‘’No, stop!’’ A sailor shouted on the deck of the cog, he lunged forward with a few more others to restrain Baybur. Baybur, however, didn’t mind the call, he didn’t care even. His sword slashed in a wide arc down and blood spurted.

Çetin Pasha’s eyes widened, then turned blank. His hands trembled at the same time, only to stop. The yatagan cut through the throat like a pebble falling on a lake, and the head rolled down.

‘’Damn it!’’ Sailor yelled,’’What did you do!?’’

Baybur turned around to gaze at the man, sheathed his sword with indifference.

‘’I just cut a fish.’’

‘’And I ask why you did that! Look, you ruined such a good Sarda!’’

‘’But I cut it clean?’’ Baybur raised a brow at the remark, then turned his gaze to the giant fish on the table. There was a neat wound that separated the silverish head’ bottom and top, trickles of blood leaned towards the ground from the table’s corners. Though they didn’t fall in a straight line, the crashing waves of the Aegean sea sent tremors running through the deck and the resting quarters below, causing the droplets to fly left and right. It was one such droplet that also awakened Çetin Pasha from his shock.

‘’It is not a matter of cutting clean, Baybur,’’ Çetin Pasha sighed, patting his forehead, ‘’if that was the case, we wouldn’t ask for kitchen knives and scissors...’’

‘’Oh...my apologies,’’ Baybur’s nose took a trace of red, ‘’I was a bit hasty.’’

‘’You were, you definitely were!’’ The sailor didn’t seem to mind the difference between their social standings, or Çetin Pasha’s rank, as he passed by them while brushing shoulders. He kneeled in front of the table, caressed the fish almost as large as a child, and shed tears.

‘’...’’ Baybur chose not to comment on that.

He instead turned his sight away from his source of embarrassment and looked over at the light tint of blue circling their ship- or ships, he snuck a peek at the sails of the caravel flanking the cog ship. Contrary to them, their sails stood full open, as with the maximum speed they could go one or two knots faster their vessel. But in a scenario of naval battle, they would contribute much more with their capabilities.

Or it seemed like that. Baybur didn’t really have an idea of what he talked about. He had never boarded a boat in his life, after all, let alone a ship.

Food for thought, food for thought...

Albeit not as a whole, he was now accustomed to the constant gusts of salty wind and heaving bow of the ship. Looking at the rising and descending pole pointing forward made one’s belly churn at first. Other than that, he realized how there were very few things to do on the ship other than talking, drinking, singing, and watching the sea. For the first, there weren’t many things to discuss after a day or two. His life wasn’t one of adventure or wars, the few he joined were defeats, even, so Baybur wasn’t fond of talking about them. For the sailors, these men also got bored telling people the same things again and again; How pirates ransacked a port town in northeast egypt, how the prices of spices in the arabia rose because of a greedy merchant, how the pope...

Now there were plenty, actually, Baybur realized, but in the view of these men living in the sea, they were just needless chatterings. What they liked to listen were epics, adventures, treasure hunts, and wars. Baybur, however, lacked them all.

For the second, drinking was haram to muslims so there wasn’t even a consideration of that among the sailors. But the few christian men in the midst didn’t need to heed, they drank anyway.

For the third, he didn’t have talent for that and listening to songs didn’t touch his heart. It was one of the things that stood at the bottom of his preferable activities list.

So all left was to watch the sea. Watch the waves show their rising torsos before smashing onto the bare hull of the vessel, watch the blue recede and rush back and forth every second, watch the few fish submerge from the depths to shake their tails and whiskers. Not much, yet unceasing. The ships also moved to the same rhythm, heaved at the same pace, and continued to flap its sails to the overbearing winds pushing it forward.

...Boring...

*********

‘’Boring?’’ Morrigan tilted her head at the question from her chair. She put down the needles into the basket of yarn, then lowered the basket to the cold ground. ‘’Why should it be boring?’’

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‘’Because you do the same thing always,’’ Baybur raised his palms under the warm blanket and waved them back and forth, his fingers pinched like holding a square fabric. ‘’You cross this and that, then pierce the needle from all sides, right? It looks boring to me.’’

‘’Don’t you do the same thing, dear?’’ She smiled, ‘’You leave the city with Caner and climb that hill every other day. Isn’t it also repeating?’’

‘’No but-’’ Before Baybur could utter a refusal, however, Morrigan’s eyes flashed and she pounced on him with wide arms!

No, she just took him in an embrace from a strange angle, which seemed quite detrimental to her back, and rubbed her face against his short hair. ‘’I’m joking,’’ She said, ‘’It is fun for me. I get to make cute dresses for you to wear, that is enough.’’

