Terra Incognita

by Ruth Downie

Her uncle nodded approval. “I have met him. A good man. An officer. You have done well.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Your cousin will be jealous.”

  “I am not his wife,” she pointed out. “I am his slave.”

  “His slave?” Catavignus frowned. “Well. We shall have to do something about that.”

  “We?”

  “From now on, daughter of Lugh, we must look after each other. As family. You, me, Aemilia—and in time, if the gods are willing, your officer.”

  “Aemilia is not well,” said Tilla, eager to change the subject.

  Her uncle nodded. “She needs some womanly advice.”

  “Yesterday I advised her to get out of bed, wash herself, and eat properly. Today I shall advise her to go for a walk.”

  “Good. Did she tell you why she is behaving in this way?”

  “Not exactly,” said Tilla, not sure what Catavignus was supposed to know.

  “She entangled herself with a very unsuitable young man. It has ended badly, as I knew it would. I told her at the time that she could do better, but what do I know? I am only her father. It is not easy for a man to raise a daughter on his own.”

  Tilla bit back the observation that he hadn’t done it on his own: What about the succession of honorary aunties? The fat one with the wart. The one with the slit up one side of her tunic that showed her thigh. The one who was always cleaning and who liked to grab passing children and wipe dirt off their faces with the cloth she had just spat on. None had stayed long, but there had been plenty of them. And now he had Ness to limp around after them both.

  He was still talking. “We must make the most of you while we have you,” he said. “They tell me your medicus will be moving on in a few days.”

  Tilla looked her uncle in the eye. “He will be moving on,” she agreed. “I may go with him. Or I may not.”

  54

  RUSO THREW HIS blanket aside and concluded that floors these days were harder than they used to be. “I’ll get some men to clean things up in here after breakfast,” he said. “They’ve had plenty of practice now that I’ve had them scrub up the wards.”

  Thessalus reached stiff arms outside his bedding, stretched them toward the rafters, and sucked in a sharp breath. “Gambax kept promising me he’d get them to clean up, but he never—” He stopped. “Did I really hear you say last night that Rianorix didn’t do it?”

  “I said I’ve been told he didn’t. It’s not the same thing.”

  “But who else could it be?”

  “That’s the problem. Metellus is determined to have a culprit to present to the governor, and at the moment, guilty or not, Rianorix is his easiest option.”

  Thessalus dangled one arm over the edge of the couch and groped for his cup of water. “If he’s really innocent, and we can prove it, I could get out of here. It’s not much fun sitting here in the dark thinking up new lies to tell you. Especially when you take away my poppy tears.”

  Ruso leaned across to put the water in his hand, and gave him another dose of poppy. “Sorry about that.”

  “So who told you he was innocent?”

  It was clear that Thessalus had not heard Ruso’s final observation last night about his own strained relationship with Tilla and Rianorix. “It was an unreliable source.”

  “But we must follow it up!”

  “I’ve tried.”

  Thessalus put the water down and tried to pull himself up to a sitting position. “Tell me everything. There must be something else we can try.”

  “We?”

  “We can’t see an innocent man executed!”

  Curled up together like kittens. “Are we talking about you or Rianorix?”

  “Either of us. Try harder. Please. I’m not brave, Ruso. I want to end my life in Veldicca’s house, drifting away on the poppy tears. I don’t want to be executed. I’m only doing this because I have to.”

  “I could save you from that right now by telling the truth about you.”

  “I’m a patient. You would be breaking a confidence.”

  “What confidence? You’re in the army.” Ruso sighed and folded up his blanket. Then he shifted the pile of scrolls out of the chair and told Thessalus everything he knew about the murder of Felix the trumpeter.

  When he had finished, Thessalus said, “So. I’m asking you to help me save the man who’s sleeping with your girl.”

  “A man who may well be guilty anyway.”

  “Please, Ruso.”

  Ruso put his blanket under one arm and pointlessly tucked in a stray corner. “The more I think about this,” he said, “the less I like it. If you take another man’s punishment, what about the others? What if he tells his friends and they all get the idea it’s all right to butcher anyone who’s offended them?”

