Medicus

by Ruth Downie

  Ruso blinked. How in the name of all the gods did Priscus know what he had been doing at headquarters yesterday?

  "Rest assured that this is entirely confidential, Ruso."

  Was that smile supposed to be reassuring?

  "But you understand, with such a substantial loan, certain inquiries have to be made. Normally the inquiries would stay within the cashier's office, but since we have now won our battle to keep the Aesculapian fund largely under hospital control—"

  "Priscus, if this is some sort of turf war between the Hospital and HQ—"

  "Of course as your colleague on the hospital staff, I said nothing to the cashier's office that might cause you any difficulty. I thought you might prefer to settle this matter between ourselves. But as you see, that then leaves me in an awkward position. If we are to retain control of the Aesculapian fund for the benefit of the patients, the auditors will want to see that correct procedures are followed and some form of security is agreed for the loans."

  "I see." He saw only too clearly. He saw that Priscus was wondering why he was borrowing large sums of money He saw that he did not have his father's cunning and if he was not careful, his attempts to save the family from the legacy of that cunning would quickly prove disastrous.

  "Of course if you would prefer," Priscus was saying, "we could ask the camp prefect to authorize a suspension of the normal conditions."

  Ruso had to admire the way the threat had been made to sound like an offer of assistance. "As you've no doubt been told," he said, "I'm in the process of replacing my household effects." It struck him that he was starting to talk like Priscus. "But I do have an excellent library of medical texts," he said, "which I think you'll find more than outweigh the value of the loan."

  Priscus hesitated. "There would be a slight difficulty there."

  "Really?"

  "The market for medical texts is a little—restricted. Valuable, of course, but not instantly salable. I'm afraid the auditors would be looking for something that could be turned into ready cash should the need arise."

  "It won't."

  "Of course not. As I said, this is just a formality." Priscus's lips drew back to show his teeth again. "I'm sure we can think of something suitable."

  Ruso could, but he was not going to admit to owning the title to the farm. If he did that, it would only be a matter of time before someone—and Priscus was bright enough, and nosy enough—would put everything together and realize how many layers of loans rested on that one small patch of land in southern Gaul.

  Priscus moved a candle closer and made a show of rereading the loan docket. "We really don't want to trouble the camp prefect if we don't have to, do we?" Still reading, he ran one hand lightly over the top of his head, as if to make sure all was firmly in place, and then glanced up.

  "I believe you do own a girl?"

  "She's a liability."

  "But rather attractive, I hear."

  There seemed to be very little Priscus had not heard.

  "She would fetch a good price."

  "Not immediately."

  "No matter. As you say, the need will not arise." The teeth reappeared. "Shall we say the girl, then, Doctor?"

  Ruso gave Aesculapius an especially careful nod on the way out and hoped, as he often did, that the god did not have the power to see into his thoughts. Was using the girl as a loan guarantee any way to repay the divine being who had kept her alive at his request? On the other hand, perhaps Aesculapius was in charge of the whole business. The god of healing was working beyond his usual field: He had looked ahead and saved the girl for the very purpose of helping Ruso solve his family's cash problems.

  Ruso made sure he was well clear of the hospital before he allowed himself to admit a suspicion that the figure in the hall did not care one way or the other.

  35

  RUSO YAWNED AND put the Concise Guide —which had advanced precisely three lines this evening—away in the trunk. As he turned he caught sight of his purse on the bedside table. It occurred to him that the blue glass bead he had removed from the body was still inside. He had meant to leave the bead in the mortuary for the night, but this evening's clash with Priscus had driven the plan from his mind. He was too tired to tramp over there now. The thought that it could bring bad luck had been a superstitious whim and one of which he was faintly ashamed. Fear, he mused, was definitely contagious. And sometimes convenient. He had no doubt that the builders were frightened of the corpse, but they had probably enjoyed the day off work.

