Ash: A Secret History

by Mary Gentle

  Men’s backs shifted. She shouldered between burly bodies, both hands gripping the top-heavy spear, Robert Anselm and the banner at her back; felt herself shoved bodily into the second rank of billmen, and bill-shafts came down over her shoulders, dripping blades held out in front of her, a mass of hooks and spikes.

  “Gelimer’s dead!” The pitch of her voice shredded her throat.

  The bill unit backed up, bunching against her; weapons raised, but not striking. Beyond, spear-points caught sunlight. A line of Visigoth men in mail and coats-of-plates, bright reds and oranges and pinks, lower faces covered by aventails or black cloth; spears and swords extended—

  She has a second to wonder are they backing off and realise she is already seeing trodden earth and bodies lying on their faces. She risked a glance, left and right, through a forest of bills and spears. A gap of several feet – still widening—

  They’ve seen his banner go down—

  She thrust the spear two-handed up into the blue sky.

  Gelimer’s severed head bobbed high above the morass of bodies, face clearly distinct in the sun, his mouth gaping open, his roughly chopped-out spine hanging down in a tail of red and white bone.

  “The King-Caliph’s dead!”

  The bellow emptied her chest of air. She swayed. Billmen in jacks and war-hats beside her, red-faced, panting, tears running, took it up:

  “The King-Caliph’s dead!”

  Arrows still dropped out of the sky, on her left: men shouted over the clashing together of iron. Around her a chant grew, drowning that out.

  “The King-Caliph’s dead! The King-Caliph’s dead!”

  Arms shaking, she jabbed up the spear and its impaled head. You gotta see it!

  Widening, now; undeniably widening – a gap between the fighting lines: a stretch of earth, canvas, tumbled cauldrons, bloodied bedding, and bodies with their heads buried in their arms. And bodies and separate heads. Fifteen feet in front of her she clearly saw one nazir, bewildered, shouting at his commander. The ’arifs gaze fixed on the spike, and the head of Gelimer.

  The rise of the ground and the trampled-down camp let her see, as the spearmen edged back, the helmets of the hundreds of men beyond them – slave-spearmen, Visigoth dismounted knights, bowmen; rank on rank of men jammed shoulder to shoulder among the trashed tents and buildings, unit banners peppering the sky. Experience gave her a rapid assessment: four and a half, five thousand men.

  A distant single rapid b-bang! split the air. Some gunner sweeping a match across all the touch-holes of an organ-gun at one go: eight barrels firing almost instantaneously – from the city wall.

  I can hear that! They’ve stopped fighting here—

  As instantly, screams shrieked up from her right: the roaring cough of Greek Fire sounded; black smoke rounded itself up on to the air.

  “The King-Caliph’s dead!” she bellowed again, ripping her throat with every word; hearing the shrill high clarion of her voice echo over men’s heads, burning buildings, shrieks of pain. “GELIMER – IS – DEAD. Stop fighting! ”

  Whether it was adrenalin or lack of oxygen, she swayed back against Anselm. He gripped her arm, hand closing around her vambrace, and held her steady. She thought, for a heartbeat, it was as if the whole world held its breath; no reason why the Visigoth troops should not just roll on over the less-than-thirteen-hundred men in front of them. No reason in the world, she thought dizzily; gazing through bloody eyes at the blue, icy clear sky and Gelimer’s head on a spike.

  “Disengage!” She forced a strained whisper at Robert Anselm. “Send runners – tell Morgan to hold the standard where he is.”

  “Got you!”

  Officers yelled orders behind her. She continued to face forward, hardly breathing, eyes sore and stinging. She saw no banners that she knew, certainly not the Faris’s brazen head; no sign of Gelimer’s portcullis banner going up again; and then across the cleared space – thirty feet, now? – a banner with a stark geometric triangle came up: Sancho Lebrija’s stylised mountain.

  He follows orders.

  Will he follow a dead man’s orders?

  “KING’S – DEAD!” Ash bellowed. Her voice cracked.

  Anselm hauled her around, pointing. More men flooded into the area every second. They’ll be covering all the ground behind us, between us and the city. The Lebrija banner jerked, caught up somewhere in the mass of troops. How many seconds before he starts giving orders?

  “There!” Anselm threw his arm out, pointing at more horses picking their way across the broken ground; a leader with a gilded helmet; riders carrying another banner – a notched wheel. A black notched wheel on a white field.

