Ash: A Secret History (163 page)

“I didn’t ask for this! It’s a pile of crap! Eight hundred men’s the most I’ve ever commanded—”

“You would have myself and my officers, Demoiselle.”

“I don’t want them! This ain’t gonna happen! Dijon’s nothing to me, Burgundy’s nothing to me!”

Thunderously, de la Marche roared at field-volume, “
We believe in you whether you like it or not!
”

“Well
I
didn’t bloody ask you to!”

Screaming up into the big man’s face, Ash found herself breathless; robbed of speech by his expression.

Suddenly quiet, Olivier de la Marche said, “Do you think I
want
you as Captain-General, girl? Do you think I want to stand down? I was Duke Charles’s man for longer than you’ve been alive. I’ve seen him write ordinance after ordinance, turning the armies of Burgundy into the best in Christendom – and now half of them lie dead at Auxonne, no man knows what is passing in Flanders, and inside these walls there are a bare two thousand men. I find it hard to believe that anyone except myself is to be trusted with the defence of this city. And yet I find it harder to believe that God has not sent you. You are here, now, to be our oriflamme.
¹⁵
How can I object? God
demands
your service.”

Her breath came hard, but she sounded casually cynical. “So He might. He hasn’t bloody paid me yet!”

“
This is not a joke!
”

“No. It isn’t.” Finding herself behind Florian’s chair, Ash stopped pacing, and turned to rest her hands on the blonde woman’s shoulders; velvet warm under her palms. “It isn’t a joke at all.”

“Then—”

“Now you listen to me.” Ash spoke quietly. She waited, until it forced the armoured Burgundian noble to stop bellowing, and listen.

Ash said, “Burgundy doesn’t matter.
Florian
matters.”

Under her hands, Florian stirred.

Ash said, “It’s not important if we leave Dijon, and you guys get massacred, and Burgundy’s conquered by the Visigoths. All that’s important is that Florian stays alive. All the while she’s alive, the Wild Machines can’t do a damn thing. And if she dies, it won’t matter about Burgundy either, because none of us will be around to know about it: you, me, the Burgundians, or the Visigoths!”

“Demoiselle-Captain—”

“I can’t afford the time to be a hero for you!”

“Demoiselle Ash—!”

“Hey. It’s not like I’m the only one with charisma.” Ash grinned, crookedly, finding some emotional balance as she faced him. “Aren’t you the tournament Golden Boy? And – oh, what about Anthony de la Roche? He’s charismatic—”

“He’s in Flanders,” de la Marche said grimly. “You are here! Demoiselle, I can’t believe that you would defy God’s will in this way!”

“
You’re not listening to me!
”

As she was about to shout – to scream, in sheer frustration,
Florian!
– she heard Robert Anselm’s voice from beside her.

“You ain’t thinking, girl.”

He put heavy, broad hands on the arms of his chair, and shoved himself up on to his feet. Armour clattered. He made the unconscious body-adjustment that settles harness into place, and faced Ash.

Robert Anselm jerked a thumb at the windows. “You want to be sure Florian stays alive? With that lot out there? What’s better than being in charge of the whole damn Burgundian army?”

Ash stared at him.

“Jesus wept, Robert!”

“He may have a point, madonna.”

Ash smacked her hand into her fist. “No!” She swung around, facing Olivier de la Marche. “I’m not taking on your damn army! I’ve got to have the option of taking Florian out of here.”

She found herself actually watching de la Marche’s nostrils move, flaring as he inhaled, sharply, and bit off whatever he was about to say.

“You never went to Carthage,” Ash said, more gently. “You’ve never seen the Wild Machines—”

“
She is our Duchess!
”

“That doesn’t
matter,
you idiot!”

Antonio Angelotti stood up, forcing himself by that movement between Ash and Olivier de la Marche. Ash backed away a step, her throat raw, glaring at the Burgundian nobleman.

Angelotti reached down and touched the saints’ medals looped around the wrist of his fluted German gauntlet, and made a point of looking at Ash for permission to speak.

Breathing hard, she finally nodded.

“Your Grace,” Angelotti spoke past de la Marche, to the Bishop. “Does the Duchess need to stay within Burgundian territory?”

The bishop – a round-faced, dark man with some of the Valois look – appeared startled. “Now that is rank superstition.”

