Once she had given me the all clear, she gave me a brew to dampen the desire for seed, and explained to me what would happen when I didn't get seed. I would actually have 6 or 7 days during which I would have no control over my body, nor any memory of the time, but that then I would recover fine, though I would always feel a desire for selial seed when I was tired, depressed, or pregnant. When I asked her how she could know that, she said something that really surprised me:
"I remember what it was like."
The captain asked her to help kit me out for winter in the mountains. I really enjoyed working with her to fill a bag of medicines. I found that I hadn't forgotten as much as I thought. How wonderful it was to work with a healer again, and even better that she shared a past with me. She taught me some new simple medicines, like the brew to dampen desire, and she gave me a good supply of thornstar, which I used to prevent my monthly bleed, and stop me getting pregnant. It had been the only plant that I had easily been able to get supplies of since leaving Undartha.
The captain had to drag me out of there. It was a long walk to the captain's camp, outside the city walls, and I had so much to carry; I was tiring fast when we finally arrived, and the need for seed was consuming me. I realised I hadn't slept for more than a day.
I struggled to be properly aware when the captain introduced me to his men. I was aware enough to see that some didn't seem to approve of me. He said I was known as "Magic Hands," which, to my surprise, some of them seemed to recognise. Sometimes Tom had called me that. I was glad that I didn't recognise any of the men, though that didn't mean that none of them had used me before. There seemed to be rather a lot of them. One really stood out – he had a deep scar running down the side of his face, but he gave me a nice smile. The captain took to me a tent, pulled a small bag out of a pocket, handed it to me, and said "I'll see you in the morning. We leave at sunrise."
All day I had hungered for this moment, when I once again held seed in my hand. But now that it had come, it didn't seem quite so attractive anymore. It didn't have the sweet smell I remembered, and the thought of taking it revolted me. But so did the idea of not taking it. I guessed that this what the wizard had done for me, I had never had anything but raging desire before.
I decided not to eat the seed. I sat on the bedroll and looked at it. After a minute, I crushed it, just to have another smell, in case the smell was different, but it wasn't. Once I'd crushed it, I figured I might was well eat it.
The captain woke me at dawn. We rode to the east, with the sun in front of us. At least I was comfortable on a horse, though it had been more than a year since I had ridden, so I would surely be very sore for the next few days. But right then, for the first time since I could remember, I felt good. Great, actually, happy to be alive, which was rather more than I had expected at this time the day before.
I rode in the middle of the group. I looked at the men riding with me. I counted them: eighteen, including the captain. I started to appreciate the magnitude of my choice. I would have to give myself to every one of these men. The sex bit didn't bother me so much; I had been giving my body to strangers for months, sometimes nearly this many in a single night. No, what bothered me was that not only would these men take my body, but that afterwards, they would not be strangers; I would have to talk to them, to live with them. More, that these men who had me would be my only company. Would I always be a whore?
I recalled how I thought that I would leave when the captain stopped giving me seed. But that didn't seem like a very practical idea anymore, as much as it had a lot of attraction. I thought of what the captain said: "I will hold you to your choice." What did he mean, what did he want? Would they take me whenever and however they wanted? Far away in the mountains, I would have no control, they could do with me what they wanted. But they could do that anywhere. My life was in the captain's hands, but what did he want? I thought about how he had treated me. He had treated me much better than I could have imagined. He had spent quite some money on my kit. And he had been interested in my healing skills. Much too interested – where had he found out about that? What had made him come to me? And what would've happened if he hadn't?
So, the captain wanted a healer. But that still didn't make sense. Why didn't he just get a real healer? Maybe it was for too long and none would come. A whole winter in the mountains was a long time. That got me thinking. The captain had felt like a master of men, in charge of his destiny. But frankly, some of the men looked like a bunch of losers. In fact, considering their aura's – there was something I hadn't done for a long time – some of them were plainly drunks. What was going on here? I recalled a song from my childhood, called "Ship of Fools," about some crazy sailors with a loony captain on a death mission. This group kind of reminded me of that song, except for the captain. It had a catchy tune, and I started humming it.
The soldier with the scar was riding next to me, and he chuckled. I looked at him, embarrassed. He laughed at my expression. I asked him what was going on, with all these men going into the mountains for winter, whether it was usual practice for the soldiers. He looked sad, and explained to me what was going on.
The captain was the golden boy of the frontier army. Everything he touched turned to gold. It was him that had led the attack on the enemy last year that had resulted in reopening the trade roads with the Pindal mountains. But he had clashed with the army command twice over. The first way was by arguing that the king should make peace with the enemy and stop taking them as slaves. The second was by romancing the daughter of the commander of the army when he was a commoner. So the captain had been banished to the mountains for the winter. The mission was to stop enemy agents creeping through the mountains. They had been causing trouble in the land – killing, raping and burning crops and villages. Since all the other borders were monitored, the army command had decided that they were coming through the mountains, and sent the captain to close the mountains for winter. But the soldier clearly thought that the whole business was cooked up as an excuse to banish him. The army command had gathered his squad for him, soldiers they wanted to banish or punish. Some had clashed with army command, some were drunks or slackers, and others ("such as me," the soldier said) were too close to the captain. But there were friends in the army command, and they had been kitted out very well. None of the soldiers were happy – and some had families, but serving under the golden boy would help make up for it. It was going to be a tough winter – once they were settled in the mountain they would be on station in the extreme cold for the entire winter. It was late summer now, and they were required to be on station until spring, a period of 5 months.
Well, now I had even more to fear. What kind of desperate expedition was I stuck with?
