Ash: The Lost History Part 142

"Look at that." Ash pointed. "They couldn't resist it, could they!"

Out in the centre of the hall, Robert Anselm and Euen Huw had abandoned their exaggerated and pantomime blows and were circling each other, on the rushes. As she spoke, Anselm darted a blow forward, the Welshman whipped it round in a parry and struck; Anselm blocked- "They had to make a genuine fight of it." Florian sighed. She was smiling. The noise of the men-at-arms rose even higher, seeing a contest of skills beginning. "I suppose they'll get back to the mumming eventually . . . Come on, Euen! Show them how well I sewed you up!"

Under the noise of cheering and the thwack of whalebone on plate and mail, Fernando del Guiz said, "Is it peace between us, Ash?"

She looked up at him, standing beside her, hood drawn forward, in a hall full of his enemies, apparently unmoved. But I know him, now. He's afraid.

"It's been a long time since Neuss," she said. "Married, and separated, and attaindered, and annulled. And a long way from Carthage. Why did you speak up for me? In the coronation - why?"

Apparently at random, Fernando del Guiz murmured, "You'd think I would have remembered your face. I didn't. I forgot it for seven years. It didn't occur to me that if there was a woman in armour at Neuss, it might be the one I'd -seen - at Genoa."

"Is that an answer? Is that an apology?"

The sun slanting down from the arrow-port windows cast a silver light on the heads of the crowd. It flashed back from Anselm and Euen Huw, leaping on the rushes in a mad duel; the cheering shaking the ivy hanging from the rafters. The cold sank into her bones, and she looked down at her white, bloodless hands.

"Is it an apology?" she repeated.

"Yes."

In the centre of the hall, Robert Anselm drove Euen Huw back across the rushes with a savage, perfectly executed series of blows, as hard and rapid as a man chopping wood. Whalebone spanged off metal. The English archers hoa.r.s.ely cheered.

"Fernando, why did you come here?"

"There has to be a truce. Then peace." Fernando del Guiz looked down at his empty hands, and then back up at her. "Too many people are dying here, Ash. Dijon's going to be wiped out. So are you."

Two contradictory feelings flooded her. He's so young! she thought; and at the same time: He's right. Military logic isn't any different for me than it is for anyone else. Unless Gelimer's more frightened of the Turks than I think he is, this siege is going to end in a complete ma.s.sacre. And soon.

"Christ on a rock!" he exclaimed. "Give in, for once in your life! Gelimer's promised me he'll keep you alive, out of amir Leofric's hands. He'll just throw you in prison for a few years-"

His voice rose. Ash was aware of Floria and Angelotti looking across her, towards the German knight.

"That's supposed to impress me?" she said.

Robert Anselm feinted and slashed the whalebone blade clear out of Euen Huw's hands. A ma.s.sive cry of "Saint George!" shook the rafters, thundering back from the stone walls of the tower, drowning anything she might have said.

Disarmed, the weaponless Saracen knight suddenly stared past Robert Anselm's left shoulder and bellowed, "It's behind you!"

Anselm unwarily glanced over his shoulder. Euen Huw brought his boot up smartly between Anselm's legs.

"Christ!" Fernando yelped in sympathy.

Euen Huw stood out of the way as Anselm fell forward, picked up Anselm's sword, and thumped a hefty blow down on his helmet. He straightened, panting and red-faced, and wheezed, "Got you, you English b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

Ash bit her lip, saw Robert Anselm writhing dramatically on the floor, realised his colour's okay; he can move - and that Euen had kicked him on the inside of the thigh, and that the two of them had planned it. She began to applaud. Either side of her, Fernando and his sister were clapping; and Angelotti laughing with tears streaming down his face.

"Ruined!" Henri Brant shouted, rus.h.i.+ng forward with his king's robes swirling, and his iron crown skewed. "Ruined!

"Is there no doctor to save my son, And heal Prince George's deadly wound?"

A hum of expectation came from the crowd. Ash, checking by eye, saw no one of her men-at-arms and archers and gunners not either eating or drinking, or cheering on the mummers. She did not look at Fernando. The pause lengthened. In the group of mummers at the hearth, an altercation appeared to be going on.

"No-" Rickard shook the other mummers off and walked forward. Ash realised from the overlong gown that all but drowned him, and his sack of smithy-tools, that he must be supposed to play the part; but the young man didn't stop, walking forward into the crowd towards her, and the men gave way in front of him.

He reached them; bowed with adolescent awkwardness to her and then to the surgeon-d.u.c.h.ess.

"I don't have the wisdom to play the n.o.ble Doctor," he stuttered, "but there is one in this house who does. Messire Florian, please!"

