Presently the tilt went, ripped away like a torn sail. I got Guenhumara under the cart, and in a while, with Signus’s bridle pitched over an alder branch nearby, I was crouching beside her, my arm around Cabal’s strong rain-cold neck, trying to shelter her with our bodies from the in-driving lances of rain; while the wind roared up the valley and the wet drove by in solid sheets, in gray trailing curtains that blotted even the far side of the narrow glen into nothingness, and beat and drenched through the thin moaning woods.
And as we crouched there, in the space of a hundred heartbeats, every summer-dry runnel in the heather became a rushing ale-colored water course that leapt over the stones and sprang out among the heather roots and went swirling down to join the little burn that was already swelling into spate; and under the chill of the storm, the smell of wet refreshed earth rose all about us, aromatic as the rising incense of bog myrtle in the sun, and was drowned by the gray deluge and washed back into the ground. It was well on toward evening when the rain began to slacken and the light to return, but we still had six or seven miles to go, and with the warning of the swollen burn in my ears I dared not wait any longer.
Guenhumara was whiter and more pinched than ever, her eyes enormous and nearly black, so that they seemed to shadow all her face. And when the driver had yoked up the mules, I had to all but lift her to her feet. “Guenhumara, is there anything amiss?”
She shook her head. “I hate thunder, I’ve always hated thunder. It is no more than that.”
Pharic, who was standing near with his arm across his horse’s neck, turned quickly to look at her, the straight black brows almost meeting above the bridge of his nose. “That is the first I’ve ever heard of it, then. You must have changed since the days when you used to stand on the bull shed roof to be nearer to the storm, while Blanid shrilled at you like a black hen from underneath.”
“Yes, I’ve changed,” Guenhumara said. “It is because I am growing old.” She turned to me, gathering her drenched garments into bunched folds as though suddenly aware of how they clung to her swollen belly. “Artos, take me up before you on Signus. Not — not the cart any more.”
So I took her up before me, with a drenched sheepskin saddle rug flung across Signus’s withies to give her softer riding, and felt how tensely rigid she was in the hollow of my bridle arm. I gave the mule driver orders to follow after us, left two of the patrol with him, and again we rode on.
Below our left, the Tweed was roaring like a herd of bulls. The sky was clearing as the storm rolled away into the dark heart of Manann, and the evening blue was beginning to show through the rags of the fraying storm clouds, when we came around the flank of the high ground and dropped through hazel woods toward the burn that came down there from the high moors to join the river. But the roaring of the burn warned us what we should find, even before we came in sight of it. Farther south, the storm must have broken with a wilder fury even than we had suffered, and the burn was coming down in a roaring spate of white water. It was far out over the banks on either side, clutching at the roots of the hazels and swirling in yeasty turmoil about the red earth of the lower hillside, tearing away great lumps of turf and boulders. The ford was completely lost; it might even be carried away; bushes, tree roots and clods of earth were sweeping past, and even as we checked in consternation at the water’s edge, the body of a half-grown roe deer went by, rolled and tossed like a wineskin in the surf.
Pharic was the first to make a move, and as usual with him, it was a reckless one. “Well, it’s a cheerless prospect, biding here all night,” he said, and urged his horse straight forward into the rush of water above the submerged bank.
I yelled him back. “Don’t be a fool, man. It’s death!”
And the horse neighed in sudden terror as the spate caught at its legs and all but swept it down into the full flood. There were a few hideous moments of struggle and then with a heavy crash of hoof-flailed water, and a slipping scramble, he was on solid ground again. I had opened my mouth to tell my marriage-brother a thing, but in that instant Guenhumara gave a tiny gasp, almost a moan, but checked before it broke surface, and I felt her make a convulsive movement as though she would have drawn up her knees against her belly as one does in cramp. And looking down, I saw her whole face clenched and twisted together, small in the shadow of her sodden cloak hood. Fear shot through me. “What is it? — Guenhumara. Is it the baby?”
Slowly and with care she unclenched her face as one unclenches a fist, and opened her eyes with a long sigh. “Yes, the baby. It is better now, until the next time. I am sorry, Artos.”
“Oh God,” I said, “what do we do now?” And I know that I could have howled like a dog against the sense of utter helplessness that overwhelmed me. It might be many hours before the spate ran down; if we tried making any kind of footbridge by uprooting the hazel saplings and laying them across, that too would take time; and even when it was accomplished, our own Horse Burn would be in a like state, between us and Trimontium. And meanwhile, Guenhumara’s child was on the way.
“How long do you think it will be?” I asked her. The others, dismounted for the most part, were probing about the banks.
“I do not know, I have never borne a child before — I think it may sot be for a long while — oh, but it hurts me sore already, Artos — I didn’t know it hurt as much as this.” She broke off in a little gasp, and again I felt that bracing of her body, the cramped convulsive drawing up of her knees, and held her close while the pang lasted. When it was over she began to speak again, hurriedly. “Artos, find me a sheltered spot — a hollow of some kind among the bushes, and spread me the driest saddle rug you can find, that the child does not lie like a lamb dropped into the wet —”
“No,” I began stupidly.
“No, listen, for we have no choice. I have told you that I know what to do. Give me your knife to sever the child’s life from mine, and I shall do well enough, if you keep guard that nothing comes out of the woods upon me while I am — busy.”
But suddenly I also knew what to do, and while she was still speaking, I wheeled Signus toward the half-lost herding path that led up from the ford into the hills. “I’ve a better way than that. Hold out for a small while, Angharad, and you shall have surer shelter than a wet hollow in the ground, and another woman to help you.”
“Artos, I can’t — I can’t bear the horse much longer.”
“Only a short while,” I said. “Bear it for a short while, Guenhumara.” And I called to Pharic and the captain of the patrol. “Pharic, come, I am taking Guenhumara up to Druim Dhu’s village. Two of you come with me, and the rest of you bide here and pick up the cart when it arrives, and get across when the spate goes down. Keep Cabal with you.”
“But you’ve never been there.” Pharic urged his horse up beside mine on the verge of the drowned droveway.
“I have once — six or seven years ago. I’ve been close to it since, on the hunting trail.”
“And you can find it again?”