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.