Tabula Rasa (12 page)
Reminded, he said, “You should both get inside. I’ll walk you back to the bar.”
Tilla turned her back on him. “We can find our own way. It is only a hundred paces.”
He was not going to leave it like that. He called to the guards that he would be back in a moment. As he said it a late delivery cart rolled up, so the men had something more useful to do than grumble behind his back about officers who couldn’t make their minds up.
Meanwhile, Tilla’s frosty silence made the hundred paces seem more like a thousand. He made an unwise effort to break it with, “What was I supposed to do, tell them not to go to that particular farm because I’ve eaten there?” But if she knew the answer to that, she chose not to divulge it.
Ruso lifted his medical case to shield the lamp flame from the draft as he carried it down the corridor. He wished Valens were here. It was always easier to frighten a patient when there were two of you.
After this he would have to tackle Fabius, which put him in mind of trying to stand a jellyfish up on end. As Fabius would no doubt point out, the search for the missing man had achieved nothing except to annoy the locals. Tomorrow he was going to have to go and apologize to Senecio and his family. That was going to be even trickier than he had expected, because not only had a curfew been imposed but an order had been issued forbidding any man to venture onto native property alone.
When young Candidus finally turned up after all this fuss—as he surely must—Ruso was going to make him one very sorry clerk.
He placed the extra lamp on the side table in Regulus’s room, next to the open medical case. The reflection of the flame glittered on the polished rows of scalpels and probes and clamps, and threw a shadow from the pleasing curve of the bronze catheter. Satisfied with the effect, he picked out a medium-sized hook. Then he sat down on the end of the bed, positioning himself so that whenever Regulus looked at him, the instrument case would be visible just beyond. He raised the hook into view between them and eyed his patient while casually rolling the bronze instrument between finger and thumb. “Ready?”
Regulus paused with his spoon halfway to his mouth.
“We had the mythical version earlier. Now tell me what really happened.”
“Sir?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t understand. You’ve wasted enough of my time already. One of my men is missing, so I’m not in a good mood.”
Regulus glanced toward the door, as if he hoped someone might come in and rescue him. He put his spoon down in his bowl.
Ruso examined the hook, rubbing off a speck of imaginary dirt with one finger and then polishing the instrument on his tunic. The bed squeaked in protest as Regulus burrowed back against the wall. Ruso looked up. “Don’t worry, I know how not to kill you. I’m a doctor.”
Regulus said, “You’re supposed to help me!”
“Exactly,” said Ruso. “So if you scream, nobody will take any notice.”
“Please, sir, I don’t—”
“Feel well?” Ruso finished for him. “Too much dinner.” He gestured toward the bowl. “How did you get hold of that, Regulus? It was left out of your reach on the window ledge.”
Regulus gulped. “I’m feeling a little bit better now, sir.”
“Excellent!” said Ruso. “Soon you’ll be well enough to start beating up your girlfriend again.”
“Sir, I never—”
“What did I say about wasting my time?”
“It’s not my fault, sir!”
How Ruso missed Valens. He would have turned to Valens and explained,
It wasn’t his fault, it was hers,
and Valens would have given a suitably dramatic sigh, shaken his head, and said,
Women, eh?
But Regulus was keen to talk even without being outnumbered. “They wanted money, sir! They were all in on it. Her parents and her brothers and sisters and all the other hangers-on. That’s what they’re like round here. The natives. They all just want to see what they can get out of you.” He paused as if expecting sympathy.
“Carry on.”
“She wanted it all right, sir. She never said she didn’t. Then they started saying I had to pay them money and marry her.” He squared his shoulders as if he had committed an act of bravery. “I told them it was against regulations for a man of my rank, sir.”
“So when you hit her,” said Ruso, recognizing the curious British expectation that a man should pay for his bride, “was that before they asked for money, or after?”
Regulus stuck out his chin. “She was already my girl! We had an agreement! And then she acted like she didn’t want to know me.”
“So you thought if you kicked her and broke her fingers, that would help.”
“A man’s got to be master in his own house, sir!”
“Absolutely,” said Ruso, who agreed with the principle but had never found out how this happy state of affairs could be achieved in practice. “Remind me again: Whose house was it?”
“I know I went a bit too far, sir.” Regulus scratched one hand with the other. “But I told her I was sorry. I promised I won’t do it again. She said it was all right.”
According to Tilla’s account, there had been more than one beating. Ruso let it pass, strangely fascinated by this tale of self-justification.
“But they still went and put in a complaint,” Regulus continued, “and I got hauled up in front of Fab—” He caught Ruso’s look. “Centurion Fabius,” he corrected. “And he told me to pay compensation to the family, and that’s not fair, is it? I wasn’t even on duty when it happened!”
“And were you ordered to stay away from her?” Ruso asked, glad that Fabius had at least attempted some discipline.
“He never said that, sir. He just said I had to pay them five denarii.” Regulus was indignant. “I don’t suppose five denarii means a lot to you, sir, but to an ordinary man like me with a poor old widowed mother back home, it’s a fortune.”
Ruso was not going to be drawn into a competition to see whose family back home was the more demanding. His stepmother and sisters and innumerable nephews and nieces would leave Regulus’s widowed mother in the dust. “And then what happened? Don’t tell me you were left hanging upside down all night, because you weren’t.”
That was what had struck Ruso as odd earlier. Hanging from his feet all night might well have done enough damage to prevent Regulus walking, but the foot had moved perfectly when he had used it to scratch his opposite leg.
Regulus was busy scraping at a red lump on his neck. “Perhaps not all night exactly, sir.” He looked up. “But it was a long time.”
“And before that?”
