13
Two more cases, both students, came in while Mary was interrogating Colin on how he had got through the perimeter.
“It was easy” Colin had said indignantly. “They’re trying to keep people from getting out, not getting in,” and had been about to give the particulars when the registrar came in.
Mary had made Dunworthy accompany her to the Casualties Ward to see if he could identify them. “And you stay here,” she had told Colin. “You’ve caused quite enough trouble for one night.”
Dunworthy didn’t recognize either of the new cases, but it didn’t matter. They were conscious and lucid and were already giving the house officer the names of all their contacts when he and Mary got there. He took a good look at each of them and shook his head. “They might have been part of that crowd on the High Street, I can’t tell,” he said.
“It’s all right,” she said. “You can go home if you like.”
“I thought I’d wait and have my blood test,” he said.
“Oh, but that isn’t till—” she said, looking at her digital. “Good Lord, it’s past six.”
“I’ll just go up and check on Badri,” he said, “and then I’ll be in the waiting room.”
Badri was asleep, the nurse said. “I wouldn’t wake him.”
“No, of course not,” Dunworthy said and went back down to the waiting room.
Colin was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, digging in his duffel. “Where’s Great-aunt Mary?” he asked. “She’s a bit flakked at my showing up, isn’t she?”
“She thought you were safely back in London,” Dunworthy said. “Your mother told her your train had been stopped at Barton.”
“It was. They made everyone get off and get on another train going back to London.”
“And you got lost in the changeover?”
“No. I overheard these people talking about the quarantine, and how there was this terrible disease and everybody was going to die and everything—” He stopped to rummage further in his duffel. He took out and replaced a large number of items, vids and a pocket vidder and a pair of scuffed and dirty runners. He was obviously related to Mary. “And I didn’t want to be stuck with Eric and miss all the excitement.”
“Eric?”
“My mother’s livein.” He pulled out a large red gobstopper, picked off a few bits of lint, and popped it in his mouth. It made a mumplike lump in his cheek. “He is absolutely the most necrotic person in the world,” he said around the gobstopper. “He has this flat down in Kent and there is absolutely nothing to do.”
“So you got off the train at Barton. What did you do then? Walk to Oxford?”
He took the gobstopper out of his mouth. It was no longer red. It was a mottled bluish-green color. Colin looked critically at all sides of it and put it back in his mouth. “Of course not. Barton’s a long way from Oxford. I took a taxi.”
“Of course,” Dunworthy said.
“I told the driver I was reporting the quarantine for my school paper and I wanted to get vids of the blockade. I had my vidder with me, you see, so it seemed the logical thing.” He held up the pocket vidder to illustrate, and then stuffed it back in the duffel and began digging again.
“Did he believe you?”
“I think so. He did ask me which school I went to, but I just said, very offended, ‘You should be able to tell,’ and he said St. Edward’s, and I said, ‘Of course.’ He must have believed me. He took me to the perimeter, didn’t he?”
And I was worried about what Kivrin would do if no friendly traveler came along, Dunworthy thought. “What did you do then, give the police the same story?”
Colin pulled out a green wool jumper, folded it into a bundle, and laid it on top of the open duffel. “No. When I thought about it, it was rather a lame story. I mean, what is there to take pictures of, after all? It’s not like a fire, is it? So I just walked up to the guard as if I were going to ask him something about the quarantine, and then just at the last I dodged sideways and ducked under the barrier.
“Didn’t they chase you?”
“Of course. But not for more than a few streets. They’re trying to keep people from getting out, not in. And then I walked about a while till I found a call box.”
Presumably it had been pouring rain this entire time but Colin hadn’t mentioned it, and a collapsible umbrella wasn’t among the items he’d rooted out of his bag.
“The hard part was finding Great-aunt Mary,” he said. He lay down with his head on the duffel. “I went to her flat, but she wasn’t there. I thought perhaps she was still at the tube station waiting for me, but it was shut down.” He sat up, rearranged the wool jumper, and lay back down. “And then I thought, She’s a doctor. She’ll be at the Infirmary.”
He sat up again, punched the duffel into a different shape, lay down, and closed his eyes. Dunworthy leaned back in the uncomfortable chair, envying the young. Colin was probably nearly asleep already, not at all frightened or disturbed by his adventures. He had walked all over Oxford in the middle of the night, or perhaps he had taken further taxis or pulled a collapsible bicycle out of his duffel, all by himself in a freezing winter rain, and he wasn’t even fazed by the adventure.
