Grass (3 page)

"You want their damn what-are-they here? Prodding and poking. You want their nasty little researchers upsetting things?"

There was a moment's silence while they considered things that might be upset. At this time of the year only the Hunt could be upset, for it was the only important thing going on. During the winter, of course, no one went anywhere, and during the summer months it was too hot to travel except at night, when the summer balls were held. Still, "research" had an awkward sound to it. People asking questions. People demanding answers to things.

"We don't have to let them upset anything," Figor said doubtfully.

"They've told us why they want to come. There's some plague or other and Sanctity's setting up missions here and there, looking for a cure." He rubbed his arm again, scowling.

"But why here?" blurted Gerold bon Laupmon.

"Why not here as well as anywhere? Sanctity knows little or nothing about Grass and it's grasping at straws."

They considered this for a time. It was true that Sanctity knew little or nothing about Grass except what it could learn from the Green Brothers. Foreigners came and went in Commoner Town, allowed to stay there only so long as it took to get the next ship out and not allowed to come into the grass country at all. Semling had tried to maintain an embassy on Grass, unsuccessfully. Now there was no diplomatic contact with "elsewhere." Though the word was often used to mean Sanctity or Terra, it was also used in a more general sense: Grass was Grass; what was not Grass was elsewhere.

Eric broke the silence. "Last time Sanctity said something about someone having come here with the disease and departed without it." He rose awkwardly on his artificial legs, wishing he could so easily depart, without his disability.

"Foolishness," Gustave barked. "They couldn't even tell us who it was, or when. Some crewman, they said. Off a ship. What ship, they didn't know. It was only a rumor. Maybe this plague doesn't even exist," he growled. "Maybe it's all an excuse to start proselytizing us, snipping at us with their little punches, taking tissue samples for their damned banks." Even though the bon Smaerloks had come to Grass long ago, the family history was replete with accounts of the religious tyranny they had fled from.

"No." said Figor. "I believe the plague exists. We've heard of it from other sources. And they're upset about it, which is understandable. They're running about doing this and that, not to much purpose. Well, they will find a cure for their plague. Give them time. One thing you can say for Sanctity, it does find answers eventually. So why not give them time to find the answer somewhere else, without saying no and without upsetting ourselves? We'll tell this Hierarch we don't take kindly to being studied, blah and blah, right of cultural privacy – he'll have to accept that, since it's one of the covenants Sanctity agreed to at the time of dispersion – but we'll say we're sensible people, willing to talk about it, so why not send us an ambassador to discuss the matter." Figor made an expansive gesture. "Then we can discuss and discuss for a few years until the question becomes moot."

"Until they all die?" Gerold bon Laupmon asked – meaning, Figor supposed, everyone of human origin not upon Grass.

Figor sighed. One was never certain with Gerold that he quite understood what was going on. "No. Until they find a cure. Which they will."

Gustave snorted. "I'll give that to the Sanctified, Gerold. They're clever." He said it in the tone of one who did not think much of cleverness.

There was a pause while they considered it Eric bon Haunser urged at last, "It has the advantage of making us look perfectly reasonable."

Gustave snorted again. "To who? Who is it looking at us? Who has the right?" He pounded on the arm of his chair, scowling, turning red in the face. Ever since the accident which had cut short Gustave's riding career, he had been irascible and difficult, and Figor moved to calm him.

"Anyone can, Gustave, whether they have the right or not. Anyone can look. Anyone can have an opinion, whether we want them to or not. And if we should ever want something from Sanctity, we'd be in a good position to ask that the favor be returned."

Eric nodded, seeing that Gustave was about to object. "Maybe we'll never want anything, Gustave. Probably we won't. But if we did, by chance, we'd be in a good position. Aren't you the one who always tells us not to give up an advantage until we have to?"

The older man simmered. "Then we have to be polite to whoever they send – bow, scrape, pretend he's our equal, some fool, some off-planeter, some foreigner."

"Well, yes. Since the ambassador will be from Sanctity, he'll probably be Terran, Gustave. Surely we could suffer that for a time. As I mentioned, most of us speak diplomatic."

