The Doomsday Book

by Connie Willis

  She had to lean heavily on Rosemund’s arm and Maisry’s filthy one, and it was slow going, but she made it. Past the huts and the steward’s house and the interested pigs, and into the courtyard. The stump of a big ash tree lay on the cobbles in front of the barn, its twisted roots catching the flakes of snow.

  “She will have caught her death with her behavior,” Lady Imeyne said, gesturing to Maisry to open the heavy wooden door. “She will no doubt have a relapse.”

  It began to snow in earnest. Maisry opened the door. It had a latch like the little door on the rat’s cage. I should have let it go, Kivrin thought, scourge or not. I should have let it go.

  Lady Imeyne motioned to Maisry, and she came back to take Kivrin’s arm again. “No,” she said, and shrugged off her hand and Rosemund’s and walked alone and without help through the door and into the darkness inside.

  TRANSCRIPT FROM THE DOMESDAY BOOK

  (005982–013198)

  18 December 1320 (Old Style). I think I have pneumonia. I tried to go find the drop, but I didn’t make it, and I’ve had some sort of relapse or something. There’s a stabbing pain under my ribs every time I take a breath, and when I cough, which is constantly, it feels like everything inside is breaking to pieces. I tried to sit up a while ago and was instantly bathed in sweat, and I think my temp is back up. Those are all symptoms Dr. Ahrens told me indicate pneumonia.

  Lady Eliwys isn’t back yet. Lady Imeyne put a horrible-smelling poultice on my chest and then sent for the steward’s wife. I thought she wanted to “chide with” her for usurping the manor, but when the steward’s wife came, carrying her six-month-old baby, Imeyne told her, “The wound has fevered her lungs,” and the steward’s wife looked at my temple and then went out and came back without the baby and with a bowl full of a bitter-tasting tea. It must have had willow bark or something in it because my temp came down, and my ribs don’t hurt quite so much.

  The steward’s wife is thin and small, with a sharp face and ash-blond hair. I think Lady Imeyne is probably right about her being the one to tempt the steward “into sin.” She came in wearing a fur-trimmed kirtle with sleeves so long they nearly dragged on the floor, and her baby wrapped in a finely woven wool blanket, and she talks in an odd slurred accent that I think is an attempt to mimic Lady Imeyne’s speech.

  “The embryonic middle class,” as Mr. Latimer would say, nouveau riche and waiting for its chance, which it will get in thirty years when the Black Death hits and a third of the nobility is wiped out.

  “Is this the lady was found in the woods?” she asked Lady Imeyne when she came in, and there wasn’t any “seeming modesty” in her manner. She smiled at Imeyne as if they were old chums and came over to the bed.

  “Aye,” Lady Imeyne said, managing to get impatience, disdain, and distaste all in one syllable.

  The steward’s wife was oblivious. She came over to the bed and then stepped back, the first person to show any indication they thought I might be contagious. “Has she the (something) fever?” The interpreter didn’t catch the word, and I couldn’t get it either because of her peculiar accent. Flouronen? Florentine?

  “She has a wound to the head,” Imeyne said sharply. “It has fevered her lungs.”

  The steward’s wife nodded. “Father Roche told us how he and Gawyn found her in the woods.”

  Imeyne stiffened at the familiar use of Gawyn’s name, and the steward’s wife did catch that and hurried out to brew up the willow bark. She even ducked a bow to Lady Imeyne when she left the second time.

  Rosemund came in to sit with me after Imeyne left—I think they’ve assigned her to keep me from trying to escape again—and I asked her if it was true that Father Roche had been with Gawyn when he found me.

  “Nay,” she said. “Gawyn met Father Roche on the road as he brought you here and left you to his care that he might seek your attackers, but he found naught of them, and he and Father Roche brought you here. You need not worry over it. Gawyn has brought your things to the manor.”

  I don’t remember Father Roche being there, except in the sickroom, but if it’s true, and Gawyn didn’t meet him too far from the drop, maybe he knows where it is.

