Dooms Day Book

by Connie Willis

  Kivrin got dizzier with every step. I’ll never make it all the way outside, she thought, but they had stopped at the end of the bed. There was a chest there, a low wooden box with a bird or possibly an angel carved roughly into the top. On it lay a wooden basin full of water, the bloody bandage that had been around Kivrin’s forehead, and a smaller, empty bowl. Kivrin, concentrating on not falling over, didn’t realize what it was until the old woman said, “Swoune nawmaydar oupondre yorresette,” and pantomimed lifting her heavy skirts and sitting on it.

  A chamberpot, Kivrin thought gratefully. Mr. Dunworthy, chamberpots were extant in country village manor houses in 1320. She nodded to show she understood and let them ease her down onto it, though she was so dizzy she had to grab at the heavy bedhangings to keep from falling, and her chest hurt so badly when she tried to stand up again that she doubled over.

  “Maisry!” the old woman shouted toward the door. “Maisry, Com undtvae holpoon!” and the inflection indicated clearly that she was calling someone—Marjorie? Mary?—to come and help, but no one appeared, so perhaps she was wrong about that, too.

  She straightened a little, testing the pain, and then tried to stand up, and the pain had lessened a little, but they still had to nearly carry her back to the bed, and she was exhausted by the time she was back under the bedcoverings. She closed her eyes.

  “Slaeponpon donu paw daton,” the young woman said, and she had to be saying, “Rest,” or “Go to sleep,” but she still couldn’t decipher it. The interpreter’s broken, she thought, and the little knot of panic started to form again, worse than the pain in her chest.

  It can’t be broken, she told herself. It’s not a machine. It’s a chemical syntax and memory enhancer. It can’t be broken. It could only work with words in its memory, though, and obviously Mr. Latimer’s Middle English was useless. Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote. Mr. Latimer’s pronunciations were so far off the interpreter couldn’t recognize what it was hearing as the same words, but that didn’t mean it was broken. It only meant it had to collect new data, and the few sentences it had heard so far weren’t enough.

  It recognized the Latin, she thought, and the panic stabbed at her again, but she resisted it. It had been able to recognize the Latin because the rite of extreme unction was a set piece. She had already known what words should be there. The words the women spoke weren’t a set piece, but they were still decipherable. Proper names, forms of address, nouns and verbs and prepositional phrases would appear in set positions that repeated again and again. They would separate themselves out rapidly, and the interpreter would be able to use them as the key to the rest of the code. And what she needed to do now was collect data, listen to what was said without even trying to understand it, and let the interpreter work.

  “Thin keowre hoorwoun desmoortale?” the young woman asked.

  “Got tallon wottes,” the old woman said.

  A bell began to ring, far away. Kivrin opened her eyes. Both women had turned to look at the window, even though they couldn’t see through the linen.

  “Bere wichebay gansanon,” the young woman said.

  The old woman didn’t answer. She was staring at the window, as if she could see past the stiffened linen, her hands clasped in front of her as if in prayer.

  “Aydreddit ister fayve riblaun,” the young woman said, and in spite of her resolution, Kivrin tried to make it into, “It is time for vespers,” or “There is the vespers bell,” but it wasn’t vespers. The bell went on tolling, and no other bells joined in. She wondered if it was the bell she had heard before, ringing all alone in the late afternoon.

  The old woman turned abruptly away from the window. “Nay, Elwiss, itbahn diwolffin.” She picked up the chamberpot from the wooden chest. “Gawynha thesspyd—”

  There was a sudden scuffling outside the door, a sound of footsteps running up stairs, and a child’s voice crying, “Modder! Eysmertemay!”

  A little girl burst into the room, blonde braids and cap strings flying, nearly colliding with the old woman and the chamberpot. The child’s round face was red and smeared with tears.

  “Wol yadothoos forshame ahnyous!” the old woman growled at her, lifting the treacherous bowl out of reach. “Yowe maun naroonso inhus.”

  The little girl paid no attention to her. She ran straight at the young woman, sobbing, “Rawzamun hattmay smerte, Modder!”

  Kivrin gasped. Modder. That had to be mother.

  The little girl held up her arms, and her mother, oh, yes, definitely mother picked her up. She fastened her arms around her mother’s neck and began to howl.

