Mind Games

       Chapter 2: Toward the Mansion

       For a mile or more the path led through meadowland, lush and full of birds and mice.  Nervous in wide-open spaces after so long journeying through forest, Gabriel was relieved to enter what he thought was woods, but the stand of trees was no more than thirty feet wide.  On the other side was more meadow, and then the farmland began, spreading forward as far as his eye could see. 

       As they left the tree stand, Jonquil turned and looked back, as if to make sure they were alone.  "Don't judge Tanya too harshly," he said conversationally.  "The gatehouse is her first posting, and a punishment posting at that.  She is very young." 

       Gabriel began to reply, but his throat tightened.  When he was certain his voice would sound natural, he asked in imitation of idle curiosity, "What is she being punished for?"

       Jonquil gave a half laugh, half snort.  "She was too fond of a slave.  Got into a fight over him with some people who wanted to have fun with him.  Showed no respect for her betters."  He added, as an afterthought, "Not uncommon in the young.  Do her good to have some time to think and reflect on her priorities." 

       Gabriel looked at Jonquil in surprise, both at the content of what he said and the lack irony in his voice.  At length he asked, "What happened to the slave?"

       Jonquil gave a bark of laughter.  "Do us a world of good to have a rebel among us, I see.  The slave was sent to the exchange, I expect."  At Gabriel's puzzled look, he added, "A trading post, where those tired of their slaves leave them off, and those looking for new blood pick them up.  You'll see it, I'm sure." 

       As they spoke, they followed the road through a cultivated field.  By Gabriel's eye it was a full acre devoted to kale.  In Harmony the farmers tended to grow crops together, intensely cultivating the land and using the plants to fertilize and shade each other, and to stop pests from spreading.  Here, Gabriel noted, as they passed a boundary into an acre of tomatillos, each field was discrete. 

       In the distance farmers were assiduously picking peas whose tendrils twined around lengths of string stretching from stake to stake.  As they drew near, Gabriel realized with a jolt that the farmers were naught but children, naked and thin.  They paid Gabriel and Jonquil no mind, or deliberately ignored them, not even looking up when their horses passed near.  None seemed older than their early teens, and some were scarcely more than babes.  In the next field, Gabriel watched a little boy hoeing dirt into small hills the size to plant corn.  Gabriel wondered at the strange tattoos on the child's skin, until, his heart in his throat, he realized they were scars. 

       Occasionally Gabriel also saw an adult in the fields, clothed, clearly a "master or mistress", and if they happened to catch sight of the riders they nodded or tipped their hats.  Mostly they seemed to congregate in the shade of buildings in the middle of the fields in groups of two or three, but some walked around the fields, instructing the child-farmers, examining their work, or, two or three times, administering a beating.  The first time Gabriel saw this, a tall, slim woman was viciously kicking a very small boy, who, like Griley, lay on the ground without attempting to shield or defend himself.  Jonquil lifted his hand towards Gabriel warningly and said in a mocking voice, "Don't go trying to save that one too.  The walls’ll tumble before I'll live down interfering with Tanya and her beast." 

       They passed wagons, dragged by draft horses or slaves, empty going past them towards the outer fields, or full, going slowly the same direction as the travellers.  Some of the horses whickered at Pegasus or at Aphid, Jonquil's horse, but, like the farmmasters, the drivers of the wagons would nod politely and go about their business.        

       In an apple orchard, Gabriel's attention was drawn by the sound of shouting to his right.  Looking down a row of trees, he saw a man beating a naked girl of about thirteen with a heavy stick, surrounded by a half-circle of the ubiquitous naked children.  The man rained the blows mostly at the girl's chest, which had only the beginning of bumps on it.  The girl emitted shrill squeals through closed lips which were bleeding from her biting them.  The ends of her long hair were tied tightly to a tree bough a foot above her head, so that if she moved to avoid the blows she would be hanging from her hair.  Jonquil cleared his throat warningly.  Gabriel averted his eyes from the scene.

