No Greater Pleasure

  Strong hands grabbed her calves, then her waist, and she let go, falling into Jericho’s arms. He, too, had been blackened by smoke, his blond hair gone gray with it. He wore a shirt and trousers, the shirt undone to his waist, sleeves unlaced and flapping. His bare feet slipped on the half icy cobblestones. He set her down, taking her by the arm to get her away from the house.

  She slipped and almost fell but he held her up. “Gabriel went to get Dane!”

  He could have heard no more than one word out of her sentence, so hoarse and choked had been her voice, but whatever he heard made him turn back to the house.

  “Dane is still inside?”

  He did not wait for an answer, but pulled his shirt off over his head and thrust it into her hands. It took her an eternity of instants to understand why—she was still naked and had not noticed.

  Quilla turned toward the sound of shouting and saw the stable hands Luke and Perrin rolling what appeared to be a cartwheel wrapped in tubing into the courtyard. Jutting from its top was a handle. A pump handle. She turned from it to shout after Jericho, but he had already run back toward the house and disappeared into the door as she watched.

  She pulled his shirt over her head, the sleeves too long and the hem hitting her midthigh. Her feet were cold. Luke and Perrin had unrolled some of the tubing, and Billy had grabbed the end, pointing it toward the house. Luke jumped on top of the wheel. She saw now that the tubing trailed off toward the garden. He pushed the pump handle. Water jetted from the end of the house. Perrin and Billy ran toward the house with it.

  Of course. A hose. Her mind, dulled by shock and smoke, had not recognized it. Quilla stumbled on the uneven cobbles, but before she could fall, another strong hand caught her.

  “Up, girl,” grunted Florentine. “Let’s get you tended to.”

  Quilla did not move at first, her eyes locked on the sight of Glad Tidings. Flames now flickered in some of the third-story windows. The entire second floor appeared to be covered in red and orange and black. Smoke poured from the windows, which began to break one after another.

  “Come, Quilla!”

  She followed Florentine on numb and bleeding feet. The blood from her hand had slowed, gone thick, but painted Jericho’s shirt with crimson calligraphy. Florentine sat her on a bale of hay covered by a horse blanket, and grabbed up another from the ground to wrap around Quilla’s shoulders. It smelled of beast, of warmth and comfort, and as Quilla pulled it close, she shook so hard her teeth clattered.

  “Sinder save them,” Florentine said as another window scattered glass onto the courtyard below.

  “Invisible Mother save them!”

  Quilla turned to the sound of the voice, and her face felt suddenly frozen into stone. “Jorja!”

  The nursemaid’s cheeks had streaks of white left behind in the soot by her tears. Her grief did not impress Quilla, who stood and slapped the woman across the face as hard as she could.

  “What are you doing out here when they are still inside!”

  “Quilla—”

  Quilla ignored Florentine and slapped Jorja again. The nursemaid went to her knees screaming pleas of mercy, but Quilla ignored those, too. She slapped Jorja’s face a third time, knocking her over. Quilla slipped in the mud left by the snow, but struck again.

  “What are you doing out here when they are still in there?” Her fingers doubled up and she punched Jorja, missing her nose but catching her jaw and knocking the woman to the ground.

  “Quilla! Stop it, Handmaiden! Stop!”

  Again, Quilla ignored Florentine, fury making her strong enough to shake off the chatelaine’s grasp. Quilla grabbed the neck of Jorja’s night rail and hauled her upright, shaking her like a weasel shakes a chicken to break its neck.

  “Quilla, ’tis not her fault! She took him! Saradin took Dane!”

  Quilla let go of Jorja, who fell back to the ground, wailing. Quilla turned. “What do you mean?”

  Florentine put her hands on Quilla’s shoulders. “She took him, Quilla. Saradin took Dane and set fire to her rooms. ’Tis not Jorja’s fault.”

  “Oh, by the Arrow.” Quilla spat the taste of smoke from her mouth. “Oh, that cursed mad bitch!”

  “Yes.” Tears had also streaked Florentine’s cheeks. “Yes, she is that.”

