by Lynne Gentry
Soldiers stopped on the opposite side of the wall. They bragged about their brothel conquests, taking their time to complete their patrol as if they had all night. Despite the danger of making even the slightest of sounds and giving them both away, she couldn’t help but relax in Cyprian’s hold, her body willingly melding to the contours of his. Neither of them breathed as they listened to the soldiers name the best hookers and argue over where to find the cheapest rates. She longed to probe the depths of Cyprian’s alert eyes, to know how many conquests he could boast. From his quickened breathing, she wondered if he was thinking she’d soon become an additional notch on his belt.
Once the click of studs on cobblestone receded beyond the range of hearing, Cyprian’s hand released her mouth, yet he continued to hold her close, with his lips lingering just inches above hers. Relieved breaths flowed between them, mingling into sweet, sensual warmth that seeped into Lisbeth’s bones.
“Are you all right?” he whispered.
She could only nod.
“We must be quick. Come.” His hand found hers, and he led her down the stone steps, stopping at the wooden plank. “This is as far as Magdalena would ever let me go,” he confessed in hushed tones.
“Tabari had a key.” Why hadn’t she thought about the key or how to get in touch with Tabari? “What are we going to do?”
“Stand back.” He worked his fingers beneath the board, braced his legs, and pulled with an impressive might. The board snapped under the pressure. They stood there, unmoving, listening for the return of soldiers’ cleats. When they heard nothing, Cyprian peered into the musty darkness. “We should have brought a light.”
“And something to slow my racing heart,” Lisbeth whispered. “Those soldiers were too close for comfort.” She bent to search the dark ledge inside the door. “Give me a minute.” Hopefully the creatures she’d heard on her last visit didn’t like fingers. “Got it.” Within a few strikes of the flint, a flame sucked the oil from the clay bowl. They slipped inside the narrow passage.
Cyprian pressed against her, the bulk of him swallowing up the majority of the space. “Which way?” He pointed out the choice of two different tunnels.
Lisbeth held the tiny flame out as far as she could. “I’m guessing the one with less cobwebs.” She nodded in the direction of the right tunnel.
He took the light from her. “I’ll lead.”
“This is my rescue mission.”
“And my reputation on the line.”
She gave a mock curtsy. If he wanted to be the gentleman, then let him. “Then I’m only too happy to let you clear the rodents.” As they slogged through the ankle-deep water, the narrow stone walls seemed to close in on her. Papa’s catacomb lessons on the persecuted Christians forced underground popped into her head. How did they stand it? How had Laurentius lived his life down here? She wished she’d thought to bring something to leave along the path that would help them retrace their steps after they found her brother.
Cyprian stepped on something that squealed and skittered off in the water. “That can’t be good.” His hand found hers. “Stick close.”
“Do you hear that?”
“Sounds like humming.”
“Laurentius hums while he draws. We must be getting closer.”
Several wrong turns and dead ends later they ended up at a door that looked like her brother’s room. “I think this is it.” Lisbeth tapped lightly, and the humming stopped. “Laurentius?” She tried the knob, but it was locked. Ear to the thick wood, she tapped again. “It’s Lisbeth, Laurentius. It’s safe to open the door.”
The bolt slid on the other side; then the door slowly creaked open. Laurentius’s almond-shaped eyes peeked around the edge.
“Lithbutt?” Thin black hairs stood on end all over his head. Bedhead like Papa used to have every morning. How could he be anything like her father? “Mama thaid don’t open the door, thon. Thranger danger.”
“But I’m not a stranger, Laurentius.” Seeing him there, eyeing her carefully as he weighed his options was the best sight she’d seen in days. “And you know Cyprian. Remember?”
His eyes shot to Cyprian. “He cheats.”
“Me?” Cyprian’s laughter rumbled in his chest. “Weren’t you the one who slapped both of my hands at the same time?”
Levity didn’t help the feeling that the tunnel seemed to be closing in on her. The sooner they got out of here, the better. “Can we come in, Laurentius?”
“No.” He started to close the door. “Mama thays don’t open the door when I’m not here, thon.”
