Medicus (39 page)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

People whose names are not on the cover helped with this book, and I am indebted to the friends and family who offered encouragement in the face of my frequent assertions that it was going Very Badly.

A few people deserve a special mention. Richard Lee and the Historical Novel Society helped to conjure the early chapters out of a very different story. Peta Nightingale and Araminta Whitley encouraged me to finish it—something I failed to do until the good folk at BBC Scotland threatened to come and inquire about its progress. Mari Evans at Michael Joseph and Gillian Blake at Bloomsbury USA provided much-needed guidance—and, thank goodness, a title.

Bill Hancock supplied the quotation from Horace. Nina Palmer, Guy Russell, Kate Weaver, and Dr. Martin Weaver were all kind enough to read through the text, and saved me from much of my own ignorance.

Three books provided particularly fascinating background: David J. P. Mason's
Roman Chester: City of the Eagles,
Ralph Jackson's
Doctors and Diseases in the Roman Empire,
and Alan K. Bowman's
Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier.

Needless to say, none of the above is responsible for any factual errors, misinterpretations, deliberate tweakings, or wild flights of fantasy that readers may encounter in the preceding pages.

KEEP READING!

More intrigue and bad luck lie ahead for Gaius Petreius Ruso.
Turn the page for a sneak preview
of
the next installment in the
Medicus
series,

TERRA INCOGNITA

It is spring in the year 118, and Gaius Petreius Ruso has been stationed in the Roman-occupied province of Britannia for nearly a year. After his long and reluctant investigation of the murders of a handful of local prostitutes, Ruso needs to get away. With that in mind, he has volunteered for a posting with the army in Britannia's deepest recesses—a calmer place for a tired man.

But the edge of the Roman Empire is a volatile place; the independent tribes of the north dwell near its borders. These hunterlands are the homoland of Ruso's slave. Tilla, who has scores of her own to settle there: Her tribespeople are fomenting a rebellion against Roman control, and her former lover is implicated in the grisly murder of a soldier. Ruso, filling in for the domented local doctor, is appalled to find that Tilla is still spending time with the prime suspect Worse, he is honor-bound to try to prove the man innocent—and the army wrong—by finding another culprit. Soon both Ruso's and Tilla's lives are in jeopardy, as is the future of their burgeoning romance.

The new novel by Ruth Downie

TERRA INCOGNITA

Hardcover $23.95
Bloomsbury USA
Available wherever books are sold

H
E
HAD NOT expected to be afraid. He had been fasting for three days, and still the gods had not answered. The certainty had not come. But he
H
had made a vow and he must keep it. Now, while he still had the strength.

He glanced around the empty house. He was sorry about that barrel of beer
only half drunk. About the stock of baskets that were several weeks' work, and that he might never now sell at market.

He had nothing else to regret. Perhaps, if the gods were kind, he would be drinking that beer at breakfast tomorrow with his honor restored. Or perhaps he would have joined his friends in the next world.

He would give the soldier a chance, of course. Make one final request for him to do as the law demanded. After that, both their fates would lie in the hands of
the gods.

He closed the door of his house and tied it shut, perhaps for the last time. He walked across and checked that the water trough was full. The pony would be all right for three, perhaps four days. Somebody would probably steal her before then anyway.

He pulled the gate shut out of habit, although there was nothing to escape and little for any wandering animals to eat in there. Then he set off to walk to Coria,find that foreign bastard, and teach him the meaning of respect.

1

M
ANY MILES SOUTH of Coria, Ruso gathered both reins in his left hand, reached down into the saddlebag, and took out the pie he had saved from last night. The secret of happiness, he reflected as he munched on the pie, was to enjoy simple pleasures. A good meal. A warm, dry goatskin tent shared with men who neither snored, passed excessive amounts of wind, nor imagined that he might want to stay awake listening to jokes. Or symptoms. Last night he had slept the sleep of a happy man.

Ruso had now been in Britannia for eight months, most of them winter. He had learned why the province's only contribution to fashion was a thick cloak designed to keep out the rain. Rain was not a bad thing, of course, as his brother had reminded him on more than one occasion. But his brother was a farmer, and he was talking about proper rain: the sort that cascaded from the heavens to water the earth and fill the aqueducts and wash the drains. British rain was rarely that simple. For days on end, instead of falling, it simply hung around in the air like a wife waiting for you to notice she was sulking.

Still, with commendable optimism, the locals were planning to celebrate the arrival of summer in a few days' time. And as if the gods had finally relented, the polished armor plates of the column stretching along the road before him glittered beneath a cheering spring sun.

Ruso wondered how the soldiers stationed up on the border would greet the arrival of men from the Twentieth Legion: men who were better trained, better equipped, and better paid. No doubt the officers would make fine speeches about their united mission to keep the Britons in order, leaving the quarrels to the lower ranks, and Ruso to patch up the losers.

In the meantime, though, he was not busy. Any man incapable of several days' march had been left behind in Deva. The shining armor in front of him was protecting 170 healthy men at the peak of their physical prowess. Even the most resentful of local taxpayers would keep their weapons and their opinions hidden at the sight of a force this size, and it was hard to see how a soldier could acquire any injury worse than blisters by observing a steady pace along a straight road. Ruso suppressed a smile. For a few precious days of holiday, he was enjoying the anonymity of being a traveler instead of a military—

"Doctor!"

