Weapons and Armies: Greek Fire

By Carrie Lofty

Robin pulled a special arrow from his quiver. Instead of barbed metal, the head was made of tightly wound and knotted wool. More like a slender torch than an arrow, he drenched it in the gelatinous solution. The man in charge of that barrel quickly dropped the leather cover back in place, keeping it clear of the rain.

He marveled at the magic he witnessed. Each drop of water landed upon the coated shaft and sizzled. When he dipped the saturated wool into the open drum of rainwater, it burst into flames. The downpour did nothing to extinguish the fire and, in fact, strengthened its mysterious heat. All around him, he heard his men--sound men of long experience in battle--wonder and fret about the unnatural blaze.

But then the hoardings opened. Archers began their assault on Will's team.

Robin watched the trap unfold, neither surprised nor discouraged. At least Will and a few of his accomplices made it inside the gate. "Archers! On me!"

A line of men stood ready, wielding the flaming arrows no water could douse.

"On the hoardings! Ready! Fire!"

Curving over the shallow glade, blazing arrows glowed against the deep gloom of the evening storm. While a few flew wide in the wind, most of the points met their mark and embedded in the wooden galleries that shielded the opposing archers. The arrows burned and burned. No amount of water quenched their hunger, until even the rain-soaked wood fell victim to the tremendous heat and caught fire.

In WHAT A SCOUNDREL WANTS, the blind alchemist, Meg, uses an ancient formula to produce Greek Fire for her husband, Will Scarlet, and the legendary Robin Hood to use against their enemies. While the BBC's newest "Robin Hood" television series made the mistake of claiming it to be gunpowder, Greek Fire was actually a forerunner of modern napalm.

Throughout the years, it has been referred to as Roman fire, Byzantine fire, liquid fire, and sea fire. Thought to have been the creation of the Byzantines in the 6th century, drawing from the Alexandrian school of early chemists, Greek fire was an incendiary weapon that burned even in water. The formula became a treasured Byzantine secret, passed down by emperors and their scientists. While the exact formula is not known, historians believe it was either a form of quicklime that increased its heat when exposed to water, or a floating hydrocarbon such as naphtha.

No matter its composition, Byzantine armies used Greek Fire throughout the Middle Ages, particularly in sea battles where the opposition could be destroyed while trapped in narrow straights or against rocky shores. Some delivery methods included barrels flung via catapult, arrows laced with the substance, or primitive grenades--metal or glass canisters hurled at the opposition. Crusaders returned home to England and France with wild tales of fire that only grew stronger in water. Western science trailed those eastern innovations by such an extent that such a thing could not be believed, let alone recreated.

(How does Meg, my heroine, know the formula? She has a very convincing connection to a gentleman named Adelard of Bath.)

Eastern cultures including the Persians and Chinese also had a type of Greek Fire, but many historians believe the formula differed from that of the Byzantines. The modern equivalent, napalm, is actually a sticky version. Incendiary petroleum splashed too easily, so the addition of the napalm bonding agent helped to jelly the flammable fuel, making it stick while burning. The weapon was used to famously horrific results during the Vietnam Conflict. Napalm victims asphyxiate or suffer third degree burns that destroy layers of skin and shut down the immune system, and survivors suffer burns called keloids--growths of tissue around the scar site, which permanently impair motor function.

All around nasty stuff.

Maladies & Treatments: Accidental Science

By Carrie Lofty

For generations, healers and physics (an early term for physicians) used natural cures that worked wonders for their patients. Little did they know, the cures were based on scientific principles of chemistry that wouldn't be verified for hundreds of years. They only used what worked.

One of the medieval cures for cleansing a wound involved calcium carbonate. Called "quicklime," it was made from crushed shells or bones. The quicklime was added to salt or a sodium-rich plant, with a little dry mustard (a powerful astringent). Healers would wash the wound in hot beer--beer being far more hygienic and reliably sterile than water--and then scrub the area with the quicklime and salt mix. For the final step, they coated the would with a vegetable oil and pulverized fir, another proven astringent that also helped form scabs.

There is sound chemistry behind this cure. The calcium carbonate, salt and oil formed an impromptu soap on the skin, keeping the wound clean. Ta-dah! Science!

