“The dead.” Michel refused to move from where
he stood.
“The Saxons we’ll bury here. Our own we’ll
put into the baggage carts and take them to Paderborn,” Guntram
said. “It’s not far, only half a day’s journey. We can get coffins
there, and bury them properly, with a priest in attendance.”
“Not Savarec.” Michel’s head was reeling, but
he had to be certain that Guntram understood what was to be done.
“Not Redmond, either. Not at Paderborn. They have to go to
Deutz.”
“Yes, you’re right. Ill see to it. Now, will
you get to the surgeon before I have to carry you?”
“I’m going.” He barely made it to the medical
cart before he collapsed. The surgeon examined his wound,
proclaimed it but a minor one, and gave Michel herb-infused wine to
drink. Michel spent the night wrapped in his stained cloak, lying
on the ground with the other wounded men, slipping into and out of
terrifying dreams. In the morning he was weak but his head was
clear. His arm ached badly, but the surgeon assured him it would
soon heal. It was then, while he ate a bit of bread and drank some
wine the surgeon gave him, that Guntram came to tell him Autichar’s
body could not be found.
“He must have escaped again, but not for
long,” Guntram said. “We will hunt him down and either kill him or
take him to Charles for justice. One way or another, Autichar will
pay for his evil deeds. Not only is he a traitor to Charles, but he
is responsible for Savarec’s death, and for Redmond’s.”
They rode to Paderborn that day, taking with
them in the baggage carts the dead and those too badly wounded to
mount their horses. They traveled so slowly that it took them until
late afternoon to reach their destination. The royal residence at
Paderborn was a large wooden building. There Lord Serle, the
nobleman who was in charge in Charles’s absence, made them welcome
and saw to it that they were given baths and fresh clothing. Later,
he listened to their reports while secretaries wrote down all that
was said.
“The messengers will leave before dark and
ride hard,” Serle promised. “Charles should have the reports in
less than three days. The present commander at Deutz will have his
by tomorrow evening.”
“I have to be the one to tell Danise about
her father, not Hubert,” Michel protested. “I will go with
them.”
“You could not keep up with the royal
messengers,” Serle responded. “The reports are in sealed packets,
which are passed from rider to rider along the way. Thus, while men
and horses must stop to rest, the packets never do. And the riders
travel as fast as their horses are able. But, surely you know this
without my telling you.”
“Michel has only recently come to Francia,”
Guntram said.
“We’re glad to have you here,” said Serle.
“From what I’ve heard of you this day, you are a great hero.”
“I am
not
a hero!” Michel
exclaimed.
“And modest, too.” Serle nodded his
approval.
“Come and rest,” Guntram urged when Michel
would have lost his temper. Later, in the room they were sharing,
Guntram said, “You may as well enjoy your new fame, Michel, because
everyone who was there on that day knows how valiantly you fought.
Danise will be proud of you when she hears of it.”
“Danise will be too heartbroken by Savarec’s
death to care whether I fought well or not,” Michel said. “Anyway,
I can’t remember what I did after the fighting started. It’s all a
blurry horror.”
“So is any battle, once it’s over,” Guntram
agreed. “Michel, Savarec’s death leaves me as commander of the men
he led into Saxony. I am going to give you an order and as your
commander, I warn you, I don’t want any argument about it. Our
surgeon tells me your arm will require a week or so of rest before
you can fight again. Therefore, I am sending you with an armed
escort to take Savarec and Redmond back to Deutz. I will give you a
message for the commander there. I am going to need more men to
finish the task Redmond and Savarec set out to do. Spend a day or
two with Danise. Comfort her as best you can. Then, when the fresh
troops are ready, lead them back here to Paderborn. I will send
regular messages to Serle, telling him where I can be found.”
“And where will you be, Guntram?”
“Tracking Autichar.” Guntram’s expression was
fierce at the best of times. Michel had never seen him look the way
he looked at that moment. If there had been any compassion left in
Michel’s heart for Autichar, he might have felt a twinge of pity
for the man. But Autichar did not deserve pity. He deserved
whatever Guntram might do to him.
