Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel, #1) - Connie Willis Page 0,201

already lain back down. They covered her up, and she kicked the bedclothes off again. “I will tell Mother, Agnes, you wicked child,” she murmured. “Let me out.”

It grew colder in the night. Roche brought up more coals for the brazier, and Kivrin climbed up in the window again to fasten the waxed linen over the window, but it was still freezing. Kivrin and Roche huddled by the brazier in turn, trying to catch a little sleep, and woke shivering like Rosemund.

The clerk did not shiver, but he complained of the cold, his words slurred and drunken-sounding. His feet and hands were cold and without feeling.

“They must have a fire,” Roche said. “We must take them down to the hall.”

You don’t understand, she thought. Their only hope lay in keeping the patients isolated, in not letting the infection spread. But it has already spread, she thought, and wondered if Ulfs extremities were growing cold and what he would do for a fire? She had sat in one of their huts by one of their fires. It would not warm a cat.

The cats died, too, she thought and looked at Rosemund. The shivering racked her poor body, and she seemed already thinner, more wasted.

“The life is going out of them,” Roche said.

“I know,” she said, and began picking up the bedclothes. “Tell Maisry to spread straw on the hall floor.”

The clerk was able to walk down the steps, Kivrin and Roche both supporting him, but Roche had to carry Rosemund in his arms. Eliwys and Maisry were spreading straw on the far side of the hall. Agnes was still asleep, and Imeyne knelt where she had the night before, her hands folded stiffly before her face.

Roche lay Rosemund down, and Eliwys began to cover her. “Where is my father?” Rosemund demanded hoarsely. “Why is he not here?”

Agnes stirred. She would be awake in a minute and clambering on Rosemund’s pallet, gawking at the clerk. She must find some way to keep Agnes safely away from them. Kivrin looked up at the beams, but they were too high, even under the loft, to hang curtains from, and every available coverlid and fur were already being used. She began turning the benches on their sides and pulling them into a barricade. Roche and Eliwys came to help, and they tipped the trestle table over and propped it against the benches.

Eliwys went back over to Rosemund and sat down beside her. Rosemund was asleep, her face flushed with the reddish light from the fire.

“You must wear a mask,” Kivrin said.

Eliwys nodded, but she didn’t move. She smoothed Rosemund’s tumbled hair back from her face. “She was my husband’s favorite,” she said.

Rosemund slept nearly half the morning. Kivrin pulled the Yule log off to the side of the hearth and piled cut logs on the fire. She uncovered the clerk’s feet so they could feel the heat.

During the Black Death, the Pope’s doctor had made him sit in a room between two huge bonfires, and he had not caught the plague. Some historians thought the heat had killed the plague bacillus. More likely his keeping away from his highly contagious flock was what had saved him, but it was worth trying. Anything was worth trying, she thought, watching Rosemund. She piled more wood on.

Father Roche went to say matins, though it was past midmorning. The bell woke Agnes up. “Who tumbled the benches down?” she asked, running over to the barricade.

“You must not come past this fence,” Kivrin said, Standing well back from it. “You must stay by your grandmother.”

Agnes clambered onto a bench and peered over the top of the trestle table. “I see Rosemund,” she said. “Is she dead?”

“She is very ill,” Kivrin said sternly. “You must not come near us. Go and play with your cart.”

“I would see Rosemund,” she said, putting one leg over the table.

“No!” Kivrin shouted. “Go and sit with your grandmother!”

Agnes looked astonished, and then burst into tears. “I would see Rosemund!” she wailed, but she went over and sat down sulkily beside Imeyne.

Roche came in. “Ulfs elder son is ill,” he said. “He has the swellings.”

There were two more cases during the morning and one in the afternoon, including the steward’s wife. All of them had buboes or small seedlike growths on the lymph glands except the steward’s wife.

Kivrin went with Roche to see her. She was nursing the baby, her thin, sharp face even sharper. She was not coughing or vomiting, and Kivrin hoped the buboes