Apprentice+Blacksmith

You have chosen to marry an Apprentice Blacksmith, the beginning of your life is hard. However you are lucky in that your husband cares for you and respects you enough that he listens to your opinion. Your husband makes a very small amount of money, which is barely enought to live on. You live in the home of your husbands master/teacher and must follow his rules and expectations. Your husband works long hours and is generally exhausted. In addition you still live on the manor and are thus subject to the taxes of the manor lord, so you make little and you must give some of it to the Lord. However my Husband shows some promise and has been asked to create armor and weapons for our lord. This is a wonderful chance for us.

You are a highly devote Christian and you do what your priest tells you because you fervently desire to get to heaven, however you have some concerns as you have a six children, two of which die at birth and a third that dies of some infection, why did that happen? Do they go to heaven because your priest says you have to be baptized. In addition your priest himself demands your family and friends pay a "tithe" or "alms" to help the church, which adds to your confusion as your priest tells you things but doesn't follow them himself. He says we should be humble and minimize our desires, but he eats more than three families together and has the best clothes and best house. This is very frustrating as we have almost no money, what we have goes to our lords and the church.

Sometimes our Lord holds a tournament, it is so amazing to watch, the knights "Joust" each other on horses and fight with swords, spears, and other weapons, it's so much fun to watch. This is good for business and we always make a littel more. Sometimes we see the knights wearing armor my husband made, or they ask him to repair damaged stuff. It's really exciting. We prayed our thanks for the joyful day.

Today was very interesting, My husbands master's wife was helping me learn how to manage the household and help wth the business when she learned I can't read or write French, she said that was unacceptable and began to teach me the letters. She showed me a book about proper etiquette, which except for a bible, I had never seen, it was amazing. I am so eager to learn. It also showed me how wealthy being a blacksmith can be, In my entire childhood I never knew a single person with a book, she's the only person I know that has one.

Rumour has just come to the town that some kind of sickness is travelling the world killing everyone. Our priest tells us it's God's Wrath, and that as long as we are devout Christians we have nothing to fear, we pray every night.

Today was very exciting and scary, our priest discovered a witch amongst us, she was arrested and found guilty, they tied her to a big pole in the ground, and set kindling all around her, dumped oil on it, and set it afire. She screamed she was innocent until she died, but our priest told us that was the devil inside her attempting to fool us, and tempting us with evil. We prayed extra long that night.

Today was even scarier, our priest came for a visit and saw our book, I had read it several times by now, it was my favorite thing to do in my spare time. The ability to read and write has become very handy as I can now handle business aspects for my husband. However the Priest told us that the auther of the book was a known devil worshipper. We immediately threw the book at him and begged for him to get rid of it for us, and professed not only our ignorance but our devotion to christianity. I thought he was going to have us arrested as heretics, but he said to relax, he knew we meant no harm by it, and we would keep it his little secret, and he would get rid of the book. I prayed extra extra hard that night.

Rumour from the Merchants said the English are invading, I don't know where England is or who these English are but we have heard terrible stories about them and their bows. Someone said WE may be called upon to fight, We'll be praying even harder tonight.

WAR!!!! We are called to war, the English are pushing in-land, rumour has it, its the Black Prince. He never loses. Our lord has been called upon to fight for his lord. He summoned my husband to his castle and asked him to join him, as they will need his skill as a blacksmith. If we go with him we are promised enough money to go into business for ourselves. As much as our "masters" family has been accomodating it would be wonderful to have our own house. However the risks are that we may never return. What should I advise my husband to do?


 * [[image:100%20years%20war.jpg width="320" height="307" align="left" link="PGB join the army"]] || [[image:blacksmith_with_boys.jpg width="309" height="320" align="right" link="PGB not join the army"]] ||
 * Go to War || Stay at Home ||
 * The War between the English and French went on for ever, it is called the 100 year war (they also fought a 30 year war). The English held the upper hand for a long time, and controlled a large portion of French lands. || While the war raged on, many people were still left to deal with the plague. Many lords died in the conflict or left for crusades, but the big issues were war and disease. ||

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