Remy had claimed a corner room in the inn, one with a single narrow window that looked toward the eastern wall of Belgrade’s lower town. It was small, quiet, and most importantly, isolated. Jehan thought he had gone there to write, or to read, or to pray. Sir Gaston assumed he was maintaining his armor. Sir Aldred assumed he was sleeping. All three were wrong.

  Remy bolted the door and checked the shutters twice. When he was satisfied the room was his alone, he knelt beside the pack he kept closest to his bed. The clasp opened with the faint click he knew by heart. Inside, protected by linen and wrapped in layers of treated wool to disguise its shape, lay the project he had been working on and did most work in Esztergom.

  It was almost finished. Almost.

  He lifted the half-assembled weapon with both hands, careful not to let metal scrape wood. The stock was carved from the seasoned wood he’d purchased from a Hungarian bowyer felt cold from the morning. The lockplate lay beside it, gleaming pale where he had burnished it the night before. The barrel, shorter now by a few inches, wrapped in cloth darkened with oil and acid fumes.

  He set everything out on the table in neat rows, the way a surgeon might arrange his tools.

  The hardest part remained -- the single-set trigger and the trigger guard.

  He took a slow breath. He’d known this would test his patience.

  He slid into the chair, pulled his small iron lamp closer, and unrolled the packet of drawings he’d made by lamplight back in Toledo. Every pivot point, every angle, every stack of tolerances he’d predicted was written out in the cramped script he used when speed mattered more than beauty. He tapped the parchment once with a fingertip.

  “This is the part that decides whether you live or explode in my hand,” he muttered to the unfinished pistol.

  The trigger assembly lay in pieces before him. The mainspring. The fly. The tiny sear that had taken him three hours to shape from a strip of steel no wider than his thumbnail. The set-trigger bar, slim as a quill. And the guard itself, swept in a curve that hid its strength beneath elegance.

  The geometry had been wrong in Esztergom. A tiny misalignment, hardly thicker than a strand of hair, would cause the trigger to bind or misfire in cold weather. He had spent days stewing about it while riding since Temesvár, sketching angles in his head as the horses trotted through mud.

  Now, in Belgrade, he would fix it.

  He placed a clean sheet of parchment beside the drawings and began again. Exact scale. No guesses. He measured each part with the calipers he’d commissioned from a Toledo smith who believed they were for “astronomical experiments.” He traced them onto the page, shifting and rotating the shapes until the geometry behaved. Every pivot point clicked into alignment. The trigger bar met the set-screw angle exactly. The guard’s rear curve no longer collided with the sear housing.

  It took him two hours. When the geometry finally matched, he allowed himself one slow exhale. Then he carried the parchment to the stock.

  The stock was already rough, enough to hold the mechanism, not enough to make it function. The outlines needed transferring cleanly.

  He set the pistol stock under the window, where the gray morning light helped him see the faint pencil marks. Then he took his scribe and followed the new outlines, cutting them lightly into the maple.

  This was where mistakes could ruin everything.

  He worked slowly, scraping away thin curls of wood with the small inletting chisel he had dulled and re-sharpened a dozen times. The stock groaned soft, woody complaints as he removed the excess material. A long sliver curled up like a paper ribbon. He flicked it aside and checked the depth with the blade’s back edge.

  When the cavity reached the correct depth, he set the trigger assembly inside.

  It didn’t fit.

  Remy grunted. “Of course,” he muttered.

  He took it out again, shaved half a hair’s width from the right wall, then reseated the frame. Better. A shallow gap remained under the sear housing. He scraped that too, no more than the thickness of a fingernail, then pressed the steel back into place.

  This time it settled cleanly.

  He tested the set-trigger with his thumb. The bar snapped forward with a crisp click that made him smile before he could stop himself.

  “That’s it.”

  Now the inletting was done.

  He placed the stock on the table, brushed away the wood dust with a linen cloth, and ran his fingers along the lines. They were clean now. Correct. Time for refinement.

