No Greater Pleasure (35 page)

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

 

 

 

 

 

F
ever 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 order 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!”

She lifted her chin, allowing herself anger. “If I have failed you, it’s because you’ve thwarted me at every turn. It’s because you find more comfort in your misery than you do from anything else!”

She did not see the back of his hand, but even if she had, she wouldn’t have ducked it. His slap caught her full on the face and sent her staggering, then to her knees in front of him, holding her stinging cheek. Tears blurred her vision.

“That is your place,” Gabriel said. “On your knees.”

She tried to Wait, and could not do it. True patience failed her. Her heart remained selfish. The thorns had become too sharp for her to appreciate the beauty of the flower.

“I am your Handmaiden. I am your solace and”—her voice faltered, but she kept on—“your comfort. I am what you need before you know you need it.”

Gabriel put his hand to his crotch and rubbed himself without evident pleasure. “And if I need your mouth upon me?”

She rose higher on her knees and reached without hesitation toward him, but her fingers stopped a breath from touching him. She looked up at him, unsure if she would find her voice until she actually spoke.

“No.”

“No?” His hand snaked out and grabbed a fistful of her hair, pulling her upright. He shook her as a mother dog shakes its naughty pups. “You tell me
no
?”