Sheri S. Tepper - Grass_玖贝云文库

GRASS

by Sheri S. Tepper

[05 jul 2001 – scanned, proofed and released for #bookz]

A voice says, "Cry!"

And I said, "What shall I cry?'

All flesh is grass....

Isaiah 40-6

Grass!

Millions of square miles of it; numberless wind-whipped tsunamis of grass, a thousand sun-lulled

caribbeans of grass, a hundred rippling oceans, every ripple a gleam of scarlet or amber, emerald or

turquoise, multicolored as rainbows, the colors shivering over the prairies in stripes and blotches, the

grasses—some high, some low, some feath-ered, some straight—making their own geography as they

grow. There are grass hills where the great plumes tower in masses the height of ten tall men; grass

valleys where the turf is like moss, soft under the feet, where maidens pillow their heads thinking of their

lovers, where husbands lie down and think of their mistresses; grass groves where old men and women

sit quiet at the end of the day, dreaming of things that might have been, perhaps once were. Commoners

all, of course. No aristocrat would sit in the wild grass to dream. Aristocrats have gardens for that, if they

dream at all.

Grass. Ruby ridges, blood-colored highlands, wine-shaded glades. Sapphire seas of grass with dark

islands of grass bearing great plumy green trees which are grass again. Interminable meadows of silver

hay where the great grazing beasts move in slanted lines like mowing machines, leaving the stubble behind

them to spring up again in trackless wildernesses of rippling argent.

Orange highlands burning against the sunsets. Apricot ranges glowing in the dawns. Seed plumes

sparkling like sequin stars. Blos-som heads like the fragile lace old women take out of trunks to show

their granddaughters.

"Lace made by nuns in the long-ago time."

"What are nuns, Grandma?"

Here, there, wide-scattered across the limitless veldts, are the vil-lages, walled about to keep the grass

at bay, with small, thick-walled houses, each with its stout doors and heavy shutters. The minuscule fields

and tiny orchards are full of homely crops and familiar fruits, while outside the walls the grass hovers like

some enormous planet-wide bird, ready to stoop across the wall and eat it all, every apple and every

turnip and every old woman at the well, too, along with her grandchildren.

"This is a parsnip, child. From long ago."

"When was long ago, Grandma?"

Here, there, as wide-scattered as the villages, the estancias of the aristocrats: bon Damfels' place, bon

Maukerden's place, all the places of the other bons, tall thatched houses set in gardens of grass among

grass fountains and grass courtyards, with their own high walls— these pierced with gates for the hunters

to go out of and for the hunters to return through again. Those who return.

And here, there, nosing among the grass roots, will come the hounds, muzzles wrinkling, ears dangling,

one foot before another in a slow pace to find it, the inevitable it, the nighttime horror, the eater of young.

And look, there behind them on the tall mounts, there will come the riders in their red coats, silent as

shadows they will come riding, riding over the grass: the Huntsman with his horn; the whippers-in with

their whips; the field, some with red coats and some with black, their round hats pressed hard upon their

heads, eyes fixed forward toward the hounds—riding, riding.

Among them today will be Diamante bon Damfels—young daugh-ter Dimity—eyes tight shut to keep

out the sight of the hounds, hands clenched pale upon the reins, neck as fragile as a flower stem in the

high, white cylinder of the hunting tie, black boots glistening with polish, black coat well brushed, black

hat tight on the little head, riding, riding, for the first time ever, riding to the hounds.

And there, somewhere, in the direction they are going, high in a tree perhaps, for there are copses of

trees here and there upon the vast prairies, will be the fox. The mighty fox. The implacable fox. The fox

who knows they are coming.

2

It was said among the bon Damfels that whenever the Hunt was hosted by the bon Damfels estancia the

weather was perfect. The family took credit for this personally, though it could as properly have been

ascribed to the Hunt rotation, which brought the Hunt to the bon Damfels early in the fall. The weather

was usually perfect at that time of the year. And early in the spring, of course, when the rotation brought

the Hunt back again.

