Medicus

by Ruth Downie

  Pride had prevented him from asking exactly what he would be signed up for. Valens was obviously out to create an impression of being Enthusiastic and Committed, and it would not do to be seen as less enthusiastic or less committed than his rival in the race for promotion. So when Valens had asked him which of them should go first while the other remained on duty, he had volunteered. Now, standing on the parade ground surrounded by the fittest, fastest, fiercest, and best-trained unit in the legion, he knew he should have listened to his common sense rather than his vanity

  A centurion was bawling orders. The second spear was nowhere to be seen. It occurred to Ruso that a more suspicious mind might have described his friend and colleague as a devious bastard. It also occurred to him that there had been no need for him to do this run, but now he was here he had to finish it or risk public humiliation and serious damage to his hopes of promotion.

  When the men first set off the shock to his system was as bad as he had feared, but once he had forced his thoughts away from the prospect of the next ten miles, his body settled back surprisingly quickly into the familiar anonymity of the training run. He was no longer an individual. He was part of a many-legged creature moving forward over the relentless crunch of boots on gravel. His lungs shared the heavy breathing of men keeping step. His own sweat mingled with the smell of others wafting through the afternoon drizzle as they passed the competing stinks of laundry and tannery. As they followed the East road out between the green fields that were the territory of the Cornovii, his mind was free to wander.

  It wandered back to the cheering sight of the signaler waving at him from the departing wagon to Londinium that morning. Tonight, if his legs were still capable of holding him up, Ruso would stand before the healing God and offer up a prayer for courage for the signaler, steady hands for the surgeon, and the large measure of luck that was needed for successful cataract surgery. And a prayer that for all their sakes, the girlfriend would not deliver while they were on the road.

  The thought of the woman led his mind down darker paths: back to the moment when he had realized that Claudius Innocens was supplying slaves to Merula's and might have been around when both of the dead girls disappeared. The thought that his own Tilla had narrowly escaped being offloaded to the highest-bidding bar owner had filled him with fury. That fury had led him over a boundary he had never imagined he would cross. Until yesterday, he had honestly been able to claim that, no matter how unlovely or annoying they were, he had always done his best to help his patients. Now he felt—not shame exactly, but a sense of being stained by the dirt of others.

  He had not harmed Innocens. To his relief and Tilla's probable disappointment, the man had recovered overnight and had sent a message of thanks to the hospital this morning. Perhaps the purveyors of mouse droppings had a point after all.

  Mouse droppings? There was another boundary he had never imagined he would cross. Not to mention his newfound doubts about ghosts and his sudden rush of faith in Trajan. Ruso wiped a drip of drizzle off the end of his nose. Perhaps the damp climate was making him soft in the head.

  He must concentrate on what was important. His duty to his family was no less just because they were far away, but with all the distractions here—slave girls, house fires, arguments with Priscus—he had given them scant thought recently. He must organize himself. He must adopt a logical approach. Observation, diagnosis, treatment.

  Observations

  No cash

  Short-term extra costs of long-term investment (Tilla)

  Large debts in Gaul

  Small debts in Brittania

  Grim (and dangerous?) living quarters

  No housekeeper

  Increasingly distracted, impulsive, and unprofessional behavior. He was constantly finding his mind wandering away from whatever he was supposed to be doing. As if Tilla were not enough of a diversion, this morning he had found himself wondering if the two girls' deaths were not connected at all, and whether Decimus had lied to him. He only had the man's word for it that there had been no contact from Asellina. What if the porter really had received a message that his girlfriend had run away to join him? Would it have been welcome? His dreams of a future with her would not have included harboring and supporting her as a fugitive slave or having to desert from the legion to flee prosecution from her owners. What if he hadn't been prepared to take the risk? What if he had been afraid of being punished for encouraging her? What if . . .

  Gods above, he was doing it again!

  Diagnosis

  A man burdened with too many responsibilities

  Treatment

  Long term, concentrate on getting the family out of debt In the meantime, stay calm

  Hold out for eleven days until payday

  Use Hadrian's bonus to clear all of the loan from the Aesculapian fund and most of the one from HQ

  Find—

  private patients

  ways to campaign for promotion

  somewhere cheap and civilized to live. (The CMO's quarters will do nicely.)

  Avoid—

  hospital administrators

  rogue slave traders

  destitute or deceased females, and any temptation to find out what happened to them

  civilian liaison officers

  any more bright ideas from Valens

  Eventually, he would be able to realize his investment in Tilla. He would do it without the help of Bassus, whose bar-trade contacts would probably all be as seedy as Claudius Innocens. He had noticed an advertisement for a traveling slave trader chalked up on a couple of walls on the way out of town, but he did not want to take that route either. Bassus's claim that the local dealers would rob him blind was not the only reason for his reluctance. Having kept her alive, he felt some responsibility toward the girl. He wanted to have some control over where she ended up. If there really were a shortage of good staff in Britannia then some respectable household would have a suitable vacancy. By the time the arm was healing—say, in six to eight weeks—that officer would have turned up.

