Before Rigo had a chance to meet the Green Brothers, a morning came when the tell-me shrilled news of the lapse. The bon Damfels had assembled for the Hunt, but no hounds or mounts had appeared. Salla. one of Roald Few’s informants, had sent word to Commons and Roald had messaged Opal Hill.
Long-set plans moved into action. The embassy swarmed with cleaners and cooks, readying for the evening three days distant when the awaited reception would occur.
In the little house, Eugenie bit through a thread and bid her docile pet turn a quarter turn to the left. No one else at Opal Hill had seen Pet yet. And no one anywhere would have ever seen her like this.
At the bon Damfels’, Stavenger ticked off the list of those who would attend. Shevlok, yes. Sylvan, yes. No one younger than Sylvan. None of the young cousins. Shevlok would be ordered to pay putative court to the fragras girl, Stella, and that would solve that problem.
In Commons the musicians went over their music and instruments, the wine merchant checked his stores, the extra cooks rolled their knives in their aprons. Aircars began to dart toward Opal Hill.
At bon Smaerlok’s estancia. and at bon Tanlig’s, at all the estancias, the grown women went through their ball gowns, deciding what to wear, while their daughters sulked. None of the young women were going, it had been decided. Too dangerous. Only older women, women with good sense, women with a number of liaisons behind them. Several of them had been picked to flirt with the Yrarier son, several good-looking, experienced ones. Whatever else might occur as the result of Sanctity’s embassy reception on Grass, an inappropriate liaison with a young Yrarier was not going to be allowed. So said the elder bons.
And at Opal Hill Roderigo Yrarier went over the list of those who would attend, noting the absence of young people and simmering at the insult offered to his family and his name.
Obermun bon Haunser had remembered his promise to Marjorie when he had recommended Admit Maukerden as her “secretary.” When she first got around to interviewing the tall, self-important individual, he told her that he knew every bon in every family and who the parents were and what the liaisons had been and who was in sympathy with and who out of sorts with whom. He expected, so he said, a private suite and a salary which made Rigo blink in surprise.
“I don’t trust him,” Marjorie told Rigo.
“Nor do I,” Rigo confessed. “But hire him anyhow. Assign him something to do and let’s see what he comes up with.”
After a little thought, Marjorie asked Admit to compile a file on those who would attend the reception, giving family connections and such personal information as might be helpful to new acquaintances in conducting conversation. He spent a great deal of time at it for one who supposedly knew them all. presenting the final work with a flourish.
Marjorie thanked him with a smile which conveyed nothing but ignorance and appreciation. She and Rigo then gave the file to Persun Pollut.
“Oh, my lame left leg.” Persun muttered. “That fool doesn’t know a cousin from an aunt or a bon Maukerden from a bon Bindersen.”
“Not accurate?” she queried sweetly.
“Except for the Obermums and Obermuns, there’s hardly a thing here that’s not plain wrong. He’d of done better guessing. If you’d done any introductions on the basis of this, the bons would have had your bones for supper.”
“Which would indicate either monumental stupidity or purposeful misinformation.” Rigo grinned through clenched teeth.
“He’s intelligent enough in his own interest,” Marjorie responded. “Then he was instructed to be useless,” Rigo said. “More than useless. Destructive. Which, I think, tells us all we need to know about him and a good bit more about them.”
Thereafter, Marjorie pretended to consult Admit Maukerden from time to time and Rigo amused himself by giving the man false information about the purpose of the embassy, waiting to see which parts of it would come back to him, in whatever guise, via the bons. Meantime, Persun corrected the file on the guests and went over it with Rigo’s trusted assistant, Andrea Chapelside. It was Persun who set down accurate details about the bons. “This one is more important than he looks,” he said. “This one is malicious and will misquote you.”
And it was Persun, dressed in servant’s livery, who was assigned to circulate among the guests to hear what he could hear. Admit Maukerden, splendidly costumed to fit his idea of his own importance, would be relegated to a post near the first surface from which he could announce the arrivals with a fine and completely spurious air of authority, separated by a thwarting distance from anything that might transpire in the rooms above him. Though Marjorie doubted that anything of consequence would happen, Rigo had faith that something of great importance would follow his enormous investment of time and attention.
The evening arrived. Aircars dropped swiftly to the gravel court to disgorge their bejeweled and ornamented riders, rising as swiftly to make room for those that followed. Marjorie and Stella, gowned as extravagantly as any of the bons — the dresses had been stitched by a whole family of Commons’ seamsters nominated by Roald Few — waited at the top of the stairs that the bons would have to ascend, Marjorie on Rigo’s arm, Stella on Tony’s.
Rigo had foreseen problems and had communicated them fully to the children. “They are not bringing anyone your age. They will not be so undiplomatic or ungracious as to exclude you from their attention, however. You may expect charm and flattery from some of them. Stella, some man or men. Tony, some woman or women. Be charming in return. Seem flattered. But do not be fooled! Do not lose your heads.”
