Valley of Decision (16 page)

Lisbeth retrieved a bottle of Betadine from her medical kit and a mask. “Cyprian, squirt this on the operative site and then douse the scalpel and drill.” Her fingers brushed his and she hoped he could tell how grateful she was to have his help. She stretched her fingers. “Lord, I ask that you guide my hands.”

“I've got a god right here.” Brutus pulled a small stone statue
from his pocket. Sweat poured out from beneath his helmet and his cheeks were flush. “Want to pray to it too?”

“No need. Perhaps you should step out for air, Brutus.”

He shook his head. “Soldiers are used to blood.”

“Stand back then.” Lisbeth placed her right hand on Kardide's head. Memories all too fresh of the last surgery she and Mama had performed together washed over her.
Lord, help me.
She tightened her grip on the scalpel and glanced over her mask at Cyprian, whose face was dangerously pale. “Ready?”

He gulped and nodded. “God, don't let her wake up.”

“Amen,” Lisbeth muttered.

She sliced an incision along the curve of Kardide's head.

“Holy mother of Juno.” Brutus's sword clattered across the pavers, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he crumpled in a heap.

“Lawrence, will you remove the helmet from our brave soldier and elevate his feet so Lisbeth can keep going?” Mama said, coughing.

Lisbeth didn't like the dry, raspy sound of her mother's cough, but there wasn't much she could do while in the middle of punching a hole in someone's skull. Hand shaking, she took up the drill.

“Whatever you do, once you start do not stop until you break through.” Mama had stretched her chain to its limit and then strained against the iron links until she was nearly in Lisbeth's operating theater.

Sweat dripped from Lisbeth's forehead and she remembered the exertion it had taken for her mother to saw through the bone of Aspasius's leg with a first-class bone saw. How could she tap a skull with third-rate equipment?

Just when she thought her wrist would give out, Lisbeth felt the drill do its work, then disengage. An ominous gurgle was followed by the hiss of air bubbles as blood filled the hole, which was
quickly followed by Lisbeth's sigh of relief. “I can't believe this worked.”

Using one of Mama's blunt hooks she quickly removed a few bone fragments, then irrigated the burr hole with homemade disinfectant until the fluid ran clear. She inserted plastic tubing attached to a suction bulb drain she'd thrown in her backpack on a whim and stitched the scalp flap closed around the tube as quickly as possible.

“Drain needs to stay in place at least three days. I'll leave a clean scarf to cover it up and some antibiotics for when she wakes and can swallow, but you'll still have to watch for infection.” Lisbeth leaned back on her heels and admired the neat baseball-seam stitches of Kardide's new scar. “Then we shall see if the results justify the treatment.”

“Thanks to you, she'll only have a headache when she wakes up,” Mama said proudly.

“
If
she regains consciousness. The next two hours are critical.” Lisbeth rose, bent over, placed her hands on her knees, and let the rush of blood to her head sweep away the terror of the past thirty minutes.

Cyprian snapped off his gloves and came around and rubbed her back. “You did the best you could. The rest is up to God.”

Tempting as it was to hang her head until she passed out, she had other patients. From the corner of her eye she caught a glance of Papa dragging Brutus upright. “How's your patient?”

“Still a little woozy, but not so green.”

The guard's hair was plastered to his head, and his eyes were wild. “My keys.” Brutus searched the dirty floor with his hands. “Where are my keys?”

“On your belt, man,” Cyprian said.

Brutus's hand flew to his waist. When he discovered his keys had not been touched, Lisbeth's first thought was how Maggie
would have enjoyed capturing the surprise on his face with her camera.

“You did not escape?”

“We are all still here,” Papa assured him.

Brutus peered tentatively around Papa's shoulder. “And the woman?”

“She's going to live,” Mama said, then promptly threw up on the soldier's boots.

M
AGDALENA?” PAPA LEFT BRUTUS
swaying over his soiled shoes and rushed to Mama's side. “Lisbeth, do something. She's not well.”

“I'm fine, Lawrence.” Mama wiped her mouth. “It's just the flu.”

Papa drew her tight. “You're shaking.”

