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that over your shoulders so you don’t freeze.” He looked toward the shore. “We’ll head in…See if we can find some shelter.”
    “Aye. Kindly hand me the other skin, and I’ll cover Roger, too.”
    Anvrai clenched his teeth and avoided looking toward the comely young woman tending her pitiful suitor. Instead, he searched for a suitable place to dock the boat, but the river suddenly became more turbulent, and Anvrai turned ’round to see what lay ahead.
    Dangerous outcroppings of rock rose out of the water near the banks and the current began to spin the currach in circles. Quickly, Anvrai rose on his knees and began to paddle toward the south shore. “Isabel! Take the other oar and start rowing.”
    “But Roger—”
    “Do as I tell you. Now!”
    She moved Roger off her lap and knelt to do Anvrai’s bidding, while he used all his remaining strength to steer them away from the obstacles in the water. “We must get off the river before we collide with these rocks!”
    As if the danger had suddenly become real to her, Isabel moved beside him and started to work. They ignored the rain as it pounded their bodies and chilled their bones. Isabel’s leather shawl fell away, but she did not allow that to interrupt her rhythm as she followed Anvrai’s lead.
    “This way!”
    Anvrai barely felt the pain in his shoulder or his aching rib as he paddled toward the shore. The current tossed the currach wildly, and they heard the boat scrape against something beneath the surface of the water. But the hull remained intact as Roger moaned, distracting Isabel from her task.
    “He’s all right,” Anvrai shouted above the sound of the rain and the rushing water beneath them. “But we won’t be unless we get this currach out of the current!”
    They struggled against the crashing waves. Roger leaned to his side and retched once again, and though Isabel faltered momentarily at his distress, she never stopped rowing.
    ’Twas fortunate, for Anvrai knew he could not manage to get them to safety without help. The torrent of rain and the crashing river were more formidable than any army he’d ever faced. Thetrials of the past week had severely diminished his strength, and he doubted he would be able to continue much longer.
    Isabel cried out, but Anvrai did not waste the effort to look in her direction. He kept moving the oar, pushing the boat through the water toward the shore. The wound in his shoulder burned with pain in spite of the cold rain that continuously washed it, and his ribs ached as if they were caught in an armorer’s vise and were being squeezed with every move he made.
    “How long have we traveled thus?” she shouted.
    “On the river?” he asked her.
    “Aye!”
    “I do not know, my lady,” he replied with what breath he had. “But if you do not continue rowing, our journey will end prematurely. At the bottom of the river.”
    She went back to work, paddling in earnest against the rain and the rough current that tossed them dangerously from side to side. The waves carried them precariously close to the rocks, but they managed to get ’round them and maneuver past the strongest part of the current. “Look for shelter—anyplace to pull in,” Anvrai called out.
    Craggy cliffs towered over them, and sheer rock walls dropped straight down to the river.Even if they managed to row to the edge of the water, there was nowhere to land.
    “There!” Isabel called. “Up ahead!”
    She pointed out a small outcropping, and they paddled with renewed strength to reach it. Though ’twas unlikely there was any shelter from the rain, Anvrai thought they might be able to pull the currach out of the water and prop it up against the storm. In any event, they would be safer out of the river, at least until they had a chance to rest.
    “Keep paddling,” Anvrai shouted. “I’ll pull us in!”
     
    Isabel had no time to think about their predicament or what Sir Anvrai would do. She pushed and shoved the oar through the