  (Break)

  I have been thinking about what Lady Imeyne said. “The wound to her head has fevered her lungs,” she said. I don’t think anyone here realizes I’m ill. They let the little girls in the sickroom all the time, and none of them seem the least afraid, except the steward’s wife, and as soon as Lady Imeyne told her I had “fevered lungs,” she came up to the bed without any hesitation.

  But she was obviously worried about the possibility of my illness’s being contagious, and when I asked Rosemund why she hadn’t gone with her mother to see the cottar, she said, as if it were self-evident, “She forbade me to go. The cottar is ill.”

  I don’t think they know I have a disease. I didn’t have any obvious marker symptoms, like pox or a rash, and I think they put my fever and delirium down to my injuries. Wounds often became infected, and there were frequent cases of blood poisoning. There would be no reason to keep the little girls away from an injured person.

  And none of them have caught it. It’s been five days, and if it is a virus, the incubation period should only be twelve to forty-eight hours. Dr. Ahrens told me the most contagious period is before there are any symptoms, so maybe I wasn’t contagious by the time the little girls started coming in. Or maybe this is something they’ve all had already, and they’re immune. The steward’s wife asked if I had had the Florentine? Flahntin? fever, and Mr. Gilchrist’s convinced there was an influenza epidemic in 1320. Maybe that’s what I caught.

  It’s afternoon. Rosemund is sitting in the window seat, sewing a piece of linen with dark red wool, and Blackie’s asleep beside me. I’ve been thinking about how you were right, Mr. Dunworthy. I wasn’t prepared at all, and everything’s completely different from the way I thought it would be. But you were wrong about it’s not being like a fairy tale.

  Everywhere I look I see things from fairy tales: Agnes’s red cape and hood, and the rat’s cage, and bowls of porridge, and the village’s huts of straw and sticks that a wolf could blow down without half trying.

  The bell tower looks like the one Rapunzel was imprisoned in, and Rosemund, bending over her embroidery, with her dark hair and white cap and red cheeks, looks for all the world like Snow White.

  (Break)

  I think my fever is back up. I can smell smoke in the room. Lady Imeyne is praying, kneeling beside the bed with her Book of Hours. Rosemund told me they have sent for the steward’s wife again. Lady Imeyne despises her. I must be truly ill for Imeyne to have sent for her. I wonder if they will send for the priest. If they do, I must ask him if he knows where Gawyn found me. It’s so hot in here. This part is not like a fairy tale at all. They only send for the priest when someone is dying, but Probability says there was a 72 percent chance of dying of pneumonia in the 1300s. I hope he comes soon, to tell me where the drop is and hold my hand.

  13

  Two more cases, both students, came in while Mary was interrogating Colin on how he had got through the perimeter.

  “It was easy” Colin had said indignantly. “They’re trying to keep people from getting out, not getting in,” and had been about to give the particulars when the registrar came in.

  Mary had made Dunworthy accompany her to the Casualties Ward to see if he could identify them. “And you stay here,” she had told Colin. “You’ve caused quite enough trouble for one night.”

  Dunworthy didn’t recognize either of the new cases, but it didn’t matter. They were conscious and lucid and were already giving the house officer the names of all their contacts when he and Mary got there. He took a good look at each of them and shook his head. “They might have been part of that crowd on the High Street, I can’t tell,” he said.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “You can go home if you like.”

  “I thought I’d wait and have my blood test,” he said.
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  “Oh, but that isn’t till—” she said, looking at her digital. “Good Lord, it’s past six.”

  “I’ll just go up and check on Badri,” he said, “and then I’ll be in the waiting room.”

  Badri was asleep, the nurse said. “I wouldn’t wake him.”

  “No, of course not,” Dunworthy said and went back down to the waiting room.

  Colin was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, digging in his duffel. “Where’s Great-aunt Mary?” he asked. “She’s a bit flakked at my showing up, isn’t she?”

  “She thought you were safely back in London,” Dunworthy said. “Your mother told her your train had been stopped at Barton.”

  “It was. They made everyone get off and get on another train going back to London.”

  “And you got lost in the changeover?”

