Ken Towl | A Drabble

     In the sculpture museum of Valladolid, the assorted polychromatic saints and saviours gurned in agony or reposed in ecstasy on their crosses, all of them naked but for wooden loincloths.

     Thus, when he came across a crucified woman, he was struck by the fact that she was clothed in a pretty high-collared dress. He checked the information plate to the side of the cross; Santa Eulalia, martyred at the age of thirteen.

     There was, he thought, some small comfort in speculating that the Roman executioner, embarrassed at punishing a child, had at least let her die in her favourite smock.