Healer of Carthage (10 page)

She squirmed while the crowd closed in, pushing her dangerously close to the man who thought he owned her. She felt something wet on her hand and looked down to find both dogs stationed at her feet. Running her hand over the sleek coat of the apricot-colored hound, her gaze roamed the garden for an alternate exit, one that included landing a blow squarely in the gut of that sorry slave trader on her way out of this nightmare.

“I see you have donned the white tunic of a politician,
Cyprian.” Disapproval clouded the face of the old priest. “Does this mean you’ll run for office?”

“The time has come.” Cyprian’s shoulders squared. “If the power of Aspasius is to be stopped, securing a seat in the Senate is a must.”

A roar of approval rattled Lisbeth to the core. These peasants would not cheer the foolish decision to take on the proconsul if they’d witnessed what she’d seen today when the woman in green silk dared to speak against the ruler of Carthage. The impertinence had most likely cost that brave woman a black eye, maybe even a broken jaw.

If Lisbeth remembered Papa’s history lessons correctly, Aspasius would have obtained his appointment as ruler of this province as a reward from the Senate. He would not give up his plum position without a fight. If there was one thing she had learned growing up in camps filled with men, it was the predictability of male stubbornness.

Why did Cyprian think he could make a difference? No doubt the wealthy, well-spoken, and wildly attractive Cyprian could give the proconsul a run for his money, but Cyprian would need more than a pretty face to accomplish the nullification of the Senate’s volatile political decision.

Cyprian cleared his throat. “Caecilianus, may I present the congregation with . . .” He leaned over and whispered, “You’re standing on my toga.”

“Oh, sorry.” Lisbeth hastily lifted her foot. The heel of her sandal caught in the hem of her skirt, upsetting her balance. Arms whirling, she teetered on the podium. Cyprian’s strong hand saved her from an embarrassing fall that would have surely sent her skirts sailing over her head.

“. . . a woman certain to bless our efforts.” His eyes did not mean a word of what his lips were saying.

“Bless what efforts?” Lisbeth shrugged free of Cyprian’s clasp. “Whatever secret plans you people are scheming here does not include me!”

Suddenly a side door to the garden burst open.

A panting woman grabbed the doorframe. Blood was splattered across her green silk tunic, brown woolen cloak, and the veil across her face. “Help.”

10

L
ISBETH SPRINTED TOWARD THE
bloody woman, shouting orders. “Bring light. Bandages. Hot water.”

Men leapt from their reclining couches. Mothers gathered their children close.

Two barking hounds stayed hard on Lisbeth’s heels, arriving at the woman’s side right after her. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” The woman took Lisbeth’s hand. “Come.”

“Let me check your injuries.”

“I can wait.” She dragged Lisbeth into the hall and pointed at the two young men slumped together on one of the brocade couches. “They cannot.”

The garden crowd quickly pressed in behind them, including Cyprian from the hot breath scorching Lisbeth’s neck.

The dogs scrambled around her and parked themselves at the feet of the biggest boy. At first glance, Lisbeth would have guessed the late arrivals to be victims of a car wreck. They were as bloodied and battered as some of the fatalities she’d seen wheeled into the ER, but these patients seemed to have gotten themselves here by their own power, with the bigger fellow alert enough to help the unconscious smaller one.

“No! Not my son.” Ruth pushed past Lisbeth and rushed to the larger boy. “Barek, Mama’s here.” She frantically began
removing the boy’s bloody cloak, searching his body for injuries.

“He’s your son?” The boy looked to be about seventeen. Ruth couldn’t have been much more than fifteen when she’d had him.

Caecilianus elbowed his way to the front of the crowd. “My boy. Not my boy.” He crumpled next to his dogs. “What can I do?”

“Pray,” Ruth mumbled. “Pray and remove these creatures from my path.”

Caecilianus collared his pets and made way for his wife.

“What happened?” Lisbeth moved toward the smaller boy, the one whose head hung like a limp rag.

“Soldiers.” The cloaked woman lifted the chin of the smaller boy. His eyelids fluttered. “Laurentius? Can you hear me?” An irregular-toothed smile sliced a wedge in his pie-shaped face. Then he drifted into unconsciousness. The lady in green silk removed the smaller fellow’s bloody arm from Barek’s shoulder. “They beat Laurentius with clubs. He may have a concussion. But I think Barek’s injuries are worse. I’ll tend him. You take Laurentius.”

