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  MEDICUS

  MEDICUS

  A Novel of the Roman Empire

  RUTH DOWNIE

  BLOOMSBURY

  Copyright © 2006 by Ruth Downie

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York

  Distributed to the trade by Macmillan

  All papers used by Bloomsbury USA are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in well-managed forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Downie, Ruth, 1955– Medicus : a novel of the Roman Empire / Ruth Downie.—1st U.S. ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Rome—History—Empire, 30 B.C.—476 A.D.—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6104.O94M44 2006

  823'.92—dc22

  2006013179

  Originally published in the United Kingdom in 2006 by Michael Joseph, a division of Penguin Group UK

  First published in the United States by Bloomsbury USA in 2006 This paperback edition published in 2008

  eISBN: 978-1-59691-427-8

  3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Typeset by Westchester Book Group

  Printed in the United States of America by Quebecor World Fairfield

  To Andy, with love

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  TERRA INCOGNITA

  1

  A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

  MEDICUS

  A NOVEL

  IN WHICH our hero will be . . .

  baffled by

  Tilla, a slave

  Merula, a bar owner

  Quintus Antonius Vindex, a recruit

  a family of native Britons

  alarmed by

  Bassus, Merula's security guard

  Stichus, another of Merula's security guards

  a woman with chins

  Secundus, a builder

  Elegantina, a lady wrestler

  assaulted by

  a soup bowl

  a senior centurion

  a trowel

  a fire

  amused by

  Rutilia the Elder

  Rutilia the Younger, her sister

  followed by

  a dog

  Albanus, a clerk

  a barber's son

  surrounded by

  the Twentieth Legion, Valiant and Victorious

  patients

  women

  mice

  tempted by

  Chloe, one of Merula's girls

  sworn at by

  Daphne, another of Merula's girls

  avoided by

  a barber's mother-in-law

  harangued by

  (in his memory) Claudia, his ex-wife

  (in person) a signaler's girlfriend

  (in letters) Lucius, his brother

  annoyed by

  Valens, a colleague

  Claudius Innocens, a businessman

  Priscus, an administrator

  a civilian liaison officer

  Justinus the whistler

  a brothel-keeper on the Dock road

  ignored by

  his stepmother

  his half sisters

  informed by

  a mortuary assistant's assistant

  Decimus, a hospital porter

  a barber

  a barber's wife

  Lucco, Merula's kitchen slave

  Lucius Curtius Silvanus, a slave trader

  mothered by

  Cassia, his sister-in-law

  Centurion Rutilius's wife

  moved to sympathy by

  Saufeia, one of Merula's girls

  Asellina, one of Merula's girls

  the signaler

  Phryne, a slave

  Tadius, a house slave

  and ruled by

  the Emperor Trajan

  the Emperor Hadrian

  O diva . . .

  serves iturum Caesarem in ultimos

  orbis Britannos.

  Oh Goddess,

  safeguard Caesar as he sets off for the remotest

  regions of the Earth—Britain.

  —Horace

  1

  SOMEONE HAD WASHED the mud off the body, but as Gaius Petreius Ruso unwrapped the sheet, there was still a distinct smell of river water. The assistant wrinkled his nose as he approached with the record tablet and the measuring stick he had been sent to fetch.

  "So," said Ruso, flipping the tablet open. "What's the usual procedure here for unidentified bodies?"

  The man hesitated. "I don't know, sir. The mortuary assistant's on leave."

  "So who are you?"

  "The assistant's assistant, sir." The man was staring at the corpse.

  "But you have attended a postmortem before?"

  Without taking his eyes off the body, the man shook his head. "Are they all like that, sir?"

  Ruso, who had started work before it was light, stifled a yawn. "Not where I come from."

  The description should come first. Facts before speculation. Except that in this case much of the description was speculation as well.

  Female, aged. . . He spent some time frowning over that one. Finally he settled on approximately 18—25 years. Average weight. Height . . .five feet one inch. At least that was fairly accurate. Hair: red, scant. That too, although it might not be very helpful if no one had ever seen her before
without a wig. Clothing: none found. So no help there, then.

  Three teeth missing, but not in places that were obvious. Someone would need to know her very well indeed to give a positive identification from that.

  Ruso glanced up. "Did you go over to HQ for me?"

