The smell of wood shavings had vanished.
For Anton, who had spent half his life working as a cooper in Steinbach, that unsettled him more than the rising price of grain.
The fresh scent of oak, the smell of shavings, the rusty tang of iron hoops-all of them should have been part of his life. Now, only a lingering atmosphere of fear filled the workshop.
His tools hung neatly on the wall, polished to a shine, but they had not touched fresh wood dust in three days.
The lord's guards had sealed off the oak forest outside town, and no one dared enter. Caravans no longer came or went. He had lost every one of his orders.
"Anton, what on earth are you thinking?"
His wife Martha's voice came from the doorway. She carried a bowl of oat porridge so thin it reflected her face. Her once round, full cheeks had grown angular, as though anxiety had carved them away slice by slice.
"The Lord's Manor has put up a new notice." Martha set the bowl on the dust-covered workbench. "Marquis Lorenzo's family is offering a medicine called the Blood-Cough Mixture. They say it can cure the plague. But... it costs five whole Silver Moons."
Anton picked up a board he had intended to use for a barrel bottom and ran his fingers over its fine grain. Five Silver Moons-that was three months of food for their family.
"What about the Church?" he asked without looking up.
"The church is giving out 'holy water' for free." A trace of longing crept into Martha's voice. "The Bishop says that if we're devout enough, the Lord of Everglory will grant us a miracle. A lot of people stopped coughing the day after they drank it. Our neighbor Klaus, the blacksmith, was still