by Mary Gentle
She looked up to see Florian watching her with a closed, pale face. She explained, “It was the shock of finding I was pregnant. I misinterpreted what you said.”
Florian’s thick, gold brows dipped. “You ought to let me examine you.”
Ash spoke concisely. “It’s been a couple of months since I miscarried; everything’s back as it should be. You can ask the washerwomen about the clouts.”7
“But—”
Ash interrupted. “But now I’ve mentioned it – I should apologise for what I said then. I don’t think you were being jealous that I could have a baby. And … well, I know now that you weren’t – well – making a pass at me. Sorry for thinking that you would.”
“But I would,” Floria said.
Relief at finally having made her apology overwhelmed her, so that she almost missed Florian’s reply. She stopped, still beside her in the half-dark, on the cold wooden bench, and stared at the other woman.
“Oh, I would,” Florian repeated, “but what’s the use? You don’t watch women. You never look at women. I’ve seen you, Ash – you’ve got hot women in this company, and you don’t ever look at them. The most you’ll do is put your arm around them when you’re showing them a sword-cut – and it means nothing, does it?”
Ash’s chest hurt; Floria’s vehemence left her breathless.
Floria said, “Say what you like about being ‘one of the boys’ – I watch you flirt with half the male commanders you’ve got here. You can call it charisma if you like. Maybe none of you realise what it is. But you respond to guys. Especially to my slut of a brother! And not to women. Now what would be the use of me making a pass at you?”
Ash stared, her mouth slightly open, no words coming into her mind. The chill of the night made her eyes and her nose run; she absently wiped a sopping velvet sleeve across her face, still with her gaze fixed on the older woman. She strained for words, finding only a complete absence of anything to say.
“Don’t worry.” A brittle note entered Florian’s voice. “I wasn’t then, and I won’t now. Not because I don’t want you. Because it’s not in you to want me.”
The harshness of her tone increased. Caught between revulsion, and an overwhelming desire to console the woman – Florian, this is Florian; Jesu, she’s one of the few people I call friend – Ash began to reach out a hand, and then let it drop.
“Why say this now?”
“We may both be killed before the end of tomorrow.”
Ash’s silver brows came down. “That’s been true before. Often.”
“Maybe I just wanted to wake you up.” The fair-haired woman leaned back on the bench, as if it were a movement of relaxation, and only coincidentally one that moved her further away from Ash. She might have been thoughtful, might have been smiling slightly, or frowning; the dim light made it impossible to know.
“Have I upset you?” Florian asked, after a moment’s utter quiet.
“I … don’t think so. I knew that you and Margaret Schmidt— but it never occurred to me that you’d look at me like that— I’m … flattered, I guess.”
A splutter of edged laughter came from further down the bench. “Better than I’d hoped for. At least you’re not treating it as a management problem!”
That was so much Florian – knowing perfectly well what Ash’s first reaction would be – that Ash had to smile. “Well… Okay, I’m flattered it turns out I’m a woman you could fancy! Same as with a man, I guess. I deal with this from time to time in the company. I tell them, they’ll find a good woman – it just isn’t me.”
In a deliberately casual tone, Floria del Guiz said, “I can handle that.”
“Well, okay.” An unaccustomed feeling that she should do something, or say something more, made Ash stand up quickly, her footing uncertain on the wet, earthen floor. She looked at the seated woman. “What am I … supposed to do with this?”
“Nothing.” A wry smile touched Florian’s features, and faded. “Do what you like with it. Ash, wake up! This isn’t just getting half the company out of a siege. We’re back in the Duchy; you spent one night on the beach outside Carthage telling us that these,” her voice hesitated, “these ferae machinae8 have spent two hundred years tricking House Leofric into breeding a slave for them to conquer Burgundy with – and you’ve said nothing since. Now you’re here, Ash. This is Burgundy. This isn’t a war that people had anything to do with. Are you going to carry on acting like it’s just another campaign? Like you and your – sister – are just war-leaders?”
Ash was unaware that her face had a peculiarly unfocused expression, as if she were still listening to the echoes of machine-voices in her head. She snapped her gaze to the woman’s face, suddenly. “No, you’re right, Florian. No, I’m not.”
