Healer of Carthage (20 page)

“Excellent idea,” Sergia agreed, wrapping the towel twice around his twig-like middle. He took the cup of steaming mulled cider the court attendant offered. “I’d love to hear your legal opinion on the latest edict of Decius, Cyprian.”

“Edict?” Cyprian accepted a cup of the strong brew. “I wasn’t aware our emperor had issued a new edict.”

“The ink is barely dried on the parchment,” Sergia admitted with a sigh. “I fear the ramifications will not set well, especially in the provinces.”

Cyprian emptied his cup, hoping he appeared unshaken by the possibilities. “Pray tell.”

“Decius fears an invasion from the Goths. He has ordered that the entire kingdom bow before the gods of Rome.” Sergia sloshed the wine in his mouth, then spit into a nearby planter. “Including the captives on the various frontiers. In the past, the imperial position has been to allow conquered barbarians their worship freedoms. As long as barbarian tax dollars returned to the true throne of power, the emperor did not see the harm in humoring their little gods.”

Aspasius snapped his fingers, and an attendant presented his red bath slippers with built-in wooden heels. “How are the emperor’s decrees or how those decrees are carried out in
my
province of any concern to Cyprian?”

Sergia held up his skeletal fingers. “Years of political thinking may have clouded your objectivity, Consul. I think it my responsibility to judge the full impact of this decree on many levels, including those of upstanding citizens like the highly esteemed solicitor of Carthage. Our emperor deserves a full and complete report.”

Aspasius threw the excess length of his towel over his shoulder. “There is an order to things. An order ordained by the gods.” He stormed toward the changing-room door, the uneven click of his red shoes tapping out a warning. “Warm water after exercise is one of those indisputable orders. Seeing to the success of the dictates of my lord and emperor without questioning his imperial wisdom is another.” Three servants fell in behind the proconsul,
including the burly bodyguard who managed to cast a warning glare over his shoulder.

“Oh, dear,” Sergia whispered to Cyprian once they were alone. “I’ve set him off. There’ll be no reasoning with him now. If you’ve not considered running for the Senate, I strongly suggest that you get yourself a well-connected wife and examine the possibility. Rome could use a few good men.” Sergia hustled after the proconsul, bypassing the colossal granite pillars supporting the barrel-vaulted ceiling of the
frigidarium
. “Aspasius, wait.”

Cyprian looked to Pontius for support. “Can you think of a single woman willing to become the wife of an idealistic dreamer determined to set Rome on its ear?”

Pontius shrugged. “Or one who is willing to risk creeping pox?”

23

W
AITING FOR THE ELEVATOR
was not an option. Lisbeth flew down two flights of stairs and raced into the ER. She burst into the organized chaos of medical personnel who’d descended upon exam room 1 like worker bees summoned to the throne.

Nelda’s head snapped up from the limp baby on the gurney. “I paged you . . . twice.” Her laser stare stripped Lisbeth bare of excuses, while her nimble fingers removed the child’s swaddling.

“Abra?” Lisbeth elbowed her way to the bed that had been rolled to the center of the room. “What happened?”

“She became lethargic and stopped breathing.” Nelda slapped an endotracheal tube into Lisbeth’s hand as two other nurses placed sticky cardiac pads on the small naked chest. “Dr. Redding isn’t here yet. You’ll have to intubate.”

No attending? Lisbeth had participated in several codes but never run one. And she’d never seen a child in cardiac arrest. Her mind spun, frantic to find traction. Across the room, Abra’s mother stood mute, frozen to the periphery. Terror ricocheted through Lisbeth’s heart.

“Dr. Hastings, now!” Nelda’s order blasted Lisbeth into action.

Someone tossed Lisbeth gloves. She positioned herself at the head of the bed. The rhythm on the cardiac monitor told her the
child’s heart rate was frighteningly slow and irregular. “Resume CPR!” She tilted Abra’s chin toward her and pried apart her thin blue lips.

“Pedi laryngoscope.” Lisbeth inserted the device over the smooth little tongue for a better view of the airway. Vomit clogged the narrow oropharynx. “Suction.” She exchanged the ET tube for a mini vacuum hose. “Stay with me, little girl.”

Once she had the airway cleared, Abra’s tiny vocal cords came into view. Lisbeth threaded the small plastic tube down the trachea on the first try.

“Give one milligram of epi.” Queenie’s confident voice came as a surprise.

Lisbeth had been so preoccupied with executing a successful intubation she’d failed to notice that her best friend had slipped in and taken over chest compressions.

