Medicus

by Ruth Downie

  Ruso closed his eyes. At last: a woman who understood what he needed. What he deserved. And the beauty of it was, there was no commitment. He could have this whenever he wanted. Because this was a professional service. A business transaction. Like the buying of someone's hair . . .

  Restraining Chloe's exploring hand, he pulled himself up to sit with his back against the wall. "When I said I wanted to talk," he growled, hoping there was no one listening behind the door, "that's what I meant."

  Chloe arched her back and stretched, draping herself across his lap and looking up at him. "But you're so nice," she said, pursing her lips and miming a kiss.

  "No," he said, heaving at her shoulders to lift her away from him. "I'm not nice. And I'm tired of being lied to."

  She swung her legs off the bed and sat up. "Suit yourself."

  "Do you know where Tilla is?"

  "No." She bent to fiddle with one of the pins that held her curls in place. "Is that it? Can I go now?"

  "No. Is she here?"

  Chloe pushed the pin back into place and sighed. "You don't learn, do you?" She turned to face him. "It was you who told them about Phryne, wasn't it?"

  When Ruso said nothing, she continued, "Well, you were a big help to her. She'd tell you how much herself if she was well enough to receive visitors."

  "Is she all right?"

  "Of course she's not all right."

  "I could—"

  "You've caused enough trouble already. Lucky for her, it's payday coming up. They aren't stupid here. She'll be fit to work by tomorrow."

  Ruso found himself staring at the tangle of bodies painted on the walls. For a girl in a place like this, being fit to work was a dubious blessing. Perhaps the child had indeed pretended to be stolen in the vain hope of escape. Or perhaps he had been right the first time: The whole thing had been a story concocted by Tilla to cover her own escape. He no longer knew whom to believe. "Chloe," he said, "do you think Tilla's run away?"

  "I don't know."

  "The last person to see her was Bassus. He said she came here while you were out at the baths."

  "Well, she's not here now. Ask him where she went."

  "Are you not telling me because you don't know, or because you're afraid?"

  She gave a snort of derision. "You know the first thing you learn in this place? Never show fear. Something Phryne needs to learn. And you know the second thing? Mind your own business."

  "If one of your management's done something to Tilla . . ."

  Chloe shook her head. "I can tell you one thing about Bassus, Doctor. He won't damage anything that might turn him a profit."

  "I heard that somebody here hurt Daphne."

  "So? You don't have to be much of a talker to do this job. They'll have her back to work after they've sold the baby."

  Ruso took a deep breath. "And what about Asellina? Or Saufeia? Did they really run away, or were they allowed out like you are?" He paused. "Do the girls do home visits? Private parties, that sort of thing?"

  "What's that got to do with Tilla? It's you she's run away from, not us."

  "Because she's missing like the other two. And the only thing that links them all is this place. What's going on here, Chloe?"

  Chloe stared at him for a moment, then got to her feet. "I don't know what you think you're stirring up," she said, "but I don't want anything to do with it." She stepped forward and lifted the latch on the door. "Time's up." She walked out onto the landing. "Get out now, or I'll call the boys. And don't come here again."

  Chloe's sandals clattered away down the stairs. Ruso sighed, gave a parting glance at the tangled bodies—the participants looked depressingly bored—and followed her down to the bar.

  "Bassus!"

  The man turned. "Back again, eh? Come to pay your bill?"

  "Come for a chat," said Ruso. "Can we go somewhere private?"

  "No thanks. You're not my type."

  Ruso shrugged. "I can say it in front of everyone, if you like."

  Bassus glanced around. The bar held four members of the staff, three customers, and, in a cage beside one of them, a jackdaw. Bassus jerked a thumb toward the door. "Outside."

  On the way out they passed Stichus. "You're getting soft," Bassus told him. "Letting bloody caged birds in."

  "It talks," retorted Stichus.

  "Show me something round here that don't."

  "Daphne," suggested Stichus, with what he clearly thought was wit.

  "Take a walk a minute, Stich? Me and the doc have got business."

