Timestruck (6 page)

“I’ve enjoyed it,” Gina responded truthfully.
“Ella is a very nice girl.”

“We appreciate your help,” Hedwiga said, “but
you must rest now. We don’t want you to fall ill again. I suggest
an hour or two in your room, where it is cool.” She made the
suggestion sound like an order.

“I’d rather sit in the garden,” Gina said.
“Will you tell me how to get there?”

“Go through the kitchen and across the great
hall, then out of the hall by the side door,” Hedwiga said, adding,
“but be sure to stay in the shade.”

“I will.”

The garden contained four oblong beds of
plants, each edged with stones, and there was a sundial in the
middle, where the gravel paths intersected. The trees were taller
than they had appeared from the air, and the flowers were brighter
in color and more riotous in growth, spilling out of their neatly
defined beds and tumbling into the paths. Gina could almost feel
their need to grow without restraint, and she wondered at her odd,
distinctly emotional reaction to a few simple plants.

She discovered a stone bench under one of the
trees and sat on it, leaning back against the tree trunk and
closing her eyes for a moment to block out one of her newly
sharpened senses. Her fingers still tingled from handling wet
sheets and underclothes, and she remained keenly aware of the
textures of linen and wool against her body.

As she sat there quietly, she was struck by
how peaceful Feldbruck was compared to New York. No one was
shouting or quarreling. No car horns or radios were blaring or
sirens wailing or trash trucks clattering. Instead, she heard
insects buzzing. She heard laughter in the distance. And she could
smell the garden. She took several deep breaths, then opened her
eyes and looked around, trying to adjust to the fragrances and
colors that impressed themselves on her mind with glorious
intensity. It was like coming alive for the first time, with the
world bright and new around her.

Often she had peered into New York florist
shops with longing, and she always paused at street-corner flower
stands to look at and smell the blooms they sold. Seldom had she
been able to indulge herself in the extravagance of fresh flowers,
and she didn’t know the names of many. Roses, daffodils, anemones,
and her favorite, hyacinths, because their fragrance was so lovely
– that was about the extent of her horticultural knowledge. She
wasn’t sure what she was seeing in Dominick’s garden. The only
plant she recognized was a clump of white Easter lilies, and she
definitely smelled mint. Other than that, the beds before her were
a mystery.

Bees droned their way from flower to flower,
multicolored butterflies flitted here and there as if they were
very busy, the sun beamed down, and Gina discovered within herself
a contentment that was the fulfillment of the longing she had known
while gazing down at the garden as she fell from the twentieth
century to the eighth. Now that she was actually in the garden, she
was able to set her many fears aside for a little while and take
pleasure in the beauty that lay before her. For a few minutes she
was happy.

She heard a step on the gravel path and knew
it was Dominick even before she turned her head to look at him. She
simply sensed his presence, and the sight of him gladdened her
heart – the same heart she usually kept tightly guarded against any
wayward emotions.

“This is for you,” he said, handing her a
leafy stem on which three pink flowers clustered. “Be careful of
the thorns. Every rose has them, you know.”

“These don’t look like any florist’s roses
I’ve ever seen. They have only five petals.” She bent her head,
sniffing at the flowers. “What kind of roses smell so sweet? It’s
like holding a bottle of expensive perfume in my hand.” Struck
giddy by the scent, she inhaled again.

“The fragrance makes the prick of the thorn
worthwhile,” Dominick said.

He sat next to her on the bench, so close
that his sleeve brushed against hers and she could feel the warmth
of his arm. To her own surprise, Gina experienced no compulsion to
move away from him.

“Thank you, Dominick. No one has ever given
me flowers before.”

“I find that difficult to believe,” he said,
his gaze on the garden, rather than on Gina. “Roses don’t last
long. Lovely things seldom do.”

He looked so wistful that she wondered if he
was thinking of the wife who had left him in favor of a convent.
Knowing the subject was none of her business, still Gina tried to
think of a way to mention it. Ella’s remark that Dominick had been
ruled a bastard intrigued her – and that was a subject that did
touch on her own life. Besides, she told herself as her fears
returned, the more she knew about Dominick and his world, the more
likely she was to discover a way to return to her own time and
place. Before she could begin, however, Dominick took control of
the conversation.

