Doomsday Book (19 page)

She was carrying an umbrella and a large handbag, and when the house officer asked for the patient's NHS number, she leaned the umbrella against the admissions desk, opened the handbag, and looked through it.

"She was just brought in from the tube station complaining of headache and chills," Mary said. "She was in line to be assigned lodging."

She signaled the medics to stop the stretcher trolley and pulled the blanket back from the woman's neck and chest so he could get a better look at her, but he didn't need it.

The woman in the wet mac had found the card. She handed it to the officer, picked up the umbrella, the handbag and a sheaf of varicoloured papers and came over to the stretcher trolley carrying them. The umbrella was a large one. It was covered with lavender violets.

"Badri collided with her on the way back to the net," he said.

"Are you absolutely certain?" Mary said.

He pointed at the woman's friend, who had sat down now and was filling out forms. "I recognize the umbrella."

"What time was that?" she said.

"I'm not positive. Half-past one?"

"What type of contact was it? Did he touch her?"

"He ran straight into her," he said, trying to recall the scene. "He collided with the umbrella, and then he told her he was sorry, and she yelled at him for a bit. He picked up the umbrella and handed it to her."

"Did he cough or sneeze?"

"I can't remember."

The woman was being wheeled into Casualties. Mary stood up. "I want her put in isolation," she said, and started after them.

The woman's friend stood up, dropping one of the forms and clutching the others awkwardly to her chest. "Isolation?" she said frightenedly. "What's wrong with her?"

"Come with me, please," Mary said to her and led her off somewhere to have her blood taken and her friend's umbrella spritzed with disinfectant before Dunworthy could ask her whether she wanted him to wait for her. He started to ask the registrar and then sat down tiredly in one of the chairs against the wall. There was an inspirational brochure on the chair next to him. Its title was "The Importance of a Good Night's Sleep."

His neck hurt from his uncomfortable sleep on the campstool, and his eyes were smarting again. He supposed he should go back up to Badri's room, but he wasn't certain he had the energy to put on another set of SPG's. And he didn't think he could bear to wake Badri and ask him who else would be shortly wheeled into casualties with a temp of 39.5.

At any rate Kivrin wouldn't be one of them. It was half past four. Badri had collided with the woman with the lavendar umbrella at half past one. That meant an incubation of fifteen hours, and fifteen hours ago Kivrin had been fully protected.

Mary came back, her cap off and her mask dangling from her neck. Her hair was in disarray, and she looked as bone-weary as Dunworthy felt.

"I'm discharging Mrs. Gaddson," she told the registrar. "She's to be back here at seven for a blood test." She came over to where Dunworthy was sitting. "I'd forgotten all about her," she said, smiling. "She was rather upset. She threatened to sue me for unlawful detainment."

"She should get along well with my bell ringers. They're threatening to go to court over involuntary breach of contract."

Mary ran her hand through her disorderly hair. "We got an ident from the World Influenza Center on the influenza virus." She stood up as if she had had a sudden infusion of energy. "I could do with a cup of tea," she said. "Come along."

Dunworthy glanced at the registrar, who was watching them attentively, and hauled himself to his feet.

"I'll be in the surgical waiting room," Mary said to the registrar.

"Yes, Doctor," the registrar said. "I couldn't help overhearing your conversation ... " she said hesitantly.

Mary stiffened.

"You told me you were discharging Mrs. Gaddson, and then I heard you mention the name 'William,' and I was just wondering if Mrs. Gaddson is by any chance William Gaddson's mother."

"Yes," Mary said, looking puzzled.

"You're a friend of his?" Dunworthy said, wondering if she would blush like the blonde student nurse.

She did. "I've come to know him rather well this vac. He's stayed up to read Petrarch."

"Among other things," Dunworthy said, and while she was busy blushing, steered Mary past the "NO ENTRANCE: ISOLATION AREA" sign and down the corridor.

"What in heaven's name was that all about?" she asked.

"Sickly William is even more self-sufficient than we had at first assumed," he said, and opened the door to the waiting room.

Mary flicked the light on and went over to the tea trolley. She shook the electric kettle and disappeared into the WC with it. He sat down. Someone had taken away the tray of blood- testing equipment and moved the end table back to its proper place, but Mary's shopping bag was still sitting in the middle of the floor. He leaned forward and moved it over next to the chairs.

Mary reappeared with the kettle. She bent and plugged it in. "Did you have any luck discovering Badri's contacts?" she said.

"If you could call it that. He went to a Christmas dance in Headington last night. He took the tube both ways. How bad is it?"

Mary opened two tea packets and draped them over the cups. "There's only powdered milk, I'm afraid. Do you know if he's had any contact recently with someone from the States?"

"No. Why?"

"Do you take sugar?"

"How bad is it?"

She poured powdered milk into the cups. "The bad news is that Badri's very ill." She spooned in sugar. "He had his seasonals through the University, which requires broader-spectrum protection than the NHS. He should be completely protected against a five-point shift, and partially resistant to a ten- point shift. But he's exhibiting full influenza symptoms, which indicates a major mutation."

The kettle was screaming. "Which means an epidemic."

"Yes."

"A pandemic?"

"Possibly. If the WIC can't sequence the virus quickly, or the staff bolts. Or the quarantine doesn't hold."

She unplugged the kettle and poured hot water into their cups. "The good news is that the WIC thinks it's an influenza that originated in South Carolina." She brought a cup over to Dunworthy. "In which case it's already been sequenced and an analogue and vaccine manufactured, it responds well to antimicrobials and symptomatic treatment, and it's not fatal."

