Ash: The Lost History
Chapter 11 : Sweet Christ who died to save us. I am as much in l.u.s.t with him as I was at twelve.&

Sweet Christ who died to save us. I am as much in l.u.s.t with him as I was at twelve.

"Mistress As.h.!.+"

Somebody, plainly, had asked her a question.

"Yes?" Ash agreed absently.

Light broke in on her. Fernando del Guiz: lifting up her fine linen veil. His eyes were green, stone-green, dark as the sea.

"You are wed," the Bishop of Cologne p.r.o.nounced.

Fernando del Guiz spoke. Ash smelled wine warm on his breath. He said, in a perfectly clear voice, into the silence, "I would sooner have married my horse."

Robert Anselm, sotto voce, muttered, "The horse wouldn't have you."

Someone gasped, someone laughed; there was one delighted, dirty guffaw from the back of the cathedral. Ash thought she recognised Joscelyn van Mander.

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry or hit something, Ash stared at the face of the young man she had just married. Looking for a hint - only a hint - of the complicit, humorous grin he had given her at Neuss.

Nothing.

She was unaware that her shoulders straightened, and her face took on something of the look she wore around the company's camp. "You don't talk to me like that."

"You're my wife now. I talk to you any way I please. If you don't like it, I'll beat you. You're my wife, and you'll be docile!"

Ash couldn't help a loud blurt of laughter. "I will?"

Fernando del Guiz ran his finger, in its fine leather glove, from her chin down to the linen neck of her chemise. He made a show of sniffing at his glove. "I smell p.i.s.s. Yes I do. I smell p.i.s.s . . ."

"Del Guiz," the Emperor warned.

Fernando turned his back and walked away, across the flagstone floor to Frederick of Hapsburg, and a tearful Constanza del Guiz (the court's ladies now entering the nave, the ceremony over). None of whom did more than glance sideways at the bride left standing alone.

"No." Ash put her hand on Robert Anselm's arm. She gave a quick look that included G.o.dfrey. "No. It's all right."

"'All right'? You ain't going to let him do that!" Anselm had his shoulders hunched almost up to his protuberant ears, all his body yearning towards crossing the nave and knocking Fernando del Guiz over.

"I know what I'm doing, now. I've just seen it." Ash increased the pressure of her fingers on his arm. There were mutters from her company, at the back.

"I would be an unhappy bride," Ash said quietly. "But I could be a really cheerful widow."

Both of the men startled. It was almost comical. Ash continued to look at them. Robert Anselm jerked his head once, briefly, satisfied. It was G.o.dfrey Maximillian who coldly smiled.

"Widows inherit their husband's businesses," Ash said.

"Yeah . . ." Robert Anselm nodded. "Better not mention it to Florian, though. The man is his brother."

"So don't tell h-him." Ash did not meet G.o.dfrey's eyes. "It won't be the first 'riding accident' among the German n.o.bility."

Ash paused under the vast vaults of the cathedral, momentarily unaware of her companions, of what she had said; seeking out Fernando where he stood, his back to her, weight on one hip, towering over his mother. Her body roused at the sight of him, at just the way the tall young man posed.

This will not be easy. Either way, this will not be easy.

"Ladies. Gentlemen." Ash glanced back to check that Ludmilla and Blanche and Isobel and Eleanor were holding up her train so that she could walk, and rested her ringed fingers on G.o.dfrey's arm. "We're not going to skulk in corners. We're going to go and thank people for coming to my wedding."

Her guts clenched. She knew the picture she made: young bride, veil back, silver-blonde hair a glorious cloud. She did not know her scars stood out silver-red against her pale cheeks. She went first to her lance-leaders, where she would feel at ease: the men spoke a word here, a small joke there, exchanged a hand-clasp.

Some of them looked at her with pity.

She couldn't help it, she continued to stare anxiously through the crowd for Fernando del Guiz. Now she saw him angel-bright in a lancet window's beams, talking to Joscelyn van Mander.

Van Mander kept his back to her.

"That didn't take very long."

Anselm shrugged. "Van Mander's contract belongs to del Guiz now."

She heard a whisper from behind her. The heavy material of her train, suddenly unattended, pulled back on her neck. She glared back at Big Isobel and Blanche. The two women mercenaries did not look at her; they had their heads together and whispered, their eyes fixed on a man some distance away, with expressions Ash put somewhere between awe and fear. She recognised him as the southerner who had been present at Neuss.

Little Eleanor whispered explanatorily to Blanche, "He's from the lands Under the Penitence!"

The reason for the dark muslin cloth knotted ready for use about his neck belatedly dawned on Ash. She said tightly, "Oh, Green Christ, they're hardly demons down in Africa - let's get moving, okay?"

Ash moved on through the nave, greeting the minor n.o.bles of free cities in their best robes, and their wives in towering horned, veiled head-dresses. This is not where I belong, she thought, talking politely, aimlessly; speaking to the amba.s.sadors from Savoy and Milan, watching how shocked they were that a hic mulier25 could wear robes, could speak their languages, and did not in fact have a demon's horns and a tail.

