A Cruel Passing of Innocence (14 page)

The two canes swung back simultaneously, away from the motionless victim. Nassara could detect no tremor to Zheeno's body, which seemed all the more magnificent in its toned, muscled, defiant stature. A sheen of oil and sweat made it glisten under the sun's rays. Despite the demeaning bearing and crouching angle of him, to her he was a thing of beauty to desire and cherish, an aura of strength and spirit shining out beyond his humbling misery. Tears of love stung her eyes.

‘Courage, my sweet,' she whispered, forcing her brimming eyes to watch, hoping that somehow he might hear her words.

First, from the left side, one cane lashed down, catching the cheeks of his upper buttocks, near to the base of his backbone. The second cane, coming from the other side just a fraction later, timed for the first to strike its target and then swing back again, cut him just below the buttocks, across the firm muscle of his upper legs.

Nassara saw his body jerk against the straps, his arms tensing with agony. His back arched away from the onslaught but he did not utter a sound. There was only a faint jangling from the chains between his legs as his body involuntarily contorted, and the rings tugged at his flesh.

The first cane sliced down again, closely followed by the second, thwacking against the lean flesh of his cheeks, landing midway within the boundaries set between the two initial, exploratory cuts. Immediately two red, parallel lines were drawn across his buttocks, so close together that they could scarcely have been a finger's breadth apart, such was the accuracy of the strikes.

Then the lashings came fast and methodically; the whip-boys had found their mark. One after another in quick succession the blows rained down in a monotonous rhythm, drawing vivid cuts across both buttocks each time so that soon they were covered in angry welts, red and inflamed, rising vividly on his flesh as if the bamboo drew the skin out in the wake of each cut. A bluish-red bruising began to form on the paleness of his skin, and stifled gasps escaped his lips.

After ten or so lashes Nassara could see his distress. He began to writhe, straining against the straps. His arm muscles knotted, his body trying to twist and buck away from the direction of the brutal cuts as they slammed repeatedly into his flesh. But the tightness of the thick strap around his waist denied him any freedom of movement, other than to wrench his arms and shoulders back away from the restraining straps of his wrists. Each time he did so in his unwilling reflex, so was his agony intensified by the snagging of the tautened flesh between his legs, a secondary punishment to the agony of the canes.

His whole body started to tremble in an uncontrollable squirming motion as he fought against the excruciating pain, the muscles of his legs taut and quivering, sweat running down from between his shoulders. Yet only now did he cry out, no longer able to contain himself.

The bamboos seemed to sing against the air as they swooped down, slapping starkly on his flesh with hollow thwacking sounds. In the aftermath of each flurry there would be a short, muted clangour of his chains. By now the cuts were slicing onto skin that had become lacerated wheals from the previously delivered lashes, some crisscrossing each other in shocking abundance of reddish furrows, until his buttocks were a ravaged mess. His body convulsed in spasms of excruciation as each new swipe thrust into him. His cries of anguish echoed around the courtyard, plucking at Nassara's heart, making her tears of pity, love and fury sting her eyes again. How she preyed to close her ears and eyes to such vile torment of her dear Zheeno.

Her lips moved in silent pleading, willing the vile onslaught to cease. Then, almost as if her prayers had been answered, the flogging came to a sudden, abrupt end. The headman held up a hand and the whip-boys stopped instantly.

At first Nassara thought Zheeno had lost consciousness. He seemed to sag from the bonds and his head hung forward onto his chest. Then he appeared to revive himself, making pathetic tugging movements as if to free his limbs, moaning as he shook in the wake of his agony.

Two other whip-boys moved hurriedly to the frame and undid the straps, first the ankles, then the wrists. Then the trembling slave slowly lowered his hands and grasped the crossbar for support. The waist strap was unbuckled and he stumbled back a pace from the frame, his legs barely able to support him.

The whip-boys moved to his side, ready to support him should he fall. Now it seemed there was to be some measure of compassion, although perhaps this was merely out of consideration for the masters' property.

