Ash: A Secret History (49 page)

He raised his silver goblet gravely to Ash.

Ye Gods! So this is the great English soldier-Earl…
Ash’s mind ran on as she drank deeply of the indifferent red wine. “You reconciled Warwick the Kingmaker to Queen Margaret, too.
²⁵
Good God!… Sorry to say, my lord, I was actually fighting on the opposite side to you on Barnet field in ’71. Nothing personal. Just business.”

“Yes. And now, madam, to our business,” de Vere said bluntly.

“Yes, my lord.” Ash gazed out from under the shading canopy, past the Earl, at the surrounding tents and pennants sagging under the hot postmeridian sky. Her armour kept her upright at the table. The brigandine’s weight didn’t bother her, but the heat of it made her pale. Her head began to throb again.

Between Geraint’s tent and Joscelyn van Mander’s pavilion, she saw the slope of green meadows, and the grey leaves of trees beyond at the water’s edge. A distant flash of blue took her eye: Robert Anselm, out in the field, stripped to pourpoint and hose, shouting at men drilling with swords and bills. Water-boys sprinted along the lines of men. The harsh Welsh yowl of Geraint ab Morgan sounded above the thunk of shafts hitting straw targets.

Let ’em practise in the heat! They won’t be such bloody layabouts tomorrow. Time this place started looking like a military camp… Because if it doesn’t, they’re going to stop thinking they’re a military company. I wonder how many I’ve lost to the whorehouses in Dijon?

The pavilion’s marked candle showed it to be closing on the third hour of the afternoon. She ignored the pulse of anticipation in her stomach, and lifted a cup of watered wine, the liquid tepid in her mouth. “Shall I call my officers in, my lord?”

“Yes. Now.”

Ash turned to give the order to Rickard, who stood behind her chair, bearing her sword and second-best sallet. Unexpectedly, Floria del Guiz spoke:

“Duke Charles loves a war. Now he’ll want to attack the whole Visigoth army!”

“He’ll get wiped out, then,” Ash said sourly, as Rickard spoke in an undertone to one of the many wagon-boys serving as pages. Between servers, pages and two or three dozen armed men with leashed dogs surrounding this end of the pavilion canopy, the table formed an island of stillness. She leaned her arms forward, ignoring the stains on the tablecloth, and caught John de Vere’s blue eyes watching her. “You’re right, my lord Earl. There’s no chance of winning a battle against the Visigoths, without the princes of Europe unite. And that’s a fat chance! They must know what happened in Italy and the Germanies, but I guess they don’t believe it can happen to them.”

A stir among the guards outside the tent, and Robert Anselm strode in, sweating heavily; Angelotti on his heels, and Geraint close behind the two of them. Ash motioned them to the table. Viscount Beaumont and the younger de Vere brothers leaned over to listen.

“Officers’ reports,” Ash announced, pushing back her plate. “You’d better sit in on this, your Grace. It’ll save going over things twice.”

And give you a completely unvarnished view of us … well, let’s not have any mistake about what you’re getting!

Geraint, Anselm and Angelotti took places at table, the captain of archers regarding the remnants of food with wistful hunger.

“We’ve re-done the perimeter.” Robert Anselm made a long arm across the table and rescued a slab of cheese from Ash’s plate. Chewing, he prompted thickly: “Geraint?”

“That’s right, boss.” Geraint ab Morgan gave the Oxford brothers a slightly wary look. “Got your men’s tents set up in the river side of the camp, your Grace.”

Ash wiped her wet brow. “Right— And where’s Joscelyn? He’s usually hanging about for command-group meetings.”

“Oh, he’s down there, boss. Welcoming them in on behalf of the Lion.”

The Welsh captain of archers spoke entirely innocently, and looked up with a grunt as Bertrand, at Ash’s nod, served horn goblets filled with watered wine. Robert Anselm caught Ash’s eye, significantly.

“Is he, by God?” Ash murmured to herself. “Did your camp reorganisation involve putting all the Flemish lances together?”

“No, boss, van Mander did that when we got here.”

The tent pennants that she could see indicated, to Ash’s practised eye, that the entire back quarter of the camp was made up of Flemish tents, no other nation intermixed with them. Everywhere else was, as usual, a promiscuous mingling of homelands.

She nodded, thoughtfully, her gaze absently on a passing group of women in linen kittles and dirty shifts, laughing as they made their way towards the camp gate and – presumably – the town of Dijon.