Stavenger, Obermun bon Damfels, had once been informed by a dignitary from Semling—one who

fancied himself an authority on a wide variety of irrelevant topics—that historically speaking, riding to the

hounds was a winter sport.

Stavenger's reply was completely typical of himself and of the Grassian aristocracy in general. "Here on

Grass," he had said, "we do it properly. In spring and fall."

The visitor had had better sense than to comment further upon the sport as practiced on Grass. He had

taken copious notes, however, and after returning to Semling he had written a scholarly monograph

contrasting Grassian and historic customs regarding blood sports. Of the dozen copies printed, only one

survived, buried in the files of the Department of Comparative Anthropology, University of Semling at

Semling Prime.

That had been half a long lifetime ago. By now the author had almost forgotten about the subject, and

Stavenger bon Damfels had never thought of it again. What foreigners did or said was both

incomprehensible and contemptible so far as Stavenger was concerned, and no one should have allowed

the fellow to observe the Hunt in the first place. This was the bon Damfels' entire opinion on the matter.

The bon Damfels estancia was called Klive after a revered ancestor on the maternal side. It was said

among the bon Damfels that the gardens had been written of as one of the seventy wonders of the

allwhere. Snipopean—thegreatSnipopean—had written so, and his book was in the library of the

estancia, that vast and towering hall smelling of leather and paper and the chemicals the librarians used to

prevent the one from parting company with the other. No one among the current bon Damfels had read

the account or could have found the book among all those volumes, most of them unopened since they

had been delivered. Why should they read of the grass gardens of Klive when those gardens were all

around them?

It was in that part of all grass gardens known as the first surface that the Hunt always assembled. As

host, Stavenger bon Damfels was Master of the Hunt. Before this first Hunt of the fall season—as before

the first Hunt of each spring and fall—he had picked three members of the vast and ramified family as

Huntsman and first and second whippers-in. To the Huntsman he had entrusted the bon Damfels horn, an

elaborately curled and engraved instrument capable only of muted though silvery sounds. To the

whippers-in he had given the whips—tiny, fragile things one had to take care not to break, ornaments

really, like medals for valor, having no utilitarian purpose whatsoever. No one would have dared to use a

whip on a hound ora mount; and as for sounding a horn near a mount's ear or even within hearing except

for the ritual summons and when the Hunt had ended, no one would have thought of it. No one asked

how it had been done elsewhere all that time ago or even currently. Quite frankly, no one of the bons

cared in the least how it was done elsewhere. Elsewhere, so far as the bons were concerned, had

stopped existing when their ancestors had left it.

On this first day of the fall hunt, Diamante bon Damfels, Stavenger's youngest daughter, stood among

those slowly gathering on the first surface, all murmurous and sleepy-eyed, as though they had lain

wakeful in the night listening for a sound that had not come. Among the still figures of the hunters, servant

women from the nearby village skimmed, seemingly legless under the long white bells of their skirts, hair

hidden beneath the complicated folds of their brightly embroi-dered headdresses, bearing bright trays

covered with glasses no larger than thimbles.

Close between Emeraude and Amethyste (called Emmy and Amy by the family and "the Mistresses bon

Damfels" by everyone else), Dimity was polished and brushed to a fare-thee-well, immaculately turned

out in her hunting garb, and with a headache already from hair drawn back severely to fit beneath the

round black cap. The older girls had red lapels on their coats, showing they had ridden long enough to

become members of the Hunt. Dimity's collar was black, as black as the shadows lying at the back of her

eyes, shadows her sisters saw well enough but pretended not to notice. One couldn't indulge oneself.

One couldn't allow malingering or cowardice in one-self or in members of the family.

"Don't worry," drawled Emeraude, the best advice she could offer. "You'll get your Hunt colors very

soon. Just remember what the riding master told you." At the comer of her jaw a little muscle leapt and

leapt again, like a shackled frog.

