Beggar's Flip

by Benny Lawrence

  Well, now. Well, well, well. So Milo didn’t like the word. It was a small thing, a tiny thing, but maybe it gave me a chance. I settled back and stared at the ceiling again, not thinking, barely breathing, but bringing myself to the moment, disciplining myself to be nowhere but here and now.

  When Milo finally sat down on the bed, back facing me, he had taken off his trousers, but not his shirt or stockings. He had the wine flagon in one hand, and his cup in the other.

  “Do you want some?” he asked. “It might make it easier.”

  It never had before. On the other hand, it would give me a little more time.

  “Sure,” I said, and took the cup he passed over. “Is this the cherry stuff I’ve heard so much about?”

  “It is.” He sloshed around the wine that remained in the flagon—it sounded almost full; he couldn’t have drunk much—and swigged straight from the neck. “I’d never even tasted it until a couple of weeks ago. Now I’m trying to figure out what all the fuss is about. It smells like spoiled fruit and tastes like perfume. Try it yourself.”

  It spoke volumes about Milo, his character and his blind spots, that he expected me, at a moment like this, to pay any attention to the taste of wine. Under the circumstances, though, it would have been a tactical error for me to roll my eyes. Instead, I took a sip, made a big deal of swishing it around my mouth, and then frowned.

  “I see your point. Any chance of trading this in for beer?”

  He laughed. It was the first human sound he’d made since I stepped into the room. “I haven’t got any beer on hand, and I’m not going to make a kitchen run dressed this way.” His hands moved up to the lacings of his shirt, then fell away again. “You know, I still think it’s possible that the two of us could reach an understanding. I’m not so naïve as to expect Darren to forgive and forget. You and I, though—we’re both bastards. Little bits of our fathers’ discarded seed, people who come from nothing.”

  “We come from our mothers.”

  He shrugged. “We come from our mothers, who had nothing and were nothing. I don’t need to explain any of this to you, do I? We’re like two strangers who grew up in the same town. You should understand better than anyone why I had to break Torasan.”

  “Oh, I understand why,” I said. “I just disagree with your methods.”

  He shrugged. “It was ugly. That’s what happens when you put victims in the same room as their torturers and pass out a few knives. Stribos and Alek, and that whole miserable family . . . they spent their worthless lives tormenting people like us. Then the big wheel spun and they got theirs. You can’t deny the justice of it. I fight fire with fire.”

  “Do you? I fight fire with water, myself, but what do I know?” The wine really did smell like fruity varnish. I set the cup down on the nightstand. “If you want to reach an understanding with me, then raping me is not the way to start.”

  That not-quite-flinch again. Not a sound, not a motion, just a sort of tightening, like the feel of the air before a storm.

  Still, he looked me straight between the eyes. “You belong to Darren.”

  “Yes.”

  “Any chance that’ll change?”

  “No. Not that it matters, because you’d never trust me if I did switch sides. I’d try that play if it had any slim prayer of working—but unfortunately for me, you are not a stupid man.”

  “No,” he echoed. “So here we are. You’re Darren’s whore, and an ally of Torasan, and a prisoner of war. Don’t expect too much.”

  He moved his hands down and he fumbled with his clothing. The candlelight guttered; a fat brown moth was flitting around the flame. It drifted forwards, danced up, then dove. There was a hiss and a flicker and a smell of burnt dust. I watched the papery wings char and shrivel inwards until Milo reached over and pinched the candle out.

  Darkness and the burnt dust smell. It was a relief that Milo couldn’t see me anymore, but now it would be even harder to try to read him.

  Maybe there was no point in trying to change the night’s direction. Maybe the thing I’d seen as a flinch was just Milo shivering in the chilly air. Maybe I shouldn’t fight the tide this time, but just let it carry me, wash me out to a wide and barren place beyond feeling.

  His weight settled on the mattress. I closed my eyes tightly.

  Now. Either do it now, or go inside yourself and go dark and small and stop thinking until it’s all over.

  I licked my dry lips, and went to work. “Milo, I know this isn’t a negotiation or anything, but if you’re going to rape me, there’s something I have to ask you.”

  The mattress ticking rustled—that was him, moving—and maybe he was about to reach for me, but I’d started now and what the hell. “It’s like this. When I was eight, my father gave me to his wife. Pretty much as a present? I’m not positive why he did it, but I think he was sick of her screaming at him, and he hoped that she could take out her frustration on me instead. Plus, he had to keep me in line. You see, he was going to breed me so that I could give him grandchildren, and he needed to make sure that I didn’t get ideas above my station, or wander out of reach.”

  He made a noise deep in his throat, and I couldn’t tell what it was or what it meant, but at least he wasn’t touching me yet. “I know all this.”

  “You know that part, from Ariadne, but you don’t know what came next, because Ariadne wasn’t there. I ran away. Did you ever try to run? Don’t answer that. It wasn’t fun, because . . . I don’t need to explain why it wasn’t fun, do I? I had no money and I had no one to help me and I had no place to go, so, not fun. Not many of those outrageous luxuries like food and clothing. Lots of bad-smelling men who thought that there wouldn’t be any consequences if they messed with me—and they were right, of course.”

