Chapter 17: The River

"Are you sure that you are well enough? Your bruise has only gotten bigger, and your fever just barely left," Elizabeth had asked him worriedly, before they left the cooper's hut.

"I promised you that once the fever left me, we'd go. We will find Lydia and Wickham, and then we'll set off towards those eastern hills, where all talk has it Querig has her lair. This nightmare shall soon come to an end."

As it was, Darcy had little choice in resting and getting better. Wickham had given Elizabeth exactly a day to locate him; moreover, from Elizabeth's description of Lydia in the tunnel, it was likely that the girl was further devolving, especially within these hills. Darcy had no faith that Wickham would be able to corral her, or that he would even try.

Reluctantly, knowing that he would not locate Wickham in the given time in the state he was in, Darcy let his horse go, with whispered instructions and many a pat. His horse, if she was able to find Wickham, would be sign enough for the other man to hold his position until Darcy made it there. And if the worst happened, Darcy knew enough calls of the wild to summon the horse back. She was a war horse, and had performed admirably with Steffa Ivor, but the closer they came to Querig, the more nervous Darcy became. Nothing was predictable anymore.

He hadn't wanted to leave the cooper's hut at all. To be with Elizabeth, alone, finally, was a dream that he had actually stopped dreaming for some time. The open admittance of feelings, the ability to finally let himself be happy was an emotion Darcy had not felt for years.

But the happiness was short-lived; there was still a long journey for them to make, and a fearful foe to defeat.

Darcy was scared. As close as he felt to Elizabeth, and though he had made her promise him the impossible, Darcy had been down this road before. He knew how brittle Elizabeth's memory was. Also, even if he successfully slayed Querig, there was nothing to say that Elizabeth would go on wanting him with a recovered memory. These fleeting moments was all he could expect.

They also still had not accounted for Sir Bennet. Darcy understood why Elizabeth avoided the subject, but they would have to face it sooner or later. Sir Bennet had tried to have Darcy killed, as well as Lydia. At some point, Elizabeth was going to have to address the issue of her murderous, traitorous father.

And what, Darcy wondered, would Sir Bennet do to try to dissuade Elizabeth from her chosen path?

Darcy could feel her leaning on him as they walked; her shivering, which had started a while back, had grown steadily worse. He longed for a patch of sun to warm Elizabeth, but though the opposite bank was often bathed in light, their side of the river remained stubbornly shaded and cold.

He had been about to suggest another rest when at last they spotted the roof behind the willows, jutting out into the water. It took some time to negotiate the muddy slope down to the boathouse, and when they stepped under its low arch, the near darkness and the proximity of the lapping water seemed only to make Elizabeth shiver more. They moved further inside, over damp wooden boards, and saw beyond the roof's overhang tall grass, rushes, and an expanse of the river. Then a man's figure rose from the shadows to their left, saying "Who might you be, friends?"

"Good day, sir," Darcy said. "We're sorry if we brought you from your sleep. We're just two weary travellers wishing to go downriver to…" Only midsentence did Darcy realise how easily he would raise suspicions if he didn't manage a suitable disguise for both of them. "…to my wife sister's village," he said. "We had sought refuge at the monastery after seeking some herbs from Father Jonus, but there was some fight there between other travellers and Lord Brennus' soldiers, and we were thus compelled to make a hasty exit." Darcy had the mild satisfaction of knowing that he hadn't completely lied.

A broad, bearded man of middle years, clad in layers of animal skins, emerged into the light and scrutinised them. Eventually he asked, not unkindly, "Is your wife still unwell? That is why you sought Father Jonus."

"She's only tired now, sir, but unable to walk the remaining way, or cross the river. We hoped you might spare a barge or small boat to carry us. I can see, sir, you have but one boat now in the water. I can at least promise you safe passage for any cargo you'd entrust should you allow us to use it."

The boatkeeper looked out at the boat rocking gently under the roof, then back at Darcy. "It'll be a while yet, friend, till this boat goes downstream, for I'm waiting for my companion to return with barley to fill it. But I see you're both weary. So let me make this suggestion. Look there, friends. You see those baskets."

