From The Shadows
It seemed as though the way to the execution ground was pretty far. Rin was already asking her when they would get there. She kept telling him to be patient, and that it wouldn't take long. At the end of I,t Rin was a bit flared because it was quite a long distance. He began to wonder what kind of people the citizens of the capital were.
Could they travel the whole length just to see how somebody who breached the law was killed?. They did cease to amaze him. And worse still nobody was putting up a show to tell the public that the government was not doing well.
In the end he concluded that they were just afraid because they would be punished for speaking against the capital. That would always be the case as long as there was no selfish fool ruling the capital from the shadows.