“It was not my power,” she murmured, nestling
closer to him. “It was heaven’s will. It was our fate.”
“Predestination?” His fingers strayed
downward toward her breasts. “That idea doesn’t leave much room for
free choice on my part. Or on yours.”
“You once suggested as much yourself, that
you might have been sent to keep me from living a lonely life. Have
you forgotten?” Lulled as she was by their just completed
lovemaking and by the way his fingertips were tracing patterns of
renewed warmth across her skin, Danise said what she should have
waited to reveal until she was fully awake and thinking more
clearly.
“It was because of Hugo,” she said. His
fingers, which had reached the very tip of one breast and were
playing there in a most delightful way, stopped their tantalizing
motions.
“Hugo,” he said in a tight voice. “Would you
like to explain that statement? Do you imagine that I am some kind
of consolation prize, sent to you because Hugo died?”
“You were not meant to replace Hugo,” she
said.
“I am damned glad to hear it.” Forsaking her
tender embrace he rose to his knees, glowering down at her until
Danise got up on her knees, too. And there, kneeling and facing
each other in an unhappy travesty of the positions in which they
had once begun to make love while in the charcoal makers’ hut, they
fought their first bitter quarrel.
“Go on, Danise.” Michel sounded as though he
was determined to goad her into a damaging admission. “Tell me
exactly what you meant about Hugo, and why you were thinking about
him while you and I were lying naked together.”
“Hugo is in you.” His truculent attitude did
not deter her from speaking what she believed was truth. “I saw
him, Michel. After we made love for the first time, in a flash of
lightning, I saw Hugo’s face and form imposed upon yours. In that
moment I knew that some part of Hugo survives in you, and that very
part of him is what first drew me to you. It is also what made you
want me so insistently.”
“That’s crazy!” he shouted at her. “You are
wrong, Danise. Dead wrong.”
“I know what I saw,” she insisted. “Though
you were born in different times, you and Hugo are each part of the
other.”
“No! I am
myself
, Bradford Michael
Bailey, in the wrong century and the wrong place, but I am not
someone else, and don’t ever think that I am.”
“I have pondered long upon what I saw that
night.” In response to his anger Danise tried to keep her own voice
quiet and to choose her words sensibly. “Hugo had a younger sister,
and after he died, Charles arranged a marriage for her. Did she –
will she in a few years when she is old enough – marry and bear
children? Could you be her descendant? Is the remnant of Hugo’s
bloodline what I recognized in you when first I saw you?”
“How the hell should I know the answer to
that?” he demanded, apparently only made more furious by her
attempt at reasonableness. “There are more than twelve hundred
years between now and my own time, generations and generations of
people. I have thousands of ancestors. How could I know if a
particular woman was one of them?”
“I do not really think it is a matter of the
flesh,” she said. “Rather, it is a spiritual matter. Michel, there
is no reason for you to be jealous of Hugo. I love you now.
You
”
“Do you?” He looked at her as if she were a
stranger to him.
Danise refused to lower her eyes. She was
sorry she had been foolish enough to raise the subject of Hugo, but
she was not going to back down. She knew what she believed, and she
was not going to change her mind about it, so Michel would just
have to lay aside his indignation and accept the fact that
contained within his being was some small part of Hugo. To Danise,
it did not seem such a terrible thing, but apparently a man – a
twentieth century man, she reminded herself – saw it
differently.
“Is that all I am to you?” he demanded. “All
I’ve ever been in spite of everything we’ve said to each other and
the promises we’ve made? Am I just a crummy substitute for a dead
man?”
“I do not know what that word
crummy
means, but you are no substitute,” she cried. “Michel, I love
you.”
“No.” He glared at her, injured masculine
vanity and plain jealous rage showing in his posture and his
expression. “You love Hugo. You always have. But I am
me
! I
can’t take Hugo’s place. I can’t be what he was. I wouldn’t want to
if I could.”
