Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel, #1)

by Connie Willis

The brooch had red stones set on a round gold ring, and the pin in the center. It had no hinge, but had to be pulled up and stuck through the garment. Letters ran around the outside of the ring: “Io suiicen lui dami amo.” “What does it say?” Agnes said, pointing to the letters ringing the gold circle. “I know not,” Rosemund said in a tone that clearly meant “And I don’t care.” Yvolde’s jaw tightened, and Kivrin said hastily, “It says, ‘You are here in place of the friend I love,’ Agnes,” and then realized sickly what she had done. She looked up at Imeyne, but Imeyne didn’t seem to have noticed anything. “Such words should be on your breast instead of hanging on a peg,” Imeyne said. She took the brooch and pinned it to the front of Rosemund’s kirtle. “And you should be at my brother’s side as befits his betrothed,” Yvolde said, “instead of playing childish games.” She extended her hand in the direction of the hearth where Bloet was sitting, nearly asleep and obviously the worse for all the trips outside, and Rosemund looked beseechingly at Kivrin. “Go and thank Sir Bloet for such a generous gift,” Imeyne said coldly.

They were almost to the churchyard. Kivrin could make out faces now, lit by the smoky torches and by little oil cressets some of the women were carrying. Their faces, reddened and lit from below, looked faintly sinister. Mr. Dunworthy would think they were an angry mob, Kivrin thought, gathered to burn some poor martyr at the stake. It’s the light, she thought. Everyone looks like a cutthroat by torchlight. No wonder they invented electricity.

Kivrin said them to herself along with him, thinking the Latin and hearing the echo of the interpreter’s translation. “ ‘Whom saw ye, O Shepherds?’ ” Father Roche recited in Latin, beginning the responsory. “ ‘Speak: tell us who hath appeared on the earth.’ ” He stopped, frowning at Kivrin. He’s forgotten it, she thought. She glanced anxiously at Imeyne, hoping she wouldn’t realize there was more to come, but Imeyne had raised her head and was scowling at him, her jaw in the silk wimple clenched. Roche was still frowning at Kivrin. “ ‘Speak, what saw ye?’ ” he said, and Kivrin gave a sigh of relief. “ ‘Tell us who hath appeared.’ ” That wasn’t right. She mouthed the next line, willing him to understand it. “ ‘We saw the

newborn Child.’ ” He gave no indication that he had seen what she said, though he was looking straight at her. “I saw …” he said, and stopped again. ‘ “We saw the newborn Child,’ ” Kivrin whispered, and could feel Lady Imeyne turning to look at her. “ ‘And angels singing praise unto the Lord,’ ” Roche said, and that wasn’t right either, but Lady Imeyne turned back to the front to fasten her disapproving gaze on Roche. The bishop would no doubt hear about this, and about the candles and the fraying hem, and who knew what other errors and infractions he had committed. “ ‘Speak, what saw ye?’ ” Kivrin mouthed, and he seemed suddenly to come to himself. “ ‘Speak, what saw ye?’ ” he said clearly. “ ‘And tell us of the birth of Christ. We saw the newborn Child and angels singing praise unto the Lord.’ ” He began the Confíteor Deo, and Kivrin whispered it along with him, but he got through it without any mistakes, and Kivrin began to relax a little, though she watched him closely as he moved to the altar for the Orámus Te.

“Kyrie eléison,” Cob said, his hands folded in prayer. “Kyrie eléison,” Father Roche said. “Christe eléison,” Cob said. “Christe eléison,” Agnes said brightly. Kivrin hushed her, her finger to her lips. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy.

Father Roche seemed all right now. He said the Gloria and the gradual without faltering and began the gospel. “Inituim sancti Envangelii secundum Luke,” he said, and began to read haltingly in Latin. “ ‘Now it came to pass in those days that a decree went forth from Caesar Augustus that a census of the whole world be taken.’ ” The vicar had read the same verses at St. Mary’s. He had read it from the People’s Common Bible, which had been insisted on by the Church of the Millennium, and it had begun, “Around then the politicos dumped a tax hike on the ratepayers,” but it was the same gospel Father Roche was laboriously reciting. “ ‘And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men of goodwill.’ ” Father Roche kissed the gospel. “Per evangélica dicta deléantur nostro delieta.”

