A Plague Tale: Innocence

Expect constant gnawing dread in this medieval horror

- Ben Griffin

Here we are – it’s only the splash screen and already we’ve got the shudders. Hundreds of shapes undulate in the darkness, bubbling like boiling oil. Rats! Squeaking black rats with glinting eyes. A carpet of them, swarming and scurrying throughout the cold stone confines of a dark, long-abandoned room.

A horse-drawn carriage rattles across the cobbles outside and the driver’s swinging lamp shines through the bleary window, a ray of light penetrating the gloom. This scatters the blighters like scissors through fabric. They’re scrambling, each rat for itself. as the carriage passes and the light diminishes, they flow back to fill every spare inch, the floor once again a writhing rug of teeth and fur.

Which is just as it often was in the real medieval France (give or take a rat or two). In 1348, bacteria-carrying fleas hitched a ride on the rapidly breeding rodents and spread bubonic plague northward from marseille, killing at least a quarter of the country’s population. Amicia is one of the lucky ones. after surviving two years of the pandemic, this hardy 15-year-old is on a mission to reunite her mother and five-year-old brother, hugo.

A rat-ional fear