“Now that you are properly clothed,” he said,
“I would like you to reveal how and why you suddenly appeared at
Feldbruck.”

“Why do you want to know?” To her own ears
she sounded rude, but as far as she could tell, Dominick didn’t
take offense. He just smiled a little, his chiseled lips curving
upward in a tantalizing way. His smile and his gift of roses
combined to make Gina’s insides twist with guilt. If she was ever
going to get back to New York, she had to be ruthless about pumping
him for any scrap of information that might help. She couldn’t
afford to be sidetracked by his kindness.

“Gina, what is wrong?” Dominick put a hand
over hers, and she did not pull her fingers from his grasp. “If you
are in danger, if you are being forced to act against your will, I
can protect you. Please trust me.”

“I can’t tell you. I wish I could,” she
whispered, certain he’d never believe her story. “There is nothing
you can do.”

With a frown marring his handsome face, he
removed his hand from hers. The loss of the warm contact between
them produced a longing that unsettled Gina almost as much as did
her displacement in time.

“Very well,” he said quietly. “I’ll not
intrude on your privacy. Should you change your mind—.”

“I won’t,” she said, turning away to hide her
face from him. She didn’t want him to see the tears his persistent
kindness had caused. “I can’t.”

“As you wish. But know this, Gina: I stand
ready to help you, by armed force if need be. If there is truly
nothing I can do, then I am willing to listen, and to keep your
secrets. I do not betray my friends.”

He left her then and headed into the house
without looking back, leaving her filled with yearnings she was
afraid to examine too closely. Instead, she thought about what he
had said.

Dominick was the strangest man she had ever
met. How could he think of her as a friend when he hadn’t even
known her for a full day, when he knew nothing about her? Could
there be people in this time who actually refused to betray a
trust?

Never in her life had Gina known someone she
could depend upon completely. In her experience, everyone always
had a private agenda, and letting Gina down at a crucial moment was
usually part of that agenda.

She almost dared to hope that Dominick was
different. Perhaps if she stayed in the eighth century long enough,
a time would come when she could tell him the truth about how she
had reached Feldbruck. But not yet. Not yet.

However, she had discovered a way to connect
with him. She didn’t like being manipulative, but she couldn’t see
that she had any choice. She would tell Dominick about her past,
leaving out the fact that she had been born in a different century.
Then she would encourage him to talk about his own life, and she’d
listen carefully for any information that might help her to get
back to New York.

Judging by what Hedwiga and Ella had told
her, she and Dominick had a lot more in common than he knew.

Dominick left the garden with a new
possibility to consider. It hadn’t previously occurred to him that
Gina could be forced into a scheme she didn’t want to be part of
out of fear for her life, or for the life of someone she loved. If
she was being coerced, and Dominick could prove it, when he took
her to the royal court he could plead with Charles to save her
life. The eagerness with which he contemplated the opportunity to
prove her a victim rather than a conspirator shook the very
foundations of the orderly world he had built for himself over the
past few years.

He told himself he had no choice in the
matter. He was honor-bound to uncover the real reason for Gina s
presence in his home.

At Feldbruck the main meal was at midday.
Dominick’s entire household gathered in the wood-paneled great hall
to feast on game birds roasted on a spit over the kitchen fire, a
vegetable stew, and a tart made of custard flavored with walnuts
and dried apples.

Only Dominick sat in a chair. Everyone else
was on a bench or a stool, including Gina, who was given a place of
honor on the bench next to Dominick.

There were no forks. Gina stared at the
wooden bowl in front of her and at the spoon that looked as if it
was made out of cream-colored plastic, and she wondered how she was
expected to eat without a knife or fork. Dominick came to her
rescue.

“Since you have no knife of your own, I’ll
cut some meat for you,” he said, reaching for the platter of
roasted birds a servant had set before him.