"And this
fragras
will have a silly wife and a dozen bratlings, probably. And servants. And secretaries and aides. All asking questions."

"Put them someplace remote, where they can't ask many. Put them at Opal Hill." Eric named the site of the former Semling embassy with some relish, repeating it. "Opal Hill."

"Opal Hill, hah! Farther than nowhere! All the way across the swamp-forest to the southwest. That's why the people from Semling left. It gets lonely at Opal Hill."

"So, the man from Sanctity will get lonely and leave as well. But that will be his fault, not ours. Agreed? Yes?"

Evidently they were agreed. Figor waited for a time to see if anyone had any second thoughts or if Gustave was going to explode again, then rang for wine before leading his guests down into the grass gardens. Now, in early fall, the gardens were at their best, the feathery seed heads moving like dancers to the beat of the southern wind. Even Gustave would mellow after an hour in the gardens. Come to think of it, Opal Hill had very nice gardens as well, young but well designed. The Sanctified penitents expiating their sins here on Grass by digging up ruins and designing gardens – the ones who called themselves the Green Brothers – had spent considerable care upon the Opal Hill gardens. Nothing had disturbed the gardens since the people from Semling had left. Perhaps this ambassador person could be interested in gardening. Or his wife, if he had a wife. Or the dozen bratlings.

Afar from Klive, deep among the grasses, Dimity bon Damfels tried to exorcise the pain in her legs and back. Even after all those hours on the simulator, all the pain she had experienced there, this was different. This was intrusive, hateful, intimate.

"When you think the pain is unbearable," the riding instructor had said, "you can review the track of the Hunt in your mind. Distract yourself. Above all, do not think of the pain itself."

So she distracted herself, reviewing how they had come. They had ridden out along the Trail of Greens and Blues where the patterned turf along the path went from deepest indigo through all shades of turquoise and sapphire to dark forest green and bright emerald, upward to the ridge where tall plumes of aquamarine watergrass undulated in ceaseless waves. Beyond the ridge the watergrass filled a shallow basin dotted with islands of sandgrass, the whole making such a marvelously lifelike seascape that it was called the Ocean Garden. Dimity had once seen a picture of a real ocean when she went with Rowena to Commoner Town to pick up some imported fabric. It had been hanging on the fabric merchant's wall, a picture of a sea on Sanctity. She remembered saying at the time how much the imaged expanse of water looked like grass. Someone had laughed at this, saying it was the grass that looked like water. How would one know which looked like which? In fact, they looked like one another, were like one another, except that one could drown in water.

Musing on this, Dimity surprised herself with the thought that one might almost drown in grass as well. One might wish to drown. Her left knee was in agony. Little trails of fire crept from the knee upward toward her groin. Distract yourself, she repeated mentally. Distract yourself.

At the end of the Trail of Greens and Blues, the hounds had run silently into Thirty-shadows Forest, where giant black stems, thick as her body, grew tall, clucking hollowly far above as they collided in the small wind. Here velvet turfs were planted in mosslike clusters around hillocks of stonegrass, and here the mounts had followed as the trail led upward toward the Ruby Highlands.

On the Highlands the vistas were of amber and peach, apricot and rose, with veins of deepest red threaded through the paler colors to climax in bursts of skyrocketing bloodgrass, and here the trail turned aside from the gardens to run off into the untended gramineae of the surrounding veldt. It was tallgrass veldt, with nothing to see but the stems rushing by as her mount forced his way through, nothing to hear but the rustle of the plumy seed heads, nothing to think of but steeling herself against the blows of the blades, keeping her head down so those blows fell on the padded cap and not on her face.

Still, she could tell from the sun that they were running north, and Dimity concentrated upon this. The seven remaining estancias were separated from one another by at least an hour's air travel, and yet they occupied only a small part of the surface of Grass. What did she know about the land north of the Damfels estancia? There wasn't another estancia there. The nearest estancia was that of the bon Laupmons, but it was a great distance to the southeast. Directly east were the bon Haunsers. The Friary of the Green Brothers was north, but some ways east of the bon Damfels estancia. There were no other estancias to the north, no villages, nothing except more prairie and a long, shallow valley where there were many copses. "Many copses means many foxes," she quoted silently to herself. Undoubtedly they were riding toward the valley.

