Fire Song (7 page)

“Then you do not think I was wrong to strike the sister?” Fenice asked uncertainly.

“My love, sometimes one must strike first, or lose the battle before one begins to strike at all.”

“That is what I thought,” Fenice said, relieved, and went on in a firm, satisfied tone. “And I could not risk Papa’s right to Fuveau and Trets. Only Papa or you or Lady Alys have the right to dispose of me.”

“And you may be sure we will take the very greatest care in whatever disposition we make,” Lord Alphonse assured her, and then clapped himself on the forehead and called himself a monster for having forgotten in the midst of the talk that she must be starved and probably exhausted, too.

Fenice disclaimed any desire to have a meal brought specially, but her grandfather’s kindness brought tears to her eyes. These and her seeming lack of appetite, which was really owing to the generosity of almsgivers along the road rather than to any unwillingness to eat, made Lord Alphonse remember her recent loss.

“You will not want to join us for dinner,” he said sympathetically. “There is such a bustle and noise, and Alys’s maidens do so chatter and laugh. They make your grandmother and me very merry, but I am afraid that will not suit you just yet, especially not when you are tired. I will tell Lady Christine that a meal is to be brought to you privately. Then, perhaps, when you have slept a little, you will want to join us for the evening meal. We take that quietly, here near the fire.”

At Alphonse’s mention of dinner, Fenice grew pale. It would be unbearable to have Lady Jeannette questioning her in front of all the noble maidens Alys fostered. Her grandmother would not be openly unkind while her husband was present, but she was quite capable of asking really cruel questions in a cooing voice that utterly deceived him. But the phrasing of Alphonse’s remark reduced Fenice’s fears to manageable proportions. Her trial would be delayed until evening, and then there would be no witnesses. Yet where could she be safe and private? At once she thought of the south tower, where the fire still burned and there were only memories of peace and happiness.

“I am a little tired,” she admitted, “and the women’s quarters are so large. It…it is lonely to be there when they are empty. Grandfather, could I stay in the south tower?”

“But it is empty and cold. Will you not be more lonely there?” Lord Alphonse asked anxiously.

“Oh, no,” Fenice replied. “There is a fire, and to me it is almost as if Lady Alys were there.”

Alphonse smiled. “If that will give you comfort, child, so be it. I am sure Alys would wish you to have whatever can ease you.”

So it was that the five weeks Fenice spent in Tour Dur before Alys and Raymond returned were far pleasanter than she had ever expected. Her newly widowed status protected her and permitted her to withdraw to the south tower whenever she wished. Lady Jeannette, although she looked sourly at Fenice now and again, ignored her most of the time, and Fenice had to admit to herself that it had been many years since her grandmother had actually been overtly unpleasant. It was her own sensitivity to an atmosphere that was only cold and lacking welcome that made her miserable.

Still, she was very, very glad when Lady Alys and Lord Raymond rode into Tour Dur, despite a repetitive pinch of anxiety that they might not find her adventure as funny as Lord Alphonse did. In fact, Raymond and Alys had been appalled when they heard of her young husband’s death. Their only thought now was to give Fenice all the support and comfort in their power to provide.

As soon as they arrived, Raymond took his daughter in his arms and wept over her until Alys, who had tears running down her own lovely face, remonstrated that he was only renewing Fenice’s sorrow. And when they heard the tale of Fenice’s escape and her long, lonely journey home, both were fiercely proud of her.

“
There
is your blood in her,” Alys cried, looking from Raymond to Alphonse.

And Raymond said, “You are
my
daughter, flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone. Tomorrow I will send out a summons to the vassals. Do not fear, my Fenice, you will have for your own what you struggled so bravely to keep.”

But Fenice saw the flash of fear in Alys’s eyes, and she turned cold at the thought that her father might be injured in an attempt to retrieve something that was meaningless to her, except that it belonged, in her opinion, to him. “But Papa,” she said, “you and Grandfather have many vassals and are very strong, while Fuveau is only one keep. Perhaps since Lady Emilie must already know I am no longer at the convent and there really is no chance for her to keep Fuveau, they will yield to you without a war.”

