Chapter 173: Sailing Away

The morning came too soon, and found us standing on the Highever docks, waiting for a tender to ferry us out to the boat Fergus had booked. As I understood it, the ship was some sort of massive, ocean-going vessel usually used more for hauling cargo than guests, although we’d been assured that Alistair and I, and Aedan and Zevran, would have cabins rather than bunks, to my relief. Avanna had assured me that she and the other bodyguards we were bringing were happy sharing bunks or hammocks in the crew quarters or wherever they’d found space.

Fergus had brought a few guards too, though I was surprised to find he hadn’t brought one of his court mages. The Revered Mother, he’d explained, hadn’t approved of one of them traveling without a templar – or allowing them to get ‘close’ to a Teyrn. It was part of some agreement he’d made to get the mages to Highever in the first place, and he wouldn’t risk the Chantry closing down the free clinic they ran in the city in order to bring one with him.

For the millionth time, I wondered at the contradiction of the spiteful man he seemed to me, and the thoughtful Teyrn he apparently was to everyone else.

When the tender docked, I looked at it skeptically, wondering how on earth anyone was supposed to get onto the enormous ship anchored out into the harbour from its tiny, low-riding deck. I should have guessed; when we arrived at the enormous wooden hull of the ship, the crew threw down a ladder, and a small wooden swing. The swing had hand holds and ropes that were clearly meant to be seatbelts; based on the fact that Fergus had already begun climbing the ladder, I assumed the swing was likely meant for women in fancy dresses, to avoid having to expose themselves while climbing.

I snorted. Oh, hell no. There was no chance I was putting my life in the hands of some crew member hauling some rickety rope for the swing, being hauled up like a sack of potatoes – or some helpless damsel. So, thanking my lucky stars that I’d worn armour – and that my guards were female – I hauled myself up the ladder, Alistair muttering naughty comments quietly enough that only I could hear about exactly how much he enjoyed the view. I landed on the deck purple-faced and flustered, hoping everyone would mistake my breathlessness from laughter and embarrassment as being due to the climb.

The ship was huge; from what I could see, it was much, much larger than the one we’d taken from the Circle to Redcliffe. In fact, I was pretty sure that ship would fit in just one of this one’s cargo holds with room to spare. Despite its size, there wasn’t much for passenger accomodations; it was clear this was normally a working ship, not a cruise liner. Not that I even suspect cruise liners exist in Thedas. We met the bosun – an irritable, moustached man with a strong Orlesian accent; he bowed obsequiously though I got the impression he felt he was lowering himself to consort with people like us. I put it off to him being Orlesian, and honestly found it wryly amusing. He rushed off ostensibly to ‘prepare our rooms’, leaving us alone on the deck until the captain emerged from a door near the front of the ship; he was a good deal friendlier, but quite clearly busy, as he turned and started shouting orders mid-conversation.

There was a huge crane of sorts loading cargo from another tender onto the ship – which was what the captain was attempting to manage – and I looked at Fergus in surprise; since Aedan wasn’t talking to him, and Alistair and Zevran were acting sort of irritable, it was left to me to ask the obvious questions. “I thought this ship was a charter, your Grace?”

“Well, yes,” my liege-lord clarified, “but that doesn’t mean they don’t bring cargo as well; we don’t need an entire ship just for us, and the cost would be outrageous.”

“Are we the only passengers, your Grace?” Avanna asked, and I saw her eyes narrow with concern.

Fergus just shrugged. “As long as they’re going to Ostwick, and we’re not sharing cabins, what does it matter?”

I supposed he had a point, though by the looks on the faces of the rest of my traveling companions, he was the only one who felt that way.

The captain came back after a few minutes, his tanned, leathery cheeks pulled back in a smile. “I’m sorry about that.” He bowed again and then gestured at the group of people standing together and watching over us – the combined guards for three nobles. “Don’t worry, we’ve put aside space for your ... staff.” He looked around for a minute, muttering under his breath about Orlesian laziness, and then finally hailed a young man who was tying down crates on the deck and called him over.

“Will you show our guests to their cabins, and their staff to the empty berth below decks? There’s a good lad.” He turned back to us. “We will be departing with the tide in an hour or so; I’d ask that you remain in your quarters until then, while we load the last of the cargo. After that you’ve got free rein of the top deck if you’d like to watch. Meals will be served in the galley, and someone will find you when they’re ready. If the wind is with us, we will be in Ostwick in five days.”

Sailing across the Waking Sea was ... interesting. The cabins could barely be called rooms – more like glorified broom closets – and the beds were tiny. Alistair was too tall to fit, and it was a good thing we were cuddly or we’d never have been able to get both of us in at the same time. The water was choppy, which left me feeling off balance; I wasn’t nauseated, but it still wasn’t comfortable. One of the crew members helpfully recommended I try watching the horizon, and he was right – as long as I sat on deck and didn’t move, I felt okay. Alistair, Aedan, and Zevran took turns keeping me company in a little nook I’d found near the bow of the ship on the lower deck, tucked up against some massive coils of rope, the purpose of which I couldn’t even guess. But it still left me struggling to sleep, and Alistair ended up bringing all my meals to me on deck. It could have been worse; there were several passengers we never even saw, apparently bed-bound with seasickness.

