They turned in the indicated direction and moved on, gaining a lower limb of the ridge and following it as it wound its lengthy way onto the height. From there they could look down into a valley dotted with copses. Sylvan pointed to the largest of them “Darenfeld’s,” he said.
“Why Darenfeld?” asked Rillibee/Lourai. “There are no bons by that name.”
“There were,” Sylvan replied. “There were eleven families originally. The Darenfeld estancia and all the family perished in a grass fire several generations ago. Others had been burned out before,”
“A grass fire?” Marjorie wondered. “We’ve seen no fires since we’ve been here.”
“You haven’t been here in summer.” He gazed out toward the horizon. “There is almost no rain in the summer, but there is lightning. The fires come like great waves, eating the grass, sending smoke boiling up into the clouds. Sometimes there are fires in the spring, but they are small ones because the grass is still fresh and full of moisture—”
“And a summer fire burned the Darenfeld estancia?”
“It was before they had grass gardens,” Brother Mainoa remarked. “We at the Friary have designed the gardens to stop the flames. There are areas and aisles of low turfs which smolder but do not burn. They break the fire so that it goes around rather than through. We have done the same thing at the Friary, to protect it, and at Opal Hill and the other estancias. The great gardens of Klive were not planted merely for their beauty.”
“True.” Sylvan nodded. “None of the bons would have gone to the trouble merely for beauty.”
Marjorie urged Don Quixote toward the copse below them. It loomed dark and mysterious among the soft-hued grasses, the more so the closer they came. Small pools sucked at the horses’ feet. Great trunks went up into gloomy shade, gnarled roots kneed up to brace their monstrous bulk, their lower branches as huge as ordinary trees. Rillibee leaned toward the copse as though toward a lover.
“Now what?” asked Tony. “The hunt came here and left here. We should find a path trampled into the grasses where many Hippae went. Then we should find another, where one Hippae went.”
“If it went,” said Brother Mainoa. “Though this is called a copse, it is in fact a small forest. What would you say, Sylvan? Half a mile or more through?”
Sylvan shook his head. “Estimating distances is not something we do much of, I’m afraid. On the Hunt, it doesn’t matter. We measure Hunts in hours, not in miles or kilometers or stadia, as they do on Repentance.”
“From the ridge it looked to be half a mile,” Father James agreed. “Enough territory in here to hide any number of Hippae.”
“If we do not find a trail leading out,” said Marjorie wildly, “then we will search within, among the trees.” She appealed to each of them in turn, seeking agreement. Brother Mainoa sat very still upon his horse. His expression was alert, as though he heard something she could not hear. “Brother Mainoa?” she asked. “Brother?”
His eyebrows went up, and he smiled at her. “Of course. Of course. Let us first look for a trail,”
The way the Hunt had come was easy to find. The way the Hunt had gone was equally easy. Crushed grasses testified to the fact that more than one Hunt had come this way recently. Some stems were completely dried, others were newly broken and still leaking moisture. Brother Mainoa rode down this broad trail and then pulled Blue Star to a halt as he pointed off to the left. All of them could see the narrow trail which wound into the grass. Father James picked a stem of broken grass and handed it to Marjorie. It was still moist. “So,” she said. “So.”
“If a Hippae has her,” Tony said in a carefully emotionless voice, “how are we to get her?”
“Hide,” she said. “Wait until it leaves her alone. Steal her back.”
“I wish we had weapons,” Father James said.
“So do I,” she admitted. “But we don’t.”
He shook his head, only slightly. “Let us hope we find only one of the beasts opposing us.”
Rigo boiled the morning away, waiting while Sebastian reassembled the aircar, a longer process than had been anticipated. The new parts, though appropriately numbered, were not a precise fit. Sebastian took them to his own shop in the village, as he put it, “to shave them down a bit.”
By midafternoon the first car had been put together and tested. Driven by Sebastian, with Persun Pollut along for whatever assistance he might offer, Rigo set out for Klive. The trip took slightly more than an hour, across the southern tip of the swamp forest with the clutter of Commons off to their left. They landed in the gravel court beyond the first surface and crossed that surface on their way to the terrace of Klive.
“Your Excellency,” a little voice cried from behind the balustrade. “Your Excellency!”
Rigo turned, surprised to see one of the bon Damfels daughters beckoning to him. He moved toward her, impatiently, wanting to go on into Klive to see whether Marjorie was there.
“They’ve gone,” the girl said. “Roderigo Yrarier, your wife and son and the Green Brothers, they’ve gone.”
“Gone where?” he blurted. “Where?”
She shook her head, tears suddenly starting down her cheeks. “You mustn’t go up there. Father, the Obermun, is in a rage. He will kill you. He has half killed Emmy already. Your wife came to ask where your daughter had been lost. Sylvan told her. He found out from Shevlok, and he told your wife. Sylvan went with them. Father had been screaming since then. Emmy tried to calm him and he beat her—”
A bellow from the house above them sent the girl fleeing along the side of the house. Rigo stopped, put one foot on the step before him, and felt himself pulled firmly away. Sebastian had one arm and Persun the other, and they seemed determined to drag him away from Klive, by brute force if necessary.
“Don’t go up there, sir. He will not listen to reason. Listen to him. He sounds like a bull!”
“Listen to Pollut, sir. He will not give you any help, not now. You must wait. Wait until he is calmer. Wait until you can speak with someone else.”
“At the Hunt,” Sebastian suggested. “Tomorrow. At the bon Laupmon Hunt.” They dragged Rigo away, he resisting them but not protesting, as though some part of him realized the sense of what they said even though his body was unwilling to agree.
The horses followed the trail in single file, their riders at first alert for any sound, then gradually, as mile succeeded mile, growing slack and distracted. Mainoa and Lourai were preoccupied with pain, aching joints and throbbing buttocks. Marjorie was thinking of Rigo, and Sylvan of Marjorie. Father James was praying that he had not done the wrong thing, and Tony was thinking of a girl he had not seen for a very long time. The slap of the grass blades on their bodies had become hypnotic. Even Marjorie, usually alert to the nuances of horse behavior, did not notice that the horses were acting very much as Don Quixote had acted when she had ridden him away from the Hippae cavern. Ears alertly forward, they moved as though they were headed home. As though someone spoke to them. The riders did not comment upon this. With the sun on their backs, they rode, unspeaking, the only noise the sound of the horses’ hooves.
The world spun the sun to the center of the sky and then downward once more. The light was on their faces. They had stopped once or twice to drink and relieve themselves, but the trail winding enigmatically ahead of them had enticed them to keep the stops brief. The first howl came from behind them, far off to the right.
Marjorie stiffened. She had heard the sound before, and it meant terror.
“Hippae,” said Sylvan in a hopeless voice. “Do they know we are here?”
“Not yet,” said Brother Mainoa.
“How do you know?” Marjorie demanded.
“You came to me for help, Lady Westriding, and I’m giving you help. How or why isn’t something we can talk of yet. I tell you truthfully that the Hippae do not yet know we are here. They will know, shortly, but not yet. I would suggest we move more rapidly.”