"Draperies, rugs, furnishings, image projectors for the walls – everything. Everything elegant and of the highest quality."
"Rigo wants to have a reception for the bons," Marjorie told him.
"Hmmph," snorted Persun Pollut.
"Now, Pers," chided Roald. "The ambassador doesn't know. During Hunt season, Lady Westriding, he's unlikely to get anybody but second leaders and lower. People who don't ride. Those who ride wouldn't even consider coming, don't you see?"
"We'd get Eric bon Haunser but not the Obermun?"
"That's right. You'd get nobody at all from the bon Damfels' except Figor. Obermum won't go anywhere Obermun doesn't. That isn't done. All the rest of the family rides, what's left of it."
Marjorie stared at him, evaluating the open countenance before her. The man seemed without guile, and thus far he had treated her fairly. "I need information," she said at last in a very quiet voice.
Roald dropped his own voice to a confidential level. "I am at your service, Lady Westriding."
"The bon Damfels were in mourning when we were there."
"Yes."
"They'd lost a daughter. In a hunting accident. Eric bon Haunser has lost his legs, also, so he said, in a hunting accident. When I looked about me after that first Hunt I saw more biotic appendages than I would have seen in a year at home. I would like to understand these accidents."
"Ah. Well." Roald shuffled his feet.
"There are various kinds of accidents," offered Persun in his soft, dry lecturer's voice. "There is falling off. There is getting oneself skewered. There is offending a hound. And there is vanishment." He said this last almost in a whisper, and Roald nodded agreement.
"So we understand, Lady. The servants at the estancias are kinfolk of ours. They see things; they overhear things; they tell us. We put two and two together to make forty-four, when we must."
"Falling off?" she asked. Riders fell off all the time. Rarely was it fatal.
"Followed by trampling. If a rider falls off, he or she is trampled into the grasses. Until nothing is left, you understand."
Marjorie nodded, feeling sick.
"If you've seen a Hunt, you've seen how a rider might get skewered. It doesn't happen often, surprisingly. The young ones ride simulators for days at a time, learning to stay out of the way of those horny blades. But still, once in a while someone faints or a mount stops too suddenly and the rider falls forward."
Marjorie wiped her mouth, tasting bile.
"Offending a hound usually results in the hunter having an arm or leg or hand or foot or two bitten off when he dismounts at the end of the Hunt."
"Offending
…
?"
"Don't ask us, Lady," replied Persun. "There aren't any hounds in Commons. They can't get into town, and nobody with any sense goes far out into the grasses where hounds're likely to be. Close to the villages is fine, no hounds there, but farther out … those that go don't come back. We really don't know what would offend a hound. So far as we can tell, the bons don't know either."
"And vanishment?"
"Just that. Somebody starts out on the Hunt and doesn't come back. The mount disappears, too. Usually a young rider it happens to. Girls, usually. Rarely, a boy."
"Someone at the rear of the Hunt," she said in sudden comprehension. "So the others wouldn't notice?"
"Yes."
"What happened to the bon Damfels girl?"
"Same as happened to Janetta bon Maukerden last fall, her that Shevlok bon Damfels was so set on. Vanishment. The way I know is, my brother Canon is married to a woman who's got a cousin, Salla, and she's a maid at the bon Damfels. Practically raised Dimity from a baby. Last fall Dimity thought a hound was watching her, and she told Rowena. Next time out, same thing. Rowena and Stavenger had a set-to, and Rowena kept the girl from riding any more Hunts that season. This spring, Stavenger took a hand and made the girl go out again First spring Hunt! Poof, she was gone."
"Dimity, did you say? How old was she?"
"Diamante bon Damfels. Stavenger and Rowena's youngest. Somewhere around seventeen in Terran terms."
"The bon Damfels had five children?"
"They had seven, Lady. They lost two others when they were young riders. Trampled, I think. I'm sorry not to remember their names. Now it's just Amethyste and Emeraude and Shevlok and Sylvan."
"Sylvan," she said, remembering him from the first Hunt- He had not been at any of the others they had witnessed. "But he wouldn't come to a reception, because he rides."
Roald nodded.
"There is the lapse." murmured Persun.
