Doomsday Book

"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 bifallen 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 spear. 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 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 calloused 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 begi

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 belltower. The cow which Colin had seen when they rode into the village ducked through the lychgate and ambled across the graves toward them, its hooves sinking in the snow.

"What's the use of ringing it when there's no one to hear it?" Colin said, stopping to switch off his torch and then ru