by Ruth Downie
"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? Because 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 unrav
eled 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 had 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.
When he opened the door the terrier bitch rushed in and then stopped dead, sniffing, while several small shapes bounded past her and disappeared under the bed. Ruso narrowly missed treading on another one in the doorway.
One of Valens's friends, a veterinary surgeon, was waving his arms in the air, demonstrating the height of a jump taken by a filly with the potential to be one of the best horses in the province.
"Ruso!" Valens paused to pick out a date from a bowl propped on the arm of the couch. "Want to buy a horse?"
"Not today."
"How's the work going?"
"Well, the dog was eager to read it."
"Oh, sorry!" Valens gestured toward Ruso's room with the date. "I meant to tell you… " Ruso waited while Valens bit one end off the date. "I think you've got a mouse in there. She was at the door this afternoon. If you leave her, she'll flush it out for you."
"Right."
"Something else bothering you?"
Ruso leaned against the doorpost. "Tell me something," he said, "If you were buying a girl to work in a bar, would you choose someone with a respectable accent and some education?"
Valens shrugged. "Why not? She could help with the books."
"Add a bit of class," suggested the owner of the filly
"Might pull in one or two officers, I suppose," added another voice.
Its owner was prone on the floor next to a jug of wine. Ruso recognized the duty civilian liaison officer who had been too busy to break bad news to Merula. "Personally, Ruso, I'd think twice. Invest in a bar by all means, but don't get involved in running it. It won't go down too well higher up."
"I'm not running a bar, I-"
"He's just collecting women," Valens explained. "Which reminds me. We need a girl who can cook. Anybody who finds us one gets an invitation to dinner."
Ruso returned to his room. Hastily whisking a valuable scroll away from the nose of a curious puppy, he tidied up and stored all his work back in the trunks and fastened the lids. He piled everything else that was chewable onto the top of the cupboard. Then, since he had no money and nowhere else to go, he headed for the hospital.
Ruso lit the lamps in the records room, closed the door quietly, and lifted the box labeled CURRENT PATIENTS, ROOMS VI TO X onto the desk. He pulled up a stool, seated himself, leaned on his elbows and stared at CURRENT PATIENTS. A true philosopher would not give way to exasperation at the waste of an evening. A true philosopher, a man determined to apply the power of reason to every circumstance, would welcome this chance to catch up with his records.
There were footsteps outside the window. The low murmur of conversation. As the sounds faded, the smell of fried chicken wafted in through the shutters.
Ruso flipped through the record tablets with his forefinger until he reached Room Nine. He removed and opened the first one. "Crush injury to left foot." After consulting his rough notes, he dipped his pen into the ink and scrawled, "Day 3, still swollen, extensive bruising visible, no mobility in toes, henbane, repeat compress." Putting it aside to dry, he consulted his notes again and wrote "Day 4, breathing improved," on a chest infection.
The smell of chicken was still there. Reminding himself how much money he had saved by dining on hospital stew, Ruso recorded the symptoms of a blacksmith who had been admitted this afternoon with an unfortunately located boil, which he would be lancing in the morning.
Outside, men were strolling about with their comrades, eating fried chicken. Inside, Ruso was spending his free evening writing about other people's boils. A less philosophical man would have been depressed.
The slave girl was sitting up in bed. On the table, the lamplight glinted on the contents of a bowl of broth, which must have sat there untouched for several hours. Ruso's greeting of "Good evening. How are you feeling?" met with the usual serious stare and silence. The lack of response was beginning to irritate him. She was lucky to be alive. Once her arm had healed and she had been properly cleaned up and fed, she could be worth money. But her value would be limited if she remained silent and uncoope
rative. So, instead of pointing and saying, "How is the arm?" as a prelude to his usual inspection of the hand and check of the bandaging, he sat on the end of the bed.
"So. Tell me why you haven't eaten your dinner."
As he scrutinized her, he had the uncomfortable sensation that she was doing the same to him. He wondered how long she had been a slave. There must have been a time when she-or her owner-had been rich enough to afford jewelry for the pierced ears. Just as someone in Saufeia's past had thought she was worth the trouble of teaching her to read. He supposed the fortunes of slaves rose and fell, just like those of their owners. But unless he could find some way of communicating with this one, he would never find out how she had slid low enough to be dragged about by Claudius Innocens.
"I know you can speak," he insisted, although if he had not heard her shout out in the poppy-induced dreams, he would have begun to wonder.
No response.
"Are you always this quiet?"
No response.
"Well, silent one," he said, "my dining room is full of horsemen and my bedroom is full of dogs. So a little peace is a welcome change."
He took out his own writing tablet and opened it. The space under "Treatments for Eye Injuries" seemed even emptier than before. He sniffed. He glanced across at the girl. "How long is it since you had a trip to the baths? In fact, have you ever bathed?"
Moments later Ruso nudged the sign aside with his foot and opened the door of the hospital bathhouse with the hand that wasn't supporting the girl. Inside, he lowered her onto a bench and went back out to find a light. On the way back in he repositioned the sign against the foot of the wall: CLOSED.
The changing room was still warm although the fires would have been banked up for the night some time ago. Ruso began to light the lamps. The girl was watching him, clutching her arm, breathing the air that was thick with damp and sweat and perfumed oil. She was taking in the blue-painted walls, the niches and hooks for clothes, the white piles of discarded towels. He considered collecting the towels himself, then realized how inappropriate that would look. The master tidying for the slave.