Dooms Day Book

by Connie Willis

  The bell in the southwest is Swindone. Agnes can name all the bells by the sound of their ringing. The distant one that always rings first is the Osney bell, the forerunner of Great Tom. The double bells are at Courcy, where Sir Bloet lives, and the two closest are Witenie and Esthcote. That means I’m close to Skendgate. It has the ash trees, it’s about the right size, and the church is in the right place. The dig’s church didn’t have a bell tower, but Ms. Montoya may simply not have found it yet. Unfortunately, the name of the village is the one thing Agnes hasn’t known.

  She did know where Gawyn was. She told me he was out hunting my attackers, “And when he finds them, he will slay them with his sword. Like that,” she said, demonstrating with Blackie. I’m not certain the things she tells me can always be depended upon. She told me King Edward is in France, and that Father Roche saw the devil, dressed all in black and riding on a black stallion.

  This last is possible. (That Father Roche told her that, not that he saw the devil.) The line between the spiritual world and the physical wasn’t clearly drawn until the Renaissance, and the contemps routinely saw visions of angels, the Last Judgment, the Virgin Mary.

  Lady Imeyne complains constantly about how ignorant and illiterate and incompetent Father Roche is. She is still trying to convince Eliwys to send Gawyn to Osney to fetch a monk. When I asked her if she would send for him so he could pray with me (I decided that request couldn’t possibly be considered “over– bold”), she gave me a half-hour recital of how he had forgotten part of the Venite, had blown the candles out instead of pinching them so that “much wax is wasted,” and filled the servants’ heads with superstitious prate (no doubt of the devil and his horse).

  Village-level priests in the 1300’s were merely peasants who’d been taught the mass by rote and a smattering of Latin. Everyone smells about the same to me, but the nobility viewed their serfs as a different species altogether, and I’m sure it offends Imeyne’s aristocratic soul to have to tell her confession to this “villein!”

  He’s no doubt as superstitious and illiterate as she claims. But he’s not incompetent. He held my hand when I was dying. He told me not to be afraid. And I wasn’t.

  (Break)

  I’m feeling better by leaps and bounds. This afternoon I sat up for half an hour, and tonight I went downstairs for supper. Lady Eliwys brought me a brown wadmal kirtle and mustard-colored surcote to wear, and a sort of kerchief to cover my chopped-off hair (not a wimple and coif, so Eliwys must still think I’m a maiden, in spite of all Imeyne’s talk about “daltrisses”) I don’t know if my clothes were inappropriate or simply too nice to be worn for everyday, Eliwys didn’t say anything. She and Imeyne helped me dress. I wanted to ask if I could wash before I put my new clothes on, but I’m afraid of doing anything that will make Imeyne more suspicious.

  She watched me fasten my points and tie my shoes as it was, and kept a sharp eye on me all through dinner. I sat between the girls and shared a trencher with them. The steward was relegated to the very end of the table, and Maisry was nowhere to be seen. According to Mr. Latimer, the parish priest ate at the lord’s table, but Lady Imeyne probably doesn’t like Father Roche’s table manners either.

  We had meat, I think venison, and bread. The venison tasted of cinnamon, salt and lack of refrigeration and the bread was stone-hard, but it was better than porridge, and I don’t think I made any mistakes in table manners.

  Though I’m certain I must be making mistakes all the time, and that’s why Lady Imeyne is so suspicious of me. My clothes, my hands, probably my sentence structure, is slightly (or not so slightly) off, and it all combines to make me seem foreign, peculiar—suspicious.

  Lady Eliwys is too worried over her husband’s trial to notice my mistakes, and the girls are too young. But Lady Imeyne notices everything and is probably making a list like the one she has for Father Roche. Thank goodness I didn’t tell her I was Isabel de Beauvrier. She’d have ridden to Yorkshire, winter or no, to catch me out.

  Gawyn came in after dinner. Maisry, who’d finally slunk in with a scarlet ear and a wooden bowl of ale, dragged the benches over to the hearth and put several logs of fat pine on the fire, and the women were sewing by its yellow light.

