Ash: The Lost History Part 3

"Buried down in the lime pit."

"What?"

The unarmed man shrugged and faced her. She followed his lips as much as the whisper of sound. "Dead and buried in the lime pits."

"Uhh." Air left her lungs.

"No," another man called from beside the fire, "they took him prisoner. The b.l.o.o.d.y Brides of the Sea have got him."

"No," a third man held his hands apart, "he had a hole in his stomach this big. But it wasn't the Most Serene, it was our side, the Great Duke's men, it was someone he owed money to."

Ash left them.

No matter what turf the camp was set up on, the camp was always the same. She made her way into the middle of the camp, where she did not often go. Now it was full of armed strangers. At last she found a manicured, blond man with a hara.s.sed expression, who wore a gold-edged green surcoat over his armour. He was one of the Lord Captain's aides and she knew him by sight, not by name; the gunners referred to him derisively as tabard-lifter. She already understood why.

"Guillaume Arnisout?" He put his hand through his thick bobbed hair. "Is he your father?"

"Yes." Ash lied without hesitation. She did the thing she had learned to do and the constriction in her throat went away, so that she could speak. "I want him! Tell me where he is!"

The aide p.r.i.c.ked down a parchment list. "Arnisout. Here. He was taken prisoner. The Captains are talking. I imagine prisoners may be exchanged after a few hours."

Ash thanked him in as quiet a voice as she could manage and returned to the edges of the camp to wait.

Evening fell across the valley. The stench of bodies sweetened the air unbearably. Guillaume did not come back to camp. Rumour began to say he had died of his wounds, died of plague caught in the Bride of the Sea's camp, signed on with the Most Serene as a master gunner at twice the pay, run off with a n.o.blewoman from the Duke's city, gone home to his farm in Navarre. (Ash hoped for a few weeks. After six months, she stopped hoping.) By sunset, prisoners moved aimlessly between the camp's tents, unused to walking around without sword, axe, bow, halberd. The evening sun lay gold over blood and poppies. The air tasted of heat. Ash's nose numbed itself to the worst of the decomposition. Richard stalked up to her where Ash stood in dung-stained straw, her back to a cart's wheel, with one of the baggage train's washerwomen dabbing witch hazel on the yellow bruises down her s.h.i.+ns.

"When will we know?" Richard s.h.i.+vered, and glared at her. "What will they do with us?"

"Us?" Ash's ears still thinly sang.

The washerwoman grunted. "We're part of the spoil. Sell us to wh.o.r.ehouses, maybe."

"I'm too young!" Ash protested.

"No."

"Demon!" the boy shrieked. "Demons told you we'd lose! You hear demons! You'll burn!"

"Richard!"

He ran away. He ran down the earth-track that soldiers' feet had beaten into existence over the peasants' crops, away from the baggage wagons.

"Man-bait! He's too pretty," the washerwoman said, suddenly vicious, throwing her wet rag down. "I wouldn't be him. Or you. Your face! They'll burn you. If you hear voices!" She made the sign of the Horns.

Ash leaned her head back, staring up into the endless blue. The air swam with gold. Every muscle ached, one wrenched knee hurt, her little toenail had been torn off b.l.o.o.d.y. None of the normal euphoria of hard exertion over and done with. Her guts churned.

"Not voices. A voice." She pushed with her bare foot at the clay pot of witch hazel ointment. "Maybe it was sweet Christ. Or a saint."

"You, hear a saint?" the woman snarled incredulously. "Little wh.o.r.e!"

Ash wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "Maybe it was a vision. Guillaume had a vision once. He saw the Blessed Dead fighting with us at Dinant."

The washerwoman turned to walk away. "I hope the Most Serene look at your ugly face and make you f.u.c.k their nightsoil men!"

Ash scooped up and hefted the pot of witch hazel in one hand, preparing to throw. "Poxy b.i.t.c.h!"

A hand came out of nowhere and clouted her. It stunned her. She burst into a humiliatingly loud squall, dropping the clay pot.

The man, now visible as wearing the Bride of the Sea's livery, snarled, "You, woman, get up to the centre of camp. We're doing shares of spoil. Go! You too, you little scarred freak!"

The washerwoman ran off, laughing too shrilly. The soldier followed.

Another woman, suddenly beside the wagon, asked, "Do you hear voices, child?"

