Valley of Decision (10 page)

When Barek had questioned his mother as to why anyone would shove her daughter down a well, she'd challenged his skepticism: “Some things are like faith. They cannot be explained.”

But this accounting had come from the same woman who'd also told him Jesus arose from the grave and that one day she would do the same. To believe such tall tales required a faith he no longer possessed . . . maybe never had.

Not even a full day had passed since Barek had placed his life in harm's way so Cyprian could carry his small, feverish daughter
to safety. He thought Cyprian had taken Lisbeth and Maggie to his country estate. He hadn't asked because he didn't think Cyprian would ever again trust him with the truth. But it had never occurred to him that an intelligent man like Cyprian would push the two people he loved the most in this world through some magical time portal.

No, this alarming beauty standing before him was most likely an impostor sent to aid the followers of Aspasius in Cyprian's capture.

Barek retreated a safe distance from her reach, his lips on fire where she'd kissed him. “This isn't funny,” he stuttered. “Maggie was dying.”

She raised her chin with the same cocky slant of that child who could ignite his temper with a word. A curtain of blond curls fell across her shoulders. “Sorry to disappoint you, Barek, but I lived.” Her eyes, turbulent as the sea in winter, dared him to think her anything other than the small child he'd carried through the Tophet.

“I never meant for her to get sick.”

From the arch of her brow, Barek could see she didn't believe for a minute he was sorry for anything that had happened. “I don't blame you for the days I spent in the hospital, so there's no need to be so cranky.”

Only one person had ever called him on his foul mood, and that was the daughter of the healer he'd fished out of the well. Barek couldn't explain it, but in that instant he knew . . . this girl with the curves of a full-grown woman was the same child who'd changed everything. How different his life might have been had he let her drown. “I will never understand the pleasure you take in taunting me.”

A wry smile fluttered across her perfect lips. “Then you believe it's me?”

Barek ran a hand through his wet hair, suddenly aware that he reeked of fish. “Or Maggie's evil twin.”

“Enough.” Cyprian wedged between them. “Where shall we make this boy's sickbed, Titus?”

“We can't keep him here.” Titus again raised his palms and backed away. “We're not set up to handle measles, and without Lisbeth or Magdalena we have no healer.”

“I'll take care of him,” Maggie volunteered.

“You?” Barek scoffed. “What do
you
know of measles?”

“I watched my mother build the vaporizer tents.”

“So did I, but that doesn't make us healers,” Barek said with a snarl. “Keeping him alive will be hard work.”

“Then I suspect we will both need a nap by the time he has recovered, because I expect
you
to help.” Maggie took several steps toward Titus, balled her fists, and crammed them onto her slender hips. “I seemed to remember that you promised my mother you would do whatever you could to repay the care she and my grandmother gave your daughter.”

“Yes, but that was before—”

“Good.” She smiled. “It seems to me it's settled.”

“It's Maggie, all right,” Barek muttered.

Titus rubbed his brow. “My servants will do what they can, but no one in this house has had the rash. We'll need help from your Christian friends, Cyprian.”

“There're not many of them left.”

“I helped split the church,” Barek said. “I should be the one to put it back together.”

G
ALERIUS MAXIMUS LAY BOARD-STRAIGHT
upon the thick carpet of his bedchamber. He squeezed his eyes shut so his daily elocution exercises would not be spoiled by the ridiculous fresco painted on his ceiling. The artists his mother-in-law commissioned to redecorate his quarters had given the goddess of fertility such a shrewish look. Maximus knew the rendering was Hortensia's subtle way of saying her eyes were always upon him. Especially on the rare opportunities she allowed him to bed his own wife.

In one corner of the spacious room a slave waved a plumed fan. In another corner his faithful bodyguard stacked heavy stone pavers. Under cover of darkness, he and Kaeso had stolen the stones from one of his mother-in-law's extensive garden paths. Oh, how he hated that his father's gambling debts had forced him to forfeit his family's home and move in with his wife's mother.

