Doomsday Book

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Dunworthy spent the next two days ringing Finch's list of techs and Scottish fishing guides and setting up another ward in Bulkeley-Johnson. Fifteen more of his detainees were down with the flu, among them Ms. Taylor, who had collapsed forty-nine strokes short of a full peal.

"Fainted dead away and let go her bell," Finch reported. "It swung right over with a noise like doom and the rope thrashing about like a live thing. Wrapped itself round my neck and nearly strangled me. Ms. Taylor wanted to go on after she came to herself, but of course it was too late. I do wish you'd speak to her, Mr. Dunworthy. She's very despondent. Says she'll never forgive herself for letting the others down. I told her it wasn't her fault, that sometimes things are simply out of one's control, aren't they?"

"Yes," Dunworthy said.

He had not succeeded in reaching a tech, let alone persuading him to come to Oxford, and he had not found Basingame. He and Finch had phoned every hotel in Scotland, and then every inn and rental cottage. William had got hold of his credit records, but there were no purchases of fishing lures or waders in some remote Scottish town, as he had hoped, and no entries at all after the fifteenth of December.

The telephone system was becoming progressively disabled. The visual cut out again, and the recorded voice, announcing that due to the epidemic all circuits were busy, interrupted after only two digits on nearly every call he tried to put through.

He did not so much worry about Kivrin as carry her with him, a heavy weight, as he punched and repunched the numbers, waited for ambulances, listened to Mrs. Gaddson's complaints. Andrews had not phoned back, or if he had, had not succeeded in getting through. Badri murmured endlessly of death, the nurses carefully transcribing his ramblings on slips of paper. While he waited for the techs, for the fishing guides, for someone to answer the telephone, he pored over Badri's words, searching for clues. "Black," Badri had said, and "laboratory," and "Europe."

The phone system grew worse. The recorded voice cut in as he punched the first number, and several times he couldn't raise a dial tone. He gave up for the moment and worked on the contacts charts. William had managed to get hold of the primaries' confidential NHS medical records, and he pored over them, searching for radiation treatments and visits to the dentist. One of the primaries had had his jaw X-rayed, but on second look, he saw it had been on the twenty-fourth, after the epidemic began.

He went over to Infirmary to ask the primaries who weren't delirious whether they had any pets or had been duck-hunting recently. The corridors were filled with stretcher trolleys, each one of them with a patient on it. They were jammed up against the doors of Casualties and crosswise in front of the elevator. There was no way he could get past them to it. He took the stairs.

William's blonde student nurse met him at the door of Isolation. She was wearing a white cloth gown and mask. "I'm afraid you can't go in," she said, holding up a gloved hand.

Badri's dead, he thought. "Is Mr. Chaudhuri worse?" he asked.

"No. He seems actually to be resting a bit more quietly. But we've run out of SPG's. London's promised to send us a shipment tomorrow, and the staff's making do with cloth, but we haven't enough for visitors." She fished in her pocket for a scrap of paper. "I wrote down his words," she said, handing it to him. "I'm afraid most of it's unintelligible. He says your name and — Kivrin's?-is that right?"

He nodded, looking at the paper.

"And sometimes isolated words, but most of it's nonsense."

She had tried to write it down phonetically, and when she understood a word, she underscored it. "Can't," he had said, and "black," and "so worried."

Over half the detainees were down by Sunday morning, and everyone not ill was nursing them. Dunworthy and Finch had given up all notion of putting them in wards, and at any rate they had run out of cots. They left them in their own beds, or moved them, bed and all, into rooms in Salvin to keep their makeshift nurses from running themselves ragged.

The bellringers fell one by one, and Dunworthy helped put them to bed in the old library. Ms. Taylor, who could still walk, insisted on going to visit them.

"It's the least I can do," she said, panting after the exertion of walking across the corridor, "after I let them down like that."

Dunworthy helped her onto the air mattress William had carried over and covered her with a sheet. "'The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,'" he said.

He felt weak himself, bone-tired from the lack of sleep and the constant defeats. He had finally managed, between boiling water for tea and washing bedpans, to get through to one of Magdalen's techs.

"She's in hospital," her mother had said. She'd looked harried and tired.

"When did she fall ill?" Dunworthy'd asked her.

"Christmas Day."

Hope had surged in him. Perhaps Magdalen's tech was the source. "What symptoms does she have?" he'd asked eagerly. "Headache? Fever? Disorientation?"

"Ruptured appendix," she'd said.

By Monday morning three-quarters of the detainees were ill. They ran out, as Finch had predicted, of clean linens and NHS masks, and more urgently, of temps, antimicrobials, and aspirin. "I tried to ring Infirmary to ask for more," Finch said handing Dunworthy a list, "but the phones have all gone dead."

Dunworthy walked to the infirmary to fetch the supplies. The street in front of Casualties was jammed, a jumble of ambulance vans and taxis and protesters carrying a large sign that proclaimed, "The Prime Minister Has Left Us Here To Die." As he squeezed past them and in the door, Colin came running out. He was wet, as usual, and red-faced and red-nosed from the cold. His jacket was unstripped.

The telephones are out," he said. "There was an overload. I'm running messages." He pulled an untidy clutch of folded papers from his jacket pocket. "Is there anyone you'd like me to take a message to?"

Yes, he thought. To Andrews. To Basingame. To Kivrin. "No," he said.

Colin stuffed the already wet messages back in his pocket. "I'm off then. If you're looking for Great-Aunt Mary, she's in Casualties. Five more cases just came in. A family. The baby was dead." He darted off through the traffic jam.

Dunworthy pushed his way into Casualties and showed his list to the house officer, who directed him to Supplies. The corridors were still full of stretcher trolleys, though now they were lined lengthwise on both sides so there was a narrow passage between. Bending over one of the stretcher trolleys was a nurse in a pink mask and gown reading something to one of the patients.

"'The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee,'" she said, and he realized too late that it was Mrs. Gaddson, but she was so intent on her reading she did not look up. "'Until he have consumed thee from the land.'"

The pestilence shall cleave unto thee, he said silently, and thought of Badri. "It was the rats," Badri had said. "It killed them all. Half of Europe."

She can't be in the Black Death, he thought, turning down the corridor to Supplies. Andrews had said the maximal slippage was five years. The plague hadn't even begun in China. Andrews had said the only two things that would not have automatically aborted the drop were the slippage and the coordinates, and Badri, when he could answer Dunworthy's questions, insisted he had checked Puhalski's coordinates.

He went into Supplies. There was no one at the desk. He rang the bell.

Each time Dunworthy had asked him, Badri had said the apprentice's coordinates were correct, but his fingers moved nervously over the sheet, typing, typing in the fix. That can't be right. There's something wrong.

He rang the bell again, and a nurse emerged from among the shelves. She had obviously come out of retirement expressly for the epidemic. She was ninety at the least, and her starched white uniform was yellowed with age, but still stiff. It crackled when she took his list.

"Have you a supply authorization?"

"No," he said.

She handed him back his list and a three-page form. "All orders must be authorized by the ward matron."

"We haven't any ward matron," he said, his temper flaring. "We haven't any ward. We have fifty detainees in two dormitories and no supplies."

"In that case, authorization must be obtained from the doctor in charge."

"The doctor in charge has an infirmary full of patients to take care of. She doesn't have time to sign authorizations. There's an epidemic on!"

"I am well aware of that," the nurse said frigidly. "All orders must be signed by the doctor in charge," and walked creakily back among the shelves.

He went back to Casualties. Mary was no longer there. The house officer sent him up to Isolation, but she wasn't there either. He toyed with the idea of forging Mary's signature, but he wanted to see her, wanted to tell her about his failure to reach the techs, his failure to find a way to bypass Gilchrist and open the net. He could not even get a simple aspirin, and it was already the third of January.

He finally ran Mary to ground in the laboratory. She was speaking into the telephone, which was apparently working again, though the visual was nothing but snow. She wasn't watching it. She was watching the console, which had the branching contacts chart on it. "What exactly is the difficulty?" she was saying. "You said it would be here two days ago."

There was a pause while the person lost in the snow apparently made some sort of excuse.

"What do you mean it was turned back?" she said incredulously. "I've got a thousand people with influenza here."

There was another pause. Mary typed something into the console, and a different chart appeared.

"Well, send it again," she shouted. "I need it now! I've got people dying here! I want it here by — hullo? Are you there?" The screen went dead. She turned to click the receiver and caught sight of Dunworthy.

She beckoned him into the office. "Are you there?" she said into the telephone. "Hullo?" She slammed the receiver down. "The phones don't work, half my staff is down with the virus, and the analogues aren't here because some idiot wouldn't let them into the quarantine area!" she said angrily.

She sank down in front of the console and rubbed her fingers against her cheekbones. "Sorry," she said. "It's been rather a bad day. I've had three DOA's this afternoon. One of them was six months old."

She was still wearing the sprig of holly on her lab coat. Both it and the lab coat were much the worse for wear, and Mary looked impossibly tired, the lines around her mouth and eyes cutting deep into her face. He wondered how long it had been since she had slept and whether, if he were to ask her, she would even know.

She rubbed two fingers along the lines above her eyes. "One never gets used to the idea that there is nothing one can do," she said.

"No."

She looked up at him, almost as if she hadn't realized he was there. "Was there something you needed, James?"

She had had no sleep, and no help, and three DOA's, one of them a baby. She had enough on her mind without worrying over Kivrin.

"No," he said, standing up. He handed her the form. "Nothing but your signature."

She signed it without looking at it. "I went to see Gilchrist this morning," she said, handing it back to him.

He looked at her, too surprised and touched to speak.

"I went to see if I could convince him to open the net earlier. I explained that there's no need to wait until there's been full immunization. Immunization of a critical percentage of the virus pool effectively eliminates the contagion vectors."

"And none of your arguments had the slightest effect on him."

"No. He's utterly convinced the virus came through from the past." Mary sighed. "He's drawn up charts of the cyclical mutation patterns of Type A myxoviruses. According to them, one of the Type A myxoviruses extant in 1318-19 was an H9N2." She rubbed at her forehead again. "He won't open the laboratory until full immunization's completed and the quarantine's lifted."

"And when will that be?" he asked, though he had a good idea.

"The quarantine has to remain in effect until seven days after full immunization or fourteen days after final incidence," she said as if she were giving him bad news.

Final incidence. Two weeks with no new cases. "How long will nationwide immunization take?"

"Once we get sufficient supplies of the vaccine, not long. The Pandemic only took eighteen days."

Eighteen days. After sufficient supplies of the vaccine were manufactured. The end of January. "That's not soon enough," he said.

"I know. We must positively identify the source, that's all." She turned to look at the console. "The answer's in here, you know. We're simply looking in the wrong place." She punched in a new chart. "I've been running correlations, looking for veterinary students, primaries who live near zoos, rural addresses. This one's of secondaries listed in DeBrett's, grouse-hunting and all that. But the closest any of them's come to a waterfowl is eating goose for Christmas."

She punched up the contacts chart. Badri's name was still at the top of it. She sat and looked at it a long moment, as remote as Montoya staring at her bones.

"The first thing a doctor has to learn is not to be too hard on himself when he loses a patient," she said, and he wondered if she meant Kivrin or Badri.

"I'm going to get the net open," he said.

"I hope so," she said.

The answer did not lie in the contacts charts or the commonalities. It lay in Badri, whose name was still, in spite of all the questions they had asked the secondaries, in spite of all the false leads, the primary source. Badri was the index case, and sometime in the four to six days before the drop he had been in contact with a reservoir.

He went up to see him. There was a different nurse at the desk outside Badri's room, a tall, nervous youth who looked no more than seventeen.

"Where's…" Dunworthy began and realized he didn't know the blonde nurse's name.

"She's down with it," the boy said. "Yesterday. She's the twentieth of the nursing staff to catch it, and they're out of subs. They asked for third-year students to help. I'm actually only first-year, but I've had first-aid training."

Yesterday. A whole day had passed, then, with no one recording what Badri said. "Do you remember anything Badri might have said while you were in with him?" he said without hope. A first-year student. "Any words or phrases you could understand?"

"You're Mr. Dunworthy, aren't you?" the boy said. He handed him a set of SPG's. "Eloise said you wanted to know everything the patient said."

Dunworthy put on the newly-arrived SPG's. They were white and marked with tiny black crosses along the back opening of the gown. He wondered where they'd resorted to borrowing them from.

"She was awfully ill and she kept saying over and over how important it was."

The boy led Dunworthy into Badri's room, looked at the screens above the bed, and then down at Badri. At least he looks at the patient, Dunworthy thought.

Badri lay with his hands outside the sheet, plucking at it with hands that looked like those in Colin's illustration of the knight's tomb. His sunken eyes were open, but he did not look at the nurse or at Dunworthy, or at the sheet, which his ceaseless hands could not seem to grasp.

"I read about this in meds," the boy said, "but I've never actually seen it. It's a common terminal symptom in respiratory cases." He went to the console, punched something up, and pointed at the top left screen. "I've written it all down."

He had, even the gibberish. He had written that phonetically, with ellipses to represent pauses, and (sic) after questionable words. "Rats," he had written, and "backer (sic)" and "Why doesn't he come?"

"This is mostly from yesterday," he said. He moved a cursor to the lower third of the screen. "He talked a big this morning. Now, of course, he doesn't say anything."

Dunworthy sat down beside Badri and took his hand. It was ice-cold even through the imperm glove. He glanced at the temp screen. Badri no longer had a fever or the dark flush that had gone with it. He seemed to have lost all color. His skin was the color of wet ashes.

"Badri," he said. "It's Mr. Dunworthy. I need to ask you some questions."

There was no response. His cold hand lay limply in Dunworthy's gloved one, and the other continued picking steadily, uselessly at the sheet.

"Dr. Ahrens thinks you might have caught your illness from an animal, a wild duck or a goose."

The nurse looked interestedly at Dunworthy and then back at Badri, as if he were hoping he would exhibit another yet- unobserved medical phenomenon.

"Badri, can you remember? Did you have any contact with ducks or geese the week before the drop?"

Badri's hand moved. Dunworthy frowned at it, wondering if he were trying to communicate, but when he loosened his grip a little, the thin, thin fingers were only trying to pluck at his palm, at his fingers, at his wrist.

He was suddenly ashamed that he was sitting here torturing Badri with questions, though he was past hearing, past even knowing Dunworthy was here, or caring.

He laid Badri's hand back on the sheet. "Rest," he said, patting it gently, "Try to rest."

"I doubt if he can hear you," the nurse said. "When they're this far gone they're not really conscious."

"No. I know," Dunworthy said, but he went on sitting there.

The nurse adjusted a drip, peered nervously at it and adjusted it again. He looked anxiously at Badri, adjusted the drip a third time and finally went out. Dunworthy sat on, watching Badri's fingers plucking blindly at the sheet, trying to grasp it but unable to. Trying to hold on. Now and then he murmured something, too soft to hear. Dunworthy rubbed his arm gently, up and down. After awhile, the plucking grew slower, though Dunworthy didn't know if that was a good sign or not.

"Graveyard," Badri said.

"No," Dunworthy said. "No."

He sat on a bit longer, rubbing Badri's arm, but after a little it seemed to make his agitation worse. He stood up. "Try to rest," he said and went out.

The nurse was sitting at the desk, reading a copy of Patient Care.

"Please notify me when…" Dunworthy said, and realized he would not be able to finish the sentence. "Please notify me."

"Yes, sir," the boy said. "Where are you?"

He fumbled in his pocket for a scrap of paper to write on and came up with the list of supplies. He had nearly forgotten it. "I'm at Balliol," he said, "send a messenger," and went back down to Supplies.

"You haven't filled this out properly," the crone said starchily when Dunworthy gave her the form.

"I've had it signed," he said, handing her his list. "You fill it out."

She looked disapprovingly at the list. "We haven't any masks or temps." She reached down a small bottle of aspirin. "We're out of synthamycin and AZL."

The bottle of aspirin contained perhaps twenty tablets. He put them in his pocket and walked down to the High to the chemist's. A small crowd of protesters stood outside in the rain, holding pickets that said, "UNFAIR!" and "Price gouging!" He went inside. They were out of masks, and the temps and the aspirin were outrageously priced. He bought all they had.

He spent the night dispensing them and studying Badri's chart, looking for some clue to the virus's source. Badri had run an on-site for Nineteenth Century in Hungary on the tenth of December, but the chart did not say where in Hungary , and William, who was flirting with the detainees who were still on their feet, didn't know, and the phones were still out.

They were still out in the morning when Dunworthy tried to phone to check on Badri's condition. He could not even raise a dialing tone, but as soon as he put down the receiver, the telephone rang.

It was Andrews. Dunworthy could scarcely hear his voice through the static. "Sorry this took so long," he said, and then something that was lost entirely.

"I can't hear you," Dunworthy said.

"I said, I've had difficulty getting through. The phones…" More static. "I did the parameter checks. I used three different L-and-L's and triangulated the…" The rest was lost.

"What was the maximal slippage?" he shouted into the phone.

The line went momentarily clear. "Six days."

"Six days?" Dunworthy shouted. "Are you certain?"

"That was with an L-and-L of…" More static. "I ran probabilities, and the possible maximal for any L-and-L's within a circumference of fifty kilometers was still five years." The static roared in again, and the line went dead.

Dunworthy put the receiver down. He should have felt reassured, but he could not seem to summon any feeling. Gilchrist had no intention of opening the net on the sixth, whether Kivrin was there or not. he reached for the phone to phone the Scottish Tourism Bureau, and as he did, it rang again.

"Dunworthy here," he said, squinting at the screen, but the visuals were still nothing but snow.

"Who?" a woman's voice that sounded hoarse or groggy said. "Sorry," it murmured, "I meant to ring — " and something else too blurred to make out, and the visual went blank.

He waited to see if it would ring again, and then went back across to Salvin. Magdalen's bell was chiming the hour. It sounded like a funeral bell in the unceasing rain. Ms. Piantini had apparently heard the bell, too. She was standing in the quad in her nightgown, solemnly raising her arms in an unheard rhythm. "Middle, wrong, and into the hunt," she said when Dunworthy tried to take her back inside.

Finch appeared, looking distraught. "It's the bells, sir," he said, taking hold of her other arm. "They upset her. I don't think they should ring them under the circumstances."

Ms. Piantini wrenched free of Dunworthy's restraining hand. "Every man must stick to his bell without interruption," she said furiously.

"I quite agree," Finch said, clutching her arm as firmly as if it were a bell rope, and led her back to her cot.

Colin came skidding in, drenched as usual and nearly blue With cold. His jacket was open, and Mary's gray muffler dangled uselessly about his neck. He handed Dunworthy a message. "It's from Badri's nurse," he said, opening a packet of soap tablets and popping a light blue one into his mouth.

The note was drenched, too. It read, "Badri asking for you," though the word 'Badri' was so blurred he couldn't make out more than the B.

"Did the nurse say whether Badri was worse?"

"No, just to give you the message. And Aunt Mary says when you come, you're to get your enhancement. She said she doesn't know when the analogue will get here."

Dunworthy helped Finch wrestle Ms. Piantini into bed and hurried to Infirmary and up to isolation. There was another new nurse, this one a middle-aged woman with swollen feet. She was sitting with them propped up on the screens, watching a pocket vidder, but she stood up immediately when he came in.

"Are you Mr. Dunworthy?" she asked, blocking his way. "Dr. Ahrens said you're to meet her downstairs immediately."

She said it quietly, even kindly, and he thought, she's trying to spare me. She doesn't want me to see what's in there. She wants Mary to tell me first.

"It's Badri, isn't it? He's dead."

She looked genuinely surprised. "Oh, no, he's much better this morning. Didn't you get my note? He's sitting up."

"Sitting up?" he said, staring at her, wondering if she were delirious with fever.

"He's still very weak of course, but his temp's normal and he's alert. You're to meet Dr. Ahrens in casualties. She said it was urgent."

He looked wonderingly toward the door to Badri's room. "Tell him I'll be in to see him as soon as I can," he said and hurried out the door.

He nearly collided with Colin, who was apparently coming in. "What are you doing here?" he demanded. "Did one of the techs telephone?"

"I've been assigned to you," Colin said. "Great-Aunt Mary says she doesn't trust you to get your T-cell enhancement. I'm supposed to take you down to get it."

"I can't. There's an emergency in casualties," he said, walking rapidly down the corridor.

Colin ran to keep up with him. "Well, then, after the emergency. She said I wasn't to let you leave Infirmary without it."

Mary was there to meet them when the lift opened. "We have another case," she said grimly. "It's Montoya." She started for casualties. "They're bringing her in from Witney."

"Montoya?" Dunworthy said. "That's impossible. She's been out at the dig alone."

She pushed open the double doors. "Apparently not."

"But she said — are you certain it's the virus? She's been working in the rain. Perhaps it's some other disease."

Mary shook her head. "The ambulance team ran a prelim. It matches the virus." She stopped at the admissions desk and asked the house officer, "Are they here yet?"

He shook his head. "They've just come through the perimeter."

Mary walked over to the doors and looked out, as if she didn't believe him. "We got a call from her this morning, very confused," she said, turning back to them. "I telephoned to Chipping Norton, which is the nearest hospital, told them to send an ambulance, but they said the dig was officially under quarantine. And I couldn't get one of ours out to her. I finally had to persuade the NHS to grant a dispensation to send an ambulance." She peered out the doors again. "When did she go out to the dig?"

"I — " Dunworthy tried to remember. She had phoned to ask him about the Scottish fishing guides on Christmas Day and then phoned back that afternoon to say, "Never mind," because she had decided to forge Basingame's signature instead. "Christmas Day," he said. "If the NHS offices were open. Or the twenty-sixth. And she hasn't seen anyone since then."

"How do you know?"

"When I spoke to her, she was complaining that she couldn't keep the dig dry singlehanded. She wanted me to phone to the NHS to ask for students to help her."

"How long ago was that?"

"Two — no, three days ago," he said, frowning. The days ran together when one never got to bed.

"Could she have found someone at the farm to help after she spoke to you?"

"There's no one there in the winter."

"As I remember, Montoya recruits anyone who comes within reach. Perhaps she enlisted some passerby."

"She said there weren't any. The dig's very isolated."

"Well, she must have found someone. She's been out at the dig for eight days, and the incubation period's only twelve to forty-eight hours."

"The ambulance is here!" Colin said.

Mary pushed out the doors, Dunworthy and Colin on her heels. Two ambulancemen in masks lifted a stretcher out and onto a trolley. Dunworthy recognized one of them. He had helped bring Badri in.

Colin was bending over the stretcher, looking interestedly at Montoya, who lay with her eyes closed. Her head was propped up with pillows, and her face was flushed the same heavy red as Ms. Breen's had been. Colin leaned farther over her, and she coughed directly in his face.

Dunworthy grabbed the collar of Colin's jacket and dragged him away from her. "Come away from there. Are you trying to catch the virus? Why aren't you wearing your mask?"

"There aren't any."

"You shouldn't be here at all. I want you to go straight back to Balliol and — "

"I can't. I'm assigned to make certain you get your enhancement."

"Then sit down over there," Dunworthy said, walking him over to a chair in the reception area, "and stay away from the patients."

"You'd better not try to sneak out on me," Colin said warningly, but he sat down, pulled his gobstopper out of his pocket, and wiped it on the sleeve of his jacket.

Dunworthy went back over to the stretcher trolley. "Lupe," Mary was saying, "we need to ask you some questions. When did you fall ill?"

"This morning," Montoya said. Her voice was hoarse, and Dunworthy realized suddenly that she must be the person who had telephoned him. "Last night I had a terrible headache," she raised a muddy hand and drew it across her eyebrows, "but I thought it was because I was straining my eyes."

"Who was with you out at the dig?"

"Nobody," Montoya said, sounding surprised.

"What about deliveries? Did someone from Witney deliver supplies to you?"

She started to shake her head, but it apparently hurt, and she stopped. "No. I took everything with me."

"And you didn't have anyone with you to help you with the excavation?"

"No. I asked Mr. Dunworthy to tell the NHS to send some help, but he didn't." Mary looked across at Dunworthy, and Montoya followed her glance. "Are they sending someone?" she asked him. "They'll never find it if they don't get someone out there."

"Find what?" he said, wondering if her answer could be trusted or if she were delirious.

"The dig is half underwater right now," she said.

"Find what?"

"Kivrin's corder."

He had a sudden image of Montoya standing by the tomb, sorting through the muddy box of stone-shaped bones. Wrist bones. They had been wrist bones, and she had been examining the uneven edges, looking for a bone spur that was actually a piece of recording equipment. Kivrin's corder.

"I haven't excavated all the graves yet," Montoya said, "and it's still raining. They have to send someone out immediately."

"Graves?" Mary said, looking at him uncomprehendingly. "What is she talking about?"

"She's been excavating a mediaeval churchyard looking for Kivrin's body," he said bitterly, "looking for the corder you implanted in Kivrin's wrist."

Mary wasn't listening. "I want the contacts charts," she said to the house officer. She turned back to Dunworthy. "Badri was out at the dig, wasn't he?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"The eighteenth and nineteenth," he said.

"In the churchyard?"

"Yes. He and Montoya were opening a knight's tomb."

"A tomb," Mary said, as if it were the answer to a question. She bent over Montoya. "Did you work on the knight's tomb this week?" she asked.

Montoya tried to nod, stopped. "I get so dizzy when I move my head," she said apologetically. "I had to move the skeleton. Water'd gotten into the tomb."

"What day did you work on the tomb?"

Montoya frowned. "I can't remember. The day before the bells, I think."

"The thirty-first," Dunworthy said. He leaned over her. "Have you worked on it since?"

She tried to shake her head again.

"The contacts charts are up," the house officer said.

Mary walked rapidly over to his desk and took the keyboard over from him. She tapped several keys, stared at the screen, tapped more keys.

"What is it?" Dunworthy said.

"What are the conditions at the churchyard?" Mary said.

"Conditions?" he said blankly. "It's muddy. She's covered the churchyard with a tarp, but a good deal of rain was still getting in."

"Warm?"

"Yes. She said it was muggy. She had several electric fires hooked up. What is it?"

She drew her finger down the screen, looking for something. "Viruses are exceptionally sturdy organisms," she said. "They can lie dormant for long periods of time and be revived. Living viruses have been taken from Egyptian mummies." Her finger stopped at a date. "I thought so. Badri was at the dig four days before he came down with the virus."

She turned to the house officer. "I want a team out at the dig immediately," she told him. "Get NHS clearance. Tell them we may have found the source of the virus." She typed in a new screen, drew her finger down the names, typed in something else, and leaned back, looking at the screen. "We had four secondaries with no positive connection to Badri. Two of them were at the dig four days before they came down with the virus. The other one was there three days before."

"The virus is at the dig?" Dunworthy said.

"Yes." She smiled ruefully at him. "I'm afraid Gilchrist was right after all. The virus did come from the past. Out of the knight's tomb."

"Kivrin was at the dig," he said.

Now it was Mary who looked uncomprehending. "When?"

"The Sunday afternoon before the drop. The nineteenth."

"Are you certain?"

"She told me before she left. She wanted her hands to look authentic."

"Oh, my God," she said. "If she was exposed four days before the drop, she hadn't had her T-cell enhancement. The virus might have had a chance to replicate and invade her system. She might have come down with it."

Dunworthy grabbed her arm. "But that can't have happened. The net wouldn't have let her through if there was a chance she'd infect the contemps."

"There wasn't any one for her to infect," Mary said, "not if the virus came out of the knight's tomb. He died of it in 1118. The contemps had already had it. They'd be immune." She walked rapidly over to Montoya. "When Kivrin was out at the dig, did she work on the tomb?"

"I don't know," Montoya said. "I wasn't there. I had a meeting with Gilchrist."

"Who would know? Who else was there that day?"

"No one. Everyone had gone home for vac."

"How did she know what she was supposed to do?"

"The volunteers left notes to each other when they left."

"Who was there that morning?" Mary asked.

"Badri," Dunworthy said and took off for isolation.

He walked straight into Badri's room. The nurse, caught off-guard with her swollen feet up on the displays, said, "You can't go in without SPG's," and started after him, but he was already inside.

Badri was lying propped against a pillow. He looked very pale, as if his illness had bleached all the color from his skin, and weak, but he looked up when Dunworthy burst in and started to speak.

"Did Kivrin work on the knight's tomb?" Dunworthy demanded.

"Kivrin?" His voice was almost too weak to be heard.

The nurse banged in the door. "Mr. Dunworthy, you are not allowed in here — "

"On Sunday," Dunworthy said. "You were to have left her a message telling her what to do. Did you tell her to work on the tomb?"

"Mr. Dunworthy, you're exposing yourself to the virus — " the nurse said.

Mary came in, pulling on a pair of imperm gloves. "You're not supposed to be in here without SPG's, James," she said.

"I told him, Dr. Ahrens," the nurse said, but he barged past me and — "

"Did you leave Kivrin a message at the dig that she was to work on the tomb?" Dunworthy insisted.

Badri nodded his head weakly.

"She was exposed to the virus," Dunworthy said to Mary. "On Sunday. Four days before she left."

"Oh, no," Mary breathed.

"What is it? What's happened?" Badri said, trying to push himself up in the bed. "Where's Kivrin?" He looked from Dunworthy to Mary. "You pulled her out, didn't you? As soon as you realized what had happened? Didn't you pull her out?"

"What had happened — ?" Mary said.

"You have to have pulled her out," Badri said. "She's not in 1320. She's in 1348."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

"That's impossible," Dunworthy said.

"1348?" Mary said bewilderedly. "But that can't be. That's the year of the Black Death."

She can't be in 1348, Dunworthy thought. Andrews said the possible maximal slippage was only five years. Badri said Puhalski's coordinates were correct.

"1348?" Mary said again. He saw her glance at the screens on the wall behind Badri, as if hoping he was still delirious. "Are you certain?"

Badri nodded. "I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw the slippage — ," he said, and sounded as bewildered as Mary.

"There couldn't have been enough slippage for her to be in 1348," Dunworthy cut in. "I had Andrews run parameter checks. He said the maximal slippage was only five years."

Badri shook his head. "It wasn't the slippage. That was only four hours. It was too small. Minimal slippage on a drip that far in the past should have been at least forty-eight hours."

The slippage had not been too great. It had been too small. I didn't ask Andrews what the minimal slippage was, only the maximal.

"I don't know what happened," Badri said. "I had such a headache. The whole time I was setting the net, I had a headache."

"That was the virus," Mary said. She looked stunned. "Headache and disorientation are the first symptoms." She sank down in the chair beside the bed. "1348."

1348. He could not seem to take this in. He had been worried about Kivrin catching the Indian flu, he had been worried about there being too much slippage, and all the time she was in 1348. The plague had hit Oxford in 1348. At Christmastime.

"As soon as I saw how small the slippage was, I knew there was something wrong," Badri said, so I called up the coordinates- -"

"You said you checked Puhalski's coordinates," Dunworthy said accusingly.

"He was only a first-year apprentice. He'd never even done a remote. And Gilchrist didn't have the least idea what he was doing. I tried to tell you. Wasn't she at the rendezvous?" He looked at Dunworthy. "Why didn't you pull her out?"

"We didn't know," Mary said, still sitting there stunned. "You weren't able to tell us anything. You were delirious."

"The plague killed fifty million people," Dunworthy said. "It killed half of Europe."

"James," Mary said.

"I tried to tell you," Badri said. "That's why I came to get you. So we could pull her out before she left the rendezvous."

He had tried to tell him. He had run all the way to the pub. He had run out in the pouring rain without his coat to tell him, pushing his way between the Christmas shoppers and their shopping bags and umbrellas as if they weren't there, and arrived wet and half-frozen, his teeth chattering with the fever. There's something wrong.

I tried to tell you. He had. "It killed half of Europe," he had said, and "it was the rats," and "What year is it?" He had tried to tell him.

"If it wasn't the slippage, it has to have been an error in the coordinates," Dunworthy said, gripping the end of the bed.

Badri shrank back against the propped pillows like a cornered animal.

"You said Puhalski's coordinates were correct."

"James," Mary said warningly.

"The coordinates are the only other thing that could go wrong," he shouted. "Anything else would have aborted the drop. You said you checked them twice. You said you couldn't find any mistakes."

"I couldn't," Badri said. "But I didn't trust them. I was afraid he'd made a mistake in the sidereal calculations that wouldn't show up." His face went gray. "I refed them myself. The morning of the drop."

The morning of the drop. When he had had the terrific headache. When he was already feverish and disoriented. Dunworthy remembered him typing at the console, frowning at the display screens. I watched him do it, he thought. I stood and watched him send Kivrin to the Black Death.

"I don't know what happened," Badri said. "I must have — "

"The plague wiped out whole villages," Dunworthy said. "So many people died, there was no one left to bury them."

"Leave him alone, James," Mary said. "It's not his fault. He was ill."

"Ill," he said. "Kivrin was exposed to the Indian flu. She's in 1348."

"James," Mary said.

He didn't wait to hear it. He yanked the door open and plunged out.

Colin was balancing on a chair in the corridor, tipping it back so the front two legs were off the ground. "There you are," he said.

Dunworthy walked rapidly past him.

"Where are you going?" Colin said, tipping the chair forward with a crash. "Great-Aunt Mary said not to let you leave till you'd had your enhancement." He lurched sideways, caught himself on his hands, and scrambled up. "Why aren't you wearing your SPG's?"

Dunworthy shoved through the ward doors.

Colin came skidding through the doors. "Great-Aunt Mary said I was absolutely not to let you leave."

"I don't have time for inoculations," Dunworthy said. "She's in 1348."

"Great-Aunt Mary?"

He started down the corridor.

"Kivrin?" Colin asked, running to catch up. "She can't be. That's when the Black Death was, isn't it?"

Dunworthy shoved open the door to the stairs and started down them two at a time.

"I don't understand," Colin said. "How did she end up in 1348?"

Dunworthy pushed open the door at the foot of the stairs and started down the corridor to the call box, fishing in his overcoat for the pocket calendar Colin had given him.

"How are you going to pull her out?" Colin asked. "The laboratory's locked."

Dunworthy pulled out the pocket calendar and began turning pages. He'd written Andrews' number in the back.

"Mr. Gilchrist won't let you in. How are you going to get into the laboratory? He said he wouldn't let you in."

Andrews' number was on the last page. He picked up the receiver.

"If he does let you in, who's going to run the net? Mr. Chaudhuri?"

"Andrews," Dunworthy said shortly and began punching in the number.

"I thought he wouldn't come. Because of the virus."

Dunworthy put the receiver to his ear. "I'm not leaving her there."

A woman answered. "24837 here," she said. "H.F. Shepherds', Limited."

Dunworthy looked blankly at the pocket calendar in his hand. "I'm trying to reach Ronald Andrews," he said. "What number is this?"

"24837," she said impatiently. "There's no one here by that name."

He slammed the phone down. "Idiot telephone service," he said. He punched in the number again.

"Even if he agrees to come, how are you going to find her?" Colin asked, looking over his shoulder at the receiver. "She won't be there, will she? The rendezvous isn't for three days."

Dunworthy listened to the telephone's ringing, wondering what Kivrin had done when she realized where she was. Gone back to the rendezvous and waited there, no doubt. If she was able to. If she was not ill. If she had not been accused of bringing the plague to Skendgate.

"24837 here," the same woman's voice said. "H.F. Shepherds', Limited."

"What number is this?" Dunworthy shouted.

"24837," she said, exasperated.

"24837," Dunworthy repeated. "That's the number I'm trying to reach."

"No, it's not," Colin said, reaching across him to point to Andrews' number on the page. "You've mixed the numbers." He took the receiver away from Dunworthy. "Here, let me try it for you." He punched in the number and handed the receiver back to Dunworthy.

The ringing sounded different, farther away. Dunworthy thought about Kivrin. The plague had not hit everywhere at once. It had been in Oxford at Christmas, but there was no way of knowing when it had reached Skendgate.

