But even he, with all his imagining of smallpox and cutthroats and witch-burnings, would never have imagined this: that she was lost. That she didn't know where the drop was, and the rendezvous was less than a week away. She looked across the aisle at Gawyn, who was watching Eliwys. She had to talk to him after the mass.
Father Roche moved to the altar to begin the mass proper. Agnes leaned against Kivrin, and Kivrin put her arm around her. Poor thing, she must be exhausted. Up since before dawn and all that wild running around. She wondered how long the mass would take.
The service at St. Mary's had taken an hour and a quarter, and halfway through the offertory Dr. Ahrens' bleeper had gone off. "It's a baby," she'd whispered to Kivrin and Dunworthy as she'd hurried out, "How appropriate."
I wonder if they're in church now, she thought and then remembered it wasn't Christmas there. They had had Christmas three days after she arrived, while she was still sick. It would be, what? The second of January, Christmas vac nearly over and all the decorations taken down.
It was starting to get hot in the church, and the candles seemed to be taking all the air. She could hear shiftings and shufflings behind her as Father Roche went through the ritualized steps of the mass, and Agnes sank farther and farther against her. She was glad when they reached the Sanctus and she could kneel.
She tried to imagine Oxford on the second of January, the shops advertising New Year's sales and the Carfax carillon silent. Dr. Ahrens would be at the Infirmary dealing with post- holiday stomach upsets and Mr. Dunworthy would be getting ready for Hilary term. No, he's not, she thought, and saw him standing behind the thin-glass. He's worrying about me.
Father Roche raised the chalice, knelt, kissed the altar. There was more shuffling, and a whispering on the men's side of the church. She looked across. Gawyn was sitting back on his heels, looking bored. Sir Bloet was asleep.
So was Agnes. She had collapsed so completely against Kivrin there would be no way she could stand for the paternoster. She didn't even try. When everyone else stood for it, Kivrin took the opportunity to gather Agnes in more closely and shift her head to a better position. Kivrin's knee hurt. She must have knelt in the depression between two stones. She shifted it, raising it slightly and cramming a fold of her cloak under it.
Father Roche put a piece of bread in the chalice and said the Haec commixtio, and everyone knelt for the Agnus dei. "Agnus dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis," he chanted. "Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us."
Agnus dei. Lamb of God. Kivrin smiled down at Agnes. She was sound asleep, her body a dead weight against Kivrin's side and her mouth slackly open, but her fist was still clenched tightly over the little bell. My lamb, Kivrin thought.
Kneeling on St. Mary's stone floor she had envisioned the candles and the cold, but not Lady Imeyne, waiting for Roche to make a mistake in the mass, not Eliwys or Gawyn or Rosemund. Not Father Roche, with his cutthroat's face and worn-out hose.
She could never in a hundred years, in seven hundred and thirty-four years, have imagined Agnes, with her puppy and her naughty tantrums, and her infected knee. I'm glad I came, she thought. In spite of everything.
Father Roche made the sign of the cross with the chalice and drank it. "Dominus vobiscum," he said and there was a general commotion behind Kivrin. The main part of the show was over, and people were leaving now, to avoid the crush. Apparently there was no deference to the lord's family when it came to leaving. Or even in waiting till they were outside to begin talking. She could scarcely hear the dismissal.
"Ite, Missa est," Father Roche said over the din, and Lady Imeyne was in the aisle before he could even lower his raised hand, looking like she intended to leave for Bath and the bishop immediately.
"Saw you the tallow candles by the altar?" she said to Lady Yvolde. "I bade him use the beeswax candles that I gave him."
Lady Yvolde shook her head and looked darkly at Father Roche, and the two of them swept out with Rosemund right at their heels.
Rosemund obviously had no intention of walking back to the manor with Sir Bloet if she could help it, and this should do it. The villagers had closed in behind the three women, talking and laughing. By the time he huffed and puffed his way to his feet, they would be all the way to the manor.
Kivrin was having trouble getting up herself. Her foot had gone to sleep, and Agnes was dead to the world. "Agnes," she said. "Wake up. It's time to go home."
Sir Bloet had gotten to his feet, his face nearly purple with the effort, and had come across to offer Eliwys his arm. "Your daughter has fallen asleep," he said.
"Aye," Eliwys said, glancing at Agnes.
She took his arm and they started out.
"Your husband has not come as he promised."
"Nay," Kivrin heard Eliwys say. Her grip tightened on his arm.
Outside, the bells began to ring all at once, and out of time, a wild, irregular chiming. It sounded wonderful. "Agnes," Kivrin said, shaking her, "it's time to ring your bell."
She didn't even stir. Kivrin tried to get the sleeping child onto her shoulder. Her arms flopped limply over Kivrin's shoulders, and the bell jangled.
"You waited all night to ring your bell," Kivrin said, getting to one knee. "Wake up, lamb."
She looked around for someone to help her. There was scarcely anyone left in the church. Cob was making the rounds of the windows, pinching the candle flames out between his chapped fingers. Gawyn and Sir Bloet's nephews were at the back of the nave, buckling on their swords. Father Roche was nowhere to be seen. She wondered if he was the one ringing the bell with such joyous enthusiasm.
Her numb foot was beginning to tingle. She flexed it in the thin shoe and then put her weight on it. It felt terrible, but she could stand on it. She hoisted Agnes farther over her shoulder and tried to stand up. Her foot caught in the hem of her skirt, and she pitched forward.
Gawyn caught her. "Good lady Katherine, my lady Eliwys bade me come to help you," he said, steadying her. He lifted Agnes easily out of her arms and onto his shoulder, and strode out of the church, Kivrin hobbling beside him.
"Thank you," Kivrin said, when they were out of the jammed churchyard. "My arms felt like they were going to fall off."
"She is a stout lass," he said.
Agnes's bell slid off her wrist and fell onto the snow, clattering with the other bells as it fell. Kivrin stooped and picked it up. The knot was almost too small to be seen, and the short ends of ribbon beyond it were frayed into thin threads, but the moment she took hold of it, the knot came undone. She tied it on Agnes's dangling wrist with a little bow.
"I am glad to assist a lady in distress," he said, but she didn't hear him.
They were all alone on the green. The rest of the family was nearly to the manor gate. She could see the steward holding the lantern over Lady Imeyne and Lady Yvolde as they started into the passage. There were a lot of people still in the churchyard, and someone had built a bonfire next to the road, and people were standing around it, warming their hands and passing a wooden bowl of something, but here, halfway across the green, they were all alone. The opportunity she had thought would never come was here.
"I wanted to thank you for trying to find my attackers, and for rescuing me in the woods and bringing me here," she said. "When you found me, how far from here was the place? Could you take me to it?"
He stopped and looked at her. "Did they not tell you?" he said. "All of your goods and gear that were found I brought to the manor. The thieves had taken your belongings, and though I rode after them, I fear I found naught." He started walking again.