The Plague’s Unveiling and Winter’s Grip

Late September.

Svein returned in a rush and departed just as swiftly. Before leaving, he specifically warned Noren not to go to Opava and took with him all the ointments and powders he had stockpiled.

Concurrently, a Norseman arriving from Hradec delivered two pieces of news.

First, an epidemic had broken out in Hradec.

Second, Jaromir, the Bishop of Prague and the new Lord of Opava, was demanding that everyone pay a tithe.

Noren watched, a hand pressed to her chest in distress, as baskets of wheat were loaded onto the wagons.

She felt she had been thoroughly exploited.

‘That damned bishop, that cursed tithe! Since when did even nobles have to pay protection money to God?’

“Oh, come on, this is barely anything,” Kitil, the captain of the Hradec guard escorting the grain wagons, waved a dismissive hand.

“Half of Hradec’s stored grain has been sent to Opava. The citizens are on the verge of rioting!”

The young woman’s face registered surprise; she furrowed her delicate golden brows together, asking in a low voice, “What exactly is going on?”

Seeing that all the tithe grain had been loaded onto the wagons, Kitil mounted his horse, its hooves clattering softly as it slowly advanced with the convoy.

“I heard it from Anna. Apparently, Opava is suffering from an epidemic; many people are sick, and a great fire consumed countless stores of grain. That’s why the new Lord of Opava is demanding everyone pay the tithe.”

“And what about Hradec?”

Kitil glanced left and right, then gestured for Noren to come closer.

Noren leaned in, her ear straining, as Kitil whispered, “Did you know there was a rat infestation in Opava a few months ago?”

The young woman was exceptionally clever; that single sentence, delivered in a flash, was enough for her to grasp Kitil’s implication.

Her emerald pupils contracted slightly. “Are you saying…”

Kitil nodded subtly, then cracked his whip, shooting to the front of the convoy amidst a swirl of rising dust.

The young woman watched as the wagons, raising plumes of dust, gradually receded into the distance. She stopped walking, a profound sense of medieval depravity washing over her amidst her shock. ‘Tens of thousands of dead rat carcasses… damn it!’

“Damn it!” she suddenly growled, her teeth grinding together in furious indignation.

She abruptly recalled the meat stew she had tasted at a Hradec tavern. Though she had only taken a shallow sip, its peculiar flavor had instantly alarmed her.

“Ugh!” Noren cursed, clamping a hand tightly over her mouth. Her stomach lurched and contracted, gastric acid surging up from her cardia, bringing a sharp, acidic burning sensation to her throat.

The intense urge to vomit persisted for several minutes. After barely managing to suppress it and gasping for a few breaths of fresh air, she finally recovered.

A cold sneer curled her lips. Patting her chest, she muttered to herself, “Hmph! Bishop! Dead rat meat? The tithe? Just let me get my chance, or you’ll be in for a nasty surprise!”

‘Jaromir, you’d better stay alive. Once I’m done with my current affairs, I’ll come to Opava and slaughter you!’

****

The forest cabin, or rather, what was now the malt ale workshop.

The workshop had expanded tenfold from the original cabin, its walls constructed from tightly fitted, sturdy logs. The ground was tamped solid with heavy weights, and the rafters and roof were built by the village’s roofers.

Outside the workshop stood a two-foot-wide stone mill, where mules and horses turned the millstone to grind the freshly steeped malt. The crushed malt was then brought inside the workshop to soak in large wooden tubs with hot water. Afterward, the peasant women filtered the wort from the tubs, transferring it to clay pots to continue boiling, adding hops in an orderly fashion. Once the wort cooled, it was left to settle. After it became clear and bright, it was filtered several times before being poured into oak barrels.

The barrels were then capped and transported to the newly dug cellar beside the workshop. After waiting seven to eight days, water was added to dilute the brew, completing a barrel of exceptionally flavorful barley wine.

The latest batch of barley wine was now complete, and Noren, of course, intended to be the first to taste it.

She entered the cellar, randomly selected a barrel, and lifted its lid. A scent of malt and sourness, reminiscent of green apples, immediately assailed her nostrils.

She inhaled deeply, then exhaled.

“Inhale! Exhale—the aroma of gout water~~~”

Tilting the barrel, she poured out half a cup. She extended her tender, crimson tongue into the barley wine, where the faint fizz of carbon dioxide and the sharp prickle of alcohol assailed her taste buds. She then drew her tongue back, allowing the bitter, fragrant notes of the malt ale to spread across every single taste receptor.

“Not bad!” After savoring it, the young woman nodded unconsciously, offering an objective assessment.

“Now, it’s just a matter of stockpiling the ale and waiting for the plague to end.”

****

As winter descended, the months-long epidemic began to enter a period of stabilization.

Yet, most of Opava’s common people found little reason to rejoice, for the arrival of winter did not signify the retreat of death; rather, it marked the beginning of a new harvest for the Grim Reaper.

