Barbara Denvil - The Flame Eater

Emeline dared argue. “But this is my home now, Papa. As a married woman I have the right to make my own choices.”

The baron frowned. “There will be no one here to attend to your needs or properly chaperone your presence. You will do as you are instructed, Emeline.”

“Surely my husband will be my chaperone.”

“Your husband will be many weeks in bed and under doctor’s orders, madam. He may not even survive. Almost half this castle, including all the principal chambers, is utterly destroyed. Rebuilding may take years. You have no experience of running a household on your own, and few of the staff would even recognise who you are. There is no place for you here.”

“I can learn, Papa. I can –”

“You can do as you are told, Emeline. I will discuss this no further.”

It snowed in the night.

She had dreamed. The hush and bitter chill of snow banking the outer window ledges had frozen the draught, and she had slept poorly. Once again she awoke with misgivings and the dread of approaching danger, but this time there was no crackle of flame or renewed reminder of smoke. She did not know what she feared, but crawled from the bed, trying not to disturb her sister. Avice snored a little, snuggled tight with her knees to her ribs, and snuffling beneath the covers. Emeline was wearing her sister’s shift, almost all her clothes having been destroyed in the fire, but her own bedrobe lay to hand and she pulled it on. She lit a candle from the hot ashes in the hearth, slipped out into the corridor, and tiptoed to the unshuttered window at the far end. It still snowed and against the high silver scatter of stars, the crystal flight seemed unworldly and unutterably beautiful.

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.