Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel, #1) - Connie Willis Page 0,108

now we must waste yet more time taking it back! I shall be glad when I am grown and no longer have to do with babes!”

She mounted, still holding the puppy up by his neck, but once she was in her saddle, she wrapped him almost tenderly in the corner of her cloak and cupped him against her chest. She took the reins with her free hand and turned the horse. “Father Roche has surely gone by now!” she said angrily and galloped off.

Kivrin was afraid she was probably right. The racket they had made had almost been enough to wake the dead under the wooden tombstones, but no one had appeared from the church. He had no doubt left before they arrived and now was long gone, but Kivrin took Agnes’s hand and led her into the church.

“Rosemund is a wicked girl,” Agnes said.

Kivrin felt inclined to agree with her, but she could hardly say that, and she didn’t feel much like defending Rosemund, so she didn’t say anything.

“Nor am I a babe,” Agnes said, looking up at Kivrin for confirmation, but there was nothing to say to that either. Kivrin pushed the heavy door open and stood looking into the church.

There was no one there. It was dim almost to blackness in the nave, the gray day outside sending no light at all through the narrow stained-glass windows, but the half-open door gave enough light to see it was empty.

“Mayhap he is in the chancel,” Agnes said. She squeezed past Kivrin into the dark nave, knelt, crossed herself, and then looked impatiently back over her shoulder at Kivrin.

There was no one in the chancel either. She could see from there that there were no candles lit on the altar, but Agnes wasn’t going to be satisfied till they had searched the whole church. Kivrin knelt and made her obeisance beside her, and they walked up to the rood screen through the near darkness. The candles in front of the statue of St. Catherine had been extinguished. She could smell the sharp scent of tallow and smoke. She wondered if Father Roche had snuffed them out before he left. Fire would have been a huge problem, even in a stone church, and there were no votive dishes for the candles to burn down safely in.

Agnes went right up to the rood screen, pressed her face against the cut-out wood, and called, “Father Roche!” She turned around immediately and announced, “He isn’t here, Lady Kivrin. Mayhap he is in his house,” she said, and ran out the priest’s door.

Kivrin was sure Agnes was not supposed to do that, but there was nothing to do but follow her across the churchyard to the nearest house.

It had to belong to the priest because Agnes was already standing outside the door yelling “Father Roche!” and of course the priest’s house was next to the church, but Kivrin was still surprised.

The house was as ramshackle as the hut she had rested in and not much larger. The priest was supposed to get a tithe of everyone’s crops and livestock, but there were no animals in the narrow yard except for a few scraggly chickens, and less than an armload of wood stacked out front.

Agnes had started banging on the door, which looked as insubstantial as the hut’s, and Kivrin was afraid she’d knock it open and walk straight in, but before she could get to her, Agnes turned and said, “Mayhap he is in the bell tower.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Kivrin said, taking Agnes’s hand so she didn’t go tearing off through the churchyard again. They started walking back toward the lychgate. “Father Roche does not ring the bell again till vespers.”

“He might,” Agnes said, cocking her head as if listening for it.

Kivrin listened, too, but there was no sound, and she realized suddenly that the bell in the southwest had stopped. It had rung almost nonstop while she had the pneumonia, and she had heard it when she went out to the stable the second time, looking for Gawyn, but she didn’t remember whether it had rung since then or not.

“Heard you that, Lady Kivrin?” Agnes said. She pulled her hand out of Kivrin’s grasp and ran off, not toward the bell tower, but around the end of the church to the north side. “See you?” she crowed, pointing at what she’d found. “He has not gone.”

It was the priest’s white donkey, placidly pulling at the weeds sticking up through the snow.