Six Moon Dance (23 page)

“I can’t use the stuff,” said Kurm. “It’s last year’s spin, and I hate telling old man Dutter it’s no good, but I can’t afford not to. I can’t use it.”

“The quality is bad?” asked Hanna. “The Dutters were always good spinners.”

“It isn’t the quality,” he replied. “It’s the smell. I told you what I suspected….”

“About Dutter not fathering those boys? Yes. You told me long ago.”

“Well, you know
he
has that smell. Skunk-lung is what it is, and it’s why
they
wouldn’t have him, no matter how much he offered for dowry. And
he’s
been seen here and there near the Dutter farm since those two boys came there—everybody knows they are n’t Dutter’s boys—and they have that same smell. Old man Dutter, he’s either got no nose or he’s so used to it he doesn’t notice.”

“But the boys don’t spin.”

“No. And billy goats don’t give milk. But you make goat cheese where there’s a billy, the cheese stinks, sympathetic like. You spin yarn where there’s skunk-lung, and the yarn stinks, too. They breathe it onto everything, and whatever the cause, I can’t use it.”

Which was all that was said, enough to make Mouche mightily interested. The Dutter boys had lived over the hill from his own home. And Madame had said she’d turned Dutter down when he’d tried to sell them. So, Dutter was a farmer, and the boys probably weren’t his, and they smelled, and House Genevois had two newish students who smelled and whom Madame was not thrilled with. So, who was the
he
who had been seen near the Dutter farm? The same
he
who had come to House Genevois?

“Have you heard about them smelling bad?” Mouche asked his friends, when they discussed the matter that night in the loft where they slept.

“The room smelled bad that time,” said Tyle.

“Maybe it wasn’t them. Maybe it was the other one.”

They didn’t know. Bane and Dyre were still new boys. If they smelled, only the other new boys would know.

 The fact that the other new boys didn’t know was a testimonial to Madame’s assiduity and long experience. She had not been in the same room with Bane and Dyre for more than a moment before realizing they would present a challenge. Charcoal in the food, and chopped alfalfa, and certain herbs she knew of. Certain uncommon unguents rather than usual ones. One drug, expensive but efficacious in quelling goaty effusions in young bucks. The condition presented by the two youngsters was not unknown, though this was the first she’d ever heard of it in young men. The condition was usually reported as infecting those few weird and elderly outcasts who frequented the frontier. They’d wander into town, nobody knowing who they were, and they’d have that smell.

He
, her patron, who had offered a very large sum in gold for the training of these boys, had the same affliction, though
he
looked perfectly normal. To
him
, it must have seemed unimportant, for
he
did little to ameliorate his own condition.
He
, of course, was not married.
He
had not produced children. Except, vague rumor had it, these two, and they under such circumstances as were … well, better not mentioned. Those who had at one time spoken openly of the matter had ended up … gone. Vanished. Still, people whispered: Had
he
placed them with Dutter? Or had
she
? The woman. Whoever she was or had been. A certain name was sometimes whispered; whispered unwisely, Madame felt.

Madame was fairly sure who the mother had been, though she did nothing to verify the fact. She asked no questions, sent no investigators—though there were several she had employed in the past when she had needed information. In order that she might be unburdened of the boys as soon as possible, she concentrated instead on turning Bane and Dyre into acceptable candidates, and within two or three seasons she had them to the point where they could be seen occasionally in public without greatly risking the reputation of House Genevois.

That they were well groomed and handsome was an artifact, produced by much labor, none of it their own. That they were, when left to their own devices, belligerent, unmannerly, dirty and ill spoken was a given. That they were maintained in a more or less obedient state only by the threat of intervention from outside was the leash to keep them heeled. All of which could have been overlooked if they had showed any inclination to adopt a more acceptable manner. They did not do so, and it was this that made Madame despair.

Unwilling boys could be forced to obey, but they could not be forced to learn. They could be beaten into submission, but not into charm. Since learning and charm were the hallmarks of the Consort, what Madame could make of Dyre and Bane, the Hagions only knew.

