As the two guards who have been appointed as lictors approached the woman, the noise from the gathering crowd began to build. She looked different. Exotic. They had heard of the Emperor's foreign mistress but no one had seen her. She was small, barely 5 feet tall and slightly built. They wondered how much scourging she could take. Sometimes inexperienced lictors did too much damage and the woman, particularly one so slight, would die under the scourging.
The first of the guards raised his flagrum. It is a brutal instrument. A short wooden handle that flares at the base. Nine leather tails each tipped with a lead ball with sharp projections. Part way along the leather tails are connected by a circular strap, there to prevent the tails from tangling so that they would land squarely. So the lictor would not have to stop the scourging to untangle them.
This woman’s crime, trying to poison the Emperor, means two lictors. One to scourge her from each side. That way they won’t tire, there will be no relief.
A quiet man, a soldier, watches from the edge of the square. Grey hair, strongly built, with the hard look of someone who has fought many battles and seen many die, wearing a Centurion’s garb. As the first of the guards readies to strike the soldier calls “halt.” It is heard as an order, not a request. The crowd quiets as he walks to the first guard. They do not want their sport stopped but then they recognise him.
They see Primus pilus, the the legion’s most experienced, toughest Centurion. They have seen him march at the head of the first centuria, at the head of legion. He does not usually torture but they know of his skills with the whip. They have never seen him use the flagrum but they know he will deliver their sport. He will deliver the woman’s scourging.
He had watched as the woman was dragged into the square. He saw her small stature and her light frame. He knows that she must be scourged to punish her and to weaken her before she is crucified. But she must be left with enough strength to carry her own patibulum. Enough strength to suffer indignities through the crowds that line her last journey. Enough strength to endure the nailing and the raising of her cross. Enough strength to begin her dance. Only then can she die.
He watched as her wrists were bound and she was tied, stretched upwards, to the post. He watched the strange loin cloth removed. It was wrapped so that a small triangle covered her sex with a thin spiral of cloth wound and pulled tight around her loins. Another thin tail was pulled up between her buttocks and wound into the waist band. He saw her exposed sex and watched the guards prod at her to the jeers of the crowd.
He walked across to the woman. His hand touched her shoulder and he ran it down across her back, over her buttock and onto her thigh. She felt it hard, callous but, confusingly, almost gentle. He cupped her breast. It was small and very firm, the nipple surrounded by a small, darker areola. He felt her nipple erect. It was always so he thought. He ran his hand down across her belly, her rounded pubis and over her neatly defined labia. She was shaved like some Roman women but the days of captivity since her arrest had seen some fine pubic hair return. He felt the labia part, just a little, and felt her shudder at his touch. But his touch was not sexual. He was assessing her. Judging the muscle strength, judging the cover over her bones, judging the suppleness of her skin. He needed to feel, to understand how much she could endure. This was touch of a professional and it frightened her.
He told both lictors to stand back. He, alone, would scourge her. He, alone, would tear her body.
He hefted the flagrum and she heard the lead balls rattle together. She knew she would hear the stroke coming before she felt the fire. He preferred the whip where he could make delicate strokes, make the tip flick, cause both pain and arousal in a woman. Here he had to be brutal. To slam the flagrum into her back to make those lead balls bruise her deeply. Slightly upwards to tear her skin to enhance the abrasion she would feel from her stipes. To tear the muscles in her back so she would feel the pain as she began the dance on her cross.
He struck to her left first. A hard forehand stroke. She heard the rattle of the balls and it landed in the middle of her lower back and cut its way upwards towards her felt shoulder. It tore her soft skin and he saw some blood. She felt the savage fire of pain and she screamed. She screamed. A step to the right and he ripped the scourge from the middle of her back and up to her right shoulder. Fine cuts, a little more blood. She screamed again, louder, more visceral. And she knew pain she had never known before.
She felt the next stroke coming and she flinched. She wanted to run, to hide. But the flinch exposed her side and the flagrum ripped up across her breast tearing the soft underside and raking across the nipple. The soft skin was laid open. Two more stokes across her back and she was screaming almost in concert with his tempo. She heard the rattle and felt the fire. Rattle and fire. She felt the impact of the balls and the tearing of the sharp spikes. In her writhing, despite his attempts to target her back, the ripping across her ribs and breasts continued.
Through her pain she heard the baying and the jeers from the crowd but her focus was on nowhere but the assault on her body.
He grasped the flagrum with both hands. A two-handed assault on her back. Up to her left, up to her right. She was bleeding. The blood running down her back and between her buttocks. Some running from her breasts down across her belly and pubis. She was writhing less now. The brutal assault was weakening her. She was sobbing now. Her body too weak, too abused, to scream. He wasn't counting the strokes and did not know how many she had taken. He saw her hanging from her wrists, too weak to stand. He knew the moment was close. He saw a tremor run through her body and he made the last stroke as she fainted.
He stepped back and he watched the guards release her wrists. She slumped at the foot of the post in the dirt of the square. He watched as the guards threw a bucket of foul-smelling water over her face and her shredded body. She came to her senses and screamed as the water renewed the fire in her back and her breasts.
He watched as she was lifted and led across to the piece of rough-hewn timber that would be her patibulum. He watched as it was lifted onto her damaged shoulders and as her arms and wrists were tied to the wood. He watched as she was led off onto her last journey.
But he would not follow her and see the indignities she suffered though the crowd. He would not watch as her wrists were nailed. He would not watch as her ankles were nailed to her stipes and she was raised on her cross. He would not watch her begin the slow dance that would, in the end, be her death.
so why not
