Ash: A Secret History

by Mary Gentle

  Antonio Angelotti kissed his St Barbara medal. “God send us such grace. I wonder how many cannon they have?”

  “Rickard’s got an artillery list here somewhere…” Ash straightened up from the map. “Their overall losses in the first wave of the invasion amount to almost seven legions. Out of thirty, in total. That’s under twenty-five per cent, that is,” she echoed the even tone of the machina rei militaris, “acceptable. It’s getting her people killed trying to break Dijon in a hurry that’s her problem…”

  “Look at this.” Angelotti, scanning the papers as quickly as Father Faversham or Father Paston, put his finger down blindly on the map, and then moved it to Carthage. “Gelimer’s got two more legions in Carthage, but he won’t plan to move them with the Turkish fleet still untouched, even if they do hold Sicily and the western Med.”

  Ash moved aside as Robert Anselm leaned in over the table, unselfconsciously scratched red flea-bites, and then traced with his blunt, dirt-ingrained finger the coast of North Africa.

  “Egypt. That’s the spike up Gelimer’s arse,” he grunted. “Look at that! He’s got three whole legions in Egypt – fresh – and he can’t move them. Not if he don’t want the Turks across the Sinai faster than you can say Great Mother! But he fucking needs them in Europe, because if this is right, he’s spread way thin… He can’t even reinforce southern France.”

  Angelotti remarked, “Don’t get excited. Right now, the Faris thinks she can keep three legions fighting up in Flanders. She can always move those men south to here. Throw three legions against this city and it’ll fall over pretty quick.”

  “Maybe. She’d have to stop using the French and Saxon ports to feed them. Try re-supplying with river boats.”

  “Depends if the Rhine or the Danube’s frozen…”

  “That’s another reason they can’t let go of Egypt; with Iberia going under the Dark, they need to get corn from somewhere…”

  Ash, grimly interrupting, said, “There isn’t a peep out of King Louis – or his nobles, which is far more remarkable. And even the Electors are holding to the Emperor’s surrender in the Germanies. I think it’s what happened at Venice, and Florence, and Milan – and to the Swiss. They don’t dare move – and they don’t know the Visigoths are running at full stretch and then some.”

  A glance went between Anselm, Angelotti, and Rochester.

  Geraint ab Morgan threw down the piece of paper he had been attempting to decipher, with a look of disgust at Richard Faversham. “Too many fucking clerks in this! – no offence, Father. Boss, how do you know that what your demon-voice says about all this is true? How do we know they ain’t got a few more legions tucked away?”

  Other faces turned to hers, at that – Geraint’s old sergeants, now Ludmilla’s: Savaric and Folquet, Bieiris, Guillelma and Alienor. John Price; John Burren. Henry Wrattan broke off a low-voiced conversation with Giovanni Petro.

  “It isn’t a demon-voice,” Ash said, “it’s Father Godfrey now.”

  She has a moment of doubt: must she explain it all, examine rumours that have spread through the company in the last forty-eight hours, go back in her mind to the shattering collapse of Carthage? Two or three men cross themselves; most of the others touch Briar Crosses, or Saints’ medals, to their lips.

  “Yeah, well,” Jan-Jacob Clovet grinned, showing yellow and black teeth. “Father Godfrey always did manage a shit-hot intelligence service. Don’t suppose that’s changed since he’s dead.”

  There was a subdued chuckle in the room: Henri van Veen muttering something to Tyrrell, who punched his arm and cheerfully said, “Motherfucker!” John Price and Jean the Breton palmed and drank from a stoppered wineskin with practised ease.

  Thomas Rochester held up a fistful of illustrative paper. “Are we giving this information to the Burgundians, boss?”

  “I’m getting Digorie to make a copy for the Sieur de la Marche. We haven’t broken a condotta yet…”

  She waits, gaze flicking across lined, filthy faces, to see if anyone will say Always a first time.

