She returned to the present with another agonizing fit of coughing. As before, the realization that she was still nailed to a cross and dying struck her together with the pain, except...

...the feeling of pressure on her little button was still there.

Camilla opened bleary eyes and cast them downwards, only to meet the gaze of the strange traveller. Piercing eyes gazed up at her as the stranger's lips gently caressed that spot, sucked it in, stroked it with a skilful tongue...

She gasped at the unexpected sensation and the new violation. Had she not yet suffered enough indignity? At least the strange woman...stronger than she looked, was supporting her somewhat, making breathing easier. And the feeling was not as bad as it had been in the dungeon, it was more like when she'd rubbed herself at night...

The strangers lips and tongue were cool and soothing but she felt warmth rise between her legs. Blushing, she realized. It felt like blushing. But why would I blush down there, she thought, where nobody would see...

Amidst such strange and confused thoughts the caresses went on. She'd still felt the pain of her rape when they'd raised her cross, but it was now fading away, replaced with...something. A tension, a pressure, a rising heat. It felt...different from when she'd touched herself. Was that her pain, her dreamlike half-dead state, that made it feel so good, she idly wondered, as her whole being became centered on that place between her legs. The agony of her wrists, her feet, her every muscle still remained but somehow had become less important than what the woman looking up at her was doing with her mouth, and...her fingers now, gently opening her lower lips, exploring between her folds, soothing pain and bearing pleasure. One finger slipped inside her opening and there was no pain, just a strange yet not unwelcome sense of pressure. A second finger joined the first, and a brief stab of pain from the remnants of the morning's torments made her tense up momentarily. Immediately the second digit was withdrawn, to caress outside her wounded opening again.

The pressure was mounting, the heat building up. Something was running down the inside of her thigh, except unlike the slime that had dripped from her as she'd staggered towards the site of her execution it felt...right, somehow? She felt her breathing grow faster, lungs aching as they struggled to keep up but it didn't matter. None of it mattered, only that divine touch, that mouth, that finger which had found a hidden place deep within that raised the tension to yet another high. Something rose within Camilla and she tried to keep it down, confused and afraid but it was inexorable, a river, a flood, an ocean and...

...the dam burst and it broke free. A strange energy flowed through her body, every muscle tightening and relaxing at the same time, her mind went blank and all that was left of the universe was this one perfect moment.

It didn't last. The last tingles died away and the pain returned...no, it had never left. It just hadn't felt important for a few glorious moments, but now it was back. Leaden exhaustion weighed her down, dragged even more heavily on her crippled wrists as she hung limp.

"You deserved that much", the visitor said with a smile, her lower face glistening wet. Something in the far reaches Camilla's mind, some part of her that was somehow unaffected by agony or ecstasy, tried to get the rest of her to pay attention. Something about that smile...

Her hair was tied into countless neat little braids, Camilla noticed. It was beautiful. All of her was, the hair, the face, the skin so smooth and dark, the eyes that seemed to see into her soul...

"Th...thank you", she finally managed.

"It felt unfair for you to die, having never truly lived."

"Life...'s not...not fair."

Camilla wanted to laugh but couldn't find the strength to do it. This was it, then. There was no way she could raise herself again. When the darkness came next, it would be for the last time...

"And yet we all wish to go on living."

The strange woman continued.

"Do you want to? In spite of it all, the pain and the shame and the weight of the world? Do you still wish to live?"

Camilla tried to think about it but the world had begun to spin again and again and again she fell forward into the dust...

…

"Get up, whore!" Antius screamed at her, kneeling in the dusty road, his red face inches from hers. "Get up or taste my whip again! Move!"

She had fallen again. The heavy wooden bar across her shoulders weighed her down but what truly held her to the ground was the ice-cold knowledge of what awaited her at the end of her path.

"Won't listen, eh?" Antius got up. From her position she could only see his sandals, but the shadow he cast on the road showed her the unfurling whip, the arm going back and returning...

Pain exploded across Camilla's back and left buttock as the whip lashed along the length of her backside. She howled in pain but it was drowned out by the cheers of the crowd, by their taunts and insults, by the young men and old women pointing out how lewdly her nakedness was displayed to all the world.

Another lash, another cry of pain. The whip curled in between her legs and cut a gash on her inner thigh, still sticky with the soldiers' seed and her own blood. The arm drew back for another strike and she couldn't take that, not again, no more...

She fought to get her knees under her, get one foot planted.

Another lash of the whip but she had now managed to raise herself half upright, no more Antius!, no more, I am doing it, I am obeying!, her thoughts danced and jittered through her mind.

She was back on her feet, she didn't know how but she had done it, the whip stopped, no more pain...

...but then she once again remembered that the worst pain was yet to come. She'd seen a crucifixion before and if the sight had haunted her, it was the sound of it that had given her younger self nightmares. The wordless, animal screams. The clang of hammer on nail, the crunch of flesh and bone and gristle giving way, the wet slap of sweaty flesh against the unforgiving cross and the creak of wood as the murderer had thrashed and writhed on the implement of his destruction.

The other girls had dragged her out to see it even though they weren't supposed to, it was a coarse entertainment for the men, not little girls. They'd giggled as they pointed at the criminal's cock, which went from limp to painfully erect several times in the process. Camilla hadn't wanted to go but Areti was there and Camilla had always felt better when she was around Areti. Areti, she thought, I wonder where she is now. Would she be there, watching her? See her naked, the last remains of her torn chiton having fallen off her a hundred paces ago? Somehow that thought stirred something within her. She felt the eyes of the crowd on her and their gazes hurt like whips but...why would Areti's eyes be different?

There was no time to continue that confusing line of thought, for she had arrived. A kick from one of the soldiers, probably Antius, sent her sprawling again at the foot of a sturdy pole sunk into the roadside. At least she could catch her breath now, before...she shuddered again.

"Damnata est ad crucem", the magistrate had simply said, putting his seal on the order. He hadn't spared her more than a glance and turned his attention back to more meaningful matters. She'd tried to protest her innocence but received only another beating in response. Later, as the soldiers had lashed the crossbar to her back, she'd worked up the courage to ask them what it was she was being condemned for.

"Incitement, of course" they had laughed at her. "A trustworthy citizen's report placed you at the heart of that riot, poisoning the mob with your words..."

A trustworthy citizen. What a terrible joke that was. As they picked her up by the crossbar and placed her on her whip-torn back she looked around the bloodthirsty crowd, searching for something she was sure would be there.

Red hair. A wide, flat face she had last seen looking at her with murder in its eyes, as Decimus had helped its owner out the door of the tavern.

Marcellus Rufo. He noticed her look and grinned, yelled something at her. She couldn't make it out over the noise of the crowd and the pounding of blood in her head but there was no mistaking the coin purse he pulled out and tossed playfully into the air, catching it again before making it disappear beneath his cloak. He had done this to her. He had condemned her to the worst death known in all the lands where the Imperium held sway. For spite and a pouch of coin.

There was no time to hate him for it. The carnifex brought the hammer down and in an instant Camilla knew exactly why that murderer had screamed that way, all those years ago. Blood spurted from the wound, so much blood, running red and hot and quick and covering the world in red...