by Ruth Downie
He removed the wadding and cooled it again in the cup. The pain was clanging inside his skull like a clapper in a bell.
The girl swallowed. "I am going to the next world."
"If I call the questioners, young woman, you will go very, very slowly. And be hard to recognize by the time you get there."
She seemed to be giving this careful thought. Finally she said, "I do not think it is you who comes."
"You thought I was somebody else? I suppose it didn't occur to you to find out first?"
She lifted her good hand to touch one ear. "Soldier boots," she said, pointing to his feet. "Bad man."
Ruso stared at the pale figure with sudden comprehension. He said, "You were going to fight off one of Merula's customers with a soup bowl?"
She nodded.
He cleared his throat. "You are completely wrong," he informed her, arranging his words carefully because the ringing in his head was growing louder and threatening to jumble them. "You are my patient, under my protection. I apologize if that was not explained to you. Clear up the mess and get back into bed. You will not be punished-this time."
The girl crawled across the floor, gathering the broken shards of the bowl. Then she eased herself onto the mattress and pulled up the covers. Ruso noted that the bright blankets seemed to be reserved for the public rooms: This one was ordinary sheep-brown.
"You are here to rest until you get better," he said. "The door is locked to keep you safe."
The girl glanced at the bars on the window, then closed her eyes, as if she was tired of trying to understand.
"Is your arm painful?"
She nodded.
He crouched beside her and checked the bandages. She was lucky:
The splint had held. There was no sign of movement. He placed his fingers and thumb around her upper arm. No swelling or heat. He laid her hand between his.
"Move your fingers." He felt the ends of the fingers twitch between his palms. "Good. Are you eating the food?"
She nodded again.
"Light diet, no flesh, no strong drink, no seafood, and you must drink plenty."
"Beer," she ventured.
"Beer?" He cleared his throat, aware that a professional should not allow wispy curls and a borrowed tunic slipping down over one shoulder to distract him from his work. He recalled his mind to his duty. "Absolutely no beer, nor anything like it." He gestured toward the lidded bucket in the corner, glad that she had not had the strength to use it as a weapon. "Are you passing water?"
She nodded.
"Good."
He reached into the open case. "I'll give you something for the pain, then you can sleep." He measured a few drops into the empty cup and handed it to her.
She took a sip and wrinkled her nose.
"Drink," he ordered, miming the gesture.
She tipped her head back. He retrieved the cup and measured himself a potent dose of the same painkiller, then stood up and closed the shutters. The room was chilly. She had only one blanket.
Downstairs, a lyre player was competing with the din of voices, the to-and-fro slap of the kitchen door, and the clatter and scrape of crockery. From the balcony Ruso could see only two serving girls for all the tables. Both looked harassed. There was a shout of laughter from the far side of the room, where Merula was pouring drinks for a group of officers.
Ruso turned away. The noise was making his head worse. There was still one cubicle with an open door. He limped in and whipped a rich blue blanket off the bed. He picked up a cushion as well. In the doorway he paused and tossed the cushion back onto the bed. There was no point in making her too comfortable.
When he returned the girl was lying flat on the bed with her eyes closed. He laid the blanket over her and tapped her shoulder. "Before you go to sleep," he said, sliding the key into her hand, "make sure you use this."
21
Ruso was trying to make his way down Merula's stairs without it being obvious that he had acquired a limp during his visit when he recognized Decimus, the hospital porter. The man was slumped over the crowded bar, wiping his eyes with a grimy fist. He also recognized the signals the barmaid was making to the doormen over the man's head. Ruso sighed. His head hurt. His foot hurt. His dignity was injured. He would not normally have interfered with an off-duty soldier's right to make a fool of himself in a public bar. But it was Decimus who had warned him about Priscus's imminent return yesterday morning, and he supposed he owed the man some sort of favor.
Hoping nobody would tread on his toe, he threaded his way between the tables. Finally close enough not to be overheard, he said, "Time to go, soldier."
The man looked at him wetly, sniffed, and informed him that he wouldn't understand.
"You're drunk."
"You don't know what it's like, sir."
"Go now, Decimus, before you get into trouble."
"You never liked him anyway. You always said get rid of him."
"Ah." Ruso rubbed the back of his head where what remained of the soup was setting his hair into stiff clumps. "The invisible dog."
"Bastard." The porter twisted on his stool and spat noisily onto the floor.
"Oy!" A bald man whose toes he had just missed spun around and glared at him.
"Bastard made us knock him on the head. He was a good dog. He was my best friend. He was faithful, that's what he was." The orderly waved an arm in the air. "He was faithful! None of you lot, you don't know what faithful means!"
"Get a grip, man!" urged Ruso, feeling pain dance around his skull as he grabbed the man's arm and hauled him toward the door. Unfortunately for them both, Decimus's feet did not follow. Instead, with another shout of "Bastard!" he toppled sideways onto Daphne, who screamed as her tray of drinks slid into the bald man's lap.
The bald man leaped up and shoved her aside, roaring, "I warned you, sunshine!" at the porter.
"He was the best dog in the legion!" yelled the porter. "He was-ow!"
