Medicus

by Ruth Downie

  The boy's eyes glistened with tears. "I'm being sold, sir." He swallowed hard and squared his shoulders. "I'm a good worker, sir. And I'm quick to learn. Really I am."

  Ruso gazed at the skinny form with a mounting sense of dismay, knowing he could not say what the boy was hoping to hear. What could a man with no money possibly say or do to reassure a child who was chained like an animal, waiting to be auctioned to the highest bidder? He closed his eyes and fought the urge to utter a curse on the spirit of his weak-willed father, on his spendthrift stepmother, on his half sisters, who combined the worst qualities of both. He wanted to lay a hand on Lucco's shoulder and assure him that all would be well. Only it probably wouldn't.

  At least he could save the boy from being poked and peered at for a few minutes. He said, "Why are you being sold, Lucco?"

  The boy eyed him for a minute, as if he was wondering what to answer. Ruso groaned inwardly as he realized his mistake. The child thought he was being interviewed for a job. "Lucco," he explained gently, crouching down to speak to him face-to-face, "I can't buy you. I'm sorry. I may look rich to you, but the truth is, I'm not."

  The boy sniffed again. "Yes, sir."

  The old man burst into a fit of coughing. In his efforts to stifle the cough he staggered backward, dragging the chain and jerking Lucco's ankle sideways. The boy winced and bent to rub his leg. The big native turned and growled something at the old man, who ignored him.

  "Lucco," said Ruso, wishing he did not have to ask this, "you remember my slave, Tilla?"

  "She used to feed her dinner to the birds."

  "Well, now she's missing. I'm afraid that whoever hurt Saufeia might hurt her. If you know anything at all about what happened to Saufeia, or to Asellina, you must tell me. Nobody's going to punish you for talking now."

  The boy shook his head. "I don't know nothing about Saufeia, sir. Everybody thought Asellina had gone to live somewhere nicer. All the girls cried when they found her."

  "I see."

  "I like it at Merula's," said the boy. "I don't want to go nowhere else."

  "You're a bright boy, Lucco," said Ruso. "You'll do well wherever you go."

  The boy replied politely, "Yes, sir."

  Ruso stood up straight, glancing around him and wondering if it would be kinder to get out of the way and let potential buyers assess the boy's worth. The more the better. A slave for whom there were several bidders would fetch a higher price and logic dictated that a valuable asset would be well treated. The trouble was, logic rarely dictated what people did in the privacy of their own homes.

  "Sir?"

  He turned.

  "Sir, please could you give my mother a message?"

  "Your mother?"

  "Please could you tell her Bassus told Merula about the oysters?"

  Ruso frowned. "Bassus told Merula about the . . . ?"

  "The oysters, sir. So Merula told him to take me to the trader." An energetic sniff was followed by, "Bassus said he was going to find a nice family for me, but now he's gone and told Merula about the oysters. My mother doesn't know."

  Ruso was now thoroughly confused. "You mother doesn't know about the oysters?"

  "She doesn't know I'm here." The boy glanced over at the clerks behind the desks. "Do you think they'll let me go and say good-bye?"

  Ruso doubted it very much. "You are being sold because of oysters?"

  The boy nodded. "I didn't mean to do it, sir. I mean, I didn't mean . . ." His voice tailed into silence.

  Ruso scratched his ear. This story was beginning to sound familiar. He lowered his voice so they could not be overheard. "Wasn't Merula's last cook sold because of serving bad oysters?"

  Lucco nodded, dumb.

  "And now Merula's found out you were involved?"

  Something approaching panic entered the boy's eyes. "Please, sir!" he muttered, barely audible above the hum of conversation in the marquee. "I won't ever do it again!"

  "I'm not going to tell anyone, Lucco." If no one had seen to it that the damnation of "attempted poisoner" was written on the child's label, he was certainly not going to do it himself.

  "I didn't mean it, sir," whispered Lucco. "Somebody said the officer from the hospital was there. I thought they meant the nasty one."

