breaking wheel

A CROSS, A WHEEL, AND A WOMAN?

Wrapped in a tattered blanket a convicted young woman rides in a rude
farm cart, bumping along the cobblestones of winding streets on her
way to execution outside of town. Already petrified that she is
doomed to die on the dreaded wheel, her guards have further unnerved
her with cruel hints that some new horror has been added. Unknown to
her she is about to have the dubious distinction of demonstrating the
latest innovation in public torture and execution to a delighted
crowd in northern France, in July of the Year of Our Lord 1672.

Leaving the clearly defined outskirts of the town, her heart sinks as
the execution site alongside the road comes into view: a raised
wooden platform 15 by 20 feet in size and perhaps 5 feet high,
surrounded by a growing throng of thousands of eager spectators on
foot, and dozens more on horseback. Very few women are condemned to
the wheel at this time in history, it being increasingly considered
an immodest punishment fit only for men, and in fact she will become
the last female ever so executed in this town. People have traveled
from many days away to witness this rarity, and she is the reason the
town fathers have invested money in a guest executioner, spreading
the word far and wide for several weeks to attract profitable crowds.
Gruesome executions can be good business.

As the platform grows closer she passes the idle horse-drawn coaches
of the high born, who disdain to mingle with the common masses,
instead watching the entire proceedings seated in isolated comfort
within their luxurious conveyances. Yet even this privacy is
insufficient, and all of the women passengers, and many of the men,
wear stylish masks to hide their identities, as well as their
sadistic emotions.

The cart draws up to the platform's staircase, and the escort guard
immediately hustles the woman out of the wagon and onto the platform.
Her appearance on the stage draws thunderous applause and welcome
cheers from the crowd, signaling that the entertainment is about to
begin on time, two hours before noon on a bright summer day.

A few moments are spent in a perfunctory reading of the sentence of
execution by the local sheriff, and then the proceedings are placed
in the hands of the executioner. On loan from a larger neighboring
city, he has the honor of introducing to this community the latest
means of inflicting death with the wheel. His assistants make the
condemned stand next to two large beams lying on the platform,
carefully mortised together to form an "X", popularly known as a St.
Andrew's Cross, on which that Apostle is alleged to have been
crucified.

The crowd hushes at once, nearly as anxious as the woman herself to
learn what garment, if any, will clothe her through her ordeal. The
crowd knows a man would be stripped completely naked at this point,
but a woman has not gone to the wheel in this town within living
memory, so the lack of precedent has generated much speculation and
gossip on the exciting subject.

One popular rumor says that the local bishop, who involves himself
with all important town matters, has raised concerns about public
indecency. While he never objects to male nudity in executions
beyond the town environs, for such sights could certainly corrupt no
one, he allegedly maintained that total feminine exposure would
invariably lead to a widespread outbreak of immoral and licentious
behavior.

But a counter rumor claims that the guest executioner, when presented
with the bishop's demands, had simply refused to perform the
execution under those terms. He cited all the hazards of misdirected
blows on the victim's body, with the absolute necessity, not to
mention ancient custom, of his having an undraped view of the entire
anatomy, and above all of the critical pelvic region.

With all the pride of his guild he likened himself to a surgeon,
performing in public an operation no less delicate than a medical
procedure, and he could no more work through obscuring garments than
a surgeon could. Let those who are scandalized stay away, he
supposedly declared, while of course the profound shame of the
condemned herself need concern no one, and might indeed be viewed as
another appropriate part of her fully-merited punishment.

And so the crowd holds its breath, unsure which side has won the
rumored argument, until with their own eyes they see the assistant
executioners tear away the blanket and then a flimsy undergarment,
leaving the woman to stand before them totally nude. Yet she is more
than nude, for her crotch is completely bald, along with her head and
every other part of her body. Consorting with Lucifer was one of the
many charges against her, and so to deprive her of the strength and
protection of her hidden "devil's mark" it was necessary to shave and
pluck every hair from her body, to expose and neutralize the alleged
satanic spot wherever it might be.

