The Flame Eater

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

“Don’t be.” Ralph looked down, wiping his wife’s mouth where the blood had puddled, though was bleeding no more. “’Tis my fault you’re here. You should hate me. But now I can hold my dear wife, and kiss her again. I couldn’t before, it hurt her too much if I put just an arm around her, for it squeezed them terrible lumps and made her scream with pain. But now she’s all mine. She were so beautiful when I married her. You couldn’t tell it now. But that’s how I still see her, and always will.”

  Emeline stood slowly, hugging herself, shivering although the fire still spat and flickered. “I’m going to try and get away,” she said. “I don’t think I’m sick yet but I won’t risk going back to the inn or seeing my sister. If I manage to get away, I’ll buy some medicines in the next village and bring them back to you.”

  Ralph said, “If them in Restlebury guess you come from here, they’ll hang you.”

  “Doesn’t everyone around here know each other? So they’ll know I’m not a village girl. I’ll make up a story. I’ll say I’ve come from Weymouth. That’s where I was going, before all this happened.”

  Ralph turned back to the limp body cradled against him. “Go to Weymouth, lady. Go now,” he said, “afore they catches you. Don’t you worry for me. I got two days more, I reckon, then will go to be with my Maud again. We can work our way through Purgatory together, and then we’ll wake healthful and happy. One day we can run through the poppy fields like we used to. Will they have poppies, do you think, in heaven?”

  “I’m sure they have great pastures of poppies, and roses, and buttercups,” said Emeline, reaching for the door handle. “I’m going now. If they catch me, I’ll be back sooner. If they don’t – I’ll come back with the medicines tomorrow. Some for you, and some for me.”

  No one saw her leave. Emeline closed the cottage door very quietly behind her. She stood one moment on the step looking up into the falling twilight, the wind in her face as she took one deep breath of freedom. Then she started to creep, a step, then two, keeping always to the shadows. She was under the cover of the trees within three breaths, and then deeper into the wooded slopes. The village she had left was tucked into a dip between rises, and the rises were thick with beeches. She avoided the dulling light and chose the damp shadows. She didn’t care that she was lost. She wanted only to escape the patrol with their sticks and their sentence of death.

  Her hems, still mud stained from the thief’s boggy trap, now trailed in the undergrowth, sodden and heavy. and her ruined headdress barely clung to her head. Her thick russet curls escaped their restraints just as she escaped the village.

  She was shivering and utterly wretched as she came through the trees onto the path. Not a path she recognised, just beaten earth and narrow, a ditch of muddy trickles either side and a view over the reedy grasses to the land stretched out beyond. It was growing quickly darker but the first glimmer of milky stars spun their sheen as the moon peeped, a hanging spoonful of silver behind the trees. Far off, and darker than the sky, Emeline saw the thin strip of ocean where she had hoped to find her husband, though no flicker of moonlight yet glinted on the water’s sullen edge. She stared one minute longer, as if it brought her nearer to Nicholas.

  Plodding along the pathway, she headed away from the sea. Ralph had told her the direction to aim for the next village, and she hoped eventually she might find someone to ask. As long as the patrols did not find her first. She had no purse, but she wore a broach she might sell, its tiny pearls and amethysts still pinned to her gown. She also wore, as always, the ring Nicholas had given her. She would do what she could in order not to sell this, but if death was so close, even such a precious token seemed of less importance. In the meantime, feeling ever colder and more miserable, she searched only for a place of cover where she might curl and sleep and for a few hours dream away the cloying stink of sickness and promise of death.

  The sound of galloping horses was unmistakable, shaking the ground beneath her feet. Two men or more, racing through the night, and in their hurry would surely take no notice of her bedraggled shadow. The patrols had been on foot, but she did not know if there were others and it was too late now to risk danger. Emeline moved back against the little ditch, ready to scurry under the trees if the riders stopped. The first horse was a blurred and looming shadow, closing fast. An old horse, steaming and frothing, forced to run beyond its strength. The rider leaned low, urging his mount, and the hooves drummed, shaking the ground. She heard others further behind, but did not know or care how many. She stood quite still, her heels almost in the drain waters. It was so long now that she had been continuously frightened, she barely noticed the increase in her heartbeat.