  “I don’t think he’ll go around boasting about it. Anyway, I’m not responsible for the peace of the province, Ruso, and neither are you. I’m responsible for my family. And I’d feel a lot easier in my mind if I knew you’d help me.”

  “I’m not promising to lie to the prefect.”

  Thessalus smiled. “I’ve already done it. It’s not too difficult.”

  Ruso scratched one ear. “I’m sorry about the ease of your mind,” he said, “But all I’m going to promise is that I’ll keep trying to find out what happened. Then I’ll decide what I’m going to do about it.”

  “What if the governor gets here before you find out?”

  “I don’t know,” said Ruso, heading for the door and feeling like a coward. “I can’t talk about it now. I’ve got to go to work.”

  55

  RUSO HAD BARELY got past “Days to Governor’s Visit II” and established that Valens was still asleep in his bed when three men attempted to crowd into the treatment room at once.

  First in was an overweight cavalryman with fuzzy splashes of blood seeping into the weave of his damp blue tunic who declared, “It’s not me, it’s him.”

  “Him” was a staggering comrade with a rag clutched against his arm. He too had been out in the rain and had blood on his clothing. It was also smeared on his face, on his fingers, and down one leg.

  “Sit him down,” ordered Ruso, turning to the third member of the trio, a flush-faced Ingenuus. “What have we got?”

  “Sword cut, sir. Accident.” Ingenuus glared at the friend. “I’ve already offered to help.”

  “He needs a doctor,” insisted the bulky one. “Are you a doctor?”

  Ingenuus squared his shoulders. “I’m a fully trained bandager!”

  “Well, when the doctor’s finished, you can bandage it, can’t you?”

  Ruso looked the man in the eye. “Thank you for bringing him in. Go and wait outside.”

  “But I’m his mate!”

  “We’ll call you when he’s ready.”

  The man eyed him for a moment as if considering defiance, then appeared to think better of it and instead crouched beside his injured comrade. “You’ll be all right,” he assured him. “This one’s a proper doctor. From the legions. He does this stuff all the time. That’s nothing more than a scratch to him.”

  When the friend had gone, the injured man glanced at Ruso and murmured, “Thanks. He was giving me an earache.”

  Ruso pulled up a stool beside him. “Let’s take a look.”

  The victim watched as the rag was peeled back to reveal a gaping but apparently clean cut. “Look at that!” he muttered as if offended rather than injured. “Clumsy bloody idiot. He’s going to kill somebody before long. And it’ll probably be me.”

  “How did it happen?” inquired Ruso, swabbing the skin with a cheap wine that added a duskier red to the scarlet.

  “He’s got the paws of a bear and the brain of a turnip, and some fool put him in a job where he could wave a sword about.” The injured party sucked air past his teeth. “Ow! We’re patroling about three miles out and some dozy Brits with an overloaded vehicle won’t get out of the way. We ask to see their customs token and gues
s what? They’ve paid the tax, and they know they’ve got it somewhere, but they just can’t lay their hands on it. So we tell them to pay up now or go back to the border and pick up another token. They start getting lippy, so we decide to teach them some manners, and they scuttle off in into the woods and start chucking stones at the horses. We go after them and turnip brain decides there’s room for two abreast between the trees. If this is going to stop me riding, I swear I’ll kill him. I’m trying to get into the governor’s escort.”

  “It won’t stop you for long,” said Ruso, pressing the clean pad Ingenuus had just handed him over the wound and fearing he would soon be the one with the earache. “It’s not deep, but you’ll need a few stitches.” He turned to Ingenuus. “Ready?”

  “Me?”

  “You can deal with this, can’t you?”

  Ingenuus shook his head and backed away. “Sorry, sir. I haven’t done stitching yet. Doctor Thessalus was going to teach us.”

  “Time you learned.”

  The patient’s eyes widened. “He’s not learning on me!”