This woman had a moon-round, moon-pale face, with no hair showing under her tight headdress. Over her big body a grey robe hung loosely, with a Briar Cross on a chain at her belt.

Ash snivelled. She wiped her dripping nose again. A line of thin, clear snot hung from her nostrils to the s.h.i.+rt's linen sleeve. "I don't know! What's 'hearing voices'?"

The pale moon-face looked avidly down at her. "There's talk among the men of the Most Serene. I think they're looking for you."

"Me?" A tightness took hold of Ash's ribs. "Looking for me?"

A clammily hot white hand reached down, seizing Ash's jaw and turning her face up to the evening light. She strained against the imprint of sharp fingertips, without success. The woman studied her intently.

"If it was a true sending from the Green Christ, they hope you will prophesy for them. If it's a demon, they'll drive it out of you. That could take until morning. Most of them are well gone in drink now."

Ash ignored the grip on her face, her sick fear and her bowels churning. "Are you a nun?"

"I am one of the Sisters of St Herlaine, yes. We have a convent near here, at Milano."5 The woman let go. Her voice sounded harsh under the liquid speech. Ash guessed it not to be her first language. Like all mercenaries, Ash had the basics of most languages she had heard. Ash understood the big woman as she said, "You need feeding up, girl. How old are you?"

"Nine. Ten. Eleven." Ash dragged her sleeve across her chin. "I don't know. I can remember the big storm. Ten. Maybe nine."

The woman's eyes were light, all light. "You're a child. Small, too. No one has ever cared for you, have they? Probably that's why the demon got in. This camp is no place for a child."

Tears stabbed her eyes. "It's my home! I don't have a demon!"

The nun put her hands up, each palm to one of Ash's cheeks, surveying her without her scars. Her hands felt both warm and cold on Ash's wet skin.

"I am Sister Ygraine. Tell me the truth. What speaks to you?"

Doubt bit cold in Ash's belly. "Nothing, n.o.body, Soeur! n.o.body was there but me and Richard!"

Chills stiffened her neck, braced her shoulders. Rote words of a prayer to the Green Christ died in her dry mouth. She began to listen. The nun's harsh breathing. Fire crackling. A horse whinnying. Drunken songs and shouting further off.

No sensation of a voice speaking quietly, to her, out of a companionable silence.

A burst of sound roared from the centre of the camp. Ash flinched. Soldiers ran past, ignoring them, running towards the growing crowd in the centre. Somewhere in a wagon close by, a hurt man called out for his maman. Gold light faded towards dusk. The tall sky began to fill with sparks showering up from the campfires, fires let burn too high, far too high; they might burn all the mercenary tents by morning, and think nothing of it but a brief regret for plunder ruined.

The nun said, "They're despoiling your camp."

Not speaking to Soeur Ygraine, not speaking to anyone, Ash deliberately breathed words aloud: "We're prisoners. What will happen to me now?"

'Licence, liberty, and drunkenness-'

Ash clamped her hands over her ears. The soundless voice continued: '-the night when commanders cannot control their men who have come living off the battlefield. The night in which people are killed for sport.'

Soeur Ygraine s.h.i.+fted her big hand to Ash's shoulder, the grip firm through Ash's filthy-dirty s.h.i.+rt. Ash lowered her hands. A growl in her belly told her she was hungry for the first time in twelve hours.

The nun continued to gaze down at her as if no voice had spoken.

"I-" Ash hesitated.

In her mind now she felt neither silence, nor a voice, but a potential for speech. Like a tooth which does not quite ache, but soon will.

She began to hurt for what she had never before given two thoughts to: the solitariness of her soul in her body. Fear flooded her from scalp to tingling fingertips to feet.

She abruptly stuttered, "I didn't hear any voice, I didn't, I didn't! I lied to Richard because I thought it would make me famous. I just wanted somebody to notice me!"

And then, as the big woman disinterestedly turned her back and began to stride away, into the chaos of firelight and drunken condottieri, Ash shrieked out hard enough to hurt her throat: "Take me somewhere safe, take me to sanctuary, don't let them hurt me, please!'

DR PlERCE RATCLIFF Ph.D. (War Studies) Flat 1, Rowan Court, 112 Olvera Street, London W14 OAB, United Kingdom Fax: HHHHHHHHHH E-mail: HHHHHHHHH Tel: HHHHHHHHH Anna Longman Editor HHHHH University Press HHHHHHH.

