Mindgames Ch. 03

"Bah!" Animal replied. "So much is lost." He shrugged. "My mural will be so valued that youngsters will retouch it, year after year, just to learn the craft." Then he laughed, sourly, so that Gabriel could not tell if he had spoken in jest.

While Gabriel and Animal were talking, Rose had walked to the wall where Animal indicated his mural would begin, and touched it softly with her fingertip. The two men walked towards her and she looked up. "It's the same as the canvas you've been using, master."

"Of course it is!" Animal said. "This is what I've been practicing for!"

"When do you start?" Gabriel asked.

"Start?" Animal said. "I just did." He laughed again, and pulled a measuring tape out of a pocket Gabriel would have guessed was too threadbare to hold anything. Yet, impossibly, from another pocket came a pad of paper and a sharp pencil.

Animal put both Gabriel and Rose to work, measuring from wall to wall, and window to window. He sent Rose to fetch a ladder so he could measure floor to ceiling as well. With a frown he looked down. "I'll have to have the floor sanded and repolished before I begin," he said, mostly to himself. "Otherwise some matron will insist on doing it in the middle of my work for one celebration or another. Have to supervise the slaves myself or it'll never get done." He sighed, and went back to his measurements.

In the midst of his activity Animal stopped short. "Well, Healer," he said, "It's past the noon hour and the light too bright for creativity. Shall I take you to the Bearer's quarters, where you can face your own destiny?"

Gabriel nodded, although he dreaded seeing the Bearer. They turned to leave. Rose suddenly dropped to her knees before Animal. "What is it?" he asked her, gruffly.

"Master... this slave is happy for you." Rose looked at the floor, her face red.

Animal raised her from the ground. "You'll regret it enough when you have to help me grind the pigments," he growled, but then he grinned at her.

∞ ∞ ∞

Gabriel walked into the Bearer's living quarters and then quickly took a step back, almost bumping into Rose. He cautiously moved forward, trying to adjust to the chaos within.

In the center of the room three men were tossing a glass bottle back and forth while a slave woman desperately ran after it, her large breasts bouncing, pleading with them not to drop it. A group of women congregated nearby, laughing raucously. Other people sat on chairs and sofas, near small tables filled to overflowing with dirty plates and empty glasses. The sound of a yapping dog pushed the din into madness. Gabriel quickly looked away from a man in a corner thrusting his penis into the mouth of a kneeling male slave.

Rose instinctively moved closer to Animal, and Gabriel wished that there was a place he could seek shelter as well. Animal led them towards one of the couches, where a middle aged woman - the oldest person in the room - was languidly watching the goings on. "Yana," Animal said, speaking loudly so as to be heard. At the same moment the bottle crashed to the floor, sending liquid spraying and glass shards frying. The event brought a momentary hush to the room.

Yana watched as slaves scurried to clean up the mess, then looked at Animal. She frowned at first, but then her eyes lit with recognition. "You're the painter," she said. "You brought the Healer?"

Animal nodded. "As you see." He beckoned Gabriel forward.

For a moment Yana reminded Gabriel of an elder he knew in Harmony. She had similar long, thick salt and pepper hair, and the same almost imperious air about her as she gave Gabriel a once-over. But her words dispelled the resemblance. "Animal couldn't supply you with a change of clothes?" Gabriel realized with dismay that he was still wearing his riding clothes, which he had thrown on that morning when he went to the stables. He blushed.

"No matter," she said. "My husband warned me you looked a sight." She tilted her head, almost coquettishly. "Can you do anything for a wart on my wrist?"

Gabriel said, as politely as he could, "Perhaps, ma'am. But first could I meet the young lady?"

Yana laughed. "My husband spoke truth about you," she said. She pointed to a divan across the room. "That's Diana," she said.

