“I can’t let you out, you know,” Kivrin said, and his ears pricked up as if he understood her. “You eat precious grain and contaminate food and carry fleas and in another twenty-eight years you and your chums will wipe out half of Europe. You’re what Lady Imeyne should be worrying about instead of French spies and illiterate priests.” The rat looked at her. “I’d like to let you out, but I can’t. The Black Death was bad enough as it was. It killed over a third of Europe. If I let you out, your descendants might make it even worse.”
The rat let go of the bars and began running around the cage, crashing against the bars, circling in frantic, random movements.
“I’d let you out if I could,” Kivrin said. The fire had nearly gone out. Kivrin stirred it again, but it was all ashes. The door she had left open in the hope that the boy would bring someone back looking for her banged shut, plunging the hut in darkness.
They won’t have any idea where to look for me, Kivrin thought, and knew they weren’t even looking yet. They all thought she was in Rosemund’s bower asleep. Lady Imeyne wouldn’t even check on her until she brought her her supper. They wouldn’t even start to look for her until after vespers, and by then it would be dark.
It was very quiet in the hut. The wind must have died down. She couldn’t hear the rat. A twig on the fire snapped once, and sparks flew onto the dirt floor.
Nobody knows where I am, she thought, and put her hand up to her chest as if she had been stabbed. Nobody knows where I am. Not even Mr. Dunworthy.
But surely that wasn’t true. Lady Eliwys might have come back and gone up to put more ointment on, or Maisry might have come in from the stable or the boy might have darted off to fetch the men from the fields, and they would be here any minute, even though the door was shut. And even if they didn’t realize she was gone until after vespers, they had torches and lanterns, and the parents of the boy with scurvy would come back to cook supper and find her and would go and fetch someone from the manor. No matter what happens, she told herself, you’re not completely alone, and that comforted her.
Because she was completely alone. She had tried to convince herself she wasn’t, that some reading on the net’s monitor’s had told Gilchrist and Montoya something had gone wrong, that Mr. Dunworthy had made Badri check and recheck everything, that they knew what had happened somehow and were holding the drop open. But they weren’t. They no more knew where she was than Agnes and Lady Eliwys did. They thought she was safely in Skendgate, studying the Middle Ages, with the drop clearly located and the Doomsday Book already half full of observations about quaint customs and rotation of crops. They wouldn’t even realize she was gone until they opened the drop in two weeks.
“And by then it will be dark,” Kivrin said.
She sat still, watching the fire. It was nearly out, and there weren’t any more sticks anywhere that she could see. She wondered if the boy had been left at home to gather faggots and what they would do for a fire tonight.
She was all alone, and the fire was going out, and nobody knew where she was except the rat who was going to kill half of Europe. She stood up, cracking her head again, pushed the door of the hut open, and went outside.
There was still no one in sight in the fields. The wind had died down, and she could hear the bell from the southwest tolling clearly. A few flakes of snow drifted out of the gray sky. The little rise the church was on was completely obscured with snow. Kivrin started toward the church.
Another bell began. It was more to the south and closer, but with the higher, more metallic sound that meant it was a smaller bell. It tolled steadily, too, but a little behind the first bell so that it sounded like an echo.
“Kivrin! Lady Kivrin!” Agnes called. “Where have you been?” She ran up beside Kivrin, her round little face red with exertion or cold. Or excitement. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.” She darted back in the direction she had come from, shouting, “I found her! I found her!”
“Nay, you did not!” Rosemund said. “We all saw her.” She hurried forward ahead of Lady Imeyne and Maisry, who had her ragged poncho thrown over her shoulders. Her ears were bright red. She looked sullen, which probably meant she had been blamed for Kivrin’s disappearance or thought she was going to be, or maybe she was just cold. Lady Imeyne looked furious.
“You did not know it was Kivrin,” Agnes shouted, running back to Kivrin’s side. “You said you were not certain it was Kivrin.
Rosemund ignored her. She took hold of Kivrin’s arm. “What has happened? Why did you leave your bed?” she asked anxiously. “Gawyn came to speak with you and found that you had gone.”
Gawyn came, Kivrin thought weakly. Gawyn, who could have told me exactly where the drop is, and I wasn’t there.
“Aye, he came to tell you that he had found no trace of your attackers, and that—”
