But this was something else. Catherine was beautiful and rich and a noble. She was fearsomely intelligent and carried herself with grace and class. She was also a Christian. Nobody quite knew the details, but it was said that she’d refused to marry the emperor because she considered herself already married to her god. Frankly, Lucius wasn’t bothered by the details. All he knew was that two days ago she’d been arrested and ordered to give up her faith. When she’d refused the emperor had had her spend a night in the cells.
They’d all clustered around, staring through the grating in the door, unable to believe that this woman had been delivered to them. He remembered the first time he’d laid eyes on her, around three months earlier. He’d been providing security at a banquet at which she’d been one of the guests. He’d heard rumours of her beauty, of course - she’d been the talk of the guardroom for the week or so since she’d arrived from across the Mediterranean - but seeing her had been something else.
He remembered the sight as she’d stepped down from her carriage, the image of simple elegance. He’d actually felt a pain in his chest, had been unable to stop staring as she’d glided up the moonlit path, tall, serene, her glossy hair the purest black. As she’d gone past him he’d caught her scent – sandalwood perhaps, although he was no expert – and it had made such an impression that every time he caught a whiff of something similar he was transported back to that moment. She’d turned slightly towards him as she’d passed, and he’d gawped at her perfect: the quizzically arched eyebrows, the dark, inquisitive eyes, the full, suggestive lips.
But of course the best thing about her was her figure. That night she’d worn a simple dress of pale blue with golden rings holding front to back and allowing a glimpse of her smooth shoulders. The waist was pinched in, giving evidence of her slenderness which highlighting the round swell of the most magnificent breasts he’d ever contemplated. Every now and again the cloth of her dress was stretched tight against them, given an enticing suggestion of their fullness.
Everybody had fantasised about her, had thought of taking her in their arms, of feeling those astonishing breasts, and now here she was in the jail. They didn’t dare act on those desires, of course, just stared at her as she knelt and prayed. The next day, she’d defied the emperor again and he’d given her another night in the cells, warning her that if she still refused to recant her faith, he’d have her flogged. Nobody had quite believed that would happen, but then the order had come: ten strokes of the cane.
The yard had never been so full. At one end stood the thick column, 12 feet high, that was used as whipping post. About 20 feet from that was a table behind which sat the centurion and his two assistants, and lined up to from a rectangle on either side the soldiers were rammed in, lined up 12 deep. They were packed too behind the centurion, all desperate to see the most beautiful woman any of them had ever seen flogged.
She stood before the centurion now, looking at him calmly as he detailed her punishment. Lucius couldn’t believe her composure: faced with a beating he’d seen the hardest men break down. But she was serene, even though everybody there was waiting for one thing – to see her stripped. The atmosphere was extraordinary: usually the soldiers would be taunting their victim, but here they seemed almost deferent, cowed by her beauty and her status.
The order came at last. “Strip her.”
The lictors stepped forward. Lucius felt a tightness in his chest. Catherine lifted her head, staring at a point in the middle distance. Lucius followed her gaze and saw, standing on a balcony with his arms folded, the emperor himself.
Her outer robes fell away, leaving her in a fine white shift. Lucius couldn’t take his eyes from her chest – the swell of the cloth hinting at the splendour that lay beneath. The lictors pulled at her shift. She bent forward, unresisting, her arms loose as they lifted it over her head. And suddenly, there she was, naked but for a narrow loin cloth. She didn’t attempt to cover herself, but stood, calmly, as though her nudity was a matter of no consequence.
But for everybody else there, it was of great consequence. She had the purest olive skin and her breasts, only a fraction paler, were everything Lucius had dreamed they would be. He guessed she was in her early thirties, but there was no sign of sag. They sat there, pert and round and magnificent, the dark nipples semi-erect in the sunlight.
The lictors, Marcus and Gellus, led her across the hard-packed earth to the post. There was silence in the yard, everybody apparently awestruck by the vision before them. Lucius wished he could have seen her from the front, watched as her breasts wobbled on her chest, but he had to content himself with a back view, watching the sway of her hips, absorbing the purity of her skin, its golden smoothness emphasised by the pale strip of cloth that gave just the slightest glimpse of the bottom of her buttocks.
Usually victims would be slammed into the post to stun them while they were bound, but the soldiers merely walked her to the post. Everything seemed to be happening more slowly than usual, as if nobody could quite come to terms with the reality of what was happening. Lucius watched as Marcus and Gellus fastened her wrists in thick cuffs. She didn’t resist, merely standing, looking at her arms as they pulled the leather taut and fastened the buckles. He’d never seen anybody so calm as they awaited a flogging, but she seemed to have neither fear nor anger, simply to be accepting what they were doing to her.
They tightened the chain behind the post, pulling her arms up and out until she stood on the balls of her feet, stretched out, embracing the stone. Lucius would have loved to have been that post, to feel her nakedness pushed against him. From where he was standing he could just see a part of her left breast squashed out to the side of her ribs. As Marcus and Gellus selected their canes from the section on the table to the right of the post, another soldier, the tall and notoriously lecherous Ligarius, swept up her black hair and pushed it over her left shoulder, baring her neck and the top vertebrae. On another day he may have taken the opportunity to let his hands wander over her breasts, but today everything was being done absolutely by the book.
There was a moment of stillness, as the two lictors took up their positions on either side of her. Lucius felt he was living a dream. He drank in her perfect bare back, smooth and tanned in the early morning sun. He admired the pert buttocks, their shape merely enhanced by the white loin cloth, and the sumptuous lean legs. And what he lapped up most of all was the fact she was bound, stretched taut across the pillar, a lictor at either side of her each bearing a long, pale cane.
Usually, they’d have flexed the canes and, whipped them through the air to terrify their victim, but not here. Her power, her ability to restrict them to what was judicially permissible, was extraordinary. Lucius wondered if they’d go easy on her- dangerous surely with the emperor watching - but that idea was soon dispelled.
“Ten lashes,” said the centurion. “Proceed.”
She straightened, readying herself. Marcus, the right-hander, touched her across the points of her shoulder-blades and stepped back. Four paces, five. He was a powerful man and he put his body into the lash, hitting her with the full might of his powerful right arm. There was a whoop as the cane slashed through the air and a sickening dull whump as it smashed into her back. Her head flicked up and a shudder seemed to pass through her, but the only sound she gave was a slight gasp as the air was knocked from her lungs. Lucius could see the look of puzzlement on Marcus’s face, and he understood why.
The canes were about five feet long, the thickness of a man’s forefinger and so whippy they gave the impression of curving in the air. They were dreadful implements, designed to cause real pain. Even soldiers rarely remained silent when beaten with them; for a woman to do so was all but unprecedented. Lucius thought for a moment that Marcus might somehow have pulled the lash, or mistimed it, but the deep purple welt that streaked from her right armpit on a shallow diagonal down across her back showed how hard he had hit her.
“One,” called the centurion.
Gellus waited. Especially when the flogging was brief, they were encouraged to deliver the lashes slowly, at about one every twenty seconds, to make the victim wait between blows, to anticipate the lash. Usually between first and second lashes, the victim would be squirming, looking around to plead for mercy, but Catherine remained perfectly still, staring straight ahead.
Gellus was smaller than Marcus, wiry with close cropped brown hair. Where Marcus’s power came from his shoulder, his strength was in his wrist. His run-up was slower, shorter, but the cane swooshed through the air just as quickly. He lashed low, four or five inches above the line of her loin cloth. She gave a grunt, her head twitched and the muscles of her back flinched, but still, somehow, she remained calm.
“Two.”
Marcus swept in. The whump reverberated around the yard. Her head flew back, her hair flying, and she gave a stifled scream. She clenched her fists, but soon regained her composure.
“Three.”
Gellus followed up an inch lower, across the middle of her back. This time her whole body seemed to flinch, and she was clearly breathing rapidly, but somehow she remained silent.
“Four.”
Lucius was amazed by her fortitude. Marcus looked puzzled. He tore in, striking hard on a diagonal from her right shoulder down, giving a little leap as he smashed the cane onto her skin. It cut across his first lash and the third and fourth, blood breaking out at the intersections. It was a savage blow, delivered with such venom that Marcus’s right foot leapt up as he delivered it, and yet, after the initial shudder, and a raw exhalation, she took it with equanimity.
Gellus followed it up with a similar blow down from her left shoulder. She shook clearly, her fingers splayed and tense, but she didn’t scream. Lucius looked up at the emperor. He looked grim, staring down stony-faced. He couldn’t blame the lictors, though; they were laying on the stripes as hard as was possible. A glance at her back was enough to reveal that.
The seventh was a little below the middle of her back, the eighth a whippy strike deliberate flicking across the skin, splitting the skin on the left side of the centre of her back, leaving a wheal perhaps four inches long and an inch and a half wide. Her body bucked, her hair now arrayed across her upper back, but again there was barely a grunt.
Marcus struck high, generating seemingly even more force for his final strike.
“Nine. “
Her left leg kicked up, and her back clearly spasmed, but then she settled again, touching her forehead to the stone and preparing herself for the final lash. It was another diagonal blow, and a couple more spots of blood appeared where the purple welts crossed each other.
“Ten,” the centurion called, and Lucius could help but be impressed by her strength. Was this was her religion gave her? The only prisoners he could remember not screaming after ten strokes had been unconscious.
The centurion nodded to Marcus and Gellus, who lay their canes back on the table before returning to their victim. She shivered slightly as they lowered her arms but then resumed her impassive stillness as they unfastened her wrists. The silence was unnerving. She should have been howling, the soldiers mocking, but instead she seemed almost indifferent while her tormentors were cowed by her aura of calm. Lucius looked up at the emperor, but he was gone. He looked back at Catherine, admiring again her body as she was led to the centurion, watching the roll of her breasts, and wondering what the emperor would do next. She seemed stiff, moving awkwardly as she pulled her shift back over her head, the movement clearly hurting her tortured back. Lucius didn’t much care; he just drank in the final sight of her breasts, flattened slightly as she stretched up to let the linen fall over her skin.
*
The great hall of the academy was packed, as was the courtyard and the streets beyond that. Everybody wanted to see this and there was a hum of anticipation. Lucius was desperate to see it as well, but he was also wary of the crowd, surprised the emperor had ordered this great debate. From his position to the left side of the hall, he surveyed the audience, glad he was inside, where there was some shade and some sense of order, rather than trying to hold back the mob outside. On the stage, the 50 theologians and philosophers the emperor had gathered murmured among themselves, reserved, quite men for the most part. They, too, Lucius knew, must be tense.
From the back of the stage, Catherine walked in, four soldiers behind her. Since her flogging she’d spent a week in her cell, praying for the most part, barely seeming to sleep, yet she was still radiantly beautiful, her dark hair swept back from her smooth forehead and falling in gentle curls onto her shoulders. She was dressed in the white tunic and red cloak she’d been wearing before they’d caned her and it showed the dirt of the prison, and yet she still walked like a queen, still projected an aura of grace and authority. The emperor had decided that if he couldn’t beat her Christianity out of her, he would convince her of her error, or at least convince the public of her error, by putting her up against 50 of the finest minds in the country. Given how calm she looked, Lucius wasn’t sure it was a particularly good plan.