"Baskets, sir?" Darcy asked blankly

"They may look flimsy, but float well and will bear your weight, though you'll have to go one in each. We're accustomed to filling them with full sacks of corn, or even at times a slaughtered pig, and tethered behind a boat they'll travel even a rough river without jeopardy. And today, as you see, the water's steady, so you'll travel without worry."

Elizabeth stirred now. "Darcy," she whispered, "let's not separate. Let's go together on foot, slow though it may be."

"Walking's beyond us now, Princess. We both need warmth and food, and this river will carry us swiftly to our journey's end. Your sister must be anxious now, waiting for us." Darcy turned to the boatkeeper. "You're kind, sir. But have you no basket large enough for the two of us?"

"You must go one to each basket friends, or else fear drowning. But I'll gladly tether two together so you'll go almost as good as one. When you see the lower boathouse, your journey will be over and I'll ask you to leave the baskets there well tied."

Darcy frowned. "I am not comfortable with us being separated, truly. Call it my old-fashioned nature."

"Friend, you both will surely drown in one basket together," the boatkeeper said. He looked Elizabeth up and down. "And your wife will not make it much farther on foot either."

"Maybe it will not be so bad," Elizabeth said. "This good man says he'll truss our two baskets together, and it'll be as good as we're arm in arm." Then turning to the boatkeeper, she said "I'm grateful to you, sir. We'll do as you suggest. Please tie the baskets tightly, so there's no chance a swift tide will move us apart."

"The danger isn't the river's speed, my lady, 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, Darcy turned to Elizabeth. "Princess, I am worried. The tide may part us, never mind what this man tells us."

"I thought that as well. But you are right; I am in no state to walk any farther, and fear rises in me with every spent moment about the state Lydia must be in."

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."

Darcy kept both hands on Elizabeth until she had safely lowered herself into the first basket.

"Don't try and rise, Princess, or you'll endanger the vessel. I'm getting in right beside you. Look, this good man's fastened us tight together."

Elizabeth appeared reassured, and lay down in the basket like a child going to sleep.

"Good sir," Darcy said. "See how my wife trembles from the cold. Is there something you might lend to cover her?"

The boatkeeper too was looking at Elizabeth, 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 Darcy 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 Darcy found himself gazing back up the river to the boathouse still visible on the bank.

As the boatkeeper had promised, the river moved at an easy pace. Even so, Darcy found himself glancing continuously over at Elizabeth'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.

Darcy was sick with foreboding and ill-feeling. His own body still ached, and the bruise over his eye was only partially healing, making it painful to keep both eye open. And the more he thought of Wickham, Lydia, Sir Bennet, and Querig, the wearier he felt. As well, he was almost ready to give up on his King's mission, such was his fear about Elizabeth's memory.

He kept looking over at her, and 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.

"Elizabeth, are you sleeping?"

"Darcy, are you still there?"

"Of course I'm still here."

"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 a field in the dead of night. It was long ago and I had tight around me a cloak of badger hides you made once as a tender gift to me. I was standing like that, and I was watching a caterpillar crawling, and asking why a caterpillar wouldn't be asleep so late at night."

"Never mind caterpillars, what were you doing yourself awake in a field in the pit of the night?"

"I think I was standing that way because you'd gone and left me, Darcy. 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. 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, Darcy. You had told me you would come back for me, but I think I never wanted you to leave."

"I am sorry I left you. I regret it every day."

"Are you still there, Darcy?"

"Of course I'm here, and the boathouse long out of sight now. I think you have a fever, brought on by this cold and all the chaos of the last few days. I wish the sun would rise with less patience."

"You're right, it's cold here, even under this rug."

"I'd warm you in my arms but the river won't allow it."

"You're drifting further away, Darcy. I can hardly hear you."

"I'm here beside you, Elizabeth. Look, I see something before us in the water, maybe a boat stuck in the reeds." He had been sitting low in his basket, 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."

"Darcy, please be careful."

"I shall, always. 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, Darcy 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 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, Darcy held out the staff to touch against its stern and brought them to a halt.

"Is it the other boathouse?"

"Not yet." Darcy glanced over to that part of the river still gliding downstream. "I'm sorry, Elizabeth. 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, Darcy manoeuvred them slowly to a position alongside the vessel.

From their low vantage point, the boat loomed large, and Darcy 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.

"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, Darcy?" Elizabeth's voice came from behind him. "Take care it's not some demon."

