Part 137 (1/2)
”Are you sure she hasn't?”
”Frankly? No.” Ash turned to the Earl of Oxford. ”This is speculation. What do you know?”
”I know,” the Earl said, ”that my men and I are a week in front of two Visigoth legions travelling north to Dijon.”
”s.h.i.+t!” Ash stared at him. ”Fresh troops from Africa? He hasn't got any! Has he pulled them out of Egypt - or Carthage itself?”
”Sultan Mehmet has an extensive spy network.” John de Vere placed his goblet carefully on the floor. ”I trust his information. The Sinai fortresses are still manned. As for Carthage . . . Riding with these legions, on his way here to take personal command of his armies and send the Faris home to Carthage, is the King-Caliph Gelimer.”
Stunned, Ash said, ”Gelimer's coming here?”
”He has to make his example of Burgundy.”
”But, Gelimer?”
The Earl of Oxford leaned forward in his chair, stabbing a finger emphatically in the air between them. ”And not alone, madam. According to the Sultan's spies, he has representatives of two of his subject nations with him. One is Frederick of Hapsburg, lately Holy Roman Emperor. This I know for truth; we came across his lands, riding here. The other is said to be an envoy of Louis of France.”
The travel-stained English Earl paused. Olivier de la Marche, nodding furiously, bent to hear what Chamberlain-Counsellor Ternant whispered in his ear.
”King-Caliph Gelimer must take Dijon,” John de Vere announced flatly. ”And - pardon me, madam Florian - he must kill the Duke or d.u.c.h.ess. You are the heart of resistance to him, and Burgundy is the last land that stands against him in conquered Europe. That's why, if his female general won't do it for him - the man must come here and do it himself.”
Olivier de la Marche glanced at Floria for permission, and spoke. ”If he fails, lord Oxford?”
John de Vere's gaze sharpened, the lines creasing in the corners of his eyes. It was, Ash saw, a smile that lacked all kindness: a pure wolfish expression.
”France has a peace treaty with the King-Caliph.” De Vere displayed an open hand to Ash. ”Your French knight who was so anxious to escape Dijon? He would have been trying to reach Louis with news of the failing siege. France has been all but untouched by this war. I give you the dark, but, Maine, Anjou, Aquitaine, Normandy - all of them could mobilise, now, if they thought Gelimer weak.”
”And the north Germanies-!” Ash ignored de la Marche's sharp look, lost in battle calculations of her own that momentarily ignored Burgundian troops and d.u.c.h.ess and Wild Machines. ”Frederick surrendered so fast this summer, half his armies never got into battle! Sweet Christ, the Visigoths are out on a limb!”
John de Vere's gaze stayed on Floria. ”Madam, there are villagers and villeins from France and the Germanies flocking over the borders into Burgundy. Outside of your lands there is nothing but howling darkness, cold, and a winter such as men have never known. That is all Louis or Frederick would need as an excuse to come in now and attack the King-Caliph, that their own people have taken protection with you.”
”Refugees.” Floria winced, wrapping her fur-lined gown more tightly around her. ”Out in that. Good G.o.d. What's it like beyond the border, if this is better? But I don't know about these refugees.”
”You don't need to know, madam, for the Spider to make that his excuse.”
”And then there's the Sultan.” Ash ignored her surgeon's outrage; looked at de Vere with growing fierce exultation. ”The waiting armies of the Turk . . . Gelimer has to take Burgundy. If he doesn't win here, and quickly, France and the Germanies will carve up Europe between them and the Turks will be in Carthage in a month.”
”Sweet Christ, As.h.!.+” Floria stood up. ”Don't sound so b.l.o.o.d.y pleased about it!”
”Maybe England will come in, too-” Ash broke off. She looked down at her hands, and then back up at Floria. ”I enjoy the thought of that son of a b.i.t.c.h in trouble.”
”He's in trouble? What about us!”
Ash guffawed, not able to stop herself even for the look of sheer outrage on Philippe Ternant's face. Floria laughed out loud. She sat down again in the ducal chair with her legs apart under her skirts, as a man wearing hose sits; and her bright eyes and thick gold brows were still the same under the horn crown.
”No harvest,” Floria said. ”No cattle. No shelter. Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds have made it a wasteland out there. If people are coming into these lands, it must be h.e.l.l outside ...”
Excitement died. And we don't even know why we have the sun - by right, we shouldn't have.
Floria's expression was taut, ambiguous - also gnawing at that unspoken question?
