The women’s march to their crucifixions included a walk through the village. At first, they were subjected to lewd remarks made in third person, as if the women making them were acting as if the condemned women were not able to hear what they had to say.
Perhaps it was the large presence of soldiers that kept the town’s people at bay but after seeing the soldiers’ liberal use if their whips on the women the town’s ladies became bolder. They dare not touch prisoners but quickly found there was no repercussions for yelling insults at the women nor for spitting on the helpless women.
After the women passed the city’s gates they were led over a brush-covered path.
Though it is not visible, the path was roughly paved with sharp stones that torn at the women’s feet. Each step was a painful event,
Members of the queen’s elite guards took over the watch of the women’s march to their execution. They were no less shy about taunting the women and even jabbing them with their blunt posts. Barbara wondered if being crucified would be better than the torment being inflicted upon her as she marched to the hilltop.
She would soon find the cross would be no relief from guards.
Ahead of Barbara, Messa and Kathy struggle carrying the beams of their crosses. Kathy cried “How can they treat us this way? They would not do this to stray dogs!”
But the threat of the whips kept her marching up the hill.
Early in the women’s climb up the hill, one of the guards draped a leather cord around each one’s neck. Dangling from the straps was a trio of spikes that would hold them to their crosses when they were nailed to them. The spikes are hand-formed iron and combined weigh a few kilograms but while the women can carry them- they weigh nothing compared to the wood beams they haul- the rattling of the iron reminds them with each step they are getting closer to the end of their march.
Barbara carries the beam and her spikes past a guard thinking ‘Kill me now! I don’t want these nailed through me!”
Kathy curses at the soldiers “You need these to kill me, you pathetic bastards?”
Messa worries the spikes will ruin her looks as she hangs from her cross.
But their march up the hill continues.
None of them know what being crucified will feel like but are praying it will hurt less than the guards’ whips…