by Ruth Downie
Ruso began to explain that he had only just arrived himself, but the man interrupted him with “I know you are here, boy!”
A brief silence, then a rustling from the shrubbery. One of the bushes was thrashing about as if a large and clumsy animal had got itself stuck in there. Moments later Esico’s head appeared above the leaves.
“My son!” cried the man, holding out one bony hand as if to introduce him to Ruso. “See? Esico!”
Ruso looked from one to the other, realizing at last why the old man had looked familiar. And understanding why there had been two cups on the table beside the beer jug earlier. But not understanding at all why nobody had told him any of this before.
“I think I’d better fetch my wife,” he said.
49
Ruso paced across to the far wall, spun on his heel, and paced back. The smallness of the room annoyed him. The sight of his wife sitting on the bed annoyed him. The fact that he was annoyed annoyed him, because until now he had remained calm in the face of intolerable behavior. He had put up with ingratitude, treachery, willfulness, disobedience, stubborn ignorance, and mockery. He had told himself that his tolerance was patient strength. He had pictured himself as a modern-day Atlas, bearing the weight of the heavens upon his shoulders, but now he was beginning to wonder. Maybe he wasn’t as heroic as he liked to imagine. Maybe he had been shirking his responsibilities.
Ever since he had first arrived in this wretched province, he now saw, he had allowed himself to be surrounded by natives who did whatever they wanted at his expense. Every attempt to escape—to Gaul, to Rome—had ended with a return to Britannia. Well, it was time to change. He was the head of the household. He would assert some authority.
“We’re going,” he repeated. “And Esico isn’t coming with us.”
“But—”
“We can go to the celebrations tonight if you want. Dance if you have to. But we’re leaving on the first boat in the morning.”
“It is not the leaving I mind,” she said. “It is—”
“Tilla, I’ve had enough!”
She did not reply. Not even to point out that he was shouting and that everyone in the house must be able to hear. He lowered his voice and said, “Well?”
“Well,” she said, “you have had enough. So we will leave on the first boat in the morning.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Which is why it’s not worth unpacking anything.”
“No.”
“I’ve made my decision.”
“Yes.”
He paced to the end of the room and turned. “Aren’t you going to say something?”
“No.”
He waited, but that was it.
That was it? “There’s no need to sulk.”
The wide gray-blue eyes looked into his own, just as they had on that day when he had first met her, a slave at the point of death. She said, “What would you like me to say, husband?”
For some reason that request was more annoying than anything that had gone before. And that was what led him to grasp the air above his head and let out a roar of exasperation.
In the silence that followed, he began to suspect that his wife, sitting very still on the bed as if trying not to be noticed, secretly thought he had gone mad. And that she might be right. To his surprise, nobody knocked on the door. Then he remembered that this was Pertinax’s house. They were used to shouting.
Tilla reached for her spinning and silently put it away in a cloth bag. He pulled his tunic straight, cleared his throat, and said, “You have to understand, wife. There’s nothing more we can do here. Valens has taken his boys to Abona and sailed off on some ship to the-gods-know-where, Pertinax can fight his own battles with the chief priest, and nobody’s going to help us find the man who killed Serena. The only thing that’s likely to happen if we stay is that I’m going to be accused of harboring a horse thief.”
“It was very brave,” Tilla murmured, “to take two of the best mares and all their tack.”
“So Esico seemed to think,” Ruso told her. “Men have been executed for less. And as soon as word gets around—which it will—the landlord at the Mercury will remember seeing Esico with Valens. And somebody will work out that the same slave who helpfully brought back the stolen horses was probably the one who stole them in the first place so that Valens could make a quick getaway.”
Tilla said, “Oh.”
“At last we’ve found something he can do. And now we know what it is, the sooner we get rid of him, the better.”
Tilla said, “That old man does not want him back.”
“Of course he does. He’s been hanging around here for days, plucking up the courage to ask.”
