Mindgames Ch. 24

Chapter 24: Trapped

The central mansion

Mariah prowled restlessly around Master Gabriel's apartment. She tried to do her breathing exercises but could not focus. When the patio door slid open she turned around eagerly, but her face fell. "Rose, we need to . . ." Master Animal began. Then he saw it was Mariah. "What are you doing here? Did Gabriel decide not to go to the western fields after all?"

"He went without me, Master," Mariah said. Master Animal blinked. "I haven't seen Rose. Can I help you with something?"

"You?" Master Animal snorted. "I need pigments mixed, not glared at." He went to the kitchen area and started rummaging through the oversized spice jars Master Gabriel kept there.

Mariah followed him. "What are you looking for, Master? I know how Master Gabriel organizes his herbs."

Master Animal put down the jar he was holding and looked at her, his eyes narrowed. "What are you up to?"

Mariah started to shrug and turn away, but then she met Master Animal's eye. "I want to help," she said.

"Help a human?" Master Animal said. He crossed his arms. "Why?"

"Not help a human," Mariah said. "Help you. And . . ." Her voice faltered. "I just want . . ." She coughed a little, and then looked at Master Animal defiantly. "I want to be better," she said.

Master Animal stared at her, and then softened. "Oh, dear one," he said. "Don't you know that you're spectacular just as you are?"

Mariah scowled. "No," she said. "I'm selfish and mean. I'm no use to anyone." She stood up tall and said, defiantly, "I'm going to change."

"That would be a loss to us all," Master Animal said.

Mariah shrugged and looked down. She took a deep breath. When she looked up, there were tears in her eyes. Her voice broke. "I want to be worthy of--" She stopped.

Master Animal looked at her steadily. "Of him, you mean? Of Gabriel?" Mariah nodded.

"You never will be," Master Animal said.

Mariah gave out the softest of whimpers, and raised her hand to rub her eyes. Master Animal took an almost clean cloth from his pocket and handed to her. "No more than I'll ever be worthy of Rose," he said. "But they don't mind."

Mariah shook her head. "Master Gabriel minds," she said. "He said things to me . . ." She wiped her eyes with Master Animal's handkerchief.

Master Animal nodded. "He told you some hard truths about yourself that you didn't like to hear." He grimaced. "He's done the same to me. It hurts, I know."

"Not truths," Mariah said. "Mean things. Not just about me, about Jordyn too. He was hateful."

Master Animal regarded her. "You know he hasn't been himself these last days," he said, gently. "If he's not back to normal by the time he returns from the western fields, I will make him see a healer. I'll talk to the Bearer if I have to." He picked up a jar from the counter and turned it so that the glass glinted in the sun coming through the window. He asked casually, "Why do you suddenly care what he says?"

Mariah froze. She couldn't answer.

But Master Animal rescued her. "You love him," he said softly. She nodded. He tilted his head. "You realized it when he said mean and hateful things to you?"

Mariah bristled. "Of course not!" she said hotly. "I realized it when I looked at your picture." Master Animal raised his eyebrows and looked where Mariah was pointing to his sketch on the wall. "You captured him," Mariah said. "Rose could say how, maybe. I just know that I looked at what you drew and I saw him and I remembered . . ." She faltered. "I realized . . . I felt . . ." She trailed off.

Master Animal stared at her, then grinned and bowed. "Another art connoisseur, under my nose," he murmured. Louder, he said, "If you're serious about helping me, find me Gabriel's stock of yarrow."

The western mansion

The iron collar around Gabriel's neck was attached by a short chain to a ring in the floor, so he could only lift his head a few inches. Even this act was made difficult by the fact that his hands were cuffed behind him, and his knees held wide by a spreader bar. He was trying to eat off a plate on the floor. He remembered a time when he had wanted to taste slave gruel and Animal had warned him away. An innocent time. Before Mariah.

Gabriel sobbed, which made some of the gruel, mixed with drool, fall out of his mouth onto the plate. Nobody noticed. His master was sitting at his desk tapping pensively with a quill pen on a piece of blank paper. His mistress was plucking the pubic hairs of their housegirl, Kevra.

Gabriel couldn't remember what he was doing here. He had wanted to make some kind of point with Mariah, but what? And why? He had saved her life and she had responded by spitting on him. He had devoted himself to her and she called him a liar. Well, now he was one, pretending to be a slave. It was time to end the charade. He raised his head as high as the chain would allow, and cleared his throat. "Excuse me," he said.

