Timestruck (39 page)

By the time they reached Feldbruck, it was
harvest season. Grain lay gold in the fields, where Dominick’s
tenants were cutting it, and there was early snow on the lower
mountains, the ones that lost their icy cover only during the
warmest summer weeks.

Gina noticed the happiness on Dominick’s face
and understood his emotions, for she shared them. She put out a
hand, reaching across the space between their horses to touch
him.

“I am home, too,” she said as his fingers
laced with hers. “So long as you are with me, this is where I
belong.”

Arno, the steward, was at the door of the
reception room to meet them, with Hedwiga by his side.

“Welcome. I wish both of you happiness in
your marriage!” Hedwiga cried. It took less than ten seconds after
Dominick lifted the cloak from Gina’s shoulders for the chatelaine
to notice her new mistress s rounded shape. “Ah, what a joy! What
good news for Feldbruck! I must begin at once to sew little
clothes. But you are still too thin, Gina. I can see I’ll have to
fatten you up a bit.”

“I’m fine just as I am,” Gina said, laughing.
“I have never felt healthier or happier.”

Nothing would deter Hedwiga. In spite of
Gina’s repeated assurances, to which Dominick added his confident
remarks, the chatelaine began to list all the herbal potions she
was planning to mix for Gina to drink regularly.

“For now, all Gina requires is a nap,”
Dominick said firmly.

“I understand.” Hedwiga’s manner suggested
that she thought something more romantic than a nap was on
Dominick’s mind. “The moment Arno read your message to me, I
ordered the maidservants to clean your room and make up your bed.
They will be taking your baggage there and unpacking it for you. It
won’t take long, I’m sure, and then you may lie down and rest.”

“No!” Gina cried in alarm. “Not Dominick’s
room. I want my old room back.”

“A new wife always moves to her husband’s
bedchamber,” Hedwiga proclaimed.

“Actually,” Dominick said, putting a
protective arm around Gina, “we have decided not to use my room any
longer. I think it’s time to move into the largest bedchamber, the
one the former owner of Feldbruck used.”

“That does make good sense.” Hedwiga nodded
her approval. “Now that you’re married, you will need more space,
and with a baby coming, you’ll probably want a cradle in there and
a chest to hold the little shirts and all those small towels to
keep him dry. I will order the room cleaned and furniture moved in
there at once. In the meantime, Gina, you may nap in Dominick’s old
room. It will be quiet there. Nothing will disturb you.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” Gina muttered.

“Wait, Hedwiga.” Dominick’s arm around Gina
tightened. “The new room is to be Gina’s personal project, and you
are to obey her orders about the painting and the furniture. For
now, have the maids open the windows to air it out, and tell them
to sweep the floor. Later, after Gina has slept for a while, you
may show her the furniture in the storerooms and allow her to
choose what she wants. Send Wulfric to her, too, so she can tell
him what color she prefers on the walls.”

“Of course.” Hedwiga submitted to Dominick’s
instructions with good grace.

“For now,” Dominick continued, “have fresh
sheets put on the bed in Gina’s old room, so she can rest
there.”

“I’ll see to it at once.” Hedwiga left in the
direction of the great hall and the kitchen, where most of the
maidservants were to be found.

Watching her go, Gina reflected ruefully that
Lady Adalhaid was right about Hedwiga. The chatelaine was a
managing kind of woman. In her first weeks at Feldbruck, Gina had
been so confused that she welcomed Hedwiga’s bossiness, for it had
often saved her from making stupid mistakes out of ignorance. But
now Gina was more acclimated to the time in which she was living,
and she wanted to make her own decisions on domestic matters. She
had no intention of swallowing Hedwiga’s herbal medicines unless
she decided for herself that she would benefit from them and that
they wouldn’t harm her baby. She wasn’t going to eat mountains of
food, either.

Gina knew Dominick would always back her up
in a dispute with Hedwiga, but he couldn’t be at her side every
moment of each day. His duties as count of Feldbruck kept him busy.
Already Arno was describing a problem with one of the tenant
farmers and telling Dominick about a broken drain in the barracks
where the men-at-arms lived. It was clear to Gina that she was
going to have to find a diplomatic way to deal with Hedwiga on her
own.

