Katerina-3
The hands of two soldiers seized her, and lifted her, forcing her into a semi-standing position. She clung still to the chains, draped on the post, and made the mistake of raising her head. Her eyes immediately met those of Gallus, and she felt horribly her nakedness. Even as her sense of shame overwhelmed her, she was aware of how preposterous it was, feeling embarrassed by her breasts as the skin was being torn from her back.
The thirty-first was swept upwards, ripping into her buttocks, making her leap, and she fell again. The sheriff looked on and knew the sentence had been judged just right. She was in agony, gulping in air, shaking, but she was still fighting. The next struck down across her ribs, the teeth biting into her exposed belly, blood springing immediately from the white flesh. “Thirty-two,” he called, then ordered she be set straight again.
This time the guards didn’t bother lifting her, but simply hauled her so she lay face down, held up only by the chains, her head hanging limp, almost touching the ground. Sweat dripped from her face, mingling with the blood, stinging the open wounds. Gallus stood for a better view, and saw the next lash sweep into the soft flesh beneath her ribs. For a moment the barbs seemed to lodge in the skin, and there was a slight pause as the whip was withdrawn. Thirty four struck the same place on the other side, the lowest strands catching the hip, prompting a higher-pitched squeal, and an involuntary flinch. The sheriff paused again, and had her lifted for the final two.
Her legs unsteady, she stood, propped against the post, and Gallus watched the right hander take his two-pace run up, raise the whip and, with noticeable effort, bring it down across the centre of her back, dragging it deliberately. There was a sickening whump, a fountain of blood, and then a howl, fresh and piercing even from her ravaged throat. She sank slowly to her knees, only to be lifted again. The left hander finished with a drag across her buttocks, and she fell, sobbing and twitching, moaning and whimpering, her body from neck to knees a mass of red.
* The sheriff had almost forgotten the crowd, so silent had they fallen during the scourging, but they responded to the end with a hum of conversation. He let her lie for a couple of minutes, then ordered the soldiers to unfasten her. She was limp, silent now but for a wavering sigh as she breathed. They lifted her by the arms and she hung between them, lacking the strength to stand. The soldiers turned her to face him, and he saw how stray thongs had reached round to leave welts on her stomach and the sides of her breasts, how her entire body was pinkened by a sheen of sweat and blood. He walked over to her, and lifted her chin, looking into her eyes. She was blank, seemingly more dead than alive, and he feared again they may have gone too far, but a sharp slap to her cheek generated a flicker in her eyes, and he knew there was strength left.
The soldiers led her to the stand where the dignitaries sat, and pushed her to her knees, holding her arms out on either side. Her head fell forward, sweat and blood dripping onto the stone in front of her. Gallus drank in the vision; his nemesis humiliated and in agony before him. He watched as the centurion stepped forward; he hadn’t even had to pay for this refinement, but it had been his idea.
Two buckets were placed behind Katerina, each filled with brine. The centurion dipped in his hand, then flicked the liquid at her back. Only a few drops land, but it was enough to make her jolt upright and force a new scream from her lips. The teenagers laughed uproariously and applauded. Claudia thought it hilarious something so seemingly insignificant could cause such pain.
Katerina was tensed, the muscles in her neck pulsing, her breasts pointed upwards as her head snapped back. Lucius suspected he wasn’t the only one imagining her in that pose in a very different context. Only as she began to relax did the centurion flick more brine on her. She howled, and in her spasming almost pulled free her arm from one soldier. He grabbed her again, and this time the centurion allowed a little more water to dribbled form his fingers down her raw back. She twitched and bucked, the noise she made inhuman. The centurion tipped a little over her head, and as the salt burned into the wounds on her scalp, she thrashed between the soldiers, her breasts dancing on her chest.
* The pain was worse than anything she’d felt until then, echoing along her nerves. At least with the whips, once the blow had been taken and the pain had welled, it slowly subsided. With the salt the pain remained, intense for what felt like hours. What was worse, she knew this was a private show for Gallus. She heard the centurion pick up the bucket, and she braced herself for more agony. But he waited and when she glanced around to find out what was happening, she saw him holding it over her, poised about to tip, playing to the crowd. Huw wished more than ever he was a noble, that he could watch this from close quarter. As it was all he really had to go on was the noise, her screams, but he cheered with the rest of them as the centurion played his games.
* She heard the mob roar, and she flinched, and then came nothing but laughter from the crowd. She opened her eyes again and as she did so she saw those in the stand laughing and pointing. A friend of her father’s made an obvious gesture with his hands, clearly making a joke about how her breasts wobbled. Then it came in a terrible rush. First the cold of the water, and then the sting. In her head, in her eyes, but most of all on her back. She wrenched her arms free, so violent was her reaction, and fell forward, her fingers clawing at the stone as the salt burned through her soul.
For a time she could see nothing, and was aware only of the pain. But then their hands were on her again and she was lifted back into the kneeling position. The brine was dripping from her hair, each droplet causing a new explosion of agony. She blinked and blinked and slowly, through the haze, objects began to crystallise again and she saw Gallus’s leering face. Then the second bucket was tipped over her. The soldiers held on this time, and she thrashed between them, shrieking and twisting until slowly she slumped again, her heart pounding, her body twitching as droplets of brine from her hair ran onto her raw back and caused new spasms of agony. The centurion looked down and the hundreds of cuts the water had exposed, and wondered if he had perhaps gone too far. He had never thought he could feel pity for one of these nobles, but this was an extraordinary penalty.
It took perhaps three minutes for her to fall calm, slumped between the guards, her breath uneven, her body still twitching, shivering with pain. Two soldiers carried the beam over and lowered it onto her torn shoulders. At the touch of the rough wood, she shrieked again, but they held her still, and bound her arms once more to the beam with the bands of leather. The sheriff watched, seeing her in a daze, uncomprehending as her limp arms were fastened. The noose was fitted again over her head, and one of the guards jerked it so she looked up, held upright by the soldiers at each end of the beam.
“Stand,” came the order, but it was impossible. Even without the patibulum she probably wouldn’t have been able to make it; with it she had no chance. A guard slashed his birch across her back, and was rewarded with a retch of agony. He hit her again, at which the sheriff stepped in, and ordered Katerina’s ladies-in-waiting to help her.
