Ash: The Lost History Part 125

The bishop - a round-faced, dark man with some of the Valois look -appeared startled. "Now that is rank superst.i.tion."

"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 d.u.c.h.ess. You got some nerve telling me my master gunner's question is superst.i.tious!"

"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 s.p.a.ce of time. If our d.u.c.h.ess - 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 d.u.c.h.ess, and ..."

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

"So Dijon must stand, and the d.u.c.h.ess with it!" Olivier de la Marche blew out a harsh breath. "It's clear to me, Demoiselle Ash. Your surgeon is our d.u.c.h.ess, 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 G.o.dd.a.m.n 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 d.u.c.h.ess. And I know what a factious n.o.bility's like. This city could fall in a second!" Ash jabbed a finger at him. "Exactly how many of your knights and n.o.bles believe Florian is d.u.c.h.ess?"

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 n.o.ble 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 f.u.c.king 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 t.u.r.d! 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 d.u.c.h.ess."

"Hunting the Hart made me what I am. Nothing makes me a d.u.c.h.ess!" 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 b.l.o.o.d.y Domremy,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, s.h.i.t-"

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 d.u.c.h.ess'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?

f.u.c.k . . .

"You'd be putting a mercenary commander in over Burgundian n.o.bles," 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 a.s.sent. "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 n.o.ble!"

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 d.u.c.h.ess Margaret, before Auxonne. G.o.d and His Saints protect her!"

"But Florian," Ash began.

"I'll tell you now, Demoiselle-Captain. d.u.c.h.ess 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 p.r.o.ne to quarrel. But we are pious men, we recognise a woman sent by G.o.d to us; she is our d.u.c.h.ess."

Into the moment's silence that followed, he added, "And you: G.o.d 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."

Florian grinned, suddenly, and signalled to the servers. "I'm not keeping boss from her food. Bad things happen when you keep boss from her food ..."

As the servers came to table, the d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy reached out with long-fingered hands, helping herself and Ash from the dishes. Ash flicked a glance at the pander's and butler's expressions. Ah, s.h.i.t! She's got them. I've done that one ...

What she saw was not disdain for such non-n.o.ble acts, but a kind of pride in their d.u.c.h.ess's blunt military manners.

Ash reached for a plate the right weight and colour to be gold. Unused to the n.o.ble luxury of a chair, she caught her armoured elbows on the chair-arms. She scooped up the wheat and honey gruel in a metal spoon - an oddly different taste to eating from a horn spoon - and shot a gaze down the table.

Anselm and Angelotti ignored her, seizing on the last of the food and eating with the fast, single-minded determination of soldiers; the gunner's fair head close to Anselm's shaven pate as they simultaneously leaned back to call for more wine. Next to Angelotti, the rheumy-eyed chamberlain-counsellor Philippe Ternant ignored the meat on his plate in favour of a rapid, whispered conversation with Olivier de la Marche, his eyes on Ash. Beyond the ducal champion, Ash saw the same middle-aged man in episcopal green who had been present at dawn.

Unable to speak with her mouth full, she raised her eyebrows at Florian.

"Bishop John of Cambrai," Floria murmured, mouth equally full. She swallowed. "One of the late Duke's b.a.s.t.a.r.d half-brothers. He's a man after my own heart; there's never enough women in the world for him!18 He's another reason I need you here. We've got business with him later. Whatever you've decided. Ash, what does the company say?"

Ash studied the bishop: round-faced, with black velvet eyes, and soft, matt-black hair growing around his tonsure, and only the Valois nose to mark him as an indisputable child of Philip the Good. She shook her head at Florian, pointing at her mirror-polished gorget and her neck.

"Better in a minute."

"In your own d.a.m.n time . . . What state is the infirmary in?" Florian demanded. "How's Rostovnaya? And Vitteleschi? And Szechy?"

Anything to put off the moment. Ash stopped chewing, swallowed; sent her mind back to the infirmary in the company tower. "Blanche and Baldina are running it, with Father Faversham. Looks okay."

"What would you know!"

"About Ludmilla - spoke to Blanche - she says the burns aren't healing."

"They won't if the stupid woman keeps trying to stand her duty up on the walls!"

"Your Grace," de la Marche interrupted.

Ash did not look at the surgeon-turned-d.u.c.h.ess, she kept her gaze on the men lining the long table. Abandoning ceremony, they ceased eating; the officers looking towards Olivier de la Marche.

He rumbled, "Your Grace, with your permission - Demoiselle-Captain Ash, what have you decided?"

