Beguiled By The Forbidden Knight
Not that he was complaining about his new attire. Gilbert had been so grateful for Guilherm’s agreement he had presented Gui with the new cloak, two fine linen undershirts and a new tunic of light wool with a deep band of embroidered braid along the thigh-length hem. A new buckle adorned the worn leather belt Gui insisted on retaining along with his old boots and gloves. They were by far the finest clothes Gui had ever possessed and how he looked exactly like what he was supposed to resemble: a knight of middling wealth hoping to make a favourable impression on his bride.
He could almost believe their plan would be a success, and as he rode he passed the time making idle plans for the crops he would plant and the house he would build when the promised land was finally his. It wouldn’t have to be a big house; he would be living there alone after all. Best not dare to dream too big—a companion to share his life with was so unlikely that the pit of loneliness that made his heart ache soured his thoughts.
He brushed his hair back from his forehead where it had become damp with exertion from the ride. Despite all Gilbert’s coaxing Gui had steadfastly refused to shave his head in the same style as the knight, and had kept his dark-brown hair longer than fashionable so it skimmed his jaw and framed his face. Sweat pooled beneath his arms and the linen clung to his torso. He frowned. It would not do to arrive at the priory looking so travel stained. No doubt the prioress would provide the means to bathe, but sunlight turned the river silver and to Gui it was a more appealing prospect. He turned the horse towards the river and in a lazy walk he made his way down the hill to one of the bends where trees would afford him some privacy in the unlikely event he encountered anyone.
Gui tethered his horse to a tree close to the river where she could drink as she wished or take shelter from the sun. He unbuckled the short sword he wore at his belt and stowed it alongside the bow and quiver of arrows he could not bear to part with, which were wrapped in leather and strapped to the pannier. He stripped off his clothes, gritting his teeth in frustration as he worked the buckles and laces with his right hand. He paused before removing the padded glove on his left hand, but in this isolated spot no one would cast their eyes on his affliction so he removed that, too.
Naked, he plunged into the river, which proved to be deeper than he had expected. He stood, gasping and shuddering, toes curling in the silt as the chilly depths closed around him to his waist. When he became accustomed to the cold, he swam under the surface with powerful strokes and emerged downstream when he could no longer hold his breath. He scrubbed at his hair and body until his flesh stung, wishing he had the means to scrape the bristles from his jaw that had become a rough beard. He resembled one of the Yorkshire Norsemen the longer he wore it.
The sun was still warm, lessening the worst of the chill. He lay back in the water and closed his eyes, taking deep breaths of the sweet-scented air. He drifted along with the gentle current, allowing the water to caress him, feeling knots in his muscles loosen as the current and weeds played around his body. For what was almost certainly the first time since stepping foot in England, Guilherm felt truly at peace.
* * *
‘That’ll do until I come again next week.’ Aelfhild tightened the knot holding the bandage on Brun’s leg. She wiped the greasy balm from her fingers, pulled the threadbare blanket back over the old man’s legs and smiled. ‘Try to move a little if you can or you’ll get more sores. That poultice will help ease the discomfort.’
‘You’re a good lass, Aelfhild. You’ll make a good wife to some man,’ Brun rasped.
Her first thought was that she’d rather be a good nurse, and her second was whom would she marry anyway; now Yorkshire’s men were in short supply.
‘I don’t think a foundling with no dowry would be many men’s first choice,’ she sighed.
Brun started to answer, but coughs racked his frame. ‘I won’t be sorry to go, but you’ve made these months more comfortable,’ he wheezed.
‘Don’t talk like that! You’ve got years ahead of you,’ Aelfhild lied.
A film of tears covered Brun’s eyes. ‘Weeks. A month or two, perhaps. I didn’t think I’d see this year come when they came to burn the village. My home is gone; my sons are dead. I’m ready to join them.’
They. The Normans. They’d lain waste to the villages all around Elmeslac, and further afield if tales were true as the new King’s vengeance for what had happened in York. For the people daring to try to regain their city. Aelfhild’s throat tightened with hatred. If she ever met a Norman she’d drive her knife through his black heart!
Brun was her final patient. She began to pack up her bag of poultices and medicines to stop her hand straying to the brooch she wore concealed beneath a fold in the neck of her shapeless tunic. She would not think about the man who had given it to her or her eyes would fill with tears, too.
