No Greater Pleasure (11 page)

Quilla knew little of lovepox, as it was a man’s disease and not a woman’s. “Yet you make the serum anyway.”

“Because no matter how simple a thing it is to wash your prick,” Gabriel said, “there will always be men who can’t be bothered to do it. And if their filthy habits can provide coin for my family’s benefit, why should I not?”

There could be no disputing that logic. Quilla unbuttoned his white coat, and hung that on the rack as well. She smoothed his vest and reached for his black jacket, holding it while he slipped his arms into it. Her hands tightened his tie while she spoke.

“Surely there are other things you make that have a more noble purpose.”

He pointed at the wall of cages full of skittering mice, which she had learned were experiments. Not pets. “I’m working on many things. Yes.”

“So you see, your work is so satisfactory. Because you do help people with it.”

“Why must you insist on turning what I do into some sort of noble crusade for the good of the world?”

“Why will you not allow me to admire your efforts?”

The retort stopped him as he’d been preparing to turn from her. He looked down to where her hands still rested on his tie. “’Tis hardly as wondrous an occupation as filling Sinder’s Quiver.”

The words were kind, but the mocking tone was not. Quilla took her hands away. “I plead your mercy, my lord. I meant not to overstep my bounds.”

Something flickered in his eyes. “I do what I must, as we all do. If there is any great benefit to society because of it, ’tis of little consequence to me.”

“Your work is difficult and tedious, and requires great presence of mind to complete,” she told him, not because she wanted to make him angry but because she thought it was what he needed to hear. “ ’Tis a pity you take so little joy from it.”

“Joy?” he snapped, and then did turn from her. “Do not speak to me of joy, Handmaiden.”

He stalked away, and she murmured, “I would teach you of joy, if you would allow it.”

He paused in the doorway, and spoke without turning. “I have no need to learn it, as I know it full well already. Joy is naught but a pretty word to describe an emotion that exists only to exacerbate despair.”

She spoke no more of it, and when he’d gone she set about tidying the mess he’d left behind. But what to do, she wondered, of the mess someone else had left, not in Gabriel’s workshop, but in the man himself.

 

 

 

A
nother seventhday had arrived. Another day of rest and meditation. Quilla visited the small chapel again, this time lighting a candle as she sent her words to the Invisible Mother. She did not kneel to pray; kneeling was for Waiting, which she did in Service. Speaking to the Invisible Mother was something she did for herself.

She knew rote scripture, prayers of supplication and of thanks. Ritual words designed to bring comfort when one did not have the presence of mind to think of them oneself. Today, Quilla avoided the structured prayers, which had been written by priests, who were all men. And what did men truly know of what lay in a woman’s heart?

“Help me to help him. Help him to let me.”

She’d been at Glad Tidings for more than four weeks. Time for her body’s cycle to have made one full pass through, though she took daily the dose of powdered tea which kept her from fertility. Time for her to learn the names of all the staff, to be invited to play at their cards and to take meals with them when her day’s service had finished. Time for the people who lived with her to learn about her, and she them.

But not time enough for Gabriel to accept her.

He allowed her to help him with his work, and to serve him meals, and to help him with his ablutions, to a certain extent. Sometimes he shouted at her with impatience, and never apologized. Sometimes he spoke to her of his work, and exactly why one chemical mixed with another created a third, but only when heated or cooled a certain way. Some days he treated her with cool indifference and others as though he could barely stand the sight of her.

She didn’t expect adoration, in fact appreciated that he did not expect her to adore him in return. It wasn’t that she minded, either, the brusqueness, for she’d quickly determined it was his nature and not any fault of hers when he barked. What bothered her most was that no matter what she tried, or what she offered, he would not allow her to serve him with grace. He balked at every turn. Everything she offered brought a fight. Sometimes, he outright refused her offers. She was not to polish his boots, nor mend his clothes, nor to tie back his hair. She was not to tempt his palate with special foods, though she did her best to ignore that injunction and noticed he grumbled but always ate what she brought, anyway.

