The Doomsday Book

by Connie Willis

  “What’s the use of ringing it when there’s no one to hear it?” Colin said, stopping to switch off his torch and then running to catch up again.

  Dunworthy went in the tower. It was as dark and cold as the church and smelled of rats. The cow poked its head in, and Colin squeezed past it and stood against the curving wall.

  “You’re the one who keeps saying we have to get back to the drop, that it’s going to close and leave us here,” Colin said. “You’re the one who said we didn’t have time even to find Kivrin.”

  Dunworthy stood there a moment, letting his eyes adjust and trying to catch his breath. He had walked too fast, and the tightness in his chest was back. He looked up at the rope. It hung above their heads in the darkness, a greasy-looking knot a foot from the frayed end.

  “Can I ring it?” Colin said, staring up at it.

  “You’re too small,” Dunworthy said.

  “I’m not,” he said and jumped up at the rope. He caught the end, below the knot, and hung on for several moments before dropping, but the rope scarcely moved, and the bell only clanged faintly and out of tune, as if someone had hit the side of it with a rock. “It’s heavy,” he said.

  Dunworthy raised his arms and took hold of the rough rope. It was cold and bristly. He yanked sharply down, not sure he could do any better than Colin, and the rope cut into his hands. Bong.

  “It’s loud!” Colin said, clapping his hands over his ears and gazing delightedly up at it.

  “One,” Dunworthy said. One and up. Remembering the Americans, he bent his knees and pulled straight down on the rope. Two. And up. And three.

  He wondered how Kivrin had been able to ring any strokes at all with her hurt ribs. The bell was far heavier, far louder than he had imagined, and it seemed to reverberate in his head, his tightening chest. Bong.

  He thought of Ms. Piantini, bending her chubby knees and counting to herself. Five. He had not appreciated what difficult work it was. Each pull seemed to yank the breath out of his lungs. Six.

  He wanted to stop and rest, but he didn’t want Kivrin, listening inside the church, to think he had quit, that he had only intended to finish the strokes she had begun. He tightened his grip above the knot and leaned against the stone wall for a moment, trying to ease the tightness in his chest.

  “Are you all right, Mr. Dunworthy?” Colin said.

  “Yes,” he said, and pulled down so hard it seemed to tear his lungs open. Seven.

  He should not have leaned against the wall. The stones were cold as ice. They had set him shivering again. He thought of Ms. Taylor, trying to finish the Chicago Surprise Minor, counting how many strokes were left, trying not to give in to the pounding in her head.

  “I can finish it,” Colin said, and Dunworthy could scarcely hear him. “I can go get Kivrin, and we can do the last two strokes. We can both pull on it.”

  Dunworthy shook his head. “Every man must stick to his bell,” he said breathlessly and yanked down on the rope. Eight. He must not let go of the rope. Ms. Taylor had fainted and let it go, and the bell had swung right over, the rope whipping like a live thing. It had wrapped itself around Finch’s neck and nearly strangled him. He must hold to it, in spite of everything.

  He pulled down on the rope and hung on to it till he was certain he could stand and then let it rise. “Nine,” he said.

  Colin was frowning at him. “You’re having a relapse, aren’t you?” he said suspiciously.

  “No,” Dunworthy said, and let go of the rope.

  The cow had its head in the door. He pushed it roughly aside and walked back to the church and went inside.

  Kivrin was still kneeling beside Roche, her hand still holding his stiff one.

  He stopped in front of her. “I rang the bell,” he said.

  She looked up without nodding.

  “Don’t you think we’d better go now?” Colin said. “It’s getting dark.”

  “Yes,” Dunworthy said. “I think we’d best—” The dizziness caught him completely unawares, and he staggered and nearly fell into Roche’s body.

  Kivrin put out her hand, and Colin dived for him, the torch flashing erratically across the ceiling as he grabbed Dunworthy’s arm. He caught himself on one knee and the flat of his hand and reached out with the other for Kivrin, but she was on her feet and backing away.

  “You’re ill!” It was an accusation, an indictment. “You’ve caught the plague, haven’t you?” she said, her voice showing emotion for the first time. “Haven’t you?”

