Love Beyond Time (42 page)

“What you described to me on that day was a
true partnership,” he said, choosing to ignore her claim to know
nothing. “That is still what I want with you, Danise. I will help
you over the rough spots until you get used to living in this
time.”

“What can I contribute in return?” she cried.
“You were a warrior, a wise councilor to my father, as you would
have been to Charles. You knew how to do those things. I do not
know how to be a twentieth century woman.”

“You are
my
woman. All I want from you
is for you to love me for the rest of my life. As a matter of fact,
I don’t think you will have as much trouble living in the twentieth
century as you imagine,” he informed her. “Furthermore, I know of
someone who can help you, who can even speak to you in your own
language if that is what you still want to do when you finally meet
her.”

“Who is this person?” If Michel believed in
her, then perhaps her fears were groundless after all.

“Your old friend, India Baldwin,” Michel
said. “I have to return her disk and notebook to her. They are the
reasons why I came to New Mexico in the first place.”

“India?” Danise’s face lit with pleasure.
“You told me once that you don’t know her.”

“That’s right. I’ve never met her. It was her
brother-in-law who sent me on this chase after Hank Marsh. But I
have a feeling that India will be glad to see both of us. So, my
love, arise and attire yourself in that old green dress of yours,
and let us be on our way.”

“The gown is well worn,” she said, taking it
off the coat hanger, “but if I wash it carefully, I can still wear
it.”

“You do have a lot to learn.” She could tell
he was teasing her, and she began to smile in response to the
laughter in his blue eyes. “At the first large city we reach, I am
going to take you shopping for a new wardrobe. And that, my dearest
love, is one twentieth century custom you are going to enjoy from
the very start.”

Guntram found Clothilde in the room that had
once belonged to Danise and Michel. She was packing up her late
mistress’s belongings.

“What will you do with them?” he asked,
stopping just inside the door. Clothilde looked up from the gown
she was folding.

“The wife of the governor of Koln distributes
clothing to the poor. I can send them across the river to her. It’s
what Danise would have wanted.”

“And what will you do now, Clothilde?”

Before she answered Clothilde finished her
work, putting down the lid on the clothes chest with a gesture of
finality and a long sigh.

“There, that’s done. I suppose I could offer
my services to the governor’s wife. She is a kind lady. Or I could
go to Chelles. Sister Gertrude has promised there will always be a
place for me there.”

“Do you want to spend the rest of your life
with Sister Gertrude?” Guntram grimaced in a way that would have
been comical were Clothilde’s situation not so grim. “Is that
really what you want to do?”

“I haven’t much choice, have I?” Clothilde
ran her fingers over the lid of the wooden chest, not looking at
Guntram.

“Well, now,” said Guntram, “there is another
opportunity that you may not have considered. I am leaving tomorrow
for my own estate. You could go with me.”

“What can you want with me, Guntram?”
Clothilde asked with a deprecating laugh and a gesture to indicate
her sturdy figure. “I am at least five or six years older than you,
and I have never been a beauty. You could easily find a younger,
prettier woman to perform whatever the duties are that you were
thinking of asking of me.”

“I care nothing for your age, nor should
you,” Guntram said. “You and I have seen two young lovers die,
while we live on. Nor have I ever had a taste for silly young
girls. I have always preferred an older, more sensible woman.
Clothilde, we have been on friendly terms for years, have we
not?”

“Yes, but -”

“I have never married.” Guntram spoke right
over Clothilde’s objections. “Nor have I any female relatives. I
saw at Elhein with Michel what can happen when there is no
competent woman on hand to manage a man’s home for him. I fear I
will find something similar when I reach my own new home.

“I know you, Clothilde. I have watched you
over the years. You are a capable, honest woman, and for all you
think you are no beauty, your plumpness and your sweet face are
pleasing to me. So is your quiet voice. I would like to give the
running of my household to you. As for anything more, well, I know
you will want time to recover from the loss of Danise. I will not
press you for more than you are willing to give. But if, after a
while, you find me pleasing, too, then you have but to let me know
of your feelings. Would you call that a fair bargain?”