"It's just a poor woman of many years, injured in her boat."

"Don't forget me, Darcy."

"Forget you? Why would I ever forget you, princess?"

"This fog makes us forget so much. I forgot you. Why should it not make you forget me?"

"Such a thing can't ever happen, Princess. Now I must help this poor woman, and perhaps with luck we'll all three use her boat to journey downstream."

"Stranger, I hear what you say. You'll be most welcome to share my boat. But help me now for I'm fallen and hurt."

"Darcy, don't forget me, please."

"I'm just stepping onto this boat beside us, Elizabeth. I must attend to this poor stranger."

The cold had stiffened his limbs, and he almost lost his balance as he climbed into the larger vessel. But he steadied himself, then looked around him.

The boat seemed simple and sturdy, with no obvious signs of leakage. There was cargo piled near the stern, but Darcy paid this little attention, for the woman was saying something again. He could see how her gaze was fixed with some intensity on his feet, so much so that he could not help looking down at them himself. Noticing nothing remarkable, he continued towards her, stepping carefully over the boat's bracing.

"Stranger. I see you're hurt, but you've strength left. Show them a fierce face. A fierce face to make them flee."

"Come, mistress. Are you able to sit up?" He had said this for he was troubled by her strange posture; her loose grey hair was hanging down and touching the damp boards. "Here, I'll help you. Try to sit higher."

As he leant forward and touched her, a rusted knife she had been holding fell from her grasp onto the boards. In the same instant, some small creature scampered out from her rags and away into the shadows.

"Do the rats bother you, mistress?"

"They're over there, stranger. Show them a fierce face, I say."

It now occurred to him she had not been staring at his feet, but beyond him, to something at the back of the boat. He turned, but the low sun dazzled him and he could not discern clearly whatever was moving there.

"Are they rats, mistress?"

"They fear you, stranger. They feared me too for a little while, but they sapped me little by little as they will. Had you not come they'd be covering me even now."

"Wait a moment, mistress."

He stepped towards the stern, a hand raised against the low sun, and gazed down at the objects piled in the shadows. He could make out tangled nets, a soaked-through blanket left in a heap, a longhandled tool, like a hoe, lying across it. And there was a wooden, lidless box, the sort fishermen used to keep fresh the dying fish they had caught. But when he peered into it, he saw not fish but skinned rabbits, a considerable number of them, pressed so closely one against the other their tiny limbs appeared to be locked together.

Then, as he watched, the whole mass of sinews, elbows and ankles began to shift. Darcy took a step back even as he saw an eye open, and then another. A sound made him turn, and he saw at the other end of the boat, still bathed in orange light, the old woman slumped against the bow with pixies - too many to count - swarming over her. At first glance she looked contented, as if being smothered in affection, while the small, scrawny creatures ran through her rags and over her face and shoulders. And now there came more and more out of the river, climbing over the rim of the boat.

Darcy reached down for the long-handled tool before him, but he too had become enveloped by a sense of tranquillity, and he found himself extracting the pole from the tangled netting in a strangely leisurely manner. He knew more and more creatures were rising from the water…how many might have boarded now? Thirty? Sixty?

Their collective voices seemed to him to resemble the sound of children playing in the distance. He had the presence of mind to raise the long tool and bring it crashing down onto the tiny knuckles and knees mounting the side of the boat. Then a second swing, this time towards the box with the skinned rabbits from which more pixies were running out.

The last blow of the hoe had had some effect, for several creatures had fallen back into the water, and then another blow had sent two, even three, flying through the air, and the old woman was a stranger, what obligation did he have to her before Elizabeth? Darcy wanted to leave. But there she was, the strange woman, hardly visible now beneath the writhing creatures, and Darcy crossed the length of the boat, leaving the hoe for his sword, and made another arc in the air to sweep off as many as possible without injury to the stranger.

Yet how they clung on! And now they even dared to speak to him…or was that the old woman herself from beneath them?

"Leave her, stranger. Leave her to us. Leave her, stranger."

Darcy swung his sword again, and it moved as though the air were thick water, but found its mark, scattering several creatures even as more arrived.

"Leave her to us, stranger," the old woman said again, and only this time did it occur to him, with a stab of fear that seemed bottomless, that the speaker was talking not of the dying stranger before him but of Elizabeth.