  Then the horse was on top of her, a bandy puffing bay doing its best for its master. The horse and rider came abreast, the reverberation so pronounced Emeline felt she bounced. She wrapped her arms around herself, bowing her head, unmoving, becoming a small part of the night.

  The horse passed. But just three steps more, and swept around with a swirl of skirted coat and a whistle of wind, neighing, alarmed, thundering hooves and rearing in startled alarm; the rider turning his horse so abruptly it nearly stumbled. In a second he was out of his saddle, leg swung over the horse’s neck and leaping to the ground. His boots hit the dust with a thump and a kick of dirt, his coat flashed white fur trimmings almost in her face. In the darkness Emeline staggered back, terrified and confused. Then she was in his arms.

  “Dear sweet Jesus,” said the voice she recognised, muffled into her neck, tickling her ear, forceful and urgent. Then the warm mouth was hard on hers, kissing her.

  Emeline thought she might faint. “I’m dreaming. Or am I sick already? Am I delirious?” Nicholas held her so tightly she could hardly breathe, though not for one moment complained. His magical appearance, his reassurance and his protective strength smothered out the chill and all the fear was swept aside.

  He said, “I’m real enough, my love, but are you?”

  She peeped up at him and the moon reflected in the blue brilliance of his eyes. She whispered, “I was looking for you. And then everything went wrong.”

  “I’ve spoken to Avice. So although I know why you ran from the Strand House and my wretched father,” he frowned, half delighted, half worried, “but this time – from the inn and even from your sister. Why run away again? And to run into danger. Of all nightmares, the pestilence.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to,” she mumbled. “I’ll tell you everything. But I really, really need to sit down.”

  “You’re sick?” She lost her footing and was lifted from the ground, her feet flew, his arms around her back and beneath her knees, carrying her as though she weighed no more than the bucket of water which had started it all. He said, “My horse will carry us both. I’ll take you back to the inn.”

  She shook her head, then leaned it against her shoulder and said, “I can’t. Not back there. And I can’t come near you either. You have to put me down. I can’t breathe on you.”

  “A little late for that.”

  “It’s what you did and what I have to do. Not to risk anyone else –”

  She struggled but he carried her to his waiting mare and tossed her up into the saddle. “I seem to have heard those words before,” he murmured, “but you’ll face nothing like that alone, my sweet.” Then, his foot to the stirrup, he mounted quickly behind her, one arm to the reins and the other around her waist, and spoke directly to the back of her ear. His voice was a little warm breeze. “I’ll ride slowly – the poor beast is exhausted anyway. In a few moments David and Alan will catch up with us. But I need to understand, and I want details.”

  She began to explain, but found she was crying. As the other two riders cantered into sight along the narrow lane, Nicholas waved them away. “Rob and Harry have taken the lower road,” he said. “Find them and tell them to meet me back at the Fox.”

  After a while, Nicholas slowed his pace to an uncertain amble, and then stopped. Emeline was still trying to finish her story. She mu
mbled eventually, “But I’ve promised to go back to that poor man tomorrow. With medicines and something to stop the pain. And then I have to stay there, because it will be me next.”

  He kissed her ear and the back of her neck, and he loosened the reins so the horse again began to jog, a desultory trot along the dark path. Nicholas murmured, “Silly puss. Nothing like that will happen. I’ll sort a way to fulfil your promise to your dying friend. But I want you back safe at the Fox, even if I have to smuggle you in. We’ll need a separate chamber, something small and out of the way, with no questions asked. David can sort out clothes for both of us, and buy a supply of medicines. I’ll keep you apart and in bed, so there’ll be no contagion. The locals have all heard the rumours, but I’ve a habit of getting my way when I want it. I intend looking after you until we see whether there’s danger or not.”

  She struggled out of his arms and turned to look at him. “You, of all people, I can’t risk making you sick.”

