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CHAPTER 43: TO TOUCH THE SKY
Present day
Mariah and Rose pulled the wagon into Master Animal's apartment. Mariah closed the door behind them. She looked around to make sure that they were alone, then slumped onto the armchair and covered her eyes. "I'm so sorry," she said.
"Why?" Rose asked. "You didn't do anything wrong. Anyone can get stopped in the corridor."
Mariah shook her head. "I should have been paying attention."
Rose shrugged. "Me too," she said. "Anyway, neither of us got hurt, not really. That's what matters." She was suddenly concerned. "Or are you hurt?"
"No," Mariah answered. "Just a few slashes." She looked up, and narrowed her eyes. "You weren't really crying back there."
Rose took some of the food out of the cart and put it on the counter that separated the kitchen from the living area. She said, "I tried, but tears wouldn't come. Then Mistress Tabitha showed up . . ."
"I don't understand," Mariah interrupted. "Why would you pretend to cry?"
Rose unloaded more of the food. "It's how I always act when I'm stopped."
Mariah stared at Rose. "They could have made me hurt you," she said. "And you were acting?"
Rose shook her head, then nodded, then shook her head again. She said softly, "Ever since I came to the mansion I've been the rag, the one who's afraid. I don't know how to be anything else."
Mariah's felt like she was suffocating. She tried breathing, as Master Gabriel had taught her.
"What's wrong?" Rose asked, genuinely mystified.
The breathing didn't help. Mariah stood up. She was shaking, much worse than when the humans had stopped her and Rose. Shouting now, she repeated, "They could have made me hurt you!" She kicked the wagon away from Rose. It crashed into the dining area wall, marking it and making the crystal in the hutch rattle.
Now Rose's eyes did fill with tears. "They wanted me to hurt you," she said. "That's just as bad as you hurting me."
"You couldn't hurt a fly. Have you ever even held a whip?" Mariah lowered her voice, which made it sound venomous. "Or do you just lay on the floor and make other slaves beat you while you feel sorry for yourself?"
Rose shook her head. "I didn't want to hurt you. I'm so sorry."
Her apology didn't enter Mariah's consciousness, but her backing away did. Mariah was scaring her.
Mariah tried to calm down. She couldn't do it. She turned on her heels and threw open the door to the patio, nearly running to Gabriel's apartment.
Inside, she grasped her hands behind her back to keep herself from breaking anything. She sat down on an armchair and stood back up. She paced. Rose appeared at the sliding door but Mariah shook her head at her. "Go away!" she shouted. Rose closed the door but stood looking in through the glass for a minute before she retreated to Animal's apartment.
When Gabriel came in from the hallway Mariah was standing with her arms around a pillow she had taken from the sofa. She put it down hastily and backed away from him.
Gabriel raised his eyebrows. "You want to tell me about it?"
Mariah shook her head. "Only if it pleases you, Master." Her voice shook. She turned around to avoid looking at him.
"You're hurt," Gabriel said.
Mariah had forgotten about the whipmarks. Before she could say anything, there was a knock at the door.
Gabriel sighed. "That will be Tabitha," he said. "She told me this morning she wanted to bring someone by, asked specifically that you be here."
Mariah hurriedly wiped her eyes with the back of her hands, and took a deep breath.
"Shall I send them away?" Master Gabriel asked.
"That's not for me to say, Master," Mariah said, unable to think of any other response. The knock came again, louder this time, and then the door opened. Mistress Tabitha came in, but stopped abruptly when she saw Gabriel and Mariah.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I assumed you weren't back yet, and was coming in to wait." She glanced at Mariah again and tsked. "Were you hurt worse than I thought? You said it was nothing." She spoke sharply.
"No, Mistress," Mariah said. "I'm not hurt, my thanks to you." Her eyes filled with tears again.
"So that's what your voice sounds like."
Mariah took three steps back. She fell to her knees, stood up, and fell to her knees again.