“It’s more than fair to me, Guntram, but not
so fair to you.” Clothilde bestowed a wistful smile upon him. “I
did not really want to live at Chelles. And the thought of being a
servant to someone whose ways I do not know – you are right, I do
need some allotment of time to recover from so many deaths.”

“Then you will go with me?”

“Once I have discharged my last duties to
Danise, I am free to do as I wish.”

Guntram made no motion toward Clothilde, nor
she toward him, but there was a happier light in Guntram’s eyes
than there had been for weeks, while on Clothilde’s face the lines
of grief and worry began to ease.

“I’ll have someone carry Danise’s chests down
to the ferry,” Guntram said. “If you like, I will ride across the
river with you and wait while you take them to the governor’s
lady.”

“That would be kind of you.”

After a moment Guntram put out his hand. At
once Clothilde placed her own into it and stood looking into his
dark, fierce eyes.

Cheswick, Connecticut Early November 1992

“What a pretty house.” Danise swung her
elegantly shod feet to the pavement and got out of the car.

“It’s Victorian. Remember, I told you about
Queen Victoria?” Michel closed the car door behind her and together
they walked through drifting autumn leaves up the path to the front
door. It was opened by a tall, dark-haired man who carried about
him a remarkable air of authority.

“I’m Theo Brant,” the man said to Danise. “My
wife has been waiting eagerly to see you again.”

“Danise?” There was a movement behind the
man. He stepped aside and a slender young woman with soft brown
hair appeared.

“India!” Danise threw herself into her old
friend’s arms for a long and tearful embrace.

“Look at you,” India cried when she could
speak again. “Danise, you are so beautifully dressed. You look
quite the twentieth century woman. Of course your coat would be
dark green. As I recall, you wore green as often as possible.”

“Michel has given me excellent advice about
fashion.” Danise’s reply made India laugh.

“Why don’t we go into the study?” Theo Brant
suggested, shepherding them through an arch into a room lined with
bookshelves. A cat lay sleeping in the sun that streamed in through
a bay window, and a fire burned beneath an ornate mantel.

“So many books.” Danise gazed at the filled
shelves with shining eyes. “Michel is teaching me to read your
language at the same time I learn to speak it.” She broke off to
reach down and scratch the cat’s ears.

“That’s Charlemagne. He’s named for Charles,”
India said. “Disgraceful, isn’t it, to name a cat for a great king?
But he was christened long before I met Charles, and he’s too old
for me to change his name now.”

“Does your husband know, then?”

“Indeed I do.” Theo Brant heard Danise’s
whispered question. He sent a meaningful look in Michel’s
direction. “You and I should have a long talk sometime soon. I
understand we have a lot in common.”

“I had a rough time coming to terms with
Danise’s ideas about the same people cropping up again from time to
time throughout history,” Michel responded. “From something your
brother said to me, I gather you dealt with a similar problem when
India told you what had happened to her.”

Danise could tell that Michel liked Theo
Brant immediately. He should. They had been friends once, long ago.
They would be friends again.

“I have a present for you,” Michel said to
India. He handed her the notebook and the floppy disk he had taken
from Hank’s computer room. “The other disk is in a wooden clothes
chest at Elhein, along with a pair of jeans, a denim jacket, a
wallet with a few credit cards, and a set of keys. I can only hope
to heaven that I’m the archaeologist who finally digs up that
chest. Otherwise, there are going to be a lot of historians
hustling to rewrite the past.”

“Does anyone else know about these remarkable
events?” Danise asked.

“Madame,” said Theo Brant, “your command of
English is excellent for someone who has been in this country for
such a short time. To answer your question, aside from Hank Marsh
and his assistant, whom we hope will both have sense enough to keep
quiet about what Hank has done, the four of us and my younger
brother Mark and his wife are the only ones who know. I assume
there are also certain people at high levels of our government who
have at least a suspicion as to what happened, because Michel
called them in to do something to stop Hank. He has been stopped,
hasn’t he, Michel? Or are you
Mike
now?” Theo finished with
a smile for the other man.

