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.”
“Don’t worry, friend. What you told me merely echoes what I saw when you and your wife first came through the rain on that weary steed. Well, sir, no more talk, for who knows if another storm will come our way. Let’s hurry to her and carry her to the boat.”
She sits asleep at the rock with a look of contentment, the fire smoking beside her.
“I’ll carry her myself this time, boatman,” he says. “I feel my strength restored to me.”
Can I allow this? It will make my task no easier. “These pebbles make hard walking, friend,” I say. “What will be the cost of your stumbling as you carry her? I’m well used to the work, for she’ll not be the first to need carrying to a boat. You can walk beside us, talking to her as you wish. Let it be like when she carried those eggs and you went anxiously beside her.”
The fear returns to his face. Yet he replies quietly, “Very well, boatman. Let’s do as you say.”
He walks at my side, muttering encouragement to her. Do I stride too swiftly? For now he lags behind, and as I carry her into the sea I feel his hand grasp desperately at my back. Yet this is no place to loiter, for my feet must discover the quay where it hides beneath the chilly water’s surface. I step onto the stones, the lapping waves grow shallow again, and I enter the boat, hardly tilting though I carry her in my arms. My rugs near the stern wet from the rain. I kick away the soaked early layers and lay her down gently. I leave her sitting up, her head just beneath the gunwale, and search the chest for dry blankets against the sea wind.
I feel him climb into the boat even as I wrap her and the floor rocks with his tread. “Friend,” I say, “you see the waters grow more restless. And this is but a small vessel. I daren’t carry more than one passenger at a time.”
I see the fire in him well enough now, for it blazes through his eyes. “I thought it well understood, boatman,” he says, “my wife and I would cross to the island unseparated. Didn’t you say so repeatedly, and this the purpose of your questions?”
“Please don’t misunderstand, friend,” I say. “I speak only of the practical matter of crossing this water. It’s beyond question the two of you will dwell on the island together, going arm in arm as you’ve always done. And if your son’s burial place is found in some shaded spot, you may think of placing wild flowers about it, such as you’ll find growing around the island. There’ll be bell heather, even marigold in the woodland. Yet for this crossing today, I ask you to wait a while longer back on the shore. I’ll see to it the good lady’s comfortable on the opposite one, for I know a spot close to the boat’s landing where three ancient rocks face one another like old companions. I’ll leave her there well sheltered, yet with a view of the waves, and hasten back to fetch you. But leave us for now and wait on the shore a moment longer.”
The red glow of the sunset on him, or is it still the fire in his gaze? “I’ll not step off this boat, sir, while my wife sits within it. Row us over together as you promised. Or must I row myself?”
“I hold the oar, sir, and it remains my duty to pronounce how many may ride in this vessel. Can it be, despite our recent friendship, you suspect some foul trickery? Do you fear I’ll not return for you?”
“I accuse you of nothing, sir. Yet many rumours abound of boatmen and their ways. I mean no offence, but beg you take us both now, and no more dallying.”
“Boatman,” comes her voice, and I turn in time to see her hand reach at the empty air as though to find me there, though her eyes remain closed. “Boatman. Leave us a small moment. Let my husband and I speak alone a while.”
Dare I leave the boat to them? Yet surely she now speaks for me. The oar firm in my hands, I step past him over the boards and into the water. The sea rises to my knee soaking the hem of my robe. The vessel’s well tied and I have the oar. What mischief can come of it? Still I dare not wade far, and though I look to the shore and remain still as a rock, I find I again intrude on their intimacy. I hear them over the quiet lapping waves.
“Has he left us, Axl?”
“He stands in the water, princess. He was reluctant to leave his boat and I’d say he’ll not give us long.”
“Axl, this is no time to quarrel with the boatman. We’ve had great fortune coming upon him today. A boatman who looks so favourably on us.”
“Yet we’ve often heard of their sly tricks, isn’t that so, princess?”
“I trust him, Axl. He’ll keep his word.”
“How can you be so sure, princess?”
“I know it, Axl. He’s a good man and won’t let us down. Do as he says and wait for him back on the land. He’ll come for you soon enough. Let’s do it this way, Axl, or I fear we’ll lose the great dispensation offered us. We’re promised our time together on the island, as only a few can be, even among those entwined a lifetime. Why risk such a prize for a few moments of waiting? Don’t quarrel with him, or who knows next time we’ll face some brute of a man? Axl, please make your peace with him. Even now I fear he grows angry and will change his mind. Axl, are you still there?”
“I’m still before you, princess. Can it really be we’re talking of going our ways separately?”