Terra Incognita: A Novel of the Roman Empire (24 page)

He stopped. If he told Albanus the rumors were false, the clerk would quite reasonably want to know what the truth was. And since almost everything about this wretched business was supposed to be a secret, Ruso would not be able to tell him. Finally he said, “What have you heard?”

Albanus was apologetic. He had not heard anything new, apart from the suggestion that a doctor had been the murderer, which was obviously ridiculous. “And I spoke to lots of gate guards but I still can’t find anyone who remembers what time Doctor Thessalus came back in that night, sir. Or where he went. Several of them told me where I could go, though. I’m not doing very well, am I?”

“Never mind,” said Ruso. “Have you mentioned any of this to anybody?”

Albanus observed glumly that he didn’t know anybody to mention anything to.

“Good. Don’t discuss the murder. Just let me know anything you happen to pick up.”

35

T
HE DESIGNATED BANDAGER
for this morning’s clinic was the oversized Ingenuus, from whom Ruso rapidly discovered that the rumor about Thessalus’s confession had reached the infirmary. Ruso’s attempt to trace the source produced a list of names. To his relief none were infirmary staff. Maybe Thessalus had repeated his confession to his guard. Whatever the source, Metellus would have to deal with it. As they tramped out of the east gate in the direction of the bathhouse, the big man was eager to insist that nobody believed a word of it.

“Somebody should have arrested that local when he started playing up in the bar, sir. We’re too soft with ’em, that’s the trouble. You can’t treat a barbarian like a civilized man. They can’t understand it. You have to think of them like dogs. They need to know who’s boss.”

“So why do you think Doctor Thessalus might have confessed?” asked Ruso, “If he has.”

“Ah, but has he, sir?” said Ingenuus, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “That’s what they want us to think.”

Ruso returned the nod of the owner of We Sell Everything. “What who want you to think?” he said, wondering what the distant shouting was about. It seemed to be coming from the direction of the river.

“The officers, sir,” said Ingenuus, shifting the weight of his box of medicines to get a better grip.

“I really don’t think that’s very likely.”

“They put that story out before they found that native to arrest, just to stop us thinking it might be the Stag Man. But if it wasn’t the Stag Man, why wouldn’t they let us see the body?”

Fortunately he did not wait for an answer before continuing. “Doctor Thessalus is off sick and he’s leaving anyway, so it won’t matter what they accuse him of, will it?”

Evidently the military rumor mill had been turning at quite a rate this morning. “He’s certainly ill,” said Ruso, moving onto safer ground. “Have you noticed him behaving oddly lately?”

“He’s been looking a bit tired, sir. And he’s a bit forgetful. Sometimes he forgets he’s on duty and we have to fetch him. But that’s no reason to blame him for murdering Felix.”

The commotion was growing louder. “I’m looking into the arrangements for night calls,” said Ruso, who wasn’t, but supposed that as part of his overhaul of the infirmary he should be. “You don’t happen to know where Doctor Thessalus was called out to on the night of the murder, do you?”

Ingenuus looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know where he went, sir. He was supposed to be on duty. But when I went to remind him, his door was locked and he didn’t answer.”

“So who was working at the infirmary that night? Gambax?”

“It was a quiet night, sir. Me and one of the orderlies managed on our own.”

“I see.” Ingenuus had understandably chosen not to call on Gambax if he didn’t have to. “That was until Doctor Thessalus got back?”

Ingenuus coughed. “That was until Gambax came on duty in the morning, sir. I expect Doctor Thessalus went straight to bed.”

“I see.”

“We’d have called him if we needed him,” insisted Ingenuus. “He’s a good man. And a good doctor. He wouldn’t hurt anybody. Speaking frankly, sir, not everybody in the Tenth thinks you can cure the sick with cold baths and—” He broke off. “What’s that?”

This time they had both heard the blare of an alarm horn.

“Come on, sir!” urged Ingenuus, breaking into a run. “Someone’s in trouble!”

