Joanna (38 page)

It was the wailing ahead that warned Geoffrey that the miracle was over. There was no panic or rage in that sound, only ultimate despair. Those who uttered that cry had given up hope. They would struggle no more. They would drop where they stood and let the fire swallow them. It was horrible and it was contagious, but Geoffrey was immune. He had heard that cry from the throats of the defeated often enough. The wailing grew stronger as others took it up and as they neared the cause.

“Geoffrey,” Joanna whimpered.

For the first time there was fear in her voice. Geoffrey did not reply. He had no comfort to offer her. Across the foot of the lane, a wall of fire blocked their path. To their left, the houses were already burning and from that inferno great flaming smuts flew across the lane to smolder on the roofs and window ledges of the houses to the right. In minutes they, too, would be in flames. Both his and Joanna’s fair skins were reddened and blistering. It was an agony to breathe.

A few of the people milling about ahead of them broke away and rushed back the way they had come. Geoffrey did not even turn his head. They would never reach the square. In only a few minutes, the whole lane in which they now stood would be another solid bed of fire. The fronts of the buildings that overhung the lane would crash down into it. There was no escape in that direction. Instinctively, Geoffrey pressed back out of the path of the fleeing few. He would not delay them, would not add to their agony of mind in the little while they had left. His heel caught on something that emitted a wooden thump and, when he pulled his spur loose, there was a sloshing sound.

Water! A wash of shame passed through Geoffrey. He   was almost as bad as those for whom he felt such contempt for wailing in despair. Fear was paralyzing him too, and it was little to his credit that he did not wail aloud but stood still and let disaster overtake him.

“Come down,” he said to Joanna, “take off your clothes, everything except your shift. Soak them in the rain barrel. Quick.”

As he spoke he unbelted his sword and fastened it to the saddle, pulled off his tunic and shirt and threw them into the barrel. Then he laid his ax between his feet and turned to pull Joanna from the horse and undress her by force if she were too frightened to move. She was frightened; her eyes were staring so wide that whites showed all around the iris and she was trembling. Nonetheless her training held good. When there was something to do, she could do it no matter what her fear. She had slid down herself and her cotte was already in the barrel. Geoffrey fished out his shirt. She was just dropping her tunic in after it when she saw him binding the sopping shirt over the horse’s head so that the animal could not see and would draw in air through the cooling medium of the wet cloth. Joanna did not need to be told further. She pulled on her soaking wet tunic as Geoffrey drew on his own.

“Tear it in half,” she gasped, offering the cotte.

“You will need it,” he protested.

“If you die, I will die also,” Joanna sobbed.

That, of course, was true, Geoffrey realized. He tore the cotte in half down the seams and wrapped it around his head and face while Joanna adjusted her share. Then, with a desperate effort, he raised the barrel and tipped a generous portion of its contents over Joanna so that she was soaked anew. After that, she helping, they raised it further and soaked the horse as well as they could. The remaining little, Geoffrey tipped over himself. Together they turned to face the wall of flame.

“Take me in your arms, Geoffrey,” Joanna whispered, “I am afraid.”

He could not do that because it would place her where she   would be most exposed to the fire. What he did was to push her between himself and the horse, give her the rein, and pass his left arm around her waist so that she was a little shielded by their bodies. Then he picked up the ax and shoved Joanna forward toward the fire. It almost seemed as if she would resist, but in that instant the gable of the house from which they had taken the water barrel burst into flame. With a gasping sob, Joanna turned her face into Geoffrey’s shoulder and let him lead her.

It was an act of faith without foundation. Geoffrey knew no better than the girl he led where they could go. All he knew was that they had to be free of the narrow lane before the burning houses fell in upon them and that the way forward was shorter than the way behind. Ahead the cries had diminished. Some huddled forms showed dark on the ground against the red glare which had, for all its violence, a sickly hue against the gray daylight. Those were dead already or good as dead from hearts that had burst with fear or lungs seared by the heat. There was here and there still movement. Geoffrey drew breath sharply as he saw a man off to his right run suddenly straight into the fire.

