Return to Exile

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Authors: Lynne Gentry
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insisting he take her place in the gardener’s cottage. “We’ve both had the measles. I don’t want you exposed.”
    “Who took care of you?”
    “Those we’d helped.” She had a pleased smile, one he couldn’t understand. “It was as if the hand of God put the cooling cloths upon our heads.”
    Her ability to forgive was a root that ran deep, an anchor thatshamed him. “Lisbeth declared me immune after my run-in with that infected sailor. I’m not worried about catching measles.”
    The reminder had satisfied her, and they’d all quickly settled into the new arrangement of Barek and Laurentius bunking with him in the cottage while Ruth, Junia, and Magdalena shared his master suite in the villa.
    Daily more and more ill arrived on his doorstep, their faces flush with fever and their eyes wild with desperation. Magdalena and Ruth had done their best to tend the people, to offer them peace and comfort in their last hours, but without Lisbeth to share the load, the sick were dying faster than they could stock the vaporizer pots. At night, after he finished his accounts, Cyprian added a body or two to the rotting pile.
    Tonight he stood at the tiny window of his groundskeeper’s cottage watching another northern gale toss anchored ships. Spotty reports came by way of the daily addition of sick. Foul weather had delayed the launch of the ship meant to fetch him. But once the waters warmed and his escape was discovered, Aspasius’s soldiers would tear the province apart searching for him. If he had not managed to rally his father’s old supporters by then, he would die in the arena. And the proconsul of Carthage would not only be free to steal Cyprian’s wealth, he would never have to answer for his dirty deeds.
    Cyprian had used these days of lying low to get his finances in order and prepare for the possibility of the confiscation of his estate. He’d done as much as he could without an outside agent acting on his behalf, one who could secretly convert the sale of his properties into the cash required to transport Ruth and Magdalena beyond the proconsul’s reach. Pontius could do the foreign sales without risk of exposing their early return, but for Cyprian’s local holdings Ruth had suggested he use Felicissimus. Someone no one would suspect.
    Turning over something this important to a former client bothered him. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the pudgy little slave trader. In fact, over the years, this particular client had proven exceptionally trustworthy. He and Felicissimus had conducted several secret and very successful business transactions after Cyprian’s conversion to Christianity.
    They’d been introduced by their mutual friend Caecilianus. The old bishop believed if Felicissimus and Cyprian worked together, not only could Felicissimus be rehabilitated from the lying cheat he’d been before he became a believer, but together they could curtail Aspasius’s ability to acquire slaves. As one of the city’s shrewdest slave traders, Felicissimus knew of Rome’s latest conquests and what merchandise would appear on the block long before even the most prominent buyers. It was, after all, Felicissimus who’d alerted Cyprian to Lisbeth’s arrival. That he’d been allowed the opportunity to spare her from Aspasius, if only for a brief season, was a debt Cyprian could never repay.
    Rescuing slaves with a slave trader did not make him uncomfortable. What bothered him was the blurring of well-defined lines of social standing. Caecilianus had encouraged him to let his patrician prejudices go. While his mentor was close at hand, Cyprian had to confess that he’d made progress. After all, hadn’t he married a slave? But he found it unsettling to see women doing men’s work, masters caring for slaves, and Felicissimus an appointed church deacon. If Caecilianus had lived, he would have relished the dissolution of the walls that separated the church into distinct classes. But Cyprian was not

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