After the Plague

VIII. Roslin Divided

Roslin was now divided into two sides, which were both fairly distinct. The physical structure of the village made it hard for their to be a literal line with two sides, but they damn well tried as hard as they could.

As it would shake out, the east side was mostly anti-Francis, while the west was most for him. On one side, Burlap had garnered the support of those who had been deeply effected by Gregor’s death. Be it the past deaths of their own loved ones or some other deeply rooted problems, they felt that Francis had wronged them.

Francis’s side were much in the same boat as Callum and Dominic. They revered him as their savior who could do no wrong. While Francis hated to see that his village had been divided, he was content to see that there was a side who agreed with him. He knew he had the capacity and willingness to be their leader, and he was determined to prove that point to his opposition. Francis didn’t want to chose favorites, but was very pleasantly surprised to see that Ester and her child had joined his cause.

What a beautiful girl. He felt compelled to protect her amongst all other villagers.

In the time since the argument at the harvest, the division had grown quickly. It had only taken two days for it all to shake out Some people even went so far as to move into other people’s huts in order to separate themselves from people with the opposite opinion.

Each hut already had enough collected food and supplies to sustain his twenty or so supporters, and they salvaged some of the relief effort supplies, sans the meat, which had gone to the opposition. The Franciscans had no problem listening to him when he said they shouldn’t eat it.

Callum had begun constructing a wall within the first day. The janky, rushed piece wasn’t much, but it served its purpose symbolically. The whole ordeal was so obviously childish, but their vindication drove them through without much consideration as to exactly what they were doing. Once Callum had started, contact with the other side was completely cut off. There had been some talk of their creating a new village, somewhere off in the woods nearby, but Francis knew they could never really accomplish that. They’ve only lived these years because of me, who do they think they are? They’ll stay back with me, they’ll understand what I have to say.

So after two days, Francis was able to assess his current position. He found himself standing outside his hut, reading out of one of his many journals. The wall was just a few feet around the corner, where Burlap’s group was doing whatever it was they were doing. Francis adjusted himself in his stool, his knee pain had been too much to allow standing, and scanned the group. He saw Rufus, Sandy, Callum, Ester, Matthew, and all of the others looking up hopefully at him.

“So I think we can learn a lot from Odysseus coming home to his queen,” he addressed the group. “He had been out on this journey, this odyssey, but all through out those trials he still had his original purpose in mind, and that being that he needed to be reunited with his loved one. Is there anything more important than that? I’m not sure there is. Not necessarily doing things for your loved ones, but always keeping a purpose in mind. I think that’s where a real quality of life comes in, when we can say that we have a driving engine behind what we are doing,” Francis finished. His words received a few nodding heads as the villagers tried to understand the story for themselves. “That’s all I have for today, so please enjoy the rest of the evening.” He nodded and rose with Dominic’s help. 

The crowd dispersed, making their way out to their new living accommodations. “Ester!” Francis called before the girl could go any further. “Ester, would you mind staying back for a second?”

Ester turned, a little surprised, but stepped toward him. While he had been watching her over the past few days, they hadn’t said anything substantial between him. If anything, Francis thought that she was intimidated by him, and wanted to put her at ease.