Grass (40 page)

"Hush, Tony," said Father James to the angry boy. "The man is right."

Rillibee/Lourai got up from his place by the wall and refilled their teacups. "They had Janetta for a long time. They've only had Stella since today." He sounded more concerned than Marjorie had expected, in the light of Brother Mainoa's comments.

Brother Mainoa nodded. "My colleague is right. There is hope that if we find Stella – assuming that is soon – she might not be … very different than she was when she vanished."

"It wouldn't matter," Father James said tiredly. "Even if we knew she would be like that other girl, if we have any chance of success we must still try to find her. Not if it means certain destruction, however. I will not allow that, Marjorie, so set the idea aside. We must have some hope of succeeding."

"You've been out there, haven't you?" Marjorie demanded of Brother Mainoa once more. "You've seen things and the Hippae haven't killed you."

"I had protection," Brother Mainoa said. "Protection to go alone into the grass and look at things. I have no idea whether we can obtain protection to go into the grasses and look for someone. It might be better to let me try it alone."

She shook her head. No. Not alone. She herself had to go. "Now, at once!"

"No. Not at once," he cut her off. "Soon, but not at once. Since we returned from Opal Hill, Brother Lourai and I have been trying to make sense of that design you showed us. Many volumes of Arbai books have already been filed with the tell-me computers at Commons. They have a link with the network on Semling. Brother Lourai and I have been feeding in the designs carved on the doors and the houses. Within hours we may have some ... some indication that there are correlations."

"Is that more important than Stella's life?" Marjorie was incredulous.

"It could be the key to Stella's life," he said patiently. "If the design in the Hippae cavern has meaning, if it seems they comprehend that meaning, perhaps it gives us a way to reach them. Wait here. It may be only an hour or two."

It was less than an hour before the report came, peeping out of the tell-me into a portable link-reader that Brother Lourai had ready. When all the information had been recorded, Brother Mainoa pocketed the device and got hurriedly to his feet, summoning the others with a gesture. "I've skimmed over it. We won't take time to study it now. Remember that we can see nothing helpful from the air. We must go on foot. And we must start from where Stella started. The bon Damfels estancia." He turned toward the door, leaving his other papers on the table behind him.

"Not on foot," Marjorie contradicted him as she put her still-damp cloak around her. "No, Brother Mainoa. We can do better than that. We'll go on horseback."

Rigo had gone first into the house for a drink. After a few glasses of the excellent brandy Roald Few had provided, Rigo had gone to look for his family, not finding Marjorie or Tony or even Father James when he went down to the priests' house. Father Sandoval told him they had gone.

"To the Arbai dig, I think I heard Father James say. Marjorie thinks there may be some help there."

"Help for what?" Rigo snarled, angered that he had not been asked to go along.

"To find Stella," the old priest said. "For what other reason?"

"Does she think I have no interest in that?" Rigo demanded. "Doesn't she think I care?"

Father Sandoval struggled to find something that would calm Rigo's anger. "I haven't talked to Marjorie, Rigo. I know only what Father James told me."

Rigo snarled again wordlessly and left the old priest while he, Rigo, wandered aimlessly in the garden, cursing to himself. When his feet brought him to Eugenie's house, he went in, telling himself he would stay only for a short time. He wanted to be in his own room when Marjorie returned. Still, Marjorie had gone some distance, so there was no hurry. He began to unburden himself to Eugenie, telling her many things to which she murmured sympathetically without paying any attention at all.

She poured him another drink, and then several more. Rigo grew at first angrier, then sad and maudlin. He wept, and she comforted him. They found their way into the summer bedroom. Neither of them heard the aircar return in the middle hours of the night.

Father James, who had done some show riding in his youth, saddled Millefiori, the most spirited of the mares, while Marjorie, who had already saddled Don Quixote for herself and El Dia Octavo for Tony, urged Brothers Mainoa and Lourai to help her with Her Majesty and Blue Star. These two were graceful and elegant mares with habits of calm good sense. "You'll ride these two, Brothers. All you need to do is sit on top and relax. The horses will do the rest."

