Sir Cael Ardent hit the cracked limestone flags of St. Jude’s north aisle in a shower of leaded window glass, his dented blued-steel greaves ringing like anvils against the stone. He did not pause to brush the sleet or glass splinters from his cloak. Three strides carried him through the drifting yellow smoke of the burning sanctuary oil to the foot of the collapsed choir stalls where Jon Hale stood with his five-foot iron crowbar wedged beneath the lower end of the fourteen-inch oak rood-beam.
“Where is the shear line, Hale?” Cael barked, his visor already thrown back from his soot-streaked face.
“The south wall corbel—eight feet up!” Jon shouted over the roar of the flames licking up the dry cedar rood-screen. He pointed with his chin while keeping both nine-ringed hands locked on the iron bar. “The stone bracket is split down the bed-joint! If I lever the bottom of this timber three inches up to free Sister Oda and the parish chest, the top end will kick off the wall and bring the whole south roof-bay down on her head! Somebody has to hold the upper shoulder of the beam against the masonry while I pry!”
Above them, a second ribbon of burning altar oil ran along the carved oak grape-vine frieze of the fallen beam, setting the dry lint and cobwebs inside the roof trusses ablaze. Through the jagged ten-foot hole in the nave vault, freezing sleet hissed into the fire, turning the air inside the chancel…
