Reformation (13 page)

Nicolaus sat alone
with his notes in the corner of his favorite tavern nestled equidistant between the university and the docks along the Golden Horn.  The relative solitude of the establishment was ideal for his work.  Bars too close to the docks suffered the distraction of sailors singing songs and getting into brawls.  The university taverns on the other hand were laden with intellectuals attempting to outshine one another.

He pored over his observations and calculations for the thousandth time hoping they would tell a different story.  He was a man of science
, but also faith.  What’s more, he was not any sort of a rebel.  His life’s work of studying the heavens was meant to mathematically confirm the church teachings that the Earth was indeed the center of the universe.

This wasn’t the case.  The data showed pla
in as day that Sol rest at the center of the system and the Earth and her accompanying planets all revolved around it.  The irrefutable conclusion sent shivers down his spine knowing men had died from challenging far less important church doctrine.

“God help me,” he said quietly into his beer as he took a long
thoughtful drink from the flask.

“Only a man with a lot on his mind utters those words,”
came a voice from the opposite corner of the establishment.  Nicolaus looked up to see a man surrounded by schematics of some sort and a dozen empty beer flasks.  “I ought to know, I recite the same prayer many times a day.”

The man clearly had his troubles and sought to find resolution at the bottom of a
beer flask.  At this point Nicolaus had a decision to make: respond to the man and begin a potentially pointless conversation, or play deaf and continue his work.  One look at the concentric circles of his own diagram and the inflammatory meaning made the choice for him.

“Knowing the truth behind a great secret is a heavy burden to carry alone
, therefore I seek help from the divine,” Nicolaus responded.

“Come, join me,” the strange
r offered.  “Perhaps we can share each other’s burdens while we wait for divine inspiration to strike us.”

Nicolaus
had no intention of revealing to the drunken stranger his discovery that would likely see him burned at the stake as a heretic if it ever got out.  Still, sharing a drink with another who clearly had a lot on his mind was a welcome diversion from his own troubles.  He gathered his papers, stuffed them into his carry bag and joined the man at his table for a drink.  “My name is Nicolaus Copernicus.  I come from Prussia to teach and study at the university.”

“
Orban,” came a gruff introduction.  Rather than offering a handshake he kicked a chair out from under the table and placed a beer in front of it.  Nicolaus found the chair occupied by a tattered doll crafted from a stuffed potato sack.  He gently picked up the child’s toy, placed it on the table and took a seat. 

“I arrived from Florence two days ago in order to get away from the plague and thos
e who did nothing to prevent it,” Orban said.

“I heard Florence felt
the worst of it,” Nicolaus said, eager to drive the conversation away from his own issues.

“You have no idea,”
Orban said into an emptied flask.  “Picture four out of five people you know dying a hideous and painful death in the span of a few weeks.  Then having to deal with the stench and resulting solitude to ponder what you’ve lost.”

The man’s voice croaked and trailed off into yet another mug of beer delivered by the bar maid.  “I take it you lost more than just some random neighbors. 
Parents? Brothers?”

Neither elicited a response
, but the mention of wife and children drew a stream of quiet tears running down the side of his tortured face.  The man looked to the doll resting on the table and patted it gently with his free hand.

Orban
eventually regained his composure enough to continue, “She wasn’t my wife and the boy not my son, but we were as much a family as any.”

“Tell me about them,”
Nicolaus prompted.  “If they continue in our memories then I believe their existence is immortal.”

Orban
shook his head and chuckled softly as if the word ‘immortal’ carried an inside joke for him.  “Alice was her name, and Thomas was her eight year old boy.”

“I try and picture the two of them in good health and cheer
, but the image always degrades to the coroner loading their pale, lifeless bodies onto the burial wagon along with all the other corpses infested with black welts from the plague.”

Orban
paused to take another drink and gather himself again.  Nicolaus decided to focus the conversation on their lives rather than deaths.  “How did the three of you meet?”

The sad lines around
Orban’s eyes noticeably relaxed as he started speaking again.  “We had a rather awkward introduction actually, considering she attempted to sell her sexual services to me.  She was quite lovely, but paying for companionship is not my way so I declined the offer.  For some reason though, I felt compelled to learn why this beautiful young woman was prostituting herself.  Over a simple meal I learned she was a recent widow struggling to support her infant son.  She had no other family and no one hires a widow, particularly one with an infant child and all the distractions that come along with it.”

Nicolaus
shook his head with disbelief.  “I admire you, sir.  Everyone treats widows like the death of their husband was their fault.  The fact of the matter is if they have no family to take care of them, then there is little option other than turning to prostitution.  Then the snooty socialites look down on them for turning to the only source of income available to them.  Life is not fair sometimes.”

“Exactly,”
Orban commented.  “That’s why I gave Alice a job in my currency exchange office.  I even allowed her to bring the boy to work with her.  Over the years I grew quite fond of the child.  He was happy, playful, and so bright.” 