"What?" Floria looked bewildered.

"Play the n.o.ble Doctor in the mumming!" Rickard repeated. "Please!"

"Do it!" one of the men-at-arms yelled.

"Yeah, come on, Doc!" A shout from John Burren, and the archers standing with him.

Robert Anselm, flat and dead on the rushes, lifted up his head with a sc.r.a.pe of armour. "Prince George is dying over here! Some b.a.s.t.a.r.d had better be the doctor!"

"Messire Florian, you better had," Angelotti said, beaming.

"I don't know any lines!"

"You do," Ash protested. She snuffled back laughter. "Your face! Florian, everybody knows mumming lines. You must have done this before, some Twelfth Night. Get on out there! Boss's orders!"

"Yes, sir, boss," Floria del Guiz said darkly. The scarecrow-tall woman hesitated, then rapidly unb.u.t.toned her demi-gown and - with the squire's help - began to struggle into the n.o.ble Doctor's over-long garment. Shaking it down on her shoulders, hair dishevelled, eyes bright, she said under her breath, "Ash, I'll get you for this!" and strode forward.

Rickard slung her the clanking bag of tools and she caught it, pulling one out by the handle as she walked forward into the open s.p.a.ce at the centre of the hall. She put her foot thoughtfully on Robert Anselm's supine chest, and leaned her arm on her knee.

"Oof!"

"I am the Doctor ...

"f.u.c.k," Floria said. "Let me think: hang on-"

"My G.o.d, she's like Father!" Fernando surveyed his half-sister; then smiled down at Ash. "Shame the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d's dead. He'd have liked to have known he had two sons."

"f.u.c.k you too, Fernando," Ash said amiably. "You know I'm going to keep her alive, don't you? You can tell Gelimer that."

In the centre of the hall, Floria was using a pair of bolt-cutters to push back the fauld of Anselm's armour. She prodded the bolt-cutters tentatively into his groin. "This man's dead!"

"Has been for years!" Baldina shouted.

"Dead as a door-nail," the surgeon-d.u.c.h.ess repeated. "Oh s.h.i.+t - no, don't tell me - I'll get it in a minute-"

Ash linked her arm through Fernando's, under his cloak. She felt his robe; and then the s.h.i.+ft of his body-weight as he leaned towards her, and put his hand over hers. His warmth brought another warmth to her body. She tightened her grip on his arm.

Out in the hall, Floria moved her foot from Robert Anselm's breastplate to his codpiece. Jeers, cat-calls, and shouts of sympathy shook the tower. She declaimed: "The Doctor am I, I cure all diseases, The pox, and the clap, and the sniffles and sneezes!

I'll bind up your bones, I'll bind up your head, I can raise up a man even though he be dead."

"I'll bet you can!" Willem Verhaecht yelled, on a note of distinct admiration.

Floria rested the bolt-cutters back across her shoulder. "Don't know why you're worrying, Willem, yours dropped off years ago!"

"d.a.m.n, I knew I'd left something in Ghent!"

Ash, grinning, shook her head. Over by the hearth, the last of the cauldrons had been sc.r.a.ped clean, and the pots drunk dry; the women were wiping their hands on their ap.r.o.ns and standing with bare arms, sweating and applauding.

That was less than half-rations. And this was Robert's Christ-Ma.s.s over-indulgence.

We are in the s.h.i.+t.

Fernando said suddenly, "Gelimer's going to make you an offer. He told me to say this: even I don't believe it. If Dijon surrenders, he'll let the townspeople go, although he'll have to hang the garrison. And as for my sister - the King-Caliph will take the d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy to wife."

"You what?"

Antonio Angelotti, unashamedly listening in, said, "Christus! that's neat, madonna. There'll be immediate pressure on us to surrender from the merchants and guildsmen. It's tense between us and them as it is."

"To wife?" Ash said.

"It's his mistake." Fernando bristled a little at the Italian master gunner, and spoke to Ash: "Frederick's men already say Gelimer must be weak or he'd just walk in here. Nothing will come of the offer, but-" a shrug "-it's what I was told to say."

"Oh, Christ. I'll look forward to telling de la Marche that one." Reminded, Ash glanced towards the doors again. Nothing there but the guards - and they had turned their heads, watching the surgeon-d.u.c.h.ess and St George.

Floria's voice rang out: "By my right and my command, Dead Saint George now up shall stand.

By my wit and for your gain, I will make him live again.

Now in front of all men's eyes Lift your head: arise, arise!"

Robert Anselm sprang to his feet and bowed, with a flourish. One of his pauldrons fell off and clattered to the flagstones. Euen Huw, Henri Brant and Adriaen Campin ran forward; the Saracen Knight, the King and the Hobby Horse holding hands.