The head of the university, acting as the chair and sitting on a dais in the centre of the stage, called the hall to silence then invited Catherine to explain the central tenets of her faith. The philosophers sat to the left of the stage, the emperor and his entourage on a dais behind them as Catherine and her guards stood to the right. Lucius couldn’t take it all in, if he were honest - it all seemed a bit unlikely and a bit complicated – so he contented himself with gazing at her as she strode back and forth, commanding the audience. She had an astonishing natural authority that went beyond her beauty, but mostly he was just staring at her lovely face and the proud swell of her chest.
The philosophers were called on to answer and to question her. Lucius barely understood a word of it, but he could tell that she was at least holding her own. On and on it went, questions from different bearded men and then her calmly and patiently refuting their arguments. The emperor, Lucius could see, was becoming increasingly frustrated. He’d clearly thought these academic would destroy her, but on the contrary, she was destroying them.
It was undeniably impressive and Lucius began to wonder if there might be something in Christianity after all. He’d always assumed it was a crank religion, like so many of these cults that sprang up, but the way she presented it, maybe there was a logic. Certainly it seemed inspiring as this beautiful woman, undeterred by a flogging, argued it out with the finest minds in the country. The emperor’s face was becoming redder and redder. This couldn’t end well.
Finally, after perhaps an hour of debate, the emperor snapped. Lucius saw him call one of his advisors to him and murmur something in his ear. The advisor looked stunned but, after a moment’s pause, he hurried down to the head of the university. The chair asked Catherine to wait and then turned to the adviser. Lucius saw them have a fevered, hushed conversation. He clearly wasn’t happy, but eventually, the chair turned back to the audience. His face was grim.
“There are concerns about the format of this debate,” he said, a flat stoniness to his voice. “There is a feeling that Lady Catherine may be using some form of witchcraft to make her case.”
He paused, closed his eyes deliberately and then, gathering his composure, went on. “To ensure she is not using any sort of amulet or other magical token,” he said, “she will disrobe before continuing the debate.”
There was uproar. Some of the audience seemed appalled and there were cries of disapproval. Others seemed rather to relish the prospect and were just as vocal in calling for her to be stripped. There were scuffles and punches were thrown, even among the well-heeled citizens who’d taken the best places in the hall. Outside, Lucius dreaded to think what was going on but he could hear roars and shouts. He moved from his position by the wall towards the nearest seats and slowly, as the spectators recognised the approach of the soldiers, the hubbub died down.
On stage, though, the directive had dramatic consequences. One of the theologians stood up and insisted he would refuse to continue if Catherine was stripped. The director of the academy merely shrugged and the theologian stormed off. Six others followed him. Only Catherine seemed calm amid the chaos. As the shouting and the arguments finally died down and silence fell across the hall, she looked at the director. He nodded, his face ashen. She looked to the emperor, then with an easy grace, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, slipped off her outer robes to stand in just her shift.
The silence in the hall was stunning. Every pair of eyes was fixed on the same thing, everybody, it seemed, holding their breath. Lucius had seen her naked before, but he felt a tightness in his stomach, desperate to see her breasts again. She gave a slight twitch of the head and her lips moved in a silent prayer, and then she took hold of her shift by the neck and pulled it up. Time seemed to move more slowly than usual. First her supple legs were revealed, then the white band of her loincloth - just a strip of linen stretched across her cunt and then wrapped three times around her buttocks and waist, then her fine stomach and ribs and then, after an infinitesimal pause, at last the shift came over her head and her breasts were exposed, as round and full and proud as he remembered them. Was that pause significant, Lucius wondered? Was that just a flicker of doubt? She threw down the shift on top of her robes, gave another toss of her head, a gesture that made her breasts tremble on her chest, and then turned to face the theologians once again. If the hesitation had indicated shame, it had clearly soon passed.
A ripple passed through the audience. Her beauty was extraordinary, her composure even more so. She should have been ridiculous, naked but for a loin cloth on a stage in the most serious academic institution in the country, preparing to carry on an argument with a crowd of white-bearded, white- robed theologians, but instead it was as though she were the one in control, even though the four guards, one of them now collecting her clothing, gave clear evidence of her status as a prisoner.
The crowd may have been staring at her chest, but Lucius was stunned by something else: her back. She’d been caned a week earlier; her back should have been streaked by wheals and bruises yet from where he was standing it looked smooth, marked by only faint pink lines How could she have healed so quickly? He thought back to the flogging, to her calmness. The lashing had seemed brutal; could Marcus and Gellus have faked it? But he’d seen her back afterwards, seen the marks – they were real.
She stood bare-breasted before the philosophers, carrying on her line of thought as though nothing had happened, gesturing with her hands as she always did, apparently unaware that each movement set her breasts wobbling, sending murmurs of desire through the audience. The debate didn’t go on long, though. A tall, hollow-cheeked philosopher stood, raising a hand to stop her. “This is a farce,” he said. “A disgrace.” He walked off the stage. Other theologians stood as though to follow him, but as they did so a tremendous roar sounded from the yard and people began pouring in to the back of the hall, the news that she’d been stripped having led to a surge.
*
The dust in the yard was stained red. That morning, the 50 theologians had all been beheaded, lined up and brought forward one by one to lay their head on the block. Some of them, it was said, had converted to Christianity, but clearly they were being killed for the way Catherine had outwitted them. They’d made her watch, keeping her kneeling facing each one. For most, she’d have been the last thing they saw on this earth. Which, Lucius though, wasn’t the worst way to go. She’d seemed appalled, though. Although she’d clearly tried to remain calm, he’d seen her blinking away tears – the first real emotion he’d seen from her. This afternoon, he expected to see more: she’d been sentenced to 50 lashes – one for each theologian. And this time they’d been told not to show her the same respect.
The gate to the cells opened and she was hustled through. Last time she’d been led; this time there was more hostility. One of the guards behind her gave her a shove and she half fell, only a cuff back in the other direction keeping her upright. Lucius was one of the eight soldiers bringing her to be flogged; he had been deputed to lead from the front left with Ligarius to his right. He deliberately paused and as she was pushed closer, he thrust out his left hand so the heel caught her chest just above the left breast. Four inches lower and he’d have got a proper feel, but he suspected that would come. She stumbled back at which the weight of the soldiers behind made her fall forward, sprawling on the dusty earth. It was much harder for her to maintain her dignity when they were buffeting her like this.
“Get up, bitch,” Ligarius shouted and she was hauled up by her hair. She gave a shriek and they threw her down again so she sprawled in front of the centurion’s table. A soldier took each arm and pulled her to her feet. The centurion looked her up and down, contempt on his face. “Strip her,” he said.
Lucius stepped forward. Two soldiers held her and the other six set about her, wrenching off her outer robes. He sensed fear and there was a flicker of panic in her eyes. Why was this different, he wondered, but only momentarily, for his hands were on her linen shift, holding it on the left shoulder. The soldiers holding her tipped her forward and they yanked it over her head. As he pulled the cloth with his left hand, Lucius made sure her allowed his right to slide over her breast. It was full and warm and firm and magnificently smooth. They backed off, leaving just one soldier on each arm, exposing her to the centurion. “Naked,” he said laconically, and the four of them rushed forwards to wrench off her loincloth.
She seemed to be breathing oddly, in bursts through her nose as though her jaw were too tense properly to open. “Scared are you?” Lucius taunted. “Worried your god won’t protect you?” And yet even as he said it, he saw her back, smooth and even but for the faintest pink streaks. That was not the skin of somebody who’d been flogged eight days earlier. They spun her round to face the post and then deliberately threw her down again. She fell to her knees. The eight of them were on her immediately, pulling her up, letting their hands wander then shoving her forward again.
She hit the ground hard, her hands sliding out in front of her so for a moment she just lay, spread out there naked in the dust. Lucius grabbed her by the hair and pulled her up. She yelled, and her hands went instinctively to her scalp. Ligarius immediately reached round and grabbed her breasts, squeezing them under the pretext of helping her up. “You killed 50 men this morning,” he said. “Are you proud of that?”
They hustled her forward to the post, ramming her against it, knocking the breath out of her so for a couple of seconds she coughed and wheezed. They used the time – not that she was resisting - to fasten the cuffs over her wrists. The chains were tightened, stretching her over the stone until she was stood on tiptoes, embracing the column. Lucius looked up at the balcony where the emperor stood impassively, his arms folded.
She was scared, though, and that fascinated him. She wasn’t terrified. She wasn’t kicking and screaming or promising to blow the whole regiment if they’d go easy on her, but there was a tension there that hadn’t been there before. This wasn’t the same fearless woman who’d taken her first flogging with barely a flicker. He remembered that moment of hesitation as she’d stripped at the academy and wondered why – what had changed? Was it the humiliation of baring her breasts before a crowd of citizens rather than soldiers? Was it the memory of 10 lashes and fearing suffering five times more than that? Or could it be that she was beginning to doubt, beginning to question her faith in a god who would make her endure this?
Marcus and Gellus stood by the table bearing the whips, taking their time selecting their canes. They’d been embarrassed by her stoicism last time and were determined to make her suffer this. They insisted they’d lashed her has hard as they lashed anybody, and yet her tanned back, stretched out in the sunlight, showed minimal damage. She watched them, and Lucius wondered whether that were another sign of weakness. Marcus flexed a long white cane in his hands, emphasising its bend, and then slashed it through the air, laughing as he caught her eye.
Ligarius stepped up, and swept her dark hair from her back, pushing it over her left shoulder. As he did so, Lucius saw clearly, he ran his hand down over her breast. She gave him a stare, teeth clenched and he mockingly blew her a kiss. He moved tight behind her, under the pretext of making sure she was securely fastened and let his hands wander over her smooth buttocks. As she stiffened, he let his right and move between her legs and – Lucius was sure – fingered her cunt. She gave a slight gasp and skipped. Ligarius patted her and took his place back in the guard.
“The sentence,” the centurion said, “is 50 lashes. You may end this at any time by agreeing to sacrifice a chicken in the temple to our gods. If you agree to do this, speak now.”
“I am a Christian,” she said, her voice wavering only slight. “The Lord is my god.”
The centurion glanced over his shoulder at the emperor. The emperor nodded. “Proceed,” the centurion said.
Marcus and Gellus took their positions either side of her. Lucius was in the ideal spot, just to the side of the post on Marcus’s side. He could see the side of her breast, the curve flattened a little by the post. He could see her golden skin, the fine curves of her shoulders, back, buttocks and thighs. And he could see her face as she pushed her forehead against the stone, her full lips fluttering in prayer.
Marcus flexed the cane again. He took a couple of gentle practice swings, took three paces and smashed the cane into her back. It was the hardest lash Lucius had ever witnessed. Marcus’s left foot came up and he pivoted on his right. Catherine’s head flew back. Her eyes widened, her lips parted, but her teeth were set and she gave little more than a gasp. A purple line appeared immediately across her back, as though dividing it precisely in half. “One.”