       In an apparent effort to distract Gabriel, Jonquil asked him general, polite questions about life in Harmony.  Gabriel was surprised at how little Jonquil was able to tell him in turn about basic facets of life in Riviera.  He was wholly ignorant about farming techniques, about how food was distributed, or even about who had woven the clothes he wore.  At last Jonquil threw up his hands, laughing.  "Ask me about border riding and I'll tell you all," he said.  "Or about where to find the softest, freshest, blondest slave cunt to warm your bed and prepare your food.  Or about the domestic travails of my good wife and her five wayward children.  As to all other things I live in blissful ignorance."  He kicked his horse into a trot to emphasize his point.

       They passed through several pastures, and then cropland again.  The road was more travelled here, and several times Jonquil stopped to have a brief conversation with a rider or driver, but never introduced Gabriel, and they showed no curiosity towards him. 

       Despite the signs of increasing civilization, Gabriel jolted with surprise when the road brought them through a few rows of pine trees into a huge expanse of lawn, so enormous that Gabriel could not make out the edges of it to either side of him.  Half a mile in front was the mansion itself.  The largest building in Gabriel's home, Harmony, was Centric Hall, where the whole community came together to break bread on feast days.  Gabriel could not even begin to calculate how many thousands of times the Hall would fit into this mansion.  As amazing to him as its expanse was its height, as it rose up four stories in places.  In Harmony many families had attics in their houses for storage, or lofts for sleeping, but to put a building on top of itself like this was a marvel unheard of.

       

       The lawn itself contained pockets of activity.  Here, a group of masters and mistresses catching the afternoon sun, sprawled on long, low divans, while slaves fanned them. There, a small group of children with an adult reading a book to them.  Here, a fierce faced mistress slapping a slave's bottom with a flyswatter as the slave leans over and touches her toes.  There, two slaves coupling as a mistress stands over them, watching them carefully.  Here, a slave mows the lawn while another rakes the leavings nearby.  There, a woman in a bright red tunic dozes as she leans against a gnarled oak tree.

       The lackadaisical, humdrum quality of the human torture that imbued this place was as horrifying to Gabriel as the acts themselves.  Already he could feel himself beginning to become inured to it, as he had seen patients get used to chronic pain until it was no more than background like the noise of crickets on a summer night.  He wondered despairingly how he could fight the numbness.  He wished Dalma, or any of the elders of Harmony, were here to advise him. 

       Jonquil impatiently shifted his corpulent body in his seat. Gaining Gabriel's attention, he reined his horse to the left, following a road that skirted the lawn.  Gabriel clucked to Pegasus to follow. 

       "Horses aren't allowed on the lawn itself," Jonquil explained conversationally.  "Some people are afraid of them, and they make a mess."  As they rode, Gabriel continued to look over his shoulder at the scenes of life, and death, on the lawn.  More than once he involuntarily tugged on the reins, as if stopping his horse would stop a stick from descending onto a slave's prostrate body, or stop a boot from reaching a slave's knee.  With disgust Gabriel realized that he had already started thinking of these people as "slaves."  He shook his head abruptly, trying to keep his thoughts clear.

       Watching the lawn intently, Gabriel had not noticed that they had ridden through the shadow of long, low barn on their left, and were now approaching a huge stable.  His attention was drawn by the snorting and stamping of horses, to Gabriel’s mind the first friendly sounds he had heard since passing through the gates hours earlier.  Pegasus seemed cheered as well, her ears pricking and her step livelier. 

       Jonquil turned left past the stable building, into a yard bordered by the stable on one side and another road opposite.  Gabriel was taken aback by the sheer size of the structure.  As they had ridden past the building Gabriel calculated fifty horses could be housed against the outer wall.  Entering the yard, he saw that there were ten doorways in a long row, each leading into its own massive stable.

       Like the much larger lawn, the stable yard contained flurries of discrete activity.  Horses, ridden and led by both slaves and masters and mistresses, crossed in various directions, stood for a brief grooming, or drank from a trough.  Masters and mistresses spoke with slaves, or beat them, or ignored them.  Where several bales of hay were stacked against one of the stable walls, a slave and his mistress quietly made love.

