Colin took his gobstopper out and examined it several times for change in color. “If something terrible happened, couldn’t you break the rules?” he said, squinting at it. “If she got her arm cut off or she died or a bomb blew her up or something?”
“They’re not rules, Colin. They’re scientific laws. We couldn’t break them if we tried. If we attempted to reverse events that had already happened, the net wouldn’t open.”
Colin spit his gobstopper into the wrapper and folded the wrinkled paper carefully around it. “I’m sure your girl’s all right,” he said.
He jammed the wrapped gobstopper in his jacket pocket and pulled out a lumpy parcel. “I forgot to give Great-Aunt Mary her Christmas present,” he said.
He jumped up and started into Casualties before Dunworthy could caution him to wait, got opposite the door, and came tearing back.
“Blood! The Gallstone’s here!” he said. “She’s coming this way.”
Dunworthy stood up. “That’s all that’s needed.”
“This way,” Colin said. “I came in the back door the night I got here.” He sprinted off in the other direction. “Come on!”
Dunworthy could not manage a sprint, but he walked quickly down the labyrinth of corridors Colin indicated and out a service entrance into a side street. A man in a sandwich board was standing outside the door in the rain. The sandwich board said, “The doom we feared is upon us,” which seemed oddly fitting.
“I’ll make certain she didn’t see us,” Colin said, and dashed around to the front.
The man handed Dunworthy a flyer. “THE END OF TIME IS NEAR!” it said in fiery capital letters. “‘Fear God, for the hour of his judgment is come.’ Rev. 14:7.”
Colin waved to Dunworthy from the corner. “It’s all right,” Colin said, slightly out of breath. “She’s inside shouting at the registrar.”
Dunworthy handed the flyer back to the man and followed Colin. He led the way along the side street to Woodstock Road. Dunworthy looked anxiously toward the door of Casualties, but he couldn’t see anyone, not even the anti-EC picketers.
Colin sprinted another block, and then slowed to a walk. He pulled the packet of soap tablets out of his pocket and offered Dunworthy one.
He declined.
Colin popped a pink one in his mouth and said, none too clearly, “This is the best Christmas I’ve ever had.”
Dunworthy pondered that sentiment for several blocks. The carillon was massacring, “In the Bleak Midwinter,” which also seemed fitting, and the streets were still deserted, but as they turned down the Broad, a familiar figure hurried toward them, hunched against the rain.
“It’s Mr. Finch,” Colin said.
“Good Lord,” Dunworthy said. “What do you suppose we’ve run out of now?”
“I hope it’s Brussels sprouts.”
Finch had looked up at the sound of their voices. “There you are, Mr. Dunworthy. Thank goodness. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
“What is it?” Dunworthy said. “I told Ms. Taylor I’d see about a practice room.”
“It isn’t that, sir. It’s the detainees. Two of them are down with the virus.”
21 December 1320 (Old Style.) Father Roche doesn’t know where the drop is. I made him take me to the place where Gawyn met him, but even standing in the clearing didn’t jog my memory. It’s obvious Gawyn didn’t happen upon him until he was a long way from the drop, and by that time I was completely delirious.
And I realized today I’ll never be able to find the drop on my own. The woods are too big, and they’re full of clearings and oak trees and willow thickets that all look alike now that it’s snowed. I should have marked the drop with something besides the casket.
Gawyn will have to show me where the drop is, and he’s not back yet. Rosemund told me it’s only a half day’s ride to Courcy, but that he will probably spend the night there because of the rain.
It’s been raining hard since we got back, and I suppose I should be happy since it may melt the snow, but it makes it impossible for me to go out and look for the drop, and it’s freezing in the manor house. Everyone’s wearing their cloaks and huddling next to the fire.
What
Rosemund apologized for her ill-tempered behavior in the woods and told me, “I was wroth with my sister.”
Agnes had nothing to do with it—what upset her was obviously the news that her fiance had been invited for Christmas, and when I had a chance with Rosemund alone, I asked her if she was worried over her marriage.
“My father has arranged it,” she said, threading her needle. “We were betrothed at Martinmas. We are to be wed at Easter.”
“And is it with your consent?” I asked.
“It is a good match,” she said. “Sir Bloet is highly placed, and he has holdings that adjoin my father’s.”
“Do you like him?”
She stabbed the needle into the linen in the wooden frame. “My father would never let me come to harm,” she said, and pulled the long thread through.