“If he wanted him back,” she said, “he would be offering you money, not asking for it.”
“He’s not getting any money. I told him. We bought his son in good faith from a legitimate dealer. If he wants compensation, he’ll have to go after the people who stole the boy in the first place.”
Tilla said, “He sold the boy himself, husband. To pay a debt.”
“What?”
“Esico told me while you were talking to the father. Why do you think he did not say ‘There is my father’ when he first saw him? Who do you think taught him how to steal horses? Why did he make up a story about his father being thrown out of the tribe so we would not send him home?”
Ruso sank down onto the bed and pondered this new information. “It’s no good,” he told her eventually. “I can’t solve everyone’s problems. All I want is to live in peace and help a few patients. If Esico needs help, he can go and ask Sulis Minerva for a miracle. Frankly, he can go where he likes as long as I’m not responsible for him anymore. He can’t stay with us.”
“Anywhere but with us,” Tilla agreed sadly. “Do you want me to tell him?”
“No.” He got to his feet. “It’s my job. I’ll do it.”
He was already rehearsing what to say when he heard a commotion over in the entrance hall. Gleva was shouting for the staff to come right away. He got there just as Pertinax lurched out of his study with a rare smile on his face, stood in the middle of the hall, and announced, “Good news, everyone! They’ve got him! Our boys are on the way home!”
50
Tilla had hoped that an evening of food and music and dancing might cheer them all up, but since the news that Valens had been captured, even the sun had lost heart and left early. The sky had turned iron gray and a cold wind was whipping across the open space of the courtyard. Slaves were hurrying to dismantle a cluster of flapping stalls set out beside the temple steps, and lugging tables laden with wares in under the shelter of the portico. People were squinting up at the clouds and telling each other there was going to be a storm. Those who had set out in the sunshine to watch the parade tightened their flimsy wraps around their shoulders and glanced enviously at others who had thought to bring cloaks and blankets. Nobody seemed to be leaving, though. Tilla supposed that most people would rather stay out in the cold and be entertained than go back to chilly boardinghouse rooms shared with strangers.
“Not a good start,” observed a local man with a faded ginger moustache who was gazing at the sky. “Looks like the gods are planning to piss on the new governor.”
“When you’re a god, Brecc,” someone retorted, “you can piss on the new governor yourself. Till then, you’d best keep your mouth shut.”
Tilla followed her husband across the courtyard to the shelter of the portico. They had chosen to spend the evening here rather than wait at Pertinax’s house for the children to be returned, but neither of them seemed to be looking forward to the evening’s events. The look of betrayal in Esico’s eyes still haunted her, even though she could see why her husband felt the lad had to go. As he had pointed out, Esico was old enough to live independently of his father. But with a treacherous parent and a tribe who knew him as the son of the horse thief, where would he go? Not every slave was better off in freedom. Surely they had some lingering duty to him
?
Even the sight of Virana carrying Mara across to join them and calling, “She likes me now, see?” failed to lift Tilla’s spirits, although Mara did her best by beaming and reaching out for her parents. Neena, following close behind, looked relieved as Virana handed Mara over to be hoisted onto the safety of her father’s shoulders. He and Albanus stepped aside to talk, both looking very serious, while Virana was keen to share the latest news. “The boys are found. Did you hear?”
Tilla said, “How did you know?”
“Everyone knows. Poor Doctor Valens, he’ll be very disappointed. I hope the centurion doesn’t hurt him too badly. Oh, look, they’re opening up the bathhouse early! I was hoping they would.” Virana grabbed her husband’s arm. “Quick, let’s go across. We can warm up in the hall while they do all the temple stuff out here.”
Albanus said, “Wife, they will be expecting you to help set up the pastry stall.”
“In a minute,” Virana told him, and turned to Tilla. “I said I’d help next door sell pastries. She’s much nicer than the Old Misery. I’ll go and find her in a moment.”
