Timestruck (5 page)

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.

“Dominick ordered it brought from the attic
storeroom,” Hedwiga explained. “Since you haven’t brought a
clothing chest of your own with you, you will use this one. Now,
let’s see what’s in here. I haven’t looked inside since Lady
Hiltrude left us, but I put a lot of lavender and sweet woodruff in
the folds of every garment when I packed them to discourage any
moths.”

“Who is Lady Hiltrude?” Gina asked.

“She was married to Dominick, though not for
long. The silly girl divorced him and went to live at the convent
at Chelles. Said she’d rather be a nun than wife to a man like him.
Can you imagine such a thing?”

“The convent at Chelles?” Gina repeated, to
be certain she hadn’t misunderstood. She said no more, though she
was absolutely dying to ask what the departed Hiltrude had meant by
a man like him. As Dominick’s wife, Hiltrude would have known all
his dirty little secrets. Every man had them, as Gina knew too
well. Apparently Dominick was no better than any other man, despite
his gentlemanly veneer. Having discovered what he was really like,
his wife had left him. Gina experienced a stab of disappointment at
that realization.

“Well, of course, Chelles is a nice place, or
the king’s own sister, the Lady Gisela, wouldn’t live there, would
she?” Hedwiga said. She pulled a green woolen gown from the chest
and shook it out, smoothing away a few wrinkles and checking the
fabric. “Not a sign of moths. I always say if you store clothing
properly, it will last for years, and then you can use it again for
someone else. Let me see, now, there must be a shift or two in
here, and some stockings, too. While I’m looking, you take off what
you’re wearing,” Hedwiga ordered. She spared a disapproving glance
for Gina’s black outfit before she leaned over the open chest again
and began to pull out more items of clothing.

When she realized that the kind of
underclothes she wore were nonexistent in the year 792, Gina
decided to keep on her bra and briefs. She did, however, remove her
boots and heavy winter tights and put on a pair of soft leather
shoes that tied with leather thongs. She found them a lot more
comfortable than her high-heeled boots.

She agreed to wear the short-sleeved linen
shift Hedwiga handed to her, thinking the green woolen gown would
be scratchy against her bare skin. The linen flowed softly over her
body, and Gina’s oddly acute senses welcomed the touch with
unfamiliar, sensual pleasure. When she put the dress on over the
shift, the wool proved to be so finely woven that it didn’t scratch
at all.

The dress was too big through the torso but,
according to Hedwiga, too short by several inches. Gina thought
ankle length too long and said so.

“You cannot wear the skimpy garments you had
on,” Hedwiga told her sternly. “Not even the shameless women who
ply their trade in the worst part of Regensburg would consent to be
seen in such clothing. Lady Gina, you must be properly
dressed.”

There really wasn’t any answer Gina could
make to that. Hedwiga knew better than she what was proper attire
for the late eighth century. She let Hedwiga fasten an embroidered
fabric belt around her waist, which made the dress fit a little
better.

“It’s too bad about your hair,” Hedwiga said,
trying unsuccessfully to fluff Gina’s rudimentary curls, “though,
of course, it can’t be helped, and it will grow again, in time.
Mine was cut short once, too, when I was very sick.”

“Oh?” Gina remarked, hoping Hedwiga would
keep talking. The woman knew everything Gina needed to know to
pretend that she belonged in the eighth century.

“When I was fourteen, I developed a dreadful
fever and a bright red rash all over my body,” Hedwiga said. “My
mother feared I would die, until the doctor bled me twice and
insisted that my hair be cut right down to my scalp to save my
strength. According to him, the strength of the body flows into the
hair. As you can see, the doctor was right. I recovered and am
perfectly healthy now. So will you be healthy again.”

“With no antibiotics – no medicine,” Gina
corrected herself when Hedwiga seemed perplexed.

“Well, one can use potions made with herbs,”
Hedwiga said, “but there is nothing better than a doctor who knows
what he’s doing. Do you always paint your face that way?”

Gina responded somewhat defensively to the
sudden change of subject. “This is nothing – only mascara and eye
shadow and a little powder. The lipstick I put on this morning is
probably worn off by now. You should see some of the women in New
York. They wear lots more makeup than I do. Oh, dear.” She stopped,
judging by Hedwiga’s expression that she was talking too much.

“The ladies at the royal court paint their
faces,” Hedwiga said, frowning her disapproval. “I suppose it’s the
custom in Northumbria, too.”

“Northumbria? Oh, right.” Apparently Dominick
had repeated his mistaken assumption that Gina was from a place
called Yorvik in Northumbria. Since she knew nothing about such a
town, she decided it was time to change the subject again, before
Hedwiga could begin asking questions about her supposed home.
“Thank you for the clothes. Is there anything I can do for you in
return?”

“You are a guest,” Hedwiga responded, patting
her arm in a kindly way. “What’s more, you’ve been sick. You ought
to rest until you are completely recovered.”

“There must be some little thing I can do.”
Once she was out of the bedroom she intended to investigate
Dominick’s house with the idea of trying to find a way to get back
to New York.

“Well, there is a basket of mending,” Hedwiga
said.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know how to sew,” Gina
said.

“Can’t sew? How strange. I thought every girl
was taught at a young age to make neat stitches.”

“Customs are different in Northumbria,” Gina
said, seizing on the first excuse she could think of.

“I see.” Hedwiga thought for a moment. “I
suppose you could work in the kitchen. Mixing and kneading the
bread will probably be too strenuous for you, but you could help to
chop the vegetables and cook the stew.”

