The Taste of Innocence (49 page)

Barnaby leaned close and yelled over the hungry crackle of the flames, “I’ll tell those working on the central wing.” He was gone before Charlie nodded.

Tacking through the melee, Charlie made it to the well, where Kennett was heaving water up as fast as he could.

“Lucky salty water douses flames just as well as fresh.” Kennett hauled up another pail and tipped it into a waiting bucket. He let the emptied pail attached to the well’s rope rattle back down into the water, then started hauling it up again.

Charlie glanced around and spotted the manor’s stableman. “Jessup—get a few of your strongest men to spell each other on the well.”

“Aye, sir.” Jessup pointed to a brawny stableman. “Miller, you take over. I’ll send two of the gardeners to help when they get here.”

Charlie hauled Kennett away. “You know this place best. We need to stop the flames from spreading to the main building—and to the north wing if we can manage it.”

Kennett looked as Charlie pointed, then coughed and nodded. “Aye.”

“I’ve already told those working on the south wing, and someone’s doing the same for the central wing. You go and take over the north wing—it’s the only one we’ve any chance of saving.” Charlie stopped to cough, then yelled, “There are other men on the way—grab whoever comes past and keep them focused on saving the main building, and the north wing.”

Kennett nodded and lumbered away; within yards he was swallowed up by the billowing smoke.

Charlie paused only to dip his kerchief in a passing pail of water, wring it out and tie it over his nose, then he plunged back into the melee.

It was a nightmarish scene with the two huge old wings fully alight, garishly painted in flaring oranges and reds, in black and swirling, choking gray. Gusts of heat billowed out, searing and scorching. The fire was like a living being, surging and swallowing, roaring and whooshing. Eating, consuming.

Charlie started at the south wing and worked through the lines of men, seeking out the children. He’d noticed them as he passed, smaller, slighter beings desperately trying to save the only place most had ever called home.

He found Maggs, but when he ordered the boy to leave his pail and go around to the forecourt and safety, Maggs’s jaw set and he stubbornly shook his head. “We’re more use here!” When Charlie scowled and opened his mouth to argue, Maggs wailed, “We have to help!”

Looking into Maggs’s face, smeared with soot, his eyebrows singed, his hair dusty, Charlie read the desperate plea in the boy’s—youth’s—eyes. He hesitated, then said, “Only those over twelve. All the others have to get back to the forecourt and report to the countess.” He grabbed Maggs by the shoulder, took the pail from his hand and gave it to a passing man. Leaning down, he spoke into Maggs’s ear. “You’re in charge—find all the other children who are helping. Twelve and above can stay and help if they want—all the others to the forecourt.”

Through the dense smoke, Charlie spotted a figure with flying pigtails. He swore. “Who’s the oldest girl?”

“Ginny.” Maggs coughed.

“Is she out here helping?”

Maggs nodded. “Saw her by the well before.”

“Find her. Tell her to go around and collect all the girls—every last one—and get them back to the forecourt. They’re needed there to help the countess and the staff with the younger children.”

Maggs nodded and pointed with his chin. “That’s her over there. I’ll tell her.” Maggs twisted his shoulder from Charlie’s restraining grip and started after Ginny.

“Maggs!” Charlie waited until the boy stopped and turned back to him. “Keep track of the boys who stay to help. If this gets worse”—Charlie glanced up at the flames engulfing the south wing, then looked back to catch Maggs’s eyes—“if I give you the word, I want you to gather all the boys and get them to the forecourt. No arguing. If Kennett or I tell you to go, you get the others and go.”

Maggs swallowed, and nimbly danced back as the flames billowed near where he stood. He glanced back at Charlie and nodded. “Yeah—all right.”

He stumbled off. Charlie drew in a short breath, looked up at the south wing, then turned as more men from the estates of the landowners who’d been at the manor arrived.

