Opening chapters of my novel, Mindgames

 

 

 

 

 

 

Find the book here.

 

Preface

 

In the face of war, environmental degradation, and population collapse, many could only survive by selling themselves and their children to those who controlled enough resources to stave off certain death.  As centuries passed, although the earth healed, remnants of humanity continued to live in isolated outposts where the slavery system became ever more extreme.  In one such outpost, Riviera, some of the so-called humans decided that they could not be free when they lived among slaves.  And so the best of Riviera’s citizens journeyed forth, and created a settlement they called Harmony.  Years later a healer from Harmony returned to Riviera on a mission of mercy.  He found suffering like he had never imagined, and unexpected friends. 

Or: This is a story of naked slaves who find love, and learn the true meaning of freedom.

Prologue

This close to Riviera the path was wide and well-kept enough to ride easily, but the stranger was on foot, leading a dappled gray horse by the harness.  The stranger walked slowly but with definite purpose, his hat tilted so his eyes would be shaded and could seek out some distant goal.  The afternoon sun was strong and hot, and from time to time he wiped his face with a fraying handkerchief gray with dinge. 

A breeze rose from the west.  The stranger halted his horse and listened for a moment to a sound beyond the rustling of the leaves.  He pushed his hat back on his head as if to give his ears more room.  The sound was almost like a coyote; no, it was the baying of dogs.  The stranger gave a small shrug and a half smile to his horse, and continued on his way.

He took note of the changing landscape.  Several days ago he had left the old growth forest, with its redwoods that reached impossibly towards the sky and plenty of soft loam between the trees.  The newer woods that he had passed through were full of undergrowth and tangled bushes that encroached upon the path.  He had picked up the old road in those woods.  But now the forest began to have an air of planning about it; at spots old oaks and spruces lined the path on either side as if someone had deliberately put them there for shade.  He thought hopefully that he would reach Riviera very soon. 

The dog sounds came nearer, until the stranger could hear them quite plainly despite the plodding of his horse’s hooves and his own footfall.  He did not hear the girl, however, until she stumbled out of the forest almost directly in front of him.  He involuntary jumped back, bumping lightly into his horse’s nose.  The girl, too, jumped back.  For a heartbeat they stared at each other, as if they each were an animal who had unknowingly encroached on the other’s lair.

Indeed, in that heartbeat the stranger felt an untameness about the girl.  But in the next moment he was jolted with a sick metallic taste in his mouth as he saw that she was naked.  

The slight breeze lifted the girl’s dark hair, matted and dotted with brambles.  Her eyes were a deep green, and for that moment she looked at him as he felt a queen of old might have.   

In a fluid movement the girl fell to her knees before him, continuing down until her forehead touched the dirt of the path.  The baying of the dogs sounded again and he understood that she was the prey.

“This slave begs your mercy,” the girl said, her voice rough from the exertion of her running.  Although she cowered before him, he could see that her muscles strained.  She was poised to flee.  A dog barked close, too close.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said.  “I won’t turn you in.”  

The girl looked up at him, her face incredulous.  As quickly the light in her eyes dimmed, like a cloud moving over the sun.  “A mindgame,” she said, breathless and bitter.  “You’ve caught me, master.  I won’t play.”  She waited, motionless.  

The dogs sounded closer.  The stranger looked towards them, and then back at the girl.  “Listen to me,” he said urgently.  “A quarter mile back, just beyond where the path curves, there’s a stream.  The dogs might lose your scent in the water.”

For precious moments the girl did not move.  Another dog bark.  “Go,” he urged her.  Her gaze pierced him.  Then, quiet as thought, she was on her feet, running past him down the path and veering slightly into the woods to the south.

For a moment the stranger stood motionless.  Then he continued forward, his face looking straight ahead but his eyes wandering as far as they could to his left.  It took about ten minutes before the dogs, a mass of squirming yellow, brown, and gray, broke out of the woods and were distracted by him from their chase.  They were curious and friendly, and he reached out his wrist to be sniffed by one even as his horse touched noses with another.

The five hunters were not far behind, nearly as dirty as the girl had been, their clothes wet with sweat.  Upon seeing the stranger they stopped short and looked at each other in surprise. “Greetings, brother,” one said, uncertainly.