  “No,” Ruso assured him, “he’s just going to get everything ready and then watch.”

  “Is this going to hurt?”

  “I’ll be as quick as I can. Do you want something for the pain?”

  The man grimaced. “Just get it over with.”

  While Ingenuus was preparing the equipment, the man said, “If you don’t mind me asking, sir, how is Doctor Thessalus?”

  “About the same,” said Ruso, choosing the vaguest of his selection of vague answers, which included As well as can be expected, and Comfortable. “Just get up on the table for me, will you?”

  “Only some of the lads were wondering, sir,” said the patient, lying down with his head resting on his uninjured arm. “We heard they were going to get him out, but instead that bloody basket maker’s running around laughing at us. And now all his little friends are getting uppity as well. All they had to do was get out of the way. What’s the matter with them?”

  “You should have seen the basket maker yesterday at the clinic,” put in Ingenuus. “Came strolling in . . .” he illustrated the movement with a sweep of the hand holding the needle “and looked like he wanted the doctor’s translator to kiss his bruises to make them better.”

  “Holy Jupiter!” The patient was staring at the needle. “Haven’t you got anything smaller than that?”

  “The small needle, Ingenuus,” suggested Ruso, catching his eye in time to stifle any objection that this was the small needle and making a mental note to remind him about not brandishing surgical equipment in front of the patient. He returned his attention to the man on the table. “Keep still now. Ingenuus, hold him steady, will you?”

  “Perhaps you could have a word with headquarters, sir,” suggested Ingenuus, passing the needle to Ruso and handing the patient a leather strap to bite on before continuing on a topic that was obviously of far more interest to him. “They’d listen to an officer. Perhaps they don’t know what’s going on out there.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be keeping an eye on the situation and briefing the governor,” said Ruso. He stabbed in the first stitch.

  The patient grunted.

  “Well done,” said Ruso, drawing the thread through. “Won’t be long now.”

  “Some of the lads might not want to wait for the governor, sir,” put in Ingenuus, who had clearly not grasped that the purpose of this conversation was to distract the patient, not the doctor.

  “Then they’ll have to control themselves,” snapped Ruso, knotting the thread and clipping it short. “This is going together nicely. You won’t have much of a scar here.” As the second stitch went in, the patient groaned and clutched at the edge of the table.

  “We’re not saying anybody’s going to do anything,” continued Ingenuus, unabashed. “We’re just saying, if anybody did, nobody would care much. And whoever did it wouldn’t be as stupid as he was and go ’round making threats in public beforehand, would they?”

  Ruso glanced at him. “I shall be testing you later on stitching technique.”

  Ingenuus, as he had hoped, fell silent and let him concentrate.

  56

  DOCTOR!” EXCLAIMED CATAVIGNUS, hurrying to the entrance of the brewery and elbowing aside the surly slave boy who had opened the door. “Come in out of the rain! Would you like to try our latest batch, or shall I send out for some wine?”

  “Actually,” explained Ruso, taking a deep breath before he stepped into the fug and hoping Tilla had not been serious about Catavignus asking him to marry her cousin, “I was hoping to have a word with your niece. Darlughdacha.”

  Catavignus’s smile could have signaled recognition, or amusement at his pronunciation. Whichever it was, it vanished as he explained that his niece—for whose safe return he could never thank Ruso enough—was not there. She had gone to the baths with her cousin.

  “It’s not mixed bathing, is it?” said Ruso hopefully.

  Catavignus looked shocked at the suggestion. He was not expecting the girls back before the women’s session ended at midday. “But allow me to entertain you while you wait, Doctor.”

  Ruso excused himself on the grounds that he was on duty, politely agreed to Catavignus’s suggestion that they must talk some other time, and then found himself floundering for an excuse not to attend the guild of caterers’ dinner tomorrow evening along with his delightful friend, the officer Catavignus had had the pleasure of meeting at the bathhouse yesterday. “And there’s no need to worry, doctor,” Catavignus assured him. “My niece has told me all about your relationship.”

