Blood and Oak- Wolves Will Eat Read online

  Naim twisted the emerald jewel at the center of his ring, set within a crescent of gold. The flat surface of the gem was etched with the lines and loops of an elegant Arabic symbol. “It was my duty to kill the traitor, but for some reason, I felt compelled to spare him. I accepted payment for the art and left in peace. It was the first mission I ever failed. The next day, I boarded a ship for Tunis, as my wife had long wished of me. After months of bitterness, I sought out my estranged son, that Ilyas and I might reconcile. I wanted to look into his eyes and know myself as a man.

  “A month later, I listened to Bey Hammuda tell me of my son’s death at sea. Three months after that, I found a lone survivor of the Bosphorus Crescent. The corsair Hamit, who told me Ilyas bought a young Irish slave to teach him navigation. A slave that later ignored my son’s pleas for help and abandoned him to drown.”

  John gazed into the hearth. He looked through the wall of flames to the waves of a tossing sea. Peering into the past, he saw the moment when his former master, Ilyas Naim, slipped under the ocean surface.

  “That was the moment I finally knew,” murmured Naim. “Fifty years of sacrifice, in service to three generations of sultan, and thousands of miles traveled as the Chronicler—and my reasons had always been a mirage. I didn’t do it for my family. I didn’t do it for a cause. I did it for no reason at all. You asked me what I want from you, Sullivan?” Naim looked at John like a disappointed father. “Not a thing.”

  The curtains flew up in the breeze. The fire murmured over dying coals. John realized after a moment that he was staring at Naim.

  The sultan’s agent rose from the chair, running a hand over his goatee as if lost in thought. The end of his long kaftan brushed the floor as he strolled to the table in the center of the room, where the tea service had been the night before. A purple cloth was draped over three objects, golden tassels hanging over the table edge. Naim pinched the center of the cloth. “Before we begin, young Sullivan, you have a decision to make.” Naim swept the cloth from the table and revealed three crystal pitchers. The vessels, arranged in a triangle, each contained a different liquid. Naim pointed to the yellow liquid. “Honey.” Then the green. “Oil.” Then the purple. “And wine. Choose.”

  Choose oil, Kaitlin’s note had said. John nearly blurted out the answer on the spot. But he couldn’t appear too certain. His long-lost sister was out there somewhere, working toward his escape, and he had to trust her. Still, the mystery behind each choice was unnerving. “I won’t play your games, Naim.”

  “Refusal is a fourth choice,” said the sultan’s agent. “Refuse, and I will select one of your friends at random and fill a decanter with their blood.”

  A feeling of weakness crept into John’s muscles. For all the danger he’d faced in his life, for all his determination to be strong, his body betrayed him. Naim had him dead to rights—there was no doubt about it. John fought to keep his mind on Kaitlin—and rescue—and away from whatever horrors Naim had planned. But there was no heat of battle to keep his blood up—only time, silence, and Naim’s stolid eyes. John was terrified. He could do nothing but follow his sister’s lead. So he said, “Oil.”

  At a nod from Naim, the Djedid strode forward. They seized John and escorted him back down the tower stairs, Naim following close behind. One floor below Naim’s suite, they led John into an old study with no windows in the limestone. A smaller hearth, positioned directly below its counterpart on the floor above, held only crumbling masonry and cobwebs. No fire had burned here in centuries. A layer of dust covered old shelves lining the circular walls. Most of the books had crumbled long ago. A writing lectern stood near the fireplace, a beard of wax hanging over the edge, nearly to the floor.

  Strange gallows stood in the center of the room. They were constructed of a triangular support at the base, a vertical wooden beam standing ten feet high, and a cross beam extending four feet from the top. But instead of a noose, a rope and pulley dangled from the end of the crossbeam. Beneath the pulley, a stake protruded from a pedestal, rising a foot off the floor. The stake had a dull, rounded apex, not unlike a tent post.

  Naim spoke as the guards led John beneath the gallows. “When this began, you suggested a duel to settle our enmity. A moment ago, you suggested we use our blades.”

  The soldiers removed John’s shackles and tied the end of the rope around his right wrist. John stared numbly at Naim as the Djedid hauled on the rope, the pulley squeaking.

