Brother Cadfael 13: The Rose Rent

midnight blackness. Along the Foregate it was very quiet, nothing moving but the occasional prowling cat among the alleys. But somewhere ahead, near the corner of the abbey wall at the horse-fair ground, there was a small, vibrating glow in the sky, low down behind the house-roofs, and its quivering alternately lit them into black silhouette and quenched them again in the common darkness. Cadfael began to run. Then he heard, distant and muted, the flurry of many voices in half-unbelieving alarm, and suddenly the glow was swallowed up in a great burst of flame, that fountained into the sky with a crackling of wood and thorn. The babble of voices became an uproar of men shouting and women shrilling, and all the Foregate dogs baying echoes from wall to wall along the highway.
    Doors were opening, men running out into the roadway, pulling on hose and coats as they came and breaking into shuffling, entangled motion towards the fire. Questions flew at random, and were not answered because no one as yet knew the answers. Cadfael arrived among the rest at the gate of Niall's yard, which already stood wide. Through the wicket into the garden the poppy-red glow glared, quivering, and above the crest of the wall the column of fire soared, breathing upward a whirlwind of burning air and spinning flakes of ash, double a tall man's height, to dissolve into the darkness. Thank God, thought Cadfael at sight of its vertical ascent, there's no wind, it won't reach either the house or the farrier's loft on the other side. And by the fury and noise of it, it may burn out quickly. But he knew already what he would see as he stepped through the wicket.
    In the middle of the rear wall the rose-bush was a great globe of flames, roaring like a furnace and crackling like the breaking of bones as the thorns spat and writhed in the heat. The fire had reached the old, crabbed vine, but beyond that there was nothing but the stone wall to feed it. The fruit trees were far enough removed to survive, though their nearer branches might be scorched. But nothing, nothing but blackened, outspread arms and white wood-ash, would be left of the rose-bush. Against the blinding brightness of the flames a few helpless figures circled and flinched away, unable to approach. Water thrown from a safe distance exploded into steam and vanished in a frantic hissing, but did no good. They had given up the attempt to fight it, and stood back, dangling buckets, to watch the old, gnarled bole, so many years fruitful, twist and split and groan in its death-agony.
    Niall had drawn back to the wall opposite, and stood watching with a soiled, discouraged face and drawn brows. Cadfael came to his side, and the brown head turned to acknowledge his coming, and nodded brief recognition before turning back again to resume his interrupted watch.
    "How did he get this furnace going?" asked Cadfael. "Not with simple flint and steel and tinder, that's certain, and you in the house. It would have taken him a good quarter-hour to get beyond the first smoulder."
    "He came the same way," said Niall, without removing his bleak gaze from the tower of smoke and spinning ash surging up into the sky, "Through the paddock at the back, where the ground's higher. He never even entered the garden this time. He must have poured oil over the wall on to the bush and the vine - drenched them in oil. And then he dropped a torch over. Well alight... And he away in the dark. And there's nothing we can do, nothing!"
    Nothing any man could do, except stand back from the heat and watch, as very gradually the first fury began to slacken, and the blackened branches to sag from the wall and collapse into the blazing heart of the fire, sending up drifts of fine grey ash that soared upwards like a flight of moths. Nothing except be thankful that the wall behind was of solid stone, and would not carry the fire towards either human habitation.
    "It was dear to her," said Niall bitterly.
    "It was. But at least she has her life still," said Cadfael, "and has rediscovered its value. And she knows who to thank for the gift, next after God."
    Niall said nothing to that, but continued grimly to watch as the fire, appeased, began to settle into a bed of crimson, and the flying moths of ash to drift about the garden, no longer torn headlong upward by the draught. The neighbours stood back, satisfied that the worst was over, and began gradually to drift away, back to their beds. Niall heaved a great breath, and shook