Tabula Rasa: A Crime Novel of the Roman Empire

by Ruth Downie

  Ruso cast around frantically for something suitable to say. Surely there was some poem that mentioned Britannia without saying how remote it was and how brave the emperor was to go there?

  And then he remembered. Of course: Tell the story of your people. He eased himself to his feet, glad his jaw had almost stopped aching. “ ‘I sing,’ ” he declared, although he was not singing at all, “ ‘of arms, and of the man fated to be an exile . . .’ ”

  The first few lines of the Aeneid were schoolboy stuff, but by the time he reached the part about the famously pious man driven to suffering, he was already beginning to falter. With some prompting from Valens, he got as far as bemoaning the heaviness of the cost of founding the Roman race before he ground to a halt. Then he remembered he was supposed to be adding a verse about Tilla, and could not think how to start again.

  “ ‘The Trojans were barely out of sight of Sicily,’ ” continued a voice beside him, “ ‘in deeper water, merrily spreading sail . . .’ ”

  Albanus, the son of a teacher. Albanus, the loyal friend who with luck would know enough of the poem to give him time to think of something to say about his wife.

  Albanus was enjoying himself now. The Trojans’ merriment had been swept away and they were in the middle of a shipwreck. The Romans present were listening and nodding at the familiar passages. Most of the Britons were listening politely, even if they understood very little of it. Only Virana was fidgeting and shifting about, disturbing her neighbors. Ruso frowned at her, but she was too busy whispering to Ria to notice.

  Ruso decided to let the story run until Neptune calmed the storm. That would be a good place to end. He definitely needed to stop Albanus before it became clear that the Aeneid was the story of a man who had fallen in love with a foreign woman and then abandoned her to grief and suicide while he sailed away to Italy because he had more important things to do.

  The Trojans were still floundering in heavy seas when there was a shriek from the other side of the hearth. Virana was bent over, clutching the sides of her vast belly. “It’s coming!”

  Albanus faltered for a moment, then pressed on, not wanting to abandon the Trojan sailors in mid-shipwreck.

  “It’s coming!” Virana cried again. “It’s coming now!”

  Albanus stopped.

  “And then,” Ruso declared, placing a hand on his clerk’s shoulder, “by a miracle of the gods, one of them found himself on the shores of Britannia! And there he met a beautiful British woman and he—”

  “Ohhh! I’m going to die!”

  People were shuffling out of the way to let Tilla through. “You are not going to die,” she told Virana. “Be quiet. I never liked this poem, either, but it is nearly over.”

  “And he married her,” Ruso continued. “Then the Daughter of Lugh took the new name of Tilla and they traveled together and had many adventures and now here they are.”

  It was not a grand ending, but the fact that it had ended at all seemed to merit applause and the passing of more beer.

  Senecio raised one hand in blessing toward the groom and one to the bride, who was now well out of reach of either of them, helping Virana toward one of the wicker partitions and whispering to the women about lights and water and a birthing stool. “Daughter of Lugh and Gaius Ruso, son of Petreius, may our mighty Brigantia and her land and her trees and her waters look kindly upon you. May there always be warmth at your hearth and plenty at your harvests. May you bring honor to our people and live to see many grandchildren.”

  The words were kindly meant, and who knew? Perhaps now that they had a local blessing, the British gods would indeed grant them children.

  It seemed to be all over. Senecio was leaning back in his chair and smiling fondly at his youngest son, while Virana was wailing and Tilla was calling sharply for more lights.

  Ruso leaned close to Albanus and murmured, “Thank you. I didn’t know it as well as I thought.”

  “Nor me,” said Valens. “I don’t remember some of those lines at all.”

  “I’m not surprised, sirs,” Albanus said. “I had to make quite a few of them up.”

  Ruso was saying, “But we got away with it,” when he heard Conn’s voice in British booming above the chatter. “Welcome to the family, Roman!”

  “It is an honor,” Ruso told him in the same tongue.