“I took every opportunity to teach them both how to read and write.  Thomas showed particular promise. 
At just eight years old the boy could speak three languages.   The lad could even read Ulysses and debate philosophy with me.”

“Sounds like you were qu
ite the stepfather,” Nicolaus commended.

“There was never anything romantic between Alice and
me,” Orban corrected.  “I lost my wife long ago and swore to honor her memory by never being with another.  As a result, I never knew the joys of fatherhood until Thomas, and had long forgotten the comfort of companionship until Alice.”

“It was a source of great pride and joy helping
the two of them through life right up until that fateful day,” Orban went on.  “Alice was at the market that morning when the flat boats arrived carrying the plague with them.  She, along with Thomas, were among the first to fall victim to the disease.  Owing to the tireless care I provided, they were among the last to finally succumb to their condition.”

The sad lines around the man’s eyes returned along with pools of tears ga
thered in the corners.  “I simply cannot forgive myself for failing them.  I knew all the sterilization procedures and combination of herbs to support their immune systems, yet it wasn’t enough.  It required a vaccine.”

Sterilization procedures, immune system, vaccine?
  The man was talking in unintelligible tongues right now.

“I
watched them be buried in a mass grave with all the others, and then waited alone in the home we occupied every day.  Even when friends arrived I found no comfort.  I had to leave.  I needed to get away and start anew.”

“So you traveled all the way from Florence alone?  Was that not a dangerous journey with all the brigands about?”
Nicolaus asked as if Orban just said he crossed a lake of molten lava.

“Highway robbers tend to leave the impoverished looking travelers unmolested,”
Orban instructed.  “Plus only the bravest or most foolish brigand is still about.  Everyone else is hiding behind locked gates of the nearest city or town to try and keep the plague out.”

“Wise considering what the plague brings.  I tell myself I am here
in Constantinople for the university, but in truth it is protection.  The walls of this city are impenetrable and that is truly what keeps me here.”

“In my travels I have seen the plague ravage communities with high, thick
walls and those with none at all just the same.  Being surrounded on three sides by clean water is what preserves this city,” Orban continued.

Nicolaus
had not considered that.  “Regardless, the impenetrable walls do protect the city from conquest.  The only possible avenue of attacking the city is a land route to the west that is obstructed by over twenty miles of multilayered fortification walls.  The city is impregnable which is why it has drawn the greatest minds of this generation.  Above all else, scholars seek safety and consistency to pursue their studies with peace of mind.”

“
The comfort this city’s immense wealth provides cannot be discounted either,” Orban added.  “With all the taxes raised from ships wanting to traverse the narrow straight between the Black and Mediterranean Seas, it seems no man’s purse ever runs empty in this city.”

Nicolaus nodded his head in agreement.  “True.”

For the first time in their increasingly deep conversation, considering how
inebriated Orban must have been, the depressed man cracked a smile.  “Tell me, how can you claim the greatest minds reside here when so many go uneducated.  How many brilliant minds such as Thomas are wasted on the collective illiteracy of the masses?  This single city may prosper, but the wider civilization wallows around in ignorance and tears itself apart.”

“
You speak the truth once more, but what can be done about it?”

  “The knowledge and prosperity of this city must be shared with the world for the greater good of mankind,”
Orban declared and accentuated it by pounding his fist on the table.  “We need to bring these artists and thinkers out of hiding and allow the glow of their enlightenment to illuminate the rest of the world once more.”

Nicolaus
relaxed into his chair a bit realizing he was simply hearing outlandish thoughts of a drunken man.  It was an amusing distraction from his own troubles, however.  “That is a fine plan, but how do you accomplish it? By force?  You cannot thrust civilization onto people who do not want it.  We all learned that lesson from the Romans.  Besides, every city and town has stout walls and locked gates requiring years of siege to break.  The cost is too great and the benefit too small for any prince to try and unite the civilized world under a single banner once more.”

“What if a weapon were built that could level those city walls with a single shot,”
Orban said and thrust a page with a detailed diagram for a cannon of some sort drawn upon it.  Not just any cannon but a huge bombardment tool that would probably take fifty oxen and a whole army of men to move if it were ever built.

Nicolaus
gave the diagram a closer inspection.  He was not an expert, but he knew enough about metallurgy to recognize the design had merit.  This was not some drunken boast in a bar, it had real potential.

“Has your recent loss left you preoccupied with death to the point that you would design such a weapon?”
Nicolaus asked.

“This is not a tool for death,”
Orban countered.  “It is an enabler for progress and peace in the hands of the right leader.  Tomorrow I meet with Emperor Constantine to see if he is such a leader of vision.”

As Valnor led
his horse away from the last in a string of gate houses defending the city of Constantinople, he felt the ground shudder slightly when the portcullis was locked into position behind him.  The heavy wall of iron bars in conjunction with the seemingly endless string of stout walls looked intimidating; impregnable even. 

