Dooms Day Book

by Connie Willis

  The interpreter, still a half-beat behind, translated that as, “I knew you not.”

  “She knows naught,” Agnes interrupted. “The wicked man struck her on the head, and she remembers naught save for her name.”

  “I had heard this,” he said, still looking at Kivrin. “Is it true you have no memory of why you have come among us?”

  She felt the same longing to tell him the truth that she had felt when he’d asked her her name. I’m an historian, she wanted to say. I came here to observe you, and I fell ill, and I don’t know where the drop is.

  “She remembers naught of who she is,” Agnes said. “She did not yet remember how to speak. I had to teach her.”

  “You remember naught of who you are?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “And naught of your coming here?” he said.

  She could answer that truthfully at least. “No,” she said. “Except that you and Gawyn brought me to the manor.”

  Agnes was obviously tired of the conversation. “Might we go with you now to gather holly?”

  He didn’t act as if he’d heard her. He extended his hand as if he were going to bless Kivrin, but he touched her temple instead, and she realized that was what he had intended to do before, beside the tomb. “You have no wound,” he said.

  “It’s healed,” she said.

  “We wish to go now,” Agnes said, tugging on Roche’s arm.

  He raised his hand, as if to touch her temple again, and then withdrew it. “You must not fear,” he said. “God has sent you among us for some good purpose.”

  No, He hasn’t, Kivrin thought. He hasn’t sent me here at all. Mediaeval sent me. But she felt comforted.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “I would go now!” Agnes said, tugging on Kivrin’s arm. “Go fetch your donkey,” she told Father Roche, “and we will fetch Rosemund.”

  Agnes started down the nave, and Kivrin had no choice but to go with her to keep her from running. The door banged open just before they reached it, and Rosemund looked in, blinking.

  “It is raining. Found you Father Roche?” she demanded.

  “Took you Blackie to the stable?” Agnes asked.

  “Aye. You were too late, then, and Father Roche had gone?”

  “Nay. He is here, and we are to go with him. He was in the church, and Lady Kivrin—”

  “He has gone to fetch his donkey,” Kivrin said to keep Agnes from launching into the story of what had happened.

  “I was affrighted that time when you jumped from the loft, Rosemund,” Agnes said, but Rosemund had already stomped off to her horse.

  It wasn’t raining, but there was a fine mist in the air. Kivrin helped Agnes into her saddle and mounted the sorrel, using the lychgate as a step. Father Roche led the donkey out to them, and they started off on the track past the church and up through the little band of trees behind it, along a little space of snow– covered meadow and on into the woods.

  “There are wolves in these woods,” Agnes said. “Gawyn killed one.”

  Kivrin scarcely heard her. She was watching Father Roche walking beside his donkey, trying to remember the night he had brought her to the manor. Rosemund had said Gawyn had met him on the road and he had helped Gawyn bring her the rest of the way to the manor, but that couldn’t be right.

  He had leaned over her as she sat against the wagon wheel. She could see his face in the flickering light from the fire. He had said something to her she didn’t understand, and she had said, “Tell Mr. Dunworthy to come and get me.”

  “Rosemund does not ride in seemly fashion for a maid,” Agnes said primly.

  She had ridden out ahead of the donkey and was nearly out of sight where the road curved, waiting impatiently for them to catch up.

  “Rosemund!” Kivrin called, and Rosemund galloped back, nearly colliding with the donkey and then pulling her mare’s reins up short.

  “Can we go no faster than this?” she demanded, wheeled around, and rode ahead again. “We will never finish ere it rains.”

  They were riding in thick woods now, the road scarcely wider than a bridle path. Kivrin looked at the trees, trying to remember having seen them. They passed a thicket of willows, but it was set too far back from the road, and a trickle of ice– bordered water ran next to it.

  There was a huge sycamore on the other side of the path. It stood in a little open space, draped with mistletoe. Beyond it was a line of wild service trees, so evenly spaced they might have been planted. She didn’t remember ever having seen any of this before.