"Out!" ordered the ginger-headed doorman, ramming the porter's arm up behind his back while his colleague clamped a forearm around the bald man's throat and offered him the chance to be next if he wanted.
The man struggled to turn. "You! Where's Asellina? You let somebody steal my Asellina! You let all the girls run away!"
"Out, pal," repeated Stichus. "You're banned."
"All gone. All run away. He was the best girl in the-ugh!"
The porter, assisted by Stichus, made an impressive exit. As the man floundered and grumbled in the street, Ruso paused in the entrance.
"We've had trouble with him before," said Stichus, settling back onto his stool. "Me, I wouldn't have let him in."
"I need to leave a message for your mistress."
Stichus gave him a look that said he was too busy to run messages. Ruso ignored it. "I've given my patient the key to her room," he said.
"You what?"
"So she can choose who to let in."
Stichus shrugged. "Please yourself. But we can't be watching her day and night. If she's a runner, it's your problem."
"She's not in a fit state to run anywhere," Ruso insisted, although it had crossed his mind that if the girl managed an escape like Asellina's rather than Saufeia's, it might be better for both of them. "And ask your mistress to keep a note of any refusal to eat and drink."
"Starving herself, is she? Don't worry, we've seen it all before. Meru-la'll soon sort that out."
"Good," said Ruso, trusting the landlady's attempts to stimulate the girl's appetite would not stray too far from the diet.
His business here now at an end, he gathered up his case and limped out into the street. He had barely taken a step when a voice called, "Sir!"
Ruso watched an unsteady salute being performed from a sitting position against the closed shutters of the bakery.
"Man in need of assistance, sir!"
Sir closed his eyes to the sight of the porter. He prayed for patience and for the poppy juice to work quickly.
Despite Ruso's
efforts at guidance, the porter's progress was as much sideways as forward. Not five paces down the street he stopped to deposit much of what he had drunk in the gutter. Ruso sighed, leaned back against the bakery wall with the weight on his good foot, and observed that some wit had added the words SAME OLD POISON to the words NEW COOK! beneath the torch illuminating Merula's doorway.
Finally they swayed back up the dark street and in through the south gates of the fort. Ruso gave the password for both of them and they were almost through the passageway when the porter seemed to realize where he was. He hauled himself to attention and shouted, "Request to report a murdering bastard, sir!"
"He's drunk," explained Ruso, as if the grinning guards were not able to see this for themselves.
"I'm drunk!" agreed the man. "I'm drunk, sir, but at least I'm not a murdering bastard with a painted head and a-"
"Shut up!" snarled Ruso. "That's an order."
The man swung around to inspect Ruso's face in the light of the gatehouse torches. After a moment he announced with apparent surprise, "I know who you are! You're the new doctor, Doctor. You bring dogs in, but they aren't as lovely as my Asellina."
Ruso glanced across at the gate guards. "One of you take his other arm, will you?"
Between them they dragged the man into the middle of the perimeter road. To Ruso's relief, the painkiller was beginning to take effect. He dismissed the guard, assuring him that he could cope, although the man plainly seemed to doubt him. "I'm perfectly sober," he explained, steadying himself as he shifted to take the weight off his sore foot.
"I've just had a bit of a bang on the head."
"Are you sure you don't need some help, sir?"
"No, I'm fine," Ruso assured him, leaning closer to explain, "I'm the doctor. I've prescribed myself something."
He was starting to feel far more relaxed now. Confident that his command of the situation was secure, he began to half-drag and half-carry the man along the road, taking the shortest route up by the deserted scaffolding of the baths and around the corner past the streaks of light that marked the shutters of the senior officers' houses.
A couple of passersby offered to help, but he dismissed them with a cheery smile and a wave. There was no problem. He was enjoying himself. He really ought to learn to relax more. See the funny side of things.
When he finally let go the orderly slumped against a post at one end of the dark lane between two barracks blocks.
"You're a good man, sir."
"Go and lie down, Decimus," said Ruso.
"You don't know nothing about dogs, but you're a good man."
The man staggered away into the gloom, leaning on the uprights of the portico for support. Finally he paused outside a door and fumbled with the latch. "Drink plenty of water before you go to sleep," called Ruso, feeling a rush of kindness toward the whole of humankind, encapsulated in this one drunken hospital porter, but the man was too busy falling through the doorway to hear him.
Ruso was still smiling when he climbed into his own bed, and so relaxed he decided not to bother taking his boots off.
22
Ruso shambled along to the kitchen wondering which was more painful: his sore head or his sore foot. Wretched woman. He needed a long cool drink of-
Damn. The jug was empty. Valens had thoughtfully moved it to weigh down the lid of the breadbin against invading mice but hadn't bothered to nip out and fill it first. Inside the bin was a chunk of bread so hard that the mice could have sharpened their teeth on it. There seemed to be nothing else edible in the kitchen. He chose the least dirty of the cups on the shelf and limped to the dining room. Beer would be better than nothing.
A gang of puppies bounced at his feet as he dipped the cup into the barrel. He was replacing the lid when there was a knock at the door. Still clutching the cup and with puppies licking up the drips in his wake, he went to explain to whoever it was that Valens was out.