“My greetings to you,” he replied evenly.

The hunters shifted uneasily.  After a moment one of them said, “Without meaning to be rude, you can see we are on a hunt.  Have you seen signs of an escaped rag?  You’ve put our dogs off her scent.” 

He regarded them for a moment.  “I saw her,” he said slowly.  “She came out of the forest ahead of me on the path.”  He squinted and tilted back his hat.  “I suggest you look in that direction,” he said, pointing down the path in front of him and towards the north. 

“My thanks,” the first hunter said, already beginning to jog on with the others.  He yelled over his shoulder, “The cunt’s name is Mariah.  Be sure to come to her execution.”  He whistled for the dogs.

The stranger continued on the path, steadily leading his horse, until the hunters were out of sight.  He counted to a hundred to make certain they were not coming back.  Then, dropping his horse’s reins, he walked off the path a few feet, leaned unsteadily against a tree, and vomited until there was nothing left but the green bile of his intestines.  He rested a moment, then retrieved a water bottle from his horse’s pack, slowly swished his mouth, gargled, and spit.  He came around to the front of his horse and touched her forehead with his own.  “Ah, Peggy,” he said, “Maybe this wasn’t such a grand idea after all.”

Chapter 1: Stranger

The stranger had tried to steel himself to the size of Riviera, or at least what its size had been a century ago.  The first time he had looked at the maps in Harmony’s library he had assumed the scale must be wrong.  The elders had assured him there was no error.  Harmony, with all its outlying farms and valleys, would fit into Riviera’s walled land a dozen times and more. 

Nevertheless, when the old road broke out of the trees into a meadow, with a muted gasp the stranger pulled his horse up short.  The far side of the field ended at a ten foot high stone wall covered with barbed wire that seemed to curve around to either side into eternity. 

The path cut through the meadow at an angle to a gate about a quarter mile beyond.  This should be the Holden Outpost, the same gate by which Harmony’s founders had left Riviera generations before.

The loud caw of a crow from a tree above startled the stranger out of his reverie, and he clicked his tongue, urging his horse forward.  After days in the forest he felt nervous in the open field, and he kicked the horse into a trot until they were in the morning shadow of the wrought iron gate.  The stranger dismounted and peered through the bars.  

Inside, the meadow continued, and so did the road.  To its right was a small house covered with yellow paint which in places was peeling.  The house had a sagging wraparound porch, and on it was a woman dressed in a green tunic and leggings, leaning her chair back on two legs until it rested against the wall.  Her face hung slack, and delicate snores escaped her mouth.  Her long strawberry blond hair hung in heavy braid over one shoulder, with wisps escaping here and there.  By her side, on the floor of the porch, also sleeping, curled up like a dog, was a naked man with dark curly hair and pinkish skin mottled by cuts and bruises.  His only covering was a metal collar, perhaps two inches wide, attached by a long chain to porch post.

The stranger cleared his throat. Neither gatekeeper nor slave stirred.  He called out but they did not hear.  His horse came to his rescue, snorting impatiently. 

The slave awoke with a start, scrambling to his hands and knees and looking around in confusion.  The stranger cleared his throat again.  The slave, seeing him, bowed his head to the floor but overshot, hitting it with a bang.  Whimpering, he slid his entire torso back down to the ground and kissed the floor boards, pushing his mouth down until the stranger was certain he would get blisters on his lips.  By his side, the gatekeeper slept on.   

“Excuse me,” the stranger said in the most courteous tone he could manage, although his voice croaked from lack of use.  The slave boy looked up, and immediately lowered his head in a panic.  Slowly he looked up again, as if he were a small child playing peek-a-boo.  The stranger made no move.  After a moment of deliberation, the slave boy carefully wriggled up to where his mistress’ boots touched the floor, and cautiously nuzzled their toes.

The gatekeeper woke in an instant.  “You dare,” she hissed, and kicked him in the chest.   

“No, don’t,” the stranger cried out involuntarily from behind the gate.  The slave fell back and made a gurgling sound.  

