...go in and kill her.

You’ve waited long enough. You step back into the middle of the room and consider; poison or no poison? Stashing a poison dagger in the holster next to your bear thigh is a bad idea on many levels; if you poison the blade, it has to be kept drawn all the way. You know from the man on the roof that you can draw it as quickly as you need to and with only one opponent, poison is less necessary. With that decided, you walk towards the door with your stiletto and poison vial still against your leg. A quick peek into the hall way shows it to be as empty as when you used it last and you slip through the doorway to occupy the empty space.

You move back to the landing light to glance down into the foyer. It’s empty, with no sign of the merchants anywhere. In fact, the whole mansion seems to be quiet, holding its breath after the noises that cut through its walls. You maintain the quiet with gentle steps, but you walk tall across the deserted landing to the double doors, slipping through them unchallenged.

You enter a small windowless antechamber with a large table in its centre and various chests and wardrobes around its side. You look to the table and see the charts and maps in the flickering light of one of the walls lanterns. What are you going to say? You think back to the overheard conversation while looking at the maps of unfamiliar islands and remember that Captain Roland was looking at something, something that impressed him. It was about a ship that the Lady Preda Pravean was on board. You try to remember, knuckling your forehead as you halt your progress. They said that ‘the ransom alone could match everything else on board’, and he whistled as if he knew exactly how much that would be. He was probably looking at a ledger or manifest of some kind. You’ll just ask for it and keep it vague. Your hand is on the door latch and you realise that you’ve just been stalling. Your heartbeat quickens with anticipation. Moment of truth. You give the door a quick knock, only three taps, before you pull the latch and push through.

She’s still half standing, half sitting against the end of the bed, her handkerchief holding hand between her legs.

You open your mouth to speak.

She looks at you flatly as several seconds go by.

“…”

There is no excuse that would work! Nothing could explain your presence in this woman’s room!

“I, I, I’m here, er, I mean my Captain sent me here, that is, er, Captain Roland...” Damn it, she knows that from your uniform! Double damn it, you shouldn’t have mentioned the name of the man who just **** her! You thought you were good with conversation!

You cast your eyes at the floor, speaking quickly. “My captain sent me to pickuptheledgermam.” Not good, but better.

“What?” she replies flatly. Sweat beads on your forehead.

“My captain sent me to pick up the ledger mam.” You look down at a drop of wetness on the floor, right where her head was when he-

“What ledger? You mean the manifest?”

Triple damn it!

“Yes mam, sorry mam” Why are you so nervous? Is it because of what you’ve just seen? Because of who she is? Or is it because of what you’re about to do? Even sitting her recently sodomised rear on the edge of the bed, it’s no contest as to who is in control. You swallow. If you can just get nearer.

“Look at me.” You head snaps up at the command, as if jerked by strings. You catch her eye but can’t hold her gaze. “Did you see a black haired maid when you came up here, skinny, taller than you?”

That must be ‘Misty’.

“No mam” you respond, setting her leaning back, a pained look crossing her face at the added pressure on her rear.

She sighs and looks at you through the fatigue clouding her eyes. “You’ll do until she gets here.” She resumes her wiping more vigorously, rushing to the end of the task she started and causing the fleshier parts of her anatomy to jump and jiggle in a hypnotising fashion. “Go through that door, under the washstand, get me the bottle marked ‘Maggie’s Absolver Ointment’, the short green one at the front if reading isn’t your thing, and bring it here.”

It’s not a request. She had gestured to the door on the left wall, near a wardrobe, and, as your eyes can’t help but jump to, near the peephole as well. You walk towards the door and go through with the obedience her voice commands.

