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“Are we ready to sail?” asked the white bearded man, towering over the aft castle.

“Not yet, captain!” three sailors shouted forcefully as they moved back and forth across the deck to withdraw the moorings.

“Get busy then! I don’t want to spend another minute in this port!” Deniz shouted in turn.

“Yaahrr, captain!” this time all together, more than twenty men.

“Breakfast?” asked Ilker who had joined him next to the red wooden wheel of the helm, handing him a bottle of rum already uncorked and only half full.

Without answering, Deniz grabbed it and drank from it. He wiped his lips with the white beard.

“Are you sure it’s the right thing to leave him here alone? He may be suffering from loneliness like he used to, Deniz. Perhaps it’s better not to leave or, perhaps, to wait until this story passes? After all, how long do you want this mess to last? He’s waiting for a messenger from his woman and the time seems more than ripe now. We should be with him until the time comes.”

“No, Ilker” Deniz said dryly to his lifelong friend. “He’s no longer the bony kid we fished out of Morven’s lousy alleyways. He isn’t anymore, I tell you. Like it or not we must accept this as absolute truth. He’s now a grown man. How old were we when we went out to sea and wrote our little story, huh? Just a few less than him. Indeed, the time of separation has arrived late. He must understand for himself what his path is and if this doesn’t coincide with sailing on our ship, let him remain on the mainland then. You know how dangerous is to take a lazy man overboard, I certainly don’t need to tell you. The only thing that worries me is that of all the cities where we dropped the anchor, he chose one that he doesn’t even know. I don’t know how to tell you. It gives me a certain uneasiness. There are too many similarities between Garatier and Morven. Evil places like this should burn so that everyone can see that under the scented, noble and festive skin, the muscles are of iron and blood and the bones of hate.”

“Ahrr! What colourful metaphors, my friend. Are you thinking of a career as a minstrel for the Queen Ancilla Ilia?” the boatswain said smiling and snatching the dark glass bottle from Deniz’s hands. “I wasn’t the only one worried then.”

“How could I not be? After all, he is part of our family, like a son. Ah! I should have leave him at Renport after the assault of the Tiburon on Verdens Ende” said the captain moving towards the parapet and focusing his gaze on the surface of the sea, made crystalline by the brilliant morning sun.

“You can say, Deniz. You can say it well” Ilker replied sadly remembering unhappy moments and drinking from the bottle after having dedicated a toast to Nerva.

“We should worry less about him and more about us who are almost at the end of the journey of life. Age advances inexorably, very little can be done against such a power. I still remember when I saw you there, on the quay in the Capital, looking after a certain Aida, among others, annoyed and burned by the sun.”

“Aida, huh? Ahrr! Do you remember, Deniz? Our first ship…”

“That white piece of wood seemed the most beautiful on the pier and the strongest, as well as the easiest to take, and instead, of all the ships of the imperial nobles, we chose the worst, with the whole hull eaten by those lousy shipworms. How did we fall in love with it? Oh, what memories though! It seems to have happened yesterday.”

“It looks like that, huh. But it’s been nearly forty years already…”

“Let me tell you the truth, Ilker. The more time advances the more I’m convinced that I’m not afraid of the end. I’m afraid of dying away from the freedom of these waves that we’ve dominated for forty years, just like you just said. I’m afraid to do it away from the saltiness and humidity of the cabin, to do it in a disgusting shack in the middle of the fields that stink of cows and shit. I’m afraid of dying before I see Ethan again, when he’ll finally a man in one piece.”

“You know how it is with children, Deniz. They never look like grown men, not even when, having the privilege of still being alive, they are seen in adulthood. Take Ilker who has been in his thirties for a long time now. Yet in my eyes he’s still a brat.”

“What are we bothering to do, boatswain? The truth is that it is age with its anxieties that speaks for us. As for him, my friend, for our Ethan, after Fiskereik, Geteville and then the Northern Isles, we should be calm. He knows how to defend himself and even more.” Deniz rolled his eyes to the sky, somewhere indefinite. He was looking for the memories in his mind, which for some time was starting to be more and more difficult.

“Ahrr! For the Plagues, Deniz! He could be the Sigmund Dughall of our day, it wouldn’t change the concern we feel for him. He’s still our boy and we’re his family!”

“Of course, this love will never change. After all, we’ve been raising him for fifteen years, he knows how we feel. Yeah, he knows” Deniz said, turning and smiling towards the oldest of his friends. “And if he doesn’t know, I left him something to remind it.”

