Terra Incognita: A Novel of the Roman Empire Read online

  If only she had chosen to walk back to town that night.

  “Once the rebels are got rid of and the house is all finished,” said Aemilia, “everything will be better.”

  “Perhaps,” said Tilla, wondering what possible difference a house could make.

  “We have most of the furniture, and I ordered the fabrics from the weaver last week. When it is finished, we shall invite your officer to dine every night.”

  “He is not my officer.”

  “He is truly fond of you, cousin. I saw how he looked at you.”

  “He does not trust me.”

  “It is a pity he is a doctor, so you will never know where he has been putting his hands, but he is an officer, and in a legion too! Do you know how much those officers are paid?”

  “Not as much as they spend.”

  “And he is rather good-looking, in a cross sort of way.”

  Tilla shrugged. “Who cares?”

  “You do,” said Aemilia, dipping her forefinger in the honey, raising it high in the air, and placing her open mouth beneath to intercept the thin stream of gold.

  63

  THE HUNT FOR Rianorix had begun in the early morning when the men assigned to surveillance of his house realized he had been out of sight down at the stream with the water buckets for a very long time. They had then wasted time in a desperate search for him, before looking in the sack dumped in the grass behind the house and realizing they were in even bigger trouble than they thought.

  Ruso’s participation in the search had begun with his joining the huntsmen and dogs at the east gate for a considerable amount of milling around to no apparent purpose, followed by a ride out to the last sighting, the grim and secret discovery of the head of Felix the trumpeter, more milling around, and finally much excitement and galloping about. They had leaped over walls and ditches, plunged down steep slopes, picked their way through forests, and bowed flat to duck under the branches that scraped along helmets and plucked at clothes. They had thundered across open fields and followed hidden trails only to find that their quarry had doubled back, waded off through the stream, or gone around in circles.

  Rianorix was never sighted. The dogs became tired and distracted as the trail grew fainter. Finally huntsmen, horses, and hounds beat a weary and mud-splattered retreat in search of a hot meal, but not until they had returned to the start of the chase and reexamined Rianorix’s home. A small cart in an outbuilding was deemed worth stealing, as was his ancient pony. Some of his clothes found their way into the cavalrymen’s saddlebags before his home was burned, his gates torn down and trampled in the mud, and his fences knocked flat. The men who knew what had been found on the grass behind the house had been sworn to silence on pain of death. They were the ones who led the destruction and neither Metellus nor Ruso made any effort to restrain them.

  The rain had stopped but the light was fading by the time they reached the fort. Ruso glanced back at the horizon and saw a thick smudge of black smoke rising into the evening sky. He thought of Rianorix and Tilla curled up together like kittens on the bracken bed, and of the severed head of a man who had betrayed his lover. And he felt sorry for Thessalus, willing to sacrifice himself for a man who could commit such a hideous murder. He felt sorry for him, but he was not going to back up his lies. Ruso would tell the truth, Rianorix would be rightly executed according to the law, Thessalus would die peacefully in Veldicca’s house, and Veldicca . . . Veldicca would survive somehow. Women did.

  He groped behind him, checking that the blanket containing the gruesome evidence was still firmly strapped on. He knew now that Felix had died from a massive fracture to the back of the skull: one that could have been inflicted with the stone he had found in the alley. The neatness of this discovery brought no satisfaction.

  Ruso shifted in the saddle and shivered. There was scant warmth in leather riding breeches on a wet day, and the rain had soaked through patches in his cloak and chilled his shoulders. He would be glad to get back to the fort, and to hand over his grim burden for secret cremation.

  Metellus was riding beside him with a smile playing on his lips. Despite failing to catch Rianorix, the man seemed to think they had done a fine day’s work.

  64

  RUSO COLLECTED A bowl of leftovers from the infirmary kitchen for himself and found Valens stretched out on an empty bed discussing horse breeding with the wounded men Ruso had met on his arrival.

