The Scapegoat

THE SCAPEGOAT

The triumvir capitalis smiled. His plan was working perfectly. There, on the

other side of the courtroom, in the dock, stood Katherina, the governor’s

daughter, her head now bowed as the realisation sunk in that her trial was not

the farce she had clearly presumed it to be. Nor should it be; he had put a lot

of effort into this. It had, the triumvir reflected, been a moment of inspiration

from his deputy.

They had been sitting in the upper room of the tavern when he had

suggested it – the triumvir, his deputy, and three members of the town

council. After the fire, something had to be done. A whole quarter of the town

had burned to the ground, and that only a dozen had been killed was a matter

of considerable fortune. The people were restless and wanted answers, and,

concerned by the threat of public disorder, the governor was becoming

increasingly demanding. The answer, it seemed apparent to the triumvir, was

simply too many poor houses built too close together out of things that were

likely to catch fire. It had been a disaster waiting to happen. Yet clearly he

couldn’t say that to the governor.

It was Lucius, a wealthy merchant, who had first put forward the idea of

a scapegoat, although they had all been thinking of it, somebody on whom the

mob could vent its frustration. And if somebody could be blamed, the sense of

danger would ease – it would be easier for the people to ignore the fact that

they all lived in death-traps. If they blamed somebody, though, there would

have to be punishment. But as Lucius said, that was a good thing. Drag

somebody into the market-place, flog them, pillory them, maybe even hang

them and the crowd would be sated. There were problems, though: the

people would be instantly suspicious if they hauled some local vagabond up

there. The wine had continued to flow, and the discussions had become more

fraught. What they needed, the triumvir’s deputy had said, was something so

outrageous nobody would believe they had dared to set it up. They needed

somebody who seemed beyond reproach, somebody nobody would believe

guilty of such a crime, somebody the public would believe they had only put

up there if they had no choice, if they were convinced of his guilt. Maybe, they

reasoned, an execution would be best – not a pleb to be whipped and

hanged, but somebody of stature to be beheaded. Not a local but a Roman.

Then the only question was who. It had to be somebody the crowds

could hate. A few names were bandied about – a misanthropic ship’s captain,

the rat-catcher, the tax-collector, a landowner despised for his arrogance –

but none quite hit the mark. Then the deputy said it: why not a woman? At

which Gallus said instantly: Katherina.

The triumvir knew Gallus’s reasons were probably personal. It was,

after all, fairly common knowledge that Katherina had rejected his advances.

But nonetheless he was right. What would the mob love more than to see a

beautiful, virginal young Roman hauled before them and executed? And

besides, she was becoming increasingly troublesome with her complaints

about the way the jailors treat the whores in the local jail. And so the wheels

were set in motion.

They effected a total assassination of her character. It began with

rumours of her dalliances with menfolk, letters were faked and circulated; the

purest woman in the county, it began to be believed, was practically a whore.

Then they interfered with her fund to help educate the poorest children; made

it appear that the money she’d collected, worked so hard to get, had been

used for her own benefit, to cover her rapacious spending. Within a few

weeks rumours, carefully spread, had transformed public opinion. And

because she’d once been so popular, the hatred of her was that much

greater. She was seen not just as an arrogant Roman, but as one who had

hoodwinked them, cheated them.

And then they placed her in the right part of town on the night in

question. Made up stories of an assignation with one of her lovers. Produced

letters to back her claims, a fragment of burned handkerchief with her initial

embroidered on the corner. They had had an argument, the witnesses said,

and she, furious at her supposed lover had torched his house. They even paid

one of the local whores – and let her off a whipping - to say she had seen her

throw the brand.

Two months after the fire, the outcry had grown to such an extent that

the governor had been forced to order the arrest of his daughter. And now she

stood, bewildered and terrified in the dock, as the evidence, irrefutable, was

laid before the court.

Katherina was well aware there was a plot against her. She had heard the

rumours circulating, she knew the women whom once she had helped now

shunned her. She had even sent her ladies-in-waiting to try to refute the

stories, but that now was being used in evidence against her. Why, after all,

would she send her tutor to the charred ruins of the burnt-out quarter if not to

try to cover up the evidence.

Still, it had come as a shock when her father had called her to his

study. She had stood before his desk as she had not since she was a small

child to be scolded, only this time his guards had been in the room. Never

before in her 21 years, not even when her mother had died, had she seen him

so distressed. His hair was awry, his clothes unkempt and his skin an ashen

grey.

“Katherina,” he had said. “Katherina, I cannot believe this of you, but

they are saying you started the fire.”

“Who are saying this, father?”

“The people. The people are demanding you be put on trial for it. They

will riot if I do not submit.”

“But father, this is ridiculous-”

And he had slammed his hand down on the desk. “No more lies,” he’d

hissed. “I have seen the evidence. I know of your harlotry, your scheming.

You are not the daughter I once knew. If I have failed in my parenting, may

the gods forgive me.”

At that, the guards had taken her arms, had led gently her to her room,

and there she had remained under house arrest. It had taken a week for a

judge to be summoned from the capital, and from then, each day she had be

taken at nine from her room to the great hall, where the trial was convened. At

first she had assumed her innocence would win out, but for eight days now,

she had been forced to stand and listen to the lies they spouted, witness after

witness damning her. She’d soon realised there was no chance, that she was

too naive, too honest for these games, that the conspiracy was too good, that

no amount of pleading could save her. The mob was against her, and she

would be condemned. She wondered whether she might escape with a

sentence of exile, but she knew, in her heart of hearts, that she was the

scapegoat, the one who would die to balance the deaths of the twelvein the

fire. She could not win, and so, numb, she barely fought. She refused the

chance to cross-examine witnesses, refused to call witnesses of her own,

simply stood there in the dock, her head down, listening to her own

destruction.

Finally they called her to the stand. She walked, slowly, from the dock

to the stand, a soldier flanking her on either side. Dressed in the purest white,

she stood in the box, and took the oath.

This, the triumvir knew, was the final hurdle. Unless she produced something

dramatic here, she was doomed. He still felt a sense of anxiety, for she was a

beautiful creature, ebony-haired and apple-cheeked and blessed with an

innocence that if only she’d chosen to exploit it, might have swayed the jury.

She looked defeated, though, crushed, as if she barely had the energy to

speak.

“You deny the charge of murder?” the lawyer, brought from the capital

at great expense – thank you Gallus – asked.

“Yes,” she replied, her voice barely more than a whisper.

“So how do you explain your presence in the burned out quarter on the

night in question?”

“I was not there.”

This was fascinating, the triumvir though, to see her, usually so

assured, reduced to this, her soft pink lips trembling, her mouth so dry she

could barely speak.

“Oh, and where were you?” the lawyer continued.

“I was with Mistress Carney, the baker’s widow.”

A murmur went around the hall. The triumvir saw the hold his head in

his hands: Mistress Carney, encouraged by a gold coin, had already testified

that Katherina had abandoned her regular charitable visits several weeks

before the fire.

“Yet she denies it, and seventeen witnesses saw you in that quarter

that night. One even saw you set a house alight. Is that not strange?”

“It is strange.” Tears were welling in her soft dark eyes.

“And can you explain that strangeness?”

“No, I cannot.”

Another gasp around the hall. The judge had to call for order. The

triumvir knew she was finished now.

“And arson – is that not a terrible crime? To take away all that the

poorest have, to burn their every last possession, the things they have worked

all their lives to afford? To burn, to destroy, even, to murder – for the sake of

petty revenge. Would that not be terrible?”

“Yes.” Her voice was barely more than a croak now.

“And such an arsonist, such a person of wilful evil, what should happen

to him – or her?”

“He should be punished most severely.”

“Punished most severely-” the lawyer echoed, turning with a smile to

the judge. “By her own lips is she condemned.”

Katherina stood in the dock, her dark eyes fixed on the flagstones at her feet.

Barely an hour had passed since the judge had sent the jury away, an hour

she had spent locked in a small chamber off the great hall. She knew they

would convict her. Based on what they had been told, she would have

pronounced herself guilty.

The guards knew it too. They had done nothing, said nothing, but she

could feel their deference had slipped. Their hands on her arms were firmer

than before, they led her rather than escorting her, and she knew they were

talking about her, wondering what the sentence should be.

The judge entered and the court rose. Katherina looked up as he

banged his gavel and silence fell.

“Foreman of the jury, have you reached a verdict?”

The foreman, a bearded and hard-hearted merchant, stood. “Yes, your

honour,” he said, casting a glance at the noblewoman in the dock. From his

look she knew she was done for.

“On the twelve counts of murder, how do you find the prisoner?”

He paused. “Guilty, your honour,” he said. A gasp ran around the hall.

Katherina’s head dropped.

Such was the uproar, the judge could hardly be heard as he cycled

through the other charges. For each, the foreman replied with the same word.

In the eyes of the law, she was a mass-murderer, an arsonist, a wilful

destroyer of property, an embezzler, a whore and even a perjurer.

The triumvir smiled a tight-lipped smile. The judge could not but

sentence her to death, and would surely have her whipped first, Roman or

not. And she looked broken already, standing there with her head hanging,

sobbing softly but audibly.

The judge hammered his gavel. Gradually the hubbub died away.

“Katherina, daughter of Julius of Brindisium,” he said. She didn’t move.

“Katherina,” he said again, louder this time. “Look at me.”

She looked up, her face twisted in the effort not to cry. “Katherina,

daughter of Julius of Brindisium, the crimes of which you have been convicted

are of a magnitude greater than any with which I have dealt before. You have

systematically abused the trust of this community, and you will pay the full

price. I will consider my sentence overnight.”

He turned to the triumvir. “Have her brought to me tomorrow morning at

my quarters,” he said, before turning back to her. “In the meantime, I strip you

of your citizenship, and order you be held in the castle dungeon.”

Even as he stood and left, the soldiers were upon her. Her arms were

seized, and another guard gave her a sharp shove in the back so she lurched

forward, and as she did so, heavy manacles were snapped over her wrists. A

wave of panic swept over her, and she twisted violently, but the guards

holding her arms only tightened their grip.

A guard knelt down in front of her, and unfastened her sandals. The

triumvir ordered her to lift first her left foot then her right, and she was left

barefoot. Her lips clamped together in an effort to hold back the tears, she

glanced up, but all she could see was a horde of faces staring, clearly

enjoying her discomfort.

And then with a push she was off, marched barefoot through the hall to

the dungeon.

They got to the huge heavy door that led to the prison. She had been there

before, of course, in her work with the prostitutes, trying to help them, to get

them to see the error of their ways, but never through this door. This was the

prisoners’ entrance, the way that led directly to the cells and the torture

chambers. She knew what happened in here, knew what happened to the

whores, how they were raped and beaten, and she was terrified.

The door clanged shut behind her. She was so nervous she started,

and the guards laughed. She felt oddly aware of the coarseness of the ground

beneath her feet, the clammy dampness of the stones now they had entered

the dungeon. They hustled her along the corridor to a large desk, behind

which the head jailer sat. Katherina hated him. She had always hated him,

hated the long strands of lank hair dripping from his balding head, hated his

foul-breathed insolence, his refusal to acknowledge the indecencies

perpetrated in his dungeon. And now she was utterly in his power.

The manacles were removed and she stood before his desk, flanked

on either side by a guard. She massaged her wrists, which even in the

relatively short walk from the hall had become chafed and grazed. The jailer,

slowly, reached for a quill, and begin to write. He looked up at her, scratched

his jaw slowly, and asked with a leer, “Name?”

