Return to Exile (7 page)

“Have you had time to review my case notes?” she asked.

He remained on the opposite side of the counter, keeping a safe distance between him and anything that might be contaminated. Including her. His triple-gloved hands clutched a stack of charts. “Measles are extremely rare in the United States. Most clinicians have never seen measles, especially people our age. What led you to make this particular diagnosis?”

“I’ve seen measles before.”

“Really?” His dark brows rose. “Where?”

Dr. Pruda wouldn’t believe the horrors of third-century Carthage even if she could find the right words to describe the suffering she’d witnessed in that place. If it wasn’t for the charcoal brazier scar on her wrist and the pregnancy stretch marks on her belly, she wouldn’t believe the impossible story either.

Lisbeth tugged her white coat sleeve over the fading mark just above her watch band. “North Africa.”

“When and where exactly?”

“My father’s an archaeologist. I grew up traveling from one desert hole to the next. I’m not sure exactly where. Why?”

“The lab results are back.” He offered a piece of paper for her review. “Seems your diagnosis was correct.” Dr. Pruda leaned in. A hint of something powerful and musky penetrated her own mask and hit her nose. “Measles is the most highly infectious virus known to man, aerosolized with a simple cough. It’s easy for an infected person who’s not yet covered in the telltale rash to get past airport security. Put one hundred unvaccinated people on a plane, let that infected person cough, and ninety people onboard will contract the disease.”

Lisbeth’s racing mind surpassed her galloping heart. “Are you ordering mandatory vaccinations?” It was what she would do to control the possibility of a few cases becoming an epidemic, but she was just a novice infectious disease specialist. Dr. Pruda, though no more than five years her senior, was the only one with the clout to sound that governmental alarm.

He straightened, his expression condescending. “What is rule number one of outbreak management?”

“Avoid full-scale panic.”

“Fear spreads faster than fevers.” His charcoal eyes turned hard and drilled into her over his mask. “Communicable diseases are
never entirely absent from the community. There will always be sporadic cases and minor outbreaks like what we have now. We’ve not nearly enough information yet to jump to conclusions.” Dr. Pruda tapped the back of her computer screen. “I shouldn’t have to explain to someone with your brilliant reputation the importance of managing this situation to avoid a fluke transmission becoming a large-scale panic that leads to an epidemic when the public tries to flee the area. Isolation, quarantine, and making sure the press doesn’t catch wind of this will be our first lines of defense.” He’d spoken precisely—every word sifted through a filter, stripped of any contaminants before released into the atmosphere.

“Wait a minute. That’s it? Keeping this out of the news is the best you’ve got?” Lisbeth pushed away from the computer, unwilling to have the urgency of this situation dismissed because of politics. “You might as well toss us into the third century with nothing more than a homemade vaporizer and a few eucalyptus leaves.”

“Excuse me?”

“Improving herd immunity by upping the numbers who’ve received viable vaccinations
is
our only line of defense. Trust me. I’ve tried every stopgap control you’ve suggested, and it didn’t work.”

Suspicion hung in the disinfected silence, a knotted noose awaiting her neck. “Dr. Hastings, exactly
when
did
you
try this methodology?”

How had she let something so stupid slip? Lisbeth clenched her jaw, fuming that she’d lost control, and lost it to this pompous weasel. “I meant, I’ve read several historical attempts at isolation and quarantine. You’re right. Those protocols reduced the transmission rates, but they didn’t stop them.”

“But you have no
practical
experience managing even a small outbreak?”

Sharing the details of how badly she’d handled being thrown into the terrifying experience of a third-century plague would do
nothing for her credibility. Lisbeth swallowed and gave a slight shake of her head.

“Well, Doctor, I do. And what I’m saying is this.” He took back his report. “We will work to achieve complete containment within forty-eight hours by sticking to our current protocol. Observe the quarantine, and treat our isolated patients as best we can.” He raised himself to his full six-foot-one height. “Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Lisbeth slumped into the desk chair and buried her face in her hands. Her mind traveled back eighteen hundred years to an exquisite villa by the Mediterranean Sea. The stench of fear and desperation filled the marbled halls. Twigs draped with strips of fabric, eucalyptus leaves floating in boiling water, and homemade hydration solutions had saved a few. But she’d been forced to leave long before she knew the true effectiveness of her efforts. She’d left the frightened people of Carthage to fend off an invading virus with nothing but their prayers. Was she overthinking things now out of guilt over the past? Was she making an outbreak into an epidemic in her mind because she’d been unable to forgive herself for deserting the people she’d grown to love?

