The Doomsday Book

by Connie Willis

  Roche dropped his arms. “Gawyn!” he said, and the black stallion looked like Gawyn’s, but a boy was riding it. He could not have been older than Rosemund, and his face and clothes were streaked with mud. The stallion was muddy, too, breathing hard and spattering foam, and the boy looked as winded. His nose and ears were brightened with the cold. He started to dismount, staring at them.

  “You must not come here,” Kivrin said, speaking carefully so she wouldn’t lapse into English. “There is plague in this village.” She raised her spade, pointing it like a gun at him.

  The boy stopped, halfway off the horse, and sat down in the saddle again.

  “The blue sickness,” she added, in case he didn’t understand, but he was already nodding.

  “It is everywhere,” he said, turning to take something from the pouch behind his saddle. “I bear a message.” He held out a leather wallet toward Roche, and Roche stepped forward for it.

  “No!” Kivrin said and took a step forward, jabbing the spade at the air in front of him. “Drop it on the ground!” she said. “You must not touch us.”

  The boy took a lied roll of vellum from the wallet and threw it at Roche’s feet.

  Roche picked it up off the flagstones and unrolled it. “What says the message?” he asked the boy, and Kivrin thought, Of course, he can’t read.

  “I know not,” the boy said. “It is from the Bishop of Bath. I am to take it to all the parishes.”

  “Would you have me read it?” Kivrin asked.

  “Mayhap it is from the lord,” Roche said. “Mayhap he sends word that he has been delayed.”

  “Yes,” Kivrin said, taking it from him, but she knew it wasn’t.

  It was in Latin, printed in letters so elaborate they were hard to read, but it didn’t matter. She had read it before. In the Bodleian.

  She leaned the spade against her shoulder and read the message, translating the Latin:

  “The contagious pestilence of the present day, which is spreading far and wide, has left many parish churches and other livings in our diocese without parson or priest to care for their parishioners.”

  She looked at Roche. No, she thought. Not here. I won’t let that happen here.

  “Since no priests can be found who are willing—” The priests were dead or had run away, and no one could be persuaded to take their place, and the people were dying “without the Sacrament of Penance.”

  She read on, seeing not the black letters but the faded brown ones she had deciphered in the Bodleian. She had thought the letter was pompous and ridiculous. “People were dying right and left,” she had told Mr. Dunworthy indignantly, “and all the bishop was concerned about was church protocol!” But now, reading it to the exhausted boy and Father Roche, it sounded exhausted, too. And desperate.

  “If they are on the point of death and cannot secure the services of a priest,” she read, “then they should make confession to each other. We urge you, by these present letters, in the bowels of Jesus Christ, to do this.”

  Neither the boy nor Roche said anything when she had finished reading. She wondered if the boy had known what he was carrying. She rolled the vellum up and handed it back to him.

  “I have been riding three days,” the boy said, slumping forward tiredly in the saddle. “Can I not rest here awhile?”

  “It is not safe,” Kivrin said, feeling sorry for him. “We will give you and your horse food to take with you.”

  Roche turned to go into the kitchen, and Kivrin suddenly remembered Agnes. “Did you see a little girl on the road?” she asked. “A five-year-old child, with a red cloak and hood?”

  “Nay,” the boy said, “but there are many on the roads. They flee the pestilence.”

  Roche was bringing out a wadmal sack. Kivrin turned to fetch some oats for the stallion, and Eliwys shot past them both, her skirts tangling between her legs, her loose hair flying out behind her.

  “Don’t—” Kivrin shouted, but Eliwys had already caught hold of the stallion’s bridle.

  “Where do you come from?” she asked, grabbing at the boy’s sleeve. “Have you seen aught of my husband’s privé Gawyn?”

  The boy looked frightened. “I come from Bath, with a message from the bishop,” he said, pulling back on the reins. The horse whinnied, and tossed its head.

  “What message?” Eliwys said hysterically. “Is it from Gawyn?”

  “I do not know the man of whom you speak,” the boy said.

  “Lady Eliwys—” Kivrin said, stepping forward.

  “Gawyn rides a black steed with a saddle chased in silver,” Eliwys persisted, pulling on the stallion’s bridle. “He has gone to Bath to fetch my husband, who witnesses at the Assizes.”

