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sulfur and honey (they had no molasses here-and-now), and saltpeter was
supposed to cool the blood. "And charcoal, and a brass mortar and pestle, and
a flour-sieve and something to sift into, and a pair of balance-scales." He
picked up an unused goblet. "This'll do to mix it in' "
Now they were all staring at him as though he -had three heads, and a golden
crown on each one.
"Go on, man! Hurry!" Ptosphes told Xentos. "Have everything brought here at
once."
Then the Prince threw back his head and laughed-maybe a trifle hysterically,
but it was the first time Morrison had heard Ptosphes laugh at all. Chartiphon
banged his fist on the table.
"Ha, Gormoth!" he cried. "Now see whose head goes up over whose gate!" Xentos
went out. Morrison asked for a pistol, and Ptosphes brought him one from a
cabinet behind him. It was loaded; opening the pan, he spilled out the priming
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on a sheet of parchment and touched a lighted splinter to it. It scorched the
parchment, which it shouldn't have done, and left too much black residue.
Styphon wasn't a very honest powder maker; he cheapened his product with too
much charcoal and not enough saltpeter. Morrison sipped from his goblet.
Saltpeter was seventy-five percent, charcoal fifteen, sulfur ten.
After a while Xentos returned, accompanied by Mytron, bringing a bucket of
charcoal, a couple of earthen jars, and the other things. Xentos seemed
slightly dazed; Mytron was frightened and making a good game try at not
showing it. He put Mytron to work grinding saltpeter in the mortar. The sulfur
was already pulverized. Finally, he had about a half pint of it mixed.
"But it's just dust," Chartiphon objected. "Yes. It has to be moistened,
worked into dough, pressed into cakes, dried, and ground. We can't do all that
here. But this will flash." Up to about 1500, all gunpowder had been like
that-meal powder, they had called it. It had been used in cannon for a long
time after grain powder was being used in small arms. Why, in 1588, the Duke
of Medina-Sidonia had been very happy that all the powder for the Armada was
coined arquebus powder, and not meal powder. He primed the pistol with a pinch
from the mixing goblet, aimed at a half-burned log in the fireplace, and
squeezed. Outside somebody shouted, feet pounded up the hall, and a guard with
a halberd burst into the room.
"The Lord Kalvan is showing us something about a pistol," Ptosphes told him.
"There may be more shots; nobody is to be alarmed."
"All right," he said, when the guard had gone out and closed the door. "Now
let's see how it'll fire." He loaded with a blank charge, wadding it with a
bit of rag, and handed it to Rylla. "You fire the first shot. This is a great
moment in the history of Hostigos. I hope."
She pushed down the striker, set the flint down, aimed at the fireplace, and
squeezed. The report wasn't quite as loud, but it did fire. Then they tried it
with a ball, which went a half inch into the log. Everybody thought that was
very good. The room was full of smoke, and they were all coughing, but nobody
cared. Chartiphon went to the door and shouted into the hall for more wine.
Rylia had her arms around him. "Kalvan! You really did it!" she was saying.
"But you said no prayers," Mytron faltered. "You just made fireseed."
"That's right. And before long, everybody'll be just making fireseed. Easy as
cooking soup." And when that day comes, he thought, the priests of Styphon
will be out on the sidewalk, beating a drum for pennies.
Chartiphon wanted to know how soon they could march against Nostor. "It will
take more fireseed than Kalvan can make on this table," Ptosphes told him. "We
will need saltpeter, and sulfur, and charcoal. We will have to teach people
how to get the sulfur and the saltpeter for us, and how to grind and mix them.
We will need many things we don't 'have now, and tools to make them. And
nobody knows all about this but Kalvan, and there is only one of him."
Well, glory be! Somebody had gotten something from his lecture on production,
anyhow.
"Mytron knows a few things, I think." He pointed to the jars of sulfur and
saltpeter. "Where did you get these?" he asked.
Mytron had gulped his first goblet of wine without taking it from his lips. He
had taken three gulps to the second. Now he was working on his third, and
coming out of shock nicely. It was about as he thought. The saltpeter was
found in crude lumps under manure-piles, then refined; the sulfur was
evaporated out of water from the sulfur springs in Wolf Valley. When that was
mentioned, Ptosphes began cursing Styphon's House bitterly. Mytron knew both
processes, on a quart-jar scale. He explained how much of both they would
need.
"But that'll take time." Chartiphon objected. "And as soon as Gormoth hears
that we're making our own fireseed, he'll attack at once."
"Don't let him hear about it. Clamp down the security." He had to explain
about that. Counter-intelligence seemed to be unheard of, here-and-now. "Have
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cavalry patrols on all the roads out of Hostigos. Let anybody in, but let
nobody out. Not just to Nostor; to Sask and Beshta, too." He thought for a
moment. "And another thing. I'll have to give orders people aren't going to
like. Will I be obeyed?"
"By anybody who wants to keep his head on his shoulders," Ptosphes said. "You
speak with my voice."
"And mine, too!" Chartiphon cried, reaching his sword across the table for him
to touch the hilt. "Command me and I will obey, Lord Kalvan."
He established himself, the next morning, in a room inside the main gateway to
the citadel, across from the guardroom, a big flagstone-floored place with the
indefinable but unmistakable flavor of a police-court. The walls were white
plaster; he could write and draw diagrams on them with charcoal. Nobody, here-
and-now, knew anything about paper. He made a mental note to do something [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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