Healer of Carthage (38 page)

Cyprian intercepted the man and wrestled him into the obscurity of the roiling dark cloud of smoke taking over the deck. Struggling to breathe, Lisbeth searched for a weapon of her own.

Suddenly the man with the wild hair shot out of the sooty haze and lunged at her with a black scowl and his knife poised over his head. She dodged the impact, but he pivoted with remarkable agility and stamina, then barreled in her direction again. Lisbeth stuck out her foot as he flew past. Down he went with a sickening thud. His body quivered, then stilled. She cautiously stepped forward and checked for a pulse. Nothing. She rolled him over and discovered the knife handle protruding from his diaphragm.

“Cyprian!” She ran into the smoke. “Answer me!”

Two strong hands grabbed her shoulders, hands she knew instantly, hands she trusted. Before she could tell him what she’d done, he scooped her up and emerged from the smoke in an explosive gasp.

“Must get you out of here.” Cradling her in his arms, he
raced across the deck. At the railing, he peeled her arms from his neck. “Go.”

Lisbeth sailed over the railing and cannonballed into the sea. Kicking against the pull of the water, she fought to reach the surface.

KABOOM!

50

A
RM HOOKED UNDER CYPRIAN’S
chin, Lisbeth kicked toward the shore. Her thoughts ping-ponged between the past and the future, devising plans to reweave the tapestry, to rewrite the outcomes she knew awaited her. Mama would not leave her to grow up without a mother. Craig would be nothing more than an ambitious colleague. The child she’d misdiagnosed would live. Somehow Cyprian would survive. And together they would rewrite history.

Ruth and Barek rushed into the surf to help Lisbeth drag Cyprian’s limp body to the shore. She pressed her lips to his.
Breath, thank goodness
. “Stay with me.”

“I went for the healer,” Barek said, huffing, “but she must wait until Aspasius leaves for the harbor.”

Lisbeth bent to check Cyprian’s pulse. “Aspasius is coming here?”

“Him and every available soldier.” Barek nodded toward the patrols gathering on the dock and pointing at the plume of black smoke. “We’ve got to get him out of here.”

“He’s alive.” Lisbeth’s quick examination didn’t reveal any visible wounds. “I don’t know about internal injuries.”

Soldiers thundered down the wharf.

“We’ve been spotted.” Barek slid his arms under Cyprian’s shoulders. “Grab his feet.”

When they arrived back at the villa, Felicissimus stood waiting, wringing his hands. “Oh, dear. Not my patronus. What can I do?”

“Stay out of my way.”

51

L
AURENTIUS PACED THE LIBRARY
Lisbeth had converted into a private ICU ward for Cyprian. Her brother had became so uncontrollable when they hauled Cyprian’s unconscious body into the villa she’d had to grant him limited access to his hero just so he could breathe. But without knowing the root cause of Cyprian’s refusal to wake up, Laurentius’s presence in the same room as her husband made Lisbeth very nervous.

Was Cyprian’s fever the result of some kind of infection from his near drowning, or had he not been immune to measles after all? Until the incubation period had passed, she preferred sending her little brother back to the palace. Not the best option, but she didn’t have the heart to lock him in the shed. At least in the dank, little underground cell the boy’s life would go back to his normal.

Laurentius plunked down beside her. “Don’t worry, Lithbutt. I’m praying.” He patted her hand, as if these simple words solved everything. “Thyprian will be okay.”

Her brother may be a bit out of sorts, but he was the only one in the household who’d not adopted Lisbeth’s pensive mood. Even the frequent appearances of Ruth and Barek at the library door were clouded with worry. If only she saw life as simply as her brother. For a brief instant she was envious of the comfort his unsinkable hope must have given Mama over the years.

Remembering how Mama used distraction to redirect Laurentius, Lisbeth kissed his chubby cheek and said, “Why don’t you draw Cyprian a picture?”

Smiling, he shot from the room and left her to fulfill her craving for a moment alone with Cyprian. She gently lifted one of her husband’s slack eyelids. The blank stare remained. “Please wake up, my love.”

Three days of stubbly growth darkened Cyprian’s slack jaw. She missed the way his smile pushed parenthetical lines on either side of his full lips. What would she do if he never regained consciousness?
The twenty-first century has lost its appeal.
The idea struck her hard, as if someone had shouted and slapped her at the same time. She sat up straight and glanced around the room.