There was no answer. He let the phone ring ten times, eleven. He could not remember which way the plague had come from. It had come from France. Surely that meant from the east, across the Channel. And Skendgate was west of Oxford. It might not have reached there until after Christmas.

"Where's the book?" he asked Colin.

"What book? Your appointment calendar, you mean? It's right here."

"The book I gave you for Christmas. Why don't you have it?"

"Here?" Colin said bewilderedly. "It weighs at least five stone."

There was still no answer. Dunworthy hung up the receiver, snatched up the calendar, and started toward the door. "I expect you to keep it with you at all times. Don't you know there's an epidemic on?"

"Are you all right, Mr. Dunworthy?"

"Go and get it," Dunworthy said.

"What, right now?"

"Go back to Balliol and get it. I want to know when the plague reached Oxfordshire. Not the town. The villages. And which direction it came from."

"Where are you going?" Colin asked, running alongside him.

"To make Gilchrist open the laboratory."

"If he won't open it because of the flu, he'll never open it for the plague," Colin said.

Dunworthy opened the door and went out. It was raining hard. The EC protesters were huddled under Infirmary's overhand. One of them started toward him, proffering a flyer. Colin was right. Telling Gilchrist the source would have no effect. He would remain convinced the virus had come through the net. He would be afraid to open it for fear the plague would come through.

"Give me a sheet of paper," he said, fumbling for his pen.

"A sheet of paper?" Colin said. "What for?"

Dunworthy snatched the flyer from the EC protester and began scribbling on the back. "Mr. Basingame is authorizing the opening of the net," he said.

Colin peered at the writing. "He'll never believe that, Mr. Dunworthy. On the back of a flyer?"

"Then fetch me a sheet of paper!" he shouted.

Colin's eyes widened. "I will. You wait here, all right?" he said placatingly. "Don't leave."

He dashed back inside and reappeared immediately with several sheets of hardcopy paper. Dunworthy snatched it from him and scrawled the orders and Basingame's name. "Go and fetch your book. I'll meet you at Brasenose."

"What about your coat?"

"There's no time," he said. He folded the paper in fourths and jammed it inside his jacket.

"It's raining. Shouldn't you take a taxi?" Colin said.

"There aren't any taxis." He started off down the street.

"Great-Aunt Mary's going to kill me, you know," Colin called after him. "She said it was my responsibility to see that you got your inoculation."

He should have taken a taxi. It was pouring by the time he reached Brasenose, a hard slanting rain that would be sleet in another hour. Dunworthy felt chilled to the bone.

The rain had at least driven the picketers away. There was nothing in front of Brasenose but a few wet flyers they had dropped. An expandable metal gate had been pulled across the front of the entrance to Brasenose. The porter had retreated inside his lodge, and the shutter was down.

"Open up! " Dunworthy shouted. He rattled the gate loudly. "Open up immediately!"

The porter pulled the shutter up and looked out. When he saw it was Dunworthy, he looked alarmed and then belligerent. "Brasenose is under quarantine," he said. "It's restricted."

"Open this gate immediately," Dunworthy said.

"I'm afraid I can't do that, sir," he said. "Mr. Gilchrist has given orders that no one be admitted to Brasenose until the source of the virus is discovered."

"We know the source," Dunworthy said. "Open the gate."

The porter let the shutter down, and in a minute he came out of the lodge and over to the gate. "Was it the Christmas decorations?" he said. "They said the ornaments were infected with it."

"No," Dunworthy said. "Open the gate and let me in."

"I don't know whether I should do that, sir," he said, looking uncomfortable. "Mr. Gilchrist…"

"Mr. Gilchrist isn't in charge any more," he said. He pulled the folded paper out of his jacket and poked it through the metal gate at the porter.

He unfolded it and read it, standing there in the rain.

"Mr. Gilchrist is no longer Acting Head," Dunworthy said. "Mr. Basingame has authorized me to take charge of the drop. Open the gate."

"Mr. Basingame," he said, peering at the already-blotted signature. "I'll find the keys," he said.

He went back in the lodge, taking the paper with him. Dunworthy huddled against the gate, trying to keep out of the freezing rain and shivering.

He had been worried about Kivrin sleeping on the cold ground, and she was in the middle of a holocaust, where people froze to death because no one was left on their feet to chop wood and the animals died in the fields because no one was left alive to bring them in. Eighty thousand dead in Siena, three hundred thousand in Rome, more than a hundred thousand in Florence. One half of Europe.

The porter finally emerged with a large ring of keys and came over to the gate. "I'll have it open in a moment, sir," he said, sorting through the keys.

Kivrin would surely have gone back to the drop as soon as she realized it was 1348. She would have been there all this time, waiting for the net to open, frantic that they hadn't come to get her.

If she had realized. She would have no way of knowing she was in 1348. Badri had told her the slippage would be several days. She would have checked the date against the Advent holy days and thought she was exactly where she was supposed to be. It would never have occurred to her to ask the year. She would think she was in 1320, and all the time the plague would be sweeping toward her.

The gate's lock clicked free, and Dunworthy pushed it together far enough to squeeze through. "Bring your keys," he said. "I need you to unlock the laboratory."

"That key's not on here," the porter said, and disappeared into the lodge again.

It was icy in the passage, and the rain came slanting in, colder still. Dunworthy huddled next to the door of the lodge, trying to catch some of the heat from inside and jammed his hands hard against the bottoms of his jacket pockets to stop the shivering.

He had been worried about cutthroats and thieves, and all this time she had been in 1348, where they had piled the dead in the streets, where they had burned Jews and strangers at the stake in their panic.

He had been worried about Gilchrist not doing parameter checks, so worried that he had infected Badri with his anxiety, and Badri, already feverish, had refed the coordinates. So worried.

He realized suddenly that the porter had been gone too long, that he must be warning Gilchrist.

He moved toward the door, and as he did, the porter emerged, carrying an umbrella and exclaiming over the cold. He offered half the umbrella to Dunworthy.

"I'm already wet through," Dunworthy said and strode off ahead of him through the quad.

The door of the laboratory had a yellow plastic banner stretched across it. Dunworthy tore it off while the porter searched through his pockets for the key to the alarm, switching the umbrella from hand to hand.

Dunworthy glanced up behind him at Gilchrist's rooms. They overlooked the laboratory, and there was a light on in the sitting room, but Dunworthy couldn't detect any movement.

The porter found the flat cardkey that switched off the alarm. He switched it off and began looking for the key to the door. "I'm still not certain I should unlock the laboratory without Mr. Gilchrist's authorization," he said.

"Mr. Dunworthy!" Colin shouted from halfway across the quad. They both looked up. Colin came racing up, drenched to the skin with the book under his arm, wrapped in the muffler. "It — didn't — hit-parts of Oxfordshire-till-March," he said, stopping between words to catch his breath. "Sorry. I — ran-all the way."

"What parts?" Dunworthy asked.

Colin handed the book to him and bent over, his hands on his knees, taking deep noisy breaths. "It — doesn't-say."

Dunworthy unwound the muffler and opened the book to the page Colin had turned down, but his spectacles were too spattered with rain to read it, and the open pages were promptly soaked.

"It says it started in Melcombe and moved north to Bath and east. It says it was in Oxford at Christmas and London the next October, but that parts of Oxfordshire didn't get it till late spring, and that a few individual villages were missed until July."

Dunworthy stared blindly at the unreadable pages. "That doesn't tell us anything," he said.

"I know," Colin said. He straightened up, still breathing hard, "but at least it doesn't say the plague was all through Oxfordshire by Christmas. Perhaps she's in one of those villages it didn't come to till March."

Dunworthy wiped the wet pages with the dangling muffler and shut the book. "It moved east from Bath," he said softly. "Skendgate's just south of the Oxford-Bath road."

The porter had finally decided on a key. He pushed it into the lock.

"I rang up Andrews again, but there was still no answer."

The porter opened the door.

"How are you going to run the net without a tech?" Colin said.

"Run the net?" the porter said, the key still in his hand. "I understood that you wished to obtain data from the computer. Mr. Gilchrist won't allow you to run the net without authorization." He took out Basingame's authorization and looked at it.

"I'm authorizing it," Dunworthy said and swept past him into the lab.

The porter started in, caught his open umbrella on the doorframe, and fumbled on the handle for the catch.

Colin ducked under the umbrella and in after Dunworthy.

Gilchrist must have turned the heat off. The laboratory was scarcely warmer than the outside, but Dunworthy's spectacles, wet as they were, steamed up. He took them off and tried to wipe them dry on his wet suit jacket.

"Here," Colin said and handed him a wadded length of paper tissue. "It's lavatory paper. I've been collecting it for Mr. Finch. The thing is, it's going to be difficult enough to find her if we land in the proper place, and you said yourself that getting the exact time and place are awfully complicated."

"We already have the exact time and place," Dunworthy said, wiping his spectacles on the lavatory paper. He put them on again. They were still blurred.

"I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to leave," the porter said. 'I cannot allow you in here without Mr. Gilchrist's — " He stopped.

"Oh, blood," Colin muttered. "It's Mr. Gilchrist."

"What's the meaning of this?" Gilchrist said. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm going to bring Kivrin through," Dunworthy said.

"On whose authority?" Gilchrist said. "This is Brasenose's net, and you are guilty of unlawful entry." He turned on the porter. "I gave you orders that Mr. Dunworthy was not to be allowed on the premises."

"Mr. Basingame authorized it," he said. He held the damp paper out.

Gilchrist snatched it from him. "Basingame!" He stared down at it. "This isn't Basingame's signature," he said furiously. "Unlawful entry and now forgery. Mr. Dunworthy, I intend to file charges. And when Mr. Basingame returns, I intend to inform him of your — "

Dunworthy took a step toward him. "And I intend to inform Mr. Basingame how his Acting Head of Faculty refused to abort a drop, how he intentionally endangered an historian, how he refused to allow access to this laboratory and how as a result the historian's temporal location could not be determined." He waved his arm at the console. "Do you know what this fix says? This fix that you wouldn't let my tech read for ten days because of a lot of imbeciles who don't understand time travel, including you? Do you know what it says? Kivrin's not in 1320. She's in 1348, in the middle of the Black Death." He turned and gestured toward the screen. "And she's been there two weeks. Because of your stupidity. Because of — " He stopped.

"You have no right to speak to me that way," Gilchrist said. "And no right to be in this laboratory. I demand that you leave immediately."

Dunworthy didn't answer. He took a step toward the console.

"Call the proctor," Gilchrist said to the porter. "I want them thrown out."

The screen was not only blank but dark, and so were the function lights above it on the console. The power switch was turned to off. "You've switched off the power," Dunworthy said, and his voice sounded as old as Badri's had. "You've shut down the net."

"Yes," Gilchrist said, "and a good thing, too, since you feel you have the right to barge in without authorization."

He put a hand out blindly toward the blank screen, staggering a little. "You've shut down the net," he repeated.

"Are you all right, Mr. Dunworthy?" Colin said, taking a step forward.

"I thought you might attempt to break in and open the net," Gilchrist said, "since you seem to have no respect for Mediaeval's authority. I cut off the power to prevent that happening, and it appears I did the right thing."

Dunworthy had heard of people being struck down by bad news. When Badri had told him Kivrin was in 1348, he had not been able to absorb what it meant, but this news seemed to strike him with a physical force, knocking the wind out of him so that he couldn't catch his breath. "You shut the net down," he said. "You've lost the fix."

"Lost the fix?" Gilchrist said. "Nonsense. There are backups and things surely. When the power's switched on again — "

"Does this mean we don't know where Kivrin is?" Colin asked.

"Yes," Dunworthy said, and thought as he fell, I am going to hit the console like Badri did, but he didn't. He fell almost gently, like a man with the wind knocked out of him, and collapsed like a lover into Gilchrist's outstretched arms.

"I knew it," he heard Colin say. "This is because you didn't get your enhancement. Great-Aunt Mary's going to kill me."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

"That's impossible," Kivrin said. "It can't be 1348," but it all made sense, Imeyne's chaplain dying, and their not having any servants, Eliwys's not wanting to send Gawyn to Oxford to find out who Kivrin was. "There is much illness there," Lady Yvolde had said, and the Black Death had hit Oxford at Christmas in 1348. "What happened?" she said, and her voice rose out of control. "What happened? I was supposed to go to 1320. 1320! Mr. Dunworthy told me I shouldn't come, he said Mediaeval didn't know what they were doing, but they couldn't have sent me to the wrong year!" She stopped. "You must get out of here! It's the Black Death!"

They all looked at her so uncomprehendingly that she thought the interpreter must have lapsed into English again. "It's the Black Death," she said again. "The blue sickness!"

"Nay," Eliwys said softly, and Kivrin said, "Lady Eliwys, you must take Lady Imeyne and Father Roche down to the hall."

"It cannot be," she said, but she took Lady Imeyne's arm and led her out, Imeyne clutching the poultice as if it were her reliquary. Maisry darted after them, her hands clutched to her ears.

"You must go, too," Kivrin said to Roche. "I will stay with the clerk."

"Thruuuu…" the clerk murmured from the bed, and Roche turned to look at him. The clerk struggled to rise, and Roche started toward him.

"No!" Kivrin said, and grabbed his sleeve. "You mustn't go near him." She interposed herself between him and the bed. "The clerk's illness is contagious," she said, willing the interpreter to translate. "Infectious. It is spread by fleas and by…" she hesitated, trying to think how to describe droplet infection, "by the humours and exhalations of the ill. It is a deadly disease, which kills nearly all who come near it."

She watched him anxiously, wondering if he had understood anything she'd said, if he could understand it. There had been no knowledge of germs in the 1300's, no knowledge of how diseases spread. The contemps had believed the Black Death was a judgment from God. They had thought it was spread by poisonous mists which floated across the countryside, by a dead person's glance, by magic.

"Father," the clerk said, and Roche tried to step past Kivrin, but she barred his way.

"We cannot leave them to die," he said.

They did, though, she thought. They ran away and left them. People abandoned their own children, and doctors refused to come, and all the priests fled.

She stooped and picked up one of the strips of cloth Lady Imeyne had torn for her poultice. "You must cover your mouth and nose with this," she said.

She handed it to him and he looked at it, frowning, and then folded it into a flat packet and held it to his face.

"Tie it," Kivrin said, picking up another one. She folded it diagonally and put it over her nose and mouth like a bandit's mask and tied it in a knot in the back. "Like this."

Roche obeyed, fumbling with the knot, and looked at Kivrin. She moved aside, and he bent over the clerk and put his hand on his chest.

"Don't — "she said, and he looked up at her. "Don't touch him any more than you have to."

She held her breath as Roche examined him, afraid that he would start up suddenly again and grab at Roche, but he didn't move at all. The bubo under his arm had begun to ooze blood and a slow greenish pus.

Kivrin put a restraining hand on Roche's arm. "Don't touch it," she said. "He must have broken it when we were struggling with him." She wiped the blood and pus away with one of Imeyne's cloth strips and bound up the wound with the last one, tying it tightly at the shoulder. The clerk did not wince or cry out, and when she looked at him she saw he was staring straight ahead, unmoving.

"Is he dead?" she asked.

"Nay," Roche said, his hand on his chest again, and she could see the faint rise and fall. "I must bring the sacraments," he said through the mask, and his words were almost as blurred as the clerk's.

No, Kivrin thought, the panic rising again. Don't go. What if he dies? What if he rises up again?

Roche straightened. "Do not fear," he said. "I will come again."

He went out rapidly, without shutting the door, and Kivrin went over to close it. She could hear sounds from below — Eliwys's and Roche's voices. She should have told him not to speak to anyone. Agnes said, "I wish to stay with Kivrin," and began to howl and Rosemund answered her angrily, shouting over the crying.

"I will tell Kivrin," Agnes said outraged, and Kivrin shoved the door to and barred it.

Agnes must not come in here, nor Rosemund, nor anyone. They must not be exposed. There was no cure for the Black Death. The only way to protect them was to keep them from catching it. She tried frantically to remember what she knew about the plague. She had studied it in Fourteenth Century, and Dr. Ahrens had talked about it when she'd given Kivrin her inoculations.

There were two distinct types, no, three — one went directly into the bloodstream and killed the victim within hours. Bubonic plague was spread by rat fleas, and that was the kind that produced the buboes. The other kind was pneumonic, and it didn't have buboes. The victim coughed and vomited up blood, and that was spread by droplet infection and was horribly contagious. But the clerk had the bubonic, and that wasn't as contagious. Simply being near the patient wouldn't do it — the flea had to jump from one person to another.

She had a sudden vivid image of the clerk falling on Rosemund, bearing her down to the floor. What if she gets it? she thought. She can't, she can't get it. There isn't any cure.

The clerk stirred in the bed, and Kivrin went over to him.

"Thirsty," he said, licking his lips with his swollen tongue. She brought him a cup of water, and he drank a few gulps greedily and then choked and spewed it over her.

She backed away, yanking off the drenched mask. It's the bubonic, she told herself, wiping frantically at her chest. This kind isn't spread by droplet. And you can't get the plague, you've had your inoculation. But she had had her antivirals and her T-cell enhancement, too. She should not have been able to get the virus either. She should not have landed in 1348.

"What happened?" she whispered.

It couldn't be the slippage. Mr. Dunworthy had been upset that they hadn't run slippage checks, but even at its worst, the drop would only have been off by weeks, not years. Something must have gone wrong with the net.

Mr. Dunworthy had said Mr. Gilchrist didn't know what he was doing, and something had gone wrong, and she had come through in 1348, but why hadn't they aborted the drop as soon as they knew it was the wrong date? Mr. Gilchrist might not have had the sense to pull her out, but Mr. Dunworthy would have. He hadn't wanted her to come in the first place. Why hadn't he opened the net again?

Because I wasn't there, she thought. It would have taken at least two hours to get the fix. By then she had wandered off into the woods. But he would have held the net open. He wouldn't have closed it again and waited for the rendezvous. He'd hold it open for her.

She half-ran to the door and pushed up on the bar. She must find Gawyn. She must make him tell her where the drop was.

The clerk sat up and flung his bare leg over the bed as if he would go with her. "Help me," he said, and tried to move his other leg.

"I can't help you," she said angrily. "I don't belong here." She shoved the bar up out of its sockets. "I must find Gawyn." But as soon as she said it, she remembered that he wasn't there, that he had gone with the bishop's envoy and Sir Bloet to Courcy. With the bishop's envoy, who had been in such a hurry to leave he had nearly run down Agnes.

She dropped the bar and turned on him. "Did the others have the plague?" she demanded. "Did the bishop's envoy have it?" She remembered his gray face and the way he had shivered and pulled his cloak around him. He would infect all of them: Bloet and his haughty sister and the chattering girls. And Gawyn. "You knew you had it when you came here, didn't you? Didn't you?"

The clerk held his arms out stiffly to her, like a child. "Help me," he said, and fell back, his head and shoulder nearly off the bed.

"You don't deserve to be helped. You brought the plague here."

There was a knock.

"Who is it?" she said angrily.

"Roche," he called through the door, and she felt a wave of relief, of joy that he had come, but she didn't move. She looked down at the clerk, still lying half off the bed. His mouth was open, and his swollen tongue filled his entire mouth.

"Let me in," Roche said. "I must hear his confession."

His confession. "No," Kivrin said.

He knocked again, louder.

"I can't let you in," Kivrin said. "It's contagious. You might catch it."

"He is in peril of death," Roche said. "He must be shriven that he may enter into heaven."

He's not going to heaven, Kivrin thought. He brought the plague here.

The clerk opened his eyes. They were bloodshot and swollen, and there was a faint hum to his breathing. He's dying, she thought.

"Katherine," Roche said.

Dying, and far from home. Like I was. She had brought a disease with her, too, and if no one had succumbed to it, it was not because of anything she had done. They had all helped her, Eliwys and Imeyne and Roche. She might have infected all of them. Roche had given her the last rites, he had held her hand.

Kivrin lifted the clerk's head gently and laid him straight in the bed. Then she went to the door.

"I'll let you give him the last rites," she said, opening it a crack, "but I must speak to you first."

Roche had put on his vestments and taken off his mask. He carried the holy oil and the viaticum in a basket. He set them on the chest at the foot of the bed, looking at the clerk, whose breathing was becoming more labored. "I must hear his confession," he said.

"No!" Kivrin said. "Not until I've told you what I have to." She took a deep breath. "The clerk has the bubonic plague," she said, listening carefully for the translation. "It is a terrible disease. Nearly all who catch it die. It is spread by rats and their fleas and by the breath of those who are ill, and their clothes and belongings." She looked anxiously at him, willing him to understand. He looked anxious, too, and bewildered.

"It's a terrible disease," she said. "It's not like typhoid or cholera. It's already killed hundreds of thousands of people in Italy and France, so many in some places there's no one left to bury the dead."

His expression was unreadable. "You have remembered you who you are and whence you came," he said, and it wasn't a question.

He thinks I was fleeing the plague when Gawyn found me in the woods, she thought. If I say yes, he'll think I'm the one who brought it here. But there was nothing accusing in his look, and she had to make him understand.

"Yes," she said, and waited.

"What must we do?" he said.

"You must keep the others from this room, and you must tell them they must stay in the house and let no one in. You must tell the villagers to stay in their houses, too, and if they see a dead rat not to go near it. There must be no more feasting or dancing on the green. The villagers mustn't come into the manor house or the courtyard or the church. They mustn't gather together anywhere."

"I will bid Lady Eliwys keep Agnes and Rosemund inside," he said, "and tell the villagers to keep to their houses."

The clerk made a strangled sound from the bed, and they both turned and looked at him.

"Is there naught we can do to help those who have caught this plague?" he said, pronouncing the word awkwardly.

She had tried to remember what remedies the contemps had tried while he was gone. They had carried nosegays of flowers and drunk powdered emeralds and applied leeches to the buboes, but all of those were worse than useless, and Dr. Ahrens had said it wouldn't have mattered what they had tried, that nothing except antibiotics like tetracycline and streptomycin would have worked, and they had not been discovered until the twentieth century.

"We must give him liquids and keep him warm," she said.

Roche looked at the clerk. "Surely God will help him," he said.

He won't, she thought. He didn't. Half of Europe. "God cannot help us against the Black Death," she said.

Roche nodded and picked up the holy oil.

"You must put your mask on," Kivrin said, kneeling to pick up the last cloth strip. She tied it over his mouth and nose. "You must always wear it when you tend him," she said, hoping he wouldn't notice she wasn't wearing hers.

"Is it God who has sent this upon us?" Roche said.

"No," Kivrin said. "No."

"Has the Devil sent it then?"

It was tempting to say yes. Most of Europe had believed it was Satan who was responsible for the Black Death. And they had searched for the Devil's agents, tortured Jews and lepers, stoned old women, burned young girls at the stake.

"No one sent it," Kivrin said. "It's a disease. It's no one's fault. God would help us if He could, but He…" He what? Can't hear us? Has gone away? Doesn't exist?

"He cannot come," she finished lamely.

"And we must act in His stead?" Roche said.

"Yes."

Roche knelt beside the bed. He bent his head over his hands, and then raised it again. "I knew that God had sent you among us for some good cause," he said.

She knelt, too, and folded her hands.

"Mittere digneris sanctum Angelum," Roche prayed. "Send us Thy holy angel from heaven to guard and protect all those that are assembled together in this house."

"Don't let Roche catch it," Kivrin said into the corder. "Don't let Rosemund catch it. Let the clerk die before it reaches his lungs."

Roche's voice chanting the rites was the same as it had been when she was ill, and she hoped it comforted the clerk as it had comforted her. She couldn't tell. He was unable to make his confession, and the anointing seemed to hurt him. He winced when the oil touched the palms of his hands, and his breathing seemed to grow louder as Roche prayed. Roche raised his head and looked at him. His arms were breaking out in the tiny purplish-blue bruises that meant the blood vessels under the skin were breaking, one by one.

Roche turned and looked at Kivrin. "Are these the last days," he asked, "the end of the world that God's apostles have foretold?"

Yes, Kivrin thought. "No," she said. "No. It's only a bad time. A terrible time, but not everyone will die. And there will be wonderful times after this. The Renaissance and class reforms and music. Wonderful times. There will be new medicines, and people won't have to die from this or smallpox or pneumonia. And everyone will have enough to eat, and their houses will be warm even in the winter." She thought of Oxford, decorated for Christmas, the streets and shops lit. "There will be lights everywhere, and bells that you don't have to ring."

Their conversation had calmed the clerk. His breathing eased, and he fell into a doze.

"You must come away from him now," Kivrin said and led him over to the window. She brought the bowl to him. "You must wash your hands after you have touched him," she said.

There was scarcely any water in the bowl. "We must wash the bowls and spoons we use to feed him," she said, watching him wash his huge hands, "and we must burn the cloths and bandages. The plague is in them."

He wiped his hands on the tail of his robe and went down to tell Eliwys what she was to do. He brought back a bowl of fresh water, but it did not last long. The clerk had come out of his doze and asked repeatedly for a drink. Kivrin held the cup for him, trying to keep Roche away from him as much as possible.

Roche went to say vespers and ring the bell. Kivrin closed the door after him, listening for sounds from below, but she couldn't hear anything. Perhaps they are asleep, she thought, or ill. She thought of Imeyne bending over the clerk with her poultice, of Agnes standing at the end of the bed, of Rosemund underneath him.

It's too late, she thought, pacing beside the bed, they've all been exposed. How long was the incubation period? Two weeks? No, that was how long the vaccine took to take effect. Four days? Three? She could not remember. And how long had the clerk been contagious? She tried to remember who he had sat next to at the Christmas feast, who he had talked to, but she hadn't been watching him. She'd been watching Gawyn. The only clear memory she had was of the clerk grabbing Maisry's skirt.

She went to the door again and opened it. "Maisry!" she called.

There was no answer, and that didn't mean anything, Maisry was probably asleep or hiding, and the clerk had bubonic, not pneumonic, and it was spread by fleas. The chances were that he had not infected anyone, but as soon as Roche came back, she left him with the clerk and took the brazier downstairs to fetch hot coals. And to reassure herself that they were all right.

Rosemund and Eliwys were sitting by the fire, with sewing on their laps, with Lady Imeyne next to them, reading from her Book of Hours. Agnes was playing with her cart, pushing it back and forth over the stone flags and talking to it. Maisry was asleep on one of the benches near the high table, her face sulky even in sleep.

Agnes ran into Imeyne's foot with the cart, and the old woman looked down at her and said, "I will take your toy from you and you cannot play nicely, Agnes," and the sharpness of her reprimand, Rosemund's hastily supressed smile, the healthy pinkness of their faces in the fire's light, were all inexpressibly reassuring to Kivrin. It could have been any night in the manor.

Eliwys was not sewing. She was cutting linen into long strips with her scissors, and she looked up constantly at the door. Imeyne's voice, reading from her Book of Hours, had an edge of worry, and Rosemund, tearing the linen, looked anxiously at her mother. Eliwys stood up and went out through the screens. Kivrin wondered if she had heard someone coming, but after a minute, she came back to her seat and took up the linen again.

Kivrin came on down the stairs quietly, but not quietly enough. Agnes abandoned her cart and scrambled up. "Kivrin!" she shouted, and launched herself at her.

"Careful!" Kivrin said, warding her off with her free hand. "These are hot coals."

They weren't hot, of course. If they were, she wouldn't have come down to replace them, but Agnes backed away a few steps.

"Why do you wear a mask?" she asked. "Will you tell me a story?"

Eliwys had stood up, too, and Imeyne had turned to look at her. "How does the bishop's clerk?" Eliwys asked.

He is in torment, she wanted to say. She settled for, "His fever is down a little. You must keep well away from me. The infection may be in my clothes."

They all got up, even Imeyne, closing her Book of Hours on her reliquary, and stepped back from the hearth, watching her.

The stump of the Yule log was still on the fire. Kivrin used her skirt to take the lid from the brazier and dumped the gray coals on the edge of the hearth. Ash roiled up, and one of the coals hit the stump and bounced and skittered along the floor.

Agnes laughed, and they all watched its progress across the floor and under a bench except Eliwys, who had turned back to watch the screens.

"Has Gawyn returned with the horses?" Kivrin asked, and then was sorry. She already knew the answer from Eliwys's strained face, and it made Imeyne turn and stare coldly at her.

"Nay," Eliwys said without turning her head. "Think you the others of the bishop's party were ill, too?"

Kivrin thought of the bishop's gray face, of the friar's haggard expression. "I don't know," she said.

"The weather grows cold," Rosemund said. "Mayhap he thought to stay the night."

Eliwys didn't answer. Kivrin knelt by the fire and stirred the coals with the heavy poker, bringing the red coals to the top. She tried to maneuver them into the brazier, using the poker, and then gave up and scooped them up with the brazier lid.

"You have brought this upon us," Imeyne said.

Kivrin looked up, her heart suddenly thumping, but Imeyne was not looking at her. She was looking at Eliwys. "It is your sins have brought this punishment to bear."

Eliwys turned to look at Imeyne, and Kivrin expected shock or anger in her face, but there was neither. She looked at her mother-in-law disinterestedly, as if her mind were somewhere else.

"The Lord punishes adulterers and all their house," Imeyne said, "as now he punishes you." She brandished the Book of Hours in her face. "It is your sin that has brought the plague here."

"It was you who sent for the bishop," Eliwys said coldly. "You were not satisfied with Father Roche. It was you who brought them here, and the plague with them."

She turned on her heel, and went out through the screens.

Imeyne stood stiffly, as though she had been struck, and went back to the bench where she had been sitting. She eased herself to her knees and took the reliquary from her book and ran the chain absently through her fingers.

"Would you tell me a story now?" Agnes asked Kivrin.

Imeyne propped her elbows on the bench and pressed her hands against her forehead.

"Tell me the tale of the naughty girl," Agnes said.

"Tomorrow," Kivrin said, "I will tell you a story tomorrow," and took the brazier back upstairs.

The clerk's fever was back up. He raved, shouting the lines from the mass for the dead as if they were obscenities. He asked for water repeatedly, and Roche, and then Kivrin went out to the courtyard for it.

Kivrin tiptoed down the stairs, carrying the bucket and a candle, hoping Agnes wouldn't see her, but they were all asleep except Lady Imeyne. She was on her knees praying, her back stiff and unforgiving. You have brought this upon us.

Kivrin went out into the dark courtyard. Two bells were ringing, slightly out of rhythm with each other, and she wondered if they were vespers bells or tolling a funeral. There was a half-filled bucket of water by the well, but she dumped it onto the cobbles and drew a fresh one. She set it by the kitchen door and went in to get something for them to eat. The heavy cloths used to cover the food when it was brought into the manor were lying on the end of the table. She piled bread and a chunk of cold beef onto one and tied it at the corners, and then grabbed up the rest of them and carried all of it upstairs. They ate sitting on the floor in front of the brazier and Kivrin felt better almost with the first bite.

The clerk seemed better, too. He dozed again, and then broke out in a hot sweat. Kivrin sponged him off with one of the coarse kitchen cloths, and he sighed as if it felt good, and slept. When he woke again, his fever was down. They pushed the chest over next to the bed and set a tallow lamp on it, and she and Roche took turns sitting beside him, and resting on the windowseat. It was too cold to truly sleep, but Kivrin curled up against the stone sill and napped, and every time she woke he seemed to be improved.

She had read in Fourteenth Century that lancing the buboes sometimes saved a patient. His had stopped draining, and the hum had gone from his chest. Perhaps he wouldn't die after all.

There were some historians who thought the Black Death had not killed as many people as the records indicated. Mr. Gilchrist thought the statistics were grossly exaggerated by fear and lack of education, and even if the statistics were correct, the plague hadn't killed one third of every village. Some places had only had one or two cases. In some villages, no one had died at all.

They had isolated the clerk as soon as they'd realized what it was, and she had managed to keep Roche from getting close most of the time. They had taken every possible precaution. And it hadn't turned into pneumonic. Perhaps that was enough, and they had caught it in time. She must tell Roche they must close the village, keep anyone else from coming in, and perhaps the plague would just pass over them. It had done that. Whole villages had been left untouched, and there were parts of Scotland where the plague had never reached at all.

She must have dozed off. When she woke, it was growing light and Roche was gone. She looked over at the bed. The clerk lay perfectly still, his eyes wide and staring, and she thought, he's died and Roche has gone to dig his grave, but even as the thought formed, she could see the coverings over his chest rise and fall. She felt for his pulse. It was fast and so faint she could scarcely feel it.

The bell began to ring, and she realized Roche must have gone to say matins. She pulled her mask up over her nose and went over to the bed. "Father," she said softly, but he gave no indication at all that he heard her. She put her hand on his forehead. His fever was down again, but his skin didn't feel normal. It was dry, papery, and the hemorrhages on his arms and legs had darkened and spread. His engorged tongue stuck out between his teeth, hideously purple.

He smelled terrible, a sickening odor she could smell through her mask. She climbed up on the windowseat and untied the waxed linen. The fresh air smelled wonderful, cold and sharp, and she leaned out over the ledge and breathed deeply.

There was no one in the courtyard, but as she drank in the clean, cold air, Roche appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, carrying a bowl of something that steamed. He started across the cobbles to the door of the manor house, and as he did, Lady Eliwys appeared. She spoke to Roche, and he started toward her and then stopped short and pulled up his mask before he answered her. He's trying to keep clear of people at any rate, Kivrin thought. He passed on into the manor house, and Eliwys went out to the well.

Kivrin tied the linen to the side of the window and looked around for something to fan the air with. She jumped down, got one of the cloths she had taken from the kitchen, and clambered back up again.

Eliwys was still by the well, drawing up the bucket. She stopped, holding to the rope, and turned to look toward the gate. Gawyn came through it, leading his horse by the bridle.

He stopped when he saw her, and Gringolet stumbled into him and flung his head up, annoyed. The expression on Gawyn's face was the same as it had always been, full of hope and longing, and Kivrin felt a surge of anger that it hadn't changed, even now. He doesn't know, she thought. He's just returned from Courcy. She felt a pang of pity for him, that he had to find out, that Eliwys would have to tell him.

Eliwys hauled the bucket up even with the edge of the well, and Gawyn took one more step toward her, holding onto Gringolet's bridle, and then stopped.

He knows, Kivrin thought. He knows after all. The bishop's envoy has come down with it, she thought, and he's ridden home to warn them. She realized suddenly he hadn't brought the horses back with him. The friar has it, she thought, and the rest of them have fled.

He watched Eliwys heave the heavy bucket up onto the stone edge of the well, not moving. He would do anything for her, Kivrin thought, anything at all, he would rescue her from a hundred cutthroats in the woods, but he can't rescue her from this.

Gringolet, impatient to be in the stable, shook his head. Gawyn put his hand up to his muzzle to steady him, but it was too late. Eliwys had already seen him.

She let go of the bucket. It landed with a splash Kivrin could hear, far above them, and then Eliwys was in his arms. Kivrin put her hand to her mouth.

There was a light knock on the door. Kivrin jumped down to open it. It was Agnes.

"Would you not tell me a story now?" she said. She was very draggled. No one had braided her hair since yesterday. It stuck out under her linen cap at all angles, and she had obviously slept by the hearth. One sleeve was filthy with ashes.

Kivrin resisted the urge to brush them off. "You cannot come in," she said, holding the door nearly shut. "You will catch the sickness."

"There is none to play with me," Agnes said. "Mother has gone and Rosemund still sleeps."

"Your mother has only gone out for water," she said firmly. "Where is your grandmother?"

"Praying." She reached for Kivrin's skirt, and Kivrin jerked back.

"You must not touch me," she said sharply.

Agnes's face puckered into a pout. "Why are you wroth with me?"

"I'm not angry with you," Kivrin said, more gently. "But you can't come in. The clerk is very ill, and all who come close to him may…" there was no hope of explaining contagion to Agnes, "…may fall ill, too."

"Will he die?" Agnes said, trying to see around the door.

"I fear so."

"Will you?"

"No," she said, and realized she was no longer frightened. "Rosemund will waken soon. Ask her to tell you a story."