Kivrin was all right. If the village wasn’t where it was supposed to be she would walk until she found it, or take a taxi, or lie down somewhere with her head on her folded-up cloak, and sleep the undauntable sleep of youth.
Mary came in. “Both of them went to a dance in Headington last night,” she said, dropping her voice when she saw Colin.
“Badri was there, too,” Dunworthy whispered back.
“I know. One of them danced with him. They were there from nine to two, which puts it at from twenty-five to thirty hours and well within a forty-eight-hour incubation period, if Badri’s the one who infected them.”
“You don’t think he did?”
“I think it’s more likely all three of them were infected by the same person, probably someone Badri saw early in the evening, and the others later.”
“A carrier?”
She shook her head. “People don’t usually carry myxoviruses without contracting the disease themselves, but he or she could have had only a mild manifestation or have been ignoring the symptoms.”
Dunworthy thought of Badri collapsing against the console and wondered how it was possible to ignore one’s symptoms.
“And if,” Mary went on, “this person was in South Carolina four days ago—”
“You’ll have your link with the American virus.”
“And you can stop worrying over Kivrin. She wasn’t at the dance in Headington,” she said. “Of course, the connection is more likely to be several links away.”
She frowned, and Dunworthy thought, Several links that haven’t checked in to hospital or even rung up a doctor. Several links who have all ignored their symptoms.
Apparently Mary was thinking the same thing. “These bell ringers of yours, when did they arrive in England?”
“I don’t know. But they only arrived in Oxford this afternoon, after Badri was at the net.”
“Well, ask them anyway. When they landed, where they’ve been, whether any of them have been ill. One of them might have relations in Oxford and have come up early. You’ve no American undergraduates in college?”
“No. Montoya’s an American.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Mary said. “How long has she been here?”
“All term. But she might have been in contact with someone visiting from America.”
“I’ll ask her when she comes in for her Woodwork,” she said. “I’d like you to question Badri about any Americans he knows, or students who’ve been to the States on exchange.”
“He’s asleep.”
“And so should you be,” she said. “I didn’t mean now.” She patted his arm. “There’s no necessity of waiting till seven. I’ll send someone in to take blood and BP so you can go home to bed.” She took Dunworthy’s wrist and looked at the temp monitor. “Any chills?”
“No.”
“Headache?”
“Yes.”
“That’s because you’re exhausted.” She dropped his wrist. “I’ll send someone straightaway.”
She looked at Colin, stretched out on the floor. “Colin will have to be tested as well, at least till we’re certain it’s droplet.”
Colin’s mouth had fallen open, but the gobstopper was still firmly in place in his cheek. Dunworthy wondered if he were likely to choke. “What about your nephew?” he said. “Would you like me to take him back to Balliol with me?”
She looked immediately grateful. “Would you? I hate to burden you with him, but I doubt I’ll be home till we get this under control.” She sighed. “Poor boy. I hope his Christmas won’t be too spoilt.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” Dunworthy said.
“Well, I’m very grateful,” Mary said, “and I’ll see to the tests immediately.”
She left. Colin sat up immediately.
“What sort of tests?” Colin asked. “Does this mean I might get the virus?”
“I sincerely hope not,” Dunworthy said, thinking of Badri’s flushed face, his labored breathing.
“But I might,” Colin said.
“The chances are very slim,” Dunworthy said. “I shouldn’t worry about it.”
“I’m not worried.” He held out his arm. “I think I’m getting a rash,” he said eagerly, pointing to a freckle.
“That isn’t a symptom of the virus,” Dunworthy said. “Collect your things. I’m taking you home with me after the tests.” He gathered up his muffler and overcoat from the chairs he’d draped them over.
“What are the symptoms, then?”
“Fever and difficulty breathing,” Dunworthy said. Mary’s shopping bag was on the floor by Latimer’s chair. He decided they’d best take it with them.
The nurse came in, carrying her bloodwork tray.
“I feel hot,” Colin said. He clutched his throat dramatically. “I can’t breathe.”
The nurse took a startled step backward, clinking her tray.
Dunworthy grabbed Colin’s arm. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said to the nurse. “It’s only a case of gobstopper poisoning.”
