The Lycian Prince 48

Casperius selected the same 8-stranded whip with which Anthonius had been beaten during his session in the torture chamber. The major domo felt that it was only right that friends should share such pleasures. He laid the first few blows across the screaming and sobbing young eunuch’s back and bottom before handing the wicked implement over for the torturer to practise his expert skills and going for a midday meal. Caperius heard the boy’s yells as he walked down the outside passageway towards the external courtyard, as did Sebastian, quietly praying for the lad’s deliverance in a nearby cell. However, salvation did not come for Sura on that day or on the other two occasions, interspersed by a month’s recovery period, on which he would be comprehensively flogged.

Casperius called in on Queen Irene and Princess Anthonia on his way back to his own quarters. The royal females had been re-housed in the palace at the major domo’s suggestion because he had not been happy with security at the villa. Regardless of Sebastian’s attempt to retrieve them from their confinement, Casperius believed, after his inspection of arrangements, that it would be too easy for others to spirit them away. Lysus had many enemies in Lycia and their agents were reported to be present in Rome. Also, he would not put it past Anthonius to attempt a daring reunion if the boy learnt where his mother and baby sister were situated. The major domo was especially worried about the Praetorian guards. Many had become lax and lazy through spending too much time in the capital as opposed to the front lines, and all had a liking for too much wine and ale. Consequently, they might be sufficiently slovenly for rescue to succeed. Casperius had therefore secured the Queen and Princess in rather basic palace accommodation, meant for Praetorian officers, although they retained their two young Lycian maidservants. The rooms had the benefit of being surrounded by the Praetorian’s barracks and overlooked the square where their erstwhile rescuer would soon be executed.

Queen Irene was a beautiful woman in her early thirties. Everyone could see where many of her son’s fine features had emanated, although his fair hair and eyes had come from his father’s lineage. She had been the daughter of the Lycian court physician and had caught the widower King’s eye when she was only eighteen and he was sixty-two. She had married for family honour but soon acquired respect for her new husband, who loved her deeply and treated her with adulation. Anthonius arrived within ten months of the marriage, followed miraculously by Anthonia almost fourteen years later.

The Queen had tried her very best to persuade the King not to displease the Romans but the man’s senility had overwhelmed him, causing him to make stupid decisions and be very stubborn in having them implemented. As a result, she had lost her beloved son to degradation in Rome and now also found herself in the Empire’s capital, under heavy guard, for some unknown reason, although she suspected that Lysus, the newly nominated Lycian King, who had always resented her, was part of the cause. The Queen had asked many questions about why she and her daughter were in such circumstances, as well as regularly asking why she was not allowed to see her son, but received no believable answers. She was also perplexed why a stranger had apparently tried to abduct her and her daughter from their original quite pleasant villa, a failure that had seemingly forced the Romans to transfer them to their current much less salubrious surroundings.

Casperius was annoyed that he had to wait for the Queen to finish breast-feeding her baby before being granted entrance by one of the maidservants, a comely short-haired girl of about 16, whom the major domo could have fancied for his bed if she had been of the opposite sex. Casperius politely asked about the royal females’ health and welfare and received an equally polite reply, along with the usual questions. He replied with the usual type of responses although the Queen was disturbed to detect strong sarcasm in the response about her son for the major domo had answered “I’m afraid that he’s not at the palace at present as he’s enjoying himself elsewhere. However, arrangements will be made for you to see him, whilst he’s performing his new duties, on his return!”

Casperius then announced, in case the Queen cared to watch, that the Praetorian captain, who had tried to kidnap her for purposes of ransom, was to be executed in the outside barracks square at mid-afternoon. The Queen did not like to observe such events but was strangely intrigued by the man who was to die for she disbelieved the major domo’s explanation for the officer’s motives. Casperius departed content that his hostages, held to ensure that Anthonius’ continued his acquiescent submission to Imperial will, were now safely incarcerated. The Queen watched the despicable man leave, more worried than ever about what had happened to her beloved Anthonius. Meanwhile, Sura’s agonising torment continued.

The still-praying Sebastian was to hear Sura screaming for an hour and a half until finally there was silence. By this time, the whole of the young eunuch’s body, back, front and sides, was covered in interlinked bloody stripes and the boy was barely conscious. The torturer had stopped the whipping for to continue would permanently damage the lad, who had to recover fully to enjoy another two comprehensive flagellations. Once quiet had descended and he had said one last prayer for poor Sura and the other victims of Diocletian’s cruelties, particularly Anthonius, Sebastian concentrated on praying for his own soul.

It was just before the third hour of the afternoon that Sebastian was collected from his cell by fellow Praetorians and taken to the barracks square, where all off-duty soldiers were standing in line to watch the execution. There the naked young man was bound to a wooden stake, hands above his head and feet together, facing his peers and the balcony where the Emperor would emerge. He was distressed that he displayed a full erection. A company of ten Praetorian archers appeared and took up position in a circle around their victim. They waited for the Emperor and his usual entourage to arrive to signal that the event could begin before their own officer fired the first arrow at the front of the young nude body. The officer’s orders, which he had conveyed to his men, were to prolong the spectacle. They would therefore take their time in despatching their deadly missiles, aiming at first to avoid vital organs.

