Connie Willis - Dooms Day Book

“‘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. No one 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?”