by Speer, Flora
India…
She had loved him so willingly, and now she would know for the second time in her short life the heartbreaking loss of a man she loved, and she would have to go on without him. He was the more fortunate one, for the pain of knowing he would never see her again would be brief … only a few minutes more, an hour at most.
He was too weak to pray aloud, but he found the words in his mind, one by one, forming them carefully, fighting the weariness that made thought increasingly difficult.
Please send India home. Don’t leave her in this time. Send her home…and please…please… send someone to love her….
The blue sky seemed nearer now. It was surprisingly painless to die in this way, on a mountainside, with the heavens so close.
India … love … The blue enveloped him, drawing him upward, into a profound and blessed peace.
“Love never dies. Love lives on.”
He did not have time to think about who had spoken those words. He only knew they were the last ones he would ever hear in his present life. It no longer mattered that in this lifetime he would never meet India again, because though his eyes were now blind to earthly sights, the blue surrounding him rolled back, so that the endless ages were revealed to him, century upon century, before him and behind him … eternity … and he understood … and smiled … and gave himself gladly to what awaited him.
“Love never dies. Love lives on.”
Chapter 22
Marcion returned to Agen with the courier who bore the terrible news. They entered the reception room unannounced. India, Bertille, and Danise were sitting together, the other two trying to make India laugh by telling silly jokes. When she first saw Marcion, India felt a glimmer of hope that eased the numbness of the past few days. She half expected to see Theu come in behind him.
“Marcion!” Bertille sprang to her feet and ran to him, throwing her arms around him. And Marcion, not caring who saw them or whether Bertille’s mother had given permission or not, set down the heavy bundle he was carrying so that he could lift his betrothed off her feet and kiss her hard. Something in the desperate way he held Bertille quenched India’s brief hope and must have touched Danise, too, for when India rose to go to Marcion, Danise was right behind her.
“The queen?” asked the courier, looking about the room.
“She’s in the women’s quarters,” India said, pointing. “Through that door. She will want to receive you at once.” She did not ask what news he carried. His message was for the queen’s ears first. They would all know what it was soon enough, and suddenly India did not want to hear it.
Marcion set Bertille on her feet again, looking at her sadly before he released her. His eyes met India’s. He did not have to say anything. She knew – knew – and she experienced a sensation of drifting in empty space unanchored by any attachments.
“India.” Marcion’s hand was on her arm. In his tear-filled eyes and on his face she saw all the pain he was feeling.
“India, you are pale as a ghost.” Bertille took her hands and began to rub them. Danise clutched at India’s elbow.
“I think I have known since Theu left Agen,” India said, “that I would never see him again. Not in this world. Still, I could not stop hoping.”
There came a long, despairing wail from the direction of the women’s quarters, followed by the sounds of several women weeping.
“Not Charles?” cried Danise, wide-eyed and frightened-looking.
“Charles is well enough, said Marcion, “though he mourns deeply and blames himself for what has happened. He says now that he should never have gone into Spain.”
They were joined at that point by Sister Gertrude, who at the courier’s first word of disaster had left the queen’s side to find Danise. They stood together before Marcion, Bertille still holding both of India’s hands, Danise clinging to her arm, Sister Gertrude looking fierce, ready to defend the younger women if she could. But even she could not protect them from the news Marcion brought.
“Tell us everything,” said Sister Gertrude. “It is better to know than to wonder in ignorance.”
Obeying her, Marcion described first the bitter end of the Spanish campaign and how Theu had volunteered to serve under Hrulund, before he went on to tell the women what Charles and his companions, including himself, had found when they returned to Roncevaux to discover why the rear guard had failed to appear at their rendezvous.
“From the lack of our dead along the heights of all that long and winding pass, Charles has concluded that Hrulund foolishly posted no scouts to watch for attack upon his flanks,” Marcion said. “Worse still, from the positions of the bodies, we could tell that when the attack came, the rear guard was riding in front of the baggage train, not along its sides and behind it as they should have been deployed if they were going to guard it properly. Only a few men were at the very end of all the carts and the stragglers.”
India thought she understood why Theu had gone with Hrulund. She had given him knowledge of the future, and that knowledge had changed his actions, as he had said it could. By adding his best men to Hrulund’s force he had doubtless hoped to prevent or to fight off the ambush she had warned him of. Her own thoughts having become intolerably painful at this point, she began to listen to Marcion again.
“Hrulund and Bishop Turpin, Eggihard and Anselm.” Marcion recited the list of the dead, including the men of Theu’s band. At each name, India recalled a face and remembered seeing that man ride off with Charles. When Marcion said Hugo’s name, Danise cried out as if she had been stabbed.
“Theu’s band was the group at the very end, exactly where the rearguard ought to be,” Marcion said, his voice breaking. “I should have been there, too, but Charles insisted on keeping me with him.”
“Danise, you have heard enough. Come away,” said Sister Gertrude, “come to our room and weep in private. Bertille, help me with her, she may faint on the way. India, you come too.”