  Gawyn stopped in front of the screens, obviously just in from a hard ride, and for a minute no one noticed him. Rosemund was brooding over her embroidery. Agnes was pushing her cart back and forth with the wooden knight in it, and Eliwys was talking earnestly to Imeyne about the cottar, who apparently isn’t doing very well. The smoke from the fire was making my chest hurt, and I turned my head away from it, trying to keep from coughing, and saw him standing there, looking at Eliwys.

  After a moment, Agnes ran her cart into Imeyne’s foot, and Imeyne told her she was the devil’s own child, and Gawyn came on into the hall. I lowered my eyes and prayed he would speak to me.

  He did, bowing on one knee in front of where I sat on the bench. “Good lady,” he said. “I am glad to see you improved.”

  I had no idea what, if anything, was appropriate to say. I ducked my head lower.

  He remained on one knee, like a servitor. “I was told you remember naught of your attackers, Lady Katherine. Is it so?”

  “Yes,” I murmured.

  “Nor of your servants, where they might have fled?”

  I shook my head, eyes still downcast.

  He turned toward Eliwys. “I have news of the renegades, Lady Eliwys. I have found their trail. There were many of them, and they had horses.”

  I’d been afraid he was going to say he’d caught some poor wood-gathering peasant and hanged him.

  “I beg your leave to pursue them and avenge the lady,” he said, looking at Eliwys.

  Eliwys looked uneasy, wary, the way she had when he came before. “My husband bade us keep to this place till he comes,” she said, “and he bade you stay with us to guard us. Nay.”

  “You have not supped,” Lady Imeyne said in a tone that closed the matter.

  Gawyn stood up.

  “I thank you for your kindness, sir,” I said rapidly. “I know it was you who found me in the woods.” I took a breath, and coughed. “I beg you, will you tell me of the place you found me, where it is?” I had tried to say too much too fast. I began to cough, gasped too deep a breath, and doubled over with the pain.

  By the time I got the coughing under control, Imeyne had set meat and cheese on the table for Gawyn, and Eliwys had gone back to her sewing, so I still don’t know anything.

  No, that’s not true. I know why Eliwys looked so wary when he came in and why he made up a tale about a band of renegades. And what that conversation about “daltrisses” was all about.

  I watched him standing there in the doorway looking at Eliwys, and I didn’t need an interpreter to read his face. He’s obviously in love with his lord’s wife.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dunworthy slept straight through till morning.

  “Your secretary wanted to wake you up, but I wouldn’t let him,” Colin said. “He said to give you these.” He thrust a messy sheaf of papers at him.

  “What time is it?” Dunworthy said, sitting up stiffly in bed.

  “Half past eight,” Colin said. “All the bellringers and DT’s are in hall eating breakfast. Oatmeal.” He made a gagging sound. “It was absolutely necrotic. Your secretary chap says we need to ration the eggs and bacon because of the quarantine.”

  “Half past eight in the morning?” Dunworthy asked, blinking nearsightedly at the window. It was as dark and dismal as when he’d fallen asleep. “Good Lord, I was supposed to have gone back to hospital to question Badri.”

  “I know,” Colin said. “Great-Aunt Mary said to let you sleep, that you couldn’t question him anyway because they’re running tests.”

  “She rang up?” Dunworthy asked, groping blindly for his spectacles on the bedstand.

  “I went over this morning. To have my blood tested. Great– aunt Mary said to tell you we only need to come once a day
for our blood tests.”

  He hooked his spectacles over his ears and looked at Colin. “Did she say whether they’d identified the virus?”

  “Huh-unh,” Colin said around a lump in his cheek. Dunworthy wondered if the gobstopper had been in his mouth all night, and if so why it hadn’t diminished in size. “She sent you the contacts charts.” He handed the papers to him. “The lady we saw at the infirmary rang up, too. The one on the bicycle.”

  “Montoya?”

  “Yes. She wanted to know if you knew how to get in touch with Mr. Basingame’s wife. I told her you’d ring her back. When does the post come, do you know?”

  “The post?” Dunworthy said, looking through the stack.

  “Mum didn’t have my presents bought in time to send them on the tube with me,” Colin said. “She said she’d send them by post. You don’t think the quarantine will delay it, do you?”

