Love Beyond Time

by Speer, Flora

  “I will.” Savarec smiled at her. “I have no doubt you would like to hear the names of the men who have offered for you.”

  “The choice of possible husbands might sway my decision,” Danise admitted, smiling back at him. How dear and kind he was. How much she loved him. She knew her happiness was important to him.

  “You have three suitors,” Savarec said. “First, there is Count Clodion.”

  “An ancient ogre!” cried Sister Gertrude. “The man has had three wives already and has killed all of them with constant childbearing. He even offered for me when I was younger. That would be thirty years ago at least. I suppose he wants someone young and strong to nurse him in his dotage, though with his history he may yet hope to get more children on a young wife.”

  “Clodion’s offer was honestly made,” Savarec said patiently. “Therefore, we will consider it with equal honesty. He is an important nobleman. However, I must admit, I would prefer to see Danise wed to someone closer to her own age.”

  “Who else asked for me, Father?” It was so strange to sit here in her tent and discuss in this detached way the qualities of men she did not know, one of whom, before the summer was over, might be her husband. Did she want to marry? Danise could not deny to herself certain stirrings of her body, urgings not completely quelled by the tragic loss of her beloved Hugo. He had scarcely touched her and had kissed her only a few times, but his affection for her had been deep and enduring. She would have married Hugo gladly and given him all her heart and soul until she died. But he had died first, while she was young and healthy and of a disposition to embrace life. Chelles had been a safe place to which she had retreated after Hugo’s death to nurse her aching heart and her disappointed hopes. Danise did not think she had a vocation strong enough to keep her contentedly at Chelles until she was an old woman. Still, she was wise enough to know she ought not to close the door on a religious life before she had definitely made up her mind. As for possible husbands, Count Clodion seemed to be favored by neither her father nor Sister Gertrude. “Tell me about the other men, Father.”

  “There is Autichar, who is a Bavarian nobleman of great note, and who holds lands as vast as Clodion’s.” Savarec was but a minor member of the nobility and he was perhaps too easily impressed by rank and wealth. Danise could tell he held Autichar in great esteem and had been honored by the offer for her hand.

  “Autichar’s loyalty to Charles has come into question,” noted Sister Gertrude. “Autichar is a known companion of Duke Tassilo of Bavaria, who is no friend to Charles, though the two are close cousins. If a dispute arises between Charles and Tassilo, and from what I have heard of Tassilo’s character it is inevitable, on whose side will Autichar fight? Do you want to oppose your son-in-law on a battlefield, Savarec?”

  “Is there no man on earth of whom you approve?” Savarec’s face was growing red with suppressed anger.

  “I want Danise to be happy just as much as you do,” Sister Gertrude told him. “But I do not think marriage will make her happy.”

  “If you will let me finish,” said Savarec between clenched teeth, “perhaps you can find one good thing to say about the third man who is interested in my daughter.”

  “Who is he, Father?” Trying to avert one of Savarec’s rare outbursts of temper, Danise said, “I promise I will most seriously consider all of these men, and if they are here at Duren, I will ask you to present me to them, so I can be at least somewhat familiar with all of them before I decide.”

  “You always were a sensible girl.” Savarec appeared to be mollified by his daughter’s words. “The third man you have already met, and he is the one I most favor. A man of honorable lineage, with lands near Tournai and also other estates in Burgundy. He is Count Redmond.”

  “The pleasant man who helped us with the stranger?” Danise tried in vain to recall Count Redmond’s face. All she could bring to memory was a thick crop of golden hair and a pair of pale eyes. Was he tall or short, handsome or not? She could not remember. When she thought about the incident in the forest, what stayed in her mind was an instant of shock brought on by the penetrating blue gaze of a sadly injured, unknown man.

  “Well, Danise?” Savarec looked at her expectantly. “What is your opinion of Count Redmond?”

  “As I said, he seemed pleasant, but I scarcely had a chance to note him,” Danise responded.

  “You will have ample time to know him,” Savarec told her. “And Clodion and Autichar, too, since all of them are gathered here at Duren. You have my permission to speak to any of them when and as you wish, so long as Sister Gertrude or Clothilde is with you. I do not think any of them will make improper advances to you, but it is always best for a young woman to have a chaperon.”

  “In so much at least, we are agreed,” said Sister Gertrude.

  Chapter 3

  He did not know where he was. Worse, he did not know who he was. His head ached without letup, and his eyesight was totally undependable, ranging from a complete blur to abnormal clarity. Every time he tried to sit up he was overcome by nausea so severe he had to lie down again at once.

  People came and went. He knew the man in dusty black robes was a doctor. He knew the leeches the doctor periodically placed at the most painful spot on his head really would help him. Their sucking would diminish the swelling and make his headache go away. How he knew these things he could not recall, but know them he did.

