The Flame Eater

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  Downstairs the west wing offered little comfort. Three privies stood in their shadowed doorless row where the wall behind led directly into the moat. There was a small solar used as a withdrawing annexe next to the steward’s large cold chamber of household office. Beyond that were more stairs and a winding escape to the entrance hall below; a dreary space without more than a screen between table and doors to the courtyard outside, no tapestries on the walls, and no blaze warming the hearth. February dismals both within and without. Emeline pushed open the main door, which was unlocked. The wind blasted in, flinging ice in her face and immediately extinguishing her candle. She staggered back, but when she eventually closed the door, it was behind her, and she stood under the stars and the great swirling white storm. It seemed preferable, somehow, to the cloying sickness, endless demands and criticism within. The wild boundless cold represented a freedom of sorts, however sparse. And it was freedom she craved, with escape from the dominion of others, and her own choices respected. So she stood where no one would have condoned, and no one would have understood, but told herself it was her right because, although forced into marriage, she was now a woman who might decide for herself. Her bedrobe had no hood, but the snow spangling her hair seemed refreshingly soft, like kisses after the frizzled knots caused by the fire.

  She walked out into the freeze and looked up at the huge silhouette of the Keep before her, its soaring battlements black against the stars. Its windows were blind eyes, and its doorway yawned emptiness, dark as pitch. Emeline carried no torch or candle now, but she approached the ruined stone, curious as to what, if anything, might remain within. She could not expect to recover anything much of her own, but might find, perhaps, the little emerald brooch her mother had given her on her betrothal, the rubies once passed down from her grandmother, and even the tiny gold cross presented long ago by her father when she first knelt at Gloucester Cathedral, taking Holy Mass. Now all the jewellery she owned was her little plain wedding ring, which she did not even want, and had not yet earned.

  There had been no exploration during the three full days since the fire, with the task of clearing of less importance than supplying medicines, restocking the larders and setting up a temporary kitchen. Many of the servants had no quarters left and had to cram in where they could, while others had been forced to return to their families in the village. The turmoil had increased over previous days, and not declined.

  Yet Emeline had not expected the rubble immediately within the doorway, nor the clammy layers of drifting soot, the nauseating stench, nor the sudden holes and gaps which let in a dusting of snow. She stumbled over burned wood, the charred remains of the three great feasting tables and their fallen pewter, silver and candle wax. There would, she supposed, be a great deal worth rescuing in time, and once cleaned some would not even carry the memory. But the destruction was far greater than the salvage.

  The grand staircase she had climbed on her wedding night seemed lost in shadow, but the wide steps were stone and so had survived untouched. It was as she reached the upper floor that wisps of broken plaster began to rustle and flutter against her. Emeline brushed the encroaching fingers from her face and hurried on into the darkness. Then she stopped. The patter of footsteps continued just one heartbeat after she had paused, as if her own following shadow needed that one breath longer to catch her up. She shook her head, disbelieving, but started to run.

  The bedchamber, which had been her husband’s, stood open, its door hanging on broken hinges, the once heavy oak now little more than a crust. The window shutters had burned too, so that the faint glitter of a starry night seeped in, flinging a sharply angled luminescence across the floor boards, showing where cindered pits opened black to the ground below. No glass remained and the falling snow bedazzled like a thousand dragonflies caught in moonshine.

  It was the same chamber where she had slept those few hours three nights ago, for Emeline saw and recognised the bed. She remembered the coffers, the window seat, and the carved settle before the hearth. So she stood there looking around and discovered her trunk, a small affair standing by the doorway to the garderobe, and although the surface was blistered and buckled, it was not entirely destroyed. She bent and opened it. But within lay shifting ashes and charred ribbons. Lifting the lid sent the sooty remnants into sad little flurries, and when she closed it in a hurry, they settled again as though sighing. Although inexperienced in the ways of fire, she accepted the incineration of her possessions. What little might remain of her clothes would be in her mother’s care in the guest wing. Nothing else was left.

