Part III
Eila sat and the ground and felt warm stones pressing into the hurting flesh of her bottom. When she hesitated to lie down, the two soldiers grabbed an arm each and tied it to the beam using the ropes. The timber nestled to the skin of Eila’s arms and shoulders.
Once they’d finished, the soldier with the whip kicked Eila just as he’d done in the dungeon. “Get up, slave!“ Yelling seemed his only mode of speaking now when addressing her. Eila wanted nothing more than to lie there and then until the end of days, but as the second kick pierced her side, followed by the whip cracking on her belly, she got up.
Or at least she tried. She failed to rise from her position with her arms tied to the heavy beam. The whip went down her on belly and breast and the soldier, with every lash, shouted at her to get up.
“I can’t!“ Eila protested, sensing how nobody around her gave a damn about what she could and could not do. Except for the soldier on horse, their commander, the Centurion, who suddenly turned around and said: “Now help her up, damnit, or we’ll still be here by sundown!“
Some laughter again in the crowd, and Eila saw how this time, the soldier with the whip didn’t like it. He and his comrade grabbed the beam each on one side and pulled Eila up to stand. The beam made her stoop down. She looked at her feet and heard someone in the crowd crack a joke on the red hair between her legs, how he wonders have they put that into the rich people’s wigs, too? He probably thought she couldn’t hear him.
No, Eila corrected herself. He doesn’t care.
The next opportunity for that fool to please the audience came when the soldier with the whip walked towards his commander’s horse. Eila’s eyes widened at the jingling sound as the Centurion handed his subordinate something from his elevated position. The jingle knocked all the strength from her legs. The soldier still standing with her caught her under the arms tied to the beam, so close was he she could feel his breath and smell some wine on it.
“Stand,“ he said. “Come on, remain standing.“
It was an comforting voice and he whispered as if he didn’t want the crowd to hear him. In his eyes Eila saw he wanted to be somewhere else just like her. In this moment, she thought maybe she could have loved a Roman, one who would have bought her out of slavery and …
“Step aside, Decimus,“ the other soldier said. He stood before Eila holding up a spray of three nails, each as long as a hand and thicker than a thumb. A piece of string held them together. Eila forced her eyes sideways as the soldier tied the nails around her neck like a necklace.
“Ready for a banquet at the palace now,“ the wisecracker said and was rewarded some laughter again. Decimus turned around to the crowd at which not all, but some of the laughter died. The other soldier patted Eila’s cheek. “Looking good,“ he praised his work.
“Manius!“ the Centurion called out to his subordinate. The soldier standing in front of Eila turned around. “What in Jupiter‘s name is taking you so long back there?“
Manius made a gesture like he didn’t know what he’d just done wrong. “Giving my best here, Centurio.“ Some giggling in the crowd.
“Do it faster, then. Catch!“ With that, the Centurion threw Manius one end of a rope. Manius caught it by the snare at its end. The other end was knotted to the saddle of the Centurion‘s horse. Manius put the snare over Eila’s head and around her neck.
“Got it?“ the Centurion asked.
Manius pulled on the snare so Eila had to take a step forward. He nodded. “We’re good to go.“
“Then we go. Move, slave!“ The Centurion spurred his horse and it started with a slow trot. The rope strained. Eila tried to resist the pull but was no match for the horse‘s power. With the crossbeam bending her head and shoulders forward, she started to walk with the pebbled street under her naked feet. She knew they wouldn’t go any faster so people could take a good look at her, but she would rather have done this walk of shame forever than reaching their destination.
The city was busy with people bartering or hurrying from one place to another. People of position, but mostly simple people, slaves like her among them for sure. Some of these were given away by their collar, but it was a relatively well robed one who critically eyed a seller‘s onions when the parade coming down the street drew his attention to it.
Eila had met her share of house slaves. Many of them had treated her worse than free people. The man with the onions could only be of that class, dressed too well for a simple citizen but eyeing the soldiers way too respectful for being of real power himself. Eila he eyed, too, the way someone would some animal‘s dung they had just stepped into.
When their eyes met, Eila saw no compassion, only annoyance, or maybe fear disguised as annoyance. With a roll of his eyes, the man she took for someone’s pet turned back to bartering over the onions. Coward, it came to Eila’s mind. She clenched her fists. The ropes felt like tightening around the contracting muscles of her lower arms.
The distraction must have slowed her down without her noticing, as she suddenly felt the rope between herself and the horse pulling on the back of her neck. A short scream escaped Eila as the whip’s crack on her bare back took her by surprise. A second and third lash ensued with Manius yelling at her to move.
Some of the watchers by the sides of the street met the sounds of the whip with utters of approval. The fresh pain knocked the grudge against the house slave out of Eila. Her resentment had only given her strength for a few steps. Now she felt another drop of piss running down the insides of her thighs as she bend over in a useless attempt to avoid the whip. Instead she staggered and fell to her knees, for which constantly yelling Manius gave her further lashes until she stood and walked almost erect again. In that bend over position, the nails had come dangling right in front of Eila’s face, reminding her of pain to come.
Hope to read from you again under the grande finale next week!