Gina watched as he neatly sliced a piece of
breast meat from one of the birds, speared it on the point of his
blade, and offered it to her. She did the only thing she could;
using her fingers, she lifted the meat off Dominick’s knife and ate
it. Then, since there were no napkins, she licked her fingers.
Everyone around her was doing the same, except for the men-at-arms,
who were eating directly from their knives. Gina tried to be dainty
about licking her fingers, and she guessed she was succeeding, for
no one remarked on her table manners or lack thereof. The vegetable
stew was easier to deal with.

“What is this spoon made of?” she asked,
lifting a mouthful of the tasty stew to her lips.

“There is a man here at Feldbruck who is
skilled in making many useful objects out of horn,” Dominick
answered. “Each autumn after the butchering is done, he collects
the horns from the slaughtered animals, cures them, and spends the
winter carving new utensils.”

The explanation made sense to Gina. She had
once read in a magazine that horn spoons were preferred over silver
for eating caviar. The salt in caviar tarnished silver but did not
affect horn. She chuckled to herself at the thought. She had never
tasted caviar, and she wasn’t likely to do so here at Feldbruck.
Still, she couldn’t regret that particular loss, for to her newly
awakened taste buds all the food served at Dominick’s table was
delicious. The fresh, homemade bread was especially good, dark and
chewy and still warm from the oven. It was better than any bread
she had ever tasted in the twentieth century. She ate three thick
slices, much to Hedwiga’s approval.

“The more you eat, the sooner you will be
completely well again,” the chatelaine said. “You are much too thin
for good health or good looks.”

“That’s a switch,” Gina murmured to herself.
“And here I thought a woman had to be thin to be beautiful.”

After the meal began, a heavyset, middle-aged
man arrived in the hall and took a place at the head table, where
Dominick, Gina, and Hedwiga were sitting. Dominick introduced the
man to Gina as Arno, the overseer of Feldbruck farmland. The two
men fell into a serious discussion of crops. From then on, neither
paid much attention to Gina, which was fine with her. She found
Dominick’s household an interesting place, and she entertained
herself by trying to guess what each person in the hall did for a
living.

As the meal ended Ella approached Gina,
bringing with her the man with whom she had been sitting at one of
the lower tables.

“This is my Harulf,” Ella said, blushing a
little.

Harulf was a brawny fellow with pale brown
hair and a luxuriant mustache that drooped down on either side of
his mouth in a style that many of the men-at-arms wore. Gina
noticed how he regarded Ella with something close to adoration.
When Harulf spoke to the girl his voice was soft, and his touch on
her arm was gentle. Observing the way Harulf treated Ella, Gina
decided that perhaps her new friend was right and Harulf was one of
those rare men who wouldn’t hurt the woman he claimed to love.

“Friend,” Gina said softly, testing the word,
and the idea. “If even a fierce man-at-arms can have a kind heart,
which I think Harulf does, then why can’t I have a friend in
Ella?”

After the remains of the meal were cleared
away, Hedwiga told Gina and Ella to fold and put away the laundry
they had spread out to dry during the morning. That meant they had
to pay a visit to Dominick’s room, to store his shirts and clean
underclothes in the wooden chest on which his books rested.

Dominick wasn’t there. Gina had heard him
telling Hedwiga that he and Arno were going to ride out to inspect
a newly cleared field that was being prepared for planting with a
late-summer crop. Gina stood looking around his room, still amazed
to see no sign of her precipitous arrival through the ceiling
plaster. She was intensely aware of Dominick’s presence in every
item, every stick of furniture in the room. His sword was gone. She
supposed he was wearing it. Everything else was just as she had
seen it at daybreak – or would be after she replaced his books.

Kneeling beside the clothing chest, she
picked up the books one by one, stroking their leather bindings as
she restacked them on the lid Ella had just shut. She held the book
containing the painting of the angel against her bosom, thinking of
angels flying. Then she thought of the way she had floated slowly
through the air to end her fall uninjured, in the room where she
now was, almost as if a supernatural force had guided her to a safe
landing at Feldbruck.