Terra Incognita: A Novel of the Roman Empire (39 page)
“Are you expecting the stag to put up a fight?”
Metellus smiled down from beneath the brim of his helmet. Already the drizzle had started to coalesce on the metal surface and trickle down to drip on his cloak. “You can never tell with these British beasts,” he said. “Hurry and get ready, Ruso. They’re waiting for you over at the stables.”
“I’ve told you several times—”
“You will want to join this hunt. Trust me.”
Ruso reflected that if he had to count off on the fingers of one hand the names of people he trusted least in the world, Metellus would be among them. But his curiosity had been piqued. Valens could cover his duties at the infirmary. Thessalus was asleep. He did not know what to do with Tilla—even if he could find her—and Aemilia was probably still barricaded inside her room.
He went back to the infirmary to get changed.
The party rode out in silence along the north road for about a mile, then branched off onto a narrower road leading up into the eastern hills. The fort was out of sight now. They were following the course of what seemed to be a tributary valley. To their right, the pasture sloped away gently into a wooded glen. To their left was a patch of high flat land with a few animals grazing around the dark clumps of marsh grass. Just past the marsh they passed some foundation trenches that had been abandoned halfway through digging. A dog began to bark as they approached a ramshackle round house. The man in charge of the hounds ordered them to heel. A woman shouted at the house dog to shut up.
Farther along they paused outside a smaller round house that was in better repair. Two men in rough tunics and armed with hunting knives emerged and saluted Metellus. He dismounted and there was a brief exchange before Metellus beckoned to the dog handler, who took his animals into the house. Metellus turned back to talk to the two guards. They led him around to the back of the house. The dogs and the handler emerged and headed for the gate.
Curious, Ruso dismounted and slipped in through the doorway.
The place was as gloomy as all native houses, since most of the British had a strange aversion to the insertion of windows. It stank of burning. Ruso stepped to one side so he was not blocking the light. Something crunched beneath his boot. The ground was strewn with the black skeletons of charred wicker, and above him the thatch was scorched. He moved forward, picking his way through a scatter of smashed baskets and an upside-down crib whose neatly woven base had collapsed into its walls as though someone had jumped on it. He coughed as he inhaled the ash that was still floating in the air from someone tipping over the fire irons into the hearth. He was beginning to realize whose house this was. On the far side, a wicker chest had been upended and a collection of clothes tipped out onto piles of dead bracken and blankets that must have once served as a bed.
Behind him, Metellus said, “This is where we found the pair of them.”
Ruso said, “Why would I want to see this?”
“Come outside.”
Obediently, he followed the aide out of the door and around past a meager woodpile to where a brown blanket lay over something on the rough grass. As soon as he saw the shape, Ruso knew what was underneath.
Metellus glanced around, then beckoned him across. They both crouched down. Each took a corner of the blanket. The first object to appear was an empty sack, besmirched with soot. Ruso steeled himself and lifted the blanket higher.
“You can finish your postmortem now,” said Metellus.
A
EMILIA WAS STILL
in her room. Her insistence that she was not to be disturbed left Tilla—who was sharing her room—with nowhere to go. Finally, still agitated by the argument with the medicus and uneasy at being idle while someone else did all the work, she wandered into the kitchen and asked Ness if there were anything she could do to help.
“To help me?” demanded Ness, surprised.
She was given some dry laundry to fold, but it was obvious that despite having complained of overwork Ness was discomfited by her interference.
“So,” said Tilla, holding up an undertunic to gauge where the center was, “How is it, working for my uncle’s family?”
“They took me in when I was without a home,” said Ness, folding a garment herself at twice the speed. “There is plenty of money for housekeeping.” After a pause she said, “And Miss Aemilia needs someone to look after her.”
“And my uncle?”
Ness shrugged her thin shoulders. “He is not changed.”
“No,” said Tilla. “That is what I thought.” She put one of a pair of large gray uncle-style socks inside the other and said, “I shall go and take my cousin something to eat.”
“She already has something,” was the surprise reply. “She took a jar of honey in there with her.”
Clearly Aemilia was not planning to starve.
“How are you now, cousin?”
Aemilia eyed the forefinger she had just been licking. “Everyone is laughing at me.”
“No, they are not.”
“I am shamed.”
“You were deceived. Everybody knows you did not steal that ring. If you had, you would never have worn it in public.”
Aemilia sniffed. “I have been thinking about the ring,” she said. “I am sure Felix did not know it was stolen.”
Instead of saying,
Yes, he did, that is why he asked you to keep it a secret,
Tilla sat down on the bed and dipped a finger in the honey.
“Nobody will want me now.”
“Of course they will,” urged Tilla. “You are pretty and kind and friendly.” It was a pity she could not truthfully add “clever,” or “hardworking.” “Your da has a good business,” she said. “And he is building you a new house.”
“Yes!”
Surprisingly, it was the mention of the ridiculous house that seemed to cheer Aemilia. Tilla felt her cousin’s sticky fingers wrap around her arm.
“Once the rebels are dealt with—and Daddy says they will be, very soon—lots of people will want to live here. It will be safe to move out to the edge of town. But without Felix . . .” Her grip loosened.
“Last week,” she said, “we had a man turn up with a gang to make the heating tiles for the baths. We haven’t even got the foundations in yet. Felix said Daddy shouldn’t have sent them away because we were lucky to get them. But we weren’t ready for them. Daddy was worried about how much everything’s going to cost. And it’s even worse now because without Felix we don’t know who they are to get them back when we want them.”
“Did Felix make enemies, Aemilia?”
