Tabula Rasa (41 page)

There was an orange glow ahead. As they drew closer she could make out a gate silhouetted against a small bonfire in the paddock by the house. The flames had died to embers, and nobody seemed to be around to tend it. Tilla pursed her lips. This was going to be awkward. She had not expected the family to be in bed.

Behind her, Daminius muttered, “I thought this was party night?”

“They are showing respect for their neighbors and the missing boy,” Tilla guessed. She was going to have to disturb them now; she could hardly to admit to her escort that she had invented this call to lure one of them out at night. “Hello!” she cried in British, realizing she would have to go through the whole pretense in case Mallius understood. “It is the Daughter of Lugh, the healer!”

When there was no other response, Daminius said, “Is this the right house, miss?”

Since she was not expected anywhere, it was as right as any other. “Hello?” she cried again. “It is the healer!”

A voice she recognized as Inam’s father shouted, “The fire is raked and there is no water in the house! There is nothing for you here! Go away!”

Daminius said, “What’s he saying?”

She could have translated the words, but he would never have understood about the creatures who came out of the burial mounds searching for homes where there was warmth and something to drink.

“It is not a spirit!” she cried, not wanting to leave the family in a state of fear. “It is me, Daughter of Lugh, friend of your neighbors. You son Inam helped me to look for Branan. I will come to the house so you can see it is me!”

She left the soldiers at the gate and carried on the rest of the conversation through the closed door, sheltering under the dark of the porch and explaining that she had been sent an urgent plea to call here. She could hear a whispered argument going on inside the house, but still there was no welcome. Finally she suggested that somebody must have played a joke on her, and they sounded relieved when she said she was sorry to disturb them and would go away.

She picked her way back across the yard to the gate, wondering if she would have a chance to explain in daylight, or whether this time next year people would be telling a fresh story of a family who had barred the door against a ghost that was trying to trick its way into the house using a false voice. Perhaps she would keep quiet. Otherwise the family would have to admit that they had sent away a lone woman in the dark after she had come to help them.

Her escort had moved away from the gate, perhaps suspecting the sight of them would frighten the family even more. Unable to see them in the inky blackness under the trees, she said softly in Latin, “I am very sorry. This was a wasted journey. Somebody got the message wrong.”

Nobody answered. A fresh gust of wind sent the trees dancing and whispering. Tilla felt her stomach muscles tighten. She pushed her hood back and something brushed against her face. Only a falling leaf, surely. She drew her knife. “Daminius?” she called. “Mallius? Where are you?”

Was that a muffled cry? Then movement in the woods that was not the wind: another cry and the sound of clumsy creatures crashing through undergrowth. She tried to go toward it, but the brambles clawed her back and the sounds were getting fainter. “Daminius!”

She dragged herself out of the thorns and retreated to the gate. Clutching her bag with one hand and the knife with the other, straining to see around her in the dark, she shouted, “Daminius, where are you? It is time to leave! Come back!”

But nobody came.

Chapter 67

Tilla crept back along the track toward the road, her mind racing to make some sense of what was happening. Perhaps Mallius had panicked and run away, and Daminius had given chase. If only one of them had at least shouted back. They must have heard her: The movement in the woods had sounded close by. Now she was alone here with the echoes of the old stories: the hanged man who came to life and killed the family who gave him water, the women and cattle who were stolen away into the burial mounds, and those captured alive who were sent back with impossible gifts from the rulers of the dead—buttercups and primroses in November—along with warnings of bad things to come.

She pushed the Samain tales away and moved on, reminding herself that morning was drawing closer. Something good might be revealed by the rising sun. With luck, Mallius would be caught and confess, and Albanus would find out the truth about his nephew, and all this would have been—

She stifled a scream.

“Umph!” gasped the thing she had walked into. Then it stepped back and demanded, “Who goes there?”

“Albanus!” She put away the knife and groped for an arm to cling to. Judging by the way he returned her grasp, he was as relieved as she was.

“It worked!” she whispered. “I think he has run away in fright. He will never be at peace now.”

But Albanus was too agitated to listen. He was pulling her along, gabbling about getting help. “Please hurry, madam! We must get to the fort!”

She wished he would slow down. This was a bumpy farm track, not an army road, and besides, who was he to drag her about in the dark? She wrenched her arm out of his grip and stopped, her own fears fading now that she was with somebody more nervous than herself. “There is nothing we can do now,” she told him. “The soldiers will find him and—”

“Madam, they are captured!”

“Captured?” She could barely see him, but she had the impression that Albanus was hopping from foot to foot in agitation.

“By natives!” He grabbed her arm again, hauling her toward the road. He was surprisingly strong for a small man who spent most of his life sitting at a desk.

“What natives? Where did they go?”

But instead of answering, Albanus gave a sudden cry and fell, almost pulling her over with him. He seemed to be writhing about on the ground, muttering words that she only heard her husband use when he thought she wasn’t listening.

Tilla grabbed for her knife and crouched to make herself a smaller target, hissing, “What is it?”

“Nothing!” he gasped, not troubling to keep quiet. “It is nothing. Sorry. It will be all right in a—oh, dear!”

He had turned his foot on a stone in the track. She groped inside her bag for cooling medicines and a bandage.

“No need,” he insisted. “I can get up if you give me your arm. Epictetus teaches that pain is—agh!”

Whatever Epictetus said, it was soon clear that Albanus could barely stand, let alone walk. Clinging to her arm, he gasped, “Madam, I am sorry not to be able to protect you, but someone must go and fetch help for the two men.”

