Baron Breton Stackpole stood on the pitching deck of the Otter, holding his cloak tight against the wet, winter wind, and cursed for the seventh time since noon today that he had made the voyage on Trident's Tears instead.
The Otter was a good ship with a deep draft and a mast tall enough to carry a mainsail and a topsail, both, and she was large enough to host his family and his knights so long as the voyage was short and they had little need of space for cargo. On almost any spring or summer day, the Otter would have made the voyage from Stackpole Isle to Blackwell Bay in half a day, even with stops at Kettle and Breaker isles to retrieve the knights who guarded the approach to Blackwell Bay.
But this wasn't spring or summer, and even rising before the dawn had barely given Baron Breton time to make the crossing, assuming the seas were fair and the clear weather held.
