FireSong

by Roberta Gellis

  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. Fi
rst 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.

  Sick at what she had been forced to do—for to Fenice, Lady Alys’s suggestions were equivalent to direct orders from God—Fenice never gave a thought to eating, but the cooks had taken to heart the lesson taught by their smarting backs. Thus, though she gave no orders for a meal, Lady Fenice’s dinner was delectable, dainty dishes, more fitting for the visit of a king than for the everyday table of a simple knight’s lady. The chief cook fainted when the food came back scarcely touched, before the shaking boy who carried the plates could tell him Lady Fenice found no fault but was not hungry. And Fenice’s big bed was made up afresh with hysterical care that there be not one single crease in the sheets, and it was warmed again and again lest one tiny spot be cold, despite—or, rather, because of—the agony that every motion caused in raw backs and hips. Very quietly, with her face buried in the carefully arranged and plumped pillows, Fenice cried herself to sleep, sick with horror and pity at the punishments she had meted out.

  Two months later, Lady Alys and Lord Raymond came to pay a formal call on their daughter. Of course, letters had passed between Fenice and Alys almost every day, advice and encouragement from Alys, and assurances that all was going well or occasional questions about details of management with which she was not completely familiar from Fenice. And from time to time Sir Raoul, who was acting as castellan in Fuveau at Raymond’s request, had ridden over to Tour Dur to speak to his overlord. But neither Alys nor Raymond had come near Fuveau, wishing Fenice to establish her authority on her own. However, the day before the visit, Raymond had received a letter from his kinsman Rustengo in Bordeaux that made necessary a return there in the near future. The letter had mentioned that Lord Simon, Earl of Leicester, after being besieged at Montauban and being forced to return some of the prisoners he had taken in previous actions, had gone to France.

  Alys and Raymond found Fuveau a model of smooth efficiency, at least as well run as when Lady Emilie and Sir Jean-Paul had managed it for Delmar. Fenice came running out to greet them in the court. Grooms were at hand to take the visitors’ horses, and it was Fenice they looked to for instructions, even though Raymond had started to give orders about the care of the mounts. Of course, Fenice immediately gestured the grooms’ attention toward her father, but Alys nodded, well satisfied.

  For another hour or so, Alys continued to be content. Fenice was flushed with excitement and pleasure at their coming, and she spoke easily of the events since her cataclysmic assumption of control in Fuveau. Later, when Raymond rode out with Sir Raoul to look at a problem of drainage on one of the farms and Fenice took Alys to see the work of the women, Alys became much less satisfied. Not that there was anything wrong with the service or demeanor of the servants or that there was anything lacking in the output or quality of work from the women’s chambers, however, as Fenice’s flush of excitement faded, Alys did not like what she saw. Fenice’s face was drawn and hollow-eyed, and when Alys slipped her arm around her stepdaughter’s waist, she could feel Fenice’s ribs under her clothing.

  “Come, love,” Alys said, “you have spent a deal of time proving to me what I was already sure of, that you are well fit to manage your own home. Let us sit down in comfort in your chamber, where we will not be interrupted, and talk of ourselves until the men return for dinner.”

  “Oh, yes,” Fenice agreed readily, “and to my shame I have been so full of my own doings that I have not asked about the children.”

  Alys laughed. “What need to ask? If they had been other than well and causing endless trouble, you would have heard at once.”

  “Why did you not bring them?” Fenice asked.

  “Because I did not want them to miss another day of lessons. We spend so much time these days traveling between Aix and Bordeaux that they are running wild.”

  “I am sorry my troubles had to bring you home,” Fenice said guiltily.

  “Do not be a goose,” Alys chuckled. “Your troubles were heaven-sent—oh, Fenice, I am sorry, I did not mean—”

  Fenice squeezed Alys’s hand. “No, do not fear you hurt me. I know you never would, and…I do not…much…grieve for Delmar.”

  That was not completely true. Very often, indeed, as she went about her daily duties Fenice thought how wonderful it would be if it were Delmar instead of Sir Raoul talking to the men or riding about the farms. Then he would come to dinner, and they would talk about the accomplishments of that day and the duties of the next, and they would read a book together, or she would play her lute and sing, and when the day was over they would go to bed. At that point, tears would invariably fill Fenice’s eyes. She had come thoroughly to enjoy her marital duties abed, and she missed them. If only there had been no mother to come between herself and her husband… But her mind would pause there, not wishing to formulate the idea that what she wanted was to have escaped knowledge of her husband’s weakness.

  “Is that true, Fenice?” Alys asked. “No, in a sense I know it is not true. What I mean is, are you clinging to the memory of Delmar and tormenting yourself?”

  “Oh no, Lady Alys, I swear I am not. I cannot help thinking of him sometimes, but I am not overpowered by grief.”

  She seemed sincere in her assurance, but Alys could not perceive any other reason for the pale cheeks and blue-ringed eyes. It was useless to ask the same question again; she would only receive the same assurance. Then Alys’s agile mind seized on another, surer test.

  “I am glad to hear it, for you know you cannot live long alone. With Fuveau and Trets, you became something of an heiress, and there will be men suing for your hand.”

  Fenice’s eyes opened wide. Plainly the thought had not previously occurred to her, but it was equally plain it was not at all an unpleasant thought. In fact, a little color came back into her p
ale face. Then it is not grief for her loss that is tormenting her, Alys thought. Alys knew that if Raymond died and someone suggested another marriage to her, she would have refused absolutely to consider the idea unless politics or war threatened her children and she needed a protector for them.

  But Fenice was under no threat at all. Alys had not phrased her statement as a threat.

  Fenice herself confirmed the thought at once by saying, “I am ready to obey you and Papa in whatever you decide.” The words were only what was proper to an obedient daughter, but there was no dragging reluctance in the tone, and more curiosity than sad memory looked out of Fenice’s eyes.

  Although Alys was glad to know that Fenice had not been either badly hurt or permanently soured, she was not yet really considering the question of remarriage. She wanted to know why her stepchild looked like death warmed over, and if the idea of marrying again, which would ordinarily mean leaving Fuveau, brought color to the girl’s cheeks, most likely it was something in Fuveau that was haunting her.

  “You are unhappy here,” Alys said. “No, do not deny it. You are so thin I can feel your bones, and I can see that you do not sleep. You are not sick. I have kissed you and felt no fever. What is wrong in Fuveau, Fenice?”

  “Nothing,” Fenice whispered. “Nothing.” Then she said more firmly, “You see that I am obeyed.”

  “If it is not the servants, then it is Sir Raoul,” Alys spat. “I will—”

  “No!” Fenice cried. “Oh no. Sir Raoul is kindness itself to me.” But then her eyes dropped, and her voice sank to a whisper again. “But he knows. And the servants obey because they fear retribution, but they all know.”

  “Know? Know what?” Alys asked, completely confused.

  “That I am a serf’s daughter, no better than they are. That I am a false image of a noble—”

  “Fenice!” Alys exclaimed. “I have told you a thousand times that your father’s blood is the stronger. You have proved it yourself. No serf girl would have fought her way free of that convent and walked all the long, weary miles to fulfill a duty. She would have stayed where she was comfortable and well fed and in no danger. You are a noblewoman. You should be proud to be the natural daughter of Raymond d’Aix.” Alys took Fenice’s hands. “My love, in a way our situations are not so different. I am not of Raymond’s class. You have heard Lady Jeannette say over and over that I am a coarse barbarian.”