Seeing Tony pale and Stella flush angrily, Marjorie had nodded agreement and said soothing words. She had been warned by Persun Pollut as well, who had heard it from a villager who had heard it from a cousin at bon Maukerden’s. “They want no real contact, Lady. They want no involvement. They have told off some of their family members to pay court to you and yours, but they will do it merely to keep you pleased with yourselves.”
“Why?” she asked. “Why do they reject honesty?”
“Some of them would reject nothing. Some might say welcome if they thought about it. Eric bon Haunser, maybe. Figor bon Damfels, maybe. Some like that. But the Obermuns, the hunters, they say no. They say they came to Grass to get away from others, foreigners. They call you fragras. That is what they say, but I think what they feel is fear. And if you look for fear, look there, among the hunters.”
Asked why the bons should feel fear, he didn’t know. It was only a feeling he had, he said, and he couldn’t say why.
“Why do they fear us?” she had asked Rigo.
“Fear us? Nonsense,” he said angrily. “It is pure pride with them, pride in their fabulous ancestries — fabulous in every sense, for their nobility is more fable than reality. Sender O’Neil told me about their origins. The fool may not have had much right about Grass, but he did know where the bons came from. Their ancestors were minor nobility at best, and not much of that. They can’t go on pretending to be important unless they’ve got something to be important about. When they came here, they brought along plenty of common folk to lord it over, you’ll notice, and they’ve spent the generations since they arrived feeding one another puffery about their histories.”
Marjorie, who had seen among the aristocrats certain twitches of skin, wrinklings around eyes, and pursings of lips, all unconscious, believed that Persun was right. What the bons felt was fear, though the bons might not understand what it was they feared.
Still, whether it was pride or fear that moved them made no difference in their behavior. They arrived as Persun had said they would, in order of their importance, a lot of small fry first: fourth and fifth leaders with their ladies, cousins, and aunts mincing up the stairs as though the treads were hot, old singletons like aged bulls, swinging their heads from side to side to feel their horns. As Admit Maukerden bellowed their names; Andrea, hidden in an alcove, looked each one up and recited the commentary into her whisperphone. “This one is a Laupmon cousin, thirty-four Terran years. She is childless, and she still rides. The next one is an aunt of the Obermum. Fifty-two Terran years. No longer rides.”
Primed by Andrea’s voice, which buzzed in their ears with an insect hum, the Yrariers responded appropriately to each of their guests with charm or pure formality or even frosty coolness to those so chilly they would resent anything else. “So glad you could come,” they murmured, noting each detail of dress or feature and connecting it with the name humming in their ears so they would not forget to be wary of this one or that one as the evening wore on. “Good evening. So very glad you could come.” On the balcony above the largest reception room, musicians played. A dozen villagers hastily trained and tricked out in livery circulated with glasses, putting on the fine air of pomp and disdain which Stella had suggested to them. “What you must convey,” she had told them, giggling, “is that it is better to be a footman at Opal Hill than to be Obermun anywhere else.”
“Stella!” Rigo had expostulated.
“It’s all right, sir,” Asmir Tanlig had said. “We understand the young lady right enough. She wants us proud enough to shame the bons.” And so they were to the last man, bowing like grandees as they offered their trays of glasses, their bits of tasty food, their sotto voce directions to the ladies’ or the gentlemen’s retiring room, along the balcony, near the musicians. The guests stood or sat or wandered, examining each bit of furniture, each set of drapes, some with a slightly discontented air. Little enough there for them to find fault with unless they found fault with themselves. Similar furnishings were found in every estancia. Similar images on the walls. Similar arrangements of flowers. Not so well done, perhaps, but similar. Too similar to cavil at, though one or two made the effort. “So ordinary,” they said. “So everyday. One would think, coming from Sanctity…” As though they would not have belittled anything that had breathed of Sanctity.
“Good evening How very glad we are to meet you.”
Now the seconds and thirds were beginning to arrive. Eric bon Haunser with Semeles bon Haunser on his arm. “A cousin,” said Andrea’s voice. “At one time said to have been Eric’s lover. She will attempt to seduce Tony, or failing that, the ambassador.”
Was there a quaver in Andrea’s voice at the thought of anyone seducing the ambassador. Was it amusement, perhaps? Gray haired Andrea, who knew Rigo as though he were her own younger brother. Who knew all about Eugenie. Amused? Tony flushed as he bowed over the hand of Semeles bon Haunser. Stella snorted, and Marjorie bit back a cheerless giggle as she smiled and bowed in her turn as Figor took her hand.
“Figor bon Damfels, younger brother of the Obermun. Yie has been instructed to flirt with Lady Westriding. Shevlok bon Damfels. He will pay court to Stella, though unwillingly, for he is still grieving over Janetta bon Maukerden. Sylvan bon Damfels. As usual, no one knows what he is up to.”
