Tabula Rasa: A Crime Novel of the Roman Empire

by Ruth Downie

  “Then I thank you very much,” he said, trying to focus on the boy’s face and remind himself that his jaw was not broken: It was only toothache. “Very much indeed.”

  Branan bowed his head graciously. At that moment an orderly poked his head around the door and asked if he could come in. He turned out to be the advance guard for a squad of hospital staff who all wanted to see the famous Branan. “Everybody knows about you,” they told him. A couple of them pressed small gifts into his hand. One was a honey cake.

  The boy grinned, showing the gap in his teeth. Ruso thought he had never seen such a fine sight.

  “Shall we go home now?”

  “I’ll see to it,” Ruso promised.

  Ruso was aware that he was behaving just like his most annoying patients: the sort who had no time for doctors, always wanted to do too much too soon, and refused to listen to advice. At last, he felt, Pertinax had a reason to be proud of him. The man himself could not have done a better job of complaining about his confinement. Finally the local doctor agreed to let him leave on the first carriage that would take him tomorrow morning, but only after Ruso had promised that nobody here would be blamed if he dropped dead on the road. “The only other problem is,” Ruso confessed, “I’ve got no money.”

  “We’ll club together,” the medic assured him. “It’ll be worth it to get rid of you.”

  Ruso attempted a smile and wished he hadn’t. He suspected it came out as more of a lopsided leer. Then, remembering, he said, “I left a lame horse at the inn.”

  “They’ll sort it out. It’s a decent place. They would have helped you get the boy back if you’d asked.”

  “I didn’t know who to trust.”

  “No?” The medic grinned. “Welcome to the border, soldier.”

  Chapter 71

  There was a collective gasp and a shuffle of confusion as people fell over each other in their haste to get away from the door. Tilla heard the word “Traitor!” breathed in her ear.

  “Nobody move!” yelled the soldier again. “Give us our men!”

  Tilla heard the swish of swords being drawn, and Conn’s command of “No weapons!”

  Her opinion of him rose. In a confined space like this, weapons were useless. They might hold the soldiers at bay, but he would know that none of his people could escape even if they broke the walls down. The soldiers were not fools. They would have the place surrounded. The doorway was wide enough only to show a couple of iron helmets in silhouette, but there were torches blazing outside in other hands. The dim-witted lookout and the man sent after the soldiers must have been captured.

  “Give us our men! Now!”

  Daminius and Mallius were staggering to their feet, Mallius pulling down the tunic Conn’s people had tried to tear off him.

  Tilla did not recognize the voice of the soldier. She had no idea what he knew or how they had found this place so soon. But she knew that if she did not think of something quickly, then everything she had feared would come to pass. Mallius would tell them he had been lured into a trap and leave out the reason why. Daminius would be punished for his part in it, Senecio’s family would be executed, and her husband would be disgraced by the shame of a treacherous wife.

  Daminius was wiping his mouth and straightening his damp clothing. Pushing a couple of Conn’s men aside, she moved into the firelight and took him by the arm. “Let me help you, sir,” she suggested. “The Samain beer was stronger than you thought. My brother should have warned you.”

  Mallius stumbled across to the doorway, flailing his arms about like a drowning man trying to reach land. He was crying out about prisoners and ghosts and murder and cannibals.

  “Too much beer,” said Tilla for the soldiers’ benefit. “He can hardly speak.”

  She spoke to Conn in British. She dared not say anything secret: Some of the legionaries were Britons and would understand. “I told you not to let them drink so much, brother,” she said. “Now look. One of them has wet himself and they are both are in trouble with their officers, and it is all your fault.”

  To Daminius she said, “I am sorry, sir. I should not have invited you. I did not know your friends would be worried about you.”

  “Shouldn’t have accepted,” Daminius told her, his voice slurred. “Big mistake. Big, big—”

  “Out!” came the order from the door.

  “Yes, sir,” Daminius agreed, but instead of stepping forward he tottered sideways and put his arm around Conn’s neck. “Can you tell’im from me,” he said to Tilla, “we mus’ do this again sometime. I’ll ‘range the same sort of thing f’r’im at my place.” Then he lifted up the little phallus from around his neck and kissed it before shambling toward his rescuers with the words, “Sorry, sir. Bit of a night out. Lovely people.”

  Chapter 72

  First the shriek. Then: “Oh, my boy! My precious, precious boy!”

  Tilla slapped down the bowl of cream that was halfway to butter and leapt up from the bench.

  Enica was crouching in the gateway, rocking a small figure in her arms. Senecio was lurching toward them, the tip of his stick clacking and sliding on the cobbles.

  “I saved the doctor, Mam!” Branan cried from the safety of his mother’s embrace. “I saved him and I’m famous and they gave me presents!”

  “My son!” Senecio threw his stick aside. Together he and Enica engulfed the boy.

  “Did you miss me?” came a muffled voice from within the huddle. “Is the dog here?”

  Tilla closed her eyes. She had thought she would dance with joy when—if—the good news came. Instead she found she was trembling. She was relieved. But oh, so very tired. All the lost sleep drifted toward her and bade her welcome, and she had to force her eyes open so as not to topple over.

