Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel, #1) - Connie Willis Page 0,112

and Gawyn brought me to the manor.”

Agnes was obviously tired of the conversation. “Might we go with you now to gather holly?”

He didn’t act as if he’d heard her. He extended his hand as if he were going to bless Kivrin, but he touched her temple instead, and she realized that was what he had intended to do before, beside the tomb. “You have no wound,” he said.

“It’s healed,” she said.

“We wish to go now,” Agnes said, tugging on Roche’s arm.

He raised his hand, as if to touch her temple again, and then withdrew it. “You must not fear,” he said. “God has sent you among us for some good purpose.”

No, He hasn’t, Kivrin thought. He hasn’t sent me here at all. Mediaeval sent me. But she felt comforted.

“Thank you,” she said.

“I would go now!” Agnes said, tugging on Kivrin’s arm. “Go fetch your donkey,” she told Father Roche, “and we will fetch Rosemund.”

Agnes started down the nave, and Kivrin had no choice but to go with her to keep her from running. The door banged open just before they reached it, and Rosemund looked in, blinking.

“It is raining. Found you Father Roche?” she demanded.

“Took you Blackie to the stable?” Agnes asked.

“Aye. You were too late, then, and Father Roche had gone?”

“Nay. He is here, and we are to go with him. He was in the church, and Lady Kivrin—”

“He has gone to fetch his donkey,” Kivrin said to keep Agnes from launching into the story of what had happened.

“I was affrighted that time when you jumped from the loft, Rosemund,” Agnes said, but Rosemund had already stomped off to her horse.

It wasn’t raining, but there was a fine mist in the air. Kivrin helped Agnes into her saddle and mounted the sorrel, using the lychgate as a step. Father Roche led the donkey out to them, and they started off on the track past the church and up through the little band of trees behind it, along a little space of snow-covered meadow and on into the woods.

“There are wolves in these woods,” Agnes said. “Gawyn killed one.”

Kivrin scarcely heard her. She was watching Father Roche walking beside his donkey, trying to remember the night he had brought her to the manor. Rosemund had said Gawyn had met him on the road and he had helped Gawyn bring her the rest of the way to the manor, but that couldn’t be right.

He had leaned over her as she sat against the wagon wheel. She could see his face in the flickering light from the fire. He had said something to her she didn’t understand, and she had said, “Tell Mr. Dunworthy to come and get me.”

“Rosemund does not ride in seemly fashion for a maid,” Agnes said primly.

She had ridden out ahead of the donkey and was nearly out of sight where the road curved, waiting impatiently for them to catch up.

“Rosemund!” Kivrin called, and Rosemund galloped back, nearly colliding with the donkey and then pulling her mare’s reins up short.

“Can we go no faster than this?” she demanded, wheeled around, and rode ahead again. “We will never finish ere it rains.”

They were riding in thick woods now, the road scarcely wider than a bridle path. Kivrin looked at the trees, trying to remember having seen them. They passed a thicket of willows, but it was set too far back from the road, and a trickle of ice-bordered water ran next to it.

There was a huge sycamore on the other side of the path. It stood in a little open space, draped with mistletoe. Beyond it was a line of wild service trees, so evenly spaced they might have been planted. She didn’t remember ever having seen any of this before.

They had brought her along this road, and she’d hoped that something might trigger her memory, but nothing looked familiar at all. It had been too dark and she had been too ill.

All she really remembered was the drop, though it had the same hazy, unreal quality as the trip to the manor. There had been a clearing and an oak and a thicket of willows. And Father Roche’s face bending over her as she sat against the wagon wheel.

He must have been with Gawyn when he found her, or else Gawyn had brought him back to the drop. She could see his face clearly in the light from the fire. And then she’d fallen off the horse at the fork.

They hadn’t come to any fork yet. She hadn’t