  As he rolled onto his side he felt a series of small movements around him. The puppy that had scrambled onto his bed while he was writing must have sneaked under the covers. He stretched one arm out and felt for the latch on the door. The puppy could make its way out later if it wanted. Finally settled, he yawned again and pulled the blankets up over his shoulders. Valens was on call tonight. What a lot of things a man didn't need when he could feel delight at the simple prospect of an uninterrupted night's sleep.

  Ruso had no idea how much time had passed when he found his mind being dragged to a place it didn't want to go by something bouncing around on the bed. He wriggled in annoyance. There was a yelp and a skitter of movement across the floor. Reluctantly his mind registered that whatever it was had gone away. The word puppy drifted past him. Wretched dogs. Moments later he thought: This is one of those dreams where you think you are awake. He must make some notes on it in the morning. Dreams were interesting. Many people claimed to have been healed during dreams.

  This dream was not about healing. It was full of barking dogs. In it he reached up and pulled the pillow around his ears. Dream or no, Valens would deal with it. It was Valens's job to get up, silence the dogs, and put out the—great Jupiter!

  Ruso opened his eyes and scrambled out from under the covers. Fire!" he bellowed, grabbing his pillow and beating at the flames that were shooting up from the foot of his straw mattress. "FIRE! VALENS! WAKE UP!"

  36

  THE TUNIC WA S a pleasing color. Blue suited her. Rianorix from the next valley had told her so. Of course she had ignored him and walked on, because she could do better for herself than an apprentice basket maker and because the last time she had smiled at a compliment, the giver had burst out laughing and demanded payment from his friends. Her response had won him his bet. But Rianorix's words had stayed with her. "Blue is a good color for you, daughter of Lugh."

  So when the woman they called Merula had held up three colors against her this morning and chosen the blue one, she was not surprised. The fabric was a coarser weave than anything she would have worn at home, and it had reached the patched stage at which she would normally have handed it on to one of the servants. But it was infinitely better than the scratchy rust red army tunic that was wide in all the wrong places and much too short, and in which she had always felt like a curious exhibit in a cage.

  Tilla blew out the candle and lay down on the bed. She closed her eyes. It was the will of the goddess that she should escape: She saw that now. Her prayer was answered. People were being sent to help her. Merula had provided clothes. And now the medicus had told her the splints could come off in twenty days. In her own mind, in the plan he knew nothing about, that gave her eighteen days to find a good pair of shoes and a cloak with a hood to cover her hair. On the nineteenth day she would slip out, release her arm from the bandages, and walk away, just another pedestrian in the street, while the man who thought he owned her would be searching for a woman wearing a sling.

  She had wondered where she would go, but today the outraged girl in the awful yellow and blue check had provided her the answer.

  Before the medicus had interrupted and insisted on asking his own questions, Tilla had learned with very little prompting that not everyone around here was as progressive as this girl with her soldier boyfriend. Even some of the girl's own family were still trying to pretend the legion would go away if they ignored it. Whereas, although the signaler was a Briton by birth, he had chosen to join up and
make something of himself. No man born a Roman citizen could have served the emperor with more dedication—and now the army had betrayed him.

  Privately Tilla thought the girl should have known better than to involve herself with anyone from the Catuvellauni, a tribe who would sell their own grandmothers if the price was right. Nor was she interested in the woes of the boyfriend, who had probably done something he should be ashamed of to become a Roman citizen in the first place. What interested her was that the girl's family lived less than half a day's walk from here, and apparently they were not sympathetic to the army. She had her first destination.

  She would have to be careful, though. There were few people in these streets who would recognize her, but she must make sure she did not run into the medicus who thought he owned her, or his goocUook-ing friend who was in love with himself, or, worst of all, the hideous Claudius Innocens. In the meantime, she must use her time here to watch and learn. She must find out how Asellina and Saufeia had managed to elude the men who guarded the doors. After that, she would be on her own. And in order to give herself the best possible chance, she needed to find out whether anyone here really did know what had happened to Saufeia.

