Ash: A Secret History (83 page)

She saw his brief confusion, a frown –
the woman can’t be that obtuse, surely?
– and a dawning acknowledgement.

The ’
arif
said, reprovingly, “That’s a disrespectful way to speak of a man who may become King-Caliph.”

“If the Visigoth Empire elects
Leofric,
you deserve all you get!” She lifted her hand to her neck. She is sure that her bodice shows the old white scar around her neck, that Fernando del Guiz touched so long ago in Cologne. “I always just assumed this was some childhood
accident…
Not that you were exactly efficient, ’
Arif
Alderic. A quarter-inch either way and I wouldn’t be talking to you, would I?”

“Even a dumb grunt can’t get everything right,” Alderic said gravely. “Accidents will happen.”

Pure happenstance. Pure, freak chance.

The thought makes her sweat. She distracts herself.

“Why so young?” she said suddenly. “These children… Wouldn’t the babies have to be old enough to
talk,
at least, before Leofric could find out they couldn’t communicate with the Stone Golem?”

Alderic gave her a look. It took her a second to realise that it was the look soldiers reserve for civilians who find some piece of mass battlefield killing irrational.

“They don’t have to talk,” Alderic said. “He doesn’t find out from them. The babies are kept in a different quarter of the house; he waits until they are old enough to distinguish real pain from a hunger to be fed, or discomfort, and then he hurts them badly – usually burns them with fire. They shriek. Then he asks the Stone Golem if
it
can hear
them
.”

Sweet Christus!

Ash thinks with her mind and with her body. Her body is reading his, judging, finding no fault in his alertness, no point at which she might snatch a knife, gain a sword. Her mind tells her there is nothing she could do with a weapon if she had one.

“Granted they were slave-children,” the ’
arif
said, with a supreme insensibility to the slave-woman in front of him, “it is still something I dream I am doing, most nights.”

“Yeah … people have told me about that sort of dream.”

Over and beyond what they say, some other wordless, friendly communication is present in the room. Ash, bright-eyed, rubbed her hands briskly over her wool-sleeved arms. “Soldiers have more in common with other soldiers than with lords, with
amirs
, have you ever noticed that, ’
Arif
Alderic? Even soldiers on opposite sides!”

Alderic touched his right hand to his chest, over his heart. “I wish I could have faced you in combat, lady.”

“I wish you may still get your wish!”

It came out acerbic. The Visigoth threw back his head, beard jutting, and laughed. He moved towards the door.

“And while you’re at it,” Ash said, “the food here’s terrible, but I’d like more of it.”

Alderic smiled brilliantly, shaking his head. “You have only to command, lady.”

“I
wish.
”

The steel grill closed behind him. The sounds of locking metal died away, leaving only the wail of the rising wind. Outside, freezing rain spattered on carven red granite.

“I have only to command,
temporarily
” Ash amended, aloud.

There was nothing to mark the passing of any given hour in the day except the uninformative horns; no wheeling constellations; no difference to the passing footsteps, or the bells in what must be the household chapel: House Leofric appeared to swarm with activity through each twenty-four hours. She hoped for Alderic to send either a slave or a soldier with food within the hour: no one came. When each hour can be final, when any key unlocking the door can bring terminal news, time stretches unbelievably. It might only have been minutes until the sound of metal turning metal tumblers brought her up on her feet, swaying and dizzy.

Two soldiers, each carrying maces, came in and stood to either side of the narrow door. There was barely room for anyone else to come in. Ash backed up towards the window. The ’
arif
Alderic pushed between his guards. A robed, bearded man followed him in. Godfrey Maximillian.

“Shit. Already?
Now?
” Ash demanded; but Godfrey was shaking his head almost as soon as their eyes met.

“The lord-
amir
Leofric thinks it best to keep you in good health, until you’re needed.” Godfrey Maximillian stumbled almost imperceptibly over the last word: she saw Alderic register the priest’s revulsion.

“And?”

“And you require exercise. A short period each day.”

Nice try, Godfrey.

Ash met Alderic’s gaze. “So. Your lord’s going to let me out of this stone box?”

