The One Who Thought She'd Get Away

[Eulalia]

I posted this story before the great crash as a tailpiece to the Crucifixion of the Christian Virgins.
I don't think many people had found it before we hit the iceberg, so may as well run it again -

The one who thought she'd get away​

Scrofulus was sick. Sick of his lousy luck. While the rest of the Legion were glutting their lust on five hundred nubile nude nymphets, his century just has to be the one on night-watch. So here he was, standing guard like a pillock outside an empty house, just on the offchance the little bitch would come back to report for Crucifixion. Some chance! Even the Centurion had said, ten-to-one she's copped herself. If the sow had any brains in her fancy Falerian head, that's exactly what she'll have done. Surprising more of them didn't try it ...

And that wasn't all that was making him sick. Porcius' porridge was never a good idea, but it was all that was on offer in the canteen, all the decent nosh had been comandeered for the orgy. He had to eat something. And now it was grumbling in his tum, heaving and slurping just like it did in the camp cauldron, giving off volcanic bursts of gaseous fume through both exits.

A rat scampered through the shadows, paused an glared beady-eyed at Scrofulus. "Bugger off!" The creature hissed. He was huge, well-fattened beast. For a few moments, Roman and rodent exchanged stares of mutual loathing, then the rat decided the pursuit of food and female company was of more interest, and scuttled away down a dark narrow passage beside the house.

Suddenly his bowels were gripped, like some evil worm inside him had decided to bite. "Shit!" Indeed, Scrofulus' first thought was to do just that, crapping in the street of an occupied city would hardly count as a breach of military discipline. But he was going to have to stand there at least two more hours, instinct made him grip tight with his buttocks and follow where that rat had led.

He narrowly saved himself from tumbling down a steep flight of steps, only just visible in the starlight from the end of the passageway. It turned out to be the way down to the river. The water was low, a wide strand of foetid mud separated the foot of the steps from the faintly-glimmering stream. It stank already, Scrofulus hastily tucked up his tunic and squatted, his bowels erupted, a new note of vileness was added to the rancid mixture on the humid night air.

He stayed squatting for a few minutes, till he was sure his innards had emptied, then hauled himself to his feet, looked around for some half-rotted waterweed to wipe himself with, and straightened his tunic. He turned towards the steps, but he still felt queasy, unsteady like you get when drunkenness has turned nasty. He reached out and clung onto a big iron ring on the riverside wall, where a small barge could moor at high tide at the foot of the steps, paused a few moments to regains his breath and balance.

He looked around. A vile place, this riverside at low tide, the mud strewn with all kinds of debris, the garbage of the city slung out for the river-goddess to flush away. Filthy lot, these Falerians! Besides rotting foodstuffs, filthy rags, fungus-eaten driftwood and nameless jetsam, there was even dead livestock, swollen carcasses and fly-swarming messes of meat and bone. A biggish one over there, at the edge of the water, a pig maybe. Scrofulus turned way in disgust, a soldier sees plenty to turn a civilian's stomach, but this scene, with its stench of death and decay, was enough to plunge even this battle-hardened legionary into stygian gloom.

But as he turned, the moon broke through cloud and shone on the riverside, making it no less desolate, but from the corner of his eye, Scrofulus caught a glimpse of a gleam reflecting from the surface of the waterside corpse. "Funny! Don't think that's any kind of Roman pig. These frigging Falerians have weird animals." But as he began to climb the steps, his brain clicked. "Jupiter!" he swore, "The fucking girl!"

2​

Scrofulus turned and picked his way across the riverine ooze, his caligulae slurping as his feet sunk under the gross weight of man and weapons. As he approached the body glimmering in the moonlight, he was increasingly sure it was human skin, and the rounded hillock silhouetted against the shining river, which he'd mistaken for a ham, was the shapely buttocks of a young female. She lay where the low-tide river just lapped, her upper body prone and hard to make out in the mess of garbage at the water's edge, one long, athletic leg stretched out, but the other was awkwardly twisted under her, the foot projecting towards him.

He paused and gazed down at the girl, the only movement was her mass of dark hair swirled by the shallow stream. That fine long leg made him recall the young actress who'd played Atalanta in the play of the Boar-Hunt he'd watched in the amphitheatre back at Augusta– wow! she'd been the star of his wet dreams for months, and not just his, he knew the whole legion were tossing off after seeing her performance.

He kicked the prostrate body, it rolled a little to reveal a firm, well-formed white breast. No sign of life. He knelt down in the wet, felt the damp, clammy skin, cold, though not deathly cold, probably not been dead for long, maybe she'd injured herself or got into difficulties trying to swim, and ended up here dying slowly. He turned the head, glazed grey eyes caught the moonlight, reflected it back to him, from broad, soft lips oozed a trickle of blood.

She was almost naked, though a grey rag around her waist was a relic of her girl's undercloth, and strands of slimy waterweed draped her nudity. Atalanta! He was almost driven to kiss her, he wanted to do more than kiss her – but aRomanlegionary, who fears no man alive, dreads the dead, they play by different rules.

He pulled himself together, thinking, better get help, then I can get this news to the Centurion, at last I'll be in his good books! I'll signal to the guards on the bridge. He stood up and took the whistle from his belt, was about to blow, when he heard a faint moan. he glanced down – was it the girl, or some water-bird? Again – yes, it came from the body. Instinctively, he kicked it, harder this time, it rolled onto its back, the mouth opened, a louder, anguished howl, an arm moved, the hand grasped the twisted leg.

He knelt down again, took hold of the head once more, gripping the rich hair firmly, glared into the grey eyes. "Hey you, Falerian cunt – are you alive, or are you a zombie?" The eyes blinked, glanced around, wide, terrified, the lips quivered, "Er, eh, eh ... I ... I am Janina ..." "Janina, eh? You're the girl from this house?" She glanced, vaguely, confusedly, across at the shadowy building, "Yes .. yes, Sir ... I ... that's my house ..." "You're the one they're looking for then. You're in big trouble, sow's runt!"
She closed her eyes, sighed, the sigh turned to a spluttering cough as river-water gushed from her lungs.

Still holding her by the hair, he jerked her up, she squirmed into an awkward sort of kneeling posture, coughing up more watery phlegm. Then she howled again, seizing her thigh, "Oh, my leg, my leg ... it hurts so ..." "Does it? Well my little Falerian rat's turd, it's not my problem how much your leg hurts, other bits of you are going to hurt a lot more when Domitius Brutus gets his hands on you. But ...."

He gazed down at the trembling, kneeling nude, the sensation of power over her helplessness added to the thrill of having not a cold corpse but a real live Atalanta at his mercy was bringing his juices to the boil. With his left hand, he grabbed her hair again and jerked her head back, with his right he lifted his tunic. "Look at me, bitch!"
The white face gleamed in the moonlight, the grey eyes fixed with horror on the rigid weapon inches from her lips. "Open your mouth, piglet ... wide – wider, right – and don't you dare bite!"

He thrust his cock in, Janina, terrified and bewildered at something she'd never even heard of in her secret girly chats with her friends about what men do to girls, simply held her jaw rigidly wide, but as he jerked it back and forth with a pumping action, instinct took control, she closed her lips gently around it, licked it tenderly, even touched it with her teeth, daring not to press them tight. The pumping grew ever more urgent, she felt a warm dampness oozing into her throat, mingling with the foul taste of river. Scrofulus was panting with eager exertion, here he was, triumphantly invading his Atalanta ...

"Scrofulus! Scrofulus! Where in flaming hades are you?" "SHITE! Just my frigging rotten luck again", snarled Scrofulus, whipping his prick out of Janina's mouth, spraying her anxious face with a cascade of spunk. "I'm here Sir!" he yelled, as he hastily pulled down the hem of his tunic, "Down by the river – I've caught the girl Sir, she's here!" All right, "caught" was pushing it a bit, but he was going to make sure he got the credit, the guy who caught the little fish who thought she'd get away!

3​

​

Janina glanced about, still confused, head still swimming and tormented by the pain in her right leg. She coughed again, spluttering out phlegm and spunk, as a bulky figure, heftier in build even than Scrofulus, trudged across the mud towards her.

"So what were you doing away from your post? You couldn't have seen her from there." Typical, thought Scrofulus, that's all the thanks I get! "I had to answer a call of nature, Sir." (I'll show you the proof, if you want, he thought, but refrained from saying). "Hm, well I'll take charge of the brat, you race to HQ and get the message to the Centurion that we've found her – " (We? I frigging found her, me, not bloody we!) "and bring a set of wrist-irons from Drusus' workshop. At the double!"

Scrofulus strode off as fast as he could manage across the slithery ooze, Offalus the Decurion glared down at the shivering creature kneeling at his feet. He felt a sudden surge of heat under his tunic, he'd seen nice carvings of naked girls kneeling at the feet ofRomansoldiers, but it hadn't been part of his military experience, not till now!

