Shortly after dawn peasants began to appear along the roadsides leading to the castle, children in tow, oxcarts laden with food. By noon the courtyard was jammed to the ramparts with onlookers, anxiously awaiting the festivities. The day was to start with several beheadings, the royal pronouncement had promised, and then Thidrek’s wedding, followed by a grand feast and, if Thidrek’s mood permitted, dancing. Some came for the food, some for the pomp and circumstance of a royal betrothal. But mostly, Thidrek believed, it was the executions that really packed them in. “There’s something about the spray of blood and the sobbing of women,” he’d say, “that grabs ’em like nothing else.” Grelf, being intimately acquainted with the ways of commonfolk, knew only too well the real reason they came. They were scared stiff he’d execute them if they didn’t show up. But Grelf, who wanted to preserve both his job and his life, never burst his master’s bubble. He told Thidrek exactly what he wanted to hear and carried out his orders with dashing alacrity.
