“You always were a sensible girl.” Savarec
appeared to be mollified by his daughter’s words. “The third man
you have already met, and he is the one I most favor. A man of
honorable lineage, with lands near Tournai and also other estates
in Burgundy. He is Count Redmond.”
“The pleasant man who helped us with the
stranger?” Danise tried in vain to recall Count Redmond’s face. All
she could bring to memory was a thick crop of golden hair and a
pair of pale eyes. Was he tall or short, handsome or not? She could
not remember. When she thought about the incident in the forest,
what stayed in her mind was an instant of shock brought on by the
penetrating blue gaze of a sadly injured, unknown man.
“Well, Danise?” Savarec looked at her
expectantly. “What is your opinion of Count Redmond?”
“As I said, he seemed pleasant, but I
scarcely had a chance to note him,” Danise responded.
“You will have ample time to know him,”
Savarec told her. “And Clodion and Autichar, too, since all of them
are gathered here at Duren. You have my permission to speak to any
of them when and as you wish, so long as Sister Gertrude or
Clothilde is with you. I do not think any of them will make
improper advances to you, but it is always best for a young woman
to have a chaperon.”
“In so much at least, we are agreed,” said
Sister Gertrude.
He did not know where he was. Worse, he did
not know
who
he was. His head ached without letup, and his
eyesight was totally undependable, ranging from a complete blur to
abnormal clarity. Every time he tried to sit up he was overcome by
nausea so severe he had to lie down again at once.
People came and went. He knew the man in
dusty black robes was a doctor. He knew the leeches the doctor
periodically placed at the most painful spot on his head really
would help him. Their sucking would diminish the swelling and make
his headache go away. How he knew these things he could not recall,
but know them he did.
Lying flat on his back, unable to move for
nausea, with the repellent leeches working away at him, he went
over the faces he had recently seen, seeking in those faces some
clue to his own identity.
There was the portly middle-aged man with
gray-streaked dark hair who slept in the other bed in the tent and
snored away the long and lonely nights. The others called this man
Savarec
, but to his confused tentmate the name meant
nothing.
There was Guntram of the bristling black
beard and mustache. He had a fierce expression and wild eyes, but
could be gentle enough to turn a patient or attend to his personal
needs without causing increased pain. Guntram was Savarec’s man,
and he loved and respected his master.
A motherly, middle-aged woman, brown of hair
and eye and thick of waist, came frequently to change his linen or
wash his face and hands. A scrawny, sour-looking nun occasionally
glared down at him along her elegant nose.
And then there was the angel, who drifted
into and out of his consciousness like a vision. But she was real.
She touched his forehead or his cheeks with tender hands and coaxed
him to swallow the food she spooned into his mouth, even when he
feared it would only come back up again. When the angel fed him,
the food stayed down, perhaps because she did not rush him as the
others did, but sat patiently waiting until he opened his mouth for
the next spoonful.
Her face was a perfect oval, her hair was so
pale it was almost silver. She wore it in twin braids tied with
green ribbons to match her deep green wool gown. Her eyes were a
soft gray-green, shadowed by some undefined sorrow. She was small
and shapely and her voice was like heavenly music. Unfortunately,
he could not understand what she said.
She tried to make him understand and he
struggled to remember the words she spoke, but his head ached so
badly that he could make no sense of her language. It ought to be
easy for him. He was fluent in several languages and had the ear to
learn new ones quickly.
How did he know that
?
As time passed and the pain in his head
eased, fragments of memory drifted into and out of his thoughts.
Glimpses of scenes bedeviled him … a skinny young man throwing a
punch at him and missing … blinking lights … numbers … the green
leaves of springtime slapping against his face … falling … falling.
… Where? When? What had happened to him?
What was his name
?
“He is much improved.” The royal physician
regarded his sleeping patient with considerable satisfaction before
turning his attention to Danise and Savarec. “My treatments have
been successful. All he needs now is rest and time, until he is
himself once more.”
