By mid-morning we had shifted all our remaining stores and equipment, the gyrfalcons in their cages and the white dogs onto two more river craft. Then our newly recruited boatmen pushed our ungainly craft away from the bank, using long wooden oars, and we floated out on the slow-moving surface of the river. The ferrymen – two men in the bow and two in the stern – settled the oars into short Y-shaped crutches. Standing facing forward, they began to take slow, leisurely strokes. Our vessels drifted, barely moving. I was with Abram on the lead boat, carrying stores, and looked back towards our little convoy. A short distance behind us came Walo with the ice bears, then Osric on the vessel with the aurochs. The other stores boat brought up the rear. All three craft were low in the water and the double ferry, weighed down by the aurochs in its enclosure was scarcely visible. The huge animal appeared to be standing on the river’s surface, the water level with its hooves.
An unseen eddy caught our boat and it began to rotate slowly. Our boatmen corrected the movement, holding us straight and in mid-river. The bank on both sides was steep, covered with thick brushwood. There was nowhere to land in an emergency. It was evident that it was now impossible to get off the river. We were committed to wherever it would carry us. Abram had left to me the final decision whether to continue by road or take to the river. If I had made the mistake, I had no one else but myself to blame for our situation.
A heron standing in the shallows watched us draw closer. We were moving so slowly that the bird did not consider us a threat. It turned its head, watching us along its spear of a beak, as we drifted past.
‘This is even less than walking pace,’ I complained to Abram.
‘We’ll move faster once we pick up the current,’ he assured me.
Ahead of us the river curved to the left and out of sight. We drifted round the bend and passed a gulley where a stream emptied into the main river. Almost imperceptibly our speed increased for a few yards, then slackened again. Had I not been so dismayed by our dawdling pace, I would have enjoyed the tranquillity of the scene ahead of us. A large flock of wild ducks was feeding on the surface. They had blue beaks and wing tips, beautifully speckled brown breasts, and a noticeable streak of white just in front of the eye. They scattered in leisurely fashion, paddling just far enough apart to keep a safe distance from the dipping oars as we drifted among them, then came together again once we had passed. There was a small, rippling swirl almost within touching distance, and I had a momentary glimpse of the fin and green-bronze back of a fish as long as my arm before the creature sank from view. High overhead four swans flew, dazzling white against the grey, overcast sky. They were following the line of the river and overtook us in moments, the sound of their wing beats fading so swiftly that it made me feel as if our boats were anchored in one spot. From somewhere in the distance came a long rumble of thunder.
The hours dragged by. All that afternoon our little flotilla crept along at the same languid pace. Unlike a straight roadway, the river meandered and twisted in casual loops. Where trees overhung the bends, our boatmen were obliged to take a course to avoid branches that extended far out over the water. This increased the distance we had to travel. We never knew what we would encounter around the next corner or whether we would find ourselves heading north, instead of south. After four hours of travel I doubted we had progressed the same number of miles.
Just as I was thinking that our situation could not get any worse, there was a faint scraping sound. Our vessel had touched bottom. We were in mid-river and had been travelling so slowly that it took me a little while to appreciate that now we had come to a complete stop. The boat was caught fast on a shoal.
Our crew were waving at the boats behind us, signalling that they were to head for the bank, and not follow us onto the underwater obstacle.
The head boatman seemed unconcerned. A stocky, square man wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat, he rolled back his sleeves, revealing thick forearms covered with thick black hair. He probed the river bottom with a long pole. I thought he was searching for a deeper channel to get us over the shoal, but he was only trying to locate a firm spot where he could rest the tip of the pole, then push. He and his three comrades heaved and shoved until reluctantly our boat slid backwards into deeper water. Then, without a word to me or Abram, they began to punt our boat to join the others already nestled against the bank. There they rammed the bow of our boat deep into the reeds. One of them leaped ashore and fastened a heavy mooring line around the trunk of a sapling.
I was dismayed.
‘Aren’t you going to try to get past that shoal?’ I demanded of the head boatman. He looked blank and Abram relayed my question in a language that I only partially understood.
‘He only speaks Burgundian,’ the dragoman explained after listening to the boatman’s reply. ‘He says that it is better we spend the night here. It is safer for us.’
I looked around. The river took its course through an immense untouched forest. On both banks rose a solid wall of huge trees, heavy with summer foliage. There was no movement, no sign of life, no sound. Even the leaves were motionless in the muggy, still air. I wondered why the boatman sought safety when our surroundings were so peaceful.
‘Please let him know that progress today was very disappointing. Ask him how far he thinks we will travel tomorrow. I’m worried we’ll run out of food for the animals,’ I said.
Another exchange of conversation, and Abram informed me that the boatman expected to make good progress the following day and to reach a town where we could purchase rations for the animals.
I accepted his response grudgingly and waited for our boatmen to go ashore and set up camp. However, they made no move to do so. Instead, they fastened extra ropes between our four vessels, drawing them even closer together until they were buried deep within the reed bed, their blunt bows almost touching the bank. It seemed that we were to spend the night on board.
Walo fed the animals from our stores, and Abram’s camp cook dangled lines off the stern of our boat and caught several plump fish with silvery-gold scales. He alone was allowed by the boatmen to go ashore to light a fire and broil the fish. After the meal the head boatman insisted that he return aboard. As the evening shadows lengthened, I wondered yet again why we were not being allowed to spend the night on dry land, and what was so dangerous in the brooding forest.
Dusk came early beneath a lowering sky, the clouds massing together until their undersides took on the texture of curdled milk. From far away sheet lightning flickered over the leafy canopy. Rumbles of thunder reached us, but so faint that they only emphasized the deep silence of the great trees.
As the darkness settled over our little flotilla, a noise began, croaking and scratching. It rose gradually from the reeds as myriads of the frogs and insects began their chorus. The noise was muted at first. Then it grew louder and louder, reaching such a level that it seemed to vibrate the air with a constant humming, buzzing whine. Sleep was near impossible. The noise penetrated right inside one’s skull. At intervals the din would die away. Then a few moments later it returned at full strength, interspersed with chirps and high-pitched whistles. I had never heard anything like it and it was a long time before I drifted off into an uneasy sleep.
I woke suddenly. There were neither stars nor moon and the night was so black that it was impossible to gauge the time. I could have been asleep for an hour or much longer. I lay still, wondering what had awakened me. The night chorus had eased to a low, background hum, as if the creatures in the reeds were exhausted. I felt the boat rock beneath me, a gentle swaying movement, as if it were encouraging me to return to sleep. I turned over and dozed. Moments later the boat rocked again, more violently this time. Close to my ear the water was rippling past the thin wooden hull, a sound that had not been there earlier. There came another shaking movement, and the boat bumped against its neighbour. I sat up and peered into the darkness. There was nothing to be seen. There was a rubbing and creaking from the ropes tethering the vessel to the bank, then a distinct crunch as the bow bumped on gravel. I could just make out the figure of one of our boatmen. He was crouching in the bow, attending to the mooring line.