  Stichus retreated into the bar. Bassus leaned against the painted wall, folded his arms, and glowered at the woman behind the bakery counter as if he were daring her to eavesdrop. "Make it quick," he said. "I'm a busy man."

  "So am I," said Ruso. "But you said next time I had a problem to come to you. So here I am."

  Bassus sighed. "What is it now?"

  "I still haven't found Tilla."

  "How many times have I got to say it? I don't know where she is! If I knew, I'd tell you. I got a couple of nice buyers lined up. If she don't turn up soon I'm going to have to let them down."

  "But in the course of looking for her, I've run across some troubling information."

  There was barely a hesitation before he said, "And this information would be?"

  "I'll get to that in a minute. I'm trying to stop Tilla from meeting the same fate as the other two runaways. Tell me, is it true that Saufeia wasn't much good at her job?"

  "What's that got to do with it? She was useless. Even when she was trying, which weren't often."

  "And what do you do with girls who don't please the customers?"

  "Sell them, of course."

  Ruso nodded. "That's what I thought."

  "Sounds to me like you thought we take them out back and strangle them."

  "What I can't understand," said Ruso, "is why her hair was all shorn off. She wouldn't do it herself if she was planning to work the streets or run away with a lover, and Merula certainly wouldn't do it if she was planning to sell her."

  Bassus shrugged. "Sorry. Can't help you there."

  "What I'm thinking," explained Ruso, watching him carefully, "and correct me if I'm wrong, is that it must have been done after she was dead. Perhaps not by the murderer, but by someone else who knew him. Who might be able to point me in his direction." He paused. "Someone who then went and sold the hair."

  Bassus was staring at the pavement opposite, scratching his neck with one finger.

  "If something's happened to Tilla," said Ruso, "I want to know about it."

  Bassus continued to ponder for a moment. Finally he gave a sigh.

  "All right. This is it. I don't know nothing about Tilla but I know a bit about the other thing. You keep your mouth shut, agreed?"

  "Agreed."

  "When Merula noticed Saufeia weren't around, me and Stich took a couple of torches and went to look. We found her in a back alley."

  "Which back alley?"

  "Over by the amphitheater. Propped sitting up in a corner like she was waiting for somebody. The bastard had only just got away. I reckon he heard us coming. She was still warm."

  "You didn't call for help?"

  Bassus looked him in the eye. "I know dead when I see it, Doc. Besides . . . I'm not known for being a patient man. Twenty-five years in the legion, I believe in discipline, see? People don't know what we have to put up with, with these girls. Strangled runaway, dark night, back alley—who'd have believed us?"

  "But she was your own slave." Executing one's own slaves was officially frowned upon, but fellow slaves were not in a position to complain and it was hard to see who else would bother.

  "She weren't ours," explained Bassus. "She belonged to the business.

  And if Merula thought we'd done it she'd have gone mad." He paused. "I know what you're thinking. We should've just walked away. I wish I had. Only Stich, he decides to be clever."

  This seemed an unlikely proposition, but Ruso let it pass.
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br />   "He says, if we just leave her here, then some greedy bastard's going to find her and nick all her fancy clothes and everything. What all belong to the bar. That hair was worth something too. So we took what was ours and we give her a decent send-off."

  "In the river?"

  "We weren't to know she'd come back, were we? But we didn't kill her. I swear. And I don't know who did."

  Ruso nodded. "And would you know anything about an accident happening to someone who asked too many questions?"

  Bassus folded his arms. "Could be arranged. Who you thinking of?"

  "Never mind." If the man had known anything about the fire or the incident with the trowel, he was a good actor. "One last question. Do you knowT anything about a letter?"

  There was a slight pause before he said, "What letter?"

  "There's a rumor that Saufeia wrote to somebody. I know she was telling everyone she wouldn't be here much longer. I assume she was arranging to meet someone."