  She said, “That’s Leofric’s livery!”

  The two banners met. Men’s voices shouted.

  “My lord amirs!” she screamed. “The Caliph Gelimer is dead!”

  She emphasised it with a shake of the spear in her hands. Blood and spinal fluid trickled down over her right hand, bright on the back of her steel gauntlet.

  Panting, she gulped air down into her lungs. For all the cold, she sweltered in her armour. She stared.

  The rider in the gilded helmet, among men in mail and white robes, took off his helmet, and was Leofric.

  His wisps of white hair jutted up. He touched spurs to his mare’s flanks, urging her out among the dead and dying, coming close enough for her to see him frowning at the impaled head, either in anger or against the morning sun.

  A sun hardly risen any further up from the horizon behind him. I doubt it’s fifteen minutes since the wall went down.

  “Leofric!” she yelled, “Gelimer’s dead. He can’t stop you destroying the Wild Machines! ”

  The wind took her words, and the noises of sobbing, hurt men and women. Can he hear me? She stared into his lined face for long seconds – is he mad? Was he ever mad? – and he turned away from her, saying something sharp; one of his officers began to shout brusque orders, and the ’uqda pennants moved in towards him – Lebrija’s banner with them.

  “He’s doing it. He’s taking command. God damn it, he’s doing it.” She stamped her feet. “He’s doing it.”

  Robert Anselm swore evenly and monotonously and vilely.

  Thirty yards away, to her left, the gap between the lines vanished again. She looked up a corridor of clashing staves above men’s heads; poleaxe and hooked bills; spear and lifted shields, men packed in too close to do more than hack at weapon-shafts and helmets, stab at faces. A concerted Visigoth shout: the St Andrews Cross pennon went back ten yards in ten seconds.

  That’s some ’arif acting on his own—

  “Tell ’em to hold!” She dug her feet in against the pressure of bodies from behind; yelled across at Leofric, “Stop the fighting! Now!”

  Lebrija’s ’arifs shouted. Sudden weight behind pushed her, inexorably; staggering forward among the jutting bill-hooks. Rickard’s shoulder scraped against hers. The Lion banner swayed. Robert Anselm’s deep bellow, “Hold! ”, echoed out across the frosty camp and the troops behind him.

  Twenty yards back down the slope, to her right, a guttering cough of Greek Fire roared.

  “Christ! Those things don’t stop!”

  Leofric’s head turned. The lord-amir jolted up in his stirrups, staring over Visigoth troops’ heads. He began to shout loudly, authoritatively. She slitted her eyes, blinking away pain from swollen eyelids; heard the coughing long roar again, and a wedge of Visigoth helmets stampeded into the Burgundian billmen, men tripping and vanishing, pennons tipping over on their poles; the lick of fire searing her vision momentarily black—

  “They’re firing on their own men too!” Anselm screamed. A thrust of movement in the men around her; she half-turned; a runner in St Andrew’s Cross livery wheezed out, “—firing at everybody—” and the officers around Leofric ran, calling, units moving; and nothing, nothing – for a count of thirty.

  Nothing. No Greek Fire.

  A dead man has no friends.

  He may have m
en who want to avenge him—

  A high voice screamed behind her. Carthaginian Latin. Shoved forward, this time braced; she kept both hands clenched on the spear-shaft, Gelimer’s severed head swaying like a ship’s mast. Two steps forward, three; forced towards the facing line of Visigoth infantry. The pressure eased. She halted, staring at spear-points, staring at archers, recurved bows, arrows being hastily laid to bowstrings—

  The nazir fifteen feet in front of her yelled, “Hold! ”

  She leaned back, putting her mouth close to Robert’s helmet. “More runners – to commanders – hold place – defence only—”

  Rickard shifted back, at her right shoulder, and she suddenly saw between two billmen how the ground sloped back, slightly down, the way they had come.

  Christ, have we come so far?

  I don’t remember it being a slope.

  Christ—

  A narrow swathe of trampled earth, canvas, sagging tent-posts, broken beams, cook-pots and men clutching weapons ran down the slope towards Dijon.

