Ash: A Secret History

by Mary Gentle

  “And he was dumb enough to let you take vows?”

  “You don’t know what it was like in Carthage then.” The man frowned, his expression distant. “At first, they thought the King-Caliph was dead, and the empire going to dissolve in factions – then word came down that he was alive and it was a miracle. Then those spooky lights showed up in the desert – where we rode out? With those tombs? And that was supposed to be a curse…”

  Seeing him so far away in his mind, Ash said nothing to disturb his chain of memories.

  “I still think it is,” Fernando said, after a second. “I rode out there when we recovered Lord Leofric. There were serfs and sheep and goats out there that had … they were dead. They were melted, like wax, they were in the gates of the tombs – half in and half out of the bronze metal. And the light – curtains of light, in the sky. Now they’re calling it the Fire of God’s Blessing.”14

  Seeing it with his eyes: the painted walls of pyramids where she had ridden out into the silence imposed by the Wild Machines, Ash felt the cold hairs prickle at the nape of her neck.

  Fernando shrugged, in the tight-sleeved robe; one hand reaching up to close around his oak pendant. “I call it djinn.”

  “It isn’t djinn, or devils. It’s the Wild Machines.” She pointed at the sky beyond the round stone arch of the window. “They’re sucking the light out of the world. I don’t want to think what that’s like when you’re right up close to them.”

  “I’m not going to think about it.” Fernando shrugged.

  “Ah, that’s my husband … ex-husband,” she corrected herself.

  Whether Adriaen Campin had finished his dance or whether the hobby horse had merely fallen over was unclear. Half a dozen men dragged him off. Baldina and several more women threw clean rushes down on to the floor, and Ash saw Henri Brant walking out over them into the empty space. He wore a full-length looted velvet robe that had been red, before grease spattered it mostly black. A metal circlet sat on his white curls, spikes jutting up from it; cold-hammered from the forge. More horse-harness had been cannibalised to make a neck-chain out of bits.

  Anselm’s done good, Ash reflected, trying to spot her second in command in the hall and failing. We needed this.

  Henri Brant, with a great deal of authority, held up his hands for quiet and declaimed:

  “I’m England’s true king

  And I boldly appear,

  Seeking my son for whom I fear –

  Is Prince George here?”

  One of the English archers bellowed, “You a Lancastrian or a Yorkist English King?”

  Henri Brant jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the mummer playing St George. “What d’you think!”

  “It’s Anselm!” Floria exclaimed, straining up on her toes to see. She turned a shining face to Ash. “It’s Roberto!”

  “Guess that’ll be a Lancastrian King, then…”

  There was a great deal of noise from those company men who did not come from England, but were entirely happy to wind up those who did. Ash was caught between chuckling at them, and the sheer contentment of watching their high spirits; and the intent expression on Fernando’s face.

  “I half expect you to offer me a contract with the Caliph,” she said.

  “No. I’m not that stupid.” After a second Fernando del Guiz touched her arm and pointed at the mummers, face alight with momentary unguarded enjoyment. Her gut thumped. She was struck by the lean grace of him, and his wide shoulders, and the thought that – if war had not come to trouble him – he might have continued winning tournaments and gambling; might have married some Bavarian heiress and sired babies and never dipped deeper into himself than necessary; certainly never found himself taking religious vows.

  “What do you want with me?” she said.

  A cheer drowned out whatever he said. She looked and saw Robert Anselm, lance in hand, stomp into the cleared space between the company men-at-arms and baggage women.

  “My God. You won’t see armour like that again!” Floria yelled.

  Her brother gaped. “God willing, no, we won’t!”

  More pauldrons, spaulders, guard-braces and rere-braces had been buckled and pinned on to Anselm’s wide shoulders than it seemed possible for any man to support. He rattled as he walked. The leg-harness was his own, but the German cuirass had plainly been made for a much larger man – Ash suspected Roberto had borrowed it off one of the Burgundian commanders. The fluted breastplate caught the light from the slit windows and shimmered, silver, where it was not covered by an old tawny livery jacket with a white mullet device. The lance he carried bore a drooping white flag – a woman’s chemise – with a red rose scrawled on it.