A human man had stepped into the room. He laughed. "I never saw you move so fast before." He was middle-aged, and lean to the point of gauntness. His brown hair was cropped short and flecked with gray.
Master Gabriel placed himself between the man and Mariah. "What is this?" he demanded. "Was it you that hurt Mariah before?"
"Not I," he said. "I haven't seen her in months. And I never hurt her much. I'm not a cruel man. Ask her, if she'll answer you. She never would me."
Mistress Tabitha cleared her throat. "Gabriel, I'd like you to meet my friend Cassender. He's just back from his work near the wall, and he particularly wanted to meet you, and to see Mariah."
Gabriel still stood between Mariah and Cassender. "Why?" he demanded. "She's not to be used for your amusement."
"Amusement?" Cassender said. "No, no, not at all. I merely want to talk to her."
Mariah was disoriented. It was hard to remember who she was. Gabriel's slave, accustomed to flaunting the freedoms he allowed her? The conniving housegirl who had tricked Master Cassender into taking her to the wall and then managed to escape? Or the rag she had pretended to him to be?
"Look at me, girl," Master Cassender commanded. Mariah started to count to ten, her old habit with him.
"Don't speak to her that way." Gabriel's voice was the low growl he used when he was furious. He backed up so he was right next to where Mariah knelt, and then he edged over a few inches so the side of his leg touched her arm. Mariah immediately felt calmer. She looked up at Master Cassender. He was slighter of frame than she remembered, smaller than Gabriel.
Master Cassender's voice was mild. "How would you have me speak to her?" he asked.
"Not at all, unless she is willing," Gabriel said.
Master Cassender looked from Mariah to Gabriel and back again. He took a breath and cleared his throat. "Mariah, would you speak with me?" His voice was courteous, but before Mariah could respond he added, tersely, "You owe me that."
Gabriel inhaled sharply, but did not say anything. Mariah could feel his solidity next to her, trying to shield her. Or was this part of his mindgame? Was Rose? "I am yours to command, Master," she said.
"Stand up, then, Mariah, before Gabriel rips us to shreds with his glares," Mistress Tabitha said.
Mariah obeyed. Her heart was pounding. Gabriel didn't speak out loud, but she could hear him in her head. "Breathe." She blocked him out. Gabriel took her arm and steered her to the table. With one hand he pulled a chair out for her, in front of the herbs they had been crushing that morning. Lavender, licorice root, John's wort -- Gabriel had taught her they were each used to help a person relax. He sat next to her and began to roll some of the crumbs between his fingers.
Master Cassender sat opposite Mariah, staring at her.
Mistress Tabitha went to the kitchen and came back a moment later with three glasses of ice water on a tray which she placed on the table. Gabriel reached for a glass and put it in front of Mariah. "You serve her?" Cassender murmured. No one replied.
Master Cassender leaned forward towards Mariah. "I want to know why you ran away," he said.
Mariah remembered. She had run away. She sat up straighter and put all the defiance she could into her voice. "I wanted to be free, Master," she said.
"The whole time you were with me, that's all you wanted?"
"Yes, Master," Mariah said. That's all she had ever wanted.
"From when I chose you at the Exchange, you were just pretending to be a rag?"
"Yes, Master," Mariah said again.
Master Cassender slammed his hand down on the table. Mariah jumped in her chair. Gabriel started to protest, but Master Cassender stood up and pointed at Mariah. "You made me into a laughingstock!"
Mariah felt a responding wrath, overwhelming her, as he continued, "I was good to you! I met your needs! I fed you and I fucked you and I . . ."
Mariah was not sure how she found herself on her feet. "You didn't fuck me!"
"You're still a liar!" Cassender shouted. "I did, and I always made sure you got your pleasure. Every single time!"
Mariah was shouting as loud as Cassender. "You didn't fuck me! You raped me! I didn't want you!" She felt Gabriel put his arm around her shoulder. She violently shrugged him off. "I never wanted any of you! I hated your touch! I hated the pleasure! I hated it! I hated it! I hated it!"
