And now the way to the top storey was barred. Ten foot above, the opening yawned – now no longer an exit, an escape hatch, but a conduit, a chimney for the smoke that rushed up through it.
‘Cormac!’ Mara screamed, but there was no reply.
Suddenly the Spaniard seemed aware of her. ‘Get back, get back,’ he screamed in a strange high voice. ‘Get back, woman. The devil must be burned. “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.” Get back, go down.’ He grabbed her by the shoulder and began to pull her towards the entrance door, trying to thrust her out.
Mara wasted no energy in argument. Why had Cormac not appeared at the opening? He was an active, athletic boy who would make nothing of dropping through from just ten foot above. She had seen him spring from tree branches higher than that. There was only one answer.
Cormac, her son, was unconscious. And the smoke rising up in an ominous column told her that there was no time to waste.
‘“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil”,’ muttered Father Miguel, but Mara ignored him. There was nothing worse that he could do now. She had sent her messenger for help, but Finbar was young and unreliable and help might arrive too late. Without hesitation, she grabbed the bell rope and pulled hard. The rope itself was hot, but it still held firm. The bell jangled once overhead, though she barely heard it.
Suddenly she had found a way to get into the top storey of the small round tower. The bell rope would be her stepladder.
The rope was rough on her hands, but she was an avid gardener and the skin had been toughened by her work with spade and shovel. Keep calm, she told herself, and made sure that the rope was gripped very firmly with one hand before moving the second hand above it. The muscles in her upper arms burned and her shoulders ached unbearably. She could hear more muttered verses from the Bible and, more ominously, the sound of wood crashing on to the fire. The Spaniard was still feeding the fire; he had, she guessed, moved more of the unburned section of the ladder to crown the flames. She felt the intense heat leap up and prayed that a stray spark would not lodge on the loose fibres of the rope. Three times more, she said to herself, put hand above hand three times and I will be there. She looked up at the wooden flooring above her – three more agonizing pulls. It seemed to take for ever, but the crackling flames from below distracted her from the pain in her arms and shoulders and drove her upwards.
By the time she got one hand firmly clasping the wooden boards of the floor above, the heat from below seemed to have died down, though it was replaced by an irritating cloud of smoke that got into her eyes and nose and prevented her from seeing anything beyond the glow of a lantern. Poor wet turf from the basket, she thought thankfully.
With a last tremendous effort she managed to heave herself up by her arms and get one knee on to the floor. Once the second knee was beside the first, she relaxed her tight grip on the rope and pulled it vigorously two or three times. She heard the bell jangle in a confused way, but then felt him seize the end of the rope from below and rip it from her hands and a voice shriek: ‘“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”’
Mara abandoned the bell. Help would come – but would it come in time? She would have to rely on herself.
Now she could see her son. The lantern that he had brought with him was perched on top of the scorched wooden cupboard, that had formerly held the gold shrine. Its flame was sufficient to illuminate the small circular room. And wrapped in a black cloak, his face still covered by the devil mask, Cormac sprawled, face down, nose to the floorboards from which oozed up small wisps of smoke. Mara picked him up and felt the solid weight of him in her arms. He was completely unconscious and she knew that she had to get him into the air instantly. She tried to hold his face to the window slit, but very little air came through it. She wrapped her cloak around her hand and tried to knock the solid mullion that Ardal had broken when he had attacked the fire that burned the relic and the cushion, but it had been cemented back into place too securely and she could not move it. It was useless trying to break it, but the air coming through this tiny opening was not enough to bring back to his senses a boy overcome by smoke.
Not enough air, she thought rapidly, and was conscious that even her own mind seemed to be unusually confused. She pushed her chin under the neck fold of her hooded cloak and tried to breathe through the cloth. A glance at the opening of the floor showed that the flames were now snaking up the bell rope. Fire was a risk, but the choking clouds of smoke were worse. They could kill. She thought about trying to ring the bell once more, then discounted the idea. By now everyone within a mile of the church would already have heard the discordant peals.
