Terra Incognita: A Novel of the Roman Empire

by Ruth Downie

  “Anything,” said Valens. “Anything at all. I’m starving.”

  The moment they were alone, Ruso said, “Right. Now tell me.”

  “It’s not my fault,” insisted Valens. “Really it isn’t. None of this would have happened if you and Tilla hadn’t pushed off and left me on my own in the house.”

  “None of what?”

  “You remember the Second Spear?”

  “Not with pleasure.”

  “Well, you know he had a daughter?”

  “Gods above! Tell me you haven’t?”

  “Do listen, Ruso. It wasn’t my fault. She found out you’d gone and I was at home alone and bored, and she started popping ’round to see me.”

  “With no encouragement from you, of course.”

  “Ruso, she’s a rather attractive young lady—”

  “Who stands to inherit all of the Second Spear’s money.”

  Valens looked pained. “Money does not come into this. Anyway, you’re quite right, it wasn’t a good idea. So I told her it had to stop before her father found out. And that’s when the trouble started. Are you going to finish that bread or can I have it?”

  “What trouble?”

  Valens sighed, and Ruso saw signs of the strain he must have been under for the last few days. “It’s all a bit of a mess,” he conceded. “I wasn’t intending it to go quite like this.”

  “You were allowing a single girl to pop ’round and visit. Completely unchaperoned, I suppose. How did you think it would go?”

  “I didn’t sleep with her, Ruso. I swear.”

  “You might as well have.”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “I don’t want to remember. You know what her father’s like?”

  The memory of one particular clash with the Second Spear made Ruso shudder.

  “Well, she’s inherited it. She’s terrifying, Ruso. She’s like . . .” Valens searched for a simile. “She’s like a one-woman cavalry charge. I had to take to sleeping in the hospital to avoid her. That was when she went and told her father.”

  “Oh,” said Ruso, needing no further explanation. “So what are you going to do?”

  Valens shook his head. “I really don’t know. I am genuinely on leave, by the way. It cost me a fortune to wangle it, which is why I can’t afford a shave, and I’m going to have to ask you to pay for my supper, but I wouldn’t have lived to spend the money anyway.”

  “And you really haven’t touched her?”

  “Of course I’ve touched her. I just haven’t done anything irrevocable.”

  “You could try going back and telling him that.”

  The dark eyes widened. “Ruso, he’s bigger than me. And so are all the men with swords who’ll do whatever he tells them. I’ve been on the road for days. Sleeping in wagons in case he had people searching the inns.”

  “So now what are you going to do?”

  “I was hoping I could stay up here with you for a while. Just until he calms down. I could help out with . . . well, with something or other. Anything, really.” Valens brightened. “I could do your night duties!”

  Ruso tried to remember any previous occasion upon which Valens had offered to do someone else’s night duties. This simple offer was more alarming than all the fear and exhaustion betrayed by his friend’s face.

  He lowered his head into his hands. “Well,” he said, “thanks for involving me in all this.”

  “I’m sorry. But you’re my best friend. How much longer is your clerk going to be with that food?”

  “I think he’s taken a fancy to the waitress,” said Ruso. “He’s scrubbed the ink off his fingers and he’s wearing hair oil. It’s a dangerous time, spring.”

  Ruso circumvented the difficulty of explaining Valens’s arrival at the fort by not bothering to try. He announced that an officer had arrived from the Twentieth and a gate pass was issued without question.

  There was only a night porter on duty at the infirmary. “It’s evening,” explained Ruso to his bemused colleague, who was staring around the office in dismay.

  “Gods above, Ruso, is this really how they do things up here?”

  “No,” said Ruso. “This is how it looks now that I’ve gotten them to sort it out.” He was about to offer to take Valens around and introduce him to the patients when he heard the soft closing of the outside door. Metellus glided into the office and asked to have a word with him in private.

  48

  TILLA FELT HERSELF go rigid in the darkness. Something had woken her. Something bad. There it was again. That scrabbling sound. Mice?

