‘That’s it. The bitch wants to burn.’ There was a strident note in his voice, like bravado; but when I looked back at him he gave me a wide rotten-toothed grin. ‘She’s made her choice. Now get out of the way.’ He lurched forwards and sloshed oil on the wall by my feet. The smell rose like a fog, thick and real.
‘Don’t – you can’t – please!’ He went on grinning at me, unblinking. I turned and hammered at the last shards of glass in the window, smashing them away with the side of my fist; but the window was too narrow to get through. ‘Seredith, come out! They’re going to set the house on fire, please.’
She didn’t move. I would have thought she couldn’t hear me, except that her shoulders rose a little when I said please.
‘You can’t set fire to the house while she’s in it. That’s murder.’ My voice was high and hoarse.
‘Get out of the way.’ But he didn’t wait for me to move. Oil splashed on to my trousers as he went past. He poured the last dregs against the side wall and stood back. The man with the torch was watching, his expression open and interested, like a schoolboy’s.
Maybe it wouldn’t be enough. Maybe the snow on the roof would quench it, or the walls would be too thick and too damp. But Seredith was old, and the smoke would be enough to kill her, if she was inside.
‘Hey, Baldwin. Get the other bucket. Round the side.’ He pointed.
‘Please. Please don’t do this.’ But I knew it was no good. I spun round and threw myself against the door. I pounded on the wood with my fists. ‘Seredith! Open the door. Damn you, open the door.’
Someone caught my collar and pulled me back. I choked and nearly fell.
‘Good. Keep him back. Now.’
The man with the torch grunted and stepped forwards. I scrabbled desperately to break free. The seam of my shirt ripped and I almost fell into the space between the torch-flames and the door. The smell of oil was so strong I could taste it. It was on me, on my trousers and hands; the smallest leap of a spark and I’d be on fire. The burning torch hovered in front of my eyes, a spitting mass of talons and tongues.
Something thudded into my back. I’d walked backwards into the door. I leant against it. Nowhere to go now.
The man raised the torch like a staff and tilted it until it was right in front of my face. Then he lowered it. I watched it flicker, almost touching the base of the wall, almost close enough to catch.
‘No.’
My own voice; but not my own. My blood rose and sang in my ears like a flood, so loud I couldn’t hear myself think.
‘Do this and you will be cursed,’ I said, and in the sudden quiet it was as though another voice spoke underneath mine. ‘Kill with fire and you will perish in fire. Burn in hatred and you will burn.’
No one answered. No one moved.
‘If you do this, your souls will be stained with blood and ash. Everything you touch will go grey and wither. Everyone you touch will fall ill or run mad or die.’
A sound: faint, faraway, like something drawing closer. But the voice coming from inside me wouldn’t let me pause to listen. ‘You will end hated and alone,’ it said. ‘There will be no forgiveness, ever.’
Quietness spread out around me like a ripple in a pond, deadening the hiss of the wind and the scratch of the flames. But inside that quiet there was something new, ticking, like drying wood or leaves falling.
The men stared at me. I looked round, meeting their eyes, letting the other voice look through me. My hand rose to point at the man who had threatened me, steady as a prophet’s. ‘Go.’
He hesitated. The ticking broadened into a crackle, then a hiss, then a roar.
Rain.
It fell in ropes, as sudden as an ambush, blinding me, driving through hair and clothes in seconds. Icy water ran down the back of my neck and sprayed off my nose when I gasped with the shock of it. The man swung his torch sideways to catch the shelter of the overhanging roof, but the wind blew a curtain of rain over it, and then there was no light at all. There was shouting, a few stifled, panicked cries, and the sounds of a man stumbling in the dark. ‘He called down the rain – fuck this, let’s go – the magic—’
I blinked, but there were only blurred shadows, running and disappearing like wraiths. Someone called, someone answered, someone grunted and swore as he tripped and struggled to his feet; and then the noise retreated, I heard a far-off mutter of voices and horses, and they were gone.
I shut my eyes. I was soaked to the skin. The marsh hissed and rumbled under the rain, answering, echoing. The thatch whispered its own note as the wind hummed through the broken window. There was the smell of mud and reeds and melted snow.
I was cold. A spasm of shivering took hold of me and I leant forward, bracing myself as if it came from outside. When it was over I blinked the water off my eyelashes and blew the strings of rain away from my mouth. The dark had lessened, and now I could make out trembling, silvery edges to things: the barn, the road, the horizon.
I turned round and stared through the window. Even now it made my neck tingle, to turn my back on the vast emptiness where the road was. But I’d heard them go. I called softly, ‘Seredith? They’ve gone. Let me in.’
I wasn’t sure if I could really see her, or whether my brain was inventing the ghostly blur in the darkness. I wiped the water out of my eyes and tried to make her out. She was there, sitting on the stairs. I leant as close to the edge of the broken glass as I could. ‘Seredith. It’s all right. Open the door.’
She didn’t move. I don’t know how long I stood there. I murmured to her as if I was trying to tame an animal: the same words, over and over again. I started to forget what was my voice and what was the rain. I was so cold I went into a sort of dream, where I was the marsh and the house as well as myself, where I was slippery wet wood and claggy mud … When at last the bolt was shot back, I was so stiff and shrammed that I didn’t react straight away.
Seredith said, ‘Come in, then.’
I limped inside and stood dripping on the floor. Seredith rummaged in the sideboard; I heard the scratching of match after match as she tried to light the lamp. At last I crossed to her and gently took the box. We both jumped at my touch. I didn’t look at her until the lamp was burning and I’d put the glass chimney over the flame.
She was trembling, and her hair was sticking out in a clump; but when she met my eyes, she gave me a wry almost-smile that told me she knew who I was. She reached for the lamp.
‘Seredith …’
‘I know. I shall go to bed, or I’ll catch my death.’
That wasn’t what I’d been going to say. I nodded.
‘You’d better go too.’ She added, too quickly, ‘You’re sure they’ve gone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’
Silence. She stared at the lamp, and in the soft light her face could have been young. At last she said, ‘Thank you, Emmett.’
I didn’t answer.
‘Without you, they would have burnt the house down before the rain came.’
‘Why didn’t you—’
‘I was so afraid when I heard them knocking.’ She stopped. She took a pace towards the staircase, and turned back. ‘When they came, I dreamt … I thought they were the Crusade. There hasn’t been a Crusade here for sixty years, but … I remember them coming for us. I must have been your age. And my master …’
‘The Crusade?’
‘Never mind. Those days are over. Now it’s only a few peasants, here and there, that hate