"Bend over!" Janina lent forward, resting the palms of her hands in the mud. "Not like that, stretch your body, flex your spine down - like a cat, that's better, now hold your bum up – that's nice!"

He glanced about, Scrofulus was out of sight now, no signs of life, the moon was hidden again by clouds. He hitched up his tunic, knelt down and straddled his captive. Her vulva felt the tip of his cock, she quivered with a little gasp. She knew how beasts and humans fuck, she knew what was coming – or thought she did. Offalus felt her quiver and liked the sensation, her soft lips stroking his excited glans. But he knew Domitius plan, to crucify 500 Christian virgins. She'll be checked by the quack Lucius, better not take the risk. He shifted position, thrust his now-rigid tool between her plump little buttocks, deep into her rectum.

Janina squealed loud and long, it echoed across the wide river to the buildings of the city and the hills beyond, a shrill cry in the night – but there were screams coming now from the Legionary camp, they were hard at work there on the virgins' mothers, and soon there'll be plenty more. "Hold steady, cunt!" She felt herself lurching forward, moved her hands swiftly to hold her balance, Offalus grabbed her neck and jerked her head back, "Look up, silly bitch!"

He went on pumping, she gasped and moaned in rhythm with his movements, experiencing harp pain in her innards, and torture in her damaged leg, exacerbated by his constantly moving weight, until a sudden burst of warmth filled her lower bowel and he withdrew his dripping tool.

"Th-thankyou Sir," she croaked – she didn't know why, just felt she'd better say it. "Get up now!" He kicked her bum. She staggered forward, made an effort to haul herself up, but her leg gave way. "I c-can't Sir – I ... my leg, I've hurt my leg." "Ass!" He kicked her again. "You'll have to crawl then." He picked up a nice springy stalk of flotsam in his right hand, seized the girl's lush curls with his left, and off they set across the mire, the Decurion thwacking the girl's bare bum as she scuttled as best she could on hands and one working knee.

She yelped at each stroke, squealed louder at some especially vicious, and when the switch caught that most sensitive spot laid bare between her labouring thighs, she screamed lustily. Yet she was feeling very strange, she knew she was in trouble, she was heading for some fate she couldn't imagine but she was sure it will be cruel, her arse was sore from the buggery, the constant caning stung savagely, and her long right leg was enduring shocks of pain with each movement – and yet, she felt a weird excitement, being herded like a calf across the mud, being naked, being mastered by this brutal man ... she knew it was wrong, and yet it felt right to her, so right ...

 

[Barbaria1]

I posted this story before the great crash as a tailpiece to the Crucifixion of the Christian Virgins.
I don't think many people had found it before we hit the iceberg, so may as well run it again -

The one who thought she'd get away​

Great writing. So real!

 

[RacingRodent]

Well speaking as one who did find it the first time round I heartily recommend this

It is a devastatingly effective story, I look forwards to seeing the rest posted again

 

[Eulalia]

thanks, both of you!

4​

Offalus had hair-hauled and bum-whacked his gasping captive nearly to the foot of the steps when he heard footsteps on the roadway above. "Down here Sir, mind the steps!" Jupiter, it's the Dux himself! Better look smart – "kneel up, bitch!". Janina obeyed sitting back on her heels, her palms nursing her sore buttocks. Domitius it was indeed, attended by the squaddie Scrofulus looking irritatingly pleased with himself. The Dux was in his working uniform, obviously hastily pulled on, he'd thought this piece of news important enough to quit the orgy.

"So, this is the girl?" "Yes, Sir!" the two soldiers responded. "Well, for a start, wrap her up warm – you can see she's shivering! You, Decurion, you can do without that cloak." Glumly Offalus pulled off his goats-wool cloak, in truth he was wearing it more for style than necessity, it was a clammy night, he draped it around Janina's bare shoulders that he'd been so lustily flogging just now. "Has she had water?" "Er – no, Sir..." "Well give her some – you idiots are supposed to be keeping her alive. You've got your flask there, Decurion." "Er, um ... it isn't water in my flask, Sir ..." "Is it not? You'll be on a charge then. Give it to me." Domitius took the flask, unscrewed the cap, sniffed the contents, emptied the liquid – indeed it looked like water, but the fierce bouquet of bathtub brandy mingled with the riverside stench. Meanwhile Scrofulus smugly produced his one and put it to Janina's lips, she drank eagerly, only realising how desperately thirsty she really was.

"Right, now – I see you've brought manacles, good thinking, soldier." Scrofulus grinned, Offalus scowled, he'd given that order ... "Shall we use this Sir?" Scrofulus pointed to the heavy iron mooring-ring. "Good idea." Creep, thought Offalus. The two grabbed the girl's arms and hauled her, unresisting, across to the wall. She held up her arms co-operatively, as Scrofulus screwed the iron on one of her wrists, threaded the chain through the iron ring, and shackled the other wrist. Janina sighed softly as she felt her arms being locked in bondage, winced as the metal bit tight on her wristbones, a sense of fearful anticipation, awareness of her helplessness, mingled with an uncanny sense of security, as she gently tugged on her bondage, testing the firm hold of the heavy irons on her slender limbs.

"Now young lady," Domitius began, standing before the prisoner now kneeling up, her arms stretched above her tumbling dark curls, "What's your story? How did you come to be lying by the river like a washed-up mermaid?" Janina looked up at him with frightened grey eyes, he looked stern, yet in a way reassuring. "Sir, I'm sorry Sir .. it was idiotic ..." "We know you're an idiot, and you're certainly going to be sorry, very sorry, but what did you do?" "I panicked Sir. When we had to get our clothes off an wait outside, I just flipped, ran off up the side stairs, and ... and ..." "Well?" "I jumped, Sir - off the roof, into the river." Domitius looked up at the dark building overshadowing them. "Is this your home?" "Yes, Sir." "And you jumped off the roof?" "Yes Sir ... the river was up ... b-but I hit the bottom and hurt my leg." "You hurt your leg? I'm not surprised, you're lucky you didn't kill yourself – or maybe you aren't." Janina lowered her eyes and nodded, yes, she hadn't intended to kill herself, when she jumped she just didn't care what happened, she just wanted out.

Domitius looked down at her legs, admiring the long, smooth-muscled, tapering thighs, but the right one was obviously not right, the way if was twisted as she knelt. "Does it still hurt?" "Mm, yes Sir, it hurts a lot." "Can you move it?" She wriggled awkwardly, shifted the leg a little, winced, her face showed the pain. "No Sir, not really, not without it hurting horribly." "Hm, you've probably broken it. That's not going to help you dance, is it?" Janina looked surprised, she hadn't expected to be going to a dance. "Never mind, my brother Arsenius will be in charge of that side of things, he'll come up with some ingenious solution, I have no doubt." The grey eyes showed bafflement.

"So then what happened? What did you do?" "I – I tried to swim, Sir, tried to swim across, but the pain was too much ... I don't really know Sir, I think I must have lost consciousness, I remember sort of floating about, then the next thing was this soldier kicking me ...." Domitius laughed. "Cloelia, eh?" The girl was confused. "Er – Janina's my name, Sir." "You've never heard of Cloelia?" She shook her head. He squatted down on his haunches and began. "Years ago, hundreds of years back, when Rome was nothing but a tiny new town, the great Lars Porsena came with his army from Etruria and said, 'I'm going to burn this place down and kill the lot of you, unless you give me all your fit young men and sexy girls as slaves. The fathers got together and decided they had no choice, so they rounded up all the lads and lassies and marched them over the bridge and handed them over to the Etruscans. But that night, this kid Cloelia managed to wriggle out of the Etruscan camp and swam back across theTiber. When she turned up dripping wet at breakfast, her father was furious, 'You stupid brat! You've dropped us right in it now!' So he hauled her off to the fathers, and they tied her up and took her back over the bridge to Lars Porsena with a grovelling letter apologising for her behaviour, but he just laughed and said 'I can do without the stroppy little strumpet, you can keep her!'"

Janina managed a weak smile, her white teeth gleamed in the moonlight. But Domitius wasn't smiling. "You're not so lucky though, are you, Janina?" She lowered her eyes. "Sir, please punish me as I deserve, do whatever you want with me, but please spare my parents, it wasn't their fault." "A bit late to think of that now, young lady. Your mother's spent the night having a good stretch on the Little Horse – you know what that is?" She nodded – oh yes, she knew. Her brothers had told her when she was just a ten-year-old tomboy, they'd learnt about it from the slaveboys (they weren't supposed to play with slaves, but of course they did). And they hadn't just told her, they'd rigged up a nice Little Horse for her in the boathouse and played at torturing her on it – it was fun. But she didn't think her mum would be enjoying it now.

