by Megan Hart
Quilla had known people like that lake. Sparkling and pretty on the surface, black and dangerous beneath. She preferred it the other way around, definitely.
His faint muttering caught her ear and she tilted her head to better catch his words. He was not asking for her. He was reciting some sort of list, perhaps of ingredients or a formula. She went back to what she was doing, unobtrusive, silent, allowing him to forget she was even there at all.
Quilla kept to the far side of the room, away from his workspace. Every so often the sharp, acrid smell of something burning made her pause to see what he was doing, but she did not go closer to see.
She’d oiled the hinges of his door, and now she used a cloth soaked in flax oil she’d taken from the kitchen to polish the carved wood until the dust had vanished and gleaming wood remained. She used the same oil on the picture frames, the mantel, the bookcase, the chair, until the wood in the room no longer shrouded itself with dust. She ran a finger over the back of the chair. While the cloth covering the seat might be faded and patched, the wooden frame was of very high quality. Either the master had fallen into harder times than he was used to, or else he simply did not care. Likely the latter, she thought, stealing another peek at him.
The white coat he’d put on over his clothes bore several stains. He’d donned a pair of heavy gloves reaching all the way to his biceps. A startling contraption of leather straps, eyepieces, and different-sized lenses covered his face, making one eye look twice the size of the other. As he turned, still muttering, she caught sight of the color of his eyes, magnified behind the lenses.
Gabriel Delessan had eyes the color of Loch Eltourna, like sun-dappled water, gray and green and blue . . . and with a hint of darkness beneath.
“ ’Twas my understanding I would not need to provide you with a list of tasks to keep your attention, Handmaiden.”
Heatroses again bloomed in Quilla’s cheeks, but she kept her voice and expression neutral when she replied.
“Nay, my lord. You do not. I was merely pausing to be certain you had no additional need of me. The way you turned made me think you were going to speak to me.”
“If I had something to say to you, I’d say it, and likely without bothering to turn ’round to capture your attention.” Delessan looked around the room and took off the contraption over his eyes. His gaze flickered as he looked at the polished wood. “A subtle change, Handmaiden. One would almost not notice you’d done anything at all.”
Quilla pressed her lips together so as not to seem impertinent by smiling. She inclined her head by way of response, instead. “It’s often the most gradual of changes that affect us most, my lord Delessan.”
“Indeed.” He seemed about to say more, then put his lenses back on and started back to work.
Still smiling, Quilla returned to her own tasks. Any heavy cleaning she would save for a time when he was not in the room, so as not to disturb him. Although, she thought, watching him bend over a series of beakers, it seemed unlikely she’d even be noticed.
His concentration was admirable, but then she supposed it would have to be. Alchemy was not an easy discipline to practice. The work was complicated and sometimes dangerous, from what she understood, and though the rewards could be great, there could also be much disappointment.
Much like serving the Order, she thought as she ran her cloth over the rickety side table and arranged a lace cloth over the top to hide the splintered wood. Vast potential for personal reward and also much disappointment.
She judged the time by the growling of her stomach and assumed his would be as empty as hers. She slipped out of the room to head for the kitchen, where she found Florentine hunched over a pot of bubbling stew, her gray curls askew beneath her floppy cap and her broad, coarse face red with exertion.
“Florentine, I need to make the master a tray.”
“What?” Florentine stood up so fast her cap flew onto the floor.
Quilla bent quickly to pick it up and handed it back. “A tray? For his midday meal.”
Florentine snatched the cap from Quilla’s hand and slapped it back on her head. She snorted. “Master don’t usually eat midday.”
“And he’s far too thin because of it,” replied Quilla. “I’m going to make certain he eats today. He can’t work all day long without food.”
Florentine gave her a squinty-eyed glare. “No? He’s done it plenty o’ times afore.”
Quilla put her hands on her hips. “Florentine, what, exactly, is your problem with allowing me to do my job?”
