Moving back from the railings, I watched as one of them answered the phone while the other went to attend to a grey van that had pulled up beside the guard station. With luck and good timing, I would be able to slip into the courtyard unnoticed when they let the van out. As I moved in towards the iron gates, the guard went to speak with the driver, who wound down his window. I waited by the exit, watching them. There was a reflection on the windscreen: the monochrome image of bare branches of the trees above distorted by the curve in the glass. The clouds thickened, dimming the meagre sunlight so that the reflection faded. I caught a glimpse through the windscreen of the person in the passenger seat. The long face, high cheekbones and black hair were familiar.
It was Raffmir!
He must have seen me too. Suddenly the guard was thrown back and the van gunned its engine, leaping into motion. It crashed into the gate, swinging the heavy ironwork directly out at me. I dived, but the gates hit me, hurling me away with a force beyond their weight. I felt the dark pulse of power as they struck me, the jolt of pain as the iron sent a numbing shock through my body.
I landed heavily, and for a long while the dark swallowed me. After a while, though, I began to sense sounds, and lights, and cold, and it came to me that I must be dreaming.
The rain descended in sheets in the dark, depressing the branches of nearby trees and drumming on the ground. Everywhere tiny rivulets slithered through the grass, pooling in hollows and merging, joining to form the beginnings of streams, meandering towards the river.
I stumbled across the uneven ground. Though the rain did not touch me, it curtained my vision so that I nearly toppled over the bank into the flood. Even in the limited light under the clouds I could see the river was swollen, testing its banks and pulling at tree roots. Out in the stream, leafy branches emerging from the brown water gave testament to comrades already fallen to the flood.
Out on the river there was a light, swinging and bobbing. It hung over the flow, seemingly floating, as it edged towards me.
Alerted by the sound of hooves, I turned, alarmed. A horse galloped into view, then skidded and slid as, seeing the barrier too late, the rider tried to turn away from the river. The horse toppled onto its side with a solid thump, whinnying in protest. The rider slipped deftly from the saddle, rolling to the side, but failed to account for the treacherous ground and tumbled into the mud, coating himself in it all down one side.
The horse twisted and clambered to its feet, then trotted away sulking before halting at the limit of visibility. The horseman swore in a language I did not comprehend, but his meaning was clear. He ignored me, coming to stand at the bank’s eroded edge to stare into the dark. He was young, stoutly built and muscular. His long hair was twisted across his face and he pulled it behind him, plaiting it quickly into a loose braid in a practiced gesture. He was not dressed for the weather, wearing only light trousers and a loose shirt which clung to his skin, revealing muscular arms.
He saw the light on the river and ran back to the horse, which stood shivering in the dark. He pulled a small package from the saddle, slapping the horse’s rump so that it trotted away into the dark.
Returning to the riverbank, he called out in a harsh foreign tongue, raw and guttural, to the source of the light. It hung there in the dark, and then edged towards the bank. As it neared, a boat resolved behind it, pointing upstream. A figure in a long cloak stood in the craft, balancing easily as it rocked and swerved in the current. There was no sail, and no one rowing, yet it leaned into the current and danced between the flotsam being dragged downstream. As it neared the bank, the hood was pulled back.
“Kimlesh?” I said, and then realised she could not see me.
She answered the young man, her clear voice carrying across the water.
“What do you wish for?” she asked.
He answered her. His words were incomprehensible whereas hers were plain, but his gesture at the far bank was clear.
“There is a bridge a few miles downstream,” said Kimlesh. “If it still stands.”
He said something under his breath and then held up the bag he had taken from the horse’s pack. He shook the package, which chinked, and though the sound surely did not carry to the craft bobbing in the current, his meaning was clear.
“You are lying. You will steal my boat and slit my throat, if you can,” she said.
He shook his head and climbed carefully down the bank to the water’s edge where the brown water sucked at the bank.
“Your voice betrays you,” she said.
He searched the bank, then, looking for something but not finding it. After a moment, he called out, again.
“There is no tether, Guillaume, nor any needed. This boat finds its way in any flood.”
His expression was bemused. He called a question to her.
“You already know that, son of Herleva. Why are you here, then?”
He shrugged, glancing over his shoulder.
“First we bargain, Guillaume, and then we will see,” she said.
There was a drumming over the persistent pattering of the rain; hoof-beats splashing through the wet. His expression changed at the sound of hooves, and his entreaties became more persistent, though he lowered his voice so he would not be overheard.
“What will you give me in exchange, Guillaume? What will you offer me in return for escape from your pursuers?” Her voice was quiet, but it carried across the water.
You had to admire the man. It took nerve to stand on the bank with the horsemen riding up and down the river looking for him while the bargaining went back and forth. At one point there was a cheer as they found the loose horse, but he never looked back. His attention was focused on the woman. Everything else, even the rain, might as well not have existed.
“We are agreed then,” she said. “I will take you to the far shore, and you will grant me a single boon when I come before you and petition in person, be it within your power?”
A jingle of harness behind us sealed the deal and the boat dived to shore. Guillaume tried to step into the shallows and sank up to his thigh in the deep water where the shore was cut away by the current. He was nearly swept away, but the craft was alongside, and she held it firm while he scrambled over the gunnel and tumbled in. Immediately the bow turned out into the current and it bobbed into the flow, the light dancing at the prow. A shout went up and horses pounded over, spilling men with spears. Guillaume was briefly visible, lying in the bow while the hooded Kimlesh stood in the stern as they faded into the rain.
The men peered into the dark, one casting a spear out across the water, which fell short and slipped into the flow and was not seen again. The men swore among themselves, but none tried to enter the stream after the young man. They gathered up their horses and rode away in a mass, downstream, heading for the bridge that Kimlesh had mentioned.
“Is he dead?” said a voice.
“You don’t see living people that colour,” said another.
“What’s that on his face?” said the first voice.
“It’s where the gate hit him. You see the pattern from the ironwork?”