by Alyssa Deane
When she returned, Sera was in Govind's arms, as she had been carried until that point by Collier, and in wordless acquiescence he became one of their small refugee party. He made a comforting addition, especially for Sera, for he was all she had left of the only home she had known.
Roxane smiled, and the rain ran into her mouth. Sera, little Sera, as stalwart as a trooper. Thinner, for certain, but she had maintained her health and her open outlook.
Glancing down at the length of her own arms, dye nearly worn off, and narrower than only a week before, Roxane knew that she, too, had dropped weight, despite her care. It could not be helped. There was just not enough food for her to be eating for one, let alone for two.
Shortly after their departure from Delhi, she had been stricken with sickness, vomiting nearly every morning, an affliction that went on for several weeks. Collier had been alarmed. She had promised him that she was fine, and she was, for she survived her ordeal and the illness had not recurred. In his preoccupation with their situation, he had not questioned this, and she did not explain. There was too much about which he was worried without the additional burden of the knowledge of her pregnancy. Govind, however, was somehow quite aware of the child quickening within her, and often he saved the remnants of his meal, which he continued to take alone, to slip to her when Collier's attention was elsewhere. Roxane, in turn, would divide the small amount of food with Sera.
From within the confines of the cart, Collier's garbled ranting began again. Govind moved to calm her husband in a chanting, soft voice, before he should awaken Sera.
Roxane closed her eyes in silent prayer. Soon, please, Lord, soon, there must be some sort of deliverance.
* * * *
It had come upon them unawares, as she had surmised it might, with a roar like thunder only heard when it was, quite literally, too late. The ox had gone first, placidly unsuspecting, setting its cloven hoof down where once there had been some semblance of terrain, and stumbling to its knee upon the discovery that there was not. The rest of the body tumbled forward, chest first, head back and lowing, into the rushing water, dragging the cart with it. Roxane was thrown from the seat and would have been swept beneath the conveyance had not Govind's hand reached out, dragging her, soaked, back and up and choking on water, by the scruff of her neck. The cart dipped as the bullock struggled, dumping the cot onto its side along with Collier's prostrate form. Sera clung to the fallen cot. Water ran in through the slats, washing the rest of their provisions out into the overgrown arm of the river in the blink of an eye. Roxane lunged for her father's sword, but it, too, followed, sinking immediately into the depths.
“We must release the animal, before it overturns us,” Govind shouted above the raging water.
“How?” she shouted back, preparing to do whatever he advised. There was a chance, she supposed, that the cart would stay afloat for a time, but not while the frantic animal remained harnessed.
“I will do it,” he said, and climbed past her, onto the precariously swaying wooden rails. Pulling herself the remainder of the way into the cart, Roxane scrambled toward Collier to release him from his bonds. Soaked and shivering, her fingers slipped time and again as she grappled with the knots.
“Help me, Sera,” she commanded.
The little girl released her panicked hold on the cot to aid her sister. Outside, in the swollen waters, the noise of the bellowing ox could scarcely be heard.
“Will Govind be harmed?” Sera asked, as she pulled at the knots.
Roxane did not answer. She had no assurances. Instead, as Collier was roused by the cold water and began to struggle, she tore at the strips of cloth with her teeth. The cart rocked, dipped, took in water, and righted again. Tears of frustration mingled with the spray of river water on her face. She had tried so hard, they all had, only to be drowned? Was this to be their deliverance?
Cloth ripped beneath her incisors, releasing Collier's wrestling limbs. He tumbled, face first, onto the cart bottom, knocking Sera into Roxane's lap. Choking, spitting, he rose onto his knees. Roxane placed her hand on his shoulder. He swung around, tossing it away, striking out at the air with his arm, and then he stopped, looking down at her with a remarkably lucid expression.
“Roxane,” he said, his level voice carrying above the noise, “what in God's good name is going on?"
Roxane shook her head. Relief gladdened her heart, so that when she answered him, she was actually laughing. He took it, she saw, for hysteria.
“We're in the river, Collier. Or some part of it. Govind is trying to free the ox before he capsizes the cart."
“Is he?” said Collier, and pushed past her, bent over and stumbling, in his weakened state, onto his knees. She bit back the words that would have pleaded with him to think of his own safety, then let him go.
“Sera, we may have to abandon this cart soon, if it starts to go down into the water. Can you swim? No? I ... I can, I think. At least, I remember sneaking away to swim in my shift at the lake, when I was about your age. I haven't done it since. We'll manage it, together, especially if we have something to hold to that floats. Here, this box will do. Bring it over here. Yes, yes, this will do...."
At the opening beneath the careening tent, Roxane gazed anxiously out toward where both Govind and Collier were in the water, clinging to the shaft on either side of the desperate animal as they tried to release the rope harness. The water had swollen it and made the catch difficult to maneuver. Collier was shouting unintelligible words to the gardener, who shook his head. This discussion went on for some seconds, as the water continued to rush cart, animal, and occupants along. Debris littered the roiling surface. Roxane reached back for Sera, for her hand, pulling her near.
