Dooms Day Book

by Connie Willis

  “But she wouldn’t listen,” Dunworthy said.

  “No.”

  “I tried to explain to her that the Middle Ages were dangerous and Gilchrist wasn’t taking sufficient precautions, and she told me I was worrying over nothing.”

  “Perhaps we are,” Mary said. “After all, it’s Badri who’s running the drop, not Gilchrist, and you said he’d abort if there was any problem.”

  “Yes,” he said, watching Badri through the glass. He was typing again, one key at a time, his eyes on the screens. Badri was not only Balliol’s best tech, but the University’s. And he had run dozens of remotes.

  “And Kivrin’s well-prepared. You’ve tutored her, and I’ve spent the last month in Infirmary getting her physically ready. She’s protected against cholera and typhoid and anything else that was extant in 1320, which, by the way, the plague you are so worried over wasn’t. The Black Death didn’t reach England until 1348. I’ve removed her appendix and augmented her immune system. I’ve given her full-spectrum antivirals and a short course in mediaeval medicine. And she’s done a good deal of work on her own. She was studying medicinal herbs while she was in Infirmary.”

  “I know,” Dunworthy said. She had spent the last Christmas vac memorizing masses in Latin and learning to weave and embroider, and he had taught her everything he could think of. But was it enough to protect her from being trampled by a horse, or raped by a drunken knight on his way home from the Crusades? They were still burning people at the stake in 1320. There was no inoculation to protect her from that or from someone seeing her come through and deciding she was a witch.

  He looked back through the thin-glass. Latimer picked the trunk up for the third time and set it back down. Montoya looked at her watch again. The tech punched the keys and frowned.

  “I should have refused to tutor her,” he said. “I only did it to show Gilchrist up for the incompetent he is.”

  “Nonsense,” Mary said. “You did it because she’s Kivrin. She’s you all over again—bright, resourceful, determined.”

  “I was never that foolhardy.”

  “Of course you were. I can remember a time when you couldn’t wait to rush off to the London Blitz and have bombs dropped on your head. And I seem to remember a certain incident involving the old Bodleian—”

  The prep room door flared open, and Kivrin and Gilchrist came into the room, Kivrin holding her long skirts up as she stepped over the scattered boxes. She was wearing the white rabbit-fur-lined cloak and the bright blue kirtle she had come to show him yesterday. She had told him the cloak was hand-woven. It looked like an old wool blanket someone had draped over her shoulders, and the kirtle’s sleeves were too long. They nearly covered her hands. Her long, fair hair was held back by a fillet and fell loosely onto her shoulders. She still didn’t look old enough to cross the street by herself.

  Dunworthy stood up, ready to pound on the glass again as soon as she looked in his direction, but she stopped midway into the clutter, her face still half-averted from him, looked down at the marks on the floor, stepped forward a little, and arranged her dragging skirts around her.

  Gilchrist went over to Badri, said something to him, and picked up a carryboard that was lying on top of the console. He began checking items off with a brisk poke of the light pen.

  Kivrin said something to him and pointed at the brass-bound casket. Montoya straightened impatiently up from leaning over Badri’s shoulder, and came over to where Kivrin was standing, shaking her head. Kivrin said something else, more firmly and Montoya knelt down and moved the trunk over next to the wagon.

  Gilchrist checked another item off his list. He said something to Latimer, and Latimer went and got a flat metal box and handed it to Gilchrist. He said something to Kivrin, and she brought her flattened hands together in front of her chest. She bent her head over them and began speaking.

  “Is he having her practice praying?” Dunworthy said. “That will be useful, since God’s help may be the only help she gets on this practicum.”

  Mary blew her nose again. “They’re checking the implant.”

  “What implant?”

  “A special chip-corder so she can record her field work. Most of the contemps can’t read or write, so I implanted an ear and an A-to-D in one wrist and a memory in the other. She activates it by pressing the pads of her palms together. When she’s speaking into it, it looks like she’s praying. The chips have a two-point-five gigabyte capacity, so she’ll be able to record her observations for the full two and a half weeks.”

