosions, then whisper that we are magicians trying to harness thunderbolts. I want it known that common black powder weapons are responsible. Come, let us be part of it.”

  They circled the wheeled gun, while Gerald proudly explained its finer points.

  “Bought from the French, but built in Bohemia. It is the finest that bribery may buy, and the best fashioned in all the world.”

  “It is smaller than I thought,” said the abbess.

  “Ah, the eternal complaint of ladies,” sighed Renard, and three of the four women tittered. “Indeed, most bombards have a huge bore and shoot balls of stone. This is a new type, stronger and more finely made. It shoots smaller iron balls, but with very great power and accuracy.”

  “We should stand upwind of it for the shot,” said Gerald, again competing for the attention of the abbess. “Observe, if you will, the target over yonder.”

  “The tower on the lake's shore?” asked the abbess.

  “Yes. Would you like the honour?”

  “Your pardon?”

  “Renard has a spear with a burning rag soaked in mutton fat impaled on the point. At the word 'Fire!' you need only touch it to that little pile of black powder nea
r the base of the tube.”

  “Oh I could not!” exclaimed the abbess with a coy gesture.

  “I shall help.”

  “Oh no, really.”

  “Anyone can do it. Renard, give it here. Now then, take the spear by the base.”

  “Please, I am too clumsy,” laughed the abbess. “I cannot even be trusted to cut up vegetables.”

  “I'll help. Renard will call.”

  Gerald's hands pressed against hers on the shaft of the spear. The flaming rag hovered above the pile of black powder. Renard was inclined to draw out the moment for the couple's benefit.

  “Fire!”

  The rag dropped. There was a hiss as the priming powder ignited, then they were assailed by a sound like a thunderclap bursting in a confessional chamber, together with a flash as bright as lightning and a cloud of smoke that reeked of sulphur. The abbess shrieked and flung her arms around Sir Gerald. The smoke billowed aside in time to show something too swift to be seen smash the top of the tower to splinters. Moments later, a plume of water erupted high into the air, far out on the glassy surface of Derwent Water.

  Renard noticed that one of the nuns had fainted. The other two were fleeing down the road just as fast as their feet could be willed to move. Ahead of them was the priest, although the nuns were rapidly catching up. The ox had not bothered to use the road, but had fled straight over a field. Behind it the cart was disintegrating as it bounced and crashed over the rough ground. The branches of briar wound about the bombard's barrel had lost most of their leaves, and all of their flowers.

  “I did not know oxen could gallop,” said Renard.

  “I did not know nuns could sprint,” said Gerald.

  “I appear to have hit that tower,” said the abbess.

  “Nice shot,” said Gerald.

  “You have your arms around each other,” observed Renard.

  Abbess and knight drew apart. Ward, the yeoman of men-at-arms, put a hand on his biceps, made a fist, and smiled at Gerald.

  “Was that a rude gesture?” asked the abbess.

  “I—ah, it was a traditional gesture of congratulations,” stammered Gerald.

  “It means good shot,” said Renard helpfully, his head tilted at an angle and his arms folded.