Marjorie’s placid voice addressed the bon Damfels’ sons. “Good evening. How nice to see you both again.”
“Good evening, Lady Westriding,” said Sylvan, bowing. “It is kind of you to have planned this amusement for us. We have talked of little else for days.” Smiling at Marjorie, at Stella, manfully clapping Tony on the shoulder, bowing slightly to Rigo. All this charm. In comparison, Shevlok was a poor player, able to muster only a muttered compliment, a sidelong glance, more cowed than seductive. Unconvincing, Marjorie thought. Damned loutish, Stella seethed. Unhappy Shevlok.
“Obermun Stavenger bon Damfels. Obermum Rowena bon Damfels.”
Now the firsts were beginning to appear, and Andrea’s whisperphone was silent. The Yrariers already knew what was common knowledge about the Obermuns, the Obermums.
“Obermun Kahrl bon Bindersen. Obermum Lisian bon Bindersen. Obermun Dimoth bon Maukerden. Obermum Geraldria bon Maukerden.”
“Good evening. We are honored to welcome you.”
“Obermun Gustave bon Smaerlok. Obermum Berta bon Smaerlok. Obermun Jerril bon Haunser. Obermum Felitia bon Haunser.”
“Good evening. Good evening.”
“Obermun Lancel bon Laupmon.”
“Alone,” whispered Andrea. “Recently widowed.”
Then, at last, one final man and an old. old woman in a mechanical chair. “Obermun Zoric bon Tanlig. Obermum Alideanne bon Tanlig.”
“She is the Obermun’s mother and the eldest among the first leaders,” whispered Andrea. “She is always the last to arrive.”
Now the Yrariers could follow the music and the smell of food, down a half flight from the long, chilly hall. Marjorie advanced into the ballroom, was swung into the dance by Rigo. Stella and Tony followed. They had practiced these antique steps under the watchful eye of a dancing master sent from Commons and they now swayed across the floor as though they had danced in this remarkably intimate fashion all their lives. The dance was called a valz. From here and there about the floor couples of the bons joined them on the floor, not so many as to look enthusiastic but not so few as to appear impolite.
“We are being put in our place,” Marjorie said, smiling into Rigo’s face.
’They can only do it if we appear to notice it.” He smiled in return, flames of fury at the backs of his eyes.
They turned to other partners. Rigo allowed no opportunity for snubs. Though he was complimentary to all the bons, he asked no woman to dance who had not been ordered to approach him. Thanks to Persun, he knew who those were. As did Tony.
“Pretend it is an Olympic event,” Marjorie had told her fretful son. “If you do it right, you will get a medal. Treat your partner as you would a willful horse, gently but firmly. It is only athletics, after all.” And so Tony danced and smiled and tried to flirt, though he had had sadly little practice at it. Stella was far better at it than he, anger only increasing her vivacity.
Marjorie drank fruit juice, provided discreetly by Asmir Tanlig, and chanted to herself as she sometimes did when duty bade her do things she did not want to do. “Bow, smile, be led into the dance. Smile, flirt, talk of nothing much. Flirt, charm, be led back to your chair. Charm, bow, begin again.” The partners came and went, in relays. She began to long for a real drink, a real conversation.
“Will you dance with me, Lady Westriding?” Sylvan spoke, appearing from somewhere behind her.
She almost sighed with relief. Sylvan was not supposed to be one of those she had to be wary of. She went into his arms as to a refuge, not fleeing precisely, and yet not holding herself aloof. He led her gently, as though she were a hooded bird, accustoming her to his movements until they seemed to dance almost as one. She thought fleetingly of her advice to Tony, and was amused. Around them other couples circled, a little silence falling as bons whispered to one another. Sylvan was always interesting because he was not predictable. Look — Sylvan! Sylvan bon Damfels.…
Perhaps it was the quiet that drew Rigo’s attention. He was on the balcony, standing at the entrance of the gentlemen’s withdrawing room as he saw Marjorie circling in Sylvan’s arms and felt his lip lift in a familiar snarl. She danced with the young bon Damfels as though he were an old and valued friend. Or a lover.
He struggled to control his face. He could not snarl or curse as he sometimes did when he saw her contented like this, moving in some exercise of horsemanship or dance or merely walking in the garden. There was an expression on her face at certain times, an expression of unconscious joy which came from a part of her he had always coveted, a separate being he never saw when he was with her. He had seen that being in the arena or the hunt, skimming the green pastures toward the high fences, all there between the posts and over the water, winging on danger and delight, a bird soaring with a singing face. He wanted to hold that bird.
He had wooed Marjorie and won Marjorie. but he had never gained possession of the thing he’d wanted. Seeking her soul, he had taken only her body, finding there a hollowness he had not expected, a vacant citadel he could storm again and again to no effect. In his bed she became someone else, someone dressed in childlike gowns, filmy white, sprigged with blossoms, her body fragile and boneless, her eyes focused far away on something he could not see. He had used every skill with her he knew, and some he invented for her alone, but she never came from Rigo’s bed looking as she looked now, dancing with Sylvan bon Damfels, lost in movement and pleasure, eyes half closed, lips curved up in that gentle smile he had thought, once, would be his alone.
