CHAPTER 09 – Revenge, sweet revenge

They cheered and started passing the small barrel, which they downed quickly. Three minutes later, they were all snoring. I was tempted to slice their throats, but to kill sleeping men was something more in the habit of the Spanish, ok, I’m Spanish, they are too and they are cruel and I hate them… but I still have some moral limits… attack a village in the early hours of the morning, when everyone is sleeping and butcher men, women, children is amongst what I hate Spain for. I’d rather kill them while looking them in the eyes, even if they had no chances of survival. Plus, there was the practical side that they would later wake up and not suspect anything else had happened for long. I went back to Susan and Robert, who carried the Alcalde to the door, and I opened it slightly. I looked around and saw nobody. Then I whistled a low tone, and a moment later, two of my men appeared, Robert passed the Alcalde on their shoulders, then we exited and closed the door. Then we moved quickly to the other side of the gardens, where a carriage was waiting. We got in, and then it moved quickly to the meeting point. A little more than an hour and a half later, we were on the Dolphin, sailing for a safe area of the sea.

The men were all cheering. Never before it was heard of such a coup! We had been successful in snatching one of the most powerful men of the Caribbean from his own fortified palace. I donned my makeup. And we waited for him to rouse, naked, chained to the mast.

When he came back to his senses, after another couple of hours, we completed his awakening with a bucket of freezing water.

He looked at us with darting eyes. If hate could kill, we’d be disintegrated on the spot. He would be, too. He spoke. “I understand that you work for… Captain Ash, right? The descriptions of you, even if vague, can’t be wrong about such scars. I guess you killed that personal maid of yours, since she found your plans and was about to tell me about them, even if she was too stupid to understand that once I knew them, her life wouldn’t be worth a rotten fish.”

Susan and I looked at each other and laughed. Then she spoke. “I don’t work ‘for’ Captain Ash, I work ‘with’ Captain Ash. My name is Susan Hood, the younger sister of John Hood. Captain Blackeyes.”

Alcalde “So, it was a concerted effort. Well, if you think you’ll be able to spend my ransom, you are greatly mistaken. There will be such a reward on your heads that even your crew will turn on you.”

Ash, “Why do you think it took us so long before acting? You can’t offer us more than we already have. Anyway, after all these years not knowing who you were facing, and why two Captains kept a single ship, I’ll give you the answer.”

I turned, removed my make-up, and then turned again. His eyes widened in shock.

Ash “As you can see, I wasn’t a silly… no, you said ‘stupid’ girl. I was Captain Ash in person, playing with you, and you fell for it completely. You are curious about me, I can see. I’m Cyndria, daughter of Luis Monteyo y Spinoza y Aquino de Alameda, former Governor of Simòn de Alpeche, murdered by order of the Queen, after being slandered by people like you, envious that even in that small island, he could prove to be better than anyone else. I know that you were one of those complaining that he was making you lose money, because the ships would take the minimum in La Havana and then make provision in Simòn de Alpeche. Still, it was part of the games of corruption of your filthy lineages. But when you killed John, you earned my undying hate.”

The Alcalde laughed, “Your Blackeyes, he died crying like a child and squealing like a pig, begging for his life!”

Ash, “It’s not working, Alcalde. Never asked yourself how it was possible that three hours after you murdered him, his body was gone, and half a city was burning? One of our men was present and told us everything. You were scared shitless for the dignity and bravery with which John died. And we were there soon after, to punish the traitor. How many men did you lose that night?” This time, it was me who laughed a bitter laugh.

Alcalde “Untie me and we will see how brave you are! I don’t care if you are a woman, your sentence has been written long ago! That idiot of de Villanueva had the order to bring you to me, but instead, he was infatuated with you at first sight! He wanted you for himself!”

Ash “Oh, about him. I met him later… do you remember his body, hanged in the city's main square? I killed him in a fair duel. Anyway, don’t hope that we will untie you, so you’ll take the chance to jump in the water. We have nothing to prove to you. Years of butchering your men and sinking your ships have proven it enough. Oh, there is something you’d want to know, though. Do you remember the vanished frigate Santa Lucia, carrying the gold for Duke Armand Le Ferrier de Septimania? We took it. And do you remember your as beautiful as cruel bride to be? While I forbade, at the risk of their death, my men from even being disrespectful to women, they all enjoyed her a lot. After all, it is the approved way that Spain allows its soldiers to behave, right?. She deserved it, for the person she was. The treasure in her galleon's hold was a nice surprise. Your new muskets helped us a lot.”

He was literally foaming in rage. All these years, and especially since after he could boast of Blackeyes’ capture and execution, when misfortune seemed to hit Spain, and him personally, there was I behind it. I had been the worst thorn in his flank, and now he found I had been even worse than he could imagine, making him lose the marriage that would give him strong allies at court. And all because my hatred for what Spain did to my father and what he later did to John had driven me fearlessly against any Spanish target. All in all, it would have cost him much less if he hadn’t captured and killed John.

He was calmer now. I could see he was examining his options. He knew we never asked for ransoms. But either thought we would for him, or we wouldn’t think he knew, so he could try with an unrefusable offer. He spoke.

