Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel, #1)

by Connie Willis

I’m not used to having my civil liberties taken away like this. In America, nobody would dream of telling you where you can or can’t go.’ And over thirty million Americans died during the Pandemic as a result of that sort of thinking, he thought. ‘I

‘Aren’t there any nice people in the Middle Ages?’ Kivrin had asked him, and of course there were. Young men with switchblades and tube maps had existed in all ages. So had mothers and toddlers and Mrs Gaddsons and Latimers. And Gilchrists.

The priest from Holy Re-Formed is going to read from the Mass in Time of Pestilence.’ ‘Ah,’ Dunworthy said. ‘That should help in keeping up morale.’

‘What are they all doing here?’ Dunworthy said. ‘Don’t they realise we’re in the midst of an epidemic?’ ‘It’s always this way,’ the vicar said. ‘I remember the beginning of the Pandemic. Largest collections ever taken. Later on you won’t be able to get them out of their houses, but just now they want to huddle together for comfort.’ ‘And it’s exciting,’ the priest from Holy Re-Formed said. He was wearing a black turtleneck, bags, and a red and green plaid alb. ‘One sees the same sort of thing during wartime. They come for the drama of the thing.’

‘It’s late-twentieth-century atonal,’ Dunworthy whispered back. ‘It’s supposed to sound dreadful.’

she didn’t want him shipped off to Osney for trying to help her.

Perhaps that’s what’s wrong with our time, Mr Dunworthy, it was founded by Maisry and the bishop’s envoy and Sir Bloet. And all the people who stayed and tried to help, like Roche, caught the plague and died.