‘’Hmm,’’ Baybur felt like grumbling from the affection, and he did, honest to his feelings, so Morrigan ceased her fierce hug and took her basket instead. She pulled out two long needles, ensnared within a piece of half-done coat, and continued knitting the piece on her thighs. Baybur watched her hands sway back and forth for a moment, then turned his attention back to the crackling flames before him.

They blazed with the same synergy and fugitive embers tried to float over his side from the ashen woods. Yet the fire burst with a new vigor and swallowed them up, and another series of embers rose. The cycle was endless, unceasing, and even though it concurred without any changes, Baybur found himself fawning over the shadows trapped under its wrath.

‘’Isn’t it also repeating?’’

Baybur sulked.

Then a loud knocking came from behind, booming. Two deep tremors washed over the door and a rough, familiar voice spread.

‘’I’m back,’’ He said, ‘’Open the door.’

‘’I’ll open it!’’ Baybur shot up to his feet, blanket slid down his bare scraped knees, and rushed to the back. His feet ran from the small hallway to the door and reached to the sliding lock at the middle, where even his height reached easily. He pulled, it squeaked, and with a pull the door opened. ‘’Welcome, dad.’’ Baybur leaped on the man’s embrace with the sound of the rain behind.

‘’Calm down, my body aches everywhere,’’ Cain caught the boy mid-air and pulled closer to himself for a moment. Baybur was smiling from the wet texture when he saw his father’s eyes shrink. He turned around, grasped the door handle and shut the gate. Once he finished sliding the lock, he turned around and walked inside. Oh, Baybur realized, It is troublesome to repair wet ground in winter.

‘’How come you are this late again?’’ Morrigan’s cheeks had a tinge of red from the shining flames, her eyes still the same. ‘’I doubt there are any trees left in the forest after two weeks.’’

‘’Rain, woman, rain,’’ Cain murmured and put Baybur down. As soon as his feet touched the ground, the boy scrambled to his blanket near the fire. It wasn’t that these two would steal his place, but since they both came home then he was free to do whatever he wanted. Well, he could do before that, but the sense of uneasiness from the lack of both didn’t help him enjoy watching the flames.

‘’Consider yourself lucky today,’’ She sighed and turned back to knitting. ‘’Since you have been working hard, give me some extra denars for tomorrow.’’

‘’And why is that?’’ Cain took a chair from the empty table and approached both. As Morrigan talked, he placed the seating a bit far from them.

‘’I have to buy some more yarn for your cloak, there isn’t enough. And the say the hearth is going to choose some kids from our neighbourhood. Alexander is-’’

‘’There is time left,’’ Cain interrupted and plopped on the seat, ‘’I doubt they will take him away.’’

‘’Goran’s kid was eight when they took him away, don’t you remember? Alexander is almost ten now.’’

‘’I- said-’' Cain frowned, ‘’It is early!’’

‘’...what is your problem?’’ Morrigan asked, she raised a brow. Even her hands holding the needles stopped in the air. ‘’It is not our decision, is it? If they want, they can take him. If they don’t want, he can never go anyway.’’

‘’You’ve got some courage these past years, didn’t you?’’ Cain didn’t answer, instead he slowly rose from his seat and approached Baybur. ‘’I never laid my hands on you since he was born,’’ His index finger pointed at Baybur, ‘’And you now learned to talk back to me?’’

‘’What are you trying to do?’’ Morrigan shot to her feet, the basket fell from her thighs and the yarn inside scattered over with tendrils. Baybur attempted to move back in the meantime, yet even before he could crawl Cain’s hand shot and caught his flailing leg.

‘’Dad?’’

‘’Since they look for able boys, then I’ll take his leg. Those devils won’t make my son one of them!’’ His other hand reached and clutched Baybur’s leg from the other side. Baybur tried to shake off, and kick the hands away, but the grasp was too strong for him to resist. A woodcutter of decades’ grip wasn’t something a child could contend.

‘’Let my son go!’’ Morrigan shouted and lunged toward Cain. A flash of light passed through between Baybur and Cain, a sharp scream followed.

‘’DAMN WOMAN!’’ Blood dripped from Cain’s hands. A needle was in his left wrist, poking from the other side with a scarlet tip. ‘’UGH!’’

Cain released his grip and Baybur regained his freedom. He shot up to his feet and ran back to the door, shouted. ‘’Help! Help!’’

But his shouts didn’t reach far before a wail washed over him and his voice. Baybur’s heart trembled, his knees disappeared and he fell down on the ground. His head leaned sideways to gaze.

He saw the same needle with the same scarlet tip. Yet it wasn’t in Cain’s wrist.

It was in Morrigan’s eye, pointing at him from the back of her head.

Baybur screamed.