Consequently Jack, while lying in the sun of the courtyard recovering from various torture-sessions, had already had plenty of opportunities to listen to his fellow-inmates holding forth on the dark glories of the Inquisition. At the drop of a hat they’d tell the tale of the auto da fé of 1673 or of 1695, how many were burnt and how many merely humiliated. Even allowing for routine exaggeration, there was no avoiding the conclusion that an auto da fé was a colossal event, something that happened only once or twice in an average person’s lifetime, and a spectacle that peons would travel for days just to witness.