A day later, they were housed again in an
abbey, this one south and west of Paris, and still India had not
revealed to Theu what she knew. She decided she would not go to bed
that night until she had spoken to him. She had discarded her
earlier concerns about what effect her revelations of the future
might have upon the history of centuries to come. She had been
given more than enough time in which to recognize and deal with her
feelings for Theu. Loving him with a deep and reckless passion
unlike anything she had ever known before, she wanted only to save
his life.
It was Hugo who gave her the opportunity for
which she was hoping. After the light evening meal of bread and
cheese, she excused herself to Sister Gertrude and Danise, then
hurried to catch up with Theu as he left the refectory.
Encountering Hugo and Theu speaking together at the doorway, she
paused, waiting until they had finished.
“Would you like me to speak to Charles on
your behalf?” She heard Theu ask Hugo. “Or to Hildegarde? If either
of them were to mention you favorably to Savarec, he might be more
willing to give his daughter to you.”
“You know my problem,” Hugo responded. “I
have nothing to offer a noble lady. I have only the small estate
where my mother and sister live, and if my sister is ever to marry
I will have to give up part of those lands in order to provide a
dowry for her. Danise deserves much more than I possess, and
Savarec will surely tell me so.”
“Look to Spain,” said Theu. “Knowing the kind
of fighting man you are, I think it likely that you could make your
fortune there.”
“Where the sun shines every day,” Hugo said,
a dreamy look on his plain, honest face. “Where every castle has a
beautiful garden with a fountain and a flowering almond tree. And
oranges, ready to drop into a man’s hands – or a lady’s. I think
Danise would like that. She should live in a fine castle on a
hilltop in Spain, with servants to obey her every wish. I swear to
you, Theu, I’ll win it all for her with my sword.”
“Before we leave for Spain, I will speak to
Charles about arranging a marriage between you,” Theu promised,
sending Hugo away to bed with a smile and a friendly clap on his
shoulder.
“If Hugo depends upon Spanish treasure to win
himself a bride, he’ll never marry Danise,” India remarked, making
Theu look sharply at her in the shadows of the refectory
entrance.
“It’s time we talked about this,” he said.
“Come with me.”
He did not take her to the tiny guest’s cell
he had been given for his own use that night, nor to the smaller
cell where India would sleep. He led her to the scriptorium where,
even at this late hour between Vespers and the final devotional
service of the day at Compline, a pair of monks still labored,
copying manuscripts by the light of candle stubs burned too short
to be used in the chapel any longer.
“They won’t overhear us,” Theu said, choosing
a carrel and a bench at some distance from the monks, who did not
raise their heads at this intrusion. “They are too intent upon
their work.”
He straddled the bench, leaned one elbow on
the writing shelf of the carrel, and motioned to India to join
him.
“Now tell me why every mention of the Spanish
campaign fills you with dread,” he ordered as soon as she had
seated herself.
“You said once that you do not entirely trust
the Saracens who have invited the Frankish king into their country,
offering to turn over cities and treasure to him,” she began. “Your
concern is well placed, though it’s not so much that the Saracens
are untrustworthy, but rather that their affairs are so confused.
The Saracen lords of Spain are fighting each other, and they are
involved in complicated intrigues among themselves. Loyalties shift
from day to day. The situation is really a civil war. I’m not sure
you understand that term as I do, but anyone who involves himself
in Spanish politics will soon regret his decision.”
“Charles is aware of all of this,” Theu told
her. “While most of his nobles enthusiastically favor the campaign,
there are a few, myself included, who feel it is unwise to entangle
ourselves in quarrels best left for the Saracens to settle among
themselves. So what you have just told me is nothing that I and
others have not already discussed with Charles.”
“But he is going anyway.” There was despair
in her voice, and a black, desperate fear for Theu clutching at her
heart. “And you will go with him.”
“The decision was made last autumn,” he said.
“Nothing will change it now. I pledged my loyalty to Charles years
ago. I will follow where he leads.”
