As Red Feline was whipped, her cries, which began strong, were fainter. The cracks of the whip on her back were louder than her voice. There was no mercy as the count of the lashes increased with no end in sight.

She was whipped for what she felt were hours, the lash fell again and again on her, her cries didn't matter at all, she felt her back getting wet, a mixture of her sweat and the blood from the lashes. Her torturer was carving her back with each stroke.

She had the presence of mind to think whether those marks, which now she could see reflected on the mirror, would leave a lasting impression, as the marks Piroska's aunt bore all of her life.

For the first time, in what she felt were hours, Red Feline wished her suffering would end soon. In her fantasies and games she always had the control, the release, the end was in her power. This time she had no control of her situation, or the length of time it should last. She was as captive as Piroska was in her time, as the girl's aunt, just as captive as the young woman who met such a terrible end on the palisade.

After the third day the rebel slave was dead. During all of that time there had been no mercy. She wasn't given water. The sun burned her during the day and the cold froze her during the night. Her flesh was eaten by insects and birds before she was even dead.

She screamed the first day and maybe the second, but at the third day the only indication that she was still alive was the sudden moves when she reacted to the prodding of the soldiers that sunk their swords into her flesh.

At the end of the third day she no longer responded. She was left to be eaten for another day or two.

Years later she was only a sad memory. The few women who survived made sure that their nieces, daughters, proteges would learn to stay alive.

They all knew who Piroska was and were careful to treat her with the proper respect, she was a symbol to them, of memory and hope.

The day arrived when the young women were to be chosen to serve. Piroska's aunt admonished the young woman not to show her rebellion, to be patient. The day would come when she would lead again. But Piroska did not heed her words.

The young women were taken to the market, to be sold to the households of a growing aristocracy. The governor of the province would be the first to have a choice of the young, fresh slaves.

Piroska understood then that until that time she was the 'property' of the commander of the garrison. That was one of the ways centurions were paid for their services. She understood then why they were treated fairly well. Why they were trained, fed, clothed and relatively healthy.

They were precious property and now that they were on the open market, their price was high.

Red Feline was increasingly anxious about her fate. It was as if she was living in three different dimensions. One where she could feel her life slipping away, with every drop of blood that came out of her whipped back. The other a dimension where nothing was real, where she felt as if in a dream, looking down from some place at her body swinging from the post, without feeling the pain of the lashes. From that place she could observe what was happening and there was no sense of time.

What she was seeing was either slow or fast or just standing still. In the third, she was also someone else, living a lifetime of experiences that covered years in one day.

It was in the first dimension where she felt the pain and the anxiety, where she felt the lashes increasing in intensity, where one look in the mirror was enough to show her the extent of her ordeal.

The Man in Black continued lashing even as Red Feline felt that she was beginning to lose control of her senses, her mind going into a deep void, losing even a sense of the other two dimensions she was dwelling in. Perhaps that's how death is, she had a chance to think before a black cloud began to envelope everything around her.

The lash made made a faint sound and Red Feline's breathing and moaning was suddenly loud but only to her because she could no longer hear the outside sounds so clearly, only the sounds inside of her were clear.

The loudest was her heart.

The pain was disappearing, but not because there was no pain there, but because her senses were shutting down.