  Anselm shoved the visor of his sallet up, displaying his grinning, stubbled face. He rapped the lance shaft on the flagstones, and threw out his free arm in a wide gesture.

  “I am Prince George, a worthy knight,

  I’ll spend my blood in England’s right!”

  He punched his fist in the air, mimed awaiting a cheer, and when it came, cupped his hand to where his ear would have been, if he hadn’t been wearing a helmet. “I can’t hear you! Louder!”

  Sound slammed back from the tower’s stone walls. Ash felt it through her chest as well as her ears. Anselm went on:

  “There is no knight as brave as me –

  I’ll kick your arse if you don’t agree!”

  Fernando del Guiz groaned, delicately. “I don’t remember mumming being like this at Frederick’s court!”

  “You have to be with mercenaries to see real class…”

  There was something still boyish in his face when he laughed; it vanished when he stopped. Strain had etched lines in that had not been there in Carthage. Three months, she thought. Only that. The sun in Virgo then, the sun just into Capricorn now. So short a time.

  She saw him stiffen as a raucous jeer greeted the entrance of another of the mummers.

  Euen Huw strode unsteadily forward in a mail hauberk with a woman’s square-necked chemise worn over it. The yellow linen flapped around his knees. The men-at-arms and archers cheered; one of the women – Blanche, Ash thought – gave a shrill whistle. Ash frowned, not able to stop herself laughing, still puzzled. Not until the Welshman, wincing at his scalp-stitches, put on a looted Visigoth helm with a black rag tied around it, did she recognise the parody of robes over mail.

  Euen Huw mimed sneaking into the open space, clutching a looted Carthaginian spear. He declaimed:

  “I am the Saracen champion, see,

  Come from Carthage to Burgundy.

  I’ll slay Prince George and when he’s gone

  I’ll kill all you others, one by one.”

  “Take you a fucking long time!” someone shouted.

  “I can do it,” Euen Huw protested. “Watch me.”

  “Watch you shag a sheep, more like!”

  “I ’eard that, Burren!”

  Ash did not meet Fernando’s eye. On her other side, Floria del Guiz made a loud, rude noise, and began to wheeze. Ash clamped her arms across her breastplate, aching under the ribs, and attempted to look suitably commander-like and unimpressed.

  “You’ll have to forgive them being topical,” she said, keeping her face straight with an immense effort.

  Euen Huw snatched a wooden cup of drink from one of the archers, drained it, and swung back to face Robert Anselm.

  “I challenge you, Prince George the brave,

  I say you are an arrant knave.

  I can stand by my every word –

  Because you wear a wooden sword!

  “And besides, you’re English crap,” the Welsh lance-leader added.

  Robert Anselm shoved his lance and makeshift banner aloft and struck an attitude:

  “By my right hand, and by this blade,

  I’ll send you to your earthly grave—”

  “Ouch,” Floria said gravely.

  Antonio Angelotti appeared at her side, and murmured, “I did tell him. Terza rima, I offered�
�”

  Ash saw the fair-haired gunner clasp Floria’s arm, as he might have done with any man, or the company surgeon, but not the Duchess of Burgundy. Ash smiled; and as she glanced back caught something like wistfulness on Fernando’s face.

  Anselm lowered his lance and pointed it at Euen Huw’s breast; the Welshman taking an automatic step back. Anselm proclaimed:

  “I’ll send your soul to God on high,

  So prepare yourself to fly or die!”

  Ash saw the lance and spear tossed aside, both men drawing whalebone practice swords from their belts. The shouts, cheers and jeering rose to a pitch as the fight began; half the English archers near her chanting, “Come on, St George!” and banging their feet on the stone floor.

  “Look at that.” Ash pointed. “They couldn’t resist it, could they!”

  Out in the centre of the hall, Robert Anselm and Euen Huw had abandoned their exaggerated and pantomime blows and were circling each other, on the rushes. As she spoke, Anselm darted a blow forward, the Welshman whipped it round in a parry and struck; Anselm blocked—

  “They had to make a genuine fight of it.” Florian sighed. She was smiling. The noise of the men-at-arms rose even higher, seeing a contest of skills beginning. “I suppose they’ll get back to the mumming eventually… Come on, Euen! Show them how well I sewed you up!”