Andrea’s voice in his ear, secret as a mole. “Persun says your absence is being noted.”
He smiled and went down from the balcony, looking for women’s faces he could notice particularly, women’s bodies he could admire with a significant glance, hinting something, promising nothing. It was all a game, a game.
And below him, Sylvan left Marjorie and turned to Stella with conscious gallantry. Marjorie took yet another glass of fruit juice from a tray offered by Asmir Tanlig and stood beside Geraldria bon Maukerden to join in witty admiration of the ladies’ gowns, embroidered and beaded in fantastic designs. This, too, was a Grassian game, with its own language, its own etiquette. Persun had researched it and taught it to her.
Rigo swung past her in the dance, smiling like a mannequin at her over his partner’s shoulder.
Beyond them, through the door to the terrace, Marjorie saw Eugenie. Had anyone been appointed to dance with Eugenie? What bon? Any bon at all? Perhaps she would have to beg Sylvan to dance with her husband’s mistress. Though perhaps Shevlok would do so without prompting. He was near the door, looking out at Eugenie where she stood with someone.
With a girl? But there were no girls, no young women present. Except Stella, and Stella was dancing with Sylvan. Marjorie, possessed by a premonition of trouble, put down her glass.
Eugenie and her friend came through the terrace door, Eugenie clad all in rose, her gown fluttering behind her like sunset cloud, and the other one in a similar gown, violet as shadow, hair piled high, walking behind Eugenie with Eugenie’s own half-gliding gait, head turned to one side so that she looked across the room with an odd, one-eyed glance, sidelong…
A strange silence fell. Someone stopped talking and stared. Someone else’s eyes followed the first stare. A couple stopped dancing. The music went on, but the people slowed, like moving toys that had run down, slowly, stopping.
Eugenie was halfway across the room, moving toward Marjorie. She would not go to Rigo, not publicly, she knew enough for that. She knew her public role was to be merely one of the group, a guest of the embassy, invited to participate in this gaiety. She smiled, holding out her hand as her companion passed the man near the door…
And Shevlok screamed as though his heart had been torn out.
“Janetta!”
Eugenie glanced behind her uncertainly; then, seeing that her companion followed still, she came on again, her face collapsing in doubt.
“Janetta!” Now the woman beside Marjorie, Geraldria bon Maukerden, cried out that name.
And uproar. At Marjorie’s side, Geraldria dropped her glass. It splattered into tinkling shards on the floor. The music faltered. Shevlok and Geraldria were both moving, like sleepwalkers, toward the girl, the strange girl.
Dimoth bon Maukerden was shouting, and Vince, his brother, and then others. The strange girl was surrounded, seized, though she did not react. She was passed from hand to hand, passive as a rag doll, looking toward Eugenie as though all her mind resided in the other woman, ending in Shevlok’s arms.
“What have you done to her?” It was Sylvan, beside Marjorie, demanding. “What have you done?”
“To Eugenie?”
“To Janetta. To the girl.”
“I never saw her before this moment!”
“That woman who has her. What did she do?” And when Marjorie shook her head helplessly, he went on, “Find out, quickly, or we will all be throwing dead bats at one another.”
Marjorie had no time to ask him what he meant. And then Rigo was there, and were confronting Eugenie, who was crying and disclaiming any fault and making it hard for them by babbling but telling them nothing, nothing they could use against the mounting anger all around them.
“You filth, you fragras,” trumpeted Gustave bon Smaerlok. “What have you done to Janetta?”
“Silence,” bellowed Rigo, his voice shattering the other voices. “Silence!”
Then there was a little cup of quiet into which Eugenie’s voice splashed like the thin cold juice of a bitter fruit, “I got her in Commoner Town,” wailed Eugenie, “I got her from Jandra Jellico. All I did was make her a dress and fix her hair. She was just like this when I got her…”
Some few of the gathered aristocrats perceived that she was telling the truth, as much truth as she knew. Eugenie was as open as a child, weeping, not sure what it was she had done to make all this uproar. She had meant it as a surprise, bringing her pet to the ball. She had thought it would be fun.
“I told you we should stay far from this filth,” trumpeted Gustave once again, red of face, spittle at the corners of his mouth.
Rigo was in front of him. This could not be allowed to pass. “Filth?” he snarled. “What kind of filth allows their daughters to fall into such a state, for others to find, for others to rescue and clothe and feed? Hah?”
“Rigo!” Marjorie called, moving between the two angry men. “Obermun bon Smaerlok, we do no good to call one another names. You are all very upset. So are we.”
“Upset?” Dimoth cried. “My daughter!”
“Hear me!” Rigo thundered. “When did you see her last?”
