Dooms Day Book

by Connie Willis

  “You must hear my confession.”

  No. He could not die. She would be left here all alone. She shook her head, unable to speak.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” he began in Latin.

  He hadn’t sinned. He had tended the sick, shriven the dying, buried the dead. It was God who should have to beg forgiveness.

  “—in thought, word, deed, and omission. I was angry with Lady Imeyne. I shouted at Maisry.” He swallowed. “I had carnal thoughts of a saint of the Lord.”

  Carnal thoughts.

  “I humbly ask pardon of God, and absolution of you, Father, if you think me worthy.”

  There is nothing to forgive, she wanted to say. Your sins are no sins. Carnal thoughts. We held down Rosemund and barricaded the village against a harmless boy and buried a six– month-old baby. It is the end of the world. Surely you are to be allowed a few carnal thoughts.

  She raised her hand helplessly, unable to speak the words of absolution, but he did not seem to notice. “Oh, My God,” he said, “I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee.”

  Offended thee. You’re the saint of the Lord, she wanted to tell him, and where the hell is He? Why doesn’t he come and save you?

  There was no oil. She dipped her fingers in the bucket and made the sign of the cross over his eyes and ears, his nose and mouth, his hands that had held her hand when she was dying.

  “Quid quid deliquiste,” he said, and she dipped her hand in the water again and marked the cross on the soles of his feet.

  “Libera nos, quaesumus, Domine,” he prompted.

  “Ab omnibus malis,” Kivrin said, “praeteritis, praesentibus, et futuris.” Deliver us, we beseech, Thee, O Lord, from all evils, past, present and to come.

  “Perducat te ad vitam aeternam,” he murmured.

  And bring thee unto life everlasting. “Amen,” Kivrin said, and leaned forward to catch the blood that come pouring out of him.

  He vomited the rest of the night and most of the next day, and then sank into unconsciousness in the afternoon, his breathing shallow and unsteady. Kivrin sat beside him, bathing his hot forehead. “Don’t die,” she said when his breathing caught and struggled on, more labored. “Don’t die,” she said softly. “What will I do without you? I will be all alone.”

  “You must not stay here,” he said. He opened his eyes a little. They were red and swollen.

  “I thought you were asleep,” she said regretfully. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “You must go again to heaven,” he said, “and pray for my soul in purgatory, that my time there may be short.”

  Purgatory. As if God would make him suffer any longer than he was already.

  “You will not need my prayers,” she said.

  “You must return to that place whence you came,” he said, and his hand came up in a vague drifting motion in front of his face, as if he were trying to ward off a blow.

  Kivrin caught his hand and held it, but gently, so as not to bruise the skin, and laid it against her cheek.

  You must return to that place whence you came. Would that I could, she thought. She wondered how long they had held the drop open before they gave up. Four days? A week? Perhaps it was still open. Mr. Dunworthy wouldn’t have let them close it while there was any hope at all. But there isn’t, she thought. I’m not in 1320. I’m here, at the end of the world.

  “I can’t,” she said. “I don’t know the way.”

  “You must try to remember,” Roche said, freeing his hand and waving it. “Agnes, pass the fork.”

  He was delirious. Kivrin got up on her knees, afraid he might try to rise again.

  “Where you fell,” he said, putting his hand under the elbow of the waving one to brace it, and Kivrin realized he was trying to point. “Pass the fork.”

  Past the fork.

  “What is past the fork?” she asked.

  “The place where first I found you when you fell from heaven,” he said and let his arms fall.

  “I thought that Gawyn had found me.”

  “Aye,” he said as if he saw no contradiction in what she said. “I met him on the road while I was bringing you to the manor.”

  He had met him on the road.

  “The place where Agnes fell,” he said, trying to help her remember. “The day we went for the holly.”

  Why didn’t you tell me when we were there? Kivrin thought, but she knew that, too. He had had his hands full with the donkey, which had balked at the top of the hill and refused to go any farther.

  Because it saw me come through, she thought, and knew that he had stood over her, in the glade, looking down at her as she lay there with her arm over her face. I heard him, she thought. I saw his footprint.

