Terra Incognita: A Novel of the Roman Empire (21 page)

Ruso shook his head. “I haven’t.” But what would he have done, had he been asked? That must have been what Audax had meant when he said, “No wonder being in the army’s driven him crackers.”

“I said no,” said Thessalus. “They threw a bucket of water over him.”

“Tomorrow,” said Ruso, getting to his feet, “we will begin to work on a cure.”

He retrieved the bread and placed it on the tray. He cleared up as many of the broken shards of the cup as he could find in the lamplight, and sniffed at the contents. Gambax had been delivering a late supper of bread and wine.

He sniffed again. He ran his forefinger along an inside surface of the cup. He put the finger in his mouth, and smiled. Suddenly, Thessalus’s diagnosis had become clearer—and he might just have found the lever with which to shift Gambax.

29

R
USO UNBUCKLED HIS
belt and placed it on top of the beer barrel. Then he sat down on his solitary bed and wondered if Tilla were missing him. He supposed the confusion about access was his own fault: He should have checked the regulations here before giving her instructions. Well, it was too late now. A man couldn’t think of everything. Especially a man who had begun the day with no cares beyond a few bug bites and ended it with a surgical failure, a grim secret, a lazy underling to discipline, and a clinic full of women and children to face tomorrow. Not to mention a mother-in-law who sent dangerously indiscreet letters and an absent housekeeper who seemed to be the army’s only link with some sort of violent Druid revival.

He unlaced his boots and set them together under the bed so that he could find them easily in the dark. Gambax was officially on duty, but he had left orders that he was to be called himself if there were a problem. Audax’s warning had only served to confirm Ruso’s unease about Gambax. It seemed he had been extending his slovenly influence over the infirmary for some time, usurping the ineffective Thessalus, and, by the sound of it, taking bribes from men who wanted to avoid duty. Tomorrow, he would confront him about the drug he had tasted in Thessalus’s wine. The trouble was, Gambax was the only person who knew what was in those unlabeled jars and packets in the pharmacy, and until today he had been the sole guardian of the records system. The man had dug himself in like a tick. He was unpleasant to have around, but wrenching him out too suddenly would leave a worse mess. Ruso would have liked to send him out to do the public clinic, but the local women and children probably hadn’t done anything to deserve him.

They probably hadn’t done anything to deserve Ruso either. What he had meant by promising to think about it was that he would announce his decision not to run the clinic when he had wrestled his conscience into accepting a good excuse. But now his conscience was telling him he was a coward. A public clinic run by an army medic (as opposed to passing quacks) probably provided a useful service. He would have the help of an experienced man, and he would get out of this miserably cramped infirmary for the afternoon.

Thinking of misery reminded him that he was supposed to be doing something about replying to Arria. The challenge of sorting out Arria made him feel weary. So weary that he was going to have to close his eyes for a moment and consider it from a horizontal position.

As soon as he lay down, Ruso discovered a new problem: The bed was not only narrow, but too short. He lay with his heels suspended in the cool air beyond the end of the mattress, wondering if this was Gambax’s revenge for having the staff’s access to the beer barrel curtailed.

He rolled over. Now his toes were dangling in the air instead of his heels. Perhaps it was just as well Tilla was not here. This bed would never allow two people to sleep at the same time, even if they liked each other a great deal. Especially if one of them had extremely cold feet.

At the memory of his last encounter with Tilla’s feet, the bite on his elbow began to itch. He slapped at it, sat up, and groped for the pen and inkpot he had borrowed from Albanus.

Dearest Mother,
It grated to write this, but it would annoy Arria even more, as she was only seven years older than he was. With a son his age, how old would that make her?

I was surprised to have the pleasure of my first ever letter from you, which was
forwarded to me at a temporary posting. I cannot send greetings to my sisters as I
am writing in confidence, but you know my feelings for them.

Arria could make of that whatever she wanted. Ruso found his half sisters almost as exasperating—and twice as incomprehensible—as their mother.

I understand your anxiety but not your decision to confide in me via a marketplace
scribe. I hope nobody has been given the false impression that no dowry is
offered with my sisters. How I wish I could say this to you in your presence
—and din some sense into your silly head—

Do NOT worry, mother. I admit I have been eager to protect my sisters
—and their unfortunate future spouses—

from rushing into marriage at the first opportunity. However, be assured that I
am making useful investments here on the girls’ behalf and suitable dowries will
be settled on them when the time comes.

He then scrawled an urgent letter to Lucius congratulating him and his wife on the birth of their new son and warning him to try and put a stop to Arria’s public complaining.
As I have explained to her,
he said,
I am making
useful investments here on the girls’ behalf.

He stared at the letter and realized he had sunk to a new low: Now he was lying to his brother. The place to make investments—if he had had any spare money—was Deva. It definitely wasn’t here on the crumbling edge of the empire, no matter how law-abiding and loyal the mustachioed Catavignus and his guild of caterers might consider themselves to be.

He reached for the third writing tablet he had persuaded Albanus to part with. He would cheer himself up by writing to Valens.

Ruso to his old friend and colleague Valens at Deva, greetings.

He paused. What next? The business of the murder was too sensitive to be entrusted to a letter, although it was just the sort of salacious gossip Valens would enjoy. He certainly could not convey his suspicion that the local unrest was more widespread than anyone was allowed to know, and that the governor had sent orders not to provoke the locals because if this Cernunnos business got out of hand there were not enough troops here to hold the roads. Once the roads were cut, the small border forts could be picked off one by one. No wonder the men from the Twentieth had been sent here. If Ruso’s suspicions were right, the governor would be sending a lot more troops up the north road very soon to impose order. There was a strong chance that far from being sent back to Deva, he would have his stay here extended indefinitely.

