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But even he, with all his imagining of smallpox and cutthroats and witch-burnings, would never have imagined this: that she was lost. That she didn’t know where the drop was, and the rendezvous was less than a week away. She looked across the aisle at Gawyn, who was watching Eliwys. She had to talk to him after the mass.

Father Roche moved to the altar to begin the mass proper. Agnes leaned against Kivrin, and Kivrin put her arm around her. Poor thing, she must be exhausted. Up since before dawn and all that wild running around. She wondered how long the mass would take.

The service at St. Mary’s had taken an hour and a quarter, and halfway through the offertory Dr. Ahrens’ bleeper had gone off. “It’s a baby,” she’d whispered to Kivrin and Dunworthy as she’d hurried out, “How appropriate.”

I wonder if they’re in church now, she thought and then remembered it wasn’t Christmas there. They had had Christmas three days after she arrived, while she was still sick. It would be, what? The second of January, Christmas vac nearly over and all the decorations taken down.

It was starting to get hot in the church, and the candles seemed to be taking all the air. She could hear shiftings and shufflings behind her as Father Roche went through the ritualized steps of the mass, and Agnes sank farther and farther against her. She was glad when they reached the Sanctus and she could kneel.

She tried to imagine Oxford on the second of January, the shops advertising New Year’s sales and the Carfax carillon silent. Dr. Ahrens would be at the Infirmary dealing with post– holiday stomach upsets and Mr. Dunworthy would be getting ready for Hilary term. No, he’s not, she thought, and saw him standing behind the thin-glass. He’s worrying about me.

Father Roche raised the chalice, knelt, kissed the altar. There was more shuffling, and a whispering on the men’s side of the church. She looked across. Gawyn was sitting back on his heels, looking bored. Sir Bloet was asleep.

So was Agnes. She had collapsed so completely against Kivrin there would be no way she could stand for the paternoster. She didn’t even try. When everyone else stood for it, Kivrin took the opportunity to gather Agnes in more closely and shift her head to a better position. Kivrin’s knee hurt. She must have knelt in the depression between two stones. She shifted it, raising it slightly and cramming a fold of her cloak under it.

Father Roche put a piece of bread in the chalice and said the Haec commixtio, and everyone knelt for the Agnus dei. “Agnus dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis,” he chanted. “Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.”

Agnus dei. Lamb of God. Kivrin smiled down at Agnes. She was sound asleep, her body a dead weight against Kivrin’s side and her mouth slackly open, but her fist was still clenched tightly over the little bell. My lamb, Kivrin thought.

Kneeling on St. Mary’s stone floor she had envisioned the candles and the cold, but not Lady Imeyne, waiting for Roche to make a mistake in the mass, not Eliwys or Gawyn or Rosemund. Not Father Roche, with his cutthroat’s face and worn-out hose.

She could never in a hundred years, in seven hundred and thirty-four years, have imagined Agnes, with her puppy and her naughty tantrums, and her infected knee. I’m glad I came, she thought. In spite of everything.

Father Roche made the sign of the cross with the chalice and drank it. “Dominus vobiscum,” he said and there was a general commotion behind Kivrin. The main part of the show was over, and people were leaving now, to avoid the crush. Apparently there was no deference to the lord’s family when it came to leaving. Or even in waiting till they were outside to begin talking. She could scarcely hear the dismissal.

“Ite, Missa est,” Father Roche said over the din, and Lady Imeyne was in the aisle before he could even lower his raised hand, looking like she intended to leave for Bath and the bishop immediately.

“Saw you the tallow candles by the altar?” she said to Lady Yvolde. “I bade him use the beeswax candles that I gave him.”

Lady Yvolde shook her head and looked darkly at Father Roche, and the two of them swept out with Rosemund right at their heels.

Rosemund obviously had no intention of walking back to the manor with Sir Bloet if she could help it, and this should do it. The villagers had closed in behind the three women, talking and laughing. By the time he huffed and puffed his way to his feet, they would be all the way to the manor.

Kivrin was having trouble getting up herself. Her foot had gone to sleep, and Agnes was dead to the world. “Agnes,” she said. “Wake up. It’s time to go home.”

Sir Bloet had gotten to his feet, his face nearly purple with the effort, and had come across to offer Eliwys his arm. “Your daughter has fallen asleep,” he said.

“Aye,” Eliwys said, glancing at Agnes.

She took his arm and they started out.