Six Moon Dance Read Free Page A

boy. Take two days. Be here first thing in the morning on fifthday. First thing, now.”
    She unbuttoned her wrists and rolled up her sleeves once more, giving him a look that was almost kindly as he struggled into his clothes.
    “You’re coming into good hands, Mouche. We honor our annuities, which some Houses only claim to provide. We don’t sell to sadists. And you won’t hate the life. You’ll miss Mama and Papa, yes, but you’ll get on.” She turned away, then back, to add, “No pets, boy. You know that.”
    “Yes, Madame.” He gulped a little. He no longer had a pet, though the thought of Duster could still make him cry.
    She asked, almost as an afterthought, “Can you read, Mouche?”
    “Yes, Madame.” The village school wasn’t much, but he had gone every evening after chores, for five long years. That was when he was expected to be the heir, of course. Heirs went to school, though supernumes often didn’t. Mouche could read and print a good hand and do his numbers well enough not to mistake four vibela for a vobati.
    “Good. That will shorten your training by a good deal.”
    Then she was gone from them, and they too were gone from her, and soon they were alone and Papa had dropped his veil and the dust of the road was puffing up between their toes as they walked the long way south, on the west side of River Giles, to the tributary stream that tumbled down from the western terraces through their own farm. All the long valley of the Giles was farmland. On the east, where the grain and pasture farmers held the land, ancient lava tubes lay side by side, lined up north and south like straws in a broom, their tops worn away, their sides rasped into mere welts by the windblown soil, each tube eastward a bit higher than the last, making a shallow flight that climbed all the way to the Ratback Range at the foot of the scarp. On the west, where the g’Darbos farm was, the terraces stepped steeply up to the mountains, and the fields were small and flinty, good for olives and grapes.
    “Why are girls worth so much, Papa?” asked Mouche, who had always known they were but had never wondered over the whys of it until now.
    “Because they are more capable than men,” said Papa.
    “Why are they?”
    “It’s their hormones. They have hormones that change, day to day, so that for some parts of every month they are emotional and for some parts they are coldly logical, and for some parts they are intuitive, and they may bring all these various sensitivities to meet any problem. We poor fellows, Mouche, we have hormones that are pretty much the same all the time. We push along steadily enough, often in a fine frenzy, but we haven’t the flexibility of women.”
    “But why is that, Papa?”
    “It’s our genetics, boy. All a Family Man has to do is one act, taking only a few moments if the mama is willing and a little longer if she is not.” Papa flushed. “So our hormones are what might be called simple-minded. They equip us to do
that thing
, and that’s all. Used to be men attached a lot of importance to
that thing
, though it’s something every mouse can do just as well. Women, though, they have to bear, and birth, and suckle, and—except among the monied folk—they also have to work alongside the Family Man in the business, tending and rearing. They have to work and plan, morn till night. So, their hormones are more complex, as they have to be.”
    “And men get in more trouble, too.” Mouche was quoting his teacher.
    “Well, yes, sometimes, in some men, our fine frenzy begets a lustful or murderous violence, and we tend to become contentious over little or nothing. But, as the Hags teach, ‘If you would have breathing space, stay out of one another’s face,’ which is one reason we wear veils, not to threaten one another, so we may stay out of trouble and under control.”
    “I thought it was so the women couldn’t see us.”
    “The
reason
they mustn’t see us, Mouche, is that we must not