What do I do? What do I do?

A new voice spoke behind her, with an accent. "Madam."

Ash smiled a farewell to the Milanese amba.s.sador - a boring man, and afraid, too, of a woman who has killed in battle - and turned.

The man who had spoken was the southerner - pale-haired, with a face burned brown by harsh sun. He wore a short white robe, over white trousers with greaves bound around them, and a mail hauberk over all. The fact that he was dressed for war, although without weapons, put her at her ease.

In the light from the lancet windows, the pupils of his light-coloured eyes were contracted to pinpoints.

"New here from Tunis?" she guessed, speaking her accurate but uneducated mercenary's version of his language.

"From Carthage," he agreed, giving the city its Gothic26 appellation. "But I am adjusted, I think, to the light, now."

"I'm - oh s.h.i.+t" Ash interrupted herself rapidly.

A solid, man-shaped figure stood behind the Carthaginian. It overtopped him by a head or more: Ash judged it seven or eight feet tall. At first glance she would have thought it a statue, made out of red granite: the statue of a man, with a featureless ovoid for a head.

Statues do not move.

She felt herself colouring; felt Robert Anselm and G.o.dfrey Maximillian crowding in close to her shoulders, staring behind the newcomer. She found her voice again. "I've never seen one of those up close before!"

"Our golem?27 But yes."

With an amused look in his pale eyes, as if he were used to this, the man beckoned with a snap of his fingers. At the Carthaginian's signal, the figure took a step forward into the shaft of window-light.

Stained gla.s.s colours slid over the carved red granite body and limbs. Each joint, at neck, shoulders, elbows, knees, ankles, gleamed bra.s.s; the metal jointed neatly into the stone. Its stone fingers were articulated as carefully as the lames of German gauntlets. It smelled faintly of something sour - river-mud? - and its tread on the tiny tiles of the cathedral floor echoed, heavily, with an impression of enormous weight.

"May I touch it?"

"If you wish to, madam."

Ash reached out and put the pads of her fingers against the red granite chest. The stone felt cold. She slid her hand across, feeling sculpted pectoral muscles. The head tilted downwards, facing her.

In the featureless ovoid, two almond-shaped holes opened where eyes might have been on a man. Her body shocked, antic.i.p.ating white of eye, pupil, focus.

The eyes behind the stone lids were full of red sand. She watched the granules swirl.

"Drink," the man from Carthage ordered.

The arms swivelled up noiselessly. The moving statue held out a chased golden goblet to the man whom it attended. The Carthaginian drank, and gave it back.

"Oh yes, madam, we are allowed our golem-servants with us! Although there was some debate about whether they would be allowed within your 'church'." He surrounded the word delicately with nuances of sarcasm.

"It looks like a demon." Ash stared up at the golem. She imagined the weight of the stone articulated arm if it should rise and fall, if it should strike. Her eyes gleamed.

"It is nothing. But you are the bride!" The man picked up her free hand and kissed it. His lips were dry. His eyes twinkled. In his own language, he said, "Asturio, madam; Asturio Lebrija, Amba.s.sador from the Citadel to the court of the Emperor, however briefly. These Germans! How long can I bear it? You are a woman of your hands, madam. A warrior. Why are you marrying that boy?"

Waspishly, Ash said, "Why are you here as an amba.s.sador?"

"One who had power sent me. Ah, I see." Asturio Lebrija's sunburned hand scratched his hair which, she noted, was cropped short in the North African fas.h.i.+on for one who customarily wears a helmet. "Well, you are as welcome here as I, I think."

"As a fart in a communal bathtub."

Lebrija whooped.

"Amba.s.sador, I think they're afraid that one day your people will stop fighting the Turks and turn into a problem." Ash registered G.o.dfrey moving aside to talk to Lebrija's aides. Robert Anselm remained, looming, at her shoulder, his gaze fixed on the golem. "Or it's because they envy you Carthage's hydraulic gates and under-floor hot water and everything else from the Golden Age."

"Sewers, batteries, triremes, abacus-engines . . ." Asturio's eyes danced as he a.s.sured her of it. "Oh, we are Rome come again. Behold our mighty legions!"

"Your heavy cavalry aren't bad..." Ash stroked her hand over her mouth and chin but couldn't smother her smile. "Oops. It's a good job you're the amba.s.sador. That was hardly diplomatic."

"I have met women of war before. I would sooner meet you in the court than on the battlefield."

Ash grinned. "So. This northern light too bright for you, Amba.s.sador Asturio?"

"It's hardly the Eternal Twilight, madam, I grant you-"

An older male voice behind Lebrija bluntly interrupted. "Get the f.u.c.k over here, Asturio. Help me out with this d.a.m.ned conniving German!"

