Blood and Oak- Wolves Will Eat

by Garrett Bettencourt

  “Let’s hear the message again,” John said as he looked over Ethan’s shoulder.

  Ethan sighed. “We’ve rewritten it a dozen times. What’s the point in—”

  “One more time. It has to be perfect.”

  Ethan sighed. He read the English version of the fake dispatch:

  To all Nizam-I Djedid lieutenants,

  Deploy your forces to the palace. Your numbers are few, but your talents unmatched. Let the Janissaries arm their flagship to retake a worthless fort. While they dither about the harbor, the barracks, and the slave markets, you will strangle their city by the neck.

  The Chronicler.

  “That’s better,” John said. “That sounds more like him.”

  Ethan shrugged and went back to copying. “All I did was add a little arrogance.”

  Declan scoffed. The old sea captain sat on his bed of straw, picking at a boil on his foot with a knife. “I had tea every night for a year with that man. You’ve got the measure of him.”

  Kaitlin didn’t opine—she was asleep again, her bedroll tucked beneath the slope of an upper-floor stairwell. She had slept most of the day, waking only once to eat a bowl of bulgur and translate Naim’s false chronicle. As quickly as she woke, she dozed off again.

  John looked over the translation. “It looks perfect, mate.”

  The word cut like a barb, and Ethan shot a frown at John. Mate. A friendly Irish honorific that had lost its charm. The tortured confession of last night opened Ethan’s eyes to the truth: John’s quest to save his family had been a mask. A mask to hide his obsession with revenge. It turned out no one had escaped John’s path of destruction, least of all Ethan. John had gambled with a slave owner for Ethan’s freedom. Most sickening of all, Ethan still loved John like a brother. The word “mate” was a bitter reminder that, in the end, they weren’t brothers. John was an Irishman. Ethan was an African. They were men from different worlds. Perhaps Buford had been right after all. It was time to “turn loose of fool notions.”

  John offered a smile, a sheepish attempt at an olive branch. “Old habits.”

  As usual, John had a way of disarming Ethan in spite of himself. But Ethan held his frown and went back to work. A few minutes later, after the letter was done and the ink dry, he rolled the missive into a scroll. Heating a stick of wax by a candle flame, he let melted drops fall on the paper seam. John produced an iron stamp the size of a penny—Buford’s copy of Naim’s signet ring—and pressed it to the green wax. The result was a crescent-shaped stamp, inset with an elaborate Arabic symbol. Varlick Naim’s false orders were complete. Ethan handed the sealed scroll to John, who held it with the greatest care.

  The fate of every American in Tunis now depended on a fake scroll. If the Janissaries believed it was genuine, they would be lured to the palace. If they didn’t, the dockyards would be well guarded, thwarting any chance of stealing a ship. Ethan, John, and Kaitlin had done their best to write a convincing missive, but words meant nothing without the Chronicler’s official seal. In the end, it all came down to Buford’s forgery.

  “Thank you, Ethan,” John said. “Fine work.”

  “It’s time,” said Kaitlin.

  Ethan and John looked toward the small window. Kaitlin opened the shutters and twilight spilled across her face. To their surprise, Kaitlin had awakened beneath their notice and readied for her mission. She was dressed in black again, her belt of tools and throwing sticks visible through the part in her kaftan. She stared across the long gabled rooftop abutting the windmill, her eyes as distant as the stars.

  John joined her at the window, following her gaze across the city. “Let me come with you, Kait. I promise I’ll stay out of your way.”

  Kaitlin shook her head. “It’s one thing to steal and get away unseen. But for the mark to never know you were there—that’s the hardest kind of job. A task for a thief.”

  “What if something goes wrong? We can find another way. I can’t bear the thought of you out there alone.”

  “I’ve been ‘out there alone’ for more than a year. Besides, it’s too late to change the plan. I have my job. You have yours.”

  Declan groaned as he got up from his bedroll. His joints popped as he limped over to Kaitlin. “Be careful, love. Come back to me safe now, ye hear?”

  “I will, Da.” Kaitlin hugged her father.

  “I love you with all my heart.” Declan’s eyes were milky with tears.

