No Greater Pleasure by Megan Hart Page A

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,