Hunting Party

Chapter Nine

“We hoped you’d be here for the first day, Lady Cecelia,” said the gnarled little man at the entrance to the stable block. They had walked down from the Main House—which Heris had barely seen the night before, after the drive from the shuttle-port—to a set of buildings that looked as large as the house. Pale yellow stone, trimmed with gray stone around windows and doors; a wide, high arch with metal gates folded back . . .

“Things happen,” said Cecelia. “Here—I want you to know Heris Serrano, my guest this year. She’s a novice at hunting, but she’s developing a decent seat.”

“Pleased, mum,” the man said. Heris felt herself under inspection of some sort, though she wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Apparently she passed, for his thin mouth widened to a smile. “Go on in—he’ll be waitin’ for you.”

“Now you’ll see,” said Cecelia as they came out of the arched entrance into a wide bricked walk that lay between the rows of stalls and a low-fenced dirt enclosure. Beyond was another archway, across which Heris saw a horse and rider move at a trot in yet another enclosure.

“Lady Cecelia!” It was clear from the rearrangement of wrinkles that this man’s face seldom found such a smile. Lean, tanned, upright, brisk—this had to be the “Neil” who supervised all the training and the assignment of riders. “About time—I’ve held back two good prospects for you.” He glanced at Heris, and dismissed her, waving for someone to bring a horse forward. Cecelia interrupted him.

“First—meet Heris Serrano. She’s my guest this year, and I’ve been giving her preliminary instruction on the simulator—”

He looked at Heris again, this time with attention, and then back at Cecelia. “With full programming?”

“What I use myself. She’s a novice, but she’s solid as far as she goes. She’s taking meter jumps now, but it’s only sim; she needs practice before she goes out in the field. . . .”

“And you don’t want me to treat her like a boneheaded kid who thinks he can ride because he once stuck on a horse at a gallop, is that it? Did you think I couldn’t recognize maturity?”

“No—but I want her to have a good experience. And I want you to supervise, not one of your assistants, unless you’ve got better than last time.”

“No . . . they go away when they get too good.” His eyes measured Heris again. “Of course . . . size doesn’t matter, and all that, but I’d think to start her on something reasonable. Sixteen?”

“Fine.”

“She has to show me in the ring that she has the basics, but I’ll shift her to the outside course right away.”

“Thanks, Neil.”

“No problem.” He was still staring at Heris as if she had sprouted scales, then he nodded sharply and called, “Bring me the bay mare in seventeen; size sixteen saddle, and the eggbutt snaffle.” To Heris he said, “If Lady Cecelia says you’re a promising novice, I’ll believe it, and that mare will give you the chance to show it. Honest, can jump, but not fast enough for the field. If you suit, you can use her here until you qualify.” Then, to Cecelia, “Now watch this.”

A thin girl led up a horse that looked enormous to Heris; it was a brown so dark it looked black except in clear sun. Cecelia nodded. “Is that what you got with the Buccinator sperm?”

“Yep. Off the Cullross mares. Two of ’em; the other’s a liver chestnut. This one’s five, and before you say anything I know I didn’t show him to you last year. . . . Milord said not to, because it’s a surprise. Want to try him?”

Heris could see the flush on Cecelia’s cheek, the delight and eagerness that made her almost girlish.

“Of course. . . .” She was up in a flash, rising lightly to the hand that gave her a leg up. Heris had, by this time, seen her employer on many horses in the training cubes; she thought she knew how that long, lanky body, almost too stiff at times on the ground, would look astride. Cecelia looked better—as if she and the horse had fused into one.

“Here, sir.” That was someone else, with a smaller brown horse for Heris. The man nodded at her, and she mounted without waiting for assistance.

“Come on, the both of you,” he said. “You’ll need to warm up inside anyway.”

Heris, on her first live horse since her time in the Academy, found that coordinating the movement of legs and hands while the horse actually walked—walked toward something—was harder than she expected. She liked the higher viewpoint, but wanted to spend it looking around, not steering. Ahead of her, on the dark horse, Cecelia seemed to be having no problems. Heris lined up behind her and hoped her horse would follow calmly while she tried to remember all the lessons.