“What will you do when the Spanish Christians
turn from Charles to join their Saracen countrymen and fight the
Franks together?” She had to make him understand the terrible risk
in going to Spain. If she could not prevent his going, at least she
would try to convince him to be on his guard at all times. “How
will you deal with the Gascons and the Basques who live in the
mountains and the rough country between Francia and Spain, who will
harry you along the way, who will lie in ambush for your return?”
She stopped, choking with terror, knowing yet not caring that she
had said too much, for she was gripped by a dreadful premonition.
His response was exactly what she had feared it would be. She had
not known him for long, but she knew him very well.
“What would you have me do?” he asked. “Shall
I play the coward and beg to remain on this side of the Pyrenees?
Desert my king when he needs me and my men? If I and every man of
my levy are destined to die for Charles in Spain, which is what you
are suggesting, then so be it. I will not defect from my duty. If I
did, I would be less than a man and unworthy of your affections.
Unworthy, too, of my son’s honor and a disappointment of all my
parents’ hopes for their descendants.”
“Charles will eventually give up the
campaign, having gained little at the cost of many lives,” she
said, casting aside all remaining caution, determined to tell him
everything she knew. “On your return through the Pyrenees, the
rearguard will be ambushed in a mountain pass – not by Saracens,
but by Christians.”
“
Stop
.” In the shadowy light he looked
frozen, hard, a man of steel and stone. “There is something evil in
this foreknowledge of the future. I will listen to no more.”
“I am trying to save your life!” she hissed.
Mindful of the monks on the other side of the room, she lowered her
voice when she tried again. Her throat was dry with fear, and she
felt close to tears. “For me it isn’t the future, it’s the past –
it’s history. I know I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, but
Theu, I’m so worried about you, so afraid you’ll be badly wounded
or even killed.”
“All men die,” he said, “and warriors sooner
than most. As I do before every campaign, I have made my peace with
the possibility that I will not survive the coming battles. If you
are my true friend, you will do the same. You will take pride in my
courage and let that pride sustain you through whatever happens to
me in these next months.”
“I’m not like you,” she whispered. “I’m not
used to constant warfare.”
“Yet you have more courage than most women.”
After a quick glance toward the monks, he leaned forward to touch
her cheek and rest his hand upon her shoulder. “Were our positions
reversed, were I by some magic sent to your century, l think l
would go mad with the horror of what had happened to me. But you,
finding yourself in my time, have displayed a bravery worthy of any
warrior. India, I want you to forget what I said at Aachen about
speaking to Alcuin. Give me the answer to only one question more,
and then I want you to seal up your knowledge of the future in your
heart and never speak of it again, not to me or to anyone else, for
it seems to me that such knowledge is dangerous beyond our
reckoning. It could change our actions in this time and thus affect
the lives heaven has intended for all those who come after us.”
“Hank has some strange theories and
complicated mathematical formulas to explain that sort of thing,”
she told him, “but you have said it more simply and more truly than
he ever could. Theu, I meant no harm and certainly no insult to
your honor by telling you all of this. I only wanted to warn you,
because I – because I worry about you.”
She had almost said she loved him, but the
words had been stopped in her throat by the way he had called her
friend
. If she was to him no more than a friend, then the
last fragments of her shattered pride would prevent her from
admitting that she loved a man who could not love her. But was she
wrong about that? His fingers gripped her shoulder more tightly for
a moment, as if he would convey to her a message he could not allow
himself to speak aloud.
“I understand and I thank you for caring
about my welfare,” he said. “Now answer my only question. Will
Charles survive and continue to rule the Franks?”
“He will become one of the most famous of
kings,” she responded. “His memory is still honored and respected
in my own day. Men will call him Charlemagne – Charles the
Great.”
“I am content.” He stood, holding out his
hand to her. “Let the future happen as it must. We will speak no
more of what you know.”
But now you know, too
, she thought.
Surely that knowledge will change your actions, just as you said
it would. Remembering what I have told you, you may live to return
from Spain
.
They went out of the scriptorium hand in
hand, nor did he release her when they entered the hall where
visitors were received. There they found a dark-haired
stranger.