  “None go to Bath,” the boy said. “All who can flee it.”

  Eliwys stumbled, as though the stallion had reared, and seemed to fall against its side.

  “There is no court, nor any law,” the boy said. “The dead lie in the streets, and all who but look on them die, too. Some say it is the end of the world.”

  Eliwys let go of the bridle and took a step back. She turned and looked hopefully at Kivrin and Roche. “They will surely be home soon, then. Is it certain you did not see them on the road? He rides a black steed.”

  “There were many steeds.” He kicked the horse forward toward Roche, but Eliwys didn’t move.

  Roche stepped forward with the sack of food. The boy leaned down, grabbed it, and wheeled the stallion around, nearly running Eliwys down. She didn’t try to get out of the way.

  Kivrin stepped forward and caught hold of one of the reins. “Don’t go back to the bishop,” she said.

  He jerked up on the reins, looking more frightened of her than of Eliwys.

  She didn’t let go. “Go north,” she said. “The plague isn’t there yet.”

  He wrenched the reins free, kicked the stallion forward, and galloped out of the courtyard.

  “Stay off the main roads,” Kivrin called after him. “Speak to no one.”

  Eliwys still stood where she was.

  “Come,” Kivrin said to her. “We must find Agnes.”

  “My husband and Gawyn will have ridden first to Courcy to warn Sir Bloet,” she said, and let Kivrin lead her back to the house.

  Kivrin left her by the fire and went to look in the barn. Agnes wasn’t there, but she found her own cloak, left there Christmas Eve. She flung it around her and went up into the loft. She looked in the brewhouse and Roche searched the other buildings, but they didn’t find her. A cold wind had sprung up while they stood talking to the messenger, and it smelled like snow.

  “Perhaps she is in the house,” Roche said. “Looked you behind the high seat?”

  She searched the house again, looking behind the high seat and under the bed in the bower. Maisry still lay whimpering where Kivrin had left her, and she had to resist the temptation to kick her. She asked Lady Imeyne, kneeling to the wall, if she had seen Agnes or not.

  The old woman ignored her, moving her links of chain and her lips silently.

  Kivrin shook her shoulder. “Did you see her go out?”

  Lady Imeyne turned and looked at her, her eyes glittering. “She is to blame,” she said.

  “Agnes?” Kivrin said, outraged. “How could it be her fault?”

  Imeyne shook her head and looked past Kivrin at Maisry. “God punishes us for Maisry’s wickedness.”

  “Agnes is missing and it grows dark,” Kivrin said. “We must find her. Did you not see where she went?”

  “To blame,” she whispered and turned back to the wall.

  It was getting late now, and the wind was whistling around the screens. Kivrin ran out to the passage and onto the green.

  It was like the day she had tried to find the drop on her own. There was no one on the snow-covered green, and the wind whipped and tore at her clothes as she ran. A bell was ringing somewhere far off to the northeast, slowly, a funeral toll.

  Agnes had loved the bell tower, Kivrin went in and shou
ted Agnes’s name even though she could see up to the bellrope. She went out and stood looking at the huts, trying to think where Agnes would have gone.

  Not the huts, unless she had got cold. Her puppy. She had wanted to go see her puppy’s grave. Kivrin hadn’t told her she’d buried it in the woods. Agnes had told her it had to be buried in the churchyard. Kivrin could see she wasn’t there, but she went through the lychgate.

  Agnes had been there. The prints of her little boots led from grave to grave and then off to the north side of the church. Kivrin looked up the hill at the beginning of the woods, thinking, What if she went into the woods? We’ll never find her.

  She ran around the side of the church. The prints stopped and circled back to the church. Kivrin opened the door. It was nearly dark inside and colder than the wind-whipped churchyard. “Agnes!” she called.

  There was no answer, but there was a faint sound up by the altar, like a rat scurrying out of sight. “Agnes?” Kivrin said, peering into the gloom behind the tomb, in the side aisles. “Are you here?” she said.

  “Kivrin?” a quavering little voice said.

  “Agnes?” she said, and ran in its direction. “Where are you?”

  She was by the statue of St. Catherine, huddled among the candles at its base in her red cape and hood. She had pressed herself against the rough stone skirts of the statue, eyes wide and frightened. Her face was red and damp with tears. “Kivrin?” she cried, and flung herself into her arms.

