Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [171]
“Most have taken refuge in St. Peter’s. But the fire is everywhere. If it isn’t stopped, the basilica itself may be in jeopardy!”
Leo held out his hand. “Come with us; that’s where we’re headed now.” The priest leapt up behind him on the bay, and they all rode off in the direction of St. Peter’s.
Joan did not follow. She had a different thought in mind: to get to Gerold.
The line of fire rose solid and unbroken before her. No way to get through there. She circled around until she came to a line of blackened, ruined streets through which the fire had already passed, and turned down one that led in the direction of the Schola Francorum.
Scattered individual fires still burned on either side, and the smoke grew thicker. Fear tightened her throat, but she forced herself to go on. Her roan shied and fought, unwilling to advance; she shouted and kicked him, and he leapt forward skittishly. She passed through a landscape of horror—shriveled stumps of trees, hollowed skeletons of houses, charred and blackened bodies of those trapped in the act of fleeing. Joan’s heart twisted within her; surely nothing living could have survived this holocaust.
Suddenly, improbably, the walls of a building rose before her. The Schola Francorum! The church and the buildings nearest it had been reduced to ashes, but wondrously, miraculously, the main residence still stood.
Her heart beat with renewed hope: perhaps Gerold had escaped! Or perhaps he was still inside, injured, needing help.
The roan stopped stiff, refusing to go farther. She kicked him again; this time he reared defiantly, tossing her to the ground. Then he took off at a wild gallop.
She lay stunned, the wind knocked out of her. Beside her lay a human corpse, shiny and black as melted obsidian, its back arched in the death agony. Gagging, she rose and ran toward the schola. She had to find Gerold; nothing else mattered.
Great burning pieces of ash were everywhere, on the ground, on her clothes, in her hair, suspended around her in a heavy, choking cloud. Hot embers scorched her bare feet; too late, she regretted not having put on her shoes.
The door to the schola came into view. Another few yards and she would be there. “Gerold!” she shouted. “Where are you?”
Wild and ungovernable as the wind that whipped it, the fire shifted direction, depositing a scatter of burning embers on the shingled roof, already dry as tinder from the fire’s first passage. The embers glowed darkly and then caught; moments later, the whole building burst into flame.
Joan felt the hair on her scalp lift and fall in a violent rush of scorching air. The fire reached toward her with scalding tongues.
“Gerold!” she screamed again, driven back by the advancing flames.
GEROLD had stayed up late into the night, poring over plans for the wall. When at last he snuffed out his candle, he was so exhausted he fell immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep.
He woke to the smell of smoke. A lamp must be foundering, he thought, and stood to put it out. The first breath he drew seared his lungs with a pain that drove him to his knees gasping for air. Fire. But where is it coming from? The thick smoke made it impossible to see more than a few feet in either direction.
The terrified cries of children sounded nearby. Gerold crawled in their direction. Frightened faces swam toward him in the darkness— two children, a boy and a girl, no more than four or five years old. They ran to him and clung, wailing piteously.
“It’s all right.” He pretended a confidence he did not feel. “We’ll soon be out of here. Have you ever played horse-and-rider?”
The children nodded, wide-eyed.
“Good.” He swung the girl onto his back, then the boy. “Hold on now. We’re going to ride out.”
He moved awkwardly with the added weight of the children on his back. The smoke had become even thicker; the children gasped and choked. Gerold fought a rising fear. Many victims of a fire died with no mark upon them, the breath stopped in their throats by smothering smoke.
Suddenly he was aware that he had lost his bearings.