Spring had arrived and on her bow wave came the disease.
At first the little villages in the north didn't know what to do with the infected hives, so they left them to fester in their meadows with the uninfected.
Jack worked tirelessly trying to improve his hives health and tried many different ways of protecting it from the disease.
In the second half of the moon phrase, nearing the end of winter Mr Lodovico had desperately paid the price of three gold coins for the High Priest from the local Mother Earth Temple in Prata, to pray a blessing of protection over Jacks hive. The priest went through a ritual of sprinkling the brood frames with water mixed with soil and sheep's blood.
When one of Jack's fellow examiners saw that, she walked up to him the next day to teas.
"You paid a no good Mother Earth witch doctor to curse your hive, good luck getting through the winter."
Jack looked up from his work. A young lady, no more than a girl was standing watching him work.
"And you are?" He asked, not surprised.
She gave him a proud smile. "I am Nelly Bud; my Tutor is Mr Sheldon. You can call me Nelly."
The name Bud was used a lot in the village of Prata since 2525 when Mr Bud was elected for Governor. And Miss Nelly was his daughter. So when she saw that the blessing seemed to work for Jack, she had no problem in getting her parents who were wealthy, to pay doable for the Priest to come and bless her hive twice for good measure.
When spring came Jack was one of 12 remaining examiners out of 36 that set out last year to achieve the exam, and Miss Nelly was among the twelve.
After some weeks of spring, the QC started to distribute paper pamphlets on how to deal with the infected. They also started to place laws on what one is allowed to do when in contact with a infected hive. Anyone found treating an infected hive could be fined a large amount of money and could be hanged.
The towns and cities that had money put up tall fences made from fine netting, around themselves hoping that it would prevent contaminated bees from flying in and spreading the disease to their own apiaries. The honey trade between the cities and the villages stopped completely for fear of spreading the bacteria.
Huge debates broke out among the villages of the north about where the disease had came from. Most said that it was the rebellion, some decided that it was the outcome of ice melting that released an old bacterium from The Great War of AD into the atmosphere. There were a few in Jacks home village stating that the QC was to blame, saying something about more control on the people or something. Jack would brush them off as the villages crazy conspiracy theorists, which they were.
The exam was coming to a close. Since early spring Prata had fires burning night and day.
Jack chucked an infected bee super on to a burning heap.
Nelly walked up to the fire and stood next to him, watching as his arm muscles flexed when he lifted a bee box onto the fire.
"Sad really." She said. "We train all our lives to keep the bee race and here we are burning them." She grimaces.
Jack turned to look at her and nodded. In the past few months he had gotten use to her silliness and childish ways. He couldn't sum up any words to reply while feeding more frames onto the fire.
"I hear that it has already reached Paris and is making its way to Amsterdam." She said still watching Jack.
"Do you want anything, Nelly?" He asked getting a bit annoyed. He didn't care what she through in that moment of time. Unlike her he had a job to finish before lunch.
"If you haven't any good news to tell me then please go elsewhere." Jack said, lifting another box of plastic frames onto the fire.
After a few minutes of being quiet she piped up again. "I hear that Mr Jones is coming back to Prata. The QC needs data from here to determine where the disease came from."
Jack sighed and turned to her. "And how do you know this?" He asked.
"I have connections." She said smiling. The truth was that she had overheard her father talking to her mother about it at breakfast and the bit about him coming to Prata to find out about the disease was just to make Jack happy that the QC had finely looked into the matter.
Jack shook his head. Nelly lent over and handed Jack a paper pamphlet. "You might need this." She said laughing and walked away.
Jack opened the pamphlet to see what it was.
On the first page it said in big red words "Infecto? Burno!" And then smaller words underneath them saying "A small guide to deal with the infected." He smiled and chucked it into the fire.
Nelly was a nice girl, he thought. Sometimes a little silly but what's wrong with that? He lifted another bee box onto the fire.
So his Tutor is coming back Nelly had said. Maybe I could help him find out who started the spreading of the disease. He thought, poking the fire with a long branch.
Mr Lodovico walked quietly up to the fire and watched Jack work.
"Jack, do you know if Mr and Mrs Right would allow me to stay at the old folks home?" He asked.
Jack dropped the branch onto the fire. "I'm not sure, it depends on if we have any spare rooms. Other than that, you will probably get a yes."
The wind blew the fumes from the burning plastic frames towards Mr Lodovico which made his eyes water.
"Thank you Jack." He said. He briskly walked away towards the old folks home.
Jack chucked the last bee box onto the fire and then fallowed Mr Lodovico to the old folks home for lunch.
_
After leaving Jack to finish his work, Miss Nelly walked back to her house to have lunch with her parents. When she reached her house there was an old white car parked in front of the gate.
She took a full ten minutes just to take in the beauty of the car, she had never seen a car but that one was shiny and smooth looking.
The head scientist must be staying at our place. She thought. And she was right.
When she opened the front door, servants and slaves were being ordered around like dogs by Mrs Bud.
"Quickly now!" Mrs Bud shouted. "We have the head scientist of the Queen's Council staying. Chop, chop!" She kicked a slave that was slowing. Sometimes she would mistake a servant as a slave and kick the poor thing. The servants of the Bud House had a hard life, as well as the slaves.
