BRUSH WITH DANGER
Henry woke, without knowing what woke him. He tensed and listened carefully. He had been having a beautiful dream, starring the lady Amice and himself, and fairly colorful in its contents. He blushed.
Well, it isn't as if dreaming isn't allowed in this country, is it?
He felt himself smile. If it wasn't allowed, the dream he'd just had would almost certainly rate as a terrible crime. He shook his head and forced himself to listen. What had woken him?
He thought he heard a scuffle downstairs in the taproom. He tensed. Listened harder. Smoke.
Acrid and tinged with the scent of coal, the scent of smoke curled up to his nose from the floor, strong and insistent.
The inn is on fire.
On pure instinct, Henry rolled out of bed and came up standing. He dragged on his shirt, which he'd left by the bed instinctively, and drew on his trews unseeing. The room was almost completely dark; the only light the fitful light of the night sky, leaking in through the uncovered window by the fire.
He dressed and knelt, blowing on the embers to give faint light. Then he looked about. He grabbed his case – he traveled with a single saddlebag, bearing only a few papers and his coin, and nothing else – and headed out.
Smoke filled the hallway. He coughed. He knelt down, breathing in the clearer air that hung just above the ground. Anyone who traveled on a ship regularly knew some things about what to do if it caught on fire – fires at sea were more common than people thought. On a contraption made of wood, all it needed was a cook with a careless hand or one forgetful sailor to get roasted in the dark.
He coughed. The smoke stung his eyes. It burned his lungs. All the same, he headed on down the hallway.
Amice! The thought of her seared into his brain. He couldn't leave without finding her! What if she was in the part that was burning? Where was her room? He made himself remember.
She was on the first floor.
He reached the stairs and crawled down them. The first floor was even more smoke filled than his, were it possible.
No, he thought, crawling, coughing and trying to haul fresh untainted air into his lungs. If she is here, asleep, it's possible I'm too late. She might have choked to death in her sleep, unheeded.
He felt about beside him, keeping to the wall, feeling for doors. The chambers were on the right, the taproom on the left. It must be one of these rooms. His hand went into the first space where a door must be. He drew a breath and shouted.
“Amice!”
No sound. He risked hammering on the door. It was locked and no one answered when he cried out.
He drew in another breath, coughing and spluttering. His eyes were watering so much that he shut them, feeling forward on hands and knees, fingers trailing the wall.
The next door.
Draw breath. Knock. Shout. Try to push it, test if it's open.
“Amice!”
No answer. He shouted her name again. This door swung open on a dark black, cold, and empty room. No one had slept there tonight.
Henry crawled on down the corridor, feeling his senses swim. It was getting hard to think straight. Getting hard to move. He was tired. So tired. He wanted to stay where he was, right here in the hallway. He needed to sleep.
Next door. Draw breath. Shout. Stay awake. If you pass out, she dies. You, too. Breathe.
“Amice!”
He banged on the door, shouting. This time, it opened.
“Henri? Oh! Oh, no!”
She coughed, then. A hacking, rasping cough that said the smoke was in her lungs. Henry stood, reaching for her. He pulled her down beside him. When she gasped, he whispered, using all the breath he had to tell her.
“On the floor. Air...clearer. Breathe...low.”
Amice must have understood, for she nodded. Henry shook his head as they crawled to the stairs. He had no idea what language he'd spoken – French or English or Scots – but she'd understood him, which was what mattered. Explanations, were there to be any to give, could come later.
If we're still living.
He shelved the thought and wrapped her wrist in his hand.
“Stairs,” he murmured. This time he was sure it was French. He paused and she nodded – he felt the movement at his side, for he could no longer see a thing. He clamped her wrist in his hand and they crawled down the first step.
“Easier, to...lie.”
Henry lay down flat, letting his stomach scrape the stairs as he pulled himself down with his arms. It was an uncomfortable way to move, and every edge bumped into him, almost driving the life giving air from him. Still, it was better than standing. Faster than crawling.
Eventually he heard the sound of fabric slithering beside him and knew Amice was doing the same thing he had done. He nodded.
“Good.”
He couldn't talk above a whisper. He couldn't breathe beyond a rasp. Couldn't see.
Now they were on the ground floor. Henry didn't need to look to see the flames. Down here the roar of them, the creak of wood groaning as it twisted and expanded, the crackle of fire on oaken beams, was loud. The heat seared their faces. Henry coughed.
Amice was coughing too – he could feel her spasm as she doubled over, big coughs that would likely have her dinner up if she didn't stop soon. He held her arm.
“Easy,” he whispered. “We...that way.”
He tried to maneuver her to her right, where he could hear less of the crackle. She moved back and round and then they were crawling along beside the staircase, hugging the wall of it beside them. They were heading to the door to the yard, Henry thought.
The room they entered was surprisingly cold. Here, there was no wood or paneling, only raw stone. He guessed it must be where the traders entered; no attempt had been made to beautify or to keep it warm, which was the only reason, likely, it was spared thus far. He stood, gasping, as they breathed the clean air that still hung here in the cold space.
“Door,” he murmured between gasps. Amice was already there, lifting the latch.
Cold air seeped in. Henry gulped it as if it were water in a desert. Amice did the same.
“Must...go...now,” Henry said between sobs. Amice nodded. She crawled out through the door. Henry followed, stumbling out into the dark.
In the yard, they looked around them. The thatch was blazing, clumps of it falling to the yard stonework, then fizzling into red and then black ashes. The smell of smoke was everywhere. The screaming of those who had escaped was saddening.
“We have to help!” Amice protested. “What if someone...” she trailed off as he gently took her wrist.
“They're there.”
A crowd of people stood near the stables, watching the inn go up in flames. He dimly recognized the innkeeper and his wife, and a tall man with white hair who he had noticed in the dining room the night before. There were others there he had seen at the inn, he realized, and some townsfolk who had dined there the night before.
The other guests are out already.
As the relief of that flowed through him, he turned to Amice, frowning. If the others were already out, had this fire been set deliberately? Had someone meant to end their lives?
Not wanting to stand around to find out, he took Amice's wrist.
“We need to go.”
Amice nodded. She was drawing in breath after breath. Her face was white, hectic spots of crimson flush on her cheeks. She looked ill.
Henry dragged her after him, heading for the stables. He felt her slip and held her arm firmly. As he did so, he sighed.
“We need to get out of here. Can you reach the stables, do you think?” Here, there was enough air to breathe. He could talk again.
She nodded. “Let's go.”
They ran to the stables and found their horses. It was only when Amice was mounted and saying something about her groom blessedly being safe now that he noticed something.
She was only wearing her nightgown.
Feeling a slow flush spread through him, knowing it was ridiculous to think thoughts like that at such a time, but unable to help it, he turned his horse.
“We're out.”
They rode away, leaving the burning inn and its horrified crowd behind them as they headed into Queensferry.