Return to Exile

by Lynne Gentry

  Aspasius brushed his hands and stood. The priest towered over him by a hand’s breadth, and the advantage irritated Aspasius greatly. But what was he to do? Until the gods removed their curse, the blasted pain in his feet made wearing his heeled shoes a discomfort he could no longer tolerate. “I appointed you to divine how the gods are feeling, not rule my province.”

  Scipios peered down his sharp nose. “It may or may not be evident what the gods will.”

  “Why must I suffer your vacillating pronunciations? Are the gods really so difficult to pin down? The Christians always seem so sure of their one God.” Even as the wildcats sprang from the bowels of the arena, he’d seen beaten and bound believers offer their praise and trust to the one God. “Never in the history of the games have the arena attendees witnessed a single soul rescued from the jaws of a lion, yet the myth that true believers will be spared persists.” His Roman gods were the ones who’d brought this much-needed rain. “Ours is not the strange practice. Ours is the way of truth.” And Aspasius Paternus would never turn his back on what he knew worked. On the two things he trusted: himself and his gods.

  “Do your work, Scipios,” Aspasius commanded.

  “I’ll need help lifting the sacrifice to the altar.”

  “Well, Pytros. Don’t just stand there. Help the man.”

  “Me?”

  “Surely you don’t expect your master to manhandle the ­animal?”

  Pytros let out a disgusted sigh and circled the goat, not quite sure where to start. He wrinkled his nose and lowered himself close to the hooves. He grabbed hold of a hind leg, then a front leg, and flipped the animal on its side. The goat’s flailing feet clipped the scribe’s chest. Pytros let a string of curse words fly as he wrestled the animal atop the smooth altar stones. Quick as Pytros was with the stylus, he was a bit awkward securing the thin legs with the lead rope, but he finally managed the task.

  “Step aside.” Though Scipios appeared frail, his execution of the sacrifice was quick. His long, slender fingers wielded the knife with the skill of a field surgeon. Blood sprayed from the deep slit across the goat’s throat and splattered Aspasius’s robe. He lowered his chin to his chest and smiled at the redemptive sign. Scipios made another incision, and goat entrails spilled upon the altar.

  The old priest clamped his buckteeth over his lower lip and reached inside the animal’s warm cavity. He lifted out a gelatinous mass and brought it close for examination. A scowl drew his eyes in tightly.

  “Tell me what you see,” Aspasius demanded.

  The priest laid the liver upon the red-hot altar. “A black spot.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “The gods have aligned against you.”

  “Look again!”

  Scipios stepped up to the altar. Tiny tongues of fire had charred the edges of the slick organ. He peered through the smoke. “An army of men, women, and children rising like mist from the sea and marching toward Carthage.”

  “Whose side are they on?” Aspasius pressed in until smoke stung his nose. He hated relying on others, especially when the margin for error was so great. “Mine or the Christians’?”

  The priest looked back at him dumbly. “I don’t know. They’re covered in blood.”

  “I’m trying to save Carthage!” Aspasius bellowed. “I need more than mist and blood. I need something that will nail Christians to crosses.” He jerked the priest from the altar. “I swear, if you’re lying to me, I will see that you are the first to die.” Aspasius stared at the curling liver, waiting for some sort of sign that the priest was wrong. “Make another offering.”

  “Huff all you want, Aspasius.” The priest wriggled free. “It won’t change the fact that the people of Carthage have turned from the gods. Religion commands their service but no longer endears their hearts. Juno has forsaken you.”

  “Bridge this chasm with Juno.” He shook the priest. “Bridge it now, or I’ll have your head.”

  “Your threats do not scare me.” Scipios coughed, raising his bloody hands to support his chest. When the hacking fit stopped, he cleared his throat. “The gods have not granted me long life. My glory will not surpass my ancestors’.”

  Aspasius raised his hands to the priest’s neck and clamped down hard. “Then I shall send you on your way with great speed.”

  “Master! No!” Pytros pulled him off. “Kill a holy flamen and you will bring protesters pounding at your doors, no matter how much they seem to disregard the gods.”

  The room was spinning as Aspasius backed away. “What do you suggest I do?”

