There Will Be Wolves by Karleen Bradford Read Free Book Online Page A

answer, she raced for the ladder that connected the second floor to the third and was up it in an instant, shaking him awake.
    “What? What is it, child?” The old man was vague with sleep and almost incoherent. He had been so upset by the women that Ursula had insisted he take a potion to help him rest. Now he could not seem to waken.
    She shook him harder. The smoke was getting thicker, reaching up even to this floor, and the acrid taste of it in the back of her throat was making her cough.
    “Fire, Father! The house is on fire! Oh, Father, wake up! We must run!”
    Samson was howling now. Master William sat up, still dazed, and Ursula dragged him to his feet. She pushed him over to the hole where the ladder was and thrust him toward it. He barely managed the rungs. Then she put her arm around his shoulders and helped him down the stairs. Samson was in a frenzy.
    The bottom floor was ablaze; flames licked at the shelves with their store of dried herbs. Ursula seized her father tightly and fought her way through the smoke to the door, but she had to let go of him in order to open it and he sank onto the floor. She pulled the door open, reached down, and half dragged, half carried him out. Samson charged out behind them.
    Then Ursula remembered her book. Her healing book. She dropped her father’s arm and raced back into the house, ignoring the shouts of the people who were already collecting at the scene. The smoke was almost overpowering, but she ran for the stairs and pulled herself up them. The book was in a corner under her bed. Coughing, with tears streaming down her face, she reached for it. The whole wall beside her was in flames and the heat scorched her hand. She grasped the book and then almost fell back down the narrow stairway. As she staggered out the door, the floor of the second level crashed down behind her.
    The whole neighborhood was awake by now,and shouts were being raised all up and down the street. Men raced up carrying buckets of water from the nearby well and began to throw it on the fire, but the smoke was too dense, and the heat of the flames soon drove them back.
    “Watch out! The roofs going!” Even as the shout was raised, the whole top of the house caved in, sending up a towering blaze that leaped for the sky. Now all the efforts of the dozens of people in the street were directed to wetting down the adjoining houses on either side in order to prevent the fire from spreading. Ursula could do nothing but stand, arms around her father, and watch as everything they owned in the world went up in flames.
    By the time the first light of day began to streak through the sky it was all over. Their house was an empty, smoldering shell. Ursula stared at the wreckage. The houses on either side had been burned as well, but not extensively; by and large they had been saved. People were standing, staring, or sitting slumped in the street, silent and exhausted. Suddenly a shout startled them all.
    “There she is! There’s the witch! Look—God has already laid his hand upon her!”
    The women were back, but this time, ominously, they were led by the monks from the church of Great St. Martin’s. One of the monks, surveying the burned-out ruin, crossed himself and began to pray.
    “God sent the fire!” shrieked Mistress Adelheid. “The fire that purifies! God sent it!”
    “Yes!” cried another. “He’s burned the witch’s house—and now the
witch
must burn!”

F OUR
    U rsula’s arms dropped away from her father and, instinctively, she tried to hide the book.
    It was too late. The ever-observant Mistress Ingrid had already seen it.
    “Look! She clutches the book. The devil’s book!” she cried. “Mistress Elke told me about that as well. It’s from that book she casts her spells!”
    Ursula shrank back, but one of the monks moved toward her quickly.
    “Give that to me,” he said. In contrast to the turmoil and commotion all around them, his voice was quiet, but it was a voice to be