Healer of Carthage (32 page)

“We’ve practiced acting like he doesn’t know me, but sometimes he forgets.” She patted the Herculean knot at Lisbeth’s waist and changed the subject. “Cyprian is a good man.”

“This isn’t a real wedding. I’m—”

“Here.” Mama fished the leather cord out from under the veil around her bruised neck. “I want you to have this.”

“I can’t take Papa’s ring.”

“Your father and I had our differences, but I know he loved me. I pray you’ll know the kind of love that lasts a lifetime.” She tied the cord around Lisbeth’s neck and hid the ring in the folds of her gown.

Aspasius’s shrill laughter drifted from the garden. Mama shuddered, then quickly kissed Lisbeth’s cheek. “Don’t acknowledge me in any way. No matter what happens. Promise?”

“Magdalena?” Ruth appeared in the atrium with a scrubbed and polished Junia in tow. “Aspasius mustn’t see you together. The
resemblance between you is uncanny. Even with the changes we’ve made.”

“I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for my daughter, Ruth.”

Ruth waved her on. “Return to Aspasius’s side before he sends someone to search for you.”

Mama blew a kiss over her shoulder and hurried back to the garden.

Ruth adjusted the wedding veil and ran a horsehair brush of crimson lip dye over Lisbeth’s lips one last time. “I got some on your teeth.”

Lisbeth finger-scrubbed her teeth. “Ready or not, here I go.”

Ruth handed Junia a basket filled with flowers. “Remember what I told you? Toss a few of these petals around as you walk straight to me. Understand?”

Junia nodded. “I’m a princess.”

“That you are, my sweets.” Ruth gave the little girl a squeeze. This child had found a new home, and the thought pleased Lisbeth. “Now, smile, everyone.” Ruth threw open the double doors to the garden and darted out of the way.

All eyes turned toward Lisbeth. Before her, a sea of dignitary white and purple perched upon cushioned couches. Although the Senate council had been invited out of propriety, the curious pride of hungry lions attended mostly out of fear. Fear that this woman from the desert might possess a power capable of destroying them all. She must be careful and remember every instruction Ruth had given her. One mistake and Aspasius would end their ruse with a vicious swipe of his claw.

She tried to move forward, but her body was as frozen as the fountain statute. Only her eyes responded to the frantic transmissions her brain issued, two organic cameras that scanned the crowd. Aspasius had his arm draped over her mother. She couldn’t
afford to dwell on how badly she wanted to hurt that monster. She pried her gaze from him and visually searched for her groom.

Cyprian stood next to Caecilianus atop the dais. Both were dressed in the heavy white woolen robes this formal occasion required, but they might as well have been worlds apart. The wrinkled bishop with caterpillars for eyebrows looked like he’d grabbed his sheet and jumped out of bed without combing his hair. Cyprian, on the other hand, stood tall in an expertly arranged toga, the pressed creases of the one-shouldered drape tailored to his sculpted body. His hair had been brushed back from his aristocratic forehead, and for a brief moment, she thought she saw his smooth lips toy with a smile. But when she checked again, his face had become expressionless and totally unreadable.

Flute music floated into the hall.

“Do I go now, Ruth?” Junia shouted.

Everyone snickered. “Yes.” Ruth crouched before the dais and waved the child forward. “Take Lisbeth’s hand.”

“Don’t be scared.” Junia placed her hand in Lisbeth’s. “I’m right here.”

Lisbeth’s feet, heavy as iron, broke free and slid toward Cyprian as if his inscrutable eyes were magnets.

Junia marched her under the swag of lush greenery strung across the transom and into a pillared paradise. The casual beach wedding she and Craig had once discussed had nothing in common with the formality of candlelit tables covered in fine linens and strewn with silver and delicate white flowers.

Laurentius stood in the shadows with Naomi, his lopsided grin bigger than ever. He put his finger up across his lips in the be-quiet symbol they’d practiced. It was all Lisbeth could do not to snatch Mama from her seat beside Aspasius, then grab her half brother and beat it out of there.

Whispers spread through the sober-faced guests as Lisbeth
followed Junia to the dais, where Cyprian waited. From her vantage point of staring up at him, he looked like a Greek god. Bronze, polished, and undeniably handsome. Ruth’s instructions, as well as Lisbeth’s flimsy escape plan, flew from her head. So Lisbeth just stood there, staring at this man she’d known only a few weeks and contemplating what it would be like to know him a lifetime. Did these heat-inducing thoughts mean she loved him? No, she couldn’t. Love would make everything too complicated.