M
adame rapped her desk for attention. “Finish up quickly boys. We have had a long session today.” The afternoon “honored visitors,” as they were called, had gone. The students had showered and dressed for supper. This lecture would be short.

The more diligent among them were making a few quick notes concerning the visitors’ session. “Stroke, stroke, tweak,” Mouche wrote, rehearsing the latest matter in his mind.
“Not
shove, shove, grab.”

“Ahem,” said Madame. “Gentiemen. If you will close your notebooks and attend, please.”

Mouche underlined the last phrase, then closed his book.

“This evening,” said Madame, “I want to discuss the worship of the Hagions.

“I’m sure it has crossed your minds that on occasion, a Consort may find himself unable to respond to the person of his patroness. Though he does his exercises, though he sets his mind to his task, though he is devoted to his profession, he finds something lacking in his own work.

“In handling these occasions gracefully, it is wise to be able to call upon at least one of the Hagions. In our library you will find several volumes devoted to the Hagions, the various manifestations of female divinity, all the goddesses ever worshipped by mankind. You will find Athena the wise and Aphrodite the fair; You will find Iyatiku, corn mother; Isis, goddess of fecundity; Gaea, earth mother; Cybele, founder of cities; Sophia, holder of wisdom; Hestia of the hearth; Heka of childbirth, all these and a thousand more. For the most part they are kindly and comforting, though some among them are foreign to our idea of womanhood. I recommend that you avoid choosing one of the destroyers and torturers, for you would do so at your peril. Those who delight in killing condemn themselves to a bad and ugly death.

“Over the next few months, you are to peruse the encyclopedia of Hagions with the intent of choosing a personal goddess. Most are womanly in shape, some are androgynous, some are homo-, bi-, or omnisexual, and a few take other forms. Many exist in the guise of youth, as prepubescent maidens, as laughing children. Others are more matronly, secure in their maturity, sensuous and passionate. Some are old women, beyond lust, but filled with the knowledge of years. In general, it is best to choose one of the younger goddesses, saving the older for your own age.

“Our religion is monotheistic. We worship the lifeforce that pervades the galaxy in infinite variety, life that bubbles up from the ferment of worlds, and we know that force may appear in myriad guises. There is no rivalry among these guises, as they are all aspects of the same divinity, one so vast and complex that She can be infinitely divided into parts while every part remains infinite. Your relationship to a particular guise may be as a son to a mother, as a servant to a queen, as a lover to his love, and among all her guises you are certain to find one who will attract you, one who will remind you of some aspect you already deem sacred, one who you will feel no strain in worshipping and to whom you might be pleased to devote your life.

“Choose well and thoughtfully. It is not blasphemous to say that choosing can be rather like getting a new pair of boots made. So long as you are in the service of your patroness, your chosen Hagion will walk with you in that service, and She must not rub blisters on your soul or cripple you with calluses. She will make your way smooth and easy, no matter how arduous it is in fact, so choose a goddess that fits.

“Once you have chosen your own aspect of divinity, we will help you become conditioned to Her service, and if the time comes when you believe you cannot properly serve your patroness, you will succeed by serving your Hagion instead. When your patroness takes you to the Temple at each New Year, you will light incense in thanks to your own divinity. In your own quarters, you will maintain a shrine to Her. This is to remind you of the divinity through whom the lifeforce flows, however corporeal the body or frail the mind through which that force is transmitted.”

She saw a hand hesitantly raised. Fentrys, with an almost apprehensive expression.

“Yes, Fentrys?”

“Do the Hagions not resent being used like that, Madame?”

Madame frowned. At the back of the room, someone tittered, and she turned a quick and cautioning glance in that direction, like a search light, quickly beaming and as quickly withdrawn.