Struggling to keep their heads above the water, Collier and Govind looked back toward where she and Sera huddled at the fore of the cart. They seemed to have come to some decision, but what it was, Roxane could not tell, for Collier's shouted words were carried away in the monstrous surge of the river. After a moment, Collier began to make his way back toward her, dragging himself, hand over hand, along the shaft. The ox, exhausted, floated, belly heaving, as Govind attempted to keep the animal's huge head out of the muddy turbulence. Roxane leaned forward for Collier's outstretched hand, and faltered.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed.
Witnessing whatever expression made itself apparent through the water streaming over her face, Collier turned, following her gaze. Out of the gloom, like the jungle itself, an enormous tree rose out of the water, the massive ball of its roots still clinging to the wet earth it had dragged into the river from the bank. Govind saw it, too, and attempted to throw himself clear of the ox's thrashing head. He could not prevent the animal from blundering into it, forced there by the raging flood. The body of the ox pivoted on the bull strength of the animal's neck, and the cart went with it. The shafts shattered. The length of the harness dragged against the cart, swinging it around as in a child's game toward the gaping mouth of the tree's great root system. Collier was gone, flung away by the snapping length of ash into the stream. There was no time to consider other prospects. Roxane knew that once the cart hit the tree, it would be smashed to pieces, and if she and Sera happened to survive that, then the canvas top would drop over them, dragging them down into the water. Standing upright on the rocking edge of wood, Roxane took her sister's hand into hers, and jumped.
She had never expected the water to be so cold. She would have thought that it would not be much different than the rain, lukewarm as bathwater, but compared with the temperature of her body, it was as cold as ice. She thought, briefly, of the child within her, and that if he survived all of this, he would no doubt be the strongest little boy imaginable. Then her thoughts went out to Sera, floundering in the water beside her so violently that Roxane was in danger of losing her grip on the tiny hand. She reached out to pull the child closer and nearly succeeded, but the weight of her clothing dragged her down. Kicking with her feet, she managed to surface, sti
ll clutching Sera's hand. Choking, she lifted the little girl up, getting her face above the water, and as soon as she did so, relieved to see the small face contort in a spate of coughing, Roxane went under once more.
She did this repeatedly, desperation and fear giving her strength, she who did not really know how to swim, after all, and each time she herself came up for air, she cried out for help. She could see very little but the churning water and did not know if they had somehow moved away from the tree, or had passed it, washed further downstream, leaving the shattered cart, Govind, and Collier behind. In her arms, Sera was near to exhaustion, limply attempting to lift her own head above the water when she could.
Roxane could feel the chill of the river working at her muscles, sapping her of vitality and hope. Each time she went under, it was more difficult to make that rise to the surface, and each time she went under, Sera went with her, because she could not remain buoyant on her own. The water was not some placid lake, where one could hope to float along the surface. Eddies and currents and the mad force conspired to suck them down, again and again. And each time she rose, Sera was more unresponsive in her arms, until at last Roxane knew there was nothing she would be able to do. All of her efforts, all of her love, all of her intentions, could not make up for one simple ability she lacked. If she had really known how to swim, just a little bit, she might have been able to save them both, but she did not. Sera, sweet Sera was going to drown and, in the end, so was she.
* * * *
Roxane was not certain at what point she lost consciousness; she was only surprised to find she had regained it and was lying, in a sodden, mud-covered heap, upon the ground. Her head and limbs hurt as if she been beaten, and for a long time upon awakening, she did not move. The rain had stopped. She lay in the mud, listening for sounds that would tell her her sister was nearby, and still alive. But she heard nothing save the dripping of water. The horrible rush and crash of noise was gone, replaced by steady, musical tones, as of liquid whose urgency has left it.
In time, she sat up, carefully examining herself for broken bones. She pushed her hand between her legs, to assure herself that it was only mud and water there, and not blood. A good distance away, the tributary ran smoothly, only slightly agitated, the mud-tainted water glistening like raw gold in an unexpected glimmer of sun near the horizon. A tributary, and not the river after all. It was this, perhaps, alone which had saved her life. But what of the others?
As she struggled to her feet, her heart was like cold lead in her breast, and she felt no emotion as she walked, stiff-legged, along the road, back toward the swollen watercourse. As in a dream, she remembered striking something in the water, something that had pulled Sera free of her arms at last, and though she had searched for her while she still had the strength, she had finally closed her eyes and let her body drift, deeper and deeper, awaiting the end. Well, she thought, standing at the water's edge, the end had not come, and she had been apparently tumbled onto land. Far from where she stood? or had she crawled to a safer position without recalling it?
Numbed by shock, and a grief too deep for expression, Roxane walked along the bank, setting her feet down on the slippery earth with a careful distraction, looking for some sign that she was not the only one who had emerged from the water alive. First one direction, then the other, before returning to the road from whence she had begun. It would be dark soon, she knew, and the scavengers and nocturnal hunters would be out, and though she had not feared them while in the company of Collier and Govind, she understood the danger of her position alone.
