Timestruck

by Speer, Flora

  “Dominick will do,” he replied with a firmness that told her not to try to use a nickname.

  “I’m Virginia McCain,” she said. “People call me Gina.” She spoke absently, not looking directly at him, her gaze on the object that stood propped against the wall at the end of the bed where Dominick’s pillows were. It was a long, wide, ornately decorated scabbard. The shape rising above the scabbard was unmistakably a sword hilt. It would be easy enough for Dominick to reach out and grab the sword if he were attacked while in his bed. He could have used it against her. But he hadn’t.

  “Where do you live, Gina, when you are not creeping into the bedchambers of sleeping knights?” he asked.

  “I’m from New York,” she answered, her throat dry and her eyes still on the huge sword.

  “I know of Yorvik, in Northumbria,” Dominick said. “Alcuin came to us from Northumbria. If you are a friend of his and you are in Francia to see him, why are you not in Regensburg? You will find Alcuin there, with the king. You see, I am trying to convince myself that you are not entirely mad and that you have a reason for visiting me so unexpectedly,” he ended with an encouraging smile.

  His teeth were white and even. He really was a handsome man. Gina tried to force herself to stop admiring him so she could pay attention to what he was saying.

  “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned a king,” she told him. “The last king of France that I know of had his head chopped off on the guillotine. I think it happened a couple of hundred years ago, while the Scarlet Pimpernel was trying to save the aristocrats. I don’t know much about history and literature and all that liberal arts junk. I graduated from a technical high school.” Seeing his bewildered expression, she stopped to catch her breath. She was talking too much because she was so scared.

  “I already know you think I’m crazy,” she said, lifting her chin in defiance of the quaver in her voice. “Well, I’m beginning to think you’re nuts, too. Maybe both of us are locked up in the loony bin, and we just don’t know it.”

  “I am not an acorn.” He looked deeply offended.

  “That’s not exactly what I said. It’s the way your language translates. What is this language, anyway?”

  “Frankish.” He was frowning at her.

  “Let’s start all over,” she said, and made herself smile at him as if she wasn’t ready to die from terror. “According to you, we are in Bavaria, speaking Frankish, and you are Dominick, lord of this place. Does it have a name?”

  “This is Feldbruck.” He was still frowning at her, but he displayed no sign of impatience. He just stood there beside the bed, wearing nothing but his thigh-length tunic, his eyes on her face as if he was trying to decide whether she really was a madwoman or just a lost and confused traveler. His bare legs were long and straight, his feet narrow and elegant. And clean. So were his hands.

  Gina repressed the urge to stretch out her own hand and touch him. Then she marveled at herself for wanting to get that close. She usually made a point of staying well out of the reach of any man.

  “All right,” she said, trying to make sense out of what had happened to her. “Now, you say you have a king named Charles. Does he have a number after his name? Real kings usually do, you know.”

  “He is Charles, son of Pepin, and he does not need a number. There is no other ruler like him.” The words were spoken with quiet pride.

  “Son of Pepin? That’s a name I do know. When I was a kid, there was a Broadway play about Pepin.” A chill went down her spine. “Dominick, what year is this?”

  “It is the Year of Our Lord 792.”

  “That number! It’s the same number I mistakenly typed into the computer. What have I done to myself?”

  “What is a computer?” asked Dominick.

  “It’s a machine. If my suspicions are right, there is no way I can possibly explain it to you. You don’t even have electricity. Or indoor plumbing.” She twisted her hands together to stop them from shaking.

  “I don’t wish to alarm you, but it’s plain to me that you are not in your right mind,” Dominick said in a soothing tone of voice. “After speaking with you, I think I understand why. I see how unpleasantly thin you are, and how closely your hair has been cut, most likely to conserve your strength. Those signs, added to your confusion, must be the results of a debilitating sickness. Perhaps you contracted your illness during the past winter, when the weather was so unusually cold and snowy. What I do not understand is how or why you left your home, how you traveled here to Feldbruck, which is far from any other settlement, and how you got past my guards and into my room.”