At the sound of the stranger’s voice, the gatekeeper looked up, startled.  She had light blue eyes and a fine, aquiline nose just a touch too narrow.  The stranger realized the woman was younger then he had first assumed.  Her mouth opened and closed in surprise, and then she broke into an easy laugh.  “Whyever not?” she said.  Absently she took the whip from her belt, doubled it over, and smashed it into the slave’s lower back, marking a half circle in his skin.  The slave keened through closed lips but did not move.  The stranger grasped the wrought iron of the gate tightly.

The gatekeeper took no further notice of the slave, but arose from her chair and descended down the two or three steps of the porch.  Lazily, as if stretching, she pulled from her tunic and then overhead a leather string with a large metal key attached.  When she unlocked the gate it swung inward.  She stood aside and let the stranger lead his horse through.  “You didn’t leave by this gate or I’d have been expecting you back,” she remarked defensively.

“I’m sorry,” said the stranger, embarrassed.  “I didn’t mean to put you out.  Or cause trouble for him,” he added indicating the slave with a jerk of his head.

The gatekeeper laughed in a puzzled way.  “You’re an odd one, aren’t you?” she said.  When she finished relocking the gate she reached up and petted Pegasus’s neck, smiling when the horse snorted.  “Say, this is a fine beast.  What stable is she from?  She could use some water, I bet.”  She gave a friendly, expectant smile.  At the same time she yanked the chain attached to the slave’s collar, causing him to slide headfirst down the porch steps.

The sick metallic feeling flooded the stranger’s limbs.  He shook his head to clear his mind.  Misunderstanding him, the gatekeeper frowned.  “You should mind your horse better,” she said. “You can’t always put your needs above the beast’s.”   For emphasis she kicked the naked slave who now knelt on his hands and knees at her side.  The slave gave a short keening through closed lips but made no other sign.

Recklessly the stranger grabbed at the gatekeeper’s arm.  “I mean no disrespect to you,” he said in a strained voice. “But maybe out of hospitality to a visitor to your land you could be kinder to the fellow.”

The gatekeeper started and stared, and then laughed a low laugh.  “A visitor!  To Riviera!” she exclaimed.  “Well, I’ll be.”  She looked at him closely for the first time.  “Say, you’re not from Alphronsia, are you?  I had an aunt who went visiting there once.  Never came back.”

The stranger shook his head.  “No, not from so far.  I come from Harmony.”

“Harmony!” The gatekeeper eyed him up and down.  “You don’t look like much of a rebel, but you never can tell, my Da says.  Are you the healer that was sent for, then?  I thought it would be an elder that would come.”  She frowned at him.

“I am the healer.  I finished my apprenticeship these two years past.”  He held out his hand for her to shake, and added, “I am called Gabriel.”  

“I am Nadia,” she said, limply taking his hand.  She continued, more formally, “I welcome you to Riviera.”  Then she smiled as if amused by her own words.

Gabriel looked down at the slave still cowering on his hands and knees by Nadia’s side.  He felt green as he realized that the slave, although undersized, was an adult.  His dark, wavy hair hung over his face, hiding it, and his thin limbs put Gabriel in mind of a coyote.  The slave’s shoulders trembled, but whether from fear or exertion Gabriel could not tell.  If he was aware of Gabriel’s scrutiny he gave no sign.

Nadia said, “Hugo’s got no more energy than a snake in the shade.  But if you’ve the need and inclination after your journey, one slave kneeling over is pretty much like another.  You’re welcome to him.”

Gabriel looked at her in complete bafflement, until he realized with a shock what she meant.  “Oh, no,” he said, involuntarily taking a step back from her and the slave.  

Nadia furrowed her eyebrows.  “Which side you favor is nothing to me,” she said.  Hugo remained silent and motionless, except for the tremors in his shoulders, which seemed to be increasing.

Gabriel forced himself to take a deep, slow breath into his diaphragm, sending the air to find his center of gravity.  The green feeling subsided slightly.  “You’ve misunderstood me,” he said.  “I was looking at him only because I am a healer.  Some of his cuts are infected, and I see can see from here he’s feverish. I’d like to try to make him more comfortable.”   He hoped the expression on his own face was pleasant, even as he determined to himself that he would treat the man whatever Nadia said, and whatever the consequences.  He hoped to reach the Bearer’s daughter, and to acquit himself well, but he could not put that purpose above the man who cowered before him.  He had taken the healer’s oath and he would uphold it.

