by E. M. Powell
Chapter Twelve
Palmer lay on his bed, watching Theodosia wash after a long, hot day in the fields. Her long skirts sat low on her hips, and her linen cap covered her twisted-up hair. She didn’t know he watched, had her back to him. Her smooth, pale back, with skin that would glide under his touch as he caressed it. She lifted one arm to wash beneath it with her drenched, soaped cloth, revealing one curved breast, the skin finer still. Palmer surged with longing for her.
‘Come to bed, my love.’
‘I am almost finished.’ She rinsed her stomach, still turned away.
He didn’t need reminding of the tautness of her belly, the taste of it as he savoured it with his lips, kissing her softly, then harder as his mouth moved lower and lower.
‘Benedict. How could you?’ He looked up at her sharp words.
But he still couldn’t see her face, for now she wept with her face in her hands.
He went to sit up, go to her side.
But a hand on his chest stopped him. He turned his head.
‘Your loyalty is to me, Benedict.’ Rosamund lay beside him, red lips parted, her body covered in ripped strips of fur that gave her no modesty.
Palmer tried to sit up, but Rosamund’s long hair fell across his chest, trapping him where he lay.
Then her hand moved down his body. ‘And I will reward that loyalty.’
He caught his breath as her fingers circled him.
‘No!’ Palmer sat bolt upright in his bed at Woodstock Palace. Alone. He let out a long breath and shoved the tangled sheets from him. But his body still held his dream.
You filthy beggar, Palmer.
The goblet after goblet of wine he’d drunk came back to him in a wave of sickness and thirst. That was punishment enough. He climbed from his bed with a groan. A jar of small beer sat on a chest across the darkened room. He staggered over to it and brought it to his lips. This would restore him. If it stayed down. He took a deep mouthful. His stomach rebelled but kept hold of it. He drank again.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he shook his head at his knave’s dream of Rosamund. But no wonder. Geoffrey’s prating. Rosamund’s antics at the dance. Her invitation to come to her rooms. He’d pretended not to hear her whisper earlier, had called for more and more wine to take the edge off the deep need for Theodosia that the troubadour’s song had fired within him.
Palmer hiccupped. And more. He’d even danced again, bringing the stout wife of a nobleman squealing and turning onto the floor. Then he couldn’t get rid of the woman. No mind. It saved him from any more treacherous invitations from the King’s mistress.
He hiccupped again. And winced. He wasn’t sure the beer was going to stay down. Maybe fresh air would help.
He made his way to the window and opened the shutters.
The cold night air struck him but calmed his guts.
The whole palace lay in sleeping darkness. Across the courtyard, he saw the high tower, the tower where Geoffrey had moved Rosamund.
With the glow of orange at the upper windows.
Fire.
Palmer ran across the deserted courtyard, headed for the silent bell that hung high in its centre. The sharp smell of smoke cut the damp night air.
‘Fire! Awake!’ His shouts echoed into the silence as he undid the neatly coiled stout rope and twisted this way, that, looking for any sign that folk in the many buildings had heard. He pulled down hard, and the big bell swung above him in the first peal. ‘Fire!’ He shouted again, tugged hard on the rope to make as much and as loud a clamour as he could.
Lights flickered at windows—one, two, then several at once. People were stirring, throwing shutters open.
Palmer pulled hard and fast on the rope, his shouts drowned out by the bell’s loud call.
He tipped his head back to check the tower. The glow had brightened in the windows. A lick of flame shot from one and dropped back. The fire was gaining in strength. He dropped his gaze to the main door of the tower. Firmly closed. No sign of Rosamund, no sign of anyone fleeing from within.
Over the clangs of the bell, he heard faint shouts from the main part of the palace. But still no stir from the tower. He flung the rope from his hand, the bell’s work done in waking folk up.
