The Invention of Fire: A Novel

by Bruce Holsinger

  “Not an overly indebted future, I hope.”

  “A new subsidy is inevitable, I’m afraid,” said the chancellor with a heavy sigh. “More taxes, more discontent, more force from above.”

  “And more rebellion?”

  He blinked. “If not from the Commons, then from the Lords, I fear.”

  He looked at Rune, who nodded my way, signaling the end of our appointment. I rose. The earl’s face sagged as he received my bow, then he looked aside, and I left his chambers sour-stomached and perturbed.

  Rune walked with me to the great hall. We stood at the end of the passage. A droning bailiff descanted from Common Pleas.

  I was about to take my leave of the chancellor’s secretary when Rune grasped my elbow, closed in. “Snell has isolated himself down there, Gower,” he said, his breath slightly foul on my cheek. “This is more than bureaucratic arrogance. The man thinks himself a kind of god, running the armory like some new Olympus. And he never comes out. Nor does he respond to letters, and our messengers have been beaten, thrashed, threatened with knives and swords. All we get up here are bills and rumors.”

  “The Tower is less than three miles from where we stand,” I pointed out. “Surely his lordship the earl or any other of the higher lords could take a company down there with orders from King Richard and simply turn the man out.”

  “Surely, you say,” he responded with a note of disdain. “You cannot think we haven’t considered it, plotted it, mapped it all out? The truth is everyone is so terrified of the man, no one wants to confront him—not with Gaunt and our most tactical military men out of the country, and France massing for an invasion. Snell has himself and his guns and his men bulwarked all along the northern walls, practically daring us to come in and uproot him. A dragon sitting on his hoard. The castle that is supposed to be guarding our city has instead become its greatest vulnerability.”

  “So what do you suggest, Rune?” I said, hiding my surprise at this show of royal weakness. “Should we commission an actual dragon or two to fire the place? Or hire a mercenary army from Italy, perhaps Hawkwood and his company?”

  He turned his face to me. It was stony, free of passion. “Jest if you wish, Gower. But there is more at risk here than you can possibly know. We need every ally we can maintain to help keep the Tower in line. And on the subject of allies, what of Brembre?”

  I answered him cautiously. “The mayor is showing some reluctance to pursue the Walbrook murders.” I watched Rune’s eyes. They narrowed at the edges.

  “That is disturbing news, Gower. Shall I confront him myself?”

  Rune could sense my hesitation. Though the chancellor and the mayor were both in the king’s faction, they had very different interests at stake, and I hardly wished to unsettle relations between the two powerful men. Never stir waters that need no stirring, as my father liked to say. “Nicholas Brembre is no weak-kneed baron, eager to protect an unspotted reputation,” I said. “Give me time to lift a few leaves, Rune. If I need another hand pushing on this I will let you and the earl know.”

  “Good then,” he said, looking somewhat mollified. Rune palmed my elbow and shared one last thought. “You will be doing the lord chancellor a fair favor if you can find a way to rattle Snell. Pull him from his moorings down there, put things right. Discover who committed this atrocity, Gower, and the extent of Snell’s involvement. It would be a great help at Parliament time should things up here grow . . . dangerous.”

  So there it was. With one finger in a hornet’s nest I was about to shove in an arm, and damn the thousand stings.

  Chapter 8

  STEPHEN MARSH PEERED DOWN at the swirled width of mud far below, the very bottom of the wide ditch separating the Iron Gate from the old Well Tower, which stood as the first-built sentry to the great complex sprawling to the north and west of him. At Stephen’s insistence his entry to the Tower late that afternoon would be from the east rather than from the heavily trafficked entrance off Tower Street, always crowded with Londoners seeking alms, favor, and news. One of Snell’s men, after meeting him at the stairs below St. Katharine’s wharf, had led him up and over this, the narrowest of passages, to the curtain wall, where he now stood alone, waiting for his audience with the king’s armorer. It was a glorious day, crisp and clear, and as he smelled the autumn air his gaze wandered toward the river. At the far end of the ditch, where the moat fosses met the Thames, a brave clutch of morning bathers sprawled on the wide quay, daring the guard to descend and try to take them. Beyond the swimmers two royal balingers stood out on the river, flashing colorful banners from yardarms and mastheads.

  “This way.”

  Two new guards, one beckoning for him to follow. They walked north, away from the river, over the walls and through several towers. The whole perimeter bristled with men and spears. The sentryway then took them east before their descent through the Bowyer Tower just down from St. Peter ad Vincula, the parish church that lay within the Tower grounds. The guards led him to that end of the wide yard, currently occupied with a hobelar company. Yorkshiremen, judging from the banner held by one of the front-most riders, and though Stephen had always appreciated the vastness of the Tower, he was surprised to see such a quantity of horses at work among the towers and walls.

