I came out of the water and it flowed in streams down my neck. The shirt was slick and cold against me and Jack’s eyes followed the little rivulets of water down over my slight breasts where the nipples stood out against the wet thin fabric, down to the crotch of my legs where the shadow of copper hair showed dark under the cloth.

‘D’you not mind working as hard as a lad when you’re growing into a woman?’ he asked idly.

‘No,’ I said shortly. ‘I’d rather be treated as a lad by your father and you.’

Jack smiled his hot smile. ‘By my father, yes possibly. But by me? Wouldn’t you like me to see you as a young woman?’

I walked steadily on the sharp stones at the river edge on my hardened feet and picked up my jerkin and pulled it on. I was still bare-arsed but Jack’s knowing smile had never caused me any discomfort and I was untroubled by his sudden interest in me.

‘No,’ I said, ‘I’ve seen how you are with women.’

His hand waved them away down river. ‘Those!’ he said dismissively. ‘Those are just sluts from the villages. I would not treat you in the way I treat them. You’d be a prize worth taking, Meridon. You in your funny breeches and my cut-down shirts. I’d like to make you glad to be born a woman. I’d like you to grow your hair to please me.’

I turned and looked at him in frank surprise.

‘Why?’ I said.

He shrugged, half moody, half wilful. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘You never look twice at me. You never have looked twice at me. All this morning you have been in my arms and you have clung to me to save yourself from falling. All this morning you have had your body pressed tight against mine and I was feeling you, aye – and wanting you! And then you strip your clothes off in front of me and get into the water as if I was nothing more than one of the horses!’

I stood up and pulled on my breeches. ‘D’you remember what your da said to Dandy our first evening?’ I asked. ‘I do. He warned her off you. He told her and he told me that he had a good marriage in mind for you and that if she ever became your lover he’d leave her on the road. She’s not looked at you since that evening, and neither have I.’

‘She!’ he said in the same voice as he had spoken of the village girls. ‘She’d come fast enough to my whistle. I know that. But don’t tell me that you don’t think of me to please my da, because I don’t believe it.’