There was silence, silence as each one contemplated an answer to that question. It had been — It had been last fall. Early last fall. She had disappeared last fall. No one wanted to say, to admit it had been that long ago.
“We heard of her disappearance,” Marjorie said. “It happened long before we ever left to come here. Before you had even given permission for us to come.”
The words hung there, unimpeachably true, Janetta had gone long before these people had come, Janetta, now standing at the middle of a small circle, dancing by herself, humming, lovely as a porcelain figure and as impersonal. Nothing in her face or glance spoke of a person being there. In the circle around her was Shevlok bon Damfels, no longer clinging to her.
“It is not Janetta,” he sobbed.
“Of course it is.”
“Don’t be silly, man.”
“This is my daughter!”
“Not Janetta,” he repeated. “No. No. This person is older.”
“She would be,” cried Geraldria. “She would be older, Shevlok.”
“And not the same. Not the same.”
Who could argue that? This creature was not the same as anyone. It turned to examine them with its odd, goose-eyed gaze, circling, as though to see if anyone had anything to interest it, some grain, perhaps, some bread. The moist, pink mouth opened. “Hnnngah,” it cried, like a kitten. “Hnnngah.”
Now there were quieter voices asking Eugenie again where she had found the girl, how long she had had the girl. Now there was movement among the bon Maukerdens, Obermun and Obermum, sisters and cousins, brothers and nephews.
Vince bon Maukerden, hotheaded, poised before Rigo. “No matter when she vanished. It was here she turned up, like that! How do we know it was not you who did it to her?”
“You,” hissed Gustave from nearby, “who have not even the courage to ride with us. It is the kind of thing a fragras would do.”
“For what reason?” asked Marjorie in a loud, mild tone. “It is simple enough to learn the truth. Ask the people in Commoner Town.”
“Commoners!” sneered Gustave, “They have no honor. They would lie!”
And then movement of the crowd as they bore the strange girl away.
Some went then. Shevlok. The bon Maukerdens. Gustave and his Obermum. Others stayed. Of those who stayed, it was the bon Damfels who stayed longest, who went over and over the story Eugenie had to tell. Sylvan, particularly, who asked again and again, “Did she say anything, Madame Le Fevre? Ever? Any word? Are you sure?” To which Eugenie could only shake her head no, and no, and no. Pet had never said anything at all.
It was only later that Marjorie realized why Sylvan had been so intent. Dimity bon Damfels had vanished in the hunt as Janetta bon Maukerden had vanished. If Janetta had emerged in this fashion, might not Dimity still be found alive, somewhere, somehow?
Though there were no physicians among the bons, there were doctors in Commons. None of the aristos had ever lowered themselves to study the professions, but no such pride had prevented various commoners from flying off to Semling for a few years, returning with extensive educations. There were also no architects or engineers of any kind among the bons, but most kinds of technical expertise could be found in Commons. So it was from Commons that Lees Bergrem came to examine Janetta bon Maukerden — Dr. Lees Bergrem, head of the hospital.
A maidservant saw it all, heard it all, told a brother who told someone else who told Roald Few.
And Roald told Marjorie. “Dr. Bergrem put a thing on her head, to measure what was going on in her brain. And there was nothing, no more than a chicken.”
“Will she be able to learn again?”
“Dr. Bergrem doesn’t know, Lady. It seems so, for Miss Eugenie had taught her to dance, you know? Taught her to hum a song, too. It seems she will be able to learn. Dr. Bergrem wanted to take her back to the hospital, but Geraldria bon Maukerden wouldn’t hear of it. Foolish, that woman. Dr. Bergrem studied on Semling, she did. And on Repentance, too. She’s written books about her discoveries here on Grass. There’s those who’ve been through here who say she knows more than many doctors, even those back on Terra.”
Marjorie, ever mindful of her duty to learn everything possible about Grass, ordered copies of Dr. Bergrem’s books to be facsimile transmitted from Semling Prime.
The tell-me hummed with the story, Janetta bon Maukerden, found alive. Of all those who had vanished over the years, she was the first to be found alive. First and only, and yet what hope this sparked among certain aristocratic parents and lovers and friends. Rowena bon Damfels came to call, alone.
“You must not tell Stavenger I was here,” she said, whispering, her face swollen with fear and grief “He and Gustave have spent hours on the tell-me. bellowing to one another. He forbade me to come.”
“I would have come to you,” Marjorie cried. “You had only to ask.”
“He would have seen you and driven you away. We are still in the lapse, and there is no Hunt. He would have seen you.”
But it was really Eugenie that Rowena wanted to see, Eugenie she wanted to question, because she could not go to Commoner Town without Stavenger finding out. Marjorie stayed with them, and it was she who suggested, “Rowena, I will ask the man and the woman to come here. The man and woman who had her, in Commons. I will ask them to come here, since you say they cannot come to your estancia, and you can come here to talk to them yourself/’
A fragile bond. A little trust. After Rowena left, Marjorie sighed, shook her head, sent for Persun Pollut.
