It reminded me, though much smaller in form, of the clock that dominates Saint Mark’s Square, with the two Moors striking the bell.
Takiyuddin came up beside me, holding a glass ball the size of an orange. A thin gold chain held it around his neck like a pendant. He looked first at it and then at the clock, and at last he nodded with satisfaction. Within the sphere I glimpsed a numbered dial. I had heard of clocks so small that you could wear them on your person, but I had assumed they were legends. Now, on the other hand, I was seeing one close up, and I couldn’t work out how weights and counterweights could be contained, going up and down, in such a tiny space. Neither could I understand what use such an object might be. Perhaps to a country squire, because in a city like Venice or Constantinople, church bells or muezzins were more than enough to help mark out the day, the same for everyone.
Takiyuddin opened a door below the wall clock and took out a peg the size of a finger. Then he slipped it into one of many holes that ran around the main dial and said only that in a quarter of an hour, at the sound of the alarm bell, he would have to say good-bye, having been summoned to the Sultan’s palace.
Spellbound, I stared at the numbers and pointers. I imagined that the metal arrow that told the hour would continue its course around the dial until it struck the peg inserted by Takiyuddin, setting off the alarm mechanism. I would have stayed there watching for the whole quarter hour, to see whether my hypothesis was correct, but a strong smell of roasted meat drew my attention toward the fireplace, where a spit laden with chickens was turning over the embers, without anyone there to move it.
Suspended just behind the birds, where the flames were high, was a big copper teakettle with a narrow spout. Above that was the chimney flue, and if you lowered your head a little, you could see a paddle wheel right in the opening. The kettle, with an impetuous puff, shot steam from its spout, and the hot, powerful exhalation struck the paddles. They turned, and a system of arms, serrated wheels and pulleys communicated that circular motion to the spit. “Would you ever have thought that a teakettle could roast chickens?” remarked Don Yossef. The sight of such ingenious machines had a cheering effect, and I certainly needed that, but I was beginning to wonder why Nasi had brought me there.
Before I could ask him, he put in my hands a metal tube with a lens fixed in each end. He told me to put it to one eye and look through it, out of the window, toward a faraway object. I chose a minaret on the Mosque of Suleyman.
The effect took my breath away. I could see the little window from which the muezzin summoned the faithful to prayer as if it were only a few feet away from us. I instinctively thought of how useful and at the same time how dangerous such a tool would be if it were made accessible to everyone. Spies would be able to look into people’s houses from a comfortable distance. Governments would be able to control the activities of their subjects. An invention of this kind would change the practice of my trade completely.
I was about to convince myself that this was the reason for our visit, when the bell of the clock started striking over and over again, making a diabolical racket.
Takiyuddin apologized, saying that he couldn’t keep the Sultan waiting. And besides, he knew that we, too, had another appointment.
It was only then that I became aware of the presence of a person in the darkest corner of the big laboratory. I recognized the amused expression of Master Fitch. That day he was wearing his usual leather jacket and dark breeches, but he had allowed himself the affectation of a white feather in his hat.
Coming forward and bowing, the young Englishman invited us to approach an object covered by a gray cloth. I couldn’t imagine what new contraption it might be.
“This is the proof you wanted,” he said in his comical accent. He lithely slipped the cover off to reveal an ordinary piece of artillery mounted on a wooden gun carriage.
38
“The scale is reduced,” Fitch said, “but the proportions are correct. The iron was smelted in Takiyuddin’s foundry, as you requested. He himself can guarantee the success of the propulsion and the resilience of the weapon.”
“Good,” murmured Nasi, stroking the gun carriage. He slipped his hand and the whole of his forearm inside the mouth of the weapon, exploring its inner surfaces. “Very good,” he repeated. Then he turned to me.
“This, my friend, is the answer to the doubts that are gnawing at your soul.” I was about to say something, but he raised a hand and stopped me. “A kingdom cannot say it is free until it is capable of defending its own freedom. That is an incontrovertible truth. But where the strength of an army cannot reach, ingenuity can.”
The ceremonies were starting to get on my nerves. In my life, I had always taken the trouble to ensure that I was not left in the dark about anything. Perhaps in returning to my trade I was also reacquiring my old obsessions. “How many cannon do you think it would take to defend an island the size of Cyprus?”
The tone of the question betrayed my state of mind, but Nasi didn’t turn a hair.
“Hundreds.”
The reply had come from Fitch. His pointed moustache and the beard on his chin looked like sharpened swords. “Please, Master Fitch, do continue,” said my mentor.
The Englishman thanked him. “Do you know where Sussex is, Signor Cardoso?”
“In England, I suppose.”
“Indeed it is,” he agreed. “It is a region of forests, oak for the most part, with land rich in iron and springs. Water, wood, metaclass="underline" even the ancient Romans smelted swords and coins over there. But they didn’t know that the iron in Sussex is of a particular kind.” He struck his hand on the breech of the cannon. “Very malleable. The first person to notice this peculiarity was the Reverend William Levett, vicar of Buxted, a man who has spent the whole of his life cultivating two great passions: Jesus Christ and artillery.”
It occurred to me that the juxtaposition wasn’t too bold. The foundries of La Serenissima chiefly produced bells and cannon.
“The Reverend Levett,” Fitch continued, “wanted to resolve the age-old problem of iron cannon. Unlike bronze, which allows guns to be forged in a single casting, iron can only be turned into smoothed bars, which are then pressed together into a series of rings. Obviously, with wear and tear cannons of this kind tend to fall apart after a short time.”
What the Englishman said was true, as I myself had witnessed. I had been present at the forging of cannon at the Arsenal in Venice, and at shooting tests on the Lido beach, under the direction of the engineer Varadian. The Armenian’s practice was to try out different guns of various lengths and calibers. Iron cannons were the worst: They cracked, and sometimes they exploded. One bombardier had had an arm sheared off by a flying splinter.
Fitch walked around the cannon and then rested his hand on it.
“As I am sure you will know, bronze is an alloy of brass and copper, two minerals that are in short supply in Europe. This makes bronze cannons extremely expensive. The Reverend Levett, God bless him, wanted to find the perfect match between resilience and convenience. And he managed to do so, thanks to this iron from Sussex—” and he repeated the strange gesture of resting his hand on the cannon as if introducing an old friend. “After a series of experiments, thirty years ago he produced the first English cannon in cast iron, in the royal foundries at Newbridge. A weapon made all in one piece, at a cost five times lower than any bronze cannon. Thirty years of experience since then have allowed our craftsmen to discover all the tricks for improving these weapons. The lifetime of these cannons remains shorter, in fact, but that doesn’t mean they are not advantageous, given the reduced cost. One could arm an entire fleet with these, were it not for the recoil that prevents them from being used on ships. And as to their weight, it is a hindrance if they have to be transported, but not if they are placed on a rampart and not moved from there.”