Time to Love Again

by Speer, Flora

  “Later,” he said, and left her.

  * * *

  It was Hugo who interrupted her, but not before she had washed her face and hands with the harsh soap and tried to straighten her hair with her fingers. When she heard a light knock on the door she went toward it, but Hugo came right in.

  “Have you finished?” He gestured toward the water pitcher. “I’d like to wash myself.”

  “I’m not sure what to do with the dirty water in the basin,” India confessed.

  “You could pour it into the slop pot,” Hugo said, “but we don’t know how often it’s emptied, and there’s no point in filling the pot too soon. I’d say, toss the water out the window. I see a garden down there; you can sprinkle the flowers.”

  Stretching, India leaned across the table to peer out of the window. There were no flowers in bloom so early in the year, but she saw two feminine figures pacing along a gravel path.

  “Someone’s down there,” she said. “I don’t want to spill the water on them.”

  “It’s easy enough to avoid.” Hugo had stripped off his woolen tunic and undershirt. He came forward bare-chested, to stick his head out the window and shout, “Beware below!” Picking up the basin, he tossed the water through the open window with no further regard for anyone who might be splashed.

  India saw the smaller of the two figures in the garden look up toward the window at Hugo’s cry. She caught a glimpse of two long, silver-gilt braids and a pure, delicate face, before the second figure seized the girls arm, turning her so her back was to the window.

  “What a pretty girl,” India said.

  “Where?” Hugo had already poured fresh water into the basin and was lathering his hands. He craned his neck, trying to see better, but the two females in the garden were making their way toward a door set in one wall. Hugo shook his head in disappointment. “I’m sorry I missed seeing her. It must have been Savarec’s mysterious daughter.”

  “Why is she mysterious?” India watched Hugo rub soapsuds onto his face. He had a barrel-like chest with lots of light brown hair on it and hard, bulging shoulder and arm muscles. He was thoroughly masculine, yet there was in him nothing to stir the combination of danger and attraction that underlay all of her dealings with Theuderic. She could stay in the same room with bare-chested Hugo all the day long and still feel only a mild affection toward him.

  “Ow!” Hugo bellowed suddenly. “I’ve got soap in my eyes.”

  “It’s probably made with lye,” she said, handing him the towel. “I’m sure it stings.” She watched him wipe at his eyes, then rinse and dry his face.

  “Tell me about Savarec’s daughter,” she said.

  “There’s not much to tell.” After glancing out the window, Hugo threw away the water, then reached for his undershirt. “Because there are so many men moving in and out of this garrison all the time, Savarec keeps her well guarded. I don’t know of a single man who has ever seen her, to report on her looks. For all anyone knows, she could be a monster.”

  “She didn’t look like a monster to me,” India said. “If it’s the girl I saw, she has blonde hair and a sweet face.”

  “Has she?” Hugo adjusted his tunic and took up his sword belt. “You’ve seen more than most, then. I wish I could see her, just once.”

  “It can’t be a very agreeable life for a girl,” India said. “Kept under close guard, not allowed to meet people of her own age. It sounds lonely to me.”

  “She goes to a convent school,” Hugo revealed. “She will meet other girls there. I come through here fairly often. Sometimes she’s here, visiting her father. Sometimes she’s at school.”

  Marcion came in just then, with Theuderic close behind him, so the conversation about Savarec’s daughter ended there, but the image of that upturned, delicate oval face stayed in India’s thoughts.

  Chapter 6

  True to his reputation for setting a fine table, Savarec provided a bountiful feast to honor his guests. Fresh green vegetables were scarce at that time of year, but there were plenty of boiled turnips and several huge platters of cabbage stewed with herbs. There were dried apples and raisins for sweets and more than enough fresh-baked bread, but most of the meal consisted of meats. There was mutton boiled with onions and garlic, large trays of game birds of various kinds that had been cooked on spits over a fire, and half a roasted ox. There were pitchers of the sweet, lightly carbonated wine that made India think of cheap grape soda.

  Theuderic, India, Marcion, and Hugo all sat at the head table along with Savarec and a few of the higher-ranking officers who helped him maintain the outpost meant to keep the river crossing safe from the Saxons so it would always be ready should the king of the Franks need to transport an army into his lands in Saxony. There were few women present, none at the high table, and no sign of Savarec’s daughter, an absence that did not surprise India after what Hugo had said earlier. Most of the feminine shapes that India noticed were servants, though there were some painted ladies at the lower tables, whose function seemed fairly obvious.

  At first, Savarec talked mostly to Theuderic and Marcion, asking each of them intelligent questions about conditions in Saxony.

  “I was in Paderborn last summer for the annual assembly,” Savarec said. “The Saxons who presented themselves to Charles there seemed peaceable enough. But I say, never trust a Saxon, even if he allows himself to be baptized. The Christian church means nothing to them. They are all pagans at heart.”

  “They have their own religion,” Theuderic said mildly. “Converting them will take time.”

  “It would take less time,” Savarec answered, “if so many fighting men were not being withdrawn from eastern Francia to take part in this summer’s campaign.”

  “You don’t seem to be lacking in men just now,” Marcion put in, looking down the crowded hall, where every seat at the long tables was filled.

