by Lynne Gentry
“And new teeth.” Shiny white dentures peered out from beneath the bush of Aisa’s graying facial hair.
“Nice.” She pointed at his shiny frames. “I kinda miss the duct tape.”
“Nothing stays the same.”
His statement was a defibrillating bolt to her heart. Last time she’d traveled into the third century everything had changed. Her husband had returned from exile and married her best friend. Maggie could have stumbled into . . . No, she couldn’t let her mind go there. “Please tell me you’ve got my daughter safely tucked away.”
Aisa shook his head and took Lisbeth’s bag. “Come. We’ll get some food into your bellies and a plan into our heads for what we should do next.”
“We?”
“Isn’t that what friends are for?” He loaded their gear into the SUV, then hopped in and floored the gas pedal.
The Rover shot into traffic. Lisbeth gripped the dash but still felt she was shaking apart at the seams. Their chauffeur dodged parked cars and bicycles that clogged the streets leading away from the airport. Windows down, they flew along the paved coastal road connecting Tunis and Old Carthage. The salty breeze kinked Lisbeth’s hair into knots almost as big as the ones in her stomach.
As they neared the older part of the city, the crowded, narrow avenues forced Aisa to slow down. Street vendors hawked aromatic oils, brightly colored fabrics, and pottery in every imaginable shade of blue. Lisbeth’s mind traveled back to the days when this city was new. The days when the love of her life walked these streets. His kiss. The warmth of his touch. The strength in his resolve. She stuck her hand out the window and let the breeze slip through her fingers. How could someone be so close and yet so far away?
Aisa laid on the horn and shook his fist. “Hang on.”
At a huge clock tower, their aggressive cabbie abruptly turned east. He zipped through quiet residential streets lined with whitewashed houses trimmed in the same cobalt blue of the pottery. Leafy trees heavy with ripening oranges filled the yards. Here and there ancient stone columns converted into streetlamps embellished the neighborhoods only the very rich could afford. Grand estates like the one her mother’s father had left to Lisbeth when he died.
Aisa whipped into a drive blocked by a massive wrought-iron gate. “Here we are.”
“Here?” Lisbeth stared at the familiar gate. “This house belonged to my grandfather.” She’d sold Jiddo’s estate through a third-party transaction to finance Maggie’s steep college tuition. She had no idea the buyer had been her father’s camp cook. “You live here?”
“Yes.” Aisa’s toothy grin showed his delight at her surprise. “The good professor is not the only one who knows how to turn sand into treasure.”
Lisbeth shifted in her seat. “You sold recovered artifacts?”
Aisa lifted his chin proudly. “My recipe for fried dough.”
“To whom?”
“An American food chain.” He pressed the remote control attached to his visor, and the gate swung open.
In the distance, Lisbeth could see the hill where the Roman acropolis had been replaced by a huge French cathedral. All around her grandfather’s estate the palm trees had grown bigger and had acquired multiple rings of thick bark. Beside her sat a newly wealthy souk vendor who used to just barely eke out a living frying bread dough on an oil drum.
Nothing stays the same.
The power of time had tugged at her since the moment she’d set foot back in Tunisia. The port that had once been the spear pointed at the rest of the world was now an accusing dagger aimed at her. She’d abandoned Carthage in its hour of need. She could take no credit for its survival.
Aisa settled Lisbeth into the room she’d stayed in the few times Papa brought her to visit on their rare supply runs to Carthage. She and Papa didn’t come often, because things were always so tense between Jiddo and her father. The two men had never had a good relationship, but after Mama’s disappearance it became even easier to beat each other up rather than themselves.
Lisbeth showered quickly, slipped into the simple tunic she found laid out on the massive burled mahogany bed, then followed the enticing smell of roasting meat to the large, wrap-around terrace with a stunning view of the port. Laughter drew her attention to the fire pit. Aisa and Papa were one-upping each other with camp stories. But something about the scene wasn’t right. Papa was dressed in a woolen tunic that hit him midcalf. His fry cook was whacking fist-size dough balls with a tire iron and wearing Papa’s faded chambray shirt and favorite dungarees.