* Gallus rode a little behind the procession. Katerina hung from the beam, her feet dragging on the ground, barely even attempting to walk. Her head flopped limply onto her chest as her two ladies-in-waiting carried her. Under normal circumstances to see either of them, stripped to their underclothes, sweating and straining in the street, would have been a remarkable sight, but today there was only one attraction.
He couldn’t quite believe the continued savagery of the mob, their delight in Katerina’s pain and humiliation, the way they still surged closer to spit on her or add their insult. If the ladies-in-waiting slowed, the guards would still lash her, and as she screamed, the crowds roared their approval. She was so broken now, though, that even her screams seemed weak, her energy sapped, her throat hoarse from shouting in pain. Her back was a mass of red, barely a strip of skin remaining between neck and waist, the odd flash of white showing where she’d been cut to the bone. Her buttocks were streaked with black and purple wheals, the occasional deep red slash showing where the scourges had cut low. He had wanted her destroyed, and he had had his wish.
Claudia encouraged the others to hurry with her to intercept Katerina before she was dragged out of the town. They were young, but they were Romans, and so the crowd reluctantly parted to let them through. The four of them waited in the middle of the road, and when the procession drew near, they darted past the lead soldiers. Claudia was a little taken aback by Katerina. She looked exhausted, her eyes barely open, seeming not to focus on the four of them as they ran up, her forehead caked in blood, loose tendrils of hair hanging damp over her face. But Claudia put her doubt aside, put her face close to Katerina’s and spat. Julia, just behind her, had gathered a handful of gravel, and threw it in Katerina’s face. She flinched instinctively, and banged her head back against the beam, driving in the rose-thorns yet deeper. The crowds laughed, delighted to see Romans abusing one of their own. The Segundus ran up, and squeezed her breasts briefly, drawing great cheers, before he ducked into the mob as the soldiers shooed him away. Claudia caught once last glimpse of Katerina’s face, and saw only tiredness.
* They moved on, though the huge gate at the edge of town, on to the rougher road outside. Had Katerina been capable of walking, had her feet been doing anything other than dragging on the ground as she was carried, that would have been a new torture; as it was, she seemed oblivious to the discomfort the two ladies-in-waiting were undergoing. The beggars and vagabonds who lived in the shadow of the walls came to add their derision, filthy creatures throwing rotting scraps of food at her.
The sheriff, riding a little way in front of her, looked back, saw her horror, and was delighted that she was not so numb she had ceased to feel shame; she would, at least, put up some kind of performance on the cross. This had been a day that would live in the memory of the town for ever, the beautiful patrician stripped, humiliated and scourged before them, but it would not do to end in anti-climax; her death on the cross had fully to sate the bloodlust of the mob.
On the procession crawled, the two ladies-in-waiting tiring and growing ever slower, still clearly upset for their lady, but unable to hurry on to save her further lashes. Finally, with the sun almost at its zenith, they reached the open area where she was to die.
Katerina was dropped to her knees, and the beam was unfastened. Where the thongs had held her to it her skin was red raw, a further source of pain. As the soldiers carried the patibulum off to fix it to the stipes, Katerina was left, kneeling, uncertainly drawing her stiff arms across her chest. The sheriff had the guards stand her up, and further buckets of water were flung over her, washing off the filth of her journey. A water-bottle was held to her lips, and she drank greedily. The liquid, the sheriff knew, would soothe her throat after her screaming, but it would also condemn her to additional minutes of agony, keep her alive.
She stood, slightly hunched, her eyes fixed on the work of the carpenters as they made her cross. She was still, even after everything, the sheriff thought, a beautiful woman, pale and stately, her breasts delicate and round even as further blood dripped from her scalp. Her back was ravaged, of course, ripped by the flogging, her buttocks and thighs destroyed by the switches. But from the front, she was still attractive, even if her knees were torn, her arms striped by the bonds that had held her to the patibulum, her torso scratched and her flanks streaked with lashes that had in places reached further to cut her chest and her belly. In that place, surrounded by soldiers and people, naked and anguished as she was, she should have seemed ridiculous, but she still had a weird authority.
A slight breeze blew and she shuddered at the movement of air across her wounds. The sheriff wondered how many lashes had landed. Not just the 36 lashes of the scourge – 216 individual stripes, a total of 1296 teeth – but the switches to encourage her. Her journey had taken in total, what, about two-and-a-half hours, and she probably been hit at least once a minute. So 150, maybe 200 blows, in addition to the formal flogging. It was, he thought, remarkable she still had the strength to stand.
He walked over to her, saw in her dark eyes a horror, both shame and pain and a knowledge of what was to come. His hands wanted to go to those breasts, to caress them and to weigh them, but instead, he took the noose, and pulled her towards the cross, now complete on the ground. The mob pressed closer, the solders struggling to hold them back. The sheriff saw Gallus there on his horse, waiting expectantly for the next phase of the punishment. He handed the noose to a soldier, and he yanked her forward so she stumbled into a group of four other guards. They pushed her among them, jeering her and dragging her to the cross, finally tripping her with a kick to the back of the knees so she fell heavily in the dust alongside the frame.
The noose was removed, and she was hauled onto the stipes, the pain of her raw back being dragged over the rough wood prompting further dry heaves. Ropes were fitted over her wrists and she was stretched out, her arms reaching along the patibulum. A soldier stepped forward, the others making way for him, a couple patting him on the back. The sheriff recognised Caius, a short, scrawny man from the west, and realised he must have won a lottery. Caius sat, dropping deliberately firmly, on her belly, and her legs snapped up involuntarily, one knee catching him in the back. He slapped her hard, his left hand cracking into her right cheek and, while she was still dazed, he grabbed her jaw with his right hand – fingers on one side thumb on the other, and forced her to look across and down the length of her right arm, the action pushing the crown yet deeper into the back of her scalp. He held her there, making her watch as another soldier placed a nail, maybe six inches long, upon the heel of her hand. The sheriff couldn’t help by impressed by the wilful cruelty.
