by Ruth Downie
From somewhere beyond the black line of the wall, she could hear the faint slap and gurgle of the river, risen to greet the moon.
Soon there was a pale row of wilting lettuce plants laid out alongside the plot. She had been careful to take a good clump of soil around each ball of roots. With luck, they would go back into their bed only slightly the worse for their latest adventure. Many were already ruined anyway: some crushed by the weight of the ewe and others half eaten. Tilla had never before considered whether sheep liked lettuce. Perhaps, since none had been completely eaten, the ewe hadn’t been sure herself.
Strange how, even at a sacred moment like this, it was difficult to keep her mind on the important things. Perhaps because the important things were hard to face.
Now the surface was clear of plants, she wiped her hands on each other and then on the rough linen of her overtunic. When they were as clean as she could manage, she raised them to the skies and spoke a soft prayer to Sulis Minerva and to the native goddess of the earth and god of the harvest and then one to Christos as well, because Christos had more cheerful things to say about the next world than any of the other gods seemed to offer. Lowering her hands to her sides, she bowed her head as a sign of respect. Finally she took a deep breath, lifted the spade from where it stood to attention in the ground beside her, and placed it against the soft earth. One foot on the top of the ironshod wooden blade, as her father had taught her. She was glad of boots with proper soles. She could never have managed this in those silly little sandals that those women wore at the baths.
Keep your mind on what you are doing.
Stab down. Lean on the handle. Push with your foot. Slice through the soil, ease back to loosen it. She was glad there was no turf: It made the job a lot easier. Lift. Turn. Twist the spade. Drop. Work across the plot in a line. Don’t put your spoil too near the edge. Things she could remember her father saying as they dug out the vegetable patch at home.
Stab, lean, push, ease back, lift. Turn. Twist and let the soil drop. Don’t think about what you might find. Lean, push. Ease back, lift, turn. Twist.
Easy. Someone had worked this plot well. The soil was soft and it smelled good. It also smelled of the wine the men had poured out at their ceremony earlier in the night. Was that a whiff of roast mutton? She hoped they had burned all of the meat, or eaten it, and not buried any of it here. Digging into buried mutton would be horrible. But of course they wouldn’t have buried it, because something else would come along and smell it and dig it up. A fox, or a dog, or a badger—or a woman in the secret hours of the night, digging for a body by the light of a cold moon.
In the woods somewhere on the far side of the river, a tawny owl hooted.
It was just a bird, calling as it must do every night. There was no reason to think Sulis Minerva had sent it to spy on her across the water. No need to be gripped by a sudden feeling that someone was watching. No need to look round and see who it was.
She looked anyway, one gritty hand resting on the spade.
The world of black and silver looming around her was a shock. She had been so fixed on what she was doing, staring at one little patch of ground, that she had forgotten about the sharp lines and deep shadows of the buildings. About the rows of silent vegetables standing to attention all around her.
Don’t look. If there is anything to be afraid of here, it will be in front of you. In this spot that those men found but did not dare to test. She was not sure she wanted to test it, either, but who else was there? Her husband was the one who had told her the men were searching for an unquiet spirit, but he thought the whole thing was nonsense. He had been very pleased with himself when he dismissed the idea of Terentius being buried here. Seeing his satisfaction, she had not liked to point out that the lettuces growing in the plot could have sprouted and grown somewhere else and been moved here to mature after it had become a secret burial place.
She had been amazed when the searchers had made no real effort to find out whether they had the right spot. Her husband had been right: They did not really want to find Terentius. They just wanted to deal with their own fear of his ghost. So they had come here and made an offering and said prayers, but they had shied away from doing the one thing that might solve the mystery of where he had gone. That, it seemed, was up to her. And if she was not to be caught, she must work quickly.
She pushed the spade in again, alert for any change in smell or feel beneath her that would tell her to stop and … and what? If there was something—someone—down there, she was not going to lean into the shadowy hole and scoop the earth out with her hands. She would have to scrape a little more earth back with the iron edge of the blade, peer in carefully, and then drop the spade and run.
Lean, push down, ease back. Digging holes kept you warm, but it was harder work than she remembered. So much earth for such little progress. Lift. Turn. Twist, hear the soft patter of more earth landing onto the heap. Digging was noisier than she remembered too.
Now she thought about it, she had never worked alone like this. There had always been a couple of brothers around, or one of her parents, and they would take turns. And besides, digging was never a job to hurry. Slow and steady. The only people that dug in a hurry were soldiers, but then, soldiers under command were always more like ants than people. Lean. Push. Ease back …
Stop. Listen. Some sort of commotion back in the street. Men shouting and banging on doors.
She crouched down, lowering the spade to the ground in case the gang spilled down the street and saw her in the moonlight. A woman out alone at this hour would be easy prey.
The noise faded. She began work again, glad of the brief rest, but this time she tired more quickly, and the hole was only … Giving herself another excuse for a rest, she lowered the spade to test it. About two feet deep.