For several months, the Duke had secluded himself within Prague Castle, its gates tightly shut, completely disregarding all that transpired in Opava. The ‘lazy’ Jaromir, it was rumored, was still presiding over affairs in Opava, but their favored treatments of bloodletting and castration seemed utterly ineffective.

Wratislaw — Legitimacy -25

Jaromir — Legitimacy -100

Not long after Kitil’s departure, the plague swept through the Russian village, likely brought by passing refugees.

Over a dozen villagers became infected in succession. Among them, two girls, perhaps due to their young age, meager diets, and weak resistance, succumbed within a day of their symptoms becoming prominent.

The peasant couple, their faces devoid of expression, buried the girls, adding two new graves to the Russian village.

Only yesterday, they had been fraught with worry over their insufficient grain supply; today, their daughters had suddenly passed away. They were unsure whether to grieve or to rejoice, or perhaps to feel a mingling of both sorrow and relief.

Undeniably, however, this winter brought an extra portion of rations, meaning their son might not starve.

In truth, this winter, the Russian village should have been warming by bright fires, drinking hearty hot barley porridge, and passing the cold months with laughter and cheer, but…

“But that damned Jaromir, that cursed dog, collected another tax! He called it a make-up payment for last year, and it’s stopped me from brewing my ale! Once I recover, I swear I’ll take his dog’s life! Ah… A-choo!”

Noren swore furiously, then a sneeze so powerful it seemed to shake the ground erupted from her.

She, too, had fallen ill, but her symptoms were mild: only occasional sneezes and a parched throat.

“Sister, are you alright?” Freya asked with concern. Their family had been staying in the blacksmith’s cabin during this period.

Frey, with all his might, sucked a glistening snot back into his nostril, his voice hoarse as he declared, “She’s perfectly fine! She’s sick, but acts like nothing’s wrong!”

As he spoke, his efforts relaxed, and the snot slid back out from his nostril, dangling precariously.

Noren, after all, doted on her younger brother Frey. She draped her wool felt blanket over his shoulders, saying gently, “Stop your chatter and focus on getting better!”

“You… *sniff*… you don’t need it?”

“Nah, I don’t need it!”

Noren’s illness stemmed from the stale wheat she had been consuming recently. After all, half their grain had been handed over, a portion distributed to the villagers, and she still needed to ensure Freya and the others ate fresh wheat. She could only economize as much as possible, thus she began eating the moldy rye.

‘Anyway, her body was resilient now!’

“(Sigh), I just wonder how Father is doing.” Noren’s face clouded with worry.

****

December 25th, Julian Calendar, 1066.

This Christmas, no priests or monks in simple clerical robes came to the village.

Strangely, the Russian village, which should have been filled with wails of sorrow, was silent. No one wept, no women’s uncontrollable sobs could be heard, only a numb, faint gasping of agony…

…and prayers as placid as an ancient well.

Another person had died. A man, dragging his ailing body, walked into the snow.

He knelt, hands clasped, looking up to pray for the Lord’s salvation, striving to appear calm in the face of death, hoping to ascend to heaven.

Noren still heard the man’s groans and saw his soul slowly emerge from his mouth and nostrils.

Perhaps it was his final lament, for amidst the wind and snow, a sinewy, flaming demonic arm burst from beneath the earth. It seized the man’s soul, squeezing it. The man’s soul shrieked like a terrified chicken, then was dragged into hell amidst the demon’s wicked roar.

“Whoosh—” The shriek of the wind and snow jolted Noren awake from her hallucination. There was no demon, no soul; only a dead farmer silently collapsed in the snow, a thin layer of white settling upon him.

No one dared to bury him. The deceased farmer lay in the snow, his limbs splayed haphazardly. The villagers, after a distant glance, slammed their doors shut. Only Noren stood by, witnessing his death.

She, too, valued her life, but there were things she absolutely had to do.

“Swollen lymph nodes, conjunctival congestion, skin rash, abnormal facial flushing, no purple ecchymosis… This isn’t the Black Death.”

Noren, wearing air-membrane gloves and protecting her mouth and nose with an air-membrane mask, examined the corpse. The conclusion she reached finally allowed her anxious heart to settle.

“Phew… The two classic symptoms of the Black Death — coughing blood and black spots — are absent in him, and in all those who died before. This indicates that this epidemic is likely just typhoid caused by the rat infestation, not the bubonic plague that kills gods and Buddhas alike.”

The young woman placed the corpse onto the funeral pyre and lit it. Amidst the crackling of wood and the foul stench of burning flesh, thick black smoke billowed straight into the sky.

Suddenly, a cold gust of wind swept through, lifting her golden hair and stripping all remaining leaves from the beech trees.

She caught a single orange-red beech leaf carried on the wind. The leaf was dry and brittle, its veins prominent and shriveled, as if foretelling the fragile transience of life.

Noren tossed the beech leaf into the raging flames, then looked up at the narrow ribbon of smoke stretching to meet the sky, a sense of fleeting time washing over her.

“Another year has passed.”