The crowd, realising what was to come, even if few of them could see it, fell silent. The hammer was raised, and then crashed down. There was a metallic click as it struck the head of the nail, and Katerina bucked, her pelvis thrusting up. This, the sheriff knew, was what Caius had wanted. After a brief pause, as though it took time for her brain to process the information, there came a horrified, high-pitch scream. Her head had slipped from Caius’s grasp, but as she shuddered, he seized her again, and forced her to look along her arm at the nail that had penetrated half an inch or so into her wrist. The hammered landed again, and her whimpering broke into another howl. Her head again snapped out of Caius’s hand, but this time he didn’t bother to take hold of it again, instead letting his hands fall to her breasts, fondling them and making little secret of his pleasure as she spasmed beneath him.
* The centurion was not a sympathetic man, but he felt a little sickened by what he was watching. It had taken seven blows to nail her right hand to the cross, seven blows that he each provoked screams that turned his stomach. He had watched men crucified before, of course, but this was different. For one thing, there was the overt sexuality of it all, for another the fact that she was such a delicate thing, the head of the nail almost as wide as her wrist.
He couldn’t stop it, of course, and his men remorselessly dragged out her left arm, and again made her watch as they drove the nail through the base of her thin hand. When he’d seen this done before, the victim had been either drugged or in such a state of shock that they were almost comatose; Katerina, though, seemed fully alert, her howls of anguish cutting through him. He thought of what he’d done to her the night before, of the way he’d degraded her, enjoyed exposing her beautiful body, thought of tipping the brine over her, and felt shame. He didn’t believe she was guilty, and even if she was, he wasn’t sure she deserved this, to send her last day on earth naked and in agony, humiliated and tortured.
Caius at last stood up, and the milky whiteness of her body was revealed again. stretched out on the dark wood of the cross, scarlet blood running down her arms. Her knees were skinless and her ribs and breasts bore the old welt, but essentially from the front she was the living sculpture she had seemed the night before, flushed with exertion and pain, but still almost ethereally pale.
Two soldiers pulled her legs apart, to hoots of derision and more lewd comments. A nail was placed a few inches below her buttocks and hammered in to the stipes until only around three inches protruded. Katerina whimpered, seemingly both puzzled and relieved that, for a few moments at least, no new pain was being inflicted. This, the centurion knew, though, was just agony deferred; the support would keep her alive for probably two or three additional hours, as well as rubbing painfully on the tender skin between her legs.
Her legs were then yanked down. One soldier held her right foot flat against the stipes, her knee gently bent; another positioned her left foot on top of it. Caius sat on her again, facing the other way this time, holding her thighs. Others clustered round, pressing on her legs, keeping her steady as the final nail was hammered in, passing between the big and second toe on each foot. This, the centurion knew, was the hardest nail to position, but she seemed too weak now to thrash, even as she screamed above the hubbub of the crowd.
The soldiers backed away, and he saw her, pinned out, naked and defenceless, lying with her arms spread, her head tipped back almost as though on a bed to entice him. Except that her fingers were clenched in a half-fist – something he knew from experience had something to do with the nerve in the wrist being severed – and there was blood running from her hands and feet, and still oozing from beneath the crown that he had helped fit. She was still, almost silent now, only the rapid breathing suggesting the pain she was in.
* Slowly, the cross was raised. The sheriff had dreaded this, imagining the embarrassment if the nails were somehow to work themselves loose, but as the patibulum got higher and higher and she came nearer to the vertical, it became clear she was fixed firmly. Lucius watched in fascination; he’d never really paid much attention to crucifixions before, but it was impossible not to stare as her beautiful exposed body was lifted up so everybody could see. He knew she must be in agony, but all he could think of was her nudity, the fact her breasts and that wonderful slim waist would be up there, fully visible, for hours.
Her chest rose and fell with increasing ferocity as her wrists and ankles began to take her weight, her neck still arched back so her head hung over the top of the T-frame. As the cross passed 45 degrees she began to slide, and her eyes opened, her raw back ripping further as it scraped on the rough beam. Her buttocks hit the support, and she gave a slight yelp, but the gritted her teeth again. Her nostrils were flared, her eyes bulging wider and wider as she neared the perpendicular, and then, abruptly, the stipes dropped in the hole they had dug for its base.
The cross fell a couple of feet, jolting her and causing her to fall forwards with a mighty scream, her body help up by just the three nails. For a couple of seconds she thrashed pathetically, dragging herself up to perch on the nail beneath her perineum. She was panting and sweating, a new look of terror on her face as she realised just what crucifixion meant. The sheriff wondered if she still felt shame at her nakedness, spread out as she was, her feet eight feet off the ground, visible to the thousands who had come to see her die.
The soldiers removed the ropes they used to haul the cross upright, and as they filled in the hole it stood in, packing in earth hammering in wedges to keep the stipes steady, each shudder sent a new tremor of agony passing over her. She hung with her arms at about 30 degrees to the horizontal, her head bowed, body leaning towards the crowd so her breasts hung fractionally out from her chest. Her knees were clamped together, jutting out from the cross until, every few seconds, she sought to drag herself up onto the perch, and then they’d splay as she pushed up.
Finally, the soldiers completed their work, and backed away to take bets on how long she would survive. The sheriff looked on with a sense of pride. This was his tableau, the pale beautiful girl nailed up against the dark T, hanging in agony so the people could move on from the fire and forget the deaths. The screaming had stopped and only those within the first few feet of the crowd could hear her laboured breathing, the grunts as she pulled herself up to take a breath. The hostility of the crowd remained, though, and as they milled round at her feet, the barrage of insults continued. All the sheriff had to do now was to sell those two ladies-in-waiting into slavery. Part of him wondered if they too should be whipped, but he knew their greatest price would be as whores and that meant they should be unmarked.
* Portia walked alongside her husband, as he insisted they get a closer look. She knew he just wanted to drink in her nakedness again, but she wanted to see her pain close up and so barely raised an objection. Diana, she knew, was horrified, had worn a dazed expression since the whipping, but it would do her good to see what happened to girls who let their eye be distracted by every passing man. They stood at the foot of the cross, listening to the insults, a litany of filth. “Katerina,” Portia shouted. “Katerina.” Her head moved a fraction to listen. “You are a disgrace to your family,” Portia went on. “You have shamed your mother. You deserve this.” Diana, ashen-faced, pulled her away.