“You know my name perfectly well,” she snapped.

“I asked your name,” he said, smiling so she got the full benefit of his

crumbling brown teeth. “If your attitude does not improve, it may have to be

corrected with a few strokes of the birch across your bare arse. Now, your

name?”

“Katherina, daughter of Julius of Brindisium,” she said.

“I think, Kate,” he smirked, “that you’ll find you’ve been stripped of your

noble status. And you will call me ‘sir’. Do respect your betters.”

She seethed, but there was nothing she could do. “Is that clear?” he

asked.

“Yes, sir.” She could not but sound ironic, and she feared for a moment

he would order her flogged.

“And without sarcasm?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” And on he went, painstakingly filling out the scroll.

When he was finished, he rolled the scroll and bound it. “Right,” he

said. “I think you know that prisoners are permitted only one garment. Strip to

your shift.”

She looked at him in horror. She hadn’t thought he’d dare go that far.

She swallowed, and, biting her upper lip to try to maintain some dignity, began

with numb fingers to unlace the cords on her bodice. She could feel the eyes

of the guards on her, enjoying her humiliation.

“Whenever you’re ready,” the jailer said mockingly.

She could feel the tears burning at the back of her eyes. Her fingers,

shaking now, finally undid the bow, and she loosed the laces, before pulling

her bodice off. She held it out, pathetically, unsure what to do with it. A guard

snatched it from her, and she became aware suddenly of just how many

mocking faces there were in there.

Slowly, awkward, she removed her shirt, and then her hand went

uncertainly to the drawstring of her skirt, and in one clumsy movement, she

unfastened the bow. For a moment her skirt held, defying gravity, before

slowly slipping down to fall about her ankles. She stepped out of it, and stood

back as a guard seized it up. She felt vaguely nauseous, clad now in only her

fine linen shift, which hung loosely around her, leaving her bare from the

knees down, and with a sensation of dreadful vulnerability.

“Take her to a cell,” the jailer ordered, and she was seized again.

The judge was a worried man. Sleep would not come. He knew this was the

biggest decision of his time at the bench. She was, despite his action in the

court-room that afternoon, a Roman, and therefore entitled to death by

decapitation, yet he had sensed the mood of the crowd. They wanted her to

suffer. He also sensed the truth of the matter. Everything was too pat, too

perfect; he had realised fairly early in proceedings that she was probably a

scapegoat, but what could he do? The jury had found her guilty, and she had

to be punished accordingly – and that, given the nature and extent of her

supposed crimes, meant a savage death.

He had had two visits earlier that evening. The first came from the

triumvir, who, ostensibly, was asking about the likely punishment so he could

begin his preparations. The judge, though, suspected he was checking

whether the conspiracy was working.

“What will you do with her?” the triumvir had asked.

“She must die,” the judge had replied.

“And the method?”

“She is a Roman, and Romans have a right to be beheaded.”

“But she is a murderer, an arsonist, an embezzler and a whore, and

you stripped her of her status.”

“Quite. I was thinking perhaps she merited worse punishment.”

“Hanging? Burning?”

“Romans have been burned before.”

“And will you have her whipped?”

“It would be highly unorthodox to sentence a Roman to be flogged.”

“But she is, by your own command, no longer a Roman.”

“Which allows me to consider it.”

And with that he’d managed to see the triumvir off. An hour or so later,

though, the governor had turned up. He’d ummed and ahhed for a while,

about not wanting to place pressure on the judiciary, or tell anybody how to do

their jobs, then finally got to the point.

“Look, I want you to forget she’s my daughter,” he’d said, his voice

cracking with emotion. “Show her no sympathy on that score. If you think she

should be whipped before you execute her, then have her whipped. What she

has done deserves nothing but suffering. Do you understand me?”

The judge was stunned; he’d assumed the governor would beg for

mercy for his daughter.

“You are telling me to sentence your daughter to be flogged?”

“Yes.”

He couldn’t understand why the governor would act like that. Some

said he’d grown bitter since his wife had died, that he felt the world had

betrayed him; perhaps he saw in his daughter’s betrayal a reflection of that

and was lashing out. Or perhaps he simply realised that he could not be seen

to be defending the culprit of a crime that had the public so enflamed; that the

only way for him to avoid the taint of his daughter’s crime was to dissociate

himself from her absolutely.

Whatever the reason, it made the judge’s decision easier. He would

have her whipped as a prelude to her execution. Now it was simply a matter

of deciding how to put her to death.

A hammer on the door interrupted his contemplation. He flopped back

on his bed, and hoped whoever it was would go away, but the rap came

again, more insistent this time. With a heavy sigh the judge forced himself out

of bed, wrapped a robe around him, and went to the door. The ladies-in-

waiting, he reflected, really ought to be able to stop intrusions such as this.

He opened the door, and in strode Gallus. “I’m sorry to barge in on you

like this,” he said, walking over to a seat by the window and sitting down, “but

justice troubles me.”

“How so?” asked the judge, wearily perching himself on the edge of his

bed.

“How will you have her executed?”

“I have not decided, and even had I, it is not something to be discussed

before I have announced my verdict.”

“Quite, your honour. But you stripped her of her citizenship, which

suggests you are planning rather more than a beheading – as, indeed, her

crimes deserve.”

“I have left my options open.”

“Your honour, the people will not be happy unless she is seen to pay

for her crimes.”

“She is a young Roman. I have no desire to be barbaric, but I will have

her whipped before she dies.”

“Then I’ll cut to the chase. The people want her crucified.”

“Crucified?” The judge was bewildered.

“They believe she must pay a heavy price.”

“But crucified?”

“She has committed terrible crimes.”

“And surely to be whipped and hanged is adequate penalty.”

“We would not want the people to riot.”

The judge realised what a dangerous game he was playing. He

realised Gallus was effectively threatening him, that Gallus had primed

provocateurs to stir up the crowd. He realised also that there was some

deeper motive here, that Gallus wanted Katherina publicly tortured, degraded,

made to suffer.

“Perhaps she should then be burned. Suffer the death she inflicted on

the dozen.”

“The people want her crucified.”

“I cannot order a crucifixion. No woman has been crucified in the

territory for 20 years.”

“On the contrary, the law is quite clear: a judge is not bound by

convention. The public have been wronged; give them the vengeance they

desire. If the people call for her crucifixion, no one would blame you were you

to listen to them, particularly if by so doing you avert a riot.”

The judge’s head was swimming. He thought of her beautiful form

pinned out on a cross, writhing in pain, and was appalled. Gallus stood.

“Anyway, your honour,” he said, “I’ll let you sleep again. But before I go, let

me just leave a token of our town’s appreciation of your efforts.”

As he left, he threw a money bag down on the bed.

Katherina stood before the judge, her head bowed, her wrists bound in front of

her. It was, at least, warmer here after the cold of the dungeon, but that was

little comfort as she waited to find out how they would kill her. They had been

noticeably rough with her last night, shoving her carelessly into the cell so she

banged her shoulder painfully against the door-jamb, tearing her shift. Soiled

from a night of lying sleepless on the filthy floor of the cell, it slipped now

down her arm, leaving her grazed left shoulder bare. She wanted to drag it up,

to try to preserve her modesty, but with her hands bound, she was helpless,

and that only humiliated her the more. It was bad enough being made to walk

barefoot, feeling the rough stone beneath her soft feet, but to be effectively

half-naked amid these brutes was another category of discomfort altogether.

“Look at me,” the judge ordered.

She raised her head, and, taking a breath to try to preserve her calm,

met his gaze. Where yesterday he had seemed in control, almost bored by

the whole event, there was a brittleness to him today, and that frightened her.

She had felt that in this madness he at least would maintain his reason, a

sense of proportion, but now she was not so sure.

“I have considered your punishment long and hard,” he said, “and it

must be most severe.”

She could hear outside the murmurings of a large crowd. The mob, she

knew, would love to tear her apart: for all her goodness, all she had done to

improve their lot, she knew they needed a scapegoat, and she knew that was

the role she would be forced to play. She knew, also, that as a Roman, it

would not take much to turn them against her. She was, after all, part of the

occupying power.

“Have you anything to say? Any remorse for your crimes?”

She just looked at him, sitting behind his desk in this opulent room.

What could she say? They had found her guilty. The judge saw in her silence

a hint of reproach, and felt a surge of anger within himself. “Then you will be

put to death,” he said, and gestured for the soldiers to take her out onto the

balcony.

She had known what was coming, expected the sentence, but to have

it confirmed was still a blow to the depth of her being. As the nausea welled in

her stomach, though, she held his gaze, until the soldiers had dragged her

away.

The triumvir followed her out onto the balcony, watching her bare calves with

unconcealed interest, noting the way her shift swayed around her slim

buttocks. As the crowd caught sight of her, there was a huge roar, a

cacophony of boos and jeers. He walked out and stood to one side. The street

below was packed, hundreds of people squeezed in to learn of the fate of the

Roman noblewoman. The triumvir had never seen so many people in one

place, had never witnessed such a volatile force, a crowd so consumed by the

desire for blood. He hoped fervently that the judge would not let him down.

He heard shouts, cries of murderess ringing out from the mob, and

looked at her. Half-naked as she was, she seemed remarkably calm, standing

with her head erect, he gaze apparently fixed on some point in the middle

distance. He was suddenly aware of just how extraordinarily beautiful she

was, even after a night in the dungeon. Her ebony hair was awry, and yet the

contrast with the pale skin of her naked shoulder was maddeningly alluring.

He thought of her, stripped for the post, cowering, and prayed he would have

the opportunity to see it for himself.

The judge stepped out, raised his hands, and the crowd fell silent. The

triumvir was amazed by his self-assurance, the way he naturally commanded.

“The prisoner before you,” he intoned, indicating Katherina with an

outstretched hand, “has been convicted of a series of heinous crimes, and so

will be punished accordingly.”

The soldiers tightened their grips on her arms, shoving her as they did

so, as if to emphasise just how completely she was in their power. A look of

irritation crossed her face, but soon passed and again the triumvir marvelled

at her self-control. The crowd howled, the voices within it indecipherable, but

the demand for vengeance manifest.

“She will pay with her life-” The mob roared its approval. “She will pay

with her life, but simple execution is no recompense for her crimes. Therefore,

I sentence Katherina, daughter of Julius of Brindisium, to be flogged before

she is put to death.”

The triumvir felt his heart leap. The crowd went wild, and she, she

closed her eyes and swallowed as if his words only confirmed what she had

already suspected. The triumvir’s mind was already playing out the

possibilities: if she was to be whipped in the prison, he could probably insist

on her being naked to the waist; in public the judge might allow her to retain

some dignity.

“I have thought long and hard about the manner of her execution,” the

judge continued. “I considered beheading-” - a great swell of boos cut him off

momentarily - “but I deemed it too lenient, and, besides, she is no longer a

citizen.” Cheers.

Katherina glanced at him, then allowed her eyes to fall to the floor.

“Hanging-” – boos – “I also considered inadequate for her crimes.” Cheers,

and the odd shout, the triumvir thought he heard, of “Crucify her.”

“Then I thought burning might be appropriate, given the nature of her

crimes.” There were a few cheers of approval, but the chant was clear now:

“Crucify her. Crucify her.” It grew louder and louder, an unstoppable

irresistible wave.

