Yet the fact that she was black and the majority wasn’t had never been that far from the surface. Some small incident would bring up comments. “You people would say that.”
“You wouldn’t understand, being different…” Never outright insults or condemnation on color, but always the implication.
Here, she found none of that. This was the society of which her father had dreamed, in which black people were just people. At last she felt a sense of kinship that went deep—deeper than the present, stretching into the past.
When she saw Jak, and he raised the matter of freeing the rest of their companions, she had felt uncomfortable. She knew that rescue should be a priority, yet she mouthed platitudes at Jak about leaving things as they were for a few days while she gained the confidence of the baron’s daughter. It would be a tricky matter to get them released, and escape would be difficult, leaving them with no chance to avoid buying the farm if they were caught.
Even as she spoke, she could see the disbelief in the albino’s burning red eyes. He knew she was stalling and couldn’t work out why.
Neither could she. Deep in her heart, she knew what the companions meant to her, and she knew from some of the things she heard the Pilatans say about the whitelands that there were things in this society that were merely the inverse of what they had left behind.
Mildred was divided. The ideal for the oppressed that she had heard of as a child, and the sense of historical belonging that she had never thought to experience, raged against the ties forged by a life that toyed with the big chilling everyday…ties forged by fire that couldn’t be broken, no matter the color of the skin or the historical antecedent.
Right now, even Mildred had no idea what she could do to calm the raging sea within.
Chapter Six
“It is time that you met my father, but he is like the lion in winter. Where once he was tall, erect and noble, now he is bowed by the weight of years upon him, and responsibility only adds to the burden. He takes much more time to think in these days, and so you must not worry if he does not, at first, respond to you.”
Mildred chewed on her lip and nodded. She was keen to meet Barras, the baron of Pilatu, but knew that he was a man fading into the final dimming of the light. Everything that Sineta had told her over the past couple of days pointed to a man whose days were drawing to a close. It seemed that the ville’s medic could do little to help, and Mildred was aware that it could only strengthen her position if she were able to assist his suffering in some manner.
“You do realize why I want to meet him, don’t you?” Mildred asked.
“I have told you that there would be much opposition to releasing your friends. The untruth spoken to assist the albino will weigh against them in my father’s judgment—and also in the opinions of many within the ville.”
“By which you mean Markos won’t like it, right?” Mildred queried.
Sineta allowed herself an indication of agreement. “I believe that you already know the answer to that question, Mildred. Markos will find it impossible to believe that people from the whitelands could treat a brother or a sister as equal. You have to understand that he is not a bad man—”
Mildred raised a hand. “I know. I can appreciate that. He’s a man who has always thought a certain way, and has no experience to teach him otherwise. But I figure that he’s a good guy, and if he can take the time to learn a little about the others, he’ll see beyond their pale skins.”
Sineta made a small moue. “If his brother allows him to think in another way from himself.”
“I had kind of noticed that.” Mildred smiled. “We’ll just have to see.”
“Then let us depart.”
The two women left Sineta’s quarters and walked the short distance between her adobe hut and the larger premises where the ailing baron held court.