Valley of Decision (5 page)

The guard toyed with the ring of keys hanging from his belt and then holstered his blade. “Well, I guess it wouldn't hurt for them to have a meal.”

“And if it's their last, it won't be because of you.”

Brutus put his shoulder to the metal door and pushed. Despair weighted the rush of cool air fouled by human waste. If typhoid wasn't in this dungeon, it would be soon. Cyprian took the torch from the holder. He drew a deep breath, ducked beneath the doorway's low stone lintel, and descended into the depths of the earth. When he lifted his head, it nearly scraped the ceiling. Rats skittered into the shadows as he waved the flame.

“Mercy,” someone begged in the darkness. “Have mercy.”

“Sure they're worth it?” Brutus asked.

“I'm sure.”

The door clanked behind Cyprian, and the key turned in the lock. Cyprian calmed the intense desire to pound on the thick metal and ask to be released. “Magdalena!”

“Here,” she croaked. “I'm over here.”

Keeping his torch in front of him, Cyprian saw the entire length of the narrow tunnel come into view. A low-sloped ceiling pressed apart walls made of thick stone blocks by only a mere twenty to thirty feet. To his left, three chained men sat on the floor, their heads resting upon their bent knees. They looked up, and then lifted thin arms to shield their eyes from the glare of the light. Their matted hair indicated they'd survived here longer than most. Which meant they were most likely debtors with families who brought scraps of bread whenever they could.

“Mercy, master. Please.”

Knowing anything he shared with these men would take away from the immediate help he could offer Magdalena, Cyprian kept
moving. His next visit he would bring extra, but for now he could not afford to be sidetracked. He dodged the men's attempts to reach for him and searched in the direction of his mother-in-law's voice.

“Here, Cyprian.”

“Magdalena?” He found her sitting on the floor. Battered and bloody. One leg chained to a wall. “What have they done to you?” He crammed the torch into a holder and knelt beside her.

“You shouldn't have come. It's too dangerous for you.”

“Don't worry about me.” He checked her for broken bones. “Are you hurt?”

“Nothing mortal. But I'm worried about Kardide.” She pointed across the aisle. “She fell, and I'm worried she could have a concussion.”

Cyprian swiveled on his heels. Against the opposite wall, three women huddled together. He took them bread and water. “Go easy. I'll bring more tomorrow.” Magdalena was right. Kardide had a large gash on her head, but he was able to rouse her. “You'll need bandages for your wounds.”

“We won't be here tomorrow.” Magdalena's voice was weary, yet peacefully resigned.

“I won't let it come to that.” Cyprian frowned at the doubt he saw on her face. “You will not face the judge without representation.”

“There will be no judge.”

“I won't let that happen. I'll argue—”

“I can't allow you to risk your life for mine. The church needs you. Now more than ever.”

“Let me and God worry about my life.” Cyprian pulled parchment and charcoal from the bag. “Write down everything that happened. No detail is too small.”

She waved off the paper. “Tell me of my children.”

One of the chained men coughed, reminding Cyprian that whatever was said here could easily be reported to the guards and twisted for gain. “Your son is with those who can keep him safe.”

“My daughter and granddaughter?”

He swallowed. “Home.”

“Good.” A pleased smile softened the knife scars Aspasius had carved in the corners of her mouth. “Now I am ready to meet my Maker face-to-face.” She let her head rest against the wall, her eyes focused on the ceiling, as if she could see straight into heaven.

“You did not murder the proconsul, Magdalena.”

“He's dead.” Was that remorse he heard in her voice? “I'm the surgeon of record. Who else shall we blame? God?”

“Give me something to work with.”

The dungeon's only door creaked open. A sliver of moonlight sliced the darkness. “Time's up!” Brutus shouted from the entrance.

“Please, Magdalena,” Cyprian begged. “Anything you can remember.”

She lifted her head slowly. The effort seemed to require the last of her strength. She eyed him carefully, weighing whether to speak. Finally she sighed. “Everything you need is in the note I asked Lisbeth to deliver to you.”