  “I love you too, Da.”

  “Don’t take any chances, Kait,” added John. “Remember the signal if you get into trouble. I’ll see you at the docks before dawn.”

  “I know, Johnny,” Kaitlin said. “I’m not a little girl anymore. I can take care of myself.”

  John’s nose reddened and he nodded. “I know you are, Kait. I’m proud of you.”

  Her expression softened, and she embraced her brother.

  “Good luck, Kaitlin,” said Ethan.

  Kaitlin nodded at Ethan. Then she drew the cowl over her head, climbed out the window, and started across the roof.

  John and Declan stared after her for a moment. They looked askance at one another, then paced away.

  “Johnny…”

  The two men whirled, startled to find Kaitlin crouching just outside the window.

  “I’m glad you found me,” she said.

  “I am too, Rabbit,” said John.

  It was strange to watch the Sullivans. Until now, John’s long lost father, mother, and sister had been a mythical image in Ethan’s mind. Like figures of ancient history. When Ethan imagined their reunion, he always pictured a scene of joy. The reality had turned out different. John held his father in contempt. Declan wore the shame in his son’s eyes like a yoke. Kaitlin stood as the last bridge between the two men, and a shaky one at that. One more burden on her weary soul.

  “I hope we’re doing the right thing.” John ran a hand through his long hair.

  “She’ll be all right,” Declan said. “She lived in that palace. She knows every hall and room. She’ll be at the docks before dawn.”

  “I’m glad you’re so sure,” John sneered. “I should have gone with her. I should have insisted.”

  “Believe me, son, I know how hard this is. I’ve been through it before. But our presence would only put her in danger. The Silver Hand trained her to move swift and silent on her own.”

  John stabbed a finger at his father. “Unlike you, Declan, I don’t like others fighting my battles.”

  “Watch your mouth, boy!” said Declan with a surprising flash of vigor. “Hate me all you like. Disrespect your crippled old da if it makes you feel a big man. But don’t you dare question my love for my daughter! I’d give my life to spare her another minute of danger.”

  “If only you had given your life,” grumbled John. “Five years ago—when you were a captain! But instead—you gave up the ship.”

  “You’re right, I’m a coward. I surrendered. If only I sent my crew of twelve against a hundred pirates. If only I put swords in my children’s hands instead of bargaining for their lives. Things would have been different. Better dead than slaves, that about right, John?”

  “At least I know what it is to fight—to stand up to evil men, not become their whipped dog!”

  “Gentlemen, this isn’t helping,” said Ethan.

  “No, no, Mr. Auldon,” said Declan with a wry smirk. “I’m grateful to hear a lesson from the haughty Mr. Midshipman. And I think I’ll give him one of my own.” Declan looked at John with hard eyes. “You think you know what it is to be a captain? A father? One day, when you have a couple epaulets on that fancy uniform, the men under your command are going to be counting on you. Men with mothers and fathers, wives or sweethearts, sons or daughters. Every one of them as desperate to live as the next. And on that day, as you look into their eyes and realize you can’t save them all, that’s when you’ll know what it is to be a leader. To be a man.”

  John scoffed. “Whatever I learned about being a man, I didn’t
learn from you. Besides, I deserted the Navy. I won’t need to worry about any epaulets.”

  Declan smiled as if he’d caught his child stealing sweets. “I don’t believe that for a second. You want that uniform back. I know that hunger in your eyes because I had it too. You want a ship of your own.”

  “If I ever have a ship, I’ll die before I surrender. That’s where we’re different. I will carry you to freedom, Declan. Because you’re my father, and because it’s what Katie wants, and because it’s what’s right. But I will never forgive you.”

  “That suits me bloody fine!” Declan folded his arms. Water collected in his eyes.

  The two men retreated to opposite sides of the room. John ran his rapier over a whetstone. Declan sewed a hole in his boot. Ethan laid down and tried to doze, listening to the muffled Arab music, but he tossed and turned. As the hours passed, the music and chatter from the taproom died away. It was near midnight when Buford unlocked the attic door and stepped inside.

