Chapter Seventeen #3
It was a shocking event and she had been unable to catch herself.
Unfortunately, her dress, with all of its jewels, was made of very flammable material, and she went up in an instant.
Within a second, her entire skirt was in flames, tearing into her undergarments.
That which wasn’t in flames was seared against the flesh of her lower body, which also started to burn.
Very quickly, everything but her face and arms was on fire, and Cort rushed forward to pull her out of the hearth, but Dane stopped him.
“Nay,” he said, watching the woman as she was rapidly consumed with fire. “It is too late. She is already badly burned. You cannot save her.”
Nor did they truly want to. Engulfed in yellow flames, Adela’s screams were muffled as smoke and fire traveled down her throat.
No longer able to cry out, she tried to push herself out of the hearth, but her entire body was on fire.
Everything was burning. Soon enough, she could no longer move, and she simply collapsed into the hearth in a burning mess.
The room began to fill with dark, black smoke, and the great tapestry above the hearth went up in flames, as did the entire side of the room. It was a shocking sight.
“Come,” Dane said, realizing there was nothing they could do. “We must get out of here or we, too, shall be ash. Come!”
Cort, horrified at what he was seeing, followed his brother as the man kicked out the windows overlooking the bailey.
As the two of them bailed from the chamber, the entire thing went up in flames.
The wooden walls, the fabric drapery, and the tapestries made it a tinderbox.
They’d barely jumped from the window before flames began shooting out of it.
With one chamber up in flames, the floor above it began to go up in smoke and flames also, and Dane and Cort backed away from the blaze as they watched the entire side of the house catch fire.
The structure was not made of stone, but from wattle and daub, which was pieces of tinder-dry wood layered with things like lime and chalk, sometimes mud, but whatever the house was built with went up like a torch.
On the interior, with all of the expensive woods and furnishings, and the ingredients used to treat the wood, it only made more fuel for the fire.
With their attention still on the fire that was rapidly spreading, Dane began to head towards his horse, pulling Cort along with him.
They ended up running to their animals just as some of the Breton soldiers in the courtyard began to see what was going on.
As they rushed for the house, Cort and Dane vaulted onto their steeds and headed for the open gatehouse, pausing to watch as the fire spread over the upper floor.
They could see it through the windows, with smoke pouring out and fingers of flame licking at the walls.
The guests at Adela’s party were alerted to something being very wrong as the hall deep in the house filled with smoke.
Dane knew the layout of the house – beyond the entry was a large gathering room and then beyond that, a great dining hall.
They could hear the screams of party guests as they tried to get clear of the heavy smoke, which was filling the house at an alarming rate.
It wasn’t so much that the flames were blocking their exit; it was simply that the heavy smoke was overwhelming them.
Dane and Cort continued to watch from the gatehouse as the house was overrun by the flames, and they saw one man emerge from the entry and collapse on the dirt of the courtyard with his clothing smoking.
Perhaps they should have gone to help him, but considering how much hatred Adela had brought about, neither one of them made a move.
Especially Dane. In his view, this was rightness served.
“Should we try to help, Dane?” Cort finally asked.
Dane didn’t reply for a moment. When he did, it was to shake his head.
“Nay,” he muttered. “That woman wished our brother was dead. You heard her; she was hoping for it. You heard all of the vile things she said about our brother and our family. Were we burning, she would have laughed and cheered. Therefore, I will not help, not even a little. Let her evil die in those flames and consider it God’s good justice. ”
Cort didn’t disagree with him, but it was the chivalrous knight in him, the one with the strong sense of duty, that had asked the question. Yet, the brother in him agreed with Dane completely.
Let her evil die.
They could hear screams as floors collapsed. And as the flames shot up into the night sky, they remained there until the entire top portion of the house collapsed and no one save a few Breton soldiers and the man with the smoking clothing made it out alive.
For Dane and Cort, they watched until there was nothing left to see, until Penleigh House was a giant bonfire burning brightly into the night.
There was a sense of finality to it, of cleansing, and as Dane said, of justice.
The wickedness and hatred that had filled the halls of Penleigh House were being purged, never to rise again.
They’d come to do anything they could to save their brother from his horror of a wife, to somehow bring the tormented man some healing, but in the end, Adela’s wicked actions had brought about her own demise.
And no one was sorry for it.
Before the night was out, Dane and Cort were heading to Wellesbourne Castle.