Healer of Carthage

by Lynne Gentry

  Cyprian waited outside a door where a woman’s labored screams pierced the wood. “I think we’ve found Eunike.” He knocked, and the door creaked open. “Want me to go first?”

  “No.” Lisbeth didn’t move.

  “I’m right behind you, then.”

  “Right.” Heart pounding out get a grip, get a grip, get a grip, Lisbeth eased inside. “Eunike?”

  The little apartment was a mirror image of the one where she’d found Junia, except even more crowded because of the paraphernalia of everyday life and empty pallets taking up the floor space. On the narrow bed, a young woman wearing a soiled nightdress lay spread-eagled, one leg slung over the dirty sheets, the other foot resting on the floor.

  “Oh.” Cyprian diverted his eyes, but he didn’t back out of the room like she’d seen Craig do at his first delivery. “What do you need?”

  “Water. Lots of it.” Lisbeth snatched an empty crock from the corner. “And get it hot.” Although embarrassed, he seemed reluctant to leave her. “Go.” Once she had him out of her way, Lisbeth went to the woman, whose eyes were clamped shut in an effort to concentrate on her pain. “Eunike? Your husband sent me.”

  The woman’s eyes flew open. “Help. Me.”

  “That’s what I intend to do.” Lisbeth did a quick preliminary exam, noting the woman seemed pretty worn out and possibly dehydrated, but she’d progressed to complete dilation, with the fetal head properly aligned in the birthing canal.

  “Hurry,” Eunike said, huffing. “I need to push.”

  “Hang on. Breathe through your nose.” Lisbeth dropped to the floor and positioned her mother’s medical bag for easy access. “Cyprian!” She dug out some clean rags to glove her hands for the baby catch. “Can you sit up, Eunike?”

  “No,” the woman replied, panting.

  Cyprian burst into the room, water sloshing everywhere, alarm on his face. “What?”

  “Help me get her upright.”

  He hastily placed the pot on the floor and raced into position behind Eunike. His strong arms easily and gently raised the exhausted woman. “This good?”

  “Ease her to the edge of the bed.” Lisbeth wiped her hands on her tunic. “Eunike, I’m going to put your feet on my shoulders. Wait to push until I say.”

  The woman expelled a shattering howl. “Hurry!”

  “We’ve got crowning.” Lisbeth eyed the dark bulge in the cervix. “Is this your third baby?”

  “Fifth,” Eunike answered between labored breaths. “Two girls died before they walked.”

  Lisbeth glanced at Cyprian. The color had left his face. But his steady focus was aimed directly at her, communicating that he believed she could do this. “Let’s get this kiddo out and into her mama’s hands as quick as we can.” Another contraction tightened the swollen belly. “Chin to chest, Eunike.” Lisbeth readied for the head. “Okay, girl. Push where it counts.”

  The baby’s head, topped with an abundance of dark, curly hair, appeared. Lisbeth couldn’t contain her smile or her relief. “Halfway there, Eunike. Another good push should do it.” She patted Eunike’s leg. “This one better be a girl, because it’s a beauty. Can you give me another good push?”

  Gasping for air, the laboring woman spat out, “I am pushing.”

  The fetal head suddenly retracted against the mother’s perineum, causing the baby’s cheeks to bulge like a turtle pulling its head back into its shell.

  Eunike went limp in Cyprian’s arms.

  “Oh, no.” Should she apply a bit of force or allow nature to take its course?

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Something’s holding up the delivery.” Possibilities tumbled in Lisbeth’s mind. The cord? Baby too big? Suddenly a med school test question came to mind … shoulder dystocia?

  Lisbeth cursed. “The baby’s stuck.”

  “Why?” Cyprian’s eyes were wide.

  “The shoulder has impacted the maternal symphysis.”

  Shifting Eunike’s weight, Cyprian asked, “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s rare. This is where I call in an attending. Get some help. But I—”

  Cyprian cast a narrow look her way, his disapproval of her fear evident. “Fix it,” he ordered, a man used to clapping his hands and having the world scurry to do his bidding.

  “Fix it?” She laughed to keep from crying. “She could hemorrhage. The baby could suffer permanent injury. You only have to look at Laurentius to know how well that works out in this society.”

