by Ruth Downie
Using the hospital baths was out of the question. The thought of being trapped naked with a roomful of patients comparing their symptoms made him shudder. He would go out to the public baths. This early, there would be no lines. With no mistreated slave girls to distract him, he should soon return clean, invigorated, and ready to make progress with the Concise Guide to Military First Aid.
First he needed a decent breakfast. Recent disappointments at other shops had confirmed that it was worth the trouble of walking across to the bakery opposite Merula's, where he savored the smell before handing over his cash for a fresh roll. The crust crackled as he tore it. Steam rose into the cool morning air. He sat on the bench, leaned back with his legs stretched out over the pavement, and took a mouthful.
The streets were as quiet as was usual in the mornings: so quiet that he could catch the occasional bellow of orders from the parade ground, where most of the legion would be sweating their way through daily training. So far his name had not appeared on the training rota: an oversight that would no doubt be rectified when the administrative officer returned.
A couple of women went into the bakery to load their shopping baskets. A small boy passed down the street, bumping along a cartload of apples cushioned in straw. A settled hen squawked in annoyance as a woman emerged from the doorway where it was sitting and batted it out of the way with a broom. Across the street, the shutters were still closed. Ruso gazed idly at the advertisements on Merula's whitewashed walls.
Beneath a picture of a bowl and a jug, BEST FOOD IN DEVA and FINE WINES, LOW PRICES had been daubed in red for long enough to fade and be refurbished—not very accurately, so the faded paint still appeared at the edges of some of the letters. He was surprised to see Saufeia's name still listed under BEAUTIFUL GIRLS!: a bizarre memorial in sharp fresh paint. Asellina and Irene had evidently moved on and been wiped away with a single coat of white, which left them still faintly legible. Chloe was listed, along with someone called Mariamne, but not the nervous and pregnant Daphne. Customers had scrawled comments next to the names. Most were predictable. Something that looked very much like JUICY! was inscribed next to Chloe. Someone had attempted to scrub off Saufeia's only testimonial, but it was still possible to make out the faint scrawl of SNOOTY BITCH.
An elderly man with one leg was lurching toward the bakery on crutches, managing to balance despite a bulging sack tied over one shoulder. Seeing Ruso's interest in the bar he called, "You're too hasty, boss!"
Ruso turned, but his scowl failed to stop the cackle of laughter and the announcement that, "Them girls don't get up till it's time to go to bed!"
The last thing Ruso wanted this morning was a close encounter with them girls, or indeed with anything female. He was about to leave when another handcart came rumbling along the street. It paused outside Merula's. Its owner, a whistling man in a paint-spattered tunic, unloaded a box and put it down in front of the shutters.
"Don't get up till it's time to go to bed, hah!" chortled the one-legged man for the benefit of anyone who had missed it the first time, and lurched off down the street.
Ruso sat down again. For reasons he could not articulate, he wanted to see the dead girl's name removed from that wall.
The painter fetched a cloth out of the box and cleaned the word SAUFEIA and the scrubbed patch next to it. Then he stepped back and surveyed the rest of the wall.
Ruso stepped across to join him. "You need to take that name off, not clean it up."
The painter squinted at the wall. "Mariamne Bites. That'd better go too." He stepped forward again and rubbed at the words, which had been scratched on with charcoal. "Keeping me busy, this lot are. Can't keep the staff, see?"
He bent over the box and lifted a brush. He paused to finger a silver charm in the form of a phallus which was slung around his throat, then, with one stroke, he reduced Saufeia's name to a red shadow showing through the white.
"Bad luck, having that up there," he observed. "Might as well finish off the other one too."
"Other one?"
"The one that run off with the sailor." He reached up and obliterated the faint outline of ASELLINA with a fresh brushstroke of white paint. "She won't be back."
"I think I've met somebody who knew her," said Ruso. It had not occurred to him that the porter's missing girlfriend might have worked in a place like this.
The man grinned. " 'Round here, you'll have met quite a few."
Asellina had probably weighed the offers of several admirers, and the luckless porter had not been at the top of the list.
The painter stepped back and squinted at the wall. "Looks a bit patchy, don't it? I told 'em the whole lot wants doing again, but her inside won't part with the money Knew that Saufeia, then, did you?"
"No."
"Something funny going on there. I reckon she had a premonition."
Ruso, who spent much of his professional life battling against superstition, could not resist asking, "Why?"
"I never took much notice at the time, but she stuck her head 'round the door while I was working, took one look, and said in that posh voice of hers, 'You've spelt me wrong.' I'd gone and put two f's in, see? So I went to put it right and she said, 'You really needn't bother; I shan't be here much longer.' "
The man touched the charm again, then recharged the brush and ran it across the wall again. In its wake, Saufeia's name, correctly spelled with one "f," grew fainter still. "Course, I changed it anyway," he said. "I like to do a proper job." He put the brush back in the pot. "Might as well not have bothered."
He picked up the red brush. "Here's something to cheer the lads up." In the space where MARIAMNE BITES could still faintly be read, he sketched out in large letters the words NEW COOK.
"Merula says I got to put it in big letters," he explained, "So everybody knows. She don't want a bad name after them oysters."