The fat chatelaine sniffed, nose in the air. “I ain’t got a problem, Miss Fancy Breeches. None ’tall.”
“Fine, then. A tray? I’ll be happy to fix it myself if you show me—”
“You might be going to have your fingers in all of the master’s spaces, Mistress Fancy, but this kitchen is my place! I’ll fix Master Gabriel his tray, I will!”
Quilla knew when to step back. “Very well.”
She watched Florentine pull out a tray with carved wooden handles and set it on the thick butcher-block table in front of the fire. The cook ladled a generous helping of stew into a bowl, added a loaf of thick-sliced bread and a small crock of butter. Utensils. A flagon of ale. A small saltcellar, a luxury Quilla noticed but did not remark upon. The household couldn’t be in very dire straits if the cook had enough salt to send an entire cellar along on the tray without needing it in the kitchen.
“Napkin,” Quilla prompted.
Florentine raised a bushy eyebrow. “What?”
“A napkin. Surely you have them?”
“For fancy dinner parties, sure and I do.”
“He’ll need one to wipe his mouth on from the gravy.” True patience, Quilla. “Surely you don’t expect him to use his sleeve?”
“Nah, but I thought he might use your’n,” Florentine said slyly. “Or mayhaps you’d lick his mouth clean—”
Quilla had been rearranging the items on the tray to balance the weight. At Florentine’s words, she slammed her hand down on the table hard enough to make the dishes jump.
“You will not speak to me that way!” Her voice echoed around the room. She stepped closer to Florentine. The much larger woman took a step back. “You will accord me the respect I deserve, Florentine. I am a Handmaiden, and in the employ of your master. Beyond that, I have never done aught to give you reason to disparage me. Think you not because I am mild-tongued and calm of manner that I am some addlepated twit you can shove about to serve your own purposes, or insult without retribution. I have served in lowly houses and fine palaces. I have been Handmaiden to shepherds and to kings. And while you may not approve of my function, and you may not understand it, let not your own jealousy make a mockery of what I am and what I do. I accord you the respect your position demands. I ask you do the same to me.”
“Or what?” Florentine’s sneer seemed halfhearted, the threat in her tone forced. “You’ll tell the master on me?”
“Do you really think I’d have to?” Quilla regarded the other woman carefully. “Master Delessan impresses me as the sort of man who’d find out all on his own. Think you he’d be pleased to discover his cook berating his Handmaiden? Even if he holds no great affection for me, he is paying dearly for my services. He’d be no more likely to accept you treating me badly than he would if you abused a fine carriage horse or hunting hound.”
“You liken yourself to a horse or a hound and yet you get affronted when I call you a whore?”
Quilla shrugged and went back to arranging the tray to make it easier to carry. “I’m no more that than you, Florentine. We’re both paid to perform a service to the master. You to feed his body, I his soul.”
Florentine huffed. “But you don’t deny you’d warm his bed if he asked.”
Quilla regarded Florentine with a raised eyebrow. “And you wouldn’t?”
That seemed to stun the fat chatelaine into silence, jaw agape and eyes wide. Yet she didn’t deny the assertion, and Quilla pushed past her to o
pen the glass-fronted doors to the pantry cupboard.
“This will do.” She plucked a white linen napkin from a pile of them and settled it onto the tray. “Thank you, Florentine.”
“You don’t . . . you don’t . . .”
Quilla paused in lifting the tray to look at her. “You’d do it if he wanted it, because you love him and are grateful to him. But you would not do it because you desire him. So why is it so hard for you to understand my place? I would do the same.”
Florentine seemed to recover a bit. “Our lord Delessan has been naught but kind to me. Always.”
“And you’d do anything to repay him. I understand.” Quilla cocked her head and hefted the tray, then carried it to the small cupboard lift set into the wall. She put the tray inside and closed the door before turning. “You know, Florentine, should you ever wish to talk—”
“To you?” The sneer became more pronounced. “As if I’d share my soul with the likes of you!”