“In the days when Christ came to earth from heaven, God sent signs that men might know his coming, and in the last days also will there be signs. There will be famines and pestilence, and Satan will ride abroad in the land.” Oh, no, Kivrin thought, don’t talk about seeing the Devil riding a black horse. She glanced at Imeyne. The old woman looked furious, but it wouldn’t matter what he’d said, Kivrin thought. She’d been determined to find mistakes and lapses she could tell the bishop about. Lady Yvolde looked mildly irritated, and everyone else had the look of tired patience people always got when listening to a sermon, no matter what the century. Kivrin had seen the same look in St. Mary’s last Christmas.

The sermon at St. Mary’s had been on rubbish disposal, and the dean of Christ

Church had begun it by saying, “Christianity began in a stable. Wil...

Father Roche put a piece of bread in the chalice and said the Haec Commixtio, and everyone knelt for the Agnus Dei. “ ‘Agnus dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis,’

‘Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.’ ” Agnus dei. Lamb of God. Kivrin smiled down at Agnes. She was sound asleep, her body a dead weight against Kivrin’s side and her mouth slackly open, but her fist was still clenched tightly over the little bell. My lamb, Kivrin thought.

Father Roche made the sign of the cross with the chalice and drank it. “Dominus vobiscum,” he said and there was a general commotion behind Kivrin. The main part of the show was over, and people were leaving now, to avoid the crush. Apparently there was no deference to the lord’s family when it came to leaving. Or even in waiting till they were outside to begin talking. She could scarcely hear the dismissal. “Ite, Missa est,

the three men still on horseback and then fell to her knees as if she had been struck. No, oh, no, Kivrin thought, out of breath. Agnes’s bell jangled wildly as she ran. Gawyn ran up to them, his sword flashing in the lantern light, and then he was on his knees, too. Eliwys stood up, and stepped forward to the men on horseback, her arm out in a gesture of welcome. Kivrin stopped, out of breath. Sir Bloet came forward, knelt, stood up. The men on horseback flung back their hoods. They were wearing hats of some kind or crowns. Gawyn, still on his knees, sheathed his sword. One of the men on horseback raised his hand, and something glittered. “What is it?” Agnes said sleepily. “I don’t know,” Kivrin said. Agnes twisted around in Kivrin’s arms so she could see. “It is the three kings,” she said wonderingly.

“The vicar said I’m to put these up in all the wards,” he said, taking out a placard that read “Feeling Disoriented? Muddled? Mental Confusion Can Be a Warning Sign of the Flu.” He tore off a strip of tape and stuck the placard to the chalkboard. “I was just posting these at the Infirmary, and what do you think the Gallstone was doing?” he said, taking another placard out of the bundle. It read “Wear Your Face Mask.” He taped it to the wall above the cot Finch was making up. “Reading the Bible to the patients.” He pocketed the tape. “I hope I don’t catch it.” He tucked the rest of the placards under his arm and started out. “Wear your face mask,” Dunworthy said. Colin grinned. “That’s what the Gallstone said. And she said, the Lord would smite anyone who heeded not the words of the righteous.” He pulled the gray plaid muffler out of his pocket. “I wear this instead of a face mask,” he said, tying it over his mouth and nose highwayman fashion. “Cloth cannot keep out microscopic viruses,” Dunworthy said. “I know. It’s the color. It frightens them away.” He darted out.

“Does he live around livestock, do you know?” “Livestock?” he said. “He lives in a flat in Headington.” “Mutant strains are sometimes produced by the intersection of an avian virus with a human strain. The WIC wants us to check possible avian contacts and exposure to radiation. Viral mutations have sometimes been caused by X rays.” She studied the printout as though it made sense. “It’s an unusual mutation. There’s no recombination of the hemagluttinin genes, only an extremely large point mutation.” No wonder she had not told Gilchrist. He had said he would open the laboratory when the sequencing arrived, but this news would only convince him he should keep it closed. “Is there a cure?” “There will be as soon as an analogue can be manufactured. And a vaccine. They’ve already begun work on the prototype.” “How long?” “Three to five days to produce a prototype, then at least another five to manufacture, if they don’t run into any difficulty with duplicating the proteins.