  He was so close now that I could feel the warmth of his skin, but he still wasn’t touching me.

  “So I used sex a lot,” I said. With my fingers, I traced the contours of an old scar on my wrist, concentrating on the rubbery feel of it instead of the memories. “At least, I used it a lot the first year, before I found a place to stay. Sometimes it was just a transaction—you know, pull somebody’s dick for a loaf of bread. Sometimes it was the best way I could think of to calm someone down. And sometimes I figured that it was going to happen one way or another, so better to give it up than to get beaten first. I kind of got numb to it after a while, but I never stopped being scared. When you’re naked in the dark, with someone else’s breath in your face, you can feel death hanging in the air all around you. I used to wonder what they’d do to my body afterwards. Leave it where it was? Kick some dirt over it? Who was it, by the way?”

  He didn’t answer right away—he had to catch up. “Who was what?”

  “Who was it that got raped? It must have been someone important to you, since you cringe every time you hear the word. Was it your mother? Your sister, your brother? Who?”

  Milo said nothing. I hadn’t expected him to answer, not out loud, but I’d hoped for some kind of sign. No luck.

  “It doesn’t really matter which,” I said, before the silence became too overpowering. “It could have been all of them, for all I know. But I think there was one time, one rape, that sticks in your memory, one that matters more than any other. If I knew about that time, I’d understand you better, Milo. Especially if you were the one it happened to. Or the one who did it.”

  Damn. Too far. I knew I’d gone too far, even before I felt him move. The blow took me right on the solar plexus—not as hard as it could have been, but so sharp and sudden that I didn’t know whether I’d been punched or stabbed. Then he had me by the throat.

  Fast, angry breaths above me, hot on my face. An iron grip, sandpapery with callous. I grabbed his wrists—couldn’t help myself—but didn’t dig in my nails.

  “I’m not going to fight you,” I said, working the words out one at a time against the pressure of his hand. “Calm down. Please calm down.”

  No answer. I wasn’t getting through t
o him anymore, oh gods, I’d miscalculated, I’d lost my chance with him, and now—

  He jerked my head and shoulders up off the mattress, then slammed me back down, knocking the wind out of me.

  “Please,” I repeated, as soon as I caught my breath. “Milo. Please. You don’t need to frighten me, I’m there already.”

  His face loomed close, a darker patch in the dark room. “If you have a request, spit it out.”

  Bitter bile filled my mouth and I struggled to swallow. I didn’t have to ask, I didn’t have to keep talking, I could shut the world out and let my body go through the motions—oh hell, I didn’t want to go through the motions.

  I forced my eyes open.

  “It’s like this,” I said. “Nobody in my position would want a kid, but I have a real hang-up on the subject. On balance, I’m probably more afraid of dying than of getting pregnant, but it’s a close call. So here’s the request. More of an offer, really. It’s the same offer I make every time this happens. Leave my cunt alone while you’re raping me, and I’ll do anything else that you want. Anything. And yes, I will beg.”

  On balance, it was good that he didn’t respond right away, but my stomach still turned over and over as the seconds passed. I’d see this through if I had to, but suddenly I wasn’t sure whether I could do it without throwing up. Maybe I should go ahead and puke; that might make Milo kick me out of bed. Or maybe it would turn him on. I didn’t know him well enough to tell which.

  After a few eternities of waiting, Milo leaned back in bed. I couldn’t see him, but the headboard creaked.

  “You’re dangerous,” he said, mostly to himself. “You are so damn dangerous.”

  “Why?” My voice rasped; only then did I notice how dry my mouth had become. “Because you don’t want to rape me?”

  “Just . . . stop that.” His hand made a fist in the blankets. “Do you even understand what we wanted to accomplish here?”

  “You wanted to take the Isle. You’ve done that.”

  “We wanted to give people their lives back. Did you ever meet Alek? The brother of the woman you call your mistress.”

  I sighed, trying to switch mental tracks without losing my grip on myself. “I met him. Didn’t have a chance to engage him in any deep conversations, he was too busy dying, but yes, we did meet. Why?”

  “Well. When Alek came back from his maiden voyage, his father Stribos gave him four gifts: a horse and a girl and a boy and a whip. A horse to ride, a girl to bed, a boy to beat—or maybe to bed; how the hell should I know—and a whip to use on the other three. That’s the kind of viciousness that’s been bleeding into the soil of the Isle for generations, the kind of cruelty—”

  “Milo. Alek is dead. Stribos is dead. You killed them very and extremely dead. You can’t make them any more dead by raping me—or by torturing my sister.”

  “She’s had the barest taste of what the average cabin boy or scullery girl has to suffer.”

  “She’s terrified every second of every day. Even if you weren’t doing anything else to her, that would be enough.” I sat up. “You think I’m dangerous? Then get rid of me. Give me my sister. Give me my mistress. Give us a boat and let us go. That’ll be the end of it.”

