by Lynne Gentry
Dr. Redding assumed command. He halted CPR and checked Abra’s current cardiac rhythm, which was still dangerously slow. He palpated her femoral artery. “No pulse.” Concern deepened in his eyes. “Give another milligram of epi, and check a blood gas.”
Lisbeth anxiously counted the seconds. Finally, Dr. Redding gave the signal to resume CPR, and she relieved Queenie, wrapping her hands around the child’s tiny chest. With each compression she prayed the heart would awaken beneath her thumbs.
“Her pH is six point five!” Nelda yelled from the back of the room. Abra’s blood acidity level indicated life was not possible.
Dr. Redding kept his eyes on the monitor. “She’s in vfib. Initiate shock. Clear!”
Lisbeth halted CPR, but she could not will her hands to let go.
Dr. Redding pulled on the back of her coat. “Clear, Hastings.”
Abra’s lifeless body jerked with the jolt of electricity. The moment the paddles were removed, Lisbeth jumped in and resumed CPR, but vfib returned. Three separate shocks failed to initiate Abra’s pulse.
“Give me an intracardiac needle.” Dr. Redding stuck a prefilled syringe directly into Abra’s still heart. The child who’d been screaming only a few hours before didn’t even flinch.
Lisbeth held her breath, alternating her attention between frantically recounting every detail of her earlier examination of this child and the bruised chest in her hands.
“Stop CPR and check rhythm.” All eyes locked on the monitor. A yellow flatline raced across the screen. Dr. Redding let out an exhausted sigh. “Enough.”
“No!” Lisbeth pumped harder. “I can’t lose her.”
Dr. Redding grabbed her hands. “Enough, Hastings.” The room went silent, except for Lisbeth’s labored breaths. “Call it.”
She released her hold and stepped back from the blue body in the middle of the adult-size gurney. Naked and lifeless. So small. Ten fingers. Ten toes. A little upturned nose. Perfect. Except she was dead.
Lisbeth searched for anything left undone, something forgotten, something they hadn’t tried. The floor and bed were littered with EKG tracings, empty medication vials, stray needles and syringes. Short of cursing, there was nothing left to do.
“Time of death … zero two five one” ripped from Lisbeth’s throat.
Dr. Redding slung his gloves in the trash, then walked over to Abra’s mother and placed a large hand on her shoulder. He shook his head and solemnly left the room.
A razor-sharp wail jolted Lisbeth awake.
She sat upright, every nerve alerted. Sweat dripped down her back. She wasn’t in the ER. She hadn’t just killed a kid. And she wasn’t home. Her reality came into an uneasy focus. Something was missing from the plebeian apartment she’d spent the past four days guarding. Something important. Her mind clawed through the fog of sleep deprivation for an answer.
Deathly quiet. Silence. Junia’s barky cough had ceased.
“Oh, no.” Lisbeth unfurled her legs from the pallet she’d made herself beside the small bed and scrambled to her feet. Tingles shot from her toes to her hips. She touched the water pot at the base of the vaporizer canopy.
Cold.
“Lord, don’t let her be dead.” She ripped the cloth from the frame she’d rebuilt over Junia after she came back and found the first vaporizer destroyed, Numidicus dead, and Mama gone. She grabbed Junia’s wrist. “Give me a pulse, little girl.”
Junia’s black eyes fluttered open, alert and questioning. “Mama?”
Lisbeth released her breath. “Thank God.” She stroked Junia’s forehead while sucking in huge gulps of relief. “I think your fever’s gone, little one.” The fiery red splotches that had started on the child’s face and crawled over her entire body were now a tarnished brown. “Feeling better?”
“Mama?” The rawness of the child’s first attempt to speak in three days grated Lisbeth’s heart. “I want my mama.”
“I know, baby.”
Somehow Lisbeth had managed to remove the body of Numidicus on her own, but where had her mother gone? The area was definitely not a safe one, and Lisbeth hoped, despite herself, that Mama had walked out on her again before whatever dangerous rogue or bored, mischief-making Roman soldier had come and killed Numidicus. At least then she would be safe. Lisbeth couldn’t face the possibility of Mama coming to the same fate as Junia’s poor father. She couldn’t imagine experiencing the death of her mother one more time. Lisbeth looked into Junia’s expectant face and saw in the girl’s eyes herself all those years ago.