  Scipios held out his bloody knife grimly. “Say Scipios has succumbed to his cough. When I am out of the way, you can install a more effective mediator, one who says what you want to hear.” Scipios waited, baiting Aspasius to end his miserable life. When Aspasius waved the knife away, the priest wiped his knife upon his cloak. “Or you could demand all of Carthage return to the gods.”

  “I’ve done that, you fool.”

  “Then make them listen this time.”

  “How?”

  “Close the cemeteries outside the city. When they can no longer find a fresh breath of air, they will seek the gods.” Although Scipios tried to give the impression his own life mattered little to him, he beat a hasty exit, rubbing his neck on his way out the gate.

  Aspasius turned and snarled at Pytros, who was trying to tidy up the altar. “Leave that.”

  “But the stench.”

  “We have more pressing business.”

  “Closing the cemeteries?”

  “That and more.” Aspasius went to the fountain and dipped his blood-splattered hands. “I want Christians afraid to leave their homes.”

  “How?”

  “Scare them. Rough them up in the marketplace. Make them afraid to walk the streets. If Cyprian’s army can’t gather, they can’t fight. If that doesn’t work, we’ll herd them into their hovels and do as Nero did: light the fires, burn them and the plague from our midst.” Fish fanned the waters pinking beneath his fingers. “From the ashes of the heretics we shall raise a more solid populace. Mark my word, Pytros. Before spring my city shall once again be favored by the gods. And once it is, the friends of Cyprian’s father will no longer be able to deny the danger of allowing the nobleman’s son to live.”

  26

  THE RANCID STINK OF certain death and dying hope fouled the west wing of Cyprian’s villa.

  So far, Diona’s fever had followed the typical pattern of typhoid, rising as the sun lowered. In her fevered delirium, she mumbled constantly and picked at her bedclothes.

  Diona’s parents stayed close by her mat. Titus paced. Vivia’s hands churned beneath the folds of her stola. Lisbeth thought the woman’s behavior odd compared to most mothers of critically ill children. Usually they were so desperate to relieve their child’s suffering they couldn’t keep their hands off them.

  But Vivia kept her hands hidden—as if she couldn’t stomach any contact with things beneath her. The aristocrat’s strange phobia might save her from the bad, but her unwillingness to reach out also kept her from experiencing anything good. The feel of a newborn’s skin. The refreshment of cool water. The dying grip of her daughter, which was exactly where Diona was heading if something didn’t turn around.

  Lisbeth had no experience treating typhoid. But she knew two things: First, antibiotics and oral rehydration must take priority over other interventions. She’d already used up one of the three precious rounds of her oral antibiotic supply and poured every herbal remedy Mama mixed down the girl’s throat. Yet, after nearly twelve hours of supportive treatment, Diona’s condition had actually worsened. Apparently stopping typhoid’s predictable progression would be very difficult without intravenous drugs. Second, she couldn’t go back to the future and leave these people to suffer. At least not right away.

  “Diona has always been so dramatic.” Vivia watched as Lisbeth and Mama balanced on their knees, wrestling a bedpan out from under their patient. “Pouti
ng over the many suitors her father turned away.”

  Titus looked up from his pacing. “It was always for her own good, Vivia.”

  “Diona didn’t eat for nearly a week after you forbade her marriage.”

  “Don’t blame me. You’re the one who insisted Cyprian had the creeping pox.”

  Lisbeth’s head snapped up, and she nearly spilled the foul-smelling bedpan. “Cyprian? Engaged to Diona?”

  “Oh.” Vivia tried to appear as if she’d made an accidental faux pas, but the jab felt intentionally placed. “I’m so sorry. I thought you knew.”

  “Lisbeth,” Mama interrupted before Lisbeth could press the woman for details, “look.” Her head tilted toward the bedpan. “Blood.”

  Satisfying her jealous curiosity would have to wait. “Vivia, how long have Diona’s stools been bloody?” Lisbeth asked.

  “Two, maybe three days.” Vivia’s hands twisted.

  “Why would you delay your daughter’s treatment?”

  “You don’t have to bark at my wife!”

  “When Diona added blood to her complaints of belly pain, I thought she was whining about her monthly,” Vivia explained.