  Bassus shook his head. "I don't know nothing about no letter," he said. "And she wouldn't have been here much longer 'cause we'd have traded her on. But your Tilla couldn't be writing to nobody, that I do know. Look. Asellina was unlucky. Saufeia run into a customer what didn't want to pay, and whoever he was he didn't bother taking her far to finish her. If he'd got your Tilla you'd have found her by now. I reckon she's run off, like it says in the notices. You ask me, you want to stop wasting time poking around with dead tarts and hire yourself a slave hunter."

  67

  PAYDAY DAWNED AT last. There was still no sign of Tilla. Ruso spent the morning trying to do justice to the needs of his patients, which were as pressing as ever. Outside, however, it was apparent that the Twentieth was working itself up to a level of excitement that heralded a busy night for the medical service. The enthusiasm raised by the quarterly arrival of cash had been swelled by the anticipation of at least the first installment of Hadrian's bonus to his loyal troops. The bathhouse scaffolding was abandoned, its occupants presumably waiting in other jostling lines like the one he was now passing outside a centurion's quarters. A neglected noticeboard at the head of a barracks block announced an inter unit sports event this afternoon in the amphitheater—a gallant but probably doomed attempt to direct the Twentieth's payday energy into useful channels. If this unit was anything like any of the others Ruso had known, by evening the real entertainment would be in full swing. The bars would be overflowing with off-duty soldiers, and men who ought to know better would be doing things they would very much regret in the morning. If Tilla was still somewhere in the town, he hoped she would have the sense to stay behind closed doors.

  Minutes later, he walked away from the camp prefect's office still staring at the bottom figure on the copy of his account. Perhaps you'd like to take some time to check the figures,sir. This couldn't be right. There must be some mistake.

  She had not miraculously returned to the house while he was out. He sat on his one chair and ignored the puppy that scrambled up his leg and danced around before settling on his lap. Outside, a shout of laughter echoed along the street from one of the barracks blocks. Ruso dipped his hand into the jar Valens had been given by a grateful patient and groped around for the last of the olives.

  The figure at the top of the sheet was fine. The "Brought forward" figure was correct. Miraculously, the army had managed to send his records across two seas and two continents in time for the clerks to do the arithmetic. The down payment on the gift to celebrate the accession of the noble emperor Hadrianus was most welcome, except that a large chunk of it had been compulsorily diverted into his savings account. "Deductions," read the line underneath. That was where the trouble started.

  Following all the usual deductions for his keep and the legionary celebration at Saturnalia was a figure for "Loan repayment"—they'd taken the whole advance back at once, of course—and an item called "Expenditure." The amount defied all his attempts to live frugally. The details were listed on a separate sheet and included "Meals taken at the hospital" and "Private use of hospital facilities."

  Perhaps you'd like to take some time to check the figures,sir. Ruso licked the olive brine off his fingers and began to count. Three attempts brought three confirmations of the impossible figure against "Makes a total of." Next he deducted the amount he owed the Aesculapian Thanksgiving Fund. Then he took off the sum he had arranged to be sent to Lucius. Finally he subtracted enough to cover his bill at Merula's.

  Ruso leaned back in his chair and stared gloomily at the empty olive jar. What would remain in his purse was barely enough to see a civilized man through the next three weeks, let alone three months. No wonder men on basic pay resorted to stealing from Priscus's linen closets. He could not live for three months on this. He must take the time to find more private patients. He must get on with his writing. He must get promoted. He must find Tilla alive—and when he had, he must sell her.

  As he framed this thought in his mind, two things occurred to him simultaneously. One was that he didn't want to sell her and he never had. The other was that today he had somewhere new to look.

  Ruso had never bought a slave at a market. There had always been someone else—father, uncle, wife, other slaves—to deal with that sort of thing. The only time he had needed to buy his own staff was after his divorce, when he had taken the post in Africa. That had been a simple matter of moving into the house occupied by his predecessor and handing over a sum of cash to retain the slave couple who already worked there. He had, of course, bought Tilla, but that had not been a planned purchase. He had never been called upon to assess the suitability of strangers to join his household, and he had never paid any attention to how it was done. Which was why, he supposed, he was surprised to see that the notice announcing the arrival of the slave trader had now been amended to read, VIEWING FROM 6TH HR TODAY, AUCTION AT OTH HR.

