The Illuminator (18 page)

“A light smack with a small spoon,” she said. “She is built slight of body.”

At just that moment the subject of her concern appeared in the doorway, minus the pigeons, her eyes wide with fright.

Agnes sighed. “What is it, child, can't you find the dove cote? I told you—”

The girl interrupted, her voice hardly more than a whisper. “B-beggin' your pardon, mistresses”—she looked at Lady Kathryn and then at Agnes, apparently unable to discern the class gap between them from her place at the bottom of the heap—“I c-come back to tell you.”

“Tell us what? What are you blabberin' about?” Agnes asked.

“ 'Tis f-fire. The wool house is a burning,” the child whispered.

The wool house. And suddenly, Kathryn was aware of a stronger smell carried on the smoke. It was not the smell of dripping fat from the kitchen hearth but the smell of burning wool. Two hundred and forty pounds of wool—all profit. She pushed the girl aside and fled in the direction of the wool house. But all she saw where the building should have been was billowing black smoke and orange flames.

By the time Kathryn got to the wool house, it was fully engulfed. Simpson and a few others, mostly Blackingham field hands and stable grooms, stood downwind from the heavy smoke, leather buckets dangling, empty and useless, at their sides. They watched as one corner of the roof sagged and, with a large pop, cracked and fell.

“No use now—she's past dousing,” Simpson said, but Kathryn noticed that he'd scarcely broken a sweat, and he held no bucket.

“Aye, it'd be like pissin' in the sea.” The speaker, whom Kathryn didn't know—probably one of the yeoman laborers hired by Simpson to prepare the sheds for winter—split his scraggly whiskers with a toothless grin.

At Lady Kathryn's approach, his grin vanished. He removed his grungy cap in a perfunctory gesture of half-hearted deference.

“Beggin' your pardon, milady.”

Simpson stepped forward, pushing the laborer aside as if he were a sheaf of grain or a tree branch blocking the path.

“There was nothing we could do, milady,” he said. “She went like a tinderbox. The floor planks, covered with years of wool wax, made good fodder. And then there was the wool sack.”

She longed to wipe the smirk from his smug face. If only she had somebody, anybody, of his class and station to take his place, she would sack him on the spot. She clinched her teeth and sucked a heavy dose of the smoky air. This resulted in a fit of coughing, dealing a further blow to her temper and her dignity. Her eyes stung from cinders and frustration. Her left temple throbbed.

She'd been counting on the profit from this last wool pack to outfit her boys in new clothes. A surcoat alone could cost as much as three shillings, two days' wages for a yeoman. With their birthday approaching, she'd need the extra gold sovereigns for provisions. With a pound of cane sugar or a pound
of
spice costing
five
times a day's wages for a skilled laborer, it was getting harder and harder to keep up appearances. She'd been skimping, cutting corners, in order to meet the death taxes, but with the young lords of Blacking-ham coming of age, more and better hospitality would be expected of her.

“I don't understand how this could happen,” she said, shouting above the roar of the fire and between coughs. “The wind fanned the flames, but what provided the spark? There's not been a thundercloud for weeks.”

“Someone probably left a lantern too near the wool sack.” His eyes shifted to Agnes and the scullery maid, who'd followed Kathryn and now stood on the periphery, watching. Simpson raised his voice so that it would carry. “Someone careless. Or drunk. You might ask the shepherd. If he ever shows his face.”

The toothless man sniffed the air and rubbed a bald head as withered as last year's turnips. “If you be asking me, I'd say there's a nasty sweet smell in that smoke. More than burnt wool. Burnt flesh, more like.”

He screwed up his mouth and spit. The spittle bored a hole in the wind and settled in a speck of foam at his feet. He continued, “You mayn't be missin' anybody, now, but if I was you, milady, I'd be doin' a head count of them what's important to me.”

He said it casually, as though he were talking about a missing cart or cup. Kathryn smelled it, too, a pungency that clung to the smoke, seasoning the smell of burning wool and wood with charred fat and skin and hair. Her stomach clutched, threatened to dislodge its contents.

Alfred. Where was Alfred? Shouldn't he be with the overseer?

Simpson knows what I'm thinking, she thought. Still, he's waiting, enjoying the moment. He's going to make me ask. She tried to keep her voice from betraying her. “Simpson, do you know where Master Alfred is?”

“I saw the young master earlier. On his way out of the courtyard. Headed for the White Hart, I'd imagine. The way he was cursing his horse, I'd say he was looking for a pint to cool his temper. He was with milady earlier, I believe, was he not?”

Relief flooded over her, giving her grace to ignore the overseer's snide insinuation. Heat from the fire scorched her face. Wind whipped and a fountain of sparks spewed as the roof caved in with a whoosh and a roar. The group of watchers moved with one accord, upwind, away from the sparks. The flames, partially satiated, no longer gulped but gnawed at the charred bones of the building. The heat was too intense to get closer. She peered into the inferno in the center where the roof had fallen. A beggar, perhaps, seeking shelter from last night's cool wind, or some animal slinking under the ill-fitting door. A shudder quivered her stomach. Pity the poor wretch, be it human or beast, who lay under the burning timbers. But thank God it wasn't Alfred. And Colin would have no business in the wool shed.

“There's nothing more to be done here,” she shouted above the sputtering and spewing. “Go on back to work.” She turned away from the men. Her sigh rivaled the hissing of the fire. “Come, Agnes. There's nothing now but to let the fire burn itself out. What's lost is lost and no amount of wishing can bring it back.”

