Winter in the Mountains Ch. 07

My anger filled me up. I swore back at him, I insulted him, I said that he was impotent. Then I realised I had broken my word – I had said something about what had happened inside my room – even if it was false. I burst into tears and run out into the night. How could he do this to me? I realised, once I was outside, that I had made a mistake. It was pitch black and very cold, snow swirling in the stormy wind, and I was naked. But I was damned if I was going back in there, ever. I could still feel the silence in there, they were all stunned. How could I face them again? But, oh, it was cold.

Scar came out with my clothes, a blanket and some skins. He didn't try to speak to me, just handed them to me, and went back inside. I dressed, made myself a small fire, and sat by it nursing my anger and the pain in my face. I would never do anything for Tin Man again.

It was late in the night when the captain finally came out to talk to me. He had already talked to Tin Man, I had felt it when they moved into my room to talk. I had grown very cold, and very sad. But I didn't know what to do after this. I felt that I really needed to leave, but I didn't think he would let me. And, for the first time since I had been tied to the stake, I wanted seed badly. If I just had a little seed, I would at least get a good sleep. I realised that I was still very much tied to the stake. It was just an illusion that the I was not tied and spread for the men to use me as they wanted. I had deceived myself, when I thought I wanted them.

The captain sat down next to me in the snow. He looked at me with those piercing eye's, and I fell apart. This man, he could make me do what ever he wanted. Not only was he allowed to make do anything he wanted, but I would willingly do anything he wanted. The sudden realisation made me feel trapped and angry again. I struggled to control my breathing.

"Are you warm enough?" he asked me. I shrugged. We watched each other in silence for a while.

"I want you to talk to Tin Man tomorrow, to sort this out."

I swore at the captain, I argued with him bitterly, I cried, I begged him, I didn't want to do that, I'd rather die. But he said that I had no choice, that it would be hard, but that it would also be hard for Tin Man. I told him that I thought he was nice, and how wrong I'd been.

He took hold of my chin, made me look into his eye's, and said "How wrong you are. I am not nice. What I am about is holding these mountains, whatever the cost. If you do the right thing, then everyone will be happy. If your pride gets in the way, I will crush it or you"

It was something about the way he said it, it was no empty threat. In fact, I felt completely crushed already. I cried my heart out for a little while. Once I settled down, he said to me, "You know, you need to master your emotions, you will find life easier if you do."

"I'm a woman, or perhaps you hadn't noticed," I spat at him.

"Yes, we've all noticed, and we're all very impressed. But what has that got to do with it?"

"Well, I can't help being emotional. It takes emotion to do what I do. You want someone who just lies there?"

"Yes, you are a woman, you are filled with emotion, that's a great thing. But I've watched you, your emotions swing all over. You alternate between being happy and afraid of things. When we first got here, you were deliriously happy for a few weeks, but since then it's been a struggle. The old healer told me this would happen, that you'd never be free from it, but that you need to over come it, to take control of your life. What you have to decide is whether you are dragged along behind your emotions like you're tied to a horse, or whether you sit on the horse, steering it and enjoying the ride."

I was stunned. How had he been able to see into my heart like that? Could I have no privacy from this man?

"Think about that. Scar will come to get you in soon. No one else will say anything to you tonight."

He built my fire up and left me to my thoughts. I thought long about what he said about my emotions. I pictured myself sitting atop them, steering them where I wanted to go. Oh yes, I could see how my life could be so different if I could steer my emotions. I saw myself saying "no" to Bridget. I saw myself staring the old lecherous healer down, putting him in his place. It was a wonderful picture. Maybe I was deceiving myself again, but it was still nice. I thought about if for a long time. That night I made myself a little mantra, like the captains mantra's, and repeated it to myself. It would guide me – well – for a long time. "Think before you feel."

Scar came to out to get me in. He had moved his bedroll next to mine, and I found that quite comforting as I lay down to sleep.

The next night the captain took me outside and we sat around a small fire with Tin Man. I had very mixed feelings about this. The men had been nice to me through the day, as if nothing important had happened the night before – and maybe nothing had, for them. I was trying hard to steer my emotions, to think first, but I really found myself hating Tin Man. I didn't really know what the captain thought there was to sort out.

The captain asked Tin Man to tell me his story. I could see it was difficult for him, I don't know why he didn't trust me. I went to say something, and the captain held his hand up. "Patience" he said.