  “Not me. I’ve twice proved myself against the pestilence, and if needs be I’ll prove myself again.” He sighed, then smiled, cradling her again against him. “It’s the greatest horror of our age, greater than battle and the power hungry, greater than French threats and treachery, greater even than the pox and poverty. Every year it kills hundreds. It slips in quiet as moonlight, and in a week there’s another village where new graves are dug across the land and the dying sob in desolation.”

  “I realised, back there,” she mumbled, “how you must have felt. And I can’t bring it to Avice or Sissy.”

  “No one knows how this infection spreads. Touch – breath – the air around – the clothes we wear. Or does our ever merciful God simply decide who will catch this filth, and who deserves to die in agony? But clearly He has no desire for me to sit at His feet, for I’ve survive it all. There’s those who catch it and there’s those who don’t. I don’t. Nor does David, for he’s never even had a headache. So it doesn’t frighten me, little one. Once you’ve passed the days of possible risk, as I promise you will, then I’ll take you back home.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “This nightmare will soon be over, I promise.”

  “You promise?”

  “And from now on, my love, my promises will always come true.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Eventually they left the road. Nicholas dismounted, guiding his horse up through the beeches. Then turning sharply, they followed a thin track barely visible in the moonlight through the summer leaves. The hostelry stretched out on the rise, its smart thatch and beams creaking a little in the evening breezes, and its three chimneys gusting their smoke up to the stars. Alan was waiting outside the main stable block. He nodded, taking the horse, and whispered, “Bill’s still sick, my lord. The others have talked of throwing him out under the trees, afraid of what he has, for rumours are rife. But he’s still here, since no one is brave enough to touch him. If you ask me, my lord, he’s suffering from the influenza.”

  Nicholas sighed. “That’s well nigh as bad.”

  “I’ll sort it, my lord. You get the lady safe. David has a chamber waiting.”

  David was at the hostelry door, holding it open. There was a sudden glorious warmth and the welcome of torchlight in the doorway.

  “Up the stairs to the attic, my lord, if the lady can walk that far. It’s the only chamber they had left, away up under the eaves. Little larger than a pantry, but it has a garderobe privy, a fair bed with soft pillows, and I’ve ordered the mattress warmed, a fire lit though the hearth is as small as a bean pod, and there’s both a jug of decent Burgundy and some steaming hippocras waiting.”

  “I thank you. And the landlord wasn’t suspicious?”

  David smiled slightly. “If he was, my lord, I permitted no word of it. It’s the Earl of Chatwyn’s heir, come back with his wife and wanting privacy, I told him. He didn’t dare argue, nor complain about the time of night. The nobility, I said, has their own habits and will brook no interference.”

  “Nor will I, since this is far too important.”

  Three flights up, then the final steps were steep, rickety and winding to the solitary attic chamber, once only used for storage but now the last resort for an overflowing hostelry. There Emeline collapsed on the simple posted bed, leaned back against the heaped cushions and mumbled, “I promised Mister Cole back at the village –”

  “That will have to wait for morning,” Nicholas said, “though you’re mighty obliging considering it seems to have been entirely his fault, and knowingly. But since nothing terrible will happen, we need not speak of it.”

  She shook her head, and said, “But if you’d watched his wife die, and him so caring –”

  Nicholas said softly, “I watched my mother die. And I cared. I cared very much. I watched my little sister die. I loved her almost as much as my mother.” He turned and continued speaking while pouring the hippocras. “They died in such pain and degradation.” He handed Emeline one cup, then drained the other himself. “And my baby brother,” he said very quietly. “All that pretty plump pink flesh sinking into dark bruises and loose wrinkled skin with no flesh left around his blood stained pleading eyes. He didn’t understand, you see, why the pain was so terrible, and why I could not make it go away. I was only six myself, but I felt such guilt and wished I could suffer too, as if that would make it better for them. I watched them all die and could offer so little help, so I know exactly what you saw. I’m sorry you had to see it.”

  Emeline was crying again. “Will you watch me too, when I die?”

