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As if her voice had broken an enchantment, sound erupted all over the embattled craft. Geoffrey connected with one of the men opposing him, who screamed. The other shouted a warning and a call for help to those behind the canopy and thrust at Geoffrey whose sword was still engaged. Geoffrey's boatman cried out as his opponent's sword chopped through his oar near the blade, but the blow had done him more good than harm, reducing the unwieldiness of the weapon. Swinging it swiftly while Braybrook's man was recovering his stance, the boatman cracked his opponent across the temple and tumbled him into the water. |
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Meanwhile the odor of fear and fury had been drifting up toward Brian on the soft breeze of the river. His hysterical barking finally drew eyes from the women's quarters of the house while his increasingly frantic lunges made the fence shake and bend. There were, of course, no windows on the ground floor and the doors faced the street so that the men-at-arms had heard nothing of what was going on in the garden behind them. Edwina cursed Brian impatiently as she unhooked the hides that sealed the windows. When her peremptory order for him to be still had no effect, she looked beyond him to see what was causing his excitement. The swift movement of figures on the boat did not connect in Edwina's mind with violence until, all at once, very faintly, she thought she heard Joanna call to Brian and almost immediately saw one of the men topple off the boat into the river. Then the sun flashed on lifted swords. Edwina screamed and flew toward the stairs that led to the men-at-arms' quarters on the floor below. |
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Geoffrey gasped and threw himself backward, unable to free his sword to parry the blow launched at him by the second man. Unfortunately, there was little room for maneuvering in the boat. The sword point sliced across his chest, tearing fabric and flesh for an inch or two before he fell backward over a rower's bench. The impact knocked the breath from Geoffrey so completely that he could not cry out for help from his boatman who had turned momentarily to follow the fate of the man he had knocked into the water. |
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