"Will Father Roche die?"

"No. Go and play with your cart till Rosemund wakes."

"Will you tell me a story after the clerk is dead?"

"Aye. Go downstairs."

Agnes went reluctantly down three steps, holding onto the wall. "Will we all die?" she asked.

"Nay," Kivrin said. Not if I can help it. She shut the door and leaned against it.

The clerk still lay unseeing and unaware, his whole being turned inward to the struggle with an enemy his immune system had never seen before, had no defenses against.

The knocking came again. "Go downstairs, Agnes," Kivrin said, but it was Roche, carrying the bowl of broth he had brought from the kitchen and a hod of red coals. He dumped them into the brazier and knelt beside it, blowing on them.

He had handed the bowl to Kivrin. It was lukewarm and smelled bitter. She wondered if it had willow bark in it and if that was what had brought the fever down.

Roche stood up and took the bowl, and they tried to spoon the broth into the clerk, but it dribbled off his huge tongue and down the sides of his mouth.

Someone knocked.

"Agnes, I told you, you can't come in here," Kivrin said impatiently, trying to mop up the bedclothes.

"Grandmother sent me to bid you come."

"Is she ill?" Roche said. He started for the door.

"Nay. It is Rosemund."

Kivrin's heart began to pound.

Roche opened the door, but Agnes did not come in. She stood on the landing, staring at his mask.

"Is Rosemund ill?" Roche asked anxiously.

"She fell down."

Kivrin darted past them and down the steps.

Rosemund was sitting on one of the benches by the hearth, and Lady Imeyne was standing over her.

"What's happened?" Kivrin demanded.

"I fell," Rosemund said, sounding bewildered. "I hit my arm." She held it out to Kivrin, the elbow crooked.

Lady Imeyne murmured something.

"What?" Kivrin said, and realized the old lady was praying. She looked around the hall for Eliwys. She wasn't there. Only Maisry huddled frightenedly by the table, and the thought flickered through Kivrin's mind that Rosemund must have tripped over her.

"Did you fall over something?" she asked.

"Nay," Rosemund said, still sounding dazed. "My head hurts."

"Did you hit your head?"

"Nay." She pulled her sleeve back. "I hit my elbow on the stones."

Kivrin pushed the loose sleeve up past her elbow. It was scraped, but there was no blood. Kivrin wondered if she could have broken it. She was holding it at such an odd angle. "Does this hurt?" she asked, moving it gently.

"Nay."

She twisted the forearm gently. "Does this?"

"Nay."

"Can you move your fingers?" Kivrin said.

Rosemund dangled them each in turn, her arm still crooked. Kivrin frowned at it, puzzled. It might be sprained, but she didn't think she'd be able to move it so easily. "Lady Imeyne," she said, "would you fetch Father Roche?"

"He cannot help us," Imeyne said contemptuously, but she started for the stairs.

"I don't think it's broken," Kivrin said to Rosemund.

Rosemund lowered her arm, gasped, and jerked it up again. The color drained from her face, and beads of sweat broke out on her upper lip.

It must be broken, Kivrin thought, and reached for the arm again. Rosemund pulled away, and before Kivrin even realized what was happening, toppled off the bench and onto the floor.

She had hit her head this time. Kivrin heard it thunk against the stone. She scrambled over the bench and knelt beside her. "Rosemund, Rosemund," she said. "Can you hear me?"

She didn't move. She had flung her injured arm out when she fell, as if to catch herself, and when Kivrin touched it, she flinched, but she didn't open her eyes. Kivrin looked round wildly for Imeyne, but the old woman was not on the stairs. She got to her knees.

Rosemund opened her eyes. "Do not leave me," she said.

"I must fetch help," she said.

Rosemund shook her head.

"Father Roche!" Kivrin called, though she knew he could not hear her through the heavy door, and Lady Eliwys came through the screens and ran across the flagged floor.

"Has she the blue sickness?" she said.

No. "She fell," Kivrin said. She laid her hand on Rosemund's bare, outflung arm. It felt hot. Rosemund had closed her eyes again and was breathing slowly, evenly, as if she had fallen asleep.

Kivrin pushed the heavy sleeve up and over Rosemund's shoulder. She turned her arm up so she could see the armpit, and Rosemund tried to jerk away, but Kivrin held her tightly.

It was not as large as the clerk's had been, but it was bright red and already hard to the touch. No, Kivrin thought. No. Rosemund moaned and tried to pull her arm away, and Kivrin laid it gently down, arranging the sleeve under it.

"What's happened?" Agnes said from halfway down the stairs. "Is Rosemund ill?"

I can't let this happen, Kivrin thought. I must get help. They've all been exposed, even Agnes, and there's nothing here to help them. Antimicrobials won't be discovered for six hundred years.

"Your sins have brought this," Imeyne said.

Kivrin looked up. Eliwys was looking at Imeyne, but absently, as if she hadn't heard her.

"Your sins and Gawyn's," Imeyne said.

"Gawyn," Kivrin said. He could show her where the drop was, and she could go get help. Dr. Ahrens would know what to do. And Mr. Dunworthy. Dr. Ahrens would give her vaccine and streptomycin to bring back.

"Where is Gawyn?" Kivrin said.

Eliwys was looking at her now, and her face was full of longing, full of hope. He has finally got her attention, Kivrin thought. "Gawyn," Kivrin said. "Where is he?"

"Gone," Eliwys said.

"Gone where?" she said. "I must speak with him. We must go fetch help."

"There is no help," Lady Imeyne said. She knelt beside Rosemund and folded her hands. "It is God's punishment."

Kivrin stood up. "Gone where?"

"To Bath," Eliwys said. "To bring my husband."

I decided I'd better try to get this all down. Mr. Gilchrist said he hoped with the opening of Mediaeval we'd be able to obtain a first-hand account of the Black Death, and I guess this is it.

The first case of plague here was the clerk who came with the bishop's envoy. I don't know if he was ill when they arrived or not. He could have been and that was why they came here instead of going on to Oxford, to get rid of him before he infected them. He was definitely ill on Christmas morning when they left, which means he was probably contagious the night before, when he had contact with at least half the village.

He has transmitted the disease to Lord Guillaume's daughter, Rosemund, who fell ill on…the twenty-sixth? I've lost all track of time. Both of them have the classic buboes. The clerk's bubo has broken and is draining. Rosemund's is hard and growing larger. It's nearly the size of a walnut. The area around it is inflamed. Both of them have high fevers and are intermittently delirious.

Father Roche and I have isolated them in the bower and have told everyone to stay in their houses and avoid all contact with each other, but I'm afraid it's too late. Nearly everyone in the village was at the Christmas feast, and the whole family was in here with the clerk.

I wish I knew whether the disease is contagious before the symptoms appear and how long the incubation period is. I know that the plague takes three forms: bubonic, which is spread by fleas on the rats; pneumonic, which is droplet; and septicemic, which goes straight into the bloodstream, and I know the pneumonic form is the most contagious since it can be spread by coughing or breathing on people and by touch. The clerk and Rosemund both seem to have the bubonic.

I am so frightened I can't even think. It washes over me in waves. I'll be doing all right, and then suddenly the fear swamps me, and I have to take hold of the bedframe to keep from running out of the room, out of the house, out of the village, away from it!

I know I've had my plague inoculations, but I'd had my T- cells enhanced and my antivirals, and I still got whatever it was I got, and every time the clerk touches me, I cringe. Father Roche keeps forgetting to wear his mask, and I'm so afraid he's going to catch it, or Agnes. And I'm afraid the clerk is going to die. And Rosemund. And I'm afraid somebody in the village is going to get pneumonic, and Gawyn won't come back, and I won't find the drop before the rendezvous.

I feel a bit calmer. It seems to help, talking to you, whether you can hear me or not.

Rosemund's young and strong. And the plague didn't kill everyone. In some villages no one at all died.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

They took Rosemund up to the bower, making a pallet on the floor for her in the narrow space beside the bed. Roche covered it with a linen sheet and went out to the barn's loft to fetch bedcoverings.

Kivrin had been afraid Rosemund would balk at the sight of the clerk, with his grotesque tongue and blackening skin, but she scarcely glanced at him. She took her surcote and shoes off and lay down gratefully on the narrow pallet. Kivrin took the rabbitskin coverlet from the bed and put it over her.

"Will I scream and run at people like the clerk?" Rosemund asked.

"Nay," Kivrin said, and tried to smile. "Try to rest. Does it hurt anywhere?"

"My stomach," she said, putting her hand to her middle. "And my head. Sir Bloet told me the fever makes men dance. I thought it was a tale to frighten me. He said they danced till blood came out of their mouths and they died. Where is Agnes?"

"In the loft with your mother," Kivrin said. She had told Eliwys to take Agnes and Imeyne up to the loft and shut themselves in, and Eliwys had without even a backward glance at Rosemund.

"My father comes soon," Rosemund said.

"You must be quiet now and rest."

"Grandmother says it is a mortal sin to fear your husband, but I cannot help it. He touches me in ways that are not seemly and tells me tales of things that cannot be true."

I hope he dies in agony, Kivrin thought. I hope he is infected already.

"My father is even now on his way," Rosemund said.

"You must try to sleep."

"If Sir Bloet were here now, he would not dare to touch me," she said and closed her eyes. "It would be he who was afraid."

Roche came in, bearing an armload of bedclothes, and went out again. Kivrin piled them on top of Rosemund, tucked them in around her, and laid the fur she had taken from the clerk's bed back over him.

The clerk still lay quietly, but the hum in his breathing had begun again, and now and then he coughed. His mouth hung open, and the back of his tongue was coated with a white fur.

I can't let this happen to Rosemund, Kivrin thought, she's only twelve years old. There must be something she could do. Something. The plague bacillus was a bacteria. Streptomycin and the sulfa drugs could kill it, but she couldn't manufacture them herself, and she didn't know where the drop was.

And Gawyn had ridden off to Bath. Of course he had. Eliwys had run to him, she had thrown her arms around him, and he would have gone anywhere, done anything for her, even if it meant bringing home her husband.

She tried to think how long it would take Gawyn to ride to Bath and back. It was seventy kilometers. Riding hard he could make it there in a day and a half. Three days, there and back. If he were not delayed, if he could find Lord Guillaume, if he did not fall ill. Dr. Ahrens had said untreated plague victims died within four or five days, but she did not see how the clerk could possibly last that long. His temp was up again.

She had pushed Lady Imeyne's casket under the bed when they brought Rosemund up. She pulled it out and looked through it at the dried herbs and powders. The contemps had used homegrown remedies like St. John's wort and bittersweet during the plague, but they had been as useless as the powdered emeralds.

Fleabane might help, but she couldn't find any of the pink or purple flowers in the little linen bags.

When Roche came back, she sent him for willow branches from the stream, and steeped them into a bitter tea. "What is this brew?" Roche asked, tasting it and making a face.

"Aspirin," Kivrin said. "I hope."

Roche gave a cup to the clerk, who was past caring what it tasted like, and it seemed to bring his temp down a little, but Rosemund's rose steadily all afternoon, till she was shivering with chills. By the time Roche left to say vespers, she was almost too hot to touch.

Kivrin uncovered her and tried to bathe her arms and legs in cool water to bring the fever down, but Rosemund wrenched angrily away from her. "It is not seemly you should touch me thus, sir," she said through chattering teeth. "Be sure I shall tell my father when he returns."

Roche did not come back. Kivrin lit the tallow lamps and tucked the bedcoverings around Rosemund, wondering what had become of him.

She looked worse in the smoky light, her face wan and pinched. She murmured to herself, repeating Agnes's name over and over, and once she asked fretfully, "Where is he? He should have been here ere now."

He should have been, Kivrin thought. The bell had tolled vespers half an hour ago. He's in the kitchen, she told herself, making us soup. Or he has gone to tell Eliwys how Rosemund is. He isn't ill. But she stood up and climbed on the window seat and looked out into the courtyard. It was getting colder, and the dark sky was overcast. There was no one in the courtyard, no light or sound anywhere.

Roche opened the door, and she jumped down, smiling. "Where have you been? I was — " she said and stopped.

Roche was wearing his vestments and carrying the oil and viaticum. No, she thought, glancing at Rosemund. No.

"I have been with Ulf the Reeve," he said. "I heard his confession." Thank God it's not Rosemund, she thought, and then realized what he was saying. It was in the village.

"Are you certain?" she asked. "Does he have the plague- boils?"

"Aye."

"How many others are in the household?"

"His wife and two sons," he said tiredly. "I bade her wear a mask and sent her sons to cut willows."

"Good," she said. There was nothing good about it. No, that wasn't true. At least it was bubonic plague and not pneumonic, so there was still a chance the wife and two sons wouldn't get it. But how many other people had Ulf infected, and who had infected him? Ulf would not have had any contact with the clerk. He must have caught it from one of the servants. "Are any others ill?"

"Nay."

It didn't mean anything. They only sent for Roche when they were very ill, when they were frightened. There might be three or four other cases already in the village. Or a dozen.

She sat down on the windowseat, trying to think what to do. Nothing, she thought. There's nothing you can do. It swept through village after village, killing whole families, whole towns. One-third to one-half of Europe.

"No!" Rosemund screamed, and struggled to rise.

Kivrin and Roche both dived for her, but she had already lain back down. They covered her up, and she kicked the bedclothes off again. "I will tell Mother, Agnes, you wicked child," she murmured. "Let me out."

It grew colder in the night. Roche brought up more coals for the brazier, and Kivrin climbed up in the window again to fasten the waxed linen over the window, but it was still freezing. Kivrin and Roche huddled by the brazier in turn, trying to catch a little sleep, and woke shivering like Rosemund.

The clerk did not shiver, but he complained of the cold, his words slurred and drunken-sounding. His feet and hands were cold and without feeling.

"They must have a fire," Roche said. "We must take them down to the hall."

You don't understand, she thought. Their only hope lay in keeping the patients isolated, in not letting the infection spread. But it has already spread, she thought, and wondered if Ulf's extremities were growing cold and what he would do for a fire? She had sat in one of their huts by one of their fires. It would not warm a cat.

The cats died, too, she thought and looked at Rosemund. The shivering racked her poor body, and she seemed already thinner, more wasted.

"The life is going out of them," Roche said.

"I know," she said, and began picking up the bedclothes. "Tell Maisry to spread straw on the hall floor."

The clerk was able to walk down the steps, Kivrin and Roche both supporting him, but Roche had to carry Rosemund in his arms. Eliwys and Maisry were spreading straw on the far side of the hall. Agnes was still asleep, and Imeyne knelt where she had the night before, her hands folded stiffly before her face.

Roche lay Rosemund down, and Eliwys began to cover her. "Where is my father?" Rosemund demanded hoarsely. "Why is he not here?"

Agnes stirred. She would be awake in a minute and clambering on Rosemund's pallet, gawking at the clerk. She must find some way to keep Agnes safely away from them. Kivrin looked up at the beams, but they were too high, even under the loft, to hang curtains from, and every available coverlet and fur was already being used. She began turning the benches on their sides and pulling them into a barricade. Roche and Eliwys came to help, and they tipped the trestle table over and propped it against the benches.

Eliwys went back over to Rosemund and sat down beside her. Rosemund was asleep, her face flushed with the reddish light from the fire.

"You must wear a mask," Kivrin said.

Eliwys nodded, but she didn't move. She smoothed Rosemund's tumbled hair back from her face. "She was my husband's favorite," she said.

Rosemund slept nearly half the morning. Kivrin pulled the Yule log off to the side of the hearth and piled cut logs on the fire. She uncovered the clerk's feet so they could feel the heat.

During the Black Death, the Pope's doctor had made him sit in a room between two huge bonfires, and he had not caught the plague. Some historians thought the heat had killed the plague bacillus. More likely his keeping away from his highly contagious flock was what had saved him, but it was worth trying. Anything was worth trying, she thought, watching Rosemund. She piled more wood on.

Father Roche went to say matins, though it was past midmorning. The bell woke Agnes up. "Who knocked over the benches?" she asked, running over to the barricade.

"You must not come past this fence," Kivrin said, standing well back from it. "You must stay by your grandmother."

Agnes clambered onto a bench and peered over the top of the trestle table. "I see Rosemund," she said. "Is she dead?"

"She is very ill," Kivrin said sternly. "You must not come near us. Go and play with your cart."

"I would see Rosemund," she said, putting one leg over the table.

"No!" Kivrin shouted. "Go and sit with your grandmother!"

Agnes looked astonished, and then burst into tears. "I would see Rosemund!" she wailed, but she went over and sat down beside Imeyne.

Roche came in. "Ulf's elder son is ill," he said. "He has the buboes."

There were two more cases during the morning and one in the afternoon, including the steward's wife. All of them had buboes or small seedlike growths on the lymph glands except the steward's wife.

Kivrin went with Roche to see her. She was nursing the baby, her thin, sharp face even sharper. She was not coughing or vomiting, and Kivrin hoped the buboes had simply not developed yet. "Wear masks," she told the steward. "Give the baby milk from the cow. Keep the children from her," she said hopelessly. Six children in two rooms. Don't let it be pneumonic plague, she prayed. Don't let them all get it.

At least Agnes was safe. She had not come near the barricade since Kivrin shouted at her. She had sat for a bit, glaring at Kivrin with an expression that was so fierce it would have been comical under other circumstances, and then gone up to the loft to fetch her cart. She had set a place for it at the high table, and they were having a feast.

Rosemund was awake. She asked Kivrin for a drink in a hoarse voice, and as soon as Kivrin had given it to her, fell quietly asleep. Even the clerk dozed, the hum of his breathing less loud, and Kivrin sat down gratefully beside Rosemund.

She should go out and help Roche with the steward's children, at least make sure he was wearing his mask and washing his hands, but she felt suddenly too tired to move. If I could just lie down for a minute, she thought, I might be able to think of something.

"I would go see Blackie," Agnes said.

Kivrin jerked her head around, startled out of what had almost been sleep.

Agnes had put on her red cape and hood and was standing as close to the barricade as she dared. "You vowed you would take me to see my hound's grave."

"Hush, you will wake your sister," Kivrin said.

Agnes started to cry, not the loud wail she used when she wanted her own way, but quiet sobs. She's reached her limit, too, Kivrin thought. Left alone all day, Rosemund and Roche and I all off-limits, everyone busy and distracted and frightened. Poor thing.

"You vowed," Agnes said, her lip quivering.

"I cannot take you to see your puppy now," Kivrin said gently, "but I will tell you a story. We must be very quiet, though." She put her finger to her lips. "We must not wake Rosemund or the clerk."

Agnes wiped her runny nose with her hand. "Will you tell me the story of the girl in the woods?" she said in a stage whisper.

"Yes."

"Can Cart listen?"

"Yes," Kivrin whispered, and Agnes tore across the hall to fetch the little wagon, ran back with it and climbed up on the bench, ready to mount the barricade.

"You must sit down on the floor against the table," Kivrin said, "and I will sit here on the other side."

"I will not be able to hear you," Agnes said, her face clouding up again.

"Of course you will, if you are very quiet."

Agnes got down off the bench and sat down, scooting into position against the table. She set Cart on the floor beside her. "You must be very quiet," she said to it.

Kivrin went over and looked quickly at her patients and then sat down against the table and leaned back, feeling exhausted all over again.

"Once in a far land," Agnes prompted.

"Once in a far land, there was a little girl. She lived by a great forest — "

"Her father said, 'Go not into the woods,' but she was naughty and did not listen," Agnes said.

"She was naughty and did not listen," Kivrin said. "She put on her cloak — "

"Her red cloak with a hood," Agnes said. "And she went into the wood, even though her father told her not to."

Even though her father told her not to. "I'll be perfectly all right," she had told Mr. Dunworthy. "I can take care of myself."

"She should not have gone into the woods, should she?" Agnes said.

"She wanted to see what was there. She thought she would go just a little way," Kivrin said.

"She should not have," Agnes said, passing judgment. "I would not. The woods are dark."

"The woods are very dark, and full of frightening noises."

"Wolves," Agnes said, and Kivrin could hear her scooting closer to the table, trying to get as close to Kivrin as she could. Kivrin could imagine her huddled against the wood, her knees up, hugging the little wagon.

"The girl said to herself, 'I don't like it here,' and she tried to go back, but she could not see the path, it was so dark, and suddenly something jumped out at her!"

"A wolf," Agnes breathed.

"No," Kivrin said. "It was a bear. And the bear said, 'What are you doing in my forest?'"

"The girl was frightened," Agnes said in a small, frightened voice.

"Yes. 'Oh, please don't eat me, Bear,' the girl said. 'I am lost and cannot find my way home.' Now the bear was a kindly bear, though he looked cruel, and he said, 'I will help you find your way out of the woods,' and the girl said, 'How? It is so dark.' 'We will ask the owl,' the bear said. 'He can see in the dark.'"

She talked on, making up the tale as she went, oddly comforted by it. Agnes stopped interrupting, and after awhile Kivrin raised herself up, still talking, and looked over the barricade. "'Do you know the way out of the wood?' the bear asked the crow. 'Yes,' the crow said."

Agnes was asleep against the table, the cape spilled out around her and the cart hugged to her chest.

She should be covered up, but Kivrin didn't dare. All the bedclothes were full of plague germs. She looked over at Lady Imeyne, praying in the corner, her face to the wall. "Lady Imeyne," she called softly, but the old lady gave no sign she had heard.

Kivrin put more wood on the fire and sat back down against the table, leaning her head back. "'I know the way out of the woods,' the crow said, 'I will show you,'" Kivrin said softly, "but he flew away over the treetops, so fast they could not follow."

She must have slept, because the fire was down when she opened her eyes and her neck hurt. Rosemund and Agnes still slept, but the clerk was awake. He called to Kivrin, his words unrecognizable. The white fur covered his whole tongue, and his breath was so foul Kivrin had to turn her head away to breathe. His bubo had begun to drain again, a thick, dark liquid that smelled like rotting meat. Kivrin put a new bandage on, clenching her teeth to keep from gagging, and carried the old one to the far corner of the hall, and then went out and washed her hands at the well,puring the icy water from the bucket over one hand and then the other, taking in gulps of the cold air.

Roche came into the courtyard. "Ulric, Hal's son," he said, walking with her into the house, "and one of the steward's sons, the eldest, Walthef." He stumbled the into bench nearest the door.

"You're exhausted," Kivirn said. "You should lie down and rest."

On the other side of the hall, Imeyne stood up, getting awkwardly to her feet, as though her legs had fallen asleep, and started across the hall toward them.

"I cannot stay. I came to fetch a knife to cut the willows," Roche said, but he sat down by the fire and stared blankly into it.

"Rest a minute at least," Kivrin said. "I will fetch you some ale." She pushed the bench to the side and started out.

"You have brought this sickness," Lady Imeyne said.

Kivrin turned. The old lady was standing in the middle of the hall, glaring at Roche. She held her book to her chest with both hands. Her reliquary dangled from them. "It is your sins have brought the sickness here."

She turned to Kivrin. "He said the litany for Martinmas on St. Eusebius' Day. His alb is dirty." She sounded as she had when she was complaining to Sir Bloet's sister, and her hands fumbled with the reliquary, counting off his sins on the links of the chain. "He did not shut the church door after vespers last Wednesday."

Kivrin watched her, thinking, she's trying to justify her own guilt. She wrote the bishop asking for a new chaplain, she told him where they were. She can't bear the knowledge that she helped bring the plague here, Kivrin thought, but she couldn't summon up any pity. You have no right to blame Roche, she thought, he has done everything he can. And you've sat in a corner and prayed.

"God has not sent this plague as a punishment," she told Imeyne coldly. "It's a disease."

"He forgot the Confiteor Deo," Imeyne said, but she hobbled back to her corner and lowered herself to her knees. "He put the altar candles on the rood screen."

Kivrin went over to Roche. "No one is to blame," she said.

He was staring into the fire. "If God does punish us," he said, "it must be for some terrible sin."

"No sin," she said. "It is not a punishment."

"Dominus!" the clerk cried, trying to sit up. He coughed again, a racking, terrible cough that sounded like it would tear his chest apart, though nothing came up. The sound woke Rosemund and she began to whimper, and if it isn't a punishment, Kivrin thought, it certainly looks like one.

Rosemund's sleep had not helped her at all. Her temp was back up again, and her eyes had begun to look sunken. She jerked as if flogged at the slightest movement.

It's killing her, Kivrin thought. I have to do something.

When Roche came in again, she went up to the bower and brought down Imeyne's casket of medicines. Imeyne watched, her lips moving soundlessly, but when Kivrin set it in front of her and asked her what was in the linen bags, she put her folded hand up to her face and closed her eyes.

Kivrin recognized some of them. Mr. Dunworthy had made her study medicinal herbs, and she recognized comfrey and lungwort and the crushed leaves of tansy. There was a little pouch of powdered mercury sulfide, which no one in their right mind would give anyone, and a packet of foxglove, which was almost as bad.

She boiled water and poured in every herb she recognized and steeped it. The fragrance was wonderful, like a breath of summer, and it tasted no worse than the willow-bark tea, but it didn't help either. By nightfall, the clerk was coughing continuously, and red blotches had begun to appear on Rosemund's stomach and arms. Her bubo was the size of an egg and as hard. When Kivrin touched it, she screamed with pain.

During the Black Death the doctors had put poultices on the buboes or lanced them. They had also bled people and dosed them with arsenic, she thought, though the clerk had seemed better after his buboes broke, and he was still alive. But lancing it might spread the infection or, worse, take it into the bloodstream.

She heated water and wet rags to lay on the bubo, but even though the water was lukewarm, Rosemund screamed at the first touch. Kivrin had to go back to cold water, which did no good. None of it's doing any good, she thought, holding the wet cold cloth against Rosemund's armpit. None of it.

I must find the drop, she thought. But the woods stretched on for miles, with hundreds of oak trees, dozens of clearings. She would never find it. And she couldn't leave Rosemund.

Perhaps Gawyn would turn back. They had closed the gates of some cities — perhaps he would not be able to get in, or perhaps he would talk to people on the roads and realize Lord Guillaume must be dead. Come back, she willed him, hurry. Come back.

Kivrin went through Imeyne's bag again, tasting the contents of the pouches. The yellow powder was sulfur. Doctors had used that during epidemics, too, burning it to fumigate the air, and she remembered learning in History of Meds that sulfur killed certain bacteria, though whether that was only in the sulfa compounds she couldn't remember. It was safer than cutting the bubo open, though.

She sprinkled a little on the fire to test it, and it billowed into a yellow cloud that burned Kivrin's throat even through her mask. The clerk gasped for breath, and Imeyne, over in her corner, set up a continuous hacking.

Kivrin had expected the smell of bad eggs to disperse in a few minutes, but the yellow smoke hung in the air like a pall, burning their eyes. Maisry ran outside, coughing into her apron, and Eliwys took Imeyne and Agnes up to the loft to escape it.

Kivrin propped the manor door open and fanned the air with one of the kitchen cloths, and after awhile the air cleared a little, though her throat still felt parched. The clerk continued to cough, but Rosemund stopped, and her pulse slowed till Kivrin could scarcely feel it.

"I don't know what to do," Kivrin said, holding her hot, dry wrist. "I've tried everything.

Roche came in, coughing.

"It is the sulfur," she said. "Rosemund is worse."

He looked at her and felt her pulse and then went out again, and Kivrin took that as a good sign. He would not have left if she were truly bad.

He came back in a few minutes, wearing his vestments and carrying the oil and viaticum of the last rites.

"What is it?" Kivrin said. "Has the steward's wife died then?"

"Nay," he said, and looked past her at Rosemund.

"No," Kivrin said. She scrambled to her feet to stand between him and Rosemund. "I won't let you."

"She must not die unshriven," he said, still looking at Rosemund.

"Rosemund isn't dying," Kivrin said, and followed his gaze.

She looked already dead, her chapped lips half-open and her eyes blind and unblinking. Her skin had taken on a yellowish cast and was stretched tautly over her narrow face. No, Kivrin thought desperately. I must do something to stop this. She's twelve years old.

Roche moved forward with the chalice, and Rosemund raised her arm, as if in supplication, and then let it fall.

"We must open the plague-boil," Kivrin said. "We must let the poison out."

She thought he was going to refuse, to insist on hearing Rosemund's confession first, but he did not. He set the chrism and chalice down on the stone floor and went to fetch a knife.

"A sharp one," Kivrin called after him, "and bring wine." She set the pot of water on the fire again. When he came back with the knife, she washed it off with water from the bucket, scrubbing the encrusted dirt near the hilt with her fingernails. She held it in the fire, the hilt wrapped in the tail of her surcote, and then poured boiling water over it and then wine and then the water again.

They moved Rosemund closer to the fire, the side with the bubo facing it so they could have as much light as possible, and Roche knelt at Rosemund's head. Kivrin slipped her arm gently out of her shift and bunched the fabric under her for a pillow. Roche took hold of her arm, turning it so the swelling was exposed.

It was almost the size of an apple, and her whole shoulder joint was inflamed and swollen. The edges of the bubo were soft and almost gelatinous, but the center was still hard.

Kivrin opened the bottle of wine Roche had brought, poured some on a cloth, and swabbed the bubo gently with it. It felt like a rock embedded in the skin. She was not sure the knife would even cut into it.

She picked up the knife and poised it above the swelling, afraid of cutting into an artery, of spreading the infection, of making it worse.

"She is past pain," Roche said.

Kivrin looked down at her. She hadn't moved, even when Kivrin pressed on the swelling. She stared past them both at something terrible. I can't make it worse, Kivrin thought. Even if I kill her, I can't make it worse.

"Hold her arm," she said, and Roche pinned her wrist and halfway up the forearm, pressing her arm flat to the floor. Rosemund still didn't move.

Two quick, clean slices, Kivrin thought. She took a deep breath and touched the knife to the swelling.

Rosemund's arm spasmed, her shoulder twisting protectively away from the knife, her thin hand clenching into a claw. "What do you do?" she said hoarsely. "I will tell my father!"

Kivrin jerked the knife back. Roche caught at Rosemund's arm and pushed it back against the floor, and she hit weakly at him with her other hand.

"I am the daughter of Lord Guillaume D'Ivrey," she said. "You cannot treat me thus."

Kivrin scooted out of her reach and scrambled to her feet, trying to keep the knife from touching anything. Roche reached forward and caught both her wrists easily in one hand. Rosemund kicked out weakly at Kivrin. The chalice fell over and wine spilled out in a dark puddle.

"We must tie her," Kivrin said, and realized she was holding the knife aloft, like a murderer. She wrapped it in one of the cloths Eliwys had torn, and ripped another into strips.

Roche bound Rosemund's wrists above her head while Kivrin tied her ankles to the leg of one of the upturned benches. Rosemund didn't struggle, but when Roche pulled her shift up over her exposed chest, she said, "I know you. You are the cutthroat who waylaid the Lady Katherine."

Roche leaned forward, pressing his full weight down on her forearm, and Kivrin cut across the swelling.

Blood oozed and then gushed, and Kivrin thought, I've hit an artery. She and Roche both lunged for the pile of cloths, and she grabbed a thick wad of them and pressed them against the wound. They soaked through immediately, and when she released her hand to take the one Roche handed her, blood spurted out of the tiny cut. She jammed the tail of her surcote against it, and Rosemund whimpered, a small, helpless sound like Agnes's puppy, and seemed to collapse, though there was nowhere for her to fall.

I've killed her, Kivrin thought.

"I can't stop the bleeding," she said, but it had already stopped. She held the skirt of her surcote against it, counting to a hundred and then two hundred, and carefully lifted a corner of it away from the wound.

Blood still welled from the cut, but it was mixed with a thick yellow-gray pus. Roche leaned forward to dab at it, but Kivrin stopped him. "No, it's full of plague germs," she said, taking the cloth away from him. "Don't touch it."

She wiped the sickening-looking pus away. It oozed up again, followed by a watery serum. "That's all of it, I think," she said to Roche. "Hand me the wine." She looked round for a clean cloth to pour it on.

There weren't any. They had used them all, trying to stop the bleeding. She tipped the wine bottle carefully and let the dark liquid dribble into the cut. Rosemund didn't move. Her face was gray, as if all the blood had been drained out of her. As it had been. And I don't have a transfusion to give her. I don't even have a clean rag.

Roche was untying Rosemund' hands. He took her limp hand in his huge one. "Her heart beats strongly now," he said.

"We must have more linen," Kivrin said, and burst into tears.

"My father will see you hanged for this," Rosemund said.

Rosemund is unconscious. I tried to lance her bubo last night to drain out the infection, and I'm afraid I only made things worse. She lost a great deal of blood. She's very pale and her pulse is so faint I can't find it in her wrist at all.

The clerk is worse, too. His skin continues to hemorrhage, and it's clear he's near the end. I remember Dr. Ahrens saying untreated bubonic plague kills people in four or five days, but he can't possibly last that long.

Lady Eliwys, Lady Imeyne, and Agnes are still well, though Lady Imeyne seems to have gone almost crazy in her search for someone to blame. She boxed Maisry's ears this morning and told her God was punishing us all for her laziness and stupidity.

Maisry is lazy and stupid. She cannot be trusted to watch Agnes for five minutes at a time, and when I sent her for water to wash Rosemund's wound this morning, she was gone over half an hour and came back without it.

I didn't say anything. I didn't want Lady Imeyne hitting her again, and it is only a matter of time before Lady Imeyne gets around to blaming me. I saw her watching me over her Book of Hours when I went out for the water Maisry forgot, and I can well imagine what she's thinking — that I know too much about the plague not to have been fleeing it, that I am supposed to have lost my memory, that I was not injured but ill.

If she makes those accusations, I'm afraid she'll convince Lady Eliwys that I'm the cause of the plague and that she shouldn't listen to me, that they should take the barricade down and pray together for God to deliver them.

And how will I defend myself? By saying, I'm from the future, where we know everything about the Black Death except how to cure it without streptomycin and how to get back there?

Gawyn still isn't back. Eliwys is frantic with worry. When Roche went to say vespers she was standing at the gate, no cloak, no coif, watching the road. I wonder if it has occurred to her that he might already have been infected when he left for Bath. He rode to Courcy with the bishop's envoy, and when he came back he already knew about the plague.

Ulf the Reeve is near death, and his wife and one of his sons have it. No buboes, but the woman has several small lumps like seeds inside her thigh. Roche constantly has to be reminded to wear his mask and to not touch the patients more than he has to.

The history vids say the contemps were panic stricken and cowardly during the Black Death, that they ran away and wouldn't tend the sick, and that the priests were the worst of all, but it isn't like that at all.

Everyone's frightened, but they're all doing the best they can, and Roche is wonderful. He sat and held the reeve's wife's hand the whole time I examined her, and he doesn't flinch at the most disgusting jobs — bathing Rosemund's wound, emptying chamberpots, cleaning up after the clerk. He never seems afraid. I don't know where he gets his courage.

He continues to say matins and vespers and to pray, telling God about Rosemund and who has it now, reporting their symptoms and telling what we're doing for them, as if He could actually hear him. The way I talk to you.

Is God there, too, I wonder, but shut off from us by something worse than time, unable to get through, unable to find us?

We can hear the plague. The villages toll the death knell after a burial, nine strokes for a man, three for a woman, one for a baby, and then an hour of steady tolling. Esthcote had two this morning, and Osney has tolled continuously since yesterday. The bell in the southwest that I told you I could hear when I first came through has stopped. I don't know whether that means the plague is over there or whether there's no one left alive to ring the bell.

Please don't let Rosemund die. Please don't let Agnes get it. Send Gawyn back.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The boy who had run from Kivrin the day she tried to find the drop came down with the plague in the night. His mother was standing waiting for Father Roche when he went to matins. The boy had a bubo on his back, and Kivrin lanced it while Roche and the mother held him.

She didn't want to do it. The scurvy had left him already weak, and Kivrin had no idea whether there were any arteries below the shoulder blades. Rosemund did not seem at all improved, though Roche claimed her pulse was stronger. She was so white, as if she had been utterly drained of blood, and so still. And the boy didn't look as if he could stand to lose any blood.

