Varinia's third day starts well enough, she is allowed to drink a precious liquid that gives her strength. Still tied to the timber, she's forced onto the wooden horse. Her tender parts are splintered by the rough wood as she's whipped front and back. She's not suffering the tortures as a means to persuade her. She's enduring the imaginative variations of the cross as a way to dissuade others not to follow her path. Each new torture is designed to steadily increase her pain, while keeping her alive to take even more. She has five more days ahead of her and the last two were already too much to bear.