Healer of Carthage

by Lynne Gentry

  The dogs scrambled around her and parked themselves at the feet of the biggest boy. At first glance, Lisbeth would have guessed the late arrivals to be victims of a car wreck. They were as bloodied and battered as some of the fatalities she’d seen wheeled into the ER, but these patients seemed to have gotten themselves here by their own power, with the bigger fellow alert enough to help the unconscious smaller one.

  “No! Not my son.” Ruth pushed past Lisbeth and rushed to the larger boy. “Barek, Mama’s here.” She frantically began removing the boy’s bloody cloak, searching his body for injuries.

  “He’s your son?” The boy looked to be about seventeen. Ruth couldn’t have been much more than fifteen when she’d had him.

  Caecilianus elbowed his way to the front of the crowd. “My boy. Not my boy.” He crumpled next to his dogs. “What can I do?”

  “Pray,” Ruth mumbled. “Pray and remove these creatures from my path.”

  Caecilianus collared his pets and made way for his wife.

  “What happened?” Lisbeth moved toward the smaller boy, the one whose head hung like a limp rag.

  “Soldiers.” The cloaked woman lifted the chin of the smaller boy. His eyelids fluttered. “Laurentius? Can you hear me?” An irregular-toothed smile sliced a wedge in his pie-shaped face. Then he drifted into unconsciousness. The lady in green silk removed the smaller fellow’s bloody arm from Barek’s shoulder. “They beat Laurentius with clubs. He may have a concussion. But I think Barek’s injuries are worse. I’ll tend him. You take Laurentius.”

  “Me?” Who was this woman ordering her around like an ER attending?

  Cyprian joined the women huddled around the couch. “Did the soldiers follow you here, healer?”

  Healer? Curious, Lisbeth stepped closer.

  The woman in green silk shook her head. “We cut through the tenements.”

  “Barek’s taken an arrow to the shoulder.” Ruth wrapped her hand around the cock-feather fletching that adorned the shaft. “I need to pull it out.”

  “No!” Lisbeth and the healer shouted at the same time. Their heads snapped up. Their eyes fastened on each other. A brief, electrifying stare passed between them.

  The healer was the first to recover. She quickly handed the smaller boy over to Cyprian. “Broadheads are razor-sharp. The damage could be extensive. Ruth, help me take a look.”

  “I’ll do it.” Lisbeth eased the larger boy forward and checked his back. “It’s a through and through. If the projectile punctured a lung or lacerated an artery—”

  “There’s only one way to find out.” The healer fished something shiny out of her cloak pocket and wrapped it around her neck.

  “Hey! Ruth, hold your son a minute.” Lisbeth released the larger boy. He fell into Ruth’s arms with a pained groan. “That’s my stethoscope!”

  “You can have it when I’m finished.”

  “You don’t even know how to use it. Give it to me!” Lisbeth lunged for the woman.

  They both went crashing onto the marble floor. Lisbeth tried desperately to wrestle her stethoscope from this woman’s clutches.

  “Stop!” Ruth screamed. “Cyprian, do something!”

  Cyprian deposited the smaller boy into the arms of the bishop. His arm circled Lisbeth’s waist and lifted her off the woman. “What are you doing? There’s been enough bloodshed for one night.”

  Lisbeth’s feet pedaled the air. Arms flailing, she fought to break free. “Give it back, witch!”

  The healer placed a protective hand on the stethoscope and struggled to sit up. “Actually, I am not a witch, Lisbeth”—her breathy voice was no more than a whisper—“but an adequate surgeon … or so they used to say.” The hood of her cloak had been knocked free, along with the combs that held her hair in place. Thick ebony locks streaked with gray tumbled to her waist.

  “How do you know my name?” Lisbeth felt Cyprian’s grip tighten around her middle. “How?”

  The lady in green silk got to her feet. “This stethoscope once belonged to me.” She spoke in English, her eyes locked with Lisbeth’s.

  A moment of stunned silence passed. When Lisbeth found her voice she answered in English. “Funny, I thought you just said this is your stethoscope.”

  “I did,” the woman replied, and she ripped the veil from her face. “And from the efficiency of your triage, I trust you’ve learned to use it on more than inanimate objects.”

