“Oh, come off it, Valens!” Felix said with exacerbation. “We’ve got plenty of rope, there’s no need to get ghastly and nail these poor bastards up.”
“True,” the optio conceded, “But supposing someone wants to cut them loose? I don’t know about you, but I don’t plan on staying up here for several days, waiting for them all to die. No one will live for very long after having rusted spikes driven through their wrists and ankles. We nail them up. It will make any attempt at rescue futile.”
“You do it then,” Felix retorted as he walked over to supervise the removal of the prisoners, who so far were still strangely quiet.
“What’s gotten into him?” Valens asked, perplexed.
“You made it sound like you enjoy this,” Artorius replied.
“The hell I do!” Valens said. “I’m serious when I said this is more practical if we don’t want to stay up here for however many days it’s going to take these sods to expire. You want to help?”
Artorius glared at him but knew it would be wrong to decline. If he was going to task his men to perform such a loathsome deed, it would set a better example if he took the worst of it on himself. No matter what a condemned criminal’s offense, no legionary in his cohort enjoyed crucifixion. Roman soldiers were taught since the time before they even picked up a gladius to kill their foes quickly and cleanly.
It was a different kind of person who enjoyed inflicting suffering on others. Legionaries of this persuasion were usually identified early in their careers and often reassigned to the legion’s torture detachment. Artorius was thankful that he had only dealt with them on the rare occasion where he needed a prisoner interrogated. In his mind, the men of the torture detachments were sadistic sociopaths.
As he watched the prisoners being carried to their fate, he almost felt sorry for them. Whatever burning loathing he had felt during the skirmish the previous summer, it had since cooled with the passing of time, symbolized by the setting sun. For his own sense of well-being, he was glad that he no longer resembled the hate-filled berserker from his youth. Conversely, the soldier that stood next to him with the corded whip showed no sign of his rage lessoning. Artorius then recognized him as the same decanus who had whipped the pirates they captured on their journey across the sea.
“Do not lash them to the point that you hasten death,” Artorius directed.
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said through a wicked sneer.
The centurion noted the man’s face. If anyone could have been assigned as a torturer, it was him. Though he was mostly a model soldier and squad leader, Artorius sometimes wondered about his mental state.
“This place will drive us all mad,” he uttered quietly.
He followed Valens and another legionary, who carried the lantern, over to the first cross. Soldiers removed the man’s blindfold and cut the bonds holding his hands behind his back. The zealot’s face was vacant, and he, just for an instant, met Artorius’ gaze. There was no emotion, just resigned acceptance. Months in prison had emaciated him and left him already a hollow shell of what had once been a man. Artorius knew that most of these men were dead already, at least in spirit. The finishing off of their mortal bodies was but a formality.
“Wait until they’re all tied down before we start,” Artorius whispered to Valens. “They seem pretty calm right now, but that will change once we drive the first nail home.”
“Understood,” the optio replied.
It only took a few minutes and each rebel was tied to his cross, and still they made not a sound. The legionaries stepped back and waited for the order to lift their heavy burdens and place them into the post holes at the base of each crucifix. Valens knelt down next to the first man, Artorius beside him.
“Do you want to hold or hammer?” Valens asked, doing his best to sport a grin.
The centurion snatched a spike. He grabbed the zealot’s wrist with one hand and held the spike over it with the other. As the sharpened length of metal rested on the man’s wrist, he could hear his victim’s breathing increasing rapidly, knowing what was about to happen.
“Don’t hit my fingers,” Artorius said while trying to control his own nervous breathing. As much as he did not want to watch, he found he could not draw his gaze away from where the spike met flesh.
“Carpentry’s my hobby,” Valens replied. “I think I can swing a hammer well enough.” The optio then looked down at the rebel with a sinister glare. “Don’t worry, this will only hurt for a minute.”
At the first blow of the hammer the rebel screamed in pain, unable to stay silent any longer. Valens tried to expedite the task as a spurt of blood splashed Artorius’ face. It dripped into his right eye as he kept his stare fixated on the spasms of the rebel’s stricken forearm. With macabre efficiency, Valens jumped to the other side. Artorius held a second spike ready, which the optio drove home as quickly as he could.
“Now the feet,” Valens said, pointing towards them with his hammer.
Artorius’ stomach was twisting as the zealot’s body convulsed in a fit of screaming agony. He felt that he could watch no more, but he forced himself to. He felt that if Valens had to watch, then so did he. The optio wiped his forearm across his brow as soon as they finished. He then called over his shoulder.
“Alright, lads, turn him over.”
“Sir?” one of the men asked.
“I’ve got to bend the spikes so they can’t be pulled out! Now get over here and turn him over, damn it!”
The rebel continued to scream in unholy anguish as the six legionaries hefted his cross over and dropped the man unceremoniously onto his stomach. Valens quickly hammered each spike, bending it over until each was flush against the crossbeam.
“Okay, hoist him up,” Valens directed as he grabbed his bag of spikes and walked over to the next victim.
To their credit, each of the condemned men did his best to remain silent and not give what they thought was satisfaction to the Romans, yet none of them could withstand the pain of having spikes driven through their wrists and feet. As Artorius knelt down to help Valens nail the next victim, the slap of the corded whip biting into the crucified man’s flesh echoed along with his screams.
“This is going to lead to a few sleepless nights,” he said while staring Valens in the eye.
The optio nodded. “They brought this about, not us!” he replied with a grit of renewed determination as he swung the hammer home once more.
The cries had mercifully subsided by the time Artorius dismissed his men. He had ordered two squads of legionaries to guard the execution site until morning. Men from Cornelius’ century would be relieving them at that time. He watched as the soldier with the corded whip walked past him, his face still twisted in anger. The centurion grabbed the decanus that was behind him and pulled him aside.
“You two know each other well?” Artorius asked.
“Yes, sir,” the squad leader replied. “Not done anything wrong, has he?”
“No,” Artorius replied, shaking his head. “But I think this place is getting to him or at least something is. I understood when he flogged the pirates, and I can even understand this to a degree, but he seems a bit unstable. Keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t start lashing people on the streets or his own soldiers with that thing.”
“I understand, sir,” the decanus replied. He paused for a second and decided to tell his commander what he knew. “Look, he had himself a Jewish girlfriend. Not too hard to comprehend, happens all the time in the provinces. Well, sir, these people are funny. Her father threatened her and their whole community rebelled at the idea of one of their own defiling herself with an infidel such as us.”
Artorius snorted at the idea, but it was true. Though a conquered people, the Jews still viewed themselves as superior to the Romans.
“So anyways,” the decanus continued, “She was given the choice between the one she loved and her family. Well, sir, you can guess what choice she made.”