Nothing had changed. The dogs still slept at her feet. A sea breeze was still drifting through the open balcony doors and ruffling abandoned parchments spread across the desk. She was still treating a critically ill patient with a wooden bowl of broth and a clay mug of strong tea. And yet, everything about this picture felt right. She was home. She belonged here in the ancient impracticality of the third century. She’d fallen in love with this man, his people, and his problems.

A firm hand came to rest upon Lisbeth’s shoulder. “Caecilianus? You shouldn’t be in here. Cyprian may have the virus.” She rose from the chair and tried to push him toward the door. “And measles are no respecter of social standing.”

“Nor am I.” The old bishop gently moved her aside. “I’ve come to pray.”

Determination twinkled beneath Caecilianus’s hooded eyelids. Lisbeth stood transfixed and unable to further protest. If she’d admired the bishop’s speaking skills from afar, up close she found the ready-to-take-action confidence of this grandfatherly man
overwhelming. No wonder followers like Cyprian were so devoted.

Caecilianus withdrew a small vial from his tunic, poured a drop of golden liquid on his finger, then smeared it on Cyprian’s forehead. The bishop placed a large, gnarled hand over the shiny spot. “In the name of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, who rose from the grave on the third day, I command this spirit of sickness to leave this young man. Bring him peace, Father. Bring him rest. Bring him healing.”

The earthy fragrance of blessed olive oil reached Lisbeth’s nostrils and stirred impossible expectations. Foolish hopes similar to those who paced the hospital rooms of the dying. Holding her breath, she leaned forward, waiting and watching.

Another round of unintelligible delirium tumbled from Cyprian’s lips, and he began to convulse like a man with fever.

She placed her palm on his clammy forehead. No change. “Now what?” she asked, her disapproval far more obvious than she’d intended.

“We wait upon the Lord.”

Lisbeth crawled in next to Cyprian, twining her arms and legs around his in an attempt to calm him. But his excessive heat did little to warm the dread that chilled her to the core. Would he ever ask her to explain flying once again? Or insist that he go first when they approached danger? Or sleep contentedly after they made love? She waited for the click of the library door latch before she flooded her husband’s chest with tears of disappointment. She was going to lose him along with everything she’d come to love. His body slowly stilled, and Lisbeth couldn’t bring herself to move.

“I dreamed I’d lost you,” Cyprian’s parched voice rumbled beneath her ear.

She popped up on her elbow. “You’re alive!” Without taking
the time to examine him, she threw her arms around his neck, laughing and crying at the same time. “It worked. The bishop’s prayers worked.”

“I didn’t lose you?”

“No.” Thinking he may not be as recovered as she thought, she sat up. She knew his lips, had watched the various changes in coloring during these frightening days, but she never dreamed how grateful a smile could make her feel. “I’m right where God wants me.”

“I love you.” He pulled her to him, and she was hopelessly lost.

52

A
FTER THE INCUBATION PERIOD
passed and Cyprian remained measles-free, Lisbeth declared him one lucky man. Cyprian claimed luck had nothing to do with his protection. God had spared him. Since Lisbeth had no better explanation for his escape from contracting the virus after his wrestling match with the man on the ship, she had to agree. God had given her her husband back, and she was going to cherish every moment.

Today was one of those moments. Caecilianus felt the church needed to gather. Many had lost loved ones to the fever. The old bishop thought the survivors needed encouragement and a strategy to cope with their losses going forward. Lisbeth had agreed, with a few stipulations. Only those who had survived the fever or had remained in her controlled quarantine were allowed to attend.

Without grousing, Lisbeth joined Cyprian and the cleared believers in the garden for worship. Miraculous recovery buzzed on everyone’s lips as they swarmed Cyprian like it was Old Home Week. The survivors had been so grateful for Lisbeth’s care that they willingly volunteered to help her nurse the new measles cases that arrived every day. In the process, these people had lost their suspicions of her, and she’d come to admire her brave new friends.

In the middle of Caecilianus’s prayer of thanksgiving,
Felicissimus burst into the garden. “Rumor has it that Aspasius blames the Christians for the fire that destroyed his ship.”

