Timestruck (25 page)

“Lady Gina is speaking the truth,” Alcuin
said, his quiet voice cutting across Fastrada’s strident tones. “I
also saw the queen speaking with Father Guntram.”

“No!” Fastrada screeched. “Charles, you
cannot believe these vicious slurs against me. This creature who
calls herself a noblewoman cannot deny that Pepin and Dominick met
secretly at Feldbruck.”

“I do not deny it,” Gina said. “Unlike you, I
have the benefit of having heard what they actually said, rather
than what a malicious priest reported. I heard Pepin’s deep
distress because he has been led to believe his father does not
love him. He repeatedly insisted that when the conspiracy was
carried out, no harm should come to the king. My opinion is that
Pepin imagined he would gain his father’s full attention at last
and that when he was king, his father would listen to his feelings
about the slights that have been visited upon him for years.”

“Your opinion means nothing!” Fastrada
yelled, starting toward Gina with fingers outstretched like
claws.

“Stop, Fastrada.” Charles’s hand came down on
his wife’s shoulder, halting her advance on Gina. “Lady Gina, you
have so far neglected to tell us what Dominick’s response was to
the suggestion that he should join the plot.”

“Dominick tried to make Pepin see what a
foolish idea the plan was,” Gina said. She couldn’t understand what
game Charles was playing at the moment, but she was willing to go
along with it. “He insisted the other nobles involved were so
untrustworthy that Pepin should not believe the promises they made
to him. Later, Dominick told me he would never join any group that
was trying to remove you from the throne.

“We came to Regensburg to seek out concrete
evidence of the plot and who was involved in it, evidence so solid
it could not be denied by the conspirators, evidence that Dominick
could then present to you. We uncovered bits and pieces of the
story, hints of coming trouble, but no facts reliable enough for us
to tell you about them, until Dominick and Deacon Fardulf overheard
the noblemen in the church last night. Fardulf was there purely by
accident, as he explained to you. Dominick was there because he was
following one of the men he suspected. You know about that, too,
sir. Dominick told you everything he was able to learn about the
conspiracy.”

“Fastrada was never involved in the scheme,”
Charles said, sounding as if he was seeking reassurance.

“No, she was not,” Gina said at once. “Such
an involvement would not be in her best interests. However, she
does hate Pepin, and she hates Dominick almost as much.” Gina took
a long breath to give herself a moment in which to reflect. Then
she plunged on, risking much for Dominick’s sake, and risking
making an enemy of Lady Adalhaid.

“I’m not surprised that Fastrada is trying to
include Dominick among the traitors,” Gina said. “She tried to ruin
him once before, when she used one of her ladies-in-waiting as a
spy against him.”

“This is ridiculous!” Fastrada cried.

Charles regarded his wife with a cold gaze.
Then he looked at Lady Adalhaid, who had gone white as chalk. Gina
could see understanding spreading across the kings handsome
features. His hand on Fastrada’s shoulder tightened noticeably.

“Is this true?” Charles asked Lady Adalhaid.
“Is that why Fastrada was so insistent that Hiltrude should marry
Dominick?”

“Tell him,” Gina urged when Lady Adalhaid
hesitated. “It’s Hiltrude’s best chance for freedom and safety. If
she is harmed now, Charles will know who is to blame.”

“Yes, my lord,” Lady Adalhaid said. “Hiltrude
was such a poor spy that Dominick soon found her out. I do believe
he sent her to Chelles in the belief that she would be safe from
the queen as long as she was in the convent where your own sister
resides.”

“I’ll have your heads for this!” Fastrada
screamed, writhing against the firm hold Charles was keeping on her
shoulder.

“Alcuin, ladies, I thank all of you for
coming to me,” Charles said. He appeared to be perfectly calm, not
the least bit flustered or angered by what he had heard, though
Fastrada continued to squirm in his grip and to mutter threats
against Gina and Lady Adalhaid. “Now I wish to speak with my wife,
alone.” His nod toward the door was an unmistakable dismissal.

“Please, sir,” Gina said, “I beg you to
remember-that Dominick has always been completely loyal to
you.”

“He is a damned traitor!” Fastrada
yelled.

“And Pepin loves you,” Gina added to
Charles.

“That dim-witted monster!” Fastrada
screeched. “That spawn of a concubine! That hideous troll!”

“Sir,” Lady Adalhaid said to Charles, “I
humbly entreat you to consider who is the true monster.”

