Ash: A Secret History (131 page)

As if it cost him nothing, the Duke shifted himself up into a sitting position.

“Your men are concerned that you will no longer consult with the
machina rei militaris
” he said. “It is said—”

“‘My men’? Since when do you know about my men?”

He frowned at her bald interruption.

“If you would be treated with respect, behave as a commander does. Reports are made to me of rumours, tavern-talk. You are far too well known for them not to speculate about you, Captain Ash.”

A little shaken, Ash said, “Sorry, your Grace.”

He inclined his head slightly. “Their concerns are mine, to a degree, Captain. It seems to me that, even if this
machina rei militaris
is a tool of the Visigoths, there is nothing to stop you consulting it, perhaps learning of their tactics and plans, also. Knowledge would make our numbers seem greater. We would know where and when to strike.”

His black stare challenged her.

Ash put her palms flat on her thighs, staring down at her gauntlets.

“You see Darkness when you look at the horizon, your Grace. Do you want to know what I see?” She raised her head. “I see pyramids, your Grace. Across the middle sea, I see the desert, and the light, and the Wild Machines. They’re what I’d hear, if I spoke to the Stone Golem. And they’d hear me. And then I’d be dead.” Irrespective of his sense of humour, Ash added, “You’re not the only fire magnet in Dijon, your Grace.”

He ignored her pleasantry. “These Wild Machines are not merely more Visigoth engines? Think. You could be mistaken.”

“No. They’re nothing made by any lord-
amir
.”

“Might they have been destroyed, in the earthquake that destroyed Carthage?”

“No. They’re still there. The rag-heads think they’re a sign!” Ash, bleak, saw that her hands had made fists, without her intention. She unclenched her fingers. “Lord Duke, put yourself in my position. I hear a Visigoth tactics machine. By accident. And what I hear is itself a puppet. It isn’t the King-Caliph who wanted war with Burgundy, your Grace. It isn’t Lord-
Amir
Leofric who wanted to breed the Faris to talk to the Stone Golem. This is the Wild Machines’ war.”

Charles nodded absently. “Yet, now your sister knows you are here, she will communicate that fact to the
machina rei militaris.
So these greater machines will – overhear – that you are in Dijon. May already have heard.”

A hot wire of fear twisted in her guts at the thought. “I know that, my lord.”

Charles of Burgundy said firmly, “You are mine, for now, Commander. Speak to your voice. Let us learn what we can, while we can. The Visigoths may find some way to stop you from hearing the
machina rei militaris,
and then we have lost an advantage.”

“
If
she’s still using it… This isn’t my business! My business is to command my men in the field!”

“Not your business, perhaps, but your responsibility.” The Duke leaned forward, black eyes feverish. Very deliberately, he said, “You visited your sister, under parley, to speak of this. She will look for answers, as you do. And she may move freely to seek them.”

He held her gaze.

“You say this is the Wild Machines’ war.
You
are all I have that will aid me in finding out what these Machines are, and why I am at war.”

Charles’s body shifted, on the hard bed; and he took more of his weight on his left arm, not leaning back at all.

He said, “We have no Faris, but we have you. And no great time to waste. I will not let Burgundy fall because of one woman’s fear.”

Ash looked from side to side. The white stone walls of the palace reflected back the day’s grey light. The chamber seemed suddenly constricting.
Dijon is a trap in more than one way.

Pages busily took wine around among the men behind her, near the hearth-fire. She heard the high-pitched yelp of one of the pups, seeking its bitch; and an urgent buzz of talk.

“Let me tell you something, your Grace.” The urge to lie, to conceal, to prevaricate, all but overwhelmed her. “You made the worst mistake of your life before Auxonne.”

An expression of affront crossed his face, gone almost before she could register it. Charles of Burgundy said, “You are blunt. Give me your reason for saying this.”

“Two mistakes.” Ash ticked them off on her gauntleted fingers: “First, you didn’t finance my company to go south with Oxford, before Auxonne. If you’d supported the raid on Carthage, we might have taken out the Stone Golem months ago. Second, when you did let the Earl raid Carthage, you kept half my company back here. If we’d had more men, we might have broken House Leofric – high casualties, but we might just have done it. And we’d have broken the Stone Golem into rubble.”

