The Soldier's Lotus (3 page)

“
Enough
of that!”
Darien gave Kamen
a playful slap on the back and moved to resume his seat.
“But
what about you?
You’ve hauled in enough plunder to prove yourself. What
are you still doing here?”

Kamen whirled so quickly on Darien that his dreadlocks
swung out across his face. “What do you mean?”

The sudden fear in Kamen’s eyes confused Darien. He was not
intimating that he planned to kick Kamen off his ship. On the contrary, Kamen
had been his trusted first mate for three years, and Darien would be happy to
keep him on for as long as he wanted to stay. “It’s just that you’ve got
responsibilities, and I thought you’d want to be seeing to your future.”

“
The future of my
family, you mean.” Kamen’s head sank, and he rubbed the ring in his nostril.

Darien shrugged.
“Same thing?”

It was Kamen’s turn to shrug. “I like sailing. The navy’s
been my life these past seven years.”

“
Yeah, and you’re
overdue. Your term of service was up two years ago.”

“
Why would I want to
leave? You know how many glorious battles you’ve led us in? I couldn’t get this
kind of excitement on land.” Kamen puffed out his chest and haughtily waved his
head at Darien.
“Besides, what about you?
You came
into the military at sixteen just like everyone else. What are you still doing
here twenty years later?”

“
You’re an
Itenu
,” Darien said, laughing. “Me? I’m nobody. I don’t
have a drop of noble blood in me.” He stomped the floorboard. “This is me.”

“
But you’re richer
than most of the nobles of Arinport. You could retire tomorrow.”

“
When the chase no
longer thrills me or when the sea no longer carries pirate ships – whichever
comes first – then I’ll retire.
But you?
It’s about
time you find a wife, settle down, and make a litter of little
Itenus
. A nobleman’s got his duty.” He gave Kamen a wink.

“
And you common men
can live free as birds?” Kamen’s soft, delicate lips turned up in one of his
signature charming smiles.

“
Something
like
that.” Darien spread his arms wide in mock apology.
“One of the privileges of birth.”
He threw his head back and
laughed, and Kamen shared his mirth. So lusty was their chortling that it was
not until their laughter began to die away that they heard commotion out on the
main deck.

“
What’s this, then?”
Darien leaped to his feet and raced past Kamen. His first mate was on his
heels.

Beyond the main deck hatch the crew had gathered, their
rowdy shouts and wide, anticipatory stances telling Darien that they had caged
something – or someone. Perhaps a pirate had escaped the sinking of his ship;
perhaps like a coward he had abandoned his comrades only to be picked up on the
open sea by the very men who had deprived him of his ability to further
terrorize the merchant ships that ran between the coastal cities.

Ruben, the second mate, stood apart from the ebullient
crowd, though he watched the men with a close eye.

“Explain this,” Darien said.

Ruben snapped to attention. “Sea plunder, sir.” With a nod
of his head, he indicated the sailors gathered at the other end of the main
deck.

“
Make way there!”
Darien cried out, shouldering his way through the crew. Darien was a head
taller than the next tallest man on the ship, and his muscular shoulders,
powerful arms, and broad, well-formed chest set him apart from so many other
Sunjaa
, whose frames were for the most part more like
Kamen’s, lithe and cat-like with a wiry strength. Darien was a lion among cubs.

What appeared before Darien’s eyes was no pirate, no
prisoner of war, but rather a fair-skinned Zenji girl. Memory struck him like a
lightning flash, and he saw in a moment in his mind’s eye the raid on the
Dimadan
and the destruction of the
Kesandrahn
Clan. That was the last time he had been this close to a Zenji.

“
What’s this all
about?” Darien’s voice was a roar that silenced the raucous crew. He heard a
knocking in the ensuing silence and peeked over the side. A lifeboat was
tethered to the hull, and the choppy waves thrust it repeatedly against the
side of the ship.

“
We found her just
floating there,” Ruben’s voice called out.

The girl pulled her
pallav
up around
her face, hiding her beautiful mouth and lovely nose, and her cobalt blue eyes
darted from one face to another. Darien recognized instantly what the girl was
doing; he had seen it before. She was counting. She was cornered, and she was
counting. She was figuring how many she would be able to defeat before she was
overwhelmed. It was the calm desperation of a skilled warrior who knew she had
no hope of escape. Darien liked her immediately, and he wanted to know her
more.

The girl scrambled back until her back rested against the
bulkhead of the forecastle. She made sure she had her back to something, a
defensible position. This neither escaped Darien’s notice.

“
We’re going to have a
little fun with her captain,” said another voice, “seeing as we found her. We
claim salvage rights.”

It was a legitimate claim under
Sunjaa
maritime law, and such rights, though distasteful to Darien, extended to lost
persons on the sea. The girl was alone; she was without friends or connections.
She was finely dressed, to be sure, but the crew would tear her clothes to rags
and rape her naked body until she
lay
bleeding and
dying. Darien had seen such treatment often enough under Ulen’s – his former
captain’s – command. He could not let that happen. He would not have one raven
lock on this perfect woman’s head mistreated.

“
As captain, I lay
first claim,” Darien said. The crew went berserk in protest, and Darien moved
to stand before the girl to protect her. Her eyes widened, but he could not
tell what she was feeling. Was it fear?
Surprise?
Indignation?
Darien thought the crew might mutiny, and
though he was an accomplished warrior, like the girl he could not defeat so
many were they to come at him. But Darien would not stand by and let this girl
be gang-raped. Not while he was captain. A solution presented itself just as
the shouts of the crew turned to furious howls.

