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Journey To Rome

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Part 8:


When the pomp, ceremony, and subsequent festivities of the sentencing had faded, most of the soldiers were dismissed, while Rego took a remaining detachment to lead Kirana and her ladies to a prison, where they would spend this day and the next awaiting Kirana's execution. Kirana was tossed back onto her mare, still facing the rump, and her ladies were tugged along behind her.


Rome was a bigger and more lively city than Kirana had ever seen. Every market stall, shanty home and white-pillared mansion teemed with activity. She even saw another man being flogged in one market square. In no shadow or patch of sunlight did she detect the slightest scent of honor or wisdom. Everyone in Rome, it seemed, was earning money, spending money, saving money, stealing money, or being punished for it. And all of them, even the naked man at the whipping post, found a spare moment to grin at her viciously.


When they arrived at the main gate to the prison, another woman was being admitted, slightly older than Kirana. She struggled and screamed as her two young children were torn away from her, and her arms were tied behind her.


"Please!" she screamed, "They will die without me!"


"You might have thought of that before, madam," responded a guard, cooly. "What happens to them now is your fault, not ours."


"But Sir! I beg you!!" The woman's eyes were pitiful and pleading, streaming tears. Kirana thought she had never seen a sight to arouse such pity. She slid down from her mount, still bound, and approached the woman to comfort her. The other woman was confused.


"Your children shall not starve," Kirana whispered, then, leaving the woman speechless, went to Rego. "Rego," she said in a low voice, "there are two sapphires and an emerald in a pouch inside my robe." Rego listened, feeling he knew what the princess was doing, but unable to accept it. "Sell them and take care of the children. I have no further need of them."


Rego haltingly slipped his hand under Kirana's robe. He could feel her soft breast, and he tried to swallow the desire rising in his chest.


"On the left," she said. Rego produced the pouch, looked it over, and held it up to her for confirmation. She nodded. Kirana turned and smiled sweetly at the woman, who, while still confused, was comforted somewhat.


After entering the prison, Kirana and her ladies were led down a series of torchlit corridors before finally stopping at a barred gate on the left. The gate was unlocked and opened, and the women obediently filed inside. The stone floor was covered in straw, and the stone ceiling was too low for standing, so they all had to crouch and find a place to sit. Their bonds were finally cut, and then Rego locked them inside.


"Rego," said Kirana, calling from within the cell, not coming to the bars, "would you be so kind as to deliver the supplies we brought with us on the journey?"


"Of course, My Lady."


"And... I would like to speak more with my executioner, please, to learn what I must endure."


(To be continued...)
 
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madiosi said:
Believe me, we need an avatar for you. What suits you?
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Well, if you're offering free art, how about a woman standing at the base of her cross, next to the platibulum, already stripped to the waist and flogged, but still wearing a "skirt" - the remains of her shift, tied off at the waist. Now she's pulling down the "skirt" in preparation for her nailing. Too much? :)
 
Juan1234 said:
Well, if you're offering free art, how about a woman standing at the base of her cross, next to the platibulum, already stripped to the waist and flogged, but still wearing a "skirt" - the remains of her shift, tied off at the waist. Now she's pulling down the "skirt" in preparation for her nailing. Too much? :)
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This is from a SkatingJesus artwork. I hope he is not angry because you have recently gotten him here.
I think it suits your needs.
Image3.jpg
From decency should ask him.
http://www.cruxforums.com/xf/members/skatingjesus.14164/
 
Juan1234 said:
Part 6:


Two days later, Kirana got her first glimpse of a crucifixion. They were now very near the city, and would enter it the next morning. Ahead on their right, Kirana saw the cross, about one and a half times the height of a man, and set in a small mound just three paces off the road. As she approached it, she saw what was once the body of a man hanging on it by nails through the wrists and feet. There were scraps of deep brown leather stretched over the skeleton in various places - the sun-baked remains of the man's skin, but mostly it was a bleached skeleton. It was not as evident on a skeleton whose genitals had been carried off by bird and beast, but Kirana noticed that there was no scrap of cloth anywhere on the corpse or on the ground below. Disheveled hair hung in tangles over the check bones that literally pierced through the shriveled skin of the face, and the dark, grimy hollows where his eyes had been before they were pecked out by birds. Above his head was a signboard reading: "Livio - Thief".


