Dooms Day Book

by Connie Willis

  At least she could do something about the cold. She could gather some wood and start a fire, and then if the footprint person came back with evil intentions, she could hold him off with a flaming brand. And if he had gone off for help and not been able to find his way back in the dark, the fire would lead him to her.

  She made the circuit of the glade again, looking for wood. Dunworthy had insisted she learn to build a fire without tinder or flint. “Gilchrist expects you to wander around the Middle Ages in the dead of winter without knowing how to build a fire?” he had said, outraged, and she had defended him, told him Mediaeval didn’t expect her to spend that much time out of doors. But they should have realized how cold it could get.

  The sticks made her hands cold, and every time she bent over to pick up a stick, her head hurt. Eventually she stopped bending over altogether and simply stooped and grabbed for the broken-off twigs, keeping her head straight. That helped a little, but not much. Maybe she was feeling this way because she was so cold. Maybe the headache, the breathlessness, were coming from being so cold. She had to get the fire started.

  The wood felt icy-cold and wet. It would never burn. And the leaves would be damp, too, far too damp to use for tinder. She had to have dry kindling and a sharp stick to start a fire. She laid the wood down in a little bundle by the roots of a tree, careful to keep her head straight, and went back to the wagon.

  The bashed-in side of the wagon had several broken pieces of wood she could use for kindling. She got two splinters in her hand before she managed to pull them free, but the wood at least felt dry, though it was cold, too. There was a large, sharp spur of wood just above the wheel. She bent over to grab it and nearly fell, gasping with the sudden nauseating dizziness.

  “You’d better lie down,” she said out loud.

  She eased herself to sitting, holding onto the ribs of the wagon for support. “Dr. Ahrens,” she said a little breathlessly, “you ought to come up with something to prevent time-lag. This is awful.”

  If she could just lie down for a bit, perhaps the dizziness would go away and she could build the fire. She couldn’t do it without bending over, though, and just the thought of doing that brought the nausea back.

  She pulled her hood up over her head and closed her eyes, and even that hurt, the action seeming to focus the pain in her head. Something was wrong. This could not possibly be a reaction to time-lag. She was supposed to have a few minor symptoms that would fade within an hour or two of her arrival, not get worse. A little headache, Dr. Ahrens had said, some fatigue. She hadn’t said anything about nausea, about being racked with cold.

  She was so cold. She pulled the skirts of her cloak around her like a blanket, but the action seemed to make her even colder. Her teeth began to chatter, the way they had up on the hill, and great, convulsive shudders shook her shoulders.

  I’m going to freeze to death, she thought. But it can’t be helped. I can’t get up and start the fire. I can’t. I’m too cold. It’s too bad you were wrong about the contemps, Mr. Dunworthy, she thought, and even the thought was dizzy. Being burned at the stake sounds lovely.

  She would not have believed that she could have fallen asleep, huddled there on the cold ground. She had not noticed any spreading warmth, and if she had she would have been afraid it was the creeping numbness of hypothermia and tried to fight it. But she must have slept because when she opened her eyes again it was night in the glade, full night with frosty stars in the net of branches overhead, and she was on the ground looking up at them.

  She had slid down as she slept, so that the top of her head was against the wheel. She was still shivering with cold, though her teeth had stopped chattering. Her head had begun to throb, tolling like a bell, and her whole body ached, especially her chest, where she had held the wood against her while she gathered sticks for the fire.

  Something’s wrong, she thought, and this time there was real panic in the thought. Maybe she was having some kind of allergic reaction to time travel. Was there even such a thing? Dunworthy had never said anything about an allergic reaction, and he had warned her about everything: rape and cholera and typhoid and the plague.

  She twisted her hand around inside the cloak and felt under her arm for the place where she had had the welt from the antiviral inoculation. The welt was still there, though it didn’t hurt to touch it, and it had stopped itching. Maybe that was a bad sign, she thought. Maybe the fact that it had stopped itching meant that it had stopped working.