"She's sacked the old cook?" said Ruso.
"Packed her off to the dealer. Lucky that doctor didn't drop dead, or they'd all be facing the inquisitors."
"How many people were ill?"
"Just the one," replied the painter, frowning with concentration as he led the brush down the first stroke of the "N." "That were lucky, weren't it?"
"Not for the doctor."
"That's what they're saying," agreed the painter. "Peculiar, like, just him and no one else. Anyway, won't happen again. New cook, see?"
10
IT HAD BEEN a day where everything was more complicated than it should have been. When he reached the baths Ruso found he was the wrong sex and had to wait outside ("Women only till the sixth hour, sir—it is on the door, sir . . .") This afternoon a signaler who had been sent to have a head cut stitched turned out to have tripped on something he hadn't seen. Alerted by the young man's reluctance to meet his gaze, Ruso had insisted on checking his eyesight after the wound was treated. Within seconds he had discovered not only the advancing shadow of cataract in both eyes, but some inkling of the desperate and complex cover-up undertaken by the man and his comrades. Blindness would be the end of any soldier's career, but a signaler with failing eyesight would be invalided out sooner than most.
"I can manage all right, Doc."
"Really?" Ruso gestured toward a notice on the surgery wall. "Read me some of that."
The man turned and stared: not at the notice, but at the blank wall to its left. Then he moved his head and eyed the periphery of the notice from the other side. Finally he said, "The light's not very good in here, is it?"
Ruso said nothing.
The man lowered his bandaged head into his hands. "My girl thinks it's an illness," he said. "She thinks I'll get better."
"Have you spoken to any of the other medics?"
The man shook his head. "I don't need to," he said. "I watched this happen to my father."
It was too early to disclose the idea forming in Ruso's mind. He said merely, "I'll have a word with my colleague."
The man gave a bitter laugh. "Does he work miracles? Becau
se if he does, you tell him I've got a little lad of two and a pregnant girlfriend to support."
Ruso said, "What about other family?"
"None of mine. Her people want me to go for a promotion so we can get properly married." He paused, not needing to explain the irony. He would never be promoted now, and the medical discharge that would free him for marriage would also render him an undesirable son-in-law. He looked up. "We need the money, Doc. Can't you just. . . keep quiet for a bit?"
Ruso frowned. "If you're sent out into the field, you'll be as much danger to us as to the enemy."
"I've managed so far."
"And who's been covering up for you?"
The signaler said nothing.
Finally Ruso said, "You've had a serious bang on the head. I'm recommending you stay here for two days for observation."
Ruso sent the man down to one of the wards. As soon as the rest of his patients wete dealt with he went straight to the records room and scrawled an urgent letter to the eye specialist he had met on the ship. He was not optimistic. Even if the specialist agreed to take the case, the delicate surgery required would be terrifying for the patient and difficult for the doctor, and would possibly hasten the blindness it was supposed to cure.
On the way back to his lodgings, Ruso glanced across at the builders working on the roof of the bathhouse. He wished he had chosen a trade where almost anything that went wrong could be fixed with a hammer.
He was about to turn the corner when a voice called after him, "Sir?"
He stopped. One of the hospital orderlies was hurrying after him. "You're wanted, sir!"
"Officer Valens is on duty now," said Ruso, who had been hoping to get on with the Concise Guide.
"No, sir, it's you who's wanted."
"Who by?"
"The second spear, sir. You're to report to him straightaway."
11
STAND EASY, DOCTOR." The second spear settled into his seat, rested muscular arms on a desk that seemed too small for him, and gave Ruso the kind of look that said nonsense would not be tolerated.
Ruso decided he did not envy Valens the challenge of persuading this man to hand over his daughter in marriage.
"We've had a complaint," continued the second spear. "About a body."
"Sir?"
"A girl from a bar."
"Yes, sir. Merula's."
"You took it in?"
"Yes, sir. Nobody knew who she was at the time."
The second spear nodded. "Probably just as well. It might have been somebody's wife. Most of us keep our women well guarded, but you always get the odd one who thinks she knows better. So, then what happened to it?"
Ruso explained. His pauses were punctuated by grunts of assent from across the desk, followed by, "Right. So who cut the hair off?"
"I don't know, sir. It was like that when she was brought in."
"And you didn't think to warn the owner?"
"No, sir."
"Well, they're not happy. They got a bit of a shock when they saw it and they want to know if we did it."
"Absolutely not, sir. You can check with the gate guards. She was found by a couple of fishermen. You could ask them."
The second spear shook his head. "Doesn't matter. As long as we can't be blamed for it. I'll send someone over to calm them down. And tell them to forget any ideas about compensation."
"Thank you, sir. Any luck finding the culprit yet?"
"No. Don't expect we ever will. We'll keep an eye open, but I doubt much will turn up. No witnesses, of course. It's the usual story: These people are quick enough to complain, but blind, deaf, and dumb when you start asking questions. Turns out the girl was offered protection and chose not to take it."
"She might not have understood the dangers, sir. She'd only been here ten days." It was about the same length of time that Ruso had been here himself.
