I know this is zombie thread ressurection but I feel like sharing:

Quote:

THE ARCHIPELAGO “Row for your lives, row, you worthless sons of a whore!” I pull as hard as I can on my oar, using all my strength. The mind really works in strange ways. Here I am, on an Imperial quinquereme of the XXIIth Classis, we’re battling a raging storm in the middle of the crossing towards the Archipelago and, if we do not manage to face the next wave straight on and ride up it high enough, we’ll either capsize or take on so much water the ship will probably drown. If we drown, the indentured serfs in the hull will die fast. The embarked soldiers who’ve kept their chainmail or breastplates will die fast. Those who don’t know how to swim will also die fast. For the others, it might take a bit longer but we’ll die too… And drowning isn’t the most pleasant way to go… It beats burning, though. “Row for your lives, you useless pieces of shit, row!” Here I am, arms and back muscles tensed to breaking point, pouring all my energy into that seemingly simple task, rowing, concentrating on getting the oar to bite into the sea and yet, yet, a part of me is coolly wondering what this idiot taskmaster of a sergeant thinks he is achieving with his exhortations – We all know our lives are on the line and we all want to live... Well, maybe some of the indentured serfs wish for death - if they’ve heard the same stories I’ve heard about the Archipelago… My name is Jack. I am known as Papaya Jack. And this is my story. I was born a bastard. My father was a major figurehead in an aristocratic family with blood ties to the Divine Emperor. I never knew him to be anything but a cold, heartless and unforgiving asshole with a ruthless streak and an iron grip. His only weakness, if it was that, was his need to keep face at all times and at all costs. As such, rather than abandoning me to some orphanage as would have been customary, he took me with him and I was raised into his household. I never knew my mother or anything about her, for that matter. I quickly learned not to ask. Being a bastard, I was given a lower class name - Jack - rather than something fancier and more proper like my half brothers and sisters. Had I been legitimate, I guess I could have ended up Jacobus or Lacomus… Being a bastard with a lower class name in a vast noble household, I was given a hard time throughout my childhood. Apart from my barely older half-brother Cinnabarinus, no one ever showed me any affection let alone love. I don’t know if it excuses the rest of my life, the decisions I made, the lives I took but it certainly hardened me. It wasn’t long before I learned how to fight while outnumbered, how to take a beating and never show pain and, heck, how to not feel pain anymore. Yes, it was a hard childhood. But maybe it was just as well and it really gave me the mental resources for what was to come…

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