Free Fire Song by Roberta Gellis Page A

postern and into the outer courtyard. It was not usual for a sister to be alone, but her robe was mud stained and travel worn so she might be doing a penance, begging her way from shrine to shrine. She could be no danger to Tour Dur, and she was not the guard’s business.
    Halfway across the courtyard, a well-dressed woman servant paused on her way to the kitchen and said kindly, “There is no church here, Sister, only the lord’s chapel, but if you wish to eat—”
    She paused uncertainly as the robed and cowled figure shook its head. She was a little frightened because the face was veiled and the hands hidden in the sleeves, methods often used to conceal the ravages of leprosy, but a leper would never dare enter the gates or go without staff and clapper to warn of the disease.
    “I have a message for the master-at-arms, Georges,” Fenice mumbled breathlessly.
    “A message for Georges?” Isabelle repeated doubtfully. She could not imagine what kind of message the master-at-arms, who was a hard man, dedicated to his profession, could receive from a convent.
    Desperately Fenice said, “It is not your business.” She then turned away and hurried, limping, in the direction of the master-at-arms’s quarters.
    She did not notice Isabelle staring after her, white-faced. The maid’s superstitious mind had made an image of horror out of the fact that Fenice had veiled her face and kept her hands concealed inside her sleeves—those too-white, too-soft, long-nailed hands that could never have belonged to any hardworking lay sister. For an instant, Isabelle thought that Fenice was carrying disease and death to Georges.
    Fortunately, Georges was less superstitious or he might have refused to send for Lord Alphonse. Although he did not recognize Fenice, Georges did find the voice familiar. What he thought was that the woman was one of Lord Alphonse’s doxies who had been told to contact his lordship in this way, so he made no difficulty, and Alphonse soon arrived in response to his message.
    As soon as she saw him, Fenice ran toward him, throwing back her hood and pulling off her veil. “Oh, Grandfather,” she cried, “such dreadful things have happened.”
    Lord Alphonse goggled at her. “Fenice? Is it you, Fenice? What are you doing here?”
    Fenice stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes widening. “God help me, did you know Lady Emilie had placed me in a convent after Delmar died?” she asked, her voice rising hysterically.
    “Died?” Lord Alphonse gasped. “Delmar died? Fenice, what are you saying? Are you mad?”
    They stared at each other, both appalled, until Fenice said weakly, “Did you not receive my letter to say Delmar had taken a fever and was very ill?”
    “Of course I did not receive any such letter. Would I not have come to see Delmar? It is no more than two leagues from here to Fuveau, child.”
    “I thought perhaps Lady Jeannette did not wish you to expose yourself,” she said. “I would not have wished it myself.” And then, bitterly, “But I should have guessed when I did not receive a letter back that Lady Emilie had not sent my message. Grandfather, I am not mad. You must listen to me. You must. Lady Emilie would have forced me to take the veil so that she could keep Fuveau and Trets.”
    Until Fenice said that last sentence, Lord Alphonse had been staring at her in horror, unable to believe that his vassal, Delmar de Fuveau, had died and no one had informed him. After all, he was Delmar’s overlord as well as his relation by marriage. It was his duty to arrange for the care of Delmar’s property and widow in the absence of the widow’s father, and it would have been his duty even if the widow did not happen to be his granddaughter. All of his vassals trusted him to care fairly and wisely for their womenfolk or minor heirs. No one would conceal a death from him. The instant she said Lady Emilie wished to keep Fuveau and Trets, though, he had remembered that both properties had been