Fire Song (2 page)

Sister Anne had answered her, but Fenice had not heard the reply. As the immediate shock passed, her panic also receded, and Fenice saw a little hole through which she might escape any immediate demand that she join the order. She shook her head.

“I do not remember,” she repeated, “and I owe too much to my father to take the veil without his word of approval in person or, at least, a letter from him.”

She did not escape as easily as she had hoped. Sister Anne spoke sadly, and then sharply, of the sins and the punishments for lack of faith, for breaking holy vows, and for putting worldly considerations before those of the spirit. She spoke with fervor on the sin of vanity, accusing Fenice of loving her own physical beauty more than the beauty of the soul that would come from veiling her loveliness as a sacrifice to God. She named Fenice’s features one by one, the thick, dark hair that hung to her hips, her soft, creamy skin, her light eyes, pale and bright, her full lips, even her short, rather broad nose, and described how each would decay with time and bring her nothing but grief, while devotion to God would give her greater and greater joy with each passing year. Fenice did not argue, but she did not yield, either. She had learned early to endure in silence, and at last the nun departed.

Free of the distraction of needing to listen lest she fall into some trap of clever words, Fenice grappled with the practical aspects of the situation that she faced. Now she realized she had been a fool not to complain of how she had been treated in Fuveau. Perhaps if Lady Alys had been at Tour Dur, she might have ridden to Aix for a visit, but Lady Alys was with Raymond in Bordeaux. And, Fenice admitted to herself, even if Lady Alys had been at home, probably she would not have confessed her unhappiness. She had been so ashamed, ashamed of the base blood that made her mother-by-marriage and others scorn her, ashamed of Delmar’s inability or unwillingness to stand up for her, ashamed of the weakness that made her unable to fight for her own rights. Again and again Lady Alys told her that
that
was her flaw, not her mother’s blood.

Her rights… Fenice stared sightlessly into the flames, which barely flickered above the glowing embers of the nearly burned-out logs. The fire’s song was stilled, but the red eyes of the embers stared back accusingly. The trouble was that Fenice could never really believe she had any rights. Lady Alys spoke truth. That
was
a serious flaw. If she had not been so timid and doubtful, her father would not be in danger of losing Trets and Fuveau.

Fenice’s soft, full lips firmed and thinned. She and her rights might be nothing, but the rights of Raymond d’Aix, heir to Alphonse, Comte d’Aix, would not be flouted because of any weakness of hers. She must act, and it could not be the simple act that had frightened her so much before, writing a letter. If, as she feared, the nuns were in alliance with Lady Emilie, no letter she wrote would ever reach its destination. She herself must escape from the convent.

Fenice rose a little stiffly from the low chair on which she had been sitting, for she had been almost motionless for longer than she realized. She walked slowly to the single chest that stood under the one window of the chamber and lifted the lid, but she had hardly begun to feel through the clothing in the chest before one of the lay sisters appeared.

“What is it you seek, madam?” the woman asked.

They were watching her, Fenice thought. A maid should come when called; she should not intrude on her mistress without being asked. “My box,” Fenice replied, although she was quite sure the box that held her seal, the trinkets of gold and gems her father and Lady Alys had given her over the years, and the pearl necklace and arm bands that were Delmar’s wedding gift had not been sent with her. Not even all her clothing was in the chest, only a few of the oldest and plainest gowns.

“There was no box that I remember,” the lay sister replied, looking honestly concerned. “I laid your things away myself. What was in the box?”

“Very little of importance except for a miniature of my father,” Fenice said mendaciously, for her seal was of great importance. It could serve as a substitute for her signature on official documents.

“There is our Lord on the cross,” the woman said, gesturing. “That image should give you more comfort than that of any earthly being.”

A sudden fury seized Fenice at the thought that the love of God should replace her love of the father who, instead of spurning and ignoring the daughter of a serf woman, had cherished her, given her property, and married her with honor to a nobleman.

“I was not seeking comfort but the answer to a worldly question,” Fenice retorted sharply, and turned away to take her cloak and hurry from the room.

