Love Beyond Time (5 page)

“How well you read,” Danise said. “Could you
be a scholar?”

“I don’t know.” He sank back onto the cot,
staring at the card in his hand.

“Bail – ley,” she said. “Bailey.”

“No,” he corrected, still looking at the
photograph of himself. “That’s not right. It doesn’t
feel
right.”

“What shall I call you, then? Perhaps
‘Bailey’ is your title. Is your name Bradford?” she asked. “Or is
it
Michel
, like the archangel?”

“
Michel
,” he repeated. “Yes, that’s
better. Not exactly right, but better than Bailey or Bradford.”

“Now you have your name.” She smiled at him.
“Michel.
Michel
. I like it. It suits you.”

“How can you possibly know such a thing?” he
demanded. “I may have a label, but we still don’t know who I am, or
why I am here.” He watched her mouth the word
label
and
think about it.

“I believe I understand,” she said. “In your
language, the word for name is
label
.” When he did not
answer, she put her hand over his, enclosing both his fingers and
the driver’s license. “Michel, I think you must learn to be more
patient. Your memory will return to you in time. The king’s own
physician has said so, and my father and Guntram, also.”

They remained thus for a while, Michel seated
on the bed, Danise crouched before him with her hand over his, each
looking deep into the other’s eyes, Danise longing to unlock the
secrets of his mysterious mind, aching to help him and knowing only
time could cure his affliction. Then, at a sound by the tent
entrance, they pulled apart, not with a guilty start but with a
slow and reluctant motion.

“Danise,” said Sister Gertrude, “you should
not be alone with a man.”

“My father knows I am here,” Danise said.

“Whether Savarec knows where you are or not,
it is time for you to wait upon the queen.” Sister Gertrude cast a
scornful glance at the man sitting on the cot, who now rose
respectfully. “If he is well enough to be out of bed, then he is
well enough to be left alone for a short time. Come along, Danise,
you are already late.”

“So, he has a name now, has he?” Michel heard
the nun say as Danise followed her out of the tent.

“Midday meal,” he muttered, reaching for his
clothing. He would go to this midday meal himself and see what it
was all about. But when he bent over Savarec’s clothes chest, he
was assailed by a wave of dizziness and by a pain in his head so
severe it drove him to his knees. Feeling weak and nauseated, he
groped his way back to his bed and got into it. With his head on
the pillow once more, the pain eased enough to allow him to
think.

“Not today, then,” he told himself. “Perhaps
tomorrow I’ll be steady enough on my feet to get dressed and then I
can find out what is going on here.”

* * *

Danise was so delighted to know Michel’s name
and to be able to talk with him that she almost floated across the
crowded meadow to the royal tents. When she saw her father coming
toward her with an elderly gentleman, she wanted to tell him her
news at once. But the proprieties meant much to Savarec, so they
must be observed. With Sister Gertrude beside her, Danise paused a
short distance from the queen’s tent, unaware of the effect her
glowing expression and bubbling good spirits were having on the men
and women gathering for that day’s outdoor feast. More than one
young noble looked at her with admiration, and the white-haired man
with Savarec nodded enthusiastically.

“So, this is your Danise. I’d wed her this
very day if she would have me.”

“Humph,” snorted Sister Gertrude, unimpressed
by this declaration. “You said much the same thing to me more than
thirty years ago.”

“Forgive me, sister, but I do not remember
you,” said the elderly man. “There have been so very many women in
my life.”

“So I’ve heard.” Sister Gertrude put all her
disapproval into her voice.

“Danise,” Savarec told his daughter, “if you
have not yet guessed, this is Count Clodion, one of the men who has
asked for your hand.”

“Good day to you, sir.” Danise inclined her
head and gave her hand into Count Clodion’s bony fingers.

“Delicious,” said the count, smacking his
lips as though he would like to have Danise for his next meal. “A
beauty, Savarec, a rare jewel, and one I would like to add to my
possessions.”

“I have no desire to become a possession,
Count Clodion.” Danise tried to withdraw her hand from his. He
would not let her go.

“All wives are possessions, my dear.” The
count bared discolored teeth in a mirthless grin. “Were you mine, I
would be kind, and bind you with ropes of softest silk.”

