“How are you doing?” His hand was on top of
hers. She wished he would put it back on the wheel.
“We are traveling so rapidly that everything
passes in a blur,” she said.
“You’ll get used to it. Here we are.” He
pulled into a space in front of a long, two-storied building. “This
is called a motel. It’s the best accommodation in town, though
admittedly, that’s not saying much. Wait here in the car, till I
pick up the key to my room.”
He strode away from the car to a building
faced with the most enormous windows Danise had ever seen. While
she looked eagerly at every object she could see and at each oddly
dressed person who walked past Michel’s car, Danise began to
practice the new words she had learned.
“Motel,” she said aloud. “Town. Car.
Computer. Driver’s license.
Horsepowers
.” The last word made
her laugh. She imagined a team of miniature horses, galloping as
fast as they could inside the part of Michel’s car where the engine
was. And then she thought of Francia, and the friends she would
never see again, and her laughter ceased.
“What’s wrong?” Michel opened the car door to
help her out of the safety belts and the low seat.
“I was thinking of Clothilde and Guntram,”
she said. “Of Sister Gertrude, and Alcuin, of Charles and
Hildegarde, Uland and Hubert. I will miss all of them sorely. But I
am not sorry to leave them behind, Michel. My place is with you,
and I will make new friends. It’s just that it’s difficult to say
farewell to the old ones.”
“I know,” he said. “I will miss them, too.
Danise, it is going to take you a while to get used to all of this.
I’ll help you as much as I can, but please, be patient with
yourself.
“Now, while we were at Alice’s house you
mentioned that you haven’t eaten today. There is a coffee shop here
at the motel, on the other side of the office. We can eat there and
they’ll put the charge on my bill. I won’t have any cash until my
new credit card arrives, which ought to be some time later this
afternoon, since that was one of several calls I made yesterday. I
told the company my old card was lost and I would need a
replacement. Luckily, I didn’t have to tell them
where
it
was lost.” He stopped. Grinning at the perplexed look she gave him.
“You don’t have the faintest idea what I’m talking about, have you?
Just come with me.”
“In Francia, hungry travelers are given a
meal without regard to their ability to pay,” she said. “Michel,
what about your sword, and my clothing and yours?”
“Believe me, we’ll be better off if I leave
the sword in the car, though it will be safer hidden in the trunk.
As for what we are wearing, I don’t think anyone will notice. That
purse at your belt is the very latest style.”
The sword would not fit in the trunk. He
wedged it into the back seat, after wrapping it in an old sweater
he found in the trunk. After satisfying Danise’s curiosity with a
hasty explanation about the necessity for a spare tire, Mike took
her hand and led her to the coffee shop.
She tried to act as though everything she saw
was not amazing to her, but it was difficult not to clutch at
Michel’s arm and inquire about the smallest object. The dining hall
into which they were ushered by a woman in a scanty outfit and with
a most outrageously painted face contained many small tables, each
in its own alcove fitted with padded benches.
“Waddaya have, hon?” Another skimpily gowned,
painted young woman loomed over them. Danise looked helplessly at
Michel.
“I’ll order the food,” he said to her, and
proceeded to talk to the young woman in his own language while
Danise looked out the window. There, on the road beside the motel,
cars similar to Michel’s rushed by.
“Where are they all going?” she asked. When
Michel and the maidservant both stared at her, Danise said, “The
cars. There are so many. And so much
horsepowers
. They go so
fast.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Michel said,
laughing. “I just realized that you don’t know what a fork is. I’ll
have to teach you to use one.”
While the maidservant was gone he showed her
the implements on their table, explaining the use of each, as well
as of the jars of condiments and napkins made out of extremely
thin, parchment-like material. When the food came, on shiny white
pottery platters, Danise repeated the name of each item Michel had
ordered.
“Steak,” she said. “Scrambled eggs. Toasted
bread. These are very thin slices. Butter. Why so little of it, and
why isn’t it in a bowl? What is this strange little packet? Jelly?