  She tried to lift her head. The dizziness came back instantly. She lay her head back down and disentangled her hands from the cloak, carefully and slowly, the nausea cutting across every movement. She folded her hands and pressed them against her face. “Mr. Dunworthy,” she said. “I think you’d better come and get me.”

  She slept again, and when she woke up she could hear the faint, jangling sound of the piped-in Christmas music. Oh, good, she thought, they’ve got the net open, and tried to pull herself to sitting against the wheel.

  “Oh, Mr. Dunworthy, I’m so glad you came back,’ she said, fighting the nausea. “I was afraid you wouldn’t get my message.”

  The jangling sound became louder, and she could see a wavering light. She pulled herself up a little farther. “You got the fire started,” she said. “You were right about it’s getting cold.” The wagon’s wheel felt icy through her cloak. Her teeth started to chatter again. “Dr. Ahrens was right. I should have waited till the swelling went down. I didn’t know the reaction would be this bad.”

  It wasn’t a fire, after all. It was a lantern. Dunworthy was carrying it as he walked toward her.

  “This doesn’t mean I’m getting a virus, does it? Or the plague?” She was having trouble getting the words out, her teeth were chattering so hard. “Wouldn’t that be awful? Having the plague in the Middle Ages? At least I’d fit right in.”

  She laughed, a high-pitched, almost hysterical laugh that would probably frighten Mr. Dunworthy to death. “It’s all right,” she said, and she could hardly understand her own words. “I know you were worried, but I’ll be perfectly all right. I just—”

  He stopped in front of her, the lantern lighting a wobbling circle on the ground in front of her. She could see Dunworthy’s feet. He was wearing shapeless leather shoes, the kind that had made the footprint. She tried to say something about the shoes, to ask him whether Mr. Gilchrist had made him put on Authentic Mediaeval Dress just to come and fetch her, but the light’s movement was making her dizzy again.

  She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, he was kneeling in front of her. He had set the lantern down, and the light lit the hood of his cloak and folded hands.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I know you were worried, but I’m all right. Truly. I just felt a little ill.”

  He raised his head. “Certes, it been derlostuh dayesforgott foreto getest hissahntes im aller,” he said.

  He had a hard, lined face, a cruel face, a cutthroat’s face. He had watched her lying there and then he had gone away and waited for it to get dark, and now he had come back.

  Kivrin tried to put up a hand to fend him off, but her hands had got tangled somehow in the cloak. “Go away,” she said, her teeth chattering so hard she couldn’t get the words out. “Go away.”

  He said something else, with a rising inflection this time, a question. She couldn’t understand what he was saying. It’s Middle English, she thought. I studied it for three years, and Mr. Latimer taught me everything there is to know about adjectival inflection. I should be able to understand it. It’s the fever, she thought. That’s why I can’t make out what he’s saying.

  He repeated the question or asked some other question, she couldn’t even tell that much.

  It’s because I’m ill, she thought. I can’t understand him because I’m ill. “Kind sir,” she began, but she could not remember the rest of the speech. “Help me,” she said, and tried to think how to say that in Middle English, but she couldn’t remember any
thing but the Church Latin. “Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina,” she said.

  He bowed his head over his hands and began to murmur so low she could not hear, and then she must have lost consciousness again because he had picked her up and was carrying her. She could still hear the jangling sound of the bells from the open net, and she tried to tell what direction they were coming from, but her teeth were chattering so hard she couldn’t hear.

  “I’m ill,” she said as he set her on the white horse. She fell forward, clutching at the horse’s mane to keep from falling off. He put his hand up to her side and held her there. “I don’t know how this happened. I had all my inoculations.”

  He led the donkey off slowly. The bells on its bridle jingled tinnily.

  Transcript from the Doomsday Book

  (000740-000751)

  Mr. Dunworthy, I think you’d better come and get me.

  Chapter Seven

  “I knew it,” Mrs. Gaddson said, steaming down the corridor toward them. “He’s contracted some horrible disease, hasn’t he? It’s all that rowing.”