“Later,” India said, and gave all her attention to Marcion, whose pain she could feel in her own heart.
“After I was taken from my family and brought from Lombardy to Francia,” he told her, “there were those who called Theu my jailer or my keeper, but he was never that to me. He was like an older brother, and he and Hugo became my dearest friends. Now they are gone. I should have been with them, to help them at the last.” His shoulders began to shake. India drew his head down onto her own shoulder and held him while he shuddered with tears for the men they both loved.
They were not alone in their grief. The news had spread rapidly, so that everyone in the palace knew it within a few minutes after the courier had told the story to the queen. All the routine daily activities stopped at once, and a mournful silence fell over the palace, broken only by the sound of weeping.
“Why don’t you cry, too?” Marcion asked, dashing the last traces of tears from his eyes and straightening his shoulders.
“I have cried all my tears already,” she said, her voice dull and lifeless, “every day and every night of these last months. I have no tears left.”
She had a deeper grief than Marcion knew, for added to her sense of loss was guilt. If she had not warned Theu about the ambush and about Hrulund’s foolhardiness, might Hugo have survived to marry Danise and sire children who would have made their own impact upon the world? And what of Eudon, who had recovered from a boar wound in Saxony only to die in Spain? What of Osric, who would never again ride through some city gate or fortified outpost entrance calling out Theu’s name and title with youthful pride and pleasure? And all the rest of that brave band – she knew and loved every man of them, and now she felt as though it was her fault they had died so young. And Theu most of all, who had listened to her warnings and taken them to heart and tried to do something about them – and who had died as a result. She stood bowed by regret and grief and guilt, until Marcion spoke again.
“I brought Theu’s armor back.” He picked up the bundle he had dropped on the floor when Be
rtille embraced him, and set it on the table. Opening it, he pulled out the chain mail. “They stole everything worth the taking, including all the swords, but Theu’sbrunia was so badly damaged they didn’t bother with it. Still, I think a good armorer might be able to repair it. Charles said to send it to his son.”
India touched the cold metal links, spreading the body of the brunia out on the table until she could see the tear through which Theu’s life had drained. At the very edge of the tear there was one rivet that had been pulled half out of its link by what must have been a powerful thrust, too strong for any mortal to withstand. She touched the tear in the brunia, putting her finger over the damaged link where the head of the tiny rivet had been snapped off.
“The fabric of life,” she whispered, thinking of a spring evening in Aachen.
She could not cry. The tears were there, inside her, but she could not let them out. She rocked back and forth, holding the edges of the tear together as if her fingers alone could restore the damage, could make the brunia whole again and bring Theu back, too, alive once more, strong and loving.
“Give it back to me, India. I should not have shown it to you.” Marcion took the brunia from her. “Charles has asked me to pack up the rest of Theu’s belongings and send them to his mother. If there is anything of his you want, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”
She looked at him from pain-filled eyes, still rocking back and forth, though her hands were empty now – hands and arms, both empty.
“I have my memories,” she said. “I don’t need anything else.”
“You are welcome to go to Lombardy with me.” The brunia folded away, Marcion sat down beside her. “Bertille and I would be happy to have you live with us, in our home.”
“Two men,” she said, as if she had not heard him. “Two fine men. My husband first, then Theu. Both died too soon, and all my efforts to save them could not help either. Why? Why?”
“I don’t know why one man lives and another dies. Why was I with Charles and not with Theu when he needed me?” Taking a ragged breath, Marcion put his arm around her and pulled her head onto his shoulder, holding her as she had held him earlier. Only when she felt his tears falling on her cheek did the knot that had lain in her chest for so long begin to loosen, and she was able to cry at last.
Charles came back to Agen two days later, leading a sorrowful army. He would not speak publicly about what had happened, leaving it to Alcuin to announce that there would be a memorial mass for the dead on the next day, after which the entire court was to move eastward at once, traveling far across Francia, to Auxerre in Burgundy.
“He may think the farther he is from the Spanish border, the easier it will be for him and for us, but that’s not so,” Bertille said. “There’s no forgetting what has happened. India, he has ordered Marcion and me to hold our wedding as planned, saying we need to turn our thoughts to a happy occasion, and so we will be married in Auxerre. Will you be there?”
“I don’t know,” India replied. “I have the oddest feeling of being suspended between two places, two times. I can’t explain it.”
“I think I understand.” Bertille put her arms around India, and it was as though Willi was hugging her, freely offering her vitality and affection to India. “My mother told Danise this morning that all grief eases with time, so please believe that yours will, too.”
“Never,” India whispered. “Never.”
At India’s insistence, Marcion went with her to the chapel where Theu’s body lay next to Hugo’s. Most of the dead had been buried at Roncevaux. Only a few had been brought back to Agen. Marcion had made certain that Theu and Hugo were among them.
“Hugo’s coffin is closed already,” India said.
Marcion did not respond to the question in her voice, nor did he look at her.
“You said you identified him.” It sounded like a challenge.
