"Shh," the woman who had snapped at Colin said.

Montoya shook her head. "I was with Kivrin, going over the map and the layout of Skendgate," she whispered back.

"Where? At the dig?"

"No, at Brasenose."

"And Badri wasn't there?" he asked, but there was no reason for Badri to have been at Brasenose. He hadn't asked Badri to run the drop until he met with him at half-past two.

"No," Montoya whispered.

"Shh!" the woman hissed.

"How long did you meet with Kivrin?"

"From ten till she had to go check into Infirmary, three, I think," Montoya whispered.

"Shh!"

"I've got to go read a 'Prayer to the Great Spirit,'" Montoya whispered, standing up and starting along the row of chairs.

She read her American Indian chant, after which the bellringers, wearing white gloves and determined expressions, played, "O Christ Who Interfaces with the World," which sounded a good deal like the banging of the pipes.

"They're absolutely necrotic, aren't they?" Colin whispered behind his order of worship.

"It's Late Twentieth Century Atonal," Dunworthy whispered back. "It's supposed to sound dreadful."

When the bellringers appeared to be finished, Dunworthy mounted the lectern and read the Scripture. "'And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed…'"

Montoya stood up and edged her way past Colin to the side aisle and ducked out the door. He had wanted to ask her if she'd seen Badri at all on Monday or Tuesday or knew of any Americans he might have had contact with.

He could ask her tomorrow when they went for their bloodwork. He had found out the most important thing — that Kivrin hadn't seen Badri on Monday afternoon. Montoya had said she was with her till she left for Infirmary, and by that time Badri was already at Balliol meeting with him. Badri couldn't possibly have exposed her.

"'And the angel said, Be not afraid, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people…'"

No one seemed to be paying any attention. The woman who had snapped at Colin was wrestling her way out of her coat, and everyone else had already shed theirs and were fanning themselves with their orders of service.

He thought of Kivrin, at the service last year, kneeling on the stone floor, gazing raptly, intently at him while he read. She had not been listening either. She had been imagining Christmas Eve in 1320, when the Scripture was in Latin and candles flickered in the windows.

I wonder if it's the way she imagined it, he thought, and then remembered it wasn't Christmas Eve there. Where she was it was still two weeks away. If she was really there. If she was all right.

"'…but Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart,'" Dunworthy finished and went back to his seat.

The imam announced the times of the Christmas Day services at all the churches, and read the NHS bulletin on avoiding contact with infected persons. The vicar began his sermon.

"There are those," he said, looking hard at the priest from Holy Re-Formed, "who think that diseases are a punishment from God, and yet Christ spent his life healing the sick, and were he here, I have no doubt he would cure those afflicted with this virus, just as he cured the Samaritan leper," and launched into a ten-minute lecture on how to protect oneself from influenza. He listed the symptoms, explained droplet transmission, and demonstrated the use of an NHS face mask.

"Drink fluids and rest," he said, extending his hands out over the pulpit as if it were a benediction, "and at the first sign of any of these symptoms, telephone your doctor."

The bellringers pulled on their white gloves again and accompanied the organ in "Angels from the Realms of Glory," which actually sounded recognizable.

The minister from the Converted Unitarian Church mounted the pulpit. "On this very night over two thousand years ago, God sent his Son, His precious child, into our world. Can you imagine what kind of incredible love it must have taken to do that? On that night Jesus left his heavenly home and went into a world full of dangers and diseases," the minister said. "He went as an ignorant and helpless babe, knowing nothing of the evil, of the treachery he would encounter. How could God have sent His only Son, his precious child, into such danger? The answer is love. Love."

"Or incompetence," Dunworthy muttered.

Colin looked up from his examination of his gobstopper and stared at him.

And after He'd let him go, He worried about Him every minute, Dunworthy thought. I wonder if he tried to stop it.

"It was love that sent Christ into the world, and love that made Christ willing, nay, eager to come."

She's all right, he thought. The coordinates were correct. There was only four hours' slippage. She wasn't exposed to the flu. She's safely in Skendgate, with the rendezvous date determined and her corder already half-full of observations, healthy and excited and blissfully unaware of all this.

"He was sent into the world to help us in our trials and tribulations," the minister said.

The vicar was signaling to Dunworthy. He leaned across Colin. "I've just gotten word that Mr. Latimer's ill," the vicar whispered. He handed Dunworthy a folded sheet of paper. "Will you read the benediction?"

"…a messenger from God, an emissary of love," the minister said, and sat down.

Dunworthy went to the lectern. "Will you please rise for the benediction?" he said, opening the sheet of paper and looking at it. "Oh, Lord, stay Thy wrathful hand," it began.

Dunworthy wadded it up. "Merciful Father," he said, "protect those absent from us, and bring them safely home."

20 December 1320. I'm nearly completely well. My enhanced T-cells or the antivirals or something must have finally kicked in. I can breathe in without it hurting, my cough's gone, and I feel as though I could walk all the way to the drop, if I knew where it was.

The cut on my forehead is healed, too. Lady Eliwys looked at it this morning and then went and got Imeyne and had her examine it. "It is a miracle," Eliwys said delightedly, but Imeyne only looked suspicious. Next she'll decide I'm a witch.

It has become immediately apparent that now that I'm not an invalid, I'm a problem. Besides Imeyne thinking I'm spying or stealing the spoons, there's the difficulty of who I am — what my status is and how I should be treated — and Eliwys doesn't have the time or the energy to deal with it.

She has enough problems. Lord Guillaume still isn't here, his privé is in love with her, and Christmas is coming. She's recruited half the village as servants and cooks, and they are out of a number of essential supplies which Imeyne insists they send to Oxford or Courcy for. Agnes adds to the problem by being underfoot and constantly running away from Maisry.

"You must send to Sir Bloet for a waiting woman," Imeyne said when they found her playing in the barn loft. "And for sugar. We have none for the subtlety nor the sweetmeats."

Eliwys looked exasperated. "My husband bade us — "

"I will watch Agnes," I said, hoping the interpreter had translated "waiting women" properly and that the history vids had been right, and the position of children's nurse was sometimes filled by women of noble birth. Apparently it was. Eliwys looked immediately grateful, and Imeyne didn't glare any more than usual. So I'm in charge of Agnes. And apparently Rosemund, who asked for help with her embroidery this morning.

The advantages of being their nurse is that I can ask them all about their father and the village, and I can go out to the stable and the church and find the priest and Gawyn. The disadvantage is that a good deal is being kept from the girls. Once already Eliwys stopped talking to Imeyne when Agnes and I came into the hall, and when I asked Rosemund why they had come here to stay, she said, "My father deems the air is healthier at Ashencote."