Blood and Oak- Wolves Will Eat

by Garrett Bettencourt

  Choose oil.

  How could it have come to this? John had escaped slavery, spent nearly five years surviving the streets of Philadelphia, trained to fight with the Basque mercenary Pavia, and crossed blades with pirates and smugglers—all to one end: The rescue of his family. With his brother Isaac murdered by the Barbary Pirates, his mother Nora killed at the hands of Varlick Naim, and his father Declan a broken wreck on the other side of the cell, that left only his sister Kaitlin. But instead of fighting for her, John was a powerless prisoner. She was out there, risking her life for him at this very moment, and there was nothing he could do. And if she got caught, if she fell into the clutches of Varlick Naim… John shut his eyes. The paper crumpled in his fist. To lose Kaitlin—to fail her again—would be more than John could bear.

  A door in the corridor growled open. John heard boots clunking toward their cell. He scrambled to tear up the note and hide the scraps in the chamber pot. A key clattered in the lock. The cell door opened and two Nizam-I Djedid marched in.

  A third soldier, whom John recognized as their commander, followed. Unlike his subordinates, Commander Isitan’s cardinal red coat had golden epaulettes and two columns of gold buttons. The ivory hilt of his saber was polished to a glass shine. He was lean, clean-shaven about his mustache, and only a few years older than John.

  Isitan squared up to John, his leather belts creaking. “The Chronicler requests your presence.”

  Chapter 3

  The Lake Fort

  Dungeons

  Sunday, September 11th, 1803

  Day 2, After Midnight

  Declan Sullivan hadn’t always been a coward. As he shivered in the cold and silence of the dungeon, he replayed the hours before the Wandering Hart’s capture. He thought of the calm that washed over him when his second ship, the Dolorous Fénnid, sailed toward him and his family. The bile in his stomach when a pirate flag ascended the Fénnid’s halyards. The nausea he felt as one of his own merchantmen was revealed to be a Trojan Horse. The pounding in his chest as he told Nora to hide the children. He’d been able to push these memories from his mind in the heat and noise of a rock quarry. But in this tomb, the past danced in the shadows.

  “The boats,” Nora cries. “We have to get the children and launch now.” She nearly breaks into a run, but Declan takes her arm.

  Nora’s amber eyes are wide with fright. Sweat beads on her face. His wife is the bravest woman he knows, and she’s terrified.

  “It’s too late,” Declan says. “The storm crippled our foremast. They’ll catch us if we run. Kill us if we fight. Get John and Katie to the hiding place.”

  “They’ll find them,” Nora’s chin quivers. Tears well in her eyes. “If we flee in the boats, maybe they’ll be content with the ship and let us go.”

  The thunder of cannon fire shatters the morning’s peace. Nora and Declan flinch. The pirate ship fires another warning shot from its long guns. The crackle of pistol and musket fire echoes across the water.

  “The Barbary Pirates want slaves,” argues Declan. “Especially women and children. But I still have a ransom savings in Belfast. Isaac and I will negotiate a bribe. I need you to hide Katie, then find a place for yourself.”

  “Declan…” Nora squeezes her husband’s hand. “What if they take you and Isaac? I can’t leave you.”

  “I won’t let that happen,” says Declan. He slows his breath, trying to hide his fear. He touches a hand to her face. A few of her golden-brown locks slip through his fingers. She’s his best friend in all the world. The love of his life. And these may be their final moments together. “Now, quickly! Go! We’ll find a way. I promise.”

  Nora’s eyes harden. She hurries off to find John and Kaitlin.

  Declan shut his eyes against the memory. He was ready to lay down his life that day. But such noble gestures would have made no difference. Captain Declan Sullivan had promised Nora he would protect her and the children, and she had trusted him. Her reward had been to witness the death of her first born, Isaac. To watch her second and third born, John and Kaitlin, become slaves. Whatever kind of man Declan was before that day, he was no longer. He had been responsible for his crew, his children, and his wife. In the hour when they most needed a captain, a father, and a husband, he failed as all three.

