by Mary Gentle
But is that all we’ve got?
Under her breath, she muttered, “Angeli, come on!”
She swung back to face the battle line. They have worked themselves up to where she is now, to a magnificent fuck it! to all suicidal risks, and probably for the same reason: the fear that rips through her bowel.
“I know I can rely on you guys!. You’re too stupid to know when you’re beaten!”
A loud chant went up. For a second, she could not make it out. Then, in half a dozen languages: “Lion! Lion of Burgundy! She-Lion!” and “The Maid!”
Something quivered under her feet.
The ice that puddled the mud under her feet cracked. A dull, loud, earth-lifting roar went up. Rocks, masonry fragments and beams flew in a hail: every man ducking as one and putting his helmet down to the blast.
Ash lifted her head, and visor.
Beyond the cleared no-man’s-land, the whole section of city wall between the Byward Tower and the White Tower puffed out dust from between every block of masonry.
“Angeli! Yes!”
Angelotti and the Burgundian engineers: opening the sap, widening the diggings under the wall, all through this last night. And sweating to put powder in place, and pray that it’s enough—
The wall stood for a moment. Ash had a heartbeat’s time in which to think If Angelotti got this wrong, it’ll fall this way, and then we’re dead, and the wall shattered and fell.
Silently, in a second, it fell away on to the air – outwards.
The impact of it on the iron-cold earth shook her into a stagger. She got her balance, swearing. Beyond the swirling clouds of dust, sweeping chokingly back, two hundred yards of wall lay collapsed into rubble across the moat. Nothing but five or six hundred yards of ground, now, before the first trenches of the Visigoth camp.
“That’s it.” She spoke aloud, dazed, to herself; staring over the heads of the men in front of her at the two-hundred-yard gap in the wall. “Dijon isn’t defensible any more. No choice now.”
“St George!” Robert Anselm bellowed in her ear.
Thomas Morgan’s voice, under the Lion standard, yelled, “Saint Godfrey for Burgundy! ”
Ash choked her throat clear, drew breath, hauled her voice up from her belly and screamed at brass-pitch: “Attack!”
IV
A trumpet shrilled right in her ear. Her helmet muffled it.
Fallen masonry grated and slid under her boots.
Her chest heaved, breath hissing dry in her throat, and her feet came down on hard mud, and she ran – sprinting among armoured men, her view of them jolting through the slit of her visor; steel-covered legs pounding, forcing her muscles to push her on across the frozen earth – out into open ground.
Bodies crowded her. She glimpsed her banner-staff to her left. The rough ground threw her. Stone or bone, she lost her footing; felt someone’s hand catch her under the arm and throw her on, not missing a beat.
A square dark shape lifted up against the sky in front of her.
Before she could think what? it went over and down. Her own boots were skidding on the icy wood before she recognised it as a door. Either side of her, planks and shutters slammed down on to the frozen mud. A brief sight of a six-foot-deep trench, off one side of the makeshift bridge—
That’s their trench; the first defence!
She came off the planks, Anselm and Rickard tight with her. A confused mass of liveries blocked her view – red crosses, blue and yellow. The sudden jut and curve of a longbow stave went up on her left – someone shooting – and in the noise of brass horns, shouting men, and clattering armour came the thwick! of bowstrings.
She cannoned into the back of the man in front, bounced off, spared a glance for the banner and Rochester – an armoured figure at her left shoulder, the escort sprinting with him – and saw nothing around her but helmeted heads, against the pale sky, and there! the Lion standard—
“Don’t lose it!” she bellowed, “keep going, keep going!”
A tent-peg caught her foot. She staggered, still running forward; a blade sliced down to her right, chopping at the frost-loose guy-ropes, only getting tangled up in the slack. She kicked the man’s sword free without a pause. Another man’s body ploughed into her, falling across her feet, face down, arms up flying over his forge-black sallet, bare sword dropping between his unarmoured legs.
She wrenched her leg free, hauled him up by shoulder and arm, one of Rochester’s men at his other side; yelled: “Keep going!”
