Healer of Carthage (25 page)

Aspasius waved them toward him, indicating they should join him and Mama on the raised seating. Standing behind the proconsul was a man with a wax tablet in hand and stylus poised, prepared for the careful keeping of kills in the arena, no doubt. Hopefully, she would not be added to his tally by day’s end.

Feeling claustrophobic and desperate for air, Lisbeth inched past Cyprian’s friends. Sweat beaded on Sergia’s forehead, and a feverish blush pinked his cheeks. Although the day was exceptionally warm, she couldn’t help but wonder if he was ill. She gave him one last look. Probably just an overheated flush. She had to get a handle on her jumpy nerves.

Lisbeth eyeballed the arena. Armored soldiers guarded each of the eighty exits. Fear of exposing her identity before she accomplished her mission was the only thing anchoring her to this dreadful spot. Lisbeth gathered her skirts and climbed the steps, averting her eyes from Mama in case the terror ripping through her entire body somehow escaped her kohl eyeliner. The cork heels and uneven stones made her ascent clumsy. Twice she nearly landed on
her face. So much for trying to pass herself off as a lady. She was a sow’s ear in a silk purse, as Nigel used to say.

Aspasius shielded his eyes. “Careful, my dear.” His unnerving gaze remained fixed upon her as he spoke to Cyprian. “Pray tell, wherever did you find the enchanting trinket dangling on your arm, old friend?”

“She is the match my father made for me years ago, the daughter of my wealthy cousin who controls the desert passage through the Cave of the Swimmers.”

Lisbeth’s legs buckled. Mama gasped.

“Are you well, my love?” Cyprian’s arm quickly wrapped her waist. “Pontius, fetch a cup of wine.”

What did Cyprian know about her cave? She waved off the refreshments. “It’s just the heat.”

“A desert flower that wilts in the heat.” Aspasius resumed the same beady-eyed examination she’d suffered at the slave block. Something in his gaze seemed to border on recognition. “This one’s far too fragile for such a harsh life.”

“Oh, but I’m not.” Lisbeth flinched at Cyprian’s tightened grip about her middle. “I mean, the desert has taught me to hold my own, sir.”

“Fragile, yet hearty.” Aspasius held out his hand, and immediately a jeweled chalice was placed within his grasp. “You remind me of someone.” He glanced keenly from her to Mama. “Does she remind you of someone, Magdalena?”

“Not anyone of recent memory, my lord.” Mama raised her fan to cover her trembling lips, but her eyes telegraphed a clear message of warning. “Are you looking forward to the games, my lady?”

Screams of the big cats pacing the cages below the arena shredded the air. Papa’s history lessons had included tales of aristocrats who educated their children by dragging them to the games. Someone qualified to marry a man like Cyprian would no doubt
have many arena experiences to her credit, even if she came from a less civilized region. She mustn’t fail in this answer. She must compose herself. Act natural . . . as any twenty-first-century woman would if she were caught in the third century.

Lisbeth anchored her gaze in her mother’s and felt a surge of confidence. “I’m eager to experience all the wonders of Carthage, but even more excited to share our good news.”

“News?” Mama’s voice carried the fear Lisbeth had seen on her face.

Aspasius leaned forward. “What news?”

Cyprian pulled her tight against him. “It can wait until the intermission, my love.”

“But I’m just so anxious to share our plans.” She’d irritated him by forcing him to accept her offer of marriage, pushed him beyond what his high moral ground normally tolerated, but Cyprian wouldn’t expose her. Truth be told, he and his little band of followers needed this deception to work as badly as she did. She would express her appreciation by imitating his strange customs. She searched for Cyprian’s hand, then intertwined her fingers with his. “Please, my love. May I?”

His palm was damp in hers, but he did not withdraw. “What makes you happy makes me happy.”

Lisbeth summoned her best smile. Now that she had the floor, she had no choice but to claim it, to appear more comfortable than she felt with forty thousand pairs of eyes staring at her. She announced over the din, “I have agreed to become the bride of the honorable Cyprianus Thascius at the next full moon.”

All ears within hearing turned toward her. The slaves paused midservice. Even the caged cats ceased their roaring.

Mama lowered her fan. “That’s less than a week from today.”

“Show us the ring,” Aspasius demanded.

“My jeweler is designing something special. Something
worthy of a woman so . . . beautiful.” Cyprian lifted their clasped hands to his lips. “Something that ensures Lisbeth of Dallas will always be mine.”