Gabriel saw a young woman sitting on a sofa. Her hair was auburn and curly, her face pale. A slave woman, whimpering and shaking, stood in front of her with her legs spread and her hands behind her head. Diana was using a wooden stick to smear a viscous red gel onto the woman's crotch. When Gabriel approached, Diana looked up with an incongruously pretty smile. "Are you the Healer?"

Gabriel nodded.

"Just a minute," Diana said. She turned to the woman. "Go lock yourself on the wall," she ordered.

The woman whimpered but walked over to the wall. She placed her feet in shackles about a yard apart, then reached her hands over her head where she snapped her wrists into cuffs that closed with a loud click. She moaned and began moving her pelvis back and forth. Diana laughed. "I put red pepper jelly on her," she told Gabriel confidingly.

Gabriel was sickened. He had begged to come here, and traveled all this way - to help a torturer.

"Let her down." It was Animal, standing beside him, calmly regarding Diana.

Diana looked at him imperiously. "She's my slave. I can do with her as I please."

"Very well," Animal said. He turned to Gabriel. "Let's go."

"What? Wait!" Diana said. "He can't go. He came all this way for me!"

"Then let her down." Animal's voice was quiet but firm.

Diana narrowed her eyes at him. "Why do you care?"

"I don't," Animal said. He pointed at Gabriel. "But your healer is an outlander, and he doesn't like it."

Diana glared from Animal to Gabriel, then slowly nodded. She snapped her fingers and a male slave skidded to his knees in front of her. Diana pointed to the woman. "Unlock her, Turbo," she said. She added, "Tell her she can wash herself, but not come."

Gabriel took a deep breath to steady himself, grateful for Animal's intervention. Another breath, for focus. He sat down on a footstool and faced his patient. One more breath, and he forced himself to look at her. She stared back at him, looking at once sullen and suspicious and weary.

"Are you going to poke and prod me?" she asked.

She was so young, Gabriel thought. She couldn't help how she had been raised. And he had a job to do. First, establish a connection. "I thought first you might like to hear how your brother fares," he said.

Diana raised her chin. "My father told me already."

"He couldn't have told you everything," Gabriel said, "because he didn't know." Diana looked offended, and then pleased. "He couldn't have told you how bravely Tobias rode for weeks on end over land he did not know, and how, when he arrived in Harmony, he begged me to come ahead and not wait for him, or how fine a young man we all thought him."

Diana thought for a moment. "He stayed behind because he can't stand the sight of me," she pronounced, at last.

"Oh, no," Gabriel said solemnly. "He wanted nothing more than to return, but he was ill after his journey. And," he added with a conspiratorial wink, "some think he was slightly loath to leave Bessna, his nurse."

"If he liked a slave, why didn't your people give her to him?" Diana asked peevishly. "He is the Bearer's son and deserves respect."

Gabriel smiled a little at the rote quality with which she spoke. "We have no slaves in Harmony. Surely you know that," he said quietly. "Bessna is free to stay or go as her own will desires, the same as you."

At this Diana's face scrunched up as though she would cry, and closed her eyes tight. "I can't go anywhere," she whined, "will it or no. My legs don't work."

Gabriel said nothing but silently observed her until curiosity got the better of her and she opened her eyes, completely tear free. "Don't you feel sorry for me?" she demanded.

"I don't know yet," Gabriel replied.

"Are you going to heal me?"

"I don't know that yet, either."

Behind him, Diana's mother tsked. "Of course he'll heal you, darling," she said soothingly.

Gabriel reminded himself to be patient, and slowly turned to Yana. "Is there a private room where I can examine her?"

Yana looked offended but nodded and snapped her fingers. Turbo appeared in response. "Carry Diana to her bedroom," she ordered.

Turbo lifted Diana easily with a practiced air and carried her quickly across the living room and down a hallway into a bedroom. Gabriel noted that he placed her with great care on her bed, a large four poster affair. Diana ignored the slave as he bowed his way out of the room. Gabriel closed the door behind him, took another deep breath, and turned to her. "Why don't you know?" she demanded, as if her mother had not interrupted their conversation.

