The Doomsday Book

by Connie Willis

  Of this, Dunworthy thought. No one could have lived through this, watching children and infants die like animals, piling them in pits and shoveling dirt over them, dragging them along with a rope around their dead necks. How could she have survived this?

  Colin had maneuvered the sack out of reach. He let it fall next to a small chest and came over and stood in front of Dunworthy, a little breathless. “Are you sure you’re not having a relapse?”

  “No,” he said, but he was already beginning to shiver.

  “Perhaps you’re just tired,” Colin said. “You rest, and I’ll be back in a moment.”

  He went out, pushing the shed’s door shut behind him. The stallion was nibbling the oats Colin had spilled, taking noisy, chomping bites. Dunworthy stood up, holding to the rough beam, and went over to the little chest. The casket’s brass bindings had tarnished and the leather on the lid had a small gouge in it, but otherwise it looked brand-new.

  He sat down beside it and opened the lid. The steward had used it for his tools. There was a coil of leather rope in it and a rusty mattock head. The blue cloth lining Gilchrist had talked about in the pub was torn where the mattock had lain against it.

  Colin came back in, carrying the bucket. “I brought you some water,” he said. “I got it out of the stream.” He set the bucket down and fumbled in his pockets for a bottle. “I’ve only got ten aspirin, so you can’t have much of a relapse. I stole them from Mr. Finch.”

  He shook two into his hands. “I stole some synthamycin, too, but I was afraid it hadn’t been invented yet. I figured they had to have had aspirin.” He handed the aspirin tablets to Dunworthy and brought the bucket over. “You’ll have to use your hand. I thought the contemps’ bowls and things were probably full of plague germs.”

  Dunworthy swallowed the aspirin and scooped a handful of water out of the bucket to wash it down. “Colin,” he said.

  Colin took the bucket over to the stallion. “I don’t think this is the right village. I went in the church and the only tomb in there was of some lady.” He pulled the map and the locator out of another pocket. “We’re still too far east. I think we’re here”—he pointed at one of Montoya’s notes—“so if we go back to that other road and then cut straight east—”

  “We’re going back to the drop,” Dunworthy said. He stood up carefully, not touching the wall or the trunk.

  “Why? Badri said we had a day at least, and we’ve only checked one village. There are lots of villages. She could be in any of them.”

  Dunworthy untied the stallion.

  “I could take the horse and go look for her,” Colin said. “I could ride really fast and look in all these villages and then come back and tell you as soon as I find her. Or we could split up the villages and each take half, and whoever finds her first could send some kind of signal. We could light a fire or something and then the other one would see it and come.”

  “She’s dead, Colin. We’re not going to find her.”

  “Don’t say that!” Colin said, and his voice sounded high and childish. “She isn’t dead! She had her inoculations!”

  Dunworthy pointed at the leather chest. “This is the casket she brought through.”

  “Well, what if it is?” Colin said. “There could be lots of chests like it. Or she could have run away, when the plague came. We can’t go back and just leave her here! What if it was me that was lost and I waited and waited for somebody to come and nobody did?” His nose had begun to run.

  “Colin,” Dunworthy said helplessly, “sometimes you do everything you can, and you still can’t save them.”

  “Like Great-aunt Mary,” Colin said. He swiped at his tears with the back of his hand. “But not always.”

  Always, Dunworthy thought. “No,” he said. “Not always.”

  “Sometimes you can save them,” Colin said stubbornly.

  “Yes,” he said. “All right.” He tied the stallion up again. “We’ll go and look for her. Give me two more aspirin, and let me rest a bit till they take effect, and we’ll go and look for her.”

  “Apocalyptic,” Colin said. He grabbed the bucket away from the stallion, who had gone back to slurping it. “I’ll fetch some more water.”

  He went running out, and Dunworthy eased himself to sitting against the wall. “Please,” he said. “Please let us find her.”

  The door opened slowly. Colin, standing in the light, was outlined in radiance. “Did you hear it?” he demanded. “Listen.”

