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Carfulena Delia

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Eulalia said:
Brilliant link Madiosi, I had a hunch we'd had such a story, but didn't remember Sassi's.
It's thrilling. Any chance of a pdf for the Archive? ;)
Click to expand...

Eulalia said:
Brilliant link Madiosi, I had a hunch we'd had such a story, but didn't remember Sassi's.
It's thrilling. Any chance of a pdf for the Archive? ;)
Click to expand...
We have that not? Ooops!!
 
IV

Verberata

Delia awoke before dawn. Curled up in the corner of the cell, she had slept the sleep of exhausted people, deep and mercifully dreamless. She needed to relieve herself in both manners, badly. Someone left a large pot in the other corner of cell for this purpose, along with a soiled sponge which probably had fallen off its stick from hard use. Or perhaps they were afraid that she would employ it like that slave unwilling to fight in the Flavian Amphitheatre had done, jamming the foul thing down his throat hard enough to bring forth the end. Cringing, she used the sponge to clean herself, at least a little.

Her cunnus and culus throbbed with dull pain, and the insides of her thighs were coated with a revolting mix of semen and olive oil, which Silo had generously poured between her buttocks before entering her where she was tightest.

Still, the worst happened when the legionaries left. Marullus and another gaoler led her out into the corridor, put her on all fours between the barred doors of cells where the latrones she had been trying to free were held and took her in sight of her comrades broken by tortures before manacling her wrists and dragging her back to the cell.

The girl sat on the straw and waited, the mere thought of what was going to happen to her making her shiver. She did not expect that the first person through the door of her cell would be a plump, dark-haired woman in her forties bearing a pot of water along with a piece of cloth and a small bag. The guard let her in and stayed outside, watching over them.

‘Greeting, my girl,’ the woman said cheerfully. Delia nodded in bewilderment. ‘I’m Prima, I serve here. Good Silo told me to take care of you this morning, so let’s have you washed.’

Delia wouldn’t describe Silo as good, but it was hardly the time to argue.

‘Am I... going to be...’

‘Uh-huh, my girl,’ Prima nodded. ‘Still, a woman has to look good, and if it were me going up, I would’ve wanted to go up clean!’ She threw Delia the rag. ‘Now, get up and wash!’

Delia wasn’t sure that striving to look good on the cross was a worthwhile goal, but she had to get rid of the filth between her thighs. She stood up and washed her body while the guard leered at her.

‘You did take a dump, I see,’ Prima continued. ‘That’s good.’

So that I don’t shit myself and the soldiers when they nail me. With a sharp intake of breath Delia fell on her knees, her body shaking uncontrollably.

‘Now, now, girl, let old Prima take care of you,’ the slave-woman picked up the rag and started washing Delia’s heaving back. ‘You look much better now, ah, you would look good wearing dirt! Speaking of clothes, where’s your tunic?’ Delia shrugged. ‘I’ll bring you one, mm? I’d like something from you in return, though.’

‘But I have nothing!’ Delia turned to look at Prima. What does she want from me? No, I'm not going to lick her cunnus. Some of here lovers were women, but Delia couldn’t degrade herself further this morning.

‘There’s that,’ Prima fingered the wild curls flowing around Delia’s face. ‘Your hair is going to make a nice wig.’

(TBC)
 
‘Ai!’ Dressed in a dirty, too-small tunic, Delia shifted on her knees as the forfex scissors pricked her scalp.

‘Keep quiet, girl,’ Prima grumbled, pulling the hair away from Delia’s head and hacking off another lock.

Delia had hoped to get her hands on the scissors, even though she didn’t know for sure whether she would try to break out or just slam the sharp object into her own throat. Even so, the slave-woman took no risks and called two gaolers to hold Delia down while she was shearing her.

Delia used to be proud of her beautiful hair and cried a lot when they hacked it off before sending her to the mines. Growing it back after the escape was a sign that she was free again.

And it is my lot to mourn my hair, like a foal, whom herdsmen have seized in the horses’ stables with rough grip, and who has had the yellow mane reaped off her neck. The lines of Sophocles’ play came back to her. Ah, even a pitiless person might pity her, cowering beneath the outrage, as she madly laments and bewails the luxuriant hair she had before.

Prima and the gaolers belied Sophocles. They were busy arguing how much the latter would get after selling the hair.

‘Five asses each, woman!’ Marullus insisted.

‘Four asses for the two of you, I said,’ greedy Prima stood her ground.

‘Give your four asses to your daughter instead and send her over to us, naked!’

