Tabula Rasa (21 page)
Ruso said, “I was on my way across to tell you, sir.”
“Centurion, is that a native sitting in the middle of the
via principalis
?”
Fabius confirmed that it was. “His son is missing, sir.”
“How is his getting run over going to help?”
“He’s made a vow, sir,” Ruso tried to explain. “He will neither leave the fort nor eat nor set foot indoors until his son is found.”
Accius stared at Ruso as if he were not sure he had heard correctly, then slid down from his horse. He took his helmet off and handed it to the groom who ran up to take the reins. “You first, Ruso,” he said, leading the way to HQ past the watching form of Senecio. “From the beginning.”
On the whole, Ruso felt later, Accius took it rather well. He sent urgent messages to the legate and neighboring units, and instantly grasped the importance of getting the search party to account for their movements yesterday. He also arranged for warnings to slave traders and their agents to look out for a stolen child. “Fabius, get those men rounded up. They’re not to speak to each other or anyone else until I join you to question them.”
Fabius did not look sorry to be sent away.
“Ruso, I want you here for a moment, then go and see to your patients and come straight back. Remind me what the name is again.”
“Branan, sir.”
“Not the boy: the father. Why haven’t I met him? I thought we knew everyone with influence around here?”
“Senecio, sir. He’s a farmer. And a poet. My wife knows him. You may have heard about him singing to the trees.”
“Ah. The crazy one.”
“Not crazy, sir.” At least, not before one of his three sons was killed and another stolen. Now, who knew? “He’s just very traditional.”
Ruso was acutely aware of the average officer’s failure to grasp how the locals saw things, which meant they often ended up negotiating with the wrong people. They would not bother with poets. If Rome were under threat, a general might quote a few lines of Virgil to rally the troops, but he was unlikely to rush to the Forum to enlist the help of some modern scribbler reciting his latest composition. “They hold the knowledge of their tribe in their memories,” he explained. “And they put together the latest events in verse. They’re like sort of . . . announcers and libraries rolled into one. They believe spoken words have great power.”
“This is why I want you along, Ruso. Local knowledge. Mixing with the natives.”
“Sir, I don’t—”
“You wanted to search for somebody. You can search for this one. Get someone to cover your medical duties and I’ll ask Pertinax to lend you to me.”
Ruso took a deep breath. Despite trying to learn his wife’s language, his energies had been concentrated not on understanding British habits but on weaning her away from them. Recent attempts to mix with the natives had been like leaping into a vast pit of ignorance and finding it filled with many more ways of getting things wrong than most of his comrades could possibly imagine. “I don’t know a lot, sir. And I’m not popular with them.”
“Never mind. You’re the only officer we’ve got with British connections. You speak the language: You’ll know what they’re really saying. If they want to find the child, they’ll deal with you, like you or not.”
“There are Britons in the ranks, sir.”
“I don’t want a Briton. I want one of us. Cheer up. This isn’t as bad as Eboracum.”
Privately Ruso thought it could turn out to be a lot worse than Eboracum.
“You never did tell me exactly what went on there.”
“No, sir,” agreed Ruso, who had no intention of telling him.
“Still, with luck this won’t spread any further. After we executed the last lot of troublemakers, the tribes went back to loathing each other even more than they loathe us.”
Again the failure to understand. “Sir, I think people tend to unite against a child snatcher.”
Accius gave a sigh of exasperation. “What’s the matter with the man, luring a child away from his family? I mean, if he wants a boy, why can’t he damn well pay for one, like a normal person?”
“There is this business of the body in the wall, sir.”
Accius raised one eyebrow.
Aware that the tribune was not going to like this, Ruso continued: “Branan’s name was mentioned as the person who put the story about. It’s an odd coincidence.”
“I’ll make some inquiries,” Accius promised. “But I very much doubt it’s anything to do with that. If our people arrest someone to make an example, they don’t do it secretly.”
“No, sir. What if whoever put the body there found out that Branan had seen it happen?”
Accius made a noise in his throat that suggested impatience. “That would only make sense if there really were a body, Ruso.”
Ruso shifted the weight of his medical case, wishing he had sent Gallus over to the camp to act in his place.
“So your theory,” continued Accius, “is that one of our men snatched a child because the child had seen him putting a dead body inside the emperor’s latest building project?”
Put that way, it sounded ridiculous. And yet . . . “I can’t see any other logical conclusion, sir.”
“Then keep looking. And don’t breathe a word of your pet theory to anyone else.”
“Sir, the natives are bound to work it out for themselves.”
“Well, don’t help them. We have enough troubles with the wall as it is. Now let’s see if I can pacify the mad poet.”
It was an odd encounter, like one of those triumphant sculptures on war monuments and military tombstones, depicting a Roman soldier looming over a cowering barbarian. Ruso watched it from the corner by the granary, expecting to be called at any moment to translate. Accius stood upright in gleaming armor with a sword slung at his side. At his feet crouched an elderly native with wild white hair, clothed in a muddle of brown and gold wool. The differences went deeper: In Ruso’s experience Accius was logical, efficient, and ambitious, and he was tipped for a role in the Senate. Senecio could neither read nor write, believed in the power of poetry, saw a reason to sing to trees, and trusted that obstinacy and public suffering would help to save his son. Whatever appearances might suggest, he was not cowering: He was simply not making the effort to stand up.
Somehow they managed to converse without help. It seemed Senecio could speak enough Latin when he wanted to.
When they had finished, Accius gave orders to one of his men and beckoned Ruso over.
“The old man will be staying here for a while. I’ve sent for a couple of British recruits to stand there and make sure nobody flattens him.”