Lisbeth stuffed her foot in the space between the door and the jamb. “But I promised Cyprian he could see your drawings.”
“Ooooh. Why didn’t you thay tho?” Laurentius smiled and pulled the door open. “You like mithe or crickeths, Thiprian?”
“I had a pet cricket once.” Cyprian left Lisbeth standing on the threshold trying to imagine him as a boy who had played with bugs. Was he an only child? Did he have to entertain himself like she did? Did they have more in common than wanting to see Aspasius defeated after all? She watched Cyprian waltz into the room and take it over with the same confidence he’d displayed when he mounted Aspasius’s box at the arena. Add to the list that they were both really good fakers when it came to acting like they had everything under control.
“Hey, wait for me.” Lisbeth rushed in after him.
Cyprian stood in the middle of the tiny cell, staring at the walls with his mouth open. “I had no idea he lived like this. I thought he was a servant in the house. An entertainment like the dwarf Aspasius bought for the games.” Tear-filled eyes glistened in the light. The impact of his caring surprised her with a deep, visceral thawing of cold, dark recesses his touch hadn’t even aroused. “Who does this to a person?”
Before she could answer, Laurentius grabbed Cyprian’s hand. “Mithe on this thide. Crickeths on that thide.”
“Did you draw all of these, my friend?”
Laurentius nodded. Lisbeth swallowed an unexpected lump of pride and admiration as her little brother marched Cyprian from parchment to parchment. Cyprian listened carefully to the story behind every intricate cartoon as if he cared. If she didn’t watch herself, she might even learn to like this guy despite her hard and fast rule to avoid dangerous emotional attachments.
Extracting Laurentius from his home wasn’t going to be easy, maybe even as difficult as pulling her father from that cave he couldn’t seem to forget. Her original plan to fly to Africa, get Papa, and go back to Dallas seemed like a mission from so long ago. How could the tragedy that befell her and Mama be in their past, yet such a part of this boy’s future? Somehow, some way, she must survive all of this. Sort out a way for the four of them—Mama, Papa, Laurentius, and her—to be together. To settle somewhere. Maybe even back in the States. Somewhere they could be a family and get to know each other again. Somewhere far away from toga-clad men who accelerated her heart rate.
“Boys, art appreciation is going to have to wait. We have to get out of here before dawn.” Lisbeth gathered the tunic draped over the desk chair and stuffed it in her bag. “Let’s go, Laurentius.”
“Go?” Laurentius shook his head and backed away. “Where?”
“To Cyprian’s house.”
“No.”
“You’ve been there. Remember? After the soldiers hurt you, and I helped you get better.”
Laurentius shook his head. “No.”
“You can have a room of your own with a window and everything,” Cyprian added.
“I can’t go. Mama thays don’t go anywhere without me. Ever.”
She hadn’t considered the idea that a boy raised underground might feel safer burrowed away, especially after the trauma of his last foray aboveground. And since she’d spent most of her life without her mother, it never occurred to her that he wouldn’t go without Mama. Moving him from this dungeon to Cyprian’s villa would be as foreign to him as falling through the time portal had been to her. “
But Mama wanted you to go with me. She told me to take you when I was here, but I was too afraid.” She reached for his arm. “I’m not afraid now.”
“No!” He shook her off. “I won’t leave my mithe!”
“Let’s take them with us,” Cyprian offered. “In fact, I’ve been looking for an artist to paint a mural on the wall in my library. I think you’re the man for the job, Laurentius.” He went to one of the parchments stuck to the stones. “These wrestling rats would make the old bishop smile, don’t you agree?” While he spoke, Cyprian carefully removed parchments from the wall and rolled them up. “These will be our patterns.”
“Be careful.” Laurentius rocked heel to toe, wringing his hands. “If I’m gone when Mama comes, she will cry.”
“We’ll leave her a note.” Cyprian wrapped his arm around Laurentius and guided him to the door. “Tell her where she can find you.”
“No.”
“Does Mama bring your breakfast?” Lisbeth asked.
“Yeth.”
