The Invention of Fire. Bruce Holsinger

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ as dusk closed around the streets of Aldgate Ward, Stephen wandered up through the parish of St Katharine Cree to the Slit Pig, an undercroft ale-hole against the walls and the evening haunt of London’s best metalmen. Low-ceilinged and poorly lit, heavy with hearth-smoke and the breaths of tired men, and soon Stephen Marsh was in the loud thick of it, taking strong beer with his fellows at the central board, slapping backs, trading lies. Every man could sense the approach of the curfew bell, like a pious curate chasing whores from the stews, and all did their best to drink their fill before it sounded. The cask boys were kept busy.

      The talk of the evening was guns. Several of the city’s founders and smiths were boasting of their lucrative new commissions, having recently been recruited to assist the king’s works in the manufacture of artillery. Cannon, culverins, ribalds and bombards: a mass of powder-fired heavy arms, much of it hammer-welded and smithed, some founded from bronze, all of it for the defence of the Tower and the city when the French invasion came – quite soon, if the talk was to be believed.

      Stephen listened to their exchange with a mounting scorn, and an itching envy. At one point, as the talk ebbed, he said, ‘A gun is but a bell turned on its side and poorly sounded.’

      Two dozen eyes now on him. ‘Why, at Stone’s we could fashion twenty, thirty cannon in the coming months,’ he went on. ‘And with a quality of craft and precision you will be hard pressed to find at the Tower.’ A boast but a true one. He was pleased to see some nods, along with a few scowls.

      ‘Could you now?’ said one of the scowlers. Tom Hales, the aged master of a venerable smithy well across town off Ironmongers Lane.

      ‘That’s right, Hales. Power, precision, speed. You’d be hard pressed to find a better gun than a Stone’s gun.’

      ‘All three of them,’ Hales scoffed.

      ‘Give me a large enough commission and I shall line the walls of London.’

      ‘If the good widow allows it,’ said Hales.

      A few rough laughs, a low whistle. This was another of his mistress’s small cruelties. While Robert had taken several gun commissions before his death, Hawisia soon curtailed any of Stephen’s ambitions in that direction. Together Robert and Stephen had poured just five large bombards, designed to fire the heavy bolts favoured by the Tower. Though they were adequate devices, Robert’s death had prevented Stephen from making further assays into the fashioning of guns.

      ‘That may be,’ Stephen went on, undaunted. He was too respected in the trades to be cowed by an old hammer man. ‘Yet at Stone’s I could bronze out a bombard to shoot twice as fast and thrice as long as any in the Duke of Burgundy’s army, or the devil take my body and bread!’

      More laughs, some cruel, though soon enough the talk moved on to other subjects – the new scarcity of tin, the demands of young wives – and as the men settled back into their ales Stephen’s gaze wandered over to the far end of the undercroft.

      In the south corner a man stood alone, looking straight at Stephen over the mingled crowd. Not a tall man but broad of shoulder, confident in his demeanour despite his solitude within the crowded space. He wore a short courtepy of dusky green, a hat fringed in black over dark hair falling in loose ringlets around a neatly trimmed beard and a thick neck. Stephen didn’t know the fellow, the Slit Pig tending to draw only men in the trades, and he thought little of the stranger’s presence until he came down from a piss to find the man waiting for him by the tavern door.

      ‘Depardieux, my good brother,’ said the man with a pleasant enough smile.

      ‘And fair evening to you.’ Stephen looked carefully at the stranger’s face. ‘We have met?’

      He shook his head, the ringlets bouncing at his neck. ‘I am unknown in this parish and your own, though I should like to make your acquaintance very much, Stephen Marsh. Have you a span to spare? Your next jar will be mine to coin.’ He jangled a purse.

      They found a place away from the benches, where a high stew table stood against the wall flanked by five empty casks ready for hauling up the cellar stairs to the street above.

      ‘What are you called?’ Stephen asked when they had settled.

      ‘I am called many things,’ said the man with a faint smile. ‘Though you may call me William.’

      ‘And why have you come for me here?’

      ‘I am come for your skills, Stephen. Your metalling, a subject of great renown.’

      Stephen dipped his head to acknowledge the compliment. Nothing odd about a man coming around to sniff out his art, though it didn’t ordinarily happen in a tavern. ‘Very well. And what is your business?’

      ‘My business.’ He took a long slow draught of his ale, narrowed his eyes. ‘My business is guns.’

      Stephen frowned. ‘What of them?’

      ‘Just now you were speaking to your fellows over there about your bronzecraft.’ He nodded toward the board. ‘About Burgundy’s bombards.’

      ‘Aye,’ said Stephen. He stole a look over to the benches. One of the apprentices from Stone’s, almost old enough to be counted a guildsman and get his key, caught him looking and gave him a friendly nod before turning back to the cheer. ‘The Duke of Burgundy’s said to have the cleverest cannon this side of Jerusalem. Bombards, culverins, your ribalds and pots-de-fer.’ He sipped then shrugged. ‘I was merely jawing.’

      ‘And you believe you could surpass Burgundy’s guns or – how did you speak your oath – “the devil take my body and bread”?’

      ‘Well now, as to that—’ He grimaced. ‘I’ve never put my hands on ’em. But the Tower’s bombards are unsound, I will tell you truly, cast in haste and unworthy of war. I have seen them tested along the Thames, watched more than a few of them crack with the powder and shot. A weak alloy, a bad pour. Stone’s could do better, is all I meant to say.’

      ‘A bad pour,’ the man mused. ‘Something you would know all about, aye? And how is the Widow Stone faring, Marsh?’

      ‘Well now,’ Stephen snarled. He reared back and stood. ‘Who are you, to enter this parish and bring such knifing words with you?’

      The man’s eyes had gone cold, metallic. He remained seated and still. ‘I am William Snell, chief armourer to His Royal Highness the king.’

      Stephen felt the blood rush from his head. William Snell, a name whispered with equal reverence and fear among the founders and smiths of London. A fierce, demanding master, with countless arms at his beck and command, charged with the very life of London in the event of war – and Stephen had just insulted his guns.

      ‘A fair welcome to our humble alehouse, Master Snell,’ said Stephen weakly. He retook his seat.

      Snell considered him for a while. Then he leaned forward, his voice lowering as the tavern din reached a peak. ‘Here is why I have come, Marsh.’ He pushed a chunk of wood and metal across the board then emptied his jar in one long swallow. Stephen hefted the object. It was heavy in his hand, a darkened length of iron between fixed bands, a stubbed tube sawed from a longer rod. The wooden piece resembled a barrel stave, though it was the length of a forearm rather than the height of a boy. Stephen brought the object to his nose, catching the distinctive whiff of sulphur. He stroked the wrought metal, then turned СКАЧАТЬ