  There were other figures in the yard now. Shouts of delight. Weeping. Children leaping about and two of them spinning each other round in dizzying circles. The dog barking and jumping up at the growing family group and finally being dragged into it by a small arm.

  Beyond them she saw a man who seemed to be moving with extreme care, as if his limbs might detach themselves at any moment. She recognized the figure and the hair, but neither the gait nor the face was right. He paused to watch the ecstatic crowd in the gateway. Then he turned and started back the way he had come.

  “Husband!” she cried, edging round the family and lifting her skirts to step over the wagging tail of the dog. “Husband! It is me!”

  Ruso wanted to walk back to the fort, but Tilla persuaded him to stop at Ria’s, where she and Albanus helped him up to the loft bedroom. Albanus gallantly retreated, murmuring that the doctor did not need to hear any bad news at the moment, and left her to tend his injuries and administer poppy tears to ease the pain. Virana was keen to assist, but crying, “Oh, don’t hurt him!” every time the patient winced was not the kind of help Tilla needed. Instead Virana was sent to the fort to let Centurion Fabius know that the boy was safe and that if they wanted the Medicus, they would have to send a vehicle and some of the hospital staff to fetch him. When the girl had gone, Tilla tried to tell her husband the new story of her life: that Senecio was her real father. It was thrilling and frightening at the same time, as if the ground of her past had shifted underneath her. He mumbled vaguely, “That’s nice,” and drifted off to sleep. She tried not to feel disappointed.

  A while later Virana brought a reply. Centurion Fabius was delighted that the boy was found and he hoped the doctor would feel better soon. Meanwhile, what was the best cure for white spots on the tongue?

  Valens arrived and woke Tilla’s patient with a jug of very expensive wine which he had managed to smuggle past Ria. He brought good wishes from the hospital, said that the stitching wasn’t too bad for a first attempt, and wanted to know when Ruso would be back at work. It seemed Valens’s father-in-law was convinced that Valens was withholding crutches as part of a personal quarrel. The pharmacist had fallen out with the new clerk, the assistant said the carpenter was useless, and
Fabius had got his hands on a scroll full of new diseases.

  To which her husband replied, “I think I’ll be sick for a very long time.”

  He wanted to talk to Albanus. She tried to suggest that he had some sleep first, but he insisted. So she had to tell him about Mallius being afraid of the pretend ghost of Candidus. When she had finished, he looked exhausted. All the joy at finding Branan seemed to have drained away. “I will send Albanus up,” she promised, “but not for long.”

  She found Albanus seated at a corner table with Virana. The girl had placed a plump hand over his skinny one and was gazing deep into his eyes.

  “What a shame!” Virana said as they watched him climb up into the loft. “He’s such a kind man, even if he is too thin and not very handsome. I told him his nephew helped me light the lamps and I thought he was going to cry.”

  Anything else she might have said was cut short by Ria wanting to know whether the vegetables were going to chop themselves or whether Virana might like to join in. Tilla, aware that she had taken the girl away from her duties, offered to help. That was how she was in the back room wielding a knife when Ria strode in to announce that now a tribune had arrived wanting to visit the Medicus, and how many more soldiers were going to be tramping their muddy boots through her back room?

  Tilla tipped a pile of shredded cabbage into the pot. “Did he buy a drink?”

  Ria had to admit that he had.

  Tilla put the knife down and wiped her hands. “I’ll see to him.”

  Virana said, “Has that nice Albanus come down yet?”

  “Is that nice Albanus any good at chopping onions?” demanded Ria.

  Virana said she did not expect so.

  “Then he’s no concern of yours, girl.”

  Tilla was glad Accius had come. It would remind her husband of the good thing he had done, and take his mind off his failure to protect Candidus. She told Accius that her husband was not well enough to answer questions, then waited in the background, rolling laundered bandages along her lap and folding clothes that did not need folding. Finally she had a chance to offer the version of last night’s events that she wanted the tribune to hear. In return he told her he was arranging for Branan to take a look at Mallius and see if he was the kidnapper. He said nothing at all about the wall or what might be hidden inside it.

  Only when they were alone again did her husband give Tilla a look whose meaning she recognized in spite of the black eye and the swelling.

  “I am not sure the tribune believed Mallius saw a ghost,” she admitted.

  “I’m not sure he believed any of it,” Ruso said, his voice still sounding odd because he was trying not to move his jaw.

  She leaned over and kissed his forehead.

  “Ow.”

  “I may have left a few things out,” she admitted. “But he does not need to know them. Two soldiers went out with me last night to visit a patient, one of them thought he saw a ghost on the way, and then I invited them to the Samain celebration at the farm.”

  “You expect Accius to believe that you invited a murder suspect to a party? And that party was being given by a family whose son was missing?”

  She shrugged. “Accius expects me to believe there is no body in the emperor’s wall.”

  Instead of replying, Ruso reached for the cup of water beside the bed, then eased himself down and closed his good eye. “I’m going to sleep,” he told her. “Don’t wake me up until somebody else has sorted out this mess.”

  Moments later she heard, “Did I dream it, or did you tell me that you think the old man is your father?”