"I'd forgotten the lapse," said Roald in a tone of annoyance. "Here I am almost ten Grassian years old and I'd forgotten the lapse."
"Lapse?"
"Every spring there's a time when the mounts and the hounds disappear. Far's I know, no one knows where they go. Mating time, perhaps? Or whelping time. Or something of the kind. Sometimes people hear a great lot of baying and howling going on. Lasts a week or a little more."
"When?" she asked.
"When it happens. No exact time. Sometimes a little earlier in the year, sometimes a little later. But always in spring."
"But doesn't everyone on the planet know when it happens?"
"Everyone out here in the grasses, Lady.
Tssf,
in Commons we'd pay it no attention. Out here, though – yes. Everyone knows. If no way else, they go out to Hunt that day and no mounts or hounds show up. They know."
"So, if we sent an invitation, saying – oh, 'On the third night of the lapse you are invited to … ' "
"It's never been done," muttered Persun.
"So, who's to say it shouldn't be?" Roald responded. "If your good husband is determined, my Lady, then it would be a thing to try. Otherwise, wait until summer when the hunting stops. Then you can have your reception among the summer balls."
Rigo did not want to wait until summer. "That's over a year and a half. Terran," he said. "We have to start getting some information from the bons, Marjorie. There's no time to wait. We'll get everything ready and send the invitation as soon as the place looks decent. Undoubtedly I'll hear from bon Haunser if we've overstepped some barrier of local custom "
The invitations were dispatched by tell-me to all estancias. Surprisingly, at least to Marjorie, acceptances were prompt and fairly widespread. She got a bad case of stage fright and went up into the summer rooms to reassure herself.
The chill rooms had been transformed. Though still cool, they glowed with color. From the greenhouse in the village – which had been half ruined until Rigo had ordered it rebuilt – had come great bouquets of off-world bloom. Terran lilies and Semling semeles combined with plumes of silver grass to make huge, fragrant mounds reflected endlessly in paired mirrors. Marjorie had provided holo-records of valued artworks the Yrariers had left behind, and duplicates of the originals glowed at her from the walls and from pedestals scattered among the costly furniture.
"This is a beautiful table," she said, running her fingers across satiny blue-shadowed wood.
"Thank you, Lady," said Persun. "My father made it."
"Where does he get wood, here on Grass?"
"Imports much of it. Much though they talk of tradition, now and then the bons want something imported and new. Things he makes for us, though, he cuts from the swamp forest. There are some lovely trees in there. There's this wood, the one we call blue treasure, and there's one that's pale green in one light and a deep violet in another. Glume wood, that is."
"I didn't know anyone could get into the swamp forest."
"Oh, we don't go in. There's a hundred miles of forest edge, and these are trees that grow at the edge. Even so, we don't take many. I'm using some native woods in the panels for your room." He had spent hours designing the panels for her study. He longed for her to praise them.
"Are you, now," she mused. Outside, on the balustraded terrace, a slender figure passed restlessly to and fro: Eugenie. Forlorn. Childlike. Head drooping like a wilted flower. Marjorie fingered her prayer book and reminded herself of certain virtues. "Will you excuse me a moment, Persun?"
He bowed wordlessly, and she left him there while he tried to give the appearance of not staring after her.
"Eugenie," Marjorie greeted her with self-conscious kindness. "I've seen very little of you since we arrived." She had seen nothing of her at home, but this was a different world and all comparisons were odious.
The other woman flushed. Rigo had told her to stay away from the big house. "I shouldn't be here now. I thought I might catch a ride into town with the merchant, that's all."
"Something you need?"
Eugenie flushed again. "No. Nothing I need. I just thought I'd spend a day looking at the shops. Maybe stay at the Port Hotel overnight and see the entertainment … "
"It must be dull for you here."
"It is bloody dull," the woman blurted, speaking before she thought. She flushed a deep, embarrassed red, and her eyes filled with tears.
This time Marjorie flushed. "That was tactless of me, Eugenie. Listen. I know you're not one for horses or things like that, but why don't you see if they have some kind of pets for sale in Commons?"
"Pets?"