The tenth. And that was when they could begin giving immunizations. How long would it take to immunize the quarantine area? A week? Two? Before Gilchrist and the idiot protesters considered it safe to open the laboratory? “That’s too long,” Dunworthy said. “I know,” Mary said, and sighed. “God knows how many cases we’ll have by then. There have been twenty new ones already this morning.” “Do you think it’s a mutant strain?” Dunworthy asked. She thought about it. “No. I think it’s much more likely that Badri caught it from someone at that dance in Headington. There may have been New Hindus there, or Earthers, or someone else who doesn’t believe in antivirals or modern medicine. The Canadian goose flu of 2010, if you’ll remember, was traced back to a Christian Science commune. There’s a source. We’ll find it.”

h1N1 swine flu, bird flj

“I’ve been conducting research into the incidence of influenza in the 1300s. There are clear indications that a series of influenza epidemics in the first half of the fourteenth century severely weakened the populace, thereby lowering their resistance in the Black Death.” He picked up an ancient-looking book. “I have found six separate references to outbreaks between October of 1318 and February of 1321.” He held up a book and began to read. “ ‘After the harvest there came upon all of Dorset a fever so fierce as to leave many dead. This fever began with an aching in the head and confusion in all the parts. The doctors bled them, but many died in despite.’ ” A fever. In an age of fevers—typhoid and cholera and measles, all of them producing “aching of the head and confusion in all the parts.” “1319. The Bath Assizes for the previous year were canceled,” Gilchrist said, holding up another book. “ ‘A malady of the chest that fell upon the court so that none, nor judge nor jury, were left to hear the cases,’ ” Gilchrist said. He looked at Dunworthy over the mask. “You stated that the public’s fears over the net were hysterical and unfounded. It would seem,

however, that they are based in solid historical fact.” Solid historical fact. References to fevers and maladies of the chest that could be anything, blood poisoning or typhus or any of a hundred nameless infections. All of which was beside the point. “The virus cannot have come through the net,” he said. “Drops have been made to the Pandemic, to World War I battles in which mustard gas was used, to Tel Aviv. Twentieth Century sent detection equipment to the site of St. Paul’s two days after the pinpoint was dropped. Nothing comes through.” “So you say.” He held up a printout. “Probability indicates a .003 percent possibility of a microorganism being transmitted through the net and a 22.1 percent chance of a viable myxovirus being within the critical area when the net was opened.” “Where in God’s name do you get these figures?” Dunworthy said. “Pull them out of a hat? According to Probability,” he said, putting a nasty emphasis on the word, “there was only a .04 percent chance of anyone’s being present when Kivrin went through, a possibility you considered statistically insignificant.” “Viruses are exceptionally sturdy organisms,”

“I have no intention of allowing you to abandon Kivrin,” Dunworthy said. Gilchrist crimped his lips under the mask. “And I have no intention of allowing you to endanger the health of this community.”

Colin set down his load of placards. The one on top read “Do Not Have a Relapse.” “They’re saying it’s some sort of biological weapon,” Colin said. “They’re saying it escaped from a laboratory.” Not Gilchrist’s, he thought bitterly. “Do you know where William Gaddson is?” “No.” Colin made a face. “He’s probably on the staircase kissing someone.” He was in the buttery, embracing one of the detainees.

“I have no intention of breaking quarantine,” Dunworthy said. “We are trying to stop this epidemic, not spread it.” “That’s how the plague was spread during the Black Death,” Colin said, taking the gobstopper out and examining it. It was a sickly yellow. “They kept trying to run away from it, but they just took it along with them.”

“I’ll set it to ring at half-hour intervals,” Polly said, walking him to the gate. “You wouldn’t know if William has any other girlfriends, would you?” “No,” Dunworthy said.

The lid, which bore the effigy of a knight in full armor, his arms crossed over his mailed chest so that his hands in their heavy cuirasses lay on his shoulders and his sword at his feet, stood propped at a precarious angle against the side, obscuring the elaborate carved letters. “Requiesc—” was all he could see. Requiescat in pace. “Rest in peace,” a blessing the knight had obviously not been granted. His sleeping face under the carved helmet looked disapproving.

She tagged after Kivrin as she tried to help Eliwys bring in the food for the feast, whining that she was hungry, and then, when the tables were finally set and the feast begun, refused to eat anything. Kivrin had no time to argue with her. There was course after course to be brought across the courtyard from the kitchen, trenchers of venison and roast pork and an enormous pie Kivrin half expected blackbirds to fly out of when the crust was cut. According to the priest at Holy Re-Formed, fasting was observed between the midnight mass and the high mass Christmas morning, but everyone, including the bishop’s envoy, ate heartily of the roast pheasant and goose and stewed rabbit in saffron gravy. And drank. The “three kings” called constantly for more wine.

