by Grass(Lit)
"I've got to talk to Sylvan. I saw something today...." She described the cavern and its occupants in a rapid, excited whisper while he stared, asking no questions. "Metamorphosis, Tony! Like butterfly from caterpillar. The eggs must be Hippae eggs. They hatch into peepers. I didn't see that, but it's the only thing that makes sense. The peepers metamorphose into hounds, and the hounds into Hippae. A three-stage metamorphosis. I don't think the Grassians even know," she concluded. "No one's said a word about the peepers metamorphosing into hounds and the hounds into mounts. Not even Persun."
"How could they live here for generations and not know?"
She started to tell him the truth, started to say, "Because the Hippae kill anybody who spies on them." She knew it for truth, knew she had escaped only by chance. Or, remembering the way Don Quixote had moved, as though guided, for some other reason. She did not want to admit her own fool hardiness. "The taboos would prevent their finding out, Tony. They've got taboos against scarring the grasses by driving vehicles. They have no friendly mounts, like horses, so if they wanted to explore, they'd be limited to walking. There may be a taboo against that, as well. Something deep, psychological. Not merely custom. They may think it is only custom, but it's more than that. They may think they are free to do what they like, but they aren't."
"You mean they think they decided not to scar the grasses, but really-"
"Really, they had no choice. That's what I mean, yes. I think the Hippae have been directing them for... for God knows how long. I have a hunch that anyone who goes out on foot into the grasses to explore ends up dead. I had feelings when I was out there today... Don Quixote had feelings. He was terribly frightened, moving as though he were walking on eggshells. Besides, Asmir gave us quite a list of disappearances."
"And you were out there alone!" He shook his head. "Mother, damn it. What were you thinking of?" Then, looking into her shamed face, "For the love of God, Mother!"
"Tony, I made a mistake. You're not to say anything to your father that you know anything about the plague or that I was out riding today. In his present state of mind, he might blow up and start bellowing. I can't take much more of that. And then, too, Stella would be sure to find out."
"I know."
"If he wants to know where I am, tell him I've helped take Rowena to Commons. Don't mention Sylvan unless it comes up. Rigo's become very strange about Sylvan. I don't know why."
Tony saw that his mother did not, in fact, know why, though Tony himself had a very good idea what was disturbing Rigo Yrarier. While Marjorie had been dancing with Sylvan at the reception, Tony had been up on the balcony near his father and had seen his father's face.
It was full dark when Persun Pollut dropped the Opal Hill aircar at the edge of the bon Damfels village as silently as a fallen leaf.
Sylvan was waiting with Rowena and two commoner women. Rowena's face was bandaged, one arm was bound up. The two women half-carried her aboard. Marjorie wasted no time with questions or comments but told Persun to ascend immediately and get them to town as quickly as possible. Rowena bon Damfels obviously needed medical care.
"I cannot thank you enough, Lady Westriding," Sylvan said in an oddly formal tone much at variance with his disheveled look. "There was no way I could get one of our aircars away from the estancia without causing great difficulty. I apologize for my appearance. It was necessary to break down a few doors this evening, and I haven't had a chance to change since."
"Your father locked her up?"
"Among other barbarities, yes. I doubt that he even remembers he did so. The Hunt is set very deep into my father, with all its little ways."
"Where are you taking her, Sylvan?"
"I don't think father will suspect she's left the place. If he misses her and remembers what he did, he'll probably think she escaped and went out into the grasses. He may look for her, but I doubt it. Meantime, these women have relatives in Commoner Town who will keep her hidden, keep her safe."
"Are your sisters safe?"
"For the moment. Since both have lovers, I have urged them both to get pregnant as quickly as possible. Pregnant women are not expected to ride." His voice was flat, without feeling. "If there were any way to manage it, I would take them to Commoner Town as well. They would not be content to stay in hiding, however, and I'm afraid hiding is the only way they could avoid being brought back."
"They are welcome at Opal Hill, Sylvan."
"That would mean the end of Opal Hill, Marjorie." He reached out to her, touched her arm, for the moment moved from his own troubles by her concern. "You were only allowed there as a feint, a distraction, to keep Sanctity from doing something intrusive. Our... our masters do not want you on Grass. They do not want any outsiders on Grass."
"They allow Commons! They allow the port!"
"They can't get at Commons or the port. That may be all that has kept the town safe thus far. I don't know. I don't know what to do. All of us bons are so... so hypnotized. A few of the younger ones, like me, a few who haven't hunted for a few years, we can talk about things; but even with us, when we start to get close to-" He choked. When he was able to. he said, "It's better in Commoner Town. Whenever I've been there, I've been struck with how clear everything is. I can think anything I please and nothing binds on me. I can talk about anything there."
"Are you going to stay in town?"
"I can't. Father might suspect about mother if I did. He might come after her. He might start something between the estancias and the town. That could only mean... well, loss of life. Tragedy." He fell broodingly silent, his eyes on his mother's bandaged face. "Why did you and your family really come here?"
"I think Sanctity told you about the... the disease."