  It was a faint sound, muffled by the walls of the shed. And there was a long pause between peals, but he could hear it. He stood up and went outside.

  “It’s coming from over there,” Colin said, pointing toward the southwest.

  “Get the stallion,” Dunworthy said.

  “Are you certain it’s Kivrin?” Colin said. “It’s the wrong direction.”

  “It’s Kivrin,” he said.

  35

  The bell stopped before they even got the stallion saddled. “Hurry!” Dunworthy said, cinching the girth strap.

  “It’s all right,” Colin said, looking at the map. “It rang three times. I’ve got a fix on it. It’s due southwest, right? And this is Henefelde, right?” He held the map in front of Dunworthy, pointing to each place in turn. “Then it’s got to be this village here.”

  Dunworthy glanced at it and then toward the southwest again, trying to keep the direction of the bell clear in his mind. He was already unsure of it, though he could still feel the throbbing of its tolling. He wished the aspirin would take effect soon.

  “Come on, then,” Colin said, pulling the stallion over to the door of the shed. “Get on, and let’s go.”

  Dunworthy put his foot in the stirrup and swung the other leg over. He was instantly dizzy. Colin looked speculatively at him, and then said, “I think I’d better drive,” and swung himself up in front of Dunworthy.

  Colin’s kick on the stallion’s flanks was too gentle and his yanking on the reins too violent but the stallion, amazingly, moved off docilely across the green and onto the lane.

  “We know where the village is,” Colin said confidently. “All we need to find is a road that goes in that direction,” and almost immediately declared that they had found it. It was a fairly wide path, and it led down a slope and into a stand of pines, but only a few yards into the trees it split in two, and Colin looked questioningly back at Dunworthy.

  The stallion didn’t hesitate. It started off down the right-hand path. “Look, it knows where it’s going,” Colin said delightedly.

  I’m glad one of us does, Dunworthy thought, pressing his eyes shut against the jouncing landscape and the throbbing. The stallion, given its head, was obviously going home, and he knew he should tell Colin that, but the illness was closing in on him again, and he was afraid to let go of Colin’s waist for even a moment, for fear the fever would get away from him. He was so cold. That was the fever, of course, the throbbing, the dizziness, they were all the fever, and a fever was a good sign, the body marshaling its forces to fight off the virus, assembling the troops. The chill was only a side effect of the fever.

  “Blood, it’s getting colder,” Colin said, pulling his coat closed with one hand. “I hope it doesn’t snow.” He let go of the reins altogether and pulled his muffler up around his mouth and nose. The stallion didn’t even notice. It plodded steadily ahead through deeper and deeper woods. They came to another fork and then another, and each time Colin consulted the map and the locator, but Dunworthy couldn’t tell which fork he chose or whether the horse had simply kept on in the direction it had set.

  It began to snow, or they rode into it. All at once it was snowing, small steady flakes that obscured the path and melted on Dunworthy’s spectacles.

  The aspirin began to take effect. Dunworthy sat up straighter and pulled his own cloak about him. He wiped his spectacles on the tail of it. His fingers were numb and bright red. He rubbed his hands together and blew on them. They were still in the woods, and the path was nar
rower than when they started.

  “The map says Skendgate is five kilometers from Henefelde,” Colin said, wiping snow off the locator, “and we’ve come at least four, so we’re nearly there.”

  They were not nearly anywhere. They were in the middle of the Wychwood, on a cow path or a deer trail. It would end at a cottar’s hut or a salt lick, or a berry bush the horse had fond memories of.

  “See, I told you,” Colin said, and there, past the trees, was the top of a bell tower. The stallion broke into a canter. “Stop,” Colin said to the stallion, pulling on the reins. “Wait a minute.”

  Dunworthy took the reins and slowed the horse to a reluctant walk as they came out of the woods, past a snow-covered meadow, and to the top of the hill.

  The village lay below them, past a stand of ash trees, obscured by the snow so that they could only make out gray outlines: manor house, huts, church, bell tower. It wasn’t the right village—Skendgate didn’t have a bell tower—but if Colin had noticed, he didn’t say anything. He kicked the stallion ineffectually a few times, and they rode slowly down the hill, Dunworthy still holding on to the reins.