The moment the door opened, the arm of the young soldier outside shot up in a salute.
Ruso transferred the beer to his other hand, put out his good foot to prevent a puppy escape and lost his balance slightly before returning an untidy salute and asking, "What do you want?"
"Albanus, sir, reporting for duty."
Ruso frowned, trying to imagine what the man's duty might be.
"Have you come to help out?"
"Yes sir."
"Oh. Good. Well, you can start by getting some water. I've got a mouth like a sand dune and there's nothing to drink."
The man looked puzzled. "Water, sir?"
Ruso jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Jug's in the kitchen."
He stepped aside, but the man did not move.
"Come in," ordered Ruso. "Shut the door before the dogs get out."
"Sir?"
"What?"
"I'm your scribe, sir."
Ruso stared at him and noticed the clues for the first time. The ink-stained fingers. The slight bulge to the eyes caused by peering at documents by lamplight. "Oh."
The man held up a satchel. "I've brought my equipment, sir."
"Well, you can take it away again," said Ruso. "I'm not on duty till this afternoon." He paused. "Report to me at the hospital at the seventh hour."
"Yes, sir." There was a pause. "What would you like me to do until then, sir?"
Gods above, Priscus had sent him an enthusiast. "Haven't you got some old records to copy?"
Yes, sir, he had.
"Then you can get on with that. Anything you can't read, ask me this afternoon. Don't make it up."
"Yes, sir."
The wretched man was still standing there.
"Anything else?"
"No, sir."
There was a silence, then Ruso remembered to say, "Dismissed."
After another snappy salute Albanus spun around, sending his satchel swinging outward and crashing back against his side, and marched off in the direction of the hospital. Ruso shut the door, sniffed the beer, and decided it wasn't better than nothing, after all. He limped back into the kitchen to fetch the jug. He had the feeling Albanus would have copied all the records in triplicate by lunchtime and be pestering him for more work. He could have given him the Concise Guide to copy. It was a pity that most of it wasn't written yet.
Ruso was carrying the jug out the door when there was a crash and a skitter of paws across floorboards. He turned. Several puppies were running for cover. One was perched on a side table, peering over the edge at fragments of a cup lying in a spreading pool of beer.
Ruso shut the door quietly, limped down the street to the water fountain, and stuck his head under it.
23
Tilla could smell fresh bread. She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders and peered out between the window bars. Across the street, a pigeon was perched on the roof of the bakery. Beneath it, someone swung back the first panel of the door shutters. A plump woman appeared in the gap, bending to apply her bottom to the rest of the shuttering. The panels shifted on their hinges and the pigeon swooped away as the whole apparatus began to screech back along its groove.
Tilla watched the pigeon until the frame of the window blocked her view. Then she returned to her bed, slid her hand underneath, and pulled out the iron key the healer had given her the night before. She had felt sorry for the healer, who had done nothing to deserve being smacked on the head and who should have had her beaten-since it seemed she did, after all, still belong to him. Evidently she was not yet the property of the ill-mannered bullies who had sauntered in yesterday with the clear intention of sizing her up for their own use.
The question was, what should she do now? She had the key. If she could find clothes, if she ate and built up her strength, if she could judge the right moment-she could escape. Or, she could choose not to eat, to cheat the work of the healer, and step forward toward her death. What honor, though, would she have in the next world if she had been offered a chance of freedom in this one and refused to take the risk?
A clunk from the loose board in the corridor warned her that someone was outside. Moments later there was a soft knock at the door. Tilla pressed her face against the door frame and squinted through the crack. She could just about make out a shape that was not tall enough to be either of the men.
"Daphne?"
The form moved and the hand knocked again.
Tilla slid the key into the lock, positioned one foot an inch away to hold the door while she assured herself it was only the girl, and then let her in.
"Daphne," she said, locking the door again. "Thank you."
The girl put the tray down on the bench.
"Did you sleep well?"
Daphne shrugged, and indicated her belly in a way that suggested her expectations of sleep were limited.
"When is your baby due?"
A second shrug indicated that this was not a subject of great interest.
"My master has given me the key," explained Tilla, "so I can decide who comes in. I do not want those men in here. If you come alone, knock like this." She demonstrated three short taps on the windowsill.
"Understand?"
Daphne reached out a hand and gave three short taps on the door.
"Only if you are alone, yes?"
Daphne nodded and pointed to herself. For a moment Tilla thought she was about to smile, but a yell of, "Daphne!" from downstairs reminded her of her duties. Tilla let her out, locked the door, and retreated to see what they had given her for breakfast.
24
The outside door to the hospital kitchen was propped open to let out the heat as usual. Ruso nodded a greeting to the cooks as he passed, pausing long enough to light a taper on the grilling coals but not long enough to answer any questions, either about why he was limping horribly or about why he didn't use the front door like everyone else.
He waited until the corridor was empty before making his way down to the courtyard door. Clutching his case in one hand and the taper in the other, he managed to hobble across the courtyard garden and enter by the consulting rooms without being accosted by either patients or staff.