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9 October 2000 Dear Anna, It was good to meet with you in person, at last. Yes, I think doing the editing section by section with you is by far the wisest way to go about this, particularly considering the volume of the material and the proposed publication date in 2001, and the fact that I am still fine-tuning the translations.

As soon as my net connection is properly set up I can send work to you direct. I'm glad you're reasonably happy with what you have so far. I can, of course, cut down on the footnotes.

It's kind of you to admire the 'literary distancing technique' of referring to fifteenth century Catholicism in such terms as 'Green Christ' and 'Briar Cross'. In fact, this is not my technique for making sure the readers can't impose their own preconceptions about mediaeval life on the text! It's a direct translation of the mediaeval dog-Latin, as are the earlier Mithraic references. We shouldn't be too concerned, this is just some of the obviously false legendary material - supernatural lions and similar -attributed to Ash's childhood. Heroes always gather myths to themselves, still more so when they are not remarkable men but remarkable women.

Perhaps the Winchester Codex purports to reflect Ash's limited knowledge as a child: Ash at eight or ten years old knows only fields, woods, campaign tents, armour, washerwomen, dogs, soldiers, swords, saints, Lions. The company of mercenaries. Hills, rivers, towns - places have no names. How should she know what year it is? Dates don't matter yet.

All this changes, of course, in the next section: the del Guiz Life.

Like the editor of the 1939 edition of the 'Ash' papers, Vaughan Davies, I am using the original German version of the del Guiz Life of Ash, published in 1516. (Because of the inflammatory nature of the text it was immediately withdrawn, and republished in an expurgated form in 1518.) Apart from a few minor printing errors, this copy agrees with the four other surviving editions of the 1516 Life (in the British Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and the Glasgow Museum).

Here, I have a considerable advantage over Vaughan Davies, who was editing in 1939 - I can be explicit. I have therefore translated this text into modern colloquial English, especially the dialogue, where I use the educated and slang versions of our language to represent some of the social differences of that period. In addition, mediaeval soldiers were notoriously foul-mouthed. When Davies accurately translates Ash's bad language as, "By Christ's bones", however, the modern reader feels none of the contemporary shock. Therefore, I have again used modern-day equivalents. I'm afraid she does say "f.u.c.k" rather a lot.

Regarding your question about using different doc.u.mentary sources, my intention is not to follow Charles Mallory Maximillian's method. While I have a great admiration for his 1890 edition of the 'Ash' doc.u.ments, in which he translates the various Latin codices, each Life, etc., in turn, and lets their various authors speak for themselves, I feel this demands more than modern readers are willing to give. I intend to follow Vaughan Davies's biographical method, and weave the various authors into a coherent narrative of her life. Where texts disagree this will, of course, be given the appropriate scholarly discussion.

I realise that you will find some of my new material surprising, but remember that what it narrates is what these people genuinely thought to be happening to them. And, if you bear in mind the major alteration to our view of history that will take place when Ash: The Lost History of Burgundy is published, perhaps we would be wise not to dismiss anything too casually. Sincerely, Pierce- * * *

DR PlERCE RATCLIFF Ph.D. (War Studies) Flat 1, Rowan Court, 112 Olvera Street, London W14 OAB, United Kingdom Fax: HHHHHHH E-mail: HHHHHHH Tel: HHHHHHH Anna Longman Editor HHHHH University Press HHHHHHH.

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15 October 2000 Dear Anna, No indeed - although my conclusions will completely supersede theirs, I feel myself very fortunate to be following in the academic footsteps of two profound scholars. Vaughan Davies's Ash: A Biography was still a set text when I was at school! My love for this subject goes back even further, I must confess - to the Victorians, and Charles Mallory Maximillian's Ash: The Life of a Female Mediaeval Mercenary Captain.

