The Fyre Mirror: An Elizabeth I Mystery: 1 (Elizabeth I Mysteries) by Harper Karen

Author:Harper, Karen [Harper, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2006-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter the Ninth

ELIZABETH LEAPED FROM HER BED AND WENT PARTWAY to the window. The Garvers’ thatch-roofed cottage next door was crowned with crackling flames. It took her a moment to realize that the inn was not afire—unless it burned too.

As her women woke, some hacked at the smoke, and several screamed.

“Listen to me!” the queen shouted, coughing herself. “Stop to take nothing with you. Rosie, go next door and wake Kat and Floris and see they get downstairs. Anne, run to the attic steps and scream the men awake. And tell them to come with me.”

“To where?”

“Just see that everyone gets out! I’m going ahead.”

Lest she found fire awaiting her downstairs, Elizabeth grabbed the sheet from her bed and dumped the two closest ewers of wash water to soak it. She wrapped it around her like a shroud from shoulders to knees and ran barefoot into the hall.

“Thank God!” she cried when she realized the smoke was lighter here. The yeoman who should have been at her door wasn’t there.

“I told the guard to go up and rouse the men!” Floris cried, coughing, as she led Kat from the room next door. The old woman looked frenzied, like a horse caught in a stables fire. She pulled back and cried, rolling her eyes. Floris could barely control her. Taking Kat between them, Floris and Elizabeth led her toward the staircase and helped her down it as heavy-footed men thundered behind, shouting to each other.

Blessedly, there was no fire downstairs but smoldering embers in the hearth of the common room. Yet Kat was still panicked, gasping for air and shrieking so that Elizabeth feared she’d collapse. “Kat, Kat, it’s all right!”

“Your father and Queen Katherine will send me away, send me to the Tower for this.”

“No, no, they won’t!” Elizabeth promised, gripping both her shoulders to make the distraught woman look straight at her. “I’ll tell them it was my fault. They won’t send you away. I won’t lose you.”

“But you can’t! They’ll banish you again!”

“Floris,” the queen cried, “you must see to her and keep her calm. I must go outside to help—to see …”

Pushing Kat into Floris’s arms, she fled outside.

Though she was sweating from fear and exertion, the cold sheet made her chill and clammy. But, wearing just her night rail under it, she kept it wrapped around her.

The moment she was out the door of the inn, she saw that the Garvers’ cottage flamed like a giant torch. Its thatched roof had evidently caught, and the flames were working downward.

“Are they out? Are they out?” she screamed as she ran to her men, who stood helpless amid the growing crowd of villagers watching the blaze.

Jenks dodged falling cinders and pieces of burning thatch to run to the wooden front door and pound on it with both fists. “Garvers! Master Simon! Fire! Fire!”

Someone put a heavy cloak around Elizabeth’s shoulders—Robin. She nodded, but turned immediately back to the crisis.

“Your Grace,” Jenks shouted through the roiling smoke, “the door latch is tied to the hinges with rope.

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