  Quilla reached for Florentine’s hand. Their fingers linked, and they stood side by side, watching the house burn in front of them.

  Time had slowed, had stopped, and yet had begun to go twice as fast. The roof of Quilla’s gable room collapsed. Her vision doubled, tripled, blurred with tears. Florentine’s fingers tightened in her own, the wound on Quilla’s palm covering their hands with her blood.

  And then, she saw her. Saradin, atop the roof. The wind picked up her long blonde hair and spread it out behind her like a wedding veil scattered with fireflies. She wore a dress of flame, the black lace of smoke at her hem and sleeves, the ripple of yellow and gold at her throat.

  “Sweet Invisible Mother,” said Florentine.

  Quilla took a step toward the house, her hand outstretched, but Florentine held her back from going farther. “Dane?”

  Saradin screamed, the sound horrid and high, the screech of a teakettle left too long on the flame.

  “She’s going to jump,” said Florentine.

  But though Saradin might have planned to take a final flight from the burning roof, another figure appeared beside her, out of the smoke. They struggled, wraiths dancing in the smoke.

  “Gabriel?” Florentine cried.

  “No. Jericho.”

  Saradin screamed again. A jet of flame burst from the roof, obscuring the struggle for a moment before revealing it again.

  Both of them were cloaked in flame. Saradin hovered on the edge of the roof, arms outstretched as though she were trying to fly. The wind buffeted her hair and the flaming shreds of her night rail, and for one last instant, she did, indeed, seem about to soar. Before she could leap, Jericho pulled her back from the edge.

  Saradin disappeared, tumbled onto the roof. Jericho teetered on the roof ’s edge, against the flame-licked balustrade. And then he fell. It took but a moment to turn the man who’d danced and laughed with such inherent grace into a broken, lolling puppet whose strings had been shorn.

  Quilla heard a sound like growling and realized it came from her own throat as she ran toward the body sprawled in the muck made by the fire-melted snow. Jericho’s blood mixed with the mud and spread on the cobblestones. Quilla slipped and went to her knees, reaching for him.

  He was not dead. Jericho smiled at her. Crimson lined the edges of his teeth and left his lips looking kissed. His blue-sky eyes no longer matched; in one the pupil had dilated into a void, while the other had shrunk to a pinpoint.

  Blood from his ear painted his blond hair. Quilla pushed the hair from his forehead as she knelt next to him and then took his hand.

  “It would seem,” he told her as more red burbled up to paint his lips, “I cannot fly.”

  She hushed him. “You’ll be fine, Jericho.”

  Even now he tried to charm her. “Fine as silk, Quilla Caden.”

  She smiled for him. “Jericho, we will get a medicus—”

  His slow blink and the fading of his smile stopped her. Tears fell onto his face, mixing with the blood on his mouth. His tongue slipped out, as though to taste, and he focused on her.

  “I would make you feel,” he whispered, each move of his lips spreading crimson. Now it oozed down his chin and over the line of his jaw, down his throat.

  Quilla hushed him again, stroking his cheek. “You have made me feel, Jericho.”

  He smiled, gaze dimming. “You did not belong to me, Quilla.”

  “No.” She bent to kiss him, tasting blood and tears, the taste of a metallic ocean. She touched his cheek. “Friend by choice, Jericho. Not of necessity.”

  From behind her she heard shouts, but she did not turn. She kissed him again, hearing the whistle of his breath from something broken inside him.
Again, she stroked his hair back from his face. He’d begun to shiver. The ground beneath him had gone red. So much blood. He took in another gasping breath, and when he let it out, he was gone.

  A low keen slipped from her lips and she bent in grief over his body. The shouts behind her grew louder, while the sound of rushing wind filled the air. She turned her face on Jericho’s chest. The water sprayed from the hose was putting out the fire, though as she watched the third floor caved inward. The flames disappeared while more black smoke billowed out.

  Another familiar figure staggered out the back door, a smaller form draped over its arms. Gabriel, carrying Dane, face pale and eyes closed.