"But my father, Sir – he's a friend of Rome, he was trying to persuade the hotheads not to ..." "Oh yes, I know. He was trying to cut a deal with us, so some of the girls, the ones from good families, could have rope instead of nails." Rope, nails? Janina couldn't imagine what that meant. She looked up at Domitius with wide, now tear-brimming, eyes. "But his daughter's silly scamper scuppered that idea." Her head dropped, the tears flowed, her chained hands helpless to hide them. "Still we made him an honourable offer, which he wisely accepted. " Again, she looked wonderingly at him. "His head's on a spike outside the city gate."

5​

Domitius stood up, turned to Scrofulus. "You, soldier, keep an eye on this bitch for now. When the dung-cart comes round at dawn, she can go on it, tell the cartman to dump her just outside the gate, I'll get my brother to give orders for her special treatment, one way or another, he'll get her up on a cross, with a nice view of the tip – speaking of which, here's a couple of denarii, give them to the cartman for his trouble." Scrofulus saluted smartly, Domitius beckoned to a glum-looking Decurion to come with him, and departed.

Scrofulus looked down at the captive, she was crying, he took hold of her hair, tipped her head back, her tear-wetted cheeks, his own spunk drying around her quivering lips, aroused a strange mixture of emotions, tenderness, a longing to protect this creature, hardly more than a child, but fighting with that the fiery passion of a Roman soldier asserting his dominance over a broken foe – and, yes, these Christian scum are an insult to the Emperor, an insidious threat to the Empire!

His manly urges won, his penis was erect, he lifted his tunic and thrust it between those soft lips, determined to finish what had been so rudely interrupted earlier on. Janina sobbed at first as he began pumping into her throat, but her sobs turned to gasps, and then to quiet "mmm" as she sucked and licked, she too was filled with fighting emotions, bitterly blaming herself – her father beheaded, her mother on the rack, and she's even made things worse for the other girls – terrified, yet fascinated, at what was going to happen to her, appalled at the things Offalus had already done to her and what Scrofulus was doing now, yet all the more shocked that she was actually, in spite of all her good Christian upbringing, enjoying it!

When his throbbing member was hot and beginning to dribble warm oil into her throat, he paused his pumping, Janina instinctively ceased sucking too, there was a delicious moment of suspense as he stood relishing an ecstasy he'd not experienced even with the experienced whores that hung around the entrance-passages to the Arena in Augusta, then he let out a spontaneous roar as his load of sperm erupted and filled the girl's mouth. She had no choice but to swallow, it slid down easily. As he withdrew, she bowed her head, "Thankyou, Sir" she whispered, with more conviction than she'd spoken the same words to Offalus.

Scrofulus stood up, straightened his tunic, looked down at the girl again, not knowing what to say, wondering why he felt such an urge to say anything, with whores and captives it was beneath the lowliest Roman soldier's dignity to say "thankyou" or engage in post-coital conversation, they'd served their purpose, that's all the gods created them for ... but this one was different. He suddenly found he was crouching down in front of her, seizing her slender waist, pressing her frightened face towards his, doing what he'd never done to a girl before – kissing her!

It was a deep, fierce kiss, his lips crushing hers against her teeth, his tongue invading her mouth still swimming with his sperm, he held her for what seemed a long, long time, feeling her breasts forced against his chest, her tense body gradually relaxing in his arms.

At last he remembered who he was and what he should be doing, he suddenly pushed her away, stood up, straightened his tunic again, and marched off without a further glance at her, up the steps to his post outside what had been Janina's home.

Janina hung by her shackled wrists from the mooring ring, kneeling. Her right leg was still hurting, now a dull, persistent ache, she tried moving it, seeking a more comfortable position for it, but in vain.

She'd stopped weeping, she just gazed hopelessly at a sky that was beginning to grow light. Waterbirds squawked from time to time, an owl hooted, the parts of the city near the river were quiet, but in the distance, there were shouts, cries, drums – not marching rhythms, dance-drums, and screams, shrill, shrieking screams.

Janina shivered. She'd caught the dreaded word "cross", and things clicked – nails, ropes, oh Jesus no! She'd never actually seen a crucifixion, but of course she knew what they'd done to her Lord, and her brothers had told her what the slaveboys had said about that as well – the wooden pillar and beam in the boathouse had made another game possible, she'd enjoyed that one too, again the exciting sensation of being stretched, and she liked the way her chiton rode up her thighs when she hung by her rope-tied wrists. But tomorrow it won't be a game ...

​

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6​

The dung-cart announced its approach in the grey mirk of dawn with deep rumbling on the cobbled street and an overpowering stench The evil-looking gnome driving it scowled, making his face still more hideous, at the Dux's instructions as delivered by Scrofulus, and his expression grew no prettier when he was presented with two miserable denarii. Still, he knew it behoved him to keep in with the Romans, they could hardly treat him worse than the fathers of Falerium, they might even make his life a little better. "Load her quick while I fetch the crap-buckets," he grunted.

Scrofulus hurried down the steps to his captive, she was drowsing, twitching in her nightmares and relentless pain. He glanced down at her for a moment, recalling the strange passion he'd felt for her, but could not afford to dither, so unlocked her left wrist from the manacle, she shrieked as this suddenly woke her.

He'd brought a second set of irons fromDrusus' workshop, to use on her ankles, but they hadn't been needed. However, now he was going to have to carry her up the steps, and ensure that she'd have no hope of attempting any more crazy escape bids. The correct way to shackle a captive who's to be carried is wrists to ankles, behind her back, so he grabbed the girl's head and hurled her forward onto the mud. Quickly, with practised art, he jerked her left leg back and chained her ankle to her right wrist. Then he screwed the second manacle on her left wrist, and went to bend back her right leg – her badly damaged one.

Janina howled, so loud she must have woken half the city, "Nooooooo!" Even moving the leg, let alone bending it sharply behind her, was to inflict hideous agony, signalling that the fractured bone was being shifted within her inflamed flesh.

He paused, looking down at her white body squirming on the dark mud, hearing her sobs. "I'm supposed to keep her alive, the Dux said," he thought, "I'll be in big trouble if she dies, or can't be crucified properly. And anyway – " an unfamiliar inner voice prompted him, "she's suffering worse than anyone could deserve to, never mind a youngster like her, why make it even worse?" He heard a whistle from the cartman, "Coming!" he yelled, rolled Janina over – she groaned loudly – lifted her onto his shoulders, her free left arm and right leg dangled either side of him, and hurried up the steps to the street.

A kind of tarpaulin covered the part of the dung-cart that was already full, to be rolled out as more and more human shit was poured in. The carter pointed to it, Scrofulus turned and tossed the slim body onto the canvas, which sagged into the liquescence under it, releasing a more powerful wave of foul gas. The cartman mounted his bench, flicked his whip, his pair of miserable donkeys plodded on, dragging their burden along streets they trudged nightly, looking forward to some chucked-out peelings to feast on at the tip.

 

[Barbaria1]

thanks, both of you!

4​

I like the detail, the story and character development

 

[Eulalia]

7​

The fact her left arm and injured right leg were free didn't help Janina get much comfort, as the cart trundled through the streets bumping her up and down, rolling her about, constantly filling her nostrils with the stench of human shit. Ever few minutes there was a pause, more buckets emptied into the back of the cart. The sky grew lighter, it was already a warm, dank morning.

At last they rolled through a minor gate of the city, the guards quickly opening the gate to allow the foul stench through, slammed it again behind them. A few minutes jolting along a rough track, then stop. The cartman, who'd completely ignored the girl during her ride, turned and growled, "This must be where I'm supposed to dump you, turd!"

He looked down at the twisted body, her stretched-out leg gleamed in the dawn light, her torso was lifted by her other leg and arm shackled behind her, so her ripe young breasts were lifted towards him, she instinctively cupped her left hand over the right one, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled it away.

"You're a stuck-up cunt, one of those fancy types who think men like me are less than animals, aren't you?" She shook her head, her long dark curls billowing on the filthy tarpaulin, "N-no ... y-you're a child of God ... like me ..." He slapped the pale, scared face, "Don't give me that Christian crap," he snarled, "I've been clearing away your shit every night since you were born, and you and your parents have never even given me a denarius on your feast-day in the spring – just a fuller bucket of turds than usual!" He spat, the phlegm moistened the dried punk on her cheek. "Well, I don't know what the Romans are planning for you today, but be sure you'll have an audience of at least one – me!"

With that he grabbed her round the waist, swung her off the cart more roughly than Scrofulus had loaded her, and flung her down onto a grubby mound alongside the trackway that encircled the city. With a contemptuous kick, he mounted the cart and drove off again, she heard him stop not far away, where he opened the tailgate so he could unload the manure into a deep quarry, the city tip, whence foul vapours rose to hang over this bleak quarter where Janina was lying, where she now knew she was to be crucified.

