Sheri S. Tepper - Six Moon Dance

SIX MOON DANCE

Sheri S Tepper

“ ‘What matters it how far we go?’ his scaly friend replied.

There is another shore, you know, upon the other side ...

Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?”

—Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

CONTENTS

1—On Newholme: Mouche.5

2—Ornery Bastable, and a Bit of History.15

3—The Establishment of the Questioner by Haraldson the Beneficent21

4—Orientation to the Amatory Arts.25

5—Life as a Lobster27

6—On Old Earth: The Dancing Child.34

7—The Questioner and the Trader39

8—Native and Newcomer. A Conversation.46

9—Amatory Arts: Fitting into the Family.48

10—Three Angry Men.50

11—On Old Earth: History House.52

12—The Amatory Arts/What Women Want60

13—At the Mercy of the Mountain.62

14—A Diversion of Dancers.64

15—Marool Mantelby.69

16—Amatory Arts: Stories Women Tell76

17—Mouche Becomes a Hunk.79

18—Ornery Bastable, the Castaway.82

19—The Invisible People.84

20—The Dutter Boys.88

21—Among the Indigenes.91

22—A Dream of Falling Water, Flowing Green.94

23—Dancers in Transit95

24—Harassments.99

25—The Long Nights.102

26—Amatory Arts, the Marions.104

27—The Questioner is Announced.106

28—A Family Man Visits the Hags.110

29—Calvy and his Friends.113

30—Mistress Mantelby Investigates.116

31—The Questioner Approaches.121

33—Marool Mantdby and the *** p198.129

34—Pressed into Service.135

35—Timmy Talk.138

36—Pressed Men at Mantelby.140

37—An Intimate Disclosure.150

38—The Questioner Arrives.151

39—Gardeners, Mouche, and Intricacies.157

40—Questioner Visits the Panhagion.165

41—Assorted Persons In Pursuit173

42—Marool Worships Morrigan.175

43—A Journey Toward Dosha.178

44—Consternation.193

45—The Camp of The Wilderneers.199

46—The Second Expedition Sets Out208

47—Round the Down Staircase.210

48—Westward the Wilderneers.218

49—Sailing the Pillared Sea.223

50—The Abduction of Dancers.230

51—Madame Meets A Messenger234

52—Leggers, Tunnelers, and Assorted Traffic.238

53—The Farther Shore.243

54—Assembly At The Fauxi-dizalonz:244

56—A Gathering Of Monsters.259

57—Quaggima And The Chasm..261

58—The Jongau And A Matter Of Gender271

59—Into The Fauxi-Dizalonz.277

60—Many Moons.286

61—Love Cards Wild.294

1—On Newholme: Mouche

“It’s all right,” Mouche’s mother said. “next time we’ll have a girl.”

Mouche knew of this because his father told him. “She said it was all right. She said next time ... “

But there had been no next time. Why the inscrutable Hagions decided such things was unknown. Some

persons profited in life, producing daughter after daughter; some lost in life, producing son after son;

some hung in the balance as Eline and Darbos did, having one son at the Temple, and then a daughter

born dead at the Temple, and then no other child.

It was neither a profit nor a great loss, but still, a loss. Even a small loss sustained over time can bleed a

family: so theirs bled. Only a smutch of blood, a mere nick of a vein, a bit more out than in, this year and

then the next, and the one after that, a gradual anemia, more weakening than deadly—the heifer calves

sold instead of kept, the ewe lambs sold, the repairs to the water mill deferred, then deferred again.

Darbos had taken all he had inherited and added to that what he could borrow as his dowry for a wife

who would help him establish a family line, to let him wear the honorable cockade, to be known as

g’Darbos and be addressed as “Family Man.” He had planned to repay the loan with advances against

his share of the dowries paid for his own daughters. Instead, he had paid for Eline with the price of the

heifer calves, with the ruin of the mill. Her family had profited, and though families lucky enough to have

several daughters often gave those daughters a share of the dowry they brought in (a generosity Darbos

had rather counted on), Eline’s parents had not seen fit to do so. Still, Eline’s daughters would have

made it all worth while, if there had been daughters.

Their lack made for a life not precisely sad, but not joyous, either. There was no absence of care,

certainly. Eline was not a savage. There was no personal blame. Darbos had created the sperm, he was

the one responsible, everyone knew that. But then, some receptacles were said to reject the female, so

perhaps Eline shared the fault. No matter. Blaming, as the Hags opined, was a futile exercise engaged in

only by fools. What one did was bow, bow again, and get on.