M
AGGIE BURST THROUGH THE
water's surface, dizzy and desperate to take a breath. She ripped off her nose plugs and sucked in big gulps of rank air. “Whoa! Way worse than I remembered.”
Remembered
echoed loudly in the watery chamber.

Fearing her noisy entrance may have alerted someone to her arrival, Maggie's gaze shot to the orange glow above. She treaded water quietly, listening for signs she'd been discovered before she could finish what God had started when he'd sent her and her mother to the third century thirteen years ago. If she hadn't screwed up and gotten sick, her father wouldn't have had to die. She was here to make it up to her dad before that happened and, more important, to her God.

Maggie's eyes adjusted to the dimness. Stone walls formed a circle less than ten feet across. Tighter space than she remembered. No place for a girl with severe claustrophobia. The rapid thumping of her heart meant she was well on her way to hyperventilating. If she didn't want to pass out and drown in this murky water, she couldn't wait for her head to stop spinning from that crazy water ride through the time portal. She needed to get out of this well and fast. Her gaze returned to the faint source of light dancing on the water's surface. There was only one way out: straight up. Jaw clenched, she closed her eyes for a brief moment and sent the fear away.

Maggie kicked to one of the random ledges that jutted from the walls like some kind of prehistoric climbing wall. She wiggled free of the pack strapped to her back and threw it upon the outcropping. She hoisted herself onto the jagged stone. Teeth chattering, she inspected the backpack the cute salesman at a sporting goods store had promised was indestructible and waterproof. Not a single knick or tear. Everything inside bone-dry. Including her cell phone and the expensive camera Mom had given her to take to college. The all-weather pack her g-pa had given her had proven to be worth every penny she'd talked him into spending. Guilt prickled Maggie's skin. She shouldn't have left her new school and set out for Africa without telling her mother, but she felt especially bad that she hadn't at least texted her grandfather.

She clicked on her phone. Blue light pressed back the darkness, but the blank screen was a reality check that cut off her breathing.

No service.

Hopefully this meant she'd arrived in the third century and hadn't simply dropped out of range. Either way, without her phone she was totally and completely alone. With no way to summon help. Fear flickered in her chest.

Maggie turned the phone face to the walls. Light traveled up the trowel marks in the cement plaster, creating interesting patterns of shadow and light. Hard to know if this was the same well she and her mother had surfaced in thirteen years ago. Mom wasn't exactly the sentimental type who would have taken the time to carve their initials or anything. Until she climbed out of here and took a look around, she couldn't be certain.

And then what?

Maggie forced air into her constricting lungs and strapped on the bag stuffed with a tunic and a pearl-handled knife she'd purchased from one of the souvenir vendors outside the Tunis airport.
Insurance
, she'd
told herself, but she wasn't taking any chances that a knife was enough. So she'd had her Arab cabbie take her to an Internet café, where she downloaded some ancient manumission papers she hadn't had time to print before she left. She didn't know how many copies of these slave-freedom-granting documents she would need, so she printed several sets on dusty paper. One set was for her grandmother. One for her. The others were backups in case she talked Junia or Naomi into coming home with her. No way would she let herself end up on the slave block.

And Mom thought I couldn't make a plan.

Maggie held out her phone and took a selfie. If she never made it back to the twenty-first century, at least there'd be a record if her grandfather discovered her shriveled remains two thousand years from now. The photographic record wouldn't give a full explanation of her decision to purchase a round-trip ticket to Tunisia, but maybe it would help her mom understand that sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl was born to do . . . even if she's scared to death.

Maggie clicked off her phone and slid it into her pack. “Ready or not, here I come, Daddy.”

She secured her pack to her back and started climbing. The hours she'd spent at the gym paid off. Her arms were strong, and a sense of control was returning. Nearing the top, she stretched for the rocky lip, pulled up, and threw her leg over. She tumbled onto the cobblestones.