  The burly barkeep looked at the three men with his forked stare. “The courier has made contact. All arrangements are made. Your presence is required directly, Mr. Sullivan.”

  “I’ll be down in a moment.” John got to his feet.

  “Is the tavern cleared out?” asked Declan.

  “The River Falls is closed for the night,” Buford said.

  “Good.” Declan’s cane thumped on the floorboards. “I could use a pint.”

  When Buford and Declan were gone, John dug a roughspun tunic and trousers from his dunnage. He took off his midshipman’s coat and dressed in the clothes of Barbary slaves.

  “You know, John,” said Ethan, “your father’s been through a lot.”

  “I’m sure he has.” John laced up his trousers.

  “Don’t you think you’ve been a little hard on the man? After all, he’s your father.”

  “Why do you care?”

  Ethan sighed. “Honestly, I don’t know. But this enmity for your father confounds me. Not every battle is winnable. Captains give up the ship all the time.”

  “Aye, captains like Bainbridge,” John snapped.

  “And what did we do when Naim had us surrounded at Red Mortar Redoubt? If we hadn’t surrendered, he would have slaughtered us all. And we wouldn’t have this chance for freedom.”

  “That was different.”

  “No, it wasn’t. Declan didn’t want to surrender any more than you did. Sometimes, there isn’t another choice. Your father’s not the enemy John—Naim and the Barbary pirates are.”

  John snorted. “So if the Tindalls invaded your house, you’d be happy to see your father on his knees, eh?”

  The quip stung Ethan like a slap in the face. “Go to Hell!”

  “I’m in Hell, thanks to my father. At least I’ve got a plan to get out.”

  Ethan scoffed. “I don’t know why I bother. After all this, here I am trying to save you from your own stubborn pride.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t.” John drew a patchwork cloak over his shoulders.

  “Maybe it’s your Goddamn ingratitude. Your father was dead, John. You believed that for years. Now, he’s here. Alive. God’s given you a miracle, and you’re slapping it away.” Ethan stomped toward the door and flung it open. “You know what I’d give for one more day with my father? One more minute?”

  John stared at Ethan, at a loss for words.

  Ethan slammed the door shut and headed down to the taproom. As it turned out, he too could use a pint.

  Chapter 26

  The City Bastedan

  City of Tunis

  Monday, September 12th, 1803

  Day 3, Late Evening

  The bastedan looked strange in the pale light of the rising moon. A vast empty square enclosed by arcades of arches. Above the walls, minarets cut silhouettes against the stars. All was peaceful, but in a matter of hours, the slave market of Tunis would be bustling. Buford led John under the shadows of a colonnade, returning nods to a few passing guards. The black marketeer had more freedom than most slaves—most Tunisians, for that matter. Too many of the city’s elite owed him. As his master’s preferred servant, no one questioned Buford’s reasons for a midnight errand with a lower-ranking slave.

  Thirty pounds of iron chain dragged from John’s ankle—part of his disguise. It brought back the memory of his last visit to this square. He’d been a fifteen-year-old boy witnessing his mother and father sold at auction. He could still feel the heat of the sunbaked limestone. He could see in his mind’s eye the rows of men, women, and children daisy-chained together. Hear the catcalls of the sellers. Smell the stench of unwashed bodies. John felt as though walking over graves.

  John’s calf seized as if the muscle were balling into a fist. It was the calf the Barbary Pirates sliced open a month ago in battle. Like the barely-healed wounds on his back and side, it ached more and more since his torture. Moreover, he’d slept poorly at Buford’s over the daylight hours, constantly waking up with fits of coughing from his bout of pneumonia. Add the throbbing in his wrist and ankle from Naim’s gallows, and every step got harder. John fell to a knee.

  “This will not do,” said Buford looking around the square. A Janissary patrol on the opposite side of the square looked in their direction. Despite Buford’s privileged status, he appeared nervous. “Best keep moving.”

  “I’ll be fine.” John grimaced. He kneaded his calf with his knuckles. “I just need a minute.”