The inner training area, a walled oblong, offered fewer distractions. They walked to the right; Neil moved to the center, watching. Heris began to relax, letting her body discover the difference between the simulation and reality. It still felt strange. This was not a mechanical device, or an electronic image: this was an animal, a live thing, that smelled like an animal and felt (when she dared touch the neck) like an animal. The horse blew, a long slobbering breath, and Heris felt that in her legs.

Simulations work, she told herself. They’re effective training tools; you learned to pilot a ship off simulators; of course you can ride this animal. The animal was slowing down, she realized, because she wasn’t giving enough signal with her legs. The simulation tended to keep a pace more easily; Cecelia had mentioned that some horses required more leg pressure. Heris increased it, and the horse’s head came up (just like the VR image!) and it walked faster. Mare. The man had said mare, and mares were females . . . so she walked faster.

“Reverse,” Neil said. Almost before she thought, Heris had shortened one rein, shifted her legs slightly and the mare was turning smoothly to reverse directions. It worked. Of course it had worked in the simulator, but it worked on a real horse, too. She felt better. Maybe everything would work on the real horse. She looked over at Cecelia, across the circle. Her employer did not look anywhere near her actual age on that horse; she could have been Heris’s age or even younger.

“Pick up a nice trot, now,” Neil said.

Trotting felt completely different from the simulator. She was off balance at first, and she sensed Neil’s disapproval. It took her an entire circuit of the ring to figure out what was wrong; her ship-trained sense of balance had worked on the simulator because it wasn’t going anywhere relative to the ship—but the horse was going somewhere on the ground. If she leaned forward a bit more—she experimented—suddenly the movement felt right. Cecelia was right—it could feel like dancing.

With that experience to draw on, she was prepared for the difference in the feel of the canter, and compensated within a few bounds. The rush of cold air on her face was exhilarating; she didn’t want to stop.

“She’ll do,” Neil said to Cecelia. Then, to Heris, “All right, Captain—back to a walk now, and bring ’er in to the center. You can watch Lady Cecelia.” Heris slowed, remembering to brace her back, and guided the mare to near Neil. Cecelia’s horse was walking again. Heris tried to notice the things she’d been taught to notice, but what struck her most was the horse’s size. Even from up here, it looked big. When Heris had settled the mare in a halt, Cecelia nudged her mount to a trot. She hadn’t waited for Neil’s signal, Heris noticed. Watching the big horse trot, she wondered why Cecelia hadn’t overtaken her. It moved so much faster. . . . Cecelia slowed it again; its neck arched and its steps shortened. Then it stretched, then compressed again. Heris was fascinated.

“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.

“Cool and quiet, and not a mark on him . . . and you’re happy with him?”

“He’s all you promised. Never shirked, never tried to turn away from anything. He’d have gone faster if I’d asked—actually, I had to hold him back at first.”

“Good. That’s what I hoped for. He should be ready day after tomorrow; you can have old Gossip tomorrow, if you want.”

“Give him two days off,” Cecelia said. “It’s his first season. Flat work tomorrow, and the day after I’ll come do a little schooling on him when I get back from the hunt—”

“You think you’ll have the energy?”

Cecelia gave him a mock glare. He was always trying to suggest she was too old, but they both knew it was a joke. “I could school three horses now, as you well know—shall I prove it?”

“No . . . just give Gossip a run tomorrow. I let Cal have him for Opening Day, and he bucked over the first ten fences, Cal said. Your friend Captain Serrano’s doing well; I’m going to put her in the blues, for her first run.”

Cecelia came back to the house thoroughly satisfied. Now if Heris and young Ronnie would only realize how much fun this was.

Heris had spent several hours riding to Neil’s exacting standard, on the flat and over the fences of the outside course. His announcement that she would ride in the blues was, she knew, a reward, though she would just as soon have had something more tangible and immediate. She came back to the house stiff but not really sore, ready for a hot bath, but the house itself fascinated her.