Take, for example, Charles Mallory Maximillian on the subject of that unique country, mediaeval Burgundy - because, although the emphasis in the opening part of the main 'Ash' texts is on the Germanic courts, it is with her powerful Burgundian employers that she is finally most a.s.sociated. Here is CMM in full flood in 1890:- The story of Ash is, in some ways, the story of what we might call a 'lost' Burgundy. Of all the lands of Western Europe, it is Burgundy - this bright dream of chivalry - which both lasts for a shorter period than any other, and burns more brightly at its peak. Burgundy, under its four great Dukes, and the nominal kings.h.i.+p of France, becomes the last and greatest of the mediaeval kingdoms -aware, even as it flourishes, that it is harking back to another age. Duke Charles's cult of an 'Arthurian court' is, strange as it may seem to us in our modern, smoky, industrial world, an attempt to reawaken the high ideals of chivalry in this land of knights in armour, princes in fantastic castles, and ladies of surpa.s.sing beauty and accomplishment. For Burgundy, itself, thought itself corrupted; thought the fifteenth century so far removed from the Cla.s.sical Age of Gold that only a revival of these virtues of courage, honour, piety, and reverence could make it whole.

They did not foresee the printing press, the discovery of the New World, and the Renaissance; all to happen in the last twenty years of their century. And indeed, they took no part in it.

This, then, is the Burgundy which vanishes from memory and history in January, 1477. Ash, a Joan of Arc for Burgundy, perishes in the fray. The great bold Duke dies, slain by his old enemies the Swiss on the winter battlefield at Nancy; lies two or three days before his corpse can be recognised, because foot-soldiers have stripped him of all his finery; and so it is three days, as Commines tells us, before the King of France can give a great sigh of relief, and set about disposing of the Burgundian princes' lands. Burgundy vanishes.

Yet, if one studies the evidence, of course, Burgundy does not vanish at all. Like a stream which goes underground, the blood of Charles the Bold runs on through the history of Europe; becoming Hapsburg by marriage, merging into that Austro-Hungarian Empire which still - an ageing giant - survives to this day. What one can say is that we remember Burgundy as a lost and golden country. Why? What is it that we are remembering?

Charles Mallory Maximillian (ed.), Ash: The Life of a Female Mediaeval Mercenary Captain, J Dent & Sons, 1890; reprinted 1892, 1893, 1896, 1905.

CMM is, of course, the lesser scholar, full of romantic Victorian flourishes, and I am not depending on him in my translations. Ironically, of course, his narrative history is far more readable than the sociological histories that followed, even if it is more inaccurate! I suppose I am trying to synthesise rigorous historical and sociological accuracy with CMM's lyricism. I hope it can be done!

What he says is all perfectly factual, of course - the collection of counties, countries and duchies that was mediaeval Burgundy did 'vanish out of history', so to speak (although not before Ash fought in some of its most notable battles). It is true in the sense that remarkably little is written about Burgundy after its AD 1477 collapse.

But it was CMM's nostalgic lyricism about a 'Lost Burgundy', a magic interstice of history, that got me fascinated. Reading through it again, I feel a complete satisfaction, Anna, that I should have found, in my own field, what was 'lost' - and deduced exactly what that discovery implies.

I enclose the next fully translated section, Part One of the del Guiz Life: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi. A point, here - although the main bulk of my new ma.n.u.script, 'Fraxinus', covers events later in 1476, I am able to use parts of it to illuminate these already-existing texts, from where the del Guiz chronicle picks up her adult life in June of that year. You may find there are some surprises even in this 'old stuff, that eluded CMM and Vaughan Davies!

I appreciate that, for your up-coming sales conference, you need to be 'fully briefed', as you put it, on what my 'new historical theory' arising from 'Fraxinus' is. For various technical reasons, I'm afraid I do not choose to go into the implications in detail just yet.

Sincerely, Pierce.

PART ONE.

16 June AD 1476 [?]-l July AD 1476 Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi0.

Chapter One.

"Gentlemen," said Ash, "shut your faces!"

The clatter of helmet visors shutting sounded all along the line of hors.e.m.e.n.

Beside her, Robert Anselm paused with his hand to his throat, about to thrust the laminated plate of his steel bevor up into its locking position over his mouth and chin. "Boss, our lord hasn't told us we can attack them . . ."

Ash pointed. "Who gives a f.u.c.k? That's a chance down there and we're taking it!"

Ash's sub-captain Anselm was the only rider apart from herself in full armour. The rest of the eighty-one mounted knights wore helmets, bevors, good leg armour - the legs of a man on horseback being very vulnerable - and cheap body armour, the small overlapping metal plates sewn into a jacket called a brigandine.