Dooms Day Book

by Connie Willis

  It wasn’t really a room—there was only space for the bed and a narrow camp stool, not even a chair. The wall behind the bed was covered with displays and equipment. The far wall had a curtained window and more equipment. Mary glanced briefly at Badri and then began scanning the displays.

  Dunworthy looked at the screens. The one nearest him was full of numbers and letters. The bottom line read: “ICU 14320691-22-12-54 1803 200/RPT 1800CRS IMJPCLN 200MG/q6h NHS40– 211-7 M AHRENS.” Apparently the doctor’s orders.

  The other screens showed spiking lines and columns of figures. None of them made any sense except for a number in the middle of the small display second from the right. It read, “Temp: 39.9.” Dear God.

  He looked at Badri. He was lying with his arms outside the bedclothes, his arms both connected to drips that hung from stanchions. One of the drips had at least five bags feeding into the main tube. His eyes were closed, and his face looked thin and drawn, as if he had lost weight since this morning. His dark skin had a strange purplish cast to it.

  “Badri,” Mary said, leaning over him, “Can you hear us?”

  He opened his eyes and looked at them without recognition, which was probably due less to the virus than to the fact that they were covered from head to foot in paper.

  “It’s Mr. Dunworthy,” Mary said helpfully. “He’s come to see you.” Her bleeper started up.

  “Mr. Dunworthy?” he said hoarsely and tried to sit up.

  Mary pushed him gently down into the pillow. “Mr. Dunworthy has some questions for you,” she said, patting his chest gently the way she had in the net at Brasenose. She straightened up, watching the displays on the wall behind him. “Lie still. I need to leave now, but Mr. Dunworthy will stay with you. Rest and try to answer Mr. Dunworthy’s questions.” She left.

  “Mr. Dunworthy?” Badri said again as if he were trying to make sense of the words.

  “Yes,” Dunworthy said. He sat down on the campstool. “How are you feeling?”

  “When do you expect him back?” he said, and his voice sounded weak and strained. He tried to sit up again. Dunworthy put out his hand to stop him.

  “Have to find him,” he said. “There’s something wrong.”

  Chapter Eight

  They were burning her at the stake. She could feel the flames. They must already have tied her to the stake, though she could not remember that. She remembered them lighting the fire. She had fallen off the white horse, and the cutthroat had picked her up and carried her over to it.

  “We must go back to the drop,’ she had told him.

  He had leaned over her, and she could see his cruel face in the flickering firelight.

  “Mr. Dunworthy will open the net as soon as he realizes something’s wrong,” she had told him. She shouldn’t have told him that. He had thought she was a witch and had brought her here to be burned.

  “I’m not a witch,” she said, and immediately a hand came out of nowhere and rested coolly on her forehead.

  “Shh,” a voice said.

  “I am not a witch,” she said, trying to speak slowly so they would understand her. The cutthroat hadn’t understood her. She had tried to tell him they shouldn’t leave the drop, but he had paid no attention to her. He had put her on his white horse and led it out of the clearing and through the stand of white-trunked birches, into the thickest part of the forest.

  She had tried to pay attention to which way they were going so she could find her way back, but the man’s swinging lantern had lit only a few inches of ground at their feet, and the light had hurt her eyes. She had closed them, and that was a mistake because the horse’s awkward gait made her dizzy, and she had fallen off the horse onto the ground.

  “I am not a witch,” she said. “I’m an historian.”

  “Hawey fond enyowuh thissla dey?” the woman’s voice said, far away. She must have come forward to put a faggot on the fire and then stepped back again, away from the heat.

  “Enwodes fillenun gleydund sore destrayste.” a man’s voice said, and the voice sounded like Mr. Dunworthy’s. “Ayeen mynarmehs hoor alle op hider ybar.”

  “Sweltes shay dumorte blauen?” the woman said.

  “Mr. Dunworthy,” Kivrin said, holding out her arms to him, “I’ve fallen among cutthroats!” but she couldn’t see him through the smothering smoke.