Gellus whipped deliberately downwards, flicking his cane across her shoulders. It was purposefully cruel, an attempt to flay the skin. It surprised her, and she gave a startled whimper as a mark perhaps an inch and a half across opened on the curve of her left shoulder. “Two.” Marcus streaked his second down from her right shoulder and her head flew back. Lucius saw her eyes closed with pain, but she held back a scream. It would come, though; he was sure of that.
Gellus laid the fourth on the soft skin beneath her ribs, the cane whipping round to dig in. There was blood and she at last gave a semi-scream, a pained exhalation really, as her body lurched to the right. Her teeth were still set together and she breathed in sharp, shallow gasps that hissed through them. Marcus went vertical, striking her left shoulder where the skin had been flayed by Gellus’s first lash. “Ngnya,” she yelped, managing to check a full scream as her head flew up to the right. There was a quiver in her breathing as she regained her equilibrium. Gellus cut diagonally across her back and her head flew back. “Six.”
Sweat beaded on her brow. Marcus hit her horizontally, a few inches below the first stripe he had left, grunting with the effort. She arched, her stomach thrusting into the post. Lucius could see the effort she was making not to scream, but he knew it was coming. This was brutal, two strong men hitting her as hard as they could. The eighth, delivered to the broadest part of her back, sent a shudder coursing through her, but still no more than a grunt came from her lips.
And then Marcus targeted her arse. His strike was fearsome again. Lucius saw how deep it went into the cheeks, the flesh seeming to close in around the cane. Her body tensed, her legs snapping together as she seemed to push her cunt against the post. Tremors passed through her legs. And then came an agonised sob: “Aaah” – barely more than that, but they knew. Gellus whipped hard into her thighs. “Nyah... nyaargghhh... nyaaaaarghhhh!!!” For a moment her knees gave way, but she gathered herself, stood again and, forehead pressed to post, took rapid breaths through clenched teeth.
The centurion ordered them to pause, and for a time the yard was silent but for her panting. “Lady Catherine,” said the centurion. “Will you make the sacrifice?”
“No,” she said, with surprising force.
“Proceed,” said the centurion with a shrug.
Marcus wound up again, and lashed into her upper thighs. Her buttocks quivered at the impact and again she pushed her thighs together. Perhaps she was expecting another one down there, but Gellus was too smart for that. He flayed down the gentle arc where her neck moved into her back, leaving a hideous welt perhaps two inches broad. And this time she did scream, her head flying back, her mouth wide. Marcus didn’t even wait for her to finish. With incredible force he whipped across her shoulder blades, the cane cracking against the taut muscle. “Fourteen.” A trickle of blood ran from the right side of Marcus’s blow. It was relentless now. Her buttocks, her thighs, the small of her back, her shoulders, the centre of her back again. As they paused on twenty, her breath came in only whimpers, sweat soaking her brow.
“Will you make the sacrifice?” the centurion asked. Lucius looked up at the emperor. As she said no, he shook his head. “Proceed,” said the centurion.
Marcus brushed the sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist, then flew in again. Lucius, transfixed by the sight of her breast pressed against the post, was almost shocked by the suddenness as the cane whistled into her back. She gave an exhausted grunt and began praying under her breath. Gellus went for her thighs, making her legs twitch, sending shudders through her. Marcus aimed slightly higher and again Lucius was shocked by just how deep the cane penetrated into the cheeks. Gellus struck almost the same place and a small trickle of blood began to flow. “Twenty-four,” came the centurion’s call. A little lower from Marcus, on that sensitive line between buttock and thigh and her left leg kicked up as she gave a high pitched shriek. Then Gellus gave one of his flicky lashes, whipping off flesh and sending shudders through her legs again. Each breath now sounded tortured, her head lolling against her arm, her strength slowly being sapped. Marcus went low again, just above her knees and her head snapped back. This time, her head hung limp back from her neck, so she stared at the sky. “Twenty-seven.”
Her lips were still moving. Gellus aimed deliberately at one of the patches of flayed skin. She shrieked, spasms passing through her as another rivulet of blood appeared. “Twenty eight.” Marcus, leaping almost as he delivered the next one, crashed the cane into her shoulder blades. There was a tremendous whump, a sharp exhalation of breath, and Lucius realised the cane had broken. Grinning as Gellus laid another one into her backside, Marcus snapped it completely in two and shoved the broken ends towards her face. She jerked angrily away and he laughed, throwing the broken halves down and striding off to the table to select a new implement.
“Will you make the sacrifice?” the centurion asked.
She was breathing with difficulty, sucking the air in through her nose and clenched teeth. “No,” she said, but she didn’t sound at all certain. She adjusted her position, standing more naturally, half- turning to face Marcus so Lucius could just see her nipple. On her face was a mix of fury and pain, but also defiance. The new cane crashed into her waist. She closed her eyes and winced, but managed to hold back the scream. “Thirty-one.” Gellus went for the thighs again. She pressed herself into the post, her cheek rubbing against the stone, he eyes tight shut. “Thirty-three... thirty- four... thirty-five...” It was relentless, but somehow she held it together, hugging the stone, her eyes closed, her teeth clenched. But then Gellus whipped down on the curve at the top of her left buttock, stripping off a band of skin. She howled, twitching involuntarily. As her body settled, Lucius could see her heart pounding, sending tremors through her breasts.
Marcus mercilessly struck the raw stripe, bringing a loud scream and drawing a streak of blood. “Thirty-seven.” Gellus, cruelly, caned her there again, a few spots of blood flying up as the rod landed. She shouted in pain. She was shivering now, beads of sweat clear on her brow, her strength clearly sapped. Marcus struck her just above her knees and her body seemed to give way, twitching a couple of times and then subsiding so she hung by her wrists, her feet limp against the sand at her feet. Gellus, expert that he was, lashed her shoulder where the muscle stood tense with the strain. “Forty.”
She trembled, her head turned to the side, cheek against the stone, seeming to stare at Lucius, mouth open as she took in air in gulps. Her back, buttocks and thighs were streaked with welts and bruises, blood running from five or six points. Slowly, gathering her strength, she pushed her toes into the earth and stood again.
“Will you make the sacrifice?” asked the centurion.
“Never,” she said, her voice determined.
She flicked her head, her hair now spilling onto her back, pressed her forehead against the post and readied herself for the final ten lashes. Lucius couldn’t help but be impressed by her courage. She clearly genuinely believed in this Christianity thing. He looked up at the emperor, who stood as impassive as ever.
Marcus showed no mercy, whipping low across the middle of her back. She grunted but no more. Gellus smacked the middle of her buttocks, and when Marcus followed that up with a lash that caught the inside of her left thigh, her legs gave way again. She hung, limp, as Gellus hit her across the shoulder blades, only a twitch showing she was still conscious. “Forty- four.”
Shudders shook her body as Marcus crashed the cane down again, both feet leaving the ground as he drew blood, and her head again lolled so she was looking at Lucius. He saw the dark eyes, racked with pain and yet there was a warmth to them. She was murmuring to herself, clearly concentrating hard. Gellus hit her low, at the base of her buttock, making the flesh wobble. She groaned, a low agonised moan that hadn’t ceased when Marcus slashed across the top of her shoulders. “Forty- seven.” She sobbed, tears that racked her body, but it was clear she was going to come through this. Gellus flicked at her arse again, adding a long welt on the right cheek to go with the one on her left. For a moment her sobs gained in intensity, but then she sank back into the same low keening as though her brain couldn’t assimilate more pain. Marcus, though, wasn’t done with her, and his final lash was aimed precisely on the flayed skin Gellus had just opened. Her body spasmed and came to rest again, a howl briefly breaking the sobs. “Forty-nine.”
Gellus waited, as though considering exactly where to lay the final lash. In the end, he went for the buttocks, crashing the cane deep into the bruised flesh. A sharp moan broke the sobbing, but only for a moment and she was left hanging, weeping uncontrollably. The centurion left her for a few moments, allowing everybody to take in the sight. From knees to shoulders she was covered in bruises and welts, blood running freely in patches. Then he gave the order to take her down. There was no strength left in her, and when her left wrist was unfastened, she fell to hang by the right.
She fell exhausted to the ground, slumped with her back to the post. From the front, she looked as perfect as ever, her skin even and golden, the full breasts triumphantly round, the thighs so smooth Lucius just wanted to lick them and wrap them round his head. But there was no time for such thoughts. They pulled her to her feet and dragged her limp body to face the centurion, her breasts dangling, so luscious they seemed almost to shape in at the top before meeting her chest. There was a skein of mucus linking her nose to her chin, but she seemed too exhausted to do anything about it.
They held her in front of the centurion, unsure whether they should still be taunting her or whether her punishment was over. Her head flopped loosely and if they’d let go of her arms she’d have collapsed. Lucius looked down her beaten back, at the purple-welted buttocks and at her thighs with the bluish lines. Whatever had happened the first time, there could be no doubt these were genuine wounds, that she’d been savagely flogged.
“Stand up straight,” the centurion ordered.
She couldn’t. The soldiers shook her and hauled her up. “Where’s your god now?” one asked. “Is he protecting you? Is he giving you strength?” She looked at him with disgust, pity and shame in her eyes.
“Will you make the sacrifice?” the centurion asked.
She looked exhausted, but took a deep breath. “I have no god but the Lord my God,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. “I will not make a sacrifice.”
The centurion shrugged. “The emperor is going away,” he said. “You are to be imprisoned until his return. You will be given water but no food until you make the sacrifice.”
He looked at the soldiers. “Take her away,” he said.
*
Lucius had seen the screens on the podium, had known something was being built behind them but it was only now that he discovered just what. There’d been rumours that it was some great engine of torture, something devised to make Catherine suffer and they’d speculated what it could be but none had come close. It was a huge wooden wheel, maybe 12 feet high, held about six inches off the ground by an axel. The rim was about three feet across and in one six-foot section of the circumference the wood had been replaced by metal rollers on each of which were a series of tiny spiked wheels. Catherine was to be stripped and fastened with her back to that, so her body would rest on hundreds of tiny spikes. But the clever bit was underneath. Set on springs in the wooden plinth beneath the wheel were more of the spiked rollers. Every half hour they were to turn the wheel, pressing her body between the two sets of spikes.
A huge crowd had gathered to watch her execution, which was hardly surprising. Not only was she famous and beautiful, but events of the past week had added to her notoriety. The emperor had been away a little over a fortnight, which Catherine, wearing only her shift, had spent largely in prayer. They hadn’t fed her, and yet she didn’t seem to have got any weaker; if anything, in fact, she’d staged a remarkable recovery after her flogging. But then the emperor’s wife, an attractive woman in her early forties, had started to visit her. They’d talked for hours and hours, day after day.
When the emperor had returned, his wife had demanded he release Catherine, declaring herself a Christian. The emperor, understandably, had been furious. He’d set his torturers to devise some special torment for Catherine and had pleaded with his wife to reconsider. She, though, refused to perform a sacrifice in the temple. So, at dawn three days ago, she’d been brought out into the punishment yard. Catherine, in her tattered and filthy shift had been there, forced to watch as the emperor pleaded with his wife for one final time. His wife, though, remained firm, knelt down calmly and lay her pretty head on the block, pushing her hair to one side to leave her delicate neck bare. She and Catherine had joined together in a prayer and the Gaius, the executioner, had swept down his sword and decapitated her.
