Ghosts of Engines Past

by McMullen, Sean

  “There are other risks, exhilarating risks. Imagine this, imagine fifty spirited horses in a single team, thundering down a long, straight beach at low tide. They are pulling a cart, and on that cart is a flight engine, not merely a yard from wingtip to wingtip but fifteen yards. Upon the back of the giant flight engine is strapped my very self.”

  “A grand scheme, most excellent lady,” said Alren, looking up but seemingly not surprised.

  “As the speed increases the flight engine rises high into the air. I work a lever and drop the tether rope, I fly free, working the attitude of the wingtips with cords attached to my feet. I soar out over the water, I fly back over the land. I fly in circles, then I come gently down to the wet sand, sliding to a stop on a skid of springy wickerwork.”

  “Armen Firman has already proved that such flight is possible, excellent lady.”

  “Indeed, but inefficiently, with mere wings. Fifty years ago a colleague of the great Friar Bacon postulated a flight chariot, with flapping wings. He even built one, and tested it from a high cliff.”

  “Did it fly?”

  “Not quite.”

  Alren said “Ah,” then looked back to his sewing.

  “I have studied all aspects of flight, Alren. Humans can fly and live to tell of it, Armen Firman and Elmer of Malmesbury proved that. Humans are too weak to flap wings as birds do, however. Friar Bacon's friend died proving that.”

  “So did al-Djawhari of Nisabur, three hundred years ago.”

  “Yet birds may soar by merely holding their wings in a shallow v-shape, and my silk and wicker models fly equally well,” insisted Angela, blazing with enthusiasm. “Models prove that machines can fly. Friar Bacon's colleague was almost right. A flight chariot can be built to soar like a bird with its wings held in a v-shape. Just consider, a man cannot ride a goat because he is too heavy—”

  “But a man can ride in a cart pulled by a goat,” said Alren, closing his eyes and wearily putting a hand to his forehead. “A man cannot wear wings big enough to support his weight, but he can fly within a flight engine, that has sufficiently big wings.”

  Angela stared at the Moor, her eyes shining.

  “That is from my book,” she commented.

  “That is where I read it. Your reasoning is without fault. Dangerous perhaps, but without fault.”

  Angela gestured to her own sewing. “I have been slowly building just such a flight engine for a month past. What I am sewing just now is the left wingtip, ah, but I shall have to abandon it now. In a year it would have been finished, then fly I most certainly would have.”

  “And died, perhaps.”

  “Sir Philip and Baron Raimond ventured into the borderlands of death when they jousted, but nevertheless returned.”

  “Have you no gratitude to Philip?” admonished Alren.

  “No more than his late wife had.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sir Philip believes that pain drives out evil. He has himself whipped every day by a well muscled young squire. He used to whip his wife before he went a-bed with her, so that the evils of lust and passion would be driven out of her before the holy act of procreation. One night he purged the evil from her rather too enthusiastically. She died, yet the church praised Philip as a pious and holy man, and did not punish him. You can imagine what would happen to me if I were to become his wife.”

  Alren shook her head.

  “Had Sir Philip won, you might have felt differently.”

  “Had he won I would have kept the drawbridge up. Wherever I turn, death awaits me.”

  “What of Raimond?”

  “Raimond is brave and clever, but misguided. When he courted me, he tried to impress me with martial victories, not comprehending that a short, scholarly tract on the nature of feathers would impress me more. The man wastes himself on wars and tournaments—and sieges. Alren, Alren, tomorrow I shall die and there is nothing more certain. As soon as the first stone ball from Baron Raimond's trebuchet smashes into my tower's walls, I shall order the gates open, the barbican's drawbridge lowered, and all arms laid down. Then I shall leap from the top of the Tower of Wings wearing my plunge cape. It is but a poor substitute for a full sized flight engine, but it is all that I have.”

  “It may not work, excellent lady.”

  “In that case, death by falling from a great height is a great deal quicker and less painful than death by fire. Before that I shall burn my books before the bishops get the chance.”