“It’s like old times seeing you two together.” Lisbeth kissed both of their cheeks. “But why have you switched clothes?”
Her father handed Aisa a dough ball. “I thought I’d better dress appropriately for our journey into the third century.”
“Oh, no, you don’t. I let you come to Carthage, but I did not agree to let you go back in time. Plus, Maggie may still be in the twenty-first century.”
“You haven’t been able to get Nigel on the phone. If he’s not dead, then he took Maggie to the desert. And we both know he’s not dead.” Papa eyed Lisbeth as if he could see the ripple of gooseflesh raising the hair on her arms. “I’m current on all my shots.”
“That’s the least of my worries.”
“Well, then. If things are as bad back there as you’ve always said, you’ll need my help. I can tell you right now, it’s going to take both of us to wrestle Maggie Hastings back down the rabbit hole.”
“I don’t suppose your willingness to fling yourself into a time-altering waterslide has anything to do with finding my mother?”
A sly smile lifted the corners of his lips. “I intend to bring my wife home along with the rest of my family.”
How could she argue? Truth be known, she’d always wanted to do the same. Lisbeth held up her palms. “We’ll have to hire a jeep.”
“I’ve checked with customs, and the borders into Egypt are closed to vehicular travel,” Papa said.
Lisbeth studied the strange expression on her father’s face. “So as of right now, neither one of us has a way to get to that cave.”
“The bald Irishman is not the only one with a plane.” Aisa glowed like his sparkly new teeth at her shock. “Came with the estate.”
After a quick meal of lamb and fried dough, they prepared for Lisbeth and Papa’s entrance into the past.
What if she couldn’t find her daughter? What if she was too late? Losing Maggie forever would be her worst fear come true. Panic, sharper and more frantic than what she’d experienced on the plane, clawed Lisbeth’s insides as she checked her medical bag one more time.
A familiar arm, long and sinewy, wrapped around her shoulders. “You okay, Beetle Bug?”
Lisbeth leaned into Papa and forced air into her lungs. Oxygen cleared the panic from her thinking. She turned to Aisa. “I don’t suppose you could find a local doc who’d write some antibiotic scripts and set me up with twenty to thirty typhoid blister packs?”
Aisa’s whole body seemed to smile. “Easier than frying bread.”
2
Carthage
IRON WRISTCUFFS PINCHED THE tender flesh above Magdalena’s rapid pulse. Blood dripped into her eyes from the beating the soldiers had given her before they’d dragged her from the proconsul’s palace. She knew choosing to stay behind had risks, but she could never have predicted what had happened. One moment she was a surgeon performing an emergency amputation. The next, she was a slave charged with the crime of murdering the ruler of Carthage and being hauled through town.
Chains rattled behind her. Magdalena glanced over her shoulder. Iltani, her Mesopotamian friend who’d had her tongue removed by the proconsul’s bounty hunters after a failed escape attempt, raised her strong chin in silent protest. Following close behind was Tabari. The small, dark-skinned waif from the African desert tribes had become Iltani’s voice. Next was Kardide, oldest of Magdalena’s fellow slaves. The hook-nosed Turkish wench would swallow hot coals before she would admit s
he struggled to keep up on this forced march through the city. Magdalena choked back the lump in her throat. Their suffering was her fault. She was the one who’d put them in jeopardy by asking them to stand guard so her daughter could escape through a secret passage in the library wall.
The law required the torture of any slave suspected of a crime. She feared the blows to her face were just the beginning. Who knew what tortures awaited their arrival at the holding cells beneath the Hippodrome. She’d tended prisoners who’d been beaten with glass-studded whips and kicked with hobnailed soldier boots. If prisoners didn’t bleed to death or die from punctured lungs, starvation and poor sanitary conditions would often kill them before their case ever went before the judge. Thank goodness she’d managed to grab her medical bag. Whether she’d be allowed to carry it with her inside the prison remained to be seen.
How have things come to this?