  “You must return to that place, and thence again to heaven,” he said and closed his eyes.

  He had seen her come through, had come and stood over her as she lay there with her eyes closed, had put her on his donkey when she was ill. And she had never guessed, not even when she saw him in the church, not even when Agnes told her he thought she was a saint.

  Because Gawyn had told her he had found her. Gawyn, who was ‘like to boast’, and who had wanted more than anything to impress Lady Eliwys. “I found you and brought you hence,” he had told her, and perhaps he didn’t even consider it to be a lie. The village priest was no one, after all. And all the time, when Rosemund was ill and Gawyn had ridden off to Bath and the drop opened and then closed again forever, Roche had known where it was.

  “There is no need to wait for me,” he said. “No doubt they long for your return.”

  “Hush,” she said gently. “Try to sleep.”

  He sank into a troubled doze again, his hands still moving restlessly, trying to point and plucking at the coverings. He pushed the covers off and reached for his groin again. Poor man, Kivrin thought, he was not to be spared any indignities.

  She placed his hands back on his chest and covered him, but he pushed the covering down again and pulled the tail of his tunic up over his breeches. He grabbed for his groin and then shuddered and let go, and something in the movement made Kivrin think of Rosemund.

  She frowned. He had vomited blood. That, and the stage the epidemic had reached had made her think he had the pneumonic plague, and she hadn’t seen any buboes under his arms when she took his coat off. She pulled the tail of his robe aside, exposing his coarsely woven woolen hose. They were tight around his middle and entangled with the tail of his alb. She would never be able to pull them off without lifting him, and there was so much wadded cloth she couldn’t see anything.

  She laid her hand gently on his thigh, remembering how sensitive Rosemund’s arm had been. He flinched but did not waken, and she slid her hand to the inside and up, only just touching the cloth. It was hot. “Forgive me,” she said and slid her hand between his legs.

  He screamed and made a convulsive movement, his knees coming up sharply, but Kivrin had already jerked back out of the way, her hand over her mouth. The bubo was gigantic and red hot to the touch. She should have lanced it hours ago.

  Roche had not awakened, even when he screamed. His face was mottled, and his breath came steadily, noisily. His spasmodic movement had sent his coverings flying again. She stopped and covered him. His knees came up, but less violently, and she pulled the coverings up around him and then took the last candle from the top of the rood screen, put it in the lantern and lit it from one of St. Catherine’s.

  “I’ll be back in just a moment,” she said, and went down the nave and out.

  The light outside made her blink, though it was nearly evening. The sky was overcast, but there was little wind, and it seemed warmer outside than in the church. She ran across the green, shielding the open part of the lantern with her hand.

  There was a sharp knife in the barn. She had used it to cut the rope when she was packing the wagon. She would have to sterilize it before she lanced the bubo. She had to open the swollen lymph node before it ruptured. When the bu
boes were in the groin, they were perilously close to the femoral artery. Even if Roche didn’t bleed to death immediately, all that poison would go straight into his bloodstream. It should have been lanced hours ago.

  She ran between the barn and the empty pig sty and into the courtyard. The stable door stood open, and she could hear someone inside. Her heart jerked. “Who is there?” she said, holding the lantern up.

  The steward’s cow was standing in one of the stalls, eating the spilled oats. She raised her head and lowed at Kivrin, and started toward her at a stumbling run.

  “I don’t have time,” Kivrin said. She snatched up the knife from where it lay on the tangle of ropes and ran out. The cow followed, lumbering awkwardly because of its overfull udder and mooing piteously.

  “Go away,” Kivrin said, near tears. “I have to help him or he’ll die.” She looked at the knife. It was filthy. When she had found it in the barn, it had been dirty, and she had laid it down in the manure and dirt of the barn floor betweentimes while she was cutting the ropes.

  She went over to the well and picked up the bucket. There was no more than an inch of water in the bottom, and it had a skim of ice on it. There was not enough to even cover the knife, and it would take forever to start a fire and bring it to a boil. There was no time for that. The bubo might already have ruptured. What she needed was alcohol, but they had used all the wine lancing the buboes and giving sacraments to all the dying. She thought of the bottle the clerk had had in Rosemund’s bower.

