Mindgames Ch. 16

Master Gabriel looked from Mistress Yana to the Bearer. "I have judged her in the past," he said. "For how she treats her slaves, how she lets your children treat them. But not for this, no more than I would judge her for suffering from cancer or an ulcer."

The Bearer sighed heavily. "It's not cancer," he said. "Nor an ulcer. It's too many children." He glanced at Mistress Diana, and the boy on the rug.

The room was quiet for a minute. The Bearer continued, softly for him, "At the time that we joined to each other, there was a lot of talk of how the human population was becoming too small, our deaths exceeding our births, our numbers decreasing compared to the slaves."

He picked up a glass of wine, held it up to the light, and put it down without tasting it. "My aunt had been grooming me to succeed her as Bearer, and Yana and I agreed: I would run Riviera, and she would run the household and set an example to others by having many children."

He sighed again. "I wish you could have known her then. She was smartest person I'd ever met, and vibrant, beautiful. I couldn't believe how lucky I was." Mariah looked over at Mistress Yana. She had rested her head on the arm of the couch. Her mouth hung open and a fine line of drool dripped from it. "But every birth was harder to recover from, each time it took longer. After Gioro was born five years ago, she didn't leave her bed for months. She cried all the time."

Mariah could feel Master Gabriel tense beside her. Without looking she knew his nostrils were flaring. "Those symptoms are commonplace after birth," he said. "Any midwife could give her herbs to help her."

The Bearer smiled bitterly. "The midwife gave her herbs," he said. "But they didn't help her. Instead she grew dependent on them, taking more and more."

"And you?" Master Gabriel said, in the same hard voice he used when he was about to refuse help to a human who would not agree to treat a slave well. "You are her spouse. You rule this whole country. You could not find her a new midwife, and stop her supply?"

The Bearer narrowed his eyes. "You dare question me?"

"I dare," Master Gabriel said, "to do my duty as a healer."

"Stop it!" Mistress Diana broke into the rising tension. "Da tried to help her, Gabriel, he did. He sent away the slaves who brought her the drugs, but she found others. They feared her more than my father. He has had half the healers in Riviera look to her, but they could not help her. She didn't want to be helped." Mistress Diana's voice broke.

Mariah could feel the heat of Master Gabriel's anger rising off of him. "Half the healers in Riviera," he said, "but not me, who you trust with your daughter's care? Do you love your wife less?"

"No!" the Bearer exploded. "She's my heart!" He looked at her, dozing again now. "You are an outsider. She wouldn't want you to see her like this, to carry tales back to your people. If you knew what she was . . ." The Bearer shook his head. He took a breath. "You will help her?" he asked quietly.

Master Gabriel nodded. "If she wishes it, I will try." He observed her for a minute, and said, quietly, "The depression after birth is simply an unbalance, easily rectified, or it would have been until it seeped into her essence. But the addiction . . ." He gathered himself. "First the depression, and when it lifts she'll deal with the addiction as her true self." He looked back down at the congealing sandwich on the plate. "But in the meantime, there is the matter of your own health."

"I'll see to the kitchen slaves, and the food he gets," Mistress Diana said.

The Bearer slammed his hand onto the coffee table. "You will not!" he roared, so loudly that Mariah jumped.

"I will, Da," Mistress Diana said. Mariah admired her courage. "You don't have the time, and Mother can't."

"You will not," the Bearer said, quieter but fiercer. "I'll not have you making the same mistake your mother made, domestic duties until they drive you mad, no matter how well-intentioned." He glared at her. "You concentrate on learning to walk, and you're more than old enough for a work placement, something that interests you . . ." He blinked, and wiped his eyes.

"I have to, Da," Mistress Diana said. "Who else could do it?"

"I will." Mariah had forgotten about the human boy on the rug, reading the manuscript.

"What? No, Bruce," the Bearer growled.

"I want to, Da," he said. "I'm old enough for a work assignment too, and I'm sick to death of the slop that comes out of our kitchen. Victor's got a cook who . . ." His eyes shone. "Well, you should see what he makes. You should taste it. And . . ." He stopped. "I want to," he said.

The Bearer did not respond. Master Bruce turned to Master Gabriel. "You'll help me?" he asked. "If you tell me what he should eat, I'll find a way to work with it." He glanced at his mother, who was sitting up now. "I'll need to replace the kitchen slaves," he said. "Put my own in, who haven't learned bad habits." He turned to his father. "Please, Da, I really want to do this."

"Let him, Da." Mistress Diana smiled mischievously. "And for my work assignment I'll take Tobby's place in your throne room."

The Bearer stared from one to the other as if he had never seen them before. "Very well," he said abruptly. "You can try it." He added after a moment, "Unless your mother says no." He sighed as he looked over at her.

"Give me a minute with her?" Master Gabriel said softly.

The Bearer nodded. "Let's look at your new domain, shall we?" he said to Master Bruce. Master Bruce nodded happily and stood up, leaving the manuscript on the ground. "You come too," the Bearer said quietly to Mariah. She glanced at her master, who was already with Mistress Yana, matching his breathing to hers, engrossed with her. Mariah followed the Bearer, her heart pounding hard.

The kitchen was a disaster. Paint was peeling from the ceiling over the stove, and cabinets were pulling away from the wall. Dirty pots and pans and utensils were everywhere. The floor was sticky.

The Bearer paid it no mind. As soon as Mariah had stepped through the door he shut it behind her and rounded on her. He wasn't the forlorn, lost husband now, or the father striving for his children, or the bemused host, or the ill man, or the master powerless over his household slaves. He was the Bearer, radiating power. Mariah involuntarily took a step back, bumping into a counter. "Standard position," he growled. For the second time Mariah raised her hands behind her head, elbows out, eyes down, trembling.