At present, though, all she wanted was a nap,
so when Ella came to inform her that her old bedroom was ready,
Gina made her excuses to Dominick and Arno and hurried to the
second level of the house. There she let Ella help her off with her
clothes and accepted a clean linen shift. Then Gina climbed into
bed with a contented sigh.

She was asleep almost before the door shut
behind Ella, and she slept until late afternoon. Someone had been
in recently to check on her, for there was warm water in the
pitcher on the table, a clean linen towel, and a bowl of soap.

Gina washed and then looked around for her
comb. Her hair had grown several inches since she’d been in
Francia, so she could no longer arrange it by just running her
fingers through it. She needed her wooden comb, and she wanted a
fresh dress to replace the dusty, travel-strained gown Ella had
taken away to clean. She also wanted her light house shoes instead
of boots. The only garment left to her was the shift she was
wearing. Her comb and all her clothes were in Dominick’s room,
taken there at Hedwiga’s order.

She opened the bedroom door and peered into
the corridor. The house was so quiet that Gina recognized the
late-afternoon lull, when everyone was finishing up chores before
the evening meal.

She laid a hand on her rounded abdomen while
she tried to decide whether to make a dash to Dominick’s room to
grab a dress and her comb. She didn’t want to wait for Dominick to
appear so she could ask him to run the errand for her. She couldn’t
go below wearing only her shift to locate a maid who would do for
her what she was perfectly capable of doing for herself. If she
yelled down the stairs for someone to come to her, Hedwiga would
probably assume the worst and arrive with half a dozen maidservants
and a few men to pick her up and carry her back to bed. And then
Hedwiga would start issuing orders, and she’d force Gina to swallow
some noxious herbal brew, and she would probably never thereafter
believe that Gina was able to take care of herself.

By far the best way to deal with Hedwiga
would be for Gina to appear downstairs freshly washed and dressed
and in command of her position as the new mistress of
Feldbruck.

Viewed from that perspective, Gina really
didn’t have a choice. She was going to have to enter Dominick’s
room.

“I’ll be quick,” she told herself. “I’ll only
stay for a minute or two, and if anything strange happens, I can
leave at once.”

She didn’t allow herself time to think twice.
If she stopped to mull over her decision, she’d be too scared to
carry it out. Barefoot, wearing only her shift, she tiptoed down
the hall to Dominick’s room.

She opened the door all the way and left it
wide open, so she would have a quick exit available. Except for the
addition of the clothing chest from her room, Dominick’s bedchamber
was unchanged since the last time she had been in it. When she
opened her clothing chest she discovered there weren’t many dresses
available. Apparently, Ella had taken all the gowns worn at
Regensburg to the laundry, to be spot-cleaned with fuller’s earth,
then aired and ironed if necessary.

Gina plucked a plain, lightweight blue wool
gown from the chest and grabbed her shoes, then looked around for
her comb. It lay on the table under the window. She hurried across
the room to pick it up.

She paused to look out at the mountains and
the forest, now mellowing from summer greens into muted autumn
shades.

“No wonder Dominick loves Feldbruck,” she
murmured. “It’s so beautiful here.”

She hadn’t yet seen the larger bedchamber
they were to occupy together, and as she headed for the door and
the corridor beyond, she wondered if the view was similar to the
one from this room. She hoped so, for Dominick’s sake. He liked to
look at the mountains; she thought he derived some of his strength
from their solid presence.

She was just a few steps away from the door
when the ceiling opened.

It happened suddenly and silently, in the
time between two heartbeats. Sensing that something was changed,
Gina stared upward into a long, dark tunnel with no light at all to
be seen in it. And she experienced again the dreadful sucking
sensation, as if she was being drawn upward, off her feet, into the
air, toward darkness.

“No!” She wasn’t close enough to the door to
grab it and hold on, nor could she reach the bed-frame. No other
object in the room offered a handhold or the weight to keep her at
floor level, thus forestalling the inevitable. “No, please, don’t
do this.”