The spoon rattled as Ash set it down on the gold plate. She kept her gaze momentarily on the rich, warm glow of the metal. Then she lifted her head to see them all silent, all staring.

Sudden sweat made her arming doublet sodden, in the time that it took her to stand up.

"They voted." Her voice sounded both thin and hoa.r.s.e in her own ears.

An unbroken silence.

"It all comes down to what keeps Florian alive longer. You'll die to keep Florian alive. So will we. Different reasons. But we'll both do whatever it takes."

A cold nausea pierced her. She leaned her fists on the table, to keep herself from dizzily sitting straight back down.

"If that also means me as your 'Pucelle', to boost morale - well: whatever it takes."

Their eyes are on her: men of Burgundy, in their blue-and-red livery with the bold St Andrew's crosses. Men she knows - Jussey, Lacombe - and men she knows only by sight, or not at all. She is conscious of her cleaned-up armour, her bright livery - and of her short-cropped hair, and the scars on her cheeks.

No. She watched the faces of men in their mid- and late-twenties, a few of them older. It doesn't matter what I look like - they're seeing what they want to see.

She switched her gaze back to de la Marche.

"I'll take the position of commander-in-chief. You'll be my second-in-command. I'm in."

Voices broke out. She heard it as a confused babble.

"There are two conditions!" Her voice cracked. She coughed, glanced around the room, fixed her eyes on Olivier de la Marche, and started again. "Two conditions. First: I'll take this on until you get somebody better - when Anthony de la Roche comes down from Flanders, this job's his. You want a Burgundian with leadership and charisma: that's him. Second: I'm here in Dijon only until we can carry the fight to the enemy: kill my sister the Faris, because she's a channel for the Wild Machines' power, or attack the Wild Machines themselves."

For a moment, she is dizzy with it: the desire to leave this battered, claustrophobic city. Even the memory of the horrific forced march from Ma.r.s.eilles is distanced, now, beside the chance of getting out.

"And if we can get your d.u.c.h.ess - our Florian - away safely at any point, we're leaving this town to the rag-heads. On that basis," she said, "and with the vote of the Lion Azure - I'm here."

The babble of voices resolved itself to two things: a cheer, and the explosive profanity of one of the abbots. Men all around the table stood up - one abbot's green vestments swirling as he stalked towards the door - but the men in breastplate and hose crowded around her, grinning, speaking, shouting.

De la Marche strode up to her. Ash scrambled back from the high table. The Burgundian knight reached out, grasping her hand; and she managed to keep herself from wincing aloud.

"Welcome, Demoiselle-Captain!"

"Pleasure," Ash muttered weakly. Her knuckles ground together. As he released her hand, she hid her fingers behind her back, ma.s.saging painful flesh.

"'Captain-General'!" two knights corrected, almost simultaneously; one curly-haired and unknown to her, the other a thick-set man, Captain Lacombe, away from duty on the north-west wall.

Captain-General of Burgundy. s.h.i.t.

Instead of leaving her, the fear intensified; nausea turning to cramps in her bowels. She kept her face as expressionless as she could.

Further down the table, Angelotti winked at her. It failed to steady her.

Well, it's done now. I've said it.

Formal chivalric introductions pa.s.sed in a blur of names. She stood, surrounded by men mostly a head taller than herself, talking at the tops of their voices. Looking back, she saw the remaining abbot and the bishop monopolising Florian.

The curly-haired knight's gaze, followed hers. He might have been twenty-five, old enough to have killed and ordered killed any number of men in battle, but what was on his face as he watched Floria was a shining awe. Sounding contrite, he said suddenly, "Two of you blessed by G.o.d - I'm glad you're our commander, Demoiselle-Captain Ash. You're a warrior. Her Grace is so far above us-"

Ash lifted an eyebrow, and shot him a glance at about shoulder-height. "And I'm not?"

"I- well, I-" He blushed, furiously. "That's not what I-"

As if he were one of her own lance-leaders, Ash said, "I think the phrase you're looking for is 'oh s.h.i.t!', soldier ..."

Lacombe snorted, and grinned at his younger companion. "Didn't I tell you what she was like? This is the Sieur de Romont, Captain Ash. Don't mind him, he's a dork in here, but he f.u.c.ks those legionaries every time they come across the walls."

"Oh, I'm sure he does," Ash said dryly. Meeting Captain Romont's pleased and blushing gaze, she thought suddenly of Florian in the camp outside Dijon's walls: call it charisma if you like , . .