Queen of the Pirates (34 page)

Daneel had been allowed to stand in the front row as a witness, even though he wasn’t a captain anymore. He stood next to Jessica on one side and Desianna on the other.

“Desianna Indah–Rodriguez,” Jing Du called formally, “would you retire?”

Daneel could feel the pure rage boiling off of her.

“Nay, Chancellor,” she called back, angrily, made of far sterner stuff, “if I am to be made widow today, I would rather carry the memory to my own grave, than rely on others to tell me.”

Jing Do nodded, the last of the formal ceremony nearly done.

Arnulf smiled warmly at her as he readied. His blade today was almost a cutlass, three fingers wide and longer than Daneel’s forearm, with a wide, flat spine and a straight edge for most of its length.

In contrast, Ian Zhao held a much lighter weapon, nearly fifty centimeters of blade, finely ground to edges on both sides and then painted black except for the very edges themselves. He held it in a thumb–and forefinger grip, blade parallel to the deck, like a dock–side fighter.

“Captain Ian Zhao,” Jing Du called across the silent room, “you have challenged the King of the Pirates for his throne. Such a fight only ends in death. Are you prepared?”

“I am,” Ian called back, flexing his back and arms to loosen them up.

“King Arnulf,” the chancellor continued, “a challenger comes. Will you retire and withdraw for the betterment of society, one whose day has passed?”

“My day has not passed, chancellor,” Arnulf answered formally. “If he would take it, it must be done in blood.”

“Captain. King of the Pirates. Begin,” Jing Du intoned before stepping back.

Daneel expected the men to circle and test each other. Certainly, neither knew how the other would fight, it had been so long since either had been in the arena.

Instead, Ian Zhao leapt suddenly forward and thrust the point of his knife at Arnulf’s belly.

It was easily blocked with a ringing of steel on steel and a few sparks. Arnulf countered with a slash that found Ian Zhao bounding backwards just as quickly as he had closed.

The room roared with barbaric approval.

Daneel thought Ian Zhao looked like a kangaroo, bobbing his weight back and forth on each foot. It made no sense until he glanced at Arnulf, and saw how flushed the man had suddenly become. How frequently his eyes blinked.

Then Daneel knew.

It wasn’t going to be an obvious poison. Arnulf couldn’t die mysteriously like that, assassinated in the night. No, it had to be like this. Public. Aboveboard, as much as something like this could be. In a duel for kingship.

Daneel knew the truth when the two circled for another pass. Ian Zhao ended up facing him.

For a moment, eyes locked. Ian smiled at him.

Yes. They both knew.

And there was nothing he could do. Nothing at all.

Arnulf charged suddenly. Perhaps he knew as well, and was intent on killing this man before the poison did him in.

That heavy blade flickered out like a snake striking. Behind it, all of Arnulf’s mass and strength.

The lighter blade could not block it. The smaller man could not repel it.

Arnulf kissed him once with steel.

It would not be enough, a shallow slash across the ribs and a small divot in the thigh. But it was blood.

First blood.

The mob went insane with noise.

Daneel could barely hear his own thoughts, so intense the sound had become.

Arnulf hacked again, but Ian was gone, a ghost spinning away with his own lethal edge slashing out.

Ian drew blood in the separation, a thin crimson line across Arnulf’s shoulder. Again, not lethal, just bloody. Almost an aphrodisiac for the rowdy, dangerous men here.

The sound became nearly solid.

The smell was that of fifty men on a surge of adrenaline, musky and at the same time rank and sour.

Ugly.

Barbaric.

Daneel ground his teeth in utter frustration, locked on this combat that would forever determine the future of
Corynthe
.

Such a stupid way to live. Had he really been like that? All the worse.

The dancers spun again after another noisy pass.

Arnulf ended up facing Daneel, but Daneel didn’t think he was seeing anything at this point. His eyes were all pupil, no color. He was covered in sweat in a way that the regular room temperature did not explain. It looked as though he was burning up from in inside.

Perhaps he was.

