Timestruck (8 page)

“Frankish marriages were made that way for
centuries, and no one saw the need for priests. Nor did we ever
consider any child a bastard. The parents might err, they might
choose not to marry at all, but the child was not to blame. All
children inherited equally from their parents.”

“Even girls?” Gina asked.

“Of course.” He looked surprised by the
question. “Why shouldn’t girls inherit?”

“The more I learn about you Franks, the
better I like you,” Gina said. “What you are telling me is, the
clergymen in Rome saw a system that was working just fine, so they
tried to fix it. Why? For money and power? I’m sure the priests
receive gifts in return for bestowing these newly required marital
blessings. And the power part of the deal is obvious: priests now
have the final say about who marries whom.”

“You have an interesting way of stating
facts,” Dominick said with dry humor.

“Am I right that your parents were married by
the old
friedelehe
system?”

“They were.”

“Couldn’t they simply have had their marriage
blessed to make it legal when the new rule went into effect?”

“My mother died when I was still a baby,”
Dominick said, “so there was no way to prevent the Church from
ruling me illegitimate. My younger half brother is more fortunate.
My father’s second wife, being deeply religious, insisted upon a
priestly blessing before she would go to my father’s bed.”

“I get it,” Gina interrupted. “Your father’s
second marriage was acceptable under the new rule, and any children
born to that marriage could inherit from his estate, but you
couldn’t, even though at the time you were born, you were
considered legitimate. Your status was changed when the rule went
into effect.”

“Just so.”

“The Church should have included a
grandfather clause. It’s grossly unfair to change the rules in the
middle of the game.” Those bits of twentieth-century slang
translated very differently, indeed, into Frankish. Dominick
considered her outraged statement for a few minutes before nodding
his agreement.

“I am not the only person so treated. I have
a friend -” He paused before continuing in a slightly different
way, as if he had thought better of what he originally intended to
say. “Many Franks, men and women both, resent the change. Children
of powerful families were disinherited and there was no recourse.
Still, Charles insists we must all abide by the Church’s
order.”

“But you showed ‘em,” Gina said. “You didn’t
have to inherit what you have. You earned land and a title for
yourself.” And, apparently, lost his overly scrupulous wife when
the rules were changed.

“So I did,” he agreed, smiling at her choice
of words. “I showed them.”

“What happens if you have children? Can they
inherit from you?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, “so long as I am married
to their mother, and the marriage is properly blessed.”

“What a crock!” She saw his incomprehension;
then he laughed.

Gina was fascinated to learn there were
unjust laws in Francia, but for all her questioning, she still
hadn’t uncovered any information that would show her how to return
to her own time. In fact, everything she had learned since arriving
in Francia was so
un
-technical that she was beginning to
wonder if she would ever find her way back to the twentieth
century.

She had to discover the key that would send
her back. She couldn’t stay in Francia. She didn’t want to stay
there. But then Dominick smiled at her, and she recalled his kiss –
and she was no longer so sure she wanted to leave.

Hedwiga was determined to teach Gina how to
sew. Gina didn’t think she’d ever learn the knack of it. Her
stitches varied wildly in length, and seldom could she keep them in
a straight line.

“With perseverance you will improve,” Hedwiga
said. “There is always so much mending to do that we are glad of
even the simplest seam.”

“I don’t see how anyone could be glad to wear
this,” Gina responded, holding up the linen undershirt she was
repairing for one of the men-at-arms. The original seam at one side
was torn, and she wasn’t making a very good job of mending it.
“I’ve sewn it crooked.”

“Dominick says you will be staying at
Feldbruck for some time,” Hedwiga informed her. “Use the
opportunity to learn the skills you should have acquired when you
were younger. You won’t regret it.”

“Dominick told you I was staying?” Gina’s
fingers went still with the bone needle caught in a thick fold of
linen.

“He said you will be here until he travels to
court later in the summer. He will take you with him to
Regensburg.”

