“NEEEAGH!” screams the leader, stripped to the waist, his three-tailed whip leaving long red weals on his back.

“AAAARGH!” says another Flagellant, hairshirt stained with blood.

“UNGH.”

“YEAARRH!”

“GAAAH!”

“Ooh ouch, that’s quite painful!” says Longinus, making vague gestures shoulderward with some yarn on a stick.

“Enough for tonight, brothers,” pants the leader. “We shall rest in the hospitality of this humble farm.”

“Pious folk indeed!” says Longinus, brightening, as the farmhand arrives with dinner.

At which point a dozen barn cats decide the yarn dangling down his back is a toy, and land on or near it, claws-first.