“Save your prayers for those who would appreciate them,” he said. “It’s a queasy stomach. I’ll endure.”

“You need not cling to pride. We are all inferior and weak in our own ways. I promise you, one prayer, and you will feel instantly better.”

There was no doubt in Arn’s mind this was true. There was also not a chance in the world he would allow it.

“Your kind ain’t much for taking no for an answer, are you?” he said, perhaps the greatest understatement in the history of Gadir.

Jarvis smiled. It was a familiar expression to Arn, for he had seen it so often during his training. Priests and priestesses of the God-Incarnate seemed the only people capable of manifesting it so perfectly. The smile was faint, without joy or laughter, and it did not reach the eyes. It was pleasant, meant to seem kind, but there was too much pity in it for there to be comfort. Little more than a mask.

“Dwell in your sickness if you must,” Jarvis said. He joined Arn in looking out over the rolling blue sea. The man was likely oblivious to the bitterness in his words. No doubt he thought it a mere statement of fact. “The people of this world often prefer sickness rather than the comfort of our god. It takes a strong man to bend the knee, and humility rare to all but the most faithful.”

Try not to puff yourself up too much, Arn thought. Too much more and he’d float off to the clouds.

“I’m hardly humble, but at least I’m strong. Wouldn’t be coming to Thanet if I wasn’t.”

“What does bring you to the distant island?” Jarvis asked. “Especially if sailing delivers you such misery?”

“I’m good with hammers and nails,” Arn said, the cover story concocted for his voyage to go along with his false name. “Your priests want someone with proper training to build them a church, and I was the only one foolish enough to say yes.”

“It is a good deed you will perform. You should take pride in it, and in all the tribulations you suffer to accomplish it.”

“Taking pride in my work I can understand,” he said, unable to hold back a biting retort. “But you want me to take pride in puking my guts out into the sea?”

“It is the way of our faith,” Jarvis needlessly explained. How could the young man have any clue how much schooling Arn had endured in such matters in his early days? Every scripture, every verse, every song, had long been memorized during his own training. If only he could purge them from his mind like he had that morning’s breakfast from his stomach.

“Everything involves your faith,” Arn argued. “Waking, eating, shitting, all somehow done in glory to the God-Incarnate way off in Eldrid.”