Once upon a time... the Americas

Überblick

As the second half of the millennium starts European kingdoms compete for the new routes, territories and wealth discovered across the ‘Ocean sea’ and going to be called…America. A group of cadets is gathered as the seed of a junior guard for Francis I, new King of France, equiped with a newly invented portable gun, a ‘musket’: they will be called… ‘Musketeers’.

Young Jehan Fleury, arriving from the coasts of Normandy, is among them though not noble but with a rare sea-faring knowledge, and presented by Louis de Valterreau to his young sister, MaryAnn, but then commissioned to command a few ships to patrol around the Azores, where Spanish Galleons returning from the Caribbean filled with gold, must refill: this is where, with his lieutenant and comrade Loïc de Benoïc, a young Briton of old legendary lineage, Jehan captures galleons led by Avila, lieutenant of Hernan Cortès and meant to deliver the considerable treasure of the Aztec emperor Moctezuma to his own Emperor and King of Spain, Charles V, in 1523.

Using maps thereby acquired the same Jehan, whose birth as bastard of Italian noble Pier Andrea di Verrazano is briefly accounted, again leaves Dieppe but this time to explore, north of Florida, the expected passages toward the mighty Cathay... but the discovered deep bay ends up as an island that local Indians call... Mana Hatta!

Several battles, conspiracies, political turmoil and years later, MaryAnn is betrothed by her father, the Count of Valterreau, to an ugly old Marquis while her love, Jehan, is captured at sea and awaits in the prison of Toledo to be hanged on behalf of Charles V. MaryAnn strives to escape and convince her brother Louis to escort her to Spain and let her marry Jehan in his prison, thereby making her a free woman.

MaryAnn may briefly enjoys her hard earned freedom but cannot go back to France, having cut all ties with her caste. She has no other option than to join the nascent flow of all those that will leave, often indentured, the shores of Europe - then later Africa and Asia - toward this new world... the Americas

She will discover that freedom come at a price… eventually high.

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