“Is it?” Ash came immediately to Angelotti’s defence. She ignored de la Marche’s thunderous frown. “Now is it? I
saw
somebody make a saint’s vision into a solid piece of meat and blood. And now you all say she’s your Duchess. You got some nerve telling me my master gunner’s question is superstitious!”

“It shows a certain lack of thought.” The bishop let go of Philippe Ternant’s elbow, and steepled his fingers, touching them to his small, pursed delicate mouth. “How could my late brother Charles have made war, or pursued diplomacy, if he couldn’t leave the territories of Burgundy?”

“Well…” Ash realised that her face felt warm. “Yeah: okay. Now you mention it.”

“The
hunt
must occur on Burgundian land.” The bishop bowed to Florian. “And within a certain narrow space of time. If our Duchess – pardon, your Grace – were to die outside the borders of Burgundy now, news would not reach us in time, even if the city still stood. Then, no hunt, no new Duke or Duchess, and…”

He finished with an eloquent shrug, and a glance at the pale early morning sun beyond the glass.

“So Dijon must stand, and the Duchess with it!” Olivier de la Marche blew out a harsh breath. “It’s clear to me, Demoiselle Ash. Your surgeon is our Duchess, now. And you are destined to be our commander-in-chief, not I. Our Pucelle.”

“I am
not
—” Ash hauled her voice down from a squeak. “Not your goddamn commander-in-chief!”

Deep frustration wrote itself in the lines of de la Marche’s face. He glared at her, then at Florian – and then looked away from the Burgundian woman, fixing his gaze on Ash again. “It’s true our Duchess has been your surgeon. Does this mean you won’t follow her?”

“She hasn’t stopped being my surgeon yet! Messire de la Marche, I know what Florian is. I’m far from convinced that makes her a Duchess. And I know what a factious nobility’s like. This city could fall in a second!” Ash jabbed a finger at him. “Exactly
how
many of your knights and nobles believe Florian is Duchess?”

For the first time, de la Marche appeared staggered. He did not speak.

“Florian, take a look out of the window.” Ash smiled grimly, not taking her eyes off de la Marche. “That should concentrate your mind. Now tell me who
is
in charge here, now Charles is dead.”

When the surgeon spoke again, her voice held a raw honesty, and she talked as if de la Marche and Ternant and the bishop were not present.

“It’s me. I’m in charge.”

Ash snapped a look over her shoulder, startled.

“I thought I wouldn’t be. That I’d be a figurehead. It isn’t like that.” Floria’s face altered. “It’s ironic. I ran off to Padua and Salerno when all I had to be afraid of was being married off like all the other noble brood-mares. Now I’m trapped, but because I’m the heir and successor to Charles de Bourgogne! And I
am.
I am, Ash. These people are doing what I say. That’s frightening.”

Breathless, Ash muttered automatically, “Too fucking right!”

At the surgeon’s sardonic look, she added:

“Florian, I
know
you. You’ve got no more idea how to rule a duchy than my last turd! Why should you have? But if it’s ‘Yes, my Lady, yes, your Grace…’”

“Yes,” Florian said.

Moved by some personal impulse that she would not have given way to, before; off-balance in some subtle way, Ash muttered, “Sweet Christ, woman, you don’t know when you’re well off! You have no idea of what it’s like to have to
prove
your right to authority, day by day by day. Because you hunted the hart. And that
makes
you Duchess.”

“Hunting the Hart made me what I am.
Nothing
makes me a Duchess!” Floria’s long, strong fingers clenched, her knuckles white. “I have to be stepping right into the middle of other people’s political games here! I can only know what other people tell me. I need all the help I can get. People I trust. Ash. You’re one of them.”

Ash shifted uncomfortably in her armour, over-warm for the first time in days in the fire-heated stuffiness of the tower room. She looked away from Florian’s expression, aware that it demanded something of her.

“There’s you. There’s the company. There’s Messire de la Marche.” Ash shook her head. “There’s Burgundy. There’s Christendom – I can’t get my head around that one.
Everything…
All I know is, I have to keep you alive, and I have to get us to some point where we can fight back.” Now she looked up at de la Marche. “And you want me to be some Sacred Virgin-Warrior. I’m not from bloody Domrémy,
¹⁶
I’m from
Carthage!
I’m slave-born. Green Christ! Get a grip!”