Even as her body was being cleared away and her blood soaked up with sawdust, the emperor had approached Catherine. To the astonishment of everyone, he’d taken her hand and stared into her dark eyes. “Marry me,” he’d said. She’d stood silent for a moment, half-naked, the blood from her flogging showing through her shift.
“No,” she’d said calmly. “I am betrothed to my God and I will not betray Him.”
He’d looked at her with fury. He’d offered her wealth and power, offered even to recognise Christianity as one of the official religions, but she’d remained steadfast. “Then you will suffer the consequences of your stubbornness,” he said.
She’d smiled softly. “And you will suffer the consequences of yours in the afterlife,” she said.
And that was why Catherine now stood, clad in only her tattered shift, wrists bound behind her facing the device on which she’d be tortured to death. She seemed calm, but what bothered Lucius was how unaffected she seemed by what they’d done to her. There was no gauntness in her face, her breasts still strained against the filthy cloth of her shift, jiggling enticingly as she walked. Nobody would know they’d starved her. And she walked seemingly without discomfort. Around three weeks after a flogging that severe, that made no sense.
Lucius watched as they marched her up the steps that led to the platform that stood level with the top of the wheel. There were thousands in the square. He’d seen them inspecting the wheel, realising how the spikes would tear into her body, how each movement of the main wheel, each shift of her weight would turn the small wheels, pressing another spike into her flesh.
Catherine stood on the platform, flanked by four soldiers and the centurion who oversaw punishments. She seemed calm, surveying the crowds and the wheel with interest rather than terror. “One last chance,” the centurion said. “Will you renounce Christianity and make the sacrifice?”
“Never,” she said.
The centurion nodded and stepped to the edge of the platform so as not to obstruct the view of the crowd. “Strip her,” he ordered.
The crowd, who had been talking among themselves, fell quiet. Two of the soldiers stepped forward. They left the bonds on her wrists and each took hold of her tattered, blood- stained shift by the neck. In one movement they wrenched at it and it tore. They ripped it away from her body and she was naked, those fabulous breasts exposed to the gaze of the crowd. Lucius was a little behind her, though, so stared at her back. It was incredible: the skin was marked, but with nothing like the savage welts you’d expect from a flogging that had taken place just three weeks ago. There were pink lines and the odd shadow hinting at bruising, but she had healed with miraculous speed.
The soldiers kicked the backs of her knees, holding her to cushion her fall. Two took her arms and two her legs. Lucius saw her breasts lolling on her chest and wondered if there would ever be a moment when the sight of them didn’t make his heart skip a beat. She didn’t resist as they picked her up and carried her to the wheel. Two soldiers came to the platform on the far side and her right arm and leg were passed over, so that she was held by four soldiers over the spikes. Slowly, almost gently, they lowered her.
She kept staring straight up, almost refusing to acknowledge the spikes until they lay her on them. Lucius watched her eyes close, teeth locked together, the silent grimace as her back and then her buttocks came into contact with the wheel. They positioned her so her head lay on wood; presumably so she couldn’t dash her head against the spikes and hasten her death. Her arms were pulled taut and secured in thick leather cuffs above her head. Soldiers at the base of the wheel turned it slowly backwards while those on the platform held her legs so she was stretched out.
Her breasts fell back on her chest as her body rolled back. Her eyes were half- closed, her face twisted in pain as they fastened cuffs around her ankles. The cuffs were affixed to chains that they pulled tight through eyelets on the rim, then fastened. The wheel turned again until her legs were once more below the level of her torso. The soldiers pulled again on the chains holding her wrists to the wheel, tightened them, stretching her. When they were satisfied, they turned the wheel again so that she faced the crowd. There was a great roar as her nakedness was revealed to them again, stretched out this time in an elongated X, the curve of the wheel pushing her chest out towards them.
The centurion ostentatiously overturned a huge hour-glass that stood by the wheel; when the sand ran through, they’d roll her over the spikes. Until then, Lucius realised, it was as though she were being crucified, her weight taken by her ankles and wrists and – a little – by the spikes that dug into her back, buttocks and thighs. He edged a little closer, looking with fascination at the way those little wheels dug into her. Blood was already beginning to drip from her onto the dais. As Lucius got closer still he could hear how anguished her breathing sounded. Her arms were taut, the muscles standing out, her head pushed back against the wheel, eyes fixed on the cloudless sky. He watched her shuffle, taking the weight on her legs, and he saw her grimaces as she shifted on the spikes. He realised then what a magnificent engine of torture this was. There would be no respite: the pain of hanging, the pain of the spikes, the humiliation of being stretched naked in public.
At first the crowds seemed awed by the sight, but slowly they began to press forward, first to the bottom of the steps and then, gradually, closer and closer. Soldiers made sure they didn’t get too close, but Lucius could see the expressions of wonder on the faces of a group of boys who’d pushed their way to the front. They could only have been 10 or 11 and pointed at her breasts, laughing and joking. He wanted to be closer and edged nearer under the pretence of helping keep the crowds back.
A grey-haired woman came running up. “You deserve this,” she shrieked. “You deserve this. Look at you. You have no shame. You were always displaying yourself. Trying to lure away my man.” Who her man was there was no clue. Catherine looked down at her, her teeth still clenched in pain. “Whore!” the woman shouted. “Whore! No attempt to cover yourself. Exposing your body to every passing man. Whore!”
There was an embarrassed silence, broken only when boys laughed. “Whore!” they repeated, mocking the woman as much as Catherine. Others joined in and the woman ran off. Catherine just hung. She seemed in some kind of trance, her lips moving as though in prayer, her eyes fixed on a point in the middle distance. Every now and again she would shuffle, shifting her weight as far as she could, but this wasn’t like crucifixion; she was stretched too tight to dance as those on the cross would. All she could do was try to take more weight on her arms or her legs, and even that meant pulling herself a short distance over the spikes. Lucius would see the bicep flex or the ripple of muscle in her thigh, but that aside she was remarkably still.
Then one of the priests from the local temple emerged from the crowd, people standing back to let him through. He stood in front of her, no more than four feet away so she had to look at him. “Catherine,” he intoned. “Where is your god now?” She held his gaze impassively. “Where is this Lord of whom you preached? Has he abandoned you?” There was laughter from the crowd. “Where is he? Is this how he treats his flock? Is this your reward for your devotion? To display yourself naked in public on a torture engine?”
She stared at him, teeth clenched, beads of sweat standing out on her forehead. “See how she has no answer?” the priest called. “See her defeat? Where is her god?”
The crowd, pressing closer so the soldiers began to move to hold them back, laughed. Lucius saw the hatred and mockery on their faces. More shouted, “Where is he? Where’s your god?” A tall bearded man pushed to the front. “Is he on holiday? Away on business? Or does he not exist? Have you been talking nonsense? ”
“Maybe he is here,” shouted an older man. “Maybe he’s just having too much fun looking at those tits to save her.” There were hoots of laughter and jeers.
She looked up, her eyes closed. “She has no answer,” said the priest and the crowd fell quiet to hear him. “Either her god has left her no better than a whore or her fine words were empty. She lied to you. She deceived you.”
The crowd roared in a mixture of anger and mockery. “Well,” called the priest. “Where is he? Is he coming to save you? Hush everybody, maybe we can hear her lord coming down to release her form this wheel.”
The crowd fell quiet, shushing each other laughingly until there was silence. Then she spoke. Her voice was calm and clear, her deep brown eyes burned with passion. She must have been in agony, but she sounded as in control as she had on stage in the academy. “What do you know of my Lord?” she asked. “I humbly obey His will. I may not understand His purpose but if He has deemed I should be tortured and put to death like this then I shall accept it. He gave His only Son to die on the cross for our sins; my privilege is to be martyred.”
“This is your god’s plan?” the priest taunted, and he took his staff and lifted her left breast with the end of it, jabbing her before letting it fall. She winced as she was pushed back onto the spikes.
She turned to him. “My faith is strong,” she said. “I could renounce my God now and they would cut me down from this wheel. But I will endure this for it is His will.”
“She’s mad,” the priest cried. “She’s a witch.” And with that he spat on her and walked away.
It was as though a dam had broken. Suddenly everybody was spitting. The soldiers held the mob back as best they could, holding their javelins out to form a barrier, but they could do nothing to stop them leaning in spitting and shouting. Catherine hung still, spittle dotting her flesh, the only movement her mouth as she prayed silently. Lucius found himself pitying her. Proud she may have been, stubborn too, and stupid to turn down the emperor but he wasn’t sure she deserved this, degraded and tortured before a baying mob. Did they hate her for being a Christian? Or were they just enjoying the public humiliation of a wealthy and beautiful woman?
On and on it went, people pushing others out of the way to yell “Witch!” and spit at her. Soon she was covered, her noble body drenched in spittle and sweat. Only when it was pointed out that the sand had almost run through the glass did the mob back off, watching the final few grains dribble through. The soldiers took their positions by the side of the wheel. The brake was released and they began to turn it.
First she went back, slowly, her body rising until she was lying facing the sky. Lucius could hear her groans as the blood rushed back into her aching muscles and her weight shifted on the spikes. Slowly, slowly she went on, back until her breasts fell back and she hung upside down, her teeth gritted against the pain. On she went until she could see through her tumbling hair to the spikes under the wheel. She seemed to kick at that and Lucius wondered if that were the first sign of panic and she neared the rollers. On the wheel went, remorselessly.
Her fingers crept above the rollers into the narrow space between the wheel and the spikes below. On the wheel went. The spikes started to dig in just beyond her wrists. He heard a noise, half whimper, half grunt, and watched, fascinated, as the wheel kept going, dozens of spikes now penetrating her arms. The blood was obvious, springing up from the puncture wounds to dribble over her arms. Lucius remember holding them before her second flogging, remembered their smooth softness; they were ruined now.
The wheel stopped with her hanging upside down, her head just short of the spikes. And then they began to turn it again in the other direction, pulling her arms back between the spikes. Her eyes were closed, her lips pulled back to revel clenched teeth. Her breathing came in hisses but there was no scream. The wheel kept turning and slowly her arms were revealed. There was blood everywhere from the forearm up - thick, deep red blood running from the cuts and dripping onto the dais. And that was her arms: what would those spikes do to the thicker parts of her body? To her thighs? Her belly? To her tits?
The wheel turned. The crowd, several thousand strong now, cheered as her feet came into view. On it went. Her legs. Lucius saw a small group of onlookers, simply clad, maybe a dozen strong, refusing to join in the general celebratory air. A pretty dark-haired girl wept and was comforted by a grey- haired man next to her. Her cunt. More cheers. Her torso. Her breasts rolled forwards to their familiar position, prompting roars. Then the true horror of her arms became visible and there were gasps as they saw the blood. The dark-haired girl screamed. Were they Christians, Lucius wondered. On the wheel turned. Her legs went past the vertical. They held her for a couple of moments. The wheel inched on. Her breasts began to fall away from her chest, swaying magnificently. Her toes got to the rollers and they applied the brake again.
