Terra Incognita: A Novel of the Roman Empire (43 page)

By the time he swung off the main road, the sun was low in the sky. There was still no sign of Tilla. He was beginning to realize that this lone sortie had not been one of his better ideas. He wished he had at least worn his sword, but he had entertained some vague and ridiculous hope of being mistaken for a civilian. He spurred the sweating horse on, overtaking a couple of native families who he trusted would not attack him in front of their small children. He hoped he was not too late to catch up with Tilla, and not for her sake only. He did not want to be riding across these remote hillsides on his own after sunset. The tale that he was conducting a search for a local girl in order to take her to safety was scant protection at best, but at least in daylight he could hope to see any assailants before they struck, and try to dissuade them from murdering him. After dark, he would not see them coming.

It was a surprise to find yet more natives ahead of him, but there was nothing he could do now except hurry past them. To his relief they edged a white-haired grandfather out of the middle of the path when they heard the hoofbeats approaching, and in return he tried not to let the horse splatter them with mud as he cantered past.

The path wound around a wooded bank and opened out above the valley he remembered from the hunt. On his left was the high marshy ground. Ahead were the abandoned foundation trenches and the ramshackle round house, but instead of containing a woman and a dog, the place was crowded with natives. Dozens of them. Many had turned to watch his approach. They were reaching for weapons.

Ruso reined the horse in and glanced around. The families he had passed on the road had been reinforced by men carrying staves and clubs.

Ahead of him, the gate was open. At the top of the yard a barking hound seemed to be trying to strangle itself by leaping forward and being jerked back by the limits of its chain. Beyond its range, natives without weapons were clutching jugs and bowls and armfuls of wood and piles of dried bracken. The smell of roasting meat drifted past the gate.

There was no way to run from this. He would have to hope that Tilla was here and would help him talk his way out of it. And that none of these people had seen him in yesterday’s hunting party.

He swung down from the horse and led it in through the entrance. Two men carrying heavy sticks approached him. “I’ve come to fetch Darlughdacha,” he shouted over the sound of the dog, hoping he’d got the name right and they understood Latin.

“What do you want with her?”

Other men appeared, surrounding him. A couple were eyeing his horse. A man with a bent nose nudged his companion and nodded toward the frantic dog, raising his hand to his throat and making a slashing motion. His companion nodded. The man with the bent nose strode away.

Ruso said, “Her family have sent a message.”

“What is this message?”

“Hurry up and come with me or she’ll be late for dinner.”

Some of the men chuckled. Behind them, he could see a woman asking a companion what he had said. Farther up the yard the dog yelped and fell silent.

A figure emerged from beneath the dilapidated porch of the house. As it approached Ruso could see that the black eye was fading to yellow. The lip was healing.

“She has nothing to say to you,” said Rianorix. As he added, “You are not welcome here,” Tilla came out of the house and walked down to stand beside him, still wearing the dress that matched her eyes.

Ruso made an effort to keep his voice calm. “I don’t believe you killed the soldier,” he said to Rianorix. “If it’s any consolation, Aemilia says she didn’t mean any of it to happen. Now if you value either of the girls as much as you say you do, you’ll let Tilla come back with me and go to her uncle’s dinner.”

“I have always said that I did not kill the soldier. And I know what Aemilia meant. But now your men have put that soldier’s head in a sack outside my house because they want to execute a native man and not their own officer.”

“I think someone else did that,” said Ruso. He wanted to say “Gambax did that,” but found he could not. On reflection, it did seem very unlikely that anybody would murder someone over a few amphorae of wine. “In the meantime,” he continued on safer ground, “Thessalus is doing his best to save your miserable ungrateful skin in the hope that you’ll manage to do something sensible for once and look after your sister. Frankly I think the poppy’s addled his brain. But if that’s what he wants, I’ll help him. I don’t like you, and I don’t think you deserve help, but I seem to be on your side.”

Rianorix put his arm around Tilla and gave a lopsided smile. “Look around you, soldier. It is too late. The gods have woken. The people are gathering. We don’t need your help.”

Ruso glanced around at the armed men, the women bustling about with jugs and bowls, the youths discussing the horses tethered under the trees, and the throng of children chasing one another around the pasture.

He looked at Tilla, standing with the native in the place where they had been brought up together. Playmates. Friends. Lovers. A shared history into which he, who had only known her a matter of months, was struggling to intrude. He said, “I’m surprised to see you letting a man speak for you, Tilla.”

She laid a hand on Rianorix’s shoulder and then stepped away from him. “I will escort you down the path,” she said. “You should not have come here.”

She said something to the other men in her own language. They dropped back, but he heard their footfalls behind him as she led him back toward the gate.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he urged her.

“These are my people. This is my uncle’s land. The house that was on my land is burned again. By you, this time.”

“Stay away from him, Tilla.”

“This is my home.”

“This is an illegal gathering. There are far too many people and there’s nobody here to supervise it. Metellus is bound to have informers here. Don’t get involved.”

“Is a feast and a bonfire,” she said. “This is what we do. We do not need the army’s help to welcome summer.”

“Come back with me now, before it’s too late. You can put on one of Aemilia’s fancy outfits and we’ll go to the caterer’s dinner together. If you really want, I could think about getting married.”

He could hardly believe he had said it. Perhaps he hadn’t. Tilla did not seem to have noticed. All she said was, “I will not dine with that man.”

“Trenus won’t be there. I’ve found him and I’ve spoken to him. He won’t come near you.”

