Mindgames Ch. 21

"A gift?" Gabriel said stupidly.

"She asked me to thank you for setting her son's broken arm. She has trained me to be to your liking."

Mariah snorted. "Tell your mistress that Master Gabriel is a pansy who doesn't like slave girls," she said, moving as if to bodily throw the girl out.

Kishamie's eyes filled with tears. "If I don't please you, Master, I will be punished."

Gabriel sighed quietly. He saw Mariah roll her eyes.

"Come, stand up," Gabriel said. "Would you like some lemonade?"

Mariah snorted. "She doesn't want lemonade, Master," she said. "She wants to have sex with you."

"Oh," Gabriel said. "Well." He pushed his fingers through his hair.

Kishamie rose. "It's not just me she'll punish," she said. She looked at Gabriel with her big, limpid eyes. Gabriel ignored Mariah pretending to gag. "There are three of us. But," and her expression became hopeful, "I know I can please you." She reached out and took his hand.

"No, you can't," Mariah said. "Go home and take your punishment."

Kishamie squeezed Gabriel's hand gently. "Mariah," he remonstrated. He kept his voice gentle but Mariah looked as if he had slapped her.

All three of them turned when the door to the courtyard opened. Rose walked in. "We finally got the sooffel . . . soufflé to work!" Rose announced. "It's puffy, just like the book said!" She faltered when she saw Kishamie. "Master," she added, unconvincingly.

"Rose, this is Kishamie," Gabriel said. "She's . . ."

"She needs to speak with Master Gabriel alone," Mariah said, her voice sweet like honey. "Let's give them some privacy." Gabriel gave her a look that was equal parts pleading and annoyed. Mariah turned to Kishamie. "He might take some convincing, but of course he would hate to see you punished." With a smirk at Gabriel, she took Rose by the elbow and pulled her out to the courtyard.

Mariah remembers

Mariah was terrified the first time she saw the hunters. There were so many of them, and they had dogs, and she hated dogs.

It was the second time Master Cassender brought her to the gatehouse. As before, she and Hugo sat mostly unspeaking on the porch, while their humans were inside. They heard the cacophony long before they saw it. Five humans, all men, and at least five dogs; they were such a wriggling mass that Mariah couldn't be sure of her count.

But the men barely glanced at her as they ordered Hugo to find his mistress. She came out, disheveled and annoyed at the interruption, and fitted the key in the lock of the gate. Mariah could not look away as it slowly swung open and the men and their dogs went through. Mistress Nadia closed it with a clang, turned the key, and returned to the house.

Mariah knew that key would haunt her dreams.

Present day

Mariah had not intended to stay so long in Master Animal's apartment, but after proudly serving the soufflé Rose had been eager to show Mariah her new sketches. The two had long since made up from their fight about the encounter in the corridor. Rose had cried as she hugged Mariah and Mariah had refrained from recoiling from her embrace. Nevertheless, Mariah was unsure that their friendship had completely recovered from the bruising it had taken. As a concession to Rose she tried to exhibit an interest in her detailed description of the shading technique Master Animal was teaching her.

In Rose's exuberance she handed her chalk to Mariah. Mariah found that making marks on paper gave her a curious sense of possibility. She wondered out loud whether the artist who had drawn the maps in the atlas had begun his training with chalk. Master Animal animatedly held forth about the printing presses the ancients had used.

What seemed most important to Mariah was not the mechanics of making the book but that the maps told a person how the world is put together. "So does all good art," Master Animal growled. "Or how it falls apart."

By the time Mariah went home through the courtyard the nightwatchers would have been guarding the corridors. She was disappointed but not surprised that Master Gabriel had gone to bed.

She dreamed that she was Master Gabriel's sister - and yet not his sister - hiding in a wagon to follow him to some unknown destination where ice falls from the sky. But then she was in Master Cassender's wagon and he was driving it to the wall.

In the morning as she did her breathing exercises Mariah could not bring into focus her meditation on the mindgame. Where she usually visualized Master Gabriel talking to the hunters, pointing them to where she hid, she instead saw him as he had sat at the dining room table the day before, tracing in the atlas the path from Harmony to Rattletown. And then she saw the look in his eyes after she had put her hand on his.

Master Gabriel had wanted her, Mariah was certain of it. Mariah had felt, for a moment, that she wanted him too. But it was a different kind of desire than what she had known. It didn't seem to come from her groin, although she felt it there, acutely. Rather, for an instant, she had wanted to share herself with him, not just her body but her heart and soul.

And then he had pulled his hand away.

She had been hurt, yesterday. But now she thought more about what he had said when he was drunk. He had said that spanking could be pleasurable, and that he would never spank a girl unless she said she wanted it - and unless he believed her.

He had wanted her last night. But, while Mariah had seen a glimpse of what it meant to desire him in return, she had to admit to herself that she had been relieved when he had pulled his hand away. For all of Master Gabriel's seeming kindnesses, as she drilled into herself every morning, as she should be drilling into herself now, he had betrayed her at their first meeting. She must never trust him. And therefore she must never desire him.