The centurion walked up to her. He grabbed her hair and twisted so she had to face him. “Will you make the sacrifice?” he asked. She was naked, cover in sweat and spittle, blood was running freely down her arms, but she was magnificent. “Never,” she said. The centurion shoved her head away and nodded at the soldiers manning the wheel. The crowd was silent, the only noise was the creak of the wood. Slowly her shins disappeared. From his vantage point to the side, Lucius could see the spikes cutting deep into her calves, the little wheels turning as her shins were pricked.
On it went. Her knees and then her thighs, the rollers dropping as she was squeezed through. Blood was pouring over the springs. Her breathing was becoming moaning. He could see the tension in her body as she tried to hold herself up, pressing onto the spikes that had already stabbed her. As her hips passed under and the spikes were pressed deeper into her buttocks, her shins came out of the other side. They were almost entirely red, blood oozing from the wounds in her calves. Her ribs slid under and she screamed, one long harrowing howl that only ended when the breath was squeezed from her body.
Blood ran down her thighs, matting her pubic hair. She was whimpering, short soft bursts of agonised breath as the wheel crushed her. Lucius pushed through to see her breasts for one last time. There was terror etched across her face. The wheel edged round and she found the breath to scream again. He drank in the sight, the breasts hanging out from the chest, swelling in a smooth curve away from her torso to a majestic roundness, tipped with perfect dark aureolae and nipples that stood erect in fear. And then, slowly, they disappeared: the best breasts he or anyone else in the square would ever see pulled onto the rollers. From his side-on position he saw the spikes press into the soft flesh, saw the breasts squashed against her chest, saw the blood springing up. She was shrieking now in terror, the wheel stopping just before her head was pulled under. For seconds she rested, the spikes in her breasts and chest, and then the wheel began to go back again, revealing her bloodied body to the crowd.
Her hands, face and feet aside, everything was red, covered in blood. She was shaking, a look on her face like nothing Lucius had ever seen before – agony and exhaustion, but also something else. Was that doubt? She was weeping, her head hanging limp. He pushed his way closer, desperate to seem her breasts. They’d retained their shape, and beneath the blood he could see the small wounds, arranged in a strange grid a little under an inch apart. A soldier turned over the hour glass and she hung, bleeding, her lips fluttering every now and again as she prayed.
The crowds seemed a little stunned by the savagery of the torture. For a while they held back, as though horrified by the sight of the bloodied body. Lucius himself felt a little shocked by how much damage the spikes had inflicted. Each one looked so small. He tried to calculate. Maybe 16 to 18 spikes across her body at its widest point? And say 4’6” tall if you didn’t count her head? So perhaps 60 or 70 down the length of her body. What was 60 multiplied by 16? 960? Her legs were thinner than her shoulders but there were also her arms to consider. So maybe 1000 spikes. On her front and back at the same time. And that was without counting the effect of the roll, of her being pulled over turning spiked wheels. Little wonder she was drenched in blood.
Gradually the crowds began to push closer again, began to inspect the damage the wheel had done. She seemed broken, head hanging limp, body still, her chest fluttering as she hauled in agonised breaths. Then the priest was there again. He prodded her with his staff, as though making sure she were conscious. “Still sure you’re right?” he asked. “Still sure your god will save you?”
As his staff jabbed into her breast, she finally looked up. “This is part of His plan,” she said. “I will do as my Lord commands.”
“Silence!” the priest called. “Silence!” he hushed the crowd theatrically. “Is that…? Can you hear…? Is that your lord? That clattering of hooves I hear…?” But there was only silence and the crowd roared with laughter.
When they had quietened down she spoke, her eyes aflame as she hissed at the priest, “What does your god think of you, playing with the breasts of a bound woman?”
The crowd laughed at the priest’s discomfort. “Is this what your religion teaches?” Catherine went on. “That when you have a woman defenceless in front of you that you should molest them because you can’t get a woman any other way? Does this make you a big man?”
He flushed, then lashed her with his staff, hard across her tits. Lucius saw her body driven back onto the spikes, her head banging back against the wood. “My god teaches me that witches must be punished,” he said. “That whores should be humiliated. And my god seems to be winning.” He spat on her and the mob took that as its cue. There was a surge forward and suddenly they were all spitting and jeering, taunting her. Some mocked her religion, most just laughed at her nakedness. Lucius struggled to believe the hatred she attracted.
Only the small group remain aloof, eventually making their way forward. Lucius saw their sadness and sympathy, saw the look Catherine gave them, saw her mouth the word, “Go”. He realised he wasn’t the only one to see the significance. As they shuffled back through the crowd, the centurion called over one of the other soldiers and whispered some instructions. *
Finally the sands ran out again. She hung limp, her breathing laboured, her body covered with spittle and blood. The centurion seized her hair and forced her to look at him. “Will you make the sacrifice?” he said. She hesitated for a moment and Lucius wondered if she were broken. But then her voice rasped out, “No.” It was barely more than whisper and yet it carried a sense of great authority. “I will stay true to my Lord.”
The centurion shook his head and released her hair. He nodded to the soldiers and the wheel began to turn back. She gave a great groan as the blood began to flow back into her numb arms and her body shifted on the spikes. Again Lucius found himself watching her breasts as they lolled back on her chest and then tumbled towards her face.
Her arms went under and he saw her body stiffen, heard her breathing change as the spikes dug in and then the wheel turned back, agonisingly slowly, her breasts rolling back down her chest until they hung free and her feet went over the rollers. Her face was twisted in pain, her white teeth shining out from her olive face as she was dragged over the spikes. Her knees, her thighs. There were howls of pain. Blood dripped freely underneath the wheel. On it turned, the stomach and then, remorselessly, the breasts. She pressed her head back against the wood, eyes closed, neck muscles tight, teeth clenched in agony. Each breath came as a groan.
The wheel turned back. Her breasts emerged, then the rest of the torso. Her whole body was covered in blood, thick and dark. She trembled, breasts heaving, blood dripping from her. She let loose a howl. “My God!” she shouted, her face contorted with pain. “My God! Release me from this!” The crowd laughed and mocked her anguish. Lucius saw the priest grinning and he felt intensely sorry for Catherine. He had thrilled to see her nudity, of course, but this was horrendous. That first morning in the yard when she’d stripped and been caned had been one of the most thrilling days of his life; now he felt a little nauseated by the way they were torturing her and taunting her as she grappled with her faith.
She growled with pain, fists clenched, the muscles in her arms bunched. Her voice was hoarse but she kept praying and begging. “Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Forgive me my weakness, but please Lord don’t abandon me!” The priest strode forward again, his face smug at her distress. He stood before her and smiled. “Where is he?” he asked. “Where is your Lord?”
She glared at him, fury burning in her eyes. “We’re not having doubts are we? You’re not thinking that maybe you’ve got this all wrong and that this agony isn’t your pathway to paradise? What if the next life holds just more torture for you for your heresy? What if you’re turned on a wheel in eternity?”
She stared beyond him. “Lord, give me strength!” she moaned through clenched teeth. “Keep my faith strong.” Lucius couldn’t help but be impressed by her courage.
A shadow fell over the square. Lucius looked up, surprised. Moments earlier the sky had been clear blue, the sun beating down but now a small cloud had appeared. The priest kept taunting her, prodding her with his staff. A breeze ruffled his robes and Lucius realised more clouds were on their way, blown in from the east. He saw then building up on the horizon. The temperature dropped a little.
A couple of boys, maybe seven or eight years old, ran up. Grinning, they pointed at her breasts, now covered with thick dark blood. They seemed bewitched by her nakedness, then one shouted, “Where’s your God?” and ran up to her, touching his hand to her public hair before dashing off giggling. She jerked back as the mob laughed, jamming her upper back into the spikes. Her breasts quivered and the crowd’s taunts grew in intensity. Her face racked with pain, she glanced at the hour-glass. She had another 15 minutes or so before they turned her again. She was moaning constantly now, her head rocking back and forth. She shouted again, incoherently now, and her head slumped forwards. Lucius wondered for a moment if that might be it but her chest continued to rise and fall.
She hung like that for a couple of minutes, then the centurion stepped forwards. He slapped her face a couple of times, sharply but not hard, and when she barely responded, signalled for water to be brought. As he did so, the clouds covered the sun, and the square fell into shadow. The breeze was definitely picking up.
A bucket of water was thrown over her. She yelped, and her head snapped upright. She shivered, her teeth tightly clenched so the muscles of her jaw stood out. The water washed away some of the blood, revealing once again her tanned skin, now covered in goosebumps and dotted with small rents. She trembled, water dripping from her, mixing with the blood. She looked up, high above the crowd, her face set. “My God,” she called. “I am ready.” Her voice was clear, determined.
Lucius felt a splash of rain. He glanced up and saw the blackest sky he had ever seen. The heavens opened. Rain lashed down, there was an enormous clap of thunder. Lucius pulled his cloak over his head to try to keep off the worst of the deluge. The crowd scattered but Catherine hung impassive, the rain sluicing the blood from her body.
There was a great flash and Lucius saw a white streak shoot down to the wheel. He smelled smoke and then he saw the wheel lurch forwards. It bounced from its stand, tipping to the right and rolling slowly on its rim towards the edge of the dais. It careered down the steps, spinning away to the right, cutting through the few people who hadn’t rushed for cover. There were screams and shouts, terrible screeches and bangs, and sparks flew as the metal parts clattered on the stone. Lucius ran, chasing the wheel as turned and turned, falling lower and lower until it eventually came to rest on its side in the centre of the square.
There were bodies strewn around where the wheel had ploughed into them. The rain hammered down, dispersing puddles of blood. He could hear groans and pleas for help, but he had only one focus. It was so dark it was difficult to see, but the shape of the wheel, flat to the ground, loomed ahead of him. As he got there he realised Marcellus, one of his closest friends from the regiment, was running alongside him.
He was terrified what he might find. He knew the point of the wheel was to torture and execute her, but he didn’t want to find Catherine mangled or crushed. He and Marcellus, unspeaking, rushed around to the other side of the wheel. She hung, limp but breathing, seemingly unmarked by the wheel’s collapse. It must have turned on its side, Lucius realised, spinning on the edge of the rim and keeping her off the ground. He went to her left ankle and began to unfasten the buckle. Her shins were scratched and grazed, the wounds in her calf much deeper. His fingers were stiff with the rain and he had to work hard at the stiff leather. As he did so, Marcellus worked at her right ankle.
As he worked he was struck again by how beautiful she was, how smooth the skin where the spikes hadn’t gouged her. Her flank, the outside of her thigh, was virtually unmarked. Her leg came free. He lowered it slowly, and she moaned as her body unpeeled from the spikes. The ones in her buttocks, he saw, had penetrated an inch or so deep. The rain continued to pour down, but even as it washed her there was an extraordinary amount of blood.
They moved to her wrists. She was moaning softly, apparently unaware of her surroundings, half- hanging, half sprawled. The spikes dug into her back at new angles but she seemed not to notice or to care. They unfastened her and she fell to lie face down on the stone. Her back and buttocks were ravaged, ripped by hundreds of spikes. Working soundlessly as the rain lashed down Lucius and Marcellus took an arm each and pulled her to her feet. She was too weak to stand, barely conscious, her head lolling as they moved her.