So, each New Year at the Temple, while g’Darbos waited outside with the other Family Men, all of

them sneaking chaff under their veils and whispering with one another in defiance of propriety, Eline

bowed and bowed again. Then she got on, though the getting did not halt the slow leaking away of

substance by just so much as it took to feed and clothe one boy, one boy with a boy’s appetite and a

boy’s habit of unceasing growth. As for shoes, well, forget shoes. If he had had sisters, then perhaps

Eline would have bought him shoes. In time, she might even have provided the money for him to dower in

a wife. If he had had sisters.

“If bought no wife,” so the saying went, so forget the wife. More urgent than the need for a wife was the

need for daily grain, for a coat against the wind, for fire on the winter’s hearth and tight roof against the

storm, none of which came free. Eline and Darbos were likely to lose all. After nine barren years, it was

unlikely there would be more children, and the couple had themselves to think of.Who can not fatten on

daughters must fatten on labor, so it was said, and the little farm would barely fatten two. It would not

stretch to three.

On the day Mouche was twelve, when the festive breakfast was over and the new shirt admired and put

on, Papa walked with him into the lower pasture where an old stump made a pleasant sun-gather for

conversation, and there Papa told Mouche what the choices were. Mouche might be cut, and if he

survived it, sold to some wealthy family as a chatron playmate for their children, a safe servant for the

daughters, someone to fetch and carry and neaten up. The fee would be large if he lived, but if he died,

there would be no fee at all.

Or, an alternative. Madame Genevois—who had a House in Sendoph—had seen Mouche in the

marketplace, and she’d made an offer for him. While the fee was less than for a chatron, it would be paid

in advance, no matter how he turned out.

Mama had followed them down to the field and she stood leaning on the fence, taking no part in the

conversation. It was not a woman’s place, after all, to enlighten her son to the facts of life. Still, she was

near enough to hear him when he cried:

“Trained for a Hunk, Papa? A Hunk?”

“Where did you learn that word?” said Mama, spinning around and glaring at him. “We do not talk filth

in this family ... “

“Shh, shh,” said Darbos, tears in the corners of his eyes. “The word is the right word, Madam. When

we are driven to this dirty end, let us not quibble about calling it what it is.”

At which point Mama grew very angry and went swiftly away toward the house. Papa followed her a

little way, and Mouche heard him saying, “Oh, I know he’s only a boy, Eline, but I’ve grown fond of him

... “

Mouche had seen Hunks, of course—who had not?—riding through the marketplace, their faces barely

veiled behind gauzy stuff, their clothing all aglitter with gold lace and gems, their hats full of plumes, the

swords they fenced with sparkling like rippled water. Even through the veils one could see their hair was

curled and flowing upon their shoulders, not bound back as a common man would need it to be, out of

the way of the work. Their shirts were open, too, and in the gap their skin glowed and their muscles

throbbed. Hunks did not work. They smiled, they dimpled, they complimented, they dueled and rode and

wrestled, they talked of wonderful things that ordinary people knew little or nothing of. Poetry. And

theater. And wine.

Mouche wondered if they talked of the sea, which is what Mouche talked of, to himself when there was

no one else by to speak to, or to Papa, when Papa was in the mood. Not to Mama. Mama did not

understand such things, even though it was she who had given him the book of sea stories, and she who

had told him about going to Gilesmarsh when she was a girl, and how the shore had looked and smelled,

and how the little boats came in full of the fishes that swam there, and how the ships sailed out and away

into wonderful places. The seamen didn’t even wear veils, except in port. Mama didn’t mention that, but

the book did. Of course, out at sea, there were no women to be tempted and corrupted by the sight of

wanton hairs sprouting on a male face, so veils weren’t really needed.

Mouche’s dream of going to sea when he was old enough was not pure foolishness. The books were full

of stories about boys who ran away to sea and ships that took them, sometimes with no apprenticeship

fee. Poor as Mouche’s family was, he knew it would have to be without a fee. He would have to have

something else to recommend him, like knowing things about ropes and nets and repairs and suchlike. He

asked his teacher if he could get Mouche a book about all that—which he did, and followed it with

others when Mouche was through with the first one. Mouche practiced knots in his bed at night, and

learned all the words for the parts of the ship and the pieces of the rigging and how it all worked.