  The bed’s tester hung in three long strips, each scorched and blackened, blowing like accusing pointers in the wind. She reached out and stroked the tattered damask bed curtains she had once admired. At the touch of her finger, the ashes flew. The bed smelled of ruin, of burned feathers, and of memories other than her own. Scraps of fur like tiny singed tassels were scattered across the surface, and amongst them Emeline sat and hugged her knees, scrunching her frozen toes into the last puff of blanket warmth. It represented her adulthood, which might once have been the greatest celebration and a grand romance with Peter as her gallant groom. So she had returned to face the horror, trying to conquer the terror of the fire which still lingered in her silent moments. And now the shelter, however slight, was some comfort after all. Thoughts buzzed in her head like wasps, recreating her father’s orders, her husband’s weary anger, her own frantic disappointment.

  She lay back. There would be ash in her hair and dirt on her bedrobe but when she washed in the morning, she would wash away the past. If Nicholas lived, she could beg an annulment, pleading non consummation. If she dared admit it. But then as a marriageable maiden, once more she would belong to her father. As a widow, should her courage allow, she might make demands, lead her own life, and even claim back her marriage portion.

  The whispers crowded closer. They curled with her, surrounding her, reminding her, tempting her. She closed her eyes and tried to close her ears. It was in the drifting, uneasy dross that she finally slept, within the cremation of her wedding night, and covered over by its charred remains. No embers burned, and the snow hush still gusted through the little window frame, but she did not wake. She did not hear the man approach the bed, nor feel the touch of his hand as he moved her shoulder, peering into her face to see if she was living or dead. Yet, disturbed by dreams, she sensed some threat, somehow aware when the man slipped his palm past the opening of her bedrobe and across her body, feeling the warmth of her breasts, and the soft rise of her nipples through her shift. But she did not hear the sharp intake of his breath as he touched her, nor knew that he sat there a while, watching her in both suspicion and reluctant hunger before leaving as soundlessly as he had come.

  She might have noticed his boot prints once the morning light climbed high as the windows, but other things happened first, and solitary footsteps in the ashes were quite obliterated by the time she woke.

  The dawn crept up behind the battlements of the western wing, and Avice shouted, “Maman, are you there? Emma has gone. She was here when I went to sleep, but she’s disappeared. Have you sent her back to her horrid husband already?”

  The baroness was already awake in the adjacent chamber and sitting patiently while her dresser unpinned her headdress, rearranged her careful curls, and covered them anew with a bright starched net. Now she stood in a hurry and pins scattered. She marched next door and stood looking down at her youngest daughter. “Avice, make sense for once in your life. When did she leave?”

  “If I knew that,” Avice pointed out, “I wouldn’t have called you. I’d be keeping quiet to hide whatever she’s secretly up to.”

  Her mother sighed. “If you ever grow up to become as difficult as your sister, Avice, I shall give up entirely and join a nunnery. If Emma had the slightest feeling of filial respect and social propriety, she would be thrilled with the marriage we’ve arranged for her. The girl is quite unnatural. When your turn comes, Avice –�
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  “I shall be only too delighted to get a rich husband,” Avice insisted. “And I don’t really see anything wrong with Nicholas. He might be nice enough once you get accustomed to him. He’d even be quite pretty if he didn’t have that mark on his face. But Emma wanted Peter. And Peter wasn’t very polite about his brother, you know. It was Papa’s fault for arranging that marriage first. And how did Nicholas get like that anyway? Is it a battle scar?”

  The baroness sat. “I have no idea how Nicholas was wounded, since the family will not speak of it. But he’s far too young to have been at Tewkesbury or Barnet, and I believe he never joined the Scottish skirmishes. Now, it is Emma I’m more interested in. Has she gone to Nicholas, do you think?”

  “In the middle of the night?” Avice shrugged. “I doubt it, though she said he kissed her before the fire. But she hates him and I don’t think a bit of kissing would make her change her mind.”

  “Just kissing?” inquired her mother, raising a sceptical eyebrow.

  “Kissing. Doing it,” said Avice, “and now I think she’s run away.”

  “Oh dear.” The baroness went slightly pink and her shoulders slumped. “It is possible of course. Poor Emma. She was so upset at the thought of marrying Nicholas and then she was most put out yesterday when dear Papa ordered her to come back home with us. Though really, it is most contrary. If she doesn’t want the man, then she should be happy to stay with her own family.”

