LITMIR.BIZ

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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!’

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