  Ruso, counting three steps to a breath now instead of four, sniffed at the fresh drop of drizzle perching on the end of his nose and glanced at the men slogging forward around him, who had now summoned enough breath to join in the indecent lyrics of marching songs. They would be earning a fraction of his salary, and many of them were supporting families. How did they do it? Were a poor family's needs less than those of the comfortably well off? Were they all closet philosophers, assuring their women that there were lots of things they didn't need? Or was Priscus right, they simply stole whatever they wanted?

  Underlying all these was a deeper question: How could one be an educated and intelligent man and not know this sort of thing?

  On the first day of Ruso's apprenticeship, his uncle had warned him that a little knowledge would unlock the gates to vast and unsuspected deserts of ignorance. No matter how diligent he was in study, how careful in observation, and how keen to learn from others, the causes of most diseases and the reasons why some patients recovered and some didn't would remain a mystery. The difference between a real doctor and the latest quack who shambled into town offering miracle cures in a bottle was that a real doctor knew his limitations. This speech the fourteen-year-old Ruso had regarded with a level of scorn that he was later glad he had kept to himself.

  A true philosopher, he mused now, would be delighted instead of taken aback at every new revelation of his ignorance. A true philosopher would understand that the path to knowledge lay first with the discovery of new questions.

  Did continuous rasping of short breaths signify swelling lower down in the throat and was it possible to kill oneself by running until one's airways closed up?

  Ridiculous. Of course not. It just felt as though it was.

  What caused the head to pound during exercise, and why, despite careful strapping to ward off blisters, did old boots always rub in new places?

  You can do this, he told himself. You have done it many times befo
re.

  Count. Each step a bonus. Each step an achievement. Set small targets.

  One and two and three and four and . . .

  "Out of practice, Doc?" Ruso glanced at the fresh-faced young optio who had fallen in step beside him.

  "Good to get—" He tried not to sound out of breath, "—out again. Haven't had much—time lately."

  "Busy over at the hospital?"

  "Short-staffed." He must get the optio to do the talking. "Been with the—legion long?"

  "Ten years this winter. My people are from Baetica, but my father was a centurion in the Twentieth."

  "Born in Deva?"

  "No, no. My father got married after he retired back home."

  "Like it here?"

  "You get used to it. Hey, are you the doctor that's investigating the murder?"

  "No," said Ruso. He had neither the breath nor the desire to elaborate.

  They were passing some native houses now. These were set well back from the road, beyond the wide shoulder where brown sheep lifted their heads as the soldiers approached then bounded away to graze at a safer distance. Smoke curled from thick cones of thatch squatting on round stumpy houses. Several small children of indeterminate sex were fighting over a rope swing dangling from the branch of a tree. Chickens wandered in the mud and a boy was leading a reluctant goat past an untidy stack of hay with a pole sticking out of the top. Ruso saw all this but heard none of it. The sounds of these other lives were muffled beneath singing accompanied by the thump of legionary boots and the jingle of buckles.

  Aware that his "no" had sounded abrupt, Ruso said, "What are the locals like?"

  "We've got both sorts 'round here," explained the optio. "One or two who know what a bathhouse is for."

  "And?"

  "And a bunch of thieving sheep-shaggers."

  "Ah."

  "You'll find some of the girls friendly, but you'll need to watch your step."

  "Really?"

  "Half of them have a string of brothers who want to knife you to restore the family honor. The other half are sent by those honorable families to latch on to an army salary so they can move out of the mud hut. Not much of a choice, is it?"

  Ruso smiled. "I hear the second spear has a daughter."

  The optio laughed aloud. "You won't get near that one."

  "Not me. A friend."

  "Not a chance, Doc. Not a chance."

  Ruso glanced across at the native huts just as a shapely girl emerged from a gateway carrying two buckets. Moments later he was aware of confusion ahead of him: the sort of confusion caused by someone tripping and the men behind not being able to stop in time. The singing gave way to shouting and swearing. Later runners saw what was happening and parted to flow around the sprawled bodies. Ruso sidestepped to the left, glancing at the playing children who had stopped to stare. The girl had vanished. The optio stayed behind, yelling abuse at the tangle for watching the bloody natives instead of where they were going.

  Minutes later a breathless man caught up with Ruso and conveyed the optio's message that one of the fallen men had a suspected broken ankle. Ruso muttered a silent prayer of respect to whichever fate had cursed the unfortunate legionary and hurried back to help. He no longer had to pretend now. He really was both enthusiastic and committed.

  41

  YOU'RE DOING WHAT?"

  Valens's hand, clutching his spare underpants, paused above his kit bag. "Seems they're paying a visit to some hairy mountain chieftain whose resolve needs stiffening."

  "And they want you to go along?"

  Valens resumed his efforts to stuff underwear into the few remaining crevices in his kit bag. "I can do a quick tour of the outpost units while I'm there. It's time somebody checked them over."