“Then what?”
“This isn’t ‘just another campaign’. But – don’t take this wrong – Burgundy isn’t my business. Or yours.”
“But Carthage is.”
Ash turned her head away from the woman’s uncompromising expression, hearing the familiar voices of her lance-leaders outside the tent. “Time for the officer meeting. I want to hear what state we’re in. You come with me. If there aren’t any wounded you should be looking after?”
“We lost the last of the non-walking wounded just north of Lyons.” There was a rasp in the woman’s tone.
Ash turned towards the tent doorway, the candle casting, her shadow dark in front of her, and she groped blindly for the flap, and pushed it open. Stiff, cold canvas scraped her bare fingers. She tugged her sodden, frozen mittens on. Aware of Florian at her shoulder, she stepped out into the firelit darkness.
“I haven’t completely lost it,” Ash added. “I have spent some of the time we took getting here working out what the fuck we could do if we ever got here…”
She heard Florian’s familiar cynical snort. Ash halted, staring off through the darkness. In one place, among branch-shelters, the distinctive smoke of burning green wood went up. “Put that fucking fire out!”
Geraint ab Morgan, walking up with most of his belongings hanging off his belt and a great-sword resting over his shoulder, turned to shout at a provost-sergeant, who set off at the trot. “Yes, boss. Hey, boss, council of war’s set up. The rest of ’em are in your pavilion.”
There were only two tents put up, here on the difficult open ground within the edge of the wood: the surgeon’s infirmary tent, and the commander’s pavilion. Most shelters were ripped-down branches, or muddy canvas tied between trees. Ash fell in beside Morgan in the firelit darkness, walking in the wake of her other lance-leaders heading towards her tent – a drooping structure pegged between the roots of beeches, partly tied to branches, lurching as the wet night loosened the guy-ropes.
“How many men do we have now, Geraint?”
The big man scratched under his coif at his russet-coloured, short-cropped hair. “Down to one hundred and ninety-three men, aren’t we? Men who can fight. The baggage train is up to three or four hundred, but we’re getting civilians tagging on.”
“Sort that out.” Ash met Geraint ab Morgan’s gaze mildly. “Do it before we eat breakfast.”
“Some of the men here have taken women from the road. If we drive the women off, they’ll starve. The lads won’t like that, boss.”
“Shit!” Ash hit one fist into her mittened palm. “Leave it, then. More trouble than it’s worth, to get rid of them.”
Floria del Guiz, stumbling across the broken ground with them, a wry smile only just visible in the fire’s light, murmured, “Pragmatist…”
A night’s camp had left autumn undergrowth trodden into the mud, or ripped up for bedding. No goats or chickens ran underfoot now. Something like five hundred people and their pack-beasts crowded into the oblong camp erected in the strip of land along the edge of the wildwood. Archers and lightly armoured men-at-arms crouched around fires, in the wet, eating the sparse rations.
A bray came from the pack-mules tied to trees further down the length of t
he camp; and Ash breathed into her mail-covered mittens as she walked, letting her breath warm her frozen face, watching by the fires’ shifting illumination – squires and pages talking as they cared for the mules, billmen and hackbutters chivvied into clearing up by sergeants and corporals; and the women and children who roamed everywhere, the newcomers underfoot, pinched of face, with the look of deep shock in their eyes. Judging morale.
“We lost another two men-at-arms, then?”
“Last night, before we made camp. That’s fewer than in the south.”
We didn’t get here a minute too soon.
Geraint frowned. “Boss, I’ve been reorganising some of the under-strength lances into provost units, and this lot are far more scared of me now than they are of deserting. But I wish you’d let me leave missile troop duty to Angelotti; we got all the damn company archers with us; it’s taking up too much of my time.”
Ash nodded thoughtfully. “You’re a damn sight better provost than you ever were Sergeant of Archers! Okay: I guess you’d better keep it up, then.”
She made for the commander’s tent, Morgan and the surgeon with her. Geraint ab Morgan shoved his way past Floria del Guiz to enter, halted with comical suddenness, and jumped back to let her pass.
