by Ruth Downie
It made sense. It made sense of the dangerous order to cross the river. It made sense of the training injuries, incurred when the British recruits were urged to compete with each other. It made sense of Austalis and Marcus’s desperation not to be marked out as Britons when they reached Deva, lest they be exposed to more men like Geminus. Geminus, or perhaps his shadows, had beaten Marcus into silence. Now he had taken steps to frighten Tilla. If it was true that Tadius and Victor had been caught trying to report their centurion’s twisted abuse of power to Deva, then perhaps they had been not only threatened but silenced.
On the other hand, it was hard to be rational about a man after being attacked by his dog.
He tensed the muscles in the injured leg. A fresh stab of pain cut through the ache. There were times when it did not matter whether you were rational, as long as you were right.
There had been no physical coercion of Sulio, but there had been no need. Recalling his early conversation with Geminus, Ruso doubted that the centurion had really persuaded the lad to stay in the army. If the conversation had taken place at all, it was far more likely that Geminus-knowing what Sulio might reveal once he was freed-had refused him permission to leave. Trapped inside the fortress, perhaps fearing that he too would shortly meet with some kind of “accident,” Sulio had attempted the only escape that seemed open to him, and Geminus had followed him onto the roof to make sure he succeeded.
Ruso focused his gaze on the blank faces of the men lining the far side of the street. How many of them could testify to Geminus’s bullying? There must be witnesses standing all around him now, too frightened to speak. If only Pera had kept his nerve and clung to the courage that had caused him to slip an accurate postmortem report into the records without anyone else seeing it. He must have watched with horror as Ruso blundered in and drew it to the clerk’s attention. Now the report was destroyed, and Pera had fallen silent. Just like all the others who had failed to support Tadius and Victor. Perhaps it was too far-fetched to imagine that all those minor annoyances at the hospital had been arranged by Geminus. But someone had put that thing in the mansio bed. And then there was the dog. The dog had been a deliberate attack.
If only he had known all of this when he first approached Accius. The tribune would have been compelled to do more than have an informal chat with an old friend.
He caught a snatch of conversation behind him. A woman was saying in British, “… to see how she gets it to stay up in coils like that.”
“It isn’t hers,” said a second woman. “It lifts off at night.”
“Really? She must have to pin it very tight to her real hair.”
“Well, I don’t suppose she moves much,” replied the first woman. As their voices faded Ruso heard, “They don’t even wipe their own backsides, these people. They have slaves to-oh! Is something happening?”
There was indeed a stir in the crowd. While the legionaries stared stoically ahead, the civilians were craning for a view of what was approaching down the east road. The chatter died away. The bark of an order was followed by the tramp of heavy boots approaching from the fortress gate as the guard of honor, with Accius at its head, marched out to meet the imperial party.
The trumpets wailed above the sound of cheering and applause. Forbidden to turn and see what was approaching, the legionaries had to wait until the procession passed in front of their eyes, but all around them Accius’s instructions seemed to have had the desired effect. The locals cheered and whooped and waved at the horse guards as if Hadrian’s cavalry were riding in to liberate them from the blighted presence of the Twentieth Legion. Behind them came the Praetorian Guards, identifiable to anyone who did not know them by the scorpions on their shields, and to anyone who did by their air of owning the place already. Ruso could see their officers scanning the crowd for trouble, as if they did not trust the local garrison to keep order. It was strangely satisfying to think that these highly paid arrivals from Rome would be obliged to march across Britannia in the rain just like everyone else.
The noise of the excited crowd rose even higher. Across the street, a couple of youths on a roof clambered to their feet, raised their hands in the air, and began to wave their arms from side to side on their precarious perch as if they were swaying in the wind. Ruso caught sight of the thin civilian liaison centurion trying to order them to sit down. It was hopeless. Others followed suit, and soon the buildings opposite were crowded with arms swaying back and forth in time with the chant of some sort of cheerfully chaotic native greeting.