 

       Jonquil dismounted and stopped a slave who was hurrying towards the entrance with a curry brush in hand.  Placing both hands on her shoulders and forcing her to look him in the eye, Jonquil said clearly and slowly, "Do you know Master Darius?"  The girl's eyes widened and she nodded, slack jawed with fear.  Jonquil did not relax his grip on her.  "Go find him.  Tell him Master Jonquil has returned with a visitor."  The girl nodded again, but Jonquil did not release his grip.  "Master Jonquil, with a visitor.  Remember."  The girl nodded a third time.  Jonquil let her go.  She began to run, remembered she was carrying the brush, stopped, put it down, began to pick it up again in confusion, dropped it, and then, with a backward glance at Jonquil, sprinted away.

       Gabriel dismounted, feeling bereft at the thought of leaving his one friend in this strange place.  He walked around to Pegasus' nose, petting its softness. She whickered, blowing into his hand.  Gabriel felt she was as ill at ease as he.

       A shortish, pencil thin man dressed entirely in black came striding up to them.  He looked clearly annoyed, but relaxed when he saw Jonquil. "Ah, it's you,"  he said.  "Should've known.  Forget where you stable your horse?" 

       Jonquil sniffed.  "I would never bother the stable master for a matter such as that.  I bring important news and personage and horse."  He turned to Gabriel and said formally, "Darius, stable master, may I present you to Gabriel, traveling healer from Harmony." 

       Darius nodded curtly at Gabriel but showed more interest in Pegasus.  "That's not the horse the lad rode off on," he said in an offended tone.  His pencil thin mustache curved down in a sneer.  "And the lad's not with you," he added accusingly.

       Gabriel stuck out his hand to shake, and after a hesitation Darius took it, limply.  "My apologies, sir," Gabriel said.  "Neither the horse nor the lad were in condition to return immediately.  But both can be fairly expected before full harvest." 

       "Full harvest?"  Darius' sneer found its way into his voice. "Every day is full harvest here, sir.  We are men, not vagabonds."

       Jonquil intervened.  "Come, come, Darius," he said in his booming voice.  "You know right well the man means tenth month.  Let's get his horse to stable and us to dinner and we'll all be better men for it."  Jonquil gave Darius a look which said he'd better be.

       Darius held his hands up in limp surrender.  "No harm meant," he said.  "Take the horse to the third stable, along with your bay mare.  I guess Stefan will have that empty spot for a while longer," he added, sardonically.

       

       "Thank you," Gabriel said, following Jonquil as he crossed in front of the stables.

       In front of the third to last stable entrance, Jonquil stopped and peered into the dim light.  "Halloo," he boomed in, and stepped slightly into the entrance. 

       Almost immediately, a heavyset dark skinned man came running out and skidded to his knees in front of Jonquil, bringing his head towards the floor.  "Your servant, master," the slave said in a remarkably courteous tone for all that he was out of breath.

       The slave was plumper than any others Gabriel had seen, indeed leaning towards fat.  In addition, although he waited at obvious attention for orders, the slave's forehead did not quite touch the ground and he was not trembling.  His backside was, however, covered with scars both fresh and healing. 

       "Ah, good, good," Jonquil said to the slave.  "Find your master and tell him Jonquil is here with a stranger."

       The slave bowed lower and then immediately rose to his feet, hurrying down the long, narrow stable.  Gabriel saw that he was more muscle than fat, and he walked with both grace and confidence.  He also saw that the scars travelled from the man's neck to his ankles.

       "Fine slaves, these," Jonquil said to him.  "I'd take any one of them for my own, if Stefan would part with them.  He never will though.  Too fond of 'em, though he won't admit it.  Unnatural, almost."

       Jonquil interrupted himself as a man stepped out of a stable into which the slave had just disappeared.  Stefan was tall and slender, with gray eyes and light brown hair that needed a trim. Although he was dressed much like the other men in a somewhat faded green open necked tunic and tan riding pants, on him these clothes seemed only to accentuate his broad shoulders and fine physique.  Gabriel guessed the man to be about his own age.  As he strode towards the waiting group, Gabriel saw that the knees of Stefan's pants were covered with mud and straw, and dirt spattered about him.

