Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle Read Free Book Online

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, nobody, Soeur! Nobody 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 shifted her big hand to Ash’s shoulder, the grip firm through Ash’s filthy-dirty shirt. 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