Sebbywafers
Banned
(note that this is my first TL, so if I've messed up a few small AH.com quirks already please forgive me)
(the next post will put this narrative into context)
28th of August, 1407
Free Imperial City of Aachen, Holy Roman Empire
Robin was dying, slowly and painfully.
The nine year-old laid upon his bed- a large hessian sack filled with bundles of straw that gave the sack a rough rectangle shape. The bag was maybe a third larger than the straw it held- because of this, the edges of the sack were tucked under the bed itself so they wouldn't spread onto the floor and create a mess. There were two layers of blanket, made of a thicker hessian fabric quite obviously and roughly cut from another sack. Robin's bed was in the far corner of the room, which had stone brick walls, a moist, splintery wooden floor and a single window (as much as a hole in the wall could be called a window, anyway). More beds and drawers for personal belongings were also in the room, albeit distanced from the boy's. A lone hen, her body swollen from egg production, paced across the floor quietly and pecked at the decaying floor boards. This was the home of a very poor German family, people not far above beggars on the scale of things. Even in a city as prosperous as Aachen, where Emperors came to be crowned and merchants came to trade the fertile fruits of the Rhinelander soil, there would always be an underclass of people like these. They lived short, filthy lives generally.
Two younger girls, maybe a year or two apart in age, and a mother who realistically could only have been in her mid-twenties at most, looked at the child with despair from a distance of a few metres. The mother herself was in particularly bad condition- she had massive bags under her eyes and was basically covered in dirt. Her ragged clothes made her an almost certain haven for body louse, and her greasy blonde hair jutted out in all directions like a mop. Robin's father was nowhere to be found- he had vanished earlier in the morning, like he did on some days before coming back in the late afternoon. It wasn't a work day, either, so it was expected he was out drinking or wooing women several mud-paved streets down. He only worked three afternoons a week loading crates and sacks of goods atop wagons entering and leaving Aachen's walls, and expectably he was payed an extremely meager salary for it. However, with his laziness and social standing, it was unlikely any other self-respecting entrepreneur would hire him for much, and the life of a beggar was not one suited to feeding a wife and three children.
Even outside the dimly-lit room, things were dirty. While obviously much of the city was arguably the gem of the Rhineland, Robin's place of living was less blessed by fate- the air was stuffy, and the smell of feces and decomposition permeated it at all times (although nobody would be able to tell anymore). Human waste was emptied from crowded story buildings onto the mud roads in buckets, and the godforsaken inhabitants of this place could do little more than pray rain would wash the piles of the stuff off of their mud-paved roads. People would generally drink fermented beverages, usually brewed in their own homes, although if desperate enough there was a well at the street corner just down from where Robin's home was. If you got out to the well at midday, you'd see a line of people with their buckets going to get some water. The smartest would find wood in their dwellings to burn and thus boil the water with, but even that level of sanitation wasn't universal by any means. Hell, children here would throw scraps to pigs that had made a living in the streets like feral dogs would elsewhere- the place was a breeding ground for filth and disease.
However, people in this area tended not to realise that their poor sanitation caused illness. The local catholic preist, a cold, embittered old man with beady eyes and a bug-like aura of sorts, had claimed many ill people, Robin included, were being punished by god for their sins. Robin's father was generally absenteering when it was time for church on Sunday, so it did make sense for god to punish the family by giving Robin a grave illness. Robin himself had questioned the preist's reasoning in his head, but eventually pulled his head in mentally and realised the truth.
Regardless of it being divine punishment, Robin's disease was suffering of the highest order. He had suffered from uncontrollable bursts of diarrhea maybe every half an hour, a constant fever and, a few days after the initial infection, a very bad case of what seemed to be the flu. His disease had been a living hell, and now Robin- an emaciated, pale, quivering shadow of the playful child he had been just a week and a half ago, could do little more than sit there and wait. His speech was hoarse, whiny and exhausted, and consisted of little more than an "I love you" every few minutes to break the tension.
His mother and sisters had been watching him for several hours now. Robin was very much aware he was going to die soon, although he didn't really have a good understanding of what death was. A pair of tears streamed down his cheeks, and his mother came closer. She brushed a fringe of dirty blonde hair from his forehead and stroked his forehead with her thumb gently, her teary eyes staring into his. "Will I go to heaven, mother?", he asked weakly. This question was too much for the woman- she burst into tears. The two young daughters, lacking in understanding but well-versed in empathy, began crying as well. "Yes, son", his mother said between tears ,"You have been a good person in this life, you will have no problem."
Robin's eyes closed. He was still shedding tears, but he felt something- a great exhaustion, like his life was going to end. He replied to his mother's speech with his eyes closed still, but his grip on reality grew fainter and fainter over the course of five minutes. Eventually he let out a great breath, and all was forgotten.
Robin was dead. His mother picked up his limp body by the shoulders and shook him violently, screaming and crying. She then stopped, and turned away to face the mouldy stone wall of her room. It was over, she thought, it was over. But it most definitely wasn't over, it was just the beginning...