  “Papa will be furious.”

  “Stop smirking, Avice,” accused her mother. “I have absolutely no idea how I will tell him. He’s not had an easy time lately, what with all this winter travelling and your sister’s behaviour, and the earl’s stubborn demands over Emma’s dowry.” Her voice sank lower. “You know, my dear, his lordship the earl is not at all a man of high moral standards, and I believe he drinks heavily and is rarely sober. Your Papa despises him.”

  “Perhaps the fat old pig fell on the candles and started the fire. Perhaps he’s debauched!”

  “I have no idea, and you shouldn’t think such things.” The baroness stood, took a very deep breath, and prepared to leave. “You had better get up now, Avice, since goodness knows what will happen next. Your Papa will certainly want to question you. I do wish I could avoid telling him.”

  “So you’re more frightened of telling Papa than you are about what could have happened to Emma,” noticed Avice. “But she might have jumped in the moat.”

  “Highly unlikely. She would never be so obliging,” sniffed the baroness.

  “Well, I hope not,” nodded Avice, “since she’s wearing my very best shift.”

  The baroness quietly went to her husband’s bedchamber and admitted the truth. The baron, cold with anger, alerted the steward, who informed the earl, who told his son.

  The day was rising in the cloud sullen sky, lighting the first reflected dazzle over the night’s snow cover. The earl hauled himself from his bed, thumped into his son’s sickroom and announced, “The chit’s run away from you, Nick m’boy. Disappeared in the small hours. Forfeited her dowry.”

  Nicholas blinked one eye and smiled. “First good news I’ve had for some time,” he murmured. “Perhaps she’s hoping for an annulment. With luck she’s run off with that damned Leicester doctor who wants to starve me and suffocate me with lard.”

  The west and east wings, being the only parts of the castle buildings unaffected by fire, were now overcrowded and offered little or no place to hide, but both were immediately searched from battlements to cellars and at considerable length. But there were no signs of unaccounted females in any place.

  Orders were then issued to search the castle grounds from the guards’ entrance, the stables, the kitchen gardens and on through the outlying sheds rumbling with cattle and goats. The scullions were sent to tramp along the banks of the moat both within and without the great walls, and the dairy maids, laundry maids and brewsters were sent to check the far block of privies by the outer boundary. The steward questioned the night guard, who swore that no one had passed through the main gates since the previous afternoon, nor had a single soul crossed the drawbridge. Anyone wishing to leave the castle unseen would have had no choice but to swim the moat. The steward had turned quite white at this, and quickly returned to report to the earl. His lordship grunted and asked about footsteps in the snow, and the steward regretfully announced that since it had snowed heavily for some hours, all previous footsteps had been obliterated and buried, leaving nothing to show the passing of a young lady, and no other signs except the little black star prints marking morning’s first hungry ravens and the tiny paws of the castle’s population of busy mice. Now, of course, the snow was churned by the feet of every single Chatwyn servant, and no secrets remained in view.

  Finally they went to the ruined Keep, which was the only place still unexamined, and they crept unwillingly through the blackened smoke filled chambers and the cold dark corridors, being the very last place they expected to find her.

  Chapter Six

  “Must care for you after all,” grumbled the earl. “The brainless wench slept the night in your old bed. Wrapped in dirt and ash when they found her, looking more like a spit boy who’d fallen in the grate. Liverich came to tell me – as if I’d be pleased to know.”

  “You should be,” announced his son. “It’s surely preferable than discovering her corpse down the well. The water’s not particularly clean as it is. But it appears you’ve wed me to a madwoman, my lord.”

  “Humph,” sniffed his lordship. “Peter liked her well enough.”

  “That’s part of the trouble,” said Nicholas. “And precisely why I didn’t want her in the first place, as you damn well know. So if you’re thinking the girl crawled into my old bed for sentimental comfort or romantic memories, then you’re much mistaken.”

  The earl shook his head and trundled over to the window seat. “You mentioned an annulment earlier. Don’t tell me you were too pissed that night?”