  Quilla could not move. Jericho’s bare chest—for he’d given up his shirt for her, hadn’t he? He’d done that for her—was already chilling beneath her cheek. No thump-thump sounded in her ear. He was dead. Gabriel was alive. Dane, it seemed, was alive, for as she watched, his father lay him on the ground and the boy began to twitch and shake with cough.

  Gabriel was alive, and still, she could not move. Both of them bent over figures on the ground. Both of them looked up. Her gaze met his from across the courtyard. She saw him look at her. At his fallen brother. She saw this, saw the grief in his eyes, and still, she could not move.

  She could not move, even when he shouted for someone to help him with his son. She could not get up, not even when he turned from her. She could do nothing but crouch on the cold, wet ground with her arms around a corpse and weep for a man who had loved her not for what she was, but for whom.

  Chapter 14

  Fever had struck her, and for three days Quilla knew nothing but a strange bed in a room she did not recognize, and the face of a stranger who poked and prodded and sewed her wounds with practice but not compassion.

  “You will not bleed her,” she heard Gabriel say, and when she looked up, saw his pale face, expression as though carved from marble. “She’s been bled enough, already.”

  “As you wish,” replied the stranger. Obsequious, and yet when Gabriel was not looking, the man leered at her and passed a hand over her body in a way that made her want to scream, but she had no voice.

  She had escaped the fire, but now it raged within her. Faces floated in front of her. Florentine. Kirie. Bertram. Gabriel . . . and Saradin, whose green eyes had become smoking black holes and behind whose teeth flames licked when she smiled.

  She woke to the sound of humming and turned her head. Every part of her ached. Her hand wore a thick white bandage. She sat up, head swimming a little, to see Lolly sitting by the fire, sewing on a quilt square.

  “Water?”

  Lolly looked up, her mouth parted in surprise, and put aside her sewing to bring the water. She held the cup to Quilla’s lips but would allow nothing but the smallest sips.

  “Where are we?” Quilla asked, her thirst assuaged for the moment.

  “The little manor,” Lolly said, then explained further. “Master Gabriel’s father built it for his lady wife as a retreat. A summer home. ’Tis much smaller than Glad Tidings, though still comfortable. We’ve all moved here.”

  Not all of them.

  “Dane? How is he?”

  Lolly smiled and sat on the edge of the bed. “The young master is fine. His father saved him from the fire with no ill effects.”

  Quilla sat up. “And Gabriel?”

  “Our lord Delessan is well,” Lolly assured her, putting a hand on Quilla’s shoulder to keep her from rising. “He is well, Quilla Caden.”

  Tears pricked Quilla’s eyes. “Jericho is dead.”

  “Aye.”

  “And the lady Saradin?”

  “She perished in the fire. I’m sorry.”

  Quilla was not sorry. “She set the fire.”

  Lolly hesitated, but then nodded. “Yes.”

  Quilla’s mouth thinned. “She ought to have ended her own life, if ’tis what she wished. Not taken others with her. She’ll find the Void.”

  Lolly nodded again, slowly. “You shouldn’t stress yourself, Quilla. You’ve been ill.”

  “How long?”

  “Three days.”

  Three days she had lain abed. Three days she’d neglected her purpose. “I have to get up.”

  “You can’t. Master Gabriel said—”

  Quilla pushed the other girl aside. “He’ll need me.”

  Lolly stepped back as Quilla got out of bed, but didn’t argue further. “We’re worried about him.”

  Quilla looked up at her as she unlaced the front of her gown with stiff fingers. Moving was difficult, for she could not raise her injured arm more than halfway and her back, as well, protested with every move. The bandage on her hand made unlacing almost impossible, and she fumbled with the ties.

  With sure fingers, Lolly helped Quilla undo the front of her gown and step out of it. Quilla looked down at her naked body, marked by cuts and bruises, but no burns. Along her arm, where Gabriel had gripped her to push her out the window, a pattern of bruises left behind by his fingers had begun to go from purple and black to the first shadings of green.

  Lolly handed her a dress, not one of her own. It smelled of smoke. Quilla stepped into it, forcing her hands through the long sleeves, and was at a loss when she realized that, unlike hers, this gown buttoned up the back. Lolly did it up for her, then smoothed the fabric over Quilla’s shoulders and held on to her for a moment.