  The guards left him in the yard and disappeared through a low door in one of the wide, squat buildings set against the inner wall. Marsh turned to watch the light cavalry at their martial labor. Champing and impatient in the mellow sun, the horses were agile, well muscled, light on their feet, their riders showing off for the king’s archers watching from a side rank. As London had armed itself over the preceding months it had pressed whole hosts of brigades from the shires, regional forces brought in to augment the defenses of the city and the Tower. A mongrel army, was the talk, with little overall discipline, reliant on these pockets of ferocity and skill to engage an enemy of sprawling numbers and unknown strength.

  “Forward!” the captain shouted. His board-straight back was to Stephen, his gaze sweeping the company, advancing in three unequal ranks. Four in front, then eight, then twelve. A wedge, as Stephen saw it, the first meant to penetrate the enemy’s ranks, with the subsequent lines pouring in behind. The captain backed his horse as he surveyed the moving lines, barking directions here and there.

  “Marsh.”

  Stephen turned to see William Snell standing calmly behind him. He performed a half bow that was answered by a slight nod from the armorer, who assessed him through narrowed eyes birdlike and quick. Snell was a short man, yet taut and muscled, seemingly compacted from the same iron and rock making up the engines and walls around them. As in the tavern a few nights before, he was dressed with little regard to fashion or station, with a laceless and undyed coat thrown over his shoulders and fastened with a belt of twisted wool. The sleeves ended at his elbows in ragged hems, showing strong forearms that ended in thick wrists and fine-boned but coarsened hands.

  He caught Stephen looking at his attire. “I am a workingman, Marsh, like you and your men, not some ink-stained scrivener polishing his arse all day in the chancery. Come along.”

  Turning past the church, Snell took him along a path between the edge of the yard and the low buildings against the north wall, which were joined by a cloisterlike covered walkway built of rough beams and boards. Once inside the airy passage Snell led them from storeroom to storeroom, pausing at every turn to allow Stephen to marvel at the quantities of arms kept by the privy wardrobe. Whole chambers were given over to infantry armor and helms, all glistening with a pungent grease to ward off moisture and rust. Plated shields were stacked by the dozens from end to end and from floor to ceiling, their straps and braces removed for ease of storage and stuffed in bulging sacks suspended from the beam ceiling. The next room was a forest of whittled wood and low skeins of hempstring for the making of bows. Another consisted entirely of crossbow bolts. These were wrapped by the score in leather and thongs, the bundles stacked to the ceiling in the hundreds. Four, p
erhaps five thousand bolts, by Stephen’s estimation, all neatly stored for easy removal when war finally came.

  Now the guns. Snell guided Stephen to the base of one of 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 armorer said. “Without powder and shot they are no more than water pipes. We have laid in enough shot—iron, lead, stone—for the defense 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 molds 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 armorer, 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 armorer 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 armorer’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 sulfur 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-story 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 armorer 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 armorer 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 armorer 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 sizable 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 armorer. 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 modeled 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 armorer 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 a prospect would be welcomed by my mistress,” he said cautiously. “With my master’s death, a royal commission would make all the difference for the stability of the foundry.”

  Snell barked a short laugh. “Don’t play the knave with me, Marsh. This is not a commission to Stone’s, for entry in the good widow’s ledgers, or prattling among the parish gossips. This is an individual assignment, to you and you alone. Hawisia Stone is to know nothing of it.”

  Stephen fought against a frown, mindful of Hawisia’s sullen mistrust. “If this is to be done at Stone’s I’ll be forced to fire and forge behind her back yet under her widow’s nose. I fear she will catch me out at it and drag me to the wardmoot or the Guildhall. My sentence is already enough of a burden.” Ten years. Ten years.

  “Fear is a distraction, Marsh. One I don’t covet this season. I ask you to remember that I am giving you an opportunity here. A chance to serve your king and your country, in an hour of great need.” Snell leaned forward to place a hand on the younger man’s knee. “We are facing war. The French are massing at Sluys once more, Lancaster is abroad in Castile. Men of talent must band together, give their best to the realm.” He smiled broadly. “Besides, everyone knows you are the muscle and mind of that operation. Why you never struck out on your own while you had the chance is a mystery, at least to those I know in your craft. Surely you will find a way to work around her suspicions.”

  Stephen felt himself nod, his confidence returning. “Aye, Master Snell. I surely will. I will, or the devil take my body and bread.”

  “Another oath!” Snell’s eyes flashed a greyish red in the streaming light. “Good fellow.” The armorer patted Stephen’s leg again. “You’ll learn that I am a hungry man, Marsh. Hungry for progress, for innovation.”

  “What sort of innovation?”

  “You will be working on a new kind of gun, Stephen, and in the process helping me solve a problem that has been perplexing me for some months. A problem of efficiency that only you can solve. It will take many tries, many failures, yet I am confident your mind and hands will find the answer for us.”