  “What are you doing here, Agnes?” Kivrin said, angry with relief. She hugged her tightly. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  She buried her wet face against Kivrin’s neck. “Hiding,” she said. “I took Cart to see my hound, and I fell down.” She wiped at her nose with her hand. “I called and called for you, but you didn’t come.”

  “I didn’t know where you were, honey,” Kivrin said, stroking her hair. “Why did you come in the church?”

  “I was hiding from the wicked man.”

  “What wicked man?” Kivrin said, frowning.

  The heavy church door opened, and Agnes clasped her little arms in a stranglehold around Kivrin’s neck. “It is the wicked man,” she whispered hysterically.

  “Father Roche!” Kivrin called. “I’ve found her. She’s here.” The door shut, and she could hear his footsteps. “It’s Father Roche,” she said to Agnes. “He’s been looking for you, too. We didn’t know where you’d gone.”

  She loosened her grip a little. “Maisry said the wicked man would come and get me.”

  Roche came up panting, and Agnes buried her head against Kivrin again. “Is she ill?” he asked anxiously.

  “I don’t think so,” Kivrin said. “She’s half-frozen. Put my cloak over her.”

  Roche clumsily unfastened Kivrin’s cloak and wrapped it around Agnes.

  “I hid from the wicked man,” Agnes said to him, turning in Kivrin’s arms.

  “What wicked man?” Roche said.

  “The wicked man who chased you in the church,” she said. “Maisry said he comes and gets you and gives you the blue sickness.”

  “There isn’t any wicked man,” Kivrin said, thinking, I’ll shake Maisry till her teeth rattle when I get home. She stood up. Agnes’s grip tightened.

  Roche groped along the wall to the priest’s door, and opened it. Bluish light flooded in.

  “Maisry said he got my hound,” Agnes said, shivering. “But he didn’t get me. I hid.”

  Kivrin thought of the black puppy, limp in her hands, blood around its mouth. No, she thought, and started rapidly across the snow. She was shivering because she’d been in the icy church so long. Her face felt hot against Kivrin’s neck. It’s only from crying, Kivrin told herself, and asked her if her head ached.

  Agnes shook or nodded her head against Kivrin and wouldn’t answer. No, Kivrin thought, and walked faster, Roche close behind her, past the steward’s house and into the courtyard.

  “I did not go in the woods,” Agnes said when they got to the house. “The naughty girl did, didn’t she?”

  “Yes,” Kivrin said, carrying her over to the fire. “But it was all right. The father found her and took her home. And they lived happily ever after.” She sat Agnes down on the bench and untied her cape.

  “And she never went in the woods again,” she said.

  “She never did.” Kivrin pulled her wet shoes and hose off. “You must lie down,” she said, spreading her cloak next to the fire. “I will bring you some hot soup.” Agnes lay down obediently, and Kivrin pulled the sides of the cloak up over her.

  She brought her soup, but Agnes didn’t want any, and she fell asleep almost immediately.

  “She’s caught a chill,” she told Eliwys and Roche almost fiercely. “She was outside all afternoon. She’s caught cold,” but after Roche left to say vespers, she uncovered Agnes and felt under her arms, in her groin. She even turned her over, looking for a lump between the shoulder blades like the boy’s.

  Roche didn’t ring the bell. He came back with a ragged quilt that was obviously from his own bed, made it into a pallet, and moved Agnes onto it.

  The other vespers bells were ringing. Oxford and Godstow and the bell from the southwest. Kivrin couldn’t hear Courcy’s double bell. She looked at Eliwys anxiously, but she didn’t seem to be listening. She was looking across Rosemund at the screens.

  The bells stopped, and Courcy’s started up. They sounded odd, muffled and slow. Kivrin looked at Roche. “Is it a funeral bell?”

  “Nay,” he said, looking at Agnes. “It is a holy day.”

  She had lost track of the days. The bishop’s envoy had left Christmas morning and in the afternoon she had found out it was the plague, and after that it seemed like one endless day. Four days, she thought, it’s been four days.

