Healer of Carthage by Lynne Gentry

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 thearrow. “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 matters.” 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 busysetting 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