       Stefan nodded politely.  "Jonquil," he said, "I trust the latest horse was satisfactory."  There was no questioning tone in Stefan's voice, and the right corner of his mouth turned up in a small sneer. 

       "Excellent horse, excellent," Jonquil boomed.  "Yours always are.  Not like some around here."  Stefan merely watched him, expressionless.  "So I've brought you one more."  At Stefan's look of surprise, Jonquil added, "Already spoke to Darius, it's all arranged.  Fine horse, shouldn't be no trouble to you." 

       Stefan's brow puckered with annoyance and consternation.  "Practically full up here," he said.  "Darius knows that."  Unconsciously his hand went to the whip hanging at his belt. 

       Jonquil held up both hands in mock surrender.  "My dear fellow," he said, "Most special circumstances here.  Wouldn't bother you for anything less."  He turned and beckoned to Gabriel, who stepped forward, shy at the trouble he was causing. Jonquil continued, "This young fellow is Gabriel.  Came here all the way from Harmony, just to look at the Bearer's daughter.  Came ahorseback of course.  The lad's not with him, nor his mount, so Darius knows you've a spare room."  He added ingratiatingly, "Horse needs the best care.  You can give it to her.  Fine horse, too."

       Stefan's lips formed a tight, white line for a moment, and his hand fondled the whip attached to his belt as he looked at Gabriel with cold eyes.  "Rudy is well?" he asked in a cold voice, implying that he had better like the answer.

       Gabriel nodded.  "The horse is better than the boy," he said.  "The boy had pneumonia, but Rudy just needs some time to get his legs back.  It was the horse's nose that brought them safely to Harmony at the end."   

       Stefan looked mollified.   As he glanced beyond to Pegasus, who Gabriel held loosely by the rein, his expression changed entirely.  He took a step towards the horse and then stopped abruptly.  "May I?"  he inquired of Gabriel, who, with a touch of misgiving, nodded assent and handed him the reins.  Standing about eighteen inches in front of the horse, Stefan held the reins for half a minute, motionless, staring into Pegasus eyes.  His hands moved minutely as he let the reins down, so they dangled from the horse's bit towards the ground.  After waiting half a minute longer he slowly raised his hand to the bridge of her nose and rubbed.  Pegasus pricked her ears forward but otherwise did not move. Stefan massaged her jaw then, softly.  Pegasus whickered softly and laid her chin on his shoulder, then backed up.

       As Stefan turned to him, Gabriel fought jealousy.  Stefan gave him a half smile that was almost sympathetic.  "I never saw a horse with a jaw  that shape," he said.  "Do you breed them that way on purpose?"

       Gabriel shook his head.  "We sometimes mix our horses with feral ones that run the plains a few days from Harmony.  Pegasus came out of a mare that was more pet than workhorse.  Her sire was a plains stallion.  She gets her temperament from her ma, and her stamina and her jaw line from the stallion."     

       

       Stefan frowned.  "Horses don't get their temperaments from their begetters," he said sharply.  "They get them from the people who raise them or break them."

       Jonquil stepped between the two men. "Gentlemen, gentlemen," he said.  "Very interesting debate, I'm sure.  You must continue it some other time.  But let's get this poor horse its supper, and ours as well."

       Stefan accorded the man his cool look.  Then he turned with considerable more warmth to Gabriel.  "You'll want to see her stable, and the slave who will care for her, I assume."

       "Oh, no," Gabriel said hastily, to which Stefan responded with a surprised frown.  "I mean," he said, "I take care of my own horse.  I appreciate your stable no end, but I've no use for your slave." 

       Jonquil sighed vehemently and tapped his foot.  Stefan turned to him.  After a moment he drawled, "No need to bore you. I've a chesty young thing from Cilla's in my office.  Help yourself, and I'll let you know when we're done here."

