Her forehead wrinkled.
‘Water creatures,’ Gui clarified. His forearm stung where she had razed him with the pin. He wiped away the blood she had drawn. Her eyes followed his movement and a hint of triumph filled them.
‘The only one who has caused injury so far is you. Are you sure you aren’t a korrigan sent to tempt me to my watery death?’ he teased. It struck him that if he was to drown, doing it in the arms of a creature as alluring as this one would not be the worst end he could imagine.
The girl looked outraged.
‘I’m nothing of the sort! What are you doing here?’
She eyed Gui haughtily, then her face changed into an expression of hatred that Gui had seen so many times. ‘You’re Norman, aren’t you?’
The tone she used implied this was worse even than if he had indeed owned to being a dwarf or other monstrous creature. He’d been met with hostility and hatred since arriving in England so that was hardly a new experience to Gui. Nevertheless his jaw clenched.
‘I’m Breton, but I expect to you it makes no difference.’
She blinked at the ferocity in his voice and opened her mouth as if she was intending to scream again. Perhaps she was not as alone as Gui thought. They were close to villages, the fields must be tended and bands of outlaws roamed the countryside. There were plenty of men who would not hesitate to slit the belly of a lone Frenchman in vengeance for what William’s army had done to the north. Gui did not relish the idea of dying naked in a river that was increasingly feeling icy. He lowered himself into the water a little, bending his legs to take the weight on his thighs and held his right hand out in supplication.
‘I’m travelling and wanted to bathe because the day was so warm. Just as you did.’
Uncertainty filled her eyes. The colour struck Gui for the first time and once he had noticed it he could not tear his gaze from a blueness so pale the irises almost blended seamlessly into the whites. Her sandy hair stuck to her face in long tendrils and she looked more of a sprite than Gui first thought.
‘I mean you no harm. I’m twice your size. If I’d wanted to rape or kill you, I’d have done it by now.’
The colour drained from the girl’s cheeks as he so casually spoke of the deeds she must have been dreading. She unwound her arms from across her body and shifted into what she clearly thought was a fighting stance, fists raised and feet spread apart. Gui recognised the bravado he had seen in enough fights in taverns to know she would probably swing for him if he got close enough.
‘You’re safe with me,’ he said. ‘Wrestling unwilling girls into submission isn’t my idea of pleasure. Especially not in water as cold as this.’
‘Why should I trust you? You’ve taken my land and killed my countrymen.’ Her accent was becoming broader as her fury rose. ‘Men like you intend harm to everyone they meet. All you know is how to destroy and hurt. Where is your army now? Did they forget you?’
William’s soldiers must have passed this way on their march to Durham a year or so ago. Perhaps the girl believed he was one of them. Gui ground his teeth. He heard once more the screams of battle, smelled the iron scent of blood and the smoke of burning buildings. Would she believe him if he told her all he longed for was a life of peace far away from the memories that haunted him? Despite the cold water he was standing in, sweat broke out across his back and in the pits of his arms. He stepped backwards.
‘I’m travelling alone. Are you alone also?’
She eyed him warily, then nodded. Irritation surged in Gui’s chest.
‘If you think the country is so dangerous, why are you dancing around in fields and singing to yourself?’
He jabbed a finger towards her, his temper rising and mingling with an unexpected sense of protectiveness towards the silly girl. He wondered again if she was a simpleton to put herself at such risk.
‘Why are you bathing and fishing if you fear you might be set upon at any moment? Who knows you are here? Who would search if you don’t return 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