The Courts El Meco
The Courts are a set of ten small flat-topped Mayan pyramids where the King on the Coast administers justice in Calli. Nine of them are Bone Temples, where the bodies of the executed are splayed and left to rot and dry in the open air. The corpses are never cleared, only added to the piles, and the stench and the sight serve as a permanent reminder of the cost of displeasing the crown.
The tenth and largest pyramid is the Justice Temple, where trials are held and sentences carried out. Judges appointed by noble councilmen hand down their decisions before each trial begins, making the proceedings short and the outcomes predetermined. Punishment is usually death or enslavement. The King occasionally releases a few of the accused to maintain an illusion of legitimacy, but no one in Calli mistakes the Courts for a place where justice is actually dispensed. Barons use the system to carry out agendas against one another, forcing rivals' allies and associates to stand trial on accusations of treason. The word is thrown around so commonly it has lost all meaning except as a weapon.
Death sentences can only be carried out by the King himself through the ritual of heart extraction: pulling out the still-beating heart while the condemned lives. Nobles and serfs gather in the mossy fields surrounding the pyramids to watch, and the locals view the spectacle with wondering eyes, treating it as something divine. The heart is the seat of identity, and only the King can kill a person so completely. Nine temples of bone, one of blood, and a crowd that watches like it is witnessing a miracle.
The tenth and largest pyramid is the Justice Temple, where trials are held and sentences carried out. Judges appointed by noble councilmen hand down their decisions before each trial begins, making the proceedings short and the outcomes predetermined. Punishment is usually death or enslavement. The King occasionally releases a few of the accused to maintain an illusion of legitimacy, but no one in Calli mistakes the Courts for a place where justice is actually dispensed. Barons use the system to carry out agendas against one another, forcing rivals' allies and associates to stand trial on accusations of treason. The word is thrown around so commonly it has lost all meaning except as a weapon.
Death sentences can only be carried out by the King himself through the ritual of heart extraction: pulling out the still-beating heart while the condemned lives. Nobles and serfs gather in the mossy fields surrounding the pyramids to watch, and the locals view the spectacle with wondering eyes, treating it as something divine. The heart is the seat of identity, and only the King can kill a person so completely. Nine temples of bone, one of blood, and a crowd that watches like it is witnessing a miracle.
