A Joke

After the first skeleton was discovered, people in the square began digging through the dirt. Some used tools; those without any dug with their bare hands.

Soon, more than a hundred skeletons had been uncovered, and then they found the dungeon. The number of people inside was far greater than Franz had imagined. He even wondered how Wichli Jasiński had managed to keep so many people alive.

As more people with missing limbs and mutilated corpses were unearthed, the mystery solved itself.

The men Bordeaux had brought down were almost all seasoned veterans who knew how to fight. The smoke and blood of battle were nothing new to them. In ordinary people's eyes, they were no different from butchers.

Yet these same men, whom ordinary people considered executioners, were now vomiting, trembling, and gripping so tightly their knuckles had gone white.

"Are there any doctors?"

Franz shouted. The army did have doctors, but nowhere near enough. A few people in the crowd raised their hands. Franz counted only a dozen or so.

And needless to say, most of them probably didn't have medical licenses. Some might not even be doctors who treated people. But some help was better than none.

"Please follow the army doctors' instructions. Those poor people need help."

The doctors and "doctors" hurried to save the victims, but the people they were treating were not "grateful." They wanted to stay and watch the executions.

Still, after Franz persuaded them, most decided to receive treatment first, since Wichli Jasiński had been saved for last.

The Jasiński Manor had seven or eight hundred people in all. Even excluding the minors, questioning them one by one would take at least a week.

But Franz believed that good things came to those who waited. Compared with simply digging a pit and