  A scraping broke the silence—a sound like a needle on metal. Declan scrambled back, convinced he was about to be assailed by one of the dungeon’s angry spirits. He looked about wild-eyed. There was a sharp click and the cell door swung open. Declan scratched at the bricks in the wall as if they were the ladder to his escape. Lamplight spread across the flagstones and a shadow grew like a corpse rising from the grave. A black-cloaked specter peered around the door at him, its Grim Reaper hood an empty abyss.

  “Please…” Declan slid toward the corner. In his haste, he kicked over the chamber spot, streaking the floor with foul waste. “Please go away.” He shut his eyes.

  The phantom closed the door, set down a glass lantern, and glided forward. Its arms reached as it neared, wisps of a burial shroud drawn against the light.

  “No,” sobbed Declan. His pleading was no use. In the next moment, cold ghostly fingers would drag him to Hell.

  “Da,” said a gentle Irish accent. A warm hand alighted on Declan’s. “It’s all right, it’s me.”

  Declan slowly uncoiled. Gone was the ghost of a moment ago, replaced by a girl in a black kaftan. She removed the cowl. A shaft of light fell on Kaitlin’s red hair and freckled face, her golden-brown eyes glowing like a tumbler of cognac. A sob sputtered out of him. Tears dropped from his eyelids as he beheld his fourteen-year-old daughter. A daughter he’d last seen vanish in a ball of fire. “Katie?” he said, voice trembling. “Is it really you?”

  “Aye, Da,” she replied, throwing her arms around him. “It’s Katie. I’m so sorry I didn’t come for you sooner. Really, I am. I wanted to tell you I was okay, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t…”

  Something in the sound of his daughter sniffling lifted the clouds over Declan’s mind. The father in him rose to the surface. He hugged her tight. “Hush now, girl. There’s nothing to be sorry for. You’re safe. That’s all that matters.”

  Kaitlin brushed a tear from her cheek. “There isn’t much time, Da. I can get us all out of here, but I need your help. Are you up to it?”

  Declan took a deep breath. “Lead the way, love.”

  A moment later, Declan hobbled out of the cell behind Kaitlin. She led him through a labyrinth of halls. Roman columns held iron sconces with burned-out torches. They supported a web of arched ceilings. The air was dry, yet smelled of seaweed. Beyond the light of Kaitlin’s lamp, all was darkness. Had he been alone, he would have been lost. Declan jumped as a rat scampered over his patchwork shoe.

  “Here,” said Kaitlin when they reached the end of a long corridor. She threw open the door to a cell and led him inside. Her lamplight spread across piles of wooden detritus, rats’ nests, and the odd rodent skeleton. The skull and rib cage of some poor soul were heaped at the foot of the far wall. A pair of chains dangled above. A hand bone was still caught in one shackle. In the corner, an entire chunk of wall had caved in, leaving a mound of stones.

  “Over here.” Kaitlin climbed onto the mound and moved debris. Her efforts soon revealed a crawlspace.

  “What’s this?” Declan wanted to know.

  With the excitement of a child reading a treasure map, Kaitlin explained, “An old escape route, dug during the Crusades. It connects to the old Roman sewers. Can you believe it, Da?” She wiped sweat from her forehead. “This place is as old as Ireland! Maybe older…”

  “I doubt that, love.”

  Kaitlin brushed a curl of hair from her face, sharing a smile with her da. Then she crawled through the hole in the wall.

  After a moment to steel himself against claustrophobia, Declan followed. When he pulled himself free on the other side, he found himself in a corridor even more ancient than the rest of the fort. Lamplight roamed o
ver a ceiling of coarse bricks. Ankle-deep water gathered in a ditch. Kaitlin offered a hand and helped Declan to his feet. The sewer tunnel was barely tall enough for a man to stand upright, and only wide enough for two to walk abreast.

  “These sewers run from the fort to an old Roman lighthouse at the other end of the island,” Kaitlin explained as she led on. “All that’s left of the lighthouse is a hill of dirt. That’s where I’ve hidden a boat. It’s our means of escape.”

  “And the Djedid soldiers don’t know about any of this?” Declan edged along the moldering water.

  “Not so far as I know. The sewers are mostly blocked or caved in. That hole in the dungeon is the only entrance I’ve found.”

  “And how do you know about all this?”