‘How about I send over her soldier to cut off your mentula, you horny dolt?’ Prima was finishing her job.

‘Are you done yet?’ One of the yesterday speculatores, Castus, looked in. ‘It’s almost time, the centurion is already here. Today you’re going to have more guards around you than them consuls over there in Rome, woman!’

‘I’m done, fellows,’ Prima said. ‘May the gods be gracious and merciful to you, girl.’

Men certainly weren’t. When Prima and the guards left, Delia got on her feet. She shook her head to feel her short hair, then gripped the bars of the cell door, her knuckles white.

‘Boys told me you’re from Rome, is that right?’ Castus asked. Delia nodded. ‘Never been further than Barcino, myself. Look, speaking of Rome, is it true that...’

‘Are you going to lead me to the cross now?’ She interrupted him, her heart racing. Still, Delia managed to sound calm.

‘Er, well, first the flogging.’

The flogging! The horror of the cross had overshadowed the other cruelties about to be inflicted on her. Whipping the condemned was customary, she knew, but she must have forced herself not to dwell upon the suffering to come.

Now the only thing left for her was to be brave as long as she could.

‘Castus, Silvanus!’ the voice of Silo called out from the corridor. ‘Lead the damnata out, boys!’

(TBC)
 
Wragg134 said:
Losing her hair
Click to expand...
Marcius said:
Delia certainly would've preferred to keep it
Click to expand...
It's quite horrible.
But in a way it helps.
It's a kind of transformation, away from her identity, away from being herself, a person -- to being just that thing. A thing that you harvest from what you want, whether it's her hair, or all her pain and agony, her life, and then you discard it. It's one more step on her journey to being nothing instead of someone. Just the damnata, instead of herself, Delia.
 
'mule-breeders would cut off a mare's mane in order to break the animal's spirit,
and thus make her submit to being mounted by a donkey' -
that's the point of Sophocles' simile. It's from a fragment of a play about Tyro,
a princess of Elis with glorious golden locks, cruelly abused by her stepmother.
Slavegirls in Greece generally wore short hair or had their heads shaved,
though artists (from Renaissance times to now) rarely show them so.
 
The sight of a young woman surrounded by the legionaries wielding bladeless spears, her hands tied behind her back, a thick rope round her neck, attracted enough attention of the people who were up and about at this early hour of the morning. The small but ever-growing crowd, men as well as women, followed the execution party led by the centurion and Silo. Crispus walked at a distance, a couple of slaves in tow.

‘Move your arse, whore!’

A burly soldier pulled at the other end of the rope and held it taut. It dug into her long, graceful neck. Delia, very sore down below, was placing one foot in front of the other with difficulty, trying not to listen to the jeers.

‘Greeting, Crispus!’ a young, cultivated voice called out when they were about to enter the old forum.

The eques hid his satisfaction on seeing the ornate litter of Gaius Fabius Rectus Pomponianus, who came from Rome to his native province to serve as its quaestor for a year, and greeted him in response.

‘You told me yesterday to meet me in the old forum about now, Crispus,’ the young senator said, curling his lip. ‘Well, here I am. Looks like I’m about to see a shaven slave-girl whipped, and, frankly, this is not something I haven’t seen before. Have you anything to say?’

‘I should have thought that you would like to see this particular slave-girl suffer her just punishment, Rectus,’ Crispus said evenly. ‘She is Delia from the City, the one tried before the Prefect last year.’

‘By Hercules! My brother-in-law was questioned by old Verus in private all day and had to forego his candidacy because he had been unfortunate enough to sleep with this whore!’

Crispus knew that. His memory was good. Along with Varro, the Prefect did investigate you as well, Rectus. That’s why you’re quaestor here in Baetica and not quaestor Augusti, even though you’re somehow related to the purple-wearing busybody on the Palatine.

‘She’s about to get what she deserves, Rectus. It’s maxima mala crux for her today.’

The quaestor nodded with a cruel smile.

‘How did she fell into our hands, Crispus?’

‘The whore escaped from the mines and joined a gang of latrones. I recognized her in the street and caught her.’

‘I owe you, brother!’

Crispus did not evince his inner joy on hearing this. I’ll find my way back into the Emperor’s service yet. If Governor Dormouse thinks his staff is the only place fit for me, he’s mistaken.

‘Don’t mention it, brother,’ he answered.

‘Hurry up!’ Rectus ordered the litter-bearers. ‘You were right, Crispus. I want to see the whore bleed.’

