Chapter 2

I remembered how I had hated him, he was a pig, but now I regretted it. He wasn't a pig. He never was. I always blamed him of being a pig. The first time we met was when I was eight, he was ten. I had been bullied - I never used to have any friends, not now, not then - and was crying in the woods outside my village. Lex was hunting - I didn't know then, but I'm telling this now - with his father. Lex believed me to be a wild boar. He told me I sounded like a pig when I was crying. And I said: "The only one here, who is a pig, is you." His father slapped me lightly, and I thought I would never see him again, but the next day Alexander came back to the same spot.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

"I have nothing special to do... You're the only one who doesn't say your majesty all the time."

"There's nothing majestic about you," I answered. — I was wrong about that too.

"Would you like to play a game?"

"What game?"

I planned during the march. I was eager for revenge, revenge for taking away from me my freedom.

We halted at sundown. I wasn't the lone woman in the army. I guess there were a hundred other females. I think I had been sold to the so called "organised" prostitution. We set up a tent where most of the women immediately started a big fire outside and bringing big cauldrons from the wagons that had followed the marching army. They were starting to cook food for the whole army.

Suddenly I felt like a fool. Perhaps I wasn't supposed to start whoring... There must be other uses for the females than just to lay on their backs whenever some soldier wanted. Looking around more than I had during the march I realised that many of the women were of older age — I seemed to be the youngest one there. There weren't any pretty fine girls, only strong looking, and broad shouldered women.

"What are you standing there for, girl, looking as if you have just seen the day for the first time?" a husky woman said.

I jumped and looked down at the woman who was two heads shorter than me, but whom looked so much stronger. "I'm sorry?"

"Come on, give me a hand with the cabbage," she said and motioned me over to the big stack of green cabbages.

"So what's your name, pretty girl?"

"My name is Amram, and I'm not pretty."

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, they say, aye? My name is Beata, but most people call me Bea."

"Hallo Bea."

"How come you're here with the army? Shouldn't you be home with some husband of yours, trying to produce family members..."

I blushed.

"Ooh, you're a shy one." She seemed more amused than intrigued.

"Perhaps..."

"So tell me. Why are you here?"

"First I'm not married. Nobody wanted to marry me..."

"There must have been somebody..." she cooed.

"I have not much to offer, and they say I have too much wit for a girl."

"You come from a village?"

"The one we passed before noon."

"Peasant men will still be peasant men. Unfortunately some girls are destined to be born into the wrong families..."

For a moment we were quiet. I guess she still awaited my answer, so it blurted out of me:

"My father sold me..."

Bea looked at me suspiciously. Then she went back to her cabbage.

"He couldn't have... This isn't some kind of brothel."

"On the day my brother recruited the army, my father talked to an officer, obviously trying to sell me as a whore."

"No, impossible," Bea blurted. "Every woman or girl that comes with the army is free to choose what they want to do, but they have to accomplish something. If you look over to that tent over there," she pointed, "you can see those girls who have chosen to do what you thought would happen to you. Be thankful that you came into our troop, or perhaps this could have ended badly for you. I suspect you're a virgin..."

I once more blushed and unfortunately cut myself on my thumb. "Poor girl, watch what you're doing. We can't give one of the soldiers a cooked thumb, can we?"

Gently she stroked my hand and suddenly I didn't feel any pain any longer. The cut was gone. Bea smiled mysteriously at me. "What did you do?"

"I don't think your father sold you... Any girl who joins the army is free to fight, cook and clean, or whore. Pick your best. You get money for it too, just as the soldiers get their salary we have our own salary. Didn't you get the money when you recruited?"

"No... I didn't recruit. But my father got money from the officer when he had talked to him."

"It seems to me that your father made a story of you being afraid so he could put the money in his own pocket. Is your father nice?"

"Do you really think that's what happened?"

"Yes, dear Amram. Fathers can be really cruel."

"He is cruel. He made this big story out of it. He even fooled my mother."

"Now, you don't have to worry about it. I think everything is going to be alright..."