The rage held her until she was out in the winter garden, pacing the paths. As her fury faded, she bit her lips with chagrin. The sharpness of the tone and the keenness of the reply had betrayed her. It was stupid to have shown any change in behavior from her past listlessness. The lay sister would report her actions, and they would watch her more closely than ever if they suspected that she had recovered from her shock, especially since she had probably already demonstrated a more definite resistance than usual to Sister Anne’s suggestions about joining the order.

What she should have done, Fenice now realized, was to say the loss of her box did not matter and go back to her seat by the fire. As she thought about the last weeks, it seemed to her that she had spent nearly every waking moment sitting and staring into the flames, listening to the fire song. Yes, and going over and over in her mind her griefs and injuries, and pitying Delmar and saying to herself that she must act. She drew her cloak more closely about her, cold with fear as she became aware that her unguarded reactions had probably already hurt her.

She had hoped to gain a respite by insisting on obtaining her father’s permission to take the veil, but now she might inadvertently have given the signal for a forced induction into the order. If they suspected that Lord Raymond would not give his permission, might she wake up some morning to find herself with her hair shaved off, dressed in a nun’s habit? The sisters were skilled in medicine, she could be drugged…

Then her common sense woke to combat her fear. Was it possible to force someone to take the veil? One did not become a nun directly. There was a novitiate through which one must pass before final vows, and Fenice was sure one could abandon one’s novitiate and return to the world, although it was not common to do so. Nor did she believe it was possible to keep her drugged long enough to satisfy the rules. Was not the novitiate a year or more in length?

A flicker of movement near the wall caught her eye. A lay sister seemed to be passing from one building to another, but to Fenice’s frightened perception, her movement seemed surreptitious. She was certain the woman was spying on her. One small part of her mind told her she might be watched secretly out of kindness, for fear that in her despair she might sit too long in the cold or act in other foolish ways to her own harm. Still, the awareness of being always under someone’s eye heightened her anxiety. How could she be sure there were not special dispensations for inducting a nun without a novitiate? How did she know that such a dispensation was not already in the mother superior’s possession?

She had been weak and idle too long already. She must not play with her father’s right to Trets and Fuveau. She must leave this convent at once.

The firm decision woke a terror more acute than that of being forced into the order. If she left the convent, she must go to Tour Dur and face Lady Jeannette, and Fenice was quite sure her grandmother would rather have her take the veil, or be dead, than take her back into the household. Lady Jeannette would not care about Trets and Fuveau. She had even sneered at Lady Alys for attending so closely to the management of the keep and lands of Tour Dur itself. It was because Lady Alys was only the daughter of a simple knight from a barbarous country, Lady Jeannette said. Had she been the daughter of a great nobleman, she would not have lowered herself to such common tasks. A true lady should occupy herself only with finer things, like music and poetry and art.

Fenice burned with shame at the memory of her grandmother’s attacks on her daughter-by-marriage, but Lady Alys herself was not wounded. She laughed behind Lady Jeannette’s back, although she always treated her with the greatest formality and respect and even called her “madam” rather than “mother”. What was important, Lady Alys said, was that the estates were profitable, and Lord Raymond and Lord Alphonse were not constantly interrupted and plagued to death by Lady Jeannette’s demands for attention when they needed to do important business.

Suddenly Fenice stopped dead in her tracks, realizing that she had seen the gate to her salvation. It was not to Lady Jeannette that Fenice must explain about Lady Emilie’s attempt to keep Trets and Fuveau, but to her grandfather, Lord Alphonse. Her grandfather would not blame her for what had happened. He was as kind to her as was her father. He would caress her and sympathize with her. And he would understand the value of the estates. There would be no need to plead with Lady Jeannette for permission to send a messenger to Bordeaux and be told that a serf woman’s bastard could not possibly have anything important enough to write to merit a special messenger. Lord Alphonse would send the letter at once.

In her joy, Fenice almost forgot that she would have to get to Tour Dur before she could speak to her grandfather. She hurried back to her chamber, thinking of packing what she would need for a journey, only to be brought up short by seeing still another lay sister carefully folding the clothes she had disarranged when she looked through the chest. Suddenly, it came to Fenice that she could not simply say she wished to leave and expect to be escorted to Tour Dur. Fenice stood staring, her expression so fixed that the lay sister scrambled to her feet and ran over to support her. “You must struggle against this grief,” she murmured. “You should not have gone out. The garden is sad at this time of year. In the spring it will give you joy.”