Geminus raised his stick twice in the air. The ranks of the Twentieth erupted into a roar of “Cae-sar! Cae-sar!”
And there he was. A lone figure with a glittering breastplate over a surprisingly plain tunic, seated on a white stallion, one hand raised in greeting. The face a little heavier than Ruso remembered from Antioch, surveying the crowd with an air of approval. The lanky rider behind him must be the prefect of the Praetorians. Then more guards, and shrieks of excitement from the crowd as six bearers in scarlet tunics appeared, carrying an open litter.
Children were held up to fling handfuls of white petals into the air. They caught in the breeze and floated down like snowflakes. The empress Sabina looked out from beneath her elaborate hairstyle with no obvious emotion. Ruso tried to suppress the question of whether there really were slaves whose job it was to wipe the imperial backsides, and wondered whether the empress’s pallor was white lead makeup or the aftereffects of a rough sea trip and the knowledge that if she wanted to escape this island of dancing and screaming barbarians, she would have to repeat it.
Moments later, on the far side of more ranks of marching Praetorians, Ruso glimpsed a blond woman smiling and waving at him. No doubt she was just caught up in the excitement of the crowd, but he felt oddly moved. It was not often that Tilla appeared to be proud of him.
Then he remembered what they had been talking about earlier, and he knew it wouldn’t last.
Chapter 39
The dog, Ruso reminded himself, would not be loose in the streets without Geminus. Geminus was definitely busy because he-and conspicuously not Ruso-had been invited to dine with Accius and Hadrian and Hadrian’s friends and officials this evening. Still, as he set off on the few minutes’ walk from the hospital to the mansio, Ruso found himself alert to the sounds and shadows in the dusk around him. As he rounded the corner he was not sorry to see the lanterns outside the mansio entrance flare into life, and to notice the door slave making his way back inside carrying a taper.
Reassured by the nearness of safety, Ruso clumped up the steps and sat on the bench next to the unstable tree, whose pot now seemed to have been roped to a post. In a minute he would go and find Tilla, but for now he leaned against the wall, stretched out his aching leg, and surveyed the street along which the emperor had passed earlier this evening. Noise and light were spilling out from the bars. Groups of native men stood outside drinking, talking, and laughing. A couple had their arms around skimpily clad girls. The respectable women would all have gone home, or to wherever respectable women went at night when it was too far to get back to their own hearths.
Ruso filled his lungs with cool evening air that smelled of beer and roast meat and spice and roses. A man needed to sit quietly and think after such an eventful day.
They have been placing bets on the recruits.
This is not the time.
Then when is?
Hadrian had been impressive. He had barely paused to recover from the march before going across to the headquarters courtyard and greeting the assembled men of the Twentieth, calling them “fellow soldiers,” which pleased them, and adding, “Now that I’ve experienced the climate of Britannia for myself, I’m even more proud of you.” There was a gust of laughter. Ruso could see from their faces that the older men liked him. The recruits, who might be excused for not trusting anyone in authority, seemed to like him too.
He thanked them for their preparations for what he called “this unexpected honor.” He was, he said,
“aware of the disruption an imperial visit can cause, even the most welcome one.”
Watching him, Ruso was impressed. This man had risen from being the son of a provincial senator to become a general, a scholar, and now emperor. There was no sign of the country accent that had made him the butt of jokes when he first entered the Senate. He appeared relaxed, well-groomed, and confident despite just having completed a long march after the terrors of a near shipwreck. It was clear that Hadrian was a very determined man.
As expected, he informed the recruits that tomorrow he would be pleased to observe their final trials before their full admission to the Twentieth Legion. He would also oversee the discharge of veterans. The veterans cheered. Ruso had glanced across to where Geminus was standing as straight as a board beneath the magnificent white crest on his parade helmet. The silver disks that testified to past bravery were polished and gleaming on his chest. If he was concerned about how his men would perform, it did not show. As for the recruits themselves, Ruso was not sure it was possible for them to be any more terrified than they already were.