  The cow shoved against her. “No,” she said firmly, and pushed open the door of the manor house, carrying the lantern.

  It was dark in the anteroom, but the sunlight streamed into the hall through narrow windows, making long, smoky, golden shafts that lit the cold hearth and the high table and the wadmal sack of apples Kivrin had spilled out across it.

  The rats didn’t run. They looked up at her when she came in, their small black ears twitching, and then went back to the apples. There were nearly a dozen of them on the table, and one sat on Agnes’s three-legged stool, his delicate paws up to his face as if he were praying.

  She set down the lantern on the floor. “Get out,” she said.

  The rats on the table didn’t even look up. The one who was praying did, across his folded paws, a cold, appraising look, as if she were an intruder.

  “Get out of here!” she shouted and ran toward them.

  They still didn’t run. Two of them moved behind the salt– cellar, and one of them dropped the apple it was holding with a thunk onto the table. It rolled off the edge and onto the rush– strewn floor.

  Kivrin raised her knife. “Get.” She brought it down on the table, and the rats scattered. “Out.” She raised it again. “Of.” She swept the apples off the table and onto the floor. They bounced and rolled onto the rushes. In his surprise or fright, the rat that had been on Agnes’s stool ran straight toward Kivrin. “Here.” She threw the knife at it, and it sprinted back under the stool and disappeared in the rushes.

  “Get out of here,” Kivrin said and buried her face in her hands.

  “Mwaa,” the cow said from the anteroom.

  “It’s a disease,” Kivrin whispered shakily, her hands still over her mouth. “It’s nobody’s fault.”

  She went and retrieved the knife and the lantern. The cow had wedged itself halfway through the manor door and got stuck. It lowed at her piteously.

  She left it there and went up to the solar, ignoring the sounds of skittering above her. The room was icy cold. The linen that Eliwys had fastened over the window had torn loose and was hanging by one corner. The bed hangings were down at one side, too, where the clerk had tried to pull himself up on them, and the flock mattress lay half off the bed. There were small sounds from under the bed, but she didn’t try to see where they were coming from. The chest was still open, its carved lid propped against the foot of the bed, and the clerk’s heavy purple cloak lay folded in it.

  The bottle of wine had rolled under the bed. Kivrin flung herself down on the floor and reached under the bed for it. It rolled away from her touch, and she had to crawl halfway under the bed before she could get hold of it.

  The stopper had come out, probably when she had kicked it under the bed. A little wine clung stickily to the mouth.

  “No,” she said hopelessly, and sat there for a long minute, holding the empty bottle.

  There wasn’t any wine in the church. Roche had used it all for the last rites.

  She suddenly remembered the bottle he had given her to use on Agnes’s knee. She wriggled under the bed and swept her arm carefully along the bedboard, afraid of knocking it over. She couldn’t remember how much had been in it, but she didn’t think she’d used it all.

  She nearly knocked it over, in spite of her carefulness, and grabbed for the wide neck as it tilted. She backed out from under the bed and shook it gently. It was nearly half full. She stuck her knife in the waistband of her jerkin, tucked the bottle under her arm, grabbed up the clerk’s cloak and went downstairs. The rats were back, working on the apples, but this time they ran when she started down the stone steps, and she did not try to see where they’d gone.

  The cow had worked over half of its body through the anteroom door and was now hopelessly blocking the way. Kivrin set everything down inside the screens, sweeping a space clear of rushes so she could stand the bottle upright on the stone floor, and pushed her back out, the cow lowing unhappily the whole time.

  Once out, the cow promptly tried to come back in to Kivrin. “No,” she said. “There’s no time,” but she went back into the barn and up into the loft and threw down a forkful of hay. Then she scooped up everything and ran back to the church.

  Roche had lapsed into unconsciousness. His body had relaxed. His big legs sprawled out in front of him, wide apart, and his hands lay out at his sides, palms up. He looked like a man knocked out by a blow. His breathing was heavy and tremulous, as if he were shivering.