The big stone building was huge, an institution rather than a dwelling place. It had four levels aboveground and one below, and an astounding number of rooms, corridors, staircases, arches, ramps, lifts, balconies, and other architectural bits for which Heris had no name. On the ground floor were rooms devoted to reading, sitting, talking, dancing, dining, lunching, breakfasting, and playing games of chance or billiards. High ceilings and large rooms made Heris think of an overdecorated flight deck on her cruiser. Most of the guest rooms were on the second floor, along with another library and a “withdrawing room” for women, which overlooked a rose garden. The third floor, Cecelia said, had both guest rooms and family suites, while the fourth was (traditionally) the servants’ quarters.

Heris had a bedroom the size of her entire suite on the yacht, with a bathroom almost as large as the bedroom. Two windows opened to the east, with a view across a lower roof to scattered buildings on green fields beyond. A white vase filled with fragrant roses stood on the black polished bureau; a deskcomp stood beside it. The bathroom amazed her even more. As big as most rooms, it had every luxury fixture she’d heard of, and two she hadn’t. She eyed the nozzles with suspicion and left them alone. She bathed, relaxed for a time in swirling hot water, and dried her hair, half amused at herself for taking so long. It was a very unmilitary situation.

The same dress she had worn that first night at Takomin Roads would do, Cecelia had said, for dinner. She added a simple but elegant silver necklace, then made her way through the maze of corridors to the main stair, and descended its graceful curves. Voices rose toward her; she felt as shy as she had the first night on a new ship, coming to the wardroom.

Cecelia waited at the foot of the stairs, her short hair lifted into a graceful wave of silver and auburn. She wore the amber necklace Heris had admired, and a long, beaded tunic in bronze and ochre over a flowing copper-colored skirt. It was hard to believe she was an old woman, and had spent all day on a horse. She smiled.

“I thought you might like a few introductions.”

“Thank you,” Heris said. She had tried to form no expectations, but she was surprised. All the men in traditional black and white, all the women in long gowns, looked more like athletes than wealthy layabouts. Yet the surroundings, and the clothes, and the jewelry, were straight out of caricature. She managed not to stare as a dark-haired beauty undulated by in a rustle of silvery silk, its folds seemingly held to her by affection alone.

“That’s the Contessa,” Cecelia said. Her eyes twinkled. “That’s what she likes to be called, rather. It’s all a sort of game . . . being a character out of history, or rather out of a story about history. They’ve read all the fiction of the period, and they take parts. Not formally, in the evenings, but one is expected to recognize a good version of a familiar character.”

“Books . . . like the Surtees and Kipling you loaned me?”

“That’s a beginning. You’ll have to look into Bunny’s library. Come along—you need to meet him.”

Heris tried to suppress her curiosity in the presence of her host, Lord Thornbuckle. Was he, too, taking a character to portray? Was that long, foolish face his by nature or by design? He murmured a greeting to her, a longer and warmer one to Lady Cecelia, along with his regrets that she had not made the Opening Day.

“We had some delays,” Cecelia said.

“So I understand from the children,” he said. “How nice of you to have brought them along. Sorry—let’s talk after dinner—” And he turned to greet someone else, with a faint shrug that made clear to Heris he’d rather talk to Cecelia.

“And you must meet Miranda,” Cecelia said. “His wife, Buttons and Bubbles’s mother, though it’s hard to believe. She takes rejuv like kittens take cream.”

And in fact Heris would not have suspected the sweet-faced blonde to be old enough to have children Bubbles’s age . . . let alone older ones. Miranda murmured polite nothings to them, and introduced them to a Colonel Barksly, who eyed Heris warily before wandering off to get something to drink—or so he said. Heris suspected he would go straight to a comp and start looking her up in some index of officers somewhere. She wished him luck. Miranda confided to Cecelia that they were having trouble again with “that Consuela woman” and Cecelia made appropriate sympathetic noises before excusing herself to “introduce Captain Serrano around a bit.”

