Medicus (33 page)

Stichus, standing in the doorway, caught Ruso's eye and grinned. "Bet you thought I'd run off with the cash," he said.

"It never crossed my—" Ruso's lie was stifled by an enthusiastic kiss from Chloe, who then flung herself at Stichus in a similar fashion before seizing her son again and ordering him to say thank you.

"It was nothing," said Ruso, finding his mouth stuck in a foolish grin and relieved that at last he seemed to have gotten something right. He was heading for the door when Stichus said, "Stay a minute, Doc, all right? I got something to say and I want a proper witness." He stepped in and closed the door.

Chloe glanced at him, puzzled.

"I should have said this a long time ago," announced Stichus. He placed a hand on Lucco's head. "I don't know what your mother's told you but I know she knows. And she's never said nothing to me but I know she knows I know too."

Lucco, Ruso felt, was making a good job of trying to look impressed without having the faintest idea what his rescuer was talking about.

Stichus cleared his throat. "This here young man," he said, addressing Chloe and Ruso, "is my legal property as of today. But I don't think of him that way. You and I both know" (here he glanced at Chloe, who was looking apprehensive) "that this here young man is my own flesh and blood."

Lucco's eyes widened. He turned to his mother. "Am I?"

Chloe reached up and tweaked Stichus's fading red hair, then grinned at Lucco. "You never guessed?"

Lucco scratched his head, giving his father—who now seemed not to know what to do—a hint to remove the hand.

"That all right with you, then?" Stichus asked him.

"I
knew
there was something," said Lucco. "You were always nicer to me than the others were."

Ruso, not needed here and due at the hospital, tried to slip around Stichus toward the door. Stichus's hand landed on the latch before he got there. "Right," he announced, "busy night ahead, got to get back to work. You coming, son?"

After they were gone Chloe took Ruso's hand. "I'm grateful, Doctor. I know you won't let me show you how much, but I'll see he pays you back in the morning."

"It was nothing," Ruso repeated. "I have to go now, there are patients . . ."

"If Tilla was here I'd ask her to put a blessing on you."

"If Tilla were here I wouldn't have had the money," he observed."The gods move in strange ways."

"They do," agreed Chloe. "Who would have guessed that for all these years old Stichus has been thinking my boy was his son?"

Ruso paused with his hand on the door latch. "Isn't he?"

Chloe grinned. "He is now," she said.

70

T
ILLA WAS SINGING quietly to herself. The sack of provisions swung and bumped against the small of her back with each step. Its weight was a pleasure. It meant independence. There was no one out here to give her orders or ask where she was going.

She was not entirely sure where she was going herself. After two years she had little idea whether anything was left of her home. Whatever she found, though, would be better than the place she had left: a place built by foreign warriors who fought not for honor but for money and hid their shame by bullying everyone else. In the end even the medicus had turned out to be little better than his companions. She had begun to think he could be trusted. She had even begun to grow fond of him. Now she realized what a fool she had been. The time she had spent with Sabrann had opened her eyes anew to the twisted thinking of the emperor's men and all those who served them. She was lucky to have escaped before she had been hopelessly corrupted like Merula, a woman who survived by trampling on others. Or Chloe, who had no vision of anything beyond the walls of the bar.

She wished she had been able to bring the child with her: the one they had called Phryne. When she reached home she would spread the word of what had happened to her. Perhaps the child's people would send warriors. Perhaps not. There were cowards among the Brigantes too. Elders who acted out of fear and called it being sensible, or abandoned their own ways and called it progress. The taint of Rome was like rot spreading through a crate of apples.

There was a dip in the road ahead. She could see the tops of wooden rails that must be the sides of a bridge. Beyond them, set well back—the Romans were afraid of ambushes, and always chopped down everything close to the road—stood a massive tree that was the right shape for an oak. That must be the marker for the track Sabrann had told her to follow.

As she looked, two cavalry horses appeared over the brow of the next rise. Tilla tugged the sack into a new position on her shoulder and kept an eye on the riders, who were progressing toward her at a leisurely trot. She slowed, not wanting to meet them on the narrow bridge.

It occurred to her that if she had a horse, she could make the journey far more easily. The weak arm would make it hard to mount, but once she was up, she would manage one-handed. She was a good rider. She had been allowed to ride her father's horses as a child. Perhaps someone would lend her a pony. Perhaps, if they wouldn't, she would wait until no one was looking and help herself.

She heard the clump of hoofbeats on the wooden bridge. She kept walking, head down, close to the shoulder so the horses would have plenty of room to pass.

Something inside the sack was poking into her back. As she shifted the weight the sack pulled at the fabric on her shoulder. She felt the gray hood slip backward. Quickly, she lifted her right hand to pull it forward again, but the cloth was caught under the weight of the sack and her weak arm did not have the strength to tug it free.