  “So,” said Valens, swinging his legs down from the bed and following Ruso to the treatment room. “Will it be venison tomorrow?”

  “We didn’t kill anything,” said Ruso, settling into his chair before Valens got there. “Anyway, you and I will be at the guild of caterers dinner celebrating the imperceptible start of the British summer.”

  “Ah yes. I forgot. Hosted by the fine Susanna who I’m told serves the best food in town. Although the menu will be a bit restricted because Susanna has some odd ideas about diet.”

  Despite not wanting to take up his own invitation, Ruso felt an irrational pang of jealousy that Valens should have been similarly honored without being a putative family member.

  “Apparently Catavignus has designs on Susanna,” said Valens, hitching himself up to perch on the treatment table. “Or maybe on her snack bar.”

  Ruso poked unenthusiastically at the leftovers with his spoon. “How is it you’ve hardly gotten here and you’ve found all this out?”

  “Albanus and I have been chatting,” said Valens. “His favorite waitress doesn’t want to work for Catavignus. Oh, by the way, I went across with Thessalus’s dinner and gave him the poppy tears he asked for. Nice chap. Why can’t we tell anybody that he’s ill?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “And speaking of dinner, what have you done with the lovely Tilla?”

  Ruso explained that she was staying with her uncle.

  “You don’t seem very cheerful, Ruso. Have you two fallen out?”

  “I’m busy. And it’s military personnel only inside the gates.”

  “Oh dear. That must be frustrating for you.”

  Ruso sighed. “There’s a native,” he explained. “A close friend of hers. Everyone except Tilla thinks he’s a loudmouth murdering bastard.”

  “You have fallen out.”

  “Meanwhile, Catavignus wants to know whether I’m going to marry her.” He scowled. “It’s not funny.”

  “Sorry. Tell you what. Why don’t you leave it all behind for a while? I’ll relieve you here, and you go on up the road to join the rest of our men.”

  “I can’t, I’ve got to report back to the prefect. Why don’t you go yourself?”

  Valens frowned. “Because they’ll all know who I am, Ruso, and somebody will tell the Second Spear. Have some sense.”

  Ruso busied himself scooping up the leftovers, which seemed to consist of cabbage doused in brown juice, and mused upon the shattered skull of the unlucky Felix the trumpeter. He would have liked to think of it as conclusive evidence, but there was something wrong about its opportune appearance inside a sack on the grass behind Rianorix’s house. The native must have known he was under surveillance, or he would not have run away. And knowing that, why would he leave behind the one thing that could prove his guilt?

  Ruso had grown increasingly uneasy about it on the ride back to the fort. When he had raised the matter Metellus had simply suggested that Rianorix had not wanted to be caught carrying the grisly burden and as a final act of defiance, he had left it for them to find. Perhaps he had hoped it would distract his pursuers and buy him some time to make his escape. Whatever the reason, its recovery was good news. The Stag Man would not get his hands on it. There would be no native spell casting around it at secret gatherings, and the good folk of Coria would never know.

  When Ruso had asked, “Why didn’t you find it up there before?” Metellus had replied, “Obviously, we didn’t look hard enough last time. He certainly hasn’t brought it home since. Even those dimwits on surveillance duty would h
ave noticed that.”

  “It all seems very convenient.”

  “We need to be seen to be keeping order. Ruso. The native won’t be much of a loss.”

  “But what if—”

  Metellus raised a hand to silence him. “Don’t worry. If we find out later that it was put there by somebody else, we can arrange their quiet disappearance.”

  “And that’s justice?”

  “Rianorix got himself into this mess. He was issuing threats against a Roman soldier in a public place. There are people who would say that’s disrespect for the emperor. This isn’t just an isolated quarrel in a bar, you know. You need to take a wider view.”

  Ruso had frowned. “I’ve always thought,” he said, “That the wider view is an excuse not to look too closely at the details you don’t want to see.”

  “Has it ever occurred to you, Doctor, that you think too much?”

