Ash: The Lost History Part 29

"No . . ."

"d.a.m.n right you don't."

You should have washed, Ash thought dimly, smelling a warm stench of old sweat on the surgeon's clothes. She let her head fall back limply against Florian's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the bright white cell swimming before her eyes. "Oh s.h.i.t. . ."

The weight of their two bodies was pressing them together on the goose-down mattress, into a valley in the centre of the bed. Ash gazed up at a plastered white ceiling, her eyes tracking the black dot of a bee as it buzzed into the room. The pressure of the woman's arms around her felt inexpressibly welcome.

"You're tough as s.h.i.t," the rough voice above her said. "That's more significant than anything I can do for you."

In the room's hush, Ash heard a distant choir. A noise of women's voices, singing ma.s.s. The tiny room filled with the scent of lavender: she guessed it must be growing close by.

Nothing in the room was hers.

"Where's my f.u.c.king sword? Where's my armour!"

"Yeah, that's my girl!"

Ash shifted her gaze to Floria's face. "I know I'm going to die before I'm thirty. We can't all be Colleoni2 or Hawkwood.3 How close have I come?"

"I don't think your skull's cracked . . . I've sewed you up. Said the right charms. If you'll take my advice, you'll stay in bed for the next three weeks. And if you will take my advice, it'll be the first time in five years!" The surgeon's cradling arm tightened. "I really can't do any more for you. Rest."

"How many leagues are we from Basle?" Ash demanded. "What's happened to my company?"

Floria del Guiz heaved a sigh that Ash felt against every rib.

"Why can't you be like my other patients and start with 'where am I?' You're in a convent, we're outside Dijon, in Burgundy, and the company's camped about a quarter of a mile that way." Her long dirty finger stabbed the air above Ash's nose, indicating a direction out of the cell window.

"Dijon." Ash's eyes widened. "That's a f.u.c.k of a way from the cantons. We're the other side of Franche-Comte. Good. Dijon . . . You're a f.u.c.king Burgundian, Florian, help me out. You know this place?"

"I should do." Floria del Guiz's voice sounded acerbic. She sat up, lurching Ash's body uncomfortably. "I have an aunt living six leagues from here. Tante Jeanne's probably at court - the Duke's here."

"Duke Charles is here?"

"Oh, he's here. So is his army. And his mercenaries. You can't see the meadows outside the town for military tents!" Florian shrugged. "I suppose this is where he came to after Neuss. It is the southern capital."

"Have the Visigoths attacked Burgundy? What's happening about the invasion?"

"How would I know? I've been in here trying to keep you alive, you silly b.i.t.c.h!"

Ash grinned, helplessly, at her surgeon's total disregard for military matters. "That's no way to talk to your boss."

Florian shifted around under her in the bed, until she could look Ash directly in the face. "I do, of course, mean 'you silly b.i.t.c.h, boss'."

"That's much better. f.u.c.k." Ash tried to tense her muscles to sit up, and flopped back, her face screwed up in pain. "Some f.u.c.king surgeon you are. I feel half dead."

"I can arrange the other half any time you like ..."

A cool palm laid itself against Ash's forehead. She heard Floria grunt, vaguely dissatisfied.

The surgeon added, "There's a pilgrimage up here every day, with a good three-quarters of the men trying to get in to speak to you. What's the matter with these guys? Don't they know a convent when they see one? Can't they even wipe their own a.r.s.es without you being there to tell them to do it?"

"That's soldiers." Ash pushed her hands against the mattress, trying to sit up. "s.h.i.t! If you've been saying I can't see them because I got a crack on the head-"

"I haven't been saying anything. This is a convent. They're men." Florian smiled wryly. "The sisters won't let them inside."

"Christ, they'll think I'm dying or dead! They'll be off to sign up with someone else before you can say condotta!"4 "I don't think so."

With a long-suffering sigh, Floria del Guiz got out of the bed and began to hold up Ash's torso and heap pillows under her shoulders and head. Ash bit her lip to keep from vomiting.

"You don't think so - why not?"

"Oh, you're a hero." Floria grinned crookedly, moving to stand beside the cell window. The white daylight showed up purple flesh under her eyes, and lines cut into the flesh at the sides of her mouth. "You're the Lioness! You saved them from the Visigoths, you got them out of Basle and into Burgundy, the men think you're wonderful!"

"They what?"