“When my lord of Oxford travelled to Africa, I spared him all the fighting men I could. The rest I needed to man the walls of Dijon. I grant you, a raid in force, beforehand, might have been better. In retrospect, I misjudged it.”

Son of a bitch, Ash thought, looking at the man in the sick bed with a new respect.

Charles of Burgundy’s voice went on steadily: “Denying the use of the
machina rei militaris
to their Faris would both weaken her, since I believe she relies upon it; and by morale, weaken her men. I cannot see, however, that failing to bring that about is the worst mistake of my life. Who knows but that may be yet to come?”

She met his fever-bright eyes, detecting a slight – a very slight – glint of humour. Behind her, she heard movement. The Duke of Burgundy signalled past her, to pages, who shepherded back the armed nobles anxious to speak with him.

“I’ve had the Wild Machines in my head,” she said, watching him steadily. “You haven’t. They’re louder than God, your Grace. I’ve had them turn me around and walk me towards them—”

He interrupted: “Possession by demons? I have seen you brave in the field, but, yes, any man would fear that.”

Since he seemed entirely oblivious of that
any man,
Ash let it go. She leaned forward, speaking with intensity:

“They’re machines, stones that live; the ancient peoples made them first, I think, and then they grew of themselves.” She held the Duke’s gaze. “I do know, your Grace. I listened to them. I – think I
made
them tell me, all in a second. Maybe because they weren’t expecting it, weren’t expecting me. After that, I ran; I ran from Carthage, and the desert, and I kept on running. And I wish that was
all
—”

She reached for her sword’s pommel; remembered it to be in Rochester’s hands, further down the chamber; and clasped her fingers together again to stop them shaking. She could, for a moment, only try to quiet her rapid, shallow breathing.

“If it wasn’t for my company, I wouldn’t be in Dijon, I’d still be running!”

Confident, he reached to clasp her hands in his. “You are here, and will fight in whatever way you can. Even if it means talking to the
machina rei militaris
for me.”

She took her hands away, bleak. “When I said that not destroying it was the worst mistake of your life, I meant it. The Wild Machines could speak to Gundobad because he was a Wonder-Worker, a miraculous prophet. And then – your Grace,
then they spent centuries in silence until Friar Roger Bacon built a Brazen Head in Carthage, and House Leofric built the Stone Golem.
”

The Duke stared. Back down the chamber, a hooded hawk cried: brief, high, pained. As if it jolted him, he said, “They speak through the
machina rei militaris.
”

“
Only
through it.”

“You are certain of this?”

“It’s their knowledge, not mine.” Ash wiped a hand over her face, hot with sweat, but did not shift her stool away from the charcoal brazier. “I think they need a channel of some kind to speak to us, your Grace. Those like the Green Christ or the Prophet Gundobad aren’t born more than once or twice in a thousand years. The Wild Machines need Bacon’s devices, or Leofric’s; otherwise they’re dumb. They’ve been secretly manipulating the Stone Golem ever since it was made. If they could have manipulated the Visigoth Empire any other way, by now they would have!”

Looking at him, she surprised a look of pain on the Duke’s face that had nothing to do with any wound.

“What would they have had now,” she said bitterly, “if I could have destroyed the Stone Golem last summer? Nothing! They’re
stone.
They can’t move or speak. They might compel the earth to shake, but only in Carthage.”

Memories of falling masonry invade her mind: she pushes them away.

“If I’d managed to take it out, we’d have been safe! There’d be peace by now. The Visigoth Empire’s over-extended, they need to consolidate what they’ve taken. It’s only because the damn Stone Golem keeps telling them to take Burgundy that they’re keeping on with this campaign! And the Stone Golem’s only relaying the words of the Wild Machines.”

“Then we must see if we cannot mount another raid,” Charles of Burgundy said, “more successfully.”

In the over-heated ducal chamber, seated by a wounded man, Ash found herself suddenly and unwillingly invaded by hope.

