"Master Captain Angelotti," Euen Huw answered. "He"s up there trying to bust into this s.h.i.t-rich lord-amir"s house - "course, his house couldn"t fall down like the rest of them, could it? No chance!"
"Which lord-amir - no, tell me later. What are you motherf.u.c.kers doing out here?"
"We"re a picket, boss, wouldn"t you know it? Waiting for all them little rag-heads to turn up and try to mince us into the ground."
His sardonic sarcasm got answering grins from his lance. Ash let herself chuckle.
"I"m just sorry for the Goths! Okay, stick to it. And watch it! You"re in the middle of an overturned hive here."
"Don"t we know it!" Euen Huw grinned.
"Mark Tydder"s body"s down one of those alleys, you - Michel - go scout it; then you and another man bring him back, if the road"s clear. We don"t leave our own-"
A sudden image bit into her mind. G.o.dfrey, his green robe black with water and filth, and the white splinters of bone above his tanned brow. Her eyes stung.
"-if we can help it. If any troops show up, report to me f.u.c.king fast. I"ll be with HQ."
Euen Huw said cheerfully, "Boss, you are HQ."
"Not until I know what the h.e.l.l Oxford thinks he"s doing! You." She indicated the redheaded lance-second, Thomas Morgan. "Lead me to Oxford and Angelotti. And you guys here, close that f.u.c.king lantern up! I could see you a mile off! None of you have got the brains of a field mouse, but that"s no reason you shouldn"t make it home - just follow my orders! Okay, let"s go! Move it!"
As she moved off, Thomas Morgan"s tall broad back blocking the hastily closed lantern, she heard a man mutter, "s.h.i.t, lil" scarface is back . . ."
"Too f.u.c.king right," Ash growled.
They"re alive!
With the lantern gone and the cloud-cover thick, it was impossible to see anything but blackness, but there were voices ahead of her now, and the shouts of men sponging gun-breeches and loading them: she tucked her mittened fingers under the back of Thomas Morgan"s belt and followed his uncertain progress as he tapped his way down the cobbles with the shaft of his bill, the wood knocking against spilled masonry and rubble.
A coldness crept into her belly. Her mind put nightmare pictures on the darkness in front of her: these men, men that she knows, trapped in these streets, trapped inside the middle of a walled city - a walled city within a walled city - and all of Carthage outside, the amirs, their household troops, the King-Caliph"s army, the merchants and the workers and the slaves, each an enemy- What f.u.c.king dangerous lunatic brought them here? Ash wondered bleakly, furiously. How do I get them out of here?
And do what we have to do, first?
Thomas Morgan stumbled, muttered something obscene, clattered his bill-shaft against a splintered masonry block, and stepped to the right. She kept her footing and followed.
How many of my guys are here now? What the f.u.c.k is Oxford thinking of? Just because we"re mercenaries doesn"t mean you can stick us out as a forlorn hope and leave us to die - well, maybe he thinks it does - I thought better of him- The quality of the air changed.
Glancing up, Ash saw how the clouds, shredding, opened on bright stars: the constellations of the Eternal Twilight. Quickly she lowered her gaze. Her night vision took enough from the starlight to let her see where she stepped, drop her hand from Thomas Morgan"s belt, and focus on the corner of the blank-walled house in front of her.
Way down on her right, ahead, the building"s ma.s.sive iron-banded main gates hung splintered and blasted - cannon-fire, not quake damage. Gun-crews crowded the corner here, behind a cl.u.s.ter of pavises.1 Two swivel guns2 had their supporting spikes jammed down into the dirt where the quake had split the cobblestones. Men, swearing bitterly and shouting; were trying to shoot fifty yards cross-wise down the alley and blast the gates open - no room to get cannon up close, opposite the House gate, not in an alley no more than ten feet wide.
More men came running in, pavises going up, looted wooden doors piled as makeshift defences. A silent flight of bolts impacted ten yards from her feet, blasting up splinters of stone. Antonio Angelotti"s voice - Angeli! Ash grinned, delighted at the recognition, his presence - screamed a beautiful obscenity. On the House roof, men briefly moved: shooting down: Visigoths, Visigoth House guards, this house- Ash felt a sudden stab of memory. Genuine? Illusory? I think we"ve come north, I"ve come all the way back from the King-Caliph"s palace, this is how I was brought into Leofric"s house - this is House Leofric-!
