The October of 1348, was dreadful. As population rates climbed to their peaks, the harvest of corn and wheat remained the same. Large amounts of the population remained in famine and in poverty due to the inaccessible amount of food. 

Merchants on the street heard word that, fleets of ships would be docking here to trade with the city of Sicily. Everyone was overglad for this miracle to occur. These merchants from afar would trade and sometimes give us items from afar. 

In exchange, we would give them what we had. Jewels and necklaces handcrafted from our best blacksmiths.  

At that time, I was just a works crew, just there to help the ship's dock and to unload the items they processed. Soon they arrived carrying large amounts of goods from Crimea. I was overjoyed to see that there were fresh fruits and marrow. Where we lacked in food, we made up in clothes and metallurgy.

And soon I worked the days and nights to load barrels of goods to the shore. Merchants from Sicily swarmed the areas like flies over a corpse.  The air was atmospheric and joyous. People began to fill their stomachs and were pleased with these fair deals.

One day, I overheard the senior crewman talking about the large share of rats and mice on the boat. They seemed to be concerned and so did the merchants too. They wore grim masks after joining in the conversation. 

At that time, I just ignored it. My mother told that it was impolite to eavesdrop. None on the less, I paid no mind to what they said on carried on my day. And soon the joyous crowd died down. The merchants had there fair share of trade. The food was enough for us to last and the people from afar had nothing less to trade.

Announcing that they would be leaving our city and returning back to their origins.

I was paid enough money to feed me and my daughter for days. Days were all fine and dandy until word on the street said that death had arrived at our town. Our city.

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They described this death like "The symptoms were not the same as in the East, where a gush of blood from the nose was the plain sign of inevitable death; but it began both in men and women with certain swellings in the groin or under the armpit. They grew to the size of a small apple or an egg, more or less, and were vulgarly called tumours." And soon it became nicknamed the black death. 

People were dropping dead here and there. The lively merchants and streets bustling with livelihood died down into an eerie silence. No one wanted this sickness and each one of our neighbors bared themselves in. What remained was a rotting stench that appeared along with the dead bodies. The smell was ghastly, awful but more importantly. Described like death.

My daughter was incredibly scared. Often times I had to comfort her and tell her it would be all right. She never attended school as it was far too expensive and most upper-classmen's children attended it. 

Life was harsh until I awoke to find my daughter with a burning heat in her forehead and she barely even able to muster strength to hold the cup. Immediately I went to the river and brung out some cold water soaking it into the towel.

Bringing it back, I placed it onto her head hoping it would cool her down. It barely even lowered her temperature.

As the second day passed by, her condition became even worse. One of my worker-mates told me of the doctors that might be able to help. They wore large crow masks filled to the brim with herbs.

These herbs would protect us from the disease.¹ At this point I was desperate. Red shapes of bruises started appearing. It appeared to be swollen in the neck, armpit and groin areas. The bruises were horrific because they looked like roses with rings around it. 

I desperately spent all my money to give my daughter the hope and life she wanted to live. The doctor arrived with a tall black hat. He wore a beak that was black like the night. It was large and had flowers, and herbs anything that could block out the miasma. It was like a pocket full of posies. 

The doctor wore a black trench coat and carried syringes and knives.

I left the room to leave the doctor to do theirs thing and sat in nervousness.

Author's Notes:

¹In the 13th century, people believed that the bad miasma and germs were spread in the air. They believed that these things were bad smelling due to they the smell of corpses. So they stuffed crow beaks to the brim with strong and good smelling items such as herbs and flowers.

²Posies are flowers.