4 and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie / when the pie was open / the birds began to sing / what a dainty dish it is / to set before the king

The bishop’s envoy was drinking more than either of them, beckoning constantly to Rosemund to bring him the wassail bowl, his gestures growing broader and less clear with every drink.

‘Halt, knave!’ I cried,” Gawyn said. “ ‘For I would fight you in fair combat.’ ” Kivrin wondered if this was still the Rescue or one of Sir Lancelot’s adventures. It was impossible to tell, and if the purpose of it was to impress Eliwys, it was to no avail. She wasn’t in the hall. What was left of Gawyn’s audience didn’t seem impressed either. Two of them were playing a desultory game of dice on the bench between them, and Sir Bloet was asleep, his chin on his massive chest.

Imeyne grabbed hold of his scarlet cope. “Why do you leave so suddenly? Has aught offended you?” He glanced at the friar, who was holding the reins of Kivrin’s mare. “Nay.” He made a vague sign of the cross over Imeyne. “Dominus vobiscum, et cum spiritu tuo,” he murmured, looking pointedly at her hand on his cope.

Buried with my own hands five of my children in a single grave … No bells. No tears. This is the end of the world. AGNIOLA DI TURA SIENA, 1347

“No. He seems actually to be resting a bit more quietly. But we’ve run out of SPG’s. London’s promised to send us a shipment tomorrow, and the staffs making do with cloth, but we haven’t enough for visitors.” She fished in her pocket for a scrap of paper. “I wrote down his words,” she said, handing it to him.

Dunworthy helped her onto the air mattress William had carried over and covered her with a sheet. “ ‘The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,’ ” he said.

‘The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee,’ ” she said, and he realized too late that it was Mrs. Gaddson,

‘Until he have consumed thee from the land.’

He’s utterly convinced the virus came through from the past.” Mary sighed. “He’s drawn up charts of the cyclical mutation patterns of Type A myxoviruses. According to them, one of the Type A myxoviruses extant in 1318–19 was an H9N2.” She rubbed at her forehead again. “He won’t open the laboratory until full immunization’s been completed and the quarantine’s lifted.” “And when will that be?” he asked, though he had a good idea. “The quarantine has to remain in effect until seven days after full immunization or fourteen days after final incidence,” she said as if she were giving him bad news. Final incidence. Two weeks with no new cases.

Eighteen days. After sufficient supplies of the vaccine were manufactured. The end of January. “That’s not soon enough,” he said.

Ms. Piantini had apparently heard the bell, too. She was standing in the quad in her nightgown, solemnly raising her arms in an unheard rhythm. “Middle, wrong, and into the hunt,” she said when Dunworthy tried to take her back inside.

Ms. Piantini wrenched free of Dunworthy’s restraining hand. “Every man must stick to his bell without interruption,” she said furiously.

“24837 here,” the same woman’s voice said. “H. F. Shepherds’, Limited.” “What number is this?” Dunworthy shouted. “24837,” she said, exasperated. “24837,” Dunworthy repeated. “That’s the number I’m trying to reach.” “No, it’s not,” Colin said, reaching across him to point to Andrews’s number on the page. “You’ve mixed the numbers.” He took the receiver away from Dunworthy. “Here, let me try it for you.”

“Where’s the book?” he asked Colin. “What book? Your appointment calendar, you mean? It’s right here.” “The book I gave you for Christmas. Why don’t you have it?” “Here?” Colin said, bewildered. “It weighs at least five stone.” There was still no answer. Dunworthy hung up the receiver, snatched up the calendar, and started toward the door. “I expect you to keep it with you at all times. Don’t you know there’s an epidemic on?” “Are you all right, Mr. Dunworthy?” “Go and get it,” Dunworthy said. “What, right now?”

“We know the source,” Dunworthy said. “Open the gate.” The porter let the shutter down, and in a minute he came out of the lodge and over to the gate. “Was it the Christmas decorations?” he said. “They said the ornaments were infected with it.” “No,” Dunworthy said. “Open the gate and let me in.”

