Still, Taleena was consumed by feelings of guilt as she watched the mistreatment of her brave companion. She berated herself for not having sent Breaca away when the good-hearted Celt had offered to help her. But the pain from her flogging had been so dreadful that she had not had the heart or the will to turn her away. And who would have believed that such a harmless act of mercy could have led to a public humiliation such as the one to which Breaca was now being subjected. Who, for that matter, would have dreamed that Byrria could ever have learned of their mutual transgression? As Taleena looked at the grotesque lattice-work of old whip-scars that criss-crossed Breaca's bare back, the mere thought that that fair skin might be ripped anew by the whip almost turned her stomach.

"All of you witnessed the Gaul's punishment two days ago," Byrria went on, now addressing the entire audience, but pointing at Taleena who was trembling with considerable trepidation. "All of you heard me say that her wounds were not to be treated! But obviously there are some here who have decided to challenge my authority!"

Byrria's breasts rose and fell as her dark eyes glared intently at the recruits. She gave Taleena a withering glance before looking coldly down at the prostrate gladiatrix at her feet. "Ignorance of the rules is one thing, but deliberate interference with a punishment ordained by those whom Flavius Autronius has endowed with authority is inexcusable! She glanced toward Calixtus, who was standing to one size looking down at his fallen fighter with a pained expression. For being chief-instructor it was his responsibility to announce her sentence.

"For attempting to interfere with an ordained punishment, the offender shall be put on display for the duration of one training day," the barrel-chested lanista boomed authoritatively, but Taleena thought that she detected a tremor of uncertainty in his voice. For as best she could remember Byrria had only proscribed treatment at the infirmary. But she had been so ravaged with pain at the time of Byrria's ruling that she could not be sure, even now, of exactly what Byrria had said.

"You heard the chief-instructor! Put the Briton on display!" the wild-eyed lanista ordered as she turned toward the guards who had thrown Breaca to the ground. Byrria placed her feet squarely in front of Taleena and glared at her as she continued. "Her punishment will serve as a lesson to any others who might dare to defy the will of Flavius Autronius!"

Taleena met Byrria's stony gaze with growing outrage, but she recognized that her nemesis had been clever in suggesting that Breaca's infraction had been an offence against Flavius himself, rather than merely a violation of her own heartless dictum. What, she wondered, did it mean to be put "on display"? And how could Byrria have gotten wind of the forbidden medical treatment at all? Had she seen Breaca leaving her cell? Or had someone betrayed them? Taleena's mind was filled with unresolved questions, but the second stage of Breaca's ordeal had seized her attention before the answers were forthcoming.

"On your feet!" one of the guard barked at the prostrate gladiatrix, and when he spoke, Taleena recognized the high voice, and the scales fell from her eyes. Rutilius! Taleena remembered with a shudder how Breaca had upbraided the young bully when she had interrupted his assault on Taleena. Neither woman had dreamed that the craven pervert would have dared to expose himself to the reproach of having loitered in the recruits' quarters, but somehow the disgusting youth had found a way to accuse them without attaching blame to himself. And now the despicable guard would have the opportunity to make the woman who had disparaged him pay dearly for her insults!

"Pick up the beam!" Rutilius ordered the near-naked Celt, after having used his sword to cut her bonds, and the sadistic glee in his eyes boded ill for the ginger-haired delinquent. During the previous punishments, including Taleena's, Rutilius had been a mere henchman, while the two lanistae had carried out the floggings; but today he seemed to have been charged with the execution of Breaca's castigation himself, and he was clearly excited by the prospect. Enjoying his moment on center stage to the fullest, the pock-faced youth licked his lips in anticipation of his moment of triumph.

Breaca glared contemptuously at the surly young guard, but when he drove the hob-nailed sole of his leather caliga into her upper thigh to urge her on, she grimaced in pain and pulled herself up on her hands and knees before rising slowly to her feet. She took a deep breath and bent down to seize the thorn-bristling cross-piece by the nails projecting from its ends. Straightening her legs, the bare-breasted Briton lifted the beam off the ground, holding it at the level of her loins, striving to keep the fiendish thorns away from her well-toned thighs. Then she jerked up the log and lunged forward, thus heaving her dreadful load over her head like a weightlifter, before bringing her bare feet together to improve her balance.

Following her friend's efforts out of the corner of her eye, Taleena was quite impressed by the manner in which the brave Celt had managed to pick up her load without being cut by the thorns, but she was also well aware that Breaca's momentary success had left Rutilius highly unsatisfied.