Palmer ran to the tower’s door and turned the large metal handle. Unlocked. Good for him to get in. But bad that no one had come out. Rosamund was up there, and Geoffrey had said he’d posted guards. Nothing could be holding anyone back except the flames. He wrenched the door open. Inside, smoke hazed the air. A wooden spiral staircase led upwards from the narrow vestibule.
Cupping his hands to his mouth, he shouted upwards. ‘Wake up! Wake up! The tower’s afire!’
Nothing from above.
He filled his lungs for another shout and drew in smoke. He coughed it out and shouted again. ‘Awake!’
Still nothing.
Palmer looked back out to the courtyard. The bell hung silent now. Should he ring it more, push the urgency?
A few sparks drifted down in the darkness, the start of a lethal blizzard.
Faith, Rosamund was only a girl. She could be cowering where she thought she was safe, not realising that smoke brought death as sure as the flames. He had to go up.
Palmer climbed the curving wooden staircase, two, three steps at a time. ‘Guards, stir yourselves!’ The smoke thickened, stung his eyes and nose as well as his throat. And still no response.
He climbed on, breath fast and deep with his exertion as his lungs pulled in dirty air. His spittle thickened, along with water streaming from his eyes. He knuckled at them, trying to clear them. Each step up became harder, his legs weighing more as he raised them again and again.
Finally: a landing. Though he could scarce see through the hot, stinging fug, he could make out a smaller staircase at the other end. He must be close now. Stumbling the few steps across it, his foot caught on a large object. He bent low and his fingers found the metal of chainmail. One of the guards, face down on the floor.
‘Stir yourself !’ A storm of coughing broke with the effort of his words. He shook the man hard but there came no reply, no movement.
Palmer peered around.
Another form lay close by. Surely not? He moved to it, keeping low, heartsick at what he might find. A large body. More chainmail. Another guard, this man as unmoving as the other.
The smoke must have felled them suddenly. Too suddenly. But even if they yet lived, he couldn’t save them. They were too far gone. His own chest tightened worse than ever. And he still hadn’t found Rosamund.
Searching the nearby floor with careful quick hands, his fingers closed on what he sought. The handle of a sword.
As he went to carry on, he heard a shrill scream from above.
‘Rosamund!’ He shot to his feet into thick smoke and bad air. Doubling over, he retched his stomach empty of sour bile. ‘Rosamund!’ He ran low and swift to the next staircase and looked up.
A worse challenge than the smoke. Fuelled by air from narrow windows, flames ate at it, the heat pulsing at his face and head.
‘Help me! For the love of God!’
Rosamund. Her screams held pure terror.
Palmer ducked, his forearm across his face. He charged up the burning stairs, fire stinging his flesh and singeing his hair in a hissing stench. He stumbled from the top step onto a small corridor, a closed door facing him. He flung himself at the handle, sleeve pulled over his hand to grasp the hot metal. It wouldn’t budge.
‘It’s me, Benedict!’ His voice came hoarse. ‘Open the door!’
‘I can’t, I can’t! It’s locked!’
Palmer swore. The guards must have the keys. But he couldn’t waste time fighting his way back down. ‘Stand back from the door, Rosamund. Stand well back.’ He raised the sword high and hit it against the door.
T
he wood gave.
Coughing hard, he swung again. This time, he broke through. Raising a boot, he kicked three, four times. Then he was in.
‘Benedict.’ Rosamund cowered beneath the window, wearing only her shift, her eyes streaming from terror and smoke. ‘You came for me.’ She choked into rasping coughs and sobs.
Palmer strode into the room and grabbed her by the arm. ‘We need to get out of here. We have little time.’
‘Back through there?’ Her eyes widened in horror as she stared past him at the burning staircase.
‘Yes.’ He yanked a small, heavy wool tapestry from the wall. ‘Cover your head with this. Hair catches the worst.’
She followed his order but still didn’t move. ‘I don’t think I can.’
‘You can.’ He flung an arm across her shoulders and hauled her from the room towards the top of the stairs.
