Grass!
Millions of square miles of it; numberless wind-whipped tsunamis of grass, a thousand sun-lulled caribbeans of grass, a hundred rippling oceans, every ripple a gleam of scarlet or amber, emerald or turquoise, multicolored as rainbows, the colors shivering over the prairies in stripes and blotches, the grasses — some high, some low, some feathered, some straight — making their own geography as they grow. There are grass hills where the great plumes tower in masses the height of ten tall men; grass valleys where the turf is like moss, soft under the feet, where maidens pillow their heads thinking of their lovers, where husbands lie down and think of their mistresses; grass groves where old men and women sit quiet at the end of the day, dreaming of things that might have been, perhaps once were. Commoners all, of course. No aristocrat would sit in the wild grass to dream. Aristocrats have gardens for that, if they dream at all.
Grass. Ruby ridges, blood-colored highlands, wine-shaded glades. Sapphire seas of grass with dark islands of grass bearing great plumy green trees which are grass again. Interminable meadows of silver hay where the great grazing beasts move in slanted lines like mowing machines, leaving the stubble behind them to spring up again in trackless wildernesses of rippling argent.
Orange highlands burning against the sunsets. Apricot ranges glowing in the dawns. Seed plumes sparkling like sequin stars. Blossom heads like the fragile lace old women take out of trunks to show their granddaughters.
“Lace made by nuns in the long-ago time.”
“What are nuns, Grandma?”
Here, there, wide-scattered across the limitless veldts, are the villages, walled about to keep the grass at bay, with small, thick-walled houses, each with its stout doors and heavy shutters. The minuscule fields and tiny orchards are full of homely crops and familiar fruits, while outside the walls the grass hovers like some enormous planet-wide bird, ready to stoop across the wall and eat it all, every apple and every turnip and every old woman at the well, too, along with her grandchildren.
“This is a parsnip, child. From long ago.”
“When was long ago, Grandma?”
Here, there, as wide-scattered as the villages, the estancias of the aristocrats: bon Damfels’ place, bon Maukerden’s place, all the places of the other bons, tall thatched houses set in gardens of grass among grass fountains and grass courtyards, with their own high walls — these pierced with gates for the hunters to go out of and for the hunters to return through again. Those who return.
And here, there, nosing among the grass roots, will come the hounds, muzzles wrinkling, ears dangling, one foot before another in a slow pace to find it, the inevitable it, the nighttime horror, the eater of young. And look, there behind them on the tall mounts, there will come the riders in their red coats, silent as shadows they will come riding, riding over the grass: the Huntsman with his horn; the whippers-in with their whips; the field, some with red coats and some with black, their round hats pressed hard upon their heads, eyes fixed forward toward the hounds — riding, riding.
Among them today will be Diamante bon Damfels — young daughter Dimity — eyes tight shut to keep out the sight of the hounds, hands clenched pale upon the reins, neck as fragile as a flower stem in the high, white cylinder of the hunting tie, black boots glistening with polish, black coat well brushed, black hat tight on the little head, riding, riding, for the first time ever, riding to the hounds.
And there, somewhere, in the direction they are going, high in a tree perhaps, for there are copses of trees here and there upon the vast prairies, will be the fox. The mighty fox. The implacable fox. The fox who knows they are coming.