We have only four days until the eBook launches, so how about I introduce one of our four protagonists each day as a sort of countdown? Let’s get started then!
Mustafa Ali Pasha is an Ottoman merchant and black-marketeer who owns the Miranda, a cargo ship that he uses to trade, often in Christian space. As such, Adrian of Tarsus was assigned to the ship four years ago as militium publicanus–military tax collector–to ensure that Mustafa pays his trade tithes down to the last copper bit.
A bit eccentric, Mustafa has a massive joie de vivre that leads him to all sorts of trouble, but it is his obsession with Machina, technologies forbidden by the Church, and their potential to bring great wealth, that leads him to real danger.
Quotes:
“That’s why you must live in the moment, Adrian. Enjoy each little slice of life as you cut it from the bone. It’s sad to experience something for the first time as a memory.”
“Heaven smiled upon me when it delivered a tax man [Adrian] with an appetite for graft.”
Artist’s impression by chirun.deviantart.com