by Speer, Flora
Chapter 16
Deutz was a place founded upon military preparedness, so it took less than a day for Savarec to make the necessary arrangements to lead a troop of men-at-arms into Saxony. Under his direction baggage carts were quickly filled with the equipment of a campaign – tents, folding tables, beds, chairs and maps for the officers to use. The barber-surgeon who was to go along piled his cart high with bandages, medicinal herbs, skins of wine, leeches in jars, and a collection of surgical tools every bit as terrifying to look upon as the weapons the men-at-arms would carry. Meanwhile, those same men-at-arms packed their saddlebags with extra clothing and food for themselves and their horses. So many of his men were eager to march through eastern Francia and into Saxony that Savarec was forced to order a dozen would-be volunteers to remain behind lest his men at Deutz be depleted to a dangerous level.
Michel worked as hard as any of the other men, assisting Savarec where he could be of use, and Redmond when Redmond needed an extra hand. Having brought no warriors with him from Elhein except for those whom Savarec had lent to him, Michel would ride and fight under the command of his father-in-law.
Danise knew Michel was avoiding her. He had not returned to their bed on the night of their quarrel. Now the long, busy day was drawing to its close and still he had not spoken one word to her. The coming night would be the last one before he left for Saxony, and she did not know if he would spend it with her or continue to stay as far away from her as he could without actually leaving the confines of Deutz.
Standing in the courtyard watching Michel talk with her father, Danise was consumed with apprehension. She still believed that everything she had said to him was the truth, but all the same, she bitterly regretted telling him about Hugo. She had spoken without careful forethought, expecting her words to bind them still more closely together. Instead, those words had driven them apart. With that emotional separation came fears for his life. Because she believed he had been specially sent to her, she had assumed that he could go into battle and emerce unscathed. Now her confidence was shaken. No man was safe in battle. No one knew that sad truth better than she.
“Michel has found his rightful place with us.” Redmond paused beside her, having approached while her eyes were on her husband. “He’s a good man, and a good friend. You chose well, Danise.”
I wish Michel would believe that, Danise thought. Aloud she said, “I pray you will all return unharmed after driving the Saxons into a defeat so disastrous that they never rise against us again.”
“The Saxons always seem to rise again,” Redmond said. “I do wonder whence comes their resilient spirit. As for returning safely, not all of us will. We know the risks. So do you.”
“My father is growing too old for battle,” she said, seeing anew Savarec’s portly figure and graying hair.
“He may not be involved in the actual fighting,” Redmond said, “but I for one would not be without him. Savarec is able to understand a battlefield at a glance. He always knows when and exactly where to send in fresh troops, when to press forward, when to pull back. For years he has studied how the Saxons fight. It is my hope that on this campaign he will stand upon some nearby vantage point and direct the fighting, letting younger men like myself and Michel and Guntram plough into the thick of it.”
“God keep you safe, dear Redmond,” she cried. “You and all vour men. And Guntram. And Michel. If Michel – if Michel -” She swallowed the rising tide of fear and went on, saying to Redmond her friend what she could not say to Michel her love. “If Michel were killed, I would retreat to Chelles and never leave it again. Nor would I live long without him, not even in that safe and blessed place. My heart was broken once before when Hugo died. I could not survive a second such blow.”
“I will do what I can, Danise, but in battle -” Redmond broke off when Michel and Savarec approached.
“All is ready,” Savarec announced. “Now for a hearty meal and a good night’s sleep. We will be up before dawn tomorrow and away from Deutz ere the sun tops those trees over there.”
“You sound happy,” Danise reproached him.
“Excited,” Savarec corrected. “The start of a new campaign always makes me feel like a boy again.”
“Savarec,” said Redmond with a glance at Danise, “may I ask your advice?” He drew the older man aside, leaving Danise and Michel alone.
“Wait,” Danise cried when Michel would have left her to join them. “You have not spoken one word to me since last evening.”
“What do you want me to say, Danise?” He looked as fierce and forbidding as any Frankish warrior whose thoughts were on war and not on love.
“Say that you love me in spite of our differences, that you forgive me for hurting you so badly. I wish I had not spoken.”
“Whether you spoke or not, what you believe would still be the same,” he said.
“Let us not part in anger, for we know not what the coming days will bring. Say you will not stay away from me tonight.”
“I do plan to join you,” he said, speaking coldly and deliberately. The look he gave her, raking her from head to toe, was chilling. “Every soldier wants a woman before he goes off to war. Funny thing about women – they are interchangeable. Any convenient one will do. And you are convenient to me, aren’t you?” He spun on his heel and walked away, leaving Danise gasping in shock.
Hurt, anger, and damaged pride warred within her. She wanted to lash out at Michel, to say to him words as cruel as those he had just tossed at her like the sharpest of spears. And then she realized that she had already used words as weapons against him. What Michel had said to her was causing her only a taste of the pain he must have felt when she had told him about Hugo.