  “We’ve held that fucking north wall!” Campin muttered again. “I’m losing too many of my people to Greek Fire, boss. Mind you, so are the nancy-boy Burgundians…”

  “I know you reckon we can’t get out of here with you, boss, but how would we manage, if we were still heading for England, then?” Euen Huw bent down over the table, his expression hidden as he studied the sketched map. “They ain’t going to take those northern legions across the Channel while Duchess Margaret’s still fighting. Say we didn’t go north or east, suppose we went back west, and then into Louis’s lands? Calais, maybe?”

  “Under the Dark? When we still need to eat?” Ash put her finger on the map. “Even if we tried … initially, back in July, the Faris landed three legions here, at St Nazaire; they’ve moved up the Loire valley. The II Oea and the XVIII Rusicade are occupying Paris. We’re not going to make Calais if they want to stop us… As for the far west, the Legio IV Girba are sitting here, at Bayonne – either to be shipped up the west coast of the French king’s territories, or to be moved back into Iberia if the unrest there gets worse – they didn’t expect the Dark to cover half Iberia, it’s paying merry hell with their logistics. That’s one she could bring east.”

  “Has she?”

  “Jeez, Euen, how the fuck do I know! She reports back to Carthage every fucking day!” Ash took a breath. “Godfrey’s been taking me through her sit. reps, for the past three weeks. I don’t think she’s recalled the IV Girba to here.”

  She paused, shifting her body in her Milanese armour, still less than comfortable; re-training muscles and balance at a level below the conscious. Because it is only a few hours to morning.

  “It isn’t likely,” Ash said, at last. “Not with those huge logistics problems. But … if she was stupid enough to send an order – and didn’t report it through to Carthage – we wouldn’t know.”

  “So if we go west, we’ll meet legions.” Overt, now, Geraint ab Morgan shouldered in beside Euen Huw and asked, “What if we went back down south, boss? To Marseilles? I know it was ’ell, but we might get a ship, get out of the Med, sail up the west coast of Iberia…”

  “Good God, no, Geraint – if you think I’m going to spend five hundred miles watching you puke over the side of a ship—!”

  A gust of laughter. Simon Tydder, shouldering his way in beside Rickard, gave a guffaw that ended in a squeak, and started the snorts and chuckles off again.

  “If we ain’t thinking of breaking out for England, boss, what’s this truce about?”

  Ash gave him a rather old-fashioned look. “Defeating the enemy might be a start!”

  “But, boss…”

  “They’re not chucking rocks at us for fun, Tydder! We’re signed on with Burgundy: that lot out there are the enemy. Look, these legions don’t matter a toss. Except that the Faris is pretty damn safe sitting in the middle of them…”

  “Man, do we need back-up!” Adriaen Campin sighed.

  “Maybe we could go ask the Turks for help.” Florian, who had been silently checking Ludmilla’s burns, Angelotti’s bandages, and the assorted minor wounds of the other knights and sergeants, plonked a filthy hand down on the table. “What’s it like in the east?”

  Anselm consulted the annotated map. “Thin, if Father Godfrey’s right. She’s trying to hold down the Germanies with a couple of legions.”

  “So maybe…?”

  “If we had some eggs, we could have some eggs and ham – if we had any ham.”

  Geraint ab Morgan snorted. “Never thought I’d say this, but England’s looking better all the time…”

  Katherine Hammell, still moving stiffly from her wound at Carthage, looked across at Ludmilla Rostovnaya. “What about your lot, Lud? We could try the Rus lands. How would we do in St Petersburg? Any good wars?”

  The commander of archers scowled. “All the time. Too fucking cold for me. Why d’you think I’m here?”

  “Cold everywher
e, now…”

  “Yeah. Fucking rag-’ead cunt. Why’d she have to bring her lousy weather with her?”

  Ash let the discussion ramble, apparently studying the map; studying instead the maps of faces, chiaroscuro in the firelight.

  “We’re here for the moment,” she said flatly, at last. “We’ll keep the Burgundians up to date with this. For one thing, our contract obliges us to do it.”

  The Wild Machines can’t think I’ll keep quiet – can they?

  “And for another – who’s going to know that we told?” Ash grinned briefly at her men. “At best, it’ll be just one of a whole set of confused rumours – won’t it?”

  “Oh yes, boss.” Euen Huw looked pious. “You can rely on us.”

