Grass

Marjorie answered softly, trying to keep them all calm. “I don’t know why we mustn’t ride to the Hunt, but it is clear that we must not. My counsel, Ambassador, for what it is worth, is that we do what that stiff, awkward Haunser man has arranged for us until we find out what is going on here. We are not bons, after all, and Obermun bon Haunser took some pains to point out to me that neither Sanctity nor Terra know anything at all about Grass.”

Rigo might have said something more, except that a sound interrupted him. Such a sound as a tormented soul might make, if such a one had the voice of the thunder and the cataract. It was a wholly natural sound, as a small world might make, being rent apart, and yet they did not doubt that it issued from a throat and lungs and a body of some indescribable sort. Something that a name could be put to if one only knew what it was. A cry of desperate loneliness.

“What?” breathed Rigo, unmoving, alert. “What was that?” They waited, poised, perhaps to run. Nothing. In the time ahead they were to hear the cry several times. Though they asked about it, no one knew what made it.

El Dia Octavo woke from evil dream to uncomfortable reality. His feet were not on the ground and he thrashed, though weakly. A voice came incomprehensibly through a veil of pained dryness. “Lower that sling, you fool, and put him down.”

Hooves touched solid surface and the stallion stood trembling, head lowered. He could smell the others. They were somewhere near, but it was impossible to lift his head and look. He flared his nostrils instead, trying the odor for that complexity which would include them all. A hand ran along his side, his neck. Not her hand. A good hand, but not her hand. Not his hand, either. This was the male-one most like her, not the female-one most like him.

“Shhh, shhh,” said Tony. “That’s a good boy. Just stand there a little while. It’ll come back to you. Shhh, shhh.”

What came was the dream. Galloping with something after him. Something huge. Huge and fast. A threat from behind. A fleeing. He whickered, begging for reassurance, and the hand was there.

“Shhh, shhh.”

He slept standing, the dream fading.

He woke enough to walk up a ramp into something that moved, then he slept again. When the thing stopped moving, he woke enough to walk down the ramp again and she was there.

“She,” neighed Millefiori. “All right. She.”

He nodded, making a sound in his throat, dragging his feet as he tried to follow her. Nothing smelled quite right. There were familiar sounds, but the smells were wrong. When he was inside the stall, lying on the grass there, it didn’t smell right either.

There was noise outside The other stallion screaming, making a fuss.

El Dia Octavo nickered at him, and so did the mares. In a moment Don Quixote quieted, making a sound of misery.

Then she came, patting, stroking, talking to them, saying, as Tony had, “Shhh, shhh,” giving him water.

He drank, letting the water flow into that place of dry fear. After a time he slept again, dreamlessly, the dream gradually losing itself in the smell of the strange hay.

“Odd,” murmured Marjorie, staring down at him.

“They seemed frightened,” said Tony. “The whole time, they seemed scared to death but so lethargic they couldn’t do anything about it.”

“I had bad dreams when I first got here. And I woke up frightened all the time.”

“So did I.” Tony shuddered. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but I had real nightmares “

“An effect of coldsleep?” Marjorie wondered.

“I asked around at the port. Nobody seems to think that’s a usual thing after coldsleep.”

“Odd,” said Marjorie again. “Well, at least the stalls were finished on time.”

“They did a good job. People from the village?”

“People from the village. It seems to be a reciprocal kind of arrangement. We give them employment and buy their produce, and they provide whatever help we need. They’ve been here for years, maintaining the place. I’ve picked a few of them to work with the horses. Perhaps we can find two or three grooms among them.”

They left the stables and went back to the house, turning once or twice to look back as though to assure themselves the horses were all right, both of them thinking it strange that the animals gave every sign of sharing their own bad dreams. Marjorie swore to herself she would spend time with them over the next few days, until the trauma had passed.

Other matters intervened, however. Among them was the arrival of the craftsmen’s committee for Newroad. who went through the summer rooms of Opal Hill making lists.

“You want it done in the local manner, don’t you?” the spokesman of this delegation asked in trade lingua. He was a stocky, bald-headed man with froggy bags around his eyes and an engaging grin. His name was Roald Few. “You don’t want anything that will make the bons’ tongues clack, right?”

“Right,” she had agreed, amazed, and amused at herself for being so. What had she expected? Poor ignorant fools like those in Breedertown? “You’re very quick, Mr. Few. I thought we were the first embassy Grass has had.”

“The only one now,” he replied. “There’ve been a few. They can’t winter it, you know. Can’t stay. Too lonely. Semling had a man here for a while. Here, I mean. At Opal Hill. Semling built the estancia, you know.”

“Why weren’t the summer quarters furnished?”

“Because it was coming autumn by the time it was built, and by the time autumn was half gone, you know, so was the man from Semling. He never got to the good part of the year. So, what have you to tell me about colors and all that?”

“Can I depend upon you to make us look acceptable?” she asked. “If I can, there’s a bonus in it for you. My husband likes warm colors, reds and ambers. I prefer the cooler ones. Blue. Soft gray. Sea green. Hah,” she paused. “There is no sea on Grass, but you apprehend.” He nodded. “Perhaps, if it is in keeping with local usage, you could give us a little variation?”

“Variety and make you look good,” he said, pursing his lips as he noted it down “Do my best, madam, and may I say you show good sense in leaving it to us. Us on the Newroad work well together, and we’ll do you well who trusts us.” He gave her a sharp look, meeting her open gaze with a frank nod of his own “I’ll tell you something, just me to you. You and the family come over the forest into commoner territory every now and then. Commoner Town, the aristos say, but we say Commons, meaning it’s for all of us. We’ve got food there you’ll never get but here, things we ship in for ourselves. It gets damned lonely out here if you’re not all turned inside out like these bons. You might even decide you’d like to live in Commons during wintertime, if you’re here that long. You’ve got animals, too, and they’ll do better in Commons than they will out here. We’re set up to winter animals there. There are hay barns we fill every summer, and cow barns down along our own quarters. All the villages close up, wintertime, and move into town. Among the aristos nobody’d know, did you or not. Anybody calls you on the tell- me. splice you through to Commons and who’ll know you’re not out here, sufferin’ winter. Do you speak Grassan, by any chance.”

“I thought Grassians spoke Terran or trade lingua,” she replied, dismayed. “Obermun bon Haunser spoke diplomatic Terran to me.”

“Oh, they’ll do that if they like,” he said with a nasty grin. “They’ll speak diplo and some of them will even lower themselves to speak trade lingua, and then the next time they’ll turn their backs to you and pretend they don’t understand you at all. You’ll get further with ’em if you know Grassan. Way I understand it, it’s a mishmash of languages they all spoke when they came here, and then it’s changed since. Each family speaks its own variety of it, kind of a family dialect, a game they have, but mostly that’s a matter of family words and you can understand the sense if you know the language. You’ll get further yet if they don’t know you speak it until you speak it pretty good. I can send you a teacher.”

“Do,” she agreed, all at once trusting and liking him. “Send me a teacher and be very close-mouthed about it if you will, Mr. Few.”