“All the girls were jealous of me.”
“They would be your enemies, not his. What about his business associates?”
She shook her head. “He had difficult customers, but he never bothered me with things like that. He said I took his mind away from his business problems.”
“Can you think of anything at all that could help Rianorix?”
Aemilia chewed a fingernail. “I didn’t mean this to happen,” she said. “But if he didn’t do it, they cannot hurt him, can they?”
This was hopeless. If anyone were going to help Rianorix—and it was very unlikely the medicus would do so now—Tilla would have to do it alone.
If only she had chosen to walk back to town that night.
“Once the rebels are got rid of and the house is all finished,” said Aemilia, “everything will be better.”
“Perhaps,” said Tilla, wondering what possible difference a house could make.
“We have most of the furniture, and I ordered the fabrics from the weaver last week. When it is finished, we shall invite your officer to dine every night.”
“He is not my officer.”
“He is truly fond of you, cousin. I saw how he looked at you.”
“He does not trust me.”
“It is a pity he is a doctor, so you will never know where he has been putting his hands, but he
is
an officer, and in a legion too! Do you
know
how much those officers are paid?”
“Not as much as they spend.”
“And he is rather good-looking, in a cross sort of way.”
Tilla shrugged. “Who cares?”
“You do,” said Aemilia, dipping her forefinger in the honey, raising it high in the air, and placing her open mouth beneath to intercept the thin stream of gold.
T
HE HUNT FOR
Rianorix had begun in the early morning when the men assigned to surveillance of his house realized he had been out of sight down at the stream with the water buckets for a very long time. They had then wasted time in a desperate search for him, before looking in the sack dumped in the grass behind the house and realizing they were in even bigger trouble than they thought.
Ruso’s participation in the search had begun with his joining the huntsmen and dogs at the east gate for a considerable amount of milling around to no apparent purpose, followed by a ride out to the last sighting, the grim and secret discovery of the head of Felix the trumpeter, more milling around, and finally much excitement and galloping about. They had leaped over walls and ditches, plunged down steep slopes, picked their way through forests, and bowed flat to duck under the branches that scraped along helmets and plucked at clothes. They had thundered across open fields and followed hidden trails only to find that their quarry had doubled back, waded off through the stream, or gone around in circles.
Rianorix was never sighted. The dogs became tired and distracted as the trail grew fainter. Finally huntsmen, horses, and hounds beat a weary and mud-splattered retreat in search of a hot meal, but not until they had returned to the start of the chase and reexamined Rianorix’s home. A small cart in an outbuilding was deemed worth stealing, as was his ancient pony. Some of his clothes found their way into the cavalrymen’s saddlebags before his home was burned, his gates torn down and trampled in the mud, and his fences knocked flat. The men who knew what had been found on the grass behind the house had been sworn to silence on pain of death. They were the ones who led the destruction and neither Metellus nor Ruso made any effort to restrain them.
The rain had stopped but the light was fading by the time they reached the fort. Ruso glanced back at the horizon and saw a thick smudge of black smoke rising into the evening sky. He thought of Rianorix and Tilla curled up together like kittens on the bracken bed, and of the severed head of a man who had betrayed his lover. And he felt sorry for Thessalus, willing to sacrifice himself for a man who could commit such a hideous murder. He felt sorry for him, but he was not going to back up his lies. Ruso would tell the truth, Rianorix would be rightly executed according to the law, Thessalus would die peacefully in Veldicca’s house, and Veldicca . . . Veldicca would survive somehow. Women did.
He groped behind him, checking that the blanket containing the gruesome evidence was still firmly strapped on. He knew now that Felix had died from a massive fracture to the back of the skull: one that could have been inflicted with the stone he had found in the alley. The neatness of this discovery brought no satisfaction.
Ruso shifted in the saddle and shivered. There was scant warmth in leather riding breeches on a wet day, and the rain had soaked through patches in his cloak and chilled his shoulders. He would be glad to get back to the fort, and to hand over his grim burden for secret cremation.
Metellus was riding beside him with a smile playing on his lips. Despite failing to catch Rianorix, the man seemed to think they had done a fine day’s work.
R
USO COLLECTED A
bowl of leftovers from the infirmary kitchen for himself and found Valens stretched out on an empty bed discussing horse breeding with the wounded men Ruso had met on his arrival.
“So,” said Valens, swinging his legs down from the bed and following Ruso to the treatment room. “Will it be venison tomorrow?”
“We didn’t kill anything,” said Ruso, settling into his chair before Valens got there. “Anyway, you and I will be at the guild of caterers dinner celebrating the imperceptible start of the British summer.”
“Ah yes. I forgot. Hosted by the fine Susanna who I’m told serves the best food in town. Although the menu will be a bit restricted because Susanna has some odd ideas about diet.”
Despite not wanting to take up his own invitation, Ruso felt an irrational pang of jealousy that Valens should have been similarly honored without being a putative family member.
“Apparently Catavignus has designs on Susanna,” said Valens, hitching himself up to perch on the treatment table. “Or maybe on her snack bar.”
Ruso poked unenthusiastically at the leftovers with his spoon. “How is it you’ve hardly gotten here and you’ve found all this out?”
“Albanus and I have been chatting,” said Valens. “His favorite waitress doesn’t want to work for Catavignus. Oh, by the way, I went across with Thessalus’s dinner and gave him the poppy tears he asked for. Nice chap. Why can’t we tell anybody that he’s ill?”
“It’s a long story.”
“And speaking of dinner, what have you done with the lovely Tilla?”
Ruso explained that she was staying with her uncle.