But she could not afford to wait for rescue. Carefully she lowered Cormac to the floor again, winding a fold of his cloak over his nose and mouth. With a strength that she had not known she possessed she picked up the heavy wooden cupboard and thrust it with all her strength against the stone mullions. It thudded and bounced back against her hands. She tried again. There was a dent in the wood, but the stone held as firmly as ever.
Mara put down the cupboard and stared with a mixture of panic and frustration at the window. There was no time to waste: a column of spark-filled smoke was streaming up from the room below. She could no longer hear the Spaniard’s voice, but there was a thundering at the door. Help was coming.
But it might be too late. One glance at Cormac’s white face frightened her. She wanted to pick him up again, to feel the lovely weight in her arms, to touch his smooth skin, but she knew there was little time left. She had to get the boy into the air.
There was no point in trying the other windows; each was as solidly constructed as the one that she had been desperately hammering at. And there was no use in trying to go down. The burning of the two ladders had caused the fire to leap up through the opening in the floor.
The hammering at the door went on and then suddenly stopped. Why had it stopped? By now the brightness of the orange flames should have been visible through the crack around the doorway, perhaps even through the windows which allowed light in and out of the round tower. There were rescuers – shouts sounded from outside – they could be heard clearly from above. Why had they abandoned the door? Perhaps they feared to make the fire worse if they pushed it open. Yet there were plenty of rescuers out there; she could hear the voices coming down from above.
From above … coming down through the thatch above!
In a moment Mara had moved the small cupboard to a position just in front of one of the slit-like windows; the next moment she was on top of it – just four-foot high, but high enough. She dug her nails into the sides of the mullion and levered herself up. Standing on the solid wooden base, her arms reached up and almost without realizing what she had done she found that the knife which normally lived in her pouch was in her hand.
She had watched Cumhal at work often enough. She knew how thatch was constructed. First came the hazel slats and the twine that bound them together. On top of that came layer after layer of bundles of rushes, straw or reeds. By the time the last layer was laid, the roof was impermeable.
But not impermeable from underneath; attacking it from underneath was a different matter.
Just a hole – that’s all I need, she told herself. Working as fast as she could, her knife slit through twine, severed hazel twigs. She thrust her fist through. The sharp ends of the sticks drew blood, but she felt nothing, just widened the gap as much as possible, and then sliced again and again. Now the hole was big enough to get her son’s head through; enough to enable him to take some pure air into his lungs.
The fire from below roared, the smell of turf smoke now overlaid with the aromatic scent of old oak timbers. The floorboards must be on fire. There would be only minutes before the second floor would go up in flames as well. There was a crash from underneath – the wooden opening had collapsed and the boards had fallen into the
space below. Instantly Mara was off the cupboard and had seized Cormac in her arms.
He was a well-grown child of nine, but she picked him up as if he was a baby in the cradle. Still holding him, clasped close to her, she managed to get one knee on to the cupboard. If only he was conscious, if only he could help. He was breathing, though, breathing with long, deep sighs. She squirmed around, sat on the cupboard, holding him on her lap. The cupboard was barely wide enough to hold her; she could not seat Cormac beside her. And she could not rise to her feet while holding him within her arms. She needed to attach him to her. If only he would put his arms around her neck as he used to do when he was little.
In a moment her knife had slashed the back panel of the devil cloak that he wore. She pulled the loose ends under his armpits, then tied them behind the back of her own neck. Now he was attached to her. She doubled one leg under her and then the other. Eventually she was kneeling. She reached up with one hand and found the central mullion on the window. Her nails dug into its chiselled edge and just as sometimes a hand on a twig will enable a person to vault over a gap, this contact with the stone steadied her and lent power to her leg muscles. With a mighty effort she managed to stand up, feeling the weight of her unconscious son bending her neck almost to breaking point and keeping him clamped to her body with her left arm.