"Hmph. Not what you'd call bright, these locals. Did she think they'd got two of our lads down there on security for fun?"
Ruso said nothing.
"This will knock a bit of sense into the rest of them," the second spear went on. "At least for a month or two. Bloody nuisance, all of them. Haven't been here long, have you?"
"No, sir."
"In a civilized country—even in parts of Britannia—we'd leave the town council or tribal elders or what-have-you to sort this kind of thing out. 'Round here, just because they're living on army land, they expect us to wipe their backsides for them. If it was up to me, I'd have a curfew and flog anything that moves after dark. Still, we should have a bit of peace and quiet for a while. You won't find many women hanging around the streets tonight."
"No, sir," agreed Ruso, who had not planned to look for any.
The second spear leaned back in his chair and folded his arms."When I was up with the Ninth," he said, "one of the medics took in a body. Thought he was being helpful. The natives got the idea he was cutting it up for anatomy lessons. Caused a riot. Ended up with a whole lot more bodies, three of them ours. My advice, Doctor, is not to get involved with the locals if you can help it."
"Yes sir," said Ruso, glad the second spear did not know who was in Room Twelve.
12
RUSO HAD DISCHARGED his duties for the day. There was nothing further he could do about the signaler's cataracts. His superiors would make any decisions about the dead girl, and he had left orders that he was to be called if there was a crisis with the live one. Alone in his bedroom, he was free to get on with drafting the next section of the Concise Guide to Military First Aid. Unfortunately, it was proving more difficult than he had expected.
He had imagined that once his reference books arrived, he would get straight back to work, freshly motivated after so long a break. Instead, he was sitting in his room scowling at a writing tablet on which he had written a title and two lines of notes before delving into the trunk to look up something that turned out to be in a different scroll from the one he expected and to be less relevant than he had remembered it. The bed was now scattered with unraveled scrolls and note tablets and a few scraps of broken pot on which he had scribbled passing thoughts when nothing else had been handy, and he was still stuck on line three. His mind, apparently unwilling to apply itself to ordering his work, seemed to be seizing every chance to wander off. It was futile and unproductive to wonder why a slave with a "posh voice" and the ability to read her own name had been working in a bar in the first place. No wonder Merula had said she was not suited to the job. But then why—
A shout of laughter from beyond his bedroom door brought Ruso back to his task. He reread what he had written, picked up the stylus, then paused to glance over his notes again. It didn't help that Valens was on call this evening, unable to leave the house unless summoned by duty. Across in what passed for a dining room (they had not bothered to shut the door, of course), his colleague was discussing horses with a couple of friends who had loud voices and even louder laughs. Valens had invited him to join them, but as soon as he explained that he had work to do they seemed to have forgotten all about him.
At least they didn't keep popping in to ask how it was going. The Concise Guide had been conceived—the only thing that was, thank the gods—during his marriage to Claudia. It had been a welcome retreat. The early work had progressed fluently, but several chapters in, it had occurred to him that he was no longer being "concise." Instantly, the flow of words seemed to dry up. While he waited for inspiration to return, he went back to the beginning and edited the first chapters to half their original length. That was when Claudia asked to see how much he had written.
"Is that all?"
"It's supposed to be concise."
"So is it finished now?"
"No."
"Well, when will it be?"
"Later."
"You ought to talk to Publius Mucius if you're stuck. He writes books."
"I am not stuck!" To prove it, he had begun to devise an Overall Plan. This was what he should have done in the first place. He h
ad entangled himself too early in the detail.
Ruso stared gloomily at the four versions of the Overall Plan, which he had removed from the trunk and stacked on the corner of his writing table. Each version had made good the shortcomings of its predecessor, but some new drawback had soon become apparent. He had kept all the versions in case he wanted to refer to them later—it would be a nuisance to find he'd rubbed something flat only to have to rewrite it—but incredibly, considering the hours he had spent poring over each one, he could not now remember which was which. He did not know whether the tablet claiming to be the LATEST VERSION really was, or whether he should be working from the NEW. And what was AMENDED amending?
Ruso sighed. The truth was, despite all the hours he had spent on it, the Overall Plan had been a waste of time. Maybe the whole project—no, he couldn't abandon the Concise Guide after all this work. Any fool with a stylus and a modicum of education—even Publius Mucius—could write a book, and plenty of them seemed to make money at it. Unlike most of them, he actually knew something worth passing on. He must simply get on with it. He picked up the stylus, frowned at the title "Treatments for Eye Injuries," and began to write.
One of the dogs was scratching at his door. Ruso reread what he had just written and realized he had left out a vital word. He upended the stylus and flattened the wax.
There was another shout of laughter from outside. When it died away there was a brief moment of peace, then the scratching started again. Ruso made a conscious decision to ignore the dog, rewrote line three, and mentally arranged the essential points of "Treatments for Eye Injuries" into the right order.
The scratching stopped. A plaintive whine came from under the door. Ruso wrote "Next, check for . . ." With the writing end of the stylus poised above the wax but no patient in front of him as a reminder, he realized he couldn't remember what to check next. He flung the stylus down and made for the door, managing as he went to stub his toe on the corner of a trunk that didn't quite fit under the bed.