Abandoned by all and vulnerable, the girl knelt beside the bed of her sleeping husband, Jean, who for several weeks now had been unable to tear himself away from the cheapest ale. The poor shepherd’s family had no money for anything more. The reason for Jean’s binge was as simple as the rotting planks of wood from which the little house of Jean and Jeanne was built.

It all came down to the lord and his wife, the lady, who three months ago had defiled Jeanne after they were displeased with the dowry for Jeanne and Jean’s wedding.

One old, skinny cow that had long since stopped giving milk – but it was the only livestock Jean had, for his modest savings barely sufficed for food, clothing, and unbearably huge taxes. Now they barely suffice for food, ale, and unbearably huge taxes.

"Au son des fifres et des tambours,

En nous laissant crever de misère," Jeanne sang, watching the slowly rising chest of the exhausted, bruised Jean.

"Ah!" a moan abruptly escaped Jeanne’s lips, and she touched her belly with a trembling hand. For three months now, her womb had been aching relentlessly – mourning its purity and virginity stolen by the lord and lady.

Perhaps her womb ached because of those painful memories of those days? The screams, the tears, the seed that, with the lord’s permission, penetrated straight into her womb and, like a centuries-old oak, spread throughout Jeanne’s entire body, reaching the tips of her fingers.

Or maybe?

Jeanne was pregnant? From the hundred men she had been forced to serve back then, their seed inside Jeanne’s womb had blended into a grotesque blade of vice that would take the last pride and bread from the starving Jeanne and Jean.

What if?

Her womb ached not from injury or pregnancy, but from the devil that was born inside Jeanne from her tears and suffering, from the tears and suffering of ordinary peasant girls forced to endure the lord’s insatiable desire?

"Ah, my dear Jean, you look so charming today," Jeanne said, smiling bitterly. "I will be strong for you and for our love, even though..." Her gaze was full of pain and fear. "You leave bruises on my face when you are drunk with grief over the lost innocence and justice of France," Jeanne then added.