No Greater Pleasure Read online

  Her sudden lack of weapon did not deter Saradin, who screamed and sprang at Quilla’s face, her fingers hooked into claws as deadly as any from a beast. Quilla, on instinct, had raised her arm to shield her face after the knife missed her, and when the woman slapped at her, Quilla reached out and grabbed the offending hand, squeezing the fingers to prevent her from using it.

  “Whore! Whore! Whore!” Saradin slapped at Quilla. The heat of the woman’s breath laced with spittle stung like drops of acid on Quilla’s cheeks and forehead. Saradin reached around with her free hand and grabbed Quilla’s unbound hair, pulling so hard it bent Quilla forward.

  “Let me go!”

  “Whoooooooore!”

  The drawn-out scream hurt Quilla’s ears as she struggled with Gabriel’s wife, trying not to hurt the madwoman while desperately fighting not to get hurt herself.

  Fury and insanity had given Saradin a strength her petite size denied. She whaled away at Quilla, slapping and kicking, and Quilla stumbled back against the table, the mistress on top of her, fetid breath in her face like that of a rabid dog. Curds of spittle had gathered in the corners of the other woman’s mouth as she screamed and spat.

  Quilla turned her head to avoid being splattered with more of the woman’s spittle, and Saradin yanked her hair forward to slam her head down on the table hard enough that Quilla saw stars. Scrabbling up her body like a crawpappy in a creek bed, the screaming woman kicked and scratched and even tried to bite.

  “Get off me!” Quilla’s voice rang through Florentine’s tidy kitchen.

  The table beneath them moved beneath the force of the woman’s attack. It scraped the stone floor. Quilla couldn’t get purchase with her feet, no leverage to move herself against the woman who snapped her jaws.

  “Whore! Slut! Ruiner of households!”

  The insults were easier to take than the hitting, and Quilla focused on getting out from under the woman. The table moved again, pushed along by Saradin’s desperate attempts to climb on top of Quilla and what . . . beat her into submission? Harm her? Kill her?

  Because that was, she saw with sudden horror, exactly what Saradin seemed intent on doing. The table had moved so far across the floor the mistress could now reach a hand into the block of slotted wood that held the knives Florentine used for cutting and slicing vegetables. As fast as a striking snake, she yanked a blade from the block. A long one, and sharp, not serrated like the bread knife but its edge gleaming deadly sharp.

  Thanking the Invisible Mother that Saradin’s aim was no better than it had been the first time, Quilla rolled as the blade came down, missing her face by a scant handbreadth.

  “Whore!”

  Quilla didn’t bother replying, merely used the power in her shoulder to knock the woman back a bit. This time, the blade came down harder . . . and closer.

  “See how well you like the kiss of my knife,” panted the mistress. “See how you like it up your cunny, fucking you! See how it feels to have a blade fuck you instead of my husband!”

  Quilla had nowhere to go, no room to roll, and the mistress had effectively pinned her. The woman raised her knife again, all screaming done as she pointed it at Quilla’s face.

  “Get off her!”

  In the next instant, unseen hands yanked Saradin back, and Quilla rolled off the table, ending up on the floor. She looked up, her hands in front of her to protect herself. Saradin spit and squalled in Jericho’s grasp like a cat in a sack, her eyes focused with venom on Quilla, but the knife was now on the table and no longer in her hands.

  “Calm down or I’ll turn you on your arse!”

  Quilla stood, watching Saradin struggle in Jericho’s unforgiving grasp. Quilla smoothed her rumpled dress with shaking hands, feeling for injuries and finding the slice in her sleeve. Her fingers came away wet with blood. The metallic tang of it filled her nostrils and made her light-headed.

  Jericho shook Saradin until her golden hair flew. “Enough, you crazy bitch! Enough! Else I mean it, I’ll put you down!”

  Light filled the kitchen as Florentine came through the doorway and raised the flames on the oil lamps, something that Quilla ought to have done. If she’d been able to see the woman’s face and the madness in her eyes, she might have been better prepared. Or not, she amended herself, watching the mistress calm herself so quickly and completely it was as though she’d never held a knife in her hand at all.

  “What by Sinder’s Bloody Balls is going on in here?” Florentine shouted, tying her robe around her, hair askew, some sort of thick cream covering her face. “Quilla, what by the Void are you doing? And you?”

  Florentine pointed at Jericho, who still gripped the mistress’s arms so tight his fingers left red marks on her pale skin.

  “Keeping this one from killing the other.”

  “Manhandling your brother’s wife is a certain way to get him to kick your arse out to the street, Jericho. No matter what she’s done.” Florentine smoothed her hair back from her face, eyes taking in the disrupted kitchen and displaced table, the knife on the floor. Her gaze came up to meet Quilla’s, and the chatelaine crossed the kitchen to take Quilla’s arm.

  “You, sit.” She pushed Quilla into a chair, then pointed at Jericho. “You. Take her out of here. Billy!”

  Hanging the kettle on the fire, Florentine ordered Billy to run and get the master. To Bertram who’d appeared after Billy, she gave the command to find Mistress Walles.

  Jericho held Saradin, who was no longer struggling. He looked at Quilla. “She needs taking care of, Flora.”

  Any other time, Quilla would have been surprised at Jericho’s casual nickname for the cook. As it was, her head had begun to spin. The sight of the blood or perhaps the loss of it, or more likely, simply her body’s already wobbly defenses. Quilla promptly put her head between her knees, but the world still went first gray, edged with red and then black.

  A hand on her face made her flutter her eyes. That, and the raised masculine timbre of voices, shouting. She smelled something sharp and her eyes opened wide. She gasped and choked at the stench of something chemical.

  “Are you all right?” This from Jericho, whose concerned face hovered a handbreadth from hers.

  Quilla meant to speak, to at least nod, but couldn’t seem to manage.

  “Get her out of here!” Another masculine voice, deeper. Gabriel.

  “My lord,” Quilla struggled to say. She was not supposed to be the one in need of care.

  “Shh.” Jericho smoothed her hair from her face as she struggled to sit. “Don’t fret.”

  She looked to see Gabriel force a spoonful of something between his wife’s lips, then hold her jaws shut. Pinkish liquid trickled from the corners of her mouth, but when he let go of her face a moment later, she didn’t spit anything out. A moment or two after that the fire in her eyes, directed over her husband’s shoulder at Quilla, began to fade. And yet another passed before the mistress Delessan sagged in her husband’s arms, face going blank.

  Quilla pushed Jericho’s hand from her hair and sat, wincing at the way her dress, stuck to her with dried blood, pulled and stung the wound. “I’m fine.”

  “Just sit for a moment more.”

  “I’m—”

  The entrance of Allora Walles, who pushed Bertram out of the way when she stumbled into the kitchen, interrupted Quilla’s protest. At the sight of her mistress in her master’s arms, Allora’s face went the color of snow. She gathered her cloak around her—a cloak, not a robe, Quilla noticed shrewdly, also seeing how the maid’s hair was rumpled and strewn with bits of chaff.

  “My lady!” Allora cried, rushing to her.

  “Your lady has behaved most grievously,” said Gabriel. “Wandering about when she should be safe in bed, sleeping.”

  Allora ducked her head, bobbing a curtsy. “She was asleep, my lord, I swear.”

  “I want none of your oaths. She was not sleeping. She was out of bed and well enough, strong enough, to attack my—to attack her.” He barely g