  They had brought her along this road, and she’d hoped that something might trigger her memory, but nothing looked familiar at all. It had been too dark and she had been too ill.

  All she really remembered was the drop, though it had the same hazy, unreal quality as the trip to the manor. There had been a clearing and an oak and a thicket of willows. And Father Roche’s face bending over her as she sat against the wagon wheel.

  He must have been with Gawyn when he found her, or else Gawyn had brought him back to the drop. She could see his face clearly in the light from the fire. And then she’d fallen off the horse at the fork.

  They hadn’t come to any fork yet. She hadn’t even seen any paths, though she knew they had to be there, cutting from village to village and leading to the fields and the hut of the sick cottar Eliwys had gone to see.

  They climbed a low hill, and at the top of it Father Roche looked back to see if they were following. He knows where the drop is, Kivrin thought. She had hoped he had some idea where it was, that Gawyn had described it to him or told him which road it lay along, but he hadn’t had to. Father Roche already knew where the drop was. He had been there.

  Agnes and Kivrin came to the top of the hill, but all she could see was trees, and below them more trees. They had to be in Wychwood Forest, but there were over a hundred square kilometers in which the drop could be hidden. She would never have found it on her own. She could scarcely see ten meters into the underbrush.

  She was amazed at the thickness of the woods as they came down the hill into the heart of them. There were clearly no paths between the trees here. There was scarcely any space at all, and what there was was filled with fallen branches and tangled thickets and snow.

  She had been wrong about not recognizing anything—she knew these woods after all. It was the forest Snow White had got lost in, and Hansel and Gretel, and all those princes. There were wolves in it, and bears, and perhaps even witch’s cottages, and that was where all those stories had come from, wasn’t it, the Middle Ages? And no wonder. Anyone could get lost in there.

  Roche stopped and stood beside his donkey while Rosemund cantered back to him and they caught up, and Kivrin wondered wryly if he had lost his way. But as soon as they came up to him, he plunged off through a thicket and onto an even narrower path that wasn’t visible from the road.

  Rosemund couldn’t pass Father Roche and his donkey without shoving them aside, but she followed nearly treading on the donkey’s hind hooves, and Kivrin wondered again what was bothering her. “Sir Bloet has many powerful friends,” Lady Imeyne had said. She had called him an ally, but Kivrin wondered if he really was, or if Rosemund’s father had told her something about him that made her so distressed at the prospect of his coming to Ashencote.

  They went a short way along the path, past a thicket of willows that looked like the one by the drop, and then turned off the path, squeezing through a stand of firs and emerging next to a holly tree.

  Kivrin had been expecting holly bushes like the ones in Brasenose’s quad, but this was a tree. It towered over them, spreading out above the confines of the spruces, its red berries bright among the masses of glossy leaves.

  Father Roche began taking the sacks from the back of the donkey, Agnes attempting to help him. Rosemund pulled a short, fat-bladed knife our of her girdle and began hacking at the sharp-leaved lower branches.

  Kivrin waded through the snow to the other side of the tr
ee. She had caught a glimpse of white she thought might be the stand of birches, but it was only a branch, half-fallen between two trees and covered with snow.

  Agnes appeared, with Roche behind her carrying a wicked– looking dagger. Kivrin had thought that knowing who he was would work some transformation, but he still looked like a cutthroat, standing there looming over Agnes.

  He handed Agnes one of the coarse bags. “You must hold the bag open like this,” he said, bending down to show her how the top of the bag should be folded back, “and I will put the branches into it.” He began chopping at the branches, oblivious to the spiky leaves. Kivrin took the branches from him and put them in the bag carefully, so the stiff leaves wouldn’t break.

  “Father Roche,” she said, “I wanted to thank you for helping me when I was ill and for bringing me to the manor when I—”

  “When that you were fallen,” he said, hacking at a stubborn branch.

