...[Threpe] caught my sleeve as I turned. "Be careful on your way there," he said, his expression anxious. "Remember: There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man."

Chapter Fifty-Two: The Long Journey

The ship was large and busy. It wasn't an shining, clean, opulent city, but cities had always made me nervous. No, this ship was rough as the plow-man's hand, dirty as a muddy road, and friendly as melted snow. It was the perfect place to be if I didn't want to talk to anyone.

I spent so much time going over the customs Threpe had taught me, thinking through interactions, even poking at the long-buried memories of my mother teaching me the manners of the rich, that I ended up being rather standoffish company. There was a bunk for me bellow-decks, there was brown bread and fish three times a day, and there was the sea.

Being on a ship reminded me of the many times my father used to balk at them. Whenever our travels brought us accidentally near the ocean, he would steer us back inland as fast as he was able. If Ruh were meant to be in the water, he would say to me, serious as a priest, we would have flippers instead of songs.

I hadn't been avoiding the ocean so much as I had been uninterested in encountering it. Now that I was on the rocking ship, with land still looming large on the horizon, I found it quite enjoyable. It felt like sitting next to a fire. A man could happily stare at the twisting colors all night, smell the cracking wood, watch the flames leap and fall in the air. The ocean is like that, blues and greys instead of reds and yellows. The smell was like fish and salt and wind. Sometimes there was so much wind, in the sails and the waves, sliding through my hair, that I didn't think I would have to chase it at all. On the water, the wind had come to me.

The first day dropped away quickly, as I explored my new temporary home. The sailors ignored me, unless I was in their way, in which a firm shove or quick tongue would get me scampering off again. It was like a game, a half-remembered Tarbean game. Here I climbed nets instead of buildings, and looked out over the sea and sky from the crow's nest.

We were close to shore those first few days, hugging the edge of the Commonwealth, stopping every twelve hours or so to pick up more cargo. The water remained smooth and shallow, the land never completely out of sight. The only disappointment was that I dared not bring out my lute, fearing that the salt would seep into the wood and toughen the strings. Instruments are best kept warm and dry until the wet passes.

I left my lute on my hammock when I went exploring. There seemed to be no other men sleeping near me. Most passengers had secured rooms for themselves in the upper decks, and the crew all clumped close together near the center of the lower deck. I was content in my shadowy corner, where no one bothered me and I drifted to sleep like a babe rocked in a cradle.

The third day of exploring, I came back to find my lute gone.

A knot of dread settled in my lower abdomen, slimy and sly as an uninvited acquaintance. I squinted in the darkness for a dazed moment before patting my many pockets to come up with the stub of a candle. I heated it with my own body, quick and frightened, and whirled around as it sputtered to life.

"Ack!"

I was thrown to the floor by a damp weight. My hand was wrested open, the candle taken out of it. "Are you crazy?" The form demanded in a hiss. "Those men see you with fire and you'll be in the water quick as a fish."

I bulked, thrusting my attacker off me. There was the soft thud of a body hitting damp wood, and then a louder thunk. The kind of thunk one might associate with an expensive lute case being thrown around. I grabbed it off the floor before my attacker could sit up, holding it to my body with one hand while the other grabbed a short, sharp knife out of another pocket.

"Well, you're a grateful one," my attacker said. When he sat up, I could see his features by the swaying lamps that were the only light source down below. He was young, perhaps even younger than me (and remember, I was barely sixteen then.) His features were fair and fine, tufty gold hair falling into huge, luminous golden eyes. Even his skin seemed to be made of gold, deep and rich in color. His cheekbones were high and proud as any noble's, yet something about his mouth and jaw and eyebrows suggested a femininity that undercut that power that the face could hold. In short, if I were ever to call a man beautiful, it would be him.

He stood up, brushing nonexistent dirt from his clothes and holding out a hand. "I'm Nathan," he said, his voice holding a smile that I could hear in the dark. "The one who just saved your luggage."

If it was my luggage, I wouldn't have been so worried. "Lute."

"Whatever," Nathan shook a finger at me, which was funny mostly because of his age. "Don't leave stuff like that lying around. These sailors aren't paid much. Most are just half a cut above horse thieves."

I put my arms through the straps on the case. It was heavy, but not overly burdensome. As I've said, it was a fine case, the finest object I owned up to that point in life. "Noted," I said, "thank you, Nathan." I put out my hand. After a moment, he shook it, holding my eyes with his odd bronze ones. "I'm Kvothe," I said.