  "I told them we'd got a body and you'd send the details over later, sir."

  "Did you ask about missing persons?"

  "Yes, sir. There aren't any."

  "Hm." This did not bode well. Ruso continued working his way down the body, making notes as he went. Moments later his search was rewarded. "Ah. Good!"

  "Sir?"

  Ruso pointed to what he had found. "If somebody turns up looking for her in a month's time," he explained, "we'll be able to tell them who we buried." He recorded Strawberry birthmark approximately half an inch long on inside of upper right thigh, eight inches above the knee, and sketched the shape.

  When he had completed the description, Ruso scratched one ear and gazed down at the pale figure laid out on the table. He was better acquainted than he wished to be with the dead, but this one was difficult.The water had interfered with all the signals he had learned to look for. There was no settling of the blood to indicate the position in which the body had been left, presumably because it had rolled over on the current. The limbs were flexible, so that meant . . . what? Men who died in the stress of battle often froze and then relaxed again much faster than was normal. So if the woman had been frightened or struggling . . . On the other hand, how would the aftermath of death be affected by cold water? He scratched his ear again and yawned, trying to think what he could usefully write on the report that would not cause more distress and confusion to the relatives.

  Finally he settled on Time of death: uncertain, estimated at least 2 days before discovery and gave his reasons.

  He glanced up at the assistant's assistant again. "Can you write legibly?"

  "Yes, sir."

  He handed the tablet and stylus across the body

  "Place of death," he dictated, then corrected himself. "No, put Location of body."

  The man laid the tablet on the end of the table, hunched over it, and repeated, "Location . . . of . . . body" as he scraped with awkward but determined obedience.

  "Found five hundred paces downstream from the pier, in marshes on the north bank," said Ruso, wishing he had carried on writing himself.

  "F . . . found . . . five hundred . . ." muttered the man, suddenly breaking off in midsentence to look up and say, "She could have drowned a long way upstream and come down the river, sir. But then, she might have gone in farther along and come up on the tide."

  "Pardon?" Ruso blinked, taken aback by this sudden display of initiative.

  Moments later it was apparent that although this soldier knew nothing about hospital administration and very little about writing, he had devoted his spare time to learning everything there was to know about the local fishing. The assistant's assistant's detailed description of all possible points of waterborne departure that could end in an arrival in the marshes on the north bank of the River Dee left Ruso baffled, but one thing was clear. In a land where coastlines shifted in and out and rivers flowed backward twice a day, anything that floated could end up a very long way from where it fell into the water.

  "Point of entry into water unknown," he dictated.

  The man paused. "I didn't get the bit before that, sir." Ruso repeated the location of the body. The man wiped a scrape of wax off the end of the stylus with his forefinger, flicked it away, and began to write.

  There was a bird chirping in the hospital garden and a murmur of voices. Ruso glanced out the window. On the far side of the herb beds an amputee practiced with his crutches while orderlies hovered at each elbow, ready to catch him. A soft breeze wafted in, fluttering the lamps that had been placed on slender black stands around the table, burning for the soul of the unknown figure laid out beneath them.

  The lamps lurched wildly as the door was flung open. The assistant's assistant looked up and said, "It's not her, Decimus," but the intruder still hurried to the table to look for himself.

  Ruso frowned. "Who are you?"

  The man clasped both hands together and continued staring at the body.

  "Have you lost someone?"

  The man swallowed. "No. Not like this, no, sir."

  "Then you'd better leave, hadn't you?"

  The man backed toward the door. "Right away, sir. Sorry to interrupt, sir. My mistake."

  Ruso followed him across the room and barred the door before turning to the assistant. "Is there a missing person that HQ doesn't know about?"

  The man shook his head. "Take no notice of Decimus, sir. He's just one of the porters. He's looking for his girlfriend."

  "In the mortuary?"

  "She ran off with a sailor, sir. Months ago."

  "Why look in here, then?"

  The man shrugged. "I don't know, sir. Perhaps he's hoping she's come back."

  Ruso, not sure if this was an attempt at humor, tried to look the man in the eye, but the attention of the assistant's assistant remained firmly on the writing tablet.

  Ruso looked down at the body. "Write, Cause of death."

  The stylus began to scratch again. "Cause of . . ."