* Gallus wondered if he would ever get bored. He had watched now for approaching three hours, and he could barely take his eyes from her. Even when they’d auctioned off those two ladies-in-waiting, he’d watched her, seem her shame at their shame. There’d be queues at the whorehouse that night, he knew, but they held no interest to him. All he was concerned about was her, beautiful and pale and in agony.
As time had gone by, her movements had become less violent, and the flush on her body had begun to fade. Her pale breasts were still the most desirable things he’d ever seen. Blood had begun to seep from between her legs where the nail dug in, hers arms were streaked with blood and her face was haggard with pain, but there was still part of him wondered if he could pay the sheriff to take her down early so he could have her.
The crowds, he realised, were becoming restive, their fury abating. As some began to drift away, he rode closer. She saw him as he pushed through the crowds, averting her eyes too late. He smiled; let him be the last thing she saw. She was trembling, he saw, her muscles bulging as she pulled herself up for each breath, and close too he could hear the rasps of her breathing and, even better, hear the mocking of the crowds. Two boys, he guessed around nine or ten, stood beneath her, looking up with arms outstretched, mimicking her torments. A slightly older one explained the intricacies of her labia and vulva to them each time her legs spread open. A handful of drunk men discussed loudly what they’d have done to her if only she’d been sold to the brothel, and two women told her again and again that her pain wasn’t enough for what she’d done. Others just kept up a torrent of abuse. And she just hung, lifting herself every now and again, moaning occasionally, her eyes set in the distance as though trying to block out everything around her.
“Katerina,” he shouted. “Kate.” She couldn’t help but look at him as the crowds nearby fell quite. “Having fun?” he asked.
She turned away. He shouted again, and she still ignored him. He rode closer, drew his crop from his belt, and slashed it against her foot. She shrieked and spasmed as she jerked against the nail. “You bastard,” she croaked through parched lips.
From his horse his eyes were approximately level with her waist. He looked up at her, unable to keep the smile from his face. Broken, she looked back, barely able to lift her head, her dark eyes peering through wet tendrils of hair. He had always loved the way wisps of hair curled down in front of her ears, and he made a point of looking there now. The hair was still fell in the same way, seductively dark on her soft pale cheek, but now it was heavy, soaked with sweat and blood.
He looked at her white skin, the expanse of her flat belly, covered in a multitude of small scratches, at the horrific scars on her ribs, the wheal that cut across her collarbone and stretched back over her slender neck. And her breasts, round and high, grazed and lovely, the nipples half-erect, a delicious coral. She pulled herself up again, and he stared between her legs, at the prize that should have been his, and then as she slid down the cross again, feeling suddenly overwhelmed, he struck her again, on her knee this time, and rode his horse away.
* “They were the softest things I’ve ever touched,” Secundus said again, proudly recounting the story of how he’d fondled her breasts. But then he turned to the cross. “Your tits are shit,” he shouted to laughter. “Like bee-stings.” Claudia, though, wasn’t taken in. She knew how desirable Katerina was, and she worried Segundus might become dissatisfied with her. “Katerina,” she shouted. “Katerina.” Katerina’s eyes flicked in her direction and then away, but Claudia new she had her attention. “Bitch!” she shouted.
* One of the four soldiers below the cross drew a sponge from a bucket, skewered it on his javelin and raised it for her to drink. Even then, the centurion noted, he couldn’t help adding more cruelty, flicking her breasts to hoots of laughter from the few hundred spectators who still remained. He held the sponge in front of her, just out of reach, taunting her as she stretched forward to reach it, her tongue outstretched. He moved it closer, and she reached again, and then pulled it away.
She would be desperately thirsty by now, the centurion knew, cramp biting at her. The muscles in her thighs stood out like rope, each new thrust sending shudders through her. He was amazed her thin arms had sustained her for so long, but it was clear now that they were as good as useless, her shoulders perhaps dislocated, and it was only her legs that kept her pushing up for air. It was now that they would usually break the legs of a prisoner, to bring merciful death in ten minutes or so, but the orders were for her to keep suffering. Finally the soldier allowed her the sponge and she drank desperately. That too, he knew, would prolong her life.
* Huw at last worked himself to the front, so he could drink in her loveliness before she died. He could see she was close to death. Her face had a slightly grey hue, her breathing was unsteady and spasms kept rippling through her muscles. He would never have a woman like this, he knew, not one so pure, so pretty, so slender. He had enjoyed the last 12 hours, enjoyed watching her naked suffering, but he wondered whether he might have enjoyed rather more seeing her around town for the next few years. “Teacher,” shouted one of the men near him. “Teach us a lesson now. Why don’t you tell us how important it is to read?”
* The sun was beginning to set behind the cross and there was a slight chill in the air. The end was close now. Her writhing had become both more desperate and weaker, almost 8 hours on the cross having finally sapped her strength. There were still, the sheriff estimated, over a thousand people there, watching the end of the best show the town had ever known. The crows were circling, ready to enjoy their prey once the crowds had gone. He would leave her to hang for another week before burning the cross and her body, a reminder of how the town dealt with criminals.
Gallus was still there, unable to take his eyes off her, his relish in her agony and shame obvious. The sheriff knew he should feel some sense of guilt, but all he felt was the satisfaction of a job well done and, if he were honest to himself, a thrill at what he’d achieved. The judge, he knew, had gone that morning, unable to watch an innocent and beautiful girl stripped and mocked, scourged and dragged naked through the streets to die in this dreadful way. It was, he guessed, probably 24 hours since the soldiers had begun the process, with whatever indignities they’d heaped on her in the jail, about 12 hours since her clothes had been removed for the last time. He tried to imagine what it must be like to be naked before so many people, to face such hate, but he couldn’t. Even without the whipping and the crucifixion, it was unthinkable, and what he hadn’t quite appreciated was just how exposed she would be on the cross, how everything was on show, how her attempts to breathe would cause her breasts to heave.
The sheriff watched as Gallus rode up to the cross again. He had been riding up every hour or so, taunting her, encouraging those at the base of the cross to heap on more abuse. This time he stopped in front of her, and stood in his stirrups. He reached over, and took her breasts in his hands, stroking them and kneading. Even from 30 yards away, the sheriff could see the look of loathing in her eyes, even though she was too weak to lift her head or pull away.