Ash blinked, realising almost immediately that the new man spoke in the Visigoth language, that his tone was sweetly pleasant, and that her own mercenaries were the only people present who had understood him. She glared at Isobel, Blanche, Euen Huw and Paul di Conti. They subsided. As she turned back to him, Asturio Lebrija bowed a flamboyant farewell, and moved to join what must have been the senior amba.s.sador in the Visigoth delegation at the Emperor Frederick's side. The golem followed, with heavy soft tread.

"Their heavy cataphracts28aren't bad," Robert Anselm said in her ear. "Never mind all their f.u.c.king s.h.i.+ps! And they've had a military build-up going on there these last ten years."

"I know. It's all going to turn into another Visigoths-fighting-Turks war for control of the Mediterranean, with undisciplined serfs and light cavalry knocking h.e.l.l out of each other for no result. Mind you," - a sudden hope -"there might be some business down there for us."

"Not 'us'." Anselm's features twisted with disgust. "Fernando del Guiz."

"Not for long."

On the heels of that, another voice echoed through the huge s.p.a.ces of the cathedral, echoing from crypt to barrel-vaults. "Out!"

Frederick of Hapsburg - shouting.

Conversation drained swiftly into silence. Ash went forward through the crowd. A foot trod on her trailing train, bringing her up short. Ludmilla muttered something as she picked the cloth up off the flagstones and flung the whole weight of it over her arm. Ash grinned back at Big Isobel, and caught up with Anselm, edging her way between him and G.o.dfrey to the front of the crowd.

Two men had Asturio Lebrija with his arms twisted up behind his back, forcing the man in the mail s.h.i.+rt to kneel. Also down on the stone floor, the older Visigoth amba.s.sador had a bill-shaft held across his throat and Sigismund of the Tyrol's knee in his back. The golem stood as still as the carved saints in their niches.

Frederick's sibilant voice echoed among the soaring pillars, still shaking with the re-imposition of a control Ash had not heard him lose before. "Daniel de Quesada, I may hear you say your people have given mine medicine, masonry and mathematics; I will not stand here in this most ancient cathedral and hear my people maligned as barbarians-"

"Lebrija did not say-"

Frederick of Hapsburg overrode the older amba.s.sador: "-my fellow sovereign Louis of France called 'a spider', or be told to my face I am 'old and covetous'!"

Ash glanced from Frederick and his bristling n.o.bles to the Visigoth amba.s.sadors. Far more likely that Asturio Lebrija had momentarily and catastrophically forgotten which language he was speaking, than that the older man - bearded, with the look of a battle veteran - would deliberately allow him to insult the Holy Roman Emperor.

She murmured to G.o.dfrey, "Someone's picking a fight here. Deliberately. Who?"

The bearded priest frowned. "I think, Frederick. He doesn't want to be asked to lend military aid in Visigothic North Africa.29 But he won't want to be heard refusing the amba.s.sadors' request, in case it's supposed he's refusing because he hasn't got the troops to send, and is therefore weak. Easier to buy himself time like this, given this excuse, with false anger over an 'insult'."

Ash wanted to say something on behalf of Asturio Lebrija, whose face reddened as he strained to get out of the grip of two German knights; nothing immediately useful came to mind.

The Emperor snapped peevishly, "I will leave you both your heads! You are returned home. Tell the Citadel to send me civil amba.s.sadors in future!"

Ash flicked a glance sideways, not realising that her whole stance changed: alert, balanced, and not usual for someone in bridal robes. The golem stood silent and motionless behind the two amba.s.sadors. If that should move- Her fingers closed automatically, seeking a sword-hilt.

Fernando del Guiz straightened up from leaning on a cathedral pillar. Caught by the movement, Ash watched him helplessly. No different from a hundred other young German knights here, she protested to herself; and then, But he's golden!

Gold light from the windows catches his face as he turns, laughing at something one of the squires cl.u.s.tered around him has said. She sees a snapshot image of light limning the edge of sun-browned masculine brow, nose, lip; warm in the cold cathedral dimness. And his eyes, which are merry. She sees him young, strong, wearing fluted armour with complete naturalness; thinks of how he knows the outdoor months of campaigning as well as she does, the sunny ease of camp-life and the blood-teasing exultation of battle.

Why despise me, when we're the same? You could understand me better than any other woman you could have married- Fernando del Guiz's voice said, "Let me be the escort for the amba.s.sadors, Your Imperial Majesty. I have some new troops I need to knock into shape. Entrust me with this favour."

It was ten heartbeats at least before Ash replayed "new troops" in her mind.

He means my company! She exchanged glances with Robert Anselm and G.o.dfrey Maximillian; both men frowning.

"It shall be your bridal gift, del Guiz," Frederick of Hapsburg agreed; something sardonic in his expression. "And a honeymoon for you and your bride." He gathered his nine-yard velvet gown about himself, with the aid of two small boy pages, and without looking over his shoulder, said, "Bishop Stephen."

"Your Imperial Majesty?"

"Exorcise that." A twig-thin finger flicked towards the Visigoth golem. "And when you have done it, command stonemasons with hammers, and have it broken into gravel!"

"Yes, Your Imperial Majesty!"