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She nodded to the square ahead of us. “You’ll see.”
Alfrida Market had once been a bustling market square full of small eateries and taverns with a festival always on the go. Now, the cobblestone plaza lay shrouded in desolation. Even the moon seemed to hang low in the sky, casting a mournful, gloomy light over the scene.
We reached the end of the alley and stepped out into the once-grand space. Marks of desecration were all around us.
A row of white stone pedestals—where noble sculptures of knights and queens and other historical figures from Pendrath's past had once stood—now lay empty. Some of the statues were crumbled at the feet of the pedestals, strewn in shattered pieces. Others had simply vanished.
Lancelet kicked at a broken piece of statue that had been part of a queen’s crown. “Your brother’s men mostly did this. The statues with gemstones were stolen when things started to get really bad. Some were smashed open, the perpetrators hoping to find gold inside. No such luck.”
I looked beyond the ring of pedestals. Market stalls which had previously brimmed with food and handicrafts were now mostly empty. At least half were shuttered up completely. The stalls that were open had pitiful offerings. Sparse, withered produce and grains that looked mildewed and barely edible. The market vendors' faces were gaunt and weary, presenting their wares with airs of resignation, as if they had no other choice.
People shuffled through the square quickly, their voices cast in hushed whispers. I saw a mother, her face lined with hunger and exhaustion as she led her two small children by the hand, skirting around the edges of the stalls. Her children clung to her, eyes wide with confusion, faces marked with dirt and grime.
Nearer to where we stood, an elderly couple hovered forlornly before a stall, clutching a few small coins. With hungry eyes, they scanned the near-empty baskets of produce. I listened as they haggled with the vendor over a price that seemed exorbitant to me.
Instinctively, I took a step towards them. Lancelet's hand clapped down on my wrist. “Don't even think about it.”
She pulled me slowly forward in an iron grip, her arm in mine as if we were two sisters coming to the market to buy food.
We walked past more stalls at a slow, measured pace. Here and there, Lancelet would pause and examine the food as if she was pondering a purchase.
Further down the square, I caught sight of a limping man with trembling hands approaching crates used for waste. Digging into the bins, he pulled out a handful of moldy bread crusts. As I watched, tears filled his eyes. But instead of putting the scraps back, he stuffed them into his pockets with an eagerness that could only be a sign of starvation.
I bit my lip and turned to Lancelet, hoping she would say she had a few coins in her purse.
But instead, she was looking past me, towards the other side of the square.
“There,” she said bitterly. “An encampment.”
I followed her gaze. Across from us, sprawled on the worn cobblestones, was a cluster of tattered tents and ragged, makeshift shelters. Stakes and branches anchored the flimsy shelters to the ground, though it was clear they offered little protection from the winter cold. Children, their cheeks hollow and eyes bright with hunger, wandered aimlessly between the tents. A small tot clutched at the frayed hem of a woman's dress as she stared past us with hollow eyes.
“Refugees from the borderlands,” Lancelet said. “They have nowhere else to go. But does Arthur offer them proper shelter? No. Instead, he sees these camps as eyesores. An embarrassment to his proud capital. He has his soldiers come and tear them down almost as quickly as they can be set up.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said angrily. “Where does he expect people to go if not here?”
Lancelet shrugged. “I don’t think your brother cares much. I’ve heard stories of some encampments vanishing completely, tents and people. Maybe the king forces them out onto the farms to work. Maybe he sends the men back to the frontlines. Or worse. Who knows.”
The only spark of hope in the center of the little encampment was a small fire. Its feeble flames cast shadows across the faces of older refugees who sat huddled around it on broken crates and pieces of logs. The aroma of their scanty rations simmered in a large, battered pot. A meager respite from the gnawing hunger that seemed to be plaguing them all.
But the worst was yet to come. The refugees’ stew was not the only scent being carried across the market square on the wind.
Looking past the encampment, I realized that a new point of focus had replaced the noble sculptures of stone that had fallen from their pedestals.
Arthur had replaced carved stone with flesh and blood.
A grisly spectacle of bodies hung suspended in eerie silence from makeshift gallows that sat like scars around the edges of the market. The lifeless forms swayed slightly in the chill breeze, a sinister dance of the damned.
Faces once animated in life were now locked in contortions of agony. Some eyes were wide with terror, staring out into the bleak night with haunting emptiness. Others had no eyes left with which to stare. Carrion birds had plucked them away.
Most of the bodies were bloated and putrid. Patches of skin had darkened and peeled away, revealing the gruesome spectacle beneath.
There was no dignity in death for Arthur's enemies. They were condemned to a slow perdition.
I raised a hand to my face, pressing the scarf more closely to my nose as the wind rose, carrying the fetid stench more strongly towards us.
“Seen enough?” Lancelet asked. She snorted in a way I knew was more from fury than amusement. “Or maybe that ought to be,smelledenough?” She eyed me. “You're not going to pass out, are you?”
“No.” I was too sickened to be offended by her implication that I was a sheltered, hothouse flower. “I told you, I want to see it all. Everything. The worst.” I turned to face her. “Is this it? The worst?”