“Dr. Hastings?” The tap to Lisbeth’s shoulder startled her upright.

“What is it, Nelda?”

“Your father just tried to get past the command center.”

“Oh, no.”

“I hustled him outside and told him to wait there until you could come to him.”

“Thanks.” After shedding her contaminated clothes, Lisbeth scrubbed her hands and arms with the vigilance of a surgeon headed into the OR, then suited up in a fresh paper gown, mask, cap, and gloves. She stuck a couple of extra masks in her scrub
pocket, waited until the cop on door duty left for a bathroom break, then quickly slipped outside for the first time in days. A cold mist stung her eyes.

“Maggie?” She fought the urge to run to her daughter. “Papa, you shouldn’t have brought my baby here.”

“Wasn’t about to leave her home alone.”

Maggie scooted behind Papa. “Stranger!” She clutched her Christmas doll with one hand and Papa’s legs with the other. “Stranger danger!”

“Maggie, it’s me, Mommy.”

Maggie peered around Papa’s leg. “Let me see your face.”

A man with an umbrella hurried along the sidewalk, coughing as he passed their little huddle.

“Hey, buddy, cover your mouth.” The man ignored Lisbeth’s direction and scurried inside the hospital without looking back. Lisbeth held out a mask to Maggie. “I can’t take my mask off, baby. In fact, you and G-Pa need to put these on.”

“Why?” Maggie backed away, fear flashing in her saucer-wide eyes.

“We’re playing a game.” Lisbeth hated lying, but the truth would rip the scab off the dark hole Maggie wasn’t ready for. “Hide-and-seek. Only with doctors’ masks.”

“No.”

“Look, Miss Magdalena. I’ve got mine on.” Papa danced around like a circus clown trying to coerce a smile, but his gyrations were getting nowhere. “Let me help you.” He quickly slipped the strap of the pleated paper over Maggie’s head.

Her little limbs immediately tensed. “It’s too tight.” Maggie clawed at the mask and tried to wiggle free at the same time. “I can’t breathe.”

“Loosen the metal clip across her nose, Papa.”

“That’s the best I can do,” Papa said.

Maggie took evasive action and squirmed out of Papa’s grasp. “I can’t.” She ripped off the mask. “I won’t.”

“Baby, it’s just paper. Air can pass straight through. Watch.” Lisbeth demonstrated breathing in and out. “Want to try again, baby?”

“No.” Maggie threw the mask on the ground. “I can’t.”

“What if we get a mask for your baby doll, too?” Papa bent to retrieve the soiled mask.

“Take her home, Papa.”

“She’ll be fine. Give her a minute.” Papa put an arm around Maggie. “She’s got to learn to face her fears.”

“Not today, she doesn’t.” Lisbeth waved them away. “Get her out of here!”

“Okay. Calm down.” Papa scooped Maggie up and started for the parking lot. Then he stopped, turned around, and handed Lisbeth a thick manila envelope he’d pulled from beneath his coat. “Almost forgot why we came. You need to see this.”

“Mail? You put my child at risk to bring me mail?”
The Vatican Apostolic Library
was stamped in the upper left-hand corner. “Your early-church research can wait until I get home.”

“When’s that gonna happen?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then no, this can’t wait.” Papa lifted Maggie’s hood over her head. “Promise you’ll read that as soon as you can.” He thumped the envelope in Lisbeth’s hand. “That paragraph I marked changes everything.”

6

Carthage

W
INTER REFUSED TO GIVE
way to spring. The sun hid behind clouds as heavy as Cyprian’s mood these long, dark days since his return from exile. Nothing was coming together like he planned.

The boy he and Magdalena rescued from the herb shop had died within hours of their homecoming. Cyprian had wanted to bury the lad in the back corner of the garden, but before he could dig a proper grave, several of the others who lined the mats in his halls had died as well. His gardens, while exceptionally large for a city property, did not have the space needed for multiple graves. The best he could do for the deceased was to wait until nightfall, put a cloak over his head, drag them out of the neighborhood, and place their bodies upon the growing heaps in the slums.