Maximus inhaled deeply, pressed his back to the floor, and then bent his knees. “Place the stones here, Kaeso.” He patted his chest at the indentation just below his breastbone. “I must work on strengthening my projection.”

His bodyguard's eyes flitted between him and the stack of pavers. “These stones are heavier than they look, master.” Muscles rippled beneath the sheen of Kaeso's soot-colored skin. “If you are crushed to death and I am forced to serve Mistress Hortensia, I
shall follow you into the depths of Hades and make certain you are unable to recite a single word in your next life.”

The tall, broad-shouldered, shiny piece of marble scowling down at him had been with Maximus since his mother killed herself after his noble birth. When Maximus reached the age of needing a playmate, Kaeso had been purchased to become the young master's personal slave and companion. Thirty-five years later faint traces of the slave's North African heritage remained in his accent. Maximus had learned that Kaeso had been cut from his mother's womb by a raiding Roman war party and forced to serve the imperial troops patrolling the southern frontier until he was ten. Poor Kaeso had been angry about the injustice ever since.

Maximus found it easy to forgive Kaeso's ill temper, for he too suffered from a life of forced service. Had he been master of his own life, he would have joined a theater troupe years ago and traveled the world with his beautiful wife. Instead, his marriage had saddled him with an ambitious mother-in-law intent on his rise in public office. He prayed to the gods that Hortensia would not live forever. Then he and his lovely Aeliana could do as they pleased.

Maximus waved his servant forward and patted his bare chest again. “The stones, Kaeso. Add one at a time if you fear me so fragile, but if I'm to be heard by those watching from the theater's cheap seats I must strengthen my voice.”

“Here's to your last breath.” Kaeso straddled his chest, and then slowly lowered the paver.

Air whooshed from Maximus's lungs. “Oh.” He fought the idiotic tremors of panic and quickly set to work enunciating the drills his acting teacher had given him. Executing the last run of rhyming words had limbered his tongue to perfection when he heard the distinctive click of a woman's heels upon the marbled hallway. He waved his hands. “The stone, Kaeso. Quickly.”

“Galerius Maximus.” Hortensia breezed into the room, a foul
wind that singed the fine hairs upon his chest. She strode to his side and peered down her nose. “Whatever are you doing casting about on my fine carpets like some sort of plebeian?” She snapped her fingers. “Aeliana, come talk sense to your husband before he exposes himself as an utter fool and shames my house.”

Maximus scrambled to stand, intent on impressing Aeliana to root for him in these regular duels with her mother. “I'm quite capable of standing on my own two feet.” He smoothed his loincloth.

“That remains to be seen.” Hortensia's gaze traveled from his hairless chest to the stone in Kaeso's hands and then on to the pile in the corner. “Are those the new garden pavers I had imported from Egypt?”

Heat flushed Maximus's cheeks. “We'll put them back when I've completed my exercises. I promise.”

She was not amused. “Does your foolish behavior have anything to do with that despicable actor . . . ?” She snapped her fingers as if to jar her memory. “What's his name?”

“Cato,” Aeliana whispered.

Hortensia cast a glare at her daughter. “What do you know of the theater?”

Aeliana became suddenly very interested in her shoes, dainty silk affairs adorned with expensive seed pearls. “No more than you, Mother.”

Hortensia would never lower herself by attending the theater, but Maximus guessed his mother-in-law's sudden interest in the impressive stage artist meant she already knew what he'd been up to. “Well, does it, Maximus?”

“No,” he proclaimed boldly, though the lie twisted his tongue and his chest felt as if he still supported a garden paver.

“You were never a good liar, son-in-law.” Hortensia turned to her daughter. “Which could be a good thing for you, Aeliana. Unlike
me, you shall know when your husband decides to take his physical comfort in the bed of a harlot.”

Maximus hated how his beautiful, pregnant wife always melded into the draperies rather than stand up to her mother. “Surely you have not come to my quarters simply to check on my fidelity to your daughter.” He hadn't meant for his gaze to sweep the ceiling, but it had. And before he could take the motion back, Hortensia had caught a glimpse of his disapproval of her constant intrusion.