The execution party had already entered the old forum. Less and monumental than the new one to the south, it still held enough temples and statues to be imposing.

The old forum also boasted a whipping-place in front of the old basilica. It was rarely idle, even though there was another one in the slave-market by the river. The soldiers led Delia towards it.

Many men and women had felt the whip there, their blood staining the darkened wood of the stout oaken whipping-post.

It was her turn.

Crispus nodded to the centurion. The soldiers made Delia stand next to the post and took the rope off her neck.

‘In the name of the Roman Senate and People!’ The centurion’s voice carried far over the forum. ‘Delia, a runaway slave of the penalty, has been condemned to death. She will be tied to the post and flogged before carrying the patibulum from hence to the execution ground outside the western city gate, where she will be raised on the cross!’

The crowd gasped. Only a few had heard the praeco announcing the execution, and most expected the pretty, short-haired girl to be whipped only.

Delia, her head held high, stood motionless and silent as she listened to the chilling words, her eyes fixed at the distant cloud in the blue morning sky. She was not about to give them the satisfaction of seeing her cry and beg for mercy.

‘The western gate?’ asked the quaestor. ‘Didn’t we crucify the rest of the latrones along the road to the circus?’

‘We certainly did. This one is executed as a runaway,’ Crispus explained.

‘You must be good at fine points of law, Crispus,’ Rectus said thoughtfully. Fine points of cruelty, too, if I am to believe Sisenna. They served together in the Parthian War. They are hard men, the ones who marched to Ctesiphon and back again. ‘Let’s talk once this is over.’

Silo walked up to the girl. Under the gazes of jeering onlookers he wrenched the tunic off her shoulder, baring her right breast, eliciting a flood of lascivious comments from the watching men. Delia shuddered. Silo kept pulling, tearing the threadbare fabric all the way, until he tossed the rags aside, reducing the young woman to full nakedness.

Saturninus and Castus dug their fingers in her biceps and made her turn around, pushing her a little to and fro to make her breasts wobble. Delia felt the eyes of every person in the forum upon her. She had bathed in mixed company back in Rome and performed a couple of times in the nude during her days of acting, so it was not her public nudity that made her hot with humiliation, but rather the knowledge that all the people in the forum were taking pleasure in her shaming, the men thinking about enjoying her body and loudly envying the soldiers who had marked her skin with bruises, the women seeing a pretty bitch their men would have liked to fuck crushed.

Silo untied her hands.

‘Now hug the post, slave-slut!’

Silo and Saturninus roughly spun her to face the whipping-post and slammed her against it with force, winding her. Delia winced as her bruised breasts scraped against wood. With quick motions, the men tied her wrists to the heavy, rusty iron rings on either side of the top of the post, stretching her arms over her head, lifting her heels off the flagstones so that the skin on her back was tautened for the whip.

Delia cast a wary glance over her shoulder. She saw Saturninus unfurl the thonged flagellum from his hand, its ox-leather tentacles terminating in vicious-looking knots. The girl squeezed her eyes tight and clenched her teeth as the colour drained from her face.

The crowd fell silent. Saturninus had a good look at the supple, olive-skinned back glistening in the morning sun, its fine muscles tense from anxiety, then gave the whip a test swing, its knots brushing against her buttocks ever so slightly. A perceptible shudder passed through her body. Saturninus raised the flagellum high over his shoulder and swung it down on her back with all his might.

(TBC)
 
A little on the subject of Roman whips. Here I follow Flavia Manservigi, a sindonologist (the latter being Turin Shroud people):

'Archaeological bibliography considers all the instruments that we have seen up to now as associable to the concept of flagellum. Nevertheless, in the same bibliography can be found a clear differentiation between the flagellum in the strict sense of the word and the flagrum: even if sometimes these terms are considered as synonymous (from an etymological point of view, flagellum is the diminutive of flagrum), flagrum is considered a more destructive flagellum. The main difference between the two objects is their structure: while the flagellum was a whip made of leather and flexible lashes, the flagrum had blunt endings, which could beat and rip flesh.'

Other interpretations exist.

Delia being whipped with the flagellum and not the flagrum -- the girl needs all the breaks she can get! I suppose there may have been certain concessions to the fairer sex here, although far from legalized. I've mentioned Jewish rebel women getting the flagrum earlier because I think that the execution teams were in a hurry during mass crucifixions and had no time to choose the whip according to the sex of the condemned or, indeed, give them a proper scourging. It might well have been the case of 'Ten blows each and then the nails go in! Titus/Quietus/Turbo has just sent yet another hundred!'
 