His first thought was that so great a madness of terror had gripped the man that he could no longer wait for death. Geoffrey had seen that before, had seen men throw themselves onto his sword. But that was to find an easier death than what they faced. Death by fire was another matter. Before he could follow that thought through to its conclusion, however, another darted into the same place, and this man drew a woman with him. Geoffrey uttered a short exclamation of hope and turned sharply right, tugging Joanna with him. What he saw stopped him in his tracks. There was a long building ahead of them, completely enveloped in flames. Beyond it another very similar structure burned just as fiercely. Between the two was an opening, the black mouth of a tunnel arched over with fire.

Impossible. He could not lead Joanna into that. Desperately, he looked behindand the buildings virtually blew up in his face. Joanna’s shriek of terror was drowned by the   roar and crash. Flames exploded skyward and in all directions. Geoffrey cried out himself as one of the projected spheres struck his head covering and, running down, seared his cheek before he doused it with a trailing end of wet cloth. The stallion suddenly screamed aloud as another of the flaming gobs landed on him. Head outstretched, the horse bolted forward. Joanna was dragged with him, her hand frozen to the rein, and Geoffrey, holding fast to her, followed, will he nill he, directly into the black mouth he feared.

The heat that struck them made the air they had breathed so painfully before seem cool. If they had breathed, doubtless they would have died, their lungs burnt and useless. But to breathe was not possible. The smoke was like a solid thing and closed their throats. Nor was it possible to see. For all the red flame above and to each side, the black, acrid fumes closed the eyes against the will. Dragged by the blinded stallion who could not gallop because of Joanna’s pull on the reins, they stumbled through hell until the ground gave way before their feet and they plunged downwardinto black wetness.  
p.

Geoffrey and Joanna were nearer dying in the moments after they escaped the fire that destroyed London in 1212 than when they had been trapped by the flames. Tangled in sodden garments, blinded and gagged by the cloth shielding their heads, they were very nearly drowned when Geoffrey’s destrier dragged them into the Thames. It was only the terror that kept Joanna’s hand clenched upon the horse’s rein that saved them. When they fell, she had indeed let go in the instinct of thrusting her hands out to protect herself from falling, but she was so close to Orage that, clutching anything in the cold shock of the river, her hand came upon the saddlebow and she held fast.

Because there is nothing worse than being blind in the face of the unknown, Joanna tore at what covered her head with her free hand. Because she was frightened, she cried out for Geoffrey with her first free breath. He heard, reached toward the sound, and caught the stallion’s neck strap. In a moment his head was free also. Borne up by the struggling horse, both coughed and gasped but neither was stunned any longer. They knew they were in the river, that somehow the horse had sensed water and run toward it.

Once the shock was over there was little more danger. Geoffrey freed the stallion’s head so that the animal was less encumbered and shifted his grip from neck strap to cheek strap so that he could direct the horse’s movement. Both he and Joanna were excellent swimmers, the inconvenience of their clothing compensated by the support they received from Orage. In addition, the tide was running strongly upriver and in only a few minutes they were past the burning area. Nonetheless, they did not leave the river, merely seeking a shallow place where they could rest and then continuing until the close-packed houses of the merchants were behind them. In a quiet garden where only the gusts of smoke-laden wind told of the holocaust they had escaped, Geoffrey and Joanna finally clambered ashore.

There was another short period of tension when the caretaker of the house took exception to two bedraggled scarecrows invading his master’s sacred precincts. In the caution-engendered silence, Joanna’s sweet, cultured voice explained what had happened and reoriented the caretaker’s opinion. He hastened to offer what comforts were available in the empty house. There was little enoughgoose grease for the worst of their burns, backless stools to rest upon, coarse food and wine, rough garments. However, the caretaker’s son was dispatched with a message to Beorn and Edwina so that the deficiencies of their temporary haven would soon be amended.

