Dooms Day Book

I am therefore dedicating The Doomsday Book to you, Mr. Dunworthy. If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be standing here in kirtle and cloak, talking into this corder, waiting for Badri and Mr. Gilchrist to finish their endless calculations and wishing they would hurry so I can go.

(Break)

I’m here.

Chapter Two

“Well,” Mary said on a long, drawn-out breath. “I could do with a drink.”

“I thought you had to go fetch your great-nephew,” Dunworthy said, still watching the place where Kivrin had been. The air glittered with ice particles inside the veil of shields. Near the floor, frost had formed on the inside of the thin-glass.

The unholy three of Mediaeval were still watching the screens, even though they showed nothing but the flat line of arrival. “I needn’t fetch Colin until three,” Mary said. “You look as though you could use a bit of bracing up yourself, and the Lamb and Cross is just down the street.”

“I want to wait until he has the fix,” Dunworthy said, watching the tech.

There were still no data on the screens. Badri was frowning. Montoya looked at her digital and said something to Gilchrist. Gilchrist nodded, and she scooped up a bag that had been lying half under the console, waved goodbye to Latimer, and went out through the side door.

“Unlike Montoya, who obviously cannot wait to return to her dig, I would like to stay until I’m sure Kivrin got through without incident,” Dunworthy said.

“I’m not suggesting you go back to Balliol,” Mary said, wrestling her way into her coat, “but the fix will take at least an hour, if not two, and in the meantime, your standing here won’t hurry it along. Watched pot and all that. The pub’s just across the way. It’s very small and quite nice, the sort of place that doesn’t put up Christmas decorations or play artificial bell music.” She held his overcoat out to him. “We’ll have a drink and something to eat, and then you can come back here and pace holes in the floor until the fix comes in.”

“I want to wait here,” he said, still looking at the empty net. “Why didn’t Basingame have a locator implanted in his wrist? The head of a History Faculty has no business going off on holiday and not even a number where he can be reached.”

Gilchrist straightened himself up from the still unchanging screen and clapped Badri on the shoulders. Latimer blinked as if he wasn’t sure where he was. Gilchrist shook his hand, smiling expansively. He started across the floor toward the wall panel partition, looking smug.

“Let’s go,” Dunworthy said, snatching his overcoat from her and opening the door. A blast of “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night” hit them. Mary darted through the door as though she were escaping, and Dunworthy pulled it to behind them and followed Mary through the quad and out through Brasenose’s gate.

It was bitter cold, but it wasn’t raining. It looked as though it might at any moment, though, and the crush of shoppers on the pavement in front of Brasenose had apparently decided it would. At least half of them had umbrellas already opened. A woman with a large red one and both arms full of parcels bumped into Dunworthy. “Watch where you’re going, can’t you?” she said, and hurried on.

“The Christmas spirit,” Mary said, buttoning her coat with one hand and hanging onto her shopping bag with the other. “The pub’s just down there past the chemist’s,” she said, nodding her head at the opposite side of the street. “It’s these ghastly bells, I think. They’d ruin anyone’s mood.”

She started off down the pavement through the maze of umbrellas. Dunworthy debated putting his coat on and then decided it wasn’t worth the struggle for so short a distance. He plunged after her, trying to keep clear of the deadly umbrellas and to determine what carol was being slaughtered now. It sounded like a cross between a call to arms and a dirge, but it was probably “Jingle Bells.”

Mary was standing at the curb opposite the chemist’s, digging in her shopping bag again. “What is that ghastly din supposed to be?” she said, coming up with a collapsible umbrella. “O Little Town of Bethlehem?”

“Jingle Bells,” Dunworthy said and stepped out into the street.

“James!” Mary said and grabbed hold of his sleeve.

The bicycle’s front tire missed him by centimeters, and the near pedal caught him on the leg. The rider swerved, shouting, “Don’t you know how to cross a bleeding street?”

Dunworthy stepped backward and crashed into a six-year-old holding a plush Santa. The child’s mother glared.

“Do be careful, James,” Mary said.

They crossed the street, Mary leading the way. Halfway across it began to rain. Mary ducked under the chemist’s overhang and tried to get her umbrella open. The chemist’s window was draped in green and gold tinsel and had a sign posted in among the perfumes that said, “Save the Marston Parish Church Bells. Give to the Restoration Fund.”