Emperor Constantine certainly thought his city was safe.  Valnor shook his head and chuckled at affixing the prefix of Emperor to Constantine’s name.  It was ridiculous.  The word implied the man was master of a massive
empire.  In reality he was little more than the mayor of a single, albeit wealthy, city.

Constantine scoffed at the idea of using Valnor’s heavy bombardment cannon as a means to expand his wealth and influence.  The coward was content to hide behind his walls and roll around in his riches while the rest of the world descended into anarchy around him.

The inaction was an unpleasant reminder of Hastelloy and his lack of leadership.  If the captain had let Valnor work his plan a thousand years earlier, they would probably already be off this godforsaken rock by now.  Instead they were stuck in this quicksand of darkness, death and societal degradation.

His tour through northern Italy and Greece gave a disturbing pictorial of just how far things had regressed.  Under the civilized umbrella of his Roman Empire commerce flowed freely, and citi
es boasted feats of architectural engineering and scholarly study.  Now these individual cities featured tall, thick walls with gaudy gatehouses closed tight in an effort to keep the spreading plague at bay.  How could Hastelloy have let this happen?

What’s more, Alice and Thomas would still be alive.  Their condition required a vaccine, a cure that was unavailable due to the disjointed and fractured society Hastelloy stood by and allowed to happen. 
Damn that man,
was all Valnor could think as he paced away from the city walls of Constantinople. 

Constantine was an infuriating individual.  He, more than anyone else on the planet, had the potential to make a difference, but he felt safe behind his walls.  So did all the great minds and artists who sought refuge in the place.

Not to worry though, there were other leaders nearby who had far more ambition and vision.  Valnor checked one last time that the saddle bags containing his designs were secure and then mounted his horse.  He gave one last look back at the towering city walls and then headed north on a mission to topple those very walls.

A week later, Valnor found himself seated before Sultan Mehmed II and a dozen of his military advisors.  The twenty-one year old had recently assumed the throne of the Ottoman Empire.  He inherited an immense fortune and a strong army.  Of more importance to Valnor, he was eager to prove to the world that he had the right to rule.

The city of Constantinople had been a mocking thorn in the side of the Ottoman Empire for generations.  The city’s command of the straights between the Black and Mediterranean seas robbed the Ottoman’s of their ability to tax commerce passing between the two bodies of water.  Today Valnor would help them start to remove that thorn.

Valnor decided to open the discussion by laying all his cards on the table.  “Honorable Sultan.  My name is Orban, and I humbly offer my designs and engineering services to your employ so that you may finally own the Golden Horn and the city which protects that valuable passage.”

Valnor observed several men around the rectangular table, including the Sultan himself, straighten their posture a bit.  The idea was not universally embraced however.

“It cannot be done,” one particularly fat man with a tangled beard barked.  “Catapults, trebuchets, sapping tunnels.  These have all been tried and failed to breach even one layer of those walls, let alone reach the city itself.  This is a fool’s proposition and a waste of our time.”

Sultan
Mehmed said nothing.  The young ruler simply opened his arms slightly inviting a counter argument.  Valnor was happy to comply.  Across the table he unfurled a roll of parchment paper that covered half the table and oriented it to face the Sultan.

When he saw eyes widen with comprehension of his d
esigns Valnor boldly declared, “If the walls no longer stand then there is nothing to impede you from conquering the city.”

After a few quiet moments the fat man continued his protest.  “Anyone can draw a picture of a big ca
nnon, it does not mean the thing will actually work.  Plus, it is too large.  How could we possibly move it into position, and once set up it would be too close to the target and draw constant attacks to destroy it.”

Valnor was ready for this debate.  He took out a stack of smaller sheets of paper detailing the precise metallurgical requirements and shapes
for the foundry moldings to render the weapon functional.  He set the stack of pages in front of the protesting advisor.  “Here are all the facts and figures to prove to your engineers that this is a viable design.  It will work.”

“I cannot deny the cannon will be heavy,” Valnor conceded.  “It will take at leas
t sixty oxen and no fewer than five hundred men to move the weapon into position, but all that effort will be well spent in the end.”

“The cannon will be able to hurl a
six hundred pound boulder over a mile to hit a target,” Valnor went on.  “Attack from the defenders will not be a concern, and with that amount of force and weight anything it hits will be destroyed.  In a matter of days the mighty walls of Constantinople will be little more than a paved entry way for your forces to secure a great conquest.”

Murmurs around the table debating the validity of Valnor’s claim came to an abrupt end when Sultan
Mehmed II rose to his feet.  “My engineers will review your designs.  If your claims are confirmed, I will make you a wealthy man.  If they are not, I will make you a dead man.”

With his orders given the Sultan left the command tent without another word.  When all eyes fell back on Valnor once more he cracked a confident grin
toward the engineers he was meant to impress.  “Does anyone have an abacus?”