  “I fell through the roof,” she said.

  “The ceiling is undamaged,” he pointed out with calm reasonableness. “Or are you a sorceress?”

  “No, definitely not,” she gasped. The next thing she knew, he’d be burning her at the stake. “I don’t know anything about magic.”

  “I choose to believe you,” he said, “for now. I do wonder how you know your name – if Gina really is your name – while making no sense at all when you attempt to answer my other questions. But I assure you, I will learn how you reached Feldbruck, whether you came here with companions, and, if so, where they are. More important, I will learn why you are here.”

  “No one came with me,” she said. “I’m alone. Completely alone.”

  His eyebrows rose in unconcealed disbelief. He looked at her as if he was trying to read her very soul. Gina kept her eyes locked on his, even though he was making her more afraid than she already was. She didn’t dare tell him what she was beginning to believe, that the computer in The Brown Detective Agency had somehow sent her into the distant past.

  She decided that until she could figure out how to get back to the last day of the twentieth century, there was only one thing to do. She was going to have to go along with Dominick’s false conclusion and pretend to be a dazed creature recovering from a dreadful illness. Considering how confused she felt and how little she knew of the time and place where she found herself, acting dazed wasn’t going to be difficult.

  Chapter 3

  “You cannot continue to wear those garments,” Dominick said, casting a disapproving eye upon Gina’s short black skirt. “There is a trunk in one of the storerooms that ought to have a dress or two in it that you can wear.”

  “Oh, really? Do you keep extra clothing handy in case a woman drops in on you unexpectedly?” She couldn’t believe she’d said that. She sounded positively jealous. But she wasn’t. She couldn’t be. It was just that her nerves were badly jangled. She didn’t care how many females came to see him.

  “It doesn’t happen very often,” he responded dryly. “I will call one of my servants to help you.” He began to pull on a pair of rough woolen trousers with a drawstring at the waist.

  “I don’t need help,” Gina told him, watching with compulsive attention as he pulled the drawstring close around his narrow midriff. “I can dress myself.”

  “But not very well, as your present costume proves.” He tucked his trousers into boots of soft brown leather, then belted his tunic. ’’Please remain in this room until I return. I fear your present appearance will shock my people, should anyone see you.”

  “You forgot your sword,” she said when he opened the bedchamber door. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll use it against you when you come back?”

  He looked at the sword propped against the wall, and then he looked at her as if he was seriously considering the possibility.

  “If you use both hands, you might be able to pull it from the scabbard,” he said. “I doubt you are strong enough to lift it without breaking one of your delicate wrists. Certainly hands as small as yours are incapable of wielding so large a blade forcefully enough to cause much damage. However, you are welcome to try.”

  With that he was gone, leaving her to wonder whether he had intended an insult with those cracks about her delicate wrists and small hands. She was as strong as any woman her size. If he tried to touch her
again, she’d prove how strong she was. She’d jab him in the eye and knee him in the groin, and when he doubled over she’d whack him in the back of the head with his stupid sword.

  She reached for the sword hilt, wanting to have the weapon handy just in case he came back with the wrong idea in mind. Then she stopped, looking at her outstretched hand. It was small, and her wrists were tiny, just as he’d said. Could he possibly have meant his words as a compliment? Did men in this time and place actually say things like that to be nice?

  She circled one wrist with her fingers, the way Dominick had held it against the mattress. His hands were much larger than hers, and she knew from trying to wrestle herself from his grasp how strong they were. She held out both hands, fingers spread wide. She wore no jewelry, not even a watch, and her nails were filed short, but they were neat, and she used hand cream every night. Her hands were her livelihood, so she took good care of them. But she had never thought of them as attractive or delicate.

  “Don’t be silly,” she warned herself. “If he’s paying compliments, it’s because he wants something, and you know what it’s likely to be.”