Heris had never been fond of the predinner social hour anyway, and this one seemed to last forever. She felt out of place in these tall, cold rooms with their consciously ancient decorations, surrounded by people whose gowns had cost more than her Fleet salary. But just as she thought how much she would prefer a snack in her room, a sweet-toned bell rang and someone (she couldn’t see who) announced dinner. A flurry of movement; she found herself provided with a dinner partner (and felt fortunate to have read the Kipling) and soon sat at the long, polished table beneath the pseudobaronial banners.

Her partner, it seemed, was one of Bunny’s distant cousins, and “desperately keen to hunt.” Heris had no trouble with the conversation. The cousin wanted only a listener for his tale of the Opening Day hunt, today’s hunt, the performance of his horse, the beauty of the weather, the cunning of the fox, and the inept handling of the hounds by the new huntsman.

“—wouldn’t pay him any mind at all, and worse all day. Bunny should never have let Cockran retire.”

“Nonsense!” huffed a husky man from across the table. “Cockran hasn’t been well the last two seasons, and he’s due for rejuv. Bunny had no choice. Besides, Drew wasn’t that bad. That couple of pups gave him trouble, but the good old ’uns stayed true. And that last run—”

“Well, but you weren’t up where you could see the cast in that wood—”

The food that came and went through all this was ample and hearty, not nearly as elegant as the meals Cecelia had served her, but more filling. Heris wondered if Bunny’s household adhered to the custom of women leaving the table early, or to the more modern format where the heavy drinkers dispersed to one room, and those preferring stimulants to another. The latter, she found; she went into the “coffee-room” with some relief, for the long-winded cousin had chosen to drown his bruises in brandy.

“You’re ex-military aren’t you?” asked someone at her elbow. The colonel she’d been introduced to earlier, in fact. Barksly, that was his name. Heris repressed a sigh. Two bores in one evening? But the colonel’s brown eyes twinkled at her. “You deserve a medal for that—Laurence Boniface has rarely had such a patient listener; most of the ladies gather their conversational reins at the beginning and try to make a race of it.”

“The food was too good,” Heris said demurely. He laughed.

“And I thought it was recognition of a hopeless cause. Tell me, though: royals, regulars, or ground forces?” He was not one to give up an inquiry.

“Regulars.” She would make it short and firm; would he take the hint?

“Ah,” he said. She could almost hear the gears twitching in his brain. “I met an Admiral Serrano once, at an embassy do on Seychartin.”

“If he was two meters tall, with a scar from his left ear across his cheek, that was my uncle Sabado. If she was my height, with lots of braids, it was my aunt Vida.” Actually there had been eight Admiral Serranos in the past fifteen years, but only two that she knew of had served on Seychartin while holding that rank.

“Your aunt, then. There’s a strong family resemblance.”

“So I’ve been told,” said Heris. She braced herself for more questions; she knew he was asking them in his mind. But his next words left the questions untouched.

“It’s unusual for Regular Fleet officers to have riding as a hobby,” he said.

“Lady Cecelia would convert anyone,” Heris said, relieved. Maybe she was safe, now, although this sort of colonel had a habit of making oblique attacks later in an acquaintance. “We had a wager, which she won; the forfeit was that I would take instruction from her. In the process, I discovered an interest.”

“Ah,” he said, this time in a different tone. “Do you know, years ago when I was a small boy, I happened to see her ride, one of her professional events. It was cold and wet, I remember, a nasty blowing mizzling rain that went right through whatever you wore. I had been bored, even though I rather liked horses, because I couldn’t see over the grownups. I would see the top of someone’s cap flash by, and that was it. People would groan or cheer, and I didn’t know why. My feet were cold, my neck was wet; I’d have gone home if I could. Then everyone was saying ‘Here she comes!’ and someone—I never even knew the man—set me up on his shoulders, and out of the murk came this huge horse with a red-headed woman on it, and they jumped something that looked to my child’s eyes to be four meters high and every bit that wide. Of course it wasn’t, but I was impressed anyway. For a whole term I wanted to be an event rider.”