Raymond frowned, but Alphonse laughed. “The girl is speaking sense, Raymond. If Emilie’s brother, Jean-Paul, intends to fight, he has already had near six weeks to make ready. Another week or two cannot make much difference. There would be no time—even if he had the money—for Jean-Paul to send to distant parts for mercenaries. The man cannot be readier if you warn him by demanding his submission before you summon our vassals.”

“I suppose you are right,” Raymond admitted, somewhat ungraciously.

The taking of Fuveau by storm was just the type of fight Raymond liked best. It would be an enjoyable exercise, with no dangerous or widespread repercussions. However, the property was Fenice’s. It would be wrong to damage it unnecessarily, and some damage and looting were inevitable if the place were overrun by men-at-arms. The idea that Fenice did not want her property damaged having occurred to him, Raymond looked at his daughter with respect. She had apparently learned more from Alys than he had previously believed.

Fenice’s spirits were greatly uplifted by her father’s and stepmother’s reactions and her grandfather’s support of the first remark she had ever in her life made concerning a matter outside of a woman’s proper sphere. Unfortunately her happiness was not long lasting. Only a few hours later, when she was overseeing the placement of Alys’s and Raymond’s clothing in the chests and the removal of all traces of her own occupation of the south tower, Alys came in.

“Oh, thank you, my love,” she said. “My maid Bertha is so big with child, she can scarcely waddle. I had to leave her in Bordeaux, for I thought that she would surely deliver on the road from the jostling of the cart. I would have come to you sooner, but I wished to be sure that the letter your father sent to Sir Jean-Paul was not too threatening. Men never seem to realize that threats can sometimes cow, but they can also make a person desperate. And your father is so angry that they should take advantage of your grief…” Alys’s voice faltered. “Oh, sweet, I am so sorry, so sorry.”

They clung together for a few minutes, weeping, but Alys soon pulled away, wiping first her own and then Fenice’s eyes on the hem of her wide oversleeve.

“It does not help to weep,” she went on. “When little Alys and Henry died, I wept until my eyes were dry, but it did not help. The only thing that eased my heart was work, but I see you know that already. Ah, well, you will soon have work in plenty, for the management of two estates as the time for planting comes will give you no time for sad—”

Alys’s voice cut off sharply as she looked at Fenice’s whitened face and fear-dilated eyes. This was not grief she saw, it was terror.

“They will not obey me,” Fenice whispered. “She—Lady Emilie—told them that I was baseborn and no better than a serf myself, and they laughed at me when I tried to give them orders. And when I told Delmar,” she began to sob again, far more bitterly than before, ”he said it was true.”

Alys’s mouth opened to ask furiously why Fenice had not told her, but the question was a stupid one. Although Fenice’s frequent timidity usually infuriated her stepmother, Alys was able to understand this time. When she and Raymond were first married, she had for a very, very short time believed that her husband was so ruled by his mother that he would forsake her own bed. The fear and fury Alys had felt caused her to behave like a madwoman and nearly ruin her marriage, but she had thought only once of informing her father, and the shame that overwhelmed her at the idea of exposing her inability to hold her husband’s love far outweighed every other emotion, no matter how violent.

“It is my fault,” Alys said, trying to draw the poison from Fenice’s wound. “Your father said Delmar was too gentle to be of any help to him in war, but I did not connect that with weakness as I should have done. Delmar was too weak to say no to his mother, so he laid the fault on you.”

“But it is not
your
fault,” Fenice cried. “You meant well for me. You wanted a husband for me who would be gentle and who would not tear my heart to shreds by running to war more eagerly than to a feast. And there was no fault in your teaching of me, either.”

“I never thought there was,” Alys agreed, more to bolster Fenice’s self-confidence then because she herself wished to be absolved. “I saw you at Trets, and you knew what to do and were not afraid to do it. Nor, Fenice, was your will or strength too little. I see in your face that you blame yourself for lacking determination to fight back. But there was no way you could fight at Fuveau. The servants and men-at-arms were accustomed to obeying Lady Emilie. Your husband being too feeble to uphold your right, there was nothing you
could
do except cry for help from your father and me, and I understand why you did not do that. No, often I have scolded you for too great meekness but not this time, my love.”

Although there were tears in Fenice’s eyes again, she heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank God you understand why I cannot go back—”

“Not go back!” Alys echoed. “Nonsense! Fuveau is yours. Oh, you need not fear. By the time your father is finished with them, the servants will crawl on their bellies and kiss the mud where your feet have passed, and the men-at-arms will be
your
men, obedient to your slightest breath.”

