Layla mixed ground lamb and spices, molded patties, and wrapped them in caul fat as a binder. Jews did not eat this type of fat, but the strings of lacy gristle would render away as they cooked and she could drain the excess, no harm done. Lucius' orders had reached them in Caesarea as they visited Bolt and Victory. Lucius, Bolt, and Victoria embarked for North Africa while Layla took over as post medic and Flavius served as Prefectus. She popped the batter for a cinnamin cake in the oven as he wandered into the officers' mess kitchen at the castrum and inhaled.
"Is Victrix back?" he asked.
"Don't we all wish?" she said. "Lucius says that man is giving them a run for it in North Africa.
"He's a former auxilliary, like Arminius and Paulus," Flavius said. "Those kind are always dangerous."
Aetius opened the door.
"It's Lota," he said. "There's something wrong!"
Layla called an orderly to watch the food, washed her hands, and followed him to the married officers' row. His wife huddled on the side of their bed, crying in pain and fear. Decia stepped aside with Layla.
"She's bleeding and we have fluid and chunks of tissue, but nothing that looks like a baby."
Layla took charge, having Lota lay back on the bed while she probed the belly and up into the birth canal.
"This is likely a malformed fetus," she explained.
"A monster?" Aetius asked.
"No, Tribune," Layla said. "More like a conglomeration of tissue known as a mole. It happens sometimes. We need to treat this like a regular birth, and let it work its way out."
Layla coaxed Lota through the delivery, showing everyone a pan holding the resultant clumps of skin and tissue bound in a membrane. A small but full placenta was attached.
"We have it all, which should save her life," Layla said. "Tribune, you're going to have to pull her through this. She'll need tinctures for pain, inflamation, and infection, which I'll leave for her. She'll need broth and gruel to keep her strength up."
"Yes, Lady," he said.
Aifa knocked on the door.
"We can take little Crispian with us," she said.
She found clean tunics and underwear for Aetius' now four-year-old and led the crying boy away as his father focused on what Layla and Decia were trying to show him. Appius himself poked his head in the door.
"Is everything all right?" he asked.
"It's going to be, Sir," Aetius said.
...
Crowds thronged the riverbank at Bethany Beyond the Jordan, waiting their turn to be baptized by John.
"There is one standing among you whom you do not know," John said. "He has come to clean up his threshing floor, to separate the wheat from the chaff."
As the line moved forward, he scanned them for any clue as to the one. A carpenter of about his own age came forward with the others. As John watched him, a dove appeared to hover over him. The Spirit stirred in John.
"See, the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the World!" he cried out.
Yeshua stepped down into the water and approached John.
"I am the one needed to be baptized by you," John said. "Yet, you are coming to me."
"Let it be, this time," Yeshua answered.
YOU ARE READING
Domina Victrix
Historical FictionDescendants of Triumvir Mark Antony through his little-known first wife, young cousins, Victoria and Marcus, have always known they were heirs to a mixed-blessing heritage. Roman men were expected to brutally dominate their families and the world a...