Scrambling to her feet, Maggie felt her heart racing as she checked to see if anyone had witnessed her clumsy entrance. The place was dark and deserted.
Thank goodness.
She ducked behind the well. A wind, hot as Texas and moist as a rain shower, kinked her curls.

She dug out the tunic, changed as quickly as she could, then covered her head with a handwoven scarf. A pair of simple leather sandals completed what she hoped looked traditional
third-century plebeian. Unwilling to leave her Citizen jeans behind, she stuffed her wet clothes inside the gallon-size Ziplocs she'd packed in her backpack.

Maggie glanced around. She was surrounded by several tall buildings, all of them plastered with the same kind of stucco that was inside the well. Streets no wider than sidewalks fanned out like bicycle spokes.

“Now what?” she muttered. Swapping out her modern clothes was the extent of her reentry plan.

Without access to the Internet maps on her phone, how was she supposed to know which alley would take her out of the slums? Maggie spotted a set of outside stairs on a building that looked eerily similar to their old apartment near the county hospital where her mom had practically lived since she'd decided to become a surgeon.

Taking the narrow steps two at a time, Maggie raced up six flights. A big orange moon, reminiscent of that deadly night she'd talked Junia into going to the tenements to retrieve a doll, illuminated rooftops in every direction. For a second, the haunting sound of oxen hooves thundered in her ears. Tears stung her eyes. She hadn't meant for Ruth to die.

Maggie quickly pushed those bloody memories from her mind and focused on the one thing she knew for sure: her father's villa overlooked the doughnut-shaped harbor. Find the water and she would find him.

“There it is.” She took out her camera and clicked off a few shots of the ship silhouettes etched into the indigo sky. “G-Pa is going to die when he sees these.”

Pleased with herself, Maggie climbed down and headed in the direction of the harbor's big stone circle. Navigating the same streets she and her mother had once traveled kicked wide open the
rusty door to her mind. Memories she didn't even know she had of that terrifying trip flooded back.

People were dying then, and from the walking dead staggering the streets or lying in the gutters now it looked as if they were still dying. Maybe she'd hit closer to her target than she'd first thought. Goose bumps raised the hairs on her arms. Looming large in her swirl of recollections was the vivid image of her mother and grandmother working like crazy women trying to help the sick who poured into her father's huge house.

What was she thinking? She had no medical expertise. She hadn't even brought Tylenol. Maybe this
was
the day her failure to think things through would bite her in the butt, just as Mom had warned a million times.

Too late to worry about it now. She was here. And she wasn't going home without her father.

Maggie drew her scarf across her nose and stepped over the blood trails that led to corpses stacked three to four high on either side of the street. She hustled until she reached the area of town where the houses stood alone and climbing plants circled balcony pillars. As she crested a steep hill, her surroundings started looking vaguely familiar.

Which house belonged to her father? None of the lampposts that lined the deserted avenue had been lit, and the moon wasn't bright enough for her to be certain. A noise drew her attention to the eerie shadows. “Who's there?”

A thin, mangy dog, more of a ghost really, rooted through the bodies stacked along the curb. He raised his head and growled. Maggie froze. Ghosts didn't bare yellow teeth or advance with hot, red eyes. She prayed the stink of dead bodies would override the smell of her fear. She wasn't going to be the first to cave in this standoff. Her father lived around here, and nothing was going to
run her off. Slowly she unlocked her gaze and canvassed her surroundings for a stick.

Deciding she wasn't worth the effort, the dog wheeled and went back to foraging. He nosed through the rotting heap and then tore a piece of flesh from a stiff arm.

“Hey! Leave that alone.”

The dog trotted off with his spoils. Maggie folded at the waist and threw up all over her new sandals.

T
HESE WALLS HAVE EARS.”
Cyprian removed his cloak and wrapped Magdalena's shoulders. “Say no more.”

“Time's up!” Brutus shouted again from the doorway.

Rather than jeopardize future admittance into the prison, Cyprian kissed Magdalena's cheek and heeded the evacuation order. “I'll be back,” he whispered.

“Please don't risk it.”