Kirana was stunned. Her mouth parted involuntarily, and she would have forgotten her royalty and broken down in sobs had she not been yanked back to her wits by the churning urge to vomit. She looked away and steadied herself, narrowly avoiding such an unseemly display. Rego put his hand on her shoulder to comfort her, and they continued, but her mind raced. Soon, that hideous corpse would be her! She would hang naked from the nails, and birds would peck out her eyes!


As they neared the city gates, there were more and more examples of the death she would soon die, and the way she would soon suffer. Sometimes a cross stood alone, as in the first case. Sometimes there were clusters of three or five, or a dozen. Sometimes the victim was only an assortment of bones scattered around the base of the cross, with one or two still hanging alone by a nail. Sometimes the victims were very alive, moaning, crying out in pain, writhing up and down, their penises hanging uselessly between their taught legs, or even reaching upward for the nothing of the air. Kirana pitied them. She even approached one especially pathetic man who cried and sobbed and moaned as he writhed. She gently touched his impaled foot, and asked him with passionate empathy. "How long have you been here?"


"Yest -" then he cried out once more in pain. "Yester - day," he finished, then contorted his face in such agony and groaned so deeply she could not bear to watch anymore. Yesterday! It was already late in the day today! How long would she have to hang on her cross before death? Even as she stood there, a stream of urine issued from his fly-swarmed penis. Kirana imagined herself urinating on her cross, and shivered in dread.


In all this time, Kirana saw only three women on crosses. One was in fact only a skeleton, and she only knew from the sign above her that she had been a woman. Another was nearly a skeleton, like the first man she had seen. The third was an old woman with silver hair splayed out in tangles over her shoulders, matted in blood down her back, and floating in whisps over her wrinkled, pendulous breasts. Her eyes were barely open, and she made only the slightest noise periodically as she tried to breath. Her face, hanging in wrinkles like the rest of her nakedness, already bore the blank expression of death.


She was indeed naked. Kirana looked carefully to be sure, still finding it difficult - not to mention terrifying - to believe that the Romans would force a woman to be punished fully nude in a public event. But she could clearly see the woman's dark public hair, and though further detail was difficult to discern through the wrinkles, there was certainly no cloth, and behind her the flab of her bare buttocks was pulled up and out of shape against the rough, splintery cross as her body sagged. Kirana felt her own buttocks tingle vicariously at the sight, and she shivered again.


That night, Rego again visited Kirana in her tent, interrupting three soldiers seeking justice from the princess and sending them away. He held a coil of rope.


"My Lady, tomorrow we shall enter Rome," he said. Then he paused, uncomfortable as always speaking to the royal woman. "I hope you shall not take it as disrespect," he continued, "but it will please the emperor if you and your ladies are bound when we enter." Kirana nodded, expressionless. "So," he handed her the rope, "when you dress tomorrow, bind each other with your hands behind your backs. I trust you will do it faithfully, and my men will not be forced to further wound your honor by binding you themselves. And... When you are ready to mount your horse, ask my assistance." Kirana's brow raised slightly. Rego gathered himself and finished: "You will mount backward. It will please the emperor to present you this way to the people." Kirana's face turned slightly pinker, but she nodded again. Rego wanted to say more, but eventually gave up, patted her knee as she sat on her little wooden throne, and turned to go.


"Rego," Kirana stopped him, and he turned. "How many days until the emperor's birthday?"


"Three, My Lady." He turned and left. When he was gone, a single tear wended down her smooth, young face. She was not ready to die.

(To be continued...)
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What amazing, descriptive writing!
 
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