Colin grinned and bared his arm fearlessly for the blood test, then stuffed the jumper into the duffel and pulled on his still-damp jacket while Dunworthy had his blood drawn.
The nurse said, “Dr. Ahrens said you needn’t wait for the results,” and left.
Dunworthy put on his overcoat, picked up Mary’s shopping bag, and led Colin down the corridor and out through the Casualties Ward. He couldn’t see Mary anywhere, but she had said they needn’t wait, and he was suddenly so tired he couldn’t stand.
They went outside. It was just beginning to get light out and still raining. Dunworthy hesitated under the hospital porch, wondering if he should ring for a taxi, but he had no desire to have Gilchrist show up for his tests while they were waiting and have to hear his plans for sending Kivrin to the Black Death and the battle of Agincourt. He fished Mary’s collapsible umbrella out of her bag and put it up.
“Thank goodness you’re still here,” Montoya said, skidding up on a bicycle, spraying water. “I need to find Basingame.”
So do we all, Dunworthy thought, wondering where she had been during all those telephone conversations.
She got off the bike, pushed it up the rack, and keyed the lock. “His secretary said no one knows where he is. Can you believe that?”
“Yes,” Dunworthy said. “I’ve been trying most of today—yesterday—to reach him. He’s on holiday somewhere in Scotland, no one knows exactly where. Fishing, according to his wife.”
“At this time of year?” she said. “Who would go fishing in Scotland in December? Surely his wife knows where he is or has a number where he can be reached or something.”
Dunworthy shook his head.
“This is ridiculous! I go to all the trouble to get the National Health Board to grant me access to my dig, and Basingame’s on vacation!” She reached under her slick and brought out a sheaf of colored papers. “They agreed to give me a waiver if the Head of History would sign an affidavit saying the dig was a project necessary and essential to the welfare of the University. How could he just go off like this without telling anybody?” She slapped the papers against her leg, and raindrops flew everywhere. “I have to get this signed before the whole dig floats away. Where’s Gilchrist?”
“He should be here shortly for his blood tests,” Dunworthy said. “If you manage to find Basingame, tell him he needs to come back immediately. Tell him we’ve got a quarantine here, we don’t know where an historian is, and the tech is too ill to tell us.”
“Fishing,” Montoya said disgustedly, heading for Casualties. “If my dig is ruined, he’s going to have a lot to answer for.”
“Come along,” Dunworthy said to Colin, anxious to be gone before anyone else showed up. He held the umbrella so it would cover Colin, too, and then gave up. Colin walked rapidly ahead, managing to hit nearly every puddle, then dawdled behind to look at shop windows.
There was no one on the streets, though whether that was from the quarantine or the early hour, Dunworthy couldn’t tell. Perhaps they’ll all be asleep, he thought, and we can sneak in and go straight to bed.
“I thought there’d be more going on,” Colin said, sounding disappointed. “Sirens and all that.”
“And dead-carts going through the streets, calling ‘Bring out your dead’?” Dunworthy said. “You should have gone with Kivrin. Quarantines in the Middle Ages were far more exciting than this one’s likely to be, with only four cases and a vaccine on its way from the States.”
“Who is this Kivrin person?” Colin asked. “Your daughter?”
“She’s my pupil. She’s just gone to 1320.”
“Time travel? Apocalyptic!”
They turned the corner of the Broad. “The Middle Ages,” Colin said. “That’s Napoleon, isn’t it? Trafalgar, and all that?”
“It’s the Hundred Years War,” Dunworthy said, and Colin looked blank. What are they teaching children in the schools these days? he thought. “Knights and ladies and castles.”
“The Crusades?”
“The Crusades are a bit earlier.”
“That’s where I’d want to go. The Crusades.”
They were at Balliol’s gate. “Quiet, now,” Dunworthy said. “Everyone will be asleep.”
There was no one at the porter’s gate, and no one in the front quadrangle. Lights were on in the hall, the bell ringers having breakfast probably, but there were no lights in the senior common room, and none in Salvin. If they could get up the stairs without seeing anyone and without Colin’s suddenly announcing he was hungry, they might make it safely to his rooms.
“Shhh,” he said, turning back to caution Colin, who had stopped in the quad to take out his gobstopper and examine its color, which was now a purplish-black. “We don’t want to wake everyone,” he said, his finger to his lips, turned around, and collided with a couple in the doorway.