"Turn," the Bearer commanded her.

Mariah turned slowly, feeling the Bearer's eyes on her. She stopped when she had completed her circle.

"You may look at me," he said. Mariah raised her eyes. His face was hard. Mariah tried to step away from him, but her backside was already against the counter. He was inside her head. He was relentless. He had ordered her death once before, he would do so again. She knew it.

"You know what I did to the painter's rag when your master first arrived in Riviera?" he asked her softly.

Mariah nodded. "Yes, Master," she said.

"Hardly a whipping," the Bearer said, still softly. "Three strokes on her tender skin. To you it would be a mosquito bite, nothing more."

The Bearer had not released Mariah from the standard position, nor from looking at him. She was exposed, powerless, unprotected.

"There would be no point in me having you whipped," the Bearer said. He took a step closer to her, so he was speaking almost into her ear, yet not touching her.

"What would you fear from me?" he wondered. "Not your own death. You already chose to die, and I ordered you plucked from the cross."

He was wrong. Mariah had always wanted to live, had always chosen life, over everything. Everything but freedom. It comforted her somewhat to realize that the Bearer was not actually inside her head and could not read her thoughts.

But if he would not threaten her with a whipping or with death, then what? And then in a flash she knew. She shook her head at the thought.

Not Rose, she pleaded inside herself. And not Raul. Mariah had been a fool to make friends. She had known better.

The Bearer was continuing, "No, it is not death you would fear. But life." Turning for a moment, he took a carving knife from the counter, and pointed it at her face. Mariah held herself still, relieved that it was merely her own body he threatened.

The Bearer nodded. "I like courage in a slave," he said. "But even the bravest have their limits." He pointed the knife at her left eye. Mariah focused on looking at him, not at the knife.

"Of course I wouldn't slice your eyes out. Much too wasteful." He lowered the knife to her chest, but did not linger there. Lower still, to her belly, not touching it, and then down further, until the point of it was in front of her crotch. "Here is where I would cut you," he said. "A circumcised slave can still fully perform, work, fuck, even bear children. It is only the pleasure in life they have lost."

He would do it. He could do it right now.

A crash came from the other side of the kitchen. Mariah barely heard it, but the Bearer glanced over to his son, who had dropped two pans on the floor. "Sorry," Master Bruce called out.

The Bearer put the knife on the counter and turned back to Mariah. "Your master crossed a world to help my daughter," he said. "And now me, my wife, even my son. You understand?"

Mariah could only nod frantically. "Good," the Bearer said. "I know it amuses him to have you speak to other slaves about running away, to have you act out in front of humans, and so I have allowed it." He sighed, and in what seemed like an abrupt change of subject he asked, "Have you ever witnessed a human punished for miscegenation?"

Mariah had rarely heard the word, but she knew what it meant -- crossing the boundaries between human and slave. She remembered, when she had belonged to Mistress Ilse, the human, Master Mack, being whipped with the bullwhip and sent to the mines because he had raised a slave child as human. "Yes, Master," she said.

"Gabriel doesn't understand our rules, or the consequences of breaking them, but I do, and so do you. If he goes too far . . ." The Bearer sighed and shook his head. "I hate to think of it. There are plenty of people who are appalled, sickened, by how he treats slaves as if they were human. I protect him, but I can't control an angry mob."

The Bearer picked up the knife and put it down again. "If you do anything to hurt him, or go beyond the freedom he allows you, or provoke others into harming him, I will personally see to your punishment." He glanced meaningfully down at Mariah's crotch.

The kitchen door swung open and Master Gabriel came in. "She's willing to work with me," he said to the Bearer in a low voice. He stopped abruptly when he saw Mariah. "What are you . . .?"

The Bearer raised his hands and said jovially, "I didn't touch your rag, Healer, as I promised. Isn't that right, girl?"

"Yes, master," Mariah muttered.

The Bearer nodded approvingly. "Stand down then." He turned to Master Gabriel. "Tell me, Healer, is there anything you need? For your work, for your comfort?"

Master Gabriel was staring in consternation at Mariah as she lowered her arms, her back still pressed against the counter. "Yes," he said abruptly. "A cadaver."

"A corpse, you mean?" the Bearer asked, leading the way back to the living room.

Master Gabriel nodded. He had taken Mariah by the hand again. He looked at her as he said, "And a cold room. I have . . . students . . . who are ready to dissect."

The Bearer said, "Certainly. Choose any slave you like. Is there a method for killing them you prefer?"

Master Gabriel shuddered. He backed up, stepping on Mariah's toe. "I didn't mean . . ." he said. "If you've no objection, I'm sure the hospital can provide me with a cadaver of someone who died of natural causes. I know your tradition is burial, but if I had the assent beforehand . . . "

The Bearer smiled genially as he led Master Gabriel to the door. "Not a conversation I would want to have," he said, "but they say you have a way about you. I'll have my scribe send you a permission, and we'll find a cold room for you as well. We've plenty of unused kitchen facilities. Is there anything else you need?"

"Yes," Master Gabriel said, ice in his voice, turning to face the Bearer as he stepped into the corridor. "You gave me Mariah. Now leave her alone." Pulling her by her limp hand, he practically slammed the door in the Bearer's face. "You're paler than the whitewash on the wall," he said to Mariah. "What did he say to you?"

It took Mariah a moment to find her voice. "He told me . . ." She couldn't tell him. Master Gabriel would storm back in and . . . He didn't need to know and it would change nothing. "He told me to be nice to you," she said.

"Ah," Master Gabriel responded. "That accounts for why you're shaking."