  “No,” Dunworthy said, “it’s—”

  “He’s having a relapse,” Colin said, sticking the torch in the crook of the statue’s arm so he could help Dunworthy to a sitting position. “He didn’t pay any attention to my placards.”

  “It’s a virus,” Dunworthy said, sitting down with his back to the statue. “It’s not the plague. Both of us have had streptomycin and gamma globulin. We can’t get the plague.”

  He leaned his head back against the statue. “It’s a virus. I’ll be all right. I only need to rest a moment.”

  “I told him he shouldn’t have rung the bell,” Colin said, emptying the burlap sack onto the stone floor. He wrapped the empty sack around Dunworthy’s shoulders.

  “Are there any aspirin left?” Dunworthy asked.

  “You’re only supposed to take them every three hours,” Colin said, “and you’re not supposed to take them without water.”

  “Then fetch me some water,” he snapped.

  Colin looked to Kivrin for support, but she was still standing on the other side of Roche’s body, watching Dunworthy warily.

  “Now,” Dunworthy said, and Colin ran out, his boots echoing on the stone floor. Dunworthy looked across at Kivrin, and she took a step back.

  “It isn’t the plague,” he said. “It’s a virus. We were afraid you had been exposed to it before you came through and had come down with it. Did you?”

  “Yes,” she said, and knelt beside Roche. “He saved my life.”

  She smoothed the purple blanket, and Dunworthy realized it was a velvet cloak. It had a large silk cross sewn in the center of it.

  “He told me not to be afraid,” she said. She pulled the cloak up over his chest, under his crossed hands, but the action left his feet, in thick, incongruous sandals, uncovered. Dunworthy took the burlap bag from around his shoulders and spread it gently over the feet, and then stood up, carefully, holding on to the statue so he wouldn’t fall again.

  Kivrin patted Roche’s hands. “He didn’t mean to hurt me,” she said.

  Colin came back in with a bucket half-full of water he must have found in a puddle. He was breathing hard. “The cow attacked me!” he said, scooping a filthy dipper out of the bucket. He emptied the aspirin into Dunworthy’s hand. There were five tablets.

  Dunworthy took two of them, swallowing as little of the water as he could, and handed the others to Kivrin. She took them from him solemnly, still kneeling on the floor.

  “I couldn’t find any horses,” Colin said, handing Kivrin the dipper. “Just a mule.”

  “Donkey,” Kivrin said. “Maisry stole Agnes’s pony.” She gave Colin the dipper and took hold of Roche’s hand again. “He rang the bell for everyone, so their souls could go safely to heaven.”

  “Don’t you think we’d better be going?” Colin whispered. “It’s almost dark out.”

  “Even Rosemund,” Kivrin said as if she hadn’t heard. “He was already ill. I told him there wasn’t time, that we had to leave for Scotland.”

  “We must go now,” Dunworthy said, “before the light fails.”

  She didn’t move or let go of Roche’s hand. “He held my hand when I was dying.”

  “Kivrin,” he said gently.

  She laid her hand on Roche’s cheek, looked at him a long moment, and then got to her knees. Dunworthy offered her his hand, but she stood up by herself, her hand pressed to her side, and walked down the nave.

  At the door she turned and looked back into the
darkness. “He told me where the drop was when he was dying, so I could go back to heaven. He told me he wanted me to leave him there and go, so that when he came I would already be there,” she said, and went out into the snow.

  36

  The snow fell silently, peacefully on the stallion and the donkey waiting by the lychgate. Dunworthy helped Kivrin onto the stallion, and she did not flinch away from his touch as he had been afraid she would, but as soon as she was up, she leaned away from his grasp and took hold of the reins. As soon as he removed his hands, she slumped back against the saddle, her hand against her side.

  Dunworthy was shivering now, clenching his teeth against it so Colin wouldn’t see. It took three tries to get him onto the donkey, and he thought he might slip off at any minute.

  “I think I’d better lead your mule,” Colin said, looking disapprovingly at him.

  “There isn’t time,” Dunworthy said. “It’s getting dark. You ride behind Kivrin.”