Leading Ruso away out of earshot, the tribune added, “I’m not giving him the satisfaction of a fight. With luck he’ll get cold and bored and go home. But tell your staff to keep an eye on him. If he looks unwell, have him carted off to a hospital bed. I wouldn’t put it past the old goat to die on us.”
“I’ll tell them, sir.” Ruso shifted the case back to his other hand. “Will that be all, sir?”
“Go and see your patients and arrange some cover,” Accius told him. “Then come straight back here. I shall want you to deal with communications with the natives, so make yourself available. And don’t tell them anything unless I’ve authorized it first.”
“Sir, they really don’t trust me.”
“Stop fussing, Ruso. The priority is to find the boy. You said yourself: Everyone unites against a child snatcher.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, and, Ruso . . .”
“Sir?”
“Smarten yourself up a bit. You’re representing the Legion. We may be surrounded by barbarians, but there’s no need to look like one.”
Neither Conn nor the woman spoke as the cart jolted them all back to the farm. Or perhaps they did, but Tilla did not notice over the voices of fear and reassurance that were chasing each other around inside her mind. As the cart drew up to the gate she realized she was holding her breath, hoping that Branan would scramble down from his favorite tree to greet them.
Enica was crossing the yard, carrying a basket piled with logs. When she saw the cart she dropped the basket and ran forward to haul the gate open. Tilla knew immediately that there was no good news and that the woman’s look of disappointment must be mirrored on her own face.
At least he is not dead,
she told herself. She had seen the hope flicker and fade in Enica’s eyes.
She knows no more than we do.
Enica clutched at Conn’s arm as he climbed down from the cart. “What did they say?”
“They say they know nothing.”
“Where is your father? Why is she here?”
“My father has stayed to shame the Romans,” he told her. “They say they will question the men her husband sent here.”
A few days ago this woman had looked more like Senecio’s daughter than his wife. Now she was pale and hollow-eyed. Her hair was lank and disheveled and her tunic was spattered with grease.
“They have sent messengers to all the forts with a description of your son,” Tilla said. “Senecio asked me to see that you come to no harm while he is in the fort reminding the soldiers of what they need to do.”
“You?”
Before Tilla could answer, several women came out of the house with a gaggle of children tumbling around their skirts. She recognized a couple of the gossips from Ria’s bar, along with Cata, whose bruised cheek had turned from blue to purple, and her mother and sister.
Conn called, “No news!” and their faces fell just as Enica’s had. They ushered him and the other woman inside, urging them to come and eat and tell everyone what they had heard and seen, even though he had told them the important part already. Cata’s mother called to Enica to come and join them, but Enica replied that she wanted to build the fire. If they wanted to help, could they please look after Conn? She would talk with the doctor’s wife.
Tilla bent to help collect the scattered firewood. Enica flung a log into the basket. It landed with a thump. “They must know where he is!” she exclaimed. “They are always spying on people. Asking questions. We see the way they look at Conn at market. How can they not know?”
It was a question Tilla could not answer. She tossed another log in on top of the others.
“Why did my husband send you?”
“Perhaps because I was all there was.”
“I warned him to stay away from you!” Enica burst out. “Right at the beginning. I knew you would be trouble! The army never bothered us before you and that medicus came here.”
“The army took half your farm before we came here,” Tilla objected. “And I never meant to be trouble.”
Enica snatched up the basket. “He had this foolish idea about making things better between our people and yours.”
Tilla followed her across the rough grass at the back of the houses to a blackened bonfire patch where she supposed the family had planned to celebrate Samain tomorrow. She wanted to say, “Those foreigners are not my people.” But then, who were?
Enica crouched beside a small pile of kindling that had already been arranged in the middle of the patch. Her skirts trailed in the old soot. “Things had just settled down again after the troubles,” she said. “Then he saw you and he had to bring you and the Roman here. All that talk of weddings.” She placed a couple of logs on the pile. “ ‘No more killing,’ he said. As if it would bring his dead son back. Of course, nobody listened to him except you.”
Tilla swallowed. “My husband—”
“Him? I saw the look on his face when the wedding idea came up. I wasn’t a bit surprised when he sent men to raid us.”
“That was a mistake.”
“And now his people have taken my son. And all because of you, and my old fool of a husband, and his stupid—oh!” Enica raised the last log in the air and sent it crashing down onto the pile. The others tumbled and scattered, one or two rolling several feet away. She sat back in the ash and buried her face in her hands and wept. “How can I help him?” she wailed. “If I search in one place, what if he is in another and I am not there?”
“I know—”
“You know nothing! You have no child! Leave me alone!”
Tilla recoiled, telling herself that Enica had only lashed out because she was in pain herself. She had not meant to hurt. “I am sorry.”
“It is as though I have a limb torn off,” Enica muttered, almost as if she was talking to herself. “No. It is . . . it is beyond words. And you know what is the worst thing? It may never stop. What if we do not find him?”
Watching her, it struck Tilla for the first time that at least the ache of being barren meant that she was spared a horror like this. You brought a child into the world and you gave a hostage to the gods. She tucked up her skirts to keep them out of the muck and crouched beside Enica. “I am not a mother,” she said, “But I know what it is to be torn away from your family. I will do everything I can to help you find your boy.”
Enica snatched up a fistful of skirt and wiped her eyes. Then she sniffed, looked at the damp wool, and wiped her nose on it too. “I should not have said those things. Take no notice. ”
Tilla said softly, “It may all still come right.”
“Nothing is right!” The voice became a howl. “I want my son!”