Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel, #1) - Connie Willis Page 0,214

but I fear it cannot prevail against this dark plague. Thy holy servant Katherine says this terror is a disease, but how can it be? For it does not move from man to man, but is everywhere at once.”

It is.

(Break)

Ulf the Reeve is dead.

Also Sibbe, daughter of the steward.

Joan, daughter of the steward.

The cook (I don’t know her name).

Walthef, oldest son of the steward.

(Break)

Over fifty percent of the village has it. Please don’t let Eliwys get it. Or Roche.

29

He called for help, but no one came, and he thought that everyone else had died and he was the only one left, like the monk, John Clyn, in the monastery of the Friars Minor. “I, waiting for death till it come …”

He tried to press the button to call the nurse, but he couldn’t find it. There was a handbell on the bedstand next to the bed, and he reached for it, but there was no strength in his fingers, and it clattered to the floor. It made a horrible, endless sound, like some nightmarish Great Tom, but nobody came.

The next time he woke, though, the bell was on the bedstand again, so they must have come while he was asleep. He squinted blurrily at the bell and wondered how long he had been asleep. A long time.

There was no way to tell from the room. It was light, but there was no angle to the light, no shadows. It might be afternoon or midmorning. There was no digital on the bedstand or the wall, and he didn’t have the strength to turn and look at the screens on the wall behind him. There was a window, though he could not raise himself up enough to see properly out of it, but he could see it was raining. It had been raining when he went to Brasenose—it could be the same afternoon. Perhaps he had only fainted, and they had brought him here for observation.

“ ‘I also will do this unto you,’ ” someone said.

Dunworthy opened his eyes and reached for his spectacles, but they weren’t there. “ ‘I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and burning ague.’ ”

It was Mrs. Gaddson. She was sitting in the chair beside his bed, reading from the Bible. She was not wearing her mask and gown, though the Bible still seemed to be swathed in polythene. Dunworthy squinted at it.

“ ‘And when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you.’ ”

“What day is it?” Dunworthy asked.

She paused, looked curiously at him, and then went on placidly. “ ‘And ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.’ ”

He could not have been here very long. Mrs. Gaddson had been reading to the patients when he went to see Badri. Perhaps it was still the same afternoon, and Mary had not come in to throw Mrs. Gaddson out yet.

“Can you swallow?” the nurse said. It was the ancient sister from Supplies.

“I need to give you a temp,” she croaked. “Can you swallow?”

He opened his mouth, and she put the temp capsule on his tongue. She tipped his head forward so he could drink, her apron crackling.

“Did you get it down?” she asked, letting him lean back a bit.

The capsule was lodged halfway down his throat, but he nodded. The effort made his head ache.

“Good. Then I can remove this.” She stripped something from his upper arm.

“What time is it?” he asked, trying not to cough up the capsule.

“Time for you to rest,” she said, peering farsightedly at the screens behind his head.

“What day is it?” he said, but she had already hobbled out. “What day is it?” he asked Mrs. Gaddson, but she was gone, too.

He could not have been here long. He still had a headache and a fever, which were Early Symptoms of Influenza. Perhaps he had only been ill a few hours. Perhaps it was still the same afternoon, and he had awakened when they moved him into the room, before they had had time to connect a call button or give him a temp.

“Time for your temp,” the nurse said. It was a different one, the pretty blond nurse who had asked him all the questions about William Gaddson.

“I’ve already had one.”

“That was yesterday,” she said. “Come now, let’s have it down.”

The first-year student in Badri’s room had told him she was down with the virus. “I thought you had the virus,” he said.

“I did, but I’m well again, and so shall you