“Seaman Mouche,” he said to himself on the edge of sleep. “Captain Mouche.” And he dreamed.

But now it seemed he was not to go to sea. Not even without a fee. He was to be a Hunk. Hunks did

not go to sea, did not pull at nets, did not look out to far horizons and distant ports, did not smell of fish.

They smelled of perfume. They pranced like ponies. And they fucked, of course. Everyone knew that.

That’s what they were for. Though they did not father, they fucked.

Some very wealthy women were known to have several of them. When a woman accepted a dowry

from some man she did not know—might never have seen, might grow to detest—thereby making him

the sole begetter of her future children, it was her right to include in the contract a provision that after five

or seven or ten years, whether she had any daughters or not, she was to have at least one Hunk. This

was common knowledge. It was also common knowledge that many of the best-trained Hunks came

from House Genevois in Sendoph. Polite people didn’t call them Hunks, of course, Mama was right

about that. They called them “Consorts,” but it meant the same thing.

“Consort Mouche,” he said to himself, seeing how it sounded. It sounded dirty, no matter what word he

used. It sounded like a teacher saying, “Take your hands out of your pants. What do you think you’re

doing? Practicing to be a Consort?”

It sounded like teasing on the school ground, Fenarde saying, “Mouche can’t ever get married. Mouche

will have to be a Hunky-monkey.” Which was very dirty talk indeed. All the girls stood and giggled and

twitched their bottoms at Mouche and said, “You can bemy Hunky-monkey, Mouche.I’ll put you in my

contract.” And then they started kissing Mouche and touching him on his behind.

Such evil behavior got the girls a talking to about courtesy and treating males respectfully, because they

were not as resilient as girls and their minds weren’t as flexible, and Fenarde got a mouthful of ashes from

the schoolroom hearth for starting the whole thing. Mouche merely got a brief lecture. Though the teacher

was patient, he didn’t have much time to waste on boys.

“Girls always talk that way,” he said. “They have no masculine modesty. You must behave demurely and

simply ignore it, pretend not to hear it. When they pinch you or rub up against you, get away from them

as soon as possible. And take no notice! That’s the proper way to behave, and it’s time you learned it.”

Though how you could feel those intrusive hands on you and take no notice, the teacher did not say.

The night after Papa had told him about House Genevois, Mouche heard a tap at his door, so soft and

so late he almost thought he had dreamed it until Papa slipped in and sat on the edge of his cot.

“My boy,” he said, “a man’s life is never easy. We are the weaker sex, as everyone knows, though

sometimes at the end of a long, hard day loading hay I think our weakness is more a matter of fable than

reality. Still, this is the world we live in, and we must live, as the Hags say, either with it or against it. I’ve

come to say some things to you that I didn’t want to say with your mama there.” He stroked Mouche’s

hair away from his forehead, looking at him sadly.

“Yes, Papa.”

“This decision is much against my inclination, Mouche. You were to be the son of g’Darbos, our unique

line. I had such plans for you, for us ... “ His voice trailed off sadly, and he stared out the small window at

two of the littler moons just rising above the horizon to join a third, bigger one in the sky. “But seemingly

it is not to be. There will be no g’Darbos lineage, no immortality of the family, no descendants to

remember me and honor the name. Even so, I would not make this decision lightly; I had to find out what

kind of life we’d be sending you to. I didn’t tell your Mama, but when I was last in Sendoph, I went into

House Genevois, by the back door, and when I explained myself, I was allowed to talk to some of the ...

young men.”

Mouche wriggled uncomfortably.

“I found out, for example, that they eat very well indeed. Far better than we do. I found out that the

maximum contract for a Hu—a Consort is about twenty years, beginning as soon as schooling is

completed, somewhere between the eighteenth and twenty-fourth year. The standard contract for men

from House Genevois provides one third the original payment set aside for your retirement, plus one third

of the down payment on your contract, plus half the payments to House Genevois every year of service,

all invested at interest to provide you an annuity. All Consorts receive wages from their patronesses, plus

tips, many of them, and even after they’re retired, ex-Consorts can freelance for additional profit. There

are ex-Consorts in the city who are almost as well respected as Family Men.”

“But it isn’t the sea,” said Mouche, feeling tears, blinking rapidly to keep them from running over. “If I go

to sea and make my fortune, I could send you money.”