“Go now,” Charles commanded as Fastrada let
out another threatening shriek. “Leave us, all of you.”

Gina and Lady Adalhaid left the chamber,
followed a few seconds later by Alcuin, who had paused for a final
word with Charles. Fastrada uttered a high-pitched scream of rage.
Gina could hear the murmur of Charles’s voice. It sounded as though
he was moving away from the doorway, perhaps to a more private room
somewhere farther inside the royal apartments, and as if Fastrada
was following, berating him as she went. Alcuin nodded at the
guard, who closed the door.

“Oh, Gina,” Lady Adalhaid exclaimed into the
sudden quiet, “I pray you have not made matters worse for my dear
Hiltrude.”

“I think not,” said Alcuin. “Charles admires
courage, and Gina has just displayed a remarkable degree of it, so
we may be certain that Charles will consider with care everything
she has said. Charles loathes injustice. Whatever he decides to do
about Hiltrude, she will be well protected from now on.”

“I just hope I’ve helped Dominick,” Gina
said. “And Pepin, too.”

“Whatever that misinformed young man thinks,”
Alcuin said, “Charles does love Pepin and has often worried over
his future.”

“He should tell Pepin that.”

“Perhaps he will,” Alcuin said, “now.”

“I am not sure I will ever forgive you,” Lady
Adalhaid said to Gina. “You carried me off to the royal apartments
under false pretenses. I was to speak for Dominick, and you knew I
did not want to mention Hiltrude.” She looked so angry that Gina
retreated a few paces before daring to respond to her heated
remarks.

They were standing in the middle of the
flowery courtyard, having paused to catch their breath and calm
themselves in the same spot where only the day before Gina had
observed Father Guntram and Fastrada in secret conversation. To
Gina, it seemed like a year since that hour.

Alcuin had retreated to his office to
continue his work of translating the Bible. Claiming that his
students frequently visited him there, he promised to let Gina know
anything he heard about Dominick’s situation, or about Charles’s
intentions toward the conspirators.

“Actually, as far as Hiltrude is concerned, I
believe our talk with Charles turned out rather well,” Gina said.
“I think her chances of getting out of Chelles are greatly
improved.”

“I pray you are right.” Lady Adalhaid’s eyes
filled with tears. “You cannot know how frightened I have been for
Hiltrude during these last years. First I feared Dominick’s
reaction if he learned why she was apparently so eager to marry
him. Then I was afraid of the queen’s long reach, even when
Hiltrude was supposedly safe at Chelles. My daughter is all I
have.” She wiped a tear off her pale cheek.

“I wish I had a mother who cared about me as
much as you care about Hiltrude,” Gina said.

“Haven’t you?” Lady Adalhaid looked at her in
surprise.

“My parents are both dead,” Gina said flatly,
clearly indicating she would say no more on the subject.

“I didn’t know.” Lady Adalhaid clasped Gina’s
hands. “I am sorry. But now you have Dominick to care about
you.”

“Unless Fastrada finds a way to have him
executed.”

“We cannot let that happen.”

Gina had never been blessed with an aunt or
an older female friend. She saw in Lady Adalhaid’s eyes that she
possessed such a friend now.

They returned to the great hall together to
find the nobles still gossiping. There were some new arrivals,
among them Dominick s half brother.

“Good day to you, Count Bernard,” Lady
Adalhaid said coldly when the young man approached them.

“Here’s an odd pairing,” said Bernard,
looking from Lady Adalhaid to Gina. “Whoever would expect the two
of you to become bosom companions? Have you heard the latest
news?”

He was so smug, so self-satisfied that Gina
regarded him warily, certain the news he spoke of was something to
do with Dominick, and it probably wasn’t good. He was hoping to
make her beg for it, too; she could tell by the way he was smiling.
She longed to snarl an insult at him, but where Dominick was
concerned she had no pride.

“What news?” she asked, almost expecting him
to respond as the bullies of her childhood used to do, by inquiring
why she wanted to know and what she’d give in return. She wished
she had nerve enough to slap his face and wipe the smirk off
it.

“Yes, what news?” demanded Lady Adalhaid,
speaking so crisply that Bernard looked at her in surprise. “What
do you know that is so dreadfully important?”

“Pepin Hunchback has arrived in Regensburg,”
Bernard announced.

“Really?” Lady Adalhaid regarded him as if he
were a worm on which she was about to step. “What of it?”