He blinked. When he next spoke, his voice was lower. Muted. "Kvothe?" He spelled it, and I nodded, nonplussed. "Have you ever been to Tarbean?"

Only then did his features slide into place. I am very good with faces-memorization is part of acting, and memorizing faces is part of decorum-but the last time I'd seen this boy he'd been no older than eleven, I wasn't quite fourteen, and we were both starving. He was one of the children who shared Trapis's bread and basement. Back then he was just another bleak, bleary boy, but now he was grinning ear to ear, healthy as a horse and proud as a cat.

"I wouldn't have known if 'twernt it's an odd name" Nathan continued. Now that I knew what to look for I could hear the rolling accent of Tarbean in his every syllable. "Me and my brother, we took over your spot on the roof after you left. Your name was scratched into the wall." He ran a hand through his flower-fluff hair. "That was about the only word I read for two years."

I closed my mouth, realizing I'd been gaping like a schoolboy at a brothel. I was working out the odds of running into anyone from Tarbean here. It wasn't impossible-there was no such thing as impossible-but once the chances of death in the city and distance and time are factored in, I concluded that my luck had to be strong. The odds were too staggering. Whether it was luck for good or evil, time would tell.

Nathan's smile slipped and his eyes were saucers on his shadowy face. "I won't tell anyone," he promised, "if that's what you're worried about. I don't go spreading that word around myself."

Something on the floor shimmered in the low light and I picked up my candle, slipping it into a pocket. Nathan watched and asked, "Was that magic?"

There were several answers to give to this. The easiest by far was brushing it off, changing the subject, and I knew enough about conversational manipulation to bully the topic to whatever interested me. But I'd explained sympathy before and would explain it again.

That wasn't the whole reason, though. The whole reason you would only understand if you've been separated from your past with a messy, mutated rip. Nathan had grown up in my city, lived in the protection of a rooftop I'd found. As much as I hated Tarbean, the kinship between our experiences cannot be denied.

But that wasn't the whole reason, either. My past was something I kept so close and closed that I wouldn't even begin to know how to let go of the memories. No, the important part was that Nathan had been in Tarbean, with Skarpi. Skarpi, who knew the story of Lanre, the story my father had given his life trying to collect. Skarpi, who knew ever story in the world. Though I'd only known of him for bare months before he was hauled away by the strong arm of the church, there was the chance that he was some sort of story teller, story collector, story enthusiast. There was a chance he might remember something interesting.

But even that wasn't the whole reason. The whole reason was that Nathan had a friendly face and rough hands, a smile and a hard life. He reminded me, in looks and demeanor, of Simmon. Which is the only explanation I can give for liking someone so thoroughly so fast.

"It was sympathy," I admitted. "And if you can find us someplace we won't be disturbed, I can explain it to you."

#

Nathan closed the door behind us as we entered rooms that were as large as one was likely to see on a ship. "Whose are these?"

"Captain Kuch's," Nathan sat at a small desk, laughing at my startled expression. "You're obviously a passenger, Mr. Kvothe, but I'm a cabin-boy." He looked around the room and gestured for me to sit on the bed. "The Captain's personal cabin-boy, in fact. I sleep there," he jerked his head at a door that no doubt led into another bedroom, "most nights. When I'm not sleeping there." He nodded at the bed I was sitting on.

I looked at him, nonplussed, and his smile widened when he realized I'd gotten his full meaning. "The Captain runs quite the superstitious ship, you see, and one of the oldest superstitions in the book is about the foul luck you face if you have a woman onboard. So the crew makes by with me and a couple other cabin-boys." He winked at me, seeming to enjoy my continued incredulity. "I'll point out the more handsy sailors. A couple of drinks in and they'll assume you're a new body. You're young enough. Pretty enough, too."

I felt as uncomfortable as I had back in Inre when Devi had offered to bed me in exchange for information. Uncomfortable in both the suggestion and the knowledge that, were I to take either Devi or Nathan up on it, I would have no idea what to do next.

Nathan's laugh was throaty and loud. A bawdy laugh. But when I directed him back to the demonstration (shims again, you can't go wrong with hard coin) his eyes lit up, quick and bright.

He was smart, smart enough to survive on the streets, smart enough to find a life outside of Tarbean. I watched him all that first afternoon, grasping one concept after a next faster than some E'lirs I knew at the University, and I knew, without a doubt, that the only thing separating Nathan's fate from mine was the thinnest sunbeam of pure, utter luck.