Love Beyond Time Read Online Free PDF Page B

nights. You, sir, are about to
begin your schooling.”
    The blue eyes stared into hers with such
intensity that Danise had to look away or lose her ability to
reason. Reaching across his narrow bed, she touched the rough wool
fabric of the tent wall.
    “Tent,” she said, indicating the entire
structure with an expressive wave of her hand. “Tent.”
    He continued to stare at her.
    “Say it!” she demanded, and made the gesture
again. “Tent. Tent .”
    “Tent.” There was a change in his expression,
a stirring of interest, a glimmer of hope.
    “Good. Tent,” she repeated. She slapped a
hand against the side of his cot. “Bed. Bed.”
    “Bed.” His hand moved toward hers, but she
had already picked up a corner of the coverlet.
    “Quilt,” she said.
    “Quilt.” He was smiling at her. Danise caught
her breath. Most of the swelling in his face had subsided, but the
bruises remained. Over the past three days they had slowly turned
from blue and purple to gray and yellow. She suspected that even at
his best this man was no handsome young warrior, yet there was
something compelling about him, a strength and intelligence she had
seldom encountered before.
    “Face.” She touched her cheeks. When he
repeated the word she went on to name nose, eyes, ears, hands, and
as many other body parts as she decently could, until he caught her
hands, stopping her excited flow of words.
    “Speak – to – me,” he said very carefully.
“Make – sentences.” That last word was spoken in a foreign tongue,
but she understood what he meant.
    “You have been listening to us,” she cried.
“These past days, you have been soaking up our words as cloth soaks
up moisture. You know more than I realized, perhaps more than you realize.”
    “I – speak – easily,” he said. “I learn –
learn languages – quickly.”
    “Indeed you do. I am so happy for you. Now
you need not be so isolated. You can talk to my father and to
Guntram.”
    “And – to – you.” Still he spoke slowly,
feeling his way through the Frankish language. “If we talk more, I
learn – will learn – more fast. No – I will learn faster .”
    “Then we will talk until you are tired. Tell
me how you came to be in the forest?”
    “Forest?” He frowned. “Trees. I was falling.
Tried to stop – to catch branches.”
    “That is why your face and hands were
scratched,” Danise told him. “But what were you doing in the
tree?”
    He released her hands. Danise watched him
grow perfectly still, as if he were listening to a voice inside his
own mind.
    “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I can’t
remember. Just the trees, and falling.”
    “The physician says your memory will come
back to you as you recover,” she assured him. “Since he is the
royal physician, he must be right.”
    “Royal? What king are we talking about? Where
am I, anyway?”
    “You did not say that last sentence
correctly,” she informed him, after a pause while she interpreted
his words to herself.
    “To hell with grammar,” he said. “Where
ami?”
    “At Duren, in Francia. It is the
Mayfield.”
    If he had been still before, now he was like
a statue. Danise waited to hear what his next question would
be.
    “Francia,” he repeated. “Land of the Franks.
Who is this king who keeps a physician?”
    “He doesn’t really need one, though
Hildegarde too often does. Our king is Charles.”
    “What year is this?”
    “Ah, you are truly lost, aren’t you? I am so
sorry.”
    “Just answer my question.”
    “It is spring in the Year of Our Lord
779.”
    “Oh, my God!” He sat up so suddenly that
Danise feared he would faint. Swinging bare legs over the edge of
his bed, he sat with his head in his hands. Guntram had found a
linen shirt for him, which covered him to his thighs, but still
Danise averted her gaze. However, she did not move from the stool
where she had been sitting throughout their conversation.
    “What am I doing here?” he asked. The
question