Running men’s backs surround her. Nothing more than two feet away is visible. The trumpet shrilled, off to her left. The bar-slit of her vision blurred. Canvas ripped under her sabatons, someone thrust a bill down into it; she heard a choked-off squeal from underneath; flailed down with the hammer, not slowing.
Collapsing tents sagged at her feet. She caught sight of fire arcing through the sky over her head. A pitch-torch landed among the lightly armoured men at her right: men screamed, shouted curses; the torch rolled uselessly down the wet canvas and sank into the beaten earth in front of her.
The crowd of men surged forward into free movement at the same second that she thought hard-packed earth: the camp’s roads!
Armour clatters, men jogging forward, breathing hard; two men go down on her right, one on her left—
A thin billman in a jack fell flat in front of her. She pitched over him on to her face. He screamed. Something cracked in her hand where she held the pole-hammer shaft. Someone grabbed the back of her livery jacket and hauled her on to her feet – Anselm? – and an arrow stuck out of the billman’s groin, waggling as he rolled, screeching, blood soaking his hose and hands.
“Are we right?” Anselm bellowed in her ear. He jogged beside her, bare sword in one hand. “Which way—”
Panic hit her: Have we turned around—? “Keep going!”
A hiss like water thrown on to hot grease came from somewhere: she couldn’t see which direction. Screams rose over the noise of orders, armour, men panting. A hollow breathlessness scraped at her lungs; her legs ached; her hot, wet breath bounced the smell of steel back off the inside of her helmet.
A gap opened up in front of her.
She saw a pounded-earth road; a lone, broken longbow.
I’m dropping behind, that’s why there’s a gap—
She forced herself to run harder. The gap didn’t close.
Shit, I can’t do it—
Her visor’s slit blackened. Blind, she stumbled on. Scraping at it, her hand came away wet. She shoved the sallet up with a bloody glove, tilting it. The smell choked in her throat. Directly in front, men lifted bill-shafts and stabbed hooked blades down; above their heads, the great yellow-and-blue expanse of the Lion standard, next to the standard of the Burgundian Duchy.
“Get up there!” she yelled. Shit-all fucking command we’re doing!
Someone crashed into her from behind – one of Rochester’s men, or Rochester himself. She stumbled, braced; her heels skidded on frozen hard-packed earth; and slid off towards the side of the road, seeing the roof of a timber barracks over helmets and plumes – legion plumes! The whole mass of men with her in the middle of it kept pushing, pushing to the right, moving away from something to her left—
“—fucking arrows!”
A hard impact knocked her head around to the right. Pain shot through her wrenched neck. A spear-blade shone in front of her eyes. The pole-hammer wouldn’t come up, caught on something – a steel-plated arm pushed in front of her, and the spear-point skidded off that vambrace and into her breastplate. The impact knocked her half-turned around. She dragged her weapon free. A woman screamed. A Visigoth spearman stumbled into her field of view, fell at her feet.
She slammed the top-spike down, punched it into his calf-muscle; a foot-knight in Lion livery smacked a mace into the Visigoth’s bare face. Bloodied teeth and bone-fragments spattered up her breastplate—
The flag-staff of the Lion Affronté cracked down hard on her right shoulder. An a
rmoured man cannoned into her from behind; a Visigoth spearman, on his knees, clinging to the man’s belt and stabbing a dagger up into his groin. Blood sprayed.
They shouldn’t get this near to me—
The whole mass of people pushed off to the right; she half-fell over the edge of the path. The banner-staff caught between her helmet and haut-piece, jutting forward over her shoulder, pressing her down.
“Keep – going—!”
With a great wrench she completed the turn, spinning as hard left as she could. The banner-pole jolted up over the haut-piece of her shoulder-armour and off.
Thomas Rochester grabbed for it with one hand.
All the men around him had white Visigoth livery, mail hauberks.
He opened his mouth, shouting at her.
A sword slammed against his face, hit the bottom of his sallet at jaw-height, skidded upwards along the metal edges, and his face disappeared in a spray of blood.