  Ruso was having difficulty following him again. "Tell me about these oysters," he suggested.

  "Cook had them on the side to throw away."

  "And you sent them out to a customer?"

  He nodded. "It was just a bit of a joke, sir."

  A bit of a joke that could have ended in a charge of attempted murder and a gruesome execution for its perpetrator. As it was, Valens had suffered acute food poisoning and Ruso had been obliged to do the work of three men and had ended up so far out of his senses that he had bought a girl on a building site.

  He put his hand back on the boy's shoulder. "I'll go and see your mother right away. Where do I find her?"

  "She'll be working, sir."

  "Yes, but where?"

  The boy stared at him. "Where she always works, sir. At Merula's."

  It was Ruso's turn to stare.

  "You know her, sir," said the boy "They call her Chloe."

  68

  EARLIER THAT SAME morning, two young women in local dress were walking away from the huddle of native houses that Ruso had visited two days before. They were making their way down the track that led to the main Eboracum road. The taller of them was carrying a small sack over her shoulder.

  Her companion turned to glance at her. "It's not too late. You could stay."

  "And repay kindness with trouble?"

  "No one knows you're here."

  "Sabrann, sooner or later someone will talk. Now the worst they can say is that I came, and I went."

  They walked on in silence for a few steps, then the smaller girl frowned. "Stop a moment." She reached up and tugged at her companion's hood. There had not been enough plant dye—or time—to disguise the whole of the hair. Brown wisps curled around the temples, but beneath the hood was a long blond plait. "You must remember to keep this forward," she warned. "I can't pin it any tighter. I don't know how you're going to manage tomorrow"

  The taller girl shrugged. "Someone will be sent to help."

  "You'll have to keep moving. It's a good fifteen miles and the state of the tracks will slow you down."

  They reached the edge of the road. The only traveler they could see was leading an oxcart back in the direction of the fort.

  "Do you have all you need?"

  The hooded girl lowered the sack to the ground. "Bread, a comb, a blanket. Everything I asked for, and your mother gave me cheese and bacon."

  Sabrann put a hand on her shoulder. "May the goddess walk beside you."

  "And keep you ever in her gaze."

  Their embrace was awkward, the hooded girl careful to keep her right arm concealed beneath her inconspicuous gray cloak. "I must go," she said, fingering her acorn necklace before raising the sack to her shoulder. "While the road is empty."

  "Don't forget!" Sabrann waved an arm in an easterly direction, raising it to indicate distance. "Beyond the bridge, after the oak tree, take the track to the left. You must be careful not to stay on the road any longer than you have to."

  The hooded girl stepped onto the gravel surface. When she turned, Sabrann was already on her way back to the houses. She was alone on the road once more.

  Three days earlier, the walk to this place from Deva had tired her more than she had expected. She had been relieved to be offered water and, after the briefest of introductions, summoned to the big house to be inspected by the grandmother, who was head of the family

  Led over to face a chair near the fire, she had knelt in the bracken that covered the floor. As her eyes adjusted to the familiar gloom of a house with no windows, she found herself being peered at by a wizened old woman with sparse white hair pulled back behind large ears.

  "Darlughdacha," said the old woman, repeating the name that had been shou
ted into one of her ears by her interpreter, the girl Sabrann. The grandmother shared the girl's strangled accent and her speech was distorted by the absence of teeth to trim the ends of the syllables, but the name was clear enough. "Daughter of Lugh," continued the grandmother. "Why have you come to us? Do we know you?"

  "I spoke with a woman who was born near here, grandmother!" shouted the young woman who had been Tilla for a few weeks, and before that had been nobody for so long that being addressed by her own name now made her feel that someone else must be kneeling beside her. "Her name is Brica! She told me I could find people of honor here!" It was difficult to shout without sounding angry.

  "It's no good," said Sabrann. "I have to shout everything right into her ear."

  The old woman, realizing that she was missing something, turned to Sabrann, then squinted at her and frowned. "Where is your hair, girl?"

