The punishment in Brobdingnag for treason was set as follows. The miscreants would have their limbs broken by heavy hammers. Their still living bodies would be lowered into a deeper than normal grave and the executioner would pour liquid pig excrement into the grave until the victim died from drowning. The executioner was paid according to the length of time that the victim survived. An average executioner would take several hours. A skilled executioner would take a whole day. The injuries to the victim’s limbs prevented them from rising except by flexion of the body and neck, which caused intense pain in the shattered limbs. The rebel’s family was required to stand around the grave until the victim was completely immersed in the liquid excrement.
It had been several generations since this punishment had been inflicted yet it was the only penalty available on conviction. It was usual for rebels and traitors to confess their guilt and to throw themselves on their Majesties’ mercy. Their Majesties were esteemed for devising appropriate punishments that were not invariably fatal but extremely unpleasant.
The Lady Petrova was the Queen’s closest advisor and except for her sex would have been regarded as equivalent to our Prime Minister. A noble gentleman nominally held that office but probably had less influence on their Majesties. As the Lady was also the King’s cousin she was able to advise him as well.
I wondered aloud whether her husband’s treachery had not compromised the Lady Petrova’s status. Griselda found the idea amusing. The Lady had been married to her husband to moderate his influence and to prevent him from becoming a successful rebel. His plot had failed partly through the Lady’s agency in recruiting, through intermediaries, her husband’s mistresses to the Queen’s secret service, and partly because of the network of informers that were employed by the Lady.
Griselda expected that as part of the punishment the Lady Petrova would be divorced from her husband but would retain his whole fortune and estates. The Lady could then choose a husband more to her own liking or set up a harem of suitable males if she did not wish to remarry although the remarriage would not be a bar to the creation of the harem. I have to use the word ‘harem’, unsuitable though it may be, from failure to discover a convenient word in the English tongue to describe a stable of males kept for a Lady’s exclusive use.
I asked how the morrow’s proceedings would be conducted. Griselda replied that they would be held in the great hall of parliament. The King and Queen would be seated in state. The rebels would be brought in. If, as expected, they admitted their guilt, the King would pass sentence. The whole proceedings would be completed within an hour. If the rebels, or some of them, sought a trial then that trial would commence in the afternoon and would be completed by the evening. Sentence in either case would be executed on the following day.
The Lady Petrova would be seated at the Queen’s left hand. She wished that I should be present to see the proceedings but it would not be appropriate for me to be with the Lady as my presence might detract from the solemnity of the occasion and her formal attire did not include an apron with a pocket in which I could be concealed. She had arranged with Griselda that I should be conveyed in a pocket in Griselda’s formal apron but that I would have to be concealed as I had been during the entertainment of the messenger.