Gallus slapped her breasts, slashed at them three, four times with his crop, but she barely flinched. And then he reached a hand under her chin and lifted her head. Their eyes met, and he spat in her face. He dropped her head, her chest fluttered one last time, and it was over. Justice had been done.
The thirty-first was swept upwards, ripping into her buttocks, making her leap, and she fell again. The sheriff looked on and knew the sentence had been judged just right. She was in agony, gulping in air, shaking, but she was still fighting. The next struck down across her ribs, the teeth biting into her exposed belly, blood springing immediately from the white flesh. “Thirty-two,” he called, then ordered she be set straight again.
This time the guards didn’t bother lifting her, but simply hauled her so she lay face down, held up only by the chains, her head hanging limp, almost touching the ground. Sweat dripped from her face, mingling with the blood, stinging the open wounds. Gallus stood for a better view, and saw the next lash sweep into the soft flesh beneath her ribs. For a moment the barbs seemed to lodge in the skin, and there was a slight pause as the whip was withdrawn. Thirty four struck the same place on the other side, the lowest strands catching the hip, prompting a higher-pitched squeal, and an involuntary flinch. The sheriff paused again, and had her lifted for the final two.
Her legs unsteady, she stood, propped against the post, and Gallus watched the right hander take his two-pace run up, raise the whip and, with noticeable effort, bring it down across the centre of her back, dragging it deliberately. There was a sickening whump, a fountain of blood, and then a howl, fresh and piercing even from her ravaged throat. She sank slowly to her knees, only to be lifted again. The left hander finished with a drag across her buttocks, and she fell, sobbing and twitching, moaning and whimpering, her body from neck to knees a mass of red.
* The sheriff had almost forgotten the crowd, so silent had they fallen during the scourging, but they responded to the end with a hum of conversation. He let her lie for a couple of minutes, then ordered the soldiers to unfasten her. She was limp, silent now but for a wavering sigh as she breathed. They lifted her by the arms and she hung between them, lacking the strength to stand. The soldiers turned her to face him, and he saw how stray thongs had reached round to leave welts on her stomach and the sides of her breasts, how her entire body was pinkened by a sheen of sweat and blood. He walked over to her, and lifted her chin, looking into her eyes. She was blank, seemingly more dead than alive, and he feared again they may have gone too far, but a sharp slap to her cheek generated a flicker in her eyes, and he knew there was strength left.
The soldiers led her to the stand where the dignitaries sat, and pushed her to her knees, holding her arms out on either side. Her head fell forward, sweat and blood dripping onto the stone in front of her. Gallus drank in the vision; his nemesis humiliated and in agony before him. He watched as the centurion stepped forward; he hadn’t even had to pay for this refinement, but it had been his idea.
Two buckets were placed behind Katerina, each filled with brine. The centurion dipped in his hand, then flicked the liquid at her back. Only a few drops land, but it was enough to make her jolt upright and force a new scream from her lips. The teenagers laughed uproariously and applauded. Claudia thought it hilarious something so seemingly insignificant could cause such pain.
Katerina was tensed, the muscles in her neck pulsing, her breasts pointed upwards as her head snapped back. Lucius suspected he wasn’t the only one imagining her in that pose in a very different context. Only as she began to relax did the centurion flick more brine on her. She howled, and in her spasming almost pulled free her arm from one soldier. He grabbed her again, and this time the centurion allowed a little more water to dribbled form his fingers down her raw back. She twitched and bucked, the noise she made inhuman. The centurion tipped a little over her head, and as the salt burned into the wounds on her scalp, she thrashed between the soldiers, her breasts dancing on her chest.
* The pain was worse than anything she’d felt until then, echoing along her nerves. At least with the whips, once the blow had been taken and the pain had welled, it slowly subsided. With the salt the pain remained, intense for what felt like hours. What was worse, she knew this was a private show for Gallus. She heard the centurion pick up the bucket, and she braced herself for more agony. But he waited and when she glanced around to find out what was happening, she saw him holding it over her, poised about to tip, playing to the crowd. Huw wished more than ever he was a noble, that he could watch this from close quarter. As it was all he really had to go on was the noise, her screams, but he cheered with the rest of them as the centurion played his games.
* She heard the mob roar, and she flinched, and then came nothing but laughter from the crowd. She opened her eyes again and as she did so she saw those in the stand laughing and pointing. A friend of her father’s made an obvious gesture with his hands, clearly making a joke about how her breasts wobbled. Then it came in a terrible rush. First the cold of the water, and then the sting. In her head, in her eyes, but most of all on her back. She wrenched her arms free, so violent was her reaction, and fell forward, her fingers clawing at the stone as the salt burned through her soul.
For a time she could see nothing, and was aware only of the pain. But then their hands were on her again and she was lifted back into the kneeling position. The brine was dripping from her hair, each droplet causing a new explosion of agony. She blinked and blinked and slowly, through the haze, objects began to crystallise again and she saw Gallus’s leering face. Then the second bucket was tipped over her. The soldiers held on this time, and she thrashed between them, shrieking and twisting until slowly she slumped again, her heart pounding, her body twitching as droplets of brine from her hair ran onto her raw back and caused new spasms of agony. The centurion looked down and the hundreds of cuts the water had exposed, and wondered if he had perhaps gone too far. He had never thought he could feel pity for one of these nobles, but this was an extraordinary penalty.
It took perhaps three minutes for her to fall calm, slumped between the guards, her breath uneven, her body still twitching, shivering with pain. Two soldiers carried the beam over and lowered it onto her torn shoulders. At the touch of the rough wood, she shrieked again, but they held her still, and bound her arms once more to the beam with the bands of leather. The sheriff watched, seeing her in a daze, uncomprehending as her limp arms were fastened. The noose was fitted again over her head, and one of the guards jerked it so she looked up, held upright by the soldiers at each end of the beam.
“Stand,” came the order, but it was impossible. Even without the patibulum she probably wouldn’t have been able to make it; with it she had no chance. A guard slashed his birch across her back, and was rewarded with a retch of agony. He hit her again, at which the sheriff stepped in, and ordered Katerina’s ladies-in-waiting to help her.
* Gallus rode a little behind the procession. Katerina hung from the beam, her feet dragging on the ground, barely even attempting to walk. Her head flopped limply onto her chest as her two ladies-in-waiting carried her. Under normal circumstances to see either of them, stripped to their underclothes, sweating and straining in the street, would have been a remarkable sight, but today there was only one attraction.
