Ash: A Secret History (213 page)

Oh fuck, Ash thought blankly.

“Frederick of
Hapsburg?
” Florian said incredulously. She stifled a cough in her hand. “
Frederick’s
standing for election to
King-Caliph?
”

“He’s a foreigner!” Robert Anselm protested to the Visigoth officer, but Ash paid no attention.

Yes, he can probably do it,
she assessed.

Back in Dijon, the army’s split into yes, no and maybe. ‘Yes’ – those for Leofric. ‘No’ – those who were loyal to Gelimer; but a dead man has few friends. And ‘maybe’: the ones who are waiting to see which way it all jumps.

These guys here will be ex-Gelimer’s clients that he put in as officers in his legions. And the reason they’re following Frederick is—

“Hand over the woman!” the Visigoth legionary
qa’id
snapped. “Do not mistake Lord Frederick for Leofric. Leofric is a weak man who wished nothing more than to make peace with you, when we stand on the brink of victory. My lord Frederick, who will be Caliph, is determined to carry out that which was the will of Gelimer, before Gelimer was treacherously killed. My lord Frederick will execute this woman, Floria, calling herself Duchess of Burgundy, to make our victory over Burgundy complete.”

Anselm said, “Son of a bitch,” in an awed rumble.

The rose-mist on the hills whitened, with the sun’s rise. Churned snow glinted. Ash’s breath drifted white from her mouth. She checked positions: Bajezet on her left, now, at the head of his troops; de Vere’s Blue Boar banner to her right. She narrowed her eyes, staring across the five hundred yards between them and Frederick and his troops.

‘“King-Caliph Frederick’…” she said. “Yeah. If he kills the Duchess, turns this into the defeat of Burgundy, then he’s the hero of the Visigoth Empire, he probably
is
Caliph – and he gets a big chunk of Burgundy for himself. Louis of France probably gets some of it, but Frederick gets a lot. And when the Turks come howling over the borders –
his
borders – he’s got control of his forces, and the Visigoth armies, and he’s safe: he can give them one hell of a run for his money. Holy Roman Emperor
and
King-Caliph. And all he has to do to get it is come out here, and kill the Duchess of Burgundy.”

“I don’t believe—” Florian’s voice exploded with a cough. She wiped her streaming eyes, nose perceptibly pink; and Ash had a split second of complete tenderness for her, this doctor-Duchess with the beginnings of a cold. “This is a petty political struggle! Frederick
must
know what the Wild Machines will do!”

Ash said, “Evidently he doesn’t believe it.”

“You beat the Visigoth
legions!
It can’t end in some
ambush!
”

“No one’s so special they can’t die in some grotty little scrap after the war’s won,” Ash said grimly, and to Robert Anselm, in the camp patois, “We’ll assault through them. My lord Oxford, you and Bajezet take Florian – break through and keep going. Send help when you get to Dijon.”

“When we’ve established who’s in command at Dijon,” John de Vere corrected her grimly. He turned in his saddle to give orders to the Janissaries.

Covering him, Ash nudged the mare’s flanks, riding closer to the German and Visigoth heralds. “Go back and tell Frederick he’s barking. The Duchess is under our protection, and he can just sod off.”

The Visigoth officer lifted his arm and dropped it down. The blurred, buzzing twang of bows came from ahead. Ash’s head ducked automatically: arrows struck among the horses: the heralds set spurs and sprinted at the gallop back down the track.

The Janissaries charged without hesitation. Hooves of upwards of five hundred horses kicked dirt, rocks and snow into the air. A clot of wet slush hit Ash’s helmet. She shoved her sallet back, wiped her face clear, shouted, “Form up!” to Anselm; and the Janissary mounted archers drew bows and shot as they rode, de Vere’s banner and Florian del Guiz in the centre of them.
Surely they can’t reach her!
Ash thought, and the charge ahead of her dissolved into a mass of screaming beasts, falling men, toppling banners.

In a chaos of screaming horses, Ash saw the ranks of the troops ahead part.

Figures taller than a man walked through the trampled snow. Their motion slow, they nonetheless covered the ground frighteningly fast, stone feet digging in with such weight that they did not slip or fall. The red sunrise light glowed on their torsos, limbs, and sightless eyes.

One of them reached up and took a man off his horse. Holding the flailing Turk by his ankle, with one stone hand it cracked his body like a whip.