  Kaitlin flashed a proud grin at Declan. “What do you think I’ve been doing for the last year? After they brought you here from Red Mortar Redoubt, I worked my fingers to the bone planning your escape. I had everything in place months ago. But then I learned Naim had left the fort.”

  A dark cloud settled over Declan’s face. “He was looking for John.”

  Kaitlin nodded. “I waited for Naim’s return, in case he got both of you. Keen of me, eh?”

  “Very keen, love,” Declan agreed. He shuddered at the memory of telling his “chronicle” to John. Naim had wanted to capture John’s entire family and murder them before his eyes. When that failed, the Chronicler settled for capturing John and forcing him to listen to Declan’s long-practiced story. The story of how Nora and Kaitlin had died. Of how Declan had become a broken, cowering husk of a man. Of all the torments Declan had endured in Barbary slavery, seeing the scorn in his son’s eyes had been the worst.

  But one encouraging thought occurred to Declan. “Do you mean to say, when Naim forced me to tell the story, you were looking in on me?”

  “Aye, some nights…” whispered Kaitlin. “I’ve been coming to the lake island almost once a week to case the fort, study the guards, practice my route—that sort of thing.” She looked back at Declan again, one eye eclipsed by a red curl. “I wanted to tell you I was alive—you don’t know how bad. But I couldn’t risk it. You have to believe me, Da.”

  “I know, lass,” said Declan. “You did the right thing. Naim had to believe you were dead.”

  Kaitlin nodded and turned her eyes forward again.

  They continued in silence until they came to another crawlspace perpendicular to the main sewer. Kaitlin led Declan on hands and knees through another claustrophobic tunnel and into a wide, round chamber. Moonlight fell upon a stagnant cesspool. He looked up through a vertical shaft in the domed ceiling. The shaft climbed ten feet up to a storm drain. The starry night was visible through iron bars.

  “What’s up there, love?” Declan asked, his voice reverberating off the granite walls.

  “Shh!” whispered Kaitlin, a finger to her lips. “Careful, Da! The Djedid could hear you. That’s the courtyard up there. The guards think the drain only leads to a cesspit and nothing else. It took weeks for me to unblock that passage. If they catch on, my plan is fecked.”

  “Aye, as you say, love,” Declan whispered. He frowned. “And that’s no kind of word for a lady.”

  Kaitlin shrugged. “Mam said it sometimes. So did you.”

  “My Nora? Never!” Seeing Kaitlin’s skeptical look, Declan turned sheepish. “Well, maybe once or twice—we were among sailors, after all. But we ought not have. And nor should you.”

  “Aye, Da, as you say.” Kaitlin sighed, opened the glass door of her lantern, and blew out the candle. She picked up a crude ladder of driftwood and twine. “I’ve another task I must be off to. While I’m away, there’s a job I need you to do. Will you be all right on your own for a bit?”

  A crack opened in Declan’s resolve. All at once, he became aware he stood in an ancient hole in the earth, likely haunted by tormented souls. A silent maze of stone and decay he couldn’t hope to navigate. He looked back down the corridor. From somewhere in that abyss, he heard the plunk of a single water drop. His heart pounded. Sweat pooled under his arms.

  “I’ll be fine, child,” Declan said as airily as if he were strolling his quarterdeck.

  “Good,” said Kaitlin. “Now listen carefully. There isn’t much time.”

  Chapter 4

  The Lake Fort

  Grand Tower Suite

  Sunday, September 11th, 1803

  Day Two, After Midnight

  The Nizam-I Djedid led John Sullivan into the grand tower suite. Beyond the horseshoe windows, a few lights of Tunis winked along the city shore. A southerly breeze replaced the stench of the lake with the scent of the Mediterranean. Varlick Naim stood before the grand hearth, staring into the ravening flames. Light licked over his gaunt visage. His shadow shivered against the tapestries. The two guards led John to the fireplace, the twenty pounds of chain on his ankles scraping on the floor. The soldiers melted into the gloom beyond the firelight.

  Naim’s eyes didn’t lift from the crackling flames. “I can never sleep the night before I begin my work. Not in all these years in the sultan’s service. I first believed it was fear of death. Later, fear of failure. Finally, I called it fear of losing my wife and children. But I have outlived all my fears, and still… I cannot sleep.”