His first instinct was to snatch a last mouthful of pie.

"Doctor Gaius Petreius Ruso, sir?"

Since his other hand was holding the reins, Ruso raised the crumbling pastry in acknowledgment before nudging the horse to the edge of the road where there was room to halt without obstructing the rest of the column. Moments later he found himself looking down at three people.

Between two legionaries stood a figure that gave the unusual and interesting impression of being two halves of different people stuck together along an unsteady vertical line. Most of the left half, apart from the hand and forearm, was clean. The right half, to the obvious distaste of the soldier restraining that side, was coated with thick mud. There was a bloodied scrape across the clean cheek and a loop of hair stuck out above the one braid that remained blond, making the owner's head appear lopsided. Despite these indignities, the young woman had drawn herself up to her full height and stood with head erect. The glint in the eyes whose color Ruso had never found a satisfactory word to describe—but when he did, it would be something to do with the sea—suggested someone would soon be sorry for this.

All three watched as Ruso finished his mouthful and reluctantly rewrapped and consigned the rest of his snack to the saddlebag. Finally he said, "Tilla."

"It is me, my lord," the young woman agreed.

Ruso glanced from one soldier to the other, noting that the junior of the two had been given the muddy side. "Explain."

"She says she's with you, sir," said the clean man.

"Why is she like this?"

As the man said, "Fighting, sir," she twisted to one side and spat on the ground. The soldier jerked her by the arm. "Behave!"

"You can let go of her," said Ruso, bending to unstrap his waterskin. "Rinse the mud out of your mouth, Tilla. And watch where you spit. I have told you about this before."

As Tilla wiped her face and took a long swig from the waterskin, a second and considerably cleaner female appeared, breathless from running up the hill.

"There she is!" shrieked the woman. "Thief! Where's our money?" Her attempt to grab the blond braid was foiled by the legionaries.

Ruso looked at his slave. "Are you a thief, Tilla?"

"She is the thief, my lord," his housekeeper replied. "Ask her what she charges for bread."

"Nobody else is complaining!" cried the other woman. "Look! Can you see anybody complaining?" She turned back to wave an arm toward the motley trail of mule handlers and bag carriers, merchants' carts and civilians shuffling up the hill in the wake of the soldiers. "I'm an honest trader, sir!" continued the woman, now addressing Ruso. "My man stays up half the night baking, we take the trouble to come out here to offer a service to travelers, and then
she
comes along and decides to help herself. And when we ask for our money all we get is these two ugly great bruisers telling us to clear off!"

If the ugly great bruisers were insulted, they managed not to show it.

"You seem to have thrown her in the ditch," pointed out Ruso, faintly recalling a fat man behind a food stall—the first for miles—at the junction they had just passed. "I think that's enough punishment, don't you?"

The woman hesitated, as if she were pondering further and more imaginative suggestions. Finally she said, "We want our money, sir. It's only fair."

Ruso turned to Tilla. "Where's the bread now?"

Tilla shrugged. "I think, in the ditch."

"That's not our fault, is it, sir?" put in the woman.

Ruso was not going to enter into a debate about whose fault it was. "How much was it worth?"

There was a pause while the woman appeared to be assessing his outfit and his horse. Finally she said, "Half a denarius will cover it, sir."

"She is a liar!" put in Tilla, as if this were not obvious even to Ruso.

He reached for his purse. "Let me tell you what is going to happen here," he said to the woman. "I will give you one sesterce, which is—" "Is too much!" said Tilla.

"Which is more than the bread was worth," continued Ruso, ignoring her. "My housekeeper will apologize to you—"

"I am not sorry!"

"She will apologize to you," he repeated, "and you will go back to your stall and continue charging exorbitant sums of money to travelers who were foolish enough not to buy before they set out."

Ruso dismissed the grinning soldiers with a tip that was not enough to buy their silence but might limit the scurrilous nature of their exaggerations when they told the story around tonight's campfires. The women seemed less satisfied, but that was hardly surprising. Ruso had long ago learned that the pleasing of women was a tricky business.

By now the bulk of the legionaries had gone on far ahead, followed by a plodding train of army pack ponies laden with tents and millstones and all the other equipment too heavy to be carried on poles on the soldiers' backs. Behind them was the unofficial straggle of camp followers.

Ruso turned to Tilla. "Walk alongside me," he ordered, adding quickly, "Clean side in." She sidestepped around the tail of the horse and came forward to walk at its shoulder. Ruso leaned down and said in a voice which would not be overheard, "None of the other civilians is causing trouble, Tilla. What is the matter with you?"

"I am hungry, my lord."

"I gave you money for food."

"Yes, my lord."

"Was it not enough?"

"It was enough, yes."

She ventured no further information. Ruso straightened up. He was not in the mood for the I-will-only-answer-the-question-you-ask-me game. He was in the mood for a peaceful morning and some more of last night's chicken in pastry, which he now retrieved and began to eat. He glanced sideways. Tilla was watching. He did not offer her any.

