30 Days of Biographies:
Catherine Fryte
Elder sister of the famous pirate Jonathan Fryte, Catherine Fryte was first inspired to join the Porthaven Marines — Porthaven’s elite maritime forces responsible for upholding the city-state’s Admiralty law — upon hearing the news that her brother had been abducted by pirates.
Ironically, as Jonathan famously won over the pirate crew and became its captain, this would ultimately put her on the path that culminated with Catherine herself being the individual responsible for finally apprehending her brother, leading to his trial and execution.
This went down in history as her single most famous feat, though for obvious reasons, Catherine did not often speak of the fateful confrontation with her brother. In fact, the constant hounding by the burghers of Porthaven is generally thought to be the reason by Catherine largely became a recluse in her later life.
Her life before joining the Porthaven Marines is fairly unremarkable. The Fryte family was known to be comfortably wealthy but not especially noteworthy. Catherine and Jonathan are far and away the most famous members of the family.
While it is known that Jonathan intended to professionally study magic before the fateful encounter with pirates inspired his own piratical career, records of Catherine’s early life do not demonstrate any such interest in scholarship on her part. However, there are several childhood accounts of a young Catherine subduing other children who bullied her friends.
Records of Catherine’s career in the Porthaven Marines portray a competent, if not exceptional, member of the force. She won several commendations, even before her famous arrest of her brother, and was never disciplined or noted for misconduct. She is known to have been one of the best duellists among the Porthaven Marines and rose sufficiently high in the ranks of the Marines to be granted command of her own squad — the very squad she would lead to board Jonathan’s flagship. In a bitter twist of fate, he had named his ship Catherine in honour of his sister.
As Jonathan was the most wanted pirate in Realmgard at the time and had previously eluded arrest and defeated several forces sent after him, Catherine was decorated with several of the highest honours in both the Porthaven Marines and the city of Porthaven in general.
In fact, Jonathan had become such a thorn in the side of the governments of Realmgard that Catherine also received honours from Pelayo, Gallicantu, Valico, and several other Free Cities.
Likely deeply affected and grieved by her role in the events that led to her own brother’s death, Catherine immediately retired from the Porthaven Marines are unsuccessfully trying to win Jonathan clemency — it has been noted that even if she had succeeded in winning clemency for her brother in Porthaven, he still faced capital charges in numerous other states jurisdictions.
After leaving the public eye, she becomes a much more obscure figure in the historical records. Publicly available records show had she eventually married, purchased property outside the city proper, and had children. It is known that her eldest son was named Jonathan.
This is another concept that was too specific for their to be much available historical imagery for. “Female Musketeer” isn’t really well-documented in real life. Plenty of modern stock photos I could have paid for and women being involved in warfare are common enough in real life, but most of them are depicting wearing full armour, rather than anything resembling what I was trying to invoke.
All of which is to say, I had to use photographs rather than historical art as my basis/
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