The woman’s words now made everything clear. So Fenice was expected to be there in the spring, was she? Silently she released herself from the supporting hand and turned toward her chair near the hearth. The fire had been built up again with fresh logs and was singing merrily, popping and crackling. But although Fenice seated herself and looked into the flames, she no longer needed to lose herself in the fire song. This latest shock had done her almost as much good as her realization that it was her grandfather rather than her grandmother with whom she must discuss her affairs.

There was now no need to explain to the haughty and disapproving mother superior why she did not intend to become a nun. All she needed to do was to steal away and go home. And then Fenice asked herself, steal away from where? Go home in what direction? Fenice realized that she had not the faintest idea in which convent she was. All she knew was that it could not be close either to Fuveau or Tour Dur, for she knew the nuns in those holy houses, and none of these was familiar to her.

Chapter Two

The sudden realization that she did not know where she was in relation to Tour Dur did not throw Fenice into renewed despair. She was not afraid of physical problems, she knew herself to be clever and merely set herself to find a solution. It was not difficult to devise a plan, knowing that her grandfather would marvel at her courage, and that Lady Alys and her father would be pleased with her. Doubtless her grandmother would sneer at her “peasant shrewdness”, but she would have to bear it. Fuveau and Trets must not be stolen from her father by wicked, greedy Lady Emilie.

She was at least certain that the convent could not be more than a single day’s travel from Fuveau. When her mother-by-marriage had hustled her out, she had been nearly out of her wits between grief and the shock of not even being allowed to attend her husband’s funeral. However, she had been certain at the time that she was being sent back to Tour Dur. Fenice admitted to herself that she was unaware of road or direction or how long they had traveled, but she knew she could not have forgotten whether they had spent a night on the road.

That did not mean she would be as near Tour Dur as Fuveau. In fact, Fenice assumed that she had been sent an additional full day’s travel in the opposite direction. On the plus side, however, was the fact that they must have traveled very slowly. Fenice remembered that she had been too distraught to ride and had been carried in some kind of cart. Since few carts moved much faster than walking pace, she should be able to walk home in two days.

But she had no money. If her box was gone, then gone too was the small sum in silver Lady Alys had pressed on her. On a two day journey she must eat and sleep. How?

For that matter, how was she to ensure her safety while she traveled? Always before she had been mounted with men-at-arms to protect her. But now, for a gentlewoman to be found all alone wandering the road would mean instant capture and return to the convent, if not far worse… Robbery, rape, murder? Would it be necessary to travel by night and hide by day? Fenice was not timid except in a social sense, but she did not wish to face the dangers of the night. There were wild beasts that hunted in the night and the spirits of the dead…
Delmar?
She shuddered.

Before Fenice could frighten herself further with fear that her dead husband might appear to accuse her of neglect, or think again of the spirits and demons that haunted the night, she was distracted by the entrance of two lay sisters. One set a small table by her chair, and the other placed upon it a tray of food. Fenice gazed at them, wide-eyed, totally unaware of the dinner set before her because the solution to all her problems was revealed to her, standing by her side. All she needed was the habit of a lay sister. It was not uncommon for the lay sisters to be sent out of the convent, sometimes with messages, sometimes to beg. Of course, usually only the older sisters went out, and they did not often go out alone…

“Lady Fenice,” one of the women said gently, “here is your dinner. You must eat.”

The words startled Fenice from her thoughts, and she turned her eyes to the food with an expression of wonderment, as if she had never seen such objects before. Actually, her surprise was mostly at the sudden knotting of her stomach and rush of saliva to her mouth. She was ravenous. She grabbed for her eating knife, but the pretty jeweled device that her father had given her was gone. Fury momentarily checked her appetite, and she raised her eyes from the steaming platters to demand her property and then realized that it was more likely that Lady Emilie rather than the sisters had stolen her knife. In any case, it was far more important that they not suspect she was aware of her losses and angered by them. She dropped her eyes to the tray again.

“I do not think Sister Anne is right,” one whispered to the other. “I do not think Lady Fenice is any better.”

“Should I try to feed her?” the other asked.

