 |
|||
|
|
CHAPTER 8: Settling in
When they returned to Animal's suite, Gabriel coaxed Rose out of her terror enough to let him help set up his own apartment, across the courtyard from Animal's. The rooms were a mirror image to Animal's in layout, with a living and dining area, a small kitchen, a large and small bedroom, and a bathroom. The furniture was similar in style to Animal’s as well, but somewhat haphazard. Gabriel could see brighter spots in the carpeting where the furniture must have sat 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.
There were four apartments that shared the courtyard. One had been converted into Animal’s studio. Its southern wall was the outside wall of the mansion, and it was lined with windows across its length.
The fourth suite was occupied by an ornery old man, Pieter, and his matronly slave who, Gabriel later observed, cared for him conscientiously. Animal laughed when Gabriel mentioned this. "Of course she does," he said. "When the old man dies it's back to the exchange for her. Bad enough for a young thing like Rose. At Chilla's age she'll be lucky if she gets sent back to the farms instead of turned into dogsport."
“Really?” Gabriel said, shocked. “Are there so many trained nurses that their talents can be wasted?”
“I’m not a trainer,” Animal responded with asperity. “But even the old men prefer to have a fresh young thing to change their bedpans.”
Yet Gabriel noticed that Animal was courteous to both the Pieter and his slave, sometimes offering to keep an eye on the man as he napped in his lounge chair in the courtyard while Chilla ran errands or went about her household tasks inside. When he saw that Gabriel had overheard him making arrangements to do this one day, he shrugged. "The cunt causes no trouble and keeps the old man out of my way," he said.
However, Animal forbade Rose to approach Pieter, keeping her out of the courtyard when he was there. Gabriel thought he understood the reason for this when one day, Chilla was carrying Pieter out to his lounge chair at the same time that Rose happened to be crossing the courtyard from Gabriel's suite to Animal's. The old man's eyes lit up when he saw her, and he beckoned her over to the lounge chair and made her get on his hands and knees before him, using her as a footstool, insisting that she move her back up and down, as he began to put ice cubes into her asshole, chortling. Unlike with the Bearer, Animal wasted no time in pulling Rose away, cursing under his breath, and neither he nor Rose said anything more about it.
Gabriel did what he could for the Pieter as well, giving Chilla teas that would ease his arthritis some and showing her a massage technique that would help his circulation. She accepted his offerings with a quiet smile, but rarely responded to his attempts to make conversation. She was more forthcoming with Animal, and once or twice even laughed at a joke he made.
To his pleasure, Rose slowly overcame her fear of Gabriel. Although her timidity could make her appear quite dull-witted, Gabriel soon learned that she was both intelligent and a keen observer of all that went on around her. Although Animal was clearly fond of her, Gabriel doubted that he noticed the care that she took of him in not just obeying his orders but anticipating his desires and quietly making his life pleasant. Other suites that Gabriel visited did not have fresh flowers adorning their dining room tables; and the fact that the apartment was spotlessly clean despite Animal’s slovenly ways in everything but his art was testament to Rose’s energy.
The most Animal would say about Rose, in a growl, was that "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 was tempted to taste it once, but Animal warned him away sharply, telling him to avoid slave food if he ever cared to have children.
Animal and Gabriel quarreled at first over whether Rose should be allowed to sit at the table with them, a serious breach of protocol, but Animal gave in suddenly with a shrug. He allowed Gabriel to coax her to eat small bites of the food that she cooked. One day, pretending disinterest 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 laughed at his hypocrisy, stifling a further giggle when he glared at her.
Gabriel visited Carmen frequently, setting her up with a regimen of physical therapy which she rarely followed unless he took her through it himself. Like her father, Carmen appeared to care little whether the legs that carried her were her own or those of a slave. Gabriel was convinced that what ailed them was nothing more than atrophy and a habit of thinking of herself as an invalid. At times when his path crossed the Bearer’s, the man would look at him as if about to speak, but he never said much more than a jovial greeting.