She manoeuvred herself awkwardly into the least discomfort she could find, lying on her side against the slope of the mound, gazing along the track under the city wall growing clearer in the rising light. Crows and gulls were flocking over the tip, with a cacophony of screeching and cawing, but another sound caught Janina's ear, distant at first but coming closer, a hideous symphony of men's shouts, girls' screams, sharp whip-cracks, braying of trumpets, and singing – yes, singing of familiar tunes, the psalms Janina sang with her friends in the part of the Church where girl catechumens were instructed on the Sabbath.

Suddenly, around the corner in the wall in the distance, it appeared, the Walk of Screams, Domitius' ingenious spectacle to begin this day of delicious girl-torture. The naked virgins, each with a weighty wooden bar strapped across her shoulders, were being herded along in a huge, long, single file, linked together by chains attached to metal rings than Drusus, the legionary blacksmith, had cruelly inserted into their most sensitive flaps of flesh.

They already looked half-dazed, Some were crying, but others were defiantly singing psalms, tunelessly, as they passed along the track beside Janina. The men driving them along were thoroughly enjoying the bizarre performance – laughing and whistling in mockery, and the stimulatores, guards equipped with goads, were using them to beat the girls' bare thighs in time with the rhythm.

The goad-men weren't the only ones deployed to keep the damnatæ moving at a brisk pace. The youngest recruits, boys barely in their teens, had been issued with light whips and set loose to torment the girls, skipping around them like a swarm of maddening flies, darting in and out to flick their bums, breasts, and between their legs, chortling with glee as they enjoyed their first lesson in chastising female bodies.

And then there were the flagellatores, hefty, battle-hardened legionaries, armed with the dreaded Scorpion, the Scourge with a sharp-pointed stud in the tip of each of its rat-like tails, an instrument designed to embrace the victim's bare body with each skin-searing stroke and bite deep into her flesh where each thong-tip flicked. These monsters were only being used on the strongest, sturdiest young women, Domitius wanted the Walk of Screams to go on as long as possible, and he knew that the Scorpion could not just ground but even kill a frail youngster – cheating his men out of the pleasure of crucifying her!

These men paid little attention to Janina lying by the trackside, one nearly tripped over her, kicked her angrily, she wriggled and hauled herself further up the bank. A stimulator jabbed her bum, she squealed, he muttered something to a colleague who shrugged, they went back to tormenting the group of girls they'd been assigned to.

But then a couple of much more senior officers approached, striding along beside the procession. When they came to Janina, they stopped, looked down, one wore the same uniform as Dux Domitius and looked much like him, at first she thought it was him, but she heard the other address him as Arsenius and remembered what Domitius had said about getting his brother to give orders for her "special treatment". She felt cold fear grip her bowels.

8​

"So you're the one who thought she'd get away?" The Dux's voice was loud, he almost roared, and there was a steel-hard edge to it. "Y-yes, Sir, I – I'm sorry ...." "Coward!" He kicked her between her forcibly-parted thighs, contemptuously. "We Romans have no mercy for cowards, no death can be too cruel for a coward." Janina hung her head, dreading what sentence this man will pass.

But first he instructed his companion, "You'd better examine her Lucius." The rather more gentle-looking man, in a relatively plain uniform, knelt down beside her. "What's your name?" "Janina, Sir." "Oh yes, thought it was something like that. Well, what did you do, Janina?" "Sir, I panicked ... I ran up to our roof-top and jumped into the river, Sir ..." "H'm." (Jumping off a house-roof into a tidal river at night seemed to Lucius to be brave to the point of crazy, but he wasn't going to argue with the Dux) "And what happened?" "I , Sir, I hurt my leg ...." "This right one?" "Yes Sir".

He felt the long, stretched out white leg, he couldn't help admiring its smooth, sculpted shape. His fingers round her ankle were quite gentle, but firm, Janina squealed. "It hurts there?" "Yes Sir". He ran his hand gradually up the shank, pressing and squeezing gently, again and again the girl winced and squeaked. "Can you move your foot?" She turned it about, her face twisted in pain, "It hurts terrible, Sir!" "Can you bend your knee?" She tried flexing the leg, again grimacing in agony. "Owww!"

"No doubt she's broken it, Sir." "Serves the silly cunt right. Very well, she'll have to be crucified upside-down, nailed by her feet. I suppose she won't last so long?" Lucius had seen men crucified head-down, he spoke from experience, "No Sir, at least she'll lose consciousness pretty quickly, after an hour or two, and it's not easy to revive a victim hanging that way." "H'm, well a coward deserves to suffer, so I'll order Felicianus to send an élite squad from the Torture Unit to deal with her. Speaking of which, I think the brat's mother's in their hands?" "I believe she is, Sir." "They can bring her with them and crucify her first, just across the track here, where the sow can watch her piglet being grilled!"

Lucius shuddered, Domitius he could cope with, a coldly efficient Roman conqueror, but in Arsenius there was a streak of madness, a determination to outdo his older brother in extremes of cruelty.

"Sir, there's one formality, I'll check her virgin status." "Oh yes, you get on with that, I'll go and find Felicianus. I need a drink after inspecting all these sweaty wenches!"
Lucius rolled Janina onto her side, then groped her arse and massaged her pussy lips. "Are you a virgin?" "Yes sir," she gasped, feeling – and he felt too – a quiver run through her loins. "Have you ever had a boyfriend?" "No sir!" She blushed deeply. "Have you ever had an orgasm?" "No sir!" Her juices soon flowed as he inserted two fingers and felt around, testing for any give in her muscles. He opened her mouth and told her to lick his fingers clean.

He felt an erection developing. He could take great pleasure in relieving this girl of her virginity. He glanced around, the procession had at last filed past and was disappearing round the far corner of the circuit wall, the screams and songs and whip-cracks growing fainter. Arsenius had passed through the gate, there were no people about – and if any were scavenging on the tip, they'd be the lowest sort of beggars and runaways, they'd hardly report a Roman legionary for a minor breach of discipline.

It hurt Janina, she cried pathetically, not just the brute force of his hard cock driving through her hymen, the harsh iron of her shackles dug into her back, and her broken leg tortured her with every jerk of his pumping. Yet, when his semen burst in her, she sighed, her body trembled with a warm pleasure that mingled with her pain and fear.

As he stood up, he smiled down at her, her grey eyes and soft lips imprinting on his memory. "Thankyou, Sir," she croaked – he didn't know he was the third man she'd thanked this morning, but this was her most sincere. He adjusted his tunic and turned away, leaving her to await the tender mercies of Legio III's élite Torture Squad.

9​

Aniana, Janina's mother, had gone to the Torture Chamber boldly. Being the wife of an eminent gentleman of Faleria noted for his moderation and peaceable nature had its limitations, secretly she'd always felt excited by the gladiatorial combats her husband thought revolting and only attended out of civic duty, she even felt envy for the rough northern slavegirls who were used as breeding cattle by the gladiator schools, did all the dirty work in the public buildings, and took tips from ogling men to wrestle in the dust and rubbish behind the Forum. Now at last she faced a proper fight!

She knew they'd win of course, it wasn't a question of whether she'd break, just how long she'd take. Stripping wasn't a problem, she knew she'd nothing to be ashamed of, it was her husband who used to blush and feel embarrassed when she undressed for him. She held out her arms, let the big, burly men who were almost naked themselves lead her across to the Little Horse.

She'd heard of it, knew it involved stretching, but she didn't know exactly how it worked. They told her to lie down on the bare bed of boards within the wooden frame, she lifted her wrists and ankles to let them tie them tightly with rough ropes that hung from the machinery above her.

A Centurion started asking her questions, about her husband, her own parents, her wretched stroppy daughter – wonder where the silly ass has got to? She answered truthfully, no point in lying, the interrogation is just a formality, same as for slaves, they knew quite enough to condemn her already, they just wanted it from her own mouth. A scribe scribbled away on wax tablets.

But of course there were trick questions, ones she couldn't answer, ones that got her confused, and when she hesitated, the stretching began. One of the brutes turned a handle below the bed, as it turned it click-click-clicked on a ratchet, the coarse ropes hauled Aniana up a good arms-length and began to tug her taut between two drums.

Click! She yelped as the tension in her arms began to hurt, Click! A sharper yelp. Click! A long, loud squeal. The Centurion was watching closely, he raised his hand. It was important not to cripple her, not to make her unfit for crucifixion.

With her face hanging down, a soft cascade of black curls tumbling, she gazed upside down at his cold, determined eyes. Questioning continued.