“What have you done, old devil?” asked the boatswain who mistakenly understood that smile as evil.

“Ah! Why do you think badly of me, Ilker? Have I ever given you a reason?” the captain asked in turn, continuing to smile, and curling a long strip of beard around an index finger.

“Ahrr, you did. And often too, you know it” Ilker replied dryly and they both went on to a short but thunderous laugh.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Be that as it may, old slipper, rest assured. Indeed, we should rest both calm. Our boy isn’t left alone.”

“What do you mean?” Ilker asked with obvious perplexity.

“Old age is taking your head off, huh?” replied the captain, encouraging his friend to understand by himself.

“Of course! Shinji!” then shouted the boatswain.

“Shinji, yes. Obviously Shinji, but also someone else…”

“Who are you referring to?” Ilker asked even more perplexed, and this time he would not be able in any way to arrive at the answer.

“By Aedan’s Wisdom! Think, right? To that blonde the Nionreian told us about yesterday. He told me he already knew her and vouched for her. I’ve to tell you, my old friend, I’d be happy if our Ethan fell in love with a girl like that. Shinji described her to me as a simple but beautiful, polite, and kind peasant girl. Somehow, she reminds me of Syradis… Ah! The fact is that it would be much better than that other witch.”

“When you talk about Maeve you sound like the mother of a princess who is forced to leave her first-born daughter in the clutches of a foolish and shabby prince to preserve a clean blue bloodline, instead of the tutor of a boy who knows how to stand up for himself and even more. You’ve never tolerated her, have you? From the very beginning.”

“Exactly so. I can’t understand what lies behind those eyes. They are black as the deepest abysses, like a midnight sky without a single star. Worst of all, they seem to suck you into a straight and directed vortex to oblivion. Our boy is a sensitive one, we both know that. One like that could destroy him.”

“It’s just a woman, Deniz, let’s go. What do you think she can do?”

“The same as she did to her husband, for example.”

“I’ve heard of it too, but you know how it is with such women. Beauty sometimes brings envy for other women and unsatisfactory carnal desires for men and therefore they do nothing but speak ill of them. She’s just a woman, Deniz.”

“A woman, of course. But times have changed, old friend. It’s not like it used to be. Now women are recognized for their strength, they have the power that was once denied them. And she… she’s dangerous. If you had looked into those damned eyes of hers, now you would understand me.”

“Ahrr! How dangerous do you want her to be?”

“How dangerous can a woman be who steals your heart with a look and in a night and who after a look and a night, she remains in your head after two years?”

“Captain!” called Fren the Hub.

“Speak out.”

“We’re ready to sail at your command.”

“Let’s go, then! What are you waiting for?” Deniz croaked hoarsely but pleased.

“There is more…”

“Speak, for the Divines sake! Do I really have to get every word out of you with pliers?”

“Ethan… Ethan is at the dock.”

Deniz didn’t answer. He quickly descended the stairs and entered the castle. Looking out the window, well hidden by the green curtains, he saw his Ethan reading a piece of parchment.

Good little redhead boy, he thought as his mind returned to the job he had entrusted to a street child before embarking. He was delighted and surprised at the same time as he thought the little boy would take the money and leave. But no. Instead, the kid had honoured the agreement.

Deniz felt the thrust of the ship, which, with the anchor now withdrawn, began to move under the influence of the currents and pushed by the winds. After a moment, he saw Ethan look up to him.

The old man waited a moment before raising his fisted hand. Will we meet again? It should be a ‘see ya later’ but in my mind, it tastes like goodbye. Take care of yourself, boy. Find your way and let it be as bright as possible, he tried in vain to communicate telepathically.

No tears fell for that greeting. Rather, the old man smiled. It was goodbye, but not bitter as the time was ripe.

He returned to the stern castle as the Tiburon awaited the orders of his captain.

***

Egill’s head burst with a thousand thoughts and one while, on the deck of the sailing ship, he took a moment to pause from the books to enjoy the view of the now distant Garatier and the sublime open sea sparkling with the rays of the already high sun.

