Henry's Draw My Life

Middle Age

Hi I’m Henry and I'm going to tell you the tale of my life in Ravief (not a real medieval city). When I was eight, I was left an orphan as my parents died from black death. I was forced to start begging on the street. Then one day a man by the name of Bardolph offered me a place in his guild. So I accepted and started my training as a blacksmith. Before too long I was quite a skilled child, able to forge swords and shields, as well as horseshoes and scythes. I had found a home, it might not have been very loving nor caring, in fact my conversations with Bardolph usually went something like this:

Did you finish the scythe for our client?
I was just getting to it
getting to it my ass go, NOW
but I just got up
you think I care, you were supposed to have finished it already, so get to it
yes, Bardolph

Backthen I thought I was more of a slave than an apprentice, but in fact, I was one of the few who always had food on his plate.
Soon enough I had finished my training and started working as an officer in the guild, I also started up a small shop in the market. And since I finally could sustain myself, I moved out. The house I found wasn’t very big, but it was close to the market place, near the center of town, this made it essayer for me since I no longer had to walk to far to get to my shop. And then something amazing happened. One day a man came and showed the local farmers a new system to cultivate crops, the three year crop rotation. After that, the market exploded. People from all over the world started moving to Ravief. And since so many new farmers arrived, a large demand for tools came with them. And soon enough, I became a member of the bourgeoisie. And founded my own guild. Soon enough, Ravief became quite an important city. The king even started the construction of a new cathedral. I donated some money to the project to raise a bit of awareness for the guild.
Back then every day was just about the same. I got up at about 4am, had a bowl of pottage, headed towards the shop, worked until dawn, and went back home. It might not sound like it, but that was a pretty good life back then. I didn’t suffer from any diseases, had a high steady salary all year round , and I didn’t rely on how good the harvest was each year. When I was 23, I met a girl by the name of Lynet, she was 15 and still not married. She was the daughter of the guild master of an opposing guild
so when we married the two gilds merged and became more wealthy, so I made even more money. Lynet and I had 3 children. 1 died at birth, and another died at the age of 3. Fortunately one of them survived, we named him Charles. I taught Charles how to forge, he was very skilled almost as skilled as me. Unfortunately, I knew I would not live to see him take over the guild but it didn’t matter much to me. Soon I was 31, my life was nearly over, but I tried not to think of this. It had been a while since the three year crop rotation was introduced. The market had gotten a lot livelier, the city had become richer, but with that, Black Death also grew. You could see a lot of infected people on the streets. Poor guys only had about a month left to live. I made sure my family made as little contact with the infected as possible, but one day, a small lump appeared on Charles back. His mother was in denial, she kept going about how it was
a spider bite, but then more lumps appeared, and my wife, who had ignored me, cough the disses ass well. They died. And once again, I was alone.