One: Of the Donkey

In a Normandy valley devastated by the Great Death, four ragged former soldiers find a lame donkey on a Friday and slaughter it for food, taking shelter in a barn as rain begins. A young village girl appears, revealing the donkey was hers and asking the men to help bury her dead father.

Godefroy, the group’s predatory leader, pressures the girl with crude threats, while Thomas, an older, trained knight among them, warns him off. The others hesitate; fear of disease and their own desperation tangle with Godefroy’s intent. The girl, who has seen an angel before, senses danger but remains, pleading for help.

When the girl flees to a tree, Jacquot tracks and coerces her down, rationalizing their brutality. He carries her back toward the barn expecting to deliver her to Godefroy. Instead, he finds Godefroy dying with a smashed skull and the fat soldier decapitated—both cut down by Thomas.

Thomas confronts Jacquot at swordpoint, intending to kill him to prevent retaliation. The girl steps between them and begs for mercy. Thomas lowers his blade and spares Jacquot, warning him, as the rain abruptly stops. The moment marks Thomas’s rejection of Godefroy’s brutality and aligns him, however reluctantly, with the girl’s plea for restraint.