  “Shh,” the woman said, and Kivrin knew that it was later, that she had, impossibly, slept. How long does it take to burn, she wondered. The fire was so hot she should be ashes by now, but when she held her hand up, it looked untouched, though little red flames flickered along the edges of the fingers. The light from the flames hurt her eyes. She closed them.

  I hope I don’t fall off the horse again, she thought. She had been clinging to the horse, both arms around its neck, though its uneven walk made her head ache even worse, and she had not let go, but she had fallen off, even though Mr. Dunworthy had insisted she learn how to ride, had arranged for her to have lessons at a riding stable near Woodstock. Mr. Dunworthy had told her this would happen. He had told her they would burn her at the stake.

  The woman put a cup to her lips. It must be vinegar in a sponge, Kivrin thought, they gave that to martyrs. But it wasn’t. It was a warm, sour liquid. The woman had to tilt Kivrin’s head forward to drink it, and it came to Kivrin for the first time that she was lying down.

  I’ll have to tell Mr. Dunworthy, she thought, they burned people at the stake lying down. She tried to bring her hands up to her lips in the position of prayer to activate the corder, but the weight of the flames dragged them down again.

  I’m ill, Kivrin thought, and knew that the warm liquid had been a medicinal potion of some kind, and that it had brought her fever down a little. She was not lying on the ground after all, but in a bed in a dark room, and the woman who had hushed her and given her the liquid was there beside her. She could hear her breathing. Kivrin tried to move her head to see her, but the effort made it hurt again. The woman must be asleep. Her breathing was even and loud, almost like snoring. It hurt Kivrin’s head to listen to it.

  I must be in the village, she thought. The redheaded man must have brought me here.

  She had fallen off the horse, and the cutthroat had helped her back on, but when she looked into his face, he hadn’t looked like a cutthroat at all. He was young, with red hair and a kind expression, and he had leaned over her where she was sitting against the wagon wheel, kneeling on one knee beside her and said, “Who are you?”

  She had understood him perfectly.

  “Canstawd ranken derwyn?” the woman said and tilted Kivrin’s head forward for more of the bitter liquid. Kivrin could barely swallow. The fire was inside her throat now. She could feel the little orange flames, though the liquid should have put them out. She wondered if he had taken her to some foreign land, Spain or Greece, where the people spoke a language they hadn’t put into the interpreter.

  She had understood the redheaded man perfectly. “Who are you?” he had asked, and she had thought that the other man must be a slave he’d brought back from the Crusades, a slave who spoke Turkish or Arabic, and that was why she couldn’t understand him.

  “I’m an historian,” she had said, but when she looked up into his kind face it wasn’t him. It was the cutthroat.

  She had looked wildly around for the red-headed man, but he wasn’t there. The cutthroat picked up sticks and laid them on some stones for a fire.

  “Mr. Dunworthy!” Kivrin had called out desperately, and the cutthroat had come and knelt in front of her, the light from his lantern flickering on his face.

  “Fear not,” he had said. “He will return soon.”

  “Mr. Dunworthy!” she had screamed, and the red-headed man had come and knelt beside her again.

  “I shouldn’t have left the drop,” she had told him, watching his face so he wouldn’t turn into the cutthroat. “Something must have gone wrong with the fix. You must take me back there.”

  He had unfastened the cloak he was w
earing, swinging it easily off his shoulders, and laid it over her, and she knew he understood.

  “I need to go home,” she had said to him as he bent over her. He had a lantern with him, and it lit his kind face and flickered on his red hair like flames.

  “Godufadur,” he had called out, and she thought, that’s the slave’s name. Gauddefaudre. He will ask the slave to tell him where he found me, and then he’ll take me back to the drop. And Mr. Dunworthy. Mr. Dunworthy would be frantic that she wasn’t there when he opened the net. It’s all right, Mr. Dunworthy, she had said silently. I’m coming.

  “Dreede nawmaydde,” the redheaded man had said and lifted her up in his arms. “Fawrthah Galwinnath coam.”