The horses were only about thirty paces away now. She turned to one side, swung the sack to the ground, and bent over, busying herself with adjusting the hood and pinning it back into place. She could hear the approaching crunch of hooves on the gravel. The men were talking to each other.

The hood was back in place. The horses were almost level with her now. She slid her right arm in under the cloak, realizing as she did so that two or three inches of grimy bandage had been poking out of the end of her sleeve.

The horses were next to her. The riders were still chatting as if they had noticed nothing. The bandage had probably looked like a glimpse of undertunic.

They had passed. She grabbed the neck of the sack and swung it back over her shoulder.

Behind her, the hooifbeats faltered and began to grow louder. The riders were coming back.

"Halt!"

Tilla froze.

"What's your name, girl?"

She turned, keeping her head bowed in a pretense of respect.

"Brica, sir."

"Brica, eh? What are you doing all the way out here, Brica?"

Tilla stared at the polished hooves of the front horse. "I go to visit my aunt, sir. She is sick."

The second rider moved around to take up a position beside her.

"What do you think?" said the first rider to him. "She look like a Brica to you?"

"Hm." There was a creak of leather as the second rider bent down from his saddle to examine her. "Chin up, girl."

Tilla lifted her head a fraction.

"You know what she looks like to me?" offered the first rider, circling his horse behind her and nudging her forward into the middle of the road. "She looks like 'Attractive female, age about 20.' "

"Slim, about five feet four inches," continued his companion as if they were quoting from something. "Hold out your arm, gorgeous."

Tilla slid the sack off her shoulder and held out her left arm.

"The other one."

Her left hand darted inside the cloak and tugged down the offending sleeve before she reached out her right arm. "If you touch me," she said, "my master will have you punish."

A sword swished out of its scabbard. A blade glinted in front of her.

Its tip plucked back the fabric of her sleeve, revealing the dirty linen bandage.

"I think you're the one who gets to be 'punish,' gorgeous." Both horses were circling her now. "We're the ones who get the reward."

Tilla let the sack fall, grabbed her skirts, and dodged through the gap between the two horses. Leaping across the ditch, she scrambled up onto the rough grass and raced toward the woods. If she could just get between the trees, she stood a chance . . .

Over the rasp of her own breath she heard cheering. Then the approach of hoofbeats. There was a horse cantering on either side of her now. She slowed: They slowed. She speeded up: They increased their pace. The men were laughing. Playing with her. She stopped dead, spun around, and ran back the other way, but it was hopeless. There was no cover ahead of her now: only the open road. The thud of hooves on turf surrounded her once more. The horses were crowding her. Hands reached down and flung her cloak back over her shoulders. "Now!" shouted one of the men. She ducked. Too late. They grabbed her under both arms and scooped her up with a swift, practiced movement. Legs flailing helplessly, boots brushing the tips of the grasses, she dangled between the two horsemen as their mounts cantered back to the road.

71

T
RUSO SHOULD HAVE gone straight to the hospital, but instead he hurried to the house and spent several minutes scratching notes onto a tablet, which he then thrust into the trunk with all the versions of the
Concise Guide.

Albanus was waiting for him with the look of anxiety that seemed to be his permanent expression lately. "Lots of people have been asking for you, sir. There's a line waiting in the hall."

"Where's Valens?" Ruso was still breathless after sprinting from the house.

"Officer Valens has been taking the urgent cases and telling the rest you'll be back any minute, sir. And Officer Priscus said you had an appointment with him—about the Aesculapian Thanksgiving Fund?"

"Yes, I know about that one. Anything else?"

"I need a word with you too, sir."

"Is it urgent?"

"Not really, sir."

"Good. Let's get working on this line."

He had almost emptied the bench in the hall when there was a commotion in the corridor and the door shuddered as someone fell against it. Ruso glanced up. "Put the bar across, Albanus, will you?"

The clerk leaped to secure the door and Ruso carried on cleaning up a nastily torn ear as the shouting faded away down the corridor. "How did you get this?" he asked.

"Over at the wrestling," explained its owner. "We're cheering our lad on and there was a bit of an exchange with some lads sitting behind, and next thing I know I'm upside down with somebody's boot kicking the side of my head."

"Ah," said Ruso. "Sport. Always brings out the best in a man. Albanus, just poke your head into the corridor and make sure there's nobody lying dead out there, will you?"

Moments later Albanus returned to report that some plasterers from the Twentieth had got into a dispute with a visiting crew of sailors. Knives were out before the centurial staff had been able to wade in and restore order. Now the wounded of both groups had been brought in for treatment and, having tried to carry on the fight in the corridor, had been sent to wait under guard in separate rooms.

"Idiots," observed the man with the torn ear.