  “You should have implanted a locator as well so she could call for help.”

  Gilchrist was messing with the flat metal box. He shook his head and then moved Kivrin’s folded hands up a little higher. The too-long sleeve fell back. Her hand was cut. A thin brown line of dried blood ran down the cut.

  “Something’s wrong,” Dunworthy said, turning toward Mary. “She’s hurt.”

  Kivrin was talking into her hands again. Gilchrist nodded. Kivrin looked at him, saw Dunworthy, and flashed him a delighted smile. Her temple was bloody, too. Her hair under the fillet was matted with it. Gilchrist looked up, saw Dunworthy, and hurried toward the thin-glass partition, looking irritated.

  “She hasn’t even gone yet, and they’ve already let her be injured!” Dunworthy pounded on the glass.

  Gilchrist walked over to the wall panel, pressed a key, and then came over and stood in front of Dunworthy. “Mr. Dunworthy,” he said. He nodded at Mary. “Dr. Ahrens. I’m so pleased you decided to come see Kivrin off.” He put the faintest emphasis on the last three words, so that they sounded like a threat.

  “What’s happened to Kivrin?” Dunworthy said.

  “Happened?” Gilchrist said, sounding surprised. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Kivrin had started over to the partition, holding up the skirt of her kirtle with a bloody hand. There was a reddish bruise on her cheek.

  “I want to speak to her.”

  “I’m afraid there isn’t time,” Gilchrist said. “We have a schedule to keep to.”

  “I demand to speak to her.”

  Gilchrist pursed his lips and two white lines appeared on either side of his nose. “May I remind you, Mr. Dunworthy,” he said coldly, “that this drop is Brasenose’s, not Balliol’s. I of course appreciate the assistance you have given in loaning us your tech, and I respect your many years of experience as an historian, but I assure you I have everything well in hand.”

  “Then why is your historian injured before she’s even left?”

  “Oh, Mr. Dunworthy, I’m so glad you came,” Kivrin said, coming up to the glass. “I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to you. Isn’t this exciting?”

  Exciting. “You’re bleeding,” Dunworthy said. “What’s gone wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Kivrin said, touching her temple gingerly and then looking at her fingers. “It’s part of the costume.” She looked past him at Mary. “Dr. Ahrens, you came, too. I’m so glad.”

  Mary had stood up, still holding her shopping bag. “I want to see your antiviral inoculation,” she said. “Have you had any other reaction besides the swelling? Any itching?”

  “It’s all right, Dr. Ahrens,” Kivrin said. She held the sleeve back and then let it fall again before Mary could possibly have had a good look at the underside of her arm. There was another reddish bruise on Kivrin’s forearm, already beginning to turn black and blue.

  “It would seem to be more to the point to ask her why she’s bleeding,” Dunworthy said.

  “It’s part of the costume. I told you, I’m Isabel de Beauvrier, and I’m supposed to have been waylaid by robbers while travelling,” Kivrin said. She turned and gestured at the boxes and smashed wagon. “My things were stolen, and I was left for dead. I got the idea from you, Mr. Dunworthy,” she said reproachfully.

  “I certainly never suggested that you start out bloody and beaten,” Dunworthy said.

  “Stage blood was impractical,” Gilchrist s
aid. “Probability couldn’t give us statistically significant odds that no one would tend her wound.”

  “And it never occurred to you to dupe a realistic wound? You knocked her on the head instead?” Dunworthy said angrily.

  “Mr. Dunworthy, may I remind you—”

  “That this is Brasenose’s project, not Balliol’s? You’re bloody right it isn’t. If it were Twentieth Century’s, we’d be trying to protect the historian from injury, not inflicting it on her ourselves. I want to speak to Badri. I want to know if he’s rechecked the apprentice’s calculations.”

  Gilchrist’s lips pursed. “Mr. Dunworthy, Mr. Chaudhuri may be your net technician, but this is my drop. I assure you we have considered every possible contingency—”

  “It’s just a nick,” Kivrin said. “It doesn’t even hurt. I’m all right, really. Please don’t get upset, Mr. Dunworthy. The idea of being injured was mine. I remembered what you said about how a woman in the Middle Ages was so vulnerable, and I thought it would be a good idea if I looked more vulnerable than I was.”

