Working with Sir John of Morton, ...

David and young Tam worked out the plan for moving the bombard. It would not be done easily. However, they put the finishing touches on the ideas and then called Sir Jamie to review their thoughts. After listening for only about five minutes, their General raised his hand. He told them that, in his opinion, they knew best how to use the resources they had to get the job done. Giving them full authority, he released them to get on with the work.

By now it was very late in the day. Soon it would be nightfall, and they needed to have certain materials readied before nightfall. David took charge of that. John began the process of readying everything that would be needed to use those materials, and Tam helped with that. They enlisted the services of the Irish, as well. Those great warriors heard the plans and set to with abandon, their pleasure at being enlisted in this effort quite apparent to all.

Just as night was descending, David returned with his crew. The men set about working with two great tree limbs they had cut, each one a peculiar shape. These two limbs had grown from their trees about two feet an then had turned upward at about a thirty-degree angle. Saws, huge hands and arms to hold the great limbs, and lots of sweat resulted in the cutting of twin boards that were straight and true for most of their length, with that curious upturn at the ends.

For David had listened with glee to the story that Sir Kent and Lady Christina had told at the Sleeping Dragon Inn about sliding down a hillside on a hand-made wooden sled. David was going to use some of that knowledge here. And now was the time when a lot of hard work would have to be done very quickly.

The time came for the next firing of the bombard. It belched its load of fire and flame, voiced its resounding boom, and the ball soared upward. Even before it struck, the men were hard at work. Ropes already attached to the carriage of the weapon were used with the derrick that had placed the barrel into that carriage to lift first one side and then the other. Each side got one of the runners that David's men had so cunningly fashioned. The carpenter quickly pegged the runners to the frame of the carriage, and then the machine was set back upright.

All in all, it took three quarters of the hour to complete this much of their work, and then David and John laid the aim once more. Assured that it was somewhere close to correct, they began the process of loading the weapon. On the hour the bombard belched another load. The ball carried off from its previous settings, this time landing in the courtyard of the Citadel. Not much damage was done except to fracture the centuries-old marble flaggings. Only one man was seriously injured, a guard who had the misfortune to look inward through one of the arrow slits just as the hunk of granite impacted. A spinning chunk of the ball ricocheted off the side of the slit and sliced its way across his scalp, leaving him screaming in horror as his own blood blinded him.

After correcting the aim, the two knights led a work expedition into the city. Once more they relied on materials that David's crew had located, this time in the form of four tall pine saplings that had been stripped of their branches. Bound together at the small ends and butts splayed, they formed a quick tall pyramid framework the men could use to raise a plank screen to block the vision of the English. It would not do for them to see and realize what was going to happen.

Even as the screen was raised, other men started constructing a new emplacement behind it. A few torches provided enough light for the work, but try as they might the curious English could not see what those illuminated. As soon as the new emplacement was ready, Tam took the men back to the camp where they were fed and told to rest as much as possible before moonset. John had the torches extinguished.

Several times more, the bombard spoke and threw its load of destruction. At last, the moon slipped behind a low bank of clouds near the Western horizon and buried itself for the night. There remained enough light from the stars to see at close range, but not enough to make out either details or activities. Tam sent the two young messengers as riders through the town to tell all the residents to put out fires, candles, and torches, and to stay strictly inside their homes. A surprise was coming on the morrow, they were told, and there would be a celebration. But for tonight they must remain at home and wait.

All the adults complied, and somehow kept even the most inquisitive children from sneaking out to see what was happening. Of course, the stern warnings from Altea and Gorka that they would be excluded from the festival if they were caught had some effect as well. Coming from youth not much older than themselves, that carried much more weight than parental admonitions.

As soon as the moon set and the bombard had fired, the real work began. Men and horses, hitched to the carriage of the bombard, pulled it up an earthen ramp and out into the open for the first time since it arrived on the plain. However, it still was not seen, for John had it shrouded in charcoal-blackened canvas. Across the plain the team of workers and horses went, as silently as was possible. Men had been cautioned to refrain from whips or crops, and to encourage their animals without shouting. Only soft whispers could be heard, along with the gentle clip-clops of walking hooves and an occasional scuffing boot. The runners worked to perfection, preventing the edge of the bombard carriage from getting hung on any of the buried stones or small scrub growth that chanced to be in their path. At last they approached the city gate, which Tam had open and waiting. As soon as the horses were inside and had gotten the bombard within the gates, they were unhitched and dismissed with their respective riders and draymen. The only exception was the hundred biggest, burliest, strongest, heaviest of the men. Most were from the Irish contingent. This job required massive strength.

Led by the three Irish Captains, they laid themselves into the traces and began to pull the bombard the fifty yards into its new home. Time was growing short, though. But they needed to do it this way to have better control and take less room than would be needed with the horses. Besides, the dark attire of the men gave the English less idea of what was going on. All they could hear were vague gruntings and shuffles, and they could see only a flowing mass and something bulky and awkward. Even as they approached the new emplacement, the stars began to disappear and their faint light to wane. Clouds from that bank on the horizon now were racing across the heavens, blotting them out. A storm was on the way.

Jamie laughed. One certainly was, one such as the English never had known. But in his heart of hearts, he was not certain about this venture. What if the action they planned killed one of his own men? He wrestled with that knotty problem.

Meanwhile, he had the seating of the carriage adjusted a little as they removed the runners. Now, if they tipped the barrel over so it pointed as he wished it to be, it aligned perfectly with a hole in the screen. The English could stare into that hole forever and see nothing but darkness.

As soon as the bombard was seated firmly into its new home, Jamie ordered it covered again with the blackened tarp, and that pegged to the compacted soil of the street that led to the ramp up toward the Citadel. It would not fire again tonight. Let the damned English think it had fallen silent, that Lord Paul had lost the voice of his most feared weapon. They would find out on the morrow.

And if they were staring into that hole when next the weapon fired, ...

At last young General Jamie mouthed a wicked grin.