Chapter 71

He nodded. "But it was an ugly business which had little to do with virtue. I determined that anything was better than the battlefield. Money exchanged hands for many sordid purposes. I bought and sold secrets and thus became very powerful in my own right. I had access to the church's money and used it at will for my own purposes. Where many young men were maimed by battle, I was whole and strong. There was no lack of female attention. While the High Commanders battled, I pleasured their wives and daughters. And I indulged my every whim and desire with the wealthy as well as the poor, who were so strained by war that they often offered to sell me anything they possessed for a single coin."

His eyes did not meet mine. "They often offered me sex, but in that time any and everything could be sold. Men sold wives, or sold daughters."

I caught an expression of shame or maybe regret cross his face.

"Even though children were never my appetite I did, at times, arrange for them to be sol