“See if you can get the order officer and his wife to come out here tomorrow. The Jellicos. Tell them the Obermum wants to talk to them, privately. Secretly, Persun.”
He laid fingers on his lips, over his eyes, noting that he said nothing, saw nothing, and then departed. He returned to say yes, they would come tomorrow, and Marjorie sent an enigmatic message on the tell-me which only Rowena would understand. While he was there, she asked Persun to explain something to her.
“At the reception, Sylvan said we would all be throwing dead bats at one another, Persun. What did he mean?”
“The Hippae do it,” he said. “At least, so I hear. Sometimes on the hunt they do it. They kick dead bats at one another.”
“Dead bats?”
“They are everywhere lady. Many dead bats."It made no sense to Marjorie. She made a note in her book for later inquiry. There was no time now. “Rowena will talk to me,” Marjorie said to Rigo. “I think we may find this has opened a door.”
“Only while she’s in this state. When she grows calm, she’ll close us off again.”
“You don’t know that that’s true.”
“I believe it is,” he said stiffly. He had been stiff with Marjorie ever since the reception, since he had seen her dancing with Sylvan with that look on her face. She recognized his stiffness as barely withheld anger, but she believed his discomfort had been caused by Eugenie. Long ago she had chosen not to notice how matters went between Rigo and Eugenie, so she did not seem to notice now. Because she made no response to his evident annoyance, he believed she did not care, that she was probably thinking of someone else. So he grew more angry and she more silent; so they danced, a blindfolded minuet.
Something in his manner, however, declared a decision had been made.
“Rigo, you’re not—”
“Yes,” he said firmly. “I have hired a riding master.”
“Gustave was just being—”
“He was saying what all of them feel. That we are not worthy of their attention because we do not ride.”
“It isn’t riding,” she said with loathing. “Whatever it is they do, it isn’t riding. It’s loathesome.”
“Whatever it is they do,” he growled, “I will do it as well as they do!”
“You won’t expect me…or the children…”
“No,” he blurted, shocked. “Of course not! What do you take me for?”
Indeed, what did she take him for? he asked himself. They were in this mess because of Eugenie, but Marjorie had not once reproached him for bringing Eugenie here, where Eugenie certainly did not belong. As a result he felt guilt toward Marjorie and chafed under the feeling. He felt he had ill-used her even though she showed no signs of caring, not now, not ever. She had never showed hostility toward him when he spent time with Eugenie, never showed anger that he was sharing another relationship. She never said anything bitter, never threatened anything. She was always there, unfailingly correct, concerned, always agreeable, acting appropriately under every circumstance, even those which he knew he had created especially to try her. He sometimes told himself he would give his soul if she would weep or scream or throw herself at him or away from him, but she did nothing of the kind.
He wondered if she confessed anger or jealousy to Father Sandoval. Did she tell him what she felt? Did she cry?
Long ago he had told himself that Marjorie would never love him as he had dreamed she would because she had given all her love to horses. He had even thought he hated Marjorie’s riding because she gave the horses the thing she would not give him — her passion. Horses. Even more than motherhood, or her charities.
But now he wondered if that were true. Was it really horses who had taken her heart? Or had she merely been waiting for something else? Someone like Sylvan bon Damfels, perhaps? What did she take him for?
He had to ask her. “Marjorie, did Sylvan bon Damfels say anything to you while you were dancing?”
“Say anything?” She turned an anxious glance upon him, still fretting over his intention to ride with the bons. not caring about anything else. “Sylvan? What kind of thing, Rigo? As I recall, he said conventional things. He complimented me and Stella on our gowns. He dances well-Since he wasn’t one of the ones Pollut warned us about, I could relax enough to enjoy the dance. Why? What do you mean?”
“I wondered.” He wondered what she was concealing. “What has Sylvan to do with…”
What did Sylvan have to do with? With the way Rigo felt, seeing her. With the fact that Sylvan rode while he, Rigo, did not. He would not ask himself what the two things had to do with one another. He would not consider it-"Nothing. Nothing. I won’t expect you and the children to ride in the aristos’ hunt.”
“But why must you!”
“Because they will not tell me anything until they trust me, and they will not trust me until I share their… their rituals!”
She was silent, grieving, not showing it on her face. There was malice here upon Grass, malice directed at them, at the foreigners. If Rigo rode, he would ride into that malice as into quicksand. “You won’t change your mind.” It was not a question but a statement, and he did not know how hopelessly she said it, all the love she thought she owed him hanging on the answer. “You won’t change your mind, Rigo.”
“No.” In a tone that meant he would not discuss it. “No.”
An awkward machine, the riding machine. Awkward and heavy, but little more ponderous than the riding master, Hector Paine, with his dour face and ominous expression and black garb, as though he were in mourning for all those he had taught how to die.