"I don't know what they might have. Dogs, maybe. Or kittens. Birds of some kind, or something exotic. Little animals are very amusing. They take up a lot of time."
"Oh, I have so much of that," Eugenie cried, almost angrily. "Rigo … well, Rigo's been very busy." Marjorie looked out across the balustrade of the terrace toward the multiple horizons of that part of the grass garden called the Fading Vista. Each ridge partly hid the one behind, each one was a paler color than the one before, until the horizon hill faded into the sky almost indistinguishably. She was amused to make a mental connection: In such fashion had her original animosity toward Eugenie faded, retreated, become merely a hazy tolerance almost indistinguishable from tentative acceptance, "We'll be having our first official party soon. Perhaps you'll meet some people … " her voice faded away like the horizon line before her. Who could Eugenie meet, after all? The children despised her. The servants thought her a joke. No one among the bons would associate with her. Or would they?
"There are particular people I want you to meet," Marjorie said thoughtfully. "A man named Eric bon Haunser. And Shevlok, the eldest son of the bon Damfels."
"Trying to get rid of me?" Eugenie said with childish spite. "Introducing me to men."
"Trying to assure that you have some company," Marjorie said mildly. "Trying to assure that we all do. If some of the men find you fascinating, you and Stella and maybe me – though that wouldn't do to admit officially – perhaps they'll frequent the place. We're here to find something out, after all."
"Don't talk as though I knew anything about it. I don't. Rigo didn't tell me anything!"
"Oh, my dear," said Marjorie, more shocked than she could admit even to herself. "But he must have! Why would you have come, otherwise?"
To which Eugenie merely stared at her, eyes wide and wondering. This woman married to Roderigo Yrarier, this woman, his wife, mother of his children, this woman … She didn't know? "Because I love him," she said at last, almost whispering "I thought you knew."
"Well so do I," Marjorie replied shortly, believing that she did. "But even so, I would not have come to Grass had I not known why."
Though Eugenie had not particularly appreciated Marjorie's advice about pets, she had heard it. Normally she would have ignored it as a matter of principle because it came from Rigo's wife and Rigo would be unlikely to appreciate his mistress taking his wife's advice about anything. As it was, however, Eugenie could not afford to ignore anything that would alleviate the blanketing boredom which afflicted her. At home there had been restaurants and parties and amusing places to go to. There had been shopping and clothes and hairdressers to talk with. There had been gossip and laughter. And running through all that, like a thread of gold through the floating chiffon of her life, there had been Rigo. Not that he'd been around a lot. He hadn't been. But for a long time he had been there, in the background, providing whatever she needed, making her feel treasured and important. Men such as he, Rigo had explained, with all his important work on committees and clubs and such, needed women such as she as a necessary relief from the tiresome but urgent works they were called upon to do. This made women such as she especially important. Eugenie thought of this often. Men had told her many sweet things about herself, but never before that she was important. It was the nicest compliment she had ever received.
And so she was here, and so was Rigo, and for all they saw of one another she might as well have stayed on Terra with some other protector – which she had, quite truthfully, considered. Had there been another man immediately available, she would probably have chosen to stay. Weighing the relative inconvenience, however, of finding a new man or submitting to packing and coldsleep, she had decided that finding the new man would be more trouble. Not so much finding him but learning about him. His little ways. His favorite foods and smells and colors and little magics in bed. All men believed they had their own magics in bed.
And then, too, she did love Rigo, When she had said that to Marjorie, it hadn't been a lie. Of all the men she had loved, she probably loved Rigo most. He had been most fun.
But Rigo was hardly fun at all in this place. When love wasn't fun, it was just boring and dull and achy. People had to have things that were fun for them. What Marjorie had said about pets was probably the best advice anyone was going to give her, even though it had come from Rigo's wife.
Eugenie begged a ride from Roald Few to Commoner Town, enjoying the trip because of all the sweet things he and the other men said to her. It was Roald himself who told her to look up Jandra Jellico. "If you're looking for something little and petful and fun to have, Jandra may have it or she'll know who has. She's got most everything in fur and feathers and pretty skin, Jandra does." He warned her, too, that Jandra would be in a half-person, as though Eugenie was the kind of person to make unkind remarks or stare.