Doomsday Book (22 page)

"Maisry went out to see Gawyn," Agnes said, sitting up on her mother's lap.

"And dally with the stableboy," the old woman said. She went to the door and shouted, "Maisry!"

Maisry. That was the name the old woman had called out before, and now the interpreter wasn't even leaving spaces when it came to proper names. Kivrin didn't know who Maisry was, probably a servant, but if the way things were going was any indication, Maisry was going to be in a lot of trouble. The old woman was determined to find a victim, and the missing Maisry seemed perfect.

"Maisry!" she shouted again, and the name echoed.

Rosemund took the opportunity to go and stand beside her mother. "Gawyn bade us tell you he begged leave to come and speak with you."

"Waits he below?" Eliwys asked.

"Nay. He went first to the church to speak of the lady with Father Rock."

Pride goes before a fall. The interpreter was obviously getting overconfident. Father Rolfe, perhaps, or Father Peter. Obviously not Father Rock.

"Why went he to speak to Father Rock?" the old woman demanded, coming back into the room.

Kivrin tried to hear the real word under the maddening whisper of the translation. Roche. The French word for "rock." Father Roche.

"Mayhap he has found somewhat of the lady," Eliwys said, glancing at Kivrin. It was the first indication she, or anyone, had given that they remembered Kivrin was in the room. Kivrin quickly closed her eyes to make them think she was asleep so they would go on discussing her.

"Gawyn rode out this morning to seek the ruffians," Eliwys said. Kivrin opened her eyes to slits, but she was no longer looking at her. "Mayhap he has found them." She bent and tied the dangling strings of Agnes's linen cap. "Agnes, go to the church with Rosemund and tell Gawyn we would speak with him in the hall. The lady sleeps. We must not disturb her."

Agnes darted for the door, shouting, "
I
would be the one to tell him, Rosemund."

"Rosemund, let your sister tell," Eliwys called after them. "Agnes, do not run."

The girls disappeared out the door and down the invisible stairs, obviously running.

"Rosemund is near-grown," the old woman said. "It is not seemly for her to run after your husband's men. Ill will come of your daughters being untended. You would do wisely to send to Oxenford for a nurse."

"No," Eliwys said with a firmness Kivrin wouldn't have guessed at. "Maisry can keep watch over them."

"Maisry is not fit to watch sheep. We should not have come from Bath in such haste. Surely we could have waited till ... " something.

The interpreter left a gap again, and Kivrin didn't recognize the phrase, but she had caught the important facts. They had come from Bath. They were near Oxford.

"Let Gawyn fetch a nurse. And a leech-woman to see to the lady."

"We will send for no one," Eliwys said.

"To ... ," another place name the interpreter couldn't manage. "Lady Yvolde has repute with injuries. And she would gladly lend us one of her waiting women for a nurse."

"No," Eliwys said. "We will tend her ourselves. Father Roche -- "

"Father Roche," she said contemptuously. "He knows naught of medicine."

But I understood everything he said, Kivrin thought. She remembered his quiet voice chanting the last rites, his gentle touch on her temples, her palms, the soles of her feet. He had told her not to be afraid and asked her her name. And held her hand.

"If the lady is of noble birth," the older woman said, "would you have it told you let an ignorant village priest tend her? Lady Yvolde -- "

"We will send for no one," Eliwys said, and for the first time Kivrin realized she was afraid. "My husband bade us keep here till he come."

"He had sooner have come with us."

"You know he could not," Eliwys said. "He will come when he can. I must go to speak with Gawyn," she said walking past the old woman to the door. "Gawyn told me he would search the place where first he found the lady to seek for signs of her attackers. Mayhap he has found somewhat that will tell us what she is."

The place where first he found the lady. Gawyn was the man who had found her, the man with the red hair and the kind face who had helped her onto his horse and brought her here. That much at least she hadn't dreamed, though she must have dreamed the white horse. He had brought her here, and he knew where the drop was.

"Wait," Kivrin said. She pushed herself up against the pillows. "Wait. Please. I would speak with Gawyn."

The women stopped. Eliwys came around beside the bed, looking alarmed.

"I would speak with the man called Gawyn," Kivrin said carefully, waiting before each word until she had the translation. Eventually the process would be automatic, but for now she thought the word and then waited till the interpreter translated it and repeated it out loud. "I must discover this place where he found me."

Eliwys laid her hand on Kivrin's forehead, and Kivrin brushed it impatiently away.

"I would speak with Gawyn," she said.

"She has no fever, Imeyne," Eliwys said to the old woman, "and yet she tries to speak, though she knows we cannot understand her."

"She speaks in a foreign tongue," Imeyne said, making it sound criminal. "Mayhap she is a French spy."

"I'm not speaking French," Kivrin said. "I'm speaking Middle English."

"Mayhap it is Latin," Eliwys said. "Father Roche said she spoke in Latin when he shrove her."

"Father Roche can scarce say his Paternoster," Lady Imeyne said. "We should send to ... " the unrecognizable name again. Kersey? Courcy?

"I would speak with Gawyn," Kivrin said in Latin.

"Nay," Eliwys said. "We will await my husband."

The old woman wheeled angrily, slopping the contents of the chamberpot onto her hand. She wiped it off onto her skirt and went out the door, slamming it shut behind her. Eliwys started after her.

Kivrin grabbed at her hands. "Why don't you understand me?" she said. "I understand you. I have to talk to Gawyn. He has to tell me where the drop is."

Eliwys disengaged Kivrin's hand. "There, you mustn't cry," she said kindly. "Try to sleep. You must rest, so you can go home."