“Were you ever?” asked Heris. She found she really cared; he had a gift for storytelling that Bunny’s poor cousin utterly lacked.

“Oh, no. I was too young to be faithful to dreams; the next thing I wanted to do was play a very rough ball game popular at our school, and since it was available and good horses were not, I learned to play that, and liked it. Real riding came later, and by then I knew I wanted a career in the military or possibly security forces.”

“I wish I’d seen her,” Heris said. “She’s shown me the cubes, of course, but now that I’ve ridden a real horse I can imagine that the effect is very different if you’re actually there, seeing it.”

“Magnificent,” he said, smiling. “But do you have your hunt assignment yet?”

“Blue,” said Heris. “Day after tomorrow, Neil said; tomorrow I’m to have another session over fences.”

“Good for you. If he’s scheduled you into the blue, you’re doing well. Let me introduce you to some of the other blue hunt members.” He led her to a cluster of people who were all talking about the day’s chase. Heris wondered which hunt he rode with. Cecelia had explained the system, but it still seemed odd. . . . For one thing, she didn’t understand why the hunt levels didn’t have names taken from the books, instead of colors. If they were all so interested in reproducing history . . .

“Ah,” said a tall lanky blond man. “Captain Serrano, Lady Cecelia’s new friend—we’ve heard about you.” Heris had no chance to wonder what he meant, for he went on. “Neil’s bragging to everyone—of course, she’s his pet example of what we should all aspire to, and now as a teacher as well as rider. Is it really true that you had never mounted a live horse until today?”

Heris allowed herself a slow smile. “Not at all. But it’s true I had ridden little, many years ago, and hadn’t been on a horse since I was . . . oh . . . perhaps twenty-three.”

“You’d never jumped?”

“No.”

“I told you, Stef, Lady Cecelia’s simulator is legendary.” That was a red-haired woman about Heris’s height, who wore a gown of mossy green with wide sleeves. . . . Heris realized why, when she saw the wrist brace.

“It must be.” Stef, the tall man, shook his head. “Maybe it would help me. It took me five seasons to work up from the red hunt to the blue, and I’ve been stuck in blue for ten.” Others chuckled; the red-haired woman turned to Heris.

“Tell me—did you find real horses easy after the simulator?”

“Not exactly easy, but much easier than I would have without it. And after the second ride, it was almost the same, a continuation of the same training.”

Cecelia appeared at her shoulder. “I hate to break this up, but you’ve got that early lesson, and I’m off with the greens at dawn—and there’s a message from the Station.” She smiled at the group around Heris, and they smiled in a way that let Heris know how much clout Cecelia had. She was almost tempted to refuse the suggestion just to see them react, but that would be cheap, so she said good night and followed Cecelia upstairs.

“Message?” she asked on the way.

“Nothing much—the ones you left aboard—”

“The standing watch,” Heris murmured.

“Whatever. Letting you know that the others arrived safely in Hospitality Bay, and that the new equipment is functioning correctly so far. Did you ask for regular reports?”

“Of course,” Heris said. “If they didn’t report, how would I know whether things are going well?”

“Oh. I’d assume they were—but before you even remind me, if it were a stable and not a ship I would be the way you are. When I was off competing, I spent incredible sums checking back with the home yard to see if they’d remembered things—and they always had.”

“Because you checked,” Heris said. “I’ll call back up—anything else?”

“Well . . . yes. I hope you won’t be offended—”

“I won’t.” Although she wasn’t entirely sure. On her home ground—and she treated Lord Thornbuckle’s planet as her home ground—Cecelia had some of the very habits Heris had feared when she first hired on with a rich old lady.