  Some of the papers Colin had handed him were stuck together, no doubt because of Colin’s periodic examinations of his gobstopper, and most of them seemed to be, not the contact charts, but assorted memoranda from Finch: One of the heating vents in Salvin was stuck shut. The National Health Service ordered all inhabitants of Oxford and environs to avoid contact with infected persons. Mrs. Basingame was in Torquay for Christmas. They were running very low on lavatory paper.

  “You don’t, do you? Think it will delay it?” Colin asked.

  “Delay what?” Dunworthy said.

  “The post!” Colin said disgustedly. “The quarantine won’t delay it, will it? What time is it supposed to come?”

  “Ten,” Dunworthy said. He sorted all the memoranda into one pile and opened a large manila envelope. “It’s usually a bit late at Christmas because of all the parcels and Christmas cards.

  The stapled sheets in the envelope weren’t the contact charts either. They were William Gaddson’s report on Badri’s and Kivrin’s whereabouts, neatly typed and organized into the morning, afternoon, and evening of each day. It looked far neater than any essay he’d ever handed in. Amazing what a salutory influence a mother could have.

  “I don’t see why it should be,” Colin said. “I mean, it’s not as if it’s people, is it, so it can’t be contagious? Where does it come, to the hall?”

  “What?”

  “The post.”

  “Porter’s lodge,” Dunworthy said, reading the report on Badri. He had gone back to the net Tuesday afternoon after he was at Balliol. Finch had spoken to him at two o’clock, when he had asked where Mr. Dunworthy was, and again at a little before three, when Badri had given him the note. At some time between two and three, John Yi, a third-year student, had seen him cross the quad to the laboratory, apparently looking for someone.

  At three the porter at Brasenose had logged Badri in. He had worked in the net until half-past seven and then gone back to his flat and dressed for the dance.

  Dunworthy phoned Latimer. “When you were at the net Tuesday afternoon?”

  He blinked bewilderedly at Dunworthy from the screen. “Tuesday?” he said, looking around as if he had mislaid something. “Was that yesterday?”

  “The day before the drop,” Dunworthy said. “You went to the Boleian in the afternoon.”

  He nodded. “She wanted to know how to say, ‘Help me for I have been set upon by thieves.’”

  Dunworthy assumed by “she” he meant Kivrin. “Did Kivrin meet you at the Bodleian or at Brasenose?”

  He put his hand to his chin, pondering. “We had to work until late in the evening deciding on the form of the pronouns,” he said. “The decay of pronomial inflections was advanced in the 1300’s but not complete.”

  “Did Kivrin come to the net to meet you?”

  “The net?” Latimer said doubtfully.

  “To the laboratory at Brasenose,” Dunworthy snapped.

  “Brasenose? The Christmas Eve service isn’t at Brasenose, is it?”

  “The Christmas Eve service?”

  “The vicar said he wished me to read the benediction,” Latimer said. “Is it being held at Brasenose?”

  “No. You met with Kivrin Tuesday afternoon to work on her speech. Where did you meet her?”

  “The word ‘thieves’ was very difficult to translate. It derives from the Old English theof, and is—”

  This was useless. “The Christmas Eve service is at St. Mary the Virgin’s at seven,” he said and rang off.

  He phoned the porter at Brasenose, who was still decorating his tree, and made him look up Kivrin in his log book. She hadn’t been there Tuesday afternoon.

  He fed the contacts charts into the console and entered the additions from William’s report. Kivrin hadn’t seen Badri Tuesday. Tuesday morning she had been in Infirmary and then with Dunworthy. Tuesday afternoon she’d been with Latimer and Badri would have been gone to the dance in Headington before they left the Bodleian. Monday from three on she was in Infirmary, but there was still a gap between twelve and half-past two on Monday.

  He scanned the contacts sheets they had filled out again. Montoya’s was only a few lines long. She had filled in her contacts for Wednesday morning, but none for Monday and Tuesday, and she hadn’t listed any information on Badri. He wondered why, and then remembered she had come in after Mary gave the instructions for filling up the forms.

  Perhaps Montoya had seen Badri before Wednesday morning, or knew where he’d spent the gap between noon and half-past two on Monday.

  “When Ms. Montoya phoned, did she tell you her telephone number?” he asked Colin. There was no answer. He looked up. “Colin?”