“I bet you’re thirsty, sweetheart. I’ll be right back.” Lisbeth tucked an empty terra-cotta jug under her arm. “Stay in bed. And don’t answer the door.”
Lisbeth raised her cloak hood, poked her nose into the corridor, then ventured out to join the noisy line of women on their evening pilgrimage to the well. A crowd would make it easier to disappear if she ran into more soldiers. Until then, she must stay alert for signs that others might be infected with measles. So far, no nasty coughs or mothers complaining of sick kids. Perhaps Junia’s family and the family upstairs were the only ones afflicted. Lisbeth held back from the group, pretending she’d found a crack in her jug. Feeling every bit the foreigner she was, she eavesdropped on the gossip. Marriage troubles. Childrearing problems. Rising prices in the market. Gossip of curses on Numidicus for his strange beliefs. A world not so different from the one she’d left behind.
One by one, the women filled their jugs, said their farewells, then tramped into the deepening twilight. When the coast was clear, Lisbeth approached the deserted well and lowered the gourd, peering into the damp, musty cavern.
Was this the way home? With a thunk the gourd sank into the murky darkness. Part of her wanted to hold her nose and jump, to take her chances in the unknown rather than face another day of this constant reliving of the past and the most painful moments in her memory. Rough stone sanded Lisbeth’s palms as she lowered her head and breathed in the scent of water gurgling from somewhere deep within the earth. She couldn’t back out of the promise she’d made to Numidicus. Her inattention had left one innocent child to fend for herself. She would never leave another.
The rope burned Lisbeth’s hand as she raised the heavy gourd. Newly mustered bravado wouldn’t do her any good once she ran out of provisions. After she mixed up this last batch of rehydration solution, everything Numidicus had scavenged and what little food she’d found in Mama’s basket would be gone.
Lisbeth emptied the gourd into her jug. Water would not sustain them. Junia needed nourishment, and so did she. Either they starved, or she did the last thing she wanted to do … return to Cyprian.
In the predawn darkness, Lisbeth hurried to finish her preparations. If she didn’t return to Cyprian’s now, the odds of avoiding snarly soldiers were nil. Certain Junia was too weak to make the trip on foot, Lisbeth strapped the girl to her chest with a sling made from the last piece of clean bedding. She threw her cloak over both of them, blew out the lamp, then slipped into the ill-lighted apartment corridor.
One of the stray dogs curled on a neighboring stoop lifted his head and growled. She tossed the last of the bread crumbs in his direction, then quickly left the tenements behind, retracing Numidicus’s hasty path through the maze of narrow alleys as best she could remember. She reached the darkened windows of the city’s more exclusive storefronts. Feeling confident she knew the way from here, she stepped up the pace. The sun climbed over the horizon. She arrived at Cyprian’s wrought-iron gates winded, arms burning from toting the four-year-old.
Recalling the noisy hinges, Lisbeth untied Junia. She stood the child upon her shaky legs, then quickly squeezed through the bars. “Take my hand.” Junia rubbed her eyes, refusing to cooperate. “Come on, kid. I know you’re scared, but trust me, they have lots to eat here.” She snagged a bony elbow and tugged the girl to her chest. The girl monkey-wrapped her so tight Lisbeth could barely breathe.
In the rosy glow of dawn, Cyprian’s villa looked larger
and strangely more welcoming than she remembered. Suddenly she felt hungry, tired, and very conflicted at the prospect of leaving an orphan on someone’s doorstep. As she scurried up the walk, the dogs went bonkers, hurtling around the corner of the house like a team of spooked horses. They pounced upon the bulge under her cloak. Junia launched into a raspy, screaming fit.
So much for slipping in unnoticed.
Lisbeth wedged inside the door. The dogs clawed and barked, insisting that someone let them in.
“Lisbeth?” Ruth tied her robe as she rushed to her. “Are you all right? What happened? I looked everywhere. When I couldn’t find you, I had no choice but to tell Cyprian you’d run away. He searched the city for days. Even rifled the freight aboard his fleet.” She noticed Junia squirming and lifted Lisbeth’s cloak. “Who is this?”
“Don’t touch her.” Lisbeth backed away. “I don’t think she’s contagious, but I’m not sure.”
“Contagious?” Ruth raised a skeptical brow. “What is contagious? What’s going on?”