The triumvir saw Katherina look up, saw the terror in her eyes, as the

judge continued. “But then I realised that only one mode of execution could

sufficiently scarify her soul, could lead her to face the horrors of her crimes,

could tell the people of the world that this community will not accept crime,

that we will punish with full force malefactors, no matter what their rank.”

Disbelievingly, the triumvir realised it was going to happen; the judge

was going to sentence her to crucifixion. Approval grew in a great crescendo

from the streets, the judge’s every word applauded. “Katherina,” he said,

turning to her, “the sentence of this court is that you be flogged and put to

death by crucifixion.” She slumped as though struck, and only retained her

feet because the soldiers pushed her forward and up until she was at the front

of the balcony. The mob, pointing and jeering, danced in celebration.

The judge raised his hands, and silence fell again. “Katherina, you will

be taken from the prison tomorrow at dawn,” he said. “You will carry your

crossbeam to the market place, and there you will be flogged with three dozen

lashes. You will then carry the beam outside the city walls to the place of

execution, and there you shall be nailed to a frame and hung till you be dead.

It has been customary for felons undergoing crucifixion to be drugged, or to

have their legs broken as an act of mercy to quicken death. This court will

permit you no such mercies. For the good of your soul and the good of this

community, you will suffer the full penalty for your crimes.”

The triumvir was stunned by the noise from the street, stunned by the

depth of hate being directed at his scapegoat, stunned too by the almost

casual cruelty of the judge, denying her the traditional mercies. He looked at

her; she was visibly trembling, held up only by the guards on either side of

her, her mouth opening and closing in horror. As the soldiers took her away, it

was as though her legs were numb, and they virtually dragged her back down

into the dungeon.

Katherina had no idea how long she’d been back in her cell when the soldiers

came for her. For a long time she’d lain where she’d fallen when they shoved

her back into the cell, sprawled out on the cold floor, her wrists still fastened

together in front of her. In her mind she ran through the sentence over and

over. Public flogging and crucifixion. How? How could it be possible? How

could a civilised society inflict that upon anybody, never mind her, a girl of 21

whose only crime had been to reject the advances of a local landowner?

She’d tried to imagine would it would be like, tried rationally to think it

through to try to work out how she could handle it, but all she could think of

was how cold she felt. She tried to focus on the whipping, thought of the tough

men she’d seen broken by the lash, left begging for mercy. She thought of the

whores they birched in the jail, how she’d rubbed balm into their raw

shoulders. Would they birch her? Surely they wouldn’t take a cat to her. The

cat on her back? Surely not. How many lashes did the whores take? Ten? A

dozen? Three dozen was something else. She remembered a soldier given

two dozen with the cat for desertion, how the skin had hung in ribbons from

his back. Not the cat for her, surely? It was beyond her comprehension, and

the thought of being hung from a cross was beyond even that. She caught a

glimpse of herself stretched against the frame, her shift tattered and soaked

with blood, and then it dawned on her they’d probably strip her. Somehow that

seemed the worst torment of all.

Eventually she’d hauled herself over to a corner and sat, with her

knees up to her chin. She wondered if she could perhaps kill herself by

dashing her head against the wall, but when she’d tried to do it, she found

herself incapable, and she’d determined the best way was simply to try to die

with dignity, to take the agony and the humiliation, and hope she would have

her reward in the next life.

But then they’d come for her again.

“On your feet, slut,” one of them shouted, and the other dragged her up

by her hair. She gave a sharp shriek of pain, and she closed her eyes, biting

her lower lip in an effort to force herself to remain in control. She didn’t resist

as they led her out of the dungeon, up into parade yard at the back of the

prison. She tried to remain calm, but her heart was thumping as they threw

her down the four steps that led down from the dungeon gate. She sprawled

forward onto the sand, grazing her bound hands painfully as she tried to break

her fall.

A boot smashed into her belly, and as she squirmed, momentarily

stunned by the blow, she fell onto her back. As she looked up, she realised

she was surrounded by around two dozen soldiers. “Get up,” came the order,

and as she hesitated, hands swiftly hauled her to her feet.

“Now,” said the centurion, a man she’d clashed with repeatedly over

his treatment of the prison’s prostitutes, “you will entertain us.”

Her wrists were unfastened, and the soldiers edged back, forming a

circle around her. “Dance,” the centurion ordered. She felt physically sick;

she’d heard what they did to whores, and she suspected what would happen

to her would be far worse. She stood uncertainly, clasping her hands in front

of her, massaging her wrists.

“I said dance,” the centurion shouted. “Didn’t daddy pay for expensive

lessons?” There was laughter, and then suddenly a bullwhip cracked into the

sand by her feet. She leapt involuntarily and gave a soft yelp. “Come on,” he

continued. “Don’t make me encourage you.”

She wished she had the courage to face him down, but, almost against

her will, she began to hop. The guards began to clap rhythmically. “Kick

higher,” the centurion demanded, and she obeyed, prancing for them, flicking

her feet out, even as her face burned with shame. “Higher,” he insisted, and

as the whip swooshed out again, she obeyed. She was horribly aware of how

her breasts were bobbing beneath her shift, aware of their comments and

jeers, aware of how much leg she was showing.

“Higher,” he said again, and again the whip cracked at her feet. She

was kicking so high now that she knew they must be able to see flashes of

her buttocks and more, but she dared not stop. On and on it went, her legs

growing tired at the unfamiliar movement, until finally, he told her she could

rest. The centurion looked at her, as she stood before him, her face red from

the exertion, her breasts heaving as she panted for breath.

“Perhaps your dress was getting in the way,” he said, as though the

thought had just occurred to him.

She looked up sharply, anger flashing briefly in her dark eyes. “No,”

she said.

“So you deliberately danced badly? That calls for a whipping.”

She stared at him. “No,” she said.

“Then strip.” He was surprised by how excited the prospect made him.

He had had fun with whores before, had made them dance in front of him, but

this was different. This was about power, about humiliating somebody who

had once given him orders.

She looked at him, looked at the soldiers who surrounded her, looked

at the ground. Her mouth tightened, she closed her eyes, and then her hands

went to her shoulders. Slowly, she pulled up her shift. The centurion watched

as her slim smooth legs were revealed, her taut, slender thighs. With her shift

bunched around her midriff she paused and glanced up at him, as if she

thought there could be some respite, but he simply said again: “Strip.”

She blinked, and let the shift fall back over her legs. She stood,

hugging herself, tears welling in her eyes, shaking her head. “Strip her,” the

centurion ordered, and in an instant his men were upon her. Her arms were

yanked forwards, and a soldier wrenched up her shift, pulling it roughly over

her head. The soldiers backed away, leaving her standing, huddled in

humiliation, one arm hooked across her breasts, the other clamped down over

her pudenda, bending half forward in her shame. The centurion paused a

moment, enjoying the spectacle of this beautiful young aristocrat cowering

before him. “Stand up straight,” he snapped. “Arms by your sides.”

The degradation, though, was too much for her, and she maintained

her pose, crossing her legs desperately against their gaze. The centurion

nodded, and his soldiers seized her, laughing and taunting as they pulled her

arms back, forcing her chest out. He walked up to her and stood in front of

her, looking her up and down. She tried to back away from him, but the

soldiers’ grip was too firm. He reached out and lifted her right breast, cupping

it in his left hand. She was shaking, now, and gave a whimper as he

squeezed it. “You call this a tit?” he said. He could hear her breathing, short,

uneven gasps. “Well?” he said, giving it a tug.

“That is my breast,” she sobbed.

“It’s pathetic. Your children would have starved. I’ve new recruits with

bigger tits than that.” There was laughter from his men. He dropped it and

turned his attentions to her other breast. “How many men did they say you

slept with?”

She just stared at the ground. “Well?” He squeezed and she gave a

slight shriek. “You’re a slut and a whore,” they said, “but it amazes me why a

man would look at your runtish form twice.” There were tears pouring down

her face now and she could hardly catch a breath. He lifted her head by the

chin, and looked into her dark eyes. She tried hold his gaze but it was

impossible and she looked away, hating him and hating herself. Without

warning, he punched her hard in the pit of her stomach. She jerked forwards,

gasping for breath, but the soldiers held her firm. “Slut, that is for not dancing

properly.”

He slapped her, right handed, across her face, and, as her head fell to

the right, he slapped her back again with his left. “That is for refusing to strip.”

A red print had appeared on either cheek. “Although I can see why you were

embarrassed, given that you have the body of a boy.”

Then he punched her again, nodding this time for the soldiers to let her

fall. She collapsed onto the coarse sand, winded, crouching on all fours as

she tried to get the air back into her lungs. “See,” the centurion said, prodding

her in the ribs with the toe of his right boot, “how she naturally takes the

position of the bitch that she is.”

As the guards laughed, he ordered her to bark.

The triumvir, frankly, was concerned by what might happen the following day.

He sat at his desk, papers scattered before him, trying to work out how he

could best guard against public disorder. He had never seen the mob so

inflamed as they had been earlier, and that worried him. He suspected that

the sight of a beautiful Roman girl being tortured naked before them would be

enough to keep Katherina safe – there was hardly any point in attacking her

when they could hardly inflict upon her worse than the law was going to, but

he knew there was a danger in the marketplace, where the local dignitaries

had already insisted upon having seats laid out so they could properly watch

the flogging. He had ordered reinforcements for the militia be brought in from

neighbouring towns and villages, but the cost meant he couldn’t bring in

anywhere near as many as he wanted.

A knock at the door interrupted him. Gallus entered, clutching in his

hand three velvet bags. He walked to the chair that stood in front of the desk

and sat down.

“Yes?” said the triumvir, hoping Gallus would notice the mild sarcasm

in his voice.

“I know you are busy,” Gallus said, “so I will be quick.”

The triumvir looked down and adjusted some papers. “The jailer will let

you see her tonight,” he said, barely able to hide a smirk.

Unabashed, Gallus went on. “That is not my desire,” he said. “I was

wondering what whip you were planning to use.”

“What whip?” The triumvir had not given the matter any thought. “The

cat, I suppose.” The thought of her writhing under the knotted lash diverted

him. “You think that’s too harsh?”

“On the contrary, not harsh enough. She is to be crucified, and

therefore I believe she should be scourged.”

“Scourged?”

“I have taken the liberty of preparing two whips that I believe would be

appropriate,” Gallus said, opening the drawstring on one of his bags and

emptying its contents onto the triumvir’s desk. Two whips, their thongs

entwined, fell out onto the table.

The triumvir picked one of them up, shaking it loose of the other,

weighed it in his hand. There was a wooden handle, perhaps six inches long,

to which were attached six long strands of rawhide, knotted along their length.

Towards the end of each, though, perhaps two and half inches apart were six

small lead balls, each filed into the shape of diamonds. “It will flay her,” he

said, almost admiringly. “Tear the skin from her back.”

“I know,” said Gallus, throwing a small bag of coins onto the desk.

The triumvir swung the whip through the air. It whistled, handled nicely,

despite its weight. “Let me test it this evening, then I will let you know,” he

said. He didn’t, after all, want her to die on the post.

Gallus knew the guards were playing with her in the yard, and as soon as he

had handed the scourges over to the triumvir, he went down to see what

indignities they were inflicting upon her. He watched, for a while, as they

made her crawl like a dog, kicking her and making her bark, and he had, he

admitted, enjoyed their brutality, and her very evident shame.