  “She has?”

  “We live in complicated times.”

  “That’s very true,” agreed Ruso, who was intending to uncomplicate a few things as soon as Tilla emerged from the sanctuary of the bathhouse.

  “I don’t blame you at all,” Catavignus was continuing. “A man in the prime of life should not restrain himself. And she is a very attractive young woman.”

  “Ah—yes.” Ruso edged toward the door. “I really do have to—”

  Catavignus’s “We’ll talk about this when you have time” sounded more like a threat than a promise. “But in the meantime,” he added, “please don’t feel there should be any awkwardness over this ownership business.”

  “Right.”

  “We will be honored to welcome you to our home whenever you wish.”

  “Thank you,” said Ruso, feeling less at ease with every reassurance. “Just one last thing. Was your niece at home with you last night?”

  Catavignus smiled. “Of course. We are all thrilled to have her back. And the caterers will be delighted when I tell them you’re coming to the dinner.”

  There was someone else he needed to see while he was waiting for Tilla. Ruso ducked in under the dripping awning and banged on the door of the snack bar. A female voice called from within, “We’re closed!”

  “I’m not a customer!” called Ruso, wondering what sort of bar remained closed on a normal working day and whether he was interrupting some sort of crisis. Across the street, several men were lining up against the wall of the bathhouse, sheltering beneath the overhang of the roof. Susanna must be missing out on a good deal of business.

  Just as he was about to give up, the door opened to reveal the waitress who was not Dari.

  “You’re Albanus’s officer.”

  “I’ve come to see Susanna,” he said.

  The girl disappeared into the gloom. “It’s all right; it’s not him! It’s the doctor!”

  A distant voice shouted, “Which one?”

  “The new one!”

  A reply came from somewhere in the back of the building. “She says she didn’t call for you,” translated the girl, returning to the door.

  “I didn’t say she did,” pointed out Ruso. “I need to have a word with her. But if it’s not a good time—”

  “It’s the day of rest, sir.”

  “Right,” said Ruso, baffled by Sus
anna’s apparent lack of business acumen. “So can I talk to her, or not?”

  The girl pondered that for a moment, then turned and called, “He won’t go away!”

  “Oh, all right!”

  The girl retreated and Susanna appeared from a back room. “Excuse this,” she said, pointing at the towel wrapped around her head.

  Ruso noticed the pale splashes down the substantial expanse of her tunic and wondered if she bleached her hair herself.

  “Still, you’re a doctor,” continued Susanna, reaching down behind the counter. “You’ll have seen worse.” She produced a flagon of ordinary wine, a water jug, and a cup. “What’s so urgent?”

  “Sorry to disturb you on the Sabbath,” he said. “I didn’t realize.”

  One unbleached eyebrow rose. “How do you know?”

  “A guess,” said Ruso, whose knowledge of her people’s customs came from a grim visit to Cyrenaica, where the local Jews had practiced their tradition of rebellion with such fervor that the army had performed its equally time-honored response of massacring them. “Are there many of you here?”

  She shook her head. “Just me. Singing the Lord’s song in a foreign land, and largely unappreciated.” She led him across to a table under a small window, and seated herself on the bench opposite him. “I can’t say I’m doing very well at it, but I didn’t ask to be widowed and stranded here among a bunch of quarreling pagans, did I? And so far I’ve been blessed with a good living. Now. What was it?”

  Ruso poured himself a drink. “I’m hoping you can tell me some more about Dari.”

  Susanna sighed. “Why is it that men always need to talk about Dari?”

  “I don’t know,” said Ruso. “I’ve never met her.”

  “Wait there,” she said, and headed for the kitchen door.

  Seconds later a remarkable bosom was followed out of the kitchen by a pert nose attached to a cheerful face.

  Ruso suddenly understood the appeal of arm wrestling.

  The girl placed both hands on the edge of the table and leaned forward in a manner that placed a fathomless cleavage exactly at Ruso’s eye level. “Susanna says you want me.”