By Schism Rent Asunder (85 page)

There was plenty of room for refinement in his current relatively crude techniques, but what he'd done so far hadn't truly required Church approval, since it was based entirely on novel applications of techniques which had already been approved. On the other hand, all of them were basically empirical. They'd been worked out by men with lifetimes of practical experience forging iron and steel, but with no theoretical understanding of
why
the improvements they'd come up with worked. Any systematic effort to tweak Howsmyn's current capacity was going to require the development of that theoretical understanding, and that
was
going to be a problem in the face of the Proscriptions of Jwo-jeng.

The crux of Seamount's current problem, however, was that the only alternatives for artillery pieces were bronze, cast iron, and wrought iron. Bronze was an excellent material for smoothbore muzzleloaders, but, as Seamount had just complained, it was both expensive and too soft to stand up to the strains of rifling for very long. Cast iron was relatively cheap, and the foundry techniques for working with it were well established, but even using sandcasting to reduce porosity, cast-iron guns were much more brittle than bronze and likely to crack or burst under the stresses of the bore pressures Seamount was anticipating. Which really left only
wrought
iron. If Ehdwyrd Howsmyn said his foundries could produce the needed guns out of wrought iron, Merlin had no doubt they could, but Seamount was right that they weren't going to be cheap.

“All right,” he said finally, “I've got a couple of thoughts.

“First, as far as the existing guns and the bore pressures are concerned. If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that if we're willing to accept a lower shell
velocity
, we could probably keep pressures within the acceptable limits for the existing gun tubes, even with the heavier shell
weights
. Is that pretty much correct?”

Seamount nodded, and Merlin shrugged.

“In that case, why don't you ask Master Howsmyn if it would be possible to produce a relatively thin-walled, rifled tube, like an inner sleeve of wrought iron, that we could slide down inside the bore of an existing smoothbore? What I'm thinking is that if we did that, and fixed it firmly at the muzzle, probably by cutting threads into the outside of the muzzle and literally screwing its forward end into place, then fired a fairly powerful charge out of the gun, wouldn't it expand the inner sleeve and more or less weld it into place as a permanent liner that would protect the bronze against bore erosion?”

“I … don't know,” Seamount said slowly. “It sounds like it ought to make sense. At any rate, it's certainly something to ask Howsmyn about.”

Chalk rattled as he jotted additional notes. He stood back to read over them and frowned thoughtfully.

“The strength of the existing gun tubes would still limit shot weight and velocity,” he said. “You're right about that. But we've got enough margin to handle heavier projectiles than the guns are firing now, I think. And the increase in accuracy, not to mention the use of an explosive filler, would make the idea more than worthwhile if we can figure out how to do it.”

“That's what I thought, too,” Merlin agreed. “On the other hand, I had another thought when you were talking about why wrought iron was better than cast iron.”

“Ah?” Seamount turned back from the slate wall, eyebrows rising.

“Yes. You said cast iron is too
brittle
to stand up to the bore pressures you're expecting.”

Seamount nodded, just a touch impatiently, and Merlin shrugged.

“Well, what occurred to me was that while you're right, that wrought iron is less brittle, that might not be the only way to get the strength you're looking for.”

Seamount looked perplexed, and Merlin waved one hand, like a man trying to pluck the exact word he wanted out of the air.

“What I'm saying is that you're thinking in terms of a solid mass of metal strong enough to stand up to the discharge of these new rifled artillery pieces of yours.”

“Of course I am. You're not suggesting we make them out of
wood
, are you?”

“Not quite.” Merlin grinned at the asperity which had seeped into Seamount's tone. “The point that had occurred to me was that perhaps Master Howsmyn should be looking into another approach. What if instead of trying to cast the cannon as a single, massive piece of metal, then reaming out and rifling the bore, he used a relatively thin wrought-iron tube, like the ‘sleeve' we were talking about a few moments ago. But instead of sticking it down inside an existing bronze gun tube and expanding it, what would happen if he wrapped it very tightly in wire, instead?”

