in the bed, and Kivrin went over to him.
“Thirsty,” he said, licking his lips with his swollen tongue. She brought him a cup of water, and he drank a few gulps greedily and then choked and spewed it over her.
She backed away, yanking off the drenched mask. It’s the bubonic, she told herself, wiping frantically at her chest. This kind isn’t spread by droplet. And you can’t get the plague, you’ve had your inoculation. But she had had her antivirals and her T-cell enhancement, too. She should not have been able to get the virus either. She should not have landed in 1348.
“What happened?” she whispered.
It couldn’t be the slippage. Mr. Dunworthy had been upset that they hadn’t run slippage checks, but even at its worst, the drop would only have been off by weeks, not years. Something must have gone wrong with the net.
Mr. Dunworthy had said Mr. Gilchrist didn’t know what he was doing, and something had gone wrong, and she had come through in 1348, but why hadn’t they aborted the drop as soon as they knew it was the wrong date? Mr. Gilchrist might not have had the sense to pull her out, but Mr. Dunworthy would have. He hadn’t wanted her to come in the first place. Why hadn’t he opened the net again?
Because I wasn’t there, she thought. It would have taken at least two hours to get the fix. By then she had wandered off into the woods. But he would have held the net open. He wouldn’t have closed it again and waited for the rendezvous. He’d hold it open for her.
She half ran to the door and pushed up on the bar. She must find Gawyn. She must make him tell her where the drop was.
The clerk sat up and flung his bare leg over the bed as if he would go with her. “Help me,” he said, and tried to move his other leg.
“I can’t help you,” she said angrily. “I don’t belong here.” She shoved the bar up out of its sockets. “I must find Gawyn.” But as soon as she said it, she remembered that he wasn’t there, that he had gone with the bishop’s envoy and Sir Bloet to Courcy. With the bishop’s envoy, who had been in such a hurry to leave he had nearly run down Agnes.
She dropped the bar and turned on him. “Did the others have the plague?” she demanded. “Did the bishop’s envoy have it?” She remembered his gray face and the way he had shivered and pulled his cloak around him. He would infect all of them: Bloet and his haughty sister and the chattering girls. And Gawyn. “You knew you had it when you came here, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”
The clerk held his arms out stiffly to her, like a child. “Help me,” he said, and fell back, his head and shoulder nearly off the bed.
“You don’t deserve to be helped. You brought the plague here.”
There was a knock.
“Who is it?” she said angrily.
“Roche,” he called through the door, and she felt a wave of relief, of joy that he had come, but she didn’t move. She looked down at the clerk, still lying half off the bed. His mouth was open, and his swollen tongue filled his entire mouth.
“Let me in,” Roche said. “I must hear his confession.”
His confession. “No,” Kivrin said.
He knocked again, louder.
“I can’t let you in,” Kivrin said. “It’s contagious. You might catch it.”
“He is in peril of death,” Roche said. “He must be shriven that he may enter into heaven.”
He’s not going to heaven, Kivrin thought. He brought the plague here.
The clerk opened his eyes. They were bloodshot and swollen, and there was a faint hum to his breathing. He’s dying, she thought.
“Katherine,” Roche said.
Dying, and far from home. Like I was. She had brought a disease with her, too, and if no one had succumbed to it, it was not because of anything she had done. They had all helped her, Eliwys and Imeyne and Roche. She might have infected all of them. Roche had given her the last rites, he had held her hand.
Kivrin lifted the clerk’s head gently and laid him straight in the bed. Then she went to the door.
“I’ll let you give him the last rites,” she said, opening it a crack, “but I must speak to you first.”
Roche had put on his vestments and taken off his mask. He carried the holy oil and the viaticum in a basket