Healer of Carthage (26 page)

“Perhaps we can leave after lunch then, my love?”

Cyprian tugged on her hand. “Good form demands we stay for the whole of Aspasius’s entertainment.”

She sat down, positioning her body as a barrier between Cyprian and his friend.

The slave assigned to Lisbeth took her plate, freed a tiny drumstick from the succulent breast of a game hen, then handed the roasted meat to her. She doubted the willingness of her stomach to welcome any nourishment, but she took the fowl and nodded her thanks to the girl.

Startling trumpets sounded again. A gate at the opposite end of the arena opened, and a guard dressed in armor that reflected the sun’s glare yanked the end of a rope. A small boy stumbled from the shadows. The child was followed onto the sand by the young woman tied to him, her clothes dirty and tattered. Roped to her were two teenage boys with matted hair and pimpled complexions. They all worked together to help the elderly woman in their group shuffle as far away from the barred cages as possible. The sight of the little family clumped together in the center of the arena
sent a clear message: Aspasius was Rome, and Rome could do whatever it wanted. Women and children could be sacrificed on the altar of entertainment, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop them.

“Who are they?” Lisbeth whispered to Cyprian.

“Christians.”

Standing back-to-back, the ragtag group simultaneously lifted their chins and brought their folded hands to their chests, as if they wanted all of Carthage to know they faced their terror with their god’s name upon their lips and their fear in check.

“Put these on,” ordered the guard as he shoved white robes at them.

The young woman Lisbeth guessed to be the mother of the little boy stepped from the group. She paraded a defiant stare around the arena that silenced all forty thousand visitors. “We are here for refusing to honor your gods.” Her gutsy voice floated to the highest tier. “By our death we earn the right
not
to wear your garments.”

Murmurs rippled through the stands.

Aspasius stood. “Bring forth the father.” An iron gate at the opposite end of the arena clanked open.

A wild-eyed man with iron shackles on his wrists scrambled into the ring. “Let them go.” His desperate lunge for his family was met with the guard’s quick yank on the chain. The man fell backward with a bone-breaking thud. The guard dragged him to the wall, where he promptly clipped the chain into an iron ring.

Aspasius extended his arm. Screaming cats shredded the silence. “For their treason against Rome, these plebeians are sentenced to death.” He turned his thumb to the sun. Cheers exploded. Patrons began shouting their wagers to the bookies scrambling through the bleachers. As the odds takers scribbled down bets on clay-lined wooden slates, Lisbeth could not take her
eyes off the child, a gaunt and fragile boy nearly the same age as Junia.

“What will happen to them?” Even as she asked, she knew. “Not the cats.”

“Even the lions are subject to the yoke of Rome.”

The proconsul’s official scribe closed his wax tablet and put away his stylus. There would be no accounting of the traitors sacrificed in the name of entertainment. No record of the tortures performed on innocent women and children in this place. History could only guess at the horrific sight. Even Papa would find it difficult to stomach this dose of historic reality.

“This isn’t right!” Lisbeth stood and leaned over the railing as far as she dared. Below their royal box, hungry cats clamored to be released. She glanced back to the center of the dusty arena. The woman with sad eyes locked with hers. Every movie Lisbeth had ever seen about the Colosseum replayed in her mind. People ripped limb from limb while the frenzied mob celebrated.

“Take my hand!” Lisbeth, leaning over the railing as far as she could, shouted to the woman.

Cyprian pulled her back. “No.”

She jerked free. “Maybe you can sit here and do nothing, but I can’t.”

Cyprian’s arm circled her waist and drew her hard against his solid body. “Say no more, woman,” he warned in her ear, then silenced her completely by covering her lips with his own. Heat penetrated the fine gauze veil. Everything in the world swam from her head. Papa. Mama. Laurentius. Junia. Finding her way back.

“Ah,” he said when he finished. He glanced around the box and smiled when he noticed everyone staring at them. “The craziness of new love. It can drive a man wild.”

Never had a kiss induced such an onslaught of ecstasy and anger. Lisbeth swiped her hand across her lips. “How dare—”

English broke through the din of many languages and reached her ears. “Let it go,” Mama was saying. “For now, you must let it go.”