Cyprian stepped forward and offered his hand. Lisbeth laid her palm in his broad, smooth grasp. This was the hand of a man used to pushing paper rather than patients. Would his hands once again circle her waist or draw her to him? Surety pulsed in his clasp. Strength lifted her to his side.

“Follow my lead.” Fresh mint tinged his whispered instructions, but Cyprian’s steady composure offered no trace of what he was thinking. No hint of the pressure he must be under. Admirable quality. Worthy of imitating. Which she would . . . if she could breathe. Her goal for the moment was trying to keep her knees from locking and passing out in front of fifty people looking for any reason to end Cyprian’s bid for office.

She stared at her future husband’s mouth. Lips that spoke hard truths as easily as soft kindnesses. Lips that were certain. Lips that could talk their way out of any trouble. And for a brief instant, she wanted to kiss him like she had on the beach, to be sucked into his world with no thought of what she’d left behind.

“Cyprianus Thascius, do you grant your consent?” The old bishop looked up from his scroll. “Cyprian?”

Apparently she wasn’t the only one who had been rendered speechless by the words of the marriage contract Caecilianus read before the witnesses. From the faraway look in Cyprian’s eyes, his thoughts had stalled as well, or was he bailing? Lisbeth’s heart dropped to her stomach. He hadn’t wanted this in the first place.
What if their kiss had changed his mind? Maybe he’d decided he didn’t want to give this woman he barely knew a legally binding commitment? Most men didn’t. Truth be known, Craig was probably secretly relieved she’d disappeared. That way they didn’t have to fight over the prenup he’d insisted she sign.

Cyprian turned and faced her. “I do.” His confidence launched a shudder that shook Lisbeth’s courage. His commitment sounded genuine, like a marriage was a better idea than a wedding.

“And Lisbeth of Dallas, what say you?” Caecilianus asked.

She’d never put herself out there romantically. Not really. Not even with Craig. She’d always reserved that secret part of herself, held it back, kept it safe from the pain that comes with loving someone too much. What if the tiny seed of love, or like, or whatever it was that had been growing in her heart, took root and tangled her emotions and her plans? Then what? Mama, Laurentius, and her decision to do what she could to stop the growing epidemic had already made cutting free of the third century very complicated. She managed a weak nod.

Cyprian lifted her left hand. His eyes bore into hers as if he were casting an anchor into a troubled sea. He slid a gold band with a pearl setting on her third finger, kissed her hand, and set the anchor’s metal flukes deep in her heart. If his ship was to sink, she was going down with him. Lisbeth closed her eyes and braced for his lips on hers. Instead, Cyprian lifted their clenched hands high. Her eyes fluttered open just as the sedate wedding guests clapped their approval.

Hiding her unexplainable disappointment, she accompanied Cyprian to the empty cushions at the head table’s reclining couch. Along the way, Cyprian stopped to accept congratulations from important senators and to make formal and uncomfortable introductions of his new wife.

The U-shaped head table glittered with the details of Ruth’s
attention. Aspasius and Mama waited for them on long couches that graced one side. Caecilianus and Ruth lounged on the other. She and Cyprian took their place between them, settling into the plush cushions. Bare shoulders touching, Lisbeth reached for a glass of wine to douse the flame physical contact ignited. Cyprian was far too smart to shift away or force a space between them. Was his action false bravado, or the need to offset the volatility of the proconsul to her right? Either way, she couldn’t resist leaning as close to her new husband as possible. Slaves arranged the folds of their wedding garments and quietly removed their matching red sandals.

Cyprian glanced at her and smiled as if he, too, was genuinely relieved they’d made it this far. “Shall we eat, then?” He clapped once, and servants shuttled from the shadows, toting silver goblets filled with honeyed wine. Next, they served appetizers of pickled guinea eggs, salt-water eel imported from Tartessus, and Spanish snails braised to a golden crisp and floating in melted goat butter.

Aspasius devoured an entire skewer of grilled peacock, then tossed the stick. “I see you’ve spared no expense, solicitor.”

“My father always said to buy the best wine you can afford or notice the difference in the morning.” Cyprian jabbed a stiff piece of bread into the goose liver pâté.