  The sanding began next. Sslow, even, patient strokes with wrapped gritstone until the maple turned soft beneath his palms. He scraped the final curves with the cabinet scraper he kept in a leather sheath. The sound was smooth, rhythmic. Almost soothing.

  Then came the staining.

  He took the bottle of aqua fortis from his pack. The liquid shimmered faintly green when he uncorked it. Dangerous stuff. Too much heat and it would blacken the wood. Too little and it would do nothing at all.

  He brushed it along the stock with a cloth, watching the pale maple drink the stain. The room filled with a faint, sharp scent of acid biting into wood, revealing the figure hidden inside. The grain darkened, then shifted into a warm, rippling glow as he passed the lamp’s flame across it. The heat brought the stain alive. The wood turned richer, deeper, a living color climbing up the curves of the stock.

  He set it aside to dry.

  Next came the barrel and receiver.

  He removed the cloth and inspected the shorter barrel, now trimmed to the length he preferred. Balance mattered more than fashion. A long pistol was beautiful, yes, but beauty didn’t save your life when the draw needed to be quick.

  He took the brown-finish mixture from his pack, a concoction of acids, salt, and iron filings and rubbed it along the metal with a rag. Slowly, patiently, the steel darkened into a deep, mottled brown. A finish that resisted rust better than most men understood.

  He worked the receiver the same way, turning the metal over and over in his hands until it matched the barrel in color.

  The lock and trigger guard were left in the white. That was deliberate. He took his burnisher, a polished steel rod and pushed it along the surfaces in slow, heavy strokes. The pressure sealed the pores of the metal, making it smooth as glass and harder for rust to grip.

  When he finished, the lock gleamed with a cold sheen that caught the lamplight like moonlit water.

  Hours had passed.

  The stock was ready now. He lifted it gently and rubbed the first coat of oil into the stained surface. The grain deepened again, glowing richly beneath the sheen. He worked the oil along the curves of the grip, the swell near the forestock, the flat along the comb.

  Speaking of the forestock, thicker than tradition demanded, but necessary. The breech-loading design required the extra material to house the frame’s keel. It broke the elegant lines he remembered from the pistols of other centuries, but function mattered more than elegance, and the pistol would be stronger for it.

  He took the barrel and married it to the stock. It settled neatly into the channel he’d carved, the heavier forestock supporting the frame exactly as intended.

  Then he added the catch.

  A simple piece of spring steel, shaped into a small hooked arm that locked the tip of the loading lever in place. Without it, the lever would drop during recoil. With it, the breech wouldn’t open accidentally.

  He drilled two tiny pilot holes, screwed the catch into place, and tested it twice. It held perfectly.

  The pistol was beginning to look complete.

  Almost.

  But not yet.

  The rear sight was still uncut. The front sight, untrimmed. He would leave those for later. Sighting was a delicate art. It required distance, open space, and much quieter surroundings than a Belgrade inn with shouting tavern guests two floors below.

  He assembled the lock into the burnished cavity and tightened the screws. The mechanism fit with the clean, satisfying precision he’d chased across two cities.

  Remy stood back from the table.

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  There it was.

  The breech-loading flintlock pistol, made in secret, now refined in Belgrade. Rough in elegance, but perfect in purpose. A weapon decades, if not centuries, ahead of its time, assembled in a room that now smelled of oil, acid, metal, and stained maple.

  He picked it up. Balanced it in his right hand.

  Perfect weight. Perfect angle. The shortened barrel brought the center of gravity closer to the wrist. The longer grip allowed for recoil management he’d always preferred. The single-set trigger broke.

  He cocked the hammer.

  The click echoed softly against the stone walls.

  For a moment he simply stood there, staring at the pistol in his hand, the lamplight catching the brown-finished barrel and the pale gleam of the lockplate.

  Then he lowered it.

  He wrapped the weapon in its oiled cloth, piece by piece, and returned it to the pack. No one would ever know what he made here. Not Jehan, not Gaston, not the Ban of Ma?va, not the men who would one day face the muzzle of this pistol.

