Eulalia slowly rose her head, her chest heaving. There was still defiance in her reddened eyes, but also fear and humiliation. She spat at Tullius, but this time he was expecting it. He dodged the spit and smiled. 'Near miss', he said calmly.
Then he looked insistently at the tortured woman's breasts. 'It would be a shame to ruin these,” he said. 'But, councillor, If you don't answer my question truthfully and completely, well, you'll leave me no choice.'
She tried to remain stoical, but her whole body shuddered, in obvious terror of what lay in store for her.
'All right. You brought this on yourself.'
A lictor moved back to the brazier and picked up pliers with flat-ended jaws. Returning to Eulalia, he hold them in front of her chest, looking interrogatively into her eyes. She just closed them. 'Belisama, help me' she whispered.
He seized her right nipple into the jaws. Her eyes grew wide and her mouth opened. For a moment, it seemed that her brains just couln't register the intensity of the pain. Then she screamed at the top of her lungs, desperately pulling at the ropes fastening her ankles and wrists, until they were chafed and bleeding. The scream turned into a pitiful and desperate wailing, long after the pliers had been removed from her flesh.
When her left nipple was submitted to the same treatment, Eulalia's howls grew even more hideous and her entire body contorted in a seemingly never-ending dance of agony. When her screams finally started to lessen, her head slumped against her wounded chest. She was drooling and still twitching violently, trying to take in all the air that she could. 'Esus... Let me... die... please'
Many townfolks were crying, by now, and others were vomiting at the sight of the noblewoman's horrendous torture. Even some legionaries seemed uneasy, their faces pale and deformed by a nauseous rictus.
A lictor designated the private parts of the young woman. 'Sir, should we... ?'
'No', said Tullius. 'She won't talk, anyway. And she might still be... useful to our brave soldiers.'
He lifted Eulalia's shin with two fingers. Her face was a mask of unbelievable agony. 'So brave. You should have been a roman woman. You want to die? Very well, I sentence you to death. By crucifiction, like your beloved Queen.'
He turned to the lictor.'What do you think?'
'She won't be able to carry a patibulum, Sir. I even doubt she could walk more then a few steps.'
Tullius nodded. 'So she will be nailed here, to the tree. And after her nailing, any legionary willing to have her will be allowed to do so. You too, lictors. Maybe it will hasten your death, councillor.'
Murmurs and gasps went all over the roman soldiers' ranks, as more townfolks began whining and crying.Tullius then headed for the table on which Dorothea was being raped. The last two elite soldiers were just finishing taking pleasure from her delicious body.