A slow smile spread across his mother-in-law's lips. Then, like a buzzard circling carrion, she swooped in and began to peck him apart. “For someone who comes from such a noble bloodline, you are a scrawny, insignificant disappointment.” Her razor-sharp gaze scraped the stunted length of his body. “Fortunately, you are
not
stupid. If you were, I would have nothing to work with.” She produced a folded piece of parchment sealed with a wax stamp bearing the emblem of royalty. “It has taken me all morning to arrange this opportunity.” She handed him the missive and tapped it with a claw-like nail. “Read it.”

Maximus looked to Aeliana for a clue. His wife's quickly lowered eyes told him the letter did not contain good news. He slid a quivering finger along the seal.

Galerius Maximus is hereby appointed

Proconsul of Carthage.

Appointment effective immediately.

Terms of service shall include but not exceed one year.

Report to the first available ship sailing for Africa.

Restore the favor of the gods in the province of Tunisia.

Execute anyone who refuses to worship at the sacred temples.

Stop the plague by eliminating the Christians who spread it.

By order of Publius Licinius Valerianus Augustus, Emperor of Rome.

MAXIMUS'S HEART
hammered his chest. “What have you done, mother-in-law?”

“I have put an end to your ridiculous pursuit of the theater.” Hortensia's nostrils flared. “Did you think I wouldn't find out about your bawdy theater actor and your secret training sessions in my stables? Servants talk.” Her eyes were hard as paver stones. “A son-in-law with a reputation of prancing naked about the stage is
not
what I purchased with my daughter's very generous dowry.”

“I will not do it, Hortensia.” Maximus wadded the parchment and threw it across the room. “Africa resides in the bowels of Hades.”

She leaned in close enough for him to catch the clayish scent of the henna she used to smother the gray sprouting from her head like the snakes of Medusa. “Listen to me, you wormy slug, you
will
go. Or I shall make certain you never return to see your child.”

His eyes darted to Aeliana, but she knew better than to meet his gaze. “You can't keep us apart.”

Hortensia laughed in the face of his belligerence. “There's no end to what I can and will do. Your future is already arranged. I'm counting on the southern sun of Africa to burn color into those pasty cheeks and add backbone to that soft body of yours. Because I expect you to return ready to do whatever it takes to assume the throne.” She wheeled. “Come, Aeliana. The future proconsul of Carthage has to pack.”

His wife put her hand to her large belly and mouthed
I'm sorry
, then hurriedly waddled after her mother.

W
E'VE ASKED EVERYONE WHO
left the church to reconsider.” Barek followed Cyprian down another dark, lonely alley. So far both of them had refrained from stating the obvious. No one was coming to their aid.

“Not everyone.” Cyprian paused beneath a wooden sign carved in the shape of a large tooth and reviewed his list once again, holding it at an angle to take advantage of the splinter of moonlight. A gust of wind whipped the jagged points of the tooth against the tenement building. “According to one of the tenants, we'll find your old landlord if we turn left here.”

Barek scanned their surroundings. Unlike the stunning transformation in Maggie's appearance, a blossoming that had robbed him of sleep these past few nights, his old neighborhood had decayed since his family abandoned their flat above the dye shop and moved into Cyprian's villa in the posh part of town. Many of the shops and homes were empty. But if he closed his eyes, he could still smell the foul aroma of crushed snail shells clinging to his father's robe and hear his mother humming her sweet songs of the Lord's deliverance as her slender fingers worked the loom. How he missed them. And oh how his mother would enjoy seeing Maggie fill out a silk stola rather than trip over the hem as she had playing dress-up as a child.

Barek shoved his failure to protect all of them in with his guilt for betraying Cyprian. “Metras lived in one of the lower apartments because of his bad leg.” Barek's empty belly had been howling since sunset. Sweat trickled down his back. Traipsing about in hooded cloaks and begging for help that would never come was perhaps God's way of giving him a taste of the punishment he deserved. “The old stonemason is the last name on our list, right?”