Lisbeth vaulted across the aisle. “Cyprian, take Brutus out of here.” She tossed him a cylinder of foaming hand disinfectant she'd pulled from her bag. “Clean his shoes carefully, then rub this all over your hands.” She helped Papa lean her mother against the wall. After conducting a thorough examination, Lisbeth sat back on her heels. Her mother's eyes begged her not to say what they both knew to be true. “You know it's typhoid, right?” She hated blowing Mama's valiant attempt to handle this herself, but there was no improvising on this one.

“You don't know that.” A dry cough launched her mother's body into a convulsion that sounded as if her insides were being ripped out.

Lisbeth ticked off the symptoms: “Horrible cough. Temperature. Chills. A smattering of red spots on your chest. No booster since you arrived in Carthage, and more important, the surgery you performed a few days ago on Diona Cicero's perforated bowels
exposed you to her bacteria. Even without the blood work, I can say ‘typhoid' with more confidence than you said ‘epidural hematoma' for Kardide.” Lisbeth bent close to place a white tablet on her mother's tongue, the yeasty smell rising from her mother's skin eliminating any doubt. “I brought some Cipro.”

Mama waved her away. “Save it for the others.”

“Papa's right. Maggie inherited her stubborn streak from you.”

“Leave me,” Mama said, coughing. “Find your girl and go home.”

Papa pressed his lips to Mama's forehead. “We're not going anywhere without you.”

“He's right,” Lisbeth said.

“You'll have no choice.” Magdalena turned to Cyprian, who'd just returned from escorting Brutus out into the fresh air. “Tell them what happens to one accused of murdering the proconsul.”

Cyprian knelt between them. “Her case will be brought before the local praetor. The prosecutor and I will be given the opportunity to frame the issues.”

“You?” Lisbeth lowered her voice. “You can't go before the authorities. You're a wanted man.”

“Not anymore,” he whispered back. “Thanks to Maggie, I found the note your mother sent with you the night of your escape. This codicil to Aspasius's will grants me amnesty.”

“I know what it says, but the wanted posters went up
after
the proconsul signed Mama's ultimatum. Aspasius's deathbed decree isn't worth the paper it was written on.”

“A debatable technicality . . . a debate I intend to win, mind you,” Cyprian said. “Don't look doubtful, you know I can be very persuasive when I want.” He leaned over and kissed Lisbeth. “I cannot let this innocent woman go without representation.”

The warmth of his lips upon hers cooled quickly. Winning as
he could be, Lisbeth knew where this decision would lead. “When are you doing this fool thing?”

He signaled to be careful they were not being overheard. “God willing, I plan to speak to the praetor tomorrow.”

“And ask him what?”

“To reinstate my law privileges.”

“Can he do that?”

“He has to go before the Senate with my request.”

Cyprian's previous failure to change the minds of the authorities was a fact Lisbeth could not alter. Those same men who'd voted to exile her husband would not raise a finger to help him now. She'd come to terms with his destiny years ago. Arguing with him was pointless.

“I will not let Maggie watch you do something stupid. Those men will not embrace you.”

“Lisbeth, please.”

She held up her palms. “Since evacuating the prisoners is out of the question, the best I can do for now is distribute typhoid vaccine to the other inmates. Here, take one for yourself.” She pushed the box of blister packs into Cyprian's hands. To her mother she said, “I'll leave enough Cipro to last a couple of days. The moment I find Maggie, I'm coming back for you.”

“No, you won't.” Mama held out her arms. “Look at my hands, Lisbeth. They've shriveled into chicken claws. I'm old and tired.”

Lisbeth took her mother's hands in her own. They were clammy, hot, and fragile as an autumn leaf in her palms. Blue-ridged veins crisscrossed her mother's knuckles like lines on a faded road map. Each track was a tributary of connected memories: These hands deftly spreading peanut butter on crusty bread without letting a grain of sand get stuck in the mix. These hands massaging shampoo through her tangled curls. And most cherished
of her memories . . . these hands gently examining a patient or wielding a scalpel.

“These are not chicken claws. These are the worn hands of Christ.”

Mama pulled free and Lisbeth felt the same rumbling beneath her feet that accompanied the opening of the time portal. “And now it is time for me to go to him.”

Lisbeth could almost taste the iron running through her mother's blood, that determined mettle to die by the same selfless standards by which she had lived. “No. Tell her, Papa.”