“Count Theuderic.” There was no respectful
bow from the newcomer and no smile of greeting, only an abrupt dip
of his head before he resumed his previous rigid stance. By his
appearance, he was a person of some importance, for beneath his
dust-streaked brown cloak he wore expensive chain mail and he
carried a rounded metal helmet in the crook of his left arm. A long
puckered scar slashed across his left cheek and chin, and his
ice-blue eyes were cold when they rested on Theu. “I have been
searching for you.”
“Autar of Chalons.” Theu spoke pleasantly
enough, but India was aware of the sudden tensing of his strong
frame beside her, and his hand tightened on hers. She saw Autar
glance toward their hands, then back to Theu’s face. “I assume you
have some message for me,” Theu said.
“Count Hrulund, the Warden of the Breton
March, has commanded me to greet you in his name,” responded Autar,
“and to invite you to join him at Tours. From there you will travel
together to Agen.”
“There are women in my party,” Theu said. “I
am not certain if Hrulund will want to travel with us when he
learns of their presence.”
“There is a convent at Tours, where the women
may stay while you are there,” Autar replied. “Count Hrulund
expects you. Let him decide how you will travel from Tours to
Agen.”
“Will you ride with us?” Theu seemed not at
all offended by Autar’s cold manner.
“I will join you in the morning.” With
another abrupt little dip of his head, which was his only gesture
of politeness or of acknowledgment of Theu’s superior rank, Autar
turned his back on them and marched away toward the dormitory.
“I do not like that man,” India said in a
voice just above a whisper.
“He is a fine warrior, one of Hrulund’s
best,” Theu informed her. As he spoke, he released her hand, and
when he did she felt abandoned, as if he had already gone off to
war with his men and Hrulund and the rest of the Frankish army.
They left the abbey the next morning with
India no longer riding beside Theuderic. Her former position was
taken by Autar. She did not protest the change. By the look Theu
sent her way, with his eyebrows raised and his face serious, she
understood that, for whatever reasons of his own, he wanted her to
keep away from Autar. From then on, she rode between Marcion and
Hugo. From their talk, she learned that while Hugo called Hrulund
the second greatest of all warriors next to Theuderic, Marcion had
little admiration for him and less for Autar.
“Hrulund’s men are all like that,” Marcion
said in response to a question from India, “cold-hearted and
brutal. They kill for the pleasure of shedding blood and inflicting
pain.”
“And don’t you?” she asked. “After all, you
are a warrior, too.”
“Most men fight out of loyalty to their king,
or to protect their homes and families,” Marcion replied, “and some
fight to win lands or a great title, but most respect a brave enemy
and regret the need to kill him in order to remain alive
themselves. But as for Hrulund, I think he does not care whether he
lives or dies, nor does he care for anyone else’s pain. I believe
Hrulund cares for only two things in this life—his own glory and
Charles’s friendship.”
“Is he jealous of Theu’s friendship with
Charles?” asked India.
“I think so,” Marcion said. “It’s my opinion
that Hrulund hates Theu. We will have to be very careful in
Tours.”
The building into which they were ushered by
Autar was made of stone, its low ceiling supported by wide pillars
that ended in curved arches. There was no carving on the pillars,
no decoration at all to lighten the weight of the pale, heavy
stone. Nor was there any furniture, nor a fire in the cave-like
hall where Autar led them. Here it was gloomy, cold, and damp, a
place created for warriors who cared nothing for comfort or warmth.
There was not the slightest hint of anything feminine in it.
Walking between Marcion and Hugo, India
shivered, oppressed by the atmosphere and almost wishing she had
stayed at the convent with Danise and Sister Gertrude as they had
wanted her to do. But she had insisted on going with Theu, and he
had agreed. Just ahead of her, Theu walked with Autar by his side
as he had been for days, the two of them approaching the golden
glow of a single candle set upon a man-sized brass stand. Within
the fragile circle of candlelight, at a spot where the stone floor
was raised like a dais above a wide, shallow step, two men awaited
them.