Our Beloved Tyrants Scene 28

Wallachia, 1467

A procession of beautiful, seemingly luminous figures in flowing white garments half-walked, half-glided along a forest path, flanked by the overgrown ruins of an ancient colonnade. Most of the weather-beaten, lichen-encrusted stone columns could have passed for tree-stumps but for the regularity of their positioning. A few still bore fragments of entablature, carved mainly with images of strange, serpentine, wolf-headed creatures. At the end of this ancient walkway was a ruined mausoleum, now no more than a small, square “grove” of pillars, regularly-spaced but of uneven height, and long-deprived of their roof. At the centre was a stone sarcophagus, covered with a massive slab. The beautiful figures moved around this coffin-like structure, forming a circle.