  "That's going to leave the hospital a bit short, isn't it?"

  "I did think about that," said Valens, ramming the last sock down and hauling on the drawstring to close the bag, "But then I thought it would give you a chance to shine, so you probably wouldn't mind."

  Ruso's weary mind groped toward a suitable reply, and failed to find it. In the end he said, "Very decent of you."

  "You're welcome!" It was not clear whether Valens was ignoring the sarcasm or had simply failed to notice it. "I know you want the CMO post, so it's only fair to let you have a crack at getting yourself noticed."

  Ruso yawned. This afternoon, having rendered first aid and organized a party to carry the injured man, he had rejoined the returning runners of the First, and just about kept pace with them for the four miles back to the barracks. His legs were stiff. His feet were blistered. He could not be bothered to point out that his efforts to sustain three men's work single-handed at the hospital would only be noticed if something went wrong.

  "Well," continued Valens, "I can't stay up talking, I've got an early start. They're leaving at sunrise, but I want to get down there early and snag a decent horse.

  "Ruso said, "You'll be missing your turn with the training run, then?"

  "But I'll be with them," pointed out Valens, as if he were intending to march with the First instead of ride past them on a borrowed horse."Now. Do you want me to wake you when I go or will you be enjoying sleeping in in your lovely new redecorated bedroom?"

  42

  IN THE ABSENCE of Valens, it was Ruso who hurried across to HQ just after dawn for the morning briefing. He was not overjoyed to find Priscus already standing at the back of the hall. Each acknowledged the other with a curt nod.

  Ruso frowned. He was unwilling to leave a man who would not know a plague from a pimple as the official representative of the medical service, but it was ridiculous for the hospital to be left to manage itself while both of them stood around listening to notices. He was about to give Priscus a departing wave—that surely would help to mend relations between them, as well as given him a chance to snatch breakfast—when there was an untidy shuffle of men standing to attention, followed by silence. The camp prefect's voice echoed in the rafters, bidding the assembled officers good morning and announcing that he was in charge for four days while the legate was away.

  Ruso struggled to concentrate on the notices and ignore the gurgling of his empty stomach and the stifled heavings of a man in front of him who was trying not to cough. Finally the prefect announced his chosen password for the day—tiger stripes —and paused to take questions. Only as the briefing was declared closed did it strike Ruso that he should have raised his hand. It was what Valens would have done. It was the sort of thing Claudia would have encouraged. The camp prefect was directly responsible for the hospital and asking questions was a way of getting yourself noticed. The trouble was, there was nothing he actually wanted to know. No, that was not true. There was something he wanted to know, but he couldn't ask it in public.

  He asked it later of Albanus, who looked uncomfortable. "I'm not sure I can tell you, sir."

  "Why not?"

  Albanus coughed and looked to make sure the surgery door was shut. "Well, they gave us a talk about security the other day. All about not telling anyone anything they don't need to know, and how the officers might test us, and . . ."

  "Do you actually know the answer?"

  Albanus looked even more miserable. "Yes, sir."

  "Well, if somebody's already blabbed it to you, it can't be that secure, can it?"

  The scribe's face brightened. "Is this a test, sir?"

  "Yes. Well done, Albanus. You've passed."

  "Thank you, sir."

  "Now can you tell me whether the legate has gone off on the same tour as Officer Valens?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Yes he has, or yes you can tell me?"

  "Both, sir."

  "Thank you." Ruso paused. "I suppose you'll be wondering why I wanted to know that."

  "Oh no, sir."

  "No? Good!" Ruso put his hand on the doorknob. "Ready for ward rounds?"

  By the end of the morning Ruso realized he was starting to like Albanus. The man made himself genuinely useful during
a full ward rounds and busy clinic, taking a pride in the swift production of whatever information was needed and apparently enjoying his chance to boss the other clerks around.

  Ruso made a point of thanking him and was amused to see Albanus blush. "Go and get something to eat," he told him. "We'll start again at the seventh hour."

  The scribe hesitated. "Will you be here, sir?"

  "At the seventh hour."

  "But between now and then, sir . . ."

  "I will be somewhere else."

  "Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Only Officer Priscus said I was to know where you were at all times. In case there's an emergency."

  "If the bandagers can't deal with it," explained Ruso, "get the watch to sound a call for me. I won't be far away."

  Ruso lingered only to leave brief instructions with the guards and then hurried out under the east gatehouse, long strides taking him swiftly down the busy lunchtime street and away from the sound of all but the most energetic of trumpeters.

  Moments later he heard a familiar voice calling his name. He kept walking. He had done his very last favor for the civilian liaison people. If they had a problem, he didn't want to know about it. He had enough problems of his own.

  "Ruso, wait!"

  He turned. "I'm in a hurry."

  "Oh, I don't want you to do anything!" said the civilian liaison officer, falling into step with him. "I just want a quick word."