“He still doesn’t know his own name,” Danise
said. “The poor man is so bewildered.”
“Only time can cure the loss of memory.”
The physician had told her this repeatedly
over the last three days. “When he can rise without pain or
dizziness, let him do so. Allow him to walk about and see familiar
sights, for they will speed his final recovery. Feed him well. I
can give you no further advice, nor can I do anything more for him,
unless he suffers a relapse. If he does, it will be necessary to
bleed him, or perhaps to administer a series of clysters.”
“Thank you for the help you have given him.”
Savarec pressed a purse into the physician’s hands. “If we find we
need you again, rest assured we will call upon you at once.” But as
soon as the physician was out of earshot, Savarec snorted in
derision. “I have as little use for physicians as Charles himself
has. Clysters, indeed! Those idiots delight in ramming a funnel
into a man and filling his innards with foul-smelling potions and
then letting him spend the rest of the day at the latrine until
there is nothing left inside him and he can’t walk without help.
Then they prate of the good they do for their patients.”
“I am so glad you were able to convince
Charles to give this man over to your keeping, instead of letting
the physicians have him,” Danise said.
“See that your charitable concern for him
does not keep you from your other duties. Attend the queen when it
is your turn to do so,” Savarec admonished her. Looking at the
stranger, he shook his head sadly. “I wish I knew who he is. His
family may be praying for news of him. If we only knew where to
send a message, we could relieve their anxiety.”
“I confess, I had not thought of his family.”
Danise sighed, wondering if there were a wife somewhere, worrying
about him. With a guilty pang, she hoped he was neither wed nor
betrothed. “The next time he wakens, I will try again to teach him
a few words of Frankish, so he can begin to speak to us and tell us
about himself. It seems his head has ached too badly for him to
think clearly, but now the physician has turned him over to us, he
surely will soon be well enough to talk and to begin to move
about.”
“It would be a kindness to him.” Savarec
patted her shoulder. “I’m off now to attend Charles. Don’t be late
for the midday meal. It’s time you met all of your suitors.”
“Yes, Father. I’ll be there.” But her eyes
and her thoughts were on the unknown man. He had a habit of waking
whenever she was left alone in the tent with him. She drew up a
stool and took her usual place beside his bed. His eyes opened at
once. “Oh, yes, you are clever. Always you wait until the others
have gone.
“But, sir, if you are aware enough of your
surroundings to know who is here and who is absent, then you are
well on your way to recovery, and thus you should not be allowed to
lie here idling away your days and nights. You, sir, are about to
begin your schooling.”
The blue eyes stared into hers with such
intensity that Danise had to look away or lose her ability to
reason. Reaching across his narrow bed, she touched the rough wool
fabric of the tent wall.
“Tent,” she said, indicating the entire
structure with an expressive wave of her hand. “Tent.”
He continued to stare at her.
“Say it!” she demanded, and made the gesture
again. “Tent.
Tent
.”
“Tent.” There was a change in his expression,
a stirring of interest, a glimmer of hope.
“Good. Tent,” she repeated. She slapped a
hand against the side of his cot. “Bed. Bed.”
“Bed.” His hand moved toward hers, but she
had already picked up a corner of the coverlet.
“Quilt,” she said.
“Quilt.” He was smiling at her. Danise caught
her breath. Most of the swelling in his face had subsided, but the
bruises remained. Over the past three days they had slowly turned
from blue and purple to gray and yellow. She suspected that even at
his best this man was no handsome young warrior, yet there was
something compelling about him, a strength and intelligence she had
seldom encountered before.
“Face.” She touched her cheeks. When he
repeated the word she went on to name nose, eyes, ears, hands, and
as many other body parts as she decently could, until he caught her
hands, stopping her excited flow of words.
“Speak – to – me,” he said very carefully.
“Make – sentences.” That last word was spoken in a foreign tongue,
but she understood what he meant.
“You have been listening to us,” she cried.