  He paused, then spoke slowly, as if to emphasise the words. “You won’t die. Emma, I shall forbid it.” He had already removed her drinking cup and now refilled it. “I have to go down now, to explain the situation since the others will be worried. While I’m away, you will drink this, you will make yourself comfortable, and you will think of pleasure instead of pain. I shall be back very quickly. In minutes, no more, bringing your clothes, and mine, and anything else I think we need. We’ll stay up here for just five days. Five days to wait and see. Five days to enjoy alone together, to talk, to kiss, and to think ourselves lucky to escape our relatives. And tomorrow, if you wish it, I’ll buy medicines and take them to your sad widower.”

  She sat up again. “If you go there, the patrol will try and make you stay.”

  “No one,” said Nicholas, “makes me stay where I don’t want to.”

  She was asleep when he returned, but she woke, hearing his steps and the creak of the door. Still half drowsy, she heard him say, “Now we’ll both sleep, my love. Your sister is greatly relieved, Sissy still awaits her brother, and my men know exactly what is expected of them.”

  Emeline snuggled next to him as he lay beside her and held her close. “You told them about the risk of the pestilence?”

  He smiled. “You think me a poor liar, it seems.”

  She buried her head against the soft musty warmth of his doublet. “On the contrary.”

  She heard him chuckle. “Our own people know the truth, and will keep it to themselves. The servants at the hostelry know nothing, or we’d have panic and possible retribution. But in truth, we’re not tucked away here because of danger and disease at all. We are here, my sweet, for all the love making we’ve missed these past weeks.”

  She thought of something, now properly awake. “And your Uncle Jerrid? He’s not worried? He’s not worried about staying with Sissy and Adrian?”

  “What odd questions,” Nicholas said. “Jerrid finds Adrian a bore and Sissy a fool, but no more than that, and he never worries about anything. He’s a man who laughs sober, though prefers to laugh drunk. He seems to have been born with some part his elder brother missed, for my father growls sober and growls even more when pissed.”

  They slept warm. Nicholas did not make love to his wife. He lay some time thinking of her while she curled within his embrace, returning to the dreams he had interrupted. He discovered a strange peace, hearing the soft sound of rhythmic breathing and the little
tickle against his neck. His hand lay across the dip of Emeline’s breast, and beneath his palm he felt the strong steady beating of her heart. He listened to the little mutters of her dreaming, the small alarms and the complacent murmurs as she settled again. Sometimes her breathing became a tiny wheezing snore, and then she grunted, snug and satisfied by some dreaming pleasantry. Nicholas smiled, holding her to his own heartbeat, finding delight in her night time busyness.

  It had been a long time, and he had missed the smooth tempting touch of her skin and the gentle swells of her hips to her belly and to the rise of her buttocks, the hollows of dimples and her other beckoning secrets. He had missed the heat of her naked breasts, the hard thrust of her nipples beneath his fingers, and the lush curls of the hair between her legs. He had missed the silk of her inner thighs, the eager push of her lips to his, her little gasps when he found her places of greatest sensitivity, then the enormous thrill of her climax. His own climax, for which he yearned, he dismissed, yet still he remembered, enjoying the memory, of touch and entrance, his deep pleasure in discovery, and the teaching of her which she accepted with such excited obedience. He had missed all the joyous lovemaking which had haunted his own dreams for those days and nights gone, but which he knew he could not now expect of her. So he lay quiet, thinking and remembering as he fondled, his hands careful across her half clothed body, as he kissed her cheek, though she knew nothing of it.

  When he finally slept, his dreams were less kind. It was his mother he dreamed of, and his siblings as they died, and the awful black fear of seeing the same again. And in his dream he realised that he had now, at last, found love again, and that the same end might accompany it. Being long past midnight, he slept late. It was David who woke them both, knocking, a little timid at the door. “My lord?”

  It was nearly two hours later when David returned with the herbs and medicines Nicholas had instructed him to obtain, by which time Emeline was impatient for her dinner, to speak to her sister, and to hear all the news.