My heart leapt at his voice. I turned my head to see him much further downstream, dark hair dripping, cloak swirling around him as he ran along the riverbank toward us. There was a look on his face that stopped my heart: he was sheet white, terrified, his eyes full of ghosts. “Clodagh, oh gods, Clodagh, you’re alive!” He sprinted the last hundred paces, stumbling over debris as he came, and flung himself down beside me where I sat with the now screaming Becan hugged against my breast. “I couldn’t keep hold, and then I couldn’t find you, and I thought . . .” His voice cracked. A moment later his arms came around the two of us, and I turned my face against his chest, closing my eyes.

“I hate you,” I said indistinctly, slipping my free arm around him and pressing close. “How dare you make us do that? You’re crazy. Becan nearly drowned. I had to breathe for him, to bring him back . . . And then you were gone . . .” My heart was racing; my head was swimming. I held onto him as if he were a lifeline. It was impossible, now, to believe that we had actually done it; we really had performed that leap and lived to tell the tale.

“I’m sorry,” Cathal said against my hair. “Sorry I made you do it, sorry I couldn’t keep hold, and sorrier still that we have none of our supplies with us. I hope it’s not too much further. You’d best have my cloak, Clodagh, and carry the child protected by it. And we’ll be putting that water rule to the test today. The rest of our journey will be determined by streams and ponds, since we have no vessel in which to carry a supply.”

We disengaged ourselves and got to our feet. Suddenly, sharply, I became aware that I was soaked through and chill to the bone. Cathal was dripping, though his cloak had survived unscathed as usual, and when he draped it around me I felt the familiar sense of well-being the garment seemed to convey. A bruise was darkening on his cheek and his right hand was bleeding. While I fought my battle with the river, my companion had probably faced a similar struggle further down.

“You forgot to bring the bags,” I said, only half joking. Now that my elation over Becan’s survival was dying down, the reality of our situation began to weigh on me: no flint, no honey for the baby, no dry clothing, no food . . .

“An oversight for which Johnny would reprimand me, no doubt,” said Cathal quietly. It sounded as if his teeth were chattering.

“Why did you jump from the cliff top? That was an act of sheer lunacy, Cathal.” I was folding the baby in the cloak, rubbing his back, doing what I could to get him warm.