The Gathering Storm
Page 349

“Quiet!” scolded Uncle. Treu whined and flattened his ears.
“Big storm coming in!” cried one of the men, having to shout to be heard as the wind roared behind them. “Hurry!”
They ran, but not quickly enough. Rain lashed their backs. They were pummeled by loose branches and debris as the wind gusted so strong that it pushed Brat right over, and she stumbled and fell while Uncle struggled to keep the handcart from tipping over.
He grabbed Brat’s wrist to drag her up. A stick came down on his arm.
“Leave off her, beast!” cried one of the workmen, brandishing the stick as if it were a sword. The other man hauled Brat up and they ran for the door of the miller’s house, where a stout woman stood crying out and beckoning although her words could not be heard above the howl of the storm. Thunder rolled, but it was the shriek of the gale and the drumming of rain that deafened them. He staggered to the shelter of the half-built wall just as Brat tore away from the man holding her and dashed back to him.
“Come on!” she screamed. “You can’t stay out here!”
Maybe the mortar hadn’t set yet. Maybe it was the wind, because a cruel gust actually tore thatch off the roof of the miller’s house and sent one line of fence clattering into sticks.
The wall tumbled down on them. Heavy stones hit his legs and head but, because the Brat had been crouching under the highest part, the stones buried her entirely. Only one strand of her pale brown hair could be seen, and a pair of fingers, twitching once, then still.
Bruised and dizzy, afire as his hands burned and his head was struck again and again by flying debris, he shoved stones off his legs and heaved the stones that had covered her to one side as the gale tried to flatten him. Beyond, he heard faint cries like the whimpering of birds. He glanced that way only once. Treu had been blown over against the mill itself; the gale pressed the poor dog against the wall of the outer housing, and if he barked, the scream of the wind drowned him.
Uncle dropped down beside him, hair whipping wildly against his face, half blinding him, but he, too, tossed stones aside until Brat was revealed, crushed, lying as still as a dead thing. The second workman fought over to them, holding tight a blanket that seemed ready to take wing. A branch hit him square on and he went down to one knee and crawled forward. They managed to roll her body onto the blanket, but even so she seemed likely to be blown away on that gale as they carried her at a run back to the houses, going to the shed, which hadn’t lost half its roof.
The door banged shut. Inside the storehouse they huddled as the wind tore at the roof and whistled through cracks in the logs. More than once the whole structure shuddered as if it was being shaken in the claws of a monster.
“Ai, God!” moaned Uncle, bending over his niece’s body. The gloom hid much, for the shed hadn’t any windows, but it was obvious that the collapsing wall hadn’t just broken all the bones in her body but crushed them. Horribly, she was still breathing. Blood bubbled on her lips, and one eye was open while the other was purpled and swelling shut so fast they could see the skin rise and blood rush up under it.
He wept over her, although he burned. His tears burned, as bright as petals of flame where they struck Brat’s mangled body. The dark shed flickered with sparks of light flashing in and out of existence. Angels had come to visit them, bringing holy fire.
“I pray you,” he murmured, beseeching them, “heal her.”
But the angels tormented him, pricking and stinging his skin, and the wind piped a tune around the frail shed that forced him to dance although there wasn’t much room among the barrels and sacks and the shelves piled with rope and tools shaped by the millwright’s lathe.
“He’s a madman!” cried the workman who still wielded the stick. “He threw that wall down on her!” He poked him back, and back, slapping at his thighs and body until he was driven up against the door.
“Leave him be!” cried Uncle, still weeping. “He’s a hermit, come out of the forest. Just a beggar. The wall fell because of the storm, or because of your poor workmanship! Leave be!”
“We didn’t! I won’t!” cried the workman. “I’m not feared of madmen. I fought in the army of the old count, God save him. We saw plenty of worse things than filthy beggars, didn’t we, Heric?”
The stick pressed him against the door while, beyond the planks of wood, the wind battered and beat, the strength of it thrumming against his shoulders. He twitched and jerked, needing to dance, anything to shake the sparks free that snapped open and closed all around him.