Pierre was shouting at her. ‘Gwenn! Gwenn! Is anyone in there?’
‘What?’ Fear hampered her thoughts, and understanding was slow. ‘What?’
‘Your house!’ Pierre shrieked, pouring water from one bucket to another. Handing the overflowing vessel to another man, he cast the well bucket down the shaft again and hauled on the handle without pause. ‘Is anyone in there?’
Peculiarly divorced from the scene unfolding before her, Gwenn watched the bucket Pierre had filled being passed hand over hand down a long line of townsfolk which stretched to the bottom end of La Rue de la Monnaie. That torch? The Viking had taken a torch with him...
The light dawned. Gwenn lurched to the well-head, white fingers clinging to the cold, mortared rim. ‘Why are you doing that, Pierre? Which house is burning?’
Pierre’s honest face was creased with concern, and he was sweating profusely. How could she have thought him malevolent, even for a moment? She should have known better, Pierre was a healer, and anyone could see that he was frantic with fear.
‘Is anyone in your house?’ The herbalist secured the well-handle and shook her by the arm. ‘Think, Gwenn!’
‘Grandmama and Katarin.’
Pierre went the colour of goat’s cheese. A woman down the line drew a hasty sign of the cross on her breast, caught Gwenn’s disbelieving eyes on her and flinched. ‘Sorry, love.’ The woman shook her head with brief sympathy before turning back to the herbalist. ‘Hurry, Pierre, other houses are smoking like the devil’s pit.’
‘For God’s sake, move!’ A neighbour, a tanner by trade, nudged Pierre, his work-stained hand outstretched for the pail. Too practical a man to waste time on Gwenn, he did not even look at her. ‘The whole street’s about to go!’
Gwenn choked down a sob.
‘Steady, girl,’ Pierre said, and compassion filled his eyes.
Gwenn bolted. She ran so fast that she reached her house before the first bucket of water. The woman had exaggerated. There wasn’t that much smoke, and what there was seeped through the closed shutters to float in the street as innocently as a sea-fret on an April morning. Perhaps Izabel had spilled fat on their cooking fire in the tiny yard at the back of the house. It couldn’t be anything sinister. But Izabel was not cooking today... That torch, what had that giant done with that torch?
She aimed for the door. Hands tugged at her skirts. Voices tried to capture her attention.
‘No, Gwenn, don’t!’
‘You can’t go in there!’
‘Come back, girl!’
She shut her ears to the voices, fought through the hands, saw an opening and dived through it. All light and sound faded. A solid pall of smoke hung in the downstairs chamber. Peering through it, Gwenn saw the torch. It lay against the back wall of the house. Both torch and wall were smouldering. Along the planked floor, the flames had caught hold in places, someone had flung a wet blanket on them in attempt to douse them, and the blanket was the source of the smoke. The fire had been set, deliberately, and she knew by whom.
The rounded water cauldron was off its hook. It lay on its side, rolling gently on the boards as though it had fallen only moments before. A distant but persistent wailing reached her. Katarin was very much alive.
Coughing, for smoke filled her lungs, Gwenn thrust her veil in the puddle of water washing about in the iron pot and wound the damp cloth round her mouth. She groped towards the stairs, following the lure of her sister’s crying. ‘Grandmama!’ She tried to call again, but there wasn’t the air. Gaining the door at the top of the stairs, she pushed it aside and stumbled through. The door had kept the smoke out, for the pall hung thinner and higher in the bedchamber and breathing came easier.
Izabel stood by the window, baby Katarin fast in one arm, while the other was held up to protect her face for, towering menacingly over her, was the form of a giant. It had to be the Viking, though his features were masked by trails of unkempt blond hair. Gwenn watched in disbelief as he lifted one ham of a hand and delivered a vicious blow to her grandmother’s head. ‘Where is it, witch?’ he said.
Gwenn dashed forwards. ‘Grandmama!’ The man turned, and she stared directly into the bearded face of the Norseman whom she had seen not ten minutes earlier in Duke’s Tavern with the other routiers. The smoke was thickening. Izabel sagged against a wall.
Katarin ceased wailing long enough to draw breath, and loosed another high-pitched assault on their ears. ‘Mama! Mama! Mama!’ she cried, a steady stream of sound. Burning wood crackled. The house was firing fast.
Izabel’s free hand scuttled sideways to fumble with the shutter catch. Her grey headdress had been torn off. Her mouth was bleeding. The blow that Gwenn had witnessed could not have been the first. Making a missile of her body, she hurled herself at the Viking. ‘Leave them alone!’ she yelled, and struck out with both hands.
The Viking bared a dreadful row of teeth. A thick, muscled arm snaked out, and Gwenn was tossed head first to the floor as though she were no more than a bundle of rags. ‘Keep out of it, wench.’ He turned back to Izabel.
Izabel had managed to open the shutter. She thrust her head through the opening. ‘Help! Help!’
Her tormentor gave a warped grin. One stride carried him to her and he snatched her from the window. ‘They’ll not come in here, witch,’ he said, with terrifying confidence. ‘The blaze is upon us.’
He spoke the truth, for butter-coloured flames were climbing the stairs. He whirled Izabel round, holding her in a hideous parody of a lover’s embrace. She strained to twist her head away from the Viking’s, but his skewed smile only widened, and he pushed fingers as punishing as steel claws into her grey hair.
‘Where is it?’ he repeated, hoarsely, because even he was affected by the smoke.
White as chalk, Izabel made a choking sound. Katarin stumbled through the curling smoke and fell into Gwenn’s arms. Her plump cheeks were stained with tear tracks, and she was coughing, her small lungs unable to cope with the dense, suffocating smoke. Helpless to do anything for her grandmother, Gwenn clung to her little sister and shielded Katarin’s eyes from the nightmare scene that was being played out before them. She shrieked through black, billowing clouds at the brute who was man-handling her grandmother. ‘Stop it! Stop it!’
‘Where is it?’ The Viking gave Izabel a teeth-rattling shake. Izabel spluttered, and her mouth shut tight as a clam. ‘Answer me, bitch. Where is it?’
The air was painfully thin. Gwenn’s lungs burned and a singing noise started up in her ears. Katarin had stopped crying – her breathing was so shallow that it was all but non-existent, and her moon of a face was turning blue. ‘Katarin!’ Gwenn tried to drag her dampened veil across her sister’s mouth, hoping it would filter out the worst of the smoke, but the child’s starfish-shaped hand came up and pushed it away. Gwenn let her be. Katarin was probably right. They were beyond that remedy. The darkness was closing in on them. Her lungs were a tight, painful mass in her chest. When a strangled whimper emerged from her sister’s blue lips, Gwenn was goaded into action.
She must get air into Katarin’s lungs. She had to get air herself. They were suffocating. More smoke wafted through the door. Amber flames flickered. The stairs were out of the question, that route was closed. She looked at the window. Light poured through it – light and fresh air. She must get to it. Hauling herself upright and ignoring the figures swaying about in a deadly embrace in the centre of the room, Gwenn swam through the smoke to the window.
The clean air hit her like a slap in the face. Gasping and sobbing with relief, she fell on her knees. With the last of her strength she lifted Katarin up so she too could breathe. Katarin took half a dozen shuddering breaths, went pink, and recommenced her wailing. Panting, Gwenn rested her head against the wooden sill. If Katarin could cry, Katarin was alright.
‘Give her to me!’
Gwenn’s head jerked up. Someone was shouting, but she could not make out the direction.