Departure

The passengers worked all afternoon and well into the evening to re-arrange all of the cargo and shore up the animal pens and get the fleet ready to sail. The villagers, meanwhile, kept the warming fires going and prepared fish stew with onion, garlic, mushrooms, oregano and thyme. Served with fresh-baked flat bread, mashed fava beans, and chunks of mild cheese procured from the goatherds who lived up in the hills, the final meal felt like a feast. Next morning, with all sailors and passengers on board plus the welcome addition of a healer, the rowers took up their oars and pulled the fleet out of Gozo’s deep channel and onto the open sea. Incense billowed from the decks, and everyone prayed that the gods would take them safely—and quickly—to their new home. The captains had distributed the Sage passengers approximately evenly between the three remaining ships. They were the least eager to continue the voyage. The violent storm had left them in constant fear for their lives. A cloud crossing the sun, the sails slapping in the wind, the sudden squawk of a caged goose, any little disturbance set their nerves on edge. To make things worse, in order to accommodate the additional passengers, Amaal, Uru and the others were forced to settle down in whatever small spaces they could find between the extra travelers. The ships no longer felt like home. They were crowded, and the old family ties were disrupted by the presence of unfamiliar faces. No one wanted another minute at sea, but a nerve-wracking incident nearly kept the fleet from landing at all.

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