This is the second part of my chapter, but you can read it by itself if you'd like. You'd understand more if you read the other part, anyway.
The first part is here:
http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2317369/1/
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Jer was almost asleep in the ship’s hold when a flicker of light woke him wide-awake. He focused his eyes, and noticed a man in loose purple robes approaching him. The man had a nose shaped like a beak and thin pale lips, a shabby beard growing below them. A leather pouch was strapped around his shoulder. He paced towards Jer and crouched close to him.
“Yer like to catch something if you don’t change,” the man said, setting his candle on the floor, next to where Jer was laying. He sat, heavy with sleep, and looked quizzically at the man.
“What is it that you want,” he said, his voice raspy. The man began to search through his pouch.
“Oh, you offend me. My name is Lussell, but that’s not something you’re like to care at this time,” he said, his left hand still moving restlessly in his pouch.
He has the right of that, Jer thought. “I am a priest,” he continued, “and the gods would not have pity on me if I left you to sleep like this.” He took his hand out of his pouch and handed him a tattered linen shirt. Jer could see blood patches on the shirt, but it was dry, like as not.
“What gods do you serve?” Jer said, moving the candle towards the linen shirt.
A bloodstained one, probably. He took his sheepskin coat off, along with his shirt, and left it close to his boots.
“The Limbless Gods,” he said, and smiled, “the only true ones.” Lussell continued to search through his pouch and took out a brown trouser. “This will serve you, I hope.”
The air smelled of rotting fish and salt. In the dim light of the candle, he could see the fish heads and other remains that would be used for bait. Jer began to take out his drenched pants and started to put on the priest’s clothes. It was a relief to be dry again, he thought, but it was too bitterly cold.
“Thank you,” Jer said. “If there’s anything—”
“Of course there is. Why, you don’t think I sh*t clothes do you?” The priest began to laugh. He took his wineskin from a pocket in his robe, and took a gulp. “For now your name will do. But we’ll talk later when you’re awake.”
Jer had never thought someone would ask him his name, yet…“Flea, they call me.” He didn’t know if it he'd sounded convincing, but if he hadn't, he couldn't read it in the priest's face.
“Just don’t get any on the clothes I gave you,” Lussell said.
The priest strode towards the stairs on the end of the hold, climbed them and tapped the wooden hatch. It opened a few seconds later, and Jer looked towards the candle he had left beside him. He placed his hands around the flame, but it did not make him any warmer. His head was aching and he moved around until he found a drier spot to lie. The wooden floor was no more comforting there, but at least he would not freeze to death.
A weird priest, that one. With that thought, he drifted to sleep.
