Willis, Connie - Doomsday Book (v2.1)

by Doomsday Book (lit)

  She found the one she had apparently been looking for, an uneven bone the size of a walnut, with a curved side. She dumped the rest back into the tray, rummaged in the pocket of her terrorist shirt for a short-handled toothbrush, and began scrubbing at the concave edges, frowning.

  Gilchrist would never accept spontaneous mutation as a source. He was too in love with the theory that some fourteenth- century virus had come through the net. And too in love with his authority as Acting Head of the History Faculty to give in, even if Dunworthy had found ducks swimming in the churchyard puddles.

  "I need to get in touch with Mr. Basingame," he said. "Where is he?"

  "Basingame?" she said, still frowning at the bone. "I don't have any idea."

  "But -- I thought you'd found him. When you phoned Christmas Day you said you had to find him to authorize your NHS dispensation."

  "I know. I spent two full days calling every trout and salmon guide in Scotland before I decided I couldn't wait any longer. If you ask me, he's nowhere near Scotland. She pulled a pocketknife out of her jeans and began scraping at the rough edge of the bone. "Speaking of the NHS, would you do something for me? I keep calling their number but it's always busy. Would you run over there and tell them I've got to have some more help? Tell them the dig's of irreplaceable historical value, and it's going to be irretrievably lost if they don't send me at least five people. And a pump." The knife snagged. She frowned and chipped some more.

  "How did you get Basingame's authorization if you didn't know where he was? I thought you'd said the form required his signature."

  "It did," she said. An edge of bone flew suddenly off and landed on the plastene shroud. She examined the bone and dropped it back in the box, no longer frowning. "I forged it."

  She crouched by the tomb again, digging for more bones. She looked as absorbed as Colin examining his gobstopper. He wondered if she even remembered that Kivrin was in the past, or if she had forgotten her as she seemed to have forgotten the epidemic.

  He rang off, wondering if Montoya would even notice, and walked back to Infirmary to tell Mary what he had found out and to begin questioning the secondaries again, looking for the source. It was raining very hard, spilling off the downspouts and washing away things of irreplaceable historical value.

  The bellringers and Finch were still at it, ringing the changes one after another in their determined order, bending their knees and looking like Montoya, sticking to their bells. The sound pealed out loudly, leadenly, through the rain, like an alarum, like a cry for help.

  TRANSCRIPT FROM THE DOOMSDAY BOOK (066440-066879)

  Christmas Eve 1320 (Old Style.) I don't have as much time as I thought. When I came in from the kitchen just now, Rosemund told me Lady Imeyne wanted me. Imeyne was deep in earnest conversation with the bishop's envoy, and I supposed from her expression that she was cataloguing Father Roche's sins, but as Rosemund and I came up, she pointed to me and said, "This is the woman I spake of."

  Woman, not maid, and her tone was critical, almost accusing. I wondered if she'd told the bishop her theory that I was a French spy.

  "She says she remembers naught," Lady Imeyne said, "yet she can speak and read." She turned to Rosemund. "Where is your brooch?"

  "It is on my cloak," Rosemund said. "I laid it in the loft."

  Rosemund went, reluctantly. As soon as she was gone Imeyne said, "Sir Bloet brought a loveknot brooch to my granddaughter with words on it in the Roman tongue." She looked at me triumphantly. "She told their meaning, and at the church this night she spoke the words of the mass ere the priest had said them."

  "Who taught you your letters?" the bishop's envoy asked, his voice blurred from the wine.

  I thought of saying Sir Bloet had told me what the words meant, but I was afraid he'd already denied it. "I know not," I said. "I have no memory of my life since I was waylaid in the woods, for I was struck upon the head."

  "When first she woke she spoke in a tongue none could understand," Imeyne said, as if that were further proof, but I had no idea what she was trying to convict me of or how the bishop's envoy was involved.

  "Holy Father, go you to Oxford when you leave us?" she asked him.

  "Aye," he said, sounding wary. "We can stay but a few days here."

  "I would have you take her with you to the good sisters at Godstow."

  "We go not to Godstow," he said, which was clearly an excuse. The nunnery wasn't even five miles from Oxford. "But I will inquire of the bishop for news of the woman on my return and send word to you."

  "I wot she is a nun for that she speaks in Latin and knows the passages of the mass," Imeyne said. "I would have you take her to their convent that they may ask among the nunneries who she may be."