  He didn’t deserve her verbal slap, but right now she felt completely helpless. This rare complication wasn’t any more Cyprian’s fault than the fact that she was trapped in a serious medical situation with no anesthesiologist, attending, or surgical options.

  “If you do nothing … they’ll die.” Cyprian eyed her calmly, a reminder that the best way through this was to stay in control of her terror. To keep her composure so as to not panic the mother. When had she become so risk-averse that she wouldn’t try everything she knew rather than let a mother and baby die? God, help me.

  “Quick, grab her legs.” Lisbeth clasped Eunike’s ankles and hyperflexed the woman’s knees against her abdomen. “You’re going to hold her legs against her belly. Hopefully shifting positions will open the pelvis and free the shoulder—” The baby shot out in a gush of reddish water. “Whoa. I almost didn’t catch—” Lisbeth looked up. “It’s a girl.” Cyprian’s smile unlocked a deep longing, a heat that warmed her intimate, empty spaces.

  “Why isn’t she crying?” Eunike’s concern snapped Lisbeth out of her trance.

  Lisbeth’s blurry gaze leapt from Cyprian’s to the waxy form in her hands. “Let’s find out.” She turned the baby facedown and worked mucus from both nostrils. A gentle pat on a miniature foot roused a lusty cry. “Thank God.” She and Cyprian shared a relieved laugh and a look that said he was in awe of what she’d accomplished.

  “I’ve helped horses foal”—he steadied Eunike, who was leaning forward with outstretched arms—“but I had no idea.”

  Lisbeth swallowed the lump his praise had raised in her throat. “Help Eunike lie back.” She placed the baby on the woman’s naked belly and asked, “What’s her name?”

  Eunike stroked the tiny head. “What’s your name?”

  “Lisbeth,” Cyprian answered before Lisbeth could speak, a different tone in his voice, a pride that melted Lisbeth on the spot. “Of Dallas.”

  “Thascius,” Lisbeth corrected, her eyes locked with Cyprian’s. “As of last night.”

  “Then she shall be called Lisbeth,” Eunike declared, “as a wedding gift to you both.”

  A child named after her was a gift she didn’t deserve, but one she would cherish nearly as much as the picture of Cyprian’s beaming face.

  While Eunike and Cyprian counted fingers and toes, Lisbeth cut the cord and delivered the placenta with no problems. “Let me clean her up, and then you can nurse her.”

  Eunike relinquished her baby long enough for a brisk rubdown. Lisbeth wrapped the pinking girl in one of the blankets Ruth had sent. The child fit in her arms as if she were her own. She couldn’t resist kissing the puckered forehead gearing up for a hungry cry. With an unexpected tug of regret, she handed the baby back to her mother. What was happening to her? She wasn’t an emotional person, and here she was on the verge of completely losing control.

  “I think she’s hungry.” Lisbeth watched the infant greedily attach to her mother’s breast. Security. That positive touch of humanity. Unconditional love. A primordial glimpse into humans treating others well. Humanity at its best.

  Within seconds both mother and child were sound asleep.

  Lisbeth glanced at Cyprian standing stone still over the bed and barely breathing. “Baby Lisbeth is beautiful, don’t you think?” he whispered, his admiration directed not at the satisfied bundle in Eunike’s arms but at her.

  Here she was, eighteen hundred years removed from the past she’d rather forget, and all
she wanted to do was tell this man the truth, to tell him she didn’t deserve his respect. To beg his absolution and forgiveness. “The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  He moved toward her and lifted her trembling hands to his lips and kissed her ring. “Who are you, Lisbeth of Dallas?”

  “Thascius.” The word rolled off her tongue, leaving a sweet taste in her mouth. She pointed to the hand he held. “Proof that I am the wife of the solicitor of Carthage.”

  “A hollow title without the truth.” He kissed her.

  “You deserve the truth.”

  The old bishop had been right to insist that the story come from her. Now would be the perfect time to tell her new husband everything, before she fell so far in love with him that she’d never recover from the dissolution of his respect and admiration.