Keeping a few, he sent most to report to Kennett and directed others to help with the central wing. More men arrived with buckets, pails and sacks; fresh, they fell on the flames, allowing those who’d been fighting for longest to step back and catch their breath.

Charlie broke off beating flames back from the junction between the main house and the south wing. He redipped his kerchief; retying it, he squinted down the line of men. Everyone was soot-streaked and filthy; he picked out Joseph Tiller, chest heaving, crouched, head bowed, over the pail he’d been swinging.

Taking the jute sack he’d been wielding with him, Charlie circled the south wing to check how Barnaby was faring. He yelled encouragement and directions as he went. He passed Malcolm on the way, grimy and gasping; with a group of men he was flailing at flames not so much trying to save what they’d devoured but to deaden them and reduce the chance of them spreading.

Rounding the end of the south wing, Charlie found the smoke was even thicker in the courtyards between the wings. He had to go more slowly so he didn’t knock down others and they had a chance to see and avoid him.

Like the south wing, the central wing was steadily burning, but as Charlie had done, Barnaby had sacrificed the rest of the wing to the flames and concentrated on keeping them back from the junction with the main house. At first glance it seemed that they’d succeeded in that, but squinting upward as he stumbled past men and the ruined playgrounds between the wings, Charlie thought he saw the thatch close to the main house glowing.

Just pinpricks here and there; embers at least had got that far. However, the bulk of the thatch adjoining the main house had yet to flare.

After checking with a Barnaby not even his mother would have recognized, Charlie went on to find Kennett. As he rounded the north wing, he realized that the noise from the fire—the flare of flames, the constant whooshes, the cracks and crackles and the pervasive roar—had been gradually, very gradually, decreasing. They were winning, turning the tide. The fire was abating.

Kennett thought the same. “But we’ve a long ways to go yet. We have to keep the flames down, have to let them burn themselves out. Ain’t no other way.”

Charlie was squinting up at the thatch. He really didn’t like that thatch. “Is there any way we can separate the wings from the main house? Create a gap that we can defend?”

Kennett grimaced. “Would that we could, but those roof beams go right on in under the main roof. The rafters are tied together, and then there are even bigger beams connecting each floor. If I thought we could hack our way through them, I’d say we should and right quickly, but those timbers are feet thick, old and weathered and as hard as iron. You’d need explosives to break them.”

“Or fire,” Charlie murmured.

After a minute he said, “So all we can do is dampen everything down as far and as fast as we can. Once the flames subside, we’ll get ladders up against the main house and douse the thatch and rafters from that end.”

He turned as a fresh wave of men came around the house—workers from farther afield. They carried hoes, picks, axes—all manner of implements, including a few long-handled rakes.

Charlie waved them on. “Go around to the central and south wings and start pulling down what’s already burned. Start at the ends—leave the areas near the house that the other men are concentrating on. Work from the ends toward them.”

Most of the men nodded and went. One man carrying a long-handled rake hung back. Frowning, he nodded up at the thatch under the eaves of the main house. “Thought you’d want us to pull that section away first, so’s it can’t catch alight and spread to the main house.”

Charlie exchanged a glance with Kennett. He turned to the man, but it was Kennett who answered.

“Nay, lad—the weather’s been cold and that thatch is damp. Likely it’s doing us a good turn and smothering any flames trying to eat along the rafters. We’ll need to leave it until last, and even then be careful how we go about removing it.”

The man replied with an “Oh,” but Charlie barely heard him as Kennett’s words and those glowing pinpricks he’d seen—on, in, or beneath the thatch?—connected. Dread blossomed. He refocused on the man. “Were there any others with long-handled rakes? Other than those who came this way?”

The man blinked at his urgency, then nodded. “Aye.” He coughed. “Some went around the other side.” His gesture indicated the other side of the house.

Charlie swore, spun on his heel and ran.

19

Charlie flung himself around the end of the north wing. A mass of men were attacking the walls at the ends of the wings; desperate, he plowed through them—then heard the sounds he’d feared and dreaded.

