"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!"