It’s a small bathroom, definitely the cause of the alcove in the previous room, and has a small narrow window and a single stub of a flickering candle, neither of which provides good lighting. Despite its small size, it contains a beautiful brass bathtub against the windowed wall and an ornate dresser with a vast mirror in its centre and cabinet doors on its lower frame. Many small objects are scattered across its surface, the most useful of which is the remains of several small candles sitting in a slope of their own melted wax. You gently pry a candle off the smooth surface, the perfectly flat edge of the melted slope coming with it in a most satisfactory way, and open the doors below, using the light to find the bottle she requested.

You do, in short order. Its round and the words written on the label are unsteady, as though written by someone unused to writing or possibly someone who stuck the label on first and then wrote on the curved surface. You take a breath, just get close and stab, don’t over think it.

You return to the room, leaving the candle behind but presenting the ointment to the naked woman. She stands before the bed, red marks on her skin eager to turn black and blue with time, leaning with a calm ease that’s frozen in **** stillness, telling of pain being kept at bay through stubbornness. As you approach, she takes the bottle from you with a courteous nod and uncorks the top, rubbing some of the clear liquid contents between her hands. Your just on the edge of an arm’s reach, close enough to see the angry red bite marks around both of her erect nipples, almost at the edge of bleeding. Evidently, Captain Roland is missing a tooth at the front of his lower jaw, the zigzag of crooked teeth leaving a pale break on her skin. She hands the bottle back to you before rubbing her nipples with her palms, not just over the marks from his mouth, but over all the redness his grasping hands had given her. You look at the bottle again, ‘Ointment’ is definitely spelt wrong.

“It’s from the north.” she says, still rubbing herself idly. “A witch on the edge of the ice steppe. That would probably be worth more gold than you’ve ever seen...” she flashes you a smile, “...if anyone respected herb lore.”

You give it another look; the bottle is clearly from the central province but the minty smelling liquid it contains is unknown to you. You’ve heard that plants up in the far north have some strange properties but you have only ever dealt with the illegal **** made by them.

“Good people up there. While a man can take any woman he wants, any woman can do the same. Strength is what matters most.”

Yes, you had already heard they were all savages.

She moves from her breasts to some of the other aches and pains along her body. “In a man’s world, women need to stand up and make them listen, to take control.”

You bite back the retort that writhes on your tongue. The indignity! That she would compare her own personal quest for riches with the fate of all women! The women alone that have suffered because of her...

“Come on girl, spit it out. I’m not Roland. Clearly you have something to say and I want to hear it.” You swap the bottle into your left hand, freeing up your right while you control your features. Before you move, you have to ask.

“Is that what you did with Captain Roland? Take control?” You wander if your angry words have just gone way too far, you don’t really want her to send you away or call some guards, and you especially don’t want her reaching for her sword.

“Yes” she replies simply, rubbing her bruised knees with the ointment, “He wanted to fuck me so I let him. He wanted screaming so I screamed. In return he has, knowingly or unknowingly, put his life in my hands,” she glances at you again, “and the life of his crew.”

You’re shocked. Surely she can’t be serious? She must be trying to rationalise her attack, or the years of rapes have trivialised it in her mind? An attack like that can’t be worth anything.

She heaves a sigh and continues her idle chatter. “When you have had nothing, truly nothing, you realise that everything has a price. Women tend to put too higher price on the things that men just take anyway; their body’s, their future, their love. Many of my crew are made up of people who were just like you; women whose lives were controlled against their will and who accepted it just because it was the norm. Victims of circumstance.” She turns to look at you, catching the incredulous look that briefly flares on your face. Describing any of her crew as victims is...delusional at best. While the women didn’t **** as often, they still killed children.

“What’s your name girl?” She asks with an intrigued half smile.

“Er...T-Tina” you answer. You knew a Tina once; sent her to prison for threatening a baby with a broken bottle.

The Captain stands to look at you, seeming done with the medicine. You admit that the redness is already diminishing were she applied it, fading under the glisten it leaves behind. You try to keep looking her in the eyes, but it’s not easy. At a head taller, you have to look up past her breasts to see her face, and you can’t help but feel a little intimidated by her form, both in its demeanour and femininity. Faced wide hips and thighs, and a generous bust, you feel like a child standing before a fully grown woman.