As Breaca struggled to hold the thorn-beam aloft, the muscles in her limbs straining under her burden, and Taleena noticed a pattern of red blotches that marred the pale perfection of her pink-crested mounds. Rutilius or perhaps both guards had clearly taken indecent liberties with their full-breasted prisoner in the staff building before dragging her into public view. Shuddering with disgust Taleena could only take comfort in the fact that Byrria was not armed with her dreadful whip. But then she noticed that Rutilius was carrying an ominous thorn-bearing pole about the length and girth of a man's arm…

Rutilius's shifty eyes lingered on Breaca's nudity for a few moments, obviously enjoying subjugating the ginger-haired Celt in such degrading fashion. But then, with a business-like "Let's go!" Rutilius prodded the delinquent forward, toward the center of the arena, and a gasp from the lined-up onlookers announced the entry of the near-naked Celt into their field of vision.

The male recruits gazed at the gladiatrix' tempting figure, noticing the scars on her supple back, and an awed gasp revealed what most of them thought about this sacrilege to beauty. Breaca's raised arms gave her muscles an attractive definition, while her slim waist almost belied her full, gently curving hips, which broadened into a pair of sensuously-contoured, milky-white buttocks which jiggled most salaciously with each trudging step.

There had been some fidgeting in the ranks of the fighters when Calixtus had announced Breaca's prospective ordeal, and out of the corner of her eye Taleena had noticed that Breaca's inscrutable twin, Verica, had been about to vent her anger at the unjust punishment of her blood-sister. But Tyra, the tall Nubian net-fighter who stood alongside her, had placed a firm hand on her Celtic comrade's shoulder to prevent her from taking some ill-considered action. Neither Taleena nor any of the others knew much about the other Celtic twin, who steadfastly avoided the company of everyone save for her sister. In fact none of them had ever hear Verica utter so much as a single word. But it was clear that if Tyra had not intervened, the ever-silent Verica would surely have thrown herself at the guards in an attempt to protect her sister from their cruelties. For had it not been Breaca's bold defense of this same sister that had resulted in the fifty-stroke-flogging that had left her back scarred for life?

His lecherous eyes fixed on Breaca's thong-split buttocks, a leering Rutilius gave Breaca another unnecessary prod in the back. The Celtic beauty turned her head and gave the ill-featured guard a look that bespoke the pain and outrage in her soul. But Rutilius returned her glare with a contemptuous grin and jabbed her in the back even more rudely. Breaca stumbled forward under the fierce impact until the wavering weight of the crossbeam caused her to crumple under the heavy load.

Rutilius' craven attack from the rear brought another gasp of protest from the recruits and an angry murmur from the fighters, while Taleena turned her head away to avoid the sight of her comrade's fall. Nevertheless, she could not help but hear the ear-piercing scream which had been torn from Breaca's pretty mouth, and the muffled moan from Verica who stood only a few paces to her left.

Biting her lip fearfully, Taleena forced herself to look upon the friend who had risked all to help her. Breaca was kneeling on the ground with her back to the audience. Her reflexive reaction to her fall had caused her to lower her hands to chest-level in order to bring the unwieldy beam under control. But no one in the audience could fail to wonder what havoc the lowering of the thorn-beam had wrought on her bare breasts.

"Back on your feet, bitch!" Rutilius snapped ruthlessly at the wounded gladiatrix, once more earning Taleena's withering contempt.

Breaca groaned in misery as she heaved the thorny cross-piece up again, wincing as the strenuous motion lifted her tortured breasts higher upon her chest. Her nipples, chilled to taut raspberries by the crisp morning air, jiggled enticingly as she struggled back to her feet. Rutilius continued to prod her with the thorn-club, more teasingly than forcefully, until the small procession reached the very center of the arena. "That's better. Now that you're out here where everyone can see you," he muttered, "you can get back on your knees, bitch," Rutilius smirked, brandishing his menacing thorn-club as if he were an animal trainer at the Circus Maximus.

The place of Breaca's shameful exhibition was some twenty yards away from the lined of onlookers and at right angles to them, so that they were treated to the sight of the kneeling, near-naked body of the ginger-haired Celt in magnificent profile. Taleena shivered empathetically at the sight of her courageous comrade. Though she could not be sure from such a distance, she was almost certain that she could make out tiny droplets of blood dripping from Breaca's bare breasts as she held her arms bravely aloft, balancing her cruel burden over her head.

XXII.