But he bled hardly at all, and the color was already coming back in his cheeks before Kivrin finished washing the knife.

"Give him tea made from rose hips," Kivrin said, thinking that at least that would help the scurvy. "And willow bark." She held the blade of the knife over the fire. It was no bigger than the day she had sat by it, too weak to find the drop. It would never keep the boy warm, and if she told the woman to go gather firewood, she might expose someone else. "We will bring you some wood," she said, and then wondered how.

There was still food left over from the Christmas feast, but they were fast running out of everything else. They had used most of the wood that was already cut trying to keep Rosemund and the clerk warm, and there was no one to ask to chop the logs that lay piled against the kitchen. The reeve was ill, the steward was tending his wife and son.

Kivrin gathered up an armful of the already-split wood and some pieces of loose bark for kindling and took it back to the hut, wishing she could move the boy into the manor house, but Eliwys had the clerk and Rosemund to tend, and she looked ready to collapse herself.

Eliwys had sat with Rosemund all night, giving her sips of willow tea and rebandaging the wound. They had run out of cloths, and she had taken off her coif and torn it into strips. She sat where she could see the screens, and every few minutes she had stood up and gone over to the door, as if she heard someone coming. With her dark hair down over her shoulders, she looked no older than Rosemund.

Kivrin took the firewood to the woman, dumping it on the dirt floor next to the rat cage. The rat was gone, killed, no doubt, and not even guilty. "The Lord blesses us," she woman said to her. She knelt by the fire and began carefully adding the wood to it.

Kivrin checked the boy again. His bubo was still draining a clear watery fluid, which was good. Rosemund's had bled half the night and then begun to swell and grow hard again. And I can't lance it again, Kivrin thought. She can't lose any more blood.

She started back to the hall, wondering if she should relieve Eliwys or try to chop some wood. Roche, coming out of the steward's house, met her with the news that two more of the steward's children were ill.

It was the two youngest boys, and it was clearly the pneumonic. Both were coughing, and the mother intermittently retched a watery sputum. The Lord blesses us.

Kivrin went back to the hall. It was still hazy from the sulfur, and the clerk's arms looked almost black in the yellowish light. The fire was no better than the one in the woman's hut. Kivrin brought in the last of the cut wood and then told Eliwys to lie down, that she would tend Rosemund.

"Nay," Eliwys said, glancing toward the door. She added, almost to herself, "He has been three days on the road."

It was seventy kilometers to Bath, a day and a half at least on horseback and the same amount of time back, if he had been able to get a fresh horse in Bath. He might be back today, if he had found Lord Guillaume immediately. If he comes back, Kivrin thought.

Eliwys glanced at the door again, as if she heard something, but the only sound was Agnes, crooning softly to her cart. She had put a blanket over it and was spooning make-believe food into it. "He has the blue sickness," she told Kivrin.

Kivrin spent the rest of the day doing household chores — bringing in water, making broth from the roast joint, emptying the chamberpots. The steward's cow, its udders swollen in spite of Kivrin's orders, came lowing into the courtyard and followed her, nudging her with its horns till Kivrin gave up and milked it. Roche chopped wood in between visits to the steward and the boy, and Kivrin, wishing she had learned how to split wood, hacked clumsily at the big logs.

The steward came to fetch them again just before dark to his younger daughter. That's eight cases so far, Kivrin thought. There were only forty people in the village. The Black Death was supposed to have had a mortality rate of one-third to one-half, and Mr. Gilchrist thought that was exaggerated. One third would be thirteen cases, only five more. Even at fifty per cent, only twelve more would get it, and the steward's children had all already been exposed.

She looked at them, the older daughter stocky and dark like her father, the youngest boy sharp-faced like his mother, the scrawny baby. You'll all get it, she thought, and that will leave eight.

She couldn't seem to feel anything, even when the baby began to cry and the girl took it on her knee and stuck her filthy finger in its mouth. Thirteen, she prayed. Twenty at the most.

She couldn't feel anything for the clerk either, even though it was clear he could not last the night. His lips and tongue were covered with a brown slime, and he was coughing up a watery spittle that was streaked with blood. She tended him automatically, without feeling.

It's the lack of sleep, she thought, it's making us all numb. She lay down by the fire and tried to sleep, but she seemed beyond sleep, beyond tiredness. Eight more people, she thought, adding them up in her mind. The mother will catch it, and the reeve's wife and children. That leaves four. Don't let one of them be Agnes or Eliwys. Or Roche.

In the morning Roche found the cook lying in the snow in front of her hut, half-frozen and coughing blood. Nine, Kivrin thought.

The cook was a widow, with no one to take care of her, so they brought her into the hall and laid her next to the clerk, who was, amazingly, horribly, still alive. The hemorrhaging had spread all over his body now, his chest criss-crossed with bluish-purple marks, his arms and legs nearly solid black. His cheeks were covered with a black stubble that seemed somehow a symptom, too, and under it his face was darkening.

Rosemund still lay white and silent, balanced between life and death, and Eliwys tended her quietly, carefully, as if the slightest movement, the slightest sound, might tip her into death. Kivrin tiptoed among the pallets, and Agnes, sensing the need for silence, fell completely apart.

She whined, she hung on the barricade, she asked Kivrin half a dozen times to take her to see her hound, her pony, to get her something to eat, to finish telling her the story of the naughty girl in the woods.

"How does it end?" she whined in a tone that set Kivrin's teeth on edge. "Do the wolves eat the girl?"

"I don't know," Kivrin snapped after the fourth time. "Go and sit by your grandmother."

Agnes looked contemptuously at Lady Imeyne, who still knelt in the corner, her back to all of them. She had been there all night. "Grandmother will not play with me."

"Well, then, play with Maisry."

She did, for five minutes, pestering her so mercilessly she retaliated and Agnes came screaming back, shrieking that Maisry had pinched her.

"I don't blame her," Kivrin said, and sent both of them to the loft.

She went to check on the boy, who was so improved he was sitting up, and when she came back, Maisry was hunched in the high seat, sound asleep.

"Where's Agnes?" Kivrin said.

Eliwys looked around blankly. "I know not. They were in the loft."

"Maisry," Kivrin said, crossing to the dais. "Wake up. Where is Agnes?"

Maisry blinked stupidly at her.

"You should not have left her alone," Kivrin said. She climbed up into the loft, but Agnes wasn't there, so she checked the solar. She wasn't there either.

Maisry had got out of the high seat and was huddled against the wall, looking terrified. "Where is she?" Kivrin demanded.

Maisry put a hand up defensively to her ear and gaped at her.

"That's right," Kivrin said. "I will box your ears unless you tell me where she is.

Maisry buried her face in her skirts.

"Where is she?" Kivrin said, and jerked her up by her arm. "You were supposed to watch her. She was your responsibility!"

Maisry began to howl, a high-pitched sound like an animal.

"Stop that!" Kivrin said. "Show me where she went!" she pushed her toward the screens.

"What is it?" Roche said, coming in.

"It's Agnes," Kivrin said. "We must find her. She may have gone out into the village."

Roche shook his head. "I did not see her. She is likely in one of the outbuildings."

"The stables," Kivrin said, relieved. "She said she wanted to go see her pony."

She was not in the stables. "Agnes!" she called into the manure-smelling darkness, "Agnes!" Agnes's pony whinnied and tried to push its way out of its stall, and Kivrin wondered when it had last been fed, and where the hounds were. "Agnes." She looked in each of the boxes and behind the manger, anywhere a little girl might hide. Or fall asleep.

She might be in the barn, Kivrin thought, and came out of the stable, shielding her eyes from the sudden brightness. Roche was just emerging from the kitchen. "Did you find her?" Kivrin asked, but he didn't hear her. He was looking toward the gate, his head cocked as if he were listening.

Kivrin listened, but she couldn't hear anything. "What is it?" she asked. "Can you hear her crying?"

"It is the Lord," he said and ran towards the gate.

Oh, no, not Roche, Kivrin thought, and ran after him. He had stopped and was opening the gate. "Father Roche," Kivrin said, and heard the horse.

It was galloping toward them, the sound of the hoofs loud on the frozen ground. Kivrin thought, he meant the lord of the manor. He thinks Eliwys's husband has finally come, and then, with a shock of hope, it's Mr. Dunworthy.

Roche lifted the heavy bar and slid it to the side.

We need streptomycin and disinfectant, and he's got to take Rosemund back to hospital with him. She'll have to have a transfusion.

Roche had the bar off. He pushed on the gate.

And vaccine, she thought wildly. He'd better bring back the oral. Where's Agnes? He must get Agnes safely away from here.

The horse was nearly at the gate before she came to her senses. "No!" she said, but it was too late. Roche already had the gate open.

"He can't come here," Kivrin shouted, looking about wildly for something to warn him off with. "He'll catch the plague."

She'd left the spade by the empty pigsty after she buried Blackie. She ran to get it. "Don't let him through the gate," she called, and Roche flung his arms up in warning, but he had already ridden into the courtyard.

Roche dropped his arms. "Gawyn!" he said, and the black stallion looked like Gawyn's, but a boy was riding it. He could not have been older than Rosemund, and his face and clothes were streaked with mud. The stallion was muddy, too, breathing hard, and spattering foam, and the boy looked as winded. His nose and ears were brightened with the cold. He started to dismount, staring at them.

"You must not come here," Kivrin said, speaking carefully so she wouldn't lapse into English. "There is plague in this village." She raised her spade, pointing it like a gun at him.

The boy stopped, halfway off the horse, and sat down in the saddle again.

"The blue sickness," she added, in case he didn't understand, but he was already nodding.

"It is everywhere," he said, turning to take something from the pouch behind his saddle. "I bear a message." He held out a leather wallet toward Roche, and Roche stepped forward for it.

"No!" Kivrin said and took a step forward, jabbing the spade at the air in front of him. "Drop it on the ground!" she said. "You must not touch us."

The boy took a tied roll of vellum from the wallet and threw it at Roche's feet.

Roche picked it up off the flagstones and unrolled it. "What says the message?" he asked the boy, and Kivrin thought, of course, he can't read.

"I know not," the boy said. "It is from the Bishop of Bath. I am to take it to all the parishes."

"Would you have me read it?" Kivrin asked.

"Mayhap it is from the lord," Roche said. "Mayhap he sends word that he has been delayed."

"Yes," Kivrin said, taking it from him, but she knew it wasn't.

It was in Latin, printed in letters so elaborate they were hard to read, but it didn't matter. She had read it before. In the Bodleian.

She leaned the spade against her shoulder and read the message, translating the Latin:

"The contagious pestilence of the present day, which is spreading far and wide, has left many parish churches and other livings in our diocese without parson or priest to care for their parishioners."

She looked at Roche. No, she thought. Not here. I won't let that happen here.

"Since no priests can be found who are willing — " The priests were dead or had run away, and no one could be persuaded to take their place, and the people were dying "without the Sacrament of Penance."

She read on, seeing not the black letters but the faded brown ones she had deciphered in the Bodleian. She had thought the letter was pompous and ridiculous. "People were dying right and left," she had told Mr. Dunworthy indignantly, "and all the bishop was concerned about was church protocol!" But now, reading it to the exhausted boy and Father Roche, it sounded exhausted, too. And desperate.

"If they are on the point of death and can not secure the services of a priest," she read, "then they should make confession to each other. We urge you, by these present letters, in the bowels of Jesus Christ, to do this."

Neither the boy nor Roche said anything when she had finished reading. She wondered if the boy had known what he was carrying. She rolled it up and handed it back to him.

"I have been riding three days," the boy said, slumping forward tiredly in the saddle. "Can I not rest here awhile?"

"It is not safe," Kivrin said, feeling sorry for him. "We will give you and your horse food to take with you."

Roche turned to go into the kitchen, and Kivrin suddenly remembered Agnes. "Did you see a little girl on the road?" she asked. "A five-year-old child, with a red cloak and hood?"

"Nay," the boy said, "but there are many on the roads. They flee the pestilence."

Roche was bringing out a wadmal sack. Kivrin turned to fetch some oats for the stallion, and Eliwys shot past them both, her skirts tangling between her legs, her loose hair flying out behind her.

"Don't — " Kivrin shouted, but Eliwys had already caught hold of the stallion's bridle.

"Where do you come from?" she asked, grabbing at the boy's sleeve. "Have you seen aught of Gawyn Fitzroy?"

The boy looked frightened. "I come from Bath, with a message from the bishop," he said, pulling back on the reins. The horse whinnied, and tossed its head.

"What message?" Eliwys said hysterically. "Is it from Gawyn?"

"I do not know the man of whom you speak," the boy said.

"Lady Eliwys — " Kivrin said, stepping forward.

"He rides a black steed with a saddle chased in silver," she persisted, pulling on the stallion's bridle. "He has gone to Bath to fetch my husband, who witnesses at the Assizes."

"None go to Bath," the boy said. "All who can flee it."

Eliwys stumbled, as though the stallion had reared, and seemed to fall against its side.

"There is no court, nor any law," the boy said. "The dead lie in the streets, and all who but look on them die, too. Some say it is the end of the world."

Eliwys let go of the bridle and took a step back. She turned and looked hopefully at Kivrin and Roche. "They will surely be home soon, then. Is it certain you did not see them on the road? He rides a black steed."

"There were many steeds." He kicked the horse forward toward Roche, but Eliwys didn't move.

Roche stepped forward with the sack of food. The boy leaned down, grabbed it, and wheeled the stallion around, nearly running Eliwys down. She didn't try to get out of the way.

Kivrin stepped forward and caught hold of one of the reins. "Don't go back to the bishop," she said.

He jerked up on the reins, looking more frightened of her than of Eliwys.

She didn't let go. "Go north," she said. "The plague isn't there yet."

He wrenched the reins free, kicked the stallion forward, and galloped out of the courtyard.

"Stay off the main roads," Kivrin called after him. "Speak to no one."

Eliwys still stood where she was.

"Come," Kivrin said. "We must find Agnes."

"My husband and Gawyn will have ridden first to Courcy to warn Sir Bloet," she said, and let Kivrin lead her back to the house.

Kivrin looked in the barn. Agnes wasn't there, but she found her own cloak, left there Christmas Eve. She flung it around her and went up into the loft. She looked in the brewhouse and Roche searched the other buildings, but they didn't find her. A cold wind had sprung up while they stood talking to the messenger, and it smelled like snow.

"Perhaps she is in the house," Roche said. "Looked you behind the high seat?"

She searched the house again, looking behind the high seat and under the bed in the solar. Maisry still lay whimpering where Kivrin had left her, and she had to resist the temptation to kick her. She asked Lady Imeyne, kneeling to the wall, if she had seen Agnes or not.

The old woman ignored her, moving her beads and her lips silently.

Kivrin shook her shoulder. "Did you see her go out?"

Lady Imeyne turned and looked at her, her eyes glittering. "She is to blame," she said.

"Agnes?" Kivrin said, outraged. "How could it be her fault?"

Imeyne shook her head and looked past Kivrin at Maisry. "God punishes us for Maisry's wickedness."

"Agnes is missing and it grows dark," Kivrin said. "We must find her. Did you not see where she went?"

"To blame," she whispered and turned back to the wall.

It was getting late now, and the wind was whistling around the screens. Kivrin ran out to the passage and onto the green.

It was like the day she had tried to find the drop on her own. There was no one on the snow-covered green, and the wind whipped and tore at her clothes as she ran. A bell was ringing somewhere far off to the northeast, slowly, a funeral toll.

Agnes had loved the belltower. Kivrin went in, shouted up the stairs to the rope even though she could see up to the bellrope. She went out and stood looking at the huts, trying to think where Agnes would have gone.

Not the huts, unless she had got cold. Her puppy. She had wanted to go see her puppy's grave. Kivrin hadn't told her she'd buried it in the woods. Agnes had told her it had to be buried in the churchyard. Kivrin could see she wasn't there, but she went through the lychgate.

Agnes had been there. The prints of her little boots led from grave to grave and then off to the north side of the church. Kivrin looked up the hill at the beginning of the woods, thinking What if she went into the woods? We'll never find her.

She ran around the side of the church. The prints stopped and circled back to the door of the church. Kivrin opened the door. It was nearly dark inside and colder than the wind-whipped churchyard. "Agnes!" she called.

There was no answer, but there was a faint sound up by the altar, like a rat scurrying out of sight. "Agnes?" Kivrin said, peering into the gloom behind the tomb, in the side aisles. "Are you here?" she said.

"Kivrin?" a quavering little voice said.

"Agnes?" she said, and ran in its direction. "Where are you?"

She was by the statue of St. Catherine, huddled among the candles at its base in her red cape and hood. She had pressed herself against the rough stone skirts of the statue, eyes wide and frightened. Her face was red and damp with tears. "Kivrin?" she cried, and flung herself into her arms.

"What are you doing here, Agnes?" Kivrin said, angry with relief. She hugged her tightly. "We've been looking everywhere for you."

She buried her wet face against Kivrin's neck. "Hiding," she said. "I took Cart to see my hound, and I fell down." She wiped at her nose with her hand. "I called and called for you, but you didn't come."

"I didn't know where you were, honey," Kivrin said, stroking her hair. "Why did you come in the church?"

"I was hiding from the wicked man."

"What wicked man?" Kivrin said, frowning.

The heavy church door opened, and Agnes clasped her little arms in a stranglehold around Kivrin's neck. "It is the wicked man," she whispered hysterically.

"Father Roche!" Kivrin called. "I've found her. She's here." The door shut, and she could hear his footsteps. "It's Father Roche," she said to Agnes. "He's been looking for you, too. We didn't know where you'd gone."

She loosened her grip a little. "Maisry said the wicked man would come and get me."

Roche came up panting, and Agnes buried her head against Kivrin again. "Is she ill?" he asked anxiously.

"I don't think so," Kivrin said. "She's half-frozen. Put my cloak over her."

Roche clumsily unfastened Kivrin's cloak and wrapped it around Agnes.

"I hid from the wicked man," Agnes said to him, turning in Kivrin's arms.

"What wicked man?" Roche said.

"The wicked man who chased you in the church," she said. "Maisry said he comes and gets you and gives you the blue sickness."

"There isn't any wicked man," Kivrin said, thinking, I'll shake Maisry till her teeth rattle when I get home. She stood up. Agnes's grip tightened.

Roche groped along the wall to the priest's door, and opened it. Bluish light flooded in.

"Maisry said he got my hound," Agnes said, shivering. "But he didn't get me. I hid."

Kivrin thought of the black puppy, limp in her hands, blood around its mouth. No, she thought, and started rapidly across the snow. She was shivering because she'd been in the icy church so long. Her face felt hot against Kivrin's neck. It's only from crying, Kivrin told herself, and asked her if her head ached.

Agnes shook or nodded her head against Kivrin and wouldn't answer. No, Kivrin thought, and walked faster, Roche close behind her, past the steward's house and into the courtyard.

"I did not go in the woods," Agnes said when they got to the house. "The naughty girl did, didn't she?"

"Yes," Kivrin said, carrying her over to the fire. "But it was all right. The father found her and took her home. And they lived happily ever after." She sat Agnes down on the bench and untied her cape.

"And she never went in the woods again," she said.

"She never did." Kivrin pulled her wet shoes and hose off. "You must lie down," she said, spreading her cloak next to the fire. "I will bring you some hot soup." Agnes lay down obediently, and Kivrin pulled the sides of the cloak up over her.

She brought her soup, but Agnes didn't want any, and she fell asleep almost immediately.

"She's caught a chill," she told Eliwys and Roche almost fiercely. "She was outside all afternoon. She's caught cold," but after Roche left to say vespers, she uncovered Agnes and felt under her arms, in her groin. She even turned her over, looking for a lump between the shoulderblades like the boy's.

Roche didn't ring the bell. He came back with a ragged quilt that was obviously from his own bed, made it into a pallet, and moved Agnes onto it.

The other vespers bells were ringing. Oxford and Godstow and the bell from the southwest. Kivrin couldn't hear Courcy's double bell. She looked at Eliwys anxiously, but she didn't seem to be listening. She was looking across Rosemund at the screens.

The bells stopped, and Courcy's started up. They sounded odd, muffled and slow. Kivrin looked at Roche. "Is it a funeral bell?"

"Nay," he said, looking at Agnes. "It is a holy day."

She had lost track of the days. The bishop's envoy had left Christmas morning and in the afternoon she had found out it was the plague, and after that it seemed like one endless day. Four days, she thought, it's been four days.

She had wanted to come at Christmas because there were so many holy days even the peasants would know what day it was, and she couldn't possibly miss the rendezvous. Gawyn went to Bath for help, Mr. Dunworthy, she thought, and the bishop took all the horses, and I didn't know where it was.

Eliwys had stood up and was listening to the bells. "Are those Courcy's bells?" she asked Roche.

"Yes," he said. "Fear not. It is the Slaughter of the Innocents."

The slaughter of the innocents, Kivrin thought, looking at Agnes. She was still asleep, and she had stopped shivering, though she still felt hot.

The cook cried out something, and Kivrin went around the barricade to her. She was crouched on her pallet, struggling to get up. "Must go home," she said.

Kivrin coaxed her down again and fetched her a drink of water. The bucket was nearly empty, and she picked it up and started out with it.

"Tell Kivrin I would have her come to me," Agnes said. She was sitting up.

Kivrin put the bucket down. "I'm here," Kivrin said, kneeling down beside her. "I'm right here."

Agnes looked at her, her face red and distorted with rage. "The wicked man will get me if Kivrin does not come," she said. "Bid her come now."

I've missed the rendezvous. I lost count of the days, taking care of Rosemund, and I couldn't find Agnes, and I didn't know where the drop was.

You must be worried sick, Mr. Dunworthy. You probably think I've fallen among cutthroats and murderers. Well, I have. And now they've got Agnes.

She has a fever, but no buboes, and she isn't coughing or vomiting. Just the fever. It's very high — she doesn't know me and keeps calling to me to come. Roche and I tried to bring it down by sponging her with cold compresses, but it keeps going back up.

Lady Imeyne has it. Father Roche found her this morning on the floor in the corner. She may have been there all night. The last two nights she has refused to go to bed and has stayed on her knees, praying to God to protect her and the rest of the godly from the plague.

He hasn't. She has the pneumonic. She's coughing and vomiting mucus streaked with blood.

She won't let Roche or me tend her. "She is to blame for this," she told Roche, pointing at me. "Look at her hair. She is no maid. Look at her clothes."

My clothes are a boy's jerkin and leather hose I found in one of the chests in the loft. My dress got ruined when Lady Imeyne vomited on me, and I had to tear my shift up for cloths and bandages.

Roche tried to give her some of the willow bark tea, but she spat it out. She said, "She lied when she said she was waylaid in the woods. She was sent here."

Bloody spittle dribbled down her chin as she spoke and Roche wiped it off. "It is the disease that makes you believe these things," he said gently.

"She was sent here to poison us," Imyene said. "See how she has poisoned my son's children. And how she would poison me, but I will not let her give me aught to eat or drink."

"Hush," Roche said sternly. "You must not speak ill of one who seeks to help you."

She shook her head, turning it wildly from side to side. "She seeks to kill us all. You must burn her. She is the devil's servant."

I've never seen him angry before. He looked almost like a cutthroat again. "You know not whereof you speak," he said. "It is God who has sent her to help us."

I wish it were true, that I were of any help at all, but I'm not. Agnes screams for me to come and Rosemund lies there as if she were under a spell and the clerk is turning black, and there's nothing I can do to help any of them. Nothing.

All the steward's family have it. The youngest boy, Lefric, was the only one with a bubo, and I've brought him in here and lanced it. There's nothing I can do for the others. They all have pneumonic.

The steward's baby is dead.

The Courcy bells are tolling. Nine strokes. Which one of them is it? The bishop's envoy? The fat monk, who helped steal our horses? Or Sir Bloet? I hope so.

Terrible day. The steward's wife and the boy who ran from me when I went to find the drop both died this afternoon. The steward is digging both their graves, though the ground is so frozen I don't see how he can even make a dent in it. Rosemund and Lefric are both worse. Rosemund can scarcely swallow and her pulse is thready and irregular. Agnes is not as bad, but I can't get her fever down. Roche said vespers in here tonight.

After the set prayers, he said, "Good Jesus, I know you have sent what help you can, but I fear it cannot prevail against this dark plague. Thy holy servant Katherine says this terror is a disease, but how can it be? For it does not move from man to man, but is everywhere at once."

It is.

Ulf the Reeve

Sibbe, daughter of the steward.

Joan, daughter of the steward.

The cook (I don't know her name)

Walthef, oldest son of the steward.

Over fifty per cent of the village has it. Please don't let Eliwys get it. Or Roche.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

He called for help, but no one came, and he thought that everyone else had died and he was the only one left, like the monk, John Clyn, in the monastery of the Friars Minor. "I, waiting for death till it come…"

He tried to press the button to call the nurse, but he couldn't find it. There was a hand bell on the bedstand next to the bed, and he reached for it, but there was no strength in his fingers, and it clattered to the floor. It made a horrible, endless sound, like some nightmarish Great Tom, but nobody came.

The next time he woke, though, the bell was on the bedstand again, so they must have come while he was asleep. He squinted blurrily at the bell and wondered how long he had been asleep. A long time.

There was no way to tell from the room. It was light, but there was no angle to the light, no shadows. It might be afternoon or mid-morning. There was no digital on the bedstand or the wall, and he didn't have the strength to turn and look at the screens on the wall behind him. There was a window, though he could not raise himself up enough to see properly out of it, but he could see enough to tell that it was raining. It had been raining when he went to Brasenose — it could be the same afternoon. Perhaps he had only fainted, and they had brought him here for observation.

"'I also will do this unto you,'" someone said.

Dunworthy opened his eyes and reached for his spectacles, but they weren't there. "'I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and burning ague.'"

It was Mrs. Gaddson. She was sitting in the chair beside his bed, reading from the Bible. She was not wearing her mask and gown, though the Bible still seemed to be swathed in plastene. Dunworthy squinted at it.

"'And when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you.'"

"What day is it?" Dunworthy asked.

She paused, looked curiously at him, and then went on placidly. "'And ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.'"

He could not have been here very long. Mrs. Gaddson had been reading to the patients when he went to find Gilchrist. Perhaps it was still the same afternoon, and Mary had not come in to throw Mrs. Gaddson out yet.

"Can you swallow?" the nurse said. It was the ancient sister from Supplies.

"I need to give you a temp," she croaked. "Can you swallow?"

He opened his mouth, and she put the temp capsule on his tongue. She tipped his head forward so he could drink, her apron crackling.

"Did you get it down?" she asked, letting him lean back a bit.

The capsule was lodged halfway down his throat, but he nodded. The effort made his head ache.

"Good. Then I can remove this." She stripped something from his upper arm.

"What time is it?" he asked, trying not to cough up the capsule.

"Time for you to rest," she said, peering farsightedly at the screens behind his head.

"What day is it?" he said, but she had already hobbled out. "What day is it?" he asked Mrs. Gaddson, but she was gone, too.

He could not have been here long. He still had a headache and a fever, which were Early Symptoms of Influenza. Perhaps he had only been ill a few hours. Perhaps it was still the same afternoon, and he had awakened when they moved him into the room, before they had had time to connect a call button or give him a temp.

"Time for your temp," the nurse said. It was a different one, the pretty student nurse who had asked him all the questions about William Gaddson.

"I've already had one."

"That was yesterday," she said. "Come now, let's have it down."

The first year student in Badri's room had told him she was down with the flu. "I thought you had the flu," he said.

"I did, but I'm better, and so shall you be." She put her hand behind his head and raised him up so he could take a sip of water.

"What day is it?" he asked.

"The eleventh," she said. "I had to think a bit. There at the end things got a bit hectic. Nearly all the staff were down with it, and everyone working double shifts. I quite lost track of the days." She typed something into the console and looked up at the screens, frowning.

He had already known it before she told him, before he tried to reach the bell to call for help. The fever had made one endless rainy afternoon out of all the delirious nights and drugged mornings he could not remember, but his body had kept clear track of the time, tolling off the hours, the days, so that he had known even before she'd told him. He had missed the rendezvous.

There was no rendezvous, he told himself bitterly. Gilchrist shut down the net. It would not have mattered if he had been there, if he had not been ill. The net was closed and there was nothing he could have done.

January eleventh. How long had Kivrin waited at the drop? A day? Two days? Three before she began to think she had the date wrong, or the place? Had she waited all night by the Oxford-Bath road, huddled in her useless white cloak, afraid to build a fire for fear the light would attract wolves or thieves? Or peasants fleeing from the plague. And when had it come to her finally that no one was coming to get her?

"Is there anything I can fetch for you?" the nurse asked. She pushed a syringe into the cannula.

"Is that something to make me sleep?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Good," he said and closed his eyes gratefully.

He slept either a few minutes or a day or a month. The light, the rain, the lack of shadows were the same when he woke. Colin was sitting in the chair beside the bed, reading the book Dunworthy had given him for Christmas and sucking on something. It can't have been that long, Dunworthy thought wryly, squinting at him, the gobstopper is still with us.

"Oh, good," Colin said, shutting the book with a clap. "That horrid sister said I could only stay if I promised not to wake you up, and I didn't, did I? You'll tell her you woke all on your own, won't you?"

He took the gobstopper out, examined it, and stuck it in his pocket. "Have you seen her? She must have been alive during the Middle Ages. She's nearly as necrotic as Mrs. Gaddson."

Dunworthy squinted at him. The jacket whose pocket he had stuck the gobstopper in was a new one, green, the gray plaid muffler around his neck even deadlier against the verdure, and Colin looked older in it, as if he had grown while Dunworthy was asleep.

Colin frowned. "It's me, Colin. Do you know me?"

"Yes, of course I know you. Why aren't you wearing your mask?"

Colin grinned. "I don't have to. And at any rate you're not contagious any more. Do you want your spectacles?"

Dunworthy nodded, carefully, so the aching wouldn't begin again.

"When you woke up the other times, you didn't know me at all." He rummaged in the drawer of the bedstand and handed Dunworthy his spectacles. "You were awfully bad. I thought you were going to pack it in. You kept calling me Kivrin."

"What day is it?" Dunworthy asked.

"The twelfth," Colin said impatiently. "You asked me that this morning. Don't you remember?"

Dunworthy put on his spectacles. "No."

"Don't you remember anything that's happened?"

I remember how I failed Kivrin, he thought. I remember leaving her in 1348.

Colin scooted the chair closer and laid the book on the bed. "The sister told me you wouldn't because of the fever," he said, but he sounded faintly angry at Dunworthy, as if it were his fault. "She wouldn't let me in to see you and she wouldn't tell me anything. I think that's completely unfair. They make you sit in a waiting room, and they keep telling you to go home, there's nothing you can do here, and when you ask questions, they say, 'The doctor will be with you in a moment,' and won't tell you anything. They treat you like a child. I mean, you have to find out sometime, don't you? Do you know what Sister did this morning? She chucked me out. She said, 'Mr. Dunworthy's been very ill. I don't want you to upset him.' As if I would."

He looked indignant, but at the same time tired, worried. Dunworthy thought of him haunting the corridors and sitting in the waiting room, waiting for news. No wonder he looked older.

"And just now Mrs. Gaddson said I was only to tell you good news because bad news would very likely make you have a relapse and die and it would be my fault."

"Mrs. Gaddson's still keeping up morale, I see," Dunworthy said. He smiled at Colin. "I don't suppose there's any chance of her coming down with the virus?"

Colin looked astonished. "The epidemic's stopped," he said. "They're lifting the quarantine next week."

The analogue had arrived, then, after all Mary's pleading. He wondered if it had come in time to help Badri, and then wondered if that was the bad news Mrs. Gaddson didn't want told. I have already been told the bad news, he thought. The fix is lost, and Kivrin is in 1348.

"Tell me some good news," he said.

"Well, nobody's fallen ill for two days," Colin said, "and the supplies finally came through, so we've something decent to eat."

"You've got some new clothes as well, I see."

Colin glanced down at the green jacket. "This is one of the Christmas presents from my mother. She sent them after — " He stopped and frowned. "She sent me some vids, and a set of face plasters as well."

Dunworthy wondered if she had waited till after the epidemic was effectively over before bothering to ship Colin's gifts, and what Mary had had to say about it.

"See," Colin said, standing up. "The jacket strips up automatically. You just touch the button, like this. You won't have to tell me to strip it up anymore."

The sister came rustling in. "Did he wake you up?" she demanded.

"I told you so," Colin muttered. "I didn't, Sister. I was so quiet you couldn't even hear me turn the pages."

"He didn't wake me up, and he's not bothering me," Dunworthy said before she could ask her next question. "He's telling me only good news."

"You shouldn't be telling Mr. Dunworthy anything. He must rest," she said and hung a bag of clear liquid on the drip. "Mr. Dunworthy is still too ill to be bothered with visitors." She hustled Colin out of the room.

"If you're so worried over visitors, why don't you stop Mrs. Gaddson reading Scripture to him?" Colin protested. "She'd make anybody ill." He stopped short at the door, glaring at the sister. "I'll be back tomorrow. Is there anything you'd like?"

"How is Badri?" Dunworthy asked and braced himself for the answer.

"Better," Colin said. "He was almost well, but he had a relapse. He's a good deal better now, though. He wants to see you."

"No," Dunworthy said, but the sister had already shut the door.

"It's not Badri's fault," Mary had said, and of course it wasn't. Disorientation was one of the Early Symptoms. He thought of himself, unable to punch in Andrews' number, of Ms. Piantini making mistake after mistake on the handbells, murmuring, "Sorry," over and over.

"Sorry," he murmured. It had not been Badri's fault. It was his. He had been so worried about the apprentice's calculations that he had infected Badri with his fears, so worried that Badri had decided to refeed the coordinates.

Colin had left his book lying on the bed. Dunworthy pulled it toward him. It seemed impossibly heavy, so heavy his arm shook with the effort of holding it open, but he propped that side against the rail and turned the pages, almost unreadable from the angle he was lying at, till he found what he was looking for.

The Black Death had hit Oxford at Christmas, shutting down the universities and causing those who were able to flee to the surrounding villages, carrying the plague with them. Those who couldn't died in the thousands, so many there were "none left to keep possession or make up a competent number to bury the dead." And the few who were left barricaded themselves inside the colleges, hiding, and looking for someone to blame.

He fell asleep with his spectacles on, but when the nurse removed them, he woke. It was William's nurse, and she smiled at him.

"Sorry," she said, putting them in the drawer. "I didn't mean to wake you."

Dunworthy squinted at her. "Colin says the epidemic's over."

"Yes," she said, looking at the screens behind him. "They found the source of the virus and got the analogue all at the same time, and only just in time. Probability was projecting an 85 per cent morbidity rate with 32 per cent mortality even with antibiotics and T-cell enhancement, and that was without adding in the supply shortages and so many of the staff being down. As it was, we had nearly 19 per cent mortality and a good number of the cases are still critical."

She picked up his wrist and looked at the screen behind his head. "Your fever's down a bit," she said. "You're very lucky, you know. The analogue didn't work on anyone already infected. Dr. Ahrens — " she said, and then stopped. He wondered what Mary had said. That he would pack it in. "You're very lucky," she said again. "Now try to sleep."

He slept, and when he woke again, Mrs. Gaddson was standing over him, poised for attack with her Bible.

"'He will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt,'" she said as soon as he had opened his eyes. "'Also every sickness and every plague, until thou be destroyed.'"

"'And ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy,'" Dunworthy murmured.

"What?" Mrs. Gaddson demanded.

"Nothing."

She had lost her place. She flipped back and forth through the pages, searching for pestilences, and began reading. "'…Because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world."

God would never have sent him if He'd known what would happen, Dunworthy thought. Herod and the slaughter of the innocents and Gethsemane.

"Read to me from Matthew," he said. "Chapter 26, verse 39."