“Either is fine with me. Let’s just say that
Hank has been guided into a different career path,” Michel replied.
“I don’t see how he can cause any more trouble. But just in case,
India, I think you ought to destroy both the disk and the
notebook.”

“You are absolutely right.” India began to
tear the pages out of the notebook and toss them into the
fireplace. “My first husband made these notes. I know he would be
horrified by the use Hank has made of them. He would give me the
same advice you have, Michel. Now the disk.” It followed the
notebook into the fireplace, and all of them watched it burn and
melt.

“Now,” India said, turning from the hearth,
“will you stay to dinner? We have a lot of catching up to do, and I
am longing to show Danise how food is cooked in the twentieth
century.”

When the women returned to the study from the
kitchen some time later, they found Michel agreeing to consider a
position as a faculty member at Cheswick University, where Theo
Brant was chairman of the history department.

“If you do that,” Danise said, “then I can
live near to my oldest and dearest friend.”

“I could only accept with certain
conditions,” Michel said to Theo. “I want to go back to Francia, to
work on the dig I started last year before all this business with
Hank began. That’s where Danise will be invaluable to me, since she
has firsthand knowledge of the Franks. She thought at first there
was nothing useful she could do in this time, but I have convinced
her otherwise. She will have to be careful what she says about the
eighth century, though.”

“You may talk freely to us, Danise,” said
Theo. “Just don’t say anything about your origins outside this
house or your own home.”

“Of course,” Danise responded demurely. “I do
understand, Theo. None of us would want to be locked up for nut
cases.”

“A fine command of English, indeed,” Theo
said in a dry voice. When the laughter had died away, India looked
at Michel.

“From what my brother-in-law Mark has told
me, I’m sure you know people who can provide the passport Danise
will need if you are planning to travel to Europe,” she said, “but
I would like to make a suggestion of my own.”

“What’s that?”

“Remarry Danise in this century. If some
formality arises in the future, for which you have to produce an
original marriage certificate, you are going to have one awful time
contacting the priest who blessed your first ceremony to ask him to
delve into his records!”

“Danise,” said Michel, turning to her, “will
you marry me again?”

“Yes,” she said. “In this or any time.”

“I will be happy to help with the
arrangements.” India embraced her friend.

“Danise.” Theo’s eyes were twinkling. “I
think we ought to introduce you to a marvelous invention created by
your own people just a few centuries after your era. Michel, will
you help me with the glasses? It’s time to break out the
champagne.”

In the year 779, Charles did actually
promulgate a law forbidding the raising of private armies in
Francia, for the reasons he notes in this book.

Later in that same year, Hildegarde gave
birth to a daughter, who was named Bertha in honor of Charles’s
mother.

The plot against Charles devised by Autichar,
Clodion, and Duke Tassilo of Bavaria is entirely fictional, but the
spirit of it is true to history. Duke Tassilo was a problem to his
cousin for decades, backing many schemes to unseat Charles from the
Frankish throne.

In A.D. 788, this most disloyal of his nobles
finally exhausted even Charles’s legendary patience by making an
agreement with the pagan Avars, those wild nomadic horsemen who
lived on the eastern borders of Bavaria, to make war together
against Charles. Charles sent the Frankish army into Bavaria and
defeated Tassilo, who was then taken to the royal seal at
Inglesheim and there tried for treason. He was found guilty. The
penalty was death but, “for the love of God and because Tassilo is
a kinsman,” Charles commuted the sentence.

Tassilo, his wife, whom many believed had
inflamed his hatred of Charles, and their sons and daughters were
all sent to various monasteries and convents to live out their
lives in enforced peace and in contemplation of their past crimes.
Tassilo’s only request was that he not be forcibly tonsured in
front of the other Frankish nobles. To this Charles consented, and
the barbers did their work in private.