Time to Love Again

by Speer, Flora

  “Do not blame yourself for what has happened,” Alcuin said. “There is seldom one single cause for any event. This is an axiom even more true during warfare, when so many men and innumerable opposing motives are combined. Charles would take all the blame on himself. Others fault Hrulund. Some call Roncevaux a defeat more glorious than many a victory and believe Hrulund was a great hero. Others say he was guilty of dereliction of duty for neglecting to post scouts to watch his flanks. After listening to so many conflicting versions of what happened, I doubt if your remarks to Theu could have made any difference to the outcome of that ambush. No, not even if you had complete foreknowledge of the future.”

  Startled, she looked directly into his eyes, seeing there compassion mixed with something more – an understanding that far transcended the minds of most other men of his time.

  “What happened at Roncevaux was meant to happen in exactly the way it did happen,” said Alcuin. “It was part of heaven’s plan, which our earthbound, human minds are too limited to comprehend. Perhaps we will understand it more fully in the next world.” Rising, he took her by the shoulders and kissed her on each cheek.

  “Go in peace, India. Remember me in that far land of yours.”

  “Always, dear friend.” She could say nothing more. Her throat was too constricted to allow speech, but her heart was a little lighter. Though he was only a deacon and not an ordained priest, yet she felt as if Alcuin had absolved her of her aching, heavy guilt.

  Leaving the reception room, she made her way to the stable, where the chestnut mare Theu had given her was kept since he had gone to Spain. She knew how to saddle it with no help from anyone. She had learned how to do it in these past months. She had learned so much in Francia. How to love again. How to rejoice in life, brief though it might be. And now, thanks to Alcuin, she had begun to accept both pain and loss, and she could give up her feeling that Theu’s death was all her fault.

  The present encampment outside Agen was smaller than the one in the spring of that year.

  Aside from the absence of those who had died in battle or from disease, some of the levies had already left for home, and a few companies had been posted to citadels along the Spanish March, to keep the border secure against both Saracens and Basques. No one spoke to India or tried to stop her when she guided her mount across the field. Her hair had grown to just below her shoulders, longer than Frankish men wore theirs, but a casual glance at her would still have shown a young man in the saddle, without baggage or fine clothing, no one of interest to any soldier.

  She had to search for a while to find the path she and Theu had taken in the spring. The hillside looked different with almost five months of growth upon it. The leaves of the trees had the slightly dry, dusty look that comes toward summer’s end, and as India’s horse climbed higher along the path, she saw gleaming red or purple berries on many bushes. When she reached the place where she and Theu had picnicked and made love on their last day together, she found it overgrown with weeds and wildflowers. Here and there a few poppies showed bright red, like gouts of blood, and at the spot where India and Theu had lain together, a cluster of blue flowers grew, as if the dye from Theu’s cloak had stained them.

  India dismounted and looked about her. The scene from the hill was overlaid by a soft golden haze of heat and dust. Below, the Garonne flowed peacefully toward the sea, its smooth surface a ribbon of polished brass. High in a pine tree a bird twittered, but there was no other sound. There was not even a breeze to make the leaves rustle.

  “Good-bye, friend,” India said to her horse, fastening reins to saddle so they would not snag and thus bind the animal to some tree or bush along the way. “You go home, too. Marcion will be looking for you.”

  She slapped the horse on its rump and watched it wander away until it was lost to sight on the downward path. Then she went to the patch of blue flowers.

  “It was right here that Hank found me the last time,” she said aloud. “I will wait here.”

  Sitting down, she put one hand on the flowers. The unsettled feeling she had experienced ever since learning of Theu’s death grew stronger. Having lost the one person who had held her securely in the past, she now felt suspended somewhere in disconnected time, between the eighth and the twentieth centuries. If Hank were still searching for her after so many months had passed, she believed it would be easier for him to locate and retrieve her while she was in this odd, floating state. She thought she might make Hank’s task easier still by returning to a location he had touched once before.

  And so she sat upon the long August grass while the afternoon waned and the sun slipped closer to the horizon. Around her a peculiar silence slowly grew. The single noisy bird stopped twittering. The sun sank lower still, and now a peach-gold ray of light shone full upon India’s face. When she looked into it, she thought she saw movement, dark shapes forming and reforming and, finally, the shadows of human figures.

  “Hank?” She scrambled to her feet. Raising her voice, she called, “Hank? Is it you?”

  Gradually, the ray of light became a pulsating globe. India took a step toward it. Inside the globe, in the very center of the light, appeared a tunnel of darkness that drew her to it with an inexorable force. She had no desire to resist that force. She took another step, another….

  “Innndiaaa!”

  “Willi? Hank?”

  The dark tunnel was closer, but its edges had begun to waver, and the darkness looked somehow fragile to her, as if it would not last long.

  “Innndiaaa!”

  She believed this would be her last chance to return to the time where she belonged, and she sensed that if she was to go, it had to be then, that moment, for the whole apparition of peach-gold light and the darkness at its center was changing, fluctuating, even as she peered into it.

  Suddenly India did not care if it was death she would embrace within that light, or life in her own time. Opening her arms, she ran through the light and directly into the central darkness….