  “Why, excellent lady?”

  “Sheer spite.”

  “Excellent lady, I wish I could help.”

  Quite suddenly Angela knelt down, put a hand beneath his chin and kissed him upon the lips. Alren gasped and pulled away, dropping the almost completed harness.

  “Excellent lady, this is not seemly!” he exclaimed. “Your honour would be tarnished.”

  Angela sat back and hung her head, staring at the rug on the floor.

  “Of all the men in my life, why is it that only an elderly, dying friar and a pious but heathen Moor have been able to win my regard?”

  Alren clasped his hands and shook his head miserably.

  “I cannot say.”

  “Alren, tomorrow I shall die. Should you wish it that I not die a virgin, you alone may visit my bedchamber tonight.”

  “I—I wish it, excellent lady, but honour forbids it.”

  Angela sighed, rested her elbows on her knees and her chin on her clasped hands. A tear ran down one cheek.

  “Is there indeed anything I can do for you? Being a Moor, you may be treated badly when the tower falls, but you can escape tonight. My people can get you over the walls and across the moat. After that the villagers will hide you.”

  “It is you who should flee, excellent lady.”

  “No. If I escaped, the English would begin to slaughter those in the tower until I returned.” She sniffled, tears now on both cheeks. “Nobody will know about you.”

  “Excellent lady, may I take your books?”

  “My books?” she asked, looking up.

  “Raimond and the bishops will surely use them against you, then burn them anyway. I shall take them back to Spain so that at least Moorish scholars may remember you.”

  Angela stood up. “Then take them and go, and take my blessing too. I shall make the arrangements for your departure.”

  Baron Raimond was roused an hour before dawn, and Alren was shown into his tent. The Moor had a pack on his back, and was dressed as a pedaler.

  “I expected you earlier,” said Raimond.

  “I had to secure her books,” replied the Moor. “It was not easy.”

  Raimond watched as Alren unpacked Angela's life's work. He flicked through the pages by lamplight.

  “It is as I remember,” said Raimond. “More than enough to send the bishops reaching for the brushwood and firebrands.”

  “I am glad to be away from her,” sighed Alren. “For a year I have been in her confidence. I have been her friend, welcomed every time I visited the Tower of Winds to study her writings. The strain of deception has been heavy upon my conscience.”

  “And I am grateful for your trouble, my loyal and faithful conspirator.”

  The throwing arm of the trebuchet stood almost vertical, towering over Raimond's camp as Wat inspected it in the cool morning air. Satisfied, he nodded to the trebuchet captain who gave an order.

  A dozen men pushed at the levers of the trebuchet's windlass. The ratchet clacked rapidly at first, but as the arm began to depart further from the vertical the work became harder. After ten minutes the heavy box of stones that was the counterweight had risen several feet, and the throwing arm was horizontal. Wat paced around the huge, wooden machine again.

  “No cracks, no warping,” the captain declared proudly.

  “There had better not be,” Wat replied.

  “Where is the baron? I had thought that he would want to command this engine himself.”

  “The baron is busy elsewhere, ther
e is more to breaching a castle than smashing the walls. You have been named to carry out his instructions.”

  The team continued to wind. Within another ten minutes the throwing arm's head was nearly touching the ground. A sling containing one of the stone balls was hooked to the arm, then a rope was tied to the release catch. This rope was handed to the captain as trumpets blared a fanfare. The captain gave the rope to a team of peasants.

  “Clear the surrounds,” ordered Wat.

  The men of the windlass team hurried to one side. Everyone else was already clear.

  “At your word,” said Wat to the captain.

  “Have the trumpets sound a warning.”

  The trumpets brayed another brief fanfare. The captain raised his hand, then brought it down sharply. The team of peasants hauled at the rope attached to the release pin. The pin clinked free, releasing the throwing arm. The box containing twelve tons of rocks descended, hauling the throwing arm around with a mighty creaking of joints and axles. The whole trebuchet rolled forward as the box came down, then back as its centre of gravity passed behind the axle, then forward as it returned again. The sling was whipped around, flinging the sandstone ball in a great arc and releasing it. The three hundred pound ball hissed through the air, rising high and dark against the blue sky, then thudded into the rich turf twenty years to the left of the outer wall of the Tower of Wings, and a yard short of the abandoned cart. Those in Raimond's camp cheered.