  The bishop's envoy looked even more nervous, but he agreed. So I have till whenever they leave. A few days, the bishop's envoy said, and with luck that means they won't leave till after the Slaughter of the Innocents. But I plan to put Agnes to bed and talk to Gawyn as soon as possible.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Kivrin didn't get Agnes to bed till nearly dawn. The arrival of the "three kings," as she continued to call them, had woken her completely, and she refused to even consider lying down for fear she might miss something, even though she was obviously exhausted.

  She tagged after Kivrin, as she tried to help Eliwys bring in the food for the feast, whining that she was hungry, and then, when the tables were finally set and the feast begun, refused to eat anything.

  Kivrin had no time to argue with her. There was course after course to be brought across the courtyard from the kitchen, trenchers of venison and roast pork and an enormous pie Kivrin half-expected blackbirds to fly out of when the crust was cut. According to the priest at Holy Re-formed, fasting was observed between the midnight mass and the high mass Christmas morning, but everyone, including the bishop's envoy, ate heartily of the roast pheasant and goose and stewed rabbit in saffron gravy. And drank. The "three kings" called constantly for more wine.

  They had already had more than enough. The monk was leering at Maisry, and the clerk, drunk when he arrived, was nearly under the table. The bishop's envoy was drinking more than either of them, beckoning constantly to Rosemund to bring him the wassail bowl, his gestures growing broader and less clear with every drink.

  Good, Kivrin thought. Perhaps he'll get so drunk he'll forget he promised Lady Imeyne he'd take me to the nunnery at Godstow. She took the bowl around to Gawyn, hoping to have an opportunity to ask him where the drop was, but he was laughing with some of Sir Bloet's men, and they called to her for ale and more meat. By the time she got back to Agnes, the little girl was sound asleep, her head nearly in her manchet. Kivrin picked her up carefully and carried her upstairs to Rosemund's bower.

  Above them, the door opened. "Lady Katherine," Eliwys said, her arms full of bedding. "I am grateful you are here. I have need of your help."

  Agnes stirred.

  "Bring the linen sheets from the loft," Eliwys said. "The churchmen will sleep in this bed, and Sir Bloet's sister and her women in the loft."

  "Where am I to sleep?" Agnes asked, wriggling out of Kivrin's arms.

  "We will sleep in the barn," Eliwys said. "But you must wait till we have made up the beds, Agnes. Go and play."

  Agnes didn't have to be encouraged. She hopped off down the stairs, waving her arm to make her bell ring.

  Eliwys handed Kivrin the bedding. "Take these to the loft and bring the miniver coverlid from my husband's carven chest."

  "How many days do you think the bishop's envoy and his men will stay?" Kivrin asked.

  "I know not," Eliwys said, looking worried. "I pray not more than a fortnight or we shall not have meat enough. See you do not forget the good bolsters."

  A fortnight was more than enough, well past the rendezvous, and they certainly didn't look like they were going anywhere. When Kivrin climbed down from the loft with the sheets, the bishop's envoy was asleep in the high seat, snoring loudly, and the clerk had
his feet on the table. The monk had one of Sir Bloet's waiting women backed into a corner and was playing with her kerchief. Gawyn was nowhere to be seen.

  Kivrin took the sheets and coverlid to Eliwys, then offered to take bedding out to the barn. "Agnes is very tired," she said. "I would put her to bed soon."

  Eliwys nodded absently, pounding at one of the heavy bolsters, and Kivrin ran downstairs and out into the courtyard. Gawyn was not in the stable nor the brewhouse. She lingered near the privy until two of the redheaded young men emerged, looking at her curiously, and then went on to the barn. Perhaps Gawyn had gone off with Maisry again, or joined the villagers' celebration on the green. She could hear the sound of laughter as she spread straw on the bare wooden floor of the loft.

  She laid the furs and quilts on the straw and went down and out through the passageway to see if she could see him. The contemps had built a bonfire in front of the churchyard and were standing around it, warming their hands and drinking out of large horns. She could see the reddened faces of Maisry's father and the reeve in the firelight, but not Gawyn's.

  He was not in the courtyard either. Rosemund was standing by the gate, wrapped in her cloak.

  "What are you doing out here in the cold?" Kivrin asked.