Her muscles adjusted to the tension, they risked a couple more clicks, then aaaaah! The Torturer pulled a peg from the wheel, the machinery rattled, Aniana fell suddenly onto the hard boards. At once, the brute re-set the ratchet and started winding, she was hauled back up, the agony now burned from her wrists to her ankles, where blood was beginning to ooze from under the knotted ropes, her arms, flanks, legs all throbbed with pain.

She was panting, praying under her gasps for air, not to be spared but to be given the strength she needed for the battle. More questioning, then she was dropped and stretched again. And then she first smelt, then felt stinging her eyes, playing warmth on her skin, and then she saw, a smouldering brazier filled with glowing coals, carried by two tough slaves, another bearing a canvas bag of iron instruments – rods, blades, sharp hooks, pincers ...

The Torturers made sure she watched while they carefully arranged these things in the fire. But they weren't to be used just yet, the Centurion himself had another treat in store, he was wielding his whip. Aniana sighed, shut her eyes, while he delivered lash after lash across the front of her stretched torso, aiming – as men do – especially at her breasts, lifted up as they were by the tension in her body and the angle of her breast-bone drawn by the weight of her head.

She was screaming properly now, she couldn't control it if she'd wanted to, and anyway it helped her cope with the pain, as did violent shaking of her head, making her long locks an attractive addition to her tormentors' pleasure.

A couple more questions, she was becoming incoherent now, gabbling deliriously, mixing attempts at answering with confused scraps of prayer to her God, she knew she was experiencing the pains of Hell, she pleaded that they should win her the pleasures of Heaven.

Now she saw a slave shovelling out some red-hot embers, heard a clatter, felt warmth, then heat, under her bare back, oooooooooooooh! Dropped again, but this time her back hit not just the bare boards, but burning hot coals, she writhed frantically, howling, as the Torturer rather more slowly re-set the apparatus and began to lift her.

The Centurion grinned, her grey eyes were flowing with tears, she was sobbing, for the first time he heard her croak, "No more, please ... no more ...." But of course, there was more, much more to come.

 

[Eulalia]

10​

The instruments were ready now, and so was the victim's body, stretched to near-breaking, muscles searing with strain, breasts and mons veneris streaked with whip-weals, back and buttocks dotted with smouldering craters from the burning coals. The two Torturers each lifted from the brazier a cruel claw, its handle well-insulated by tough wood but its metal hand spreading to five flexed talons, each curving down to a sharp point and glowing bright gold from the fire.

They made sure Aniana saw them, watched for her involuntary tensing of her already taut muscles, then in unison they struck the claws into her flanks at the armpits, and slowly drew them along her flanks. They pressed only enough to slice into her skin, the heat easily dissolving her outer layer, smoke and sizzling of bacon arose as the woman shrieked, her stretched body unable to move more than a few futile inches, quite insufficient to even disturb the straight furrows being ploughed down er white sides.

When the reached her hips, they both completed their carving with a flourish, a rounded loop on the side of each buttock. Then they stood back, admired their own handiwork, returned the claws to the fire.

The Centurion now fetched a wax tablet from the scribe. He told Aniana that this was her confession, that she was a traitor and an enemy toRome, its Emperor, its Senate and its People. He ensured that she understood the consequences if she were to put her mark to this – death by Crucifixion. She had no difficulty, if she hadn't been an enemy ofRomebefore, she certainly was now, She shivered at the word Crucifixion, but she'd already resigned herself to dying under torture, there was obviously no way out from the trap they'd caught her in.

As she softly whispered, "Yes, Sir, I confess ...." the Centurion placed the wax tablet against her right palm, between her fingers and thumb. "Press your thumb on it, firmly." She obeyed, sealing her own death-warrant.

Was that it? Would she be freed from the Horse now, allowed a brief respite before Execution? No such hope, the Centurion simply started on another set of questions, all about her husband, Grillius the moderate, the peaceable, the would-be friend ofRome. She tried to answer truthfully, at least rationally, but she was becoming delirious with pain, and it was obvious she was meant to condemn him "He's probably dead already," she thought in a rational spell, and consented to put her mark on a denunciation worded in much the same way as her confession, with just the gender changed.

But now he turned to Janina, troublesome daughter, the reason she was here. "Do you know where she is? Is she all right?" The Centurion thrashed the length of her torso, from her love-parts up to her cleavage, "Are you asking me questions, bitch? I ask the questions, understand?" "S-sorry Sir..." His questions about the girl were so detailed so persistent, her mother guessed with a sense of dread that she must have been captured, must be in the hands of these monsters. She knew something awful was planned for all the Christian virgins, he could only be fishing for excuses to make Janina's sufferings even worse.

At length he brought a third wax tablet. Oh no, she wasn't going to condemn her daughter, her own flesh and blood, however maddening the girl might be ... The Centurion nodded to the Torturers, again they brought the hooks. Aniana closed her eyes, sighed.

This time the blades dropped onto her breasts, already sore from the whipping. They were slowly drawn diagonally across, the middle blade on each side slicing, searing through the nipple, her shrieks were sharp, echoing long in the vaulted Chamber.

He offered her the wax again, she shook her head. A short pause to re-heat the blades, then her breasts were carved again, diagonals the other way, slicing X patterns of simmering blood on each.

Again she refused. Now they carved rings around the outside edges. She felt, she hoped, she was losing consciousness, but the agony allowed her no release. The centurion went to the other end of the Little Horse, took one of the claws, stretched out and applied it to her female triangle, drawing it down towards him, singeing her pubic curls as it sliced into soft fatty flesh.

Still she was obstinate. He returned the claw to the fire, and pulled out a thick, straight, cylindrical rod of iron, its pointed tip glowing bright. He carried it round and showed it to her. He waited, allowing her time to take in what was coming to her, letting it cool a little too, the pain is worse if it's not so hot that it destroys all feeling. She closed her eyes, shook her head.

He walked slowly around to the other end once more, held the rod between her thighs, she could feel the heat increasing as he moved the tip slowly closer and closer to her vulva. He lightly touched it against one inner thigh, she squealed, touched the other side, she squealed again, touched the lips ... "Noooo! Please Sir, yes, I'll denounce her ....."

She was sobbing hysterically as she pressed her thumb into the wax for the third time, condemning her own little girl to a fate only the furious deities ofRomecould imagine or dream up.

At last, the Torturer released the catch and she fell back, the embers were still under her they hurt her back as she dropped on them, but they were cool now, the pain was overwhelmed by far worse agonies consuming her breasts, sides and most tender parts. The men untied her wrists and ankles.

11​

There were several spare patibula, Felicianus had obeyed Domitius' orders and indented for 500 for the mothers or other female relatives to be crucified opposite the virgins, but some of the latter had turned out to be handmaid-slaves with no families whose mistresses had managed to keep them out of the clutches of their husbands and sons, others were plague-orphans whose only female carers were far too old and ugly to be worth crucifying.

When she was led, still staggering unsteadily on her tortured legs, blinking in the sunrise, out into the yard where the timber was stacked, she recognised with a pang of horror in her bowels what they were and why she was being dragged towards them. She was made to kneel, and expected to have a heavy beam laid across her shoulders and roped on for her to carry. But the Centurion had a brief conversation with another officer, nodded, and ordered the Guards to fetch something else, a wooden yoke with a pair of chains attached. It was this that was imposed on the woman's aching shoulders, just as bulky as a patibulum, but shorter and shaped to fit roughly over her neck.

Now a small, two-wheeled, wooden trolley was hauled up and two of the patibula laid onto it . "One for mother, one for daughter," crowed the Centurion. They were roped on firmly, the chains from the yoke were linked to shackles on the front ends of the side-poles of the trolley, the Centurion swung his whip across her shoulders, "Up!"

Aniana forced herself to her feet, staggered forward, feeling the weight tug at the yoke and so at her racked shoulders. She bent forward and began hauling the burden through the camp, past groups of jeering soldiers, delighted at the swing of her breasts, the rolling of her bum as she took step after laboured step.

The Centurion's horsewhip was too gentle for a damnata on her way to be crucified, For a strong adult woman like Aniana, as for the sturdy, strapping virgins in the Walk of Screams, the Scorpion is prescribed, with a sharp-pointed stud in the tip of each of its rat-like tails, an instrument designed to embrace the victim's bare body with each skin-searing stroke and bite deep into her flesh where each thong-tip flicks. A hefty, battle-hardened legionary flagellator joined the party before the camp gate and began using it on the bare back already speckled with deep crimson burn-craters from the fiery embers she'd been dropped on.

But he used it skilfully, he knew the art was to deliver his victim to her Place of Execution with her body cruelly bruised, her raw flesh ripped, yet still fit to endure the rigours of Crucifixion for hours, even days. He struck her when she seemed to hesitate or stumble, keeping her dragging her load at a steady pace along the track beside the city walls.

