by Lynne Gentry
Someone grabbed her from behind and drew her to an instant halt. “Get out of here.”
It took a second for recognition to pierce her blinding rage. “Cyprian! Maggie’s here!”
He shook his head. “She’s home with Barek.”
Lisbeth waved the bone saw she’d somehow managed to hang on to in the direction she’d last seen their daughter. “I spotted her a minute ago but I couldn’t get to her.”
“Put that thing away.” He pulled her tighter still and kissed her forehead. “I’ll find her. Go home.”
“Not without Maggie!” Lisbeth called after him, but he was gone. She turned back to the podium. Broad-shouldered military handlers had surrounded Maximus. Her mother’s hands were being bound behind her back. Papa had made his way to the stage and was desperately ramming his body into the barrier of shields.
“Papa!” Lisbeth fought past brawling fishmongers and belligerent cheese merchants. “Papa!”
“I know you!” The redheaded soldier grabbed her arm and yanked her onto the podium. “You’re the one from the dark alley. The one who claimed to be the wife of Cicero.” He ripped the saw from her hands. From the recognition on his face, she could see that the combination of better light and the saw had made it easy for him to connect the dots. “You’re not the senator’s wife, you’re the servant I brought to the proconsul’s house the night of his surgery. She was there!” He flung her before Maximus. “She was the one who disappeared after the murderous deed was done.”
“Arrest her!” Maximus ordered.
Lisbeth lunged for the soldier’s throat. Her doubled fists hit his breastplate so hard she could feel her knuckles instantly swelling. The redhead laughed and grabbed hold of her elbow and jerked her close. He held her in a tight bear hug she couldn’t break. Panic rushed in like a whirlwind.
“Let her go!” said an authoritative voice, then from out of nowhere, Cyprian launched his body at the redheaded soldier.
Lisbeth sailed backward. She rolled to a stop just as the redhead raised his whip. It came down with an electrifying crack across Cyprian’s face.
Cyprian staggered backward but managed to stay upright. “Get Maggie and go home!” he shouted at Lisbeth as he quickly regained his balance and charged toward the redhead. “I’m the one you want!” He drew back his fist, anger flaring his nostrils. “Let’s see how tough you are when you have to fight a man.” He stood poised to release the full fury of the years of injustice he’d suffered at the hands of Rome.
Lisbeth crawled forward, her eyes on Cyprian. Halfway there, it was as if the wind changed, bringing with it a great, cooling sort of power. There could be no other explanation. For in the blink of an eye, Cyprian’s will to fight was snuffed out. Vanished.
Cyprian slowly lowered his fist, stepped forward, and held out his hands for the cuffs. “I surrender.”
“Cyprian! Don’t!” Lisbeth felt a strong hand clasp her arm and yank her into the crowd.
* * *
WITH THE tip of a soldier’s blade in his back, Cyprian kept his face straight ahead. He didn’t dare look back, for one more glimpse of the terror on Lisbeth’s face as Pontius dragged her away would compel him to fight to stay alive. She’d given up everything to save him: Her world. Her career. Her family. And yet, despite her sacrifices, Lisbeth could not change his destiny. He would not let her give up her ability to return home.
God, be with her because I can’t.
Cyprian threaded his way through the mob, hoping to keep the redheaded guard escorting him from the Forum so busy Lisbeth would have an opportunity to escape. He set a course toward his client. He was intent on reaching Magdalena before they took her to be crucified. He wanted to tell her . . . to tell her his mistake was not in his arguments, for the law was on his side. His mistake was that he’d underestimated the reach of a dead man. Aspasius had tried to ruin his reputation with nasty rumors. Stripped him of his wife and friends. Charged him with treason against the throne. Rallied the support to exile him like a common criminal. And now, he’d taken his ability to make a difference.
A fresh pang of grief ripped through Cyprian. Those were not the things he really wanted to tell Magdalena Hastings. He wanted to say he didn’t understand why God had allowed the most selfless woman Carthage had ever known to be sentenced to death. This city was sick. They needed a healer. They needed someone to show them Christ. They needed her, especially since Lisbeth was going home. He wanted to say he was sorry he was not the bishop his predecessor had been.
