Doomsday Book

"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 buboes 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.