  Lying flat on his back, unable to move for nausea, with the repellent leeches working away at him, he went over the faces he had recently seen, seeking in those faces some clue to his own identity.

  There was the portly middle-aged man with gray-streaked dark hair who slept in the other bed in the tent and snored away the long and lonely nights. The others called this man Savarec, but to his confused tentmate the name meant nothing.

  There was Guntram of the bristling black beard and mustache. He had a fierce expression and wild eyes, but could be gentle enough to turn a patient or attend to his personal needs without causing increased pain. Guntram was Savarec’s man, and he loved and respected his master.

  A motherly, middle-aged woman, brown of hair and eye and thick of waist, came frequently to change his linen or wash his face and hands. A scrawny, sour-looking nun occasionally glared down at him along her elegant nose.

  And then there was the angel, who drifted into and out of his consciousness like a vision. But she was real. She touched his forehead or his cheeks with tender hands and coaxed him to swallow the food she spooned into his mouth, even when he feared it would only come back up again. When the angel fed him, the food stayed down, perhaps because she did not rush him as the others did, but sat patiently waiting until he opened his mouth for the next spoonful.

  Her face was a perfect oval, her hair was so pale it was almost silver. She wore it in twin braids tied with green ribbons to match her deep green wool gown. Her eyes were a soft gray-green, shadowed by some undefined sorrow. She was small and shapely and her voice was like heavenly music. Unfortunately, he could not understand what she said.

  She tried to make him understand and he struggled to remember the words she spoke, but his head ached so badly that he could make no sense of her language. It ought to be easy for him. He was fluent in several languages and had the ear to learn new ones quickly.

  How did he know that?

  As time passed and the pain in his head eased, fragments of memory drifted into and out of his thoughts. Glimpses of scenes bedeviled him … a skinny young man throwing a punch at him and missing … blinking lights … numbers … the green leaves of springtime slapping against his face … falling … falling. … Where? When? What had happened to him?

  What was his name?

  “He is much improved.” The royal physician regarded his sleeping patient with considerable satisfaction before turning his attention to Danise and Savarec. “My treatments have been successful. All he needs now is rest and time, until he is himself once more.”

  “He still does
n’t know his own name,” Danise said. “The poor man is so bewildered.”

  “Only time can cure the loss of memory.”

  The physician had told her this repeatedly over the last three days. “When he can rise without pain or dizziness, let him do so. Allow him to walk about and see familiar sights, for they will speed his final recovery. Feed him well. I can give you no further advice, nor can I do anything more for him, unless he suffers a relapse. If he does, it will be necessary to bleed him, or perhaps to administer a series of clysters.”

  “Thank you for the help you have given him.” Savarec pressed a purse into the physician’s hands. “If we find we need you again, rest assured we will call upon you at once.” But as soon as the physician was out of earshot, Savarec snorted in derision. “I have as little use for physicians as Charles himself has. Clysters, indeed! Those idiots delight in ramming a funnel into a man and filling his innards with foul-smelling potions and then letting him spend the rest of the day at the latrine until there is nothing left inside him and he can’t walk without help. Then they prate of the good they do for their patients.”

  “I am so glad you were able to convince Charles to give this man over to your keeping, instead of letting the physicians have him,” Danise said.

  “See that your charitable concern for him does not keep you from your other duties. Attend the queen when it is your turn to do so,” Savarec admonished her. Looking at the stranger, he shook his head sadly. “I wish I knew who he is. His family may be praying for news of him. If we only knew where to send a message, we could relieve their anxiety.”

  “I confess, I had not thought of his family.” Danise sighed, wondering if there were a wife somewhere, worrying about him. With a guilty pang, she hoped he was neither wed nor betrothed. “The next time he wakens, I will try again to teach him a few words of Frankish, so he can begin to speak to us and tell us about himself. It seems his head has ached too badly for him to think clearly, but now the physician has turned him over to us, he surely will soon be well enough to talk and to begin to move about.”

  “It would be a kindness to him.” Savarec patted her shoulder. “I’m off now to attend Charles. Don’t be late for the midday meal. It’s time you met all of your suitors.”

  “Yes, Father. I’ll be there.” But her eyes and her thoughts were on the unknown man. He had a habit of waking whenever she was left alone in the tent with him. She drew up a stool and took her usual place beside his bed. His eyes opened at once. “Oh, yes, you are clever. Always you wait until the others have gone.

  “But, sir, if you are aware enough of your surroundings to know who is here and who is absent, then you are well on your way to recovery, and thus you should not be allowed to lie here idling away your days and nights. You, sir, are about to begin your schooling.”

  The blue eyes stared into hers with such intensity that Danise had to look away or lose her ability to reason. Reaching across his narrow bed, she touched the rough wool fabric of the tent wall.

  “Tent,” she said, indicating the entire structure with an expressive wave of her hand. “Tent.”

  He continued to stare at her.