Too bad you didn’t come with us. So, you really left us, Ethan? Too bad. You were the only one I could exchange at least a few words with, the only one who didn’t look at me like I was a freak, the only one who didn’t call me Borda. You made me feel normal. We spoke little but, since I arrived a year ago, you have been the only one looking for me not only for the management of wages, but also to talk about you, your dreams, me, my dreams. Too bad you didn’t come with us. And now who will I talk to? Sure! Maybe Deniz? Besides, if I liked you and I was happy with you, then I’ll be happy with the captain too, right? Ah, Ethan! Why did you decide so fast? Or were you premeditating it? Then, why you never told me about it when we’ve talked about your dreams? I wish I could be with you, be by your side…”

Quartermaster Egill Olcsson was not a very sociable person, he didn’t particularly like to talk or express his feelings.

He had had a respectable and utterly ordinary life up to that point, yet his appearance was considered by most to be as repellent as the sight of a Borda. Fishermen in the Unified Kingdoms of Kaltheimr gave him that nickname after a few weeks at sea on the Tiburon and it had remained on his shoulders ever since. By now the men on board pronounced it as if it were something common, however every time Egill heard that word he felt a great displeasure, even though he did not express his discontent.

‘They don’t do it out of spite. They joke. So why don’t I feel any desire to smile like they do?’ he wondered the first few times he heard the nickname being pronounced amid laughter. ‘They don’t do it out of spite. Now they think it’s my name, even if they don’t know its meaning’ he thought when, instead, that nickname had consolidated and became his first name for many of the crew.

He had never tried to tell them to stop. Not for fear of what the consequences would be, because a man from the North cannot feel fear in the presence of those from the South. So, at least, that was what his father, Olc Arghesson the Grumpy, had tried to teach him. But Egill hated the North and all the teachings passed down from father to son in that collection of wild kingdoms unified by brute force, because in the Kaltheimr territories everyone was too strong. Everyone except him.

If until then he hadn’t tried to counter those denigrations, it was simply because he didn’t feel like it. ‘There are no worse enemies on a ship than internal quarrels and listless men’, the captain had told him when he was forced by his father to take an oath of eternal loyalty to Tiburon. A year had passed since that day, and yet Deniz’s words reverberated in his mind as if they had been spoken just an hour before.

No, the truth was it wouldn’t make sense to try and tell them to stop. It’s not that bad, he believed. They don’t know what that name means, they don’t do it maliciously, he repeated in his mind.

Egill Olcsson hated that name because from where he came from, Skipp - which was also where the fishermen who initiated the offenses came from -, Borda was a famous and terrible witch of the frozen countryside. An ancient devil with long black stalactite hair, spikes of ice instead of eyes and ears, dressed in human skin dyed with the encrusted blood of children. So said the storytellers of the North. Absolutely horrifying. And he was compared to that being. He didn’t understand why, since he was neither evil nor a bothering man, and he tried to keep away from anyone as much as possible, so as not to be a burden.

For Egill Olcsson known as Borda, the offense was not his resemblance to the creature in aesthetic terms because he knew his appearance well and had learned to live with it since some time already. The offense concerned how much more being compared to such an evil entity.

Among the reasons that led him to see Ethan as his only true friend was precisely the fact that he had never called him that derogatory way. Never. Not even once. He was still sorry that Ethan had left them that way.

Egill stared at the sky between the long, greasy black hair that ran down his face and over his eyes. It was the deepest blue he had ever seen. Not even a cloud. For someone like him who by his choice spent the hours of the day working on the accounting books locked in the hold and those of the night resting or contemplating the damp wooden planks, those little flashes of freedom represented his window on the world. They were so rare that the beauty of what he saw seemed to grow from time to time.

Although he had been in his twenties for several years now, he was amazed as a child can be amazed, when he saw a dolphin scampering near the hull. Then another one. Another one. A whole herd of marine mammals had surrounded Tiburon. They were happy, carefree. They played and whistled without worrying about what surrounded them. Rhythmically they leapt out of the water in groups of three or four and then re-entered in graceful dives. From time to time, some of them would stay on the surface and squirt huge amounts of pressurized air out of the blowhole, whistling gleefully. They seemed to be smiling.

He envied them. You all seem the same. Could there be discrimination among you like those that men usually carry out without any reason that can be said to be concrete? That even among you, you make fun of the ugliest of the group, you throw out the different and kill those who you don’t understand? He wondered, noting how one of the cetaceans that emerged had a thick white scar all along its slimy greyish muzzle, a clear sign of a harpoon hit during an unsuccessful fishing trip.