  With that thought in mind, she slid the sword out of its scabbard. She needed both hands to do it, just as Dominick had warned, and the weapon was so long and so heavy that when she held it straight out she could barely lift it to shoulder height. Nor could she hold it that high for more than a moment or two. She laid it on the bed. As she did so she noticed for the first time that the sheets were of finely woven linen and the quilt was so lightweight that it almost drifted out of her hands when she lifted it. A tiny fluff of feather poked through the bright blue fabric.

  “Dominick is not a poor man,” she murmured, smoothing the quilt into place.

  He had called himself a knight, and the lord of Feldbruck. She went to the open windows to look at his land. Now that the mist was gone from her eyes, she was seeing with a clarity that only added to the strangeness of her situation.

  The mountains—the Bavarian Alps, from what Dominick had told her—filled the horizon with their imposing mass. Next came the forested foothills in shade upon subtle shade of green, then the cleared area that was Dominick’s farmland, and closest of all, the tall wooden palisade. Gina’s unnaturally sharpened eyesight showed her the bark remaining on the upright logs that formed the palisade. Just inside the fence was a small orchard of trees bearing diminutive green fruits. The garden she had noticed while falling from the sky was out of sight on the other side of the house.

  As for Dominick’s bedroom, the walls were plastered and whitewashed, and the window and door frames were made of a smooth, golden wood. The twin windows were unglazed, with sturdy shutters that could be closed in bad weather. A table under the windows held a basin and a pottery pitcher full of water and covered with a folded linen towel. Opposite Dominick’s bed were two wooden chests with intricate designs carved into the tops and sides. They looked like hope chests, and one of them had pillows ranged against the wall to form a seat. The other chest was topped by several books.

  That was all the furniture, yet the room was comfortable in a thoroughly masculine way. She was sure Dominick didn’t want or need fancy curtains, or rugs on the floor, or a dust ruffle on the bed.

  Giving way to curiosity, Gina picked up one of the books and tried to flip through it. But the volume was too heavy for her to flip the pages, and it felt different in her hands from books she knew. The binding was leather, apparently stretched over a pair of thin boards. The pages were not paper.

  “This must be parchment,” Gina said, touching a page with respect. Her wondering gaze fixed upon the miniature painted figure of an angel with red and green and blue wings, who was holding up the first large letter of the page. The angel’s halo shone with real gold applied to the parchment with incredible care. “Someone painted these decorations and wrote out this entire book by hand,” she murmured in awe.

  Since she could speak Frankish, perhaps she could read it, too. She studied the unfamiliar script, and after a few minutes she deciphered a couple of words. The book wasn’t in Frankish, however. Gina wasn’t totally uneducated in the liberal arts; she knew Latin when she saw it. Dominick read Latin books.

  “So, he’s not only well off and a nobleman, he’s well educated, too.”

  She stood there, holding the first handmade book she had ever seen, while she looked out the windows at the wooded Bavarian landscape and tried to adjust to the incredible yet indisputable fact that she was in a time totally different from her own.

  One part of her mind began to scream frantically, hysterically, that she wanted to return to the time where she belonged, even while another part of her being was responding to the beauty of the countryside and those soaring, snow-topped mountains.

  There was also a part of her that responded to the man who had treated her kindly and was trying to help her, even though he believed she wasn’t in her right mind. He had been annoyed when she woke him out of a sound sleep, but what person, man or woman, wouldn’t be upset to have a complete stranger come crashing out of nowhere? Once he recovered from his surprise, Dominick had proven to be downright nice.

  “He’s a man. Don’t trust him,” she warned herself. Still, there was a quality about Dominick, something deep in his silvery eyes and in the quiet, assured timbre of his low-pitched voice, that told her he could be trusted.

  He was such a gentleman that he actually knocked at his own bedroom door when he returned. He brought with him a middle-aged woman whose sturdy form was clothed in simple brown wool, her skirt reaching to her ankles. Seeing the woman’s cheerful expression and dancing blue eyes, Gina relaxed a little.

  “This is Hedwiga, my chatelaine,” Dominick said. “She sees to my comfort, and she will take care of you, too.”

