Given the unrest, and the absence of justice, those removed from the situation
had nothing to do but tend to their swan gardens and write songs on their lutes
about the sunshine and pose for daughereotypes with portions of grilled pheasant.
In the common areas, the constables and squires rode through the crowd waving
swords, taking heads off here, heads off there, and filing with the magistrate
when their shiny armor was nicked or dented.
Given the absence of solutions, or willingness of those with swords to listen,
ever, to the unsworded whom they swore to protect, those removed from the
situation danced on tavern tables and bemoaned the lack of civility from
those whose relatives and lovers had been beheaded and land ceased.
'Cannot they desist from such raucous thronging? They're disturbing my
path to the teahouse! It really is such a pity.'
Given the givens, a long stream of blood, rows of gallows, minted indifference
and calls for calm from those in towers, the priests exhortations about heaven
struck as simple and reductive, but hell we could believe in.
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