“
Listen to me!” Darien
raised his arms. “Listen!” The men did not calm, but their voices lowered. “I
am a fair man. In exchange for this girl, I surrender two shares of my plunder
to the general coffers, to be divided equally among you all.”

The shouts turned to grumbles, but still the crew glared at
him. Darien needed to sweeten the deal.

“
And,” he said, “I
call common quarters.”

The grumbles ceased, and the shaking of heads turned to
nodding, the upraised fists turning to caresses on one another’s backs.
Those not essential to the running of the ship at that very moment
disappeared below deck, doubtless eager to indulge their lust at their leisure.

“
Common
quarters.”
Kamen came around
the main mast to where Darien stood.
“A fine idea.
Will you join the men?” He stretched out his hand, but Darien did not take it.

“
Not today.” Darien
glanced back at the girl, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Arinport
held nothing half as lovely; in all the cities of the world he had visited,
Darien had never seen a woman to match her. She had an inborn grace and natural
allure about her that had obviously been enhanced through some sort of
training.

So transfixed was Darien with this stranger that though he
spoke to Kamen, he could not look back at his first mate. “And I’m afraid you
can’t join them, either. I need you to stand witness.”

The girl’s defensiveness was gone; her fear evaporated. The
hardness of her eyes had melted away, and the soft and inviting expression that
replaced her hate quite baffled Darien. “Do you understand me?”

The girl nodded. “I speak the
Sunjaa
tongue, yes.”

Darien stretched out his hand. “You’re safe now. No one’s
going to harm you. Welcome aboard
Mirsa’s
Crown
.”

The girl took his hand and rose from her vulnerable
position in one fluid movement. She applied hardly any pressure to Darien’s
hand, instead shifting her body weight in perfect balance as she stood. At that
moment, Darien knew she was trained in some form of martial art. It also
explained her quiet determination to kill as many of her would-be rapists as
she could before they overcame her.

“
My name is Darien. I
am captain of this ship.”

The girl stood dangerously close to him. Her exotic, perfumed
scent aroused him, and the way she held her gold and red
pallav
across her face – hiding her beauty from him – made him want to pick her up and
crush her to his broad chest. He did not know her, but he wanted her more than
all the booty in his cargo hold. Compared to Darien she was small, to be sure,
but the captain sensed some deep strength within her that told him he could
probably play rough with her and she would not mind.

“
I am Saerileth.” Her
eyes spoke to him more than her words. They beckoned him; they teased and
enticed him.

“
Have you no friends?
Where did you come from? Where were you bound?”

Saerileth did not answer at first. Her eyes darted this way
and that, almost as if she sought escape still. “I was lost from a ship bearing
me to Arinport.”

The answer came as if it had been jerked from her, and
Darien sensed there was more to this mystery. But he knew what he had to do. He
took Saerileth by the hand and led her to his cabin. “Come, Kamen.”

Kamen followed, but he whispered a curse under his breath,
and though Darien could not make it out, he caught the name of Veirakai in it.
He chose to ignore it. Once inside, he offered Saerileth a seat on a divan of
black velvet – spoils from a pirate ship taken years before. He had never sat
on it, though, not wanting to mar its beauty. He was glad he never had, for its
merit suited Saerileth, and her deigning to sit on it was like a blessing.

Darien nodded at Kamen, and the first mate, jaw set
tightly, got to work. Why this would bother Kamen Darien could not say, for he
had taken concubines in the past. He had four at home in Arinport. Why should
this one bother Kamen so? The first mate drafted a document that stated how
Darien had taken Saerileth into his bed and made her his concubine on this date
and on this ship, in the witness of Kamen
Itenu
. All
that was left were the signatures. Darien took the pen and signed it, for he
found it distasteful to interrupt lovemaking with legalese. Kamen took the
quill after, sighed, and signed. Darien would have to have a chat with Kamen
later about his attitude.

He put his first mate out of his mind and bent all his
thought and desire on the pale-skinned Zenji girl reclining on his divan. Still
she covered her face, and still her blue eyes beckoned him.

“
I must enter you
now,” Darien said, and Saerileth’s eyes widened.

“
Why?”

“
To prevent my crew
from taking you themselves and dividing you as common spoil.”

“
Can you not just
order them not to?”

Darien shook his head. “They found you. If I renounce
salvage rights to you, they can claim them. The only way to put you utterly
beyond their power is to make you my legal concubine.”

“
Then why do you not
just tell them I am?” Saerileth shifted on the divan and crossed her ankles.

Darien glanced back at Kamen who stood in front of the door
and looked straight ahead, bending his concentration on the invisible air. He
did not make eye contact with Darien. Something serious ate at him, something
that had started the moment Saerileth came aboard.

“
I tried that once,”
Darien said, returning his attention to the girl he knew he must couple with.
“There was no contract, no witness. I didn’t want to take the girl against her
will, so I faked it. We
Sunjaa
are the People of the
Word, as you probably know. If it isn’t written down and witnessed, it didn’t
happen.” Darien did not enjoy talking about this, but he wanted Saerileth to
understand. “Well, my crew went ahead and raped her anyway, and I wasn’t able
to do anything about it. She was their salvage, and I had failed her.”

Saerileth stood and let her
pallav
fall. Darien drew in a long, deep breath. Her beauty was divine, every line and
curve perfect. “Your pain is fresh, as if this happened yesterday. You are a
man of deep feeling.” And she laid her hand on the bare part of his chest that
lay exposed from his loose shirt.