Brothers Mainoa and Lourai looked at one another in embarrassed surmise. Rillibee had ridden something a few times in his childhood, ridden at a slow walk, with someone leading the horse or donkey or whatever it had been. Brother Mainoa could not remember ever having touched a riding animal of any kind before. Marjorie had no time to reassure them. She was busy at the top of a short stepladder, putting a saddle on the great draft horse, Irish Lass.

"Who's going to ride that?" Rillibee/Lourai asked.

"Irish Lass will carry most of our supplies. And Stella can ride her, when we find Stella."

When we find her, Father James thought quietly to himself. If. If we find her. He had not gone back to the house he shared with Father Sandoval. He had not told the older priest he was going on this wild venture. It would be easier to ask forgiveness later than to seek permission now, permission which he would not receive.

"I have to go out into the grass for a while before we leave," Brother Mainoa said. "Something I need to do if we want to get where we're going."

Marjorie stared at him, eager to be off and yet aware of what dangers lay out there. "Is it necessary?"

"If we're going to get to bon Damfels in one piece, yes." She gestured, biting her lip. "Hurry. If you can." Then she stood looking after him into the darkness, wondering what he was up to.

Tony came into the stables with a pile of things which he set down on the floor, announcing, "These have to be sorted out. There's food and some equipment. I have to make another trip."

"Father James?" Marjorie indicated the pile. "Is there anything that we need that Tony hasn't found?" She leaned wearily against the flank of the huge horse, asking Tony, "Did you tell your father where we're going?"

"I didn't find Father," Tony reported. "I went through the house."

"Leave him a message on the tell-me," Marjorie said, relieved that Rigo was not shouting at them, telling them they could not go. He was probably with Eugenie, but it wouldn't be appropriate for Tony to seek him there. "Leave him a note, Tony. Tell him we've gone looking for Stella, that we've taken the horses."

"I did," the boy replied. "I already did that."

"Water bottles," said the priest. "First aid supplies."

"I'll get them."

The boy turned and left, the priest following him, calling, "Dry clothes in something waterproof."

"Do you have everything you need?" Marjorie asked Brother Lourai.

He shrugged, elaborately, as though to ask who knew what was needed. "We each brought a change of clothes and boots. Brother Mainoa raided our dry stores to bring what food he could. We could use something to cook in or heat water in."

"There." She pointed at a miniature cooker in the pile. "And over there are the saddlebags. Before we came to Grass, Rigo and I thought we might be taking extended rides. We brought camping gear, as we would have done for endurance rides at home."

"Home. Where was your home?"

"Lesser Britain. And then, later, Old Spain. After Rigo and I were married."

"Old Spain?" Rillibee asked.

"The southwestern province of Western Europe."

"Are there many Old Catholics there?"

"Many. More than anywhere else. Sanctity has not had good luck with converts in Spain."

"Where I lived, only a long time before, there were Old Catholics."

"Where was that?"

"In New Spain, the Middle American Provinces, Joshua, my father, said our province was once called Mexico."

"Your father was Old Catholic? But you are one of the Sanctified."

He shook his head no. "I am whatever Joshua was. But I don't know what he was. He wasn't Old Catholic, I know that." He leaned against the horse she had told him to ride, imitating her stance, stroking the animal as she did hers, feeling the stiff, glossy hair slide beneath his fingers. "He loved trees. Miriam loved trees, too." Tears came and he blinked them away. He had seen no trees on this place, except for the small copse near the dig. There had been no trees at Sanctity. Sometimes he thought if he could only see trees, then he would not feel so alone.

Tony and Father James returned with more supplies. Brother Mainoa, looking pensive, came in to help them sort the supplies into the saddlebags, including the two hamper-sized containers that Irish Lass was to carry. When they were done, they stood looking at one another as though reluctant to take the next, inevitable step. It was Brother Mainoa who broke the silence.

"I'll lead if I may, Lady Westriding. For a little while. After that, it shouldn't be necessary. If you'll tell me how to steer?"

