The Family - Mario Puzo [139]
“Please explain, Maestro,” Cesare said with interest.
Da Vinci began, “You simply use my movable ramp-tower. I know, you are thinking that siege towers have been used for centuries and that they don’t work. But my tower is different from the others. It is made in three separate parts, and can be wheeled to the walls of the fortress at the last moment of attack. Inside, the ladders lead to a covered staging area large enough to hold thirty men. They are protected in the front by a hinged wooden barrier that can be lowered like a drawbridge to the top of the wall, creating a ramp up which the thirty men race. Then they can hurl themselves into the battlements with their weapons in hand, while thirty more men quickly replace them in the staging area. Within three minutes, ninety men can be inside the walls hacking away at the enemy. In ten minutes more there can be three hundred, which is what my tower holds.” Da Vinci stopped, breathless.
“Maestro, that’s brilliant!” Cesare said, with a loud and boisterous laugh.
“But truly, the most brilliant feature of my tower,” da Vinci said, “is that you will never have to use it.”
“I don’t understand,” Cesare said, puzzled.
Da Vinci’s stern face relaxed. “Your diagram shows that the walls of Faenza are thirty-five feet high. Several days before the battle, you must circulate the word to the enemy that you are about to use my new tower. And that it can blow a hole in any wall up to forty feet high. Can you do that?”
Cesare said, “Of course. Every tavern on the Rimini road is filled with men who’ll race back to Faenza with that news.”
“Then you begin construction of the tower, and make certain it’s within sight of the enemy.” Da Vinci unfolded a sheet of parchment on which the massive three-part tower was beautifully sketched. “I have the design right here,” he said. But alongside the drawing, each part was described in a language that Cesare could not read.
Noting Cesare’s puzzled expression, da Vinci gave a small laugh. “It is a special trick of mine to deceive spies and plagiarists, for one never knows who will try to steal from you. In most of my designs, I write so that the only way to read it is to hold it before a mirror. Then the writing becomes perfectly clear.”
Cesare smiled, for he admired cautious men.
Da Vinci continued. “Now, Captain General, the enemy has heard about the fearsome tower. They watch it as it is constructed. And they know they’ve not much time. The tower will come, and with thirty-five-foot walls they’ll be overrun. What do they do? They build up the walls, they pile stone upon stone around the fortress until the walls are ten feet higher. But they have made a terrible error. What did they forget? Those walls are no longer stable, for the base must be fortified to hold that extra weight. But by the time they reason that out . . . your artillery fires.”
Cesare collected his army from all the neighboring towns, and his men told anyone who would listen in every local tavern about Cesare Borgia’s stupendous new tower.
As da Vinci suggested, Cesare had his men start construction within sight of Faenza. When Cesare’s forces took their positions around the city and his cannons were brought forward, Cesare could see the frantic effort beginning. Men raced around the ramparts carrying and placing huge stones one atop another, on the fortress walls. Amused, Cesare delayed the attack to give them more time.
Now Cesare sent for Captain Vito Vitelli. They stood in his tent overlooking the unfortunate city.
“Here’s what I wish, Vito,” Cesare said. “Direct all your fire at the very base of the wall between those two towers.” He pointed at an area more than wide enough for his army to pass through.
“At the base, Captain?” Vitelli asked, incredulously. “That’s where we aimed last winter and failed miserably. We should fire at the ramparts now. At least that way we can kill their men a few at a time.”
Cesare wanted no one to