“God’s blood! You can’t show me your pubic lice and then expect me to want to be treated like a lady,” Floria rasped, striding past him into the pitch-dark tent.
Ash caught sight of his expression, and, for all her own bitter confusion, almost burst into laughter.
“Quieten down,” she said, smiling; walking into the canvas-darkened, already occupied interior. “Rickard, open the flap; let’s have some firelight in here.”
“I could light lamps, boss.”
“Not unless Father Faversham here helps you with a miracle. We’re out of lamp-oil. Aren’t we, Henri?”
“Yes, boss. That and a lot of other things. We can’t keep going for ever on what we scavenge from abandoned towns.”
“If they were abandoned before you ‘scavenged’…” Floria, feeling her way, sat herself down on one of Ash’s back-stools, with a caustic glance at Thomas Rochester, and at Euen Huw, as the Welsh lance-leader scuttled in, late.
“Most of them were. Mostly.” Euen Huw’s dirty, rough features assumed an injured expression. “Who can tell in the Dark? Spoils of war, isn’t it, boss?”
Ash ignored the banter. She glanced around in the dim light. The Rus woman Rostovnaya came in on Euen’s heels. Geraint ab Morgan muttered to Pieter Tyrrell, Tyrrell listening to the Welshman and massaging the leather glove sewn over the remaining finger and thumb of his half-hand. Wat Rodway leaned up against the centre pole and sharpened his cook’s knife on a whetstone, Henri Brant now talking to him in an urgent undertone.
“Henri,” she said. “What’s the state of play with the food?”
The broad-faced man turned around. “You’ve run it too fine, boss. Half-rations for the last week, and I’ve had armed guards on the pack mules. There’s no more hot food after today, we’re down to dark bread; maybe two days’ worth. Then nothing.”
“That’s definite?”
“You’ve given me five hundred people to feed; yes, I’m definite, it can’t be done! I have nothing left to bake!”
Ash held up one hand, calming his red-faced anxiety, keeping her own stomach-churning apprehension off her face. “It’s not a problem, Henri. Don’t worry about it. Geraint, what is it?”
Geraint ab Morgan’s deep voice filled the musty air, in the flickering gold light. “We don’t think it’s a good idea to attack the city.”
The unexpected challenge jolted her. “Who’s ‘we’?”
“Fuck this, boss.” Ludmilla Rostovnaya didn’t answer directly. “Go on, tell us all about getting the rest of the company out of Dijon, ‘n’ on the road to England. What we gonna do, boss, spit at the fucking rag-heads?”
“Yeah, spit ‘n’ the walls fall down,” Geraint growled.
Ash, catching the eye of Thomas Rochester, shook her head fractionally.
“You know what?” she said, conversationally, “I don’t give a fuck what you think isn’t a good idea, Geraint. I expect my officers to keep themselves informed of what’s going on.”
“Demons.” The big russet-haired man stared at her, through the gloom. “The King-Caliph’s got demons telling him what to do!”
“Demons, Wild Machines, call them what you like. Right now, those legions of Visigoths outside Dijon are a bigger problem!”
Geraint scratched in his cod, still gaping at Ash; and then shot a glance at Ludmilla Rostovnaya.
“Your arm okay?” Ash asked the Rus woman; and at her hesitant nod, said, “Right. Report to Angelotti. He’s got a job for you, and your crossbow snipers. I’m going to write a dozen messages for the company inside Dijon, and I want them shot over the walls – and I want you to then wait for a message back from Captain Anselm. You got that?”
Given something to do, the crossbow-woman looked reassured. “Now, boss?”
“Angelotti’s with the hackbutters. Get going.”
In the shuffling rearrangement of bodies as the woman left the pavilion, Geraint ab Morgan said, “I don’t agree with what you’re doing! It’s madness, an assault on Dijon. The men won’t follow you.”
At that rasping complaint, the pavilion became silent. Ash nodded once to herself. She glanced around in the dimness at the lance-leaders, steward, and surgeon.
