Dooms Day Book

He had brought her to a village and knocked on a door. An old man had come to the door, carrying an ax. To cut the wood for the fire, of course. An old man and then a woman, and they had both spoken words Kivrin couldn’t understand, and the door had shut, and they had been outside in the darkness.

“Mr. Dunworthy! Dr. Ahrens!” she had cried, and her chest hurt too much to get the words out. “You mustn’t let them close the drop,” she had said to the redheaded man, but he had changed again into a cutthroat, a thief.

“Nay,” he had said. “She is but injured,” and then the door had opened again, and he had carried her in to be burnt.

She was so hot.

“Thawmot goonawt plersoun roshundt prayenum comth ithre,” the woman said, and Kivrin tried to raise her head to drink, but the woman wasn’t holding a cup. She was holding a candle close to Kivrin’s face. Too close. Her hair would catch fire.

“Der maydemot nedes dya,” the woman said.

The candle flickered close to her cheek. Her hair was on fire. Orange and red flames burned along the edges of her hair, catching stray wisps and twisting them into ash.

“Shh,” the woman said, and tried to capture Kivrin’s hands, but Kivrin struggled against her until her hands were free. She struck at her hair, trying to put the flames out. Her hands caught fire.

“Shh,” the woman said, and held her hands still. It was not the woman. The hands were too strong. Kivrin tossed her head from side to side, trying to escape the flames, but they were holding her head still, too. Her hair blazed up in a cloud of fire.

* * *

It was smoky in the room when she woke up. The fire must have gone out while she slept. That had happened to one of the martyrs when they had burned him at the stake. His friends had piled green faggots on the fire so he would die of the smoke before the fire reached him, but it had put the fire nearly out instead, and he had smouldered for hours.

The woman leaned over her. It was so smoky Kivrin couldn’t see whether she was young or old. The redheaded man must have put out the fire. He had spread his cloak over her and then gone over to the fire and put it out, kicking it apart with his boots, and the smoke had come up and blinded her.

The woman dripped water on her, and the drops sizzled on her skin. “Hauccaym anchi towoem denswile?” the woman said.

“I am Isabel de Beauvrier,” Kivrin said. “My brother lies ill at Evesham.” She could not think of any of the words. Quelle demeure. Perced to the rote. “Where am I?” she said in English.

A face leaned close to hers. “Hau hightes towe?” it said. It was the cutthroat face of the enchanted wood. She pulled back from it, frightened.

“Go away!” she said. “What do you want?”

“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus sancti,” he said.

Latin, she thought thankfully. There must be a priest here. She tried to raise her head to see past the cutthroat to the priest, but she could not. It was too smoky in the room. I can speak Latin, she thought. Mr. Dunworthy made me learn it.

“You shouldn’t have let him in here!” she said in Latin. “He’s a cutthroat!” Her throat hurt, and she seemed to have no breath to put behind the words, but from the way the cutthroat drew back in surprise, she knew they had heard her.

“You must not be afraid,,” the priest said, and she understood him perfectly. “You do but go home again.”

“To the drop?” Kivrin said. “Are you taking me to the drop?”

“Asperges me, Domine, hyssope et mundabor,” the priest said. Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, O Lord, and I shall be cleansed. She could understand him perfectly.

“Help me,” she said in Latin. “I must return to the place from which I came.”

“…nominus…

,” the priest said, so softly she couldn’t hear him. Name. Something about her name. She raised her head. It felt curiously light, as though all her hair had burned away.

“My name?” she said.

“Can you tell me your name?” he said in Latin.

She was supposed to tell them she was Isabel de Beauvrier, daughter of Gilbert de Beauvrier, from the East Riding, but her throat hurt so she didn’t think she could get it out.

“I have to go back,” she said. “They won’t know where I’ve gone.”

“Confiteor deo omnipotenti,” the priest said from very far away. She couldn’t see him. When she tried to look past the cutthroat, all she could see were flames. They must have lit the fire again. “Beatae Mariae semper Virgini…”

He’s saying the Confiteor Deo, she thought, the prayer of confession. The cutthroat shouldn’t be here. There shouldn’t be anyone else in the room during a confession.