Mrs. Gaddson stopped, looking irritated, and then leafed through the pages to Matthew. "'And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.'"

God didn't know where he was, Dunworthy thought. He had sent his only begotten Son into the world, and something had gone wrong with the fix, someone had turned off the net, so that He couldn't get to him, and they had arrested him and put a crown of thorns on his head and nailed him to a cross.

"Chapter 27," he said. "Verse 46."

She pursed her lips and turned the page. "I really do not feel these are appropriate Scriptures for — "

"Read it," he said.

"'And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'"

Kivrin would have no idea what had happened. She would think she had the wrong place or the wrong time, that she had lost count of the days somehow during the plague, that something had gone wrong with the drop. She would think they had forsaken her.

"Well?" Mrs. Gaddson said. "Any other requests?"

"No."

Mrs. Gaddson flipped back to the Old Testament. "'For they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence,'" she read. "'He that is far off shall die of the pestilence.'"

In spite of everything, he slept, waking finally to something that was not endless afternoon. It was still raining, but there were shadows in the room and the bells were chiming four o'clock. William's nurse helped him to the lavatory. The book had gone, and he wondered if Colin had come back without his remembering, but when the nurse opened the door of the bedstand for his slippers, he saw it lying there. He asked the nurse to crank his bed to sitting, and when she had gone he put on his spectacles and took the book out again.

The plague had spread so randomly, so viciously, the contemps had been unable to believe it was a natural disease. They had accused lepers and Jews and the mentally impaired of poisoning wells and putting curses on them. Anyone strange, anyone foreign was immediately suspected. In Sussex they had stoned two travellers to death. In Yorkshire they had burnt a young woman at the stake.

"So that's where it got to," Colin said, coming into the room. "I thought I'd lost it."

He was wearing his green jacket and was very wet. "I had to carry the handbell cases over to Holy Re-formed for Ms. Taylor, and it's absolutely pouring."

Relief washed over him at the mention of Ms. Taylor's name, and he realized he had not asked after any of the detainees for fear it would be bad news.

"Is Ms. Taylor all right then?"

Colin touched the bottom of his jacket, and it sprang open, spraying water everywhere. "Yes. They're doing some bell thing at Holy Re-Formed on the fifteenth." He leaned around so he could see what Dunworthy was reading.

Dunworthy shut the book and handed it to him. "And the rest of the bellringers? Ms. Piantini?"

Colin nodded. "She's still in hospital. She's so thin you wouldn't know her." He opened the book. "You were reading about the Black Death, weren't you?"

"Yes," Dunworthy said. "Mr. Finch didn't come down with the virus, did he?"

"No. He's been filling in as tenor for Ms. Piantini. He's very upset. We didn't get any lavatory paper in the shipment from London, and he says we're nearly out. He had a fight with The Gallstone over it." He laid the book back on the bed. "What's going to happen to your girl?"

"I don't know," Dunworthy said.

"Isn't there anything you can do to get her out?"

"No."

"The Black Death was terrible," Colin said. "So many people died they didn't even bury them. They just left them lying in big heaps."

"I can't get to her, Colin. We lost the fix when Gilchrist shut the net down."

"I know, but isn't there something we can do?"

"No."

"But — "

"I intend to speak to your doctor about restricting your visitors," the sister said sternly, removing Colin by the collar of his jacket.

"Then begin by restricting Mrs. Gaddson," Dunworthy said. "and tell Mary I want to see her."

Mary did not come, but Montoya did, obviously fresh from the dig. She was mud to the knees, and her curly hair was gray with it. Colin came with her, and his green jacket was thoroughly bespattered.

"We had to sneak in when she wasn't looking," Colin said.

Montoya had lost a good deal of weight. Her hands on the bed rail were very thin, and the digital on her wrist was loose.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Better," he lied, looking at her hands. There was mud under her fingernails. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," she said.

She must have gone directly to the dig to look for the corder as soon as they released her from hospital. And now she had come directly here.

"She's dead, isn't she?" he said.

Her hands took hold of the rail, let go of it. "Yes."

Kivrin had been in the right place, after all. The locationals had been shifted by only a few kilometers, a few meters, and she had managed to find the Oxford-Bath road, she had found Skendgate. And died in it, a victim of the influenza she had caught before she went. Or of starvation after the plague, or of despair. She had been dead seven hundred years.

"You found it then," he said, and it was not a question.

"Found what?" Colin said.

"Kivrin's corder."

"No," Montoya said.

He felt no relief. "But you will," he said.

Her hands shook a little, holding the rail. "She asked me to," she said. "The day of the drop. She was the one who suggested the corder look like a bone spur, so the record would survive even if she didn't. 'Mr. Dunworthy's worried over nothing,' she said, 'but if something should go wrong, I'll try to be buried in the churchyard so you,'" her voice faltered, "'so you won't have to dig up half of England.'"

Dunworthy closed his eyes.

"But you don't know that she's dead, if you haven't found the corder," Colin burst out. "You said you didn't even know where she was. How can you be sure she's dead?"

"We've been conducting experiments with laboratory rats at the dig. Only a quarter of an hour's exposure to the virus is required for infection. Kivrin was directly exposed to the tomb for over three hours. There's a 75 per cent chance she contracted the virus, and with the limited med support available in the fourteenth century, she's almost certain to have developed complications."

Limited med support. It was a century that had dosed people with leeches and powdered rubies, that had never heard of sterilization or germs or T-cells. They would have stuck filthy poultices on her and muttered prayers and opened her veins. "And the doctors bled them," Colin's book had said, "but many died in despite."

"Without antibiotics and T-cell enhancement," Montoya said, the virus's mortality rate is forty-nine per cent. Probability — "

"Probability," Dunworthy said bitterly. "Are these Gilchrist's figures?"

Montoya glanced at Colin and frowned. "There is a 75 per cent chance Kivrin contracted the virus, and a 68 per cent chance she was exposed to the plague. Morbidity for bubonic plague is 91 per cent, and the mortality rate is — "

"She didn't get the plague," Dunworthy said. "She'd had her plague inoculation. Didn't Dr. Ahrens or Gilchrist tell you that?"

Montoya glanced at Colin again.

"They said I wasn't allowed to tell him," Colin said, looking defiantly at her.

"Tell me what? Is Gilchrist ill?" He remembered looking at the screens and then collapsing forward into Gilchrist's arms. He wondered if he had infected him when he fell.

Montoya said, "Mr. Gilchrist died of the flu three days ago."

Dunworthy looked at Colin. "What else did they instruct you to keep from me?" Dunworthy demanded. "Who else died while I was ill?"

Montoya put up her thin hand as if to stop Colin, but it was too late.

"Great-Aunt Mary," Colin said.

Maisry's run away. Roche and I looked everywhere for her, afraid she'd gallen and crawled into some corner, but the steward said he saw her starting into the woods while he was digging Walthef's grave. She was riding Agnes's pony.

She will only spread it, or make it as far as some village that already has it. It's all around us now. The bells sound like vespers, only out of rhythm, as if the ringers had gone mad. It's impossible to make out whether it is nine strokes or three. Courcy's double bells tolled a single stroke this morning. I wonder if it is one of the chattering girls who played with Rosemund.

She is still unconscious, and her pulse is very weak. Agnes screams and struggles in her delirium. She keeps shrieking for me to come, but she won't let me near her. When I try to talk to her, she kicks and screams as if she were having a tantrum.

Eliwys is wearing herself out trying to tend Agnes and Lady Imeyne, who screams, "Devil!" at me when I tend her and nearly gave me a black eye this morning. The only one who lets me near him is the clerk, who is beyond caring. He cannot possibly last the day. He smells so bad we've had to move him to the far end of the room. His bubo has started to suppurate again.

Gunni, second son of the steward.

The woman with the scrofula scars on her neck.

Maisry's brother.

Roche's altarboy, Cob.

Lady Imeyne is very bad. Roche tried to give her the last rites, but she refused to make her confession.

"You must make your peace with God ere you die," Roche said, but she turned her face to the wall and said, "He is to blame for this."

Thirty-one cases. Over seventy-five per cent. Roche consecrated part of the green this morning because the churchyard is nearly full.

Maisry hasn't come back. She's probably sleeping in the high seat of some manor house the inhabitants have fled, and when this is all over she'll become the ancestor of some noble old family.

Perhaps that's what's wrong with our time, Mr. Dunworthy, it was founded by Maisry and Sir Bloet. And all the people who stayed and tried to help, like Roche, caught the plague and died.

Lady Imeyne is unconscious and Roche is giving her the last rites. I told him to.

"It is the disease that speaks. Her soul has not turned against God," I said, which isn't true, and perhaps she does not deserve forgiveness, but she does not deserve this either, her body poisoned, rotting, and I can scarcely condemn her for blaming God when I blame her. And neither is responsible. It's a disease.

The consecrated wine has run out, and there is no more olive oil. Roche is using cooking oil from the kitchen. It smells rancid. Where he touches her temples and the palms of her hands, the skin turns black.

It's a disease.

Agnes is worse. It's terrible to watch her, lying there panting like her poor puppy and screaming, "Tell Kivrin to come and get me. I do not like it here!"

Even Roche can't stand it. "Why does God punish us thus?" he asked me.

"He doesn't. It's a disease," I said, which is no answer, and he knows it.

All of Europe knows it, and the Church knows it, too. It will hang on for a few more centuries, making excuses, but it can't overcome the essential fact — that He let it happen. That He comes to no one's rescue.

The bells have stopped. Roche asked me if I thought it was a sign the plague had stopped. "Perhaps God has come to help us after all," he said.

I don't think so. In Tournai church officials sent out an order stopping the bells because the sound frightened the people. Perhaps the Bishop of Bath has sent one out as well.

The sound was frightening, but the silence is worse. It's like the end of the world.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Mary had been dead almost the entire time he had been ill. She had come down with it the day the analogue arrived. She had developed pneumonia almost immediately, and on the second day her heart had stopped. The sixth of January. Epiphany.

"You should have told me," Dunworthy had said.

"I did tell you. Don't you remember?"

He had no memory of it at all, had had no warning even when Mrs. Gaddson was allowed free access to his room, when Colin had said, "They won't tell you anything." It had not even struck him as odd that she hadn't come to see him.

"I told you when she got ill," Colin had said, "and I told you when she died, but you were too ill to care."

He thought of Colin waiting outside her room for news and then coming and standing by his bedside, trying to tell him. "I'm sorry, Colin."

"You couldn't help it that you were ill," Colin said. "It wasn't your fault."

He had told Ms. Taylor that, and she had not believed him any more than he believed Colin now. He did not think that Colin believed it either.

"It was all right," Colin said. "Everyone was very nice except Sister. She wouldn't let me tell you even after you started getting better, but everyone else was nice except the Gallstone. She kept reading me Scriptures about how God strikes down the unrighteous. Mr. Finch rang my mother, but she couldn't come, and so he made all the funeral arrangements. He was very nice. The Americans were nice, too. They kept giving me sweets.

"I'm sorry," Dunworthy had said then and after Colin had gone, expelled by the ancient sister. "I'm sorry."

He had not been back, and Dunworthy didn't know whether the nurse had barred him from the infirmary or whether, in spite of what he said, Colin would not forgive him.

He had abandoned Colin, gone off and left him at the mercy of Mrs. Gadsson and the sister and doctors who would not tell him anything. He had gone where he could not be reached, as incommunicado as Basingame, salmon fishing on some river in Scotland. And no matter what Colin said, he believed that if Dunworthy had truly wanted to, illness or no, he could have been there to help him.

"You think Kivrin's dead, too, don't you?" Colin had asked him after Montoya left. "Like Ms. Montoya does?"

"I'm afraid so."

"But you said she couldn't get the plague. What if she's not dead? What if she's at the rendezvous right now, waiting for you?"

"She'd been infected with influenza, Colin."

"But so were you, and you didn't die. Maybe she didn't die either. I think you should go see Badri and see if he has any ideas. Maybe he could turn the machine on again or something."

"You don't understand," he'd said. "It's not like a pocket torch. The fix can't be switched on again."

"Well, but maybe he could do another one. A new fix. To the same time."

To the same time. A drop, even with the coordinates already known, took days to set up. And Badri didn't have the coordinates. He only had the date. He could "make" a new set of coordinates based on the date, if the locationals had stayed the same, if Badri in his fever hadn't scrambled them as well and if the paradoxes would allow a second drop at all.

There was no way to explain it all to Colin, no way to tell him Kivrin could not possibly have survived influenza in a century where the standard treatment was blood-letting. "It won't work, Colin," he'd said, suddenly too tired to explain anything. "I'm sorry."

"So you're just going to leave her there? Whether she's dead or not? You're not even going to talk to Badri?"

"Colin — "

"Aunt Mary did everything for you. She didn't give up!"

"What is going on in here?" the sister had demanded, creaking in. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave if you persist in upsetting the patient."

"I was leaving anyway," Colin had said and flung himself out.

He hadn't come back that afternoon or all evening or the next morning.

"Am I being allowed visitors?" Dunworthy asked William's nurse when she came on duty.

"Yes," she said, looking at the screens. "There's someone waiting to see you now."

It was Mrs. Gaddson. She already had her Bible open.

"Luke Chapter 23:23," she said, glaring pestilentiallly at him. "Since you're so interested in the Crucifixion. 'And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him.'"

If God had known where His Son was, He would never have let them do that to him, Dunworthy thought. He would have pulled him out, He would have come and rescued him.

During the Black Death, the contemps believed God had abandoned them. "Why do you turn your face from us?" they had written. "Why do you ignore our cries?" But perhaps He hadn't heard them. Perhaps He had been unconscious, lying ill in heaven, helpless Himself and unable to come.

"'And there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour,'" Mrs. Gaddson read, "'and the sun was darkened…'"

The contemps had believed it was the end of the world, that Armageddon had come, that Satan had triumphed at last. He had, Dunworthy thought. He had closed the net. He had lost the fix.

He thought about Gilchrist. He wondered if he had realized what he had done before he died or if he had lain unconscious and oblivious, unaware that he had murdered Kivrin.

"'And Jesus led them out as far as to Bethany,'" Mrs. Gaddson read, "'and he lifted up his hands and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and was carried up into heaven.'"

He was parted from them, and was carried up into heaven. God did come to get him, Dunworthy thought. But too late. Too late.

She went on reading until William's nurse came on duty. "Naptime," she said briskly, shoving Mrs. Gaddson out. She came over to the bed, snatched his pillow from under his head, and gave it several sharp whacks.

"Has Colin come?" he asked.

"I haven't seen him since yesterday," she said, pushing the pillow back under his head. "I want you to try to go to sleep now."

"Ms. Montoya hasn't been here?"

"Not since yesterday." She handed him a capsule and a paper cup.

"Have there been any messages?"

"No messages," she said. She took the empty cup from him. "Try to sleep."

No messages. "I'll try to be buried in the churchyard," Kivrin had told Montoya, but they'd run out of room in the churchyards. They had buried the plague victims in trenches, in ditches. They had thrown them in the river. Towards the end they hadn't buried them at all. They had piled them in heaps and set fire to them.

Montoya would never find the corder. And if she did, what would the message be? "I went to the drop, but it didn't open. What happened?" Kivrin's voice rising in panic, in reproach, crying, "Eloi, eloi, why hast thou forsaken me?"

William's nurse made him sit up in a chair to eat his lunch. While he was finishing his stewed prunes, Finch came in.

"We're nearly out of tinned fruit," he said, pointing at Dunworthy's tray. "And lavatory paper. I have no idea how they expect us to start term." He sat down on the end of the bed. "The university's set the start of term for the twenty-fifth, but we simply can't be ready by them. We still have fifteen patients in Salvin, the mass immunizations have scarcely started, and I'm not at all convinced we've seen the last of the flu cases."

"What about Colin?" Dunworthy said. "Is he all right."

"Yes, sir. He was a bit melancholy after Dr. Ahrens passed away, but he's cheered up a good deal since you've been on the mend."

"I want to thank you for helping him," Dunworthy said. "Colin told me you'd arranged for the funeral."

"Oh, I was glad to help, sir. He'd no one else, you know. I was certain his mother would come now that the danger's past, but she said it was too difficult to make arrangements on such short notice. She did send lovely flowers. Lilies and laser blossoms. We held the service in Balliol's chapel." He shifted on the bed. "Oh, and speaking of the chapel, I do hope you don't mind, but I've given permission to Holy Re-Formed to use it for a handbell concert on the fifteenth. The American bellringers are going to perform Rimbaud's "When At Last My Savior Cometh," and Holy Re-Formed's been requisitioned by the NHS as an immunization center. I do hope that's all right."

"Yes," Dunworthy said, thinking about Mary. He wondered when they had had the funeral, and if they had rung the bell afterwards.

"I can tell them you'd rather they used St. Mary's," Finch said anxiously.

"No, of course not," Dunworthy said. "The chapel's perfectly all right. You've obviously been doing a fine job in my absence."

"Well, I try, sir. It's difficult, with Mrs. Gaddson." He stood up. "I don't want to keep you from your rest. If there's anything I can bring you, anything I can do?"

"No," Dunworthy said, "there's nothing you can do."

He started for the door and then stopped. "I hope you'll accept my condolences, Mr. Dunworthy," he said, looking uncomfortable. "I know how close you and Dr. Ahrens were."

Close, he thought after Finch was gone. I wasn't close at all. He tried to remember Mary leaning over him, giving him his temp, looking up anxiously at the screens, to remember Colin standing by his bed in his new jacket and his muffler, saying, "Aunt Mary's dead. Dead. Can't you hear me?" but there was no memory there at all. Nothing.

The sister came in and hooked up another drip that put him out, and when he woke he felt abruptly better.

"It's your T-cell enhancement taking hold," William's nurse told him. "We've been seeing it in a good number of cases. Some of them make miraculous recoveries."

She made him walk to the toilet, and, after lunch, down the corridor. "The farther you can go, the better," she said, kneeling to put his slippers on.

I'm not going anywhere, he thought. Gilchrist shut down the net.

She strapped his drip bag to his shoulder, hooked the portable motor to it, and helped him on with his robe. "You mustn't worry about the depression," she said, helping him out of bed. "It's a common symptom after influenza. It will fade as soon as your chemical balance is restored."

She walked him out into the corridor. "You might want to visit some of your friends," she said. "There are two patients from Balliol in the ward at the end of the corridor. Ms. Piantini's the fourth bed. She could do with a bit of cheering."

"Did Mr. Latimer — " he said, and stopped. "Is Mr. Latimer still a patient?"

"Yes," she said, and he could tell from her voice that Latimer hadn't recovered from his stroke. "He's two doors down."

He shuffled down the corridor to Latimer's room. He hadn't gone to see Latimer after he fell ill, first because of having to wait for Andrews' call and then because the infirmary had run out of SPG's. Mary had said he had suffered complete paralysis and loss of function.

He pushed open the door to Latimer's room. Latimer lay with his arms at his sides, the left one crooked slightly to accommodate the hookups and the drip. There were tubes in his nose and down his throat, and opfibers leading from his head and chest to the screens above the bed. His face was half-obscured by them, but he gave no sign that they bothered him.

"Latimer?" he said, going to stand beside the bed.

There was no indication he'd heard. His eyes were open, but they didn't shift at the sound, and his face under the tangle of tubes didn't change. He looked vague, distant, as if he were trying to remember a line from Chaucer.

"Mr. Latimer," he said more loudly, and looked up at the screens. They didn't change either.

He's not aware of anything, Dunworthy thought. He put his hand on the back of the chair. "You don't know anything that's happened, do you?" he said. "Mary's dead. Kivrin's in 1348," he said, watching the screens, "and you don't even know. Gilchrist shut down the net."

The screens didn't change. The lines continued to move steadily, unconcernedly across the displays.

"You and Gilchrist sent her into the Black Death," he shouted, "and you lie there — " He stopped and sank down in the chair.

"I tried to tell you Great-Aunt Mary was dead," Colin had said, "but you were too ill." Colin had tried to tell him, but he had lain there, like Latimer, unconcerned, oblivious.

Colin will never forgive me, he thought. Any more than he'll forgive his mother for not coming to the funeral. What had Finch said, that it was too difficult to make arrangements on such short notice? He thought of Colin alone at the funeral, looking at the lilies and laser blossoms his mother had sent, at the mercy of Mrs. Gaddson and the bellringers.

"My mother couldn't come," Colin had said, but he didn't believe that. Of course she could have come, if she had truly wanted to.

He will never forgive me, he thought. And neither will Kivrin. She's older than Colin, she'll imagine all sorts of extenuating circumstances, perhaps even the true one. But in her heart, left to the mercy of who knows what cutthroats and thieves and pestilences, she will not believe I could not have come to get her. If I had truly wanted to.

Dunworthy stood up with difficulty, holding onto the seat and the back of the chair and not looking at Latimer or the displays, and went back out into the corridor. There was an empty stretcher trolley against the wall, and he leaned against it for a moment.

Mrs. Gaddson came out of the ward. "There you are, Mr. Dunworthy," she said. "I was just coming to read to you." She opened her Bible. "Should you be up?"

"Yes," he said.

"Well, I must say, I'm glad you're recovering at last. Things have simply fallen apart while you've been ill."

"Yes," he said.

"You really must do something about Mr. Finch, you know. He allows the Americans to practice their bells at all hours of the day and night, and when I complained to him about it he was quite rude. And he assigned my Willie nursing duties. Nursing duties! When Willie's always been susceptible to illness. It's been a miracle that he didn't come down with the virus before this."

It very definitely has been, thought Dunworthy, considering the number of very probably infectious young women he had had contact with during the epidemic. He wondered what odds Probability would give on his remaining unscathed.

"And then for Mr. Finch to assign him nursing duties!" Mrs. Gadsson was saying. "I didn't allow it, of course. 'I refuse to let you endanger Willie's health in this irresponsible manner,' I told him. 'I can not stand idly by when my child is in mortal danger,' I said."

"I must go see Ms. Piantini," Dunworthy said.

"You should go back to bed. You look quite dreadful." She shook the Bible at him. "It's scandalous the way they run this infirmary. Allowing their patients to go gadding about. You'll have a relapse and die, and you'll have no one but yourself to blame."

"No," Dunworthy said, pushed open the door into the ward, and went inside.

He had expected the ward to be nearly empty, the patients all sent home, but every bed was full. Most of the patients were sitting up, reading or watching portable vidders, and one was sitting in a wheelchair beside his bed, looking out at the rain.

It took Dunworthy a moment to recognize him. Colin had said he'd had a relapse, but he had not expected this. He looked like an old man, his dark face pinched to whiteness under the eyes and in long lines down the sides of the mouth. His hair had gone completely white. "Badri," he said.

He turned around. "Mr. Dunworthy."

"I didn't know that you were in this ward," Dunworthy said.

"They moved me here after — " he stopped. "I heard that you were better."

"Yes."

I can't bear this, Dunworthy thought. How are you feeling? Better, thank you. And you? Much improved. Of course there is the depression, but that is a normal post-viral symptom.

Badri wheeled his chair round to face the window, and Dunworthy wondered if he could not bear it either.

"I made an error in the coordinates when I refed them," Badri said, looking out at the rain. "I fed in the wrong data."

He should say, You were ill, you had a fever. He should tell him mental confusion was an Early Symptom. He should say, It was not your fault.

"I didn't realize I was ill," Badri said, picking at his robe as he had plucked at the sheet in his delirium. "I'd had a headache all morning, but I put it down to working the net. I should have realized something was wrong and aborted the drop."

And I should have refused to tutor her, I should have insisted Gilchrist run parameter checks, I should have made him open the net as soon as you said there was something wrong.

"I should have opened the net the day you fell ill and not waited for the rendezvous," Badri said, twisting the sash between his fingers. "I should have opened it immediately."

Dunworthy glanced automatically at the wall above Badri's head, but there were no screens above the bed. Badri was not even wearing a temp patch. He wondered if it were possible that Badri didn't know Gilchrist had shut down the net, if in their concern for his recovery they had kept it from Badri as they had kept the news of Mary's death from him.

"They refused to discharge me from hospital," Badri said. "I should have forced them to let me go."

I shall have to tell him, Dunworthy thought, but he didn't. He stood there silently, watching Badri torture the sash into wrinkles, and feeling infinitely sorry for him.

"Ms. Montoya showed me the Probability statistics," Badri said. "Do you think Kivrin's dead?"

I hope so, he thought. I hope she died of the virus before she realized where she was. Before she realized we had left her there. "It was not your fault," he said.

"I was only two days late opening the net. I was certain she'd be there waiting. I was only two days late."

"What?" Dunworthy said.

"I tried to get permission to leave hospital on the sixth, but they refused to discharge me until the eighth. I got the net open as soon as I could, but she wasn't there."

"What are you talking about?" Dunworthy said. "How could you open the net? Gilchrist shut it down."

Badri looked up at him. "We used the backup."

"What backup?"

"The fix I did on our net," Badri said, sounding bewildered. "You were so worried about the way Mediaeval was running the drop, I decided I'd better put on a backup, in case something went wrong. I came to Balliol to ask you about it Tuesday afternoon, but you weren't there. I left you a note saying I needed to talk to you."

"A note," Dunworthy said.

"The laboratory was open. I ran a redundant fix through Balliol's net," Badri said. "You were so worried."

The strength seemed suddenly to go out of Dunworthy's legs. He sat down on the bed.

"I tried to tell you," Badri said, "but I was too ill to make myself understood."

There had been a backup all along. He had wasted days and days trying to force Gilchrist to unlock the laboratory, searching for Basingame, waiting for Polly Wilson to contrive a way into the University's computer, and all the while the fix had been in the net at Balliol. "So worried," Badri had said through his delirium. "Is the laboratory open?" "Back up," he had said. Backup.

"Can you open the net again?"

"Of course, but even if she hasn't contracted the plague — "

"She hasn't," Dunworthy cut in. "She was immunized."

" — she wouldn't still be there. It's been eight days since the rendezvous. She couldn't have waited there all this time."

"Can someone else go through?"

"Someone else?" Badri said blankly.

"To look for her. Could someone else use the same drop to go through?"

"I don't know."

"How long would it take you to set it up so we could try it?"

"Two hours at the most. The temporals and locationals are already set, but I don't know how much slippage there'd be."

The door to the ward burst open and Colin came in. "There you are," he said. "The nurse said you'd taken a walk, but I couldn't find you anywhere. I thought you'd got lost."

"No," Dunworthy said, looking at Badri.

"She said I'm to bring you back," Colin said, taking hold of Dunworthy's arm and helping him up, "that you're not to overdo." He herded him toward the door.

Dunworthy stopped at the door. "Which net did you use when you opened the net on the eighth?" he said to Badri.

"Balliol's," he said. "I was afraid part of the permanent memory had been erased when Brasenose's was shut down, and there was no time to run a damage assessment routine."

Colin backed the door open. "The sister comes on duty in half an hour. You don't want her to find you up." He let the door swing shut. "I'm sorry I wasn't back sooner, but I had to take immunization schedules out to Godstow."

Dunworthy leaned against the door. There might be too much slippage, and the tech was in a wheelchair, and he was not sure he could walk as far as the end of the corridor, let alone back to his room. So worried. He had thought Badri meant, You were so worried I decided to refeed the coordinates, but he had meant, I put on a backup. A backup.

"Are you all right?" Colin asked. "You're not having a relapse or anything, are you?

"No," he said.

"Did you ask Mr. Chaudhuri if he could redo the fix?"

"No," he said. "There was a backup."

"A backup?" he said excitedly. "You mean, another fix?"

"Yes."

"Does that mean you can rescue her?"

He stopped and leaned against the stretcher trolley. "I don't know."

"I'll help you," Colin said. "What do you want me to do? I'll do anything you say. I can run errands, and fetch things for you. You won't have to do a thing."

"It might not work," Dunworthy said. "The slippage…"

"But you're going to try, aren't you? Aren't you?"

A band tightened round his chest with every step, and Badri had already had one relapse, and even if they managed it, the net might not send him through.

"Yes," he said. "I'm going to try."

"Apocalyptic!" Colin said.

Lady Imeyne, mother of Guillaume D'Iverie.

Rosemund is sinking. I can't feel the pulse in her wrist at all, and her skin looks yellow and waxen, which I know is a bad sign. Agnes is fighting hard. She still doesn't have any buboes or vomiting, which is a good sign, I think. Eliwys had to cut off her hair. She kept pulling at it, screaming for me to come and braid it.

Roche has anointed Rosemund. She couldn't make a confession, of course. Agnes seems better, though she had a nosebleed a little while ago. She asked for her bell.

You bastard! I will not let you take her. She's only a child. But that's your specialty, isn't it? Slaughtering the innocents? You've already killed the steward's baby and Agnes's puppy and the boy who went for help when I was in the hut, and that's enough. I won't let you kill her, too, you son of a bitch! I won't let you!

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Agnes died the day after New Year's, still screaming for Kivrin to come.

"She is here," Eliwys said, squeezing her hand. "Lady Katherine is here."

"She is not," Agnes wailed, her voice hoarse but still strong. "Tell her to come!"

"I will," Eliwys promised, and then looked up at Kivrin, her expression faintly puzzled. "Go and fetch Father Roche," she said.

"What is it?" Kivrin asked. He had administered the last rites that first night, Agnes flailing and kicking at him as if she were having a tantrum, and since then she had refused to let him near her. "Are you ill, lady?"

Eliwys shook her head, still looking at Kivrin. "What will I tell my husband when he comes?" she said, and laid Agnes's hand along her side, and it was only then that Kivrin realized she was dead.

Kivrin washed her little body, which was nearly covered with purplish-blue bruises. Where Eliwys had held her hand, the skin was completely black. She looked like she had been beaten. As she has, Kivrin thought, beaten and tortured. And murdered. The slaughter of the innocents.

Agnes's surcote and shift were ruined, a stiffened mass of blood and vomit, and her everyday linen shift had long since been torn into strips. Kivrin wrapped her body in her white cloak, and Roche and the steward buried her.

Eliwys did not come. "I must stay with Rosemund," she said when Kivrin told her it was time. There was nothing she could do for Rosemund — the girl still lay as still as if she were under a spell , and Kivrin thought the fever must have caused some brain damage. "And Gawyn may come," Eliwys said.

It was very cold. Roche and the steward puffed out great clouds of condensation as they lowered Agnes into the grave, and the sight of their white breath infuriated Kivrin. She doesn't weigh anything, she thought bitterly, you could carry her in one hand.

The sight of all the graves angered her, too. The churchyard was filled, and nearly all the rest of the green that Roche had consecrated. Lady Imeyne's grave was almost in the path to the lychgate, and the steward's baby did not have one — Father Roche had let it be buried at its mother's feet though it had been baptized — and the churchyard was still full.

What about the steward's youngest son, Kivrin thought angrily, and the clerk? Where do you plan to put them? The Black Death was only supposed to have killed one-third to one- half of Europe. Not all of it.

"Requiescat in pace, Amen," Roche said, and the steward began shoveling the frozen dirt onto the little bundle.

You were right, Mr. Dunworthy, she thought bitterly. White only gets dirty. You're right about everything, aren't you? You told me not to come, that terrible things would happen. Well, they have. And you can't wait to tell me I told you so. But you won't have that satisfaction because I don't know where the drop is, and the only person who does is probably dead.

She didn't wait for the steward to finish shovelling dirt down on Agnes or for Father Roche to complete his chummy little chat with God. She started across the green, furious with all of them: with the steward for standing there with his spade, eager to dig more graves, with Eliwys for not coming, with Gawyn for not coming. No one's coming, she thought. No one.

"Katherine," Roche called.

She turned, and he half-ran up to her, his breath like a cloud around him.

"What is it?" she demanded.

He looked at her solemnly. "We must not give up hope," he said.

"Why not?" she burst out. "We're up to eighty-five per cent, and we haven't even gotten started. The clerk is dying, Rosemund's dying, you've all been exposed. Why shouldn't I give up hope?"

"God has not abandoned us utterly," he said. "Agnes is safe in His arms."

Safe, she thought bitterly. In the ground. In the cold. In the dark. She put her hands up to her face.

"She is in heaven, where the plague cannot reach her. And God's love is ever with us," he said, "and naught can separate us from it, neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor things present — "

"Nor things to come," Kivrin said.

"Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature," he said. He put his hand on her shoulder, gently, as if he were anointing her. "It was His love that sent you to help us."

She put her hand up to his where it rested on her shoulder and held it tightly. "We must help each other," she said.

They stood there like that for a long minute, and then Roche said, "I must go and ring the bell that Agnes's soul may have safe passage."

She nodded and took her hand away. "I'll go check on Rosemund and the others," she said and went into the courtyard.

Eliwys had said she needed to stay with Rosemund, but when Kivrin got back to the manor house, she was nowhere near her. She lay curled up on Agnes's pallet, wrapped in her cloak, watching the door. "Perhaps his horse was stolen by those that would flee the pestilence," she said, "and that is why he is so long in coming."

"Agnes is buried," Kivrin said coldly, and went to check on Rosemund.

She was awake. She looked up solemnly at Kivrin when she knelt by her and reached for Kivrin's hand.

"Oh, Rosemund," Kivrin said, tears stinging her nose and eyes. "Sweetheart, how do you feel?"

"Hungry," Rosemund said. "Has my father come?"

"Not yet," Kivrin said, and it even seemed possible that he might. "I will fetch you some broth. You must rest until I come back. You have been very ill."

Rosemund obediently closed her eyes. They looked less sunken, though they still had dark bruises under them. "Where is Agnes?" she asked.

Kivrin smoothed her dark, tangled hair back from her face. "She is sleeping."

"Good," Rosemund said. "I would not have her shouting and playing. She is too noisy."

"I will fetch you the broth," Kivrin said. She went over to Eliwys. "Lady Eliwys, I have good news," she said eagerly. "Rosemund is awake."

Eliwys raised herself up on one elbow and looked at Rosemund, but distractedly, as if she were thinking of something else, and presently she lay down again.

Kivrin, alarmed, put her hand to Eliwys's forehead. It seemed warm, but Kivrin's hands were still cold from outside, and she couldn't tell for certain. "Are you ill?" she asked.

"No," Eliwys said, but still as if her mind were on something else. "What shall I tell him?"

"You can tell him that Rosemund is better," she said, and this time it seemed to get through to her. Eliwys got up and went over to Rosemund and sat down beside her. But by the time Kivrin came back from the kitchen with the broth, she had gone back to Agnes's pallet and lay curled up under the fur-trimmed cloak.

Rosemund was asleep, but it was not the frightening deathlike sleep of before. Her color was better, though her skin was still drawn tightly over her cheekbones.

Eliwys was asleep, too, or feigning sleep, and it was just as well. While she had been in the kitchen, the clerk had crawled off his pallet and halfway over the barricade, and when Kivrin tried to haul him back, he struck out at her wildly. She had to go fetch Father Roche to help subdue him.

His right eye had ulcerated, the plague eating its way out from inside, and the clerk clawed at it viciously with his hands. "Domine Jesu Christe," he swore, "fidelium defunctorium de poenis infermis." Save the souls of the faithful departed from the pains of hell.

Yes, Kivrin prayed, wrestling with his clawed hands, save him now.

She rummaged through Imeyne's medical kit again, searching for something to kill the pain. There was no opium powder, and was the opium poppy even in England yet in 1348? She found a few papery orange scraps that looked a little like poppy petals and steeped them in hot water, but the clerk couldn't drink it. His mouth was a horror of open sores, his teeth and tongue caked with dried blood.

He doesn't deserve this, Kivrin thought. Even if he did bring the plague here. Nobody deserves this. "Please," she prayed, and wasn't sure what she asked.

Whatever it was, it was not granted. The clerk began to vomit a dark bile, streaked with blood, and it snowed for two days, and Eliwys grew steadily worse. It did not seem to be the plague. She had no buboes and she didn't cough or vomit, and Kivrin wondered if it were illness or simply grief or guilt. "What shall I tell him?" Eliwys said over and over again. "He sent us here to keep us safe."