She left the dimly lit hut where the remaining villagers lived together: the old and the young, those who had escaped the killing. She began to make her way back to the priory, considering herself lucky to have a home however much she hated the confining walls. She stomped along the rutted track and tried to ignore the fields that should have been thick with growing barley. Her boots were sturdy and she set a good pace up the hill, only pausing for breath when the top came into view. The breeze was warm as it caressed her cheeks, a sure sign that spring would be hot this year. She felt perspiration rising on her face and neck.
Aelfhild’s skirts billowed around her and she shook her head, enjoying the sensation of the wind’s kiss upon the back of her neck. She ran the last few paces to the top of the hill, then spun around, arms wide and head thrown back. She laughed at her foolishness, as she realised what she must look like. She did it again, sure no one was watching, for who was there left to watch her now?
Her stomach growled. Breakfast had been gritty bread and sour cheese, and supper was nothing worth anticipating. The river glinted in the sunlight, winding through the valley. Aelfhild had time to spare before she had to return to the priory and her spirits lifted. When such feeling came upon her she could forget her country was under the yoke of the Conqueror, could forget she had not seen her home for almost two years and the walls that now confined her.
She was thirsty and hot. The river could satisfy both those needs and she could even try to catch a fish to supplement the meagre diet at the priory, using the method Brun described when his mind wandered to his youth.
Anticipating the cool water swirling around her legs, Aelfhild hastened her steps as she neared the river where it bent towards her side of the bank, skipping and occasionally spinning in circles in the sheer joy of being alive. The world was empty. She could even bathe completely naked if she chose, though would not go that far. If her swim was ever discovered, Aelfhild would no doubt receive the customary whipping from one of the sisters, but there was no one to see and no one to tell. It would be her secret and hers alone.
Chapter Two
It was only when he heard a high female voice singing that Gui realised he was no longer alone.
He tensed. The voice was coming upstream from the direction where Gui had left the horse. He had drifted much further than he had realised. He rolled over on to his front and lowered himself beneath the surface until only his head from nose up was visible and searched for the owner of the voice.
A girl was making her way through the field towards the river on the opposite bank from Gui’s horse and clothes. She wore a grey cloak and grey tunic with a veil that covered her hair and shadowed her face and had a bag hooked over her girdle. She moved with purpose, making quick progress, which was why she had come upon Gui so quickly. As she neared him she slowed her pace. Once or twice she spun in a circle, arms raised wide, and did a handful of dance steps, humming in a carefree manner that Gui envied.
It was so rare to see anyone who appeared untouched by what had taken place in the country that Gui was transfixed. He raised his head to better watch the girl as she cavorted around, seemingly oblivious to her surroundings. Perhaps she was a simpleton to be behaving in such a way: one of those poor unfortunates for whom time and place had no meaning. Gui shook his head ruefully. He almost envied her that, too.
As she reached the curve in the river almost opposite Gui’s horse the girl dropped her bag to the ground. Still humming, she removed her shoes, unbuckled her girdle and dropped it beside them. She moved slowly, languorously stretching her arms in a manner that sent shivers running over Gui and causing more goosebumps to rise on his skin than the chill of the water had alone managed. The girl unpinned the veil from her hair and revealed a thick plait of pale-blonde hair, the colour of sand from his homeland.
Slowly, and completely unaware of Gui’s presence, the girl pulled her billowing grey tunic over her head to reveal a closer-fitting linen shift beneath. Gui froze, acutely aware that he was intruding on something private, but unable to leave. He could not return to his horse without alerting the girl to his presence and for both their sakes he did not want to do that.
At first Gui had mistaken her for a child: partly because of her manner, but mainly because she was so slightly built. Now she was closer he could make out the shape of small breasts beneath her shift and the blossoming curve of hips as she twisted and bent to unlace her shoes.
She was more woman than child.
Faced with this new evidence Gui gulped in surprise. He lowered himself further beneath the water, conscious of his own nakedness. Fortunately for Gui’s composure the girl did not do as he had done and shed every layer. She hitched up the skirt of her shift and waded purposefully into the water to her knees. Just as Gui had done she shivered in the cold. Beneath the water Gui grinned to himself in sympathy as another shudder racked his body.
