her slender figure.
‘You could keep me company while I eat.’
Her eyes shifted to the sheathed sword that Gui had left propped against the second stool when he had removed it. Stung by her obvious wariness he reached across and slung it on to the bed at the far wall.
‘You’re perfectly safe with me. I’ve been travelling alone for days and would appreciate some company.’
She turned to face him, halfway between the door and the table with her hands folded before her.
‘I didn’t realise this was a silent order.’
‘It isn’t.’
She blurted the words so quickly Gui half-thought he had imagined them. She lapsed into silence immediately, looking as surprised as Gui felt that she had spoken at all.
Gui beckoned her to the table and pushed the free stool out with his toe. She slid on to it, perching on the edge and looking as if she would fly away at any moment. Her head was bent, but Gui could see her eyes were fixed on his hands as they moved from the bowl to his mouth and back.
A normal man—one graced with manners and the noble heritage Gui was pretending to possess—would have removed his gloves to eat. Gui’s left glove was sturdy enough that he could hold the bowl steady so he did not have the embarrassment of seeing it sliding across the table, but being watched with such scrutiny emphasised the self-consciousness that had plagued him since his hand had been taken. He had no intention of revealing his deformity to the truculent girl who seemed so lacking in the art of hospitality. Let her wonder at his lack of manners.
Her lips twitched and she curled them inwards, biting the bottom one at the left side in almost the exact place where Gui’s own lips had split and been forced crookedly back together. Gui folded his arms across his chest. He leaned back against the wall. The girl continued to stare at the bowl. Presumably anything was better than looking at Gui’s ruined face. He regretted now having asked her to stay. Solitude was better than silence and an unwilling companion.
‘Why won’t you talk to me? Did your soaking earlier cause you to lose your voice?’
She dragged her eyes away from his hands to finally meet his eyes. At least she was no longer glaring.
‘We’ve all been told not to speak to you.’
‘You’re speaking to me now,’ Gui pointed out triumphantly.
She gave him an evil look, furious at being tricked.
‘Only because to not answer your questions would be rude. I wouldn’t do otherwise. I won’t do again.’
‘You heard me tell your prioress why I’m here.’
She nodded.
‘Aren’t you curious which of your companions I’m looking for? I suppose there is no way I can persuade you to help me identify the woman I am here for.’
She scowled. ‘Why would I help you take a woman forcibly from her home?’
‘I will find out anyway.’
‘You’ll do it without my help.’
Gui smiled. ‘Do you know where I had travelled from when we met each other?’
Another shake of the head.
‘I came from York.’
The girl drew a sharp breath. His words were significant to her. She knew the woman who came from there. She quickly rearranged the bowl and goblet on the table, eyes firmly on what she was doing. Gui gave a curt laugh, devoid of humour, and settled back on the stool, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms.
‘Did you volunteer to serve me or were you sent?’
‘I was sent,’ she admitted cautiously. ‘Why?’
‘I thought you might have been coming here to thank me for not revealing how we met. Is that why you came?’
‘No, I did not!’
He licked his lips and grinned.
‘Do many of the women here spend their time dancing around in fields and singing to themselves? It seems out of keeping with the devoutness of your choice of life.’
The girl paled and muttered something beneath her breath. Gui couldn’t be certain, but thought he heard the word choice.
‘I wonder if this frostbitten welcome is because of who I am,’ he pondered aloud, ‘or whether the same would be extended to any man who dared enter this female sanctuary.’
‘Sanctuary!’
The word exploded from the girl with the violence of an arrow loosed from a bow. She pushed herself from the stool, knocking it over in the process, and spun away from the table. She faced the slit of window, eyes turned towards it. The window was large enough to admit light into the cell, but high enough to prevent the occupant viewing the world beyond. Her hands were by her side as she craned her neck, her fingers curling and uncurling at her skirts.
She wore the same shapeless grey garment she had removed by the river that hid the figure Gui had so recently been enjoying remembering. The veil she wore masked her hair and acted as a frame for a pair of angular cheekbones and a shapely jaw, but was not as heavy or austere as that worn by the prioress or the nuns who had attended her. Her clothes were plain, but not the habit of a nun or sister so she had not yet taken holy orders, if she ever intended to. He imagined sliding his hand slowly beneath the unsightly garment, running his fingertips lightly up her slender body and easing it off her until she was clad only in the clinging shift she had worn in the river. He reeled. Blinked away the vision that had struck him so unexpectedly.
Careful to make no sound that might disturb her, but desperate to draw closer, Gui pushed himself from the stool and stood beside her. She flinched, shoulders tensing as she became aware of his presence, but did not shy away. Gui followed her gaze. He was taller than she, but even he was barely able to make out the courtyard beyond the window and nothing beyond the high wall.
He remembered the joy that had filled her voice as she sang and the carefree way she had danced along the riverbank. He stepped a little closer, turning so that he was standing opposite her. She faced him with the same obstinate manner that had been apparent when she had squared up to him in the river.
‘If this is a sanctuary, it is from men like you,’ the girl snarled. ‘Normans who brutalised the countryside at your King’s orders!’
Gui sighed. ‘I told you before, I come from Brittany, further to the south and indescribably more beautiful than the flat north coast that our King hails from.’
‘It’s all the same to me,’ she snapped. ‘Men are the same wherever they are from and who can tell the difference between men from whichever part of France when they are raping and slaughtering the English?’
‘I’ve never raped!’ Gui whipped back. Slaughter in battle he would admit to, but he had never been guilty of defilement.
‘I felt your—your body! In the river when you dragged me under the