He was about shoulder height to her when he stood straight, but now, slumped as he was, his head hung down well below that. She wobbled for a moment and then managed to stand straight. With an almost incredible effort she got her two arms around the top of his legs and hoisted him up, pushing his head through the hole that she had made.
A tremendous shout from below told her that the rescuers had seen the boy’s head appear. Pushing against the broken thatch with the top of her head, she managed to get her own face clear of the straw and to see down to the crowd below. Nechtan was there, and so was Father MacMahon, and Sorley, too. Why didn’t they do something, she thought, with a moment’s irritation, why just stand around below like spectators at a horse race? If only Ardal O’Lochlainn had been there; he would have organized them into a proper rescue team.
A crackle from below warned her that she had little time to waste. She could not see down and did not dare lower her head or relax her grip on Cormac in any way. She guessed, though, that the wooden boards of the second floor were now ablaze. If the thatch caught fire – as it inevitably would – well, then, her son would burn to death.
‘Bring water from the well,’ shouted Nechtan. ‘And a ladder.’
Mara tightened her lips. Water from the well had worked when a small fire had smouldered on a velvet cushion, and when a powerful man had managed to break the mullion and reach in with his bucket. Now it would be of little use. And a ladder would not work with the almost lifeless boy in her arms.
‘Cormac is unconscious,’ she screamed down at them.
‘Bring mattresses, feather beds, anything like that!’ The voice was high and sweet, but the words were in English and there was a sudden baffled silence among Nechtan’s men, who had been shouting orders about buckets. It was Grace, the scarred woman pilgrim, Mara realized, and she knew that the idea was a good one. Perhaps Grace herself had escaped from a fire like that.
‘Bring mattresses, feather beds, bundles of straw, rushes, reeds, anything soft,’ yelled Mara in Gaelic. There was a risk of fire spreading to such things, but the circular walls of the building were four feet thick and built from stone; it would take a long time for the fire to spread. There was no door on that side; she guessed that the door on the other side was now on fire as clouds of smoke were blowing around the half-lit churchyard. She held her son close to her, listening desperately to his heavy breathing. If only he would wake up. Surely by now he had breathed enough pure air into his chest?
But the crowds below were busy. She saw Blad running across from the inn, lantern in hand. He vaulted the fence around the churchyard and she breathed a small sigh of relief. He was a practical, sensible man and would take charge. Nechtan seemed bewildered, but she heard Blad shout orders to the stable boys who were with him, sending them back to the inn for feather beds and mattresses. Even old Father MacMahon was dragging a feather bed and Sorley was behind him carrying a heavy-looking mattress. Nechtan’s men were bringing thatching sheaves from the barn and piling them up.
And where was Father Miguel? Had whoever was thundering on the first-floor door managed to get him out? She could see no sign of him and cast an apprehensive glance down. But she could not see through the hole in the thatch and put him from her mind, promising herself grimly that she would kill him if he tried to pull her child back down into the fire that crackled below. She turned to look out again. By now the pile was about six feet high. If only Cormac were awake and conscious, he could easily and safely vault down on to that.
But he was too heavy for her to lift up and drop.
‘Cormac,’ she pleaded. ‘Cormac, wake up. Cormac, you’re safe now. Cormac, please wake up.’ She tried to hoist him up in her arms, but he was a dead weight.
‘He’s unconscious, Blad,’ she called down, ‘I can’t …’ What does one do to rouse an unconscious person? Shake him? Slap his face? Pour water? Desperately she hung on to him, but felt that there was nothing she could do except keep his head outside the thatch and allow him to breathe clear air.
‘Don’t worry, Brehon,’ shouted Blad. ‘I’ll be with you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Just you stay there and keep the little lad’s head up. He’ll be fine. Good man, yourself, Seán, that’s just what I need – that’s the longest ladder in the place. Two of you stand at the bottom of the ladder and keep it firm. Don’t let it sway when I lower him down.’