  Mary stepped forward. “You can’t come in here,” she said. “This is an isolation area.”

  Mrs. Gaddson kept coming. The transparent poncho she was wearing over her coat threw off large, spattering drops as she walked toward them, swinging the valise like a weapon. “You can’t put me off like that. I’m his mother. I demand to see him.”

  Mary put up her hand like a policeman. “Stop,” she said in her best ward sister voice.

  Amazingly, Mrs. Gaddson stopped. “A mother has a right to see her son,” she said. Her expression softened. “Is he very ill?”

  “If you mean your son William, he’s not ill at all,” Mary said, “at least so far as I know.” She put her hand up again. “Please don’t come any closer. Why do you think William’s ill?”

  “I knew it the minute I heard about the quarantine. A sharp pain went through me when the stationmaster said ‘temp quarantine.’” She set down the valise so she could indicate the location of the sharp pain. “It’s because he didn’t take his vitamins. I asked the college to be sure to give them to him,” she said, shooting a glance at Dunworthy that was the rival of any of Gilchrist’s, “and they said he was able to take care of himself. Well, obviously, they were wrong.”

  “William is not the reason the temp quarantine was called. One of the university techs has come down with a viral infection,” Mary said.

  Dunworthy noticed gratefully that she didn’t say “Balliol’s tech.”

  “The tech is the only case, and there is no indication that there will be any others. The quarantine is a purely precautionary measure, I assure you.”

  Mrs. Gaddson didn’t look convinced. “My Willy’s always been sickly, and he simply will not take care of himself. He studies far too hard in that drafty room of his,” she said with another dark look at Dunworthy. “I’m surprised he hasn’t come down with a viral infection before this.”

  Mary took her hand down and put it in the pocket she carried her bleeper in. I do hope she’s calling for help, Dunworthy thought.

  “By the end of one term at Balliol, Willy’s health was completely broken down, and then his tutor forced him to stay up over Christmas and read Petrarch,” Mrs. Gaddson said. That’s why I came up. The thought of him all alone in this horrid place for Christmas, eating heaven knows what and doing all sorts of things to endanger his health, was something this mother’s heart could simply not bear.”

  She pointed to the place where the pain had gone through her at the words “temp quarantine.” “And it is positively providential that I came when I did. Positively providential. I nearly missed the train, my valise was so cumbersome, and I almost thought, ‘Ah, well, there’ll be another along,’ but I wanted to get to my Willy, so I shouted at them to hold the doors, and I hadn’t so much as stepped off at Cornmarket when the stationmaster said, ‘Temp quarantine. Train service is temporarily suspended.’ Only just think, if I’d missed that train and taken the next one, I would have been stopped by the quarantine.”

  Only just think. “I’m sure William will be surprised to see you,” Dunworthy said, hoping she would go find him.

  “Yes,” she said grimly. “He’s probably sitting there without even his muffler on. He’ll get this viral infection, I know it. He gets everything. He used to break out in horrible rashes when he was little. He’s bound to come down with it. At least his mother is here to nurse him through it.”

  The door was flung open and two people wearing masks, gowns, gloves, and some sort of paper covering over their shoes, came racing through it. They slowed to a walk when they saw there was no one collapsed on the floor.

  “I need this area cordoned off and an isolation ward sign posted,” Mary said. She turned to Mrs. Gaddson. “I’m afraid there’s a possibility you’ve been exposed to the virus. We do not have a positive mode of transmission yet, and we can’t rule out the possibility of its being airborne,” she said, and for one horrible moment Dunworthy thought she meant to put Mrs. Gaddson in the waiting room with them.

  “Would you escort Mrs. Gaddson to an isolation cubicle?” she asked one of the masked-and-gowneds. “We’ll need to run blood tests and get a list of your contacts. Mr. Dunworthy, if you’ll just come with me,” she said and led him into the waiting room and shut the door before Mrs. Gaddson could protest. “They can keep her awhile and give poor Willy a few last hours of freedom.”

  “That woman would make anyone break out in a rash,” he said.