"Your plague, yes," he said impatiently. "We know about that." His face betrayed that he did not think it terribly important. Marjorie stared at him, wondering what he had been told, what he was being allowed to believe.
"It isn't 'our' plague, Sylvan, any more than it is your plague. It is a human plague. If it goes on for a few more decades, there will be no more human life."
He stared at her, unable to believe what she was telling him. "You're exaggerating."
She shook her head. "I'm not. Only another lifetime, Sylvan, and you here on Grass may be all the human life left in the universe. We'll be like the Arbai. Gone."
"But we here... we haven't heard...."
"There doesn't seem to be any plague here. Or there's something that stops it. You wouldn't let us send in any scientists or researchers, but you did say you'd allow an embassy. Those idiots at Sanctity thought you would accept us because of the horses, so we came, Rigo and I, to find out what we could and to talk sense to you, if you'd allow it."
"We wouldn't allow it. I should have known. That's why the Hunt masters picked those who came to your reception so carefully. No one among them who could be swayed. All old riders. Except me. And they don't know about me."
"Swamp forest coming up below," called Persun. "Where do you want me to land?"
Marjorie looked at Sylvan, and he at the two women. They conferred quietly, then asked that the car set down at the port.
Sylvan agreed. "The hospital is at the Port Hotel. Besides, we're less likely to be noticed there at this time of night."
They dropped quietly, allowed the women to depart, then took off again for Klive.
As they approached the estancia, Marjorie leaned forward to put her hand on Sylvan's arm. "Sylvan. Before you go, I have to tell you something. I came just to tell you."
She poured the story of her day's discovery at him, watching him twitch with discomfort and run his finger around his collar. She wondered whether this was something he was allowed to believe or whether counterbeliefs had been given him.
"Peeper to hound," he choked at last. "Hound to mount. That's interesting. It could explain why they hate the foxen so much. Foxen eat peepers."
"How do you know?"
"When I was a rebellious child, I found out
I could stay away from the Hippae if I made my mind a blank. A little talent I have, or had then, that no one else seems to have. I used to sneak off into the grasses sometimes for hours at a time. Not very far, you understand, just farther than anyone else dared to go. If I was near a copse, I'd find a tree and climb it, then lie there with a glass and spy on all that went on. I've seen the foxen eat peepers. Peepers are easy to catch. They're nothing but a gut with some flesh around it and rudimentary legs along the sides. I'd like to see how they change."
"If you can get to Opal Hill before the lapse is over, I can show you where the cavern is."
"Getting to Opal Hill," he said, choking on his words, "would be the least of it, Marjorie. Going out into the grass would be worse. Much worse. I'm not a child anymore. I'm not as good at it as I once was. If there were any Hippae within miles of me, I'm not sure I'd be allowed to return."
The aircar dropped once more. Sylvan took her hand and pressed it, then thanked Persun Pollut as he left, disappearing into the dark. The car returned to Opal Hill and landed in the gravel court, where Marjorie bid Persun good night and set out for the side door which was closest to her own quarters. As she approached, she heard the thunder begin once more, off in the grasses, a sound the more ominous for having no cause, no reason attributable to it. It threatened without leaving any possibility of reply.
Rigo's voice, coming demandingly from behind her, startled her into a tiny scream, abruptly choked off. "May I ask where you have been?"
"I went with Persun Pollut to take Rowena bon Damfels to Commons, Rigo, where she could get medical care. Her son and two serving women were with her. We dropped him back at the bon Damfels village and came straight home."
Looking into her wide eyes, innocent of any attempt to deceive him, he tried to sneer, tried to say something cutting, but could not quite. "Rowena?"
"Stavenger had beaten her-badly, I'm afraid."
"For what?" he asked in astonishment. To beat a woman had always been, in Rigo's philosophy, to abandon honor.
"For coming here to ask about Janetta," she said. "Rowena and Sylvan came here to ask about Janetta. They hoped... hope that Dimity may turn up alive. Dimity. Rowena's youngest daughter. Sylvan's sister. The girl who disappeared. That's why they were here."
"I didn't see Rowena here," he said, his emphasis reminding her that he had seen Sylvan.
"When they were here, Rowena started sobbing. She left the room for a few moments, Tony took her to my room."
"Leaving you with her son. And what did you two talk about?" He felt his habitual anger surging just below the surface. What had they talked about, Sylvan and Marjorie? What had she shared with him that she would not share with her husband!
She sighed, wearily rubbing at her eyes, which infuriated him further. "I tried to tell you before, Rigo, but you don't want to hear about the Hippae. You didn't want to listen."
He stared at her for a long, cold moment, trying not to say what, eventually, he could not keep himself from saying. "No. I do not want to hear any of Sylvan's fairy tales about the Hippae."
She swallowed painfully, trying not to let the frustration show on her face. "Are you interested in hearing what Brother Mainoa of the Green Brothers may have to tell you about the same subject?"
He wanted more than anything else to hurt her enough that she would cry. He had seldom seen her cry.
"Brother Mainoa?" he sneered. "Are you having an affair with him, too?"