Suddenly, a noise welled up from deep inside and over her parted lips, primitive and mournful, echoing out into the quickly dying day. If Sera were still alive, if Sera had survived, then she, too, was alone.
Collier, she cried out silently, where are you? Closing her eyes, she tried to feel his essence, as once she had done while anticipating her own death, but she felt nothing. And Govind, poor Govind, had he died also? If so, it was in an honorable pursuit, and perhaps his soul would not be imperiled by that fact.
Roxane lifted her face to the small, shimmering patch of sunlight, watching as it was swallowed up in gray cloud. She sat down where she stood, pulling her knees up and wrapping her arms about them. Naturally, she could not depart this place. How could she, when she did not know what had happened to the others? How could she go on, when she might be leaving them behind?
Night fell, without her notice, and she sat unmoving. The darkness came alive around her with sounds, and smells, and movements. A pair of pariah dogs came to drink at the water, and later another animal she did not recognize, but they seemed not to perceive her presence, for there was nothing in her smell, nothing now of fear or peril, to alarm them. She listened, through the long night, for any noise of human origin, but there were none. Toward morning, she fell asleep. At first light, she awakened and went to the water to wash the mud from her clothes and her skin and her hair. She had never in her life felt so helpless, so alone, but there was nothing of cowardice or dismay in either emotion. She knew, now, what she had to do. To stay on, here by the water, was wrong. They were dead. She had to continue to Calcutta. She knew the way. Indeed, she was no more now than a half day's walk from the city.
In bare feet, for she had lost her shoes, Roxane turned to begin her journey, holding her hands over the small, growing mound of her womb. She had not gone far before uncertainty overtook her again, and she paused, looking back. Did she hear someone calling her name? Was that—no, it was one of the black ducks, rising from the water. She watched the bird take flight, winging with a snap of feathers over her head, then looked once more to the water, where now a twisted tree trunk drifted slowly across the surface. Moving, she saw, in illusion, as though against the current...
Holding her breath, she took several hesitant steps back in the direction she had come, followed by several more, as she frowned in the gray gloom of a sunless dawn. Behind her, she heard the sound of distant thunder, rolling low across the earth. Something on the log had moved, dropped over the side, and was dragging it toward the bank. There, it lifted a smaller figure off and set it upright in the dirt. Another figure followed, assisted to drier ground by the first, who then turned back to help the tiny child who was making her way forward. The second man, the one who had been aided in his ascent to land, stumbled to his knees. This man, taller, and at one time more strongly built than the first, would surely have dropped face first into the mud, had not someone been there to help him. This man, lately of the Bengal Army, looked up at the face above the arms that held him, wearing an expression of shock, then gratitude, before he fainted dead away.
* * * *
Roxane rocked Collier's head in her lap, smoothing the damp hair away from his pale countenance. As Govind and Sera approached, she smiled up at them through tears of relief, extending her hand to Sera and embracing her in the curve of her arm. She looked at Govind, long and gratefully.
“Thank you,” she said.
He shrugged, a habit he seemed to have picked up from Collier. “I only brought them here from the other side of the water. It was the sahib who saved the little one. He thought that he had lost you."
Roxane shook her head, swallowing hard. She gazed down at Collier's face, ashen beneath the brown of the sun, with two high, hectic spots on his cheekbones. The flesh beneath her hand was hot and dry. “He is fevered again."
“He is,” agreed Govind.
“What will we do?” she whispered. “He cannot walk.” Rocking Collier back and forth against her breast, her mind circled for a solution. Perhaps, she thought, they could create a litter, from branches and vegetation, to carry him. But were either she or Govind strong enough, at this point, to bear his weight all the way to Calcutta? As for the fever, she was at her wit's end. There was no longer any water they could trust to drink save that which dripped from the leaves, yet they had no container in which to store it. Beside her, at her shoulder, Sera's stomach growled, and the little girl
pressed both her hands across her abdomen, as though to silence the noise before it was heard. The thunder grew louder and nearer, but Roxane, dropping her head into her palm, was barely cognizant of it.
Govind made a sound, an elevated grunt of surprise, and Sera, twisting in the embrace of Roxane's left arm, cried out. Slowly, Roxane raised her head, following the direction of the gardener's gaze to stare along the road behind. The fine hairs at the base of her neck lifted, and she would have risen to her feet, would Collier not then have been left unprotected on the ground.
Around fifty sowars, native cavalry troopers, were bearing down upon them from no great distance. Finally, in the jangle of bit and harness, Roxane recognized the thunder for the concerted impact of hoofbeats on a mud-coated road surface. As the men approached, there were shouts among them, and the dull flash of sabers beneath a gray sky. It has come, she thought. It is over now.
Signaling to Govind to take up the protection of Collier's unconscious body, Roxane rose to her feet, pressing Sera behind her back. Lifting her chin, she awaited the approach of the native troops. A small wind, precursor of the rain hanging in the air, lifted the tangled mass of hair from about her shoulders so that it flew out to her right, like a dark flag. She could not hope for Sera and Govind to outrun men with horses. It was too late; they were too near. Let them all stand, with dignity, to face death.