Connie Willis - Dooms Day Book

“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 person, 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.