by Speer, Flora
“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.”
“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.”
Chapter 22
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 ye
ars 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.