  "We'll start from the head down."

  "We will start

  "No, don't write that."

  "Sir?"

  "Just write Cause of death. Nothing else yet."

  He frowned at the girl's head. The fishermen who brought the body in had sworn that they had done nothing to it, but Ruso was at a loss to explain the girl's hair. At first he had thought she was simply unfortunate. Now, on closer examination, he realized the patchy baldness was not natural. He ran one finger across the bristly scalp.

  "Is this some sort of a punishment, do you think?"

  "Perhaps she cut it off to sell it, sir," suggested the orderly.

  "This isn't cut, this is practically shaved."

  "Lice, sir?" suggested the orderly, suddenly sounding hopeful. "Maybe she went down to the river to wash out the lice and drowned."

  Ruso took a deep breath of fresh air before bending down and holding the lamp closer to the body.

  "She didn't drown," he said, lifting the girl's chin with the tip of one finger. "Look."

  2

  RUSO WAS STILL pondering the body in the mortuary as he walked out of the east gate of the fort. He was barely aware of his progress until he was abruptly recalled to his surroundings by a shout of "Get up!" from farther up the street. A man with a large belly was glaring at a grimy figure lying across the pavement just past the fruit stall. A woman with a shopping basket put down the pear she was examining and turned to see what was going on.

  The man repeated the order to "Get up!" The woman stared down at the figure and began to babble in some British dialect. The only word Ruso could make out was "water."

  "Burn some feathers under her nose," suggested the stallholder, bending down to retrieve a couple of apples that had tumbled off the edge of his display.

  Ruso veered into the street to avoid the commotion and narrowly missed a pile of animal droppings. He frowned. He must try and concentrate on what he was doing. He had come out for a walk because he was unable to sleep. Now that he was walking, he was having trouble staying awake.

  At the open shutters of Merula's he ordered the large cup of good wine he had been promising himself for days. When it came it was nothing like the Falernian it was supposed to resemble. He scowled into its clear depths. At that price and in this place, he supposed it was as good as could be expected. In other words, not very good at all.

  The doorman watched as he drained the wine without bothering to add any water, and asked him if he would like to meet a pretty girl.

  "Not before I've been to the baths," Ruso grunted. "Are you still serving those oysters?"

  "Not today, sir."

  "Good."

  "I'm sorry, sir . . . ?"

  "So you shoul
d be."

  Ruso wondered whether to explain that a dish of Merula's marinated oysters was the indirect cause of his present unkempt state and uncertain temper. He decided not to bother.

  Yesterday, strapping a poultice around the foot of a groom trampled by his horse, he had composed an imaginary notice for the hospital entrance.

  "To all members of XX Legion Valeria Victrix. While the chief medic is on leave, this hospital has three officers. The administrative officer has gone shopping in Viroconium and taken his keys with him. One doctor has severe food poisoning. The other is doing his best, despite having no idea what's going on because he has no time to attend morning briefings. Until reinforcements arrive, nonurgent cases and injuries resulting from drunkenness, stupidity, or arguments with drill instructors will not be treated."

  Before the sun had fully risen today he had been presented with a seized back, a dislocated elbow, three teeth in the hand of a man who wanted them replaced, and the body. When he pointed out that the body was beyond his help, he was told that they didn't know what else to do with it.

  Mercifully Valens—a paler and thinner version of the Valens who had eaten the oysters—had reported for duty this afternoon. Peering at Ruso, he'd announced, "You look worse than I do. Go and get some rest." Ruso, who had been desperate to sleep for the past three days, suddenly found himself unable to settle down.

  A group of youths with army haircuts was sauntering across the street toward Merula's. As they entered Ruso murmured, "Don't touch the seafood." He was gone before they could reply.

  Passing the bakery, he realized that he couldn't remember the last time he had eaten. He bought a honey cake and crumbled it against the roof of his mouth as he walked along.

  Ahead of him, a chorus of excited voices rose in the street. He recognized the fat man, still shouting orders in a thick Gallic accent. The female who had collapsed had now attracted a sizeable crowd. They seemed to be carrying her to the fountain. Ruso tossed the last fragments of cake to a passing dog and strode on in the direction of the amphitheater. It was nothing to do with him. He was not, at this moment, a doctor. He was a private citizen in need of some bath oil.