He stood up slowly from the bench, feeling the stitches pull in the back of his leg. The manager of the mansio leapt up when he saw who it was, assuring him his wife was safe and well and that the staff were keeping an eye on the room.
He found Tilla practicing her reading while she waited for him. Evidently they were now to sleep in a large cupboard and to be entertained by the merry whistling of the cook in the kitchen next door.
She was wrinkling her nose before he was fully in the room. “Fish sauce?”
“Good for dog bites. You won’t notice after a bit.” He had expected her to launch straight into the subject of Geminus, but instead she busied herself rolling up the poetry scroll. He said, “Have I missed any patients?”
“A boy who jumped off a wall and sprained his ankle, and one old lady who fainted and fell off a donkey. I have bandaged them both. Everyone else is too excited to be ill, or too drunk to notice. How is it in the fort?”
He hung his cloak on the back of the door and joined her on the bed. “The Horse Guards and the Twentieth are eyeing each other with mutual suspicion,” he said, “and the hospital’s full of Praetorians who haven’t spoken to anyone so far except to complain.”
“But they are all on the same side.”
“Only if there’s an enemy.”
There was a shout from the kitchen and the clang of a metal pan hitting the floor. He said, “We need to talk. I don’t doubt what you say about Geminus. But if Accius finds out you’ve been listening to more rumors after he told you to stay out of it-”
“I tried not to listen, but she was determined to tell.” She paused, running one finger slowly down his forearm. “Husband, if I tell you who said it, will you swear not to tell Accius?”
“I suppose so.”
“That is not swearing!”
“Tilla, you know I won’t tell.” That was not swearing, either, but she let it pass.
She leaned back against the side wall and tucked her bare feet between his legs while she explained about the farm she had gone to visit. “Virana is a very silly girl,” she said, “but now I have met her family I am not surprised.”
He shook his head. “What is it about soldiers that sends girls silly?”
“You should be glad of it,” she said, wriggling her toes.
“Ow.”
“Sorry.” She moved her foot away from the bandage. “So the tribune did nothing about this Geminus?”
“Oh, he did something. He conveyed my ‘complaint’ word for word to him. Geminus assures me he has no hard feelings over it.”
“And now his dog has bitten you.”
“Evidently the dog doesn’t feel the same way.”
“You could have been killed!”
He slid a friendly hand up her thigh, reminding her of what she might have lost. She did not seem to notice.
“This proves Barita was telling the truth!” she said. “Now he is trying to frighten me with a pig head and silence you too.”
“One of the recruits who complained has been beaten up.”
“Has he lost his mind? He cannot go round threatening and killing everybody!”
“He doesn’t have to. He just has to make them think it’s not worth making a fuss.”
“We must stop this man!”
He slid the hand higher. “Accius won’t do anything. If he believes anything’s wrong-which I doubt-he’s waiting for it all to blow over.”
“You will have to talk to someone more important.”
“There’s no one here-” He caught her expression. “Oh, no. No. That would be ridiculous.”
“You have met him before. You could remind him. I will pray that he will listen.”
“You’re starting to sound like my stepmother. Besides, I’ve been told to stay away from him. I’ll talk to the camp prefect about it when we get back to Deva. Until then I’ll just have to be careful. I don’t imagine any more of the recruits will step out of line.”
She grasped his hand. “Not now. I am trying to think. And I am thinking you should be very careful. I saw that pig’s head. I think Geminus is mad enough to try to stop you from getting back to Deva.”
“Unless he thinks he can make me keep my mouth shut.”
She brought his hand up to her lips and kissed it. “You are a good man in a bad place.”
“And if I’m not prepared to risk my neck to make that place better,” he said, “will I still be a good man?”
“I do not know,” she said. “But you will still be alive.”