Lisbeth pecked his cheek with a light kiss, grateful for Ruth’s foresight to confiscate Craig’s ring and spare their ruse another complication. “Oh, but I’ve been yours from the start.”

IF MARRYING
well equaled success in public life, Cyprian felt certain Lisbeth’s disastrous introduction into the patrician world had just sealed his doom. She’d blurted out information at inappropriate times, moved about as if she wore a bedsheet, and displayed a surprisingly faint constitution at the mention of some faraway cave. Courtship was a heartless business under the best of circumstances. This knot in the pit of his stomach testified to his failure to fully weigh the pros and cons of trying to pull off a politically advantageous marriage with someone ill prepared for the task. A mistake he must quickly rectify before she ruined them both.

“Come, my love, we mustn’t keep the proconsul from his official duties,” Cyprian said, threading his arm around his intended’s thin waist to usher her from the royal dais, but she seemed to have grown roots. Planted and stubborn, with the same determined manner she’d exhibited while attending the sick boys.

“Tell of when you first set eyes on this beauty.” A dubious smirk curled Aspasius’s lips. “I’ve time to hear of your first meeting before the start trumpets.”

“Our meeting?” The stink of Felicissimus’s little slave cell rose in Cyprian’s memory, a stench he feared Aspasius’s overheightened senses might catch wind of should he be allowed to get too close to Lisbeth. “Well, I . . .”

Lisbeth squeezed his hand. “He was on a scouting mission, a new venture to increase his vast fortune. He bravely rode into my
father’s camp like he owned the desert.” If she felt the fear gripping his belly, her concern did not mar her confident eyes. “A bronzed god who took my breath.” Her mastery of courtroom theatrics called his into question.

“Yes, and then I . . .” He looked to her, and she smiled a pleased-with-herself little grin he could see through her gauzy half veil. For the first time in his life, words had failed him. “I saw . . . uh . . .”

“He saw me directing my maid at the cooking fire,” she continued, lifting a conspiratorial brow, as if to say keep up or shut up. “My hair a mess from the constant desert winds.” Lisbeth’s eyes twinkled. She relished jumping in to save him, humiliating him in front of the leading citizens of Carthage. “When he kindly asked me to turn over the entire stack of our freshly fried pitas, his genteel manner caused me to do so without a word of complaint.”

The confident tilt of her chin made him very aware of the soft fullness of her lips. His sense of heightened danger ignited into a firestorm, along with his need to slap her and protect her at the same time. Cyprian straightened and found his voice, determined he was more than capable of playing along. “I remember the encounter a bit differently. She spit fire at my trading party, declaring us barbarians.” He turned to face her. “But my heart was no longer my own. She had stolen it.”

“Oh?” She pulled him close, her sweet floral scent intoxicating and alarming. “And so you bought me to get your heart back?”

“Little good it did me.” He brought his lips close to hers and dropped his voice. “My heart still belongs to you and only you.”

They stood, face to face, eyes locked. Around them, the arena was a beehive of random conversations. Through the clamor Cyprian could hear rakes scratching lines in the arena sand, a smoothing out of all the rough patches, an evening of the playing field. Within a breath, the anxious sounds of the arena vanished. All that
remained, all that mattered, was the two of them. Slave and master bound by a fraud, quickened breaths sweeping him into chaos.

“So this is a marriage of
coemptio
?” Aspasius’s verbal spear of contempt pierced the bewitching spell holding them captive. “You had to buy love to secure your election?”

“No,” Cyprian and Lisbeth answered in unison, the response jerking Cyprian back to reality with a thud. They were not playing to a foolish schoolboy.

“There was no sale of this woman to be my wife.” The half-truth scorched Cyprian’s tongue, but he’d come too far down this treacherous path to turn back now and survive. “The relinquishment of her dowry is all very legal.”

“I brag when I say he
bought
me.” Lisbeth held out her arm and jangled bracelets of hammered gold. “Look at how he spoils me.” She twirled, her dress floating provocatively above her ankles as she held tight to his hand. “What woman wouldn’t sell her soul to be the queen of Cyprian’s heart?”

Weren’t they supposed to be making this stuff up? Wasn’t that the game she was playing? Then why did the admiration in her voice sound as real as the crowd’s chatter in his ears and make him feel so . . . he wasn’t sure what being joined to this hypnotic beauty made him feel. Whatever the sensation, he’d had stomachaches from eating ill-prepared lamb kabobs that hadn’t twisted his gut so tightly.