Dimity shivered, the shadows writhing, not wanting to say and yet unable to keep from saying, "Emmy,

Mummy said I didn't have to..."

Amethyste laughed, a tiny shiver of unamusement, emotionless as glass. "Well of course you don't have

to, silly. None of ushadto. Even Sylvan and Shevlok didn't haveto."

Sylvan bon Damfels, hearing his name, turned to look across the first surface at his sisters, his face

darkening perceptibly as he saw that Dimity was with the older girls. With a word of excuse to his

companions, he turned to come swiftly over the circle of pale gray turf, skirting the scarlet and amber

fountain grasses at its center. "What are you doing here?" he demanded, glaring at the girl. "The riding

master told Mummy . .."

"You're not nearly ready. Not nearly!" This was Sylvan, who spoke his mind even when it was

unpopular—some saidbecauseit was unpopular—somewhat enjoying the attention this attracted, though

if challenged he would have denied it. To Sylvan truth was truth and all else was black heresy, though on

occasion he had the very human difficulty of deciding which was which.

"Oh, Sylvan," Amethyste said, pouting prettily and pursing lips she had been told were fruitlike in their

ripeness. "Don't be so harsh. If it were up to you. nobody but you would ever ride."

He snarled at her. "Amy, if it were up to me, nobody would ride, including me. What is Mother thinking

of?"

"It was Daddy," Dimity offered. "He thought it would be nice if I got my colors soon. I'm already older

than Amy and Emmy were." She glanced across the first surface to the place where Stavenger stood

watching her broodingly from among the elder Huntsmen, his lean and bony figure motionless, the great

hook of his nose hanging over his lipless mouth.

Sylvan laid his hand on her shoulder. "For heaven's sake, Dim, why didn't you just tell him you aren't

ready?"

"I couldn't do that, Syl. Daddy asked the riding master, and the riding master told him I'm as ready as I

ever will be."

"He didn't mean—"

"I know what he meant, for heaven's sake. I'm not stupid. He meant I'm not very good and that I'm not

going to get any better."

"You're not that bad," Emeraude soothed. "I was lots worse."

"You were lots worse when you were a child." Sylvan agreed. "But by the time you were Dim's age, you

were lots better. So were the rest of us. But that doesn't mean Dim has to—"

"Will everybody just quit telling me I don't have to?" Dimity cried now, the tears spilling down her

cheeks. "Half my family says I don't have to and the other half says I'm ready now."

Sylvan was stopped in mid-bellow, stopped and stilled and turned suddenly soft. He loved her, this

littlest one. It was he who had first called her Dimity, he who had held her when she had had the colic,

who had carried her against his shoulder and patted her while he strode up and down the corridors of

Klive, the thirteen-year-old boy cuddling the infant and yearning over her, Now the

twenty-eight-year-old yearned no less over the fifteen-year-old girl, seeing the infant still. "What do you

want to do?" he asked tenderly, reaching out to touch the moist little forehead under the brim of the black

cap. With her hair scraped back and tightly bound she looked like a scared little boy. "What do you want

to do, Dim?"

"I'm hungry and I'm thirsty and I'm tired. I want to go back in the house and have breakfast and study

my language lesson for this week," she cried through gritted teeth. "I want to go to a summer ball and flirt

with Jason bon Haunser. I want to take a nice hot bath and then sit in the rosegrass-court and watch the

flick birds."

"Well then," he started to say, his words cut off by the sound of the Huntsman's horn from beside the

Kennel Gate. Ta-wa,ta-wa.softly-so-softly, to alert the riders without offending the hounds. "The

hounds," he whispered, turning away. "God, Dim, you've left it too late."

