by Mary Gentle
The English Earl narrowed his gaze, staring at the countryside to the south. One church’s double spire marked an isolated village. For the rest, there was nothing but forests, uncultivated land; the road to Auxonne clearly marked by deep ruts, horse-droppings, trodden grass and the debris of an army passing.
“At least we shan’t ride astray,” Ash ventured.
“Twenty thousand is an unwieldy number of men, madam.”
“It’s more than she’s got.”
The evening sky darkened in the east. And now, perceptibly, darkened in the south as well: a shadow that did not fade with any day’s dawn, the closer they drew to Auxonne.
“So that is the Eternal Twilight,” the Earl of Oxford said. “It grows, the closer we come.”
On the eve of the twenty-first of August, the Lion encampment stretched under the eaves of the wildwood three miles west of Auxonne. Ash picked her way between makeshift shelters, and men queuing for the evening rations, being careful to seem cheerful whenever she spoke to anyone.
Henri Brant, the chief groom with him, walked up to ask, “Will we fight before tomorrow morning? Shall we start feeding the war-horses up in preparation?”
Even trained war-horses are still herbivores who need to constantly graze for strength. More than an hour’s fight, and they will lose stamina.
A thunder-purple sky was just visible through the oak leaves above her head; humid air moved against her skin. Ash wiped her face. “Assume the horses will need to be fit to fight any hour between dawn and nine, tomorrow. Start giving them the enriched feed.”
“Yes, boss.”
Thomas Rochester and the rest of her escort had fallen into conversation, under the trees, with Blanche and some of the other women. Ash breathed in, realised No one is asking me questions! Amazing! and then let out a sigh.
Shit. I preferred it when I didn’t have time to think.
And there’s still something to do.
“I’m not going far,” she said to the nearest man-at-arms. “Tell Rochester I’m in the physic-tent.”
Floria’s tent stood a few yards away. Ash stumbled over guy-ropes tethering it to tree-trunks, in the root-knotted soil, as the sky yellowed and the first big drops of cold rain dropped on to the leaves above.
“Boss?” Deacon Faversham said, emerging from the tent.
Concealing apprehension, Ash said, “Is the master surgeon there?”
“She’s inside.” The Englishman did not seem at all uncomfortable.
Ash nodded an acknowledgement, and ducked under the tent-flap he held up. Inside, by the light of a number of lanterns, she saw not an empty tent, as she had feared, but half a dozen men on pallets. Their conversation stopped abruptly, then picked up in undertones.
“We’re moving too fast.” Floria del Guiz, bandaging an arm fracture, didn’t look up. “In my office, boss.”
Ash, with a word to the injured men – two crushed foot injuries, from loading sword-boxes on to packhorses; one burn; one self-inflicted injury with a dagger, falling over when drunk – went through the inner, empty chamber of the pavilion, to the small curtained-off area at the far end.
Rain rattled on the tent roof. She used flint and tinder to light a candle, lit the remaining lanterns with that, and was just done when Floria pulled the curtain aside, entering and sitting down with a curt grunt.
Going directly to it, Ash said, “Men with injuries are still coming to the company surgeon, then?”
Floria raised her head, hair falling back from her face. “I’ve had nineteen hurt men in here, the last two days. You’d think no one ever hit me—!”
She broke off, and put her dirty fingers together, fingertip to fingertip.
“Ash, you know what? They’ve decided not to think about it. Not for now. Maybe, when they’ve been hacked up, they won’t care who’s sewing them back together. But maybe they will.”
Floria looked up sharply at Ash.
“They don’t treat me as a man now. Nor as a woman. A eunuch, maybe. A neuter.”
Ash pulled up a back-stool and sat down; silent while one of the lay assistants came to pour wine, and bring Floria a light cloak against the summer night’s chill.
Ash said carefully, “We’ll be fighting tomorrow. Everybody’s too busy, right now, preparing. Most of the troublemakers went with van Mander. The rest can either lynch you – or have their lives saved when they’re injured. In a lot of ways, we need this fight.”
The woman surgeon snorted. She reached out for wine, in an ash-wood cup. “Do we, Ash? Do we need to see those young men chopped and stabbed and stuck with arrows?”
