Chapter 313: Keelhauled (1/2)

Among the Crew of Honoria's revenge, one lass, in particular, stood out among the primarily European crew. This woman was named Nazeeha el-Fahmy; she was a woman from the Mamluke Sultanate who had made her way to Austria as a slave sometime earlier in her life.

However, due to Berengar's legal reforms that outlawed slavery within the Kingdom of Austria, Nazeeha soon found herself accessible and incapable of working. After all, she was both a woman and a minority, and she was not afforded the privileges that the normal Austrians received.

With nowhere to go in life, she had ended up selling her body to sustain herself within the city of Kufstein; after all, a foreign beauty was a highly desirable object by many of the patrons who visited the brothel where she had previously worked.

Nazeeha was out purchasing supplies on one fateful day when she came across Princess Honoria, who had introduced herself as Valeria Zonara. The two ended up chatting for some time before the runaway princess gave Nazeeha an offer, one where she could live a life of freedom and fortune.

After carefully considering the offer, Nazeeha had joined Valeria's Crew. She did not mind that Valeria was a Byzantine, despite their two peoples being bitter enemies for centuries; after all, it was not like she was a member of the Byzantine aristocracy who was responsible for the numerous invasions into her people's lands.

Or so she thought, and as such, she had been enjoying her time as a member of Honoria's Crew. However, the more she utilized the weapons provided to her by the Austrian Crown, the more she became convinced that such weapons needed to be smuggled into her homeland so that they could be used to repel the Byzantine invaders.

Due to Austria's military aid, most of Egypt and Lybia had fallen to the Byzantines. With it, the most economic regions of her homeland had fallen to their bitter enemies. As a profoundly patriotic woman, Nazeeha desired to aid her people in whatever way she could.

Thus while the Crew of Honoria's Revenge was docked in the city of Benghazi to sell the loot they had acquired from the vessels they had recently ransacked, Nazeeha was undertaking another mission. Hidden beneath her cloak was one of the 1421 Repeating Flintlocks that Berengar had designed for Honoria's use.

She was secretly heading to a clandestine meeting between herself and a representative of the Mamluke Sultanate. Unbeknownst to her, she had been followed by a mysterious agent in the shadows.

For over a year now, Linde's spy network had expanded to Byzantium and the Mamluke Sultanate; with the opening of trade routes across the Mediterranean largely in part to Berengar's naval expansion, opportunities for embedding agents across the coastal regions of the sea presented themselves.

Never one to miss an opportunity, Linde had taken this chance to expand and strengthen her spy network. As such, a small cell of Austria's intelligence agency was located in Benghazi and had become aware of this meetup. They had quickly identified the target and followed her to the meeting, where she was now standing face to face with a member of the Mamluke military.

The man was a high-ranking official tasked by the Sultan to procure the advanced weaponry that the woman claimed she had come across. As he stood in front of Nazeeha, he asked the question on his mind.

”Do you have what you have promised to bring?”

Nazeeha nodded her head silently before revealing the repeating flintlock. The moment the officer gazed upon the weapon, he knew it was not something remotely similar to the arquebuses in use by the Byzantine Forces.

As such, he reached out and grabbed ahold of the weapon, pointing it into the air and cocking the action back before firing. The shot flew into the air, and after it had done so, he cocked the flintlock back and fired again.

After several uses of the weapon, the officer nodded his head with an excited grin curved upon his lips. He handed the gun off to a subordinate before taking out a small chest filled with gold coins, which he handed over to Nazeeha.

”Your service to the Sultanate is greatly appreciated, a small reward on behalf of the Sultan as proof of his gratitude.”

Nazeeha eyes widened as she saw this wealth and quickly grasped ahold of it before stashing it away beneath her cloak; she bowed her head respectfully before departing from the meeting area.

The young Arab woman was utterly unaware that after she had left earshot, the officer and his assistant were assassinated by the Austrian agents. The weapon was recovered, and Honoria had been informed of the woman's betrayal.