Kivrin felt her forehead. It was warm. They're all going to get it, she thought. Lord Guillaume sent them here to keep them safe, but they're all going to get it, one by one. I have to do something. But she couldn't think of anything. The only protection from the plague was flight, but they had already fled here, and it had not protected them, and they couldn't flee with Rosemund and Eliwys ill.

But Rosemund's getting stronger every day, Kivrin thought, and Eliwys doesn't have the plague. It's only a fever. Perhaps they have another estate where we could go. In the north.

The plague was not in Yorkshire yet. She could see to it that they kept away from the other people on the roads, that they weren't exposed.

She asked Rosemund if they had a manor in Yorkshire. "Nay," Rosemund said, sitting up against one of the benches. "In Dorset," but that was of no use. The plague was already there. And Rosemund, though she was better, was still to weak to sit up for more than a few minutes. She could never ride a horse. If we had horses, Kivrin thought.

"My father had a living in Surrey, also," Rosemund said. "We stayed there when Agnes was born." She looked at Kivrin. "Did Agnes die?"

"Yes," Kivrin said.

She nodded as if she were not surprised. "I heard her screaming."

Kivrin couldn't think of anything to say to that.

"My father is dead, isn't he?"

There was nothing to say to that either. He was almost certainly dead, and Gawyn, too. It had been eight days since he had left for Bath. Eliwys, still feverish, had said this morning, "He will come now that the storm is over," but even she had not seemed to believe it.

"He may yet come," Kivrin said. "The snow may have delayed him."

The steward came in, carrying his spade, and stopped at the barricade in front of them. He had been coming in every day to look at his son, staring at him dumbly over the upturned table, but now he only glanced at him and then turned to stare at Kivrin and Rosemund, leaning on his spade.

His cap and shoulders were covered with snow, and the blade of the spade was wet with it. He has been digging another grave, Kivrin thought. Whose?

"Has someone died?" she asked.

"Nay," he said, and went on looking almost speculatively at Rosemund.

Kivrin stood up. "Did you want something?"

He looked at her blankly, as if he could not comprehend the question, and then back at Rosemund. "No," he said, and picked up the spade and went out.

"Goes he to dig Agnes's grave?" Rosemund asked, looking after him.

"No," Kivrin said gently. "She is already buried in the churchyard."

"Goes he then to dig mine?"

"No," Kivrin said, appalled. "No! You're not going to die. You're getting better. You were very ill, but the worst is over. Now you must rest and try to sleep so you can get well."

Rosemund lay down obediently and closed her eyes, but after a minute she opened them again. "My father being dead, the crown will dispose of my dowry," she said. "Think you Sir Bloet still lives?"

I hope not, Kivrin thought, and then, poor child, has she been worrying about her marriage all this time? Poor little thing. His being dead is the only good to come out of the plague. If he is dead. "You mustn't worry about him now. You must rest and get your strength back."

"The king will sometimes honor a previous betrothal," Rosemund said, her thin hands plucking at the blanket, "if both parties be agreed."

You don't have to agree to anything, Kivrin thought. He's dead. The bishop killed them.

"If they are not agreed, the king will bid me marry who he will," Rosemund said, "and Sir Bloet at least is known to me."

No, Kivrin thought, and knew it was probably the best thing. Rosemund had been conjuring worse horrors than Sir Bloet, monsters and cutthroats, and Kivrin knew they existed.

Rosemund would be sold off to some nobleman the king owed a debt to or whose allegiance he was trying to buy, one of the troublesome supporters of the Black Prince, perhaps, and taken God knew where to God knew what situation.

There were worse things than a leering old man and a shrewish sister-in-law. Baron Garnier had kept his wife in chains for twenty years. The Count of Anjou had burned his alive. And Rosemund would have no family, no friends, to protect her, to tend her when she was ill.

I'll take her away, Kivrin thought suddenly, to somewhere where Bloet can't find her and we'll be safe from the plague.

There was no such place. It was already in Bath and Oxford, and moving south and east to London, and then Kent, north through the Midlands to Yorkshire and back across the channel to Germany and the Low Countries. It had even gone to Norway, floating in on a ship of dead men. There was nowhere that was safe.

"Is Gawyn here?" Rosemund asked, and she sounded like her mother, her grandmother. "I would have him ride to Courcy and tell Sir Bloet that I would come to him."

"Gawyn?" Eliwys said from her pallet. "Is he coming?"

No, Kivrin thought. No one's coming. Not even Mr. Dunworthy.

It didn't matter that she had missed the rendezvous. There would have been no one there. Because they didn't know she was in 1348. If they did, they would never have left her here.

Something must have gone wrong with the net. Mr. Dunworthy had been worried about sending her so far back without slippage checks . "There could be unforeseen complications at that distance," he'd said. Perhaps an unforeseen complication had garbled the fix or made them lose it, and they were looking for her in 1320. I've missed the rendezvous by nearly thirty years, she thought.

"Gawyn?" Eliwys said again and tried to rise from her pallet.

She could not. She was growing steadily worse, though she still had none of the marks of the plague. When it began to snow, she had said, relieved, "He will not come now until the storm is over," and gotten up and gone to sit with Rosemund, but by the afternoon she had to lie down again, and her fever went steadily higher.

Roche heard her confession, looking worn out. They were all worn out. If they sat down to rest, they were asleep in seconds. The steward, coming in to look at his children, had stood at the barricade, snoring, and Kivrin had drowsed off while tending the fire and burned her hand badly.

We can't go on like this, she thought, watching Father Roche making the sign of the cross over Eliwys. He'll die of exhaustion. He'll come down with the plague.

I have to get them away, she thought again. The plague didn't reach everywhere. There were villages that were completely untouched. It had skipped over Poland and Bohemia, and there were parts of northern Scotland it had never reached.

"Agnus dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis," Father Roche said, his voice as comforting as it had been when she was dying, and she knew it was hopeless.

He would never leave his parishioners. The history of the Black Death was full of stories of priests who had abandoned their people, who had refused to perform burials, who had locked themselves in their churches and monasteries and run away. She wondered now if those statistics were inaccurate, too.

And even if she found some way to take them all, Eliwys, turning even now as she made her confession to look at the door, would insist on waiting for Gawyn, for her husband, to come, as she was convinced they would now that the snow had stopped.

"Has Father Roche gone to meet him?" she asked Kivrin when Roche left to take the sacraments back to the church. "He will be here soon. He has no doubt gone first to Courcy to warn them of the plague, and it is only half a day's journey from there." She insisted that Kivrin move her pallet in front of the door.

While Kivrin was rearranging the barricade to keep the draft from the door off her, the clerk cried out suddenly and went into convulsions. His whole body spasmed, as if he were being shocked, and his face became a terrible rictus, his ulcerated eye staring upward.

"Don't do this to him," Kivrin shouted, trying to wedge the spoon from Rosemund's broth between his teeth. "Hasn't he been through enough?"

His body jerked. "Stop it!" Kivrin sobbed. "Stop it!"

His body abruptly slackened. She jammed the spoon between his teeth, and a little trickle of black slime came out of the side of his mouth.

He's dead, she thought, and could not believe it. She looked at him, his ulcerated eye half-open, his face swollen and blackened under the stubble of his beard. His fists were clenched at his sides. He did not look human, lying there, and Kivrin covered his face with a rough blanket, afraid that Rosemund might see him.

"Is he dead?" Rosemund asked, sitting up curiously.

"Yes," Kivrin said. "Thank God." She stood up. "I must go tell Father Roche."

"I would not have you leave me here alone," Rosemund said.

"Your mother is here," Kivrin said, "and the steward's son, and I will only be a few minutes."

"I am afraid," Rosemund said.

So am I, Kivrin thought, looking down at the coarse blanket. He was dead, but even that had not relieved his suffering. He looked still in anguish, still in terror, though his face no longer looked even human. The pains of hell.

"Please do not leave me," Rosemund said.

"I must tell Father Roche," Kivrin said, but she sat down between the clerk and Rosemund and waited until she was asleep before she went to find him.

He wasn't in the courtyard or the kitchen. The steward's cow was in the passage, eating the hay from the bottom of the pig sty, and it ambled after her out onto the green.

The steward was in the churchyard, digging a grave, his chest level with the snowy ground. He already knows, she thought, but that was impossible. Her heart began to pound.

"Where is Father Roche?" she called, but the steward didn't answer or look up. The cow came up beside her and lowed at her.

"Go away," she said, and ran across to the steward.

The grave was not in the churchyard. It lay on the green, past the lychgate, and there were two other graves in a line next to it, the iron-hard dirt piled on the snow beside each one.

"What are you doing?" she demanded. "Whose graves are these?"

The steward flung a spadeful of dirt onto the mound. The frozen clods made a clattering sound like stones.

"Why do you dig three graves?" she said. "Who has died?" The cow nudged her shoulder with its horn. She twisted away from it. "Who has died?"

The steward jabbed the spade into the iron-hard ground. "It is the last days, boy," he said, stepping down hard on the blade, and Kivrin felt a jerk of fear, and then realized he hadn't recognized her in her boy's cloths.

"It's me, Katherine," she said.

He looked up and nodded. "It is the end of time," he said. "Those who have not died, will." He leaned forward putting his whole weight on the spade.

The cow tried to dig its head in under her arm.

"Go away!" she said, and hit it on the nose. It backed away gingerly, skirting the graves, and Kivrin noticed they were not all the same size.

The first was large, but the one next to it was no bigger than Agnes's had been, and the one he stood in did not look much longer. I told Rosemund he wasn't digging her grave, she thought, but he was.

"You have no right to do this!" she said. "Your son and Rosemund are getting better. And Lady Eliwys is only tired and ill with grief. They aren't going to die."

The steward looked up at her, his face as expressionless as when he had stood at the barricade, measuring Rosemund for her grave. "Father Roche says you were sent to help us, but how can you avail against the end of the world?" He stood down on the spade again. "You will have need of these graves. All, all will die."

The cow trotted over to the opposite side of the grave, its face on a level with the steward's, and lowed in his face, but he did not seem to notice it.

"You must not dig any more graves," she said. "I forbid it."

He went on digging, as if he had not noticed her either.

"They're not going to die," she said. "The Black Death only killed one-third to one-half of the contemps. We've already had our quota."

Eliwys died in the night. The steward had to lengthen Rosemund's grave for Eliwys, and when they buried her, Kivrin saw he had started another for Rosemund.

I must get them away from here, she thought, looking at the steward. He stood with the spade cradled against his shoulder, and as soon as he had filled in Eliwys's grave, he started in on Rosemund's grave again. I must get them away before they catch it.

Because they were going to catch it. It lay in wait for them, in the baccilli on their clothes, on the bedding, in the very air they breathed. And if by some miracle they didn't catch it from that, the plague would sweep through all of Oxfordshire in the spring, messengers and villagers and bishop's envoys. They could not stay here.

Scotland, she thought, and started for the manor. I could take them to northern Scotland. The plague didn't reach that far. The steward's son could ride the donkey, and they could make a litter for Rosemund.

Rosemund was sitting up on her pallet. "The steward's son has been crying out for you," she said as soon as Kivrin came in.

He had vomited a bloody mucus. His pallet was filthy with it, and when Kivrin cleaned him up, he was too weak to raise his head. Even if Rosemund can ride, he can't, she thought despairingly. We're not going anywhere.

In the night, she thought of the wagon that had been at the rendezvous. Perhaps the steward could help her repair it, and Rosemund could ride in that. She lit a rushlight from the coals of the fire and crept out to the stable to look at it. Roche's donkey brayed at her when she opened the door, and there was a rustling sound of sudden scattering as she held the smoky light up.

The smashed boxes lay piled against the wagon like a barricade, and she knew as soon as she pulled them away that it wouldn't work. It was too big. The donkey could not pull it, and the wooden axle was missing, carried off by some enterprising contemp to mend a hedge with or burn for firewood. Or stave off the plague with, Kivrin thought.

It was pitch black in the courtyard when she came out, and the stars were sharp and bright, as they had been Christmas eve. She thought of Agnes asleep against her shoulder, the bell on her little wrist, and the sound of the bells, tolling the devil's knell. Prematurely, Kivrin thought. The devil isn't dead yet. He's loose on the world.

She lay awake a long time, trying to think of another plan. Perhaps they could make some sort of litter the donkey could drag if the snow wasn't too deep. Or perhaps they could put both children on the donkey and carry the baggage in packs on their backs.

She fell asleep finally and was awakened again almost immediately, or so it seemed to her. It was still dark, and Roche was bending over her. The dying fire lit his face from below so that he looked as he had in the clearing when she had thought he was a cutthroat, and still partly asleep, she reached out and put her hand gently to his cheek.

"Lady Katherine," he said, and she came awake.

It's Rosemund, she thought, and twisted round to look at her, but she was sleeping easily, her thin hand under her cheek.

"What is it?" she said. "Are you ill?"

He shook his head. He opened his mouth and then closed it again.

"Has someone come?" she said, scrambling to her feet.

He shook his head again.

It can't be someone ill, she thought. There's no one left. She looked at the pile of blankets by the door where the steward slept, but he wasn't there. "Is the steward ill?"

"The steward's son is dead," he said in an odd, stunned voice, and she saw that he was gone, too. "I went to the church to say matins — " Roche said, and his voice faltered. "You must come with me," he said and strode out.

Kivrin snatched up her ragged blanket and hurried out into the courtyard after him.

It could not be later than six. The sun was only just above the horizon, staining the overcast sky and the snow with pink. Roche was already disappearing through the narrow passage to the green. Kivrin flung the blanket over her shoulders and ran after him.

The steward's cow was standing in the passage, her head through a break in the fence of the pig sty, pulling at the straw. It raised its head and mooed at Kivrin.

"Shoo!" she said, flapping her hands at it, but it only pulled its head out of the wattle fence and started toward her, lowing.

"I don't have time to milk you," she said, and shoved her hindquarters out of the way and squeezed past.

Father Roche was halfway across the green before she caught up with him. "What is it? Can't you tell me?" she asked, but he didn't stop or even look at her. He turned toward the line of graves on the green, and she thought, feeling suddenly relieved, the steward's tried to bury his son himself, without a priest.

The small grave was filled in, the snowy dirt mounded over it, and he had finished Rosemund's grave and dug another, larger one. The spade was sticking out of it, its handle leaning against the end.

Roche didn't go to Lefric's grave. He stopped at the newest one, and said, in that same stunned voice, "I went to the church to say matins — ", and Kivrin looked into the grave.

The steward had apparently tried to bury himself with the shovel, but it had proved unwieldy in the narrow space, and he had propped it against the end of the grave and begun pulling the dirt down with his hands. He held a large clod in his frozen hand.

His legs were nearly covered, and it gave him an indecent look, as if he were lying in his bath. "We must bury him properly," she said, and reached for the shovel.

Roche shook his head. "It is holy ground," he said numbly, and she realized that he thought the steward had killed himself.

It doesn't matter, she thought, and realized in spite of everything, horror after horror, Roche still believed in God. He had been going to the church to say matins when he found the steward, and if they all died, he would go on saying them and not find anything incongruous in his prayers.

"It's the disease," Kivrin said, though she had no idea whether it was or not. "The septicemic plague. It infects the blood."

Roche looked at her uncomprehendingly.

"He must have fallen ill while he was digging," she said. "Septicaemic plague poisons the brain. He was not in his right mind."

"Like Lady Imeyne," he said, sounding almost glad.

He didn't want to have to bury him outside the pale, Kivrin thought, in spite of what he believes.

She helped Roche straighten the steward's body a little, though he was already stiff. They did not attempt to move him or wrap him in a shroud. Roche laid a black cloth over his face, and they took turns shoveling the dirt in on him. The frozen earth clattered like stones.

Roche did not go to the church for his vestments or the missal. He stood first beside Lefric's grave and then the steward's and said the prayers for the dead. Kivrin, standing beside him, her hands folded, thought, he wasn't in his right mind. He had buried his wife and seven children, he had buried almost everyone he knew, and even if he hadn't been feverish, if he had crawled into the grave and waited to freeze to death, the plague had still killed him.

He did not deserve a suicide's grave. He doesn't deserve any grave, Kivrin thought. He was supposed to go to Scotland with us, and was horrified at the sudden shock of delight she felt.

We can go to Scotland now, she thought, looking at the grave he had dug for Rosemund. Rosemund can ride the donkey, and Roche and I can carry the food and blankets. She opened her eyes and looked at the sky, but now that the sun was up, the clouds looked lighter, as if they might break up by mid-morning. If they left this morning, they could be out of the forest by noon and onto the Oxford-Bath road. By night they could be on the highway to York.

"Agnus dei, qui tollis peccata mundi," Roche said, "dona eis requiem."

We must take oats for the donkey, she thought, and the ax for cutting firewood. And blankets.

Roche finished the prayers. "Dominus vobiscum et cum spiritu tuo," he said. "Requiescat in pace. Amen." He started off to ring the bell.

There isn't time for that, Kivrin thought, and then took off toward the manor. She could be half packed by the time Roche had tolled the death knell, and she could tell him her plan, and he could load the donkey, and they could go. She ran across the courtyard and into the manor. They would have to take coals to start the fire with. They could use Imeyne's casket.

She went into the hall. Rosemund was still asleep. That was good. There was no point in waking her until they were ready to leave. She tiptoed past her and got the casket and emptied it out. She laid it next to the fire and started out to the kitchen.

"I woke and you were not here," Rosemund said. She sat up on her pallet. "I was afraid you had gone."

"We're all going," Kivrin said. "We're going to go to Scotland." She went over to her. "You must rest for the journey. I will be back in a bit."

"Where are you going?" Rosemund said.

"Only to the kitchen. Are you hungry? I will bring you some porridge. Now lie down and rest."

"I do not like to be alone," Rosemund said. "Can you not stay with me a little?"

I don't have time for this, Kivrin thought. "I'm only going to the kitchen. And Father Roche is here. Can't you hear him? He's ringing the bell. I'll only be a few minutes. All right?" She smiled cheerfully at Rosemund, and she nodded reluctantly. "I'll be back soon."

She nearly ran outside. Roche was still ringing the death knell, slowly, steadily. Hurry, she thought, we don't have much time. She searched the kitchen, setting the food on the table. There was a round of cheese and plently of manchets left — she stacked them like plates in a wadmal sack, put in the cheese, and carried it out to the well.

Rosemund was standing in the door of the manor, holding onto the jamb. "Can I not sit in the kitchen with you?" she asked. She had put on her kirtle and her shoes, but she was already shivering in the cold air.

"It is too cold," Kivrin said, hurrying over to her. "And you must rest."

"When you are gone, I fear you will not come back," she said.

"I'm right here," Kivrin said, but she went inside and fetched Rosemund's cloak and an armload of furs.

"You can sit here on the doorstep," she said, "and watch me pack." She put the cloak over Rosemund's shoulders and sat her down, piling the furs about her like a nest. "All right?"

The brooch that Sir Bloet had given Rosemund was still at the neck of the cloak. She fumbled with the fastening, her thin hands trembling a little. "Do we go to Courcy?" she asked.

"No," Kivrin said, and pinned the brooch for her. Io suiicien lui dami amo. You are here in place of the friend I love. "We're going to Scotland. We will be safe from the plague there."

"Think you my father died from the plague?"

Kivrin hesitated.

"My mother said he was only delayed or unable to come. She said perhaps my brothers were ill, and he would come when they were recovered."

"And so he may," Kivrin said, tucking a fur around Rosemund's feet. "We'll leave a letter for him so he'll know where we went."

Rosemund shook her head. "If he lived, he would have come for me."

Kivrin wrapped a coverlet around Rosemund's thin shoulders. "I must fetch food for us to take," she said gently.

Rosemund nodded, and Kivrin went across to the kitchen. There was a sack of onions against the wall and another of apples. They were wizened, and most of them had brown spots, but Kivrin lugged the sack outside. They would not need to be cooked and they would all be in need of vitamins before spring.

"Would you like an apple?" she asked Rosemund.

"Yes," Rosemund said, and Kivrin searched through the sack, trying to find one that was still firm and unwrinkled. She unearthed a reddish-green one, polished it on her leather hose, and took it to her, smiling at the memory of how good an apple would have tasted when she was ill. Or a glass of orange juice.

But after the first bite, Rosemund seemed to lose interest. She leaned back against the doorjamb and looked quietly up at the sky, listening to the steady toll of Roche's bell.

Kivrin went back to sorting the apples, picking out the ones worth taking, and wondering how much the donkey could carry. They would need to take oats for the donkey. There would be no grass, though when they reached Scotland there might be scrub that it could eat. They shouldn't have to take water. There were plenty of streams, but they would need to take a pot to boil it in.

"Your people never came for you," Rosemund said.

Kivrin looked up. She was still sitting against the door with the apple.

They did come, Kivrin thought, but I wasn't there. "No," Kivrin said.

"Think you the plague has killed them?"

"No," Kivrin said, and thought, at least I don't have to think of them dead or helpless somewhere. At least I know they're all right.

"When I go to Sir Bloet, I will tell him how you helped us," Rosemund said. "I will ask that I might keep you and Father Roche by me." Her head went up proudly. "I am allowed attendants and a chaplain."

"Thank you," Kivrin said solemnly.

She set the sack of good apples next to the one of cheese and bread. The bell stopped, its overtones still echoing in the cold air. She picked up the bucket and lowered it into the well. She would cook some porridge and chop the bruised apples into it. It would make a filling meal for the trip.

Rosemund's apple rolled past her feet to the base of the well and stopped. Kivrin stooped to pick it up. It had only a little bite out of it, white against the shrivelled red. Kivrin wiped it against her jerkin. "You dropped your apple," she said, and turned to give it back to her.

Her hand was still open, as if she had leaned forward to catch it when it fell. "Oh, Rosemund," Kivrin said.

Father Roche and I are going to Scotland. There really isn't any point in telling you that, I suppose, since you'll never hear what's on this corder, but perhaps someone will stumble across it on a moor someday or Ms. Montoya will do a dig in northern Scotland when she's finished with Skendgate, and if that happens, I wanted you to know what happened to us.

I know flight is probably the worst thing to do, but I have to get Father Roche away from here. The whole manor is contaminated with the plague — bedding, clothes, the air-and the rats are everywhere. I saw one in the church when I went to get Roche's alb and stole for Rosemund's funeral. And even if he doesn't catch it from them, the plague is all around us, and I will never be able to convince him to stay here. He will want to go and help.

We'll keep off the roads and away from the villages. We've got food enough for a week, and then we'll be far enough north that I should be able to buy food in a town. The clerk had a sack of silver with him. And don't worry. We'll be all right. As Mr. Gilchrist would say, "I've taken every possible precaution."

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Apocalyptic was very likely the correct term for his even thinking he could rescue Kivrin, Dunworthy thought. He was worn out by the time Colin got him back to his room, and his temp was back up. "You rest," Colin said, helping him into bed. "You can't have a relapse if you're going to rescue Kivrin."

"I need to see Badri," he said, "and Finch."

"I'll take care of everything," he said, and darted out.

He would need to arrange his and Badri's discharge and med support for the pickup, in case Kivrin were ill. He would need a plague inoculation. He wondered how long would be required for it to take effect. Mary had said she'd inoculated Kivrin while she was in hospital for her corder implant. That had been two weeks before the drop but perhaps it didn't take that long to confer immunity.

The nurse came in to check his temp. "I'm just going off- duty," she said, reading his patch.

"How soon can I be discharged?" he asked.

"Discharged?" she said, sounding surprised, "My, you must be feeling better."

"I am," he said. "How long?"

She frowned. "There's a good deal of difference between being ready for a bit of a walk and being ready to go home." She adjusted the drip. "You don't want to overdo."

She went out, and after a few minutes Colin came in with Finch and the book Dunworthy had given him for Christmas. "I thought perhaps you'd need this for costumes and things." He dumped it on Dunworthy's legs. "I'll just go fetch Badri." He dashed out.

"You're looking a good deal better, sir," Finch said. "I'm so glad. I'm afraid you're badly needed at Balliol. It's Mrs. Gaddson. She's accused Balliol of undermining William's health. She says the combined strain of the epidemic and reading Petrarch has broken his health. She's threatening to go to the Head of the History Faculty with it."

"Tell her she's more than welcome to try. Basingame's in Scotland somewhere," Dunworthy said. "I need you to find how long in advance of exposure an inoculation against bubonic plague needs to be given, and I need the laboratory readied for a drop."

"We're using it for storage just now," Finch said. "We've had several shipments of supplies from London, though none of lavatory paper, even though I specifically requested — "

"Move them into the hall," Dunworthy said. "I want the net ready as soon as possible."

Colin opened the door with his elbow and wheeled Badri in, using his other arm and a knee. "I had to sneak him past the ward sister," he said breathlessly. He pushed the wheelchair up to the bed.

"I want — " Dunworthy said, and stopped, looking at Badri. The thing was impossible. Badri was in no condition to run the net. He looked exhausted by the mere effort of having been brought from the ward, and he was fumbling at the pocket of his robe as he had at his sash.

"We'll need two RTN's, a light measure, and a gateway," Badri said, and his voice sounded exhausted, too, but the despair had gone out of it. "And we'll need authorizations for both drop and pickup."

"What about the protesters who were at Brasenose?" Dunworthy asked. "Will they try to prevent the drop?"

"No," Colin said. "They're over at the National Trust Headquarters. They're trying to shut down the dig."

Good, Dunworthy thought. Montoya will be too occupied with trying to defend her churchyard against picketers to interfere. Too occupied to look for Kivrin's corder.

"What else will you need?" he asked Badri.

"An insular memory and redundant for the backup." He pulled a sheet of paper from the pocket and looked at it. "And a remote hookup so I can run parameter checks."

He handed the list to Dunworthy, who handed it to Finch. "We'll also need med support for Kivrin," Dunworthy said, "and I want a telephone installed in this room."

Finch was frowning at the list.

"And don't tell me we're out of any of these," Dunworthy said before he could protest. "Beg, borrow, or steal them." He turned back to Badri. "Will you need anything else?"

"To be discharged," Badri said, "which, I'm afraid will be the greatest obstacle."

"He's right," Colin said. "Sister will never let him out. I had to sneak him in here."

"Who's your doctor?" Dunworthy asked.

"Dr. Gates," Badri said, "but — "

"Surely we can explain the situation," Dunworthy inter- rupted, "explain that it's an emergency."

Badri shook his head. "The last thing we can do is tell him the circumstances. I persuaded him to discharge me to open the net while you were ill. He didn't think I was well enough, but he allowed it, and then when I had the relapse…"

Dunworthy looked anxiously at him. "Are you certain you're capable of running the net? Perhaps I can get Andrews now that the epidemic's under control."

"There isn't time," Badri said. "And it was my fault. I want to run the net. Perhaps Mr. Finch can find another doctor."

"Yes," Dunworthy said. "And tell mine I need to speak with him." He reached for Colin's book.

"I'll need a costume." He flipped through the pages, looking for an illustration of mediaeval clothing. "No strips, no zippers, no buttons." He found a picture of Boccaccio and showed it to Finch. "I doubt we'll have anything in Twentieth Century. Telephone the Dramatic Society and see if they've got something."

"I'll do my best, sir," Finch said, frowning doubtfully at the illustration.

The door crashed open, and the sister rattled in, enraged. "Mr. Dunworthy, this is utterly irresponsible," she said in a tone that had no doubt caused casualties from the Second Falklands War terrors. "If you will not take care of your own health, you might at the least not endanger that of the other patients." She fixed her gaze on Finch. "Mr. Dunworthy is to have no more visitors."

She glared at Colin and then snatched the wheelchair handles from him. "What can you have been thinking of, Mr. Chaudhuri?" she said, whipping the wheelchair round so smartly Badri's head snapped back. "You have already had one relapse. I have no intention of allowing you to have another." She pushed him out.

"I told you we'd never get him out," Colin said.

She flung the door open again. "No visitors," she said to Colin.

"I'll be back," Colin whispered and ducked past her.

She fixed him with her ancient eye. "Not if I have anything to say about it."

She apparently had something to say about it. Colin didn't return till after she'd gone off-duty, and then only to bring the remote hookup to Badri and report to Dunworthy on plague inoculations. Finch had telephoned the NHS. It took two weeks for the inoculation to confer full immunity, and seven days before partial. "And Mr. Finch wants to know if you shouldn't also be inoculated against cholera and typhoid."

"There isn't time," he said. There wasn't time for a plague inoculation either. Kivrin had already been there over three weeks, and every day lowered her chances of survival. And he was no closer to being discharged.

As soon as Colin left, he rang William's nurse and told her he wanted to see his doctor. "I'm ready to be discharged," he said.

She laughed.

"I'm completely recovered," he said. "I did ten laps in the corridor this morning."

She shook her head. "The incidence of relapse in this virus has been extremely high. I simply can't take the risk." She smiled at him. "Where is it you're so determined to go? Surely whatever it is can survive another week without you."

"It's the start of term," he said, and realized that was true. "Please tell my doctor I wish to see him."

"Dr. Warden will only tell you what I've told you," she said, but she apparently relayed the message because he tottered in after tea.

He had obviously been hauled out of a senile retirement to help with the epidemic. He told a long and pointless story about medical conditions during the Pandemic and then pronounced creakily, "In my day we kept people in hospital till they were fully recovered."

Dunworthy didn't try to argue with him. He waited until he and the sister had hobbled down the corridor, sharing reminiscences from the Hundred Years' War, and then strapped on his portable drip and walked to the public phone near Casualties to get a progress report from Finch.

"The sister won't allow a phone in your room," Finch said, "but I've good news about the plague. A course of streptomycin injections along with gamma globulin and T-cell enhancement will confer temporary immunity and can be started as little as twelve hours before exposure."

"Good," Dunworthy said, "Find me a doctor who'll give them and authorize my discharge. A young doctor. And send Colin over. Is the net ready?"

"Very nearly, sir. I've obtained the necessary drop and pickup authorizations and I've located a remote hookup. I was just going to fetch it now."

He rang off, and Dunworthy walked back to the room. He hadn't lied to the nurse. He was feeling stronger with each passing moment, though there was a tightness around his lower ribs by the time he made it back to his room. Mrs. Gaddson was there, searching eagerly through her Bible for murrains and agues and emerods.

"Read me Luke 11:9," Dunworthy said.

She looked it up. "'And I say unto you, "Ask and it shall be given you,"'" she read, glaring at him suspiciously. "'"Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."'"

Ms. Taylor came at the very end of visiting hours, carrying a measuring tape. "Colin sent me to get your measurements," she said. "The old crone out there won't let him on the floor." She draped the tape around his waist. "I had to tell her I was visiting Ms. Piantini. Hold your arm out straight." She stretched the tape along his arm. "She's feeling a lot better. She may even get to ring Rimbaud's 'When At Last My Savior Cometh' with us on the fifteenth. We're doing it for Holy Re- Formed, you know, but the NHS has taken over their church so Mr. Finch has very kindly let us use Balliol's chapel. What size shoe do you wear?"

She jotted down his various measurements, told him Colin would be in the next day and not to worry, the net was nearly ready. She went out, presumably to visit Ms. Piantini, and came back a few minutes later with a message from Badri.

"Mr. Dunworthy, I've run 24 parameter checks," it read. "All 24 show minimal slippage, 11 — slippage of less than an hour, 5- slippage of less than five minutes. I'm running divergence checks and DAR's to try to find out what it is."

I know what it is, Dunworthy thought. It's the Black Death. The function of the slippage was to prevent interactions which might affect history. Five minutes' slippage meant there were no anachronisms, no critical meetings the continuum must keep from happening. It meant the drop was to an uninhabited area. It meant the plague had been there. And all the contemps were dead.

Colin didn't come in the morning, and after lunch Dunworthy walked to the public phone again and rang Finch. "I haven't been able to find a doctor willing to take on new cases," Finch said. "I've telephoned every doctor and medic within the perimeter. A good many of them are still down with flu," he apologized, "and several of them — "

He stopped, but Dunworthy knew what he had intended to say. Several of them had died, including the one who would certainly have helped, who would have given him the inoculations and discharged Badri.

"Great-Aunt Mary wouldn't have given up," Colin had said. She wouldn't have, he thought, in spite of the sister and Mrs. Gaddson and a band of pain below the ribs. If she were here, she would have helped him however she could.

He walked back to his room. The sister had posted a large placard reading, "Absolutely No Visitors Allowed," on his door, but she was not at her desk or in his room. Colin was, carrying a large damp parcel.

"The sister's in the ward," Colin said, grinning. "Ms. Piantini very conveniently fainted. You should have seen her. She's very good at it." He fumbled with the string. "The nurse just came on duty, but you needn't worry about her either. She's in the linen room with William Gaddson." He opened the parcel. It was full of clothing: a long black doublet and black breeches, neither of them remotely mediaeval, and a pair of women's black tights.

"Where did you get this?" Dunworthy said. "A production of Hamlet?"

"Richard III," Colin said. "Keble did it last term. I took the hump out."

"Is there a cloak?" Dunworthy said, sorting through the clothing. "Tell Finch to find me a cloak. A long cloak that will cover everything."

"I will," Colin said absently. He was fumbling intently with the band on his green jacket. It sprang open, and Colin threw it off his shoulders. "Well? What do you think?"

He had done considerably better than Finch. The boots were wrong — they looked like a pair of gardener's Wellington's-but the brown burlap smock and shapeless gray-brown trousers looked like the illustration of a serf in Colin's book.

"The trousers have a strip," Colin said, "but you can't see it under the shirt. I copied it out of the book. I'm supposed to be your squire."

He should have anticipated this. "Colin," he said, "you can't go with me."

"Why not?" Colin said. "I can help you find her. I'm good at finding things."

"It's impossible. The — "

"Oh, now you're going to tell me how dangerous it is in the Middle Ages, aren't you? Well, it's rather dangerous here, isn't it? What about Aunt Mary? She'd have been safer in the Middle Ages, wouldn't she? I've been doing lots of dangerous things. Taking medicine to people and putting up placards in the wards. While you were ill, I did all sorts of dangerous things you don't even know about — "

"Colin — "

"You're too old to go alone. And Great-Aunt Mary told me to take care of you. What if you have a relapse?"

"Colin — "

"My mother doesn't care if I go."

"But I do. I can't take you with me."

"So I'm to sit here and wait," he said bitterly, "and nobody will tell me anything, and I won't know whether you're alive or dead." He picked up his jacket. "It's not fair."

"I know."

"Can I come to the laboratory at least?"

"Yes."

"I still think you should let me go," he said. He began folding the tights. "Shall I leave your costume here?"

"Better not. The sister might confiscate it."

"What's all this, Mr. Dunworthy?" Mrs. Gaddson said.

They both jumped. She came into the room, bearing her Bible.

"Colin's been collecting for the clothing drive," Dunworthy said, helping him wad the clothing into a bundle. "For the detainees."

"Passing clothes from one person to another is an excellent way of spreading infection," she said to Dunworthy.

Colin scooped up the bundle and ducked out.

"And allowing a child to come here and risk catching something! He offered to come and walk me home from the infirmary last night, and I said, 'I won't have you risking your health for me!'"

She sat down next to the bed and opened her Bible. "It's pure negligence, allowing that boy to visit you. But I suppose it's no more than what I should have expected from the way you run your college. Mr. Finch has become a complete tyrant in your absence. He simply flew at me in a rage yesterday when I requested an extra roll of lavatory paper — "

"I want to see William," Dunworthy said.

"Here!" she sputtered. "In hospital?!" She shut her Bible with a snap. "I simply won't allow it. There are still a great many infectious cases and poor Willy — "

Is in the linen room with my nurse, he thought. "Tell him I wish to see him as soon as possible," he said.

She brandished the Bible at him like Moses bringing down the plagues on Egypt. "I intend to report your callous indifference to your students' well-being to the Head of the History Faculty," she said and stormed out.

He could hear her complaining loudly in the corridor to someone, presumably the nurse, because William appeared almost immediately, smoothing down his hair.