  … Where nausea assailed her and complicated mathematical equations flashed before her eyes, where shapes and patterns formed and reformed…

  Where she was falling, falling, through black, empty space and time…

  Chapter 23

  The blackness enveloping her ended abruptly, and India found herself standing next to the computer in Hank’s office.

  “Am I glad to see you!” cried a familiar voice.

  “Bertille?” India blinked once, then, seeing more clearly said, “Willi. Oh, Willi.’

  “Hang on, kid. Don’t faint on me now. Here, sit down.” Willi pushed the chair toward India, who immediately took advantage of it. “If you feel dizzy, put your head down.”

  “I’m all right.” Looking around, India saw Hank watching her. “I knew you would keep trying to reach me, even after more than five months, even after failing the first three times.”

  “Five months? Do you mean that much time has passed for you?” Hank’s serious face was transformed by a huge smile. “This is wonderful! You’ve confirmed my theory about time passing at different speeds. India, I want to know exactly when you were aware of my attempts to get you back. Wait a minute, I have to find some paper so I can write down everything you say. I wish I had a tape recorder.”

  “You wait a minute,” Willi told him, shoving him on the chest to push him away from India. “Look at her, she’s worn out. She’s had a miserable day. Give her a break, Hank.”

  “What day is it now?” India was beginning to absorb the fact that time had passed very differently for her than for Willi and Hank.

  “This is December twenty-second. It’s still the same day,” Willi answered. “At least, I think it is. It must be close to midnight by now, so it could be the twenty-third. Hank says you disappeared at noon, just before I got here. That would mean you were gone about twelve hours. India, what happened to you? Why is your hair so long? You just had it cut a couple of days ago.”

  “Exactly where were you?”
Hank grabbed the notebook India had left next to the computer. Flipping the cover back, he picked up a pencil, then gave India an expectant look. When she did not answer him, he followed his first question with several more. “Do you know how long you were there by local time? Who did you meet? Did you have trouble digesting the food? What about the language? Could you understand it? Were you ever sick? I want every detail you can remember.”

  “Okay,” Willi said, taking the notebook and pencil out of his hands. “That’s enough. We both have to let up on the questions.”

  “If I don’t debrief her immediately,” Hank protested, “she might begin to forget what happened to her. Then how would I get the information I need to try again? After all, I can’t stop now. Given all the possibilities of the space-time continuum—”

  “Adelbert,” India interrupted him, “you have no idea what you are saying. I never want to hear another word about your space-time continuum.”

  Adelbert? Hank mouthed to Willi. Aloud, he asked, “Did you tell her my middle name?”

  “Never mind that.” Willi was growing impatient. Pointing to the computer, she ordered, “Shut that thing down. Do it now, and do it permanently.”

  “I can’t do that,” Hank sputtered.

  “If you don’t,” Willi told him, “I will report you for taking material from the storeroom without a requisition. I will back up the complaint Professor Moore is going to make to Campus Security. I’ll tell everything I know about the keys you have that you shouldn’t have on that key ring of yours. And I will talk, loud and clear to anyone who will listen, about what happened here today.”

  “You’re talking about taking away my chance at a Nobel Prize for Science,” Hank declared with great indignation.

  “No.” Willi was so angry her voice cracked. “I am talking about getting you fired, which will mean you no longer have access to this room.”

  “But my experiments – my theories – you can’t mean this!”

  “I am talking,” Willi said, speaking right over Hank’s words, “about my best friend’s life, for which you seem to have no concern. You self-absorbed lunatic, India could have died because of you and your experiments.”

  “But she didn’t die!” Hank yelled. “Don’t you realize how important my work is?”

  “Indeed, I do.” A bit calmer after having vented some of her rage, Willi gave him a cold, assessing look. “You care more for your work than for India’s life, or for me. In fact, your work is all you really do care about.”

  This accusation was followed by a long moment of silence. Hank drew in a deep breath and let it out again.

  “You’re right, Willi,” he said. “It’s a relief to admit it. It’s true. I love my computer and my theories too much ever to have enough free time to make any woman happy.”

  “You do understand, what happened here today means you and I are through,” Willi said.

  “Yeah,” Hank replied. “I guess it does.”

  India had been watching and listening to this bickering in a bemused state, while her thoughts and all her sensibilities gradually became reoriented to the twentieth century. She would never have expected Willi to give up Hank so easily, but Willi seemed almost indifferent to the end of their relationship.

  In Hank’s remarks, India heard an echo of Adelbert’s voice from long ago, saying something similar. She was not at all surprised. If it had been wrong for Adelbert and Bertille to be lovers in the eighth century, then it was equally wrong for Willi and Hank to have a romantic relationship in the twentieth century. Souls not meant for each other could never be happy together; souls intended to be together would always find each other.

  That idea jolted India, but at the moment, she was still too confused and queasy to give it the consideration it deserved. She sat rubbing at her forehead and wishing her stomach would settle down, when suddenly the office door opened. When she saw the slender, curly-haired man who entered, the world tilted crazily on its axis once more.

  “Marcion?” India stood up a little unsteadily.