  “A miss!” shouted the tower's seneschal, and the men at arms with him cheered.

  “He aims at the cart!” retorted Lady Angela impatiently. “Had he been aiming at the outer walls he would have struck true the very first time.”

  They were standing at the top of the Tower of Wings, and had a better panoramic view of proceedings than anyone else. Already the arm of the trebuchet was being wound down again by the windlass team.

  “So, he means this just as a warning?” said the seneschal.

  “Yes, and if I do not heed his warning he will soon bring that thing to bear on the walls. See that long, light ramp behind it? He must mean to use it to span the moat. This is the end.”

  “There is always hope while—”

  “Get two servants, carry my trunk up here.”

  “My lady, you cannot mean to do this!” exclaimed the seneschal.

  “Need I repeat my order, Stephen?”

  “No, my lady.”

  The trebuchet took twenty minutes to wind down again. A maidservant was buckling Lady Angela into her harness as the distant trumpets sounded, and they all turned to the south. The mighty machine's arm swung up as the box dropped, and the trebuchet rolled forward as a second stone ball was flung into the sky. It rose in a smooth arc, almost like a feather lofted by a strong wind, then descended. There was a heavy thud as the cart was splashed apart into a cloud of fragments and splinters. Again the English besiegers cheered.

  “That was only his second cast,” said the seneschal. “Why with such accuracy he could choose which individual stone he wanted to hit in the curtain wall.”

  “Or put a rock through my bedchamber window,” muttered Lady Angela.

  “They are winding the arm down for a third cast,” said the senschal.

  “The baron has issued his warning,” said Angela grimly as she climbed up between the crenelations at the edge of the tower. “The next cast will be to show what he can do against stone walls. Secure the cords to my harness, and tie good knots. After that, hold out the plunge cape to either side of me, hold it high, spread out over the edge of the tower on pikes.”

  Beside the trebuchet the captain was shouting for the attention of his cheering, dancing crewmen.

  “Back to work, ye buggers! Shoulders to the windlass!”

  Wat put a hand on the captain's shoulder and gestured to the ramp.

  “That proves it holds together and casts true. Now we'll we use the master's special missile. I'll uncover it and fasten the tether.”

  They stood ready, Lady Angela crouched between the crenelations while her people held the plunge cape spread above her like a huge, green awning. In the distance they could see men tending something on the ramp that had been built behind the trebuchet. It was a red thing, luridly bright red. In the summer heat it seemed to shimmer like flames.

  “I do believe they mean to cast a fire missile next,” said the seneschal.

  “A burning oxhide filled with oil,” cried Lady Angela. “It will burst in a carpet of fire, it will kill dozens.”

  “No, the trebuchet is still aimed wide. He means to smear fire all over the fields before us, to frighten us into surrendering.”

  “Well then, after I jump surrender the tower. Not a single one of those fire missiles must come over the walls.”

  The trumpets blared again. Lady Angela whispered a brief prayer and clenched her fists. The arm of the trebuchet swung up, the machine rolled forward—and something huge and red was drawn up the ramp, something far wider than the trebuchet, something with vast, red wings that rose up into the clear air more steeply than the heavy stone balls. The tether slipped free and the flight engine continued to ascend in a steep, impossible trajectory. Lady Angela very nearly fell from the wall in sheer surprise. From below and behind her came cries of amazement, while cheers echoed across the fields from Raimond's camp. The device had shot straight out of the pages of her book on flight.

  Strapped into the wicker cradle of the flight engine, Baron Raimond was aware of no cheers, only of the air buffeting his face, hissing through his hair and roaring in his ears while the horizon tilted and rocked before his eyes. Off to the right and below was the Tower of Wings, suddenly presented from a totally alien perspective. He was within bowshot, in spite of his speed and height. Lady Angela had ordered that no archer of hers should ever shoot at anything flying, yet did that order extend to him?