All along the way now, facing outwards from beside the walls, were crosses bearing the struggling, writhing, twisting, dancing bodies of newly-crucified females, the mothers – or in some cases older sisters or cousins – of the virgins who were still on their Walk of Screams. Aniana had neither opportunity nor desire to look at them, she pressed on with her head down, her long hair brushing the dust as she trudged along, dreading where the next attack of the Scorpion would tear her shoulders or bum, but she heard the continuous chorus of screams, knew her voice was soon to be added.

At last they reached the spot where Janina still lay, moist and warm with the sperm of Lucius, on the bank beside the huge, stinking tip. As they made Aniana kneel to be released from her yoke, mother and daughter gazed sadly at each other, neither uttering a word, Janina racked with guilt, knowing she had brought the terrible treatment – all too visible on her mother's body – by her own impulsive folly, Aniana remembering the dreadful words of denunciation she'd uttered against her daughter in the Torture Chamber.

12​

She knelt on the dusty trackway for a few minutes, while they unloaded the two beams, and fixed one of them in readiness for her on the upright. Her head was bowed, her hands – adopting instinctively the posture she'd taught her slavegirls -
crossed behind her buttocks. The cool dawn air was pleasant on her sore skin, burning from the lashes of the Scorpion and all the other harshness she had endured.

Along each side of the track, sturdy lengths of shaped timber were lying ready to be used as stipes for crucifying the virgins, and again there was no shortage, a spare was located on the 'mothers'' side more or less opposite Janina.

"Up!" She obeyed, saw her Cross ready. She walked the few paces forward, turned and lay down as commended on the rough timber, spreading her aching arms with no need for an order. Crows wheeled above her in the morning air, she let the shrieks and groans of her crucified neighbours flow through her, let her mind focus on a small white cloud drifting over.

Her arms, legs and trunk were all tied firmly to prevent her from struggling. She heard a clink, glanced to one side and wished she hadn't, a grinning Torturer was showing her a span-long iron nail. "Left or right first, which would madam prefer?" he asked mockingly – "Oh, I don't ... all right, left please Sir."

Her cry as the spike drove into the base of her thumb under a massive hammer-blow was more of a roar or bellow than any human scream, her bound body jolted the Cross with a violent spasm, but she knew there was no escape. She sighed deeply, two more blows and the spike was through her flesh, entering the wood, she was squealing and shaking her head like she'd done a few hours back on the Little Horse. Three more and the nail was driven firmly home, the hammer smashing the head into her hand, crushing small bones, her scream echoed from the city wall above her.

The men took their time moving around to her right side, while she squirmed to cope with this new eruption of pain surging up her left arm, still dully aching from the strain of the Horse. She closed her eyes and received the second nail more stoically, but started to yell and struggle as it began to drive into the wood, the jerking of her shoulders making her breasts dance in a way that delighted her Executioners.

Her feet were to be nailed separately, to the bevelled edges of the stipes. One Guard knelt across her hips, holding her down, clutching her thigh at the top and fingering her cunt, "She's enjoying this, boys, she's streaming sex-juice!"

She certainly wasn't enjoying it, yet he was right, she was conscious of her erected nipples, her moistness, the excited warmth of her woman-parts, she groaned despairingly yet sensuously as she felt his fingers exploring her.

The nailing of her feet was if anything more agonising than her hands, it took more blows to force the iron through the complex network of flesh-fibre and bones and pound them firmly against the wood. Her brain was spinning, her headed rolling vaguely left and right, the crows overhead seemed to keep diving towards her then scattering in a cruel kaleidoscope of black fragments.

As they untied the restraining ropes, her body began to shake with a violent tremor. Less experienced Executioners, like the squads assigned to deal with most of the virgins and their mothers, might have been anxious, fearing their victim was experienced a fatal fit, but Aniana and Janina were in the hands of the élite, experienced crucifiers who new what was normal.

Normal was the woman's corpse-like rigidity as soon as the Cross began to rise, normal her striving to respond to the slipping of her back down the splintery wood by pressing down with her flexed legs on her nailed feet and discovering with a dreadful cry what pain that would cause her, normal her look of terrified anticipation during those seconds when the Cross swayed, almost perpendicular, before it dropped into its socket and brought forth her loudest, most tormented shriek.

The Execution Squad watched with satisfaction, they were joined by a small gang of slaves, vagrants, other riff-raff who were outside the city early on rightful or wrongful errands. The Torture of the night before had only prepared Aniana's body, good training for her performance on the Cross, lifting and flexing, hurling and twisting, each movement simply transferring the unbearable agony from one part of her body to another.

Janina, a few arms'-lengths away across the track, winced and writhed in instinctive sympathy with her mother's sufferings, she longed to crawl away, perhaps she could roll over the bank and fall into the foul tip, drown in the putrid mass muck-heap? She wriggled onto her side, tried to push herself along with her broken leg.

"Hey! Keep an eye on the runt!" The Centurion boomed, two of the squad hurried across the track, grabbed Janina by her shoulders and forced her up so she had to watch her mother writhing.

"It'll be your turn soon, brat" the Centurion called to her, "Don't be impatient!" At that moment, the cries of the crucified mothers and the cawing of the crows mingled with new screams, shouts and whip-cracks – the Walk of Screams was approaching again.

 

[Eulalia]

13​

The girls as they passed between Janina and her mother were staggering and stumbling now, slithering on the track made ankle-deep in foul mud by the pee and excrement of those in front. Some were still bravely trying to keep up their singing, but their voices were weak and breathless. Still the stimulatores were compelling them with sharp jabs and beatings to keep up the rhythm of the march, and they had managed so far to avoid the tumble that would bring such painful and catastrophic consequences for their pussy-lips, ringed and linked together with chains.

But it wasn't long before the inevitable climax came. The head of the parade had rounded the corner of the city wall, but the tail was still to reach Aniana and Janina, when a wave of screams swept towards them, girls falling one upon another, domino-fashion, as their chains tugged ruthlessly at their sensitive parts – way along the line, some poor wretch had fallen, and brought all her companions down with her! Some girls had their rings ripped right off their labia, and leapt up shrieking in pain, spurting blood, clutching their agonised vulvas. But most were violently tugged, hideously painfully, not just as they fell but in the writhing melée that followed, until – yelling at one another to keep still – they managed to get themselves into positions where they could at least begin to cope with the torment.

The watching men, from the Duces down to the guttersnipes cheered and laughed, delighted at this spectacle of massed female suffering. It was several minutes before the next stage began. Each girl was disconnected from the chain, if she hadn't already been ripped from it, identified by her brand-mark, and marched to the place where she was to be crucified. The men set to work on the sobbing, moaning damnatæ, and soon there were orderly lines of girls carrying their crossbars to the places where they were destined to die.

The men who had crucified Aniana now turned their attention to her daughter. The patibulum intended for her had been brought on the trolley by her mother, and was now attached to her stipes in the usual way. But the girl, when her right wrist had at last been unshackled from her left ankle, was ordered to crawl over and position herself over the upright facing the top end.

She'd heard what Arsenius had said, she understood all too well what she had to do when the Centurion snapped, "Lie back!" She used her hands, resting on the mucky ground behind, to lower herself till her shoulders rested on the rough wood, dropped her head back in its mass of dark curls, then stretched her arms out beyond it, to grip at the edges of the upright, which was lying against the slope of the bank, so her legs were already higher than her head, her body laid sloping downwards.

Now, without waiting to be told, she spread her long legs wide apart and felt for the two wings of the patibulum with her bare feet. It hurt her broken leg to move at all, but she knew it was going to hurt a lot more soon. She bit her lip, her moment of cowardice had had such ghastly consequences, she was determined to be brave. The Centurion looked pleased, "Good girl!" he said, with no more than his usual sneering tone of sarcasm.

14​

They bound the girl tightly, firstly to hold her wrists and arms where she'd voluntarily placed them against the upright. A rope was knotted cruelly tight around her waist, just above her hips, to stop her sweaty body from slipping down the sloping stipes. Another pair wound around her ribs and armpits, below and above her breasts, gripping them so they swelled and lifted pleasingly, moved by her deep, anxious breathing, and trembling with her racing pulse. Her nipples were tautly erect, she felt a strange arousal in this bondage that made her moisten her lips with her tongue.

But they did not tie her legs, as they had to be held flexed, wide apart, only the soles of her feet in contact with the wood of the patibulum. A trio of youngsters, recruits no older than the victim herself, had the pleasant duty of holding her legs firmly in position, the one responsible for her thighs found it necessary to grip her firmly by her crotch, his fingers twining over her vulva.

Now the Centurion showed her the nails, she was shocked, wide-eyed, at the size of them, big as the ones holding the tegulae on the tiles of the bath-house where she used to revel in rinsing her nakedness. And the hammer – well, she thought, it will certainly do the job quickly.

