Free No Greater Pleasure by Megan Hart

reason. So I told my parents I had no wish to shackle myself to one place or one person forever, and that I wished to travel. And I would join the Order of Solace. My mother fainted. My father growled. But in the end, they had no choice. I was of age. I could choose.”
    “And you did.”
    “Yes. I did. I was given the name Tranquilla, and considered it an honor to be so named.”
    “And the Order of Solace instead of any other? Why?”
    Nobody had ever asked her that, not in all her years of Service. Quilla paused, thinking. “The Order of Solace is the only one that does not indenture its novitiates.”
    “Is that so?” Delessan lifted his teacup, and she got to her feet to fill it again before he even asked. He watched her kneel again. “And this appealed to you.”
    “Yes, my lord.”
    “Why?”
    She did not need to hesitate to think on this one. “Because I choose how to live my life. I am free to leave any assignment, at any time. I am free to leave the Order at any time, and would be sent on my way with the blessing of the Mothers-in-Service, should I choose to no longer serve.”
    “This independent nature would seem to be at odds with what your Order provides.”
    She smiled. “My lord, the Order of Solace did not train me to accept the will of others over my own, but rather to re-create my own to match that of those whom I serve.”
    “And you don’t feel this compromises your freedom?”
    “No. It provides me with more of it. Serving in the Order allows me to travel. It allows me to contribute Arrows to Sinder’s Quiver.”
    She thought he might show disdain at that, but he only nodded. “You really believe that?”
    “I do.”
    He sighed heavily. “I suppose if you can believe that Sinder walked through the Void and created valleys with his footsteps and rivers with his piss and winds with his breath, and if you can believe he found Kedalya in the forest and begat a son from her, I suppose you can believe his Quiver, once filled, will bring about an age of peace and prosperity to all the faithful.”
    “Even if you don’t believe those stories as truth,” Quilla said, “is it such an awful thing to want to make people happy?”
    His gaze locked upon her for so long and so hard she thought she had made him angry. He stood. “You’ve kept me from my work long enough. Less talking in the mornings, Handmaiden. Breakfast is an activity that should be undertaken as swiftly and efficiently as possible. I’m a very busy man.”
    “As you wish,” Quilla responded, getting to her feet and beginning to clear away the dishes into the basket to take downstairs.
    He huffed, then moved past her to head toward his worktable again. She watched him from the corner of her eye, thinking much upon what he’d said.
    She had limits, indeed, though they were far broader than those of a woman not in the Service of the Order. But she had them.
     
     
     
    D elessan had been muttering for the past twenty minutes. Muttering and pacing. Quilla watched him from her place at the bookshelves, where she’d been taking down each book, cleaning it, and replacing it in alphabetical order. She’d been working as silently as possible, not taking all the books off at the same time in order to prevent making a mess. The work was slower that way, but she suspected if he turned round to see the floor piled high with texts he’d be rather more upset than if only one shelf was empty at a time.
    Now he exploded into a string of colorful curses that made her bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling at the sheer absurdity of the phrases.
    She put down the book and the dustcloth and moved closer to him. Not too close. He was still pacing, hands on his hips, scowling and muttering.
    “Surely that would be an awkward and uncomfortable experience, my lord,” she said in reference to the last string of curse words he’d spouted. “And it might possibly kill the duck.”
    He stopped and glared at her. “What are you