  37

  RUSO'S SOOT-SMIRCHED HAND was shaking only a little as he placed the little ointment pot on the ledge of the mortuary window. "Rest in peace," he murmured, then backed out swiftly and closed the door behind him. As he strode away down the hospital corridor, the blue glass bead remained in the pot, safely inside the mortuary. As—he hoped—did any spirit who might be feeling attached to it.

  He took another long drink of water before washing off the worst of the soot in the bathhouse, wondering what Priscus would have to say in the morning around the blackened state of the towels and the feathers floating around in the cold plunge. But minutes later, surveying the little hospital room that was his for the remainder of the night, he felt almost grateful for the administrator's insistence on cleanliness, tidiness, and the readiness of all beds at all times.

  Ruso placed the candle on the table next to the cup of water and made sure it was steady. He sniffed at the trunk he had brought across with him from the house and wiped at a couple of feathers stuck to its wet surface. Apart from the odd dark trickle, the water did not seem to have penetrated inside. His books were safe, thank the gods. He left the lid open. He would have to put everything outside to air tomorrow. It would all dry sooner or later, but he would be living with the smell of smoke for weeks.

  He delved into the trunk and took out one of his father's old letters. He placed it on the table beside the candle and thought how narrowly he had escaped joining him tonight. Then, finding the scroll he sought, he climbed into bed and pulled up the white hospital blankets. If anything could lull a man back to sleep, Hippocrates' musings On Airs, Waters, and Places was it.

  The problem with Hippocrates, as Ruso realized some minutes later, was that he was not interesting enough to distract his reader from mulling over an eventful night.

  After the scorched pillow had exploded in a snowstorm of feathers, Ruso had abandoned firefighting and dragged his burning mattress into the street. Yelling for help, he then rushed back into the house. Dogs raced around barking and yelping as he stamped out the wisps of burning straw the mattress had scattered in his wake. He wrenched open Valens's door, shouting into the darkness for him to get up and finally thumping him only to find his fist landing on an empty bed. As he ran back into the hall there was a commotion outside. Relieved, he hurried to greet the night watch and was hit in the face by a shock of cold water. Six men clutching buckets then stampeded past him into the house and proceeded to fling water around his bedroom in a manner that suggested they were enjoying themselves while he fought his way through them, desperate to save his books. Despite turning his bedroom into a swamp, the watch captain then insisted the house be abandoned for the night in case the fire should break out again.

  "Well," said Valens as he and Ruso made their way to the hospital later, lugging as many of their valuables as they could carry, "it's a shame about the stink, but at least you managed to save most of the stuff. And your very fine self, of course."

  "I can't understand it," confessed Ruso. "I went to bed as usual. . ."

  "Ah well, it's easily done. And you have been rather busy lately, what with all your women."

  "But I didn't leave anything burning!"

  They stepped inside the hospital entrance hall, returned the greeting o£ the surprised night porter, and paused to nod to Aesculapius. Over the sound of their boots in the empty corridor Valens said, "You'll have to take back everything you said about dogs, you know."

  "I've got nothing against dogs!" Unlike the captain of the watch, who had found plenty to say after the terrier bitch had bitten him in the excitement.

  "Where did they go, by the way?"

  Ruso shifted his grip on the trunk. "The watch asked the vets to take them in and check them over. Listen, I'm sure I didn't—"

  "Ruso, it doesn't matter. Really. They're sending a gang to help clean up in the morning and I expect the stores will lend you some bedding until you can replace mine. Frankly, for a chap who's just nearly had his house burned down—and I could have been in it, did you think of that?—I'm really extremely calm." He paused in the doorway of an empty room. "I'll take this one. You can have the one around the corner. Don't snore too loud or Priscus will complain."

  "Priscus?"

  "He's here somewhere. Monitoring levels of after-hours activity."