Flashback
Master Cassender stopped the horses in front of the gatehouse. Checking to make sure that the shackle was firmly around Mariah's wrist, he ordered her out of the wagon.
There was no answer when he knocked on the door. He rang a bell that hung on the porch.
A few minutes later a red-haired mistress rounded the corner of the house. "Come back, have you?" she said.
"I wasn't gone that long, Tanya," he said.
"Long enough. It's been days since I've had a soul to talk to."
Master Cassender indicated the rag that crawled at Tanya's feet. "You could talk to him."
Tanya rolled her eyes. "I mean it," Master Cassender said. "They all have something inside, if you have the patience to find it. Make a game out of it. It helps to pass the time."
"If you're a pansy, maybe," Tanya said with a snort. Then she tossed her head prettily. "I've some of that scotch left, if you want it."
Master Cassender nodded. "Leave these two to play?" he said, indicating Tanya's slave, and Mariah.
Tanya nodded. "Stay, Griley," she said firmly. She reached down and cupped his chin. "Be a good host. If you both want to, you can fuck." She attached the end of his chain to a ring on the porch, and Master Cassender did the same with Mariah's chain.
Master Cassender followed Tanya inside, shutting the door behind them. Mariah noticed that two windows faced the porch. The humans could easily look out and see her. After counting to ten, she eased herself down to sit on the top step. "Been here long?" she asked Griley quietly.
Slowly Griley nodded, then shook his head. "Can't say," he said hoarsely. "Long enough."
Mariah looked at him curiously. She wondered if he was faking his despair, plotting his escape as she was. He kneeled up, then moved tortuously slowly until he was leaning against a railing. He seemed as though he was in pain but Mariah could see nothing wrong with him other than angry welts.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Mariah tried to think of something to say that would not be intrusive. Griley whimpered, although he did not seem to be aware of it.
"Are you hurt?" Mariah asked him. "Can I do something for you?" As soon as the words were out of her mouth she regretted them. She was supposed to be as much of a rag as Griley was -- or was he pretending? She looked worriedly to the windows, but no one was peering out.
Griley shook his head slowly. "Don't bother about me," he said. He shrank down further into himself. Mariah sighed. She turned to look at the gate. It was wrought iron, with no more than three inches between the bars. The heavy lock that held the two doors together was recently polished.
The top of a gate was an arch covered with what looked like sharp knifes pointing straight up. In the middle of the arch metal rods were shaped into gargoyles. There were a few gems scattered on them, and indents where others should be. The stone eyes of the gargoyles remained and seemed to stare at Mariah.
"They don't talk," Griley said. "They just look."
"Like you?" Mariah asked.
Griley didn't speak again until for the rest of the day.
Present day
What happened next was a blur for Mariah. She couldn't stop screaming at Master Cassender and then, suddenly, she found herself sitting on the couch. Master Gabriel was pressing a glass into her hand. She took a sip. She started to choke. It burned.
"You poisoned me?" Mariah asked, still coughing, outraged as she came back to herself.
Master Gabriel gave her a worried smile. "A little," he admitted. "You've never had whiskey before?" Mariah shook her head. "Drink it slowly," he said. He poured himself a glass from the bottle sitting on the side table, raised it in a silent toast, and demonstrated.
Mistress Tabitha and Master Cassender were gone. Mariah had a vague impression that Master Gabriel had swept them out while she had stood in the middle of the room screaming.
She looked at the amber liquid, recognizing it now. She had served it many times. When she took another tentative sip it stung but she swallowed it. "I thought you don't get drunk," she said accusingly to Gabriel.
Gabriel sat next to her and sniffed the whiskey in his glass. "I can hold my liquor. And besides, this is medicinal."
"I'm not sick," Mariah protested as she took another sip.
