The Ergastulum
Part 2
Neither Eris nor Keres were able to maintain any position that would alleviate
their suffering. There were no solid surfaces to grip and the constant movement
continually pulled Eris's distressed breasts and shoulder joints while
ratcheting Keres's tortured arms. Her sister's grunts and groans augmented
Eris's unrelenting howls. Breast milk flowed freely down the ropes holding
Keres's wrists. Eventually, the watery substance trickled down the younger
woman's arms, which she gratefully lapped to diminish her thirst.
Andara did not stir from her position draped across the structure nearby. Keres
called to her between futile attempts to stifle her older sister's wails. Keres
had no idea how long they had been suffering but by the amount of liquid pooled
near her feet, she guessed over an hour. While not a strong woman, Eris had
always been a tremendous milk producer for her children. Eris's arms and
shoulders were completely numb which was a good thing as it allowed her to quit
squirming and not pull at her sister's breasts. Eris had quieted to just
emitting pitiful moans. Keres knew that when they were released, the pain of the
blood flow returning to normal would be agonizing for both women. Keres felt
warm liquid gushing down her arms and recognized from the smell that Eris had
urinated. She flinched as the urine swept over the place on her abdomen burned
earlier by the hot coal. Eventually, Keres voided and both women slid into a
semi-conscious state slumping in their bindings.
Andara was the first of the trio to awaken. A deep-throated bawl stirred Keres
from the relief of a near pain-free stupor. Surprised that her sister was still
alive, Keres croaked out her name. Andara tilted her head toward the voice yet
her eyes would not open-sealed with dried blood. Pulling herself up slightly to
draw breath, Andara fell back immediately due to the pain shooting throughout
her body. The tears caused from this effort did succeed in moistening the
matting that sealed her eyelids. Her gaze fell upon the terrible sight of her
two sisters tied so cruelly.
"K...K...Keres," she whispered through parched lips. "What has he done to you?"
"I received treatment similar to you sister," Keres replied in breathless tones.
"Eris so far has been spared the whip and searing coals but her engorged breasts
were too tempting a target and have endured much." Having regained some sense,
Keres felt the returning pain of her suspension and began again using her toes
to find some purchase of the slick floor. The movement caused new aching
sensations to Eris's chest. The additional excruciating constriction and
heaving ignited the tormented nerves and Eris's head flew back while emitting an
unearthly piercing shriek that filled the ergastulum.
Andaras called her oldest sister's name but there was no reply. Eris just
stared wild-eyed straight ahead with her mouth frozen open in a horrible
contortion. She saw how the coils of rope had transformed Eris's once alabaster
breasts into hideously misshapen, bluish-black balloons that even now discharged
her mother's milk. Andara was at a loss for words at the hopelessness of their
predicament. Speaking was too painful and what could be said? The two
conscious women realized the need to conserve energy to survive their ordeal.
The atmosphere in the ergastulum was hushed save for the squeaks of rope on wood
and the groans of women in pain and fighting for relief from it.
What little light that entered the ergastulum began to fade and the oppressive
heat that simply added to the facility's captives began to thankfully lessen.
Approaching footsteps alerted Keres. Twisting to face the opening to the
chamber, Keres was not surprised to see the return of the ergastularius. He
stopped near the entrance and surveyed the two women bound together noting the
older one's breasts resembled two ripe grapes ready for plucking. Grasping
Keres around the waist, he cut through the ropes connecting her to her sister.
Kaeso let her drop to the earthen floor dismissively. While Keres writhed in
the dust, Kaeso loosened the ropes crimping Eris's teats. He quickly stepped to
the pinion that held her aloft and dropped her also to the dirt.
"You," he ordered Keres with a nod toward Andara, "tend to the one on the
crosspiece. You'll find water in the bucket yonder. You may both drink your
fill." The ergastulum knelt beside the near catatonic Eris and gently massaged
her breasts. He simultaneously felt for the strength of her heartbeat and the
rate of her breathing. After several minutes, he stood, satisfied that the
slave would eventually regain her physical vigor. Her mental state was another
matter however. If she lacked the fortitude to cope with basic indoctrination
discipline, she would not live a month in the ergastularium. Kaeso strode
toward the two younger women who had draped themselves over the water bucket and
were gulping greedily.
"Finish here. Use this balm on the other slave," Kaeso barked at Andara with
the tip of his sandal to her ribs for emphasis while tossing a leather balm bag
to the floor.
The twins slowly withdrew their drenched heads from the bucket. Clutching the
balm in her hand, Andara began to crawl toward Eris while Keres attempted to
stand. Her arms were useless-void of any sensations due to the extreme and
unnatural way they'd been bound. She grunted furiously as she worked to find a
way to rise without her arms to provide leverage. Kaeso, almost gently, pushed
her kneeling frame over so she landed prostrate.
Andara reached her older sister who had assumed a constricted fetal position.
She was pleased to see that Eris's discolored chest was regaining a more natural
hue. Andara stroked her sister's hair and pulled close to her face to listen
for signs of consciousness.
"Listen closely slaves," ordered Kaeso, while you tend to your wounds, I will
explain your billeting and give you instructions for tomorrow."
Keres's posture resembled that of a common garden snail. While she was elated
that the feeling was returning to her arms and shoulders, the sensations were
miserable. She could only thrash about in the dust next to her older sister in
an attempt to withstand the agony. Andara was coping a bit better. While she
too was bruised and cut, her joints had not enduring the wrenching her twin had
suffered. Andara, still kneeling, began to gently massage the healing salve
onto Eris's battered torso.
