by Ruth Downie
“Yes, sir.” Accius, he decided, would go far—if only he could resist the urge to outshine the men above him.
“Anything else bothering you?” Accius’s tone suggested that if there was, he did not want to hear it. Ruso told him anyway.
“Sir, we’re accusing the deserter of murder, but the locals are saying he was a good friend of the victim.”
Accius scowled. “What did I just warn you about? That pretty wife has you dancing on a string. Civilians don’t know the facts, so they speculate. No doubt some of them are saying Geminus forced that man off the roof.”
“Not to my knowledge, sir. I appreciate that he’s a relative of yours, but—”
“Are you saying I can’t form a fair judgment?”
“No, sir. I’m saying Geminus’s men are unusually frightened of him.”
Accius reached for the water and topped up his wine. “Doctor, do you really imagine that nobody has looked into all this other than you?”
“No, sir.”
Accius took a long drink and placed the glass exactly back over the damp ring on the table before speaking. “I’ve spoken to Geminus at length about the suicide,” he said. “He tried to persuade the man to come down, but Sulio had convinced himself that he was personally under a curse. His last words were a confession about his involvement in the death of Tadius.”
Ruso said nothing.
“Recruits complain, Ruso. You should know that.”
Ruso had heard far more complaints than would ever reach the noble ears of the tribune, but it would not be tactful to say so.
“Especially Britons,” Accius continued. “They’re not used to discipline. Even the ones whose fathers are soldiers have grown up running wild with their native cousins. The gods alone know what they get up to at those shrines in the woods that they aren’t supposed to have. Add that to the usual behavior of recruits—spending all their wages on extra food and drink and impressing the local girls, so they have to send requests home begging for things like socks that they haven’t bothered to buy for themselves … If we didn’t stop their wages for the basics, half of them would have no boots.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Frankly, anything your wife has heard is likely to be a long way from the truth. Get her to give you the names of the rumormongers and I’ll have them brought in and spoken to.”
Ruso’s stomach clenched. This was not at all what he had expected or intended. He said, “I’m not sure she knows, sir. She may have just overheard something in the street.”
“Well, tell her to find out. If she was close enough to listen, she must have a description.”
“Sir, I saw evidence of the shackling.”
“Then for all our sakes, keep it to yourself. We don’t want the recruits any more stirred up before the march. As for the rest … well, it never does any harm to know what’s being said around the enemy campfires.”
“I’ll let you know if she hears anything else, sir.”
“Oh, there’s no need for that. We need to deal with the gossipmongers now, before any of this nonsense gets passed on to the Sixth. I’m sure you can explain to her why she needs to be more helpful this time than she was over the pay wagon.”
Ruso swallowed. “The Britons have loyalties just like we do, sir.”
“She’s your wife, Ruso. Her loyalty is to you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you, of course, are loyal to the Twentieth. Which, as you helpfully reminded me earlier, serves the emperor.”
Chapter 31
“I can’t stop to argue.” He swung his cloak around his shoulders. “I’m going back for a last check on that arm. And then there’s something we need to talk about.”
It was not something good: Tilla could tell from his voice. “There is no need to argue,” she told him, following him out onto the walkway, “because I am right. The other knot was the same. Be cross with someone at the hospital, not me.”
He called from the walkway, “Nobody over there has any right to go into my case!”
“Well, someone has, and they are not very good at it!” Too late, she added, “What is the thing we need to talk about?”
But all he said was “Don’t speak to anyone till I get back.”
Tilla closed the door and surveyed the room. Two bowls, one half full of cold stew. A scroll of stupid poems. And nobody to talk to.
It’s no good moping, girl. There’s work to be done.
She lit the spare lamp. Then she set out to reassure herself that nobody had meddled with the rest of the medicine bottles, the little linen bags, and the limewood boxes in the case, and to make sure that the salves were still in their right containers. It was one of those times when a person could see the use of being able to read.
* * *
The medicines were neatly stacked in their compartments and the extra lamp had fizzled out by the time she heard footsteps on the walkway. She snatched up the scroll, but the footsteps went past. She put the scroll down again. If her husband had to do an emergency amputation, he could be gone all night. She might as well go to bed.
She was on the way back from the latrine when a voice said, “Stop there, miss!” In the torchlight, one large figure separated itself from another. Before she could dodge, the second man had placed himself behind her. She told herself not to be afraid. This was the mansio: There were plenty of people around. Anyway, he had called her “miss.” But then, a man could hide bad intentions behind good manners.
She said loudly, “Who are you?”
“The tribune wants you.”
“What for?”
“Follow me.”
If they tried to take her out of the building, she would scream. Faintly consoled by the thought that she had a plan, she set off behind them.
The torchlight glinted on the scabbard of his sword. He was, at least, some sort of soldier.
“The Medicus’s wife, sir.”