"No," Gabriel responded. "You're magnificent." He drank his whiskey in one swallow. "I had an uncle who did two shots of whiskey a night. Rougher than this; his still couldn't refine like the ones here do. But he was never sick day in his life."
"Your uncle Donal," Mariah said, drinking again. "The one who taught you to play chess."
"Do I bore you with my stories?" Gabriel asked with a put-upon sigh.
Mariah shrugged and didn't answer. She had been given wine a few times but didn't care for it. This whiskey though . . . The emotions that had rocked her that day – the fear in the corridor, the fury at Rose, the shock of seeing Master Cassender, the hysteria as the truth exploded from her – were draining, almost flying, from her.
Gabriel refilled her glass, and his own. They sipped together in a companionable silence.
Mariah wiggled her nose, trying to feel its tip. Giving up, she shifted so she was leaning back on the side cushion of the sofa, and put her feet up. Gabriel wasn't sure if she realized they had landed on his lap. He knew he should move away, but he couldn't bring himself to. He was sure, quite sure, that two shots of whiskey wouldn't incapacitate him, but he felt relaxed, almost foggy. If someone needed him . . . He put the thought out of his mind.
"Sometimes I wish you would tell me some of your own," he said suddenly.
"My what, Master?" Mariah swallowed the last of the liquid from her glass and put it on the floor. "I hope Rose doesn't see." She giggled, waving vaguely in the direction of the glass.
"Your stories," Gabriel said. His tongue felt thick, so he worked harder to enunciate. "You know so much about my past, and I know so little about yours."
Mariah stretched and curled. The soles of her feet pressed against the side of Gabriel's' thigh. That was somewhat better. "What do you want to know?" she said. "I'll tell you anything."
Gabriel was sure that her words were much more slurred than his. He shook his head. "Not now. My father taught me never to take advantage of a girl who's been drinking. I just wish that . . ." He trailed off.
"I made Rose cry this morning."
"Did you?" Gabriel raised his eyebrows. "Well, I'm sure she deserved it."
Mariah gave a shocked laugh. "I wanted to spank some sense into her," she said, her voice a conspiratorial whisper.
Gabriel thought for a moment. "My learned opinion as a healer is that sain and pence . . . pain and sense . . . don't go together."
Mariah felt like she was floating. "Haven't you ever wanted to spank someone, Master?"
Gabriel flashed a grin. "Oh, yes," he said.
"Why didn't you?"
"Who says I haven't?"
Mariah sat up a little straighter and then sank back down to the cushion. "You do punish people, then?" Now she was dizzy.
Mariah wasn't sure Master Gabriel had heard her, because he didn't answer for a long time. Finally he said, slowly, in a dreamy voice, "Your tush . . ." He stopped and waited for Mariah to stop giggling at his choice of words. "A person's . . . ass has nerve endings directly linked to their sex." He had been staring straight ahead, out the courtyard window, but he turned and looked Mariah directly in the eye. "Under the right circumstances a spanking can be very pleasurable."
Mariah feebly waved her hands in front of her, protesting. "Spanking is a punishment," she said.
"If I spank a girl," Gabriel said, "it might or might not be a punishment, but it would always be gratifying. For both of us." He reached under her ankles and put her feet back on his lap. What was he doing? He didn't care.
Mariah licked her lips. "What would the girl have to do for you to spank her?"
"She would have to tell me that she wanted it," Gabriel said. He added, "And I would have to believe her."
He put his hand on top of Mariah's foot. Mariah merely smiled groggily and slowly closed her eyes as her chin dropped to her chest.
Flashback
The next morning Mariah, lying on her sleeping platform, visualized the gate. She started at the top, with the blades. She could not climb over it, any more than any other part of the wall. She could not fit between the metal slats. She could not unlock the lock without a key.
But the gate existed. There was hope. Making sure that Master Cassender's eyes were still closed, she allowed herself a tiny smile.