“Some of them are terrible gossips,” Cecelia said, speaking softly. “It’s not just that they’ll repeat what you said. . . . They’ll embellish it. It’ll be worse because you’re here as my guest; they’ve chewed my past to tasteless mush already, and you’re something new. I know you can deal with it, but don’t be surprised if you hear that we’re lovers or something.”

“Lovers!” Heris nearly choked. “Us?”

“Predictable gossip,” Cecelia said. Her cheeks were very pink.

“I’m sorry,” Heris realized that her reaction could be construed as unflattering. “It’s just—I mean—”

“We aren’t. I know. But since I never married, they’ve been trying all the theories about why not, one after another until the end and back again. That crowd that rides the blue hunt is the worst—Stef, in particular, would rather talk than ride, as you can tell when you see him mounted.”

“You know,” Heris said, as they mounted another flight of stairs. “I wouldn’t talk about you—or Ronnie.”

“I know. It’s not that. I just—I want you to enjoy this, Heris. Not as my captain, but as my guest. And it occurred to me that you might not have their sort of gossip in the military.”

“Oh, don’t we!” Heris chuckled. “Same both places, I expect. Some wouldn’t touch it, but others can’t wait to guess who’s in bed with whom, using what chemicals or gadgets. Don’t worry; I can be dense when it suits me.”

“Good.” Cecelia took a few more steps, then stopped to face Heris. “If you pay attention in the blue hunt, you’ll probably be up in green very soon. They’re looking for several things—how solid you are over fences, how done the horse comes back, and whether you interfere in the field.”

“Do you want me in the green hunt?” Heris asked. It had become clear how much respect the greens had, but not whether Cecelia wanted competition.

“Of course I do! Heavens, girl, I wouldn’t have brought you if I’d thought you’d be stuck in a lower hunt the whole season. It wouldn’t have been fair to you, or as much fun for me. Go on, now, and get your rest. I’ll be interested in hearing about your day.”

That last visit to the tailor had taken out the slight wrinkle in the back of her jacket. . . . Heris looked at herself in the mirror with a mixture of amusement and pride. Amusement, because the clothing proper to foxhunting still struck her as ludicrous: why wear light-colored tight breeches when you were going to gallop big dirty animals through the mud? And pride, because at over forty she still had the condition to look sixteen or so in those same tight pants, white shirt, and dark jacket.

Despite the training, and Cecelia’s assurance that she was ready, Heris found the chaos in the blue hunt’s meeting area tingling along her nerves. She looked for Neil but saw only the second level of help. Of course, Neil would be with the green hunt. Surely he’d chosen the mounts, though. . . . She eyed the big red—chestnut, she reminded herself—gelding being led toward her with some concern.

“Tiger II,” said the groom, a thickset woman even darker than Heris. “Need a leg?”

“In a moment.” Heris went through the drill Cecelia had taught her, checking the bridle and girth herself, then accepted a leg and swung into the saddle. She hoped the beast’s name did not reflect his temperament.

“He pulls, sometimes,” the groom said. “But he’ll answer a sharp check. Keep him back, and calm, and he’ll go all day. Get in a fight with him, and you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

Great. She had a problem horse for her first hunt, her first performance in front of everyone. She looked down at the groom, expecting to see sly satisfaction, but the woman’s smile was friendly. “Don’t worry,” the woman said. “He’s not a bad ’un for a first time out; he can jump anything, and will—the only thing is don’t let him go too strong till he’s worked himself down a bit.”

“Thank you,” Heris said. “Any other advice?”

This time the woman’s face creased in a broad grin. “Well—I wouldn’t let him slow down in water . . . he likes to roll. If you come to a stream, get him over in a hurry.”

The horse snorted and shook his head; Heris firmed her grip on the reins. “I’ll be careful,” she said. The groom stepped back. Heris looked around and saw that about half the riders were up. She had room to walk the red horse—Tiger—in a small circle, and did so, first one way then the other. As the minutes passed, she calmed down. It was just another horse, and they were going out to ride over just another field. She had told herself that same lie in other situations, and it always helped. So did “tonight this will be over.”