She grabbed her pole-hammer in both hands, rammed the butt-spike under the Visigoth’s upraised arm, punching through mail rings. The hard impact jolted back through her shoulder muscles. The shaft twisted as she tried to pull it free. A gout of blood spurted over her forearms. Men in red-and-blue livery thumped into her, pushing her back; it was all she could do to keep the shaft from being wrenched out of her hand and Christ Jesus I’m facing the wrong way, I’m turned around, where’s the banner—?
“Get the fucking banner UP!”
Stay visible, keep moving, stay alive—!
Men behind slammed into her. She pushed back for a second, but the weight of them forced her forward. She staggered upright and on, stepping on bodies, treading on ragged mailed backs, bloodied breastplates; her ankle twisting as her footing skidded between bodies, in blood and fluid.
Shit I have no idea which way I’m facing—
Slamming the sharp points of her corners back, elbowing for space, she turned around; the sky black with arrows. Sweat froze on her exposed face. A blue-and-yellow Lion’s-head banner lifting up—
“Boss!” Rickard’s adolescent, cracked voice shrieked beside her, over the noise; the Lion Azure banner’s shaft solid in his grip.
Two men slammed in beside her. Lion livery. Rochester’s men, her escort. Three more men.
“Keep going! Fuck it! Don’t lose momentum!”
She pushed herself forward, grabbed the staff above Rickard’s hand, pushed, bellowed, “Move forward!” She let go the banner and slammed the shaft of her pole-hammer horizontally across the backs in front of her, feet digging in, pushing with all her weight. Two men-at-arms slammed in beside her.
Ahead – over the mass of Burgundian helmets, Visigoth helmets; the glint of a legion eagle – the Lion standard went suddenly back and round in an eddy of movement.
Pressure sent her staggering back: three steps, hearing men shriek curses, armoured feet trampling, treading on men wounded on the ground. A thin spray of red speckled her gauntlet, vambrace and couter. Rickard thrust his sword once, awkwardly; she couldn’t see if it had an effect. Men ahead lifted up bill-shafts, punched them down.
The press in front of her gave way.
She dragged Rickard around, shoved him forward – shit, where’s Robert! – looked for Anselm; and stumbled back on to the hard-earth road.
A mass of Burgundian-liveried billmen – Loyecte’s men! – crowded back over her. She ducked her head down. An arrow glanced off the tail of her sallet; her head jerked back. Three or four men fell against her, one with his helmet ripped off and a Visigoth gripping his brown hair, face streaming blood. A man in livery soaked all red jabbed a bollock knife into the Visigoth’s groin, their bodies pressed up against Ash; she punched her left gauntlet plate into the Visigoth’s eye, felt the bone of his eye-socket snap, heard him scream through her muffling helmet and lining. Pressure eased; she got herself on to firm footing.
Christ, I miss being on a horse! I can’t see a fucking thing!
“Where’s my fucking command group!” She got no power into her voice. “Rickard! Find the Lion standard. We got to keep moving, we’re dead if we stand still!”
Her hands felt emptiness. She pushed her body forward into the middle of the men. Two sharp impacts on her backplate she ignored, thrusting with her arms like a man swimming. Ahead, bill-blades went up and down, rising and falling; and she shoved towards the irregular movement.
“There!”
Rickard swung off her left shoulder, bawling. She found herself with her sword in hand – when did I draw that? Where’s my pole-hammer? – staring across a space often or a dozen yards full of fighting men’s backs, all of them shoving forward; and beyond them a standard charged with a lion azure passant guardant.
She opened her mouth to yell, “Okay, go!”, and a blast of fire blacked out her vision.
Head ringing, arms numb, she clawed at what she could reach of her face under the front of her tilted sallet. The split-second’s dazzle passed; let her see that she was standing at the edge of a crowd—
On the earth in front of her, a swathe of men lay prone or supine, arms flung up over their faces. On each body, the line of red hose or bright steel cuisse or painted war-hat ended at charred black.
Smoke poured up off their bodies. It smelled wrenchingly of roast meat. Her mouth filled with water.
Two scorched, unrecognisable faces reared up in front of her, screaming.
