“The danger isn’t the river’s speed, friend, but its slowness. It’s easy to get caught in the weeds near the bank and move no further. Yet I’ll lend you a strong staff to push with, so you’ll have little to fear.”
As the boatkeeper went to the edge of his jetty and began to busy himself with rope, Beatrice whispered:
“Axl, please let’s not be parted.”
“We’re not to be parted, princess. Look how he makes his knots to keep us together.”
“The tide may part us, Axl, never mind what this man tells us.”
“We’ll be fine, princess, and soon at our son’s village.”
Then the boatkeeper was calling them, and they stepped carefully down the little stones to where he was steadying with a long pole two baskets bobbing in the water. “They’re well lined with hide,” he said. “You’ll hardly feel the river’s cold.”
Though he found it painful to crouch, Axl kept both hands on Beatrice until she had safely lowered herself into the first basket. “Don’t try and rise, princess, or you’ll endanger the vessel.”
“Won’t you get in yourself, Axl?”
“I’m getting in right beside you. Look, this good man’s fastened us tight together.”
“Don’t leave me here alone, Axl.”
But even as she said this, she appeared reassured, and lay down in the basket like a child going to sleep.
“Good sir,” Axl said. “See how my wife trembles from the cold. Is there something you might lend to cover her?”
The boatkeeper too was looking at Beatrice, who had now curled up on her side and closed her eyes. Suddenly he removed one of the furs he was wearing, and bending forward, laid it on top of her. She seemed not to notice — her eyes remained closed — so it was Axl who thanked him.
“Welcome, friend. Leave everything at the lower boathouse for me.” The man pushed them into the tide with his pole. “Sit low and keep the staff handy for the weeds.”
It was bitingly cold on the river. Broken ice drifted here and there in sheets, but their baskets moved past them with ease, sometimes bumping gently one against the other. The baskets were shaped almost like boats, with a bow and stern, but had a tendency to rotate, so that at times Axl found himself gazing back up the river to the boathouse still visible on the bank.
The dawn was pouring through the waving grass beside them, and as the boatkeeper had promised, the river moved at an easy pace. Even so, Axl found himself glancing continuously over at Beatrice’s basket, which appeared to be filled entirely by the animal skin, with only a small portion of her hair visible to betray her presence. Once he called out: “We’ll be there in no time, princess,” and when there was no response, reached over to tug her basket closer.
“Princess, are you sleeping?”
“Axl, are you still there?”
“Of course I’m still here.”
“Axl. I thought maybe you’d left me again.”
“Why would I leave you, princess? And the man’s tied our vessels so carefully together.”
“I don’t know if it’s a thing dreamt or remembered. But I saw myself just then, standing in our chamber in the dead of night. It was long ago and I had tight around me that cloak of badger hides you made once as a tender gift to me. I was standing like that, and in our former chamber too, not the one we have now, for the wall had branches of beech crossing left to right, and I was watching a caterpillar crawling slowly along it, and asking why a caterpillar wouldn’t be asleep so late at night.”
“Never mind caterpillars, what were you doing yourself awake and staring at a wall in the pit of the night?”
“I think I was standing that way because you’d gone and left me, Axl. Maybe this fur the man’s put over me reminds me of that one then, for I was holding it to myself while I stood there, the one you’d made for me from badger skins, which later we lost in that fire. I was watching the caterpillar and asking why it didn’t sleep and if a creature like that even knew night from day. Yet I believe the reason was that you’d gone away, Axl.”
“A wild dream, princess, and maybe a fever coming too. But we’ll be beside a warm fire before long.”
“Are you still there, Axl?”
“Of course I’m here, and the boathouse long out of sight now.”
“You’d left me that night, Axl. And our precious son too. He’d left a day or two before, saying he’d no wish to be at home when you returned. So it was just me alone, in our former chamber, the dead of night. But we had a candle in those days, and I was able to see that caterpillar.”
“That’s a strange dream you speak of, princess, no doubt brought on by your fever and this cold. I wish the sun would rise with less patience.”
“You’re right, Axl. It’s cold here, even under this rug.”
“I’d warm you in my arms but the river won’t allow it.”
“Axl. Can it be our own son left us in anger one day and we closed our door to him, telling him never to return?”
“Princess, I see something before us in the water, maybe a boat stuck in the reeds.”
“You’re drifting further away, Axl. I can hardly hear you.”
“I’m here beside you, princess.”
He had been sitting low in his basket, his legs spread before him, but now shifted carefully into a crouching posture, holding the rim to either side.
“I see it better now. A small rowing boat, stuck in the reeds where the bank turns ahead. It’s in our path and we’ll have to take care or we’ll be stuck the same way.”
“Axl, don’t go away from me.”
“I’m here beside you, princess. But let me take this staff and keep us clear of the rushes.”
The baskets were moving ever more slowly now, pulling inwards towards the sludge-like water where the bank made its turn. Thrusting the staff into the water, Axl found he could touch the bottom easily, but when he tried to push off back into the tide, the river floor sucked at the stick, allowing him no purchase. He could see too, in the morning light breaking over the long-grassed fields, how weeds had woven thickly around both baskets, as though to bind them further to this stagnant spot. The boat was almost before them, and as they drifted lethargically towards it, Axl held out the staff to touch against its stern and brought them to a halt.
“Is it the other boathouse, husband?”
“Not yet.” Axl glanced over to that part of the river still gliding downstream. “I’m sorry, princess. We’re caught in the reeds. But here’s a rowing boat before us, and if it’s worthy, we’ll use it ourselves to complete the journey.” Pushing the staff once more into the water, Axl manoeuvred them slowly to a position alongside the vessel.
From their low vantage point, the boat loomed large, and Axl could see in fine detail the damaged, coarsened wood, and the underside of the gunwale, where a row of tiny icicles hung like candlewax. Planting the staff in the water, he now rose carefully to his full height within his basket and peered into the boat.
The bow end was bathed in an orange light and it took him a moment to see that the pile of rags heaped there on the boards was in fact an elderly woman. The unusual nature of her garment — a patchwork of numerous small dark rags — and the sooty grime smeared over her face had momentarily deceived him. Moreover, she was seated in a peculiar posture, her head tilted heavily to one side, so that it was almost touching the boat’s floor. Something about the old woman’s clothes tugged at his memory, but now she opened her eyes and stared at him.
“Help me, stranger,” she said quietly, not altering her posture.
“Are you sick, mistress?”
“My arm won’t obey me, or I’d by now be up and taken the oar. Help me, stranger.”
“Who do you speak to, Axl?” Beatrice’s voice came from behind him. “Take care it’s not some demon.”