The flames leapt fiercer, higher than when he’d run through just minutes before. He hesitated for a moment.
The burning wood gave a loud creak, followed by sharp, loud cracks. Then the staircase collapsed in a cascade of burning wood, throwing out sparks and a wave of intense, new heat.
There was no way out now.
Chapter Thirteen
Palmer dragged a screaming, crying Rosamund back inside her room.
‘We’re trapped! We shall die!’ She clutched at her chest in a spasm of coughing.
‘Go to the window,’ he ordered, his own voice dry. ‘Open the shutters. Get some air from there.’
As Rosamund did so, Palmer did his best to shove the broken door closed against the waves of heat and smoke. He tore another hanging from the wall and rammed it in the damaged panels. It would make little difference soon.
With a rattle from the shutters as she flung them open, a gasp came from Rosamund. ‘There are people down there.’ She leaned out the window. ‘Help us! Please! We’re trapped!’
Palmer put his sword down and quickly joined her, the fresher air a boon to his lungs.
In the courtyard below, dozens had assembled. The orange flames from the fire on the floors below lit their pale upturned faces.
‘Look!’ came a call. ‘Folk are up there!’
Screams, shrieks, shouts followed.
‘They’ve seen us, Benedict.’ Rosamund clutched his arm hard. ‘And there’s men. With water. We’re saved!’
Palmer had already seen the chain of men passing buckets of water hand to hand. ‘Such actions wouldn’t conquer these flames,’ he said. ‘We’re going to have to make our escape out this window.’
She turned to him, eyes wide in a face marked with soot and tears. ‘No. We are so high up . . .’ She put an ash-marked hand to her mouth and looked down again. ‘No.’
Palmer stepped away from the opening. Heat prickled against his face. ‘It grows hotter by the minute, Rosamund. This tower is like a chimney.’ He moved over to her bed in a fresh spasm of coughs. ‘It draws heat up. Soon this room will be ablaze too.’ He pulled the linens from it.
‘Help us! You must help us!’ Rosamund screamed out again, her voice cracking with coughs.
Swift cuts with his knife made the linen into thick strips. ‘Save your breath, my lady. They can’t do anything for us.’
‘They must.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper.
He swiftly finished knotting the strips together into a crude rope. Testing the knots with his hands, he joined Rosamund again. Her whole body trembled, and she had paled, ready to faint.
A series of deep thuds came from beyond the damaged door.
She caught her breath and gazed at him in hope. ‘Rescue?’
Palmer shook his head and coughed. ‘More like the other staircase going the way of the first. More fuel.’ Fuel that would include the bodies of the guards. Pray God, they’d been already dead or had never come to wakefulness. ‘More reason to make haste.’ He coiled one end of his makeshift rope over one shoulder and across his chest. Then he looped the free end around Rosamund’s waist and tied it tight.
She gasped and tore at it with her hands. ‘No, Benedict. No! You can’t do this.’
‘I can.’ He leaned from the window and filled his lungs as much as he could. ‘You below!’
The shouts below lessened as folk gaped up at his call.
‘I’m letting the lady Rosamund down. Stand clear!’
‘Stand clear? Should they not be grouping to catch me? And I am—’
Palmer hoisted her onto the sill.
She screamed like a banshee, clawed at his face. ‘You’re going to kill me!’
The noise below went up.
‘Dear God!’
‘Lady Rosamund, she’s going to fall!’
‘She’ll be killed!’
‘I’m trying to save your life.’ Palmer eased her over the edge but she clung to his woollen top.
‘No, no, no!’
Bracing his knees and back for the sudden weight to come, he undid her fingers and grasped her wrists. Then gave her a firm shove.
She dropped with a shrill cry.
For less than six feet.
He had her. He looked down as she dangled below him, her hands locked on the rope stretched taut from her waist to the coils on his upper body.
She tipped her head back to scream up at him. ‘I hope you rot in hell!’
He let out a length of the rope.