  Under the noise of cheering and the thwack of whalebone on plate and mail, Fernando del Guiz said, “Is it peace between us, Ash?”

  She looked up at him, standing beside her, hood drawn forward, in a hall full of his enemies, apparently unmoved. But I know him, now. He’s afraid.

  “It’s been a long time since Neuss,” she said. “Married, and separated, and attaindered, and annulled. And a long way from Carthage. Why did you speak up for me? In the coronation – why?”

  Apparently at random, Fernando del Guiz murmured, “You’d think I would have remembered your face. I didn’t. I forgot it for seven years. It didn’t occur to me that if there was a woman in armour at Neuss, it might be the one I’d – seen – at Genoa.”

  “Is that an answer? Is that an apology?”

  The sun slanting down from the arrow-port windows cast a silver light on the heads of the crowd. It flashed back from Anselm and Euen Huw, leaping on the rushes in a mad duel; the cheering shaking the ivy hanging from the rafters. The cold sank into her bones, and she looked down at her white, bloodless hands.

  “Is it an apology?” she repeated.

  “Yes.”

  In the centre of the hall, Robert Anselm drove Euen Huw back across the rushes with a savage, perfectly executed series of blows, as hard and rapid as a man chopping wood. Whalebone spanged off metal. The English archers hoarsely cheered.

  “Fernando, why did you come here?”

  “There has to be a truce. Then peace.” Fernando del Guiz looked down at his empty hands, and then back up at her. “Too many people are dying here, Ash. Dijon’s going to be wiped out. So are you.”

  Two contradictory feelings flooded her. He’s so young! she thought; and at the same time: He’s right. Military logic isn’t any different for me than it is for anyone else. Unless Gelimer’s more frightened of the Turks than I think he is, this siege is going to end in a complete massacre. And soon.

  “Christ on a rock!” he exclaimed. “Give in, for once in your life! Gelimer’s promised me he’ll keep you alive, out of amir Leofric’s hands. He’ll just throw you in prison for a few years—”

  His voice rose. Ash was aware of Floria and Angelotti looking across her, towards the German knight.

  “That’s supposed to impress me?” she said.

  Robert Anselm feinted and slashed the whalebone blade clear out of Euen Huw’s hands. A massive cry of “Saint George!” shook the rafters, thundering back from the stone walls of the tower, drowning anything she might have said.

  Disarmed, the weaponless Saracen knight suddenly stared past Robert Anselm’s left shoulder and bellowed, “It’s behind you!”

  Anselm unwarily glanced over his shoulder. Euen Huw brought his boot up smartly between Anselm’s legs.

  “Christ!” Fernando yelped in sympathy.

  Euen Huw stood out of the way as Anselm fell forward, picked up Anselm’s sword, and thumped a hefty blow down on his helmet. He straightened, panting and red-faced, and wheezed, “Got you, you English bastard!”

  Ash bit her lip, saw Robert Anselm writhing dramatically on the floor, realised his colour’s okay; he can move – and that Euen had kicked him on the inside of the thigh, and that the two of them had planned it. She began to applaud. Either side of her, Fernando and his sister were clapping; and Angelotti laughing with tears streaming down his face.

  “Ruined!” Henri Brant shouted, rushing forward with his king’s robes swirling, and his iron crown skewed. “Ruined!

  “Is there no doctor to save my son,

  And heal Prince George’s deadly wound?”

  A hum of expectation came from the crowd. Ash, checking by eye, saw no one of her men-at-arms and archers and gunners not either eating or drinking, or cheering on the mummers. She did not look at Fernando. The pause lengthened. In the group of mummers at the hearth, an altercation appeared to be going on.

  “No—” Rickard shook the other mummers off and walked forward. Ash realised from the overlong gown that all but drowned him, and his sack of smithy-tools, that he must be supposed to play the part; but the young man didn’t stop, walking forward into the crowd towards her, and the men gave way in front of him.

  He reached them; bowed with adolescent awkwardness to her and then to the surgeon-Duchess.