  Sabrann grinned. "I pinned it up!" she shouted, twisting to show the back of her head and miming a stabbing action with her fingers, then turning back to shout, "Hairpins!"

  The grandmother shook her head in disbelief. "This will all come to an end when you have a husband and some proper work to do!" She aimed a forefinger at Tilla. "What did she say?"

  Sabrann leaned close to the old woman again and shouted, "She has heard that we are people of honor!"

  "Yes," snapped the old woman, "but who says so?"

  Sabrann hesitated before shouting, "Brica, grandmother!"

  "Aha!" The woman smacked one blue-veined hand onto the blanket that was tucked around her knees. "So, my brother's family remember what honor is!" The chin rose and the creased lips clamped together.

  After a pause they opened again. "I hear Brica's man is losing his sight," she declared. "The gods are just."

  Behind her back, Sabrann gave Tilla a look that was somewhere between weariness and apology. Tilla prayed silently to the goddess that she would not be turned away because of someone else's quarrel. She had nowhere else to go.

  Sabrann bent down again. "She asks hospitality for nine nights!" she shouted. "Until her arm is healed! Then she will leave!"

  "Why does she not go to my brother's family?"

  "Because she seeks people of honor!" yelled Sabrann, clearly embarrassed at her grandmother's rudeness. "She does not want to stay with friends of the Romans!"

  The grandmother plucked at the edge of the blanket, tugging it higher up on her lap, then returned her attention to the figure kneeling in front of her. "Tell me, daughter of Lugh," she said, "who are your family?"

  Relieved, Tilla who was now Darlughdacha again had begun the business of naming her tribe, then her parents and her grandparents and her great-grandparents while the old woman frowned and put in occasional questions about brothers and cousins and who was married to whom and who had fought beside which warriors and eventually they found the connection they were both seeking: an obscure second cousin who had once sold cows to the old woman's late husband's brother. "Now we know who you are," declared the woman, nodding with satisfaction. "You are welcome to stay with us while your arm heals, Daughter of Lugh, child of the Brigantes. You may sleep with this one who stabs herself with hairpins."

  Tilla inclined her head. "It is an honor, grandmother."

  "She says it's an honor!" yelled Sabrann.

  Extra bracken had been hauled from the drying racks and thrown down to make a bed on the floor of the small house where the unmarried girls slept. On that first night, comfortably fed, stretched out on a borrowed blanket, covered by the medicus's cloak—she would have to get rid of that, a problem she would think about later—Tilla had lain listening to strangers chattering in her own tongue. She rolled over to watch the glow of the firelight. A hound had wandered in earlier and settled close to the warmth. One of its ears twitched and it gave a sudden shudder as it dreamed. It occurred to her that there must be mice, and to her surprise it also occurred to her that she did not care. She took a deep breath, savoring the familiar smells of wool and wood smoke and muddy dog. As she thought, "I am happy," she was aware of a voice nearby in the darkness suggesting, "Perhaps she is sleeping."

  "Are you sleeping, daughter of Lugh?" demanded a second voice.

  "Shh, Sabrann!" urged a third girl. "Don't wake her!"

  She closed her eyes and said nothing. She did not want to answer questions about where she had come from. She did not want to think about where she was going, or what she might find when she finally reached home. She wanted to lie here, in this bed, and remind herself over and over again: I am free.

  The questions had followed soon enough, though, as had the expressions of sympathy when they found out her family was dead and her arm had been broken when she tried to defend herself against a Roman merchant who had brought her down from the north to sell her.

  It was as much of the truth as it was safe for them to know, and it would have satisfied them, if only a Roman officer had not arrived that afternoon on an elderly horse and announced that he had come to look for a woman.

  The blank expressions with which he was faced were a defense the family had used many times. In truth several of them understood what he was saying and all grasped what he wanted, but none chose to reveal that the woman he sought was inside a house not ten steps from where he stood.

  The Roman had finally given up and tramped back through the gateway. It was not until he was out of sight that the arguments started.

  By this time the men had arrived, summoned from the fields by those nearest to home who had heard the dogs.