“Then we’ll wait.” Mama used to rouse her with a kiss and a bowl of Cocoa Krispies floating in goat’s milk. She hadn’t thought of those wonderful mornings in years, and strangely, thinking of them now didn’t drive a dagger through her heart. “Mama should be here soon.”
“And then what?” Cyprian asked.
“I guess we’ll have to take her, too,” Lisbeth said, plopping on the bed. “Families should stick together, right, little brother?”
MAGDALENA CLUNG to the rickety tunnel handrail, praying that by some miracle Laurentius would sleep through the commotion and not come looking for his breakfast. Her own terror she could deal with, had dealt with for years, but it was the realization that her son would soon be gazing into the eyes of evil that released her hold and sent her stumbling into Aspasius.
“I don’t know why you think I’d spend any time down here,” she said with a gasp, her mind scrambling for some sort of plan, a way out of this hell.
He grabbed a handful of her hair. “I should have known this is how you disappear.” He waded through the water, dragging her by the hair with one hand, holding a lamp with his other. “Sewer rats nest with their own kind.”
At the tunnel split, he paused. “Did you hear that?”
She listened, terror ripping through her that Laurentius was up and humming already. When she didn’t answer he lifted his nose, sniffed the air, and listened. The faint sound of footsteps going the opposite direction echoed from the tunnel that led directly to her boy.
Aspasius let out a low, feral growl. “This way.”
All sorts of explanations for not following his orders to murder their son pinged in Magdalena’s head. None of them would satisfy Aspasius’s wrath. She and Laurentius would suffer a horrible death in the arena … the death of traitors who dared defy the proconsul’s orders. Were it not for Lisbeth and Laurentius, death was a fate she would gladly welcome, an end to the years of suffering.
By the time they reached Laurentius’s room, Magdalena could scarcely breathe.
“Open it,” he ordered.
“But—”
“Now!”
THE GRATE of stone moving over stone echoed in the tunnel. Low, hostile voices rumbled along the passage, growing closer by the minute.
“Let’s go.” Cyprian herded Laurentius toward the exit. “Now!”
“No!” A woman’s distant scream funneled along the damp walls. “There’s nothing down here.”
Laurentius’s head snapped up. “Mama!” He dropped his parchments and bolted toward the stairs.
“Hush, little man.” Cyprian collared Laurentius, clamped a hand over his mouth, and dragged him in the opposite direction. “We must leave now,” he whispered to Lisbeth.
Laurentius bit Cyprian’s hand, then shouted out, “My mitheth!” He wiggled free and plunged in after the soggy rolls.
“I’ll get them.” Lisbeth fished what drawings she could out of the foul water, while Cyprian reeled in Laurentius. “Go!” She stuffed dripping parchments in her sack.
“You’ll be right behind us?” Cyprian ordered more than asked.
“Yes. Go!” Lisbeth watched until Cyprian’s cloak disappeared into the darkness.
She ran back and snuffed the lamp. She slung her sack over her shoulder and exited the room, quietly closing the door behind her. She slid a few feet into the tunnel blackness to wait. Working to keep her breath to short, inaudible gasps, she leaned against the damp stones, contemplating the execution of her next move. She heard the splash of someone coming from the opposite direction of Cyprian’s escape … and the distinct sound of Mama’s voice.
“There’s nothing down here. I promise.” Mama’s cries grew louder and more cryptic, meant to be secret warnings Lisbeth was sure, secret warnings Laurentius would never have deciphered. “I’ll do anything you want, just—” A loud, resounding crack cut off Mama’s bargain, but only for a brief second. “Anything down here would RUN at the ugly sight of you!” she shouted.
Lisbeth’s mind formed the picture of Mama stumbling, blood dripping from her mouth, but fighting to get in one more distress signal. Fighting to protect her child as the life was knocked out of her. In that moment, Lisbeth knew her mother had tried just as hard to get to her, to come home, but the circumstances holding her back had been too great.
