Chapter 36 The Arrival of the Bloodshed The legendary bloodshed is actually...

"Why did you become so determined to enter the forest after hearing his explanation?" Heinrich asked. He gently placed Lilith back into the carriage, folded the umbrella, and then returned to the carriage himself, wiping his mud-caked boots clean with a rag. Soon after, the carriage began to move forward again.

“What’s there to be afraid of about witches? I was accused of being a witch before, wasn’t I?” Lilith gave a sly smile. “I’m actually kind of thinking about meeting other witches. We’re all witches, maybe I can make friends with them.”

"What about werewolves? Aren't werewolves afraid either?"

Lilith lifted her leg and poked Heinrich's sword resting beside his seat with her toe. "What werewolves? They're probably just some large wolves. Our caravan has dozens of people, plus a dedicated armed escort squad. What's there to be afraid of with a few small animals? Heinrich, you don't actually believe all that superstitious nonsense he spouts, do you?"

"I don't believe it." Heinrich shrugged.

“Do you think those Paduans have gone crazy from reading too much? Sigh… Let’s find a translator when we get to Zurich, or if that doesn’t work, we can use the one the Schmidl family arranged…” Lilith yawned. “It’s been so gloomy outside, I can’t even tell what time it is. I’m so hungry, when can we have dinner?”

"The captain said we need to move forward as quickly as possible to avoid the war. Considering that we still have enough supplies, we won't detour to the town to find a post station to rest in tonight. We have to keep going and set up camp in the forest after nightfall. However, the rain has been so heavy that we probably won't be able to start a fire. We'll just have to make do with dry rations."

"Ah... I guess I'll have to eat some nautical biscuits again to fill my stomach." Lilith rubbed her rumbling stomach.

Seeing this, Heinrich took out three or four small packages carefully wrapped in oil paper and twine from his bag. One contained a triangular piece of Parmesan cheese, another contained dried Parma ham for raw consumption, a portion of butter biscuits, and a portion of bright green pistachio shortbread.

"My goodness!" Lilith exclaimed in surprise, then lowered her voice furtively as if afraid of being discovered that they were eating alone, "When did you buy all this behind my back?"

“I went to the morning market in Padua before you were fully awake this morning. I should have prepared some snacks for you since you’ve been traveling. Heinrich took out his dagger, wiped it clean with a napkin, sliced ​​off a thin slice of ham, and handed it to Lilith so she could eat it with cheese and biscuits. “I didn’t buy much, so I didn’t take it out when Dante was here. I’m only letting you know now.”

“Very good.” Lilith contentedly put the snack she had carefully assembled into her mouth, and while chewing, she assembled another one and fed it to Heinrich’s mouth. “You can’t throw pearls to pigs [Note]... but you can reward obedient dogs.”

"Thank you." Heinrich blushed and opened his mouth to eat the snacks Lilith fed him.

“The rest are all mine.” Lilith smiled happily.

After devouring her meal, Lilith leaned against the window for a while, lost in thought. As the rain subsided, Lilith lifted a corner of the curtain and discovered that the black night had completely enveloped the earth. An eerie fog rose all around, silently swallowing the woods, the roads, and even the faint light the coachman had lit in front of the carriage, like a greedy phantom.

Before long, the carriage stopped. She heard murmurs coming from the carriage leading the way. She gave Heinrich a look, signaling him to get out and investigate.

"The captain said we should rest here tonight. The rain has stopped, so we can start a fire, and they will cook bean soup at the campsite later."

"I won't drink anymore." Perhaps because she had eaten too much, Lilith felt a slight pain in her abdomen. "My stomach doesn't feel well."

Heinrich nodded knowingly. He picked up the kerosene lamp, took Lilith's hand, and prepared to help her down from the carriage. Suddenly, he noticed a pool of glaring blood on the cushion where Lilith had been sitting, like a blooming black and red flower.