F rom his vantage point up on the balcony, Flavius had a most enviable position for viewing the dreadful discipline being visited upon the Celtic beauty. The athletic young redhead knelt facing him, her voluptuous body held ramrod straight, her watery green eyes staring indifferently in his direction, her lovely face a graven image of defiance as she fought valiantly to stave off disaster. Blood oozed from the wounds where the thorns had speared the proffered gentleness of her breasts. The thin red rivulets contrasted cruelly with the paleness of her flesh, as they faithfully followed the well-toned contours of her nude torso.

While hardly insusceptible to the dark erotic quality of the scene before him, Flavius' anger at the bloody sight in the courtyard exceeded his arousal. This was punishment for the sake of punishment, even though Byrria had tried to give it the aegis of his authority. He was not averse to meting out discipline, even harsh discipline, as his speech before the cross had made clear. But he could not condone spiteful punishments, particularly if they threatened to mar the beauty of his hand-picked female fighters. Young women with the heart and strength and beauty to win plaudits in the arena were not easy to find. And abusing their valuable bodies purely out of spite or malice was as foolish as throwing sesterces into the Roman Sea. He had warned Rutilius about exceeding his authority once before, and he intended to let him know in no uncertain terms that merchandise as fine as Breaca was not to be damaged so heedlessly. Another such stunt and he would send the presumptuous young guard packing!

,

The scene that had just happened down in the yard had not been the first time that the lad had made a bad impression, though. Flavius had never liked the voyeuristic pleasure with which Sejanus' protég had constantly ogled the female trainees. There was nothing wrong, of course, with eyeing a scantily-clad woman with the virile interest one would expect in any guy's guy. But to give short shrift to one's duties in order to skulk around and spy on the young beauties from secret hiding places this was disgraceful. And there was a cowardice and falseness about the lad's attitude which Flavius found difficult to stomach.

Calixtus had told him a graphic tale about how he had caught Rutilius preying on the Baetican girl after her first flogging. A grim smile played around Flavius' mouth when he recalled the scene Calixtus had depicted so colourfully, using his entire arsenal of army invectives how he had grabbed the young man by the groin, through the folds of his tunic, giving the squeaking, choking youth a piece of his mind. Flavius could well imagine the grim ex-centurion shouting the young man down like a callow army recruit; but Calixtus' little show, as impressive as it might have been on the young man's testicles, had apparently not been deterrent enough to keep the lad away from the girl-recruits' quarters.

Flavius cursed under his breath, regretting the day that he had taken Rutilius into his employ. He had only done so to win favour with Sejanus, who numbered Rutilius' father among his more important clients. And although the future Praetorian Prefect didn't care about the lad's progress anymore, it might be a good thing to show that the old quid pro quo routine was still observed on Flavius' side.

Flavius had little confidence in the unlikely story which Rutilius had cooked up. The youth had come before him claiming that he had happened to see Breaca leaving the infirmary and heading stealthily for the cells, and that he had followed her there to see what she was up to. It was far more likely, thought Flavius that the voyeuristic youth had secreted himself somewhere in the cell-block so that he could spy on the naked Gaul as she suffered the aftermath of her flogging.

Flavius continued to stare intently at the bloodied breasts of the Celtic beauty down in the center of the arena, while a fitting form of retribution began to form in Flavius' mind, a way in which the protég of his powerful friend would come to regret his carelessness. Yes, the malevolent boy-guard would pay for damaging his property…

Notwithstanding Rutilius' unconvincing story of how he had come to witness the event, there seemed but little doubt but that the Celt had indeed treated the Avernian's back, in spite of Byrria's pronouncement. It was a separate question, of course, whether Byrria's admonition had been well-considered, but regardless an order was an order, and it had only taken Flavius a moment to convince himself that Breaca's insubordination did indeed warrant some form of punishment. In fact, he had noticed before that she had become a little too smug after her recent successes in the ring, and had taken little liberties to which she was not entitled. It was time to take her down a peg or two. Since it was paramount that discipline be maintained, he had quickly agreed with Byrria's demand that Breaca be punished for her rather insignificant offence.

But it was only after their passionate bout of love-making on the prior evening that Flavius, in a moment of weakness, had consented to Byrria's request to consider subjecting Breaca to the terrible ordeal which now confronted her. When he had met with his lanistae at dawn to render his final decision, Calixtus had pointed out that no woman at the Ludus Flavianus had ever been subjected to the torment in question. But a bristling Byrria had contemptuously dismissed that argument out of hand. Were not, she had argued, the women to compete with the men in every respect, just as they would one day have to do in the ring?