“What has happened to us?” she cried after him. “How have we so quickly destroyed the beautiful, perfect love that was going to last until time and the world ended? Oh, Michel, what have I done? And what have you done?” He did not answer her. He just continued to walk farther and farther away until he disappeared into a group of men who were loading up the last of the baggage carts.
* * *
Danise sat beside Michel at the farewell feast that evening. Though it was as lavish as Deutz could provide, and ample proof of Savarec’s claim to set the best table east of the Rhine, the meal did not last long. Savarec was insistent that all the men leaving on the morrow must be in bed early. Those who had women at the fort did not complain. The others obeyed their commander in good humor, knowing he was right.
It was not yet dark on that midsummer night when Michel appeared in the bedchamber he shared with Danise. Early as it still was, she was waiting for him with her hair loose and wearing the nightrobe she and Clothilde had made for her wedding night.
“I do not want to continue our quarrel,” she said, not waiting for him to speak or even to bolt the door. “We have done terrible damage to the love we share. We must repair it this night, before you go away.”
“What do you propose to do?” he asked, regarding her with unchanged coldness. “Do you plan to dump me out of a tree, or perhaps that window over there, to see if you can induce a fresh bout of amnesia? If I can’t remember who I am, I could just be whoever you want me to be. That might be easier for both of us.”
“You are so angry with me because I hurt you so badly,” she said, “which only proves the depth of your love.”
He did not answer her. He stripped off his clothing, letting the garments fall where they would. When he approached her, Danise backed away. This was a Michel devoid of the tenderness she had come to expect of him. She saw the pain and the rage he was trying to control, and she feared what he might do if some word or action of hers were to set that rage free.
“Yes, that’s right,” he said, coming toward her as though he were some powerful beast of the forest and she the prey he was stalking. “Get onto the bed.”
“Michel, please, wait.”
“The pleading should come later,” he snarled. “In the meantime, if you don’t wa
nt it damaged, take off that nightgown. Tell me, Danise, was it part of the bridal clothes you made for Hugo?”
“No! It was made for your delight. I thought of you and dreamed of your lovemaking with every stitch I put into it. You are being unfair, Michel.”
“I am unfair? I don’t think so.” His voice was like the low growl of an animal about to pounce. “I am just the poor fool who fell for you. That’s a good one, isn’t it? I fell all right – fell out of a tree, into love, into a situation I can’t begin to understand. Do you have any idea what you did to me last night?”
“I am sorry.”
“You damned well ought to be sorry.”
He moved so quickly that Danise did not see what was coming. She was standing near the bed. Michel grabbed her left arm, spun her around, and flipped her onto the mattress. She landed face down, with her arm twisted behind her. He did not hurt her, but surprise made her cry out when she realized he was straddling her thighs, his stiff manhood prodding at the cleft between her buttocks.
“Michel, what are you doing?”
“Tonight I am going to teach you who I am. When I leave this room tomorrow morning you will be convinced, completely and for all time, that I am not Hugo.”
“I know you are not. I know you are Michel, and you are the one I love. How many times do I have to say it before you understand that what I believe does not detract from you, from who and what you are?”
“It is possible,” he purred into her ear, “that you could prove to me during the course of this night that you do have some small degree of sincere feeling for me. Or is it just the physical part you enjoy?”
“Don’t make me ashamed to love you!” She jerked her head around so she could see him better. She couldn’t do much more than move her head. He still had a tight grip on her left arm, and now he lowered himself until he was lying along her back, his weight pressing her down into the mattress. His muscular thighs were clamped over hers, holding her legs together so she couldn’t use her knees to lever herself out from under him. When she tried, he simply tightened his thighs around hers, and as he moved his manhood rubbed hard against her.
Suddenly she was glad she was unable to turn over, for if she could do so, he would be inside her in an instant, and in his present mood he would not stop until… until… She groaned, acknowledging what she would have preferred to deny. If he were to take her in that way, hard and angry and unloving, still she would welcome him, for her own growing anger at the way he was treating her was fueling her desire for him. Even if he should take her without bothering to turn her over first, still she wanted him. She had to fight her own inclination to move against him in an inviting manner.
“Don’t you think I’m the one who ought to be insulted?” he demanded. “I fell head over heels for you, but you didn’t want me at all. You were looking for Hugo.”
“If you could lay aside your jealousy for one moment,” she yelled at him, “if you could forget your injured pride long enough to think about what I said last night, you might begin to understand that I was talking about something strange and wonderful and beautiful. Something supernatural, Michel, a circumstance so amazing and incomprehensible that it ought to enhance our love instead of destroying it.”
“You are not going to blame me for this. You’re the one who ruined what we had.” Releasing her arm at last, he rolled off her, but when Danise tried to push herself up into a sitting position he wrapped a hand around each of her wrists and pulled. Before she could catch her breath she was on her back and he was once more positioned across her thighs, facing her this time.
“How did you do that?” she gasped.
“Martial arts. A twentieth century skill.” His face and his eyes were cold.