In short, she was an apprentice and a housemaid and a cook and serving lass, but she was not what she’d been brought there to be. A Handmaiden.

She thought she knew why, well enough. He didn’t trust her. And she knew why he didn’t, as well. But without him trusting her, she would never be able to fulfill her function.

“Help him trust me, Invisible Mother. Help me be what he needs.”

The sound of shouting made her pause, head tilted to listen. Shouting on seventhday could not be a good thing. She went to the door to listen further, and heard again raised voices, Gabriel’s among them.

She left the chapel and hurried toward the sound of the commotion, which seemed centered in the entrance hall.

“Do not shield him behind your skirts!” she heard Gabriel cry as she came to the edge of the doorway and could see him.

Saradin stood in front of the door, Dane hiding behind her. Tears had streaked his face. His clothes were stained. From her place in the front room arch, Quilla could see his hands were black, as though from soot, or ink.

“I will shield him as I wish!” Saradin cried.

“He has been warned to stay out of my workspace time and again, and he ignored it yet again! He has gone and made a ruin of it, not to mention how much he has set back my work!”

Quilla had thought she’d seen Gabriel angry, but no harsh words could compare to the fury on his face as he paced back and forth. If Gabriel had been a storm, he’d have had lightning sparking from his every step and thunder booming with his words.

Saradin sneered. “Your work. Oh, yes. Your precious work.”

“My work that provides you with those pretty dresses you wear, and the food you eat.”

His voice dipped low. Dangerous. Shouting would have been less ominous, but Saradin either did not notice or did not care.

Dane peeked around from behind his mother, though she tried to push him back. His bravery touched Quilla’s heart, for facing his father’s wrath had to be daunting.

“I wanted to see the animals,” he said. “I’m sorry, Papa. I wanted to see the animals you keep in cages.”

“And you needed to stop and mess with the soot bucket on the way?” Gabriel fixed his gaze on the little boy’s. “I found ash strewn all over my floor. Black handprints on my walls and on my chair. I found ink spilled on my desk, Dane! My notes have been ruined!”

Dane’s lower lip quivered. “I’m sorry, Papa.”

“My workshop is not a playground.”

Quilla watched Gabriel interacting with his son, and something else became clear to her. He meant to forgive the boy.

Saradin ruined it in the next moment. “You leave him alone, Gabriel. He’s a lad!”

Gabriel looked at her. “He has done wrong and needs to be punished.”

“No! You will not! I will not allow it!”

Dane seemed better able to accept his fate than his mother, for the lad stepped forward, only to be yanked back by her hand.

“Mama—”

“No.” Saradin tossed her head and fixed Gabriel with a glare of contempt. “He won’t touch you.”

The woman played a game. A power game. For what prize?

“Dane, come here.”

Saradin kept her grip on him, tight. Quilla felt someone brush against her, and she turned to find Florentine watching also from the shadow of the arch. The chatelaine shook her head.

“Such drama.”

“The boy made a mess in his father’s workspace, so I gather.”

“And the mother will not hear of him being taken to task for it.” Florentine shook her head again.

“You have seen this played before?”

“Oh, and aye.” Florentine shrugged. “Watch her.”

“He will be punished, Saradin. Do not defy me on this.”

“You won’t touch him!”

“And here it comes,” murmured Florentine.

Saradin put a hand over her heart and staggered, eyes fluttering. The performance smacked of exaggeration to Quilla, but Dane reacted as any small boy would at the sight of his mother seemingly in pain. He cried out and ran to put an arm around her waist.

“Now they ring for Allora Walles.”

“I need Allora,” gasped Mistress Delessan, sinking onto the bench along the wall.

Whatever else one might say about Allora, Quilla thought, she knew her mistress, for she appeared almost before the words had left Saradin’s lips. The maid put her arm around Saradin’s other side.