“He has been arrested.”

“Indeed?” drawled Lady Adalhaid with
remarkable coolness.

Gina’s heart was in her throat. She made a
snap decision to let Lady Adalhaid handle Count Bernard. Lady
Adalhaid could manage a man like Bernard with greater skill than
Gina, frightened as she was for Dominick’s sake, could hope to
muster. That way, Gina wouldn’t have to try to drag information
about Dominick out of his brother. Because this was about Dominick.
Bernard was too confident, too sure of his inside knowledge, for
his big news to be about anyone but Dominick.

Lady Adalhaid let Bernard stand there waiting
for some further response from her until he could bear it no
longer. Gina wouldn’t have been as patient. She was ready to grab
the big oaf and shake what he knew out of him well before Bernard
finally gave in and began to talk.

“The Hunchback is confined to his room here
at the palace,” Bernard said. “It’s special consideration because
he’s the king’s son. The other conspirators won’t be treated as
well. But then, they won’t have to wait long before they are
brought to trial. Plans are already being made.”

“I understand the others have fled,” Lady
Adalhaid said, sounding as if she were terribly bored by the whole
business.

“Most of them have gone. A few were rounded
up here at Regensburg.” Bernard smiled at Gina. “Dominick was easy
to find. He was with Pepin when Pepin was arrested. The two are
being held together. They will die together, too.”

Gina could tell there was no point in arguing
with him. Bernard didn’t want to hear that Dominick wasn’t part of
the conspiracy. She was curious, however, about his reaction to
what he assumed would be his brother’s fate.

“If Dominick is charged and convicted,” Gina
said, forcing the hateful words off her tongue, “won’t that reflect
badly on you?”

“Why should it? Fastrada will see to it that
I remain in Charles’s good graces. Besides, Dominick is nothing to
me.”

“He’s your brother!”

“He is a bastard!” Bernard shouted. In a
quieter tone he said, “Our father loved him better than me.”

“I don’t believe this. How can a grown man be
so childish? Bernard, you inherited everything from your
father.”

“By law, not by love,” Bernard said. “Now, by
law, Dominick will die. And I am glad of it.”

He stalked away, leaving Gina with her mouth
open in astonishment.

“Jealousy can twist and pervert a man’s
heart,” said Lady Adalhaid. “Fastrada is an expert at playing on
the weaknesses of men. You have just witnessed an example of her
work.”

She didn’t mention Charles. She didn’t have
to. Gina understood what Lady Adalhaid did not say. And her fears
for Dominick grew more desperate.

“My lady!” Ella hurried across the hall,
interrupting Gina’s disturbing thoughts. “I have learned where
Dominick is. He insisted on remaining with Pepin. The guards said
that in that case, they’d have to arrest him, too.”

“Then what Dominick’s brother told us was
only half true,” Gina responded. “Were you able to find
Harulf?”

“Yes, and he has orders from Dominick. You
and I are to leave the palace and return to Dominick’s house.
Harulf will escort us there and see to it that we are kept safe.
Dominick also sent a message through Harulf to tell you not to
worry.”

“How can I not worry?” Gina muttered. “Ella,
just let me tell Lady Adalhaid that we are leaving.” When she
turned, she noticed a weeping maidservant speaking to Lady
Adalhaid.

“What’s wrong?” Gina exclaimed, seeing the
noblewoman white and shaking. “What has happened? Not bad news from
Hiltrude?”

“As far as I know, Hiltrude is well,” Lady
Adalhaid said. “I pray that you and Alcuin were correct in
believing that Charles will see to her safety. No, the immediate
problem is that I have been turned out of my room.”

“What?”

“As one of Fastrada s most senior
ladies-in-waiting, I have for some years occupied a small room in
the queen’s apartments so I can be quickly available to her if she
requires my presence. This is Imma, my maidservant, who is
commanded by the queen to inform me that I have been dismissed as
one of her ladies and must quit the palace at once.”

“Fastrada doesn’t waste any time, does she?”
The cold knot in Gina’s chest tightened still more. If Fastrada
could get rid of one of her most important ladies so easily, even
after what had been said in the royal apartments less than an hour
ago, then she obviously still held a strong grip on Charles’s
emotions. Which meant Dominick was in serious trouble. If Fastrada
turned her sexual charms on her husband, she might be able to
convince him that, despite what Dominick, Gina, and Fardulf had
told him, Dominick really was involved in the plot against him.