The central mansion

Mariah spent the afternoon with Rose, helping her to mix pigments. Later, after dinner in Master Animal's apartment, Master Animal looked at Mariah awkwardly. Mariah understood. "I give you my true word, Master," she said. "I won't run." Master Animal nodded, and Mariah walked across the courtyard to Master Gabriel's apartment, feeling suddenly lonely and bereft.

The next morning Rose invited Mariah to join her in the exercise yard. Mariah accepted, relieved that she would not have to spend the morning alone.

She was surprised when a groom handed her a breast band. She had never needed one before, but as she started to skip rope next to Rose she was grateful to have it. She had gained weight and even with the band her breasts bounced with each jump.

Within a short time Mariah was winded and covered with sweat. As she slowed she looked around cautiously for the yard mistress, but the woman was examining the skinned knee of a houseboy on the other side of the yard. Mariah started and stopped several times while Rose jumped steadily, a little flushed from the exertion but barely breathing heavily. When they finished, Rose led Mariah over to the weights, where Mariah was able to hold her own.

After a stretching session Mariah started to follow Rose to the showers lining a wall of the courtyard. A groom stopped her. He touched the end of Mariah's hair and tsked. "We'll get you to the front of the rotation today. Are you new to this wing?"

One of the other slaves, who Mariah did not recognize, answered for her. "She's not new. She's Mariah. She belongs to Master Gabriel."

"Really?" The groom looked at her with new interest, but then turned his attention back to her hair. "Well, your master may be a vet but I guess he doesn't know how to fix split ends. Come find me after your shower. I'm Ollie."

It had been a long time since Mariah had been properly groomed. When Ollie asked her what her master wanted, Mariah remembered that Gabriel had called her a green-eyed beauty, and smiled foolishly. Ollie rolled his eyes.

He did nothing drastic but he took his time. As he was putting a coat of clear polish on Mariah's fingernails, a girl sat in the chair next to hers. Ollie sneered. "It's not your day," he said. Mariah, surprised by his sharp tone, looked at the girl. She seemed on the verge of running away, but instead she said in a voice so low Mariah barely heard her, "Will you talk to me?"

"No!" Ollie said. "Stop bothering her!"

Mariah bristled, but before she could say anything the girl whispered, "It's not up to you, Ollie."

Mariah looked around and saw the yard mistress near the weights, counting down as a group of slaves did pushups. "She won't mind," the girl said to her, "as long as we don't make a fuss." She glanced at Ollie and then away from him.

"I'll talk to you," Mariah said.

Ollie shook his head. "I'll be back to put on a second coat when this is dry," he said. "If she bothers you, just kick her away. She'll like it."

Mariah flushed in anger. But the girl's face had turned the same color as hers, and she looked on the verge of crying. Taking a deep breath, Mariah put Ollie out of her mind.

"What's your name?" she asked the girl.

"Juicy." Mariah stared at her. "Because I'm a slut."

"You don't have to say that to me," Mariah said. "I'm just a slave."

"I do," Juicy said. "That's what I have to say whenever anyone asks my name. My mistress will know if I don't." She looked down at her hands.

Mariah was at a loss. She wished Rose were here, but she spotted her near the massage tables chatting with Raul.

"Is it true what they say about you? That you escaped?"

Mariah relaxed, relieved to be back on familiar territory. "Yes," she said. "I was outside the wall for seven hours." For the first time her words sounded hollow to her.

"What was it like, being free?"

The eagerness in Juicy's voice made Mariah pity her. She had talked many times about those hours outside the wall, before the dogs came, but she had never allowed herself to relive them. "At first it was glorious," she said. "But then . . ." She remembered the overwhelming fear she had felt when she realized she was completely alone, with no food, no water, no shelter, no friends. Her heart started to pound, and she gripped the seat of her chair with her hands.

"How did you do it?" Juicy whispered. "Did you have help?"

Mariah forced herself back to the present. Was Juicy a spy? No, it wasn't possible. She was beaten down and close to defeated. This conversation was clearly taking every ounce of energy she had. She had no room for a mindgame.