Fenice had seen a spoon by the side of a bowl of ragout. Her mouth was watering so that she had to swallow, but the comments of the lay sisters told her that she had either been refusing to eat or had been so indifferent to food that it had been necessary to feed her. That explained her hunger but made it more difficult to satisfy it. Since she wished to make the sisters believe she was still stunned and helpless, it would be wrong to attack what was on the tray with the enthusiasm she now felt. Fenice raised her head once more, trying to maintain a blank, bewildered expression.

“Leave me alone,” she muttered.

“It is a sin to allow grief to overpower you,” the first sister said. “You must not deliberately weaken your body.”

Fenice drew herself up a little. “If you will leave me to myself, I will eat what I can,” she said more clearly.

The lay sisters exchanged glances, but after urging her a few more times not to contest the will of God and to show her contrition by eating her dinner, they did leave the room. Fenice’s hand leapt toward the spoon, but she forced herself to lift it to her mouth slowly and to chew with deliberation. Then she broke a piece of bread and ate that, also slowly. The bread was white and fine, the ragout rich with meat and spices. It occurred to her as she ate another spoonful that this was odd fare for a convent. The dishes of beans and greens that flanked the meat stew were more like the meals she had sampled when she and Lady Alys had visited the convent north of Aix.

Possibly, Fenice thought, the ragout had been made especially for her, but possibly this convent was less particular about keeping the strict rules of their order. And if they broke those rules, who was to say they would not connive at keeping her prisoner? The reasoning might not be sound, but Fenice found it comforting because she felt rather guilty about the plan that had formed in her mind. She would be forced to commit violence on one of the lay sisters. She shrugged as she broke off another piece of bread. She would tell Lady Alys what she had done, and if amends were necessary, she would make them.

Since she was very busy thinking about her escape and she was also hungry, Fenice finished nearly every item on the tray. She caught herself just as she was about to use the last piece of bread to soak up the remaining gravy in the bowl of ragout and looked with dismay at the empty wooden dishes. She had intended to leave at least a portion of each dish. After needing to be prodded to eat, surely so avid an appetite would be suspicious.

Then she grinned impishly and silently rose, carrying the bread and the bowl. Just in front of the fire she tilted the bowl so that drops of gravy fell on the hearth, as they might have done had someone carelessly thrown the contents of the bowl into the flames. Crumbling the bread, she threw it broadcast. Most did end in the fire, but here and there a crumb lay on the hearth.

Fenice nodded with satisfaction and returned to her chair. She rested her chin on a hand, bracing her elbow on the chair arm and hoping that she would look as listless as usual. But this time her eyes did not watch the fire; they roamed the room with lively attention. Before she found what she sought, she noted that it was a comfortable chamber, as guest rooms in a convent went. There were no tapestries or painted curtains to disguise the stone walls, but these were not the thick, rubble-filled walls of a keep. In the warm climate of the south the extra warmth provided by wall hangings was not necessary.

The bed was narrow and uncurtained like those of the nuns, although the mattress was most probably softer. The window was similar too, no more than a high slit provided in each cell to give air but to prevent any chance of distraction to those who wished to dedicate their thoughts and prayers to God. Fenice knew that below the window was the walk that surrounded the quiet, lovely cloister.

Through the pillars that supported the roof of the walk, one could see the cloister garden, which was green and peaceful despite the cold and wild winds of winter. The nuns had planted it with hardy, aromatic shrubs, a few herbs that remained green year-round, and late-blooming flowers. Sheltered from the wind and warmed by direct and reflected sunlight, the cloister was never bitterly cold. The peace and beauty, centered around a statue of Mother and Child, was well conceived to make visitors wish to stay, to give rest to the weary and solace to the heavy of heart.

Briefly, Fenice regretted that she had not walked in the cloister and thought of Delmar in those surroundings. Perhaps then she could have reconciled the terrible ache of loss and longing with the bitter hurt and resentment that had made his death almost a relief to her. But thought of the pain Delmar had inflicted on her brought the real cause of that pain to mind. Delmar might have been weak, but it was Lady Emilie who was greedy and wicked. No, Lady Emilie would
not
succeed in keeping Trets and Fuveau.
Not if I have to die for it,
Fenice thought.