“They said they were sorry for causing me trouble, sir. They said never mind about the money and to stay for a beer. So I said all right, just a drop. It would have been rude to say no, wouldn’t it? But I reckon they put something in it. I went to sleep in the cowshed and I woke up freezing cold with this stink in my nose and my feet hurting and everything upside down.”
Ruso sighed. The alleged kidnap was more of a drunken prank than a serious attempt to do damage, but the situation was beyond salvaging now. Even though Fabius had been too slow-witted to ban Regulus from visiting the girl, and must have known that he had provoked the assault, it had not tempered the reprisals. Doubtless, an example had to be made. No Briton could be allowed to think that he could humiliate the military and escape unpunished.
“So you see, sir,” Regulus continued, scratching furiously at his groin, “it wasn’t my fault. You can’t trust the Brits.”
“Stay away from their women, then,” said Ruso.
Regulus looked aggrieved. “There aren’t any other women round here, sir. Only raddled old tarts.”
Not all the prostitutes offering their services in the area were raddled or old, although he was not going to say so. According to Tilla, some of them were as young as eleven or twelve. But, like the stupidity of Regulus, it was a problem he could do nothing about.
Fabius’s door was sticking with the damp. It was finally wrenched open by a petite and pretty girl whom Ruso recognized as the kitchen maid. She was sorry that the centurion was unavailable this evening. He was very unwell and had gone to bed early.
“I’m his doctor.”
“He’s asleep, sir.”
“Yes,” said Ruso, turning away in disgust. “That’s the problem.”
Lying in the cramped on-call bed after the evening ward round, Ruso was definitely not sleeping. Instead he was holding Albanus’s original letter up to the lamp and rereading:
I hope you know that I would not ask this of you, sir, if I had any other means of fulfilling my promise to my late sister. However, since my present duties do not allow me time to travel, I find I am obliged to rely upon the goodwill of others to guide her son now that he is so far away. Candidus has always been a sensitive and intelligent boy, but rather easily led. However, I am sure that with the right encouragement, he will do well. If you would consider recommending him for a position where he could settle, I would be extremely grateful to you.
He put the letter down on the shelf beside the dice he had found in Candidus’s bag. Somewhere down the corridor, someone was calling out. He heard the feet of the night staff hurry past, then the click of a door opening and closing. He pinched out the lamp. There was no sense in lying awake: They might not need him, and then he would have wasted precious sleeping time.
He had confronted Regulus. One task off the list. Tomorrow he was going to have to think what more he could do about finding Candidus. And apologize to Tilla’s people. And demand to know why Fabius had allowed him to instigate a major search for a missing man when he must already have known that Regulus had brought trouble on himself—and if he didn’t, he should have. And deal with a visit from the legate’s physician. And—he realized he had deliberately left this until last—face Tilla, who had understood more about young Regulus than most of the Legion.
“Let’s get this straight.” Tribune Accius’s manicured hand demonstrated an invisible straightness between Ruso and Centurion Fabius. As his weight shifted against Pandora’s cupboard, the stacks of writing tablets piled on top swayed sideways. “Yesterday you wanted a search for this clerk. This morning you don’t.”
“I’m still looking for him, sir,” Ruso explained, wishing more than ever that he had not pushed Fabius into authorizing that search. One of them was going to be in trouble here. Possibly both. “But I don’t think his disappearance had anything to do with the kidnapping, because it turns out the victim of the kidnapping wasn’t just a random soldier. So there’s no reason to suppose my man is being held by the natives.”
“Indeed,” said Accius drily. “As several of those natives have pointed out in their complaints this morning.”
The silence that followed was not a cue to speak. It was simply Accius leaving a space for him to consider the error of his ways. Ruso let his vision drift out of focus. It was the adult equivalent of the child closing his eyes to make himself invisible.
Accius said, “I’m told the kidnap victim was already in dispute with the family.”
No doubt the outraged natives had pointed that out too.
“Did anyone know this before we burned their houses down?”
Fabius swallowed noisily. “There was a complaint, sir. The man was disciplined.”
If he thought that was going to excuse him, he was wrong. “Why wasn’t the legate made aware of this when he was asked to authorize reprisals?”
Fabius made a sound as though he had something stuck in his throat. Ruso, even more glad than before that he had not been involved in the reprisals, was relieved to be out of the line of fire. The silence went on until Fabius ventured, “I wasn’t aware of the request, sir.”
Accius moved again, and the stacks swayed in the opposite direction. “Who received the original complaint?”
“I did, sir,” Fabius answered.
“Who disciplined the man?”
“I did, sir.”
“Who requested the authorization for reprisals?”
“Optio Daminius, sir.”
“He’s your optio, man! What sort of an outfit are you running here?”
“I wasn’t aware—”
“Well, you should have been. And as if that weren’t bad enough, the doctor here had the bright idea of annoying the natives even further by sending men out to shake them down for someone who wasn’t there!” Accius left another pause for remorse before continuing, “Obviously the legate’s ordered us to stand by the actions that were taken. No apologies. An assault on one of our men can’t be allowed to pass no matter how justified the natives thought it might be. How badly hurt is he?”
“He’s more humiliated than hurt, sir,” put in Ruso. “This all started because he mistreated a girl. I think the family just intended it as a message.”
“Well, now they’ve had their reply,” said Accius. “Centurion, you will discipline the man involved, and do it more successfully than last time. Then have him transferred somewhere out of reach. Thanks to him and you two, we’ve successfully managed to enrage every local within a five-mile radius. As a result, we have movement restrictions and a curfew we didn’t want to have to police. Any man out there on his own will be in trouble now, if he wasn’t before.”