They continued in silence along the straight road up and down yet another wooded hill. British hills, it seemed, were as melancholic as British rain. Instead of poking bold fingers of rock up into the clouds, they lay lumpy and morose under damp green blankets, occasionally stirring themselves to roll vaguely skyward and then giving up and sliding into the next valley.

Somewhere among those hills lay the northern edge of the empire, and even further north, beyond the supposedly friendly tribes living along the border, rose wild cold mountains full of barbarians who had never been conquered and now never would be. Unless, of course, the new emperor had a sudden fit of ambition and gave the order to march north and have another crack at them. But so far Hadrian had shown no signs of spoiling for a fight. In fact he had already withdrawn his forces from several provinces he considered untenable. Britannia remained unfinished business: an island only half-conquered, and Ruso had not found it easy to explain to his puzzled housemate back in Deva why he had volunteered to go and peer over the edge into the other half.

"The North? Holy Jupiter, man, you don't want to go up there!" Valens's handsome face had appeared to register genuine concern at his colleague's plans. "It's at—it's
beyond
the edge of the civilized world. Why d'you think we send foreigners up there to run it?"

Ruso had poured himself more wine and observed, "When you think about it, we're all foreigners here. Except the Britons, of course."

"You know what I mean. Troops who are used to those sorts of conditions. The sort of chap who tramps bare chested through bogs and picks his teeth with a knife. They bring them in from Germania, or Gaul, or somewhere."

"I'm from Gaul," Ruso reminded him.

"Yes, but you're from the warm end. You're practically one of us."

This was evidently intended as a compliment. "I know you haven't exactly shone here in Deva, after all that business with the barmaids—"

"This has got nothing to do with barmaids," Ruso assured him.

"You know I spent half of yesterday afternoon waiting for a bunch of men who didn't turn up?"

"I believe you did mention it once or twice."

"And it's not the first time, either. So I tracked down their centurion today. Apparently he and his cronies have been telling the men they can go for first aid training if they want to."

"If they
want to?"

"Of course they don't want to. They want to spend their spare time sleeping and fishing and visiting their girlfriends."

"I hope he apologized."

"No. He said he couldn't see the point of teaching ordinary soldiers first aid. He said it's like teaching sailors to swim—just prolongs the agony."

Valens shook his head sadly. "You really shouldn't let a few ignorant centurions banish you to the—" He was interrupted by a crash from the kitchen and a stream of British that had the unmistakeable intonation of a curse. He glanced at the door. "I suppose you're intending to take the lovely Tilla as well?"

"Of course."

"That
is
bad news. I shall miss her unique style of household management." Valens peered down at his dinner bowl and prodded at something with the end of his spoon. "I wonder what this was when it was alive?" He held it up toward the window to examine it, then flicked it off the spoon and onto the floor. One of the dogs trotted forward to examine it. "So," continued Valens. "Where exactly is this unholy outer region?"

"It's a fort called Ulucium. Apparently you go up to Coria and turn left at the border."

"You're going to some flea-bitten outpost beyond the last supply depot?"

"I'm told the area's very beautiful."

"Really? By whom?"

Ruso shrugged. "Just generally . . . by people who've been there." He took refuge in another sip of wine.

Valens shook his head. "Oh, Ruso. When I told you women like to be listened to, I didn't mean you should take any notice of what they say. Of course Tilla says it's very beautiful. She probably wants to go home to visit all her little girlfriends so they can paint their faces blue and dance around the cooking pot, singing ancestor songs. You didn't promise you'd take her home?"

"It's only for a few months. There's a couple of centuries going up to help revamp the fort, fix their plumbing, and encourage the taxpayers."

"You did! You promised her, didn't you?"

Ruso scratched the back of his ear. "I think I may have," he confessed. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Ruso took another mouthful of cold pie and wondered whether he should have listened to Valens rather than Tilla. From what he could gather, the principal activities of Tilla's tribe were farming and fighting, fueled by rambling tales about glorious ancestors and a belief that things you couldn't see were just as real as things you could. None of this had mattered much down in the relatively civilized confines of Deva, but as they traveled farther north, Tilla's behavior had definitely begun to deteriorate.

Ruso glanced downward. Tilla's muddy tunic was flapping heavily around her ankles. Thick brown liquid squelched out of her boots with every step.

He sighed, and balanced the remains of the pie on the front of the saddle. He reached out and touched her cheek just above the scrape. "I'll clean that up when we stop. Are you hurt anywhere else?"

"It was a soft landing, my lord. I do not see him coming, or I would fight back."

Ruso was not as sorry about this as his housekeeper seemed to be. "Why didn't you buy food before we set out this morning?"

"There was a woman in labor in the night. I forgot."

"One of the soldiers' women?"

"Yes."

"What on earth was she doing traveling in that condition?"

Tilla shrugged. "When a man marches away, who knows if he will come back? He might find a new woman. The army might send him across the sea. Then what will she do?"

Ruso, who had no idea what she might do, said, "So what happened to her?"

His slave jerked a thumb backward over her shoulder. "She is giving her daughter a bumpy welcome on a cart."