  “No, Mark Brant,” the man said, holding out a hand. “Are you the lost friend, come home at last?”

  “Something like that,” she replied weakly. While shaking his hand, she became aware of the differences as well as the similarities between this man and Marcion. His eyes were blue and his nose not quite so high-bridged as Marcion’s had been. His chin was wider, too. But Marcion’s laughter and warm heart were in him, and it was those qualities she had recognized at once.

  “What are you doing here so late?” Willi asked Mark.

  “I couldn’t get you out of my mind,” he told her, “or your friend, either. I was worried about both of you, so I came back. Are you sure you’re all right?” He asked the question of India, but at once returned his gaze to Willi. The way Willi looked back at him had a wonderfully steadying effect on India’s nerves.

  “Of course,” India murmured. “Marcion and Bertille. Willi and Mark. That’s the way it was always meant to be.” Again the earth shifted a little beneath her feet, before it began to spin once more in its preordained motion.

  “Hank,” India said, “if you won’t listen to Willi, then listen to me. You have to shut down this machine and destroy your program. You cannot imagine how much harm that program has caused. I believe everything is back in place now, but only because you were lucky. Only because I am here and not there.”

  “What is she talking about?” asked Mark Brant. An instant later, he caught India when she put one hand to her head and went limp. “Careful, there. Are you dizzy?”

  “It’s getting better.” India leaned against him as if he were a dear and familiar friend. Which he was, though he did not know it.

  “Kid, you look awful,” Willi said. “You’ve had enough excitement for one day. Come on, I’m going to drive you home.”

  “No, you are not,” declared Mark Brant. Willi had picked up India’s pocketbook and was searching for her car keys. As soon as she found them, Mark took them out of her hand. “I am driving. It’s too late for you to be out alone. If your friend here faints, how are you going to carry her from the car to her house?”

  “Do as he says,” India advised. “Just for tonight, let him take care of us.”

  “Sensible woman. I think I’m going to like you.” Mark gave her an approving look. “Can you walk, or shall I carry you?”

  “I’ll walk. But before we leave, there are a couple of things I have to do. Hank, give me my floppy disks.”

  “Here.” He handed her the disk that was lying on the table beside the keyboard.

  “I want the other one, too.”

  “Aw, India.” Hank’s protest was cut off when India brushed aside Mark’s supporting arm to stand alone. She took a menacing step toward Hank, frowning at him.

  “Give me the disk.” Never had she been so determined. Behind her, she heard Mark emit a soft whistle of surprise. Reluctantly, Hank slowly removed the second floppy disk from the computer. “The notebook, too,” India said.

  “I’m keeping the notes I just made. They’re mine.” Hank tore the last two pages out of the notebook. “These were blank when I used them.”

  “Just one more thing.” India took back the second floppy disk and the notebook, putting them into her purse. “Don’t bother asking me any more questions, Hank, because I won’t answer them. I will not tell you what happened to me, or help you to confirm your theories in any way. Just believe me when I say you must never use that program again.”

  “I can’t use that particular one,” he replied. “You stopped me from doing that when you took the disk. Without it, there is no way I can ever replicate what happened here.”

  “I hope that’s true. Good-bye, Hank.” It was India who closed the office door. Out in the hall, Mark Brant winked at her, and Willi looked amazed.

  “Wow,” Willi said, “good for you, kid. I never heard you talk tough like that before.”

  “My brother is going to love you,” said Mark.r />
  “I beg your pardon?” India stared at him.

  “He’s your new boss, as of the first of the year. But you already knew that, didn’t you? Theodore Brant, chairman of the Department of History and Political Science. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?”

  “Theodore? Oh, yes, I remember now.” India could not take her eyes off Mark’s expressive face.

  “An old family name, traditional to the eldest son since time began,” he said, laughing. “Most people call him Ted, but I’ve always had my own nickname for him. It’s more poetic. Theo. Hey, watch out! It’s all right, I’ve got you. Willi, pick up the stuff she dropped, will you please? I told you she’d faint and someone would have to carry her…”

  Chapter 24

  “Hello again.”

  “Mr. Brant.” Willi pulled her old flannel bathrobe closer about her throat. “What are you doing here? What time is it?”

  “Six-thirty. I wanted to see you before you left for work.”

  “Oh. Sure.” Willi wasn’t fully awake yet. She was finding it hard to think, especially with an indescribably handsome man leaning against her door frame and smiling at her. In his navy blue pea coat over a cream wool cable-knit sweater and tight jeans, Mark Brant looked like a British sailor out of an old World War II movie – and just about as rakish, too. Willi had never seen a smile quite so devastating, or so mischievous.

  “Are you going to let me in?” he asked. “Or would you rather I wait out here until you get dressed?”

  For a moment she wished he would leave. She knew she looked awful. She had been sound asleep when the doorbell rang. She hadn’t taken time to splash water on her face, hadn’t combed her hair or brushed her teeth, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup.

  “I woke you up, didn’t I?” Mark Brant straightened from his relaxed position. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come so early, but I need to talk to you.”

  “It’s all right.” Suddenly she was afraid he would leave and she would never see him again. She pulled the door wider. “Come in, Mr. Brant.”