“
You
get a grip.” Florian stood, in a graceful sweep of velvet. She put her hand on Anselm’s vambrace. “I’m with Roberto on this one. You’ve told me often enough. Men win when they believe they can win.”

“Aw,
shit
—”

Antonio Angelotti seated himself again, and said thoughtfully, “You would need to talk to our officers and men. The Lion Azure should not turn into the Duchess’s Household guard…”

Olivier de la Marche grunted. As Ash looked up at him, the big man said, in a normal speaking voice, “My apologies, Demoiselle-Captain. Naturally, a commander must speak to his men. How soon can you do this?”

“‘How soon’!”

There was no echo of her incredulity on their faces.

She looked first at Florian. Nothing to be read there. A drawn anxiety shadowed Philippe Ternant’s features; the bishop’s round face was unreadable.

“You are no longer just a mercenary commander,” Olivier de la Marche repeated. “Not to us. If you wanted to, demoiselle, you could make a play for power here. That would split the city. I
offer
you the command, instead. Captain over me, with me to use my authority when you’re not on duty; the responsibility to be yours, as well.”

At his last word, his lips curved up; he looked for a moment much as he must have done as a young champion, riding in the great tournaments of Burgundy: a careless prowess that does not need to consider itself, matched with an awareness that loyalty is simple and men are complex.

“If we don’t last out more than two or three days more,” he added, “I will share the disgrace with you, Demoiselle-Captain; how is that for an offer?”

She held his gaze, aware that not only Florian, but Robert and Angeli also watched her; that the chamberlain-counsellor and the bishop now had identical expressions of hope.

“Uh…” She wiped her hand across her nose. Angelotti sat with his helm in his lap, smoothing the rain-draggled plumes into order. He shot a glance at her from under gold brows. Having known him and Anselm for so long, she did not need to hear them speak their opinions aloud.

“You have at least to
tell
your men,” de la Marche said, “that every man in Dijon demands this of you. And my men are waiting for your answer now.”

Christ, do I actually have to take this seriously?

Fuck…

“You’d be putting a mercenary commander in over Burgundian nobles,” she said slowly. “I don’t want to find myself involved in some internecine war
inside
Dijon, with the Visigoths still there outside!”

Olivier de la Marche nodded assent. “The worst of all worlds, demoiselle.”

“What are you going to do about factions and political infighting?” Ash nodded towards her surgeon. “Florian isn’t even a Valois. It’s a good fifteen years since she’s been noble!”

Florian spluttered, hand up to her veil; muttered something indistinguishable, but in entirely familiar, cynical tones.

“And then,” Ash said, “you’re adding me.”

“The Turks have their Janissaries,
¹⁷
do they not? We’re only men,” Olivier de la Marche said, “and you’re asking the wrong man about factions, Demoiselle-Captain. I’m a soldier, not a politician. All the politicians are in the north; my lord Duke sent them there with Duchess Margaret, before Auxonne. God and His Saints protect her!”

“But Florian,” Ash began.

“I’ll tell you now, Demoiselle-Captain. Duchess Floria will have all the loyalty that men gave to my lord, Charles. This is
Burgundy.
We’re only men, and men of honour are prone to quarrel. But we are pious men, we recognise a woman sent by God to us; she
is
our Duchess.”

Into the moment’s silence that followed, he added, “And you: God sent you to us, also. Now, Demoiselle Ash – what will
you
do?”

Five hours later, she returned to the Tour Philippe le Bon in highly polished armour and clean Lion Azure livery. Heads lifted as she entered the room, interrupting the last of the noon meal. She nodded briefly, let Anselm and Angelotti move ahead down the table, and let Rickard take his place at the wall with her sword and helmet. She strode to the head of the table and sat in the empty chair waiting beside Floria del Guiz.

“
Well?
” Florian demanded, under her breath.

“You got any more of that frumenty? I could really go some of that.” Ash coughed. “And mead. Anything with honey in. My throat’s
ragged
from talking to that lot.”

“Ash!”

“Okay, okay!” A quick glance showed her a couple of dozen of de la Marche’s commanders at the table, and two abbots with the bishop, all staring with the same intense curiosity as the servants. “Just let me
eat.
”