"How long is its incubation period?"

"Twelve to forty-eight hours." She stood against the tea trolley and took a sip of tea. "The WIC is sending blood samples to the CDC in Atlanta for matching, and they're sending their recommended course of treatment."

"When did Kivrin check into infirmary on Monday for her antivirals?"

"Three o'clock," Mary said. "She was here until nine the next morning. I kept her overnight to ensure she got a good night's sleep."

"Badri says he didn't see her yesterday," Dunworthy said, "but he could have had contact with her Monday before she went into Infirmary."

"She'd need to have been exposed before her antiviral inoculation, and the virus have had a chance to replicate unchecked for her to be in danger, James," Mary said. "Even if she did see Badri Monday or Tuesday, she's in less danger of developing symptoms than you are." She looked seriously at him over her teacup. "You're still worried over the fix, aren't you?"

He half shook his head. "Badri says he checked the apprentice's coordinates and they were correct, and he'd already told Gilchrist the slippage was minimal," he said, wishing Badri had answered him when he asked him about the slippage.

"What else is there that can have gone wrong?" Mary asked.

"I don't know. Nothing. Except that she's alone in the Middle Ages."

Mary set her cup of tea down on the trolley. "She may be safer there than here. We're going to have a good many ill patients. Influenza spreads like wildfire, and the quarantine will only make it worse. The medical staff are always the first exposed. If they come down with it, or the supply of antimicrobials gives out, this century could be the one that's a ten."

She pushed her hand tiredly over her untidy hair. "Sorry, it's the fatigue speaking. This isn't the Middle Ages, after all. It's not even Twentieth Century. We have metabolizers and adjuvants, and if it's the South Carolina virus, we've an analogue and a vaccine. But I'm still glad Colin and Kivrin are safely out of this."

"Safely in the Middle Ages," Dunworthy said.

Mary smiled at him. "With the cutthroats."

The door banged open. A tallish blonde boy with large feet and a rugby duffel came in, dripping water on the floor.

"Colin!" Mary said.

"So this is where you've got to," Colin said. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

TRANSCRIPT FROM THE DOOMSDAY BOOK (000893-000898)

Mr. Dunworthy, ad adjuvandum me festina.(1)

(1)Translation: Make haste to help me.

BOOK II

In the bleak midwinter

Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

Snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter

Long ago.

Christina Rossetti

CHAPTER TEN

The fire was out. Kivrin could still smell smoke in the room, but she knew it was from a fire burning in a hearth somewhere. It's no wonder, she thought. Chimneys didn't become extant in England until the late fourteenth century, and this is only 1320. And as soon as she had formed that thought, awareness of the rest of it came: I am in 1320, and I've been ill. I've had a fever.

For awhile she didn't think any further than that. It was peaceful to just lie there and rest. She felt worn out, as if she had come through some terrible ordeal that took all her strength. I thought they were trying to burn me at the stake, she thought. She remembered struggling against them and the flames leaping up, licking at her hands, burning her hair.

They had to cut off my hair, she thought, and wondered if that were a memory or something she had dreamed. She was too tired to raise her hand to her hair, too tired to even try to remember. I have been very ill, she thought. They gave me the last rites. "There is naught to fear," he had said. "You do but go home again."
Requiscat in pace
. And slept.

*****

When she woke again, it was dark in the room, and a bell was ringing a long way off. She had the idea that it had been ringing for a long time, the way the lone bell had rung when she came through, but after a minute another one chimed in, and then one so close it seemed to be just outside the window, drowning out the others as they chimed in. Matins, Kivrin thought, and seemed to remember them ringing like that before, a ragged, out- of-tune chiming that matched the beating of her heart, but that was impossible.

She must have dreamed it. She had dreamed they were burning her at the stake. She had dreamed they cut off her hair. She had dreamed the contemps spoke a language she didn't understand.

The nearest bell stopped, and the others went on for awhile, as if glad of the opportunity to make themselves heard, and Kivrin remembered that, too. How long had she been here? It had been night, and now it was morning. It seemed like one night, but now she remembered the faces leaning over her. When the woman had brought her the cup and again when the priest had come in, and the cutthroat with him, she had been able to see them clearly, without the flicker of unsteady candlelight. And in between she remembered darkness and the smoky light of tallow lamps and the bells, ringing and stopping and ringing again.

She felt a sudden stab of panic. How long had she been lying here? What if she had been ill for weeks and had already missed the rendezvous? But that was impossible. People weren't delirious for weeks, even if they had typhoid fever, and she couldn't have typhoid fever. She had had her inoculations.

It was cold in the room, as if the fire had gone out in the night. She felt for the bed coverings, and hands came up out of the dark immediately and pulled something soft over her shoulders.

"Thank you," Kivrin said, and slept.

*****

The cold woke her again, and she had the feeling she had only slept a few moments, though there was a little light in the room now. It came from a narrow window recessed in the stone wall. The window's shutters had been opened, and that was where the cold was coming from, too.

A woman was standing on tip-toe on the stone seat under the window, fastening a cloth over the opening. She was wearing a black robe and a white wimple and coif, and for a moment Kivrin thought, I'm in a nunnery, and then remembered that women covered their hair when they were married. Only unmarried girls wore their hair loose and uncovered.

The woman didn't look old enough to be married, or to be a nun either. There had been a woman in the room while she was ill, but that woman had been much older. When Kivrin had clutched at her hands in her delirium, they had been rough and wrinkled, and the woman's voice had been harsh with age, though perhaps that had been part of the delirium, too.