Dodging flying fists, elbows, and stones, he shouted, “Magdalena!” He pushed against the soldiers trying to hurry him to wherever they would hold him captive. He was a Roman citizen and a patrician through birth. By law he had the right to house arrest. He pressed against the swords holding him back. “She’s my client. I have a right to speak to my client!”
“She’s my prisoner.” The redheaded soldier shoved him into the arms of another soldier. “Get him out of here!”
Two guards led him through the crowd and dragged him from any hope of saving the ones he loved.
A coldness seeped into his gut. Whatever was coming next, he would have to face the trial alone.
* * *
LISBETH PULLED against Pontius’s iron grip, watching Cyprian calmly agreeing to be led from the Forum like a common criminal. His wrists were bound in metal cuffs. Her heart sped in several directions at once: Cyprian. Maggie. Her parents. She didn’t know which way to run. Her family had been torn into pieces she might never stitch together again.
Lisbeth had never experienced this level of fear. From her very first visit to the third century, she’d faced one difficult situation after another. There’d been losses—huge ones. Yet somehow through it all, she’d always managed to hang on to a fragment of her family. Even all those years ago when her mother disappeared from the Cave of the Swimmers she’d had Papa. And when she’d had to leave Cyprian and Mama behind, she’d had Maggie. But this time things were different. At this moment, everyone she loved was beyond her reach.
Rioters rushed the tables of weights and measures and flipped them with ease. People dove for the scattered coins. Nearby someone picked up a stone and hurled it at the judge’s podium. In an instant, stones whizzed through the Forum.
“We’ve got to go.”
Lisbeth turned toward the hand pulling her in yet another direction. “Pontius, what are you doing?”
“What Cyprian would want!” he yelled over the bedlam. “Protecting you.”
She shook her head. “I’ve got to find Maggie and my parents.”
“I know a shortcut.” Pontius waved his hand and suddenly Tappo, the brawny stonemason whose original desertion had left her and Cyprian to fend for themselves, flanked her. “If we hurry maybe we can cut them off on the way to the arena.”
37
MAGGIE STUMBLED ALONG AFTER Barek, his grip on her wrist so tight it was cutting off the circulation to her hand. She’d crossed a line by convincing him to do this with her. These people were not his family. Yet here he was, risking his life. If this didn’t work, there would be no going back to the time when they were just two kids accidentally thrown together.
They rounded a corner and ducked into an alley. Barek held her against the wall and pinned her with his arms. Breathing hard, he said, “Not a word.” He slid her knife from his sash. “I’ll draw the soldiers’ attention. You grab your grandmother.”
Maggie was determined to prove to him that she could carry her weight in this plan. “Which way to your father’s dye shop?”
His arms were a protective cage around her, holding her captive. Every nerve in her body tingled. He pressed his cheek against hers, his stubble scratchy against her face as he whispered directions. She repeated them back in a muted breathlessness that drew him even closer. “Mom and I searched the shop with the tooth sign for herbs. I’ll recognize it when I see it.”
“You must make certain you are not followed.” Barek’s breath warmed her
neck and heated her blood. She prayed his buried face meant he couldn’t see the rush of heat to her cheeks.
The distant clamor of the approaching crowd scratched at Maggie’s subconscious and lifted Barek’s head in alert. Her eyes sought his for confirmation. He was staring at her lips. When she parted them to speak he laid his finger upon them. He must have felt the jolt of the connection because his eyes jerked to hers. Barek was no longer a terrified teen who didn’t know what to do with a violently ill child. In the space of the past few days, he’d become a man willing to shield her with his own body.
“I can’t breathe,” she squeaked past the force of his finger.
Barek removed his hand and leaned in. Then in a totally unexpected move, his lips brushed hers. “You’re breathing.”