  “Shh, ahnyous, shh,” the mother said. That guttural’s a G, Kivrin thought. A hacking German G. Shh, Agnes.

  Still holding her, the mother sat down on the window seat. She wiped at the tears with the tail of her coif. “Spekenaw dothass bifel, Agnes.”

  Yes, definitely Agnes. And speken was tell. Tell me what happened.

  “Shayoss mayswerte!” Agnes said, pointing at another child who had just come into the room. The second girl was considerably older, nine or ten at least. She had long brown hair that hung down her back and was held in place by a dark blue kerchief.

  “Itgan naso, ahnyous,” she said. “Tha pighte rennin gawn derstayres,” and there was no mistaking that combination of affection and contempt. She didn’t look like the blonde little girl, but Kivrin was willing to bet this dark-haired girl was the little one’s sister. “Shay pighte renninge ahndist eyres, modder.”

  Mother again, and shay was she and pighte must be fell. It sounded French, but the key to this was German. The pronunciations, the constructions were German. Kivrin could almost feel it click into place.

  “Na comfitte horr thusselwys,” the older woman said. “She hathnau woundes. Hoor teres been fornaught mais gain thy pitye.”

  “Hoor nay ganful bloody,” the woman whose name was Eliwys said, but Kivrin couldn’t hear her. She was hearing instead the interpreter’s translation, still clumsy and obviously more than a beat behind, but a translation:

  “Don’t pamper her, Eliwys. She is not injured. Her tears are but to get your attention.”

  And the mother, whose name was Eliwys, “Her knee is bleeding.”

  “Rossmunt brangund oorwarsted frommecofre,” she said, pointing at the foot of the bed, and the interpreter was right behind her. “Rosemund, fetch me the cloth on the chest.” The ten-year-old moved immediately toward the trunk at the foot of the bed.

  The older girl was Rosemund, and the little one was Agnes, and the impossibly young mother in her wimple and coif was Eliwys.

  Rosemund held out a frayed cloth that must surely be the one Eliwys had taken off Kivrin’s forehead.

  “Touch it not! Touch it not!” Agnes screamed, and Kivrin wouldn’t have even needed the interpreter for that one. It was still far more than a beat behind.

  “I would but tie cloth to stop the bleeding,” Eliwys said, taking the rag from Rosemund. Agnes tried to push it away. “The cloth will not—” There was a blank space as if the interpreter didn’t know a word, and then, “—you, Agnes.” The word was obviously hurt or harm, and Kivrin wondered if the interpreter had not had the word in its memory and why it couldn’t have come up with an approximation from context.

  “—will penaunce,” Agnes shouted, and the interpreter echoed, “It will—” and then the blank again. The space must be so that she could hear the actual word and make her own guess at its meaning. It wasn’t a bad idea, but the interpreter was so far behind the space that Kivrin couldn’t hear the word she was intended to. If the interpreter did this every time it didn’t recognize a word, she was in serious trouble.

  “It will penaunce,” Agnes wailed, pushing her mother’s hand away from her knee. “It will pain,” the interpreter whispered, and Kivrin felt relieved that it had managed to come up with something, even though “to pain” was scarcely a verb.

  “How came you to fall?” Eliwys asked to distract Agnes.

  “Sh
e was running up the stairs,” Rosemund said. “She was running to give you the news that… had come.”

  The interpreter left a space again, but Kivrin caught the word this time. Gawyn, which was probably a proper name, and the interpreter had apparently reached the same conclusion because by the time Agnes had shrieked, “I would have told Mother Gawyn had come,” the interpreter included it in the translation.

  “I would have told,” Agnes said, really crying now, and buried her face against her mother, who promptly took advantage of the opportunity to tie the bandage around Agnes’s knee.

  “You can tell me now,” she said.

  Agnes shook her buried head.

  “You tie the bandage too loosely, daughter-in-law,” the older woman said. “It will but fall away.”

  The bandage looked tight enough to Kivrin, and obviously any attempt to bind the wound tighter would result in renewed screams. The old woman was still holding the chamberpot in both hands. Kivrin wondered why she didn’t go empty it.

