Free Healer of Carthage by Lynne Gentry

topped with an amethyst cameo. She cinched Lisbeth’s waist with a belt of shiny coins. In short order, heavy jeweled earrings pulled at Lisbeth’searlobes, and two hammered metal bracelets dangled from each wrist.
    “Much better.” With a pleased smile, Ruth spun her around to face a wall of highly polished bronze. “What do you think?”
    Lisbeth considered her distorted reflection. Her gaze flitted between the cotton candy confection in the mirror and the beaming stranger peering over her shoulder. How could she tell anyone what really tumbled in her mind? No one would believe her.
    “You could be mistaken for nobility,” Ruth said. “Cyprian will be pleased.”
    Whether or not some guy strutting around in a toga found her attractive was the least of Lisbeth’s worries. What did bother her was that this woman, who couldn’t be more than five years older than her, lived in this moment. A naive bishop’s wife who didn’t have a clue how dire the future was about to become. Ruth probably couldn’t comprehend the terrors even if Lisbeth spelled out everything she could remember from Papa’s history lessons. Third-century Roman writings recorded abloody, volatile mess in the African provinces. Everything this innocent woman believed to be true about her world was going to change rapidly and drastically.
    And not for the better.
    Lisbeth clasped Ruth’s hand. “If you want to live, you’ll leave this godforsaken time with me, and you’ll do it now.”

8
    M AGDALENA PRESSED HER EAR against the master’s chamber door. She listened for the sound of silver bouncing across the marble. Once she heard the clank of the chalice, she counted under her breath. At the number ten, a muffled thud seeped through the cedar. Slowly, she lifted the latch and forced open the carved slab.
    Golden lamplight flickered on a small table in the far corner. The smooth-faced, wide-eyed scribe perched like one of Aspasius’s parrots on the dictation stool, a wax tablet in his lap and a stylus pointed toward the bed. “I don’t know what happened,” he muttered.
    Magdalena waded through the litter of discarded tunics, robes, and half-written scrolls scattered over thick carpets imported from Egypt. She hated how the disorder of Aspasius’s personal life repeated itself in his erratic and spendthrift governing. Doing what she could to bring his reign to an end would benefit more than just herself. History itself would thank her one day.
    Aspasius lay sprawled facedown upon sheets, sheets she’d wanted to shred every time he dragged her bruised body across them. Naked, except for his loincloth and red shoes, he resembled the beached whale she and her husband had spotted during their honeymoon on the eastern coastline of Africa.
    She chose the safest path to the bed. She had always thought Aspasius a dirty old man, perverted in a way that made her blood run cold. But in the last few months, unexplained chills had caused the proconsul to take on another habit of old men. Every morning Aspasius ordered Tabari to wrap his feet in strips of woolen cloth to keep his feet warm and his shoes from rubbing blisters. As she neared his upturned soles, she could tell that his efforts were failing. Yellow pus oozed from the bindings that stank of festering ulcers.
    Careful not to touch the infection, Magdalena nudged the thick sole of his built-up shoe. Aspasius didn’t move. She placed her knee upon the down tick and reached for his neck. Working her fingers beneath the fleshy folds, she searched for the sweet spot, the place where she kept tabs on his beating heart after a slug of his headache powders. Exact dosing was something she’d yet to master. She only wanted him unconscious for a few hours.
    Aspasius mumbled something unintelligible. She sighed with relief. He sputtered, turned his flushed face toward her, and eyed her with a glassy stare. Magdalena froze. Despite a drug-induced glaze, he seemed to take her in. Would he remember this