And with that Blad began to climb. Mara could see that he had a looped rope slung around his shoulders. Now she knew what he was going to do and her heart failed her for a moment. What if Cormac slipped? What if he broke his neck?
But the pile beneath had grown higher. Grace had seemed to take charge, widening the base as more mattresses and sheaves arrived. Once the hay was saved and the turf drawn home, September was the time for renewing the thatch before winter set in, and most households had accumulated bundles of dried reeds from the river or from Inchiquin Lake, and now these were strewn around the pile of mattresses close to the wall.
But the ladder was too short. Too short by about six feet.
It was probably the same ladder that Ardal had used on the day when Hans Kaufmann set fire to the relic. It reached to the small window slit but no further. The top of the ladder and Blad’s knees were a good six feet below.
‘Just keep on holding him, Brehon,’ he said reassuringly. ‘Can you catch this noose?’ He threw a length of rope. She missed but unperturbed he threw it again. This time she managed to catch it. ‘Just slip this noose under his arms, no hurry, now, Brehon, we’ll have him safe. Over his head, over his shoulders. That’s the way.’
Mara held Cormac tightly to her with one arm and tried to do Blad’s bidding with the other. The rope was stiff and unyielding, but she managed to get it over her son’s head, over his shoulders. It was now over her child’s elbows, and then one by one she lifted the heavy arms, praying that she would not let him slip.
‘Done it,’ she said, and recognized that her voice was shaking almost uncontrollably.
‘That’s the way,’ said Blad calmly. By now he was on the top rung of the ladder, balancing with one foot wedged into the mullion in the centre of the window slit and the other on the ladder.
He reached up a large hand and seized the rope. Mara could feel how it tightened around Cormac’s chest.
‘Come on now, little fellow, let’s be having you,’ he said. ‘How about one of Mór’s cakes now, how would you like that for a late supper?’
The light wasn’t good enough to see Cormac’s face, but Mara could have sworn that there had been a flicker from his eyelashes against her cheek at those words. She held him very firmly, with her two arms around his waist w
hile Blad, quite at ease on top of the ladder, held the rope from further down.
‘That’s nice and tight and firm now,’ said Blad after a minute. ‘We just need to lower him down; they’re ready for him down there. Don’t you worry, Brehon.’
‘Let me take his weight, Blad,’ said Mara firmly, throwing every ounce of authority into her voice. It was too risky, she thought, for Blad, swaying precariously towards the top of the ladder, to dangle a well-built nine-year-old boy from the end of the noose. ‘I won’t drop him,’ she added.
‘Just hoist him up as far as you can, Brehon. Hold the part of the rope near his chest and play it out – let it run through your hand.’ Blad’s voice was soothing. For a moment he wobbled then straightened himself again. He was balanced very precariously and despite the weight of the men at the bottom, Mara saw the ladder sway. Blad continued to hold the rope himself, quite near to the noose, but by stretching up as far as he could he now steadied himself by putting the fingers of one hand inside the conical wooden framework of the small roof. ‘Ready now, lads,’ he sang out to the watchers below, ‘we’re going to lower him down. One of you stand out there on the mattresses and catch him as he comes.’
‘I’ll catch him; I’m very strong.’ Again it was the English voice. Grace was standing below them, balancing on top of the mattresses and feather beds. One of Blad’s men stood beside her, but she had her arms stretched upwards and Mara, with Blad’s help, played out the rope, gradually lowering Cormac until he ended up in Grace’s arms. There was an excited cheer.
‘Now you, Brehon,’ said Blad, going ahead to give her space, and Mara wrapped her skirts around her legs and went down the ladder as quickly as she could. Cormac was still in Grace’s arms when she got to the ground, and the look on the woman’s face made her fight the impulse to snatch her son back into her own arms.
Cross of Vengeance (A Burren Mystery) Page 22