He stumbled away from them, suddenly quiet. All around them conversations ceased, silence fell. Faces

became blank and empty. Eyes became fixed. Dimity looked around her at all the others ready to ride to

the hounds, and shivered. Her father's eyes slid across her like a cold wind, not seeing her at all. Even

Emmy and Amy had become remote and untouchable. Only Sylvan, staring at her from his place among

his companions, seemed to see her, see her and grieve over her as he had so many times.

Now the riders arranged themselves on the first surface in a subtle order, longtime riders at the west side

of the circle, younger riders at the east. The servants had skimmed away at the sound of the horn, so

many white blossoms blowing across the gray grass. Dimity was left standing almost by herself at the east

edge of the turf, looking across it to the path where the wall of the estancia was pierced by a massive

gate. "Watch the Kennel Gate," she admonished herself unnecessarily. "Watch the Kennel Gate."

Everyone watched the Kennel Gate as it opened slowly and the hounds came through, couple on couple

of them, ears dangling, tongues lolling between strong ivory teeth, tails straight behind them. They moved

down the Hounds' Way, a broad path of low, patterned velvetgrass which circled the first surface and

ran westward through the Hunt Gate in the opposite wall and out into the wider gardens. As each pair of

hounds approached the first surface, one hound went left, the other right, two files of them circling the

hunters, watching the hunters, examining them with red, steaming hot-coal eyes before the files met one

another to stalk on toward the Hunt Gate, paired as before.

Dimity felt the heat of their eyes like a blow. She looked down at her hands, gripping one another, white

at the knuckles, and tried to think of nothing at all.

As the last couple joined one another and the hunters moved to follow, Sylvan left his place and ran to

whisper in her ear, "You can just stay here, Dim. No one will even look back. No one will know until

later. Just stay here."

Dimity shook her head. Her face was very white, her eyes huge and dark and full of a fear she was only

for the first time admitting to herself, but she would not let herself stay. Shaking his head, Sylvan ran to

regain his place. Slowly, reluctantly, her feet took her after him as the hunters followed the hounds

through the Hunt Gate. From beyond the wall came the sound of hooves upon the sod. The mounts were

waiting.

From the balcony outside her bedroom window, Rowena, the Obermum bon Damfels, let her troubled

gaze settle on the back of her youngest daughter's head. Above the high, white circle of her hunting tie,

Dimity's neck looked thin and defenseless. She's a little budling, Rowena thought, remembering pictures

of nodding blossoms in the fairy books she had read as a child. "Snowdrops," she recited to herself.

"Fringed tulips. Bluebells. And peonies." She had once had a whole book about the glamorous and

terrible fairies who lived in flowers. She wondered where the book was now. Gone, probably. One of

those "foreign" things Stavenger was forever inveighing against As though a few fairy tales could hurt

anything.

"Dimity looks so tiny," said the maidservant, Salla. "So tiny. So young. Trailing along there behind them

all...." Salla had cared for all the children when they were babies. Dimity, being youngest, had stayed a

baby longer than the others.

"She's as old as Amethyste was when she rode for the first time. She's older than Emmy was." Try

though she might, Rowena could not keep her voice from sounding defensive "She's not that young."

"But her eyes, mistress," Salla murmured. "Like a little girl. She doesn't understand about this Hunt

business. None of it. None of it at all."

"Of course she understands." Rowena had to assert this, had to believe it- That's what all the training

was for; to be sure that the young riders understood- It was all perfectly manageable, provided one had

proper training first. "She understands," Rowena repeated stubbornly, placing herself before the mirror,

fiddling with the arrange-ment of her thick, dark hair. Her own gray eyes stared back at her accusingly,

and she pinched her lips into an unlovely line.

"Doesn't," said Salla as stubbornly, quickly turning away to avoid the slap Rowena might have given her

if she could have done it without moving. "She's like you, mistress. Not made for it."

Rowena tired of looking at herself and chose to change her ground. "Her father says she must!"

Salla did not contradict this. There would have been no point. "She's not made for it. No more than you

were. And he doesn't make you."

