Ghosts of Engines Past (25 page)

Corf and Guy inspected the twelve sandstone blocks that had been placed in neat rows before their tents. Each weighed about four hundred pounds.

“Fine, hard stone,” said Guy.

“Nothing but the best for the baron,” agreed Corf.

“Stone te punch a hole through the most mighty of castle walls.”

“Castles is on the way out. Soon there'll be none.”

“Then how's te keep the peace?” asked Guy, scratching his head.

“Standin' armies. Castle walls makes a prince lazy, walls need no bread or shelter. Make a wall with men, though, and he must keep grain in barns an' gold in coffers. That means wise rule an' hard work.”

“Baron Raimond has a castle.”

“Aye, but he don't
need
a castle.”

They both looked across at the Tower of Wings, that stood tall and slender above the summer-green fields. Pigeons lazily circled the summit, and smoke from kitchen fires rose from behind the walls that encircled its base. A hundred feet away, the baron squatted down, lifted a quarterstaff weighted with stone blocks, stood up, raised the weight above his head, then squatted and set it down again. After thirty repetitions he paused to rest, and Wat handed him a drinking horn.

“What's bein' done?” whispered Corf.

“He means te be stronger,” replied Guy.

“Surely his muscles be big enough as is?”

“Seems not.”

“Aye. A brave man, he be.”

“Well, time te get workin'.”

They sat before a sandstone block each and began to chisel. By the time Wat came past to inspect their progress, two stone balls of three hundred pounds sat amid chips and rubble, and the masons were hard at work on the next two blocks.

Three days after Raimond arrived, a long team of oxen approached drawing a long pine trunk lashed to five carts. Wat inspected the trunk carefully. It was two feet in diameter, quite straight and virtually without flaw. Having accepted it, Wat had four support frames built beneath the beam and the carts removed. Twenty carpenters, each with an adze, stripped away the bark, then began to chop through the pale, moist wood. By evening the trunk had been fashioned into an octagonal beam.

Wat took a knotted cord and charcoal, measured two points near the base, then called over a master carpenter.

“Bring an auger, pierce here and here,” said Wat. “By morning I want the axles for the frame and counterweight to be fitted.”

“We's te work in torchlight?” asked the carpenter. “Why's the hurry, m'lord? Working by daylight we'll be done on the morrow.”

“Without a doubt the lady within the Tower of Wings will be building her own trebuchet. We must finish first.”

“A woman can build but a poor device, m'lord. She has no skill, no experience, no art.”

“The woman who commands the Tower of Wings is also mistress of mechanics, mathematics, and bird flight. Should she complete a device such as this, she could most certainly cast stones with such refinement that our own engine would be smashed to splinters, along with not a few carpenters such as ourselves.”

By morning the holes had been bored and reamed out, just as the heavy wooden axles came off the treadle lathes. Under clear blue skies the peasants finished digging a saw pit, and soon the oak beams were being shaped from the raw logs by teams of peasants and carpenters working in shifts, while other carpenters shaped the wooden pins, handles, axles and struts.

Lady Angela knelt on the floor of her chamber at the top of the tower, carefully placing an acorn in a silk sling. Working a tiny ratchet she wound down the throwing arm of a trebuchet just twenty inches high. Alren stood watching from the other side of the room. He was dressed as an English noble in a tabard surcote, but with Moorish headwear.

“The secret of a good trebuchet is that it should be adjustable,” Lady Angela explained without looking up. “It must be on wheels, so that the rough alignment is easy to change and casting leverage is optimised. Fine adjustment can be made by pushing the shot race a little to either side. The real elegance of the design is in the counterweight box, however.”

“It is identical to the engine that is being erected two hundred yards beyond the tower walls,” observed the Moor.

“The counterweight swings on the short end of the catapult arm, which is raised up as the arm is wound down. The weight of the stones in the box is the muscle that drives that mighty arm and flings the stone. The descending weight drags the machine forward a little, too, adding power to the cast. Add weight and it fires further. Take some away and it fires shorter. Nothing could be more simple, it is a marvel of good design, just like my beautiful pigeons.”

