He stares at me, a part of him now longing to trust me. He says at last, “Very well, boatman, I’ll wander a moment about this shore.” Then to his woman, “We’ll be parted but an instant, princess.”
“There’s no concern, Axl,” she says. “I’m much restored, and safe under this kind man’s protection.”
Away he goes, walking slowly to the east of the cove and the great shadow of the cliff. The birds scatter before him, but return quickly to peck as before at their seaweed and rock. He limps slightly, and his back bent like one close to defeat, yet I see still some small fire within him.
The woman sits before me looking up with a soft smile. What am I to ask?
“Don’t fear my questions, good lady,” I say. I would wish now for a long wall nearby, to which to turn my face even as I speak to her, but there’s only the evening breeze, and the low sun on my face. I crouch before her, as I saw her husband do, pulling my robe up to my knees.
“I don’t fear your questions, boatman,” she says quietly. “For I know what I feel in my heart for him. Ask me what you will. My answers will be honest, yet prove only one thing.”
I ask a question or two, the usual questions, for have I not done this often enough? Then every now and then, to encourage her and to show I attend, I ask another. But there’s hardly the need, for she speaks freely. She talks on, her eyes sometimes closing, her voice always clear and steady. And I listen with care, as is my duty, even as my gaze goes across the cove, to the figure of the tired old man pacing anxiously among the small rocks.
Then remembering the work awaiting me elsewhere, I break into her recollections, saying, “I thank you, good lady. Let me now hurry to your good husband.”
Surely he begins to trust me now, for why else wander so far from his wife? He hears my footsteps and turns as from a dream. The evening glow upon him, and I see his face no longer filled with suspicion, but a deep sorrow, and small tears in his eyes.
“How goes it, sir?” he asks quietly.
“A pleasure to listen to your good lady,” I reply, matching my voice to his soft tones, though the wind grows unruly. “But now, friend, let’s be brief, so we can be on our way.”
“Ask what you will, sir.”
“I have no searching question, friend. But your good wife just now recalled a day the two of you carried eggs back from a market. She said she held them in a basket before her, and you walked beside her, peering into the basket all the way for fear her steps would injure the eggs. She recalled the time with happiness.”
“I think I do too, boatman,” he says, and looks at me with a smile. “I was anxious for the eggs because she’d stumbled on a previous errand, breaking one or two. A small walk, but we were well contented that day.”
“It’s as she remembers it,” I say. “Well then, let’s waste no more time, for this talk was only to satisfy custom. Let’s go fetch the good lady and carry her to the boat.”
And I begin to lead the way back to the shelter and his wife, but now he goes at a dreary pace, slowing me with him.
“Don’t be afraid of those waves, friend,” I say, thinking here’s the source of his worry. “The estuary’s well protected and no harm can come between here and the island.”
“I’ll readily trust your judgement, boatman.”
“Friend, as it happens,” I say, for why not fill this slow journey with a little more talk? “There was a question I might have asked just now had we more time. Since we walk together this way, would you mind my telling you what it was?”
“Not at all, boatman.”
“I was simply going to ask, was there some remembrance from your years together still brought you particular pain? That’s all it was.”
“Do we still speak as part of the questioning, sir?”
“Oh no,” I say. “That’s over and finished. I asked the same of your good wife earlier, so it was merely to satisfy my own curiosity. Remain silent on it, friend, I take no offence. Look there.” I point to a rock we are passing. “Those aren’t mere barnacles. With more time, I’d show how to prise them from the rockside to make a handy supper. I’ve often toasted them over a fire.”
“Boatman,” he says gravely, and his steps slow further still. “I’ll answer your question if you wish. I can’t be certain how she answered, for there’s much held in silence even between those like us. What’s more, until this day, a she-dragon’s breath polluted the air, robbing memories both happy and dark. But the dragon’s slain and already many things grow clearer in my mind. You ask for a memory brings particular pain. What else can I say, boatman, than it’s of our son, almost grown when we last saw him, but who left us before a beard was on his face. It was after some quarrel and only to a nearby village, and I thought it a matter of days before he returned.”
“Your wife spoke of the same, friend,” I tell him. “And she said she’s to blame for his leaving.”
“If she convicts herself for the first part of it, there’s plenty to lay at my door for the next. For it’s true there was a small moment she was unfaithful to me. It may be, boatman, I did something to drive her to the arms of another. Or was it what I failed to say or do? It’s all distant now, like a bird flown by and become a speck in the sky. But our son was witness to its bitterness, and at an age too old to be fooled with soft words, yet too young to know the many strange ways of our hearts. He left vowing never to return, and was still away from us when she and I were happily reunited.”
“This part your wife told me. And how soon after came news of your good son taken by the plague swept the country. My own parents were lost in that same plague, friend, and I remember it well. But why blame yourself for it? A plague sent by God or the devil, but what fault lies with you for it?”
“I forbade her to go to his grave, boatman. A cruel thing. She wished us to go together to where he rested, but I wouldn’t have it. Now many years have passed and it’s only a few days ago we set off to find it, and by then the she-dragon’s mist had robbed us of any clear knowledge of what we sought.”
“Ah, so that’s it,” I say. “That part your wife was shy to reveal. So it was you stopped her visiting his grave.”
“A cruel thing I did, sir. And a darker betrayal than the small infidelity cuckolded me a month or two.”
“What did you hope to gain, sir, preventing not just your wife but even yourself grieving at your son’s resting place?”
“Gain? There was nothing to gain, boatman. It was just foolishness and pride. And whatever else lurks in the depths of a man’s heart. Perhaps it was a craving to punish, sir. I spoke and acted forgiveness, yet kept locked through long years some small chamber in my heart that yearned for vengeance. A petty and black thing I did her, and my son also.”
“I thank you for confiding this, friend,” I say to him. “And perhaps it’s as well. For though this talk intrudes in no part on my duty, and we speak now as two companions passing the day, I confess there was before a small unease in my mind, a feeling I’d yet to hear all there was. Now I’ll be able to row you with a carefree contentment. But tell me, friend, what is it made you break your resolve of so many years and come out at last on this journey? Was it something said? Or a change of heart as unknowable as the tide and sky before us?”
“I’ve wondered myself, boatman. And I think now it’s no single thing changed my heart, but it was gradually won back by the years shared between us. That may be all it was, boatman. A wound that healed slowly, but heal it did. For there was a morning not long ago, the dawn brought with it the first signs of this spring, and I watched my wife still asleep though the sun already lit our chamber. And I knew the last of the darkness had left me. So we came on this journey, sir, and now my wife recalls our son crossing before us to this island, so his burial place must be within its woods or perhaps on its gentle shores. Boatman, I’ve spoken honestly to you, and I hope it doesn’t cast your earlier judgement of us in doubt. For I suppose there’s some would hear my words and think our love flawed and broken. But God will know the slow tread of an old couple’s love for each other, and understand how black shadows make part of its whole.”