  He extinguished the lamp, unbolted the door, and stepped back into the world as if nothing had happened at all.

  Remy chose a place west of Belgrade’s walls, a place where grass clung everywhere and the Danube’s scent carried faintly on the air. Dawn had only begun to warm the fog that drifted above the river, and most of the garrison still slept. A few fishermen pushed out onto the water, their shouts too distant to matter. It was as private a place as one could claim near a fortress-city.

  He brought only the pack, a folded blanket, a wooden rest built in haste the night before, and Morgan.

  Morgan disapproved of everything.

  The destrier stood with ears pinned back, stomping at the dewy earth as though the mere memory of noise offended him personally. Remy ignored him, long accustomed to the horse’s opinions. He set the pack beneath a squat hawthorn, and lifted the wrapped pistol free.

  It still felt strange holding it in this kinda of era where it shouldn’t exist yet. The newness carried no instability, the tolerances were as tight as the night he had finished it, the metal unmarred, the stock’s oil-coat still gleaming faintly.

  He had prayed only a little before leaving the inn.

  He set the pistol on the folded blanket, then reached into the pack for the box of .395 balls he had made. They had been dried, each one coated with the thin chemical he had prepared, something not entirely unlike a primitive lacquer, meant to substitute for more modern lubrication. If the stars aligned and the chemistry behaved, the coating would keep bore friction consistent. If it failed, he would spend the afternoon filing imperfections out of the breech seal.

  He rolled one of the dried balls between his fingers. Smooth. Slightly tacky. But promising.

  Morgan snorted loudly behind him, a sound equal parts complaint and warning.

  “You can go back to the city if you like,” Remy said over his shoulder.

  Morgan’s answer was a longer, more offended snort.

  Remy smiled faintly and went back to work.

  The wooden rest sat solidly on the ground, its legs braced with stones to prevent shifting. He placed the pistol atop it, adjusting the angle with care. With the rear sight not yet cut, he would aim along the barrel like a smoothbore, a primitive method he did not enjoy, though accuracy was not the test’s purpose.

  He loaded the first charge.

  A measured thirty grains of handmade powder slid smoothly down the opened breech, settling against the recessed channel. He seated the chemical-coated ball atop it, eased the breech shut, and heard the click of the lock engaging the gas seal. Tight. Firm. No wobble. Exactly as built.

  Morgan walked away ten steps in protest, then turned his hindquarters toward the proceedings as though personally wounded by the betrayal.

  Remy ignored him.

  He primed the pan, took a slow breath, and put his weight behind the rest.

  The first shot cracked across the morning, sharp and clean, echoing against the walls of Belgrade before fading over the river. A startled flock of birds burst from a nearby willow.

  Morgan reeled around, glaring at Remy as if the shot had been directed at him specifically.

  “Do not look at me like that,” Remy muttered. “You have heard worse.”

  Morgan stamped hard.

  Remy sighed and began reloading.

  He checked the breech area first. Nothing. No gas leakage, no soot smearing the seal, no heat-warping. The tolerances held. The breech opened as smoothly as the moment he’d assembled it, without sticking or scraping.

  “Good,” he murmured.

  The second shot cracked across the rise with the same whip-like precision. Morgan flung his head as though abused.

  The breech seal remained immaculate.

  Another shot. And another. The pistol grew warm in his hands, then hot, then uncomfortably so. But the lock continued to spark cleanly, the chamber sealed without complaint, each cycle as smooth as the first.

  By the eighth shot he knew, confidently, deeply, that the design had succeeded. Even after repeated firing, not a trace of powder gas leaked into the joint. Not even a damn whisper. The powdered residue that normally crept into every crevice of ordinary pistols simply wasn’t there.

  He set the weapon down and flexed his hand. The grip, still new, warmed quickly to the touch.

  Morgan approached again, cautiously, ears swiveling like a soldier on sentry duty.

  Remy stroked the destrier’s nose once. “This is not for you to fret over. It is for me.”

  Morgan did not appear convinced.

