The kitchen? The bakehouse?
Cursing, Fiona let the sacking drop and rushed over to where her lantern sat by her straw-stuffed mattress. She pulled up the iron cover, relieved to see that the cresset of oil within hadn’t yet burned out.
She had some light to dress by.
She’d never pulled on her lèine and kirtle so quickly. Hopping on one foot, she yanked on a boot, and then the other. And then, not bothering to tie back her hair, she fled her bower.
A few weeks earlier, Ailean had warned her of the perils of rushing down the steep, narrow spiral stairwell. The tale about his grandmother had been a sobering one, and she’d minded him afterward.
But not tonight.
Urgency beat inside her chest like gulls’ wings as she fled down the steps.
On the way, she joined other servants, like her rumpled and bleary-eyed, who were hurrying downstairs.
Bursting out of the tower house, she raised a hand to shield her eyes from the brightness of the blaze and the intense heat that radiated out from it.
It was as she’d feared. The bakehouse was alight. It had gone up like a torch—its thatch roof crackling. And the sparks had spread. The kitchen roof was now aflame too. And as she moved down the steps, part of the bakehouse roof gave way with a groan of rending timber, crashing inward.
Curses rang through the smoky air.
Fiona coughed again, her eyes streaming now. The smoke billowed out from the buildings, black and acrid. She’d never seen anything like it.
Men and women had formed a line from the castle’s well on the other side of the barmkin and were passing buckets of water. Lady Tara and her daughters were among them, their facesstrained with worry. They were right to be concerned. The water they were fetching wasn’t enough though to douse those hungry flames.
Chaos reigned. People shouted at each other, blinded by smoke. Lads dragged horses from the nearby stables. Other servants chased honking geese and hysterical chickens that had just been turfed out of their roosts from the barmkin. Fires like this, in such close quarters, were dangerous indeed. If it spread, it could consume the whole castle.
Pushing her way into the line, Fiona passed bucket after bucket, her panic swelling as the inferno before them built despite their efforts.
Near the front of the line, she spied more familiar faces. Ailean. Lyle. Captain Jack. And the laird himself.
They were all in various states of undress, having clearly launched themselves from their beds. Ash streaked Rae Maclean’s once snowy-white lèine as he used a long pole to pull away the burning thatch on the bakehouse. He was trying to prevent more of it from spreading to the kitchen, but with a somersaulting heart, Fiona realized it was already too late.
Sweat glowed upon Ailean and Lyle’s faces and naked torsos as they beat at the flames with wet sacks.
“We need to throw dirt on it!” Captain Jack bellowed. His face was red from the heat, his eyebrows singed from where he’d gotten too close.
“It’s coming!” Rowan shouted back. “The lads will be back with wheelbarrows soon.”
Jack cursed as a column of flames erupted, sending a shower of sparks over the barmkin. Men now beat down sparks that landed on the roofs of the nearby stables, granary, and storehouses. All of them were at risk. “Not soon enough!”
“Where’s Stu?” Essie pushed forward through the jostling crowd, reaching Ailean and Lyle.
Ailean ceased beating the flames and whipped around to face her. “What?”
“Stu.” Her face was taught in the ruddy light. “I can’t find him.”
“He’s taken to sleeping in the spence,” Carrie called out from a few yards distant. Her voice cracked then, panic flaring in her blue eyes. “God’s blood … he’s still in there.”
Shock rippled across Ailean’s face, and then he cut his gaze to where tongues of flame now devoured the kitchen roof. Following his gaze, Fiona’s heart lurched into her throat.
Carrie was right. The lad liked to have a space of his own to sleep in. The spence, the larder where their fresh food was stored, sat at the back of the kitchen. It had a heavy wooden door to ward off rodents and thick stone walls to keep out the summer’s warmth. Her pulse went wild. She’d heard Essie tease Stu a few days earlier that he slept like the dead. She swore that if someone didn’t shake him from his bed every morning, the boy would sleep the day away.
Did he realize a blaze raged around him?
Ailean dumped his sack into a fresh pail of water, wetting it anew, and then, slinging it over his head and shoulders like a cloak, he dove for the open doorway leading into the kitchen.
“Ailean!” His father roared. “What the devil are ye doing?”
