Roman istoric · The Ocean Sea, volumul 1
The Western Passage
The idea was right. The ship was wrong.
Genoa, 1291. Everything the Indies produce comes west through a chain of hands, and every hand takes its cut. Ugolino Vivaldi, a merchant who can read the weight of a cargo from the way the porters carry it, means to go round the chain by sea: out through the Strait, down the coast of Africa, and the first hull in pays nothing to anybody.
He is given two galleys, the best ships Genoa builds: fast, free of the wind, able to put their bows on any beach. But each carries a hundred and fifty men pulling oars under a southern sun, more mouths than any galley can keep in water. Every few days she must put in to fill her casks, while the coast keeps running south.
The annal of Genoa follows them as far as a cape called Gozora.
The ship's books go on.
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