  Colin led the stallion over to the lychgate, climbed up on the lintel, and scrambled up behind Kivrin.

  “Do you have the locator?” Dunworthy said, trying to kick the donkey without falling off.

  “I know the way,” Kivrin said.

  “Yes,” Colin said. He held it up. “And the pocket torch.” He flicked it on, and then shone it all around the churchyard, as if looking for something they might have left behind. He seemed to notice the graves for the first time.

  “Is that where you buried everybody?” he said, holding the light steady on the smooth white mounds.

  “Yes,” Kivrin said.

  “Did they die a long time ago?”

  She turned the stallion and started it up the hill. “No,” she said.

  The cow followed them partway up the hill, its swollen udders swinging, and then stopped and began lowing pitifully. Dunworthy looked back at it. It mooed uncertainly at him, and then ambled back down the road toward the village. They were nearly to the top of the hill, and the snow was letting up, but below, in the village, it was still snowing hard. The graves were covered completely, and the church was obscured, the bell tower scarcely visible at all.

  Kivrin did not so much as glance back. She rode steadily forward, sitting very straight, with Colin on behind her, holding not to Kivrin’s waist but to the high back of the saddle. The snow came down fitfully, and then in single flakes, and by the time they were in thick woods again, it had nearly stopped.

  Dunworthy followed the horse, trying to keep up with its steady gait, trying not to give way to the fever. The aspirin was not working—he had taken it with too little water—and he could feel the fever beginning to overtake him, beginning to shut out the woods and the donkey’s bony back and Colin’s voice.

  He was talking cheerfully to Kivrin, telling her about the epidemic, and the way he told it, it sounded like an adventure. “They said there was a quarantine and we’d have to go back to London, but I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to see Great-aunt Mary. So I sneaked through the barrier, and the guard saw me and said, ‘You there! Stop!’ and started to chase me, and I ran down the street and into this alley.”

  They stopped, and Colin and Kivrin dismounted. Colin took off his muffler, and she pulled up her blood-stiff smock and tied it around her ribs. Dunworthy knew the pain must be even worse than he’d thought, that he should try at least to help her, but he was afraid that if he got down off the donkey, he would not be able to get back on.

  Kivrin and Colin mounted again, she helping him up, and they set off again, slowing at every turning and side path to check their direction, Colin hunching over the locator’s screen and pointing, Kivrin nodding in confirmation.

  “This was where I fell off the donkey,” Kivrin said when they stopped at a fork. “ That first night. I was so sick. I thought he was a cutthroat.”

  They came to another fork. It had stopped snowing, but the clouds above the trees were dark and heavy. Colin had to shine his torch on the locator to read it. He pointed down the right-hand path, and got on behind Kivrin again, telling her his adventures.

  “Mr. Dunworthy said, ‘You’ve lost the fix,’ and then he went straight over into Mr. Gilchrist and they both fell down,” Colin said. “Mr. Gilchrist was acting like he’d done it on purpose, he wouldn’t even help me cover him up. He was shivering like blood, and he had a fever, and I kept shouting, ‘Mr. Dunworthy! Mr. Dunworthy!’ but he couldn’t hear me. And Mr. Gilchrist kept saying, ‘I’m holding you personally responsible.’ ”

  It began to spit snow again, and the wind picked up. Dunworthy clung to the donkey’s stiff mane, shivering.

  “They wouldn’t tell me anything” Colin was saying, “and when I tried to get in to see Great-aunt Mary, they said, ‘We don’t allow children.’ ”

  They were riding into the wind, the snow blowing against Dunworthy’s cloak in freezing gusts. He leaned forward till he was nearly lying on the donkey’s neck.

  “The doctor came out,” Colin said, “and he started whispering to this nurse, and I knew she was dead,” and Dunworthy felt a sudden stab of grief, as if he were hearing it for the first time. Oh, Mary, he thought.

  “I didn’t know what to do,” Colin said, “so I just sat there, and Mrs. Gaddson, she’s this necrotic person, came up and started reading to me out of the Bible how it was God’s will. I hate Mrs. Gaddson!” he said violently. “She’s the one who deserved to get the flu!”