Lisbeth relaxed against Cyprian’s hold. She swallowed the bile in the back of her throat and worked to find a smile. She lifted her veil and planted a kiss of her own squarely upon his lips. When she released him, she smiled at the tiny trickle of blood her retaliation had drawn. She blushed and cooed, blinking back tears as she dabbed at his lip with the hem of her
palla
.

Cyprian drew her close, a sheepish smirk on his face. “Such passion,” he told his friends as he held her protectively.

Safety was an illusion, a fantasy that must be pushed from her mind. Never could she forget that she, like the frightened Christians on the arena floor, was a captive. And not just in another time period, but in one big, fat lie she had helped create. Any moment the jig would be up, and she could very well find herself in the jaws of a lion. For now, she had no choice but to dangle from Cyprian’s arm, the prize he needed to gain his senatorial seat and the leverage she needed to free her mother. But she would not watch innocent children ripped to shreds.

Lisbeth squeezed her eyelids tight and forced her mind to find a happy place, a time when her life counted for more than just trying to stay alive. Visions of Craig and the glorious spring day when they’d skipped out on a prostate lecture in favor of a picnic at the arboretum played in her head. Walking among those incredible tulips and the stunning views of White Rock Lake with her hand in his, she’d felt hopeful. Like things would be different from what had become of her family before.

Was Craig wondering where she was? Had he grown weary of waiting on her to text him? Had he caught a plane to Africa and come in search of her?
Oh, God, please let it be so.
Craig was brilliant, first in his surgery class. If anyone could figure out where she’d gone and how to get her back, it would be her fiancé.

The crowd gasped and then fell completely silent. Curiosity immediately pried Lisbeth’s eyes open. Everyone in their booth stared at the arena floor, their mouths agape. Lisbeth wiggled out of Cyprian’s arms. In the middle of the arena the boy stood alone, his wide eyes darting between his father chained to the arena wall and the big cats stepping over mauled bodies while they circled him.

No one in the stands moved. Dust hung in the air. Screams of innocent women and children would echo from this place for generations, and yet not one spectator in the seats would lift a finger to stop the barbarism. Deaf ears. Blind eyes. Yet not bad men. More likely, good men and women. Good people who worked to keep their own children out of harm’s way. Good people who wouldn’t dream of murdering their neighbors. Yet today, they would do nothing. Good people doing nothing. The fall of every civilization playing out before her very eyes.

“What would you have me do, Lisbeth of Dallas?” Aspasius’s voice rang out. “You choose the child’s fate.”

Had she done that very thing, chosen whether or not a child would live, when she discounted Abra’s symptoms? “Not me. I’ll have no part of this.”

“But you must,” Aspasius crooned. “It is my engagement gift to you and the solicitor of Carthage.”

Lisbeth stood on shaky legs, fully aware the entire arena awaited her decision, including Cyprian. But she avoided his eyes and any judgment they may have held. She had only seconds before the cats pounced. “Amnesty is as good for those who give it as for those who receive it.” How she’d conjured a Victor Hugo quote from the recesses of her literary studies she couldn’t say, but if anyone understood an era of social misery and injustice, it was this avid human rights campaigner. She prayed the author’s words would have the timeless impact her own ability lacked.

“Strange sentiment.” Aspasius chuckled. “The boy lives.” His face completely devoid of compassion, he extended his arm and gave the thumbs down. “But the father dies.”

“No!” Lisbeth’s scream bounced around the stone enclosure.

Aspasius turned his thumb up, and the applause of approval swallowed her disapproval whole.

Cyprian put himself between her and Aspasius. “Your gracious rule will not go unrewarded, Consul.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and smiled at his sovereign, but Lisbeth saw tears in his eyes as he eased her back onto her seat. “Not another word,” he mouthed at her.

Lisbeth sank onto the cushion. Her confidence that Cyprianus Thascius would not let this wrong go unpunished dissipated in the dust rising from the arena floor. Political justice could not restore this child’s family any more than she could restore hers.

31

A
SHROUD OF DARKNESS HUNG
over the city when the last dead gladiator was hooked and dragged from the arena. At Lisbeth’s insistence, Ambassador Sergia finally excused himself for a much-needed rest. She’d doused Cyprian’s hands with a flagon of expensive wine. The added precaution may have protected him from the measles, but no amount of scrubbing would remove the innocent blood from their hands.

