They walked close together, Axl almost at his wife’s heels. Even so, throughout the crossing, Beatrice continued every five or six steps to chant, in the manner of a litany, the question: “Are you still there, Axl?” to which he would respond: “Still here, princess.” Aside from this ritualistic exchange, they said nothing. Even when they reached the giant’s burial mound, and Beatrice made urgent signs for them to move from the path into the heather, they kept up this call and response in level tones, as though wishing to deceive any listening demons about their intentions. All the while Axl watched for fast-moving mist or sudden darkenings in the sky, but there came no hint of either, and then they had put the Great Plain behind them. As they climbed through a small wood full of songbirds, Beatrice made no comment, but he could see her whole posture relax, and her refrain came to an end.
They rested beside a brook, where they bathed their feet, ate bread and refilled their flasks. From this point their route followed a long sunken lane from Roman days, lined by oaks and elms, which was much easier walking, but required vigilance on account of the other wayfarers they were bound to meet. And sure enough, during the first hour, they encountered coming the other way a woman with her two children, a boy driving donkeys, and a pair of travelling players hurrying to rejoin their troupe. On each occasion they stopped to exchange pleasantries, but another time, hearing the clatter of approaching wheels and hooves, they hid themselves in the ditch. This too proved harmless—a Saxon farmer with a horse and cart piled high with firewood.
Toward mid-afternoon the sky began to cloud as though for a storm. They had been resting beneath a large oak, their backs to the road and hidden from the passing traffic. A clean sweep of land lay visible before them, so they had noticed immediately the coming change.
“Don’t worry, princess,” Axl said. “We’ll stay dry beneath this tree until the sun returns.”
But Beatrice was on her feet, leaning forward, a hand raised to shield her eyes. “I can see the road ahead curving into the distance, Axl. And I see it’s not far to the old villa. I took shelter there once before when I came with the women. A ruin, but the roof was still good then.”
“Can we reach it before the storm breaks, princess?”
“We’ll reach it if we go now.”
“Then let’s hurry. There’s no reason to catch our deaths from a drenching. And this tree, now I’m looking at it, is full of holes the way I can see most of the sky above me.”
The ruined villa was further from the road than Beatrice remembered. With the first drops of rain and the sky darkening above them, they found themselves struggling down a long narrow path waist high with nettles through which they had to beat their way with their sticks. Though it had been clearly visible from the road, the ruin was obscured for much of this approach by trees and foliage, so that it was with a start, as well as relief, that the travellers suddenly found themselves before it.
The villa must have been splendid enough in Roman days, but now only a small section was standing. Once magnificent floors lay exposed to the elements, disfigured by stagnant puddles, weeds and grass sprouting through the faded tiles. The remains of walls, in places barely ankle high, revealed the old layout of the rooms. A stone arch led into the surviving part of the building, and Axl and Beatrice now moved cautiously towards it, pausing at the threshold to listen. Eventually Axl called out: “Is anyone within?” And when there was no reply: “We’re two elderly Britons seeking shelter from the storm. We come in peace.”
Still there was silence and they went in under the arch into the shade of what must once have been a corridor. They emerged into the grey light of a spacious room, though here too, an entire wall had fallen away. The adjoining room had disappeared altogether, and evergreens were pressing in oppressively right up to the edge of the floor. The three standing walls, however, provided a sheltered area, with a good ceiling. Here, against the grimy masonry of what once had been whitewashed walls, were two dark figures, one standing, the other sitting, some distance apart.
Seated on a piece of fallen masonry was a small, bird-like old woman—older than Axl and Beatrice—in a dark cloak, the hood pushed back enough to reveal her leathery features. Her eyes were sunk deep so that you could hardly see them. The curve of her back was not quite touching the wall behind her. Something stirred on her lap and Axl saw it was a rabbit, held tightly in her bony hands.