Nadia contemplated his countenance.  After a moment she stepped aside, stiffly and grudgingly, her shoulders taut with anger that belied her staccato words. “In Riviera we believe in hospitality to strangers.  You can have a few minutes to do as you like with him.  The key is in his collar.”  She turned on her heel and walked purposefully around the far side of the house, not looking back.

As Gabriel approached the groveling figure he saw that, indeed, the heavy metal collar had a key in it.  He turned the key, opened the collar, and flung it into the dirt some feet away.  The metal had left a red tattoo in Hugo’s neck.  Gabriel asked him softly, “Are you in pain?” 

“Yes, sir,” Hugo responded in a hushed, cracked voice.  He bowed his head down to the ground.

“I am a healer,” Gabriel said.  “Will you let me help you?” 

Hugo did not lift his forehead from the ground.  “I am your vessel, master,” he said raggedly.

Gabriel shuddered and sat next to the man’s bent over figure, looking at the bloody X cut in his back by Nadia’s whip. He saw that Hugo’s entire back was covered with scars and whipmarks.  He touched gently next to where the X crossed.  “Is that where it hurts the most?” he said softly.

“I am your vessel, master,” Hugo repeated.  He raised his head slightly and coughed, a dry rasping cough.  Then he quickly lowered his head again, banging his forehead on the ground without a whimper.

Gabriel opened the waterskin he carried on his waist.  “Can you sit up?” he asked Hugo. Hugo instantly raised up his body and sat back on his knees, his head down, his eyes staring expressionless at the ground in front of him.  Gabriel pressed his waterskin into Hugo’s hand.  “Drink,” he said, “It will make you feel better.”  

Hugo obediently raised the water skin and squirted water into his mouth, swallowing it without expression.  Gabriel stood and went to Pegasus, who had wandered a few steps away to nibble on some thistle.  He retrieved a pack from the bags hanging on Pegasus’ saddle and  fiddled with various small, odd shaped paper and leather packets until he found the one he was looking for.  Taking out a cake of soap, he turned back to the slave, who was still pouring water into his mouth and swallowing robotically.  Gabriel gently took the skin from him.  “Easy,” he said.  “You don’t want to drown in that.”  Hugo kept his head tilted back, expressionless.

Gabriel wet his hands with water from the skin, and washed with the soap.  Returning it to his pack, he again looked at various packets until he the dried leaves he needed, and, with more ease, a small clay bowl wrapped in leather.  He poured a few drops of water into the bowl and then crushed the leaves into dust over it, stirring the mixture into paste with his forefinger.

Gabriel returned to Hugo.  He knelt in front of him and placed the bowl on the ground between them.  Hugo was still looking up to the heavens.  Gabriel sat motionless for several minutes, merely looking steadily at the slave, and breathing slowly and deeply.  At length, with a moan, the slave shivered and then looked at Gabriel full in the face, his pupils dilated with fear. He started to look up again, but Gabriel said, “It’s all right.  I won’t hurt you.”  Hugo’s eyes widened but he looked down, towards Gabriel’s knees, rather than up.  This seemed to be a much more comfortable stance.

Gabriel continued to breathe deeply and slowly, almost ostentatiously, into his belly.  Slowly, subtly, Hugo’s own breathing slowed and became deeper, until the bellies of the two men rose and fell in sync.  They sat otherwise motionless. The pupil’s of Hugo’s eyes slowly shrank to normal size, and the tremors in his shoulder calmed.

Without interrupting the flow of his breathing, and moving so slowly that he barely seemed to moving at all, Gabriel dipped his finger into the paste he had made, and moved around to Hugo’s back.  Gently, he spread the paste over the X where the worst of Hugo’s cut’s crossed.  Hugo gave a start at his first touch, but then was still.

“The cassia will help your wounds heal, and fight infection,” Gabriel said to him softly.  “This concoction isn’t very strong, but it should relieve some of your pain and make you more comfortable.”

