CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The snow fell silently, peacefully on the stallion and the donkey waiting by the lychgate. Dunworthy helped Kivrin onto the stallion, and she did not flinch away from his touch as he had been afraid she would, but as soon as she was up, she leaned away from his grasp and took hold of the reins. As soon as he removed his hands, she slumped back against the saddle, her hand against her side.

Dunworthy was shivering now, clenching his teeth against it so Colin wouldn't see. It took three tries to get him onto the donkey, and he thought he might slip off at any minute.

"I think I'd better lead your mule," Colin said, looking disapprovingly at him.

"There isn't time," Dunworthy said. "It's getting dark. You ride behind Kivrin."

Colin led the stallion over to the lychgate, climbed up on the lintel, and scrambled up behind Kivrin.

"Do you have the locator?" Dunworthy said, trying to kick the donkey without falling off.

"I know the way," Kivrin said.

"Yes," Colin said. He held it up. "And the pocket torch." He flicked it on, and then shone it all around the churchyard, as if looking for something they might have left behind. He seemed to notice the graves for the first time.

"Is that where you buried everybody?" he said, holding the light steady on the smooth white mounds.

"Yes," Kivrin said.

"Did they die a long time ago?"

She turned the stallion and started it up the hill. "No," she said.

The cow followed them partway up the hill, its swollen udders swinging, and then stopped and began lowing pitifully. Dunworthy looked back at it. It mooed uncertainly at him, and then ambled back down the road toward the village. They were nearly to the top of the hill, and the snow was letting up, but below, in the village, it was still snowing hard. The graves were covered completely, and the church was obscured, the bell tower scarcely visible at all.

Kivrin did not so much as glance back. She rode steadily forward, sitting very straight, with Colin on behind her, holding not to Kivrin's waist but to the high back of the saddle. The snow came down fitfully, and then in single flakes, and by the time they were in thick woods again, it had nearly stopped.

Dunworthy followed the horse, trying to keep up with its steady gait, trying not to give way to the fever. The aspirin was not working — he had taken it with too little water-and he could feel the fever beginning to overtake him, beginning to shut out the woods and the donkey's bony back and Colin's voice.

He was talking cheerfully to Kivrin, telling her about the epidemic, and the way he told it, it sounded like an adventure. "They said there was a quarantine and we'd have to go back to London, but I didn't want to do that. I wanted to see Great-Aunt Mary. So I sneaked through the barrier, and the guard saw me and said, 'You there! Stop!' and started to chase me, and I ran down the street and into this alley."

They stopped, and Colin and Kivrin dismounted. Colin took off his muffler, and she pulled up her blood-stiff smock and tied it around her ribs. Dunworthy knew the pain must be even worse than he'd thought, that he should try at least to help her, but he was afraid that if he got down off the donkey, he would not be able to get back on.

Kivrin and Colin mounted again, she helping him up, and they set off again, slowing at every turning and side path to check their direction, Colin hunching over the locator's screen and pointing, Kivrin nodding in confirmation.

"This was where I fell off the donkey," Kivrin said when they stopped at a fork. "That first night. I was so sick. I thought he was a cutthroat."

They came to another fork. It had stopped snowing, but the clouds above the trees were dark and heavy. Colin had to shine his torch on the locator to read it. He pointed down the right- hand path, and got on behind Kivrin again, telling her his adventures.

"Mr. Dunworthy said, 'You've lost the fix,' and then he went straight over into Mr. Gilchrist and they both fell down," Colin said. "Mr. Gilchrist was acting like he'd done it on purpose, he wouldn't even help me cover him up. He was shivering like blood, and he had a fever, and I kept shouting, 'Mr. Dunworthy! Mr. Dunworthy!' but he couldn't hear me. And Mr. Gilchrist kept saying, 'I'm holding you personally responsible.'"

It began to spit snow again, and the wind picked up. Dunworthy clung to the donkey's stiff mane, shivering.

"They wouldn't tell me anything," Colin said, "and when I tried to get in to see Great-Aunt Mary, they said, 'We don't allow children.'"

They were riding into the wind, the snow blowing against Dunworthy's cloak in freezing gusts. He leaned forward till he was nearly lying on the donkey's neck.

"The doctor came out," Colin said, "and he started whispering to this nurse, and I knew she was dead," and Dunworthy felt a sudden stab of grief, as if he were hearing it for the first time. Oh, Mary, he thought.

"I didn't know what to do," Colin said, "so I just sat there, and Mrs. Gaddson, she's this necrotic perons, came up and started reading to me out of the Bible how it was God's will. I hate Mrs. Gaddson!" he said violently. "She's the one who deserved to get the flu!"

Their voices began to ring, the overtones echoing against and around the woods so that he shouldn't have been able to understand them, but oddly they rang clearer and clearer in the cold air, and he thought they must be able to hear them all the way to Oxford, seven hundred years away.

It came to Dunworthy suddenly that Mary wasn't dead, that here in this terrible year, in this century that was worse than a ten, she had not yet died, and it seemed to him a blessing beyond any he had any right to expect.

"And that was when we heard the bell," Colin said. Mr. Dunworthy said it was you calling for help."

"It was," Kivrin said. "This won't work. He'll fall off."

"You're right," Colin said, and Dunworthy realized that they had dismounted again and were standing next to the donkey, Kivrin holding the rope bridle.

"We have to put you on the horse," Kivrin said, taking hold of Dunworthy's waist. "You're going to fall off the donkey. Come on. Get down. I'll help you."

They both had to help him down, Kivrin reaching around him in a way he knew had to hurt her ribs, Colin almost holding him up.

"If I could just sit down for a bit," Dunworthy said through chattering teeth.

"There isn't time," Colin said, but they helped him to the side of the path and eased him down against a rock.

Kivrin reached up under her smock and brought out three aspirin. "Here. Take these," she said, holding them out to him on her open palm.

"Those were for you," he said. "Your ribs — "

She looked at him steadily, unsmilingly. "I'll be all right," she said, and went to tie the stallion to a bush.

"Do you want some water?" Colin said. "I could build a fire and melt some snow."

"I'll be all right," Dunworthy said. He put the aspirin in his mouth and swallowed them.

Kivrin was adjusting the stirrups, untying the leather straps with practiced skill. She knotted them and came back over to Dunworthy to help him up. "Ready?" she said, putting her hand under his arm.

"Yes," Dunworthy said, and tried to stand up.

"This was a mistake," Colin said. "We'll never get him on," but they did, putting his foot in the stirrups and his hands around the pommel and hoisting him up, and at the end he was even able to help them a little, offering a hand so Colin could clamber up the side of the stallion in front of him.

He had stopped shivering, but he was not sure whether that was a good sign or not, and when they started off again, Kivrin ahead on the jolting donkey, Colin already talking, he leaned into Colin's back and closed his eyes.