Ethelwyn is a very rude man

“Oh my God!”

Ethelwyn was relieved to find that the moat was not so deep that he could not stand up in it, but a moment later he realized how close he must have come to breaking his neck, and he was temporarily bereft of the ability to do anything but hold his head in his hands and gasp, “Oh my God!”

The water was very cold, and any breath more measured than a gasp was beyond his means in any case.

Meanwhile Red Boots was panicking on the bridge as only feather-​brained women knew how to do, and her young companions were pointing and laughing, cruel as only boys could be. His friend the guard had disappeared into the gatehouse, which was at least an improvement to standing by and laughing.

“Are you all right?” the girl cried.

“Am I all right?” he howled. “Woman! I’m freezing my—my—toes off in icy water down here!”

“Can you swim?”

“Yes! And I can stand, too!”

“I’m so sorry!”

“Save it!” he muttered under his breath.

He began slogging towards a narrow strip of muddy bank nearby. It was steep, but it appeared to be the only spot in the front of the castle where the moat did not come directly up against the stone of the walls.

However, the soft mud on the bottom sucked at his boots, and his wet cloak was ponderously heavy and dragged him back at every step. Even the plants and reeds, though they were yellow and rotten with the winter cold, were still sturdy enough to twine themselves about his legs and impede his progress.

And just when he finally did near the bank, the girl stepped over the low fence and stopped directly in front of him, daintily lifting the edge of her skirt and cloak to reveal a sight that he suspected was soon to become a recurring feature of his nightmares: the pointed toes of a pair of crimson boots, once again far nearer to the level of his eyes than the boots of any maid or governess had any right to appear.

“Oh my God!” he moaned.

“Let me help you!” she said eagerly, though he could not imagine what she thought she could do for him. Even unencumbered by his cloak, he was far too heavy for a small girl such as she to pull out of the water. Indeed, the bank was so slippery that he thought she—

She shrieked and came slipping down the bank, into the water, and nearly on top of him.

“Oh my God!”

He caught her before she had slipped far enough to lose her footing and go entirely under.

“Are you out of your mind?” he howled at her.

“It’s cold!” she whimpered.

“It’s the middle of December!”

“I’m getting wet!”

“It’s a moat! It’s made of water! Is there anything else you would like to tell me?”

“No,” she squeaked.

She was, fortunately, too petrified to thrash and kick and make matters worse. She cringed away from him with all her body except for the one hand, and that was gripping his shoulder with a strength that could only have come from fear.

“You shan’t drown,” he grumbled.

“Oh my dress!” she whispered. “Oh my boots!”

“Oh my God!” he groaned, overwhelmed again at the thought of those accursed boots.

Meanwhile Gwenabwy had proved that he had left off laughing for a more useful activity, for he had returned with a rope and another guard, and between the guards’ pulling and Ethelwyn’s pushing, they got the girl out of the water. Ethelwyn scrambled out with the assistance of Gwenabwy, who had begun laughing again just in time. The boys, of course, had never stopped laughing at all.

They left their sodden cloaks in streaming heaps upon the flagstones and followed the guards back to the closest fire, which burned in the guards’ own dining hall.

He had scarcely allowed the girl to slip farther into the water than the level of her waist, though he supposed that the countless layers of skirts and underskirts a girl wore in the winter must have been an unpleasant burden when cold and soaked through.

Still, she had not the indignity of a wet shirt clinging almost transparently to her skin—though he immediately regretted having allowed the thought to enter his head—and neither was her hair wet and sticking to her neck or hanging in dripping locks before her eyes.

“Well,” she giggled hesitantly after a moment, “I suppose we got the cake out of your cloak.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I mean, usually I take the man out of the clothes before I do the laundry, but—”

“You can laugh about this?”

“I always try to find something to laugh about in any situation, no matter how grim. And, you must admit, this situation is nothing so much as absurd.”

“You push a man into a moat and you call it absurd? I can think of a few things I would call it, miss, but absurd is not one of them!”

She abruptly stopped tittering and screwed her face up into a pert little scowl.

“What do you mean, ‘push you in a moat’? I never pushed you! I was only trying to help you!”

“And I was only trying to tell you that your help was not necessary!”

“If you had let me help you, you never would have fallen in the moat!”

“And if you had been minding your charges, I never would have had cake on my cloak in the first place!”

“Ha! And I even got myself wet trying to help you out, and this is the thanks I get?”

“‘Help me out’? Is that what you call that? It seemed to me I was very nearly out and you simply ‘helped me’ back in!”

“I can’t help it if I slipped and fell!”

“What do you expect with your—your red boots?” he choked.

“My red boots?” she gasped. “What difference does the color of my boots make?”

“A very big difference!”

She stamped one of her red boots in the puddle that was forming beneath her skirts, and then she burst out laughing.

“How dare you laugh at me, you impudent girl?” he cried. “You do this to me, and then you have the gall to laugh at me?”

“How dare you call me impudent? I think you are a very rude man!”

“And you are a cheeky little chit!”

“Oh! I’m not laughing at you because you’re wet! I’m laughing at you because you’re—you’re absurd!”

“I am not absurd!”

“My red boots! Fie!” She stamped and splashed again. “I shall wear red boots to your funeral and dance around your grave, I shall!”

This was not to be borne.

“Perhaps I shall have caught a chill in your ‘absurd situation,’” he said stiffly, “and so you needn’t wait long!”

“Oh…” she murmured. “I didn’t mean…”

But a maid had come to fetch her away to a warmer fire, he presumed, and dry clothes.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she walked around him to the door.

“Save it!” he barked, loud enough for her to hear.

There was silence even among the chuckling guards for a moment.

Ethelwyn yanked off his wet shirt and turned in search of the closest target. “What are you leering at?” he snarled.

“I shall wear red boots and dance around your grave, I shall!” Gwenabwy squeaked.

“Don’t you start! Name of God! What did I do to deserve this affliction?”

“It’s a cute affliction.”

“Don’t even! My God!”

“Have a cup of hot wine?” Gwenabwy offered. “I think you deserve at least that much.”

“An excellent idea, though I shall have it in my room. And if His Grace still wants to ply me with some of that diabolical cider of his, I think there will never be a better time! God!”