The girl paused her song and giggled to herself. Unexpectedly she ducked under the surface to her neck and came up again in one fluid movement, now soaked to the skin. She gasped aloud in a series of breathy panting noises that reached inside Gui to a time when he had been capable of causing women to make such sounds. His guts twisted with longing as he looked at her, transfixed.
The curves that were now apparent beneath the thin cloth indicated she was even closer to womanhood than he had at first supposed. True, her breasts were small, but her waist was shapely and the wet tunic clung to her legs. Through the fabric Gui could make out the dark triangle of hair where her legs met, and the pink of her nipples. Despite the cold water Gui felt himself hardening. He almost choked on the cold water in surprise at the unexpected awakening of an urge that had lain dormant for so long.
The girl had not spotted Gui or the horse. She waded to the edge, but instead of climbing out she fumbled with her belongings. When she turned around Gui realised she was holding something in her hand. She unwound it and Gui caught a glint of metal before she dropped it into the water and began staring intently down with a look of concentration on her face.
She was fishing.
Gui was transported back across years and the sea to his home in Brittany where he had done similar as a boy in the river that ran through Gilbert’s father’s land and an ache stabbed his heart.
He tore his mind from the memories that were simultaneously comforting and painful to recall. This might be his only chance to slip away. Keeping low in the water, he eased his way slowly towards the bank, taking care not to splash. He was roughly halfway there when his horse spotted him and whinnied in greeting.
The girl straightened up and turned around. She raised her head and in doing so her eyes slid over Gui who was half-crouched in the water. They fell instead on the horse. She became rigid, eyes moving around from side to side as she searched along the bank for the owner. Still she failed to see Gui who was almost beneath her nose, holding himself equally still and barely daring to breathe. Instead of turning and fleeing to the opposite bank, as any sensible person would have done, she started wading towards the horse. And towards Gui.
‘Kac’h!’
Gui swore under his breath. He was faced with two choices. To duck beneath the water and try to swim out of her way, or to surface and reveal his presence. If it had just been his own possessions at stake he might have risked leaving them, but Gilbert’s seal ring was in the saddlebag where Gui had put it for safety during the journey. He could not risk it being discovered and taken.
In the brief moment he had before the girl waded straight into him he made his decision and rose from the depths to face her.
Water cascaded off Gui’s body as he pushed himself to the surface. His hair clung to his face in tangles, half-obscuring his view. The girl began screaming at a volume and pitch that her previous soft humming had not suggested she was capable of. Still she did not make any attempt to run but stood, eyes wide and fixed on Gui. They flashed to his face, then downwards over his body where they settled at the level of the water. Her mouth widened and she screamed once more.
‘Serr da veg! Loukez plac’h!’ Gui bellowed. Stop that, you foolish girl!
He realised too late that he had spoken in his own tongue, the Breton dialect that even Frenchmen struggled to master at times. To her ears it must have sounded like meaningless babbling.
In any case, it didn’t stop her cries. He would have to stop her forcibly if necessary. He plunged towards her, holding his right hand up towards her in an attempt to silence her screams before half of the shire came running to discover the cause of her panic.
The girl made a lunge at him as he neared her, fishing hook outstretched. He had expected her to retreat to the far bank, not attack. Surprised at her ferocity, Gui flung himself to one side. The hook gouged the length of his left forearm, drawing blood and leaving a deep scratch. He roared in pain and whipped his arm away viciously.
His toe bashed a half-buried rock and he lurched under the water. Instinctively, he reached out to steady himself and grasped hold of the nearest object. It turned out to be the girl’s outstretched arm. His fingers closed around her wrist as he went back and then she too was slipping below the surface.
With his eyes closed Gui could only feel rather than see what took place. The girl’s legs tangled with his, shift floating loose. He felt bare flesh against his shins and she fell face forward on to him. Through her shift Gui could feel her small breasts, the hard nipples straining against his naked chest. Her sharp hipbone brushed against his groin, sending a tremor through his entire body and causing him to swell despite the icy water. He had not been this close to a woman for longer than he cared to remember. In any other situation this would be the most arousing sensation imaginable, but now he focused his energy on breaking through the surface once more.
He rolled so that he was on top of the girl and grasped her firmly round the waist with his right arm, holding her close to him as he straddled her. Feeling for the riverbed with his feet, he pushed upwards, taking the girl with him.