Ruso sprinted after him, grasping the hilt of his knife. There was more shouting. He could hear the medicines rattling in the box as Ingenuus lumbered along ahead of him. The alarm sounded again. They turned onto another street. Other men were running in the same direction. One of them yelled something at him and he shouted, “What?” as they joined them, but nobody answered. Ingenuus was towering over the rest of the mob, still clutching the box, and dodging around an old man waving a stick. What brought Ruso to a lone halt moments later was the sudden realization that the old man had not been shouting encouragement to the pursuers, but the words, “They’re in here! Come back!”

The mob disappeared around the corner with a trail of small boys and dogs in its wake.

“In there, officer!” cried the old man, jabbing his stick toward another of the narrow alleyways.

Inside the depths of the alley a knot of men was lurching about, cursing and grunting in some kind of struggle.

Ruso drew his knife. Around him, the street was deserted apart from the old man and a woman clutching a toddler in each hand.

“You get ’em, sir!” urged the man. “I’ll call for help!”

Ruso glanced at the medical case in his left hand. “Look after that for me,” he said, dropping it at the feet of the old man. Then he took a deep breath, yelled, “You four men, follow me. Audax, take the others around to the far end and cut them off!” and charged.

Faces turned toward him in alarm. The curses were louder as the knot rapidly disentangled itself and three or four plaid-trousered natives fled, escaping from the far end of the alley. Left behind, writhing on the ground, was a figure in Batavian uniform.

The man was wild-eyed, clutching at his chest, shaking his head and gasping for air as if he were drowning. Ruso looked for blood and failed to find any.

“Have you swallowed something?” asked Ruso, kneeling beside him and running through the possibilities. Choking. Poison. Stab wounds to the lungs. Heart failure. All sorts of things that could kill a man while a doctor was still trying to work out what he was dealing with.

The man shook his head in denial and pushed him away.

“I’m a doctor. Where are you hurt?”

The man jabbed a finger toward his abdomen.

“Stomach punch?” said Ruso, hopefully.

The man nodded.

“You’re winded,” said Ruso, relieved. “Curl up into a crouch. Don’t worry, it’ll settle down in a minute.”

While the soldier was recovering his breath the shouting by the river reached a crescendo and then seemed to die down. Ruso glanced out of both ends of the alley into peaceful streets. There was no sign of the man’s attackers, nor of any other assault upon the town. Ruso went back to the victim just to make sure there wasn’t an injury he had missed.

The soldier was now beginning to take in some air but his face still suggested that he was not in a fit state to listen to the old man’s account of how he had seen three of them natives grab him off the street and bundle him into an alley and how he’d have come after them himself if the officer hadn’t turned up.

Neither man, fortunately, had yet noticed what Ruso had seen scratched in stark black charcoal on the grubby lime wash of the wall above the victim: a line sketch of a two-legged figure with antlers sprouting from his head.

Ruso, who had been silently critical of Audax for destroying evidence, leaned hard against the wall and slid his shoulders first from side to side, then up and down, rubbing off the loose surface of the charcoal. The old man looked up and asked if he was all right.

“Just an itch,” explained Ruso, leaning back against the wall. “You did well, father.”

“If I’d have been ten years younger, I’d have had ’em!” the man assured him, waving his stick in the direction of the natives’ flight. “Barbarians. Savages. Oughtn’t to allow ’em in the streets.”

A thunder of hooves announced the approach of a cavalry patrol. Moments later a blur of color passed the end of the alley, heading toward the river.

Unable to spend the rest of the afternoon blocking the view of the wall, Ruso distracted the old man with a request for help in getting the soldier up, and together they shuffled back toward the street. The old man seemed delighted to hear that the authorities might want to ask him some questions. The soldier complained that he didn’t want a fuss.

“You want to make all the fuss you can, boy,” insisted the old man. “You might have ended up cracked over the head like that Felix.” He turned to Ruso. “You tell them to come and ask questions any time. It’ll make a change from listening to the wife.”