“You have become like a Frankish warrior,” she whispered, “hard and tough, ready to go into battle, there to kill or be killed. But I am not your enemy.”
“That is something you are going to have to prove to me,” he told her.
“How can I hope to prove anything to you when you are holding me prisoner? I won’t run away from you, Michel. I want to love you, not do battle with you.”
“Do you?” He lowered his body until his lips were almost upon hers. His flat belly pressed on her own, and when he drew in a breath of air, his chest rubbed against her breasts. For a moment his eyes softened. “God, how I wish I could believe you.”
“I mean it. I love you, Michel. I love you.”
“Sure you do.” His eyes were cold again. His kiss was a brutal assault on her senses.
Though fully aware of his simmering fury against her, Danise heard in his cry of distrust all the love she knew he still felt for her. If she could reach that love beneath the layers of pride and jealousy, of anger and disbelief that cloaked his heart, then she might be able to draw forth the tender emotion she cherished yet had lost by her own words and actions. Nor could she deny that his newly harsh attitude was stirring an answering fire in her.
With his mouth still grinding upon hers she wrenched her wrists out of his grasp so she could wrap her arms around his shoulders, meanwhile returning his demanding kiss with matching passion. She raked her nails across his back, she bit and scratched and pretended to fight so he could have the pleasure of subduing her -until she was not pretending anymore, she was wild with passion, desperate to hold him inside her yet struggling against him. They wrestled like warriors in the ring at Mayfield until, with a growl worthy of the beast she had earlier imagined him to be, he rammed himself into her, thrust following hot thrust. Danise screamed and screamed again, still struggling, still fighting for her love, until their joined bodies erupted into a throbbing, pounding climax that stopped the next scream before it left her lips -that stopped her breath and his.
There followed a gentler time of warmer kisses and kinder caresses. They did not speak. Danise feared if she said one word they would begin to quarrel once more and all Michel’s pain and her regret would pour out of them to taint their last night together. For these few hours their bodies would have to tell of the love their tongues might have ruined forever. When he became hard again and came at her with a driving desire equal to their first joining, she responded in kind, knowing it was what he needed from her, knowing, too, that his ferocity would not hurt her.
She thought he might well fear that if he were tender and gentle with her they would both dissolve into tears and remorse for what they had done to themselves and to each other. She would not cry, not during that night or on the morning to come. She would give him whatever she thought he required of her until it was time for him to leave her. Only in that way could she prove her love to him. And it seemed to her as the night wore on and he made love to her again and again, that he was trying to prove his own love to her. His kisses and the way in which he took possession of her body became less forceful. It might have been the result of simple weariness, or perhaps the slaking of a violent passion. Or it might have been – please God, it was! – his realization that no matter what he demanded of her, she would not deny him.
She dozed off once, and wakened later to the touch of his fingertips on her face, brushing back her hair and caressing the margin of her lower lip. His glance was tender while he looked at her hair and her mouth, until he saw that she was awake. Then his face became closed and tight and he put her hand on him and made her rub until he was hard, while he stroked her into trembling acquiescence. He rose above her once more to take her with renewed fury, groaning and biting his lip at the end as if he would conceal any indication of softer feelings. Danise, gasping and shaking beneath him, cried out her love repeatedly, but received no answer from him, though she believed he felt the same despairing affection that she did.
She had not known there were so many different ways to make love. Nor had she dreamed how much tenderness or how much grief her heart could hold. When the notes of a trumpet being blown in the courtyard called Michel from their bed, Danise lay a little longer, sore, exhausted, her body sated and her heart ne
ar to breaking, for not once during any of their couplings had Michel said he loved her.
She sat up, sliding to the side of the bed, looking down at the linen sheet all wrinkled and stained with the evidence of Michel’s passion, and she warned herself once more not to weep. She stood on somewhat unsteady legs and went to the table to pour out water so she could wash.
“You’d better hurry,” he said. “Savarec is eager to be gone before sunrise.”
“So are you, I think. You look forward to leaving me.” She turned from the water basin, a towel in her hands. “Shall I help you arm?”
“No, thanks.” His voice was cool, as if he spoke to a complete stranger. “There’s a boy coming to help with the chain mail. I suggest you dress before he gets here. No, wait a minute.” He caught her around the waist, pulling her toward him. He was wearing his tunic and breeches and the rough wool scratched at her bare skin. “Who am I, Danise? Don’t stare at me like that. Answer me.”
She flung back her head, shaking a river of silver-gilt hair off her shoulders, meeting his glare with her own brave look, refusing to be cowed by him.
“I said, who am I?”
“You are Michel of Elhein,” she said, matching his cold tone. “You are the man I love and will love until I die. If you do not know it now, I don’t know what else I can do to show you that you are everything to me.” How terrible to say such heartfelt, binding words in such a cold voice, with defiance in her face and posture. She kept her back rigid against the forward pressure of his hands.
She had her reward, small though it was. She saw a glimmer of warmth in his eyes, a faint softening in his features, before he pulled control over himself once more.
