don’t eat me, Bear,’ the maiden said. ‘I am lost and cannot find my way home.’ Now the bear was a kindly bear, though he looked cruel, and he said, ‘I will help you find your way out of the woods,’ and the maiden said, ‘How? It is so dark.’ ‘We will ask the owl,’ the bear said. ‘He can see in the dark.’ ”
She talked on, making up the tale as she went, oddly comforted by it. Agnes stopped interrupting, and after a while Kivrin raised herself up, still talking, and looked over the barricade. “ ‘Do you know the way out of the wood?’ the bear asked the crow. ‘Yes,’ the crow said.”
Agnes was asleep against the table, the cape spilled out around her and the cart hugged to her chest.
She should be covered up, but Kivrin didn’t dare. All the bedclothes were full of plague germs. She looked over at Lady Imeyne, praying in the corner, her face to the wall. “Lady Imeyne,” she called softly, but the old lady gave no sign she had heard.
Kivrin put more wood on the fire and sat back down against the table, leaning her head back. “ ‘I know the way out of the woods,’ the crow said, ‘I will show you,’ ” Kivrin said softly, “but he flew away over the treetops, so fast they could not follow.”
She must have slept, because the fire was down when she opened her eyes and her neck hurt. Rosemund and Agnes still slept, but the clerk was awake. He called to Kivrin, his words unrecognizable. The white fur covered his whole tongue, and his breath was so foul Kivrin had to turn her head away to take a breath. His bubo had begun to drain again, a thick, dark liquid that smelled like rotting meat. Kivrin put a new bandage on, clenching her teeth to keep from gagging, and carried the old one to the far corner of the hall, and then went out and washed her hands at the well, pouring the icy water from the bucket over one hand and then the other, taking in gulps of the cold air.
Roche came into the courtyard. “Ulric, Hal’s son,” he said, walking with her into the house, “and one of the steward’s sons, the eldest, Walthef.” He stumbled into the bench nearest the door.
“You’re exhausted,” Kivrin said. “You should lie down and rest.”
On the other side of the hall, Imeyne stood up, getting awkwardly to her feet, as though her legs had fallen asleep, and started across the hall toward them.
“I cannot stay. I came to fetch a knife to cut willows,” Roche said, but he sat down by the fire and stared blankly into it.
“Rest a minute at least,” Kivrin said. “I will fetch you some ale.” She pushed the bench to the side and started out.
“You have brought this sickness,” Lady Imeyne said.
Kivrin turned. The old lady was standing in the middle of the hall, glaring at Roche. She held her book to her chest with both hands. Her reliquary dangled from them. “It is your sins have brought the sickness here.”
She turned to Kivrin. “He said the litany for Martinmas on St. Eusebius’s Day. His alb is dirty.” She sounded as she had when she was complaining to Sir Bloet’s sister, and her hands fumbled with the reliquary, counting off his sins on the links of the chain. “He put the candles out by pinching them and broke the wicks.”
Kivrin watched her, thinking, She’s trying to justify her own guilt. She wrote the bishop asking for a new chaplain, she told him where they were. She can’t bear the knowledge that she helped bring the plague here, Kivrin thought, but she couldn’t summon up any pity. You have no right to blame Roche, she thought, he has done everything he can. And you’ve knelt in a corner and prayed.
“God has not sent this plague as a punishment,” she told Imeyne coldly. “It’s a disease.”
“He forgot the Confiteor Deo,” Imeyne said, but she hobbled back to her corner and lowered herself to her knees. “He put the altar candles on the rood screen.”
Kivrin went over to Roche. “No one is to blame,” she said.
He was staring into the fire. “If God does punish us,” he said, “it must be for some terrible sin.”
“No sin,” she said. “It is not a punishment.”
“Dominus!” the clerk cried, trying to sit up. He coughed again, a racking, terrible cough that sounded like it would