Yeah, right. You have to be joking! Under what
possible
circumstances—

Alderic said impassively, “The
amir
has a trustworthy ally, he commits you to his custody for an hour each day from now until the inauguration. Perhaps only today.”

Ash didn’t move. She looked from one man to the other. Then she sighed, relaxing very slightly, thinking: Outside of here is a political machine running at full stretch, I have no way of knowing the various alliances, enmities, deals, bribes, tricks – and if some piece of double-dealing chicanery on Leofric’s behalf is getting me out of this cell, I don’t
care
what I don’t know. I just need not to be watched for ten heartbeats and I’m gone.

“So who does the lord-
amir
count as his trustworthy ally?” Ash asked. “Who does he trust to keep an eye on me once I’m out of here? Let’s not pretend I’m going to come back if I can help it.”

“That much,” the ’
arif
Alderic said gravely, “I had worked out for myself.
Nazir
!”

The taller of the two soldiers hooked his mace over his sword-hilt, by its leather lanyard, and disengaged a long steel-linked chain from his belt. Ash lifted her chin as he approached and began to thread it under her iron collar.

“So, who?” she managed to get out.

Alderic’s face took on an expression something between rough humour and disapproval. “An ally, lady. One of your lords. You know him, I’m told. A Bavarian.”

Ash watched as the
nazir
bent down to attach manacles to her ankles. Cold metal links hung down, pulling at her collar. She could have throttled him with the chain, possibly, but that would still leave the rest.

“Bavarian?” she said abruptly. “Oh,
shit,
no!”

Godfrey Maximillian raised a brow. “I told you that you wouldn’t like it.”

“It’s
Fernando!
Isn’t it? He’s come south! Fucking Fernando del Guiz!”

“He owns you,” Godfrey said, stone-faced. “He’s your husband. You’re his property. I’ve brought the
amir
Leofric to a proper understanding of that fact – that the Lord Fernando can be held completely responsible for you. The lord-
amir
then agreed to release you into your husband’s company for an hour, each day, on his parole.”

“I imagine the Faris’s lap-dog will guard you well enough,” ’
Arif
Alderic finished, with gallows cheerfulness, “since his life depends on it.”

Of course, Ash thought, somebody else could just be using me to get rid of Fernando. He’ll have made enemies. It could be anyone. Up to and including the lord-
amir
Leofric…

“
Fuck
politics,” Ash said aloud, “why can’t I just
hit
somebody?”

II

The skull of a horse reared up under the nose of Ash’s mount. Hollow white eye-sockets and long yellow teeth leered up at her, bleached bone bright-edged in the intense light of Greek Fire.

“Carnival!” a drunken male voice bellowed.

“
Shit!
”

The horse-skull’s wearer waved wild arms, in a flurry of red ribbons.

The elderly furry brown mare took both her front feet off the street and skittered back on her white hind legs. Iron shoes struck sparks from the flint cobblestones.

“
Motherfucker!
”

Ash reined in, shifting her weight forward, trying to bring the rearing mare down. The chains that were manacled to both her ankles and passed under the horse’s belly rubbed against tender skin. Her neck-chain, shackled to the stirrups, jingled. The mare threw her mouth up, creaming foam springing out on her neck.

“
Get
down,” Ash ordered, trying to wheel the mare around, back away from the throng in the street. Two soldiers’ horses closed in on either flank, pressing close enough to threaten her knees; two more trained cavalry horses to her rear. “Get over!”

An escort-rider in front leaned down and got the mare’s bridle with one hand. With her steadied, he struck a blow at the reveller’s masked face. The man staggered away, shouting, pissed, into the crowd.

A second man rode in close.

“We’ll ride outside the city,” Fernando del Guiz announced, tall in the saddle beside her, soothing the hooded bird that gripped his wrist: too small for a goshawk, too big for a peregrine falcon.

Desire did not flood her, as it had when she had seen him before; only the utter, surprising familiarity of his face made her heart thump, once, with shock.

