Chapter Twelve: The Merchant

Part 2: A Passage to Mongolia



A few weeks later, Hanno stood upon the deck of the Mercury, the lead caravel in his trade mission’s convoy. He took a deep breath, and the clean, salty air of the great western ocean—the Mare Occasus—filled his nostrils. He was quite proud of the fact that it had only taken him a couple of days to get his “sea legs”.

That was not true, unfortunately, of everyone in his party.

Hanno turned when he heard light but unsteady footfalls behind him upon the wooden deck boards. A small, delicate figure joined him at the railing, weaving unsteadily as the ship rocked in the waves.

“How did you talk me into this again?” Yukio said tiredly.

Her raven-black hair was pulled back into a severe bun to keep it out of her face. Her skin, which was normally the colour of pale gold, had taken on a greenish hue. Her dark, narrow eyes were sunken and tired, having rapidly lost their usual liveliness within the first few hours at sea.

Hanno gently placed his arm around her slender shoulders and laughed softly. “I believe it started when I asked you to marry me,” he said.

“Maybe I should have listened to my father,” his wife said grumpily. “And married a nice Japanese boy.”

“And miss all this?” Hanno said, waving at the broad expanse of empty ocean before them.

“A whole bunch of water?” Yukio remarked, glancing contemptuously at the source of her torment.

“Exactly,” Hanno countered, “that’s all it is, which is why you shouldn’t let it bother you,” he said with a chuckle and an affectionate squeeze of his wife’s shoulders.

The small, delicate Japanese woman looked up at him and smiled. Even though she’d been suffering from sea-sickness ever since they left Rome several weeks before, she still looked radiantly beautiful to Hanno—never more so than when she smiled.

“You always make me feel better,” she said, beaming at him. “Is there anything that dampens your enthusiasm?”

“Just one thing,” Hanno replied, his handsome features growing quite serious. “The thought of losing you,” he said quietly.

“That will never happen,” his wife replied, turning her face towards his.

They kissed just as the ship hit a rogue wave. They broke their kiss and both had to grasp the railing to keep on their feet. Yukio’s complexion turned a shade greener than it had been a moment before.

“Oh, Ecastor,” she muttered. “I think I’m going to…”

“Use the head?” Hanno said, not unsympathetically. “There’s one over there…” he added, pointing, but his wife was already running in that direction.