  “I’m ill,” Kivrin said to the woman, “so I can’t understand you,” but this time no one leaned forward out of the darkness to quiet her. Maybe they had tired of watching her burn and had gone away. It was certainly taking a long time, though the fire seemed to be growing hotter now.

  The redheaded man had set her on the white horse before him and ridden into the woods, and she had thought he must be taking her back to the drop. The horse had a saddle now, and bells, and the bells jangled as they rode, playing a tune. It was “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” and the bells grew louder and louder with each verse, till they sounded like the bells of St. Mary the Virgin’s.

  They rode a long way, and she had thought they must surely be near the drop by now.

  “How far is the drop?” she had asked the redheaded man. “Mr. Dunworthy will be so worried,” but he didn’t answer her. He rode out of the woods and down a hill. The moon was up, shining palely in the branches of a stand of narrow, leafless trees, and on the church at the bottom of the hill.

  “This isn’t the drop,” she had said, and tried to pull on the horse’s reins to turn it back the way they had come, but she did not dare take her arms from around the redheaded man’s neck for fear she might fall. And then they were at a door, and it opened, and opened again, and there was a fire and light and the sound of bells, and she knew they had brought her back to the drop after all.

  “Shay boyen syke nighonn tdeeth,” the woman said. Her hands were wrinkled and rough on Kivrin’s skin. She pulled the bed coverings up around Kivrin. Fur, Kivrin could feel soft fur against her face, or maybe it was her hair.

  “Where have you brought me to?” Kivrin asked. The woman leaned forward a little, as if she couldn’t hear her, and Kivrin realized she must have spoken in English. Her interpreter wasn’t working. She was supposed to be able to think her words in English and speak them in Middle English. Perhaps that was why she couldn’t understand them, because her interpreter wasn’t working.

  She tried to think how to say it in Middle English. “Where hast thou bringen me to?” The construction was wrong. She must ask, “What is this place?” but she could not remember the Middle English for place.

  She could not think. The woman kept piling on blankets, and the more furs she laid over her, the colder Kivrin got, as if the woman were somehow putting out the fire.

  They would not understand what she meant if she asked, “What is this place?” She was in a village. The redheaded man had brought her to a village. They had ridden past a church and up to a large house. She must ask, “What is the name of this village?”

  The word for place was demain, but the construction was still wrong. They would use the French construction, wouldn’t they?

  “Quelle demeure avez vous m’apportй?’ she said aloud, but the woman had gone away, and that was not right. They had not been French for two hundred years. She must ask the question in English. “Where is the village you have brought me to?” But what was the word for village?

  Mr. Dunworthy had told her she might not be able to depend on the interpreter, that she had to take lessons in Middle English and Norman French and German. He had made her memorize pages and pages of Chaucer. “Soun ye nought but eyr ybroken And every speche that ye spoken.” No. No. “Where is this village you have brought me to?” What was the word for village?

  He had brought her to a village and knocked on a door. An old man had come to the door, carrying an ax. To cut the wood for the fire, of course. An old man and then a woman, and they had both spoken words Kivrin couldn’t understand, and the door had shut, and they had been outside in the darkness.

  “Mr. Dunworthy! Dr. Ahrens!” she had cried, and her chest hurt too much to get the words out. “You mustn’t let them close the drop,” she had said to the redheaded man, but he had changed again into a cutthroat, a thief.

  “Nay,” he had said. “She is but injured,” and then the door had opened again, and he had carried her in to be burnt.

  She was so hot.

  “Thawmot goonawt plersoun roshundt prayenum comth ithre,” the woman said, and Kivrin tried to raise her head to drink, but the woman wasn’t holding a cup. She was holding a candle close to Kivrin’s face. Too close. Her hair would catch fire.

  “Der maydemot nedes dya,” the woman said.

  The candle flickered close to her cheek. Her hair was on fire. Orange and red flames burned along the edges of her hair, catching stray wisps and twisting them into ash.