  Ruso checked to make sure Priscus was not lurking in the corridor, and cleared his throat. "Valens?"

  Valens flung his armful of possessions onto the floor. "Gods, those feathers are everywhere. What now?"

  "What if it wasn't me?"

  "Ruso, you're overwrought. What do you mean, what if it wasn't >you? Next you'll be blaming the dogs. Just try and be more careful in the future, will you?"

  Ruso put down On Airs, Waters, and Places, rubbed his eyes, and squinted into the candle flame. Perhaps he really had forgotten to pinch out his light. Perhaps the puppy had grabbed it, carried it down to the end of the bed, and . . . and Valens was right, he was overwrought. He turned back to Hippocrates. Moments later he found himself mulling over the conversation with the civilian liaison officer.

  How much do you know about ghosts?

  Nothing.

  But would you want to annoy one?

  He did not believe in ghosts, but neither did he believe in mattresses that set themselves on fire. That was why he had deposited the bead in the mortuary. And why, although he could scarcely believe he was doing it, he now stepped out of bed and gazed around the little room, wondering what he could find that had a connection with the emperor Trajan.

  Eventually he delved into his purse and took out a bronze coin. He placed it on the trunk that had been with him in Antioch. Trajan gazed sideways from the surface of the coin while Ruso stood facing him with his arms outstretched.

  "Noble Trajan," he said to the trunk, keeping his voice down in case anyone should overhear, "Noble Trajan, this is Gaius Petreius Ruso. We met in Antioch. I was there when you . . . " He paused.

  You must put yourself forward, Gaius!

  "I saved your life in the earthquake," he said. Just in case there was any doubt, he added, "We got out through the window. Now, my Lord, they tell me you may be with the gods, and I am in need of your help. I pray you will keep me safe through this night from any spirits who wish me harm, and I ask you to grant peace"—How very, very much he hoped Priscus was not lurking outside the door—"I ask you to grant peace to the spirit of the woman who died wearing the blue glass—oh, this is ridiculous!" He flung himself back on the bed. There was no sense in being logical about the gods in daylight only to abandon oneself to superstition and trembling during the hours of the night. A man did not become a god just by dying, no matter what his successor might decree.

  Ruso perched himself on the bed with the blanket around his shoulders, splas
hed cold water on his eyes, and settled down to spend the rest of the night with Hippocrates.

  38

  THE MAN WHO came to crash open Ruso s shutters and wish him a hearty good morning found him propped against the wall with his head lolled to one side. An abandoned scroll lay beside him on the bed and a solid pool of wax marked the site of a dead candle. "How are you today, sir?"

  Ruso rubbed his neck and tried to maneuver his head back to an upright position. As he did so he suddenly realized why he was here. "I'm still alive!" he announced to the surprised orderly.

  The pleasure was short-lived. He had just remembered his first job this morning: to go and retrieve the contents of that pot from the mortuary and find Decimus.

  How quickly a man's hopes could crumble. The porter clutched the little bead in his heavy fist as he tried to rub away the tears spilling over into the creases between his fingers.

  "I'm sorry," said Ruso.

  The porter nodded and managed, "Thank you, sir." He sniffed.

  "How did you know it was her?"

  "I didn't. But I knew your girl had disappeared some time ago and I thought you'd be able to identify her jewelry."

  "I wish I hadn't said them things about her."

  "You were the only one who kept looking for her."

  The porter sniffed again. "Did she suffer, sir?"

  "I'm told there were people on the scene very quickly, but nobody heard any cries for help. It's quite possible she lit a fire to keep warm, fell asleep, and knew nothing about it." Had it not been for the dogs, would he have woken last night? Would he have realized what was happening? He didn't know.

  The man had opened his fist and was rolling the bead around in his palm with the tip of a finger. "I bought this for her in Viroconium when I was on leave, sir. It was on a necklace. Just a cheap thing."

  "She must have valued it to wear it."