The wart of the Bearer's wife was the first of many tiny grievances the people of Riviera brought to Gabriel, demanding his attention and sympathy. At Animal’s suggestion, the Bearer set him up with a clinic not far from the suite where he patiently met with seemingly endless numbers of people, many of whom seemed to have made up ailments just to have a chance to speak with the outlander. As Animal pointed out, at least he could keep regular hours, as short as he chose, and politely refuse to see people who simply accosted him as he walked through the corridors.
After Gabriel set a broken arm of a slave that had accompanied his mistress 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 the masters and mistresses with their pretended ailments, he labored to ease the pain of the slaves, only to find that the same slaves often were brought in the next day by their masters or mistresses after they had been further abused or tortured.
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.
Gabriel found comfort in his time with Animal, who he considered a friend, and with Rose, who he hoped someday would be. His other refuge was the stables, not just riding Pegasus, a little more and faster every day as she became rested after the journey, but in the company of Jordan and the other stable hands, and, to his surprise, Stefan. On one morning's visit to the stable he watched as Stefan led a speckled mare out of the stable, followed by Jordan leading a huge black stallion. Jordan mounted the black beast with a mighty swing of her leg. "You ride?" he asked, incredulously.
"As you see, my lord," Jordan said, straight-faced. Stefan, nearby, snorted his own amusement, but rather than the sarcastic statement Gabriel expected from him, invited him to come riding with them. Hastily Gabriel saddled Pegasus.
Neither Pegasus nor Stefan’s mount could keep up with Jordan's huge horse, Midnight, as he raced. Jordan looked like freedom itself cantering through a meadow, her eyes alight with joy and adventure. Stefan told Gabriel that Jordan had broken Midnight to the saddle herself, and no one else rode him.
Gabriel frequently rode with Jordan or Stefan, or both, and was learning the grounds and paths to the west of the mansion. He came to learn that the passage he and Jonquil had ridden through from Holden’s Gate was known as the Whelping Corridor because that was where the young slaves, after an age to be taken from their mothers but too young to be trained for the mansion, farmed. The rest of the grounds was worked by grown slaves who were not considered attractive or useful or young enough for mansion work.
One afternoon, on a whim, Animal and Rose came with Gabriel to the stables. After consultation, Rose was mounted on gentle Mercy and Animal on the friskier Argon. To everyone's surprise, Rose rode calmly and confidently, while Animal could barely control his mount, talking to her, then cursing her, then flailing at her with his legs, but making little progress in speed or direction. Disdainfully Stefan had him switch mounts with Rose, and she continued to ride Argon with aplomb, firmly holding the reins and keeping her ankles down, a prim smile on her face. Animal made it back to the stables with the rest only because Mercy would docilely follow any lead.
Gabriel tried to be sympathetic on the walk back to the mansion, but Rose giggled when she saw him biting his cheeks to keep from laughing, and then he let out a guffaw. Animal stalked disgustedly up the front steps, but stopped suddenly and waited for them when he saw the Bearer and his entourage coming in a path to intercept them.
The Bearer ignored Animal altogether and greeted Gabriel heartily. "Healer!" he boomed, as Rose fell immediately to the ground, banging the funny bone of her knee on a stair and giving a stifled, close-lipped whimper as she prostrated herself. The Bearer looked down on her scornfully and stepped heavily down the stairs, turning her over disdainfully with the toe of his boot. Gabriel moved to intervene, pulling Rose to her feet and putting his arm around his shoulder as Animal stood passively by.
"We need to get you a real slave, Healer," the Bearer said. "This rag can't be properly showing you the glories of our civilization." He stepped toward them, but Gabriel quickly put himself between the Bearer and Rose.
"You frighten her," Gabriel said.
The Bearer laughed. "Of course I frighten her. That's the fun!" He put his hands up to his ears, palms forward, waggled his fingers, and made a grotesque face, moving towards her. Rose cowered back. The Bearer laughed again, and reached his waggling fingers towards Rose's breasts.
Gabriel again put himself between Rose and the Bearer. "You told her she was to serve me," he said. "That puts her under my protection. And I ask you to leave her alone."
A man from the group the Bearer was with stepped forward. "The Bearer has jurisdiction over all slaves," he said angrily.