  “Frequently,” said Ruso, wondering how he was going to break the news of the day’s events to Thessalus. “And I think you’re on very uncertain ground with this.”

  “Fortunately for the security of the border, Ruso,” Metellus had replied, “what you think doesn’t matter.”

  Valens was still talking. “. . . And if I told her I wasn’t thinking anything,” he said, “which I wasn’t, usually, she just kept on asking until I made something up.”

  All Thessalus’s plans had been thwarted. He had brought disgrace upon himself for nothing. Valens appeared to be waiting for some sort of an answer.

  “Sorry, what did you say?”

  “I said,” repeated Valens, “did you have trouble with Claudia asking what you were thinking all the time?”

  “What? Oh. Not for long.”

  “How did you stop her?”

  Ruso frowned. “I seem to remember sitting on a garden bench,” he said, “and she started chattering about the sunset, or something. She seemed quite happy so I let her get on with it. Then she got hold of my hand and asked me what I was thinking about. So I said, ‘The treatment of anal fistulae.’”

  Valens grinned. “That was particularly imaginative.”

  “No it wasn’t. I was answering the question. After that she never asked me again. Now that I think about it, she didn’t speak to me for the rest of the evening. Valens, where was Gambax last night?”

  “Gambax? I’ve no idea. In the barracks, I suppose. He wasn’t here. It was just me and a bandager. Why, should he have been on duty?”

  “I need to talk to Albanus.”

  “I told him to clear off after the evening meal. I expect he’s gone to try his luck with Susanna’s girl. He’ll be back soon; it must be nearly curfew.”

  “Albanus didn’t say anything about the work he was doing for me?”

  Valens frowned. “Oh, he was worried about something as usual. Something to do with the administration. He didn’t seem to want to talk to me about it.”

  Ruso got to his feet. He needed to talk to Aemilia about that business with the ring, but it was too late to go visiting her at this hour. He would go across to see how Thessalus was and find a way to tell him what had happened.

  He had barely sat down in Thessalus’s chair when there was a hammering on the door and the guard informed him that he was wanted back at the infirmary for an emergency. When he got there, an orderly was hurrying down the corridor with extra lamps. To his surprise the squat figure of Audax emerged from the treatment room.

  “It’s your lad,” he said.

  “My—?”

  “Your clerk. Found him down the same alley.”

  Albanus lay pale and unconscious on the table, his face and clothes covered in blood. Valens was crouched beside him, holding the lamp dangerously close and gently probing the matted hair on the back of his skull.

  “What is it?” demanded Ruso, picking up the scent of Albanus’s hair oil and dreading what he was about to see.

  “Depressed fracture, I think. Hurry up with those lights, will you?”

  Ruso said, “Was he conscious when you found him?”

  “He was muttering something,” said Audax. “Dunno what.” He drew Ruso aside and murmured in his ear, “At least he’s all in one piece. I’m off down there now. Got to clean another bloody stag picture off the wall. This is getting out of hand.”

  65

  HOW MANY OF you buggers have we got here now?” demanded Audax. “There’s the skinny one locked up with his brains on the boil, there’s you, and now your mate’s turned up. And still you can’t fix him.”

  Albanus had opened his eyes and muttered a few words late last night before lapsing back into unconsciousness. This morning he was lying in a bed with his head swathed in linen bandages barely whiter than his face. The smell of the strong vinegar Ruso had used to check any bleeding of the membrane around the brain still lingered in the air.

  Ruso, who had been up half the night tending him, yawned and leaned against the wall. He felt this was his fault. He had brought Albanus to this wretched place. He should have thought to warn him about that alleyway. He should have ignored the Batavians’ cover-up schemes and told him the truth about the danger that lurked in the streets of Coria. Worst of all, he should never have asked him to interfere in Gambax’s affairs.

  He could say none of this in the presence of Audax. Instead he said, “It’s just wait and see now.”

  “Never mind waiting and seeing,” retorted Audax. “You want to give him a dose of Doctor Scribonius.” He thrust forward a fist containing a square bottle of greenish glass with an inch of dark liquid swilling around inside. “I’ll bring some more over later.”