  “No. I overheard these people talking about the quarantine, and how there was this terrible disease and everybody was going to die and everything—” He stopped to rummage further in his duffel. He took out and replaced a large number of items, vids and a pocket vidder and a pair of scuffed and dirty runners. He was obviously related to Mary. “And I didn’t want to be stuck with Eric and miss all the excitement.”

  “Eric?”

  “My mother’s livein.” He pulled out a large red gobstopper, picked off a few bits of lint, and popped it in his mouth. It made a mumplike lump in his cheek. “He is absolutely the most necrotic person in the world,” he said around the gobstopper. “He has this flat down in Kent and there is absolutely nothing to do.”

  “So you got off the train at Barton. What did you do then? Walk to Oxford?”

  He took the gobstopper out of his mouth. It was no longer red. It was a mottled bluish-green color. Colin looked critically at all sides of it and put it back in his mouth. “Of course not. Barton’s a long way from Oxford. I took a taxi.”

  “Of course,” Dunworthy said.

  “I told the driver I was reporting the quarantine for my school paper and I wanted to get vids of the blockade. I had my vidder with me, you see, so it seemed the logical thing.” He held up the pocket vidder to illustrate, and then stuffed it back in the duffel and began digging again.

  “Did he believe you?”

  “I think so. He did ask me which school I went to, but I just said, very offended, ‘You should be able to tell,’ and he said St. Edward’s, and I said, ‘Of course.’ He must have believed me. He took me to the perimeter, didn’t he?”

  And I was worried about what Kivrin would do if no friendly traveler came along, Dunworthy thought. “What did you do then, give the police the same story?”

  Colin pulled out a green wool jumper, folded it into a bundle, and laid it on top of the open duffel. “No. When I thought about it, it was rather a lame story. I mean, what is there to take pictures of, after all? It’s not like a fire, is it? So I just walked up to the guard as if I were going to ask him something about the quarantine, and then just at the last I dodged sideways and ducked under the barrier.

  “Didn’t they chase you?”

  “Of course. But not for more than a few streets. They’re trying to keep people from getting out, not in. And then I walked about a while till I found a call box.”

  Presumably it had been pouring rain this entire time but Colin hadn’t mentioned it, and a collapsible umbrella wasn’t among the items he’d rooted out of his bag.

  “The hard part was finding Great-aunt Mary,” he said. He lay down with his head on the duffel. “I went to her flat, but she wasn’t there. I thought perhaps she was still at the tube station waiting for me, but it was shut down.” He sat up, rearranged the wool jumper, and lay back down. “And then I thought, She’s a doctor. She’ll be at the Infirmary.”

  He sat up again, punched the duffel into a different shape, lay down, and closed his eyes. Dunworthy leaned back in the uncomfortable chair, envying the young. Colin was probably nearly asleep already, not at all frightened or disturbed by his adventures. He had walked all over Oxford in the middle of the night, or perhaps he had taken further taxis or pulled a collapsible bicycle out of his duffel, all by himself in a freezing winter rain, and he wasn’t even fazed by the adventure.

  Kivrin was all right. If the village wasn’t where it was supposed to be she would walk until she found it, or take a taxi, or lie down somewhere with her head on her folded-up cloak, and sleep the undauntable sleep of youth.

  Mary came in. “Both of them went to a dance in Headington last night,” she said, dropping her voice when she saw Colin.

  “Badri was there, too,” Dunworthy whispered back.

  “I know. One of them danced with him. They were there from nine to two, which puts it at from twenty-five to thirty hours and well within a forty-eight-hour incubation period, if Badri’s the one who infected them.”

  “You don’t think he did?”

  “I think it’s more likely all three of them were infected by the same person, probably someone Badri saw early in the evening, and the others later.”

  “A carrier?”

  She shook her head. “People don’t usually carry myxoviruses without contracting the disease themselves, but he or she could have had only a mild manifestation or have been ignoring the symptoms.”

  Dunworthy thought of Badri collapsing against the console and wondered how it was possible to ignore one’s symptoms.

  “And if,” Mary went on, “this person was in South Carolina four days ago—”

  “You’ll have your link with the American virus.”

