Doomsday Book

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

They buried Rosemund in the grave the steward had dug for her. "You will have need of these graves," the steward had said, and he was right. They would never have managed to dig it themselves. It was all they could do to carry her out to the green.

They laid her on the ground beside the grave. She looked impossibly thin lying there in her cloak, wasted almost to nothing. The fingers of her right hand, still half-curved around the apple she had let drop, were nothing but bones.

"Heard you her confession?" Roche asked.

"Yes," Kivrin said, and it seemed to her that she had. Rosemund had confessed to being afraid of the dark and the plague and being alone, to loving her father and to knowing she would never see him again. All the things that she herself could not confess.

Kivrin unfastened the loveknot pin Sir Bloet had given Rosemund and wrapped the cloak around her, covering her head, and Roche picked her up in his arms like a sleeping child and stepped down into the grave.

He had trouble climbing out, and Kivrin had to take hold of his huge hands and pull him out. And when he began the prayers for the dead, he said, "Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina."

Kivrin looked anxiously at him. We must get away from here before he catches it, too, she thought, and didn't correct him. We don't have a moment to lose.

"Dormiunt in somno pacis," Roche said, and picked up the shovel and began filling in the grave.

It seemed to take forever. Kivrin spelled him, chipping at the mound that had frozen into a solid mass and trying to think how far they could get before nightfall. It wasn't noon yet. If they left soon, they could get through the Wychwood and across the Oxford-Bath road onto the Midland Plain. They could be in Scotland within the week, near Invercassley or Dornoch, where the plague never came.

"Father Roche," she said as soon as he began tamping down the dirt with the flat of the shovel. "We must go to Scotland."

"Scotland?" he said, as if he had never heard of it.

"Yes," she said. "We must go away from here. We must take the donkey and go to Scotland."

He nodded. "We must carry the sacraments with us. And ere we go I must ring the bell for Rosemund, that her soul may pass safely unto heaven."

She wanted to tell him no, that there wasn't time, they must leave now, immediately, but she nodded. "I will fetch Balaam," she said.

Roche started for the bell tower, and she took off ru

She ran across the courtyard and into the stable and led the donkey out. She began to strap his pa

The bell tolled once, and then was silent, and Kivrin stopped, the girth strap in her hand, and listened, waiting for it to ring again. Three strokes for a woman, she thought, and knew why he had stopped. One for a child. Oh, Rosemund.

She tied the girth strap and began to fill the pa

She cut the rope free and sliced it into shorter sections, threw down the knife and went out to the donkey. He was trying to gnaw a hole in the sack of oats. She tied it and the other bags to his back with the pieces of rope and led him out of the courtyard and across the green to the church.

Roche was nowhere in sight. Kivrin still needed to fetch the blankets and the candles, but she wanted to put the sacraments in the pa

Roche appeared at the door. He was not carrying anything.

"Where are the sacraments?" she called to him.

He didn't answer. He leaned for a moment against the church door, staring at her, and the look on his face was the same as when he had come to tell her about the miller. But they've all died, she thought, there's nobody left to die.

"I must ring the bell," he said and started across the churchyard toward the belltower.

"There's no time to ring the funeral toll," she said. "We must start for Scotland." She tied the donkey to the gate, her cold fingers fumbling with the rough rope, and hurried after him, catching him by the sleeve. "What is it?"

He turned, almost violently, toward her, and the expression on his face frightened her. He looked like a cutthroat, a murderer. "I must ring the bell for vespers," he said and shook himself violently free of her hand.

Oh, no, Kivrin thought.

"It is only midday," she said. "It isn't time for vespers yet." He's just tired, she thought. We're both so tired we can't think straight. She took hold of his sleeve again. "Come, Father. We must go if we're to get through the woods by nightfall."

"It is past time," he said, "and I have not yet rung them. Lady Imeyne will be angry."

Oh, no, she thought, oh no oh no.

"I will ring it," she said, stepping in front of him to stop him. "You must go into the house and rest."

"It grows dark," he said angrily. He opened his mouth as if to shout at her, and a great gout of vomit and blood heaved up out of him and onto Kivrin's jerkin.

Oh no oh no oh no.

He looked bewilderedly at her drenched jerkin, the violence gone out of his face.

"Come, you must lie down," she said, thinking, we will never make it to the manor house.

"Am I ill?" he said, still staring at her blood-drenched jerkin.

"No," she said. "You are but tired and must rest."

She led him toward the church. He stumbled, and she thought, if he falls, I will never get him up. She helped him inside, bracing the heavy door open with her back, and sat him down against the wall.

"I fear the work has tired me," he said, leaning his head against the stones. "I would sleep a little."

"Yes, sleep," Kivrin said. As soon as he had closed his eyes she ran back to the manor house for blankets and a bolster to make him a pallet. When she skidded in with them, he was no longer there.

"Roche!" she cried, trying to see up the dark nave. "Where are you?"

There was no answer. She darted out again, still clutching the bedding to her chest, but he wasn't in the bell tower or the churchyard, and he could not possibly have made it to the house. She ran back in the church and up the nave and he was there, on his knees in front of the statue of St. Catherine.

"You must lie down," she said, spreading the blankets on the floor.

He lay down obediently, and she put the bolster behind his head. "It is the bubonic plague, is it not?" he asked, looking up at her.

"No," she said, pulling the coverlet up over him. "You're tired, that's all. Try to sleep."

He turned on his side, away from her, but in a few minutes he sat up, the murderous expression back, and threw the covers off. "I must ring the vespers bell," he said accusingly, and it was all Kivrin could to to keep him from standing up. When he dozed again, she tore strips from the frayed bottom of her jerkin and tied his hands to the rood screen.

"Don't do this to him," Kivrin murmured over and over without knowing it. "Please! Please! Don't do this to him."

He opened his eyes. "Surely God must hear such fervent prayers," he said, and sank into a deeper, quieter sleep.

Kivrin ran out and unloaded the donkey and untied him, gathered up the sacks of food and the lantern and brought them inside the church. He was still sleeping. She crept out again and ran across to the courtyard and drew a bucket of water from the well.