  "I am awaiting my father," Rosemund said. "Gawyn told me he expects him before day."

  "Have you seen Gawyn?"

  "Aye. He is in the stable."

  Kivrin looked anxiously toward the stable. "It's too cold to wait out here. You must go in the house, and I'll tell Gawyn to tell you when your father comes."

  "Nay, I will wait here," Rosemund said. "He promised he would come to us for Christmas." Her voice quavered a little.

  Kivrin held her lantern up. Rosemund wasn't crying, but her cheeks were red. Kivrin wondered what Sir Bloet had done now that had Rosemund hiding from him. Or perhaps it was the monk who had frightened her, or the drunken clerk.

  Kivrin took her arm. "You can wait as well in the kitchen, and it is warm there," she said.

  Rosemund nodded. "My father promised he would come without fail."

  And do what? Kivrin wondered. Throw out the churchmen? Call off Rosemund's engagement to Sir Bloet? "My father would never allow me to come to harm," she had told Kivrin, but he was scarcely in a position to cancel the betrothal when the marriage settlement had already been signed, to alienate Sir Bloet, who had "many powerful friends."

  Kivrin took Rosemund into the kitchen and told Maisry to heat a cup of wine for her. "I'll go tell Gawyn to come get you as soon as your father comes," she said, and went across to the stable, but Gawyn wasn't there, or in the brewhouse.

  She went into the house, wondering if Imeyne had sent him on yet another of her errands. But she was sitting beside the obviously unwillingly wakened envoy, talking determinedly to him, and Gawyn was by the fire, surrounded by Sir Bloet's men, including the two who had come out of the privy. Sir Bloet sat on the near side of the hearth with his sister-in-law and Eliwys.

  Kivrin sank down on the beggar's bench by the screens. There was no way to even get near him, let alone ask him about the drop.

  "Give him to me!" Agnes wailed. She and the rest of the children were over by the stairs to the bower, and the little boys were passing Blackie among them, petting him and playing with his ears. Agnes must have gone out to the stable to fetch the puppy while Kivrin was out in the barn.

  "He's my hound!" Agnes said, grabbing for him. The little boy wrenched the puppy away. "Give him to me!"

  Kivrin stood up.

  "As I was riding through the woods, I came upon a maiden," Gawyn said loudly. "She had been set upon by thieves and was sore wounded, her head cut open and bleeding grievously."

  Kivrin hesitated, glancing toward Agnes, who was pounding on the little boy's arm, and then sat down again.

  "'Fair maid,' I said. 'Who has done this fell thing?' but she could not speak for her injuries."

  Agnes had the puppy back and was clutching it to her. Kivrin should go rescue the poor thing, but she stayed where she was, moving a little so she could see past the sister-in-law's coif. Tell them where you found me, she willed Gawyn. Tell them where in the woods.

  "'I am your liegeman and will find these evil knaves,' I said, 'but I fear to leave you in such sad plight,'" he said, looking toward Eliwys, "but she had recovered herself and she begged me to go and find those who had harmed her."

  Eliwys stood up and walked to the door. She stood there for a moment, looking anxious, and then came and sat back down.

  "No!" Agnes shrieked. One of Sir Bloet's redheaded nephews had Blackie now and was holding him above his head in one hand. If Kivrin didn't rescue it soon, they'd squeeze the poor dog to death, and there was no point in listening to any more of the Rescue of the Maiden in the Wood, which was obviously intended not to tell what had happened but to impress Eliwys. She walked over to the children.

  "The robbers had not been long gone, and I found their trail with ease and followed it, spurring my steed after them."

  Sir Bloet's nephew was dangling Blackie by his front legs, and the puppy was whimpering pathetically.

  "Kivrin!" Agnes cried, catching sight of her, and flung herself at Kivrin's legs. Sir Bloet's nephew immediately handed Kivrin the puppy and backed away, and the rest of the children scattered.

  "You rescued Blackie!" Agnes said, reaching for him.

  Kivrin shook her head. "It is time to go to bed," she said.

  "I'm not tired!" Agnes said in a whine that was scarcely convincing. She rubbed her eyes.

  "Blackie is tired," Kivrin said, squatting down beside Agnes, "and he won't go to bed unless you will lie down with him."