He surveyed the blank sheet and wished he had written the greeting in larger letters. Finally he settled on,

Bogs very pleasant at this time of year, and chest getting a fine tan. Tilla looking
lovely in blue.

There was still plenty of blank space. It would be a waste not to use it. Maybe he would feel more inspired tomorrow.

He placed the letter on top of the barrel, blew out the lamp, lay down, and wondered where Tilla was sleeping tonight. He hoped wherever it was, it was better than this. An experimental shuffle up the bed confirmed that with his head pressing against the wall, his feet were almost on the mattress. He had just closed his eyes when a sudden idea made him fling back the covers and crawl down to the end of the bed on all fours. He groped about in the darkness, lifting the trunk off the chair and maneuvering it around so that the longest side was pressed against the end of the mattress. Then he rearranged the blankets. Finally he settled back down and stretched his feet experimentally past the end of the bed.

Ruso smiled to himself. At least one problem was solved.

30

T
ILLA WAS RETRIEVING
her share of the narrow blanket when the door caved in.

For an absurd moment she thought it was the medicus come to wreak revenge on them. Then she knew Trenus had come back to kill her, yelling, “Don’t move!”—in
Latin
?

Something fell over with a crash. Torches advanced, light glancing off the straight lines of weapons and curves of helmets. The point of a sword was cold against her throat. Next to her, Rian tried to get up and was pushed down again.

“Rianorix the basket maker?” demanded a quiet voice from beyond the torchlight.

His agreement was hoarse.

“Get up. And tell us where it is.”

“He has done nothing wrong!” cried Tilla, grabbing his arm and trying to hold him down beside her.

Soldiers had seized the other arm. Rianorix, naked apart from the gleaming white stripes of bandage, was on his feet. She heard the rattle of chains.

“Don’t hurt him!”

The soldier with his sword at her throat hooked the toe of his boot under the blanket. “Move over, love.”

Rianorix’s shout of “Leave her alone!” was followed by a sickening crack as someone swung a weapon against the side of his head. The basket maker reeled. The quiet voice said, “Where is it?”

Tilla said, “Where is what?”

A couple of the soldiers were pulling down baskets from the creaking stock pile and flinging them aside. Others were clambering through them to prod the thatch with spears. Someone tipped over the beer barrel and the contents hissed and spat and stank across the hearth in the middle of the floor.

The soldier was grinning down at Tilla. The blade was withdrawn from her throat. She scrambled upright, pulling the blanket around herself and wishing she were wearing proper clothes instead of one of Rian’s old shirts. The soldier, still keeping the sword pointed toward her, kicked apart the pile of bracken that had made the bed. “Where is it, eh?”

“What?”

“What you took.”

“We have done nothing wrong!” She was about to say, “I will tell my master how you have behaved!” when she realized that if she told them who her master was, they would tell him where they had found her. Instead she said, “Please do not hurt him, sir.”

“That’s better,” said the soldier, patting her bottom with the flat of his sword. “Now, save yourself a lot of bother and tell the nice officer where it is.”

Another man in a better uniform stepped forward. The torchlight made the blond in his hair gleam. When he spoke she knew he was the quiet one in charge. “I remember you,” he said. “You used to live here.”

She did not care whether he thought he knew her or not. “Why are you arresting us?”

“Not you,” he said. “We only want the basket maker. And what he has stolen.”

“But he is a good man! He pays his taxes, he keeps the law—” At least, she supposed he did. More or less. It could not be illegal to fast against someone, surely?

“He is accused of the murder of a member of the emperor’s auxiliary forces.”

As Tilla was protesting that they were wrong, she heard Rian’s voice from the doorway. “Felix? Felix is dead?”

“You should know,” said the quiet one.

“Yes!”
The chains rattled as Rianorix tried to fling his hands in the air, was pulled up short, and stumbled sideways. It did not stop him from laughing. “He’s dead, daughter of Lugh! Dead! The gods have answered!”

“Get out!” retorted one of the soldiers, giving him a kick in the direction of the door.

Tilla ducked around the soldier who was supposed to be guarding her and ran across to cling to Rianorix, pretending to kiss him good-bye. A couple of the soldiers cheered.

“It worked!” whispered Rianorix as more hands reached in through the entrance of the house and dragged his pale form away into the dark while others held her back.

“The gods killed that soldier!” she shouted after them. “They will kill all of you if you hurt their favored one!”

“Oh, those lads won’t hurt him, miss,” her guard assured her. “We’ve got experts back at base who do that.” He seized her bruised arm and pushed her backward, his foul breath in her face. “Back to bed, eh?”

“Leave her,” ordered the quiet one.

“Won’t be a minute, sir.”

“I said, leave her.”

The man flung Tilla down on the bracken bed and growled, “Tart.”

The officer was already out of the house by the time the soldier kicked a brand out of the fire and into the jumble of baskets by the door.

She would have run after them, but by the time she had put out the flames and rescued what remained of Rian’s stock, she was exhausted and the soldiers were long gone.

She had used the blanket to beat out the fire. Now she retrieved her damp clothes from the chair, wriggled into them, and huddled by the hearth, afraid to sleep lest the scorched thatch begin to smoulder again.

There was a long cold night ahead. The only very small consolation was that under the guise of that desperate kiss, she had managed to slip the last apple into Rianorix’s hand and whisper, “No need to fast now. You are right. The gods have woken.”