Mercenary

by Piers Anthony

  “Rape is evil! I never want to be part of it!”

  He frowned. “Would you want to be part of an affair with another man’s wife?”

  Ouch! “Rising Moon! I never intended to—”

  “Of course. It was merely a rehearsal for your coming marriage to the woman for which Rising Moon stood in lieu. Peat Bog understands that.”

  “Damn you!” I repeated. “You’re saying I have to follow through with this rape, or—”

  Repro spread his hands. “I’m not saying anything, sir.” For sure! I was accusing myself. How could I face Mondy? I should never have let that rehearsal get out of hand! What I had done— was it any better than rape?

  Someone cleared his throat. I looked up, startled. There was the one I dreaded: small, middle-aged, brilliant Mondy. How could I even apologize to him?

  “Something I must tell you, sir,” he said.

  I tried to speak and could not.

  “You gave her up to bring me into the unit,” he said. “It was understood at the outset. I was the interloper—”

  “No! A deal’s a deal!”

  “Yes. And you honored it, sir. Never once did you reproach me in any oblique manner for sleeping with your woman.”

  “She’s not my woman!”

  “She was, sir. She loved you—”

  “There was no love!”

  “And so, for you, she gave you up. And for the good of the unit. I was more selfish; I took payment in flesh for coming in. As time passed, I regretted that increasingly. I knew this unit was where I belonged, where I had always belonged. It is, as you promised, a family. I thought at first that the singing was foolish, but now my song gives me a sense of identity within the community I never had before. The unit has become my life; the nightmares are gone. I can no longer justify keeping Rising Moon; her purpose has been served. I was seeking the courage to do what was right, to return her to you—”

  “No, Peat Bog! She—”

  “She loved you. She gave me all I asked, more than any woman before, and I loved her from the outset, but I knew the sacrifice she was making. It was wrong of me to use her. But I was addicted to her. I couldn’t give her up. I could not afford the luxury of generosity the way you could. I—”

  I shook my head. “Damn it, Mondy, you’ve got it all wrong! I never loved her with my heart, only with my body. I never really loved any woman since my beloved died. I used Rising Moon myself; that’s how I brought her into the unit. Because I needed her strategic skill. I bought her—and then I sold her. To you, for your skill.”

  “But after the rehearsal,” he continued without seeming to hear me, “something changed. She had thought of you, even in my arms; this time she—”

  “Damn it, Mondy, I’m sorry! I had no right to—”

  “She had you, as she had in the old days. And—” He shrugged. “This time it changed. Maybe she felt guilty. She came to me contrite, and for the first time in our relationship, I had her, body and soul.” He smiled wistfully. “I’d have given my life for that, for the reality instead of the courtesy—and instead you gave it to me free. She’s mine now. She just had to try it again with you, to discover that. She’s a good woman once she knows her mind.”

  “Yes,” I said, relieved and amazed.

  He smiled. “So go get your own woman, sir.” He turned and went to the door, and Emerald entered, passing him with a quick kiss.

  “I suppose I knew it when we were in trouble in the Discovered Check,” she said, coming to me. “But now I am sure of it. He truly understands me, as you never did, sir.”

  I nodded affirmatively; evidently it was so.

  “Now you’ve got a woman of your own to catch. You can’t treat her the way you did me. She’ll use her teeth, for one thing; don’t even try to kiss her. And she’s fast with that knife; she’ll make a feint at your face, then cut out your crotch. Don’t fool with her at all, sir; first foil that blade, then club her on the head. Make sure she’s out, then do it, fast and furious and hard. Bruise her inside. When she wakes and knows you’ve been into her, she’ll have to yield. She won’t use the knife, because it’ll be too late; her treasure will be gone. Next time you take her, she’ll fight, of course, but she won’t have the knife and she won’t try to kill or maim; it’ll be much easier for you to rape her and easier yet each succeeding time until she can drop the pretense.”

  “Each time I—!” I protested.

  She flashed her metallic smile again. “Pirates always rape. Their wenches expect it. It’ll be long before you tame her in bed. But in public she’ll serve you loyally, and that’s what counts. The alliance. But on the wedding night, don’t take any chances at all. This bitch is deadly!”

  “Emerald, I couldn’t bring myself to rape anyone!”

  “Oh, come on, Worry! What do you think you did to me?”

  “But you—”

  “I responded—after you pinned me. That’s the way it is. A girl fights as long as she can; then she relaxes and enjoys it.”

  “I don’t believe that!”

  She laughed. “I’m speaking mythically, you idiot! Of course it’s male propaganda! But with the pirates, it’s more than a myth. They believe it. Roulette will fight you tooth and nail, literally, until you conquer her; then she’ll accept you, exactly as her mother did her father. It’s in their culture, Hope; you’ve got to play the game their way.”