"Joscelyn van Mander is quite dewy-eyed. You military types are too d.a.m.n sentimental, I've always said so."

"f.u.c.king h.e.l.l." Ash felt the goose-down pillows give under her as she leaned back, dizzy. "I had no right to go wandering into Basle looking for the Faris, and even if I did, I put my men in danger. You name it and I f.u.c.ked it. I really f.u.c.ked up, Florian. They must know that!"

"If you walk down there today, they'll throw rose-petals under your feet. Mind you," Floria remarked thoughtfully, "if you walk down there today, I may be burying you tomorrow."

"A hero!"

"Haven't you noticed?" The surgeon delicately pointed upwards. "The sun. You've brought them back to the sun."

"I brought-" Ash broke off. "When did the sun come back? Before we got to Burgundy?"

"As we crossed the border." A frown compressed Floria's brows. "I don't think you understand me. The sun's only shining here. In Burgundy. It's still dark everywhere else."

Ash licked her lips, her mouth dry.

No, that can't be - it can't only be here!

Ash absently pushed Floria's hands away as the woman tried to put a wooden bowl to her lips. She took it in her own hands, and sipped, frowning.

They put out the sun. But not here, in Burgundy. Why Burgundy?

Unless the Eternal Twilight spreads where . . .

Where the armies from the land Under the Penitence successfully invade. No, how could that be?

Maybe it's not just here that there's the sun, but in all the lands north of what they've conquered, France and the Low Countries and England, where the Eternal Twilight hasn't yet spread? s.h.i.t, I need to be up and talking to people!

"If the guys think I got them out of trouble," Ash continued her progression of thought, " - Green Christ only knows why! - then I'm not going to tell them different. I need all the morale on my side that I can get. b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, Florian. You're Burgundian, aren't you? What are our chances of getting another contract here, given that I made a sterling effort to off the Duke not so long ago?"

Ash gave a small smile, her lips wet with the clear spring water.

"Would your Tante Jeanne get us an in to court?"

Floria's expression closed like a door shutting.

"You'd better see Robert Anselm today," she remarked. "It probably won't kill you. It might kill him if you don't."

Ash blinked, her attention disrupted from the Visigoths. "Robert? Why?"

"Who do you think rode over you at Basle?"

"Oh, f.u.c.k."

Floria nodded. "He'll be sitting outside the convent gate about now. I know this, because he's been sleeping out there."

"How long have I been here?"

"Three days."

"How long has he been out there? Don't tell me. Three days." Ash put her head in her hands, and winced as her fingers came into contact with the shaved patch of her scalp, and the painful irregularity of cat-gut st.i.tches. She rubbed at her eyes. She was suddenly conscious of being dressed only in a stale nightshirt, and of needing the nightsoil pot. "Then who's been running my company!"

"Geraint-the-Welsh-b.a.s.t.a.r.d." Floria widened innocent eyes. "Or at least, that's what they seem to think his name is. With Father G.o.dfrey. He seems to have it all under control."

"Does he, by G.o.d! Then it's more than time I was back in charge. I don't want the Lion Azure turning into Geraint ab Morgan's company while I sit on my a.r.s.e in some d.a.m.n convent!" Ash rubbed the heel of her hand over her face. "You're right, sod you; I'll get up tomorrow, not today. I still feel like there's a horse treading on me. I'll see Roberto. I'd better see the maitresse of this place, too. And I'm getting dressed."

The surgeon eyed her sardonically, but made no comment except, "And with all your boys outside these walls, you expect me to act as your page, I suppose?"

"You might as well learn to be a page. You're a c.r.a.p surgeon."

Floria del Guiz blurted out a laugh, an open guffaw completely different from her usual mordant chuckle, plainly taken by surprise. She whooped, and thumped the flat of her hand against her thigh. "You ungrateful cow!"

"n.o.body loves an honest woman." Ash's mouth moved into an unwilling smile, remembering. "Or maybe I'm just a wayward wench."

"A what?"

"Never mind. Christ, I'm well out of that!"

And I'm staying as far away from the Faris as I can get.

Okay, maybe we are far enough away to be safe. For the moment. What do I do now? I don't know anything like enough about this situation!

Ash swivelled her legs around with difficulty and sat on the edge of the bed. Blood thundered in her ears, drowning out the sound of doves cooing beyond the window. She swayed where she sat.

