It was no ideal situation to be in; captured remnants of what would be a long-suffering siege against the Knight’s fortifications in Malta, but where the Turks and their allies had been less than considerate of those who had defended against their great siege at Fort Saint Elmo, he could at least say he was alive. Enslaved, if not headed towards such a fate when his voyage with the Barbary ended and he was sent to one country or another, and ragged about the edges, injured and bloodied by battle, but alive.

But for how long?

Conditions being what they were, deplorable and no good for anyone else who had been locked up and shackled in the galley where they would become the driving force of the corsairs, it was hard to say just as it was hard to say what his fate would inevitably be, left to an uncertain swirl of thought as he, alongside his fellow captives – prisoners of war, each one of them taken from the Maltese coast – toiled. If the oars didn’t move, the corsair didn’t move, and if the corsair didn’t move, there was always someone at the helm, ready to impose less than pleasant ways and means to force them to. A quick snap to the back spurred action, a show of force compelled, and examples made ensured that no matter how much their muscles ached, the corsair would reach its intended destination of the Barbary Coast.

The bagnio, he supposed after some time, was not the worst place to be when there had been far more terrible fate to endure. It was a place to sleep at night, to rest off the toils of labor during the day, and prison as it might have been, there was some functionality to it – wounds could be mended in what was nearly a hospital, chapels had been erected within to pray, and when that failed to play to the desires of those within, there was always a spot to get a drink if someone was willing to part with whatever payment there was to give.

“Too bad it is swill,” he commented with a frown as he looked to the glass, dirty and dingy and in desperate need of a wash – a far cry from memories of life in luxury that flooded into his dreams. The liquid within wasn’t particularly appealing, a hot wash of liquor from an unknown source that seemed to mirror the rest of the bagnio’s hot, humid air, but it was something to at least dull the ache of sore muscles, if not just enough courage to do something stupid – like escape.

It was rarely doable, leading all too often to recapture or death, but there were worse things that he thought could plague him than death when it wasn’t so readily a means to an end as a new beginning – not that he had any intention to. The intention had been in escape, stowing aboard another ship headed for Europe or really anywhere that wasn’t the Barbary Coast, and disappearing from the face of such an existence preferably in one fell swoop; and while he had concealed himself readily enough, had worked diligently to stow away clothing that wouldn’t readily out him, there were always hitches to be found.

Like people, armed, potentially dangerous – neither of which he could readily say he was without a sword or even a gun, well on its way to becoming the choice weapon of the seas and soldiers – as they patrolled, Ash skirting away into the shadows without second thought that he would bump into someone along the way. The panic was instant, whipping around as if already preparing for the worst.