  “I don’t think I could even get an—”

  “Next to a shape like hers? Who you kidding, sir! You’ll be bursting to get into her.”

  “Thanks for the encouragement,” I said wanly.

  “Same’s it was with me. You never intended to do me; in fact, you didn’t think it was possible, with the crotch-guard and wet suit. But you got into the spirit of it, and—” She broke off. “Spirit, that’s right. I’m overstaying my turn. Good luck, sir.” And she was gone.

  Spirit entered. “All right, Hope, it’s all set. I slipped her the knife this morning, and the news about the S-3 slot. So now she knows what she’ll lose if she kills you.”

  “But—”

  “Repro advised me on that. Rue is tough; she really will fight you. None of this token stuff. But after you take her, and she wakes and has the knife—she’s allowed her strike then, and you can’t resist; that’s when this will weaken her resolve. She knows her father wants this alliance, wants legitimacy more than anything else, and what she personally will gain from it—much more than the average pirate bride—and that you keep your word. She has a good life coming up if she spares you in the aftermath. I think she will. But first you have to beat her and take her maidenhead; there’ll be no gift there! Tonight.”

  “Tonight! I’m not ready!”

  “Repro said it had to be soon, before you lost your nerve.”

  “I never got up my nerve for this! Spirit, do you realize what this is? You saw Faith raped!”

  “And I saw how Faith recovered from it, too. But this isn’t the same, Hope. Roulette is a pirate. This is the only way she’ll ever marry, and she knows it, and wouldn’t have it otherwise. She likes you—”

  “She hates me!”

  “I think we’ve been over that before. She hates you to protect herself from loving you before it is time. All that emotion will flip 180 degrees once you take her. Once you savage her. And she’s a lot of young woman, Hope; don’t sell her short. Her father raised her for this from birth: to be too much for any ordinary pirate to take. I think we’ve set up a pretty good bride for you, and she does have a body you’ll enjoy.” She smiled knowingly, and in that instant I saw her as she had been as a child of twelve, not exactly a child even then.

  “You know I believe in gentle love,” I said weakly.

  She put one arm about my shoulders and squeezed. “I know, Hope. But think of this as a battle. A competition. If you win, you both win; if she wins, you both lose. You both know it. She may even help you unconsciously; she may not slash as hard as she can, or she may give you an opening to kno
ck her out. Take it, Hope! Knock her out, rape her, and be done with it. We’ll have the cameras on you, of course—”

  “The what?”

  “In case something goes wrong. A complete record of the proceedings, EMPTY HAND style. So everyone can see she has the knife, that you’re naked and unarmed, and that she fights for her honor and you rape her fair and square. Her father may want to review that tape before he recognizes the marriage.”

  “Her father!”

  “And we of the staff will be present personally—”

  “What?”

  She smiled. “It’s the pirate way, Hope. The groom’s clan has to witness the victory, so that no one can claim he didn’t perform. And if anything happens to the bride, I will be obliged to seek revenge—”

  “You?” My staff had ganged up on me, hitting me with point after point; now my sister was putting me away.

  “I gave her the knife, Hope. It’s real; no rubber one this time. I’m responsible for her until you win her. So whatever you do, don’t kill her, because if she dies and I don’t kill you, her clan will be honor-bound to do it, and—”

  I stared at her, suddenly knowing that she would do it. She would kill when she had to, to honor whatever commitment she had, even if she had to kill me. She had survived among pirates; she was made of sterner stuff than I was. There was no one she loved more than me, but she would do it. And then probably kill herself. I had to perform.

  I forced my voice to be calm. “I see the complication. I have no intention of killing her. Or of hurting her. Spirit, I just can’t do this thing, no matter how all of you insist on sugar-coating it! It’s primitive, it’s brutal—”

  “Hope, you’ve got to. We need that alliance just as much as Straight does, and you need that woman. You’ve been too long on the Tail. Just pretend she’s a warrior, trying to kill you—because sure as hell she is! It’s you or her, and there’s only one way to beat her. Focus on that and everything else will fall into place. This is the way it has to be, Hope. If I could rape her for you, I would. But I can’t.”

  The way it had to be. Yes, I understood that, intellectually, not emotionally. What I understood emotionally was that my sister was requiring this of me. Anything else that I could not handle, she would handle for me, such as the overseeing of the necessary executions, but this I had to do myself.

  I realized that it would be easier to perform the rape than to balk Spirit.

  The dreadful nuptial was scheduled for the evening. Already they were setting up the gallery and cameras. I had several hours to prepare myself, and I knew it wasn’t enough. Eternity would not be enough! How could I school myself to rape a lovely eighteen-year-old girl?

