With Piedi’s nailing finished, the execution team comes towards me. I look around! Having been focused on Piedi’s ordeal – as if I were just an onlooker – I had no more attention for my wife, who still sits kneeled, with the crossbeam on her back, some thirty feet behind me! Our looks cross.
The officer who recently has addressed the crowd about our sentence, now faces me. I look at my wife again, and suddenly, I grab all the courage that’s still left in me.
“Hey! Do with me what you want, but don’t crucify my wife! She is innocent!”
“So”, the officer replies with a self-confident attitude, “you admit you are guilty!?”
“I admit nothing! As if that would make any difference!? I know, you Romans were just waiting for an opportunity to crucify Piedi, there, and me! But leave my wife out of this! You cannot do that to her! Please!”
A bit annoyed about the delay, the executioners step forward to grab me, but the officer withholds them.
“Loxuru! It is true, you will be useful to us, as you and Piedi, as two esteemed members of the local community, will be an example for all to see, dying like slaves on a cross! Perhaps, the two of you have not taken part in attacks on our troops, but for sure, both of you have inspired those who did, by your words and thoughts! Your rebellious talking has already cost us too many fine soldiers, and, by the way, your resistance against Rome has hardly any support by the people here! They will be happy, there will be peace at last, guaranteed my Rome’s rule! And your crucifixion will be a confirmation of these guarantees! And concerning your wife, it is simple : who shares the marital bed, shares the secrets and the thoughts!”
“But…” I try to reply, as I look at my wife again.
“Haven’t you forgotten a small detail, Loxuru!? Your wife has been caught, in your domus, hiding a rebel, that woman there, next to her! We have interrogated that woman last night, and she has confessed, and she has given names! If we get the people she named alive, then they will also soon enjoy the embrace of the cross, here! So, don’t tell me, your wife is innocent! She is guilty as hell! Keep that in mind, Loxuru!”
There was little I could object…
“Enough talking! Take away this bastard’s filthy loincloth and nail him to his cross!”
The executioners, eager to draw blood, don’t hesitate! They tear off my loincloth, and drag me naked to the pole next to Piedi’s cross, where my crossbeam already awaits me. I throw a last, desperate look at my wife, as if she could help me! It’s all futile. In no time, I lay with my arms outstretched on the patibulum, blocked by two executioners on each side.
A nail is put on my right wrist, or rather, pressed into it! It cuts into my flesh, and I utter a cry of pain.
The executioner laughs:
“Already pain!? I haven’t done anything yet! Be lucky, I test out first whether I will not drive the nail through bone! That will be unbearable pain!”
Then, the hammer comes down, and I shriek and scream as hard as I can. I try to get away from this excruciating torture! My body shakes up and down, but my ankles and my left arm are held down by the executioners!
Four blows, and my right arm is fixed. The procedure repeats on my left wrist, with the same grueling impact.
When it is over, and the executioners step away, I am already in a different world. The almost unreal sight of a nail head protruding from each wrist, the pain, and the feeling of being forced in this position, is horrible.
I lay moaning and groaning, heavily breathing. I try to ignore the pain. I look for my wife, but I cannot, the nails in the wrists of my outstretched arms limit the motion of my head.
Above my head, I see the pole of my cross towering high. Left from me, also high up, I see crucified Piedi, also towering high in the sky.
“Put him on the stipes!” the team chief orders.
“Do we give him a footrest, chief!?” one asks!
“No!”, the officer I had addressed, replies “nail his ankles sideward, and bend his knees a bit, so all can see his pathetic genitals!”
My crossbeam is lifted up by two men on each side. The motion causes lots of discomfort in my nailed wrists. But nothing compares with the pain I experience, when my feet are lifted from the ground! With the thud, the crossbeam is put over the tenon on top of the pole. I now hang with all my weight to the wrist nails. Like Piedi before, I start trampling with my feet, to find support, ending up with clamping them against the raw wood of the pole, what hardly helps.
The executioners start finishing their job. On my right, two hold up my leg, pushing my buttocks upward, relieving a bit of the weight carried by the wrist nails. At the left side, one pushes me up too, while a second positions my ankle against the pole, the way the officers has determined.
Anticipating on the new pain to come, I abandon all pride, and start whining and wailing. It is replied with just mockery from the executioners. They had already mocked me, when I had cried out of pain during the wrist nailing - you see, in this world, showing fear or pain is showing weakness, what is regarded as humiliating. But I can tell you, when an iron nail is hammered into one’s wrist, there is nothing but shear pain to be vented, and the only way to vent it, is screaming and shrieking!
Again the pain of a nail pushed into my flesh. A confirmation of its good positioning by the executioner, and then, I go through another hell of pain. Four blows, the nail being blocked with a wooden washer. My left leg is nailed and does not need support anymore. Then four grueling blows in my right ankle!
I keep whining, while the executioners step away. I look down on myself, seeing my bent open knees, over my nailed ankles! I am overwhelmed with pain, fear, despair, shame!
The officer stands in front of my cross, and inspects the executioner’s work.
“Well done, men! This filthy insurgent has got what he deserves! Look at him!” (turning to the crowd), “He was not only a troublemaker, but he was also too cowardly to take part in the rebel’s actions himself! Have you heard him scream and whine like a woman!? Typical for that kind of scum that hides behind words, but is scared to risk life and limbs, when it matters!”
