The Jellicos made their farewells and went out. Rowena wept, clinging to Sylvan. He fixed Marjorie with a stern face, forbidding her to speak. She cast her eyes down, feeling his will upon her as though he had touched her with his hands.
“Mama, would you like to lie down for a moment?” he asked Rowena.
She nodded, awash with tears.
“Tony, take her, will you?” asked Marjorie, wanting him to take the woman away, wanting to be left alone with Sylvan, in order to ask …
“A moment,” Rowena said.
Marjorie nodded.
“Lady Westriding … Marjorie. A time may come when I can offer you help as you have offered me. If my life hangs on it, I will still help you.” She laid her tear-wet hand on Marjorie’s and went out with Tony, leaving her son behind.
“Don’t,” he said when they were alone, seeing the question in her face. “I don’t know.”
She could not hold the words in. “But you live here! You’re familiar with the beasts.”
“Shhh,” he said, looking over his shoulder, running his finger inside a collar suddenly too tight. “Don’t say beasts. Don’t say animals. Don’t say that. Not even to yourself. Don’t think it.” He gripped his throat as though something there was choking him.
“What do you say?”
“Hippae. Mounts,” he gargled. “And not eventhatwhere they might hear. Nothing where they might hear.” He gagged, begging for air.
She stared into his face, seeing the beads of sweat standing out upon his forehead, seeing him struggle to hold his face quiet. “What is it?”
The struggle grew more intense. He could not answer her.
“Shhh,” she said, taking his hands into her own. “Don’t talk. Just think. Is it something … is it something they do to you?”
A nod, the merest hint of a nod.
“Something they do … to your brain? To your mind?”
A flicker of eyelid, tiny. If she had not learned to read almost invisible twitches, she would not have seen it.
“Is it …” She thought coldly of what she had seen at the bon Damfels estancia. “Is it a kind of blanking out?”
He blinked, breathing deeply.
“A compulsion?”
He sighed, letting go. His head sagged.
“A compulsion to ride, but an inability to think about riding, an inability to talk about riding.” She said it to herself, not to him, knowing it was true, and he looked at her out of shining eyes. Tears?
“Which,” she continued, watching him closely, “must be more intense the more frequently you ride.” She knew she was right. “You managed to speak to us once right after a Hunt….”
“They had gone,” he gargled, panting. “After a long Hunt, they go away. Today they are here, all around Opal Hill, nearby!”
“During the winter, the compulsion almost leaves you?” she asked. “And during the summer? But in spring and fall, you are possessed by it? Those of you who ride?”
He only looked at her, knowing she needed no confirmation.
“What do they do when winter ends? To bring you into line? Do they gather around your estancias? In their dozens? Their hundreds?” He did not deny it. “They gather and press upon you, insisting upon the Hunt. There must also be some pressure to make the children ride. Some compulsion there, as well?”
“Dimity,” he said with a sigh.
“Your little sister.”
“My little sister.”
“Your father …”
“Has ridden for years, Master of the Hunt, for years, like Gustave….”
“So,” she said, thinking she must tell Rigo. Must somehow make him understand.
“I’ll take Mama home,” he whispered, his face clearing.
“How have you withstood them?” her voice was as low as his. “Why have they not bitten off your arm or leg? Isn’t that what they do when one of you tries to stand fast?”
He did not answer. He did not need to answer. She could puzzle it out for herself. It was not that he withstood them while he was riding. If he had done so, he would have vanished or been punished for it. Oh, no, when he rode he was one of them, like all the rest. The secret was that he recovered quickly when the ride was over. Quickly enough to say some things, to hint some things.