Kaeso continued, "You will find more water, olives, cheese and bread in your
cell. Eat and drink all you're given-this is told to you but once. Relieve
yourselves prior to entering your cell at the end of the day-this also will be
your only warning. While in your cell, you may speak among yourselves-this is
the only place speech is allowed unless you're working as directed or given
permission to speak. When I, or any of my assistants enter your cell you will
immediately drop to your knees. I recommend you heed fully any orders given you
and react with haste. I will be addressed as Ergastularius. In the morning,
you will receive further discipline training. Each day will be the same for you
here until I decide you are ready to enter the fields or domestic service. The
duration of your training will be at my discretion. Today you have seen only
this indoctrination chamber. Soon, I will show you your cell. En route, you
will see that the ergastularium is vast. If you have any notion of escape, I
tell you now to dismiss it. It will be impossible to escape my eye. Should
Jupiter strike me dead, this labyrinth would consume you. You were brought here
to serve the citizens of Rome. That you will do until you die-you might
accomplish this servitude fairly agreeably and live a long while, or you can
never see the light of day again and die slowly in despair."
Eris sobbed deeply under the healing touch of Andara's kneading hands. She had
regained full alertness in the middle of Kaeso's speech and the finality of his
closing brought home to the oldest of the women that their plight was bleak.
Andara continued the massage while tears welled in her eyes and dripped on
Eris's chest. Only Kersis, finally able to maintain some dignity to her
posture, retained a sense of defiance. He was only a man, she thought. And
this is just a place. We will survive.
"Now to your feet wenches!" Bellowed the formerly calm Kaeso. Hard kicks to the
girl's legs spurred them to their feet though on unsteady legs. When the three
Greeks were upright, the ergastularius again assumed a composed demeanor. "You
may hold onto each other for support,' he stated, "follow me to your cell."
Kaeso stepped off lazily toward a large heavily fortified wooden door. As he
opened it, the voices of many could be heard in a pandemonium of shouts, screams
and laughter. The new slave girls, clutching each other around their waists,
eased through the opening. Kaeso stopped a few paces through the portal.
Putting his hands on his hip, he addressed the women while keeping his focus on
the scene before them, "Look hard at these wretches least a similar fate befall
you."
Dozens of tar-soaked torches provided ample light to the terrible scene in the
large chamber. Over a dozen horizontal wooden racks pulled at the limbs of
shrieking, naked men and women. The dancing torchlight illuminated the sweat
soaked, bloodied bodies of victims and the flexing muscles of their antagonists
as they applied their craft. Several of the racks were equipped with spiked
rollers on which the stretched victim had been forced to lie, feet tied at one
end, hands at the other.
"This man, said Kaeso pointing to a rack nearest him, "has been stretched
gradually for days. The elongation of his miserable body is reported to be two
hands inches so far. This is a result of dislocation of every joint in the
body."
As if on cue, a loud popping sound originated from the man mixed with a shriek
of agony and a futile cry for mercy in a language none of the women understood.
They easily understood however the suffering he was enduring. "Zeus help
him..." Andara asked her god muttering into her sisters' ears.
Kaeso extended an arm and pointed toward a vertical rack against the wall
opposite the doorway they entered. Mounted to it was once, Keres thought, a
beautiful woman younger than her. Her nose was missing. A deformed and limping
ergastularius approached her racked and bleeding trunk with red-hot pincers.
Smoke rose as the glowing metal implement was put to her breast. Her horrific
scream continued unabated as the pincer bit into her nipple. To enhance the
agony, the laughing Roman torturer twisted the tool to and fro. Her howls only
rose when another, slightly less ugly ergastularius, applied another heated
pincer to her genitals. As the implements cooled by the heat dissipating to
roast the flesh, her torment was increased by the rack's wheel being turned to
add tension on her torso.
Upon another platform, a man's intestines were slowly wound onto pulleys before
his dimming eyes. At still another punishment station, a tall, thick vertical
post, a variety of Latin letters were being branded into the flesh of an old,
fat woman. Another prisoner hung by her ankles while two Romans ripped at her
flesh with knives brandished in both hands. Kaeso at last pointed to two women
and explained, "This day will be the last for all these slaves. They failed to
learn from their initial discipline such as you Greeks have been given today.
In the following weeks, they were too stupid or stubborn to appreciate their
agricultural and domestic training. They have suffered much but still refuse to
submit. Our mission here is not simply to inflict pain; rather, by having other
slaves, you among them, witnessing the administration of torment, we provide the
Masters disciplined workers. These two await their fate."
In the center of the chamber, two women were bound to a horizontal
shaft-back-to-back--their bodies cinched tight to the wood. Beneath them a fire
was being restoked. "They will first be roasted then," Kaeso pointed to a table
along the wall to his right, "their charred skin will be peeled off before they
die."
A blacked body, unidentifiable as man or woman, was immobile in the dirt near
the fire pit. As sheets of flaking skin were peeled, it was plain to the ears
that the burnt human indeed still lived. Andara fainted when she accepted the
reality of this horrific scene.
"No person is deserving of such torture!" exclaimed Keres, "not slave nor
master! You filthy Romans are mad! You are contemptuous! You have no right to
an empire..."
Before the thought could be finished, an ergastularius seized Keres from behind.
His powerful arms grabbed handfuls of hair and she was lifted off the floor.
With a sharp intake of air, Keres reached up to grasp the arms to prevent her
hair from being ripped from her scalp. Two other Romans took the remaining
sisters in a bear hug from behind and lifted them too from the ground.
Kaeso looked disappointed as he surveyed the suspended women. Nodding at Eris
and Andara he ordered, "Take these two to their toilet then their cells. They
will begin agricultural training at dawn. This one," he glared at Keres, "will
spend her evening here...clamp her, run her until the moon rises then chain her
to Equis." He then turned to assist at a rack.
End Part 2