As Magdalena stumbled along, her mind slogged through the blur of the past two days. She’d been hiding out and secretly working at the little hospital Lisbeth had created in Cyprian’s home when Aspasius’s soldiers found her and dragged her back to her bedridden master. The stench of his bedchamber tipped her off to the putrefaction of his leg. She’d sent Tabari to Cyprian’s home to fetch Lisbeth’s modern tools, never intending her fellow slave to return with Lisbeth. But she shouldn’t have been surprised that her stubborn daughter had insisted on bringing the tools personally and staying to assist.
Lisbeth had argued against the surgery, citing the many risk factors: unsanitary operating conditions; lack of intravenous antibiotics; and, most important, Aspasius’s overall poor health due to diabetes and his compromised immune system. In the end, Magdalena had convinced her that doing nothing would guarantee the proconsul’s demise. Magdalena had felt she had no choice but to take the gamble, and if she had it to do all over, she’d make the same decision.
Removing the rotten limb had required a great deal of her physical strength. Secretly, she’d been grateful Lisbeth had been there.
But before the proconsul awakened, Magdalena had insisted that Lisbeth slip through the library’s secret door and escape through the underground tunnels. As Aspasius became more and more restless upon the mahogany operating table, Magdalena knew forcing her daughter to go had been the right choice. Aspasius was experiencing complications. The odds of saving him were not in her favor. She’d placed a calming hand upon his chest. Heart palpitations thumped beneath his cool, clammy skin. “Try to breathe deeply, Aspasius. Hyperventilating won’t help.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Pytros, the scrawny, troublemaking scribe, had demanded.
“Septic shock.” She’d tried to hide her alarm. “He’s been through a lot, Pytros. Why don’t you step out and let him rest?”
Aspasius started thrashing uncontrollably, mumbling senseless things. The raw end of his new stump hit the makeshift operating table with so much force that his neatly tied sutures burst open. Blood spurted everywhere. In an instant, a minor crisis turned into a major medical emergency.
Pytros ran from the library, screaming, “Help! She’s killing my master!”
Magdalena remembered ripping a strip of cloth and was in the process of securing a second tourniquet just above the knee when she noticed her patient’s chest. His sternum rose and fell in the short, labored movements of a man in respiratory distress. Within seconds, Aspasius’s eyes rolled back into his head, and his shaking stilled.
When soldiers burst into the room, they’d found Magdalena covered in blood and frantically performing CPR on a lifeless man. Strong arms pulled her away from Aspasius’s blue-tinged body. It didn’t take but a second for the young soldier in charge to figure out that the proconsul was dead. “What happened?” he’d demanded.
What had happened? It could have been a number of things. Blood clot. Heart attack. Her patient’s age and general poor health.
“Keep up.” The pimple-faced boy who’d smacked her several times jerked Magdalena back to the present. Aspasius’s loyal guard wouldn’t have believed her story if she’d had a chance to tell him. That she was here, in the third century, was difficult for even her to grasp. Some days she couldn’t believe that a silly argument she’d had with her husband years ago had led to her falling into this nightmare. That’s how she’d come to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. A stupid, ridiculous fight. Who would believe such a tale?
Magdalena’s toe caught on an uneven paver. She stumbled and skinned her knees on the cobblestones. She waved off Kardide’s rush to help and scrambled to her feet. “I’m fine.”
“Oh, no,” Tabari said with a gasp. “Perpetua’s prison.”
Magdalena’s gaze followed the direction of her friend’s horrified stare. Rose-tinted Ketel limestone had been fashioned into a massive arena that dominated the city’s skyline.
Legend had it that the pink tinge of the stones came from the blood of the young noblewoman who’d refused to denounce her faith. Perpetua had been led to the arena. There, before thousands of people, a novice executioner botched her execution. In the end, Perpetua had to slit her own throat.
Magdalena choked down rising bile and brushed the dust from her hands. If the Lord intended her to suffer a martyr’s death, then no matter how gruesome it might be, he would give her the strength. Soldiers hooked her under the arms and dragged her to an iron door guarded by one uniformed man.
