David Drake - Tyrant

But only a corner of her brain, and a small corner at that. Most of her mind was being washed over by a wave of sheer hatred, intermingled with horrible flashes of memories she had long suppressed. One male body after another — just pieces of bodies, really; a bare chest, a leg, a scrawny belly wet with her violation, another gap-toothed grin — slamming onto her, one after the other. She never knew how many; didn't want to know. It had lasted for three days.

At first, she was disappointed by the burst of the satchel charge. She'd been expecting to see the pirate ship simply disintegrate. Break in half, at least. But then, not more than a second later, seeing the bloom of fire wash across the ship, she understood what Trae had meant by a "special." He must have designed this satchel charge especially for use against an enemy ship.

Trae confirmed her thought immediately. "Beautiful, isn't it? There wasn't actually much powder in the thing. Just enough to set off the naphtha — some other stuff too — I had in those flasks. She'll burn down to the waterline, you watch."

Helga didn't doubt it. Neither, judging from their looks of horror and their screams, did any of the pirates still alive on the ship. Seamen fear nothing quite so much as an uncontrolled fire on a wooden vessel. Even though the waters around the burning galley were now being crisscrossed by white-tipped fins, Helga could see at least a dozen more pirates jumping overboard.

Her hatred now consumed her entirely. From the stern of the ship, she had a perfect view of the massacre. She pressed her groin against the rail, clutching the wood with hands like claws, and screamed across the waters.

"Try raping the redsharks, you fuckers! I hope—"

What she hoped, in shrieking and graphic anatomical detail, had Trae and Jessep and Lortz pale-faced within seconds. Minutes later, when she finally turned away, they were still pale.

Seeing the expressions on their faces, she snarled at them. "Tough men!" she jeered. "Try surviving three days of a gang rape, you pussies, before you think of telling me what 'tough' means."

And with that, she stalked over to the hatch and lowered herself into the hold. Muttering under her breath all the while about her need for the company of women.

* * *

Once below, she found herself spending the next ten minutes trying to quiet her wailing infant. He and Ilset's baby daughter were producing a truly incredible volume of noise.

" 'Twas the screaming did it," explained Polla apologetically. "Ours, I mean."

She gave Helga another crooked little smile. "The sound of the guns made things worse for little Yuli, but it actually seemed to steady your boy for a bit there. Like father, like son, the old saying goes."

Helga returned the smile with one that was probably just as crooked. She'd been careful, since Adrian had returned her to Demansk, to keep the identity of her baby's father a closely-held secret in the family. An unknown pirate's bastard was simply a tool for Demansk's enemies to shame him. Had it become widely known that the father of Helga's child had been Gellert himself, the repercussions might have been much worse.

But once they'd left on this voyage, she'd seen no reason to keep the secret from the new friends she was making. By the time they got back to the Confederacy — if they ever did — it would all be a moot point, anyway.

When she finally had her baby down to the point of occasional little sobs, Helga turned to Polla and whispered a few words of thanks.

Polla shrugged. "Not the first time I've had to take care of scared kids. Not the worst, neither — not by a long ways." She shook her head sadly. "I hate to see it, I really do. Children, specially babies, shouldn't be inflicted with the ills of the world."

Those words were the first thing which penetrated Helga's still-seething fury. Broke the rage, in fact, like a needle punctures a bubble.

Children, specially babies. .

There hadn't been any children, of course, on the pirate ship. But. . those "pirates," when all was said and done, had children of their own. Waiting for their fathers to return, back in a cluster of small fishing villages.

Helga's breath came in a little shudder. There would be no fathers returning this day. Nor any other. Helga's vengeance had destroyed those villages along with the fathers. Within weeks, she knew, as the word of the disaster spread, the nearby villages would start predating on their own. Men would come in little bands, raiding on the outskirts at first to test the rumor. Then, seeing it was true, would swarm the shattered villagers. Kill the men left — old or crippled, most of them — then sell the women and children into slavery.

Dozens of children, many of them no older than her own, had been doomed as well by Helga's vengeance. That vengeance had killed the fathers in less than an hour. It would torture their children for a lifetime.

"And so what?" she muttered, half snarling. She gave Polla a look which was almost one of appeal. But Polla only returned the look with those same soft, sad brown eyes.

"It's a pity," was all she said. "But that's the way of the world."

* * *

That night, as always, Jessep himself came down to the hold. The other senior men with "wives" aboard only visited them on occasion, but Jessep spent every night with Ilset folded into his arms.

"Folded," that is, using the term loosely. Sound carried in the hold, the partitioning cloths being no better insulators than thin linen ever is. Helga had been amused, impressed — and envious, truth to tell — at the sounds issuing from Jessep and Ilset's little partition each and every night since the voyage began. Middle-aged or no, head injury or no, Jessep Yunkers seemed to have neither difficulty nor reluctance keeping his healthy young wife entertained.

Unlike all the previous nights, however, Jessep came by her partition first. Helga heard him whisper through the cloth.

"Are you all right, ma'am?"

"I'm fine, First Spear." Then, moved by a sudden and powerful impulse: "Come in. Please."

A moment later, a bit gingerly, Jessep moved aside the cloth and stooped into her section. Helga was propped against a little pile of cushions, with her son asleep in the crook of her arm. With her right hand, she patted a space next to her.

"Sit. Please."

Jessep did as she bade him, although it was obvious that he felt very awkward in such close and casual familiarity with a noblewoman.

Helga gave him a smile which she intended to be reassuring. But, to her surprise, felt the smile dissolve into a little sob. A little sob which became wracking tears within seconds.

Now it was her turn to be enfolded in Jessep's embrace. There was nothing sexual about the contact, however. The man's strong arms reminded her of her father's, in the years now long past when she had been a child herself. And, though she'd always been a self-confident girl, there had been times when she'd needed that comfort.

"S'all right, girl," whispered Yunkers. " 'Ma'am,' I mean."

A laugh burst its way through the sobs. "Call me 'girl,' Jessep. Or 'lass' or whatever else you want. Just 'Helga' will do fine, for that matter."

She lifted her tear-blurred eyes and looked up at his blocky face. Smiling for the first time in hours.

"I'm not sure exactly how I feel about men in general, right at the moment. But I'm partial to fathers, that's for sure. And you remind me a lot of my own."

Jessep returned the smile with a little grimace. But it was a relaxed sort of wince. Even a bit of a serene one.

"Don't know as I've got his spirit. Sure as anything don't have his brains. But I'll do my best, young la — Helga."

She lowered her head and nestled it into his shoulder. "Tell me, Jessep. What do you think of vengeance?"