Realisation hit her.
Oh s.h.i.t. I know why Oxford"s here.
He"s doing what I said I was going to do.
He"s here for the Stone Golem.
Thomas Morgan bellowed, "Here they are, boss," in a tone that suddenly held doubt.
Ash trotted past him, into the alley that dead-ended on her right, lit with lanterns and torches; all filled up with men and their shouting, men running, two more swivel guns commanding the alley directly in front of House Leofric, having their breeches frantically sponged and shot rammed home. A tall, fair-haired man in Italian doublet and demi-gown crouched by the gun-crews, shouting - Angelotti - and a dozen other familiar faces: the deacon Richard Faversham, a skinny blond man with his hands wrist-deep in a sack of bandages, behind a big pavise and two billmen - Florian de Lacey, Floria del Guiz - and beyond her a ma.s.sive cl.u.s.ter of men in breastplates and leg-harness, with maces and arquebuses, and Lion livery - and a young corn-haired knight in half-armour, d.i.c.kon de Vere; and John de Vere himself taking off his sallet to wipe his forehead- She has a split-second to study them while they, busy in ordered chaos, ignore her arrival. It puts a curdle of panic into her bowels: to be facing men, soldiers, who ignore her as if she isn"t there - this is the commander"s dread of authority (that spider-thread) disappearing like mist. Who is she, that anyone should do what she says?
The person who persuaded them off their farms and into this business. Into many wet mornings on gra.s.sy blood-soaked hills, many nights in burning towns sprawling with mutilated bodies. The person whom they will think can get them through this alive.
Two or three nearer heads turned, Thomas Morgan"s visible presence penetrating their attention. One of the gunners put down his worm, staring; another man dropped the breech of the second gun. Three Flemish billmen stopped talking and gaped.
Antonio Angelotti said a foul word in utterly musical Italian.
Floria slowly stood up, her face in the flaring light broken with hope, with amazement, with a sudden wrenching fear.
"Get down in cover!" Ash bawled at her.
Ash nevertheless remained in the open. She reached up and unbuckled the strap of Mark Tydder"s sallet, easing it off her vulnerable head. Her cropped silver hair stood up in spikes, sweaty despite the freezing air. Even with the risk of some b.a.s.t.a.r.d getting me with a composite bow, they have to see me.
"f.u.c.k," someone said, awe-struck.
Ash tucked the sallet under her arm. The metal was freezing, even through the leather palms of her mittens. Lantern light fell on the livery tabard that she wore, black and stiff with dried blood at the throat, the Lion Azure plain across her chest. Her hands, m.u.f.fled in too-large mail mittens, and her feet in too-large boots, gave her the appearance of a child in adult clothing. A tall skinny child with three scars standing out dark against the skin of her frozen white cheeks.
And then she moved, put her other fist on her hip, to be recognisably their Ash, Captain Ash, condottiere: a woman unlawfully dressed as a man, in doublet and hose, hair cut short as a serf"s, face gaunt with hunger and pain, but with a shining grin that lit up her eyes.
"It"s the boss!" Thomas Morgan called, his voice shaky.
"ASH!".
She couldn"t tell who shouted: they were all moving by then, careless of the armed household a few yards away; men running, shouting the news to their lance-mates, Angelotti reaching her first, tears streaming down his powder-black features, throwing his arms around her; Floria shoving him bodily aside to grab her arms, stare into her face, all questions; and then a throng: Henri de Treville, Ludmilla Rostovnaya, d.i.c.kon Stour, Pieter Tyrrell, and Thomas Rochester with the Lion banner, Geraint ab Morgan in deep-voiced Welsh amazement: all piling on to her, mailed hands thumping her back, voices shouting, everyone too loud for her to make herself heard: "s.h.i.t, look what happens to you motherf.u.c.kers when I leave you alone for five minutes! Where the f.u.c.k is Roberto?"