Lucius and Marcellus hauled her across the square, her feet dragging through the puddles. Although he could hear her breathing, Lucius wasn’t sure she would survive but he knew they had to get her back to the prison, prevent any of the Christian groups rescuing her. As the rain lashed down, he could barely look up, but he was vaguely aware of carnage all around, bodies and torn clothing and blood. She even left a trail of blood as they pulled her over the cobbles.
As they reached the base of the podium the centurion saw them. “Chain her, for fuck’s sake,” he’d yelled. Two other soldiers emerged from the gloom, one of them bearing a set of manacles. Her arms were yanked behind her and the heavy cuffs locked over her wrists. It was pointless, Lucius knew; there was no chance of her escaping or resisting – she was too exhausted for that. But as they held her, relieving him for a moment, he couldn’t help himself. He didn’t dare be too blatant, but he allowed his right hand to brush her left breast. Dotted with puncture wounds it may have been, and chilled by the rain, but it was still wonderfully firm and round.
With two soldiers in from and two behind, he and Marcellus dragged her back to the fort. They weren’t sure what to do with her so they took her back to the cell she’d left that morning. She was so weak that as Marcellus unfastened her chains, two other guards had to hold her upright. This time Lucius was bolder, taking her fabulous breasts in his hands, weighing them, caressing them. He’d never known breasts that so combined pertness with size. He’d seen bigger but these were a full handful and more and still had a springiness, smooth and buoyant despite the torture. He realised suddenly she was looking at him. He caught her eye and he saw no anger or humiliation but sadness. “I forgive you,” she said softly. He dropped his hands almost guiltily and then they left her.
*
The emperor had summoned her to him. The scene was vaguely ridiculous: him in his robes, the plush surroundings of the throne room, a dozen soldiers in full uniform and a beautiful woman in tattered, filthy rags. Two weeks had passed since the day of the storm. She’d spent the first night lying exhausted and naked on the pallet but then some rags had been found for her and, as she’d gained in strength, she’d spent most of her time kneeling in prayer. The mystery of why she hadn’t starved had been solved – although only with another mystery. Lucius had been giving her water one day when a dove had flown to the small barred window. He’d seen it was clutching something in its beak and, when he looked closer, saw that it was bread. It left it for her and flew off. So not only had lightning saved her on the wheel but birds were feeding her.
Nobody had quite known what to do with Catherine. The wheel had killed nine people, including three children, as it had careered across the square loose, with a further couple of dozen injured. There’d been calls to put her to death, to find some other means of executing her, but the truth was everybody was scared. The wheel had been struck a second time by lightning and had burned, a charred ring in the square now an embarrassing reminder of their failure to kill her the first time. They’d arrested the band of Christians who’d approached Catherine in the square but that aside they’d waited for the emperor. He’d taken advice and now they were to hear his verdict.
Lucius always felt nervous in the emperor’s presence, all the more so now when there was such tension in the air. Catherine was as calm and as dignified as ever. She terrified Lucius now. She seemed again to have recovered remarkably quickly. There were marks on her skin – and there was plenty of it exposed by her rags - but nothing like as much as he’d expected. Her ability to recover unnerved him; was this her god at work?
“Remove your clothes,” the emperor said and she obeyed quickly and calmly, shucking off the tattered tunic to stand naked before them, unembarrassed, gorgeous. The marks of the cane had faded almost entirely and while there were small nicks and tiny pale scars dotting her body, she was once again a magnificent sight. The emperor looked her up and down, appraising her.
“Renounce your god and marry me,” he said.
“Never,” she replied, her voice calm and authoritative. “I am wedded to Christ and will have no other.”
Lucius feared what the emperor might do, but he remained perfectly calm. “Then you will die tomorrow,” he said. She kept looking straight at him. “Behead her,” he said. “Let’s keep it simple this time. No mistakes.” Lucius almost felt disappointed. Part of him respected and admired her for her strength of character, and part of him lusted after her and that part wanted to see her naked, wanted even to punish her for her beauty and see her tortured in some hideous way.
The centurion ordered them to dress her and place her in chains and when they’d done so, the emperor stepped forward again. He caressed her cheek with his hand. “Make her suffer,” he said, not taking his eyes from her face. “Have your fun with her tonight and scourge her in the morning.”
Did that mean what he thought it meant? Lucius wasn’t sure. He felt a pang for the thought that he had only around 18 hours to enjoy being around her, but his overriding emotion was excitement: 18 hours in which to play with her to do, if he understood correctly, what he wanted with her.
*
It was just going dark when they hauled her from her cell. There was no respect for her now; they dragged her, pushing her on with the soles of their feet, laughing as she stumbled, cuffing her if she paused. There were probably forty or fifty soldiers in the yard, clustered near a fire that burned at one edge to keep them warm as the night grew chilly; more would come later when they went off duty. They clustered around her, forming a loose circle perhaps ten yards across. Her chains were removed. This was it. This was the start of her death. She stood, as though unconcerned, right arm loose by her side, left hand holding the opposite elbow.
Ligarius took command. He stepped up to her. “You’re going to entertain us,” he said, running his hand along the line of her jaw. She shook her head, as though shaking off a fly. “Now, we have plenty of ways to have fun with you and not all of them are pleasant. So if I were you, I’d think of how I could entertain us, because if we choose the entertainment it’s going to hurt.” She looked impassively at him. “So, first of all, strip for us. Maybe a dance. Entertain us.”
She looked at him and, as she had in front of the emperor, slipped out of her rags. She stood, defiantly, naked in front of him. She’d put on no show, had stripped as matter- of-factly as was possible. Ligarius smiled at her. “Silly,” he said and slapped her left breast hard. Lucius found himself admiring her courage in defying them, but he couldn’t take his eyes from her breasts as they wobbled back and forth.
“So, you’re married, are you?” Ligarius asked.
“I am married to Christ,” she replied, her voice calm and confident.
“Then we must have a wedding service for you,” Ligarius said, clapping his hands sharply. One of the jailers approached him and took a whispered order, running off with a grin on his face. Ligarius stepped up to Catherine and pushed her, hard. She stumbled backwards into a clutch of soldiers who shoved her back. They gathered in a circle round her, knocking her back and forth, jeering, laughing as she stumbled, picking her up and throwing her forward again. Her hair flew about her, her breasts bounced around her chest; she was made to look ridiculous, this elegant, beautiful woman staggering between them. She clattered into Lucius and he held her for a moment, her soft back against the cold metal of his breast-plate, his hands squeezing her breasts, then he brought his hands back and shoved her hard so she went careering across the circle.
For five minutes they buffeted her, fondling and shoving, and then two jailers arrived, hauling between them a slight dark-haired girl of around eighteen or nineteen. She was dressed in a tattered dress and had clearly been beaten; Lucius recognised the pretty girl from the square. She carried a pole perhaps six feet long, topped with a cross on which he could see a model of a man being crucified. This, he knew, was the god of the Christians.
“So,” said Ligarius. “You will marry your Christ, escorted by the lovely Miriam.”
He had clearly planned this. He had the soldiers line up to create an aisle down to the fire. The girl, clutching her cross, was forced to walk between them, Catherine alongside her. Her head was bowed, but she seemed obedient. The soldiers jeered at them, spitting and slapping. The girl was crying and Catherine reached up to put a supportive hand on her arm. “Look how in love they are,” somebody shouted and there were hoots of laughter.
They reached the front and Ligarius made them face each other, pledge loyalty and their undying love. Then he made Catherine kiss the figure on the cross. She did so, and Lucius felt a strange pang, a desire to feel those rich lips on his. Ligarius pulled on a gauntlet and took a pair of tongs, plunging them into the fire to withdraw something that glowed orange with heat. He held it aloft, and Lucius saw that it was a piece of wire twisted to make a ring.
“Your wedding ring,” Ligarius said mockingly. “Hold out your hand.”
Her face showed both disgust and fear. “If you don’t offer you finger, the ring will go in interesting parts of your friend’s anatomy. Then we’ll hold you down and force it on you.” Miriam gave a sharp scream.
Slowly, Catherine held out her left hand, extending her long elegant fingers. The soldiers pressed closer. Ligarius returned the ring to the flames. She stood, seemingly calm, arm outstretched, without a tremor. Ligarius withdrew the ring again. He took the tongs in his bare hand and with them and the gauntleted hand eased the ring over the fourth finger of her left hand. She held the other fingers away. He dropped the tongs and pushed the ring down. As the metal touched the knuckle she stiffened, teeth gritted, eyes bulging. He forced it down further, to the base of her finger and, as he released her, the scream came. It was hideous, a howl from deep inside her. She stared at her left hand, stretched out from her body, grabbed the forearm with her right hand and turned wildly to face the mass of the soldiers. The girl sobbed and made for Catherine, but Ligarius stopped her, cuffing her with the back of his hand. Catherine fell to her knees, using her right hand to hold her left hand, her mouth wide open, shrieking, breasts heaving, until finally, by some mercy, she fell unconscious.
*
They’d carried her to her cell, unconscious, and bound her to the corners of the pallet so when she came round she was stretched out in an X-shape. Miriam was there as well, kneeling terrified, clutching the cross. Catherine looked up at her left hand. The ring was still there, the finger swollen an ugly purple. She glanced around at the soldiers packed into the cell and her head fell back. She clearly knew what was coming.
“So, your wedding night,” Ligarius mocked. He took the cross from the girl and lay it on Catherine so the long pole rested between her breasts, the figure on her lips. “Lick him,” he said. Catherine stared at the ceiling. Ligarius seized the girl by the hair and hauled her up. As her hands went to her hair, he yanked at her rags, sipping them off so she stood naked. She was thin, with perky, small breasts. “Shall I have her flogged?” Ligarius said, shoving her towards the door where she fell at the feet of a crowd of soldiers.
Catherine bit her lip and then licked the metal figure. “Again,” Ligarius said. “He’s your husband. Show him a good time.”
She licked again and again. Ligarius shoved the head into her mouth. “Fellate him,” he said. “Make him feel good.” She took the metal head between her lips. The soldiers laughed, joking about her technique. Lucius could see the muscles in her jaw tightening. On and on she took the head into her mouth, pushed it out, ran her tongue around it. Finally, Ligarius pulled the cross away. “I think he’s ready to penetrate you now,” he said.
She pushed her head back, arching her neck. Lucius could see defiance in her eyes, but the gesture served to thrust her breasts up, prompting more laughter. Ligarius looked at Miriam. “Sit on her belly and open her flaps,” he said and the girl, terrified, hastened to obey. She skipped over, mouthed, “I’m sorry,” and crouched over her, a foot either side of her waist, buttocks just an inch of two above Catherine’s belly. Ligarius held the cross towards her. Miriam put a hand to each of Catherine’s lips and pulled them apart. With her left hand she held them open, and with her right she took the end of the cross and inserted it. “Heel,” Ligarius snapped and the girl ran to kneel beside him.