  Lisbeth went limp, the fight hemorrhaging from her extremities at a deadly rate. She tried to speak, but a million unanswered questions lodged in her throat.

  The disheveled woman with sad, broken eyes could not be who she was thinking of. That woman was put together. A beautiful, self-confident doctor. And the person she’d always wanted to be.

  This couldn’t be happening. She must have hit her head when she fell into that stupid hole in Papa’s cave. Once Nigel and Aisa hauled her out, she’d come to in a couple of days. She and Papa would sit on overturned buckets outside his tent and share warm sodas and a laugh about who was crazier … him or her.

  Cyprian spoke into Lisbeth’s ear. “Do you have healing skills?”

  Lisbeth managed a numb nod.

  “If you’re ready to behave, I’ll put you down.” Cyprian lowered Lisbeth’s feet to the floor.

  She wanted to run toward the woman in the bloody green silk. To hug her. Or hit her. She wasn’t sure. But instead she stood motionless, restrained by Cyprian and the idea that her mother was alive. “Ma—”

  “Magdalena is my name.” She snatched Lisbeth’s hand, sending a fiery blast of joy, confusion, and anger coursing through Lisbeth’s veins. She yanked her close, cutting off the questions flooding Lisbeth’s mind. “Ask nothing,” she whispered.

  What kind of mother disappears for twenty-three years, then expects her deserted child to shelve the questions?

  “But—”

  “Nothing.” Mama squeezed her hand until she garnered Lisbeth’s pained consent. “I need your help. Now.”

  Emotions, raw and as bloody as the two injured boys on the couch, pumped through Lisbeth. If this woman was her mother, then her mother wasn’t dead. And if she wasn’t dead, why hadn’t she come home? Had Mama chosen this life over the one they had together? Why didn’t she want to return to her and Papa?

  Fury sizzled in Lisbeth’s chest, making it difficult to breathe. She’d keep quiet for now. Not because the woman who’d abandoned her when she was five deserved her obedience. She’d keep quiet because she had no words to explain the obvious. Saving ragtag rebels meant more to her mother than trying to get home to her own family.

  “What do you want me to do?” Lisbeth aimed her sharp tone at her mother’s jugular, knowing full well that any woman who could stand by and watch someone auction off her daughter to the highest bidder would likely bleed ice.

  “Are you a surgeon?”

  Technically, Lisbeth wasn’t sure she was still a doctor. She shook her head.

  “Then you tend Laurentius. I’ll operate on Barek.” Before Lisbeth could protest, her mother started again. “Quick. Let’s get them laid out on a clean, flat surface.” She motioned for Cyprian. “Careful with his neck.” Cyprian gently guided the boy to the floor, while she turned at once to remove Barek from Ruth’s arms. “Fetch the supplies I keep here.”

  “I can’t leave my son.” Panic tightened Ruth’s grip on the arrow. “This swelling will make the arrow impossible to remove. I must yank it out before he’s fully awake.”

  Lisbeth’s mother cradled Barek with one arm while she gently pried Ruth’s fingers from the shaft. “You trust me, don’t you, friend?” She removed the stethoscope from her neck. After listening to his heart, she held it out to Ruth. “Give this to Lisbeth, and then heat the fire poker to cauterize this wound.”

  Ruth kissed her son on the forehead and turned to Lisbeth. “My Barek must not die because of your bad temper.” She dropped the stethoscope into Lisbeth’s hand like it was a snake. “Save your fight for what matt
ers.” Ruth reluctantly parted the crowd and scurried off to fetch the ordered supplies.

  Ashamed that she’d once again placed her needs before the needs of her patients, Lisbeth clutched the rubber tube. She deserved the sting of Ruth’s rebuke. What kind of a doctor fights for a piece of medical equipment as if it were a locket containing faded pictures or snippets of hair?

  Rubbing her finger over the engraved M on the bell, Lisbeth felt as if she were trying to conjure a genie. This stethoscope was more than a tangible link to the mother she had loved and lost. This stethoscope had been her lifeline to the future, to unfulfilled dreams. She’d told herself that becoming a doctor was her dream. But in truth, that dream belonged to her parents. Both of them. All Lisbeth had ever wanted was a family. The family the Hastings had been once upon a time.