Mariah thought about the girl's question. For so long she had told herself that it was her own ability to plot and deceive that had allowed her to escape. But now she remembered. In the exchange, when she first met Master Cassender, the exchange master's boy Brewster, and the boy whose name she had never bothered to learn who had had sex with her, and the others who had caused a commotion to distract the exchange master and probably been punished for doing so -- they all had helped her convince Master Cassender that she was a rag. Hugo had pulled himself from the depths of his despair to give her the information she had needed. With a pang she wondered if he too had been punished for his role in her escape.

"I had help," she said.

Juicy reached over and grabbed Mariah's hand convulsively. "I want to escape." Mariah stared at her, hearing the same words she had said to Hugo, in the same strangled tone, as if the very words hurt her.

But she shook her head, finally believing what Master Gabriel had been telling her for so long, what she had seen in the map book she had studied on so many evenings. "There's no escape," she said. "If you get outside the wall, even if the hunters don't catch you, there's no place to go. You'll die."

"I want to die," Juicy said fiercely, forgetting to keep her voice low.

"Don't touch her!" Ollie came striding over. Juicy immediately let go of Mariah and cowered in her chair. "Your mistress should tie your hands behind your back to keep you from infecting decent folk," Ollie snarled.

Mariah stared at him. "I'm just a slave like her," she said. "And so are you."

A small group had come over with Ollie. A boy said, "You're not like her. Don't you know she's a pain slut?"

Juicy had sunk down in her chair and covered her face with her hands. The slaves stared down at her.

All of a sudden Mariah was transported in her memory back to the fields. It was night and she was approaching a fire where a group of slaves were torturing a rabbit. Then there had been nothing she could do but break the rabbit's neck to put it out of its misery.

But Juicy was no rabbit. And Mariah was no longer a young, unbroken slave just learning who she was. She felt the same righteous anger she had felt then, but something else now: control.

She stood up. She took a moment to center herself, and then looked at Ollie and matched her breathing to his. The other slaves took a step back, not sure what to expect.

Without breaking her eye contact with Ollie, Mariah reached down and took Juicy's hand, pulling her up. "Have you never been forced to be something you did not choose?" she asked.

"I was born a slave," Ollie answered stolidly. "But I never choose to take pleasure in pain."

"Don't you?" Mariah said. "Because you seem to take pleasure in giving pain to this girl."

"She likes it," Ollie snarled.

"No, I don't!" Juicy pulled away from Mariah's grip. "I can't help what my mistress made me!"

Suddenly the slaves around Juicy and Mariah fell to their knees. Too late Mariah saw that the yard mistress had approached, her whip in her hand, a mixture of fear and fury in her face. The mistress grabbed Ollie by the hair with her left hand. "What is going on here?" she demanded.

Ollie seemed to be at a loss for words. Juicy fell to her knees sobbing. Mariah, the only slave still standing, said, "Forgive me, Mistress. This is my fault."

"No!" Juicy stood up. "It's mine. Don't punish her, Mistress Fay!"

The yard mistress looked at Juicy with repugnance. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" she said. "If I punished you instead of her?"

And then Ollie was on his feet. "She didn't do anything, Mistress." he said. "I did." Mistress Fay blinked in disbelief. "I disrespected her. I won't do it again, I promise."

"I did too." A slave girl stood up.

"And I." A boy this time.

Soon all the slaves were on their feet, taking blame upon themselves. Mistress Fay stared at them, bewilderment and fear in her eyes. She reached for her whip. Mariah, in a desperate attempt to keep the mistress from punishing any of them, fell to her knees, grabbing for Ollie and Juicy and bringing him down with her. The other slaves followed suit, each kneeling before Mistress Fay, eyes lowered, obedient, awaiting her pleasure.

Mistress Fay surveyed them, breathing hard. At last she said, quietly, "Disperse." The slaves silently stood. Ollie went the table where he had left his kit and began putting his tools away. The others moved towards the exit, Juicy in the middle, protected. Mariah nodded to herself, satisfied that she had done what she could. But that wasn't enough. The words she had said to Juicy echoed in her head. Outside the wall there was no place to go.

The western mansion

Gabriel couldn't sleep. They had taken off his chains except for one that manacled his wrist to the floor, and Kevra had given him a blanket. But the penis-shaped gag that his mistress had forced into his mouth when he started to explain who he was prevented him from getting comfortable, or even from breathing properly. Every part of his body was in pain, and he needed to pee. He sat up and reached to the back of his head to feel the lock that held the gag's strap in place.

