Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [240]
A blare of trumpets commanded Cauvin’s attention. He abandoned a daydream—less a daydream than another voyage through the Torch’s memories—to watch four carts rumble under an archway on the far side of the courtyard. There were twenty-three men and woman in the carts—the survivors of Arizak’s campaign to purge Sanctuary of Dyareela’s reborn influence. The wet-wood smoke and subsequent searches flushed out forty-one disciples of the Bloody Hand, but when it came to interrogations the Irrune needed no lessons from their prisoners.
And when it came to executions, Cauvin couldn’t help but think that Leorin had been right: There was nothing wrong with a little terror, infrequently applied against those who everyone agreed deserved it.
The twenty-three prisoners had been bound hand and foot before they entered the forecourt. They were clothed in bruises and rags and fully aware of what awaited them. Of the twenty-three, Cauvin counted three who loudly maintained their faith in the Mother of Chaos and two who’d experienced a conversion and were invoking the entire Ilsigi pantheon. The rest were silent, resigned to their fates. One by one they were pulled down from the carts and sewn into lengths of bright Irrune tent carpeting. Then the rolled carpets were dragged in the center of the forecourt where they were arranged in a pattern that Arizak’s shaman brother, Zarzakhan, had divined from the entrails of a snow-white goat.
Directly beneath Cauvin’s window, the Dragon and his cohort kept their horses on short reins as Arizak’s shaman brother, Zarzakhan, walked among them exhorting their god, Irrunega, to keep them safe as they administered the tribe’s justice by riding their horses back and forth through the forecourt until every traitor was dead and their blood had soaked through the carpets into the sand. Zarzakhan and the Dragon had reason to be worried. Treason was a rare and usually solitary crime among the Irrune. They’d never had to ride their horses over so many lumpish carpets, nor in the close quarters of a palace forecourt.
Arizak and Zarzakhan had considered other punishments. They could have tied the traitors limb by limb to the tails of horses who were then driven in four directions of paradise, but that would have been just as dangerous in the forecourt. Nadalya had suggested impalement over burning straw, but that was reserved for women who committed adultery and men who raped virgins.
Shite for sure, Leorin had had a valid point.
Cauvin’s hands were clammy as he waited, and he wished he’d skipped breakfast. Froggin’ sure, he wished he was laying bricks or smashing stone somewhere, but when a man didn’t kill his own snakes, he at least had to watch those who did.
“Odd,” Soldt said. The duelist stood a half step behind Cauvin. “Once they’re rolled up like meat pies, they stop struggling.”
“That’s because they’re dead.”
Soldt and Cauvin spun together, both reaching for weapons, though only Soldt had his drawn before recognizing Arizak’s youngest son, Raith, who looked the way Cauvin’s stomach felt.
Cauvin asked, “You were able to persuade your father?”
“No, but I’ve paid the men with the needles and thread to strangle the prisoners as they finish. There’s no reason to prolong suffering, even for the Hand. Besides, there are more traitors than my brother has riders. The horses will balk before the punishment’s complete.”
“Strangle,” Soldt mused. “How appropriate. Ah—they’ve rolled the last one: Twenty-three rugs in a row.”
Raith sat on one of the stools. “There’d be twenty-four, if Mother had gotten her way.”
“Your father and uncle agreed that wouldn’t accomplish anything,” Cauvin said gently. “Better to leave Naimun alive—a baited trap attracting all manner of vermin.”
“I hope you