Her father silently stroked his chin, dragging his finger across the stubble in an irritating back-and-forth rhythm.

“Papa, tell her!”

Her father lifted his chin. “If she can't go”—he reached inside the collar of his tunic and fished out the leather cord he wore around his neck—“then neither can I.” He removed the ring from the cord and gently slid it onto Mama's finger. “Your mother and I are staying.” He lifted Mama's hand to his lips and kissed each knuckle. “You go on, Lisbeth. Do what you have to do to keep our little girl safe.”

“This isn't how it's supposed to end.”

“Cyprian,” Papa said. “I'm counting on you to keep my daughter from jeopardizing everyone's lives.”

A
T LONG LAST, STREAKS
of light peeked through the slats in the bolted shutters. Maggie blew out the oil lamp and dragged the back of her hand across her forehead. On the opposite side of the room, Barek sat on the floor beside Eggie's bed. Maggie let out an exhausted sigh, picked up the breakfast tray Naomi had delivered without a word, and joined Barek on the floor.

She passed him the cup of warm wine. “Does he sound worse to you?”

Barek shrugged and took the cup. “Maybe a little.” He'd refused to leave her, working as hard as she through the night to keep the vaporizer pot hot.

At first, Maggie hoped Barek's need to be near her was rooted in something deeper, something closer to the glimmer of interest he'd shown when they were laughing together. But as the hours wore on, and he acted more and more like the churlish guy she remembered, the real reason he refused to go to bed became evident. Her father had put him up to babysitting.

Her disappointment surprised her.

Maggie drew her knees to her chest and silently studied Eggie's body. With an odd-shaped tepee obscuring him from the waist up, the guy Barek had fished out of the harbor looked like some kind of mythical sea character with human legs. Her hands
were itching for her camera. Even if she had it, nothing about a camera would be easy to explain—the flash would freak Barek out and spoil the shaky truce they'd forged.

Eggie's cough rattled his bed, if the short wooden frame with Eggie's size twelves hanging off the end could be called a bed. Her dorm bunk was bigger and probably a lot more comfortable. Especially after Titus had a servant remove the fancy down cushion and replace it with a thin mattress stuffed with something that crackled every time Eggie rolled over and hacked his lungs out. Maggie couldn't really fault Titus for his caution. There were enough dead bodies stacked between here and the time portal. She didn't blame him for not wanting his own family added to the heap.

In the rare lull between Eggie's coughing spells, Maggie dared a peek at Barek and confessed, “I don't know what else to do.” She put her elbows on her knees and rested her chin in her hands. “He's hotter than a firecracker and coughing like a chain smoker.”

“Firecracker? Chain smoker?”

“Never mind.”

Barek cocked his head, looking at Eggie as if he too longed to get a better handle on the situation. “Have you ever seen anyone hold his ears like that?”

“Maybe it feels like his head is going to explode.” Maggie stretched her legs and let her head fall back against the wall. “This is all my fault.”

“You?” Barek turned to her. “I'm the one who found him.”

“Yeah, but I said I could take care of him.” Her arm drifted perilously close to Barek's. “What if he dies?”

“You've done everything you could.” Barek threaded his fingers through hers and gave her hand a squeeze.

Nothing romantic. More of a big-brother, protective kind of grip.

So why was her arm on fire? “If Mom were here, she'd know
what to do.” She hoped her voice wasn't laced with hormonal delirium.

“Maybe she'll come,” he said, almost as if he expected Mom to walk in any minute.

“She's not coming.”

“Why do you say that?”

Time to tell the truth. “She doesn't even know I'm gone.”

Barek withdrew his hand and narrowed his eyes. “You ran away? Again?”

Maggie crossed her arms and tucked the hand Barek had held close to her chest in an attempt to capture the dissipating heat. “I'm eighteen.”

“And no wiser than when you were five.” Barek rubbed his temple, his mouth tightening with the pain of remembering the night his mother died. “Sorry. I didn't mean . . . you were just a child. I know you didn't mean for my mother to die.” He was so tired he probably didn't realize that that rare glimpse of compassion she remembered fondly had leaked between the cracks of his crusty exterior and once again melted her heart.