Accius was scowling at a map on the desk in front of him while a secretary hovered at his elbow. Tilla was not greatly reassured to see Minna perched on a stool in the corner, where it was much too dark to see the sock she was supposed to be darning.
Finally Accius rolled up the map and sent the secretary away with instructions about messages to the forts on the route. Then he dismissed the guards. Tilla heard the door clamp shut behind them. She fought an urge to haul it open and run.
“Tilla,” he said, looking her up and down as if he were trying to decide whether he would allow her to keep the name or give her another one.
The black smudge of soot across his forehead made his dark features even crosser than usual. A man this rich would not light his own fires, so she supposed he must have been to a temple.
“Real name,” he continued, “Darlughdacha. From a small tribe amongst the Brigantes known as the Corionotatae.”
Tilla stared at him. How did he know all of that? He had even pronounced it correctly.
“My attention has been drawn to the security records at Headquarters. Your people were involved in the recent troubles on the border. Restoring order cost us a lot of men.”
“Some of my people are—” No, that was wrong. Latin was always harder when she was nervous. “Some of my people were involved, sir. Many just wanted to bring up their families and tend their sheep.” Why was he talking about this now? Why was he talking to her at all? Was that what her husband did not have time to say: that he had told Accius all about her? It was all very well saying “Don’t speak to anyone till I get back,” but what should she do now?
“Your concern for the Legion’s reputation is noted.”
What concern?
“I hear you’ve been collecting information from the locals for us.”
She was aware of Minna in the corner listening to every word. Did he know about Virana? Or maybe even that she had befriended Corinna, wife of a deserter? How could she know what to say without knowing what he had heard?
“I have spoken to your husband,” h
e told her. “Since you are not …” He paused, searching for a word. “Since you do not have the usual background for an officer’s wife, I have decided to make some things clear to you personally.”
By the time she realized she was supposed to thank him, it was too late. “As the wife of an officer of the Twentieth Legion,” he continued, “your duty is to support your husband in the home. You need not trouble yourself with military affairs. In any way.”
Tilla opened her mouth, but before anything could come out, he said, “Civilians have no idea of the facts. They have no appreciation of all that your husband’s legion does for them. Any hint of encouragement from someone connected with the Legion merely fuels unfounded rumors that we then have to go to the trouble of correcting.”
He paused to let her regret any encouragement she might have offered.
“You will confine your discussions with the natives to the necessary business of running your household.”
Minna’s needle had stopped moving.
“Your husband will be giving me a list of the names of the people who are behind this latest gossip, so we can visit them and correct the false statements they have been making.”
Tilla knew about visits from the army. They were not easily forgotten, even after the damage had been repaired and the bruises had healed.
Minna had put the sock down and was watching to see her response. Tilla suddenly remembered how stupid most Roman officers thought the natives were. She let her mouth fall open and gazed at Accius with an expression of wide-eyed, tongue-tied awe.
Was that a faint relaxation of the scowl? He said, “Meanwhile, madam, the Legion appreciates your wish to be helpful. If we ever need your assistance, I will let you know.”
Finally Tilla managed to speak. “Sir, what must I do next time people try to tell me things?”
The scowl returned. “Tell them that complaints should go through the proper channels.”
Tilla bowed her head demurely. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “I will ask my husband to explain to me what the proper channels are.”
Chapter 32
Ruso took another swig of the wine with rose petals steeped in it before he set off, but by the time the torchlit entrance to the mansio came into view, his headache was showing no sign of clearing. Still, Austalis seemed to be stable, and with luck Tilla had heeded his message and gone to bed. The last thing he wanted tonight was an argument. That could wait until morning, when he would have to admit that his attempt to call Geminus’s bluff had achieved exactly the opposite effect to the one he had intended.
If only he had kept his mouth shut.
That pretty wife has you dancing on a string. Perhaps Accius had a point. Other officers’ wives stayed back at base, tending their homes and children and meeting up at the bathhouse to gossip. Other officers’ wives did not follow them around the countryside raising awkward questions to which they would never understand the only answers their husbands had to give. In fact, now that he thought about it, Tilla’s presence and her insistence on voicing the demands of the women outside the camps made his job infinitely more difficult. It was time they bought a slave. Next time he was away, the slave could look after him and the wife could stay at home.
He strode on, not looking at the light but at the surface of the street. He did not want to round off a difficult evening by stepping in a pile of dung.
There had been an accumulation of small exasperations back at the hospital: first the cook’s failure yet again to remember his instructions for Austalis’s diet; and then someone had packed the pharmacy scales ready to travel, and when they were needed, nobody could remember which box they were in. The search was complicated by a period of semidarkness when it was discovered that nobody had filled any of the lamps, owing to the nonarrival of the oil that Stores insisted they had sent, but the hospital staff were adamant they had not received. An emergency request to Stores to allocate some more had resulted in the messenger being told to piss off, which was more or less what Ruso had been told himself—only more politely—when he went across to insist on some action. He had been on the verge of losing his temper when the first amphora was traced to the headquarters building, lying in a side room with the words HOSPITAL URGENT clearly chalked on the side.