“Me?” Who was this woman ordering her around like an ER attending?

Cyprian joined the women huddled around the couch. “Did the soldiers follow you here, healer?”

Healer?
Curious, Lisbeth stepped closer.

The woman in green silk shook her head. “We cut through the tenements.”

“Barek’s taken an arrow to the shoulder.” Ruth wrapped her hand around the cock-feather fletching that adorned the shaft. “I need to pull it out.”

“No!” Lisbeth and the healer shouted at the same time. Their heads snapped up. Their eyes fastened on each other. A brief, electrifying stare passed between them.

The healer was the first to recover. She quickly handed the
smaller boy over to Cyprian. “Broadheads are razor-sharp. The damage could be extensive. Ruth, help me take a look.”

“I’ll do it.” Lisbeth eased the larger boy forward and checked his back. “It’s a through and through. If the projectile punctured a lung or lacerated an artery—”

“There’s only one way to find out.” The healer fished something shiny out of her cloak pocket and wrapped it around her neck.

“Hey! Ruth, hold your son a minute.” Lisbeth released the larger boy. He fell into Ruth’s arms with a pained groan. “That’s my stethoscope!”

“You can have it when I’m finished.”

“You don’t even know how to use it. Give it to me!” Lisbeth lunged for the woman.

They both went crashing onto the marble floor. Lisbeth tried desperately to wrestle her stethoscope from this woman’s clutches.

“Stop!” Ruth screamed. “Cyprian, do something!”

Cyprian deposited the smaller boy into the arms of the bishop. His arm circled Lisbeth’s waist and lifted her off the woman. “What are you doing? There’s been enough bloodshed for one night.”

Lisbeth’s feet pedaled the air. Arms flailing, she fought to break free. “Give it back, witch!”

The healer placed a protective hand on the stethoscope and struggled to sit up. “Actually, I am not a witch, Lisbeth”—her breathy voice was no more than a whisper—“but an adequate surgeon . . . or so they used to say.” The hood of her cloak had been knocked free, along with the combs that held her hair in place. Thick ebony locks streaked with gray tumbled to her waist.

“How do you know my name?” Lisbeth felt Cyprian’s grip tighten around her middle. “How?”

The lady in green silk got to her feet. “This stethoscope once belonged to me.” She spoke in English, her eyes locked with Lisbeth’s.

A moment of stunned silence passed. When Lisbeth found her voice she answered in English. “Funny, I thought you just said this is your stethoscope.”

“I did,” the woman replied, and she ripped the veil from her face. “And from the efficiency of your triage, I trust you’ve learned to use it on more than inanimate objects.”

Lisbeth went limp, the fight hemorrhaging from her extremities at a deadly rate. She tried to speak, but a million unanswered questions lodged in her throat.

The disheveled woman with sad, broken eyes could not be who she was thinking of. That woman was put together. A beautiful, self-confident doctor. And the person she’d always wanted to be.

This couldn’t be happening. She must have hit her head when she fell into that stupid hole in Papa’s cave. Once Nigel and Aisa hauled her out, she’d come to in a couple of days. She and Papa would sit on overturned buckets outside his tent and share warm sodas and a laugh about who was crazier . . . him or her.

Cyprian spoke into Lisbeth’s ear. “Do you have healing skills?”

Lisbeth managed a numb nod.

“If you’re ready to behave, I’ll put you down.” Cyprian lowered Lisbeth’s feet to the floor.

She wanted to run toward the woman in the bloody green silk. To hug her. Or hit her. She wasn’t sure. But instead she stood motionless, restrained by Cyprian and the idea that her mother was alive. “Ma—”

“Magdalena is my name.” She snatched Lisbeth’s hand, sending a fiery blast of joy, confusion, and anger coursing through
Lisbeth’s veins. She yanked her close, cutting off the questions flooding Lisbeth’s mind. “Ask nothing,” she whispered.

What kind of mother disappears for twenty-three years, then expects her deserted child to shelve the questions?

“But—”

“Nothing.” Mama squeezed her hand until she garnered Lisbeth’s pained consent. “I need your help. Now.”

Emotions, raw and as bloody as the two injured boys on the couch, pumped through Lisbeth. If this woman was her mother, then her mother wasn’t dead. And if she wasn’t dead, why hadn’t she come home?
Had Mama chosen this life over the one they had together? Why didn’t she want to return to her and Papa?

