Chapter 34:

Remy smiled broadly as she came up, flushed but triumphant, with Andrew following. 'Where you learn to do dat, chere?" he asked, throwing an arm around her shoulder. She leaned her head against his chest and smiled, at him and Charles.

"Papa used to do that with the horses that bit him," she said. "Storm bit him once, really bad. After the potato, he never tried again. I think that black filly is going to need to learn the lesson a few more times, but I don't think there's going to be a problem with serious biting anymore."

"Well, dat was my surprise for you, chere. When I saw you handle dat outlaw on de train platform I figured you were de perfec' person to take her in hand. She your horse now."

Jubilee's eyes shone in delight. "Really? Mine? But Remy…" Her eyes flicked quickly to Charles.

Xavier laughed and patted her shoulder. "It is quite all right. Remy was the one who purchased the horse, and therefore the horse is his, to dispense with as he chooses."

Jubilee turned to look at the field, watching the filly as she rolled in the lush green grass. "What's her name?" she asked Andrew.

Andrew flushed. "She don't have no name, Mistress," he told her, touching the brim of his cap respectfully. "We jus' calls her the black one, cause she so unmanageable."

"Well, I can't call her that," Jubilee said, eyes flashing. Her eyes returned to the pasture, where the black filly was dancing sideways while another filly nipped at her withers. "Papa used to call that color shadow," She said thoughtfully. "And she's quick as a cat when she goes to bite. I'll call her Shadowcat." She smiled. "And you are…?

"Andrew, Mistress," the man brushed his cap brim again.

Jubilee smiled. "I'm not a mistress, Andrew, I don't have papers yet. I'm just another slave Remy brought up from the states." Andrew straightened up. He had free papers; she didn't. He didn't have to be respectful to her.

Charles had been looking at Shadowcat frisking about in her paddock, all traces of exhaustion from her morning's ordeal gone. "Andrew, you have been telling me that having care of the mares and foals were a burden, after all the rest of the things you have to be responsible for around the stables," he said. "Jubilee, would you like to take over their management? It will ease the load on Andrew's shoulders."

"I'd love that," Jubilee beamed.

Charles nodded. "That is settled, then. Andrew, you may henceforth confine your attentions to the stallions and geldings; Jubilee will take the mares and foals up to one year. Jubilee, I shall start you off on fifty cents a week. The free papers cost five dollars. How much would you prefer to have taken out?"

Jubilee did some quick mental figuring. "All of it," she said firmly. "Until the debt is paid off, all of it. I shall start collecting wages in ten weeks."

"That's settled then," Charles said. "I shall leave you here, then. I must go back to the house; but I trust Remy and Andrew will show you around and explain your new duties. Adieu." He went back to Excalibur, mounted easily, and started traveling back up the road.

Remy kept his arm slung over Jubilee's shoulder as Andrew took them around the mares and foals' stable, showing her where all the tack and feed were kept. "You'll have four stable hands to do the everyday work of feeding and currying the horses, cleaning out the stalls and the stable. However, checking the horses' shoes, keeping an eye on the pregnant mares, making sure the horse doctor comes for the sick ones, and caring for any injuries is your responsibility. I train the foals to bridle and saddle; all you have to worry about is tending to the health of the others."

Jubilee nodded and disappeared into the stable, going down the rows and acquainting herself with each horse. Andrew waited outside with Remy. After a moment of watching, Andrew said, "Master Remy, she's not really a slave is she? Her skin's not dark."

"Eh, she a slave all right," Remy said grimly, his face darkening. "She was branded as a body slave by her first master when he foun' her in a camp dat was raided by Indians. She was de only one lef'. Her master had her working on de railroad until her papa buy her from the railroad master, but de man couldn't leave her alone. He catch her one day off de property wit'out a pass, and whip her bad. Her Papa sent her wit' me to be freed."

Andrew went quiet, but his mind was whirling. A body slave. His lips curved in a smile that had nothing to do with the frisky little foal cavorting around Jubilee in his dam's stall. Ten weeks till she was free, but in the meantime, she was still a slave and he could order her about as he wished. Yes, that would suit him well. He was a freeman; she would have to obey him—or, he mused—he could tell her that if she didn't obey him he would tell them she was unsatisfactory and they might decide she wasn't worthy of freedom. Charles wouldn't do that, he knew that; but she didn't know that. He'd done it with plenty of the serving maids in the big house; this one would be just one more. He'd always wanted to have a pale-skinned girl, but a white girl was out of the question; although he was a free man, there were still some lines he couldn't cross, and whites and blacks, even here in Canada, was frowned on.

"What time should I come here every morning?" Jubilee said, finishing her inspection of the mares and foals and coming back up to the two men.

