Barry Sadler - The Eternal Mercenary

Casca burbled something like "… till we meet again…"

"What the hell is that you're mumbling? I'm not going anywhere. But if you live to be court-martialed, you will be."

The vigiles arrived, and, as most policemen would in such circumstances, the first thing they did was to search the girl. It should not have taken as long as it did, seeing that she was already naked when they started, but Rome demanded that its military police be efficient. The repeated handling brought Rheza back to her senses, and she began to enjoy herself a little. The senior MP pinched her on the butt and whispered in her ear, "Later?" Rheza nodded and rubbed her ripe tits along his arm. After all, a girl needed a protector. Sporus was dead, and Casca was going to go to jail-or die — either way he was out of the picture. Besides, a Roman policeman could be very handy to have around when some customer felt he had not received his proper change…

Finishing the necessary search of the girl, the senior MP turned to Verianus. "Okay, what's the deal?"

Verianus laid it on him in as few words as possible.

Checking Sporus's cadaver, the lawman made one short whistle. "Really laid him open, didn't he? Reminds me of that stiff we found over by the Temple of Mars last week." And then speaking to his buddy, "Doesn't it to you, Toninus?" He explained to Verianus, "Someone laid open a visiting politician from Sarmatia. He had the same look on his face, too. You know, like he was a little embarrassed… Well, enough of this bullshit." He pointed to Casca and asked Verianus, "Is this one going to make it?"

He got a noncommittal reply.

"Okay, then you two guys haul his ass out of here and over to the stockade. They'll take over there, and we'll get your statement and write up our report for the provost marshal in the morning."

The Syrian and Verianus finally got Casca on the shoulders of Verianus after dropping him on his head once. They switched off, taking turns carrying him the three miles to the stockade where they turned him over to a not-too-sympathetic jailer. The jailer checked Casca over and told the two to toss him on a pile of straw in the orderly room, that he'd have the medics check on Casca when they came on duty in the morning. This was done, and the sweating and cursing Verianus and his Syrian helpmate were by this time regretting slightly that Casca had not died in the dancer's room.

Casca lay unconscious on the straw, the only thing alive about him an occasional groan… and his dreams… those haunting memories that kept returning. Storm clouds raced through his thoughts as they had in that cursed darkness during the crucifixion. The pain was almost more than he could bear. But inside his subconscious he knew something was happening that shouldn't happen- his body was healing. The bleeding inside had already stopped. The artery was growing back together. The spilled blood in his abdominal cavity was being absorbed into the thin walls of the mesentery and recirculated back into his system. But the pain was still there, though just now it was settling into a dull, throbbing ache.

He gave one long groan, which woke up the dozing guard with a jerk. The sleazy-looking jailer bore an amazing resemblance to a ferret-right down to the beady, bulging, red-rimmed eyes. He gave the wounded man one dirty look and dropped back off to sleep, oblivious of the new set of oversexed body lice that had just copulated their way up the long journey from his unwashed feet along the calves of his stringy, hairy legs and into the curly, matted hair of his pubic region, there to join a number of their relatives-including a few diehard fleas who would have rather been on a decent dog.

The night passed as all things must, and the dawn brought an enraged commanding officer to the stockade at the early hour of cock's crow.

The noble and ambitious commander of the garrison, one Tigelanius by name (who claimed a distant relationship to divine Julius on his mother's side), was pissed off. He roared through the orderly room and scared the hell out of the jailer when he kicked the stool the slug was sitting on out from under him.

"Where is he?" he bellowed.

Looking around, he spotted Casca asleep in the straw.

With one smooth motion he reached the side of the sleeping man and booted him in the butt.

"How dare you kill one of my non-coms! You piece of insubordinate garbage! You know what that looks like on my personnel records? It looks like I don't have any discipline!"

Casca raised up, still sleeping and confused. All the time the patrician Tigelanius was roaring at him he looked at and touched the spot where the poniard had entered his stomach. There was no more pain, and the wound was closed. Only a thin red line showed where the blade had penetrated.

Tigelanius caught where Casca looked. Pointing at the scar with his baton, he screamed, "Is that the 'almost deathlike blow' Sporus inflicted on you? Shit! I've cut myself worse than that shaving."

Tigelanius was livid, his face white with anger. Calling to the jailer to bring a couple of men, he had Casca bound and ordered one hundred strokes of the cane, to begin with fifty for each foot-but Casca was not to be crippled; if they had to, they could let him have a break and do it in increments.

Turning to the filthy jailer, he bellowed: "Get this man into chains! What the hell is he doing running around loose? You slime bucket, clean yourself up, or you'll share everything he gets-and do it now! I will inspect this facility in two hours, and it had better be spotless. And that goes for the torture chamber, too. It's a pigsty in there. How the hell do you expect a decent man to work in those surroundings? Now, do it-now! And bring this insubordinate piece of garbage to me after he has been stroked."

Damned enlisted men. Didn't they know how important his promotion was?

Casca offered no resistance to being chained and manacled. He was still half in a stupor. He looked dazedly down at the heavy manacles, but the meaning of them could not reach his brain. He felt doped. He did not exist.

The two troopers led him to the stocks where he was laid on his back and the sandals taken from his feet. The older trooper looked down at him and spoke, the words coming through the fog of Casca's consciousness:

"Man, I am sorry about this, Casca, but you heard the orders, and you know that if we don't do the job right, the old man will put us down there with you. So, no hard feelings. There's nothing personal in this."

The trooper's voice was quiet, and the tone familiar, and because of that, realization came to Casca, and he was acutely aware of what was going to happen to him. But he did not let it show in his face as he watched the troopers get ready.

Taking one of the two whiplike four-foot rods, each about the thickness of a forefinger, the first trooper whished it back and forth in the air a couple of times to get the feel of it, and then handed the other one to his comrade. His face twitched in distaste for what was about to occur, and he said to his associate, "Let's get this over with, Corio."

The troopers took position, one on each side of the stocks, took off their helmets, and got themselves set.

Casca said nothing. Now completely out of the stupor, he knew full well the extent of the forthcoming pain, having been on the other end of the whiplike rods more than once, and having seen what that pain would do to even the toughest trooper. By some odd trick of the mind he seemed to feel the pain before the rods even touched his feet, and it took all the strength of his will to fight down an impulse to scream wildly.

He could feel his heart racing madly. Had he been merely a casual observer this punishment might not seem particularly harsh, but Casca, like every legionnaire, knew the reality. The mere threat of the rods would set any legionnaire's pulse to racing madly.