home?’
His volley of questions came as rapidly as the arrows he had once loosed. She folded her arms defensively across her small, firm breasts.
‘No one knows I’m here.’
She snapped her mouth shut. Gui watched with private amusement as she realised the stupidity of what she had just admitted to a naked stranger, even one who had professed benign intentions.
‘I’m doing nothing wrong,’ she added, a shade too defensively.
Something struck Gui. Wherever she was supposed to be and whatever she should be doing, it wasn’t fishing and bathing. The breeze whispered around Gui’s body, raising the hairs on the back of his neck.
‘I have somewhere I need to be and I suspect you do, too. The water is getting colder so I suggest we both get out. On our own sides of the river, of course.’
She nodded slowly, glancing behind him to where her heap of clothes lay. She shivered and tightened her arms around herself. Her pale lips trembled and she looked colder that Gui felt. The breeze was becoming stronger and her soaking wet shift must offer little protection.
‘Go on. Get yourself to where you need to be.’
She took a step towards him, then stopped and stepped back.
‘You’re in my way.’
‘And you’re in mine.’ Gui grinned. ‘What do you propose we do about it?’
‘Close your eyes while I walk past you.’
‘No. I doubt I’m going to see anything more than I already have. You go one way. I’ll go the other.’
He took a step to his left. The girl did the same and they circled round each other, wading in a wide arc. As soon as she was close to her own bank the girl turned and waded in long strides that sent deep ripples around her back towards Gui. He stood and watched her. Water lapped against his belly, caressing him like fingers.
The girl heaved herself on to dry land, giving Gui a perfect view of her rounded buttocks as she pulled herself up. She gathered her clothes and bag and turned back to look at Gui. He averted his eyes, not wanting her to know he had been so openly admiring what he saw, but when she did not move he looked up. They held each other’s gaze briefly, then the girl was off, running away through the grass, a white slip among the greenery.
Gui watched until she turned a bend and was out of sight. He looked down and the sun glinted on metal on the riverbed. He bent to pick up her fishing hook, which turned out to be a horseshoe-shaped brooch of silver with the pin twisted at the tip. The design was like others he had seen both men and women wearing in York. Gui closed his fist over it and waded to the bank.
He tugged his fingers through his hair to remove the knots as best he could, then dressed. He examined the scratch the girl had given him with the brooch. Blood seeped out in places where the wound was deep and he hoped he would escape infection.
The last thing he did—the last thing he always did when he dressed—was to spread out the leather thongs that were sewn to the cuff of his padded leather glove and push the padding until it formed the shape of the hand it replaced.
The stump where his hand had been removed was no longer puckered and red as it had once been, and far less unsightly than the horrific scabbed wound when his hand had been amputated in the aftermath of the victory at Senlac Hill. Gui could look at the ruin of his arm without recoiling even if no one else could. That it caused his stomach to tighten in despair until he felt physically nauseous every time he thought of how his life had changed since that dark day was something he was resigned to.
He ran his fingers over the end of his left wrist, musing on the fact that when faced with the choice, he’d rather the strange girl had seen his nakedness than this mutilation. He pulled the glove over the stump and tightened the laces of the high cuff, winding them around his forearm to secure it in place. He held his arm up before him. Hidden in this manner no one could tell that beneath the leather was nothing more than thickly wadded wool.
He put his head in his hands—hand—hand and glove. He still caught himself referring to them in the plural at times. The girl had thought him a monster and that had been without appearing to have noticed his deformity. How much worse would she have thought him if she had seen that? He looked across the river, but there was no sign that she had ever been there. He fixed the brooch to the left shoulder of his tunic as a memento of his curious encounter and folded the neck over it. He pulled his cloak on, fastening that awkwardly at his right shoulder.
The day was growing late. He had spent much longer than he had intended to in the water and he still had a way to go down this side of the river before he came to the ford and was able to take his horse across. He heaved himself to his feet and unhitched the reins from the branch. The mare snickered in greeting, pushing her velvet nose against Gui’s shoulder. He nuzzled her neck, smelling the earthy warm scent of horse. Rather than mount immediately he walked on foot back to the road, occasionally glancing over his shoulder at the river.
He would be at the priory before curfew even if he walked. He cast a final glance across the river, wondering where the girl had come from, or was returning to, and whether she would learn from her adventure not to go dancing about the countryside alone when there were men such as him roaming it.
Aelfhild ran, not caring she was soaking wet and dressed only in her shift, which tangled between her legs and slowed her down. Not caring the stones in the grass hurt her bare feet and her plait was becoming a knotted rope down her back.
She ran until the river was safely out of sight and with it the alarming man in the water.
She threw herself on to the ground, her heart thumping, and dropped her bag beside her. To her horror, her legs began to shake. She clamped her hands on to her knees to stop the shameful reaction and stifled a sob. She had no time now to indulge her emotions, not when she should never have stopped to bathe in the first place and would be missed if she did not return to the priory soon.
She gathered her shift in her hands and wrung the water out as best she could. When she had decided to swim she had thought she would only be in the water briefly and would have plenty of time to dry herself. She shuddered, imagining what might have happened if she had taken the shift off and swum naked as she had briefly considered. As the man in the water had.
Her knees had stopped shaking, but at the memory of the muscular form rising before her the trembling began again and a curious fluttering filled her belly. Aelfhild unrolled her dress and dragged it down over her head. The shift would have to dry beneath her tunic as she walked and she would have to suffer the damp. Her hand slid to her collar and she gave a cry of dismay.
Her brooch! She had dropped it in the water when the Norman had pulled her under. Her lip quivered. The brooch had been a gift; the only token she had to remind her of a man who had once been dear to her, but she could not go back to search for it now. The man might still be there and even if he wasn’t she would be missed if she took that much time. She would have to try to slip away at another opportunity and hope it would be on the riverbed where it had fallen.
She pulled on her stockings and shoes and sped across the fields, arriving at the priory from the rear. She could enter via the main door, but the portress would raise her eyebrows at Aelfhild’s dishevelled