“I know you are Michel. I love you
because
you are Michel. Why can’t you understand what I am
trying to explain?” Danise stopped, choking back her own irritation
before it could take fire from Michel’s wrath and flame up out of
control, scorching them both beyond repair.
“I don’t belong here, in this time,” he told
her, his face and voice hard, “and from what you’ve just said, I
don’t think I belong with you, either.”
“But I love you.” Irrational fear caught at
her. “You said you loved me and would forever. All those beautiful
words that lay between us – did they mean nothing?”
“I do love you. That’s why this crazy idea of
yours hurts so much. If I didn’t love you, it wouldn’t matter that
when you go to bed with me, you think you are making love with
someone else, or that you fell in love with me because you mistook
me for your precious Hugo.” He got off the bed and reached for his
tunic.
“Don’t leave me,” she begged. “Stay and talk
to me until we settle this difference.”
“I’m going downstairs to the great hall.
Redmond may still be there, or Guntram. I feel the need to talk to
someone about practical concerns, someone who won’t try to convince
me that I am a twentieth century reincarnation of an eighth century
warrior, who has been sent back to the eighth century to make you
happy.” He paused, shaking his head. “Do you hear how ridiculous
that sounds? How completely insane?”
“Even Alcuin could not explain it,” she
said.
“You talked to Alcuin about this?” He was
shouting again. “Before you ever said a word to me?”
“Alcuin believes there is no sensible
explanation,” she told him.
“Well, he was damned right about that!”
“He said some things are beyond human
comprehension, and ought simply to be accepted.”
“Now that sounds like something I’d expect to
hear from an eighth century scholar,” he said scornfully. “Don’t
ask questions, just accept the wildest possible ideas on faith
alone.”
“Do not insult Alcuin!” she cried, her own
temper igniting. “Nor me, either. I have told you truthfully what
is in my heart and what I believe. I think what has happened is a
beautiful thing, for it proves that love does not die when our
bodies do. Yes, I love Hugo in you, but that does not detract from
the Bradford Michael Bailey I have learned to love, and into whose
keeping I have given my life, my heart, and my future. I will not
take back what I have said here tonight. Nor will I ever stop
loving you.
You
, Michel. If your manly pride is injured, I
am sorry, but it does not change what I feel.”
She saw the anger go out of him, saw it
replaced by a weary sadness, and she wondered if he would ever
forgive her for what she had revealed.
“Get some sleep,” he told her. “I am going
below to talk to my friends.”
* * *
In the great hall Michel poured himself a cup
of wine. Redmond was nowhere to be seen, nor was Guntram, but
Savarec sat at the long table talking to one of his men-at-arms.
Michel slammed his cup down on the table, then dropped onto the
bench near his father-in-law. Savarec finished what he was saying
to his man and dismissed him. He sat quietly while Michel swallowed
most of the wine in one gulp and refilled his cup.
“I know that look,” said Savarec. “I’ve seen
it before on other men’s faces, and I have no doubt I wore it often
enough myself while my wife lived. So, you and Danise have enjoyed
your first quarrel.”
“‘Enioyed’ is not the correct word,” Michel
replied, draining his cup a second time.
“The wine won’t help,” Savarec told him. “It
will only give you a sore head in the morning and in the meantime,
it will annoy Danise still more if you join her in bed in a drunken
condition. Believe me, Michel, I know this from my own
experiences.”
Michel did not answer. He sat staring into
his empty wine cup and Savarec sat watching him.
“Danise’s mother was the only woman I have
ever loved in all my life,” Savarec said after a while. “Since her
death I have bedded a few women, for I am not without male desires,
but never again have I loved as I loved her. She loved me, too. And
yet, we quarreled frequently, on many subjects. It is difficult for
men and women to live together without differences arising between
them.”
“I’d be willing to bet you and your wife
never quarreled on the subject Danise and I just discussed,” Michel
said.
