Chapter 50: The Execution Square

The execution ground was situated in the festering heart of a decaying old district, a vast, circular plaza, sunken in the center like a great, weeping wound in the city's flesh. Tiers of stone steps descended towards a central stage, a theatre of cruelty designed for the viewing pleasure of a bloodthirsty public. The moment we arrived, a sense of profound oppression, thick and cloying as the city's smog, settled over me. The outer ring of the plaza was lined with tall, gaunt wooden posts. From them hung iron gibbet cages, and inside each cage was a body, or what was left of one. Many were little more than skeletal remains, picked clean by crows, their bones rattling in the wind—a grim, silent chorus. Was this their idea of a deterrent? To display the corpses of criminals as a warning to the populace? A truly macabre and tasteless custom. When I asked Jared, he corrected me with a grim shake of his head. "They're put in there alive," he said, his voice a low murmur. "Left to bake in the sun, or freeze in the winter, or starve to death. The cage itself is the execution." The casual cruelty of it was breathtaking.

The circular stone tiers were already packed with spectators. It was a true cross-section of the city's populace, a grotesque festival of death that united all classes. There were gentlemen in fine, tailored suits, common labourers in their work clothes, farmers in from the countryside, and even beggars who had scrounged a few coppers for a day's grim entertainment. It seemed that only here, in this amphitheater of death, did the citizens of Candon find some semblance of equality. All had the right to watch a fellow human die. And they clearly relished that right. Though we had arrived early, the place was nearly full. Vendors moved through the crowds, hawking roasted nuts and greasy meat pies, their calls mingling with the excited chatter of the mob.

My eyes were drawn to a structure on the opposite side of the plaza, a grand perversion of a theatre box. A covered wooden gallery had been built above the stone tiers, furnished with comfortable-looking chairs and tables. From this vantage point, one had a perfect, unobstructed view of the stage below. And it was filled with the city's elite. Ladies in elegant dresses, their faces shaded by lace parasols, sat beside nobles in fine suits. They sipped from delicate porcelain cups of hot tea, fanning themselves and chatting amiably as if they were at the opera, waiting for the curtain to rise. The execution ground had a VIP box. The thought was so absurd, so monstrously obscene, that I almost laughed. Because of my slow pace—I still wasn't used to walking without proper shoes—the good seats were all taken. Jared, seeing my struggle, simply lifted me into his arms. He was small and nimble, and he wove through the dense crowd with an eel-like grace, finally finding a small, empty space on a crowded bench midway down, with a decent view of the stage. I had no doubt that if he hadn't been carrying me, he could have lifted a dozen pockets on his way through the throng.

The spot was cramped, squeezed between a young woman with a vacant expression and a wheezing old man. Jared sat down and then, to my surprise, pulled me onto his lap. The posture was… intimate. Awkward. But the crowd was so tightly packed there was no other choice. I gritted my teeth and tried to ignore it.

I looked down at the heart of the arena. At the bottom of the tiered seating was a wide, circular patch of bare earth, stained dark from countless previous spectacles. On it stood several wooden platforms. The outer ones held gallows, and from their ropes, several bodies already swayed gently in the breeze, a ghastly dance of the dead. And in the very center, on a raised stone platform, stood a single, iron cross, its base piled high with dry timber and kindling. That, I knew, was where they would burn the witch. A ring of guards surrounded the stage, a grim collection of two distinct types. There were knights, clad head to toe in ornate, full-plate armor, their faces hidden behind visored helms. They stood silent and still as soulless iron statues, one hand resting on a greatsword, the other holding a large, square shield. Their armor and weapons were so identical, so unnaturally uniform, that they looked like a set of clockwork toys, wound and set in place. And interspersed between them were priests in black, severe-looking robes. They carried vicious-looking weapons—brutal, iron-headed maces, spiked flails, and long, silver-tipped spears. They looked more like ceremonial decorations, symbols of a cruel faith, than practical tools of war. I doubted they had ever seen real combat. The entire scene, the grim pageantry of it all, felt like I had been flung back in time. I had left the age of steam and iron and been cast back into the Dark Ages, a world of superstition and brutal, ignorant faith.