"We'll start with your feet, piglet." She nodded, pale, attentive. "Right or left?" Right will be worst, she told herself, better get that over with – "Right, please Sir." He handed the spike to the hefty Torturer who'd nailed her mother – indeed, the Chief Torturer who'd turned the drum of the Little Horse in the Torture Chamber last night, a busy man but he enjoyed his work.

A loud scream from nearby announced that another of the Christian girls was suffering as Janina was about to. She glanced up, saw against the bright morning sky a tall man gazing down at her. She shuddered in recognition – theDuxArsenius, come to watch the particular Crucifixion he'd planned to be cruellest of all!

The brute holding the great hammer and nail knelt down by her slender right foot. The boy holding her lower leg gripped fiercely, she winced, yelped lightly at the pain he was causing her fractured shin. But she was determined no to struggle, she knew she must keep her foot still, it will be far worse if she doesn't ....

Aaaaaaaaaaah! The first blow crunched through gristle and bone, blood spurted, the boys restraining the victim felt her torso jerk in its tight bondage. The Torturer paused, made sure she suffered in anticipation of the next blow, then crashed again. And again – the third blow got the point well into the wood, Janina was crying out now, tossing her curls attractively for Arsenius and all the small crowd of men gathered around on the trackway.

Three more blows drove the nail firmly home, its broad head flattened by the hammer against the victim's instep, sending fierce shocks of agony up her shattered shin to the thigh firmly gripped by the recruit.

As the Torturer moved to her left foot, Janina screamed, it was the only, natural, instinctive response to the excruciation she was suffering. Arsenius was pleased, this will show the world how Christian cowards suffer!

They made sure she saw the second nail, they wanted to hear her beg for mercy. She was sobbing, indeed she wanted to cry out "no!", but she gritted her teeth, tensed her flexed leg and pressed the sole down in readiness.

The nailing of the left foot was hardly less painful, though that leg being intact, the pain more concentrated in the foot, but the continuing agony in her right leg was still driving her to twist even in the tight bondage, lubricated by streaming sweat. Her breasts pounded to the rhythm of the hammer, men howled and jeered in humiliating glee.

As the three final blows on her left foot crunched the ail-head into the bone, Janina's body jolted, her head flicked back, the boys grasping her cunt felt a stream of wetness – was it urine, was in cum? Janina was too preoccupied by pain to feel what was going on in her once-private, now very public parts.

The squad now all stood up, and looked down at the fine young legs nailed wide apart on the sturdy cross-beam, the glistening body jerking in its bonds, the soft lips trembling, issuing pathetic cries, the grey eyes wet with tears.

The nails for her hands were a bit smaller, but still scary. When they were driven home, the heads would cover from the base of each thumb across to the outside of her wrist. A boy was stationed to keep hold of her fingers, her palms outwards, backs of her hands pressed against the bevelled edge of the stipes. The ropes held her wrists firmly, but Janina hardly needed all these restraints - for all her agony, she was consciously fighting the instinct to resist, she stitched her fingers out even before the boy gripped them.

The nailing of her wrists sent shock-waves down her body, her legs jolted, and this caused her more pain, especially in her right leg, than the progress of the spike through her flesh. Pretty quickly her two hands were fixed rigidly against the wood, blood squirting from under the nail-heads. She blinked up at Arsenius, gasping, as she felt the ropes around her untied and pulled away. She felt her sweating nakedness, free to move under the glowing morning sun, but only as far as the nails, now four fierce centres of volcanic pain, would allow her.

15​

Arsenius looked down on her with great satisfaction, this is the way to deal with a Christian runaway! He felt his sense of triumphant power rising up, physically, under his tunic. He walked round to the top end of the Cross, knelt down, his knees in the triangles formed by Janina's legs and the stipes and patibulum of the Cross.

Lifting his tunic, to the cheers of the watching men, he thrust himself into her. He was briefly surprised at the ease of entry, but Lucius had told him he'd found her virgo intacta (he'd omitted to say how he'd left her). For Janina, the pain of her second rape was more in her arms and especially her legs, tugged on the nails by the weight of the well-built Dux forcing her body down the sloping stipes. She gave out sharp yelps in rhythm with his pumping, then a loud long scream as his excitement drove him to force her legs outwards with his sturdy thighs and claw at her breasts and upper body with the violence of a hungry lion. Still the pumping, he was biting her neck now, her repeated screams bounced from the city walls, louder than all the suffering girls being nailed and raised up along the track. Even when his sperm had exploded inside her, he continued thrusting, kneeing, groping and biting for minutes.

At last he stood up, spitting on her face as he rose, she was still seized with rhythmic jerking through her legs and torso, weeping piteously. The Executioners prepared for the next stage of her humiliation. Some peed on her, some – especially the youngsters –tossed off and sprayed her face and breasts with their sperm. She closed her eyes, shook her head vigorously, but of course could not escape the ;liquids that mingled with her sweat and soaked her delicious hair.

That ceremony completed, preparations began for raising the Cross, ropes that had been used to bind her while she was nailed now pulled into positions where they would support the beam and upright as they were lifted. Janina felt very small, very frightened, retching at the stench of piss and urine mixed with her own body smells, still shaking from the violence of the Dux's ferocious rape, and tormented with the pain of the four nails and her shattered shin-bone.

There was noise all around, her Executioners and many other men shouting, hammers pounding, girls shrieking, excited crows cawing. The morning was already growing warm, as the Cross began to rise. First the men dragged it to the top of the bank, so its foot was above a well-prepared socket-hole – this dreadful place overlooking the city dump was the regular Place of Execution, so there had been no need for squaddies to dig a new hole here.

Every movement was painful for the young victim, she squealed as the wood bounced over the rough stony ground. Now the Cross began to rise, quite slowly, she felt her slimy body slipping down the stipes, the pain in her nailed feet growing even sharper. She tensed her arms, which they'd deliberately position so they were slightly flexed, and pressed as hard as she could bear down on her nailed hands. It was intensely painful, she clutched tight with her fingers over the merciless metal nail-heads, feeling her own hot blood spurting, still screeching through her gritted teeth.

When the Cross was a few degrees short of upright, they paused to adjust the position and ensure it would slip into the socket. For a moment, Janina relaxed her arms, let her trunk slip down, took the whole weight of her body on her nailed feet. At once she let out a loud howl, instinctively aware that this was the agony she was destined to endure for hours to come.

The Cross dropped into its sheath, with a loud bang, the whole structure vibrated, the crucifixa gave forth a scream louder than any of her crucified neighbours had managed, and started to twist, hanging upside-down by her nailed feet, like a fish on a hook.

Arsenius watched for some minutes with quiet pleasure at the girl-victim performing her cruel compulsory ritual dance in honour of the power ofRome. The he turned to the Centurion. "I have to go and attend to some other wretches. But I want to go on hearing this one screaming, even when I'm the other side of the city. You see to it, Centurion!"

 

[thehangingtree]

Eul, writing like this is why you will never die...

Tree

...except in some threads...

 

[Eulalia]

16​

Upside down, her long piss-soaked curls dangling over her nailed hands down to the blood-thickened dust at the foot of her Cross, Janina saw her mother gazing helplessly, hopelessly at the daughter she could not save. She had been fitted with a sedile now, and was striving to ease her woman-flesh around the nine-inch cornu humiliatingly forced into her cunt. Her struggling was more constrained, though the pain in her ankles and wrists still compelled her to lift herself up on the cruel intruder, feeling it rubbing against her clitoris, sending involuntary waves of arousal through her organs, then she'd slump back down again, in slow, rhythmic waves, gasping for air as pain swept through her arms, shoulders, and chest, inside her secret parts, and down the long elegant legs her child had inherited.

Both women shuddered as they saw the men, the same ones who'd tortured her last night, bearing out the instruments all too familiar to Aniana, new and terrible for Janina to behold. A fire-basket charged with coals, already smouldering and quickly aroused to glowing heat with a pair of bellows, a battery of iron pokers, sharp hooks and pincers ready to be made hot to sear girlskin.

But first the Centurion plied the Whip – not the dreadful Scorpion, not for any kindness, but because he didn't want her to lose consciousness or die before she'd experienced the full repertoire of Torture. The girl twisted vigorously, trying if not to dodge the blows at least to vary the parts where she received them. There was an innocent sensuality to her movements that delighted her tormentor, a kind of game developed with her offering and him targeting a fresh zone of pale skin and pulsing flesh with every lash.

Soon her young body was criss-crossed with livid stripes, blood oozed especially from the nodes where lash-lines intersected, dribbling down her breasts and over her face into her cascading curls. Her struggling hurt her arms and especially her legs, she yelled out words that shocked her mother – whatever slave-sluts had the girl been playing with? But they gave some relief, some strange help in coping with her martyrdom.