Rigo had picked an unused room in the winter quarter to use as a riding salon, and he came there with Stella, she very busy playing Daddy’s little girl. There Rigo heard with disbelief that he would be expected to start his lessons at four hours per day. Stella did not seem to hear, did not seem to be paying attention. She was stroking the riding machine, humming to herself, not seeming to notice anything much.
The black-clad instructor was emphatic. “In the morning, an hour exercise, then an hour ride. Again later in the day. By the end of the week, perhaps we can manage three hours, then four. We work up to twelve hours at a time, every other day.”
“My God, man!”
Stella felt the blunted barbs on the neck of the gleaming simulacrum, ran her finger around the loop of the reins where they hung on the lowest barb.
“Did you think it was easy, sir? Hunts often last for ten or eleven hours. Sometimes they go on longer.”
“That leaves little time for anything else!”
“To those who Hunt, Your Excellency, there is nothing else. I thought you would have noticed that.” There was nothing sneering in the man’s voice, but Rigo gave him a sharp look. Stella had drifted away to a corner where she sat down behind some piled furniture, being inconspicuous, being unnoticed, eyes avid.
“You were available on short notice,” Rigo snarled.
“I am available because Gustave bon Smaerlok told me to be available.”
“He hopes to find me incapable, eh?”
“He would be gratified if you proved unable, I think. I speak only from impression, not from anything he has said.”
“And have you agreed to report to him?”
“Only to tell him when I believe you are capable of riding in a Hunt. I will tell you this, Your Excellency. With the young ones, we begin before they are two years old — what would that be in your terms? Ten or eleven years of age? While they are still children we begin working every other day, every week, every period, throughout the seasons, perhaps for a year. A Grassian year. More than six of yours.”
Rigo did not answer. For the first time he began to realize that he might not have long enough to ride to the hounds. Not if it took him as long as the children…
Well, then he could not let it take as long. Focusing all his attention, he listened to what the riding master had to say.
In the corner, hidden behind the screen of displaced chairs and sofas, Stella listened too, focused no less intently on what the riding master had to say.
She had danced with Sylvan bon Damfels.
Only for a little time: enough time to know that everything she wanted was there, in his skin, behind those eyes, dwelling in that voice, in the touch of those hands.
When she came here she had thought she would never forget Elaine, never forget the friend she had left behind. Now there was no room, not even in memory, for anyone but Sylvan. When he had smiled at her on the dance floor, she had realized that she had been thinking of him since she had seen him first, at the bon Damfels Hunt. She had seen Sylvan then, in his riding clothes, seen him mount, seen him ride. On the dance floor, as her body moved with his, she had remembered each time she had seen him, each time he had spoken to her, her passionate heart demanding, as it always did, more. More. More of Sylvan bon Damfels. She would ride with Sylvan bon Damfels as she was dancing with Sylvan bon Damfels, as she could imagine — oh, imagine doing other things with Sylvan bon Damfels.
He had looked into her eyes.
He had told her she was lovely.
Behind the furniture she exulted, glad for the first time that she was here, on Grass. Ears pricked for every word the riding master was telling her father, she sucked in the information and remembered it all. She was determined that she, too, would learn. Quickly. More quickly than anyone had ever learned.
The same aircar which had brought the riding master to Opal Hill had also brought James and Jandra Jellico, who waited in Marjorie’s study for Rowena’s arrival.
Rowena, when she came at last, brought Sylvan with her.
“Tell us everything you can,” Sylvan asked the Jellicos, his voice gentle. “I know neither of you did anything reprehensible, so just tell us everything you can.”
Marjorie and Tony sat to one side, listening. No one suggested they should not be present. If they had, Marjorie had already decided she would listen outside the door.
There was so little to tell, and yet they spun it into an hour’s telling, each little thing said ten times over.
“One thing you got to remember,” Jelly told Sylvan. “lust because Ducky Johns’ in the business she is, that’s no reason to think she isn’t honest. She’s as honest as anybody. And I believe she found this Janetta right where she said she did, on her own back porch under her clothesline.”
“But how?” cried Rowena, for perhaps the tenth time.
Jelly took a deep breath. He was tired of evasion, tired of euphemism, tired of bowing to the well-known eccentricity of the bons. He decided to tell the hard truth and see what this bon woman made of it. “Ma’am, last anybody saw of her, she was riding one of those beasts. Now anybody with any wits at all is going to suppose, wherever she ended up, that beast took her there or sent her there. And that’s what I think.”
So there it was. Oh, there it was, lying before them, the sound and look of it, a barbed and violent monster, a Hippae, drawn into it at last, told off by name, the aspect of the whole thing that none of the bons had mentioned, that none of the bons would speak of or allow others to talk of. The Hippae. The Hippae took the girl, or one of them did, everyone knew that. They, the Hippae, did something to her, did anyone doubt? They hid her. They kept her. Then she showed up again. Who knows why? Who knows how? Marjorie felt the questions bubbling and kept silent, kept her hand on Tony’s as she felt him, too, quivering with questions unanswered, unasked. The bons had blamed the Yrariers rather than the Hippae. Even now, Rowena did not respond. Why?
