There was a long line of people in front of an aged stone building. Men and women, children and elderly, all stood together in the early winter morning, white breaths condensed in the cold air. With only rags and no proper clothes, the cold seeped into their bones, leaving them shivering. Despite this, there was not a single sign of impatience on their faces, only anticipation.

The minute the sun broke through the horizon, the line began to shuffle forward silently. As they grew closer, the sound of people eating and working became louder. In the front, several rows of filled tables came into view on the side of the street. A group of adolescents were scurrying back and forth distributing food from inside.

Half a loaf of bread and a bowl of potato stew. 

The bowls were misshapen and the bread was no longer fresh, but nobody complained as the food was handed out.

A small black stamp on the back of the right hand indicated that a person had been served. It would fade away by sunset, during which the soup kitchen would distribute another round of meals.

In the back of the kitchen, a few more pots of stew were simmering next to a stack of wooden bowls. A youth added wood to one of the fires and turned to a woman chopping potatoes.

“Do you think the Lord will visit us today?” He asked, referring to the Ermius family’s youngest son. In the past, that person rarely took steps outside of the Lord’s residence and the youth had never caught a glimpse of the Viscount’s son. The common people were unaware of his appearance and temperament and only knew rumors that he had a frail body and was prone to serious bouts of coughing.

Yet in the past few weeks, that person seemed to have recovered without any explanation. There was no small amount of people that claimed to have seen the Lord strolling around the Viscount’s residence.

The youth only knew that there was truth to these rumors because he witnessed an argument between the butcher and one of the Viscount’s servants.

It was no secret that the butcher’s store had long since stopped selling meat. After all, in the middle of winter, how many people would be willing to trade away the little food they had? Yet not only had the servant threatened to summon the city guards, but the coins he gave in return would've also been barely sufficient even during the hunting season.

After the servant left impatiently, the butcher had let out a string of profanities. The entire street had heard him cursing viciously.

“Feasting while the rest of us starve like dogs,” the youth recalled faintly. In addition, the amount the servant bought was quite impressive, enough to feed a single person for over a week. Probably, the youth thought, the ‘feast’ was to celebrate the recovery of the Viscount’s son.

After being ill for so long, it stood to reason that it would take some time for the Viscount's son to become healthy again. Because of this, all the city’s inhabitants were then extremely surprised when that very same person appeared in front of the orphanage the youth lived at and asked them to help open a soup kitchen. It was like a bolt from the sky, completely unexpected, but not shocking.

It was a skeptical hope, warm, but small, like holding a candle to ward off the winter cold. From then on, that person began to drop by irregularly, bringing them coins for purchasing food and occasionally giving suggestions on how to proceed.

The youth wondered if he would visit again today.

The old woman paused to think, wrinkled brows creasing before responding hoarsely to his previous question. “Perhaps not.”

“How come?”

“The Lord should be busy,” the woman murmured, “Too busy to remember people like us.”

She resumed cutting potatoes, the dull blade moving slowly and methodically.

“Nobles are capricious,” she lectured the youth, “They will say one thing and immediately do another as they wish. Even so, you must never show anger. The nobles are prideful. Offending one will only provoke a beating.”

In the two decades since she began taking in abandoned children, the orphanage had never received a gesture of goodwill from the Viscount, let alone a single coin. She had no doubt that the Viscount’s son would soon too lose interest and move on to whatever new project he took a fancy to. When that eventually happened, the citizens would not be able to take out their dissatisfaction on the Lord.

Instead, it would be the doors of the orphanage that bore the complaints arising from those who had become accustomed to the Lord’s charity. Most likely she would be accused of embezzlement, the woman thought to herself grimly. She knew it was a crime that many of the Viscount’s servants were guilty of.

Regardless, she would go along willingly and hope that the children would have enough to eat for at least this winter. In past years, she would watch gloomily as they became thinner day by day. This time, she only prayed that they would be able to put on some weight in order to find work in the fields during spring. Spring was always the busiest time for farmers. 

Apparently having heard similar lectures many times before, the squatting youth bobbed his head in agreement, warming his palms by one of the stoves. After a while, he grudgingly removed his hands and stood up, headed towards the door.

“I hope he comes to visit again today,” he said wistfully. “The snacks he brought last time were nice.”

Soon after, the sound of chopping firewood came from outside.

Up in the sky, the sun broke through the clouds and began to shine, bringing its meager warmth to the cold, hungry city of Larmes.