"For one thing, I don't know what's wrong with you or if I can fix it," Gabriel said slowly. "For another thing, I don't know if you want to be fixed." He approached her bed.

"I fell off a horse, that's what wrong with me," Diana said. "I haven't walked since." She gave a toss of her head, as if she were proud of this fact.

"According to Tobias, your accident was more than a year ago, is that right?" Gabriel sat on the bed next to her.

She nodded. "It was Tobby's fault I fell. He never should have dared me to take that jump."

Gabriel watched her steadily. "Weren't you 17 then?" She nodded. "It seems to me a you were old enough to know what you could or couldn't do on a horse."

Diana scrunched up her mouth in a pout. "I'll tell my Da you're not nice," she said.

"He didn't come all this way to be nice to you, my daughter," the Bearer said, from the door which he had opened, unnoticed. "But you must be nice to him."

Gabriel noticed with annoyance that the Bearer, uninvited into the room, seemed to expand to fill all of its space. Speaking as courteously as he could, he said, "With respect, my examination of a patient must be private."

The Bearer guffawed. "I like you!" he said. "Very well, I'll amuse myself until you finish." He walked down the hallway. Gabriel walked over and closed the door the Bearer had left open. He asked Diana about the accident, and her immediate symptoms after it, and how her condition had changed in the intervening time. With her permission he began his physical examination. There was a great deal of muscle atrophy, but when he unexpectedly ran his fingernail up the sole of her left foot, her back arched in a perfect reflex. Yet she denied all sensation, and when he did the same to the right foot as she watched him, there was no reflex whatsoever.

By the end of the examination, Gabriel suspected that her ailment, once purely physical, had taken on a psychosomatic element. He began to show her some basic physical therapy that could do no damage to her legs and would at least strengthen her arms. She barely cooperated, staring off into the middle distance and sighing. Knowing they had gone as far as they could for a first meeting, he picked up his medicine bag. She said petulantly, "You're not leaving me here, are you? I want to go back to the living room!"

Gabriel asked her, "Have you a wheel contraption? I'll get it for you."

"A what?" Diana's eyebrows puckered into a frown.

"A chair, on wheels," Gabriel said. "You must have one. How else can you get around?"

Diana tossed her head. "Turbo carries me," she said. "I want him. TURBO," she shrieked, so shrilly and unexpectedly that Gabriel's ears rang. The slave who had carried her into the room came running down the hall and skidded to his knees in front of her. "Carry me!" she commanded and he, as gently as before, lifted her and carried her to the living room. Gabriel followed slowly behind.

The living room was still a mass of confusion, perhaps even more frenetic than earlier. It took Gabriel a few moments to locate Animal. He was sitting on a sofa, studiously watching two women arm wrestle while a crowd around them shouted and jeered.

When Gabriel approached him, Animal shrugged almost helplessly and indicated an armchair on the other side of the contest. The Bearer had a slave girl sitting on his lap, leaning back against him, as he reached around and toyed with one of her nipples. Although her arms dangled by her side, and she made no move to resist, she looked ready to cry. With a shock Gabriel realized it was Rose.

Noticing Gabriel, the Bearer stood up unconcernedly. Rose tumbled to the floor. She stayed on her hands and knees, trembling. "Just getting her warmed up for you," the Bearer said with a grin to Gabriel. "Hard to find them so tender in these living quarters!" Animal snapped his fingers, nodded peremptorily to the room and made for the door. Rose crawled behind him. Gabriel paused only long enough to confirm with the Bearer that he would return the next day to work with Diana, and then hurried after Animal.

With a slight toss of his head Animal indicated to Rose that she should stand up. She did so, sniffing. "Did he hurt you?" Gabriel asked her.

Rose shook her head and said, in a trembling voice, "No, master."

Animal snorted. "He honored her, Healer, by deigning to notice her." If Gabriel had not looked at Animal at that moment, he would not have seen the hard, bitter look on his face as he turned and walked down the corridor.