  She had intended to say, “when I was set upon by thieves,” and his response surprised her. She remembered falling off the horse and wondered if that was when he had happened along. But if it was, they had already come a long way from the drop, and he wouldn’t know where it was. And she remembered him there, at the drop.

  There was no point in speculating. “Do you know the place where Gawyn found me?” she asked, and held her breath.

  “Aye,” he said, sawing at a thick branch.

  She felt suddenly sick with relief. He knew where the drop was. “Is it far from here?”

  “Nay,” he said. He wrenched the branch off.

  “Would you take me there?” Kivrin asked.

  “Why would you go there?” Agnes asked, spreading her arms out wide to keep the bag open. “What if the wicked men be still there?”

  Roche was looking at her as if he were wondering the same thing.

  “I thought that if I saw the place, I might remember who I am and where I came from,” she said.

  He handed her the branch, holding it so she could take it without being stabbed. “I will take you there,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Kivrin said. Thank you. She slid the branch in next to the others, and Roche tied the top shut and hoisted the bag over his shoulder.

  Rosemund appeared, dragging her bag in the snow behind her. “Are you not finished yet?” she said.

  Roche took her bag, too, and tied them on the donkey’s back. Kivrin lifted Agnes onto her pony and helped Rosemund mount, and Father Roche knelt and linked his big hands so Kivrin could step up into the stirrup.

  He had helped her back on the white horse when she fell off. When that she was fallen. She remembered his big hands steadying her. But they had come a long way from the drop by then, and why would Gawyn have taken Roche all the way back to the drop? She did not remember going back, but it was all so dim and confused. In her delirium it must have seemed farther than it was.

  Roche led the donkey back through the firs and onto the path, going back the way they had come. Rosemund let him get ahead and then said, in a voice just like Imeyne’s, “Where goes he now? The ivy lies not this way.”

  “We go to see the place where Lady Katherine was set upon,” Agnes said.

  Rosemund looked at Kivrin suspiciously. “Why would you go thence?” she asked. “Your goods and gear have already been fetched to the manor.”

  “She wots that if she see the place she will remember somewhat,” Agnes said. “Lady Kivrin, if you remember you who you are, must you return home?”

  “Certes, she will,” Rosemund said. “She must needs return to her family. She cannot stay with us forever.” She was only doing this to provoke Agnes, and it worked.

  “She can!” Agnes said. “She will be our nurse.”

  “Why would she wish to stay with such a mewling babe?” Rosemund said, kicking her horse into a trot.

  “I am no babe!” Agnes called after her. “You are the babe!” She rode back to Kivrin. “I do not wish you to leave me!”

  “I won’t leave you,” she said. “Come, Father Roche is waiting.”

  He was at the road, and as soon as they rode up, he started on. Rosemund was already far ahead, dashing along the snow– filled path, sending up sprays of snow.

  They crossed a little stream and came to a fork, the part they were on curving away to the right, the other continuing nearly straight for a hundred meters or so and then making a sharp jog to the left. Rosemund sat at the fork, letting her horse stamp and toss its head to express her impatience.

  I fell off the white horse at a fork in the road, Kivrin thought, trying to remember the trees, the road, the little stream, anything. There were dozens of forks along the paths that criss-crossed Wychwood Forest and no reason to think this was the one, but it apparently was. Father Roche turned right at the fork and went a few meters and then plunged into the woods, leading the donkey.

  There were no willows where he left the road, and no hill. He must be going back the way Gawyn had brought her. She remembered them going a long way through the woods before they came to the fork.

  They followed him into the trees, Rosemund in the rear, and almost immediately had to dismount and lead their horses. Roche wasn’t following any path that Kivrin could see. he picked his way through the snow, ducking under low branches that showered snow down on his neck, and skirting around a spiny clump of blackthorn.

  Kivrin tried to memorize the scenery so she could find her way back here, but it all had a defeating sameness. As long as there was snow she could follow their foot– and hoofprints. She would have to come back alone before it melted and mark the trail with notches or scraps of cloth or something. Or breadcrumbs, like Hansel and Gretel.