"I need injections of streptomycin and gamma globulin," Dunworthy said. "I also need to be discharged from hospital, as does Badri Chaudhuri."

He nodded. "I know. Colin told me you're going to try to retrieve your history student." He looked thoughtful. "I know this nurse…"

"A nurse can't give an injection without authorization by a doctor, and the discharges will require authorization as well."

"I have a friend up in Records. When do you want this by?"

"As soon as possible."

"I'll get right on it. It might take two or three days," he said, and started out. "I met Kivrin once. She was at Balliol to see you. She's very pretty, isn't she?"

I must remember to warn her about him, Dunworthy thought, and realized he had actually begun to believe he might be able to rescue her in spite of everything. Hold on, he thought. I'm coming. Two or three days.

He spent the afternoon walking up and down the corridor, trying to build his strength up. Badri's ward had an "Absolutely No Visitors Allowed" placard on each of the doors, and the sister fixed him with a watery blue eye each time he approached them.

Colin came in, wet and breathless, with a pair of boots. "She has guards everywhere," he said. "Mr. Finch says to tell you the net's ready except he can't find anyone to do med support."

"Tell William to arrange it," he said. "He's taking care of the discharges and the streptomycin injection."

"I know. I've got to deliver a message to Badri from him. I'll be back."

He did not come back, and neither did William. When Dunworthy walked to the phone to ring Balliol, the sister caught him halfway and escorted him back to his room. Either her tightened defenses excluded Mrs. Gaddson as well, or Mrs. Gaddson was still angry over William. She did not come all afternoon.

Just after tea a pretty nurse he hadn't seen before came in with a syringe. "Sister's been called away on an emergency," she said.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing to the syringe.

She tapped the console keyboard with one finger of her free hand. She looked at the screen, tapped in a few more characters, and came around to inject him. "Streptomycin," she said.

She did not seem nervous or furtive, which meant William must have managed the authorization somehow. She injected the largish syringe into the cannula, smiled at him, and went out. She had left the console on. He got out of bed and went round to read what was on the screen.

It was his chart. He recognized it because it looked like Badri's and was as unreadable. The last entry read, "ICU15802691 14-1-55 1805 150/RPT 1800 CRS IMSTMC 4ML/q6h NHS40-211-7 M AHRENS."

He sat down on the bed. Oh, Mary.

William must have obtained obtained her access code, perhaps from his friend in Records, and fed it into the computer. Records was no doubt far behind, swamped by the paperwork of the epidemic, and had not yet got to Mary's death. They would catch the error someday, though the resourceful William had no doubt already arranged for its erasure.

He scrolled the screen back through his chart. There were M. AHRENS entries up through 8-1-55, the day she had died. She must have nursed him until she could no longer stand. No wonder her heart had stopped.

He switched the console off so that the sister wouldn't spot the entry and got into bed. He wondered if William planned to sign her name to the discharges as well. He hoped so. She would have wanted to help.

No one came in all evening. The sister hobbled in to check his tach bracelet and give him his temp at eight o'clock, and she entered them in the console but didn't appear to notice anything. At ten a second nurse, also pretty, came in, repeated the streptomycin infection, and gave him one of gamma globulin.

She left the screen on, and Dunworthy lay down so he could see Mary's name. He didn't think he would be able to sleep, but he did. He dreamed of Egypt and the Valley of the Kings.

"Mr. Dunworthy, wake up," Colin whispered. He was shining a pocket torch in his face.

"What is it?" Dunworthy said, blinking against the light. He groped for his spectacles. "What's happened?"

"It's me, Colin," he whispered. He turned the torch on himself. He was wearing, for some unknown reason, a large white lab coat, and his face looked strained, sinister in the upturned light of the torch.

"What's wrong?" Dunworthy asked.

"Nothing," Colin whispered. "You're being discharged."

Dunworthy hooked his spectacles over his ears. He still couldn't see anything. "What time is it?" he whispered.

"Four o'clock." He thrust his slippers at him and turned the torch on the closet. "Do hurry." He took Dunworthy's robe off the hook and handed it to him. "She's likely to come back any moment."

Dunworthy fumbled with the robe and slippers, trying to wake up, wondering why they were being discharged at this odd hour and where the sister was.

Colin went to the door and peeked out. He switched the torch off, stuck it in the pocket of the too-large lab coat, and eased the door shut. After a long, breath-holding moment, he opened it a crack and looked out. "All clear," he said, motioning to Dunworthy. "William's taken her into the linen room."

"Who, the nurse?" Dunworthy asked, still groggy. "Why is she on duty?"

"Not the nurse. The sister. William's keeping her in there till we're gone."

"What about Mrs. Gaddson?"

Colin looked sheepish. "She's reading to Mr. Latimer," he said defensively. "I had to do something with her, and Mr. Latimer can't hear her." He opened the door all the way. There was a wheelchair just outside. He took hold of the handles.

"I can walk," Dunworthy said.

"There isn't time," Colin whispered. "And if anyone sees us I can tell them I'm taking you up to Scanning."

Dunworthy sat down and let Colin push him down the corridor and past the linen room and Latimer's room. He could hear Mrs. Gaddson's voice dimly through the door, reading from Exodus.

Colin continued on tiptoe to the end of the corridor and then took off at a rate that could not possibly be mistaken for taking a patient to Scanning, down another corridor, around a corner, and out the side door where they had been accosted by the "The End of Time Is Near" sandwich board.

It was pitch black in the alley and raining hard. He could only dimly make out the ambulance parked at the street end. Colin knocked on the back of it with his fist, and an ambulance attendant jumped down. It was the medic who had helped bring Badri in. And had picketed Brasenose. "Can you climb up?" she asked, blushing.

Dunworthy nodded and stood up.

"Pull the doors to," she told Colin and went round to get in the front.

"Don't tell me, she's a friend of William's," Dunworthy said, looking after her.

"Of course," Colin said. "She asked me what sort of mother- in-law I thought Mrs. Gaddson would be." He helped him up the step and into the ambulance.

"Where's Badri?" Dunworthy asked, wiping the rain off his spectacles.

Colin pulled the doors to. "At Balliol. We took him first, so he could set up the net." He looked anxiously out the back window. "I do hope Sister doesn't sound the alarm before we're gone."

"I shouldn't worry about it," Dunworthy said. He had clearly underestimated William's powers. The sister was probably on Willam's lap in the linen room, embroidering their intertwined initials on the towels.

Colin switched on the torch and shone it on the stretcher. "I brought your costume," he said, handing Dunworthy the black doublet.

Dunworthy took off his robe and put it on. The ambulance started up, nearly knocking him over. He sat down on the side bench, bracing himself against the swaying side, and pulled on the black tights.

William's medic had not switched on the siren, but she was going at such a rate she should have. Dunworthy clung to the strap with one hand and pulled on the breeches with the other, and Colin, reaching for the boots, nearly went over on his head.

"We found you a cloak," Colin said. "Mr. Finch borrowed it of the Classical Theatre Society." He shook it out. It was Victorian, black and lined in red silk. He draped it over Dunworthy's shoulders.

"What production did they put on? Dracula?"

The ambulance lurched to a stop, and the medic yanked open the doors. Colin helped Dunworthy down, holding up the train of the voluminous cloak like a pageboy. They ducked in under the gate. The rain pattered loudly on the stone overhead and under it was a clanging sound.

"What's that?" Dunworthy asked, peering out into the dark quad.

"'When At Last My Savior Cometh,'" Colin said. "The Americans are practicing it for some church thing. Necrotic, isn't it?"

"Mrs. Gaddson said they were practicing at all hours, but I'd no idea she meant five in the morning."

"The concert's tonight," Colin said.

"Tonight?" Dunworthy said, and realized it was the fifteenth. The sixth on the Julian calendar. Epiphany, the Arrival of the Wise Men.

Finch hurried toward them with an umbrella. "Sorry I'm late," he said, holding it over Dunworthy, "but I couldn't find an umbrella. You've no idea how many of the detainees go off and forget them. Especially the Americans — "

Dunworthy started across the quad. "Is everything ready?"

"The med support's not here yet," Finch said, attempting to keep the umbrella over Dunworthy's head, "but William Gaddson just telephoned to say it was all arranged and she'd be here shortly."

Dunworthy would not have been surprised if he had said the sister had volunteered for the job. "I do hope William never decides to take to a life of crime," he said.

"Oh, I don't think he would, sir. His mother would never allow it." He ran a few steps, trying to keep up. "Mr. Chaudhuri's running the preliminary coordinates. And Ms. Montoya's here."

He stopped. "Montoya? What is it?"

"I don't know, sir. She said she had information for you."

Not now, he thought. Not when we're this close.

He went in the laboratory. Badri was at the console, and Montoya, wearing her terrorist shirt and muddy jeans, was leaning over him, watching the screen. Badri said something to her, and she shook her head and looked at her digital. She glanced up and saw Dunworthy, and an expression of compassion came into her face. She stood up and reached in the pocket of her shirt.

No, Dunworthy thought.

She walked over to him. "I didn't know you were planning this," she said, pulling out a folded sheet of paper. "I want to help." She handed him the paper. "This is what information Kivrin had to work with when she went through."

He looked at the paper in his hand. It was a map.

"This is the drop." She pointed to a cross on a black line. "And this is Skendgate. You'll recognize it by the church. It's Norman, with murals above the rood screen and a statue of St. Anthony." She smiled at him. "The patron saint of lost objects. I found it yesterday."

She pointed to several other crosses. "If by some chance she didn't go to Skendgate, the most likely villages are Esthcote, Henefelde, and Shrivendun. I've listed their distinguishing landmarks on the back."

Badri stood up and came over. He looked even frailer than he had in the ward, if that were possible, and he moved slowly, like the old man he had become. "I'm still getting minimal slippage, no matter what variables I feed in," he said. He put his hand under his ribs. "I'm running an intermittent, opening for five minutes at two-hour intervals. That way we can hold the net open for up to twenty-four hours, thirty-six if we're lucky."

Dunworthy wondered how many of those two-hour intervals Badri would hold up for. He looked done in already.

"When you see the shimmer or the beginnings of moisture condensation, move into the rendezvous area," Badri said.

"What if it's dark?" Colin asked. He had taken off the lab coat, and Dunworthy saw that he was in his squire's costume.

"You should still be able to see the shimmer, and we'll call out to you," Badri said. He grunted softly and put his hand to his side again. "You've been immunized?"

"Yes."

"Good. All we're waiting for then is the med support." He looked hard at Dunworthy. "Are you sure you're well enough to do this?"

"Are you?" Dunworthy asked.

The door opened and William's nurse came in wearing a slick. She blushed when she saw Dunworthy. "William said you needed med support. Where would you like me to set up?"

I must remember to warn Kivrin about him, Dunworthy thought. Badri showed her where he wanted her, and Colin ran out after her equipment.

Montoya led Dunworthy over to a chalked circle under the shields. "Are you going to wear your spectacles?"

"Yes," he said. "You can dig them up in your churchyard."

"I'm certain they won't be there," she said solemnly. "Do you want to sit or lie down?"

He thought of Kivrin, lying with her arm across her face, helpless and blind. "I'll stand," he said.

Colin came back in with a steamer trunk. He set it down by the console and came over to the net. "You've no business going by yourself," he said.

"I must go by myself, Colin."

"Why?"

"It's too dangerous. You can't imagine what it was like during the Black Death."

"Yes, I can. I read the book through twice, and I've had my — " He stopped. "I know all about the Black Death. Besides, if it's as bad as all that, you shouldn't go by yourself. I wouldn't get in the way, I promise."

"Colin," he said helplessly, "you're my responsibility. I can't take the risk."

Badri came over to the net, carrying a light measure. "The nurse needs help with the rest of her equipment," he said.

"If you don't come back, I'll never know what happened to you," Colin said. He turned and ran out.

Badri made a slow circuit of Dunworthy, taking measurements. He frowned, took hold of his elbow, took more measurements. The nurse came over with a syringe. Dunworthy rolled up the sleeve of his doublet.

"I want you to know I don't approve of this at all," she said, swabbing Dunworthy's arm. "Both of you properly belong in hospital." She plunged the syringe in and walked back to her steamer trunk.

Badri waited while Dunworthy rolled down his sleeve and then moved his arm, took more measurements, moved it again. Colin carried a scan unit in and went back out without looking at Dunworthy.

Dunworthy watched the display screens change and change again. He could hear the bellringers, an almost musical sound with the door shut. Colin opened the door, and they clanged wildly for a moment while he maneuvered a second steamer trunk through the door.

Colin dragged it over to where the nurse was setting up, and then went over to the console and stood beside Montoya, watching the screens generate numbers. He wished he had told them he would go through sitting down. The stiff boots pinched his feet, and he felt tired from the effort of standing still.

Badri spoke into the ear again, and the shields came down, touched the floor, draped a bit. Colin said something to Montoya, and she glanced up, frowned and then nodded, and turned back to the screen. Colin walked over to the net.

"What are you doing?" Dunworthy said.

"One of the curtain things is caught," he said. He walked to the far side and tugged on the fold.

"Ready?" Badri said.

"Yes," Colin said and backed away toward the prep door. "No, wait." He came back up to the shields. "Shouldn't you take your spectacles off? In case somebody sees you come through?"

Dunworthy removed his spectacles and tucked them inside his doublet.

"If you don't come back, I'm coming after you," Colin said, and backed away. "Ready," he called.

Dunworthy looked at the screens. They were nothing but a blur. So was Montoya, who had leaned forward over Badri's shoulder. She glanced at her digital. Badri spoke into the ear.

Dunworthy closed his eyes. He could hear the bellringers banging away at "When at Last My Savior Cometh." He opened them again.

"Now," Badri said. He pushed a button, and Colin darted toward the shields and under, straight into Dunworthy's arms.

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 running for the barn before he had even reached it. She wanted them to be gone now, now, before anything else happened, as if the plague were waiting to leap out at them like the bogeyman from the church or the brewhouse or the barn.

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

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 panniers. They were too small to hold everything. She would have to tie the sacks on. She filled a coarse bag with oats for the donkey, scooping it out of the grain bin with both hands and spilling whole handfuls on the filthy floor, and knotted it with a rough rope that hung on Agnes's pony's stall. The rope was tied to the stall with a heavy knot she couldn't untie. She ended by having to run to the kitchen for a knife and back again, bringing the sacks of food she had gathered up earlier.

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 panniers first. Food, oats, blankets, candles. What else had she forgotten?

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.

He still did not appear to have wakened, but when Kivrin wrung out a strip torn from the altar cloth and bathed his forehead with it, he said, without opening his eyes, "I feared that you had gone."

She wiped the crusted blood by his mouth. "I would not go to Scotland without you."

"Not Scotland," he said. "To Heaven."

She ate a little of the stale manchet and cheese from the food sack and tried to sleep a little, but it was too cold. When Roche turned and sighed in his sleep, she could see his breath.

She built a fire, pulling up the stick fence around one of the huts and piling the sticks in front of the rood screen, but it filled the church with smoke, even with the doors propped open. Roche coughed and vomited again. This time it was nearly all blood. She put the fire out and made two more hurried trips for as many furs and blankets as she could find and made a sort of nest of them.

Roche's fever went up in the night. He kicked at the covers and raged at Kivrin, mostly in words she couldn't understand, though once he said, clearly, "Go, curse you!" and over and over, furiously, "It grows dark!"

Kivrin brought the candles from the altar and the top of the rood screen and set them in front of St. Catherine's statue. When his ravings about the dark got bad, she lit them all and covered him up again, and it seemed to help a little.

His fever rose higher, and his teeth chattered in spite of the rugs heaped over him. It seemed to Kivrin that his skin was already darkening, the blood vessels hemorrhaging under the skin. Don't do this. Please.

In the morning he was better. His skin had not blackened after all; it was only the uncertain light of the candles that had made it seem mottled. His fever had come down a little and he slept soundly through the morning and most of the afternoon, not vomiting at all. She went out for more water before it got dark.

Some people recovered spontaneously and some were saved by prayers. Not everyone died who was infected. The death rate for pneumonic plague was only ninety per cent.

He was awake when she went in, lying in a shaft of smoky light. She knelt and held a cup of water under his mouth, tilting his head up so he could drink.

"It is the blue sickness," he said when she let his head back down.

"You're not going to die," she said. Ninety per cent. Ninety per cent.

"You must hear my confession."

No. He could not die. She would be left here all alone. She shook her head, unable to speak.

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," he began in Latin.

He hadn't sinned. He had tended the sick, shriven the dying, buried the dead. It was God who should have to beg forgiveness.

" — in thought, word, deed, and omission. I was angry with Lady Imeyne. I shouted at Maisry." He swallowed. "I had carnal thoughts of a saint of the Lord."

Carnal thoughts.

"I humbly ask pardon of God, and absolution of you, Father, if you think me worthy."

There is nothing to forgive, she wanted to say. Your sins are no sins. Carnal thoughts. We held down Rosemund and barricaded the village against a harmless boy and buried a six- month-old baby. It is the end of the world. Surely you are to be allowed a few carnal thoughts.

She raised her hand helplessly, unable to speak the words of absolution, but he did not seem to notice. "Oh, My God," he said, "I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee."

Offended thee. You're the saint of the Lord, she wanted to tell him, and where the hell is He? Why doesn't he come and save you?

There was no oil. She dipped her fingers in the bucket and made the sign of the cross over his eyes and ears, his nose and mouth, his hands that had held her hand when she was dying.

"Quid quid deliquiste," he said, and she dipped her hand in the water again and marked the cross on the soles of his feet.

"Libera nos, quaesumus, Domine," he prompted.

"Ab omnibus malis," Kivrin said, "praeteritis, praesentibus, et futuris." Deliver us, we beseech, Thee, O Lord, from all evils, past, present and to come.

"Perducat te ad vitam aeternam," he murmured.

And bring thee unto life everlasting. "Amen," Kivrin said, and leaned forward to catch the blood that come pouring out of him.

He vomited the rest of the night and most of the next day, and then sank into unconsciousness in the afternoon, his breathing shallow and unsteady. Kivrin sat beside him, bathing his hot forehead. "Don't die," she said when his breathing caught and struggled on, more labored. "Don't die," she said softly. "What will I do without you? I will be all alone."

"You must not stay here," he said. He opened his eyes a little. They were red and swollen.

"I thought you were asleep," she said regretfully. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"You must go again to heaven," he said, "and pray for my soul in purgatory, that my time there may be short."

Purgatory. As if God would make him suffer any longer than he was already.

"You will not need my prayers," she said.

"You must return to that place whence you came," he said, and his hand came up in a vague drifting motion in front of his face, as if he were trying to ward off a blow.

Kivrin caught his hand and held it, but gently, so as not to bruise the skin, and laid it against her cheek.

You must return to that place whence you came. Would that I could, she thought. She wondered how long they had held the drop open before they gave up. Four days? A week? Perhaps it was still open. Mr. Dunworthy wouldn't have let them close it while there was any hope at all. But there isn't, she thought. I'm not in 1320. I'm here, at the end of the world.

"I can't," she said. "I don't know the way."

"You must try to remember," Roche said, freeing his hand and waving it. "Agnes, pass the fork."

He was delirious. Kivrin got up on her knees, afraid he might try to rise again.

"Where you fell," he said, putting his hand under the elbow of the waving one to brace it, and Kivrin realized he was trying to point. "Pass the fork."

Past the fork.

"What is past the fork?" she asked.

"The place where first I found you when you fell from heaven," he said and let his arms fall.

"I thought that Gawyn had found me."

"Aye," he said as if he saw no contradiction in what she said. "I met him on the road while I was bringing you to the manor."

He had met him on the road.

"The place where Agnes fell," he said, trying to help her remember. "The day we went for the holly."

Why didn't you tell me when we were there? Kivrin thought, but she knew that, too. He had had his hands full with the donkey, which had balked at the top of the hill and refused to go any farther.

Because it saw me come through, she thought, and knew that he had stood over her, in the glade, looking down at her as she lay there with her arm over her face. I heard him, she thought. I saw his footprint.

"You must return to that place, and thence again to heaven," he said and closed his eyes.

He had seen her come through, had come and stood over her as she lay there with her eyes closed, had put her on his donkey when she was ill. And she had never guessed, not even when she saw him in the church, not even when Agnes told her he thought she was a saint.

Because Gawyn had told her he had found her. Gawyn, who was 'like to boast', and who had wanted more than anything to impress Lady Eliwys. "I found you and brought you hence," he had told her, and perhaps he didn't even consider it to be a lie. The village priest was no one, after all. And all the time, when Rosemund was ill and Gawyn had ridden off to Bath and the drop opened and then closed again forever, Roche had known where it was.

"There is no need to wait for me," he said. "No doubt they long for your return."

"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.

Once out, the cow promptly tried to come back in to Kivrin. "No," she said. "There's no time," but she went back into the barn and up into the loft and threw down a forkful of hay. Then she scooped up everything and ran back to the church.

Roche had lapsed into unconsciousness. His body had relaxed. His big legs sprawled out in front of him, wide apart, and his hands lay out at his sides, palms up. He looked like a man knocked out by a blow. His breathing was heavy and tremulous, as if he were shivering.

Kivrin covered him with the heavy purple cloak. "I'm back, Roche," she said, and patted his outflung arm, but he didn't give any indication that he had heard.

She took the guard off the lantern and used the flame to light all the candles. There were only three of Lady Imeyne's candles left, all of them over half burned. She lit the rushlights, too, and the fat tallow candle in the niche of the statue of St. Catherine, and moved them closer to Roche's legs, so she would be able to see.

"I'm going to have to take your hose off," she said, folding back the coverlet. "I have to lance the bubo." She untied the ragged points on the hose and he didn't flinch at her touch, but he moaned a little, and it sounded liquid.

She pulled at the hose, trying to get them down over his hips, and then yanked at the legs, but they were too tight. She would have to cut them off. She should have thought to fetch Rosemund's scissors, too.

"I'm going to cut your hose off," she said, crawling back to where she'd left the knife and the bottle of wine. "I'll try not to cut you." She dug at the seal and then cut it with the knife. Kivrin sniffed at the bottle and then took a little swig and choked. Good. It was old and full of alcohol. She poured it over the blade of the knife, wiped the edge on her leg, poured some more, careful to leave enough to pour over the wound when she had it opened.

"Beata," Roche murmured. His hand groped for his groin.

"It's all right," Kivrin said. She took hold of one of the legs of his hose and slit the wool. "I know it hurts now, but I'm going to lance the bubo." She pulled the rough fabric apart in both hands and, blessedly, it tore, making a loud, ripping sound. Roche's knees contracted. "No, no, leave your legs down," Kivrin said, trying to push on them. "I have to lance the bubo."

She couldn't get them down. She left them for the moment and finished tearing the leg of his hose, reaching under his leg to split the rough cloth the rest of the way up, so she could see the bubo. It was twice as big as Rosemund's and completely black. It should have been lanced hours ago, days ago.

"Roche, please put your legs down," she said, leaning on them with all her weight. "I have to open the plague boil."

There was no response. She was not sure he could respond, that his muscles were not somehow contracting on their own, the way the clerk's had, but she couldn't wait until the spasm, if that was what it was, had passed. It might rupture at any minute.

She stepped away a minute and then knelt down by his feet, and reached up under his folded legs, gripping the knife. Roche moaned, and she pulled the knife down a little and then moved it forward slowly, carefully, till it touched the bubo.

His kick caught her full in the ribs, sending her sprawling. She let go of the knife, and it skittered loudly across the stone floor. The kick had knocked the wind out of Kivrin, and she lay there, gasping for air, taking long, wheezing breaths. She tried to sit up. Pain stabbed at her right side, and she fell back, clutching at her ribs.

Roche was still screaming, a long, impossible sound like a tortured animal. Kivrin rolled slowly onto her left side, holding her hand tightly against her ribs, so she could see him. He rocked back and forth like a child, screaming all the while, his naked legs drawn up protectively to his chest. She could not see the bubo.

Kivrin tried to raise herself, bracing her hand against the stone floor until she was half-sitting, and then edging it toward her till she could put both hands down and get onto her knees. She cried out, little whimpering screams that were lost in Roche's. He must have broken some ribs. She spat on her hand, afraid of seeing blood.

When she was finally on her knees, she sat back on her feet a minute, huddling against the pain. "I'm sorry," she whispered, "I didn't mean to hurt you." She half-crawled towards him on her knees, using her right hand as a crutch. The effort made her breathe more deeply, and every breath stabbed into her side. "It's all right, Roche," she whispered. "I'm coming. I'm coming."

He pulled his legs up spasmodically at the sound of her voice, and she moved around to his side, between him and the side wall, well out of his reach. When he kicked her, he had knocked over one of St. Catherine's candles, and it lay in a yellow puddle beside him, still burning. Kivrin set it upright and laid her hand on his shoulder. "Shh, Roche," she said. "It's all right. I'm here now."

He stopped screaming. "I'm sorry," she said, leaning over him. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I was only trying to lance the bubo."

His knees pulled up even tighter than before. Kivrin picked up the red candle and held it above his naked backside. She could see the bubo, black and hard in the candle's light. She had not even pierced it. She raised the candle higher, trying to see where the knife had gone. It had clattered away in the direction of the tomb. She held the candle out in that direction, hoping to catch a glint of metal. She couldn't see anything.

She started to stand up, moving carefully to guard against the pain, but halfway to her feet it caught at her, and she cried out and bent forward.

"What is it?" Roche said. His eyes were open, and there was a little blood at the corner of his mouth. She wondered if he had bitten through his tongue when he was screaming. "Have I done hurt to you?"

"No," she said, kneeling back down beside him. "No. You have done no hurt." She blotted at his mouth with the sleeve of her jerkin.

"You must," he said, and when he opened his mouth, more blood leaked out. He swallowed. "You must say the prayers for the dying."

"No," she said. "You will not die." She wiped at his mouth again. "But I must lance your bubo before it ruptures."

"Do not," he said, and she did not know whether he meant don't lance the bubo or don't leave. His teeth were gritted, and blood was leaking between them. She sank into a sitting position, careful not to cry out, and took his head onto her lap.

"Requiem aeternam dona eis," he said and made a gurgling sound, "et lux perpetua."

The blood was seeping from the roof of his mouth. She propped his head up higher, wadding the purple coverlet under it, wiping his mouth and chin with her jerkin. It was sodden with blood. She reached off to the side for his alb. "Do not," he said.

"I won't," she said. "I'm right here."

"Pray for me," he said and tried to bring his hands together on his chest. "Wreck — " He choked on the word he was trying to say, and it ended in a gurgling sound.

"Requiem aeternam," Kivrin said. She folded her own hands. "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine," she said.

"Et lux — " he said.

The red candle beside Kivrin flickered out, and the church was filled with the sharp smell of smoke. She glanced round at the other candles. There was only one left, the last of Lady Imeyne's wax candles, and it was burnt nearly down to the lip of its holder.

"Et lux perpetua," Kivrin said.

"Luceat eis," Roche said. He stopped and tried to lick his bloody lips. His tongue was swollen and stiff. "Dies irae, dies illa." He swallowed again and tried to close his eyes.

"Don't put him through any more of this," she whispered in English. "Please. It's not fair."

"Beata," she thought he said and tried to think of the next line, but it didn't begin with "blessed."

"What?" she said, leaning over him.

"In the last days," he said, his voice blurred by his swollen tongue.

She leaned closer.

"I feared that God would forsake us utterly."

And he has, she thought. She wiped at his mouth and chin with the tail of her jerkin. He has.

"But in His great mercy He did not," he swallowed again, "but sent His saint unto us."

He raised his head and coughed, and blood rushed out over both of them, saturating his chest and her knees. She wiped at it frantically, trying to stop it, trying to keep his head up, and she couldn't see through her tears to wipe the blood away.

"And I'm no use," she said, wiping at her tears.

"Why do you weep?" he said.

"You saved my life," she said, and her voice caught in a sob, "and I can't save yours."

"All men must die," Roche said, "and none, nor even Christ, can save them."

"I know," she said. She cupped her hand under her face, trying to catch her tears. They collected on her hand and fell dripping onto Roche's neck.

"Yet have you saved me," he said, and his voice sounded clearer. "From fear." He took a gurgling breath. "And unbelief."

She wiped at her tears with the back of her hand and took hold of Roche's hand. It felt cold and already stiff.

"I am most blessed of all men," he said and closed his eyes.

Kivrin shifted a little so her back was against the wall. It was dark outside, no light at all coming in through the narrow windows. Lady Imeyne's candle sputtered and then flamed again. She moved Roche's head so it didn't push against her ribs. He groaned, and his hand jerked as if to free itself of hers, but she held on. The candle flickered into sudden brightness and left them in darkness.

I don't think I'm going to make it back, Mr. Dunworthy. Roche told me where the drop is, but I've broken some ribs, I think, and all the horses are gone. I don't think I can get up on Roche's donkey without a saddle.

I'm going to try to see to it that Ms. Montoya finds this. Tell Mr. Latimer adjectival inflection was still prominent in 1348. And tell Mr. Gilchrist he was wrong. The statistics weren't exaggerated.

I don't want you to blame yourself for what happened. I know you would have come to get me if you could, but I couldn't have gone anyway, not with Agnes ill.

I wanted to come, and if I hadn't, they would have been all alone, and nobody would have ever known how frightened and brave and irreplaceable they were.

It's strange. When I couldn't find the drop and the plague came, you seemed so far away I would not ever be able to find you again. But I know now that you were here all along, and that nothing, not the Black Death or seven hundred years, nor death nor things to come nor any other creature could ever separate me from your caring and concern. It was with me every minute.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

"Colin!" Dunworthy shouted, grabbing Colin's arm as he dived under the drape and into the net, head down. "What in God's name do you think you're doing?"

Colin twisted free of his grasp. "I don't think you should go alone!"

"You can't just break through the net! This isn't a quarantine perimeter. What if the net had opened? You could have been killed!" He took hold of Colin's arm again and started toward the console. "Badri! Hold the drop!"

Badri was not there. Dunworthy squinted nearsightedly at where the console had been. They were in a forest, surrounded by trees. There was snow on the ground, and the air sparkled with crystals.

"If you go alone, who'll take care of you?" Colin said. "What if you have a relapse?" He looked past Dunworthy, and his mouth fell open. "Are we there?"

Dunworthy let go of Colin's arm and grabbed in his jerkin for his spectacles.

"Badri!" he shouted. "Open the drop!" He put on his spectacles. They were covered with frost. He yanked them off again and scraped at the lenses. "Badri!"

"Where are we?" Colin asked.

Dunworthy hooked his spectacles over his ears and looked around at the trees. They were ancient, the ivy twining their trunks silver with frost. There was no sign of Kivrin.

He had expected her to be here, which was ridiculous. They had already opened the drop and not found her, but he had hoped that when she realized where she was, she would come back to the drop and wait. But she wasn't here, and there was no sign she had ever been.

The snow they were standing in was smooth and free of footprints. It was deep enough to hide any she might have left before it fell, but it wasn't deep enough to hide the smashed cart and the scattered boxes. And there was no sign of the Oxford-Bath road.

"I don't know where we are," he said.

"Well, I know it's not Oxford," Colin said, stamping through the snow. "Because it's not raining."

Dunworthy looked up through the trees at the pale, clear sky. If there had been the same amount of slippage as in Kivrin's drop, it would be midmorning.

Colin darted off through the snow toward a thicket of reddish willows.

"Where are you going?" Dunworthy said.

"To find a road. The drop's supposed to be near a road, isn't it?" He plunged into the thicket and disappeared.

"Colin!" he shouted, starting after him. "Come back here."

"Here it is!" Colin called from somewhere beyond the willows. "The road's here!"

"Come back here!" Dunworthy shouted.

Colin reappeared, holding the willows apart.

"Come here," he said more calmly.

"It goes up a hill," he said, squeezing through the willows into the clearing. "We can climb it and see where we are."

He was already wet, his brown coat covered with snow from the willows, and he looked wary, braced for bad news.

"You're sending me back, aren't you?"

"I must," Dunworthy said, but his heart sank at the prospect. Badri would not have the drop open for at least two hours, and he was not certain how long it would stay open. He didn't have two hours to spare, waiting here to send Colin through, and he couldn't leave him behind. "You're my responsibility."

"And you're mine," Colin said stubbornly. "Aunt Mary told me to take care of you. What if you have a relapse?"

"You don't understand. The Black Death — "

"It's all right. Really. I've had the streptomycin and all that. I made William have his nurse give them to me. You can't send me back now, the drop isn't open, and it's too cold to just stay here and wait for an hour. If we go look for Kivrin now, we might have found her by then."

He was right about their not being able to remain here. The cold was already seeping through the outlandish Victorian cape, and Colin's burlap coat was even less protection than his old jacket and as wet.

"We'll go to the top of the hill," he said, "but first we must mark the clearing so we can find it again. And you can't go running off like that. I want you in sight at all times. I don't have time to go looking for you as well."

"I won't get lost," Colin said, rummaging in his pack. He held up a flat rectangle. "I brought a locator. It's already set to home in on the clearing."

He held the willows apart for Dunworthy, and they went out to the road. It was scarcely a cowpath and covered with snow unmarked except by the tracks of squirrels and a dog or possibly a wolf. Colin walked obediently at Dunworthy's side till they were halfway up the hill and then couldn't restrain himself and took off running.

Dunworthy trudged after him, fighting the tightness already in his chest. The trees stopped halfway up the hill, and the wind began where they left off. It was bitingly cold.

"I can see the village," Colin shouted down to him.

He came up beside Colin. The wind was worse here, cutting straight through the cape, lining or no lining, and pushing long streamers of cloud across the pale sky. Far off to the south a plume of smoke climbed straight into the sky, and then, caught by the wind, veered off sharply to the east.

"See?" Colin said, pointing.

A rolling plain lay below them, covered in snow almost too bright to look at. The bare trees and the roads stood out darkly against it, like markings on a map. The Oxford-Bath road was a straight black line, bisecting the snowy plain, and Oxford a pencil drawing. He could see the snowy roofs and the square tower of St. Michael's above the dark walls.

"It doesn't look like the Black Death is here yet, does it?" Colin said.

Colin was right. It looked serene, untouched, the ancient Oxford of legend. It was impossible to imagine it overrun with the plague, the dead carts full of bodies being pulled through the narrow streets, the colleges boarded up and abandoned, and everywhere the dying and the already dead. Impossible to imagine Kivrin out there somewhere, in one of those villages he could not see.

"Can't you see it?" Colin said, pointing south. "Behind those trees."

He squinted, trying to make out buildings among the cluster of trees. He could see a darker shape among the gray branches, the tower of a church, perhaps, or the angle of a manor house.

"There's the road that leads to it," Colin said, pointing to a narrow gray line that began somewhere below them.

Dunworthy examined the map Montoya had given him. There was no way to tell which village it was even with her notes without knowing how far they were from the intended drop site. If they were directly south of it, the village was too far east to be Skendgate, but where he thought it should be there were no trees, nothing, only a flat field of snow.

"Well?" Colin said. "Are we going to it?"

It was the only village visible, if it was a village, and it looked to be no more than a kilometer away. If it was not Skendgate, it was at least in the proper direction, and if it had one of Montoya's "distinguishing characteristics," they could use it to get their bearings.

"You must keep with me at all times and speak to no one, do you understand?"

Colin nodded, clearly not listening. "I think the road is this way," he said and ran down the far side of the hill.

Dunworthy followed, trying not to think how many villages there were, how little time there was, how tired he was after only one hill.

"How did you talk William into the streptomycin inoculations?" he asked when he caught up to Colin.

"He wanted Great-Aunt Mary's med number so he could forge the authorizations. It was in the kit in her shopping bag."

"And you refused to give it to him unless he agreed?"

"Yes, and I told him I'd tell his mother about all his girls," he said and ran off ahead again.

The road he'd seen was a hedge. Dunworthy refused to set off through the field it bordered. "We must keep to the roads," he said.