       Jonquil shrugged but looked cheered.  "Mighty hospitable of you," he said.  "Border riding's dry work."  Glancing in the office, he evidently approved of what he saw, for he hurried inside and closed the door with such eagerness that it slammed. 

       Stefan, turned to Gabriel with tiny, abashed smile.  "Let's get your horse to stable," he said.  "Couldn't be needier than Jonquil but some sweet cultivated oats after weeks of leaves and meadow grass would probably go down fast." 

       Turning into the dimming recesses of the stable, Stefan walked quickly and with perfect confidence that Gabriel and the horse would follow.

       Glancing curiously into the stalls as he passed, Gabriel saw that they were mostly occupied.  The horses ranged from little ponies to restless stallions, but all were well-tended, with clean, shiny coats and plenty of feed and clean water at hand. 

       "Ah, Jordan, a moment of your time if you please," Stefan said directly in front of Gabriel, who stopped short, realizing that he had been gawking rather than watching where he was going. 

       A pixie-like slave appeared at the entry of a stable to their right.  Little more than five feet tall, she had reddish brown hair cropped short which threatened to fly in all directions at once.  Taut muscles outlined her thin limbs.  Her downcast eyes were fixed on Stefan's boots, but she did not fall to her knees before him.  She stood quietly and without trembling. 

       Stefan looked at the girl, expressionless except for the slightest twitching of the right corner of his mouth, before saying, "Rudy's stall is clean?"  His tone indicated that it had better be.

       For an instant the girl looked up, a quick quiet smile flashing before she remembered herself and looked down again.  "Yes, my lord," she replied in a slightly breathless tone that sounded surprisingly like happiness to Gabriel. 

       Stefan blinked in surprise and then sighed rather than spoke a soft, "Oh."  He reached out slowly and raised the slave girl's chin until she was looking him in the eye again.  He lowered his hand but the girl's gaze did not waiver.  There was no fear in her eyes and she seemed to be fighting a smile.  "Rudy's not back yet," Stefan said gently.  "I'm putting another horse in his stable."  

       

       "Oh," Jordan breathed, unconsciously echoing her master.  Her smile faded and she looked down again and then back at Stefan.

       Stefan indicated Gabriel.  "This is Master Gabriel, and his horse, Pegasus," he said. 

       Jordan looked immediately to Gabriel's feet and bowed her head, showing humility and great dignity at the same time.  Then she looked up and beyond him to Pegasus.  The corners of her mouth twitched and when Pegasus stamped her foot and snorted, tossing her head, Jordan smiled.  "Taking care of your horse is an honor to me," she said to Gabriel, looking again at his feet. She said it with such feeling that Gabriel wondered if she might not actually mean it. 

       Stefan said quickly, "You are not to care for the horse, Jordan."  She looked him full in the face in surprise.  "Master Gabriel will care for the horse himself.  You will provide him with any assistance he needs, but you're not to go near the horse without his express permission." 

       Jordan's eyebrows furrowed in confusion and she frowned, but she said only, in a small, humble voice, "Of course, my lord."

       Gabriel was embarressed by the intimacy of the scene. Stefan opened his mouth as if to speak, and then closed it, swallowed, and said to the girl, "You are excused from the lottery tonight. See to Master Gabriel's needs and then to the loft."

       Jordan nodded.  "Yes, my lord.  Thank you, my lord," she said, in her quiet tone.

       Stefan stepped passed Jordan, half turning to Gabriel.  "The cunt will see to everything you need.  If you've any complaints, let me know."  His tone was harsh but, almost as if he did not realize it, as he walked by Jordan he squeezed her elbow softly with his hand.

       For a moment Gabriel watched Stefan's retreating figure walk towards to dim rear of the building, his footsteps padding on the packed dirt floor.  Jordan said, in her soft voice, "It would be my privilege to show you to the stall, my lord."  She looked at him briefly full in the face as he nodded assent, and then turned and slowly led him towards the middle of the stable building and into a stable on the right. 

       Gabriel led Pegasus into it, pleased to see a largish, clean space, with a trough for water and a nice size wind hole with a sliding panel so it could be opened or closed.  The side walls were shoulder high on Pegasus, so she could visit with her neighbors if she had a mind to. 