“Fetch help to where?” she demanded, appalled at the thought of rousing soldiers to go crashing about the local farms yet again. “Who took them?” She sat Albanus down again inside the smooth dry curve of the shield. “Tell me what you saw.”

Albanus had not seen very much. Following at a suitably ghostly distance, he had heard movement in the woods and hidden himself inside the borrowed cloak. He heard people creeping past him and a soft whisper of British. Too late, he realized he should have shouted a warning to the soldiers. There was a scuffle, muffled cries, and then he thought he saw struggling figures being dragged away into the woods. The next thing he heard was Tilla calling for her escort.

“Are you sure you saw them struggling?”

“We must have the woods searched with torches in case they lie injured.”

“Let me go to Senecio,” said Tilla, trying not to put pressure on the damaged ankle as she unrolled the bandage around it.

“We must raise the alarm!” he insisted. “We—ow!”

“Sorry.”

“We need search parties out here immediately. Before the natives get away.”

“The soldiers will start a riot.” She paused with the roll of bandage under his heel. “There will be fighting in every house they enter.”

“Madam, please! We gain nothing by arguing. Let me finish the dressing. I am sure your husband would want us to fetch help.”

He was right, of course. That was exactly what her husband would want to do, and with good reason. But if her fears were correct, then it would be the end for Senecio and his family, whether or not Branan turned up. “Albanus, if we fetch the soldiers, they will find out that Daminius was helping us, and he will be in terrible trouble even if he is rescued. Is that what you want?”

Albanus gave a shuddering sigh. “If I believed the gods cared, I would believe they are punishing me for taking part in this foolish plan.”

Tilla, suspected he would have liked to add
with this foolish woman.
“We were trying to give justice for your nephew.”

Albanus groaned. “I should never have—”

“Well, you did.” He gasped as she tightened the knot. “Sorry. Now put your hand in mine and try to stand.”

He managed to stand on one leg but insisted on leaning on the shield. He did not want her to help him walk. He wanted her to hurry away and fetch the legionaries, and when she said she would only do that when she had spoken to Senecio, he gave an “Oh!” of exasperation and took a hop away from her, using the shield in place of a stick.

“Where are you going?”

“You must do what you think is your duty, madam.” There was a grunt of sudden effort, as if he were hauling the shield out of the mud, then a crunch as he placed it back down again. “I shall do mine. I have been part of a—” Here there was a splash and a muttering of “Oh, dear!” before “I have been part of a rash venture that has left two of our men in enemy hands.” Another grunt. Another crunch. Another splash. “No matter that I believe one of them has done something terrible to my nephew.” His voice was fainter as he hobbled away. “I must do my—agh!—my utmost to save them.”

“I am trying to save them too!” she called after him. It was true, but she had an uncomfortable feeling that her husband would say she was putting Roman lives in greater danger just to save a few Britons from their own folly.

“Regardless of the consequences to myself,” Albanus added, as if he were making a speech.

“Then you need to go the other way,” she told him. “Turn around. The fort is north of here.”

The movement stopped. When he asked if she was sure, there was suspicion in his voice.

“I will not come with you,” she told him, “But you are a good friend to my husband and I would not lie to you.” Skirting the barely visible puddle, she put a hand on his skinny shoulder. “May the gods protect you this night, Albanus. I will come and find you as soon as I can.”

“May the gods protect us all, madam.” His shoulder moved under her touch. The shield thumped down into the mud once more, and she felt water splatter over her boots as he hopped back through the puddle.

Chapter 68

There was a tiger on his face. It was digging its claws into his forehead, and it had mauled him all over. Everything ached and throbbed, except the parts that stabbed instead. He should do something to make it stop. What did you do against a tiger? Nothing people tried in the arena worked for long.

Jupiter’s holy bollocks, that hurt. Like having liquid fire poured over his forehead.

Play dead. Don’t flinch. Don’t moan. Don’t . . . 

Too late.

. . . flap one hand about, vaguely hoping to frighten it off.

A voice said, “He’s reacting to pain, sir.”

An older voice said, “Good.”

Ruso wondered what was good about it. He decided to go back to sleep. Then he decided not to when the tiger gripped both sides of his head and tried to gnaw his eye out. “Get off!” came out slurred.

One eye was blinded, but the other opened to reveal a huge bloodstained shape moving about just above his nose. “No!” He tried to beat away the shape and spring up, but his body refused to listen.

“Speak to him,” the older voice suggested.

“It’s all right,” somebody said, even though it wasn’t. “We’re just cleaning you up and putting a few stitches in.”

A few stitches in what?
“Where am I?”

“This is the treatment room,” said his informer unhelpfully.

“Sick bay, Habitancum,” put in the older voice. “Under the excellent care of a trainee medic of the Fourth Gauls.”

Holy gods. They were letting let a trainee loose on him. Perhaps they thought he was beyond saving. “Have I lost the eye?”

To his further alarm, the trainee who had been stabbing a needle through his skin said, “Has he, sir?”

“No.”

Ruso thought it was the best word he had ever heard.

“You were lucky,” continued the senior man. “You’ll find it when the swelling goes down. We’re just putting your eyebrow back together.”

“Just one more,” said the trainee, sounding nervous now that he was treating a patient who talked back. Then he added, as he had no doubt been trained to, “This will sting a bit.”

Ruso chose a cobweb wafting in a draft above him to concentrate on and clenched his teeth. Instantly a bolt of lightning shot through his jaw and into his neck. He did not feel the needle going in.

“Oh, and we think we may need to pull a tooth,” added the trainee.

Ruso was in too much pain to tell him he needn’t sound so cheerful about it.