“How nice of him to tell me his plans for
me,” Gina said so tartly that Hedwiga sent a reproving glance her
way before returning to her own pile of sewing.

On laundry days Gina helped Ella in the
drying yard, and she worked in the kitchen, too. More than a
hundred people lived at Feldbruck, and nearly all of them came to
the hall for the midday meal, so there was always a lot of peeling
and chopping to be done in preparation for the vegetable stews that
were an important part of most meals. With her nimble fingers Gina
soon mastered the technique of using a kitchen knife. She spent
several hours each day cutting up cabbages, carrots, turnips, and
parsnips.

The actual cooking was another matter. Gina
thought the open fires dangerous and shied away from them. Hedwiga
scoffed at her fears, but, in a departure from her usual bossiness,
she left Gina to peel and dice, or to make salads from the lettuces
and other leafy greens, the herbs, and even the flowers that grew
in the garden. Gina was surprised by how popular salads were and by
how often fish from the stream or poultry from hunting served as
the main course. In her imagination people in the Middle Ages spent
every mealtime gnawing at huge beef bones or carving greasy slabs
of pork from whole roasted pigs. The diet at Feldbruck was
remarkably well-balanced.

She was also surprised by Hedwiga’s
insistence on kitchen cleanliness. After the preparations were
completed for each midday meal, Hedwiga instructed Gina to scrub
down the big chopping block in the middle of the kitchen so flies
and maggots wouldn’t be attracted to it. When Gina was finished,
Hedwiga checked to be sure the wood was cleaned to her
satisfaction.

Hedwiga kept track of personal hygiene, too,
refusing to accept excuses about the chore of filling buckets at
the pump outside the kitchen and then heating the water. Everyone
at Feldbruck was expected to use the bathhouse at least once a
week, and there was always a good supply of soft, homemade soap in
wooden bowls, with plenty of dried herbs handy to scent the water.
No one complained when Gina bathed more often.

The days slid by peacefully. One week passed,
and then a second. Gina could tell by the fit of her green dress
that she was gaining weight. Oddly, it didn’t bother her. She was
sure some of her new bulk was added muscle from all the manual
labor she was doing.

But she was no closer to learning how to
return to New York, and that did bother her.

She didn’t see Dominick as often as she would
have liked. He was frequently gone all day with Arno, the two of
them riding off to make sure the crops were doing well and, as Ella
told Gina, resolving farmers’ complaints or judging disputes.
Acting as judge was one of Dominick’s many duties, for, as lord of
the district, he was Charles’s representative in legal matters.
When Dominick was at home he was always busy, though as she learned
one day, his activities weren’t entirely confined to administrative
duties.

In her eagerness to discover how to return to
the twentieth century, Gina used every spare moment to explore
Feldbruck in hope of finding a clue. Hedwiga didn’t seem to mind.
She took Gina’s curiosity as a sign of her restoration to good
health and readily answered all of her questions. And, as long as
there were no chores waiting, she allowed Gina to wander about at
will.

On a sunny afternoon in the middle of her
third week at Feldbruck, Gina finished in the laundry and left by
the outside door. Directly in front of her on the other side of the
drying yard stretched the orchard, where apple and pear trees grew.
She was planning to locate a shady spot where she could sit and
think out a strategy. She was beginning to fear that if she didn’t
get back to New York soon, she’d never find the way.

As she started for the orchard, she heard off
to her left the clash of metal on metal, followed by men shouting.
When she stopped to look in that direction, she saw sunlight
flashing on a bright object. And she saw an unmistakable blond
head.

“Dominick!” Without a moment’s thought she
ran toward him, increasing her pace as men continued to shout.

At one end of the main building was an open
area where the ground was hard-packed from many booted masculine
feet trampling it. There, a dozen or so men-at-arms stood in a
rough circle, leaving plenty of room for the two men in the middle,
who were fighting with broadswords. Both were stripped to trousers
and boots, and Gina could see the sweat glistening on Dominick’s
shoulders and chest. He was breathing hard. Gina completely
disregarded the other man; all she could see was Dominick and the
danger he faced.

