People fell silent as Sanat Ji Mani reached the edge of the river and bent down to take hold of the ferry-line where it entered the water; more than a thousand eyes were fixed on him as he entered the water, his arm wrapped around the ferry-line. Almost at once nausea hit him as the water surged around him. Grimly he began to pull himself forward on the ferry-line, his hands straining, his body aching; the barge seemed leagues away. He concentrated on reaching the barge, focusing on the man whose blood flamed in the river.
"Watch out!" someone on the barge called out as a large branch came sweeping down on him.
Sanat Ji Mani wrapped both arms around the ferry-line and held on with all his waning strength; the branch brushed against him, trying to snag his clothing: he felt the fabric at his shoulder give way, leaving a rent in his short, black kandalys that reached all the way down his back. Gasping, he continued along the ferry-line, the stirrup as heavy as a boulder on his right foot. For a moment he vividly recalled his afternoon in the Flavian Circus, fighting crocodiles in an aquatic ve nation; he used the memory to drive himself forward. After what seemed an eternity, he touched the rough-sawn logs of the barge; he took a firmer grip and began to pull himself around toward the trapped and bleeding man while those on the barge shouted to him.
The man was still half-conscious and trying to shout. Immense, bleeding welts scored his arms and shoulder. At least, thought Sanat Ji Mani as he made his way toward the man, the cable had not cut him across the abdomen, for then nothing would save him from an agonized death; the kindest thing would be to kill him quickly, had that been the case. But as the rope lay against the man's shoulder and
back, he had a chance to survive. Sanat Ji Mani felt a renewal of purpose as he thrashed along the length of the barge, the river pulling at him as he strove to reach the injured man. He struggled nearer, reaching out to take the man's nearest arm.
"Get away!" the man shouted, trying to kick out at Sanat Ji Mani.
"I can help you," Sanat Ji Mani called back.
"They'll chop me to bits in a moment. Get back!" He coughed as he swallowed more of the river.
"Not yet. I have a little time to try to get you free," Sanat Ji Mani said loudly; he was an arm's-length away from the man, and could see the panic and agony in his eyes. "If you will let me help you—"
The man howled, anger and anguish giving the sound an undeniable urgency. "Let them kill me and be done with it!"
"Not quite yet," Sanat Ji Mani said, as much to himself as the trapped man. "I am going to try to hold the cable out from your body. I will not be able to do it for very long. Do you think you can slip out from under it?"
The man shook his head violently but said, "I can try." He watched Sanat Ji Mani with disbelief as the foreigner closed the gap between them. "You'll be caught," he warned.
"I doubt it," said Sanat Ji Mani. "I think we can slip away together."
"They will kill us both if you do not succeed," the man told him over the noise of the river and the shouts of those watching from the barge above.
"Then we had best not fail," Sanat Ji Mani sputtered as the barge swung, sloshing water over him.
"The river is very fast," the man said, panic in his voice.
"Then keep hold of me," Sanat Ji Mani recommended. "I will hold on to the ferry-line." There was grim determination in this promise, for he knew that once in the grip of the current, he was too weak to fight the river, and would be swept away.
"I will," said the man, desperation turning his vow to a shriek.
Sanat Ji Mani nodded. "Be ready," he ordered, angling his body away from the barge and slipping under the cable so that his shoulder took the tension; the hemp cut his clothing and chafed his shoulder, and the stresses thrummed in the fibers of the cable but there was
room enough for the trapped man to break away. "Now!"
The man let go of the barge and wrapped his bloody arm around Sanat Ji Mani's waist, holding on with such purpose that he nearly dragged them both underwater. As the barge bobbed and rocked with the release of the cable, the man clawed his way up Sanat Ji Mani's torn garments to thrust his head out of the water, breathing emphatically and shouting he was alive, all the while forcing Sanat Ji Mani underwater, where his strength was sapped by the running water. Slowly the barge began to move again. Sanat Ji Mani kept hold of the ferry-line, letting the cable pull him and his charge to the far bank.
As they reached the shallows, the man let go, staggering to his feet, blood running down his body lending his bronze clothing an encarmined glow; Sanat Ji Mani swallowed hard and forced his thought to other matters. The man kept moving, leaving a bright trail behind him, raising his arms with an effort, shouting he was alive, and only then gave his attention to Sanat Ji Mani, who was on his knees in the rough-pebbled sand. "You did it!" he exclaimed, waving his hands as if to restore feeling in them. "You did it!"
Sanat Ji Mani got slowly to his feet, the stirrup feeling as if it were made of lead instead of steel and wood. "Your wounds must be treated," he said. "You are still not beyond danger."
"Why say that?" the man demanded. "I am alive. You are alive. What more can happen? The rest is nothing."
"You will not think so if the abrasions become putrid," Sanat Ji Mani warned him. "Better to treat the hurts now. You will have bruises and other pain as well. As soon as the wagon in which I ride is over the river…" He glanced at the barge which was almost unloaded. "Will you bring the wagon of Djerat, the hairy woman, over in your next load? They have my medicaments, and I can tend to this man's hurts."
The man commanding the barge nodded. "I will do it."
"Thank you," Sanat Ji Mani said; he could feel his skin burning, and he looked about for shade. He did not want to use any of the wagons, for he did not think he would be safe lying in their shadows. Finally, he saw a small overhang where a rocky promontory made a bit of shade over the River Sutlej, and he pointed toward it. "I will rest there until Djerat is across."
"As you wish," said the barge commander; he pointed to the man Sanat Ji Mani had pulled from the river. "What about him?"
"He should lie down and be given tea to drink," said Sanat Ji Mani. "If one of the wagons that have come across will let him rest in the interior, I will tend to him when my supplies arrive." He felt tired to the bone; that shadow was tantalizing and he longed to lie in it. "I will be over there. Under the rock."