Seamount opened his mouth, as if to automatically dismiss the idea, then froze. His eyes widened in sudden speculation.

“What you're saying is that we could
wrap
the reinforcement around a fairly light tube,” he said slowly. “I don't see any reason that couldn't work, as long as we wrapped it tightly and thickly enough.”

“I'd think a wire-wrapped approach would be a lot less brittle than cast iron or even wrought iron,” Merlin agreed. “Surely the individual wires would have a tendency to flex and stretch without cracking or bursting the way solid metal might under the same pressures.”

“Not only that,” Seamount said with gathering enthusiasm, “but you wouldn't have to wonder if there were flaws, the way you do with iron. You'd be able to examine every inch of wire individually before it went into the gun!”

“Yes, you would.” Merlin's approving surprise wasn't at all feigned. Once again, Seamount's agile brain was leaping ahead as soon as the possibilities were pointed out to him.

“I don't know if it's practical, at least with Master Howsmyn's existing equipment,” the Charisian said, almost bouncing up and down on his toes as his mind careened through the vista of possibilities and the accompanying manufacturing problems which would have to be overcome. “For one thing, we'd be talking about a lot of wire, and I have no idea what his wire-drawing capacity might be. And I'm fairly certain that it would have to be wrapped really tightly, tighter than we can manage with muscle power, which is going to require his mechanics to figure out how to do it using
water
power. If they can't do it with what they have
now
, though, I'm sure they can figure out how to build whatever they need to build in order to build whatever they need in order to do it!”

He wheeled back to the wall of slate, chalk clattering as he wrote furiously. Then he spun back around to Merlin just as quickly, pointing at him with the piece of chalk.

“I don't believe for a minute that you ‘just happened' to think of this,
Seijin
Merlin.” It could have been accusing, but it wasn't. “On the other hand, I'm not going to ask any more questions today. I've got the oddest feeling that if I were to do that, we'd find ourselves getting into explanations you'd really rather not make.”

Merlin managed to keep his expression under control. It wasn't the first time one of Seamount's comments had headed in the same direction, but this one was more explicit than most, and he decided not to mention a third problem the little commodore was about to encounter with rifled guns. The fuse system he'd worked out for his smoothbore shells would work just fine, relying on flash for the original ignition. But sticking that sort of fuse design onto the nose of a rifled round was likely to prove more problematical. Since a rifled shell was always going to land nose-first, a nose-mounted fuse would tend to be crushed on impact, or else driven back into the shell. In the first case, the shell probably wouldn't detonate at all; in the second case, it would detonate effectively instantaneously, before it had time to penetrate sufficiently into the target.

I'll just let you come across that little difficulty for yourself, My Lord
, he thought dryly.
I'm sure it will occur to you soon enough
.
It probably won't do all that much good, but I can at least
pretend
I don't have all of the answers. Besides, I want to see how
you
approach the problem. One thing I'm sure of
—
it'll be interesting
.

“Don't worry, Merlin,” Seamount continued, his eyes gleaming almost as if he'd just read Merlin's mind. “I promise to be good. But I'll be interested to see Howsmyn's reaction to ‘my' suggestions about how to approach this. You realize you're about to set off another round of ‘infernal innovation,' don't you?”

“The thought hadn't even crossed my mind,” Merlin said with immense—and completely false—sincerity.

“Oh, of course it hadn't!” Seamount chuckled, shook his head, and turned back to his chalked notes. “I'm glad Father Paityr is back on board with Archbishop Maikel, because this is going to be at least as upsetting to certain people I could think of as the first batch of artillery improvements were.”

Oh, I
hope
so, Sir Ahlfryd,
Merlin thought, watching the commodore ponder his notes.
I
do hope
so!

.II.