The window faced southeast, and he watched scattered clouds turn from dark gray to orange and pink. The same sunrise they could see in Harmony. His eyes filled with tears as he realized that due to his own stupidity, he was unlikely to ever see his home again.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Gabriel started. He hadn't realized that Kevra had woken. He nodded. The tears overflowed his eyes.

Kevra put her arms around him. "Don't cry," she said softly. "Everything will be okay."

Gabriel sobbed while Kevra held him, crooning softly to him. At last he was able to catch his breath. "Thank you," he tried to say, but the gag prevented him. Kevra smiled and started to speak, but suddenly she pulled away from him and scooted back to her own pallet and pretended to sleep. Gabriel understood why when, a moment later, the mistress emerged from her bedroom. She snapped her fingers and Kevra sat up, feigning sleepiness. "Tea, now," she said. Kevra hurried to the kitchen.

His mistress turned to Gabriel. "Poor darling," she said. "Couldn't sleep?" The kindness mindgame, Gabriel thought. Kevra's humanity towards him had cleared his head. He reminded himself to pretend to be a slave. He kneeled before his mistress, then bowed low until his head touched the floor. "Good boy," she said. "You are improving already. Your master would be proud." She walked behind him and nudged his knees wider open with her foot. Gabriel forced himself to make no sound.

"Bravo, my dear," Gabriel's master said from the doorway. "You'll have him trained in no time." The mistress laughed. "Shall we remove the gag?" she asked. "I do prefer to hear them beg."

Gabriel's master shrugged. "Suit yourself," he said. "I think you have made him understand the consequences of speaking without permission."

The central mansion

Amalie's soft-soled sandals made no sound as she walked across the parquet floor of the revel room. She stopped not far from the two girls who were drawing on easels with colored chalk. The picture the darker-haired one was drawing held little interest for her. Depicting a vase of dried flowers floating in the middle of the paper, it contained neither artistry nor metaphor. A mildly talented child could have done better.

As Amalie moved her attention to the other easel, the second girl shook her head. She turned to speak to her friend and saw Amalie out of the corner of her eye. Immediately she fell to her knees. The dark-haired girl followed suit.

"You may stand," Amalie said. As the girls scrambled to their feet Amalie walked closer to the easels. "You're Rose?" she said to the second girl.

Rose nodded. "Yes, Mistress."

"You usually shake," Amalie said. "Don't you fear me anymore?" She was genuinely curious.

The other girl clenched her hands into fists, but Rose merely bowed her head and said, "I wish only to serve you, Mistress."

Amalie took her whip off her belt and threw it to the floor several feet away. Both girls followed it with their eyes but did not move their heads. "Whatever you say to me, I won't punish you," Amalie said. "Do you believe me?"

"Yes, Mistress," Rose said.

"Why don't you fear me? Your master's not here to protect you."

Rose glanced at her friend, who remained expressionless. "You care for my master," Rose said slowly. "You wouldn't harm me for fun because he wouldn't like it."

Amalie considered this, then nodded. "He tells me you care for him too," she said.

"I love him, Mistress." Amalie watched a blush spread over Rose's face. Once you noticed her the girl was so winsome it made her teeth hurt.

She turned to Rose's easel. "I see he has you started on color."

"Yes, Mistress." Rose sighed.

"You prefer black and white?"

"No, Mistress. It's just . . ." She sighed again. "I can't get it right."

Amalie examined the drawing. It wasn't bad, for a beginning effort. Like the other housegirl, Rose was drawing a vase of flowers, but you would never know they were drawing the same thing. While Rose's picture was lacking technical niceties, the composition itself was strong, and the individual flowers had personality. "What are you trying to do?" Amalie asked.

"I want to show the sunlight glowing through the petals and the leaves," Rose said. "But whatever I try doesn't work."

Amalie looked back and forth between the flower arrangement and the drawing. "You're seeing with your brain, not with your eyes," she said. "You've used lighter hues of the same color where the light hits the flowers. But at that spot, what color are they actually?"

Rose studied the arrangement. "They're white," she said, actually sounding a bit breathless.

Amalie nodded. Before she could say more the door leading outside opened and Animal walked in, huffing, and pulling a cart with a plush red armchair on it. Amalie laughed out loud at the absurd sight.