“No, Mouche. It isn’t the sea, but it’s now, when we have need, not years from now when it’s too late.

If you can set aside your dream of the sea, being a Consort has few drawbacks. Well, there’s the

possibility of being killed or scarred in a duel, but any farmer might be killed or scarred. The men I spoke

with said Consort dueling can be avoided by a fast tongue and a ready wit, neither of which can help

farmers avoid accidents. And, so far as I can tell, the shame that attaches to the candidate’s family goes

away after a time. One grows used to saying, ‘My son? Oh, he’s gone to work for a contractor in the

city.’ “ Papa sighed, having put the best face on it he could.

“How much will you get for me, Papa?”

“I won’t get it. Your Mama will. It’s twenty gold vobati, my boy, after deducting your annuity share, but

Mama has agreed to use it on the farm. That’s the only way I’d give permission for her to sell you, you

being my eldest.” Eldest sons, as everyone knew, were exempt from sale unless the father agreed, though

younger ones, being supernumerary, could be sold by their mothers—if she could find a buyer—as soon

as they turned seven. Supernumes were miners and haulers and sailors; they were the ones who worked

as farmhands or wood cutters or ran away to become Wilderneers.

Still, twenty vobati was a large sum of money. More than he could make as a seaman in a long, long

time. “Is it as much a daughter would bring in?” Mouche whispered.

“Not if she were a healthy, good-looking and intelligent girl, but it isn’t bad. It’s enough to guarantee

Mama and Papa food for their age.”

Mouche took a deep breath and tried to be brave. He would have had to be brave to be a seaman, so

let him be brave anyhow. “I would rather be a Consort than a playmate, Papa.”

“I thought you might,” said Papa with a weepy smile.

Papa had a tender heart. He was always shedding a tear for this thing or that thing. Every time the earth

shook and the great fire mounts of the scarp belched into the sky, Papa worried about the people in the

way of it. Not Mama, who just snorted that people who built in the path of pyroclastic flow must eat

ashes and like it, and with all the old lava about, one could not mistake where that was likely to be.

Papa went on, “Tell you true, Mouche—but if you tell your Mama, I’ll say you lie—many a time when

the work is hard and the sun is hot, and I’m covered with bites from jiggers and fleas, and my back hurts

from loading hay ... well, I’ve thought what it would be like, being a Hunk. Warm baths, boy. And veils

light enough to really see through. It would be fun to see the city rather than mere shadows of it. And

there’s wine. We had wine at our wedding, your mama and me. They tell me one gets to like it.” He

sighed again, lost in his own foundered dream, then came to himself with a start.

“Well, words enough! If you are agreeable, we will go to Sendoph tomorrow, for the interview.”

Considering the choices, Mouche agreed. It was Papa who took him. Mama could not lower herself to

go into House Genevois as a seller rather than a buyer. That would be shameful indeed.

Sendoph was as Sendoph always was, noisy and smelly and full of invisible people everywhere one

looked. Though the city had sewers, they were always clogging up, particularly in the dry season when

the streams were low, and the irregular cobbles magnified the sound of every hoof and every wooden or

iron-rimmed wheel to make clattering canyons between the tall houses and under the overhanging

balconies. The drivers were all supernumes who had to work at whatever was available, and they could

not see clearly through their veils. The vendors were equally handicapped. Veils, as the men often said,

were the very devil. They could not go without, however, or they’d be thought loose or promiscuous or,

worse, disrespectful of women. There were always many Haggers standing about, servants of the Hags,

who were servants of the Hagions, the Goddesses, and they were swift to punish bad behavior.

The town was split in two by ancient lava tubes, now eroded into troughs, that guided the northward

flow of the River Giles. Genevois House stood on the street nearest west and parallel to the river, its

proud western facade decked with tall shuttered windows and bronze double doors graven with images

of dueling men. The south side, along Bridge Street all the way to Brewer’s Bridge, was less imposing,

merely a line of grilled windows interrupted in the middle by one stout provisioner’s gate opening into the

service courtyard. The east side, on the bank of the river itself, showed only a blank wall bracketed at

each end by a stubby tower of ornamental brickwork around fretted windows set with colored glass.

This wall was pierced by an ancient gate through which a rotting tongue of wharf was thrust into the river,

a tongue all slimed with filth and ribboned with long festoons of algae. Parts of House Genevois plus the

courtyard walls, the wharf, and the bronze doors, dated back to the lost settlement, the colony from Thor

that had vanished, along with its ship, long before the second settlers arrived.