After a few minutes he walked out across the rough sand, and joined

the group that surrounded her. The guards, suddenly worried they may have

overdone it, pulled back, and she, realising the taunts had stopped, looked up.

When she saw him, she flushed, her humiliation renewed, falling back onto

her knees, her arms clamped across her breasts.

“Stand up,” he said.

She rose, hesitantly, the dark eyes that had once maddened him now

fixed on him. How once he would have craved that attention from her; now he

was just amused that she was looking to him with hope, wondering if he might

be about to put a stop to her ordeal. She cowered still, ridiculous, bent

forwards, her hands clasped about her, spittle hanging in her hair, streaking

her naked skin.

“Arms down, stand up straight,” he said, savouring every moment of his

triumph. Slowly, she obeyed, her face and upper body flushing as she did so.

Arms folded, Gallus, the remaining velvet bag fixed to his belt, gazed at her

as, trembling, she stood before him. Her head was bowed, her eyes fixed

firmly on the ground, her arms loose by her sides. He began at her feet,

forcing himself to take in every detail of her nakedness, the long slim legs, the

dark triangle, the pale skin, her slender waist, the flat white stomach, the

shadows of her ribs, and then the breasts, not huge, but gloriously round and

firm, the pink nipples giving them a perky look. He felt a pang of desire, but he

knew that while most other atrocities could be justified, raping her could not –

and she was, after all, the governor’s daughter.

“You must be enjoying this,” he said, after a suitable period for

reflection. “Displaying yourself naked to men is apparently what you do best.”

She said nothing, but he could see her lower lip tightening, as if tears

were close. “So, is this fun?”

“No.”

She looked at Gallus, her hatred for him welling, but he only smiled, his

tongue flicking out as he looked her up and down, seeing the bruises and the

grazes, the sputum of a dozen men speckling her pale form. She was amazed

by how much her stomach hurt, amazed by how scared she felt. She should

have just refused to pretend to be a dog, but she was terrified of the bullwhip,

which was ridiculous given what faced her tomorrow. Part of her said she

should encourage them to hurt her, to weaken her and shorten her ordeal, but

she knew she could not.

He walked over to her, and delivered an almighty slap to her face. She

heard the crack almost before she saw his hand, her head flying to her right.

She staggered slightly, but stayed on her feet, and then he slapped her with

his left hand. She felt dazed, could taste blood in her mouth. “You will call me

sir,” he said, then spat in her face.

She looked, disbelieving at him. “Now, get down and bark, you bitch,”

he said, and, unthinking, she dropped to her knees and obeyed, tears rolling

down her cheeks. Gallus bent and patted her head, marvelling at the softness

of her dark hair. “Good dog,” he said. There was laughter and she hated him,

recoiling at his touch, but what could she do?

“Now beg,” he said. “Be a good dog and beg.”

Shaking, she sat back on her heels and lifted her hands in front of her,

cocking her wrists to simulate a dog’s paws. She even hung her tongue from

her mouth, panting. He walked round her, enjoying her shame. “I can’t hear,”

he said. “What do you want?”

“Please sir,” she said, struggling to control her breathing, “please end

this.”

“End what?”

“Let me put my clothes on. Let me stop pretending to be a dog.” She

was almost howling. “Don’t crucify me. Please.”

“But you are a bitch. And you enjoy frolicking naked with men. Beg.”

And so she continued to squat there, hands pathetically raised before

her breasts. “Please,” she sobbed. “Please spare me this.”

“Clean my boots with your tongue,” he said, and almost laughed in

delight as she immediately dropped her face to his boots and began licking

them. He stared down at her, at the dark curls of her hair, her long pale back,

that pert little arse sticking up in the air. She licked and licked, working round

the leather, never daring to look up, and he wanted more than anything to

thrash her there and then, to stripe her white skin with red wheals and make

her beg for mercy. He knew, though, that he could only go so far – she had

still to put on a show tomorrow, and anyway, she was begging already.

“Sir,” she said, looking up at last. “Your boots are clean.”

He smiled down at her beautiful face. “Good,” he said. “Would you like

to service me in some other way?”

“No sir.”

“A shame; I’m told you’re excellent at it.”

She flushed. “No sir,” she said, as the soldiers laughed.

“Then clean the boots of the centurion.”

She crawled to the centurion, and began to lick his boots. Gallus drew

his cane from his belt; it was almost too tempting, seeing her there, bent over,

her buttocks in the air. He swished the cane twice through the air, watching as

she flinched at the sound. The soldiers surrounded her, laughing and jeering,

taunting this aristocrat reduced to licking the boots of a common soldier.

When she was done, Gallus had them haul her to her feet. They held

her by the arms, pushing her forwards as he walked towards her. He

smashed his fist into her belly, and then, as she slumped, placed his hands on

her ribs, lifting her, running his fingers over her smooth skin. He placed a

finger on her navel, prodding and probing, then dragged his finger down into

the curls of her hair. He felt her stiffen, but then, skimming her flat belly,

moved his hands to her breasts, cupping them as he’d desired to do for years,

admiring their warmth, their softness. He squeezed and kneaded, and then,

realising he was in danger of losing control, slapped her again.

“Slut,” he hissed.

She looked at him, a baleful, reproving look, and to his horror he

realised he felt admonished. He hated her for that, hated her for how she still

somehow held control, wanted to rip her apart. He wanted to thrash her till

she howled. He put his hand to her cheek, enjoying her slight flinch, and

stroked his hand up into her hair. It was still soft and silky, and he grabbed a

hank, and twisting cruelly, pulled her towards him, forcing her down. When

she was kneeling, her face close to his groin, he let go. He could see her

shaking, clearly wondering if he were about to force her to perform fellatio

upon him, but he stepped back.

“Tie your hair up,” he said. “It is important your back is completely bare

for the flogging.” She winced even at the term, but obediently swept her hair

together and tied it in a loose knot, so only the odd tendril hung down to

caress the smooth skin of her neck. She knelt, waiting, her arms again across

her chest.

Gallus pulled on a pair of leather gauntlets and removed the bag from

his belt. He unfastened the drawstring, and, aware that she was staring at

him, slowly, theatrically, withdrew the final implement in her humiliation: a

rough crown fashioned of three intertwined rose briars. He saw her catch her

breath, and stepped forwards. “Your crown,” he said, “Oh great noble one.”

The soldiers laughed as he gently hooked the back of the crown over her

rough pony-tail, trapping the hair, and then pulled it forwards, pushing down

until the thorns pressed into the tender skin of her forehead. He saw the blood

rising, small beads at first, growing and growing. He saw the fury and pain in

her face, and pressed harder, twisting slightly, hearing in her breath her

struggle to remain calm. He slapped her, both sides of her head at the same

time, ramming the thorns deeper, then smacked the heel of his gloved hand

into her forehead and again into the back of her scalp. The blood was running

freely now, slender traces running down her face and dripping onto her naked

chest and shoulders. “Stand,” Gallus ordered, and she did, tears rolling from

her eyes.

“Hail her ladyship,” he said mockingly, and bowed before her. One of

the soldiers thrust a cane into her hands and made her hold it like a sceptre,

and as they prostrated themselves, she was made to parade up and down

between them. Gallus could barely contain himself. This girl who had rejected

him, reduced to this, a naked, bleeding toy for the men. He saw the centurion,

laughing uproariously, whisper to one of the men, who dashed off, and

wondered idly what the order might have been, but then he rejoined the

mockery, kneeling in the sand, and kissing her feet.

“Look kindly upon me, your ladyship,” he said, clutching at her knee as

though in supplication. He looked up at her, seeing from below her nudity, and

realising again just how beautiful she was, even defiled, like this. She was

flushed pink, so degraded she was barely able to raise her head, her eyes

closed, as though she could shut out the shame. Again they made her walk

up and down between them, bowing and jeering, mockingly beseeching

preferment. She seemed even to have trouble putting one foot in front of the

other, so totally had her system closed down.

The guard returned with a bucket, and handed it to the centurion, who

looked across at Gallus. “A queen,” he said, “should be anointed, don’t you

agree?” Gallus, realising suddenly what the bucket was, nodded with a smile.

They forced Katherina to her knees, and the centurion stepped forwards,

holding aloft the bucket. “May the gods bless you,” he said sarcastically, and

then tipped. First urine dribbled over her head, and then, as she realised in

horror what was happening and raised her arms to protect herself, faeces.

Gallus laughed delightedly, seeing her there, kneeling, soaked in smeared

with her own piss and shit, the urine dripping from her hair. He spat upon her

again, and kicked her in the stomach, sending her falling forwards, coughing.

“Take her back to her cell,” he ordered.

The triumvir yawned, drained the last of his wine and picked up the bag that

contained the scourges. He really wasn’t sure about this, but for that much

money, well, he was prepared to be persuaded. And, anyway, this would

satisfy, surely the bloodlust of the mob.

He walked down to the guard-room and summoned the two floggers.

They were both huge men, well over six feet in height, lean and muscular. It

felt almost ridiculous putting these weapons in their hands, for he knew that

they could have destroyed Katherina with a length of string. He gave them

each a scourge, and followed them out into the yard. It was lit now only by

flaming brands, but that was light enough for what he wanted.

In one corner of the yard was a stone pillar, used as a whipping post

for internal discipline – both those guards who had transgressed, and

prisoners who for whatever reason were to be spared the indignity of a public

flogging. The triumvir had had a pillow brought from Katherina’s own quarters,

and had had it fastened to the post at the height of a felon’s back. The

floggers, he was aware, found this testing slightly odd, yet both seemed

fascinated by the new whip, eager to try it out.

They took their positions, one to either side. The triumvir imagined her

there, Katherina’s naked skin exposed rather than simply her linen. “Lay on

one hard each,” he said. The right-handed guard raised the scourge, and

smashed it down. There was a low whistle, then a tremendous whump, and

immediately a small storm of pale feathers sprang up. Down came the whip of

the left-hander, and the pillow slid from its moorings. The triumvir stepped

forward and picked it up. It was shredded, covered in rents and tears where

the weights had done their damage. Six strands, each with six balls – 36

spiked weights crashing into her back, 36 times. He wondered again whether

she would survive to be crucified.

The triumvir dismissed them, rejecting their calls to test the whip on a

human guinea-pig, and went to see Katherina. The thought of her, bound at

the post, he found oddly alluring, and wanted to fix it in his mind.

He was aware of an edginess about the two guards who stood by the

cell door, and he wondered instantly what they had done to her. It was only

natural, he thought, for the guards to have their fun, but he was worried that

they may have weakened her. It was essential that she should endure a while

on the cross.

They shot the bolts back and flung the door open. The triumvir felt his

heart constrict at what he saw. She looked up, exhausted, reproachful, but he

barely looked at her eyes. Pale in the darkness of the cell, she was naked, sat

on a low stool, her wrists bound behind her. He saw the band of rose-thorns

rammed tight on her head, her saw the lines of blood that streaked her face,

dripping onto her shoulders and chest, and he saw the stains of excrement,

the pieces of shit still sitting in her hair, and yet she was still beautiful. The

triumvir walked over, scarcely able to draw his eyes from her breasts. She

was as perfect as he had imagined, her skin reddened and bruised in places,

yet still smooth and flawless, the breasts pert and round. He lifted her chin

with his finger, gazed at her. Her lower lip, he saw, was swollen and bruised.