  I struggled like a fish on the hook, in the lake of a fishing-resort bubble, only I was not the fish but the fisherman, and the line was pulling me in and I was drowning. I was committed, yet I flopped on the ground as if seeking escape.

  I talked to Isobel Brinker, she of the unshod Little Foot who needed no man, but she did not support me. “Were I in your place, I would do it,” she said.

  “That’s what Spirit said. But how can you, a woman—”

  “I am also a pirate. I share the culture.”

  “If you married, you would expect to be raped?”

  She laughed. “He’d damn well have to rape me!”

  “But you masqueraded as a man, avoiding that.”

  “And would again, if I returned to piracy.”

  “I see more merit in your position than I once did.”

  “Oh, I approve of the system. I just don’t happen to like the role.”

  “Neither do I!”

  “I never enjoyed killing, either, but I did what was necessary— as did you.”

  Yes, I had probably killed more people than she had. But never dispassionately. Rape was more personal, and more ugly, to me. It was the brutalization of the act of love. Helse had taught me the true nature of sex as a function of love, and I did not see how I could go against that.

  “You keep thinking of her as a pretty girl,” Brinker said. “She’s not. She’s a pirate. She can kill as readily as I can. If you don’t get that straight in your head, she’ll kill you--and all that you have worked for will be lost.”

  Brinker was a pirate, telling me my business. Of course she was correct. I knew and yet still could not accept it.

  The abhorrence of rape was as deep in me as anything. I would not be the person I am, were this not so.

  I called Straight, half-expecting him to refuse my call, but he accepted. “You know what I contemplate?”

  “Certainly, Captain. It is scheduled for tonight, your time. Do you want my advice?”

  The victim’s father—proffering advice! “Yes.”

  “Strike swiftly and hard. Parry the knife, score on the jaw. Grab her hair and lock her head down so she can’t slip free. Don’t let it drag out. If you don’t succeed in the first minute, back off and send her back to me; that’s the only safe course. Don’t delude yourself with any notion of fair play; that will only make you the third notch on her blade.”

  I remained amazed that he could speak this way of his daughter. “If I backed off, would there be a treaty then?”

  “No. My men would not serve. My power exists only so long as I honor the necessary conventions.”

  I shook my head. “You actually want this to happen to your child?”

  “What I might want, in a more civilized situation, is beside the point. It has to happen, Hubris. I want my daughter to be well married; I have exerted my influence only to select the proper man, after making two mistakes.”

  “What of your wife? Does she approve?”

  “Ask her.” The screen divided to include Flush’s face.

  “I never would have respected Straight if he hadn’t tamed me,” Flush said.

  “But rape—”

  “Do you think he would have respected me if I’d submitted without struggle? What man wants an easy woman?”

  “I—suppose that’s true,” I mumbled.

  “And what would my clan have thought?” she demanded, making her point. “I want my daughter to have the same respect I have had. Only one man ever touched me, and he had to fight.”

  Defeated again, I cut the connection. I sought out Shrapnel, the Fiji prisoner who refused allegiance. “A question, if you would,” I said.

  “It’s your time, Cap’n.”

  “Have you ever married?”

  He was surprised. “Sure—once. Didn’t last, though.”

  “And you raped her?”

  “Of course. She liked that. But six months later she found a rougher man.”

  “She left you for a more violent pirate?” I asked, amazed again.

  “That’s right. I retained some of those old civilized ways, and they turned her off. She didn’t respect me. She didn’t have a mark on her when she left. I like it better now, with your Tail; they don’t mind if it’s not violent.”

  “Thank you,” I said dispiritedly. I turned away. There was simply no getting away from it. I was the only one who wasn’t in step.

  “Cap’n,” he said.

  I turned back. “Yes?”

  “I know this isn’t much, but Miss Roulette’s a pirate. I would serve her.”

  “Even if she became our Navy S-3?”

  He spread his hands. “A man’s got to compromise a little, sometimes. I’d give her something special for a wedding present.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and turned away again.

  I returned to my chamber and lay in my hammock, seeking sleep or inspiration or a new outlook. None came. I stared at the ceiling. It was blank. I tried to think of a better approach. None offered. I was stuck with a job I knew I would botch, perhaps at the cost of my life and mission.

  Someone entered. “Go away,” I said, my eyes closed.

  The intruder ignored that. A hand touched my shoulder. I shook it off, opening my eyes. I saw a boy of about fifteen, in civilian clothes; by his comp
lexion I judged him to be Hispanic. What was he doing here?

  “I think you need me, Hope,” he said. His voice was adolescently high and somehow familiar.

  “Do I know you?” I asked.

  “I think so,” he said with a smile. “You were going to marry me.”

  Startled, I looked at him more carefully. He wore a close cap that concealed most of his hair, and his face was smooth and without beard or blemish. His arms were thin; he had not graduated from any military training program.