Chapter 10: The rebel
Present day
Rose sat cross-legged on the floor, a large mortar on her lap, crushing with a pestle the juniper berries Animal had brought home. Mariah stood, one hand lightly on the back of an armchair, doing a stretch Gabriel had taught her.
Gabriel had emptied his medicine bag onto the table and was sorting packets of herbs, noting which needed replenishing. He sighed heavily. Rose glanced over at him. Mariah gave no indication that she had heard.
Gabriel sighed, louder this time, almost ostentatiously. Mariah and Rose glanced at each other. "Can I help you with something, Master?" Rose asked.
Gabriel gave an obvious double take, as if surprised that Rose had spoken. "Oh, what? No . . ." He tugged at his hair. "I was just thinking about a girl I knew back home, and hoping that she was okay."
Mariah and Rose looked at each other, even more confused. "Was she sick, Master?" Rose asked.
Gabriel shook his head. "No, no, not at all," he said. "She was just always in trouble. Like Mariah," he said, carefully looking only at Rose. "Hates rules. A born rebel."
The door opened with a bang and Animal stomped in, sweating, carrying a large ceramic jug. "Rose," he said, "I need you to start . . ." He glanced at what she was doing, stopped, said, "Oh," and placed the jug on the floor near her. "See that you don't spill," he said. "That stuff stains."
"Yes, Master," Rose said, smiling slightly.
Gabriel continued as if Animal had not interrupted him. "Her name is . . ." he paused, still looking only at Rose. "Makayla," he said.
He went back to sorting, seemingly lost in thought. Animal went into his bathroom and began running water for a shower. Rose took the bait at last. "Why are you worried about her, Master?" she asked.
"Well . . ." Gabriel said, "I guess I'm not worried about her exactly." Rose looked to Mariah, who was staring fixedly at the floor as she raised one elbow over her head and tugged at it with her other hand. "Do you ever have a daydream that's so intense that it seems real?"
Rose nodded. "Yes, I . . ."
Gabriel interrupted her. "I was thinking, if Makayla were here, if she were a slave, what would she do?" He stared fixedly at Rose. "I mean, if her whole goal were to rebel . . ." He looked down at the packets in front of him, speaking softly now as if to himself. "I suppose she could run away like Mariah, but let's assume she got caught." He looked at Mariah. She stared straight ahead, reaching both arms above her head and stretching tall. Gabriel flushed slightly. "And let's say, like Mariah, she survived. She's nervous now. She might be looking for another opportunity to run . . ." Mariah laced her fingers behind her back. "But in the meantime, she's stuck. She wants to rebel but she doesn't want to get caught, or punished." Gabriel asked Rose, "What would she do?"
Rose looked down. "I don't know, Master," she said. Her voice trembled.
But Gabriel pressed on. "You must have some idea. You've must have known slaves like this, looking for opportunities. Would she sneak food?"
Rose said low and urgently, "I don't know, Master." She swiped her eye with the back of her wrist, which made her splash some berry juice on the rug. "Oh," she cried, struggling to her feet.
Mariah said, "I'll get you a cloth, Rose." When she returned a moment later from the kitchen with a damp rag, she said to Gabriel, tightly, "She would do whatever she could without getting caught."
Animal came out of the bathroom, his hair wet, a towel wrapped around his waist, and began to cross the room to the kitchen.
"But what would she do?" Gabriel said. "Remember, I'm an outlander. I don't know your rules. What's the worst thing a slave who wanted to quietly rebel could do?"
Animal stopped. He looked from Gabriel, uselessly moving his packets around, to Mariah, seething, to Rose, crying. He said, coldly, shortly, furiously, "She would pleasure herself." He turned to Rose. "I need you in the bedroom." When Rose started to move the mortar and pestle to one side, he said, "Leave them. I need you now." Rose followed Animal across the living area and into his bedroom, where he closed the door firmly behind them.
Mariah was frozen in place, staring at Gabriel. Gabriel continued randomly moving his packets around, not meeting Mariah's eye. He continued, as if Animal and Rose had not left the room, "That makes sense. Of course, she'd have to be smart about it. Find a time when she wouldn't get caught. If she had a room to herself, she could do it late at night or early in the morning. She would have to make sure she could take a shower right afterwards, and that her sheets wouldn't give her away. Maybe she'd lay a towel down." Gabriel looked at Mariah at last. "Don't you think?" he said. Mariah looked at him, slack-jawed, and then nodded once, quickly. Gabriel turned away so that Mariah would not see his smile.
Mariah remembers
The next morning Mistress Desiree ordered Mariah to the food exchange with a group of other new arrivals to the training center. By the time she returned in the early afternoon, Tariq was in the center's courtyard, assigned to yardwork.
That evening Mistress Desiree took Tariq home with her. Mariah felt a pang, not so much at his going - she had known that Tariq was Mistress' Desiree's favorite - but that he did so without a glance her way.
