They left the high, cold room and the long, chill corridors to go down a long flight of stairs into the winter house, the cold weather house, into other rooms where the walls were warm with grass-cloth, cozy with firelight and lamps and soft, bright couches. Marjorie sank into one of these with a sigh of relief. “You were speaking of my hiring as secretary a ‘lateral family member’?”
“Someone parented by abon,but on one side only. Perhaps with the name, but without the bon.”
“Ah. Does this represent a great handicap? This lack of abon?”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 thebonwould not Hunt.”
“Aha,” she said to herself, wondering whether the Honorable Lord Roderigo Yrarier and his wife would be considered sufficientlybonto 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.”