They buried their dead in the morning and
then ate a simple funeral feast. At dawn on the next day Michel and
the men assigned to him left Paderborn for Deutz.
Since the beginning of the battle with the
Saxons Michel had tried to think only about what was actually
happening at any given moment. Now, riding through the forest with
men who for the most part were preoccupied with their own thoughts,
he discovered that though he wanted to wipe the memory of the past
week out of his mind, he could not do it. Over and over during the
first days of that sad journey he relived the scenes of battle and
the deaths of his friends, which seemed to him to be meaningless,
since Autichar was still alive and free and the Saxons would
continue to defy Frankish rule. In military terms the battle would
change little in Saxony or Francia, but in Michel an enormous
change had occurred. Having seen the horror of war firsthand and
having faced his own death, he was no longer the same man.
Time, even the passage of a few days, can
work wonders upon a shocked and sorrowful mind. So can distance
change a man’s perspective upon terrible events. Gradually, as he
and his companions left Paderborn farther and farther behind while
they moved ever closer to Deutz, Michel began to think less often
of the battle and more about what lay ahead.
His quarrel with Danise now appeared to him
as mere foolishness, the result of his own intractable ego. If
Danise wanted to believe that there was something of Hugo living on
in Bradford Michael Bailey, what harm could that belief do? All his
former jealousy of Hugo had been washed away by the same kind of
blood and pain and fear and grief that Hugo must once have
experienced, until now Michel felt an odd kinship with that fellow
warrior.
Hugo, poor devil, had never known the part of
Danise that Michel knew – not the passion or the sweet, tender
womanliness, nor, surely, the determined female protecting her
right to think as she wanted to think. Hugo had known only the
innocent young girl. Why, then, should Bradford Michael Bailey find
Danise’s belief about Hugo threatening when she had told him over
and over again that she loved him, and only him?
Because he was an arrogant idiot, who
didn’t deserve her love
. He vowed that he would find a way to
make it up to her for all the rotten things he had said to her,
because he knew after the last terrifying week that nothing in the
eighth century or the twentieth, or in any other time, was worth
the losing of her love. No, not even his damned pride was worth
such a loss.
Traveling slowly because of the cart with the
coffins, from Paderborn southwestward to Deutz Michel and the
escort sent by Guntram plodded along through forests, across rivers
and streams until, finally, they found themselves within sight of
the Rhine.
When they arrived at Deutz itself, the
sentries upon the walls challenged them but did not delay their
entry. On hearing who they were, one of the sentries called down to
his cohorts within and immediately the main gate swung open. Michel
and his men rode into the courtyard, there to be welcomed by
Savarec’s lieutenant in charge, Hubert, who had ordered the
men-at-arms drawn up into two rows on either side of the entrance
as a tribute to their fallen commander. Between these rows of men
the cart with the coffins slowly rolled.
Danise came through the door of the main
garrison building just as Michel finished speaking to Hubert.
Seeing her sad-faced and solemn, looking from him to the two
coffins in the baggage cart, Michel knew she would not have to be
told that he had brought her father home to her.
She did not weep or wail. She stood quietly,
drooping a little, hands loose at her sides, not moving until
Michel approached her. Then, all the anger between them swept away
by tragedy, she went into his arms without a word, so he could hold
and comfort her. She stayed silent in his embrace until men came to
take the coffins off the cart.
“Let me see my father,” she pleaded, “and
Redmond, too. If I am to say a last farewell to them, I must see
what has happened to them.”
“You can’t.” Michel held her more tightly,
feeling the quivering of her smaller frame against his strength. He
knew that a gentle kind of cruelty was necessary against her, to
prevent a worse cruelty if she should see the wounds that had
caused the deaths of father and of friend. “I wouldn’t have wanted
you to see them immediately after they died, let alone now, when
their bodies have been carted across Francia for more than a week
in damp summer weather.”
He felt her revulsion then, felt her retching
in his arms, and though he had made his point and no longer feared
she would insist on viewing what she ought not to see – what he
could never forget no matter how long he lived – still, her
reaction to what he had said made the wounds in his own heart even
deeper. He asked only a few brief questions of her as to how and
where she wanted her father buried, before he handed her over to
the weeping Clothilde.