Eulalia said:
Those poor guys, they must have been worn out flagrating all those rebellious Jewesses.
Centurio just says, thank the Gods you haven't been ordered to rape them as well! :p :devil:
Click to expand...

Just you wait until Sisenna gets to you, Caledonians! :devil:

He will, circa AD 134; if Crispus and Rectus are fictional, Sisenna was a real-life consul and governor of Britain. Hailing from Baetica, he had some military experience; Parthian War service is more than likely.
 
That should have made him handy with the flagrum.
We wee Caledoniae will be waiting in our mini-kilts,
if he can catch us, we might find we're whipped onto wall-work,
Wiki tells me he may have finished the job Hadrian started ;)
 
Eulalia said:
That should have made him handy with the flagrum.
We wee Caledoniae will be waiting in our mini-kilts,
if he can catch us, we might find we're whipped onto wall-work,
Wiki tells me he may have finished the job Hadrian started ;)
Click to expand...
Sisenna's going to be firm but fair. Mostly firm, of course. :)

Had a look at his Wiki page -- our chap is no longer regarded as the 150/51 proconsul of Asia by the classicists, it was his son who went to Asia ten years later... and became a laughing-stock for joining a serpent-worshipping cult. :doh:
 
The dull slap of the whip echoed through the forum. The head of the girl shot back briefly and her stretched body gave a convulsive shudder, but despite the terrible searing pain Delia managed to choke off the cry.

‘The whore is strong,’ said the quaestor, his eyes narrowed to slits. The thongs left bright pink trails between her shoulder-blades, ending in purplish bruises where the knots struck.

‘She is,’ Crispus agreed, looking on as the welts reddened. ‘But not for long.’

Delia pressed her body into the whipping-post even harder in anticipation of the next blow, trying to become as strong and unyielding as the hard, dark wood, her skin feeling each and every grain and knot of its surface smoothed by countless bodies writhing against it. Her nostrils flaring, she smelt old wood and blood and sweat and tears.

Saturninus gave her enough time. He preferred to deliver the first lashes slowly so that pain of each blow could soak through the body of the condemned man or woman. He walked to the other side of her and threw his arm.

The whip cracked on the bare back of the damnata again. The second lash crossed the first, raising tiny beads of blood where the stripes intersected. Molten heat washed over her back, taking away her breath and drawing tears to her eyes. Yet a long-drawn, quivering gasp was the only sound the lash could elicit from her. A fine sheen of sweat broke all over Delia’s body as she fought the pain.

The knotted leather bit the naked flesh for the third time. Her head flew back, her breathing grew more ragged and she clenched her fists, but otherwise Delia betrayed no sign of agony. When the fourth stroke scored yet more fiery stripes into her skin, she flinched horribly and banged her head against the post to keep herself from crying out. Through the blaze of pain engulfing her torso she felt blood trickling down the hollow of her spine.

Saturninus looked at blood-speckled welts criss-crossing her upper back from shoulder to shoulder. The girl was trembling incessantly. He knew he was close to breaking her. He targeted the reddened patch of skin under her upstretched right arm and let the whip fly.

Knots tearing at inflamed skin felt like red-hot claws, and Delia screamed uninhibitedly, pain overwhelming her resolve. This time, Saturninus did not gave her any time to recover and savagely flicked the whip at the swell of her right breast, slightly squashed to the side. Delia shrieked on top of her lungs. Her hips pushing against the post, she twisted on the balls of her feet, trying to save the wounded, throbbing breast from further abuse.

In doing this, Delia unconsciously proffered the other breast for the whip, and the next lash slammed into it with full force. A blood-curdling scream of suffering resounded through the forum. Blood gushed from the rent in her nipple, one of the knots landing square on it.

Rectus nodded in grim satisfaction. Crispus saw a slave-girl who had been looking slack-jawed at the punishment of Delia clutching her breasts, her eyes wide with fear. One of the soldiers said something to her that made the slave-girl scoot off bawling.

‘Hey, you!’ Crispus called out to the soldier. ‘Go fetch the patibulum!’

The legionary saluted and slowly walked away towards the basilica, clearly unhappy that he was about to miss a part of the flogging.

Meanwhile fresh welts and bruises sprang on Delia’s skin, creeping ever closer towards her buttocks. Each blow was punctuated by her cry now. A fiery, roaring wind was carrying her, pain piling on pain as the flagellum slammed into her kidneys, her lower back, then wrapped around her shuddering buttocks again and again.