“You really should let Barek do that,” Ruth had said, insisting he take her place in the gardener’s cottage. “We’ve both had the measles. I don’t want you exposed.”

“Who took care of you?”

“Those we’d helped.” She had a pleased smile, one he couldn’t understand. “It was as if the hand of God put the cooling cloths upon our heads.”

Her ability to forgive was a root that ran deep, an anchor that
shamed him. “Lisbeth declared me immune after my run-in with that infected sailor. I’m not worried about catching measles.”

The reminder had satisfied her, and they’d all quickly settled into the new arrangement of Barek and Laurentius bunking with him in the cottage while Ruth, Junia, and Magdalena shared his master suite in the villa.

Daily more and more ill arrived on his doorstep, their faces flush with fever and their eyes wild with desperation. Magdalena and Ruth had done their best to tend the people, to offer them peace and comfort in their last hours, but without Lisbeth to share the load, the sick were dying faster than they could stock the vaporizer pots. At night, after he finished his accounts, Cyprian added a body or two to the rotting pile.

Tonight he stood at the tiny window of his groundskeeper’s cottage watching another northern gale toss anchored ships. Spotty reports came by way of the daily addition of sick. Foul weather had delayed the launch of the ship meant to fetch him. But once the waters warmed and his escape was discovered, Aspasius’s soldiers would tear the province apart searching for him. If he had not managed to rally his father’s old supporters by then, he would die in the arena. And the proconsul of Carthage would not only be free to steal Cyprian’s wealth, he would never have to answer for his dirty deeds.

Cyprian had used these days of lying low to get his finances in order and prepare for the possibility of the confiscation of his estate. He’d done as much as he could without an outside agent acting on his behalf, one who could secretly convert the sale of his properties into the cash required to transport Ruth and Magdalena beyond the proconsul’s reach. Pontius could do the foreign sales without risk of exposing their early return, but for Cyprian’s local holdings Ruth had suggested he use Felicissimus. Someone no one would suspect.

Turning over something this important to a former client bothered him. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the pudgy little slave trader. In fact, over the years, this particular client had proven exceptionally trustworthy. He and Felicissimus had conducted several secret and very successful business transactions after Cyprian’s conversion to Christianity.

They’d been introduced by their mutual friend Caecilianus. The old bishop believed if Felicissimus and Cyprian worked together, not only could Felicissimus be rehabilitated from the lying cheat he’d been before he became a believer, but together they could curtail Aspasius’s ability to acquire slaves. As one of the city’s shrewdest slave traders, Felicissimus knew of Rome’s latest conquests and what merchandise would appear on the block long before even the most prominent buyers. It was, after all, Felicissimus who’d alerted Cyprian to Lisbeth’s arrival. That he’d been allowed the opportunity to spare her from Aspasius, if only for a brief season, was a debt Cyprian could never repay.

Rescuing slaves with a slave trader did not make him uncomfortable. What bothered him was the blurring of well-defined lines of social standing. Caecilianus had encouraged him to let his patrician prejudices go. While his mentor was close at hand, Cyprian had to confess that he’d made progress. After all, hadn’t he married a slave? But he found it unsettling to see women doing men’s work, masters caring for slaves, and Felicissimus an appointed church deacon. If Caecilianus had lived, he would have relished the dissolution of the walls that separated the church into distinct classes. But Cyprian was not Caecilianus in more ways than that. The whole idea of “neither slave nor free” felt like shifting sand beneath his feet.

Wishing things were different would change nothing. He had no better ideas. If Ruth believed Felicissimus a suitable agent, she would not let the idea go until he gave it serious consideration.

An urgent rap at the door drew Cyprian from his brooding thoughts. “Ruth?” Water gushed from the eaves and soaked her head covering. The dogs rushed inside and began to shake water everywhere. “You’ll catch your death getting out in this storm.”

“We need the rain.” She swept into the room. From the basket upon her arm came the enticing scent of freshly baked bread. “You need dinner and a haircut.”

Ruth handed Cyprian the basket. She removed her black scarf and shook out the water. Since her husband’s death, Ruth had abandoned her elaborately styled hair in favor of a simple sunshine-colored braid that hung to her waist. She’d also taken to wearing bland, serviceable cotton tunics stained with her hacking patients’ phlegm. She turned down offers to purchase something better, claiming tailored silk
stolas
could be put to far better use ripped apart and converted into vaporizer tents.