The door where Mouche and his papa were admitted was an inconspicuous entrance off Bridge Street,

near the front corner. Inside was the parlor of the welcome suite, where Madame Genevois kept them

waiting a good hour. Through the closed door Mouche and Papa could hear her voice, now from here,

then from there, admonishing, encouraging. When she came into the interview room at last, her sleeves

were turned up to her elbows and her forehead was beaded with perspiration. She rolled the sleeves

down and buttoned them, took a linen handkerchief from the cache-box on her worktable, and patted

her forehead dry.

“Well, Family Man; well, Mouche,” she said. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, but we have a new

fencing master who is inclined to be too rigorous with the beginners and too lax with the advanced class.

It is easier to bully novices than it is to test competent swordsmen, but I have told him I will not tolerate

it. He is paid to exert himself, and exert himself he shall.” She patted her forehead once again, saying in a

matter-of-fact voice: “Take off your clothes, boy, and let me look at you.”

Papa had warned Mouche about this, but he still turned red from embarrassment. He took everything off

but his crotcher and his sandals, which seemed to make him bare enough for her purposes when she

came poking at him, like a farmer judging a pig.

“Your hands and feet are in terrible condition,” she said. “Your hair is marvelous in color and fairly good

in shape. Your eyes and face are good. The leg and back muscles are all wrong, of course. Farm work

does not create a balanced body.”

“As Madame says,” Papa murmured, while Mouche shifted from foot to foot and tried to figure out what

to do with his hands.

Madame jerked her head, a quick nod. “Well, all in all, I will stick to my bargain. The hands and feet will

be soaked and scrubbed and brought into good appearance. The muscles will yield to proper exercise. A

score ten vobati, I said, did I not? A score for the wife, ten in keeping for the boy.”

“As Madame recalls,” Papa murmured again.

“And is his mother prepared to leave him now?”

Papa looked up then, his eyes filling. He had not planned on this, and Mouche pitied him even more than

he pitied himself.

“Can I not have time to say good-bye, Madame?” he begged.

“If your mother allows, of course, 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 dothat thing, and that’s all. Used to be men attached a lot of

importance tothat 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.”

“Thereason they mustn’t see us, Mouche, is that we must not tempt females, or stir their insatiable lusts,

for that leads to disorder and mis-mothering. We are the weaker sex, my boy. It is why we must bid high

for wives to take us, to show we have learned discipline and self-control.”

“Darn ol’ hormones,” sulked Mouche. “Girls get all the luck.”

“Well, hormones aren’t the only reason,” Papa comforted him. “Women are also valuable because

they’re fewer than men. Only one girl is born alive for every two boys, as we know to our sorrow.”

“Then not every man may have a wife, may he, Papa?” Mouche knew this was so, but at this juncture,

he thought it wise to have the information verified. “Even if he has a dowry?”

“Only about half, my boy. The oldest sons, usually. The younger ones must keep hand-maids.” Which

was an old joke among men, one Mouche already understood. Papa wiped his face with the tail of his

veil and went on, “Once, long ago, I heard a story teller’s tale about the world from which our people

originally came, that was Old Earth, where men were fewer than women ... “

“That’s impossible.”

“The storyteller said it was because many males died young, in wars and gang fights and in dangerous

explorations. Anyhow, in his tale, men were worth much more than women. Women sought men as

chickens seek grain, gathering around them. A man could father children on several women, if he liked,

without even dowering for them.”

“Fairy stories,” said Mouche. “That’s what that is. Who would want a woman you didn’t dower for?”

Everyone knew what such women would be like. Old or ugly or both. And probably infertile. And sickly.

And certainly stupid, if they didn’t even bother to get a good dowry first. Or even maybe invisible. “Are

there more invisible men than there are women?” he asked, the words slipping out before he thought.

Papa stopped in his tracks, and his hand went back to slap, though it did not descend on Mouche’s evil

mouth. “Which only a fool would say,” Papa grated instead, thrusting his head forward in warning.

“You’re too old to tell stories of invisible people or see such fairies and bug-a-boos as babies do,

Mouche. You could be blue-bodied for it.” Mouche ducked his head and flushed, not having to ask what

Sheri S. Tepper - Six Moon Dance

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