"What a joy payday is," remarked Ruso. "I'll just pop a few stitches in this ear, then you can go and have a nice nap while I have the pleasure of meeting the navy"

In fact it was Valens who dealt with the sailors while the plasterers were assigned to Ruso. Only one was seriously injured: a stab wound that had probably penetrated a lung. The man required some immediate and careful patching before he was admitted for observation, nursing care, and an outcome whose uncertainty would have frightened him if he had been sober. The others he released into the care of their centurion, who looked willing to inflict a few injuries himself if anyone showed any more signs of misbehaving.

"We'll be seeing that group lined up outside HQ tomorrow," observed Ruso as they left. "What's next?"

" 'Evening, Ruso." Valens appeared around the door in a gruesomely bloodstained tunic. "Good of you to turn up."

"Nice outfit," Ruso observed.

"Don't insult me; I've taken time off from my onerous duties to bring you some news. They've found Tilla."

"Where? Is she all right? Where is she?"

Valens shrugged. "According to my sources, a road patrol found her taking a stroll eight or nine miles out of town."

"Where is she? Is she all right?"

"I imagine they've taken her to Priscus in the hope of a reward. As advertised."

A dreadful thought crossed Ruso's mind. "To Priscus?"

"That is what it said on the advertisements, isn't it?"

Ruso turned to Albanus. "What time is it?"

"I think I heard the eleventh hour just now, sir."

"Is the cashier's office still open?"

Albanus frowned. "I doubt it, sir. They'll have locked up some time ago and gone to the sports."

"Tell the next patient to wait a minute. I need to go and see Priscus."

Ruso sprinted along the corridor, narrowly missing a collision with a couple of orderlies carrying a man on a stretcher. When he reached the office, it was locked. One of the records room clerks informed him that Officer Priscus had been called away The clerk's tone suggested that it was very convenient for Officer Priscus to be called away early on payday while everyone else had to stay behind and work.

"Where are the records for the Aesculapian fund?"

The clerk looked surprised. "In Officer Priscus's room, sir."

"And if someone wanted to make a payment while he was out?"

"We'd tell him to come back tomorrow, sir. We aren't allowed to handle cash. We don't have the facilities."

Valens had gone by the time Ruso got back to his surgery. "Albanus," he said, "I need to get at the records of the Aesculapian fund. I need to, uh—find out how much I owe. I was supposed to pay it back today and I haven't had time."

Albanus frowned. "They'll be in the administrator's office, sir. Nobody can get in there."

Ruso looked him in the eye. "Is that definitely true, Albanus? Surely a man as thorough as Priscus would arrange for a spare key somewhere in case one got lost?"

Albanus was chewing the end of his stylus. "I really couldn't say, sir. Officer Priscus wouldn't tell the clerks anything like that."

"No, because he's a secretive bastard. But you know where it is, don't you?"

"Sir, I really can't—"

"Albanus, I am your superior officer and this is an order. Find a way to get me into that room."

Albanus stood at attention. "Yes, sir!"

"I'm sorry, sir. I don't think it's here."

They had been through the whole of the Aesculapian Thanksgiving Fund file twice, the second time struggling to read by lamplight. Ruso sighed. "It's no use. He's taken it with him."

"Is there anything I can do, sir? Shall I keep looking?"

Ruso shook his head. "Put all this stuff away and lock up. I've got to go out for a while. I'll go and warn Valens he's on his own."

Valens was predictably annoyed but unable to prevent his colleague from leaving.

Making his way down to the south gate Ruso heard footsteps running along behind him in the darkness. "Doctor, sir!" gasped a breathless Albanus.

"I'm in a hurry, Albanus. Can't it wait?"

"No, sir, I don't think it can."

"Walk with me."

The clerk fell into step with him. "Sir, you remember I said there was that one thing I needed to say to you?"

"What was it?"

"Well, sir, you know I went through all the incoming post logs looking for a letter from Saufeia and I didn't find one?"

"You've found one?"

"Not exactly, sir. But I thought, maybe it came in some other way and somebody replied to it. So I went back and looked through the outgoing logs instead."

"And?"

"And I found it. A letter to Saufeia. Dated two days before she died."

"Is there a file copy?"

"No, sir, just a listing in the log. Date, who to, who from."

"And are you going to tell me who it was from, or do I have to guess?"

"Yes, sir! No, sir! I'd be glad to tell you, sir. To tell you the truth I was a bit concerned."

"Albanus,
who is it?"

Albanus told him. Ruso turned to look at the shadowy figure of his clerk. "Are you absolutely sure?"

"Yes, sir."

"Who else knows about this?"

"I haven't said anything to anybody else, sir."

"Don't. Don't say anything to anyone unless . . ." Ruso hesitated. They were approaching the torches of the main gate now. A couple of men passed them in the dark. "Don't say anything unless I, uh—unless I appear to have got into difficulties tonight. If that happens, go to my house tomorrow morning and go through my documents very thoroughly. Then I want you to tell the whole damn province."