His voice, low and sure, pushed through the tangle of fear closing in on her. Maggie’s throat opened and her lungs flooded not with air, but with a freeing realization. She didn’t want to be the annoying reminder of Barek’s tragic past. She wanted to be someone he could trust with his future. Her limbs grew loose and she threw her arms around his neck. For a second it was like one of those crazy slow-motion moments in a romance movie, that moment when both people want the world to stop so they can kiss at their leisure. She leaned toward Barek.
Shouts of “Free the healer!” came closer.
“They’re coming.” Her voice was barely a whisper he seemed to inhale.
Barek’s body tensed. “Stay quiet.” He leaned in and kissed her hard.
The threats of danger melted into Maggie’s puddled heart. All too soon the moment was over. He released her and she pitched toward him like a moth to a flame, but he reached behind his neck and undid her hands. In one decisive movement, he pushed away.
She covered her mouth with her hand, hoping he’d read the clumsy move as her willingness to follow his instructions and not her attempt to keep the warmth of his touch from evaporating. She pressed her trembling core hard against the wall and listened. The distant roar of several hundred outraged plebeians was louder now.
“Wait for my signal.” Barek eased his head slowly around the wall for a brief peek. He turned back to her. “Whatever happens, after you grab your grandmother I want you to run and don’t look back.”
“I’m not going to leave you to fight them alone.” Maggie wiggled around for a peek of her own.
“Yes you are.” Barek’s strong arm lassoed her waist but he couldn’t reel her in.
“They’re beating her.” Maggie strained against his hold, a magnet drawn to the iron of her grandmother’s backbone. Jaddah’s neck was unbowed, her head raised high. She seemed totally oblivious to the riots and the whip coming down upon her back. Instead, she kept trying to reach for G-Pa, who was running alongside her.
“Recant, Magdalena,” Maggie could hear her grandfather begging. “Crucifixion will be your punishment. Please recant, my love.”
The tall redheaded soldier cracked his whip, nicking Jaddah’s shoulder. Maggie lunged against Barek’s hold as the crowd surged forward in raucous disapproval. The armed escort that flanked the prisoner held the mob at bay with heavy bronze shields, the muscles in their legs bulging against their bootlaces. The redheaded soldier raised his whip again and brought the lash down with a sizzling slash upon G-Pa’s back.
“Lawrence!” Jaddah screamed.
“No!” Maggie shot out from under Barek’s arm and charged toward her grandparents.
She could hear Barek’s frantic steps as he shouted curses at her refusal to heed his command, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Let her go!” Maggie flew at the first soldier she came to, a short, stocky fellow not the least bit fazed by her attack. He wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her kicking and screaming above the pavers. “Let my Jaddah go!” Maggie screamed.
Before she could think of what to do next, Barek plowed into the soldier from behind and sent the three of them somersaulting into the crowd. Maggie’s back took the brunt of the landing. As they rolled around she struggled to catch her breath. Barek pulled the soldier off her and threw him into the crowd.
Clubs and knives appeared in hands that had been empty. Soldiers readied their spears and issued “Stand down” warnings. The mob disregarded the orders and jumped into the fray.
On her hands and knees Maggie scrambled to dodge boots and sandals. She crawled out from under several legs just as a soldier’s whip came across her Jaddah’s back and knocked her to the ground.
“No!” Maggie bolted to her feet and fought her way to her grandparents.
“Maggie?” G-Pa yelled over people pushing and shoving. “What are you doing here?”
She threw herself between her grandmother and the soldier rearing back to swing his whip again. “I could ask you the same thing!” Maggie cried out.
“Go home!” G-Pa ordered, hanging on to Jaddah’s chain.
“No! Not without you.”
“Step away from the prisoners.” The redheaded soldier came at Maggie with the whip. He drew back his arm, set his legs, and prepared to unleash the full fury of his lash.
“Don’t touch her.” The short, stocky soldier who’d been wrestling with Barek when last she saw him grabbed the leather cord of the redhead’s whip and held it steady. “That’s enough.”
“You stupid scut, I’ll see you stripped of your rank and hanged.” The redhead ripped the lash from the hands of the stocky soldier and released the leather strap with a blinding force across his fellow soldier’s face. The short soldier reeled backward, found his footing, then lowered his head and charged. His helmet rammed into the redhead with velocity comparable to that of the ox who’d attacked Ruth not far from this very spot.
