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Authors: Ruth Downie

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Murder, #Murder - Investigation, #Historical Fiction, #Rome, #Mystery Fiction, #Historical, #Physicians, #Ancient, #Rome - History - Empire; 30 B.C.-476 A.D, #History

Medicus

BOOK: Medicus
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MEDICUS

MEDICUS

A Novel of the Roman Empire

RUTH DOWNIE

BLOOMSBURY

Copyright © 2006 by Ruth Downie

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
Distributed to the trade by Macmillan

All papers used by Bloomsbury USA are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in well-managed forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

Downie, Ruth, 1955– Medicus : a novel of the Roman Empire / Ruth Downie.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
1. Rome—History—Empire, 30 B.C.—476 A.D.—Fiction. I. Title.

PR6104.O94M44 2006
823'.92—dc22
2006013179

Originally published in the United Kingdom in 2006 by Michael Joseph, a division of Penguin Group UK
First published in the United States by Bloomsbury USA in 2006 This paperback edition published in 2008

eISBN: 978-1-59691-427-8

3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Typeset by Westchester Book Group
Printed in the United States of America by Quebecor World Fairfield

To Andy, with love

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

AUTHOR'S NOTE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

TERRA INCOGNITA

1

A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

MEDICUS

A NOVEL

IN WHICH our hero will be . . .

baffled by

Tilla, a slave

Merula, a bar owner

Quintus Antonius Vindex, a recruit

a family of native Britons

alarmed by

Bassus, Merula's security guard

Stichus, another of Merula's security guards

a woman with chins

Secundus, a builder

Elegantina, a lady wrestler

assaulted by

a soup bowl

a senior centurion

a trowel

a fire

amused by

Rutilia the Elder

Rutilia the Younger, her sister

followed by

a dog

Albanus, a clerk

a barber's son

surrounded by

the Twentieth Legion, Valiant and Victorious

patients

women

mice

tempted by

Chloe, one of Merula's girls

sworn at by

Daphne, another of Merula's girls

avoided by

a barber's mother-in-law

harangued by

(in his memory) Claudia, his ex-wife

(in person) a signaler's girlfriend

(in letters) Lucius, his brother

annoyed by

Valens, a colleague

Claudius Innocens, a businessman

Priscus, an administrator

a civilian liaison officer

Justinus the whistler

a brothel-keeper on the Dock road

ignored by

his stepmother

his half sisters

informed by

a mortuary assistant's assistant

Decimus, a hospital porter

a barber

a barber's wife

Lucco, Merula's kitchen slave

Lucius Curtius Silvanus, a slave trader

mothered by

Cassia, his sister-in-law

Centurion Rutilius's wife

moved to sympathy by

Saufeia, one of Merula's girls

Asellina, one of Merula's girls

the signaler

Phryne, a slave

Tadius, a house slave

and ruled by

the Emperor Trajan

the Emperor Hadrian

O
diva
. . .
serves iturum Caesarem in ultimos
orbis Britannos.

Oh Goddess,
safeguard Caesar as he sets off for the remotest
regions of the Earth—Britain.
—Horace

1

S
OMEONE HAD WASHED the mud off the body, but as Gaius Petreius Ruso unwrapped the sheet, there was still a distinct smell of river water. The assistant wrinkled his nose as he approached with the record tablet and the measuring stick he had been sent to fetch.

"So," said Ruso, flipping the tablet open. "What's the usual procedure here for unidentified bodies?"

The man hesitated. "I don't know, sir. The mortuary assistant's on leave."

"So who are you?"

"The assistant's assistant, sir." The man was staring at the corpse.

"But you have attended a postmortem before?"

Without taking his eyes off the body, the man shook his head. "Are they all like that, sir?"

Ruso, who had started work before it was light, stifled a yawn. "Not where I come from."

The description should come first. Facts before speculation. Except that in this case much of the description was speculation as well.

Female, aged. . .
He spent some time frowning over that one. Finally he settled on
approximately
18—25
years. Average weight. Height . . .five feet one inch.
At least that was fairly accurate.
Hair: red, scant.
That too, although it might not be very helpful if no one had ever seen her before without a wig.
Clothing: none found.
So no help there, then.

Three teeth missing, but not in places that were obvious. Someone would need to know her very well indeed to give a positive identification from that.

Ruso glanced up. "Did you go over to HQ for me?"

"I told them we'd got a body and you'd send the details over later, sir."

"Did you ask about missing persons?"

"Yes, sir. There aren't any."

"Hm." This did not bode well. Ruso continued working his way down the body, making notes as he went. Moments later his search was rewarded. "Ah. Good!"

"Sir?"