“Let it go for now,” she said. “While we’re at it, though, I want double perimeter guards from now on. I don’t want Monforte’s men or the Burgundian lads coming in nicking stuff, and I don’t want our lot going out getting rat-arsed all the time. Let ’em into town in groups, no more than twenty at a time. Let’s keep the unpaid fighting down to a minimum.”

Robert Anselm chuckled. “Yes, Captain.”

“That goes for officers and lance-leaders, too! Okay.” Ash glanced around the table. “What’s the feeling in camp about this English contract?”

Godfrey Maximillian brushed sweat off his face with a quick gesture. With an apologetic glance to Anselm, he said, “The men would have preferred it if it had been something you negotiated in person, Captain. I think they’re waiting to see which way you jump.”

“Geraint?”

The Welshman said dismissively, “You know archers, boss. For once they’re fighting on the same side as someone supposed to be more foul-mouthed than they are! No offence, your Grace.”

John de Vere looked rather grimly at the captain of archers, but said nothing.

Ash persisted, “No dissent?”

“Well… Huw’s lance think we should have tried to get another contract with the Visigoths.” Geraint didn’t acknowledge Oxford. He said steadily, “So do I, boss. Out-numbered armies don’t win the field, and the Duke’s out-numbered and then some. The way to get paid is to be on the winning side.”

Ash looked questioningly at Antonio Angelotti.

“You know gunners,” Angelotti echoed. “Show us something we can fire at, and everyone’s happy. Half my crews are off in the Burgundian army camp right now, looking at their ordnance – I haven’t seen most of them for two days.”

“Visigoths don’t use much ordnance,” Geraint observed. “Your boys wouldn’t like that.”

Angelotti gave his reserved smile. “There is something to be said for being on the same side as the big guns.”

“And the men-at-arms?” Ash asked Robert Anselm.

“I’d say about half of them – Carracci and all the Italian lads, the English, and the easterners – are happy with the contract. The French lads don’t like being on the same side as the Burgundians, but they’ll wear it. They all think we owe the rag-heads something for Basle.”

Ash snorted. “I’ve looked in the war-chest –
they
owe
us!
”

“They’ll get stuck in, when the time comes,” Anselm continued, amused. He frowned. “Can’t answer for the Flemings. Captain, I don’t get to talk to di Conti and the rest, now, I just get to talk to van Mander; he says it saves time if he passes orders on.”

“Uh huh.” In perfect understanding of the unease in Anselm’s mind, Ash nodded. “Okay, let’s move on—”

John de Vere spoke for the first time. “These dissenting lances, madam Captain, how much of a problem will this be?”

“None at all. There are going to be some changes.”

Ash met de Vere’s gaze. Something in her determined expression must have been convincing: he merely nodded, and said, “Then you deal with it, Captain.”

Ash dismissed the subject. “Okay: next…”

Beyond the men huddled around the linen-covered table, beyond the peaked roofs of the tents, the forested limestone hills around Dijon glimmered green. Below the tree-line, in the valley, slopes glistened green and brown: rows of vines ripening in the sun. Ash slitted her eyes against that brilliance, attempting to judge whether this sun-in-Leo was still shining as strongly as on the previous day.

“Next,” Ash said, “the matter of what we’re going to
do.
”

Ash glanced at Oxford. She found herself absently digging with the tip of her eating-knife at the charcoal-black pastry that had coffined a cow-steak and cheese pie. Her blade scattered fragments on the cloth. “It’s like I said to you earlier, my lord. This company’s far too big for you to want us just as an escort. But we’re nowhere near big enough to take on an army – Visigoth,
or
Burgundian.”

The English Earl smiled briefly at that. Her officers winced.

“So… I’ve been thinking, your Grace.” Ash jerked her thumb over her shoulder. Where the tent-walls were removed, the long slope of pasture up to the city walls was visible; and the peaked roofs of the convent. “While I was up there. I had time to think. And I came up with a half-baked idea that I want to approach the Duke with. The question is, your Grace, have you and I had the same half-baked idea?”

Robert Anselm rubbed his wet hand across his face, hiding a grin; Geraint Morgan spluttered. Angelotti gazed at Ash from under ambiguously lowered oval lids.

“‘Half-baked’?” the Earl of Oxford questioned, mildly.

“‘Mad’, if you prefer.” Excitement keyed her up, momentarily wiped out both oppressive heat and the effects of her injury. She leaned forward on the table. “We’re not going to attack the entire Visigoth invasion force, are we? That would take everything Duke Charles has got here, and then some! But – why should we need to attack them head-on?”