“Your father understood that impressions are everything.” Aspasius licked his fingers, then reached for another snail. His black irises had become beady little stones swimming in jaundiced sclera. “Weddings are not so different from public office. Once the honeymoon is over, the term of service can seem interminable.”

“The best is yet to come.” Cyprian kissed Lisbeth’s cheek with a flirtatious ease that aroused giggles from the servants and sent a rush of heat to Lisbeth’s face. “Isn’t that so, my love?”

“Absolutely.” Lisbeth ducked as a huge steamed lobster was placed on Cyprian’s plate.

Cyprian examined the succulent crustacean, then gave a pleased nod. A piping hot boar covered in wild truffles and roasted in a pit of coals was carried in on a platter that required two men to haul. Everyone clapped . . . everyone but Aspasius.

By the time the guests had polished off the pork, several rounds of media beer had also been consumed. Spirits were high. Even Lisbeth felt her defenses melting.

“And for dessert?” Cyprian asked Ruth.

“A fine Falernian wine chilled in snow transported from the Atlas Mountains.” She lifted her chin and waited as the admiration of Cyprian’s generosity spread through greedy guests reaching for frosty glasses. “And a confectionary delight of dried fruit preserves sealed inside a flaky maize crust.”

Aspasius’s head snapped up, then wavered like he had no business trying to walk a straight line. Eyes bloodshot, he placed his palms on the table and worked to push himself upright. “What? No cake offering for Jupiter?” His slurred voice had the sharp edge of a man armed with a dagger of damaging information he intended to use. “Won’t the gods be angry?”

Silence ripped through the garden. Cyprian shifted away from Lisbeth, and she felt the anchor that had tethered them together plow a trench in her brief sense of security. The storm they’d feared had come ashore.

Aspasius shook his finger at Cyprian. “Why would a good Roman risk angering the gods?” His hand came down heavily, rattling the silver and giving Lisbeth and Magdalena a start. “There’s only one reason a man seeking office would do something so foolish.” The proconsul shoved back from the table, placed his hand on Mama’s shoulder, then struggled to his feet. He waivered for a moment, swaying like a drunken sailor, then fell face-first into the dried remains of goose pâté.

42

M
OST OF THE WEDDING
candles had melted into glossy puddles by the time the bodyguards of Aspasius had his limp body scraped off the head table. A muddy brown splotch of avian pâté dripped from his broken nose.

“I drugged him.” Mama spoke English as she tucked a small glass vial between her breasts. “Come morning, he’ll have a black eye as noteworthy as the ones he gives me.” She gave Lisbeth a coy smile, as the entourage of eight burly servants hauled Aspasius from the garden to the waiting litter. “Hopefully he won’t remember a thing.”

Lisbeth wished she could remove her own spinning head from her shoulders. “How did he find out?”

“I have my suspicions,” Mama whispered. “You must be careful.”

Lisbeth knew Mama must leave, so why did she feel like she was five years old again and begging her mother not to leave her tent? “Are you safe?”

“You have bigger worries than me. Look at their faces.” The uncomfortable silence that had pervaded the garden after Aspasius’s partial accusation had not dissipated with Mama’s pronouncement of her master’s inability to stomach cheap snails. Doubt and wary suspicion clouded every focused eye. “If you
don’t go through with the rest of the wedding festivities, I’m afraid raising the charge that Cyprian violated his obligations to the gods will be enough to end Cyprian’s bid for office.” She gave Lisbeth’s arm a squeeze. “Don’t worry. God brought you here, and he has a way of bringing a person exactly where they need to be.”

God . . . or fate?
The question lingered in Lisbeth’s mind as she watched her mother disappear in a swirl of green silk. How could everyone be so sure the third century was her destiny?

Murmured voices summoned Lisbeth from her thoughts. She turned to find Cyprian standing by her side. A look of understanding passed between them. He, too, was conscious of the guests staring at them, rubberneckers waiting on their precarious house of cards to implode. One false move, and their deception would be over.

She took his hand. “Surely we’re not going to let a drunken guest ruin our wedding night.”

“Nor our future.” Cyprian clapped, and servants scurried into place. Naomi handed Cyprian a bundle of sticks dipped in resin. With a steady hand, he held the torch to a flickering candle. Bursting flame broke the dour spell hanging over the garden and spawned a tittering of nervous laughter. Cyprian passed the light to one of the young torchbearers, who turned and lit the torches of two other escorts.