“Ok. What now? What are the conditions for my ransom and release?”

I looked at Susan. Her gaze was of pure hatred toward the man. I went to her. “Do you want to do something? I can finish it quickly, or make him suffer for a long time. You can assist, just watch, or simply know it will be done, and retire in our cabin.”

She whispered. “Painful. Long. Definitive. I’ll watch, save for one thing. I want to make sure that he knows if a miracle saves him, he won’t have children, ever.”

I answered him. “You still keep thinking we are stupid. You perfectly know that we never asked for a ransom. We won’t ask for any.”

I gave Susan one of my knives and moved the brazier where an iron was getting incandescent, next to him. She went to him. He spoke.

“Do you want to brand me? That won’t be taken well by my superiors.”

“No, don’t worry, I’m not going to brand you. Not exactly, even if the mark will be permanent.”

She took his maleness in her hand, looked at him in the eyes, until she read the realization in his eyes, then she propped the blade below his appendages, never stopping to watch him in the eyes. When the realization started to give space to hope, she pressed enough so he felt the blade. Then hope turned to fear. That’s when she cut. I was ready with a red-hot blade and cauterized the wound. We didn’t want him to die too soon. Susan moved to the parapet and nonchalantly threw the piece of meat in the sea, then she washed her hands, and went to my cabin, which we were sharing, to change the blood-stained dress.

The Alcalde was screaming and crying. And threatening. “I’ll move all the fleets of Spain against you! Whores! Traitor! I will never forgive you!” As if he would return alive. He would return, for sure, a victim of his love for theatricality.

I signalled a man, almost a giant, as strong as an ox, who went to him, took his mandible in his hand, and pressed until it was open wide. Then he put two small blocks of wood between the upper and lower teeth, on both sides, to keep his mouth open, and secured his head to the mast with a leather strap around his forehead and the mast itself. Susan’s maid, thirteen-year-old Siobhan, went into her cabin, the small cabin that had been mine for a few months, years before, because she wasn’t strong enough to witness such things. Still, she was completely loyal to Susan, who took her when her parents tried to sell her into prostitution because they were too poor and had no use for a female, and she raised her as if she were her own daughter. They loved each other more than if they were truly related, so she didn’t disagree, just couldn’t bear such things.

It was my turn. I took pliers and pinched his tongue, pulling it out. “I’m tired of listening to your rants.” Then took incandescent scissors and cut his tongue at its root. He fainted. The tongue followed his other part.

A bucket of cold water roused him back. He had no more tears, and his face was swollen, burned, and blistered around the mouth, where the scissors touched him. His gaze was that of a man who had lost all his will to live.

I told Susan, “Look at his gaze.”

She went to him, looked at him, then returned to me. “He’s dead inside. Any torture would do nothing now. Kill him, it will be a liberation for him. He doesn’t deserve it, but anything else would be useless. A waste of time and effort. He knows that even if he’s not a man anymore, he’d maintain his position, but as a mute, he won’t be allowed to occupy any position of power. Must be that which hit him more than anything.”

“I agree. He knows he’s been beaten completely. Sadly, that won’t give us John back.”

I went to him and removed the leather strap. His head flopped down on his chest. I spoke.

“Look at me. LOOK AT ME!”

He slowly raised his head to look at me, with a gaze of resignation.

“This finishes here. Do you understand? Nod if you do.”

He nodded. My knife pierced his heart.

“Ok, men, ready for our next trip? And then, the last one!”

They cheered. We entered La Havana again that night. We did it without taking any contact with any of our connections. The reward for information was probably so high that there would be a line ready to betray any pirate. The patrols were massive. We waited until almost dawn, when the guards would return to their garrison and people would start moving around in the city. Then we hanged the dead body of the Alcalde on the gallows, and put a sign below him. “Ruthless ruler, he killed many men better than himself. We avenged them all, and in particular, the best of them all. Captain Blackeyes and his legend will live in our hearts forever. Here is the tribute to him: the body of his murderer, the Alcalde of La Havana, Hernan de la Sierra de la Coronilla y Sinagra, at last united in hell with his promised bride.” Signed, “Captain Ash.”

We left quickly, soon hearing screams and commotion from the square. We were quickly back on the Dolphin and sailed toward the continent. Caterina had opened my eyes, and I realized I had done all I could do to avenge my father and my beloved, so it was time for me to retire. I asked my men what they wanted to do.

Living on the ship and avoiding most of the frequented ports meant that we were mostly unaware of the development of the rest of the world. While I knew back then that the British Colonies rebelled, and talked some about that long war with father, I didn’t realize that the war lasted eight years, ending nearly one year before I killed the Alcalde of La Havana, with the victory of the Americans being exactly what I needed. In fact, most of the men who decided to stop fighting settled in Virginia. We made many travels to recover my treasure in Port Royal, where I sold the house, and to recover their treasures in other places, and then unloaded them in various places where they saluted and parted. Mine was unloaded in a warehouse in New York, from where, with a wagon at a time, I moved everything to the property I bought in the countryside, not far south of Rochester.