Connie Willis - Doomsday Book

"The robbers had not been long gone, and I found their trail with ease and followed it, spurring my steed after them."

Sir Bloet's nephew was dangling Blackie by his front legs, and the puppy was whimpering pathetically.

"Kivrin!" Agnes cried, catching sight of her, and flung herself at Kivrin's legs. Sir Bloet's nephew immediately handed Kivrin the puppy and backed away, and the rest of the children scattered.

"You rescued Blackie!" Agnes said, reaching for him.

Kivrin shook her head. "It is time to go to bed," she said.

"I'm not tired!" Agnes said in a whine that was scarcely convincing. She rubbed her eyes.

"Blackie is tired," Kivrin said, squatting down beside Agnes, "and he won't go to bed unless you will lie down with him."

That argument seemed to interest her, and before she could find a flaw in it, Kivrin handed Blackie back to her, placing him in her arms like a baby, and scooped them both up in her arms. "Blackie would have you tell him a story," Kivrin said, starting for the door.

"Soon I found myself in a place that I knew not," Gawyn said, "a dark forest."

Kivrin carried her charges outside and across the courtyard. "Blackie likes stories about cats," Agnes said, rocking the puppy gently in her arms.

"You must tell him a story about a cat then," Kivrin said. She took the puppy while Agnes climbed up the ladder to the loft. It was already asleep, worn out from all the handling. Kivrin laid it in the straw next to the pallet.

"A wicked cat," Agnes said, grabbing him up again. "I am not going to sleep. I am only lying down with Blackie, so I need not take off my clothes."

"No, you need not," Kivrin said, covering Agnes and Blackie with a heavy fur. It was too cold in the barn for undressing.

"Blackie would fain wear my bell," she said, trying to put the ribbon over its head.

"No, he wouldn't," Kivrin said. She confiscated the bell and spread another fur over them. Kivrin crawled in next to the little girl. Agnes pushed her small body against Kivrin.

"Once there was a wicked cat," Agnes said, yawning. "Her father told her not to go into the forest, but she heeded him not." She fought valiantly against falling asleep, rubbing her eyes and making up adventures for the wicked cat, but the darkness and the warmth of the heavy fur finally overcame her.

Kivrin continued to lie there, waiting till her breathing became light and steady, and then gently extricated Blackie from Agnes's grip and laid him in the straw.

Agnes frowned in her sleep and reached for him, and Kivrin wrapped her arms around her. She should get up and go look for Gawyn. The rendezvous was in less than a week.

Agnes stirred and snuggled closer, her hair against Kivrin's cheek.

And how will I leave you? Kivrin thought. And Rosemund? And Father Roche? And fell asleep.

When she woke, it was nearly light and Rosemund had crawled in beside Agnes. Kivrin left them sleeping, and crept down from the loft and across the gray courtyard, afraid she had missed the bell for mass, but Gawyn was still holding forth by the fire, and the bishop's envoy was still sitting in the high seat, listening to Lady Imeyne.

The monk was sitting in the corner with his arm around Maisry, but the clerk was nowhere to be seen. He must have passed out and been put to bed.

The children must also have been put to bed, and some of the women had apparently gone up to the loft to rest. Kivrin didn't see Sir Bloet's sister or the sister-in-law from Dorset.

"'Halt, knave!' I cried," Gawyn said. "'For I would fight you in fair combat.'" Kivrin wondered if this was still the Rescue or one of Sir Lancelot's adventures. It was impossible to tell, and if the purpose of it was to impress Eliwys, it was to no avail. She wasn't in the hall. What was left of Gawyn's audience didn't seem impressed either. Two of them were playing a desultory game of dice on the bench between them, and Sir Bloet was asleep, his chin on his massive chest.

Kivrin obviously hadn't missed any opportunities to speak to Gawyn by falling asleep, and from the look of things there wouldn't be any for some time. She might as well have stayed in the loft with Agnes. She was going to have to make an opportunity — waylay Gawyn on his way to the privy or catch up to him on the way to mass and whisper, "Meet me afterwards in the stable."

The churchmen didn't look like they'd leave unless the wine gave out, but it was risky to cut it too close. The men might take a notion to go hunting tomorrow, or the weather might change, and whether the bishop's envoy and his flunkies left or not it was still only five days to the rendezvous. No, four. It was already Christmas.

"He aimed a savage blow," Gawyn said, standing up to illustrate, "and had it driven down as earnestly as he feinted, my head would have been cloven in twain."

"Lady Katherine," Imyene said. She had stood up and was beckoning to Kivrin. The bishop's envoy was looking interestedly at her, and her heart began to pound, wondering what mischief they had cooked up between them now, but before Kivrin could cross the hall, Imeyne left him and came across to her, carrying a linen-wrapped bundle.

"I would have you carry these to Father Roche for the mass," she said, folding the linen back so Kivrin could see the wax candles inside. "Bid him put these on the altar and say to him to pinch not the flames from the candles, for it breaks the wick. Bid him prepare the church that the bishop's envoy may say the Christmas mass. I would have the church look like a place of the Lord, not a pig's sty. And bid him put on a clean robe."

So you get your proper mass after all, Kivrin thought, hurrying across the courtyard and along the passageway. And you've got rid of me. All you need now is to get rid of Roche, persuade the bishop's envoy to demote him or take him to Bicester Abbey.

There was no one on the green. The dying bonfire flickered palely in the gray light, and the snow that had melted around it was refreezing in icy puddles. The villagers must have gone to bed, and she wondered if Father Roche had, too, but there was no smoke from his house and no answer to her knock on the door. She went along the path and in the side door of the church. It was still dark inside, and colder than it had been at midnight.

"Father Roche," Kivrin called softly, groping her way to the statue of St. Katherine.

He didn't answer, but she could hear the murmur of his voice. He was behind the rood screen, kneeling in front of the altar.

"Guide those who have travelled far this night safely home and protect them from danger and illness along the way," he said, and his soft voice reminded her of the night in the sickroom when she had been so ill, steady and comforting through the flames. And of Mr. Dunworthy. She didn't call to him again, but stayed where she was, leaning against the icy statue and listening to his voice in the darkness.

"Sir Bloet and his family came from Courcy to the mass, and all their servants," he said, "and Theodulf Freeman from Henefelde. The snow stopped yestereve, and the skies showed clear for the night of Christ's holy birth," he went on in that matter-of-fact voice that sounded just like she did, praying into the corder. The attendance tally for the mass and the weather report.

Light was beginning to come in through the windows now, and she could see him through the filigreed rood screen, his robe threadbare and dirty around the hem, his face coarse and cruel- looking in comparison to the aristocratic envoy, the thin-faced clerk.

"This blessed night as the mass ended a messenger from the bishop came and with him two priests, all three of great learning and goodness," Roche prayed.

Don't be fooled by the gold and fancy clothes, Kivrin thought. You're worth ten of them. "The bishop's envoy will say the Christmas mass," Imeyne had said and didn't seem to be troubled at all by the fact that he hadn't fasted or bothered to come to the church to prepare for the mass himself. You're worth fifty of them, Kivrin thought. A hundred.