Perhaps he was using every bit of his kingship right now, as fuel for a bright flame.

Better to die gloriously than live in shame.

And then it was over.

They came together, passed, parted.

Daneel watched Ian Zhao come to rest almost exactly across from him, empty–handed.

He looked back, saw the blade quivering in Arnulf’s chest, slid expertly between two ribs and trapped there.

Arnulf collapsed to his knees as his eyes glazed over.

He opened his mouth to say something, but there was only blood.

And he fell.

Beside him, Daneel felt a sudden weight fall into his side.

He caught Desianna before she collapsed as well.

As if cut as well, the sound ended.

It was over.

And he had failed.

Ian Zhao leapt lightly onto the platform and turned to smile out over the crowd.

“King Arnulf is dead,” Jing Du said. It sounded like a yell in the utter silence that had fallen. “Long live King Ian.”

The cheers were more subdued. Almost polite. Perfunctory, if one could say that about such a monumental event.

Jing Du stepped forward to stand next to the new king with a pleased smile on his face.

“Captains,” the Chancellor intoned, “a new king is proclaimed. Would any of you dispute his right to rule?”

Daneel let go of Desianna and braced her upright until he felt her strength take hold.

He stepped forward once, appearing out of the crowd and entering into that bare area.

Before he could speak, Ian Zhao pointed a finger at him.

“You have no standing in this Court. Daneel Ishikura,” he sneered. “You are no longer a captain.”

Daneel cursed inside. Of course they no longer cared about him.

“In fact,” King Ian continued, “you are nothing at all. I look forward to destroying you next,
Warlock
.”

He was nothing. And David Rodriguez wasn’t here. They were doomed.

And then she spoke. The
Angel of Retribution
.

“I have a ship.”

Chapter XLV

Date of the Republic March 14, 394 Orbital Palace Station, Above Petron

They did not get to win.

Simple as that.

All this work. All this planning. All this
everything
, and the bad guys would not walk away laughing.

Every eye in the room was locked on her. As they should be.

She was angry.

It was a room like she would find anywhere in the
Fribourg Empire
.

Men. Accustomed to cultural superiority. Unused to hearing a woman speak. Unwilling to listen.

They would listen to her. They would listen now.

Jessica stepped out into the clearing, past Daneel Ishikura.
Warlock
couldn’t do anything at this point.

They had taken him into account, their former conspirator. There were rules that even pirates would obey, marking them at least vaguely civilized.

Fine. Because she wasn’t feeling benevolent right now. Or civilized.

Destructive.

She had been sent to
Lincolnshire
to make it safe from people like this. She had come to
Corynthe
to do just that. Not to try. To succeed. If it had to be over the body of two kings, so be it.

“You aren’t one of us,” Ian Zhao sneered down at her.

He wasn’t a big man. There weren’t many people he could look down on, without the benefit of the platform.

“The rules don’t say
one of you
, assassin,” she snarled back. “They say only a captain may challenge a king. Besides, before you murdered him, Arnulf Rodriguez made me an admiral. So that does make me one of you.”

“And you would fight me for the crown,
Aquitaine
?”

She had his attention now. There were murmurs behind her that sounded ugly. Words like
assassin
and
murder
had gotten people’s attention.

“If that’s what it takes to see justice, Ian Zhao,” she replied, not angry now, but hard enough, loud enough, clear enough that every person in the room would hear her.

Command voice. Taught to her, once upon a time, by the man who would become First Lord of the Fleet, Nils Kasum.

The best.

“What is justice, woman?” he snarled back, anger coming to the fore.

“I say you poisoned King Arnulf,” Jessica called, “because you could not face him in a fair fight. I’m sure you won’t trust an
Aquitaine
doctor to test for the poison. I’m sure we can find a local who is neutral. Will you stand for such a thing?”

Ian Zhao stepped forward and dropped off the platform with a resounding crunch, aimed directly at her.

For a moment, she considered that she had goaded him too far, and that he was about to charge her. Jessica shifted her weight subtly and prepared to receive him.