  Morgan grunted, “We got a rep for breaking contracts after Basle, does it matter now?”

  “Yes.”

  His gaze slid away from hers. More importantly, she let her flat gaze take in the faces of the men near him – Campin, Raimon, Savaric – to see if he had any support.

  “Fuck it, they think we’re oath-breakers already,” Morgan grumbled.

  “I won’t argue with you there. But we’re not. We’re professionals.”

  The Welshman said, “Screw the Burgundians! Who cares?”

  “He’s got a point, madonna,” Angelotti said. She looked at him in surprise. He said, “Screw the Burgundians. Why is it our responsibility to kill the Faris?”

  Not a flicker of her expression, or his, either thanked him for putting the question where it could be answered, or acknowledged that that had happened.

  “We need a debrief on all this info,” Ash said, as a page brought her a joint-stool, and she took her place behind the trestle table. “We’re going to go through this in detail, now. I want to know if anybody’s fought against any of these legions before; what you know about them; what the commanders are like, anything. I want to know if anybody’s got any suggestions, ideas. But first I’ll give you the answer to your question.”

  Geraint ab Morgan pushed forward to the table’s edge. “Which is?” he demanded.

  Ash looked up at him calmly.

  “Which is – screw the Burgundians, all right – we might as well be behind these walls, trying to work out a way to kill my sister. Because where do you suggest we go, Geraint? When the Wild Machines kill the world, it won’t help us to be in England, four hundred miles away from Dijon – not one little bit.”

  VI

  The toing and froing of interminable messages at last over, Ash discovered the long November night to be almost past: Lauds sung three hours ago by Dijon’s striking town clock, and the office of Prime about to begin. Sleeplessness gritted in her eyes.

  Striding through Dijon’s cold streets, she berated herself: Come on girl, think! I may not have long. Is there anything else?

  Under her breath, she whispered: “Current position of Gothic forces overall commander?”

  In her head, the machina rei militaris, in Godfrey’s voice, said – Dijon siege camp, north-west quadrant, four hours past midnight; no further reports.

  Still, nothing drowned out that interior voice.

  Why not? Is it the Faris – the Wild Machines don’t want to scare her? Or is this something else?

  De la Marche’s clerk hurried at her side, between squat masonry houses with deep shadowed doorways, in the filth of the winding streets, as light faintly sifted down from the pre-sunrise grey east. There were men and women, their children bundled at their sides, sleeping tucked against walls, and against iron-bound oak doors. Horses and pack mules neighed, tethered outside stables turned over to refugees.

  “We have everything,” the clerk gasped. His stoppered ink bottle bounced at his belt; his woollen cloak was blackened with earlier attempts to stop and write. His face was white with lack of sleep. “Captain – I shall report to the Duke’s Deputy – their forces’ positions—”

  “Tell him I don’t expect to be able to do this again. Not now they know their communications are compromised.”

  A church bell rang a few streets away. All of them – Ash, the clerk, her escort – simultaneously halted and listened. Ash gave a sigh of relief. The normal call to mass: no slow, funereal bells.

  “God preserve the Duke,” the clerk murmured.

  “Report back to de la Marche,” Ash ordered. She started off again, boot soles slipping on the frozen filth underfoot. The leaning buildings closed out all but the slightest dawn light. Thomas Rochester thrust to the front of his lance with a pitch-torch. Serfs and villeins come into the city for refuge half-woke, moved out of the way; one or two recognised the banner, and Ash heard a “hero of Carthage!” float across the cold air.

  Rochester said, “You sure this is a good idea, boss?”

  “Piece of piss,” Ash said, between the grunts that trotting through Dijon’s streets in unaccustomed full armour forced out of her. “The Duke’s on his last legs, we’re going into the enemy camp under a supposed truce, and they have every reason I can think of to kill us out of hand – yeah, sure, Thomas: this is a brilliant idea!”

  “Oh. Good. Glad you said that, boss. Otherwise I might have started to worry.”

  “Just worry enough to stay alert,” Ash said sardonically. “And ask yourself if they’d rather have the ‘hero of Carthage’ and the Faris’s bastard sister alive or dead?”