  She had wanted to come at Christmas because there were so many holy days even the peasants would know what day it was, and she couldn’t possibly miss the rendezvous. Gawyn went to Bath for help, Mr. Dunworthy, she thought, and the bishop took all the horses, and I didn’t know where it was.

  Eliwys had stood up and was listening to the bells. “Are those Courcy’s bells?” she asked Roche.

  “Yes,” he said. “Fear not. It is the Slaughter of the Innocents.”

  The slaughter of the innocents, Kivrin thought, looking at Agnes. She was asleep, and she had stopped shivering, though she still felt hot.

  The cook cried out something, and Kivrin went around the barricade to her. She was crouched on her pallet, struggling to get up. “Must go home,” she said.

  Kivrin coaxed her down again and fetched her a drink of water. The bucket was nearly empty, and she picked it up and started out with it.

  “Tell Kivrin I would have her come to me,” Agnes said. She was sitting up.

  Kivrin put the bucket down. “I’m here,” Kivrin said, kneeling down beside her. “I’m right here.”

  Agnes looked at her, her face red and distorted with rage. “The wicked man will get me if Kivrin does not come,” she said. “Bid her come now.”

  TRANSCRIPT FROM THE DOMESDAY BOOK

  (073453–074912)

  I’ve missed the rendezvous. I lost count of the days, taking care of Rosemund, and I couldn’t find Agnes, and I didn’t know where the drop was.

  You must be worried sick, Mr. Dunworthy. You probably think I’ve fallen among cutthroats and murderers. Well, I have. And now they’ve got Agnes.

  She has a fever, but no buboes, and she isn’t coughing or vomiting. Just the fever. It’s very high—she doesn’t know me and keeps calling me to come. Roche and I tried to bring it down by sponging her with cold compresses, but it keeps going back up.

  (Break)

  Lady Imeyne has it. Father Roche found her this morning on the floor in the corner. She may have been there all night. The last two nights she has refused to go to bed and has stayed on her knees, praying to God to protect her and the rest of the godly from the plague.

  He hasn’t. She
has the pneumonic. She’s coughing and vomiting mucus streaked with blood.

  She won’t let Roche or me tend her. “She is to blame for this,” she told Roche, pointing at me. “Look at her hair. She is no maid. Look at her clothes.”

  My clothes are a boy’s jerkin and leather hose I found in one of the chests in the loft. My kirtle got ruined when Lady Imeyne vomited on me, and I had to tear my shift up for cloths and bandages.

  Roche tried to give Imeyne some of the willow-bark tea, but she spat it out. She said, “She lied when she said she was waylaid in the woods. She was sent here to kill us.”

  Bloody spittle dribbled down her chin as she spoke and Roche wiped it off. “It is the disease that makes you believe these things,” he said gently.

  “She was sent here to poison us,” Imeyne said. “See how she has poisoned my son’s children. And now she would poison me, but I will not let her give me aught to eat or drink.”

  “Hush,” Roche said sternly. “You must not speak ill of one who seeks to help you.”

  She shook her head, turning it wildly from side to side. “She seeks to kill us all. You must burn her. She is the Devil’s servant.”

  I’ve never seen him angry before. He looked almost like a cutthroat again. “You know not whereof you speak,” he said. “It is God who has sent her to help us.”

  I wish it were true, that I were of any help at all, but I’m not. Agnes screams for me to come and Rosemund lies there as if she were under a spell and the clerk is turning black, and there’s nothing I can do to help any of them. Nothing.

  (Break)

  All the steward’s family have it. The youngest boy, Lefric, was the only one with a bubo, and I’ve brought him in here and lanced it. There’s nothing I can do for the others. They all have pneumonic.

  (Break)

  The steward’s baby is dead.

  (Break)

  The Courcy bells are tolling. Nine strokes. Which one of them is it? The bishop’s envoy? The fat monk who helped steal our horses? Or Sir Bloet? I hope so.

  (Break)

  Terrible day. The steward’s wife and the boy who ran from me when I went to find the drop both died this afternoon. The steward is digging both their graves, though the ground is so frozen I don’t see how he can even make a dent in it. Rosemund and Lefric are both worse. Rosemund can scarcely swallow and her pulse is thready and irregular. Agnes is not as bad, but I can’t get her fever down. Roche said vespers in here tonight.