Radstac had stalked and separated this soldier from his fellows. He wasn't one of the robed wizards, just a regular troop member, one of this army's list makers and invoice checkers. The two of them were huddled behind a great stack of sacked grain, received through one of the portals and not yet distributed to the mess corps. They were out of sight. She had lured him along with a few obvious seductive flourishes. But, having brought him here, she had used the mansid leaf rather than the promise of her body to capture his full attention.

She certainly had it now.

"Oh?" she murmured. "Did you want a nibble?" Her smile, she knew, was unnerving. She treated him to it, there in the murky diffuse glow of the camp's many cooking fires.

"I do." There was terrible longing there, worse than the desire the most foolish romantic felt for his object of affection. It wasn't properly said that one could love mansid. Addicts didn't love their narcotics. But need, if it wasn't purer or truer than love, was at least occasionally more damningly powerful.

"I could give you a taste," Radstac said.

"Please."

"But why should I? Can you answer me that?"

"Because—because..." Desperate search for words to express that great need.

"No, none of that. Not why you want it. I know why. Tell me why I should give you what you want."

He was two tenwinters old, thereabouts. He was slim, slightly spindly, a callow face, anxious eyes. He licked his lips repeatedly as his mind worked.

"What can I give you?" he finally asked, fairly panting it.

Radstac nodded.

He gushed with increasing promises of money he didn't actually have on his person at the moment. She gave him free rein, letting him wear himself out. His desperation mounted as each of his offers was met with silence. She still held the bitten-off piece of leaf in view. The soldier's eyes were fastened to it. He gave a last rasping sigh of frustration, then asked, "What do you want, then?"