Saturninus lashed the taut backs of her legs and then worked his way back over her squirming body, Delia screaming steadily as the knotted whip tore wetly into her already bruised and battered skin. The tall Numidian was drenched with sweat, yet he kept delivering the lashes without mercy, her blood flecking the whipping-post and the flagstones, until the last blow fell across her shoulders.
 
Marcius said:
Crispus saw a slave-girl who had been looking slack-jawed at the punishment of Delia clutching her breasts, her eyes wide with fear. One of the soldiers said something to her that made the slave-girl scoot off bawling.
Click to expand...
'Justice of Rome'... the punishment isn't just for the slave at the post and her crimes, it's even more so for the slaves whose crimes will never be done, for the fear that's burned into their hearts. You've got to do it to uphold civilization... if it happens that the foundation of your civilization is slavery...
 
malins said:
'Justice of Rome'... the punishment isn't just for the slave at the post and her crimes, it's even more so for the slaves whose crimes will never be done, for the fear that's burned into their hearts. You've got to do it to uphold civilization... if it happens that the foundation of your civilization is slavery...
Click to expand...
Rome was very keen on displaying the 'S/he fought the law, the law won' concept, all the way to extreme sex-and-death spectacles in the mould of 'Pasiphaë and the bull' re-enactment, mentioned by Martial and elaborated upon by Eulalia here: http://www.cruxforums.com/xf/threads/pasiphae.1223/

'Mere' whipping can be read as a from of rape as well, of course, with poor Delia's body violated by the flagellum blows while tied to the ithyphallic post.
 
Marcius said:
The dull slap of the whip echoed through the forum. The head of the girl shot back briefly and her stretched body gave a convulsive shudder, but despite the terrible searing pain Delia managed to choke off the cry.

‘The whore is strong,’ said the quaestor, his eyes narrowed to slits. The thongs left bright pink trails between her shoulder-blades, ending in purplish bruises where the knots struck.

‘She is,’ Crispus agreed, looking on as the welts reddened. ‘But not for long.’

Delia pressed her body into the whipping-post even harder in anticipation of the next blow, trying to become as strong and unyielding as the hard, dark wood, her skin feeling each and every grain and knot of its surface smoothed by countless bodies writhing against it. Her nostrils flaring, she smelt old wood and blood and sweat and tears.

Saturninus gave her enough time. He preferred to deliver the first lashes slowly so that pain of each blow could soak through the body of the condemned man or woman. He walked to the other side of her and threw his arm.

The whip cracked on the bare back of the damnata again. The second lash crossed the first, raising tiny beads of blood where the stripes intersected. Molten heat washed over her back, taking away her breath and drawing tears to her eyes. Yet a long-drawn, quivering gasp was the only sound the lash could elicit from her. A fine sheen of sweat broke all over Delia’s body as she fought the pain.

The knotted leather bit the naked flesh for the third time. Her head flew back, her breathing grew more ragged and she clenched her fists, but otherwise Delia betrayed no sign of agony. When the fourth stroke scored yet more fiery stripes into her skin, she flinched horribly and banged her head against the post to keep herself from crying out. Through the blaze of pain engulfing her torso she felt blood trickling down the hollow of her spine.

Saturninus looked at blood-speckled welts criss-crossing her upper back from shoulder to shoulder. The girl was trembling incessantly. He knew he was close to breaking her. He targeted the reddened patch of skin under her upstretched right arm and let the whip fly.

Knots tearing at inflamed skin felt like red-hot claws, and Delia screamed uninhibitedly, pain overwhelming her resolve. This time, Saturninus did not gave her any time to recover and savagely flicked the whip at the swell of her right breast, slightly squashed to the side. Delia shrieked on top of her lungs. Her hips pushing against the post, she twisted on the balls of her feet, trying to save the wounded, throbbing breast from further abuse.

In doing this, Delia unconsciously proffered the other breast for the whip, and the next lash slammed into it with full force. A blood-curdling scream of suffering resounded through the forum. Blood gushed from the rent in her nipple, one of the knots landing square on it.

Rectus nodded in grim satisfaction. Crispus saw a slave-girl who had been looking slack-jawed at the punishment of Delia clutching her breasts, her eyes wide with fear. One of the soldiers said something to her that made the slave-girl scoot off bawling.

‘Hey, you!’ Crispus called out to the soldier. ‘Go fetch the patibulum!’