In the end Flavius had consented somewhat reluctantly. But whether the punishment was justified or not, he was also well aware that the other fighters were growing more and more restive at Byrria's cruelty. If he didn't want to run the risk of a mutiny, he would have to convince his vindictive Thracian tigress to forswear the enmities she harboured for his other female squad-members. And if she were still not willing to listen to reason Flavius smiled grimly to himself as he thought how ironic it would be if the day were to come when Byrria's own punitive methods would be used against her…



Down in the yard, the preliminaries for putting Breaca on display had been completed, and Taleena, like the rest of the spectators, could now see the full extent of the Celt's misery.

Flavius had dubbed this dreadful punishment the "Thorns of Atlas" long ago, in reference to the unfaithful Titan who had been condemned to support the vault of heaven on his shoulders. Having seen the deterrent effect this degrading form of display had on miscreants and spectators alike during his own days at a gladiatorial school, he had decided to incorporate this most rigorous form of punishment into the disciplinary practices of the Ludus Flavianus.

The slender thorn-bristling pole which Rutilius had used as a prod had been placed in the hollows of the delinquent's knees, and even if the weight of the wood was not enough to cause the thorns to pierce her taut skin, the sharp spines would prevent the kneeling woman from relaxing back on her haunches, thus forcing her knees to bear her entire weight as well as the weight of the beam. Breaca's wrists had been tied to the outer ends of the cross-piece, and the broken shafts of four spears had been rammed into the ground such that their sharp heads were only a hand's width from her bare midriff two targeting her kidneys from behind, two aiming from the same distance at either side of her deep-etched navel.

Taleena had watched the preparations in stomach-wrenching dismay, doubting that her Celtic comrade could stand an entire day of this hideous torture. For a woman, Breaca had unquestionable strength in her arms and shoulders, but just as Hercules had soon grown tired of filling in for Atlas, Breaca would not be able to hold the beam overhead for too long. From her own experience on the galley bench, Taleena knew that Breaca's muscles would first weaken, then cramp, and then slowly melt away as the flickering flames of agony licked at their strength. It was only a matter of time until she would have to lower the thorny beam to her shoulders for the first time for the first of many times until she could no longer hold it up at all. The sharp spearheads at her midsection would prevent her from bending forward or shifting her weight much in any direction. And thus she would be forced to kneel upright and stiff for endless hours, poising her dreadful load on her tortured shoulders until her sentence would be completed.

Taleena had been so transfixed by the sight of Breaca's awful plight that she didn't realize that the Thracian had sidled up to her until Byrria whispered to her sibilantly. "If I had had my way, you'd be kneeling out there alongside your obstinate friend!" The raven-haired lanista gave Taleena a menacing smile and slid around behind her and proceeded to draw a sharp fingernail down the length of Taleena's back, across the many still-fresh striations, while Taleena gritted her teeth and turned her face away to hide her pain.

"So how does it feel, Gaul," Byrria hissed, "to watch your friend suffer, knowing that you are the cause of her misery?" The Thracian Tigress grabbed a handful of Taleena's blonde hair, forcing her to look at her thorn-ravaged friend. "Look at her, Gaul! Do you see how her lovely body trembles under the strain? And this is only the beginning; the beginning of a day that she will think will have no end. Watch her, Gaul, watch her closely. For soon you will have need of her courage!"



When the finishing touches had been put to Breaca's positioning, an awed silence fell over the yard, for every person in the yard remembered Calixtus' words that the Celt was to be left on display for the duration of an entire training day. All eyes were riveted on the nearly-naked miscreant who knelt so forlornly in the middle of the yard. An imaginative onlooker might well have detected a grotesque resemblance between Breaca's well-sculpted body and the statue of a female Atlas.

But the two lanistae proceeded immediately with the daily routine, leaving the other recruits little time to concern themselves with Breaca's fate. At the command of Calixtus, the trainees were ordered to hoist the beams which had been laid out in front of them, while the senior fighters were sent to the far side of the arena to resume their daily sword practice. As Taleena tried to shoulder her beam, she was forced to admire the strength and skill which Breaca had shown in lifting her cross-piece, since it was only with some difficulty that she managed to slide her own slender body under the crossbeam that had been designated as hers. .

She started down the track, as did her comrades, but none of them had proceeded much further than a hundred yards, when Calixtus abruptly signalled for them to stop in front of the bath house. The recruits fell to their knees as directed, facing a brisk morning breeze, and Taleena and the others tried to guess at the reason for this unexpected interruption.

And then, as a sudden gust of wind caused her to shiver with cold and apprehension, Taleena understood. A number of the compound's attendants were making their way out of the bathhouse each of them carrying two wooden pails filled with water.