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the front answered, “yes sar.”
    “And Mamee too, I am hungry.” Elizabeth puckered her pink lips peevishly.
    “Okay, Mamee too.” Robert sighed, Mamee was also a house slave and she had been in his house for close to ten years, she could not be involved, he reasoned.
    “Jamilia,” Elizabeth said stubbornly referring to the cook.
    “And Jamilia,” Robert nodded to the cook.
    “Burnice needs to stitch the hem of my green frock, the one that brings out my eyes to wear to the tea.” Elizabeth said and before Robert could answer, “that’s all, no one else.”
    “Very well, Burnice go help your mistress.”
    As the slaves walked away behind Elizabeth, Robert looked at John, “split them up in groups and see if they know anything. Promise freedom if that is what it will take.”
    John nodded vaguely; he was looking at Elizabeth’s retreating back; he was dazed at her beauty.

Chapter Ten
     
    “That was close,” Mamee whispered in the kitchen at lunchtime, they were preparing the Massa’s food. Jamilia was whistling tunelessly over the pot and Burnice was chopping vegetables.
    “She removed all the people that would know anything,” Burnice chuckled softly. “Massa John is so hot in the collar, over her, that he did not pick up on anything.”
    “And Massa Robert was so frustrated with her, he allowed us to go.” Mamee shook her head. “I am glad they didn’t get to quiz Martha, she’s been pining over the little short one that they call Cudjoe ever since he left last night.”
    “Its called love,” Jamilia said as she stirred a sprig of thyme in the pot and tasted it.
    “You can’t love so quickly,” Mamee snorted, “she knew him for just one day.”
    “It happens fast in this world,” Burnice was chopping carrots, her fat arms jiggling as she minced the orange vegetable. “You can’t afford to wait and see.”
    “I agree,” Jamilia said reflectively, “as soon as you meet a good man they sell him or he runs away to the hills.” Her eyes misted over, “remember Minto?”
    Everyone grunted. Burnice tightened her lips, and started chopping the vegetables in earnest. Mamee hummed tunelessly, hoping that Jamilia would not continue on her memories of Minto.
    “He was a good man,” Jamilia stirred the soup and smacked her lips, “I did not have any complaints about that one … ”
    “Stop,” Mamee held up her hands, “I'm not going to say this again to you Jamilia, Minto was little more than a stud horse. The Massa bought him to impregnate the women on the plantation so that he wouldn’t have to buy anymore slaves.”
    Jamilia closed her eyes, “he loved me though.”
    Burnice grunted in derision, she had two children for Minto but the Massa had sold them.
    “What does that grunt mean, fat woman?” Jamilia asked snidely. “Don’t you believe that he loved me?”
    “Don’t answer,” Mamee said before Burnice could retort, “they have stripped you of your dignity and any sense of family and you are about to argue over a man who was doing his job as dictated by the Massa; a job that robbed him of any self worth.”
    Jamilia and Burnice looked at each other apologetically and silence reigned in the kitchen, each woman lost in thought.
    “Why don’t you run away too if you hate this life so much?” Burnice asked Mamee in the silence.
    Mamee buttered the bread she had in her hands and slapped them together. “I have to stay for Martha.”
    “Why are you so concerned about the girl?” Jamilia asked curiously.
    “She is my daughter.” Mamee said abruptly.
    Burnice and Jamilia looked at each other with raised eyebrows.
    “She doesn’t know that.” Jamilia said frowning, “she said her mother was sold … ”
    “I was,” Mamee sighed, “I was so happy when I saw her again but by the time she arrived here she was too old to remember me and sometimes its better for us not to know how close we are to each other in these situations.”
    “How do you know that she is your