Immediately a great cheer goes up, with whistles and delighted
laughter from the spectators, causing the completely naked woman to
instantly obey the order to lie down prone upon the cross, minimizing
her embarrassing exposure to the crowd. At once her arms and legs
are drawn taut along the beams of the cross and tightly tied in place
at the wrists and ankles, with another rope around her waist. But
far from offering the condemned woman a mitigation of her
humiliation, the cross is about to dramatically proclaim it, for next
the assistant executioners slowly heft the massive beams into a
nearly vertical position, and brace them rigidly from behind with
stout timbers.

The crowd at first gasps in surprise, and then roars with gleeful
laughter at the obscene spectacle before it, a novelty for most
spectators who are witnessing this new mode of execution for the
first time, despite warnings of its vulgar nature. For the naked
woman's arms and legs are spread at 50-degree angles, a living "X",
an image far more erotic than most in the crowd have ever seen.

Bared pink lips gape invitingly between parted legs, while firm young
breasts are triumphantly uplifted and separated by raised arms.
Lustful yells and cheers from the crowd are heard, but some men are
too sexually aroused to do anything but silently fixate on a view no
grown woman had ever before provided them. Yet for a few other men
and women the sight is too disgustingly intimate, and they
embarrassingly avert their eyes from the obscenity.

The victim likewise never imagined anyone could be raised up openly
naked like this, and she blushes crimson in helpless humiliation,
desperately imploring her executioners to grant her some rag for
decency, which of course they smilingly ignore, so that her only
recourse is to close her own tearful eyes to shut out the thousands
of gaping eyes focused on her supreme shame. But her ears cannot
block out the verbal insults hurled at her, many lewdly directed at
her large breasts and erect nipples, and at her totally revealed sex,
its fleshy petals disgracefully uncovering a woman's most private bud.

Her principal crime is treason, and were she a man the traditional
forfeiture would be emasculation, publicly paid at the commencement
of the execution. Everyone sees the flaming brazier standing on the
platform, the iron tools already red-hot, yet which of the woman's
parts might now be surrendered in lieu of a man's remains a mystery.
The trial court itself debated the matter at length, rejecting
mastectomy as beyond their authority, as was female genital
mutilation under their law code. But a clever solution was reached
that, through convoluted logic, was thought suitable for her gender
and crime.

The onlookers watch the executioner intently to see if he is going to
merely brand the woman, or do something far more gruesome. He
selects a fearsome pincer from the brazier, holding the glowing
device up quickly in his gloved hand for the crowd to admire before
its searing heat diminishes, and for the squinting victim to briefly
glimpse in horror.

The sound of sizzling flesh is clearly heard a second before
bloodcurdling shrieks blot out all other noises. The woman's body
snaps into violent convulsions of pain, but the merciless pincer
holds fast, the combination of pressure and fiery heat slowly
severing her right nipple from her breast, though it's unclear to
observers whether it's due to the executioner's twisiting efforts or
the struggles of the victim herself that the tit finally rips free.

The red-hot pincer itself has largely cauterized the wound, so there
is little blood loss, though the woman has fainted from the shock and
hangs limp and quiet on the cross. But exaggerated groans are heard
from female spectators, making comic grimaces as they cover their own
bosoms in mock fear. Simultaneously their male companions roar with
bawdy laughter, and some mischievously ask the women to explain how
such a small bit of female flesh could cause so much agony.

The assistant executioners have the job of reviving the victim with
stimulants, while their chief discards the blackened teat into a
bucket and readies a fresh pincer to complete the job. Once again
come the bloodcurdling screams, the furious convulsions on the cross,
the flinging of the unsupported head in every direction, until a
second merciful faint releases her from the grip of hell. The
onlookers compare the quality of the new screams to the old, debating
whether they represent a compounding of the pain, or differences in
the sensitivity between the woman's two nipples.