  “Shh, shh,” Eliwys said, rocking the little girl gently and patting her back. “I would fain have you tell me.”

  “Pride goes before a fall,” the old woman said, seemingly determined to make Agnes cry again. “You were to blame that you fell. You should not have run in the hall.”

  “Was Gawyn riding a white mare?” Eliwys asked.

  A white mare. Kivrin wondered if Gawyn could be the man who had helped her onto his horse and brought her to the manor.

  “Nay,” Agnes said in a tone that indicated her mother had made some sort of joke. “He was riding his own black stallion Gringolet. And he rode up to me and said, ‘Good Lady Agnes, I would speak with thy mother.’”

  “Rosemund, your sister was hurt because of your carelessness,” the old woman said. She hadn’t succeeded in upsetting Agnes, so she’d decided to go after some other victim. “Why were you not tending her?”

  “I was at my broidery,” Rosemund said, looking to her mother for support. “Maisry was to keep watch over her.”

  “Maisry went out to see Gawyn,” Agnes said, sitting up on her mother’s lap.

  “And dally with the stableboy,” the old woman said. She went to the door and shouted, “Maisry!”

  Maisry. That was the name the old woman had called out before, and now the interpreter wasn’t even leaving spaces when it came to proper names. Kivrin didn’t know who Maisry was, probably a servant, but if the way things were going was any indication, Maisry was going to be in a lot of trouble. The old woman was determined to find a victim, and the missing Maisry seemed perfect.

  “Maisry!” she shouted again, and the name echoed.

  Rosemund took the opportunity to go and stand beside her mother. “Gawyn bade us tell you he begged leave to come and speak with you.”

  “Waits he below?” Eliwys asked.

  “Nay. He went first to the church to speak of the lady with Father Rock.”

  Pride goes before a fall. The interpreter was obviously getting overconfident. Father Rolfe, perhaps, or Father Peter. Obviously not Father Rock.

  “Why went he to speak to Father Rock?” the old woman demanded, coming back into the room.

  Kivrin tried to hear the real word under the maddening whisper of the translation. Roche. The French word for “rock.” Father Roche.

  “Mayhap he has found somewhat of the lady,” Eliwys said, glancing at Kivrin. It was the first indication she, or anyone, had given that they remembered Kivrin was in the room. Kivrin quickly closed her eyes to make them think she was asleep so they would go on discussing her.

  “Gawyn rode out this morning to seek the ruffians,” Eliwys said. Kivrin opened her eyes to slits, but she was no longer looking at her. “Mayhap he has found them.” She bent and tied the dangling strings of Agnes’s linen cap. “Agnes, go to the church with Rosemund and tell Gawyn we would speak with him in the hall. The lady sleeps. We must not disturb her.”

  Agnes darted for the door, shouting, “I would be the one to tell him, Rosemund.”

  “Rosemund, let your sister tell,” Eliwys called after them. “Agnes, do not run.”

  The girls disappeared out the door and down the invisible stairs, obviously running.

  “Rosemund is near-grown,” the old woman said. “It is not seemly for her to run after your husband’s men. Ill will come of your daughters being untended. You would do wisely to send to Oxenford for a nurse.”

  “No,” Eliwys said with a firmness Kivrin wouldn’t have guessed at. “Maisry can keep watch over them.”

  “Maisry is not fit to watch sheep. We should not have come from Bath in such haste. Surely we could have waited till…” something.

  The interpreter left a gap again, and Kivrin didn’t recognize the phrase, but she had caught the important facts. They had come from Bath. They were near Oxford.

  “Let Gawyn fetch a nurse. And a leech-woman to see to the lady.”

  “We will send for no one,” Eliwys said.

  “To…,” another place name the interpreter couldn’t manage. “Lady Yvolde has repute with injuries. And she would gladly lend us one of her waiting women for a nurse.”

  “No,” Eliwys said. “We will tend her ourselves. Father Roche—”

  “Father Roche,” she said contemptuously. “He knows naught of medicine.”

  But I understood everything he said, Kivrin thought. She remembered his quiet voice chanting the last rites, his gentle touch on her temples, her palms, the soles of her feet. He had told her not to be afraid and asked her her name. And held her hand.

