“I have read Snipopean’s account of the Grass Gardens of Klive,” she murmured, not mentioning it was almost the only thing she had been able to read about Grass. Sanctity knew nothing. Terra knew nothing. There was no diplomatic contact and no information could be transmitted and returned much more quickly than the Yrariers themselves could arrive — months after Sanctity had begged permission, months after permission for an ambassador had been given, months after Roderigo’s old uncle — now long since dead — had begged them to come. All had happened as swiftly as possible, and yet almost two Terran years had passed since these aristocrats had said they would allow an embassy. Now the Yrariers must make up for lost time. She went on calmly, “The Grass Gardens of Klive are at the estancia of the Damfels, I believe?”
He acknowledged her slight interrogative tone with a nod. “Btw Damfels,” he said, emphasizing the honorific “Stavenger and Rowena bon Damfels would have been pleased to welcome you, but they are in mourning just now.”
“Ah?” she said in a questioning tone.
“They recently lost a daughter,” he said, an expression of distaste and embarrassment upon his face. “At the first spring Hunt. A hunting accident.”
“I sympathize with their sorrow.” She paused for a moment, allowing her own face to reflect an appropriately assessed measure of compassion. What could she say? Would too much sympathy be effusive? Would curiosity be misplaced? A hunting accident? The expression on the man’s face indicated it would be safer to let more information be given rather than ask for it. She waited long enough for the Obermun to continue, and when he did not she returned to the safety of the former subject. “What does it mean when the Cloak of Kings shows purple along its bottom?”
“The color will be halfway up the stems in a matter of days, and you will begin to see the flush of the gardens — rose and amber, turquoise, and emerald. This estancia was named Opal Hill because of the play of color each spring evokes. These gardens are young, but well laid out. The flat place there at the bottom of the stairs is what we call a first surface. All grass gardens have such an enclosed, flat area of low turf It is the place from which all garden walks begin. From that place, trails lead from prospect to prospect. In a week, the winds will soften. We have entered upon the spring collect. By the end of the period—”
“A period being?”
“Sixty days. An arbitrary choice made by the earliest settlers. When a year extends over two thousand days, it is hard to make shorter lengths of time mean much. A period is sixty days, ten periods make a collect, four collects — one corresponding to each season — make a year. We reflect our Terran ancestry by dividing each period into four fifteen-day weeks, but there is no religious significance attached.”
She nodded her understanding, risked saying, “No Sabbath.”
“No planetary religious holidays of any kind. Which is not to say there is no religion, simply that matters of faith have been irrevocably removed from any civil support or recognition. Our ancestors, while all benefiting from noble blood, came from a variety of cultures. They wished to avoid conflict in such matters.”
“We have much to learn,” she said, fingering the limp leather of the little testament in her pocket. Before they left Terra, Father Sandoval had sent it to the Church in Exile to be blessed by the Pope. Father Sandoval, claiming to know her better than she knew herself, had said it would help reconcile her to the experience after her first enthusiasm wore off. So far she had noticed little reconciliation. “The authorities at Sanctity told us almost nothing about Grass.”
“If you will forgive my saying so, Terrans know almost nothing about Grass. They have not, in the past, been particularly interested.”
Again that confusion between Terra, the planet, and Sanctity, the religious empire. She nodded, accepting his not ungentle chiding. Either way, it was probably true enough. Terrans had not cared about Grass. Not about Semling, or The Pearly Gates, or Shame, or Repentance, or any of the hundred human-settled planets far and adrift in the sea of space. What was left of human society on Terra had been too busy forcing its own population down and restoring an ecology virtually destroyed by the demands of an insatiable humanity to concern itself with those emigrations that had made its own salvation possible. Sanctity squatted on the doorstep of the north, regulating the behavior of its adherents wherever it could, while everyone else on Terra got on with trying to survive. Once each Terran year Sanctity celebrated with flags and speeches and off-planet visitors. The rest of the time Sanctity might as well have been somewhere else.
Sanctity was not Terra. Terra was home, and this was not. Though Marjorie wanted to say this loudly, with emotion, she restrained herself.
“Will you show me the stables?” she inquired. “I assume our horses have been revived and delivered?”
Until this moment she had seen nothing approaching real discomfort on the aristocrat’s face. He had met them in the reception area of the revivatory at the port, seen to the collection of their belongings, provided them with two aircars to bring them to the estancia which they were to occupy — aircars they were to retain during their “visit,” he had said. He had remained to guide her through the summer domestic quarters while her husband, Roderigo Yrarier, toured the winter quarters and the offices of the new embassy with Eric bon Haunser, a younger but no less dutiful member of the Grassian aristocracy. Throughout this not inconsiderable itinerary, Obermun bon Haunser had been smooth and proper to a fault, but the question of the horses made him uncomfortable. If he did not precisely lose countenance, something at the corners of his mouth let composure slip, though subtly and only momentarily.
Marjorie, whose Olympic gold medals had been in dressage, puissance jumping, and endurance events, was accustomed to reading such twitches of the skin. Horses communicated in this way. “Is something wrong?” she inquired gently, keeping herself strictly under control.
“We had not been…” He paused, searching for a way to say it. “We had not been advised in advance about the animals.”
Animals? Since when were horses “animals"?
“Does it create a problem? Someone from Semling said the estancia has stables.”
“No, not stables,” he said. “There are some shelters nearby which were used by Hippae. Before this place was built, needless to say.”
Why needless to say? And Hippae? That would be the horselike animal native to this planet. “Are they so different that our mounts can’t occupy their stalls?”
“Hippae would not occupy stalls,” he replied, seeming less than candid as he did so. He lost composure sufficiently to gnaw a thumbnail before continuing. “The shelter near Opal Hill is not being used by Hippae now. and it might serve to house your horses well enough, I suppose. However, at the time of your arrival we did not have available to us any suitable conveyance for large animals.” Again, he attempted a smile. “Please excuse us, Lady Marjorie. We were set at a small contretemps that confused us for the moment. I am sure we will have solved the problem within a day or two.”
“The horses have not been revived, then.” Her voice was sharper than she had intended, edgy with outrage. Poor things! Left lying about in that cold, nightmarish nothingness.
“Not yet. Within the next few days.”
She took control of herself once more. It would not do to lose her temper and appear at a disadvantage. “Would you like me to come to the port? Or to send one of the children? If you have no one accustomed to handling horses, Stella would be glad to go, or Anthony.” Or I, she thought. Or Rigo. Any of us, man. For the love of heaven…
“Your son?”
He sounded so immediately relieved that she knew this had been part of the problem. Some diplomatic nicety, no doubt. It was possibly thought inappropriate for the ambassador or his wife to have to attend to such matters, and yet who else could? Well, let it pass. Show no anxiety. Don’t risk eventual acceptance of the embassy over the matter of a day or two — this embassy that might almost have been an answer to her prayers, this opportunity to do something of significance. Don Quixote and El Dia Octavo could sleep that much longer, along with Her Majesty. Irish Lass, Millefiori, and Blue Star. “We are looking forward to riding to our first Hunt,” she said; then, seeing his dismay, “Only as followers, of course.”