       Gabriel let Pegasus' reins drop, and he leaned his forehead against hers, breathing in her smell, softly rubbing her cheek.  He closed his eyes, suddenly exhausted.

       Embarressed, Gabriel looked around to the slave girl, but she had disappeared.  Gabriel unloaded his saddle bags and placed them near the stall door, taking out only the curry brush.  He unsaddled the horse and removed the protective blanket, which was practically grimey.  Slowly, beginning with her forelock, he began to comb Pegasus.  She seemed to know that they were at journey's end, and stood quietly, as tired as he. 

       Gabriel took his time, checking carefully the various bramble scratches the horse had on her legs, and examining her hooves with great tenderness.  When he finished, he looked up to see the slave girl approaching the horse with a clean blanket, as if to throw it over her.  "Stop it," he said, much more harshly then he intended, his voice positively gravelly with fatigue.

       Jordan fell to her knees with a thud where she stood, holding the blanket in front of her like a platter.  "Forgive me, master," she said, and Gabriel heard fear in her voice for the first time.  Remorse filled him, as he quickly took the blanket from her.

       "I didn't mean to scare you," he said.  "I just don't want you to touch my horse." 

       The girl nodded, still on her knees.  "Only command me, my lord," she said, making a small gesture with her hand to indicate behind her.  Gabriel saw that while he had been tending Pegasus she had brought bales of hay, sacks of feed, and buckets of water, as well as clean grooming equipment.  Remorse again filled him as he thought of the small girl toting all these things for the comfort of his horse. 

       "Thank you," he said.  The girl rose to her feet and retreated to the entrance of the stall as Gabriel strew the hay about, filled the trough with the water which, he noticed with approval, was luke warm rather than cold, and the other with oats.  The girl had brought much too much feed for the horse, but Pegasus had the sense to stop eating when she had had enough.

       Suddenly, from the back of the stable, Gabriel heard the crack of a whip followed by the low grunt of a man.  Another whip crack, and another, and another, each followed by a groan or a whimper, smothered.  In all, there were fifteen, and then the unmistakeable murmur of Stefan's sardonic voice.  A short time later another round of whipping began, followed by a feminine voice, crying and pleading, but softly.  During it all, Jordan stood at attention, her eyes on the ground, motionless.

       Gabriel turned back to his horse and threw his arms around her neck, whether for comfort or to protect her he knew not.  Pegasus munched on her oats, oblivious.  Gabriel's eyes stung and he wished that he and Pegasus were back in the forest again, that this day had never begun, that he had never reached this place. 

       "The horse is nicely settled, nicely indeed!"  Jonquil's booming voice broke Gabriel's reverie.  Gabriel pretended to examine a spot on the horse's neck as he collected himself, then turned around to face his guide.

       Jonquil's corpulent figure almost filled the entry door to Pegasus' stable.  To the man's surprise, Gabriel shoved by him before he could get out of the way and turned to Jordan, standing nearby, still at humble attention.  He grabbed her by the shoulders, squeezing her naked flesh tight and shaking her a little.  "If anyone whips Pegasus, or touches her, I'll..."  He broke off, realizing he had nothing with which to threaten her.

       Jordan said in a gentle, soft voice that belied the hardness of her body and Gabriel's grip on it, "Nobody will, master.  She'll be fine here."   

       She looked as if she would go on, but Jonquil broke in with his loud voice, "Learning to talk to them already, good, good.  Glad to see it.  You'll fit in fine.  Horse is fine, too.  Nobody will molest her.  Plenty else to molest around here, much more interesting." 

       Gabriel looked with horror at Jonquil as he realized that, as Jonquil said, he had treated the girl as if she were his to command, his thing.  Slowly he relaxed his grip on the slave girl and removed his hands from her shoulders, backing away.  "I'm sorry," he muttered.

       Jonquil was tugging on Gabriel's sleeve in his hurry to get to supper.  Gabriel glanced back and saw Jordan, assuming her customary pose of head slightly bowed, looking at his feet.