‘Aye, a storm is coming. You are tired, so we will stay here a while and take some rest. If you want, you can go and bathe, lass. Get the sea out of your hair.’
She looked at him in alarm. ‘I cannot bathe with you looking on.’
‘I can turn my back to save your blushes and your honour.’
‘I don’t trust you to do it.’
‘I promise I shall not look, so make up your mind and be quick about it, before the storm breaks. I have a little bit of soap in here amongst the Abbot’s other treasures. He said that you might need it, as women fash about such things.’ He rummaged about in his pack, trying to find it.
Giselle looked at Lyall and back out at the cool water. He stood shoulder to shoulder with her, handing her a piece of soap. There was kindness in his eyes and some warm regard, too, which made her knees soften and tied her tongue. He made her so nervous, this savage Scot, and she knew he would probably look at her, in spite of his promise. Some traitorous part of her didn’t care if he did.
‘Go over there and turn your back, then,’ she said, indicating a big pile of rocks to one side of the shore.
Lyall did as he was told, tearing off his tunic and shirt as he went. He went to the water’s edge and began flicking water into his armpits and over his back. ‘Don’t go in too deep, the bottom can fall away steeply and the rocks are slippery underfoot.’ His voice echoed out over the water in the still air. He began to pull off his braies, and Giselle hurriedly turned away.
‘Alright,’ she shouted back, wriggling out of her clothes and dipping a toe in the water. She was suddenly a little fearful. The loch did look deep and it was dark and murky.
‘Can you swim?’ he shouted back at her.
‘Not very well, I did so as a child, but not for a long time now.’
Giselle tottered, bit by bit, into the water. It was colder than she expected making her gasp when it got up to her thighs. Taking a deep breath, she plunged in fully. ‘Aww,’ she gasped, rubbing her hands all over her to warm up.
‘Are you alright,’ he shouted.
‘Yes, it is so cold. Don’t look and…please…keep talking to me.’
‘About what?’
‘Tell me where we will stop for the night. Another abbey?’
‘There are none around here and not much shelter to be had. I think this storm will be a wild one, but I know a place about a mile up ahead.’
It was comforting to hear his voice. Giselle didn’t have much time, so she dipped under the water, scrubbing at her hair, feeling the grit move under her fingers. When she came up, Lyall had his back to her and was waist-deep in the loch, so she rubbed the soap into her hair quickly. It was heaven to feel clean again.
Clumps of some kind of weed, waved back and forth in the currents around her feet, tickling her legs.
‘Take care the waterhorses don’t come and take you,’ Lyall shouted.
‘What?’
‘Legend has it that kelpies lurk in the dark depths of the loch- strange creatures, half-horse and half-fish.’
Giselle scoured the water all around her, feeling twice as cold all of a sudden.
‘If you get on a kelpie’s back, it is said you will be held fast by its powers, and then it will drag you under the water to drown, and afterwards, it will devour you.’
There was laughter in his voice, surely he could not mean it?’
‘If you are going to say things like that you can stop talking now,’ Giselle shouted. How bold she was with this man. She should not speak to him so.
The wind picked up, roughening the glassy surface of the loch into little waves, like frothy horses’ manes flying out. Giselle looked nervously at the water around her.
‘Sometimes,’ Lyall continued, ‘they disguise themselves as beautiful maidens to seduce men to their doom in the watery depths.’ He fell silent for a moment and, then spoke again, in a hoarse voice. ‘Perhaps you are such a one.’
It was then that she realised he was watching her.
‘You swore you would not look,’ she said, crossing her arms over her chest.