  Finding her mother should be the best thing that happened to her since this whole nightmare started. After all, Mama was the piece missing from the puzzle of her life, the piece she’d sought for years. Why didn’t she feel happy? Why was there still a cavern-size hole in her heart?

  Lisbeth felt anxious eyes boring into her hesitation. She glanced at Mama. The woman she barely recognized was busy setting up a makeshift OR. Lisbeth couldn’t help envying the complete trust and confidence the crowd—especially Cyprian—had in the seasoned surgeon. Mama made practicing medicine look easy … even under these less than satisfactory conditions. The resident, on the other hand, was the floundering chick recently pushed from the nest. If she was to make up for her foolish and unprofessional display, she had much to prove.

  Lisbeth turned her attention to the young man on the mat and gasped. So caught up in the chaos, she’d failed to give this boy more than a once-over. Was the fatal mistake she had made in the twenty-first century simply a repeat of a similar mistake made in the past? If so, she was doomed to be a careless doctor. The cheese and wine she’d had in the bath soured in her stomach.

  Lisbeth knelt to examine the young man with the flattened nose, moon-shaped face, and almond-slit eyes. Down syndrome. Her eyes slid from his face to his body. Naked from the waist up, purple bruises mottled the pale skin of the boy’s hairless chest. Someone much larger than Laurentius must have used blunt force to wipe the interminable smile from this innocent soul. Stubby fingers with pinkies that curved inward. Hobbit-like bare feet with larger than normal spaces between each big toe and second toe. Unlike Barek, this boy’s reduced stature and thinning hair made it difficult to determine his exact age. How could someone appear so old and so childlike at the same time? The weak suffering as the strong stood by. He was a child. Someone should have defended him. Visions of Abra lying still and blue in the middle of the gurney swept over her. Her inattention and indifference had killed that child. She was no better than the soldier who’d beaten Laurentius almost to death. Lisbeth leapt from her crouched position, ran to the garden, and vomited into the nearest planter.

  Next thing she knew, Cyprian stood at her side, an irritating column of unshakable durability. “Are you ill?”

  “No.” Lisbeth wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I can’t go back.”

  Cyprian grasped her elbow. “You will.”

  She followed him to the wounded and her failure to defend the weak. She’d thought Mama’s disappearance had made her stronger, but she was mistaken. Taking care of Papa since she was five had made her hard. Tough and calloused were not the same thing.

  She stood over Laurentius. What could she do for this boy beyond a cool cloth to the forehead? If his internal injuries matched his external bruising, she had nothing to offer.

  Ruth appeared with a basket filled with rags, small pouches, and an assortment of wicked iron implements, including a long iron poker that glowed red hot. “Hold this, Caecilianus.”

  The healer used a crude pair of scissors to cut Barek’s sleeve from cuff to shoulder. “The emperor has granted Aspasius his request for additional troops.”

  “More soldiers?” Ruth held Barek steady. “Already they outnumber us two to one.”

  Cyprian weighed in on the conversation. “Rome considers Carthage hard won. I’m sure the proconsul had no trouble convincing the emperor to commission his militia to protect the wealthy and the investments they’ve made in the restoration of this strategic port and its aqueducts.”

  “Making war where there is no fight fills many coffers.” Lisbeth’s mother patted Barek’s good shoulder. “I’m sorry. This is going to hurt.” She poured brown liquid over Barek’s wound. His howl echoed in the hall. “Eradicating Christians is a cheap way to occupy bored soldiers.”

  “Some believers say we must leave Carthage while we can.” Ruth caressed Barek’s hand. “Flee to the mountains.”

  Murmurs of agreement swept through the pressing crowd.

  The healer turned to the old bishop. “Is this true, Caecilianus? Will you give in to this fear and desert the sick?” She held the flask to Barek’s lips, but her eyes castigated the crowd. “I will not go.”

  Caecilianus studied the poker, as if answers hid in the glow. His eyes traveled to his son, then to the crowd, and finally to Ruth. Anyone paying attention could see the love and sadness passing between them. “Believers, we will stay the course.” Solemnity swept across every face. “No matter the cost.”

  “I have a daughter.” Numidicus pushed his way through the group. “What happened to these boys is a price we’ll all be expected to pay.”

  “And they paid it gladly.” Mama’s glare forced Numidicus’s retreat. She returned her attention to the boy with the arrow. “Cyprian, snap this arrow shaft, but leave me enough to work with so I can get the head out.”