The scullery maid bolted off like a frightened rabbit—probably to her bed of rags beside the kitchen hearth, Kathryn thought. But the old woman didn't move. She stared past Kathryn at the front of the building where the door had been. Then she started to run toward the fire, stumbling as her
clumsy skirts twisted around her legs. She kept her footing and struggled on like a swimmer fighting a heavy current upstream. It seemed as though she were headed into the fire. Kathryn ran after her, calling.

“Agnes, come back. You'll catch fire if you go closer. Come back. Let it burn.”

But by the time Kathryn reached her, Agnes had fallen to her knees and was keening a high-pitched wail that rocked her body back and forth with its rhythms. She clutched something to her breast, something she'd picked up from the ground. Lady Kathryn knelt beside her and gently pulled her arms open to see what she'd found.

It was a shepherd's scrip. The leather bag that John had carried. Kathryn didn't recall ever seeing him without it. The smell the yeoman had commented on, the smell of burning flesh—it was Agnes's husband burning inside the shed.

The heat from the fire was searing, but Kathryn knelt beside Agnes with her arms wrapped around the old woman. “We can't know for sure, Agnes. John may have gone to get help. He may be back any minute.”

Minutes passed, years, and John did not appear. Simpson and the knot of onlookers drifted away, anxious, no doubt, lest they be called upon for some heroic action. But Kathryn knew there was nothing to be done. If it was John's body burning beneath the collapsed roof, they would find little of it left to bury.

The two of them huddled before this funeral pyre like ancient worshipers praying before a pagan sacrifice. Kathryn's legs and shoulders were aching from remaining in the same position long before Agnes stopped her keening and attempted speech. Her eyes were dry. There had been no tears, just that desperate, terrible moaning, more animal than human. For the first time, in all of her long association with her servant, Kathryn was aware that this person whose service she had taken for granted was more like than unlike the one she served. Agnes's grief for her John was as deep and real as any grief Kathryn would ever feel. Indeed, Kathryn had felt no grief for her own husband's death. But Kathryn
could
know that kind of grief. If not for her husband, for her sons. Maybe even for Finn. She felt a shudder of relief, once again, that it was not her son inside the burning wool house. And then guilt. Guilt because she was glad that, if it had to be someone, it was John and not Alfred.

“If it is John, I will buy masses for his soul, Agnes. And when the fire is cooled, we will claim his poor body and bury it on chapel grounds.”

“You would do that for John, milady? After what Simpson said?” And then, before Kathryn could answer, “He was wrong, you know, my John never drinks in the day. Only at night, when the longing overcomes him. He never touches strong drink when he works.”

“I know that, Agnes. Put it out of your mind. I know that John was a good servant, and that you and John are loyal to Blackingham.”

“Aye, loyal, yes. But John wouldn't have stayed, wouldn't have been here to die, if 'tweren't for me.” And then her shoulders began to shake with dry sobbing.

Kathryn knew what she was talking about. She'd known for a long time that it was Agnes's loyalty that kept the couple from seeking the freedom of the open road and a yeoman's wage.

“Come.” She half-lifted the naturally heavy woman, made even heavier with the weight of her grief. “There is nothing we can do for John.” And then she added lamely, “If it is John.”

She took the leather bag from Agnes and lifted the flap, looking for some clue. There was the usual tar box, some twine, a knife, and a bit of bread and cheese and onion wrapped in waxed linen. Agnes cried out loud when she saw the contents.

“I packed it for him, before he left this morning. He said he would be in the far field and might not be back 'fore even.” Her voice broke.

Kathryn pulled out a leather flask, removed the wad of cloth that served as stopper, smelled the contents. The sharp smell of alcohol made her nose wrinkle.

“Look, Agnes. It's still full. Not one sip. If John went into that shed, he went in for a good reason. The way his bag lay beside the door, like it was thrown there in a hurry. He saw something. Maybe he saw the fire, threw down his bag and rushed in to put it out.” She hugged Agnes against her. “Maybe your John died a hero, Agnes.”

Agnes looked up at her mistress, her face a crumpled mask of sorrow.

“He
lived
a hero, milady. And I never told him.”

By nightfall the charred remains of what had once been Agnes's husband were recovered from the smoldering rubble. Sir Guy had come just as Kathryn and Agnes arrived back at the main house and, at Kathryn's request, quickly marshaled a cadre of firefighters—even the surly overseer would not let the sheriff see his reluctance—to squelch the flames sufficiently to salvage John's body. Dusk was crawling in when the men summoned the women back to the site. They carried the shepherd out, wrapped him in a clean blanket, and presented him gravely, first to Lady Kathryn, and then to his widow. Agnes emitted a small choking sound, strangled words that Kathryn could not decipher, but their intent was made clear by the frenzied movement of her hands. Agnes wanted the blanket pulled back so that she could see her husband's face. Kathryn understood the need for certainty.

“Milady, I would not advise—“ Sir Guy started, but at a brusque nod from Kathryn shrugged his shoulders in acquiescence and, kneeling beside the body, opened the blanket to reveal the dead man's face.

Kathryn had to turn her head away to fight the cresting nausea, but she put her arms around Agnes when she felt the weight of the widow sag against her. John's bones and burnt flesh no longer resembled anything human. The skin on his face was burned away. Two gaping, melted sockets, where the eyes should have been, stared out of a hairless skull covered with strips of black, peeling flesh. Still smoldering. But one plug of familiar stringy gray hair still adhered behind the left ear that had not been burned.