Chapter 30 October 406 Cuban Archipelago-Trade

            Muuza waited eleven days before a long ship arrived from the Landowner’s Meet with instructions for Muuza’s fleet to follow them. As they followed Muuza couldn’t help but notice that other longships steered clear of their little fleet as soon as they noticed them. Muuza was glad that their reputation was already making its way across this little island nation. Despite that Muuza had his ships keep the fires of their pressure vessels hot, just in case they needed to defend themselves.

            The fleet traveled northwest for several days until they spotted the coast of a very large island on their east side. They made their way north up the coast until it ended, then turned east, and sailed along the northern coast of the island for nearly a day. Throughout the day, they spotted dozens of small villages along the coast, each with harbors; not a single one of the small harbors had any ships. Clearly, the locals either sailed off or pulled their ships out of the water. The more Muuza saw their little trick of easily pulling their longships out of the water and storing them on land, the more Muuza thought that Paulsland might want to add the boats to their navy in case they needed to pull off the same trick, but that was just a passing thought.

            When they finally arrived at their destination, they found a massive harbor, with a handful of mother ships and trimarans built in a similar fashion to Roman ships. That said, the ships were clearly not Roman as they were built with a different kind of lumber than what the Romans used. Romans used oak a very hard wood, but the planks used to build these ships were obviously smaller, indicating softer wood, or smaller trees.

            That said, the only ships they saw were the mother ships and trimarans. Muuza didn’t know if they intended the missing longships as a threat, as Muuza had no way of knowing how many ships they hid in and around their large settlement, or if they were simply trying to preserve their ships, or if they just wanted to hide their strength. Regardless, they knew how big Muuza’s fleet was, but he didn’t know how big theirs was, giving them an advantage.

            The settlement had walls, a small river, canals, signs of industrialized water wheels, plenty of farms, and every building was made with stone. Every building built outside the major settlement had their own walls. Muuza found that interesting, but not surprising, considering the number of raiders this culture produced, the locals had to protect themselves from the raiders they produced. It was a welcome sign of internal instability.

            Muuza ordered his fleet to drop anchor three hundred yards from the harbor. When the longship guiding the fleet realized this, they turned around and came to Muuza’s ship, where he told them, “Your Landowners can come out here to meet with me, or send a representative to meet with me. I don’t care which.” Muuza wasn’t about to go into that death trap. The captives they took on their last trip into Cuban territory let them know how the Cubans treated guests.

            The crew on the longship was not happy, but they had no choice but to ferry the demand to the Landowner’s Meet. It took them two hours to come back with a response, and so for the next three days Muuza and the Landowners ferried messages back and forth with the longship. Each night Muuza’s fleet sailed into the open sea and did not come back until morning. Eventually, the Landowners agreed to send a representative.

            When the representative arrived, he was immediately brought to Muuza’s elaborate quarters. As he came through the door, Muuza examined him and found him wanting. The man who came could barely be called a man; Muuza didn’t even think he was fifteen, and he had peach fuzz instead of a beard. He walked with pride, but he didn’t have any muscle to back up his pride, far from muscle, he was chubby, almost fat. He wore fancy clothes and jewelry that must have been given to him by his father, as the youth clearly didn’t have the sense to earn it himself. He had food stains on his fine clothes and smelled of alcohol, although he gave the appearance of someone who was sober and wasn’t happy about it.

            The youth spoke before Muuza, “I am a Trevorson….”

            “I don’t care, brat. Shut up and listen.”

            “How dare you?”

            “I dare because whoever sent you doesn’t care if you die or if you fail at this mission. You say you’re a Trevorson, but something tells me that your father wants you to fail this mission because you have a little brother who would run your household better than you.”

            “That’s not…”

            “SHUT UP!”

            “I will not. Nobody talks to me and gets away with it.”

            Muuza walked to the young man, slapped him across his face, and the youth was so shocked he actually shut up. “Let me give you some advice. I don’t know the political games you are a pawn in, but someone is trying to get rid of you, so you'd better straighten up if you want to survive. Do you understand me?”

            The youth just said, “Yes, sir.” Looked down, and looked like he wanted to leave, which suited Muuza just fine.

            “What are the Landowners offering me?”

            “They want the magic you used to destroy the longships.”

            “They can't have it. I cannot give it to them. I have medicines, pain killers, and alcohol I can trade them. In fact, I have our nation's best alcohol right here.” Muuza took out a jug of rum, with morphine mixed in. Every morphine laced jug on board had warnings not to drink if you didn’t want to have serious addictions, so nobody on board would drink it, but the natives didn’t know that.

            “Alcohol?” The youth forgot all about the slap and looked excited and relieved.

            Muuza expected him to be tempted because the Cubans they captured on their first trip were practically dying when they didn’t get their fix, but this was beyond what he was expecting. “Drink it, and if you like it you can tell your leaders we will give them ten barrels of this stuff as a tax to sail through your seas, and we will sell the rest in your port.”

            The idiot youth nodded, took the bottle, and gulped it down. He immediately relaxed, even though the alcohol wouldn’t hit his system for a few more minutes, and the morphine wouldn’t hit for another half hour or so. He took another long drink directly from the bottle, almost like he was drinking water, and then smiled and said, “This is very sweet.”

            Muuza was surprised as rum was a pretty strong alcohol. He figured the youth would get along with the Romans as they liked their strong drink as well. After taking a moment to collect himself, he told the youth, “Take it back with you, along with ten barrels of the stuff, and tomorrow tell me what your leaders think.”

            The young man didn’t look up as he said, “Yes, sir.”

            As the youth left, he didn’t realize that the sailors on Muuza’s ship were already loading barrels of morphine laced rum on his longboat. So far, everything on this trip has been a distraction to get the locals addicted to morphine. Sooner or later, the locals would get steam weapons and would be able to sink the Western Trade Company’s ships, but if the locals were addicted to morphine, and Paulsland ships were the only way for them to get their fix, then their ships would be safe in Cuban waters.

            The next day, the Landowners sent a message back asking for a hundred barrels in taxes. Muuza agreed, then sold them another eight hundred barrels of morphine laced rum. He traded for a little of everything they had. He never approached their port, instead requiring them to send longships for the trade, which made things awkward, but it would be a year or two before he felt safe letting his men go ashore on their land.

            The next day, he headed north, looking for the Merchant Guild.