  It would be impossible for you to look more vulnerable than you are, Dunworthy thought.

  “If I pretend to be unconscious, then I can overhear what people are saying about me, and they won’t ask a lot of questions about who I am, because it will be obvious that—”

  “It’s time for you to get into position,” Gilchrist said, moving threateningly over to the wall panel.

  “I’m coming,” Kivrin said, not budging.

  “We’re ready to set the net.”

  “I know,” she said firmly. “I’ll be along as soon as I’ve told Mr. Dunworthy and Dr. Ahrens goodbye.”

  Gilchrist nodded curtly and walked back into the debris. Latimer asked him something, and he snapped an answer.

  “What does getting into position entail?” Dunworthy asked. “Having him take a cosh to you because Probability’s told him there’s a statistical possibility someone won’t believe you’re truly unconscious?”

  “It involves lying down and closing my eyes,” Kivrin said, grinning. “Don’t worry.

  “There’s no reason you can’t wait until tomorrow and at least give Badri time to run a parameter check,” Dunworthy said.

  “I want to see that inoculation again,” Mary said.

  “Will you two stop fretting?” Kivrin said. “My inoculation doesn’t itch, the cut doesn’t hurt, Badri’s spent all morning running checks. I know you’re worried about me, but please don’t be. The drop’s on the main road from Oxford to Bath about two miles from Skendgate. If no one comes along, I’ll walk into the village and tell them I’ve been attacked by robbers. After I’ve determined my location so I can find the drop again.” She put her hand up to the glass. “I just want to thank you both for everything you’ve done. I’ve wanted to go to the Middle Ages more than anything, and now I’m actually going.”

  “You’re likely to experience headache and fatigue after the drop,” Mary said. “They’re a normal side-effect of the time lag.”

  Gilchrist came back over to the thin-glass. “It’s time for you to get into position,” he said.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said, gathering up her heavy skirts. “Thank you both so much. I wouldn’t be going if it weren’t for you two helping me.”

  “Goodbye,” Mary said.

  “Be careful,” Dunworthy said.

  “I will,” Kivrin said, but Gilchrist had already pressed the wall panel, and Dunworthy couldn’t hear her. She smiled, held up her hand in a little wave, and went over to the smashed wagon.

  Mary sat back down and began rummaging through the shopping bag for a handkerchief. Gilchrist was reading off items from the carryboard. Kivrin nodded at each one, and he ticked them off with the light pen.

  “What if she gets blood poisoning from that cut on her temple?” Dunworthy said, still standing at the glass.

  “She won’t get blood poisoning,” Mary said. “I enhanced her immune system.” She blew her nose.

  Kivrin was arguing with Gilchrist about something. The white lines along his nose were sharply defined. She shook her head, and after a minute he checked off the next item with an abrupt, angry motion.

  Gilchrist and the rest of Mediaeval might be incompetent, but she wasn’t. She had learned Middle English and Church Latin and Anglo-Saxon. She had memorized the Latin masses and taught herself to embroider and milk a cow. She had come up with an identity and a rationale for being alone on the road between Oxford and Bath, and she had the interpreter and augmented stem cells and no appendix.

  “She’ll do swimmingly,” Dunworthy said, “which will only serve to convince Gilchrist Mediaeval’s methods aren’t slipshod and dangerous.”

  Gilchrist walked over to the console and handed the carryboard to Badri. Kivrin folded her hands again, closer to her face this time, her mouth nearly touching them, and began to speak into them.

  Mary came closer and stood beside Dunworthy, clutching her handkerchief. “When I was nineteen—which was, oh, Lord, forty years ago, it doesn’t seem that long—my sister and I travelled all over Egypt,” she said. “It was during the Pandemic. Quarantines were being slapped on all about us, and the Israelis were shooting Americans on sight, but we didn’t care. I don’t think it even occurred to us that we might be in danger, that we might catch it or be mistaken for Americans. We wanted to see the Pyramids.”