He pushed the cross. Catherine grunted. He thrust and she shouted in pain, her teeth gritted. Ligarius withdrew a little and thrust again. Her fists clenched and Lucius saw a dribble of blood drip from her cunt. Was she really a virgin? It seemed she was. What a waste. Ligarius thrust in and out, the crossbar preventing him shoving too far. The blood became thicker, coating the top of the cross. She shouted in pain. On and on he fucked her with it, her grunts of anguish becoming increasingly frequent and increasingly loud. “Are you ready to climax?” Ligarius asked. “Orgasm close?” There was laughter and more taunts until Ligarius finally stopped. He handed the blood-soaked cross to Miriam. “Now how about a real man?” he said. “Your first affair.”
Ligarius hitched up his tunic and settled on top of her. The other soldiers lined up, watching idly as Ligarius fucked her. She had her eyes tight shut, as though trying to pretend this wasn’t happening. Ligarius finished quickly and lifted himself. He shuffled over to Miriam. “Clean it,” he ordered. She looked startled, then realised with horror what he meant. She obeyed, though, taking his penis in her mouth and licking off the semen and blood. “Good girl,” he said. The second solider, pale buttocks wobbling, was already on top of Catherine.
Lucius was sixth in line. He rarely joined in the rapes but, well, this was different. He knew even then she was the most beautiful woman he would ever fuck, but it was more than that. For all of them, this was a once in a lifetime chance to fuck a noble, to find out how soft their skin was, what it was like to get inside their aristocratic cunts. When the fifth soldier finished, he edged forward, already erect, but Ligarius stopped him. He grabbed Miriam by the hair and shoved her forward. “Clean out her cunt,” he said. The girl looked appalled but she was too terrified to resist. She dropped her head between Catherine’s legs and licked. When she lifted her face, she was sobbing and her mouth was surrounded by semen. She retched, the apologised. “Get her some water,” Ligarius shouted.
Lucius stepped forward. He lay down on Catherine, running his hands over those magnificent tits. He stroked and kneaded, then kissed her plump red lips. She kept her teeth gritted so he couldn’t push his tongue in, but even licking her smooth incisors was heaven. “Come on,” somebody shouted. “There’s no time for foreplay.” Lucius wanted to take his time, though. This was a dream. He placed his face between her breasts, feeling their warmth and softness on either side, then he took her right nipple in his mouth, sucking and teasing, biting it gently. Only then did he enter her, keeping his hands on her tits as he thrust into her, his fingers digging deep as he came far too quickly. Slowly, reluctantly, he eased himself off her. Almost immediately, Miriam was there, her rapid small tongue working over his penis until it was clean. He walked away, feeling oddly deflated.
Lucius left her cell, passing the line of soldiers merrily waiting their turn. He felt a little disgusted. She was a beautiful woman, a hugely impressive, charismatic, intelligent figure, somebody who deserved better than that. Torture, perhaps, was fair enough, punishment for her Christianity, but mass rape was about soldiers taking out on her their frustrations, punishing her for being a rich and gorgeous woman. Even the beatings and the spiked wheel troubled him, though. Not in themselves but in her reaction to them. How had she been so calm? How had she recovered so quickly? He wondered whether there might be something in Christianity after all.
*
It was about an hour and a half later when curiosity forced Lucius back. He’d had a couple of goblets of wine and tried to clear his head but in the end his desire to fuck her again had got the better of him. There was no queue when he got back, just a crowd of a couple of dozen soldiers clustered around the pallet. It was Miriam who was bound there now, though, face grey and traumatised as Marcellus pounded up and down on top of her. Catherine knelt by Ligarius. Even in the flickering light of the two brands that lit the room Lucius could see the bruising around her thighs and breasts. As Marcellus finished, she opened her mouth obediently. Lucius wondered for a moment why she had given in, but then he saw two ugly welts on Miriam’s ribs. They’d whipped her and Catherine had given in to protect her.
“Are well all done?” Ligarius asked. When he got no answer he ordered the soldiers to unfasten Miriam.
“Your turn again,” he said to Catherine. This time, they tied her face down. Lucius saw Miriam had taken perhaps 10 strokes of the cane across her skinny back.
Ligarius went first, prizing Catherine’s buttocks apart before plunging in. Her distress this time was clear as she shrieked with each thrust. Then it was Lucius’s turn as Miriam was again forced to lick Ligarius clean. Her buttocks were full and round, the odd pale scar showing from her floggings. He slid in, Ligarius’s efforts having made his entry easier, and then slid his hands under her body to cup her breasts once again. She begged him to stop but once he was inside her there was no way that was going to happen. She shrieked as he thrust inside her, burying his face in her lustrous hair. He lasted longer this time, but it was still over too quickly and before he knew it he was being sucked clean by Miriam as another solider took his place on Catherine.
What had he done? What if she was right? What if Christianity was true? Her capacity to soak up abuse was astonishing; something was giving her that strength. He left the cell and went and washed himself.
*
The fort was alive that morning. It was bright and sunny, not overly hot. The guard-room had been packed. Everybody was there to see the execution, even those who were off-duty. The yard had been prepared, the sand raked, the scourges unpicked of the dried flesh of previous victims and oiled for maximum flexibility. The sword with which she’d be beheaded had been sharpened, a new block installed. Gaius, who was around only rarely, had been prancing about, practising the stroke with which he’d kill her. There was also, for reasons Lucius didn’t understand, a brazier glowing about five yards in front of the block, stocked with half a dozen brands. The soldiers stood in neat rows, the centurion sat at his table. On the balcony high above, the emperor looked down.
A little after dawn, she was brought out. Somebody had found her deep red robe and draped it around her. It hung loose, so her left leg and right shoulder could be seen as she was led into the yard. Her wrists had been chained behind her and a soldier held each arm. She looked exhausted as they shoved her in front of them. Lucius walked behind, part of a party of ten soldiers who escorted her to face the centurion. Her left leg was almost entirely bare, and he found it hard to tear his eyes from the base of her left buttock. He could also see the finger, swollen purple around the ring.
She was hustled in front of the centurion, who stared at her from his position behind the table. There was a moment of silent calm in the yard. “You have been sentenced to be scourged and beheaded,” he said. He looked at Lucius. “Strip her,” he said. Lucius stepped forward. He didn’t know why he’d been selected for this honour. He strode round in front of her, seeing the flagrums on the table. He paused and lifted her chin with his right hand. Her dark eyes fixed on him. He saw sadness but no fear. His hands went to her shoulders. Beneath his left hand he felt her warm smooth skin and he was transported back to raping her the night before. She nodded slightly at him. “I forgive you,” she said. He started and then, his left hand dropping to her chest, yanked at the cloth. It fell away and she was naked for the final time. He stared at those magnificent breasts, at the bruising around them, and then at the dark swelling around her cunt. What had they done?
He lay the robe on the table. Marcus stepped up and selected a flagrum. He weighed it in his hand and then, laughing, dangled it in front of her face. “Ready for this, my lady?” he asked, then turned and crashed it down where there robe lay on the table. Lucius flinched as the hooks that tipped each of the six strands embedded themselves in the table. Marcus, with some difficulty, wrenched the whip free. He held up the robe. There were six clear holes where the hooks had bitten, but also dozens of smaller tears where the shards of glass and bone that were dotted along the length of each strand had ripped through the fine wool.
“You’re an hour from death and it’ll be the worst hour of your life.”
“What a waste of a great pair of tits.”
They stood her in front of the post but the taunting didn’t stop. “You liked it so much you came back,” one said, shoving her hard.
She stumbled and righted herself. Her face was flushed. They stared her up and down, drinking in her pure nakedness. They turned her to face the rows of soldiers, shaking her arms so her breasts wobbled. “A last look before she’s ripped apart,” another shouted, making her turn full circle three times. There was laughter. Her hands were unchained and they span her to face the post, fastening her arms so she was stretched taut, standing on her toes.
Ligarius swept up her hair, twisted it into a loose rope and shoved it over her left shoulder. He shoved a hand between her legs and made her squirm before backing off. Marcus shook out the scourge. Lucius could hear the chunks of bone and glass clicking together as he stepped back. He rushed in and slashed the flagrum across the centre of her back. There was a terrible crash and tearing noise and her whole body went tense. The only sound she made was a shocked gasp but then, as the full realisation of what had happened set in she gave a moan that was part terror, part pain and part surprise. Blood oozed immediately from rents in her back, the olive smoothness streaked with a deep purple stripe, flecked with the white of ripped skin and the red of her blood. Gellus swept his first stroke down on a diagonal from the point of her left shoulder. The hooks clearly caught, tearing long grooves in the skin as the bone and glass flicked small scratches lower down her back. This time, she screamed immediately.
Marcus hurtled in, great power in his strike, directed into the flesh of her buttocks. There was blood immediately and chunks of flesh were gouged from the right cheek. She stiffened, standing on tiptoe, groin thrusting against the post and blood began to trickle down her thigh. Her scream was strangled, an agonised groan that had only just subsided when Gellus whipped the other buttock, ripping small sections of skin from just below her hip.
They scourged her pitilessly, Marcus striking with all his power, Gellus flicking to tear the skin. It was brutal, savage, and she howled and howled. They whipped her back, her shoulders, her buttocks, her thighs, even her calves, shredding her skin. They left long spaces between the lashes, drawing it out, no more than three or four strokes a minute, letting her howls die down and the tension build in the comparative silence when the only sound was her agonised breathing. After five minutes her body was streaked with red, quivering with pain and shock. After ten barely a scrap of untouched flesh remained. Surely, Lucius, thought, they couldn’t go on. But the centurion was unmoved. Marcus crashed the scourge into the base of her buttocks and the hooks stuck for a moment, coming free only as he yanked them. She howled, blood gushed from the wound and, slowly, her legs gave way so she was left hanging by her wrists. But on it went, lash after lash landing on her ravaged skin, sending up great showers of blood. The hooks caught again and again, wrenching chunks of flesh from her. There was no mercy, no let up. By the time quarter of an hour had passed she was limp, her screams no more than exhausted gasps. At last the centurion gave the order to stop.
Lucius and Ligarius were the first to the post. She was shaking, beads of sweat rolling from her forehead. Blood oozed from her back, her skin hanging in ribbons where the hooks had scored the skin. Others soldiers held her upright, fingers probing between her legs. Lucius unfastened one wrist and Ligarius the other and she slid limply down the post. Her arms were grabbed and she was turned around then flung to the ground. She sprawled in the sand, buttocks in the air. Ligarius kicked her hard, sending up another spray of blood as she lurched forwards towards the centurion. Soldiers pulled her up by the hair and shoulders so she effectively knelt, her tear- stained, exhausted face was directed to the centurion. He looked at her pitilessly. “Scourge her front,” he ordered.
For the first time Lucius saw weakness in her. “No,” she murmured. “No!” But she was dragged back to the post, their hands all over her, laughter ringing out as her bloody back was pushed against the stone and her wrists fastened again high above her head. The fear in her face was clear as Marcus and Gellus approached, shaking the whips mockingly. The sand at her feet was already red and more blood was dripping from her back down the post. She shook, breasts quivering, but she held her head up, defiant despite her terror. Lucius looked up and down her magnificent body, knowing that in seconds it would be destroyed, the smooth live skin ripped apart.