  He pulled her to him. “It won’t change how I feel about you.”

  “It might.”

  The chatter of women returning from the well drifted through the open door.

  “Let me clean up; then we’ll talk.” She snatched the empty crock. “I need some more water.”

  “I’ll fetch it.” Cyprian tried to take the jug from her hand.

  “No. Fresh air will clear my head, allow my adrenaline to dissipate.” Lisbeth gathered the bloody cloths to toss upon the trash heap on her way to the well. “Don’t look so terrified. I’ll only be gone a few minutes. They’ll be fine.”

  By the time she reached the worn path to the cistern, evening shadows had lowered the temperature several degrees. It had taken all day to find their way to the correct apartment and deliver Eunike’s baby. A good day, one of the best days of practicing medicine she’d ever had. She would relive the moment of the baby’s arrival the rest of her life. Was it Cyprian’s presence that made all the difference? Or was it getting back in the saddle again and having some success after her dismal failure with Abra? Or maybe she felt ten pounds lighter, because Craig was right. She was cut out for obstetrics.

  Craig. Obstetrics? The thought stopped her in the middle of the path. The truth, a big, ugly roadblock she hadn’t noticed before, now stared her in the face, and she couldn’t navigate around it.

  He was the one who had convinced her to trade places with him that night in the emergency room. She’d let him blind her with that dreamy smile. Craig Sutton hadn’t cared about her hopes and dreams, what she wanted. He’d been more focused on his own career, on the triple gunshot surgery that would add another notch to his belt, than on even considering what would be best for his assigned patient and for the woman he supposedly loved. Even when he had offered to stand up for her at the morbidity and mortality conference, deep down she must have known his promise was nothing but another puff of smoke. Because if he’d really wanted to go to bat for her, he wouldn’t have hidden out in the OR during the exact time she was scheduled to report.

  And then there was Cyprian. She was kidding herself to even hope …

  Lisbeth stomped to the well and tossed the roped gourd down the dark cavern. Thunk. The last of her hopes and dreams disappeared in the gurgling sounds. Hand over hand, she reeled the heavy gourd to the surface. Wrestling the water to the ledge, she bumped the empty jug with her elbow. Crockery shattered around her feet. Kicking at the pieces of clay in frustration, she turned and slid down the limestone, defeated.

  She lifted her chin to search the sky, to find a star, any star, in the deepening darkness. Instead, her line of sight landed underneath the cistern’s rocky lip. Swimmers? Yellow and red handpainted cave swimmers tucked out of sight.

  Lisbeth flipped to her knees, her hands shaking as she visually examined the replica of the same three potbellied swimmers from Papa’s cave. The Hastings family, he’d called them. Eroded memories suddenly became whole, vivid, and compelling. The last thing she remembered was reaching for the painting of a crimson child with outstretched arms.

  She’d found the way home. “Thank God.” Lisbeth scrambled to her feet and lifted her hand to touch the scarlet child.

  CYPRIAN PACED the length of the birthing bed, his eyes shamefully captivated by the sight of a mother nursing her child. How much more protective would he feel if that were his wife and daughter? Desire so strong rose up within him that he thought his heart would burst. Lisbeth may not completely embrace his faith, but only a good woman would risk everything to deliver a child under such risky circumstances.

  He glanced out the open door, noting that the stream of women returning from the well had trickled down to only an occasional passerby. Where was Lisbeth? She’d assured him she would not be gone long and that mother and child would sleep while she cleaned up, but he lacked her abundant confidence when it came to women and babies.

  “I’m thirsty.” Eunike’s damp hair clung to her forehead.

  “My wife has gone for water.” He jumped when the baby released her hold with a popping smack. “Can you wait, or should I fetch her?”

  Milk dribbled from the baby’s tiny chin. If she’d had her fill, why did her mouth suck the air like a hungry carp? He had lots to learn before his child suckled at Lisbeth’s swollen breast. Desire pumped through his limbs, flooding him with a want he was wrong to even consider.

  Lisbeth was his wife in name only, a bargaining chip he was playing in a deadly game. Tell himself what he may, he could no more wipe Lisbeth’s quick-to-miss-nothing eyes from his memory than he could yank out his conflicted heart. Her long, slender fingers had freed the trapped child before he could blink. Lisbeth of Dallas would just as easily free herself from him once she had her family safe and secure.

