Chapter 31: Quarantine
The guards, who had heard from their captain about what was happening in the lower city before arriving, were on edge, eager to avoid any physical contact. Their evasive actions filled the eyes of the poor with anger and hatred. The hands that stretched out from the gaps in the fences and barbed wire like waving black flags, exuding an ominous aura.
“Go back! Everyone, go back! Stay at home!”
A man dressed in a captain uniform held up a crude loudspeaker made of rolled tin sheets, pressed it tightly against his mouth, and shouted at the top of his lungs.
The silent crowd turned their eyes to him, and gradually, low whispers appeared in the crowd.
“They’ve locked us up. Do they want us to die here?”
“They don’t care about us… It’s an order from the Papal Palace. The Holy Father has abandoned us.”
“Go home? I don’t have anything to eat at home. The York family at the bakery are all dead. There are too many corpses in the church that there are no places to put them. I’ll die if I go home too. Has the Holy Father really abandoned us?”
The whispers and confused sounds gradually grew louder, and the captain noticed that more and more people were coming from the street behind. They were pushing forward in confusion and anger, like a dark tide hitting a weak dam.
“The nobles in the upper city just don’t want to be infected by us. They’re afraid of death and they might run away from Florence soon. Then we will be the only ones who die here.”