  “I have no intention of telling you anything at all, sir,” his only remaining son informed him. “This is my business alone, and will remain so. And if the doctor permits it, I suppose I should now go and visit my errant but rediscovered wife.”

  “Don’t recommend it, m’boy,” said the earl. “Probably has a damned parcel of weeping women with her, all praying and complaining no doubt. And you’ve no legs left worth speaking of. You’ll not be allowed out of bed for another month.”

  Dragged from his pallet, the apothecary, aghast, quickly agreed. “My lord, I beg you, my lord, your life could still be in danger. It has been just over three days, and your health remains at risk. You should not leave your bed except for the commode, and even that as little as can be arranged. If you will allow, I shall call for another bowl of goose grease, and will attend to your wounds again shortly. In the meantime, good white bread has been soaking overnight in goat’s milk ready for the morning’s repast – and I believe small ale can be permitted a little later –”

  “That settled it,” said Nicholas. “More than three days fastened to this hideous lumpy mattress have made me more lame than the damned fire has, and all I can smell is lavender and cattle shit. I’m not sure which is worse. So I’m going to visit my wife.”

  The earl narrowed his eyes. “This is wilful stupidity, and you know it, Nicholas. I doubt you even remember the girl’s name. If you were a little younger –”

  “You would beat me senseless as so often before, dear Papa, or when too pissed to hold the belt yourself, have someone else do it for you.” Nicholas also narrowed his eyes, wedging himself up painfully against the bolster at his back. “But as you have so sensibly noticed, I am now a little too old for that, and you are a little too large in the paunch. I advise caution, my lord. And patience. For I now intend doing exactly as I wish.”

  Baron Wrotham regarded his daughter with an expression closely resembling that with which the earl regarded his son. Emeline sat hunch shouldered as her father stood over her. T
he baron said, “After Mass, and after thanking the good Lord and all the saints for your preservation during such worthless female hystericals, you will then beg my pardon, Emeline. I shall be waiting for you in my chambers.”

  Emeline nodded, keeping her eyes carefully on her lap. She had not yet been given the opportunity to dress, or even wash, and felt increasingly embarrassed. She mumbled, “Yes indeed, Papa. I am quite happy to beg your pardon now. For I am sincerely sorry, truly I am. I had a nightmare. I never meant to – inconvenience you, my lord.”

  “Your very existence inconveniences me, Emeline,” said her father. “Even when contrite, you manage disobedience. But you will not thwart me, madam, and the longer you attempt wilful arrogance, the longer I shall call on the good Lord to punish you in an appropriate manner. So now, without argument, you will prepare yourself for Mass in the makeshift chapel below. You will cleanse yourself, clothe yourself modestly in one of your old gowns, and present yourself without delay at the Lord’s altar. Our own family priest awaits you and Father Godwin is ready to hear your confession and grant absolution. After this, and not before, you will make your apologies to me as I have intrusted you. Following that, you will begin to prepare yourself for your return to Gloucestershire in two days’ time.”

  “Two days? Not tomorrow?” It was a relief, and would allow a little more time for discovering further excuses.

  “You are a fool, Emeline, as I have always known,” her father informed her. “Tomorrow is a Sunday. I have never travelled on the Sabbath, and never shall, as you are certainly aware.”

  She hung her head. “I had forgotten which day it was – so much has happened.”

  It was as she pushed back the chair and stood, keeping the edges of her bedrobe meekly together and straightening her knees to disguise the trembling, that her very new husband walked in entirely unannounced. Nicholas limped heavily, and leaned on the shoulder of his page. His other arm was in a sling, his hands were thickly bandaged, and his face shone with both exertion and lard. His great sorrel bedrobe swept the floorboards as he struggled in, nodded to the baron, and collapsed on the high backed chair which his wife had just vacated. He stretched the more seriously injured of his legs out before him and, closing his eyes momentarily, said, voice rather faint, “Apologies for the improprieties, but perhaps I should not have left my bed after all.” He then opened his eyes again, and smiled at Emeline who hovered before him. “You look delightful, my lady,” he croaked. “Ashes and sackcloth suit you.”