"This is quicker," Colin protested. "It isn't as if we can get lost. We've got the locator."

Dunworthy refused to argue. He continued on, looking for a turning. The narrow fields gave way to woods and the road turned back to the north.

"What if there isn't a road?" Colin said after half a kilometer, but at the next turning there was one.

It was narrower than the one past the drop, and no one had travelled along it since the snow. They waded into it, their feet breaking through the frozen crust at every step. Dunworthy looked anxiously ahead for a glimpse of the village, but the woods were too thick to see through.

The snow made it slow going, and he was already out-of- breath, the tightness in his chest like an iron band.

"What do we do when we get there?" Colin asked, striding effortlessly through the snow.

"You stay out of sight and wait for me," Dunworthy said. "Is that perfectly clear?"

"Yes," Colin said. "Are you certain this is the right road?"

He was not certain at all. It had been curving west, away from the direction Dunworthy thought the village lay in, and just ahead it bent north again. He peered anxiously through the trees, trying to catch a glimpse of stone or thatch.

"The village wasn't this far, I'm sure of it," Colin said, rubbing his arms. "We've been walking for hours."

It had not been hours, but it had been at least an hour, and they had not come to so much as a cottar's hut, let alone a village. There were a score of villages here, but where?

Colin took out his locator. "See," he said, showing Dunworthy the readout. "We've come too far south. I think we should go back to the other road."

Dunworthy looked at the readout and then at the map. They were nearly straight south of the drop and over three kilometers from it. They would have to retrace their steps nearly all the way, with no hope of finding Kivrin in that time, and at the end of it, he was not certain he would be able to go any farther. He already felt done in, the band tightening round his chest with every step, and he had a sharp pain midway up his ribs. He turned and looked at the curve ahead, trying to think what to do.

"My feet are freezing," Colin said. He stamped his feet in the snow, and a bird flew up, startled, and flapped away. Dunworthy looked up, frowning. The sky was becoming overcast.

"We should have followed the hedge," Colin said. "It would have been much — "

"Hush," Dunworthy said.

"What is it?" Colin whispered. "Is someone coming?"

"Shh," Dunworthy whispered. He backed Colin to the edge of the road and listened again. He'd thought he'd heard a horse, but now he couldn't hear anything. It might only have been the bird.

He motioned Colin behind a tree. "Stay here," he whispered and crept forward till he could see around the curve.

The black stallion was tied to a thorn bush. Dunworthy backed hastily behind a spruce tree and stood still, trying to see the rider. There was no one in the road. He waited, trying to quiet his own breathing so he could hear, but no one came, and he could hear nothing but the stallion's pacing.

It was saddled, and its bridle was chased with silver, but it looked thin, its ribs standing out sharply against the girth. The girth itself was loose, and the saddle slipped a little to the side as it stepped backward. The stallion tossed his head, pulling hard against the reins. He was obviously trying to free himself, and as Dunworthy moved closer he could see he was not tied but tangled in the brambles.

He stepped into the road. The stallion turned his head toward him and began to whinny wildly.

"There, there, it's all right," he said, coming up carefully on its left side. He put his hand on its neck, and it stopped whinnying and began nosing at Dunworthy, looking for food.

He looked for some grass sticking up through the snow to feed her, but the area around the thornbush was nearly bare of snow.

"How long have you been trapped here, old boy?" he asked. Had the stallion's owner been stricken with the plague as he rode, or had he died, and the panicked horse bolted, running until his flying reins got tangled in the bush?

He walked a little way into the woods, looking for footprints, but there weren't any. The stallion began to whinny again, and he went back to free him, snatching up stalks of grass that stuck up through the snow as he went.

"A horse! Apocalyptic!" Colin said, racing up. "Where did you find it?"

"I told you to stay where you were."

"I know, but I heard the horse whinnying, and I thought you'd run into trouble."

"All the more reason for you to have obeyed me." He handed the grass to Colin. "Feed him these."

He bent over the bush and pulled out the reins. The stallion, in his efforts to extricate himself, had twisted the rein hopelessly round the spiked brambles. Dunworthy had to hold the branches back with one hand and reach in with the other to unwind it. He was covered with scratches within seconds.

"Whose horse is it?" Colin asked, offering the horse a piece of grass from a distance of several feet. The starving animal lunged at it and Colin jumped back, dropping it. "Are you sure it's tame?"

Dunworthy had incurred a near-fatal injury when the stallion jerked his head down for the grass, but he had the rein free. He wrapped it around his bleeding hand and took up the other one.

"Yes," he said.

"Whose horse is it?" Colin said, stroking its nose timidly.

"Ours." He tightened the girth and helped Colin, protesting, up behind the saddle, and mounted.

The stallion, not yet realizing he was free, turned his head accusingly when he kicked her gently in the sides but then cantered off back down the snow-packed road, delighted at his freedom.

Colin clutched frantically at Dunworthy's middle, just at the spot where the pain was, but by the time they had gone a hundred meters, he was sitting up straight and asking "How do you steer it?" and "What if you want it to go faster?"

It took them no time at all to return to the main road. Colin wanted to go back to the hedge and strike out across- country, but Dunworthy turned the stallion the other way. The road forked in half a mile, and he took the lefthand road.

It was a good deal more travelled than the first one, though the woods it led through were even thicker. The sky was completely overcast now, and the wind was picking up.

"I see it!" Colin said, and let go with one hand to point past a stand of ash trees to a glimpse of dark gray stone roof against the gray sky. A church, perhaps, or a manor house. It lay off to the east, and almost immediately a narrow track branched from the road, over a rickety wooden plank bridging a stream, and across a narrow meadow.

The stallion did not prick up its ears or attempt to speed his pace, and Dunworthy concluded it must not be from the village. And a good thing, too, or we'd be hanged for horse- stealing before we could ask where Kivrin is, he thought, and saw the sheep.

They lay on their sides, mounds of dirty gray wool, though some of them had huddled near the trees, trying to keep out of the wind and the snow.

Colin hadn't seen. "What do we do when we get there?" he asked Dunworthy's back. "Do we sneak in or just ride up and ask somebody if they've seen her?"

There will be no one to ask, Dunworthy thought. He kicked the stallion into a canter and they rode through the ash trees and into the village.

It was not at all like the illustrations in Colin's book, buildings around a central clearing. They were scattered in among the trees, almost out of sight of one another. He glimpsed thatched roofs, and farther off, in a grove of ash trees, the church, but here, in a clearing as small as that of the drop, was only a timbered house and a low shed.

It was too small to be a manor house — the steward's perhaps, or the reeve's. The wooden door of the shed stood open, and snow had drifted in. There was no smoke from the roof, and no sound.

"Perhaps they've fled," Colin said. "Lots of people fled when they heard the plague was coming. That's how it spread."

Perhaps they had fled. The snow in front of the house was packed flat and hard, as if many people and horses had been in the yard.

"Stay here with the horse," he said, and went up to the house. The door here was not shut either, though it had been pulled nearly to. He ducked in the little door.

It was icy inside and so dark after the bright snow that he could see nothing except the red after-image. He pushed the door open all the way, but there was still scarcely any light, and everything seemed tinged with red.

It must be the steward's house. There were two rooms, separated by a timbered partition, and matting on the floor. The table was bare, and the fire on the hearth had been out for days. The little room was filled with the smell of cold ashes. The steward and his family had fled, and perhaps the rest of the villagers, too, no doubt taking the plague with them. And Kivrin.

He leaned against the door jamb, the tightness in his chest suddenly a pain again. Of all his worries over Kivrin, this one had never occurred to him, that she would have gone.

He looked into the other room. Colin ducked his head in the door. "The horse keeps trying to drink out of a bucket that's out here. Should I let it?"

"Yes," Dunworthy said, standing so Colin couldn't see round the partition. "But don't let him drink too much. He hasn't had any water for days."

"There isn't all that much in the bucket." He looked round the room interestedly. "This is one of the serf's huts, right? They really were poor, weren't they? Did you find anything?"

"No," he said. "Go and watch the horse. And don't let him wander off."

Colin went out, brushing his head against the top of the door.

The baby lay on a bag of flocking in the corner. It had apparently still been alive when the mother died; she lay on the mud floor, her hands stretched out toward it. Both were dark, almost black, and the baby's swaddling clothes were stiff with darkened blood.

"Mr. Dunworthy!" Colin called, sounding alarmed, and Dunworthy jerked around, afraid he had come in again, but he was still out with the stallion, whose nose was deep in the bucket.

"What is it?" he asked.

"There's something over there on the ground." Colin pointed toward the huts. "I think it's a body." He yanked on the stallion's reins, so hard the bucket fell over and a thin puddle of water spilled out on the snow.

"Wait," Dunworthy said, but he was already running forward into the trees, the stallion following.

"It is a b — " Colin said, and his voice cut off sharply. Dunworthy ran up, holding his side.

It was a body, a young man's. It lay sprawled face up in the snow in a frozen puddle of black liquid. There was a dusting of snow on his face. His buboes must have burst, Dunworthy thought, and looked at Colin, but he was not looking at the body, but at the clearing.

It was larger than the one in front of the steward's house. At its edges lay half a dozen huts, at the far end the Norman church. And in the center, on the trampled snow, lay the bodies.

They had made no attempt at burying them, though by the church there was a shallow trench, a mound of snow-covered dirt piled beside it. Some of them seemed to have been dragged to the churchyard — there were long, sled-like marks in the snow-and one at least had crawled to the door of his hut. He lay half-in, half-out.

"'Fear God,'" Dunworthy murmured, "'for the hour of His judgment is come.'"

"It looks like there was a battle here," Colin said.

"There was," Dunworthy said.

Colin stepped forward, peering down at the body. "Do you think they're all dead?"

"Don't touch them," Dunworthy said. "Don't even go near them."

"I've had the gamma globulin," he said, but he stepped back from the body, swallowing.

"Take deep breaths," Dunworthy said, putting his hand on Colin's shoulder. "And look at something else."

"They said in the book it was like this," he said, staring determinedly at an oak tree. "Actually, I was afraid it might be a good deal worse. I mean, it doesn't smell or anything."

"Yes."

He swallowed again. "I'm all right now." He looked round the clearing. "Where do you think Kivrin's likely to be?"

Not here, Dunworthy prayed.

"She might be in the church," he said, starting forward with the stallion again, "and we need to see if the tomb's there. This might not be the village." The stallion took two steps forward and reared his head, his ears back. He whinnied frightenedly.

"Go and put him in the shed," Dunworthy said, taking hold of the reins. "He can smell the blood, and he's frightened. Tie him up."

He led the stallion back out of sight of the body and handed the reins to Colin, who took them, looking worried. "It's all right," he said, leading him toward the steward's house. "I know just how you feel."

Dunworthy walked rapidly across the clearing to the churchyard. There were four bodies in the shallow pit and two graves next to it, covered with snow, the first to die perhaps, when there were still such things as funerals. He went round to the front of the church.

There were two more bodies in front of the door. They lay face-down, on top of one another, the one on top an old man. The body underneath was a woman. He could see the skirts of her rough cloak and one of her hands. The man's arms were flung across the the woman's head and shoulders.

Dunworthy lifted the man's arm gingerly, and his body shifted slightly sideways, pulling the cloak with it. The kirtle underneath was dirty and smeared with blood, but he could see that it had been bright blue. He pulled the hood back. There was a rope around the woman's neck. Her long blonde hair was tangled in the rough fibers.

They hanged her, he thought with no surprise at all.

Colin ran up. "I figured out what these marks on the ground are," he said. "They're where they dragged the bodies. There's a little kid behind the barn with a rope around his neck."

Dunworthy looked at the rope, at the tangle of hair. It was so dirty it was scarcely blonde.

"They dragged them to the churchyard because they couldn't carry them, I bet," Colin said.

"Did you put the stallion in the shed?"

"Yes. I tied it to a beam thing," he said. "It wanted to come with me."

"He's hungry," Dunworthy. "Go back to the shed and give him some hay."

"Did something happen?" Colin asked. "You're not having a relapse, are you?"

Dunworthy didn't think Colin could see her dress from where he stood. "No," he said. "There should be some hay in the shed. Or some oats. Go and feed the stallion."

"All right," Colin said defensively, and ran toward the shed. He stopped halfway across the green. "I don't have to give it the hay, do I?" he shouted. "Can I just lay it down in front of it?"

"Yes, " Dunworthy said, looking at her hand. There was blood on her hand, too, and down the inside of her wrist. Her arm was bent, as though she had tried to break her fall. He could take hold of her elbow and turn her onto her back quite easily. All it required was to take hold of her elbow.

He picked up her hand. It was stiff and cold. Under the dirt it was red and chapped, the skin split in a dozen places. It could not possibly be Kivrin's, and if it were, what had she gone through these past two weeks to bring her to this state?

It would all be on the corder. He turned her hand gently over, looking for the implant scar, but her wrist was too caked with dirt for him to be able to see it, if it was there.

And if it was, what then? Call Colin back and send him for a knife in the steward's kitchen and chop it out of her dead hand so they could listen to her voice telling the horrors that had happened to her? He could not do it, of course, any more than he could turn her body over and know once and for all that it was Kivrin.

He laid the hand gently back next to the body and took hold of her elbow and turned her over.

She had died of the bubonic variety. There was a foul yellow stain down the side of her blue kirtle where the bubo under her arm had split and run. Her tongue was black and so swollen it filled her entire mouth, like some ghastly, obscene object thrust between her teeth to choke her, and her pale face was swollen and distorted.

It was not Kivrin. He tried to stand, staggering a little, and then thought, too late, that he should have covered the woman's face.

"Mr. Dunworthy!" Colin shouted, coming at a dead run, and he looked up blindly, helplessly at him.

"What's happened?" Colin said accusingly. "Did you find her?"

"No," he said, blocking Colin's way. We're not going to find her.

Colin was looking past him at the woman. Her face was bluish-white against the white snow, the bright blue dress. "You found her, didn't you? Is that her?"

"No," Dunworthy said. But it could be. It could be. And I can not turn over any more bodies, thinking it might be. His knees felt watery, as though they would not support him. "Help me back to the shed," he said.

Colin stood stubbornly where he was. "If it's her, you can tell me. I can bear it."

But I can't, Dunworthy thought. I can't bear it if she's dead.

He started back towards the steward's house, keeping one hand on the cold stone wall of the church and wondering what he would do when he came to open space.

Colin leaped beside him, taking his arm, looking anxiously at him. "What's the matter? Are you having a relapse?"

"I just need to rest a bit," he said and went on, almost without meaning to, "Kivrin wore a blue dress when she went." When she went, when she lay down on the ground and closed her eyes, helpless and trusting, and disappeared forever into this chamber of horrors.

Colin pushed the door of the shed open and helped Dunworthy inside, holding him up with both hands on his arm. The stallion looked up from a sack of oats.

"I couldn't find any hay," Colin said, "so I gave it some grain. Horses eat grain, don't they?"

"Yes," Dunworthy said, leaning into the sacks. "Don't let him eat them all. He'll gorge himself and burst."

Colin went over to the sack and began dragging it out of the stallion's reach. "Why did you think it was Kivrin?" he said.

"I saw the blue dress," Dunworthy said. "Kivrin wore a dress that color."

The bag was too heavy for Colin. He yanked on it with both hands, and the side split, spilling oats on the straw. The stallion nibbled eagerly at them. "No, I mean all those people died of the plague, didn't they? And she's been immunized. So she couldn't get the plague. And what else would she die of?"

Of this, Dunworthy thought. Noone 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 casket. The 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 synthomycin, 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," he 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 casket. "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.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

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 it 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 him in 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 marshalling 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 finder, 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 narrower 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 cowpath or a deer trail. It would end at a cotter'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 onto 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 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 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 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 running to catch up again.

Dunworthy went in the tower. It was as dark and cold as the church and smelled of rats. The cow poked its head in, and Colin squeezed past it and stood against the curving wall.

"You're the one who keeps saying we have to get back to the drop, that it's going to close and leave us here," Colin said. "You're the one who said we didn't have time even to find Kivrin."

Dunworthy stood there a moment, letting his eyes adjust and trying to catch his breath. He had walked too fast, and the tightness in his chest was back. He looked up at the rope. It hung above their heads in the darkness, a greasy-looking knot a foot from the frayed end.

"Can I ring it?" Colin said, staring up at it.

"You're too small," Dunworthy said.

"I'm not," he said and jumped up at the rope. He caught the end, below the knot and hung on for several moments before dropping, but the rope scarcely moved, and the bell only clanged faintly and out of tune, as if someone had hit the side of it with a rock. "It's heavy," he said.

Dunworthy raised his arms and took hold of the rough rope. It was cold and bristly. He yanked sharply down, not sure he could do any better than Colin, and the rope cut into his hands. Bong.

"It's loud!" Colin said, clapping his hands over his ears and gazing delightedly up at it.

"One," Dunworthy said. One and up. Remembering the Americans, he bent his knees and pulled straight down on the rope. Two. And up. And three.

He wondered how Kivrin had been able to ring any strokes at all with her hurt ribs. The bell was far heavier, far louder than he had imagined, and it seemed to reverberate in his head, his tightening chest. Bong.

He thought of Ms. Piantini, bending her chubby knees and counting to herself. Five. He had not appreciated what difficult work it was. Each pull seemed to yank the breath out of his lungs. Six.

He wanted to stop and rest, but he didn't want Kivrin, listening inside the church, to think he had quit, that he had only intended to finish the strokes she had begun. He tightened his grip above the knot and leaned against the stone wall for a moment, trying to ease the tightness in his chest.

"Are you all right, Mr. Dunworthy?" Colin said.

"Yes," he said, and pulled down so hard it seemed to tear his lungs open. Seven.

He should not have leaned against the wall. The stones were cold as ice. They had set him shivering again. He thought of Ms. Taylor, trying to finish the Chicago Surprise Minor, counting how many strokes were left, trying not to give in to the pounding in her head.

"I can finish it," Colin said, and Dunworthy could scarcely hear him. "I can go get Kivrin, and we can do the last two strokes. We can both pull on it."

Dunworthy shook his head. "Every man must stick to his bell," he said breathlessly and yanked down on the rope. Eight. He must not let go of the rope. Ms. Taylor had fainted and let it go, and the bell had swung right over, the rope whipping like a live thing. It had wrapped itself around Finch's neck and nearly strangled him. He must hold to it, in spite of everything.

He pulled down on the rope and hung onto it till he was certain he could stand and then let it rise. "Nine," he said.

Colin was frowning at him. "Are you having a relapse?" he said suspiciously.

"No," Dunworthy said, and let go of the rope.

The cow had its head in the door. He pushed it roughly aside and walked back to the church and went inside.

Kivrin was still kneeling beside Roche, her hand still holding his stiff one.

He stopped in front of her. "I rang the bell," he said.

She looked up without nodding.

"Don't you think we'd better go now?" Colin said. "It's getting dark."

"Yes," Dunworthy said. "I think we'd best — " The dizziness caught him completely unaware, and he staggered and nearly fell into Roche's body.

Kivrin put out her hand, and Colin dived for him, the torch flashing erratically across the ceiling as he grabbed Dunworthy's arm. He caught himself on one knee and the flat of his hand and reached out with the other for Kivrin, but she was on her feet and backing away.

"You're ill!" It was an accusation, an indictment. "You've caught the plague, haven't you?" she said, her voice showing emotion for the first time. "Haven't you?"

"No," Dunworthy said, "it's — "

"He's having a relapse," Colin said, sticking the torch in the crook of the statue's arm so he could help Dunworthy to a sitting position. "He didn't pay any attention to my placards."

"It's a virus," Dunworthy said, sitting down with his back to the statue. "It's not the plague. Both of us have had streptomycin and gamma globulin. We can't get the plague."

He leaned his head back against the statue. "It's a virus. I'll be all right. I only need to rest a moment."

"I told him he shouldn't have rung the bell," Colin said, emptying the burlap sack onto the stone floor. He wrapped the empty sack around Dunworthy's shoulders.

"Are there any aspirin left?" Dunworthy asked.

"You're only supposed to take them every three hours," Colin said, "and you're not supposed to take them without water."

"Then fetch me some water," he snapped.

Colin looked to Kivrin for support, but she was still standing on the other side of Roche's body, watching Dunworthy warily.

"Now," Dunworthy said, and Colin ran out, his boots echoing on the stone floor. Dunworthy looked across at Kivrin, and she took a step back.

"It isn't the plague," he said. "It's a virus. We were afraid you had been exposed to it before you came through and had come down with it. Did you?"

"Yes," she said, and knelt beside Roche. "He saved my life."

She smoothed the purple blanket, and Dunworthy realized it was a velvet cloak. It had a large silk cross sewn in the center of it.

"He told me not to be afraid," she said. She pulled the cloak up over his chest, under his crossed hands, but the action left his feet, in thick, incongruous sandals, uncovered. Dunworthy took the burlap bag from around his shoulders and spread it gently over the feet, and then stood up, carefully, holding onto the statue so he wouldn't fall again.

Kivrin patted Roche's hands under the cloak. "He didn't mean to hurt me," she said.

Colin came back in with a bucket half-full of water he must have found in a puddle. He was breathing hard. "The cow attacked me!" he said, scooping a filthy dipper out of the bucket. He emptied the aspirin into Dunworthy's hand. There were five tablets.

Dunworthy took two of them, swallowing as little of the water as he could, and handed the others to Kivrin. She took them from him solemnly, still kneeling on the floor.

"I couldn't find any horses," Colin said, handing Kivrin the dipper. "Just a mule."

"Donkey," Kivrin said. "Maisry stole Agnes's pony." She gave Dolin the dipper and took hold of Roche's hand again. "He rang the bell for everyone, so their souls could go safely to heaven."

"Don't you think we'd better be going?" Colin whispered. "It's almost dark out."

"Even Rosemund," Kivrin said as if she hadn't heard. "He was already ill. I told him there wasn't time, that we had to leave for Scotland."

"We must go now," Dunworthy said, "before the light fails."

She didn't move or let go of Roche's hand. "He held my hand when I was dying."

"Kivrin," he said.

She laid her hand on his cheek and got to her knees. Dunworthy offered her his hand, but she stood up by herself, her hand pressed to her side, and walked down the nave.

At the door she turned and looked back into the darkness. "He told me where the drop was when he was dying, so I could go back to heaven. He told me he wanted me to leave him there and go, so that when he came I would already be there," she said, and went out into the snow.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The snow fell silently, peacefully on the stallion and the donkey waiting by the lychgate. Dunworthy helped Kivrin onto the stallion, and she did not flinch away from his touch as he had been afraid she would, but as soon as she was up, she leaned away from his grasp and took hold of the reins. As soon as he removed his hands, she slumped back against the saddle, her hand against her side.

Dunworthy was shivering now, clenching his teeth against it so Colin wouldn't see. It took three tries to get him onto the donkey, and he thought he might slip off at any minute.

"I think I'd better lead your mule," Colin said, looking disapprovingly at him.

"There isn't time," Dunworthy said. "It's getting dark. You ride behind Kivrin."

Colin led the stallion over to the lychgate, climbed up on the lintel, and scrambled up behind Kivrin.

"Do you have the locator?" Dunworthy said, trying to kick the donkey without falling off.

"I know the way," Kivrin said.

"Yes," Colin said. He held it up. "And the pocket torch." He flicked it on, and then shone it all around the churchyard, as if looking for something they might have left behind. He seemed to notice the graves for the first time.

"Is that where you buried everybody?" he said, holding the light steady on the smooth white mounds.

"Yes," Kivrin said.

"Did they die a long time ago?"

She turned the stallion and started it up the hill. "No," she said.

The cow followed them partway up the hill, its swollen udders swinging, and then stopped and began lowing pitifully. Dunworthy looked back at it. It mooed uncertainly at him, and then ambled back down the road toward the village. They were nearly to the top of the hill, and the snow was letting up, but below, in the village, it was still snowing hard. The graves were covered completely, and the church was obscured, the bell tower scarcely visible at all.

Kivrin did not so much as glance back. She rode steadily forward, sitting very straight, with Colin on behind her, holding not to Kivrin's waist but to the high back of the saddle. The snow came down fitfully, and then in single flakes, and by the time they were in thick woods again, it had nearly stopped.

Dunworthy followed the horse, trying to keep up with its steady gait, trying not to give way to the fever. The aspirin was not working — he had taken it with too little water-and he could feel the fever beginning to overtake him, beginning to shut out the woods and the donkey's bony back and Colin's voice.

He was talking cheerfully to Kivrin, telling her about the epidemic, and the way he told it, it sounded like an adventure. "They said there was a quarantine and we'd have to go back to London, but I didn't want to do that. I wanted to see Great-Aunt Mary. So I sneaked through the barrier, and the guard saw me and said, 'You there! Stop!' and started to chase me, and I ran down the street and into this alley."

They stopped, and Colin and Kivrin dismounted. Colin took off his muffler, and she pulled up her blood-stiff smock and tied it around her ribs. Dunworthy knew the pain must be even worse than he'd thought, that he should try at least to help her, but he was afraid that if he got down off the donkey, he would not be able to get back on.

Kivrin and Colin mounted again, she helping him up, and they set off again, slowing at every turning and side path to check their direction, Colin hunching over the locator's screen and pointing, Kivrin nodding in confirmation.

"This was where I fell off the donkey," Kivrin said when they stopped at a fork. "That first night. I was so sick. I thought he was a cutthroat."

They came to another fork. It had stopped snowing, but the clouds above the trees were dark and heavy. Colin had to shine his torch on the locator to read it. He pointed down the right- hand path, and got on behind Kivrin again, telling her his adventures.

"Mr. Dunworthy said, 'You've lost the fix,' and then he went straight over into Mr. Gilchrist and they both fell down," Colin said. "Mr. Gilchrist was acting like he'd done it on purpose, he wouldn't even help me cover him up. He was shivering like blood, and he had a fever, and I kept shouting, 'Mr. Dunworthy! Mr. Dunworthy!' but he couldn't hear me. And Mr. Gilchrist kept saying, 'I'm holding you personally responsible.'"

It began to spit snow again, and the wind picked up. Dunworthy clung to the donkey's stiff mane, shivering.

"They wouldn't tell me anything," Colin said, "and when I tried to get in to see Great-Aunt Mary, they said, 'We don't allow children.'"

They were riding into the wind, the snow blowing against Dunworthy's cloak in freezing gusts. He leaned forward till he was nearly lying on the donkey's neck.

"The doctor came out," Colin said, "and he started whispering to this nurse, and I knew she was dead," and Dunworthy felt a sudden stab of grief, as if he were hearing it for the first time. Oh, Mary, he thought.

"I didn't know what to do," Colin said, "so I just sat there, and Mrs. Gaddson, she's this necrotic perons, came up and started reading to me out of the Bible how it was God's will. I hate Mrs. Gaddson!" he said violently. "She's the one who deserved to get the flu!"

Their voices began to ring, the overtones echoing against and around the woods so that he shouldn't have been able to understand them, but oddly they rang clearer and clearer in the cold air, and he thought they must be able to hear them all the way to Oxford, seven hundred years away.

It came to Dunworthy suddenly that Mary wasn't dead, that here in this terrible year, in this century that was worse than a ten, she had not yet died, and it seemed to him a blessing beyond any he had any right to expect.

"And that was when we heard the bell," Colin said. Mr. Dunworthy said it was you calling for help."

"It was," Kivrin said. "This won't work. He'll fall off."

"You're right," Colin said, and Dunworthy realized that they had dismounted again and were standing next to the donkey, Kivrin holding the rope bridle.

"We have to put you on the horse," Kivrin said, taking hold of Dunworthy's waist. "You're going to fall off the donkey. Come on. Get down. I'll help you."

They both had to help him down, Kivrin reaching around him in a way he knew had to hurt her ribs, Colin almost holding him up.

"If I could just sit down for a bit," Dunworthy said through chattering teeth.

"There isn't time," Colin said, but they helped him to the side of the path and eased him down against a rock.

Kivrin reached up under her smock and brought out three aspirin. "Here. Take these," she said, holding them out to him on her open palm.

"Those were for you," he said. "Your ribs — "

She looked at him steadily, unsmilingly. "I'll be all right," she said, and went to tie the stallion to a bush.

"Do you want some water?" Colin said. "I could build a fire and melt some snow."

"I'll be all right," Dunworthy said. He put the aspirin in his mouth and swallowed them.

Kivrin was adjusting the stirrups, untying the leather straps with practiced skill. She knotted them and came back over to Dunworthy to help him up. "Ready?" she said, putting her hand under his arm.

"Yes," Dunworthy said, and tried to stand up.

"This was a mistake," Colin said. "We'll never get him on," but they did, putting his foot in the stirrups and his hands around the pommel and hoisting him up, and at the end he was even able to help them a little, offering a hand so Colin could clamber up the side of the stallion in front of him.

He had stopped shivering, but he was not sure whether that was a good sign or not, and when they started off again, Kivrin ahead on the jolting donkey, Colin already talking, he leaned into Colin's back and closed his eyes.

"So I decided that when I get out of school, I'm going to come to Oxford and be an historian like you," he said. "I don't want to come to the Black Death. I want to go to the Crusades."

He listened to them, leaning against Colin. It was getting dark, and they were in the Middle Ages in the woods, two cripples and a child, and Badri, another cripple, trying to hold the net open and susceptible to relapse himself. But he could not seem to summon any panic or even any worry. Colin had the locator and Kivrin knew where the drop was. They would be all right.

Even if they could not find the drop and they were trapped here forever, even if Kivrin could not forgive him, she would be all right. She would take them to Scotland, where the plague never went, and Colin would pull fishhooks and a frying pan out of his bag of tricks and they would catch trout and salmon to eat. They might even find Basingame.

"I've watched sword-fighting on the vids, and I know how to drive a horse," Colin said, and then, "Stop!"

Colin jerked the reins back and up, and the stallion stopped, its nose against the donkey's tail. They were at the top of a little hill. At its bottom was a frozen puddle and a line of willows.

"Kick it," Colin said, but Kivrin was already dismounting.

"He won't go any farther," she said. "He did this before. He saw me come through. I thought it was Gawyn, but it was Roche all along." She pulled the rope bridle off over the donkey's head, and it immediately bolted back along the narrow path.

"Do you want to ride?" Colin asked her, already scrambling down.

She shook her head. "It hurts more mounting and dismounting than walking." She was looking across at the farther hill. The trees went only halfway up, and above them the hill was white with snow. It must have stopped snowing, though Dunworthy hadn't been aware of it. The clouds were breaking up, and between them the sky was a pale, clear lavender.

"He thought I was St. Catherine," she said. "He saw me come through, like you were afraid would happen. He thought I had been sent from God to help them in their hour of need."

"Well, and you did, didn't you?" Colin said. He jerked the reins awkwardly, and the stallion started down the hill, Kivrin walking beside it. "You should have seen the mess the other places we were. Bodies everywhere, and I don't think anybody helped them."

He handed the reins to Kivrin. "I'll go see if the net's open," he said and ran ahead. "Badri was going to open it every two hours." He crashed into the thicket and disappeared.

Kivrin brought the stallion to a stop at the bottom of the hill and helped Dunworthy down.

"We'd best take his saddle and bridle off," Dunworthy said. "When we found him, he was tangled in a bush."

Together they got the girth uncinched and the saddle off. Kivrin unhooked the bridle and reached up to stroke the stallion's head.

"He'll be all right," Dunworthy said.

"Maybe," she said.

Colin burst through the willows, scattering snow everywhere. "It's not there."

"It'll open soon," Dunworthy said.

"Are we taking the horse with us?" Colin asked. "I thought historians weren't allowed to take anything into the future. But it'd be great if we could take him. I could ride him when I go to the Crusades."

He exploded back through the thicket, spraying snow. "Come on, you guys, it could open any time."

Kivrin nodded. She smacked the stallion on its flank. It walked a few paces and then stopped and looked back at them questioningly.

"Come on," Colin said from somewhere inside the thicket, but Kivrin didn't move.

She put her hand against her side.

"Kivrin," he said, moving to help her.

"I'll be all right," she said and turned away from him to push aside the tangled branches of the thicket.

It was already twilight under the trees. The sky between the black branches of the oak was lavender-blue. Colin was dragging a fallen log into the middle of the clearing. "In case we just missed it and have to wait a whole two hours," he said. Dunworthy sat down gratefully.

"How do we know where to stand when the net opens?" Colin asked Kivrin.

"We'll be able to see the condensation," she said. She went over to the oak tree and bent down to brush the snow away from its base.

"What if it gets dark?' Colin asked.

She sat down against the tree, biting her lips as she eased herself onto the roots.

Colin squatted down between them. "I didn't bring any matches or I'd start a fire," he said.

"It's all right," Dunworthy said.

Colin switched on his pocket torch and then switched it off again. "I think I'd better save this in case something goes wrong."

There was a movement in the willows. Colin leaped up. "I think it's starting," he said.

"It's the stallion," Dunworthy said. "He's eating."

"Oh." Colin sat back down. "You don't think the net already opened and we didn't see it because it was dark?"

"No," Dunworthy said.

"Perhaps Badri had another relapse and couldn't keep the net open," he said, sounding more excited than scared.

They waited. The sky darkened to purple-blue, and stars began to come out in the branches of the oak. Colin sat on the log beside Dunworthy and talked about the Crusades.

"You know all about the Middle Ages," he said to Kivrin, "so I thought perhaps you'd help me get ready, you know, teach me things."

"You're not old enough," she said. "It's very dangerous."

"I know," Colin said. "But I really want to go. You have to help me. Please?"

"It won't be anything like you expect," she said.

"Is the food necrotic? I read in this book Mr. Dunworthy gave me how they ate spoiled meat and swans and things."

Kivrin looked down at her hands for a long minute. "Most of it was terrible," she said softly, "but there were some wonderful things.

Wonderful things. He thought of Mary, leaning against Balliol's gate, saying, "I'll never forget it." Wonderful things.

"What about Brussels sprouts?" Colin asked. "Did they eat Brussels sprouts in the Middle Ages?"

Kivrin almost smiled. "I don't think they were invented yet."

"Good!" He jumped up. "Did you hear that? I think it's starting. It sounds like a bell."

Kivrin raised her head, listening. "A bell was ringing when I came through," she said.

"Come on," Colin said, and yanked Dunworthy to his feet. "Can't you hear it?"

It was a bell, faint and far away.

"It's coming from over here," Colin said. He darted to the edge of the clearing. "Come on!"

Kivrin put her hand on the ground for support and got to her knees. Her free hand went involuntarily to her side.

Dunworthy reached his hand out to her, but she didn't take it. "I'll be all right," she said quietly.

"I know," he said, and let his hand drop.

She stood up carefully, holding onto the rough trunk of the oak, and then straightened and stood free of it.

"I got it all on the corder," she said. "Everything that happened."

Like John Clyn, he thought, looking at her ragged hair, her dirty face. A true historian, writing in the empty church, surrounded by graves. I, seeing so many evils, have put into writing all the things that I have witnessed. Lest things which should be remembered perish with time.

Kivrin turned her palms up and looked at her wrists in the twilight. "Father Roche and Agnes and Rosemund and all of them," she said. "I got it all down."

She traced a line down the side of her wrist with her finger. "Io suuicien lui damo amo," she said softly. "You are here in place of the friends I love."

"Kivrin," Dunworthy said.

"Come on!" Colin said. "It's starting. Can't you hear the bell?"

"Yes," Dunworthy said. It was Ms. Piantini on the tenor, ringing the leadin to "When At Last My Savior Cometh."

Kivrin came and stood next to Dunworthy. She placed her hands together, as if she were praying.

"I can see Badri!" Colin said. He cupped his hands around his mouth. "She's all right!" he shouted. "We saved her!"

Ms. Piantini's tenor clanged, and the other bells chimed in joyously. The air began to glitter, like snowflakes.

"Apocalyptic!" Colin said, his face alight.

Kivrin reached out for Dunworthy's hand and clasped it tightly in her own.

"I knew you'd come," she said, and the net opened.