During a pause in the flogging, while the Centurion refreshed himself with a mug of ale brought by a slavegirl, Janina glanced around the gang of watchers who'd gathered. Although this insalubrious area was hardly the most favoured section of the circuit for soldiers and citizens to promenade, observing the sufferings of the 500 virgins, word had got round that there was something special here, something worth the detour. And indeed, they – mostly masturbating youths and young men, but not a few giggling girls and cackling old hags too – were thoroughly appreciating the spectacle.

And among them, Janina spied with her upturned eyes, a familiar face, Scrofulus, the guy who'd found her half-dead on the river-bank. She wanted to spit, some favour he'd done her by saving her! But she could only gasp and cough out phlegm that dribbled down her own cheeks. And the whipping resumed.

It went on until the first batch of iron hooks were sufficiently red to be applied to her skin. Aniana closed her eyes, she knew, and could not bear to watch, what her youngster was going to suffer. They slowly ploughed her flanks, starting with the sides of her buttocks, tearing down over her hips, her waist, her ribs, armpits, to her upper arms, like they'd done to her mother, not digging in too deeply, just enough to cause intense pain and draw blood sizzling against the fiercely hot blades. Janina responded with a long, continuous wail that must surely have reached the ears of Arsenius, as he'd commanded.

Now the Centurion indicated with his whip-handle her inner thighs. A fresh pair of glowing hot claws was produced, two Torturers dragged them from inside her knees slowly down to her perineum, where they met, then they turned them and dragged them back up again, ripping the front of each thigh to the kneecap.

The Centurion, Torturers and all the enthusiastic crowd watched for some minutes while Janina jerked and hurled herself about, screaming in unspeakable agony, every movement only adding to the racking torment of her legs and pelvis.

Now with a smile, the Centurion drew an instrument Aniana hadn't experienced, one of the élite squad's specialities – a gleaming sharp steel razor, a Roman scalpel. One of the youths who'd held her while she was crucified was deployed to hold her right leg firmly, he gripped the shin he knew to be broken, she squealed at his touch. A Torturer drew a scarlet-hot iron from the brazier and stood by, grinning. The Centurion raised the scalpel, can carefully, cruelly, inserted it into one of the strips formed on her skin by the parallel blades of the claw, and slid it slowly down, peeling away a ribbon of girlskin as it he were peeling a fruit.

The pain was terrible, yet Janina's cries were more of shock than agony, her whole system was scarcely able to cope and respond to this horrific experience of being flayed alive. At her crotch, right by her vulva, he slit through the bottom of the skin-strip with a flick of his wrist, it swung loose for a moment, then he cut it off at the top by her knee, and dangled it triumphantly before her glazed grey eyes.

Blood wasn't streaming, just generally oozing, from the inch-wide, cubit-long strip of exposed flesh. Now the Torturer played his part, pressing the hot iron against that ultra-sensitive raw flesh, crudely cauterising the wound.

The Torture was repeated on her left thigh, then on her flanks, finally two more strips from her thighs. The Centurion was pleased, although the victim was clearly demented with agony, she was still very much alive and conscious – a sturdy lass, if a stupid one!

17​

Scrofulus felt sick – again. Not the porridge this time, he'd avoided that. Relieved from his overnight sentry-duty, he'd stopped off at a streetside stall for a couple of large, fresh-baked biscocti and a bowl of udder-warm morning milk to dunk them in.

He'd sat pensively, feeling tired, knowing he needed sleep, but he couldn't stop thinking about that girl he'd found on the river-margin, all that had happened to her, what was happening to her now ...

He'd felt torn, wanting yet not wanting to take a detour to see her suffering on her Cross. Partly it was just the male urge that had driven him to force his cock into her mouth as soon as he'd found her – yes, she's a shapely leggy, nubile wench, yes Rome, in the person of its soldier, had a right to exercise its will on the conquered and the captive. Partly a horrified fascination with the extremes of cruelty that he knew theDuxArseniuswas capable of, actually revelled in. And even more, a mystified curiosity about these Christian youngsters who actually courted arrest, humiliation, torture, hideous death, knowing their cult was illegal, knowing they were acting as enemies ofRomeand its Divine Emperor – even this one who'd panicked, who'd thought she'd get away, whatever drives them?

So here he found himself. He'd arrived as the Centurion was flogging the long, slender body writhing, hanging by its nailed feet, shrieking with the clear ringing tones of a girl. He knew the Special Squad deployed by Arsenius to do their worst – a nasty bunch, arrogant, always winding up their fellow-soldiers, boasting of the things they'd done to their girl captives, "Oh no, we don't just rape them, that's kids' stuff, we make sure the bitches take permanent marks with them to wear for the rest of their slave-slut lives!"

He'd watched, appalled yet captivated, the progressive stages of her desecration, the slow ploughing with white-hot hooks, the slow stripping of skin from her thighs and flanks, the sizzling cauterising red-hot iron, and the victim's helpless responses.

Now there was a pause, as the next set of implements was heated in the fire-basket. Janina was sobbing, breathless, her body jerking up from time to time as her legs contracted and her arms pressed down, but immediately dropping again. Her face, whose pallor Scrofulus had admired in the white moonlight, was livid red now, her legs were growing numb as blood drained down to her head.

Her breasts hung prettily, in this inverted pose they thrust out towards her tormentors, ripe fruit offered for them to pluck. In the next stage her Torturers accepted this offering. First they were sliced, not with a claw but with a single-bladed, fiery hot, sharp-pointed hook with which a cross surrounded by a ring was inscribed on each, the men mocking as they told her they were marking her with the Cross of her Lord. Then they were slowly, carefully, stripped of their skin by the Centurion with his scalpel. Hot iron plates were pressed on the oozing mess of fat, milk and blood. Finally, a pair of glowing iron pincers was lifted from the brazier, waved before her pleading eyes, and used to squeeze the flesh till each breast burst in smoking mass of tender meat.

Harsh mocking laughter, not just from the Torturers, a large crowd was clustered around Janina now. She was past screaming, just fighting for breath, but obviously still fully conscious, fully aware of the pain eating into her where her female assets had been destroyed.

And now there was a hiss of burning, Janina tensed as she felt a glowing iron singeing her pubic girls. She braced herself. Her mother, high enough on her Cross to see what was happening to her daughter suddenly gave out a hollow "Noooooooooo!" like she'd done in the Torture Chamber when threatened with the same hot-metal rape. But for Janina there was no escape, no chance to save herself by confessing.

With the poker plunged into her female parts, and left there while the Torture-Squad stood back to watch, her body shuddered in violent spasms. Each time her rib-cage heaved to drag in a tortured breath to her burning lungs, fresh ribbons of blood streamed down her ravaged hide. She felt the heavy iron burning its way deeper and deeper into her, conquering her birth-passage, her womb, searing through into her stomach ...

A loud, rasping sound from her throat like no human or other animal, a gush of blood, phlegm and vomit that cascaded over her upturned face, and her form grew rigid in the gentle embrace of death.

Scrofulus indeed felt sick, as he plodded wearily along the track, not pausing to admire the row of Christian virgins still sweetly prancing on their Crosses. He'd felt pleased with himself at first, it's not every night a lowly foot-slogger like him was praised by the Dux Domitius, that sodding Decurion Offalus was in trouble (ha, ha!), maybe he, humble Scrofulus, was heading for promotion, perhaps a few solidi he could put away in a very secret place for his discharge, the day he'd find a wife and settle down away from all this soldiering.

Not that soldiering was bad, he liked the company, the excitement of proper battle. He'd never felt bad about enjoying the captive girls that were his right when they'd razed a village or smashed their way into a fort. But this was different, for the first time in his life he caught himself wondering – what is this Rome I'm fighting for?

 

[Yupar]

I hv just dloaded it...i will enjoy cuz i m always ur fun who love ur writing... Thank for posting it..

 

[Hangnail]

Can you offer us a downloadable plain text or PDF version...?

 

[admihoek]

Can you offer us a downloadable plain text or PDF version...?

you Eul? or this guy

 

[Eulalia]

please Hansi ​

 

[admihoek]

please Hansi ​

I'll do this night

 

[admihoek]

here is it in pdf
and for all who didn't like pdf, the second one is in word

 

[Eulalia]

thansi

 

[admihoek]

bitte was meinen Sie fraulein.........................

 

[Jollyrei]

​

This story is now in the Archive - not sure why it wasn't there before:
https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/resources/the-one-who-thought-shed-get-away-by-eulalia.956/

 

[KageKamen]

I don't know, but I'm glad it got dug up. It's full of foul detail, just as I'd expect from the great Eulalia!