The Flight of Birds by Alan Howard

Author:Alan Howard [Alan Howard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780955548666
Publisher: Raven's Quill
Published: 2010-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Offering Kate a seat in his study, the General walked over to the bookcase and, opening his hidden cabinet, poured himself a whiskey, “I thought you ought to know the outcome of my meeting at the British Museum. I should be hearing in a couple of weeks whether a positive conclusion can be drawn concerning the identity of the two letters and their author. But I can tell you that Professor Fulk was of the opinion that both were of the same age and that any differences in the scripts were indiscernible, near as dammit!”

“But that would mean the letter I saw with my own eyes being written for me, with the ink that I saw being dried with powder, was actually from the time of Queen Elizabeth? Impossible!” Kate paused, before continuing: “There’s something very strange and scary happening here.”

General Tercel looked thoughtful: “I don’t know how or why, but you do seem to be deeply entangled in some mysterious goings-on relating to the persons involved in the events of that time. I think under the circumstances, it is only fair to let you know what I know. Then, when we discover for certain whether your manuscript letter exactly matches that of Amelia Linnece from this library, then we can decide how to pursue the matter further. Though how it could possibly be as old if you saw it written as you say, is beyond me”

“According to our official records, compiled during his lifetime by, or at the instigation of Sir Gabriel de Tiercel, and afterward by the guardian of his young successor, the massacre was perpetrated by Falco Basard, his lieutenant, Gormer Scart, and their gang of smugglers.

“Falco Basard’s gang was tolerated in the district because he rendered certain services to Sir Gabriel, almost certainly in the realms of the exporting of munitions and the importing of contraband to bolster Sir Gabriel’s income. In fact, Falco Basard eventually became a sort of right hand man to Sir Gabriel, a position he started to abuse.

“The foundation of his wealth was, after all, the manufacture of cannon from Wealden iron ore smelted in the new, super-efficient by the standards of the time, blast furnaces whose technology had recently been imported from the forests of the Ardennes in northern France. Each blast furnace, whose chamber was force-fed air by a number of great bellows pumping in sequence, compressed by a rotating wheel powered by horses or water, had mixed iron ore and charcoal poured into it at the top, and produced, at the much higher temperatures, liquefied iron which flowed out in channels from the base. Each furnace could produce as much iron as twenty to thirty bloomeries, as the old hand-fed furnaces were called. Their liquid iron poured directly into moulds, and heavy cannon, much needed for the ongoing wars, could be cast in a single mould, making the old banded iron weapons all but redundant.”

“The fuel for all this new manufacture on a scale unheard of hitherto was the wood of the great Wealden Forest, a substantial parcel of which his family owned.

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