“It is not a foolish question, but it is a complicated one. The Hags at the Temple say that because the Hagions wish our patronesses to be served properly, they do not mind being used to that end. The Hagions accept our adoration, even though we are conditioned to give it, because we are using the conditioning to do their will. The Hags base their decision upon an historic precedent:

“On Old Earth, certain orders of celibate females were said to be brides of their male god. The writings of some of these women clearly establish that their devotion, though chaste in a physical sense, could be highly erotic, sensual, and joyous on a psychological level. These celibate orders often served the male priesthood or worked among the sick and the poor, doing many laborious and distasteful activities in the spirit of ‘serving’ their bridegroom, that is, achieving sensual and erotic rewards through activities which were neither. This conditioning and sublimation was considered appropriate.

“We do the same. Though serving our patroness may be unstimulating, serving our Hagion is highly erotic, sensual and joyous. Thus we accomplish the one by doing the other….”

Her voice faded and she stood, staring out a south window at the busy street with an expression that grew slightly troubled. Far to the east, across the river, ashen clouds rolled from the scarp, and they seemed far more ominous than usual. When she looked back at her students, she saw a hand raised at the back.

“Mouche?”

“Madame, when you talk about serving the patroness, you always say ‘we.’ Why is that?”

She smiled. “Oh, my boy, I serve the Hagions by serving your patroness by serving you, just as you serve the Hagions in serving your patroness. We are all caught up, all of us, in serving this through serving that. Nothing is ever quite clear or direct in this world, and love is the most unclear and indirect of all….”

A bell rang in the great hall. She said, “It is suppertime. You are dismissed.”

She returned to the window as the room emptied, hearing one final rustle of paper and turning to see that Mouche still lingered, looking blindly at her like one stunned by terrible news or a sudden revelation. She hardly dared speak to him, and yet his depth of concentration seemed almost dangerous….

“Are you considering which Hagion you will select, Mouche?”

His face lightened suddenly and he looked directly at her with a blinding smile.

“Oh, no, Madame. As you say, love is unclear and indirect, but once you feel it … I already have a goddess that I serve.”

He turned and went out, leaving Madame staring speechlessly after him. She had seldom seen such rapture on a human face. She could not imagine who, or what might have stirred it, and she felt a strange disquiet that only later did she identify as envy.

T
he Council of the Men of Business (the C-MOB, as it was jovially called) made the laws that governed men’s affairs from their council house in Naibah, that structure known as the Fortress of Vanished Men. The council was made up entirely of g’Family Men, men whose wives had been dowered in and who had produced children. It elected from among its members an executive committee, ECMOB: six men from various parts of Newholme who came to Naibah each quarter year.

The Naibah fortress had, as a matter of fact, figured prominently in the women raids of the early settlement years, thus giving it a long and (as the Hags put it) disreputable history. Not the least reason for its scandalous reputation was the behavior of ECMOB members who immediately upon arrival removed their veils, poured themselves large glasses of vinaceous liquids and thereafter spoke disrespectfully of their wives, acts no fathering men would dare commit in public. There, also, when the routine business had been taken care of, ECMOB allowed itself to talk of other matters: matters of governance usually reserved to the Hags; matters that family men ordinarily only whispered at.

On a particular day, there was only one item of business. Volcanic activity had increased, as it did cyclicly every ten to twenty years, but the current geological violence was greater than at any time since settlement. Therefore, ECMOB had recently hired a consulting firm from off planet to set up surveillance equipment—also purchased from off planet—and assess the danger to settled communities. The firm had prepared a report which said, in essence that, yes, there was an increase in volcanic activity, which currently seemed to be about four times what it had been when Newholme was settled and twice what it had been ten years before. Yes, there might be some danger to the valley of the Giles, but no, it hadn’t come to the point that the firm could recommend any sort of evacuation yet.

“Which I, for one, do not find helpful,” said the chairman, one Estif g’Bayoar. “Not with all the eastern valleys ashed over, not with all the farms up there buried. There’ve been tremors as far north as the sea islands and as far west as Bittleby Village.”