He let his hands fall to her shoulders, feeling on her skin the stickiness

of the spittle and whatever else they’d tipped over her, noting again the graze

that had so attracted him as he’d stood on the balcony. She didn’t resist,

didn’t move, and he realised just how they’d broken her spirit. He wanted to

take her breasts, but something within him, some sense of propriety stopped

him, and he moved behind her, looking at the long white expanse of her back,

thinking of how it would look torn by those whips. He ran his finger down her

spine. He let his fingers play in the downy hair on her nape, and then, slowly,

consciously, forced himself to leave.

As he passed the guards at the door, he ordered them to clean her up.

Time had ceased to have any meaning for her. She didn’t know how long it

was after the triumvir had left that they came for her again. She knew nothing

but her own shame as they hauled her to her feet, their hands straying to her

most intimate areas.

“Come on, your majesty,” they taunted, slapping her buttocks and

thighs as they dragged her out of the cell.

She felt sickened, exhausted, degraded, her nakedness still shameful.

She heard their jokes, their mockery of her breasts, their glee at the agony

she was about to endure, and for all she tried to shut it out, it hurt. They

hurled her down by the pump in the yard, and she yelped as she skidded on

the rough stone, unable to check her fall with her hands bound behind her.

She felt cold too, in the thin grey light, and then she suffered another

wave of humiliation as she saw them push two of her ladies-in-waiting

towards her. Both had been stripped to their shifts. Somehow that these

women, women who had worked with her, helped her, been her friends,

should see her like this raised her embarrassment to a new pitch.

“Wash her,” one of the guards ordered.

The taller of the two ladies-in-waiting, Melissa, a tall, stately woman

from the north with flowing red hair, reached out, helped her to her feet, and

as she slipped slightly, causing her breasts to bounce, she heard the guffaw

of laughter, and realised just how many guards were standing there. They

were surrounded by maybe two dozen, all jeering as the other lady-in-waiting,

Metella, a slighter blonde figure, worked the pump.

Cold, cold water flowed over her, and for a moment she felt relief as

the patina of blood, shit, sweat and spittle began to flow from her.

“Come on,” shouted a guard. “Scrub her.”

There was more laughter as Melissa took a cloth and began to wipe at

her body, and great hoots and jeers as, inevitably, she came to her breasts,

particularly as her nipples stood hard and erect in the chill. Again and again

they encouraged her to scrub harder, urging Melissa to concentrate on her

breasts and her genitals, relishing their jokes about the lesbian romps they

must have enjoyed. And the water was cold. Cold enough to take her through

pain to numbness, to make her skin feel rubbery as they washed her.

Then, finally, it was over, and her wrists were briefly unfastened as

they returned her shift, her shirt, her bodice and her skirt. Hope flared in her

heart that perhaps the nudity was over, that she would be permitted to die

with some dignity. And then, with deliberate cruelty, they showed her the

whips. She pulled her clothes over her wet body, grateful for their warmth and

the momentary cover they provided, but she knew her suffering overnight was

hardly even a fraction of what lay ahead.

The centurion could sense the excitement about the town that morning as he

hurried to the prison shortly before dawn. He had never known the place so

busy. There were street-traders everywhere, setting up their stalls; there were

young gallants struggling for the best positions; and in the market place a

small stand had been erected by the platform to house the dignitaries. The

inns, he knew, had been full, and there were blankets laid down on street-

corners, as people came from all around to watch the famed Katherina being

put to death. He heard them talking, heard the discussions about how long it

would take her to die, listened to the chatter about the technique of crucifixion,

the rumours that they’d invented a new whip to tear her apart. Some said

they’d strangle her before nailing her up and save her pain, other claimed

she’d received an imperial pardon; they debated whether she’d be stripped,

and there was much salacious talk about what she’d look like naked. Some

even spoke of justice. And the whole way, the centurion knew that he’d seen

her naked. He’d felt her breasts, run his hands between her legs, made her

grovel nude before him. He’d humiliated her, spat on her, watched them put a

crown on her. He thought of the look on her face as they’d tipped the shit over

her. He’d seen everything, and yet he wanted to see her again. Whether she

was guilty or not didn’t bother him; he just wanted to watch her squirm and

scream.

She was clothed again when he next saw her, being dragged from her

cell, her wrists shackled behind her. She looked almost numb, stupid to the

taunts that the guards still rained down upon her. They’d washed her, clearly,

but she still wore the crown, dried blood matting where the thorns dug in. The

centurion walked over to her, and the guards pushed her towards him, holding

her upper arms, forcing her to look at him. He raised his staff, and with

calculated cruelty, tapped her with it on the side of her head, first left, then

right, driving the thorns deeper. As fresh blood began to roll down her face, it

was joined by tears.

She was taken up through the prison, jostled and buffeted, mocked and

fondled, and then led through the judge’s chambers. The sun was just rising

over the temple, beginning to burn through the dawn mists that lent the air a

chilly bite. That, as much as fear, the centurion thought, accounted for her

shivering. Cruelly, he ran his hand over her chest as they led her onto the

balcony – her nipples, as he’d hoped, stood erect beneath the cloth,

something he immediately pointed out. She seemed not to hear the new

barrage of insults, though, as she saw the crowd. It had grown even since the

centurion had arrived, people everywhere, a huge colourful carpet packing the

square and beyond. A look of horror crossed her face, and she tried to back

away, only for the soldiers to hustle her forwards. As the crowd saw her, it

erupted into a furious booing. Cries of ‘murderer’ sprang up, and the centurion

remembered again what she was there for. It seemed so incongruous that this

beautiful frail creature could have committed such crimes.

The triumvir walked forwards, a look of nervousness on his face. The

centurion watched as he raised his hands, and the crowd, recognising his

authority over proceedings they were desperate to begin, fell to a hush.

“Unchain her,” he ordered, and as her wrists were released, she was

pushed forwards to stand alongside him at the front of the balcony. Clearly

shaking, she stood alongside him, clutching her wrists in front of her, rubbing

at the red marks where the irons had chafed.

He turned to the crowd. “Katherina, daughter of Julius of Brindisium,

murderer,” he said, before a roar cut him off. “Arsonist.” Another roar.

“Destroyer of property.” Roar. “Embezzler.” Roar. “Perjurer.” Roar. “And

whore...” A great screech of wolf-whistles. “…will today suffer the full penalty

for her sins.” He paused, and the centurion could see how much he was

loving having them in his power. “She will be flogged, and crucified.” Another

cheer. “But first, she will walk before you, the people she has wronged, will

parade to the marketplace so that she may know your anger and learn the

great wrong she has done. I urge you, though, to throw no rocks, to resist the

temptation to hurt her. She will learn true agony today at the post and on the

cross, and it would be most unfortunate if the law were unable for any reason

to execute full sentence.”

The triumvir looked at her, a grim smile crossing his face. “It has been

decided,” he said, and the crowd fell silent again, “that to emphasise her

submission before the law, she should walk naked to her punishment.” The

crowd exploded, hysterical volleys of taunts and jeers being aimed at her. The

centurion was stunned. He had been unsure even whether they would strip

her fully for her flogging; this was a cruelty he had never dreamed of. A man,

he knew, would have been allowed to retain his dignity, at least to the post.

Occasionally he had seen slave girls taken to be whipped exposed as they

walked through the crowds, but this was something else – to consciously

humiliate her like that.

“Prepare yourself,” the triumvir said, looking at her, but she just stared

at him, open-mouthed, backing away into the press of the soldiers.

There was, she knew, no escape. As the triumvir had begun his speech, she

had half-known what he was about to say, had known that they would take

every opportunity to pile on humiliation and agony, and yet still when he said

it, it had come as a horrific shock. She looked down at the crowds, and the

thousands of people packed into the street, all waiting to revel in her pain.

She wanted to back away, but she could feel the soldiers behind her, and she

knew the only thing she had left was her dignity – what little hadn’t been

shredded by the mockery of the night before.

“Strip,” the triumvir snapped, and with a sense of unreality her hands

went to the laces of her bodice. If she could calmly take off her clothes, part of

her brain reasoned, if she could accept her nakedness, then how could they

degrade her? Her fingers, though, seemed to belong to someone else. They

were stiff and sluggish, and responded reluctantly. How often had she taken

off her bodice? How often had she performed this action? And yet here, it was

as though she were being asked to take apart some particularly elaborate

mechanism

The crowd fell silent, watching expectantly, and slowly the bows came

undone. She loosened the bodice, removed it, and stood holding it, wondering

pathetically what she should do with it. A soldier seized it from her, and hurled

it over the balcony. She watched as it drifted down into the crowd, and saw

people grabbing at it. They were fighting over her clothes, she realised,

clothes she would never need again, and a sense of reality came back to her,

tears bubbling behind her eyes as she tried to unfasten the buttons of her

shirt.

Huw, the tailor’s assistant, couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He stood in

the midst of the crowd transfixed. He lived at the other end of town to the fire

and so wasn’t as angry as some of the men he knew – he had no desire for

vengeance - but this was like a dream for him. He had lusted after her, had

tried to find an excuse to be near when she came to the poorer areas, had

imagined her naked, and now he was about to see her stripped, degraded.

And although he wasn’t a vicious man, didn’t hate the Romans like some, who

didn’t warm to the thought of one of them at last undergoing some of what

they called justice.

On the balcony, a soldier prodded Katherina with the butt of his spear. “Get a

move on, you bitch,” he hissed. “The people want to see you as bare-assed

as you were last night.”

Each button took a great effort of will, each one a new agony, and yet

as she reached the fourth and last one, she wished there had been more. She

closed her eyes and swallowed, and then shrugged it over her head. There

was a huge cheer as she handed it to a soldier, and she told herself that

these people had seen her in her shift just yesterday. Yet somehow, this was

far worse. The soldier scrunched her shirt into a ball then threw it. She

followed its course as it unrolled, and floated, cruciform, down into the mob.

Her hands went to the drawstring of her skirt, and soon that lay at her feet.

“Give me it, then,” the soldier said, slapping her firmly across her

backside, and she was forced to bend and pick it up from the floor, and hand

it to him, so he could launch that too down into the crowd. This, then, was it.

She wanted above all to remain calm, to tell herself that nudity was perfectly

natural, but as she looked down into the sea of expectant faces, she knew it

was not. She would be the only one naked there, pathetically alone - naked,

that is apart from the crown, the pain of which had eased to a dull ache, but

which served to emphasise her vulnerability. She tried even to tell herself that

being naked was nothing to what else awaited her that day, but at that

moment she felt that nothing could be worse than having to strip off her shift.

Even the thought that she had been naked for most of the night could not

ease the sense of horror she felt at exposing herself.

Yet somehow she forced her hands to act. She lifted the hem, pulled it

up and, unlike the night before, in one sharp movement, yanked it over her

head, tearing it as it caught on the thorns of her crown. Suddenly she was

naked, and she heard the roar of the crowd. In an act of defiance, she threw

the shift herself, and as it slithered over the balcony rail, she briefly

considered following it, but then the guards hands were upon her, pulling her

arms back and chaining her hands behind her. Their hands rough upon her,

they pushed her forwards, deliberately shaking her so her breasts wobbled on

her chest, and then, at the triumvir’s command, they led her back, away from

the balcony, and down to begin the march to her death.

In the upper room of the tavern across the square, Lucius drained his glass.

He did not think himself a cruel man, and he had made his suggestion of a

scapegoat for political reasons. Yet watching her strip, seeing her white form

revealed, delicate and helpless among the soldiers, gave him a warm glow.