  “I don’t have the wisdom to play the Noble Doctor,” he stuttered, “but there is one in this house who does. Messire Florian, please!”

  “What?” Floria looked bewildered.

  “Play the Noble Doctor in the mumming!” Rickard repeated. “Please!”

  “Do it!” one of the men-at-arms yelled.

  “Yeah, come on, Doc!” A shout from John Burren, and the archers standing with him.

  Robert Anselm, flat and dead on the rushes, lifted up his head with a scrape of armour. “Prince George is dying over here! Some bastard had better be the doctor!”

  “Messire Florian, you better had,” Angelotti said, beaming.

  “I don’t know any lines!”

  “You do,” Ash protested. She snuffled back laughter. “Your face! Florian, everybody knows mumming lines. You must have done this before, some Twelfth Night. Get on out there! Boss’s orders!”

  “Yes, sir, boss,” Floria del Guiz said darkly. The scarecrow-tall woman hesitated, then rapidly unbuttoned her demi-gown and – with the squire’s help – began to struggle into the Noble Doctor’s over-long garment. Shaking it down on her shoulders, hair dishevelled, eyes bright, she said under her breath, “Ash, I’ll get you for this!” and strode forward.

  Rickard slung her the clanking bag of tools and she caught it, pulling one out by the handle as she walked forward into the open space at the centre of the hall. She put her foot thoughtfully on Robert Anselm’s supine chest, and leaned her arm on her knee.

  “Oof!”

  “I am the Doctor…

  “Fuck,” Floria said. “Let me think: hang on—”

  “My God, she’s like Father!” Fernando surveyed his half-sister; then smiled down at Ash. “Shame the old bastard’s dead. He’d have liked to have known he had two sons.”

  “Fuck you too, Fernando,” Ash said amiably. “You know I’m going to keep her alive, don’t you? You can tell Gelimer that.”

  In the centre of the hall, Floria was using a pair of bolt-cutters to push back the fauld of Anselm’s armour. She prodded the bolt-cutters tentatively into his groin. “This man’s dead!”

  “Has been for years!” Baldina shouted.

  “Dead as a door-nail,” the surgeon-Duchess repeated. “Oh shit – no, don’t tell me – I’ll get it in a minute—”

  Ash linked her arm through Fernan
do’s, under his cloak. She felt his robe; and then the shift of his body-weight as he leaned towards her, and put his hand over hers. His warmth brought another warmth to her body. She tightened her grip on his arm.

  Out in the hall, Floria moved her foot from Robert Anselm’s breastplate to his codpiece. Jeers, cat-calls, and shouts of sympathy shook the tower. She declaimed:

  “The Doctor am I, I cure all diseases,

  The pox, and the clap, and the sniffles and sneezes!

  I’ll bind up your bones,

  I’ll bind up your head,

  I can raise up a man even though he be dead.”

  “I’ll bet you can!” Willem Verhaecht yelled, on a note of distinct admiration.

  Floria rested the bolt-cutters back across her shoulder. “Don’t know why you’re worrying, Willem, yours dropped off years ago!”

  “Damn, I knew I’d left something in Ghent!”

  Ash, grinning, shook her head. Over by the hearth, the last of the cauldrons had been scraped clean, and the pots drunk dry; the women were wiping their hands on their aprons and standing with bare arms, sweating and applauding.

  That was less than half-rations. And this was Robert’s Christ-Mass over-indulgence. We are in the shit.

  Fernando said suddenly, “Gelimer’s going to make you an offer. He told me to say this: even I don’t believe it. If Dijon surrenders, he’ll let the townspeople go, although he’ll have to hang the garrison. And as for my sister – the King-Caliph will take the Duchess of Burgundy to wife.”

  “You what?”

  Antonio Angelotti, unashamedly listening in, said, “Christus! that’s neat, madonna. There’ll be immediate pressure on us to surrender from the merchants and guildsmen. It’s tense between us and them as it is.”

  “To wife?” Ash said.

  “It’s his mistake.” Fernando bristled a little at the Italian master gunner, and spoke to Ash: “Frederick’s men already say Gelimer must be weak or he’d just walk in here. Nothing will come of the offer, but—” a shrug “—it’s what I was told to say.”