  Kivrin covered him with the heavy purple cloak. “I’m back, Roche,” she said, and patted his outflung arm, but he didn’t give any indication that he had heard.

  She took the guard off the lantern and used the flame to light all the candles. There were only three of Lady Imeyne’s candles left, all of them over half burned. She lit the rushlights, too, and the fat tallow candle in the niche of the statue of St. Catherine, and moved them closer to Roche’s legs, so she would be able to see.

  “I’m going to have to take your hose off,” she said, folding back the coverlet. “I have to lance the bubo.” She untied the ragged points on the hose and he didn’t flinch at her touch, but he moaned a little, and it sounded liquid.

  She pulled at the hose, trying to get them down over his hips, and then yanked at the legs, but they were too tight. She would have to cut them off. She should have thought to fetch Rosemund’s scissors, too.

  “I’m going to cut your hose off,” she said, crawling back to where she’d left the knife and the bottle of wine. “I’ll try not to cut you.” She dug at the seal and then cut it with the knife. Kivrin sniffed at the bottle and then took a little swig and choked. Good. It was old and full of alcohol. She poured it over the blade of the knife, wiped the edge on her leg, poured some more, careful to leave enough to pour over the wound when she had it opened.

  “Beata,” Roche murmured. His hand groped for his groin.

  “It’s all right,” Kivrin said. She took hold of one of the legs of his hose and slit the wool. “I know it hurts now, but I’m going to lance the bubo.” She pulled the rough fabric apart in both hands and, blessedly, it tore, making a loud, ripping sound. Roche’s knees contracted. “No, no, leave your legs down,” Kivrin said, trying to push on them. “I have to lance the bubo.”

  She couldn’t get them down. She left them for the moment and finished tearing the leg of his hose, reaching under his leg to split the rough cloth the rest of the way up, so she could see the bubo. It was twice as big as Rosemund’s and completely black. It
should have been lanced hours ago, days ago.

  “Roche, please put your legs down,” she said, leaning on them with all her weight. “I have to open the plague boil.”

  There was no response. She was not sure he could respond, that his muscles were not somehow contracting on their own, the way the clerk’s had, but she couldn’t wait until the spasm, if that was what it was, had passed. It might rupture at any minute.

  She stepped away a minute and then knelt down by his feet, and reached up under his folded legs, gripping the knife. Roche moaned, and she pulled the knife down a little and then moved it forward slowly, carefully, till it touched the bubo.

  His kick caught her full in the ribs, sending her sprawling. She let go of the knife, and it skittered loudly across the stone floor. The kick had knocked the wind out of Kivrin, and she lay there, gasping for air, taking long, wheezing breaths. She tried to sit up. Pain stabbed at her right side, and she fell back, clutching at her ribs.

  Roche was still screaming, a long, impossible sound like a tortured animal. Kivrin rolled slowly onto her left side, holding her hand tightly against her ribs, so she could see him. He rocked back and forth like a child, screaming all the while, his naked legs drawn up protectively to his chest. She could not see the bubo.

  Kivrin tried to raise herself, bracing her hand against the stone floor until she was half-sitting, and then edging it toward her till she could put both hands down and get onto her knees. She cried out, little whimpering screams that were lost in Roche’s. He must have broken some ribs. She spat on her hand, afraid of seeing blood.

  When she was finally on her knees, she sat back on her feet a minute, huddling against the pain. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She half-crawled towards him on her knees, using her right hand as a crutch. The effort made her breathe more deeply, and every breath stabbed into her side. “It’s all right, Roche,” she whispered. “I’m coming. I’m coming.”

  He pulled his legs up spasmodically at the sound of her voice, and she moved around to his side, between him and the side wall, well out of his reach. When he kicked her, he had knocked over one of St. Catherine’s candles, and it lay in a yellow puddle beside him, still burning. Kivrin set it upright and laid her hand on his shoulder. “Shh, Roche,” she said. “It’s all right. I’m here now.”