Dooms Day Book

He rang off, and Dunworthy walked back to the room. He hadn’t lied to the nurse. He was feeling stronger with each passing moment, though there was a tightness around his lower ribs by the time he made it back to his room. Mrs. Gaddson was there, searching eagerly through her Bible for murrains and agues and emerods.

“Read me Luke 11:9,” Dunworthy said.

She looked it up. “‘And I say unto you, “Ask and it shall be given you,”‘“ she read, glaring at him suspiciously. “‘“Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”‘”

Ms. Taylor came at the very end of visiting hours, carrying a measuring tape. “Colin sent me to get your measurements,” she said. “The old crone out there won’t let him on the floor.” She draped the tape around his waist. “I had to tell her I was visiting Ms. Piantini. Hold your arm out straight.” She stretched the tape along his arm. “She’s feeling a lot better. She may even get to ring Rimbaud’s ‘When At Last My Savior Cometh’ with us on the fifteenth. We’re doing it for Holy Reformed, you know, but the NHS has taken over their church so Mr. Finch has very kindly let us use Balliol’s chapel. What size shoe do you wear?”

She jotted down his various measurements, told him Colin would be in the next day and not to worry, the net was nearly ready. She went out, presumably to visit Ms. Piantini, and came back a few minutes later with a message from Badri.

“Mr. Dunworthy, I’ve run 24 parameter checks,” it read. “All 24 show minimal slippage, 11—slippage of less than an hour, 5—slippage of less than five minutes. I’m running divergence checks and DAR’s to try to find out what it is.”

I know what it is, Dunworthy thought. It’s the Black Death. The function of the slippage was to prevent interactions which might affect history. Five minutes’ slippage meant there were no anachronisms, no critical meetings the continuum must keep from happening. It meant the drop was to an uninhabited area. It meant the plague had been there. And all the contemps were dead.

Colin didn’t come in the morning, and after lunch Dunworthy walked to the public phone again and rang Finch. “I haven’t been able to find a doctor willing to take on new cases,” Finch said. “I’ve telephoned every doctor and medic within the perimeter. A good many of them are still down with flu,” he apologized, “and several of them—”

He stopped, but Dunworthy knew what he had intended to say. Several of them had died, including the one who would certainly have helped, who would have given him the inoculations and discharged Badri.

“Great-Aunt Mary wouldn’t have given up,” Colin had said. She wouldn’t have, he thought, in spite of the sister and Mrs. Gaddson and a band of pain below the ribs. If she were here, she would have helped him however she could.

He walked back to his room. The sister had posted a large placard reading, “Absolutely No Visitors Allowed,” on his door, but she was not at her desk or in his room. Colin was, carrying a large damp parcel.

“The sister’s in the ward,” Colin said, grinning. “Ms. Piantini very conveniently fainted. You should have seen her. She’s very good at it.” He fumbled with the string. “The nurse just came on duty, but you needn’t worry about her either. She’s in the linen room with William Gaddson.” He opened the parcel. It was full of clothing: a long black doublet and black breeches, neither of them remotely mediaeval, and a pair of women’s black tights.

“Where did you get this?” Dunworthy said. “A production of Hamlet?”

“Richard III,” Colin said. “Keble did it last term. I took the hump out.”

“Is there a cloak?” Dunworthy said, sorting through the clothing. “Tell Finch to find me a cloak. A long cloak that will cover everything.”

“I will,” Colin said absently. He was fumbling intently with the band on his green jacket. It sprang open, and Colin threw it off his shoulders. “Well? What do you think?”

He had done considerably better than Finch. The boots were wrong—they looked like a pair of gardener’s Wellington’s—but the brown burlap smock and shapeless gray-brown trousers looked like the illustration of a serf in Colin’s book.

“The trousers have a strip,” Colin said, “but you can’t see it under the shirt. I copied it out of the book. I’m supposed to be your squire.”

He should have anticipated this. “Colin,” he said, “you can’t go with me.”

“Why not?” Colin said. “I can help you find her. I’m good at finding things.”

“It’s impossible. The—”

“Oh, now you’re going to tell me how dangerous it is in the Middle Ages, aren’t you? Well, it’s rather dangerous here, isn’t it? What about Aunt Mary? She’d have been safer in the Middle Ages, wouldn’t she? I’ve been doing lots of dangerous things. Taking medicine to people and putting up placards in the wards. While you were ill, I did all sorts of dangerous things you don’t even know about—”

“Colin—”

“You’re too old to go alone. And Great-Aunt Mary told me to take care of you. What if you have a relapse?”

“Colin—”

“My mother doesn’t care if I go.”