Public executioners understand the importance of theatricals, and
this one is no exception. He now makes a great show of selecting an
iron bar from among 6 held upright in a wooden rack, swinging one and
then another, not unlike a modern-day batter at a US baseball game.
He needs a bar heavy enough to break the large leg bones cleanly,
with one blow if possible, but not too weighty lest the bones
splinter and possibly severe major arteries, causing premature death.
And for this reason each iron bar is completely encased in a wooden
sheath, similar to the wooden hand guard that partially grips the
barrel of a musket, to help prevent the bar from cutting right
through the skin and causing additional bleeding.

Having made his choice the executioner slowly circles his victim with
bar in hand, as if debating where to start, but his several fans in
the audience, having seen his work in other towns, know he always
begins with the right shin. And indeed, he directs his assistants to
insert two wooden wedges behind the woman's right leg, one just above
and the other just below the knee, forcing the calf and thigh away
from the cross.

Suddenly and without warning the executioner makes a great sweeping
arc with the bar, which lands in the middle of the right shin,
startling both the spectators and the victim. The sound of snapping
bone is distinctly heard, followed first by a startled cry, and then
by the loud clapping and cheering of the crowd.

As the applause dies down the woman can be heard whimpering and
crying, then she lets out a series of yelps and screams as the
executioner roughly pushes the injured shin sideways and back with
his hands, to make sure both bones are completely parted. Deciding
one bone is still intact the executioner takes an even greater swing
with the iron bar, and when he tests the shin this time it flexes
easily, though at the expense of the traitor's chilling shrieks.

Satisfied, the executioner next pounds the right thigh, and after
checking for the break, he smashes the knee supported between the two
wedges, shattering the kneecap and the joint beneath it. All this
time the condemned woman is screaming pathetic pleas for mercy,
howling that the pain is too much, and for them to please STOP!!!
STOP!!! STOP!!! One assistant executioner comments over the din to
his companion that the condemned always yell the same foolish things,
as if the victims think the executioners are waiting to hear when
they've had enough pain so everyone can quit.

The comments from the spectators, meanwhile, are mostly favorable.
The advantage of the upright St. Andrew's Cross over the old method
is now apparent, for the mutilation and breaking can be clearly seen
and relished by everyone. Previously victims were tied prone between
stakes on the ground, or held flat on a raised platform for the
breaking, giving only a lucky few near the front of the crowd a good
view. But now every blow with the bar, every violent spasm of the
body, every contorted facial grimace, and every frantic toss of the
head can be seen and savored by everyone, not to mention the bawdy
amusement of naked shame.

A few traditionalists complain that the iron bar is a poor substitute
for a heavy wagon wheel, whose rim had been used as a blunt hammer to
shatter the limbs of prone victims to splinters. But others wisely
note that splintered bones often severe major arteries, allowing the
condemned to die before all the tortuous steps of the execution can
be properly inflicted. And everyone today can see that the woman is
hardly bleeding at all from the cleanly snapping blows of the iron
bar, and likely not hemorrhaging internally either, promising that
her death will be exceptionally lingering and spectacularly painful,
as a traitor deserves.

The executioner moves on to the left leg and repeats the agonizing
process, pausing only whenever the victim must be revived from a
faint, for breaking the bones of an unconcscious victim is a travesty
sure to be booed. Next he selects a lighter iron bar to smash the
bones of both arms, both elbows, and finally the shoulders with a
heavier rod. Only then does he move back down to break both her hips
with the heaviest bar, the most dangerous part of the procedure
because of the risk to internal organs. With all her limbs smashed
the traitor is virtually immobile now, incapable of suddenly shifting
her position, allowing the executioner to accurately aim the bar at
just the right spot on her naked, exposed pelvis, though she remains
a conscious witness to each barbaric step.

