“It is hard to cut the bluegrass,” one of them said. “But the horses like it best.”
“What are you using to cut it?” she asked. They showed her a sickle of inferior steel. “I’ll give you better tools.” She unlocked a tack box and gave them laser knives. “Be careful,” she said, showing them how they were used. “You can lose an arm or a leg with these. Be sure no one is in the way of the blade.”
She watched them experimenting with the knives, cutting armfuls of grass with single strokes, exclaiming in surprise and pleasure and giving her grateful looks. She would need a stud groom, and of necessity he would have to be drawn from among the villagers. Already these people were patting and stroking the horses much more than was absolutely necessary.
Sanctity had allowed them to bring only six animals. Considering how long their stay might be, they had chosen to bring breeding stock. Marjorie had volunteered to leave her favorite mount, the bay gelding Reliant, behind. Instead, she rode El Dia Octavo, a Barb stallion trained by a former Lippizaner rider. Rigo was mounted on Don Quixote, an Arabian. Tony was riding Millefiori, one of the thoroughbred mares. Three of the mares were thoroughbreds and one, Irish Lass, was a draft animal, brought along for size. If they were stuck on this planet for a full Grassian year or more, at least they would have the amusement of building their own stud.
Tony led them along a low fold of ground which took them some half a mile toward a natural arena he had been using to exercise the horses, a level place of low, amber grass, almost circular in shape. Once there, they fell into the ritual of exercise, walk, trot, collected canter, trot, walk again, first in one direction then in the other, extending the trot, the canter, then stopping to dismount and examine the horses.
“Not even breathing hard,” said Rigo. “They’ve been getting better every day.” He sounded enthusiastic, and Marjorie knew that he was scheming. Rigo was always happiest when he had some kind of covert activity going on. What would it be? Something to astonish the natives? He went on bubbling about the horses. “Remarkable how quickly they’ve recovered.”
“Like us,” Marjorie offered. “A day or two feeling miserable and then we felt like ourselves. They haven’t lost their muscle tone. Let’s do a few minutes more and then walk them back. We’ll do more tomorrow.”
She mounted, again falling into the familiar rhythm. Half pass, tight circle, half pass again.
Something at the ridge line caught her eye, a darker shadow in the glare of spring sun. She looked up, puzzled, seeing the forms there, silhouetted against the light, so dazzled by the sun that she could not make them out clearly. Horses? An impression of arched necks and rounded haunches, only that. She couldn’t tell how large they were or how far away.
El Dia Octavo stopped, staring where Marjorie stared, making a troubled noise in his throat, the skin over his shoulders quivering as at the assault of stinging flies. “Shhh,” she said, patting him on the neck, troubled for his trouble. Something up there bothered him. She stared up at the sun-dazzle again, trying to get a good look. A cloud moved toward the sun, but just before the light dimmed, the dark silhouettes vanished from the ridge.
The watchers seemed to prefer to remain unobserved. She urged Octavo forward, wanting to ride to the ridge and see where they had gone, whatever they were.
The stallion quivered as though he were in pain, as though something were terribly wrong. He made a noise in his throat, precursor to a scream. Only her legs tight around him and her hand on his neck held him fast. He seemed barely able to stand, unable to advance.
Interesting, she thought with the surface of her mind, noticing the way Octavo’s hide was trembling over his shoulders. She no longer urged him to move but concentrated only on calming him. “Shhh,” she said again. “It’s all right, it’s all right.”
Then, suddenly aware of the deep, causeless thrill of terror inside herself, she knew what the horse was feeling and that it was not all right.
The morning of the Hunt found all the Yrariers full of odd anxieties they were loath to show, much less share. Marjorie, sleepless through much of the night, rising early to walk through the connecting tunnel to the chapel, attending early mass, admitting her nervousness to Rigo when she found him in the dining room when she returned. He, pretending calm, inside himself as jittery as any pre-race jockey, full of mocking lizards squirming in his belly. Tony, lonely, that much evident from the eagerness with which he greeted them when he came into the room, bending over his mother with a hug that was slightly clinging. Stella, disdainful, expressing no affection at all, half dressed, full of angry invective and threats against the peace and tranquility of Grass.
“It’ll be awful,” she said. “Not riding, I mean. I have half a mind not to go. Why won’t they—”
“Shh,” said her mother. “We promised one another we wouldn’t ask. We don’t know enough yet. Eat your breakfast. We want to be ready when the thing comes.” The thing. The vehicle. The not-horse which they were expected to ride within. All the Grassian vehicles seemed to be mechanical devices trying to look like something else: drawing room ornaments or lawn statuary or bits of baroque sculpture. The one that had brought the horses had looked like nothing so much as an aerial version of an ancient wine amphora, complete with stylized representations of dancers around its middle. Tony had told her it had been all he could do not to laugh when he saw it; and Marjorie, who had watched its laborious descent with disbelief, had turned aside to hide her amusement. Now she
