sliced through his already fragile concentration. One word alone was enough to draw his attention.
'Fire!'
Tate's heart skipped a beat. Fire in a castle could mean dis shy;aster. Certain Kiri-Jolith would understand the distraction, the knight jumped to his feet and was on his way to the door when a young squire, his thin face glowing from sweat, burst through it. He nearly knocked Tate down.
'Sir Tate!' cried the squire, his voice thin and reedy from inhaling smoke. 'There's fire, sir! Sir Wolter sent me to get you.' The youth collapsed on a bench, unable to draw a breath.
'Where is it?' The youth couldn't get enough air to speak. Tate shook him impatiently. 'Damn it, tell me!'
'Bake house,' the squire managed to rasp.
The bake house … It was next to the granary. They'd had to rebuild a lot of it with wood. He thought of Abel-every shy;thing had looked fine just a few short hours ago. Tate bolted through the door and headed for the opposite corner of the courtyard, where black smoke choked the sun. The normal bustle of the castle had been replaced by near panic. As Tate approached the bake house, it came to him that he'd broken another of the laws of the holy day. He'd spoken harshly to the squire.
A good morning was suddenly turning very bad.
Abel, covered in flour and soot, ran to and fro in front of the small building, clutching at everyone who came near enough, begging them to fetch water. A few ran to the well, others with more level heads went to nearby shops or to the stables to find buckets. The stonemasons, working above the kitchen and very near the burning bakery, scrambled down from their scaffolding and joined the force; the blacksmith bolted from his forge; the sentries left their posts to help. Even a small fire could rage out of control and consume an entire building in the time it took to organize a fire brigade.
The well was more than a hundred paces away, too far to form a continuous water supply line to the fire. Dozens of workers ran back and forth, sloshing water from heavy wooden buckets all the way, to splash a few gallons onto the rapidly growing blaze.
Wolter dashed out of the knights' barracks, weaving and dodging his way through the sprinting water carriers. He had barely reached the scene before Tate grabbed him by the shoulders. 'I thought you were keeping an eye on things!'
Sir Wolter's eyes already appeared red from smoke. 'I couldn't be everywhere there was flame,' the old knight said sadly, 'and neither could you.'
'Send word out to the village,' Tate told him. 'We need every man, woman, and child who can carry water, and every container that will hold it.'
Wolter immediately collared half a dozen boys and dis shy;patched them with Tate's message, along with a warning to 'run their hearts out, and pound down people's doors if nec shy;essary.'
Meanwhile, Tate had captured the distraught baker and removed him a few score paces from the tumult. 'Is anyone still inside?'
The baker shook his head vigorously. 'No, sir, I don't think so. But all my implements are there, everything I need to do my job. It's all being destroyed.' Abel's wide eyes turned back toward the smoking, half-timbered building, and he started to pull away.
Tate grabbed the man's arm and commanded his atten shy;tion. 'How did it start?'
'It was Kaye, sir, the apprentice.' Abel wrung his flour-covered hands uncontrollably. 'The boy's apron must have caught an ember when he crouched down to feed the fire. Suddenly it was burning and Kaye, why, sir, he nearly expired of a fit right there. Lucky for him young Idwoir was nearby, waiting for a biscuit. Idwoir ripped the apron off the boy and tried to get rid of it, but it fell to the floor.
'The reeds on the floor caught up next. Idwoir tried to douse them, but I guess he was too excited because he missed the flames. Before we could fetch more water, the whole place was filled with smoke so bad it choked a man just to be near it. Oh, I'm awfully sorry, Sir Tate. This is a catastrophe, thaf s what it is.'
Tate was in no mood to soothe the man's nerves. 'See if you can help by passing a bucket,' he ordered, then turned back to the fire.
The blaze was intensifying rapidly. Tall flames were visi shy;ble through the windows, gyrating in the black billows. Yel shy;low smoke, so thick that it looked like raw wool, streamed upward through the thatched roof.
By now, villagers were arriving with leather and wooden buckets, cooking pots, ancient helmets with chin- strap han shy;dles, even crockery mugs and tin cups. Wolter and the other knights directed them into two long lines from the bakery to the well.
'Every able-bodied person available, and some not so able, is here,' Wolter reported. 'We've got to make sure we keep rotating the men at the front. It's hot as wizard fire, and no one can stand it long when they're up close enough to throw on water.'
One line of people, containing mainly men and matrons, passed the heavy, sloshing buckets from the well to the fire. Empty containers traveled back to be refilled along the other line, passing through the hands of grandparents, children, young women, even some ailing residents who, Tate real shy;ized, must have left their sickbeds to take a place in line.
With the bucket brigade operating at full speed, the fire seemed to be held in check. Tate marched up and down the lines, yelling encouragement. The roar of the flames mingling with the grunts and shouts of the fire fighters was nearly deafening. On returning again to the front of the bakery, Tate found Raymond of Winterholm, the master architect. The man's forehead was furrowed with anxiety, his face filmed with perspiration. The heat here was nearly unbearable.
'What's your opinion, Master Raymond?' Tate shouted over the din. 'Are we beating it back?' The knight's heart hammered in his chest from the excitement and exertion.
'That's hard to say, Sir Tate,' the architect bellowed back. 'There's so much smoke we can't get a good look at the extent and direction of the fire. At the very least, we've slowed it down. And a good thing, too. Those support beams to the left of the bakery are reinforcing the new upper por shy;tions of the east wall, where the mortar isn't completely set. If we lose those beams, the battlements could crumble.' Wincing, he ran a hand through his hair. 'I don't want to think about how much more damage that would cause.'
Tate clapped the man on the shoulder, trying to be reassur shy;ing though his own doubts were great.
A torrent of flame suddenly burst through the thick roof of the building. The column of yellow smoke that had been pouring upward ignited into a writhing pillar. And then, a vast portion of the roof broke away and tumbled downward. Spitting fire and smoke, the roof section broke off and crashed into the midst of the people below, who had charged forward with buckets of water.
Men, women, and children scattered from the sudden onslaught, dropping buckets as they ran; all but two, who were pinned beneath the searing mass. Their screams seemed to have no effect on those who scrambled for their lives, but in moments, knights converged on the scene.
One of them, armed with a long-handled military hook, plunged the weapon into a bundle of thatch. As he pulled aside the burning mass, Tate and another knight grabbed the two victims and dragged them out into the central courtyard, away from the heat and danger.
Both men appeared horribly burned. Their clothes were scorched, their faces blackened, much of their hair fried away. Remembering his own painful, narrow escape from burning death, the young knight thanked Habbakuk that both were unconscious.
Momentarily the barber, a dwarf with long braided locks, rushed up and began gingerly peeling the smoking clothes from the victims. Tate watched helplessly for several moments until Sir Wolter jolted him, saying 'You'd best come back to the fire. We've a new problem.'
The hole in the roof was acting like a chimney; the sudden rush of heat and flame through the opening drew a blasting draft into the house. The building had become a furnace.
'That's not the worst of it,' the older knight added. 'We can't possibly put it out, but we must keep it from spreading. There's new construction to the left of it and the granary to the right.'
Once again Master Raymond was at Tate's elbow. 'Sir, that new construction must be protected. If the supports burn away, anything could happen.'
'But if we lose the grain,' Tate responded, 'we can't sus shy;tain the castle and village in the coming winter.' Though he already knew and now feared the answer, Tate asked Sir Wolter, 'How full is the granary?'
'Dol tells me if s about half full,' Wolter replied. 'Damnation!' Tate slammed his fist into his hand. 'Thaf s