At the furthest point along the same wall, as though he had moved as far from the old woman as possible while keeping under cover, was a thin, unusually tall man. He wore a thick long coat of the sort a shepherd might wear during a cold night’s watch, but where it ended, the exposed lower parts of his legs were bare. On his feet were the kind of shoes Axl had seen on fishermen. Though he was probably still young, the top of his head was smoothly bald, while dark tufts sprouted around his ears. The man was standing rigidly, his back to the room, one hand on the wall before him as though listening intently to something occurring on the other side. He glanced over his shoulder as Axl and Beatrice came in, but said nothing. The old woman too was staring at them in silence and only when Axl said: “Peace be with you,” did they unfreeze a little. The tall man said: “Come in further, friends, or you will not stay dry.”
Sure enough, the sky had truly opened now and rainwater was running down some section of broken roof and splashing on the floor near where the visitors were standing. Thanking him, Axl led his wife to the wall, choosing a spot midway between their hosts. He helped Beatrice take off her bundle, then put his own down onto the ground.
Then the four of them remained like that for some time while the storm grew ever more fierce, and a flash of lightning illuminated the shelter. The oddly frozen stances of the tall man and the old woman seemed to cast a spell on Axl and Beatrice, for now they too remained as still and silent. It was almost as if, coming across a picture and stepping inside it, they had been compelled to become painted figures in their turn.
Then as the downpour settled to a steady fall, the bird-like old woman finally broke the silence. Stroking her rabbit with one hand while clutching it tightly in the other, she said:
“God be with you, cousins. You’ll forgive me not greeting you earlier, but I was surprised to see you here. You’ll know you’re welcome nonetheless. A fine day for travelling until this storm came. But it’s the kind that vanishes as suddenly as it appears. Your journey won’t be long delayed and all the better for your taking a rest. Which way do you go, cousins?”
“We’re on our way to our son’s village,” Axl said, “where he waits anxiously to welcome us. But tonight we’ll seek shelter at a Saxon village we hope to reach by nightfall.”
“Saxons have their wild ways,” the old woman said. “But they’ll welcome a traveller more readily than do our own kind. Be seated, cousins. That log behind you is dry and I’ve often sat contentedly on it.”
Axl and Beatrice did as suggested, and then there was silence for a few further moments while the rain continued to beat down. Eventually a movement from the old woman made Axl glance towards her. She was pulling back the rabbit’s ears, and as the animal struggled to free itself, her claw-like hand kept it firmly in its grasp. Then, as Axl watched, the old woman produced in her other hand a large rusted knife and placed it against the creature’s throat. As Beatrice beside him started, Axl realised that the dark patches beneath their feet, and elsewhere all over the ruined floor, were old bloodstains, and that mingled with the smell of ivy and damp mouldering stone was another faint but lingering one of slaughter.
Having placed her knife to the rabbit’s throat, the old woman became quite still again. Her sunken eyes, Axl realised, were fixed on the tall man at the far end of the wall, as though she were waiting for a signal from him. But the man remained in the same rigid posture as before, his forehead almost touching the wall. He either had not noticed the old woman or else was determined to ignore her.
“Good mistress,” Axl said, “kill the rabbit if you must. But break its n
eck cleanly. Or else take a stone and give it a good blow.”
“Had I the strength, sir, but I’m too weak. I have a knife with a sharp edge and that is all.”
“Then I’ll gladly assist you. There’s no need for your knife.” Axl rose to his feet, holding out his hand, but the old woman made no move to give up the rabbit. She remained exactly as before, the knife on the animal’s throat, her gaze fixed on the man across the room.