“When I left the cleaners, I ran into Numidicus and …” Lisbeth shifted Junia’s weight. “Look, it’s a long story. I need a room where Junia can stay. One far away from everyone else.”
“I should have you lashed.” Ruth didn’t hide the struggle with her conscience. “Come with me. I’ll decide how much to tell Cyprian later.” She led Lisbeth through the courtyard to a gardener’s small cottage on the far corner of the property.
In a show of appreciation, Lisbeth asked questions about Barek and Laurentius. Ruth was reluctant at first, still a little miffed by Lisbeth’s disappearance, but Lisbeth coaxed her until she rattled off the details of their miraculous recoveries and Laurentius’s return to the proconsul’s palace.
Lisbeth settled Junia on the tidy cot, surprised at the disappointment she felt at Laurentius’s recovery without her and the missed opportunity to tell him good-bye.
“Ruth, I need you to listen carefully.” She waited for the seriousness in her voice to stall Ruth’s motor long enough for some parting orders. “The sickness sweeping the tenements is more serious than Caecilianus wants to admit. I’m pretty sure the fever killed Junia’s mother and a couple of their neighbors.” She’d seen cardio docs scare smokers into healthier behaviors; maybe if she scared Ruth into taking every precaution … “Whenever you tend Junia, you must wear something over your nose and mouth.” She ripped another couple of inches from the hem of her frayed tunic and demonstrated a mask. “Wash your hands with hot water and soap. And try not to touch any oozing sores. Keep her well hydrated—I mean, make sure she drinks enough—and she should be up and around in a couple of days.”
“Where are you going?” The cloth over Ruth’s mouth didn’t muffle her alarm.
“Home.”
“But—”
A slim black girl burst into the cottage, short of breath like she’d been running for her life. “Where’s the other healer?”
“Tabari?” Ruth offered a steadying hand. “What’s wrong?”
Lisbeth recognized the slave girl as the one who’d delivered Mama’s bloody clothes to the cleaners and then disappeared before she could get answers. “I’m the healer.”
“Come quick.” Tabari took Lisbeth’s hand and dragged her toward the door.
Lisbeth jerked free. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Fire leapt from Tabari’s dark eyes. “Aspasius beat your mother half to death.”
24
LISBETH RUMMAGED THROUGH THE pantry, her nerves on high alert. She gathered a loaf of crusty bread, two slabs of cheese, a handful of dried figs, and a large skin of wine and stuffed them into the spare medical bag her mother kept at Cyprian’s. She lifted the lid on a small wooden box and looked to Ruth. “I hate to take your entire tea store, but I don’t know what I’ll need.”
“Take it. I’ll explain to Cyprian.” Ruth added a wad of fresh bandages. “I should come with you.”
“No.” Lisbeth snapped the wooden lid and crammed it in the bag. “Everyone in this house is in quarantine now that I’ve brought Junia here. Besides, that child is going to need some serious mothering after all she’s been through.”
“Once you charge the proconsul’s palace, then what?” Ruth’s position had morphed from refusing to let Lisbeth go to tearful pleading that she stay.
“I’ll think of something.”
Ruth tossed Lisbeth a fresh tunic. “If you won’t wait on Cyprian’s return, at least don’t disgrace his house by roaming the streets in that filthy rag.” The bishop’s wife had not insisted upon an explanation of how she and Mama were related, a dignified managing of her curiosity that made Lisbeth respect her all the more. Ruth fished the pieces of Lisbeth’s stethoscope from her pocket. “You might need this.”
Lisbeth quickly assembled the instrument, touched that Ruth had taken such good care of her treasure. “If I’m not back by sunset”—she tossed the strap of her bag over her shoulder—“promise me that you’ll make sure Junia gets a good home.”
“This is her home now … as it is yours.” Ruth put a hand on Lisbeth’s wrist. “Don’t forget where you belong.”
Soldiers in hobnailed boots strutted the main streets. Too many accusing eyes for Tabari’s comfort, which, after Lisbeth’s last run-in with the touchy-feely troops of Aspasius, didn’t suit her well either.
“This way.” The alert little slave girl darted down an alley.
The closer they got to the palace, the more patrols they encountered, even on the back streets. They rounded a corner. Tabari stopped Lisbeth with a stiff arm and pointed straight ahead. An impressive structure, the size of a small hospital, towered behind a six-foot-tall brick fence.