  No . . . mice did not sniff and sigh and mutter and bounce around enough to make the bed shake. Not mice. Aemilia was hanging over the side of the bed, groping for something under the mattress.

  “What are you doing, cousin?”

  Another sniff. “I can’t tell you.”

  “Well, can it not wait until morning?”

  There was a choking sound, then a sob. “It can wait forever!” wailed Aemilia. “It is no good now! What am I going to do?”

  Tilla fought down an urge to shove her cousin out of bed. “Go to sleep,” she suggested. “Or lie still so that I can. And be glad that Rianorix is no longer in chains because of you.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “You don’t explain.”

  Another sniff, then a movement that led Tilla to suspect her cousin was wiping her nose on the sheet. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now,”

  said Aemilia. “Put your hand out.”

  After a moment of confusion in the dark Tilla felt something small and hard being pressed into her palm.

  “Don’t drop it,” urged Aemilia. “It’s very precious.”

  Tilla’s fingers explored what seemed to be a metal ring with a complicated pattern that made the surface deeply uneven.

  “Gold,” Aemilia whispered. “With my name on it.” Another sniff, another wipe.

  “Who gave you this?”

  “Felix.”

  Tilla yawned. “He gave you a gold ring?”

  “It was our secret.”

  Tilla slid it onto her third finger. She had never worn a gold ring before. She did not expect to wear one again. It was a pity there was no light by which to admire it.

  “Do you think I will see him in the next world, cousin? He said he didn’t believe in that sort of thing, but you don’t have to believe in something for it to be true, do you?”

  “I suppose not,” said Tilla, who privately thought that if the next world was reserved for people with honor, any soldiers who managed to make it there would be very lonely. “Is the ring the reason Rianorix was jealous of him?” Rianorix could make baskets all day and all night and still have no hope of affording a gold ring.

  “No, no, cousin! The ring made everything all right. And then that horrible doctor went mad and . . . and . . .”

  Tilla reached for Aemilia’s hand and placed the ring on her finger. “I am sorry for you, cousin,” she said. “Truly.”

  “I am going to wear it,” announced Aemilia. “I know what everyone thinks. But he gave me a ring with my name on it. I will show them!”

  “Tomorrow,” agreed Tilla, snuggling back under the blanket. “Now we must go back to sleep.”

  “I will show them all.” Aemilia flung herself back down on the mattress and sniffed.

  “Good night, cousin. Sleep well with your beautiful ring.”

  “Good night, cousin.”

  “Cousin?”

  “Yes, cousin?”

  “One last thing. Do not wipe your nose on the sheet when I am in the bed.”

  49

  RUSO STOOD IN Metellus’s very ordinary office in the headquarters building. Clearly this was not the room to which Tilla had been taken for questioning. There was nothing frightening about three folding stools, a table, a cupboard, and the rather fine bronze lampstand that was enabling him to see them all.

  “Wine?�
�� offered Metellus, gesturing toward a flagon and a set of three matching glasses. “It’s rather good. I have an arrangement with the people down at the inn.”

  Ruso declined.

  “Excuse me if I do,” said Metellus, pouring himself a glass. “Aminaean,” he said, holding the glass up to the light. “I wish I could say we were celebrating the return of a missing object, but our searches continue.” The flames of the lamps stretched and swayed in the glass as he lifted it to his lips.

  Tilla was right. Something about Metellus really did remind Ruso of a snake. “When I spoke to you earlier—”

  Metellus smiled. “You didn’t mention that you’d chased off a gang of natives single-handed this morning. Well done. It’s a pity we can’t make more of a fuss over you, but we don’t want to spread yet another tale to frighten the good folk of Coria.”

  “That wasn’t what I wanted to talk about,” said Ruso, who had been so concerned about Tilla earlier that the natives in the back alley had completely slipped his mind. Evidently the victim had decided to report the incident himself.

