“I can imagine that you are thirsty,” she said. “We met this morning, didn’t we? You look quite different in your… in your hunting clothes.”
“I am Sylvan bon Damfels,” he said with a slight bow. “We did meet, yes. I am the younger son of Stavenger and Rowena bon Damfels.”
Stella was standing with Rigo across the room. She saw Sylvan talking to her mother; her expression changed, and she moved toward the two of them, her eyes fixed on Sylvan as she came. There were other bows, other murmurs of introduction. Eric bon Haunser stepped away, leaving Marjorie and the children with Sylvan,
“You say no,” Marjorie prompted him. “No, that riding isn’t worth it, even though you ride?”
“I do,” he said, coloring along his cheekbones, his eyes flicking around the room to see who might be listening, the cords of his throat standing out as though he struggled to speak at all. “To you, madam, and to you, miss and sir, I say it. With the understanding that you will not quote me to any member of my family, or to any other of the bons.” He panted.
“Certainly.” Anthony was still very pale, as he had been since he saw the fox—or foxen, as most of the Grassians called the beast, meaning one or a dozen—but he had regained his poise. “If you wish it. You have our promise.”
“I say it because you may be asked to ride. Invited, as it were. I had thought it impossible until I met your husband. Now I still consider it unlikely, but it could happen. If it does, I caution you, do not accept.” He looked them each in the eye, fully, as though seeking their inmost parts, then bowed again and left them, rubbing his throat as though it hurt him.
“Honestly!” Stella bridled, tossing her head. “Honestly, indeed,” said Marjorie. “I think it would be wise as well as kind not to repeat what he said, Stel.”
“Of all the snubs!”
“Not so intended, I think-“
“Those mounts of theirs may scare you, and they may scare him, but they don’t scare me! I could ride those things. I know I could.” Marjorie’s soul quaked within her, and it was all she could do to keep her voice calm. “I know you could, Stella I could, too. Given sufficient practice, I imagine any of us could. The question is, should we? Should any of us? I think we have one friend in this room, and I think that friend just told us no.”
6
The Arbai ruin on Grass is, in most respects, like all Arbai ruins: enigmatic, recently abandoned—in terms of archaeologic time—and speaking of some mystery which man can feel without comprehending. Other cities of the Arbai, those found elsewhere, are populated by wind and dust and a scattering of Arbai bones. So few Arbai remains have been found in those other cities that man has questioned why, with such a meager population, the cities should have been so large. They are large in terms of size, of perimeter, if not in terms of height or mass. They sprawl. Their much-crafted streets curve and recurve; their carved housefronts arc gently in concurrence. No vehicles have ever been found in any of the cities. These people walked or ran about their mysterious business, whatever it may have been.
Each city has a library. Each has a mysterious structure in the town square which is identified variously as a sculpture or a religious icon. Outside each city are other enigmatic mechanisms which are thought to be garbage disposers or crematories. A few have suggested they might be transportation devices, no ships having ever been found. Some people think they may be all three. If they are furnaces, the bodies of the inhabitants of the cities could have been burned, which would explain the sparse scattering of remains. Equally well, the inhabitants might have moved on somewhere else. The diggers and theoreticians cannot agree upon either alternative, though they have argued learnedly for generations.
In the more representative Arbai cities only a few whole skeletons have been found, always in ones or twos behind closed doors, as though those Arbai who had stayed behind after the others had gone were too few to attend to the obsequies of departure. Not so upon Grass.