Sheri Tepper - Grass

“Someone parented by a bon, but on one side only. Perhaps with the name, but without the bon .”

“Ah. Does this represent a great handicap? This lack of a bon?” She smiled to show she meant it teasingly. Still, when he answered, it was with such a stiffness as to tell her it was no laughing matter.

“It means one has a commoner parent. Such a person would not live on an estancia except in a service capacity and would not attend the summer balls. One without the bon would not Hunt.”

“Aha,” she said to herself, wondering whether the Honorable Lord Roderigo Yrarier and his wife would be considered sufficiently bon to hunt or attend the summer balls. Perhaps this had been the reason for that business about the Hunt and the delay with the horses. Perhaps the status of the whole mission was somewhat in question.

Poor horses, lying there all cold and dead, no warm stable, no oats, dreaming, if horses dreamed, of a fence too high to jump and green grass always out of reach, unable even to twitch.

Aloud she said, “Obermun bon Haunser, I am extremely grateful for all your kindness. I shall send Anthony down to the port tomorrow in one of the fliers you have so thoughtfully provided. Perhaps you will have someone meet him there to assist him with the horses. Perhaps some kind of trailer or provisions truck can be obtained?”

“This was our dilemma, Lady Westriding. Our culture does not allow vehicle tracks across the grasses. Your animals must be airlifted here. One does not drive here and there on Grass. One flies. As quietly as possible. Except in the port area and Commoner Town, of course. Surrounded as it is by forest, roads are quite appropriate there.”

“How interesting,” she murmured. “However it is done, I am sure you will attend to it impeccably. Then, if you will be so gracious as to recommend one or two people who know the way things are done on Grass, perhaps I can begin furnishing the residence and making the acquaintance of some of our neighbors.”

He bowed. “Certainly, Lady Westriding, certainly. We will requisition a cargo vehicle from the commoners. And in one week’s time we have arranged for you to observe the Hunt at the bon Damfels estancia. It will give you the opportunity to meet many of your hosts.” He bowed again, taking himself away, out the door and up the stairs to exit through that empty house. She heard his voice echoing there as he greeted the other bon and departed with him. “Hosts,” he had said. Not neighbors. She, wondering if he had meant what the distinction implied, was very much aware of the difference.

“What was all that?” His voice came from behind her, from the corridor leading to the offices. Rigo.

“That was Obermun bon Haunser explaining that the horses have not yet been revived,” she said, turning to confront her husband. He, lean and no less aristocratic than the man who had just left, was clad all in black except for the high red-and-purple-striped collar which identified him as an ambassador, sacrosanct, a person whose body and belongings were immune to seizure or prosecution, on penalty of retaliation from Sanctity — an organization both too far away and too distracted by recent internal events and current horror to do any retaliating at all. His face was set in what she called — though only to herself — his ugly mode, sullen at the mouth, the wide lips unenlivened by amusement, the black eyes overshadowed by heavy brows and wearied by too little sleep. When he was like this, darkness seemed to follow him, half hiding him from her. He, too, had confessed to feeling testy, and he looked irritated now. She sought something to interest him, something to blow the shadows away — “Do you know, Rigo, I’d be interested in finding out whether the children and I have diplomatic immunity on this planet.”

“Why would you not?” His eyes blazed with anger at the idea. Roderigo had a great capacity for anger.

“Women do not take their husband’s names here, and from something the Obermun said, I question whether they take status, either.” Not that Roderigo’s status was higher than her own. If it came to bloodlines, perhaps — her own pedigree was a little better, not that she would ever mention it. “I’m not sure a diplomat’s wife is anybody.” Not that she had ever planned or wanted to be a diplomat’s wife. Not that Rigo had ever been a diplomat before! So many things were not, she reflected — Not the way she would have had them, if she’d had the choice, though there was still the chance this whole business might turn out to be significant and worthwhile.

He smiled humorlessly. “Mark down one more thing we weren’t informed of.”

“I’m not sure I’m right.”

“Your impressions are often the equal of others’ certainties, Marjorie,” he said in his gallant voice, the one he most often used with women, her no less than any other. “I’ll put Asmir Tanlig to checking it.”

“Asmir?”

“One of my Grassian men. I hired two this morning after I managed to shake off the Haunser.” He scraped an extended finger down his palm, flicking it, ridding himself of something sticky, in mime.

“Is the Tanlig man you hired a bon ?”

“Lord no. I shouldn’t think so. A bastard son of a bon two generations back, perhaps.”

“Lateral,” she exclaimed, pleased with herself for knowing. “The Tanlig must be what they call a lateral.”

“I hired a Mechanic, also.”

This puzzled her. “You hired a mechanic?”

“His name is Mechanic — Philological successor to the ancient Smiths or Wrights. His name is Sebastian Mechanic, and he holds no blood with the aristos, as he was at some pains to tell me.” He sank into a chair and rubbed the back of his neck. “Coldsleep makes me feel as though I’d been ill for weeks.”

“It makes me feel dreamy and remote.”

“My dear—” he began in the gallant voice, with only an undertone of hostility.

“I know. You think I’m always remote.” She tried to laugh, tried not to show how that hurt. If Roderigo hadn’t thought his wife remote, he wouldn’t have needed Eugenie Le Fevre. If he hadn’t had Eugenie, Marjorie might not be remote. Circle, and around once more, like a horse quadrille, change reins, pirouette, and on to the next figure.

Rigo, point made, changed the subject. “Make note, my dear. Asmir Tanlig. Sebastian Mechanic.”

“What are they to be to you?” She inquired. “Representatives of the middle classes?”

“Little enough of that, except perhaps at Commoner Town. No, representatives of the peasantry, I’d say, who will circulate among the villagers and find out if anything is known. I may need others to find out about Commoner Town, though Tanlig would fit in well enough there, if he cared to. Mechanic, now, he’s peasant through and through, and resentfully prideful about it.”

“Hardly the type of servant to improve our reputation among the bon .”

“The bons aren’t to know anything about it. If we are to complete our mission here, we’ll need access to all levels of society. Sebastian is my link to the people of the soil. He knows enough not to call himself to the aristocrats’ attention. And if you want to know how I got on to the men without bon Haunser knowing, the Sanctity charge from Semling told me about them. I’ve already asked them the question.”

“Ah.” She waited, holding her breath.

“They say no.”

“Ah,” she said again, breathing. So there was hope. “No plague here.”

“There is no unexplained illness that they know of. As we agreed. I told them we’re making a survey.”

“They might not have heard…”

“Both of them have kin in Commoner Town. I think they would have heard of any strange sickness. But, it’s early days. The aristocrats have putative control of ninety-nine percent of the planet’s surface-There could be things going on here the commoners simply don’t know of.”