“Must you tell Papa?” Fenice breathed.

Alys reached up and stroked the girl’s cheek, then pulled her head down so that she could kiss her forehead. “You fear your father will think less of you for this? It is not so.” Alys’s lips twisted wryly. “Raymond knows too well the power a mother can wield over a son. Only do not turn lily-livered when it is time for you to order punishment, for it is you who must order it and your men-at-arms who must administer it. If your father or I come between, your authority will be the less, and we must not make the same mistake twice.”

Fenice made no further protest. If Lady Alys said she must do a thing, then she must do it. Lady Alys was always the first to shield her when it was best for her to be protected. But it was then that Fenice realized that Lady Alys did not really understand at all. It was true that the servants and men-at-arms would obey her, but they would still
know
. In their hearts they would think of her as a false image, not rightfully a lady, and they would hate her for being set in authority over them.

Chapter Five

The next day Raymond sent his carefully worded summons to Fuveau. It said very little, only that it had come to his attention that Delmar was dead and he wished to know why no notice of that fact had been sent to him, Delmar’s father-by-marriage, or to Lord Alphonse, Comte d’Aix, Delmar’s overlord.

Because it had been impossible to conceal Delmar’s death completely and there were any number of ways the news could have reached Lord Raymond, Lady Emilie and her brother did not despair. They had known the secret could not be kept for long when the properties were so near, but they had believed Raymond was in Bordeaux and knew that Lord Alphonse paid very little attention to business unless it was thrust upon him. Yet, even with Lord Raymond’s unexpected return, as long as Fenice was missing, there was hope.

When the news that Fenice had left the convent in so violent a manner reached them, Sir Jean-Paul and Lady Emilie had really been convinced that she had become totally mad. And when no further news of her had come to them, although more than a month had passed, they had hoped that she had got lost, wandered in the wrong direction, and finally died on the road.

In response to Raymond’s summons Jean-Paul had left for Tour Dur worried but not hopeless. He was prepared to show astonishment when Lord Raymond mentioned the reversion clause and asked for his daughter. He intended to swear that Fenice herself had insisted on being taken to the convent, that he and his sister had assumed she had written privately to her father to explain, and that he and his sister, being unable to read and not suspecting there was any reason to have the marriage contract read to them, had been unaware of the reversion clause.

It was all very logical, and if he were believed, a strong possibility remained that he and Emilie could retain control of Fuveau. But the foundation of the plan was that Fenice should be dead or mad, so that she could not bear witness against him. Then he had seen that the woman standing beside Lord Raymond clad in elegant finery was not Lady Alys, but Fenice, and he had dropped to his knees in silent terror. The foundation of his explanations had been swept away. Worse yet, Sir Jean-Paul knew excuses were useless. He and his sister had already been tried and judged guilty. His brief glance had shown that there was a decided resemblance between father and daughter, and the icy pale eyes of both were identical. Moreover, the fine velvet of Fenice’s gown, the fur that trimmed it, the gold that sparkled in the embroidery of hem, neckband, and veil, all bespoke the high value that Raymond d’Aix put upon his bastard daughter.

“Take his sword,” Raymond said to his senior squire. “An innocent man looks his accuser in the eye and makes answer. It is the guilty who fall on their knees before one word is said or one question asked.”

The disarmed Jean-Paul was mounted on a jaded ass instead of his horse. With two hundred men-at-arms at his tail and Fenice beside him on the finest palfrey in the stable, Raymond rode to Fuveau and demanded entrance. The master-at-arms shrugged and bade his men let down the drawbridge and open the gates. He had no idea what was going on, but he knew the banner of the Comte d’Aix. It was clear Jean-Paul had fallen foul of his overlord, and the master-at-arms wanted no part of that quarrel.

Upon order, Jean-Paul’s men came down from the walls and out of their other stations and stood uneasily in the outer courtyard. All the servants of the keep huddled in the shadows or leaned from the windows to see and hear.

Raymond turned to Fenice. “It is your keep, Daughter,” he said, his voice clear and carrying. “What is your will?”

Well-rehearsed, Fenice responded immediately with equal clarity so that all could hear. “These men have done no ill. They obeyed their master, which is their proper duty. I cannot keep them, however, for they have long served one I do not trust. I leave their disposition to you, Father.”

