Valley of Decision (29 page)

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.

M
AGGIE!” 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!” Barek 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.

A few breathless minutes later, she, Jaddah, G-Pa, and her grandmother's three friends were well out of earshot of Barek's scuffle. As they stood huffing among the burial urns stored in the cavernous
tomb of the Tophet, she had no way of knowing what happened after she fled. The guilt was nauseating. Had Barek escaped? Or had . . .

She didn't dare think about what she would do if Barek didn't come for them.

Outside the Tophet, the frantic calls of citizens and soldiers scurrying to put out the fire continued. Maggie and her little band of escapees plastered themselves against the nearest wall and listened. Fingers of smoke crept through the arched doorway. Maggie surveyed the burial chamber in the dim light. Somewhere among the stacks and stacks of urns were the remains of Barek's beloved mother and the premature baby who'd died with her.

Maggie swallowed the sour taste this memory always brought to her mouth. If she didn't come up with some kind of plan, very likely her own remains would be excavated from this place someday. She listened carefully to the noise filtering through the doorway.

“This is the place that changed our lives,” her g-pa whispered as he helped Jaddah lower herself to the dusty cave floor.

Maggie kept one eye on the door, the other on the pain creasing her grandmother's face. “What do you mean?”

“I was poking around the ancient ruins and fell through about right there.” He pointed to a place in the domed ceiling, a place still intact. “Landed on an urn.” He squatted beside Jaddah and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Met your grandmother when she had to dig the potsherd out of my backside. She was the one who noticed the little swimmer.”

Maggie's heart stopped. “Swimmer?”

G-Pa nodded. “When I pieced it all together, I discovered the little swimmer was a replica of Neolithic art I'd seen in a book about the Cave of the Swimmers. Got me to thinking, how did this exact same picture end up in Carthage? A thousand miles from the point of origin. So I went to the desert looking for answers.”

Lightning-hot guilt rattled Maggie's limbs. Memories swirled like the ashes in Ruth's burial fire. Maggie was the one who'd drawn the swimmers on the urn. She was the one who'd changed their lives. This whole big mess was her fault. None of her family would have even known about the time portal if she'd only let Barek bury his mother in peace. Jaddah wouldn't have suffered for years at the hands of a madman. Mom wouldn't have had to grow up without her mother and she never would have come here. But if Mom hadn't come here, would Barek's mom be dead? And even more sobering, would Maggie exist at all?

“Lawrence, grab her,” Jaddah said.

Maggie's legs went out from under her and she slumped into her grandfather's arms.

*  *  *

WHEN MAGGIE
came to a few minutes later, her head rested in her Jaddah's lap. “Maggie.” Her grandmother's velvet touch stroked her hair away from her face. “You've grown up to be every bit as beautiful as I had imagined.”