  There were no bodies Dunworthy could see, but there were no people either, and no smoke from the huts. The bell tower looked silent and deserted, and there were no footprints around it.

  Halfway down the hill, Colin said, “I saw something.” Dunworthy had seen it, too. A flicker of movement that could have been a bird or a moving branch. “Just over there,” Colin said, pointing toward the second hut. A cow wandered out from between the huts, untied, its teats bulging, and Dunworthy was certain of what he’d feared, that the plague had been here, too.

  “It’s a cow,” Colin said disgustedly. The cow looked up at the sound of Colin’s voice and began to walk toward them, lowing.

  “Where is everybody?” Colin said. “Somebody had to ring the bell.”

  They’re all dead, Dunworthy thought, looking toward the churchyard. There were new graves there, the earth mounded up over them, and the snow still not completely covering them. Hopefully, they’re all buried in that churchyard, he thought, and saw the first body. It was a young boy. He was sitting with his back to a tombstone, as if he were resting.

  “Look, there’s somebody,” Colin said, yanking back on the reins and pointing at the body. “Hullo there!”

  He twisted around to look at Dunworthy. “Will they understand what we say, do you think?”

  “He’s—” Dunworthy said.

  The boy stood up, hauling himself painfully to his feet, one hand on the tombstone for support, looking around as if for a weapon.

  “We won’t hurt you,” Dunworthy called, trying to think what the Middle English would be. He slid down from the stallion, clinging to the back of the saddle at the abrupt dizziness. He straightened and extended his hand, palm outward, toward the boy.

  The boy’s face was filthy, streaked and smeared with dirt and blood, and the front of his smock and rolled-up trousers were soaked and stiff with it. He bent down, holding his side as if the movement hurt him, picked up a stick that had been lying covered with snow, and stepped forward, barring his way. “Kepe from haire. Der fevreblau hast bifalien us”

  “Kivrin,” Dunworthy said, and started toward her.

  “Don’t come any closer,” she said in English, holding the stick out in front of her like a gun. Its end was broken off jaggedly.

  “It’s me, Kivrin, Mr. Dunworthy,” he said, still walking toward her.

  “No!” she said and backed away, jabbing the broken spade at him. “You don’t understand. It’s the plague.”

  “It’s all right, Kivrin. We’ve been inoculated.”

  “Inoculated,” she said as if she didn’t know what the word meant. “It was the bishop’s clerk. He had it when they came.”

  Colin ran up, and she raised the stick again.

  “It’s all right,” Dunworthy said again. “This is Colin. He’s been inoculated as well. We’ve come to take you home.”

  She looked at him steadily for a long minute, the snow falling around them. “To take me home,” she said, no expression in her voice, and looked down at the grave at her feet. It was shorter than the others, and narrower, as if it held a child.

  After a minute she looked up at Dunworthy, and there was no expression in her face either. I am too late, he thought despairingly, looking at her standing there in her bloody smock, surrounded by graves. They have already crucified her. “Kivrin,” he said.

  She let the spade fall. “You must help me,” she said, and turned and walked away from them toward the church.

  “Are you sure it’s her?” Colin whispered.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “What’s the matter with her?”

  I’m too late, he thought, and put his hand on Colin’s shoulder for support. She will never forgive me.

  “What’s wrong?” Colin asked. “Are you feeling ill again?”

  “No,” he said, but he waited a moment before he took his hand away.

  Kivrin had stopped at the church door and was holding her side again. A chill went through him. She has it, he thought. She has the plague. “Are you ill?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. She took her hand away and looked at it as if she expected it to be covered in blood. “He kicked me.” She tried to push the church door open, winced, and let Colin. “I think he broke some ribs.”

  Colin got the heavy wooden door open, and they went inside. Dunworthy blinked against the darkness, willing his eyes to adjust to it. There was no light at all from the narrow windows, though he could tell where they were. He could make out a low, heavy shape ahead on the left—a body?—and the darker masses of the first pillars, but beyond them it was completely dark. Beside him, Colin was fumbling in his baggy pockets.

