Fire Song Read Free Page A

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,