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3
    Curubis
    C YPRIAN PULLED OFF THE humiliating garment of a man stripped of everything. He would have agreed to spend the rest of his days as an outcast in exchange for Lisbeth’s freedom ten times over if need be.
    His life for his wife’s.
    But if something unspeakable had happened to Lisbeth that Ruth was hesitant to mention in her letter, then neither his legal skills nor this one God for whom he’d forsaken his Roman upbringing had been enough to save her from Aspasius. Perhaps he should have known better than to trust a god he couldn’t see or touch.
    Cyprian waded into choppy waters the exact color of his wife’s eyes, intent on washing the disgraceful stench of lingering doubt from his body. What was happening to him? He’d meant every word of the declaration of faith he’d so boldly made that day before his accuser. Now he questioned the wisdom of that choice. Had his rejection of his Roman heritage condemned not just himself but also Lisbeth?
    Scrub as hard as he might, nothing could purge the torture from his soul. The failure to protect Lisbeth belonged on his shoulders. Not God’s. He was the one who had entered into a marriage for political gain. He was the one who’d put her life in danger by allowing her to cast her lot with Caecilianus’s little band of believers. And he was the one who’d let her go to the market without him. Saving her from a fate worse than death was his responsibility.
    But how? Aspasius had reduced him to a man without title or influence. His father’s supporters had turned their backs in disgust when he denounced the gods of Rome. The average citizen had no idea what had really happened in the proconsul’s private chambers. And most painful of all, according to Felicissimus’s earlier letter, the majority of those in the church now considered him a deserter, one intent on saving his own skin rather than finishing the fight alongside Caecilianus.
    Return to Carthage now, and he would be bereft of support. No one would follow a coward. What could he do without an army behind him? Storming the palace of the proconsul alone was suicide.
    Cyprian waded deeper into the pounding surf. Every day spent here was one more day those he loved suffered. Not only must he rescue Lisbeth, Ruth had written that the church and hospital also needed his help.
    He would no longer play by the rules of Rome and act the dutiful citizen forced to wait for the ships of Aspasius to haul him before the Senate. No, he would return to Carthage on his own terms. At the moon’s first light, he and Pontius would pack their meager provisions and set out on foot. The rational course, the one Aspasius would expect once he discovered his enemy had slipped through his fingers, was to follow the sticky web of highway that hugged the North African coastline. The paved roads were the easier land route for two men used to wheeled vehicles, a retinue of servants to attend their every need, and a proper lodging every ten to fifteen miles.
    He and Pontius were no longer those same coddled men.
    In case the envoys of Aspasius marched the cobblestonespromoting the expansion of Roman commerce, he and Pontius would take a path only bandits dared to travel . . . they would cross the sparsely populated plains of the Cap Bon peninsula. Fewer farms and villages meant scant opportunities for restocking their supplies, but it also meant less chance of detection. If they moved at night, he figured, they could reach his country estate in two or three hard days. From the shadows of rural obscurity he would regroup. Once he assembled those still willing to believe in him, he would march to the city and take back what was his.
    Cyprian shook the salty water from his hair and strode ashore. In the shade of the lean-to, he and Pontius ate a small portion of a fire-blackened cod. Their hunger only partially satiated, Pontius wrapped the flaky remains in a broad leaf and hid their rations inside the mail sack.