the stable, to find Gawyn to speak to him alone. She had to get better.
She was a little stronger, though she was still too weak to walk to the chamber pot unaided. The dizziness was gone, and the fever, but her shortness of breath persisted. They apparently thought she was improving, too. They had left her alone most of the morning, and Eliwys had only stayed long enough to smear on the foul-smelling ointment. And have me make improper advances toward Gawyn, Kivrin thought.
Kivrin tried not to worry about what Agnes had told her or why the antivirals hadn’t worked or how far the drop was, and to concentrate on getting her strength back. No one came in all afternoon, and she practiced sitting up and putting her feet over the side of the bed. When Maisry came with a rushlight to help her to the chamber pot, she was able to walk back to the bed by herself.
It grew colder in the night, and when Agnes came to see her in the morning, she was wearing a red cloak and hood of very thick wool and white fur mittens. “Do you wish to see my silver buckle? Sir Bloet gave it me. I will bring it on the morrow. I cannot come today, for we go to cut the Yule log.”
“The Yule log?” Kivrin said, alarmed. The ceremonial log had traditionally been cut on the twenty-fourth, and this was only supposed to be the seventeenth. Had she misunderstood Lady Imeyne?
“Aye,” Agnes said. “At home we do not go till Christmas Eve, but it is like to storm, and Grandmother would have us ride out to fetch it while it is yet fine weather.”
Like to storm, Kivrin thought. How would she recognize the drop if it snowed? The wagon and her boxes were still there, but if it snowed more than a few inches she would never recognize the road.
“Does everyone go to fetch the Yule log?” Kivrin asked.
“Nay. Father Roche called Mother to tend a sick cottar.”
That explained why Imeyne was playing the tyrant, bullying Maisry and the steward and accusing Kivrin of adultery. “Does your grandmother go with you?”
“Aye,” she said. “I will ride my pony.”
“Does Rosemund go?”
“Aye.”
“And the steward?”
“Aye,” she said impatiently. “All the village goes.”
“Does Gawyn?”
“Nay,” she said, as if that were self-evident. “I must go out to the stable and bid Blackie farewell.” She ran off.
Lady Imeyne was going, and the steward, and Lady Eliwys was somewhere nursing a peasant who was ill. And Gawyn, for some reason that was obvious to Agnes but not to her, wasn’t. Perhaps he had gone with Eliwys. But if he hadn’t, if he were staying here to guard the manor, she could talk to him alone.
Maisry was obviously going. When she brought Kivrin’s breakfast she was wearing a rough brown poncho and had ragged strips of cloth wrapped around her legs. She helped Kivrin to the chamber pot, carried it out, and brought up a brazier full of hot coals, moving with more speed and initiative than Kivrin had seen before.
Kivrin waited an hour after Maisry left, until she was sure they were all gone, and then got out of bed and walked to the window seat and pulled the linen back. She could not see anything except branches and dark gray sky, but the air was even colder than that in the room. She climbed up on the window seat.
She was above the courtyard. It was empty, and the large wooden gate stood open. The stones of the courtyard and of the low thatched roofs around it looked wet. She stuck her hand out, afraid it had already begun to snow, but she couldn’t feel any moisture. She climbed down, holding on to the ice-cold stones, and huddled by the brazier.
It gave off almost no heat. Kivrin hugged her arms to her chest, shivering in her thin shift. She wondered what they had done with her clothes. Clothes were hung on poles beside the bed in the Middle Ages, but this room had no poles, and no hooks either.
Her clothes were in the chest at the foot of the bed, neatly folded. She took them out, grateful that her boots were still there, and then sat on the closed lid of the chest for a long time, trying to catch her breath.
I have to speak to Gawyn this morning, she thought, willing her body to be strong enough. It’s the only time everyone will be gone. And