Confidence bolstered, Lisbeth ordered, “Go ahead and give the atropine.”

Dr. Redding rushed into the room. Never had Lisbeth been so glad to see her no-nonsense attending. He surveyed the situation with seasoned skill. “We have an airway?” He assumed a position on Lisbeth’s left. “How about good IV access?”

“Yes, sir.” Lisbeth sounded as shaky as she felt. “She’s intubated and has two good peripheral IVs.”

Dr. Redding assumed command. He halted CPR and checked Abra’s current cardiac rhythm, which was still dangerously slow. He palpated her femoral artery. “No pulse.” Concern deepened in his eyes. “Give another milligram of epi, and check a blood gas.”

Lisbeth anxiously counted the seconds. Finally, Dr. Redding gave the signal to resume CPR, and she relieved Queenie, wrapping her hands around the child’s tiny chest. With each compression she prayed the heart would awaken beneath her thumbs.

“Her pH is six point five!” Nelda yelled from the back of the
room. Abra’s blood acidity level indicated life was not possible.

Dr. Redding kept his eyes on the monitor. “She’s in vfib. Initiate shock. Clear!”

Lisbeth halted CPR, but she could not will her hands to let go.

Dr. Redding pulled on the back of her coat. “Clear, Hastings.”

Abra’s lifeless body jerked with the jolt of electricity. The moment the paddles were removed, Lisbeth jumped in and resumed CPR, but vfib returned. Three separate shocks failed to initiate Abra’s pulse.

“Give me an intracardiac needle.” Dr. Redding stuck a prefilled syringe directly into Abra’s still heart. The child who’d been screaming only a few hours before didn’t even flinch.

Lisbeth held her breath, alternating her attention between frantically recounting every detail of her earlier examination of this child and the bruised chest in her hands.

“Stop CPR and check rhythm.” All eyes locked on the monitor. A yellow flatline raced across the screen. Dr. Redding let out an exhausted sigh. “Enough.”

“No!” Lisbeth pumped harder. “I can’t lose her.”

Dr. Redding grabbed her hands. “Enough, Hastings.” The room went silent, except for Lisbeth’s labored breaths. “Call it.”

She released her hold and stepped back from the blue body in the middle of the adult-size gurney. Naked and lifeless. So small. Ten fingers. Ten toes. A little upturned nose. Perfect. Except she was dead.

Lisbeth searched for anything left undone, something forgotten, something they hadn’t tried. The floor and bed were littered with EKG tracings, empty medication vials, stray needles and syringes. Short of cursing, there was nothing left to do.

“Time of death . . . zero two five one” ripped from Lisbeth’s throat.

Dr. Redding slung his gloves in the trash, then walked over to
Abra’s mother and placed a large hand on her shoulder. He shook his head and solemnly left the room.

A razor-sharp wail jolted Lisbeth awake.

She sat upright, every nerve alerted. Sweat dripped down her back. She wasn’t in the ER. She hadn’t just killed a kid. And she wasn’t home. Her reality came into an uneasy focus. Something was missing from the plebeian apartment she’d spent the past four days guarding. Something important. Her mind clawed through the fog of sleep deprivation for an answer.

Deathly quiet. Silence. Junia’s barky cough had ceased.

“Oh, no.” Lisbeth unfurled her legs from the pallet she’d made herself beside the small bed and scrambled to her feet. Tingles shot from her toes to her hips. She touched the water pot at the base of the vaporizer canopy.

Cold.

“Lord, don’t let her be dead.” She ripped the cloth from the frame she’d rebuilt over Junia after she came back and found the first vaporizer destroyed, Numidicus dead, and Mama gone. She grabbed Junia’s wrist. “Give me a pulse, little girl.”

Junia’s black eyes fluttered open, alert and questioning. “Mama?”

Lisbeth released her breath. “Thank God.” She stroked Junia’s forehead while sucking in huge gulps of relief. “I think your fever’s gone, little one.” The fiery red splotches that had started on the child’s face and crawled over her entire body were now a tarnished brown. “Feeling better?”

“Mama?” The rawness of the child’s first attempt to speak in three days grated Lisbeth’s heart. “I want my mama.”

“I know, baby.”

Somehow Lisbeth had managed to remove the body of Numidicus on her own, but where had her mother gone? The area was definitely not a safe one, and Lisbeth hoped, despite herself,
that Mama had walked out on her again before whatever dangerous rogue or bored, mischief-making Roman soldier had come and killed Numidicus. At least then she would be safe. Lisbeth couldn’t face the possibility of Mama coming to the same fate as Junia’s poor father. She couldn’t imagine experiencing the death of her mother one more time. Lisbeth looked into Junia’s expectant face and saw in the girl’s eyes herself all those years ago.