  Deva, being less a town than a collection of houses outside a fort, did not have a forum. Instead, the action had been crammed into the space between the amphitheater and the fountain. Peering above the heads of the shoppers, Ruso could make out stalls offering jewelry, EFFICIENT SCRIBE SERVICES, hot pies, FORTUNE-TELLING, and PORTRAITS PAINTED WHILE YOU WAIT. A succession of bright balls rising and falling in the air marked the passage of a juggler, and the area by the oil shop had been cordoned off to make a performance space for a dancing bear, currently sitting in its cage with its back to the crowds.

  Ruso pushed his way toward the huge open-sided marquee that filled one side of the open space. From its roof swung a sign announcing L. CURTIUS SILVANUS, DEALER IN SLAVES: RELIABLE STAFF FOR THE DISCERNING EMPLOYER. The people crowded into it fell into four categories. The merchandise were the cheerless ones with chains around their ankles and labels around their necks. The customers were the ones peering and poking at the merchandise and asking them to open their mouths, flex their arm muscles, or prove they could speak Latin. The security staff appeared to be doing nothing at all, while a couple of clerks fluttered around a makeshift office formed by a row of folding desks.

  Ruso shoved his way to the desks and arrived just as an African with a lined face and a thick gold rope around his neck pushed his way in through a flap at the back of the marquee.

  "Are you the owner?"

  The man bowed. "Lucius Curtius Silvanus, at your service."

  Ruso explained about Tilla.

  "I assure you, sir, my staff take great care. We very rarely buy in the street and only then with full documentation and references." He indicated the stock with a sweep of his arm. "All purchases come with a money-back guarantee for a full six months. We certainly wouldn't take on anything with an obvious injury."

  Ruso nodded. "And is this everyone? Or do you have a special collection?"

  The man smiled, revealing a wide gap between his two front teeth.

  "Ah, sir, I'm afraid they are for inspection by appointment only. But all our present collection have been with us for at least ten days."

  "Nevertheless—" />
  The man's expression hardened. He summoned a clerk and ordered him to show Ruso the list of the private collection. There were a couple of Greek tutors, a geometry teacher, a painter, a family physician (Ruso would have liked to meet that one), three "beautiful young boys" whose talents were not listed, and a set of fourteen-year-old twin girls, described as "very beautiful, black hair, green eyes, good figures, soft-spoken, and eager to please."

  "How much are the girls?" he inquired, wondering what prices were like here.

  "More than you can afford," said the clerk—evidently a sharp judge of character.

  Nothing here seemed likely to lead to Tilla. He was about to leave when a woman's voice said, "Good afternoon, Doctor!" and he turned to find Rutilius's wife smiling at him.

  "We heard about your housekeeper," put in Rutilia the Younger. "Have you come to buy another one?"

  "Such a shame," sympathized her mother. "It's so difficult to find good staff."

  The daughter said, "I hope the madman hasn't got her. Have you looked in the river?"

  "Really, dear!" chided the mother. She was apologizing for her daughter's tactlessness when Ruso heard a distinct cry of "Doctor!" from somewhere across the marquee. "I'm sorry," he interrupted, relieved. "I have to go. Someone's calling me."

  "Doctor!"

  The boy was perhaps eight or nine years old. He had ginger-colored hair and his face was blotched with pink, as if he had been crying. He was dressed in a plain brown tunic. Like all the other slaves, he was barefoot. The iron cuff looked as though it could snap his thin white ankle. He was chained to a massive bearded native on one side and an elderly man with a bent back on the other. Ruso stared at him, trying to remember where he had seen him before.

  The boy sniffed, wiped his nose on the back of his hand, and said, "It's me, Doctor. Lucco."

  Ruso frowned. "Lucco? From Merula's?"

  The boy nodded. "Yes, sir."

  "What are you doing here?"