The pain was suddenly there again, moving in her other leg "Better than distraction," the riding master had said, "is to let yourself fall into the rhythm of the ride and think of nothing." She tried not fighting the pain, not distracting herself, just going with it. "Above all, do not disturb the mount or attract the attention of the hounds." She would not attract their attention. She would just let it go, let it go, not thinking about anything.

On the simulator Dimity had never managed to think of nothing, and she was surprised to find how much easier it was here. Almost as though something was working inside her mind to wipe it clean. An eraser. Rub, rub, rub. She started to shake her head in annoyance, not liking the feel of it, remembering only just in time that one must not move, really must not move. The intrusion in her mind scraped at her. Deliberately, she went back to distraction, thinking of her newest ball gown, reviewing every flounce, each embroidered leaf and blossom, and after a time the hurtful feeling inside her head departed. "Ride," she said silently to herself. "Ride, ride, ride." The repetition took the place of the emptiness, driving out the ball gown, and she simply held on, moving as the mount moved, shutting her eyes, not seeing anything else. Her backbone was a fused column of agony. Her throat was dry. She wanted desperately to scream, and fighting down the scream took all her strength.

Until suddenly they crested a long ridge and stopped. Her eyes popped open, almost against her will, and she looked down into the valley before them. It was not unlike the Ocean Garden, except that these waves were of tall grass in shades of amber and dun while the islands were actual trees, copses of trees, the only kinds of trees that existed on Grass. Swamp trees, growing wherever springs of water came to the surface. Fox trees. Haven for the toothed devils. Where they lived. Where they hid, when they weren't slinking among the grasses, killing the foals.

"Never say 'foals' where the mounts can hear you," the riding master had said. "That is our word. We merely assume there are foals, though we have never seen any, so don't say it. In fact, never say anything where the mounts can hear you."

So she was silent now, as all the riders were, their speculations kept entirely to themselves. Dimity saw the faces of the other riders, pale with concentration, unselfconsciously quiet. Dimity would not have believed Emeraude could be this quiet if she had not seen it. Mummy probably couldn't believe it at all. And Shevlok! How often did one see Shevlok without an imported cigar in his mouth – only the best Shame tobacco would do for Shevlok – or his mouth open telling someone something. Except when Father was around, of course. When Stavenger was around, Shevlok was notable for sitting in corners and not attracting attention to himself, notable, one might say, for self-effacement.

As this Hunt was notable for quiet. Silent as the earth-closets in midwinter, when no one else was there and the frost lay deep. Dimity concentrated on breathing quietly. The eraser feeling was in her head again, and she fought it off, thinking about what she would have for dinner when the Hunt was over. Grass-hen fried in oil with imported spices on it. A fruit salad. No. Too early for fresh fruit. A dried fruit pie. And then they were off, down into the valley toward one of the dark copses, Dimity reminding herself what the riding master had had to say about that. "The trees are extraordinary," he had said. "It will be difficult not to gasp or exclaim. You will do neither, of course. You will keep your mouth shut – You will not crane your neck or stare about or shift your weight." Besides, she had seen them on the simulator screens, a thousand hours' worth of them.

So she kept her mouth shut and her face front as the black towers loomed around her, their leafy burden shutting out the sky, the world suddenly full of the sound of water and of hooves moving in water, the squish and slide of it, the smell of it filling her nostrils in a way quite different from the smell of rain. This was not merely damp but sodden, a dank, fecund smell. Dimity opened her mouth very quietly and breathed through it, getting herself accustomed to the smell which made her want to sneeze or cough or gasp – She felt the signal for the hounds, felt it without understanding it until the hounds lunged away, scattering outward in all directions, noses to earth. The sound of their scuffling scramble faded. There were historic words to go with this, the riding master had said. "Into covert", her mind said. "Into covert, my lads." As though anyone would really dare say "my lads," to hounds!