  When the centurion had gone, Ruso sat on the edge of the bed and watched the faint rise of his clerk’s chest with each breath. He laid one hand over the cold fingers. “You’re not going to die, Albanus,” he assured him. “We’re not going to lose another man from the Twentieth. We won’t let you go.”

  For a moment he thought there was some flicker of movement behind the eyelids. “Albanus?” He waited, but there was no further sign. He tucked the clerk’s hand in under the harsh gray blanket and summoned Ingenuus to sit with him. “Any problems, send for Valens,” he told him. “Don’t let Gambax anywhere near him. And don’t give him that tonic till we find out what’s in it.”

  Gambax was busy smudging out one stroke of the “II” after “Days to Governor’s Visit.”

  “Where were you last night, Gambax?”

  “Polishing my kit, getting ready for the governor. You said Doctor Valens was on duty.”

  “So I did,” agreed Ruso, leaning against the wall and folding his arms. “Doctor Valens is on duty again now. He’s the only one allowed to touch Albanus. I shall be out.”

  He waited until Gambax had finished and gone back inside. He was alone with the images of the gods. Since arriving at Coria he had neglected one of them completely and never bothered to find out the name of the other. He asked forgiveness of both. Then he stretched out his arms to the image of Aesculapius, and prayed for the life of the clerk he himself had failed to protect.

  He only became aware of someone standing behind him in the street when he had finished speaking.

  Metellus thought he might like to know that a certain object had been discreetly and respectfully disposed of, and as soon as Rianorix was apprehended—which, thanks to information just received from an informer, he soon would be—the matter would be settled. “Perhaps for the sake of pacifying the locals, we should get you to confirm that Thessalus’s confession was never credible because of the state of his mind.”

  “I can’t say that,” said Ruso.

  Metellus sighed. “I do hope you’re not going to be difficult, Ruso. Although it doesn’t matter much now anyway: We have the evidence, and it’s obvious that he must be unhinged or he wouldn’t have confessed. As soon as we catch Rianorix—”

  “You need to look at Gambax.”

  “Gambax? Oh dear, Ruso. Has that girl been working on you again?”

  “I’m pret
ty sure he and Felix were working some sort of scam with the infirmary ordering system. That’s where your fancy wine came from. I checked the amphora and the official mark’s been scrubbed off it. Gambax must have been buying it in for medicinal purposes and selling it to Felix, who distributed it. Only Felix was distributing it a bit too widely and Gambax realized he was going to get caught. Gambax must have seen the chance to finish him off and take over the distribution himself. Now I think he’s found out my clerk is onto him, and he’s tried to finish him too and blame the whole thing on the Stag Man. When Albanus wakes up I’m sure he’ll confirm it.”

  Metellus shook his head sadly. “Go and lie down, Ruso. Nobody’s going to go around murdering people over a few amphorae of wine.”

  “But if he thought he would be caught and punished—”

  “You surely haven’t forgotten the evidence you carried home yesterday?”

  “He could have hidden that somewhere and then taken it up there at night when he found out that Rianorix had been released and we were still looking for somebody else. Rianorix got up in the morning, saw it, panicked, and ran.”

  “This is all sounding rather desperate.”

  “You know Gambax was outside the fort somewhere when Felix was killed.”

  “I told you. We checked everyone’s whereabouts. All the people he said he’d been to see actually saw him, and none of them noticed he was covered in blood and carrying a severed head. Perhaps they just forgot to mention it.”

  “He could have seen them before he met Felix.” Ruso was aware that he was sounding desperate. “You should at least check his movements last night. Find out if he really was in the barracks polishing his kit when Albanus was attacked.”

  “Ruso, the governor is arriving in the morning. I have better things to do than pursue your—”

  “Who was it, then? You think Rianorix came back into town last night and tried to murder my clerk? Or did the Stag Man decide to pay a visit?”