The Powder of Death

by Julian Stockwin

Jared regarded her for a long moment then decided. ‘I will tell you. While with the Mongols on a siege I witnessed such a sight, such a miracle …’

  It all came out. Everything – the demoniac flash and thunder that brought down the gates and ruin and slaughter to the city. The extraction from Wang of the secret and its burning on his memory. His deliverance into freedom and return to Hurnwych, then his futile attempts to bring it into existence here in England.

  ‘If I can make this huo yao, then with it I can tear down every castle wall in the kingdom! All those vain and arrogant lords and ladies will then be made to live among the people they would rule!’

  At first he quailed, realising too late that she herself was a proud lady, but then in time remembered that as a merchant whose success was of her own making she might very well sympathise.

  ‘This huo yao, is …?’

  ‘The Cathayan name for it.’ He thought for a moment, then recalled the trial and the inquisitor’s term for the powder. It would serve for now. ‘You may call it devil’s dust.’

  ‘Then with your devil’s dust you will achieve this?’ This was no mocking, only a serious enquiry.

  ‘Its force is terrible and unlimited and nothing may stand against it. If indeed I could bring it to life then it will be so, but …’

  She shook her head slowly in wonder. ‘If any other told me a tale as yours I would make scorn of them, but you have no reason to gull me and I must accept what you say.’

  ‘You don’t despise my quest?’

  ‘No, Jared, I do not. It does you honour, but if you were successful I believe it would have a wider purpose.’

  ‘But I’m not!’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’ve tried everything and—’

  ‘There may be something. Some years ago our family lawyer died and left his library to my husband. As I must, I read all his volumes to discover anything of value to commerce, and I do well remember one small book with a note in it that this very work frightened no less than the great and worthy Friar Roger Bacon. I was interested and studied it, a curious work brought back from your part of the world, but in the end to me it seemed a fraud, full of superstition. But there was a section on fire that gives a recipe for a thunder weapon. Do you think—?’

  ‘Do you still have it?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Please … can I see it – now?’

  His intensity took her aback but she agreed and left. In a short while she returned with a small and frayed book.

  ‘Here.’

  Jared took it and devoured it with his eyes, but he could make out nothing of its small, dense script. Thanks to his father he was familiar with the English of accounts and orders but this was like nothing he’d come across before.

  ‘It’s in Latin,’ she prompted. ‘Shall I read it to you?’

  He handed it back defensively.

  ‘It’s by a Marcus Graecus – Mark the Greek, who I’ve never heard of. A collection of recipes concerning fire,’ she murmured, flicking over the pages. ‘Some are difficult to construe, I don’t know the Moorish names. Others are … well, nonsense, ridiculous. Do you want me to go on?’

  ‘You said thunder weapons?’

  ‘I’m trying to remember. They were … ah, here we are. It’s mixed up with the recipe for flying fire. It says, “Take a pound of living sulphur, two pounds of willow charcoal and six pounds of saltpetre. Grind very finely then mix together. For making thunder, place in a stout case bound with iron wire, for the force thereof is very great.”’

  The world stood still. In his bones he knew this was the huo yao he’d been unable to create – except for one thing.

  ‘This salt peter. Does it say anything about—’

  ‘Yes, salis petrosi it certainly says. Common saltpetre.’

  ‘C-common?’

  ‘Of course! We use it in cooking to preserve meats for the winter, but then you’re not to know this, being a man,’ she teased.

  ‘Have you – could we find some?’ he stammered.

  ‘Really? Cook has gone home by now, but I’ll see if there is any in her larder.’

  She returned with a small handful of something wrapped in a cloth. ‘This is our saltpetre.’

  He opened it up on the table and stared at it.

  Crystals, white but flecked.

  He dipped a wet finger in, and almost afraid to hope, tasted it.

  The quite unmistakeable sweet tingle of hsiao!

  His thoughts roared. The three ingredients the same, it had to be the formulary for devil’s dust but the proportions were wildly different to what he’d been painfully working through. The hsiao – that is to say the saltpetre – six times that of sulphur? He’d started by equal measures for all, but this was far more skewed, and if it was the real thing it could well explain his failure!

  He sat down suddenly. Wang had demonstrated the huo yao before his eyes, knowing that the highest secret was in the proportions, which he’d gone on to cleverly conceal.

  Raising his eyes he saw her looking at him in concern. He gave a twisted smile and said with feeling, ‘I can’t rest until I’ve tried this. If it’s true, then …’

  ‘Then we’d better see if it is,’ she said flatly. ‘There’s no use dreaming until you have something in your hands.’

  ‘We?’ he asked softly.

  ‘You’re going to need somewhere to work and another place to try it out. Now let me see … yes. I have a storeroom, which I could get cleared and then let it be known that you’re experimenting with a new dyeing method, which is not to be revealed to my rivals. This has happened before, it will be accepted. You may work there in peace. The other – where to try it out – is more of a question.’

  She thought deeply, then smiled. ‘Yes – perfect. Not so far from here the road leaves the river because it comes over a high precipice in a waterfall and it must go around. The waterfall is at the end of a small ravine that no one visits because it ends at the cliff itself. Should your thunder work, then the sound will be well enclosed and people will think it a distant cloudburst.’

