Aelfhild leaned against the wall. Her legs were distressingly shaky and the cold stone did nothing to ease the heat that curled about her throat. She realised Sigrun was talking to her, pulling at her arm.
‘You’re white as ash!’
‘That was the man from the river.’ She was finding it hard to speak without her voice shaking.
Sigrun began to speak, but at that moment Hilde returned. She stopped in front of the gathered women.
‘Why are you not in your seats? Have you forgotten yourselves so much that you are happy to let the food you are graced with turn cold! Be along now, all of you.’
The women settled at their places. Aelfhild barely registered the customary prayers of thanks for the watery gruel. Meals were eaten in silence. Usually Aelfhild disliked this, missing the easy laughter and discussion that had filled Herik and Emma’s house. Now she relished the silence because it meant she was safe from having to make conversation. The meal ended and the women rose to begin their final tasks of the night. Sigrun was the last to leave the table and Hilde drew her aside.
‘Our guest needs serving. Take him bread and stew. He already has wine.’
Aelfhild lingered as she piled the bowls on to the table.
‘Why me?’ Sigrun whispered, voice sticking in her throat.
‘I do not have to explain my reasons to you. Don’t speak to him. If he tries to talk to you, ignore him.’
The prioress swept out. Sigrun looked close to tears. ‘I can’t do it. He looks too terrifying.’
The thought of being alone with him made Aelfhild’s stomach churn with a mixture of trepidation and desire. She doubted Sigrun felt the desire, only the fear.
‘I’ll go instead. Keep out of sight in the courtyard so Hilde doesn’t realise you disobeyed her.’
Aelfhild filled a bowl from the large pot on the table and balanced a hunk of bread on the rim. She paused outside the quarters outside the main building where the occasional guests were housed. She could pretend she was doing a favour to her mistress, but for once Sigrun’s feelings took second place to her own. She wanted to see the Norman again.
Guilherm sat at the low table, a goblet of weak wine in his right hand. He had removed his cloak and scraped the bristles from his face in warm water and now he was hungry. He was trying to keep his irritation in check by observing a hole in the corner of the room where a mouse had scuttled beneath the floorboards on his arrival. He was placing private bets whether the animal would appear before the prioress deigned to send a servant to provide him with food. He suspected from the expression on her face when she had left him in the sparsely furnished lodging that the mouse would win.
He did not mind eating alone. Solitude was preferable to watching people stare while they pretended they weren’t. The light through the small window was fading rapidly and the single rush light that he had been given would leave him in darkness before long.
Gui cursed his luck. Until he found himself publicly claiming the false identity he had not been sure whether he would actually carry through with Gilbert’s suggestion to impersonate him. If Lady Emma had written to forewarn of his arrival as she had been supposed to do he would have had no need, but clearly she had continued with her intention of making it as hard as possible for Gilbert to retrieve her daughter. Now Guilherm would have to continue the deception until the prioress decided he would be allowed to take the girl away with him.
He thought back to the huddle of women who had witnessed the scene and wondered which of them the girl was. He cast his mind’s eye along the line of women, remembering the shock that had coursed through him when he saw the river sprite again. He should have guessed from the shapeless grey tunic that she had removed that she was an inhabitant of the priory.
He thought further back to the vision of her delicate figure sheathed in the clinging wet linen that had so exquisitely shown off all she had to offer. It had been years since a woman had woken any sense of excitement in Gui and the invisible hand that had pulled his guts out through his chest was alarming in its violence. He drained the goblet and closed his eyes, imagining he had met the girl under other circumstances when he was not so repulsive.
He became so lost in the fantasy that the sudden, demanding rap at the door made him jump. His food had arrived and the mouse had lost the bet after all.
‘Come in.’
The door opened and let in a draught that whistled around his neck and midriff. He gave a slight shiver and spoke without turning.
‘Come in and close the door behind you. The night is chillier than the day promised it would be.’
The door banged shut with surprising violence. Gui looked over his shoulder and found himself face to face with the girl from the river. She had appeared at the point when Gui’s imagination had her on a bed in a state of arousal and a position that would make her blush to learn. A frisson rippled through him at the knowledge she had no idea what he was thinking.
Unlike the look of ecstatic abandon his imagination had conjured for her, however, the river girl’s face bore the angry expression she had worn during that encounter. Her pale eyes bored into his. She held a wooden bowl in her outstretched hands and had moved no further from the door. Gui realised she was waiting for him to say something.
He gave a rueful grin as he realised his manners were sadly lacking now he was no longer in company, then forced it from his face as he realised it could look as though he was grimacing. He cleared his throat.
‘Greetings again, little water sprite.’
She gave him another evil look. Any thoughts Gui had been harbouring that she had come to thank him for keeping her secret vanished.
‘I preferred you when you were using your pretty eyes to beg me to deny our previous acquaintance,’ he said wryly. ‘Now you look as though you’d burn me on the spot if you could summon enough heat in them.’
The girl opened her mouth as if to retort, but closed it suddenly. She took a jerky step towards him. Gui indicated the bowl in her hand with a hunk of bread balanced precariously on the rim.
‘For me?’
She stepped closer to the table and placed it in front of him, face still surly. Gui examined the greasy-looking stew and bread that was mostly crust without enthusiasm.
‘Thank you. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it.’
She snorted in a manner that implied she believed differently and for the first time her face lost some of the surliness. Gui broke a small morsel of the bread between his gloved fingers. Dipping it into the bowl caused unidentifiable chunks to rise and sink beneath the surface. The stew did little to soften the hard bread and the taste was as unpleasant as he had anticipated.
‘I can see why you were trying for a fish with this waiting for you here.’
She didn’t speak, but at his second reference to their previous meeting a hint of pink crept across her alabaster cheeks. The flush of colour suited her. She’d spent too much time inside. A couple of weeks in the Breton sunshine would give her the rosy glow that Gui remembered from the girls in his childhood.
She had been lingering by the table, close to Gui’s side, but as he picked up the spoon she walked to the door, still without speaking. He had spoken more with her than he had to anyone since leaving York. Though he avoided company if possible he couldn’t face another evening feeling homesick for Brittany and lonely.
‘Wait!’
She twisted her head to look over her shoulder at Gui.