  Their guest, it seemed, had lied to them. (Her objection of "I told no lies!" was ignored.) She was a runaway. It was against the law to harbor runaways. She must go.

  No, insisted other voices, she must stay. She was a Brigante, true, but not a complete foreigner. She was nearly one of their own people. It was a matter of honor not to betray her.

  Tilla, realizing she was not expected to be a part of this argument, slipped back inside the house and sat by the door, listening as indignation rose on both sides of the debate. A couple of the women tried to intervene. Nobody took any notice.

  Someone cried that it was a disgrace to deny hospitality to an injured woman.

  "Her master is a healer. Let him deal with it."

  "Her master is a Roman!"

  "She has brought the army to our doors!"

  "One man on an old horse?"

  "Romans are like rats. Where there is one there are more."

  "What if they decide to search the houses?"

  "What, for one slave?"

  "Enough!" It was the voice of the old woman, quavering but loud enough to silence the debate. "Enough," she repeated. Tilla wondered who had gone to fetch her and how much they had managed to explain. "The girl will stay here tonight. We will discuss this matter after dark. You all have work to do. Go."

  The arguers did not bother to mute their grumbling as they dispersed, and Tilla overheard someone say, "She's not his slave, you fool."

  "He said ancilla. Ancilla means slave."

  "Never mind what ancilla means. She's not his slave. She's his woman."

  The evening meal was finished. The other girls had gone to mind younger brothers and sisters. The adults had carried rush lights across to the big house and closed the door behind them. Tilla was squatting by the fire in the girls' house, busying herself grinding corn while she waited to be told her fate. It was a job that could be done, albeit slowly, with one hand.

  As the stone scraped and rumbled round on its base she thought about the people she had left behind. She thought about the girls at Merula's, and the boy Lucco, who did not know that it was forbidden to eat swan, and Bassus, and Stichus with the ginger-colored hair, and the woman she had got to know at the bakery. She thought about the pregnant Brica whose man might lose his sight, and the handsome doctor who always smiled at her, but mostly she thought about the medicus, who hardly smiled at all. She supposed he was smiling even less now. It served him right. Behind her back he had made arrangem
ents to have her sold. At first she had not believed Bassus, but later she had arrived back inside the fort with the shopping and there he was, standing in the street outside the hospital, chatting to the medicus as if they were old friends. That was when she finally understood what the medicus had meant when he had told her she would be useful to him. He had mended her arm not out of kindness, but out of greed. Instead of going to his house to prepare supper, she had turned around, made her way back out through the east gate, and kept walking.

  The dog lying beside her suddenly lifted his head and turned toward the door. Moments later, a hinge creaked and a figure slipped in.

  "My cousins are seeing to the little ones," announced Sabrann. "And my aunt is shouting for the grandmother." She dropped the sack on the ground. "I brought you some more corn, daughter of Lugh."

  "Thank you."

  It was the first time they had been able to speak privately since the argument erupted. Sabrann said, "They are talking about you."

  "I know."

  "I would have you stay."

  "Others would have me leave."

  Sabrann reached a hand inside the sack and trickled a fistful of corn into the hole in the center of the stone. "He was quite good-looking," she observed.

  Tilla tightened her grip on the handle and carried on swiveling the top stone back and forth in a half circle over the lower one. "Who?"

  "Your Roman. And not as short as most of them."

  "No," Tilla agreed, stilling her arm as the girl reached a hand forward to scoop up the speckled flour that was trickling out from between the stones to form little mounds on the cloth.

  Sabrann dropped the handful of flour into the bowl. "Are you his slave?"

  The stone began to move again. "He thinks so."

  "Did you go inside the fort?"

  "Yes."

  "Is it true what they say about the granary?"

  Tilla frowned. "The granary?"

  Sabrann nodded. "Everyone says they have a great big building filled with enough corn to stuff themselves for a year."

  "It's possible. They like making great big buildings."

  "Can you imagine how many families that would feed? And still they take the taxes."