She scoured the tunnel for a weapon. Why hadn’t she brought a knife, a stick, a club, anything? Lisbeth whispered a prayer in case Cyprian’s God was listening, braced her feet, and prepared to swing her sack with every ounce of force she could put behind it. Suddenly a hand came through the darkness and clamped her mouth. Before she could break free, someone dragged her in the opposite direction of her mother’s agonizing pleas for mercy.
35
EMPTY DELIVERY CARTS CLATTERED over the cobblestones, eager to exit the city before sunup. Pale, defeated rays of light slithered through the bedroom shutters. Lisbeth stretched the kinks of restless sleep from her body, but shame remained coiled deep in her gut. Today she would rise from her soft bed as one of the soon-to-be wealthy residents of Carthage. She would be expected to join in the idle prattle of a patrician’s wife and go about her day with no thought of yesterday’s carnage. No thought of those suffering unimaginable horrors in dark places.
Contemplating her surroundings, Lisbeth slid her gaze along the wall murals and the room’s rich furnishings. Security and riches were little comfort considering she’d left her mother to fend for herself in a dungeon cell. Hands trembling, Lisbeth reached for the stethoscope on the nightstand and cradled the tangle of rubber and metal to her chest. No comfort there either. No absolution for her growing list of monumental failings. Abra. Papa. And now Mama. No matter how Cyprian tried to spin the need to get them out of there, successfully rescuing her brother offered no justification for leaving Mama to endure another round of Aspasius’s brutality.
Lisbeth crawled out from under the sheets. Her mother’s screams still rang in her ears and made her unsteady on her feet.
Why had Cyprian insisted on coming back for her? He’d saved the weaker, mentally challenged boy, something his faith would have expected. But surely even his one God didn’t expect him to risk his life for a stubborn, outspoken slave girl. He could have washed his hands of her. Left the daughter of foreigners to suffer whatever fate the gods dealt. Then he could have found himself a well-connected Roman to marry—one who hopefully had not heard the rumors Aspasius had been spreading about him—and called it a day, a day he was probably as anxious as she to forget.
But he didn’t do either of those easy things. He’d pressed them through the tunnel, practically carrying the clumsy Laurentius every terrifying step of the way back to his villa. And once they’d settled her brother in a clean bed, he’d insisted she rest and let him have the first watch. Even if his impeccable morals wouldn’t have allowed him to leave them to die, he could have put an end to the whole charade once they were safe. Instead, he’d let her sleep under his roof and protectio
n. Why? Had he felt the chemistry between them? Was he beginning to wish their upcoming marriage wasn’t a sham?
All of a sudden it hit her. Cyprian was being kind. Putting her needs before his. He was acting Christian, and she liked it. The unexpected notion pulled her up short, knocked the dizziness from her head.
Selflessness was a trait she’d never assigned to any man, not even Papa. Something within her gut warned that this type of behavior was dangerous. She didn’t like the idea of being in someone’s debt. When expectations were too high, disappointment followed. And that’s exactly what would happen if she didn’t distance herself from Cyprian. He’d done too much for her not to expect some type of repayment. She could never live up to his ideals. Or become a fine Christian woman like Ruth.
Just to be safe, she’d separate herself quickly, before these crazy romantic notions made going home an impossibility. Before she began to hope that this time things would be different, that she might actually be able to have that family she’d always wanted.
Lisbeth poured water into the basin and splashed her face, the tragedy of how close she’d come to wanting to be married to the wrong man playing in her mind. In less than a week, Cyprian could legally take her to his bed. Legally, he could have had her at any time since her purchase. His reluctance to enter into this arrangement proved he was far too principled to sleep with a woman without the benefit of marriage. But would the principles of a man who would not let her die hold up once she said “I do”?
36
RUTH INHALED DEEPLY OF the woody aroma filling Lisbeth’s room. “I love this Arabian nard Cyprian ordered for you.” In one elegant gesture, she returned the lid to the tiny jar and placed it among the collection of vials and smudge pots she’d gathered over the past few days. “The sheen on your skin will be exquisite.”
“Sounds expensive.” Lisbeth sniffed the fiery red ends of her own freshly treated hair, unable to escape the earthy scent of hemp.
