“Searrach was afraid to return. Beryl didna—”
“Fire!” A woman’s echoing shout came from behind a guard standing watch at the entrance to the corridor leading to the kitchens. “Fire in the north wall!”
The hall was at once in an uproar as guests gained their feet and began fleeing, but black smoke could already be seen roiling from the tops of each doorway along the ceiling. The guards went at once to the bar holding the double doors to the hall closed. They slid it free of the brackets, but the onslaught of the crowd pressing against them prevented the doors from swinging inward.
“Back up,” Padraig shouted, fighting his way through them, pulling them by their arms. “Back up or they canna open the doors. Back up, you fools!” He gained the sides of the guards and took hold of one of the oddly warm handles. “Move!” he shouted as they strained at the doors.
The crack between the doors widened, and some of the guests inserted their fingers, pulling at the gap even as more black smoke slithered through the opening. Padraig let go at once as he realized what lay beyond, but it was too late—the crowd strained backward and the doors flew open. Fire and smoke rained down from a towering inferno in the entry, collapsing on the guests elbowing their way to be the first to escape the hall.
“Let the lord through!” Padraig heard Hargrave shouting. “Let me through, you useless peasants!”
The nobles and servants scattered again as those touched by flame screamed and writhed on the floor, their hair, their clothes singed or burning. Padraig leaped to the nearest tapestry hanging on the wall and flung one end to Ulric, who stepped toward him. They fell upon the burning people, smothering the flames while the hall continued to fill with smoke and the people screamed and rushed around the benches and trestles, over them. The sound of tables collapsing, splintering, filled in the gaps made by the crackling flames.
Lucan appeared then at Padraig’s side, holding one end of a bench; Peter held up the other. “The corridors are already filled with smoke; we have to clear a way before we’re all trampled to death.”
“Can you push?” Padraig said. “Your foot—”
“I must,” Lucan protested.
“I’ll do it,” Gorman said, appearing at Lucan’s elbow. The red-bearded man from the forest took the heavy bench from the knight’s hands and then looked at Padraig. “Let’s get them out.”
Padraig nodded and took up Peter’s end, crouching as best he could with Gorman behind the narrow height of wood.
“Go,” Padraig shouted.
They blasted into the pyre blocking the doorway with a crash and a shower of sparks. Padraig felt hot embers on his face and neck, burning through his shirt as he followed the bench through into the center of the entry hall. He straightened and slapped at the smoldering patches on his clothing, brushed at his hair as the rank smell hung about his face. He coughed, gasped into his elbow at the acrid smoke. The guests ran, limped, staggered, screaming around them like a panicked sea, and someone threw the main doors wide.
Padraig felt his arm seized and looked through watering eyes to find Lucan’s intense gaze.
“Where is Iris?”
“She didna come with me,” Padraig said. “I’ve nae seen her since the chapel.” He looked around at the roiling sea of escaping people, and realized that Gorman had vanished.
Rolf skidded up to them then. “Beryl came to Lady Hargrave’s wing just as you were leaving, Master Boyd, but she did not accompany the lady down to sup. Lord Hargrave left the wing sometime after his wife had departed.”
All three men looked up toward the ascending flights of stairs just in time to see the slight form of Caris Hargrave pulling herself along the railing into the black smoke hovering at the tall ceiling, stopping at the top to gasp and cough against the balustrade.
“She must still be there,” Padraig said. And then he looked back to Rolf. “Find Lord Hargrave and anyone else who might still be in the hall. Then get out.”
“I lost Lord Hargrave in the crush—he’s likely to have escaped. But we must try to slow the blaze,” Rolf objected. “There’ll be naught left for you to win.”
“It’s only stones.” Padraig gripped the man’s shoulder, very aware that Lucan stood at his side, watching, listening. “Only stones, Rolf. A house can be rebuilt. But you canna be replaced, you ken? Nor Marta nor Rynn nor Peter.”
Rolf nodded, and his shoulders squared. “Aye, Master Boyd.” And then he was gone.
Padraig turned to Lucan, who was looking through the doors into the smoky hall into which Rolf had disappeared.
“She’s gone too,” Lucan said.
Padraig froze. “Who?”
“Euphemia.” He met Padraig’s eyes.
“She’ll be back,” Padraig predicted. “I canna see that woman giving in now.” He clapped Lucan’s arm as he passed toward the stairs.
He took the risers three at a time, gaining in moments the uppermost level where the smoke was thickening like angry, choking storm clouds. He realized that Lucan had struggled up behind him on his wounded foot, but Padraig pressed his mouth and nose into his elbow and ran ahead through the corridor to the first door on the left and pushed through.
“Iris!” he called. It no longer mattered that her secret would be known. Padraig intended that only the truth be spoken between them, about them, from this time forward. And he intended to protect Iris from whatever storm lay ahead of them both. “Iris! Lady Hargrave!”
He heard Lucan enter behind him and shut the door, keeping as much smoke in the corridor beyond for as long as possible.
“They’re not here,” Padraig advised as he ran through the adjoining doorway. “Iris!”
The lady’s chamber was also empty, the banked fire and single, low lamp revealing the lush appointments in an ironic, flickering glow
