Chapter 7: Punished

It appeared that we were expected to walk from the courtroom to the Market Square, a distance of about half a mile, maybe a little more but both of us were in such a state that we could hardly stand, let alone walk. I couldn't control any of my limbs and my whole body shook violently. It was only after I was given a drink of a bitter liquid that I regained some of my composure. "Come along Miss," my guard spoke quite kindly to me, "You don't want to annoy the flogging master by keeping him waiting. Start walking. The sooner we get there, the sooner it will be over and done with." I knew he was trying to help but I could hardly put one foot before the other. Nevertheless with his help and with his mate helping Roger we slowly made our way to the square where crowds of people had already assembled. Once more I knew that this had all been prearranged.

We waited for a few minutes at the end of the track leading into the square and I could see how they arranged for each punishment to become a public spectacle. In the centre of the square stood a stout upright post with ropes passing through a pulley near its top. Around the post and several yards away, surrounding it in a semicircle on three sides were tiered stands. Already they were filled with people, men and women, all noisily eager to watch the punishment being carried out. The scene reminded me of The Tale of Two Cities where the townspeople came to watch the aristocrats beheaded.

I murmured, "No, no, no. No further, I can't go on," to the guard but he simply half carried me into the square. The crowd greeted our arrival with a huge cheer and the guard put me on my feet again.

"Walk proud like you really are a bluestone." I would have cheerfully thrown the bloody bluestone at the crowd if I had thought it would release me. I glanced at Roger. He like me had tears streaming down his face and was only standing with support. "Stand and walk," my guard ordered. Like a zombie I did so. At last something clicked in my brain. It mattered not whether I was dragged screaming and bawling to the post or whether I walked with some dignity, either way I would receive the same punishment. I started to walk but was stopped by Roger resolutely sitting down in the dirt. My guard undid the chain between us. "Walk on," he said again and like a horse obeying his master's order I did so. Naked and in front of everyone, I made my way slowly to the post. "Well done," he said when I reached it. The crowd seemed to appreciate my supposed bravery because they clapped and cheered. I didn't feel at all brave. Numbly I allowed my wrists to be bound and soon my arms were hoisted aloft.

Odd how some things pass through your mind at a time like that. The hot sun burned my back and I remembered that I hadn't brought any sunblock. Sunburn was the least of my worries! My tits pressed against the post and I was concerned about getting splinters in them but these irrelevant thoughts were quickly chased away when someone in a loud voice read out my punishment. "Elaine Eves you are to receive ten strokes with the leather strap and ten with the rattan cane, all soundly applied." I started to sag in my bonds but I couldn't move far. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the hooded flogging master pick up the strap but it seemed an age before he stood to one side of me and waited for the crowd to quieten down.

"SLAAAPP!!" The most horrendous pain that I had ever experienced erupted across my shoulder blades. I screamed but it was largely lost in the crowd noise. "How could they be so cruel to a girl? This may have been the norm to them but to me..." "SLAAAPP!!" I screamed again as the second blow landed. Another wait while I howled and screamed but before long the third stroke bit into my sore shoulders. The whole area burned with a raging fire. "I cannot take any more. I must try and pass out." Another blow and still I didn't fade into unconsciousness. Nor did I after the fifth. This was far worse than the strapping at the airport.

A longer wait. "SLAAAPP!!" The next stroke went right across my arse, low down and only a little above the crease. My cries were now very hoarse and two more strokes went across my arse in fairly quick succession. Perhaps the flogging master noticed that I was fading. A wait then two more. I knew that my whole back and arse was one huge blister ready to burst open and spill my blood over the soil. I could feel it trickling down my legs and then realised that I was pissing. The laughter from the crowd should have embarrassed me but all I could think of was the pain. Pain, pain and more pain. The flogging master must have been skilled at his job because later I found that not one of the strokes had landed on top of another. In a few days, the whole of my upper back and all of my arse blossomed into a huge extremely painful, purple bruise with very little space between the stripes. "How am I going to survive this? Why did they send me to this godforsaken place? Why were we set up?" I was becoming a little delirious and we were only halfway through my sentence and the worst was yet to come. I began to fade.

Suddenly water sprayed over my body and my head. It felt cool but it woke up my senses again. The water drenched my hair and ran over my face and down between my tits. It was refreshing but at the price of restoring the feeling of the terrible pain. I yelled and pleaded with them to free me and send me home but I doubt anyone heard my words.

The crowd quietened and I sensed my punishment, my flogging; my mediaeval barbaric torture, was about to begin again. The cane bit into my already blistered and swollen shoulders. The force of the blow knocked me hard against the post and my breasts splayed either side of it. My cries should have awakened all the spirits in their world but none came to save me. Four more times that dreadful piece of cane caused me the utmost pain and I had no doubt that I really was bleeding and that I had deeper welts than those Vilisi suffered. Blackness started to overcome me and I felt a little relief from the pain but soon the hose returned me to my suffering.

