The roaring virulence swept over her head and was gone, a hungry dragon impatient and furious. Her hair was scorched, her face blistered, and she trembled, horrified at the startling and astonishing pain of heat, even that which passed and barely touched. Suddenly her fear, already considerable, was exacerbated. Afraid to go back down and afraid to continue up, Emeline sat on the stone step and breathed deep. The little crowd clambered down towards her, stopping when they could not pass, crying for her to run. Children mainly, and women. Then two men bent and lifted her, hauling her up and hurtling on down the steps with her between them. Emeline was mumbling, someone was shouting, a child yelled, “Lady, come with us.”
One of the men said, “We knows the way, lady, and will get you out. Hold on.” She held. It was a great burly arm, sweaty, and muscled, but she clasped it with desperate hope and was helped along a corridor, still dark and cold, until there were more stairs, wide this time and shallow, leading straight down.
Stumbling, each pushing against the other, the group raced downwards. But with a stink of hellfire and sulphur the flames came up to meet them, a raging wall of unbelievable heat that threw them back. The large man gripped Emeline’s wrist and in minutes they were back in the upper corridor, searching for which way to turn. The man croaked into Emeline’s ear, “Can you jump, lady?”
And she gasped, “I shall have to.”
The rising flames were close behind them now and the roar deafened speech and screams and sobbing fear and everything except the frantic terror. Sparks flashed, shooting cinders and the luminous dread. The children, half naked, streaked ahead, leaping to a casement window where the passageway angled deep and sharp. It was not so high and not so narrow and scrabbling fingers pulled it open, flinging the frame wide. At once the children climbed, each helping to hoist the other onto the stone sill, and immediately disappeared one by one into the cold black nothingness outside. The wind gusted back, bitter as the star shine beyond, chilled flurries that cooled the burning faces waiting for their turn to escape.
The man shouted, “You next, lady. Them lads will catch you.” And with two vast clammy hands around her waist, he launched Emeline upwards until she clasped the window ledge. She clung one moment, the freeze in her face and the bursting hell heat behind her, then up, legs over and no care for her shift hitched almost to her hips, and at once released herself into the depths below.
She was caught. First slim hands and small children’s arms, but then a man’s grasp, lifting her bodily. Immediately she stood on the cobbles as the children scrambled back and instead the muscled and naked arm around her was hard and supportive and she was staring into her husband’s scorched gaze. He held fast and pulled her with him although she could hardly breathe, running until there was grass and a gentle rise of soft green where he released her, and sank down beside her. Behind them the slope dipped down to the castle moat, and the little gurgle of water was a wondrous relief.
Nicholas said quickly, “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, though she was not entirely sure. Over his shoulder she watched the mighty silhouette of the castle Keep rage in blazing fury against a lurid sky. Flames shot like cannon from every window and a rancid black smoke swirled and wheeled in the wind. A million sparks flared and danced, caught in winter’s bluster, flaring like burning stars against the sweep of cold reality behind. Emeline whispered, with no voice to speak louder, “Is anyone else hurt?” Then she sank back, resting her head on the damp ground and closing her eyes. She could still hear the horror, could smell it and taste it but the heat was just a distant threat in a sudden burst of flying ashes.
Nicholas looked down at her a moment, then straightened and, as she opened her eyes again, said, voice raised above the fire’s roar, “There are other rescues to organise, and I must arrange relays from the well and the moat. Will you stay here and watch my father? He is hurt a little, but not too badly I think.”
Wedging herself on one shivering elbow, Emeline stared around. For the first time she saw the others, taking note of who they were. Most were servants, many hurrying back to help douse the fire, others searching for their friends and families. Emeline recognised the smartly dressed squire, now soot stained and running, buckets in both hands. But the earl, fully dressed unlike his son, lay on his back, gulping and sobbing, terrified and half unconscious, his belly rising and falling fast, his eyes wide and wet to the sky. He was drenched, as if someone had thrown water over him, and his fine silks were ruined and ragged, all burned in tatters and blackened wet strips.
Over the noise of the fire and the gurgled suffering of the earl, someone was screaming. The sound was thin and high, like the wailing of a seabird. Emeline said, “Is that – is she – dying?”
“No one is badly burned. No one is dying.” Nicholas stood and sighed, pushing the hair from his eyes. “Different people have different reactions to fear. We’re all afraid. But there’s a lot to be done and I have to go. Are you all right? Can I leave you here?”
She looked up again at Nicholas, now standing over her, and managed to nod. His body was thick in ash and smoke hung in his hair like bedraggled ribbons. His face was inflamed, and the disfiguring scar was ingrained with dirt. He was, she realised, wearing only his braies, which were also badly burned and barely covered him. But it was his flesh she noticed more, for he was bleeding and blistered and his chest and legs and arms appeared to ooze as though the skin was preparing to peel quite away. It was as if, instead of clothes, he wore the destruction of the fire itself.
Swallowing hard, Emeline whispered, “Of course. But it’s you who are hurt, not me. I think you should rest now, and if you tell me what to do, I can help.”
The young squire hurried over, quickly recounting the situation so far, saying both wells were pumping and the staff organised in relays. Nicholas turned away from Emeline. “Stay here and comfort my father,” and to the young man, “Get back there, David. Hurry them up. I’ll be with you immediately.” Emeline watched him stride off, a barefoot stranger, broad shouldered and long legged across the old cobbles back to the burning Keep.
She crawled towards the earl but did not know what to do for him. “My lord, are you in pain? You are safe now, I promise, and I think Nicholas has saved you. Is there anything you need?” Though had he asked for something, she had no idea how she would have fetched it. Instead he lay quivering and silent. When a page hurried over, promising to bring ale and other aid to the lord, Emeline was thankful and crept back alone to quieten her pounding head and her heaving stomach, stifling the fear she had recently claimed never to feel.
Above her, the great black emptiness of the night sky had turned a scorched and virulent orange, as if the clouds themselves were burning. Sparks still flew, spangles of a threatening nightmare as the peaceful dark transformed, stinking and hideous, its thousand fingers all flame. The smoke haze spiralled and fanned out absorbing heavens, stars and the now invisible contentment of the countryside beyond.
It was many hours later when the fire was finally extinguished. A steady dawn was a pale insipid hesitancy behind the swirling stench. A host of people, some crying, some hugging, hurried around Emeline and the earl on the grassy slope, watching the new day shimmer and wake beyond the destruction of their home. But the great stones still stood, and although the windows were now empty and where there had been glass it was shattered and gone, the walls had not tumbled and the huge wings of the castle’s separate towers, the stable blocks, the guards’ houses, the cobbled bailey, the smaller courtyards, and even the arched entrance with the machinery for the portcullis and drawbridge, were all untouched. Yet up the walls of the Keep were the scorched and blackened fingers marking the passage of the flames. And where wooden outhouses had backed the Keep with a ramble of pantries, butteries, breweries, storerooms and bakehouses attached to the kitchens, there the fire had consumed everything and left only smouldering sticks and a rubble of paving.