To Gabriel’s dismay, Hugo began to cry, first a sniffle and then a sob.  “Not kindness, Master,” he begged.  He threw his body to the ground and banged his forehead on the dirt.  “Not the kindness mindgame.”  He stuck out his tongue and began to feverishly lick the ground in front of him.

“It’s not a game,” Gabriel said desperately. “I want to help you.  I’m a healer.”

Hugo looked up and made a sound between a croak and a groan.  “No kindness.  No mindgames.  Please...”  He sobbed and banged his head into the dirt.  

Gabriel dove to the ground and put shoved his hands under Hugo’s forehead, shielding it from the hard dirt, desperately trying to stop the man from seriously injuring himself.  When his forehead touched Gabriel’s soft palms, Hugo stopped pounding his head, but he continued sobbing, on the verge of hyperventilating.  Gabriel gently extricated his hands and reached under Hugo’s shoulders, pulling gently until he sat up. With his arm still around Hugo’s shoulder, Gabriel pulled him close, like he would a scared child.  He searched for words to say to the man, but could find none.  Instead, he softly stroked Hugo’s head, crooning softly.  Hugo began to relax and breathe more normally, and the danger of hyperventilation passed.  Gabriel could still feel his pulse beating wildly, though, and he knew the man was terrified.  He closed his eyes, matching his breathing to Hugo’s shallow breath, only ever so gently beginning to slow it down.  

His meditation was interrupted by a whistle and Nadia’s voice saying, “Well, I’ll be.”  

Hugo tried to escape from Gabriel’s grip and bow down before her, but Gabriel placed his other arm in front of his body, keeping him upright.  Hugo began to shake uncontrollably.  He muttered, “Mercy, mercy,” whether to Nadia or to Gabriel himself, or to both, Gabriel did not know.  

“Shsh,” he said to the slave.  “Nadia won’t hurt you, will you, Nadia?” and he looked at her, pleading.

Nadia pursed her lips together until they formed two thin whitish lines.  “You overreach yourself, Healer,” she said.  “He is my slave.”   

Hugo trembled and moaned, and hid his face in Gabriel’s arm.  “Stop it!” Nadia hissed at him.  In terror Hugo pulled himself away from Gabriel and threw himself to the ground in front of Nadia, completely prostrate, sniffling.   

Nadia ignored him.  She spoke coldly to Gabriel.  “The Bearer sent for you.  I didn’t.  If you’ve a mind to ruin his slaves, that’s your business and his.  But I’ll thank you to leave mine alone.”  In her anger, Nadia’s face had turned pale, save for two round red spots on each cheek and one at the tip of her nose.  

Gabriel willed his heart to beat more slowly.  He took a breath so deep his lungs hurt, expelled it slowly, and said to her, “You call him a slave but he is a man.  You’ve no right to treat him so.”

Nadia’s green eyes seemed to take on a yellow tint, and her pupils shrank to tiny specks.  “No right?” she shrieked.  “No right? I’ll show you my rights.”  She took her whip and began to slash at Hugo’s bare back with it.  Gabriel grabbed at her wrist, and the whip went wide, barely brushing Hugo’s side.  Nadia wrenched away and whipped at Hugo again.  This time Gabriel grabbed the whip itself, which wrapped around his hand several times, cutting him.  Oblivious to the pain, Gabriel pulled, and the handle came flying from Nadia’s hand, hitting him smartly on the forehead. 

“How dare you?”  Nadia hissed.

Before Gabriel could answer, a man’s voice said from behind them, “Yes, how dare you?”

Gabriel and Nadia both turned in surprise.  A tall, balding man with a belly that preceded him, holding a great tan mare by the reins, looked upon them.  His frown deepened.  “Perhaps you’d care to explain why you are interfering with Gatekeeper Nadia’s oversight of her slave?”  he asked Gabriel in a slow, ponderous tone.

The whip was still wrapped around Gabriel’s hand, which was beginning to throb.  Ignoring it, Gabriel said, more heatedly than he would have liked, “I am interfering with senseless torture.  No creature should be treated in this manner.”  His statement was punctuated by a deep sob from Hugo.

