Chapter 6: The kindness mindgame
Present day
When Mariah awoke, she was grateful that Master Jonas had covered her with a blanket while she slept. That seemed an unusual kindness in him. But then she remembered. Master Jonas was years ago. This was the new mindgame.
Animal was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, a pad of paper on his knees. When he saw that she was awake he shook his head. "Your timing's lousy. No one around but me and I'm working."
"My apologies, Master," Mariah said meekly, and then coughed, her throat dry.
Master Animal rolled his eyes and threw his pad onto the floor. "Okay, okay," he grumbled. He stood up, stretched, and ambled out of the room, coming back a moment later with a tray with a glass of water and a bowl on it. "Gabriel says you can feed yourself," he said ungraciously. Mariah managed to sit up, and Animal put the tray on her legs. She tentatively tasted the food in the bowl, relieved that it was just gruel. Master Animal said, "He'll have you on human food soon enough, you'll see. I convinced him that for now you'll eat more if you're not petrified."
Mariah bristled. "I don't get terrified," she said. "This mindgame doesn't scare me."
Master Animal just snorted. He picked up his pad and returned to his place on the floor, ignoring her. After finishing her gruel, Mariah tested her limbs. Her rib area hurt as before, but the pain in the rest of her body was less sharp. The tray on her knees felt heavy, but she knew she could not move it without help. She sighed softly. If Master Animal heard her he gave no sign.
There was a knock at the door, which Master Animal ignored. A moment later Rose tentatively looked in. Taking in the scene, she smiled at Mariah and quietly entered the room. Mariah saw with some remorse that she had a bandage on her leg where she had been cut the day before-or had it been longer ago than that? Mariah didn't know.
Wordlessly Rose took the tray from Mariah and left. She reappeared a few minutes later with a large wooden comb in her hand. Holding the comb up, she raised her eyebrows, silently asking Mariah's permission. Mariah shrugged. Rose took that as assent and settled herself behind Mariah on the bed.
Even though Mariah's hair had been cut short, the combing of what was left was a long and, despite Rose's gentle hands, painful process. When, at last, Rose indicated that she was finished, Mariah glanced over at Master Animal. To her surprise he was looking at the two of them intently while his hand flew over the pad. He scowled at her, but after a moment put the pad down.
"Can I look, Master?" Rose asked softly. Master Animal shrugged and closed his eyes as if he were greatly weary. Rose took the pad from him and brought it back to Mariah's bed to show her.
"It's you!" Mariah said in surprise as she looked at the sketch of the slave girl. Then she added in a squeak, "It's me!" Indeed, the picture showed Rose, serious and gentle, holding Mariah's hair near the roots with one hand and pulling a comb through it with the other. Mariah saw that Master Animal had drawn her own face less bruised than it had been in the mirror the day before, and less swollen, but he had not skimped on the grimace that made her appear all the uglier.
Mariah looked at Master Animal in amazement. He, no longer feigning sleep, smiled at her a little sheepishly, then checked himself and frowned. Mariah almost smiled but she, too, checked herself and frowned.
At that moment Master Gabriel walked in. He looked tired and drawn. "Can I get you something, Master?" Rose asked. Master Gabriel shook his head and flung himself onto the floor next to Animal.
"A woman had whipped a slave he so hard that he went into shock," he said. "She begged me to save his life. As soon as he came to, she started torturing him." He drew up his knees and leaned his head into it. "He could be dead by now," his muffled voice said.
Rose clucked sympathetically, but Master Animal said harshly, "You're exhausted and you're pushing yourself too hard."
"I'm a healer," Master Gabriel snapped. "I don't turn people away."
Master Animal shook his head. "Make humans sign a contract before you'll treat their slaves then," he said. "No torture for a month, or something. That should get them to leave you alone."
Mariah watched this whole scene with amazement. She felt panicked. This mindgame was so strange and so elaborate, she would lose herself in it. She wished, desperately, that she could go to sleep and wake up and find herself someplace that she understood.
Suddenly Master Gabriel was next to her, holding her hand, squeezing it gently. "Breathe," he said. She found her face was wet. She had been crying without realizing it.
"I'm not afraid of you," she said, fiercely.
"I know you're not," Master Gabriel responded. "You're in pain, and it's hard to think straight." He added, "Breathing will help." He seemed to know exactly what Mariah was thinking. Could he read her mind?
Master Animal laughed a little meanly. "Look at her, Gabriel," he said. "The kinder you are to her the more you terrify her." He amended, "Oh yeah, except she doesn't get scared."