He couldn’t quite believe the continued savagery of the mob, their delight in Katerina’s pain and humiliation, the way they still surged closer to spit on her or add their insult. If the ladies-in-waiting slowed, the guards would still lash her, and as she screamed, the crowds roared their approval. She was so broken now, though, that even her screams seemed weak, her energy sapped, her throat hoarse from shouting in pain. Her back was a mass of red, barely a strip of skin remaining between neck and waist, the odd flash of white showing where she’d been cut to the bone. Her buttocks were streaked with black and purple wheals, the occasional deep red slash showing where the scourges had cut low. He had wanted her destroyed, and he had had his wish.
Claudia encouraged the others to hurry with her to intercept Katerina before she was dragged out of the town. They were young, but they were Romans, and so the crowd reluctantly parted to let them through. The four of them waited in the middle of the road, and when the procession drew near, they darted past the lead soldiers. Claudia was a little taken aback by Katerina. She looked exhausted, her eyes barely open, seeming not to focus on the four of them as they ran up, her forehead caked in blood, loose tendrils of hair hanging damp over her face. But Claudia put her doubt aside, put her face close to Katerina’s and spat. Julia, just behind her, had gathered a handful of gravel, and threw it in Katerina’s face. She flinched instinctively, and banged her head back against the beam, driving in the rose-thorns yet deeper. The crowds laughed, delighted to see Romans abusing one of their own. The Segundus ran up, and squeezed her breasts briefly, drawing great cheers, before he ducked into the mob as the soldiers shooed him away. Claudia caught once last glimpse of Katerina’s face, and saw only tiredness.
* They moved on, though the huge gate at the edge of town, on to the rougher road outside. Had Katerina been capable of walking, had her feet been doing anything other than dragging on the ground as she was carried, that would have been a new torture; as it was, she seemed oblivious to the discomfort the two ladies-in-waiting were undergoing. The beggars and vagabonds who lived in the shadow of the walls came to add their derision, filthy creatures throwing rotting scraps of food at her.
The sheriff, riding a little way in front of her, looked back, saw her horror, and was delighted that she was not so numb she had ceased to feel shame; she would, at least, put up some kind of performance on the cross. This had been a day that would live in the memory of the town for ever, the beautiful patrician stripped, humiliated and scourged before them, but it would not do to end in anti-climax; her death on the cross had fully to sate the bloodlust of the mob.
On the procession crawled, the two ladies-in-waiting tiring and growing ever slower, still clearly upset for their lady, but unable to hurry on to save her further lashes. Finally, with the sun almost at its zenith, they reached the open area where she was to die.
Katerina was dropped to her knees, and the beam was unfastened. Where the thongs had held her to it her skin was red raw, a further source of pain. As the soldiers carried the patibulum off to fix it to the stipes, Katerina was left, kneeling, uncertainly drawing her stiff arms across her chest. The sheriff had the guards stand her up, and further buckets of water were flung over her, washing off the filth of her journey. A water-bottle was held to her lips, and she drank greedily. The liquid, the sheriff knew, would soothe her throat after her screaming, but it would also condemn her to additional minutes of agony, keep her alive.
She stood, slightly hunched, her eyes fixed on the work of the carpenters as they made her cross. She was still, even after everything, the sheriff thought, a beautiful woman, pale and stately, her breasts delicate and round even as further blood dripped from her scalp. Her back was ravaged, of course, ripped by the flogging, her buttocks and thighs destroyed by the switches. But from the front, she was still attractive, even if her knees were torn, her arms striped by the bonds that had held her to the patibulum, her torso scratched and her flanks streaked with lashes that had in places reached further to cut her chest and her belly. In that place, surrounded by soldiers and people, naked and anguished as she was, she should have seemed ridiculous, but she still had a weird authority.
A slight breeze blew and she shuddered at the movement of air across her wounds. The sheriff wondered how many lashes had landed. Not just the 36 lashes of the scourge – 216 individual stripes, a total of 1296 teeth – but the switches to encourage her. Her journey had taken in total, what, about two-and-a-half hours, and she probably been hit at least once a minute. So 150, maybe 200 blows, in addition to the formal flogging. It was, he thought, remarkable she still had the strength to stand.
He walked over to her, saw in her dark eyes a horror, both shame and pain and a knowledge of what was to come. His hands wanted to go to those breasts, to caress them and to weigh them, but instead, he took the noose, and pulled her towards the cross, now complete on the ground. The mob pressed closer, the solders struggling to hold them back. The sheriff saw Gallus there on his horse, waiting expectantly for the next phase of the punishment. He handed the noose to a soldier, and he yanked her forward so she stumbled into a group of four other guards. They pushed her among them, jeering her and dragging her to the cross, finally tripping her with a kick to the back of the knees so she fell heavily in the dust alongside the frame.
The noose was removed, and she was hauled onto the stipes, the pain of her raw back being dragged over the rough wood prompting further dry heaves. Ropes were fitted over her wrists and she was stretched out, her arms reaching along the patibulum. A soldier stepped forward, the others making way for him, a couple patting him on the back. The sheriff recognised Caius, a short, scrawny man from the west, and realised he must have won a lottery. Caius sat, dropping deliberately firmly, on her belly, and her legs snapped up involuntarily, one knee catching him in the back. He slapped her hard, his left hand cracking into her right cheek and, while she was still dazed, he grabbed her jaw with his right hand – fingers on one side thumb on the other, and forced her to look across and down the length of her right arm, the action pushing the crown yet deeper into the back of her scalp. He held her there, making her watch as another soldier placed a nail, maybe six inches long, upon the heel of her hand. The sheriff couldn’t help by impressed by the wilful cruelty.
The crowd, realising what was to come, even if few of them could see it, fell silent. The hammer was raised, and then crashed down. There was a metallic click as it struck the head of the nail, and Katerina bucked, her pelvis thrusting up. This, the sheriff knew, was what Caius had wanted. After a brief pause, as though it took time for her brain to process the information, there came a horrified, high-pitch scream. Her head had slipped from Caius’s grasp, but as she shuddered, he seized her again, and forced her to look along her arm at the nail that had penetrated half an inch or so into her wrist. The hammered landed again, and her whimpering broke into another howl. Her head again snapped out of Caius’s hand, but this time he didn’t bother to take hold of it again, instead letting his hands fall to her breasts, fondling them and making little secret of his pleasure as she spasmed beneath him.