“Excellent lady, a marvel of good design is being raised to smash down your tower. Surely that must make it as ugly as a demon's frown.”

“How so? Is a hawk ugly because it kills pigeons? Is a cat ugly because it kills mice?”

“Your words are full with embroidery, excellent lady, but need I remind you that the Tower of Wings is now in the position of a mouse or pigeon?”

“Life is short, dangerous and ugly, Alren, and then we die.”

“Yes, and generally in pain.”

“I could die with my throat slashed open by a peasant's knife, or I could die as a stone ball from Raimond's trebuchet smashes into the Tower of Wings.”

“More likely it will smash a hole in the curtain wall, his men will swarm in. You will be captured.”

“And burned as a witch.”

“Excellent lady, you fashion things of silk and wicker that fly like birds, yet are not alive. It is considered that a noblewoman of your standing ought to be at embroidery or the harp, not ruling a fortified tower, and certainly not mocking the flight of angels.”

Lady Angela shrugged, but did not look up from her model. “My impiety is well known. What opinion do you harbour, Alren? What should I do?”

“Excellent Lady, I am a Moor. It is not my place to venture such an opinion.”

“But it is
my
place to ask. This is my tower and you are my guest.”

“I... wish that you could meet a man who is... worthy of you. Your peer, perhaps even your better. A companion of the soul who understands you, some lord who would charm you rather than rule you.”

“Does such a man exist, wise and impartial Moorish scholar?”

“Each day I pray for Allah to make it so, excellent lady.”

She looked up at last, gesturing to a window. Alren walked across and looked out.

“Look down on the bailey wall's battlements. You should see an archer sitting at rest, eating bread and cheese. Beside him is a bowl of soup.”

Alren looked down, then glanced back in time to see Lady Angela pull on the model's release cord. The counterweight box of stones and sand dropped, hauling the throwing arm down. The sling arced around and slipped open, flinging the acorn past Alren's nose and through the window. A moment later it splashed into the archer's soup. The man cried out, then cursed. He glanced about, looking for whoever nearby was snickering. Seeing nothing suspicious, he removed his helmet and scratched his head.

“That was quite masterful accuracy,” said Alren, genuinely awestruck.

“It was mathematical accuracy,” replied Angela.

She stood, went to a large chest and opened it. She drew out a bundle of green silk cloth and cords.

“Alren, last year, on your second visit to this tower you told me a story. One hundred and forty one years ago, in Constantinople, a Turk fashioned white sail-wings with many pleats and foldings, and stiffened by willow wands. Wearing these sail-wings, he leaped from a very high tower.”

“Excellent lady, he also plunged straight to the base of the tower, broke many bones and died in agony. My great grandfather was there.”

“And his description of the sail-wings was passed down to you, who passed it to me. I have considered the matter, and have refined the design. A human body may now fall in safety from a great height using a device such as this model.”

She held up a triangle of grass-green silk about half a yard on a side with strings attached to each corner. A tiny harness of leather hung from the strings, but one string was shorter than the other two.

“It looks like a little cape,” said Alren. “What is it?”

“It has no name, but by its use one may leap from a great height yet plunge through the air in safety. Perhaps I shall call it a plunge cape.”

Now she lifted a mouse from its box and held it up to her face.

“Hullo Archimedes, do you realise that barbarians are about to break into our home?” she said to the tiny, whiskered face. “You know what happened to the first Archimedes, do you not?”

“A Roman soldier killed him as he sat contemplating geometry,” said Alren on behalf of the mouse.

“We cannot have you sharing his fate, Archimedes, but never fear. The plunge cape will carry you to safety.”

She went to the window and sat on the sill. Deftly she strapped the mouse into the little harness.

“Come now, and watch,” she said to Alren. “The harness is designed so that Archimedes is held only while his weight is unsupported. On the ground, he can struggle clear in a thrice.”

Lady Angela released the mouse and its plunge cape. It dropped sharply at first, then flew outwards in a long, shallow curve, about as fast as a pigeon soaring. The Moor cried out with surprise.

“A mouse, flying!”

“Given enough silk, pigs could fly as well,” Lady Angela laughed.