∞ ∞ ∞

When they returned to Animal's suite, Gabriel coaxed Rose out of her terror enough to let him help set up his own apartment. The rooms were reached from Animal's apartment through the shared courtyard. They were similar to Animal's in layout, with a living and dining area separated by a counter from the small kitchen, and two bedrooms off a short hall. Each bedroom had an attached bathroom that also had a door to the living area.

Gabriel could see brighter spots in the carpeting where the furniture must have been before Rose rearranged it that morning. When he asked her how she had managed to move it without help she merely looked down and said, "Forgive me, master." And then she unconsciously rubbed her bicep.

After Gabriel had unpacked his meager belongings, Animal showed him his studio, which occupied a third suite off the courtyard. A wall of windows looking out onto the Great Lawn illuminated the entire space. The side walls were covered with shelving filled with paints, canvasses, paper, and flotsam and jetsam. Several easels were scattered around the floor. Gabriel was examining a sketch on one of them of a hand holding a paint brush when a slave knocked on the sliding glass door to the courtyard.

Animal took a note from the slave, scanned it, and scowled. He turned to Gabriel. "The Bearer is throwing a banquet for you tomorrow and he's sending his best tailors to us any minute now." The two men groaned in unison.

∞ ∞ ∞

The banquet was only the first of many social engagements Gabriel was invited to. As the Bearer explained, people were naturally curious about the first outlander to come to Riviera in many years. Gabriel tolerated it as politely is he could. He often wished he were back home, where he would not be constantly confronted by the overwhelming degradation of the naked slaves and the cruelty and frequent inanity of their owners.

Yana's wart was a precursor of any number of minor medical grievances brought to him by patients who assumed they had a right to his attention and sympathy. After being accosted a half dozen times during a short walk in the corridor with Animal, Animal suggested that he set up a clinic with regular hours. The Bearer arranged it, at Animal's insistence not too close to their apartments. Gabriel met with seemingly endless numbers of people there, many of whom evidently made up ailments just for the entertainment of speaking with him.

After Gabriel set the broken wrist of a slave who had accompanied his mistress who came to the clinic for advice about her acne, word spread that he was also a vet, and a talented one at that. Although Gabriel longed to turn away from the insipid humans, he labored to ease the pain of the slaves.

He had other visitors to his clinic as well: a handful of men and women who were healers or vets, or aspired to be, and wanted to learn his techniques. Gabriel welcomed them openly, happy to share what he knew, frustrated only by how often they did not show up at their promised times.

He visited Diana, the Bearer's daughter, frequently, setting her up with a regimen of physical therapy that she rarely followed unless he took her through it himself. He had become certain that her paralysis was nothing more than atrophy and a habit of thinking of herself as an invalid. Like her father, Diana appeared to care little whether the legs that carried her were her own or those of a slave.

He found relative peace in his and Animal's living quarters. As the days went by, Rose slowly overcame her paralyzing fear of him. Her timidity could make her appear quite dull-witted, but Gabriel had quickly realized that she was both intelligent and a keen observer of all that went on around her. The most Animal would say about her, was, in a growl, "She's a good cook and nice in bed." Indeed, her cooking was excellent, all the more surprising to Gabriel as she was not allowed to sample what she cooked, but ate only a lumpy, porridge-like gruel. Gabriel once asked if he could taste it. Animal warned him away sharply, telling him to avoid slave food if he ever cared to have children.

Animal and Gabriel bickered constantly over whether Rose should be allowed to sit at the table with them, a serious breach of protocol, until one day Animal gave in with a shrug. He allowed Gabriel to coax her to eat small bites of the food that she cooked. One day, as Rose and Gabriel compared the herbs she used in cooking with those in Gabriel's medicine bag, he suddenly jumped in when he spied leaves he used as pigments. Even Rose giggled, stifling a further laugh when he glared at her.