Terra Incognita: A Novel of the Roman Empire (16 page)

“Me, sir?” A faint smirk appeared, as if Ruso had just suggested something ridiculous. “’Fraid I can’t help you there, sir. Army medical training. I don’t know anything about women and children. But don’t you worry. I’ll find you a good bandager to help out.”

The main thing Ruso knew about the ailments of women and children was that he wasn’t very confident with them either. “I’ll think about it,” he conceded. “And you’ll have time to supervise the cleanup back here. Is my room cleared?”

To his surprise the reply was, “All done, sir.”

“Good. If my housekeeper turns up, show her to it. You haven’t seen her, have you? Blond girl. Local.”

Gambax’s brief flash of helpfulness had faded. The smirk reappeared. “Sorry, sir,” he said. “Can’t help you there.”

Finally, he was alone. A shaft of late afternoon sunlight revealed a sparkle of dust motes dancing in the space above a narrow bed. It also illuminated the fat barrel that blocked access to the rest of the room. Bed and barrel fit perfectly into the space provided, but with the barrel in its present position, the only way to reach the chair at the far end of the room was to clamber across the mattress, and the only way Ruso could sit on the chair and still have room for his feet was to remove the trunk resting on the seat and place it on top of the bed. On the other hand, if he shifted the barrel to the far end of the room everyone would have to climb over his furniture to reach the beer. This had not been one of his better ideas. Unfortunately, it was too late to back down now.

He surveyed the small space into which his belongings were crammed and wondered how he was going to fit Tilla into it as well. He would have to explain to her that one of the first steps in restoring the infirmary to working order was to establish control of the beer supply, and what better way to do so than to have it under his own personal supervision? Besides, she would probably want to spend most of the few days they were here with her remaining family.

He would insist on more comfortable arrangements down the road at Ulucium. Maybe Postumus would save him a decent place. On reflection, maybe not. Definitely not, if he’d followed Ruso’s recommendation to visit Festinus the barber.

Ruso made the necessary furniture removals to get to his chair. The room looked no better from this end than the other. There was not even room to rock the chair onto its back legs, which was a pity, because he needed to do some serious thinking.

There were several things he did not want to think about. One was the question of exactly who, or what, Tilla had seen in the yard of the inn. Another was what the sulkers and skulkers might at this moment be doing with the head of Felix the trumpeter. Ruso shuddered. He was not going to like the north of Britannia very much.

What he
did
need to think about was Doctor Thessalus. Apparently Thessalus knew the dreadful details of the murder even though they seemed to be a secret from everyone else—but the prefect and Metellus were adamant that he was not guilty. The chances of getting any sense out of Thessalus himself were minimal. He needed to track down the guard who had taken that urgent call for a doctor and find out from him where Thessalus had gone that night after he returned from the bar. In the meantime, if he was to stand any chance of sorting out the infirmary before the governor’s new medic arrived, he needed to find a way of spurring Gambax into action.

That barrel would be better six inches nearer the door. Ruso got to his feet and gave it an experimental shove. It did not move. He turned and braced his back against it with his feet on the floor beneath the chair, and heaved. The barrel gave way suddenly, tipping away from him and almost overturning to block the door as he tried not to fall backward. As he recovered himself it landed back into place with a thud. He was wondering whether to call for reinforcements when there was a knock on the door. The bandager from the Twentieth was worried about the carpenter.

19

T
HE LOG WALLS
surrounding the fort were more silvered with age now. The steep grassy ramparts that rose up beneath them were spattered with spring flowers. Little had changed since the last time Tilla had seen this place. But everything was different.

When she left, the soldiers’ fort had been impressive. Now that she had lived in Deva, it looked almost puny. She wondered if the men who were busy clearing out the rampart ditch knew that their fort was nothing to be proud of. Probably not. What would they say if somebody told them?

She walked on. Ahead of her, beneath two wooden towers, was a dark rectangle surrounding a splash of late afternoon sunlight. The gates were open. In a moment she would be able to see inside.

Her parents and grandparents had watched from the top of the ridge as soldiers stacked turf into ramparts and hammered in posts around a patch of land that their people had walked over freely for generations. Once the walls were up none of them had ever set foot on that land again apart from her uncle, who usually had more wisdom than to boast of it when her father was around. Like most sensible people, the rest of them had done their best to avoid Rome’s intrusions into what—according to the very old—had once been a peaceful valley. Although you could never trust old people not to exaggerate. Any peace must have always been fragile with the Votadini tribe as neighbors. Perhaps this was why some people had imagined that the arrival of the Romans might be a good thing.

The truth, of course, was quite different. The truth was that when foreigners desecrated your land, cut down your trees, fouled your water supply, and made impressive speeches about bringing peace in return for taxes, nothing good could possibly come of it. She could imagine what her family would be saying now if they were watching her walking toward the gates, knowing there was a soldier waiting for her inside.

“It was all I could do, Mam,” she whispered. “He is a good man. He helps people.”

She was almost at the gatehouse now. It was nowhere near as grand as the smallest of the gatehouses at Deva. The irrepressible grass had crept up around the feet of the supporting timbers, reminding any soldiers who took the trouble to read the signs that the spirit of the land could not be destroyed. Beyond it, through the open gates, she could see two men slapping clean white lime wash onto the end of a building as a squad marched past them and—

“Halt!”

The crossed spears in her path had appeared so quickly from the shadows that the soldiers holding them must have been watching her approach.

“Password?” demanded the shorter of the two.

“I do not know it. My master is only just arrived.”