“You’re going to have to trust me,” she said, her eyes finally meeting Geraint’s pale blue, bloodshot gaze. “I know we’re hungry, we’re exhausted, but we’re here. Now you either trust me to take it from here, or you don’t. Which is it, Geraint?”
The big Welshman glanced to one side, as if seeking Euen Huw’s support. The wiry, dirty lance-leader shook his head, lips pursed together. Thomas Rochester rumbled something under his breath. The only other sound came from Wat Rodway stropping his knife on the whetstone.
“Well?” Ash gazed around in the flickering shadows at the pavilion full of men, their breath smoking in the freezing air; big bodies slung about with belts, daggers, swords, arrow-bags. In that company of soldiers, she noted that Floria got up and went to stand with the steward and cook.
“I’m with you,” Floria said, as she walked past Ash. Henri Brant nodded; Wat Rodway glanced up with piggish eyes and inclined his head, sharply, once.
“Master Morgan?”
“Don’t like it,” Geraint ab Morgan said suddenly. He did not drop his gaze. “Bad enough the enemy’s being led by a demon, isn’t it? Now we are, too.”
“‘We’?” Ash queried gently.
“Saw it at the galleys. You were going to go into the desert. Find them old pyramids, maybe. Maybe listen to their orders. What are we doing here, boss? Why are we here?”
“Because the rest of the company is – inside Dijon.” Ash moved to one side; sitting herself on the edge of the trestle table, covered in maps, on which she had earlier been attempting to work out their route of march.
She gazed around at her officers sitting on back-stools, at Floria lounging beside Wat Rodway at the tent-pole, and Brant shifting from foot to foot on the bracken-strewn earth. Richard Faversham hulked at the back. The light from the open tent-flap illuminated profiles only.
She nodded to Rickard, gesturing him to pull the canvas back wider; and heard him exchange some comment with the guards outside.
“Okay,” Ash said. “Here’s how it is. First I’m going to talk to you; then I’m going to talk to all the lance-leaders, and then to the lads. First I’m going to tell you what we’re doing here. Then I’m going to tell you what we’re going to do next. Is everybody clear on that?”
Nods.
“We all know,” she said, her words quiet in the silence, and her gaze mostly on Geraint ab Morgan, “that there’s an enemy behind the enemy. Christendom’s been fighting Visigoths, Burgundy’s been fighting Visigoths – but that isn’t all there is to it, is there?”
“Yes. She is.” Ash rested both hands beside her, on the table. “She hears a demon. And so do I.”
The Welsh archer winced at that; but Euen Huw and Thomas Rochester shrugged.
“More than one bloody demon,” Rochester said, his voice elaborately casual. “Bloody desert down there’s full of them, ain’t it, boss?”
“It’s okay, Tom. It scares me shitless, too.”
Momentarily, they are silent; their minds full of the southern lights, of the dark desert illuminated by silver, scarlet, ice-blue. Seeing again the lined ranks of pyramids, stark against the silver fire.
“I used to think I was hearing the Lion – but it was their Stone Golem,” Ash said. “And you all know that I heard the Wild Machines at Carthage. The voices behind the Stone Golem. I don’t know if the Faris even knows they’re there, Geraint. I don’t know if anyone – House Leofric, or the Caliph, or the Faris – knows a damn thing about the voices of the Wild Machines.” She held Geraint’s gaze, in the dim light. “But we know. We know Leofric was a puppet, and the Wild Machines bred his slave-daughter. We know this isn’t normal war. It hasn’t been, not from day one.”
Geraint said, “I don’t like it, boss.”
She noted the slump of his shoulders, his second glance around for support; and gave him a smile of great friendliness. She shifted herself off the table and moved to stand in front of him.
“Hell, I don’t like it either! But I won’t go to the Wild Machines. I haven’t felt the pull of them since we sailed from North Africa. Trust me.” She gripped his forearms.
Standing there, in the red and golden filtered light, she is a strong, filthy, mud-stained woman, white scars on her face and hands, flesh dimpled with old wounds; wearing orange-rusted mail mittens and a sword as if it were a matter of course. And grinning at him with apparent utter confidence.