Present day
Rose tried to hurry along the corridor, late to meet her master in the revel hall. But her feet would not move quickly. She kept replaying in her head the fight with Mariah. With all the good that had happened in the last day, it seemed even worse that she had let her friend down.
Inside the revel room Master Animal was with another human, one arm around his shoulders, pointing with his other hand to the most recently-completed mural section. Perhaps a new student, as an easel with blank paper was set up. It faced a jumble of different sized boxes on the floor.
The door closed behind Rose with a loud click, and Master Animal and the human turned and watched her as she crossed the room to them. "Is that her?" the human asked. "I can't place her at all." He was older than Animal and looked at Rose with tired eyes.
"No," Animal said. "This one is mine." He smiled warmly at Rose as he said that.
"I'll take my leave then," the man said. He hesitated. "I thank you." He moved in to hug Animal, then backed on and slapped him lightly on the arm instead.
Animal watched him go. "Is he a new student, Master?" Rose asked.
"No," Animal said. "Old friend of Mariah's." He turned to Rose with a smile. "Come." Taking her hand, he led her to the easel.
"Do you want me to put his away, Master?" Rose asked.
"What? No, of course not," Animal said. "Don't you want to draw today?"
Rose looked at him blankly. Then she looked at the easel. The tray had charcoal and shammies on it. It was for her.
"Master, I don't understand," Rose said, her heart hammering.
Animal knitted his brows together. "What's to understand? You want to learn to draw, don't you?" Rose nodded. Animal spoke with the same annoyed tone he used with dilettante students. "You'll never improve if you don't work at it." He picked up a stick of charcoal and thrust it at her.
Rose ignored the chalk and threw herself at Animal, hugging him tightly.
Animal returned the embrace briefly but then pulled away. "Today you'll stop before you exhaust yourself," he said with mock severity. "I want you to focus on proportions. Use the lines of the parquet floor to help you." He turned and stalked towards his scaffolding, his back to Rose so she couldn't see his grin.
Flashback
The gate, the gate, it was all Mariah could think of. In her mind's eye it floated in front of her during her waking hours and haunted her dreams at night.
Present day, two weeks later
Gabriel and Mariah walked quickly through the corridor, both of them anxious to get to the showers. They stank. Gabriel had forgotten how the smell of a cadaver would permeate you until you wanted to burn your clothes, shave your head, and burn your hair as well.
Their cadaver had been an old man. Gabriel had known him and obtained his assent for the dissection, but as they dug into the layers of the corpse he realized that he really had not known the man at all. Two stress fractures in his spine, long healed, that indicated that he must have played some kind of sport as a youth. But what? Gabriel knew there were slaves who were trained in various kinds of competitions, but he had heard of no humans who participated. Had that changed in recent decades?
That night they had turned the cadaver over onto its back. It was Mariah who had first pointed out the scars on the liver. Fredrick must have been a heavy drinker at one point in his life.
The other students whined. They didn't like the smell, didn't like the idea of cutting into a human corpse, didn't like the respect Gabriel showed Mariah. But a core group of five of them came back each evening; tonight there had been eight, counting Mariah. It had been crowded around the table. Gabriel wondered if he should get another cadaver. He sighed with the burden that supervising a second dissection would be.
He glanced at Mariah. She was grinning, almost laughing to herself. "What?" Gabriel asked, slowing his pace.
Mariah tried to scowl, but she couldn't. She shook her head. "The way that Master Samuel squealed when he cut into the intestine. . ." Mariah managed to look serious. "Meaning no disrespect, Master."
Gabriel smiled wryly. "He's been a healer for twenty years," he said. "You wouldn't think a little scat would set him off."
"A vet, Master, not a healer," Mariah said.
Gabriel sighed again. Most of the participants in the dissection were so-called vets, healers for slaves. They tended to be less conservative than healers who worked with humans, but also much less rigorous. They had had no regular course of apprenticeships; anyone could declare themselves a vet. Those who were studying with Gabriel were more motivated than many; at the same time, if Gabriel had behaved as they often did at any time during his studies serious questions would have been raised over whether medicine was truly his calling.