“Sometimes it feels good to share it with someone.” Quilla tugged the rope that operated the lift, and when the tray had made its way up, she left the kitchen.
He was still working when she returned to his lab. He didn’t even turn when she opened the door, and she congratulated herself on the now silent hinges. Quilla busied herself with setting the small table next to the chair, arranging the food and utensils in a pleasing display that also allowed the maximum ease of access.
“Your mercy, my lord.” She kept her voice pitched low, an interruption as nonjarring and subtle as the oiling of the hinges. “I’ve brought you some food.”
He turned, gaze cloudy at first but clearing within moments. “I didn’t ask for any.”
“You did not need to ask, my lord. It’s my purpose and my pl—” She paused, remembering how he’d taken offense at the rote Handmaiden answer. “It’s my purpose to provide what you need before you need it.”
He nodded. She expected a snide comment, perhaps even a frown, but Delessan instead took off his apron and ran a hand through his dark hair. A strand fell over his eyes and he pushed it back impatiently, striding to the chair and flopping into it without much seeming enthusiasm at the prospect of a meal.
He reached for the utensils, but Quilla had already lifted the napkin and shook it out, then placed it on his lap. He stopped, fork in hand, as though she’d burned him. Quilla watched him from lowered eyes, her outward appearance still calm as she poured his mug full of ale, continuing her work while pretending not to notice his sudden reaction.
She gestured to the bowl of warm water and the soft towel she’d added to the tray. “Surely you’d care to wash your hands before you eat? To rid them of the chemicals?”
Delessan put the fork down with a click against the table. “Of course.”
Quilla lifted the pitcher of water and the small cake of soap. “Will you allow me to help you?”
She always had to ask, the first time, lest a patron did not wish assistance. She’d found phrasing the question as a request made them more comfortable.
Apparently, not Gabriel Delessan. His eyes widened for a moment before narrowing, his lips parting briefly before pressing into a thin, grim line.
“Think you I am incapable of washing my own hands?”
“Of course not.” Quilla held out the pitcher and the soap. “If you don’t wish me to help—”
“By help you mean doing it for me.”
“If it pleases you.”
Delessan made a noise low in his throat. “You would wash my hands for me as though I were a child.”
“I would wash your hands for you if it pleased you to allow me to serve you in that way,” Quilla replied. “And if it is your pleasure that I do that for you, then in the future, every time you eat when I am present, I shall provide the same service, so that you won’t ever have to think of it for yourself.”
“I rather like thinking for myself, Handmaiden. I’ve grown somewhat accustomed to it.”
Nodding, she held out the pitcher and the soap. “You might allow yourself to grow accustomed to my service as well.”
Silently, he held out his hands over the basin. Quilla poured a stream of water over them to wet them, then put the pitcher down and wet the soap, rubbing it between her hands to create a soft lather. Then she set it aside and took each of his hands, one after another, in hers and gently rubbed them clean. She laid them down in the basin and rinsed them both with more warm water, then used the soft towel to dry them.
Then she stepped back and Waited. She hadn’t been looking at his face while she washed his hands, concentrating instead on making certain she removed all traces of residue from his skin. Now, the intensity of his gaze startled her.
He stared at her with burning eyes, two bright spots of color high on his pale cheeks. His hands stayed where she’d left them, on the table next to the bowl. Only now, his fingers had curled, gripping the table edge.
“My lord—”
“Don’t do that again,” he interrupted harshly. “I did not care for it. Not at all.”
Then he bent his head to the food and did not speak to her again.
When dusk purpled the windows, he left off his work and vanished into his bedroom without another word to her. He had not, in fact, spoken to her since the midday meal. Quilla had spent the rest of the day on her hands and knees, scrubbing the wooden floor and sending out the faded rugs to be beaten. Now, her body ached with the pleasant aftereffects of a day well spent in physical labor, and she wanted little more than to go to her quarters and take a hot bath, put on a night rail, and slip into dreams.