They joined the general drift toward the sacred spring and the bathhouse, but everyone else had the same idea, and progress was slow. They were still outside when there was a clatter of hooves from the direction of the archway. A ripple of expectation ran through the courtyard as the rider pulled his mount to a halt and caused it to rear up, which made a fine spectacle for the crowd. Mara, who could see everything from her high perch, cried out and smacked her father on the head in her excitement.
“Aulus Platorius Nepos, governor of the province of Britannia, is approaching!” the man shouted. “He is now crossing the Londinium Road bridge!”
The crowd cheered. Tilla felt a splash of cold on her cheek and wiped away a raindrop just as another voice cried, “More good news, friends!”
Everyone turned to see Chief Priest Dorios swathed in a gleaming white toga standing at the top of the temple steps. “The child thief has been caught!”
The cheering was mixed with jeers and threats against the child thief. Dorios raised a hand and waited for silence before he added, “And the missing children are being returned!” That brought the greatest cheer of them all, followed by a loud buzz of excited conversation. In spite of the weather, this year’s Feast of Sulis Minerva was off to a splendid start.
People hurried forward to talk to the priest as he descended the steps. Tilla felt more raindrops and her husband swung their daughter down to shelter her in the crook of his arm.
Tilla tugged Mara’s wrap up over her head. The crowd trying to push its way into the bathing hall was barely moving. They gave up and returned to the shelter of the colonnade. Tilla said, “What do you think is happening to Valens?” But of course her husband knew no more than she did.
Virana, though, was much better informed. “The centurion sent Gnaeus to Abona in the night with a message,” she announced. To her husband she said, “You know, the one who used to be a dispatch rider. He owns the bar behind the temple with the fishes on the wall.”
“Used to own,” put in Tilla, irritated that the girl seemed to know so much more than they did themselves.
Virana paused. “Really? They’ve sold it at last? Where are they going?”
“Somewhere on this side of town,” said Tilla, wishing she had not set Virana off on a side path. “What happened in Abona?”
Albanus said, “Wife, the pastry stall—”
“I’m doing my best,” Virana told him. “She’ll be in the bathhouse, and it’s not my fault we can’t get in.” Turning to Tilla, she said, “I suppose Gnaeus just told everybody in Abona to look for a man with twins. It’s hard to hide two boys that look the same, isn’t it? I suppose you could dress one as a girl or carry one on board in a sack or something, but I don’t suppose there was time to do that.”
Albanus, no doubt used to filtering out the little scraps of news that flowed past in his wife’s torrent of words, suggested, “Valens was caught getting on a ship?”
“That’s what I heard,” Virana agreed. “It’s a shame for him, isn’t it? After all that trouble he must have gone to. But if the boys are back, then at least you still have a job teaching them, so the Old Misery might throw us out for making too much noise but she won’t be able to say we can’t pay the—oh, there’s the fire-eaters!”
“Wife, you need to—”
“Two parades in one week: Isn’t it good? I expect they want to perform before the rain puts them out. You can see it coming down now. Look.”
Albanus took her by the arm. “Wife, the pastry stall.”
As he hurried her away through the water dripping off the colonnade roof Tilla heard her own husband murmur, “I’m hoping Mara takes after her father. Whoever he is.”
“Virana has a good heart,” Tilla reminded him. “And she is just what Albanus needs.”
She never found out what he thought of this because there was something new happening out in the courtyard. People who had scattered to take shelter from the rain were surging back into the open, yelling, “Stop him!” and “Mind the children!” and “Child stealer!”
Ruso startled her with a yell of “Leave him alone!” so loud that Mara was crying in fright as he bundled her into Tilla’s arms. “Wait there.”
Ahead of them, a gang of temple slaves had appeared from somewhere and were piling into the crowd, clubs and staves raised above their heads.
Tilla handed the baby to her minder. “Neena will keep you safe, little one,” she promised, kissing Mara on the head. Then, dodging the crush by the altar, she sprinted across the wet flagstones to the temple steps.
