Which evidently gave her pause, for she said nothing more as she tapped away, Simon prowling after her as silently as a cat.
This was not the first time Mouche had heard discussions about taking younger boys at House Genevois. All the Consort Houses were licensed by the Panhagion. The financial end of things, however, was supervised by Men of Business, and financially, as Madame had mentioned on more than one occasion, taking younger boys made sense. Younger boys were cheaper to buy, for one thing; a good-looking nine-year-old could be had for eight or ten vobati and the initial annuity costs were lower. Then too, the early years were better for forming graceful habits, the eradication of lower caste accents, and the inculcation of both the superficial learning that would pass for sophistication and the rigorous physical training that allowed the student to emulate spontaneity. There was also less correction to do in the breaking of bad behavior, which saved staff time. This saving alone more than offset the cost of feeding and housing for a few extra years. There would be little risk, for as the population grew, though slowly, the market for Hunks grew with it. Even women who did not make much use of them wanted them as status symbols.
All of which explained why more dormitory space was needed, and also why Simon was so equivocal about it. Simon didn’t like the idea of taking younger boys. He said it was too difficult to pick good candidates much before age twelve because cherubs could turn into gargoyles, though whatever Madame did or did not do, she was not answerable to him.
Nonetheless, the conversation disturbed him. Something about it stirred a memory in Mouche, one he couldn’t shake. It had something to do with Duster dog, but he couldn’t quite remember what, though it had something to do with their wanderings. He mused a good deal on that.
Back on the farm, when chores were done, Mouche and Duster had often wandered away to visit some of the mysterious places in the lands round about. They had found their first cave when Mouche was seven and Duster was only a pup, and by the time he was nine, they’d found a dozen of them, some of them very deep and dark and too frightening to go into very far. Mouche’s favorite cave was the one he’d found when he was nine, where water leaked through the roof to fall musically into a quiet pool lit by rays that thrust through the odd rift or cleft in the rocks, where small pale plants grew in abundance, and where a fairly biggish sort of furry creature lived who did not mind sharing Mouche’s lunch or his knee in order to be petted and scratched about the ears and on the stomach. The furry thing was violet, the color of late sunset, and it had large hands and short though strong little legs and a long, fluffy tail. After the first tense meeting, Duster and the furry thing settled into a kind of companionship as well. The creature spoke, though only a few words, which delighted Mouche.
“Mouchidi,” it said, putting his lips to Mouche’s face, nipping him with his sharp little teeth—only a love bite, Mouche said to himself—and giving him a long, measuring look. “Twa, Mouchidi.”
Mouche was well aware of his family’s poverty, so he never suggested, even to himself, that he take the creature home and adopt it as a pet. Duster was given house room only because he guarded against roving supernumes and caught most of his own meals from among the small food the early settlers had released into the wild: rabbits, ground squirrels, wild hens. Besides, the furry thing seemed well established where it was, and the cave was close enough for to visit from time to time, over a space of some three or four years.
On a particular day, however, Mouche had to convince Duster to come along, for the dog had been busy digging a large hole in the bottom pasture in pursuit of something only Duster could identify. Mouche took a chunk of bread, with a lump of butter already inserted in it, a couple of winter apples, and his share of the piece of cheese set aside for that day’s consumption. Darbos usually kept his share to add to the evening grain, and Eline ate hers at bedtime, but Mouche ate his cheese at noon because he could sneak bites of it to Duster, as he could not do if Eline was watching.