  Everyone except the medic had looked up at their entrance. Latimer was sitting patiently by the tray, his sleeve rolled up. Montoya was still using the phone.

  “Colin’s train was turned back,” Mary said. “He’s safely at home by now.”

  “Oh, good,” Montoya said and put the phone down. Gilchrist leaped for it.

  “Mr. Latimer, I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” Mary said. She broke open a pair of imperm gloves, put them on, and began assembling a punch.

  “Gilchrist here. I wish to speak with the Senior Tutor,” Gilchrist said into the telephone. “Yes. I’m trying to reach Mr. Basingame. Yes, I’ll wait.”

  The Senior Tutor has no idea where he is, Dunworthy thought, and neither has the bursar. He’d already spoken to them when he was trying to stop the drop. The bursar hadn’t even known he was in Scotland.

  “I’m glad they found the kid,” Montoya said, looking at her digital. “How long do you think they’ll keep us here? I’ve got to get back to my dig before it turns into a swamp. We’re excavating Skendgate’s churchyard right now. Most of the graves date from the 1400’s, but we’ve got some Black Deaths and a few pre-William the Conquerors. Last week we found a knight’s tomb. Beautiful condition. I wonder if Kivrin’s there yet?”

  Dunworthy assumed she meant at the village and not in one of the graves. “I hope so,” he said.

  “I told her to start recording her observations of Skendgate immediately, the village and the church. Especially the tomb. The inscription’s partly warn off, and some of the carving. The date’s readable, though. 1318.”

  “It’s an emergency,” Gilchrist said. He fumed through a long pause. “I know he’s fishing in Scotland. I want to know where.”

  Mary put a plaster on Latimer’s arm and motioned to Gilchrist. He shook his head at her. She went over to the medic and shook her awake. She followed her over to the tray, blinking sleepily.

  “There are so many things only direct observation can tell us,” Montoya said. “I told Kivrin to record every detail. I hope there’s room on the corder. It’s so small.” She looked at her watch again. “Of course it had to be. Did you get a chance to see it before they implanted it? It really does look like a bone spur.”

  “Bone spur?” Dunworthy said, watching the medic’s blood spurt into the vial.

  “That’s so it can’t cause an anachronism even if it’s discovered. It fits right against the palmar surface of the scaphoid bone.” She rubbed the
wrist bone above the thumb.

  Mary motioned to Dunworthy, and the medic stood up, rolling down her sleeve. Dunworthy took her place in the chair. Mary peeled the back from a monitor, stuck it to the inside of Dunworthy’s wrist, and handed him a temp to swallow.

  “Have the bursar call me at this number as soon as he returns,” Gilchrist said, and hung up.

  Montoya snatched up the phone, punched in a number and said, “Hi. Can you tell me the quarantine perimeters? I need to know if Witney’s inside it? My dig’s there.” Whoever she was talking to apparently told her no. “Then who can I talk to about getting the perimeters changed? It’s an emergency.”

  They’re worried about their “emergencies,” Dunworthy thought, and neither of them’s even given a thought to worrying about Kivrin. Well, what was there to worry about? Her corder had been disguised to look like a bone spur so it wouldn’t cause an anachronism when the contemps decided to chop off her hands before they burned her at the stake.

  Mary took his blood pressure and then jabbed him with the punch. “If the phone ever becomes available,” she said, slapping on the plaster and motioning to Gilchrist, who was standing next to Montoya, looking impatient. “You might ring up William Gaddson and warn him that his mother’s coming.”

  Montoya said, “Yes. The number for the National Trust,” hung up the phone, and scribbled a number on one of the brochures.

  The phone trilled. Gilchrist, halfway to Mary, launched himself at it, grabbing it up before Montoya could reach it. “No,” he said and handed it grudgingly over to Dunworthy.

  It was Finch. He was in the bursar’s office “Have you got Badri’s medical records?” Dunworthy said.

  “Yes,sir. The police are here, sir. They’re looking for places to put all the detainees who don’t live in Oxford.”