  “Here I am well staffed,” Savarec admitted, “but I am worried about the lands farther east. If the Saxons take advantage of Charles’s absence in Spain this summer, who can tell what will happen?”

  “I share your concern,” Theuderic said. “As for the campaign planned for this summer, I have no great liking for it myself. When next I see Charles, I will tell him what you have said. We won’t change the arrangements he has already set in motion, but we might convince him to release a levy or two to help you and the others on the eastern frontier to hold back the Saxons should they rise while Charles is occupied in Spain.”

  “For that I thank you.” Savarec now turned to India to ask her a few questions more penetrating than she would have liked about her home and her life there. “I would be pleased to lend you a horse, Lord India, to ride until you have reached Aachen. Enough people travel back and forth to allow it to be returned to me easily.”

  “Riding is not common in Lord India’s country,” Theuderic interrupted this generous offer. “It is safer if I keep India on my own horse, with me.”

  India believed this reluctance to let her have her own mount was the result of Theuderic’s concern that she would disappear. She did not see how he could think she might try to run away from him. There was no place for her to go, and he surely knew it. Until Hank found her, she was safer with Theuderic than anywhere else – if spending yet another night beside him could be called safe.

  “May I ask, Lord India,” said Savarec, leaning closer to her as if to speak in confidence, “if you are wed or betrothed?”

  She thought for a moment about how to answer him. She had a feeling that Theuderic, sitting on Savarec’s other side, would be listening with great interest to whatever she might say to the garrison commander, so she kept her reply short and simple, telling Savarec only, “No, I am not.”

  “I have a daughter,” Savarec said to her. “She is innocent and well-schooled, a charming girl.”

  “I’m sure she is.” By now she sensed that not only was Theuderic listening, he was surreptitiously watching her, too, and Marcion and Hugo as well had sto
pped eating to pay attention to the conversation between herself and their host.

  “Like you, my Danise is not yet betrothed,” Savarec said, and India could tell from his tone of voice that she would have to do some quick thinking.

  “Sir, I believe I understand your meaning,” she responded. “But you know nothing of my situation in my own land, nor of my prospects for the future.” She said that last word with a bitter inflection that made Theuderic look sharply at her, but he said nothing to help her out of the quagmire in which she was foundering. She wondered wildly if real men ever felt this way when parents approached them about marriageable daughters. She knew she would have to extricate herself from this embarrassing and potentially dangerous situation without hurting Savarec’s pride or in any way insulting his daughter, and she had to try to do it without revealing her gender.

  “You can be nothing less than a noble,” Savarec said. “You are well-spoken, though your accent is strange. The clothing you wear, travel-stained as it is, still is of the finest quality. And, of course, there is the medallion.”

  With her mind trained to late twentieth-century caution in social matters, she thought that for all he really knew of her, she could be a brutal axe murderer who would ravish and kill his daughter. For the briefest of moments she wondered how anyone with any claim to intelligence could be so gullible, or so careless about his own child’s happiness. But after another moment’s thought, she knew why. Arranged marriages among noble families were common at every period of history. As Theuderic and his men had judged and accepted her, so had Savarec. In appearance and speech, she seemed to them a foreign noble. Alone and unarmed, she presented no physical threat. And Savarec, according to Hugo overly concerned with status, would doubtless think it an honor to ally himself with a noble foreign house. He might even think it would raise him in his own king’s estimation.

  There was only one way she could think of to resolve the dilemma presented by Savarec’s offer. It was a typically medieval way that would have been more effective in the later Middle Ages, after the idea of chivalry had been firmly established, but considering what she knew of Savarec’s character, it just might work on him.

  “Though I am neither married nor betrothed as yet,” she said carefully, “still I am not free. My late master sent me upon a quest, which I must fulfill before I can think of my own life or what I might want.”

  “I see.” Savarec received this information with perfect seriousness. “May I ask what this quest is?”

  “That is the problem when it comes to responding to the remarkable proposition you have suggested to me,” India confided, lowering her voice and taking great pleasure when she saw the unhelpful Theuderic tilt his head to hear her better. “I am sworn not to reveal the nature of the quest to anyone except the king of the Franks. When I have spoken with him, if he sets yet another task for me, I am then bound to obey him. So you will understand, Savarec, that though I respect you and honor your daughter because she is your child, I am unable to answer you in any way.”

  “I do understand,” he said, and India began to breathe freely again. But there was one more matter about which she wanted to be certain.

  “I have a request to make of you,” she told Savarec, afraid the man might not give up so easily after all. “If it should happen that some suitable arrangement can be made for your Danise, I beg you to take advantage of it. Do not prevent your daughter from knowing the happiness of a wife and mother for the sake of one who may soon depart from this world.”

  “Nobly spoken,” said Savarec. “I agree to your request. You have a generous heart, Lord India.”

  “Indeed yes,” said Marcion from further along the table. “If Lord India speaks with as much wisdom and diplomacy to Charles as he has just spoken to you, Charles may well send him on a mission of peace to the king of the Saracens at Jerusalem.”