  The housemaid looked at Quilla. “He is in bad shape.”

  Quilla nodded, the motion making the world begin to swim before her eyes. “I will go to him.”

  “Invisible Mother go with you,” replied Lolly. “I think you’ll need her guidance.”

  “She has often given it before. Tell me where he is.”

  The little manor was not so large she could lose her way. She found his room moments after leaving her own, though she had to pause before opening the door to catch her breath and stop her head from swimming. She meditated for a moment to clear her thoughts, to ready herself for Waiting. Then she pushed open the door.

  Quilla had seen Gabriel upset, but she had never seen him so despairing. She had seen him intoxicated before, both joyous and melancholy; she had never seen him look as he did now, as though the Void had taken him and spit him back out, half chewed.

  The rooms he’d assigned himself were even more austere than his former chambers, emphasized by the lack of even a worktable or desk. A bed, the covers rumbled and pillows scattered as though by restless sleep, took up most of one corner. An armoire another. The fireplace with its ornate carvings marked this room as a master suite, even if the furnishings did not.

  Gabriel sat in a chair facing the fire, which had been allowed to burn down to coals though plenty of wood filled the scuttle. An almost empty bottle of worm rested on the table next to the arm of his chair, his glass tumbler glowing amber from its contents. More surprising to her than the opiate-laced wine, which she knew he used, was the more unfamiliar tang of herb in the air. She had never known Gabriel to indulge in any intoxicant other than alcohol. Herb was his brother’s indulgence, not his.

  “Go away.” Herb had slurred his voice a bit but could not account for the flatness of his tone.

  Quilla stepped through the doorway and out of the shadows. “How did you know it was me?”

  “I’ve had almost every part of you against my face at some time or another, Handmaiden. I think I know the scent of you well enough. That, and nobody else would be foolish enough to risk my anger.”

  She came forward still farther. “Lolly told me how to find you.”

  “Remind me to get rid of Lolly when I am able.”

  His voice was slow, lazy, unamused but with that same lax quality sometimes caused by frivolity. It was the voice of a man imagining some merry joke to which nobody else was privy—or of a man laid so low by grief that nothing seemed real any longer, and all had become an amusing dream in order to be borne. A man for whom there could be no humor in anything but who must find humor in everything in orde
r to bear it.

  “I did not think to see you so soon,” Gabriel continued.

  “I came as soon as I was able, my lord.”

  His glanced over her, looking but not really seeing. “Go away.”

  “You know I will not.”

  He stood, the movement sudden and unexpected enough to almost make her take a step back. “I said for you to go away, and I meant it. There is no place for you here any longer, Handmaiden.”

  She did not falter. “Are you telling me you no longer need me?”

  “I no longer want you. That is more important.” His gaze was dark and terrible, eyes burning bright.

  “You would truly send me away?”

  He did not drop his gaze from hers. “Everything that has happened is because of you.”

  The accusation was so unfair, so hurtful, Quilla could only stare. No longer his Handmaiden, bound to provide solace, but a woman whose heart was on the verge of being broken by the man she loved.

  “Nothing to say to that?”

  “You would blame me?”

  Something shifted in his gaze for a moment, almost revealing something within before dropping down a shield of implacability.

  “Everything that has happened is because of you,” he repeated and turned his back to her.

  She went to him, reached for him, put her hand upon his shoulder. “Gabriel. Please. Do not shut me out.”

  “To shut you out would imply I have, somehow, let you in.”

  She did not take away her hand, and the register of her voice dropped. Became pleading. “Gabriel. Please. I—”

  “I know.” She heard the sneer tug his voice, though she could not see it tug his face. “ ’Tis your purpose and your place to soothe me. And I tell you again, Handmaiden. Get you gone from me. I don’t want you anymore.”

  “But if you need—”

  “Fuck my need!” he shouted, pulling away from her and turning at last to give her the full force of his fury. “You are done here! Your damned duty is done! You have failed!”