They were wearing rain slicks and embracing energetically, and the young man seemed oblivious to the collision, but the young woman pulled free and looked frightened. She had short red hair and was wearing a student nurse’s uniform under her slick. The young man was William Gaddson.
“Your behavior is inappropriate to both the time and the place,” Dunworthy said sternly. “Public displays of affection are strictly forbidden in college. It is also ill-advised, since your mother may arrive at any moment.”
“My mother?” he said, looking as dismayed as Dunworthy had when he saw her coming down the corridor with her valise. “Here? In Oxford? What’s she doing here? I thought there was a quarantine on.”
“There is, but a mother’s love knows no bounds. She is concerned about your health, as am I, considering the circumstances.” He frowned at William and the young woman, who giggled. “I would suggest you escort your fellow perpetrator home and then make preparations for your mother’s arrival.”
“Preparations?” he said, looking truly stricken. “You mean she’s staying?”
“She has no alternative, I’m afraid. There is a quarantine on.”
Lights came on suddenly inside the staircase, and Finch emerged. “Thank goodness you’re here, Mr. Dunworthy,” he said.
He had a sheaf of colored papers, too, which he waved at Dunworthy. “National Health has just sent over another thirty detainees. I told them we hadn’t any room, but they wouldn’t listen, and I don’t know what to do. We simply do not have the necessary supplies for all these people.”
“Lavatory paper,” Dunworthy said.
“Yes!” Finch said, brandishing the papers. “And food stores. We went through half the eggs and bacon this morning alone.”
“Eggs and bacon?” Colin said. “Are there any left?”
Finch looked enquiringly at Colin and then at Dunworthy.
“He’s Dr. Ahrens’s nephew,” he said, and before Finch could start off again, “he’ll stay in my rooms.”
“Well, good, because I simply cannot find space for another person.”
“We have both been up all night, Mr. Finch, so—”
“Here’s the list of supplies as of this morning.” He handed Dunworthy a dampish blue paper. “As you can see—”
“Mr. Finch, I appreciate your concern about the supplies, but surely this can wait until after—”
“This is a list of your telephone calls with the ones you need to return marked with asterisks. This is a list of your appointments. The vicar wishes you to be at St. Mary’s at a quarter past six tomorrow to rehearse the Christmas Eve service.”
“I will return all these calls, but after I—”
“Dr. Ahrens telephoned twice. She wanted to know what you’ve found out about the bell ringers.”
Dunworthy gave up. “Assign the new detainees to Warren and Basevi, three to a room. There are extra cots in the cellar of the hall.”
Finch opened his mouth to protest.
“They’ll simply have to put up with the paint smell.”
He handed Colin Mary’s shopping bag and the umbrella. “That building over there with the lights on is the hall,” he said, pointing at the door. “Go tell the scouts you want some breakfast and then get one of them to let you into my rooms.”
He turned to William, who was doing something with his hands under the student nurse’s rain slick. “Mr. Gaddson, find your accomplice a taxi and then find the students who’ve been here during vac and ask them whether they’ve been to the States in the past week or had contact with anyone who has. Make a list. You haven’t been to the States recently, have you?”
“No, sir,” he said, removing his hands from the nurse. “I’ve been up the whole vac, reading Petrarch.”
“Ah, yes, Petrarch,” Dunworthy said. “Ask the students what they know about Badri Chaudhuri’s activities from Monday on and question the staff. I need to know where he was and who he was with. I want the same sort of report on Kivrin Engle. Do a thorough job, and refrain from further public displays of affection, and I’ll arrange for your mother to be assigned a room as far from you as possible.”
“Thank you, sir,” William said. “That would mean a great deal to me, sir.”
“Now, Mr. Finch, if you’ll tell me where I might find Ms. Taylor?”
Finch handed him more sheets, with the room assignments on them, but Ms. Taylor wasn’t there. She was in the junior common room with her bell ringers and, apparently, the still-unassigned detainees.
One of them, an imposing woman in a fur coat, grabbed his arm as soon as he came in. “Are you in charge of this place?” she demanded.
Clearly not, Dunworthy thought. “Yes,” he said.
“Well, what are you going to do about getting us someplace to sleep. We’ve been up all night.”
“So have I, madam,” Dunworthy said, afraid this was Ms. Taylor. She had looked thinner and less dangerous on the telephone, but visuals could be deceiving and the accent and the attitude were unmistakable. “You wouldn’t be Ms. Taylor?”