  “Now you can tell us what we all want to know!” After another shriek from Virana, Conn looked round to make sure his audience was still with him. “Is there a body in the emperor’s wall or not?”

  Ruso looked at Accius and knew from the expression on his face that he had understood the question.

  “Never mind the wall,” put in Senecio. “Why did that man steal my son?”

  “Breathe with me,” came a soft voice from behind the partition. “Breathe with me. You are not going to die. Enica, we need more light here!”

  Ruso began, “My wife was right,” and from behind the partition came “Thank you!”

  There was a ripple of laughter, but Ruso knew that if he got this answer wrong, then he, Gaius Petreius Ruso, would become the man who had undermined the emperor’s great project for the province of Britannia. He caught Accius’s eye. The scowl was fiercer than usual and Accius mouthed, “No.”

  “My wife was right to say that Branan was taken because of the rumor of a body in the wall,” he continued. “Legionary Mallius murdered one of his own comrades, and when he heard that a boy was claiming to have seen someone hiding a body, he panicked.”

  “It was hidden in the wall,” put in Conn. “You left that part out.”

  “The rumor said it was in the wall,” Ruso agreed. “The rumor also said Branan saw it happen.”

  “That was a lie.”

  “Exactly. And now we know where listening to gossip leads.”

  Albanus was glancing from one to the other of them as though he knew something important was going on but didn’t know what. From behind the partition Ruso heard Tilla asking for a knife. There was something in her voice he did not like. Besides, the knife should sever the cord after the baby was delivered, but there was no sound of a newborn cry: just Virana’s wailing that she was dying, and sobbing and begging someone to make it stop. Several of the women exchanged glances.

  Conn said, “So, is it—”

  Ruso placed a hand on Albanus’s skinny shoulder. “My friend came many miles to see his nephew being properly and decently laid to rest.”

  “So is the body in the wall, or not?”

  “Conn, stop it!” Enica emerged from behind the partition. She lowered her voice. “Stop all this talk of death: The child has the cord around its neck!”

  “Push!” cried Tilla from behind the screen. “Push again now!” and Virana began to make a ghastly groaning, straining noise something like a cow while Tilla assured her she was doing well and to keep going. Finally their voices died away. There was a long and dreadful silence. Some people looked at the floor. Others looked at Conn. There were whispers from behind the partition. People began to stir and mutter to each other. Senecio had both hands clutched on top of his stick.

  The scratchy, angry wail of a newborn was almost immediately drowned out by cheering. Hardly anyone apart from Ruso heard Conn say to his father, “We should have killed that bastard Mallius when we had the chance,” or Senecio’s reply of “The man is hated by them as well as us. One day our people will rise again. Until then we wait. Let them do the dirty work.”

  Chapter 76

  It was still dark when Tilla woke him and said Albanus was waiting. Ruso mumbled, “What for?”

  “You must go up to the wall.”

  Even as he said, “Uh?” he remembered. Albanus had bowed to pressure. The Legion had decided they could get away with it, and he was too gentle to insist.

  By the time the three of them reached the wall, the night was giving way to a gray morning of murky drizzle. As Ruso hauled himself up the last few paces of the slope, Tilla took him by the arm. He did not have the energy
to object. He was surprised and embarrassed by how exhausted he was.

  There were two shadowy figures moving about up there. Albanus had told him to expect the tribune. He assumed the other was a guard, but the voice that murmured a quiet greeting was that of Daminius.

  Accius handed his cloak to Daminius, dug into a bag Ruso had not noticed resting by the wall, and draped a white toga over his military kit with practiced efficiency. He pulled up a fold to cover his head and shook the metal rattle to frighten away any evil spirits.

  It was not the usual sort of funeral speech, but this was no ordinary funeral. It began by swearing all those present to silence in the name of Jupiter, Best and Greatest. Then it continued:

  “In light of the fact that, firstly, there is no visible evidence for the location of Candidus, who is presumed dead, and, secondly, the exact spot under suspicion can no longer be identified, it has been decided to hold this ceremony here this morning in the sight of the gods.” He gestured toward the anonymous rows of squared stones. “By tomorrow engraved lettering resembling a centurial building marker will have been created at an appropriate point.”

