Brother Cadfael 04: St. Peter's Fair

called again. No one came. She heard no voices, no hasty footsteps on the stairs to the gallery, nothing but the singing of the fire, mounting steadily from a hum to a roar, like a rioting crowd, but better harmonised, the triumphant utterance of a single will.
    Emma stooped to the keyhole, and called through it as long as breath and strength lasted. She could neither see nor think by then, all about her was gathering blackness, and a throttling hand upon her throat. From stooping she sank to her knees, and from her knees sagged forward along the base of the door, and lay there with mouth and nose pressed against the gap that let in a thread of clean air. After a while she was not aware of anything, even of breathing.
    Chapter Four
    Philip lost himself briefly in the tangle of small valley tacks that threaded the hills, after leaving the Long Forest, and was forced to hunt out a local man from the first assart he came to, to put him on the road for Stanton Cobbold. The region he knew vaguely, but not the manor. The cottar gave him precise instructions, and turning to follow his own pointing, saw the first thin column of smoke going up into a still sky, and rapidly thickening and darkening as he stared at it.
    "That could be the very place, or near it. The woods are dry enough for trouble. God send they can keep it from the house, if some fool's set a spark going ..."
    "How far is it?" demanded Philip, wildly staring.
    "A mile and over. You'd best ..." But Philip was gone, heels driving into his stolen horse's sides, off at a headlong gallop. He kept his eyes upon that growing, billowing column of smoke more often than upon the road, and took risks on those little-used and eccentric paths that might have fetched him down a dozen times if luck had not favoured him. With every minute, the spectacle grew more alarming, the red of flames belching upward spasmodically against the black of smoke. Long before he reached the manor, and came bursting out of the trees towards the stockade, he could hear the bursting of beams, splitting apart in the heat with louder reports than any axe-blow. It was the house, not the forest.
    The gate stood open, and within, frantic servants ran confusedly, dragging out from hall and kitchen whatever belongings they could, salvaging from the stables and byres, dangerously near to the wooden part of the house, terrified and shrieking horses, and bellowing cattle. Philip stared aghast at the tower of smoke and flames that engulfed one end of the house. The long stone building of hall and undercroft would stand, though as a gutted shell, but the timbered part was already a furnace. Confused men and screaming maids ran about distractedly and paid him no heed. The disaster had overtaken them so suddenly that they were half out of their wits.
    Philip kicked his feet out of the stirrups which were short for him, but which he had never paused to lengthen, and vaulted from the horse, leaving it to wander at will. One of the cowmen blundered across his path, and Philip seized him by the arm and wrenched him round to face him.
    "Where's your lord? Where's the girl he brought here today?" The man was dazed and slow to answer; he shook him furiously. "The girl - what has he done with her?"
    Gaping helplessly, the man pointed into the pillar of smoke. "They're in the solar - my lord as well ... It's there the fire began."
    Philip dropped him without a word, and began to run towards the stair to the hall door. The man howled after him: "Fool, it's the hob of hell in there, nothing could live in it! And the door's locked - he had the key with him ... You'll go to your death!"
    Nothing of this made any impression upon Philip, until mention of the locked door checked him sharply. If there was no other way in, by a locked door he would have to enter. He cast about him at all the piles of hangings and furnishings and utensils they had dragged out into the courtyard, for something he could use to break through such a barrier. The kitchen had been emptied, there were meat-choppers and knives, but, better still, there was a pile of arms from the hall. One of Corbiere's ancestors, it seemed, had favoured the battle-axe. And these craven creatures of the household had made no attempt to use so handy a weapon! Their lord could roast before they would risk a burned hand for him.
    Philip went up the stone steps three at a time, and into the black and stifling cavern of the hall. The heat, after all, was not so intense