Had Master Gabriel pulled away last night because he had sworn never to have sex with a slave? Or because he knew that Mariah did not really want him? If the latter, it was one more kindness that could never balance the scales against the first betrayal.

Mariah remembered a little guiltily that she had left Master Gabriel alone with Kishamie. She wondered how long it had taken him to get rid of her.

But when she emerged from the bedroom, Kishamie sat at the breakfast table across from Master Gabriel. She looked at once uncomfortable at being seated with a human and inordinately pleased with herself.

Master Gabriel smiled at Mariah in greeting. Her eyes suddenly stinging, Mariah ignored him. She abruptly returned to her bedroom and recommenced her breathing exercises, now picturing Gabriel with a hideous leer on his face walking the hunters to her hiding spot. For good measure she imagined him laughing with Master Animal as they planned each step of the mindgame. Was Kishamie part of it? Mariah opened her eyes and shrugged. She had no way of knowing, nor did it matter.

When she emerged again from her room, Gabriel and Kishamie were at the counter that separated the kitchen from the living area, crushing herbs. Fenugreek, by the smell. Kishamie was using Mariah's pestle. She said something and Gabriel chuckled, softly, appreciatively.

Mariah took a deep breath and held her head high. She proceeded to the kitchen and began to prepare her gruel, making a clatter as she did so. Kishamie turned to stare at her, wide-eyed, then turned back to Master Gabriel.

"Did you sleep well?" Master Gabriel asked Mariah in a pleasant, bland voice.

Mariah ignored him, but she met Kishamie's look with a cold stare.

"As soon as you've eaten, we'll drop Kishamie off at her apartment on the way to the clinic," Master Gabriel said.

"Why not bring her with us?" Mariah asked. "Or to the hospital? I'm sure she'd love to see what an abscessed bed sore looks like. Or an infected eye oozing snot."

"My mistress ordered me home by midmorning," Kishamie said. Her voice trembled slightly and she looked to Master Gabriel for reassurance.

"She ordered you to please Master Gabriel, and I'm sure it would please him to show you how to help people whose limbs are slowly rotting off." Master Gabriel, giving no indication that he had been listening to the exchange between Mariah and Kishamie, handed Kishamie a container for the fenugreek. He moved slowly, as if he was tired. Mariah scowled at him.

Kishamie's mistress lived in the opposite direction from the clinic. "She can get herself home," Mariah muttered as they walked through the endless corridor. Kishamie murmured something to Master Gabriel and he turned into a side hallway, taking her hand as he did so.

Kishamie tapped on a door about halfway down the hallway. It was opened almost at once by a slave girl who was, in her way, as beautiful as Kishamie, if not so appealing. She had long raven-colored hair and heart-shaped lips, and greeted Master Gabriel by bowing her head and saying softly, "Come in, Master."

Master Gabriel entered the apartment, still holding Kishamie's hand. Mariah trailed in behind them.

Mistress Esmerelda stood up from her table. Master Gabriel said heartily and loudly, "Truly, I can't thank you enough! You've given me one of the best nights of my life!"

Mariah stared at him. Why was he using such a strange, exuberant tone? But Mistress Esmerelda smiled triumphantly. "She pleased you, then?"

Master Gabriel nodded his head enthusiastically up and down. "Oh, yes! She was terrific!"

Mistress Esmerelda was a large woman, both tall and broad. She wore a floor-length, loud patterned dress that made her seem even more imposing. But, almost childlike, she clasped her hands together under her chin. "I'm so happy!" she said. "If you would like to keep her, she's yours."

For a moment everybody in the room froze. Then the raven-haired housegirl half-gasped, half-sobbed, and turned away. As Mistress Esmerelda's disapproving gaze went to the girl, Mariah saw Master Gabriel look at Kishamie and Kishamie give a slight shake of her head.

"You are so very kind," Master Gabriel said to Mistress Esmerelda, as hearty and as loud as before. "But Kishamie has told me how much she adores you. I wouldn't feel right taking her away."

"Nonsense!" said Mistress Esmerelda. "It's not for her to say whether she stays or goes. If she meets your needs, she's my gift to you." Nevertheless, she looked gratified.

"My needs are fully met," Master Gabriel said. He glanced at Mariah. who scowled. "But I will savor the memory of last night."

Mistress Esmerelda nodded. "Very well. Kishamie will give me all the details, of course."

"Of course," Master Gabriel said. He let go of Kishamie's hand. "I thank you again."

He turned towards the door, but Mistress Esmerelda interrupted him. "Healer, you must come to the full moon revel. You know my husband and I are in charge of planning it this month. The theme is Nature's Wondrous Bounty."

Master Gabriel expelled a small breath. "Thank you. I'll try to come."

"You must promise me," Mistress Esmerelda said. When Master Gabriel did not respond immediately, she turned to Kishamie. "You ask him," she said. "Show me how much of his affection you gained last night."

Kishamie looked down, clearly troubled. Very quietly she said to Master Gabriel, "Please, my lord, it would mean a great deal to me if you would come."

"Very well," Master Gabriel said. "I shall certainly attend, for you, Kishamie." Then he strode out the door so quickly that Mariah had to run to catch up.