Nelly walked through the sea of fretting servants and muttering slaves, to where her mother was standing.
"What time is lunch, Mommy?" She asked rudely.
"Soon as the slaves have done their work, my dove." Mrs Bud said smiling.
"Promise?" Nelly asked.
"Promise." Mrs Bud patted her daughter on the head like an overgrown doll.
The noise of pottery shattering made Mrs Bud look up from Nelly.
"Who did that!" She bellowed.
Nelly gave a sigh. Lunch probably won't be soon anymore. She thought.
The room became very quiet, so quiet that you could hear the culprits heart beat start to race from the other side of the room, as he started to panics. Or is it a she? Nelly jumped from one to the other. No its defiantly a he. She made up her mind within seconds.
Mrs Bud started to walk towards the guilty one as the servants and slaves parted way for her. There he stood. A new slave, not yet broken in by the mistress of the house. And then it began.
"How dare you! That was my great grandmother's Erin."
Nelly was a little bit surprised to find her mother so upset about an Erin that she didn't even like. But knowing her, she would grab any excuse just to beat the living day lights out of a slave just to show the others who's boss.
So Nelly quickly left the room to the library. The Buds library was known right through Prata to be better stocked with old works of the Ancestors then there own public library. It had recently been refurbished to look old and had the antique carvings of the 19th century. This is where it would be nice and peaceful and where her father normally hanged out during the day.
She found him having a conversation with Mr Jones while they sat in leather chairs by the lit fireplace, drinking Port.
"By the gods of mother earth, this is actually a good port." Her father said with surprise as he to another sip.
"It should be; I took it from one of my best antique collections from my cellar." Mr Jones said passing the bottle of port to Mr Bud, who took it gleefully.
"What year is it then?" He asked.
"The summer of 2012 AD." Jones replied staring at his half full glass.
"Your saying I'm drinking a five-hundred-year-old Port?" Mr Bud asked excitedly. He looked up and saw his daughter standing in the doorway.
"Nelly, come and try some of this." He said. He poured her a glass and held it out. She went to take it when Mr Jones shouted.
"What are you doing!"
Mr Bud was so surprised that he with drew his arm before Nelly could take the glass.
"What?" He asked, his eyebrows raised.
"Why waste the precious liquid on a girl?" Mr Jones said. He lent over the gap between him and Mr Bud and took the bottle out of Bud's hands.
Nelly felt angry and her pride had been hurt. How he should think her as a mere girl.
"I am not a girl, I am nearly sixteen years old and I am going to be a licensed bee keeper by the end of the week." She said angrily.
Mr Jones stared at her down his long nose.
Mr Bud felt the tension between Nelly and Mr Jones. "So where did you find this so well preserved bottle of Port?" He asked changing the subject, he liked changing the subject when things got hot.
Mr Jones looked away from Nelly and concentrated on her father. "I found a crate of it, all the same year, when me and some other scientists were looking for old bacteria in the ice caps above Scotland. Sadly, I was the only one that got back alive from the expedition." He said with a sad look on his face.
"How unfortunate. At least you had this." Mr Bud said raising his glass of Port.
"Why were you looking for old bacteria?" Asked Nelly.
"That is QC's classified information." Jones said taking a sip from his glass.
Nelly gave an angry huff and left the room.
Mr Bud watched as she went. "Very sorry for my daughter's behavior, she is not normally like that." Mr Bud said taking a sip. Mr Jones just smiled and also sipped from his glass of five hundred year old Port.
-
As the sun set, Prata disposed of more hives. The fires burned on.
Mr and Mrs Right had gladly said yes to Lodovicos request and gave him there vary own bed room.
Before the sun completely disappeared from sight Jack knocked on the libraries locked door. Miss Keebly soon appeared to unlock it.
"And what can I do for you, Jack?" She asked as he stood in the doorway.
He had grown a bit since the summer before and seemed more like a man. But that was natural at his age. Miss Keebly gave him a heavenly smile.
"I need the book "The Woeful Rebellion" by Mr R. Lodovico. It's for my English." He said.
Miss Keebly rolled her eyes. "I see."
She disappeared for a few minutes and the came back holding a book. "You don't need to bring it back, burn it if you get a chance." She said, handing him the copy.
"Thanks mam." Jack turned to leave.
"You don't need to call me mam." She called out after him, he gave her a wave.
&
While Jack was walking home, Nelly was changing into her night dress.
When she was out working with the other examines she would be rude, stuck up, and acted as if she knew everything. But while at home she would become Mommy's spoiled pet.
If any of her examines had seen her wearing a night dress she would curl up and die of humiliation.
For now, she was quite content in brushing her teeth and getting ready for bed.
Once in bed her mother would kiss her good night and her father would read to her and also kiss her good night. Then she would fall to sleep and dream about bees and how she would become the world's best bee keeper.
But that night didn't go as she had planned. Her mother did come and kiss good night, but her father didn't appear at all for the nightly rituals. In the end she fell to sleep waiting for him. Then came the dreams. The infected seemed to be taking over the world and she was in the mists of it all.
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