With Aedan and Fergus not on speaking terms, everything was awkward; they were trying to avoid each other, but while the ship was huge, there were only so many areas for passengers to spend time. In the end, sulking, Aedan spent most of his time either in his cabin or with me on deck. Fergus was clearly taking it hard; he was curt and unpleasant to everyone who crossed his path until everyone was avoiding him, not just Aedan.

It quickly became awkward to have guards following us around on the ship; there really wasn’t anywhere for them to stand while I was hiding in my little nest, and before long we’d all been forced to compromise by having them on deck but not necessarily right near us. Their accomodations were in an unused cargo hold; they had hammocks set up, and contrary to what Fergus had led us to believe, they each had their own space. The five women even had a partition to give them some privacy from the men. Honestly they had a lot more space than we did, and I seriously considered asking for a trade after the second sleepless night.

Fresh water on a ship at sea is at a premium; there really was only enough on board for drinking, not for washing. And while I had my water rune, we didn’t want to advertise its existence to the rest of the people on the ship; as such, none of us were allowed to shower, and bathing was restricted to a small amount of fresh water on a cloth to wipe down with – or a seawater bath, yuck. It wasn’t the first time since being in Thedas I’d been unable to bathe, but it was the first time in a long time, since we’d had the water rune for over a year. I hated it. I felt itchy and sticky and greasy and miserable, and while the crew didn’t seem to mind, I noticed my traveling companions seemed as annoyed by the whole thing as I was. My ridiculous modern bathing habits have worn off on them, too.

So all in all, it wasn’t a thrilling five days. We’d been within sight of the coast of the Free Marches for most of the last two days, but Ostwick was our destination, and the only port large enough to accommodate our ship. It was even big enough that we didn’t have to use a tender; the ship was able to come right up to the pier.

I didn’t see much of Ostwick, though I was thrilled to be standing on dry land, finally; we only had a single night in the city so the ship could offload cargo and restock for the trip to Wycome. We stayed at a dockside inn that was clean but not fancy, but really all I cared about was that our room had a bathtub. It had to be dragged up the stairs by a couple of unfortunate teenagers, but I honestly couldn’t even feel sorry for them. I did note that Alistair gave them a decent tip, however.

We were under strict instructions not to tell anyone who we were, or address each other by names or titles in public. Apparently a prince visiting a foreign city-state required a certain amount of warning – and ceremony – that we all wanted to avoid, so the best way to prevent an international incident was for no one to know who we were. To facilitate this, we were all to stay in armour – something that didn’t bother me in the least – and we left most of our things on board the ship. We’d disembarked with a minimum of luggage, kept to ourselves, ate in our rooms, and just took the chance to enjoy being on land and in proper beds for a night.

Alistair and I made love enthusiastically in the tub, and then again afterwards; we were both somewhat desperate after the dirty, cramped, seasick days on the ship. It was glorious to be clean, and I slept like the dead. I certainly wasn’t excited to get back on board the next morning, but at least I was in a somewhat better mood after a relaxing night.

The next leg of the trip was better than the first; we were four days from Wycome, but the waters between Ostwick and Wycome were absolutely still, and I’d apparently finally gotten my ‘sea legs’ – meaning my disorienting imbalance issue had largely resolved. That didn’t change where I spent most of my time – our cabin really was too small to hang out in for days on end – but it did remarkably improve the misery I experienced while curled up in the massive coil of rope on the bow of the ship watching the water. I even saw what I was quite sure was a pod of dolphins in the distance as we sailed.

The trip from Ostwick to Wycome kept us close to shore the entire time; it was rare for us to go far enough out that we couldn’t see land. I found this reassuring, given the number of people we knew of who’d been lost at sea over the last few years, but it also made for interesting watching. Sometimes there were animals on the shore, including a few small bears, wolves, and myriad smaller creatures, but also sometimes including people. There were places where some sort of road must have wandered close to shore, because we could see carts and horses in the distance, and campfires at night.

I wasn’t sad to learn that our cranky Orlesian bosun had been left behhind in Ostwick; he’d been far less than helpful on the trip, and the captain was apparently even less enchanted with his efforts. Though I got the impression that he might just have left, rather than be fired, since everyone seemed surprised that he wasn’t on deck when we boarded in the morning. He hadn’t been replaced yet, but as we’d done just fine without one, I didn’t think we were missing anything.

The weather got warmer the further north we traveled, to the point that most days I wore just my regular clothes – the lightly armoured pant suits I’d had tailored for appearances at court or the Landsmeet. The skies were blue, and it was really incredibly pleasant. I spent the days joking with the people I cared about the most, or just lying there, half-hidden, enjoying the novelty of having nothing to do, and interesting scenery to watch while doing it. Weekends weren’t exactly a thing in Thedas, especially while fighting a Blight; we hadn’t really had much time off since I’d arrived near Ostagar.

The only downsides were the continued lack of bathing facilities, and the fact that the bed in our cabin really was too small for much in the way of nighttime activities. We’d made do with a quicky here and there – with Alistair pushing me up against the cabin door, my legs around his waist, for example – but I missed having the space to relax together and take our time pleasing each other. Lying in the tiny bed and not being able to take advantage of our free time was excruciating.