“I’m Ms. Taylor,” a woman in one of the wing chairs said. She stood up. She looked even thinner than she had on the telephone and apparently less angry. “I spoke with you on the phone earlier,” she said, and the way she said it they might have had a pleasant chat about the intricacies of change ringing. “This is Ms. Piantini, our tenor,” she said, indicating the woman in the fur coat.
Ms. Piantini looked like she could yank Great Tom straight off its moorings. She had obviously not had any viruses lately.
“If I could speak with you privately for a moment, Ms. Taylor?” He led her out into the corridor. “Were you able to cancel your concert in Ely?”
“Yes,” she said. “And Norwich. They were very understanding.” She leaned forward anxiously. “Is it true it’s cholera?”
“Cholera?” Dunworthy said blankly.
“One of the women who had been down at the station said it was cholera, that someone had brought it from India and people were dropping like flies.”
It had apparently not been a good night’s sleep but fear that had worked the change in her manner. If he told her there were only four cases she would very likely demand they be taken to Ely.
“The disease is apparently a myxovirus,” he said carefully. “When did your group come to England?”
Her eyes widened. “You think we’re the ones who brought it? We haven’t been to India.”
“There is a possibility it is the same myxovirus as one reported in South Carolina. Are any of your members from South Carolina?”
“No,” she said. “We’re all from Colorado except Ms. Piantini. She’s from Wyoming. And none of us has been sick.”
“How long have you been in England?”
“Three weeks. We’ve been visiting all the Traditional Council chapters and doing handbell concerts. We rang a Boston Treble Bob at St. Katherine’s and Post Office Caters with three of the Bury St. Edmund’s chapter ringers, but of course neither of those was a new peal. A Chicago Surprise Minor—”
“And you all arrived in Oxford yesterday morning?”
“Yes.”
“None of your group came early, to see the sights or visit friends?”
“No,” she said, sounding shocked. “We’re on tour, Mr. Dunworthy, not on vacation.”
“And you said that none of you had been ill?”
She shook her head. “We can’t afford to get sick. There are only six of us.”
“Thank you for your help,” Dunworthy said and sent her back down to the common room.
He rang up Mary, who couldn’t be found, left a message, and started down Finch’s asterisks. He rang up Andrews, Jesus College, Mr. Basingame’s secretary, and St. Mary’s without getting through. He rang off, waited a five-minute interval and tried again. During one of the intervals, Mary phoned.
“Why aren’t you in bed yet?” she demanded. “You look exhausted.”
“I’ve been interrogating the bell ringers,” he said. “They’ve been here in England for three weeks. None of them came to Oxford before yesterday afternoon and none of them are ill. Do you want me to come back and question Badri?”
“It won’t do any good, I’m afraid. He’s not coherent.”
“I’m trying to get through to Jesus to see what they know of his comings and goings.”
“Good,” she said. “Ask his landlady, too. And get some sleep. I don’t want you getting this.” She paused. “We’ve got six more cases.”
“Any from South Carolina?”
“No,” she said, “and none who couldn’t have had contact with Badri. So he’s still the index case. Is Colin all right?”
“He’s having breakfast,” he said. “He’s all right. Don’t worry about him.”
He didn’t get to bed until after one-thirty in the afternoon. It took him two hours to get through to all the starred names on Finch’s list, and another hour to discover where Badri lived. His landlady wasn’t at home, and when Dunworthy got back, Finch insisted on going over the complete inventory of supplies.
Dunworthy finally got away from him by promising to telephone the NHS and demand additional lavatory paper. He let himself into his rooms.
Colin had curled up on the window seat, his head on his pack and a crocheted laprobe over him. It didn’t reach as far as his feet. Dunworthy took a blanket from the foot of the bed and covered him up, and sat down in the Chesterfield opposite to take off his shoes.
He was almost too tired to do that, though he knew he would regret it if he went to bed in his clothes. That was the province of the young and nonarthritic. Colin would wake refreshed in spite of digging buttons and constricting sleeves. Kivrin could wrap up in her too-thin white cloak and rest her head on a tree stump none the worse for wear, but if he so much as omitted a pillow or left his shirt on, he would wake stiff and cramped. And if he sat here with his shoes in his hand, he would not get to bed at all.
He heaved himself out of the chair, still holding the shoes, switched the light off, and went into the bedroom. He put on his pajamas and turned back the bed. It looked impossibly inviting.