The little mist that had risen in her eyes dried, and the cloister now meant only a path to the church. From there, Fenice knew she could escape outside the convent. It should not be difficult once she was wearing a lay sister’s gown and cowl. She started guiltily at a sound from the doorway but managed to pretend it was just a small movement to ease the arm on which she had been leaning.

The lay sister exclaimed at the empty dishes and then, coming round to lift the tray, saw the false evidence that Fenice had thrown her meal into the fire. She gasped with outrage, then hurried out of the room. Soon Sister Anne arrived with another tray and a steady stream of remonstrance and prayer, and this time poor Fenice had no difficulty displaying her reluctance to eat. She picked listlessly at this and that, chewing and swallowing so slowly that it took a long time to get through about half the portion, and quite wore out Sister Anne’s patience.

Although forcing herself to eat the extra food made Fenice feel rather sick, Sister Anne’s visitation was actually of great benefit to her. It kept her mind effectively engaged so that the time passed swiftly. Indeed, by the time Sister Anne was too exhausted to make Fenice take another bite, the light of the short winter day was fading, and the period over which Fenice would have to wait until she could act was greatly shortened.

For an hour or so after Sister Anne finally left her in peace, Fenice tried to act as she had in the past. Then, thankfully, she retreated to her bed. As she undressed, she took account of new uses for parts of her clothing, stockings, girdle… That was not quite enough. Stealthily, she crept around the wall to her clothing chest and extracted another pair of stockings. When she was back beside her bed undetected, she knelt and truly gave thanks to God for His help.

Although the physical and mental activities of this day had been very minor compared with a normal day in Tour Dur, Fenice was afraid that she would be tired by them because she had been permitted to do almost nothing in Fuveau by Lady Emilie, and she had literally done nothing at all since she had entered this convent. Nonetheless, even on top of the extra large meal she had eaten, she found that her excitement was so intense that sleep was no danger. Still, it seemed very long until the bell rang that signaled the end of the day’s activities for the nuns.

As it sounded, Fenice lifted her head and blew out the night candle, and was startled at the sudden blackness. Fenice was no coward, every sensible person feared the dark which was peopled with strange creatures and supernatural beings. Out-of-doors was less dreadful in a way. There were wolves and bears, but they were mostly in the forests, and if one stayed in the open, the moon and stars gave light. However, no one slept without a light, a rushlight for the poor, and fat wax or tallow candles that would burn all night for those who could afford them.

Fortunately, Fenice realized that the area near the doorway was not nearly as black as the corner where her bed stood. There the glow of the embers was enough to show that nothing dreadful crouched against the wall. She jumped out of the bed, the stone floor freezing to her bare feet and the air icy-cold around her body, which had previously been warmed by the blankets. The physical sensations made her shiver but provided a practical distraction from fear of the unknown. In one hand Fenice snatched up her tunic and overdress, in the other she seized the heavy wooden candlestick. Thus armed, she fumbled her way to the door.

When she was a foot or two from the doorway, she dropped the tunic on the floor to stand on it and draped the overdress around her back and over her shoulders to protect her when she flattened herself against the wall. After that, she lifted the candle off the spike of the candlestick. She would need the candle later and did not want it to get broken or to fall on the floor when she turned the candlestick upside down to use the broad, rounded base as a weapon. It balanced better that way, but Fenice was not thinking of that. She wished to use the base because it was smooth, without sharp edges, and she felt it would do less harm.

Waiting was more difficult after that. Fenice thought she remembered that a lay sister had looked in at her door to be sure she was abed, but minutes seemed like hours as she contemplated the wicked thing she was about to do. What if she were wrong and she only needed to ask to go home? What if she hit the sister too hard and killed her? What if she did not hit her hard enough and the woman screamed and created a disturbance?

Just as Fenice was enlarging on that last thought and envisioning what would be said to and about her, a dim light came around the corner. Fenice drew back a step uncertainly, but the woman let out a low cry of surprise when she entered at seeing the room dark. The sound sparked in Fenice an instant, realization of what would happen if she were discovered standing nearly naked clutching a candlestick with a bared spike, and without further thought, in a worse panic than a confrontation with the devil himself could raise in her, she leapt out and brought the candlestick down hard on the lay sister’s head.