One of the fat men went to Zheeno, carrying a jar of soothing oils. Zheeno was helped to where the steps went down to the gloomy underground world beneath the palace, his iron shackles making their perpetual, discordant jangle at his every shuffling pace. Trying to retain some vestiges of dignity he walked stiffly, every rolling step agonising for him, his face a pale mask of misery. His lips trembled slightly, although he held his head high and his shoulders back.

Feeling her love and admiration go out to him, Nassara watched as he disappeared from view behind the fat man, the two whip-boys trailing behind, as if keeping a respectful distance from him.

For some moments there was a silence in the courtyard. Surely this was the end of the display of cruel instruction, Nassara thought hopefully. Surely the masters had been proficient in the demonstration of their ruthless power and authority. No slave would dare to mutiny again to deprive the masters of what was theirs, making sure to guard their lowly life from the heinous crime of self-inflicted death.

But with astonishment and rekindled fear Nassara saw the headman raise his hand again, pointing in the direction of the female slaves. For some moments it seemed to waver over them, and for one appalling second Nassara thought it would rest upon her.

But it did not. He was pointing at Ugimba. It was Ugimba who was to be the example from amongst the girl slaves.

At first the poor black girl was slow to comprehend, perhaps still dazed by the dreadful visions of the merciless flogging. But slowly the terrible realisation dawned, and her eyes growing wide with fear she glanced helplessly towards Nassara, seeking some kind of reassurance that she might be mistaken.

‘Arribaja!' Ahmood snarled, and raised his black leather whip threateningly. Ugimba struggled to her feet, looking around vainly for help. Ahmood shouted again, gesticulating with the whip for her to move towards the contraption.

Nassara felt a helpless compassion for the girl, wanting to say words of encouragement to her; knowing she could not.

For a second or so Ugimba seemed rooted to the spot, before Ahmood pushed her roughly, making her chains and bells jangle briefly. She stumbled forward a couple of paces, her glistening breasts heaving as her breathing came in shortened gasps of terror, the full horror of the moment swamping her tormented mind.

‘No… no… kind master,' she gabbled anguished, faltering words. ‘No beat me… I beg no…' She began to ramble in a strangely disembodied tone, as if on the very edge of sanity. But Ahmood only pushed her forward again, beckoning impatiently for two other whip-boys to come and seize her arms, and they dragged her to the waiting contraption. The other whip-boys gathered round, collectively hauling the girl's wrists up to the leather straps at the top of the frame. The leather belt was pulled tight around her waist, so that her body could now only writhe hopelessly. She kicked out blindly at her tormentors, Ahmood growing incensed by her continued stubbornness, but finally her feet were pinioned and her weary protests faded, as if she recognised the futility of further resistance, her body suddenly limp, the whip-boys completing their work before standing clear of the girl, made ready at last for the punishment to begin.

The girl seemed resigned now to the inevitability of her fate. She hung from the straps in the sunlight, almost languidly, her arms stretched above her. Only the nervous twitching of her fingers and the tremor to her body gave any sign of the acuteness of her distress. At one point she turned her head back towards the headman, as if to appeal one final time for clemency, but her stricken eyes were drawn instead to the two whip-boys who stood on either side of her, canes raised, sizing up their target.

She wailed again, turning away, her buttocks clenching. She began to sob, but the headman only nodded and the whip-boys drew back their long canes. The tapered ends bobbed expectantly in their tensile elasticity, poised in readiness for the onslaught to begin.

Ugimba's magnificent buttocks thrust back like two ebony domes. Firm and rounded, they sloped up from her flanks, sweeping smoothly down again and inward to the shapely trunks of her thighs. The dark, velvety flawlessness of her skin glistened in the sunlight, and a small pond of perspiration that had gathered in the small of her back seeped down the scarps of her valley.

‘You poor, poor creature, how fearful they have made you, these wicked masters,' Nassara muttered to herself, unaware that her whispered words might be heard. ‘What mothers did these fiends have to allow their sons to be so cruel?'