Chapter 40
The dawn briefing was a crowded affair, but Ruso was greeted by nobody except the plump centurion, who looked too hungover to know who he was grunting at. He was not sorry to make his way back to the hospital, where he intended to remain while men with fiercer ambition tried to impress each other.
Austalis’s smile of greeting was encouraging in more ways than he could know. Ruso supervised the changing of his dressings and, since the kitchen orderly had been commandeered by Hadrian’s cook, went to fetch the breakfast nobody had remembered to bring. This took longer than expected, as he was called upon to intervene in a squabble over what the Praetorians called “requisitioning” of saucepans and the kitchen slave called theft. Thus he emerged completely unaware of the panic that had gripped the other end of the corridor.
The kitchen slave had ladled a generous helping of honeyed milk into Austalis’s cup. Ruso was concentrating on not spilling it across the tray when the sound of footsteps and voices caused him to glance up to avoid a collision. Half a dozen men were bearing down on him. At their head was the tall figure of Hadrian. The short, flush-faced man next to him was Pera.
Recalling the tribune’s order to stay out of Hadrian’s way, Ruso stepped aside to allow them to pass just as the emperor reached the end of a sentence.
“That’s him, sir!” declared Pera, with obvious relief.
Hadrian stopped. So did everyone else. Ruso, back to the wall and still clutching the tray, felt a sudden sympathy with patients who found themselves surrounded by a gang of apprentices and an instructor ready to show them how to conduct an intimate examination. He could not salute without dropping the tray, and without the salute his “Hail Caesar!” sounded rather odd.
Hadrian put his well-groomed head on one side and peered at Ruso. “Don’t I know you?”
He really must insist that Tilla stopped praying for things. “Ruso, Your Majesty. We met after the earthquake in, um …” Gods above, what was the place called? His memory had deserted him.
“I thought so,” said the emperor, seeming not to notice his confusion. “I never forget a face. I don’t know why I bother having a man to tell me who people are: Half the time I know more than he does. Ruso. You were one of the rescuers in Antioch. A terrible business.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So you’re in charge here now?”
He said, “I’m only here
for a few days, sir. Pera’s usually the man to talk to.”
Pera, who must have thought he had escaped, did not look grateful to be placed back in the target area.
Hadrian glanced from one to the other of them with an air of amusement.
“Ah, Pera. Back to you. So what can you tell me about the Britons?”
Pera’s hand rose to his neck. “Th-they’ve calmed down a lot since last year, Your Majesty.”
“So I hear,” agreed Hadrian, apparently satisfied. “But I’ll be leaving the Sixth over here in case there’s any more trouble.”
Pera swallowed, as if he was not sure whether he should thank the emperor or not. Hadrian, evidently used to smoothing over conversations with the tongue-tied, turned to Ruso. “So, Doctor Who Isn’t in Charge, how are you finding things in Eboracum?”
Ruso glanced round at the faces: one or two sympathetic, most bored, Pera rigid. They were waiting for him to answer this bland question with something suitably reassuring.
This is not the time. The emperor had affairs of state waiting for him, and a crowd of ambassadors following him around like a long unwieldy tail. He didn’t want a litany of complaints any more than Ruso wanted a list of symptoms after casually asking an acquaintance about his welfare.
But Geminus’s regime in Eboracum had left recruits dead and injured, families bereaved, a woman and child abandoned …
He was conscious of Hadrian assessing him, the famously piercing eyes seeing an officer who was too nervous to go far.
He took a deep breath. “It’s a lot better than Antioch, sir.”
Hadrian chuckled. “Indeed. Now, while the pair of you decide who’s in charge, I shall visit some of your patients.”
Later, Ruso could remember very little about Hadrian’s tour of the hospital. Austalis, whose injury was not explained, was declared to be “a brave lad.” There were occasional silences that Pera stepped in to fill. Meanwhile Tilla’s question was echoing around his mind. If this was not the time, then when was?