Oh, but he did, Rowena thought, remembering pain. Made me do so many things I didn't want to. Let

me quit riding, yes, but only when I was pregnant with the seven children he made me have when I only

wanted one or two. Made me ride right up until the time I got old, with lines around my eyes. Made me

bring the children up to the Hunt, when I didn't want to. Made them all like him, all the way he is—except

Sylvan. No matter what Stavenger does, Sylvan stays Sylvan. Not that Syl lets on what he really thinks.

Sylvan just roars about everything. Clever Syl, to hide his true beliefs among all that bluster. And Dimity

stays Dimity as well, of course—but poor Dim —Dim couldn't hide anything. Would she be able to hide

her feelings this morning?

Rowena went back to the balcony and craned her neck to look over the top of the wall. She could see

the movements of the waiting mounts, tossing heads, switching tails. She could hear the clicking of

hooves, thehruffingsound of a breath suddenly expelled. It was too quiet. Always too quiet when the

riders mounted. She had always felt there should be talk, people calling to one another, greeting one

another. There should be ... something. Something besides this silence.

Outside the Hunt Gate the hounds circled and the mounts waited, shifting impatiently from foot to foot,

tails lashing, necks arching as they pawed the ground, all quietly as in a dream where things move but

make no sound. The air was warm with their steamy breath, full of the haylike smell of them, the sweaty

stench. Stavenger's mount came forward first, as was proper, and then others, one by one, coming for

the Huntsman and for the whippers-in, and then for the riders of the field, the oldest riders first. Dimity

stood behind Emeraude and Amethyste, shivering slightly as first one, then the other vaulted up onto the

backs of waiting mounts. Soon she was the only one left unmounted. Then, just as she decided that there

was no mount for her, that she could slip back through the gate, the mount was there before her, within

reach of her hand.

It stared at her as it extended a front leg and crouched slightly so that she could put one foot on the

brindled leg, grasp the reins, and leap upward, all as she had done time after time on the simulator, no

different except for the smell and the heaving breath which spread the vast ribs between her legs, wider

than the machine had ever done. Her toes hunted desperately for the notches between the third and

fourth rib that should be there, finding them at last far forward of where she thought they should be. She

slipped the pointed toes of her boots in, locking herself on. Then it was only a matter of hanging onto the

reins and keeping her spurs dug in and her legs tight while the great crea-ture beneath her turned high on

its rear legs to follow the others away, west. She had worn her padded breeches for hours on the

simulator, so they were properly broken in. She had had nothing to drink since early the previous evening

and nothing to eat since noon yesterday. She wished fleetingly that Sylvan could ride beside her, but he

was far ahead. Emeraude and Amethyste were lost in the welter. She could see Stavenger's red coat, the

line of his back as straight as a stem of polegrass. There was no turning back now. It was almost a relief

to know that she couldn't do anything but what she was doing. Nothing else at all, not until the Hunt

returned. At last there was sound, a drumming of feet which filled all the space there was to hold it, a

reso-nant thunder coming up from the ground beneath them.

From her balcony above them, Rowena heard the sound and put her hands over her ears until it faded

into silence. Gradually the small sounds of insect and bird and grass peeper, which had ceased when the

hounds arrived, began once more.

"Too young," brooded Salla. "Oh, mistress."

Rowena did not slap her maidservant but turned to her with tears in her eyes instead. "I know," she said.

She turned to see the end of the line of riders as it fled away down the garden trail toward the west.

Riding out. she said to herself. Riding out And they'll ride back again.

Back again. Saying it over and over like a litany. Back again.

"She'll be back," said Salla. "She'll be back, wanting a nice hot bath." Then both of them stood staring

into the west, not seeing anything there except the grass.

