The crucifixion of the women was to punish them for their sexual activities with Quercus’ troops to get free added security for their estate. Quercus could have charged the taxes they owed but they were Roman citizens and he decided to make an example of they and sentence them to death by crucifixion. It was a severe punishment for the women but was wildly popular with the citizens of Messina who came out in droves to see the row of women crucified naked. Even married men’s wives did not mind their husbands going to the hill to lust and harass the women on their crosses.
The people casually toured the hilltop making comments about the condemned women stretched lewdly on their crosses.
The crucified women did not understand everything being said to or about them and it was unclear if the Messinians understood whatever they said back. The difference was the people gawking at them would spend that evening in the comfort of their beds while the women- if they survived that long- would go into the night still hanging nailed to their cross.
The actions of the women varied as they hung from their crosses. Eulalia, still under the impression she deserved the punishment inflicted on her, felt obliged to somehow please the people staring at her. She would push out with her feet, exposing her private parts to the crowd. She knew enough Latin to ask “Is that what you want to see?”
By their applause and cheers, she presumed she had pleased them.
Most of the women were not so submissive to their executioners and the crowd. Quercus’s sister Joan tours the hilltop and comes to Kathrine’s cross. Kathrine groans down to her “How can you let your brother do this to us?”
“Put you to death? You
are a convicted criminal” Joan scolds back.
“I mean crucifying us” Kathrine calls down. “In my land, people are put to death by cutting off their heads… the really bad ones are hanged by their necks to kill them!”
A smile grows on Joan’s face and she explains “But if he did that, you would be dead already. And you still have a lot of suffering before death relieves your pain!”
It is late afternoon and the high cleric Wragg has completed his lunch and returned to the hilltop to say words at each woman’s cross. Barbara yells down from her cross “I don’t need your prayers! I am not of your faith and you are a part of those who have put us here to die!”
“My dear, I have not come to offer you my blessings. I came here pray the your naked body spends eternity in hell as the evil lord’s whore” Wragg calmly explains before he prays for her damnation in hell.
Things are not going better for Messaline. A gentle hand caresses her naked ass while a familiar voice says “My, you look lovely hanged from that wood.”
“Judith, you came here to save me” Messaline exclaims.
“No darling, Messaline, I came to see you suffer all of Quercus’ tortures before you die on that horrible thing” Judith says. “You see, I had to explain to Quercus I had no idea you were screwing his soldiers to get extra security at the estate.”
“But Judith, I am going to die up here” Messaline cries.
“And you look positively divine doings so” Judith coos.
As evening approaches, some of the women of the women have begun to succumb to the tortures of the cross. They hang from the spikes driven through their wrists. They look around at the crowd and realize death will be the only relief from their agony.
One prays she does not live long enough to see tomorrow’s sunrise…