“No innocent maiden ought to be forced to
listen to such disgusting talk,” snapped Sister Gertrude. “Clodion,
you have not changed one bit since I was a girl – save, perhaps, to
grow even more lecherous.”

“And all the more appreciative of youthful
beauty with the passing years.” Clodion was not the least abashed
by Sister Gertrude’s scolding. He tucked the hand of the unwilling
Danise into his elbow and held it there while he led her toward the
tables set up before the royal tents. “Danise, you lovely girl, you
must sit beside me this afternoon.”

“I believe my father wanted me to meet
another suitor, Count Clodion.” Danise finally succeeded in getting
her hand free of Clodion’s clutching fingers. “Also, I must pay my
respects to the queen, whom I have neglected these past few
days.”

“By all means, you must remember your duty to
dear Hildegarde.” Clodion stayed by her side when Danise began to
move toward the queen’s tent. “I shall accompany you.”

“It won’t be necessary,” Sister Gertrude told
him. “Here comes the queen now. Charles is with her, and from the
look of him, he wants to speak with you.”

“So he does. Danise, I will rejoin you
later.” Count Clodion hurried off in the direction of the royal
pair.

“Stay here a moment, Danise,” Sister Gertrude
instructed. “You don’t want to appear before Charles and Hildegarde
with that creature by your side. They might imagine you have
decided to accept Clodion’s suit. Really, Savarec, how could you
even think of handing Danise over to that dreadful man?”

“He was a great warrior in his youth,” said
Savarec.

“Yes, forty years ago in Charles Martel’s
time,” Sister Gertrude snapped. “With his teeth rotting and his
muscles grown stringy with age, Clodion has nothing to recommend
him now.”

“For his courage in battle Clodion was
awarded an important title,” Savarec responded with his usual
patience. “He was also given large estates, which he has managed
well. He is one of the richest men in all of Francia. If Danise
were to marry him, Clodion has promised she would never want for
anything.”

“What nonsense!” declared Sister Gertrude.
“Clodion was known for a miser forty years ago; I doubt if he has
changed in his old age. Furthermore, he has at least a dozen
children by his previous wives and uncounted brats by his
concubines. Several of those women are still living. Women and
children alike, they will all expect Clodion’s lands to be divided
among them when he dies. No, Danise would not be welcome in
Clodion’s family, nor would any children she might bear to him.
Tell me, Savarec, do you really want your daughter in that
disgusting man’s bed?”

“Now, see here,” Savarec began, losing his
patience at last.

“Please, please,” Danise begged. “Do not
quarrel on my account. I have not yet decided to marry anyone. I
haven’t even met Autichar of Bavaria.”

“Another prize specimen,” muttered Sister
Gertrude, fortunately speaking too low for Savarec to hear her.
“Are there no decent men in Francia who are looking for wives?”

“Count Redmond seemed very nice,” Danise
remarked, hoping to calm the nun’s rising irritation.

“That young fool? He’ll wear you out in bed.
If you were to marry him, you would have a child every year.”
Laying a hand on her arm, Sister Gertrude stopped Danise in her
forward progress toward Charles and Hildegarde. “My dear girl, I am
only trying to protect you. A man can break a woman’s heart. A man
can be the death of a woman, either because she loves him and he
will not love her, or because he loves her too well and too often,
and thus gives her too many babies.”

“Would you have me avoid all men?” cried
Danise. “I am not sure I want to do that.”

“Oh, child, child, if only I could make you
understand the heartaches and the loneliness that lie in wait for
the woman who gives her life into the keeping of a mere mortal man.
How much better to give yourself to God.”

“Yet I am but a mortal, too,” Danise said.
Impulsively, she put an arm across the nun’s back, hugging her.
Sister Gertrude was usually too rigid to accept such an
affectionate, gesture, but this time she not only accepted it, she
returned it, clinging to Danise as if she could by sheer physical
strength save her young charge from all the dangers and pitfalls of
a woman’s life.

“I do promise you,” Danise said, “that I will
consider your warning carefully before I finally decide what to do.
Whether I wed or become a nun, I will not do either without much
thought and prayer. Now, dear Sister Gertrude, I must speak to
Hildegarde. Come with me, for you know she is fond of you.”

