|
|
|
|
|
|
were useful enough to pull down houses and fetch water, but they had no weapons and were useless for enforcing his will. He needed Geoffrey, or any other nobleman, because the commons would think many times before bringing a suit for recompense against a nobleman's order and the men-at-arms could enforce the order without argument. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Very well," Geoffrey agreed. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Instructions were given. Several of Lady Maud's menservants volunteered to stay with the fire fighters. The rest of the group was entrusted to a sensible-looking, middle-aged man who seemed to know what he was doing. All the horses except Geoffrey's Orage, Tostig's mount, and two more for running errands were also dispatched with four men-at-arms to be sure that the animals were not "adopted" by strangers on the way. Free of the helpless who could only distract them, they turned to their work. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The men-at-arms drove the occupants out of the house and helped to drag out what could be carried away. The alderman's men swarmed up the walls to knock holes in the roof so that grappling hooks could be fixed into the rooftree. Many willing hands pulled the ropes attached to the hooks. The building groaned. More men came to lend their weight to the ropes, but suddenly a cry went up. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
At the bottom of the garden was a row of trees that moaned and struggled in the wind. Behind them a thin line of light began to crawl through the dry grass, a little evil stream spawned out of the red inferno that lit the sky in the distance. Geoffrey shouted to the men to bring wet blankets, to wet their feet. He slid down from Orage, looping his rein over a gatepost, snatched up the first soaked cloth, and ran toward the crawling line of light, but a wind roared out of the mouth of that distant red hell sending him reeling back. Suddenly the stream widened into a river and light leapt into the trees. The branches writhed and fire danced from leaf to leaf. Geoffrey stood transfixed, unaware that the fine hair on his brow was shriveling in the heat, astonished at the weird, terrifying beauty of trees of living flame. |
|
|
|
|
|