Olivier de la Marche lifted his hand, catching de Vere's attention. ”It's dark as far as Constantinople now, you say, my lord? The King-Caliph can't have intended that. Not such a deliberate provocation to the Turk.”
Philippe Ternant added, ”If it is the lands which they conquer that fall Under the Penance with them, then Constantinople would still be bright. Not Visigoths, then. My lord of Oxford, our d.u.c.h.ess's knowledge of the Great Devils must be shared with you.”
”I know something of this matter already.” De Vere's face was still; Ash thought him remembering a sea-strand outside Carthage, and a silver glow in the south. ”Only, I am uncertain as to the lady's place in this.”
”The d.u.c.h.ess will tell you later.” Ash caught Floria's eye, and surprised herself by waiting for the surgeon's nod before going on: ”My lords, it seems to me that Gelimer's caught in his own trap. I stood in Carthage three months ago, when he took the crown, and I heard him promise the Visigoth lords and everyone else that he'd smash Burgundy as an example - he has to do it now. He's got his own amirs on his heels, Louis and Frederick closing in, and the Sultan waiting to see if now's the time to come in from the east.” A brief smile moved her mouth. ”When he started to get reports of the Faris soft-pedalling the siege here and his conquests grinding to a halt, I'll bet money that he shat himself.”
Floria sat up in her chair. ”Ash, what you mean is, he has to kill us. Me. As quickly as possible.”
Clear through the frost-bitten air, not m.u.f.fled by the expensive gla.s.s, a lone bell tolled. Potter's Field, Ash realised: more bodies stacked for a thaw that would enable burial. The impact of rocks and artillery boomed from the south of the city. The roofs and walls between this palace and the army outside the city did not seem much of a barrier.
Ash slowly nodded.
”Christ up a Tree!” Floria exclaimed, oblivious to the shock of her Burgundians. ”And you act like this is good news!”
Her head whipped round at John de Vere's burst of laughter. The English Earl met her questioning stare, shook his head, and held out an inviting hand to Ash: ”Madam, you have it, I think?”
”It is good news!” Ash walked across the bare boards to Floria, taking the woman's hands between her own. Fiercely intense, joyous; she said, ”It's the best news we could have. Florian, the d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy has to stay alive. You know that's all that matters, whether you like it or not. I've spent five weeks trying to find a safe way out of Dijon, to get you away to somewhere else -France, maybe; England, who cares? Anywhere, as long as it's not here, at risk from any d.a.m.n Visigoth peasant with an arquebus. And every time I've got someone over the walls, they've come back dead.”
De Vere nodded approval; some of the Burgundians looked grim.
”I haven't been able to break us out of here,” Ash said, still holding Floria's gaze. ”There's been nothing we can do. That's what's demoralising. Doing nothing except wait for the Faris to make up her mind to attack or not. Well -now someone else is making it up for her.”
”Someone who's not going to sit outside the walls waiting,” the surgeon-d.u.c.h.ess observed. The grip of her fingers tightened on Ash's hands. ”Christ, As.h.!.+ What happens when Gelimer gets here and they really start trying!”
”We hold out.”
She spoke so closely on the heels of Floria's words that she eradicated them.
De la Marche and Ternant began to look up with cautious enthusiasm.
”We hold out,” Ash said again. ”Because the longer we can do it - the longer Dijon stands - then the weaker Gelimer looks. Day by day by day. He's made us a public test of his strength. The weaker he looks, the more chance of Louis or Frederick breaking their treaties and attacking him without warning. The more chance of the Sultan deciding to invade, without warning. Once that happens -once it does turn into a three-cornered fight - then we've got options again. We can get you out of here. We can hide you.”
”Get you to a foreign court,” the Earl of Oxford put in.
Ash let go of Floria's hands. She reached out and picked the horn cross from the woman's breast, the antler chill under her fingers.
”If it comes to it,” she said softly, ”and they kill you outside of Dijon, but they're occupied with a full-on war, then the Burgundians can hold another Hunt. It doesn't matter who's Duke or d.u.c.h.ess, so long as somebody's there. Someone who can stop the Faris.”
Ash could see on Olivier de la Marche's face that he took it for a hard piece of military realism. Florian snorted.
”You always did have odd priorities! I want to stay alive. But you're right, they could hunt,” she said, ”and there would be someone to stop the Wild Machines.”
I would sooner have you alive.
It caught under her breastbone, a pain as sharp as sheered ribs. Ash stared at the woman - dishevelled, insouciant; not one word in five weeks of refusal to take on the appalling responsibility of the Duchy. And in five weeks I haven't seen you drunk.