  The dark Englishman, at the head of the escort, gave her a completely careless grin. “You can hear what she says privately to her War-Machine? My money’s on them using crossbows the second we’re in range! I wouldn’t take chances, boss. Why assume they’re stupider than I am?”

  “That would be almost impossible.”

  Thomas Rochester and the men behind him guffawed.

  “She won’t kill me. Yet.” I hope. Not when I’m the only other person who hears the Wild Machines.

  Of course, she may not give that the importance that I do.

  Rochester was aware, she saw, of the likelihood of his own death; and no more bothered about it than he would have been before the field of battle. She thought, It is the hardest thing in the world, to give orders that will mean other people may die.

  “The Faris wants to talk to me,” Ash said. “So look on the bright side. They maybe won’t kill us until she has.”

  “That’s all right, boss,” one of Rochester’s sergeants said: a fair-haired English man-at-arms carrying her personal banner. “You can talk the hind leg off a donkey…!”

  Her armour, tied, strapped and buckled about her, gave the usual feelings of invulnerability. She began to move with it as if it had never been gone. She had tied down her scabbard to her leg, with a leather thong, so that she could draw her sword single-handed if necessary: one of Rochester’s lance carried her axe.

  A thread of coldness tickled in her gut.

  “Nice kit.” She rapped the knuckles of her gauntlets against the sergeant’s cuirass. All twenty of Rochester’s men had armoured up, borrowing what fitted from other men.

  “Showing the rag-heads what we got,” the sergeant grunted.

  Walking between them, surrounded by men mostly taller, and all in armour, Ash felt a fallacious sense of complete security. She smiled to herself, and shook her head. “All this metalware, and what happens? Some little oik shoves a pointy stick up your backside. Never mind, lads. All wearing our mail braies,15 are we?”

  “Don’t plan to turn our backs on them!” Rochester snorted.

  The atmosphere of expectancy was electric: an exhilaration born out of the certainty of risk. Ash found herself striding energetically forward across the narrow square leading to the northern sally gate. Black rats, and one stray dog, scuttled away into the dimness at the clatter of armour.

  “Godfrey, has she spoken to the Stone Golem again?”

  This time the voice of Godfrey Maximillian sounded quietly inside her head. – Once, only. She ignores Carthage: their words to the machina rei militaris grow frantic. She has asked only if you speak to it … where y
ou are, what your men are doing; if there is to be an attack.

  “What does it – do you – tell her?”

  – Nothing but what I must, what I can know, from the words you speak to me. That you are on your way to her. For the rest, I know nothing of it; you have not told the machina your forces, nor asked for tactics.

  “Yeah, and I’m keeping it that way.”

  She spoke quietly, aware that the men closest around her would be hearing what she said over the clatter of armour and scabbards.

  “The Wild Machines?”

  – They are silent. Perhaps their will is to let her think they are a dream, an error, a story.

  Ash’s personal banner hung from its striped staff, a chill breeze not enough to stir the blue-and-gold cloth. The Burgundian troops at the sally-port recognised it, coming forward with their own torches.

  “Madonna.” Antonio Angelotti walked out of the gloom by the wall, noise announcing a cluster of grooms and beasts behind him in the dimness. “I’ve arranged horses.”

  Ash surveyed the riding horses; most ill-conditioned from the long siege, and with their ribs visible to count. “Well done, Angeli.”

  While Rochester confirmed passwords and signals, she remained silent, hands cupping the points of elbow corners, her eyes fixed on the eastern sky. Grey clouds lightened above the pitched roofs, and the merlons of the city wall above. One of the nearer buildings – a guild house – still smoked, blackened and burned out, from the alarm that had turned out most of the Burgundians in this quarter to fight the fire. The weather had warmed from frost to bitter-cold rain, in the night; now it began to freeze again.

  “Thank Christ for bad weather!”

  Angelotti nodded. “If this were summer, we would be burned out, and have pestilence besides.”

  “Godfrey, is there any later report of where she is?”

  – She has not told me where she is since Lauds.

  “This is a dumb thing to do, isn’t it?”

  – If this were merely a war, child, you would not do it. In eight years I have known you be reckless, bold, and adventurous; but I have not known you waste lives.