Tin Man began to tell his story in a halting voice. It was a truly horrible story, I'd not heard the like of it before, even though I had seen much of life's hard side. He had grown up as an orphan in a small village where everyone believed he was cursed because he was a bastard and his mother a prostitute, he was always hungry, thin and scrawny. At the age of eight he had been taken in by a family who lived near the village. That had been worse. The mother had beaten and abused him, and the father had raped him regularly. But he had stayed because they threatened to kill him if he left. When he was twelve, he had fought the father off. The father had threatened to kill him, and afraid for his life, he had waited till they were drunk, then tied them up, burnt them in their house, and run away to the city. He had lived on the streets of the city for a while, working as a male prostitute. He'd got the pox there, had nearly died from being beaten up in street fights. At the age of sixteen, looking older than that, he'd been locked up for bar-room fighting. The judge had given him a choice – sign up or go to jail. So, naturally, he had signed up.

I listened in amazement, I had no idea. No wonder he was conflicted about sex, no wonder he was an alcoholic. My heart went out to him. I actually wondered, when I realised that I felt like that, what had happened to all that hate I had before? Was this an example of what the captain was talking about? Think before you feel. I thought it through, and decided that Tin Man really did deserve better from me. He was watching me, obviously afraid of how I would respond.

I leaned over and touched him on this arm. "I had no idea," I said. "So you still have the pox?." He nodded. Well, that explained why he didn't want me to see him naked. "OK, I can fix that. Tomorrow morning, we'll start, unless you don't want to." I could see that he did.

So I treated him. Over the next few weeks I put salve on his penis myself each morning he was in the camp. I could've let him do it, but I was working on being intimate with him. Whenever I gave him a massage, after it I would sit behind him and cuddle him. He was very nervous, but eventually he started to get used it, and I worked my way round to his front. He gradually opened up to me. Like me, he hated what he had been, but he had not been able to see that I had moved beyond that. We spent a lot of talking, I guess I was learning to heal with words where my other techniques wouldn't help.

Life became tougher as we came tighter into the grip of winter. The days got shorter, the nights got colder, and then men worked harder. They had encountered only two more parties of thugs on the mountain since Drowsy had been wounded. I actually argued with the captain, pleading with him to reduce the patrols, as the men were starting to show real signs of hard ship. But he refused. He was concerned that we were in the calm before the storm, that we needed to keep the patrols up.

I won, eventually, though not in the way I would've liked. The men were starting to get bruises, particularly on their feet and ears. I told them that I had heard of this, it was from the cold, to make sure that they wore good protection for the feet and kept the ears covered. But they were losing the battle, particularly when they went and stayed at the other camps they used on the overnight patrols.

Junior, who was the thinnest of all the soldiers, got it worse than the rest. As I feared, the cold bruises on his small toes of his right foot got so bad that they stopped healing, and I had to cut them off, back into his foot. Only once I had to do that did the captain listen to me and cut the patrols back. I was proud that I got Junior walking again. As soon as he was on his feet again, he was back out no patrol.

Not long after that, they brought a prisoner to the camp. This was the first time. Usually they killed first, or sometimes they "questioned" them before killing them. Which suited me, really, I didn't want to know about it. And I was sure that some of the squad – Tin Man in particular – would've enjoyed that part of it. So I was very surprised when I felt someone else coming into the valley with the patrol in the afternoon. When they arrived, I found that the extra person was a woman, a very beautiful one, and she was a prisoner. They had attacked a bunch of thugs who were escorting this woman as a prisoner through the mountains. She had cried with relief when the rescued her, but none of the men in that patrol could communicate with her.

Whistle spoke to her, and discovered that she was a prisoner, the daughter of a great lord, of the Letar people, our allies against the enemy. She had been captured, and was being taken over the mountains so that she could be slain at the gates of the city.

She was a remarkably beautiful woman. I hated her on sight. I wasn't sure why. I had a strong feeling that she was lying to us, but I found her very difficult to read, my inner sight didn't give me a clear picture. I wondered if I hated her so much because she threatened me. And I was very threatened. For so many weeks I had been the only female these men had seen, and now there was a very much more beautiful lady here in my own camp. She was dressed plainly, but even that could not detract from her beauty. When she first saw me, she looked me up and down. It was quite a warm day that day, and I was wearing that sundress with my thick knee high boots under it. A strange combination, but the men loved me in those boots, and we were used to wearing warm footwear in camp. But the expression on her face showed plainly what she thought of me, where she thought I fitted in.

Whistle decided that we should free her. I could see that a couple of the men weren't happy with that decision, but the captain wasn't around. The men fawned over her, showing her around the camp, our provisions, which were still looking good, specially given the amount of provisions were had taken from the thugs that we had killed. They arranged for her to have a bath. Oh, it made me sick. Yes, I was jealous, this was my patch. But even I wasn't sure why I felt so strongly about this. I had thought before how wonderful it would be to have another woman around.

