Grass

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