  “It seems there was much my mother did not tell me.”

  “So Branan is your brother?”

  “As is Conn.”

  He gave a grunt that might have been amazement, or disbelief, or simple exhaustion. “I think I’m glad for you.”

  She said, “I think I am glad too. But it feels very strange.”

  In reply there was only a soft snore.

  She went down to the bar to tell Ria that she and her husband both needed to sleep and they could not accept any more visitors, but another one arrived while she was there.

  Aemilia.

  Aemilia and her husband were not offended. Not at all. She had not complained about coming all this way for a wedding that nobody had told them was canceled, because everybody had been very busy and she could see that sending a message to a long-lost cousin was not very important. Now they had come across from their lodgings to see that lovely husband of hers and tell him he was a hero but they could not see him because everyone else had already visited and worn him out. Which was a shame, but just another one of those things.

  “No it’s not,” put in her husband, not bothering to look up from his beer. “It’s bloody annoying.”

  Aemilia told him he needn’t be so grumpy just because Ria’s beer wasn’t as good as their own.

  “The brewery is doing very well,” she told Tilla. “We’re expanding. We’ve left one of our freedmen in charge, but we really can’t stay away any longer if there isn’t a wedding.”

  “So tell me,” said Aemilia’s husband, looking at Tilla over his cup, “is there a body in the wall or not?”

  Their eyes met. He was still handsome, if a little more creased around the eyes and thicker around the waist. Tilla wondered briefly what would have happened if she had married him and not the man lying in the bed upstairs. It had been possible, before the Northerners’ raid on her family’s farm had changed her life forever. Now she could not even answer his simple question truthfully. But neither could she bring herself to lie to him. Instead she offered the biggest distraction she could think of.

  “You have not come all this way for nothing,” she said. “There will be a wedding. I will ask my father.”

  Rianorix frowned. “Your what?”

  “Senecio,” she explained, then paused. These people knew the ages of her brothers. To tell this story was to betray her mother. But then, had her mother not betrayed the man she had married—the man everyone had thought was Tilla’s father? But before she could say more, Aemilia asked, “You know, I’m sure Daddy once said something about your mam and a stranger from over in the hills.”

  “People knew?” Tilla sank back against the wall, feeling the ground of her childhood slip beneath her once more. “What did he say?”

  But Aemilia could not remember the details. “It was a long time ago,” she said, waving it off with a flick of the hand. “I never thought anything of it.”

  Tilla looked from one to the other of them. “Why did nobody ever tell me?”

  Aemilia’s husband poked his forefinger into his beer and hooked something out. “Perhaps the same reason you won’t tell me there’s a body in wall,” he said.

  Chapter 73

  The rest of the day of Ruso’s return had passed between sleep and pain and, blurring the two, regular doses of poppy tears administered by Tilla. Several times she tried to ask him questions, but when he tried to grasp them they slid away, so he decided to answer, “Yes,” to everything and sort it out later. The tribune came back. He wanted to talk about Mallius and Daminius, Tilla and Conn. Ruso could not remember what he was supposed to say, or even exactly what he knew, so he pretended to be more ill than he felt. It was surprisingly easy once you started to pay attention to every little twinge and gurgle. He even began to convince himself until he realized this was probably how Fabius started. At other times he lay alone, hearing distant voices and the clatter of crockery from Ria’s kitchen, thinking about what had happened and deciding he must get up. But not just yet. He would just lie here for a moment longer, letting his tongue explore the tender gap where his tooth used to be.

  He did not wake until well past dawn.

  “Sit down, man. You look as though you should be in your own hospital.”

  Ruso gratefully lowered the salute and persuaded the muscles that had stiffened up overnight to let him sink back onto Ria’s bench. He hoped the legate
and the tribune would go away soon so he could tackle the bowl of honeyed porridge that steamed in front of him. He had woken very hungry but unable to chew anything.

  The legate said, “I hear you saved the boy single-handed.”

  “Not really, sir,” he confessed. “I had quite a lot of help.”

  “Well, well done anyway.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “You’ll be pleased to hear that the boy’s identified Mallius as the kidnapper. We’ve got him locked up and the natives seem to have calmed down at last.”

  “That’s good, sir.” Did senior officers tire of the bland statements they heard in response to their speeches? Or did they simply ignore them, like the bleating of sheep? At least the man had taken the trouble to visit and congratulate him. It was an honor, and one Ruso wished he felt well enough to appreciate.

  Moments later the legate had swept out of Ria’s bar on his way to deal with the next crisis. Ruso forced himself not to look longingly at the porridge. The legate had gone, but he had left the tribune behind.

  “A word in private, Ruso,” said Accius, swinging a leg over the nearest bench and resting his elbows on the table. “This Mallius chap. It’s not as straightforward as it might be. He says it wasn’t him, he doesn’t know anything about anything, the boy has identified the wrong man, he was asleep when the boy was taken, and all he did the other night was mistake a patch of moonlight for a ghost.”

  “Well, he would, sir.”

  “The sleep thing isn’t a problem. I’ve reinterviewed everyone and it seems our witness didn’t see the face of whoever it was in the bed. There are other candidates.”

  “And the boy identified him?”