“Madam,” he quickly called to Lilith, glancing somewhat awkwardly at the pool of blood, “it seems a guest has come to visit you.”

“Damn menstruation.” Lilith actually uttered that taboo word directly. “So that’s what the beggar kept talking about, the bloodshed and disaster he was referring to. I thought it was something else entirely.”

Heinrich gasped and put his index finger to his lips in a shushing gesture.

"You'd better not let the other caravan members know about this."

“I know. They’ll see menstrual blood as a source of calamity. Ignorant and weak men, if women’s blood really had such powerful effects, then when two countries go to war, they shouldn’t use armor and spears; they might as well just throw women’s menstrual-stained trousers at each other.” Lilith said viciously. “Cecilia has put clean clothes and menstrual pads in the box. Go get them for me.”

"Yes, ma'am."

After preparing all the supplies, Heinrich carried the lantern and Lilith deeper into the woods. There were no elegant solutions in the wilderness; the only option was to stay as far away from people as possible to maintain some semblance of decorum. Lilith hadn't brought many clothes; her blood-stained dress couldn't be simply thrown away, she needed to find a place with running water to wash it clean.

After walking for about ten minutes, the two followed the sound of water and found a babbling brook in the woods. So Heinrich wisely turned his back and waited for Lilith to change out of her soiled dress.

His right hand remained firmly gripping the sword at his waist. Compared to the dubious tales of werewolves, the threat posed by men to women in reality was far more tangible and real. Although Lilith consistently proclaimed herself the wife of a noble German noblewoman from a prominent Venetian family, a powerful figure untouchable by ordinary merchants, there was no guarantee that the ungrateful fellow wouldn't harbor ill intentions. Heinrich wouldn't allow such a thing to happen. He vigilantly surveyed the forest behind Lilith, but the fog was thickening, and he could see nothing but the tree trunks and branches close at hand.

Lilith was in the same boat. The familiar smell of rust filled her nostrils, her lower abdomen throbbed with pain, and she felt dizzy. She could only stumble in the dark, using cotton and gauze to clean up the sticky blood.

In a daze, she seemed to hear something, like the howl of a wild beast, but heavier, more savage, recklessly piercing through the thick fog and echoing through a dark forest. The sound was sometimes as low as the growl of a hungry wolf before its hunt, and sometimes as loud as the angry tolling of death's bell.

"What's that sound?" Lilith turned her head in alarm. Suddenly, a large hand covered her mouth, and another hand gripped her waist. She realized that the lamp that Heinrich had been holding had been blown out, and she couldn't see anything. She struggled to break free.

"Quiet, don't move, don't be afraid."

Heinrich whispered in her ear, his voice so soft that only the two of them could hear him. After a while, he released his hand from Lilith's face.

"...Is it a werewolf?" Lilith asked in the same soft voice.

“No.” Heinrich listened intently to the sounds coming from the forest, slowly drawing his sword from his waist. He then pressed Lilith’s shoulder, gesturing for her to crouch down with him and hide in the bushes nearby. “It’s a person.”

Not long after, they heard a commotion coming from the direction of the caravan camp. This was followed by shouts, curses, and the clanging of swords, along with the dull thuds of people and goods hitting the ground, and the painful screams of those pierced by sharp blades. Lilith belatedly realized what was happening over there, and her legs went weak with fear; she nearly collapsed onto the muddy ground beside the bushes, her whole body trembling.

After a while, the thick fog gradually dissipated, and her eyes adjusted to the darkness. By the moonlight filtering through the shadows of the trees, she saw a group of bandits draped in animal skins, driving away in their stolen wagons, carrying all the loot. The bandits laughed and talked about their haul: countless wool, silk, and even spices! They'd really struck it rich; this heist would ensure they were well-fed and clothed for months!