  “Her bowels could have perforated.” Lisbeth conducted a quick exam. “Low pulse. Spleen swollen and tender. Abdomen distended.”

  “Sepsis.” Mama stood. “I’ll get my scalpel.”

  “Wait.” Lisbeth’s mind retraced the sketchy details of the ileal perforation surgery she’d observed in the OR as a medical student. “We don’t have intravenous antibiotics, or a way to correct her electrolyte imbalance, or even an NG tube to suction her stomach.”

  “We’ll have to improvise.” Mama retrieved her tool satchel.

  Improvising was Mama’s go-to answer for every medical emergency. A broken arrow shaft had saved Laurentius. Elevating the head of a bed and pounding on a child’s back had saved Junia. But Diona’s rapidly deteriorating condition left little room for improvisation.

  “Do you have any mandrake root in your bag of tricks?” Lisbeth asked.

  Mama smiled. “Someone’s done their homework.”

  She didn’t consider herself anywhere near the expert herbalist that Mama had become, but she had devoted some serious study to the healing properties of natural remedies. “The least we can do is knock her out,” Lisbeth said. “Any rue? We’ll need to empty her stomach as best we can.”

  “Nothing makes a mother prouder than when her daughter knows how to induce emergency vomiting.”

  “You are a strange people.” Vivia turned her head as if the whole subject was beneath her.

  Mama and Lisbeth shared an amused glance as Mama poured rue oil into a cup of hot water and stirred until the contents turned a muddy brown. If the mixture tasted as bitter as it smelled, Diona’s gag reflex would quickly accomplish what was needed. Mama added a hint of honey to make the emetic go down easier.

  Lisbeth set about making the operating field as sterile as possible. She heard Ruth’s voice in the kitchen. If Ruth was in the kitchen, who was watching Maggie? “Mama, I’m going to make sure someone’s keeping an eye on Maggie while we knock out this surgery. I’ll be right back.”

  Lisbeth hurried to the kitchen. “Where’s Maggie?”

  “In bed with Junia.” Ruth chopped vegetables. “Poor Laurentius was ready for a break.”

  “Is Cyprian with them?”

  “He, Barek, and Pontius are in the garden organizing the church into a more effective workforce.”

  Lisbeth couldn’t drag her eyes up from the flawless movements of Ruth’s hands. She hated the illogical resentment still simmering in her belly, the feelings she couldn’t get a handle on, but simply by choosing not to do anything about the two-family situation for now, it was as if Cyprian had silently chosen Ruth. It seemed no matter how congenial they all tried to be, there was no going back. They’d each spent the day tending the assignments she’d made and sticking to their chosen areas of Cyprian’s massive estate.

  Which was just as well.

  At least behind the safety of thick plaster walls, neither of them had to pretend they weren’t stealing glances at the other. Lisbeth knew, coming back, that things might have changed a bit during her time away, but she had no idea she would feel so uncomfortable in her own home. She almost wished she’d stayed in Dallas rather than watch Cyprian dote on Ruth and her growing womb.

  Jealousy burned in the place where her own child had developed within her womb. During those long, frightening months of waiting on Maggie’s birth, she’d longed to have Cyprian’s hand on her belly, to watch him smile when he felt Maggie’s determined little fist pummel the walls of her watery cocoon.

  Lisbeth started to reach for a vegetable but suddenly remembered they were raw, like her emotions. “Mama’s doing an ileal perforation repair, and I’ll be assisting. I’d appreciate it if you could keep an eye on Maggie. She likes to kick off the covers.”

  “I’m enjoying her. She’s no trouble.” Ruth scraped sliced vegetables into a large bowl. “Naomi’s tending the fire close by, but if it will give you some peace, I’ll sit with the girls as soon as the soup starts to simmer.”

  Enjoying my daughter? “Just keep an eye on her, that’s all I ask.”

  Lisbeth returned to the typhoid hall, feeling guilty for her less than gracious response. Prickly as Lisbeth was now, she’d been even more caustic and difficult in the early days of her first visit to Carthage. Yet Ruth had patiently shared her clothes, her wisdom, and her love. Freely. Selflessly. With no strings attached to her offer of friendship. Lisbeth owed her old friend more than an apology. She owed her for introducing her to a whole new way of thinking, an introduction to Christ that had changed her life. She would find Ruth and offer an apology once they had Diona stabilized. A truce would make her time here bearable.