  “Burp her.” Eunike thrust the fussy baby at him.

  “What?”

  “Put her against your chest,” Eunike said, panting. “And pat her back.”

  As an only child, he’d never held a baby. Tossing Junia around made him nervous, and she was not as easily broken and very capable of communicating exactly what she did and did not like. “Maybe we should wait for Lisbeth.”

  “You.” Insisting had sapped the last of Eunike’s strength.

  He didn’t have the heart to make an exhausted woman listen to an unhappy baby. Scooping the newborn from Eunike’s arms, his hand brushed against the intense heat of her skin.

  “Oh, no.” Weightless bundle clutched in his trembling hands, Cyprian flew from the room. “Measles.”

  “LISBETH!” CYPRIAN’S voice carried through the mazelike corridors of the plebeian slums. “Lisbeth!” Breathless and toting a baby, he burst into the courtyard. “Eunike has fever.”

  Lisbeth’s arm hung suspended between where she’d been and where she was going … immobilized in an excruciating vise of decision. Stay or go?

  “Lisbeth?” Cyprian jostled the screaming infant. “Did you hear me? We can’t leave them here.”

  Her eyes darted between the handsome man holding a baby and the bodies of the faded family clinging to the limestone. Father. Child. Mother. Tangible reminders of everything she knew. If she went home to Papa, she could save him and her old life. If she stayed in the third century, she could save Mama, Laurentius, and Cyprian’s city.

  “Lisbeth!” Cyprian stuck his little finger in the baby’s mouth. “I don’t know what to do. I need you.”

  If she stayed here … maybe the man she loved could save her.

  45

  MAGDALENA WHISTLED AS SHE filled the feeders in the bird cages. God had heard her prayers. Brought her daughter and son to safety. Her redemption was near. She’d felt the Lord’s hand upon her when the litter bearers had hauled Aspasius from her daughter’s wedding. Exactly how all of this was going to work out, she wasn’t sure. Would she and Laurentius go back to the twenty-first century with Lisbeth? Or would Lisbeth fall so deeply in love with Cyprian that she would stay in the third century with them? She’d seen the way those two looked at each other. They didn’t know it yet, but theirs was a love like she and Lawrence had once shared. As much as she longed to return to her husband, she wasn’t sure what she would d
o if the Lord asked her to leave her daughter behind … again.

  Magdalena closed the container on the birdseed. What was she thinking? Planning ahead as if God had revealed the passageway home and given her options, which he had not. More than two decades she’d waited, and not once had she come across anything resembling a portal to her old life. And Lisbeth had no better recollection of her fateful entry than she.

  Regret tangled the memories of the night she’d allowed a fight with Lawrence to send her stomping off in the dark. In her dreams she imagined him searching the desert, calling her name. And every waking minute she wondered if he missed her as much as she missed him.

  She would never know. Some decisions yield consequences that can never be undone. And some decisions change a person in such a profound way that she would be a different person without the consequences. Laurentius and his lopsided smile was a treasured consequence. That Lisbeth had granted her forgiveness for her inability to leave Laurentius was a huge consolation she would forever cherish.

  Voices jarred Magdalena from her thoughts and drew her toward the open door to the garden. Tiptoeing across the atrium, she worked to place the men talking with Aspasius.

  One was definitely that sneaky little scribe Pytros.

  The other … Felicissimus.

  46

  MOONLIGHT SPILLED ACROSS THE bed, wrapping their bodies in a beautiful silvery blanket. Lisbeth pressed Cyprian’s arm across her chest and snuggled deeper into the perfect fit of their spoon. She’d wasted so much time and energy looking in all the wrong places for safety and happiness. Content in Cyprian’s embrace, the ancient swimmers on the cistern wall seemed a million miles away.

  She was home.

  “Are you still awake?” Her husband’s breath warmed the back of her neck.

  Her husband. “Yes.”

  He lifted her hair from her neck and kissed the soft spot behind her ear. “Aren’t you exhausted?”