The first smashing blow to her right hip releases an involuntary
flood of urine, most of it caught in the same bucket that holds her
own seared nipples, the rest absorbed by the circle of sand spread
around the cross. But there's no danger that matter more foul will
pollute the proceedings, as the executioner has borrowed a trick from
the African slavers, who stuff hemp into the rectums of their more
sickly wares, hours before they mount the auction block. And indeed
even a final upswing between the woman's legs, to break her pubic
bone, produces no unpleasantness today, though some male spectators
regret the bloody ruin of her erotically bare genitals, and others
note with slight pity that her sustained screeches suggest this last
blow was the most excruciating, and certainly the most insulting.

Appallingly, the breaking of every major bone in a victim's body was
only the first step in a three-phase process of execution designed
for maximum pain over the greatest possible time. The next operation
was to actually weave the living victim's broken limbs through the
wooden spokes of a wagon wheel, an act almost incomprehensible to
modern minds. Yet public torture was at one time a thrilling
entertainment and aphrodisiac, and if anyone in the crowd were to
look away to the aristocratic coaches they would see lacy fans
fluttering, and hands discreetly tucked beneath petticoats and
breeches.

The traitor's cross is lowered back down upon the platform and the
binding ropes removed. Four assistants calously seize her hands and
feet to lift the woman up, stretching her rubbery limbs and
separating every broken bone all at once. The frantically shrieking
victim is heartlessly lugged over to where a wagon wheel is supported
horizontally across a two-foot tall wooden pedestal, and they lay her
face-up across it.

This relatively small wheel has 12 spokes and is about 40 inches
across, so that the circular rim frames the woman's body from her
shoulders to just below her bare buttocks, while her shapeless arms
and legs flop over the rim toward the ground. Her torso arches
upward, since this functional wagon wheel still retains its narrow
protruding hub, on which the woman's spine must now painfully rest,
and her head hangs over the rim almost upside down, unable to raise
itself up because of the broken shoulders. There is no need to
secure the body with ropes, since arms and legs have lost all power
of movement, and the torso merely twitches and writhes, disguising
pain too monstrous to conceive.

The executioner now directs his two most experienced assistants in
the joining of limbs to wheel, in a pattern the executioner has
devised exclusively for women. As assistant executioners swing her
legs flat out and away from her body, each at well over a 90-degree
angle, they can feel the smashed hips dislocate and the legs swivel
freely, so that as viewed from above her torso and legs assume the
shape of an arrowhead, and her widely gaping sex reveals female
secrets that even a lover might never learn. But no lover will
approach her wooden bed this day, even if her hideous screeches and
cries were not so repellent.

Then her shattered legs are drawn tightly down over the rim and under
the wheel, conforming to whatever bend is demanded of them, to be
drawn back up between spokes on either side of her chest. An
assistant obligingly lifts up her dangling head momentarily to allow
her to witness her feet being wrenched and twisted soles upward, and
both secured with a rope that runs across her bare breasts. But her
unfocused eyes bulge in agony and dart aimlessly about, unable to see
through the wall of suffering that envelops her.

Next her pliable arms are drawn under the wheel and each wrapped
completely around a spoke, her hands yanked up between the spokes so
they can be tied to her calves, to comically suggest that she herself
is holding her legs in their wantonly splayed position. And all the
while she has reached a crescendo of shrill shrieks and frantic gasps
that few knew a human could make, finally sickening some in the crowd
and slightly thinning its ranks.

The wheel is taken from its pedestal and propped upright near the
platform's edge, displaying the naked and horribly mangled woman to
great cheering and clapping. Placing the wheel vertically sets off
an avalanche of fresh pain as the sagging torso stretches the
shattered arms and legs, but her fierce screeches, bulging eyes and
frightening facial contortions discourage few in the remaining crowd
from rushing forward. On the contrary, her atrocious agony and
obscene posture seem to attract them all the more.

