On a late winter's day, the cold wind howled.
This was yet another normal winter in the Duchy of Lyonnesse—dark and cold outside, with no one daring to leave the village at night. The town walls, made of fences, were the only defense for the serfs against the darkness that brought robbers, bandits, vampires, and beastmen, all roaming the wilderness in search of prey.
Inside the house, the fire in the stove was still burning, heating water. The floor was swept very clean, and an elderly mother was diligently sewing and mending clothes.
From time to time, she cast worried and reproachful glances at her child lying on a yellow linen bed, who hung his head in silence, knowing he had erred.
This was her younger son; her husband had died five years ago in the Knights' War.
Their home was not far from the fence, and occasionally, the mother could hear terrifying animal roars. As she sewed, she prayed silently, "Lady Sulya, my Lady Sulya, please ensure Raymond returns safely."
Raymond was her eldest son and now the only adult labor force in the family. During the slack farming season, he would go early in the morning to serve the knightly lord, laboring without respite. Her younger son was only eight and would be a few years before he could work the fields. Since her husband's death, through the seasons, from dawn till dusk, she and Raymond worked tirelessly, just barely scraping by. Lunch consisted of a porridge mixed with flour, vegetables, and bran, while black bread was only available at dinner.
Today, her younger son had caused trouble. At dinner, the mother brought out a piece of black bread, cutting an eighth for herself and planning to leave the rest for her two sons. However, the younger son ate all the remaining bread and still cried of hunger.
The mother intended to scold her younger son but seeing his thin, bony frame—his ribs starkly outlined against his body and his limbs as thin as reeds—she couldn't bring herself to do it.
His belly was abnormally swollen due to chronic hunger and malnutrition, which caused bloating. Pressing a finger into it would leave a dent that took a long time to fade.
The family's grain reserves were low, and daily rations had to be cut by half to barely make it to the next harvest. Not only was her younger son starving—just a while after eating, she could hear her own stomach growling.
The mother forced herself to refocus on her needlework as the darkness deepened, and her anxiety grew.
"Ah, I ate too much today. Raymond will surely scold me when he returns. Let him scold me," she touched her younger son Thomas's face gently. At just over forty, she already had a face full of wrinkles and white hair: "It's okay, Thomas, it's not your fault, not your fault..."
"Mother... Mother," the young son timidly spoke, his eyes teary, "I'm... sorry."
"Ah~ it's this bad year! And that damned tax collector!" the mother sighed, tying her dry yellow hair with a scarf and carefully checking how much grain was left.
There were about a dozen black breads and a bag of coarse flour left. If she cut down their daily consumption by another twenty percent, they might last until the winter wheat harvest.
People in the village had started eating bark. With a heavy heart, she cut another small piece of black bread; supplying their own food was a requirement when serving the knightly lord, and such labor was always intense. Raymond had to eat something, or he wouldn't make it.
"Thud~" A sudden noise from the door made the mother jump. She anxiously looked towards the door.
A gust of icy night wind blew into the house, causing a shiver.
Raymond's figure gradually appeared from the night, looking utterly exhausted. Carrying tools and wearing only a thin garment under his beast skin cape padded with a lot of straw, he said, "Hey, mom, I'm back, dead tired."
"Oh, Raymond, you're back," the mother, feeling nervous like a child who had done wrong, said somewhat awkwardly, "I've cut the bread. Eat quickly, there's hot water on the stove."
Despite her awkward movements, Raymond, too tired to notice, washed his hands using water from a barrel in the corner and, without real sincerity, prayed briefly before soaking the cut bread in hot water, preparing for dinner.
"Raymond... what did you do today?" the mother asked worriedly.
She noticed the fresh scabs on his hands where the skin had worn through.
"What else can I do? Chop trees, dig ditches, tie fences, chop wood. Everything needs to be done perfectly, some even more than perfectly, otherwise it's a beating," Raymond sighed
. "The knightly lord is said to have left on business, and his steward is even more vicious... Thank God, thank Lady Sulya, I made it back alive. Mom, what have you been doing at home?"
"Me? I mend clothes... boil water, cook meals." The mother's gaze shifted uneasily.
"And Thomas?"
"Thomas has already gone to sleep," the mother quickly said.
"...I've finished eating. Is there any more?" Half a loaf of black bread quickly disappeared into Raymond's stomach, but the serf still felt a strong hunger.
"Go rest, you'll feel better asleep," the mother silently shook her head.
No more could be eaten, truly no more.
Raymond didn't say much more, as he had labor to attend to the next day. The family extinguished the fire and went to bed early.
...
The mother lay in bed, unable to sleep for a long time.
Since her husband died in the Knights' War five years ago, their family's life had progressively worsened. Previously, they had just about managed to ensure food and warmth, but now they were eating sporadically. During the gaps between harvests, they often ran out of food.
And worse was yet to come.
The Knights' War, they said, had been a great victory, but not a single knight or soldier from the Duchy of Lyonnesse returned. Law and order deteriorated, and bandits and robbers were rampant, with occasional bands of beastmen emerging from the woods in search of winter provisions.
Bandits and robbers gradually left the forests and harassed the villages nearby. Due to poor harvests, the already fragile peace was severely damaged. The depleted garrison troops were relocated near cities and noble estates to ensure the safety of the lords' wealth, leaving the poor and defenseless serfs to fend for themselves.
