This is another story file I found on old media. It was so old it was formatted for a paper manuscript including underlining to indicate italics.
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Tella and the Boatman
(c) 2023 by Ted Ursi, all rights reserved
Tella was crossing the Half Mile Ford holding her bundle of firewood high when something tickled the inside of her calf. Startled, she stepped to the side and her foot slipped on a slimy rock. As she fell, her ankle turned and the strap of her sandal snapped. Tella found herself sitting on a submerged rock watching two day's work float away down river. The broken sandal was gone too, no doubt chasing her firewood. Her brown woolen skirt that she had hitched up to cross the ford was a sodden weight in her lap and the rusty old hatchet she had tucked into her rope belt dug into her side. The cold brown water swirled around her naked legs and the hot mid morning sun beat down on the tops of her breasts heaving beneath her linen peasant cut blouse. Somewhere behind her she heard a spritely giggle.
Tella considered tossing the annoying hatchet after the fleeing fire wood and the fugitive sandal. She didn't even consider trying to hit the sprite--she'd probably miss and only make it mad. She considered crying.
A man's voice called behind her. "Hello! I think you have a bit of a bad turn?"
Tella twisted around on the rock, her belly clenching with fear.
A slender boat of ornately carved dark wood was just grounding on the upstream side of the ford nearby. The upthrust bow had a curved figurehead that could be a lion, could be a bear or could just be an angry, ugly man.
The boatman at the stern wasn't ugly. Not handsome either if only for his nose which appeared to have been mashed flat onto his broad, weathered and placid face at some time in the distant past and then straightened by an indifferent churigeon. He had a short, semi-neatly trimmed beard and green eyes that looked back at Tella... with mild amusement, certainly, but mostly they looked at her--seeing her frankly, as she was, without any misconceptions.
"What makes you think that?" Tella asked. She turned her head, which tossed her hair. "Perhaps I am simply enjoying the view."
"Perhaps." The boatman stepped out of his boat and Tella now saw that he was huge. He wore a loose shirt of undyed linen very similar to Tella's. He also had coarse woolen knee breaches. He was barefoot--which only made sense, considering his occupation. "It's a fine day to watch the river. Most people do it from shore."
The boatman reached into the boat and pulled out an anchor. Feeling about with his feet, he found a likely spot and dropped the anchor into the water. Then he took off his shirt and lay it on top of the cargo in his boat. His chest must have been six hands across.
"What are you doing?" Tella tried to stand. She managed it awkwardly on one foot. She pulled her hatchet from her belt. "I warn you, I am a powerful witch. With a single word I can make your plums shrivel and fall off."
"An Impressive power. What I am doing is crossing the ford." Tella watched as the boatman repeatedly lifted one end of his boat and then the other until the entire thing was downstream of the ford. It took some time. At times the boatman was in water up to his chest, his massive back looking small pushing up against the hull. As a demonstration of brute power, it was quite impressive to Tella who had sat back down to watch.
Finally he was done. The boat lay hitched by its anchor to the ford like horse to a rail, tugging on its tether eager to be on the way.
The boatman turned and waded toward Tella. His breaches were soaked and clung to him, revealing every muscle of his massive thighs and proportionally massive cock dressed down his right leg. Tella had not seen many in her life, but she was pretty sure this one ranged near the upper end in both length and girth.
The boatman seemed not to notice his own near nudity--or he didn't care. If he was deliberately putting himself on display, he was a very good actor. Tella marshalled her own thespian skills and managed neither to blush, look away or stare.
"Do you think you can walk?" As he neared, his humongous penis got closer to Tella's eye level. Soon it would be practically in her face...
"I expect so." Tella rose too quick and toppled over into the shallow water. The hatchet that had been in her hand went flying somewhere.
Then the boatman was lifting her up in his arms. The kind of arms that pushed massive boats around, perhaps after paddling from sunup to mid morning, held her like a baby. Tella found her face up against his chest, her eyes staring at a straight white scar cutting across his right nipple. She felt an urge to kiss it but he was already setting her down in the bow of his boat.
The boatman climbed into the stern. Then he did a strange thing--he reached over the side and slapped the water three times.
A sprite--perhaps her recent nemesis--stuck its head from the water. The boatman threw the sprite two silver pennies and the head submerged. A moment later a surprisingly long arm emerged holding her hatchet. The boatman took it. He scowled at the rusted head and pitted edge.
"You should take better care of your tools," he said.
Before Tella could think of a retort she heard an impatient rapping to her left. Looking over the side she saw the sprite grinning up at her. It was tapping the anchor against the side of the boat. Seeing it was seen, it tossed the anchor straight up in the air. Tella grabbed it and the weight almost overbalanced her. She set the anchor down and started coiling the attached line. It seemed like the thing to do.
The boatman now had a long paddle with a leaf shaped head in his hand and was taking long strokes, two each to a side. Tella watched. It had been a very long time since she'd been able to examine a man's naked chest in such detail. This one was well worth the study. The sun cast rippling highlights on his muscles as he moved except for where old white scars slashed it here and there and a trail of of fine black hair leading down his belly and disappearing into his belt line.
When the boatman caught her perusal, she cast her eyes down on the boat's cargo--a half dozen small chests tightly bound closed with iron straps and chained together to eyebolt in the side rail of the boat.
"Where are we going?" she asked the boatman. Looking past him she saw that they were already quite some ways from Half Mile Ford.
"Where were you going?" he asked back.
"Wangel Town, but there's no point now--nothing to sell."
"You don't live there?"
"I live on my spread, if you must know. I sell firewood in town."
"Hard life. Long walk."
"I manage." But she really didn't. Since her husband had died seventeen months before, she had barely been able to keep herself alive selling firewood in town. Two days work in the pine stands gathering widow wood--dead branches on the lower trunks of the evergreens--and half a day's walk to town and back barely brought enough money to buy three days' worth of bread. She'd had a few offers of marriage from men and even more offers of less formal arrangements but she'd resisted every one. Now, with a swollen ankle--she didn't think it was broken--she would be unable to provide for herself at all. She considered her options...
"What's your name?" Tella asked.
"Aarl."
"Do you have a woman Aarl?"
"Are you a pirate?"
"W-what?"
"You're far too good looking a woman to not let a man be suspicious coming upon her in a wild place. You could be a shill for the brethren--leading men to their doom."
Too good looking? "Now I know you've been without a woman, I'm hardly a river siren."
"The men up river, they talk of you Langress women with your honey skin and your dark red hair--huh! You evaded my question!"