“Password,”
he repeated, perhaps thinking she had not heard the order, although she was close enough to see the yellow teeth and the black hairs sprouting from his nostrils.

She backed away to a more comfortable distance. “I do not know the password,” she explained again. “My master is a doctor with the Twentieth Legion. He comes today with an injured man.”

“Gate pass?”

“I am just arrived too.”

“No entry without a pass.”

“I cannot get a pass without going in.”

“Not our problem.”

“But I am his housekeeper!”

The two men exchanged glances. They seemed to find this amusing. The symmetry of the crossed spears wavered as they relaxed.

“Come to cook his dinner, have you?” inquired the taller one.

She lifted the bag that contained damp clothes needing to be hung out to dry, and now two apples and the pastries she had brought from Susanna’s snack bar for supper. “Yes.”

“Tuck him into bed?” suggested hairy nose.

Tilla pointed past them to the white buildings. “I will live in there.”

“Then you’ll have to get a job with the prefect’s family.”

“Or marry him,” suggested the taller one.

“We don’t know what you’ve been getting up to with the legion,” said hairy nose, “But ’round here, women and children live out there.” He shifted his spear to indicate the road outside. “Run off and find yourself a bed, and the doctor will come and give you the treatment later.”

Tilla had met enough ignorant guards to know that showing annoyance would make matters worse. The only things that would impress them were fear of their superiors, and cash. “My master,” she said, trying the cheaper option, “is Senior Medical Officer Gaius Petreius Ruso. My name is Tilla. I ask you to send a message—”

“We’re the Tenth Batavians,” the taller one interrupted. “We don’t run messages for the legions.”

“Why don’t you put your request in writing, Tilla?” suggested his companion: a remark they both seemed to think was extremely witty.

Tilla, who could no more write than fly—and they knew it—placed her hands behind her back, gripped them tightly, and counted to five. Then she reached into her purse and brought out the last coin she possessed. As hairy nose hid it somewhere on his person, she said, “Tell my master—”

“Sorry, love,” he said. “We’re not allowed to run messages for girlfriends.”

“But I have paid you!”

“Have you?” He held his hands wide and looked down his chest as if he was searching for it. “Are you sure?”

“Take the message, or give me my money back.”

“I didn’t see any money.” He jerked a thumb toward his friend. “He didn’t see any either.”

“I will report you to my master and you will be in trouble!”

“Tell you what,” he suggested. “I’ll try doing a trick. Give me a kiss and I’ll see if I can make it reappear.”

Tilla looked them both up and down. “You are not worth it,” she said, turned on her heel, and strode away down the gravel road.

As she was passing the men who were clearing the ditch, the taller guard called after her, “Hey, whatsyourname!”

“Tilla,” prompted hairy nose.

“Tilla! Do you want to leave a message or not?”

“Go on, Tilla!” urged some interferer from the depths of the ditch.

“You can give me a message any day, Tilla!” added one of his comrades.

Tilla was tired. She was hungry. She was at the end of a long journey. The thought that her family was in the next world was no consolation for the fact that they were not here to greet her in this one. Now she had been humiliated by the men her master thought of as comrades. She stopped. She turned to face the men in the ditch. In her own dialect, speaking fast so they would not understand, she said, “I have a message for you.”

There was a chorus of cheers.

“You are very stupid and ugly men,” she informed them, smiling sweetly, “and the gods of this land will curse you for the disrespect you show when you hack holes in it.”

This time the cheers were more uncertain. Someone said, “What did she say?”

“She says she loves me!” roared one of the men, scrambling up the side of the ditch toward her. “Come here, Tilla—”

“Back to work!” bellowed a voice from farther along the ditch. “And you, girl, clear off before I feed you to them.”

20

R
USO SLUMPED DOWN
the roughly plastered wall until he was sitting on the floorboards with his legs stretched out in front of him. His eyes were level with the body of the carpenter, whose pulse had faded some time ago but whom he had tried desperately and hopelessly to revive. He stared at the body, which could have been asleep. He knew from experience that amputations were best performed on the spot: Crushed legs did not travel well. But he now realized the internal injuries would have killed the man eventually wherever the surgery was carried out. His fate had been sealed from the moment the wagon hit him. His doctor’s insistence on interfering had merely prolonged his suffering and given false hope to his comrades and his family.

There were sound reasons why Ruso had made the decisions he had made, but he knew only too well that logic would not lift the burden of failure. Nor would the memories of past successes: the amputees who survived to swing out through the hospital doors on their crutches; the fevers cured; the eyesight saved; Tilla, whose shattered right arm had seemed almost beyond hope. There was no relief to be found in reason. The only comfort he could offer himself was a reminder that
this feeling
will pass
.

He got to his feet. Postumus would be here in a moment. He neatened the bedding and drew the sheet up over the carpenter’s face. Then he went to the door and summoned Albanus to take a report.

He was just finishing dictation when Postumus arrived. The centurion was freshly shaved. He had a heavy red scrape down one side of his face. In other circumstances, Ruso would have enjoyed that.

Once the centurion had paid his respects to the corpse, he and Ruso withdrew to the corner of the room. The men of the Twentieth had been scheduled to march out at dawn, but now they would stay for a funeral.

“There’s a child,” said Ruso.

“I know. Didn’t even have time to name it, poor sod.”

“Yes he did,” insisted Ruso, hoping Postumus would not demand the details. “I was there. They did it early.”

“What were you doing there?”

“Tilla was the midwife.”

“What did he name it?”