“This is where the most modern war the world has ever known is about to be waged,” he concluded, staring at the chronicler.
Çelebi was worried.
“The Padishah’s priority at present is to force the Balkans into submission,” the Quartermaster commented. “Obviously, he will spare no expense to achieve his aim.”
“This is my right-hand man,” Saruxha said as he turned towards a tall, pale and worn-out young man who was coming towards them.
The young man glanced nonchalantly at the visitors, made a gesture that could barely be understood as a greeting, and then whispered a few words in the engineer’s ear.
“You’re amazed I picked that lad as my first assistant, aren’t you?” Saruxha asked when the youngster had walked off. “Most people share your view. He doesn’t look the part, but he is extremely able.”
They said nothing.
“In this shed we will cast four other, smaller cannon, but they will be no less fearsome than the big one,” the engineer went on. “They are called mortars, and they shoot cannon-balls in a curved trajectory. Unlike cannon which hit the walls straight on, mortars can rain down on the castle’s inner parts from above, like a calamity falling from the heavens.”
He picked up a lump of coal and piece of board from the ground.
“Let’s suppose this is the castle wall. We put the cannon here. Its shot takes a relatively straight path” — he drew a line — “and hits the wall here. But the shot from the mortar or bombard rises high in the sky, almost innocently, if I may say so, as if it had no intention of hitting the wall — and then falls almost vertically behind it.” With his hand, which the chronicler thought he saw shaking a little, he made out the shape of the two arcs in the air. “Bombards make a noise that sounds like the moaning of a stormy sea.”
“Allah!” the chronicler cried out.
“Where did you learn how to do all this?” the Quartermaster General asked.
The engineer looked at him evasively.
“From my master, Saruhanli. I was his first assistant.”
“He’s in prison now, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” Saruxha replied. “The Sultan had him put away in the fortress of Bogazkezen.”
“And nobody knows why?” the chronicler ventured timidly.
“I know why,” the engineer replied.
The Quartermaster General raised his eyes and glanced at Saruxha with surprise.
“Recently, the poor old man’s mind began to wander. He refused to make cannon of larger calibre. He claimed it was impossible, but in fact, as he told me, he didn’t want to do it. If we make them even bigger, he would say, then the cannon will become a terrible scourge that will decimate the human race. The monster has come into the world, he said by way of explanation, and we can’t put it back where it came from. The best we can do is to keep its barrel no bigger than it is now. If we enlarge it further, the cannon will devour the world. The old man stopped experimenting. That’s why the Sultan had him arrested.”
The engineer picked up a piece of clay and rubbed it until it turned to dust, and said, “That’s what’s happened to him.”
The other two men nodded.
“But I have a different view of the matter,” the engineer explained. “I think that if we give in to scruples of that kind, then science will come to a halt. War or no war, science must advance. I don’t really mind who uses this weapon, or against whom it is used. What matters to me is that it should hurl a cannon-ball along a path identical to my calculation of the trajectory. The rest of it is your business.” And on that abrupt note, he stopped.
“I’ve been given to understand that the money for making this weapon was donated by one of the Sultan’s wives for the salvation of her soul,” the Quartermaster General said, obviously intending to change the topic of conversation.
“For the salvation of her soul?” Çelebi asked, thinking the detail worthy of figuring in his chronicle. “Is it expensive?” he added after a pause, astounded at his own temerity.
“He’s the one to know,” the engineer said, pointing at the Quartermaster. “All I can tell you about is the gun’s range and firepower.”
The chronicler smiled.
“Oh yes, the big gun costs a lot of money,” the Quartermaster said. “A very great deal. Especially now that we are at war, and the price of bronze has soared.”
He narrowed his eyes and made a quick mental calculation.
“Two million silver aspers,” he blurted out.
The chronicler was awe-struck. But the figure made no impact whatever on the master caster.
“To pay that much for the salvation of one’s soul may seem prohibitively expensive,” the Quartermaster said, “but if the cannon-balls break through those ramparts in a few days’ time, they’ll be worth their weight in gold.”
An ironical smile hovered over his face.
“At the siege of Trabzon,” he continued, “when the first cannon, which was much smaller than this one, shot its first ball, many of those present thought the barrel had grunted ‘Allah!’. But what I thought I heard through the roar, maybe because I think about it all the time, was the word ‘Taxation!’”
Once again the chronicler was struck dumb. The engineer, for his part, started to laugh out loud.
“You don’t realise the full meaning of that word, nor how many things, including the siege of this fortress, depend on it,” the Quartermaster observed.
“Well, when the gun fires,” the engineer said, “I don’t hear it say ‘Allah!’ or ‘Taxation’ at all. All I think about is that the power and noise of the explosion are the product of the amount of gunpowder packed behind the cannonball combined with the precise diameter and length of the barrel.”
The Quartermaster General smiled. Çelebi, for his part, pondered on his having become friendly with powerful and learned men, and wondered how long he could keep up conversations of this kind, which rose into spheres he had never previously encountered.
“Let’s go outside for a breath of air,” the Quartermaster suggested.
Saruxha walked with them as far as the door.
“People say that these new weapons will change the nature of war,” the chronicler said. “That they’ll make citadels redundant.”
Saruxha shook his head doubtfully.
“Indeed they might. People also say they will make other weapons obsolete.”
“Who are the ‘people’ saying these things?” the Quartermaster butted in. “You don’t believe these cannon can overcome the fortress all by themselves, do you?”
“I certainly wish they could,” Saruxha replied, “because they are, at bottom, my creations. However, I take a rather different view. I think that although the guns will play a role in the victory, what really matter are the soldiers of our great Padishah. It is they who will storm the fortress.”
“Quite right,” the Quartermaster General said.
“The cannon will have at least one other effect,” Saruxha added. “Their thunderous noise will spread panic among the besieged and break their courage. That’s a considerable help, isn’t it?”
“It’s very important,” the Quartermaster agreed. “And I’m not thinking only of those wretches. The whole of Christendom trembles when it hears speak of our new weapon. It has already become a legend.”
“I would walk with you for a while,” Saruxha said, “but this evening I’ve still got a thousand things to do. Casting should begin around midnight.”
“Don’t apologise, and thank you,” the visitors replied almost in unison.
Meanwhile night had fallen and fires had been lit here and there around the camp. Beside one of them, somewhere out there in the dark, someone was singing a slow and sorrowful chant. Further off, two ragged dervishes were mumbling their prayers.