Stanwick looked around him as the hoods were pulled from the prisoners. The frightened faces that greeted his tugged at his heart and the stench of fear — even in this vast space — was stifling. It wasn’t just the men and women of Westbay the Faith had taken; there were children here too, and a makeshift corral had even been constructed to house the village’s modest collection of livestock.

Behind them all, the choir’s song rose in volume as the torches ringing the lake were lit.

A man stood in front of the line of torches. He was tall and thin, even emaciated. His skin was smooth and pale, his head hairless, and as he disrobed, Stanwick saw that the rest of his body was the same. He passed his garments to a young man, who knelt briefly to receive a blessing before hurrying away with his bundle.

The thin man knelt, and a priest — Henry — came forward and placed an unsteady hand on the thin man’s head. Stanwick saw by Henry’s gestures that he was performing the ceremony of absolution. He wondered what sin the stranger had committed, that he sought forgiveness. Maybe, he considered with a start, he was seeking forgiveness for a sin that he was about to commit.

The ritual over, the priest withdrew and, at a gesture from the gaunt, naked man, the choir fell silent. The only sounds now were the whimpering of the prisoners and the lapping of the lake against the shore. A cadre of priests moved through the crowd, flicking pungent oil from silver sprinklers.

Stanwick’s stomach clenched as he recognised the smell.

It took him back to his mother’s deathbed — more than twenty years earlier — and the look of terror in her eyes as a priest had anointed her with the oil to ease her soul’s passage to Kerberos. Stanwick’s mother had never been a believer, but his father was, and it had been he who’d insisted she take the last rites. The ceremony had done little to relieve her terror, though, as her life slipped away and she had stared into oblivion.