7. Golgotha.
They crucified Barbaria, Messaline, and Kathy the next morning. Once again, we sat on our camels, faces covered, and watched as the three women, each bearing a cross-piece, came out of the city gate and struggled up the hill to their execution. Migoz urged them forward with a lethal-looking whip each time they stumbled, and a squad of Romans made preparations for their arrival.
Marcella was still alive, and groaned as Barbaria came closer. “Barb, I’m…. sorry! I… failed you!”
Barbaria looked up at her, “You did your best, Marcella. We all did.” I saw that she was still wearing thorns on her head, and they had given her some kind of a tattered robe to wear, though the other women were nude. She had a sign around her neck – ‘BARBARIA: REGINA IUDAORUM” The others, too, had signs, ‘MESSALINA: SEDITIO’ and’ KATHARINA: SEDITIO’.
They made Barbaria stand and watch as they crucified the others. She flinched as the hammers beat on the nails, wept as the naked, helpless, screaming women were dragged up their crosses and had their feet nailed into place.
They pulled the robe from her, and I thought how beautiful yet so vulnerable she looked. She did not protest as they pulled her down and stretched her arms out onto the cross. I glanced at Bob and Jollyrei, but their attention was rivetted onto the drama before us.
No human being can remain silent during crucifixion and Barbaria, despite her courage, was no exception. Her cries of agony tore into my very soul. What crime could justify the infliction of so much torment upon a woman like her?
Her agony wasn’t over, She bumped and crashed against her cross as they lifted her, and they practically threw it onto the top of the stipes.
“Don’t they have any humanity, Bob?” I asked.
“I don’t think so, Wragg.”
Another wall of sound hit us as they smashed nails through her feet to complete her crucifixion, and she hung there, gasping, between Messaline and Kathy.
“We’d better go,” even Jollyrei was subdued.
“No, wait a bit,” said Bob. “She may say something worth recording.” Words uttered in such extremis were often valuable.
For about ten minutes she said nothing intelligible, but then she raised her head, and looked straight at me.
“WRAGG!! COME HERE!!” Not quite the words I was expecting.
I looked down at the sentry, who looked at his centurion, who shrugged and nodded. Migoz looked furious.
I patted my camel to bring him back to the present, and we picked our way through the crowd, coming to a stand in front of Barbaria. She coughed and howled as she forced herself up, and then, with me on my camel and she on her cross, we looked straight into one another’s eyes.
Hers were very, very, angry eyes.
“You call yourselves ‘Wise Men?’
“I… er… “
“Shut up. I haven’t got breath to waste. You come blundering in here, asking Herod for directions to a new ruler of the Jews! That camel’s got more wisdom and common sense than the three of you put together!”
“I… er… “
“Do you know why I’m up here?”
“Because you wrote off Herod’s chariot?”
“No, you prat! Because he didn’t like my limerick!”
“Really?”
“They tell me of Herod the King
That he has a very small thing
It makes the girls snigger
He wished it were bigger
To make all his concubines sing!”
“But that’s very good!”
“Herod didn’t think so…”
She fell down onto her outstretched arms, and I had to wait while she took a rest. This gave me opportunity to look elsewhere than into her eyes. Suddenly, belly dancing seemed a bit mundane…
As I watched her hang, she looked to her right and caught Messaline’s eye, at which Messaline put up a cacophony of howling, shrieking, and wailing. Kathy caught on and did the same.
By the time Barb had struggled back up to my level nobody, except me, could possibly pick up her words.
“Anyway, you said… you wished… you could do something.”
“I did, and I meant it.”
“Go to Bethlehem. You’ll find a newborn baby in a manger in a stable around the back of the King’s Head pub. He’s the actual King of the Jews. Give him your gifts. For God’s sake don’t let Herod or his cronies know where you’re going, or he’ll slaughter every kid in the district, whether or not they can tell limericks.”
“Oh, and Wragg….”
She paused for breath, and I waited in silence.
“When you get to the stable, give my love to my sister. Her name’s Mary. Mary Davidson.”
Gentle Reader, by now you’ll have half a dozen Christmas cards that demonstrate that we did as Barb asked. It’s all been a bit embroidered in the telling, so it has been nice to set the record straight. We’re not kings nor particularly wise, we’re three ordinary blokes who are at least wise enough not to attempt to follow a star that half the time is hidden behind cloud, but to follow the directions of a woman. Particularly when it involves a pub.
And it’s a damn shame that the courage of Queen Barbaria has been lost to history, because she’s the
real star!
Merry Christmas!