"I'll never forget the first time I met you," said Bergon, "when they dropped me down beside you on the galley bench. For a moment you frightened me more than the Roknari did."

Cazaril grinned. "What, just because I was a scaly, scabbed, burnt scarecrow, hairy and stinking?"

Bergon grinned back. "Something like that," he admitted sheepishly. "But then you smiled, and said Good evening, young sir, for all the world as if you were inviting me to share a tavern bench and not a rowing bench."

"Well, you were a novelty, of which we didn't get many."

"I thought about it a lot, later. I'm sure I wasn't thinking too clearly at the time - "

"Naturally not. You arrived well roughed-up."

"Truly. Kidnapped, frightened - I'd just collected my first real beating - but you helped me. Told me how to go on, what to expect, taught me how to survive. You gave me extra water twice from you own portion - "

"Eh, only when you really needed it. I was already used to the heat, as desiccated as I was like to get. After a time one can tell the difference between mere discomfort and the feverish look of a man skirting collapse. It was very important that you not faint at your oar, you see."

"You were kind."

Cazaril shrugged. "Why not? What could it cost me, after all?"

Bergon shook his head. "Any man can be kind when he is comfortable. I'd always thought kindness a trivial virtue, therefore. But when we were hungry, thirsty, sick, frightened, with our deaths shouting at us, in the heart of horror, you were still as unfailingly courteous as a gentleman at his ease before his own hearth."

"Events may be horrible or inescapable. Men have always a choice - if not whether, then how, they may endure."

"Yes, but... I hadn't known that before I saw it. That was when I began to believe it was possible to survive. And I don't mean just my body."

- The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold