"What is it then? What's this urgent need you have? You've never called on me before."
Even from the little of him that was visible, I could see he was an enormous bear of a man, half a head taller than me, with a heavy, rank beard and a great, swollen belly. He did not seem to be drunk, but I was close enough to notice that he stank of sour, dirty sweat and his breath reeked of something like fish oil; I felt my stomach heave, partly through revulsion, but mainly because of the anger I bore towards him. I moved closer.
"Can I come in?"
"Eh?" Plainly I had caught him unprepared. He had not expected me to enter, or even to wish to enter. He glanced around the clearing again before clearing his throat and denying me. "No! No, I'll come out. Give me a minute."
He closed the door in my face and I heard him muttering to someone inside, another voice arose, and then came the sound of a blow and a muffled, female cry of pain. My rage flared up again. I dropped my hand to the hilt of my sword and swung my torch around my head, making the flames flare up. When he opened the door to come outside, I thrust the flaming end of my torch towards his face, making him gasp in surprise and leap back, throwing up his hands to shield his eyes. I pushed the door wide with my shoulder and followed him inside, drawing my sword as I went.
The heat inside the hut was stifling. I was aware of two guttering lamps, a large, glowing fire and several moving bodies drawing back in fear from my intrusion, but I kept my eyes firmly fastened on the carpenter. His surprise was short-lived and his face clouded with anger as he tensed himself to leap at me. I threw the point of my sword up towards his throat.
"Don't," I warned him, and the venom in my voice held him back. "Don't even begin to think about tackling me, or I'll spill your guts on your feet." I moved closer to him, backing him up against the wall, and saw fear in his eyes. "You think I'm deranged?" I prodded my point towards him. "You think the man you're facing has lost his mind? Well, perhaps I have. I found your son tonight, you drunken whoreson, out by the lake. Young Simeon. How old is he? Eight? Seven? He's at the villa, and he may be dead by now. Nobody thinks he can survive the beating you gave him. He has a shattered leg, so even if he lives, he'll never walk properly again. And his arm is broken, and his ribs, and perhaps his skull. His teeth are broken, and he may have lost an eye, and his lower lip was torn off, and he's what? Seven? Eight years old? Did he put up a good fight, pig? Did he tax your strength? Or did he scream for mercy? Look in my eyes, you gutter-dropped son of a whore, and ask yourself if you can see much promise of mercy there, and then ask yourself again what I might do if you give me half a reason to restrain you."
I stopped, my eyes on his, and saw fear and the beginnings of panic in them. Not breaking my gaze, I spoke over my shoulder to the women in the room, one of whom was sobbing wildly. "You women, get outside, and shout to the guard to come in. Move! Quickly!"
There was no response to this, and so I jerked a glance towards them. There were three of them, all huddled on a huge wooden bed in a litter of smelly bedding.
"Did you hear me? Go outside, now!"
"We can't!" The one who had spoken kicked her leg and I heard the clink of chains. Startled by the sound, I made the error of looking towards it, and that was all Lignus needed. He was big as bear, but now I discovered he was also quick as a cat. I saw him spring sideways away from me, along the wall to the corner of the hut, and I barely had time to turn my sword awkwardly, thrusting for my life against the thick iron bar that had suddenly appeared in his huge hand and would have broken me in two had it hit me. As it was, it smashed the sword from my hand, numbing my whole arm and sending me reeling across the room to trip over a wooden stool and sprawl full-length on the straw-covered floor. I rolled as I landed, but I had no momentum working for me and the giant was on me immediately, bringing his weapon down in a fearsome swing at my head. He missed, and the impact of the blow against the floor jerked the bar from his grasp. I managed to clout him across the side of the head, back-handed, with the torch that was, somehow, still in my left hand. I lost my grip on the torch, but my blow had been lucky enough to stun him, knocking him down as his beard and hair ignited from the oil-soaked rags, wreathing his whole head in flames. He began to scream and beat at the flames, and I added my own shouts to his screams, summoning my soldiers.
All three women now began screaming, too, and as I struggled to my feet I saw why. My lost torch had landed in a pile of straw and wood shavings in another corner of the room and long flames were already shooting up the wooden walls. Lignus's head was a cocoon of rolling flames, and I snatched up a pot of water sitting by the hearth and dumped it over his head as the first soldiers came crashing through the doorway. I grasped the first two men and pushed them towards the sprawling giant on the floor.
"You two! Get him out of here and keep him safe. Tie him up. The rest of you, get these women to safety." I saw the decurion in charge removing his cloak, preparing to try to smother the raging flames in the corner, but I knew it was already too late for that. I seized him and spun him around, away from the fire. "Forget about that, it's too late now. Those women are chained to the bed. Get them out of here or they'll all burn. Break the bed apart if you have to."
I moved to help them, and we did have to break the bed apart, although only two of the women were chained to it. The third woman, whom I presumed to be the mother, was unbound, but she hampered all of us, clinging to her naked daughters as though to protect them. The bed was massive, solid and impossibly heavy, strongly built by a carpenter who, whatever his faults might be, knew his craft and took good care of his creature-comforts. Someone found a heavy maul and an axe on the floor beneath one of the windows, but by the time we succeeded in bursting the frame of the bed, shattering the corner joints with the heavy hammer, the small room was filled with flame and blinding, choking smoke and we were all in danger of being overcome. Finally, the women were being removed and we all withdrew, but as I turned to make sure everyone was out ahead of me, something flashed and burst, belching smoke and sparks into my face. I was snatching a breath at the time and inhaled what seemed like pure fire before I was overtaken by an uncontrollable spasm of coughing that racked me with tearing pain and deprived me of any sense of direction. Panicked, I turned completely around, twice, looking for the doorway but completely unable to pierce the swirling smoke, and then my knee gave way and I fell forward, and my head hit the floor within half a pace of the doorway through which smoke and long tongues of angry flame were now roaring. Hands grasped at me and hauled me through, out into the cool night air, where I coughed and retched and clutched myself in agony for what seemed like an eternity.
When I recovered a semblance of self-possession and opened my eyes, I found that my head and shoulders were supported in the lap of my wife, who was bathing my face with a wet cloth. I blinked at her and shook my head, surprised that I had not been conscious of being cradled, or of being bathed.
She frowned and leaned close to me. "Publius? You passed out. Are you in pain?"
I shook my head again and tried to reassure her, but my voice would not work. I pushed myself up from her lap, supporting myself on one elbow, and looked around me. There were dozens of people in the clearing — soldiers, and ordinary colonists of all ages. Behind me, the carpenter's cottage was an inferno, but no one was making any attempt to fight the fire. I felt dozens of eyes on me and pushed myself up until I was sitting. I coughed again, trying to clear my throat, and Luceiia offered me a cup of water. It hurt to swallow, but the result made the pain worthwhile. I gulped the entire contents of the cup, feeling the cooling, healing water spread inside me.