Valley of Decision

by Lynne Gentry

  Neither Lisbeth nor Maggie dared speak, let alone move until the sound of iron cleats retreated beyond their hearing. This scare was too close for comfort. “You’re going back to the villa,” Lisbeth whispered.

  “Only if you do.” Maggie’s voice had a steel edge.

  “Sometimes you’re as stubborn as your father.”

  “That’s what you get when you cross a mule with a wildcat.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “G-Pa.”

  Lisbeth couldn’t help but smile at the effort it was taking for Maggie to push her away. “Not sure which one you think I am and I don’t think I want to know.” She kissed Maggie’s cheek. “Come on. Stay alert. And keep that knife handy.”

  Lisbeth did not know what to expect once they finally found Quinta’s apartment, but instinct told her it could be bad. Lisbeth assigned Maggie lookout duty, then knocked lightly so as not to alert the neighbors. No moans, no cries, even worse—no sound at all. She knocked again and noticed a lamp’s flicker in the apartment across the street.

  “Quick.” She pushed against the unlocked door. Scents of rotting hay and wet feathers mingled with the stench of soiled sheets, sweat, and vomit. “Don’t touch anything,” she warned Maggie, who was pinching her mask against her nose.

  It took a moment for Lisbeth’s eyes to adjust to the dim light filtering through the cracks in the closed shutters. Bodies. Two of them were huddled together in the middle of the sleeping mat. Hard to tell if they were dead or alive. She could hear the sounds of a crowd gathering outside. The moment she declared those inside dead, looters would storm the house and take anything they could get their hands on.

  Lisbeth opened the door and hissed, “Plague!” The curious scattered. For now. From their hungry faces, she could tell they wouldn’t be held off for long. “We’ll have to work fast. Find the lamp.”

  With surprising efficiency, Maggie located oil and flint. A few quick strikes and she had the wick flaming. “Now what?”

  Lisbeth squatted beside Quinta. A faint pulse beat against the fingers she pressed to the carotid. “Now the real work begins.”

  25

  CYPRIAN DRAGGED HIS HAND across the ache in his neck. “So Galerius Maximus comes to town and all of a sudden the praetor promptly packs his litter, loads his slaves with anything they can carry, and leaves?”

  “So it would appear,” Titus said. “And Maximus has also skirted the senate and appointed himself as judge.”

  “I’m not surprised Maximus wants to be judge, but I am surprised the new proconsul would choose such a blatant affront to precedent as his first official action. Did Xystus offer no contest?”

  “None.”

  “What does Xystus know about this emissary of Valerian that we don’t?”

  “Perhaps it’s not as bad as you think. Maximus is a vain little banty rooster, intent on standing before crowds, but he seemed amenable enough toward Christians.”

  “Did he seem as benevolent toward murderers?”

  Titus gave a one-shouldered shrug. “He might draw the line at having someone come after his leg with a saw, but who wouldn’t?”

  “If Maximus finds Magdalena to be the property of the state, her ownership reverts to him and he can do with her as he wishes.” Cyprian’s eyes burned from the strain of researching the legal parchments spread upon the desk of Titus. Now that Maximus had run Xystus out of town and appointed himself judge, Cyprian’s hopes of having the trial dismissed in the pretrial stage had been destroyed. Cyprian didn’t dare go to trial before a possibly hostile judge without every angle carefully researched and supported.

  “I would feel much better if you were sitting in the judge’s seat, Titus. Is there nothing we can do to overturn the proconsul’s self-appointment?”

  “Unfortunately our shiny new proconsul glows with the emperor’s blessing, and the glare has blinded those left in the Senate. Our best bet is to stay within Maximus’s good graces and pray Valerian’s recall of exiled bishops is a sign of the throne’s changed heart.”

  Cyprian sighed. “In that case, my goal will be to discredit the state’s witness and convince the proconsul he needs the healer to help him restore this portion of the empire.”

  “I know you are a student of Tertullian.” Titus’s brow cocked over his steepled fingers. “But I have the original works of Antoninus Pius squirreled away, and there may be a loophole we have overlooked.”