The legionary saluted and slowly walked away towards the basilica, clearly unhappy that he was about to miss a part of the flogging.

Meanwhile fresh welts and bruises sprang on Delia’s skin, creeping ever closer towards her buttocks. Each blow was punctuated by her cry now. A fiery, roaring wind was carrying her, pain piling on pain as the flagellum slammed into her kidneys, her lower back, then wrapped around her shuddering buttocks again and again.

Saturninus lashed the taut backs of her legs and then worked his way back over her squirming body, Delia screaming steadily as the knotted whip tore wetly into her already bruised and battered skin. The tall Numidian was drenched with sweat, yet he kept delivering the lashes without mercy, her blood flecking the whipping-post and the flagstones, until the last blow fell across her shoulders.
Click to expand...

I fancy myself as a bit of a connoisseur of whip-writing,
and that's a very fine vintage! :)
 
Marcius said:
The dull slap of the whip echoed through the forum. The head of the girl shot back briefly and her stretched body gave a convulsive shudder, but despite the terrible searing pain Delia managed to choke off the cry.

‘The whore is strong,’ said the quaestor, his eyes narrowed to slits. The thongs left bright pink trails between her shoulder-blades, ending in purplish bruises where the knots struck.

‘She is,’ Crispus agreed, looking on as the welts reddened. ‘But not for long.’

Delia pressed her body into the whipping-post even harder in anticipation of the next blow, trying to become as strong and unyielding as the hard, dark wood, her skin feeling each and every grain and knot of its surface smoothed by countless bodies writhing against it. Her nostrils flaring, she smelt old wood and blood and sweat and tears.

Saturninus gave her enough time. He preferred to deliver the first lashes slowly so that pain of each blow could soak through the body of the condemned man or woman. He walked to the other side of her and threw his arm.

The whip cracked on the bare back of the damnata again. The second lash crossed the first, raising tiny beads of blood where the stripes intersected. Molten heat washed over her back, taking away her breath and drawing tears to her eyes. Yet a long-drawn, quivering gasp was the only sound the lash could elicit from her. A fine sheen of sweat broke all over Delia’s body as she fought the pain.

The knotted leather bit the naked flesh for the third time. Her head flew back, her breathing grew more ragged and she clenched her fists, but otherwise Delia betrayed no sign of agony. When the fourth stroke scored yet more fiery stripes into her skin, she flinched horribly and banged her head against the post to keep herself from crying out. Through the blaze of pain engulfing her torso she felt blood trickling down the hollow of her spine.

Saturninus looked at blood-speckled welts criss-crossing her upper back from shoulder to shoulder. The girl was trembling incessantly. He knew he was close to breaking her. He targeted the reddened patch of skin under her upstretched right arm and let the whip fly.

Knots tearing at inflamed skin felt like red-hot claws, and Delia screamed uninhibitedly, pain overwhelming her resolve. This time, Saturninus did not gave her any time to recover and savagely flicked the whip at the swell of her right breast, slightly squashed to the side. Delia shrieked on top of her lungs. Her hips pushing against the post, she twisted on the balls of her feet, trying to save the wounded, throbbing breast from further abuse.

In doing this, Delia unconsciously proffered the other breast for the whip, and the next lash slammed into it with full force. A blood-curdling scream of suffering resounded through the forum. Blood gushed from the rent in her nipple, one of the knots landing square on it.

Rectus nodded in grim satisfaction. Crispus saw a slave-girl who had been looking slack-jawed at the punishment of Delia clutching her breasts, her eyes wide with fear. One of the soldiers said something to her that made the slave-girl scoot off bawling.

‘Hey, you!’ Crispus called out to the soldier. ‘Go fetch the patibulum!’

The legionary saluted and slowly walked away towards the basilica, clearly unhappy that he was about to miss a part of the flogging.

Meanwhile fresh welts and bruises sprang on Delia’s skin, creeping ever closer towards her buttocks. Each blow was punctuated by her cry now. A fiery, roaring wind was carrying her, pain piling on pain as the flagellum slammed into her kidneys, her lower back, then wrapped around her shuddering buttocks again and again.

Saturninus lashed the taut backs of her legs and then worked his way back over her squirming body, Delia screaming steadily as the knotted whip tore wetly into her already bruised and battered skin. The tall Numidian was drenched with sweat, yet he kept delivering the lashes without mercy, her blood flecking the whipping-post and the flagstones, until the last blow fell across her shoulders.
Click to expand...
Is that "The End"?
 
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