“I am going to make the arrangements,” he
said. “We will do as you want and bury Savarec first thing
tomorrow, and have prayers said for Redmond at the same time.
Redmond’s body is to be sent on to his own home for burial. Guntram
suggested I notify the governor of Koln, who is a distant cousin of
Redmond’s, and let him decide what to do about sending the coffin
on from there. I will take care of everything, Danise. When I
finish, I’ll join you and tell you anything you want to know. For
now, go with Clothilde.”
* * *
“I have put food and wine in your room.”
Clothilde met Michel at the chamber door. “Please coax Danise to
eat. She has barely swallowed a crumb since the first news came of
Savarec’s death.”
“I’ll do what I can. Thanks, Clothilde.” It
was difficult to smile. Michel feared he had probably only twisted
his face into an unpleasant grimace. Clothilde did not appear to
notice.
“You look as if you have not eaten recently,
either,” she said. She touched his wounded forearm. “I left clean
bandages on the table next to the food. If you are wise, you will
ask Danise to change the linen on that wound. Oh, and there’s hot
water for washing, too.”
When Michel put his hand on the door latch,
Clothilde stopped him.
“What word of Guntram?” she asked. “Is he
well? Was he wounded, too? Why did he not return with you?”
“He took only a minor wound on one cheek,”
Michel said. “He claims his beard will hide it when it heals.”
“Where is he now?”
“Somewhere in the eastern forests, trying to
track down Autichar.”
“If anyone can find that traitor, Guntram
can. I will pray for his safety. Thank you for telling me, Michel.
Guntram is a valued friend. I feared he might have died with
Savarec.”
“If he had, I’d have brought him home with
the others.”
Clothilde nodded, looking at the bedroom
door.
“Danise needs your love,” she said, and went
quietly away.
He found Danise sitting on the side of the
bed with her hands folded in her lap and her eyes lowered. In her
undyed woolen gown, with her pale hair bound into a single braid
hanging down her back, she appeared to be no more than a wraith who
might vanish at any moment. She did not move when Michel entered
the room. He did not know what to say to her, so he spared her only
a glance before he began to remove his clothing.
“I can leave, if you would prefer to be
alone,” she said, her voice just above a whisper.
“The one thing I do not want is for you to
leave me,” he said. When she looked upward, he saw the frightened,
wary emotion in her eyes and decided to defuse the situation as
much as he could. “I will need help bathing, and I can’t put on a
new bandage by myself. Will you help me?”
“Of course.” There was no change in her voice
or her manner. Michel had the impression that she was not really
with him, that her thoughts were far away.
Clothilde had left a wooden tub along with a
pitcher and two buckets full of hot water. After soaping himself
using part of the hot water, Michel climbed into the tub and
crouched down so Danise could rinse him with the remaining hot
water. Draped in a linen towel he then sat on the bed and let her
unwind the old bandage.
“It doesn’t look too bad, does it?” Michel
regarded his wound as if his forearm and the red slash on it
belonged to someone else. “I thought it would become infected, but
it hasn’t.”
“Wounds that bleed heavily often clean
themselves.” Using cool water mixed with wine Danise washed the
wound before wrapping it in a strip of clean linen.
“I’m hungry,” he said when she was finished.
“Let’s eat.”
“I’ll wait until later, but I will be pleased
to serve you.”
“No, you won’t.” He caught her lightly by the
wrist. “Clothilde tells me you haven’t been eating. I am going to
feed you.”
“Please don’t.”
This was not the Danise he knew. This quiet,
withdrawn creature bore little resemblance to her former vital,
sparkling self. Now that he looked at her more closely Michel could
see that Clothilde was right. Danise looked as if she had not eaten
a decent meal since the day when he and her father had ridden away
from Deutz. She had attempted to do something similar after
escaping from Autichar. When she was afraid or worried, or grieving
as she was doing now, Danise stopped eating. Michel scooped her off
her feet and into his arms, the linen towel dropping away from his
waist when he moved.