he had climbed up about forty feet. The sudden shout it provoked confirmed that Ripton had been thinking about where the creature was as well.
“Sorry!” Nick gasped. “I don’t think it’s following us.”
“There’s a door here. I’m standing on the edge of it, but I can’t slide the bloody thing—Got it!”
Light spilt into the shaft as smoke wafted out of it. Hard white gaslight. Ripton stepped through, then turned to help Nick pull himself up and over.
They were in a long whitewashed room lined from floor to ceiling with shelves and shelves of packaged food of all varieties. Tins and boxes and packets and sacks and bottles and puncheons and jars.
There was a door at the other end. It was open and a white-clad cook’s assistant was staring at them open-mouthed.
“Fire!” shouted Nick, waving his arms to clear the smoke that was billowing out fast from behind him. He started to walk forwards, continuing to half shout, his voice raspy and dulled by smoke. “Fire in the cellars! Everyone needs to get out, to the—Which field is closest, with hay?”
“The home meadow,” croaked Ripton. He cleared his throat and tried again. “The home meadow.”
“Tell the staff to evacuate the house and assemble on the home meadow,” Nick ordered in his most commanding manner. “I will tell the guests.”
“Yes, sir!” stammered the cook’s assistant. There was still a lot of smoke coming out, even though Ripton had managed to close the door to the dumbwaiter. “Cook will be angry!”
“Hurry up!” said Nick. He strode past the assistant and along a short corridor, to find himself in the main kitchen, where half a dozen immaculately white-clad men were engaged in an orderly but complex dance around a number of counters and stove tops, directed by the rapid snap of commands from a small, thin man with the tallest and whitest hat.
“Fire!” roared Nick. “Get out to the home meadow! Fire!”
He repeated this as he strode through the kitchen and out the swinging doors immediately after a waiter who showed the excellence of his training by hardly looking behind him for more than a second.
As Nick had thought, the dinner guests were making so much noise of their own that they would never have heard any kind of commotion deep in the earth under their feet. Even when he burst out of the servants’ corridor and jumped on to an empty chair near the head of the table that was probably his, only five or six of the forty guests looked around.
Then Ripton fired two rapid shots into the ceiling.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I do beg your pardon!” shouted Nick. “There is a fire in the house! Please get up at once and follow Mr Ripton here to the home meadow!”
Silence met this announcement for perhaps half a second; then Nick was assaulted with questions, comments and laughter. It was such a babble that he could hardly make out any one coherent stream of words; but clearly half the guests thought this was some game of Dorrance’s; a quarter of them wanted to go and get their jewels, favourite coats or lapdogs; and the last quarter intended to keep eating and drinking whether the house burned down around them or not.
“This isn’t a joke!” Nick screamed, his voice barely penetrating the hubbub. “If you don’t go now, you’ll be dead in fifteen minutes! Men have already died!”
Perhaps ten of the guests heard him. Six of them pushed their chairs back and stood. Their movement caused a momentary lull and Nick tried again.
“I’m Nicholas Sayre,” he said, pointing at his burnt hair and blackened dress shirt, and his bloodied cuffs. “The Chief Minister’s nephew. I am not playing games for Dorrance. Look at me, will you! Get out now or you will die here!”
He jumped down as merry pandemonium turned into panic, and almost knocked down the butler, who had been standing by to either assist or restrain him; Nick couldn’t be sure which.
“You’re D13, right?” he asked the imposing figure. “There’s been an accident downstairs. There is a fire, but there’s an…animal…loose. Like a tiger, but much stronger, fiercer. No door can hold it. We need to get everyone out on the home meadow and get them building a ring of hay. Make it about fifty yards in diameter, and we’ll gather in the middle and set it alight to keep the animal out. You understand?”
“I believe I do, sir,” said the butler, with a low bow and a slight glance at Ripton, who nodded. The butler then turned to look at the footmen, who stood impassively against the wall as guests ran past them, some of them screaming, some giggling, but most fearful and silent. He tuned his voice to a penetrating pitch and said, “James, Erik, Lancel, Benjamin! You will lead the guests to the home meadow. Lukas, Ned, Luther, Zekall! You will alert Mrs Krane, Mr Rowntree, Mr Gowing and Miss Greyne, to have all their staff immediately go to the home meadow. You will accompany them. Patrick, go and ring the dinner gong for the next three minutes without stopping, then run to the home meadow.”
“Good!” snapped Nick. “Don’t let anyone stay behind, and if you can take any bottles of paraffin or white spirits out to the meadow, do so! Ripton, lead the way to the library.”
“No, sir,” said Ripton. “My job’s to get you out of here. Come on!”
“We can bar the doors! What the—”
Nick felt himself suddenly restrained by a bear hug around his arms and chest. He tried to throw himself forwards but couldn’t move whoever had picked him up. He kicked back but was held off the ground, his feet uselessly pounding the air.
“Sorry, sir,” said Ripton, edging well back so he couldn’t be kicked. “Orders. Take him out to the meadow, Llew.”
Nick snapped his head back, hoping to strike his captor’s nose, but whoever held him was not only extremely big and strong but also a practised wrestler. Nick craned around and saw he was in the grip of a very tall and broad footman, one he had noticed when he had first arrived, polishing a suit of armour in the entrance hall that, though man-sized, came up only to his shoulder.
“Nay, you shan’t escape my clutch, Master,” said Llew, striding out of the dining room like a determined child with a doll. “Won the belt at Applethwick Fair seven times for the wrestling, I have. You get comfortable and rest. It baint far to the home meadow.”
Nick pretended to relax as they joined the column of people going through the main doors and out across the gravelled drive and lawn. It was still quite light and a harvest moon was rising, big and kind and golden. Many of the people slowed down as the sudden hysteria of Nick’s warning ebbed. It was a beautiful night and the home meadow looked rustic and inviting, with the haycocks still standing, the work of spreading the hay into a defensive ring not yet begun, though the butler was already directing servants to the task.
Halfway across the lawn, Nick suddenly arched his back and tried to twist sideways and out of Llew’s grip, but to no avail. The big man just laughed.
The lawn and the meadow were separated by a fence in a ditch, or ha-ha, so as not to spoil the view. Most of the guests and staff were crossing this on a narrow mathematical bridge that supposedly featured no nails or screws, but Llew simply climbed down. They were halfway up the other side when there was a sudden, awful screech behind them, a shrill howl that came from no human throat or any animal the Ancelstierrans had ever heard.
“Let