Trial-and-error science was not limited to cures; nutrition also benefited. One medieval means of cooking involved a double boiler. Cooks would bundle cool, thickened leftover pottage (porridge) in a linen cloth, a large ball of ground meat in another, and a selection of vegetables in a third. The packets were layered on top of one another in the smaller pot, pottage on the bottom, then meat, then vegetables. Cooks would pour broth in the larger pot of the double boiler, assemble it, and let it simmer for hours--a medieval crock pot.

What was so ingenious about this method, aside from saving time and keeping food warm until it was needed, is that is wasted nothing. Healthful vitamins released by the vegetables were simply collected in the double boiler, invigorating the broth with much-needed nutrients, while the boiling, swirling broth kept the food moist, gave everything a nice flavor, and slowly steamed the vegetables--no wiggly veggies! They might not have known it was a healthy thing to do, scientifically speaking, but record of this method of cooking shows that medieval citizens knew they were better off eating from multiple food groups and not overcooking vegetables.

Over the years, cures and techniques such as these were scrutinized by science and proven sound. People of old might not have known how it worked, but they benefited nonetheless. Now if only someone had been around to tell them that mercury worked so well as a diuretic because it was slowly poisoning the body...

Chemistry and History -- Having Fun Yet?

I am no chemist. I took two semesters of chemistry in high school and did quite well, but with me in a classroom setting, that didn't mean much. Doing well was my intention, not long-term retention.

For my current WIP, set in 1199 AD England, I am having to re-learn and just plain learn quite a bit for my heroine's profession: alchemy. My goal for this MS is to manage all manner of fantastic and explosive happenings, but without any paranormal elements. To have Meg cast spells and be an actual witch (as opposed to "accused of witchcraft," which does take place) just seemed too goofy and ordinary for me, so I hit the books. Any excuse for more research!

My initial goal was to find a legitimate source of information for her. Arab, Indian, and Chinese scholars knew much about all of my "fantastic and explosive happenings," including gunpowder, acids, making fake gold and gems, and medicine. For example, an Arab or possibly Persian scientist named Jabir ibn Hayyan, better known as Geber (c.721-c.815), pictured left, is credited with the first modern scientific inquiry. In addition, he formulated the process to synthesize hydrochloric and nitric acids. Useful and cool. Another scientist, a Persian named Al-Razi (865-925), codified modern distillation techniques and drew from previous works to revolutionize how minerals are classified.

Al-Razi, pictured right, also worked extensively on the transmutation of metals -- turning base metals into precious ones. And Geber believed strongly in takwin -- the creation of artificial life in a laboratory setting. At the heart of their hard science, the goal for most of these great minds remained materialistic. Gold. Everlasting life. Fortune and glory. I like the parallels to today. No scientist can live by altruism and inquiry alone!

However, my difficulty was not pure knowledge, but the proliferation of knowledge. How to get that information to England? Kevin Costner relied on Morgan Freeman's Moorish sidekick in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, but what could I manage for Meg? I didn't just want to twang her with more goods than would have been available. I might as well make her a witch.

In my travels through wondrous stacks of library books, I discovered a little-known man named Adelard of Bath (c.1116-c.1142). In his brief life, Adelard traveled to Spain and North Africa where he became fluent in Arabic, studied at Arab universities, and translated seminal works into Latin -- including Euclid's Elements, which had only survived as an Arab translation of the original Greek. Adelard believed the earth is round, theorized that matter cannot be destroyed, and studied atmospheric pressure and the vacuum. To say he was ahead of his time is an understatement.

When he returned to England, Adelard became a tutor to King Henry II. He also corresponded extensively with a nephew in letters that were discovered centuries later and subsequently lost. The identity of the nephew is not a matter of consensus. Most believe he was a lay-scientist, perhaps a man with a keen mind and interest in the subject, but without the means or desire to pursue the subject as extensively as had his uncle.

In the twelfth century, because texts were so rare and difficult to produce, a person who owned a dozen books was rich beyond imagination. Correspondences such as those between Adelard and his nephew would have become a near-sacred heirloom for their progeny, full of questions, theories, translations, and knowledge of practical chemistry.

Ta-dah! A light bulb moment. I had discovered a legitimate means of bringing Arab knowledge of chemistry to England at the time of my WIP. Yes, although far-fetched, I decided to make the mystery nephew my heroine's grandfather.

That's my story. Sticking to it. Next month: how medieval folks blew things up.