"Poor b.l.o.o.d.y Robert. It would have to be him. Find me a chair, or at least a stool with a back to it. I don't want him to see me looking as if the Grim Reaper will be getting the next audience with me!" Ash stopped, adding suspiciously, "This is a convent? I'm not putting on a dress!"5 Florian laughed, moving past her towards the oak chest against the far wall. She trailed her fingers through Ash's unshaved hair, affectionately and lightly: Ash hardly felt the touch.

"I sent down to Rickard for your gear. The Soeur wouldn't let me bring a sword within the confines of the convent, but," Floria's head emerged, her hands clutching shirt, doublet, and hose, "you've got your green and silver, and a velvet demi-gown. Will boss be content with that?"

"Boss will do just fine."

Once past the squalidness of the nightsoil pot, and half laced into her clothes, Ash began to find it less disturbing to have a woman acting as her page. She grinned. "Why I've been paying you all these years as a surgeon, when-"

She broke off, as a nun entered the cell.

"Soeur?"

The big woman folded her hands at her waist. A tall, tight wimple robbed her face of all context, left it nothing but an expanse of puffy white flesh in the sunlight. Her voice sounded gravelly. "I'm Soeur Simeon. You're staying in bed, my girl."

Ash wriggled her arm down the sleeve of her doublet, and leaned against the upright of the back-stool while Floria laced it tight at the shoulder. She spoke as if the room wasn't swimming around her.

"First, I'm seeing my second-in-command, Soeur."

"Not in here you're not." The nun's lips compressed into a hard line. "No men within the walls of the convent. And you're not yet fit to go out."

Ash felt Floria straighten up. Her voice came from above Ash: "Allow him in for a few minutes, Soeur Simeon. After all, you let me in - and I know what's important for my patient's health. Good lord, woman, I'm a surgeon!"

"Good lord, woman, you're a woman" the nun rapped back. "Why do you think you're allowed in here?"

Ash chuckled at the almost audible wuff! of the wind being taken out of Floria del Guiz's sails.

"That fact, ma Soeur, is completely confidential. I know I can trust a woman of G.o.d." Ash put her hands flat on her thighs, and managed to sit reasonably confidently. "Bring Robert Anselm in secretly if you must, but bring him in. I'll get through my business as fast as possible."

The woman - the nun's habit robbing her of her age, as well; she might have been anywhere between thirty and sixty - narrowed her eyes and surveyed the whitewashed sick-room and its dishevelled occupant. "You've been used to having your own way for quite some time, haven't you, ma fille?"

"Oh yes, Soeur Simeon. It's far too late to do anything about it."

"Five minutes," the woman said grimly. "One of the pet.i.tes soeurs will be in here with you for decency's sake. I shall go and organise some prayer."

The door of the whitewashed cell closed behind the big woman.

Ash blew out her lips. "Whoa! There goes a born colonel of the regiment!"6 "Look who's talking." Floria del Guiz went to rummage in the oak chest again, and emerged with a pair of low boots. She knelt, thrusting them onto Ash's feet, and Ash looked down at the top of her golden head. She made as if to reach out and touch the disguised woman's hair, then drew her hand back.

"I'm all in tangles," she said. "Smarten me up, will you?"

The tall woman took a horn comb out of her purse and stepped behind her, undoing her loose braids. Ash felt a gentle, painful tugging as the comb worked its way up from the bottom of each hank of silver-fair hair, unthreading sweat-solidified knots. Her head began to throb. She shut her eyes, feeling the warmth on her face of the sun through the window, and the movement of warm summer air. First I need to arrange for the company to survive in Burgundy. What are we living on? - Christ, but I feel sick!

The comb stopped snagging her yard-long length of hair. Floria's fingers touched her cheek, that ran with salt tears. "Hurts? It will, with a head-wound. I could cut this lot off."

"You could not."

"Okay, okay . . . leave my head on my shoulders!"

Time blipped again.

Floria's voice spoke quietly to someone else in the sick-room. Ash opened her eyes to see another nun, in the same dull green habit and white wimple; who met her eyes as they focused, and stepped across the room to offer her water in a wooden cup.

"I know you." Ash suddenly frowned. "It's difficult to tell without the hair, but I know you. Don't I?"

Off over towards the window, Floria chuckled.

The little nun said, "Schmidt. Margaret Schmidt."

Ash's cheeks coloured up. She said in a voice both weak and incredulous, "You're a nun?"