  He resumed the test, this time firing for grouping rather than merely function. Without a rear sight, accuracy was almost an insultingly difficult problem, but the numbers mattered.

  At fifty yards, the pistol’s ball struck the target-board with surprising consistency. Three-inch groups. From a rest. Using what amounted to instinctive aim. He’d expected twice that size at best.

  Remy walked to the board and touched one of the holes. Clean entry. No tumbling. The chemical coating was doing its part.

  The muzzle velocity… that he had not expected.

  He returned to the rest, checked the powder charge of ninety-three grains for the full test and fired again, this time paying close attention to the recoil impulse and sound.

  The recoil was crisp and predictable. The sound was sharp, yes, but somehow less thunderous than most pistols of the upcoming era. Efficient combustion. Minimal wasted gas.

  He could almost feel the velocity.

  It would be high.

  Higher than anything this century had any right to produce and would ever have.

  He loaded again, fired, and again the recoil remained identical. No wandering inconsistencies. No unsteady ignition. It reminded him of a good airgun, clean, linear power, nothing chaotic or smoky or hesitant.

  He laughed under his breath.

  “Remarkable.”

  Morgan flattened his ears at the laughter, apparently deciding that Remy had gone mad.

  Remy ignored him and began the next series.

  Thirty grains this time.

  The shot cracked with less violence, the recoil gentler, but the velocity remained more than respectable. An average of 1040 feet per second, if his intuition had not dulled. The grouping loosened slightly, but the power curve remained smooth.

  He wrote mental notes. The ten-grain charge he tried afterward barely made a murmur, more like a firm pop than a gunshot, but still sent the ball downrange with unexpected steadiness. Quiet enough for discreet use if needed. The accuracy at such low charges was impressive and more than practical at short distances.

  Cleaning came next.

  He set the pistol on the blanket, eased the breech to the special angle he’d designed, and pushed the assembly free. It slid out cleanly, the keyway releasing its grip without complaint. The crank and lever pulled free of the receiver with a soft metal whisper, neat and satisfying.

  He carried the breech to the bucket of river water he’d hauled up the hill earlier, dropped it in, and watched the water swirl dark with the first dissolved soot.

  Then he lifted the pistol, held it upside down, and poured a second bucket of water down the muzzle. The water shot through the barrel and out the open breech slot without wetting the lock or stock.

  Simple. Efficient.

  He ran the bore brush through twice, then a third time for caution. The residue came away easily. No fouling trapped in the gas seal. No crusted buildup. Nothing that would require filing or scraping.

  He let the parts dry in the morning air, wiped them with oil, and reassembled the pistol in minutes. The lock he kept in place, he wiped it down and saw no need to remove it fully. It could come off if fouled, yes, and quickly at that, but for today the mechanism remained neat and clean.

  Everything behaved exactly as designed.

  He stared the assembled pistol and exhaled.

  Morgan nudged him in the shoulder, perhaps deciding the danger had passed.

  Remy stroked the destrier’s cheek absently. “It will be loud again tomorrow,” he warned. “Get used to it.”

  Morgan pinned his ears dramatically.

  Remy gave a small smile. He held the pistol one last time before packing it.

  Its weight felt right in his hand. The balance was improved by cutting down the barrel and brought the center of gravity close to the wrist. The thicker forestock, though not elegant by the lines of the century, made recoil stable and the frame secure.

  The gas seal had proven flawless. The consistency was astonishing. The velocity was far above what black powder pistols should achieve. And the ease of cleaning, the quiet low-charge shot, the tight tolerances…

  Yes.

  He could use this for times that demanded it.

  The kind of times he knew too well.

  He wrapped the pistol in its oiled cloth, slid it into the pack

  The morning sun had risen above Belgrade now, lighting the walls in pale gold.

  He placed a hand on Morgan’s neck and climbed into the saddle.

  “Come,” he said. “Let us go back before someone grows curious.”

  Morgan obeyed, though with a final, accusing snort.

  And Remy rode back toward the city.