  At least Albanus had got some sort of marker out of them.

  “Those of us who can interpret the meaning of the engraving will understand its significance.”

  “Those of us who understand it, sir,” put in Albanus, “can be proud that my nephew has the biggest memorial in the empire.”

  Accius, not looking pleased, cleared his throat, shook the rattle again, and got on with the official rites.

  Afterward the toga vanished back into the bag. Albanus asked to be left alone there for a few moments. The others walked down through the wet grass in silence, only Accius pausing to accept the salute of the men trudging up the hill to start the day’s work.

  Chapter 77

  The Twentieth Legion finally left for Deva on a blustery day in mid-November. While her husband was busy getting his patients loaded onto transport for the journey, Tilla ran down to the farm to say a last good-bye. When she started to cry, Senecio told her she must go with her husband: What was the point of all that effort to bless their marriage otherwise? But his words were blurred: He was weeping too.

  She found Conn down in the bottom field checking on the sheep. “Twenty-three?” he said, asking her to confirm.

  She counted, trying to mark their positions as they shifted about. “No . . . yes.” They both tried again to make sure. Then she said, “I want you to know something. It was not me who called the army when you took the soldiers to the hut, nor that skinny one who hurt his ankle.”

  Instead of arguing, Conn said, “I know. Cata’s mother said you wouldn’t have had time.”

  “Perhaps they were just passing.”

  He shook his head. “I think we have an informer. I don’t know who it is, but that is not the first time the soldiers have known things they shouldn’t.”

  She started to ask, “But who—” and then realized she did not want to know.

  “I’ll find out,” he promised. “Somebody will be sorry.”

  “You could try not doing anything worth the telling.”

  The smile transformed his face.

  She said, “And you could try smiling more often.”

  “You should have met my brother Dubnus. You’d have liked him better.”

  She said, “I shall learn to like you well enough. Find a wife, Conn. The old man will not last forever, and he wants grandchildren.”

  “Any more orders?”

  “I will be back with more in the spring,” she promised.

  Pertinax swung himself toward the hospital wagon on his crutches, telling his anxious helpers to stop circling round him like bloody vultures: He wasn’t dead yet.

  His daughter turned to Ruso and said, “Valens says you haven’t bought a horse with my money.”

  “I’m still deciding,” he told her.

  “He says you’ve never bought a horse in all the years he’s known you.”

  “I’m taking some time to choose,” he admitted. “I’ll pay you back in Deva if I don’t go ahead.”

  Serena shook her head. “You always were indecisive, Ruso. I don’t know how your wife puts up with— Not that way, Pa! Turn around! ”

  Watching Pertinax pause and then shuffle round in a circle to park his backside on the floor of the wagon, Ruso said, “I’m not quite sure myself.”

  “I don’t know how she puts up with that girl, either.”

  Ruso glanced across the street to see Virana hurrying toward them. Her baby daughter was swathed in a thick golden blanket that had been a gift from . . . he still found it hard to refer to them as “Tilla’s family.” He was ashamed to say it, but she had been exclusively his for so long that he was jealous.

  “Virana’s a friend,” he said. “She’s not coming back to Deva,” he added, with no pleasure. “She’s going home.” He had insisted they stick to her agreed departure date, but no matter how annoying she could be, he would miss her cheerful smile, her willingness to work, and her unwavering loyalty. And Tilla would miss the baby, because Tilla always found it hard to part with babies. She was, in that respect, the worst possible person to be a midwife. She had tried to channel her efforts into medicine for the sick and injured, but the babies kept coming and somebody had to deliver them.

  He had no idea what Virana was doing in the fort, or who she had charmed on the gate to gain access. “Is everything all right?”

  “I must talk to you, master.”