  “I had your captain kneel before me on flagstones washed black with her brothers’ blood. You think she won’t look for payback?”

  “I’ll talk her out of it.”

  “You really think you could do that?”

  “Yes. Gods of hell, yes. Of course, yes. It wouldn’t even be difficult. This is what I do. Milo, I know you don’t want me as an enemy. End this here. Let us go.”

  “Let you go,” he repeated. “Let go of the pirate queen, master of the richest fleet in the south seas, the oldest unmarried Torasan heir. Let all of that go—and watch and wait as all the minor houses from here to Cromm Tuach band together to rip my men to shreds and put the Isle back in chains.”

  “They might not.”

  “Don’t pretend to be stupid. It’s not a good look on you. You think all the pureblood lords will put up with a bastard usurper?”

  “Sure, as long as they have an excuse to look the other way.” I paused. What the hell. “Darren killed Lord Iason of Bero, and I stuck a commoner on the throne in his place. You don’t hear anyone griping about that, do you?”

  A pause. I’d surprised him. “That’s a lie. The throne was taken by Iason’s cousin—”

  “That’s the cover story I made up. It’s a wafer-thin cover story made out of spider webs and moonshine, but people are mostly sort of stupid, so it’s worked so far. Milo, in all honesty, I do not give a bucket of warm salt piss what you do here. You can turn the entire Isle into a gigantic compost heap, for all I care, as long as you let go of the people I love.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  I was breathing too hard, too fast; it made my heart race. I reached up to my throat and massaged the big artery, rubbing until I felt the pace of my pulse slacken.

  “Oh, you know the answer to that,” I said. “People like you and me, we have only one way to win a battle. People like Darren, like Latoya, like Corto, they can mess around with disabling shots and non-lethal blows. Not me. My first strike has to end the fight, because if I miss, I won’t get a second chance. So don’t expect me to be reasonable, or honourable, or even pretend to fight fair. I don’t work that way, any more than you do.”

  My eyes had adjusted now to the dark, more or less, so I saw his head tilted sideways, as he studied me. “I could just kill you now.”

  “You could.”

  “So why shouldn’t I?”

  “I mean, Darren will go berserk. Good luck having a civilized conversation with her after she sees my corpse. She’ll tear your throat out with her teeth, or she’ll keep trying to until you put her down. Other than that, killing me sounds like a dandy plan.” I took a huge but calculated risk. “I’m going to get off the bed for a second, do you mind?”

  He didn’t say anything. I scooted forwards until I could climb off the end of the bed. There was still a little water in the washbasin jug. I poured a cup, rinsed my mouth and spat, swilling away the taste of bile as well as the sharp, tannic after bite of the cherry wine. I poured another cup, drank it slowly—he still hadn’t moved. I set down the cup and reached for my clothes.

  He didn’t stop me. Didn’t speak, didn’t move. I unfolded the clothes, shook them out. Still nothing. I didn’t hurry, just worked my way through the bundle, pulling on my linen drawers, shirt, trousers, and jerkin, double-knotting all the laces.

  Moment of truth. If he was going to force me to strip again, this would be the time. I watched, as he swung his legs off the bed and got up. He came nearer, nearer—and bent to grab his trousers off the floor. I released a breath I hadn’t known I was holding.

  “You’re going to want me as a friend,” he said, fastening his heavy belt. “Darren is going to want me as a friend. You’re right that there are reasons to keep her alive, but not everyone appreciates that the way you and I do. My Freemen are simple people, people who pray to the gods of the tide and hope for the coming of the Master of Storms. They don’t understand the political realities. All they understand is that Darren is one of the tyrants that brutalized them, and they’re baying for her blood. If it wasn’t for me, she’d already be dead.”

  “Are you expecting me to say ‘Thank you’?” I asked, after a pause that seemed to invite it.

  He raised an eyebrow. “It wouldn’t hurt.”

  “Thank you,” I said, only I made it sound more like Fuck you. I’d had a certain amount of practice at doing that.

  He laughed instead of lashing out, then grew solemn.

  “Lynn, it’s time for you to adjust to the reality that you’re not in control here. Darren spoils you, anyone can see that—so I suppose, at this point in your life, you’re used to getting your way. But I don’t keep pets and I don’t play favourites. You can’t wrap me around your finger.”

  He stepped closer to me a
nd my heart gave a lurch, but he just tipped my chin up so I had to look at him.

  “Here’s what I can promise, though. If Darren cooperates, if she brings her fleet under my command, then I’ll do my best to make sure that she goes on breathing. I may even be able to keep both of you fairly comfortable, if you do as you’re told. Decent rooms. Decent food. I’ll even allow the two of you some privacy for, ah, intimate visits, within reason.”

  Privacy within reason, sure. That probably meant a closed door with Milo peeping through the keyhole. “What about my sister?”

  He puffed out an impatient breath. “You’d better hope that the lovesick giant doesn’t do anything stupid, like showing up here with a battle fleet. Because if she does, I’m going to ask Jada to think of all kinds of creative ways to make your sister wish she was never born. That’s all.”