Maggie scanned the street fight for Barek. He was picking himself up and coming toward her with his knife raised.
“Smoke!”
Everything came to a halt. Sweaty faces lifted to the sky. A dark, angry cloud churned above them.
“Fire!” Maggie shouted. “Fire!”
Weapons clattered upon the pavement. The mob scattered into the gray wisps, calling to each other to grab jugs and head for the wells. Smoke stung Maggie’s nostrils and burned her throat. The soldier brigade broke its line of defense and fled in the direction of the black cloud. All but two: the tall redheaded soldier with the dented chest armor and the short stocky one with a lopsided helmet. They were locked in a standoff.
“You dare to attack your superior?” the redhead said with a growl. He cast his whip aside and drew his sword. “I’ll cut you down right here and earn a gold piece for it.” The sword flashed in his hand.
The short one, breathing hard from his defensive tackle, ripped keys from his belt and tossed them to Barek. “Take them and go!”
“No, Brutus!” Jaddah reached a bloody hand toward the soldier. “They’ll kill you.”
“Go!” Brutus shouted as he freed his sword. He raised his blade and faced the redhead. “There is but one God!” Brutus fastened his gaze on the redhead and charged straight at the glistening steel pointed at his throat.
38
MAGGIE!” BAREK TUGGED HER wrist but she was too dumbfounded by what the soldier had done to move. Watching someone die on a movie screen was nothing like being only a few feet away from the gruesome reality playing out before her.
“Come on!” The urgency of Barek’s command wrestled her free of her stupor, giving her no time to process the sights and sounds of someone losing his life on her behalf. “Help them!” he shouted. From the corner of her eye she saw a chain being hurled her way. “Now!”
Barek had taken advantage of the redhead’s focus on the sword fight and launched into action. He’d used Brutus’s key and managed to free her grandmother of her chains, but before Barek could free Jaddah’s friends, the redheaded soldier withdrew the sword he’d plunged through Brutus.
The soldier’s eyes lifted, full of hate and revenge. Blood dripped from his blade. “I’ll kill all of you.”
“Run, Maggie!” Ba
rek linked arms with G-Pa and practically lifted Jaddah’s feet from the ground. The three sprinted away. The chain connecting Jaddah’s friends snapped taut in Maggie’s hand, leaving her no choice but to drop it or run along after them.
Hobnail cleats fast approached. The quick clip had an eerily similar ring to what she’d heard the night she and Barek sneaked out to bury his mother and ended up ducking into the Tophet to ditch the soldiers. Remembering the underground burial chamber as a place of safety surprised her. No matter its attachment to death, it was the perfect place to give this mad dog the slip. “Barek, we must find your mother’s urn.”
She could tell from his quick nod that he’d caught her meaning. Barek was now nearly carrying her grandmother as he tried to run faster. Determined to keep up, Maggie pulled Jaddah’s weary friends along as she fought the smoke constricting her throat. Where was Eggie? Had he been caught creating a diversion, whatever it was?
As their entourage skidded around a corner, Maggie glanced behind her. A couple of old people, three chained women, and one terrified college dropout were easy catches for the highly trained foot soldier in hot pursuit. The redheaded soldier quickly overtook them. He bypassed the servants and went straight for Maggie. He grabbed a handful of her hair, snapping her head backward. The pain was so sharp and sudden, she dropped the chain.
“Barek!” She slammed into the ground. Before another word could leave her mouth, Barek was between her and the soldier, his knife extended and his nostrils flaring.
“Run!” he yelled.
Maggie struggled to her feet, but she was too late. Barek and the redhead were locked in hand-to-hand combat.
G-Pa grabbed her from behind. “Which way?”
“I can’t—”
G-Pa shook her. “Which way?”
Hot tears stinging her cheeks, Maggie picked up the chain. She didn’t dare look back or she wouldn’t be able to choose between saving Barek and saving her family.