  While the healer dug through a basket, Cyprian stepped into place beside Ruth. Uncertainty rippled in his tense jaw, but he set his feet.

  The healer produced a handful of rags and a small cloth bundle. “Ruth, once I free that barb, you stanch the wound.”

  “But, what if—” Lisbeth interjected. They all turned and glared at her. “I’m just sayin’, a millimeter either way, and that boy could bleed out.” From their pointed silence, she knew her medical opinion was obviously of no more value here than in Dallas, and rightfully so after her little temper tantrum. “Never mind.” She wasn’t a surgeon. Even if that arrow had sliced some major artery, what could she do?

  “I’ll tend my patient,” Mama said, “and I’d appreciate it if you’d get busy tending yours.”

  Lisbeth dropped her eyes back to Laurentius. She felt his pulse. Still unconscious and no change.

  Cyprian wrapped his hand around the arrow shaft, and the dogs began to whine. “I’ll be quick, Ruth, but hold your boy steady.” The muscles in his tanned arms flexed.

  Crack.

  Lisbeth cringed and looked up.

  Cyprian fell back, holding a long portion of the jagged arrow shaft. Behind him, blood spurted from Barek’s shoulder.

  “Press harder, Ruth.” The healer unrolled the cloth bundle, revealing a set of primitive surgical tools. “I’ll have to cut him open and try to stitch the severed vessel. I’m sorry, Barek. The pain will be great.”

  The boy gave a wide-eyed nod.

  “You’re going to operate without anesthesia?” Lisbeth shouted. “You can’t do—”

  Mama’s sideways glance skewered her. “You have a better idea?”

  She didn’t.

  Suddenly, Laurentius’s eyes fluttered open. He grasped his chest. “Can’t … breathe.” Air leaked from his voice, draining the last of the color from his skin in the process.

  Cyprian flew to the boy’s side and knelt beside Lisbeth. “Laurentius.”

  The boy didn’t answer. His ragged breathing disintegrated into quick, shallow pants that mimicked a thirsty dog on a hot day. Shortness of breath. If the beating had broken a rib, Laurentius could have a punctured lung. Lisbeth’s senses recorded the observable symptoms. Respiratory distress. Asymmetrical chest rise. The bluing of cyanosis. She should do something. But what? Laurentius groan
ed, then lost consciousness again.

  Fear flashed in Cyprian’s eyes. He put an ear to the boy’s dark lips. “Healer, this boy is not breathing!”

  “I only have two hands”—Mama remained hunched over Barek, leaving Lisbeth to deal with Laurentius on her own—“and right now they’re trying to keep the bishop’s son from bleeding to death. Lisbeth, Laurentius has a tension pneumothorax. Do something. Now!”

  Lisbeth shoved Cyprian out of the way. She crammed the tips of her stethoscope into her ears and slapped the bell onto Laurentius’s chest.

  “Breath sounds unequal,” she muttered, thinking through what to do next as she slid the bell back and forth along the midline. “I hear nothing over the left.”

  “If his lung is punctured, every exhalation pumps air into his chest cavity.” Mama coached without looking up from her operating table. “Without an immediate way of escape, trapped air will compress his lungs, shift everything to one side, and affect the return of blood flow to his heart.”

  A certain death scenario.

  “What should you do, Lisbeth?” Mama prodded. “Think. Quickly.”

  Lisbeth’s mind kicked into high gear, the drawings in her medical books flashing before her eyes. “Relieve the pressure inside the narrow space between the lung and the protective lining of the lung.”

  “The pleural space,” Mama concurred. “Create a release valve.”

  Lisbeth had observed a needle aspiration in the ER, but she’d never performed a procedure so dangerous. If she tried something this risky in these primitive conditions, she could kill him. “I can’t.”

  “It’s the only way to help the injured lung reexpand.”

  “But I don’t have the tools to relieve the buildup.” She glanced at the deepening shade of Laurentius’s lips. Doing nothing meant the kid would most certainly die.

  “Improvise,” Mama ordered.

  Lisbeth dug through the basket Ruth had placed between her and her mother. “Where’s a standard intravenous hollow needle when you need one?” Her eyes shot around the room. Blood dripped from the wooden reed in Cyprian’s hand.