Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Three men, all accused of piracy, were before him on their knees, guarded by troops from the fortress. They’d each petitioned for the Corrigador, the effective governor of Veracruz, to hear their cases personally.

“Gabriel Hernandez y Juarez,” Exposito said, sounding utterly bored. “You stand accused of piracy before His Majesty King Philip. You were caught aboard a pirate ship that was detained and captured by our fleet off the coast a week ago, one which had made several attempts to take His Majesty’s ships as prizes. What do you have to say in your defense?”

“Please, sir, please,” blubbered the man. “I apologize before you and before God, and I throw myself prostrate on your mercy. I was captured by those buccaneers when my ship was taken and forced into their service as a carpenter.”

Exposito perked up at this. “Oh? I know a thing or two about carpentry myself, you know,” he said. “The table before you wobbles. Go on, get up and try it.”

Hesitantly, Hernandez got up and tested Exposito’s small end table. It did in fact wobble.

“Tell me,” said Exposito. “How would you fix it?”

“Well, I suppose…um…well, that is to say…” Hernandez stuttered.

“Bah,” said Exposito. “You expect me to believe pirates would impress a ‘carpenter’ who can’t even do such a simple task? You could glue a small disk to the bottom of the leg, or put in a wedge at the top.”

“Please, it is nervousness!” the accused man cried. “I was just about to suggest glue!”

“Take him away and hang him,” said Exposito with a wave of his arm. “A real carpenter would have noticed that the wobble was because one leg is on my rug.”

Wailing and blubbering, the man was removed.

“John Samuels, of England,” said Exposito to the second man, rolling the foreign name around between his high cheeks before spitting it out. “You stand accused of piracy before His Majesty King Philip. You and your skiff preyed on the fishermen out of the harbor until you ran aground. What have you to say in your defense?”

“I only stole a few fish, on account of I was starving,” said Samuels. “If a fisherman can’t even protect a few measly mackerel, what good’s he going to do in life? If anything, I was making the fishermen around here better by culling out the weak.”

“I see,” said Exposito. “But what does it mean for your theory that you were captured?”

“It means that my services are now at your Lordship’s disposal,” said Samuels. “If you’d put me to work for you, I’d make you stronger as well. But if you mean to hang me, even if only for a bit of sport, I’d ask that you get to it.”

“I like this man,” said Exposito. “A full pardon for him. See him escorted to the docks and issued orders as a pilot.”

“As your Lordship wills,” said Samuels. “Thank you for not wasting our time.”

Exposito dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “Jean Legrand, of France,” he said to the third. “You stand accused of piracy before His Majesty King Philip. You were found illegally trading in the port of Veracruz for lumber you illegally cut from His Majesty’s forests on Santo Domingo.”

“As I have told your brutish men at length,” Legrand said, “I was selling lumber from Saint-Domingue, which is rightfully part of the French crown as your own King has recognized.”

“And I hold that yours is an illegal occupation, one that is soon to be stamped out, regardless of what temporary concessions King Philip has made to his grandfather, your so-called king. Who are you to say otherwise?”

“Tell me then, how is a simple farmer to support himself when he has neither the land nor the slaves to grow sugarcane nor anything else of value, and is the sole support of his family?”

“That is not my concern,” said Exposito. “Take him away and hang him.”

“I protest!” cried Legrand. “I protest in the name of my King and my family!”

“Oh, very well,” said Exposito. “Hang him, but sell his ship and his cargo and give the proceeds to Ambassador La Croix. He may compensate this squatter’s family at his discretion, I suppose.”

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Ebenezer “Ben” Cooke
The Cookes are a large family from Ednam in Roxburghshire, Scotland, and Cooke’s grandfather traveled to the New World as an indentured laborer to find his fortune. He was successful enough that his son, Cooke’s father, inherited a large plantation with slaves.

Mrs. Cooke died in childbirth giving birth to Elizabeth “Bess” Cooke, Cooke’s older half-sister. Lonely, the elder Cooke fell in love with one of his slaves, Belinda. Though they could never marry, they lived together as husband and wife to the great scandal of their neighbors, and the remaining slaves were freed and rehired as laborers at her urging.

Cooke was Belinda’s only child and recieved a thorough education from his bibliophile father and mother. The elder Cooke rewrote his will to legitimize Cooke as his heir, effectively disinheriting Bess, who had in the meantime married a wealthy local doctor.

When both Belinda and the elder Cooke died in a yellow fever epidemic, Bess and her husband used the opportunity to take Cooke’s inheritence. They hired local bushwhackers to kidnap Cooke and the other workers and had them taken to the slave markets of the Caribbean to be sold. Cooke was 13 at the time.

On the way to the market, the ship was stopped and boarded by pirates (or privateers) led by Captain Roxburgh. Cooke led the pirates to the hidden valuables aboard in exchange for putting the others ashore unharmed as free men. Impressed by Cooke’s acumen, Roxburgh took him aboard as a cabin boy. It was aboard that ship that Cooke had is apprenticeship as a seaman.

When the pirates captured a Dutch Indiaman some years later, Cooke, as mate, was given the prize to sail himself. Christening it the Fancy Rat, he was able to escape the destruction of Roxburgh’s flotilla later that year. Since then, Cooke has continually upgraded and modified his ship and engaged in piracy largely based out of Jolly Port.

The one thing that sets him apart from his fellow ruffians is his refusal to sell slaves on captured ships – he will instead put them safely ashore. He also loathes his given name, dismissing it as a ridiculously trendy appellation, and prefers to go by simply “Cooke” or, if pressed, “Ben Cooke.”