The Jellicos made their farewells and went out. Rowena wept, clinging to Sylvan. He fixed Marjorie with a stern face, forbidding her to speak. She cast her eyes down, feeling his will upon her as though he had touched her with his hands.
“Mama, would you like to lie down for a moment?” he asked Rowena.
She nodded, awash with tears.
“Tony, take her, will you?” asked Marjorie, wanting him to take the woman away, wanting to be left alone with Sylvan, in order to ask…
“A moment,” Rowena said.
Marjorie nodded.
“Lady Westriding… Marjorie. A time may come when I can offer you help as you have offered me. If my life hangs on it, I will still help you.” She laid her tear-wet hand on Marjorie’s and went out with Tony, leaving her son behind.
“Don’t,” he said when they were alone, seeing the question in her face. “I don’t know.”
She could not hold the words in. “But you live here! You’re familiar with the beasts.”
“Shhh,” he said, looking over his shoulder, running his finger inside a collar suddenly too tight. “Don’t say beasts. Don’t say animals. Don’t say that. Not even to yourself. Don’t think it.” He gripped his throat as though something there was choking him.
“What do you say?”
“Hippae. Mounts,” he gargled. “And not even that where they might hear. Nothing where they might hear.” He gagged, begging for air.
She stared into his face, seeing the beads of sweat standing out upon his forehead, seeing him struggle to hold his face quiet. “What is it?”
The struggle grew more intense. He could not answer her.
“Shhh,” she said, taking his hands into her own. “Don’t talk. Just think. Is it something… is it something they do to you?”
A nod, the merest hint of a nod.
“Something they do… to your brain? To your mind?”
A flicker of eyelid, tiny. If she had not learned to read almost invisible twitches, she would not have seen it.
“Is it…” She thought coldly of what she had seen at the bon Damfels estancia. “Is it a kind of blanking out?”
He blinked, breathing deeply.
“A compulsion?”
He sighed, letting go. His head sagged.
“A compulsion to ride, but an inability to think about riding, an inability to talk about riding.” She said it to herself, not to him, knowing it was true, and he looked at her out of shining eyes. Tears?
“Which,” she continued, watching him closely, “must be more intense the more frequently you ride.” She knew she was right. “You managed to speak to us once right after a Hunt…”
“They had gone,” he gargled, panting. “After a long Hunt, they go away. Today they are here, all around Opal Hill, nearby!”
“During the winter, the compulsion almost leaves you?” she asked. “And during the summer? But in spring and fall, you are possessed by it? Those of you who ride?”
He only looked at her, knowing she needed no confirmation.
“What do they do when winter ends? To bring you into line? Do they gather around your estancias? In their dozens? Their hundreds?” He did not deny it. “They gather and press upon you, insisting upon the Hunt. There must also be some pressure to make the children ride. Some compulsion there, as well?”
“Dimity,” he said with a sigh.
“Your little sister.”
“My little sister.”
“Your father…”
“Has ridden for years, Master of the Hunt, for years, like Gustave…”
“So,” she said, thinking she must tell Rigo. Must somehow make him understand.
“I’ll take Mama home,” he whispered, his face clearing.
“How have you withstood them?” her voice was as low as his. “Why have they not bitten off your arm or leg? Isn’t that what they do when one of you tries to stand fast?”
He did not answer. He did not need to answer. She could puzzle it out for herself. It was not that he withstood them while he was riding. If he had done so, he would have vanished or been punished for it. Oh, no, when he rode he was one of them, like all the rest. The secret was that he recovered quickly when the ride was over. Quickly enough to say some things, to hint some things.
“You warned us that time,” she said, reaching out to him. “I know how hard for you it must have been.”
He took her hand and laid it along his cheek. Only that. But it was thus that Rigo saw them.
Sylvan excused himself, bowed, and went away to find Rowena. “A pleasant tete-a-tete.” Rigo smiled fiercely. She was too preoccupied to notice the quality of that smile. “Rigo, you must not ride.”
“Oh, and why is that?”
“Sylvan says—”
“Oh, I think it matters very little what Sylvan says.” She looked at him uncertainly. “It matters a great deal. Rigo, the Hippae are not merely animals. They… they do something to their riders. Something to their brains.”
“Clever Sylvan to have thought up such a tale.”
“Do you think he invented it? Don’t be silly. It’s obvious. It’s been obvious to me since we saw the first Hunt, Rigo.”
“Oh?”
“And since last night. For the love of God, Rigo. Didn’t it strike you as odd that no one blamed the Hippae? Here’s this girl who disappeared during a Hunt, and no one blames the Hippae she was riding on?”
“If you disappeared during a Hunt, my dear, and turned up later as a courtesan in some petty principality, should I blame your horse?” He gave her a wintry glance, then left her there, staring after him, trying desperately to figure out what had happened.