  If they’d been deployed, instead of sleeping—

  The air shone clear, frosty. She breathed in the stink of shit and blood. Past the end of her Burgundians, a great mass of Visigoth legionaries filled up the lanes and streets of the camp, the sun shining off motionless ranks of shield rims and swords. Chaos far over to the east, cornicens and barked orders; but in the north camp, two legions still only just being called to arms; piling out of turf barracks, an untouched five thousand more in the III Caralis alone.

  All they have to do is roll over us—

  Before Dijon’s walls, the bare expanse of earth lay dotted with men in yellow or red-and-blue livery, some of them moving. The gap in the expanse of stonework showed utterly black. Bright metal glints, in the shadows – scythes, pitchforks. Dijon’s citizens. Behind the shattered tumble of masonry.

  She let her gaze sweep slowly back up the slight hill, blinking, counting: I can’t see all of us; surely that isn’t all of us that’s left—!

  A swirl of movement yanked her attention back to the Visigoth ranks in front of her. The archers parted. New, bright-liveried troops marched into the gap: a high voice, further back in the camp, screaming in Carthaginian Latin and Italian: “Advance! Attack!”

  “Aw shit—”

  A cornicen rang out. Braced, breathless, she shot a glance either side at the sweating billmen; saw their faces show disgust and terror equally, and then one man gave a great laugh, his flapping cheek showing bloody teeth in the cut.

  She squinted through swollen eyelids. Not Visigoth troops ahead – men in Frankish liveries. Bow and bill foot troops. Armoured horsemen, packed tight in the crowd. And nobody moving, not one man of them moving forward past the line—

  The Carthaginian voice screaming orders cut off with a blackly comic gurgle.

  “Look at that!” A mush of blood sprayed out with the billman’s words. “Look at that, boss!”

  The white Agnus Dei banner glinted, gold embroidery flashing in the sun; and down the line, Onorata Rodiani’s naked sword, and the Ship and Crescent Moon of Joscelyn van Mander: Gelimer’s Frankish mercenaries.

  She saw a rider in Milanese armour reach out to his banner-bearer. Agnus Dei. Sun flashed off his gauntlet, gripping the striped pole. A babble of Italian crossed the clear air, not distinct enough for her to make out what was said.

  The golden spike on top of the banner dipped.

  The rider’s armoured hand forcing it down, the banner dipped, silk folding, the banner going down, the point of it touching the bloodied dirt, and the Lamb of God lost among the draped cloth on the earth.

  Tears dazzled her vision. Raw shouts went up around her. Beyond, the banner of the Rodiani company dipped; and de Monforte; and finally, finally the silver-and-blue of the Ship and Crescent, all the mercenary banners going down, dipped to the dirt, to their men’s raucous, fierce, appreciative cheers.

  Robert Anselm, hammering at her left pauldron, pointing away with his free hand: “He’s calling them off!”

  Shrill cornicens called from the centre of the camp, and beyond; from the east where guns still fired. She turned and thrust the loaded spear at Rickard. “Give me the banner!”

  Their hands fumbled; her snapped finger, in its blood-soaked glove, tore loose from the spear-shaft; and she took the Lion Affronté banner in her left hand alone, held it up over her head, and hefted it in a weary apology for a circle.

  The crack of guns from the east trickled away. Inside a long minute, all the gun-crews stopped shooting.

  Leofric rode up past Gelimer’s ex-mercenaries, among ranks of House Leofric infantry; Lebrija’s banner with him, other qa’ids’ pennants following. The lord-amir Leofric reined in his mare, leaning down to speak to one of his commanders.

  ’Arif Alderic stepped forward from the line. “My master says, ‘Peace between us! Peace between Carthage and Burgundy!’”

  She took a raw breath, and shouted, “Has he – the right and power – to offer it?”

  Alderic’s voice rang out, to at least the nearest Visigoth units as well as to the Burgundians. “Amir Leofric, with the death in battle of this Gelimer, claims for himself the throne of the King-Caliph. There are no other amirs of rank here. It is his honour and duty. Hail the King-Caliph Leofric!”

  Robert Anselm’s voice, beside her, exploded: “Bugger me!”

  The Visigoth legions cheered.

  Alderic called, “Jund Ash, he has this power. Carthage will ratify his election here. Will you take the peace he offers?”

  “Fuck, yes!”

  Waiting to regroup, a forest of banners and standards surrounds her: Thomas Morgan, with the blue-and-gold standard of the Lion Azure, de la Marche and his bearer of the Burgundian Duchy’s arms; the Lion Affronté; unit pennants; and men in bloodied plate and ripped mail staring up not at the silks, but at the spear-shaft that she rests back over her shoulder, the severed head high up and visible to everybody near this part of the field.