“Well Tina, out with it?” You’re close. Close enough to tell the truth.

“How can you call a ship of rapists and murders victims?”

She laughs, airy and light yet with genuine mirth. “A fair point.” She smiles down at you before reaching up and placing a finger under your jaw, brushing a thumb across your cheek. The movement is a quick and natural sign of affection. She cocks her head as though making some decision known only to her.

You see her eyes flick down to the ointment in your hand. “Be a dear and do the back would you? Down the middle if you’d be so kind” She turns her back on you, resting her arms against the bedpost.

It’s the perfect time to strike.

You start to lower into a crouch, aiming to put the bottle gently onto the floor to free up your hands.

“Many of my crew are women, as I’m sure you know. Not yet the majority, but more than on any other ship. They were made victims by society. Women who were slaves to their husbands, girls sold to men twice their age to pay the debts of their fathers, women unable to pursue honest work because the law forbids them, or women who were simply sick of being used like property by the men in their lives.”

You stop in a crouch, ointment almost to the floor. That has an uncomfortable truth to it. You remember the day you were turned away from the great school of law in Losh’s central province, even though you had studied more of the law than nearly all other students entering that year, all men of course. Next was the citizen guard who wouldn’t let a woman combat crime for ‘ethical reasons’. If becoming an Agent of the Principality’s wasn’t open to anyone willing to sign up to its strict honour code then you’re not sure what you would have done. You snap out of your memories and look up at Captain Washkin.

That was a mistake.

Crouched as you are, you immediately get an eye full of the woman’s wide hipped behind. Her cheeks are red and show more redness closer to the orifice, which is just visible between them. Below that you can see the bed through a small gap between her legs; sheets still a mess and the folds of her womanhood still clearly hairless.

You quickly stand and respond.

“T-There are other professions a woman can take outside of crime...”

Your eyes widen. Damn it! Why not just tell the woman about the profession you settled on while you’re at it! You nervously put some of the ointment on your hands and put the bottle down before you rub it onto her shoulders. You silently curse as you realise that your stiletto will be much harder to grip now.

Why are you so flustered?

“Not many”, she responds, “The main job women have in the principalities is to bend over. Be it for a stranger or a husband, the transaction is the same: getting fucked for whatever she can get. Women are already in prison in society, may as well earn it trying to get free.” Your hands move over the red hand marks on her shoulders, souvenirs from Captain Roland’s rough treatment.

“And you’re going to free them?” you say with **** idleness. The fat fingers of his handprints dwarf your own small digits.

“No, I’m going to kill there oppressors. Women can’t hold positions of power unless there born to it and even then...” She leaves the statement unfinished. Noble women rarely hold power, and if they do it’s usually due to a trick of marriage or manipulation. Everyone knows the expression: there are three types of whores; street whores, courtesans and noble women. “The merchants and nobles encourage the idea that women can’t do anything and they make the law follow suit, but as long as they get their power from trade then I’ll make them shrivel up and die. They’ll watch as a woman owns them.”

Her words still don’t add up to what you have seen with your own eyes. Men, women and children are all brutalised when her crew pulls ashore. You move down her back with your hands, feeling upon it as many curious contradictions as her words contain. You feel the slimness of her frame, yet feel also the knots of taught muscle beneath. You feel how soft and smooth her fair skin is, yet stroke across a myriad of small scars, some recent and some very old. Each hold their own tale of **** at the hands of a man.

You respond without thinking.

“You talk about helping women but I know your crew rapes and kidnaps just as much as any other.” You feel her chest expand and empty as she sighs.

“I prefer to get my supplies from merchant ships. The food there is better and stocked for long voyages, but they don’t make it easy. I raid land only when my supplies are ****, and then only land owned by rich barons. What my crew does to the village and its people is only what they would be doing normally; I just give them less opportunity to do it. They would all be doing far worse things without me to direct them. I think some of the more loyal know it as well.” She says the last part quietly, as if to herself.