Raymond agreed that the men had only done their duty and offered them either an exchange of service into his own troops or free passage out of Aix into any neighboring province. With one voice and considerable enthusiasm, for most of them were local men, exchange of service was accepted. Within half an hour they marched out of Fuveau with most of Raymond’s army. An equal number of Raymond’s men-at-arms, with Arnald as their master-at-arms, remained in Fuveau.

Arnald had come from England years ago with Alys, and Fenice and her sister, Enid, had been his pets from the time they were small children. They had, gravely and kindly, corrected his French, and he, at their request, had taught them some English. He was too old now for heavy fighting, but there was no chance of that being necessary at Fuveau, and his deep affection for Fenice and her trust in him made him the right man to rule the men-at-arms. Unfortunately, Arnald could not perform other necessary duties, but Raymond had already sent a message to Sir Raoul, an old and trusted castellan, to leave his own keep in his son’s charge and come to support Fenice in Fuveau.

Now the keep was utterly in Raymond’s power, and according to plan, Fenice ordered that Lady Emilie be brought down from her chamber, in which she had taken refuge. She and Sir Jean-Paul were hauled before Fenice, who still sat on her palfrey and from that height looked down at them. In a last desperate but unwise attempt to save herself, Lady Emilie began to accuse Fenice of murdering her son.

“You fool!” Jean-Paul bellowed. “Every servant in the place knows she was never near the boy. Better, perhaps, had you been less wise and listened to her when she begged to use her own devices to cure him.”

“There is nothing you could say against my daughter that I would believe,” Raymond snarled. “I have known Fenice from the day of her birth, and she is true and honest as steel, good and pure. I should hang you both—”

“No, Father, I beg you,” Fenice interrupted.

Alys had not only rehearsed Fenice in what she must say and do the first few weeks in Fuveau but had warned her that Raymond’s temper might get out of hand. “He is deeply hurt,” Alys had said, “that his old sin should be used as a weapon against you, who were never at fault, and he may go too far.” And then Alys had suggested several expedients for curbing her husband without opposing him.

Fenice laid a hand on her father’s arm, and he turned to look at her, whereupon she smiled. “Let us return good for evil. I will send Lady Emilie to take my place with the sisters at the convent where she sent me, but of course, not with Fuveau and Trets as dower.”

Raymond stared for a moment and then laughed. To come without dower to a convent usually meant acceptance only as a lay sister, to do the hard, heavy work of a servant. It was possible that the sisters would be merciful, considering Lady Emilie’s rank, but they would never let her forget that she had brought disgrace to their house and was a charge on them. The penances would be long and hard, and there would be no escape for Lady Emilie, as there had been for Fenice.

“And as for Sir Jean-Paul… I will leave a man’s punishment to a man, to you, Father.”

“And I will temper my justice, I promise, with your mercy,” Raymond replied, his good humor restored by his perception of Fenice’s cleverness. “Arnald,” he called, “get Jean-Paul back on that ass.” Then he turned back to Fenice. “If there is nothing more I can do for you, my love, I will get back to Tour Dur.”

“Nothing more, Father,” Fenice said, launching into another prepared speech. “I am well able now to bring my servants to proper obedience. I thank you for your support of my right.”

“You should rather have blamed me for not measuring the treachery of those to whose care I entrusted you,” Raymond said regretfully, which made Fenice forget all about the dignity she had assumed. She leaned perilously from her horse to throw her arms around her father’s neck and kiss him.

“You are always too kind to me, Papa,” she cried.

Raymond gave her a brief but enthusiastic hug, which sadly disarranged her headdress, and shoved her back to safety in her saddle. “Not
too
kind, Fenice,” he said fondly, “for I am proud of you, and you deserve whatever kindness I am able to bestow.”

There was real warmth behind the words, and for once Fenice was certain that her father saw her as a person rather than another female dependent to whom he owed care. His approval made her glow with happiness, despite what she knew she must do next. Arnald had returned from the gate where he had set Sir Jean-Paul back on the ass, and Fenice asked him to lift her down from her palfrey. He set her on her feet, and the horse began to move. She snapped an order to a groom, the same groom who had once told her she must get Lady Emilie’s permission to ride out, and he ran forward, but his eyes were on Arnald, not on her. Fenice closed her eyes briefly but opened them again.

