Dan Vyleta - Smoke

Getting the boat into water proves to be hard work. The bank is too high to just drop it in, and they are forced to drag it back a whole ten yards to find a better point of access. Charlie tests it before they heave Thomas in, moving gingerly from prow to stern as though expecting to fall straight through. But the boat holds; turns gently with the slow, even current, ready to run.

There is no way of lifting the wounded boy in without both of them getting soaking wet. Livia’s heavy dress clings to her most indecently. Then, too, the boat is too small for three, and sinks low into the water as they clamber in. At last, shivering, they find an arrangement that distributes their weight, with Thomas stretched out along the bottom, prow to stern, and Livia curled next to him, in uncomfortable proximity to his mud-smeared face. Charlie sits above, manning the oars. The smell of rot is strong in the bottom of the boat and it is difficult not to associate it with the wound. Before they set off, she peeks over the side one last time and catches a glimpse of the woman crouching amongst roots two steps from the riverbank. Something connects her to Livia’s father, and Livia is afraid she will never learn what. Then she is gone, out of sight, and all there is, is the sound of the river below her, and the heat of Thomas’s body far too close. Charlie is nothing but a dark shadow above her: the sun is out overhead and burns her eyes whenever she looks up. It must be right around noon.

Time passes. The boat drifts with the current, then jerks forward with every push of the oars. At some point Livia becomes aware that they are taking on water, that the wet on her legs and back is not just the result of their earlier soaking. There is nothing to be done. She cannot bail the boat, there is nothing to bail it with. Then the sound of the river changes underneath the rotten planks. She looks up, alarmed. The sun has moved enough now that she can watch Charlie’s back rocking with the rhythm of his sculling. He is facing upstream, keeping to the centre of the river, too tired perhaps to turn and see what lies ahead. Livia raises herself to her elbow, risks a peek. The river is no longer flat and glassy. There are shallows ahead, rocks peeking through the surface, and the water is speeding up. Just as she thinks this, a scraping sounds from underneath her and fresh water seeps into the boat.

“Ahead, Charlie. Rapids. Quick now. Or we’ll sink.”

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There is no way to stop it. As Charlie fights to get them out of the way of a large boulder, one oar snaps and next they know they are in a spin. The back of the boat hits another boulder, loosens a plank, the water rushing in thick and fast. Fortunately, the current has pushed them close to the grassy bank. Without discussing it with Charlie, Livia leaps, sinks to her knees in icy river and mud, takes hold of the prow and pulls it towards solid ground. They have to work fast. Thomas cannot move and the water is rising in the bottom of the boat. As they struggle with his deadweight, the entire side of the boat breaks open in a cloud of rot. They pull him through it, onto the bank, press anxious fingers into his pulse. Downriver, the water accelerates and cascades down a five-foot drop. Upriver, the sun has begun to dip. They may have put three or four miles between themselves and their pursuers.

If they are, in fact, being pursued.

A sound rouses her out of her thought. It is instantly familiar: cloth flapping in a breeze. Livia jumps up, rounds a row of bushes dense enough to be called a hedge. Behind them, she finds a washing line, shirts and sheets rising and falling with the breeze. Half the line is empty: a farmer is collecting clothes in her thick arms. The woman sees her the same moment; walks towards her with a leisurely roll, then catches sight of Thomas and Charlie.

“Three of yous!” she shouts from afar. “Wet like newborn lambs. But where’s your boat?”

Livia walks to intercept her. “Is there a village here? A doctor?”

“A league that way.” She gestures. And adds, with a habitual weariness: “My husband, the old blockhead. Says he likes to live apart. So we do, God bless us.”

The next instant she catches sight of Thomas’s face. Much of the poultice has washed away. Blood colours the collar of his shirt. The woman’s cheerfulness vanishes in an instant. All at once her manner is very brisk.

“Is he alive? Then we better carry him inside.” Without waiting for an answer the woman shoves the laundry into Livia’s hands, then lifts up Thomas’s head and shoulders.

“Well, jump to it, lad,” she barks at Charlie. “Take his feet.”

Her cottage is not twenty yards away, but pressed into the side of a hillock in such a manner as to be almost invisible. Inside, a fire is burning in the stove. Kitchen and living room are one, the ceiling low and rutted with beams. They bed Thomas on the kitchen table. The woman fetches a bucket of water and some clean rags.

“Rolled you in mud, did they?” she says to no one in particular as she begins to clean Thomas’s wound. “Moss, too. Well, I suppose it stopped your leaking. Nasty cut this, half the ear clean gone. And a nice deep furrow in yer skull, straight as a die, I could take a ruler to it. Nothing cracked though, not as far as I can see. Funny smell to the wound. Got yourself singed, did you? Played with guns, I take it. And they beat you, too, by the looks of it, a proper thrashing. Lord, will you look at these bruises! Black and blue you are, all the way down to the navel.” She has unbuttoned his shirt and begins wrapping a bandage around Thomas’s head. “Well, here you are, duck. Swaddled tight like a baby. If you have a rest and it don’t infect, well, you might just mend. But hello! Here you are yerself, our very own Lazarus. One eye open like a pirate at sea! Good day to you, sir, the pleasure is mine, only don’t you try to speak now, just lie back and rest.”

Perhaps it is the pain that has woken him, perhaps it is her voice, deep and pleasant, but as Livia and Charlie bend over him, they do indeed find one eye startlingly open amongst the bandages that crisscross Thomas’s face. Removed from the context of his features, it looks less fierce than Livia remembers, and younger. Vulnerable. But then, he has just come back from the dead.

Instantly, both Livia and Charlie start speaking, trying to reassure him.

“You are safe,” Livia says. “You were shot but all is well now.”

“You are safe,” Charlie says. “I will go and fetch help. There’s a village nearby — I’ll have someone ride to Lady Naylor.”

Immediately, Thomas grows agitated, his limbs twitching, his lips moving within his bruises and the bandage.

“Don’t, you must rest.”

But Thomas ignores Charlie’s advice, keeps trying to raise himself, to speak. No sound will come. Livia accepts a glass of water from the farmer. Something has moved in the woman’s face. She has heard the name. Lady Naylor. The lady of the manor.

It changes something for her.

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The water helps Thomas. He takes a sip, coughs, licks his lips. They are so bloodless, they lie grey against his teeth. Again Thomas attempts to speak, again he fails. He has to try four, five more times before it bursts out of him, broken and insistent.

“Tell no one.” And then again, louder, spit in his words. “Tell no one. Don’t trust.”

Livia stares at his mutilated face. He’s not been awake a full minute. And already he’s making her angry.

“Tell no one? He’s thinking that Mother—” She turns to Charlie. “It’s absurd!”

Another word breaks out of Thomas, a syllable at a time.

“Lab. Ra. Tree.”

Livia’s temper rises in her like a dark cloud. All those years of Discipline, sent packing by a scattering of words.