Twenty or more messenger-golems of Carthage strode heavily across the earth towards her, hands outstretched.

Backing the mare in a flurry of slush, she found Rickard and the banner at her side. Her whole body cringed, waiting for the flare of Greek Fire—

One golem, brass harness glinting against the snow, sent a coughing jet of fire roaring into the middle of the Turkish riders. Their formation dissolved.

Only one: are they short of Greek Fire: where did the golem come from?

A mass of riders bolted across in front of her, hiding the golems momentarily; a second roar of flame sounded, and horses screamed. Her command group opened up; she received Bajezet, a dozen Turkish riders, and John de Vere with the rein of Florian’s mare gripped in his gauntlet.

“They come through, Woman Bey!”

“Robert! Scout reports! Where can we hole up until we can send a rider for help?”

Anselm pointed. “Buildings, edge of the woods, up on that slope to our right. They’re ruined, but they’re cover.”

“Florian, that’s where you’re going. Don’t argue.” Ash threw herself out of the saddle, off the panicking mare, landing hard but on her feet. She ripped her sword out of its scabbard and pointed, screaming to the Lion Azure standard-bearer, “Fall back to the woods!”

Vitteleschi came at the run: billmen forming up in front of her, arrows rattling off war-hats. One man grunted and reached down to snap off a shaft stuck out of his calf. Rickard reached for her reins, fumbling the mare and the Lion banner. She rattled a string of orders: lance-leaders shouted at their men; they backed slowly, slowly, off the road, fighting German knights now, unwilling to charge the billmen, bolts shrieking out from Jan-Jacob Clovet’s crossbowmen—

“Okay, pull ’em back, steady, come
on!
”

She was conscious of nothing but weariness in her limbs and the need to run, fast, in full armour, up a snowy, tree-stump-littered slope. The snow dragged at her legs; every hidden rabbit-hole threatened to turn her ankle.

Two Oxford household riders and Florian went across in front of her at a shattering, unsafe pace. She glimpsed ruined grey walls ahead of them. Robert Anselm, bellowing, made a long wavering line out of the men; one end running to anchor up against the shell of a building. She sprinted for the other end of the line, against a deadfall of half-burned ancient trees, shoving men physically into position – her banner at her shoulder, Rickard carrying it, white-faced, panting, breath spraying out of his mouth; the little page Jean leading the horses – and she swung around as the red granite golems piled up the slope and into the line.

They can come through us, they can flank us if they get back of us, through the trees
—

“Ash!” Rickard screamed in her ear, pushing between Ned Mowlett and Henri van Veen. “Ash!”

“
What?
” She screamed at a runner, “Tell de Vere to use
crossbows.
If they’ll shatter armour, they’ll break stone! Rickard, what?”

“It’s Florian!”

Ash wrenched her gaze off the struggle: a wavering line of men backing up the hill. The Lion Azure standard flew in the centre of the line, a bright swallow-tail; Pieter Tyrrell carrying it braced in its leather socket against his body. In the shell of the ruined building behind her – a church, she thought, noticing in a split moment that the glassless windows had the striped-stone round arches of ancient religious buildings – a handful of men clustered where Rickard was pointing. Richard Faversham, Vitteleschi, Giovanni Petro.

“She’s hurt!” Rickard yelled. “She’s
hurt,
boss!”

‘
IT IS TIME
,
IT IS
OUR
TIME
!’

The Wild Machines shout triumph through her. The strength of the voices knocks her staggering; she grabs at Rickard’s shoulder to hold herself up.

A shadow passed over the boy, dulling his armour. She looked up.

The morning sunlight began to dim with the speed of water running from a broken jar.

VI

A last dimness showed her the snowy slope, glimmering, black with men thronging up the hill towards them, and the Eagle banner of Frederick of Hapsburg – and the banner of Sigismund of the Tyrol, she sees, with a second’s rueful amusement, remembering Cologne:
that is the man who got me married to Fernando out of petty spite
– and another banner: the notched wheel, differenced with a stripe. Half a dozen things fell into place, she remembers the young man with Leofric at the peace table, at the funerals: Sisnandus –
although we were never formally introduced.
With golems stolen from the House.

She stumbled, tripping over Vitteleschi as he sprints back to the line; reached down and found herself holding the shoulder of Thomas Rochester while he scraped steel and flint desperately together, single eye squinting, all the contents of his purse in the snow at his feet, except for his tinder-box.