Before nightfall, they were at home, abed, and so sound asleep that neither stirred at all when the thunder and lightning, which had increased throughout the afternoon, finally gave birth to rain. A violent downpour followed, which checked the fire. Even after the first fury of the storm abated, rain continued to fall, quenching the last of the embers. This good news Joanna and Geoffrey heard when they woke and by dinner time they were sufficiently recovered from their shock and exertion to have quarreled sharply.

Each expressed no very favorable opinion of the other’s intelligence, for allowing himself (or herself) to have become embroiled in so desperate a situation. Words nearly as hot as the flames they had escaped were exchanged until Lady Maud finally gave up pretending that she did not hear from the window seat where she had taken refuge and stared from one to the other in astonishment. It was incredible to her that Joanna should dare blame and contradict her lord with eyes that glowed like pale stars. It was equally inconceivable that Geoffrey’s fury, shown more clearly by his pinched, white nostrils, thinned lips, and the leaping light in his golden eyes than by his words, should not erupt into blows. Most ridiculous of all, the great dog, Brian, ran from one to the other howling his dismay that his god and goddess should emit waves of rage. Both ignored the dog, merely raising their voices to overpower his bellowing. Lady Maud put her hands to her ears.

‘‘You idiot!” Geoffrey snarled, “I tell you I did not come there apurposehowever fortunate it was for you that I did come there. I fell asleep on my horse, which took the widest, easiest road. I would have been safe home, without half these burns, if you had not thrust yourself where no sane woman should be.”

Having already explained several times that she had been assured that all danger from the fire was over, Joanna did not bother to offer that palliative. Unlike Alinor, Joanna was not quarrelsome for the fun of it nor because fighting lent a real spice to a reconciliation abed, nor did she become so angry that she no longer heard what was said. In addition, she had become aware of Lady Maud’s desperate attempt to shut them out of her hearing. It was ridiculous to continue an argument in which neither was right or wrong and upon a subject that, almost certainly, would never arise again.

“Very well,” Joanna said, dropping her voice, “indeed, it must be true that I am an idiot. No one
but
an idiot would be so concerned about you as to seek news of you when you plunge into trouble. I promise you, I shall not do it again.”

Upon the words, she walked out of the solar and into the bedchamber behind it. Bereft of a target, Geoffrey closed his teeth over what more he had to say. In the silence, Joanna’s last speech seemed to echo in his ears and finally penetrated to his brain. The flush died from his face, leaving the marks of the burns raw-red on the fair skin. He looked speculatively at the door through which Joanna had gone, a pleased smile replacing his previous hard expression. She was still an idiot, but that was forgivable, anything was forgivable when he considered what she had said. Only now he had to make his peace with her. Geoffrey’s smile faded. Joanna was not quick to anger, but she was also not easy to appease.

Geoffrey put a hand to his face in a characteristic gesture   of puzzlement, and winced. Lady Maud, seeing, offered to obtain some salve to soothe the burn he had touched. After a blank look of incomprehension, for his mind was miles away from the physical discomfort, Geoffrey smiled at her broadly even while he shook his head. Joanna might be an idiot; Lady Maud certainly wasbut he was not. He knew the perfect excuse for affecting a reconciliation with his betrothed when it was offered to him on a golden platter. Without further hesitation, Geoffrey opened the door into the bedchamber and went through.

“Joanna” She was standing by the window and did not turn. “The burns begin to hurt again, Joanna,” he said softly. “Will you tend to them?’’

He came further forward so that, when she moved from the window, they were standing side by side with the light full on her face. At first Geoffrey was relieved. The brilliance of anger had left her eyes and her expression was placid.

“Of course,” she answered quietly. “Sit down.”

It was not until Joanna returned with her salves that Geoffrey began to feel uneasy. She tended him deftly and gently, but she did not speak and there was a withdrawn look about her, as if she was treating someone she hardly knew and did not wish to become better acquainted with. Geoffrey found himself at a loss. With him, Joanna had never been subtle. If she was still angry, he would have expected her to apply the necessary remedies and say, “Do not speak to me. I am angry,” or, “Go away. I am angry.” Instead, as the silence lengthened and threatened to become awkward, Joanna made a polite comment about how fortunate it was that the rain continued.