The moon, waning but still three-quarters full, hung above the treetops, admiring her reflection on the shimmering river. The few faint stars that had dotted the horizon as they left Annwr’s backyard to wade their way through the forest had since multiplied and spread so it now seemed that the earth had donned a night cloak made of diamonds.
Caelym put his hand out to keep Annwr and Aleswina behind him in the protective shadows of the trees and stood still, listening. The nearby sounds were reassuring—owls hooting, bats fluttering, and the occasion call of a thrush sounding—but in the distance, coming from downstream, there was a dim clanging of bells that was more likely calling on the villagers to wake and join in the hunt than summoning the Christian nuns to their nightly prayers.
A tangle of brush swept past on the far side of the river, its speed warning him of just how strong a current flowed underneath the river’s deceptively smooth surface. He had dived into this same river in his desperation to escape the horde of pursuing Saxons, and he knew its strength. Neither Annwr nor Aleswina would have any chance against it.
“You packed an axe, did you?” With dogs hunting them, Caelym knew they had no choice but to stay in the water. Given the weight of the pack on his back, he felt a surge of hope that was immediately deflated by Annwr’s caustic rejoinder “No, I did not! Would you be thinking of gathering wood for a bonfire to save the guards the trouble?”
“I would be thinking of making a raft so your Saxon princess could ride down the river instead of swimming, which I don’t suppose she can.”
“And you don’t think a boat would be better?”
Looking up and down the bank for a floatable log, Caelym replied irritably, “It would be much better, only I think I’d not be wanting to go into the town just now, knocking on doors and asking whether some kind Saxon might have one to lend.”
Annwr’s answer was equally snide. “And I’d not be expecting you to do anything so useful, but if you’d like rowing over swimming, then I’ll do what I can about it.”
Dragging Aleswina along behind her, she plunged her pole into the current and started upstream.
Caelym splashed after her and came up alongside Aleswina, who, just as he’d predicted, was floundering like a drowning kitten. Grumbling the strongest invectives a priest of his rank might use in the presence of a priestess who was sister to the highest of all priestesses, he shifted his pole to his left hand and took hold of Aleswina’s arm with his right to join with Annwr in keeping her upright and moving forward.