De Vere nodded, briefly. “A raid.”

Ash dug her knife-point into the table. “Yes! If a
raiding
force could take out the head … a raiding force of, say, seventy or eighty lances: eight hundred men. Bigger than an escort, but still small enough to move fast, and to get out of trouble if we meet their army. And that’s us, isn’t it?”

Oxford leaned back slightly, his armour clicking. His three brothers began to stare at him.

“It isn’t a mad idea,” the Earl of Oxford said.

Viscount Beaumont lisped, “Only by comparison! Not as mad as some of the things we’ve done, John.”

“And how does it help Lancaster?” the youngest de Vere brother broke in.

“Quiet! Ruffians.” The Earl of Oxford thumped Beaumont on the shoulder, and ruffled Dickon’s hair. His worn, lined face was alive when he turned his attention back to Ash. Above him, the white canvas blazed gold, hiding the fierce southern European sun.

“Yes, madam,” he confirmed. “We have been thinking alike. A raid to take out their commander, their general. Their Faris.”

For a moment, what she sees is not the sun-drenched camp in Burgundy, but a frost-starred pleasance
²⁶
in Basle: a woman in Visigoth hauberk and surcoat wiping spilt wine from the dagged silken hem, her frowning face Ash’s own. A woman who has said
sister, half-sister, twin.

“No.”

Ash, for the first time, saw the Earl appear startled.

In a very practical tone, Ash repeated, “No. Not their commander. Not here in Europe. Believe me, the Faris expects that. She knows damn well that every enemy prince wants her head on a spike, right now, and she’s well guarded. In the middle of about twelve thousand soldiers. Attacking her right now is impossible.”

Ash looked around at their faces; back at de Vere. “No, my lord – when I said I’d had a half-baked idea, I meant it. I want to mount an attack on Carthage.”

“Carthage!” Oxford boomed.

Ash shrugged. “I bet you anything you like, they won’t be expecting that.”

“For damn good reason!” one of the middle de Vere brothers exclaimed.

Godfrey Maximillian spluttered, “
Carthage!
” in a tone of outraged astonishment.

Angelotti murmured something in Robert Anselm’s ear. Floria, as still as a animal scenting hounds, looked at Ash with a narrow, baffled, complaining expression on her smudged face.

John de Vere, in much the same sceptical tone as she had earlier spoken to him about his Lancastrian claims, said, “Madam, you were planning to ask Charles of Burgundy to pay you to attack the King-Caliph in Carthage?”

Ash took a breath. She leaned back against the upright of the back-stool, overheating under the canvas canopy, and held her goblet up for Bertrand to fill it with watered wine.

“There are two things to be considered, your Grace. One – their King-Caliph Theodoric is sick, maybe dying. This I have from trustworthy sources.” She momentarily met the gaze of Floria, of Godfrey. “A dead King-Caliph would be very useful. Well, a dead caliph is always useful! But – if there were to be a dynastic struggle going on back home, then I don’t think the Visigoth army would be pushing their invasion north this campaigning season. They might even get recalled back to North Africa. At the least, it would halt them over the winter. They probably wouldn’t cross the Burgundian border.”

“Now I see why you hoped to speak to Charles, madam.” John de Vere looked thoughtful.

Dickon de Vere spluttered something. Under cover of the English lords’ increasingly loud talk, Floria del Guiz said, “
Are
you mad?”

“De Vere’s a soldier, and he doesn’t think it’s mad. Not entirely mad,” Ash corrected herself.

“It’s desperate.” Robert Anselm frowned, abstracted; reservations in his voice over and above what he was saying. He wiped his sweating, shiny head. “Desperate; not stupid.”

“Carthage,” Antonio Angelotti said softly, some expression on the master gunner’s face that Ash couldn’t identify. That worried her, needing to know how he would be, on the field of battle.

Godfrey Maximillian looked at her. “And?” he prompted.

“And…” Ash pushed her stool back and stood up. The English lords‘ debate had reached shouting proportions, John de Vere thumping his fist repeatedly on the table, and her movement went unnoticed. Like birds disturbed in corn, her officers’ faces lifted to her.

She thought, looking around the table, that no one who didn’t know these men could have picked up the growing atmosphere of distrust – certainly de Vere and his Englishmen seemed unaware of it – but to her it was loud as a shout.