I stood, perplexed, as the whip carved its name of pain on Varinia's back. She seemed sure she was going to be there seven days and she was prepared, I feared.I underestimated her strength, or the power of her gods. Perhaps the goddess she was known to worship was in her, or perhaps it was Spartacus himself who gave her the power.

But why would a god or spirit lend his or her power at a time such as this, when it would be better, and certainly more merciful to finish sooner rather than later?

The marks of the whip were telling their own tale, a story of pain and sorrow, of justice being made or of great injustice, but those marks did not lie. They did not pretend to be anything other than what they were, the red, bleeding marks of punishment. It was when I was face to face with her, at the threshold of her chamber, that I understood what others saw in her, what made one servant suffer the pain of torture for her, that made all those who knew her sing her praises.

Secretly, I would blindly pledge my allegiance to her if I was not the one commissioned to break her soul. I was filled with the desire to fall on my knees, to kiss her hand, to pass her my ring and give her the power she deserved.

There was something in her demeanor that showed a great elegance and control over others. There was something in her eyes, the wisdom of the ages, perhaps, that made bowing to her easy. She should be a Queen in this land or any other, and not my prisoner.

I told her she was to accompany us to the barracks for questioning over matters of the state. She did not respond, she whispered a few words to her servant, who brought a cape for her to cover herself, and then she led the way out of her house. She was not aware of the fate of her servant, the woman we arrested days before. Varinia surely noticed she was missing, she was her most trusted friend, from what we learned, and it should be known to her that she had fallen into our hands. But she did not give us any sign that she knew anything about it.

I was pained to see the punishment as it progressed to its inevitable next stage. But I was also in awe, as the elegance of her demeanor did not end with her suffering, in fact it was still there, in her, commanding attention.

So different from her servant, who valiantly defied our threats and valiantly tried to bear the pain for as long as she did. She lasted an entire night of torture, after an entire day of incessant interrogation, she gave us all the information she knew but we thought she was still hiding more, so we insisted and took her to the dungeon where she was given to the torturer.

Before her interrogation, when I was inquiring without threats, more in the guise of innocent curiosity, she revealed a great deal of her mistress' lifestyle. But it wasn't until she was under torture that she told us about the hidden scrolls which she saw her mistress read many a night. We questioned if she had seen any letters or newer scrolls. She denied she had seen any such thing.

I was aware of the existence of the mysterious scrolls that very few people had access to through time. They passed from hand to hand, from generation to generation and those who possessed them had a better grasp of the weakness of the Empire.

Those scrolls were the stories of those who resisted the advance of Rome and how they fought back. We captured many and held them for study in Rome, Centurions and Senators had access to them and we knew that many were lost or stolen, even by our own people.

Thus, it was not strange that Varinia would have them since it was her grandmother who inherited a house full of the wealth and treasures of a Roman Senator. The one scroll the servant referred to often was the one about the fiery woman who led a rebellion against the early commanders, who first marched pass the Alpeian mountains.

There were many of those tribes and bandits who preyed on our advancing forces and who still do since the occupation of those lands is not yet complete. It was the revelation of this scroll that gave Octavian the rationale for the capture, torture and crucifixion of the woman Varinia of Thracia. He saw, in his wisdom, that if we were to conquer pass the Alpiean range, we had to defeat their spirit and evidently, there was a sinister link between the hordes of the woman Pyroska, some of which still fight back, and the attempts to raise an army of rebels in Thrace.

I nodded to the executioner to stop the flogging, and proceeded to the next stage of Varinia's torture and execution. It was time for the timber, it was time for the cross and I was sure Varinia knew what was to come to her.

I learned that, in her readings, she completely identified with three people, a crucified goddess, the crucified rebel Pyroska and her crucified grandfather Spartacus. I began to understand now that she viewed her mission as one that required her sacrifice, that perhaps that was the price to pay to raise an army, that perhaps it was not her wealth and treasures that would inspire the thousands needed to fight our legions, that her blood had to be shed to inspire those she affected the most into rising up against us.

I was toying with the idea that it was by giving up her life that she could win. The process had begun, it was too late to stop it, only history would now prove me right.