Hildegarde was also fond of Danise. But,
except for a brief greeting the day after Danise’s arrival at
Duren, the two had not had a chance to talk together since the
previous autumn, shortly after Hildegarde’s twin sons had been born
at Agen. The smaller of those babies had since died, and now
Hildegarde was large with the burden of another pregnancy. In the
queen’s life Danise could see an example of the hazards that fueled
Sister Gertrude’s concern for her own future.

Hildegarde took her seat in a large wooden
chair padded with thick cushions. The queen’s sweet face was pale,
her light brown hair hung in lusterless braids, while her swollen
abdomen only accentuated her overall thinness. Her ladies and her
children clustered about her. Baby Ludwig, just nine months old,
and two-year-old Carloman were in the arms of their nurses,
four-year-old Rotrud was playing at her mother’s feet, and
seven-year-old Charlot was strutting about with his toy sword as if
he were already a grown man and a warrior.

Off to one side Charles stood talking to
several of his nobles, with his uncle, Duke Bernard, and Count
Clodion among them. Looking at those men, Danise sighed. So many of
Charles’s closest companions of the previous summer, men who should
have been in the group about him now, instead lay dead in Spain, or
in the treacherous pass at Roncevaux, or buried at Agen, like her
dearest Hugo. In the sad aftermath of the Spanish campaign, Charles
was much changed. He refused to speak about the tragedy at
Roncevaux, he would not even mention Spain, and he seemed to Danise
to be sadly aged and careworn.

Savarec had told Danise that Charles’s
present most pressing woes concerned the Saxons, who repeatedly
rose in revolt against their Frankish rulers, looting and burning
and killing wherever they found the opportunity, for the Saxons
were determined to remain independent and heathen. Since they had a
habit of torturing and killing any Christian missionaries who
ventured beyond Frankish territory, and since they often made
unprovoked attacks on Frankish lands east of the Rhine, Charles had
decided Saxony needed to be subdued and converted to the True
Faith. Savarec believed the task would be a long and daunting one,
in which he would be deeply involved, for the fortress he commanded
was situated on the eastern bank of the Rhine.

I’ll speak to you again later, Danise.” When
Savarec left his daughter to join Charles and his male friends,
Hildegarde gestured to Danise to come closer.

“How does your injured guest?” asked the
queen, who had been kept fully informed by both Charles and Sister
Gertrude.

“He is much better today. We have discovered
his name.” Danise went on to describe her most recent visit with
her patient.

“Michel,” mused Hildegarde. “Named for the
warrior archangel. Is this Michel also a warrior?”

“At the moment, he’s too weak to be
anything,” Sister Gertrude answered for Danise. “Though he has a
tough and wiry look to him, he is not at all well-muscled. Danise,
here comes your father and it seems he has found the rest of your
suitors.”

Hildegarde laughed at the nun’s disgruntled
expression as Savarec and two men drew near. The golden-haired
Count Redmond came forward at once to greet first the queen and
then Danise. He also made a polite bow to Sister Gertrude, who
favored him with a nod of her head before glaring at Savarec.

“I have found Autichar,” Savarec announced,
and presented him to Danise.

Count Autichar of Bavaria was not much taller
than Danise. He was thickly made, with massive shoulders and arms.
By contrast his short legs appeared underdeveloped, as though he
spent more time on horseback than walking or standing on his own
feet. His hair was orange-red, his eyes gray, and his snub-nosed
face was sunburned and peeling. His bright red tunic and cloak
clashed with the color of his hair.

Danise would have dismissed his lack of
physical attractiveness as unimportant if only Autichar had been a
pleasant man, but she quickly learned that his personality matched
his appearance. He scarcely looked at the queen, whom he ought to
have acknowledged first, instead examining Danise as if she were a
horse he was thinking of buying.

“She doesn’t look big enough to produce
healthy sons,” Autichar said. “But then, Hild-egarde isn’t much
larger and she has borne several male children, so perhaps this
girl will, too. All right, Savarec, if you will promise to come to
my aid with fighting men if I should need them, and swear never to
fight in any battle against me, then I will take your girl and get
my heir on her.”