“I do not want you to tell me about it,”
Savarec cautioned. “It’s best if you settle your problems between
the two of you, and best if I don’t take sides, which I might if I
know what your disagreement is. But I will give you some advice,
Michel. It is unwise for a man to go to war leaving behind a wife
with whom he is at odds. If you never see each other again,
Danise’s grief will be all the greater if the two of you have
parted in anger.”
“I’m not sure this quarrel can ever be
settled,” Michel said glumly. He wasn’t thinking onlv of his
quarrel with Danise. He was also recalling a night centuries in the
future, the painful sorrow of love betrayed, a woman’s mocking
laughter, his own vow never to trust or love again. He had broken
that promise to himself, and as a result his past seemed to be
repeating in the saddest and most intimate of ways. “Savarec, did
you know Hugo well?”
“Not really. He came through Deutz
occasionally on business for Charles. I know that Charles valued
his friendship, as did many other nobles. Is that what’s troubling
you? Michel, Danise would not have wanted to marry you unless she
was sure in her heart that she has recovered from her love for
Hugo. There is no need for you to be jealous of her old affection
for him.”
“That’s what she says,” Michel told him, “but
I’m not so sure.”
“The man is dead. Danise loves you, and only
you.”
“I wish I could believe that.” Michel could
not say aloud what he was thinking.
I wonder how you would have
reacted, Savarec, if your beloved wife had ever informed you that
she thought you were the reincarnation of her old love. How could
you ever again be certain that when she looked at you, or put her
arms around you, that it was really you she was seeing? How could
you know that she was making love to you and not to him
?
Deutz was a place founded upon military
preparedness, so it took less than a day for Savarec to make the
necessary arrangements to lead a troop of men-at-arms into Saxony.
Under his direction baggage carts were quickly filled with the
equipment of a campaign – tents, folding tables, beds, chairs and
maps for the officers to use. The barber-surgeon who was to go
along piled his cart high with bandages, medicinal herbs, skins of
wine, leeches in jars, and a collection of surgical tools every bit
as terrifying to look upon as the weapons the men-at-arms would
carry. Meanwhile, those same men-at-arms packed their saddlebags
with extra clothing and food for themselves and their horses. So
many of his men were eager to march through eastern Francia and
into Saxony that Savarec was forced to order a dozen would-be
volunteers to remain behind lest his men at Deutz be depleted to a
dangerous level.
Michel worked as hard as any of the other
men, assisting Savarec where he could be of use, and Redmond when
Redmond needed an extra hand. Having brought no warriors with him
from Elhein except for those whom Savarec had lent to him, Michel
would ride and fight under the command of his father-in-law.
Danise knew Michel was avoiding her. He had
not returned to their bed on the night of their quarrel. Now the
long, busy day was drawing to its close and still he had not spoken
one word to her. The coming night would be the last one before he
left for Saxony, and she did not know if he would spend it with her
or continue to stay as far away from her as he could without
actually leaving the confines of Deutz.
Standing in the courtyard watching Michel
talk with her father, Danise was consumed with apprehension. She
still believed that everything she had said to him was the truth,
but all the same, she bitterly regretted telling him about Hugo.
She had spoken without careful forethought, expecting her words to
bind them still more closely together. Instead, those words had
driven them apart. With that emotional separation came fears for
his life. Because she believed he had been specially sent to her,
she had assumed that he could go into battle and emerce unscathed.
Now her confidence was shaken. No man was safe in battle. No one
knew that sad truth better than she.
“Michel has found his rightful place with
us.” Redmond paused beside her, having approached while her eyes
were on her husband. “He’s a good man, and a good friend. You chose
well, Danise.”
I wish Michel would believe that
,
Danise thought. Aloud she said, “I pray you will all return
unharmed after driving the Saxons into a defeat so disastrous that
they never rise against us again.”
“The Saxons always seem to rise again,”
Redmond said. “I do wonder whence comes their resilient spirit. As
for returning safely, not all of us will. We know the risks. So do
you.”
“My father is growing too old for battle,”
she said, seeing anew Savarec’s portly figure and graying hair.