Connie Willis - Doomsday Book

"Here it is," Rosemund said, climbing down, clutching the cloak in one hand and the ladder in the other.

"I would have you take it to Lady Yvolde. It will take but a minute."

It was the chance she'd been waiting for. "I will," she said, took the heavy cloak from Rosemund and started out. As soon as she was outside, she would give the cloak to the nearest servant to deliver to Bloet's sister and head straight for the passageway. Let her stay in the church a few more minutes, she prayed. Let me make it to the green. She stepped out of the door, into Lady Imeyne.

"Why are you not ready to leave?" Imeyne said, looking at the cloak in her arms. "Where is your cloak?"

Kivrin shot a glance at the bishop's envoy. He had both hands on the pommel and was stepping onto Cob's linked hands. The friar was already mounted.

"My cloak is in the church," Kivrin said. "I will fetch it."

"There is no time. They are departing."

Kivrin looked desperately around the courtyard, but they were all out of reach: Eliwys standing with Gawyn by the stable, Agnes talking animatedly to one of Sir Bloet's nieces, Rosemund nowhere to be seen, presumably still in the house, hiding.

"Lady Yvolde bade asked me to bring her her cloak," Kivrin said.

"Maisry can take it to her," Imeyne said. "Maisry!"

Let her still be hiding, Kivrin prayed.

" Maisry !" Imeyne shouted, and Maisry came slinking out from the brewhouse door, holding her ear. Lady Imeyne snatched the cloak out of Kivrin's arms and dumped it on Maisry's. "Stop snivelling and take this to Lady Yvolde," she snapped.

She grabbed Kivrin by the wrist. "Come," she said, and started toward the bishop's envoy. "Holy Father, you have forgotten Lady Katherine, whom you promised to take with you to Godstow."

"We do not go to Godstow," he said and swung himself into the saddle with an effort. "We journey to Bernecestre."

Gawyn had mounted Gringolet and was walking him toward the gate. He's going with them, she thought. Perhaps on the way to Courcy I can persuade him to take me to the drop. Perhaps I can persuade him to tell me where it is, and I can get away from them and find it myself .

"Can she not ride with you to Berncestre then, and a monk escort her to Godstow? I would have her returned to her nunnery."

"There is no time," he said, picking up the reins.

Imeyne grabbed hold of his scarlet cope. "Why do you leave so suddenly? Has aught offended you?"

He glanced at the friar, who was holding the reins of Kivrin's mare. "Nay." He made a vague sign of the cross over Imeyne. " Dominus vobiscum, et cum spiritu tuo ," he murmured, looking pointedly at her hand on his cope.

"What of a new chaplain?" Imeyne insisted.

"I am leaving my clerk behind to serve you as chaplain," he said.

He's lying, Kivrin thought, and glanced up sharply at him. He exchanged another, secretive glance with the monk, and Kivrin wondered if their urgent business was simply getting away from this complaining old woman.

"Your clerk?" Lady Imeyne said, pleased, and let go of the cope.

The bishop's envoy spurred his horse, and galloped across the courtyard, nearly running down Agnes, who scurried out of the way and then ran to Kivrin and buried her head in her skirt. The monk mounted Kivrin's mare and rode after him.

"God go with you, Holy Father," Lady Imeyne called after him, but he was already out the gate.

And then they were all gone, Gawyn riding out last at a flashy gallop to make Eliwys notice him, and they hadn't taken her off to Godstow and out of reach of the drop. Kivrin was so relieved she didn't even worry over Gawyn's having gone with them. It was only a half-day's ride to Courcy. He might even be back by nightfall.

Everyone seemed relieved, or perhaps it was only the letdown of Christmas afternoon and the fact that they had all been up since yesterday morning. No one made any movement to clear the tables, which were still covered with dirty trenchers and half- full serving bowls. Eliwys sank into the high seat, her arms dangling over the side, and looked at the table disinterestedly. After a few minutes she called for Maisry, but when she didn't answer, Eliwys didn't shout for her again. She leaned her head against the carved back and closed her eyes.

Rosemund went up to the loft to lie down, and Agnes sat down next to Kivrin by the hearth and put her head on her lap, playing absently with her bell.

Only Lady Imeyne refused to give in to the letdown and languor of the afternoon. "I would have my new chaplain say vespers," she said, and went up to knock on the bower door.

Eliwys protested lazily, her eyes still closed, that the bishop's envoy had said the clerk should not be disturbed, but Imeyne knocked several times, loudly and without result. She waited a few minutes, knocked again, and then came down the steps and knelt at the foot of them to read her Book of Hours and keep an eye on the door so she could waylay the clerk as soon as he emerged.

Agnes batted at her bell with one finger, yawning broadly.

"Why don't you go up into the loft and lie down with your sister?" Kivrin suggested.

"I'm not tired ," Agnes said, sitting up. "Tell me what happened to the naughty girl."

"Only if you lie down," Kivrin said, and began the story. Agnes didn't last two sentences.

In the late afternoon, Kivrin remembered Agnes's puppy. Everyone was asleep by then, even Lady Imeyne, who had given up on the clerk and gone up to the loft to lie down. Maisry had come in at some point and crawled under one of the tables. She was snoring loudly.

Kivrin eased her knees carefully out from under Agnes's head and went out to bury the puppy. There was no one in the courtyard. The remains of a bonfire still smouldered in the center of the green, but there was no one around it. The villagers must be taking a Christmas afternoon nap, too.

Kivrin brought down Blackie's body and went into the stable for a wooden spade. Only Agnes's pony was there, and Kivrin frowned at it, wondering how the clerk was supposed to follow the envoy to Courcy. Perhaps he hadn't been lying, after all, and the clerk was to be the new chaplain whether he liked it or not.

Kivrin carried the spade and Blackie's already stiffening body across to the church and around to the north side. She laid the puppy down and began chipping through the crusted snow.

The ground was literally as hard as stone. The wooden spade didn't even make a dent, even when she stood on it with both feet. She climbed the hill to the beginnings of the wood, dug through the snow at the base of an ash tree, and buried the puppy in the loose leaf-mould.

" Requiscat in pace ," she said so she could tell Agnes the puppy had had a Christian burial and went back down the hill.

She wished Gawyn would ride up now. She could ask him to take her to the drop while everyone was still asleep. She walked slowly across the green, listening for the horse. He would probably come by the main road. She propped the spade against the wattle fence of the pigsty and went around the outside of the manor wall to the gate, but she couldn't hear anything.

The afternoon light began to fade. If Gawyn didn't come soon, it would be too dark to ride out to the drop. Father Roche would be ringing vespers in another half hour, and that would wake everyone up. Gawyn would have to tend his horse, though, no matter what time he got back, and she could sneak out to the stable and ask him to take her to the drop in the morning.

Or perhaps he could simply tell her where it was, draw her a map so she could find it herself. That way she wouldn't have to go into the woods alone with him, and if Lady Imeyne had him out on another errand the day of the rendezvous, she could take one of the horses and find it herself.