  The ground was a patchwork of greens; he had never realised that the countryside looked like a quilt until now. Everything seemed to be moving slowly, yet it was only because the ground was so far away. Even on the fastest horse that he had ever ridden, the air had never moved past so rapidly. When I come down I will still be moving as fast, passed through Raimond's mind. His heart was hammering, his mouth was dry. This was the heady thrill of battle, the intense fright of charging another knight in a tourney, this was knowing that death was at his shoulder, kept from claiming him by no more than some red silk and wicker. The flight engine was not hard to control, it practically flew itself. A warhorse was more difficult to ride, yet a warhorse was slower and closer to the ground. The world seemed so far away that no sounds reached him but the wind in his ears, yet everything that he saw was quite stark and lurid. This was his third flight, yet he had not noticed the effect before. A bird needs eyes more than ears while in flight, perhaps our ears become dormant while we fly, he thought.

  Suddenly realising that he was past the Tower of Wings and descending, Raimond pushed back against the right control cord with his foot, raising a flap at the right wingtip. The flight engine began curving around, circling the Tower of Wings. At its summit were several figures holding a large, green awning over the side, just as Alren had warned. Fields, trees and hedgerows passed below. Newly shorn sheep, intensely white against the green fields, scattered as the monstrous shadow passed over them. He was only twice the height of the tower's summit by the time he had turned back upon his initial path, and in the distance was the trebuchet, the mighty siege engine whose twelve tons of counterweight had given his flight engine its speed and flung it into the sky. He continued to turn, circling the tower again. The green awning was still there but was now just draped over the edge, and the figures were watching and pointing. Other tiny, dark figures swarmed about the walls, barbican and bailey, like ants disturbed by a boot on their nest. The flight engine was still performing well, but there was the matter of landing to attend.

  Raimond was still high and fast enough to return to his camp, but that was not his intention. He caught sight
of a clearing ringed with trees that he had scouted days earlier, then reached under his wicker cradle and tugged at a cord, spilling sand from a sack fastened beneath him. Very quickly the prow of the flight engine tilted up, and it began to lose speed and drop. He descended below the level of the tree tops.

  Angela watched the flight engine vanish from view, the harness of the plunge cape now discarded at her feet.

  “The flight engine turns purposefully, as if being guided,” she whispered to herself. “Someone must be riding upon it.”

  Pushing his feet against the cords controlling to the wing flaps, Baron Raimond straightened his frail craft, glanced at the grassy ground rising up to meet him with familiar but terrifying swiftness, then felt the wickerwork skid scrape turf, bouncing the flight engine back into the air before it came down more gently and slid to a stop. It tilted over onto its right wing as Alren came running over to unfasten the buckles that had held the baron secure during the flight. Raimond was drenched in perspiration.

  “Must return,” he stammered as the Moor helped him to his feet.

  “Excellent lordship, your horse is behind those hawthorne bushes. Are you sure you can ride?”

  “Ride yes, walk no. If you please, help me to my mount.”

  The baron set off at once, leaving Alren to guard the clearing and flight engine. As he reached the trebuchet, the news arrived that the Tower of Wings had surrendered. The drawbridge was being lowered.

  “You have your tower sire, undamaged,” Raimond said to Edward.

  “Yes, they have capitulated!” exclaimed Edward. “Why?”

  “Because Angela is a lady of great scholarship, and I flattered her by building that device. There is now, ah, the matter of...”

  “Yes, yes, I shall deal with the bishops.”

  With that Raimond reeled, nearly fell, then dropped to his knees and vomited at the feet of his king. Edward helped him back to his feet.

  “Raimond, you are soaked with sweat, pale and exhausted, and trembling like a new-born foal even though there has been no fighting,” said Edward. “You flew on that thing, did you not? You hid within the long wicker basket and flew.”