  “We cannot leave any stone unturned. Fetch them, quickly.”

  Titus mounted a small stool. His long fingers searched the top shelf and retrieved a scroll tucked behind some urns. He brushed a puff of dust from the century-old text. “Care to do the honors?”

  Cyprian fingered the treasured work, unable to dismiss the pang of longing for the shelves of simple parchments he’d left behind in his library, the ones scratched out some two hundred years earlier by men who sought to know only one thing about their future: where they would spend eternity.

  “Your collection rivals the scriptures Caecilianus and I had collected.”

  “Justice and mercy suffered an irreplaceable loss with the destruction of your property.” Titus’s face was truly sad.

  Gratitude overwhelmed Cyprian. Were it not for the surprising generosity of a man whose newfound faith had transformed him from enemy to friend, Cyprian would have faced tomorrow unprepared. “I’m finding faith and friends are the possessions that matter, brother.”

  Pontius burst through the door waving a small scrap of paper. “An urgent message has come from the bishops of Numidia.”

  His deacon’s unusual distress led Cyprian and Titus to abandon the law.

  Dearest brothers in Carthage,

  We write as captives of the faith. Valerian has issued a new edict, one that says bishops should be imprisoned or put to death. His orders have sent us to the mines to work with half our hair shorn and insufficient food and clothing. On the sixth of this month, Bishop Sixtus and four of his faithful deacons refused to recant their love of our Lord. They were put to death. We have been told that senators and knights, and anyone else of rank who does not bow to the gods of Rome, will likewise lose all his goods and properties. If these men persist in their “heresies,” they shall also forfeit their lives and their women shall be exiled. Only God’s divine intervention will save us. Praying he will also intervene on your behalf.

  Do not believe, dear brothers, that Cyprian has been summoned from exile for your good. He has been brought home to die.

  “WHAT DOES it say?” Titus asked anxiously.

  “Lisbeth was right.” There was no point in hiding what would soon become public knowledge. Cyprian handed him the parchment. “The end is coming.”

  Titus’s face acquired a ghostly pallor. “Senators executed?” His shaking hands rattled the parchment. “My wife and daughter exiled? What have I done?”

  “Settle down, man. Our one God has not forsaken us.” Cyprian slid a chair beneath Titus’s buckling legs. “Pontius, take a letter thanking our brothers in Numidia for their warning. Enclose seven hundred denarii for the relief of the saints in the mines.”

  Titus rolled the parchment and tapped it on his knee. “You can’t risk going before Maximus.”

  “If our end is coming, what good will it do to hide?”

  26

  MAGGIE RAN ALL THE way from Quinta’s apartment to Titus’s villa to fetch the cart. If she didn’t hurry, the sun would break over the horizon before they had Quinta safely delivered. She had to get this right if she wanted to see her grandparents. That run-in with the soldiers had made Mom really jumpy. She never would have agreed to Maggie’s suggestion that she go for help if there had been any other choice.

  While her mother instructed Barek and Eggie on how to move Quinta from the apartment to the wagon without spilling her from the soiled sheet, Maggie scooped up the limp baby and carried him from the squalid room. His diaper was wet and sour and his tiny body was speckled with the same red rash that had
left brown scabs on Eggie’s face.

  Once the guys had Quinta settled in the cart, Maggie placed the baby in her arms. If her mother’s stomach buzzed with this same sense of satisfaction every time she helped someone, no wonder she didn’t mind the hours at the hospital. Helping people get well did feel rewarding. Maggie’s gaze cut to her mother. Earlier, her mother had been telling Metras how much she didn’t appreciate what Quinta had done. Now here she was, holding Quinta’s hand and talking as if all were forgiven.

  Throughout Maggie’s life she’d tried to be brave, to be like her mother—an uphill battle for someone with no interest in the periodic table. But it wasn’t until she saw gratitude seeping from Quinta’s eyes that she realized the characteristic she most wanted to imitate was her mom’s compassion.