“I can’t cook,” Gina confessed. “I never
learned how.” She could see that Hedwiga was beginning to wonder if
there was any womanly chore Gina was able to perform. In her own
time and place Gina considered herself quite competent. With her
computer skills, she could always find a job, even if she wasn’t
paid very much. But it was rapidly becoming clear that in the
eighth century she possessed no useful skills at all.

“You are too frail to assist with the
laundry,” Hedwiga said. “Scrubbing and wringing out sheets and
clothing is heavy work. But I suppose you could help to spread out
the smaller pieces to dry.”

“I’m sure I could do that,” Gina said, eager
to agree to something Hedwiga suggested.

“Come along, then. First I will show you the
house, so you won’t get lost.”

From seeing the main building as she drifted
downward through the air, Gina remembered that it was built in an
H-shape, with covered walkways on its inner sides. Now she learned
that Dominick’s chamber was on the upper left part of the H. There
were several other bedrooms on the second level, and a large great
hall directly below, on the ground level.

The crossbar of the H contained a formal
reception room and an office for the overseer of Dominick’s
farmlands. The remaining wings housed the servants and men-at-arms,
with stables set off to one side, near the entrance gate of the
palisade. The kitchen and laundry were in a separate building
directly behind the great hall – according to Hedwiga, an
arrangement intended to lower the risk of a damaging fire.

The laundry was a hot and steamy place, with
cauldrons of water boiling over open flames. A pair of women,
sleeves rolled above their elbows, labored over soapy tubs. Another
pair rinsed the laundry in separate tubs, wringing out the finished
pieces. Meanwhile, three teenaged boys lugged pails of hot water
from the cauldrons to the tubs.

“Ella,” Hedwiga called to a rosy-cheeked
girl, “Lady Gina is a guest, but she has offered to help us. I want
you to show her what to do with the finished laundry.”

“I’d enjoy some company, and especially help
with the sheets,” Ella responded, grinning at Gina with easy
friendliness. “There’s a basket ready and waiting for us.”

The wrung-out laundry was piled into an oval
wicker basket with handles at either end. Ella seized one handle,
Gina took the other, and together they carried the heavy load
through the back door of the laundry. They came out of the hot room
onto a swath of grass edged all around by bushes. With Ella
providing instruction, she and Gina shook out each piece of wet
laundry and spread it over the bushes to dry in the sun. The sheets
and other large items they spread on the grass.

“Doesn’t everything just get dirty again as
it dries?” Gina asked.

“We shake any loose leaves or debris off the
bushes and then sweep the grass first thing on laundry day,” Ella
explained.

“Why don’t you string a line and hang the
laundry on it?” Gina asked. “That’s what people do where I live.
I’ve seen lots of clotheslines strung from building to
building.”

“The wind would blow everything away,” Ella
said with a laugh. “Its better to dry the linens spread flat, with
clean stones to hold down the larger pieces.”

There was a basket of stones in the drying
yard, and these they laid on the corners of the sheets to keep them
in place. A second and third basket of wet clothing and linens
arrived, carried to the yard by the other women and left for Ella
and Gina to see to.

Gina found the work unexpectedly satisfying,
in large part because Ella was such a pleasant, chatty companion
who did not ask disconcerting questions. Ella was willing to talk
about herself and her own life, so Gina encouraged her to chatter.
Soon she knew all about the fifteen-year-old Ella s budding romance
with Harulf, who was one of Dominick s men-at-arms.

“Be careful,” Gina warned, recalling herself
at that age. “Sometimes men take advantage of young women, and
sometimes they mistreat girls.”

“Not Harulf. Besides, no man would dare, not
here at Feldbruck. Dominick wouldn’t allow it.”

The total conviction in Ella’s voice made
Gina cease her attempts to spread a sheet flat in the brisk wind so
she could stare at the girl.

“Really?” Gina said. “Dominick makes other
men behave themselves with women? That seems unusual.”

“If you knew Dominick well, you wouldn’t
think it at all unusual.”

“Yet I understand Dominick’s wife left him.
From what I’ve heard, Lady Hiltrude would rather live in a convent
than with him.”

“She claimed it was because Dominick was
ruled a bastard,” Ella said, shrugging as if such a statement was
unimportant. She didn’t notice that Gina was gaping at her,
openmouthed, and she continued to spread a pair of men’s linen
underdrawers on a bush while she talked. “If you ask me, I think
all of that was just an excuse. I think the truth is that Hiltrude
was afraid to have children. Some girls are. But if that’s the
case, they shouldn’t allow their fathers to arrange marriages for
them, now should they? It’s upsetting to their parents and cruel to
their husbands if they change their minds later.”

“Even cruder to call the husband a bastard,”
Gina said in hope of eliciting still more information about
Dominick.

“Everyone here at Feldbruck thinks the new
rule is a bad thing,” Ella said. “It’s unfair. So many people were
hurt by it, and some even turned against the Church because of it.
But that’s the way it is when the pope makes rules for lesser folk.
I suppose in time it won’t matter so much. Eventually, everyone who
was affected by the change will be dead.”

Gina couldn’t ask what the new rule was
without betraying her total ignorance of life in eighth-century
Francia. She didn’t have the chance, anyway, for Hedwiga appeared,
stepping carefully around all the laundry Gina and Ella had spread
on the grass.

“Well done,” the chatelaine said, nodding
toward the empty baskets. “Ella, you are needed in the
kitchen.”

After Ella took her leave and hurried off
with the empty laundry baskets, Hedwiga turned her attention to
Gina.

“Your: face is flushed,” Hedwiga said.
“You’ve been in the sun too long.”