  That argument seemed to interest her, and before she could find a flaw in it, Kivrin handed Blackie back to her, placing him in her arms like a baby, and scooped them both up in her arms. "Blackie would have you tell him a story," Kivrin said, starting for the door.

  "Soon I found myself in a place that I knew not," Gawyn said, "a dark forest."

  Kivrin carried her charges outside and across the courtyard. "Blackie likes stories about cats," Agnes said, rocking the puppy gently in her arms.

  "You must tell him a story about a cat then," Kivrin said. She took the puppy while Agnes climbed up the ladder to the loft. It was already asleep, worn out from all the handling. Kivrin laid it in the straw next to the pallet.

  "A wicked cat," Agnes said, grabbing him up again. "I am not going to sleep. I am only lying down with Blackie, so I need not take off my clothes."

  "No, you need not," Kivrin said, covering Agnes and Blackie with a heavy fur. It was too cold in the barn for undressing.

  "Blackie would fain wear my bell," she said, trying to put the ribbon over its head.

  "No, he wouldn't," Kivrin said. She confiscated the bell and spread another fur over them. Kivrin crawled in next to the little girl. Agnes pushed her small body against Kivrin.

  "Once there was a wicked cat," Agnes said, yawning. "Her father told her not to go into the forest, but she heeded him not." She fought valiantly against falling asleep, rubbing her eyes and making up adventures for the wicked cat, but the darkness and the warmth of the heavy fur finally overcame her.

  Kivrin continued to lie there, waiting till her breathing became light and steady, and then gently extricated Blackie from Agnes's grip and laid him in the straw.

  Agnes frowned in her sleep and reached for him, and Kivrin wrapped her arms around her. She should get up and go look for Gawyn. The rendezvous was in less than a week.

  Agnes stirred and snuggled closer, her hair against Kivrin's cheek.

  And how will I leave you? Kivrin thought. And Rosemund? And Father Roche? And fell asleep.

  When she woke, it was nearly light and Rosemund had crawled in beside Agnes. Kivrin left them sleeping, and crept down from the loft and across the gray courtyard, afraid she had missed the bell for mass, but Gawyn was still holding forth by the fire, and the bishop's envoy was still sitting in the high s
eat, listening to Lady Imeyne.

  The monk was sitting in the corner with his arm around Maisry, but the clerk was nowhere to be seen. He must have passed out and been put to bed.

  The children must also have been put to bed, and some of the women had apparently gone up to the loft to rest. Kivrin didn't see Sir Bloet's sister or the sister-in-law from Dorset.

  "'Halt, knave!' I cried," Gawyn said. "'For I would fight you in fair combat.'" Kivrin wondered if this was still the Rescue or one of Sir Lancelot's adventures. It was impossible to tell, and if the purpose of it was to impress Eliwys, it was to no avail. She wasn't in the hall. What was left of Gawyn's audience didn't seem impressed either. Two of them were playing a desultory game of dice on the bench between them, and Sir Bloet was asleep, his chin on his massive chest.

  Kivrin obviously hadn't missed any opportunities to speak to Gawyn by falling asleep, and from the look of things there wouldn't be any for some time. She might as well have stayed in the loft with Agnes. She was going to have to make an opportunity -- waylay Gawyn on his way to the privy or catch up to him on the way to mass and whisper, "Meet me afterwards in the stable."

  The churchmen didn't look like they'd leave unless the wine gave out, but it was risky to cut it too close. The men might take a notion to go hunting tomorrow, or the weather might change, and whether the bishop's envoy and his flunkies left or not it was still only five days to the rendezvous. No, four. It was already Christmas.

  "He aimed a savage blow," Gawyn said, standing up to illustrate, "and had it driven down as earnestly as he feinted, my head would have been cloven in twain."

  "Lady Katherine," Imyene said. She had stood up and was beckoning to Kivrin. The bishop's envoy was looking interestedly at her, and her heart began to pound, wondering what mischief they had cooked up between them now, but before Kivrin could cross the hall, Imeyne left him and came across to her, carrying a linen-wrapped bundle.

  "I would have you carry these to Father Roche for the mass," she said, folding the linen back so Kivrin could see the wax candles inside. "Bid him put these on the altar and say to him to pinch not the flames from the candles, for it breaks the wick. Bid him prepare the church that the bishop's envoy may say the Christmas mass. I would have the church look like a place of the Lord, not a pig's sty. And bid him put on a clean robe."