Her exhibition is intended to last but 30 minutes, to afford
onlookers an admiring look at the executioner's handiwork if they
wish. A few well-dressed men and women leave their coaches wearing
masks and brave the rabble to satisfy their curiosity, and for the
customary remuneration the executioner allows them to mount the
platform for a much closer look. He personally points out to them
the diverse injuries he has inflicted on the criminal's body,
detailing those of which he's most proud, such as the breast
mutilation. Eventually the platform becomes so crowded with the
well-paying elite that some are forced to wait below, and rather than
lose any of his supplemental income the executioner extends the
viewing to over an hour. Finally an assistant forces a last dose of
stimulant down the traitor's throat, to ready her for the third and
final phase in the execution.

The wheel, with its human cargo still in hideous embrace and howling
all the while, is lowered onto the ground from the platform and
carried, almost like a stretcher, some 10 paces away to where a
20-foot pole is firmly planted. There all the assistants clamber up
a collection of ladders to awkwardly lift the wheel skyward, finally
lowering the horizontal wheel's hub onto the top of the pole, the
final assembly looking like a macabre umbrella. The executioner's
official work is done, but more tormentors are on hand to complete
her torture.

Far from being a place of quiet repose while waiting for death to
arrive, the raised wheel offers special agonies of its own. The
summer sun scorches the naked skin, and female recesses heretofore
unknown to any light are burned by relentless penetration. Even
slight breezes set the wheel swaying on its slender pole, an unending
assault on screaming limbs. Swarms of flying insects are quickly
attracted to the blood and sweat, and the torments of their ceaseless
stinging and biting cannot be overestimated, but the greatest threat
from the air comes from the birds.

Birds are an integral and essential part of this method of execution,
the very reason for raising the wheel high enough into the air to
attract them without disturbance from humans below. And with the
commotion of execution now over, and the people on the ground below
being purposely held back, the wheel quickly attracts its intended
guests. Soon the woman feels her flesh being ripped and torn by
beaks and claws ungoverned by human modesty, probing into tender
areas whose indecent exposure was mandated not only by the
executioner's grim requirements, but also to grant the birds and
insects free rein over every inch of her body.

The woman?s weakening shrieks mark the piercing of her breasts
through the inviting scars left by her missing nipples, and the
probing of her once private parts, where strips of flesh are most
easily torn off and carried away. Yet most fearful to the popular
imagination, and worse to actually suffer, is the birds' unstoppable
urge to peck the living eyes from the sockets of the dangling and
defenseless head.

And many spectators wait patiently for that thrilling moment, though
of necessity too far away to enjoy the grisly details, or possibly to
even hear the feeble and helpless cries of protest as the victim's
world becomes dark forever. But the consequences of a shroud of
black feathers descending onto the wheel, as the crows claim their
prize, are so well known that even those onlookers who depart early
will still shudder at the thought of what must now take place. For
ultimately the wheel is a giant raised dinner plate, on which a naked
and broken human being is offered up as an obscene living meal for
the creatures of the air.

Sometimes the birds complete their work quickly, but this time the
woman will linger all day, some observers claiming even into the
night, though no one can be sure, the spark of life fading so
gradually. It's the unusually large crowd itself that prolongs the
ordeal, frightening off some birds with laughter and chatter,
onlookers sometimes approaching the pole too closely until a soldier
shoos them away. Even at day's end, with the spectators nearly gone,
the noises of dismantling the execution platform and the refreshment
booths intimidates all but the most persistent birds. Finally at
sunset even they fly off, their meal maybe still living, maybe not.

But the body will remain in place in any case, and it matters little
to anyone if the woman manages to cling to life until the birds
return the next morning for a second helping. She is now entirely
abandoned to the beasts and the elements, doomed to be devoured and
rot until only her bones remain, a stern roadside warning of the
harsh justice that the town beyond inflicts on traitorous criminals,
even women.
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