For a brief moment he thought it was Isabel, but the boy, Peter, looked up at him over a gag, with large, frightened eyes. Sebastian unbound him and Peter flung himself at his father who had followed Sebastian into the building.
‘He took Lady Somerton!’ The boy’s voice was muffled by his father’s coat.
‘How long ago?’
The boy shook his head and turned to look at him. ‘Not long. My lord, the stables! He set the straw on fire. I thought you were dead. The horses...’
Before Sebastian could respond, the boy took to his heels, running back towards the burning building with Sebastian behind him. Sebastian’s only thought was to find Pharaoh and take off after the coach with Freddy and his hostage aboard.
By the time he got back to the stables, flames licked high into the night sky from the roof. The whole household had been turned out and a bucket line ran from the wells, but the buckets of water barely impacted the inferno. The noise of crashing timbers was almost deafening.
‘How many of the horses have they got out?’ Sebastian shouted at one of the grooms.
‘All of them except Lady Somerton’s mare,’ the man yelled back.
The fire had not yet reached the far end of the stables where Millie and her foal were stalled. It would break Isabel’s heart if her gentle mare were to die in such a horrible manner.
Peter looked up at him, his face anguished.
‘My Lord, we’ve got to get her out.’
The boy turned and sprinted towards the burning building.
‘Peter! Stop him, Bas.’
At the sound of Connie’s voice, Sebastian turned to see his sister running towards him.
‘He’s gone inside!’ Connie screamed as she reached him.
Sebastian snatched up a blanket from the pile being used to beat at the flames.
Thompson caught his sleeve.
‘My Lord, you can’t go in there! He’s my son, I’ll go after him.’
‘Stay here!’ Sebastian commanded and ran towards the building, pausing for a moment in the doorway to wrap the blanket around his head and shoulders.
The smoke that billowed out towards him was so thick that Sebastian could hardly see. Above him, wood cracked and the roaring of the flames almost sent him back. Drawing the blanket around his mouth, with his eyes watering, he groped his way along the stalls until he could make out the shadowy figures of the boy and the horses in the furthest stall.
Peter wrestled with the terrified horse. The mare, docile as she was, plunged around her stall in panic as the boy tried to secure a lead rope to her.
Coughing, Sebastian grabbed the boy’s collar and hauled him out of the stall. Peter had managed to get the rope around the mare’s neck, but the mare’s eyes rolled and she pulled against the rope as he tried to lead her out. Her foal leaned against her, nickering in terror.
Sebastian slackened his hold and held the mare’s nose, looking into her eyes, making soothing noises.
‘Come on, old girl. Only one way out of here. Trust me.’
Grunting, he picked up the foal, knowing Millie would follow her foal to hell and back. The mare’s eyes rolled white and terrified in her head, but as he moved towards the door to the stall, she followed. Peter sat on the ground outside the stall, coughing.
Sebastian set the trembling foal down and hauled the boy up, flinging him bodily across the mare.
‘Keep low and hang on for your life,’ he said hoarsely.
He collected the foal again and pushed on towards the exit.
As they neared the stable door, the roof above him cracked and a burning beam crashed to the ground behind him. The rope in his hand jerked out of his grasp. The mare screamed and Sebastian turned, seeing the beam had come down between him and the mare. The little horse had reared, depositing Peter on the floor, and now she backed away from the flames that separated her from her baby, screaming.
Sebastian bolted for the door, pausing only to thrust the foal at the nearest person he could find, before turning back into the inferno. He pulled the blanket from his shoulders and began beating at the flames and kicking at the burning timber, clearing enough to get through to the small corner where the semi-conscious boy and terrified horse cowered against the wall.