Cyprian dropped Lisbeth’s hand and took a step back. He opened his mouth to fabricate an emergency that required their immediate exit when the blast of twelve silver trumpets brought the masses to their feet.

A games announcer dressed in the purple-trimmed toga of a dignitary entered the arena floor via a raised iron gate. Accompanied by a band of golden, curved horns, he led twelve gladiator combatants on a solemn march around the ring. Upon reaching
the center, the announcer lifted his hands. The music and the crowd quieted. A welcoming smile split his powdered face. “Let the honorable games of Carthage begin.” The perfect acoustics carried his booming voice past their box and up to the highest tiers.

Spectators went wild. Thousands of feet stamped stone. The announcer basked in the response, milking the excitement to a frenzied froth. Then he raised his hands once again, standing statue-still until silence settled upon the arena. “We give tribute to Aspasius, the proconsul of Carthage and sponsor of today’s glorious entertainment.” He fired a military salute toward their box, and the crowd roared, waving banners and shouting over and over the name Cyprian detested above all others.

“Aspasius! Aspasius!”

ASPASIUS ROSE
from his seat. Sun glinted off the gold chains dripping from his neck. Lisbeth and Cyprian made their way back to Sergia. She seated herself between Cyprian and Sergia.
Where did that cough come from? I didn’t notice that earlier.
If Cyprian’s friend was ill, she wanted him as far from Cyprian as possible. She craned her neck, disgusted by the smirk curling the proconsul’s lip. At the slight nod of Aspasius’s bald head, the games began. They were stuck for now.

First came the mock fights. Pairs of gladiators strode onto the freshly raked sand and pummeled each other with wooden swords. No one was supposed to get hurt in the spurious bouts, but if one of the participants happened to land a blow that drew blood, the audience chanted “Finish him,” leaving the more virile gladiator no choice but to beat his opponent to death with the blunt end of his wooden club.

Sergia and Cyprian chatted as if she weren’t sitting between them. Neither seemed the least bit incensed by the carnage on the
arena floor. As the two friends caught up on old times, her attention darted between making sure they never touched and watching the pit crew hook the dead gladiators and haul them away.

Once the sand was cleared and the blood raked into neat rows, a new team of workers scurried out and began setting up for the next display. Large wooden boxes were dragged into place. A man with a painted face ran to the center of the ring and cracked a leather whip. The crowd cheered. A gate opened, and three big cats sprang from the hold, circled the whip-cracking trainer, then obediently leapt upon the boxes. Their circus tricks held the crowd spellbound for thirty minutes. But when a wild boar was released into the mix, Lisbeth had to put her hands over her eyes to block out the bloody chaos that ensued and nearly got the trainer killed.

At high noon, vendors flooded the aisles, carrying trays of roasted game hens, burgers made of ground antelope and green peppercorns, soufflés stuffed with small fishes and raisins, eggs pickled in a mixture of vinegar and honey, and large wooden bowls of freshly cut melons. Cyprian ordered another round of wine and encouraged Lisbeth to eat.

“I think I need to stretch my legs.” Lisbeth stood, determined to extricate her and Cyprian from this madness and his possible exposure to measles. “Care to join me for a little stroll, my love?”

Sergia put his hand on her arm, and she noticed he was exceptionally warm despite their shady location. “Oh, but you mustn’t miss the lunch break entertainment. The hour is devoted to the execution of criminals who’ve committed particularly heinous crimes.”

“Are you well, Sergia?” Lisbeth lowered her voice to keep the question from attracting Cyprian’s attention.

“Just a bit overheated.” Sergia coughed in her face. “I’m not used to this African heat. Much warmer here than in Rome.”

“Ask them to add honey to your water. It will keep you
hydrated.” She handed him the hanky Ruth had given her to dab away any uncomely sweat. “Cover your mouth when you cough.”

“Stay.” Sergia leaned in close, obediently hacking into the fine piece of linen. “Offending the proconsul would not be in Cyprian’s best interests.”

If Sergia had measles, she needed to get Cyprian out of harm’s way without drawing the proconsul’s attention. Lisbeth let her gaze slide in the direction of Aspasius, who was gnawing a large drumstick. Mama sat board-straight next to him, sipping a glass of wine with no expression on her face. Lisbeth’s eyes flitted to the arena, where workers frantically removed what was left of the gutted pig, then back to Cyprian, who seemed to be holding his breath, awaiting her response.