“Why?” she asked. “Why do they reject honesty?”
“Some of them would reject nothing. Some might say welcome if they thought about it. Eric bon Haunser, maybe. Figor bon Damfels, maybe. Some like that. But the Obermuns, the hunters, they say no. They say they came to Grass to get away from others, foreigners. They call youfragras.That is what they say, but I think what they feel is fear. And if you look for fear, look there, among the hunters.”
Asked why the bons should feel fear, he didn’t know. It was only a feeling he had, he said, and he couldn’t say why.
“Why do they fear us?” she had asked Rigo.
“Fear us? Nonsense,” he said angrily. “It is pure pride with them, pride in their fabulous ancestries—fabulous in every sense, for their nobility is more fable than reality. Sender O’Neil told me about their origins. The fool may not have had much right about Grass, but he did know where the bons came from. Their ancestors were minor nobility at best, and not much of that. They can’t go on pretending to be important unless they’ve got something to be important about. When they came here, they brought along plenty of common folk to lord it over, you’ll notice, and they’ve spent the generations since they arrived feeding one another puffery about their histories.”
Marjorie, who had seen among the aristocrats certain twitches of skin, wrinklings around eyes, and pursings of lips, all unconscious, believed that Persun was right. What the bons felt was fear, though the bons might not understand what it was they feared.
Still, whether it was pride or fear that moved them made no difference in their behavior. They arrived as Persun had said they would, in order of their importance, a lot of small fry first: fourth and fifth leaders with their ladies, cousins, and aunts mincing up the stairs as though the treads were hot, old singletons like aged bulls, swinging their heads from side to side to feel their horns. As Admit Maukerden bellowed their names; Andrea, hidden in an alcove, looked each one up and recited the commentary into her whisperphone.”This one is a Laupmon cousin, thirty-four Terran years. She is childless, and she still rides. The next one is an aunt of the Obermum. Fifty-two Terran years. No longer rides.”
Primed by Andrea’s voice, which buzzed in their ears with an insect hum, the Yrariers responded appropriately to each of their guests with charm or pure formality or even frosty coolness to those so chilly they would resent anything else. “So glad you could come,” they murmured, noting each detail of dress or feature and connecting it with the name humming in their ears so they would not forget to be wary of this one or that one as the evening wore on. “Good evening. So very glad you could come.” On the balcony above the largest reception room, musicians played. A dozen villagers hastily trained and tricked out in livery circulated with glasses, putting on the fine air of pomp and disdain which Stella had suggested to them. “What you must convey,” she had told them, giggling, “is that it is better to be a footman at Opal Hill than to be Obermun anywhere else.”
“Stella!” Rigo had expostulated.
“It’s all right, sir,” Asmir Tanlig had said. “We understand the young lady right enough. She wants us proud enough to shame the bons.” And so they were to the last man, bowing like grandees as they offered their trays of glasses, their bits of tasty food, their sotto voce directions to the ladies’ or the gentlemen’s retiring room, along the balcony, near the musicians. The guests stood or sat or wandered, examining each bit of furniture, each set of drapes, some with a slightly discontented air. Little enough there for them to find fault with unless they found fault with themselves. Similar furnishings were found in every estancia. Similar images on the walls. Similar arrangements of flowers. Not so well done, perhaps, but similar. Too similar to cavil at, though one or two made the effort. “So ordinary,” they said. “So everyday. One would think, coming from Sanctity …” As though they would not have belittled anything that had breathed of Sanctity.