* The centurion was not a sympathetic man, but he felt a little sickened by what he was watching. It had taken seven blows to nail her right hand to the cross, seven blows that he each provoked screams that turned his stomach. He had watched men crucified before, of course, but this was different. For one thing, there was the overt sexuality of it all, for another the fact that she was such a delicate thing, the head of the nail almost as wide as her wrist.
He couldn’t stop it, of course, and his men remorselessly dragged out her left arm, and again made her watch as they drove the nail through the base of her thin hand. When he’d seen this done before, the victim had been either drugged or in such a state of shock that they were almost comatose; Katerina, though, seemed fully alert, her howls of anguish cutting through him. He thought of what he’d done to her the night before, of the way he’d degraded her, enjoyed exposing her beautiful body, thought of tipping the brine over her, and felt shame. He didn’t believe she was guilty, and even if she was, he wasn’t sure she deserved this, to send her last day on earth naked and in agony, humiliated and tortured.
Caius at last stood up, and the milky whiteness of her body was revealed again. stretched out on the dark wood of the cross, scarlet blood running down her arms. Her knees were skinless and her ribs and breasts bore the old welt, but essentially from the front she was the living sculpture she had seemed the night before, flushed with exertion and pain, but still almost ethereally pale.
Two soldiers pulled her legs apart, to hoots of derision and more lewd comments. A nail was placed a few inches below her buttocks and hammered in to the stipes until only around three inches protruded. Katerina whimpered, seemingly both puzzled and relieved that, for a few moments at least, no new pain was being inflicted. This, the centurion knew, though, was just agony deferred; the support would keep her alive for probably two or three additional hours, as well as rubbing painfully on the tender skin between her legs.
Her legs were then yanked down. One soldier held her right foot flat against the stipes, her knee gently bent; another positioned her left foot on top of it. Caius sat on her again, facing the other way this time, holding her thighs. Others clustered round, pressing on her legs, keeping her steady as the final nail was hammered in, passing between the big and second toe on each foot. This, the centurion knew, was the hardest nail to position, but she seemed too weak now to thrash, even as she screamed above the hubbub of the crowd.
The soldiers backed away, and he saw her, pinned out, naked and defenceless, lying with her arms spread, her head tipped back almost as though on a bed to entice him. Except that her fingers were clenched in a half-fist – something he knew from experience had something to do with the nerve in the wrist being severed – and there was blood running from her hands and feet, and still oozing from beneath the crown that he had helped fit. She was still, almost silent now, only the rapid breathing suggesting the pain she was in.
* Slowly, the cross was raised. The sheriff had dreaded this, imagining the embarrassment if the nails were somehow to work themselves loose, but as the patibulum got higher and higher and she came nearer to the vertical, it became clear she was fixed firmly. Lucius watched in fascination; he’d never really paid much attention to crucifixions before, but it was impossible not to stare as her beautiful exposed body was lifted up so everybody could see. He knew she must be in agony, but all he could think of was her nudity, the fact her breasts and that wonderful slim waist would be up there, fully visible, for hours.
Her chest rose and fell with increasing ferocity as her wrists and ankles began to take her weight, her neck still arched back so her head hung over the top of the T-frame. As the cross passed 45 degrees she began to slide, and her eyes opened, her raw back ripping further as it scraped on the rough beam. Her buttocks hit the support, and she gave a slight yelp, but the gritted her teeth again. Her nostrils were flared, her eyes bulging wider and wider as she neared the perpendicular, and then, abruptly, the stipes dropped in the hole they had dug for its base.
The cross fell a couple of feet, jolting her and causing her to fall forwards with a mighty scream, her body help up by just the three nails. For a couple of seconds she thrashed pathetically, dragging herself up to perch on the nail beneath her perineum. She was panting and sweating, a new look of terror on her face as she realised just what crucifixion meant. The sheriff wondered if she still felt shame at her nakedness, spread out as she was, her feet eight feet off the ground, visible to the thousands who had come to see her die.
The soldiers removed the ropes they used to haul the cross upright, and as they filled in the hole it stood in, packing in earth hammering in wedges to keep the stipes steady, each shudder sent a new tremor of agony passing over her. She hung with her arms at about 30 degrees to the horizontal, her head bowed, body leaning towards the crowd so her breasts hung fractionally out from her chest. Her knees were clamped together, jutting out from the cross until, every few seconds, she sought to drag herself up onto the perch, and then they’d splay as she pushed up.
Finally, the soldiers completed their work, and backed away to take bets on how long she would survive. The sheriff looked on with a sense of pride. This was his tableau, the pale beautiful girl nailed up against the dark T, hanging in agony so the people could move on from the fire and forget the deaths. The screaming had stopped and only those within the first few feet of the crowd could hear her laboured breathing, the grunts as she pulled herself up to take a breath. The hostility of the crowd remained, though, and as they milled round at her feet, the barrage of insults continued. All the sheriff had to do now was to sell those two ladies-in-waiting into slavery. Part of him wondered if they too should be whipped, but he knew their greatest price would be as whores and that meant they should be unmarked.
* Portia walked alongside her husband, as he insisted they get a closer look. She knew he just wanted to drink in her nakedness again, but she wanted to see her pain close up and so barely raised an objection. Diana, she knew, was horrified, had worn a dazed expression since the whipping, but it would do her good to see what happened to girls who let their eye be distracted by every passing man. They stood at the foot of the cross, listening to the insults, a litany of filth. “Katerina,” Portia shouted. “Katerina.” Her head moved a fraction to listen. “You are a disgrace to your family,” Portia went on. “You have shamed your mother. You deserve this.” Diana, ashen-faced, pulled her away.
* Gallus wondered if he would ever get bored. He had watched now for approaching three hours, and he could barely take his eyes from her. Even when they’d auctioned off those two ladies-in-waiting, he’d watched her, seem her shame at their shame. There’d be queues at the whorehouse that night, he knew, but they held no interest to him. All he was concerned about was her, beautiful and pale and in agony.