At last the tall man turned to face them. “Friends,” he said, “I was surprised to see you enter earlier, but now I’m glad. For I see you’re good people, and I beg you, while you wait for this storm to pass, listen to my plight. I’m a humble boatman who ferries travellers across choppy waters. I don’t mind the work though the hours are long and when there are many waiting to cross there’s little sleep and my limbs ache with each thrust of the oar. I work through rain and wind and under the parching sun. But I keep my spirits up looking forward to my rest days. For I’m but one of several boatmen and we’re each able to take our turn to rest, if only after long weeks of labour. On our rest days, we each have a special place to go, and this, friends, is mine. This house where I was once a carefree child. It’s not as it once was, but for me it’s filled with precious memories, and I come here asking only the quiet to enjoy them. Now consider this. Whenever I come here, within an hour of my arrival, this old woman will enter through that arch. She’ll sit herself down and taunt me hour by hour, night and day. She’ll make cruel and unjust accusations. Under cover of dark, she’ll curse me with the most horrible curses. She will not give me a moment’s respite. Sometimes, as you see, she’ll bring with her a rabbit, or some such small creature, so she can slay it and pollute this precious place with its blood. I’ve done all I can to persuade her to leave me, but what pity God placed in her soul, she has learnt to ignore. She will not go, nor will she cease to taunt. Even now it’s only your unexpected entrance that has caused her to pause in her persecution. And before long it will be time to begin my journey back, to more long weeks of toil on the water. Friends, I beg you, do what you can to make her leave. Persuade her that her behaviour is ungodly. You may have influence on her, being as you are from the outside.”
There was a silence after the boatman stopped talking. Axl remembered later feeling a vague compulsion to reply, but at the same time a sense that the man had spoken to him in a dream and that there was no real obligation to do so. Beatrice too seemed to feel no urge to respond, for her eyes remained on the old woman, who had now taken the knife away from the rabbit’s throat, and was stroking its fur, almost affectionately, with the edge of the blade. Eventually Beatrice said:
“Mistress, I beg you, allow my husband to assist with your rabbit. There’s no call to spill blood in a place such as this, and no basin to catch it. You’ll bring bad luck not only to this honest boatman but to yourself and all other travellers who stray in here seeking shelter. Put that knife away and slaughter the creature gently elsewhere. And what good can come of taunting this man as you do, a hard-working boatman?”
“Let’s not be hasty to speak harshly to this lady, princess,” Axl said gently. “We don’t know what has occurred between these people. This boatman seems honest, but then again, this lady may have just cause to come here and spend her time as she does.”
“You couldn’t have spoken more aptly, sir,” the old woman said. “Do I think this a charming way to spend my fading days? I’d rather be far from here, in the company of my own husband, and it’s because of this boatman I’m now parted from him. My husband was a wise and careful man, sir, and we planned our journey for a long time, talked of it and dreamt of it over many years. And when finally we were ready, and had all we needed, we set off on the road and after several days found the cove from where we could cross to the island. We waited for the ferryman, and in time, saw his boat coming towards us. But as luck would have it, it was this very man here who came to us. See how tall he is. Standing on his boat on the water, against the sky with his long oar, he looked as tall and thin as those players do when they hobble on their stilts. He came to where my husband and I were standing on the rocks and tied his boat. And to this day I don’t know how he did it, but somehow he tricked us. We were too trusting. With the island so near, this boatman took away my husband and left me waiting on the shore, after forty years and more of our being husband and wife and hardly a day apart. I can’t think how he did it. His voice must have put us in a dream, because before I knew it he was rowing off with my husband and I was still on land. Even then, I didn’t believe it. For who could suspect such cruelty from a boatman? So I waited. I said to myself, it’s simply that the boat cannot take more than one passenger at a time, for the water was unsettled that day, and the sky almost as dark as it is now. I stood there on the rock and watched the boat getting smaller and then a speck. And still I waited, and in time the speck grew larger and it was the boatman coming back to me. I could soon see his head as smooth as a pebble, now with no passenger left in his boat. And I imagined it was my turn and I would soon be with my beloved again. But when he came to where I was waiting, and tied his rope to the pole, he shook his head and refused to take me across. I argued and wept and called to him, but he would not listen. Instead he offered me—such cruelty!—he offered a rabbit he said had been caught in a trap on the island’s shore. He’d brought it to me thinking it a fitting supper for my first evening of solitude. Then seeing there was no one else waiting to be ferried, he pushed away, leaving me weeping on the shore, holding his wretched rabbit. I let it run off into the heather a moment later, for I tell you I had little appetite that evening or for many evenings after. That’s why it is I bring him my own little gift each time I come here. A rabbit for his stew in return for his kindness that day.”
