"You're supposed to be asleep,' Kivrin said, brushing straw from her red kirtle.

"Some men came," Agnes said. "They wakened us."

Kivrin looked inquiringly at Rosemund. "Has your father come?"

"Nay," she said. "I know not who they are. I think they must be servants of the bishop's envoy."

They were. There were four of them, monks, though not of the class of the Cistercian monk, and two laden donkeys, and they had obviously only now caught up with their master. They unloaded two large chests while Kivrin and the girls watched, several wadmal bags, and an enormous wine cask.

"They must be planning to stay a long while," Agnes said.

"Yes," Kivrin said. God has sent you to this place. He will not let you be taken from it. "Come," she said cheerfully. "I will comb your hair."

She took Agnes inside and cleaned her up. The short nap hadn't improved Agnes's disposition, and she refused to stand still while Kivrin combed her hair. It took her till mass to get all the straw and most of the tangles out, and Agnes continued to whine the whole way to the church.

There had apparently been vestments as well as wine in the envoy's luggage. The bishop's envoy wore a black velvet chasuble over his dazzlingly white vestments, and the monk was resplendent in yards of samite and gilt embroidery. The clerk was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Father Roche, probably exiled because of his robe. Kivrin looked toward the back of the church, hoping he'd been allowed to witness all this holiness, but she couldn't see him among the villagers.

They looked somewhat the worse for wear, too, and some of them were obviously badly hungover. As was the bishop's envoy. He rattled through the words of the mass tonelessly and in an accent Kivrin could scarcely understand. It bore no resemblance to Father Roche's Latin. Nor to what Latimer and the priest at Holy Reformed had taught her. The vowels were all wrong and the "c" in excelsis was almost a "z." She thought of Latimer drilling her on the long vowels, of Holy Reformed's priest insisting on "c as in eggshell," on "the true Latin."

And it was the true Latin, she thought. "I will not leave you," he said. He said, "Be not afraid." And I understood him.

As the mass progressed, the envoy chanted faster and faster, as if he was anxious to be done with it. Lady Imeyne didn't seem to notice. She looked smugly serene in the knowledge of doing good and nodded approvingly at the sermon, which seemed to be about forsaking worldly things.

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 had set candles in the windows, Kivrin thought, they would have been the wrong kind or in the wrong place. Or he would have put them out incorrectly. She wished there were some way to warn him, but Imeyne was already halfway to the tower, and Agnes was tugging insistently on Kivrin's hand.

"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 are leaving," Agnes said.

"I know," Kivrin said. "I can see that they are."