Down the wide hallway from Rowena's suite of rooms, in the mostly unused library of Klive, certain

nonhunting members of the aristoc-racy had assembled to consider a matter of continuing irritation to

them all. Second leader at Klive was Stavenger's younger brother, Figor. Some years ago, following one

of the many hunting accidents which occurred every season, Figor had stopped riding to the hounds. This

left him free during hunting seasons to take upon himself many of the responsibilities of the estancia while

Stavenger was otherwise engaged. Today Figor met with Eric bon Haunser, Gerold bon Laupmon, and

Gustave bon Smaerlok. Gustave was the Obermun bon Smaerlok, head of the Smaerlok family still,

despite his disability; but both Eric bon Haunser and Gerold bon Laupmon were younger siblings of the

family leaders, men who were also hunting today.

The quartet assembled around a large square table in one corner of the dimly lit room, passing among

themselves the document which had occasioned their meeting. It was a brief document, headed with the

cursive arabesques which spelled out the names and attributes of Sanctity, laden with seals and ribbons

and signed by the Hierarch himself. This same group of aristocrats had responded to similar doc-uments

in both the remote and recent past, and Gustave bon Smaer-lok betrayed considerable impatience at

having to do so yet again.

"This office of Sanctity is becoming importunate," the Obermun said now from the wheeled half-person

he had occupied for the last twenty years. "Dimoth bon Maukerden says so. I asked him and he went

into a rage over this business. And Yalph bon Bindersen. I asked him, too. Haven't had a chance to get

over to bon Tanlig's place yet, but Dimoth and Yalph and I are agreed that whatever this Sanctity wants,

it has nothing to do with us, and we won't have their damnedfragrashere. Our people came to Grass to

get away from Sanctity— now let Sanctity stay away from us. It's enough we let them stay on digging up

the Arbai city, enough that those Green Brothers make mud pies with their little shovels up there in the

north. Let elsewherestay elsewhereand Grass stay Grass. So we all agree. Let's tell them so, once and

for all. It's Hunt season, for heaven's sake. We haven't time for all this nonsense." Though Gustave no

longer rode, he was an avid follower of the Hunt, watching the pursuit from a silent, propeller-driven

balloon-car whenever the weather would allow.

"Easy, Gustave," murmured Figor, the fingers of his right hand mas-saging his left arm at the point where

the flesh and the prosthesis joined, feeling the pain pulse beneath his fingers, a constant accom-paniment

to existence, even after two years. It made him irritable, and he guarded against expressing the irritation,

knowing it arose from the body rather than the mind. "We don't need to make an open revolt out of it.

No need to rub Sanctity's fur the wrong way."

"Revolt!" the older man bellowed. "Since when does thisfragrasSanctity rule on Grass?" Though the

word fragrasmeant simply "for-eign," he used it as it was usually used on Grass, as the ultimate insult.

"Shhh." Figor made allowances for Gustave. Gustave was in pain also and was undoubtedly made

irritable thereby. "I didn't mean that kind of revolt, and you know it. Even though we have no religious

alle-giance to Sanctity, we pay it lip service for other things. Sanctity is headquartered upon Terra. We

acknowledge Terra as the center of dip-lomatic intercourse. Maintainer of our cultural heritage. Eternal

cradle of mankind. Blah and blah." He sighed, massaging again. Gustave snorted but did not interrupt as

Figor went on. "Many take our history seriously, Gustave. Even we don't entirely ignore it. We use the

old language during conferences; we teach Terran to our children. We don't all use the same language in

our estancias, but we consider speaking Terran among ourselves the mark of cultured men, no? We

calculate our age in Sanctity years, still. Most of our food crops are Terran crops from our ancestors'

time. Why run afoul of Sanctity—and all those who might come roaring to her defense—when we don't

need to?"

"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." Fi-gor 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 un-derstood 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 prob-ably be Terran, Gustave. Surely we

could suffer that for a time. As I mentioned, most of us speak diplomatic."

"And thisfragraswill have a silly wife and a dozen bratlings, prob-ably. 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, up-ward to the ridge where tall plumes of

aquamarine watergrass un-dulated 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,

Sheri S. Tepper - Grass

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