"Lovely view of the sea, isn't it?"
"It really is. It feels completely different from looking at it on shore." The neatly dressed blond young man brushed away the wet hand on his shoulder and stepped aside to make room at the bow. "It would be even better if the ship pitched less."
A retching sound came from behind them. A man in a squire's uniform leaned over the rail and weakly brought up a little bile. He had fed the small amount of dry bread he'd eaten that morning to the fish before it had even had time to digest, and now his stomach had nothing left in it.
A few times, he tried to wipe his mouth with his sleeve, but his reluctance to soil his brand-new clothes stopped him. A thick hemp rope was tied around his waist and secured to the mast, just in case a wave swept him straight off the deck.
The sailors passed him without a second glance, adjusting the sails and scrubbing the deck. The ship carried on in an orderly fashion.
"Ha, this is hardly what I'd call rough seas." The bearded captain rolled up his sleeves, revealing the burly arms he'd built up battling the waves. He casually showed off a large tattoo of rolling waves from wrist to elbow, the sort that clearly came with a story.
Most passengers would have been drawn to the tattoo, leading to hours of conversation and boasting to relieve the day-after-day boredom at sea. They might also hear a few more amusing anecdotes from people of different walks of life.
But this passenger didn't give his attention to the captain, who was eager to chat. Instead, he gazed out at the boundless sea. Beneath the cloud cover, the water was a mix of