He would enjoy seeing her whipped, even though he knew she was innocent.

He watched admiringly as her long pale body disappeared into the judge’s

quarters, and ordered another carafe of wine.

The judge felt sick. He looked at the bag of money, then he looked down into

the yard, and he wondered how he could ever live with what he had done. For

that, for a few gold coins, he had sent an innocent girl to be humiliated and

tortured until she was dead. Hearing the crowds, their hysteria as she was

forced to strip before them, he had actually retched. And now, he could see

her, beautiful and naked, pathetically slight as the soldiers buffeted her in the

yard.

They forced her to her knees, and he could imagine the taunts as their

hands went over every inch of her body. One of them approached her with a

length of rope looped into a rough noose. They jerked her head up, and

slotted it over her head, deliberately flicking the crown. Even from his window,

the judge could see fresh rivulets of blood beginning to drip from her scalp,

spotting her ivory shoulders with specks of red. They pulled the noose tight,

and jerked it a couple of times, laughing as she fell forwards, helpless.

Two of them emerged from the prison, carrying between them the

cross-beam. It looked heavy even for them, and the judge wondered how on

earth she could cope. He wanted to look away, but his gaze was held by the

tableau, by her. They walked behind her, one either side, and then lowered

the beam onto her shoulders. Others unfastened her wrists, and pulled her

arms up, fastening leather thongs tightly around her wrists, her elbows and

her shoulders. Through it all, she just knelt, numb, unresisting, like a rag-doll.

And then it was fixed, and the two soldiers released their grip, she

tottered backwards as though the weight were going to make her fall, and it

seemed as though she were offering those perky breasts up to him, but then

she regained her equilibrium, and tipped forwards, taking the weight across

her shoulders as her chest pressed down onto her knees.

A guard yanked the rope, and another kicked at her backside, and she

lurched forwards. For a moment it seemed she had to collapse, but slowly her

legs straightened until she stood, bent almost at 90 degrees under the beam,

her breasts dangling, cruelly exposed. The huge prison gates began to open,

and the guard holding the rope pulled. She staggered forwards, each pace a

clear effort, and they formed into a line: six soldiers first, to break a path

through the crowd, then the guard with the rope, leading her, two soldiers to

either side of her, and behind two more, each armed with a birch cane, which

they swished gleefully through the air, anticipating encouraging her with blows

to her pale pure buttocks. And behind them more soldiers, and her two ladies-

in-waiting, stripped to their shifts, wrists bound and heads bowed. Slowly, the

procession made its way through the gates and out of the judge’s eyeline.

On horseback, Gallus followed at a distance, enjoying the spectacle. Every

step, he could see, was an ordeal. The beam was too heavy for her and she

staggered constantly, urged on by yanks at the rope around her neck, and

the prods of the guards with the canes. The crowds were vast, packing in

around her, held back only by the soldiers, and their taunts were constant. Of

her, he could see merely the back, but he knew she must be in a rictus of

humiliation.

He pushed his horse on through the crowds, and as he got closer to

her, he could hear the jeers. Some remembered why she was there, calling

her a murderess and an arsonist; others were simply caught up in the

bloodlust of the thing. He saw a woman dart forward and spit at her,

screaming incoherently about her three dead children, but then there was

another, older woman who mocked the size of her breasts. Some bowed

before her, taunting her status. “Hail her ladyship,” they said before covering

her in more spittle.

As Gallus drew his horse alongside her, Katherina turned and looked at

him. Her face was a picture of shame, flushed red, tears rolling from her eyes.

She looked in agony, staggering under the weight of the beam, the ropes

digging cruelly into the soft skin of her arms. Her body, the breasts hanging

teasingly as she bent under the weight of the cross, was pink, streaked with

sweat, drips of blood from her forehead and the spittle of the mob. Her dark

eyes looked at him, and he saw the defiance gone. There was no rebuke this

time, merely degradation. The guard leading her jerked on the rope and she

lunged forwards again, her feet peddling desperately as she attempted to stay

on them.

“Hurry along, now,” Gallus said, mockingly. At his command, one of the

soldiers behind her raised his switch and smacked it down sharply into the

soft flesh of her buttocks. She yelped and tottered on, and Gallus saw an

angry welt appear across the white. The guard to the other side copied the

gesture, and she gave a little hop, the bounce of her breasts giving rise to a

new wave of laughter and taunts as a second stripe was added to her

buttocks.

“Enjoy the rest of your journey,” Gallus said, before hastening on to

make sure of his place to watch her flogging.

Katherina stumbled and fell, landing heavily onto her left knee. She tipped

over to her left side, the beam banging into the ground. She half-knelt,

propped up by the wood, too exhausted to move. Her body was soaked,

lathered in a pale pink wash of sweat and blood and spittle. So much spittle.

So much hatred. Her eyes stung, sweat, tears and the constant drips of blood

from her forehead rendering her almost blind. How far had she gone? How far

had she to go? This journey seemed an endless torment, and although she

knew what awaited her at its end, she was desperate for it to be over. She

heard the swish of a switch and felt it bite into her thighs. She lurched forward

with a cry, wondering if she would ever become accustomed to such pain.

She tried to stand, summoning all her strength to avoid another stroke, but

straining for all she was worth she did little more than look up. Another lash

landed, and this time she fell fully forwards, face down into the dirt, the weight

of the beam crushing her into the road. She felt the pain of a hundred tiny

stones jamming into her breasts and her belly, and tried desperately to stand,

but all she succeeded in doing was scraping her already raw knees on the

ground. They struck her again and again, four, five, six more blows stinging

her buttocks as she lay immobile, just her legs kicking pathetically, and she

heard their laughter, the jeers at her helplessness. Could she, perhaps, she

wondered, just die there?

One of the soldiers jerked the cord at her neck and she twitched, her

body dragged an inch or two along the rough ground. ‘Come on you bitch,’ he

said, and jerked again. She whimpered, fury mixing with terror as the crowd

laughed at his jibe and she remembered her humiliation of the night before.

Finally two soldiers lifted her, steadied her, and then she was struck again as

they forced her to continue her agonised way. Every step was a dreadful

effort. The soles of her feet were bloodied and sore, her buttocks rang with

pain, and the worst thing was she knew this was only the beginning.

Huw pressed up close, anxious to get as good a view as possible. The swirl

and press of the crowd was constant and he kept losing sight of the

procession, then suddenly he’d catch a glimpse of pale skin and his heart

would leap. Frustrated, he ran along a side road, then veered back into the

route he knew the procession must take. The crowds were a little thinner here

and he wondered if he’d done the right thing. But then the noise of the mob

rose and he saw a horde of people and the soldiers forcing their way through.

One of the guards shoved him roughly, and he stumbled away, but the mass

of bodies behind him held him upright and suddenly he was there, no more

than three yards from her. He caught a glimpse he’d never forget of white

skin, those delicious breasts hanging from her bent form, and her beautiful

face twisted with discomfort, her brow furrowed, jaw set. There were people

everywhere, insults and jeers. One woman, walking rapidly backwards, yelled

“Whore!” repeatedly in her face, until the swell carried her away. A huge fat

man, after a great hawk from his throat, unleashed the biggest ball of phlegm

Huw had ever seen upon her, and it hung briefly on her bare shoulder before

falling into the dust. Children darted around her, pointing and laughing. As she

passed him, he realised how heavily she was breathing, saw the effort of

carrying the beam. A guard flicked his switch against her streaked buttocks;

Huw heard the impact, heard her shout, saw the criss-cross of stripes and for

a moment he understood a little of her pain and empathised, and then as she

went by, he rushed to the square to find a good place for the flogging.

Every now and again Katherina would slump into a blissful numbness and

amass six, even seven steps without a thought, but then a sharp stone or

another bitter insult would drag her back to the horrifying reality. She fell again

and again, more and more frequently. Her shoulders and back were

screaming from the exertion of carrying the beam, the skin had long ago been

torn from her knees, and her chest was beginning to show scratches and

wheals where she had scraped along the rough ground. She longed for

oblivion, and then, as she fell for perhaps the dozenth time, she suffered a

new and sickening torment.

As she looked up, the sweat pouring from her, panting, from her

position kneeling in the road, she saw Tom, the miller’s son, a boy of around

nine she had taught and helped look after following the death of his mother.

He stood with his father, a coarse, brutish man, his mouth open in glee,

pointing at her. ‘Look at her tits, dad,’ he said. ‘Look at them dance.’ She

closed her eyes, trying to shut them out. Here she was, naked for the sport of

children. ‘It’s what the Roman whore deserves, son,’ his father said. If a family

she had financially supported were here to enjoy her pain, she knew there

was no hope. The switches landed again, one, two across her buttocks, and

with a tremendous effort of will she forced herself to her feet and staggered

on. How far now? She saw through the crowds the clock-tower in the

distance. Another 400 yards maybe. 400 yards before the real torture began.

The triumvir looked towards the commotion at the edge of the square. He saw

the soldiers pushing a path through the crowd, and then saw behind them the

unsteady figure of Katherina. She hobbled forwards, bent almost double

under the beam, three, four wobbling steps, and then paused, exhausted. He

saw a soldier behind raise his switch, and then with awful deliberation, smack

it down onto her buttocks. Even at that distance, he heard her yelp of pain,

heard the laughter of the crowd as she lurched forwards again, stumbling, off-

balance, before finally falling. He saw the mob close in, heard them taunting

her, abusing her, saw the soldiers lash her, three, four times, heard her

groans as they finally lifted her, steadied her and pushed her on again,

repeating the same sad pantomime.

The triumvir looked at the clock. It was almost half-past nine. Her

journey from the prison was little more than a mile, and yet it had taken nearly

an hour and a half. Even those last thirty or forty yards across the packed

square had taken almost ten minutes.

She reached at last the steps leading up onto the stone platform at the

centre of the square. The soldiers half-dragged her up them, and then, when

she reached the top, they pushed her to her knees, removed the cord from

around her neck and unfastened the beam. The triumvir ordered her to stand,

and, unsteadily, she did. Naked before him, before them all, she stood. She

had been naked most of the night, and then for the last two hours, and yet

still, she clasped a slender arm across her breasts, half bending, knees

pressed together and her other hand over her pudenda. How, the triumvir

wondered, could she still feel shame? Her shoulders, her elbows and her

wrists were marked with ugly wheals where the ropes had dug in. Her knees

were raw and bleeding, blood ran from the crown around her forehead, her

breasts and her stomach were scratched and her thighs were streaked with

the marks of the switches, and yet still she was beautiful.

The triumvir walked up to her cowering figure and slapped her arms

down. Reluctantly, she allowed them to fall, and her full nudity was exposed

again. She was wet, soaked with sweat, her skin flushed, her hair poking

limply between the strands of the crown. Her legs were marked with dust,

while small pieces of gravel stuck to her damp skin where she’d fallen. Her

breast heaved as she drank in air.

“Water,” he called, and a bucket was flung over her. Her hands

instinctively rose to protect herself, and she gasped at the sudden shock, but

her arms dropped immediately, and she was doused again, washing off the

worst of the dirt. She shuddered, though whether from cold or horror he

couldn’t tell.

“Put her on the post,” the triumvir ordered. The soldiers grabbed her

arms, yanking her forwards so she stumbled, her breasts leaping on her

chest. The skin of the top of her back, the triumvir saw as they hauled her

past him, had been rubbed through by the crossbeam, while her buttocks, so

smooth as they had stripped her on the balcony, were now a mass of purple

stripes, showing the odd bubble of blood where the switches had bitten

through the skin.