  Kivrin had stopped praying. Badri left his console and came over to where she was standing. He spoke to her for several minutes, the frown never leaving his face. She knelt and then lay down on her side next to the wagon, turning so she was on her back with one arm flung over her head and her skirts tangled about her legs. The tech arranged her skirts, pulled out the light measure, and paced around her, walked back to the console and spoke into the ear. Kivrin lay quite still, the blood on her forehead almost black under the light.

  “Oh, dear, she looks so young,” Mary said.

  Badri spoke into the ear, glared at the results on the screen, went back to Kivrin. He stepped over her, straddling her legs, and bent down to adjust her sleeve. He took a measurement, moved her arm so it was across her face as if warding off a blow from her attackers, measured again.

  “Did you see the Pyramids?” Dunworthy said.

  “What?” Mary said.

  “When you were in Egypt. When you went tearing about the Middle East oblivious to danger. Did you get to see the Pyramids?”

  “No. Cairo was put under quarantine the day we landed.” She looked at Kivrin, lying there on the floor. “But we saw the Valley of the Kings.”

  Badri moved Kivrin’s arm a fraction of an inch, stood frowning at her for a moment, and then went back to the console. Gilchrist and Latimer followed him. Montoya stepped back to make room for all of them around the screen. Badri spoke into the console’s ear, and the semi-transparent shields began to lower into place, covering Kivrin like a veil.

  “We were glad we went,” Mary said. “We came home without a scratch.”

  The shields touched the ground, draped a little like Kivrin’s too-long skirts, stopped.

  “Be careful,” Dunworthy whispered. Mary took hold of his hand.

  Latimer and Gilchrist huddled in front of the screen, watching the sudden explosion of numbers. Montoya glanced at her digital. Badri leaned forward and opened the net. The air inside the shields glittered with sudden condensation.

  “Don’t go,” Dunworthy said.

  Transcript from the Doomsday Book

  (000008-000242)

  First entry. 23 December, 2054. Oxford. This will be a record of my historical observations of life in Oxfordshire, England, 12 December, 1320, to 28 December, 1320 (Old Style).

  (Break)

  Mr. Dunworthy, I’m calling this the Doomsday Book because it’s supposed to be a record of life in the Middle Ages, which is what William the Conqueror’s survey turned out to be, even though he intended it as a method of making sure he got every pound of gold and tax his tenants owed him. />
  I am also calling it the Doomsday Book because I would imagine that’s what you’d like to call it, you are so convinced something awful’s going to happen to me. I’m watching you in the observation area right now, telling poor Dr. Ahrens all the dreadful dangers of the 1300’s. You needn’t bother. She’s already warned me about time lag and every single mediaeval disease, in gruesome detail, even though I’m supposed to be immune to all of them. And warned me about the prevalence of rape in the 1300’s. And when I tell her I’ll be perfectly all right she doesn’t listen to me either. I will be perfectly all right, Mr. Dunworthy.

  Of course you will already know that, and that I made it back in one piece and all according to schedule, by the time you get to hear this, so you won’t mind my teasing you a little. I know you are only concerned for me, and I know very well that without all your help and preparation I wouldn’t make it back in one piece or at all.

  I am therefore dedicating The Doomsday Book to you, Mr. Dunworthy. If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be standing here in kirtle and cloak, talking into this corder, waiting for Badri and Mr. Gilchrist to finish their endless calculations and wishing they would hurry so I can go.

  (Break)

  I’m here.

  Chapter Two

  “Well,” Mary said on a long, drawn-out breath. “I could do with a drink.”

  “I thought you had to go fetch your great-nephew,” Dunworthy said, still watching the place where Kivrin had been. The air glittered with ice particles inside the veil of shields. Near the floor, frost had formed on the inside of the thin-glass.

  The unholy three of Mediaeval were still watching the screens, even though they showed nothing but the flat line of arrival. “I needn’t fetch Colin until three,” Mary said. “You look as though you could use a bit of bracing up yourself, and the Lamb and Cross is just down the street.”

  “I want to wait until he has the fix,” Dunworthy said, watching the tech.