I shall be asleep before my head hits the pillow, he thought, taking off his spectacles. He got into bed and pulled the covers up. Before I’ve even switched off the light, he thought, and switched off the light.
There was scarcely any light from the window, only a dull gray showing through the tangle of darker gray vines. The rain beat faintly against the leathery leaves. I should have drawn the curtains, he thought, but he was too tired to get up again.
At least Kivrin wouldn’t have to contend with rain. It was the Little Ice Age. It would be snow if anything. The contemps had slept huddled together by the hearth until it had finally occurred to someone to invent the chimney and the fireplace, and that hadn’t been extant in Oxfordshire villages till the mid-fifteenth century. But Kivrin wouldn’t care. She would curl up like Colin and sleep the easy, the unappreciated sleep of the young.
He wondered if it had stopped raining. He couldn’t hear the patter of it on the window. Perhaps it had slowed to a drizzle or was getting ready to rain again. It was so dark, and too early for the afternoon to be drawing in. He drew his hand out from under the covers and looked at the illuminated numbers on his digital. Only two o’clock. It would be six in the evening where Kivrin was. He needed to phone Andrews again when he woke up and have him read the fix so they would know exactly where and when she was.
Badri had told Gilchrist there was minimal slippage, that he’d double-checked the first-year apprentice’s coordinates and they were correct, but he wanted to make certain. Gilchrist had taken no precautions and even with precautions, things could go wrong. Today had proved that.
Badri had had the full course of antivirale. Colin’s mother had seen him safely onto the tube and given him extra money. The first time Dunworthy had gone to London he had almost not made it back, and they had taken endless precautions.
It had been a simple there-and-back-again to test the on-site net. Only thirty years. Dunworthy was to go through to Trafalgar Square, take the tube from Charing Cross to Paddington and the 10:48 train to Oxford where the main net would be open. They had allowed plenty of time, checked and rechecked the net, researched the ABC and the tube schedules, double-checked the dates on the money. And when he had got to Charing Cross the tube station was closed. The lights in the ticket kiosks had been off, and an iron gate had been pulled across the entrance, in front of the wooden turnstiles.
He pulled the blankets up over his shoulder. Any number of things could have gone wrong with the drop, things no one had even thought of. It had probably never occurred to Colin’s mother that Colin’s train would be stopped at Barton. It had not occurred to any of them that Badri would suddenly fall forward into the console.
Mary’s right, he thought, you’ve a dreadful streak of Mrs. Gaddsonitis. Kivrin overcame any number of obstacles to get to the Middle Ages. Even if something goes wrong, she can handle it. Colin hadn’t let a little thing like a quarantine stop him. And Dunworthy had made it safely back from London.
He had banged on the shut gate and then run back up the stairs to read the signs again, thinking that perhaps he had come in the wrong way. He hadn’t. He had looked for a clock. Perhaps there had been more slippage than the checks indicated, he’d thought, and the underground was shut down for the night. But the clock above the entrance said nine-fifteen.
“Accident,” a disreputable-looking man in a filthy cap said. “They’ve shut down till they can get it cleaned up.”
“B-but I must take the Bakerloo line,” he stammered, but the man shuffled off.
He stood there staring into the darkened station, unable to think what to do. He hadn’t brought enough money for a taxi, and Paddington was all the way across London. He’d never make the 10:48.
“Whah ya gan, mite?” a young man with a black leather jacket and green hair like a cockscomb said. Dunworthy could scarcely understand him. Punker, he thought. The young man moved menacingly closer.
“Paddington,” he said, and it came out as little more than a squeak.
The punker reached in his jacket pocket for what Dunworthy was sure was his switchblade, but he pulled out a laminated tube pass and began reading the map on the back. “Yuh cuhn get District or Sahcle from Embankment. Gaw dahn Craven Street and tike a left.”
He had run the whole way, certain the punker’s gang would leap out at him and steal his historically accurate money at any moment, and when he got to Embankment, he had had no idea how to work the ticket machine.
A woman with two toddlers had helped him, punching in the destination and amount for him and showing him how to insert his ticket in the slot. He had made it to Paddington with time to spare.
“Aren’t there any nice people in the Middle Ages?” Kivrin had asked him, and of course there were. Young men with switchblades and tube maps had existed in all ages. So had mothers and toddlers and Mrs. Gaddsons and Latimers. And Gilchrists.