  Back at the villa, Barek and Eggie resumed the endless job of filling vaporizer pots while Maggie paid extra close attention to the construction of the breathing tents for Quinta and her grandbaby.

  “They should rest now.” Mom closed her backpack and inspected Maggie’s work. “These tents are a work of art.”

  That buzzy feeling hit Maggie’s stomach again and sparked a smile. “Maybe I’ll make one for my senior art show.”

  “Good to know you’re going back to college. That I haven’t wasted the price of a nice luxury car on your first semester.” Mom stopped and looked at her. “You are planning on coming home with me, right?”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when I left school, but I had to try to save him.”

  Mom wiped her hands on the front of her dress. “Of course you did. You’re my daughter too, you know?” She slung her backpack strap over her shoulder and offered Maggie her hand. “Come on. Let’s go tell your father we’ve rounded up another one of his lost sheep.”

  They found Cyprian in the dimly lit library, the shutters sealed tightly. Dad and Titus were hunched over a bunch of dusty-looking papers. It was clear from Titus’s mussed hair and wild eyes that something was terribly wrong.

  “Cyprian? What’s happened?” From the crack in Mom’s voice, she sensed bad news. “Tell me.”

  Dad handed Mom a piece of paper. “Valerian.”

  The color drained from her mother’s face and Maggie knew she wasn’t the only one who’d flipped to the end of the history books to see how her father’s story ended.

  Mom managed to speak despite her trembling lip. “You can’t defend my mother.”

  “I’ve tried to tell him!” Titus blurted out. “Maximus has removed Xystus, appointed himself as judge, and set Magdalena’s trial for tomorrow.”

  Maggie put voice to the question frozen on her mother’s lips. “So does this mean Maximus will come after you, Dad?”

  “We’re searching the law.” Cyprian was trying his best to appear confident. In all of her research, Maggie had never found a record of her grandmother’s trial, but she and Mom both knew there was ample record of her father’s death. And they both knew who was behind it.

  “Maybe Titus could argue for a continuance or something,” Mom muttered.

  Her father shook his head.

  “Why not?” Mom insisted. “It would at least give us time to think.”

  Dad put his hands on Mom’s shoulders and led her to a nearby bench as if trying to steer a careening car back from the ledge. “The Goths are invading Rome from the east, the Germans are attacking the empire on the Rhine, and in Asia the great King Sapor is rallying the Persians. Valerian has sent Maximus here with one purpose: to secure his southern provinces. The new proconsul has a point to make. If I were ruler, I would make it at the murder trial of my predecessor, and I would start by discrediting me.”

  “But you have Aspasius’s note,” Mom argued. “The one that says you are a free man.”

  “We don’t even know if the note will hold up,” Titus said.

  “But you seemed so certain.”

  “That was before my father’s friend left town.”

  “Then Titus has to defend her and he can put me on the stand,” Mom said, the color rushing back to her cheeks with a vengeance.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “I was there. I can tell them exactly what happened.”

  “You have only the word of servants to prove you were there.” Dad’s eyes were fierce, a look Maggie hadn’t seen since Ruth’s funeral when he declared he would not rest until Carthage was free of persecution.

  Mom pulled a shiny, stainless steel saw from her backpack. “Here’s your proof.”

  Dad’s eyes widened. “Where did you get that?”

  “From Mama’s bag. But I’ll say it’s mine.”

  Maggie felt her whole world shift. Mom was basically offering herself up for Jaddah, and Dad wasn’t having it.

  He took the saw and crammed it into Mom’s backpack and zipped it shut. “I don’t want either of you at this trial, understood?”

  “If you’re going, I’m going,” Mom said, not the least bit ruffled. “Don’t even try to stop me.”

  Maggie jumped between them. “I’m going too.”

  “No you’re not,” both parents said simultaneously.

  “Wait a minute,” Maggie declared. “I’m eighteen. I can go anywhere I want to.”

  “Maybe in your world,” Dad said. “But in my world, I’m your father and I say you are not going.”

  Maggie turned to her mother for support. “Can he do that?”