“I am talking about my uncle.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake! Does it matter what you think of your uncle? Come back with me now before you get yourself onto one of Metellus’s security lists.”

“I was listening outside the window when Trenus was visiting the brewery. My uncle is shouting, ‘You were supposed to deal with her.’ ”

“With who?”

“Me. Trenus is supposed to get rid of me in the raid. With my family all dead, there is nobody to argue with my uncle. Nobody to cause trouble.”

“Tilla, that’s . . .” Ruso stopped. It was not preposterous. It made perfect sense of something Trenus had said.

“And then my uncle opened the door and saw me, and he knew I had heard.”

“Trenus told me you were supposed to have gone up in smoke with the rest of them,” he said. “Are you saying your uncle deliberately set the raid up?”

“Now you see why I will not come back.”

“He did that to his own brother?”

“Yes. That is why he came too late to help. Why he never sent for me.”

Ruso scratched one ear. He had seen Catavignus as ambitious rather than ruthless, but if he were really prepared to sacrifice his own family . . .

He rubbed a hand across his eyes. He had been a fool. It was obvious. There was Felix’s unsuitable courtship of Aemilia. The missing list of debtors. Catavignus’s desire to get rid of rebel sympathizers. “I have to get back,” he said. “I have to talk to—”

His mind formed the word
Susanna,
but before it reached his lips, something crashed against the back of his skull and the ground rose up to meet him.

73

T
HERE WAS A
squeak and a grinding, and the pig carcass over the fire began to turn.

“And then when she had taken a drink from the cup she handed it to her bridegroom, and—” The old man who was telling the story stopped and scowled at the boy clutching the handle of the spit. The carcass rolled back into its former position, rocking violently with its truncated legs splayed in the air. Dripping fat crackled and hissed into the embers, which flared in the fading light.

“And the bridegroom drank from the cup too. And she laughed when she saw that he had drunk all of the poison, and she said, ‘This is my vengeance for the wrong you did me!’ Then she died and went to rejoin her true husband, and the bridegroom died there too, in front of all the guests, and instead of holding a wedding feast they held . . .”

“A funeral!” shouted several voices.

“A funeral,” agreed the old man solemnly.

This dismal tale of justice and revenge was a familiar favorite, and there were murmurs of appreciation and a few cheers from the old man’s supporters among the crowd gathered around the fires. Someone else stepped up to sing a song.

Tilla glanced over her shoulder toward the house. The moon was clear now but her eyes were still dazzled by the bright flames and it was difficult to make sense of the silver and black world beyond them. She thought she could make out the shapes of the guards standing by the sagging porch. She wondered how the medicus was feeling. Alone in the dark house, listening to the crowd outside filling up with beer and bravado, he would be afraid.

She did not expect them to do anything serious to him—she had already told them he was a good man and probably not a spy—but then, she had not expected them to take him prisoner either.

“There was no need for that!’ she had pointed out as the men were dragging him toward the house. “He was leaving anyway.”

They said he had seen too much.

“Now the soldiers will come looking for him.”

They had looked at one another, then back at her. “Do they know where he is?”

She said, “I cannot tell you what the soldiers know.”

“Why did he come here?”

“Perhaps you should have asked him before you hit him on the head.”

They told her that she had not changed while she had been away. It was not meant as a compliment.

“My da would never have attacked a harmless soldier like that.”

“Your da was an old man,” they had said, flinging the struggling medicus face-first onto the ground and twisting a rope around his wrists.

“We’re running things now.”

74

T
ILLA MADE HER
way down to the trees where the horses were tethered. There were about a dozen animals in the line now. All were still saddled. Girths had been loosened and reins tied for safety, but it was clear that most of the riders were expecting to leave tonight. That was good. The black horse with one white sock that the medicus had brought was in the middle of the line, stretching its neck down to tuck into the long grass. Sizing up the other animals, she settled on a neat-looking dark bay that seemed to have no distinguishing features. That would do nicely for herself. It looked like an intelligent horse. It looked like a fast, fit, well-kept horse. It looked like . . .

She moved toward the animal. “Cloud?” she murmured. The mare reached down to nuzzle her hand, looking for a titbit she could not offer. Tilla moved along the horse’s flank, sliding one hand down the inside of the front leg and feeling the smooth weight of the hoof in her hand as the animal obediently lifted the leg. With her other hand she brushed at the dried mud coating the long coarse hairs. There, just visible in the stark light, was the little patch of white.

She was turning to leave when a voice said, “Hey!” A skinny figure was lugging two buckets of water from behind the lines. “No touching the horses, all right?”

“She is a fine animal,” said Tilla. “Is she yours?”

“My master’s,” said the youth, placing a bucket in front of the mare.

“You keep her well.”

The youth lowered his head and mumbled something, clearly flattered.

“Who is your master?”

“I’m not allowed to say.”

“I am looking for a good horse like this. Do you know where he bought her?”

“My master don’t buy horses,” said the youth proudly. “People give them to him.”

“And who gave him this one?”

The certainty faded. “I’m not allowed to say nothing. Not unless he says I can.”

Tilla smiled. “You are very loyal,” she assured him. “That was the right answer. But if your master gives you permission, tell him the person who wants to know is the daughter of Lugh, whose family used to live on this land.”

“I have come to check on the prisoner,” announced Tilla, handing the heavy jug of mead to one of the guards outside the house.

As he said, “Nobody’s allowed in,” his companion emerged from the black shadow of the porch, lifted his club, and slapped it slowly against the palm of his hand as if he were testing its weight.