“The rabbit was intended for my own supper that evening,” the boatman’s voice broke in from across the room. “Feeling pity, I gave it to her. It was simple kindness.”
“We know nothing of your affairs, sir,” Beatrice said. “But it does seem a cruel deception to leave this lady alone on the shore that way. What was it made you do such a thing?”
“Good lady, the island this old woman speaks of is no ordinary one. We boatmen have ferried many there over the years, and by now there will be hundreds inhabiting its fields and woods. But it’s a place of strange qualities, and one who arrives there will walk among its greenery and trees in solitude, never seeing another soul. Occasionally on a moonlit night or when a storm’s ready to break, he may sense the presence of his fellow inhabitants. But most days, for each traveller, it’s as though he’s the island’s only resident. I’d happily have ferried this woman, but when she understood she wouldn’t be with her husband, she declared she didn’t care for such solitude and refused to go. I bowed to her decision, as I’m obliged to do, and let her go her own way. The rabbit, as I say, I gave her out of simple kindness. You see how she thanks me for it.”
“This boatman is a sly one,” the old woman said. “He’ll dare to deceive you, even though you’re from the outside. He’ll have you believe every soul roams that island in solitude, but it isn’t true. Would my husband and I have dreamt long years to go to a place like that? The truth is there’s many permitted to cross the water as wedded man and wife to dwell together on the island. Many who roam those same forests and quiet beaches arm in arm. My husband and I knew this. We knew it as children. Good cousins, if you search through your own memories, you’ll remember it to be true even as I speak of it now. We had little inkling as we waited in that cove how cruel a boatman would come over the water to us.”
“There’s truth in just one part of what she says,” the boatman said. “Occasionally a couple may be permitted to cross to the island together, but this is rare. It requires an unusually strong bond of love between them. It does sometimes occur, I don’t deny, and that’s why when we find a man and wife, or even unmarried lovers, waiting to be carried over, it’s our duty to question them carefully. For it falls to us to
perceive if their bond is strong enough to cross together. This lady is reluctant to accept it, but her bond with her husband was simply too weak. Let her look into her heart, then dare say my judgement that day was in error.”
“Mistress,” Beatrice said. “What do you say?”
The old woman remained silent. She kept her eyes lowered, and went on running the blade sulkily over the rabbit’s fur.
“Mistress,” Axl said, “once the rain stops, we’ll be returning to the road. Why not leave this place with us? We’ll gladly walk with you some of your way. We could talk at leisure about whatever pleases you. Leave this good boatman in peace to enjoy what remains of this house while it stands. What’s to be gained sitting here like this? And if you wish it, I’ll kill the rabbit cleanly before our paths part. What do you say?”
The old woman gave no reply, nor any indication of having heard Axl’s words. After some time, she rose slowly to her feet, the rabbit held closely to her chest. The woman was tiny in stature and her cloak dragged along the floor as she made her way to the broken side of the room. Some water splashed onto her from a section of the ceiling, but she seemed not to care. When she had reached the far end of the floor, she looked out at the rain and the encroaching greenery. Then bending slowly, she set the rabbit down near her feet. The animal, perhaps stiff with fear, did not move at first. Then it vanished into the grass.
The old woman straightened herself carefully. When she turned she appeared to be looking at the boatman—her strangely sunken eyes made it hard to be certain—then said: “These strangers have taken away my appetite. But it will return, I’ve no doubt.”