“Slow match!” she bellowed. “Torches! Lights!”

She strode on up the slope, between struggling men, making for the ruined chapel. Somewhere ahead in the darkness a voice rose up, singing in Latin: Richard Faversham. She elbowed through the mass of men and Antonio Angelotti shoved a torch into her hand. The yellow light licked at his yellow hair.

“Got the arquebuses on the left!”

“Take those fucking golems out! Crack them! Get moving!”

She did not break stride, leaving it to her escort to keep up; lurching over a low, ruined wall and falling on her knees beside Richard Faversham.

Florian lay beside the priest, in as much shelter as the five-foot-high remnant of a masonry wall provided. Ash shoved the torch at Rickard, who held it and her banner-shaft.

Florian’s helmet was gone. Skin abraded at the throat. Black blood matted her hair, above her right ear. Ash fumbled off her gauntlets and touched her bandaged fingers to the clotted mass. Something gave. The woman moaned.

“What did this?”

Dickon de Vere, visibly white under the visor of his helmet, yelled, “One of those
things!
George is dead. It ripped my lord Viscount Beaumont out of his saddle. My lord brother Oxford got us out. It hit her. It
hit
her. Through helm and all!”

“
Shit!
” Lay her quiet, for weeks or months; give her into the care of priests; and she might mend. Not here, on a stricken hillside, in pitch-darkness, with a fight howling a few yards away, the other side of a wall.

Thomas Rochester stumbled into the circle of light and churned snow, treading on Richard Faversham’s feet. He held up a second torch. Off in the dark, Anselm’s strong voice bellowed commands; from further off, John de Vere’s shout lifted: “
Hold the line!
”

A thrum in the air warned her. Arrows fell out of the dark all around them. She straddled Florian with her body, grunting as one shaft deflected off her backplate.

“Get her into shelter!”

“There isn’t any!” Richard Faversham shouted over the close crash of blades. “This wall is the best we can do, boss!”

“She’s dying!” Dickon de Vere fell to his knees beside Florian, weeping. “Madam, it is the end of all things!”

“Son of a
bitch
!”

A raucous yell echoed, close at hand. She sprang up, cut at a dark figure piling over the wall; and the man fell down on to Richard Faversham, four bodkin-head arrows sticking out of his back. A figure in plate armour appeared at the end of the wall.

The Faris, a drawn sword in her hand, came into the light as she strode up to Rickard and the banner. “There are too few of us, too many of the golems. We have destroyed three, with bolts, but there is no holding against them with blades—” She stopped dead, seeing the unconscious body of Florian del Guiz in the torchlight. “Mouth of God! Is she dead?”

Richard Faversham stopped intoning. “Dying, madam.”

The Faris lifted her blade.

Ash watched her do it.

As the sword’s point lined up with her open visor, where she stood straddling Florian, her body tensed without her willing it. The razor-edge and point grew in her vision.

“There is no time to be sorry,” the Visigoth woman said. As she spoke, she snapped into movement, both hands gripping her sword and bringing it up and over her head and down, all the weight of her body behind it.

A hard
crack!
battered the black air. The Faris’s sword dropped out of its curve, missing Ash by a foot. The woman fell over on her back, screeching. Ash, mouth open, saw her writhe.

“No way!” Antonio Angelotti, at the end of the wall, stood up. The arquebus he held still smoked. The scent of his slow-match was strong on the cold air. He walked forward, looked down at the smashed bone, cartilage and blood that had been the woman’s right knee. “Fuck. I was trying to get her in the back. Madonna, do whatever it is you’re going to do. And do it now!”

“What I’m going to do?” Ash said, dazed. She couldn’t hear herself or the battle over the Faris’s agonised screaming, high-pitched screeches punched out into the black morning air. “What I’m…”

“Madonna.” Angelotti came forward, between Dickon de Vere, Rickard, and Thomas Rochester, and gripped her hand. “They will force you, now; the Wild Machines. I think they already speak to you. You have something that you will do. Do it.”

She was dimly aware that Richard Faversham cradled Florian, the surgeon-Duchess tiny against his broad chest and huge arms; that a man-at-arms and Thomas Rochester were kneeling, daggers out, cutting straps, stripping the leg armour from the Faris’s shattered knee.