“That’s war,” Ash said levelly.
“I know. I could always work elsewhere. Plague towns. Lazar-houses. Jewish children, that Christian physicians won’t touch.” Shadows from the swinging lamps made the woman’s features merciless. “Maybe tomorrow will be worth it.”
“This isn’t Arthur’s last battle,” Ash said cynically. “This isn’t Camlann. We don’t beat them here and then they pack up and go home. Winning the field doesn’t give us the war, even if we wipe them out.”
“So what does happen?”
“We’ve got nearly a two-to-one advantage. I’d prefer three, but we’ll beat them. Charles’s army is probably the best, most advanced left in Christendom.”
Unspoken, Ash’s thought is But the Faris beat the Swiss.
“Maybe we kill the Faris, maybe we don’t. Either way, if she’s defeated here, she doesn’t have much of an army left, and her momentum’s gone. It’s one of those things: once they’ve been beaten, then they can be beaten.”
“And then?”
“And then there’s two more Carthaginian armies out there.” Ash grinned. “Either they do pick a soft target – maybe France – or they dig in over winter, or they fall out with the Sultan. The last one’s ideal. Then it isn’t Burgundy’s problem any more. Or Oxford’s. He goes back to the goddams’ wars.”
“And we go and get paid by the Sultan?”
“By any side but hers,” Ash confirmed.
Acute, and unwelcome, Florian said, “You want to speak to her again. Don’t you?”
“I can get by without a machine’s voice in my head. I’ve been fighting since I was twelve.” Ash sounded harsh. “What does it matter, in practical terms? What can she tell me, Florian? What can she tell me that I don’t already know?”
“How and why you came to be born?”
“What does that matter? I grew up in camps,” Ash said, “like an animal. You don’t know about that. I feed my baggage train, I don’t let them sink or swim on what they can plunder when the soldiers have had the best of it. The only time someone will starve is when we all starve.”
“But the Faris is your…” Floria paused, questioningly. “Sister.”
“Several times over, possibly,” Ash said, ironically. “She’s quite mad, Florian. She sat there and told me, her father breeds son to dam, and daughter to sire – she means he breeds slave-children back to their parents. Generations of the sin of incest. Christ, I wish Godfrey was here.”
“Every village has that.”
“But not so—” Ash groped in vain for the word systematically.
“Their scientist-magi have given Christendom most of the medical skills I learned,” Floria said, “Angelotti learned his gunnery from an amir.”
“And so?”
“And so, your machina rei militaris isn’t evil.” Floria shook her head. “Godfrey never said it was a sin, did he? If you haven’t got the use of it, that’s sad; but never mind, you can do your butchery quite well on your own, we all know that.”
“Mmm.”
Floria said bluntly, “Is it true Godfrey’s left the company?”
“I – don’t know. I haven’t seen him in days. Not since we left Dijon.”
“Faversham told me he’d seen him with the Visigoths.”
“With the Visigoths? The delegation?”
“Talking to Sancho Lebrija.” When Ash said nothing
, the woman added, “I can’t see Godfrey going over to them. What is this, Ash? What’s going on with you and him?”
“If I could tell you, I would.” Ash got up and walked restlessly around. Deliberately changing the subject, she said, “The town militia never came out to the camp. Mistress Châlon must have kept quiet.”
Staccato, Floria snapped, “She would. She’d have to admit I’m her niece. She won’t do that. I’m safe enough if I stay away from Dijon. If I claim nothing from her.”
“You still think of yourself as Burgundian,” Ash realised.
“Oh yes.”
Floria’s dark gaze felt oddly foreign, Ash thought, bearing in mind that none of them had what might be termed a nationality. She smiled. “I don’t think of myself as Carthaginian. Not after all this time. I always assumed I was Christendom’s bastard.”
Floria chuckled, deeply, and poured more wine.
“War doesn’t have a kingdom,” she said. “War belongs to the whole world. Come on, my little scarlet Horseman. Have a drink.”
She stood, unsteadily, and walked behind Ash, a hand on her shoulder, to put the cup down in front of her.
“I didn’t thank you for seeing those guys off,” she said.
Ash gave a modest shrug, leaning back against Florian.