He rolled over onto his other side. “She will be perfectly all right,” he said aloud, but softly, so as not to wake Colin. “The Middle Ages are no match for my best pupil.” He pulled the blanket up over his shoulder and closed his eyes, thinking of the young man with the green cockscomb poring over the map. But the image that floated before him was of the iron gate, stretched between him and the turnstiles, and the darkened station beyond.
TRANSCRIPT FROM THE DOMESDAY BOOK
(015104–016615)
19 December 1320 (Old Style). I’m feeling better. I can go three or four careful breaths at a time without coughing, and I was actually hungry this morning, though not for the greasy porridge Maisry brought me. I would kill for a plate of bacon and eggs.
And a bath. I am absolutely filthy. Nothing’s been washed since I got here except my forehead, and the last two days Lady Imeyne has glued poultices made of strips of linen covered with a disgusting-smelling paste to my chest. Between that, the intermittent sweats that I’m still having, and the bed (which hasn’t been changed since the 1200s), I positively reek, and my hair, short as it is, is crawling. I’m the cleanest person here.
Dr. Ahrens was right in wanting to cauterize my nose. Everyone, even the little girls, smells terrible, and it’s the dead of winter and freezing cold in here. I can’t imagine what it must be like in August. They all have fleas. Lady Imeyne stops even in midprayer to scratch, and when Agnes pulled down her hose to show me her knee, there were red bites all up and down her leg.
Eliwys, Imeyne, and Rosemund have comparatively clean faces, but they don’t wash their hands, even after emptying the chamber pot, and the idea of washing the dishes or changing the flock in the mattresses has yet to be invented. By rights, they should all have long since died of infection, but except for scurvy and a lot of bad teeth, everyone seems to be in good health. Even Agnes’s knee is healing nicely. She comes to show me the scab every day. And her silver buckle, and her wooden knight, and poor overloved Blackie.
She is a treasure trove of information, most of it volunteered without my even asking. Rosemund is “in her thirteenth year,” which means she’s twelve, and the room they’ve been tending me in is her bower. It’s hard to imagine she’ll soon be of marriageable age, and thus has a private “maiden’s bower,” but girls were frequently married at fourteen and fifteen in the 1300s. Eliwys can scarcely have been older than that when she married. Agnes also told me she has three older brothers, all of whom stayed in Bath with their father.
The bell in the southwest is Swindone. Agnes can name all the bells by the sound of their ringing. The distant one that always rings first is the Osney bell, the forerunner of Great Tom. The double bells are at Courcy, where Sir Bloet lives, and the two closest are Witenie and Esthcote. That means I’m close to Skendgate in location, and this could very well be Skendgate. It has the ash trees, it’s about the right size, and the church is in the right place. Ms. Montoya may simply not have found the bell tower yet. Unfortunately, the name of the village is the one thing Agnes hasn’t known.
She did know where Gawyn was. She told me he was out hunting my attackers, “And when he finds them, he will slay them with his sword. Like that,” she said, demonstrating with Blackie. I’m not certain the things she tells me can always be depended upon. She told me King Edward is in France, and that Father Roche saw the Devil, dressed all in black and riding on a black stallion.
This last is possible. (That Father Roche told her that, not that he saw the Devil.) The line between the spiritual world and the physical wasn’t clearly drawn until the Renaissance, and the contemps routinely saw visions of angels, the Last Judgment, the Virgin Mary.
Lady Imeyne complains constantly about how ignorant and illiterate and incompetent Father Roche is. She is still trying to convince Eliwys to send Gawyn to Osney to fetch a monk. When I asked her if she would send for him so he could pray with me (I decided that request couldn’t possibly be considered “overbold”), she gave me a half-hour recital of how he had forgotten part of the Venite, had blown the candles out instead of pinching them so that “much wax is wasted,” and filled the servants’ heads with superstitious prate (no doubt of the Devil and his horse).
Village-level priests in the 1300s were merely peasants who’d been taught the mass by rote and a smattering of Latin. Everyone smells about the same to me, but the nobility viewed their serfs as a different species altogether, and I’m sure it offends Imeyne’s aristocratic soul to have to tell her confession to this “villein”!
He’s no doubt as superstitious and illiterate as she claims. But he’s not incompetent. He held my hand when I was dying. He told me not to be afraid. And I wasn’t.