Gabriel watched the scene without expression, and Quilla watched Gabriel. Guilt made him indulgent, she had seen that already. Now she saw something else. Love made him tolerant. Guilt and love, all tied together so he likely knew not the difference between them any longer.

And she understood him a bit better.

He turned on his heel and went up the stairs, leaving his weeping son and prevaricating wife behind. Quilla followed, reaching his rooms mere seconds after he did. The sound of crashing and cursing reached her before she got through the door.

She found him standing in the middle of the room, fists clenched, staring at the destruction one small boy had made and which had been made just a bit worse by his father.

“ ’Tis not so terrible,” Quilla said as she came up behind him. “Nothing a bucket and mop can’t fix.”

He didn’t look at her. He kicked an overturned basket, sending it flying. He swept the rest of the glass from a table, and it shattered. “He has been warned, repeatedly, not to come in here!”

“And so he should listen,” she said. “But small ears have a way of not hearing what they ought, and small minds not retaining.”

“You would excuse him, too?” He turned on her, as though she had accused him of a crime. “You would think me overharsh to punish him?”

“No, my lord.”

“No?” He calmed at last, running a hand through his hair and seeming to take forcible control of himself.

She shook her head. “The lad needs structure and boundaries. Needs to learn respect. Aside from that, your workspace is dangerous. He could have been hurt.”

“And yet my lady wife—”

“Your lady wife loves her son as much as you do. She simply does not love him in the same manner. Your son does need chastisement, my lord. But might I suggest an alternative?”

He had seen Waiting, Readiness and Waiting, Remorse. Now she turned her back to him and went to her knees, not sinking back on her heels and resting her hands on her lap, but linking the fingers together behind her neck. This was called Waiting, Submission.

His boot heels thudded as he stepped back, and his voice rasped. “What are you doing?”

“My back is strong. If you should feel the need to beat someone—”

“Sinder’s Arrow, no!”

He sounded so appalled she turned her head to look at him. His eyes had gone wide, his cheeks paled from their normal tawny glow to the color of white cheese. “My lord?”

His expression had turned so disgusted she put down her hands and got to her feet. “I plead your mercy, my lord.”

He shook his head. “What do you think of me, that I would take a strap to your back because my wife refuses to allow me to punish my son?”

She had truly distressed him, and his caused her own. She went to him and took him by the sleeve, leading him toward his chair in front of the fire. A sign of his consternation was that he allowed her to lead him, and to push him gently into the seat, and to Wait at his feet with her head against his thigh. He was shaking.

“My lord, I plead your mercy. I did not know ’twould upset you so.”

“Is that what you think of me? That I am a violent man? That I gain pleasure from hurting others? Have you had other patrons who took their enjoyment at the expense of your back?”

She put her arms around his calves and held him tight. “I have had some, yes, who have needed the release of giving pain.”

“My father used to use a strap on me when I stepped out of line. My father seemed to think I often stepped out of line.”

She looked up at him, but he was not looking at her. His eyes stayed locked on the fire, and the flames danced in the dark depths, creating the illusion of fire in his eyes.

“And you think beating your son with a strap is your duty as a father? Or do you believe a beating would hasten a change in his behavior?”

His head snapped around to glare at her. “And what if my answer is both? Will you judge me overharsh then?”

“Perhaps your father felt ’twas the only way to be a father.”

“To create fear in one who has never done aught but love him?” Gabriel sneered. “I vowed I would never be like him. A stupid, blind fool. Blind to the fact his wife had made him a cuckold, blind to the fact that his son did not need the back of his fist to love him. I vowed I would never raise my hand to someone weaker than I, Handmaiden. I would never have to look into the face of someone and know they feared me.”

“I plead your mercy, my lord. I did not know. I will not offer it again.”

He looked down at her, and his hand hovered over her head as though he meant to stroke her hair, but he did not. His fingers curled into a fist, and he settled it on the arm of his chair, instead. “You claim to know what I need before I know I need it. What made you believe I needed that?”