The man puckered his eyebrows and crossed his arms about his chest, scrutinizing Gabriel intensely.  He said, after a moment, with exaggerated courtesy, “Surely you do not say that Mistress Nadia has not complete dominion over her own slave?”

Nadia broke in, angrily.  “He knows nothing, Jonquil.  He is a rebel come from Harmony.”  She spat her words as if anxious to have them leave her mouth.

Jonquil took a step back and scrutinized Gabriel.  “Are you then the healer sent for by the Bearer to attend his daughter?”  Nadia scowled.

“I am,” Gabriel said.

Jonquil bowed stiffly.  “On behalf of the Bearer and his daughter, and indeed all of Riviera, I thank you for answering the summons.”  He frowned.  “Being a guest and a stranger here, of course you do not know our ways.  If you will accompany me to the mansion, we will get you settled immediately.”

A low moan came from Hugo.  He immediately began to lick at the dirt beneath his face, frantically, his tongue making a circle.

Gabriel clutched at the whip which was still wrapped around his hand.  “I’m sorry,” he said.  “Hugo is my patient now.  I cannot leave him while he suffers.”

Nadia gave an exasperated snort.  “He is a slave.  He lives only to suffer.”  She looked petulantly at Jonquil.

Jonquil nodded in agreement.  “The gatekeeper speaks the truth,” he said.  “The creature is her slave.  If she wants him to suffer, no one may interfere.”  Hugo stopped licking the dirt, and lay utterly motionless.  

Gabriel turned so he was standing between Hugo and Nadia and Jonquil, and planted his legs firmly.  He crossed his arms, the whip handle dangling down.  

Jonquil contemplated him for a moment, and then said, with the barest nervous crack in his polite facade, “Come, come, dwellers of Harmony and Riviera are cousins.  Certainly we can find common ground here.”  

Nadia spat, “You can’t be intimidated by him, Jonquil.  Look at him.  He’s bedraggled as a farm rag, and as skinny as one too.” 

Jonquil enunciated, as if trying to overcome a lisp, “I am not intimidated, gatekeeper Nadia.  I am considering the options.  A compromise must be reached.”  He paused.  “You will agree not to punish the slave for today’s events.”  

Gabriel interrupted, heatedly.  “Punish him! He’s done nothing!”

Jonquil held up his hand.  “She will agree not to punish him for today’s events,” he repeated, “And she will agree that if he does not misbehave she will neither beat nor torture him for two weeks.”

Nadia began to sputter in protest.  Jonquil ignored her and said to Gabriel, “That will give the creature time to heal his wounds and perhaps even to win his mistress’s affections.  No more can be asked.”  Jonquil held Gabriel’s gaze.  Gabriel’s blood roared in his ears as he saw Hugo, prostrate on the ground.  Deliberately he unwrapped the whip from his hand, resisting the urge to rub his cut hand.  

A long, petrified groan came from Hugo.  The knowledge broke on Gabriel like a dropped egg that he could not make a stand here.  Would he insist that Hugo be set free?  The concept was meaningless.  Hugo could not take care of himself, even if he were healthy, outside of these walls.  He would die of exposure in a day, or of hunger in a week at most.  Freedom within the walls for him was impossible.  He was one of--how many?  Tens or even hundreds of thousands of slaves, for all Gabriel knew.  They would not be freed on account of one stranger asking for it.  

Gabriel looked back at Jonquil and slowly nodded his acquiescence, bile building at the back of his throat.  Jonquil clasped his hands together.  He turned to Nadia and said, “I shall certainly convey your good grace in this matter, gatekeeper,” he said.  “Your sacrifice will not go unnoted.  Perhaps it will merit a return to the mansion.”  Nadia nodded stonily.  

Jonquil said to Gabriel, “If your horse does not require further rest,” he said,  “I suggest we leave.  The mansion is several hours on the road, and there is no sense in delaying.”  He looked hard at Gabriel, and his meaning was unmistakable.

Nevertheless, Gabriel turned deliberately and strode to Hugo, lowering himself to the ground beside the man.  Hugo made no sound or indication that he was aware of his presence.  After a long moment, Gabriel reached out and smoothed the slave’s hair.  Without moving, Hugo said in a voice so low only Gabriel could hear him, “Not kindness, master.  Please not kindness.”  