  “And you can stop worrying over Kivrin. She wasn’t at the dance in Headington,” she said. “Of course, the connection is more likely to be several links away.”

  She frowned, and Dunworthy thought, Several links that haven’t checked in to hospital or even rung up a doctor. Several links who have all ignored their symptoms.

  Apparently Mary was thinking the same thing. “These bell ringers of yours, when did they arrive in England?”

  “I don’t know. But they only arrived in Oxford this afternoon, after Badri was at the net.”

  “Well, ask them anyway. When they landed, where they’ve been, whether any of them have been ill. One of them might have relations in Oxford and have come up early. You’ve no American undergraduates in college?”

  “No. Montoya’s an American.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Mary said. “How long has she been here?”

  “All term. But she might have been in contact with someone visiting from America.”

  “I’ll ask her when she comes in for her Woodwork,” she said. “I’d like you to question Badri about any Americans he knows, or students who’ve been to the States on exchange.”

  “He’s asleep.”

  “And so should you be,” she said. “I didn’t mean now.” She patted his arm. “There’s no necessity of waiting till seven. I’ll send someone in to take blood and BP so you can go home to bed.” She took Dunworthy’s wrist and looked at the temp monitor. “Any chills?”

  “No.”

  “Headache?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s because you’re exhausted.” She dropped his wrist. “I’ll send someone straightaway.”

  She looked at Colin, stretched out on the floor. “Colin will have to be tested as well, at least till we’re certain it’s droplet.”

  Colin’s mouth had fallen open, but the gobstopper was still firmly in place in his cheek. Dunworthy wondered if he were likely to choke. “What about your nephew?” he said. “Would you like me to take him back to Balliol with me?”

  She looked immediately grateful. “Would you? I hate to burden you with him, but I doubt I’ll be home till we get this under control.” She sighed. “Poor boy. I hope his Christmas won’t be too spoilt.”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” Dunworthy said.

  “Well, I’m very grateful,” Mary said, “and I’ll see to the tests immediately.”

  She left. Colin
sat up immediately.

  “What sort of tests?” Colin asked. “Does this mean I might get the virus?”

  “I sincerely hope not,” Dunworthy said, thinking of Badri’s flushed face, his labored breathing.

  “But I might,” Colin said.

  “The chances are very slim,” Dunworthy said. “I shouldn’t worry about it.”

  “I’m not worried.” He held out his arm. “I think I’m getting a rash,” he said eagerly, pointing to a freckle.

  “That isn’t a symptom of the virus,” Dunworthy said. “Collect your things. I’m taking you home with me after the tests.” He gathered up his muffler and overcoat from the chairs he’d draped them over.

  “What are the symptoms, then?”

  “Fever and difficulty breathing,” Dunworthy said. Mary’s shopping bag was on the floor by Latimer’s chair. He decided they’d best take it with them.

  The nurse came in, carrying her bloodwork tray.

  “I feel hot,” Colin said. He clutched his throat dramatically. “I can’t breathe.”

  The nurse took a startled step backward, clinking her tray.

  Dunworthy grabbed Colin’s arm. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said to the nurse. “It’s only a case of gobstopper poisoning.”

  Colin grinned and bared his arm fearlessly for the blood test, then stuffed the jumper into the duffel and pulled on his still-damp jacket while Dunworthy had his blood drawn.

  The nurse said, “Dr. Ahrens said you needn’t wait for the results,” and left.

  Dunworthy put on his overcoat, picked up Mary’s shopping bag, and led Colin down the corridor and out through the Casualties Ward. He couldn’t see Mary anywhere, but she had said they needn’t wait, and he was suddenly so tired he couldn’t stand.

  They went outside. It was just beginning to get light out and still raining. Dunworthy hesitated under the hospital porch, wondering if he should ring for a taxi, but he had no desire to have Gilchrist show up for his tests while they were waiting and have to hear his plans for sending Kivrin to the Black Death and the battle of Agincourt. He fished Mary’s collapsible umbrella out of her bag and put it up.