They came up, both gulping for air. The girl pushed herself violently from Gui, kicking his shin for good measure. Almost as soon as her lungs were full she began screaming once more. She looked from his face downwards whereupon her eyes opened wide and her mouth became a perfect, pink oval of alarm.
With mounting horror Gui realised that although he was standing waist deep in the river, the water was not particularly murky. The half of him that was below the surface must be clearly visible to the girl. He instinctively brought his arms round to cover himself in a belated gesture of modesty. He realised too late that his disfigured left arm was now on full display instead and put both arms back behind his back.
The girl screamed again. She was similarly attempting to cover her body with a two-handed version of the dance of modesty Gui was performing. Gui dropped to a crouch so that the water came to mid-chest and his lower half was less conspicuous. He kept his left arm behind his back, suspecting that the sight of his deformity would cause her further panic.
The girl settled for covering her breasts with one arm and the dark triangle between her legs with the splayed fingers of her other hand. Gui did his best not to stare at what she was trying to hide, but she drew more attention to her attributes than she concealed.
Now she was seemingly satisfied with their attempts at modesty, the girl’s screams became words.
‘Leave me alone, dweorgar!’ she cried.
‘Stop screaming,’ Gui ordered. His brain caught up with his ears. ‘What did you call me?’
‘You can speak!’ the girl gasped. Her eyes grew wide with surprise.
Gui frowned, his earlier suspicion that she was mentally deficient creeping back into his mind.
‘Of course I can.’ Her accent had been broad, with the flat vowels of York. He’d understood her words, but it had not come naturally. ‘If you mean in your tongue, then why not?’
The girl took a careful step backwards, folding her arms tightly across her breasts. To Gui’s relief she didn’t scream again, but widened her eyes and jutted out her jaw assertively. Their eyes locked and Gui recognised terror brimming in hers below the confrontation.
‘What are you? Swartalf? A dweorgar?’ she demanded.
‘What did you call me?’ He recognised the Danish words for elf and dwarf and barked a laugh at such a preposterous accusation.
The girl looked furious. ‘Don’t laugh at me, monster!’
Her voice was deep. Hoarse from screaming.
‘Are you a child to believe in such things?’ Gui mocked. ‘I’m no monster. I’m a man.’
‘Well, you look like a beast!’
Gui pictured what he must have looked like, rising from beneath the surface, his frame broad and towering, the dark spread of hair on his chest darkened further by the soaking and with traces of waterweeds clinging to it. His hair had obscured his eyes so she would only have seen his scarred lips and crooked nose through the matted locks and beard. It was no wonder she believed him to be some unearthly creature.
Humiliation coursed through him, reddening his face and heating his blood. He stopped laughing and raised himself higher in the water, pushing the hair back from his face.
‘I’m a man,’ he repeated firmly.
Gui shifted his right hand before him in an attempt to create a sense of decency, but not before the girl’s eyes had flickered rapidly down. Her eyes slid over his body once more, examining him and flickering to the area of his body that could be guaranteed to prove his claim. As he concealed his most intimate parts she brought her head sharply up again to settle on Gui’s face with a look of mortification. Her skin was very pale like most of the women in these northern parts and now bright streaks of red flashed across each cheek. He wondered if she was a virgin. She had certainly known where to look for confirmation of his masculinity. He spread his hand wider in front of his cock as the speculation about her innocence caused a throb of lust that necessitated a little more concealment.
Presumably satisfied that he was what he claimed to be, the girl had recovered enough to glare at him.
‘You were spying on me!’
‘I was here first!’ Gui exclaimed, stung by the accusation.
‘You were watching me at any rate. How long were you there?’
Gui heaved an exasperated sigh. ‘I don’t know. I was enjoying the peace before you came upon me. I was trying to get back to the bank without you spotting me. That’s my horse you saw.’
It was at this point Gui became aware that during their underwater tussle they had inadvertently swapped positions. Now the girl was between him and his belongings, and he stood in the middle of the river, preventing her reaching hers. At some point while they had wrestled beneath the water she had dropped her fishing hook. Gui could see it glinting on the riverbed halfway between them.
‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ Gui assured her.
‘You tried to drown me!’
‘No, I didn’t!’ This was becoming tiresome. ‘I slipped and you were the nearest thing to take hold of. If you hadn’t screamed, I wouldn’t have had to come near you at all, but you were making enough noise to wake a dozen korrigans.’
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.