Okay, so we didn’t leave the next day. There were some things going on that would make a bit of a delay desirable. That’s when I brought up my plan again, the plan about visiting the other farms in the neighbourhood. Me, Moyri and nobody else. Finally some time together, just the two of us…

I mean, it’s not like we need soldiers to protect us. I’m probably the meanest, nastiest, lethalest swords-person in Idanyas, and Moyri is probably the best… And so we set out, with just one of Rovan’s farmhands as our guide.

I’d brought my doctor’s kit; this trip, only a day!, would just be me doctoring everyone who needed doctoring, so Moyri would have a chance to meet, informally, everyone in this part of Idanyas.

It was lovely weather for a ride, too, cool, a bit of a breeze, no rain, little fleecy clouds only at the horizon, over sea, everything green and flowery abundancing theirselves. After a bit of time, we saw a cottage. Smoke coming from the chimney, goats trying to escape their pen, and an old woman milking a cow. Since I’m the original town-girl, if not the City girl, I could appreciate all of this in all its pastoral charm.

Of course, the old woman had arthritis, rheumatics and a catarrh in her eye that was pretty concerning. So there I went, I massaged away the chalk deposits in her joints, kissed her eyes and gave her some practical advice about avoiding getting too stiff: we went into her kitchen, shoo-ed the menfolk (and my wife) out, undressed, and I taught her the third movement of the Dance for Anshen.

I’m pretty sure that by now this is MILES away from what an Iss-Peranian woman would recognize, but shucks… Anshen was there, in the fire, and the woman enjoyed herself, and even said, can I dance like this for Perain? He’s in a farm not too far away, and it would be good if he…

And I nodded, I was very pleased, actually, since fucking is the one thing that keeps any person young, active and interested, at least, I’ve always thought of it like that. So I asked about her next neighbours, and she said, “It’s an old couple, too old for their farm! She suffers the rheumatics something ‘orrible!”

So I nodded, and I asked her, “If I teach her some more moves… Could the two of you get together to dance?”

“Well, dearie, for sure! We meet once a week anyroad, just to pray to Anshen, praise be, and then to gossip. Dancing is better for the bones than gossip, I think you‘re thinking?”

I nodded, and kissed her, clothed myself, and we went on.

And yes, the next farm, an old, old, old man and a woman just as ancient were weeding a patch of what looked like turnips. They looked up at us, and Moyri introduced me as the travelling doctor, and…

Well, that was enough. Both were suffering from old age, which is irreversible, but not ilalleviatable. That’s to say, I could help both of them feel much better, and, of course, I took the old lady into her kitchen, and taught her the second movement, which is slightly less vigorous than the third movement, of the Dance for Anshen. And I dropped a hint, about her neighbour knowing other passes from the same dance…

And she kissed me, and thanked me, and we went on our way.

Then it was time for our noon meal; we really hadn’t wanted to take it with the people we visited. It’s a rich country, this Idanyas, and it’s very hard to starve, but these people, they were all too old to make good with the bounty from the land. Besides…

We sent our guide, Rovan, away, telling him, Moryi and I wanted to have a bit of space alone to kiss and make love, and he grinned, and went on to the next cottage. I’ve always found that honesty, in its place, is the best policy, and if you tell people you don’t want them around because you’re going to kiss your wife’s cunt, they will make themselves scarce, besides being impressed with your honesty, simplicity — and sense of humour.

So, we were left alone for a bit, and in a pretty nice place, with stream, grass, mossy fields, arboreal shade and tinkling birds in profusion. And we tore our clothes of each other, dropped down, half in stream, half on aforementioned mossy banks, and had an hour of the kind of passion that makes one forget one’s noon-meal.

So, we were dressed up again, and clean (thanks to the stream) and dry (thanks to sun and breeze) when Rovan came back to bring us to our third port of call. This turned out to be special…

The herbal garden alone made me want to crawl on all fours, just not to miss any of what was growing there. And at the end, an old lady with a broad grin, and she greeted us, “Hey, travellers! Thanks for not putting up shields! I sure had fun watching the two of you having fun! Rovan, you go and feed the beasties, I want to talk to these two fillies.”

She was — awe-inducing (or is that awe-inspiring, or awe-some?) — she took me and Moyri to her cottage, put us down on a bench and began to interrogate us. She had so many herbs I had never heard of, that I decided to despair then and there, and after that, come back. She was also really interested in Moyri and me being married and all that; I think I’ve never met a woman who was less into men than her, apart from my Hayan friend, the one who gave me the Iss-Peranian dildoes.

Oh, it was fun! And she was cute, and if I hadn’t been married, I’d have bedded her there and then. And Moyri told me, she, too. But there was no semsin, no coercion, just a raucous sense of fun and sex. And we taught her to dance another movement, the fifth, of the Dance for Anshen, despite her telling us, “Nah, Anshen… I don’t care for men like that, I want to dance with women!”