Archimedes floated over the bailey wall, then the curtain wall and moat. Several men shouted and pointed, but no archer shot at the aeronaut mouse. All archers in the Tower of Wings were forbidden to shoot at anything that could fly. In the fields just beyond the moat  the silken triangle collapsed into the grass.

“Goodbye little friend,” said Angela sadly. “At least one of us shall survive the siege.”

“That was quite wonderous,” began Alren.

“But not witchcraft. I have nearly finished a much bigger plunge cape.”

Alren went to the chest and looked down into it, his hands on his hips. It was filled with green silk and fine cords.

“Do you mean to escape like the mouse?”

“On the day that the walls are breached, I intend to strap on my plunge cape and attempt to fly.”

“Excellent lady you may be killed!” Alren exclaimed. “A mouse flying is all very well, but your weight is more than a thousand times greater.”

“Men have flown before. Nearly three hundred years ago the Benedictine monk Elmer of Malmsbury leaped from a church tower wearing wings and flew six hundred feet.”

“But he broke both of his legs!”

“Yet he lived. Four hundred and fifty years ago the Moor Armen Firman of Cordoba flew too. His canvas wings took him in a great circle, so that he came down safely at the base of the tower from which he leaped. His countryman Ibn Firnas performed a similar feat two decades later.”

“And crashed. Excellent lady, we have no detailed description of their wings, or those of Elmer of Malmsbury.”

“But I
may
fly. God will be my judge, and I shall be innocent of both witchcraft
and
suicide.”

“But to what end? The mouse can hide in the grass, but you would have to fly many miles to escape Raimond's men. Can you do any better than the mouse?”

“No, I shall probably land in the moat. When I am seized by Raimond's men I shall be covered with green slime and smelly mud.”

“It will achieve nothing!”

“Oh no, I
might
become the first woman to fly.”

Alren waved his hand dismissively. “Not so. Witches fly, through forbidden arts.”

Lady Angela sneered. “Because you are a Moor and beyond the trust of Christian magistrates, I suppose I can confide in you. I have disguised myself and kept company with witches on occasion. They make a paste of aconite, belladonna and hemlock then rub it between their thighs, upon their most intimate parts. I followed them as they ran through fields with brush brooms between their legs, all in a delirium from the poisons and shrieking that they were in flight. I saw that they were merely deluded.”

“Your scepticism shines in the darkness as bright as the morning star, excellent lady. Why do you then place so much faith in your plunge cape?”

“So that I might become the first woman to fly before I am burned as a witch, and that is surely an achievement. If my plunge cape fails when I jump from the tower, I shall die anyway. What would be your choice?”

“Were I a beautiful, clever and wily Christian woman, I... I would throw myself on the mercy of Baron Raimond, and the bishops of your Christian church.”

“Which is no less dangerous than throwing myself from the tower wearing my plunge cape. Learned Moor, when I die I shall die attempting flight or I shall die having flown. My name is Angela: who ever heard of an angel without wings and what are wings if not to fly with? In secret, in the depths of my heart, I am grateful to Baron Raimond. He has forced me to rest my life upon my postulations and theories.”

By the end of the first week of the siege the peasants of the surrounding countryside had realised that the invaders were disciplined and well behaved, and were intent only on taking the Tower of Wings. They returned to their work, some men shearing or rooing the sheep in the shade of the trees, while their wives and daughters rolled and stored the fleeces. Others cut hay in the fields, hastening to have it mown down before the sap had left it, while some beat and combed flax into long, silky strands. Raimond's men watched for any signs of rebellion, particularly among those wielding the scythes, but otherwise left them alone. The skies continued to be clear, and the weather remained warm.

On the seventh day of the siege the mighty trestles to support the throwing arm's axle were hauled erect onto the wheeled base of the rapidly forming siege engine and pinned in place. Using scaffolding, ropes and pulleys, the throwing arm and its axle were raised to the top of the trestles in the afternoon of the same day. The light of the following dawn saw carpenters securing the clamps and bands that would hold the axle firm. By then Baron Raimond had a very important guest, but a guest who was in disguise and meant to be elsewhere.