Connie Willis - Dooms Day Book

“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.