Bandits and robbers would burst into villages, seeking anything of value. Their favorite targets were the elders' houses with their shiny coins and the local taverns with food and beer.
If the serfs resisted, they were killed. If they fled, most died of hunger in the wilderness or were hunted down. If they did nothing... they lost their provisions and eventually died anyway.
Several villages faced this tragic fate.
The lords' sources of income had diminished, but their expenses could not be reduced. Their lavish parties, high expenditures, and the needs of their family members required a lot of money, a cost they certainly would not bear themselves. Ultimately, it fell on the heads of the serfs.
Thus, in addition to near-total taxation, the serfs' food supplies were also confiscated. Tax collectors taught the serfs that "this would make the kingdom better" and then ruthlessly took most of their food.
Was the kingdom really getting better? The mother didn't know. She only knew life was getting worse. Tax collectors came more frequently, each time demanding more, and they might soon target even the seed grains.
At that moment, a subtle noise came from the quiet room.
The cold wind blew against the wooden windows, making a "whirring" sound that significantly affected the mother's hearing. But she had lived in this house for decades and could not be deceived by any slight noise.
Raymond secretly got out of bed, dragging his tired body. In the darkness, the elder son swallowed hard, his stomach growling.
He was too hungry.
The mother remained silent, tears in her eyes, desperately covering her mouth to make no sound.
"Rustle rustle~" She heard the sound of Raymond rummaging through the bread basket, and the knife used for cutting bread being taken down from the wall.
Then came the fine sound of chewing, which should have been drowned out by the wind, but for some reason, the mother felt she heard it all too clearly.
"Raymond, what's wrong? What happened?" the mother finally decided to speak, her voice choked: "Why are you up?"
"Clang!" The knife fell to the ground.
"I... I heard some wind... just checking... if the windows were shut tight," Raymond, startled by his mother's voice, said with a lot of trepidation: "Lately... there's not much food in the village, I was worried someone might come to... steal food."
The son had lied, Raymond lied to himself, just as she had lied to Raymond.
"If there's nothing wrong, go back to sleep early. You still have labor tomorrow," the mother's voice was tearful, tears streaming down her wrinkled face.
"Mom!" Raymond, too, knew his act of eating bread had been discovered by his mother. The serf sobbed: "Sorry, mom, I'm so hungry."
"I know, I know all," the mother also cried: "How are we to live? The food is running out, and your brother is still starving."
"We farm, yet the grain is theirs; we hunt, yet the game is theirs;
we fish, yet the fish are theirs. Mom, today during the labor, Alang's father was killed by a log because he had no strength left from hunger. We can't go on living like this!"
"Ah! Alang's father is dead? He was only thirty-five years old. Alang already lost his mother early on, how is he supposed to live now, he..."
After much thought, Raymond finally made up his mind: "Mom, let's escape. Take Thomas, and the three of us run away. If we don't escape, we'll starve to death anyway. I overheard the knightly lord's steward's orders today; there's going to be an extra tax on this year's winter wheat!"
"Ah? More taxes?" The sudden bad news almost suffocated the mother. With most of their provisions already taken away, the lord still wanted to increase taxes?!
"Yes, there was a poor harvest this year, and the lord might lose a lot of income, so the steward and the tax collector plan to continue raising taxes because the tasks the lord left must be completed," Raymond hesitated, then said to his mother: "Mom, there's no hope going on like this. Even if we can harvest the winter wheat, that stuff isn't ours, not just that, we don't know where to get more food for those greedy tax officers to be satisfied."
The dark room was like a black hand gripping the necks of the poor, suffocating them.
Even if there was no grain at home, the serfs could still go to the forest to gather berries and try hunting. The lord had officially allowed them to hunt small animals and birds, and berries were technically the lord's property, but most lords turned a blind eye to this, making life still bearable.
But now, with such poor security, who would dare to enter the woods? Good luck meant finding food for a day or two; bad luck meant never returning.
"Escape? Being caught means death! We would be hanged by the knightly lord!" the mother hesitated: "It's too dangerous, Raymond, how can we escape?"
"... Everyone is very hungry, many people are very hungry, many young men like me, strong and knowing how to use pitchforks and hoes, mom," Raymond hesitated for a moment, then decided to say: "Many young men have nothing left... The knightly lord's house has food, a lot of food, many people just want a full meal, they don't care anymore, mom, do you know what I'm saying?"
"You mean, they plan to..." the mother gasped in surprise.
"Yes, so, this is an opportunity, we can escape, the steward will focus on those young men, no one will care about us, we can run away, no matter where we go, it's better than starving to death. The neighboring Lach and us agreed, tomorrow evening, those young men will storm the knightly lord's house for food, and we can take the chance to escape," Raymond gasped: "Mom, I have you and my brother, I can't join those young men in a riot, you would be implicated by me, we can't do nothing, let's escape, mom!"
"To be fugitives... to be fugitives," the mother murmured to herself.
"Mom! If we do nothing, we will starve! I can't lose you and my brother, tomorrow night, we'll head in the opposite direction and escape, we will definitely succeed, tomorrow you pack up, boil water, cook a meal, we all eat well, then we escape!"
"Okay... okay."
...
The next evening, a long-brewing riot finally ignited the village.
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