Floria del Guiz seized Anselm's hand, and Euen's, and called Rickard forward. Ash saw her whisper in the squire's ear. Rickard nodded, took a deep breath, and shouted: "Prince George lives again, This Christmas Twelfth Night.

Now pay us our fee And we'll bid you goodnight!"

Amid raucous applause, a shower of small coins and old boots bounced off the hall's flagstones around the mummers. They bowed.

The company's men-at-arms crowded in close to clap Floria and the others on the back. Someone hauled some of the ivy-creepers down, and the spiralling greenery got wound around the company's doctor, steward, second captain, lance-leader and squire. Ash, her eyes on Floria's face, felt suddenly bereft. Even if we can make it through this, everything's different now.

Someone cheered; Florian's s.h.i.+ning fair hair appeared over the heads of the crowd, hoisted up between Euen Huw and Robert Anselm. She waited, not going forward yet to give her own congratulations. She looked up at Fernando del Guiz. He seemed to be more nervous than a few minutes before.

"A priest ..." She shook her head, smiling less caustically than she might have expected. "Done any good miracles yet?"

"No. I'm only in first vows, celibacy vows; I won't know if I can do that sort of thing until it shows up if I have grace." After an infinitesimal pause, he added, "Ash . . . It's a different priesthood. If you don't need to be celibate for grace, you don't have to be. When you reach high rank you can marry. m.u.t.h.ari has. I've seen her: she's Nubian."

"Nice for him," Ash said ironically. She noted, with a distanced surprise, that her mouth had gone dry. A curdle of apprehension made her stomach cold. What's he trying to tell me?

"What are you trying to tell me, Fernando?"

A smile moved the corner of his mouth. It was apparent to her that he had been holding it back; that something was taking his mind away from being in a besieged city as a none-too-trusted envoy, and not allowing him to worry about bombardment or truce-breaking or any of the other things that had been weighing her down for three months now.

"There is something I ought to tell you," he said.

"Yeah?"

He said nothing for several seconds. Ash studied his face. She wanted, again, to touch his lips and his jaw and the ridge of his heavy, fair brows; not just for the flush it was bringing to her body to think about it, but from a feeling almost of tenderness.

"Go on," she prompted.

"Okay. I just never expected . . ." He looked away, into the crowded, raucous hall, and then back at her. There was a suppressed energy, a brightness, about him.

"I didn't expect to fall in love," he said gravely, his voice almost cracking like a much younger man's. "Or if I did, I expected it to be with some n.o.bleman's daughter with a dowry, that my mother had picked out for me; or an Earl's wife, maybe ... I didn't expect it to be with someone who's a soldier, Ash -someone who has silver hair and brown eyes and doesn't wear gowns, just armour ..."

The breath stopped in her throat. Aware that her chest hurt, she stared up into his eyes. His face was transfigured; no mistaking the genuineness of it.

"I ..." Her own voice croaked.

"I won't get my estates back now. I'll just be a priest dependent on alms.

Even if I could marry, later . . . She'll never look at me, will she? A woman like that?"

"She might." Ash met his gaze. Her fingers were p.r.i.c.kling; her hands sweating. She felt a weakness in her muscles; a soaring surprise; could think only, Why didn't I realise I wanted this?

"She might," Ash repeated. She dared not reach out and take his hand. "I don't know what to say to you, Fernando. You didn't want to marry me, you were forced to. I wanted to have you, but I didn't want you. But, I don't know, you've come back doing this-" she waved her hand at the priest's robe "-and I can respect it, even if I don't think you stand a chance in h.e.l.l of convincing anybody."

I can respect it, she repeated silently to herself. A feeling of lightness went through her body.

"Fernando, the minute I looked at you, back there, I thought you were different. I don't know. Even if Arian priests can marry, I'm still not legally able to. But ... if you want to try again . . . yes. I will."

The surge of excitement at committing herself made her dizzy. It was several seconds before she realised that Fernando was staring at her with an expression of shock.

"What? What?"

"Oh s.h.i.+t!" he said miserably. "I've done this all wrong, haven't I?"

"What do you mean?"

Staring at him, utterly lost, she could only watch him s.h.i.+ft his feet, stare up at the rafters, let out an explosive breath.

"Oh G.o.d, I've explained this all wrong! I didn't mean you."

"What do you mean, you didn't mean me?"

"I said 'silver hair', I said 'brown eyes' ..." His hand fisted; he smacked it into his other palm. "Oh, s.h.i.+t, I'm sorry."

Totally calm, Ash said, "You don't mean me. You mean her."

He nodded, mutely.