  “In the coming days, Sullivan,” Naim continued, “I will grant your request. By then, you will be so broken, you’ll throw down your sword and offer your throat to my blade.”

  “Before this week is done, I’m going to kill you.”

  “We shall see,” Naim replied.

  The rope lifted John a foot off his feet, shifting the weight of his body to his wrist. John cried out in pain, feeling as if his hand might be torn off. His left foot sought the stake, which was barely high enough to lend support. The moment John put weight on the ball of his toe, he traded the torture of his wrist for driving pain in his foot. The point of the stake was sharp enough to be excruciating but too dull to break the skin.

  Naim watched John squirm. He drew close to John’s sweating face. His green eyes, verging on yellow at the center, were strangely placid. Naim’s expression showed neither anger, nor joy, nor malice, nor pity. “When you closed my son’s eyes forever, Sullivan, you showed me the truth. All I have—all I’ve ever had—is the work.”

  Under the watch of the two guards, John hovered between the torments of the stake under his foot and the rope around his wrist. Sweat beaded on his temples. He tried to distract his mind from the question, but it came anyway. How long will I be like this? To his shame, John felt piss running down his leg.

  As Naim walked away, he added, “the work must continue.”

  Chapter 5

  The Lake Fort

  Secret Passage

  Sunday, September 11th, 1803

  Day 2, After Midnight

  Kaitlin Sullivan climbed in total darkness on a ladder of stone. As a thief, she was used to cramped spaces. Still, the secret passage was little wider than her body. It was a vertical shaft running from the foundations of the castle to the top of Naim’s tower. The air was close and musty. She had reached the top and now peered through a tiny peephole in the mortar.

  Inside the grand tower suite, the only source of light was the blazing fire. Varlick Naim sat at the table, writing. Flames shimmered on the golden ladder of rope closing his kaftan. Behind him, his repeating crossbow hung over the mantle. The device had six bow strings, and these fed through a box mounted above the stock. It was the weapon that killed Rune. Naim’s left hand shivered across the scroll, his signet ring flashing in the firelight. His eyes were crazed and his forehead blistered with sweat. As Kaitlin spied on the enemy of her family from the secret passage, her heart pounded. A terrible madness drove this man. For all her fear at the sight of him, Kaitlin saw something more. Something illusory—easy to miss. Varlick Naim was in despair.

  Her family’s tormentor would be occupied for the next hour and Kaitlin knew it was time to move on. But something on Naim’s table caught her eye. A green vellum journal, worn at the corners. A memory came rushing back.

  Nora Sullivan sits under the light of a sconce, reclining on the stern bench. The windows of the Wandering Hart’s cabin are dark behind her. Her tongue pokes from her lips as she writes in her journal. It’s bound in green vellum, worn from use. The ship sea-saws on a calm ocean.

  Kaitlin is sitting at her father’s table. She pulls a feather from her pocket—plucked from her brother Isaac’s pillow. She’s borrowed Johnny’s book to write on—something called “Navigento,” or “Navigo.” Or was it, “Navigatio?” She pretends to scribble, wishing she had some ink.

  “What are you doing, love?” Nora asks.

  “Writing,” says Kaitlin proudly. Her mother is the kindest, most elegant, most beautiful woman in all the world. Kaitlin wants to
be just like her. “I’m telling about my day, Mam.”

  Nora’s laugh is like music. “Very good, love. Did you finish your mutton?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Eat your supper, and then I’ll fetch you a quill and paper. Johnny will have fits if he sees you writing on his book.”

  “Okay, Mam.” Kaitlin abandons her important memoirs and slurps another bite.

  Kaitlin closed a hand over her mouth, tears hot on her face. She shut her eyes, fighting them back. It’s Mam’s journal, she realized. What does Naim want with it? Kaitlin opened her eyes and looked through the peephole again. She stared wistfully at the coarse pages of her mother’s last possession. Kaitlin would have given anything for a few more precious words from Nora. Anger flared in her. That diary belongs to me! It took every ounce of resolve, but she reluctantly climbed down the stone rungs. Another necessary sacrifice if she had any chance of saving her brother.