  “If the lady is of noble birth,” the older woman said, “would you have it told you let an ignorant village priest tend her? Lady Yvolde—”

  “We will send for no one,” Eliwys said, and for the first time Kivrin realized she was afraid. “My husband bade us keep here till he come.”

  “He had sooner have come with us.”

  “You know he could not,” Eliwys said. “He will come when he can. I must go to speak with Gawyn,” she said walking past the old woman to the door. “Gawyn told me he would search the place where first he found the lady to seek for signs of her attackers. Mayhap he has found somewhat that will tell us what she is.”

  The place where first he found the lady. Gawyn was the man who had found her, the man with the red hair and the kind face who had helped her onto his horse and brought her here. That much at least she hadn’t dreamed, though she must have dreamed the white horse. He had brought her here, and he knew where the drop was.

  “Wait,” Kivrin said. She pushed herself up against the pillows. “Wait. Please. I would speak with Gawyn.”

  The women stopped. Eliwys came around beside the bed, looking alarmed.

  “I would speak with the man called Gawyn,” Kivrin said carefully, waiting before each word until she had the translation. Eventually the process would be automatic, but for now she thought the word and then waited till the interpreter translated it and repeated it out loud. “I must discover this place where he found me.”

  Eliwys laid her hand on Kivrin’s forehead, and Kivrin brushed it impatiently away.

  “I would speak with Gawyn,” she said.

  “She has no fever, Imeyne,” Eliwys said to the old woman, “and yet she tries to speak, though she knows we cannot understand her.”

  “She speaks in a foreign tongue,” Imeyne said, making it sound criminal. “Mayhap she is a French spy.”

  “I’m not speaking French,” Kivrin said. “I’m speaking Middle English.”

  “Mayhap it is Latin,” Eliwys said. “Father Roche said she spoke in Latin when he shrove her.”

  “Father Roche can scarce say his Paternoster,” Lady Imeyne said. “We should send to…” the unrecognizable name again. Kersey? Courcy?

  “I would speak with Gawyn,” Kivrin said in Latin.

  “Nay,” Eliwys said. “We will await my husband.”

  The old woman wheeled angrily, slopping the contents of the chamberpot onto her hand. She w
iped it off onto her skirt and went out the door, slamming it shut behind her. Eliwys started after her.

  Kivrin grabbed at her hands. “Why don’t you understand me?” she said. “I understand you. I have to talk to Gawyn. He has to tell me where the drop is.”

  Eliwys disengaged Kivrin’s hand. “There, you mustn’t cry,” she said kindly. “Try to sleep. You must rest, so you can go home.”

  Transcript from the Doomsday Book

  (000915-001284)

  I’m in a lot of trouble, Mr. Dunworthy. I don’t know where I am, and I can’t speak the language. Something’s gone wrong with the interpreter. I can understand some of what the contemps say, but they can’t understand me at all. And that’s not the worst of it.

  I’ve caught some sort of disease. I don’t know what it is. It’s not the plague because I don’t have any of the right symptoms and because I’m getting better. And I had a plague inoculation. I had all my inoculations and T-cell enhancement and everything, but one of them must not have worked or else this is some Middle Ages disease there aren’t any inoculations for.

  The symptoms are headache and fever and dizziness, and I get a pain in my chest when I try to move. I was delirious for a while, which is why I don’t know where I am. A man named Gawyn brought me here on his horse, but I don’t remember very much about the trip except that it was dark and it seemed to take hours. I’m hoping I was wrong and the fever made it seem longer, and I’m in Ms. Montoya’s village after all.

  It could be Skendgate. I remember a church, and I think this is a manor house. I’m in a bedroom or a solar, and it’s not just a loft because there are stairs, so that means the house of a minor baron at least. There’s a window, and as soon as the dizziness subsides I’ll climb up on the window seat and see if I can see the church. It has a bell—it rang for vespers just now. The one at Ms. Montoya’s village didn’t have a belltower, and that makes me afraid I’m not in the right place. I know we’re fairly close to Oxford, because one of the contemps talked about fetching a doctor from there. It’s also close to a village called Kersey—or Courcy—which is not one of the villages on the map of Ms. Montoya’s I memorized, but that could be the name of the landowner.