by Mary Gentle
7 – [7 ‘Bey’: ‘commander’.]
8 – [‘Yeni çeri’, ‘Janissaries’, literally ‘new troops’.]
9 – [Regiment. The text is inaccurate here, as an orta would be commanded by a higher-ranking officer than a mere başi: a çorbaşi, or colonel, perhaps. (Literally, ‘chief soup-maker’.)]
10 – [Literally, ‘the city’; post-conquest term for Constantinople.]
11 – [9 a.m.]
12 – [John the Fearless, d. 1419.]
13 – [A trusted servant of Louis XI, reportedly sent in the autumn of 1476 to abduct Duchess Yolande of Savoy on behalf of the King of France, for political reasons.]
14 – [This description is tantalisingly similar to some of the rumoured results of military experiments with extreme electromagnetic force. The ‘curtains of light’ are presumably charged particles, like the aurora borealis.]
15 – [“By God!”]
Part Fifteen:
1 – [‘Always something new out of Africa.’ (The more common rendering of Pliny the Elder’s ‘Semper aliquid novi Africam adferre’.) The Sible Hedingham ms part 5.]
2 – [In the original text, ‘one of God’s touched’, and ‘God’s fool’.]
Part Sixteen:
1 – [Final section of the Sible Hedingham ms.]
2 – [‘Agape’, Greek: ‘Charity’. Of the New Testament.]
3 – [Rome?]
4 – [10 a.m.]
5 – [Small cannon.]
6 – [‘Without fear’.]
7 – [All quotes taken from the transcript of audio and visual sources, location RRFU HQ, Brussels, 14/5/2009 (Project Carthage archives).]