Marcus ran in and lashed low, so low that sand flicked up as the lashes smashed into her shins. There were clicks as the hooks struck the stone behind her, but also a duller noise, the sickening clump of bone and lead clattering into her shinbones. Her head snapped upright and her eyes bulged. Her mouth opened but there was no noise, just a look of horror and agony. Gellus raked his lash down her shins; she tried to dodge, but she no longer had the strength. Marcus drove into her knees, the hooks catching in the loose skin at the base of her thighs. She began to retch, her breasts leaping and quivering as the convulsions passed through her. There was no mercy, though, and Gellus flashed the scourge into her left knee cap. Slowly, her body subsided, so she hung by her wrists, her legs limp.
On the flogging went, inexorably up her body. Her lower thighs, from left and from right, the lashes drawing horrendous screams, her jerks of agony causing her breasts to dance upon her chest. Did she even realise the show she was putting on? Did she feel humiliated even through the pain? Lucius had no idea; he’d never seen anyone tortured quite like this before. What made this worse, he realised, was that she could see the lashes coming. She had to watch as Marcus charged in and slashed at her thigh. She leapt like a puppet as the thongs struck, the hooks digging deep into the side of her leg, the glass and stones tearing the front of her left thigh.
Gellus ripped ribbons from her right thigh. She twitched and howled. From the balcony the emperor, arms folded, watched with a slight smile. Lucius felt a pang of, of what? It was as if the emperor had said that if he couldn’t enjoy Catherine’s beauty he would debase it, by making it available to the lowest soldier, and then destroy it. Marcus struck high on her left thigh, scoring deep lines just below her hip. Gellus’s thongs wrapped round, a flick of his wrist driving the hooks deep into the side of her right buttock. He had to step across her to yank them out.
Catherine screamed and screamed, but she never begged for mercy. Marcus next lash reached across and boomed off her hip bone. She began once more to retch. Gellus struck the hip on the other side. Her head pushed back against the pillar, thrusting her breasts up and out, wobbling as he legs shook. Her breasts didn’t have long left, Lucius reflected, but most of all he admired her fortitude, the fact that naked, raped and scourged half to death she still didn’t betray her god.
Marcus changed his angle, bringing his scourge in an upward arc to thrash into the inside of her right thigh and up into her most delicate areas. She leapt, her spasm of pain far worse than anything Lucius had ever seen. There was a murmur from the soldiers and then Gellus repeated the blow from the other side, dragging the hooks over her perineum. Still she didn’t lose consciousness, but howled and howled, her face taut with anguish. Marcus repeated the blow a little higher, tearing out chunks of pubic-hair-covered flesh as the lower thongs thrashed across her lips. She was shaking desperately, legs covered in blood, face contorted in agony. Gellus tore up into the inside of her left thigh.
Lucius wondered how long she could survive this assault. She looked pale, her eyes starting madly as the lashes worked up her stomach. She could see the blows coming but was too weak and bound too tightly to do anything to stop them. Her stomach, deliciously smooth and pure, slowly was torn apart. The bloodline moved over her belly-button. Her screams became quieter as her energy was sapped. The hooks of Marcus’s scourge caught in her ribs. As he wrenched them loose, the white of her ribcage was clearly visible. Her head fell forward but snapped back as Gellus tore strips form her belly. Her eyes stood out from her skull and she whimpered. Was she broken, Lucius wondered? Would she start to beg?
Everybody was just waiting for one thing: the destruction of her breasts. One more lash each, Lucius estimated and then they’d start on them. He’d never seen a scourging this harsh. How many had she taken? A hundred? A hundred and twenty? She would die anyway, he suspected, even without being decapitated.
Marcus, sweat dripping from his brow, flung the whip at her again. It crashed into her upper belly. Her breasts leapt as she jerked. There was something pitiful about seeing this once proud, beautiful woman reduced to this bleeding, shivering wreck. Gellus flayed across her ribs. She was like a carcass hanging in an abattoir now, limply draped on the post. And then the centurion ordered them to stop. What was he doing? Were they going to spare her breasts?
No. He ordered a soldier to throw cold water over her. It was one of the young recruits who fetched a bucketful from the pump and approached her. He stood anxiously in front of the bloodied figure, his eyes barely able to raise themselves from her pristine breasts, then threw it hurriedly into her face. She coughed and twitched, blinking rapidly. It had worked; there was terror again in her face. “Proceed,” said the centurion.
Marcus smiled and walked up to her. He grabbed her right breast in his left hand and squeezed it, forcing is fingers deep into the soft flesh, laughing mockingly. She stared at him, fury in her eyes as water dripped from her hair. Marcus walked back and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He ran in, drew back the scourge and with tremendous power smashed it into her breasts. The hooks dug into the left side of the left breast, tearing the skin. The knots and barbs thumped into the meat of the breasts, breaking the skin, leaving livid wounds in the streaks left by the leather. She shrieked and the breasts quivered both with the force of the whip and her agonised attempts to breathe. Gellus, with his familiar flicking technique, flayed half the skin from her right breast. Lucius hated to see them destroyed and yet he couldn’t tear his eyes away. Marcus, clearly weary, swept another blow into the top of the breasts, scouring lines along the soft skin. Gellus, ripped a lash across her left nipple, leaving it gaping, blood dripping steadily out. “Two more,” said the centurion. Marcus summoned up one last blow, the main force of the lash striking across the areolae. She was howling uncontrollably, her body shaking as Gellus inflicted the final blow, dragged down across the top of her right breast so the hooks embedded in the skin. He let go of his whip and it hung from her. There was laughter from the soldiers and he stepped forward and pulled it free, yanking downwards to tear even more of the flesh.
Her body was a mess of blood from neck to ankle. She shook violently, head bowed, breath coming in wavering spurts. They unfastened her wrists and she collapsed into the bloodied sand at the base of the blood-stained pillar, lying awkwardly, too exhausted to move until they dragged her across the yard for her final torment. A trail of red was left in the sand behind her.
The soldiers pushed her down behind the block, making her kneel. Exhausted, more dead than alive, she did so, blood oozing from every part of her. From the cells, they brought the Christians. There were a couple of dozen of them, men and women, in various states of distress. Some had been beaten, most of the women had been raped. The soldiers lined them up facing her. Ligarius began directing affairs again. “You will walk up to her, renounce your faith and spit on her,” he said. “If you do so, you will be sold into slavery. If you refuse, you will be branded and sent to die in the arena. The choice is yours.”
The soldiers pushed forward the first Christian, a wild-eyed man in his forties with a straggling beard. He looked desperately at the brazier and the brands, looked at the scourged form of the woman he’d once idolised. A soldier kicked him hard in the lower back and he stumbled forward. He stood before Catherine, whispered, “I renounce Christianity,” and spat in her face. There was laughter as he was led off to the far side of the yard. One by one they walked up, men and women, old and young. Some were apologetic, some were crying, some looked angry, but all spat in her face or on her bloodied body.
All the time, Catherine knelt, exhausted. Her eyes looked despairing. There was something hideous about this, Lucius thought, this tortured woman being made to confront her failure, being humiliated in the minutes before her death. To be naked, scourged and bleeding, waiting in the hands of your enemies to be put to death must be bad enough, but to see your friends, those who were supposed to be on your side, betray you was something else.
Even after all they’d done to her, she still beautiful, the smoothness of her face, neck and upper chest a strange contrast to the ripped and bloody skin elsewhere. Spittle now coated it, strands hanging from her hair, her nose, her collar bones. And through it all she looked straight ahead, her said brown eyes unflinching from her fate. The second last prisoner, a fat, balding man, shuffled forward. “I renounce Christianity,” he said, hawked up a ball of phlegm and spat. It struck her between the eyes but she barely blinked, seemingly too exhausted to react. Her lips, full and luscious, were moving, Lucius noticed. “May God forgive you,” he saw her mouth say, although her voice was too soft to be heard.
And then there was only one Christian left: Miriam. Her rags barely covered her thin body. The scars from her caning were clear, her face drawn, dark smudges under her eyes. She limped forward, glancing at the brazier as she went. She approached Catherine, whose eyes were fixed on her face. Miriam coughed, clearing her throat. Lucius waited for her too to spit but instead she knelt and hugged Catherine, gently pulling her bloody form against hers. “I’m a Christian,” she croaked.
The soldiers were on her in an instant. The rags were ripped off and she was dragged to the brazier. A solider held each arm, another had his forearm around her neck so she couldn’t move. Lucius looked straight at her, saw the terror in her dark eyes, her frail nakedness, the pale little breasts trembling as Ligarius seized a brand. The head was shaped like a cross and smoked a little as he carried it towards her. She twisted and kicked, but she’d have been too delicate to have escaped one soldier, never mind three.
Ligarius thrust the brand against her bony chest, pushing it into the skin so the lowest point of the cross just touched the top of the shallow between her breasts. She howled, her face rigid with pain, and the smell of burning flesh filled the air. By the time he removed the brand, a dark red scar had been left on her chest. The soldiers released her and she collapsed onto the sand. “Take her away,” said the centurion. “And have her flogged before she goes to the arena.” Lucius knew that meant she’d suffer another night of rape.
Two soldiers dragged Miriam across the yard. Catherine murmured something to her as she passed and then glanced up at the sky. She must have known what was coming but she seemed calm. Two soldiers grabbed her and hauled her up. From breasts to toes she was covered in blood. She couldn’t walk so was hauled across to the brazier, leaving a trail of red in the sand. They held her as they had held Miriam and Ligarius again took up a brand. It was bigger than the one they’d used on Miriam, each bar perhaps four inches long.
Catherine didn’t flinch, didn’t fight, didn’t twist, she just stood. Was she too weak even to put up token resistance, Lucius wondered, or was she actively accepting the mark of her religion? She seemed to offer up her chest, the skin still smooth above her ravaged breasts, as Ligarius pressed down with the brand. A shudder passed through, but she gave barely a gasp as her delicious skin was burned. Ligarius held the cross there for five seconds, six, seven. Smoke drifted up and when he pulled the brand away, revealing the blackish red mark, he jabbed it again against her breasts. She gave a yelp of pain but she seemed too far gone really to feel it.
The centurion gave his signal and the soldiers dragged her to the block. Even then she was given no dignity, being slapped and jostled and spat upon as her wrists were bound, hands still fighting to feel her bloodied breasts. “Is your god going to save you this time?” a soldier asked and as he did so a cloud passed across the sun. Finally she was forced down, so she lay with her neck on the wood, arms oddly pale against her bloody back, save for the blackened ring finger. Her hair was pulled aside, falling to the left side of her face to expose her neck. She seemed quite calm, so still that Lucius wondered if she were dead already. But then, as Gaius stepped forward, the sword in his hand, in the silence of the yard, she spoke quite clearly. “I commend my spirit to the Lord,” she said. “May He forgive you all.”
And as the sword fell, slicing through her pretty neck in one blow, and as a light rain began to fall, Lucius knew that he was now a Christian. Review_This_Story || Email Author: King_Diocletian ****** MORE_BDSM_STORIES_@_SEX_STORIES_POST ******