Chapter 597 — Gathering Gloom

A flicker of impatience crossed Viscount Horn's eyes, but when he spoke he still used a measured, unhurried tone—that manner of speech, keeping a fixed rhythm with the pitch of every word strictly constrained, was the cultivation a proper noble must possess: "I understand—in short, someone reported to the knights that traces of cultists had been found, and then you truly did find a desecrated altar and three dead cultists here. Clear and unmistakable, is that right?"

The soldier's voice came from outside: "Yes, my lord—and there is also one household of residents unaccounted for..."

"I know, I know," Viscount Horn cut him off. "I am apprised of the matter. Handle it as it ought to be handled: burn the cultists' bodies, purify the altar with holy water, and the house reverts to the lord. That is all."

With that, he was about to order them to leave the place, but that inflexible soldier was still talking: "But... but my lord, should you not... should you not take a look... this is, after all, the regu—"

What a blockhead. He had no idea who had assigned such a fool to the inner-city guard.

Viscount Horn cursed under his breath and quickly pushed open the panel over the carriage window, casting a glance outside.

He saw that outside was a dilapidated street, half-melted snow soaking the walls of the houses along the road and the piles of refuse; several soldiers stood guard at the doorway of a dwelling, three corpses already beginning to give off a strange odor had been tossed onto a straw mat, and on the mat lay a ritual dagger, pottery jars, stone shards, and other such items serving as "evidence of heresy," while a few cowering paupers watched from not far off—some standing by the roadside, others hiding behind windows or doors.

Those fearful, foolish stares were deeply discomforting.

Viscount Horn gave them but a single glance, then swiftly lowered the window panel: "Very well, I have seen it with my own eyes. Do as I said—Mr. Pierre, the money for their services."

Outside the carriage, the viscount's steward took out three silver coins—payment for disposing of the cultists' corpses and purifying the evil altar—and placed them in the hand of the soldier captain waiting nearby.

Then the viscount, together with his attendants and stewards, left the street.

The soldiers left on the scene looked at one another, shook their heads or muttered a few words, then brandished their blades to drive off the paupers who had crowded too close; the captain meanwhile summoned a soldier to his side and casually pressed a silver coin into his hand: "All right, do as the lord said. Find two men and take care of this place."

The soldier holding the silver coin watched his captain turn and walk away, and shrugged.

Then he noticed that quite a few paupers were still standing about watching—those ragged, sallow, gaunt people; a few had been driven off by the blades just now, but most had not gone far. They simply stood dumbly by the roadside, and at this moment were watching with a strange, numb, hollow gaze—watching this side, watching the three corpses on the ground, watching that house which had lost its master and was soon to be reclaimed by the lord.

The soldier left behind gaped for a moment, then suddenly shivered for no apparent reason.

This damned cold weather—these paupers' minds had probably been frozen into a stupor.

In this inexplicable unease, the soldier gave up any thought of searching that masterless house—anyway, the families living on this street likely had nothing of value.

He raised his head, and past those numb, dull-faced paupers he saw the two corpse-draggers already waiting beyond the crowd—those filthy gray-black smocks and the death-god amulets hanging at their necks were the corpse-draggers' most distinctive marks. These fellows who dealt with the dead were always keen of scent; likely within half an hour of word getting out that there were corpses here, those two corpse-draggers had already been waiting nearby.

"What rotten luck today..."

The soldier grumbled, called the corpse-draggers over, casually tossed them a few coppers, and instructed: "Drag the corpses outside the town and burn them—remember, they must be burned. Those are the orders from above."

Having said this, he paid no mind to how the corpse-draggers might answer, and strode away from the place.

The main reason he walked off so quickly was that he knew the corpse-draggers would certainly haggle—burning the corpses required extra firewood and oil money, and those few coppers would not be enough.

But once he had left, this matter would have nothing more to do with him.

The lord had left, the steward had left, the soldiers had left.

On the street there remained only the several dozen paupers scattered here and there in the cold wind, the three cultists' corpses lying on the straw mat, a ground full of disordered footprints, and the two corpse-draggers.