Part three: Onto the platform
“Up, I said!” With an unceremonious shove on her backside to assist her Rin clambered onto the highest step in full view of hundreds of leering men.
In moments Haru and Sakura were there beside her, though their steps were a few inches lower. Rin was clearly the prize to be displayed.
“Tie them!”
The soldiers leapt to obey Takahashi’s command as avidly as mad dogs released from the leash. Rin’s wrists were bound tightly in front of her, and then the long end of the rope thrown over the pole. They hauled on the rope, pulling her arms up over her head, and then continuing to pull until her toes were barely in contact with the step. Now there was no way she could cover herself, and the crowd loved it. Rin tried to blot out the screams of her sisters as they got the same treatment.
‘What next?’ wondered Rin.
She soon got her answer. She watched in helpless horror as Takahashi strolled up and down the platform in front of them brandishing a savage looking cane.
“One hundred and twenty.” Takahashi spoke the number loudly and clearly, so that even the braying of the mob behind him couldn’t drown it out.
“That’ll save you the trouble of crucifying us. None of us will survive 120 strokes.” Rin tried to sound brave.
“Not each. Between you. When you shout ‘stop’, I shall stop. When Haru shouts ‘stop’ I shall also stop. But Sakura may shout ‘stop’ as much as she likes, but I shall not stop until I reach a total of 120. Understand?”
“You are the son of a
bitch, Takahashi-
san!” Rin spat the word ‘san’ into his face.
Takahashi did not reply, but just smirked and went round behind her. Rin shut her eyes. She heard the swish of the cane and then her backside exploded in pain. “One!” called a soldier. How she didn’t scream out in her pain, Rin didn’t know. But she did know that she was going to take as many of these 120 strokes as she could. She had not intention of allowing Haru or Sakura to suffer like this.
Swish! The next one landed across her shoulders. “Two!”
Rin entered a world of pain, dangling from that rope as Takahashi worked his way around her. After he had passed ten her tortured nerves began to give up their own struggle, and Rin found it hard to tell where the cane was landing, as her whole body seemed to be on fire.
“Twenty!” called the soldier. ‘Fuck ‘, thought Rin, ‘can I take another hundred of these?’
By the time he reached thirty, Takahashi was struggling to find new places to strike, so he just started again.
Swish…crack! Swish..crack! Rin tried to disengage her brain. She was back on her white horse, galloping across the fields, her father beside her. Then a blow landed across her snake tattoo bringing her back to the world of blood and fire.
“Thirty-nine!”
Crack! Right across her breasts. Again. “Forty!”
Still she made no sound. Crack! Across her thighs. “Forty-one!”
“Stop!”
But it was Haru who had called out, not Rin. Takahashi ignored her, and landed a blow across Rin’s abdomen. “Forty-two!”
“Stop, I said!” yelled Haru. “It’s my turn now!”
But Rin simply shook her head, and so the torture continued. But after stroke fifty-five, it became clear that Rin had passed out. Takahashi, himself glad of the opportunity for a break, nodded to one of the soldiers.
The soldier went to the clay pot in front of Rin, and threw it over her. It was full of her own excrement from the prison cell. Some splashed over Haru, and she gagged at the stench.
“Please, please stop!” cried Haru, coughing. “Please, she’s had more than her share!”
But Rin, with rancid turds in her hair, murmured, “no. Carry on.”
Takahashi glared at her. He had spared no effort in trying to break her. But now he knew that he would have to keep beating her either until she was dead or he reached 120, and he wasn’t sure which would come soonest. But his orders had been to crucify her, not to beat her to death with his cane. Lord Naitou would thrash
him to death if he killed her here. But he could not now stop and start beating Haru, because he had stated loudly and clearly in front of hundreds of witnesses that he would not do so until Rin asked him to. But he now knew that she was never going to do that. And a Samurai has his honour. He had no choice. He struck her again.
“Fifty-six!”
But, unbeknown to any but Rin and Takahashi, Rin had won this battle. None observing would have known it, but now Takahashi was pulling back on the cane for fear of his own life. Yes, he was still hurting her, but not now injuring her. It looked as though he was striking her just as ferociously, and Rin was still grunting with each stroke. Haru and Sakura were both bellowing at him to stop.
Crack! “One hundred!” He paused. “Come on, you stupid bitch!” snarled Takahashi. “They can take ten each!”
But it was no good. She hung there, panting for breath. “What’s…. the matter? Getting… tired? You…. owe me…. another twenty.”
Haru and Sakura wailed in protest, but Takashashi, grim-faced, administered those last twenty strokes.
“Get them down! But keep those snivelling girls away from her!”
Rin was still alive, but she collapsed onto the platform, and lay there in a pool of blood and excrement. As the soldiers held Haru and Sakura back, Takahashi met Rin’s eye. She glared defiantly at him, uttering no words, but her message was clear:
“You can hurt me, you can kill me, but you will never break me!”