“I bet you’re thirsty, sweetheart. I’ll be right back.” Lisbeth tucked an empty terra-cotta jug under her arm. “Stay in bed. And don’t answer the door.”

Lisbeth raised her cloak hood, poked her nose into the corridor, then ventured out to join the noisy line of women on their evening pilgrimage to the well. A crowd would make it easier to disappear if she ran into more soldiers. Until then, she must stay alert for signs that others might be infected with measles. So far, no nasty coughs or mothers complaining of sick kids. Perhaps Junia’s family and the family upstairs were the only ones afflicted. Lisbeth held back from the group, pretending she’d found a crack in her jug. Feeling every bit the foreigner she was, she eavesdropped on the gossip. Marriage troubles. Childrearing problems. Rising prices in the market. Gossip of curses on Numidicus for his strange beliefs. A world not so different from the one she’d left behind.

One by one, the women filled their jugs, said their farewells, then tramped into the deepening twilight. When the coast was clear, Lisbeth approached the deserted well and lowered the gourd, peering into the damp, musty cavern.

Was this the way home? With a thunk the gourd sank into the murky darkness. Part of her wanted to hold her nose and jump, to take her chances in the unknown rather than face another day of this constant reliving of the past and the most painful moments in her memory. Rough stone sanded Lisbeth’s
palms as she lowered her head and breathed in the scent of water gurgling from somewhere deep within the earth. She couldn’t back out of the promise she’d made to Numidicus. Her inattention had left one innocent child to fend for herself. She would never leave another.

The rope burned Lisbeth’s hand as she raised the heavy gourd. Newly mustered bravado wouldn’t do her any good once she ran out of provisions. After she mixed up this last batch of rehydration solution, everything Numidicus had scavenged and what little food she’d found in Mama’s basket would be gone.

Lisbeth emptied the gourd into her jug. Water would not sustain them. Junia needed nourishment, and so did she. Either they starved, or she did the last thing she wanted to do . . . return to Cyprian.

In the predawn darkness, Lisbeth hurried to finish her preparations. If she didn’t return to Cyprian’s now, the odds of avoiding snarly soldiers were nil. Certain Junia was too weak to make the trip on foot, Lisbeth strapped the girl to her chest with a sling made from the last piece of clean bedding. She threw her cloak over both of them, blew out the lamp, then slipped into the ill-lighted apartment corridor.

One of the stray dogs curled on a neighboring stoop lifted his head and growled. She tossed the last of the bread crumbs in his direction, then quickly left the tenements behind, retracing Numidicus’s hasty path through the maze of narrow alleys as best she could remember. She reached the darkened windows of the city’s more exclusive storefronts. Feeling confident she knew the way from here, she stepped up the pace. The sun climbed over the horizon. She arrived at Cyprian’s wrought-iron gates winded, arms burning from toting the four-year-old.

Recalling the noisy hinges, Lisbeth untied Junia. She stood the child upon her shaky legs, then quickly squeezed through the bars.
“Take my hand.” Junia rubbed her eyes, refusing to cooperate. “Come on, kid. I know you’re scared, but trust me, they have lots to eat here.” She snagged a bony elbow and tugged the girl to her chest. The girl monkey-wrapped her so tight Lisbeth could barely breathe.

In the rosy glow of dawn, Cyprian’s villa looked larger and strangely more welcoming than she remembered. Suddenly she felt hungry, tired, and very conflicted at the prospect of leaving an orphan on someone’s doorstep. As she scurried up the walk, the dogs went bonkers, hurtling around the corner of the house like a team of spooked horses. They pounced upon the bulge under her cloak. Junia launched into a raspy, screaming fit.

So much for slipping in unnoticed.

Lisbeth wedged inside the door. The dogs clawed and barked, insisting that someone let them in.

“Lisbeth?” Ruth tied her robe as she rushed to her. “Are you all right? What happened? I looked everywhere. When I couldn’t find you, I had no choice but to tell Cyprian you’d run away. He searched the city for days. Even rifled the freight aboard his fleet.” She noticed Junia squirming and lifted Lisbeth’s cloak. “Who is this?”

“Don’t touch her.” Lisbeth backed away. “I don’t think she’s contagious, but I’m not sure.”