The Powder of Death by Julian Stockwin

Author:Julian Stockwin [Julian Stockwin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780749019358
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2016-09-24T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 51

Jared set up his workshop quickly. The charcoal was easy and the sulphur could be readily refined as he’d done before. The saltpetre, however, would need much more purifying before it could be used and for the amount he needed was ruinously expensive. Rosamunde had made no comment, letting him get on with it.

This was his last and only chance and he was not going to take shortcuts. The alchemist’s sulphur looked pure but he was going to make sure, and soon the throat-catching reek of sulphur fumes filled the air and eddied up into the opening to the outside. He wasn’t concerned, for here in the city there were far worse stinks, such as those from tanning.

He did the pulverising with the utmost care, twice the time the Cathayans took. And he would complete it just like them – clay pots and cloth fuses.

He found three empty herb pots in the kitchen and prepared for the big trial in rising excitement.

Saddling up a palfrey from the stable, he followed Rosamunde’s directions and arrived at the spot where the road diverged from the river. There, he found a barely noticeable path, which he rode along until continuing on horseback became impractical. Tying his mount to a tree he walked on and soon met the edge of the river – not a large one but issuing out from a dark ravine over a tumble of smoothed boulders.

The only way ahead was to jump from rock to rock but it enabled him to enter the dank coolness, past the steep face of the scarp and into the ravine. It was more a narrowing cleft, but of surprising length and took a good ten minutes to reach the dull roar of the waterfall.

He looked about and saw nothing but sheer heights to the edge of the woodland above.

As Rosamunde had said, it was perfect.

There was no reason to delay – he had to know if he had the secret in his grasp at last.

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