As they were filing out, though, she stopped at the door of the church and looked toward the bell tower, her lips pursed in disapproval. Now what? Kivrin thought. A mote of dust on the bell?
“Saw you how the church looked, Lady Yvolde?” Imeyne said angrily to Sir Bloet’s sister over the sound of the bell. “He had set no candles in the chancel windows, but only cressets as a peasant uses.” She stopped. “I must stay behind to speak to him of this. He has disgraced our house before the bishop.”
She marched off toward the bell tower, her face set with righteous anger. And if he
“I’m tired,” she said. “I want to go to bed.”
Kivrin took Agnes to the barn, dodging among the villagers who were starting in on a second round of merrymaking. Fresh wood had been thrown on the bonfire, and several of the young women had joined hands and were dancing around it. Agnes lay down willingly in the loft, but she was up again before Kivrin made it into the house, trotting across the courtyard after her.
“Agnes,” Kivrin said sternly, her hands on her hips. “What are you doing up? You said you were tired.”
“Blackie is ill.”
“Ill?” Kivrin said. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He is ill,” Agnes repeated. She took hold of Kivrin’s hand and led her back to the barn and up to the loft. Blackie lay in the straw, a lifeless bundle. “Will you make him a poultice?”
Kivrin picked the puppy up and laid it back down gingerly. It was already stiff. “Oh, Agnes, I’m afraid it’s dead.”
Agnes squatted down and looked at it interestedly. “Grandmother’s chaplain died,” she said. “Had Blackie a fever?”
Blackie had too much handling, Kivrin thought. He had been passed from hand to hand, squeezed, trodden on, half choked. Killed with kindness. And on Christmas, though Agnes didn’t seem particularly upset.
“Will there be a funeral?” she asked, putting out a tentative finger to Blackie’s ear.
No, Kivrin thought. There hadn’t been any shoebox burials in the Middle Ages. The contemps had disposed of dead animals by tossing them into the underbrush, by dumping them in a stream. “We will bury him in the woods,” she said, though she had no idea how they would manage that with the ground frozen. “Under a tree.”
For the first time, Agnes looked unhappy. “Father Roche must bury Blackie in the churchyard,” she said.
Father Roche would do nearly anything for Agnes, but Kivrin couldn’t imagine him agreeing to Christian burial for an animal. The idea of pets being creatures with souls hadn’t become popular until the nineteenth century, and even the Victorians hadn’t demanded Christian burial for their dogs and cats.
“I will say the prayers for the dead,” Kivrin said.
“Father Roche has to bury him in the churchyard,” Agnes said, her face puckering. “And then he must ring the bell.”
“We cannot bury him until after Christmas,” Kivrin said hastily. “After Christmas I will ask Father Roche what to do.”
She wondered what she should do with the body for now. She couldn’t leave it lying there where the girls slept. “Come, we will take Blackie below,” she said. She picked up the puppy, trying not to grimace and took it down the ladder.
She looked around for a box or a bag to put Blackie in, but she couldn’t find anything. She finally laid him in a corner behind a scythe and had Agnes bring handfuls of straw to cover it with.
Agnes flung the straw on him. “If Father Roche does not ring the bell for Blackie, he will not go to heaven,” she said, and burst into tears.
It took Kivrin half an hour to calm her down again. She rocked her in her arms, wiping her streaked face and saying, “shh, shh.”
She could hear noise from the courtyard. She wondered if the Christmas merrymaking had moved into the courtyard. Or if the men were going hunting. She could hear the whinny of horses.
“Let’s go see what’s happening in the courtyard,” she said. “Perhaps your father is here.”
Agnes sat up, wiping her nose. “I would tell him of Blackie,” she said, and got off Kivrin’s lap.
They went outside. The courtyard was full of people and horses. “What are they doing?” Agnes asked.
“I don’t know,” Kivrin said, but it was all too clear what they were doing. Cob was leading the envoy’s white stallion out of the stable, and the servants were carrying out the bags and boxes they had carried in early this morning. Lady Eliwys stood at the door, looking anxiously into the courtyard.
“Are they leaving?” Agnes asked.
“No,” Kivrin said. No. They can’t be leaving. I don’t know where the drop is.
The monk came out, dressed in his white habit and his cloak. Cob went back into the stable and came out again, leading the mare Kivrin had ridden when they went to find the holly and carrying a saddle.
“They