  “Hmm.” Buford dug in the pockets of his kaftan. “At times, I have supplied your sister with certain tonics of a sleep-inducing nature. For other customers, I have supplied a tonic aimed at the opposite effect.” Buford produced a small bundle of parchment from his kaftan. He unwrapped it, revealing a roll of packed green leaves. He handed a pinch to John. “Chew it, much as you would tobacco.”

  “What is it?”

  Buford looked at John with the vacant eyes of a skull. His voice was like a baritone drumroll. “Chew it.”

  John was about to protest, but then he remembered his position—in the middle of the bastedan, with a chain shackled to his ankle, and his plan hanging in the balance. He took the pinch and pressed it under his lip. It tasted like something rancid, and he tried to spit it out.

  Buford’s grip snapped closed on John’s mouth. “Chew.”

  At the mercy of this beast of a man, John had no choice but to obey. The leaves spilled their foul juice as his mind raced. He reached for his dagger Spade, hidden in a belt under his tunic, ready to fight. But then, a warm tingling spread from his chest to his limbs. He felt heady with euphoria. Buford let go of his jaw, and John asked, “What is this stuff? It tastes like piss.”

  Buford handed the rest of the pouch to John. “Qat. An Arabian plant of some popularity. Said to invigorate the body and…” He raised an eyebrow. “…the lebito. It will soothe your pain and weariness. Keep the rest.”

  “Why didn’t you say so at the River Falls? I could have used medicine then.”

  Buford started walking again, John in tow. “I could not supply such in front of Miss Kaitlin. Taken to excess, Qat can have dire effects. She would not approve of the danger.”

  “Right. But you’ll force it down my throat behind her back?” John spat a green glob on a limestone column.

  “I need you on your feet until Miss Kaitlin is free of this city. Your welfare thereafter is of no concern.”

  “Of course,” John said wryly. As the Tennessean plodded along, eyes locked in a distant stare, John shuddered at the thought of Kaitlin being alone with him. Declan’s warnings were beginning to make sense. In Kaitlin’s presence, Buford had a dim ember of compassion. In her absence, that glow snuffed out. For all her wits, Kaitlin was as naive as any girl her age. “Why are you helping my sister?”

  Buford was quiet for a long moment. “Such affairs are my own. Suffice that our aims are in accord, if not our methods.”

  “What do you mean ‘if not our methods?’”

  “You ought to have left this city w
ith your kin, your Negro, and your wench. Instead, you entangled Miss Kaitlin in dark deeds. You now push her to step through a door that, once traveled, she will find shut forever.”

  “If we try to flee in some dinghy, Naim will hunt us down like dogs. To survive, we need a strong ship and a fighting crew. I would never risk my sister’s life if there were another way. My plan is the only plan. And it’s going to work.”

  Buford turned away. “We shall see.”

  Reluctantly, John let the matter drop. A minute later, they came to a flight of steps at the northeast corner of the bastedan, which descended below street level. He followed Buford down into the slave dungeons, the Tennessean’s torch glowing on the limestone walls. He felt as if following an undertaker into a tomb. His eyes teared up with the stench of human waste. There was a rising din of muttering voices and clanking bars. The space opened up, and John found himself walking between slave cells along either wall, divided by brick columns.

  Dozens of sleeping men covered the floors of each cell. The torchlight sent bugs scurrying off their canvas smocks. They were a tangle of filthy bodies on top of one another—men of every age, every race. Gaunt faces followed the two passersby. One wailed unintelligible gibberish. None of them dared meet Buford’s gaze.

  Something snatched at John’s arm. He found an elderly man pulling at his cloak, skin sucked in around his ribs. “Help me,” said the man. “I have a wife in Sardinia. She will send for me, if you would carry a message. She waits for me!”

  Smack! Buford landed a flat-footed kick that shook the whole panel of bars. “You git! Go on, git!”

  The old man stumbled back in terror. He fell on a fellow slave, who cuffed him on his bald crown.

  “Damnit, Buford!” John said under his breath. “Was that necessary?”

  “I gather you harbor abolitionist sensibilities,” Buford said. They were approaching a pair of Janissaries guarding a stairwell at the other end of the hall. He kept his voice low. “Best set them aside. What you are about to see will be unpleasant.”