He and Mariah had reached the door to Gabriel's apartment. They each headed to their respective bathrooms. Gabriel took his time in the shower, trying to wash the smell away.
When he returned to the living room Mariah was sipping from a tall glass of lemonade. She handed him a glass as well. He accepted it with surprise and gratification and sat on the couch next to her, happy to be off his feet.
Mariah cleared her throat. Gabriel knew what was coming; he suppressed a smile. Mariah would tell him some small tidbit of her past, then look away angrily as if he had insulted her. She had been doing this about once a day ever since Tabitha had brought Cassender to Gabriel's apartment. It was so obviously painful for her that Gabriel could only be pleased that she made the effort. Her comments, however, tended to be singularly unenlightening.
"I belonged to Master Townsend once." When Gabriel merely looked puzzled, Mariah said, with the exact scowl Gabriel had expected, "The man Master Animal was sketching with in the courtyard yesterday evening." Gabriel nodded. Animal had introduced them, but Gabriel had been rushing to the autopsy session and hadn't taken much note.
Before Gabriel could react, Mariah continued in a rush, "Master, may I ask you a question?"
"Of course," Gabriel said.
"You told me that where you come from, there's no ice."
"There's some," Gabriel said. "But not much."
"But you've dissected a cadaver before?" Gabriel nodded. "Without ice, how did you store it? Why didn't it rot?"
"Ah," Gabriel said. "There's no ice in Harmony. But a few days journey east from Harmony there are mountains."
"Big hills?" Mariah interrupted. "Like in the arboretum?"
Gabriel shook his head. "Much, much bigger," he said. "Their tops reach the clouds, and for several months a year they are covered with snow."
"Snow." Mariah rolled the word on her tongue. "From the stories? I've never understood what it is."
"Frozen rain that falls from the sky in big white flakes," Gabriel said. "In cold weather it blankets the ground."
Mariah tried to picture it, but she couldn't. Gabriel smiled at the expression on her face. "It's hard to explain. Anyway, on the mountain, there's a settlement of free people from further east . . ." When Mariah looked puzzled again Gabriel stood up and took the atlas from the sideboard. He carried it to the dining table and flipped through to a page Mariah had glanced at but not studied.
He pointed to the left of the page, which was covered with blue. "This is the ocean," he said. "Where Animal's friend Amalie visited. A huge body of water." Mariah nodded. She understood about the ocean.
Gabriel moved his finger over a few inches, to where the blue touched beige. "Here's Alphronsia, a country much like Riviera by all accounts." He moved his finger down, and over to the right, well into the beige. "Here's Riviera." Over a few more inches to the right. "Harmony would be here, but this book was made before it was settled." He kept moving his finger over, to deep green jagged lines. "These are mountains; they run from north to south."
He tapped on a spot. "Right around here is Rattletown. Most of the people who live there come from . . ." he swept his finger further to the right, "here. They call themselves free people because they never enclosed their towns with walls. There aren't many of them, and they say none further west than Rattletown."
Mariah tried to digest all that he was saying to her. White specks that fall from the sky? Land that reaches into the clouds? People who have never been trapped by walls?
She put her hand on the middle of the map, where the two open pages met. "What's here?" she asked.
"Mountains and prairies and great rivers, or so they say," Gabriel said. "It used to be empty of people, after the turmoil. But in Rattletown they told me there are a few settlements there now."
"You've been to Rattletown, Master?" Mariah asked. "You've touched the sky?"
Master Gabriel nodded. "All healers pass a season there during their apprenticeship. That's where I did my first autopsy."
Mariah blinked. She started to turn the page of the mapbook, wondering what other mysteries it could reveal, what worlds beyond worlds. But Gabriel stopped her, tracing again with his finger the inches from Harmony to Rattletown.
