Ash: The Lost History
Chapter 122 : "That's ... I couldn't tell!" She shook her head, aware that men s

"That's ... I couldn't tell!" She shook her head, aware that men surrounded her, her own and others; and that Florian was giving loud, clear instructions. She did not know what the woman said.

- Now, you hear me . . . And you fear, too, that you will hear the voices of G.o.d's Fallen.

"I don't think the Wild Machines are anything to do with G.o.d!"

- Everything that comes, comes to us by G.o.d's grace.

So weak - as if he's far from her, farther than can be measured in distance. The tiles under her slick-soled boots are granular with dawn light. She glimpsed them sparkle, between her steel-armoured fingers.

There is a hand under each arm; there are men walking; there is someone -Florian - ahead of her, leading the way. To where?

Outside, the new, cold, damp air p.r.i.c.ks at her covered face.

"Can you hear the Wild Machines?" Ash demanded. "I heard them after the hart was hunted, and then- Are they there? G.o.dfrey, are they!"

- I have been hurt, and recovering. There was an immanence: a great storm began to break, then nothing. Then confusion. And now there is you, child. I heard you calling to me.

"Yes, I ... called."

G.o.dfrey's voice, that is the machina rei militaris, says: - I heard you weeping.

She woke herself with soundless weeping, two nights before; voiceless enough that it disturbed neither Rickard nor any of the pages. Woke, and put it out of her mind. Sometimes, on campaign, it happens.

She stumbled, hands dropping from her face; had a momentary glimpse of freezing early morning outside of the cathedral, de la Marche's armed ducal household escort, the great boxy carriage of the d.u.c.h.ess; and then she is lost, again, in interior listening.

"Are they still there?" she insisted. "The Wild Machines, G.o.dfrey! Are they still there?"

- I hear nothing now. But nor did I hear their pa.s.sing, child. I have not heard them die.

Silence, but not absence.

"We'd know, would we, if they were gone? Or - damaged?"

Suddenly intense, Ash uncovered her face, breathing cold air, eyes watering at the approaching bright white walls of the ducal palace. Anselm and Angelotti still had a hand under each mailed armpit. She staggered as she walked. Pages followed with the horses. Now the sky has cleared, it is becoming very cold.

"No. How could I know? Why would I? s.h.i.+t, that would be too easy . . ."

- All I hear is their silence.

The dispersing funeral crowds in the Dijon streets pa.s.sed unnoticed. So did the muttering of her men superst.i.tiously watching their commander talk to her voice - but not, she reflects, the voice they are used to thinking of; 'Saint' G.o.dfrey, good grief! She ignored everything, ignored Anselm and Angelotti half-carrying her into the palace between them, forcing every part of her strength into the weak contact.

"They did try to do their miracle. I felt it, when the Duke died. They tried to trigger the Faris. It wasn't even aimed at me, and I felt it!" A bare awareness of steps intruded itself: she stumbled up them. "And I heard their . . . anger . . . after the hunt ended. If they're not damaged, not destroyed - s.h.i.+t, for all I know, they can do that again any time the d.u.c.h.ess dies!"

- d.u.c.h.ess?

No mistaking the very human bewilderment in her shared soul; G.o.dfrey to the life.

- Margaret of York is d.u.c.h.ess, now?

"Oh, her? h.e.l.l, no. She's even missed her husband's funeral!" Ash sounded sardonic, even to herself. The edge of a stool banged into the back of her greaves. She sat, automatically. "I was hoping she'd turn up. With about ten thousand armed men, for choice, and raise the siege! No, Widow Margaret's still somewhere in the north. Florian's the d.u.c.h.ess."

- Florian!

Somewhere close, there is a familiar, exasperated snort.

"G.o.dfrey, have you heard the Faris since the hunt - is she sick? Is she sane?"

- She lives, and is as she was before. The ghost of an old amus.e.m.e.nt; as if G.o.dfrey Maximillian is forgetting what it is like to laugh. - She will not speak to the machina rei militaris.

"Does she try to speak to the Wild Machines?"

- No. All the great Devils are silent. . . I have been shocked, deaf, dumb . . . How long?

Ash, aware now that she sits in a high tapestried chamber, that there are Burgundians speaking at high volume, that the woman who looks like Florian appears to be overriding them, said, "Forty-eight hours? Maybe an hour or two less?"

- I do not know what their silence may mean.

The voice in her head did not fade; it suddenly became silent, as if weakness drained it away. She still had a sense of him, something priestly; Saint G.o.dfrey, infusing the sacral parts of her mind.

If I could make them hear me - the Wild Machines . . . s.h.i.+t: not yet: I have to think!

She blinked her streaming eyes, and realised that she was looking out of the windows of the Tour Philippe le Bon, Burgundy's quarrelling courtiers and military men filling the room with noise behind her.

Morning in the same building, if not the same room, in which she last saw Charles of Burgundy. This lower chamber has the same great carved limestone hearth at the end, fire burning fiercely against the early bitter cold. The same blond floorboards, and white-plastered walls covered with tapestries. But an oak throne stands upon a dais in the place where his bed is, in the room above.