  It cost Kaitlin every piaster she ever stole to plan this mission—most of which went to her black-market fence Buford in exchange for an old Crusader map of the Lake Fort. It revealed a secret passageway forgotten centuries ago, and therefore unknown to Naim and his soldiers, who weren’t native to Tunis. A means of escape for Spanish lords and ladies long dead. The only means of unlocking it lived in Naim’s tower suite—the reason for her earlier climb. Kaitlin looked down past her feet. Several shafts of light from other peepholes pricked the darkness below.

  Reaching the next floor down, Kaitlin looked through a peephole identical to the one above. A wave of nausea washed through her stomach. In a decrepit study, she saw her brother John trussed up on gallows like a chicken for slaughter. His right hand hung from a rope while his left foot balanced on a peg. His head hung low. Sweat dripped off his long hair. Two Nizam-I Djedid stood watch by torchlight.

  Hang on, Johnny, thought Kaitlin, wishing she could say it aloud. I’ll come back for you.

  Kaitlin descended the heights of the tower until a new set of rungs appeared on the other side of the shaft. The aroma of garlic and cumin stung her nose as she reached the level of the castle’s second floor. She looked through a peephole into the main castle kitchen. There were bowls of bulgur, wedges of goat cheese, and platters of dates spread across two rows of benches. On the far wall, two soldiers wearing aprons over their tunics and trousers stirred pots on a stove. Their backs were to Kaitlin, but she could tell they were younger recruits of the Nizam-I Djedid, tasked with some of the more menial work. They were nothing if not disciplined. Janissaries were dutiful but often unruly, preferring laughter and joviality with their comrades. The Djedid were different—cold, quiet, and efficient. A thief learned which guards were lazy and which were alert. The Djedid were among the latter.

  A ten-year-old boy with black hair and wiry arms—likely a Djedid apprentice—scurried from pot to platter, carrying utensils and dishes for his senior comrades. Judging by the amount of food, Naim hoped to prepare a banquet for Bey Hammuda’s foreign minister, Yussef Sapatapa, who waited by the docks with a contingent of Janissaries. A gesture to placate the bey who no doubt wanted his ship, the Wolf of Tunis, returned.

  Kaitlin watched the boy as he stood on a box at the nearest bench. As she expected, he was serving as a cupbearer to the Djedid guards. As she had seen him do on her previous trips, the boy set out the wooden tray, a pewter carafe, and steel cups. Kaitlin pressed the catch on a wooden panel below the peephole. The hidden door clicked open. She oiled the hinges earlier in the night, and they made no sound. Dusty shelves stretched from floor to ceiling in this corner, bare save for the odd rusted pot or flagon. She brushed aside a cobweb and crouched on the lowest shelf. Sweat beaded on her temple. Most girls would be glad to be getting taller, but Kaitlin didn’t welcome her recent growth spurt. It made fitting into small spaces harder all the time.

  With the coffee tray laid out, the servant boy bounded to the other side of the bench to collect the soldiers’ rusk and bulgur. The way was clear, and Kaitlin crept forward. The silk soles of her shoes muffled her steps. She wove under the work benches, keeping her head low. Her fingers ran along the loops on her belt, each one assigned to a different tool. They moved past the lockpick, the pepper dust, the row of angled Indian throwing sticks—valari Rune had called them—until they reached a small bottle. She squatted behind a pile of rice sacks and glanced under the workbench. The servant boy stood on the other side by the stove, back to her, holding up a pot as one cook filled it with bulgur.

  Satisfied the boy was distracted, she popped up, plucked the stopper, and flipped open the carafe. She poured the draught into the coffee and closed the lid. The silver didn’t so much as tap.

  There was a loud bang. Kaitlin ducked back down—and froze. The boy was straight across from her, nearly in arms reach, staring at her under the table. At his feet, the pot of bulgur had spilled on the floor, the weight having overcome his small arms.

  “Foolish boy!” growled one of the Djedid cooks in Arabic. At their height, only their legs were visible by the stove, and they couldn’t see what the boy saw—a thief hiding a few paces away. “Clean that up—at once!”

  The boy looked up at the cook, then back at Kaitlin. In the next second, he would raise the alarm. Thinking quickly, Kaitlin put a finger to her lips. The boy blinked, absently turning his spilled pot upright. She reached in her satchel, found a bundle of parchment, and dug out the contents. The boy stared as Kaitlin held out three bright pink cubes. It was rahat lokum, her favorite Turkish candy and a gift from her fence Buford. The boy cast another furtive glance at the soldiers, then snatched the treats and stuffed them in his pocket. She gave him a wink, and he smiled.