Perhaps she should stop soon. How deep could anyone have buried Terentius here without anybody noticing? They must have done it at night when no one was looking, and surely they too would have been in a hurry, and now she thought about it, who might “they” have been? Not Valens, who had been helping the fire victims and would not have had time. Gleva? What reason could she have for killing or burying Terentius? Who else? Serena, before she plunged a knife into her own heart and threw herself into the eternal waters? That made no sense. Why go to all the bother of hiding her lover’s body if she wasn’t going to be alive to be accused of his murder?
A chill passed through her despite the warmth of the work. What if her husband was right, and this was all nonsense? She could be digging here until the sun rose and just getting herself into more and more trouble. Besides, the night was passing and she must allow time to fill in the hole and put the plants back and find some way to fetch them water.
She looked up at the sky. “What shall I do?”
As if in reply, a small cloud began to drift slowly across the moon. The distant owl hooted again.
“But what does it mean?” she whispered, and jumped as another owl replied to the first, much closer.
Glancing wildly around her, she made a grab for the spade. She no longer cared what the signs meant. She just wanted to get out of this place and back to a warm bed, safely tucked in beside her sleeping husband.
41
Ruso stepped up to balance on the narrow wall in the moonlight, aware of the wide river shimmering behind him. “Tilla!” he called softly, staring out across the gray mosaic of the silent vegetable plots. “Tilla, I’m not angry!” Although that might change when he found her. Hopefully very soon. “I just want to know you’re safe!”
A sudden movement caught his eye, but it was too low and too fleet for a human being. Probably a fox. Which meant no human was likely to be out there. But he jumped down from the wall and began to trace the paths between the beds anyway, because he could not think of anywhere else his wife might want to wield a spade. And because he wanted her to be there. The idea that she was somewhere with Valens and the boys was unthinkable.
He followe
d every path he could find, surveying the plots on either side of him in case something terrible had happened to her out there. Some of the paths were clear and well tended. On the others, brambles and long grass and nettles tangled against his legs and he had to force his way through. He wished he had a stick.
He passed what he thought might be the plot where the ewe had lain down. The earth looked uneven and the plants askew, but there was no sign of whatever ceremony the priests had carried out after dark.
“Tilla?”
Over in the dark woods beyond the river, an owl replied. If he were Tilla he would probably have asked it for help. Since it would do no harm, and there was nobody to overhear, he muttered, “Where is she?” But of course the creature didn’t answer. It was an owl.
“Where the hell are you?” he whispered, gazing around him. “What have you done? Why didn’t you tell me?” Rubbing the nettle stings on his shins, he tried to reason. Was he such a monster that she was afraid to confide in him? He didn’t think so. A monster would not be wandering around out here, looking for his wife, would he? Giving up what was left of a very bad night’s sleep to be attacked by weeds and thoroughly worried.
Finally he abandoned the vegetable plots and made his way back down the street past the Mercury, now dark and silent once more. The only sign of life at the Traveler’s Repose was a late torch still guttering in the bracket over the door. He supposed Pertinax had taken the search elsewhere. Ruso was almost certain Kunaris wouldn’t have agreed to hide the boys in either of the inns, even if Valens had been crazy enough to ask.
Almost certain. The landlord was just as entangled in the complications of this affair as the rest of them, and evidently not above deceiving his employer if there was a decent amount of cash on offer.
Ruso was still wondering where to try next when he heard, to his surprise, the approach of marching boots. Surely a place the size of Aquae Sulis didn’t have a night patrol?
No, it did not. What it had was a grizzled bunch of retired soldiers who surrounded him and demanded to know who he was, what he was doing out at that hour, and whether he had seen anyone with two small boys. “Or just two small boys,” added one with more initiative than the others.
Both sides left the encounter disappointed: The search party had no more seen Tilla than Ruso had seen Valens or the children, although the soldiers seemed less keen to help once they found out who he was looking for.
As the tramp of boots faded away, Ruso was left wondering where else, in the name of all the gods, a woman would use a spade in the middle of the night in a place like Aquae Sulis.
The spring? Surely she couldn’t be planning to hang over the side and try to scoop out knives and curses?
When he got to the courtyard, the only signs of activity were the drifting steam and the constant sound of the overflow trickling into the drain. Still, he crouched by the edge of the pool for a long time, peering at the surface of the water through the railings. Finally reassured that there was nothing—and nobody—floating in there, he got back to his feet, shaking the stiffness out of each leg.
Where now? She could have gone back to the Mercury and been let in—surely Kunaris would not throw a lone woman onto the street?—but to find out, he would have to knock on the door.
This time the doorkeeper at the Mercury was awake. Perhaps they all were. The slave who called to him through two inches of studded oak told him the doctor’s wife had gone out hours ago and the doctor wasn’t there either, and no, she hadn’t said where she was going, and why didn’t he clear off? Which was at least a definite answer, even though it wasn’t the one Ruso wanted.
Now where? He could go back to the oil shop, but that would mean potentially disturbing Albanus’s angry landlady yet again. Besides, nobody needed him there. Mara and Neena would be safe with Virana. He turned his footsteps toward the only place he could think of where he knew the household would be awake.