Rosamund shrieked hard again as she slipped down, echoed by screams and shouts from those below.
Still he had her. Sweat coated his body from heat and effort. Ten lengths, he reckoned. Then she’d be down. Someone with sense would untie her and he’d use the rope for himself. He looked back in a quick scan of the room as he let out another careful length, then another. The bed seemed solid enough to hold his weight if he jammed it right up against the wall by the window.
The rope juddered in his hands and he swore. Had Rosamund tried something stupid?
A fresh wave of screams came. Then the unmistakable sound of cloth ripping.
‘Benedict!’
He leaned forward again to see. Forcurse it, the linen wasn’t holding. And Rosamund swung less than halfway to the ground.
She threw her head back to look up at him. ‘Quick! Get me down! The rope’s tearing!’
Palmer tensed his shoulders to haul hard. ‘Not down. Back up. Use your feet on the wall to help me.’ It would be faster, he had her closer to him than the ground far below.
Another ripping sound came to a wave of new shouts from the courtyard.
‘Get me down, get me down!’ Rosamund dropped her head to scream to those below, kicking wildly.
Panic was taking her, quickening the linen’s split.
Chest searing from his efforts in the smoky air, his sweated palms slipped on the soaked fabric. He’d never get her up. ‘Look at me, my lady.’ He had to take her eyes from the drop, give her a last moment of hope.
Her upturned gaze met his. ‘Help me.’
‘You know I will.’ A lie before her skull broke on the cobbles and her bones snapped.
He checked the drop. Her end would be instant. The darkness below lit with a sudden flare. New flames were breaking from the tower. Then he saw it. A few feet to the left. A wagon filled with straw.
Palmer swung the rope hard as it jerked and tore for the last time.
Rosamund fell silently, back first, wordless in shock.
Palmer held her gaze to a chorus of yells from below. He wouldn’t let her last sight be him turning away.
She hit the straw and the wagon turned over with the impact, sending her to the ground. Shrill cries cut the night.
That landing would’ve hurt like the devil, but Rosamund Clifford lived.
Folk rushed to her aid, covered too in soot and grime from trying to put out the fire. Stanton headed the pack, but Rosa
mund clung to her old servant Lucine in hysterics.
With a swift crackle, the tapestry wedged in the door caught alight.
Palmer coughed anew. The flames were now in the room with him. Each breath hurt. He had to get out of here.
Leaning farther out the window to look closer in the shifting light, he ran his hands over the stone, seeking any decent crack or crevice. He had to try to climb down. His hand went to his knife. That might help him if the mortar was old. The long sword would be no use.
‘Palmer!’ Geoffrey’s unmistakable bellow echoed above the mayhem in the courtyard.
The King’s son stood next to the wagon, which had been righted again. He gestured to a group of men who shoved it below the window and shouted up again. ‘Jump, man! It’s your only chance!’
‘I’m going to climb down!’
‘Don’t be a fool! Those stones won’t hold you. And there’s flames coming out of every gap!’
The tapestry burned harder, sending out waves of new, foul-smelling smoke and bright, long flames.
Palmer leaned out farther, trying to get air. No good. The whole world sank into heat, drowning him in it. His chest hurt so much now, it robbed the strength from his limbs. He’d never make the climb, even if the stone allowed it.
To jump was his only chance.
‘Come on, Palmer!’ Geoffrey waved hard at the wagon.
Palmer hesitated.
Half the straw had spilled when it turned over at Rosamund’s impact. She was much lighter and smaller than him. And she’d been halfway to the ground when she fell.
Geoffrey called again. ‘It’s your only chance, man!’
Not enough of a chance, not from this height. He’d rather attempt the climb. If he even got part way down, he might have hope with the straw. Preparing to climb over the sill, Palmer unwound the useless tatters of sheets from his shoulders. He didn’t want them getting in his way. He threw them on the floor in disgust. The King’s fine bed linen couldn’t even hold a light-boned woman.
Bed linen.
