‘Give the baby to me!’
It was not her grandmother. Where the two figures had been locked together, there was nothing, only spiralling black smoke. It must be someone in the street. Gwenn stuck her head through the narrow window, towards light and hope. ‘Pierre...?’ The crowd of anxious people had grown. The breeze had fanned the fire, and the building next door was smouldering. For the townsfolk, a house blaze spelled disaster; the wooden dwellings packed tightly together caught fire more quickly than kindling. Yesterday’s antipathy was forgotten. In such an emergency, everyone dropped what they were doing and rushed to assist. The line of fire-fighters was lengthening by the second. Some were flinging water at the houses, but not all of them were actively helping. A circle of faces was upturned towards her; some strained, some anxious, and others merely curious. A bitter condemnation flashed across Gwenn’s consciousness. Some of them were looking on as though this were an entertainment devised solely for their pleasure.
One of the upturned faces was shouting. ‘Throw the baby down! I’ll catch her!’
Katarin squeaked and hid her face on her sister’s shoulder. ‘Wh...what?’ Gwenn must have misheard.
‘Throw her down!’
Gwenn gripped her sister hard. Her brain wouldn’t work. Throw Katarin out of the window? Was the man mad? ‘I...I can’t!’
‘For the love of God, girl!’ His voice was urgent, compelling. ‘You must!’
He was familiar, she had seen him before. Young, with startling blue eyes, and a tangle of fair hair like a Saxon’s. He wore a soldier’s leather jerkin. Her stomach cramped.
‘Come on, girl! You’ve no time to think! Throw her down! It’s not so high. Hurry.’ He gestured to the man next to him. ‘Your cloak, Alan. It’s stronger than mine. Stretch it out.’ Strong hands grabbed a thick, fur-lined cloak, stretched it out and made hammock of it. ‘Throw her down! She hasn’t got far to fall. This cloak will be as safe as her cradle!’
In the inferno behind her, Izabel cried out. The soldier was right. She had to do it. It was better than Katarin suffocating to death. Dropping a swift kiss on her sister’s forehead, she leaned out of the window. ‘I’ll see you in a minute, darling.’ Katarin’s wail became an ear-splitting screech. Gwenn extended her arms as far as she was able.
‘Now!’ The young man’s shout drew her gaze. ‘She’ll be safe with me. Now, Gwenn!’ Steady blue eyes held hers, honest eyes. Gwenn’s mind raced. How had he come by her name? No matter. He had a sensitive, open face for all that it clashed with his mercenary’s attire. She could trust his eyes, if not his profession.
The young man’s neighbour moved impatiently, and she saw the top of his dark head turning to the townsfolk clustered below the window. ‘Help us.’ He held out the hem of his cloak, and people jumped to take it. Incongruously, she noticed a ring on his middle finger, for she caught the flash of gold as the sun bounced off it. He had bitten fingers, but they clutched the edge of the cloak securely. Both men looked fit and capable. Reassured that her sister would have a soft landing, Gwenn screwed her eyes shut and let go. When she opened them again, Katarin lay motionless in the valley of the cloak. ‘Katarin!’
Katarin blinked and moved her arms. ‘Gwenn?’ Katarin pointed at her, and smiled. ‘Gwenn?’
A ragged cheer went up. A strong hand reached out, plucked the infant from the cloak, and Katarin was pressed against the broad leather-clad chest of the blue-eyed soldier. He smiled at the infant, ruffled her hair, and placed her in the outstretched arms of a woman behind him. His flaxen head tipped back. ‘Your turn now.’
‘Jump, Gwenn! Jump!’ Mikael Brasher had joined the knot of people round the cloak.
The dark-haired man glanced up, and Gwenn’s heart jolted. It was the mercenary who had set the mob on her. ‘You! You threw the first stone.’ Horrified, she stared accusingly at the young Saxon. ‘And you – why are you always with him?’ Biting her lip, she shook her head. They had both been in Duke’s Tavern with the Norseman, the monster who had set fire to their house. And what had he done with her grandmother?