“Nosy old bugger,” muttered the soldier after he had gone. “What’s it got to do with him?”

“Did you know who those men were?”

“Didn’t see their faces.”

Something about the manner of the reply suggested that he was lying. “But you knew what they wanted.”

“I never said that!”

“I’m going to have to report it anyway,” Ruso told him, “so you’d better think what you’re going to say.”

The man winced and clutched at his abdomen. Ruso told him to come over to the infirmary later for a checkup.

“It was only a bloody hen,” the man muttered. “Everybody does it. How was I supposed to know it belonged to somebody?”

“Hens usually do belong to somebody,” pointed out Ruso. “When did you last see a flock of wild hens?”

The man scowled. “Whose side are you on?” he said.

Ruso made his way back through the alley and finished rubbing off the worst of the charcoal figure before going in search of his assistant.

The stampede seemed to have come to a halt at the end of a muddy lane leading to the river meadows. He could see the top of Ingenuus’s head above an excited mob who were all too busy shouting questions to listen to the answers. Other men were walking back up from the willows along the riverbank. In the far corner of the field, a couple of grooms were trying to round up some horses who were cavorting around in circles and far too excited to let anyone approach.

The dogs had wandered off. The small boys, having seen all there was to see, had fallen to wrestling with one another. Nobody appeared to be hurt.

As Ruso heard the next watch being sounded from inside the fort walls, it occurred to him that Metellus had been waiting to see Tilla for his identity parade since breakfast, and it was now midmorning. Well, he would have to wait. He stepped forward and extricated Ingenuus from the melee, relieved to see he was still clutching the medicine box.

“Broad daylight!” the bandager grumbled as they made their way back up the slope toward the bathhouse. “Broad daylight! They’re getting more uppity by the day, sir. That’s two good stallions gone, and if we get them back they’ll probably be ruined.”

“Who took them?”

Ingenuus stared at him. “Didn’t you see, sir? The natives! Strolled into the field right under the groom’s nose, shot a couple of slingshot stones at him, mounted up and jumped the hedge! Something’s going to have to be done, sir. This can’t go on.”

“No,” agreed Ruso, wondering if the daylight horse theft had been laid on as a distraction for the attack on the soldier. It seemed an elaborate and risky plan to punish the theft of one hen. But if “everyone” really did do it as the soldier had claimed, perhaps the natives had finally had enough of having their meager food supplies raided by foreigners bored with military rations.

36

T
HIS IS WHERE
it all started, sir,” said Ingenuus, pausing beneath the sagging awning outside Susanna’s snack bar. “The night before last. Felix was at this table here . . .” He led Ruso in and indicated a corner table. “We were over on the other side. If only the beer hadn’t run out, we’d have been here to help.”

The elderly woman now sitting at the table of the ill-fated Felix repaid Ruso’s interest with a scowl.

He eyed the rest of the customers seated in the very plain surroundings of the snack bar. There was no sign of Tilla or Lydia. Nor were there any workmen snatching a quick bite to eat. Not a single loafer was idling away the morning with a jug of Susanna’s unexpectedly good wine. Instead . . . he turned to Ingenuus. “Is there something I don’t know?” he murmured, wondering if Ingenuus’s insistence on a midmorning snack was about to violate some local custom.

“What sort of thing, sir?” asked Ingenuus, unhelpfully.

Ruso leaned close to the big man’s ear and hissed, “They’re all women.”

The bandager, unembarrassed, surveyed the occupants of the tables across the top of his box. “Never mind sir, I expect they’ve left us some food.” He headed for the counter. “Watch out, ladies!” He lifted the box to clear the head of the elderly woman, who clutched at the bundle on the table in front of her as if she feared he would steal it.

Ruso reluctantly followed his assistant along a path created by a hurried shifting of stools and skirts and shopping baskets and small children.