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                                                              THE PRINCESS HYPOTHERMIA
                                                                               BY FAIBHAR

	"Hail"!
	"Hardly", the figure said as he emerged from the shadows of the cedar into the waning sunlight. "Though those sea breezes could add something to the wind chill factor later tonight."
	Already the youthful sentry had wrapped his tartan around  his shoulders to ward off the growing chill though his cheeks now burned hot from embarrassment on learning that he had just saluted one of the same rank as he. The two stood and gazed along the beach and at the solitary figure hanging spread-eagle just offshore. Tidal currents had already moved the waters closer and now small waves lapped around her chained feet.
	"So this is what is the remainder of the royal family, eh?"
	Knowing that the invading horde had murdered the king along with his queen, the other merely shrugged. "The princess remains. Achaemenes is no fool. It was on his personal order that the princess should be spared if only to be sentenced to die as you see her now." 	
	Feeling more confident that his consul was being heeded, the youth continued and said, "He himself had her golden mane shorn and the gleaming tresses tossed to the eagerly grasping mid-wives. They will see that the hair is put to good use."
	The other stirred the sand beneath his boots and said, "Her name shall be recorded in history whenever anyone mentions the cold."
	"Princess Hypothermia?"
	"The same. Just you wait and see what the elements decide to wrought from her young body."
	"From the cold?"
	"They don't call it 'Twist & Shout' for nothing, but tell me. Why did our leader decide to allow her to remain in her royal rainments?"
	"Oh, the gown. Well, it should wash away by dawn tomorrow. That is if the crabs don't get it first."
	Both men laughed for both had heard of the nocturnal habits of the Klawsae. These crabs were indigenous to the area and would soon be migrating to shore. When they did at evening time, the hungry critters would discover an especially delectable dinner. Already the seawater sloshed about the lower hem of her slipped chiton, slipping the once-gilded gown still lower and exposing more of her bare neck to the elements. 
	Up and down the same beach were scattered clusters of defeated townsfolk who had made the short journey outside of the palace walls down to see their princess's denouement. Spectators were favored with the dying sun at their backs and shining into the forlorn figure struggling in the deepening water. Many had already returned back to the warmer climes of their sheltered homes as the late afternoon air gusted and chilled.
	As night fell and only the small bonfires of the sentries remained to illuminate the darkened beach few were present to witness the shrill wails of the princess as her clothes and flesh were torn asunder.
	Sometime after dawn the next day those that did venture forth to look out along the coast saw the once beautiful woman a spectacle arising from the surf. A leader of the horse-riding nomads that had conquered this section of 	Thrace called out to one of his soldiers.
	"Thermostats! It is time for you to check her core temperature!"
	With an arm signal that combined the most enthusiastic elements of a salute and nomadic high-five, a young soldier splashed into the muddy tidal beach. Many knowingly smiled as this one was renown for his meat thermometer. Applause cheered Thermostats as he sloshed closer to the quiet figure. Reaching her hung form, the lad looked back and shouted out that already the morning sun was warming her back but that her front felt cool to the touch. The barbaric officer shouted back to check her core temperature. Ripping away the remaining shreds of the gown, many gasped as the female was fully unclothed.


	"The bitch is back, " he muttered under his breath. Since a toddler bouncing on his father's knee, the grizzled senior NCO had had a gift for music and lyrics. Idly, he could not help but wonder if this latest inspiration would make it to the Top XX, much less the Top X, but that was of little import at the moment. 

	A simple nod green lighted the two Roman mercenaries who eagerly waited near his side and the brothers plunged into the shallow surf. Quite soon after joining the hoary band, the two had carved out a special niche in the nomad's Discipline Department and sprang to the task at hand with the same fervor as the day they first enlisted their services. Both let fall the heavy whips they had coiled and ignored the heavy leather as it smacked into the water choosing to concentrate instead on the nude beauty that hung from the x-shaped cross in front of them.

	Cirrus was the first to note the glistening chains that wrapped around the slender white ankles like black snakes and the ruby-red of the lacerations where metal had chafed flesh. Immediately he moved to her raised right arm and unwrapped the chains that held the victim to the wood as his sibling did the same with her other wrist.

	"Don't forget to check her cold front!" shouted the NCO from back on dry land and noted with bitter irony that neither Italian had bothered to remove his boots before first plunging into the sea.

	Princess Hypothermia moaned as her aching body slowly reawakened with the new day. Wearily she raised her head from off of one shoulder to gaze through swollen eyelids at the gathering throng a scant few yards in front. The assault from the previous youth had stirred something deep inside as he had thrust his human tornado. The churning burning stirred prickly feeling back into her numbed hips, her teeth once more chattered and goose pimples returned like the swallows to Capistrano. Nudity no longer was a source of embarrassment as she hung spread before the onlookers. Nor, for that matter, was her new rough cut coif to be a source of shame for Princess Hypothermia new hours before that this was to be yet another bad hair day.

	Many of those on shore wept or turned away as their once fair maiden was left to fall face first into the muddy shallows. Cirrus moved behind the fallen princess as his dutiful brother jerked her head up by yanking the human remains of her once celestial hair. With the weeping beauty facing the shore, one after the other of them took her from the rear as her ankles remained chained to the gibbet. Sea water and insensible perspiration wet her face and what remained of her hair. Chuckles from the observing guards as the beauty was jostled down and into the water were met with derisive looks from those who remained loyal.

	The Romans each took an arm and this time raised her back up onto the high beams of the cross. They wrapped the same chains around each wrist and then Cumulus took hammer and spikes. With this he nailed the princess to the wood. Vasodilatation caused blood to run in deep rivers down her pale arms.

	Stomping back to where each now uncoiled whip lay in the surf, each brother bent and lifted the sodden leather up by the stout handles. Twirling them over their heads only briefly, one, and then the other let fly and the lashes thudded into the helpless victim with alarming precision.

	Scabrous claw-marks from the nocturnal crap feast erupted as they were hit into bright fuschia. The alabaster form was soon criss-crossed by bleeding welts. Various hues of crimson rained like so many tears over sculpted curves.

	The senior enlisted nomad turned to an aide and said, "She is strong, but now the crabs know."

	The orderly nodded in seeming comprehension, forced to admire his superior's hem and way.

	"Her breath is shallow now. When the tide returns late this afternoon, it will be stilled forever."

                                                                                  -O-


	