  There was laughter at that, and the conversation turned to other subjects. It was not until much later, when India and Theuderic were in their shared chamber with the door closed that he made reference to Savarec’s offer.

  “Do not imagine he’s a foolish man for all his apparent willingness to give his daughter to an unknown noble,” Theuderic said, his face serious in the light of the oil lamp that flickered in a dish upon the table. “Savarec has not lasted for more than ten years in this outpost by being careless. Had you shown any interest in his Danise, he would soon have discovered all there is to know about your past, your parentage and rank, and your prospects for the future before he finally agreed to give the girl to you.”

  “There is nothing for him to discover,” India returned. “I said what I did in order to stop his suggestions without insulting him. After all, he is our host.”

  “You dealt with him most wisely,” Theuderic conceded. “Tell me, do you really have a quest?”

  “Only to return to my own home,” she replied.

  “I do confess,” he said softly, “that I’d be sorry to see you go.”

  “I thought at first I would be unhappy here,” she said, responding to his tone. “But it’s not so. It’s different here in Francia – how different you cannot imagine – but I am not unhappy. You and your men are good people, Theuderic. I like Savarec, too. I might even like Danise if I were to meet her.” She stopped there, fearing he would misinterpret her words if she told him that she had been wondering what a Frankish girl’s life was like. She needn’t have worried. Theuderic wasn’t thinking about Danise, or about Savarec’s proposal. As soon as Marcion and Hugo appeared, eager to pull out the trundle bed and test its comfort, Theuderic threw himself down on the larger bed.

  “Are you going to sleep in your armor even here?” India asked, incredulous. Theuderic did not open his eyes when he answered her.

  “We are still east of the Rhine,” he said.

  “Savarec doesn’t wear his armor,” she noted.

  “That is Savarec’s affair. I do not remove mine until we reach Aachen.” His words brought into her mind the picture of a misty late-winter forest, a stream, and an iron helmet filled with watercress. “That is my quest,” he added quietly.

  Marcion burst into irreverent laughter at his leader’s announcement.

  “I will also sleep without undressing,” Marcion declared. “That way, I’ll be ready to leave at dawn.”

  “Me, too,” said Hugo. He removed his sword belt and boots, then fell onto the trundle bed fully clothed, his great weight making it creak and sway alarmingly. Once it had steadied again, Marcion lowered himself more carefully to the mattress and pulled up the quilt.

  India looked down at them, at Marcion curled on one side of the bed with the quilt around his shoulders, at Hugo trying to wrestle his fair share of the quilt away from his friend, and at Theuderic on the other bed, stretched out with his hands behind his head and his legs crossed at the ankles. And she knew, absolutely and certainly knew, that all three of them were fully aware of what she was. They were going to sleep with their clothing on in order to spare her, and themselves, from any embarrassment. How dear and kind they were. She wished she dared hug each of them. Well, perhaps not all three of them….

  “Put out the lamp and come to bed,” said Theuderic, watching her through half-closed eyes.

  She did as he ordered, the open shutters allowing enough light through the window for her to find her way to the bed.

  “You will have to move over,” she told Theuderic.

  “Ah, no,” he replied. “If you are not to be tied to me this night, then you will have to sleep between me and the wall.”

  “But—” she began.

  “I’m weary,” he said. “I’ve not rested in a bed for weeks. If you are wise, you’ll let me sleep and not test my mood.”

  Bending over, she removed her boots, then tried to crawl across his legs to get to her allotted portion of the bed. She paused, kneeling on his shins while she fumbled with the covers. She heard him swear under his breath just before he sat up, caught her around the waist, a
nd flipped her onto her back. Somehow she was beneath the covers with Theuderic’s mail-clad form on top of the quilt making a wall to keep her from escaping.

  “Good night, Lord India,” said Marcion in a perfect imitation of Savarec’s voice. Hugo emitted a long, relaxed snore, and then complete silence fell upon the room.

  India began to laugh. She was quiet about it, but she could not help herself. It was all too funny – Savarec trying to marry her off to his daughter sight unseen, the three men with her surely aware that she was a woman but no one admitting it, herself forced to lie in bed next to Theuderic without being allowed to touch him as she wanted to, her very presence in that time and place – all of it was absolutely, completely ridiculous. She knew she was close to hysteria, but she could not stop the laughter that demanded release. She began to shake. In another moment howls of laughter combined with floods of tears would pour out of her and she would not be able to stop.

  Two of Theuderic’s fingers came down firmly across her lips, pressing hard, trapping her laughter.

  “If you make a sound, I’ll strangle you,” he murmured into her ear. “I swear I will.”

  She put her own hand over his and did what she wanted to do. She kissed his fingers. She heard him catch his breath, and then her hand was held against his lips, and she felt the moist fire of his tongue across her palm. In a way she did not understand, that gesture calmed her, bringing her back from the brink of lunacy to the realization that she could not give way to her feelings. Not here, not yet. All she could do for the moment was trust Theuderic to get them through to some other place, some later day, when they could resolve what lay between them. For the first time since coming to Francia, she found herself hoping that Hank would not be able to locate her soon.

  She fell asleep with her hand still clasped tightly in Theuderic’s.