Julian Rathbone - Kings of Albion

The chief of these is Lord Scales, an old and irascible nobleman, who is governor of the Tower for the King. Occasionally he invites us to dine with him when he rails against the Duke of York and his affinity, and against the merchants of the City who, he claims, plot to starve him out by refusing the passage of food and other necessaries into the Tower. Occasionally he demands money from us for our keep, or a jewel, and either he is unaware of the true value of things or he is modest in his demands, for a pearl no bigger than a pigeon's egg keeps him happy for a fortnight or more.

He has kept us up with the news too. The Duke of York is in Hibemia or Erin, an island to the west of Ingerlond, and smaller, but not much smaller, claimed as a domain of the King of Ingerlond, though his power extends only down the east coast and not far inland, the rest of the island or Ireland being occupied by savages. It is believed that Warwick has joined York there, in a port called Waterford on the southeast coast, where it is feared they are planning a joint invasion, York across the sea from Ireland and Warwick from Calais.

In Calais the same stalemate as before persists. The Duke of Somerset is tied down by Warwick's army, and Warwick's men by Somerset. Neither can embark without exposing himself to attack from the other; neither is strong enough to risk an open battle.

Of Eddie March, who is the cause of all our present woes (really it was a mistake on my part to hire him as a guide and protector, Ali was right about that, as about so much else), we have heard nothing certain. Either he is in Waterford with Warwick or he has made his way back to Calais. More important, the whereabouts of Ali and his companion, the Buddhist monk, remain a mystery and, perforce, Anish and I, Anish anyway, have been at some pains to mitigate the effects of his disappearance by learning Inglysshe. Oh, yes. That fakir who attached himself to us has disappeared too.

So, dear cousin, the time has passed slowly but not without some benefits for our country and people, which I hope we shall one day be able to bring back to you. In spite of cold wet weather for most of the time Anish and I have been able to make, piecemeal to avoid suspicion that we are spies, a thorough examination of these fortifications, and particularly of their efficacy or lack of it against gunpowder and ball. To these ends we have had several conversations with the Under Master Sergeant of Ordnance. Bardolph Earwicca.

The actual Master of Ordnance is, of course, a Norman of noble blood and therefore a fool, a young man called Guy Fitzosbern with no chin and a voice like a horse's, or should I say donkey? Certainly a donkey when he laughs, eeee-aw-aw-aw-aw. He knows nothing about his job except how to draw his salary.

Sergeant Bardolph, however, is a master gunner. Thick-set like most Saxons, his ruddy complexion is further enhanced by carbuncles and boils, which glow like so many red-hot cannon-balls. Like many Saxons he puts the word 'fucking' into his speech wherever he possibly can, for no purpose at all that we can understand. The word refers to the act of' love-making, particularly those actions that lead to conception, and their use of it seems to imply they hold love-making in contempt.

I began by asking Bardolph if he did not think the walls of the Tower, especially the outer ones, somewhat thin, lacking in substance. They would surely soon be breached by well-directed cannon-fire, I suggested. Would it not have been sensible, as mastery of the techniques involved in the use of gunpowder developed, to have strengthened them, thickened them?

'Waste of fucking time, squire,' he said, having first sucked in his protuberant lips and then expelled the air thus taken in, with a noise like a fart. Meanwhile, I asked myself, did he mean waste of time that could be better spent in love-making? It soon became clear that he meant nothing of the sort, in fact he meant… nothing.

'You see, squire,' he went on, 'there ain't no fucking wall yet been built can withstand the force of powder, no matter how fucking thick it is.'

'How about thirty feet thick and made of solid rock?'

'That ain't a fucking wall. That's a fucking mountain. But even so, given time and loadsa powder, it'd go, it'd fucking go.'

'So how, dear friend,' I asked, or rather Anish did on my behalf, 'can a town or castle be protected against cannon-fire?'

'Simple, really, innit?'

By now we were standing between two towers on a battlement, scarcely wide enough to allow two armed men to pass each other.

'Come wiv me.'

And he took us into a big round room, occupying the whole area of the nearest tower, about thirty feet across. Much of it was filled with a cannon twelve feet long and the accoutrements that went with it, videlicet a ramrod with an end like a giant mop, an open barrel of water, another of gunpowder, and about twenty spheres of stone laboriously ground to an almost perfect roundness, each about two feet or more in diameter. There was also a shelf on which was placed a Hint, a stone and a tinder-box together with a wick that had been soaked in solution of saltpetre and left to dry.

'All present and correct,' Sergeant Earwicca shouted, 'and ready to blow the balls off of anyone who dares a misdemeanour directed against His Majesty's person or property."

I marvelled he had put so many words together without a 'fucking'.

'The art you see of protecting these 'ere walls against a gun, is be sure we have a gun here, and six more to be precise, bigger'n any they can fucking bring against us.'

'I see,' I said. 'If I have it right, the aim is to cannon-ball the opposing cannon into silence before they can knock down your walls, and you are certain of being able to do this because this cannon is bigger than any that can normally be brought against you, and, because it is placed at a height, it has greater range.'

The cannon in question, as I have already said, was uncommonly big, an iron tube hooped with brass at every foot or so of its length. It was mounted on a solid oak chassis, which in turn was laid on what I took to be a giant wheel laid in an horizontal plane. So, within the limits of the embrasure from which its snout protruded, the angle at which it tired Could be altered both from side to side and up and down.

'For gen'leinen you got some fucking brains,' our friend remarked, and tapped the side of his huge fruit-like nose with his forefinger – a gesture I took to signify appreciation of our intelligence.

So there you have it, honoured cousin: the way to make sure our fortifications are not knocked down by the Bahmani artillery is to make sure we are defended by guns bigger and better than any they might bring against us. I imagine we could have worked that out for ourselves without traipsing across half the world. However, there might be something to be learnt about the casting of large cannon, and that is something Anish and I will endeavour to look into. And maybe, too, there are ways of refining the exact constituents of gunpowder to gain optimum efficacy.

I remain, dear cousin,

Your devoted servant,

Prince Harihara

Dear Cousin Five months we have been here, and we are now approaching the end of the six month of the year 1460, Christian reckoning. Without the advice of our sadhus I can't work out what that makes it according to our more complicated lunar reckonings, but it's about a year since we sailed from Gové, Anish says two months more than a year, so I'm sure you'll get a rough idea.

Effectively we remain prisoners. Though in tolerable comfort, there is no question of our being allowed out into the city which we can see from the walls, or indeed of trying to find our way home. Although not formally charged we are tainted with Yorkism, with collaborating with traitors and giving them succour, and Scales, when the drink takes him badly, making him bellicose and hostile, reminds us that he can get the paperwork done at what he calls the drop of a hat and our heads off quicker than you can say Jack Robinson.