What is jelly? Oh, it is much too sweet. If I eat it, it will make
me ill, the way too much honey does. Michel, what is this dreadful
brew in my cup? Why are you laughing now?”
“Because you are right,” he said. “It’s
called coffee, and it is a dreadful brew. In other restaurants, it
is made in a better way, so that it tastes delicious, especially
with lots of cream.”
They made a game of the meal, laughing at
Danise’s attempts to convey food to her mouth with the four-pronged
instrument Michel called a fork.
“I can see vou are going to learn quickly,”
he said when they were finished.
“Since you tell me it is rude to eat with my
fingers, I will have to learn, or starve.” She gave him a contented
smile.
After leaving word at the motel desk that the
messenger with his new credit card could find him in his room,
Michel took Danise there and listened in amusement to a new series
of comments from her.
“How clever to place the bed in the middle of
the room instead of in the corner against the wall,” she said. “You
can get in or out from either side, though you would have more room
for your friends to sit if it were against the wall. There is no
trestle bed beneath it for guests. What is this box?”
“Television,” he said. “An invention that
will teach you a lot about this world. At the moment, I would like
to show you a modern bathroom.”
“I can scarcely believe it,” she cried a few
minutes later. “You have only to turn a handle and hot water comes
pouring into the basin. How Clothilde would enjoy this. Michel, you
bathed in the River Rur and never complained. How uncivilized you
must have thought us in Francia.”
“Never uncivilized,” he replied. “In some
ways, your people were far beyond mine. Besides, it was worth
taking a few cold baths to find you. Would you like to be
introduced to another twentieth century invention?”
“Oh, yes. This is all so exciting. My
thoughts are spinning.”
“Take off your clothes,” he ordered. He was
pulling at his own tunic, so Danise complied without further
question.
“Ah,” she said when she saw him naked. “You
have been teasing me. This is no twentieth century invention. You
want to make love with me.” He waited until she had pulled down the
coverlet to prepare the bed before he took her by the shoulders and
pushed her back into the bathroom. There he turned on the
shower.
“Step in,” he said, and Danise obeyed. Michel
followed her, pulling the curtain across the opening. Then, beneath
the pounding water, with clouds of steam rising into the cool air
of the room, he began to wash her. He started with her face, and
when he was done and had kissed her eyes, her nose and mouth, he
invited Danise to wash his face. Next he unbraided her hair and
rubbed into it a pleasant-smelling concoction that foamed into a
thousand bubbles and left each strand as smooth as silk after the
bubbles were washed away. When he was done with her, Danise washed
his hair in return. Turning off the water, he soaped her body with
his hands, not missing a single spot, fondling every curve and
crevice from her earlobes to her fingertips to her toes.
“Now it’s your turn,” he breathed, handing
the bar of soap to her.
She thought she knew his body, but now she
discovered there were parts of him that she had never seen or
touched before. There was, for instance, a sensitive spot just
behind his left ear. He begged her to stop when her tongue lingered
there too long, and he told her she was supposed to use the soap
instead. She saw the effect her attentions were having on him.
Never had he been so large and hard. She wondered if he would take
her right there in the slippery shower, but he urged her to wash
his back instead. She traced her fingers over rippling muscles and
down his spine to the enticing cleft between his buttocks. Slowly
she let her soapy fingers slide within. With a groan, he caught her
hand and pulled her around to face him.
“I have not finished here,” she murmured.
“There is so much more that requires a thorough soaping.”
“That can wait until later.”
“See how eagerly it rises to meet my
cleansing hand,” she persisted, stroking him, reaching between his
legs.
She should have remembered how strong he was.
Within the blink of an eye he pulled her arms around his neck and
pressed himself full against her body. His rigid manhood slid
between her moist thighs. Sighing with happiness, she offered
herself to him.
“Not yet,” he whispered into her ear. “Wash
the soap off first.”
They stood beneath the cascading water,
locked in a fiery kiss.
