As most were dead, or close enough not to matter, they offered no complaint to the squabbling crows busy plucking off strips of meat. A long summer had made dusty skeletons of those longest in the cages. Others were fresher and flyblown. Withered or seeping, all stared at passersby with cavernous sockets, for the carrion birds took the eyes of the dead first. Squinting against the lowering sun, Lady Nesaea led the small caravan of gaily painted wagons, all fashioned after sailing ships, through the swinging garden of death and toward the low stone walls of Sazukford, a small city in northern Qairennor. She did not have to look around to know she was not alone in holding a fragrant pomander to her nose to block the reek. Hanging cages, the impaled, tarred heads on spikes, all those and other morbid displays were common wherever men gathered in number. Such exhibitions never seemed to concern lawbreakers, for there was never a shortage of them, but open punishment and death kept order-seeking citizenry feeling safe, placid, and cared for by highborn who’d not squander their noble piss on a burning child.