The barge commander shrugged. "Do you want tea?"
"No, thank you; nothing," he said, knowing it was not the truth: his esurience was burning within him as furiously as the sun burned without. Limping heavily on account of the stirrup, he trudged away into the shade and lay back against the jumbled boulders, finding them as restful as any soft bed he had ever known. He settled himself and closed his eyes, grateful for even a short respite from the sun.
He woke a short while later, alerted by the chittering of river otters gathered farther down the bank that something was amiss. He stretched and discovered that sunburn had stiffened his skin once again. Slowly he sat up and looked about.
On the river the barge was once again in trouble: the ferry-line had apparently been frayed by the stresses of being caught in mid-stream while Sanat Ji Mani helped the trapped man. Now the barge swung about in the river, no longer held on course by anything more than the cable. The drivers of the wagons aboard had to wrestle with their teams to keep their mules and horses from panicking. Men began to shout as the barge started to break away from the heavy cable, tipping dangerously, flinging two men and their horses into the water.
Sanat Ji Mani scrambled to his feet and limped to the edge of the river, watching the men and horses carried away downstream, the screams of animals and men shredding the afternoon. He stared back at the barge and saw it pitching as the commander strove to steady it using only the cable; for a short while, it seemed he would do it, but then the barge teetered, and the right rear jutted suddenly upward, dumping all but a few men into the river. Djerat's wagon came down amid a tangle of harness and tent; the mules brayed their terror and Djerat cursed as they were caught by the current. Sanat Ji Mani moved thigh-deep into the water, hoping for a chance to help guide the wagon to safety. As he watched, Tulsi climbed out of the rear of
the toppled tent, his bag of supplies over her arm; she saw him, and waved to him, shouting something he could not hear. On impulse, he went another step into the river and was in water above his waist. Memories of another river, nearly three centuries ago, in Spain, were powerful, but not enough to keep him from going deeper: Tulsi and Djerat were struggling with the wagon and might soon be pulled underwater. He had no strength left to fight the water; with the curious otters observing from the bank, he slid away after the wagon.
The Sutlej carried them some distance into ever more desolate territory as the hills gave way to the first spread of arid flatlands where the wind lost its chill. Finally, when the first streamers of approaching sundown were beginning to color the western sky, the wagon was snagged on a sandbar; two of the mules were dead, the other four were battered and spent by their ordeal, and could only be got out of the river by cutting them out of their harnesses and being led to the shore where they remained on shaky legs, their heads down and long ears drooping.
Djerat had not fared much better: her thick hair was heavy and her shoulder gave her pain from striving to keep her team alive in the river. She cursed long and thoroughly, blaming Sanat Ji Mani for every misfortune that had been visited upon her since her family sold her to the man who offered them enough gold to buy a bigger mill until the present. She then turned on Tulsi. "You. You are an ungrateful wretch. Your mother was a scorpion and your father was a viper. You are nothing but pain and trouble." She slapped Tulsi across the face. "Everything is ruined because of
him
and
you
."
Sanat Ji Mani stepped up to her. "All that may be true, but it does not get us through the night, which is coming soon. If we move away from the river—"
"And why should we do that?" Djerat rounded on him, prepared to belabor him with her fists.
"Because animals come to the river to drink at night. All kinds of animals." He said it gently. "Those two dead mules will be fought over. It is wiser to move ourselves than be rid of the mules."
"And you believe we can get far enough to be safe?" Her question was incredulous. "How are we to do that?"
"We can lead the mules still alive and pull the wagon ourselves. There is still time before sunset. We need not go very far: perhaps half a league." He pointed to a single tree some distance away. "That far."
"And you think we will not be in danger there?" Djerat jeered.
"No, but I think our danger will be less, especially if we build a fire," he said pointedly.
"But you will not pull the wagon, not with your foot in Timur-i's stirrup," said Djerat.
"I will pull, and I will lead a mule," he said, and started away to right the wagon.
"You think he is right," Djerat accused Tulsi. "You want to do this thing."
"I think he may be right," Tulsi replied cautiously. "And right or not, I think we would be safer away from the river."
"Do you suppose a campfire will keep hungry lions at bay?" Djerat asked. "We have four living mules that are weak from the river. Look at them. How can they fight off anything larger than a mongoose?"
"They will stand a better chance away from the riverbank than at it," Tulsi said. "I am going to help him pull the wagon. You can lead the mules. They know you."
Djerat flung up her hands in disgust. "Very well. But if either of you slacks, I will not take up your burdens."
Tulsi smiled bleakly. "I would not expect you to." She paused. "I will fill a bucket with water so the mules will not be thirsty during the night."
There was a groaning and a crash as the wagon was set on all four wheels again; its tent sagged, dripping, clearly revealing that one of the support rods for it had broken, giving the wagon a raffish, lopsided look. "You can pull and I will push," said Sanat Ji Mani, going to the rear of the wagon and leaning against it; the vehicle rolled forward over the uneven ground. "You can guide it." He looked around at the mules. "There are halters in the wagon, I hope?"
"Under the driver's seat," said Djerat, frowning as she spoke. "I will give you one. You will have to deal with the mule yourself." She trudged up to the wagon and reached under the seat to pull out a handful of rope halters. "Here."
He caught the halter she tossed in his direction. "Very good." Sorting out the halter, he started toward the worn-out mules, trying to decide which to lead.
"Take the jenny with the notched ear," Tulsi recommended from behind him. "She is the most sensible."
He nodded. "Very well," and was relieved when the mule proved tractable, resisting only a bit when Sanat Ji Mani led her toward the wagon. "We are ready to begin," he said as he took his place at the back of the wagon once more.
