Chapter 19

N ay!” Fira cried.

Ignoring her, Drumfiddle said, “Since the rod may prove as ineffective, prepare a cask for full immersion, Brother James. Brother Klaus shall accompany you to properly bless the water.”

“’Tis not for holy men to take life!” someone raised his voice. “As immersion risks this woman’s, let us first call on Saint Cuthbert as Brother Eldon suggested.”

That made Fira go still.

“What harm could it do?” he pressed.

“What harm?” the friar and Brother Angus spoke in unison, then the former expanded, “Much harm! As master luminaries approved by God and unconstrained by the laws of man, we have the power to do that with which the foolish entrust dead saints. Thus, it is no sin nor crime for perfected Free Spirits to take life in order to cleanse the world.” He thrust a finger toward the door. “You and any others who suggest we call on the saints are expelled.”

Resuming her struggle, Fira did not know which of the brethren slammed out of the chapel, but when a sharp crack sounded and was followed by a howl of pain, she knew who was struck. Unable to lay eyes on Edgar, there was no doubt Drumfiddle had put him on the floor again. Nor was there doubt the rod not spared the novice would not be spared her.

The first blow Brother Angus landed atop her hands made her scream as Drumfiddle commanded the unclean spirit to speak. And scream again when the imagined demon’s stubbornness saw the rod applied to her knees.

As she replenished her lungs, she heard distant chanting as if her mind withdrew from her body. Thus, it shocked when clearly she heard something hit the floor and through her lids saw a flash like lightning come to ground.

Open your eyes! she commanded.

Now the cries of others, shouts and curses, running feet.

Look and see if your prayers are answered!

Something else crashed, more light flashed and leapt, then a door slammed.

Look, Fira!

It took a surge of heat to spring her lids wide. Though the warmth was welcome, only for a moment. What she saw made her extended legs recoil, but then a pall of apathy dropped over her. Bound as she was, she could do nothing to change her grisly fate, and that made her wish her retreating mind had not returned to unshutter her eyes.

Then you are unworthy of your sire’s name, that voice scorned as she looked upon those seeking to exorcise her—and now execute, having abandoned her in trying to outrun rushes set aflame by fallen candle stands no longer forming an aisle.

Thus, do nothing Fira who rejects the Wulfrith name, she slung more shame. Close your eyes as if a demon does reside within and now fully claims the demoniac.

The hard shake she gave herself making the chair rock, she cried, “I am a Wulfrith!” Then with clarity she would not have believed possible amid the chaos of those desperately trying to open the door, she bit into the knotted rope atop her right wrist. Ignoring pained teeth, swelling heat, and the shouts of her persecutors who remained in the chapel as if barred inside, she worked to free the knot.

When it yielded and the tail of rope woven through the loop was freed, she raised her head and, seeing billowing smoke and fire rising from furniture stacked along the walls, dragged her arm backward. As her red, swollen hand shed the rope, she rasped, “Lord, stay with me!”

Wincing over the brethren’s cries, shuddering over agonized screams surely caused by fire licking flesh, she turned her attention to her left wrist. But before she could tear at that knot, someone was before her. Certain Drumfiddle had passed through the fire to thwart her, she drew her knees to her chest and thrust her legs at him.

As the man yelped in a voice not the friar’s, she drew in smoky air that so tightly closed her throat she had to cough it open, then peered at Edgar through narrowed lids.

Amid the haze, he pressed a crooked arm to his chest, doubtless injured by Drumfiddle who was to bring him into a sect of Free Spirits more radical than those denounced by the Holy Church. “I but wish to help,” he croaked. “This place burns and them with it.” He jerked his head toward the door whence cries and screams issued, though now with less volume and more coughing.