“Well, thanks anyway.” Florian dipped her head. Her lips pressed, very lightly and quickly, against Ash’s mouth.
“Christ!” Ash sprang up and pushed her way out of what seemed to be encircling female arms. “Christ!”
“What?”
Ash wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. “Christ!”
“What?”
An expression came to Ash’s face that she was entirely unaware of: flat, cynical, tense. Her eyes, blank, seemed to be seeing something quite different from her surgeon.
“I’m not your little Margaret Schmidt! What is this? You think you can seduce me like your brother?”
Floria del Guiz stood up slowly. She went to say something, stopped, and spoke with restraint. “You’re talking complete nonsense, Ash. This is – nonsense. And leave my brother out of this!”
“Everybody wants something.” Ash, standing with her arms limp by her sides, shook her head. Above, the canvas cone of the tent roof shifted, under the drumming of chill rain.
Floria del Guiz made as if to reach out and thought better of it. She sat back.
“Ah.” Floria stared at her toes. She paused, then, looking up, said, “I don’t seduce my friends.”
Ash stared at her in silence.
“One day,” Floria added, “I’ll tell you about being kicked out of my home at thirteen, and going to Salerno, dressed as a man, because I’d heard they let women study there. Well, I was wrong. Things have changed since Trotula’s day.12 And I’ll tell you why Jeanne Châlon, who is my mother in all but name, commands no ‘loyalty’ from me whatsoever. Boss, you’re all to pieces. Come on.” Floria gave a lopsided grin. “Ash, honestly!”
The scorn in that brought colour to Ash’s face, partly from shame, partly from relief; and she shrugged with an attempt at carelessness. “It’s been a rough few days, I’ll give you that. Floria, I’m sorry. It was a genuinely stupid thing for me to say.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Floria flirted an eyebrow at her, over-doing the naturalness somewhat. “C’mon.”
Ash turned, moving towards the tent-flap, and standing looking out. From this point, under the edge of the trees, it was possible to see the fires of the main Burgundian army, further south, and the growing silver of the moon.
About two days before first quarter, she thought, automatically estimating its swelling curve. It is only a few weeks.
“Christ, so much has happened! What is it, about the middle of August now? And the skirmish at Neuss was the middle of June. Two months. Hell, I’ve only been married for six weeks—”
“Seven weeks. Hey.” Floria’s voice came from behind her, in the tent. “Have more wine.”
The moon rising over the eastern hills blurred silver in Ash’s field of vision.
“Boss?”
She turned around, everything suddenly sharp and clear: the painted anatomy charts hanging on the tent walls; Floria’s face with the casual laughter falling from it. The kind of clarity that comes with shock or combat, she thought, and said, “Florian, did I pass blood when I was ill?”
Floria del Guiz shook her head, frowning. “No, I watched. There was no flux of blood at all. It wasn’t that kind of injury.”
Ash shook her head dumbly.
“Christ,” she said at last. “Not that kind of blood. Woman’s blood. I’ve missed twice, this month and last month. I’m pregnant.”
VI
The two women stared at each other.
“Didn’t you use something?” Floria demanded.
“Of course I did! Do you think I’m stupid? Baldina gave me a charm to wear. As a wedding present. I had it in a little bag around my neck, both times we— every time.” Ash felt the close evening air bring sweat out on her forehead. Her injury throbbed dully.
She saw Floria del Guiz survey her: did not know that the woman was seeing a young girl in hose and a big doublet; sword belted at her side, and gloves tucked under the belt; nothing female about her except her cascade of hair, and her face, momentarily looking all of twelve years old.
“You used a charm.” Floria’s voice sounded flat. She spoke quietly, as if afraid they could be heard outside. “You didn’t use a sponge, or a pig’s bladder, or herbs. You used a charm.”
“It’s always worked before!”
“Thank Christ I don’t have to worry about any of this! I wouldn’t touch a man if—” Floria took two or three quick steps, back and forth on the boards laid down against mud, her arms tucked tightly about her body. She stopped in front of Ash. “You feel sick at all?”
“I thought that was the head injury.”
“Tits tender?”
Ash considered. “I guess.”
“And you bleed what time of the moon?”