A sudden pang went through her, that had not been there all the night they were burying him with ma.s.ses and prayer. s.h.i.+t: another one dead.

f.u.c.k Carthage!

Anger brought her to herself; brought some respite from the cold silence in her head. It isn't good business to get involved. Heat from the blazing hearth intruded, made her conscious of her silk doublet and woollen hose that have been rain-saturated and dried again on her in sleep, of armour whose bright surface is glazed thick with rust, of the immense ache and cramps of her body.

"You all right?" Robert Anselm said, standing over her.

"Same old same old. I'll live. Where's Florian?" She reached up, caught his armoured forearm, and pulled herself to her feet. The room tilted. "s.h.i.+t."

"Food." Anselm strode off back into the chamber.

The clear, brilliant cold light stung her gritty eyes. She is looking out from the window of the Tour Philippe le Bon. Up past the towers that her company occupies, dawn shows her iron-walled wagons axle-deep in mud, wheeled into place in the Visigoth camp to protect Greek Fire throwers covering the approach to the north-west gate.

"Eat that."

Anselm's hand shoved a torn crust of bread into her hand. The smell of it brought saliva into her mouth, and a great rumble from her gut. She ripped the crust with her teeth, and said as she chewed, "Thanks."

"You ain't got the f.u.c.king sense." A grin. "f.u.c.k me, what a bunch of w.a.n.kers. 'Scuse me while I sort this out."

He left her side, moving back into the crush of courtiers. A raw female voice snapped Ash's head around: "A pet.i.t conseil9first! Messire de la Marche. Messire Ternant. Bishop John. Captain Ash. The rest later! Everyone else out!"

Florian: her exact tone when yelling at some deacon late in bringing her linen bandages and gut. Straightening up, the tall woman in black robes stalked away from the long table, across the room. Men stood back from her; bowed as she pa.s.sed.

One man's voice snapped, "I protest!"

Ash recognised the Viscount-Mayor, Richard Folio; thought, But he has a point, there should be some merchant representative, and then, How much of a 'd.u.c.h.ess' can Florian be!

One of de la Marche's aides, and two of his captains, began moving people towards the chamber door, in the way that armoured men can move an unarmed crowd without ever having to draw sword. A whole slew of officers, sergeants-at-arms, servants, household retainers, equerries, surgeons, secretaries, ex-tutors, minor captains and financial administrators were rapidly ushered out.

"Ash-" Floria del Guiz suddenly glanced across the emptying floor and shook her head at three Burgundian equerries who were attempting - with no success - to escort a suddenly monoglot Robert Anselm and Antonio Angelotti out of the chamber. At her signal, the equerries in ducal livery bowed, and backed out of the room. None of them looked at Olivier de la Marche or Philippe Ternant first, for confirmation of the order.

That's - interesting.

A pantler bowed his way past Florian, and servers with dazzling white linen for the oak table followed, and a dozen men with silver dishes. Floria del Guiz turned and strode the remaining few steps towards Ash, with a gait not used to wearing a robe and underrobe long at the front. Her slippered toe caught the fur-trimmed hem of the black velvet overrobe. She stumbled, her feet tangled in glorious cloth.

"Watch it!" Ash reached out, grabbing very solid weight, stopping Floria from falling. She stared into the so-close, so-familiar face. She realised that she smelled no wine on the woman's breath.

"Merde!" Florian swore in a whisper. Ash saw her gaze flinch away from the ma.s.s of men around them.

Ash let go of the tall woman's arms. Florian's tight sleeve snagged the edges of her gauntlet plates as the woman got her balance. Florian reached down to shake out her skirts, exposing an underdress of silver brocade all sewn with sapphires and diamonds and silver thread, and tugged at the high belt, settling it under her bust-line. The high-waisted black velvet snugged tight over her shoulders, arms, and torso. Under it, brocade laced at the front in a vee over a s.h.i.+ft of so fine a linen it was translucent to the pink flesh of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s beneath. As a surgeon, Floria del Guiz stooped; as a woman in court mourning, she stood very tall and very straight indeed.

"Christus Viridia.n.u.s, why couldn't I look like that in my wedding dress?" Ash said wryly. "And you're telling me Margaret Schmidt turned you down?"

The flash of a glance from Florian's eyes made Ash think That was overhearty.

Jesus. What do I say to her? Something about Florian standing in front of her in women's dress unsettled her. Maybe seeing her with Margaret Schmidt wasn't so odd when she looked like a man.

As if what Ash had said had not been spoken, Florian demanded, "In the cathedral - is boss hearing voices again?"

"I heard G.o.dfrey. Florian, I think he's been - hurt, somehow. As for the Wild Machines . . . nothing yet: not a f.u.c.king word."

"Why not?"

"Yeah, like I'd know. G.o.dfrey doesn't think they're dead - if that's the term. Maybe they're damaged. You're d.u.c.h.ess. Why don't you tell me!"