In the terrifying silence that surrounded her
she struggled to keep her feet firmly planted on the wooden floor,
even as she acknowledged that she wasn’t going to succeed. She was
on her toes. Then she was in the air. She saw her dress, shoes, and
comb hit the floor, and she caught her breath on a panic-stricken
sob.

“Gina? Where are you?” Dominick’s beloved
voice sliced through the eerie stillness.

“I said, no!” Gina began to fight more
vigorously against what was happening, waving her arms and legs
like a frantic swimmer, trying to return to the floor and to
Dominick. “I won’t go! You can’t make me leave. I belong here.
There’s nothing for me back there. This is my home. Dominick is my
love. Do you hear me? I won’t go!”

“Gina!” Dominick was in the room, flinging
his arms around her legs, using his weight to try to pull her down
to his level.

His efforts weren’t working. Both of them
were being pulled upward with an inexorable force.

“Stop it! Leave us alone!” Gina screamed into
the darkness of the tunnel. Then, realizing that neither her pleas
nor Dominick’s strength was making a difference, she shouted at
him, “Dominick, let me go! Save yourself!”

“Wherever you go, I go, too,” Dominick said,
sounding remarkably calm. “I will not be parted from you.”

They had reached the gaping opening in the
ceiling, and they hung there for a moment, suspended in time and
place. Gina looked down at Dominick, who was clasping her knees in
a grip so tight that she thought her bones would break. She touched
his hair and tried to bend toward him, so she could kiss him one
last time. To her despair, she couldn’t quite reach him.

“Oh, Dominick, I love you.” There was nothing
else to say, nothing else that mattered, not in the entire world,
not in all eternity.

“I love you, Gina. I always will. Nothing can
separate us. Nothing!”

With a clap like loud thunder, the hole in
the ceiling closed. Abruptly released from its pull, Gina and
Dominick tumbled through the air to land on his bed.

“Are you hurt?” Dominick gathered her into
his arms, holding her tightly, as if he feared she’d be pulled away
from him.

“No,” she said in a shaking voice. Tm just
scared out of my wits. Let’s get out of this room right away,
before that thing comes back.”

Dominick didn’t get up and make for the
still-open door. Instead, he lay back on the bed, so he could look
up at the unblemished ceiling. He kept Gina firmly against his
heart, and she let her head fall onto his chest until she felt a
bit more steady.

“I don’t think we will see that gateway
through time again,” Dominick said. “It is possible that our
refusal to be separated is what vanquished it.”

“I’m not taking any chances.” Pushing away
from him, Gina sat up. She sent a fast, shuddering glance toward
the ceiling, then turned her attention to Dominick. “I will never
set foot in this room again. I don’t want anyone else to come in
here, either. That includes you. Especially you.”

“Agreed.” Dominick sat up, too. “We don’t
need this room. I’ll have it closed up, and I will personally lock
the door and keep the key in my possession. Unless, of course,
someone we don’t like comes to visit. Then I may open it
again.”

“It isn’t funny,” Gina said.

“No? Then explain to me why I suddenly feel
like laughing uproariously, like running barefoot through the
forest, like taking you up to the attic to make passionate love to
you again.”

“I have no objection to laughter, or to
making love, not even in the attic,” she said, “but I don’t think
I’m in any shape to run anywhere.” She placed a hand on her
abdomen.

“We’ve won,” Dominick said. “I’m certain of
it. Whatever the force was that brought you to me, I cannot believe
it will separate us now.”

“Alcuin did tell me once that he believes I
will remain in this time so long as I am linked to you.”

“Here is a link that can never be broken,” he
said, laying his hand over hers, over the place where the child
they had engendered out of love was growing.

Dominick kissed his wife again. When, after a
long and increasingly warm period of time he broke off the kiss and
looked upward, he saw a small, star-shaped area in the ceiling,
just where the opening to the tunnel had been. It pulsed twice,
with an intense golden glow, and then it vanished.

Dominick grinned. Not wanting to alarm Gina,
he said nothing about what he had just seen. He helped her to her
feet, making sure that she wasn’t trembling any longer. Then he
took her hand and led her out of his old bedchamber. When they were
both standing in the corridor, he closed the door very firmly
behind them and locked it.