[The Setting]
[Aquitaine, 1380. A mill village on the Dordogne. The air is thick with the “legacy of the plague years”—thinned families and a labor-starved landscape. The sky is a cold, indifferent gray; the ground is exhausted by cooling cycles and failed harvests. Beyond the fog, the Church is fractured into two warring Papacies, leaving the spiritual horizon as uncertain as the political one. Here, survival is a habit.]
In the Early Morning
The fog clings to the riverbank, muffling the scrape of wooden hulls against the silt. Armed men emerge with a brisk, mechanical efficiency. Near the bank, Mayor Bernat is already positioned, his thin coat pulled tight against the damp. As an officer steps ashore, two coins vanish into the Mayor’s pocket—a transaction so fluid it suggests a rehearsal. Bernat points a single, steady finger toward the forge.
Minute One
At the forge, the English officer delivers a command in the sharp Northern French dialect: “Vus venez od nus.” Marc sets his hammer down and steps out into the gray light, meeting the world as it comes. Behind him, the village priest—aging, thin, and with one eye swollen shut—stands among the huddling villagers. He holds no relic; his hands are buried deep in his sleeves, his face a blank mask.
Minute Two
Soldiers move through the village like locusts hitting a field. They do not stop for the women; there is no time, and the river is rising. They take what can be stuffed into tunics: salt, small tools, and scraps of leather. One soldier pauses to taunt Marc: “Our pope is the true one; yours is false—your prayers are to a Satan.” The villagers do not weep; they watch the common savagery—it’s new, and yet it’s not.
Minute Three
A soldier unearths a cache of buttons from a covered hole in a hut floor—a secret only the Mayor could have known. Nearby, Beatritz watches as a soldier snatches the wooden spoon from her hand—the one worn to fit her mouth. Yet, amidst this, an army poleman ducks into a dwelling and emerges with only a single, stale loaf of bread. As he passes Beatritz, he stops; his grey eyes, clear and compassionate, meet hers for a fraction of a second.
Minute Four
A horn blasts, and the soldiers hurry back to the boats. A human chain forms, passing rope, corked jugs, and sacks of flour into the vessels. One soldier clambers aboard with Marc’s hammer and pincers; another has a live chicken poking its head from his coat. The boats push off, vanishing into the fog. Marc is gone.
Minute Five
The village remains, silent and unbowed. The priest hands a small portion of dried fruit to a villager; Beatritz holds some fiber in her free hand. As she looks to the priest for some sign of the divine plan, he simply meets her gaze and murmurs that he doesn’t have all of the answers either, and that’s the point. The baker ably hauls up a bucket of water from the well, his leg no longer of much bother. The Mayor hands pieces of fiber to a neighbor, showing no sign of betrayal. Above them, a raven on a tree limb watches impatiently. A ray of sunlight slips through the dense fog. There’s another day before there’s another day after.