“Never have I been so clean,” she murmured.
“I could remain here, like this, all day.”
“I can’t let you do that. We have other
plans.” He turned the handle and the water stopped abruptly.
Then Danise was out of the shower and her
hair was wrapped in a thick pink towel. Another towel enfolded her
body. Michel, still dripping wet, lifted her into his arms to carry
her to the next room and deposit her on the bed. The towel around
her fell away. Michel covered her.
“This does not change,” she whispered. “Not
in twelve centuries. Not in a thousand centuries.”
“Not in all eternity,” he agreed, and made
her his in his own century.
* * *
Michel was in the bathroom shaving and Danise
lay on the bed half asleep, dreaming of his lovemaking, when the
unknown noise began. Danise sat up, looking around to discover the
source of the noise. It seemed to be coming from a pale brown
object that sat on the table beside the bed.
“Michel?” No answer came from the bathroom,
but then, Michel was making a fair amount of noise with the
instrument he was using, which he had told her would remove his
beard. So many objects in this time made noise. People were
noisier, too, Danise thought, recalling the shouting maidservants –
no, the
waitresses
, she reminded herself.
The waitresses
in the coffee shop
. Now it sounded as if the instrument beside
the bed would never stop its buzzing-ringing noise.
Danise put out a tentative hand to touch the
instrument. It came apart in two sections and the noise
stopped.
“Hello?” The voice came from inside the
instrument.
“Michel!” Danise leapt from the bed to the
bathroom in one great swoop. “Michel, help me!”
“What’s the matter?” The rough beard was gone
from his face, but she was too frightened to notice its absence.
“Danise, what is it?”
“It spoke,” she quavered, waving toward the
instrument now lying on the floor. “Will it take me back to
Francia? I don’t want to leave you. I don’t!”
Bravely Michel strode forward to pick up the
section of the instrument that Danise had dropped. To her
astonishment he spoke to it before putting the two sections
together and replacing them on the bedside table.
“Michel, what was that?” She was shaking so
hard that he drew her down onto the bed where he sat holding her
until she was calmer.
“I’m sorry. I forgot how much you still have
to learn. The perfectly innocent instrument that terrified you is
called a telephone. It will not send you back to Francia. The voice
was the messenger from the credit card company. I am going to the
office to get my new card. Where is my driver’s license? I may need
it for identification.” Leaving her side he pulled on clean
breeches and a short-sleeved blue shirt. He picked up the license
and stuck it into the breeches. To Danise’s eyes he was now dressed
in much the same way as on the first day she had seen him in
Francia.
“Why don’t you get dressed, too?” he
suggested. “With the new credit card I can get cash, so we can buy
gas for the car. Then we’ll be able to leave this town, which I
think would be a good idea. I’d like to put a few miles between us
and Hank before nightfall. I don’t think there’s going to be any
trouble, but just in case someone comes looking for us and asking
questions about you, let’s bid a fond farewell to New Mexico.”
But when he returned to the room a short time
later, Danise was still sitting on the bed, looking so dejected
that he began to be seriously worried about her.
“Talk to me,” he said. “Tell me what’s wrong
and don’t be shy about it.”
“I am just beginning to realize how difficult
my future will be,” she said. “There is too much I do not
understand. I am afraid, Michel – afraid I cannot learn everything
I ought to know in order to be a good wife to you. I am completely
lost in this time. Details that you consider ordinary, such as the
arrival of a message on a telephone, are miraculous or frightening
to me.”
“You already are exactly the wife I want, and
you are intelligent enough to learn quickly,” he said. When she
shook her head, unable to respond because she was trying not to
cry, he put his hand beneath her chin, lifting it till she was
forced to meet his eyes. “Do you remember that day before we were
married, and the conversation we had about what would be expected
of me as a landed, married, Frankish noble? I was as upset then as
you are now.”
“I do remember. But this is different,” she
said. “At least you knew a little about Frankish life. I know
nothing.”