A sudden gush was followed by a powerful swhoosh, and a fresh gout of flame spewed high into the air, immediately followed by cries and oaths as, dismayed, men fell back.

Charlie raced around the south wing. Skidding to a halt, he looked up. Squinting through the thickening smoke, he saw his worst fears confirmed. Men with long-handled rakes had come around the southern side of the house and, thinking as the other man had, had pulled down the thatch where the south wing abutted the main house—letting air play along rafters that, smothered and starved of air, had been smoldering.

The flames had gasped, then roared, ravenously feeding now that they had unrestricted air to burn.

Even though he’d known what to expect, Charlie stood and stared, beyond horrified. There was no way they would stop the flames now.

From where he stood halfway along the south wing and back from the burning walls, he could see what Kennett had meant about the rafters and roof beams tying into the frame of the main house.

The fire wasn’t going to stop at the stone walls—it was going to gobble along the beams, straight into the main house.

A sudden roar and cries came from the inner courtyards. One glance was enough to see that the gush of flames in the south wing had carried over to the central wing. Its roof, too, was now fully alight, flames licking greedily up to and under the main house’s eaves.

Then came a massive crack as some beam exploded—followed by a bellow, a communal cry of rage as the fire leapt across and like a ravening beast fell on the north-wing thatch.

In less than a minute, they’d gone from tentative hope to utter despair.

Charlie looked around and saw Maggs. He lurched over to the boy and grabbed his arm, pulling him close to gasp, “Go—now. Get the others and go!”

Maggs glanced into Charlie’s face, his own soot-stained with runnels down his cheeks where smoke and despair had made him cry. He hesitated, then, face falling, he nodded and ran.

Barnaby appeared at Charlie’s shoulder. “I’ve pulled all the men out of the courtyards—they’re one minute away from becoming a death trap.”

Scanning the south wing, now lit eerily from within as the fire, consuming the thatch above and so gaining even more air, ran amok, Charlie nodded. “Let’s get everyone back. We can’t do anything more, and lives are more important than buildings.”

Grim-faced, Barnaby nodded. Turning, he grabbed the first man he saw, yelling at him to go out beyond the forecourt and take all he met with him. Charlie worked his way along the south wing. He checked that someone had moved the horses well back, picketing them out in the field, then went to join Barnaby. They worked their way around the rear of the inferno, collecting everyone, checking for stragglers as they went.

Massive booms erupted from the south wing, then a part of its roof collapsed, sending up a shower of sparks, feeding the swelling roar of the flames.

The fire was a beast that had got away from them.

Charlie and Barnaby together had to drag Kennett away from the north wing. “We can’t save it!” Charlie had to yell the words in the man’s face before he finally slumped, gave up fighting, and let them lead him away.

Pulling back, Charlie paused at the front end of the north wing and looked back, squinting through the dense smoke, but he could see no one, no movement in the shadows beyond the glare of the fire; they’d got everyone away. Consoling himself with that, he turned and jogged to catch up with Barnaby and Kennett as they crossed the forecourt to the arc of people waiting and watching.

It was a milling, shifting throng; many women from the village had come up to help with the children. They were seated in little groups here and there, trying to calm and soothe away fears.

Imagining how real those fears would feel, his heart leaden, Charlie looked around for Sarah. He couldn’t immediately see her in the stunned, dispirited crowd. Moving along the edge of the forecourt, he was scanning the faces—when Sarah erupted out of the line a little way along. She stood staring, plainly horrified, at the house, then she turned and saw him. Picking up her skirts, she raced toward him. “We’re missing two babies and Quince!”

Breathless, she grabbed his arm. “I saw her bring some of them out early on—she said she didn’t need any help. But we only have four. She left them with women scattered about—everyone thought the others were with someone else. But they aren’t, and no one’s seen Quince recently—she’s definitely not here.”