Part 80 (1/2)
”You reckon?” Ash took it, crammed it in her mouth as her stomach groaned with hunger, and pa.s.sed two more handfuls on to Huw and Morgan. Saliva filled her mouth. She chewed raggedly, swallowed, licked her fingers, and exclaimed, ”Wat, where'd you get my old boots from!”
”Best beef,” Rodway lisped, his tone aggrieved.
Euen Huw, under his breath, said, ”It was, before you cooked it.”
Ash spluttered into a giggle. ”Where's Oxford?”
”Here, madam.”
He still wore his full harness, and did not look as if he had taken his armour off since Carthage. Ground-in dirt made the lines around his eyes plainly visible.
”Are you well?”
”I have things I must tell you.” She saw her officers in de Vere's wake and beckoned them up; and Floria joined the group, out of the darkness, carrying a lantern that showed her dirty, pale about the eyes, and with a fierce frown.
”Are you losing your mind?” Floria said without preliminary.
Both Angelotti and Geraint looked shocked.
Ash gestures them around her with the familiar movement, so that they squat, the lantern showing them each other's faces, in a circle on the wave-beaten beach ten miles west of Carthage.
The voices in her mind are - not fainter, but less powerful. As winter sunlight is no less light than the summer sun, but is thinner, weaker, without the same heavy fire and warmth. So the whispers in her mind nag at her, but do not force her body out of her own control.
”Too much to tell you . . . but I will. First, I have orders, and a suggestion,”' Ash said. ”I plan now to go back to Dijon. To Robert Anselm, and the rest of the company. Most of my men will come with me, my lord Oxford - if only because they're dead if they stay in North Africa. We may have desertions once we're back in the north, but I think I can get most of them to Dijon.”
She hesitated, her eyes screwed up, as if against remembered light.
”The sun's still s.h.i.+ning in Burgundy. Dear G.o.d, I want to see- daylight!”
”And then what?” de Vere said. ”What will you have us do, madam?”
”I can't command you. I wish I could.” Ash smiled, very slightly, at the English Earl's expression. ”We are facing an enemy behind the enemy, my lord.”
De Vere knelt, listening gravely.
She said, ”We are facing something that doesn't care what happens, so long as Burgundy is taken - I don't think they care about the Visigoth Empire at all.”
The Earl of Oxford continued to regard her, with a contained deliberation.
”You hold an ancient t.i.tle,” Ash said, ”and whether in exile or not, you are one of the foremost soldiers of the age. My lord Oxford, I go back to Dijon, but you should not. You should go elsewhere.”
Over protests, John de Vere said, ”Explain, madam.”
”Something demonic is our enemy . . .” And, when his expression changed, and he crossed himself, Ash leaned forward and said, ”If you'll listen to me, this is what you should do. Christendom is subject, now. The Visigoth Empire either has treaties, or it has conquered, almost everything except Burgundy -and England, but England is in little danger.”
”You think not?”
Ash took a breath. ”There is an enemy behind the enemy . . . The Stone Golem processes military problems, it tells Leofric and through him the King-Caliph how they should attack - and for the last twenty years it's said attack Christendom. But what speaks through the Stone Golem, that doesn't care about Christendom. Just Burgundy.”
John de Vere repeated, ”An enemy behind our enemy.”
”Who wants Burgundy, not England; it's all Burgundy. The Visigoths will take every other city, and then they'll take Dijon, and the Faris will lay the countryside waste - I don't know why the Wild Machines hate Burgundy, but they do.” The echo of voices s.h.i.+vering her spine. ”They do . . .”
Oxford said briskly, ”And you think that one mercenary company, reunited in Dijon, will prevent this?”
”Stranger things have happened in war, but I don't much care about the destruction of Burgundy.” Ash caught Floria's eyes fixed on her. She ignored the woman's gaze. ”I plan to go to Dijon - and then break out, take s.h.i.+p for England, be four hundred miles away, and see what happens to the crusade when the Burgundian Dukes are defeated and dead. The further away I am, the better ...”
Voices in her mind: faint still.
”... But if they don't stop at Burgundy, my lord of Oxford, then I can think of only one thing that might stop the conquest.” De Vere's faded blue eyes blinked, in the pungent lantern light. ”Which is?”
”We should part company here,” Ash said. ”You should sail east.”
”East?”
”Sail to Constantinople - and ask the Turks for help against the Visigoths.”
”The Turks?”
John de Vere began to laugh. It was a resonant deep bark that turned heads. He rested his arm across d.i.c.kon de Vere's shoulders - avoiding his young brother's bandaged head - and guffawed.
”Go to the Turks, for help? Madam Captain!”
”Maybe they're not allied with the King-Caliph. I didn't see them at the crowning. My lord, there's what's left of the Burgundian army, and that's it.
The Turks are going to try and take Christendom from the Visigoths anyway, you could persuade them to do it now-”
”Madam, I would sooner try to go back and take Carthage!”
Dark shapes occluded the waves. Ash stood, peering into the darkness. She did not need Rochester's runner, bare moments later, to tell her that these were the fabled galleys.
”Given the state their harbour's in . . .” Ash shrugged. ”And we have two s.h.i.+ps: maybe we should go back, and try and blast House Leofric off the cliff-face! Get the Stone Golem that way. My lord, we could go back-”
'BACK!'.
Faint, now, but piercing as distant horns: the voices of the Wild Machines yammer in her mind: 'YOU WILL NOT TOUCH THE STONE GOLEM-!'
'-NOT HARM-'
'-NOT DESTROY-'
'-YOU AND YOUR PEOPLE WILL LEAVE!'
'YOU WILL ORDER THEM!'.
'IT IS NOT TO BE TOUCHED!'.
'IT IS PROTECTED!'.