As time had gone by, her movements had become less violent, and the flush on her body had begun to fade. Her pale breasts were still the most desirable things he’d ever seen. Blood had begun to seep from between her legs where the nail dug in, hers arms were streaked with blood and her face was haggard with pain, but there was still part of him wondered if he could pay the sheriff to take her down early so he could have her.
The crowds, he realised, were becoming restive, their fury abating. As some began to drift away, he rode closer. She saw him as he pushed through the crowds, averting her eyes too late. He smiled; let him be the last thing she saw. She was trembling, he saw, her muscles bulging as she pulled herself up for each breath, and close too he could hear the rasps of her breathing and, even better, hear the mocking of the crowds. Two boys, he guessed around nine or ten, stood beneath her, looking up with arms outstretched, mimicking her torments. A slightly older one explained the intricacies of her labia and vulva to them each time her legs spread open. A handful of drunk men discussed loudly what they’d have done to her if only she’d been sold to the brothel, and two women told her again and again that her pain wasn’t enough for what she’d done. Others just kept up a torrent of abuse. And she just hung, lifting herself every now and again, moaning occasionally, her eyes set in the distance as though trying to block out everything around her.
“Katerina,” he shouted. “Kate.” She couldn’t help but look at him as the crowds nearby fell quite. “Having fun?” he asked.
She turned away. He shouted again, and she still ignored him. He rode closer, drew his crop from his belt, and slashed it against her foot. She shrieked and spasmed as she jerked against the nail. “You bastard,” she croaked through parched lips.
From his horse his eyes were approximately level with her waist. He looked up at her, unable to keep the smile from his face. Broken, she looked back, barely able to lift her head, her dark eyes peering through wet tendrils of hair. He had always loved the way wisps of hair curled down in front of her ears, and he made a point of looking there now. The hair was still fell in the same way, seductively dark on her soft pale cheek, but now it was heavy, soaked with sweat and blood.
He looked at her white skin, the expanse of her flat belly, covered in a multitude of small scratches, at the horrific scars on her ribs, the wheal that cut across her collarbone and stretched back over her slender neck. And her breasts, round and high, grazed and lovely, the nipples half-erect, a delicious coral. She pulled herself up again, and he stared between her legs, at the prize that should have been his, and then as she slid down the cross again, feeling suddenly overwhelmed, he struck her again, on her knee this time, and rode his horse away.
* “They were the softest things I’ve ever touched,” Secundus said again, proudly recounting the story of how he’d fondled her breasts. But then he turned to the cross. “Your tits are shit,” he shouted to laughter. “Like bee-stings.” Claudia, though, wasn’t taken in. She knew how desirable Katerina was, and she worried Segundus might become dissatisfied with her. “Katerina,” she shouted. “Katerina.” Katerina’s eyes flicked in her direction and then away, but Claudia new she had her attention. “Bitch!” she shouted.
* One of the four soldiers below the cross drew a sponge from a bucket, skewered it on his javelin and raised it for her to drink. Even then, the centurion noted, he couldn’t help adding more cruelty, flicking her breasts to hoots of laughter from the few hundred spectators who still remained. He held the sponge in front of her, just out of reach, taunting her as she stretched forward to reach it, her tongue outstretched. He moved it closer, and she reached again, and then pulled it away.
She would be desperately thirsty by now, the centurion knew, cramp biting at her. The muscles in her thighs stood out like rope, each new thrust sending shudders through her. He was amazed her thin arms had sustained her for so long, but it was clear now that they were as good as useless, her shoulders perhaps dislocated, and it was only her legs that kept her pushing up for air. It was now that they would usually break the legs of a prisoner, to bring merciful death in ten minutes or so, but the orders were for her to keep suffering. Finally the soldier allowed her the sponge and she drank desperately. That too, he knew, would prolong her life.
* Huw at last worked himself to the front, so he could drink in her loveliness before she died. He could see she was close to death. Her face had a slightly grey hue, her breathing was unsteady and spasms kept rippling through her muscles. He would never have a woman like this, he knew, not one so pure, so pretty, so slender. He had enjoyed the last 12 hours, enjoyed watching her naked suffering, but he wondered whether he might have enjoyed rather more seeing her around town for the next few years. “Teacher,” shouted one of the men near him. “Teach us a lesson now. Why don’t you tell us how important it is to read?”
* The sun was beginning to set behind the cross and there was a slight chill in the air. The end was close now. Her writhing had become both more desperate and weaker, almost 8 hours on the cross having finally sapped her strength. There were still, the sheriff estimated, over a thousand people there, watching the end of the best show the town had ever known. The crows were circling, ready to enjoy their prey once the crowds had gone. He would leave her to hang for another week before burning the cross and her body, a reminder of how the town dealt with criminals.
Gallus was still there, unable to take his eyes off her, his relish in her agony and shame obvious. The sheriff knew he should feel some sense of guilt, but all he felt was the satisfaction of a job well done and, if he were honest to himself, a thrill at what he’d achieved. The judge, he knew, had gone that morning, unable to watch an innocent and beautiful girl stripped and mocked, scourged and dragged naked through the streets to die in this dreadful way. It was, he guessed, probably 24 hours since the soldiers had begun the process, with whatever indignities they’d heaped on her in the jail, about 12 hours since her clothes had been removed for the last time. He tried to imagine what it must be like to be naked before so many people, to face such hate, but he couldn’t. Even without the whipping and the crucifixion, it was unthinkable, and what he hadn’t quite appreciated was just how exposed she would be on the cross, how everything was on show, how her attempts to breathe would cause her breasts to heave.
The sheriff watched as Gallus rode up to the cross again. He had been riding up every hour or so, taunting her, encouraging those at the base of the cross to heap on more abuse. This time he stopped in front of her, and stood in his stirrups. He reached over, and took her breasts in his hands, stroking them and kneading. Even from 30 yards away, the sheriff could see the look of loathing in her eyes, even though she was too weak to lift her head or pull away.
Gallus slapped her breasts, slashed at them three, four times with his crop, but she barely flinched. And then he reached a hand under her chin and lifted her head. Their eyes met, and he spat in her face. He dropped her head, her chest fluttered one last time, and it was over. Justice had been done.
7 months ago