  Lisbeth slipped back into their OR with her backpack. “I brought you something.” She presented Mama with the new scalpel and suture needles she’d brought with her from the twenty-first century.

  “Perfect.” As Mama fingered the new equipment, her gaze traveled to a place Lisbeth could only guess at: her old operating rooms perhaps, maybe even Papa. She couldn’t be sure.

  Lisbeth dropped the new scalpel into the boiling water, then went around the hall, gathering lamps. She filled all three with oil and fresh wicks. After she placed a clean chamber pot within easy reach of Diona, she suggested to Vivia and Titus that they might be more comfortable waiting in the garden.

  When Titus refused, Lisbeth rigged a blanket drape between Diona and her parents. “Whatever you do, stay on that side.”

  Titus lifted the blanket and marched to Diona. “If I’d wanted my daughter to be sliced up by a slave, I would have hired the quack who tends my horses.”

  Lisbeth bristled. “My mother is one of the best surgeons I’ve ever seen.” She escorted Titus back to his chair. “If your daughter lives it will be because that wonderful doctor saved her life. Step around that blanket again, either of you, and I’ll throw you out of here myself.” She strode around the drape and lit the lamps.

  “I hope you haven’t made promises I can’t keep,” Mama whispered as she concocted an antibacterial solution of warm water, goldenseal, myrrh, and turmeric to wash the peritoneal cavity once she repaired the leak. “Ready?”

  Not really. “When you are.” Lisbeth dropped to her knees opposite Mama, gloved up, and lifted the girl’s head.

  Mama managed to pour a few sips of the rue down Diona’s throat. Within seconds, the gut-wrenching results left their patient so weak she barely had the strength to chew on the dried mandrake root.

  Once Diona’s eyelids closed and her body went limp, Lisbeth removed the parsnip-shaped bark with the strong, earthy fragrance.

  Mama stood ready with a stainless steel scalpel in one hand and a blunt bronze metal probe in the other. She swiped her brow on her sleeve. “Here we go.” She leaned in and made a long, vertical incision.

  Diona didn’t flinch.

&nb
sp; Mama used metal hooks to clasp the lip of the abdominal walls and expose the small intestine. “Hold these.”

  Lisbeth took over the hooks. “You know they have little cameras that can look around inside a person now.”

  “You don’t say.” Mama lifted healthy gray sections of bowel and carefully searched for the tear. “I’d rather trust my hands and eyes, but I’d give my right arm for some decent Kelly forceps.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind next time I come.” Next time? There won’t be a next time. Lisbeth blinked back tears. How would she convince her mother to take Laurentius and leave with her when there were so many depending on her here? Was she going to lose Mama as well?

  Mama poked around until she found the fiery ulceration on the intestine. A quick debridement of the perforation’s ragged edges was quickly followed with some well-placed sutures. “We’ll clean up the infection as best we can, then close.”

  Lisbeth plugged the earbuds of her stethoscope into her ears to check Diona’s vitals.

  “So much blood.” Vivia peered over the draping.

  “Lady, I said not to look over here.” Lisbeth tilted her head to indicate Vivia should sit down.

  “I hear singing. Do you?”

  “It’s impossible to hear anything with you jabbering.”

  “It is the water goddess.” Vivia’s wide eyes were locked on her daughter’s open gut. “She comes from the sea to cry for the loss of her children.”

  “You’ve not lost your child.” Lisbeth draped the stethoscope around her neck and handed Mama the antibacterial wash. “Titus, you better get her out of here.”

  “But I hear the water goddess—”

  “I don’t believe in your gods, Vivia.” Lisbeth dabbed fluid from the open cavity.

  “Then it must be the Christians singing.”

  Lisbeth and Mama glanced at each other over their masks.

  “People talk, you know.” Vivia clutched the lip of the drape. “Titus didn’t want to come to the healer of the Christians, but I said we had no choice. Galen wanted to cut her wrists. Bleed her out a little. I said no.” Her lips pursed, as if she might vomit. “And look … you’ve done worse.”