  Their voices began to ring, the overtones echoing against and around the woods so that he shouldn’t have been able to understand them, but oddly they rang clearer and clearer in the cold air, and he thought they must be able to hear them all the way to Oxford, seven hundred years away.

  It came to Dunworthy suddenly that Mary wasn’t dead, that here in this terrible year, in this century that was worse than a ten, she had not yet died, and it seemed to him a blessing beyond any he had any right to expect.

  “And that was when we heard the bell,” Colin said. “Mr. Dunworthy said it was you calling for help.”

  “It was,” Kivrin said. “This won’t work. He’ll fall off.”

  “You’re right,” Colin said, and Dunworthy realized that they had dismounted again and were standing next to the donkey, Kivrin holding the rope bridle.

  “We have to put you on the horse,” Kivrin said, taking hold of Dunworthy’s waist. “You’re going to fall off the donkey. Come on. Get down. I’ll help you.”

  They both had to help him down, Kivrin reaching around him in a way he knew had to hurt her ribs, Colin almost holding him up.

  “If I could just sit down for a moment,” Dunworthy said through chattering teeth.

  “There isn’t time,” Colin said, but they helped him to the side of the path and eased him down against a rock.

  Kivrin reached up under her smock and brought out three aspirin. “Here. Take these,” she said, holding them out to him on her open palm.

  “Those were for you,” he said. “Your ribs—”

  She looked at him steadily, unsmilingly. “I’ll be all right,” she said, and went to tie the stallion to a bush.

  “Do you want some water?” Colin said. “I could build a fire and melt some snow.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Dunworthy said. He put the aspirin in his mouth and swallowed them.

  Kivrin was adjusting the stirrups, untying the leather straps with practiced skill. She knotted them and came back over to Dunworthy to help him up. “Ready?” she said, putting her hand under his arm.

  “Yes,” Dunworthy said, and tried to stand up.

  “This was a mistake,” Colin said. “We’ll never get him on,” but they did, putting his foot in the stirrups and his hands around the pommel and hoisting him up, and at the end he was even able to help them a little, offering a hand so Colin could clamber up the side of the stallion in front of him.

  He had stopped shivering, but he was not sure whether that was a good sign or not, and when they started off again, Kivrin ahead on the jolting donkey, Co
lin already talking, he leaned into Colin’s back and closed his eyes.

  “So I decided that when I get out of school, I’m going to come to Oxford and be an historian like you,” Colin was saying. “I don’t want to come to the Black Death. I want to go to the Crusades.”

  He listened to them, leaning against Colin. It was getting dark, and they were in the Middle Ages in the woods, two cripples and a child, and Badri, another cripple, trying to hold the net open and susceptible to relapse himself. But he could not seem to summon any panic or even any worry. Colin had the locator and Kivrin knew where the drop was. They would be all right.

  Even if they could not find the drop and they were trapped here forever, even if Kivrin could not forgive him, she would be all right. She would take them to Scotland, where the plague never went, and Colin would pull fishhooks and a frying pan out of his bag of tricks and they would catch trout and salmon to eat. They might even find Basingame.

  “I’ve watched sword fighting on the vids, and I know how to drive a horse,” Colin said, and then, “Stop!”

  Colin jerked the reins back and up, and the stallion stopped, its nose against the donkey’s tail. The donkey had stopped short. They were at the top of a little hill. At its bottom was a frozen puddle and a line of willows.

  “Kick it,” Colin said, but Kivrin was already dismounting.

  “He won’t go any farther,” she said. “He did this before. He saw me come through. I thought it was Gawyn, but it was Roche all along.” She pulled the rope bridle off over the donkey’s head, and it immediately bolted back along the narrow path.

  “Do you want to ride?” Colin asked her, already scrambling down.

  She shook her head. “It hurts more mounting and dismounting than walking.” She was looking across at the farther hill. The trees went only halfway up, and above them the hill was white with snow. It must have stopped snowing, though Dunworthy hadn’t been aware of it. The clouds were breaking up, and between them the sky was a pale, clear lavender.