Ruso pointed to what he had found. "If somebody turns up looking for her in a month's time," he explained, "we'll be able to tell them who we buried." He recorded
Strawberry birthmark approximately half an inch long on inside of upper right thigh, eight inches above the knee,
and sketched the shape.

When he had completed the description, Ruso scratched one ear and gazed down at the pale figure laid out on the table. He was better acquainted than he wished to be with the dead, but this one was difficult.The water had interfered with all the signals he had learned to look for. There was no settling of the blood to indicate the position in which the body had been left, presumably because it had rolled over on the current. The limbs were flexible, so that meant . . . what? Men who died in the stress of battle often froze and then relaxed again much faster than was normal. So if the woman had been frightened or struggling . . . On the other hand, how would the aftermath of death be affected by cold water? He scratched his ear again and yawned, trying to think what he could usefully write on the report that would not cause more distress and confusion to the relatives.

Finally he settled on
Time of death: uncertain, estimated at least 2 days before discovery
and gave his reasons.

He glanced up at the assistant's assistant again. "Can you write legibly?"

"Yes, sir."

He handed the tablet and stylus across the body

"Place of death,"
he dictated, then corrected himself. "No, put
Location of body."

The man laid the tablet on the end of the table, hunched over it, and repeated,
"Location . . . of . . . body"
as he scraped with awkward but determined obedience.

"Found five hundred paces downstream from the pier, in marshes on the north bank,"
said Ruso, wishing he had carried on writing himself.

"F . . . found . . . five hundred . . ."
muttered the man, suddenly breaking off in midsentence to look up and say, "She could have drowned a long way upstream and come down the river, sir. But then, she might have gone in farther along and come up on the tide."

"Pardon?" Ruso blinked, taken aback by this sudden display of initiative.

Moments later it was apparent that although this soldier knew nothing about hospital administration and very little about writing, he had devoted his spare time to learning everything there was to know about the local fishing. The assistant's assistant's detailed description of all possible points of waterborne departure that could end in an arrival in the marshes on the north bank of the River Dee left Ruso baffled, but one thing was clear. In a land where coastlines shifted in and out and rivers flowed backward twice a day, anything that floated could end up a very long way from where it fell into the water.

"Point of entry into water unknown,"
he dictated.

The man paused. "I didn't get the bit before that, sir." Ruso repeated the location of the body. The man wiped a scrape of wax off the end of the stylus with his forefinger, flicked it away, and began to write.

There was a bird chirping in the hospital garden and a murmur of voices. Ruso glanced out the window. On the far side of the herb beds an amputee practiced with his crutches while orderlies hovered at each elbow, ready to catch him. A soft breeze wafted in, fluttering the lamps that had been placed on slender black stands around the table, burning for the soul of the unknown figure laid out beneath them.

The lamps lurched wildly as the door was flung open. The assistant's assistant looked up and said, "It's not her, Decimus," but the intruder still hurried to the table to look for himself.

Ruso frowned. "Who are you?"

The man clasped both hands together and continued staring at the body.

"Have you lost someone?"

The man swallowed. "No. Not like this, no, sir."

"Then you'd better leave, hadn't you?"

The man backed toward the door. "Right away, sir. Sorry to interrupt, sir. My mistake."

Ruso followed him across the room and barred the door before turning to the assistant. "Is there a missing person that HQ doesn't know about?"

The man shook his head. "Take no notice of Decimus, sir. He's just one of the porters. He's looking for his girlfriend."

"In the mortuary?"

"She ran off with a sailor, sir. Months ago."

"Why look in here, then?"

The man shrugged. "I don't know, sir. Perhaps he's hoping she's come back."

Ruso, not sure if this was an attempt at humor, tried to look the man in the eye, but the attention of the assistant's assistant remained firmly on the writing tablet.

Ruso looked down at the body. "Write,
Cause of death."

The stylus began to scratch again. "Cause of . . ."

"We'll start from the head down."

"We will start

"No, don't write that."

"Sir?"

"Just write
Cause of death.
Nothing else yet."

He frowned at the girl's head. The fishermen who brought the body in had sworn that they had done nothing to it, but Ruso was at a loss to explain the girl's hair. At first he had thought she was simply unfortunate. Now, on closer examination, he realized the patchy baldness was not natural. He ran one finger across the bristly scalp.

"Is this some sort of a punishment, do you think?"

"Perhaps she cut it off to sell it, sir," suggested the orderly.

"This isn't cut, this is practically shaved."

"Lice, sir?" suggested the orderly, suddenly sounding hopeful. "Maybe she went down to the river to wash out the lice and drowned."

Ruso took a deep breath of fresh air before bending down and holding the lamp closer to the body.

"She didn't drown," he said, lifting the girl's chin with the tip of one finger. "Look."

BOOK: Medicus
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