"Dijon!" Floria, a tall dirty-faced man to all appearances, grabbed at her arm. "Is it you? You look older. Your hair- You"ve been prisoner here? You escaped?" And at Ash"s nod of agreement: "Our Lady! You didn"t have to walk back in on this. You could have walked away. One man could make it out of here alone-"
She"s right. Ash felt a startled realisation. I stood a much better chance of slipping away alone. I didn"t have to come up this street and put myself in the middle of a - very small - bunch of armed lunatics.
But it didn"t occur to me not to.
There was no regret in her mind, not even wonder; all the amazement was on Floria"s face. The disguised woman surgeon touched Ash"s cold, scarred cheek. "Why would I expect anything different? Welcome to the madhouse!"
I"ll tell her about G.o.dfrey later, Ash decided; and lifted her head and looked around at the circle of faces, the men sweating despite the chill air, weapons unsheathed, two men further away climbing down from a high wall.
"Get me my officers!"
"Yes, boss!" Morgan ran.
We"re in one of the alleys that run around three sides of House Leofric to the end of the cliff, Ash thought with a minute and detailed realisation. The fourth side is the Citadel wall itself.
She looked down the cross-alley.
I am looking north. To the Citadel wall. Over that wall - and a f.u.c.king long way down - is Carthage harbour.
In the torch and lantern light she cannot be sure: there may be a glow beyond the wall, and noise, far down below.
"Geraint!" She grinned up at Geraint ab Morgan as he pelted back from the barrier of pavises, slapping his shoulder.
"f.u.c.k, it is you!"
"Got us here by sea, did you? I a.s.sume we have ships? How are you enjoying foreign travel to the Eternal Twilight, Geraint?"
"Hate it!" Her big-shouldered captain of archers grinned at her, half sardonic, all amazed. "Not me, boss, I didn"t do this! I get seasick, see."
"Seasick?"
""S why I"m an archer. Not a wool merchant like my family. I used to leave meals with the fishes all the way from Bristol to Bruges." Geraint ab Morgan wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. "And all the way across from Ma.r.s.eilles to here in those f.u.c.king galleys. I just hope it"s worth it. Rich, is he, your father?"
A group of her men ran over with pavises, and she dropped to one knee behind the temporary shelter as her other officers ran up. Ash buckled her sallet back on, staring at the gates of House Leofric: fifty yards along the alley ahead, blasted by two - or three? - cannon shot, but still intact. Need more guns.
"Leofric"s not my father. He is rich. But we"ll be travelling light, so keep it to the easy, portable bits of loot - got it?"
"Got it, boss. Oh yes."
Ash made a mental note to search Geraint on the way back to whatever ships there might be.
"How the f.u.c.k did you guys get here?"
"Venetian galleys," Antonio Angelotti said, at her ear; and when she looked at him, his angelic lashes lowered over amused eyes: "My lord Oxford found us a pair of Venetian captains who survived the burning of the Republic. There is nothing they would not do, to harm Carthage."
"Where are they?"
"Moored ten miles west of here, along the coast. We came in disguised as a wagon-caravan from Alexandria. I thought - we thought they might have taken you, after Auxonne. There were rumours you were in Carthage."
"No s.h.i.t? For once, rumour"s right."
The expectation was less marked on Angelotti"s face, but it was there all the same in his eyes, as it was in all the eyes watching her. A trust, an expectation. Ash felt fear pang in the pit of her belly again, crouching behind the flimsy shields.
Down to me. We got to do this and get out - or just get out - or we"re all dead. However many of them are here, they"re dead men if I can"t get them out. And they expect me to do it. They"ve expected it for five years now.
My responsibility. Even if de Vere brought them in.
The freezing winds from the southern desert moved across her face, bringing a faint sound of shouting and panic-stricken confusion up from the centre of the Citadel. Nothing moving here in this broken place. Where is Leofric, where are his men? Where are the King-Caliph"s men? What"s happening here?
"Right," Ash said. "Somebody find me some armour! That fits. And a sword! My lord de Vere, I want a word with you," and she stood and stepped forward to meet the Earl of Oxford as he ran up, taking his steel-clad arm and steering him a few steps in close under the walls, no murder-holes above, and the angle too steep to be shot at.