  “If you will come with me, Lady Gina,” Hedwiga said, smiling, “we can choose some new clothing for you.”

  Lady Gina? That wasn’t the exact title in Frankish, but to Gina’s mind that was how it translated. She wondered what Dominick had told Hedwiga about her and how he had explained her sudden appearance at Feldbruck. Gina could tell she was going to have to be very careful what she said.

  Hedwiga was waiting. Gina gathered up her coat and purse, then looked to Dominick for some hint as to how she ought to behave. He only smiled benevolently and allowed Hedwiga to lead her away. She was oddly reluctant to leave Dominick, but at least the tension she felt in his presence dissipated once he was out of sight.

  Dominick watched the woman who called herself Gina leave his bedchamber. He kept his smile in place until the door closed, in case she decided to look back at him. She was a spy. Unless she really was a madwoman, which he considered unlikely after talking with her, he couldn’t imagine any explanation other than spying for her sudden appearance in his bed. Whoever had sent Gina was a person lacking in subtlety and without any real understanding of Dominick’s character.

  The first candidate who sprang to mind was Queen Fastrada. Gina denied having been sent by the queen, but then, she would deny knowing Fastrada if she was that she-devil’s agent. Fastrada was perfectly capable of setting a trap for Dominick. She had tried it once already, with his wife. Perhaps Fastrada was making a second attempt to ruin him.

  There was also the possibility that one or more of his fellow nobles could be conspiring to draw him into a rebellious scheme. Dominick was aware of the resentments smoldering just below the peaceful surface of Frankish life. Even in isolated Feldbruck he had heard the rumors.

  He considered several ways to discover proof of who had sent Gina to him and why. He decided to begin with the simplest method: being kind to her and encouraging her to talk in hope that she’d misspeak and thus provide a hint as to her purpose and her accomplices.

  If sympathy failed, he’d threaten dire punishment unless Gina told him what he wanted to know, and he’d hint at mercy if she cooperated. It was unlikely, yet possible, that one of his own people was involved and had helped Gina sneak into
his bedroom. If that proved to be the case, he’d find out who it was, and then he’d drag Gina and her accomplice to Regensburg in chains and turn them over to Charles. If he could prove that Charles’s queen was involved in the scheme, so much the better. He owed Fastrada retaliation for what she had tried to do to him.

  If nothing else worked, he’d seduce Gina and then coax a confession from her in the aftermath of passion. It wasn’t a method he preferred, but he’d do it if he had to. Whether the devious and bloody-minded queen of the Franks or a rebellious nobleman was behind Gina’s appearance in his home, Dominick’s honor and his life were at stake, along with the welfare of Feldbruck. To preserve what he cherished, he was willing to relinquish the private vow of celibacy he had made to himself when his marriage ended.

  He recalled the way Gina’s slender body had softened beneath his as he held her down on his bed. She was so delicate, yet so fiery in spirit. There was passion in her. He knew it instinctively. Yet she seemed so innocent, so lost and alone. He tried in vain to remember the last time a woman had made such an impression on him.

  With considerable bitterness he reminded himself that the chances were good that, far from being innocent, Gina knew exactly what she was doing. Worse, if she proved not to be Northumbrian but Frankish-born, as he suspected from her speech, and if she was involved with any rebellious nobles, then she was a traitor.

  Dominick was and always had been completely loyal to his king. Duty and honor both required that he find proof whether Gina really was a spy, and if she was, who her associates were and what they intended. Upon leaving her a short time ago he had ordered a band of his men-at-arms into the countryside in search of any strangers found loitering or camping on his lands without reason. Once he had collected the evidence he needed, he’d take Gina to stand trial before Charles. And if she was found guilty, he was going to watch her die.

  Hedwiga conducted Gina to a chamber several doors down the corridor from Dominick’s room. It was furnished in much the same style, though the eiderdown quilt on the bed was bright red instead of blue, and there was only one wooden chest, which sat in the middle of the floor.