‘Shhhh, Nassara,' Belithza breathed urgently. ‘The masters are demons with ears that perhaps hear the protests of our very souls. Do you wish to be dragged to that thing of torture and flayed?'

Ugimba was straining her head round to see, as though strangely compelled to watch the work of her beaters, her eyes almost curious to witness the first downward thrust of the canes. They began their first descent, and in that second Ugimba's eyes widened, her buttocks contracting again in anticipation of the dreadful impact.

Thwack
!
Thwack
! The canes slammed into her in quick succession, making her buttocks quiver and contort, the courtyard filled with lingering echoes.

They swung back again, quivering there for a second before again lashing down in two further almost simultaneous onslaughts, zipping against the air as they flew. Then again, out and back they came, the momentum gathering pace with every completed strike. The bending rods seemed to mould themselves around the contours of her writhing peaks, biting deep into them before rebounding again, away from each newly drawn furrow on her flesh.

She screamed and struggled, the shock taking her breath away, but the ferocity of the flogging only increased. Nassara could no longer count the number of strikes raining down, perhaps already as many as those of the fingers on both her hands. With Ugimba's pitiful cries ringing in her ears, she came close to looking away from the cruel spectacle, remembering just in time to keep her eyes fixed upon its progress. The vigilant stares of the other watching whip-boys were constantly upon the slaves.

When finally it was over Ugimba hung motionless from the frame, unconscious since the last few lashes had flayed the punished cheeks of her bottom. The red rawness of the welts stood out starkly against the contrasting ebony darkness of her surrounding flesh; not that there was much that remained unmarked by the chastisement.

For some seconds a dreadful silence hung over the courtyard. Eyes that were cruel, eyes that were aghast and frightened, eyes that were casual, as if accustomed to such displays, contemplated the girl's streaked flesh.

Finally Ugimba stirred, returning to consciousness. She moaned aloud, gasping for breath, limbs straining against the straps. Then, as if knowing the ordeal was at last over, she began to tremble as though seized by some terrible ague, and even the frame of cruelty itself seemed to quiver from her trauma.

At first her moans were scarcely more than whispered, incoherent mumblings of protest and disbelief, as her mind struggled to come to terms with the shock and agony, not understanding why she'd been beaten so. Then, as the natural numbing anaesthesia of the body's defences gradually diminished, so each buttock began to throb and sting mercilessly as they became alive once more, her moans grew louder, echoing in the poignant stillness of the courtyard.

After they took her down from the frame, two whip-boys supporting her, they led her away to the cellars, one of the fat men following sombrely behind.

The headman slowly surveyed the silent slaves for a moment, as if to reassure himself that the demonstration had served its dreadful purpose, the mind's of slaves forever etched with the images of the masters' cruel power and inhumanity and understanding the futility of dissent or rebellion. Then he clapped his hands to signal that discipline had been completed. A new dawn would surely bring with it the slaves' resolve of absolute obedience, knowing beyond doubt that their only destiny was to serve the masters… in life or death, as it pleased them.

The assembly was dismissed and silently the slaves wandered away, each in his or her dejected thoughts, scarcely daring to search out each other's eyes, not wanting to talk or dwell upon the events of the day.

Nassara glanced at the grotesque frame, thinking of the dead slave, of poor Zheeno, and poor Ugimba.

Their faces downcast, seeming as troubled and fearful as those of the slaves themselves, several servants came to remove the frame, Achoochi among them. Timidly he glanced at Nassara, his expression one of sorrow and fear, quickly averting his eyes from her.

The first weak rays of morning sunlight filtered through the window grille. Nassara had been awake for some time, listening to the occasional alien sounds from beyond the dormitory walls, and the miserable whimpers that came from poor Ugimba, who lay on her front all night, groaning with every fresh wave of pain. The livid welts crisscrossed her buttocks, lining the base of her back and the tops of her thighs.