I’m feeling better by leaps and bounds. This afternoon I sat up for half an hour, and tonight I went downstairs for supper. Lady Eliwys brought me a brown wadmal kirtle and mustard-colored surcote to wear, and a sort of kerchief to cover my chopped-off hair (not a wimple and coif, so Eliwys must still think I’m a maiden, in spite of all Imeyne’s talk about “daltrisses”). I don’t know if my clothes were inappropriate or simply too nice to be worn for everyday, Eliwys didn’t say anything. She and Imeyne helped me dress. I wanted to ask if I could wash before I put my new clothes on, but I’m afraid of doing anything that will make Imeyne more suspicious.
She watched me fasten my points and tie my shoes as it was, and kept a sharp eye on me all through dinner. I sat between the girls and shared a trencher with them. The steward was relegated to the very end of the table, and Maisry was nowhere to be seen. According to Mr. Latimer, the parish priest ate at the lord’s table, but Lady Imeyne probably doesn’t like Father Roche’s table manners either.
We had meat, I think venison, and bread. The venison tasted of cinnamon, salt, and the lack of refrigeration, and the bread was stone-hard, but it was better than porridge, and I don’t think I made any mistakes.
Though I’m certain I must be making mistakes all the time, and that’s why Lady Imeyne is so suspicious of me. My clothes, my hands, probably my sentence structure, are slightly (or not so slightly) off, and it all combines to make me seem foreign, peculiar—suspicious.
Lady Eliwys is too worried over her husband’s trial to notice my mistakes, and the girls are too young. But Lady Imeyne notices everything and is probably making a list like the one she has for Father Roche. Thank goodness I didn’t tell her I was Isabel de Beauvrier. She’d have ridden to Yorkshire, winter or no, to catch me out.
Gawyn came in after dinner. Maisry, who’d finally slunk in with a scarlet ear and a wooden bowl of ale, had dragged the benches over to the hearth and put several logs of fat pine on the fire, and the women were sewing by its yellow light.
Gawyn stopped in front of the screens, obviously just in from a hard ride, and for a minute no one noticed him. Rosemund was brooding over her embroidery. Agnes was pushing her cart back and forth with the wooden knight in it, and Eliwys was talking earnestly to Imeyne about the cottar, who apparently isn’t doing very well. The smoke from the fire was making my chest hurt, and I turned my head away from it, trying to keep from coughing, and saw him standing there, looking at Eliwys.
After a moment Agnes ran her cart into Imeyne’s foot, and Imeyne told her she was the Devil’s own child, and Gawyn came on into the hall. I lowered my eyes and prayed he would speak to me.
He did, bowing on one knee in front of where I sat on the bench. “Good lady,” he said. “I am glad to see you improved.”
I had no idea what, if anything, was appropriate to say. I ducked my head lower.
He remained on one knee, like a servitor. “I was told you remember naught of your attackers, Lady Katherine. Is it so?”
“Yes,” I murmured.
“Nor of your servants, where they might have fled?”
I shook my head, eyes still downcast.
He turned toward Eliwys. “I have news of the renegades, Lady Eliwys. I have found their trail. There were many of them, and they had horses.”
I’d been afraid he was going to say he’d caught some poor wood-gathering peasant and hanged him.
“I beg your leave to pursue them and avenge the lady,” he said, looking at Eliwys.
Eliwys looked uneasy, wary, the way she had when he came before. “My husband bade us keep to this place till he comes,” she said, “and he bade you stay with us to guard us. Nay.”
“You have not supped,” Lady Imeyne said in a tone that closed the matter.
Gawyn stood up.
“I thank you for your kindness, sir,” I said rapidly. “I know it was you who found me in the woods.” I took a breath, and coughed. “I beg you, will you tell me of the place you found me, where it is?” I had tried to say too much too fast. I began to cough, gasped too deep a breath, and doubled over with the pain.
By the time I got the coughing under control, Imeyne had set meat and cheese on the table for Gawyn, and Eliwys had gone back to her sewing, so I still don’t know anything.
No, that’s not true. I know why Eliwys looked so wary when he came in and why he made up a tale about a band of renegades. And what that conversation about “daltrisses” was all about.
I watched him standing there in the doorway looking at Eliwys, and I didn’t need an interpreter to read his face. He’s obviously in love with his lord’s wife.