Another hiss, water on a hot fire, magnified a hundred times. A foot kicked her behind the knee. She fell sprawling, hit the earth hard. Down: defenceless! Her bladder let go; she scratched in panic at the cold ground, scrabbling to get her feet back under her. Something fell or trod on her backplate: her helmet slammed against the earth; someone shrieked her name.
Whiteness flickered in the corner of her vision.
A wide-mouthed screaming Visigoth nazir crawled in front of her; not striking out, not even looking. His whole back was charred black and smoking.
She got to hands and knees. A man hurdled over her. She flinched back. Six, seven, or more: men in hose and jacks, Lion livery, steel war-hats flashing in the bright cold sunlight, all lifting weapons.
Over their heads, she saw a white stone ovoid: marble carved into the shape of a face. Brass glinted at its back. A low, chimney-flue roar; bodies fell down around her; heat scorched her face and she threw up her arm too late. Her skin stung; her eyes ran. Staggering up, she blinked her vision clear, saw the golem standing with the Greek Fire tank’s blackened nozzle in both hands, swinging it inexorably around—
Two men in Lion livery ducked low. Two swung weapons. Mauls! she saw, heavy hammers; and the stone right arm and left hand of the golem shattered and cracked off its body. The nozzle fell. The two men hit the golem from the side: a bill-shaft between them, across the bronze-jointed knees. She saw it fall over backwards, saw four other men strike hard, decisive hammer-blows; their leader bawled, “That one’s down: move on, keep moving!” Geraint’s voice.
“BOSS—”
Someone’s hands hauled her round. A man in armour, a head taller than she is. Lion livery: Anselm’s voice; Robert Anselm screaming, “This way! Over here! This way!”
Running, pounding, panting; stopping again in the thick of troops, foot-knights, and in the sky above and past Anselm, the Lion standard – not moving.
Not moving.
We’re shitted, we lost it, we’re bogged down.
Oh Jesus. Hundreds of them round us. It’s the finish.
Every muscle in her body knotted. For a second, in the din of fighting, she stopped dead, bent half double. Her thigh muscles ached; her shoulder joints jabbed her with pain, every spot under plate – collar-bone, hip, knee – swelled with bruises. Her head rang. Blood ran down into one eye, and she dabbed at her face; and saw that her ring-finger inside her right gauntlet was outside the strap, and folded across at a ninety-degree angle to the palm. She could not feel the break. Blood ran down from a gouge on the inside of her elbow; one tasset plate was gone; everyth
ing on her left-hand side – plackart, breastplate, poleyn, greave – had the scratches and dents of arrow-strikes not even felt.
Wish I’d gone for my brigandine; mobility. I can’t walk another fucking yard in this harness.
Can’t fight. I’m dead.
Anselm’s helmet-muffled voice bellowed, “Come on, girl!”
She made to move off. One half-pace, and she stopped again, the noise of screaming men beating at her ears through the helmet-lining. She felt her arms too heavy to lift, her legs too heavy to move.
The men closest to her were not fighting. The shouts and screams came from a few yards further off. A great noise went up – indistinguishable words.
“What the fuck—”
Over the heads of the men in front, something was passing – passing through many hands, towards the Lion Affronté banner – passed across and down to Robert Anselm – something he thrust out towards her.
She took it automatically: a Visigoth spear. Her hand gripped the shaft. Unbalanced, it fell, and she grabbed at it with her other hand, swearing at the pain, her dropped sword dangling off its lanyard, and she looked up into the blue sky to see what unbalanced the weapon.
A severed head.
The head’s weighted beard shook, braided with golden beads.
“Gelimer’s dead!” Robert Anselm bawled. He pointed up, steel arm bloodied past the elbow. “GELIMER’S DEAD!”
A great scream went up, over to the left.
“We have to stop this!” Ash shouted. She closed her other hand around the spear-shaft. “We got to— do they know he’s dead?”
“Banner went down!”
“WHAT?”
“His BANNER. Went DOWN!”
“Let me through.” She moved another step forward, towards the line of billmen – John Price’s old unit, that had been Carracci’s – ducking the ends of bill-shafts jabbing back. “Get me through to the fucking front of the line! Fast! ”