"We have quarters for stablehands over there," Andrew said, pointing to a long, low building some distance away. "I'll have room made in the women's--"

"Non," Remy said. 'She sleep up at de big house wit' me." He kissed the top of her head.

Andrew's heart almost stopped. She was Remy's slave. He sucked in a breath. So despite what they said about her being free, she was still a body slave to Remy. And what other man up in the big house might be using her? He grinned. No reason why she shouldn't serve the free men down here in the stables too. "Report here each morning, around nine," he said. "That'll be just in time for the morning feed, before the mares are turned out into the pasture. Then you can go back up to the big house around five o'clock, in time for dinner up there."

"I can do that," Jubilee said cheerfully. "Should I start now?"

"Non," Remy said, steering her over to Betsy and mounting Rogue. "In de meantime, we have to get de doctor to look at you, make sure you healt'y, and get papers for. Den you can come back dis evening."

Jubilee grumbled, but mounted Betsy and followed him out of the stableyard.

Remy left her in her room with Henry, and went whistling downstairs to raid the kitchen. He was passing Charles's open study door when Charles called, "Remy, stop in here a moment, I would like a word with you."

Remy sauntered into the study. "Oui?"

Charles looked pensive. "Sit down." When Remy sat, Charles leaned forward over his desk, hands folded pensively under his chin. "Remy, have you explained to Jubilee why her father sent her away?"

"Non," Remy said. "Charles, she was whipped real bad right before we lef' Took her t'ree weeks to recover from de whipping, de rape, an' de fractured rib. Logan was terrified if she stayed it would happen again. So he tol' me to take her, signed de paper giving her to me, and den pretended to get mad at her so she would t'ink she wasn' welcome anymore an' wouldn' try to come back after she got her papers. If she come back, de firs' person who recognize her goin' to ask for her papers. De papers don' mean not'ing to dem down dere, Charles. Dey rip dem up and sell her on de block as soon as dey see her brand."

"We can obliterate that brand, Remy, the same as we did for you. Then she can go home without having to worry about being enslaved again."

Remy shook his head stoutly. "Logan tell me not to. It too much pain for a little t'ing like her. Besides..." and a little note of petulance crept into his voice, "I love her. I want to marry her. I want her to stay here wit' me. If dat brand gone, she goin' to feel like she have to go home, to be wit' her beloved papa, an' I goin' to lose her. I love her, Charles. She can't go. I don' know what I do wit'out her."

Charles shook his head. "Remy, you are being selfish. You're only thinking of yourself here. What about her? Thinking that her father doesn't love her is breaking her heart. If she really loves him, shouldn't she have the choice of going back? Love must live free, Remy. Do you want to look into her eyes, years from now, and see regret there because she never went back? Do you want her to cry inside the rest of her life because she thinks the one person she loved most in the world hates her? Would that be fair to her?"

Remy squirmed. "Non."

"Would you rather that she come to you with her heart free, of her own choice? Because what you're doing, Remy, will keep her as chained to you as if she were still a slave. If you are going to do that, then I may as well not get papers for her at all." Charles dug around in a drawer, and brought out a sheet of paper. "I need your signature on this application to free her. If you're going to give her a choice, please sign it. If you're not, don't pick up the pen."

Remy sat there for long moments, staring at the paper. He loved her. Wanted her to stay with him so badly he could almost taste it. He wanted her to marry him, wanted to feel her sleeping beside him every night, wake up to her cheerful face every day. He'd been a slave once, he'd had everything he wanted, everything he loved, taken away from him time and again by the masters who'd sold him from on place to another. His mother had been taken away from him; the horse he'd loved on his third master's farm had been sold away. He'd never been allowed to keep the things he loved, the people he cared for. Until her. Now he had a woman he loved sleeping in the room beside his, and soon she would be sleeping in the bed beside him. He didn't want to let her go.

But what Charles said made sense. What he was doing was a kind of slavery, in itself. Slavery took away a person's right to choose where they went, what they had, who they loved, what they thought, how they felt, the way they acted. And deep in his heart he knew it wasn't right. He knew he shouldn't keep her here out of constraint; she should stay with him out of love. He just wasn't sure that love for him would keep her here.

But Jubilee was at the point in her life where she needed a lover, a husband, more than she needed a father. Could he make her love him enough that, even if she went to see her father, she would come back to him? That was a challenge, a gamble. And Remy had always been a gambler. His bed skills drove her wild; she loved it, and begged him for it almost every night while they were on the trail. Could his love for her, and his skills, be enough to keep her with him?

He'd always been a gambler.

He picked up the pen and signed his name in the appropriate blank.