“It’s been the last quarter, most of this year.”
“When did you last bleed?”
Ash frowned, thinking back. “Just before Neuss. Sun was still in Gemini.”
“I’ll have to look at you. But you’re pregnant.” Floria spoke with conclusive abruptness.
“You’re going to have to give me something!”
“What?”
Ash reached behind herself with one hand, touching the back-stool, and slid down to a sitting position, adjusting her scabbard. She brought her hands around in front of her, clasping them first across her belly, and then around the grip of her sword. “You’re going to have to give me something to get rid of it!”
The blonde woman dropped her arms to her sides. The lantern swung, as the tent creaked in the night wind. She squinted uncertainly into the light at Ash’s face. “You haven’t thought about this.”
“I’ve thought!” Cold inside, flooded by terror, Ash gripped the leather-bound wood of her sword-hilt and stared down at the faceted, wheel-shaped pommel. She had a sudden urge to draw the blade, and cut. An urge to proclaim that her self is still her self. She tried to feel any sensation inside her body, to feel a difference, and felt nothing. No sense that she might be carrying a foetus.
“I can give you herbs in wine, to calm you down,” Floria said.
With that note of caution, of professional calming of an overwrought patient, Ash’s rage flared. She stood up. “I’m not going to be treated like some whore off the street! I will not have this baby.”
“You’ll have it.” Floria del Guiz took hold of her arm.
“I will not. You’ll have to cut it out of me.” Ash shook herself free. “Don’t tell me there’s no surgery for that. When I was growing up in the wagons, any woman who would have died from another baby got rid of it by the company surgeon.”
“No. I’ve sworn an oath.” Floria’s voice became flat, angry, tired. “You remember your condotta? This is mine.
‘Never to procure an abortion.’ For anybody!”
“And now they know you’re a woman, they say you haven’t got the wit to take an oath. That’s what your fraternity of doctors think of you!” Ash shifted her blade an inch out of the scabbard, and banged it home. “I will not have that man’s child!”
“You’re sure it’s his, then?”
The slap was deliberate, a solid whack across the face that left Floria’s cheek bright red, and her eyes running water. Ash yelled, “Yes, it’s his!”
Floria’s dirty face shone, some emotion twisting her features that Ash couldn’t identify. “It’s a legitimate baby. Christ, Ash. It could be my nephew! My niece! You can’t ask me to kill it.”
“It’s not quickened, it hasn’t kicked, it’s nothing.” Ash glared. “You didn’t understand me, did you? Listen to me: I will not have this baby. If you won’t abort it, I’ll find someone who can, I will not have this baby.”
“No? You’ll come round. Trust me.” Floria shook her head. Snot ran clear from her nostril, and she wiped her sleeve across her face, leaving a smear of clean skin. She laughed, a break in her voice: “You won’t have it? Not when it’s his, and you can’t keep your hands off him?”
Ash’s mouth remained a little open; she said nothing. Her mind struggled, racing for a reply. A sudden picture came into her mind of a small child, about three years of age, with solemn green eyes and flaxen hair. A child to run about the camp, fall off horses, cut itself on the edges of weapons, be sick of a fever, die maybe in a famine some lean year; a child that would have the same features as Fernando del Guiz, and maybe the same humour as Floria—
She met the eyes of Floria del Guiz and said with utter certainty, “You’re jealous.”
“You think I want a baby.”
“Yes! And you never will have.” Conscious of saying the unforgivable, powered more by fear than rage, Ash plunged on in razor-edged sarcasm: “What are you going to do, get Margaret Schmidt pregnant? A niece or nephew is as close as you’ll get.”
“That’s true.”
“Uh.” Ash, expecting her rage, was confused. “I’m sorry I said it, but it is true, isn’t it?”
“Jealous.” Floria looked at Ash with an expression that might have been sardonic humour, or relief, or betrayal; or all three. “Because I won’t cut a baby out of your belly. Woman, I don’t want to see you bleed to death or die of childbed fever; but for Christ’s sake have the thing! You won’t die. You’re strong as a bloody peasant, you can probably drop it one day and get back on your war-horse the next. Don’t you understand that getting rid of it is dangerous?”