She put away the cleaning supplies and smoothed the tangled tendrils of her hair off cheeks she was certain were smudged with grime. From inside his bedroom she heard the sound of shuffling. She tapped the door frame.
“My lord, if you have no more need of me today—”
“Go. You’re free to go.”
She nodded, though of course he could not see her. “Would you like me to bring you something to eat before I retire?”
“No.” More shuffling. The door cracked open and he peered out with one wary, loch-colored eye. “I am to dine with my wife this evening.”
“Then I’ll go?”
“Yes, yes, go. I said go, didn’t I?”
The door shut in her face, and she paused a moment, then let herself out of his rooms. Climbing the stairs to her room left her weary and winded by the sheer multitude and steepness of them, and the winding, narrow curves.
“An odd location to house a Handmaiden,” she grumbled through gasps as she let herself into her room. “The farthest point away from him.”
She didn’t mind the garret room, which was plain but comfortable enough, and the luxury of her own bath chamber was something she truly appreciated. Still, the thought of climbing these stairs day and night did make her resolve to eat more and seek a restorative concoction from the local medicus, if only to make sure she didn’t wear herself down.
“He needn’t make it quite so difficult,” she said to the empty room.
She knew there would always be those who would not be soothed and satisfied, no matter what was offered them. She was beginning to wonder if Gabriel Delessan was such a man.
“So many blessings,” she murmured, folding the soiled gown and setting it aside to be cleaned. She tugged her shift off over her head and folded that, as well. “Yet so little joy.”
True, a mad wife and a son possibly not his own would be cause to make any man frown. And yet, there was more to him than that. From what Florentine had said, Master Gabriel had never been joyous.
She refused to think the task might be too great for her. He had called for her, at least he’d done that, and while his motives might not have been as pure as she could have hoped, it showed he was at least interested in appeasement. On some level, anyway.
She recalled the way his eyes had blazed when he’d told her never to wash his hands again. It had made him angry, that simple act of caretaking that wa
s as natural and unaffected to her as opening a door for someone whose hands were full of packages.
On the morrow she would see about replacing his battered kettle and ruined cups and creating some special teas. Something a bit spicy, to complement his temper and prevent him from becoming too complacent, tempered with a calming herb, like lady’s lace, to soothe his easily provoked temper. The art of tea had been only one of many Quilla studied, and she took pride in brewing special mixes suited to the personality of her patrons. Something with a hint of sweetness to chase the bitterness from his tongue, but not so sweet as to make him sour in response.
A flower is made more beautiful by its thorns. Gabriel had many thorns and few blossoms. And yet, there was something, a glimpse, a hint, of something beneath the prickly exterior. She pondered it all the while she bathed, and while she slipped between clean sheets to fall asleep. What would make him soften?
She awoke to screaming. Quilla sat up in bed, heart pounding and eyes bulging wide against the darkness. She could see naught but the bright sparkles her fear had created in her vision.
She listened. The scream rose again, a thin wail that pierced her ears despite the distance from which it must have come. Then it cut off. Silence once more.
She lay back on her pillow and pulled the covers up around her neck. What on earth had that been? It could have been a beast outside, a great cat stalking its prey or the prey itself squealing. Yet it hadn’t sounded like it came from outside.
So it had come from inside. A scream in the night was never good news. She waited, listening, but it didn’t come again. It was a long time before she could fall back to sleep.
By the time Delessan entered the workshop in the morning, Quilla had already replaced the soiled rugs and rearranged the furniture in front of the fireplace. She’d added a footstool and covered the faded chair with a woven throw. She traded the battered kettle for one in better repair, along with a set of plain but un-chipped teacups. In the pinkish light of dawn and the red gold light from the fire, the room had become almost pleasant. She’d done nothing to his worktable, but the rest of it well pleased her.