Lisbeth and Cyprian exchanged nervous glances. Besides the paunchy slave trader, only Barek, Ruth, and Caecilianus knew about the ship. And they would never tell. Had the soldiers gotten a better look as they fled the scene that day than they had thought? Had Aspasius discovered their connection to the church?

Looking as sour-faced as ever, Felicissimus continued, “He promises to kill a priest every full moon until he has the one responsible.”

53

M
AGDALENA RELIEVED TABARI OF
the watering can and dismissed her from the daily task of cleaning bird cages. She wanted the atrium to herself while she confirmed her suspicions, because she hadn’t decided exactly what she’d do with the information once she had it.

The sound of someone tapping on a door down the hall caused Magdalena to glance in the direction of Aspasius’s office. Pytros, tablets in hand, stood ready to enter. He caught sight of Magdalena staring at him and cast a smug smile her way. Then, without further ado, he waltzed into the room and shut the door. What was that little weasel up to? Who else was in there?

She busied herself with the care of the birds for nearly an hour, but when she could no longer stand the suspense, she set aside the soiled parchment liners. Ears and eyes on high alert, she padded down the hall and carefully placed her ear to the carved door.

“I’ve only found two.” The voice belonged to Felicissimus, the mystery man she’d seen scampering down the hall like the rat that he was.

“And where do you find these slaves?” Aspasius demanded.

“In the tenement cistern.”

A gut-punched gasp escaped Magdalena’s lips.

The cistern. Of course.

Lost details buried deep in her memory awakened with an electrifying intensity. Faded paintings on the sandstone cave wall flickered like a slideshow in her mind. She paused on the grainy picture of the family of potbellied swimmers with the scarlet child. Those tiny outstretched arms had reminded her of Lisbeth, the rag doll caught between her and Lawrence in a desperate tug-of-war on how they were going to live.

She remembered feeling responsible for her daughter’s happiness, and failing. She wanted to provide Lisbeth with the same wonderful life she’d had growing up. Proper schools, friends, museums, concerts, a house by the sea. Not a canvas tent in the middle of nowhere.

That night in the desert, when she’d stomped off, she wasn’t running away from their nomadic life as much as desperately running toward the hope of a normal, stable life. Seeing the family of swimmers on the wall that reminded her so much of what she hoped to have, she’d touched the scarlet child. A choice she would regret as long as she lived. A choice that could never be undone.

Falling through the hole must have somehow funneled her into one of those subterranean aquifers Lawrence believed crisscrossed the Sahara and emptied in Carthage.

Felicissimus said he’d found her at the tenement cisterns. The painting on the cave wall was the exact same painting she’d noticed on the cistern stones years ago. She’d seen the family of potbellied swimmers every time she fetched water to tend the sick. Why had she never connected the two? Unless subconsciously she knew that the guilt over how she was raising her daughter had propelled
her into this world, and guilt for what would happen to her son had kept her from returning.

Adrenaline pumped through Magdalena’s limbs. She knew exactly where to find the portal Felicissimus had mentioned. She knew exactly what she must do to go home.

Magdalena bolted down the hall.

54

I
’M NOT ABOUT TO
let Aspasius keep me from doing my job.” Lisbeth had been arguing with Cyprian and Barek since breakfast, and she was making no headway. “I need those supplies.” She turned to Felicissimus, who sat quietly sipping a cup of tea. “Help me out here, Felicissimus. Tell him the streets are safe.”

The slave trader, whose daily visits had not only cheered Cyprian in his recovery but also kept him apprised of Aspasius’s plans, held up a grubby hand. “I’m just here to give a report on the latest slave shipments, not to referee a domestic dispute. Barek, you’d do well to follow my lead and keep your opinions to yourself.” He set the cup upon the library desk. “I’ll let myself out. Good to see you feeling better, my patronus.”

Cyprian clasped his hand. “Thank you, friend.”

Lisbeth wasn’t sad to see Felicissimus go. Unlike Cyprian, she didn’t trust the man. To her, his presence was like fingernails on a chalkboard, especially after that shameful stunt of trying to get the believers to leave town. Someday she’d tell Cyprian what a little rat his slave trader friend really was, but not until he regained his strength.