"My little sister stowed away in a supply wagon and came with me," he said softly, smiling at the memory.
"Isn't she much younger than you, Master?" Mariah asked, with an effort looking away from the book to him.
"Eight years. She didn't think it was fair that I should have all the fun, so she hid until we were more than halfway there and couldn't send her back."
"Did she get to stay?" Mariah asked.
Gabriel nodded. "She did. We tried to punish her. Put her on ice-cutting duty for the entire season." He was laughing at the memory. "But you'd never know that she was in disgrace. She made friends with everyone in the settlement, and they taught her to glide on the frozen lake on two metal rods attached to her boots, and to walk on top of the snow in net shoes."
Mariah didn't understand what he meant, but it didn't matter. She stared at him, realization dawning. "You miss her," she said.
Gabriel nodded. "I do. My sister, my father, my friends." His eyes had lost their laughter. "Everything." He traced the route from Harmony to Rattletown again.
It seemed to Mariah that sadness permeated him. She put her hand on top of his. She did it without thinking, trying to comfort him. But as he looked at her, unguarded, his sadness slowly transformed to something Mariah didn't recognize. She only knew it took her breath away, and simultaneously made her remember what he had said the afternoon they had gotten drunk together. She imagined his hand, not spanking her, but caressing her, and herself caressing him back. She knew suddenly what it would mean to want him.
But then he moved his hand away and gave a snort of humorless laughter. "I see now why the kindness mindgame is so dreaded," he said. "Don't play it with me. My heart can't take it." Mariah made a wordless protest, almost a gurgle. Gabriel stood up. "I'm sorry," he said. Mariah didn't know whether he was apologizing for what he must know was a false, cruel accusation, or because he had pulled away from her, or because he did not want to do so.
Avoiding her gaze, he cleared his throat. "What did you think of what Izak said, about the healers in the west fields who use needles to cure people?"
Mariah swallowed her hurt. She had been down this path with Gabriel before. When would she learn?
In as normal a voice as she could muster, she said, "Master Izak said slaves were doing that, not healers."
Gabriel sat on the couch again, and sipped his lemonade before he spoke. "They heal people. That makes them healers." Mariah shrugged. "Do you think it's true?" Gabriel asked her.
"That slaves are healers?" Mariah asked.
"No!" Gabriel said, too sharply. Then he grinned. "Well, yes, actually. Izak says they've passed the technique on from one generation to another. Do you think that would be possible?"
Mariah shook her head. "Not from parent to child," she said. "But far from the mansion, in a place with few humans, older slaves could teach younger ones."
"That's what I think, too," Gabriel said. "I want to go there. I want to find out what they're doing. Would you . . . "
He was interrupted by a soft knock. Mariah composed her faced into blankness as she walked across the room and opened the door. A slave girl she didn't know had raised her hand to knock again. She was young, and fresh. "Please," she said, "I am to ask for Master Gabriel."
Mariah crossed her arms. "He's resting," she said and started to shut the door. The girl stopped her.
"I must see him. My mistress will punish me if I don't. Please...."
Gabriel was standing there. "It's okay," he said. "Come in. I'm Gabriel."
The girl immediately fell to her knees, but did not lean over to touch her forehead to the ground. Her eyes were a deep blue, almost violet, her hair long and sandy blonde, her skin flawless, her body unmarked. "I am called Kishamie. I am a gift to you from Mistress Esmerelda," she said to Gabriel, looking him in the eye.
"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 with annoyance. "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. Mariah rolled 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. Mariah felt like gagging. "There are three of us. But," and her eyes 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."
"Mariah," Gabriel remonstrated. His voice was gentle but Mariah felt as if he had slapped her. He hadn't dropped Kishamie's hand.
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.
Flashback
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 Griley 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 Griley 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. Tanya closed it with a clang, turned the key again, and returned to the house.
Mariah knew that key would haunt her dreams.
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