She stared at him in disbelief, noting his heightened color, his fiery eyes, like Stella's eyes. He was saying the kinds of things Stella liked to say, wanting to hurt, not minding that he knew they were not true.
Before he had spoken, she had almost cried, out of weariness if for no other reason, but his words burned all that away. Flames came up around her, red and hot and crackling. It was an unfamiliar feeling, an anger so intense that there was no guilt in it at all. The words came out of her like projectiles, fired without thought, without needing to think.
"Brother Mainoa is about the age of my father," she said in a clear, cold voice which she could scarcely hear over the flame noises in her head. "An old man, rather unsteady on his feet. He has been here for many, many years. He may have some clue which would be valuable to us in the task we were sent here to do. But do not trouble yourself about Brother Mainoa..."
"Perhaps when you have ridden to the Hunt and proven your manhood as you so constantly need to do-and if you return- perhaps then we can discuss what we are here for."
He tried to interrupt her, but she held up her hand, forbidding him, her face like fiery ice. "In the meantime you may be assured that I have never had an 'affair' with anyone. Until now, Rigo, I had left the breaking of our vows to you,"
He had never heard her speak in that way. He had never known she could. Tonight he had wanted only to crush her self-control, believing it stood as a barrier between them. He had wanted their growing coldness to be burned away by anger so she would come to him, as she always did, apologizing, asking his forgiveness....
Instead he had provoked an anger he could neither calm nor encompass. She turned and went away from him and he saw her go as though she were leaving him forever.
It was not only at Opal Hill and at Klive that matters boiled and suppurated on that night of the lapse. Far from either place, in the kitchen court of Stane, the estancia of the bon Maukerden's, a door opened upon the night to spill slanted light onto the court, throwing a sharp wedge of brilliance into which the Obermum Geraldria stepped to make a stump of shadow. She was a stocky pillar of a woman, her hair tumbled around her heaving shoulders as she wept hopelessly into the towel she held to her face. After a time she lifted reddened eyes to stand peering into the night, unable to see anything both because of the darkness and of the tears that filled her eyes and dripped unregarded from her heavy jaws. At the far end of the kitchen court was a gate opening on the path to Maukerden village. She walked heavily to the gate, opened it, then beckoned toward the open door.
Two figures emerged, so slowly as to seem reluctant. One was Geraldria's serving maid, Clima. The other was the Goosegirl, Janetta bon Maukerden, swaying beneath a voluminous cloak as though to the sound of music she alone could hear, her face utterly tranquil in the yellow light. Clima wept, Geraldria wept, but the Goosegirl showed no sign that she saw or cared that either of the women grieved.
The Obermum held the gate open as Clima approached. "Take her to the village, Clima. As soon as you can, take her to Commoner Town. See if Doctor Bergrem... see if Lees Bergrem can help her. I should have let her go before. I thought she'd learn to recognize us." Geraldria pressed the sodden towel to her face once more, muffling the sounds she could not seem to keep from making. When the spasm had passed, she fished in a pocket for the credit voucher she had put there earlier. "This will get you whatever you need. If you need more than this one, let me know. Tell Doctor Bergrem... tell the doctor to send her away from Grass if that will help."
Clima pocketed the card. "The doctor could maybe come here, mistress. Maybe they'd come here." She caught at the Goosegirl's arm to keep her from dancing away, tugging her through the gate and onto the path.
"The doctor said she needed her machines, the things she has at the hospital. Besides, the Obermun won't. Won't have it. Won't have her."
"Not her fault..." Words muffled by tears.
Geraldria cried, "Dimoth says yes. He says it was Janetta's fault. He says it wouldn't have happened otherwise. Vince agrees with him."
Clima spoke indignantly. "That's not true! Not my Janetta."
"Shhh. Take her." Darkness fell onto the path as she shut the gate, peering over it at the two of them outside. "Take her away, Clima. I cannot bear it any longer. Not with the Obermun saying the things he says." She fled toward the house, shutting the door behind her.
Clima took the girl by the hand and urged her down the path, the light of the torch making a puddle before them on a route as well known to Clima as the rooms in her own h
ouse. She had gone only far enough to be hidden from the house by the grasses when someone stepped out of them behind her and pulled a sack over her head and down her body, knocking her down in the process and leaving her to writhe helplessly for the moment, her hands frantically seeking the rope her assailant had knotted at her ankles. She had been too surprised to shout.
She wriggled herself upright and fumbled at the rope, wrenching at the knot with hasty fingers. She heard the sound of an aircar taking off from the grasses to one side of the path, where no aircar was supposed to be. The knot came loose at last and she stripped the sack off, turning her torch around her in bright searching spokes.
She called, went scrambling among the grasses, even brought back several men from the village to help her look, but the girl was gone.
Suddenly, the lapse was over. The Hunt began again. For Rigo, riding the simulacrum took every moment of his waking time. For Stella, though they did not know it, it continued to take every hour that the rest of them slept. Superbly conditioned by their previous horsemanship, both Rigo and Stella took less time than the bons might have expected. The day soon came that Rigo announced he would attend the Hunt at the bon Damfels estancia, two days hence.