  He wasn’t in the room, nor in the sitting room, though his duffel was, its contents spread all over the carpet.

  Dunworthy looked up Montoya’s number at Brasenose and rang it up, not expecting any answer. If she was still looking for Basingame, that meant she hadn’t gotten permission to go out to the dig and was doubtless at the NHS or the National Trust, badgering them to have it declared “of irreplaceable value.”

  He dressed and went across to the hall, looking for Colin. It was still raining, the sky the same sodden gray as the paving stones and the bark on the beech trees. He hoped that the bellringers and detainees had breakfasted early and gone back to their assigned rooms, but it was a fond hope. He could hear the high hubbub of female voices before he was halfway across the quad.

  “Thank goodness you’re up, sir,” Finch said, meeting him at the door. “The NHS just phoned. They want us to take twenty more detainees.”

  “Tell them we can’t,” Dunworthy said, looking through the crowd. “We’re under orders to avoid contact with infected persons. Have you seen Dr. Ahrens’ nephew?”

  “He was just here,” Finch said, peering over the heads of the women, but Dunworthy had already spotted him. He was standing at the end of the table where the bellringers were sitting, buttering several pieces of toast.

  Dunworthy made his way to him. “When Ms. Montoya telephoned, did she tell you where she might be reached?”

  “The one with the bicycle?” Colin said, smearing marmalade on the buttered toast.

  “Yes.”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “Will you have breakfast, sir?” Finch said. “I’m afraid there aren’t any bacon and eggs, and we’re getting very low on marmalade,” he glared at Colin, “but there’s oatmeal and—”

  “Just tea,” Dunworthy said. “She didn’t mention where she was phoning from?”

  “Do sit down,” Ms. Taylor said. “I’ve been wanting to speak to you about our Chicago Surprise.”

  “What exactly did Ms. Montoya say?” Dunworthy said to Colin.

  “That nobody cared that her dig was being ruined and an invaluable link with the past was being lost, and what sort of person went fishing in the middle of winter anyway,” Colin said, scraping marmalade off the sides of the bowl.

  “We’re nearly out of tea,” Finch said, pouring Dunworthy a very pale cup.

  Dunworthy sat down. “Would you like some cocoa, Coli
n? Or a glass of milk?” Dunworthy asked.

  “We’re nearly out of milk,” Finch said.

  “I don’t need anything, thanks,” Colin said, slapping the slices of toast jam sides together, “I’m just going to take these with me out to the gate so I can wait for the post.”

  “The vicar telephoned,” Finch said. “He said to tell you you needn’t be there to go over the order of worship until half– past six.”

  “Are they still holding the Christmas Eve service?” Dunworthy said. “I shouldn’t think anyone would come under the circumstances.”

  “He said the Ecumenical Committee had voted to hold it regardless,” Finch said, pouring a quarter-teaspoon of milk in the pallid tea and handing it to him. “He said they felt carrying on as usual will help keep up morale.”

  “We’re going to perform several pieces on the handbells,” Ms. Taylor said. “It’s hardly a substitute for a peal, of course, but it’s something. The priest from Holy Re-Formed is going to read from the Mass in Time of Pestilence.”

  “Ah,” Dunworthy said. “That should help in keeping up morale.”

  “Do I have to go?” Colin said.

  “He has no business going out in this weather,” Mrs. Gaddson said, appearing like a harpy with a large bowl of gray oatmeal. She set it in front of Colin. “And no business being exposed to germs in a drafty church. He can stay here with me during the church service.” She pushed a chair up behind him. “Sit down and eat your oatmeal.”

  Colin looked beseechingly at Dunworthy.

  “Colin, I left Ms. Montoya’s telephone number in my rooms,” Dunworthy said. “Would you fetch it for me?”

  “Yes!” Colin said, and was out of his chair like a shot.

  “When that child comes down with the Indian flu,” Mrs. Gaddson said, “I hope you will remember that you were the one who encouraged him in his poor eating habits. It is clear to me what led to this epidemic. Poor nutrition and a complete lack of discipline. It’s disgraceful, the way this college is run. I asked to be put in with my son William, but instead I’ve been assigned a room in another building altogether, and—”