A scream and a crunch came from somewhere along the alley, and a loud cheer.
"Got "im!"
"f.u.c.king rag-head!"
""Ave that from the f.u.c.king Franks, why don"t you?"
"Madam," John de Vere said.
Ash looked up at the English Earl in a mutual amazement. His faded blue eyes crinkled as if against bright light or in amus.e.m.e.nt. His steel armour was covered by de Vere livery, brilliant scarlet and yellow and white in lantern light. Under the pushed-up visor of his sallet, his face was fair, dirty, lined, and bright with the excitement of a much younger man.
Boom!
The sound stabbed her ears. Even through helmet-padding it hurt. Every bit of loose mortar and stone dust on the walls fell down into the alley, showering her livery jacket and doublet shoulders; every bit of debris on the quake-damaged cobbles leaped up, making her eyes sting.
"Captain Ash," John de Vere spoke loudly over the cascade of sounds after Angelotti"s cannon-fire. His tone sounded businesslike, or, if not quite that, pragmatic at least. No surprise at her presence. He pointed over her head towards the ma.s.sive Citadel wall: a twenty-foot-high blank end to the alley to her right. "The rest of the guns are on their way in."
She fell back into habit: brief questions, to the point. "How are you getting men and artillery up here?"
"Along the top of the wall. This wall, that encloses the Citadel. It"s wide enough for patrols, so I"m using it. All the streets are choked."
John de Vere"s pointing hand shone, encased in delicate Gothic fluted gauntlets, the lantern light picking out the lace-pattern of pierced metal on cuffs and knuckles. Ash found herself thinking, He"s come here in all his riches, but in armour light enough for manoeuvre in these b.l.o.o.d.y tight alleys; I"ve seen none of my men wearing more than breast, back and leg armour, no spaulders and pauldrons,3 he may be mad but he knows what he"s doing.
"What about the gate between the Citadel and Carthage itself?"
"Madam, I have men holding that gate, ready, and also Carthage"s south gate on the landward side - we have perhaps an hour, if G.o.d and Fortune favour us, to raid and run."
Thomas Morgan and the billman Carracci trotted up; and an armourer"s apprentice who stared as he knocked out the rivet and removed her steel slave"s collar. Ash stretched out her arms while they stripped off her livery and doublet, pointed on some young man"s arming doublet - a trifle tight across the chest, but with rea.s.suring panels of mail sewn in at armpits and shoulders - and set about pointing and strapping someone else"s breastplate and backplate on over it.
They did not fit her. Stationary defence only, she thought. No running around.
"Get you leg armour in a second, boss," Carracci promised.
Ash sucked in her breath as the metal sh.e.l.l locked home and Thomas Morgan pulled the straps tight. She rapped her knuckles against the plackart riveted to the breastplate. Protection. Carracci knelt to buckle ta.s.sets on to the lower lames of the fauld.4 Her mouth curved up, in a smile she couldn"t conceal. "Knee cops,5 if you can"t find anything else. Some f.u.c.king rag-head did my knee in at Auxonne."
"Sure, boss!" Carracci took an archer"s falchion and sword-belt from Thomas Rochester: the dark Englishman now kneeling to help him buckle them around her armoured waist.
Ash turned her head to speak to John de Vere, yanking on the mail gauntlets again. "You"re here for the Stone Golem. Have to be. f.u.c.k, this is a suicide raid, my lord!"
"Madam, it need not be; and we are in such straits, in the north, that she must be stopped in some way."
"How are you going in?"
"By main force - take this House, and search it from roof to cellars."
"That"s easier said than done. You know what it"s like in these places?"
"No-"
John de Vere broke off to shout to his brother d.i.c.kon; the young knight strode away down the right-hand alley to where, in lantern light, scaling ladders were visible at the foot of the Citadel"s enclosing wall, and dark heads silhouetted the skyline above it, in a furious bustle of activity.
"I"m going up there," Ash stated. "I need to get my bearings. Did you start this raid before the quake, my lord, or after it?"
"It was a happy accident."
"A happy-!" Ash snorted, despite herself.