“Have they found the boys?” was his first question when the door was answered.
“What are you doing here?”
He said, “I’m looking for my wife.”
“Your wife is not here.”
The door began to close in his face, but Gleva wasn’t fast enough, and nobody came forward to help her.
42
Ruso closed the door more gently than he had opened it, and found himself surrounded by half a dozen somber faces: a combination, he supposed, of Pertinax’s staff and that of Catus. Most of the light by which he saw them was coming from a couple of triple-wicked lamps illuminating the painted shrine of the household gods, as if divine help might be drawn to the shrine like a sailor to a lighthouse. The air was thick with the smell of incense.
It was Pertinax’s houseboy, looking much older than he had just a day ago, who spoke first. “Is there any news, sir?”
“If you had troubled to answer the door,” put in Gleva, lifting her tousled nighttime hair with both hands and letting it fall down her back, “you would know.”
The priestess was wasting her time. A man who had survived decades of being roared at by Pertinax knew exactly how to arrange his wrinkled face into an expression that registered nothing at all. Not resentment, not fear, and certainly not impertinence. Nor, in fact, any sign of having heard a word this native pretender had said to him now that Pertinax was not there to demand deference to her.
“Your master came to the Mercury,” Ruso told him, “but we couldn’t help.”
The cook, her eyes already swollen with crying, began to sob. Beside her, a little maid stood wringing her thin hands and looking at him as if in the hope that he would come up with something more reassuring. He wondered how much of the staff’s grief was fear for the boys, and how much was terror of what Pertinax might do to the household that had failed to protect them.
He was about to ask where Albanus was when the man appeared, almost at a run, wiping his mouth with a cloth. He stopped when he saw Ruso. “Sir?”
“Where’s Tilla?”
Albanus’s face, already pale, fell even further. “Sir?”
Ruso said, “My wife’s missing. Do you know where she went?”
Albanus buried his face in his hands and groaned.
“She’s helped to steal them,” Gleva declared. When nobody spoke up to support her, she said, “What is the matter with you all? It’s obvious.”
Ruso said, “Not to me.” He needed to talk to Albanus alone, but first there were questions to be asked here. He looked around at the assembled household. “Did anyone see the boys go?”
Silence.
“Anyone know anything at all?”
Silence.
“Who was the last person to see them?”
“It was their grandfather, sir,” put in Albanus. “He went in to say good night.”
“And who found out they were missing?”
“Pertinax again, sir. He got up in the middle of the night for the pot and went in to look at them.”
“Doesn’t anyone sleep with them?”
The cook raised a nervous hand. “Mistress Serena often stayed in there with them, sir. After she’d gone, Mistress Gleva offered, but they didn’t want her.”
So. Had it not been for an old man’s need to pee, the boys would not have been missed until daybreak. “Somebody needs to wait by the door,” Ruso told them. “The rest of you should probably try and get some sleep. You’ll need to be alert when your masters get back.”
Gleva said, “Who are you to give orders?” but the houseboy took up position on a stool by the door and the cook and the little maid scuttled away into the darkness. Gleva lit a lamp from the shrine before walking out with “I shall tell the masters about this!”
The sound of her sandals slapping against her heels faded away into some distant part of the house. Albanus spat into the cloth and gave his mouth and chin another vigorous wipe. Ruso said, “Are you all right?”
“Quite all right, yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
Ruso indicated the cloth. �
��Was that because you’re worried or because you’re ill?”
Albanus swallowed. “I’m feeling much better now, sir. Sorry. I was just thinking about what might happen.”
“Well, don’t,” Ruso told him. “Your losing your dinner doesn’t help anybody. Go and get a drink of water and then take me somewhere we can talk.”
“Yes, sir.” Albanus hunted for a clean patch of cloth and dabbed at the front of his tunic. “I’m very glad you’re here, sir. We’ll go to the boys’ room. I need to show you something.”
The boys’ room was on the far side of the courtyard garden, at the back of the house: a large white-walled space with two low desks, a bed wide enough for both boys, and a set of shelves that held a jumble of wooden toys and clothes and small boots and board games. Ruso closed the door before asking softly, “Did my wife tell you I’d approved some mad scheme to rescue the boys?”
Albanus’s hand went to his mouth. “Sir, you can’t possibly think I—”
“Yes or no?”
“She said she thought they were in danger, sir, but—”
“Did you go along with it?”
“No, sir!”
Ruso felt himself relax.
“I said I would have to talk to you about it, sir.”
Ruso put a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you. I’m sorry. There’s been a misunderstanding.” It was probably best not to mention the name of Virana. Albanus was suffering enough already without being told that it was his own wife who had caused the confusion. “What was she suggesting, exactly?”
Albanus indicated the empty room. “Nothing like this, sir. She just wanted me to look out for trouble.” He swallowed. “I didn’t expect the trouble to come like this.”
Ruso sighed. “Sit down, Albanus. Tell me exactly what’s been going on.”