“Stop it!” Gina tried to force her way
through the ring of men, only to be caught by Harulf’s thick arm
around her waist.

“No,” he said. “Do not attempt to stop
them.”

“They’re going to kill each other!” she
cried.

“Since they are well matched, that is most
unlikely,” Harulf responded with remarkable calm. “However, if you
should distract them, one or both may be injured.” He looked hard
at Gina before, as if explaining the obvious, he added, “You need
not fear for Dominick’s sake. They are only practicing, and each
man knows how to avoid harming the other. Didn’t you realize
that?”

“Do you mean to say they get out there
regularly and whack at each other with those awful swords?”

“Of course,” Harulf answered. “How else is a
man to stay in shape for fighting real battles?”

“It’s just a game?”

“Today it is,” Harulf said. “Tomorrow, or
next month, or next year, the king of the Franks may call upon
Dominick to provide battle-worthy troops. We must all be ready. It
is our duty.”

“I understand,” she said, easing herself out
of Harulf’s grasp. He let her go readily enough, though he kept
such a watchful eye on her that she knew he’d grab her again if she
tried to reach Dominick. “It’s just that those swords look so
dangerous.”

A cheer from the spectators caught Harulf’s
attention. Gina went up on tiptoe to see what was happening. She
didn’t know anything about fighting with broadswords, but after
watching the action for a few minutes she began to notice that
Dominick’s reach was longer than his opponents, and that he was
very agile. Dominick was able to bend and stretch, to lunge forward
or spin away on the ball of one foot, while the other man was
stamping his feet and missing every time he swung his heavy blade.
Then she heard Dominick talking to the man, giving him advice, and
she suddenly realized why those in the circle around Dominick were
paying such close attention to him.

“It’s not a fight or a game!” she exclaimed.
“It’s a lesson.”

“Dominick is the best teacher there is,”
Harulf responded, grinning at her. “He taught me most of what I
know about sword fighting.”

“I wish I knew enough to be able to tell just
how brilliant he is.” She regarded Dominick with new respect,
seeing his physical toughness and the determined set of his mouth.
In a sudden onslaught of beautifully controlled muscular power that
even Gina could appreciate, Dominick drove his opponent back, and
back again, and finally to his knees, leaving no doubt about who
was the victor. Then Dominick took the defeated man’s hand and
clapped him on the shoulder and said something that left both of
them laughing. The other men-at-arms cheered their approval before
they broke up into smaller groups and began practicing with their
own broadswords.

“As you see,” Harulf said to Gina, “we all
learn from such demonstrations.”

“I do see,” Gina said. “Thank you for
stopping me before I made a complete fool of myself and embarrassed
Dominick.”

“It was a natural mistake for a gently bred
woman to make.” Harulf patted her shoulder and walked away to join
his friends.

Several buckets were lined up on a bench at
one side of the practice area. Dominick went to the bench, laid
down his sword, and dipped his hands into one of the buckets,
scooping up water to splash over his head and chest.

Gina followed him, pausing a couple of feet
away from the bench. As if he knew she was waiting, Dominick
turned. His hair was soaked, water streaming down his face and
neck, and his eyelashes were stuck together with moisture. Seeing
him look so oddly young, so boyish and vulnerable, totally
different from the determined male who had been working out with a
heavy broadsword, Gina felt a catch at her heart. She barely
resisted the impulse to brush his hair out of his eyes and offer to
dry his face and shoulders. She simply stood there, lips parted,
staring at him, her fingers itching to touch him, while he stared
back at her in tense silence for a long, breathless moment.

“You should not be here,” he said roughly,
breaking the spell between them. “The practice yard is no fit place
for a woman.”

She almost told him that, where she came
from, women went wherever they pleased. She thought better of it
just in time and instead offered a polite excuse.

“I was planning to take a walk in the
orchard,” she said, “until I heard the shouting and came to
investigate.”