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Cassandra shrugged and climbed reluctantly aboard. The fact that one of the men was baling out did nothing to soothe her fears, but they made a safe landfall at Vienne as the sun was setting and the air was cooling.
By the third day, as they re-embarked after a night in Montélimar, Cassandra was beginning to feel quite confident, able to make her way from one end of the boat to the other without mishap, and even exchanging badinage with the crew. Nicholas expressed despair at the development of her vocabulary, but Cassandra pointed out that a few choice curses all helped her masculine disguise.
By mid-morning the weather had changed. The sky turned grey, a cold wind began to cut at their backs and the water, already turbulent, was whipped up into choppy wavelets.
Nicholas spoke to the boatmen, who shrugged their shoulders and muttered about the cruel winds of the Rhône. They were aiming to leave the boat at Arles, but the men seemed doubtful they would reach it that day, especially as the weather would make the difficult bridge at Pont St Esprit even more dangerous to negotiate than usual.
The crew seemed edgy and joked and sang less as they swept downstream. Nicholas showed Cassandra the map, pointing out Pont St Esprit just below the junction of the Rhône with the Ardèche where the smaller river came tumbling down from the mountains, swollen with snow-water.
‘Messieurs!’ the chief of the crew hailed them. ‘We will put into the bank soon to let you off. You will have to walk to the other side of the bridge. It is not safe for you to remain on board.’
The boat was already tossing uncomfortably, the murky water sucking at the sides as the men struggled against
the vicious current to turn into the bank.
Cassandra could see an inn at the waterside and a group of people on the jetty watching the men’s exertions. She felt nervous, but after almost three days afloat, she had trust in the skills and strength of the crew.
They were within hailing distance of the shore when there was a loud crack as one of the side oars snapped under the strain. With a despairing wail, the crewman toppled into the water. The other men, struggling with their own oars could do nothing to assist him and when Nicholas threw a rope from the stern the man had already disappeared below the choppy water.
In the confusion, and with only three oars, the boat had already spun back into the main current. ‘Hold tight, messieurs!’ the steersman shouted. ‘We must all shoot the bridge together!’
The stone arches with their sharp prows slicing the current loomed large ahead of them. As they hurtled towards the piers, the bridge seemed to grow larger and larger, while the gap through which they had to pass appeared to Cassandra’s terrified gaze to narrow.
Nicholas scrambled to her side, crushing her to the side of the coach and holding on for grim life as they sped inexorably towards the smooth slide of water under the central arch.
For a moment it seemed they would slip safely through, then an eddy caught the prow and sent it crashing against the stonework. Cassandra was aware of a great rending of wood, then the world turned upside down as she was wrenched from Nicholas’s arms and thrown into the chilly, dirty water of the Rhône.
There was no light, only a thick green darkness which filled her eyes, ears and nostrils. She was going down and someone seemed to be beating her all over with sticks.
Desperately she kicked off her shoes, and felt a sudden relief as her coat was dragged off by the force of water. Surely any moment she must come up, but a hand seemed to be holding her down, pushing her towards the muddy depths.
Her mind shrieked Nicholas! but her mouth was full of water, spilling down her throat. She was going to die. She had time to realise that, to wonder if Nicholas had made it to the shore, to start to say a prayer. Then everything went black.
Chapter Nine
Nicholas trod water in a patch of stillness clear of the current and scanned the surface feverishly for any sign of Cassie. The water was opaque, too thick to see through. It was pointless to dive blind, he could only pray the undertow would throw her clear.
The onlookers had launched boats and he could see two of the boatmen pulled out safely. If he did not see Cassie soon, he too would have to swim for shore. His legs felt like lead with the weight of the water and the insistent pull of the current and he had almost given up when a sudden flash of white that could have been a fish broke the surface downstream. It was a hand.
Nicholas struck out strongly towards it, promising in his mind anything in the world if it was Cassie, if he could reach her before she sank again. The whiteness was only a glimmer under the surface when he reached it, his fingers clamping around the wrist.
As soon as he touched the narrow bones, he knew it was Cassie. Desperately he pulled her up, encircled her ribcage with his arm and struck out backwards for the shore. There was a warning shout behind him, the back of his head grazed painfully on the wood of a rowing boat and arms dragged them both into the sanctuary of the craft.
Nicholas hung over the side of the boat retching, suddenly too sick to help either of them until his lungs cleared. The next thing he knew, they were on the river bank, the grass feeling wonderful under his grasping fingers.
‘The boy is dead, monsieur.’ Someone was touching his shoulder in clumsy consolation. Nicholas shrugged the man off and staggered to where Cassie was lying, her mud-streaked face colourless, her lips pinched and blue.
He lifted her shoulders, but there was no sign of life, no answering flutter of the eyelids as he shouted her name.
‘Cassandra!’ Nicholas couldn’t, wouldn’t, believe she was dead. He lifted her shoulders, but there was no sign of life, as he shook her.
She hadn’t wanted to come on the boat, had been afraid, however well she’d hidden it, and he’d ignored her fears. Because it had suited him, he had treated her like the boy she was not – and now she was lying lifeless in his arms.
‘Monsieur, leave him, you can do nothing. The priest is coming down…’ One of the boatmen was tugging at his shoulder.
‘Damn you, no,’ Nicholas snarled, too angry to respond in French. He would not accept it, not admit she was dead. His rage at himself cleared his mind. He remembered a man being dragged from the village pond when he was a child and the blacksmith turning him over and beating the water out of him until he came back to coughing life again.
Ruthlessly he tipped Cassandra’s limp body over his knee and with his clenched fist struck her hard between her shoulder blades. And again. And again. Under his fingers there was a fluttering pulse, then a sudden cough, a retch and she was violently sick. He had never felt so happy in his life.