Even standing halfway up to the temple, it was very hard to see what was happening through the rain. Below her was a mass of heads and shoulders and flailing arms and clubs rising and falling: people screaming and trying to escape and others trying to shove their way into the fight, yelling “Child stealer!”
Her husband’s bloodied face appeared by the high altar and then vanished again in the confusion. “Leave them alone!” she screamed, as if it would do any good. And then: “They are his own boys! He is not a child stealer!” And when that had no effect: “Holy Sulis, save them!”
And then as she watched, helpless, something out there changed: Some of the temple slaves and men who looked like old soldiers seemed to have rallied and were trying to form a protective wall, and inside it her husband and Valens were racing up the temple steps toward her, each carrying one of the boys. Her husband had blood dripping from somewhere under his wet hair. Valens’s eye looked swollen. Both were yelling one word over and over again: “Sanctuary!”
She ran forward to help, but someone pushed her out of the way.
“Great Sulis, help them!” she cried again, but the goddess’s plinth in the temple was empty, and as the men approached the sanctuary the great doors were closing to keep them out.
Tilla ran up the steps and flung her shoulder against the massive expanse of studded bronze. She pushed with all her strength, but the door was still moving, forcing her back. Then someone seized her by the hair and dragged her across the temple entrance and she was tumbling down the cold steps, banging her head and her elbows and then being grabbed again and hauled to her feet.
By the time she had gathered her wits, the great doors had clamped shut. Five or six disheveled and blood-spattered temple slaves were lined up in front of the entrance, several smacking their clubs into their palms as if they were daring anyone to come up the steps for a beating.
She tugged at the plaid sleeve of a woman beside her and asked in British, “The men with the boys: Where did they go?”
“Threw the staff out and shut themselves in the temple,” said the woman. She leaned forward to spit on the ground, narrowly missing Tilla’s boots. “Scum. Both of ’em.” She raised her voice to shout, “They’ve got the kids in there! Break the door down, you cowards!”
Tilla said, “But they are his own children!”
One of the temple staff stepped forward and yelled at the crowd to stand back. He was greeted with a cacophony of jeering and demands to save the boys and bring the men out here for the crowd to deal with.
When he cried, “They are his own children!” a shoe flew toward him and hit the door inches from his head. A hail of footwear followed. Then there were voices from somewhere else: a wild blast on a trumpet and a steady thud-thud-thud that Tilla remembered from the awfulness of the troubles in the North: the beating of drawn swords on shields. The terrible music that signaled the advance of men who showed no mercy.
Behind and below her, the crowd began to scatter. There was a shriek as someone slipped and tumbled off the side of the steps in their haste to get away.
“Romans!” complained the woman Tilla had spoken to. “Pathetic. Always defend their own. They ought to break the doors down.” But she too joined the retreat.
Tilla stepped forward, trying to find out what was happening, but the guards threatened to turn her over to the soldiers. Rubbing the bump on her head and each sore elbow in turn, she slipped away to find her frightened baby. She would have to leave her husband, Valens, and the boys inside the temple, under the protection of—she was not sure who, really. The spirit of Sulis Minerva, whose statue was still somewhere on the parade? Or the temple slaves, who had heeded Valens’s plea for sanctuary? Or the governor’s guard? Or perhaps just a few inches of bronze-plated wood that would have to be opened sometime. She could not imagine what would happen when they were.
51
Given the gods’ lively reputations for seduction, betrayal, and murder, Ruso had never understood why honoring them involved such a lot of tedious recitation and meandering around. Today, though, he was glad of it. The longer the procession took to circle the courtyard, the longer the voices droned on in the rain, the longer the sacrificial innards took to burn, and the more verses there were to the hymns being chanted by the choir out on the porch, the better. Perhaps the chief priest and the governor were conspiring to bore the Britons into docility.
