On February 2, 1491, at low tide, an old man came to a bench near the Teahouse in Rothglen port. He sat down and stared at the local fishermen, walking in boots around the mighty piles of the pier and gathering crustaceans in the setting sun.
It was a cold day, and the Rothgleners, unfriendly by nature, were looking at the old man more suspiciously than usual. In fact, they were looking at him very unkindly. If the old man had a sharper eye and caught a single look of a kind, he would have taken off like a scalded cat far away from the Teahouse. He would have locked his house with all possible deadbolts, putting a barn lock on the inside to be sure.
Unfortunately, the old man's eyesight was just a bit better than an earthworm's, as for his running abilities... Truth be told, he could hardly outrun a crustacean thrown ashore, that only if it was turned upside down. Besides, the old man had no house in Rothglen, no den, not even a bed of his own in the rustiest tavern.
With the sun up to his navel behind the peaked roofs, the old man had the urge to get up. The cold wind had gotten through him so much that he could not feel pain in his joints, or rather, he could not distinguish between a joint and a joint. Because all his bones were aching like hell.
At this moment two Rothglen dockers had just rolled out of the Teahouse. Dockers are always angry in February. At the weather, at the lack of ships, at the low wages, at the tax collectors. But those who rolled out were completely beside themselves. After all, they'd just been refused fortified liquor at the Teahouse. In addition, they had been thrown out into the street by a superior force of sober, but no less unpleasant regulars. So it was Providence's fate for the dockers to scratch their fists at someone that day. The fishermen hid behind the mighty piles. One portly thief climbed up to the second floor of the Teahouse, where he pretended to be a seagull, quite convincingly. Unfriendly passersby hid their eyes.
"You!" the broad-shouldered docker shouted to the old man and burped audibly. "We don't like your kind here, ya know", - the other docker said. He hiccupped, showing his four broken front teeth. The old man opened his mouth to reply, and coughed. He tried to wrap himself in his leaky, once luxurious, painted doublet and pretend he wasn't the one being talked to, but the broad-shouldered man grabbed him by the chest.
"Do I have the honor of beholding Master Physalis?" - Long in the sunset, the stranger's shadow stretched across the pier.
"I am, yes, Physalis," the old man mumbled miserably, peering out from behind the docker's thick neck to examine his unexpected savior.
"In that case, put the master down," the stranger demanded. "Show some respect to the man who first crossed the Halimatian Sea and returned back to Samreignia."
The toothless docker turned toward the voice. The broad-shouldered one did show respect for Master Physalis by dropping him to the ground. The old man grunted, hitting the hard port planks with his tailbone. The broad-shouldered rolled up the sleeves of his canvas shirt. The toothless spat on his palms. Punching a pompous, pompous brat is better entertainment for a dockworker than mocking harmless old men...