To which I answered, “Well, sure, you dance with other women, for Anshen. And maybe fuck afterwards?”

When we left, she was still laughing like a loon.

But also, before we left, we’d told her the entire story of Raith marrying the soldiers, Raith and Ayneth, the King’s sister, together, the wedding of Hylti and Arni and our own… And she nodded, and said she’d make sure the whole region would know she was ready to marry woman and woman, man and man, woman and man, and if push came to shove, man and woman.

Though she was clearly rather in doubt about the usefulness of the last combination.

From there, basking in Alyse’s approval, we went on. Soon we came upon fields, and Rovan, our guide, told us there was “almost” a village here. There were fields, and it was the afternoon, and there were children working on the fields.

I called one of them, a girl, to me, and told her, “warn the village head, the doctor and the baroness are visiting this afternoon. I am the doctor, and I’m going to see everyone. Even your big brother, so tell your brother, who is checking his snares in the woods right now, to come down, too.”

She shook her head, and then asked in a very, very low voice, “My Lady, do you know my brother?”

And I grinned, and answered, “Maybe!”

Of course I had just been guessing — but a middling village, woods all around, children 12, 10, 8, 6 working on the field, 4 and 2 toddling, parents working, aged around thirty — there must be a son of 14, too. Or maybe 15. I mean — if it’s clear that none of their children had died, that there was a perfect sequence — there must’ve been a 14 or 15 year old. And probably a son, since he had managed to escape the chores.

Us girls, we are more dutiful, that’s just the plain truth. Doesn’t my arse know it.

So we met the village people — it’s not a real village, there’s no Temple of Naigha yet, but there should be one — met us, and Moyri started talking about what would be needed to put this place on the map, and I took the Big Barn (where in autumn the grain is threshed) over as my examination hall, and I asked the people to queue and come in one by one.

Of course, being a doctor from Turenay, duh, I undressed, and called “First one, come in!!!”

And a boy of around fourteen came in. He was really handsome, and gifted, and scrumptious…

And he asked, “Doctor, why are you naked?”

And I answered, “If anyone is sick and needs to be cut, it saves on the laundry… Now, drop your clothes, and lie down.”

He frowned, got out of his hose and shirt, and got onto the table.

He was very healthy. And he did like to look at me, so he got a very, very nice erection.

And I didn’t feel, not even deep inside me, like taking it into my hands or mouth, or… He saw me look, and said, “Well, Doctor Khushi, you’re pretty — and I can see that! But what is it that you are seeing?”

And I stammered, “A healthy young man, and I don’t know why, but I do want you to join our expedition to Banai, but… Even though you’re handsome like Anshen, my body doesn’t answer, though even though I’m married, I can see that you’re handsome like Anshen. Please, go, and get rid of that erection. Feel free to think of me, but I need to do some thinking.”

And he went, and I put on my clothes again, and started working for real, but all the time, in the back of my head, I was thinking…

After I’d checked all of the children, and all of the adults, and had given such care as was appropriate, it was nearly dusking, and the four of us wended our way to Rovan’s farm. Because Tyan was coming with us.

I was still thinking, though, and I was freely using Moyri’s brain as well. We were holding hands, only with semsin, of course, but still, and I was debating this within myself.

When I was fourteen, making love to someone of nineteen, twenty, or even nearly sixty wasn’t something I thought strange. I liked everyone who liked me — and I gave everything to anyone who asked for it. As long as they liked me for it…

And Moyri is ten years older than me, and that does make a difference, not in bed, but in mind.

And I’ve met plenty of people I’d have bedded like a shot if I hadn’t been married. Or if they hadn’t been married, like Jilan, Lady Mialle’s husband, the man of sixty with the most gorgeous eyes ever…

But I’ve never kissed the cunt of a girl younger than me, nor swallowed the spunk of a boy younger than me. Even the stablehands always were my age, or older.

If it was right right for Lady Hayan to kiss my cunt when she was in her sixties, and if it was right for her to want to kiss my cunt, and if it wasn’t wrong for me to let her — why don’t I want to play with Tyan. I mean, I usually am full of desire for most people I meet.

Though never for people the age of my apprentices, or even, people younger than me. I never realized that. I guess because I’ve always been young enough that everyone I could fancy was older? But I’m a master now, with dozens of apprentices.

You don’t touch your apprentices, of course, that’s a very firm rule.

But I still don’t get why it is like I don’t feel like kissing Tyan’s prick, while Lady Hayan had no compunction about kissing my cunt. He is cute, I was cute, so what’s going on?

On our way back to Rovan’s farm, with Tyan, Moyri rode next to me, in the dusk, and we talked about this, and suddenly it wasn’t so strange.

I want Moyri, Moyri wants me, and the rest of the world has to figure out what it wants.