Though she did not want to look, she glimpsed the brethren’s darkly robed figures amid smoke and flames. A moment later, movement drew her attention far left, and she saw Brother Angus stood on a chair atop a table, straining to pull himself onto the sill of a window he had unshuttered to escape what those below would not. But just as his fellow luminaries could not depart by way of the door, neither he through the window without sufficient strength to haul his body up. And as fire had separated that end of the chapel from this, he could not return here and search for another way out.

Might the novice who said he wanted to help know of one? she questioned as a flame shot high and caught the hem of Brother Angus’ robe. Hearing him yell and seeing the chair go sideways, Fira averted her gaze.

“Lady”—Edgar extended a palm out as if to soothe a dangerous, injured beast—“do you allow me to unbind your other hand, together we will search for a way to survive this.”

With smoke thickening, fire intensifying, and the screams of those amid ravenous flames hurting her heart, she had to trust him—though only so far. “Aid me!” she rasped.

He bent over that wrist, but having only one functioning arm the same as she, struggled with the knot. Thus, she assisted with her right hand whose bones she hoped were bruised rather than broken. Once the left was freed, she thrust Edgar back with her forearm, gaining space to stand and evade him. But no sooner was she up than her knees buckled, and pain dealt by the rod doubled when they hit the floor. Had Edgar not caught her up by the back of her chemise, she would have landed on her face.

As she leaned against him, he shifted his free arm around her waist, then with surprising strength, turned her from what was becoming an inferno with fire traveling up the walls. When he moved her to the right side of the altar toward a narrow corridor, she realized the din here was almost exclusive to the huff, rumble, and growl of fire and crackling of wood. Though some voices yet sounded from the opposite end, they were groans, whimpers, and weeping that was all the horrendously dying had the strength to expel. As for the smell more potent than burning wood …

Fira convulsed, but though she expected Edgar to cast her off lest she foul him, he kept her moving down the corridor even when her belly expelled bile.

“Nearly there, Lady!” However, what lay beyond the door before them kept its secret, refusing to yield to his hand and a kick less effective for him supporting her. “It has to be the way out!” he panted.

“I hinder, Edgar. Loose me and give all your…strength to the door.”

He eased her back against the wall, but she refused to sit, distrusting her ability to quickly rise and unfold even with his aid, which was all the more imperative with fire nearing the altar.

Twice Edgar slammed his good arm against the door, gave a cry that sounded equal parts frustration and pain, then kicked. She could not have said how many times he struck as she watched the fire seen through darkening smoke, but the crash of the door against a wall and his shout of joy told of his success.

As the smoke entered the room ahead of them, Edgar half carried her inside. Had this ever been a sleeping chamber, it had been transformed into storage like the place of worship being reduced to ash alongside furniture.

“A window!”

Fira followed the jut of Edgar’s chin to the back wall and shutters so warped and cracked chinks of sunlight were visible. Blessedly, unlike the window Brother Angus failed to reach, this one was at shoulder height.

“I have only to make a path, Lady.”

It was then she saw the way was blocked. Though it could be blamed on the smoke and her flawed eyesight, not in its entirety. Her ordeal was also responsible, putting a bend in her mind she had to believe would straighten out once she left a place no longer holy.

“Wait here.” Edgar urged her onto a chest that gave some, doubtless from rot.

Though Fira feared falling through the lid, her hands, knees, and shins ached so much she remained and, watching the novice shove items out of the way, pressed her chemise to her nose and mouth to filter air.

Edgar reached the window and, leaving the shutters fastened, returned for her. “Nearly free,” he said, but nearly was not enough, he discovered when he set her against the wall beside the window and opened the shutters. “Lord, aid us!” he cried.

Beyond this being a low-ceilinged room, there was a reason the window required no ladder to reach it. Iron bars were fixed over the opening to ensure the chapel was not easily entered.

“We must break through,” Fira rasped.

“We can, Lady. We but need…” Breathing hard between wheezes, he looked around, then ran.

Leaving her behind. Leaving her alone. Leaving her to find a way out through bars only a cat might slip through.