  It took John off-guard. During the march up the spiral stairs, he’d been carefully planning his words for Naim. Proposals of compromise. Indictments of injustice. Epithets of defiance. All fine-tuned to Naim’s imagined crowing, accusing, or cackling. John never expected to find Naim quiet and reflective. For all John’s planned courage, his heart hammered in his chest. He tried to hide his fear, but his voice trembled as he said, “I would expect not. Sleep doesn’t come easily to murderers.”

  A wry smile pulled at Naim’s lip. He looked at John. “I knew you would understand. Bloody Sully.” He gestured to one of two tall-backed chairs arranged before the hearth. “Please.”

  John scoffed. “You may have my father sniveling and sipping tea with you, Naim, but I’m no craven old quarry slave. I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

  “Why not share a few words by the fire? The alternative will be far less pleasant.”

  “You want to share a fire? Fetch our swords and I’ll see you in Hell.”

  Naim gave a wry smirk. “Last night, you asked me what I want. If you still want the answer, sit.” Naim’s gaze turned menacing. “Hell will wait.”

  John considered refusing, but then his eyes landed on Naim’s missing right ear. Since hearing Declan’s story, the mangled flesh took on new meaning. A year ago, John’s mother Nora, had bitten Naim to buy time for Kaitlin’s escape—at the cost of her life. The animal under John’s skin snapped and clawed to get out, and it was all he could do not to lunge and strangle the life out of his mother’s murderer. But John had already lost one fight to Naim, and he needed to buy Kaitlin time. Revenge would have to wait. John took the offered seat.

  Naim took the other chair, his yellow-green eyes flickering as he looked into the hearth. “At Red Mortar Redoubt, I told you the time comes for every man when he must taste defeat. Now, I will tell you of my own.

  “Sultan Selim III made many enemies when he founded his elite army, the Nizam-I Djedid. A faction of Istanbul Janissaries vowed Selim’s assassination and the destruction of his new soldiers. The ringleader of the traitors, a Corbaci named Babacan, managed to elude all the sultan’s agents and spies.” Naim’s head rolled toward John. A cold smile crept over his lips. “So, the sultan sent me.”

  With his oiled hair and goatee, and swatches of grey bringing kindness to his features, Varlick Naim looked as harmless as a scholar. But dark circles around his eyes told another story.

  “Like all men,” continued Naim, “Babacan had a weakness—vanity. He commissioned painters from all over the empire for his various portraits. Curiously, he commissioned a painting of something in a remote village outside Istanbul. As the artist journeyed from the hinterlands to deliver his work, I relieved him
of the sealed portrait and assumed his identity.”

  “Somehow, I doubt that painter got a bribe and went merrily on his way,” said John wryly.

  The fire burned in Naim’s eyes. A chill crawled over John’s skin. He wondered how many innocent bystanders Naim had sent to the grave over the years. A sobering reminder that the man’s sophistication, charm, and finery were the camouflage of a predator.

  “As I handed Babacan the sealed painting,” Naim went on, “I reached for the hilt of my hidden knife. In the next minute, he and his bodyguard would be dead. But then Babacan unfurled the portrait, and I saw the image for the first time. It was a simple family—three sons, two daughters, and a wife—all living in a humble cottage. No one had known the traitor had a family. Intrigued, I asked, ‘Sidi Babacan, why would you send for a portrait of your family? What if an agent of the sultan had discovered their existence?’

  “He replied, ‘That is why I never use the same artist, and why I employ such secrecy.’

  “‘But why take the risk?’ I asked.

  “He said, ‘why do you do what you do, master artisan?”

  “I thought of my fifty years of service to three sultans. I thought of all my sacrifice and toil as the Chronicler. I thought of my absent son and my choice to come out of retirement. And for the first time in my life, I realized I had no answer. I said, ‘I do it because it’s what I do well.’

  “Babacan answered, ‘That is how you practice your art, but not why. I know why I fight the oppression of the sultan. Where most men look for a mirror to know themselves, I look to my children and my wife. In their eyes, I learn who I am as a man.’”