"Only five more," I heard someone shout. They, of course would be across my arse. Across flesh so puffed up and wet that I surmised the cane would hurt even more. I really don't know if it made any difference. I was almost out of it after the first stroke landed and the remaining ones were little more than a blur in my mind. I know I kept yelling and screaming but at last it all ended. The hose played over my body again and hands held me under the armpits while my wrists were untied. I collapsed into someone's arms and I was turned so the all sections of he crowd could see the result of my flogging. At last a sheet was wrapped around me and I was lowered on to a blanket on the ground. I lay face down in the utmost pain, wishing the world would end and take me with it. I closed my eyes and I know I mumbled incoherently until my thoughts were once again brought into focus by the shouting and screaming that came from Roger as they fastened him to the whipping post.

At the same time a middle-aged woman, a complete stranger, scrambled down over the seats and knelt beside me. She said something to the guard in the local language and he nodded. "Kneel dear. Get up on your knees like this. Hold on to me." I didn't want to move at all as each twist of my muscles sent bolts of pain through me but she was insistent and soon I knelt unsteadily in an upright position with my knees and forelegs on the blanket. "I'm placing my cushion on the back of your legs dear so if you need to sit a bit it will take some of the pressure and I'm sure you'd like a drink." I did indeed. My throat was parched from all the yelling and I must have lost a lot of water from crying let alone from the heat. I think I stopped muttering about that time but I know I didn't reply. She didn't seem to want one. Opening my eyes a little more I saw her pour some liquid from an earthenware pitcher into a paper cup. "It's only water with some herbs and spices," she informed me but at the time I didn't care what it was. She put the cup to my lips and I tried to gulp the liquid down but she reprimanded me in a motherly way. "Sip it slowly dear. Keep it in your mouth a moment or two before swallowing." Her kindness almost overwhelmed me and I slumped down only to find that putting my backside on the cushion was not a good idea. Lifting myself up slightly and clinging to my benefactor's shoulders, I found that I could take in the scene in front of me although it appeared blurred and out of focus. My heart pumped faster than normal and it was with great difficulty that I heeded the words of the women to calm down. "How can I calm down when I am in such agony," I thought but just her soothing presence was reassuring.

My eyes were so wet with crying I still couldn't see properly but I saw what was almost a silhouette of the flogging master take up his position and wait for the crowd to hush and for the sentence to be read out. My instinctive reflexes winced as I watched the belt fly in a wide arc and land across Roger's shoulders. He immediately hung limp from his wrists. There were boos and groans from the crowd much like at the airport and my sympathy went out to him. In a way I wished that I could have done the same. It seemed to take an age for the hose to revive him but the same thing happened at the next stroke and after the third, Roger took so long coming round that I thought he'd died. The flogging master threw down the strap in disgust and then picked it up again and let fly the remaining strokes without stopping and without much power and not waiting for Roger to recover. How I wished I could have closed my senses down in that way.

It took long minutes and something held under his nose before Roger regained consciousness and again I worried that they might have killed him but a doctor looking man put a stethoscope to his chest and listened. Seemingly he couldn't find anything amiss and shrugged his shoulders to the crowd and had a few words with the flogging master. Again Roger only took one not too hard a stroke of the cane before sagging in his bonds. The crowd, unhappy at the poor showing started shouting and throwing fruit and nuts until the guards stopped them. Still lifeless, he hung there while the flogging master delivered a further nine token strokes. Finally he was released and he moaned pitifully when he came round. In one respect I was pleased that he wasn't that badly hurt, in another way I was disgusted at his poor showing but even at that time I knew Roger had no control over the way his body reacted.

"They'll take care of you now dear," I heard the woman say and I must have muttered some sort of thank you because she gave me a big smile and kissed my forehead. Of the next few minutes I remember very little. Two men came and placed me face down on a stretcher and although they tried to be gentle, the movements hurt me terribly so the next thing I really remember is lying on my bed in the prison with Nurse Muniba standing alongside with a syringe in her hand. I didn't even feel the needle go in but the relief it gave was nearly instantaneous.

"Lie still Elaine, I need to clean your back and arse and put antiseptic cream on. I'll be a gentle as I can but you shouldn't feel too much pain for the next few hours." Muniba washed my back with a liquid that had an aniseed smell and several times when I caught a brief sight of the sponge I saw red patches and I knew the cane had cut through my skin. Muniba dabbed me dry and gently rubbed in a cream. Suddenly it came to me; I wasn't chained to Roger.

"Where's..." Talking seemed terribly difficult.

"In the next cell." I turned my head only to see Sumala watching me.

"He didn't need to spoil you like that," he said bitterly. "You were so beautiful." Although his tone was sympathetic, his words caused me a great deal of agitation. "Was I going to be scarred for life?"