Physical Description
Cooke describes himself as having “his father’s nose after it was smashed flat against his face.” His hair is wildly curly and often barely kept under control with ribbons or hats; he wears it long out of vanity. He had strikingly-colored eyes, a “blunderbuss of dark freckles to the cheeks;” these features plus his darker skin make his mixed ancestry very clear.

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“As our prior association has been dissolved by our late misadvetnure,” Cooke said, “We need new articles, which you can see that I’ve drawn up. The terms are one share for each man in the promised reward for returning…ma’am?”

“Maria de las Mercedes Ximénez y Nereida.”

“What she said. One share for seamen, two for mates and the navigator, three for the captain and quartermaster. This will cover any incidental claims along the way as well.” Cooke signed the paper with a flourish. “As captain and owner of the Fancy Rat, I invite you to come forward and make your mark.”

The men fell to speaking and squabbling among each other. “What do you think, boss?” said Hume. “Will we get enough of a crew to man the Rat?

“Well, there are plenty of considerations around that fact,” said Cooke. “Not least of which is that we’re the only ship in the harbor and the only escape for anyone who might not want the Spaniards to find them here.”

“Granted. What else?”

“You’ll note the unusually low shares that I offered for officers, so the men stand to make more than they otherwise might.”

Hume grunted. “I can think of a few things to set against that.”

“Like what?” said Cooke. “You know I always appreciate your grumpiness, Hume. It’s a fine antidote to my own sunny outlook.”

“First: ladies onboard. It’s bad luck.” Hume said. “Even if I don’t believe it, half of them will.”

“It’s a good thing we have but one lady, then, and needn’t fear more,” Cooke replied.

“With a ship full of men and one woman, you might find that they multiply rather quickly,” Hume said. “Assuming any will sail with her at all.”

“It always struck me as rather curious,” replied Cooke. “Half of them were born in the New World, how to they suppose their mothers got here? On a horse?”

“Second,” Hume continued. “Pay. It’s a paltry hook to hand a crew on, the promise of Catholic gold in return for a woman who for all we know may be bluffing.”

“Crews have been hung on much less,” replied Cooke. “Literally as well as figuratively.”

“Third: the Spaniards wanted her for something. They will come looking for her, and I doubt that we will be as lucky as we were this time, without a fleet to back us up.”

“On the contrary, Hume,” said Cooke. “I think we’ll be considerably luckier without a fleet to slow us down.”

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“We are in position now, Don Exposito.” Juan Ramirez, the captain of the ship, reported. “Port Royal lays before us.”

“Excellent, capitán de navío, excellent,” said Exposito. “Report.”

“Our scouting barque reports that there are over twenty armed vessels in port, many of them of dubious or pirate origins,” Ramirez said. “They are supported by the fortress at the harbor entrance. Even with the advantage we have against their weapons and our superior firepower, it is unlikely that we will be able to take the city without reinforcements. Even then, alférez Diaz of our tercio detachment estimates that it will require 1000-3000 troops to pacify the city, occupy its fortifications, and turn its docks to our use.”

“A very thorough report,” said Expositio. “Thank you. But one thing mystifies me, capitán de navío.”

“What is that, Don Exposito?”

Exposito turned to his captain, a delighted grin slowly overating his features. “Who said anything about capturing the city?”

Ramirez’s features clouded. “I…I beg your pardon, Don Exposito?”

Exposito raised his arms. “We are not going to capture Port Royal,” he said. “We are going to destroy it utterly.”

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“King Philip V is wracked by illness and madness, and his son and heir Louis is a simpleton who even his wife refuses to see,” Exposito cackled from behind the bars. “What a wonderful opportunity this presents to a man of vision and initiative! The Viceroy Balthazar prepares to sail to Spain to take up residence as majordomo of the palace on the strength of his campaigns against the pirates infesting our waters and the remarkable innovation of the so-called Spanish Plate and the Spanish Cannon.”

“Is that it, then?” said Hume. “He was building his power here to return to Spain in triumph?”

“Or so he thinks!” Exposito cried, hurling himself at the bars. “Little does he realize that it has all been my doing! I am a native son of this land, born here and raised here, the Corregidor of Veracruz. Everything that passes from the New World to the Old must also pass through my fingers. I built myself up from nothing, because the visions have told me that I must.”

“You’re mad,” Hume spat, “and your visions are just the ravings of a lunatic Balthazar keeps on a chain so that he might have a mad dog to unleash when it suits him.”

“Of course you would say that; you foul pirates lack vision and purpose. It is simple, pure, and revealed to me with a blinding light when I came into myself.” Exposito leered at Hume, his eyes wide and mad behind the iron. “For I am the beast spoken of in Revelations, destined to lay the world low in chaos and despair that it might be redeemed through suffering. Don’t you see? Only with the emergence of the Beast, with chaos and hardship, may the way be paved for redemption and the Redeemer. Those I kill are sent to their own just rewards, and those that suffer will be assumed unto their own once the trumpets sound.”

“Madness,” said Hume. “Utter lunacy.”

“To the contrary, it all makes so much sense! Of course it would be an Expositio, abandoned by family to a wasting death in the wilderness, a product of both worlds, who would bring this about. Of course the New World would have the means to accomplish the Revelation and the end times. And to that end I will have the viceroyalty, I will control that fool Balthazar and that greater fool Louis on the throne, and I will redeem this world through the agony and ecstasy of divine will.”

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