They pushed her wrists down onto the iron rings on top of the stone

post, which stood towards one edge of the platform, about four feet high and

eighteen inches in diameter. They snapped the manacles over, but it was

immediately apparent that her wrists were too thin to be restrained by them,

that if she jerked back, she could pull herself free. The guards discussed the

issue briefly, and then fastened the handcuffs on her again, so that, although

her arms were loose in the manacles, she could not move from the post.

Lucius stifled a belch. He had one of the best seats there and he could admire

her nakedness at his leisure. He had known her since she had been a small

child, had seen her grow her into the gorgeous young woman she was now.

He had, if he was being honest, thought about her when he’d been in bed with

his wife, Portia, imagined her taut slender waist between his arms, and here

she was, naked and willowy, as pure as he’d imagined. Even shamed as she

was, she was graceful, superior somehow. He squeezed the hand of his

daughter, Diana, who sat between him and his wife, and tried to tear his eyes

away from Katherina’s slim body.

The triumvir walked over to her. There had been a low hubbub about the

crowd as they watched the preparations, but now they fell silent. Katherina

was hunched, shivering, bent over the post, pushing her beasts down into her

arms in her modesty, her pale back arched in the sunlight. Her eyes were tight

shut, but had she opened them, she would have been looking directly at the

low wooden stand on which the local dignitaries sat, no more than five yards

from her. A space had been left for her father, but apart from that it was full –

men and women in their finery, there to watch her agony. The triumvir saw

Gallus point at her, a gesture with his hands as he laughed with a friend

clearly showing he was making a joke about her breasts, and understood just

how humiliating this must be for her, even before the pain.

The triumvir placed a hand on her clammy back, realising he would be

the last man to feel that silky smoothness, that in a matter of seconds it would

be ripped apart. She flinched at his touch. “The sentence,” the triumvir

announced, “is thirty-six lashes.” He realised she was praying to herself,

muttering softly. He checked her bonds, taking the opportunity to caress her

breasts once again as he did so, and then adjusted her crown fractionally,

drawing a low whimper.

He stepped back. “Proceed,” he said, and the two soldiers charged

with flogging her stepped forwards. Katherina turned sharply as she heard the

lead balls in the scourges chink together. The triumvir saw a spasm pass

through her, heard a low moan of terror. Then he heard a hissing sound and,

after a moment of confusion, realised she was pissing herself. It took the

crowd a couple of seconds to realise what was going on, but when they did,

the abuse and the laughter began anew. The triumvir held up a hand, and the

soldiers paused. She shook, pressing her knees together as though that

would somehow hide her disgrace, but the urine still came splashing out,

soaking the post, darkening the stone platform around. The triumvir wondered

if there could be any greater humiliation than this, to be stripped naked,

paraded around the town, and then reduced to a state of such fear that you

lost control of your bladder. There was no call for mercy from the crowd,

though; if anything her helplessness just raised them to greater savagery.

From the middle of the crowd it hadn’t immediately clear to Huw what was

going on, but then he heard the shouts. “She’s pissed herself!” “Mi’lady’s

pissing!” From his position all he could make out was the pale hunched form

bent over the post and he wished he could get closer to see her just one more

time before the lashes ripped her apart. It was impossible, though; the crowd

was too thick, and everybody had the same idea as him. “Make her lick it up!”

someone shouted, and there was a burst of laughter and shouts of

encouragement.

The triumvir waited until she had finished, waited until the crowd had again

fallen quiet, waited even for her to glance back over her shoulder at him, as

though wondering what was keeping him. Then he brought down his hand.

“Thirty-six lashes,” he said. “Proceed.”

The square was silent, the thousands of people packed in there all focused on

her. The sense of anticipation was almost tangible. Gallus could feel a tight

band across his chest; this was what he’d waited for. Lucius’s tongue flicked

across his lips in anticipation. Huw strained for a better view. Diana glanced at

her mother, saw her fixed stare and tried to adjust her expression accordingly.

The right-hander raised his whip, drawing oohs and ahhs from the crowd. He

laid it across Katherina’s back, its touch causing another tremor to pass

through her. The triumvir was struck suddenly by how small she seemed, how

tiny was the target area. The bicep of one the soldiers, he thought, must

almost have been almost as thick as her waist. The soldier stepped back. One

pace, two paces, three paces. Then he lunged forwards, the whip whooshed

through the air, and struck her back with a mighty crash. In the silence of the

square, it seemed unfeasibly loud, but after the initial impact, the triumvir also

heard the tearing sound as the sharpened points tore into her flesh. Her head

flew back. On her skin, instantly, a flash of deep brown sprang up, stretching

in a band about three inches thick from the tip of her right shoulder on a

shallow diagonal across her back to a point just below her left armpit. Within

it, immediately, there were spots and specks of blood. She remained silent,

still for a moment, holding a pose as though she were howling at the moon,

and then she slumped back onto the post, hunched again, protecting her

breasts. “One,” called the triumvir, seeing the blood begin to rise in the rents

in her skin as he walked to take a side-on view.

The left-hander marked his run, and crashed the second lash a little

lower. Again her head leapt back, her breasts popping from between her arms

to quiver provocatively, and the triumvir saw her face, suffused, it seemed, in

disbelief, her mouth opening and closing silently as she gulped air. “Two,” he

called, deliberately slowing the process, drawing it out so that she should feel

the whole agony of each lash, should anticipate and dread the next one. This

wasn’t about destroying her; it was about making her feel the pain, making the

crowds appreciate how absolutely the horror of the fire was being paid for.

The triumvir continued his walk so he had a view from about 45

degrees – he couldn’t, of course, obstruct the view of the dignitaries. She was

shaking, he saw, her eyes closed and her lips fluttering. The wait went on,

but, just as she opened her eyes, the third lash landed, low on her back, the

lead balls clawing round her waist. Her knees half-buckled as her torso was

flung back, and she staggered slightly to her left under the force of the blow.

As she regained her balance, lurching to hang to the top of the post, her

whole body heaved, and she retched noisily. “Three,” said the triumvir.

The left-hander waited until the spasms had passed, and then

delivered the fourth lash, hitting the space between the second and third. The

boom as the lead struck her ribs was tremendous, and for the first time there

was a scream. First there was an agonised gasp, drawn deep from within her

and then, as the pain welled through her and she understood how tiny a

fraction of her sentence she had taken, came roars of terror.

On the dais, Gallus could hardly contain himself. She seemed to stare

straight at him, eyes bulging, trickles of blood running from her forehead still,

the muscles in her neck taut as she howled. The fifth lash struck low,

smacking her already bruised backside, and she leapt, both feet lifting off the

ground. Gallus saw her pert breasts jump between her arms, saw them quiver

and fall still as she fell over the post, retching as the sixth too smacked into

her buttocks. Great heaves convulsed her body.

The seventh lash was delivered almost downward, so hunched was

she, thudding horribly into her back, producing a clear tearing noise as the

soldier dragged it over her. Her mouth opened, her eyes staring emptily, and

she began retching again, spitting as a little fluid gathered in her mouth, but

still she clung on. It was the eighth that knocked her from her feet, striking low

on her waist, wrapping its teeth around into her stomach. She slumped to her

knees, arms stretched out, head resting against the stone, pushing the thorns

of the crown deeper into her brow, and then fell onto her right side.

Diana felt ill. She hadn’t particularly liked Katherina, had considered her a little

earnest, too wrapped up in her good works to be any fun. She had been, if

she was honest, a little jealous of her beauty, and part of her had been

amused to see her humiliated. Being paraded naked through the streets

would stop her being so condescending in the future. But now the reality of

what was happening had dawned on her. Katherina wouldn’t be

condescending in the future because she’d be dead. And not just dead, but

dead by the most hideous means imaginable. She looked at her as she lay,

stretched out on the stone, her left side utterly unprotected, that breast

shockingly exposed, blood seeping from her back. Somebody should stop

this; it wasn’t right. Whatever Katherina had done – and Diana couldn’t

believe the charges against her – nobody deserved this savagery.

The triumvir allowed two more lashes to smash into her left flank before he

intervened. He walked over to her, looked down at her pathetic panting figure.

Her head was resting now on her right arm, driving the thorns onto the soft

bicep. Her breaths came in deep, agonised gulps, and in her eyes was simply

terror. “Please,” she sobbed. “stop this.”

“Get up,” the triumvir said mercilessly, looking at how the scourges had

scored grooves into her flesh. When she didn’t move, he kicked the back of

her thigh. She twitched and then, visibly gritting her teeth, rolled back onto her

knees. Slowly, uncertainly, forcing herself through the pain, she stood and,

her hands shaking violently, grasped the chains that held them, bowing again

over the post. “Continue,” he said, aware how silent the square remained. “No

mercy.”

There were roars and cheers at his words, and calls for the floggers to

thrash her harder, but the triumvir knew they were pitiless. He knew she was

broken, knew just how agonising this was. The eleventh lash was high again,

ripping across the already raw skin of her shoulders. Her howl was horrific,

dragged from deep inside her as the teeth of the whips curled over her

shoulder, biting into the hollow above her collar bone. Somehow she stayed

on her feet, but the twelfth, delivered low to her thighs, had her collapse

again, kneeling, hanging on to the post as another spasm of retching past

over her.

Mistress Carney could bear it no more. She pushed her way through the

crowd, making for the edge of the square, nauseated by their roars and by the

screams that rose above them. Katherina had been with her that night; she

wasn’t guilty. She might be a Roman, but she was a good-hearted woman,

the last person who deserved this. She knew her late husband would have

had no sympathy. He hated the Romans with a vengeance and would have

revelled in seeing one so tortured, but she could stand it no longer. She

wondered if she could withdraw her testimony, say she’d made a mistake, but

she felt the passion of the crowd and knew that nothing could save Katherina.

And she - she – had made this happen. As the full horror of her guilt dawned

on her, she began to weep.

The right-hander struck low again, ripping the whip across the top of

Katherina’s buttocks, scoring deep lines into the flesh. She slumped, head

pushing now against the stone, driving the thorns deeper into her scalp. The

fourteenth was aimed to almost the same spot, targeting the soft flesh. Her

howls were hoarse now, her throat dry from her screams.

Gallus was enjoying this more than he had imagined possible. He

would have liked her stood so he could see those breasts bouncing as the

lashes landed, but this was a more than adequate alternative, seeing her

curled now into a ball, cringing and bawling. He watched as the right hander

raised the scourge again, and smashed it down – the arc almost entirely

vertical now as she slumped. This one was cruelly oblique to her back, flicking

over the already open wounds before smacking into her thighs. Her head flew

back again, and a high-pitched scream rang out, slowly subsiding to her

constant raw sobs. As the left-hander raised his whip, she looked back at him,

slithering in her own blood as she tried to avoid the lash. It caught her left hip

with a loud boom of lead on bone and ripped down across the side of her

buttocks. “Sixteen,” the triumvir called.

She twisted again, heedless as the thorns from her crown scratched

her arms, and had managed to assume a kneeling position when the

seventeenth cut into the centre of her back. A fine spray of blood flew up and

Katherina slumped, torso pressed to thighs, arms stretched above her. The

eighteenth was high, one of the lashes clipping the top of her shoulder and

biting into the side of her neck. The scream was more of a gargle, and she fell

again, exhausted.