Mariah glared at him. Master Animal laughed again, but Master Gabriel shushed him and then started breathing ostentatiously, still holding Mariah's hand. Mariah, without realizing it, found herself imitating him. A deep intake hurt her ribs, and she stopped. Master Gabriel squeezed her hand. "Tomorrow we'll go over the breathing exercises again," he said. "Today I'll tell you a story." And he began to tell her about a land with no slaves, where everyone worked and everyone received what they needed in return, and every child lived with its parents, and every adult chose how to live, and with whom. It was a lovely story, Mariah thought, as her eyes fluttered closed, as good as the stories she remembered from the fields, of wood nymphs and river mermaids.
Mariah remembers
Mariah was running, then fleeing, through a fallow field she did not recognize. She came to a stream and tried to jump it, but her legs wouldn't move properly. She started to put her hands out to break her fall but they, too, were stuck. She awoke with a start, her heart pounding madly. As in her dream her limbs would not obey. They were held - no, tied - down. Panicked, she flailed about until she banged the back of her head on the platform on which she lay, and saw stars.
Through sheer force of will she held herself still, except for the trembling that she could not control. When she could no longer hear her pulse pounding in her ears, she slowly tried to take stock. Her legs were spread wide apart and tied at her ankles, and her wrists shackled near her hips. Other than that, she was not restrained. She raised herself up onto her elbows and looked cautiously around.
She was on a sleeping platform, alone. On either side of her were drab low walls that did not reach the ceiling. Past her feet was a corridor, and beyond it another low wall.
She heard pleading from not far away. A male voice, begging someone to stop whatever they were doing to him. But she didn't hear the slash or cut of a whip.
A mistress walked through the corridor past her, but paid her no mind. A moment later a slave walked by. Mariah cleared her throat. "Excuse me," she said, but the slave did not turn his head or slow his pace.
Mariah wondered how long she had been tied to the table, and if she had been left here to die, alone and untended. She had heard about a slave being killed that way a few fields away from her. He had been locked in a cabin without food or water. He died in about five days. Mariah couldn't recall what he was being punished for.
Suddenly she remembered Master Jonas. His malice, as cold as the water he sprayed on her body and then inside it. And his threat to kill her. As she heard the nearby voice, begging, Mariah wondered if it wouldn't be better to provoke Master Jonas into carrying out that threat.
No, a voice from inside Mariah said, I want to live.
She leaned back and closed her eyes. The man's begging rose to a shriek. Vancea had lived through this mindgame and had escaped beyond the walls. But the mindgame had continued even then, Mariah realized. Vancea was certainly dead by now.
"No despair," Mariah told herself fiercely.
She listened for clues as to where she was or what would come next, but now that the pleading had stopped she could hear only murmurs of sound from beyond the low walls. There were conversations whose words she could not make out. Perhaps someone whimpering. At least she was not alone, she told herself.
A slave appeared, rolling a table on wheels in front of him. Wordlessly he stopped in front of Mariah, cranked a lever which raised the back end of her platform up and moved her to a sitting position. He untied her hands and handed her a bowl of lukewarm gruel. As she took it she whispered to him, "Are you allowed to talk?" He looked unsurprised by this question, but shook his head and opened his mouth wide. Inside, his tongue was only a stub.
Mariah's stomach churned at the sight, but the slave put the spoon into her hand as if she were simple and pantomimed that she must eat. She dipped the spoon into the gruel and barely managed to get it into her mouth. She concentrated on not vomiting. Another spoonful, more concentration. She couldn't take a third.
The slave seemed satisfied with her efforts. He gave her a cup of water and indicated that she should drink it. She was parched, and the water helped the gruel settle. The slave retied her arms, leaving her sitting up, and moved on, expressionless.
Mariah looked around but could see nothing beyond the short walls surrounding her, and the ceiling that gave away no secrets. Occasionally slaves or people walked by, but they did not look at her. "They fed me," Mariah told herself several times. "I'll not die today."
Panic gave way to boredom that was even worse. Occasionally Mariah tested the bonds that held her wrists and ankles, but not with any real hope that she could free herself. And even if she could, what would she do?
The wall. If she could get free, could she make it to the wall? Mariah thought of what she knew of the geography of Riviera. It seemed certain that she was still in the mansion. A garrulous mistress had told her once that the mansion wasn't in the dead center of Riviera, but it was still miles upon miles in the closest direction to reach the wall. It had taken the rider a long time to bring her here from the cornfield, and that was closer to the mansion than to the wall.
Yet, it was not all farmland between the mansion and the wall. There were woods and wild places. If she could get to them, could she hide there?
She sighed and shook her head at what she knew was foolishness. Even if she could untie her bonds, she would never make it out of this strange room.
The tongueless slave returned to Mariah twice, each time giving her a bowl of gruel and a cup of water. After the third meal Mariah dozed. Through her sleep she could hear the cart making its way through the aisle. Someone was shaking her arm. She immediately jerked awake. It was an older slave, a female, large and muscular. "Toilet," she said. Mariah saw that she pushed a bucket on wheels with a seat on top, like a portable latrine.
Mariah shook her head. "I'm not allowed," she said.