  “Shh,” the woman said, and tried to capture Kivrin’s hands, but Kivrin struggled against her until her hands were free. She struck at her hair, trying to put the flames out. Her hands caught fire.

  “Shh,” the woman said, and held her hands still. It was not the woman. The hands were too strong. Kivrin tossed her head from side to side, trying to escape the flames, but they were holding her head still, too. Her hair blazed up in a cloud of fire.

  * * *

  It was smoky in the room when she woke up. The fire must have gone out while she slept. That had happened to one of the martyrs when they had burned him at the stake. His friends had piled green faggots on the fire so he would die of the smoke before the fire reached him, but it had put the fire nearly out instead, and he had smouldered for hours.

  The woman leaned over her. It was so smoky Kivrin couldn’t see whether she was young or old. The redheaded man must have put out the fire. He had spread his cloak over her and then gone over to the fire and put it out, kicking it apart with his boots, and the smoke had come up and blinded her.

  The woman dripped water on her, and the drops sizzled on her skin. “Hauccaym anchi towoem denswile?” the woman said.

  “I am Isabel de Beauvrier,” Kivrin said. “My brother lies ill at Evesham.” She could not think of any of the words. Quelle demeure. Perced to the rote. “Where am I?” she said in English.

  A face leaned close to hers. “Hau hightes towe?” it said. It was the cutthroat face of the enchanted wood. She pulled back from it, frightened.

  “Go away!” she said. “What do you want?”

  “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus sancti,” he said.

  Latin, she thought thankfully. There must be a priest here. She tried to raise her head to see past the cutthroat to the priest, but she could not. It was too smoky in the room. I can speak Latin, she thought. Mr. Dunworthy made me learn it.

  “You shouldn’t have let him in here!” she said in Latin. “He’s a cutthroat!” Her throat hurt, and she seemed to have no breath to put behind the words, but from the way the cutthroat drew back in surprise, she knew they had heard her.

  “You must not be afraid,,” the priest said, and she understood him perfectly. “You do but go home again.”

  “To the drop?” Kivrin said. “Are you taking me to the drop?”

  “Asperges me, Domine, hyssope et mundabor,” the priest said. Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, O Lord, and I shall be cleansed. She could understand him perfectly.

  “Help me,” she said in Latin. “I must return to the place from which I came.”

  “…nominus…,” the priest said, so softly she couldn’t hear him. Name. Something about her name. She raised her head. It felt curiously light, as though all her hair had burned away.

  “My name?” she said.<
br />
  “Can you tell me your name?” he said in Latin.

  She was supposed to tell them she was Isabel de Beauvrier, daughter of Gilbert de Beauvrier, from the East Riding, but her throat hurt so she didn’t think she could get it out.

  “I have to go back,” she said. “They won’t know where I’ve gone.”

  “Confiteor deo omnipotenti,” the priest said from very far away. She couldn’t see him. When she tried to look past the cutthroat, all she could see were flames. They must have lit the fire again. “Beatae Mariae semper Virgini…”

  He’s saying the Confiteor Deo, she thought, the prayer of confession. The cutthroat shouldn’t be here. There shouldn’t be anyone else in the room during a confession.

  It was her turn. She tried to fold her hands in prayer and couldn’t, but the priest helped her, and when she couldn’t remember the words, he recited them with her. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I confess to almighty God, and to you Father, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, deed and omission, through my fault.”

  “Mea culpa,” she whispered, “mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault, but that wasn’t right, that was only in the Confiteor Deo.

  “How have you sinned?” the priest said.

  “Sinned?” she said blankly.

  “Yes,” he said gently, leaning so close he was practically whispering in her ear. “That you may confess your sins and have God’s forgiveness, and enter into the kingdom eternal.”

  All I wanted to do was go to the Middle Ages, she thought. I worked so hard, learning the languages and the customs and doing everything Mr. Dunworthy told me. All I wanted to do was to be an historian.

  She swallowed, a feeling like flame. “I have not sinned.”