  It was easy to see how they, and Snow White, and the princes, had got lost in the woods. They had only gone a few hundred meters and already, looking back, Kivrin wasn’t sure which direction the road lay, even with the footprints. Hansel and Gretel could have wandered for months and never found their way back home, or found the witch’s cottage either.

  Father Roche’s donkey stopped.

  “What is it?” Kivrin asked.

  Father Roche led the donkey off to the side and tied it to an alder tree. “This is the place.”

  It wasn’t the drop. It was scarcely even a clearing, only a space where an oak tree had spread out its branches and kept the other trees from growing. It made almost a tent, and under it the ground was only powdered with snow.

  “Can we build a fire?” Agnes asked, walking under the branches to the remains of a campfire. A fallen log had been dragged over to it. Agnes sat down on it. “I am cold,” she said, poking at the blackened stones with her foot.

  It hadn’t burned very long. The sticks were barely charred. Someone had kicked dirt on it to put it out. Father Roche had squatted in front of her, the light from the fire flickering on his face.

  “Well?” Rosemund said impatiently. “Do you remember aught?”

  She had been here. She remembered the fire. She had thought they were lighting it for the stake. But that couldn’t be right. Roche had been at the drop. She remembered him leaning over her as she sat against the wagon wheel.

  “Are you sure this is the place where Gawyn found me?”

  “Aye,” he said, frowning.

  “If the wicked man comes, I will fight him with my dirk,” Agnes said, pulling one of the half-charred sticks out of the fire and brandishing it in the air. The blackened end broke off. Agnes squatted next to the fire and pulled out another stick and then sat down on the ground, her back against the log, and struck the two sticks together. Pieces of charred wood flew off them.

  Kivrin looked at Agnes. She had sat against the log while they made the fire, and Gawyn had leaned over her, his hair red in the fire’s light, and said something to her that she couldn’t understand. And then he had put the fire out, kicking it apart with his boots, and the smoke came up and blinded her.

  “Have you remembered you?” Agnes said, tossing the sticks back among the stones.
r />   Roche was still frowning at her. “Are you ill, Lady Katherine?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, trying to smile. “It was just… I’d hoped that if I saw the place where I was attacked, I might remember.”

  He looked at her solemnly a moment, the way he had in the church, and then turned and went over to his donkey. “Come,” he said.

  “Have you remembered?” Agnes insisted, clapping her fur mittens together. They were covered with soot.

  “Agnes!” Rosemund said. “Look you how you have dirtied your mittens.” She pulled Agnes roughly to her feet. “And you have ruined your cloak, sitting in the cold snow. You wicked girl!”

  Kivrin pulled the two girls apart. “Rosemund, untie Agnes’s pony,” she said. “It is time to go gather the ivy.” She brushed the snow off Agnes’s cloak and wiped ineffectually at the white fur.

  Father Roche was standing by his donkey, waiting for them, still with that odd, sober expression.

  “We’ll clean your mittens when we get home,” she said hastily. “Come, we must go with Father Roche.”

  Kivrin took the mare’s reins and followed the girls and Father Roche back the way they had come for a few meters and then in another direction that brought them almost immediately out onto a road. She couldn’t see the fork, and she wondered if they were farther along the road or on a different road altogether. It all looked the same—willows and little clearings and oak trees.

  It was clear what had happened. Gawyn had tried to take her to the manor, but she had been too ill. She had fallen off his horse and he had taken her into the woods and built a campfire and left her there, propped against the fallen log, while he went for help.

  Or he had intended to build a fire and stay there with her until morning, and Father Roche had seen the campfire and come to help, and between them they had taken her to the manor. Father Roche had no idea where the drop was. He had assumed Gawyn had found her there, under the oak tree.

  The image of him leaning over her as she sat against the wagon wheel was part of her delirium. She had dreamed it as she lay in the sickroom, the way she had dreamed the bells and the stake and the white horse.