There was a knock. “Who is it?” she said angrily. “Roche,” he called through the door, and she felt a wave of relief, of joy that he had come, but she didn’t move. She looked down at the clerk, still lying half off the bed. His mouth was open, and his swollen tongue filled his entire mouth. “Let me in,” Roche said. “I must hear his confession.” His confession. “No,” Kivrin said. He knocked again, louder. “I can’t let you in,” Kivrin said. “It’s contagious. You might catch it.” “He is in peril of death,” Roche said. “He must be shriven that he may enter into heaven.” He’s not going to heaven,

harsh

Roche turned and looked at Kivrin. “Are these the last days,” he asked, “the end of the world that God’s apostles have foretold?” Yes, Kivrin thought. “No,” she said. “No. It’s only a bad time. A terrible time, but not everyone will die. And there will be wonderful times after this. The Renaissance and class reforms and music. Wonderful times. There will be new medicines, and people won’t have to die from this or smallpox or pneumonia. And everyone will have enough to eat, and their houses will be warm even in the winter.” She thought of Oxford, decorated for Christmas, the streets and shops lit. “There will be lights everywhere, and bells that you don’t have to ring.”

yeah ok but colonialism

I decided I’d better try to get this all down. Mr. Gilchrist said he hoped with the opening of Mediaeval we’d be able to obtain a firsthand account of the Black Death, and I guess this is it.

feel a bit calmer. It seems to help, talking to you, whether you can hear me or not. Rosemund’s young and strong. And the plague didn’t kill everyone. In some villages no one at all died.

He continues to say matins and vespers and to pray, telling God about Rosemund and who has it now, reporting their symptoms and telling what we’re doing for them, as if He could actually hear him. The way I talk to you. Is God there, too, I wonder, but shut off from us by something worse than time, unable to get through, unable to find us?

“None go to Bath,” the boy said. “All who can flee it.” Eliwys stumbled, as though the stallion had reared, and seemed to fall against its side. “There is no court, nor any law,” the boy said. “The dead lie in the streets, and all who but look on them die, too. Some say it is the end of the world.”

vespers in here tonight. After the set prayers, he said, “Good Jesus, I know you have sent what help you can, 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.

The Black Death had hit Oxford at Christmas, shutting down the universities and causing those who were able to to flee to the surrounding villages, carrying the plague with them. Those who couldn’t died in the thousands, so many there were “none left to keep possession or make up a competent number to bury the dead.” And the few who were left barricaded themselves inside the colleges, hiding and looking for someone to blame.

I'm not dead yet

“Yes,” she said, looking at the screens behind him. “They found the source of the virus and got the analogue all at the same time, and only just in time. Probability was projecting an 85 percent morbidity rate with 32 percent mortality even with antimicrobials and T-cell enhancement, and that was without adding in the supply shortages and so many of the staff being down. As it was, we had nearly nineteen percent mortality and a good number of the cases are still critical.”

He slept, and when he woke again, Mrs. Gaddson was standing over him, poised for attack with her Bible. “ ‘He will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt,’ ” she said as soon as he had opened his eyes. “ ‘Also every sickness and every plague, until thou be destroyed.’ ” “ ‘And ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy,’ ” Dunworthy murmured. “What?” Mrs. Gaddson demanded. “Nothing.” She had lost her place. She flipped back and forth through the pages, searching for pestilences, and began reading. “ ‘… Because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world.’ ” God would never have sent him if He’d known what would happen, Dunworthy thought. Herod and the slaughter of the innocents and Gethsemane. “Read to me from St. Matthew,”

“Chapter 26, verse 39.” Mrs. Gaddson stopped, looking irritated, and then leafed through the pages to Matthew. “ ‘And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.’ ” God didn’t know where His Son was, Dunworthy thought. He had sent His only begotten Son into the world, and something had gone wrong with the fix, someone had turned off the net, so that He couldn’t get to him, and they had arrested him and put a crown of thorns on his head and nailed him to a cross. “Chapter 27,” he said. “Verse 46.” She pursed her lips and turned the page. “I really do not feel these are appropriate Scriptures for—” “Read it,” he said. “ ‘And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Ehi, Eloi, lama sabacthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ ” Kivrin would have no idea what had happened. She would think she had the wrong place or the wrong time, that she had lost count of the days somehow during the plague, that something had gone wrong with the drop. She would think they had forsaken her.