  Lisbeth’s slow sigh was a hard one to read. Either she didn’t want to be in the middle or she was glad to have someone share the burden of being the bad guy. “He just did.”

  They may think her a baby, one they could tell where she could and could not go, but they wouldn’t see her cry like one. “This isn’t right.” Maggie stormed from the library. Head down and eyes bleary, she crashed into something solid, something with warm arms that immediately wrapped around her in comfort.

  “Whoa!” Eggie, his scars now faded, had her by the waist. “What’s wrong, my little goddess?”

  The tears she’d been fighting sprang free. “My parents have forbidden me to attend my grandmother’s trial and it’s going to be a bloodbath.” She swiped her cheeks.

  Eggie scanned the hall, including a brief glance over his shoulder, and grabbed her hand. “Come on.” He led her through the maze of mats and out to a shady corner of the courtyard. “When is this trial?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Then we’ve no time to waste.”

  “We?”

  “Your father forbade you to go to the trial, right?”

  “Didn’t I just say that?” she said with a sniff.

  “Think.” Eggie was asking a lot considering he was still holding her hand. “Did he say you couldn’t go into the market for more herbs?” His insistent squeeze flipped a mental breaker, and what he was asking registered.

  Maggie’s smile was not from her surprise at Eggie’s suggestion, but rather her astonishment of how much they thought alike. “Now that you mention it, he didn’t.”

  “While I was filling the pots for those two we just picked up, I noticed we were running dangerously low on eucalyptus.”

  Maggie nodded conspiratorially. “My father wouldn’t want Quinta or her grandbaby to suffer because we lacked supplies.”

  Eggie’s gleaming eyes were intoxicating. “In Rome, vendors line the path to the Forum. I’m sure it is the same here. If the herb vendor’s booth happens to be within earshot of the witness stand, can you help what you overhear?”

  Maggie smiled. “It would be a dereliction of my duty to let our supplies run low because of what I might overhear.” She rose on her tiptoes, kissed Eggie’s cheek, and whispered, “Too bad you will never be emperor.”

  “Ah, but then I would never have gotten that kiss or this one.” He cupped her face with his hands and kissed her on the lips.

  Maggie took a step back. She knew his lips, had watched the various changes in coloring during his illness, and saw now that they were healed. Yet somehow she didn’t fee
l much from his kiss, not the way she would have hoped.

  She stepped away from him in surprise, but Eggie just smiled and offered his crooked arm. “The moment the coast is clear, we shall head to the market. Shall we peruse the supplies and make our shopping list?”

  She threaded her arm through his. “You’re a good friend.”

  27

  BAREK SEARCHED THE HALL, the steaming pot of hot water he was lugging burning against his hands. “Eggie, can you . . . Eggie?” The man had been right behind him a moment ago. “Eggie!” Barek headed down the hall, past the open door to the courtyard. Laughter wafted to his ears. He stopped and surveyed the shadows. Movement caught his eye.

  Eggie. And he was with someone. A woman. No. Maggie. And she was planting a kiss on his cheek.

  “Maggie!” Barek dropped his jug of boiling water, unconcerned by the sizzle of his flesh, and stormed to the secluded corner of the garden. “What are you doing?” He unwrapped Maggie from Eggie’s arms and dragged her clear of his reach.

  “Barek.” Maggie pounded on his arm. “Let me go.”

  “If he tried anything, I’ll—”

  “Stop acting like an older brother.”

  He didn’t know why he should be surprised by her flippant attitude, but he was. “Somebody’s got to watch out for you.”

  “I can take care of myself.” Maggie jerked her arm free. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I was thanking a friend.”

  “Thanking him for what?”

  “Helping her empty chamber pots,” Eggie said, grinning.

  Barek wheeled and poked Eggie in the chest. “I’ve had enough of you and your starry-eyed advances toward this girl.”

  “Advances?” Maggie shouted. “Are you trying to be my dad too?”

  Barek’s forehead creased and he studied her more carefully. “Have you been crying?”

  “What’s it to you?” Maggie defended.

  “Did he make you cry?”

  “No.”

  “Someone made you cry!”