  ‘Rosamunde – why are you doing this?’

  ‘Because … I think you are a man who deserves something from me … for my husband’s sake. And besides, I believe you in what you say and if you succeed, I wish it that I was the one who made the way smooth for you.’

  CHAPTER 51

  Jared set up his workshop quickly. The charcoal was easy and the sulphur could be readily refined as he’d done before. The saltpetre, however, would need much more purifying before it could be used and for the amount he needed was ruinously expensive. Rosamunde had made no comment, letting him get on with it.

  This was his last and only chance and he was not going to take shortcuts. The alchemist’s sulphur looked pure but he was going to make sure, and soon the throat-catching reek of sulphur fumes filled the air and eddied up into the opening to the outside. He wasn’t concerned, for here in the city there were far worse stinks, such as those from tanning.

  He did the pulverising with the utmost care, twice the time the Cathayans took. And he would complete it just like them – clay pots and cloth fuses.

  He found three empty herb pots in the kitchen and prepared for the big trial in rising excitement.

  Saddling up a palfrey from the stable, he followed Rosamunde’s directions and arrived at the spot where the road diverged from the river. There, he found a barely noticeable path, which he rode along until continuing on horseback became impractical. Tying his mount to a tree he walked on and soon met the edge of the river – not a large one but issuing out from a dark ravine over a tumble of smoothed boulders.

  The only way ahead was to jump from rock to rock but it enabled him to enter the dank coolness, past the steep face of the scarp and into the ravine. It was more a narrowing cleft, but of surprising length and took a good ten minutes to reach the dull roar of the waterfall.

  He looked about and saw nothing but sheer heigh
ts to the edge of the woodland above.

  As Rosamunde had said, it was perfect.

  There was no reason to delay – he had to know if he had the secret in his grasp at last.

  ‘I’m ready to give trial to the devil’s dust. Would you like to come?’ he asked Rosamunde the next morning.

  It seemed, however, that she was not available so Jared readied for the trial on his own.

  Each of the ingredients carefully packed in separate bags.

  Flint and steel, the mortar and pestle and the three pots.

  He rode slowly toward the diverging path, stopped and dismounted as if adjusting the beast’s girth. With nobody in sight he continued along the path to the same place as before and he left his mount, the bridle looped over a branch.

  He made his way into the ravine. On one side near the waterfall he found what he was looking for – a flat rock untouched by mist from the cascade.

  Taking a last look around, Jared addressed himself to the task. Using a spoon as a standard measure he carefully added the ingredients to the mortar in the proportions given. After industriously grinding the mixture to a suitable fineness the result looked exactly the same as before: a grey, anonymous powder.

  He half-filled one of the pots and wound in the cloth. For a moment he held it in his hands; very soon he would know.

  Collecting his things he took them to a safe distance and putting the flint and steel to work he quickly had a taper candle alight.

  Heart hammering, he took it across the rocks to the waiting pot and extended the flame. The cloth caught.

  He wheeled away, scrambling over the boulders as fast as he could.

  Behind him a colossal thunderclap erupted, its sound magnified by the funnelling ravine; a frightful, glorious blast!

  He felt its hot wind and turned to see grey-white smoke towering up in a triumphant plume, the pitter-patter of fragments falling all about him – and then an echoing silence.

  In that moment he knew his life was going to change beyond recognition.

  CHAPTER 52

  ‘Then what is your result?’ Rosamunde asked sweetly, putting down her slate of accounts.

  He took a deep breath. ‘I have to tell you … that this day I called down heaven’s thunder for my own.’

  She stared at him. ‘You mean that …?’

  ‘Yes! I have the secret and nothing will stop me now!’

  There was shock on her face, disbelief.

  ‘Did you not think I could do it?’ he said exultantly.

  ‘To be honest with you, Jared, I thought it all a strange fancy you brought back from your ordeal that needed purging, and …’ She trailed off.

  He leant back, a satisfied smile playing. ‘The folk in those castles will never—’

  Suddenly she turned to face him. ‘Leave that for the moment – this needs a deal of working out,’ she said sharply, now as hard as any close-fisted merchant.

  He frowned. ‘The castles – this is why—’

  ‘So you’re going to walk up to them, and with your thunderbolts tear down their walls? Every castle in the land?’ she said cuttingly. ‘Why? Will they let you? What will you do when they send out their knights to cut you to pieces?’

  ‘I, er …’

  ‘Well, tell me – how will you do it? What did the Mongols do, for instance?’

  ‘A party of brave men rushed up and stacked pots against the city walls with a tail of fire to set them off.’

  She gave a hard look. ‘Do I need to go on? If you haven’t noticed, all castles in our part of Christendom have a wide moat and drawbridge before any of your gates. Must they then jump to place their pots?’

  There was no answering this.

  ‘Let me be plain. You now have the secret of fire and thunder. That’s well done and clever of you. But worthless! No one’s going to pay hard coin for a trifle.’