The triumvir raised a hand to stop the flogging. Halfway there. The

floggers stood, catching their breath, squeezing the odd drop of blood from

the leather thongs. The triumvir walked over to her, and signalled for the

guards to lift her. She was twitching and didn’t resist as the soldiers dragged

her up by her arms. Her feet struggled to find purchase on the blood-soaked

stone, but eventually she was propped again over the post in something

approaching a standing position.

He seized a handful, of her hair, drenched now with sweat where it

bunched below the crown, and twisted her so she faced him. Her breath

quavered, shock and pain apparently making even the most basic human

activity an almighty task. Sweat, tears, blood and mucus coated her faced,

hung in skeins from her nose and mouth, and yet in her dark eyes he saw not

merely terror, but a glimmer of resistance. He nodded at a soldier, who

brought over a pail of water, and tipped it over her. She flinched, gasping in

fresh pain as her senses were reawakened and the water played over her raw

flesh. Another pail was brought, and thrown over her back. This time she let

out a checked scream, and as the blood was momentarily washed the triumvir

saw the deep scratches and grooves the scourges had left across her skin.

He walked back away from her, then called out, “Proceed.”

The right-hander, spreading out the lash, unpicked from it small

morsels of her flesh, and with the same merciless power delivered the blow to

the bloodied mess of her back. There was a spray of blood, and those in the

crowd nearest the front darted back, oohing as her blood spashed towards

them. She stood for a moment, head back, teeth clenched, eyes wide, and

then, with a piercing shriek, slipped again to her knees. The triumvir watched

her breathing, the deep unsteady breaths, realised the immaculate cruelty of

the left-hander, as he waited, letting her anticipate the lash. Her head raised

fractionally, and she glanced to her right. She saw the lash coming, but her

flinch was too late as the teeth ripped diagonally down her back. She slumped

further, retching violently. “Twenty,” he called.

Huw was torn. Part of him felt sorry for her, wanted to protect her. He’d never

seen a whipping so severe, such brutality used on one so delicate. She was a

fine lady, and even dragging her through the streets seemed impossibly

harsh. He’d never seen a whip with teeth, not even used on rapists or

murderers, and even the cat was rarely used on women. But then he

remembered she was a murderer, that she’d done terrible things and tricked

them all, that impossibly harsh as this seemed, it was what she deserved. And

besides, he was enjoying it.

Katherina squatted on her knees, back arched, arms stretched up, the

muscles tensed with the strain. The twenty-first lash came almost vertically

downward, smashing into her with a fearful whump, her torso, pressed

already against her thighs, trapped into receiving the full force of the blow. A

shower of blood leapt up, and the whip for a moment stayed still, seemingly

having to be yanked out of her body. Again there was the pause, as she

shivered, helpless. Number twenty-two was aimed high, dragged across the

tops of her shoulders to tear long grooves across the pale flesh. As the

flogger withdrew the scourge, blood dripped from the thongs.

Portia felt no sympathy. She knew her husband desired Katherina, had seen it

in his eyes, in the way he would stare after her when she left a room. He tried

to hide it, but she was no fool. She doubted he’d ever acted on his feelings –

he was too insecure for that – and until two days ago she’d have doubted

Katherina would ever have said yes. But the revelations confirmed what she’d

suspected; there was something bad about that girl, with her apple cheeks

and her flawless skin, and she deserved her comeuppance. Even now her

husband seem captivated by her, staring silently at her naked body as the

whips destroyed it. Well, let him watch: this was what the whore deserved, to

suffer in front of the lustful eyes of the whole town. And at least her husband

was silent, unlike that oaf Gallus who was making a spectacle of himself with

his lewd jokes. She wasn’t impressed either by those young friends of Diana,

the two sisters, Claudia and Julia, and their boyfriends sitting on the edge of

the dais giggling away as though this were some kind of game.

Katherina’s breath came in sobbing moans, her body seemingly no longer

even trying to avoid the lash but simply intent on absorbing the punishment as

best it could. The right hander let his next blow arch over, booming against

her flank, as the tips cut into her thigh. The left-hander copied his style,

reaching out for new flesh to torment. “Twenty-four,” the triumvir called, his

voice almost drowned out as a fresh scream was unleashed. The whips were

so soaked in her blood that each lash sent droplets splashing towards the

crowd, who made a game of dodging them like children hopping waves at the

seaside.

“St-st-stopplleaas-” the triumvir heard her whisper as the right-hander

cut low, sweeping up to smack into her already ravaged buttocks, the knots

and barbs seeming to reach into her crack. Again the left-hander followed,

succeeding in his aim of shifting her, almost lifting her off the ground with the

force of the blow, and tearing more skin from her biceps as her crowned head

jumped up above the level of her arms. “Twenty-six.”

“Harder,” screeched Claudia, who would have loved to have been among the

plebs, dodging Katherina’s blood. “Whip her harder!” Secundus, her boyfriend,

at sixteen a year older than her, gripped her hand tighter. She was intoxicated

by this, desperate for reasons she didn’t understand to see that stuck-up bitch

suffer. Part of her knew that the pain Katherina was in was intolerable, but by

far the larger part of her went with the crowd – and besides, that left-handed

flogger with the beard, well, she would. She didn’t much care where Katherina

had started the fire or how many locals had been killed; she was just enjoying

the sight of a helpless victim being raised to greater and greater pitches of

agony. It was a little like when she and Secundus had caught that rabbit in a

trap a couple of months ago. She’d known it was wrong to poke that needle

into it, and yet something had driven her to do it. Now she wondered what she

could to add to Katherina’s torment.

Katherina’s fingers clung to the chains that held her wrists to the post, and

she pulled her legs in over the bloody stone, trying to protect her buttocks.

Down came the twenty-seventh lash, streaking from just under her right

armpit down on a shallow diagonal. A great flash of blood flew up, and her

scream was perhaps the loudest yet, and went on and on as thought it would

never stop, even after the triumvir had called a halt.

Three-quarters of the way there, Gallus realised, wondering why the triumvir

had stopped it then. He watched as the physician was called forward and

waved smelling salts under her nose, saw the pain well in her anew. She was

lifted, limp now, and draped over the post. Part of him couldn’t believe the

triumvir would allow the flogging to continue, and yet he saw him give the nod,

saw the left hander take three paces forward and swing the scourge down

again across the middle of her back. Gallus heard the flesh tear, thought he

even heard the noise of lead on bone, saw the spray of blood and heard her

howl again.

She stayed, somehow, loosely held against the post, as the right-

hander swung again. He hit low, so Gallus couldn’t see the impact, but he

heard her shriek, saw her body lifted, saw again those pale soft breasts he

had caressed the night before. She fell, holding desperately to the chains, her

screams long and loud and barely human any longer. Her face was taut with

pain. “Twenty-eight.”

The pain was beyond anything she could have imagined, and as she’d

sat in her cell that morning, she had imagined something terrible. She had

thought the pain would stop getting worse, that her body would shut down and

leave a numbness, but each new lash added fresh agony. It was coming from

the left this time and, clinging to the chains, her nails digging into her palms,

she glanced over her shoulder. She saw him, that huge, merciless man, a

half-smile on his face, her blood spattered across his brow, step forward, and

with a full swing of his arm, hurl the scourge down with all his might. She

flinched, turning her eyes away, and the blow struck just above her right hip,

in the fleshy part beneath her ribs. The teeth reached round, ripping at her

skin, and as the lash withdrew, she felt the barbs bite, felt herself lifted and

turned a fraction. She had jumped again she knew, for she felt the judder in

her knee as she landed, and across her lower back a new fire of anguish. She

realised too that she was howling hoarsely, still holding the chains, as though

they could provide any relief.

Slowly, she took control of her breathing again. Her heart was

pounding, she was racked by involuntary shakes, and she felt violently

nauseous, but once the scream had subsided, she was able to return to soft

whimpering. “Twenty-nine,” came the call, and she sunk back again, pressing

herself down and into the post, ridiculously hiding her breasts, trying to make

herself small for the seven lashes that remained. From her right, this time,

stretched high over her already ravaged shoulders, booming off the shoulder

blade, and spinning her so she was almost on her back. In the explosion of

anguish she scrabbled in her own blood, trying to turn onto her knees again.

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 triumvir 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 triumvir 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 triumvir 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 Katherina, each filled with brine. The

centurion dipped in his hand, then flicked the liquid at her back. Only a few

drops landed, 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.

Katherina 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 dribble from

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 quarters. 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 triumvir

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 triumvir stepped in, and ordered

Katherina’s ladies-in-waiting to help her.

Gallus rode a little behind the procession. Katherina 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 Katherina’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, with deep red slashes 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 Katherina

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

Katherina. 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 Katherina’s and spat. Julia, just behind her, had gathered a

handful of gravel, and threw it in Katherina’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. Then 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 Katherina’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 Katherina 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 triumvir, 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.

Katherina 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, Katherina

was left, kneeling, uncertainly drawing her stiff arms across her chest. The

triumvir 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 triumvir 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

triumvir 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 triumvir 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 triumvir 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 triumvir 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 triumvir couldn’t help but be 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 Katherina bucked, her pelvis

thrusting up. This, the triumvir 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-pitched 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 hammer 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 had 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;

Katherina, 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 spend 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

oozing from around the nail head Her knees were skinless and her ribs and

breasts bore the odd 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. Katherina

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 gentlybentCaius 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 nail was hammered in, passing between the

big and second toe. They hauled up her left foot alongside her right and,

seemingly anxious to get on with the actually crucifixion, hammered in the

final nail.These, the centurion knew, were the hardest nails 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, her breast and belly were streaked with welts and

there was blood 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 triumvir 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 then

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 held up by just the 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 triumvir

wondered if she still felt shame at her nakedness, spread out as she was

visible to the thousands who had come to see her die. The cross was taller

than any he’d seen before, her feet perhaps six or seven feet from the ground;

the triumvir, clearly, was determined that her agony would be visible to as

many as possible.

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 60 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 as her arms bore her weight. After a few minutes, as the

pain became too much, she hauled herself up, arms and thighs taut with the

effort till she could rest on the perch, her legs splaying with the effort,

exposing her most intimate areas to the mob. The nail head digging into to her

anus must be agony, the centurion knew, yet he suspected she barely felt it

beside the other torments: the nails that took her weight and the agony of

dragging her scourged back over the rough wood of the stipes. She

maintained that position for a few minutes, then slumped again so she hung,

her buttocks only a few inches above her feet.

Finally, the soldiers completed their work, and backed away to take

bets on how long she would survive. The triumvir 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 triumvir 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 Katherina’s 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. “Katherina,” Portia shouted. “Katherina.” 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 still barely take his eyes from her.

Even when they’d auctioned off those two ladies-in-waiting, he’d watched her,

seen 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 that wondered if he

could pay the triumvir 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 knotted 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.

“Katherina,” 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 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,” Segundus 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 Katherina

was, and she worried Segundus might become dissatisfied with her.

“Katherina,” she shouted. “Katherina.” Katherina’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 an hour 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. He had watched her

fall still a couple of times already, and wondered if that was it, only for her to

recover, having apparently only fainted. 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

drunks 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 eight hours on the cross having finally sapped

her strength. There were still, the triumvir 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 triumvir 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. The cycle kept going: hanging, dragging herself up, slipping,

occasionally sluming for a few minutes, and then the process repeated again.

It was getting slower now, though, as exhaustion took over.

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 triumvir 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 triumvir 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.