The satiated throng, rowdy from overstimulation, pushed toward the exits. Lisbeth gathered her gown’s excess fabric, sadness weighting her steps. She drew the palla hood over her head. Contemplating how much to tell Cyprian about Sergia and her suspicions of measles, she put her hand through the crook of her recently proclaimed fiancé’s arm and let him plow a wide escape path.

Outside the arena, drunken patrons jostled Lisbeth into Cyprian as they waited for their litter to be brought around. “Hold tight to me,” he said.

“My lord.” Felicissimus emerged from the crush and worked his way between her and Cyprian. “I’ve received word that a new shipment of captives will reach the harbor—”

“It will have to wait, Felicissimus.”

“But they will arrive within the hour,” the slave trader protested.

Just as Cyprian was about to respond, the mob ripped Lisbeth from his arm. “Cyprian!”

Cyprian shoved Felicissimus aside and charged into the throng, Pontius joining him in the rescue. Cyprian reached her first. When his hand found hers, he pulled her to him, swept her into his arms, and yanked the veil from her face. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” Peering over Cyprian’s shoulder, she could see surprised recognition registering on the slave trader’s face. “Can we go?”

“My lord, what are you doing?” Felicissimus asked. “She’s a—”

“Felicissimus, I’m in no mood for you or your deplorable business tonight.” Cyprian parted the litter curtains, lifted Lisbeth inside, then quickly mounted the litter and dropped the curtains in Felicissimus’s shocked face. He tapped the bronze pole, and six brawny men hoisted their transport. “Pontius, pay the slave trader to bother me no more.” His secretary hopped out and disappeared into the crowd.

“Can we trust him to keep our secret?” Lisbeth asked.

“Felicissimus can be a pain, but he is loyal to the core.” Cyprian yanked the curtains closed.

“Maybe he was, but I don’t think he appreciated you blowing him off.”

“Blowing off?”

“Never mind.”

Flushed and nauseated from hours of senseless killing, she didn’t have the energy to worry about Felicissimus. She needed to find her bearings. To realign everything she’d seen in the arena against everything she wanted to believe true of human nature. To decide what she would do if she’d failed to protect Cyprian from contracting measles. She waited until their litter bearers had their transport free of the masses, then asked, “Could you open the curtains?”

Cyprian eyed her suspiciously, as if he wondered what had ever possessed him to agree to this folly.

“I’m not trying to escape, although I should after that little kissing exhibition you put me through.”

Without speaking a word concerning their uncomfortable performance, he reluctantly complied and fell back against the pillows.

She poked her head out far enough to catch a glimpse of the night sky. Papa had taught her that if she set a course by the stars, she could always find her way home. Her way back to truth. How many nights had she and Papa sat side by side, their overturned buckets touching, the fruity tendrils of Papa’s Erinmore wrapping science into a tidy package as they examined the stars . . . these very same twinkling points of light?

The thought startled her. With all that had happened since her arrival, she’d felt out of sorts. How had she missed the fact that the vast nighttime sky had remained so . . . unchanged? Proof of a consistent universe. The stability of science, her comfort even when life was overwhelmingly unstable. Yet no matter how she spun finding her mother, stumbling upon a deadly epidemic, discovering she had a half brother, witnessing the slaughter of innocent children, and agreeing to marry a guy she’d just met, none of it fit into a consistent way of thinking. Especially not the strange feelings welling up inside her for this man, this man who was a mixture of Roman and something else she couldn’t put her finger on.

She inhaled the muggy breeze blowing in from the sea. “What do you know of the Cave of the Swimmers?”

Cyprian rested his head on a pillow, his eyes closed as if he nursed a headache. “Why do you ask?”

“You told Aspasius that you met me at the Cave of the Swimmers.”

“I was just following your lead, making up tales to balance
yours.” He rubbed his temples. “I don’t know why that old legend came to my mind.”

“But why the Cave of the Swimmers? Have you been there?”

“I’ve heard stories of caravans who sought shelter in a desert cave and then vanished, never to be seen again. I don’t know. It just seemed like the impossible tale fit your strange comings and goings.” When she said nothing, Cyprian opened his eyes. “It’s only a legend but a powerful one. If Aspasius believes there is a possibility you hail from such a cursed place, perhaps it will breed fear into that hardened heart of his.” Cyprian turned his gaze to the stars. “Don’t worry. No one knows if such a place even exists.”