Floria snorted, as familiar as if she had still been surgeon, still been in a sagging, blood-boltered tent back of some field of battle, digging steel out of meat.

"Christ, As.h.!.+ If I knew, you'd know! Being 'd.u.c.h.ess' doesn't help me with that."

They had made her wash, Ash realised; no dried blood under her fingernails.

"We have to talk, 'd.u.c.h.ess'." Ash glanced up at the tall woman - Florian's fair hair sc.r.a.ped back under her horned headdress to expose a broad white brow; left hand now automatically holding up the front of her over-gown, folds of velvet falling gracefully down.

Difficult to believe she's a surgeon; you'd swear she'd stayed a n.o.blewoman all her life.

Ash realised the woman was perfectly conscious of how many people were watching her - watching both of them, now.

Automatically turning her back towards the crowd to conceal her expression, she caught Florian's reflection in the chill, leaded window-gla.s.s. A long-featured woman in court splendour, Valois jewellery bright at her neck and wrists and veiled headdress; only the dark marks in her eye-sockets hinting at confusion or exhaustion. And beside her, crop-haired, in field-filthy plate, a woman with scarred cheeks and stunned eyes.

"Give the word," Ash said abruptly. "I'll get you out of here. I don't know how, but I will."

"You don't know how." The woman gave her a sardonic grin that was all Florian, all surgeon; a grin familiar from a hundred months under canvas in the field.

"There's no military problem that hasn't got a solution!" Ash stopped. "Except the one that kills you, of course ..."

"Oh, of course. The Wild Machines," Florian began, and a woman crossed the emptying room and stepped between Ash and her surgeon, narrow eyes tight with fury, interrupting without any hesitation.

It took Ash a second to recognise Jeanne Chalon, and another second to realise she herself was looking around for men-at-arms to have the woman removed.

Jeanne Chalon said shrilly, "I have ordered you funeral bake-meats - they brought me two saddles of mutton, a boiled capon, tripe, chitterlings, and three partridges - it is nothing fit for a Valois d.u.c.h.ess! Tell them we must be served more, and more fitting food!"

Ash finally caught Roberto's eye: jerked her head. Floria said nothing, giving her aunt a little push towards the chamber door.

"The lady is right!" Olivier de la Marche's baritone cut through the chamber. "Bring better food for the d.u.c.h.ess." He gestured to the servants.

Ash caught a look close to triumph as the other woman walked away.

"You let her in here?"

"She's been kind to me. The last two days. She's the only family I have."

"No," Ash said, reflexively, as to any member of the Lion Azure, "she isn't."

"I wish this was like organising the surgeon's tent, Ash. In the tent, I know what I'm doing. Here, I have no idea what I'm doing. I just know what I am."

The servants and pages had almost finished setting the table: the odour of wine-sauce brought water into Ash's mouth. Anselm arrived, heavy tread making the boards creak; Angelotti at his armoured shoulder. Both men looked at the surgeon with deliberately blank faces.

Moving rapidly, Floria stepped up on to the dais, laying a hand on the carved oak arm of the ducal throne. "I know what I am. I know what I do."

Standing over the bleeding body of the hart, hearing her surgeon say I maintain the real: all this is startlingly clear to Ash. Not to these two of her officers - nor are they Burgundian.

"'Ow?" Robert Anselm demanded.

"I don't know how I do it, or why!" Exasperated, Florian met his gaze. "It really doesn't matter what you call it! Except that it does. They call it 'being d.u.c.h.ess' here. They believe I'm their d.u.c.h.ess. Ash, if we leave, this town falls." She stopped: corrected herself. "If I leave."

"Are you sure?" Antonio Angelotti asked.

Florian kept her gaze fixed on Ash. "Do I have to tell you about morale?" Her fingers tightened on the arm of the throne. "I don't want this. Look at it! Talk about Welcome to the hot seat. . ."10 The surgeon lifted her head, gazing down the chamber. Ash saw her look at the old chamberlain-counsellor, at de la Marche, at a bishop, at the departing servers.

"If I didn't know what I am, I'd run. You know me, Ash. I might just run anyway."

"Yeah. You might. If only into a bottle."

Florian took her hand away from the ducal throne, and the waxed oak that she had been stroking with one clean thumb. She stepped down from the dais again, standing between Anselm and Angelotti. It was clear to Ash that they would not be approached, not while the surgeon made her desire for privacy apparent; that, if anything, broke the surface tension of her sleepless exhaustion, made her think again This place is on borrowed time - one of my company's tied here - what do I do?

Ash looked desperately around the long bright chamber, at the still-cl.u.s.tering men in rich robes and armour; at the food set out on the sun-bleached cloth.

"When I made the hart..." Florian looked down at her scrubbed hands, as if she expected to find them b.l.o.o.d.y. "It hurt G.o.dfrey."

Ash met her gaze, seeing something there that might have been self-blame. "He's recovering, I think."

"So maybe whatever happened damaged the Wild Machines. Destroyed them."