by Speer, Flora
“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.
Chapter 23
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.”
Author’s Notes
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.
