the innocents, Kivrin thought, looking at Agnes. She was asleep, and she had stopped shivering, though she still felt hot.
The cook cried out something, and Kivrin went around the barricade to her. She was crouched on her pallet, struggling to get up. “Must go home,” she said.
Kivrin coaxed her down again and fetched her a drink of water. The bucket was nearly empty, and she picked it up and started out with it.
“Tell Kivrin I would have her come to me,” Agnes said. She was sitting up.
Kivrin put the bucket down. “I’m here,” Kivrin said, kneeling down beside her. “I’m right here.”
Agnes looked at her, her face red and distorted with rage. “The wicked man will get me if Kivrin does not come,” she said. “Bid her come now.”
TRANSCRIPT FROM THE DOMESDAY BOOK
(073453–074912)
I’ve missed the rendezvous. I lost count of the days, taking care of Rosemund, and I couldn’t find Agnes, and I didn’t know where the drop was.
You must be worried sick, Mr. Dunworthy. You probably think I’ve fallen among cutthroats and murderers. Well, I have. And now they’ve got Agnes.
She has a fever, but no buboes, and she isn’t coughing or vomiting. Just the fever. It’s very high—she doesn’t know me and keeps calling me to come. Roche and I tried to bring it down by sponging her with cold compresses, but it keeps going back up.
(Break)
Lady Imeyne has it. Father Roche found her this morning on the floor in the corner. She may have been there all night. The last two nights she has refused to go to bed and has stayed on her knees, praying to God to protect her and the rest of the godly from the plague.
He hasn’t. She has the pneumonic. She’s coughing and vomiting mucus streaked with blood.
She won’t let Roche or me tend her. “She is to blame for this,” she told Roche, pointing at me. “Look at her hair. She is no maid. Look at her clothes.”
My clothes are a boy’s jerkin and leather hose I found in one of the chests in the loft. My kirtle got ruined when Lady Imeyne vomited on me, and I had to tear my shift up for cloths and bandages.
Roche tried to give Imeyne some of the willow-bark tea, but she spat it out. She said, “She lied when she said she was waylaid in the woods. She was sent here to kill us.”
Bloody spittle dribbled down her chin as she spoke and Roche wiped it off. “It is the disease that makes you believe these things,” he said gently.
“She was sent here to poison us,” Imeyne said. “See how she has poisoned my son’s children. And now she would poison me, but I will not let her give me aught to eat or drink.”
“Hush,” Roche said sternly. “You must not speak ill of one who seeks to help you.”
She shook her head, turning it wildly from side to side. “She seeks to kill us all. You must burn her. She is the Devil’s servant.”
I’ve never seen him angry before. He looked almost like a cutthroat again. “You know not whereof you speak,” he said. “It is God who has sent her to help us.”
I wish it were true, that I were of any help at all, but I’m not. Agnes screams for me to come and Rosemund lies there as if she were under a spell and the clerk is turning black, and there’s nothing I can do to help any of them. Nothing.
(Break)
All the steward’s family have it. The youngest boy, Lefric, was the only one with a bubo, and I’ve brought him in here and lanced it. There’s nothing I can do for the others. They all have pneumonic.
(Break)
The steward’s baby is dead.
(Break)
The Courcy bells are tolling. Nine strokes. Which one of them is it? The bishop’s envoy? The fat monk who helped steal our horses? Or Sir Bloet? I hope so.
(Break)
Terrible day. The steward’s wife and the boy who ran from me when I went to find the drop both died this afternoon. The steward is digging both their graves, though the ground is so frozen I don’t see how he can even make a dent in it. Rosemund and Lefric are both worse. Rosemund can scarcely swallow and her pulse is thready and irregular. Agnes is not as bad, but I can’t get her fever down. Roche said vespers in here tonight.
After the set prayers, he said, “Good Jesus, I know you have sent what help you can,