Tabula Rasa (47 page)
She stopped, calling, “Will you look after her?”
“Don’t go!”
“Will you?”
“We’ll bring her to visit!”
Gods above, what was he saying? A man didn’t take on a child like he might a stray dog. He had to give it thought, to consider all the options, to find a suitable baby, to make preparations. To talk to his wife, although he already knew what Tilla would say.
“Virana!”
“Albanus will know where to find me!”
The shouting woke the baby up and it began to cry. He was wondering what to do with it when Serena climbed down from the hospital wagon and said, “Well! And Valens swore it was nothing to do with you! Hold its head, for goodness’ sake. Don’t you know anything?”
The baby was such a shock that he did not tell his wife about the other thing until the wide expanses of the border country were a distant memory and they were almost within sight of the familiar red walls of Deva. Tilla was sitting in the back of a wagon, cradling the baby, and the wet nurse had gone to see her man, who was an armorer with the first cohort.
Ruso said lightly, “The tribune’s being recalled to Rome in the spring.”
Tilla response of “Mm” made it plain she did not much care.
“He says he may need a good man.”
She looked up. “A doctor?”
“With some other duties. He’ll have a big household. He’ll be going into politics . . . or whatever they do after they come out of the army and before they get to be senators.”
“I hope he finds the right man, then. Politics is not for you.”
“It would be a chance to see Rome.”
“I have just found my family! And we have little Mara!”
“I know,” he said. “We have all winter to think it over.”
She kissed the baby’s fuzzy head. “Rome is very hot,” she warned, in that way she had of talking to the baby when she wanted to say something her husband might not want to hear. “And noisy, and crowded, and smelly. And full of criminals. Would you like to go there?”
“Or would you like to stay in Britannia in the rain?” Ruso asked her.
“It would be leaving everything I know behind,” Tilla said.
“We don’t have to go.”
“But then,” she added, “a lot of what I thought I knew was wrong anyway.”
Ruso grinned.
“That missing tooth shows when you smile.”
“Are you complaining?”
“Never,” said Tilla. “Well . . . only sometimes.”
[Fluffer Nutter]
An archaeological theory is a fragile edifice, and some of those now standing tall may have been knocked down and rebuilt into different shapes by the time this book goes to print. Despite the splendid wealth of evidence we have from Hadrian’s Wall, much remains to be discovered, and even the basic question of what the wall was actually
for
remains a matter of debate.
The area around the wall was probably cleared of locals like Aedic’s family when the building project began. There are ruins of native houses in the so-called military zone, but there must have been families like Senecio’s who clung on nearby, farming whatever land remained to them and having to deal with the army and the disruption as best they could. Sadly, their names and stories are lost to us. However, the line of defensive ditches now known as the vallum to the south of the wall was put in after the original plan was laid out, which suggests that the locals inside the border may not have been as reliable as Hadrian might have hoped.
The traces of the little fort I have called Parva (we don’t know what the Romans called it) can still be seen on the ground, as can the shapes of many of the temporary camps around it, including the one with a stream running through the middle. The line of the wall just to the north was quarried away in the first half of the twentieth century, leaving a spectacular cliff and lake but a dearth of Roman archaeology. However, the wall still stands several courses high where it runs across Aedic’s stolen farmland just to the east, and whatever lies deep within its core remains undisturbed.
The threefold death was inspired by the Iron Age “bog bodies” found in various locations across Europe. As usual, we can deduce what the perpetrators did, but we have no idea why they did it, nor what they called it, so I have filled in a few tempting gaps. Since my aim is to tell a story rather than join an argument, I leave to others such debates as the delightfully named “Tunic Wars” about the likely colors of soldiers’ clothing. Those who enjoy details will find them in:
Vindolanda Letters Online
at
http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk
/ or many are available in book form from
http://www.vindolanda.com/books
;
An Archaeological Guide to Walking Hadrian’s Wall: From Bowness-on-Solway to Wallsend (West to East)
, an eBook by
M. C. Bishop, (details of Mike Bishop’s books, and much more, may be found at
http://perlineamvalli.org.uk
/);
Peter Hill,
The Construction of Hadrian’s Wall
;
Graham Sumner,
Roman Military Dress
; and
Miranda Green,
The Gods of the Celts
and
The World of the Druids
.
For advice, encouragement, editing, and sound common sense, I’m grateful to the professionals—Peta Nightingale, Araminta Whitley, George Lucas, Lea Beresford, David Chesanow, Morgan Hedden, and the production team at Bloomsbury.
Any factual errors, inventions, and dubious conclusions in the book are all my own work, but there would have been more of them without Ray and Katy Ashford, Mike Bishop, Peter and Jenni Coats, Vicki and Mike Finnegan, and Ben Kane. Thank you, all!
It’s many years since I’ve seen the cement-mixer driver who told me the legend of the body inside the motorway bridge, but Eric, if you read this, thanks for the inspiration.
Finally, I’m grateful to Andy Downie for heroically reading several drafts when it was hard to tell the difference between them.
Ruth Downie
is the author of the
New York Times
bestselling
Medicus
, as well as
Terra Incognita
,
Persona Non Grata
,
Caveat Emptor
, and
Semper Fidelis
. She is married with two sons and lives in Devon, England.
Medicus
Terra Incognita
Persona Non Grata
Caveat Emptor
Semper Fidelis
Don’t miss the other riveting novels in the bestselling Medicus series:
Medicus
Ruso is caught in the middle of an investigation into the deaths of prostitutes in Deva when he rescues a slave, Tilla, from a brutal beating by her master. As Ruso adjusts to Tilla’s presence in his life, he must summon all his forensic knowledge to find a killer who may be after him next.
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-59691-427-8 / eBook ISBN: 978-1-59691-774-3
Terra Incognita
In Britannia, Ruso must try to prove the former lover of his British slave, Tilla, innocent of the murder of a Roman soldier—and the Army wrong—by finding another suspect. Soon both Ruso’s and Tilla’s lives are in jeopardy, as is the future of their burgeoning romantic relationship.
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-59691-518-3 / eBook ISBN: 978-1-59691-966-2
Persona Non Grata
Ruso has been called home to Gaul and he brings Tilla to meet his family, who are being sued for bankruptcy. Their icy treatment of Tilla is the least of Ruso’s worries, however, when the plaintiff in the bankruptcy suit winds up dead.
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-60819-047-8 / eBook ISBN: 978-1-60819-111-6
Caveat Emptor
Despite our hero’s best efforts to get himself fired from investigating the disappearance of a Roman tax collector in Britannia, he and Tilla find themselves trapped at the heart of an increasingly treacherous conspiracy involving the legacy of Boudica, the rebel queen.
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-60819-707-1 / eBook ISBN: 978-1-60819-592-3
Semper Fidelis
Can the mysterious injuries and even deaths plaguing Ruso’s men in the Twentieth Legion really be caused by a curse? When the Emperor Hadrian and his distinctly unimpressed empress, Sabina, finally arrive for a long-awaited visit to Britannia, Tilla begins to find some answers—and is marked as a security risk by the Army.
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-62040-049-4 / eBook ISBN: 978-1-62040-050-0
Available now wherever books are sold
Copyright © 2014 by Ruth Downie
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eISBN: 978-1-62040-323-5
First U.S. edition published in 2014
This electronic edition published in August 2014
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