“Stay low.” Tabari skirted the heavy ironwork of the large gate and led Lisbeth to a place along the wall safe from the view of the tower guards. The slave girl parted a thick vine and slipped through the foliage without breaking a leaf.
Lisbeth followed her through a dwarf-size opening in the brick. Once clear of the fence, they descended four stone steps that dead-ended at the palace itself. A heavy wooden plank rested flush against the massive stones. Tabari fished a rusty key from her pocket and twisted a hidden lock. She pulled the wood back. Air, as stale and damp as a sealed tomb, rushed to escape.
“Careful. There’s another step.” A rusty squeak accompanied Tabari’s attempt to quietly shut the plank behind them. “Don’t move.” Tabari slid an iron bolt through a lock, then mysteriously produced a lamp and flint.
Tiny flames illuminated a low, stone ceiling.
“I hate tunnels.” Lisbeth’s heart hammered her chest as she felt along the wall for some sort of railing to pull herself out of the cold water covering her feet. “No, really. I’m claustrophobic.”
When she was six, she had begged Papa to let her explore inside the tomb he was excavating. Walls of dirt that had not seen the sun in years hemmed her in. The confined space sent her into a full-blown panic attack. So they made a deal. While Papa dug, she explored the wide-open spaces of the desert, listening to the wind and climbing the highest peaks of any nearby landmass, pretending she could see for eternity.
In truth, she searched the barren landscape for signs of Mama. A dot in the distance. A lone tree on the horizon. An unusual rock formation. Anything could become the mother she missed more than she could confess. Then, with a visual lock on the speck of hope, she’d imagine her mother running toward her until Aisa called her to supper and the sobering and disappointing truth. There was a despair darker than any tunnel.
“Why don’t I wait right outside the door, and you can bring Mama to me?” Lisbeth suggested.
“She’s too ill.” Tabari ducked beneath some cobwebs and set out with the light.
Lisbeth took a tentative step. Water covered her feet. “This can’t be good.” Her splashy footfalls on the wet cobblestones sent unidentified creatures scuttling. Twisting stairwells and narrow passageways led them deeper and deeper into the bowels of the palace.<
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Tabari climbed two steps, then paused at the landing outside a small door. She held the lamp close to her chest, illuminating the sheen on her forehead and her blatant disapproval of Lisbeth’s slow progress.
“Please tell me this is it.” Lisbeth brushed cobwebs from her cloak, but she couldn’t shake the thought of being buried alive, a wide-eyed mummy discovered when Papa or some other archaeologist excavated these ruins nearly two thousand years in the future. “Well, I’m not doing my mother any good standing here. Open it.”
Tabari forced the corroded hinges with a grating moan. What Lisbeth expected to see behind the door was a dusty, deserted space. Perhaps littered with discarded furniture or castoff clutter from a palace remodel. Instead, she found a tidy, windowless room warmed by the light of a small oil lamp. Tacked to the stone walls were parchments inked with drawings of mice and crickets playing stick games with balls. Across the room, Mama lay on a tiny bed, moaning in obvious pain. To Lisbeth’s left, Laurentius sat hunched over a desk covered in parchments, his clubbed fingers clutched around a stylus like a kindergartner working over a coloring book.
“Laurentius?” Her shocked voice startled him. “What are you doing here?”
The boy’s lopsided smile pushed against the panic she’d been feeling, making it suddenly easier for her to breathe. “Thith ith my room.” He jumped up, hugged her tight, then turned and shuffled to the bed. “I tol’ you my preddy girlfrien’ would come. You’ll get better like me now.” He nudged Magdalena’s shoulder. “Wake up, Mama.”
25
CHIRPING CRICKETS GAVE LAURENTIUS’S six-by-six-foot cell a calm, homey feel. Lisbeth’s shattered nerves refused to transmit the deceptive sensations to her racing heart. Her world had shifted. Nothing about this shocking picture included her. Not the tiny pole bed. Not the cartoons on the wall. Not even the doting half brother eyeing her from his sentinel post at their mother’s bedside. Lisbeth didn’t care how many hollow explanations Mama offered; if Laurentius was her half brother, then this woman had abandoned one child to love another. A gut punch that changed everything.