“I recognized him by the scarf Danise gave him. He always wore it wrapped around his right arm,” Marcion told her gruffly, then would say no more on the subject.
“I’m sorry.” She made her voice softer, so he would know she was not angry with him. “How difficult that task must have been for you.”
Stepping to the side of Theu’s still-open coffin, she made herself look at the pale, cold face of the man she loved. He was so still in his white shroud, all the life and warmth, all the strength and humor gone out of him. Gone out of her, too. Gently she touched his shoulder as if to comfort him.
“I kept my promise, Theu. I waited for your return,” she said to him. “Now it’s over, all the loving and the joy and the sweet promises. Now I think it’s time for me to go home.”
“What are you saying?” Marcion asked.
“Don’t look so worried. I’m not going to do anything foolish. It’s just that I have had the strangest feeling since Theu died, as though I am meant to be somewhere else, and now I think I’m being summoned.” Quickly she kissed him on the cheek. “Take good care of Bertille. She will love you all her life if you will let her. You have been such a good friend, to Theu, and Hugo, and to me. You have nothing to reproach yourself with, Marcion.” She kissed him again, but when he tried to hold on to her, she slipped out of his grasp.
“You are saying good-bye, aren’t you?” he exclaimed. It wasn’t really a question.
“I think so,” she said. “I am going to miss you and Bertille.”
“Where are you going?”
“Back to my own country, if I can find the way.”
“But the memorial service,” he protested. “You ought to be there.”
“Theu will understand.”
She was out of the chapel before he could stop her, heading for the palace and the women’s quarters, driven by an inexplicable need for haste. Marcion followed her and stood by the chapel door watching her as she crossed the courtyard, but he made no attempt to stop her.
India hurried to the room Bertille’s mother had so graciously shared with three strangers. There she found Danise sitting upon one of the beds with Sister Gertrude. When they had first arrived in Agen, Danise had made space in her small wooden clothing chest so that India could store her scanty belongings there. India knelt beside the chest, throwing open the lid and pulling out her tunic, trousers, and twentieth-century underwear.
“I hope you are planning to dispose of those men’s garments,” said Sister Gertrude. “The gown you wear now is more becoming and much more suitable. India, what are you doing?” This question was voiced as India lifted the blue gown and drew it over her head.
“I have to go,” India replied, removing the rest of the borrowed clothing and donning her own, oblivious to the stares of Sister Gertrude and Danise. When she was dressed, India knelt beside Danise and took her hand. “I am going home. I am sorry to leave you while you are so unhappy, but I believe that I have no choice.”
“Neither have I,” said Danise in a low, sad voice. “Not with Hugo gone.”
“Thus did it happen to me when I was young,” Sister Gertrude told India. “I hope now to convince Danise to return to Chelles and stay there. The cloister provides a far happier life for a woman than marriage to a warrior.”
“Don’t force her,” India begged. “She is so distressed right now that she can’t know what she really wants.”
“Danise will find peace and gentle comfort at Chelles,” Sister Gertrude replied. “She will not be forced, but all of the sisters will rejoice if she freely decides to remain with us.”
“Thank you. I know you will take good care of her.” Impulsively, India kissed the nun’s cheek and was surprised to have the kiss returned. She kissed Danise, too, and smoothed the pale hair that hung loose down her back. Danise burst into tears and clung to her until Sister Gertrude took the girl into her own arms.
“Go at once,” Sister Gertrude said to India. “I will stay with Danise, and I will make your farewells to Charles and Hildegarde, and to Lady Remilda.”
India met Bertille at the door of the women�
�s quarters.
“Marcion told me,” Bertille said. “Weren’t you going to say farewell to me?”
“Of course I was. I came here a stranger, and now I have so many friends. I count you among them. You cannot know how hard this leave-taking is,” India said to her. “I will never see any of you again.”
“If we had known each other longer, I feel certain we would have become like sisters,” Bertille said.
“In another time, and another place, we will be,” India responded, knowing Bertille would not understand what she meant, but certain in her heart that she spoke the truth.
“I wish you a safe journey.” Bertille hugged her. “Don’t forget me.”
“Not in twelve hundred years,” India told her, laughing to hide her sudden desire to cry. “Will you see to Danise? She needs a friend near her own age right now.”
There was only one other good-bye left to say. India found Alcuin in the reception room. Unusually for him, he was not reading, writing, or engaged in conversation. This most gregarious of scholars was sitting alone at one of the trestle tables, an untouched cup of wine before him, staring at his hands. When he heard her step, the eyes he raised to India’s face were reddened. He looked tired and drawn, as if he had not slept for days. He regarded her costume with no hint of surprise.
“I am going home, dear friend,” she said.
“So I gathered, from the manner of your dress,” he replied.
“I wish I could tell you what I know about your work and what it will mean to those who come after you. I think the knowledge would lighten your sorrow today. But I know better now than to speak of such things, after making the mistake of revealing too much to Theu and thus costing him and his men their lives.”