The Bearer raised his hand for peace. "The Healer is a guest," he said. "I honor his request." He paused and then added, "But really, Healer, you must pick a better slave. Some of them are quite remarkable in what they can do." Seeing Gabriel's disinterest, he added, "Any slave you see, even if it's one of my own household, you can have. Just say the word."
"You're very generous," Gabriel said.
The Bearer gave him a searching look and then said, “Come. Accompany me on my rounds as I look over the disintegration of my kingdom. Today I go to the vineyards to find why our wine is becoming as sour as my disposition." Gabriel looked to his friends and the Bearer added, "Bring the painter and his rag if you want."
Despite his bombast the Bearer seemed anxious for Gabriel to come, and Gabriel was curious about the winemaking process here. Riviera's methods of production of basic commodities remained a mystery to him, and Animal was almost as ignorant of its ways as Jonquil had been. Although only vaguely familiar with the vineyards at Harmony, he was anxious to seize any opportunity to learn how Riviera ran.
Seeing that he had Gabriel's assent, the Bearer continued his stride across the lawn. As he walked the Bearer frequently stopped suddenly, motioning a slave from his entourage to dig up a clump of crab grass or glaring at a gaggle of young men and women picnicking beneath a tree. Three open wagons awaited them at the driveway at the edge of the lawn. The Bearer lumbered into the top seat of the front one, next to a burly slave with a sprinkling of gray hair. The Bearer indicated that Gabriel should join him in his seat, while Animal and Rose scrambled inside and the rest of the entourage spread out over the remaining two wagons.
They headed north over an area of Riviera which Gabriel had not yet seen. They made their way through the farmland, worked by the ubiquitous slaves and their keepers. Looking around to see Animal dozing in the back, the Bearer turned to Gabriel and said quietly, “Tell me about my son.”
And so Gabriel told him in detail of his son’s arrival at Harmony, seriously ill but fully determined. He told how by the time Gabriel had set out he was certain to recover.
“Will he return, do you think?” the Bearer asked, looking straight ahead. Before Gabriel could reply the Bearer said, “Never mind. You have no crystal ball.” And he sighed.
Then the Bearer questioned Gabriel at great length about life in Harmony. He was especially interested in its governance, which was shared among many. He was curious about how they lived without slaves to do the hard—or easy--labor, and wondered at men and women tilling their own fields. As Gabriel struggled to explain the only life he had known, the Bearer interrupted him. “Tell me, in Harmony, do things seem to get worse from year to year?”
“Things?” Gabriel asked, uncertain.
“Things,” the Bearer repeated. “Does your wine become more sour? Do your buildings fall into disrepair? Does your food get blander?”
Gabriel thought of the ancient works of art Animal had showed him, the techniques lost to both cultures now. He answered slowly. “In some things we seem to lose our gifts. When I was a boy we had a population of homing pigeons that would carry messages over long distances, and they were decimated by a plague of some sort. Our animal healers could do nothing.”
He continued, “But in some things we improve. We put in a new irrigation system that allows us to cultivate land more intensely and work less hard at it. And just a couple of years ago some children discovered a hot spring. We have been building a pool around it, which will . . .” He stopped, embarrassed. A bathhouse paled in comparison to the comforts of Riviera, with its running hot water and machines that made unlimited ice.
But the Bearer merely nodded. “And the people who led these innovations,” he asked, “were they old or young?”
Gabriel thought. “Both, I suppose,” he said. “Maybe the ideas came from the younger men and women, but the elders supported them and assigned tasks so they could be done.”
The Bearer leaned back in his seat and sighed. “Our young have no ideas,” he said. “No motivation. No desires, except pleasure and inflicting pain.” He looked back at Animal, who was now snoring softly in the wagon. “I would have given the painter the revel room he asked for; that he gave you hospitality in exchange was merely lucky timing. Any innovation, any effort, I support it. But it becomes rarer and rarer.” He looked hard at Gabriel. “You rebels took the best of us when you left,” he said without rancor.
“That was over 100 years ago,” said Gabriel. “It was generations gone.”
“No matter,” the Bearer shrugged. “The rebels were the thinkers and the doers. And when they left, it was as if Riviera was a man who had lost a limb.” He sighed. “Your ancestors left because they did not want to own slaves. But within a matter of months after they left the treatment of slaves here became much worse. There was no one left to temper the cruelty and to remind us that even animals are part of creation.”