  “Hurry up, boy!” the soldier shouted again. “Your elder brethren await supper and coffee.”

  The cupbearer flinched. He scooped handfuls of bulgur back into the pot. When he glanced under the bench again, the Red Hart was already sealing herself behind the hidden door.

  Chapter 6

  The Palace of the Bey

  City of Tunis

  Five Years Ago

  A branch caught one of Kaitlin’s curls. She winced as she pulled it free. On hands and knees, she crawled through a tiny burrow under a canopy of leaves. The tree above her blotted out the daylight like a haunted forest—her favorite part about this place. She breathed in the scent of citrus. It had taken her weeks to tunnel under the largest orange tree in the palace. Most days, she could only steal a few minutes to dig out some dirt or break away a few branches. But at last her work was done. Her trek ended at the base of the palace wall, which abutted the tree.

  Hidden in the darkness, among the roots and soil, was one of many culverts lining the base of the palace walls. But unlike the other culverts, this one was broken. The iron bars had rusted and fallen apart, leaving a gap large enough for a girl of nine to crawl through. The overgrown foliage had concealed the disrepair. After a dozen failed attempts to escape the seraglio, the Islanded Lion had miraculously revealed her best chance yet.

  Kaitlin pulled the magic piece of eight from her pocket. The silver coin had a crest stamped with a cross. In the opposing corners of the cross, there should have been two lions and two castles. But one lion was worn smooth. Over the years, a crack had snaked around the lone lion, marooning him. Her brother Johnny had given her the silver piece to keep her safe—the day the pirates had taken them from their ship. Kaitlin had been able to hide the Lion under her tongue. As she held it now, she thought of her big brother’s words.

  “The coin you hold in your hand is the very magic coin that Maria gave to her love to protect him,” John says. “Will you keep the Lion safe for me, Katie?”

  “Don’t worry, Johnny. I’ll keep the Lion safe. I promise.”

  And so Kaitlin had.

  “Thank you, Mr. Lion,” whispered Kaitlin. She planted a kiss on the silver coin, then slipped it back into the pocket of her kaftan.

  Dipping her head under the culvert, Kaitlin found her canvas ditty bag just wher
e she’d left it. She dragged it away from the culvert, revealing a patch of sun leading to the streets beyond the wall. How she longed to escape now. But no, Kaitlin had learned her lesson. Once, she had slipped through an unlocked door. Another time, she climbed a fence. She even tried stowing away on a cart. And every time, the cruel “master of the girls,” Maajid, found her and brought her back. This time, she had a plan.

  Rummaging through the contents of the sack, Kaitlin found all her supplies in order. Goat cheese and dinner rolls wrapped in a napkin. Two half-spent candle sticks borrowed from the parlor. Sugary cubes of Turkish candy. Her favorite porcelain doll given to her by Mistress Nejat. A quill to practice her letters, taken from Mistress Nejat’s desk. A soft blanket from Mistress Nejat’s divan—also borrowed. No money, of course, but a few pretty blue tiles chipped from the wall. Kaitlin added several oranges, a hairbrush, and a sack of marbles.

  All was ready. Tonight, she would be free.

  “Kaitlin?” called a familiar voice in the garden. “Kaitlin?”

  Kaitlin gasped. She stuffed her ditty bag under the culvert. She crashed through the twigs and stumbled out into the daylight. A beautiful glade of flower bushes, poplars, and olive palms surrounded her. She was brushing away the last few orange leaves when Mistress Nejat came around the hedgerows.

  “There you are!” cried Nejat. She was a tall, pretty woman with tan skin and big, copper-colored eyes. As the lady of the Seraglio, she wore a kaftan of fine yellow silk and gold earrings. She was usually nice to Kaitlin, but at the moment, she wore a frown. “Where have you been?”

  After months of daily lessons, Kaitlin had picked up enough Arabic to converse with Nejat. “Nothing…” Kaitlin said, knowing it was a poor answer. She plucked a fruit from the tree and offered it on her open palm. “I was picking oranges.”