Lilith rubbed her eyes again and counted carefully. There were at least a dozen bandits, each wearing finely crafted armor under animal hides, and carrying blood-stained longswords and scimitars on their backs. Even if Heinrich was incredibly skilled, he couldn't possibly fight so many people, especially since his priority was protecting Lilith's safety. It seemed they had no choice but to stay put and wait for the bandits to go further away. So Lilith could only shift into a more comfortable position, clutching her aching lower abdomen with both hands and waiting quietly. Heinrich remained kneeling beside her, gripping his sword hilt.

The voices faded into the distance, and the forest fell into a deathly silence once more. Heinrich carefully stood up, picked up a stone from the ground, and tossed it into the distance, but there was no response for a long time. After patrolling the woods to make sure no one was around, he returned to Lilith's side and helped her up.

"Thank goodness you're alright..." He patted the fallen leaves off Lilith's shoulder, momentarily at a loss for words to comfort her. He had experienced the feeling of having everything suddenly taken away. Although Lilith had only lost a shipment of goods and her personal belongings, most of her wealth lay safely in the vault, and no of her trusted men had been injured or killed—she was actually much luckier than he had been... but her current physical condition... he wondered if it would be enough for her to safely leave the forest and find help.

“Now I understand.” Lilith sighed with a wry smile, taking Heinrich’s hand with her left as she stood up, her right hand still pressing on the source of her pain. “Now I know why Lorenzo’s insurance business is so successful. Luckily, he included accident insurance for all the goods I bought for free. I must claim it from him when I get back. It’s just that the rabbit you gave me is gone… I really liked that doll…”

"Don't think about that now. I'll make you another doll when I get back." Heinrich sighed. "What should we do now?"

"What's in your bag?" Lilith opened Heinrich's satchel, took out a flint and steel to relight the extinguished oil lamp, and then searched the bag for anything useful by the dim light. A map of northern Italy, a compass, a dagger, a comb, a bag of leftover nut brittle, some cotton balls, gauze, and clean harem pants for Lilith's menstrual period, a small bottle of water, some identification documents, and some loose change. Nothing else.

"Ah...this is so difficult." Lilith sighed, "I shouldn't have talked to you about bandits and such on the ship yesterday...and we actually ran into them."

“But the ‘bloodshed’ that the mad beggar mentioned saved our lives,” Heinrich sighed helplessly. “Let’s go back to the camp and see if we can find anything useful.”

"good."

They followed the direction they had come from, towards the wagons that had just been looted. The wagons laden with goods, along with all the horses, had been led away, leaving only empty wagons carrying passengers, empty boxes, rags, and used cooking utensils lying on the ground. The corpses of their fellow caravan members lay sprawled on the ground, perhaps soon to become food for wild animals. Lilith accidentally stepped on something soft, and looking down, she discovered it was the coachman's arm. His contorted, desperate expression before death was permanently etched on his face, a horrifying sight.

“I feel a little unwell.” Lilith, carrying a lantern, found her carriage and climbed inside. In the urgency of the situation, she hadn’t had time to clean the blood from her skirt, and the dress she had taken out to change into was completely stained with mud. She crouched down and found a small bag she had hidden in a secret compartment under the seat. Inside were the emergency supplies Cecilia had prepared for her—a dagger, a flint and steel, and ten ducat coins.

She had no outer clothes to change into, so she tried her best to clean the blood that had seeped onto her undergarments. She was about to go out to find Heinrich, who was still searching for usable supplies. Suddenly, she felt another downpour begin.

[Note] The allusion comes from Matthew 7:6, and means that good things should not go to outsiders.

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The author says: When I was writing this chapter, I was very curious about how women dealt with menstruation during the Renaissance, so I read some literature and found that they basically used cloth or cotton, and some even used a kind of absorbent moss... I am really grateful to modern people for inventing sanitary napkins.

While reading the literature, I also discovered that women of that era basically only wore petticoats, not underpants; harem pants didn't appear until around the 18th century. But that's alright, this article is essentially fictional, so don't worry about these details.

The next update will be on Wednesday!