The Treaty

On the Treaty of the Living Among the several confederations which have arisen since the calamities now commonly termed the End, none has acquired greater notoriety than the association known as The Treaty of the Living. The name derives from a document first composed by one Joseph Eustachius, formerly a lecturer in natural philosophy at Mainz, who during the early devastations of the Bacterium travelled extensively among refugee columns and ruined garrisons along the Rhine. Observing that the terror occasioned by the Hunger had begun to dissolve the ordinary bonds of society - villages turning upon their neighbours, soldiers deserting their colours, and entire settlements destroyed upon mere suspicion of contagion - Eustachius proposed a compact intended to preserve some remnant of civil order among the surviving peoples of Europe. This document, which he entitled The Treaty of the Living, set forth a series of articles intended to bind all surviving mankind in common cause against the Hunger and the spread of the Bacterium. The articles themselves were few in number and plainly expressed. They urged that the Living should give refuge to the uninfected, that the dead be burned without delay, that those suspected of bearing the Bacterium be marked and observed, and that the destruction of the Hunger must take precedence over the quarrels of kingdoms and nations. Copies of the Treaty, first circulated by hand among officers, physicians, and clergy moving through the devastated provinces of the Rhineland, soon travelled far beyond their point of origin. Within two years the document was known in parts of Champagne, Swabia, and the Tyrol. The author himself did not long survive these events. Eustachius is said to have disappeared while accompanying a refugee convoy near Koblenz, and no reliable account of his death has ever been recorded. Yet the influence of his writing endured: various militias and volunteer companies began to identify themselves as keepers of the Treaty, forming small associations dedicated to enforcing its principles within the districts through which they passed. These associations were seldom large and possessed no uniform command. Many consisted merely of a former officer, a physician or priest, and a handful of armed men determined to patrol the countryside, destroy concentrations of the Hunger, and maintain some semblance of order among the displaced populations. Nevertheless, because they carried copies of the same document and recognised the same articles, they gradually came to be regarded collectively as a single fraternity. Thus the name The Treaty came in time to describe not only the original document, but also the scattered militias acting in its name. The device by which these companies most commonly recognise one another is a pair of human hands clasped together above a human skull, rendered plainly and without heraldic ornament. Tradition holds that the clasp itself first appeared in the margin of Eustachius’s manuscript, where he is said to have sketched two hands joined in agreement beneath the final article of the Treaty. In later copies, a skull was added beneath the clasp, the meaning being readily understood: that the Living must stand together above the dead. The symbol has since been copied upon banners, seals, and armbands, and is sometimes carved into the gates of settlements claiming protection under the Treaty. Among its adherents it is occasionally spoken of as “the Clasp over Death.” Notwithstanding the charitable intentions attributed to its founder, the conduct of Treaty companies has not always been free of severity. Their doctrine places great emphasis upon the purifying agency of fire, which they hold to be the most certain safeguard against the spread of the Bacterium. The bodies of the Hunger are burned wherever they are found, and there exist numerous reports of villages and farmsteads destroyed by flame where infestation was deemed beyond remedy. Particularly controversial is the practice, first advocated by certain physicians associated with the Treaty, of marking those suspected of exposure to the Bacterium. Such individuals are sometimes branded with a heated iron bearing a simplified form of the clasped hands above the skull, the mark intended as a warning that the bearer must be watched for signs of transformation. In principle the mark is meant to preserve life where execution might otherwise be ordered; in practice it has often rendered its recipients objects of fear or exclusion among the Living. Despite these excesses, the Treaty remains among the most widespread of the surviving associations formed in resistance to the Hunger. Its adherents are not governed by any single authority, but rather exist as independent cells or companies, each commanded locally by a figure commonly styled a Warden. These Wardens occasionally convene councils when large concentrations of the Hunger threaten an entire province, though such gatherings are irregular and seldom enduring. It is therefore best understood that the Treaty constitutes neither a state nor an army, but rather a loose confederation of militias bound by a common doctrine. Some among them are regarded as protectors of settlements and escorts to refugee caravans; others have earned a harsher reputation, pursuing their charge with such zeal that the Living themselves sometimes regard their arrival with apprehension. Yet whatever judgment posterity may render upon their methods, it cannot be denied that the Treaty represents one of the most determined efforts yet undertaken to preserve the remnants of human society in an age otherwise marked by ruin. Its adherents hold that so long as the Living remain bound to one another - as signified by the clasped hands raised above the skull - there remains hope that mankind may yet prevail against the dead.