There is a brief pause in the conversation as you both think to yourselves. You work the ointment in down to the bottom of her spine like she asked, wondering why you haven’t killed her yet. Surely she deserves it. Right?

“How often have you been ****?” Your hands stop at her sudden question and your mind blanks. The alley, the mud, red blood on your white dress. She continues, softly. “At least once, what with Roland’s ‘initiation’. Am I right?”

You try to speak but your voice catches in your throat. You swallow to clear it before flatly saying,

“Yes. At least once.”

Captain Washkin, a woman who must have been **** an uncountable number of times, who you watched being **** this very night, turns to you, puts her hand on your face and gently says, “Men need to know that it’s not acceptable, and it has to be women that teach them.” There is no sympathy in her eyes, just kind understanding.

They cut you to the core.

“The guard can help.” And did. You don’t know why you said it, but it’s the truth. Again, her thumb strokes your cheek, more in gentle comfort than before. Her expression doesn’t change, still so uncomfortably understanding.

“That is a brave view for an outlaw to take, but I agree with you up to a point. The citizen guard can be good people, but would they help if it was a noble or a rich merchant doing it?” You both know the answer to that. They would do the best they could, but there would be little justice in the end.

You look to the side, unable to meet her question, and she leans her head to follow you, catching your eyes once more, “That’s the beauty of attacking at sea; the noble and merchant classes use mercenaries or the standing army to transport their goods. Lives worth far less than any honest pirate.” She smiles at you, putting both her hands lightly on each side of your jaw, tilting your face upward towards her, “I doubt you’ve been a pirate very long so I’ll tell you this: there have always been pirates and always will be. The more I have, the more I can direct towards the people who deserve it.” She’s closer than ever. You see the length of golden hair pulled over her shoulder and resting comfortably between her breasts, covering the necklace. Her pink nipples are level with your eyes and try to catch your gaze with their own erect ferocity.

Your words barely come out as a whisper, “Not all pirates share your view. You make us all stronger...” Two quick knocks and the door swings open.

“Sorry for the delay captain, I was being distracted downstairs.” You turn to see a woman by the door, as tall as Captain Washkin, or perhaps only seeming so with her willowy, slim figure. She has a cleaned combed waterfall of straight black hair down to her shoulders, framing an angular face, made more so by its high cheekbones. She wears the short brown dress of a house servant, though lacking the white apron that usually accompanies it. This must be Misty.

“I’m not interrupting anything...am I?”

You turn back to Captain Washkin who is still holding your face and standing completely naked by the bed.

“No, and fortunately Tina was here to do much of your job.” She turns back to you and holds your head again, stronger this time yet far from hurting. “And to answer your question Tina, yes we will get stronger, but I will lead. I decide who captains what ships, takes what cargo, who crosses safely and who doesn’t. While that happens, pirates like Roland will become a dying breed.” Her hands move down to your shoulders and she bends down to look at you on your own level. Her face takes on a serious expression. “I like you Tina. You’re smart and not afraid to ask questions. Join my crew...we’ll change the world together.”

There’s an offer you don’t hear every day. Again, she is close. The breath from her perfect red lips breaks on your face. In her eyes, highlighted by perfectly applied makeup...she believes it, or you think she does. Wouldn’t controlling criminals and reforming them, using them to change the world for the better, be preferable to breaking them into innumerable bands of unrestrained savagery? You see the logic; you can’t kill every criminal so you lump them together and lead them, directing their appetites. On the other hand, the lesser evil is still evil. Do you have the stomach to walk this woman’s path? Could you guide it in a better direction? Your years as an Agent, working as your own detective, have given you the ability to see problems from all sides, but surely you’re not going to become a criminal...are you? She smiles again...

Held in the hands of your target, you straddle two worlds in an odd moment.