  Ruso turned away from Pertinax, who had managed to bottom-shuffle his way into the wagon and was swearing because he had dropped one of his crutches in the street. Ruso now took little notice of his complaining. He had looked Ruso in the eye after Branan’s return and said, “Good man.” Ruso had left the room feeling three feet taller.

  Virana said, “It’s about your wedding present for the mistress.”

  “I haven’t organized one yet,” he confessed.

  “I know. And I have spoken with Albanus, and we both think it is a good idea. But he says I must ask you first because you might say no, and then the mistress would be upset.”

  He hoped whatever it was would not be expensive. He still had yet to find a way to recoup the cost of all the drinks and pastries the locals had enjoyed at Ria’s.

  Virana held up the baby toward him. It was, like most babies, small and round and pink. It had wispy dark hair and a thin red scratch on its nose, probably made with its own fingernails. It smelled of milk and baby and nothing else at the moment, and it seemed to be asleep. It was, in short, as good as a baby was likely to get.

  “Very nice,” he said, because he never knew what to say about babies.

  “Your wife loves her very much already. She is no trouble. And if it was not for you, I don’t know where I would be.”

  Tears welled up in the girl’s eyes as she was saying something about Tilla finding a nurse for the journey, and when she stopped talking he had no idea what else she had said or what to say in reply. Then she thrust the baby at him and he had to grab hold and press it against his chest for fear of dropping it, which meant that when she ran for the gates he could not give chase. He could only shout, “Virana, come back!”

  She stopped, calling, “Will you look after her?”

  “Don’t go!”

  “Will you?”

  “We’ll bring her to visit!”

  Gods above, what was he saying? A man didn’t take on a child like he might a stray dog. He had to give it thought, to consider all the options, to find a suitable baby, to make preparations. To talk to his wife, although he already knew what Tilla would say.

  “Virana!”

  “Albanus will know where to find me!”

  The shouting woke the baby up and it began to cry. He was wondering what to do with it when Serena climbed down from the hospital wagon and said, “Well! And Valens swore it was nothing to do with you! Hold its head, for goodness’ sake. Don’t you know anything?”

>   The baby was such a shock that he did not tell his wife about the other thing until the wide expanses of the border country were a distant memory and they were almost within sight of the familiar red walls of Deva. Tilla was sitting in the back of a wagon, cradling the baby, and the wet nurse had gone to see her man, who was an armorer with the first cohort.

  Ruso said lightly, “The tribune’s being recalled to Rome in the spring.”

  Tilla response of “Mm” made it plain she did not much care.

  “He says he may need a good man.”

  She looked up. “A doctor?”

  “With some other duties. He’ll have a big household. He’ll be going into politics . . . or whatever they do after they come out of the army and before they get to be senators.”

  “I hope he finds the right man, then. Politics is not for you.”

  “It would be a chance to see Rome.”

  “I have just found my family! And we have little Mara!”

  “I know,” he said. “We have all winter to think it over.”

  She kissed the baby’s fuzzy head. “Rome is very hot,” she warned, in that way she had of talking to the baby when she wanted to say something her husband might not want to hear. “And noisy, and crowded, and smelly. And full of criminals. Would you like to go there?”

  “Or would you like to stay in Britannia in the rain?” Ruso asked her.

  “It would be leaving everything I know behind,” Tilla said.

  “We don’t have to go.”

  “But then,” she added, “a lot of what I thought I knew was wrong anyway.”

  Ruso grinned.

  “That missing tooth shows when you smile.”

  “Are you complaining?”

  “Never,” said Tilla. “Well . . . only sometimes.”

  [Fluffer Nutter]

  Author’s Note

  An archaeological theory is a fragile edifice, and some of those now standing tall may have been knocked down and rebuilt into different shapes by the time this book goes to print. Despite the splendid wealth of evidence we have from Hadrian’s Wall, much remains to be discovered, and even the basic question of what the wall was actually for remains a matter of debate.