Valse d’Glaive
did not
require
blades. It just made effective use of them.

But he stopped after a long stride into the clearing.

“I cannot have your ship if I win, can I?” he said conversationally.

She could see the wheels turning in his head, plans and angles. In any other circumstance, she might have found him to be an adequate king.

But not here. Not now.

“No,” she replied simply. “But my squadron will leave, and leave you alone to rot on your barbaric throne forever, King of the Pirates.”

She turned and nodded at her flag centurion.

“Aye, sir,” Enej nodded back.

“And if I chose not to accept this Challenge,
Aquitaine
?”

She could see something in his eyes. Perhaps nervousness? Even a touch of fear?
Come so close to victory to have it all fall apart at the last moment?
Welcome to my world, you bastard.

“Explain to your captains,
Corynthe
,” she replied sweetly, gesturing at the crowd behind her, “that you were afraid to face a woman in the ring.”

Yes. There. That particular flash of anger. Like a splinter under a fingernail, wasn’t it? Like a wolf with a paw in a trap.
Willing to gnaw it off to escape me, pirate?

“And if I am weak from my wounds,
Captain
?” he sneered.

“Oh?” Jessica observed tartly. “Your wounds did that?”

She prepared to pivot, pretty sure she had taken Ian Zhao right up to that line where rational thought stopped and he lost his temper. It was just as useful in single combat as it was in fleet actions.

She could see the anger boiling off of him.

It warmed her from the sudden cold that Arnulf’s death had draped her in. She drew a breath deep, held it, released it.

Cold, flat eyes stared at Ian Zhao and dared him.

“But if you require ministrations before we dance,” she waved a hand negligently, “by all means. I will in turn make it fair and only fight you with one hand.”

That was almost a bridge too far. She watched him draw a breath to charge her before he came to his senses.

Instead, he moved to the edge of the platform and seated himself. A medic materialized and began to dress his wounds. Most of them were superficial, clean slices with razor–sharp edges that could be glued back together until they healed. Only the one in the thigh required work, and that not much.

Jessica watched him drink something while he waited. She presumed a regular energy drink of some sort. They couldn’t have planned well enough to buff him up with some near–magical concoction that would make him super–human.

Not that it would matter. Not now.

Jessica considered the room, and all these men. A pit viper might have smiled like that.

She began undoing buttons on her outer tunic, stripped out of it, and handed it to her flag centurion. She was still wearing the heavy–duty boots she had worn to the surface of
Bunala
. They had felt more appropriate this morning than the ship’s slippers she normally wore. Perhaps she had known the day would end thus.

The under–tunic went next, leaving her in just close–fitting pants and a sports bra.

The men fought naked to the waist as proof they weren’t wearing any armor. No tricks.

Men
.

Jessica peeled the sports bra off next and handed it to Enej as part of the bundle he held.

His jaw hit the floor first, followed closely by every other man in the room. The cold air bit at her nipples. That what she told herself.

Morons
.

What was it her mother had used to say? A man loses fifty percent of his IQ when he sees a boob?

Here, have two.

Let her be the object of their lust. If she won, she would be their queen.

Jessica smiled suddenly.

If she won, she would be their Queen.

Jessica Keller, Queen of the Pirates.

It was a shot of pure adrenaline to the base of the skull that was better than an orgasm. She turned and smiled at him, wondering if she could just strike Ian Zhao down with a Zeus–like bolt of lightning from here.

It had that kind of mad power to it.

She turned back to the men around her, the captains that upheld this throne, and smiled even broader.

“Gentlemen, I have no blade to fight this Challenge. I call on the Free Captains of
Corynthe
to aid me.”

A forest of steel erupted around her. Men pushed and shoved at each other to try to get closer. All for a pair of boobs. And, perhaps, men who didn’t particularly like Ian Zhao, or wondered what had been put in that wine glass, or if they might be next.

Someone had taken the time to remove Arnulf’s body, treating it like a holy relic as they did, and then to wipe down the floor in preparation for the second round.