Fire Song by Roberta Gellis Page A

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.
    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