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WE LIFT HER SAILS, WE MAN HER DECKS,
WE SCRUB THE PORTHOLES CLEAR,
AND YES, OUR LIGHTHOUSE SHINES FOR HER,
AND YES, OUR SHORES ARE WARM;
WE STEER HER INTO HARBOR -
ANY PORT IN A STORM.
THE SAILORS STAND UPON THE DOCKS,
THE SAILORS STAND IN LINE,
AS THIRSTY AS A DWARF FOR GOLD
OR CENTAURS FOR CHEAP WINE.
FOR ALL THE SAILORS LOVE HER,
AND FLOCK TO WHERE SHE'S MOORED,
EACH MAN HOPING THAT HE MIGHT
GO DOWN, ALL HANDS ON BOARD.
I trust you will not show this song to Mother, for I
could almost hear the nurse blush as I sang it, she who has
bathed me and dressed my wounds over many weeks. As I
think further, perhaps it would be best to show none of this
to Mother. The story becomes no more pleasant.
We were speaking of snow and the trip to the tower and
the indecent singing of footmen. One of the knights - it
might even have been Sturm Brightblade, whose name you
have no doubt heard in the histories and will hear again and
again in this story - took exception to the song, and raised
his voice in the Huma chant of which you are, dear Bayard,
so fond. It faded into the fog behind us, for few knights took
it up, weighted down as they were by the drizzling cold, and
the footmen were not about to join in, the only version of
that chant I had heard pass their lips an immodest parody in
which the breast is no longer Huma's, is a different and
softer reward entirely for the warrior
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