Gabriel removed his hand.  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and turned away.  

∞ ∞ ∞

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 in the 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 Nadia 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 elders.”  He added, as an afterthought, “Not uncommon in the young.  It’s done her some good to have 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.”  

The road led them through a kale crop, and then tomatillos, and then peas.  Gabriel wondered at each plant being kept discrete, which seemed an invitation to pests.  In Harmony the farmers grew crops together, intensely cultivating the land and using the plants to fertilize and shade each other.

In the pea field he saw farmers in the distance picking the vegetables.  As he and Jonquil drew near, Gabriel realized with a jolt that the farmers were naked.  They paid Gabriel and Jonquil no mind, or deliberately ignored them, not even looking up when their horses passed near.  In the next field, Gabriel watched a pregnant woman hoeing dirt into small hills the size to plant corn.  Gabriel wondered at the strange tattoos on her skin, until, his heart in his throat, he realized they were scars.  

Occasionally Gabriel also saw a person wearing clothes, 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, instructing the slave-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 thin man, who, like Hugo, 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 Nadia and her rag.”  

They passed wagons, dragged by draft horses or slaves.  Those that went past them towards the outer fields were empty or were loaded with barrels filled with something Gabriel could not guess.  Those that traveled in the same direction as the travelers were laden with produce.   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 a peach 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 woman with a heavy stick, surrounded by a half-circle of slaves.  The man rained the blows mostly at the woman’s breasts.  The woman 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 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 slavegirl to warm your bed and prepare your food.  Or about the travails of my five wayward children.  As to all other things I live in blissful ignorance.”  He kicked his horse into a trot to emphasize his point.

When they came to a good-sized river Jonquil suggested that they turn aside to rest and water their horses, and have their own late lunch.  They didn’t pause long, though.  On the other side of the bridge they passed through several pastures, and then more cropland.  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 hundreds 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 he had not imagined.

The lawn itself contained pockets of activity.  Here, a group of masters and mistresses were catching the afternoon sun, sprawled on long, low divans, while slaves fanned them. There, a group of children listened to an adult reading to them.  Here, a fierce faced mistress slapped a slave’s bottom with a flyswatter as the slave leaned over and touched her toes.  There, two slaves coupled as a mistress stood over them, watching them carefully.  Here, a slave mowed the lawn while another raked the leavings nearby.  There, a woman in a bright red tunic dozed as she leaned 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 his father, or any of the elders of Harmony, were here to advise him.  

Jonquil impatiently shifted in his saddle. 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 told him.  “Some people are afraid of them, and they make a mess.”  As they rode, Gabriel continued to look 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 leg.  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. 

They rode through the shadow of long, low barn on their left.  When they passed it the turned off the road to the left.  A huge stable was on its other side.  The snorting and stamping of horses seemed to Gabriel the first friendly sounds he had heard since passing through the gate hours earlier.  Pegasus seemed cheered as well, her ears pricking and her step livelier.  

Gabriel calculated fifty horses could be housed against the outer wall.  Entering the yard, he saw that there were three entrances, each with room for two rows of stalls.  The logistics of caring for so many horses housed in such close quarters must be staggering.  

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 troughs.  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 were having sex.  

Jonquil led him to the third entrance.  He stopped and peered into the dim light.  “Halloo,” he boomed, 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.  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 cuts both fresh and healing.  

“Ah, good, good,” Jonquil said to the slave.  “Find Master Stefan 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, when I’m not border-riding, if Stefan would part with them.  He never will though.  Too fond of ‘em, though he won’t admit it.  Unnatural, almost.”

A man stepped out of a stall into which the slave had just disappeared.  He was on the short side, with skin the color of redwood bark.  His somewhat faded beige open necked tunic and tan riding pants accentuated his broad shoulders and fine physique.  The knees of his pants were covered with mud and straw, and dirt was spattered all over him.  Gabriel guessed him to be about his own age.  

The man nodded politely.  “Jonquil,” he said, “I trust the latest horse was satisfactory.”  There was no questioning tone in his voice, and the right corner of his mouth turned down in a small sneer.  