  Far ahead, a flame flickered, illuminating nothing but itself. It went out. Dunworthy started toward it.

  “Hold on a minute,” Colin said, and flashed on a pocket torch. It blinded Dunworthy, making everything outside its diffused beam as black as when they first came in. Colin shone it around the church, on the painted walls, the heavy pillars, the uneven floor. The light caught on the shape Dunworthy had thought was a body. It was a stone tomb.

  “She’s up there,” Dunworthy said, pointing toward the altar, and Colin obligingly aimed the torch in that direction.

  Kivrin was kneeling by someone who lay on the floor in front of the rood screen. It was a man, Dunworthy saw as they came closer. His legs and lower body were covered with a purple blanket, and his large hands were crossed on his chest. Kivrin was trying to light a candle with a coal, but the candle had burned down into a misshapen stub of wax and would not stay lit. She seemed grateful when Colin came up with his torch. He shone it full on them.

  “You must help me with Roche,” she said, squinting into the light. She leaned toward the man and reached for his hand.

  She thinks he’s still alive, Dunworthy thought, but she said, in that flat, matter-of-fact voice, “He died this morning.”

  Colin shone the pocket torch on the body. The crossed hands were nearly as purple as the blanket in the harsh light of the torch, but the man’s face was pale and utterly at peace.

  “What was he, a knight?” Colin said wonderingly.

  “No,” Kivrin said. “A saint.”

  She laid her hand on his stiff one. Her hand was callused and bloody, the fingernails black with dirt. “You must help me,” she said.

  “Help you what?” Colin asked.

  She wants us to help her bury him, Dunworthy thought, and we can’t. The man she had called Roche was huge. He must have towered over Kivrin when he was alive. Even if they could dig a grave, the three of them together could not carry him, and Kivrin would never let them put a rope around his neck and drag him out to the churchyard.

  “Help you what?” Colin said. “We don’t have much time.”

  They hadn’t any time. It was already late afternoon, and they would never find their way through
the forest after dark, and there was no telling how long Badri could keep the intermittent going. He had said twenty-four hours, but he had not looked strong enough to last two, and it had already been nearly eight. And the ground was frozen, and Kivrin’s ribs were broken, and the effects of the aspirin were wearing off. He was beginning to shiver again here in the cold church.

  We can’t bury him, he thought, looking at her kneeling there, and how can I tell her that when I have arrived too late for anything else?

  “Kivrin,” he said.

  She patted the stiff hand gently. “We won’t be able to bury him,” she said in that calm, expressionless voice. “We had to put Rosemund in his grave, after the steward—” She looked up at Dunworthy. “I tried to dig another one this morning, but the ground’s too hard. I broke the spade.” She looked up at Dunworthy. “I said the mass for the dead for him. And I tried to ring the bell.”

  “We heard you,” Colin said. “That’s how we found you.”

  “It should have been nine strokes,” she said, “but I had to stop.” She put her hand to her side, as if remembering pain. “You must help me ring the rest.”

  “Why?” Colin said. “I don’t think there’s anybody left alive to hear it.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Kivrin said, looking at Dunworthy.

  “We haven’t time,” Colin said. “It’ll be dark soon, and the drop is—”

  “I’ll ring it,” Dunworthy said. He stood up. “You stay there,” he said, though she had made no move to get up. “I’ll ring the bell.” He started back down the nave.

  “It’s getting dark,” Colin said, trotting to catch up with him, the light from his torch dancing crazily over the pillars and the floor as he ran, “and you said you didn’t know how long they could hold the net open. Wait a minute.”

  Dunworthy pushed open the door, squinting against the expected glare of the snow, but it had grown darker while they were in the church, the sky heavy and smelling of snow. He walked rapidly across the churchyard to the bell tower. The cow that Colin had seen when they rode in the village ducked through the lychgate and ambled across the graves toward them, its hooves sinking in the snow.