Whistle decided that I should check her over. He tried to come in and watch, but I wasn't having any of that. I shoved him out through my little curtain, and indicated with hand motions that the woman should take her clothes off. Her outer garments were all she was wearing. She undressed with less hesitation than I would've expected from a lady. But then I thought of what the captain had said about Holly – perhaps ladies were used to undressing in front of slaves, which is pretty much what she thought I was. She had a few bruises, and her feet were in a bad way, so I got out the salve I was using for the men, laid her on my bed, and massaged it into her feet.

"So, the men screw you in here," she said to me.

I look at her, amazed. "I thought you didn't speak Livian."

She smiled. "I can if it suits me." I hadn't answered her. "They all do it to you, don't they. Are you happy with that?"

I wondered what she was saying. Did she want some of the action? While there was more than enough to go around, I'd die rather than let her have any of my boys. Was she trying to talk me into leaving here with her? But I decided I didn't want to give her anything.

I shrugged. "I've had worse. They're good men." I'd had enough of this, I told her she was fine, that I'd check her feet again in the morning. I left her to get dressed herself. I wasn't going to slave to her ladyship.

When the captain came back, I could tell he was very unhappy about the woman. But didn't do anything about it. Over the fire after dinner he spoke at length with her in the other language. Whistle and the captain were the only ones fluent in the language, though Nimble and Clonk new enough to follow a little of what they were saying.

As we all lay down to sleep, I realised that I hadn't told the captain that she spoke our language, that she lied about that. They had offered her to sleep in my room – oh, how I hated her – but she had declined, preferring to sleep in the same room as all of us. I decided to tell him early in the morning.

During the night, I awake to a terrible nightmare. Someone had just had their throat cut, I felt it clearly. As soon as I was awake, I realised that it wasn't a nightmare, someone actually had just died. I glanced round our room, there was two bodies missing, Clonk and the woman. Had he raped her and killed her? But then I became aware of the woman, outside, agitated and nervous. She had cut his throat? I was right to hate her.

I grabbed the knife that Scar had taught me to use, and crept towards the door. I nudged Scar as I went past. I peered out the door, there was a light moon, just enough to see by. I spotted her coming towards the door. She had my oil pot in her hand. Instantly I knew what she was, what she was going to do. She was an assassin, she was going to burn our lodge down. If she lit it right, all of us would die, she would stop us getting out. I should've waited and surprised her from closer, but I couldn't stand the idea that she would get close to the lodge, and I rushed out. I did have the sense to hide my own knife.

"What are you doing?" I asked her as she came close.

She never answered me, just brought a small knife up towards me. But she was careless, thinking I wasn't trained. I stepped inside her thrust, grabbed her arm, pulled her towards me, and buried my own knife in the side of her neck, just like Scar had taught me. Her knife had nicked my shoulder, the wound filled me with fire. I realised that the knife had been poisoned, and I started to feel dizzy and faint. As I fell on top of the assassin, I saw Scar behind me and heard his cry of alarm.

I dreamt. In my dream the world was filled with darkness. I saw the each of the squad like a moving picture in their own little light, a children's drawing but one that moved. I could see their hearts, but I didn't know who was who. I moved through them, looking at each one in turn.

I groaned. My whole body was wracked with pain. I opened my eye's, this was no dream. It was dark and cold. Some one leaned over me, pleading with me to drink. Water. Thornstar. I tried to drink, but the pain....

I dreamt again. I saw the squad again. There was a shadow, fading away. I knew that one of the squad had died, his presence was fading. The shadow spoke to me of desperation, a great desperation to please everyone, a longing that was unrequited.

I saw another, a line drawing full of sharp edges. It spoke to me of great anger, of terrible things that had been done, a hunger for terrible things.

Then I saw a naked flame. One of the squad was all flame, burning brighter than any other flame. I went to turn away in fear, but me eye's were drawn to the flame. I looked into the flame and saw that it was contained, controlled, and so much more intense than I first realised.

I felt myself retching, trying to throw up. The pain was worse, I was surely dead. Being dead would be better than this. I willed myself to die. I had done my part, my time was past. I stopped breathing, I would get relief very soon. I heard voices, pleading with me to open my eye's, to breathe.

I drifted off to my dream again. I was looking at the squad, spread out before me. I noticed one I hadn't looked at before, near to the flaming one. It was drawn with a great intensity of it's own, but it didn't give me the same fear as the flame. I saw that it was love, a great love that filled a person. It was for me!

Someone in the squad loved me that much. I heard them calling me, calling me back. I didn't understand, how could someone love me? But the call was strong, insistent. You must come back. We want you, we need you. We have a job to do together. I love you.

I snapped back. My boys, I needed to look after them, for the people and the land.

I would live. And I would find out: who was it that loved me so much?