“Excellent horse, excellent,” Jonquil said.  “Yours always are, Stefan.  Not like from some stables.  So I’ve brought you one more.”  At Stefan’s look of annoyance, Jonquil added, “Fine horse, shouldn’t be no trouble to you.”  

Stefan’s brow puckered.  “Practically full up here,” he said.  

Jonquil held up both arms in mock surrender.  “My dear man,” 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 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 Gabriel to Pegasus 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.  He slowly raised his hand to her neck and petted her.  Pegasus pricked her ears forward but otherwise did not move. Stefan stepped back and stood in front of the horse again.  She whickered and laid her chin on his shoulder, then backed up.

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 a cool look.  Then he turned with considerable more warmth to Gabriel.  “You’ll want to see her stall, 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 stall 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. There’s a chesty young thing in my office waiting for her master’s return.  No bracelet.  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.  He tied his own horse to a bar and hurried inside, closing the door with such eagerness that it slammed.  

Stefan gave 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, he barely raised his voice as he called, “Jordyn.  Here.   Now.”  

A slavegirl hurried toward them.  Little more than five feet tall, she had auburn hair cropped short that 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 there was only one acceptable answer.

For an instant the girl looked up.  “Yes, Master,” she replied in a slightly breathless tone that sounded surprisingly like happiness to Gabriel.  

Stefan blinked and then sighed rather than spoke a soft, “Oh.”  There was no fear in Jordyn’s 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.” Jordyn seemed unaware that she was echoing Stefan.  Her smile faded.

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

Jordyn 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.  When the horse snorted and tossed her head, Jordyn smiled.  “Taking care of your horse is an honor to me.”  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 Pegasus, Jordyn.”  She looked him full in the face in confusion.  “Master Gabriel will provide for the horse himself.  You will provide him with any assistance he needs, but you’re not to go near her without his express permission.”  

Jordyn’s eyebrows furrowed as she said, “As it pleases you, Master.”  

“You are excused from the lottery tonight,” Stefan said.  “See to Master Gabriel’s needs and then go to the loft.”

Jordyn nodded.  “Yes, Master.”  

Stefan stepped passed Jordyn, half turning to Gabriel.  “If you’ve any complaints about the girl, let me know.”  His tone was harsh but, almost as if he did not realize it, as he walked by Jordyn he squeezed her elbow softly with his hand.

Gabriel watched Stefan’s retreating figure walk towards to dim rear of the building, his footsteps quiet on the packed dirt floor.  Jordyn said, “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 into the stable.  As Gabriel followed, leading Pegasus by the reins, he caught a glimpse of a variety of horses, from small ponies to restless stallions.  Some were being tended to, by slaves or masters.  

Jordyn stopped and turned to a stall 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.

Embarrassed, Gabriel looked around to the slave girl, but she had disappeared.  He unloaded his saddle bags and placed them near the stall door, taking out only the curry brush.  He unsaddled Pegasus and removed the protective blanket, which was practically grimy.  Slowly, beginning with her forelock, he began to comb her.  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 Pegasus had on her legs, and examining her hooves with great tenderness.  When he finished, he opened the windhole, which looked out onto a thin strip of open space before the next stable.  He was surprised to see that dusk had fallen.  He had lost track of the hours that day.  

When he turned around the slave girl was approaching Pegasus 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.

Jordyn 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.  Guiltily, he 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, Master,” 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 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 strewed the hay about.  He noticed with approval that the water was lukewarm rather than cold, and he filled the trough with it.  He poured the oats into the basket.  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 unmistakable murmur of Stefan’s sardonic voice.  

A short time later another round of whipping began, followed by a feminine voice, softly crying out.  During it all, Jordyn 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 could not say.  Pegasus munched on her oats, oblivious.  Gabriel’s eyes stung and he wished that he and Pegasus were back in the forest, 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 almost filled the entry door to Pegasus’ stall.  Gabriel turned to Jordyn, 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.

Jordyn 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 he had treated Jordyn as if she were his to command, his thing.  Slowly he relaxed his grip on her and removed his hands from her shoulders.  He backed 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 Jordyn, assuming her customary pose of head slightly bowed, looking at his feet.

Want to read more?  Mindgames is available on Amazon here.