It seemed to me as I rowed that I had been rowing all my life. Memories were faint around the edges, other worlds and other lives away. Only Delia of the Blue Mountains remained clear and beautiful to me in that time of inexpressible misery. I had been engaged as a galley slave in battles, when the galley of Magdag on which I served had captured a fat merchantman from one of the cities of Zair, and twice we had been involved in a real battle with a galley from Sanurkazz. But, so far, I had not been in action aboard Grace of Grodno. I did not know the ways of her captain or her oar-master, her whip-deldars or her drum-deldar in moments of emergency. Zorg and I had been through a lot together on the calm waters of the Eye of the World. Now, the signs were clear: Grace of Grodno was clearing