  She feels nothing.

  “Tell Leofric where we want it set up. On the open ground, in front of the gap in the wall.”

  Anselm nodded acknowledgement, signalled two of Morgan’s men, and vanished through the troops towards Leofric.

  The loud noise of relief, of a barely present realisation of success just making itself felt – none of this pierces the glass bubble of numbness that surrounds her.

  “We did it!” Rickard ripped off his helmet with his free hand. His flushed, youthful face beamed. “We did it! Hey, boss! You going to make me your squire now?”

  Deep male voices boom appreciation. Suddenly they are clearing a space, the black-haired boy going down on one knee in front of her, still clutching the striped pole of the Lion Affronté.

  “Ah, fuck it!” Ash said. She grinned, suddenly, and the sore skin on her face twinged. A flood of warm emotion pierces her. Through blurred vision, she recovered her wheel-pommel sword on its lanyard, gripped it, and put the bare blade down on Rickard’s shoulder. “If I could make it a knighthood, I would! Consider yourself promoted!”

  The cheers for that are part joy, part relief; part the feeling that this is how it should be, right now. Armoured men help the young man to his feet, beating on his shoulders. The cold air stings her face again. She does not remove her own helmet; not yet.

  “Stay there.” She unceremoniously shoved the spear at Rochester’s sergeant, Elias; and elbowed her way a few yards west into the crowd, until she can see past the back rank of men.

  In her mind, the direction is clear – no matter what turf the camp is set up on, the camp is always the same.

  The ad hoc leader of Carracci’s and Price’s billmen shouldered hastily in beside her, as escort.

  “Vitteleschi,” he panted. “In charge of these guys if you say so, boss.”

  “For now.” Another spreading grin, that she can’t resist: we did it, we did it! and her cheeks sting.

  “Your face is red, boss,” Vitteleschi said.r />
  “Yeah?”

  “Your skin.” He drew a gauntlet-finger swiftly across his own cheekbones.

  “Right…” Cooling sweat stings in the corners of her eyes, scalding her swollen lids.

  Now she can see past the back rank, past an elaborate turf-roofed building – Gelimer’s headquarters? – and out on to the bridge beyond.

  “I want to see what Jonvelle’s…”

  Bright red blood covers the ice.

  Blood covers the thick frost on the shore. She squinted at lumps, lying on the trodden earth bank, casting man-size black shadows.

  Out on the ice, men hauled dead men in, by an arm or a leg; picking up heads, leaving smears on the whiteness. Scattered corpses further downriver jutted with fletched shafts.

  She counted the line on the bank. Twenty-two.

  Among the dropped weapons, discarded bone skates lay.

  Get into position; hold the bridge; stop Gelimer from running.

  A Burgundian sergeant plodded forwards.

  “Where’s Jonvelle?” she asked.

  “Dead.” The man coughed, coughed again. “Dead, Demoiselle-Captain. Captain Berghes is dead. Captain Romont, too.”

  Men of note.

  She turned her head, seeing men lying down on the northern side of the bridge, lying on the cold earth in awkward positions, arms flung out, legs hooked one over the other. Billmen; archers; men with only jacks and brigandines and helmets. She looked at their faces, bleeding from the mouth; the blood not running now. Fifty? Sixty?

  A man sat on the ground in front of the still-warm bodies, bent over his stomach, moaning. Half a dozen Burgundian billmen walked back over the bridge towards her, supporting men and women who cried out with pain at every step; Jonvelle’s banner-bearer still dragging his colours, his hastily bandaged right arm dripping, missing from the elbow down.

  A severed hand almost tripped her as she stepped back.

  “Vitteleschi.”

  “Boss.”

  “Send a runner over to Lord-Amir Leofric. Tell him our doctors are in the city. Tell him to send me his legionary medics.”

  “But—”

  “Now, Vitteleschi.” She turned back to the Burgundian sergeant. “Are you in command here?” And at his nod – shit, everyone of rank above sergeant dead? – she said, “There won’t be any crap about not being treated by rag-head doctors, clear? Get anyone who’s still alive bandaged up, or on hurdles; bring them down into the city as soon as you’re ready. Go to the abbey hospices.”