(the next post will put this narrative into context)
28th of August, 1407
Free Imperial City of Aachen, Holy Roman Empire
Robin was dying, slowly and painfully.
The nine year-old laid upon his bed- a large hessian sack filled with bundles of straw that gave the sack a rough rectangle shape. The bag was maybe a third larger than the straw it held- because of this, the edges of the sack were tucked under the bed itself so they wouldn't spread onto the floor and create a mess. There were two layers of blanket, made of a thicker hessian fabric quite obviously and roughly cut from another sack. Robin's bed was in the far corner of the room, which had stone brick walls, a moist, splintery wooden floor and a single window (as much as a hole in the wall could be called a window, anyway). More beds and drawers for personal belongings were also in the room, albeit distanced from the boy's. A lone hen, her body swollen from egg production, paced across the floor quietly and pecked at the decaying floor boards. This was the home of a very poor German family, people not far above beggars on the scale of things. Even in a city as prosperous as Aachen, where Emperors came to be crowned and merchants came to trade the fertile fruits of the Rhinelander soil, there would always be an underclass of people like these. They lived short, filthy lives generally.
Two younger girls, maybe a year or two apart in age, and a mother who realistically could only have been in her mid-twenties at most, looked at the child with despair from a distance of a few metres. The mother herself was in particularly bad condition- she had massive bags under her eyes and was basically covered in dirt. Her ragged clothes made her an almost certain haven for body louse, and her greasy blonde hair jutted out in all directions like a mop. Robin's father was nowhere to be found- he had vanished earlier in the morning, like he did on some days before coming back in the late afternoon. It wasn't a work day, either, so it was expected he was out drinking or wooing women several mud-paved streets down. He only worked three afternoons a week loading crates and sacks of goods atop wagons entering and leaving Aachen's walls, and expectably he was payed an extremely meager salary for it. However, with his laziness and social standing, it was unlikely any other self-respecting entrepreneur would hire him for much, and the life of a beggar was not one suited to feeding a wife and three children.
Even outside the dimly-lit room, things were dirty. While obviously much of the city was arguably the gem of the Rhineland, Robin's place of living was less blessed by fate- the air was stuffy, and the smell of feces and decomposition permeated it at all times (although nobody would be able to tell anymore). Human waste was emptied from crowded story buildings onto the mud roads in buckets, and the godforsaken inhabitants of this place could do little more than pray rain would wash the piles of the stuff off of their mud-paved roads. People would generally drink fermented beverages, usually brewed in their own homes, although if desperate enough there was a well at the street corner just down from where Robin's home was. If you got out to the well at midday, you'd see a line of people with their buckets going to get some water. The smartest would find wood in their dwellings to burn and thus boil the water with, but even that level of sanitation wasn't universal by any means. Hell, children here would throw scraps to pigs that had made a living in the streets like feral dogs would elsewhere- the place was a breeding ground for filth and disease.
However, people in this area tended not to realise that their poor sanitation caused illness. The local catholic preist, a cold, embittered old man with beady eyes and a bug-like aura of sorts, had claimed many ill people, Robin included, were being punished by god for their sins. Robin's father was generally absenteering when it was time for church on Sunday, so it did make sense for god to punish the family by giving Robin a grave illness. Robin himself had questioned the preist's reasoning in his head, but eventually pulled his head in mentally and realised the truth.
Regardless of it being divine punishment, Robin's disease was suffering of the highest order. He had suffered from uncontrollable bursts of diarrhea maybe every half an hour, a constant fever and, a few days after the initial infection, a very bad case of what seemed to be the flu. His disease had been a living hell, and now Robin- an emaciated, pale, quivering shadow of the playful child he had been just a week and a half ago, could do little more than sit there and wait. His speech was hoarse, whiny and exhausted, and consisted of little more than an "I love you" every few minutes to break the tension.
His mother and sisters had been watching him for several hours now. Robin was very much aware he was going to die soon, although he didn't really have a good understanding of what death was. A pair of tears streamed down his cheeks, and his mother came closer. She brushed a fringe of dirty blonde hair from his forehead and stroked his forehead with her thumb gently, her teary eyes staring into his. "Will I go to heaven, mother?", he asked weakly. This question was too much for the woman- she burst into tears. The two young daughters, lacking in understanding but well-versed in empathy, began crying as well. "Yes, son", his mother said between tears ,"You have been a good person in this life, you will have no problem."
Robin's eyes closed. He was still shedding tears, but he felt something- a great exhaustion, like his life was going to end. He replied to his mother's speech with his eyes closed still, but his grip on reality grew fainter and fainter over the course of five minutes. Eventually he let out a great breath, and all was forgotten.
Robin was dead. His mother picked up his limp body by the shoulders and shook him violently, screaming and crying. She then stopped, and turned away to face the mouldy stone wall of her room. It was over, she thought, it was over. But it most definitely wasn't over, it was just the beginning...