He identified himself in that dolphin, but the animal, unlike him, seemed perfectly integrated among its own kind. No, I don’t think so. I don’t think so at all, he replied to himself finally. You seem to always smile. You play and whistle and play again. Always in groups, always linked. How can contempt for the different exist in such a harmonious species? No, it doesn’t exist. Only the human delights in certain stupid affirmations of superiority over the abnormal. But what is normal? Being like me means being abnormal? No. Being normal means being human. There’s no human who can be said to be different because the human is human, be him short or tall, thin or fat, blind, deaf or crippled, swordsman or magician. Can even one of these be considered abnormal? What would you answer? I already know what you’d answer because it’s same as I’d answer. They’re normal all since they’re all human beings in the same way just as you’re all dolphins alike, in spite of scars and imperfections. It‘s the delight of the bully, the bad and the stupid to create the abnormal for being able to affirm one’s own arrogance, wickedness and stupidity. No, there’s no abnormality in the world. There are only human beings who love and hate alike, who laugh and cry, rejoice and suffer without any difference.

Egill Olcsson, known as Borda, was lost in his own thoughts forgetting that his job on that freighter was to take care of the accounting.

“Do you want to stay there all day staring at nothing?” Deniz asked from the top of the aft castle. His voice sounded like a blast.

I wish I could, thought Egill but did not answer. He simply bowed his head in apology and tried to head towards the dark dusty hold, where his desk and books were located, his solitary lair.

“I asked you a question, quartermaster. Why don’t you answer me?” Deniz pressed him again, squinting.

What should I tell you? Egill wondered. He thought but didn’t speak, as was his custom.

“I don’t understand what’s wrong with you, boy. I don't feel like I've ever placed myself badly with you nor of having supported any kind of insolence towards you, on the contrary. Yet, here we are, on the deck of the Tiburon where a man who has always treated you with gloves doesn’t receive any answer to the question he asked. Here we are where the captain of the sailing ship asks his quartermaster a question and in exchange receives silences seasoned with timid nods” Deniz continued, leaning with his forearms on the rudder wheel. He did not look at Egill in an inquisitorial or derisory way, he looked at him perplexed and this the quartermaster was able to guess easily.

Come on. Go on, Egill. Why is it so hard for me to talk to you, Deniz? Still, I thought you’d be like Ethan…

“I understand what it takes for you” said the captain, taking a greyish bottle covered with dust from the base of the wheel. “Come on, boy. Come here.”

Egill did not answer but followed the order. Quickly, shyly.

“Drink.”

I’m not a drinker, Deniz. “Yes” he replied.

“Ah! Good start, good start! The tongue is still in its place” the captain smiled. “Come on, drink again" he continued, urging him.

I hate the taste of rum. I also hate the smell of it. I hate alcohol and excesses, he thought, but followed Deniz’s command once again.

“Okay, that’s enough. Do you feel like answering? What’s wrong? If I ask you a certain question, I like an answer more in words than a resigned nod. So?” he insisted again.

“Nothing” Egill said very softly.

“How do you say? I’m a certain age, I don’t hear well…” Deniz replied, putting a hand to his ear.

“Nothing.”

“Forgive me, I just can’t understand what words you’re saying…”

Do you think I’m stupid? You’re in your sixties but your health, as well as your hearing, is the envy of many twenty-year-olds. If we were to die of old age only, or for the natural course of an illness, I bet you’d bury me. Should I stay at your game? “Nothing. There is nothing wrong, captain” said the quartermaster in a flat and calm tone, displacing Deniz who had evidently planned a gesture of annoyance. “It’s all right. This is me, It’s just me me and I’m like that.”

The old man seemed pleased. He didn’t expect that reaction, but it seemed evident that he was more than satisfied with being able to get him to talk. “You see? It’s not so bad to communicate if you give the right answers to the right questions. Am I wrong?”

“No.”

“Pass me the bottle, boy.” The captain drank and drank before continuing. “You know, I miss Ethan already”, said the old man once he had almost drained the entire contents of the greyish flask. “That stupid brat is the best one can ask to receive as a son from the Divine Ayae. Sure, sometimes he was really annoying but how could anyone not appreciate him? And, moreover, he filled our saddlebags well…”

Egill was already tipsy. He couldn’t handle alcohol. It was impossible to not appreciate him. I know well, Deniz. I know better than anyone else. “I’ll miss him too, captain” he said timidly after a sob.

“Let’s drink to his health.”

“To his health.”