Six of the escort troop immediately rode to the front, beating the revelling men of Carthage to one side. Ash, cold air stinging her face, kneed the mare forward; and when she could safely free her hands, drew her fur-lined hood up around her face, and wrapped her linen-lined wool cloak firmly about her body.

“Son of a
bitch,
” she muttered. “How does anyone expect me to ride, like
this?
”

The chains that passed from ankle to ankle, round and under the mare’s body, trapped her. Even an accidental slip out of the saddle would get her dragged, head-down, over cobbled streets; a death perhaps not much preferable to that planned by Leofric.

“Come on, beautiful,” Ash soothed. The mare, happier by reason of being surrounded by nine or ten of her stable-mates, reverted to plodding between the companions of Fernando del Guiz. Armed German troops, mostly. Alert and unfriendly.

And if at some point I can persuade you to bolt, with me on you, Ash thought grimly as she leaned forward to slap the mare’s neck, that
will
be a miracle. But it looks like it’s my only chance…

Intense, blue-white Greek Fire blazed down into the rule-straight avenues, casting a high-definition light on men wearing heron’s-head masks, painted leather cat’s skulls, and knife-tusked boar’s heads. She thought she saw one woman: realised it was a bearded merchant in a woman’s gown. Harsh male voices sang: all around her, noise echoing back from the buildings, the crowd only beaten back by the escorts using the flats of their blades. Fernando del Guiz reined his roan gelding in, his squires with him.

A man above the city gate shouted in quick, guttural Carthaginian Gothic, “Poncy German arse-fucker!”

Gathering a shaky amount of self-possession, Ash spoke before it even occurred to her that this was not wise, under these circumstances:

“Well, well. Someone who recognises your personal banner. How about that?”

Fernando’s face was not particularly visible behind the acorn-shaped steel helmet’s nasal bar: she could not read his expression.

Christ, the last thing I did in Dijon was hit him in the face, in front of his Visigoth mates; maybe I should just learn to keep my mouth
shut?

She noted that he sat his black-pointed roan gelding somewhat wearily, and that his eagle livery coat showed threadbare in places, ripped at one seam. Something in his posture spoke of bearing up under trouble, makes her think that – however necessary it might be for survival – the role of a renegade is not proving easy for him.
Not the golden boy, now.

He handed his hunting bird over to a squire and removed his helmet.

“You can stop hitting me. They let me keep Guizburg.” His voice sounded rueful, with a hint of humour, and when she met his green eyes, they were dust-red and bloodshot: the eyes of a man who is not sleeping easily. “So, yes, it’s still my livery.”

Damn! Your mouth is going to get you killed, girl…

She could feel her face heating, although the chill wind disguised it; and she stared away into the darkness beyond the city gate. Am I really going to do this? Am I really going to ask
him
for help?

What else can I do, now?

A half-inch of steel, prosaic and unanswerable, is locked around her neck and her wrists and her ankles. Chains fasten her to her horse. An armed guard surrounds her, and she has no armed friends. With things as they are, she will ride out into the desert outside Carthage now, and she will ride back into Carthage again an hour or so in the future.

Maybe she’ll risk spooking the mare, risk being kicked and trampled in the unlikely event the animal will bolt. Even so, she’s still trapped by steel links that Dickon Stour could sever in one blow at the anvil – but Dickon is half a world away, if he isn’t dead. If they aren’t all dead.

I am going to do this.

It is not the fact that she will ask Fernando for help that makes her ashamed.
It’s the fact that fear forces me to do it. And he’s weak; what
use
will this be?

She snorted an amused laugh that came out too high, and wiped her streaming eyes. “Fernando. What will you take, to let me go? Just to turn your back for five minutes, that’s all.”

Just let me merge into the slave-class, or into the darkness, no matter that I’m still in North Africa, that I’m hundreds of miles from home.

“Leofric would have me killed.” There was an educated certainty in his tone. “There isn’t
anything
you could offer. I’ve seen what he does to people.”

Do I tell this man what, in two or three days’ time, Leofric will do to me?

“You’re here in his House, you must be in his favour. You could get away with it—”