“This one murdered the proconsul!” the redheaded soldier yelled. “Open the locks!”
“Aspasius is dead?” The guard fumbled with the keys. “How? When?”
“We’ll ask the questions. You do the guarding,” the redheaded soldier said. “Wait.” He ripped her bag from her shoulder. “Where did you get this?”
“It’s my medical supplies.”
“There was a woman who brought it. I saw her fill this bag.” He grabbed Magdalena’s cheeks. “Where is she?”
If God had answered her prayer, Lisbeth was home. Safe in her proper time. “I don’t know.”
He peeked inside. “Saws. Knives.” He extracted a bone drill she’d purchased from a Greek healer who was going out of business. “I didn’t see her put this in here.”
“They’re mine, I tell you.”
Suspicion raised his brows. “I don’t even want to know what you do with this.”
Hastily tossing everything back into her satchel, he smirked. “How long do you think my superior would let me live if you escaped because you hacked off a leg to get free of those shackles?” The contents of the bag clanked and rattled as he chucked it to the jailer. “These blades are evidence. Put them someplace safe.”
“Yes, sir.” The guard tugged on the handle, and the prison door creaked open. A musky stench rushed at Magdalena. Unwashed bodies. Dirty hair. Rancid mutton grease. A dark space fouled by human waste. The soldiers shoved Magdalena and her friends into a hallway that stretched into total blackness. The four women huddled in the darkness.
“Do not be afraid,” Magdalena said boldly, despite the fear pulsing through her veins. “They can kill our bodies, but they cannot touch our souls.”
“Torch,” ordered the soldier squeezing her arm.
In the moments it took for someone to appear with a fiery bundle of twigs dipped in tar, Magdalena squinted, letting her eyes adjust.
A tunnel.
She almost laughed out loud. Tunnels didn’t scare her.
Twenty-five years ago, God had found her beaten, pregnant, and enslaved in the dankest subterranean passage in the world . . . the tunnel beneath the palace of Aspasius Paternus, proconsul of Carthage.
God would find her again.
3
BAREK AWOKE FACEDOWN IN a coagulating puddle that stank of rusty iron and sweat. Dazed and uncertain of where he was or what had happened, he brought his left hand to his head to investigate the throbbing near his temple. It came away sticky with blood. A painful haze clouded his vision. He pushed himself upright and blinked. Hot, thick waves of air fanned the op
en door back and forth on creaky hinges. In the fading light, the terrifying events that had rendered him totally ineffective rushed in, sharp as the blade he clutched in his right hand.
Soldiers had come to Cyprian’s villa. Searching for the exiled solicitor of Carthage and those who harbored him. Barek remembered grabbing his knife from his belt to defend the innocent, but he was no match for the heartless killing machine of Rome.
Oh, God!
Barek pushed himself upright. Everything hurt, but there was only one way to assess the damage and that was to get to his feet. Excruciating pain stabbed his lungs. Hobnailed boots must have broken a few of his ribs. His legs buckled and sent his body to the floor with an agonizing thud.
“Lisbeth? Maggie?” His unanswered pleas scraped his raw throat.
Had he embarrassed himself and screamed like a girl when the soldiers began running their swords through the patients who filled Cyprian’s home? The shame of his possible cowardice paled in comparison to the shame his betrayal had brought upon this house. Thank God his parents’ earlier deaths had spared them the humiliation of seeing their son destroy the church they’d worked so hard to build, as well as the man they’d chosen to lead in their absence.
Barek refused to curl around his injuries. He deserved to feel every bit of pain. What a failure he was compared to his godly father, the former bishop of Carthage. Helping the slave trader Felicissimus sell the evil writs of libellus was a mistake. How many people would die because of those worthless pieces of paper? It wouldn’t take the Romans long to figure out that true Christians would never give the Roman gods genuine allegiance. If only he could take back his part in this horrible fiasco.
He raised a shaky hand to his lips and called, “Cyprian?”
The house was silent.