  “Say it!” she demanded, and made the gesture again. “Tent. Tent.”

  “Tent.” There was a change in his expression, a stirring of interest, a glimmer of hope.

  “Good. Tent,” she repeated. She slapped a hand against the side of his cot. “Bed. Bed.”

  “Bed.” His hand moved toward hers, but she had already picked up a corner of the coverlet.

  “Quilt,” she said.

  “Quilt.” He was smiling at her. Danise caught her breath. Most of the swelling in his face had subsided, but the bruises remained. Over the past three days they had slowly turned from blue and purple to gray and yellow. She suspected that even at his best this man was no handsome young warrior, yet there was something compelling about him, a strength and intelligence she had seldom encountered before.

  “Face.” She touched her cheeks. When he repeated the word she went on to name nose, eyes, ears, hands, and as many other body parts as she decently could, until he caught her hands, stopping her excited flow of words.

  “Speak – to – me,” he said very carefully. “Make – sentences.” That last word was spoken in a foreign tongue, but she understood what he meant.

  “You have been listening to us,” she cried. “These past days, you have been soaking up our words as cloth soaks up moisture. You know more than I realized, perhaps more than you realize.”

  “I – speak – easily,” he said. “I learn – learn languages – quickly.”

  “Indeed you do. I am so happy for you. Now you need not be so isolated. You can talk to my father and to Guntram.”

  “And – to – you.” Still he spoke slowly, feeling his way through the Frankish language. “If we talk more, I learn – will learn – more fast. No – I will learn faster.”

  “Then we will talk until you are tired. Tell me how you came to be in the forest?”

  “Forest?” He frowned. “Trees. I was falling. Tried to stop – to catch branches.”

  “That is why your face and hands were scratched,” Danise told him. “But what were you doing in the tree?”

  He released her hands. Danise watched him grow perfectly still, as if he were listening to a voice inside his own mind.

  “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I can’t remember. Just the trees, and falling.”

  “The physician says your memory will come back to you as you recover,” she assured him. “Since he is the royal physician, he must be right.”

  “Royal? What king are we talking about? Where am I, anyway?”

  “You did not say that last sentence correctly,” she informed him, after a pause while she interpreted his words to herself.

  “To hell with grammar,” he said. “Where ami?”

  “At Duren, in Francia. It is the Mayfield.”

  If he had been still before, now he was like a statue. Danise waited to hear what his next question would be.

  “Francia,” he repeated. “Land of the Franks. Who is this king who keeps a physician?”

  “He doesn’t really need one, though Hildegarde too often does. Our king is Charles.”

  “What year is this?”

  “Ah, you are truly lost, aren’t you? I am so sorry.”

  “Just answer my question.”

  “It is spring in the Year of Our Lord 779.”

  “Oh, my God!” He sat up so suddenly that Danise feared he would faint. Swinging bare legs over the edge of his bed, he sat with his head in his hands. Guntram had found a linen shirt for him, which covered him to his thighs, but still Danise averted her gaze. However, she did not move from the stool where she had been sitting throughout their conversation.

  “What am I doing here?” he asked. The question was directed more toward himself than to her, but she answered it anyway.

  “I have told you, we found you in the forest and brought you here to my father’s tent.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Something is dreadfully wrong. I know it. I’m in the wrong place. I should be – be – somewhere else.”

  “Where?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, damn it! I don’t know!” He added more calmly, “I shouldn’t yell at you. It’s not your fault. Tell me, is it permitted to get myself up?” He was still uncertain about some of the words he needed and the exact sentence construction of the Frankish language, but Danise could understand what he wanted.

  “If you feel well enough, you may rise. But before you go outside the tent, I would advise you to dress. Guntram has located a tunic and breeches for you, and shoes that ought to fit.”

  “Don’t I have clothing of my own? Did I come here naked?”

  “Your own garments are so unusual that we feared they would cause much comment, and thus we assumed you would prefer to wear Frankish garb. But your clothes are here, in my father’s clothes chest. Clothilde washed them for you.�
� She opened the lid of the wooden chest to show him. “Here are some coins Clothilde found in your breeches. She put them into this little pouch so they would not be lost. My father says this object must be your purse. Perhaps there is something in it to answer your questions.”

  He took the folded brown leather wallet and flipped it open to rifle through the contents. Danise gave a cry of surprise when he held up a stiff card.

  “It is your image, as you must appear without these unattractive bruises. How clever the artists of your land are, to capture your likeness so closely. Is that writing on it? I cannot make out the unfamiliar letters.”

  “If this is my face,” he said, “then this must be my name, too. ‘Bailey, Bradford Michael. Expiration date, 3/31/95. I have no idea what those numbers mean. Nor these words. ‘Connecticut Motor Vehicle Operator’s License.’” He turned the card over, squinting at the tiny blue letters on the other side, shaking his head because they meant nothing to him.

  “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.”