Filling her lungs with untainted air, Gwenn wound her veil back round her nose, and forced herself to go back. Her eyes smarted. In the swirling, choking blackness she was all but blind. Praying her grandmother was close, Gwenn felt her way inch by lung-burning inch. Her foot nudged against something soft. Heart thumping, she went down on all fours, but the softness was the softness of fabric, not of a body. Her grandmother’s wimple. She cast it aside.
‘Grandmama?’
Her lungs were bursting. The oak floorboards felt warm. Gwenn whimpered, and tried to swallow, but her throat was dry as parchment. The crackling grew, was all but a roar, and the gaps between the floorboards shone yellow like the sun. The flames from the chamber below must burst through any second. The floor groaned a warning and shifted under her hands and knees. Gwenn gulped. Cold sweat trickled down her back. She was hot and cold all at once. Gritting her teeth, she crawled forwards another inch, and another, until eventually her hands encountered what felt like a corpse.
‘G...Grandmama?’ The body moved. It coughed. ‘Thank God, you’re alive!’
‘Gwenn?’ The old woman’s breathing was harsh, laboured. ‘Get out, Gwenn.’
‘Grandmama!’
‘Out,’ Izabel whispered hoarsely. ‘I’m finished.’
‘No!’
‘Finished.’ Izabel was shaken by coughing. ‘Divine retribution...’
That Viking animal had deranged her grandmother’s mind. ‘No.’ Gwenn heaved on Izabel’s arm, to little avail. She heard a roar as the back wall of the chamber became a curtain of fire. Great tongues of flame licked up it. The cracks in the floor glowed brighter, bright as molten gold in a goldsmith’s crucible. ‘Grandmama! Don’t give up!’
‘Tell...Yolande...I am sorry,’ Izabel breathed, in distant, dreamy tones.
‘Grandmama.’ Gwenn sobbed. Izabel’s mind must have gone, she seemed heedless of the danger.
‘Though Yolande sinned,’ Izabel choked weakly, ‘I see that my narrowness, my bitterness...was a far greater wrong. Tell her...ask her...forgive me?’ Her voice faded; she blinked through the swirling drifts of smoke, seeming to rouse herself as she strained to raise her head. Rheumy eyes fell on Gwenn, she looked stricken. ‘Why, Gwenn, why have you not gone? Your time is far off. You must go.’
Roughly, Gwenn gripped her grandmother’s arm. ‘Grandmama, you’re not even trying!’
Izabel twisted her head towards Gwenn’s. ‘It’s my time, my dear. The Lord has spoken.’ Her old eyes glistened with moisture. ‘But you should not be here. Go. Say a Mass for my soul. Obey my last wish, and get out.’
It was hopeless. Dry, gulping sobs ripped through Gwenn. A loud crash informed her that part of the staircase had collapsed. She heard a drumming in her ears.
‘Out!’ Her grandmother’s head thudded on the boards.
The drumming was louder, nearer; it sounded like footsteps. Gwenn screwed up her smarting eyes to squint through the smoke, and went rigid. Someone was kneeling on the other side of her grandmother. Her senses deserted her.
She had been consigned to a furnace in Hell, and the Devil had sent one of his minions to torment her, for the flickering flames illumined swarthy features that were dirty with soot and streaked with sweat. Night-black brows arched over frenzied grey eyes. It was the face of a demon, and he had come to chose between her and her grandmother. Gwenn screamed, and reached for Izabel.
Her grandmother’s hand fluttered to meet hers. ‘Go,’ Izabel gasped. ‘And remember, Our Lady is yours. The Stone Rose is yours.’ Izabel let her breath out on a rattling sigh, and was still.
The demon was making his choice. Sick to her core, Gwenn watched as his fierce eyes passed briefly over her grandmother, seemed to find her lacking, and came to rest on her. The demon smiled.
‘No!’ Gwenn’s lips were stiff with fear. He took her by the wrist and, as fiends do, he had the grip of ten men. She knew it would be useless to fight him.