Gabriel was surprised. “Respectfully,” he said, “If you feel that way why do you treat slaves as you do?”
The Bearer frowned. “Don’t misunderstand me,” he said. “I’m no pansy and I never will be.” He turned to glare at Rose, who looked down as if she had not been listening. “But we are out of balance. We have lost all restraint.”
The carriage passed out of the farmland into an uncultivated area. The Bearer’s despondent mood passed, and he pointed out to Gabriel streams which were home to certain kind of fish, and marshy areas where berries abounded. Gabriel realized that the Bearer had an immense knowledge of the details of the land he coordinated.
When the party arrived at the vineyards they clambered out of the three wagons, Animal stretching and yawning. When Horace, the vineyard master, showed them the varieties of grapes with which he was working, Animal’s interest was piqued by their potential as pigments. He stayed behind with Rose to examine them as the rest of the party walked through the grape press and bottling areas and the underground storage.
When they left Gabriel was not sure if the Bearer had found the answer to why the wine was decreasing in quality. Horace had insisted that they sample enough varieties that Gabriel's head was spinning and the tip of his nose was numb.
Rather than heading back to the mansion by the route they had come, the Bearer instructed the drivers to make a circle. The Bearer continued his discourse on various items of interest as they passed, but Gabriel found him hard to follow.
When they made their way back into farmland, the Bearer was speaking of their fallow system. Gabriel was trying to explain Harmony’s own system of crop rotation, the details of which he did not know, as his attention was drawn to a crowd gathered a few acres ahead. As they drew closer, he realized a large number of field slaves were gathered around a spectacle he could not make out. They were quite near when he saw it was a slave girl tied to two wooden poles in the form of a t. Her arms were spread over and tied to the horizontal pole. The vertical pole was planted in the ground. Her girl’s hair was matted and her head lolled forward, at times jerking up, as if she was trying to remain conscious.
Noticing his interest, the Bearer instructed the driver to pull up. "This is how we make examples of our incorrigible slaves," he said. "This one looks near the end, so she has no doubt been brought from one cohort to another for several days now." The girl looked up again, and Gabriel thought she looked familiar, but couldn't place her. He had seen so many he couldn't help.
"Looks like the boundary riders caught this one," the Bearer added after a moment. "HELMER," he boomed out suddenly, startling Animal out of his doze. One of the men who had been idling near the spectacle came up.
"Majesty," he said.
"Is that the runaway?" the Bearer asked idly.
Helmer nodded and glanced at Gabriel, then did a double take. He squinted. "This is the runaway, Majesty," he said, "And that's the man that caught her."
Gabriel looked around to see who Helmer was indicating, and then realized the man meant him. A sick feeling flooded his body.
Helmer went on. "The cunt was giving us the slip, and suddenly on the path there's an outlander who points us right to her. Didn't take us but a few minutes to catch up to her."
"That's not right," Gabriel whispered hoarsely. He had pointed in the opposite direction. The child must have doubled back.
Animal was staring at Gabriel in amazement, and Rose looking steadfastly down without blinking, her own sign of surprise. The Bearer guffawed and slapped Gabriel on the back. "Well
done!" he said. "There's more to you than you let on."
The girl's head jerked up again, and she looked straight at Gabriel. Her eyes were green within green. Her head jolted forward again.
"It's death by suffocation," the Bearer explained conversationally. "The rib cage collapses. Quite exquisite, really, and rare to take the time."
Bile rose up in Gabriel's throat. "You said I could have any slave I wanted," he said. "I want that one."
The Bearer looked alarmed. "Oh, no, lad, no you don't. Let me give you a good slave, well-trained. This one will be dead by morning. Too mangled even for necrophilia."
"She's the one I want," Gabriel said firmly. He added, "Surely you wouldn't go back on your word to me."
The Bearer gave Gabriel a sharp look, then smiled and shrugged. "You want her, she's yours." He stood up in the carriage and gave his orders. "Take her down slowly, and load her in the wagon."
|
|
|