  “This Stag Man business has the locals very overexcited,” explained Metellus. “They’re starting to compete at army baiting, and of course every exploit adds to his reputation. This seems to have been a bunch of amateurs—which doesn’t diminish your achievement, of course. You wouldn’t have known that when you took them on.”

  “I want to talk about Tilla.”

  “And all over the theft of a hen, apparently. Any excuse.”

  Ruso felt he could not let that one pass. He said, “The natives thought they had a grievance.”

  Metellus shook his head. “There’s a system for making complaints, Ruso. We have no thefts of hens reported. I checked.”

  “About Tilla—”

  “How are you getting on with Thessalus?”

  “I’m trying to find out what he actually did do that night, but that’s proving a problem. Apparently he was out till dawn on a call, but my man can’t track down where.”

  “Really? I wouldn’t worry about it. Just confirm that he’s insane.”

  “I’ll keep looking,” said Ruso. This was not the time to argue about who controlled the contents of military medical records. “About Tilla. I brought her to you as a witness for a simple identification, Metellus. We had an agreement that if you had any difficulty with her, you would get ahold of me. I want to know why that didn’t happen.”

  “She refused to identify anyone.”

  “Then she was telling the truth. I was out in the yard that night as well. It was pitch dark and pelting with rain. I wouldn’t have recognized my own brother.”

  Metellus gestured toward the flagon. “Are you quite sure you don’t want a drink?”

  “I don’t want a drink; I want an apology. It’s no wonder you have trouble with the natives if this is how they’re treated when they’re offering to help.”

  Metellus gave a sigh that sounded almost like regret, sat down and motioned Ruso to one of the other folding stools. He waited until they were both seated before saying, “What has she said to you about Rianorix?”

  “I told you. She knows him. She says he’s innocent.”

  “I see.”

  “You weren’t able to crack him with your questioning, were you?”

  “Not this time.”

  “Then maybe she’s right. You should be looking for somebody else.”

  “Yes, Doctor,” said Metellus, in a tone that reminded Ruso of a medic thanking a patient for some wildly inaccurate attempt at self-diagnosis. “I have thought of that. Which is why my men and I have already spoken to everyone who heard the argument in the bar that night, including the merchant couple and the men from Vindolanda, and confirmed their whereabouts later on.”

  “How about Gambax?”

  “And Gambax, although it’s hard to imagine why he should want to make a native sacrifice of one of his comrades anyway.”

  “I’ve been told Felix was seen with some sort of list of debtors at the bar.”

  Metellus frowned. “Really?”

  “Audax didn’t mention finding it on the body. If the killer got rid of it, then we should assume it was somebody who owed him money. So it wasn’t Rianorix. Rianorix was asking him for payment.”

  Metellus brushed invisible dandruff off his shoulders. “I wasn’t aware that the prefect had given you permission to investigate, Ruso.”

  “Perhaps it was nothing to do with the bar. Perhaps the argument happening on the same night was just a coincidence.”

  “I suppose Tilla suggested that?”

  “No, I just thought of it.”

  Metellus savored a sip of wine before replying. “Tell me. How much do you know about this Tilla?”

  Ruso frowned. “She’s my housekeeper. She’s been living with me since October.”

  “Inside the fort at Deva?”

  “She couldn’t do her job outside.”

  “And before that? What do you know about her background?”

  Ruso explained about the cattle raid, Tilla’s abduction from her burning home into slavery with the Votadini tribe in the north, and her arrival in Deva. The silence with which Metellus listened made him uneasy. Finally he stopped talking and said, “Are you waiting to tell me something?”

  The aide exhaled very slowly, as if he was taking the time to think what to say. “The girl you know as Tilla,” he said, “is going under an assumed name.”

  “I know that. The other one’s too bloody difficult to pronounce.”