“Amald, have your men find every servant in the keep—every one. You have my permission, this once, to go into the women’s quarters to bring down the maids. Assemble everyone in the hall, before the chair of state.”

When they had been gathered and stood ringed by the men-at-arms, Fenice had Lady Emilie brought before her. The woman sagged between the men who held her, utterly defeated. Fenice’s soft heart was touched. Lady Emilie had lost everything, her son, her place, everything that gave meaning to her life. Had Fenice not made a commitment to her father, she would have forgotten justice to be merciful but she could not. She gave the order to begin the journey to the convent where she herself had been taken. Still, she was kinder to her mother-by-marriage than Lady Emilie had been to her. She also ordered that all Lady Emilie’s clothing, even those garments embroidered with gold and set with small gems, be sent with her. Perhaps, Fenice thought, enough could be made out of those items to assuage somewhat the ire of the sisters.

Seeing their erstwhile mistress hustled away at Fenice’s command brought home to the servants their perilous state. Many, particularly those who held the more important positions, fell to their knees and began to weep and plead for pardon. Again Fenice had to steel herself to act against her natural kindness, to ignore her empathy with those whose fears and helplessness her own mother had shared. But Lady Alys had warned her, explaining that this one sharp punishment, dealt out to all in graded severity—depending upon their status in the hierarchy and their actual offense against her—would induce a fear that would ensure strict obedience for many months. By the time the fear began to fade, swift obedience would be a habit, and that habit would eliminate the need for repeated cruel lessons in the future.

“All of you,” Fenice said, “knew I was the wife of the lord of Fuveau. None of you honored me as befitted my place. Some,” Fenice paused and looked purposefully first at Alda, Lady Emilie’s maid, and then at the steward, who had peered down his nose at her and often delayed in obeying or ignored her orders, “treated me with contumely.”

The wails and pleas now nearly drowned her voice, and Fenice gestured to Arnald, who, in a voice that had risen above fierce battles, ordered his men to silence the crowd. Half a dozen of the men-at-arms drew their swords and used the flats of the blades on the nearest noisemakers. Silence fell, except for a muffled sobbing here and there.

“Now you will be lessoned for that past offense,” Fenice continued, “so that you will make no mistake ever again as to whom your instant obedience belongs.”

Arnald already knew what to do. First the lowest servants, the dog boys, those who swilled out the stables, the wretches who gathered the dung and night soil for fertilizer, and the like, were weeded out and ordered to kneel before the seat of justice. Fenice could have wept for them, they were so frightened, and they had never offended her. Nonetheless, she condemned them to five lashes each.

The audible sigh of relief that went up from those miserable creatures did Fenice’s heart good. She did not want them to suffer, only to remember that it was within her power to do much worse. But there had been whispers from those who waited to be sentenced, even one subdued snicker. It was axiomatic that the least were always punished worst, even when they were innocent. Those remaining assumed that their new mistress was too gentle and would give them no more than a scolding.

Fenice’s lips thinned. All those who waited were indoor servants and the higher sort that served outdoors, like grooms. All were guilty to some extent, some of no more than bold looks, some of sneering answers, some of outright disobedience. None received fewer than twenty-five strokes, enough to draw blood. The ones Fenice remembered best, like the groom who had sneeringly denied her the right to her own mare, got fifty, which would peel the skin away. There were no more whispers or snickers. And then it was time for Alda and the steward. They crawled to her feet and kissed her shoes.

“What you deserve,” Fenice said, “is that I have both hands lopped off and your noses cut away.”

Alda fell flat, screaming; the steward whispered, “Lady Emilie—” and Fenice cut him off sharply.

“You will lose your tongue, too, if you try to excuse yourself. But for the moment I will reserve that fate. All have the right to one chance to redeem themselves. For what you have done, one hundred strokes with a braided lash. For what you will get in the future, either my forgiveness for sufficient devotion and humble service or the sentence I have named already if you forget yourself with a single look or even a single thought.”

Fenice sat like a stone as they were dragged away and until all the men and women were herded out into the courtyard, where each in turn was fastened to whatever hook or post was available while punishment was administered. The men-at-arms had to work in relays, and the screaming went on all day and through the night.