As the crowd approached the killing hollow it began to separate out. A dozen or so of Herennius' set clustered round the litter, some with hungover faces that belied their brightly coloured tunics and robes. The rest of the mob flowed out along the edge of the hollow, jostling for places, but none came too near the litter. This was not out of respect for their social betters; grim experience had taught them to stay clear of the bright young things.
Cealia Paulina flopped down on Mira's sedan chair, massaging her temples.
"Gods the noise that girl's making … like a cat being skinned, cacat it drills right through you … Give me some of that wine Regulus, I really need it."
"If I might suggest Miss, you might try this. It is a restorative of my own devising that has often proved efficacious." He held out a small silver cup.
"Whatever," Cealia moaned as she took and drained it. She gasped, her mouth opening and closing like a fish then screwed her face up, hands waggling in the air. After some moments she fell back against the chair back and drew in several deep breaths. Her face cleared, her hands went exploringly to her temples, and a look of delight came over her face.
"Wow Regulus, that's … that's witchcraft."
"Thank you Miss."
A tight group of watchmen passed through the gap between the litter and the other watchers, and behind them a stocky, short man towing the cook like a tugboat towing a liner.
Her head was bowed, forced down by the beam on her shoulders and the way her arms had been roped up behind it. She was fat and magnificent, her arms rounded and strong from kneading dough, her breasts white pillows that swayed as she was led past them.
Her face twisted towards them and fixed on Herrenius with a glare of hatred and contempt.
"Gods what a bum," Claudius Vibius murmured as it swayed down into the hollow. They had wrapped a grimy cloth around her, knotting it at her hip, but it did nothing to conceal the sumptuousness of those globes.
"Like a fat cow going to market," said Herrenius.
A few moments later came the skivvy, pulling back frantically against the two ropes round her neck - it had taken two men to drag her along, and another behind to whack her on her way. The neck ropes had tightened and she was choking as she jerked and pulled against them, her skinny legs braced and slithering on the tufted grass.
As she reached the edge of the hollow her legs skidded from under her so that she fell on her bottom, but two of the watch seized the beam and hauled her up and forced her onwards.
"One cow and one calf being taken to the abbatoir, and the calf's in a panic."
"I say," Rufenious chortled, "You know what, up at the Hill Farm, only been in town a week, she's probably never even seen a crucifixion … it's pretty quiet up there."
"Bucolic, sir," Regulus confirmed.
Herrenius gave a roar of laughter. "Hey, you!" he roared to the watch sergeant in the hollow.
The man turned and stiffened. "Sir."
"Put fatty up first. The skinny one's never seen a crucifixion. Give her a ringside seat, eh?"
The sergeant's answer and the girl's squeals were alike drowned out by the whoop of laughter and cat-calls from the crowd.
"Get that cloth off her though. My friend here wants to see her arse. Wants to see how it compares to his boyfriend!"
TBC
Down in the hollow the two had been set facing each other, each in front of a post some ten feet apart.
The cook was shaking, ripples running up and down the wide columns of her thighs, her big breasts shaking, but her face was set in a rictus of defiance, her lips snarled back. Her teeth were not good, Rufius noted. Too much access to the sugar in the pantry, several blackened and a couple missing. She had turned her head away from the posts.
The skivvy could not take her eyes off them. She was jerking her head, staring first at one then another. Her whole body was twisting about as she alternately choked and squealed, screeched for mercy, for this not to happen.
The cook was sweating buckets, rivulets running down her back, along the creased flesh at her waist, darkening the cloth tied round her waist. Down her white arms into the coarse black tufts at her armpits, beading them, dripping them down.
The skivvy was more skimpily haired, sparse gingery armpit hairs.
The watchmen ripped the loose skirts off and tossed them to the ground. The cook jerked her head and clenched her eyes tight shut as Caludius Vibius whooped in delight to see her splendid bottom bared. The skivvy howled.
Do you think slaves have no shame? The girl from the Hill Farm who'd tended goats and had tentative, nervous flirtations with boys? The woman who had run the kitchen as a kindly but absolute mistress of her craft, who had had five lovers in so many years? Do you think they have no shame?
The cook clutched her eyes tight shut and the skivvy howled.
And the bright young things pointed and giggled at the thick coarse thatch and the sparse gingery vee. At the broad hips with flesh rolls above and strong white thighs below, at the scant hips with sun-browned thighs below the white and the skinny white body above with ribs that, as Rufius pointed out, you could play like a xylophone. At the great pillowing bum and the scrawny arse stripped to be crucified.
"Don't worry Sweetie," Rufius said, gripping a cheek of his boyfriend's bottom. "Yours is far better."
The watchmen grabbed their beams and swung them round, the cook facing away from the post towards the watchers, the skivvy towards the post. A watchman planted his foot behind the cook, his calf angling behind her. Another punched her, burying his fist in her belly. She stumbled back, tripped and slammed back on the ground. They were on her like insects, one straddling her, two grabbing her legs and two her arms, two lifting the beam at one side and struggling to undo the rope on her arm.
Then they forced her wrist onto the beam.
"Not there you fools ... Get it nearer the centre. She's too fat to nail wide armed ... Nail her like that we'll pull her arms off."
She snarled as they shifted her arm against the splintery wood.
"That's better."
The sergeant placed the nail, raised the hammer, slammed it down.
And the cook was howling.
The watchman straddling her belly was jerked up and down like a rider on a galloping horse. The men holding her legs were shaken back and forth. The beam shifted although two men were holding it down.
The cook was a strong woman.
And she howled and howled as they fixed the beam and slammed the hammer down, as they unfastened the other arm, so round and plump and white, gripped it and nailed it to the beam.
While the skivvy squealed and shrieked for them not to do this and struggled against the men holding her beam.
They took hold of the cook's beam and dragged it to the cross, with her legs scrabbling and kicking, and they pulled it up until they had her almost standing with her back against the post, howling maniacally.
Alas from then the affair slipped into Keystone Cops farce.