Plagued: A Conversation Among Lords

    "The question is never whether the peasant class is forlorn, M. Mamon, for we know this to be true.  The question we may ask is whether a peasant accepts his role.  I, myself, believe in no such Divinity to play the part.  Bloodlines may be thick with royalty from an ancient era, but the mistakes of a family's past must be reconvened in who is alive today.  Not through physical punishment, but a punishment of a social class."
    "To never climb the ranks into the social herd for as long as your blood may thin.  I do agree, Lord Plutus.  We have done our share of work.  We may not have toiled the fields, or dug the trenches, but we have kept our peace with God and won the wars.  It's as you say:  If your family name is worth the rust on your helm you must defend its worth!  So your father gambled away your heritage, win it back or sow your fate!  To accept your role is to hammer your destiny.  There are those that are so accepting of their poverty that they lay in their snare and await their culling."
    "As you say, M. Mamon:  New threats dread the world with each risen sun and yet rather than develop the weapons and fortifications needed to protect their families... the peasant freezes."
    "Que Dieu pardonne..."
    "And yet with each new disaster to the lowly classes, they always fill anew."
    "It is how God rewards us for our resilience, Lord Plutus, for keeping the hearts of our crests warm with the strength of victory.  We, ourselves, are untouched by the winds of winter.  We are expected to keep our health above those that die of illness.  We quell to no threat.  In that way we are Gods to them."
    "Spare no idiosyncrasies, Monsieur.  Just the other day there was a new crowd of misfits to join the ranks in the streets.  A few men of my militia questioned them, to say their whole town burned by savages.  Scavengers that bother not to work for their food.  Still, what new people canter through the gates merely to take the place of those too weak from this damned illness to work?  Who knows how many are crooks?"
    "No seer for that, my Lord."
    "They bring with them new enemies.  New disease.  That's how this one crept in, you know.  What's the word for an immigrant, Monsieur?"
    "Réfugié."
    "New religions...  They do bring news faster than any horseman, you know.  Rumors that shake faith.  Tales of people rising from graves, of golems walking like fairy tale.  You stare at your cup, M. Mamon.  You surely believe nothing of that ilk, do you?"
    "I look at my own people, Lord, with not the same fervor as I do before.  It's as you say.  Rumors that shake faith...  I, too, hear tales of the dead rising, and I say to myself, 'Surely, this is not true.'  But has God not done the same in antiquity?  I see those whose flesh falls in my corridors.  No elixir but save their soul.  Did God not also speak of Revelation?  To believe one but dismiss the other is foolish.  To see this illness would show the non-believer the works of not just God but Satan, too.  And yet you see something that no God would allow.  I see bodies lain in streets that yet breathe.  Perhaps the dead already walk?  Perhaps there's truth in what the people say?"
    "M. Mamon!  It does you no good to lower your thoughts with rabble.  To surrender your thinking to the gullible crowds is to surrender your patronage.  God is on our side!  The batterments will not fetter!"

Plagued: The Trial of Man

    There's barely a dew on the grass.  The clouds hide the sun but there's a warmth.  I sit on a lump of green and watch the villagers whip into a crescendo'd fury.  The animals on the farm make no tussle.  Barely a noise as they graze.  There doesn't seem to be more than a handful of buildings but when the villagers step out they assemble in step with an army.  Some throw a glance towards me as they get closer.  I raise a hand in greeting, but they focus their eyes elsewhere.  They're clearly not here for my trespassing.
    Out front they lead a lad nearly 13 by the nape of his neck.  The crowd stops in front of the bullpen not 30 yards from me.  A show in the front seats.  The crowd quiets down as they arrive at the chopping block.  The boy's said not a word.  His face reddened by his sorrow, he's quiet as he's accepted his fate.  A man steps to the crowd and speaks, his words too softly spoke for me to hear.  An old man stranded to the sidelines inspects me with curiosity from far away, slowly making his way to my person while the crowd mutters with wayward expression.  The old man sits beside me on the small hillock of grass, obviously intent on conversation, or someone to listen.
    "Theft," he greets.
    "Is that so?"
    "Mm.  Boy was hungry.  Slaughtered a pig to feed his family, he told.  I'm unsure if he really has one, but it wouldn't matter.  Theft is a high crime when the people's possessions are so few."
    "Will his family be tried?" I asked.
    "Doubtful.  It's no crime to eat.  It's common to be hungry.  To have a full belly for a day would be a luxury.  No, it's the theft that's a broken law."
    I thought of what I would do as the judge to many pleaded cases of mercy, and how few of them got what they wanted from me.  I decided not to dwell, as I would never be that man on the seat of power ever again.  The boy on trial also reminds me of my son, another reason not to muse on the past.
    The old man and I spoke awhile, our eyes watching every action the stoic crowd made.  Everyone, including the young crook, were silent as ceremony.  No one pleaded.  No one bickered.  The boy is guilty, so says the crowd.  Somewhere in their ritual we ceased to speak.  The hand was lain on the stump without struggle, I daresay given time the lad would've surrendered his limb himself.  There was no breath taken between the draw of the ax and the swing.  Just the clack of something breaking wood.  The old man clicked his tongue.  The young boy seemed to faint without word as the crowd swarmed to groom him.  Leaning on my sword, I erected myself into the slipstream of cooled breeze that washed the hills.  Rest interrupted by the sins of Man, I marched toward the clouded sun.