The following day was much the same, but that night Mistress Desiree left alone. It took Mariah a few minutes to work up her courage. Finally she walked over to where Tariq was leaning against a counter, talking and laughing with seven or eight slaves. She stood quietly, unsure of herself, until Tariq glanced over at her. Then she took a deep breath and said as boldly as she could muster, "You said all I had to do was ask."
When Tariq looked confused, and his friends stared, amused, Mariah had the sinking feeling she had made a stupid mistake. "To . . . to make love," she muttered. Then she saw that Tariq's hand was intertwined with a slavegirl whose name Mariah had not yet learned. Her face hot, Mariah started to back away. "I'm sorry, I didn't . . ." Someone tittered.
Tariq disentangled his hand and followed her. "It's okay," he said. "There's always room for one more." He smiled his slow smile. "Do you know Brooke?"
"No!" Mariah said, still walking away. "That's not what I . . ." She turned away. "Maybe some other time," she muttered. "I didn't . . ."
Tariq looped his hand around her elbow. "Don't be embarrassed," he said, his voice intimate so that no one could overhear. "We'll have our time again, alone if that's how you like it." He waited until Mariah nodded. "But in the meantime," he continued, indicating with his head the many slaves in the room, "you should enjoy yourself. There won't be many times in your life when you can make love with whoever you want. I know, I've been in the mansion . . ." He shuddered. "Take advantage of it."
"Okay," Mariah said, unconvincingly.
Tariq smiled his slow smile as he released her and turned away. "We'll be together," he repeated, over his shoulder. Mariah didn't know whether he meant it or not. But how she hoped he did.
Present day
Mariah slipped into Gabriel's living area the next morning while the others were eating at the table. Her hair was damp. She ladled herself some gruel from the pot in the kitchen, humming softly. As she sat down, Rose said to her, "You seem cheerful this morning." Mariah colored slightly but didn't contradict her.
Animal stood up abruptly, his breakfast half uneaten. "Come, Rose," he said curtly. "I don't want to be late."
Rose looked at him, bewildered, but stood as precipitously as he and followed him as he stalked out the door. Gabriel merely smiled benignly at Mariah as she ate with an appetite that was rare for her. When she finished, he said, "I was wondering if you would be willing to help me."
Mariah looked at him warily, but not as warily as usual. She said, "It is my privilege to serve you, Master."
"Uh huh," Gabriel said. "Anyway, I have a problem in my clinic." Mariah said nothing but did not scowl either. Gabriel pressed ahead. "When slaves are brought to me, they're afraid. I spend more time trying to get them to tell me what hurts than I do examining or treating them."
Mariah shrugged. "They don't know how to play your mindgame, Master," she said.
Gabriel nodded. "I want you to tell them that I mean them no harm." When Mariah continued to merely stare at him, he laughed ruefully. "I'm not asking you to lie," he said. "I'm sure there's something you could tell them that would convince them that . . ." He trailed off as Mariah remained carefully expressionless. He sighed, but then said, "You'd be alone with them, sometimes. You can say whatever you want to them, then."
After a moment, Mariah nodded. "It is my privilege to serve you, master." Gabriel rolled his eyes.
Mariah remembers
Mariah did not follow Tariq's suggestion that night, but the next day she found herself looking speculatively at her fellow slaves in the training center. Although a couple, like Tariq, had lived in the mansion, most had come straight from the factory. However, almost all had been in the training center for weeks or months longer than Mariah. As she looked from one to another she wondered what it would be like to be with them - to "make love."
That evening she approached a tall, thin slave with sandy blond hair and a shy manner. Like her, he was relatively new to the center. Mariah enjoyed feeling her way with him. But she enjoyed just as much knowing that the next night - even the next morning, or later that night - she could be with someone else, someone she chose and who chose her, experimenting, learning, actually enjoying herself.
Present day
Master Gabriel led Mariah into his clinic and gave her a brief tour of the three rooms that made it up. A waiting area, with a mismatched collection of chairs lining the walls, opened into the room where he met with his patients. Both rooms also had a door to a third room, which he used for storing his medicines.
The door to the waiting area opened. A short, middle aged woman cradled her left wrist in her right hand. Master Gabriel invited her into the office, and Mariah, unsure what she was supposed to do, followed. Master Gabriel asked the woman what had happened and then gingerly examined her swollen thumb. He numbed it and then lanced it, explaining each step to the woman as he did so. As pus drooled out of the thumb Mariah refused to look away, although her stomach clenched.
After Master Gabriel cleaned and bandaged the wound, he turned the woman's hand over and touched the vein in her wrist. "If that turns red, you get someone to find me, no matter what." The woman nodded, and he said, "Promise?" He held onto her until the woman said, "Yes, yes, I promise."