  “I didn’t realize who she was until you brought her in this afternoon. She wouldn’t remember me, but her family lived about an hour’s walk northeast of here. Known troublemakers and notorious cattle thieves. The raid she told you about did happen, but it was a retaliation from the Votadini tribe after a great deal of provocation.”

  Evidently there were some details Tilla had chosen not to pass on.

  Metellus said, “Has she mentioned Rianorix before?”

  “Not till he turned up and caused a stir at my clinic,” said Ruso. “He tried to flirt with her so I sent her out.”

  Metellus frowned. “Why not send him out instead?”

  “He was a patient. It was a clinic, not a classroom.”

  “What did they talk about?”

  Ruso shrugged. “I don’t know. They were speaking their own language.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Not really,” insisted Ruso. “If I could speak the language I wouldn’t have her as a translator, would I? And if he’s an old friend they would have things to talk about. Just because she happens to be Brigante—”

  “Corionotatae, actually.”

  “Who?”

  “Not exactly Brigante. There’s a difference.”

  “Well, whatever she is, it doesn’t make her a traitor,” said Ruso, beginning to wonder what else Tilla had not fully explained to him.

  Metellus nodded. “True enough. So you didn’t know they’d spent the night together?”

  “What?”

  Metellus smiled. “No, I can see you didn’t. Sorry.”

  “She was staying with her uncle!”

  “When we went to arrest Rianorix last night, we found them curled up together like kittens.”

  Metellus’s mouth was opening and closing and words were coming out, but Ruso’s mind was too busy repeating, So you didn’t know they’d spent the night together? to take them in. “She was with her uncle,” he insisted. “It must have been somebody else,” but even as he said it, he was aware that Tilla’s use of Latin tenses was loose to the point where I am staying with my uncle could mean I have stayed with my uncle, I will stay with my uncle, or indeed, I want you to think I am staying with my uncle but in fact I am doing exactly as I please.

  Metellus had stopped talking and was looking at him as if waiting for a response.

  “Sorry, what did you say?”

  “I said, she had regular access to military information—”

  Rus
o began to object, but Metellus continued, “She was on the loose in the yard when the sabotage took place, and she was heard talking to someone.”

  “We’ve been through this already,” retorted Ruso. “Never mind what her family were. Tilla’s a midwife, for heaven’s sake. Midwives don’t go around causing traffic accidents.”

  “Midwives are able to enter the houses of strangers, move about at all hours, and disappear at short notice with no questions asked.”

  “That’s ridiculous. And whatever she saw in the yard, it took her by surprise.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I was there,” insisted Ruso, beginning to wonder if he had been as blind to reality in the yard as he had been to the real nature of the exchange in the clinic. “She told me she was praying to her gods.” It sounded less convincing the more he said it. “Rianorix is an old friend of her family.”

  “Oh, he is,” agreed Metellus. “And much more to her, from what I hear. Which makes her an unreliable witness and a dubious companion for a legionary officer.”

  “This is ridiculous!”

  “Please don’t shout, Doctor. My men are discreet but you never know who else is listening.”

  Ruso ran one hand through his hair and wished Tilla were here to tell him none of this was true. That Metellus had been misinformed. Instead, all he could hear her saying was, You are mistaken about this. I am not a friend of the army. “I still think she was telling the truth when she said she couldn’t identify anyone,” he said.

  “Perhaps,” agreed Metellus, “But frankly, I wasn’t convinced we had many likely candidates in the lineup this time. That was why I didn’t bother pressing her.”

  “Are you saying you knew it was a waste of time anyway?”

  “Not at all,” said Metellus. “You never know what witnesses will let slip while you’ve got them concentrating on something else. But your Tilla is a clever girl. If she knows about the head, she’s keeping it very quiet.”

  “That’s because she doesn’t know.”

  “I would have thought Rianorix would have told her. They like to boast. But perhaps he’s cleverer than he looks too.”

  “What’s the matter with you people? If you think he did it, what the hell did you let him out for? Surely you’re not really so frightened of the natives that you dare not arrest a murderer?”