Marjorie explained the use of reins and legs and rode out beside him to make sure he understood. Within moments they had left the garden trail and were pushing through tall grass, each barely able to see the nearest rider. Then, almost before they had had a chance to be annoyed by the lash of the thick growth, they came through the tough stems into lower grass and turned purposefully toward the northeast. They rode silently except for Brother Mainoa's occasional querulous, "Tell me again what I do to get farther right?" And then, after he had been told two or three times, he did not ask again. They rode for some time in silence except for the soft plop of hooves and the rustle of the grass.

Marjorie, riding alongside Brother Mainoa, thought she heard him speak and leaned closer to whisper, "What was that. Brother?" She heard the same sound again. A snore. He was riding asleep while Blue Star went placidly along the sides of starlit hills and down winding shadowed vales as though she were on her way home, her ears forward as if hearing someone there calling her name.

Rigo woke with gritty eyes and a sour taste in his mouth. For a moment he did not remember where he was; then, seeing the flash of a flick bird across the tall windows and hearing a grass peeper call repeatedly from the grass garden, he remembered Grass. It was the soft, rose-colored curtains blowing in the morning wind that told him he was in Eugenie's room rather than in his own bedroom adjoining Marjorie's. The bed beside him was empty.

Eugenie came in like the head of a small tray-bearing comet, billowing hair and silken draperies in a turbulent tail behind her. "The girl doesn't get here until later, Rigo, so I made you coffee my own self." She plumped his pillow, sat beside him on the bed, and leaned prettily forward to pour. The cups were pink, curved like the petals of a flower. The cream was steaming.

"Where did you get cream?" he asked. "I haven't had cream since we've been here."

"Never you mind." She pouted, flushing with pleasure at his pleasure. "I have my ways."

"No, really, Eugenie. Where did you get it?"

"Sebastian brings it to me. His wife has a cow."

"He never said a word to me about – "

"You didn't ask, that's all." She stirred his cup and handed it to him.

"You flirted with him."

She didn't deny it, merely smiled through her lashes at him. sipping at her own cup.

He started to say something about flirting, about Stella's flirting, and the memory came back. The cup dropped from his hand and rolled across the thick carpet and he struggled to get out of the clinging sheets.

"Rigo!" It was a protest.

"I forgot about Stella," he cried. "I forgot!"

"You didn't forget," she told him. "You told me, last night."

"Oh, damn you, Eugenie. That's not what I meant." He went away from her into the bathroom. She heard water running as she sat staring into her cup, not drinking anymore. If he only hadn't remembered. For a little while.

He went straight to the kitchen, then to Marjorie's room, and then Tony's. Only after finding all three places empty did he think of the tell-me. There he found a message, brief but complete: Tony and his mother had gone. They had taken the horses. They had gone to find Stella. Rigo howled, half in anger, half in pain, making the crystal ornaments complain in icy voices. Where would Marjorie have gone? Tony hadn't said, but there was only one logical starting point for a search. Bon Damfels' place.

He flushed, remembering how he had left bon Damfels' place the day before, begging, pleading with them to help him find his daughter, while Stavenger, at first frostily cold and then heated with anger, had accused him of undisciplined, un-Huntly behavior; while Stavenger and Dimoth and Gustave told him to go home and mourn Stella in private and quit shouting about her; while bon Haunser and bon Damfels aunts and cousins pointed derisive fingers at him. Despite all that, the people of Klive were not at a Hunt today, and he would return to Klive.

In the garage, he found both aircars partially disassembled, with Sebastian hovering over a case of new parts.

"What in the name of God … ?"

"Your driver said the stabilizer was malfunctioning yesterday," Sebastian said, startled. "We've had trouble with both of them, and since there is no Hunt today … "

Rigo bit back a roar of outrage. "Is there any other vehicle here? Or in the village?"

"No, sir. I can have this one reassembled in an hour or two. If you must travel before then, perhaps someone from Commons … "

Persun Pollut called his father, but Hime Pollut was out of his shop. No one knew when he would return. Roald Few was not available. Three other persons who Persun called were at the port – a long-awaited shipment had come in. Persun made exaggerated swoops with his eyebrows, indicating annoyance.