Galleon
Raptor,
Southern Ocean

Larys Shaikyr, master after God of the galleon
Raptor
, looked away from his conversation with Hahl Urbahn, his first officer, as fresh cannon fire rumbled and crashed like Langhorne's own thunder. The schooner
Slash Lizard
was dashing down from windward once again, hammering away at the flagship of the convoy's escort, and Shaikyr shook his head in exasperation. The crippled galley had fallen well astern of the rest of the convoy, crawling on a handful of crippled oars while white water jetted from her pumps in clear proof of damage below the waterline.

“Signal
Slash Lizard
to break off action!” Shaikyr told his signal party sharply.

“Aye, Sir,” the senior signalman acknowledged, and Shaikyr looked back at Urbahn.

“We can always finish him off later, assuming he doesn't just go ahead and sink on his own,” he growled.

“Yes, Sir.” Urbahn nodded, then grinned crookedly. “I think some of our skippers are beginning to forget how to think like
privateers!
”

“Then they'd best remember.” Shaikyr shook his head. “I'm just as determined to carry out the King's—I mean, the Emperor's—instructions as the next man. But there's reason in all things, Hahl. And even if I wasn't worried about the money at all, wasting time attacking galleys that're already crippled is the best way I can think of to let the real prizes slip away!”

Urbahn nodded, and the two of them returned their contemplation to the galleons fleeing before them … and the three Delferahkan war galleys which were still more or less intact and trying desperately to cover the merchant ships' escape.

They're gutsy, those captains
, Shaikyr acknowledged to himself as he glowered at the remaining galleys.
They've already seen what happened to the rest of the escort, and they're
still
trying to hold us off
.

Under the current relatively light wind conditions, those galleys could have shown most of the attacking Charisian privateers a clean pair of heels if they'd chosen to run for it. Some of the faster schooners, like
Slash Lizard
or
Fist of Charis
, probably would have been able to catch them anyway, but the bigger, slower galleons like
Raptor
could never have hoped to overtake them.

Fortunately, the Delferahkan
galleons
, which were what the privateers truly wanted, were substantially slower and less weatherly than
Raptor
or Shaikyr's other three galleons. With their old-fashioned sail plans and towering freeboards, they might as well have been sea anchors as far as the galleys were concerned. All the gallantry in the world couldn't have changed what was going to happen to that convoy, and the galleys' commanders had to know that, yet still they stayed stubbornly between the privateers and their prey.

War Hammer
, the leading galleon of Shaikyr's “squadron,” was close enough already to begin engaging the rearmost galley with her forward chasers. Another twenty or thirty minutes, and she'd be able to bring the galleons under fire, as well. And the schooners
Windcrest
and
Sea Kiss
had already overtaken the merchant ships, keeping well up to windward of the galley escorts and out of the reach of their broadside guns.
Windcrest
, in fact, was already slanting downward on a course to intercept the leading Delferahkan galleon, and there was nothing at all the galleys could do about it.

The panorama, Shaikyr reflected, would make a magnificent painting. Although he'd never had any formal training, he had a self-taught, private passion for canvas and oils, and a back corner of his mind was busy recording all the details for the future. The green of the ocean water, shading to a steadily deeper and darker cobalt as it stretched away towards the horizon. The high, white clouds drifting like infinitely tall, infinitely vast galleons across an even deeper sea of blue. Sunlight striking downward, flashing off the green and blue mirror of water, touching the dirty-white spurts of powder smoke, glinting on helmets, pikeheads, swords, and boarding axes. The complex patterns of weathered canvas, shrouds, and wind shadows, and the long spider-legs of the galleys stirring the sea to froth as the oarsmen pulled furiously. The sheer visual impact of moments like this touched something deep inside Larys Shaikyr.

But however spectacular the panorama might be, there were practical things to consider, as well, and he smiled with cold satisfaction as
War Hammer
's round shot began slamming into the lightly built galley. Even without his spyglass, he could see the galley's starboard oars flailing in sudden confusion as the Charisian fire began to rip across the ship's oardeck. The closer sound of the galleon's artillery swallowed up the distant thunder of
Windcrest
's guns, but the sudden billow of gunsmoke surging above the schooner told him she'd brought her target into at least extreme range, as well.