Sheri Tepper - Grass

Since the lapse was over, Marjorie judged that the cavern of the Hippae would no longer be guarded. Very early the following morning, while all the family still slept, she took the trip recorder from the previous journey and rode Quixote across the long loops they had made on the previous trip. She found the ridge, the shallow declivity, and the cavern. There was no smell except the smell of the grasses. There was no sound. Perhaps the thunder had been their mating frenzy, if Hippae had mates. Or, perhaps the frenzy was merely reproductive frenzy, like the mindless thrashing of fish. In the shallow hollow, nothing remained except pieces of dry and brittle shell. The eggs had hatched. The cavern was empty except for piles of powdery clots near the entrance. She looked at these, recognizing them at last as dead bats, those same flitterers she had seen before in the cavern. These were what the conquering Hippae had kicked at the defeated one. She stepped over the dusty bodies as she walked into the cavern, noting its similarity to the one at Opal Hill. Both had the same rubble pillars, the same tall openings, the same spring at one side.

There was one notable difference. The earthen floor of this cavern was incised with a pattern, a pattern cut by the hooves of the mounts, an interlaced pattern as complex as those she remembered seeing as a child, carved on prehistoric Celtic monuments. Moved by an inexplicable impulse, Marjorie drew out the trip recorder and walked the design from one end to the other, every curl and weave of it, seeing the pattern emerge on the tiny screen in its entirety. It would do no good to ask Rigo what he thought it might mean. Perhaps, however, she could ask Brother Mainoa when she saw him again. When she had looked at everything, recorded everything, she returned to Opal Hill without incident, feeling, so she told herself, a certain viral satisfaction.

The day of Rigo’s first Hunt arrived inevitably, and Marjorie steeled herself to observe the Hunt. She wore one of her Grassian outfits, a flowing, many-layered gown, the skirts of each loose dress slightly shorter than the one beneath to reveal the silky layers of the gowns below, the outer coat a stiff brocade ending at the knees and elbows so that the extravagantly ruffled hems and sleeves of the undergown could show. It was similar to the dresses she had seen on pregnant women or on matrons who no longer rode. She let her hair fall into a silken bundle down her back rather than drawing it up in its customary high, golden crown. At her dressing table, she used a good deal of unaccustomed makeup, particularly about the eyes. She did not try to explain to herself why she did this, but when she went down the hall toward the graveled court where Rigo waited, she looked like a woman going to meet a lover — or to meet other women who might wonder if her husband loved her. Rigo saw her and quivered. She did not look like Marjorie. She was a stranger. He chewed his lips, shifting from foot to foot, caught between a desire to reach out to her and a determination to take no notice.

Persun brought the aircar around, Tony came breathlessly from the house, adjusting his clothing, then Stella ran out in a gown similar to her mother’s, though not as complexly layered. She had seen what Marjorie planned to wear and had dressed herself accordingly. The individual layers were loose and easy to remove. It suited her to have something that would come off quickly. She would not have a lot of time in which to change.

There was mercifully little conversation as they went. Marjorie sat next to Persun as he drove, and the two of them conducted a stilted practice conversation in Grassan. “Where is the Master of the Hunt?”

“The Master of the Hunt is riding down the path.”

“Have the hunters killed a fox?”

“Yes, the hunters have killed a fox today.”

“It sounds like toads gulping,” said Stella, with a sniff. “Why would anyone invent such an ugly language?”

Marjorie did not answer. In her mind she was so far from the present location that she did not even hear. There was a fog around her, penetrable only by an act of will. She had separated herself from them. “What is the Obermum serving for lunch?” she asked in a schoolgirl voice.

“The Obermum is serving roast goose,” came the reply.

Someone’s goose, Persun thought to himself, seeing the expression on all their faces. Oh, yes, we are serving someone’s goose.

At Klive, Amethyste and Emeraude were playing hostess, both blank-faced and quiet, both dressed very much as Marjorie was. “The Obermum sends her regrets that she cannot greet you. Obermum asks to be remembered to you. Won’t you join us in the hall?”

Somehow Marjorie and Tony went in one direction while Rigo and Stella went in another. Marjorie did not miss Stella immediately. She found herself drinking something hot and fragrant and smiling politely at one bon and another, all of them shifting to get a view of the first surface. There the riders were assembling, faces bland and blind in the expression Marjorie had grown to expect among hunters. Sylvan came into the room, not dressed for the hunt.

“Not hunting today, sir?” asked Tony in his most innocent voice, busy putting two and two together but not sure how he felt about the resultant sum.

“A bit of indigestion,” Sylvan responded. “Shevlok and Father will have to carry the burden today.”

“Your sisters aren’t hunting either,” murmured Marjorie.

“They have told father they are pregnant,” he murmured in return, almost in a whisper. “I think in Emeraude’s case it may be true. One does not expect women of their age to be able to Hunt as often as the men. Father realizes that.”

“Has he—”

“No. No, he does not seem to miss… he does not seem to miss the Obermum. He does not seem to know she is gone.”

“Have you heard from her?”

“She is recovering.” He turned and stared out the arched opening to the velvet turf, jaw dropping, eyes wide in shock — “By all the hounds, Marjorie. Is that Rigo?”

“Rigo. Yes. He feels he must,” she said.

“I warned you all!” His voice rasped in his throat — “God. I warned him.”

Marjorie nodded, fighting to maintain her mood of cool withdrawal. “Rigo does not listen to warnings. I do not know what Rigo listens to.” She took a cup of steaming tea from the tray offered by one of the servants and attempted to change the subject. “Have you seen Stella?”

Sylvan looked around the room, shaking his head. The room was crowded, and he walked away from Marjorie, searching the corners.

“If you’re looking for the girl,” muttered Emeraude, “she went back out to the car.”

Sylvan conveyed this to Marjorie, who assumed that Stella had forgotten something and had gone to retrieve it. The bell rang. The servants in their hooped skirts skimmed into the house. The gate of the hounds opened. The hounds came through, two on two, gazing at the riders with their red eyes.

Marjorie took a deep breath. Rigo was standing at the extreme left of the group. When the riders turned to follow the hounds out the Hunt Gate, he was behind them all.

Except for one final rider, late, who came running from around the corner of the house onto the first surface, head tilted away from the observers, following Rigo out through the Hunt Gate at the tail end of the procession.

A girl, Marjorie thought, wondering why Stella had not returned.

A girl.

Something in the walk, the stance. A certain familiarity about the clothing, the cut of the coat…

Surely, oh, surely not.

“Wasn’t that your daughter?” asked Emeraude with a strange, wild look at Marjorie. “Wasn’t that your daughter?”

They heard the thunder of departing feet from outside the gate.