“Let’s try you both on a few fences,” Neil said. He led the way out of that ring into another, where four small jumps were set up. “You first,” he said to Heris. “Just pick up a trot and take the little white one.”
Heris collected the mare, pushed her into a trot, and approached the first jump. It seemed to stay in place while she moved, while the simulator had given the illusion of the jump shifting toward her. Even as she thought this, the mare rose to the jump, and Heris leaned into it. It felt the same, though. She turned the mare around, awaiting orders.
“Now try these two,” Neil said. That, too, went smoothly; she felt steady and safe, but she knew the jumps were small. At Neil’s command, she trotted over all four, then cantered over a pair—an in—and-out, he called it. He yelled, and several husky youths appeared and moved the jumps around. Again she jumped, first at a trot, and then a canter; first one way, then the other, as the fence crew changed distances and heights. Neil said nothing about her performance until it was over, when he called her to him. “Lady Cecelia’s right,” he said. “You’re a solid novice. We’ll see later what you do in the open. Walk ’er in circles down there—” He pointed to the far end of the enclosure.
Now it was Lady Cecelia’s turn. The big dark horse poured over the jumps at a trot, hardly seeming to lift itself. The jumps were raised, the distances changed. Cecelia had explained the reasons, but even the simulator had not made it clear to Heris just what these changes demanded from a live animal. She watched the dark horse arch, lifting its knees high, as the jumps came up; she watched it compress and lengthen as the jumps were placed closer together or farther apart. And Cecelia, whom she had once considered a rich old eccentric . . . Cecelia flowed with the horse, a part of it.
When they were through, they walked back up to the house together. Cecelia had told Neil she would come back later to ride the other horse. “Now I want to be sure Heris is settled,” she said. “She needs to meet a few people, learn where things are.”
“Of course,” Neil said. “But give me a call just before you come down.”
Now Heris looked around her, more at ease than before. Like the house itself, all the surrounding buildings were either built of stone or faced with it. Most had stone or tile roofs as well. It looked remarkably like the cube of Old Earth Europe.
“I suppose it’s like the old parts of the Academy,” she said, turning to watch someone ride along a narrow cobble street lined with stone buildings. “Nostalgia or something . . .”
“And economy here,” Cecelia said. “You have to remember when this was settled—a bare two centuries ago. Bunny’s ancestors had money, yes, but it was far cheaper to import workers to build with local stone, than to import an entire factory to create conventional materials. I suspect that the first ones simply copied designs from old books—and then it began to look Old Earthish, and if someone teased them . . . well, that would have done it. They’d have insisted it was intentional.” She walked around a circular tub planted with brilliant red flowers. “Of course it had all the usual comforts from the beginning; they didn’t start out to build historical reproductions.”
“But what about the horses? Have they always had horses here?”
“Probably. Colonial worlds usually have horses; they’re cheap local transportation, self-replacing. Horse-based agriculture, too. Have you visited many worlds in the early stages of settlement?”
“No, not on the surface. Except for leave, I’ve spent my time in ships or offices.”
“Mmm. Well, most import draft animals. Which ones depends in part on the world itself, and in part on the settlers. The dominant draft animal can be equine, bovine, or camelid.”
“Camels?” asked Heris. She was not sure she knew what a camel looked like.
“And llamas,” Cecelia said. “Have you ever seen camels?”
“No.” This time she didn’t explain.
“I haven’t either, except in illustrations. One early Old-Earth breed of horse was used in the same culture that also had camels. Ugly beasts, with humped backs. It was said that they could be ridden, but I don’t see how.” Heris didn’t even want to think how. Tomorrow morning, she would be hunting again. She was sure Heris would graduate into a hunt soon, and perhaps into the greens in a week or so, but for now all she wanted to think about was tomorrow morning.
If it wasn’t Opening Day, with its farcical reproductions of ancient ceremonies via Surtees and Kipling, it was a hunting dawn. Cecelia put her head out the window and breathed deeply. Yes. Cool enough, crisp and dry, and she would have a new mount today. A Buccinator son. Sometimes the gods rewarded you for virtues unknown.
Bunny’s staff served impeccable, lavish hunt breakfasts—and she enjoyed food—but today she hardly noticed either the traditional dishes or the taste. The green hunt, composed of the most experienced and best riders, talked little at breakfast this early in the season. Later, perhaps. Now they all wanted but one thing—the horses, the cold air, the speed, the chase. They recognized this in each other; glance met glance over the clattering silverware.
Outside, with the low sun gilding the stones, Cecelia walked down to the stable block as happy as she had felt since leaving competition. This is what life was about: a hot breakfast comfortable in one’s stomach, and the prospect of a good horse to ride over open country until the day ended. In her saddlebag was her personal choice for a lunch snack—on this, Bunny made no attempt to enforce the more foolish tradition: if you wanted a thermpak of shrimp-in-sweet-sauce, you could have it. Cecelia favored a hot turkey sandwich, pickles and cheese, and hot coffee.
Buccinator’s son, powerful and alert, stood waiting, held by a groom. She mounted, picked up her reins, nodded to the groom, and set off at a walk to quarter the yard. Then out the great stone arch to the front of the Main House, where Bunny and the huntsmen would have brought the pack by now. Hooves rang on the stones, riders began to talk, once mounted, in the quiet tones of those who expect to be listened to.
She came around the side of the house. . . . There, in the sunlight, were the hounds, sterns wagging as they swirled in controlled chaos around the hunt staff in scarlet. Bunny grinned as she rode up to him. “You like him, do you?”
“You stinker—you might have let me see him last year.”
“He wasn’t ready. But you’re first to take him into the field; he’s been schooled but never hunted.”
“You are most generous.” And he was. To let a guest take a green horse into the field—with the green hunt, over the most demanding country—she was not sure she would have done it, had it been her horse and her country.
“He couldn’t be in better hands,” Bunny said. “One concession—we’re going to start with the Long Tor foxes today.” Which meant less woods riding, more in the open, but the fences were stone walls, unforgiving of mistakes, and in the open they’d be riding faster.
“Sounds like fun,” Cecelia said. Other riders came up then, paying their respects to the master, and she circled away.
The Long Tor foxes cooperated by leading a long, circuitous chase across the open slopes, in and out of difficult ravines, back up and around almost to their beginning. The Buccinator son proved himself, maturing at every wall and ditch, the scope and speed of Buccinator bloodlines keeping him out of trouble and well up. Cecelia didn’t push him. There was no reason to race; everyone knew how she could ride, and everyone knew the horse was green. Far more important to give him a good day’s work, and the confidence to go on another time. They rode back in a golden afternoon, the young horse still with power to spare, and Neil gave her a thumbs-up when she came through the arch.