The first arrow struck Sebastian squarely on the left front thigh, shattering a bone and eliciting an agonised yell from the young man. The second, sent by another archer, hit the same place on the other leg, causing similar damage and reaction. The third, despatched from the right, entered the side of his upper thigh. The fourth, from behind, penetrated the centre of the right buttock whilst another did the same to the left. To complete the symmetrical pattern, another arrow crashed into Sebastian’s left thigh.

The slow attack continued remorselessly and eventually Sebastian’s limbs were peppered with arrows, as were his loins and bottom, all of these areas now awash with blood. One arrow had penetrated the lefthandside of the young man’s scrotum, crushing the left testicle. Others, very carefully placed, had struck the sides of his smooth torso from several angles, the arrowheads of some re-emerging through the skin. Sebastian lost consciousness several times during this relentless assault and had to be reawakened with cold water. Nevertheless, not only was his shameful erection maintained, it became fuller.

The officer, who was the most expert archer, now aimed at the victim’s stomach and managed two strikes that missed the young man’s vitals. He then looked at the Emperor for the coup de grace was now due. Diocletian, taking one last look at his former boy favourite alive, finally signalled his end and Sebastian was struck by more arrows in the belly, plus others in his chest and back. At the same time, the young man’s bloodstained cock spurted a long stream of semen a full pace forward onto the ground before blackness overwhelmed his senses.

After such pleasant entertainment, the Emperor returned quickly to the Imperial boy companion quarters for he was in urgent need of a young bum to satisfy his own hard-on. Queen Irene, who had been observing from the window of her rooms, was weeping. The archers and other watching Praetorians returned to their barracks, apart from four soldiers who had volunteered to dispose of the body. The Queen, seeing the dead young man being released from his bondage, left her rooms to cross the now otherwise empty courtyard to offer assistance because she believed that the body should be properly repaired for its reception by the gods.

The soldiers were at first reluctant to accept help because they wanted to bury the body of their friend, and secretly fellow Christian, their own way. They had been part of the small contingent that had helped to disguise Sebastian’s secret liaisons with Anthonius in the palace dungeons after the boy had been tortured. However, they were persuaded by the Queen’s shock pronouncement “He’s still alive!” The Queen had acquired many of her physician father’s skills and had detected very shallow breathing. Her prognosis was proved correct by also noticing a feint heartbeat. “Quickly,” she ordered, “take him to my rooms!”

Three of amazed soldiers did so, believing that God must be responsible for the miracle. The fourth went to collect Sebastian’s own bag of potions and salves, which had been used on Anthonius and was still in the young officer’s quarters, not yet re-allocated. The soldiers took it in turn to keep, in pairs, the unconscious Sebastian in a standing position whilst Queen Irene, with expertise, carefully extracted the many arrows from the front and sides of the young man’s body. With the help of her horrified but still efficient maidservants, she stemmed the bleeding and treated the wounds with a mixture of her own salves and those of her patient before finally dressing them. Sebastian was then lain on his front on the Queen’s own bed so that she could attend to the young man’s posterior. Some of the arrows were very complex to extricate, particularly when they were entwined in bone or muscle or located near organs. Amongst the most difficult was that embedded in Sebastian’s ball sac.

The whole process took many hours, during which time the Queen realised that the soldiers were friends of the victim and therefore would not betray her medical administrations. After finally turning Sebastian face-up and forcing some potion down his throat, the Queen realised that all that could be done for now to save the young man had been done. She therefore suggested to the soldiers that they returned to their barracks as if they had finished disposing of the body, adding that their friend would be safe on her bed as no-one dared enter a Queen’s bedroom without permission. It was conspiratorially agreed between them that, to avoid suspicion, the loyal but now blushing handmaidens would act as if they were the lovers of a couple of the solders so that they could meet, as if for loving liaisons, in order to pass messages about Sebastian’s progress. If the young man survived, which was possible because miraculously no vitals had been damaged but also very doubtful, not least because of his severe blood loss and concerns about likely infections, the conspirators agreed to try later to smuggle him out of the palace to safety. The Queen was now especially keen to do this as the soldiers had told the appalled woman why Sebastian had tried to remove her and her daughter from the villa.

Sebastian did somehow live, although movement in his limbs was restricted and his sexlife ruined. However, this did not particularly disturb him as he entered a life of exile, secretly promoting Christianity in distant parts of the Empire. Before he did so, he managed, with the help of his Praetorian friends, to arrange the daring rescue of Queen Irene and Princess Anthonia from their confinement and successfully hide them with his rich acquaintance in Neapolis. He also converted the Queen to his faith and evangelism.

Sebastian was to perform one other service for Anthonius before his voluntary exile but was sadly unable to save the former Prince himself because the boy had left Rome long before he achieved full recovery. They were never to meet again but both would remember their all too few passionate liaisons in the cell of the palace dungeons until their dying days. This came 12 years later for Sebastian when he returned to the capital in order to help his fellow believers during another persecution, this time by Maximian, who had been appointed co-Emperor by Diocletian to rule the west of the huge Empire whilst the latter concentrated on the east. Sebastian was captured and beaten to death by Maximian’s thuggish soldiers after insulting the co-Emperor by criticising his cruelty.

However, we shall meet St. Sebastian one more time in this tale, whilst St. Irene makes three more appearances.

(To be continued in Chapter 49 – ‘Orgies’)