TRANSCRIPT FROM THE DOOMSDAY BOOK (000915-001284)

I'm in a lot of trouble, Mr. Dunworthy. I don't know where I am, and I can't speak the language. Something's gone wrong with the interpreter. I can understand some of what the contemps say, but they can't understand me at all. And that's not the worst of it.

I've caught some sort of disease. I don't know what it is. It's not the plague because I don't have any of the right symptoms and because I'm getting better. And I had a plague inoculation. I had all my inoculations and T-cell enhancement and everything, but one of them must not have worked or else this is some Middle Ages disease there aren't any inoculations for.

The symptoms are headache and fever and dizziness, and I get a pain in my chest when I try to move. I was delirious for a while, which is why I don't know where I am. A man named Gawyn brought me here on his horse, but I don't remember very much about the trip except that it was dark and it seemed to take hours. I'm hoping I was wrong and the fever made it seem longer, and I'm in Ms. Montoya's village after all.

It could be Skendgate. I remember a church, and I think this is a manor house. I'm in a bedroom or a solar, and it's not just a loft because there are stairs, so that means the house of a minor baron at least. There's a window, and as soon as the dizziness subsides I'll climb up on the window seat and see if I can see the church. It has a bell -- it rang for vespers just now. The one at Ms. Montoya's village didn't have a belltower, and that makes me afraid I'm not in the right place. I know we're fairly close to Oxford, because one of the contemps talked about fetching a doctor from there. It's also close to a village called Kersey -- or Courcy -- which is not one of the villages on the map of Ms. Montoya's I memorized, but that could be the name of the landowner.

Because of being out of my head, I'm not sure of my temporal location either. I've been trying to remember, and I think I've only been sick two days, but it might be more. And I can't ask them what day it is because they don't understand me, and I can't get out of bed without falling over, and they've cut my hair off, and I don't know what to do. What happened? Why won't the interpreter work? Why didn't the T-cell enhancement?

(Break)

There's a rat under my bed. I can hear it scrabbling in the dark.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

They couldn't understand her. Kivrin had tried to communicate with Eliwys, to
make
her understand, but she had merely smiled kindly, uncomprehendingly, and told Kivrin to rest.

"Please," Kivrin had said as Eliwys started for the door. "Don't leave. This is important. Gawyn is the only one who knows where the drop is."

"Sleep," Eliwys said. "I will be back in a little."

"You have to let me see him," Kivrin said desperately, but Eliwys was already nearly to the door. "I don't know where the drop is."

There was a clattering on the stairs. Eliwys opened the door and said, "Agnes, I bade you go tell -- "

She stopped in midsentence and took a step back. She did not look frightened or even upset, but her hand on the lintel jerked a little, as if she would have slammed the door, and Kivrin's heart began to pound. This is it, she thought wildly. They've come to take me to the stake.

"Good morning, my lady," a man's voice said. "Your daughter Rosemund told me I would find you in hall, but I did not."

He came into the room. Kivrin couldn't see his face. He was standing at the foot of the bed, hidden from her by the hangings. She tried to shift her head so she could see him, but the movement made her head spin violently. She lay back down.

"I thought I would find you with the wounded lady," the man said. He was wearing a padded jerkin and leather hose. And a sword. She could hear it clank as he took a step forward. "How does she?"

"She fares better today," Eliwys said. "My husband's mother has gone to brew her a decoction of woundwort for her injuries."

She had taken her hand from the door, and his comment about "your daughter Rosemund" surely meant that this was Gawyn, the man she had sent to look for Kivrin's attackers, but Eliwys had taken two more steps backward as he spoke, and her face looked guarded, wary. The thought of danger flickered through Kivrin's mind again, and she wondered suddenly if she might not have dreamed Mr. Dunworthy's cutthroat after all, if that man, with his cruel face, might be Gawyn.

"Found you aught that might tell us of the lady's identity?" Eliwys said carefully.

"Nay," he said. "Her goods had all been stolen and the horses taken. I hoped the lady might tell me somewhat of her attackers, how many there were and from what direction they came upon her."

"I fear she cannot tell you anything," Eliwys said.

"Is she mute then?" he said and moved so she could see him.

He was not so tall as Kivrin remembered him, standing over her, and his hair looked less red and more blonde in the daylight, but his face still looked as kind as when he had set her on his horse. His black horse Gringolet.

After he had found her in the clearing. He was not the cutthroat -- she had dreamed the cutthroat, conjured him out of her delirium and Mr. Dunworthy's fears, along with the white horse and the Christmas carols -- and she must be misunderstanding Eliwys's reactions the way she had misunderstood their getting her up to use the chamberpot.

"She is not mute, but speaks in some strange tongue I do not know," Eliwys said. "I fear her injuries have addled her wits." She came around to the side of the bed and Gawyn followed her. "Good lady. I have brought my husband's
privй
Gawyn."

"Good day, my lady," Gawyn said, speaking slowly and over- distinctly, as if he thought Kivrin were deaf.

"It was he who found you in the woods," Eliwys said.

Where
in the woods? Kivrin thought desperately.

"I am pleased that your wounds are healing," Gawyn said, emphasizing every word. "Can you tell me of the men who attacked you?"

I don't know if I can tell you anything, she thought, afraid to speak for fear he wouldn't understand her either. He had to understand her. He knew where the drop was.

"How many men were there?" Gawyn said. "Were they on horseback?"

Where did you find me? she thought, emphasizing the words the way Gawyn had. She waited for the interpreter to work out the whole sentence, listening carefully to the intonations, checking them against the language lessons Mr. Dunworthy had given her.

Gawyn and Eliwys were waiting, watching her intently. She took a deep breath. "Where did you find me?"

They exchanged quick glances, his surprised, hers saying plainly, "You
see
?"

"She spoke thus that night," he said. "I thought it was her injury that made her speak so."