“No shit? They’re probably manipulating to get a hell of a guard on House Leofric now…”

“It might be done.” Charles frowned, ignoring her coarseness; calculating. “I cannot weaken the defence here. If orders could be got north, to Flanders, and my wife’s army; she might send a major force out by the Narrow Sea, and south down the coast of Iberia. You will talk to my captains. Perhaps now, when the Goths are over-extended, and before Carthage has recovered its defences…”

Something unexpected moved her. She recognised it as the perception of possibility.
Could we do it? Go back to Carthage, trash the place? If we could – oh, if we could! Damn, I knew there had to be
some
reason the Burgundians followed this man!

Taking instant decisions, as battles have taught her to, Ash said, “Count me in.”

“Good. All the more important, now, that you speak with the
machina rei militaris,
Captain Ash. And, when you hear these ‘Wild Machines’, that you tell me what they are planning.”

All her hope vanished in a rush of fear.

Can’t get away from it; can’t
not
tell him—

I can try not to.

“Your Grace, what happens when
they
hear
me?
I could be controlled—” She caught his expression. “You said yourself, anyone would be afraid! You pray, your Grace, but you wouldn’t want the voice of God in your head, I promise you.”

“These ‘Wild Machines’ are not God.” His voice was gentle. “God permits them to exist, for a time. We must deal with them as we can. With courage.”

By the way he looked at her, she thought Charles of Burgundy might have his own doubts about her piety.

“I
know
what they’re planning!” she protested. “Trust me, there isn’t any need to ask twice! All I heard from them in Carthage was
Burgundy must be
destroyed!
”

“‘
Burgundia delenda est
’…”

“Yes.
Why?
” She sounded loud, brash, brutal. “Why, your Grace? Burgundy’s rich – or it was – and powerful, but that isn’t it. France and the Germanies were allowed to surrender. What’s so important about Burgundy that they want it razed to the ground, and then they want to piss on the ashes?”

The Duke drew himself together, having considerable presence despite his sick bed. He looked at her keenly.

“I may give you no reason why they should wish Burgundy destroyed.”

His ambiguity was plain.

Not sure if it were trust or resignation that she felt, Ash merely looked at him.

“Destroy this link,” Charles said, “and we have only the Visigoth Empire to meet in the field. That, I believe we can do. We have taken harder blows than this and come back with victory. So you must listen for me, master Captain, if we are to attempt Africa again. Call your voices to you.”

Carried on his words, she came to herself with a shock as cold as spring-water. She sat back on the stool.

“Your Grace, I don’t think I’ll be much good to you.”

Ash looked away from his face. She said steadily:

“The last time I – listened to where my voice is, I heard the voice of my priest, Father Maximillian. That was yesterday. Godfrey Maximillian died, in Carthage, two months ago.”

Charles watched her, neither judgement or condemnation in his face.

She protested, “If you think I’m hearing illusions, your Grace, you won’t think that
any
voice I hear can be trusted!”

“‘Illusions’.” Charles, Duke of Burgundy, reached out among the papers that surrounded him, uncovering one with an effort. As he read, he said, “You
would
call it that, Captain Ash. You say nothing of demons, or of temptation by the devil. Or even that this Father Maximillian may be with the saints, and this the answer to your sorrow at losing him.”

“If it is Godfrey—” Ash clenched her fist. “It is Godfrey. The Faris hears him, too. A ‘heretic priest’, she said. If
both
of us… I think when he died, there, as they shook the earth, his soul went into the machine – he’s trapped, his soul is trapped in the
machina rei militaris.
And whatever’s left of him – not a whole man – is there for the Wild Machines to pick apart…”

He reached out to grip her arm.

“You do not grieve easily, or well.”

Ash pressed her lips together. “You’ve lost men under your leadership, so you know how it is, your Grace. You carry on with the ones you’ve got.”

“War has made you hard, not strong.”

His tone was not condemnatory, but kind. His grip on her arm did not feel like that of a sick man. She flinched. Charles released her.

“Captain Ash, I have noted down on this paper, here, that I spoke to your Father Maximillian, some days before the field of Auxonne. He came to me for a letter of passage across these lands, and for a letter requesting the Abbot of Marseilles to find him a place on a ship to the south.”