Fury sizzled in Lisbeth’s chest, making it difficult to breathe. She’d keep quiet for now. Not because the woman who’d abandoned her when she was five deserved her obedience. She’d keep quiet because she had no words to explain the obvious. Saving ragtag rebels meant more to her mother than trying to get home to her own family.

“What do you want me to do?” Lisbeth aimed her sharp tone at her mother’s jugular, knowing full well that any woman who could stand by and watch someone auction off her daughter to the highest bidder would likely bleed ice.

“Are you a surgeon?”

Technically, Lisbeth wasn’t sure she was still a doctor. She shook her head.

“Then you tend Laurentius. I’ll operate on Barek.” Before Lisbeth could protest, her mother started again. “Quick. Let’s get them laid out on a clean, flat surface.” She motioned for Cyprian. “Careful with his neck.” Cyprian gently guided the boy to the floor, while she turned at once to remove Barek from Ruth’s arms. “Fetch the supplies I keep here.”

“I can’t leave my son.” Panic tightened Ruth’s grip on the
arrow. “This swelling will make the arrow impossible to remove. I must yank it out before he’s fully awake.”

Lisbeth’s mother cradled Barek with one arm while she gently pried Ruth’s fingers from the shaft. “You trust me, don’t you, friend?” She removed the stethoscope from her neck. After listening to his heart, she held it out to Ruth. “Give this to Lisbeth, and then heat the fire poker to cauterize this wound.”

Ruth kissed her son on the forehead and turned to Lisbeth. “My Barek must not die because of your bad temper.” She dropped the stethoscope into Lisbeth’s hand like it was a snake. “Save your fight for what matters.” Ruth reluctantly parted the crowd and scurried off to fetch the ordered supplies.

Ashamed that she’d once again placed her needs before the needs of her patients, Lisbeth clutched the rubber tube. She deserved the sting of Ruth’s rebuke. What kind of a doctor fights for a piece of medical equipment as if it were a locket containing faded pictures or snippets of hair?

Rubbing her finger over the engraved
M
on the bell, Lisbeth felt as if she were trying to conjure a genie. This stethoscope was more than a tangible link to the mother she had loved and lost. This stethoscope had been her lifeline to the future, to unfulfilled dreams. She’d told herself that becoming a doctor was her dream. But in truth, that dream belonged to her parents. Both of them. All Lisbeth had ever wanted was a family. The family the Hastings had been once upon a time.

Finding her mother should be the best thing that happened to her since this whole nightmare started. After all, Mama was the piece missing from the puzzle of her life, the piece she’d sought for years. Why didn’t she feel happy? Why was there still a cavern-size hole in her heart?

Lisbeth felt anxious eyes boring into her hesitation. She glanced at Mama. The woman she barely recognized was busy
setting up a makeshift OR. Lisbeth couldn’t help envying the complete trust and confidence the crowd—especially Cyprian—had in the seasoned surgeon. Mama made practicing medicine look easy . . . even under these less than satisfactory conditions. The resident, on the other hand, was the floundering chick recently pushed from the nest. If she was to make up for her foolish and unprofessional display, she had much to prove.

Lisbeth turned her attention to the young man on the mat and gasped. So caught up in the chaos, she’d failed to give this boy more than a once-over. Was the fatal mistake she had made in the twenty-first century simply a repeat of a similar mistake made in the past? If so, she was doomed to be a careless doctor. The cheese and wine she’d had in the bath soured in her stomach.

Lisbeth knelt to examine the young man with the flattened nose, moon-shaped face, and almond-slit eyes. Down syndrome. Her eyes slid from his face to his body. Naked from the waist up, purple bruises mottled the pale skin of the boy’s hairless chest. Someone much larger than Laurentius must have used blunt force to wipe the interminable smile from this innocent soul. Stubby fingers with pinkies that curved inward. Hobbit-like bare feet with larger than normal spaces between each big toe and second toe. Unlike Barek, this boy’s reduced stature and thinning hair made it difficult to determine his exact age. How could someone appear so old and so childlike at the same time? The weak suffering as the strong stood by. He was a child. Someone should have defended him. Visions of Abra lying still and blue in the middle of the gurney swept over her. Her inattention and indifference had killed that child. She was no better than the soldier who’d beaten Laurentius almost to death. Lisbeth leapt from her crouched position, ran to the garden, and vomited into the nearest planter.

Next thing she knew, Cyprian stood at her side, an irritating column of unshakable durability. “Are you ill?”