His natural sense of fairness asserted itself and he felt guilty about his rudeness. It was hardly her fault that she, like all the others, failed to recognize his genius. People rarely did. The world was full, it seemed to Ozhobar, of men with small minds and little imagination. ‘Why are there so many fools in the world?’ he had once asked his father.
‘Well, boy, the world is ruled by fools so that other
fools might prosper. Men of imagination are not highly regarded, as I fear you will find.’
How true it had proved! At thirty-five Ozhobar had seen many of his inventions scorned by lesser minds, his written papers mocked by the wise men of the day. Only now, with Corduin about to be destroyed, had they come to him. And for what? His water-pumping machine? His designs for an inter-connected sewage system to alleviate the spread of sickness and plague? His water-filtration device? No. For crossbows and armour and giant catapults. To call it galling would be an understatement.
‘What diameter holes do you want, sir?’ asked the team leader, moving up behind him.
‘One inch should suffice.’
‘I’ll have to send down for new drill bits. It’ll take time.’
‘What size do you have?’
‘Three-quarter, sir. And we’ve plenty of pegs that size to fit them.’
Ozhobar thought the problem through. The pegs would lock the wheels of the catapult into place, the rails allowing the weapon to be turned through 360 degrees. When the throwing-arm was released there would be a savage kick-back, driving the wheels into the pegs. Would three-quarters be thick enough? Should he design pegs of iron instead? That would be simple enough. But then iron pegs could damage the peg holes.
‘Sir?’
‘Yes, use three-quarters. But deepen the holes. If a peg snaps, it will need to be hammered through, so as to allow a fresh peg to be inserted.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The man walked away. Ozhobar heard a distant voice call his name and he ambled across to the edge of the
roof, gazing down to the street below. There was a cart drawn up there, carrying twelve of the huge pottery balls he had ordered; they were packed in straw. His irritation rose. They were not due until later this afternoon, and the canvas-roofed shelter had not yet been constructed for them.
His irritation flared into anger minutes later when the pulley crew, in their anxiety to finish the job swiftly, cracked one of the balls against the side of the building, smashing it to shards.
For the next hour the Weapon Maker moved back and forth between the pulley crew and the carpenters, checking the work. The pottery balls were stored against the western side of the roof, and covered with a canvas sheet. The circular iron rails arrived in the early afternoon, and Ozhobar himself fitted them over the chalk circles, hammering the iron spikes into place. It was almost dusk before the first sections of the catapult were hauled into the street below. Ozhobar oversaw the lifting of the cross-beamed base and the throwing-arm, then ordered lanterns to be lit so that the work could continue after dark.
It was midnight before the weapon was fully in place, its four wooden wheels set within the iron rails. The throwing-arm extended upwards more than ten feet, the bronze cup at the top gleaming in the lantern light. Ozhobar swung the machine to the right, and the wheels groaned as the catapult moved. He greased the axles. Now there was no sound as the catapult turned.
‘I hope it works,’ said the team leader, a thin-faced man with a seemingly permanent sneer.
Ozhobar ignored him, then smiled as he pictured the man sitting in the copper cup as the holding hook was hammered clear. In his mind’s eye he could see the fellow sailing up and over the north wall.
It began to snow. Ozhobar ordered the catapult to be covered with a tarpaulin, then made the long perilous descent to the ground, four floors below.
Striding back through the city, he stopped at a tavern for a brief meal, then walked the mile and a half to his workshop. His burly assistant, Brek, was talking to Forin and the female general, Karis.