“These past days, you have been soaking up our words as cloth soaks
up moisture. You know more than I realized, perhaps more than
you
realize.”
“I – speak – easily,” he said. “I learn –
learn languages – quickly.”
“Indeed you do. I am so happy for you. Now
you need not be so isolated. You can talk to my father and to
Guntram.”
“And – to – you.” Still he spoke slowly,
feeling his way through the Frankish language. “If we talk more, I
learn – will learn – more fast. No – I will learn
faster
.”
“Then we will talk until you are tired. Tell
me how you came to be in the forest?”
“Forest?” He frowned. “Trees. I was falling.
Tried to stop – to catch branches.”
“That is why your face and hands were
scratched,” Danise told him. “But what were you doing in the
tree?”
He released her hands. Danise watched him
grow perfectly still, as if he were listening to a voice inside his
own mind.
“I don’t know,” he said at last. “I can’t
remember. Just the trees, and falling.”
“The physician says your memory will come
back to you as you recover,” she assured him. “Since he is the
royal physician, he must be right.”
“Royal? What king are we talking about? Where
am I, anyway?”
“You did not say that last sentence
correctly,” she informed him, after a pause while she interpreted
his words to herself.
“To hell with grammar,” he said. “Where
ami?”
“At Duren, in Francia. It is the
Mayfield.”
If he had been still before, now he was like
a statue. Danise waited to hear what his next question would
be.
“Francia,” he repeated. “Land of the Franks.
Who is this king who keeps a physician?”
“He doesn’t really need one, though
Hildegarde too often does. Our king is Charles.”
“What year is this?”
“Ah, you are truly lost, aren’t you? I am so
sorry.”
“Just answer my question.”
“It is spring in the Year of Our Lord
779.”
“Oh, my God!” He sat up so suddenly that
Danise feared he would faint. Swinging bare legs over the edge of
his bed, he sat with his head in his hands. Guntram had found a
linen shirt for him, which covered him to his thighs, but still
Danise averted her gaze. However, she did not move from the stool
where she had been sitting throughout their conversation.
“What am I doing here?” he asked. The
question was directed more toward himself than to her, but she
answered it anyway.
“I have told you, we found you in the forest
and brought you here to my father’s tent.”
“That’s not what I meant. Something is
dreadfully wrong. I know it. I’m in the wrong place. I should be –
be – somewhere else.”
“Where?” she asked.
“I don’t know, damn it! I don’t know!” He
added more calmly, “I shouldn’t yell at you. It’s not your fault.
Tell me, is it permitted to get myself up?” He was still uncertain
about some of the words he needed and the exact sentence
construction of the Frankish language, but Danise could understand
what he wanted.
“If you feel well enough, you may rise. But
before you go outside the tent, I would advise you to dress.
Guntram has located a tunic and breeches for you, and shoes that
ought to fit.”
“Don’t I have clothing of my own? Did I come
here naked?”
“Your own garments are so unusual that we
feared they would cause much comment, and thus we assumed you would
prefer to wear Frankish garb. But your clothes are here, in my
father’s clothes chest. Clothilde washed them for you.” She opened
the lid of the wooden chest to show him. “Here are some coins
Clothilde found in your breeches. She put them into this little
pouch so they would not be lost. My father says this object must be
your purse. Perhaps there is something in it to answer your
questions.”
He took the folded brown leather wallet and
flipped it open to rifle through the contents. Danise gave a cry of
surprise when he held up a stiff card.
“It is your image, as you must appear without
these unattractive bruises. How clever the artists of your land
are, to capture your likeness so closely. Is that writing on it? I
cannot make out the unfamiliar letters.”
“If this is my face,” he said, “then this
must be my name, too. ‘Bailey, Bradford Michael. Expiration date,
3/31/95. I have no idea what those numbers mean. Nor these words.
‘Connecticut Motor Vehicle Operator’s License.’” He turned the card
over, squinting at the tiny blue letters on the other side, shaking
his head because they meant nothing to him.