Given that this room was essentially a giant cupboard, there was no other door through which the prisoners could be brought in but, in the half-light, most of the audience had not noticed the black curtain hung at an angle across one corner but all eyes turned as the curtain was drawn aside and the two condemned prisoners were led out, naked of course, by a pair of attendants in red, hooded monk’s robes.

Once again, there was a boy and a girl due to die side by side although it seemed that this time the methods of their deaths would be different. This pair were clearly not siblings and neither were especially conventionally attractive, although not without their charms.

The girl was olive-skinned, like Dinah, with thick, shoulder-length hair and, at around fourteen years old, had round but small breasts and was slim, skinny in fact, in a way that some girls would find enviable but left her looking a little under-fed and with little meat worth speaking of. Her face would not win any beauty contests but she had a certain rustic prettiness, especially in her eyes. The boy looked to be around the same age but much paler, tall and trim but not muscular or toned. His dark hair was cropped short, little more than stubble across his head and his body was almost devoid of hair apart from very thin light brown tufts under his arms and just above his erect PENIS, to which most eyes were drawn as it stood, engorged, away from his body drawing his scrotum tight and making his testes look comically small. His face had a cuteness more suited to a much younger child but with the potential to develop into moderate handsomeness, not that he was going to survive long enough for that to happen now, of course.

Both had their hands secured behind their backs but, in keeping with the style of this particular set-piece, they were tied with course rope rather than being cuffed. The boy was led to the table and helped up onto it where he lay on his back, saluting the audience with his erection, and the girl was led to the chair. Once sat down, she was made to lean forward and her ropes were untied. Her hands were then pulled around to the back of the post which formed the upright of the narrow chair, the rope looped through a metal ring on the back and her hands tied once more, pulling her shoulders out and thrusting her chest forwards, before her ankles were tied to the front legs of the chair. Once she was secured, the large iron hoop was released from whatever held it behind and placed around her neck like a collar then fixed back in place.

Having completed their tasks, the robed figure who had secured the girl went to help prepare the boy. If the men in the audience had winced at watching the electric probes inserted into Tommy’s PENIS and testicles, it was nothing compare to the audible reaction when one of the cruel hooks was pushed through this boy’s pride and joy, just below the head, piercing its way all the way through. Two more hooks were pushed through the muscle of his upper legs, just above the knee, and another two through his chest, behind his nipples. It was the final hook, however, which provoked the loudest gasp and shocked whispers from the audience as one hooded figure tilted the boy’s head back and ordered him to open his mouth which the other pushed the hook through the under-side of his chin so that the tip protruded from his mouth, hooking around his jaw.

“Heretics both!” Skye declared. “Both deserving of a slow death during which they may consider and pray for forgiveness for their blasphemies! I shall not be choosing seeking volunteers this time because you will all be taking part!” She hooked her whip to her belt and went to stand behind the girl. “Death by garotting!” she explained, placing her hands on the metal bar which had gone unnoticed until that point and turning it a quarter turn. “As this bar is turned, the screw tightens and the collar grips her throat more tightly you will each take it in turns to twist the bar one full turn, repeating as many times as possible until she is no more!”

“And as for this servant of Satan…” Skye approached the table where the boy lay, hooks piercing the various parts of his body then, as the audience watched in shock, kicked the legs at the end by his feet, causing them to fold inwards and the whole table to collapse flat, leaving the boy suspended from the hooks. As he hung in the air with his entire weight supported by the six hooks through various parts of his body, one of the attendants approached the hostess and held out a long wooden box from which Skye drew a long, thin-bladed knife which she then held up before the audience. “Death by a thousand cuts!”

To be continued...