Connie Willis - Doomsday Book

"Does Rosemund like Sir Bloet?" Kivrin asked. Of course she didn't like him. She had been hateful, ill-tempered, nearly hysterical ever since she heard he was coming.

" I like him," Agnes said. "He is to give me a silver bridle-chain when they wed."

Kivrin looked ahead at Rosemund, waiting far down the road. Sir Bloet might not be old and dissipated at all. She was assuming that the way she had assumed Lady Yvolde was his wife. He might be young, and Rosemund's bad temper might only be nervousness. Or she might change her mind about him before the wedding. Girls weren't usually married till they were fourteen or fifteen, certainly not before they started exhibiting signs of maturation.

"When are they to be married?" Kivrin asked Agnes.

"At Eastertide," Agnes said.

They had come to another fork. This one was much narrower, the two roads running nearly parallel for a hundred meters before the one Rosemund had taken started up a low hill.

Twelve years old and to be married in three months. No wonder Lady Eliwys hadn't wanted Sir Bloet to know they were here. Perhaps she didn't approve of Rosemund marrying so young, and the betrothal had only been arranged to get her father out of the trouble he was in.

Rosemund rode to the top of the hill and galloped back to Father Roche. "Where do you lead us?" she demanded. "We come soon to open ground."

"We are nearly there," Father Roche said mildly.

She wheeled her mare around and galloped out of sight over the hill, reappeared, galloped back nearly to Kivrin and Agnes, turned the mare sharply and rode ahead again. Like the rat in the trap, Kivrin thought, frantically looking for a way out.

The drizzle was turning into a sleety rain. Father Roche pulled his hood up over his tonsured head and led the donkey up the low hill. It plodded steadily up the incline to the top, and then stopped. Father Roche jerked on the reins, and the donkey pulled back against them.

Kivrin and Agnes caught up to him. "What's wrong?" Kivrin asked.

"Come, Balaam," Father Roche said, and took hold of the reins with both his huge hands, but the donkey didn't budge. It strained against the priest, digging in its rear hooves and leaning back so it was nearly sitting.

"Mayhap he likes not the rain," Agnes said.

"Can we help?" Kivrin asked.

"Nay," he said, waving them past him. "Ride ahead. It will go better with him if the horses are not here."

He wrapped the reins around his hand and went around behind as if he intended to push. Kivrin rode over the crest with Agnes, looking back to make sure the donkey didn't suddenly kick him in the head. They started down the other side.

The forest below them was veiled in rain. It was already melting the snow from the road, and the bottom of the hill was a muddy bog. There were thick bushes on either side, covered with snow. Rosemund sat at the top of the next hill. It had trees only halfway up its sides, and above them there was an expanse of snow. And beyond that, Kivrin thought, is an open plain and a view of the road, and Oxford.

"Where are you going, Kivrin? Wait!" Agnes cried, but Kivrin was already down the hill and off her sorrel, shaking the snow-covered bushes, trying to see if they were willows. They were, and beyond them she could see the crown of a big oak. She threw the sorrel's reins over the reddish willow branches, and pushed into the thicket. The snow had frozen the willow branches together. She struck at them, and snow showered down on her. A flurry of birds launched itself into the air, screeching. She fought her way through the snowy branches and pushed through to the clearing that had to be there. It was.

And there was the oak, and beyond it, away from the road, the stand of white-trunked birches that had looked like thinner woods. It had to be the drop.

But it didn't look right. The clearing had been smaller, hadn't it? And the oak had had more leaves on it, more nests. There was a blackthorn bush to one side of the clearing, its purple-black buds poking out from the vicious thorns. She didn't remember its being there. She would surely have remembered that, wouldn't she?

It's the snow, she thought, it's making the clearing look larger. It was nearly half a meter deep here, and smooth, untouched. It didn't look as if anyone had ever been here.

"Is this the place where Father Roche would have us gather ivy?" Rosemund said, pushing through the thicket. She looked around the clearing, her hands on her hips. "There is no ivy here."

There had been ivy, hadn't there, wound around the base of the oak, and mushrooms? It's the snow, she thought. The snow has covered up all the distinguishing landmarks. And the tracks, where Gawyn had dragged away the wagon and the boxes.

The casket — Gawyn had not brought the casket back to the manor. He hadn't seen it because she'd hidden it in the weeds by the road.

She pushed past Rosemund through the willows, not even trying to avoid the showering snow. The casket would be buried in snow, too, but it wasn't as deep by the road, and the casket was nearly forty centimeters tall.

"Lady Katherine!" Rosemund shouted, right behind her. "Where would you now ?"

"Kivrin!" Agnes said, a pathetic echo. She had tried to climb down off her pony in the middle of the road, but she had got her foot caught in the stirrup. "Lady Kivrin, come you here!"

Kivrin looked at her blindly for a moment, and then glanced up the hill.

Father Roche was still at the top, struggling with the donkey. She had to find the casket before he came. "Stay on your pony, Agnes," she said and began scrabbling at the snow under the willows.

"What do you seek?" Rosemund said. "There is no ivy here!"

"Lady Kivrin, you come now!" Agnes said.

Perhaps the snow had bent the willows over, and the casket was farther in underneath them. She bent over, clinging to the thin, brittle branches, and tried to sweep the snow aside. But the trunk wasn't there. She had seen that as soon as she started. The willows had protected the weeds and the ground underneath them. There were only a few centimeters of snow. But if this is the place, it must be here, Kivrin thought numbly. If this is the place.

"Lady Kivrin!" Agnes shouted, and Kivrin glanced back at her. She had managed to get down off her pony and was running toward Kivrin.

"Don't run," Kivrin started to say, but she didn't get it half out before Agnes caught her foot on one of the ruts and went down.

It knocked the breath out of her, and Kivrin and Rosemund were both to her before she even started to cry. Kivrin scooped her into her arms and pushed her hand against Agnes's middle to straighten her and make her take a breath.

Agnes gasped, and then drew in a long breath and began to shriek.

"Go and fetch Father Roche," Kivrin said to Rosemund. "He's at the top of the hill. His donkey balked."

"He is already coming," Rosemund said. Kivrin turned her head. He was running clumsily down the hill, without the donkey, and Kivrin almost called out, "Don't run!" to him, too, but he could not have heard her over Agnes's screaming.

"Shh," Kivrin said. "You're all right. You just had the wind knocked out of you."

Father Roche caught up to them, and Agnes immediately flung herself across into his arms. He hugged her against him. "Hush, Agnus ," he murmured in his wonderful comforting voice. "Hush." Her screams quieted to sobs.

"Where did you hurt yourself?" Kivrin asked, brushing the snow from Agnes's cloak. "Did you scrape your hands?"

Father Roched turned her around in his arms so Kivrin could take her white fur mittens off her. Her hands were bright red, but they weren't scraped. "Where did you hurt yourself?"

"She is not hurt," Rosemund said. "She cries because she is a babe!"

"I am not a babe!" Agnes said with such force she nearly flung herself out of Father Roche's arms. "I struck my knee on the ground."