A less rational man would begin to think the gods didn’t like him. A rational man would conclude that someone at the hospital—and he certainly didn’t trust that clerk—was deliberately making his life difficult.
He was so preoccupied that the rapid thud of hooves and the yell of “Look out!” took him completely by surprise. He felt a rush of air as the horse swerved to avoid him, no doubt as alarmed as he was by the sudden appearance of a pedestrian in the middle of the road in the dark. The rider yelled something at him and hurtled on toward the east gate. Ruso stepped aside in case there were more horses, but the cavalryman seemed to be a lone late arrival.
He took a last deep breath of cool night air before making his way up the mansio steps. If Tilla was awake, he would begin with the good news. “I’ve cleared up this Metellus business with Accius,” he would say. “We can stop worrying. He’s not bothered.”
Seconds later, he found that rehearsing his lines had been a waste of time. He had started the scene in entirely the wrong place. Not only had Tilla received no message to say he would be late, but the first words after an accusatory “I was worried!” were “What have you been saying about me to the tribune?”
The headache gained him no sympathy at all. He helped himself to a cup of water—clearly none was going to be offered—before sitting on the edge of one of the beds and trying to explain. “I thought he would listen,” he said. “I even thought he might look into it. I never thought it would come to this.”
“But I told you it was a secret! How can I give him a name when I swore on the bones of my ancestors that I would not?”
He heard himself offer the lame “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“And it is not me who mixes up your medicines.”
“Forget the bloody medicines!” Had she sat here all evening making a list of things to argue about?
“But the first thing you will be thinking is It is Tilla again.”
“I think it was someone at the hospital.”
“Yes. But first you will be thinking it is me.”
She was getting her tenses mixed up, something she rarely did now unless she was very agitated.
“I am a nuisance to you.”
“Oh, gods above.” He lay back on the bed and pressed his hands to his temples. “Not tonight, Tilla.”
“No,” she agreed. “Not tonight. But this is worse than the pay wagon. This time I swore an oath to say nothing.”
He was not fool enough to think he could change her mind. “You realize if we don’t come up with something for him, there will be consequences for both of us?”
“That is his choice, not ours.”
“But we’re the ones who will suffer for it.”
“Something in this place stinks,” she said, lifting her chin as if the smell were under her nose at that moment. “I should have tell him he must deal with what is wrong, instead of trying to silence a person who tells the truth.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Perhaps we should say that to him.”
“Perhaps you should try presenting your witness so he can hear the accusations for himself.”
She shook her head. “The tribune would not believe a word this person said.”
“Marvelous.” He raised himself up on his elbows and took another swig of water. “The only way out of this is to convince Accius that the rumors about Geminus are true. And the only way to do that is to present a witness we can’t produce.” He glanced at her. “There must be other witnesses. It’s not just this one person, is it?”
“I could ask, but I do not know anyone who will talk.”
“Better and better.”
Tilla was silent for a moment. Finally she said,
“We could go back to Gaul.”
That pretty wife has you dancing on a string. He was only here in Britannia because of Tilla. “Last time we went, I was on sick leave at the end of a contract,” he pointed out. “This time it would be desertion.” He pulled off his boots. “What I want,” he said, “the only thing I’ve ever wanted, is a job where all I have to deal with is what’s in front of me.” He slung his belt over the bedpost. “Is that too much to ask?”
She said, “What is in front of you?
He hauled the covers over himself and closed his eyes. “A good night’s sleep, I hope.”
“And tomorrow?”
“Amputation of the right arm at the shoulder.”
“In front of me is a girl many weeks’ walk from home, abandoned with an injured child. And a centurion with something to hide.”
He sighed. “Stay out of it, Tilla. There are any number of veterans who will swear to you that the training isn’t as tough now as it was in their day. Geminus is a bully, but no doubt he sees himself as trying to restore standards.” He opened his eyes. “Did you do any reading this evening?”
“He should have sent the ferry.”
For a moment he thought this was her last word on the subject. Then he heard “Do you think he was angry because two men were fond of each other?”
“They shouldn’t have made it obvious,” he said. “Somebody should have warned them: Never do anything to make yourself a target in basic training.”
“But when the emperor himself runs after boys …” She paused. Some sort of commotion was going on outside. There were doors banging. Raised voices. Footsteps and the jingle of military belts approached the window. Ruso lifted his head to listen, but the soldiers carried on past.
“The emperor can do what he likes,” he said, relieved that whatever the fuss was, it did not require a medic. “He’s not answerable to Geminus.”
“Geminus likes to frighten people.”
“Recruits have to be toughened up. And taught to obey orders. They don’t drill them for fun. Discipline saves men’s lives, Tilla. If I didn’t believe that, I’d have no business being in the Legion.”