  ‘Coin?’ he said, hurt. ‘This is not—’

  ‘Jared. The world out there is harder in a way that with all your trials you’ve never had to go up against. It’s a world where things are decided by the power that comes with wealth. Now let’s put aside the nonsense that you’re going to tear down castle walls yourself. You told me before you’ll get others to do it for you. They won’t do it unless you make it attractive to them to do so. For that you have to find some way of turning your devil’s dust into something they can see and desire, that will enable them to break down walls. Then they’ll pay you good money to secure it and at the same time do your job for you. This is the way of the world – do you understand me?’

  He nodded dumbly. Here was a practicality grounded in an experience of a kind he was a stranger to, but which made so much sense.

  ‘And I’ll be honest with you. I decided to bear with your imaginings because you’re a good man, and I … like you. A terrible destroyer of castles made from meat preservative, leper medicine and wood charcoal – your common alchemist can come up with a far better tale, as they do. I was going to indulge you as a kindness to a kinsman, and then make my farewell as you left to whatever fortune would bring you in this life. Now it seems you’ve succeeded in that very thing – and I have to think hard about it.’

  It was another side of Rosamunde: calculating, forceful, level-headed. He’d never known one as clear-thinking, let alone a woman. He was drawn to her strength.

  ‘This is what I’ll do. You have one month. If in that time you can bring to me an idea of how you’ll turn your huo yao into something practical, I’ll fund it.’

  ‘Can I ask why?’

  ‘If you achieve this, it will be a great matter and I want to profit from it.’

  ‘We’ll join together,’ Jared enthused.

  ‘We’ll have a relationship. A business affair, if that is your meaning,’ she said firmly. ‘Your part is clear and your month starts in the morn.’

  CHAPTER 53

  In the days that followed Jared paced about his room, hammering at the problem until his head ached. Several times he rode into the countryside for peace and solitude. He had caught what Rosamunde was saying: that offering the huo yao on its own would get no interest. What was needed was a ready means of using it, a saleable thing of sorts.

  But what? The clay pots were impractical in England. The only thing he could think of was to put them into a mangonel and throw it at the walls. But this would not do the job – stones lofted high came back down at a sharp angle then glanced off. This method would end with the pots shattered.

  It was a conundrum. Any device to throw the pots would not work. There had to be an answer.

  And it came to him in a completely unexpected way.

  Outside in the street, children were playing noisily in bursts of glee at some devilment. He crossed to the window to shout down at them, and from his viewpoint saw that one lad was hiding behind a horse. He was wielding a powpe, a small toy that he was using to shoot peas at his unsuspecting friends.

  Jared opened his mouth to bellow at the children but in a sudden flash of insight he saw something that left him speechless.

  The powpe was simply the stem of some plant with the pith removed, leaving a smooth tube. A pea was inserted at one end and with a mighty puff at the other it was sent on its way.

  If instead of a boy’s huffing it was the huo yao doing the work, then judging from the violence he’d seen in the ravine, the pea would rush out as if all the demons of hell were after it.

  He thought feverishly. This was more than possible – and if the whole thing were scaled up, instead of a tiny pea, a great rock like those of the mangonel could be used. And these like the pea would hit the walls straight and direct in a smashing strike that no castle could withstand!

  At the awesome vision he had to sit and calm himself.

  The device should contain all the power of the huo yao, letting it exit just one way – by forcing out the ‘pea’ from one end only. So was that all? A tube closed off at one end? It would have to be strong, very strong – made of iron, in fact. />
  He’d start small, a ‘pea’ the size of a grape perhaps, just to test the principle. This would define the size of the instrument. About a foot or two long and a bore no greater than an inch.

  Fill the thing with devil’s dust, drop in a grape-sized object, point it towards the foe and set it off.

  But his blacksmith’s craft told him that making it wouldn’t be quite so straightforward. In his experience there were plenty of articles in the form of a tube, such as the socket on a scythe blade to take the wooden haft or a halberd’s affixing to the spear shaft, but all of these were short and shaped at the horn of an anvil. Nowhere was there a need outside lead plumbing for a continuous length of pipe.

  In the absence of a parallel-sided mandrel for interior shaping there was no other recourse than hand beating: a rectangular iron plate, heated at the edge then upset back on itself until it had been rolled into a pipe. Then forge-welded along the seam with one end crimped off.

  In his mind’s eye he saw his iron tube and filled it with devil’s dust, dropping perhaps a child’s marble on top. Then he’d only need to …

  How was he going to get at the devil’s dust to set it off?

  A long thread burning from the open end? It couldn’t get past the ‘pea’, for the devil’s dust was by definition sealed off from the outside world.

  He bunched his fists in frustration but the solution soon came.

  If he needed to get at the huo yao, he’d have to make a discreet passageway to it – spike a hole to where it lay inside, and let the fire rouse it to action.

  For the rest of the day he tested the idea in his mind, tracing through the stages one by one, and could see no gaps in his reasoning. Yet if he went on with an expensive smithy job and he’d overlooked something it would be the end for him – Rosamunde would lose faith in his abilities and call a halt.

  Jared was confident of the ironwork but would the huo yao behave as he’d predicted or under forced restraint would it just lie there sullenly? He had to find out before going any further.