‘Let it burn,’ Tangmer called. ‘It will save us the bother of knocking it down later.’
Eudo turned a stricken face towards him. ‘But I heard something. I think someone is still inside!’
Loath to get in the way while the Spital’s people effected a rescue, Bartholomew returned to Michael, Tulyet and the knights. The nuns also kept their distance, other than the mannish Prioress Joan, who abandoned the horses and strode forward to see if she could be of any use. Meanwhile, all the inmates raced towards the shed and began to hammer on it with their fists.
‘Stop! Get back!’ shouted Tangmer in alarm. ‘You will hurt yourselves. Eudo is mistaken – no one is inside. Is that not right, Goda?’
He turned to a woman who stood nearby. She was so small that Bartholomew had assumed she was a child, especially as she wore a bright yellow dress – an unusual colour for an adult – but Michael murmured that she was wife to the vast Eudo, leading the physician to speculate, somewhat voyeurishly, about the difficulties their disparity in size must generate in the marriage bed.
‘Of course it is empty,’ Goda said irritably. ‘The door was ajar, and the fire had not taken hold when I first saw the smoke. Anyone inside would have walked out then.’
‘Well, the door is closed now,’ said Prioress Joan, peering at it through the smoke. ‘So perhaps we had better open it and have a look inside.’
‘I ordered it shut after Goda raised the alarm,’ explained Tangmer, ‘to contain the blaze and make it easier to put out. But I can assure you that no one is–’
‘There!’ yelled Eudo, cocking his head to one side. ‘Voices – a woman’s.’
Bartholomew suspected the big man was mistaken, as the fire had been going for some time, belching smoke at a colossal rate. It was unlikely that anyone was still alive inside.
‘I heard it, too!’ shouted another of the staff, his face tight with horror. ‘We have to get her out. Open the door! Quick!’
‘No!’ howled Bartholomew, darting forward to stop him. ‘The door is smouldering – open it, and the fire will explode outwards, greedy for air. Is there another way in?’
Tangmer shook his head, his face pale. ‘All we can do is to hurl water at the flames until they are extinguished, and hope we are in time. Everyone – remove your shoes and fill them from the stream over the–’
‘Shoes will not suffice,’ snapped Prioress Joan. ‘Sheriff – set the men in a chain between here and the brook. Amphelisa – round up the women and children and send them for buckets. Well? What are you waiting for? Move!’
The urgency of the situation had caused her to lapse into French, the first language of most high-born ladies who held positions of authority in the Church. Bartholomew began to translate, sure few Spital folk would understand, but most immediately looked at Tulyet and Amphelisa, suggesting that they had.
‘But we do not have more buckets,’ gulped Amphelisa. ‘We have already used–’
‘Then bring pots and pans,’ barked Joan. ‘Anything that holds water. Master Tangmer – take your elderly lunatics and the smallest brats to the chapel. They are in the way here.’
‘If there is no other entrance, we will have to make one,’ said Bartholomew urgently. ‘At the back, where the fire burns less fiercely.’
‘Good thinking,’ said Joan. ‘Come with me and choose the best place.’ She jabbed a thick forefinger at one of the inmates, a dark-haired, wiry man with angry eyes. ‘You, bring us an axe. The rest of you, human chain and water now!’
She hitched up her habit and strode to the back of the shed, managing a pace that had Bartholomew running to keep up. They arrived to find smoke oozing between the planks that formed the walls. Bartholomew put his hand to one and found it was cool – the flames had not yet reached it. He heard the faintest of moans. Eudo was right: someone was inside!
He grabbed a stone and pounded the wall with it, to reassure whoever was inside that help was coming. Joan did likewise, although her blows caused significant dents.
‘Where is that lunatic with the axe?’ she demanded in agitation. ‘Hah! Here he is at last. Where have you been, man? To buy it in town?’
‘I did not know where to look,’ snapped the man, bristling. ‘And my name is Delacroix. I am no man’s servant, so do not address me as one.’
‘Keep your bruised dignity for later, Delacroix,’ said Joan acidly, grabbing the hatchet from him and swinging at the walls with all her might.
Splinters flew. Then the massive Eudo arrived with the biggest chopper Bartholomew had ever seen. In three mighty swipes, he had smashed a head-sized hole.
Bartholomew darted forward to peer through it, blinking away tears as fumes wafted out. It was impossible to see anything inside, and it occurred to him that whoever was in there had probably suffocated by now. Then he glimpsed movement. Someone was struggling to stand, and he had a brief impression of a bloodstained kirtle and a bundle shoved at him. He saw golden curls. The bundle was a child.
‘Stand back!’ he yelled, and indicated that Eudo was to hit the wall again.
More wood shattered. Then Delacroix snatched Joan’s axe and began a frenzied assault that had no impact and prevented Eudo from working. Bartholomew tried to stop him, but Delacroix fought him off. Then a fist shot out and Delacroix reeled backwards.
‘Put your back into it before it is too late,’ roared Joan at Eudo, wringing her bruised knuckles. ‘Hurry!’
Eudo obliged, and the hole expanded. Joan struggled to clamber through it, careless of the smoke that belched around her. She was too big to fit, obliging Bartholomew to haul her out again. She emerged smouldering, her wimple alight. Eudo threw her to the ground and rolled her over, whipping off his shirt to smother the flames.
‘No, help her!’ she snarled, pushing him away. Her face was streaked with soot, her habit was rucked up to reveal two powerful white thighs, and her wimple was in a blackened, unsalvageable mess. ‘The child!’
Bartholomew thrust his arms through the hole. Immediately, something was pushed into them. He pulled hard. There was an agonising moment when clothes snagged on the jagged edges, but Eudo drew a knife and hacked the material free.
Leaving Eudo and Delacroix to rescue the woman, Bartholomew and Joan carried the child away from the smoke. Her eyes were closed and there was no heartbeat. Bartholomew began to press rhythmically on her chest, pausing every so often to blow into her lungs. Nothing happened, so he did it again. And again, and again.
‘No!’ snapped Joan, when he stopped. ‘Do not give up. Not yet.’
He did as he was told, and was on the verge of admitting defeat when the child’s eyes fluttered open. She sat up and began to cough.
‘Praise the Lord!’ breathed Joan. ‘A miracle!’
She fetched Eudo’s discarded shirt and wrapped it around the girl, although it was Amphelisa who took the dazed child in her arms and crooned comforting words.
Bartholomew turned his attention back to the shed. Its roof was a sheet of orange flames, and groans and crashes emanated from within as it collapsed in on itself.
‘What of the woman?’ he asked hoarsely.
‘We could not reach her,’ rasped Eudo, whose face was ashen. ‘It was Mistress Girard, God rest her soul.’
Chapter 4
The next morning dawned cool, damp and wet. Bartholomew fancied he could smell burning in the misty drizzle from the still-smouldering Spital shed, although this was impossible as it was too far away. His sleep had teemed with nightmares, so he had risen in the small hours and gone to the hall to read. But even Galen’s elegant prose could not distract him from his thoughts, so he had spent most of the time staring at the candle, thinking about the fire.